* * 
 
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THG 
 
 UNIVERSITY Of CALIFORNIA 
 LIBRARY < 
 
LAMPORT, BLAKEMA-N AND LAW, NEW YORE 
 MDOCCLIII 
 
alab f0r i\t Stotttarg 
 
 l! an 
 
 
 " Oh, herbaceous treat ! 
 >T would tempt the dying anchorite to eat, 
 Bad to the world he d turn his weary soul, 
 And plunge his fir.gerb in the.se la i bo vl !" SiD-uir ? MITH. 
 
 ; The herbal savor g 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 LAMPORT, BLAKEMAN & LAW, 
 No. 8 PARK PLACE. 
 
 MDCCCLIII. 
 
Entered 
 
 according to Act of 
 Congress, in the year One 
 thousand eight hundred And fifty -three, 
 BY LAMPORT, BLAKEMAN AND LAW, 
 in the Clerk s Office of the District 
 Court of the United States, 
 for the Southern Dis 
 trict of N. Y. 
 
 BILLIN AND BROTHERS, Printer,20 North William Street, New York. 
 
 NewYorlt: Stereotyped by VINCENT DILL, Jr., 29 Beekman Street 
 
INSCRIBED 
 
 WITH THE SINCERE RESPKCT OF 
 
 ff&S AMKfl 
 
 395791 
 
Jl <M0rfo f 
 
 " Cans t feed upon such nice and waterish diet ?" 
 
 EXCELLENT salads, according to parson Adams, are to be found 
 in every field ; we have garnered from the fertile fields of litera 
 ture. Should any one be curious to know why we have ventured 
 to select Salad, for the entertainment of the reader, we beg to 
 premise that it has an undoubted preference over a rich ragout, 
 fricassee, or any other celebrated product of culinary art, from the 
 fact that it is suitable to all seasons, as well as all sorts of persons, 
 being a delectable conglomerate of good things, meats, vege 
 tables, acids and sweets, oils, sauces, and other condiments too 
 numerous to detail. It is expressed by a single word Salma 
 gundi. There is a Spanish proverb which insists that four persons 
 are indispensable to the production of a good salad, a spend 
 thrift for oil, a miser for vinegar, a counsellor for salt, and a 
 madman to stir it all up. 
 
 Our Salad a consarcination of many good things for the liter 
 ary palate, 
 
 " Various that the mind 
 Of desultory man, studious of change, 
 And pleased with novelty, may be indulged ;" 
 
Vi A WORD PRELIMINARY. 
 
 will, it is hoped, felicitate the fancy, and prove an antidote to 
 ennui, or any tendency to senescent foreboding, should such mental 
 malady chance ever to haunt the seclusion of the solitary. An 
 agreeable book, in intervals of leisure and retirement, is some 
 times most acceptable company ; the present work may possibly 
 prove thus available. 
 
 " A book," says Sidney Smith, " has no eyes, and ears, and feel 
 ings ; the best are apt every now and then to become a little 
 languid ; whereas a living one walks about, and varies his conver 
 sation and manner, and prevents you from going to sleep. There 
 is certainly a great evil in this, as well as a good ; for the interest 
 between a man and his living folio becomes sometimes a little too 
 keen, and in the competition for victory they become a little too 
 animated towards, and sometimes exasperated against, each other ; 
 whereas a man and his book generally keep the peace with toler 
 able success ; and if they disagree, the man shuts his book, and 
 tosses it into the corner of the room, which it might not be quite 
 so safe or easy to do with a living folio." 
 
 The contents of this volume are not only various in kind, 
 variety may also be said to characterize its treatment, which 
 has been attempted somewhat philosophically, poetically, ethi 
 cally, satirically, critically, hypothetically, aesthetically, hyper- 
 bolically, psychologically, metaphysically, humorously and, since 
 brevity is the soul of wit, sententiously. 
 
 Having assumed so much adjectively on behalf of the book, 
 nothing need be added respecting its adjunctive the compiler ; 
 Shakspeare has, however, portrayed him with such singular fidelity, 
 that we herewith present the effigy to the scrutiny of the reader ; 
 
 " A votary of the desk, a notched and cropped scrivener, 
 one that sucks his sustenance, as certain sick 
 
 people are said to do through a quill." 
 
 F. S. 
 
DIETETICS, ........ 9 
 
 THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITURN, ..... 30 
 
 FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWERS, ... 48 
 
 A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY, .... 64 
 
 CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS, 85 
 
 SOMETHING ABOUT NOTHING, ...... 119 
 
 PASTIMES AND SPORTS, 132 
 
 DYING WORDS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN, . . . . 154 
 
 THE POETRY OF PLANTS, 182 
 
 INFELICITIES OF THE INTELLECTUAL, . . 198 
 
 CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES, 227 
 
 THE SHRINES OF GENIUS, 262 
 
 THE SELFISH AND THE SOCIAL, . . . 276 
 
 PLEASURES OF THE PEN, 291 
 
 SLEEP AND ITS MYSTERIES, gig 
 
1 The wholesom st meats that are, will breed satiety 
 Except we should admit of some variety, 
 Still kept within the lists of good sobriety : 
 Wherefore if any think the book unseasonable, 
 Men of reason may think them unreasonable." 
 
 SIB JOHN HARRINGTON. 
 
 " I here present thee with a hive of bees, laden some with 
 wax, and some with honey. Fear not to approach ! There are 
 no wasps there are no hornets here. If some wanton bee 
 should chance to buzz about thine ears, stand thy ground and 
 hold thine hands ; there s none will sting thee, if thou strike not 
 first. If any do, she hath honey in her bag will cure thee too." 
 
 QUAKLKS. 
 
DIETETICS. 
 
 "The turn-pike road to people s hearts. I find, 
 
 Lies through their mouths, or I mistake mankind." PETER FINDER. 
 
 " May it please you to dine with us ?" SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 EVERY person of an appreciative taste knows how to estimate a 
 good dinner: we do not appeal to those carnivorous animals who 
 devour their repast with the impetuosity of beasts of prey. If a 
 dish is delectable to the palate, why not prolong its enjoyment, 
 and make the most of it? The company of learned pundits and 
 wits, our artist has portrayed above, we take to be connoisseurs in 
 the art. Smollett s house was often the scene of such festive gath 
 erings, and his coteries comprised most of the distinguished men 
 of letters of his day ; epicures were they in a double sense. Dr. 
 Johnson, no doubtful authority on the subject, affirmed, that " a 
 tavern is the throne of human felicity !" We are not compelled 
 to endorse his enthusiastic estimate, for he was accustomed to meet 
 congenial spirits at his clubs as well as his favorite dishes. 
 
 1* 
 
10 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 The clubs of London had their prototypes in the symposia of the 
 Greeks, and the convicia of the Romans. These associations were 
 revived in the reign of Queen Anne, and were in the zenith of 
 their glory in the days of Johnson, Addison, Steel and Gar- 
 rick. The IMennaid was the earliest on record in London. Gif- 
 ford, in his memoir of Ben Jonson, has the following account of it : 
 " Sir Walter Raleigh, previously to his unfortunate engagement 
 with the wretched Cobham and others, had instituted a meeting of 
 the beaux esprits at the Mermaid, a celebrated tavern in Friday 
 street. Of this club, which combined more talent and genius, per 
 haps, than ever met together before or since, our author was a 
 member ; and here for many years he regularly repaired with 
 Shakspeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden, Cotton, Carew, Martin, 
 Donne, and many others whose names, even at this distant period, 
 call up a mingled feeling of respect and reverence. Here, in the 
 full flow and confidence of friendship, the lively and interesting 
 wit combats took place between Shakspeare and our author ; and 
 hither, probably in allusion to them, Beaumont fondly lets his 
 thoughts wander in his letter to Jonson from the country, 
 
 What things have we seen 
 
 Done at the Mermaid ! heard words that have been 
 So nimble and so full of subtle flame, 
 As if that every one from whom they came 
 Had meant to put his whole wit into a jest. " 
 
 The "Kit-Kat Club," one of the most renowned of the clubs, was 
 originated in the year 1700, and was the rendezvous of the nobility 
 as well as the diletanti and cognoscenti. Horace Walpole remarks 
 that its members included not only the wits of the time but the 
 patriots that saved Britain. Although in respect of the rank of 
 its members it surpassed all similar institutions, it was very humble 
 in its origin, and, if we may believe the accounts which are given 
 of it, still more singular than humble. It appears from a memoir 
 of Mr. Jacob Tonson, the celebrated bookseller, who seemed to 
 
DIETETICS. 11 
 
 consider his membership of it, as well he might, the chief glory of 
 his life, that it was established mainly through his agency. It 
 seems that this worthy had conceived a remarkable fondness for 
 certain delicacies prepared by a pastry cook in Gray s Inn Lane, 
 and particularly for his mutton pies, and finally induced him to 
 remove his shop to the Fountain Tavern in the Strand, encourag 
 ing him with the hope that he and his friends would there extend 
 to him a more liberal patronage. Tonson s business as a publisher 
 had brought him into connection with a number of juvenile poets 
 whom he once invited to an entertainment at the establishment of 
 the pastry cook, and it turned out that the mutton pies proved as 
 acceptable to the poets as they were to the bookseller, whereupon 
 the latter generously offered to renew the collation weekly, if the 
 former, on their part, would give him the refusal of their juvenile 
 productions. His proposal was gladly accepted, and as the cook s 
 name was Christopher, and his sign the Cat and Fiddle, they thence 
 derived the quaint denomination of the " Kit-Kat Club." 
 
 The science of eating and drinking is one of, the few things we 
 all acquire by intuition, and it is a faculty that once indulged is 
 never forgotten, but clings to us with a tenacity that lasts with life 
 itself. . A real good dinner constitutes one of the realities of life, 
 and to a hungry stomach, is among the most agreeable of enjoy 
 ments. Few regard the subject in a scientific light, or possess the 
 refinement of fancy or educated taste essential to the luxurious in 
 dulgence of the palate of classic times ; we moderns preferring to 
 appease simply the cravings of appetite, by devoting the more solid 
 and substantial viands to the digestive process, rather than to 
 gratify our organs of taste by the ingenious combinations of which 
 food is susceptible by culinary art. So universal is the indulgence 
 of this custom, that mankind have been divided into but two the 
 great classes of those who eat to live, and those who live to eat: 
 the former of course being by fa~ the wiser part. This great fam 
 ily of eaters may, however, be subdivided into the following varie 
 ties: Such as live by the " .vveat of their brow," according to the 
 
12 
 
 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 Divine edict; those who luxuriate on the bounty of their hospitable 
 neighbors, in contravention of the original law; and others who 
 "live upon half-pay," or rather merely vegetate upon the crumbs 
 and fragments which descend from the tables of their opulent 
 friends. All men are devotees to their dinner, be it either" munifi 
 cently or meagerly endowed ; and all aim with equal zeal to do 
 honor to the duty with a most exact and religious fidelity. There 
 is an old adage which tells us that " fools make feasts and wise 
 men eat of them," but we are inclined to skepticism as to the va 
 lidity of the maxim, for it certainly is a sage and praiseworthy 
 tiling to confer a good service on oneself, and certainly no man is 
 in so happy and complacent a condition as he who has just parta 
 ken of a generous and substantial meal. It has been affirmed, that 
 man partakes of the nature of the animal of which he eats; from 
 this statement, also, we are disposed to record our dissent; for 
 although a man may possess a prevailing penchant for mutton for 
 example, it does not seem to follow that he acquires in consequence 
 any more sheepish expression, than that he who indulges his prefer 
 ence for bacon should evince a hoggish disposition. 
 
 It is odd enough that a sheep when dead should turn to mutton, 
 all but its head; for while we ask for a leg or shoulder of mutton 
 we never ask for a mutton s head. The flesh of the calf is trans 
 muted into veal; that of the hog into bacon and ham, while the 
 sports of the chase usually result in game. But there is a fruit 
 which changes its name still oftener. Grapes are so called, when 
 fresh; raisins when dried, and plumbs when in a pudding. 
 
 In discussing the carnivorous propensities of the species the fact 
 that tastes and appetites vary to an almost indefinite extent will 
 be apparent at a glance. Every country has, also, some peculiar 
 habits at their repast: some, like the orientals, indulge the recum 
 bent posture, others, like the Europeans, take their food sittin- 
 around the table. The Romans regarded their supper as their 
 3f meal, as we do the dinner; it was styled triclinium from three 
 Joucnes on which the guests reclined. The guests commonly were 
 
DIETETICS. 13 
 
 accustomed to lie upon the bed, leaning upon their left elbow, with 
 their upper part raised up. There were two or three on every 
 bed ; the one at the upper end, the next with his head leaning on 
 the other s breast, tiie third the same manner. At public feasts, 
 where many hundreds were invited, capacious couches were made, 
 and accommodated to four or five persons at a table. Thus pre 
 pared to eat, they ornamented their heads with garlands of roses, 
 and other pleasant flowers, to refresh their brain, and preserve it 
 from the ill consequences of excess of drinking. 
 
 We learn from Gilbert s Lectures on Commerce, that the luxu 
 ries of the table commenced about the period of the battle of Acti- 
 um, and continued to the reign of Galba. Their delicacies consist 
 ed of peacocks, cranes of Malta, nightingales, venison, wild and 
 tame fowls ; they were also fond of fish. The reigning taste was 
 for a profusion of provisions ; whole wild boars were served up, 
 filled with various small animals and birds of different kinds. The 
 dish was called the Trojan horse, in allusion to the horse filled with 
 soldiers. Fowls and game of all sorts were served up in pyramids, 
 piled up in dishes as broad as modern tables. Mark Antony pro 
 vided eight boars for twelve guests. Caligula served up to his 
 guests pearls of great value, dissolved in vinegar. Lucullus had a 
 particular name for each apartment, and a certain scale of expense 
 attached to each. Cicero and Pompey agreed to take supper with 
 him, provided he would not order his servants to prepare anything 
 extraordinary. He directed the servants to prepare supper in the 
 room of the Apollo. His friends were surprised at the magnifi 
 cence of the entertainment. He then informed them, that when 
 he mentioned the name of the room the servants knew the scale of 
 expense. Whenever he supped in the room of Apollo, the supper 
 always cost 1,250. He was equally sumptuous in his dress. A 
 Roman prtetor, who was to give games to the public, requested to 
 borrow one hundred purple robes for the actors. Lucullus replied, 
 that he could lend him two hundred if he wanted them. The Ro 
 man furniture in their houses corresponded with their profuseness 
 
14 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 in other respects. Pliny states, that in h^ time more money was 
 often given for a table than the amount of all the treasure found 
 in Carthage when it was conquered by the Romans. 
 
 The author of " Apidan Morsels" informs uS, that Julius Caesar 
 sometimes ate at a meal the revenue of several provinces. 
 
 Vitellius made four meals a day ; and, at all those he took with 
 his friends, they never cost less than ten thousand crowns. That 
 which was given to him by his brother was more magnificent. 
 Two thousand select fishes were served up, seven tho usand fat 
 birds, and every delicacy which the ocean and Mediterranean sea 
 could furnish. 
 
 Nero sat at the table from mid-day till midnight, amidst the 
 most monstrous profusion. Geta had all sorts of meat served up 
 to him in alphabetical order. 
 
 Heliogabalus regaled twelve of his friends in the most incredible 
 manner. He gave to each guest animals of the same species with 
 those he served them up to eat. He insisted upon their carrying 
 away all the vases or cups of gold, silver, and precious stones, out 
 of which they had drank ; and it is remarkable that he supplied 
 each with new ones every time they asked to drink. He placed 
 on the head of each a crown interwoven with foliage of gold, and 
 gave them each a superbly ornamented and well-yoked car to return 
 home with. He never eat fish but when he was near the sea; and 
 when he was at a distance from it, he had th^m served up to him 
 in sea water. 
 
 The Roman banquets were much more remarkable for their 
 profusion and costliness than for taste. The only merit of a dish 
 composed of the brains of 500 peacocks, or the tongues of 500 
 nightingales, must have been its costliness. 
 
 A very remarkable peculiarity in the banquets of the ancients 
 was, their not confining the resources of the table to the gratifica 
 tion of one sense alone. Having exhausted their invention in the 
 confection of stimulants for the palate, they broke new ground, and 
 called in another sense to their aid; and by the delicate application 
 
DIETETICS. 15 
 
 of odors and richly-distilled perfumes, these refined voluptuaries 
 aroused the fainting appetite, and added a more exquisite and 
 ethereal enjoyment to the grosser pleasures of the board. The 
 gratification of the sense of smelling (a sense held with us in very 
 undeserved neglect, probably on account of its great delicacy) was 
 a subject of no little importance to the Romans. However this 
 may be, it is certain that the Romans considered flowers as form 
 ing a very essential article in their festal preparations ; and it is 
 the opinion of Baccius, that at their desserts the number of flowers 
 far exceeded that of fruits. When Nero supped in his golden 
 house, a mingled shower of flowers and odorous essences fell upon 
 him ; and one of Heliogabalus recreations was to smother his 
 courtiers with flowers, of whom it may be said, "They died of a 
 rose in aromatic pain." Nor was it entirely as an object of luxury 
 that the ancients made use of flowers ; they were considered to pos 
 sess sanative and medicinal qualities. According to Pliny, Athe- 
 naeus, and Plutarch, certain herbs and flowers were of sovereign 
 power to prevent the approaches of ebriety, and to facilitate, or, as 
 Baccius less clearly expresses it, clarify, the functions of the brain. 
 
 M. de Pensey professed to La Place, Chaptal and Berthollet 
 that he regarded the discovery of a dish as a far more interesting 
 event than the discovery of a star, " for " said he, " of stars we have 
 always enough, but we can never have too many dishes." 
 
 In point of profusion, nothing was equal to that which reigned 
 at the banquet of Ahasuerus, who " regaled, during sixteen months, 
 all the princes and governors of his state, and kept open house for 
 seven entire days, for all the people of the great town of Suza." 
 
 Excesses of this kind are of more modern date. According to 
 Pius III., Sindrigile, Duke of Lithuania, never made a meal at 
 which less than thirty different kinds of meat were present: and he 
 sat six hours at his table. 
 
 Specimens of inordinate eaters and drinkers might be cited ad 
 nauseam. 
 
 The following are some of the most striking examples. " Maxi- 
 
16 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 mus ate sixty pounds of meat per day; Albums- swallowed in one 
 morning three hundred figs, one hundred peaches, ten melons, 
 twenty pounds of muscat, and forty oysters. Phagon devoured 
 before Aurelius a wild boar, a hog, a sheep, and one hundred 
 loaves, and drank a pipe of wine." 
 
 While on the subject of hard eaters, we are reminded of the 
 droll announcement of a certain parish clerk, in England, to the 
 effect that the vestry were to meet for the purpose of eating the 
 church and digesting other matters! D Israeli has an amusing 
 chapter on the eating customs of various nations, from which we 
 quote* a passage or two. The Moldavian islanders eat alone; a 
 habit which probably arises from the primitive and uncivilized 
 custom of barbarous tribes, who fear that others who may suffer 
 from as keen an appetite, but who have more strength of constitu 
 tion, should come and ravish the whole meal ! Those who inhabit 
 the Phillippines, on the contrary, are remarkably sociable at their 
 repasts. So strong is this feeling implanted in their rude natures, 
 that it is stated they make it a rule, however intense their inward 
 cravings, never to partake of their meal without a guest, even 
 though compelled to run in search of some hungry mate. The 
 tables of the opulent Chinese are made to shine with a lustrous 
 polish, and are also covered with rich silk carpets, elegantly worked 
 and embroidered. They do not make use of plates, knives and 
 forks ; each guest has two little ivory or ebony sticks, which he 
 handles very adroitly. It is said that in some parts of China, when 
 an entertainment is given, the host exhibits his condescension and 
 politeness by absenting himself, while his guests regale themselves 
 at his table in undisturbed possession. The Otaheitans, who are 
 otherwise naturally sociable, and gentle in their manners, yet feed 
 separately from each other. At the hour of repast the members 
 of a family divide as follows : two brothers, two sisters, and even 
 husband and wife, have each their separate baskets. They place 
 themselves at the distance of two or three yards apart, turn their 
 backs, and eat their dinners in profound silence. Among most 
 
DIETETICS. It 
 
 rude people, the habit of partaking of food and drinking at separate 
 times seems to be very general : the custom, doubtless, took its 
 rise from necessity, which too often rendered it imperative. Many 
 curious modes are in vogue, with barbarous nations, touching their 
 method of entertaining guests. The demonstrations of friendship 
 in a rude state, have a savage and gross character, bordering also 
 on the ludicrous. The Tartars pull a man by the ear to press him 
 to drink, and they continue this flattering torment till he opens his 
 mouth, when they clap their hands and dance before him with great 
 glee. No custom is, perhaps, more amusingly absurd, than that 
 resorted to by the Kamschatkan when he wishes to make another 
 his friend. He first invites him to eat : the host and his guest 
 then strip themselves in a cabin, which is heated to an uncommon 
 degree. While the visitor is devouring his food, the other busily 
 occupies himself with stirring the fire to produce an increased 
 intensity of warmth of his attachment and regard. The poor 
 guest is doomed to undergo this scorching ordeal, till nature abso 
 lutely revolts, and endurance can no longer abide the test, when 
 they compound ! In some instances, it is- said, the poor victim of 
 this ardent test of friendship positively becomes a martyr to his 
 stomach and the fiery heat instances being on record of death 
 having ensued therefrom. If he survive, the stranger has, however, 
 the right of retaliation allowed him ; and he usually exacts the 
 same from his too kind host; and this he does with an ardor and 
 zeal, if possible, increased in its intensity by his own recent invol 
 untary sufferings. The only intelligible reason assigned for this 
 peculiar custom is, that it affords a test of the sincerity of a friend s 
 regard, and his power of endurance and fortitude, should his 
 services in this respect be demanded on behalf of his worthy host. 
 If we turn to the natives of Greenland, we shall find their car 
 nivorous habits tending almost exclusively to animal substances. 
 Their dishes are, however, generally such as are not likely to be 
 excessively provocative to any but northern palates ; their greatest 
 delicacy being in many cases part of a whale s tail, rendered soft 
 
18 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 and easy of digestion by being half-putrid, or, perhaps, a seal s 
 carcass, in the same delicious state. Among other delectable dain 
 ties, they sometimes present the flesh of bears, sharks, gulls, &c. 
 The poorer class subsist on even a coarser bill of fare ; they being 
 compelled to satisfy the cravings of their omnivorous stomachs with 
 whatever kind of food they can find ; even from the flesh of their 
 foes down to those delicate zoological specimens which they may 
 discover on each others heads. In times of scarcity they wander 
 to the coast, and avail themselves of sea-weed, which, of course, 
 they find sufficiently saline without the addition of salt. The Lap 
 landers live upon the reindeer and bear, their ordinary libation 
 being whale-oil, or water in which juniper berries have been infused. 
 It is a well known peculiarity of countries which lie within or near 
 the arctic circle, that the inhabitants require four or five times 
 as much food as those of temperaie climates. At Nova Zembla, 
 from the greater activity and vigor of the digestive organs, Eu 
 ropeans are obliged to follow the example of the natives, by drink 
 ing the blood of the Reindeer, and eating raw flesh : the intense 
 cold removing that disgust which such doses would naturally inspire 
 among other people. To inhabitants of warm countries, temper 
 ance, or even occasional abstinence, is therefore no very difficult 
 virtue ; northern nations, on the contrary, being voracious from 
 instinct and necessity, to keep the requisite quantum of caloric. 
 The wandering Calmuc Tartars, also, eat the flesh of horses, wild 
 asses, and other animals, often in a raw state. The Chinese, on 
 the other hand, are famous for the richness and variety of their 
 entertainments, although some of their viands are somewhat novel 
 and curious. An account of one of these is thus given by Captain 
 Laplace, who attended one of their feasts : "The first course was 
 laid out in a great number of saucers, and consisted of variou? 
 relishes in a cold state, among which were salted earth worms, pre 
 pared and dried, but so cut up that I fortunately did not know 
 what they were until I had swallowed them; smoked fish and ham, 
 both of them cut up into extremely small slices ; besides which, 
 
DIETETICS. 19 
 
 there was what they call Japan leather, a sort of darkish skin, hard 
 and tough, with a strong and far from agreeable taste, and which 
 seemed to have been macerated for some time in water. All these 
 dishes, without exception, swam in soup. On one side figured 
 pigeons eggs cooked in gravy, together with ducks and fowls cut 
 very small, and immersed in a dark-colored sauce ; on the other, 
 little balls made of sharks fins, pounded shrimps, and maggots of 
 an immense size." Among the subordinate classes of the celes 
 tials, the feeding is almost as indiscriminate as amongst northern 
 savages; cats, dogs, and such like delicacies, being regarded as 
 first-rate ; a drowned rat is also deemed a dainty dish. The Siam 
 ese are still less scrupulous in their tastes ; they devour, -without 
 distinction, rats, mice, serpents, putrified fish, and all sorts of garb 
 age. It is said those refined gourmands, the Parisians, also in 
 dulge strange fancies for dog s meat, delicately fricasseed ; and, 
 according to a celebrated satirist, we are informed, that "when 
 cats is in," the street pieman drives a great trade. The most dis 
 gusting of all recitals yet remains ; it is too horrible, however, to 
 dilate upon in this place ; we refer to the practice of cannibalism. 
 In the island of Sumatra, for instance, as well as among other 
 savages, the prisoner of war is doomed to become the living repast 
 of his wretched captors, and is literally eaten piecemeal. As an 
 extreme contrast to the carnivorous tribes, we may mention the 
 Brahmins of India, who religiously abstain from every kind of 
 animal food, and even think it a crime to destroy gnats, or other 
 vermin by which they are annoyed. In Persia very little animal 
 food is eaten, vegetable diet being almost universally preferred. 
 The inhabitant of Australia, again, is characterised by his carni 
 vorous propensity for kangaroos, opossums, various sorts of insects, 
 eggs of a large species of snake, and wild honey. The Caffres, in 
 common with those savages already referred to, are in the habit 
 of devouring various kinds of reptiles, such as large caterpillars, 
 from which butterflies and moths are produced, also white ants, 
 grasshoppers, snakes and spiders ; they also indulge in more sub- 
 
SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 stantial meals of buffalo beef and the flesh of even the lion. Our 
 neighbors of Mexico are said to be, like the French, very partial 
 to frogs ; the banana, however, forms a principal article of food 
 with them, also the cassava, which is extremely nutritive ; but the 
 flesh of monkeys is with the Mexicans, as well as the inhabitants 
 of some of the West India islands, very generally used, since they 
 have a good supply of that genus in their forests. This penchant 
 seems but one remove from absolute cannibalism, since, when this 
 animal is divested of his skin, it precisely resembles a human being. 
 There are some of the tribes of our Indians who are fond of rattle, 
 snakes, which they boil or stew. The anaconda and other boas 
 afford a wholesome diet to the natives of the countries they inhabit. 
 Crocodiles, and lizards, are eaten in South America and the Baha 
 ma isles. The sloth is also a common article of diet there, which 
 is said to resemble in flavor that of boiled mutton. The tapir and 
 the armadillo are*eaten by the Brazilian and West Indian. Even 
 in some parts of civilized Europe the inhabitants use as food many 
 substances, the very mention of which would cause disgust and 
 abhorrence to our more refined palates. In Denmark and Sweden 
 horse flesh is publicly exposed for sale in the markets. In early 
 times there seems to have been less scrupulous nicety in the choice 
 of dishes in Prance, and Italy, and Rome, when those inhabitants 
 had stomachs so brave as to digest even vipers, snails, toads, frogs ; 
 the latter, indeed, are not even excluded from the culinary prepa 
 rations of the modern Parisians. We have not yet finished our 
 catalogue of the rarer delicacies of mankind. There are the geo- 
 phagists, or earth-eaters, and such as subsist on the bark of trees. 
 Incredible as it may seem, the digestive functions of man, in his 
 rudest state, are even capable of deriving a species of nutriment from 
 the mineral kingdom. In New Guinea, and elsewhere, these abomi 
 nable earth-eaters are to be found. We learn from Humboldt that 
 the Ottomaques, on the banks of the Meta and the Orinoco, feed 
 on a fat, unctuous earth, or a species of pipeclay, tinged with a 
 little oxide of iron. They collect this clay very carefully, distin- 
 
DIETETICS. 21 
 
 guishing it by the taste ; they knead it into balls of four or five 
 inches in diameter, which they bake slightly before a slow fire. 
 Whole stacks of such provision are seen piled up in their huts. 
 These balls are soaked in water when about to be used, and each 
 individual eats about a pound of the material every day. The 
 only addition which they make to this unnatural fare consists of 
 small fish, lizards, and fern roots. In Java, Russia and Germany, 
 this product of "mountain meal" is also resorted to as an element 
 of food. 
 
 Recent experiments in Germany have proved that the wood of 
 various trees may be converted into a nutritious substance. The 
 fibres of the birch, fir, lime, beech, poplar, and elm, when dried, 
 ground and sifted, so as to form a powder like coarse flour, are not 
 only capable of aifording wholesome nourishment to man or domes 
 tic animals, but with a little culinary skill, constitute very palatable 
 articles of food. Cold water being poured on this wood flour, 
 inclosed in a fine linen bag, it becomes quite milky. 
 
 The bark of trees, also, has been frequently used, when prepared 
 in a similar way, as a substitute for other food. This is the barke- 
 brod of the Norwegians. 
 
 When an English traveler expressed his surprise and disgust at 
 some Arabs eating insects, the men retorted, that it was poor 
 affectation in a person who would swallow raw oysters. 
 
 Having thus taken a brief survey of the several edibles of vari 
 ous nations, presenting an amusing assemblage of dishes enough 
 to flatter the most capricious palate of the veriest epicure, we shall 
 leave their more minute discussion to the respective tastes and ap 
 petites of the reader ; nothing doubting that John Bull will indulge 
 his predilection for roast beef, plumb pudding, and old port, 
 Monsieur his love for soup maigre, fricasee, and vin ordinaire 
 and Brother Jonathan his preference for everything that is nice, 
 not excepting his down-east dish pumpkin pie. 
 
 Samuel Lover s joke of the Irishman in France, will doubtless 
 occur to many: the fiibernian, upon being presented with a dish 
 
22 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 of the boasted " soup" aforesaid, eagerly surveyed its contents, and 
 being about to throw off his coat, was asked what he was at, 
 replied, " Faith, I m going to swim for that bit of mate." He was 
 evidently rather for solids than solutions. An Irishman is almost 
 synonymous. with his "pratee ;" it is his mate, as whiskey is his 
 drink. At Manchester there was once convened a society of ver 
 dant bipeds, who rejoiced in the title of vegetarians, from their 
 custom of eating nothing bul; vegetables. Their members fre 
 quently met for the laudable purpose of masticating mashed pota 
 toes and munching cabbage leaves. At one of these convocations, 
 over 200 sat down to a table garnished with all varieties of gar 
 den stuff such as sage and onions, beet root, mushrooms and 
 parsley, and such like luxuries. 
 
 A word or two touching libations. The faculty insist that every 
 departure from water in its natural state, is an injury to the animal 
 economy. We confess, however, with Parr, Johnson, Robert Hall, 
 and other erudite pundits, a decided predilection for a good cup of 
 tea. Leigh Hunt discourseth in rapturous strain on this topic, 
 where he asks 
 
 " Did you ever return home from a journey, cold, wet, and weary, 
 and unexpected, after tea was over, and the tea leaves ejected from 
 the silver ? Bright eyes glistened with delight at the sight of you ; 
 perhaps more than one pair, and a silvery voice names the magic 
 word tea. Out of some dozen of these instances, did it ever 
 happen to you when the tea had been made for you alone to 
 partake of a cup whose delicious fragrance had dwelt ever after on 
 your palate, like a vision of paradise, and of which you have some 
 times a difficulty in persuading yourself that it was not all a dream ? 
 Such an instance once occurred to me, not after a journey, but at 
 a dining-out. I left the animals at their accustomed wine, and 
 followed on the track of the girls, some of whom were so full of 
 charms, that had Hebe fallen sick, they might have supplied her 
 place at the board of Jove, without the fair nectar-bearer being 
 missed. It was winter time ; the fire burneoTbrightly, and the rug 
 
DIETETICS. 23 
 
 was so soft and rich, that I would not have exchanged it for the 
 golden fleece which set so many men raving of old.. The ottoman 
 on which I reclined might have made an old Roman spurn his sup 
 per couch, and the girls gathering around me, might have made 
 old Mohammed sulky in his paradise, and all his houris jealous. 
 By all the immortal gods ! that moment might have served as a 
 memorable era in a century of lives ; but it was nothing to what 
 followed. The clustering beauties called for a tale of the wilder 
 ness, of antres vast, and deserts wild/ and one presses more than 
 the others. I see her now, her Greek face, her glossy hair, her 
 speaking eyes, straight, penciled, defined, dark brows, long eye 
 lashes, and parted lips, discoursing eloquent music. 
 
 A bargain ! J I said, as she sat on the ottoman by my side. 
 A cup of tea made after mine own fashion, and I will talk till 
 sunrise P 
 
 " Agreed ! she replied, and the preparations were made. A 
 hermetically sealed canister was brought, containing a single pound ; 
 not a leaden canister, but one of tin ; not block tin, either, but the 
 pure metal, thin, white, glittering, and crackling. Talk of the 
 charms of an uncut novel, indeed ! Give me the opening of such 
 a virgin case, pure as it left China. It was not green tea, it was 
 not black tea ; neither too young nor too old ; not unpleasing with 
 astringence, on the one hand, nor with the vapid, half earthly taste 
 of decayed vegetable matter on the other ; it was tea in its most 
 perfect state, full charged with aroma, which, when it was opened, 
 diffused its fragrance through the whole apartment, putting all 
 other perfumes to shame. About -an ounce was then rubbed to 
 powder by my fair Hebe, and deposited in its broad, shallow, silver 
 receiver, with just cold water enough to saturate it. - After stand 
 ing twenty minutes, hot water off the, boil, as it is technically called, 
 that is, free from ebullition, was poured on it, amounting in quantity 
 to three-quarters of a pint, and the lid was closely shut down on it, 
 while the cylindrical-shaped tea-cup was placed on the spout to 
 catch the aroma thence issuing. At the expiration of a minute, 
 
24 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 it was poured out, (what a beautiful hand it was !) and the rich 
 globules of essential oil might be seen floating on the surface, a 
 perfect treasure of delight. A small portion of Alderney cream 
 was instantly added, to prevent the escape of the essential oil, and 
 just sufficient of the brilliant large-crystalized sugar to neutralize 
 the slight bitter. Oh, heavens ! to sip that most exquisite cup of 
 delight, was bliss almost too great for earth ; a thousand years of 
 rapture all concentrated into the space of a minute, as if the joys 
 of all the world had been skimmed for my peculiar drinking. I 
 should rather say imbibing, for to have swallowed that liquid like 
 an ordinary beverage, without tasting every drop, would have been 
 sacrilege." 
 
 We hasten to close our remarks on the dietetics of various 
 nations. We fear, however, the reader will find the subject very 
 much of a medley not dressed in a very artistic style possibly, 
 indeed, not very easy of digestion. 
 
 When Dean Swift was invited to dinner by his friend Lord 
 Bolingbroke, and, as an inducement to accept, was shown the 
 dinner bill, he replied, " A fig for your bill of fare show me your 
 bill of company." Those who are perfectly versant in forming 
 good dinners are not always equally au fait in their selection of 
 guests ; such companies being often more incongruous and less 
 likely to assimilate than the various viands, sauces and dainties 
 of which the entertainment consists. 
 
 " To borrow our analogy from the very table before us. It is 
 well known that to constitute a perfect entree, there must be 
 observed a certain coherence and harmony among the dishes, so 
 that fish may not interfere with fowl, or stew take the place of 
 roast. How should we be shocked to see a syllabub responsive to 
 
 sirloin, a cod s head yoked with a mince-pie, or a fricandau 
 
 shouldering a plate of cherries ? With what anguish should we 
 contemplate a duckling unattended by its green peas, or a fowl 
 divorced from its friendly ham ? In like manner, there must be 
 a sort of adaptation or homogeneousness among the guests 
 
DIETETICS . 25 
 
 assembled, so that the old may not be confounded with the 
 young, the high with the homely, the rough with the refined. 
 Kay, there often occur individuals, who, like an acid and an 
 alkali, though separately pungent, are totally neutralized by a 
 junction. 
 
 In illustration of the above remarks, it is sufficient to call atten 
 tion to the ill-assorted, misarranged, and, as we may say, utterly 
 dislocated dinner-parties which we occasionally meet with. At one 
 table you behold a judge, brimful of law, brought into contact with 
 a captain of the sea," who absolutely spouts salt water. At 
 another, a spinster of the most perpendicular propriety is subjected 
 to the explosions of a boisterous miss. At a third, a fair one is 
 placed side by side with her quondam faithless adorer. At a 
 fourth, two party opponents glare, like meteors, against each 
 other, from their adverse orbits. At a fifth, you are immersed in 
 a cloud of dull dignitaries, enough to stupify a whole hemisphere. 
 Here an amatory poet encounters the critic by whom he was wor 
 ried. There a blue-stocking lady, overflowing with sentiment, is 
 addressed by a matronly housewife on the scouring of blankets. 
 Here a sprig of quality is grafted on a vulgar stock. There a 
 votary of the highest mode is associated with persons whom nolody 
 knows. These, and a thousand other enormities which occur every 
 day to mar the promise of a festive meeting, too sadly prove the truth 
 of our complaints, and call for the most speedy and effectual 
 remedies." 
 
 It is melancholy to observe the effect of such mal-practices, in 
 the symposia! arrangements of our good city ; and what results of 
 mawkishness and stupidity are the consequence. 
 
 Literary men have proverbially weak digestion, superinduced in 
 most instances by their sedentary habits and devotion to study. 
 So universally is this an infirmity to which the class are predis 
 posed, that a physician is said to have declared he never knew a 
 literary man with a strong stomach. Sir Bulwer Lytton might be 
 considered an exception, perhaps thanks to the magic power of 
 
 2 
 
26 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY 
 
 hydropathy. On the subject of literary dietetics and libations, we 
 find a very interesting essay by Chambers, of Edinburgh, to which 
 source we shall have to be indebted for some of the following par 
 ticulars. For the love of charity, and the honor of the profession, 
 we say not a word about those unfortunate ones who lived upon 
 nothing. 
 
 Some authors have gained a notoriety for singularity in their 
 diet and appetites. Dr. Rondelet, an ancient writer on fishes, was 
 so fond of figs, that he died, in 1566, of a surfeit occasioned by 
 eating them to excess. In a letter to a friend, Dr. Parr confesses 
 his love of "hot boiled lobsters, with a profusion of shrimp-sauce." 
 Pope, who was an epicure, would lie in bed for days at Lord Bo- 
 lingbroke s, unless he were told that there were stewed lamprey s 
 for dinner, when he arose instantly and came down to table. A 
 gentleman treated Dr. Johnson to new honey and clouted cream, 
 of which he ate so largely, that his entertainer became alarmed. 
 All his lifetime Dr. Johnson had a voracious attachment for a leg 
 of mutton. " At my aunt Ford s," says he, "I ate so much of a 
 boiled leg of mutton, that she used to talk of it. My mother, who 
 was affected by little things, told me seriously that it would hardly 
 ever be forgotten." Dryden, writing in 1699 to a lady, de 
 clining her invitation to a handsome supper, says : "If beggars 
 might he choosers, a chine of honest bacon would please my ap 
 petite more than all the marrow-puddings, for I like them better 
 plain, having a very vulgar stomach." 
 
 Dr. George Fordyce contended that as one meal a day was 
 enough for a lion, it ought to suffice for a man. Accordingly, for 
 more than twenty years, the Doctor used to eat only a dinner in 
 the whole course of the day. This solitary meal he took regularly 
 at 4 o clock, at Dolly s Chop House. A pound and a half of rump 
 steak, half a broiled chicken, a plate of fish, a bottle of port, a 
 quarter of a pint of brandy, and a tankard of strong ale, satisfied 
 the doctor s moderate wants till four o clock next day, and regu 
 larly engaged one hour and a half of his time. Dinner over, he 
 
DIETETICS. 21 
 
 returned to his home in Essex street, Strand, to deliver his six 
 o clock lecture on anatomy and chemistry. 
 
 Baron Maseras, who lived nearly to the age of ninety, used to 
 go home one day in every week without any dinner, eating only a 
 round of dry toast at tea. 
 
 Aristotle, like a true poet, seems to have literally feasted on 
 fancy. Few could live more frugally ; in one of his poems, he 
 says of himself, "that he was a fit person to have lived in the 
 world when acorns were the food of men." Shelley, who had an 
 ineffable contempt for all the sensualities of the table, and, like 
 Newton, used sometimes to inquire if he had dined, was of opinion 
 that abstinence from animal food subtilises and clears the intellec 
 tual faculties. To counteract a tendency to corpulency, Lord By 
 ron, at one period, dined four days in the week on fish and vege 
 tables, and even stinted himself to a pint of claret. If temperate 
 in eating, it does not appear that he was equally conscientious with 
 respect to his libations especially in that beverage styled gin-and- 
 water, to the inspiration of which some of his lucubrations owe 
 their origin. Burns the glowing but erratic Burns was, as is 
 too well known, a wretched instance of the baneful effects of intem 
 perance. 
 
 Charles Lamb delighted in roast pig and a draught of porter 
 out of the pewter pot, and he would press his friends, even great 
 men and bashful ladies, to taste the genuine article, fresh drawn at 
 the bar of his favorite little inn at Edmonton. Coleridge observes, 
 that " some men are like musical glasses to produce their finest 
 tones, you must keep them wet." Addison s recourse to the bottle 
 as a cure for his taciturnity, finally induced those intemperate 
 habits which elicited Dr. Johnson s memorable remarks " In the 
 bottle, discontent seeks for comfort, cowardice for courage, and 
 bashfulness for confidence. It is not unlikely that Addison was 
 first seduced to excess by the manumission which he obtained from 
 the servile timidity of his sober hours. He that feels oppression 
 from the presence of those to whom he knows himself superior, 
 
28 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 will desire to let loose his powers of conversation ; and who that 
 ever asked succor from Bacchus was able to preserve himself from 
 being enslaved by his auxiliary." 
 
 A celebrated modern poet being invited to dinner by a lady, 
 requested her to provide for him some perpermint cordial and 
 black puddings. Goldsmith s usual beverage, in 1764, was a 
 slight decoction of sassafras, which had at that time a fashionable 
 reputation as a purifier of the blood ; and his supper was uniformly 
 a dish of boiled milk. Dr. Shaw, the naturalist, drank largely of 
 green tea ; till, having lost the use of one arm, he says he discon 
 tinued it, and recovered the use of the limb. 
 
 Benjamin Franklin at one time contemplated practising absti 
 nence from animal food. " I hesitated some time," says he, 
 " between principle and inclination, till at last recollecting that, 
 when a cod had been opened, some small fish were found in it, 
 I said to myself, if you eat one another, I see no reason why 
 we may not eat you. I accordingly dined on the cod with no 
 small degree of pleasure, and have since continued to eat like the 
 rest of mankind, returning only occasionally to my vegetable plan. 
 How convenient does it prove to be a rational animal, that knows 
 how to find or invent a plausible pretext for whatever it has an 
 inclination to do 1" 
 
 When Sir Isaac Newton was writing his " Principia," he lived 
 on a scanty allowance of bread and water, and vegetable diet. 
 Kuhl, the naturalist, was remarkably moderate in regard to food ; 
 on his journeys, he required nothing more to allay hunger and 
 thirst than dry bread, with milk and water, provided he could 
 attain the object to which all his labors were directed the exten 
 sion of his knowledge. 
 
 Milton used to take " a pipe of tobacco and a glass of water," 
 just before going to bed. He recommends 
 
 " The rule of not too much, by temperance taught, 
 In what thou eat st and drink st ; seeking from thence 
 Due nourishment, not gluttonous delight." 
 
DIETETICS. 
 
 29 
 
 Sir Walter Scott, from whose works a very complete code for 
 life and conduct might be selected, used to say, that " greatness of 
 any kind has no greater foe than a habit of drinking." This 
 striking and just remark is, however, only an abridgment of one by 
 Swift, who pronounces temperance to be "a necessary virtue for 
 great men ; since it is the parent of that ease and liberty, which 
 are necessary for the improvement of the mind, and which philoso 
 phy allows to be one of the greatest felicities of life." 
 
THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITURN. 
 
 " Words must be fitted to a man s month, twas well said of the fellow that was to 
 make a speech for my Lord Mayor, when he desired to take measure of his Lordship s 
 month." SELDEN. 
 
 HUMAN reason is a magnificent endowment : it is a glorious scin 
 tillation of Diety. It is in some sense our patent of celestial nobi 
 lity ; and if devoted to its high behests, will hereafter prove our 
 passport to the bright and blissful associations of a future and 
 higher estate of being. Speech is or was designed to be the 
 utterance of reason. 
 
 Speech is the morning to the soul, 
 
 It spreads the beauteous images abroad, 
 
 Which else are furled and clouded. 
 
 "There are seven distinguishing characters of voice in men and 
 women. In men they are termed bass, baritone, tenor, robusto or 
 full-tenor, and tenor-leggiadro or counter-tenor. Those of women 
 are termed contralto, mezzo-soprano and soprano. The compass 
 will be found to vary according to the length of the vocal chords 
 and windpipe, the longest possessing the power producing the 
 greatest number of notes. Thus, one voice may comprise a range 
 of twelve notes, and another of sixteen, yet both may be of the 
 same character. The change which occurs in the voice in the 
 
THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITURN. 31 
 
 decline of life, is the result of the ossification of the cartilages of 
 the larynx, and the hardening of its ligaments, which produce a 
 hard and cracked sound. 
 
 Nature is herself all vocal she hath many voices all are mu 
 sical. The sighing whisper of the zephyr the roaring of the cata 
 ract the hoarse thunder of the tempest and the dulcet songs 
 of the minstrels of the woods all pour forth their various melo 
 dies in the grand choral chant to the Creator of all. How deep 
 an interest do we possess in the faculty of speech. The eye is said 
 never to be tired of seeing, nor the ear with hearing, and both 
 organs have enough in this beautiful world of sights and sounds for 
 their delectation ; it is not surprising therefore that both should 
 constantly crave indulgence. But what should we be without 
 speech the intellectual "medium" of our social existence. If it 
 were not an Hibernianism, we would say let the dumb reply. 
 
 The human voice is the most marvelous, as well as melodious, 
 of all the music of nature. Sweet and rapturous as are the choral 
 symphonies of birds, the rich melody of the harp, the viol, and 
 all other instruments of sound, what are these to the soft, sweet 
 cadences of woman s voice ? Who does not confess to the witch 
 ery of woman s persuasive speech, and who is proof against its 
 potency? Eye-language is hers, also, and is full of magic and mys 
 tery fascinating and beguiling is it ; but her voice is invincible. 
 How strangely mysterious should we all appear to each other were 
 we divested of the faculty of speech? Life is full of disguises, 
 even now, what should we know of each other were we incapable 
 of the intercommunication of thought ? 
 
 Life is a masquerade ; there is scarcely any person, or class of 
 persons, who appear in true character. Life s disguises begin with 
 the nursery, and continue throughout each successive stage, down 
 to the grave. Shakspeare s laconic summary, is indeed susceptible 
 of literal application, " all the world s a stage, and men and women 
 but the actors on it ;" and, as in the histrionic profession, many 
 assume a character they fail effectively to impersonate, so in real 
 
32 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 life, how often do we discover similar mountebank exhibitions. 
 We are not what we seem, and this is in consequence of our con 
 ventional usage, which renders the moral disguise more a matter 
 of necessity than of choice. Because some, from the force of 
 vicious habit, seem to prefer the wrong to the right ; it is not to be 
 supposed that society at large would adopt and sanction any gross 
 dereliction, since the majority would be sure to dissent from such 
 a course. Yet are not the laws and forms of civilized society 
 amenable to the charge of systematic dissembling and deception ? 
 
 How are the rules of etiquette, which govern the social inter 
 course of polite life, made to arbitrate against the honest sincerity 
 and frank utterances of the heart and lips ? We unfortunately 
 encounter an individual who may be particularly unsavoury to us 
 and yet with affected blandness we express ourselves delighted at 
 the interview. On the same principle we sip the sour wine of our 
 most inhospitable host, and crack it up as of an excellent brand. 
 The tailor often becomes the unconscious accessory to like cheats 
 and impositions, for he speedily metamorphoses the vagabond, 
 blackleg or rogue into an exquisite ; and as the world,- particu 
 larly the beau monde, generally estimate character by the degree of 
 exterior decoration, it becomes an easy matter for such to acquire 
 the entree. 
 
 There are also sundry physiognomic deceptions, so notorious as 
 to have grown into a proverb ; for example, the mysterious, sa 
 pient look of the disciple of Esculapius, and the wily, sinister look 
 of the "limb of the law," who, like the "medicine man," not con 
 tent with wearing his visor, bothers his victim with unintelligible 
 jargon of "dog latin." Such incipient moral frauds are to be de 
 tected in all sections of society. Who, in seeking to sell a horse, 
 advertises his vices as well as his virtues ? And who would excuse 
 a dowager for the unpardonable sin of defeating an eligible match 
 by insinuating that the hopeful fair one is likely to prove another 
 Xantippe ? Who even in familiar converse with his friend, tells 
 "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth ?" 
 
THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITURN. 33 
 
 Shcnstone, speaking of the philosophy of talking, says, "the 
 common fluency of speech, in many men, and most women, is owing 
 to a scarcity of matter and a scarcity of words ; for whoever is 
 master of a language, and has a mind -full of ideas, will be apt, in 
 speaking, to hesitate upon the choice of both ; whereas common 
 speakers have only one set of ideas, and one set of words to clothe 
 them in ; and these are always ready at the mouth : so people can 
 come faster out of a church when it is almost empty, than when a 
 crowd is at the door." 
 
 Man is pre-eminently distinguished from the brute creation by 
 the faculty of speech,. & noble attribute, and one indispensable to 
 his happiness as a social being. The only exceptions, we believe, 
 to the rule of his exclusive possession of this rare gift, are, first, 
 that of the serpent, whose seductive and persuasive argument 
 despoiled the fairest of mundane creatures of her innocence ; 
 the other, that of the despised ass who rebuked the disobedient 
 prophet : and these were miraculously conferred for the occasion. 
 
 Doubtless our first parents possessed a perfect knowledge 
 of language, possibly a dialect of Arabic or Het>rew, by intui 
 tion ; of all languages the most musical, rich, and flexible. We 
 are unquestionably indebted to the first of womankind, and her 
 fair successors, for the preservation of that common inheritance 
 our mother-tongue. 
 
 A source of such varied pleasure may well elicit our profoundest 
 gratitude, when even the faithful and devoted dog has emulated 
 the possession of the gift by his bark, and the birds fill the air 
 with their enchanting melody, or chirp responsive to our call, 
 while many of the animal creation yield submissive obedience to 
 the voice of man. How many a loved and well-remembered 
 tone of some sainted being, long since passed to the spirit-land, 
 still holds us spell-bound, lingering in the mysterious cellr of 
 memory ! 
 
 Whether induced by an undue or an excessive appreciation of 
 the gift, we pause not to determine ; but, certain it is^ some 
 
 2* 
 
34 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 persons indulge the faculty to too great an extent, and others, 
 again, do the contrary. The former class we denominate the 
 talkative ; the latter, the taciturn. 
 
 Among the first named there are many who talk a great deal, 
 while in effect they say nothing ; others, by their " expressive 
 silence," are far more acceptable members of society, because when 
 they do speak, they speak to some purpose. A still tongue, 
 according to an old adage, denotes a wise head ; and Solomon 
 says, " The tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright, and is as 
 choice silver." There are maxims manifold for teaching men to 
 speak which are comparatively little required, since nature prompts 
 us to utterance ; but few suggest the superior wisdom of main 
 taining a judicious silence, which requires the restraint of reason 
 and prudence. We have intuitively the art of saying much on a 
 little, whereas few possess the wit to say much in a little. In the 
 art of speaking, as in chemical science, condensation is strength ; 
 and in both cases the result is attained by a process of experimen 
 tal analysis. Presidential addresses and Parliamentary or Con 
 gressional harangues are celebrated specimens of the verbose, as 
 well as the rhetorical ; and the three memorable words Q r a 
 classic hero "Veni, Yidi, Vici," furnish a splendid specimen of 
 the multum in parvo, and an example especially worthy the imita 
 tion of modern times. William, Prince of Orange, who made 
 such a formidable stand against Spain, and founded the common 
 wealth of the United Provinces, was a noble instance of a 
 sagaciously silent man. Cardinal Granville, a Spanish statesman, 
 well knew the importance of this person s taciturnity, for, on 
 receiving advice that Count Egmont and others were taken, he 
 asked whether "the silent man" was also apprehended; and, 
 having been answered in the negative, he replied, "All, then 
 nothing is done." This gift of speech is the electric chain that 
 links mankind together in the social compact ; it is the living 
 medium through which the resources of the realm of thought 
 become an intellectual currency. This prerogative of our rational 
 
THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITURN. 35 
 
 nature, therefore, should be devoted to the dissemination of truth, 
 for, like all other endowments, it may be desecrated to unworthy 
 ends, and be made the means of the most complicated evil. 
 
 Let us glance at a few of the less venial sins of the talkative, 
 for they are manifold, and to classify them all would require the 
 nice discrimination of an ethical Linnaeus. We begin with the 
 babbler, who is commonly an unhappy personage himself, for he 
 has meddled too industriously with the affairs of others to enjoy 
 any personal repose or satisfaction. Having made it the great 
 business of his life to betray some hurtful secret, or aspersion on the 
 fair fame and name of his neighbor, no one, of course, thinks it 
 worth while to speak well of him while living, or even when 
 his mischievous tongue becomes silent in death. These are the 
 miserable creatures who batten upon the carrion and the noxious 
 weeds of our social economy, thrive most upon pestilential rumors, 
 and the infectious breath of scandal ; all wholesome truth becomes 
 insiped to their vitiated and depraved appetites ; and, like the fab 
 led Upas-tree, they diffuse the breath of poison and disease wher 
 ever they go. Few, we suspect, pass in the procession of life 
 without encountering a specimen of this class of injurious talkers, 
 for their name is legion. They may usually be detected by their 
 physiognomical developments ; their sinister glance, malicious eye, 
 shrunken face, and attenuated form, reveal but too legibly their 
 ignoble character. They enjoy a kind of negative existence their 
 only stimulus being the fiendish mischief they effect, and the ruin 
 they cause to the peace and happiness of all around them. 
 
 Another class of loquacious nuisances are those who deal in 
 what is denominated small talk : they are of both sexes, and of all 
 conditions of society. They are an impertinent set, constantly 
 prattling about the common-place matters of life, are ever obtru 
 ding their nonsense upon the forbearance of their friends, and are 
 prodigal spendthrifts of time. These notorious newsmongers are 
 the pest of the social circle ; they do almost as much harm, in an 
 insidious way, to the well-being of society, as the babbler, by their 
 
36 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 retailing of the petty scandal of the day, and their uncharitable 
 strictures upon the sayings and doings of others. Small-talkers 
 revel most at the tea-table, a fact for which we do not pretend to 
 account, unless it be that they derive their special inspiration from 
 the beverage thereat dispensed. Births, marriages, and deaths, and 
 love-matches, liaisons, and divorces, and the thousand peccadilloes 
 their greedy ears drink in from the perturbed stream of life, form 
 the materiel of their senseless and incessant chatter ; and should 
 they perchance find these sources to fail them, their pliant con 
 sciences make no scruple in drawing upon their imagination to 
 supply the deficiency. They are not over fastidious at a fabrica 
 tion, or, as it is sometimes called, a white lie ; and they are inge 
 nious in the art of putting a statement hypothetically, in sugges 
 ting an illiberal insinuation, or even in placing a palpable truth in 
 an equivocal light, especially if it serve the purposes of personal 
 scandal The small-talkers may, however, be subdivided into two 
 varieties ; the latter class being accustomed to deal homceopathi- 
 cally in the diluted gossip of the day. These exhibit exemplary per 
 severance in the picking up and purveying of the smallest particles 
 of chit-chat ; and as they are usually provident of their stores, and 
 they make a very little go a great way, you may have their second 
 hand nothings at less than cost. These are among insufferable 
 social nuisances they are both parvenu and plebeian, and are fit 
 subjects for the school for adults. 
 
 The third class of objective talkers are such as find flaws in dia 
 mond-wit of the first waters motes in the brightest rays of the 
 mind and beams in the eyes of Truth. Be your opinions what 
 they may, however undeniable, correct, settled, or well-digested, 
 they are sure to object to them. Let your opinions to-day be to 
 the letter what theirs were yesterday, they instantly challenge 
 their accuracy ; and if they are foiled in their arguments, they 
 then turn their objections to the mode in which you have presented 
 them. You speak unaffectedly, and they censure you for medio 
 crity, plainness, and want of spirit ; talk in ornate phrase, and 
 
THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITURN. 37 
 
 your style is stilted and artificial : if your utterance is slow and 
 deliberate, you are a drawling proser ; or if quick and fluent, your 
 impetuosity is unendurable, and an equal offence of their immacu 
 late taste. You modestly betray that you are well read in the 
 classics, and they accuse you of pedantry ; you conceal your biblio 
 graphical knowledge, and you are at once suspected of gross igno 
 rance, both of men and books. You bring them old opinions, and 
 they doubt whether you have any of your own ; you deal in new 
 ones, and they object to them as unsound, while at the same time 
 they will adopt them themselves, if occasion should admit : they 
 are, in a word, special pleaders for their own views, at all hazards, 
 mere sticklers for terms, with whom it is indeed morally impos 
 sible for any to agree. 
 
 Some talkative persons are ever dealing in exclamations, or are 
 apostrophizers : these talk in admirations, every topic, however 
 commonplace, provokes their superlative wonder and amazement; 
 they are incessantly interlarding their remarks with inter] ectional 
 exclamations of surprise, such as the following : Gracious Heav 
 ens 1 You don t say so! Is it possible! You astound me! and 
 the like. Such interlocutors are accustomed to be lavishly frequent 
 in the use of the most excrutiating emphasis : they are also ad 
 dicted to the parenthetical style of discourse. Specimens of this 
 class may be met with among elderly ladies, who fancy they know 
 a great deal, so extensive, indeed, is their acquaintance with 
 things in general, that every new item of knowledge in particular 
 produces an extraordinary effect upon their nervous system, they 
 supposing it impossible that any thing further yet remains to be 
 known in the world of wonders. 
 
 Others are constantly indulging in interrogatives, all they have 
 to propose is in the catechetical form. These, we need scarcely 
 remark, are of a naturally inquisitive turn of mind ; they are most 
 indefatigable searchers after truth, they are the most diligent in 
 the pursuit of knowledge, and no difficulties impede their attain 
 ments. Curiosity is said to be a national characteristic, at least 
 
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 with the eastern section of our country ; but it is, perhaps, a uni 
 versal attribute of the female character. Women, by the way, 
 are a strange enigma ; for they are most skillful in extracting 
 secrets : yet who discover so little tact in retaining them ? They 
 are, moreover, less ingenuous than the Hibernian, who excused 
 himself for revealing a confidential matter committed to him, by 
 frankly avowing, that as he found he could not keep the secret 
 himself, he transferred it to his friend to retain it for him. Ex 
 clusive talkers are the bores of society ; they generally have it all 
 to themselves, and all their own way, for nobody is allowed to 
 "divide the honors" with them. Though you know already every 
 thing he is saying, you cannot, by any chance, add to his marvel 
 lous stock of information. He is a perfect cyclopedia of general 
 knowledge ; and, of course, is abundantly competent to instruct 
 the unenlightemed wherever he goes. If you essay to relate an 
 anecdote or incident, he snatches it out of your mouth, and tells it 
 for you, with the accompanying embellishments of his own extem 
 pore wit ; and should you urge, after its recital, that his was a dif 
 ferent version of the story, and seek to rehearse it in your own 
 way, he knows the other version as well as you do, and insists upon 
 his own repetition. With such an incorrigible talker, it is a serious 
 mistake to venture any suggestion of the kind, since one anecdote 
 leads by concatenation to a score of others, and thus you unwit 
 tingly get the loquacious locomotive under high-pressure, to your 
 discomfit. You run into a like dilemma if you unwarily venture 
 to cite a passage from some favorite poet ; by the time you have 
 quoted the first line, your interminable talker catches up the 
 second, and not only saves you all further trouble in the matter, 
 but rehearses twice as much as you intended, into the bargain. 
 In all ordinary cases the luckless listeners fall asleep under tho 
 dreaded infliction of this tedious and insufferable " exclusive." 
 
 We are, indeed, says an American, a happy, elegant, moral, 
 transcendant people. We have no masters, they are all principals ; 
 no shopmen, they are all assistants ; nq servants, they are all 
 
THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITURN. 39 
 
 " helps ;" no jailors, they are all governors ; nobody is flogged in 
 bridewell, he merely receives the correction of the house ; nobody 
 is ever unable to pay his debts, he is only unable to meet his 
 engagements ; nobody is angry, he is only excited ; nobody is 
 cross, he is only nervous ; lastly, nobody is drunk, the very utmost 
 you can assert is, that " he has taken his wine." 
 
 Another variety of the talkative, is the exaggeratory one who 
 despises the common run of phrases, and deals in grandiloquent 
 terms and high-flown metaphors. He is an extravaganza in the 
 social circle ; everything he utters is invested with hyperbole and 
 glowing imagery : he scorns all colloquial phrases, and regards 
 everything below his exalted standard, mean and inexpressive. 
 Whatever he has to say must be tinted up coleur de rose, yet while 
 his habitual indulgence in superlatives and expletives gives spirit 
 and force to his descriptions, it is exceedingly dangerous to admit 
 his statements too literally. Even the witty cannot always appre 
 ciate his humor, and matter-of-fact people are at once utterly 
 nonplussed at his extravagance. A talker of this class is, however, 
 amusing in company, for, after his mind has been wearied by 
 abstruse studies, worldly cares, imaginary ills, or positive griefs, 
 such a highly spiced speaker is a capital antidote to ennui. Men 
 must relax sometimes, or the consequences would prove fatal to 
 their nervous system. That delicate machinery, by the way, has a 
 severe ordeal to pass through in the wear and tear of life. Lord 
 Brougham once said, no man had any right to a nervous system, 
 who was not possessed of two thousand a year ; and we believe he 
 was not far from just in his discrimination, for while we pay especial 
 regard to the well-being of the stomach, we sadly neglect our more 
 sensitive nerves. A little nonsense, therefore, occasionally, may 
 not be inadmissible, when it can be thus harmlessly indulged. 
 Nonsense is to sense, as shade to light it heightens effect, making 
 what is beautiful in itself still more beautiful by contrast. It is 
 like an intended discord in a delicious melody, making the next 
 concord the sweeter ; like silent sleep after sorrowful watch- 
 
40 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 ing the calm that succeeds a storm like cheerfulness after care 
 ease after anguish or the sickly olive that gives gusto to old 
 port. 
 
 This art of vividly magnifying minor objects into exaggerated 
 importance, by exhibiting them through a kind of mental micro 
 scope, has a peculiar charm for the fireside or the table. It 
 presents things in grotesque and monstrous distortion, which cannot 
 fail of exciting our risible faculties. Dean Swift was, perhaps, the 
 greatest specimen of this style of writing and talking. This habit, 
 of exaggerating a statement beyond its exact limits, is one of the 
 most common of colloquial misdemeanors. Some souls seem too 
 big for their bodies every thing must be in extenso ; hence they 
 transcend the restrictive limits of reality, and bound off into the 
 regions of the ideal. Sticklers for matter-of-fact are, perhaps, 
 equally tenacious of the opposite extreme ; and they are no less 
 obnoxious to good taste : they are as rigidly literal as the former 
 are poetical. They evince a false zeal for truth, for they again 
 leap beyond its limits, in their eager pursuit of details. With all 
 their professed antipathy to exaggeration, they become meanly cul 
 pable in the very thing they repudiate. The man who would 
 measure a hair or weigh a feather, is as guilty of an hyperbole as 
 he who would transcend the just proportions of truth. Confront 
 the two characters, and we see the result to be as we have described : 
 the one is a fine precipitate fellow, warm of heart and hasty of 
 tongue ; the other, a simple, direct man, who looks at things in 
 their just proportions, and is nice even to the smallest fractions 
 in all his affirmations. 
 
 There are many minor varieties of the loquacious ; for example, 
 the slow-talker, whose drawling accents make the very atmosphere 
 drowsy, and whose provoking prolixity is tantalizing to the last 
 verge of endurance. Then there is the quick speaker, rushing 
 with the impetuosity of a whelming cataract, sweeping all before 
 him, and stunning your ear with his incessant volubility. We 
 might also refer to loud talkers as among social nuisances, for, 
 
THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITURN. 41 
 
 generally speaking, sound, in their case, is a screen for lack of 
 sense and modesty the two essentials of a good talker. There is 
 yet another class, who are in the habit of violating good taste and 
 decorum by the ever-recurring use of outrd and unintelligible 
 terms flowers of speech exotics from all the living languages, as 
 well as the dead. These scorn the usual phrases of our vulgar 
 vernacular, however inapt their adoption may be of foreign terms 
 in their stead. Carlyle and Emerson may be mentioned as cases 
 in point, although, it is true, they indulge rather in a habit of 
 Anglicizing German idioms, or torturing their mother-tongue into 
 all conceivable distortions. The injudicious and excessive use of 
 foreign phrases evinces a very questionable taste, and is charac 
 teristic of pedantry and a love of display, which those who value 
 their reputation for scholarship ought scrupulously to avoid. We 
 confess ourselves too charitably inclined to exhibit the foibles 
 incident to another unfortunate class, who are prone to a fatal 
 habit of telling what they have to say inopportunely, or who are 
 frequently liable to perpetrate bad puns, and worse jokes, at which 
 no one can even force a spasmodic laugh, for we all know Dr 
 Johnson s depreciative estimate of their character. They have but 
 one exclusive privilege, of which most evince a ready proclivity to 
 avail themselves that of laughing at their own pointless puns. 
 Elia defends this right on their behalf in the following wise : 
 "That a man must not laugh at his own jest is surely the severest 
 exaction ever invented upon the self-denial of poor human nature. 
 This is to expect a gentleman to give a treat without partaking of 
 it, to sit esurient at his own table, and commend the flavor of his 
 own venison upon the absurd strength of never touching it him 
 self. On the contrary, we love to see a wag taste his own joke to 
 his party." 
 
 Having disposed of our garrulous friends, what shall we say of 
 the incommunicative ? those inane beings who so admirably sup 
 ply the lack of statuary in the boudoir or library. Among this 
 class are the men of elongated and lugubrious visage, who frown 
 
42 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 out of existence even the scintillation of a smile, and "shut up" 
 every facetious mouth, however highly charged it may be with 
 intellectual electricity. The taciturn, whatever be their minor 
 idiosyncracies, are social nuisances ; they damp the ardor, and 
 repress the utterances of the heart wherever their influence extends. 
 If a man be endued with a tongue and brains, it is fairly to be 
 inferred they were designed for use : an incorrigible mute, there 
 fore, sins against himself as well as society. Some persons very 
 modestly shelter themselves under the plea that their silence is 
 caused by their laborious habit of thinking ; we regard this, how 
 ever, as apocryphal at the best, for any man who has, however 
 little, of the Promethian fire in him, must throw off sparks some 
 times. Some of these wordless men vainly seek to atone for their 
 provoking silence by assuming an interminable and senseless smile ; 
 others, again, sit in stolid indifference, looking as vapid and unim- 
 pressible as they probably are in reality. 
 
 There are others, again, who absurdly obtrude themselves and 
 their private affairs on the attention of a mixed company : nothing 
 can be more injudicious or indelicate. Others lie in wait for every 
 opportunity to proclaim their own adroitness and wit, and are ever 
 on the alert to elicit commendation and compliments. Some boast 
 their gift of prescience ; they call a witness to remember they 
 always foretold what would happen in such a case, but none would 
 believe them ; they advised such a person from the beginning, and 
 told him the consequences would be just as they happened, but he 
 would have his own way. Others, again, says Swift, have a sin 
 gular weakness or vanity of telling their own frailties and faults : 
 they are the strangest men in the world they cannot dissemble ; 
 they own it is a folly they have lost advantages by it, but if 
 you would give them the world, they cannot help it. 
 
 To preserve a judicious silence is a very essential requisite in 
 refined and polite society : this silence is not, of course, sullen or 
 supercilious, but graceful and eloquent. Fontenelle is reported to 
 have said that "he should leave the world without regret, for it 
 
THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITURN. 
 
 hardly contained a single good listener ;" and the days in which 
 we live are certainly not much better in this respect. 
 
 Having taken our exceptions to offenders against good manners 
 in the matter of conversation, we will now venture to offer a few 
 hints for the uninitiated. Conversation is one of the polite arts of 
 lif e> its end and aim being the cultivation of the graces and 
 attractions of the social economy: he that possesses conversational 
 powers in the highest degree, therefore, becomes a most efficient 
 agent in imparting pleasure, and in contributing to the improve 
 ment of the social circle. Few acquisitions are of rarer attain 
 ment, from the neglect with which the subject is treated by the 
 masses of society. It is not a little remarkable that many of the 
 most cultivated minds are found deficient in conversation. Among 
 the literati, perhaps the most illustrious and brilliant examples in 
 clude the names of Rogers, the poet, and the late Countess of 
 Blessington. Two things seem essential to the possession of good 
 conversational. powers, a competent knowledge of men and books, 
 and a felicitous habit of expression ; the former is to be acquired 
 by observation and study ; while the latter is more commonly an 
 intuitive gift. Topics upon which to descant are manifold and 
 various ; the whole realm of nature and art, the boundless re 
 sources of knowledge, and the numberless incidents, phases, and 
 accidents of human life, as well as the myriad forms of imagery 
 that people the regions of thought and fancy, all supply themes 
 of interesting discussion. What, for example, could afford subjects 
 more pleasing or fertile for a quiet and sociable tete-a-tete, than the 
 variegated treasures of Flora, the ever-changing and exquisite 
 beauties of natural .scenery, the investigations of pure science, and 
 the accumulated wealth of human lore ? If anecdote and humor 
 are the pearls of polite conversation, the above-named constitute 
 the pure gold for their setting, reflecting a tenfold splendor. Those, 
 therefore, who are au fait at repartee, or who fill up the pauses 
 which occur in graver discussions, by brilliant flashes of extempore 
 wit, or a piquant story, good-natured sarcasm, or playful satire, 
 
44 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 achieve no inconsiderable service in the social gathering. The cir 
 cumstances of time, place, and the character of the company, 
 ought, of course, ever to govern the choice of topics, and the man 
 ner and method of their presentation. It would be absurd to ex 
 pound a problem of Euclid to an elderly lady whose sphere of 
 attainments never stretched beyond the details of the dormitory or 
 the domestic duties of her domicil ; and it would be equally incon 
 sistent to attempt a grave dissertation on the treasures hidden in 
 the heart of the earth, to a fair nymph in love, whose interests lie 
 all concentrated and clustered in the devoted heart of her lover. 
 Fulsome flattery and all kinds of extravagant compliment, are as 
 obnoxious to good taste as the baneful practice of indulging 
 badinage, or even personal invective. To a well-balanced and edu 
 cated man, the cultivated society of the opposite sex offers the 
 highest possible attractions ; for, in addition to the advantages to 
 be derived from the interchange of elevated thought and senti 
 ment, the most fascinating arts and graces are exhibited, which 
 exert a reciprocal and powerful influence, imparting a brilliancy 
 and charm to every thing that is spoken. If to excel in the art 
 of pleasing be the secret of success in that of conversation, com 
 mend us not infrequently to the refining elegance and challeng 
 ing graces of educated female society : in such a school of the art, 
 the pupil who should fail of academic honors would assuredly 
 prove himself unworthy to share them. Among the most delight 
 ful of mental recreatives may be classed the exhilarating pleasures 
 of intellectual intercourse ; they constitute the very life-fluid of 
 our social being. 
 
 Hazlitt s remark, that authors were seldom gifted with conversa 
 tional powers, seems to be abundantly verified by fact. He says, 
 " Authors ought to be read, and not heard ;" and as to actors, 
 they could not speak tragedies in the drawing-room, and their wit 
 was likely to be comedy and farce at a second-hand. The biogra 
 phy of men of letters, in a great measure, confirms this opinion ; 
 some of the greatest names in English and French literature, men 
 
THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITURN. 45 
 
 who have filled books with an eloquence and truth that defy obli 
 vion, were mere mutes before their fellow-men. They had golden 
 ingots, which, in the privacy of home, they could convert into coin 
 bearing an impress that would insure universal currency ; but they 
 could not, on the spur of the moment, produce the farthings current 
 in the market-place. Descartes, the famous mathematician and 
 philosopher ; Lafontaine, celebrated for his witty fables ; and Buf- 
 fon, the great naturalist, were all singularly deficient in the powers 
 of conversation. Marmontel, the novelist, was so dull in society, 
 that his friend said of him, after an interview : " I must go and 
 read his tales, to recompense myself for the weariness of hearing 
 him." 
 
 As to Corneille, the greatest dramatist of France, he was com 
 pletely lost in society so absent and embarrassed, that he wrote 
 of himself a witty couplet, importing that he was never intelligible 
 but through the mouth of another. Wit on paper seems to be 
 something widely different from that play of words in conversation, 
 which, while it sparkles, dies ; for Charles II., the wittiest monarch 
 that ever sat on the English throne, was so charmed with the hu 
 mour of "Hudibras," that he caused himself to be introduced, in 
 the character of a private gentleman, to Butler, its author. The 
 witty king found the author a very dull companion ; and was of 
 opinion, with many others, that so stupid a fellow could never have 
 written so clever a book. Addison, whose classic elegance of style 
 has long been considered the model, was shy and absent in society, 
 preserving, even before a single stranger, stiff and dignified silence. 
 
 He was accustomed to say that there could be no real conversa 
 tion but between two persons, friends ; and that it was then think 
 ing aloud. Steel, Swift, Pope, and Congreve men possessing 
 literary and conversational powers of the highest order allowed 
 him to have been a delightful companion among intimates ; and 
 Young says of the latter, that " he was mute in society on some 
 occasions, but when he began to be company he was full of vivacity, 
 and went on in a noble strain of thought and language, so as 
 
46 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 to chain the attention of every one to him." Goldsmith, on the 
 contrary, as described by his contemporary writers, appeared in 
 company to have no spark of that genius which shone forth so 
 brightly in his works. His address was awkward, his manner 
 uncouth, his language unpolished : he hesitated in speaking, and 
 was always unhappy if the conversation did not turn upon himself." 
 
 There are exceptions to every rule, in the present instance, how 
 ever, they serve but to confirm it. 
 
 Burns was famous for his colloquial powers ; and Gait is 
 reported to have been as skillful as the story-tellers of the East, in 
 fixing the attention of his auditors on his prolonged narrations. 
 Coleridge was in the habit of pouring forth brilliant, unbroken 
 monologues of two or three hotfrs duration, to listeners so enchan 
 ted, that, like Adam, whose ears were filled with the eloquence of 
 an archangel, they forgot " all place all seasons, and their change ;" 
 but this was not conversation, and few might venture to emulate 
 that " old man eloquent" with hopes of equal success. 
 
 Washington Irving, in the account he has given of his visit to 
 Abbotsford, says of Sir Walter Scott, that " his conversation was 
 frank, hearty, picturesque and dramatic. He never talked for 
 effect or display, but from the flow of his spirits, the stores of his 
 imagination. He was as good a listener as a talker ; appreciated 
 every thing that others said, however humble might be their rank 
 and pretensions, and was quick to testify his perception of any 
 point in their discourse. No one s concerns, no one s thoughts 
 and opinions, no one s tastes and pleasures, seemed beneath him. 
 He made himself so thoroughly the companion of those with 
 whom he happened to be, that they forgot, for a time, his vast 
 superiority, and only recollected and wondered, when all was over, 
 that it was Scott with whom they had been on such familiar 
 terms, in whose society they had felt so perfectly at ease." 
 
 In conversation, Dante was taciturn or satirical. Gray and 
 Afieri seldom talked or smiled. Rousseau was remarkably trite in 
 conversation, not a word of fancy or eloquence warmed him. 
 
THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITURN. 
 
 Milton was unsocial, and even irritable, when much pressed by 
 talk of others. Dry den has very honestly told us, " My conver 
 sation is dull and slow my humor is saturnine and reserved ; in 
 short, I am not one of those who endeavor to break jest in com 
 pany, or make repartees." 
 
FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWERS. 
 
 The bright mosaics, that with storied beauty, 
 
 The floor of nature s temple tesselate. HORACE SMITH. 
 
 "A PASSION for flowers," writes Mrs. Hernans, "is, I really 
 think, the only one which long sickness leaves untouched with its 
 chilling influence. Often, during a weary illness, have I looked 
 upon new books with perfect apathy, when, if a friend has sent me 
 a few flowers, my heart has leapt up to their dreamy hues and 
 odors, with a sudden sense of renovated childhood which seems 
 to me one of the mysteries of our being." To a cultivated taste, 
 indeed, flowers ever present the rarest attractions, and the most 
 fascinating charms. Many-tinted and many-voiced, they are asso 
 ciated with all that we share in the poetry and romance of life : 
 
FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FL-OWERS. 49 
 
 they deck the joyous days of childhood, shedding richest fragrance, 
 and reflecting over its ascending pathway their ever-changing and 
 gorgeous hues. Buds and blossoms form the tokens of gentle and 
 endearing affection, they garnish alike the sanctuary of home and 
 the sainted grave, 
 
 Barren indeed were this world of ours, 
 Denied the sweet smile of the beautiful flowers. 
 
 Poets and artists have ever delighted to pourtray the charms of 
 nature, under whatever phase or aspect she presents them as 
 much when decked in her silvery sheen, as when arrayed in the 
 prismatic hues of the vernal spring when the meadows are 
 gemmed with butter-cups and daisies, and the glorious trees of the 
 forest are bursting into new life and beauty. With one excep 
 tion that of love no subject has, to a like extent, challenged 
 the rich and quaint device of the votaries of the muse. How 
 pleasant an hour might we wile away by citations of the plea 
 surable passages of the poets, who have luxuriated over the 
 treasures of Flora ! 
 
 The very name is suggestive of all that is fresh and lovely in 
 nature. The gems that sparkle in her diadem the rich em 
 broidery and glittering adornments of her gayest and her simplest 
 robes the pearls, the rubies, the diamonds, the sapphires, the 
 gorgeous jewels that enrich and beautify creation are they not 
 sweet flowers ? Who loves flowers ? The highest and the low 
 liest, the rich and the humble, those who are gifted with high 
 intellect, and those of limited capacity all unite in this one sweet 
 sense of the beautiful. It is a sad house that has no flowers in it ; 
 a hard and harsh soul which can let the summer-time glide away, 
 and find no pleasure in looking upon these choicest gifts of nature. 
 A poetic fancy will indulge a sweet colloquy with these beautiful 
 " terrestrial stars." A contemporary thus cherishes this conceit : 
 " Yes, talk with the flowers ; their voice is sweet and musical, 
 their language pure and elegant, and all their teaching gentle, 
 
 3 
 
50 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 loving and kind. Talk with the flowers, and they shall not 
 upbraid you. If you are good, they will whisper in low and 
 soothing tones of hours gone by of past joys. The flowers whose 
 petals are one by one falling to mother earth, from whence their 
 beauty rose, may mind you of some one who early bloomed and 
 faded ere the evening came, and the sweet fragrance of those decay 
 ing, withered leaves ascending upward, whence, from sunshine, rain 
 and dew, they gathered sweetness, lingers like the memory of the 
 lamented one, still sweet and fresh, while the spirit soars back to 
 its Author. 
 
 " Again, if you are in a glad and hopeful mood, some beauteous 
 bud will speak in truthful tones of joys in future store, and hope 
 will paint a bright to-morrow, when all those lovely tints shall be 
 unfolded to admiring, affectionate eyes, making glad the hearts 
 that have long watched for its expanding beauty. So shall you 
 watch, lest blight fall upon your opening prospects, and strive to 
 ripen and develope your powers in bright colors and strong rich 
 verdure, whose fruition shall be all the bud had promised." 
 
 The earth is decked and garnished all over with these little 
 gems. They are not only for the adornment of the mountain side, 
 the meadow, and the cultivated parterre ; they make the very 
 atmosphere fragrant with their incense. When they fade they 
 shed the rich odor of their dying breath, like the sweet memory 
 of the loved and lost. Let us gaze awhile on the great book of 
 nature, it is delicately and daintily illumined, and very fragrant. 
 
 " There is, to the keen perception of the educated," says an elo 
 quent writer, " a glory in the grass, a splendor in the flower, an 
 unearthly beauty in the clouds. To a lover of nature, all things 
 are beautiful full of Eden beauty." 
 
 There are spirits in the air, 
 
 Genii in the evening breeze, 
 And gentle ghosts, with eyes as fair 
 
 As star-beams among twilight trees. 
 
FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWERS. 51 
 
 Flowers are meet objects of our reverence as well as admiration, 
 for their ineffable beauty and sweetness, as well as being manifes 
 tations of the wisdom, goodness, and power of Him who has so 
 lavishly scattered them over the face of the earth. Flowers have 
 not been deemed unworthy of special notice in Holy Writ : in 
 Solomon s pastoral, floral allegories are of frequent occurrence ; 
 and such is the high estimate of their exquisite beauty, that we 
 are told even Solomon, in all his regal splendor, was not arrayed 
 like the delicate lily. How many a lesson of wisdom might we 
 gather from the study and contemplation of these beautiful and 
 radiant creatures, of trust in the " fatherhood of God," of mu 
 tual harmony, and reciprocal affection, and of the blissful hopes of 
 an endless existence in the " Paradise Regained !" Our great epic 
 poet has described with wondrous power and effect the transports 
 of our first parent as his delighted eye first luxuriated over the 
 clustered beauties that decked his Eden bowers. His hapless de 
 scendants, although deprived of Eden, yet inherit many of its 
 flowers. How vastly inferior the proudest achievements of art to 
 the exquisite delicacy discovered in the web and woof of flowers ! 
 How do their enchanting fragrance, richness, variety and finish of 
 coloring, as painted by the Heavenly Limner, no less transcend all 
 human skill ! 
 
 How dormant and obtuse must that mind be which fails to de 
 rive a feeling of elevating and refined delight from the contempla 
 tion of these pearly gems that grace the bosom of our mother 
 earth, the jewelry with which Heaven has adorned her ! Yet 
 too many there are, " in the close city pent," for whom these gay 
 and brilliant things possess no charms : they prefer the sordid pur 
 suit of gold, to the soul-elevating study of Nature in all her enam 
 elled beauty; yet what can be more deliciously refreshing to the 
 vision, than to gaze upon the ever-varying charms of the rich 
 parterre ? Oh, what a revenue of pure enjoyment is conferred 
 upon the worshippers of Flora 1 
 
52 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 Your voiceless lips, flowers, are living preachers 
 
 Each cup a pulpit, and each leaf a book, 
 Supplying to my fancy numerous teachers 
 From loneliest nook. 
 
 Floral Apostles, that in dewy splendor 
 
 " Weep without woe, and blush without a crime." 
 ! may I deeply learn, and ne er surrender 
 Your love sublime. 
 
 Were I, God, in churchless lands remaining, 
 
 Far from all voice of teachers and divines, 
 My soul would find in flowers of thy ordaining, 
 Priests, sermons, shrines ! 
 
 Woman, from her finer sensibilities and keener appreciation of 
 the beautiful, possesses an innate passion for buds and blossoms, 
 and these emblems of innocence, grace, and beauty, naturally 
 enlist her sympathies. She is, indeed, herself the queenly blossom 
 of Paradise, and her peerless charms find their nearest emblems in 
 the blushing tints, the nectar sweets, and glowing beauties of 
 Flora. Hence the fitting grace with which she prefers to eull 
 from the leafy temple of the goddess the rarest gems to heighten 
 her fascinations, rather than costly pearls or the dazzling decora 
 tions of art. 
 
 Flowers, it will be recollected, are used for national emblems : 
 thus, that of England is the rose, the queen of flowers ; France 
 has adopted the lily ; Ireland the shamrock ; and Scotland the 
 thistle. Shakspeare, in the " Winter s Tale," makes Perdita thus 
 give significancy to them, by distributing her flowers according to 
 the respective ages of those to whom she presents them. To the 
 old she gives rue and rosemary, which keep all winter ; to those 
 of middle ages she offers flowers of summer, such as lavender, 
 mint, marjoram, and marigold ; and to the young primrose, lilies, 
 violets, and daffodils. Horace compares youth to ivy and myrtle, 
 and old age to dried leaves. 
 
FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWERS. 53 
 
 Leigh Hunt has the following genial passage touching the per 
 fume of flowers : 
 
 " Oh, world of mystery everywhere hangs about us and within 
 us 1 Who can, even in imagination, penetrate to the depths 
 of the commonest of the phenomena of our daily life? Take, 
 for instance, one of those pots of Narcissi. We have ourselves 
 had a plant of the variety known as solid d or, in flower, in a 
 sitting-room for six weeks, during the depth of winter, giving forth 
 the whole of that time, without (so far as we know) ceasing, even 
 during sleep, (for we need hardly tell our readers that plants do 
 sleep,) the same full stream of fragrance. Love itself does not 
 seem to preserve more absolutely its wealth, while most liberally 
 dispensing it ! That fragrance has a material basis, though we 
 cannot detect it by our finest tests. What millions of millions of 
 atoms must go to the formation of even a single gust, as it were, 
 of this divine flower-breath ! Yet this goes on, through seconds, 
 minutes, hours, days, weeks, and ceases only with the health of the 
 flower petals. Where, then, in these petals these thin, unsub 
 stantial cream-flakes may we look to find stored up all these 
 inexhaustible supplies ! Where, indeed ? and if they are not 
 stored up, but newly created as given forth is not that even more 
 wonderful? Would that any one could show us the nature and 
 modes of operation of such miraculous chemistry." 
 
 The imitative art has ever been devoted to the arrangement and 
 combination of these cherished objects. The designs that flowers 
 have afforded to painting, sculpture, and architecture, with their 
 effects upon the mind, also furnish a fruitful theme. 
 
 In the distribution of honors and badges of distinction, Nature 
 is generally appealed to : poets were crowned with bays, and con 
 querors with laurel ; and of the several heraldic decorations, many 
 of the emblems are derived from nature. On the triumphant 
 return of a victorious hero, garlands of gay flowers are wreathed, 
 and dispensed by fair hands. There are certain rural festivals of 
 ancient origin, a few of which are still extant in some parts of 
 
54 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 Europe, at which the resources of Flora are called into requisition: 
 such as that of the May Queen, the festival of the Kose, Harvest 
 Home, etc. 
 
 In tropical climes the treasures of Flora are seen in all their opu 
 lent splendor. A poetic pen has thus portrayed them : 
 
 " Where to the richest fruits the soil is kind* 
 
 And to a vast array of brilliant flowers ; 
 Where is a thymy censor every wind ; 
 
 Where on the torrent s banks crowd forest bowers ; 
 Where leaves of plantains spread like generous hands, 
 
 To travelers offering cool, delicious loads ; 
 Where, far aloft, the palm her crown expands ; 
 
 Stalks of the aloe line the mountain roads, 
 Firm sentinels, that watch the centuries flight, 
 And challenge them with floral banners bright ; 
 The pine tree wears its vesture soft of moss ; 
 The passion-flower displays its way-side-cross ; 
 The cactus blooming crimson in the sun; 
 Loft, waving vines in shifting beauty run ; 
 All plants that in odorous concert bring 
 Delight their revel in perennial spring ; 
 Myriads of flowers, lie gay-dressed suitors, there 
 Court with sweet breath the pleased and passive air." 
 
 Let us cull a bunch of fresh violets, and take a glance for a few 
 moments at their wondrous beauty. Violets have been called " the 
 modest grace of the vernal year :" it is the sweetest flower that 
 decks the wood. 
 
 These exquisite little woodland fairies have inspired many pens, 
 and many have sung their charms in melodious numbers : but we 
 propose to descant upon them briefly in the simpler phrase of a 
 lover of nature. Here then is our bunch of freshly-cropped violets. 
 Not to say one word about their delicate and most exquisite aroma, 
 it is impossible to look into their deep cups without being struck 
 with their rare beauty. And we no sooner become impressed 
 
FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWERS. 55 
 
 with this feeling, than we begin to recollect what Shakspeare has 
 said about them what beautiful and passionate pictures they 
 have formed, and what loveable spots they nestle in, in the realm 
 of song. While we bend our lingering and curious gaze upon their 
 delicate structure, we admire the consummate skill of their Divine 
 Artificer. 
 
 To be a lover of flowers, it is not indispensable that one should 
 be a floriculturist, or that we become familiar with their botanical 
 names, or vegetable physiology : but it is necessary that we have 
 a soul for the beautiful. To love flowers, is to love nature ; and 
 what may not the love of nature do for man, when all other 
 avenues to his feelings are closed up by selfishness or worldly 
 influences ? 
 
 Flowers are always on the sunny side of things ; and we too, 
 certainly, should keep there as much as we possibly can. 
 
 The sun 
 
 Smiles on the earth, and the exuberant earth 
 Returns the smile in flowers. 
 
 "Happy are they," says Gray, "who can create a rose-tree, or 
 erect a honey-suckle ;" and who that is conscious of the beneficial 
 influences of cherishing a love of flowers, can fail to respond to the 
 sentiment ? LinnaBus constructed a dial of flowers, indicative of 
 their times of expanding and closing ; so that by planting them in 
 such a manner as that at each succeeding hour a blossom should 
 unfold : and thus from morning to evening the time was so accu 
 rately expressed, that he seldom needed to have recourse to his 
 watch. 
 
 One of the prettiest little flowers, that decks the rural lanes 
 and the corn-fields, is the scarlet Pimpernel ; this small flower and 
 the common red Poppy, are the only instances of bright scarlet 
 blossoms among British plants. This brilliant color seems to 
 require the warm sun of the tropics, since in those countries where 
 
56 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 great heat prevails, flowers of the most brilliant scarlet hang in 
 large clusters upon the trees, or adorn the earth. The pimpernel 
 generally flowers in June ; its leaves are of an oval shape, some 
 what spotted ; it opens about eight o clock, and shuts up its 
 blossoms towards noon ; so that should you seek it in your early 
 morning walk, you will find only the bright red bud, peeping out 
 from its delicate green cup ; and when it unfolds its purple eye to 
 the sun, it may seem to remind you that it is time for returning 
 to your breakfast. Poets style this flower " the cheerful pimper 
 nel," from the above-mentioned fact that it reveals its beauties to 
 the eye when the dazzling "king of day" is usually smiling gayly 
 in the sky ; upon the approach of rain, it folds itself quite up, and 
 from its thus foretelling the farmer the approaching shower, it has 
 been called " the poor man s weather-glass." The shrub called the 
 Rose of Jericho, which is said to be indigenous to Arabia Petra3a, 
 also presents a very remarkable instance of this sensibility in 
 rainy seasons. Like that interesting class of plants called Polypi, 
 which constitute the connecting link between the vegetable and 
 animal kingdoms, and which, indeed, from their acute sensi 
 tiveness to touch, seem to partake more of the nature and attri 
 butes of the latter : this, and other specimens present a subject of 
 curious inquiry which may well excite the wonder and admiration 
 of the student of nature. This rose grows upon stems which are 
 not upright, but which spread from their centre over a considerable 
 space of ground : the blossoms and leaves fall off together at the 
 end of the season, leaving the stems bare, which all approach each 
 and close up in a globular form, during damp weather, and again 
 spread apart in the returning sunshine. The Evening Primrose 
 discloses its yellow fragrant flowers in the " sweet hour of eve ; " 
 and the Marvel of Peru, or Beauty of the night, expands when the 
 other flowers are sleeping, and, soon as morning fully dawns upon 
 it, folds up its charms in its spiral buds. There is also a like 
 apparent sensitiveness to rain evinced by that beautiful, though 
 common flower, known familiarly as the Convolvulus, or Morning 
 
FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWERS. 51 
 
 Glory : its sweet-scented blossoms, whose fragrance resembles that 
 of the almond, are of various delicate hues purple, white and red, 
 mingled with many beautiful semi-tints ; while its bright green 
 leaves trail fondly around the nearest object that presents itself for 
 support. We are indebted to a recent writer for some other 
 interesting facts connected with flowers, among which we will 
 mention the. curious phenomenon exhibited by some plants during 
 the night. The common Monkshood is said to emit in the dark a 
 bright phosphorescent light. 
 
 One of the earliest harbingers of the spring, is the Daisy (Eye 
 of Day}. Its modest beauties have been celebrated in the verses 
 of Chaucer, Wordsworth, Montgomery, and Burns ; and been 
 regarded as the emblem of affection. 
 
 Chaucer s quaint lines read 
 
 Of all the floures in the mede 
 
 Than love I most these floures of white and rede, 
 Such that men called daisies in our toun, 
 To them I have so great affection." 
 
 A poetical superstition is attached to this flower, which is found 
 to grace both mountain and meadow, and which Wordsworth 
 designates "the pearl of spring, whose home is every where," 
 which makes it a test of friendship. It is a custom with simple- 
 hearted rustics, when they wish to ascertain whether a professed 
 attachment is sincere, for the trysting parties to pull off, one by 
 one, the white rays of the flowers, saying alternately, " does he 
 love me ?" " does he not ?" until they stripped off all the rays of 
 the daisy. If the first appeal happens to occur at the last ray, 
 the conclusion is believed to be auspicious. 
 
 The contemplation of flowers is a theme rife with interest to 
 all classes : the child, fascinated by their exceeding beauty, is de 
 lighted to gather them into a bright bouquet ; the fair maiden 
 seeks to employ the expressive symbols to reveal the gentle 
 emotions of her heart ; while the lover of nature luxuriates over 
 
58 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 their variegated charms, or scans with inquisitive gaze their mani 
 fold mysteries. 
 
 " In Eastern lands they talk in flowers, 
 
 And tell in a garland their loves and cares ; 
 Each blossom that blooms in their garden bowers, 
 On its leaves a mystic language bears." 
 
 Well might Isaak Walton exclaim, as he reclined on a primrose 
 bank, and bent his enraptured eye upon the enamelled meadow 
 before him, "I regard them as Charles, the Emperor, did Flo 
 rence ; that they are too pleasant to be looked upon, except on 
 holidays." 
 
 " Heaven wills these simple things should give 
 Lessons to teach us how to live." 
 
 Sharon Turner remarks, that plants with few and small leaves 
 depend chiefly on the soil ; those with many and large ones, more 
 on the atmosphere. It is a singular fact, that flowers of different 
 colors sometimes flourish on the same root. This is to be seen 
 sometimes in the Sweet William and the Marvel of Peru, both 
 which occasionally bear white and colored blossoms commingled. 
 The same peculiarity is also observable in some plants whose color 
 is deemed so constant as to have become proverbial, as to have 
 become proverbial, as in the instance of the Blue Harebell, so often 
 alluded to in poetry as descriptive of the eye of some gentle 
 maiden. The part from which the aroma proceeds is various in 
 different plants : most frequently it exists in the blooming corolla ; 
 it is thus with the honeysuckle, the hawthorne, and a thousand 
 others. Sometimes it is found in the herbage, as the sweet-brier, 
 the sweet woodruff, or the ground ivy ; it is even occasionally in 
 the root. Eastern flowers possess a richer fragrance than those 
 of other climes ; and the Orientals are also more passionately fond 
 of these "bright stars of the earth." All odoriferous plants are 
 
FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWERS. 59 
 
 valued by them, bat the rose is their peculiar favorite; the natural 
 and artificial varieties of this universally pet blossom are very 
 numerous and beautiful. 
 
 Perfumes were much in vogue with the ancient Hebrews, the 
 Persians and Romans, as well as many other nations of later times: 
 the former have Moses for their chronicler in this respect, and 
 reference is made to the use of spices and aromatics by Mary 
 Magdalene, on the morning of the Resurrection, for the purpose 
 of embalming the body of the Saviour. So pungent is the scent 
 of some flowers, that persons of a nervous temperament are unable 
 to inhale it without acute pain ; some will be affected with head 
 ache by the smell of the mignionette, the hawthorn, the lily, the 
 lilac, and the laburnum. Flowers kept in a confined room are 
 considered injurious to health, especially during night, when they 
 have a different effect upon the atmosphere than when acted upon 
 by light : they emit nitrogen gas, while during the day they 
 exhale oxygen. The fragrance yielded by some plants when 
 crushed, has suggested many beautiful images to poets : Moore 
 alludes to this circumstance when referring to the only consolation 
 in sorrow, he says : 
 
 " And thou can st heal the broken heart, 
 
 Which like the plants that throw 
 Their fragrance from the wounded part, 
 Breathe sweetness out of woe. 
 
 Many very lovely flowers grow in the water, rearing their heads 
 and some of their leaves "above the surface of the stream ; there 
 are also, it will be remembered, numerous species of sub-marine 
 plants. Under the shadow of the drooping willow, the fair white 
 water-lily blooms in unsullied elegance, bending with the slightest 
 breeze, or softly reclining upon the smooth surface of the rivulet. 
 Botanists designate this frail and delicate flower Nymphaa, because, 
 like the nymphs or naiads of the classic poets, it loves to haunt the 
 
60 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 streams, and delights in the shadow of the foliage that hangs over 
 them. 
 Then we have 
 
 " That blue and bright-eye floweret of the brook, 
 Hope s gentle gem the fair forget-me-not" 
 
 And the queen of spring-blossoms, the sweet-scented Anemone ; 
 nor let us forget " the pearl-like buds, in roseate light displayed," 
 of the odorous May, the Meadow- Sweet, the Cystus, and the azure 
 Harebell, among the blossoms of the woods. Next to the regal 
 Moss Rose, we have the choicest of Flora s treasures, the almost 
 
 endless varieties of the Carnation. One of the most boastful and 
 
 ^ 
 
 admired ornaments of our modern gardens is the Cactus, of which 
 a varied profusion may be seen : the same may be said of the 
 Dahlia. (The Dahlia is a native of the marshes of Peru, and was 
 named after Dahl, the celebrated Swedish Botanist. It is more 
 than thirty years since its introduction into Europe, and is now the 
 universal favorite of florists. The number of known varieties is 
 five hundred,) the Verbena, the varieties of the Aster, Geranium, 
 Heliotrope, the Oleander, and last, though not least, the Passion- 
 Flower, the Hyacinth, and the Jasmine. 
 
 Louis XVIII. on his restoration to France, made in the park in 
 Versailles the fac-simile of the garden at Hartwell ; and there was 
 no more amiable trait in the life of that accomplished prince. 
 Napoleon used to say that he should know his father s garden in 
 Corsica blindfolded, by the smell of the earth ! And the hanging 
 gardens of Babylon are said to have beeji raised by the Median 
 Queen of Nebuchadnezzar on the flat and naked plains of her 
 adopted country, to remind her of the hills and woods of her 
 childhood. We need not speak of the plane-trees of Plato 
 Shakspeare s mulberry-tree Pope s willow Byron s elm ? Why 
 describe Cicero at his Tusculum Evelyn at Wotton Pitt at 
 Ham Common Walpole at Houghton Grenville at Dropmere ? 
 Why dwell on Bacon s " little tufts of thyme," or Fox s geraniums ? 
 
FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWERS. 61 
 
 There is a spirit in the garden as well as in the wood, and the 
 " lilies of the field " supply food for the imagination as well as 
 materials foir sermons. 
 
 Many interesting particulars might be adduced touching the 
 botanic history of ornamental plants, for instance, the almost 
 infinite variety of their leaves and blossoms, which latter, accord 
 ing to modern science, are but a higher development of the former. 
 Some leaves are smooth, others are hairy on their surface : which 
 latter kind, when laden with dew, glisten like diamonds in the 
 sun s ray. Leaves are, in the vegetable kingdom, what lungs are 
 in the animal : this may be readily ascertained by placing a young 
 vine-leaf over a wine-glass, when, if it be a hot day, you will very 
 soon find the glass quite damp, and in the course of a short time 
 the moisture, from the emitted perspiration, will run down in drops. 
 It is the chemical action of light upon leaves and stems that causes 
 their green color : if kept a long period in darkness, they, would 
 become white or colorless. If exposed to the light of a candle, 
 at night when they are contracted, they will partially unfold 
 again : this is especially the case with the varieties of the Sen 
 sitive-Plant. 
 
 As already intimated, in Eastern nations, which are character 
 ized by a luxurious devotion to beauty and elegance of taste, 
 flowers are commonly used as expressions of sentiment and feeling 
 such as love, friendship, anger, disdain, remorse, and the like. 
 To them floral language is ever eloquent. It is said that in Persia, 
 the Tulip, whose blossom in its native country is scarlet, while 
 the centre of its glowing cup is black, is indicative of ardent 
 affection ; and the love-sick swain who would send this floral mis 
 sive is understood to convey the idea that, like the flower, his face 
 is glowing with the intensity of passion, while his heart is con 
 sumed by its fires, as a coal. The gift of a Rose fully expresses 
 also the matured progress of affection ; while despair is signified 
 by a bouquet formed of Myrtle entwined with the Cypress and 
 Poppy : Bergamot and Jasmine, both very fragrant, are beauti- 
 
62 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 fully emblematic of the sweets of friendship. The symbolical 
 language of Flora may well be deemed the most natural and 
 eloquent of languages : hers is an oratory that speaks, in perfumed 
 silence, in which there is a tenderness and passion, and even a 
 buoyancy of gay mirthfulness, unknown to other vocabularies. No 
 spoken word can rival the delicacy of sentiment to be inferred from 
 a chaste flower ; and a like efficacy is imparted to the same expe 
 dient when we would pour the soothing balm of sympathy on the 
 stricken and sorrowing spirit. But who can doubt the signifi- 
 cancy of flowers ? They speak in gentlest whispers, in soft, per 
 fumed sighs. Who would not listen ? " Poetry, like truth," says 
 Ebenezer Elliott, " is a common flower : God has sown it over 
 the earth, like daisies, sprinkled with tears or glowing in the sun, 
 even as He places the Crocus and the March frosts together, and 
 beautifully mingles life and death." This is indeed a beautiful 
 conceit, most beautifully expressed. But what need have we to 
 cite authorities to vindicate the fair fame of flowers ? their pre 
 eminent distinction has long since passed into a proverb. How 
 many of our colloquial idioms derive their origin from, and owe 
 their significancy to, flowers ! We are accustomed to designate 
 the pet of the family circle as " the flower of the family ;" and when 
 we would characterize any highly wrought specimen of rhetoric, 
 we should describe it as elegant, ornate, and flowery. Flowers 
 were not only used for personal decoration among the Romans ; 
 they were made the accessories of religion. Their priests, altars, 
 and even their sacrifices were adorned with these delicate emblems. 
 Their statues were also crowned with them : hence Yenus is some 
 times represented wearing roses, Juno with the lily, and Ceres 
 with her hair entwined with wheat and poppies. The bridal 
 wreath is still the beautiful emblem of innocence and truth. The 
 burial as well as the bridal have alike sought their choicest emblems 
 among the fairest symbols of beauty and decay the flowers. The 
 Cypress, in all nations an emblem of sorrow, was used by the 
 Romans to deck the dwellings of the deceased because if once 
 
FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWERS. 
 
 63 
 
 cut down, that plant will not spring up again ; it had, therefore, a 
 true significance in their case, since they believed death to be an 
 eternal sleep : with a more cheering faith, the evergreen, in our 
 times, has usurped its stead. The custom of garnishing the graves 
 of the departed with flowers is a felicitous one full of eloquent 
 appeals to the heart of sorrowing survivors, for while they form 
 expressive emblems of the frailty of the present, are they not also 
 the radiant harbingers of our future estate of being. 
 
A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. 
 
 " Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs ; 
 Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers eyes ; 
 Being vext, a sea nourished by lovers tears. 
 What is it else ? a madness most discreet, 
 A choking gall, and a preserving sweet." SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 " Oh ! magic of love ! unembellished by you, 
 Has the garden a blush or the herbage a hue ? 
 Or blooms there a prospect in nature or art, 
 Like the vista that shines through the eye to the heart ?" MOORE. 
 
 FEW topics have more frequently enlisted the attention of wri 
 ters and readers, than that which we have chosen for a little free 
 discussion. Although Cupid cannot be said to be young, he is not 
 in the least the worse for wear, his locks are still golden, his 
 
A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. 65 
 
 cheeks glowing, and the bright kindling glance of his eye is as 
 radiant as ever while his votaries are even more numerous than 
 they have been in any previous age of the world : and we there 
 fore venture to hope that our theme may not prove altogether 
 uninteresting at least to our fair friends. First let us premise that 
 we do not intend to inflict on the reader a grave homily on this 
 delicate subject, but rather a gossipping sketch of the felicities and 
 infelicities of the estate matrimonial and its counterpart celibacy, 
 with an accompaniment of illustrative facts and anecdotes. Mar 
 riage has been designated an episode in the life of man, an epoch 
 in that of woman : it is certainly a most important crisis in the 
 history of both, for it generally causes a strange metamorphosis in 
 habit and character. 
 
 " The happy minglement of hearts 
 
 Where, changed as chymic compounds are, 
 Each with his own existence parts, 
 To find a new one happier far." 
 
 The ancients exalted domestic affection into a household god, 
 and one of the most beautiful antiques now preserved, is a gem 
 representing the draped figure of a woman worshipping this deity, 
 as it kneels upon a pedestal. Croly wrote the following sweet 
 lines upon it : 
 
 " Oh ! love of loves ! to thy white hand is given 
 
 Of earthly happiness the golden key ! 
 Thine are the joyous hours of winter s even, 
 
 When the babes cling round their father s knee : 
 And thine the voice that on the midnight sea 
 
 Melts the rude mariner with thoughts of home, 
 Peopling the gloom with all he wants to see. 
 
 Spirit ! I ve built a shrine ; and tnou hast come, 
 And on its altar closed for ever closed thy plume !" 
 
 It may not be generally known that, according to Buxtorfs 
 Hebrew Lexicon, the primeval name, Eve, is derived from a 
 
66 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY, 
 
 root which signifies to talk : a fact which may possibly account 
 for the origin of the phrase "a woman s privilege," We con 
 fess we do not see why they should be denied the exercise of 
 their prerogative, for they generally talk with more " pith, point 
 and pathos," and their bird-like, dulcet voices sound far more 
 musical than do those of the opposite sex. But where all the 
 graces vie with each other for preeminence, it is vain for us to 
 signalize a single charm : in the words of Anacreon Moore, we may 
 exclaim 
 
 " Woman, dear woman, still the same, 
 While lips are balm and looks are flame, 
 While man possesses heart or eyes, 
 Woman s bright empire never dies ! " 
 
 It has been said that while Adam was created without Paradise, 
 Eve was created within the sacred enclosure ; and that conse 
 quently the former always retains something of the original earth- 
 mess of his origin ; while woman, 
 
 " The precious porcelain of human clay," 
 
 exhibits more of the refining process, both as to her physical and 
 moral nature. 
 
 "If," says Mathew Henry, "man is the head, she is the crown. 
 Woman was formed of a rib out of the side of Adam, to be equal 
 with him, under the arm to be protected, and near his heart to 
 be beloved." The world has, in the main, endorsed the sentiment 
 of this worthy divine, although it has been ungraciously insinuated 
 by others, that, since she emanated from a rib, and nobody ever 
 saw one quite straight, it is absurd to except to find a woman 
 otherwise than crooked herself ; and that it is useless to attempt 
 making crooked things straight. But this, as we have already 
 intimated, is a calumny upon the fair being whom Byron com 
 pares to 
 
A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. 67 
 
 " The rainbow mid the storms of life ! 
 The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, 
 And tints the morrow with prophetic ray ! " 
 
 Southey says, "take away love, and not physical nature only, 
 but the heart of the moral world would be palsied : 
 
 This is the salt unto humanity, 
 That keeps it sweet. " 
 
 How many an apostrophe have the poets indited to love they 
 have been ever martyrs to the cause of Cupid, willingly endur 
 ing the most exquisite torments on his behalf. In a virtuous 
 heart, however, its influence is sedative, sanative and preserva 
 tive a drop of the true elixir, no mithridate so effectual against 
 the infection of vice. Love, it is said, invented the art of tracing 
 liknesses, and thereby led the way to portrait painting. Some 
 painters it has certainly made ; whether it ever made a poet 
 may be doubted ; but there can be no question that under its 
 inspiration more bad poetry has been produced than by any or all 
 other causes. On the other hand, if love has produced the worst 
 of poets, that same simple love has made beyond comparison the 
 best of letter writers. In love poems, conceits are distilled from 
 the head ; in love letters, feelings flow freshly from the heart. 
 Assuming that these free utterances are genuine, how would that 
 "excellent mystery" wedded life, irradiate the world with its 
 blessed influences, were the generous impulses and sentiments of 
 courtship, but perpetuated in all their exuberant fullness during 
 the sequel of marriage. 
 
 The dream of life indeed can last with none of us, 
 
 " As if the thing beloved were all a saint, 
 And every place she entered were a shrine;" 
 
 but it must be our own fault, when it has passed away, if the real 
 ities disappoint us ; they are not "weary, stale, flat and unprofi- 
 
68 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 table," unless we ourselves render them so. We need not seek for 
 human authorities, the divine ordinance dates its origin in Eden, 
 and comes down to us sanctioned by Heaven itself, as rife now 
 with hallowed influences as at its first institution in the infancy of 
 time. From the marriage relation spring those gentle charities 
 and kindly offices of domestic affection, which temper the stern 
 austerities and selfish maxims of the world ; while they serve also 
 to help our faith in a future blissful state of being of which they are 
 the type and harbinger. It is the sanctuary of the domestic circle, 
 which links heart to heart in a hallowed compact, whence swell up 
 those genial affections of our better nature, that fertilize the barren 
 wastes of humanity and bless the world. If there be a sacred spot 
 on earth, over which angels may be supposed fondly to linger, and 
 scatter the sweet incense of heavenly blessing from their hovering 
 wings, it must be the sanctuary of a consecrated home. The surest 
 safeguard against interruptions to domestic concord, is the habit 
 of wearing a smiling face ; it will prove the panacea for every ill 
 the antidote for every sorrow ; and who that has felt the luxury of 
 thus conferring happiness, and chasing from the brow a shadow 
 and the heart a grief, would grudge the effort for so rich a boon ? 
 What spectacle can be imagined more touchingly beautiful or 
 impressive than that which the marriage ceremony presents ? To 
 witness the voluntary consecration of two intelligent beings on the 
 altar of mutual faith and affection the union of their lives and 
 fortunes in a solemn covenant which naught but death may dis 
 solve, is indeed a scene of surpassing interest. That many instan 
 ces of an unfelicitous kind have occurred, cannot be denied, but it 
 is .no less true that in the great majority of cases the marriage 
 union has been productive of the happiest results ; and were its 
 claims always properly appreciated, such beneficient effects would 
 ever follow in its train. True it is, as society is constituted, mar 
 riage becomes somewhat of a lottery for all its votaries are either 
 the victims of Cupid or cupidity ; in either case, they are under 
 
A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. 69 
 
 the blinding influence of passion, and consequently but little sub 
 ject to the control of reason. 
 
 An instance in which marriage was literally a lottery, was 
 exemplified in a recent freak practiced by a certain youthful swain 
 in France, who, relying upon his personal attractions mainly, actu 
 ally put himself up as the one grand prize in a lottery of ten thou 
 sand tickets of "the value of two dollars each. This novel matri 
 monial expedient created a wondrous sensation among the belles of 
 the French capital ; and the result was, that all sorts of specula 
 tion went on among the fair, who eagerly bought up the tickets. 
 A fair young damsel, who speculated merely for the frolic of the 
 thing, became the holder of the prize ticket : the lucky youth ten 
 dered her the pecuniary proceeds of the lottery $20,000 ; they 
 became a case of "love at first sight," and within the brief limits 
 of the day, Hymen settled their destiny, and they " twain became 
 one flesh." 
 
 The happy marriage, says Steele, is, where two persons meet 
 and voluntarily make choice of each other, without principally 
 regarding or neglecting the circumstances of fortune or beauty. 
 
 " Though fools spurn Hymen s gentle powers, 
 We, who improve his golden hours, 
 
 By sweet experience know 
 That marriage, rightly understood, 
 Gives to the tender and the good 
 
 A paradise below." 
 
 What singular spectacles we should say, pairs of spectacles 
 are occasionally to be seen in our popular promenades ladies of 
 towering altitude allied to dwarfish bipeds, who seem as though 
 they were designed rather for the effect of contrast than equality ; 
 while again similar lofty specimens of the masculine are to be met 
 with, peering into the upper air, dragging by their side a like 
 abbreviated instance of the feminine ; seemingly to indicate that 
 in resigning themselves to the stern alternative of espousing that 
 
lU SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 (falsely so called) necessary evil a wife, they had sagely resolved 
 upon selecting the least. Hood s humorous lines in " Paired not 
 Matched," will occur to the reader : 
 
 " Of wedded bliss 
 
 Bards sing amiss, 
 I cannot make a song of it ; 
 For I am small, 
 My wife is tall, 
 And that s the short and long of it. 
 
 When we debate 
 
 It is my fate 
 To always have the wrong of it ; 
 
 For I am small, 
 
 And she is tall, 
 And that s the short and long of it. 
 
 She gives to me 
 
 The weakest tea, 
 And takes the whole Souchong of it ; 
 
 For I am small, 
 
 And she is tall, 
 And that s the short and long of it. 
 
 Against my life 
 
 She ll take a knife, 
 Or fork, and dart the prong of it : 
 
 For she is tall, 
 
 And I am small 
 And that s the short and long of it." 
 
 Among fantastic cases of this kind, might be mentioned the 
 ludicrous project of Frederick of Prussia, who, in the hope of 
 securing an army of giants, formed the idea of compelling unions 
 between the tallest of the sexes in his dominions. On a certain 
 occasion the king happening to meet a remarkably lofty young 
 lady, he alighted from his horse, stopped her, and desired her to 
 deliver a letter to the commanding officer of his crack regiment. 
 
A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. 71 
 
 This missive was to the effect that the bearer was to be instantly 
 married to the tallest grenadier in his service. The young lady, 
 however, being somewhat terrified, and not comprehending the 
 nature of the transaction, handed the letter to a diminutive old 
 woman, by whose intervention she escaped the arbitrary destiny. 
 
 It is recorded of a wealthy saddler of London, that he made it 
 conditional in his will that his daughter should be saddled with a 
 saddler for life, or else be disinherited. Accordingly, as it hap 
 pened that the young Earl of Halifax was found among her 
 suitors, and a candidate for her splendid dowry, his lordship 
 actually was obliged to bind himself to an apprenticeship of seven 
 years to the craft, in order to the attainment of his wishes. This 
 was a worse case of affliction, we should think, upon the nerves of 
 the distinguished suitor, than even Jacob s fourteen years appren 
 ticeship for his favorite Rachel. 
 
 Instances, not a few, of disastrous marriages might be quoted, 
 but as their rehearsal would not excite any pleasurable sensations, 
 we shall refrain from the unwelcome task : we may, however, refer 
 to the case of an adroit spinster who was cute enough to prevent 
 such an apparent catastrophe. A young Scotchman having wooed 
 a pretty buxom damsel, persuaded her to accompany him to a 
 justice of the peace, for the purpose of having the nuptials cele 
 brated. They stood very meekly under the operation, until the 
 magistrate came to that clause which imposes the necessity of sub 
 jecting the lady to the rule of her husband. " Say no more about 
 that, sir," interrupted the half-married claimant, " if this hand 
 remains upon this body, I ll make her obey me." "Are we mar 
 ried yet ?" eagerly ejaculated the exasperated maiden, to the ratifier 
 of covenants between man and woman. " No," responded the 
 wondering justice. " Ah, very well, we will finish the rest another 
 time," she continued, and in a moment more she had vanished, 
 leaving the astonished swain to console himself for the escape of 
 the bird he thought he had so securely caught and caged. As a 
 counterpart to the foregoing, we might cite the instance of a cer- 
 
72 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 tain couple of rustics who presented themselves to the priest as 
 candidates for the holy estate of matrimony. On the conclusion 
 of the ceremony the redoubtable husband, who began to have 
 sundry misgivings, at what he had done, said, "Your reverence 
 has tied the knot tightly, I fancy ; but, under favor, may I ask, if 
 so be you could untie it again ?" "Why, no," replied. the domine, 
 " we never do that on this part of the consecrated ground." 
 " Where then ?" eagerly inquired the disconsolate victim. " On 
 that," was the response, pointing to the church yard! 
 
 A curious legend is related of Egivard, a secretary of Charle 
 magne, and a daughter of the emperor. The secretary fell 
 desperately in love with the princess, who at length allowed his 
 advances. One winter s night his visit was prolonged to a late 
 hour, and in the meantime a deep fall of snow had fallen. If he 
 left, his foot-marks would betray him, and yet to remain longer 
 would expose him no less to danger. At length the princess 
 resolved to carry him on her back to a neighboring house, which 
 she did. It happened, however, that from the window of his 
 chamber, the emperor witnessed this novel proceeding ; and in the 
 assembly of the lords on the following day, when Egivard and his 
 daughter were present, he asked what ought to be done to a man 
 who should compel a king s daughter to carry him on her shoulders 
 through frost and snow, on a winter s night ? They answered that 
 he was worthy of death. The lovers became alarmed, but the 
 emperor, addressing Egivard, said, " Had st thou loved my daugh 
 ter, thou shouldst have come to me ; thou art worthy of death, 
 but I give thee two lives : take thy fair porter in marriage, fear 
 God, and love one another." This was worthy one of the greatest 
 of princes : and also worthy the imitation of many a purse-proud 
 aristocrat of later times. 
 
 Balzac, the French novelist, exhibits another example of eccen 
 tricity in matrimonial affairs. According to a Parisian corres 
 pondent, the arrival of this celebrated author from Germany 
 caused an immense sensation in certain circles, owing to the 
 
A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. 73 
 
 romantic circumstances connected with his marriage. When 
 Balzac was at the zenith of his fame, he was traveling in Switzer 
 land, and had arrived at the inn just at the very moment the 
 Prince and Princess Hanski were leaving it. Balzac was ushered 
 into the room they had just vacated, and was leaning from the 
 window to observe their departure, when his attention was arrested 
 by a soft voice at his elbow, asking for a book which had been left 
 behind upon the window seat. The lady was certainly fair, but 
 . appeared doubly so in the eyes of the poor author, when she inti 
 mated that the book she was in quest of was a pocket edition of 
 his own works, adding that she never traveled without it, and that 
 without it she could not exist! She drew the volume from beneath 
 his elbow, and flew down stairs, obedient to the screaming sum 
 mons of her husband, a pursy old gentleman, who was already 
 seated in the carriage, railing in a loud voice against dilatory 
 
 habits of women in general, and his own spouse in particular ; 
 
 and the emblazoned vehicle drove off, leaving the novelist in a 
 state of self-complacency the most enviable to be conceived. This 
 was the only occasion upon which Balzac and the Princess Hanski 
 had met, till his recent visit to Germany, when he presented him 
 self as her accepted husband. During these long intervening 
 fifteen years, however, a literary correspondence was steadily kept 
 up between the parties, till at length instead of a letter containing 
 literary strictures upon his writings, a missive of another kind- 
 having a still more directly personal tendency, reached him from 
 the fair hand of the princess. It contained the announcement of 
 the demise of her husband the prince, that he had bequeathed to 
 her his domains, and his great wealth, and consequently, that she 
 felt bound to requite him in some measure for his liberality, and 
 had determined upon giving him a successor in the person of 
 Balzac. It is needless to state that the delighted author waited 
 not a second summons ; they were forthwith united in wedlock, at 
 her Chateau on the Rhine, and a succession of splendid fetes cele 
 brated the auspicious event. 
 
 4 
 
74 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY, 
 
 The story of the marriage of Lamartine is also one of romantic 
 interest. The lady, whose maiden name was Birch, was possessed 
 of considerable property, and when passed the bloom of youth she 
 became passionately enamored of the poet, from the perusal of his 
 " Meditations ;" for some time she nursed this sentiment in secret, 
 and being apprised of the embarrassed state of his affairs, she 
 wrote him, tendering him the bulk of her fortune. Touched with 
 this remarkable proof of her generosity, and supposing it could 
 only be caused by a preference for himself, he at once made an 
 offer of his hand and heart. He judged rightly, and the poet was 
 promptly accepted. 
 
 Those who wish to become acquainted more at length, with 
 "the loves of the poets," we refer to Mrs. Jamieson s pleasant 
 book on that delicate subject. It may suffice to glance at the 
 eccentric conduct of Swift, in his love matters. His first flame, 
 whom he fantastically christened Yarina, he deserted, after a seven 
 years courtship : the next he styled Stella, who, although beauti 
 ful in person, and accomplished, after a protracted intimacy, he 
 secretly married in a garden, although he never resided under the 
 same roof with her, and never acknowledged the union till the 
 day of his death. The third became a similar victim to his selfish 
 hard-heartedness, which, it is said, caused her death. With all his 
 wit and genius, such wanton brutality, must ever reflect the deep 
 est disgrace upon his moral character, especially as contrasted 
 with his claims as a religious functuary. The following case looks 
 somewhat squally, and indeed possesses so much of the marvellous 
 as to challenge belief. It is that of a gentleman who confesses he 
 first saw his wife in a storm, took her to a ball in a storm, courted 
 her in a storm, married under the same boisterous circumstances, 
 and lived with her during a like condition, but buried her in pleasant 
 weather. The union of hearts and hands in holy wedlock has given 
 birth to many luminous poetic effusions. The briefest exposition 
 we remember to have seen, is the following, which was doubtless 
 intended merely as a love-missive between two ardent souls, whose 
 
A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. 75 
 
 elective affinities if spirits may commingle resolved themselves 
 into a perfect spiritual amalgamation. Says our love-sick swain : 
 
 * My heart to you is given, 
 Oh, do give yours to me ; 
 We ll lock them up together, 
 And throw away the key." 
 
 That brief episode of romance, courtship, is the spring- tide of 
 life the May of human existence : fond memory clings to it with 
 cherished and lingering devotion ; for, if at no other period, the 
 heart then reveals its most generous sympathies, and the habitual 
 selfishness of our nature is forgotten. If the month posterior 
 to the nuptial ceremony the honeymoon is so richly freighted 
 with happiness, it is more than the great poet affirms of the 
 period anterior to that event, although another of the muse s 
 favorites, Andrew Marvell, inclines to a somewhat contrary sen 
 timent. 
 
 Emerson has some poetic and forcible words upon this subject 
 of love ; he says, "Be our experience in particular what it may, 
 no man ever forgets the visitations of that power upon his heart 
 and brain, which created all things new ; which was the dawn in 
 him of music, poetry, and art which made the face of nature 
 radiant with purple light, the morning and night of varied enchant 
 ments when a single tone could thrill the heart, and the most 
 trivial circumstance associated with one form, is put in the amber 
 of memory when we become all eye, when one is present all 
 memory, when one is gone." 
 
 The intervention of an ecclesiastical functionary was not deemed 
 indispensable to a marriage, until the Council of Trent in 1409. 
 The celebrated decree passed in that session, interdicted any mar 
 riage otherwise than in the presence of the priest, and at least two 
 witnesses. But before the time of Pope Innocent III. (1118,) 
 there was no solemnization of marriage in the church, but 
 the bridegroom came to the bride s house, and led her home 
 
76 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 to his own, which was all the ceremony then used. Banns 
 were first directed to be published in the year 1200. 
 
 Many strange apologies have been urged for marriage. Gothe 
 said he married to obtain respectability. Wilkes wedded to please 
 his friends. Wycherly, in his old age, took his servant girl, to 
 spite his relations. The Russians have a story of a widow who 
 was so inconsolable for the loss of her husband, that she took 
 another to keep her from fretting herself to death. 
 
 The origin of the word " honey-moon," is from a custom of the 
 Tentines, an ancient people of Germany, who drank mead, or 
 metheglen, a beverage made with honey, for thirty days after 
 every wedding. 
 
 Love has been compared to debt : both keep their captives 
 awake at night, or disturb their repose with anxious nocturnal 
 visions, and their busy thoughts at day are no less solicitously 
 engaged. It is, moreover, suggested that love has been styled 
 " the tender passion," from its softening effects on the brain, and 
 also because it affects principally " the softer sex." Some have 
 proved themselves impervious to its genial influences ; take, for 
 example, the case of Newton, whose penchant for star-gazing, 
 mathematical abstractions, and his pipe, was-sufficiently evinced by 
 his taking the fair hand of his lady-love not to devote it to the 
 gentle pressure of affection, but to convert the forefinger to the 
 degrading purposes of a tobacco stopper ! Men of literature, 
 science and philosophy, in ancient and modern .times, have, from 
 their recluse and ascetic tendencies, in the main, been either 
 opposed to the social relationship, or been infelicitous in their 
 matrimonial alliances. Probably this has been, in part, superin 
 duced by the flatteries and attentions of the world at large ; and 
 yet, it is somewhat singular how men, moving so prominently in 
 society, and courted so generally by the fair, should not have had 
 adroitness enough to escape entanglement in the matrimonial 
 meshes of that busy little fellow, Cupid, who is ever going about, 
 seeking whom he may ensnare. Viewed as a divinely instituted 
 
A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. 77 
 
 ordinance, marriage ceases to be a matter of option ; and those, 
 therefore, who seek to contravene so express a command, are 
 justly held amenable for the act. Apart from its endearing asso 
 ciations and immunities, it is constituted the great conservative 
 means of human existence ; without it the world would soon 
 become a waste, and the beneficent purposes of its great Author 
 be frustrated. This sentiment we accordingly find to have obtained, 
 as by instinct, in all ages. Fines were first levied on unmarried 
 men, in Rome, about the middle of the fourth century ; and when 
 pecuniary forfeitures failed to ensure obedince to connubial edicts, 
 celibacy was visited by penal punishments. 
 
 Concerning the origin of the usual accessories of marriage, we 
 have little to adduce : the ring is certainly an expressive and 
 fitting emblem of the perpetuity of the compact ; and the bride 
 cake and customary libations form no less significant symbols of 
 the nectar sweets and intoxicating pleasures which it is designed 
 to confer upon its votaries. 
 
 We remember to have read somewhere an account of a most 
 exemplary instance of conjugal fidelity and devotion, which, if not 
 apocryphal, is certainly without a parallel. A young nobleman of 
 Genoa, who held large estates in Corsica, whither he used to repair 
 every few years to regulate his affairs, had married a beautiful 
 creature named Monimia, an Italian. They lived for some years 
 in undiminished felicity, till, alas for the mutations of time, the 
 devoted husband was compelled to defer no longer a visit to the 
 land of his possessions. During his absence, the island being at 
 the time in a state of insurrection, a report reached the ears of the 
 anxious spouse, that he had fallen a victim to the popular fury and 
 revolt. About the same time, as he was passing along the harbor, 
 he overheard some sailors, who had just arrived, talking of the 
 death of a Genoese nobleman s wife, then absent from the repub 
 lic. The name of his beloved wife was at length mentioned, when 
 all suspicion yielding to the painful conviction that it was indeed 
 her of whom they spoke, he became so overpowered with grief that 
 
18 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 he swooned away. On his recovery he determined to lose no time 
 in repairing to his home, in order to ascertain the certainty of the 
 report. Strange as it may appear, simultaneously with this, the 
 equally distressed wife resolved upon a similar procedure. They 
 both took ship one for Corsica, the other for Genoa ; a violent 
 storm overtook both vessels, and each was shipwrecked upon a 
 desolate island in the Mediterranean. Marimi s ship first made 
 land, and the disconsolate widower, wishing to indulge his grief, 
 wandered into the embowered recesses of a neighboring wood. 
 Soon afterwards the Genoese ship landed Monimia, with one of 
 her maids ; actuated by similar emotions, she bent her sorrowing 
 steps to the same retreat. They each heard the other complaining 
 of their bitter fate ; when, moved by a mutual curiosity to see 
 their companion in grief, -judge of their amazement and rapturous 
 surprise, when they instantly recognized in each other the dear 
 object of their ardent solicitude and affection. One long, strain 
 ing and passionate embrace, and they immediately expired! Their 
 remains were conveyed to Italy, and repose, in their dreamless 
 sleep, under a magnificent mausoleum. 
 
 Among the Romans, the month of June was considered the 
 most propitious for the celebration of the nuptial rite : May was 
 said to be ominous of the premature demise of one of the parties. 
 
 The peculiar characteristic ceremonies incident to the marriage 
 festival in various countries, we do not stay to notice, the subject, 
 being familiar to the reader. The feature which seems, after all, 
 the great distinction among various nations, in the affair of mar 
 riage, is that of monogamy and polygamy a single wife or hus 
 band, or a plurality of the endowment. What the primal law 
 may have been, it is not difficult to divine ; if we admit the 
 example of our illustrious progenitor Adam : in him we have a 
 legal precedent. 
 
 The empire of woman in the scale of being, is no longer a dis 
 puted claim. 
 
 " Heaven s last, best gift to man " 
 
A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. 79 
 
 receives the homage of the human heart, she is loved and 
 cherished, as the angel of peace and hope, diffusing a halo of light, 
 joy and blessedness, making Home, a little Eden. 
 
 As to the name spinster, it may be remembered, that it dates its 
 origin from the fact that in olden times, no maiden being deemed 
 eligible to matrimonial honors till she had spun her own domestic 
 wardrobe : an evidence that our grave progenitors regarded such 
 matters as involving less of romance than reality a method, we 
 may add, that more modern sagacity has deemed it expedient to 
 a great extent to reverse. 
 
 The human family is divided into two classes, the married and 
 the single ; the former have been often deemed legitimate objects 
 for the raillery and jest of the advocates of celibacy, and it is but 
 fair that the opposite party should be permitted a share of the like 
 pleasantry. As a specimen of the former, take the following lines 
 of a most inveterate womanhater, one of the early printers who 
 flourished during the first half of the sixteenth century. The 
 extraordinary production in which this curious satire occurs, is 
 entitled " The scole-howse, wherein every ma.n may rede a goodlie 
 prayer of the condycyom of women," &c. This erudite scribe thus 
 apostrophizes the sex : 
 
 " Trewly some men there be 
 That lyve always in great horreure, 
 And sayth it goth by destynie, 
 To hang, or wed, both hath one houre ; 
 And whether it be ! I am well sure 
 Hanging is better of the twaine, 
 Sooner done and shorter payne ! " 
 
 It is admitted, on all hands, to be both a delicate and difficult 
 thing to pry into a woman s age ; and the embarrassment becomes 
 increased in the exact ratio of its advance, especially in the case 
 of an unmarried lady. The precise epoch at which the epithet old 
 may be admissable, is no less involved in mystery. A fugitive 
 
80 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 passage from a contemporary pen, with as much of poetry as chi 
 valry in its spirit, fortunately comes to our aid in the present 
 dilemma. Who the gallant scribe may be, we know not, but here 
 the paragraph is, and the reader will take it for what it is worth : 
 
 " Eve, it is well known, was sixteen years old when she was 
 awakened at the side of her husband. Sixteen years old, say ancient 
 writers and that so boldly, that they must have seen Eve s 
 register written on the lilies of Paradise. Now, women who 
 have nine times out of ten more curious rabbinical learning than 
 the mean envy of our sex will allow them women, inheriting the 
 privilege from their first parent, believe that, after a certain time, 
 they have a just right to let their first sixteen years go for nothing ; 
 and so they sink the preliminary sixteen with a smile, counting 
 with mother Eve their seventeenth as their first real birthday. 
 And they are right. For it deducts from your woman of five-and- 
 forty all that she cares to lose, giving her a fair start with Eve, 
 and pegging her back to full-blown nine-and-twenty. And; indeed, 
 it is impossible that any really charming women should be a day 
 older." 
 
 It is a singular fact, that the age of but one woman is mentioned 
 in the Bible at the time of her death. Therefore, it is best not to 
 be inquisitive about the age of women. There are some ladies 
 whose extreme sensibilities or frigidity induces them to make deli* 
 berate choice of a life of single-blessedness, in spite of all that love 
 sick swains may urge to the contrary. Such, among the ancients, 
 were the vestal virgins, and those who ministered at the temples 
 of Diana and Minerva. Some, seek to rush into matrimony, with 
 such impetuosity, that they frighten away all sensitive suitors, in 
 their fatal attempt to do all the wooing on their own account. 
 Others, again, from a feeling of over fastidiousness, vainly expect 
 ing to find the angelic in the human foolishly forego many an 
 excellent chance of a prize in the matrimonial lottery, till the wheel 
 of fortune will turn no more. The forlorn attempt, by the aid of 
 cosmetic s, gold chains, and other bijouterie, to supply the lack of 
 
A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. 81 
 
 beauty s dimpled smiles, and the ruddy hues of health, challenges 
 the pity of all beholders. 
 
 " There s nothing half so sweet in life, 
 As Love s young dream ;" 
 
 and yet trouble is often caused by the intf rvention of one or both of 
 the parents, or else some flaw in the object of the "heart s fond 
 idolatry" just peeps out on the very eve of consummation. 
 Parents, too frequently, and most perversely, on such occasions, 
 pass into petrifactions callous to all the glowing emotions of the 
 arch godling, and become invested with a most stern and rigid 
 determination to denounce all love-scrapes as "juvenile indiscre 
 tions," which demand the full force of their grave sagacity to dis 
 courage. These two latter classes of disappointed nymphs seem to 
 be devoted to the annihilation of their most cherished hopes of 
 connubial happiness, by the irrevocable decrees of the fates ; they, 
 therefore, are richly deserving alike of our sympathy and respect. 
 With wonderful assiduity, they resort to every expedient to avert 
 the unwelcome issue, but in vain ; "love s sweet vocabulary" has 
 .been exhausted, and the charms, divinations and necromancy of 
 Venus herself, have been called into requisition, but potent as 
 they usually are, without the desired effect in their behalf. We 
 have been accustomed to associate Cupid with simply his bow and 
 quiver full of arrows ; but the queen of love, it seems, can invoke 
 to her aid much more varied and irresistible artillery for capturing 
 the citadel of the heart. To enumerate in full detail these appli 
 ances of woman s art, would startle the credulity of the unsus 
 pecting reader. 
 
 Neither the " gentle moon," nor good old St. Yalentine, the 
 tutelar divinities of the tender passion, have in their case done 
 their office ; who, therefore, can wonder, after such an expenditure 
 of effort and occasionally enduring patience on their part, that our 
 forlorn fair ones should become the victims of ennui or that their 
 once jubilant and joyous features should become tinged with an 
 
82 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 expression of melancholy. Females generally are supposed to be 
 infallible. A man frequently admits he was in the wrong, but a 
 woman never she is only liable to be miss-taken. 
 
 Wordsworth thus laconically describes a model woman : 
 
 " A perfect woman, nobly plann d 
 To warn, to comfort, and command ; 
 And yet a spirit still and bright 
 With something of an angel light." 
 
 Having indulged our rather free discussion upon the eccen 
 tricities of old maids, we now come to canvass the claims, and 
 portray the peculiarities of their counterpart the old bachelors. 
 We hear much of the merry old bachelor, that he is devoid of 
 care, that he is everywhere the centre of a charmed circle, and 
 that he is in a word, a being envied by all, pitied by none. Even 
 Lord Bacon, among others of the literary and learned, insists that 
 mankind is indebted to the unmarried and the childless, for its 
 highest benefactions in the world of science and song. "They 
 are," he adds, " the best of friends, the best masters, and the best 
 servants." The verdict of society has, however, changed since 
 the days of that sage philosopher, for who does not know that the 
 sentiment has long since, by common consent, been reversed. 
 
 Old bachelors have been styled unproductive consumers; scissors 
 with but one blade ; bows without fiddles ; irregular substantives, 
 always in the singular number and objective case ; unruly scholars, 
 who, when told to conjugate, always decline. 
 
 Some wag thus apostrophizes the old bachelor : " What a 
 pitiful thing an old bachelor is, with his cheerless house, and his 
 rueful phiz, on a bitter cold night when the fierce winds blow, 
 when the earth is covered with snow. When his fire is out, and 
 in shivering dread, he slips neath the sheets of his lonely bed. 
 How he draws up his toes, all encased in yarn hose, and he buries 
 his nose neath the chilly bed clothes ; that his nose, and his toes, 
 still encased in yarn hose, may not chance to get froze. Then he 
 
A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. 83 
 
 puffs and lie blows, and says that he knows no mortal on earth 
 ever suffered such woes ; and with all s ! and with oh s ! with his 
 limbs to dispose, so that neither his toes, nor his nose, may be froze. 
 To his slumbers in silence the bachelor goes. In the morn when 
 the cock crows, and the sun has just rose, from beneath the bed 
 clothes, pops the bachelor s nose, and as you may suppose, when 
 he hears how the wind blows, sees the windows all froze, why 
 back neath the clothes, pops the poor fellow s nose, for full well he 
 knows, if from that bed he rose to put on his clothes, that he d 
 surely be froze." 
 
 Few topics have been made so fruitful a theme of badinage and 
 sarcasm by the wits, as that of marriage. If the old bachelor is 
 said to become bearish in his selfishness, a man of the opposite 
 class during courtship is thought to exhibit a strong resemblance 
 to a goose ; and when this incipient stage is exchanged for the 
 estate matrimonial, he is honored with the epithet, sheepish. Some 
 have indulged their vein of irony in verse, a curious specimen of 
 which we subjoin ; it evinces as much ingenuity as wit, for it 
 admits of being read two ways, to convey a directly opposite 
 sentiment. We transcribe it according to what we consider its 
 true meaning ; but in order to make it tell the reverse, it will be 
 necessary to alternate the lines, reading the first and third, 
 then the second and fourth : 
 
 " That man must lead a happy life 
 Who is directed by a wife ; 
 Who s freed from matrimonial claims, 
 Is sure to suffer for his pains. 
 
 Adam could find no solid peace 
 Till he beheld a woman s face ; 
 When Eve was given for a mate 
 Adam was in a happy state. 
 
 In all the female race appear 
 Truth, darling of a heart sincere : 
 Hypocrisy, deceit and pride 
 In woman never did reside. 
 
84 
 
 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 | 
 
 What tongue is able to unfold 
 The worth in woman we behold ? 
 The failings that in woman dwell 
 Are almost imperceptible. 
 
 Confusion take the men, I say, 
 Who no regard to women pay, 
 Who make the women their delight 
 Keep always reason in their sight." 
 
CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. 
 
 " Books are the immortal sons deifying their sires." PLATO. 
 
 "Books written when the soul is at spring-tide, 
 When it is laden like a groaning sky 
 Before a thunder-storm, are power and gladness, 
 And majesty and beauty. They seize the reader 
 As tempests seize a ship, and bear him on 
 With a wild joy. Some books are drenched sands, 
 On which a great soul s wealth lies all in heaps, 
 Like a wrecked orgosy. What power in books ! 
 They mingle gloom and splendor, as I ve oft, 
 In thund rous sunsets, seen the thunder-piles 
 Seamed with dull fire and fiercest glory-rents, 
 They awe me to my knees, as if I stood 
 In presence of a king." ALEXANDER SMITH. 
 
 WITH what rapt enthusiasm will the confirmed bibliomaniac 
 pounce upon, and pour over the scarce legible pages of some 
 antique mouldering manuscript ; or clutch, with miser grasp, the 
 musty cover of his favorite black-letter tome of the olden time. 
 This feeling, though peculiar in its intensity to the class referred to, 
 is yet possessed in degree by most who prefer any ^claims to a lite 
 rary taste. An attachment or veneration for books for books 
 as books if not a conclusive test of all mental refinement, is at 
 least its rarely absent concomitant. In the companionship of 
 books how many immunities do we enjoy, which are denied us in 
 our intercourse with men ; with unobtrusive modesty, they tres 
 pass not upon us unbidden guests, nor do they ever outstay their 
 welcome. Yet it must be admitted with a writer of the past cen 
 tury, that books, like friends, should be few and well chosen, and 
 then like true friends we shall return to them again and again, 
 well knowing they will never fail us, never cease to instruct, never 
 
86 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 cloy. Hazlitt has indorsed this sentiment : he says, " I hate tf 
 read new books : there are twenty or thirty volumes that I hav*. 
 read over and over again, and these are the only ones I have any 
 desire ever to read at all. When I take up a book I have read 
 before, I know what to expect : the satisfaction is not lessened by 
 being anticipated : I shake hands with, and look our old, tried 
 and valued friend in the face, compare notes, and chat the hours 
 away." When it is remembered that books present us with the 
 quintessence of the most cultivated minds, freed from the alloy of 
 human passion and weakness, and that they are the media of our 
 acquiring the closest proximity and communion with the spirits of 
 the great and good of all ages, it cannot surprise us that books 
 should become such universal favorites. With the historian, for 
 instance, we lose sight of our own common-place monotonous exist 
 ence as we become fired with the enthusiasm of the apparently 
 more noble and illustrious achievements of the mighty dead ; or 
 traverse with the poet, the glowing fields of his own ideal world, 
 peopled with the bright creations of fancy ; while in our more 
 sober mood we gather from the grave teacher of ethics the collec 
 tive wisdom of all time, whence we may learn the true nobleness 
 of our destiny. " Talk of the necromancer of old," says an eloquent 
 writer, " with his wand, his charms, and his incantations ; what is 
 he to an author ? His charm is, that we lift the cover of his 
 book ; his incantation is its preface his wand the pen ; but what 
 can equal their power ? The spell is upon us ; the actual world 
 around us in gone." Honor, then, to those gifted ones who can 
 thus delight and instruct us : no praise or reward can be overpaid 
 to them while they are amongst us, nor any homage too great 
 when they are passed away. The works of an author are his 
 embalmed mind ; and grateful to the student s eye are the well- 
 understood hieroglyphics on this mental mummy-case that tell of 
 the worthy preserved within. What was the extolled art of the 
 Egyptians to this? Mind and matter the poet and the mon 
 arch Homer and king Cheops I 
 
CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. 87 
 
 " There they reign 
 
 (In loftier pomp than working life had known,) 
 The kings of thought ! not crowned until the grave, 
 When Agamemnon sinks into the tomb, 
 The beggar Homer mounts the monarch s throne ! 
 
 Who of us can tell 
 
 What he had been, had Cadmus never taught 
 
 To man the magic that embalms the thought 
 
 Had Plato never spoken from his cell, 
 
 Or his high harp blind Homer never strung ? 
 
 Kinder all earth hath grown since genial Shakspeare sung ? " 
 
 " If there be one word in our language," says a modern essayist, 
 " beyond all others teeming with delightful associations, Boohs is 
 that word." At that magic name what vivid retrospections of 
 by-gone years what summer days of unalloyed happiness, when 
 life was new rush on the memory. Who, in recalling the past, 
 does not delight to refer to the pleasures he has experienced in the 
 perusal of some favorite author ? Such incidents occur to most, 
 and they constitute bright episodes in the drama of life. Who, in 
 early youth, has not been lost to all external things in the rapt 
 enjoyment of those delectable emanations of genius The, Arabian 
 Nights, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim s Progress, books of 
 such singular interest and versimilitude, as to render them no less 
 the favorites of all ages and conditions ? Books are the living 
 mementoes of the master-spirits that sway the empire of mind ; 
 they are 
 
 " The assembled souls of all that men hold wise." 
 
 The moral advantages derived from a love of books are of the most 
 ennobling and refining tendency ; the passion for reading, while of 
 itself the most innoxious, humanizes and harmonizes all other pas 
 sions. "Books are a guide in youth and an entertainment for 
 age," says an old writer ; " they support us under solitude, and 
 keep us from becoming a burden to ourselves. They help us to 
 forget the crossness of men and things, and compose our cares and 
 
88 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 onr passions, and lay our disappointments asleep. When we are 
 weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing 
 of peevishness, pride or design in their communications." 
 
 They may be defined as the depositories of thought. They are 
 the fruits and flowers which intellectual husbandry culls from the 
 fields of imagination and reflection, well-springs from the fountains 
 of truth, or the pearls and precious metals that are produced from 
 the mental crucible. Deprived of these treasuries of knowledge 
 and wisdom, we should pine for that literary aliment which is as 
 essential to our mental economy as is animal food to our physical 
 well-being. Books constitute the electric chain that connects and 
 circulates the mental magnetism of our social economy. They 
 are the links that unite the past with the present, and spread 
 out before us the collective intelligence of all time. Says an old 
 poet 
 
 " Books are a part of man s prerogative, 
 
 In formal ink they form and voices hold, 
 That we to them our solitude may give, 
 And make time present travel that of old." 
 
 Good books beguile the sad and sorrowing of their griefs, and 
 especially the Book of books, that binds both worlds, and conducts 
 the patient pilgrim, as did the pillar of cloud and fire the Israelites 
 of old, to the promised land. 
 
 " Our religion itself is founded in books," says Bartholin, and 
 without them God is silent, Justice dormant, Physic at a stand, 
 Philosophy lame, Letters dumb, and all things involved in Cim 
 merian darkness." 
 
 " A book," continues another writer, " is the most astonishing 
 of all productions; the ultimate reach and highest finish of intel 
 lect ; the utmost attainments of the arts ; the wizard of mysterious 
 speech, which the astonished Red man, who admires nothing else, 
 holds to his ear, that it may whisper there its strange disclosures 
 to the eye of the Pale-face ; that sublime invention by which man 
 
CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. 89 
 
 approaches nearer to angels than by aught else he has accom 
 plished; the miraculous attainment of speaking to the eye and 
 embodying thought to the senses." 
 
 A book, again, has been styled a microcosm; a little world of 
 itself; the intellectual expression of its author. Tupper affirms 
 that an author s mind reigns dominant in his book ; in proof of 
 which, he cites the instance of Scott, whose life, he urges, naturally 
 produced his earlier romances. Southey, Shelley, and Wordsworth 
 also furnish like evidence. Byron, in his " Corsair," " Childe 
 Harold," and " Don Juan," has left us unequivocal proofs of the 
 hero-author. Shakspeare, Petrarch, and others, among poets, 
 and many writers of fiction, perhaps, might be added to the list. 
 
 How potent and enduring is the influence of a genuine book ! 
 Ages after its author has ceased to write, his recorded thoughts 
 will continue to awaken responses in the bosoms of the living. 
 Says the author of " Pdkam," 
 
 " The past but lives in words ; a thousand ages 
 Were blank, if books had not evoked their ghosts, 
 And kept the pale, embodied shades to warn us 
 From fleshless lips." 
 
 Books are our household gods; and we cannot prize them too 
 highly. They are the only gods in all the mythologies that are 
 ever beautiful and unchangeable; for they betray no man, and love 
 their lovers. " I confess myself an idolater of this literary religion, 
 and am grateful for the blessed ministry of books. It is a kind of 
 heathenism which needs no missionary funds, no Bible even, to 
 abolish it; for the Bible itself caps the peak of this new Olympus, 
 and crowns it with sublimity and glory. Amongst the many 
 things we have to be thankful for, as the result of modern discov 
 eries, surely this of printed books is the highest of all ; and I for 
 one, am so sensible of its- merits that I never think of the name of 
 Guttenberg without feelings of veneration and homage. I no 
 longer wonder, with this and other instances before me, why in 
 
90 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 the old days of reverence and worship, the saints and benefactors 
 of mankind were exalted into a kind of deini-gods,, and had worship 
 rendered to their tombs and memories: for this is the most natural, 
 as well as the most touching, of all human generosities, and springs 
 from the profoundest depths of man s nature. Who does not love 
 John Guttenberg, the man that with his leaden types made the 
 invisible thoughts and imaginations of the soul visible and readable 
 by all, and secured for the worthy a double immortality ? The 
 birth of this person was an era in the world s history second to none 
 save that of the advent of Christ. The dawn of printing was the 
 outburst of a new revelation, which, in its ultimate unfoldings and 
 consequences, are alike inconceivable and immeasurable. I some 
 times amuse myself by comparing the condition of the people 
 before the time of Guttenberg, with their present condition, that 
 I may fix the idea of the value and blessedness of books more 
 vividly in my mind. It is an occupation not without profit, and 
 makes me grateful and contented with my lot. In these reading 
 days one can hardly conceive how our good forefathers managed 
 to kill their superfluous time, or how at least they could be satis 
 fied to kill it as they did. A life without books, when we have 
 said all we can about the honor and nobility of labor, would be 
 something like heaven without God; scarcely to be endured by an 
 immortal nature. And yet this was the condition of things before 
 Guttenberg made his far-sounding metallic tongues, which reach 
 through all the ages that have since passed away, and make us 
 glad with their eloquence."* 
 
 We should tell nothing new to the reader at all conversant with 
 the pleasant and curious antiquities of bibliography, were we to 
 refer to the early materials and fabric of books, the Egyptian 
 papyrus plant, or the Herculaneum MSS., or the waxen tablets of 
 the Greeks and Romans, written with Isfae stylus, which has 
 afforded to our vernacular its two widely different terms style 
 
 * Essays by January Searle. 
 
CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. 91 
 
 and stilletto ; or of the metals which were sometimes used for 
 inscribing ; or of the skins first prepared at Pergamus, (parch 
 ment,) which the Romans, in their luxurious days, used to manu 
 facture in yellow and purple to receive the characters in liquid gold 
 and silver a mode continued by the monks in later days, and 
 specimens of which yet exist, executed in gorgeous style. 
 
 Among curious ancient relics still extant, may be mentioned 
 the- small fragment of writing on bark, about ten centuries old, 
 which is in the Cottonian Library. In his curious chapter 
 on early MSS., D Israeli gives the following ludicrous anec 
 dote, illustrative of the pious horror in which the classics were 
 held by the monks. To read a profane author was deemed 
 by the communites not only a very idle recreation, but even 
 regarded by some as a grave offence. To distinguish them, 
 therefore, they invented a disgraceful sign : when a monk inquired 
 for any pagan author, after making the general sign they used in 
 their manual and silent language when they wanted a book, he 
 added a particular one, which consisted in scratching under his 
 ear, as a dog is accustomed to do with his paw, "because," said 
 they, " an unbeliever is compared to a dog !" In this manner they 
 expressed an itching for those dogs Virgil and Horace. Notwith 
 standing the odium with which the writings of these despised 
 heathens were treated by some, there were others of a later date 
 to be found willing to become their possessors at enormous cost ; 
 even the transfer of an estate was not withheld to secure the boon ; 
 while the disposal of a manuscript was considered an event of such 
 importance as to require a public record. Louis XL, in 1471, was. 
 compelled to pledge a hundred golden crowns in order to obtain 
 the loan even of the MSS. of an Arabian scribe named Rasis. 
 
 Numerous other instances might be cited of a similar class, dur 
 ing the middle ages. For example, Stowe informs us that, in 1214, 
 a Bible in nine volumes, finely written, " sold for fifty markes," 
 something like <34 of that time, when wheat averaged 3s. 4d. per 
 quartern, and ordinary laboring wages were Id. per diem. This 
 
92 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 Bible was afterwards bought by the Earl of Salisbury, after hav 
 ing been taken from the King of France at the battle of Poictiers. 
 The Countess of Anjou is also said to have paid for a copy of the 
 Homilies of Bishop Huiman two hundred sheep, and other articles 
 of barter. 
 
 Parnarme, writing to the King of Naples, says, "you lately 
 wrote me from Florence that the works of Titus Livius are there 
 to be sold, in very handsome books, and that the price of each is 
 one hundred and twenty crowns of gold. Therefore I entreat your 
 majesty that you cause the same to be bought ; and one thing I 
 want to know of your prudence, whether I or Poggius have done 
 best, he, that he might buy a country house near Florence, sold 
 Livy, which he had writ in a very fine hand, or I, that I might 
 purchase the books, have exposed a piece of land for sale ?" 
 
 In Spain, books were so exceedingly scarce about this time, that 
 one and the same Bible often served for the use of several Monas 
 teries. And even the Royal Library at Paris down to the four 
 teenth century possessed only four of the classic authors, Cicero, 
 Lucan, Ovid and Boethius. 
 
 Previous to the invention of printing, block-books were not 
 uncommon. Raised words were cut on a block of wood, impres 
 sions from which were taken by means of simple pressure ; and in 
 this way was produced the Biblia Pauperum, or " Poor Man s 
 Bible," of the fourteenth century. It consisted of about forty 
 leaves of texts bound together, and was intended, probably, either 
 as a help to the preacher, or as a catechism for young people. 
 From this simple process, a similar one to which is still in use in 
 China, arose the first idea of moveable types, and to Guttenburg 
 we probably owe the invention of the art of printing. It was a 
 great step from the old block-books of rude and imperfect con 
 struction, to that of moveable types, though the first that were 
 used were rough and ungainly enough. The invention of printing 
 took place in the fifteenth century, (1437, it is believed,) though 
 the exact year has never been ascertained. It has been variously 
 
CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. 93 
 
 ascribed to Faust, his son-in-law Peter Schseffer, and John Guten 
 berg, to the last of whom, however, the credit of the main 
 idea is now generally accorded. These three celebrated men lived 
 in the German city of Meritz, or Mayence, on the confluence of the 
 Rhine and the Maine ; and their first experiments in printing from 
 moveable types were made in a house called the "Zum Jungen," 
 ever since known as the " Printing Office." 
 
 Few, while perusing the pages of a pleasant book pause to think 
 how many skillful hands have been busied in its curious fabrication, 
 or how many hours, or months, or years of studious toil have been 
 devoted by its author to its mental preparation. Its mere mechan 
 ism is worthy of note. Its paper is produced from a beautiful 
 fibrous plant, called linum, or flax ; the leaf of which is " rotted," 
 and, passing through certain processes, becomes cotton cloth ; this 
 again is reduced to a fluid pulp, is then dried and pressed, and 
 becomes paper* The "thoughts that breathe and words that 
 burn " are spelt, letter by letter, by the compositor, and the pages 
 of the volume receive their impress by the agency of steam. In 
 this, its chrysalis state, the book is submitted to the several pro 
 cesses of folding, sewing, and gluing, previous to its being put into 
 covers, when it receives its decorations from the finisher. This 
 complex creation of head and hand is a most cunning and delicate 
 piece of handicraft. It is that necromancy by which the pearls 
 and gems of genius are transmuted into the literary currency, and 
 thus they become the common property of mankind. It has both 
 a bodily form and an intellectual life, that diffuses abroad the light 
 of intelligence by its luminious lines. 
 
 In early times, we read of a Saxon king who gave away an 
 estate of eight hundred acres for a single volume, entitled Cosmo 
 graphy, or the, History of the, World. The exceeding paucity of 
 books in those days will account for the extraordinary premium at 
 which we find them generally estimated. A book was often 
 entailed with as much solemnity as the most valuable estate. 
 Thus, at the commencement of a breviary of the Bible, there is a 
 
94 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 memorial by the donor : "I, Philip, late Bishop of Lincoln, give 
 this book, called Petrus de Aureolis, to the new library about to 
 be built in the church of Lincoln ; reserving the use and possession 
 of said book to Richard Fryerby, clerk and prebendary of Milton, 
 to hold in fee, for the term of his natural life ; and afterwards to 
 revert to the said Library, or its keepers for the time being, faith 
 fully and without delay." There is another curious extract we 
 had marked, respecting the formalities observed on the purchase of 
 a book. It is from Peter the Lombard s Liber Sententiarum, and 
 reads as follows : " This book of sentences belongs to M. Rogers, 
 arch-deacon of Lincoln, who bought it from Geoffrey, the chap 
 lain, brother of Henry, vicar of Northalkington, in ye presence of 
 master John de Lee, master John de Living, Richard of Luda, 
 clerks, Richard ye almoner of said vicar, and many others ; and ye 
 said arch-deacon gave this boke to God and St. Oswald, to the 
 friar and the convent of Barden." Books were* deemed of such 
 value in these times, that they were often pledged to learned soci 
 eties, upon which a deposite was required. Oxford had a chest 
 for books thus pledged, which if not redeemed by a given day, 
 became the property of the University. The price of books was 
 so high that persons of moderate fortunes could not afford to pur 
 chase them. In the year 1174, Walter Prior, of St. Swithin, at 
 Winchester, purchased of the monks at Winchester, Bede s Homi 
 lies and St. Austin s Psalter, for twelve measures of barley and a 
 pall, on which was embroidered in silver the history of Birinas 
 converting a Saxon king. About the year 1255, Roger de Insula, 
 Dean of York, gave several Latin Bibles to the University of 
 Oxford, on condition that the students who perused them should 
 deposit a cautionary pledge. In 1299, the Bishop of Winchester 
 borrowed of his Cathedral Convent of St. Swithin, at Winchester, 
 the Bible with marginal notes, and gave a bond for the return of 
 it, drawn up with great solemnity. The Prior and Convent of 
 Rochester declared that they would every year pronounce the sen 
 tence of irrevocable doom on him who should purloin or conceal a 
 
CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. 95 
 
 Latin translation of Aristotle, or even obliterate the title. Among 
 the statutes of St. Mary s church in 1446, is one, "that no scholar 
 should occupy a book in the library above an hour or two, at 
 most." 
 
 The Pentateuch and the history of Job are the most ancient 
 books in the world ; and in profane literature the works of Homer 
 and Hesiod. The first book known to have been written in our 
 own vernacular was "The Confessions of Richard, Earl of Cam 
 bridge," temp. 1415 ; and the earliest English ballad is supposed 
 to be the " Cuckoo Song," which commences in the following obso 
 lete style : 
 
 " Sumer is icumen in 
 Lhude" sing cuccu, 
 Groweth sed, and bloweth med, 
 And sprigth ye wde" nu : 
 Singe cuccu " 
 
 Among the earliest illuminated MSS., we may mention the 
 renowned Codex Argenteus, so named from its being written in 
 liquid silver upon violet-colored vellum. It is a magnificent speci 
 men of its kind, and is further remarkable as being the only ex 
 tended specimen of the Maeso-Gothic known to exist. It exhibits 
 a very close resemblance to printing, although executed nearly a 
 thousand years prior to the discovery of the art. This choice lite 
 rary relic was first discovered in the Benedictine Abbey of Wor- 
 den, in Westphalia, about the year 1587 ; it subsequently passed 
 into the possession of Queen Christine of Sweden, then into that 
 of Yossius, and was finally purchased by a northern Count, Gubriel 
 de la Gardie, for .250, and by him presented to the University 
 of Upsala. 
 
 Within a few years, an ancient MS. copy of a portion of the 
 New Testament, written also in the* Frantic language, has been 
 discovered at Kheims Cathedral. Its date is stated to be about 
 the eleventh century ; and it is supposed to have been used in 
 
96 
 
 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 administering the coronation oath to the Kings of France. About 
 the latter part of the seventh century, we find reference made by 
 Bede to a magnificent copy of the Four Gospels, having been done 
 in letters of the purest gold upon leaves of parchment, purpled in 
 the ground and colored variously upon the suriace, for the decora 
 tion of the church at Ripon, at the instance of the famous Wilford. 
 The chronicler speaks of it as a prodigy, and we may infer from 
 this its rarity in those times. So costly a mode of producing 
 manuscripts could not have become general in any age ; accord 
 ingly, we find these magnificent specimens were expressly execu 
 ted for the nobles and princes of their times, or the higher digni 
 taries of the Church. An instance of this is to be seen in the 
 superb Prayer Book, of a like description with the foregoing, with 
 the addition of its binding, which was of pure ivory, studded with 
 gems, and is yet extant, we believe, in the celebrated Colbertine 
 library, founded by Charles the Bald. In the middle ages even, 
 the bishops bound books. With the monks, it was a common 
 employment. There were also trading-binders, called ligatores, 
 and they who sold the covers were called scrutarii. There are 
 many missals now in existence, with covers of solid silver gilt. 
 Gold, relics, ivory, velvet, large bosses of brass, and other expen 
 sive, adornments, were bestowed upon church-books, and those 
 intended for royal and great personages. Some of these manu 
 script copies of the Sacred Scriptures were, it is well known, 
 further embellished with elaborately-executed miniatures and 
 paintings. 
 
 We next meet with the magnificent Bible, presented by his 
 favorite preceptor, Alcuin, librarian to the archbishop of York, to 
 the great Charlemague, after he had learned to read and write; 
 (for, although among the wisest men of his age, he even com 
 menced his educational course at the tender age of forty-five.) 
 This remarkable copy of the Bible was in folio size, richly bound in 
 velvet; its embellishments were of the most superb description, its 
 frontispiece being brilliantly ornamented with gold and colors, and 
 
CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. 97 
 
 its text relieved by emblematic devices, pictures, initial .letters, etc. 
 This curious relic, which was in fine preservation, was sold by 
 Evans, in London, it may be remembered, in 1836, and produced 
 the sum of 1,500, or $7,500. The different libraries of Italy are 
 said to comprise many curious specimens. In that of St. Mary, at 
 Florence, may be seen a superb copy of the entire New Testament, 
 written on silk, including the liturgy, etc. At the end, the fol 
 lowing eccurs in the Greek character : " By the hand of the sin 
 ner and most unworthy mark; in the yeare of the worlde, 7840;" id 
 est. A. D. 1332. 
 
 In our bibliographical researches, we notice many striking illus 
 trations of the indefatigable perseverance and ingenuity of the 
 middle ages. One of the most conspicuous instances of the kind 
 upon record, is that of Guido de Jars, who devoted upwards of 
 half a century to the production of a manuscript copy of the sacred 
 Scriptures, beautifully written and illuminated. He began it in 
 his fortieth year, and did not finish it until his ninetieth, (1294.) 
 Few who have inspected such rare specimens of monkish taste and 
 toil, can fail to be struck with their exceeding beauty. Indeed, 
 as the delighted eye traverses these skillfully-wrought productions 
 of the ancient limners, or cons over the thrilling story of the heroic 
 doings it records, traced out in the quaint gothic character 
 scarcely less characteristic of those times, we cannot but frankly 
 confess our indebtedness to the illuminations of these so-called 
 dark ages. 
 
 One of the most celebrated books in the annals of bibliography, 
 is the richly illuminated Missal, executed for John, Duke of Bed 
 ford, Regent of France, under Henry VI.; by him it was pre 
 sented to that king, in 1430. This rare volume is eleven inches 
 long, seven and a half wide, and two and a half thick; contains 
 fifty-nine large miniatures, which nearly occupy the whole page, 
 and above a thousand small ones, in circles of about an inch and 
 half diameter, displayed in brilliant borders of golden foliage, with 
 variegated flowers, etc. ; at the bottom of every page are two lines 
 
 5 
 
98 - SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 in blue and gold letters, which explain the subject of each minia 
 ture. This relic, after passing through various hands, ascended 
 to the Duchess of Portland, whose valuable collection was sold at 
 auction, in 1786. Among its many attractions was the Bedford 
 Missal. A knowledge of the sale coming to the ears of George 
 III., he sent for his bookseller, and expressed his intention to 
 become the purchaser. The bookseller ventured to submit to his 
 majesty the probable high price it would fetch. " How high ?" 
 exclaimed the king. "Probably two hundred guineas," replied 
 the bookseller. " Two hundred guineas for a Missal !" exclaimed 
 the queen, who was present, and lifted her hands up with astonish 
 ment. "Well, well," said his majesty, "I ll have it still; but 
 since the queen thinks two hundred guineas so enormous a price 
 for a Missal, I ll go no further." The biddings for the Royal 
 Library did actually stop at that point; a celebrated collector, 
 Mr. Edwards, became the purchaser by adding three pounds 
 more. The same Missal was afterwards sold at Mr. Edwards 
 sale, in 1815, and purchased by the Duke of Marlborough, for the 
 enormous sum of 637 15s. sterling. 
 
 Amongst the numerous, rare, and costly relics contained in the 
 library of the Vatican, is the magnificent Latin Bible of the Duke 
 of Urbino; it consists of two large folios, embellished by numerous 
 figures and landscapes in the ancient arabesque, and is considered 
 a wonderful monument of art. There are also, by the way, some 
 autograph MSS. of Petrarch s " Rime," which evince to what an 
 extent he elaborated his versification. The mutilated parchment 
 scroll, thirty-two feet in length, literally covered with beautiful 
 miniatures, representing the history of Joshua, ornamenting a 
 Greek MSS. bearing date about the seventh century, is, perhaps, 
 the greatest literary curiosity of the Vatican. The Menologus, 
 or Greek Calendar, illustrated by four hundred rich and brilliant 
 miniatures, representing the martyrdom of the saints of the Greek 
 Church, with views of the churches, monasteries, basilics, is also 
 curious, as presenting specimens of the painting of the Byzantium 
 
CURIOUS AND COS"TLY/,BQO $ . 
 
 :99. 
 
 school, at the close of the tenth century. It contains also a fine 
 copy of the Acts of the Apostles, in letters of gold, presented by 
 Charlotte, Queen of Cyprus, to Innocent VIII. ; an edition of 
 Dante, exquisitely illuminated with miniature paintings by the 
 Florentine school; these pictures are of about the ordinary size of 
 modern miniatures on ivory, but far surpassing them in delicacy 
 of finish. 
 
 The practice of illuminating and decorating manuscripts was in 
 vogue in Ireland as early as the seventh century. In the subse 
 quent age there were some remarkable for their artistic beauty. 
 If they were defective in perspective and in harmony of color, they 
 were at least conspicuous for their delicacy and skill in design. 
 These beautiful memorials of the middle ages, moreover, afford 
 glimpses of the manners and customs of those times which the 
 monkish chronicles have failed to supply. Olfric, the Saxon monk, 
 deserves especial mention as having achieved the good work of 
 rendering portions of the Old Testament into his vernacular tongue. 
 "Whosoever," says he, "shall write out this boke, let him write it 
 according to the Coptic, and for God s love correct it, that it be 
 not faultie, lest he thereby be discredited and I shent." This wor 
 thy died A. D. 1006, at St. Albans; his bones were, in the reign 
 of Canute, removed to Canterbury. Laufranc was another labo 
 rious and erudite scribe, to whose industrious toils the Christian 
 world owes much ; and which the perils from prejudices and pious 
 frauds, during eight centuries of superstition and darkness, failed 
 to destroy. He ultimately became primate of England, and pat 
 ron of its learning. Another eminent guardian of the Bible was 
 the worthy Bishop Anselm. It was a noble design on the part of 
 the first printers, to rescue from threatened annihilation the great 
 classic works of antiquity. Many of these, it is well known, are 
 irretrievably lost; and those we now possess narrowly escaped a 
 similar fate. The preservation of the Holy Scriptures, however, 
 may undoubtedly be regarded as having been effected through the 
 special intervention of Divine Providence. It is on this account 
 
100 ISA^A-F FtfR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 that the integrity of the sacred text is regarded as unimpeachable, 
 and its canonical records complete. Yet those who refer the pre 
 servation of the Bible to mere human agency, may well become 
 skeptical on the subject. Distributed in fragments which were 
 hidden in obscure recesses of monasteries, it may well excite our 
 marvel that, in spite of the fiercest opposition of malignant men, 
 this inestimable treasure should have yet descended to us complete 
 and perfect. 
 
 In early monkish times, the few books that did exist seem to 
 have been sadly neglected. D Israeli, it will be remembered, fur 
 nishes a curious chapter on this subject. The most valuable copy 
 of Tacitus, of whom so much is wanting, was discovered in a mon 
 astery of Westphalia. It is a curious circumstance in literary his 
 tory, that we should owe Tacitus to this single copy ; for the 
 Roman emperor of that name had copies of the works of his illus 
 trious ancestor placed in all the libraries of the empire, and every 
 year had ten copies transcribed; but the Roman libraries seem to 
 have been all destroyed, and the imperial protection availed noth 
 ing against the teeth of time. 
 
 The original manuscript of Justinian s code was discovered by 
 the Pisans accidentally, when they took a city in Calabria ; that vast 
 code of laws had been in a manner unknown from the time of that 
 emperor. This curious book was brought to Pisa, and when Pisa 
 was taken by the Florentines, was transferred to Florence, where 
 it is still preserved. It sometimes happened that manuscripts were 
 discovered in, if we may so say, the last agonies of existence. 
 
 Papirius Masson found, in the house of a book-binder of Lyons, 
 the works of Agobart; the mechanic was on the point of using 
 the manuscripts to line the covers of his books. A page of the 
 second decade of Livy it is said, was found by a man of letters in 
 the parchment of his battledore, while he was amusing himself in 
 the country. He hastened to the maker of the battledore, but 
 arrived too late ! The man had finished the last page of Livy, 
 about a week before ! 
 
CURIOUS AND COST.LY BOOKS. 
 
 101 
 
 Raimond Soranzo, a lawyer in the Papal court, possessed two 
 books of Cicero, on Glory, which he presented to Petrarch, who 
 Ignt them to a poor aged man of letters, formerly his preceptor. 
 Urged by extreme want, the old man pawned them, and returning 
 home, died suddenly, without having revealed where he had left 
 them. They have never been recovered. 
 
 Dr. Dee s singular MSS. were found in the secret drawer of a 
 chest, which had passed through many hands undiscovered; and 
 that vast collection of state-papers of the secretary of Cromwell, 
 which formed about seventy volumes, accidentally fell out of the 
 ceiling of some chambers in Lincoln s Inn. 
 
 The book written by Henry VIII., which procured for him, 
 from the Pope, the absurd title of "Defender of the Faith," 
 and which is now scarcely less inappropriately used, was stolen 
 from the Vatican, about the close of the past century, and 
 coming into the possession of Payne, the bookseller, produced 
 for the worthy bibliopole the reversion of a life annuity from the 
 Marquis of Douglas. Dibdin speaks, in his Bibliographical Tour, 
 of Vestiga delle Terme de Tito, e loro interne Pitture, which com 
 prises fifty-nine very large plates of the arabesque decorations and 
 paintings in the baths of Titus, most elaborately ^md exquisitely 
 printed in opaque colors, like highly-finished miniatures, etc. It 
 is considered that no work was ever executed, which can compete 
 with this in the extraordinary brilliancy and beauty of its embel 
 lishments : they are said to be perfect. But one or two copies 
 exist, and are worth about two hundred guineas each. 
 
 Among the celebrated collectors of modern times may be nam 
 ed the late Duke of Sussex, Earl Spencer, and Heber, of England, 
 and Dr. Kloss, of Frankfort. The first named had something like 
 six thousand different editions of portions of the Bible; the larg 
 est collection of the kind ever formed. These, with other accu 
 mulated literary treasures, have been dispersed abroad, the library 
 having been sold some years since. Among the choice rarities 
 it contained, was a Hebrew and Chaldaic Pentateuch of the 
 
102 SALAD" F ( O,R THE SOLITARY. 
 
 thirteenth century, one of the richest illuminated Hebrew MSS. 
 in existence; the paintings were of wonderful beauty. 
 
 Besides sixteen vellum copies of the Vulgate, there were two 
 manuscript Bibles, profusely embellished with about one hundred 
 exquisite miniatures in gold and colors. In another copy there 
 were nearly fifty illustrative drawings of a very curious description, 
 one of which represented Adam delving and his spouse spinning ! 
 There is no " note" to indicate the name of the maker of the spin 
 ning-wheel. The Duke s rich collection comprised some French, 
 Italian, and Spanish Bibles and also an Italian manuscript, 
 entitled, " Historia de Yecchio Testamento," which is decorated 
 with about five hundred and twenty miniatures. It contained in 
 addition a choice copy of the Bible, once Queen Elizabeth s, which 
 she herself embroidered with silver ; and another in Arabic, which 
 once belonged to Tippoo Saib. 
 
 Horace Walpole s collection at Strawberry Hill deserves a pass 
 ing allusion. The proceeds of the auction sale of this costly library 
 produced 37,298. Among the numerous objects of virtu which 
 graced these literary spoils, we find a magnificent missal, perfectly 
 unique, and superbly illuminated, being enriched with splendid 
 miniatures by Raffaelle, set in pure gold and enamelled, and richly 
 adorned with turquoises, rubies, etc. The sides are formed of two 
 matchless cornelians, with an intaglio of the crucifixion, and 
 another Scripture subject ; the clasp is set with a large garnet. 
 This precious relic was executed expressly for Claude, Queen of 
 France, it was bought by the Earl Waldegrave for one hundred 
 and fifteen guineas. Another curious and costly specimen of bib 
 liography was a sumptuous volume, pronounced by the cognoscenti 
 one of the most wonderful works of art extant, containing the 
 Psalms of David written on vellum, embellished by twenty-one 
 inimitable illuminations by Don Julio Clovis, surrounded by 
 exquisite scroll borders of the purest arabesque, of unrivalled 
 brilliancy and harmony. Its binding is of corresponding splendor. 
 Its date is about 1537. This little gem produced from the 
 
CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. 103 
 
 purse of the above-named collector the sum of four hundred and 
 twenty guineas! 
 
 Queen Elizabeth, it appears from Dibdin, was a bibliomaniac of 
 trauscendant fame ; her " Gone Gospell Booke, garnished on th 7 
 onside with the crucifix," etc., is a precious object to the virtuoso. 
 It was the composition of Queen Catherine Parr, and was enclosed 
 in solid gold ; it hung by a gold chain at her side, and was the 
 frequent companion of the " Virgin Queen." In her own hand 
 writing at the beginning of the volume the following quaint lines 
 appear : " I walke many times into the pleasaunt fieldes of the 
 Holie Scriptures, where I plucke up the goodliesome herbes of 
 sentences by pruning ; eate them by readinge ; chawe them by 
 musing ; and laye them up at length in ye state of memorie by 
 gathering them together ; that so, having tasted their sweeteness, 
 I may the lesse perceave the bitternesse of this miserable life." 
 This was penned by the Queen probably while she was in captivity 
 at Woodstock, as the spirit it breathes affords a singular contrast 
 to the towering haughtiness of her ordinary deportment and 
 expression of character. The MS. of the Evangelists, which was 
 originally used at the inauguration of Henry I., and down to 
 Edward VI., is yet extant in the library of a gentleman in Nor 
 folk. It is written on vellum, bound in oaken boards an inch 
 thick, fastened together with thongs of leather and brass bosses ; 
 it is surrounded by a gilt crucifix, which the several kingly lips 
 have kissed in token of submission to their coronation oath. A 
 melancholy interest attaches to everything connected with the 
 career of the hapless Mary of Scots ; accordingly, we find great 
 value is placed on the Missal presented to the queen by Pius V., 
 and which accompanied her to the scaffold ; the illuminations are 
 said to be of extreme beauty. We read of a magnificent Mis 
 sal, nearly three feet in height, still extant in the library at Rouen, 
 which occupied the labor of a monkish devotee upwards of thirty 
 years. D Israeli also refers to a huge copy of the Koran proba 
 bly without a parallel, as to its size, in the annals of letters. The 
 
104 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 characters are described as three inches long ; the book itself a 
 foot in thickness, and its other dimensions five feet by three. It 
 was doubtless designed for such followers of the Prophet as might 
 be afflicted with imperfect vision. The writer s name deserves to 
 be recorded : it is Gholam Mohgoodeen. Recent investigations 
 at Turin have discovered some Greek MSS. of great antiquity, and 
 valuable as elucidatory of celebrated works, quoted by ancient 
 writers, heretofore deemed entirely lost. These MSS. were found 
 by a learned Greek, named Simonides, in a cave situated at the 
 foot of Mount Athos. They are composed of thin membranes, 
 filled with minute characters, which are supposed to afford a clue 
 to the hieroglyphic inscriptions engraved on the obelisk of the 
 Hippodrome at Constantinople. 
 
 There are some literary relics in the United States which merit 
 notice. In the library of Dr. Lord are some rare old tomes one 
 a MS. written on vellum, dated one hundred and forty years prior 
 to the era of printing. It is in Latin, and relates to the Sacra 
 ments. The other is a volume of Latin Synonyms with defini 
 tions, printed at Naples in 1490, one of the earliest books printed 
 with moveable types. It is in black-letter, and admirable for 
 its typography. The writer of these notes has in his possession a 
 copy of Quintilian on Old Age, in the Latin, printed in the Italic 
 character, at Cologne, in 1528. It has the book mark of the 
 renowned collector, Dr. Kloss, of Frankfort. It presents a speci 
 men of the old hog-skin binding, bevelled, with rude clasps, etc. 
 He has also Drexelius "De Eternitate," 1650, printed by Roger 
 Daniel, the University printer at Cambridge ; and remarkable as 
 an early specimen of engraving on silver. Also " The Sicke Mans 
 Salve, wherein the faithful Christias may learne both how to 
 behaue themselues patiently and thankfully in the time of sicknesse, 
 and also virtuously to dispose of their temporall goods, and finally 
 to prepare themselves gladly and godly to die, made by Thomas 
 Becon : printed in the Uack-ktter by John Daye, dwelling ouer 
 Aldersgate beneath S. Martins, 1574." The writings of this worthy 
 
CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. 105 
 
 have been reprinted within the last few years ; this volume, how 
 ever, is not included in the republication. This little tome was 
 formerly in the library of the late Duke of Sussex. 
 
 Mr. Waterman of Philadelphia, has a rare MS. on vellum, 
 (temp. 1200,) of exquisite delicacy in its chirography. It is 
 richly illuminated, every page being decorated with some ingen 
 ious device or picture. It is one of the most remarkable relics 
 that have descended to us. 
 
 There is in the possession of a gentleman in Charleston, a very 
 extraordinary literary curiosity a Hebrew Prayer-Book, one 
 thousand three hundred and fifty-seven years old. It is a ponder 
 ous volume, written on fine parchment. Dr. Grant, the Nestorian 
 Missionary, some years ago presented to the American Bible 
 Society a MS. folio copy of the Gospels in the Syriac, written in 
 the Estrongels character, and arranged in lessons for the liturgy 
 of the Jacobite Syrian Church. Its date is unknown, although 
 from its appearance it must be of great antiquity. In the State 
 Library at Harrisburg, are also some literary rarities; a copy of 
 Elliot s Indian Bible, printed at Cambridge, in quarto, 1680, and 
 a volume of an earlier date, (1532.) The dialect of this edition 
 of the Indian Bible is now unreadable, the tribes having become 
 since extinct. Speaking of the Bible, we may here mention that 
 the most esteemed Biblical MSS. are those of the Spanish Jews. 
 The most ancient are not more than nine or ten centuries old ; the 
 famous MS. of the Samaritan Pentateuch, in the possession of 
 the Samaritans of Sichen, is only five hundred years old. There 
 is a MS. copy of the Scriptures in the Bodleian Library, believed 
 to be seven hundred years old; and another in the Vatican, which 
 is supposed to have been written A. D. 973. There is in the Con 
 necticut Historical Society, a MS. of very ancient origin per 
 haps the oldest in the United States. It purports to have been 
 written at the Convent of the Mendicant Friars, at Cologne, A. D. 
 1268. It comprises various works in Latin, and forms a volume 
 of about five hundred pages. The same institution possesses 
 
106 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 a copy of Valerius Maximus, in perfect preservation; its date is 
 1471. This work may be considered unique, and is doubtless 
 the earliest printed volume in America. Mr, Mickley of Phila 
 delphia, has a splendid folio edition of the Bible in German, 
 printed at I^remburg, in 1475; it was formerly in the library of 
 the Duke of Sussex. Although produced only thirty-five years 
 after the discovery of printing, it presents a fine specimen of 
 typography, and is adorned with rich illuminations. 
 
 Mr. Lennox, of New York, who possesses a splendid library 
 of rare and costly works, has, among his collection a copy of the 
 Mazarine Bible which cost $2500 and other choice literary 
 relics. We now refer to the misapplied ingenuity of the monkish 
 scribes, evinced in their little books. We quote the following 
 quaint passage on the subject, by an old penman, Myles Davies: 
 " The smallness of the size of a book was always its own com 
 mendation; as, on the contrary, the largeness of a book is 
 its own disadvantage, as well as terror of learning. In short, 
 a big book is a scare-crow to the head and pocket of the 
 author, student, buyer, and seller, as well as a harbor of igno 
 rance; hence, the inaccessible masteries of the inexpugnable igno 
 rance and superstition of the ancient heathen, degenerate Jews, 
 and of the Popish scholasters and canonists, intrenched under the 
 frightful bulk of huge, vast and innumerable volumes ; such as the 
 great folio that the Jewish rabbins fancied in a dream was given 
 by the angel Raziel to his pupil Adam, containing all the celestial 
 sciences. And the volume writ by Zoroaster, entitled The 
 Similitude, which is said to have taken up no more space than one 
 thousand two hundred and sixty hides of cattle ; as also the twenty- 
 five thousand, or as some say thirty-six thousand volumes, besides 
 five hundred and twenty-five lesser MSS. of his. The grossness 
 and multitude of Aristotle s and Yarro s books were both a pre 
 judice to the author s, and an hindrance to learning, and an occa 
 sion of the greatest part of them being lost. The largeness of 
 Plutarch s treatises is a great cause of his being neglected; while 
 
CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. 107 
 
 
 Longinus and Epictetus, in their pamphlet remains, are every 
 one s companions. Origen s six thousand volumes (as Epiphanius 
 will have it) were not only the occasion of his venting more 
 numerous errors, but also for the most part of their perdition." 
 Were it not for Euclid s Elements, Hippocrates Aphorisms, 
 Jastinian s Institutes, and Littleton s Tenures in small pamphlet 
 volumes, young mathematicians, fresh-water physicians, civilian 
 novices, would be at a loss and total discouragement. Con 
 densed books, it is said, pay a deference to the reader s under 
 standing ; while pondereous and verbose treatises inflict need 
 less penalty upon his time and patience. The wearisome folio of 
 the olden time is now no longer tolerated, we must have every 
 thing in its most compact form. When both writers and readers 
 were few, both parties seem to have resigned themselves to the 
 painful infliction ; but such a state of things would now be mani 
 festly impossible, when books are multiplied a thousand-fold. It 
 was the literary humor of a certain Ma3cenas, when be entertained 
 his scribes, to place at the head of the table those who had pub 
 lished huge folios, next to them authors in quarto, and below them 
 the octavos and duodecimos. As specimens of ingenious trifling, 
 we might mention the minute document presented to Queen Eliza 
 beth. It comprised the Decalogue, Creed and Lord s Prayer, all 
 beautifully written in the compass of a finger-nail. By the aid of 
 glasses, the Queen could easily read the microscopic characters. 
 The Iliad was once written on vellum so small that a nut-shell con 
 tained it ; and an Italian monk wrote the Acts and Gospels in 
 compass of a farthing I Numerous similar instances might be 
 adduced, but it is needless to multiply them. The early scribes 
 found it much easier to write up to a folio, than down to the dimen 
 sions of a duodecimo ; for the condensing process was an art with 
 which they were wholly unacquainted. They might have profited 
 by the hint of Hudibrastic Butler, where he says 
 
 " Tis of books the chief 
 Of all perfections, to be plain and brief." 
 
108 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 We read of a remarkable character, M. Catherinot, who was a 
 most fertile and fecund writer ; he was all his life pouring out his 
 lucubrations from the point of his pen, upon an almost endless 
 variety of topics. He completely tired out all the publishers of 
 Paris ; yet, nothing discouraged, he adopted this singular expe 
 dient for disseminating his productions : when looking over the 
 literary wares of the book-stalls, he contrived to drop a copy of his 
 books among them. He formed the generous plan of supplying 
 literary food to the famishing, free of charge, when he found they 
 were too insensible to their own interests to buy for themselves. 
 
 Hone tells a story of the library of the King of India, Dabshe 
 lim, which was so numerous that one hundred Brahmins were scarce 
 sufficient to keep it in order, and it required one thousand drome 
 daries to transport it from one place to another. He ordered them 
 to set to work on an epitome ; in twenty years they produced a 
 cyclopedia of twelve thousand volumes. They presented it to 
 him, but, to their amazement, he professed himself incapable of 
 such extensive studies. The process of condensation was repeated 
 till the quintessence was reduced to a single folio. Meanwhile the 
 monarch -had grown decrepid with age and he was unable to read 
 even the single volume. His Vizier said to him : " Illustrious 
 Sultan, though I have but a very imperfect knowledge of your 
 library, yet I will undertake to deliver you a very brief and satis 
 factory abstract of it. You shall read it through in one minute, 
 and yet you shall find matter in it for reflection throughout 
 the rest of your life." Having said this, he took a palm-leaf, 
 and wrote upon it with a golden style the four following sen 
 tences : 
 
 1. The greater part of the sciences comprise but one single 
 word, perhaps ; and the whole history of mankind contains no more 
 than three : they are born, suffer and die. 
 
 2. Love nothing but what is good, and do all that thou lovest 
 to do ; think nothing but what is true, and speak not all that thou 
 thinkest. 
 
CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. 109 
 
 3. kings ! tame your passions, govern yourselves, and it will 
 be child s-play to you to govern the world. 
 
 4. kings ! people I it can never be often enough repeated 
 to you, what the half-witted venture to doubt, that there is no 
 happiness without virtue, and no virtue without the fear of God. 
 
 Antoine Zarot, an eminent printer at Milan, about 1470, was 
 the first on record who printed the Missal. Among other works 
 his execution in colors of the celebrated Missak Romanum in folio, 
 afforded a beautiful specimen of the art. The MS. copy seems to 
 have been of a most dazzling description, its original date MCCCCX. ; 
 every leaf is appropriately ornamented with miniatures surrounded 
 with exquisitely elaborated borders ; and its almost innumerable 
 initials which are richly illuminated in gold and colors, render it 
 unsurpassed by any known production of its class. It has been 
 estimated at 250 guineas. The Complutensian Polyglott, other 
 wise known as Cardinal Ximenes, deserves a passing notice among 
 the renowned books of by-gone times. This prodigious work was 
 commenced under the auspices of the above named prelate in 1502, 
 and for fifteen years the labor was continued without intermission ; 
 its entire cost amounted to 50,000 golden crowns ! Arnas Guillen 
 de Brocar was the celebrated printer of this stupendous work. Of 
 the four large vellum copies, one is in the Yatican, another in the 
 Escurial, and a third was bought by Herbets at the sale of the 
 McCarthy library for 600 guineas. According to Gonzales, a 
 Spanish historian, the earliest printed book of the "New World" 
 was executed by Joannes Paulus in 1549 a folio entitled " Ordi- 
 nationes Legumque Collectiones pro Conventu Juridico Mexicano" 
 
 About 1572 we meet with another splendid production the 
 Spanish Polyglott, printed by Christopher Plantin. A most mag 
 nificent copy upon vellum, in the original binding, was sold in 
 London some five and twenty years since for 1000 guineas! 
 and enormous as was this price, the copy was actually wanting 
 three out of the ten volumes those being in the Bibliotheque 
 Royale. One of the scarcest books in the language for there 
 
110 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 are, according to Dibdin, but two known copies extant is a little 
 black-letter tome of 1586, entitled, " A discourse of English* Poe- 
 trie," etc., one of which was sold in the Duke of Roxburgh s col 
 lection for .64. We might amuse the reader by citing a few of 
 the quaint and alliterative titles of some of the books of these 
 times. Take the following for instance : " A Footpath to Felidtie," 
 11 Guide to Godlinesse," " Swarme of Bees," " Plante of Pleasure and 
 Grove of Graces," 1586. These were most rife in the days of 
 Cromwell. There were many bordering closely on the ludicrous, 
 such as the one styled, " A Pair of Bellows to Blow off the Dust 
 cast upon John Fry ;" and a Quaker whese outward man the pow 
 ers thought proper to imprison, published "A Sigh of Sorrow for 
 the sinners of Zion, breathed out of a hole in the Wall of an Earthen 
 Vessel, known among men by the name of Samuel Fish" We might 
 multiply the numbers ad libitum; but must content ourselves with 
 adding one or two more. " A Reaping Hook well tempered for the 
 stubburn Ears of the coming Crop, or Biscuits baked in the oven of 
 Charity, carefully conserved far the Chickens of the Church, the 
 Sparrows of the Spirit, and the Sweet Swallows of Salvation." 
 To another we have the following copious description : " Seven 
 Sobs of a Sorrowful Soul for Sin, or the Seven Penitential Psalms 
 of t/ie Princely Prophet David, whereunto are also annexed William 
 Humuis s handful of Honeysuckles, and divers Godly and pithy 
 Ditties, now newly augmented." 
 
 An amusing anecdote is recorded of Sixtus Y., proving the sole 
 cism of Pontifical infallibility : it ascribes to the pompous edition 
 of the Bible, printed under the immediate inspection of the Pope, 
 in 1590, over two thousand typographical errors, notwithstanding 
 every sheet was submitted to the careful revision of his holiness 
 infallible eye ! Moreover, a severe anathema was by himself 
 appended to the first volume, against any person who should alter 
 or change any portion of the supposed immaculate text, yet so 
 glaring and notorious became the errors aforesaid in process of 
 time, that his successor, Clement VII., first had corrected slips 
 
CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. Ill 
 
 pasted over them, and afterwards actually had the temerity to cor 
 rect and thoroughly revise the whole in a new edition, thereby vir 
 tually ensuring his own excommunication ; in addition to which 
 he also annexed another anathema to the like effect. 
 
 The Mazarin Bible, so called, on account of its having been 
 found in Cardinal Mazarin s library, is considered to be the very 
 first book ever printed with metal types. The first Bible, of 1462, 
 is an edition which exhibits a matchless effort in the art of printing. 
 
 It is a remarkable and interesting fact, that the very first use 
 to which the discovery of printing was applied was the production 
 of the Holy Bible. This was accomplished at Mentz, between the 
 years 1450 and 1455. Gutenberg was the inventor of the art, 
 and Faust, a goldsmith, furnished the necessary funds. This Bible 
 was in two folio volumes, which have been justly praised for the 
 strength and beauty of the paper, the exactness of the register, and 
 the lustre of the ink. The work contained twelve hundred and 
 eighty-two pages, and for a long time after it had been finished and 
 offered for sale, not a human being, save the artists themselves, 
 knew how it had been accomplished. Of the printed Bible, 
 eighteen copies are now known to be in existence, four of which 
 are printed on vellum. Two of these are in England, one being 
 in the Grenville collection. Of the fourteen remaining copies, 
 ten are in England, there being a copy in the libraries of Oxford, 
 Edinburgh, and London, and seven in the collections of different 
 noblemen. The vellum copy has been sold as high as $1300. 
 
 There is a Bible still preserved, written on palm-leaves, in the 
 tFnviversity of Gottingen, containing 5376 leaves. Another 
 Bible, of the same material, is at Copenhagen. There were also, 
 in Sir Hans Sloane s collection, more than twenty manuscripts, in 
 various languages, on the same material. 
 
 At the Chapter House may be seen Doomsday Book, or the 
 Survey of- England, made by William the Conqueror, two volumes 
 on vellum of unequal size ; deed of resignation of the Scottish 
 Crown to Edward II. ; the Charter granted by Alfonso of Castile 
 
112 SAI^AD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 to Edward I., on his marriage with Eleanor of Castile, with a solid 
 seal of gold attached ; a Treaty of Peace between Henry VIII. 
 and Francis I. of France, with the gold seal attached in high 
 relief, and undercut, supposed to be the work of Benvenuto Cellini. 
 
 The first book which bears the name of the place where it was 
 printed, and those of the printers, (Faust and Shoeffer, 1457,) was 
 the celebrated Psalter, printed from large cut type. The Literct 
 Indulgentiarum Nicholai V., on a single piece of parchment, was 
 issued two years previously, and is the first instance of a printed 
 book, bearing date: a copy of this work, which is said by Dr. 
 Dibdin to be of inconceivable beauty, is to be found in the cele 
 brated Library at Blenheim. 
 
 The names of John Nicholls and John Boydell, who died about 
 the year 1804, take prominent rank among the producers of 
 splendid books ; they have the credit of having expended the 
 princely sum of 350,000 in fostering and improving the sister arts 
 of painting and engraving. Their magnificent " Shakspcare Gal 
 lery " is even to this day a noble monument of their enterprise and 
 skill. The gigantic speculation unfortunately failed, superinducing 
 a loss to its projectors of over 100,000. Every one has heard 
 of Dugdale s "Monasticon Anglicanum," in eight huge folios, which 
 was originally published in fifty-four parts ; the entire cost of a 
 large paper copy was 238 10s. Latlran s History of Birds" 
 was also a very splendid work, in eleven royal quarto volumes, 
 comprising descriptions of above four thousand specimens, illus 
 trated by a series of over two hundred richly-colored embellish 
 ments : the original publication price was about 50. Murphy s 
 " Arabian Antiquities of Spain" was a beautiful specimen of art ; 
 its exquisite line engravings discover wonderful finish : it cost ten 
 thousand guineas in its execution. Again, the splendid ceremonial 
 of the coronation of George IV., under the superintendence of the 
 late Sir George Naylor, of the Herald s College, furnishes another 
 illustrious instance of costly bibliography. Notwithstanding the 
 grant of the government of 5000 towards the expenses, the 
 
CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. 113 
 
 undertaking also was a great pecuniary failure. It contained 
 a series of magnificent paintings of the royal procession, ban 
 quet, etc., etc., comprehending faithful portraits of the leading 
 personages, all gorgeously tinted and emblazoned : the sub. 
 scription price of the work was fifty guineas. We might 
 allude to the progresses of Queen Elizabeth and James I., the 
 former in three, and the other four, volumes, royal quarto, both 
 works of repute : but the magnificent work of Pistolesi on the 
 Vatican, in seven royal folios, containing seven hundred large and 
 beautiful engravings, is a still more stupendous affair : as also 
 Napoleon s great work on Egypt, which is a noble monument of 
 art, there being no other of the same description in Europe which 
 will bear any comparison with it. The size and execution of the 
 engravings are such as must always excite admiration ; many of 
 the plates being the largest ever produced, and at no other 
 establishment in Europe than the Imperial printing-press at Paris, 
 could it have been brought out on the same gigantic scale. 
 
 The bibliographic connoisseur will remember the unique copy of 
 Valdarfer s edition of " II Decamerone di Boccaccio " of the Roxburgh 
 collection, which once produced the almost incredible sum of over 
 two thousand guineas; the celebrated edition of Livy, exquisitely 
 printed on vellum by Sweynheim, in 1469, which was sold for four 
 hundred and fifty guineas; and the far-famed Greek Testament of 
 Erasmus, printed at Basil, 1519, of which but one copy is now 
 known to exist, being in the cathedral of York, and of which that 
 renowned collector, Sir Mark Sykes, was refused the purchase at 
 the prodigious offer of one thousand guineas. Bodini, the great 
 Italian printer, produced some splendid specimens of his art ; some 
 of which are said to be unexcelled by any subsequent efforts. His 
 edition of Walpole s " Castle of Otranto," is one of the loveliest 
 little gems extant; the plates are worked on white satin, and the 
 text on the purest vellum. His chief d aeuvre was his " Homer," 
 in three folio volumes : it was the work of six years. 
 
 Young s "Museum Worsleyanum" cost 2 1, 000 in its production; 
 
114 SALID FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 it was never published, although a copy has been purchased at 
 400. A few years ago, a typographical wonder, was exhibited 
 in London, being a sumptuous edition of the New Testament, 
 printed in gold, on porcelain paper of most immaculate beauty, 
 and, for the first time, on both sides. Two years were occupied in 
 perfecting the work. Only one hundred copies were taken off. 
 
 An interesting specimen, which may be known to very few, and 
 which is, for its kind, unsurpassed in the annals of literature, is the 
 great historical work which has recently been completed by the 
 late Mr. Wiffen, the admirable translator of Tasso, and other 
 popular works, which comprises the Family Records of every 
 descendant of the ancient and distinguished House of Russell, 
 compiled from authentic sources, chiefly in the possession of the 
 family. This very beautiful production, which includes the Por 
 traits of every member of that Peerage, direct and collateral, painted 
 by one of the most prominent artists of the age, (Harding,) is 
 comprised in one folio volume, printed in a style of sumptuous 
 magnificence; only one single copy of which was printed off. The 
 unique bequest by the late Duke of Bedford, under whose personal 
 superintendence it was commenced and completed, was designed 
 by him as an heirloom in the family, and to be deposited in the 
 Library at Woburn Abbey, from whence it was on no account to 
 be removed. It cost the Duke three thousand guineas. 
 
 The most costly undertaking ever attempted by a single indivi 
 dual, of a literary character, which unquestionably the world has 
 yet seen, is the magnificent work on the "Aborigines of Mexico," by 
 the late Lord Kingsborough. This stupendous work is said to 
 have been produced at the enormous cost to the author of 30,000, 
 or $150,000. It is comprised in seven immense folio volumes, 
 embellished by about one thousand superb illustrations, colored so 
 exquisitely as to represent the originals with the most faithful 
 exactness. These volumes are of extraordinary dimensions. This 
 unprecedented instance of munificence in the patronage of litera 
 ture, is rendered the more astonishing from the lamentable fact of 
 
CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. 115 
 
 its having proved the ultimate ruin of its projector. Not only did 
 this enthusiastic nobleman undertake to defray the entire expense 
 attending the publication, in every item of which, as it might have 
 been expected, he had to meet the most exorbitant charges, but 
 he actually determined on having but a very limited number of 
 copies printed, we believe only fifty, after which the lithographic 
 drawings from which the plates were taken, were erased. These 
 copies were appropriated for gratuitous presentation to the several 
 Royal and Public Libraries of Europe. It is painful to add that 
 this noble patron of literature and the arts, actually died in debt, 
 a few years since, a sad instance of self-immolation to his munifi 
 cence, in a prison in Dublin. A cony of this gorgeous work is in 
 the Philadelphia Library. 
 
 Humboldt s Mexico is another splendid work : the same may be 
 said of Merrick s Ancient Armour, Mayer s Egypt, and many 
 others : indeed, to cite all under the category would require a 
 space far exceeding that allotted us for the present paper. 
 
 A rage for illustrating formerly obtained to a great extent. It 
 is noted by Granger, a great collector, that a certain female of his 
 acquaintance commenced the illustrating the Bible, and that before 
 she had reachedj;he 25th verse of the 1st chapter of Genesis, the 
 number of her prints had reached seven hundred ! Perhaps the 
 most illustrious of all illustrated works, is the extraordinary copy of 
 Shakspeare, in possession of Earl Spencer, a work which owes its 
 existence to the wonderful perseverance and taste of the Dowager 
 Lady Lucan, his mother-in-law. For sixteen years, this herculean 
 and pleasurable task was in progress. It is unnecessary to 
 attempt a description of this costly work, as it contains whatever 
 of taste, beauty, and refinement in decoration it was possible to 
 combine in the embellishment of Buhner s beautiful folio edition of 
 the great poet. This superb work is enclosed in rich velvet bind 
 ing, surmounted with silver gilt clasps, corners, etc. " It is kept," 
 to adopt the enthusiastic language of Dibdin, who has enjoyed the 
 advantage of personally inspecting it, " inviolate from the impuri- 
 
116 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 ties of bibliomaniacal miasmata, in a sarcophagus-shaped piece of 
 furniture of cedar and mahogany." 
 
 The largest work ever yet attempted, is the " Encyclopedic 
 Methodique," commenced at Paris, in 1782, being a collection of 
 dictionaries on the several departments of science and knowledge, 
 which has, we believe, extended to 250 quarto volumes. 
 
 In Thibet, there is said to be a Cyclopaedia in forty^four 
 volumes. The largest work ever undertaken in Russia is the 
 great national Encyclopaedia, on which several hundred literary 
 men have been long engaged; we have not at hand the extent to 
 which this gigantic production has already reached, although it 
 cannot be very inferior in numbers to the voluminous works of 
 Germany and France. 
 
 Hall s "Ancient Ballads" is an instance of rich and luxurious 
 specimen of the art. Printing in colors is another auxiliary in 
 modern book embellishments, an instance of the kind is to be 
 seen in the sumptuous edition of Lockhart s " Spanish Ballads," 
 published a few years ago by Murray. 
 
 It is not a little remarkable to note the tendency of the literary 
 taste of the present day; as if, having exhaused the stores of all 
 cotemporary skill and ingenuity, it now reverts b^ck to the semi- 
 barbarous age of Gothic book-embellishment. The same remark 
 is no less applicable to the sister arts of poetry, painting, sculp 
 ture, architecture, etc. The poet no longer seeks the classic Greek 
 from which to paint the ideal, but prefers to portray the imagery 
 of monkish pageantry during the days of the ascendency of the 
 Latin Church. And is not this equally true of our architectural 
 standard, in the prevailing preference for the florid Gothic of our 
 religious edifices ? To resume, there are already published seve 
 ral very costly illuminated works of matchless brilliancy and 
 splendor; for instance, Shaw s "Dresses and Decorations of the 
 Middle Ages," in two noble volumes. It comprises illustrations of 
 costumes, manners, and arts of Europe, from the seventh to the 
 seventeenth centuries. Another gorgeous work is the " Palao- 
 
CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. 117 
 
 graphia Sacra Pidoria," by Westwood, containing fac-similes of 
 Anglo-Saxon, Greek, Sclavonic and other MSS., richly illustrated. 
 One volume is only yet published. Its cost is $250. There is 
 also a fac-simile edition of the original works of Froissart, being 
 printed in gold, silver and colors. A similar work, and indeed 
 many others of the class, are in course of publication at Paris; 
 but we must refrain from extending our remarks further. We 
 might just mention one other, entitled " The Arabesque Frescoes of 
 Rufaelle" a work of magnificent preparations. 
 
 The best copy in existence of the Caxtonian edition of Gower s 
 " De Confessione Amantis," 1483, one of the rarest among 
 printed books, when found perfect, was purchased by a Dublin 
 bookseller, at Cork, with a lot of old rubbish, (in 1832,) for a 
 mere trifle, and was sold afterwards for more than 300. It is 
 now in the celebrated Spencer Library at Althorp. 
 
 Old books, like old wines, sometimes thus increase in value in 
 the ratio of their age. The mania for the antique in books still 
 obtains among "book-worms" and bibliomaniacs. Owen Jones 
 Alhambra presents a magnificent specimen of the opulent taste 
 devoted to the revival of the illuminations of monkish times 
 and it offers no mean tribute to their patient industry and skill 
 that, even with our advanced state of arts, they should be referred 
 to as models. Speaking of Owen Jones Alhambra, reminds us 
 of the superb copy of that work exhibited at the New York 
 Crystal Palace. The binding which was executed by Mathews, 
 of New York, occupied six months in its completion, and cost 
 upwards of $500. It is in pale Russia, illuminated with colored 
 Morocco: it differs from most costly bindings by being solely the 
 work of the book-binder, no jewelry or artistic ornament having 
 been employed in the decoration. As a specimen of chastened 
 elegance and beauty this volume bears the palm of excellence. 
 It is stated in a Brussels paper that a gigantic work is in 
 progress at Bruges, which will require twenty years for its comple 
 tion. M. Depacppe of that city proposes to produce in Gothic 
 
118 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 letters " E Imitation de Jesus Christ," by the Abbe d Assance. 
 This work will fill 670 pages, each of which will be about three- 
 quarters of a yard in height, by eighteen inches wide. They will 
 have to execute 114 engravings, forming copies of the great mas 
 ters of the Flemish school, viz. Yan Eyck, Memling, Pourbus, 
 Claessens, etc.; the pages on which will be displayed the " Imita 
 tion of Jesus Christ" will be encircled with garlands and other 
 ornaments, in blue and gold. Here, however, we must close our 
 desultry sketch, although the half has not been noted, of our 
 pleasant researches so exuberant are the stores of the bibliogra 
 phic wealth of the "republic of letters." 
 
 Having thus regaled our mental vision with a brief and furtive 
 glance at the exuberant riches of ancient and modern bibliogra 
 phy, we pause not to moralize on this mighty mausoleum of 
 departed genius and skill; but simply to advertise the reader of 
 the fact, that amidst all the magnificent display spread out before 
 our delighted sense, one delectable tome of all the rest, which 
 would most irresistibly tempt us to infringe a certain canon of the 
 decalogue nay, two of them is Smith s " Historical and Literary 
 Curiosities," consisting of an immense collection of most valuable 
 autograph letters of noble, royal and literary characters of the 
 past and present ages. 
 
SOMETHING ABOUT NOTHING. 
 
 " Nothing can now be said which has not been said before," 
 
 NOTHING will therefore now be presented to the reader for his 
 contemplation. If we offer nothing, nothing will, of course, be 
 expected, and nothing we may write will offend any one, provided 
 we stick to our text. 
 
 " Which way the subject theme may gang, 
 
 Let time or chance determine ; 
 
 Perhaps it may turn out a sang, , 
 
 Or probably a sermon." 
 
 We have therefore determined to offer nothing, for which no 
 apology will be required. Every thing is of some value and 
 interest to somebody, but nothing concerns nobody and ie a 
 nonentity. Permit us then to offer a word or two suggestive of 
 this remarkable negative noun, this cipher in numbers so fre 
 quently in vogue, yet never in existence for certainly nothing 
 can offend if nothing is affirmed. Perhaps you may remember 
 some occasions when nothing was preferable to anything, the 
 next of kin to nothing is nobody and certainly there have been 
 sundry times and seasons when nobody would have been preferred 
 to anybody : it is not impossible that nothing, on the present 
 
120 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 occasion, may be preferred to anything else, and this is our apo 
 logy for presenting so dark, mysterious and occult a subject to 
 your contemplation. Out of nothing what marvels have sprung 
 into being. Nothing is a momentous affair it must be of impor 
 tance to some, and to affirm this of none, would be to assert it of 
 all since nothing is more self-evident than that two negatives 
 create a positive. If nothing engages our attention at present, 
 nothing interests us, (if we may be pardoned the ill-disguised 
 egotism, ) we are talking about nothing, and we shall gain nothing 
 by anything that may be said. 
 
 Nothing is certainly a fact, and yet every fact is something 
 nothing seems to be intangible and ideal, and yet it is a reality 
 with all our labored attempts at its exposition, we must sum up all 
 and confess it is a mysterious something some may think we 
 are making a great deal out of nothing ; this is just what we pur 
 pose to effect. The fact is there is no end to nothing it is a 
 circle without beginning or end and we are persuaded we shall 
 never get to the end of our theme, unless we leave off as we 
 commenced. 
 
 Addison has a capital paper on Nonsense which seems to chime 
 in so admirably with the foregoing if indeed the reader may 
 thfnk it too nonsensical to tag on anything more that we intro 
 duce some of its pithy paragraphs. " Hudibras," he says, " has 
 denned nonsense (as Cowley does wit) by negatives. Nonsense 
 (says he) is. that which is neither true nor false. These two great 
 properties of nonsense, which are always essential to it, give it 
 such a peculiar advantage over all other writings, that it is incapa 
 ble of being answered or contradicted. * * * A man may as 
 well hope to distinguish colors in the midst of darkness, as to find 
 out what to approve or disapprove in nonsense. In a word, there 
 are greater depths and obscurities, greater intricacies and per 
 plexities, in an elaborate nd well written piece of nonsense, than 
 in the most abstruse and profound tract of school divinity. There 
 are two kinds of nonsense high and low. Low nonsense is the 
 
SOMETHING ABOUT NOTHING. 121 
 
 fruit of a cold phlegmatic temper. A writer of this complexion 
 gropes his way softly among self-contradictions, and grovels in 
 absurdities. He has neither wit nor sense, and pretends to none. 
 High nonsense, on the contrary, blusters and makes a noise ; it 
 stalks upon hard words, and rattles through polysyllables. It is 
 loud and sonorous, smooth and periodical. It assumes a most 
 majestic appearance, and wears a garb like JEsop s ass clothed 
 in the lion s skin. In a word, it so imposes upon us by high 
 sounding words, that one is apt to suppose they must signify some 
 thing." Thus much for nonsense, which we here throw in as an 
 episode to nothing. 
 
 In our analysis of nothing, we ought not to forget its first syl 
 lable no, the second syllable, thing, may speak for itself. Any 
 thing is not nothing ; but a thing is a thing ; this is a self-evident 
 proposition. A cotemporary* has so ably discussed the little 
 negation, that we take the liberty of presenting his strictures to 
 the reader. 
 
 " A very little word is No. It is composed of but two letters 
 and only forms a syllable. In meaning it is so definite as to defy 
 misunderstanding. Young lips find its articulation easy. Any 
 child can spell it. Unlike some words of learned length, spoken 
 only on rare occasions, its use is common and familiar. Not an 
 hour passes in company but we hear it repeated. It would be a 
 task to carry on conversation for a few minutes without its aid. 
 Diminutive in size, evident in import, easy of utterance, frequent 
 in use, and necessary in ordinary speech, it seems one of the 
 simplest and most harmless of all words. Yet there are those to 
 whom it is almost a terror. Its sound makes them afraid. Upon 
 then lips, when forced to pronounce it, it hangs heavily as lead 
 They would expurgate it from their vocabulary if they could. An 
 easy and good-natured class of people they are. They like always 
 to agree with their friends. To them the language of contradic- 
 
 The Merchant s Ledger. 
 6 
 
122 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 tion is uncongenial. The ranks of disputants obtain from them 
 few recruits. They cannot differ from others without a painful 
 effort, which they seldom make. It is in their nature to drift down 
 the stream rather than resist the current. When urged to any 
 thing by companions, they find it all but impossible to say No. 
 The little monosyllable sticks in their throat. Their pliable and 
 easy temper inclines them to conformity, and frequently works 
 their bane. Assailed by the solicitations of pleasure they are 
 sure to yield, for at once and resolutely they will not repeat No. 
 Plied with the intoxicating cup they seldom overcome, for their 
 facil nature refuses to express itself in No. Encountering temp 
 tation in the hard and duteous path they are likely to falter and 
 fall, for they have not boldness to speak out the decided negative 
 No. Amid the mists of time, and involved in the labyrinthine 
 mazes of error, they are liable to forget eternal verities and join 
 the ribald jest, for they have not been accustomed to utter an em 
 phatic No. Their talents may be of a high order, their dispo 
 sition amiable and generous, and their prospects flattering; but 
 this one weakness may at any time prove fatal to their hopes. 
 
 11 All the noble souls and heroes of history have held themselves 
 ready, whenever it .was demanded, to say No. The warrior said 
 No to the obstacles which threatened the success of his arms, 
 and rose against them in his might, and made them as the dust of 
 his feet. The statesman said No to the imperious and insulting 
 demands of an excited populace or a foreign foe, and devised the 
 plans by which the language of demand was exchanged for the 
 language of entreaty and supplication. The poet said No to the 
 sloth and indolence which consumed his precious hours, and wove 
 for himself in heavenly song a garland of immortality. The mar 
 tyred hosts said No, to the pagan powers that demanded a recan 
 tation of their faith, and swift from the fire and the torture their 
 souls up-rose to the rewards and beatitude of heaven. The 
 greatest and best of all that ever trod our earth, the holy One 
 himself, was incessant in his labors of self-denial, and even thereby 
 
SOMETHING ABOUT NOTHING. 123 
 
 he won the honors of his cross. Great men have grown great by 
 repeating No at every step of their progress. To ease, to inglo 
 rious joyance, to pleasure, to hardship, they said No. This was 
 their warchword, this the source of their victories. Copernicus 
 said No, and the baseless system of Ptolemy fell. Luther said 
 No to the abuses of the Church and the Reformation sprung into 
 life. Columbus said No, to adverse circumstances and refractory 
 mariners, and America was discovered. The Puritans said No, 
 to English tyranny, and they founded a nation and new homes on 
 this continent. The colonies of North America said No to 
 British misrule, and the United States came into being. Fulton 
 said No to those who pronounced his scheme valueless, and pro 
 ceeded to launch the first steam-boat on the Hudson. But why 
 enumerate farther ! In the slow advancement of mankind No 
 has ever proved a word of power. Before it error consecrated by 
 antiquity has fallen, and truth has risen in her splendor. Every 
 falsehood refuted and denied is a step to truth ; every impediment 
 vanquished an advance to greatness. It is but fair to observe, 
 however, that even in the use of this word there may be an abuse. 
 As there are minds too pliable and gentle, so there are others too 
 dogmatic and contradictory. On little occasions, and for trifling 
 reasons, one may acquire a vile and disagreeable habit of dispute 
 and denial. In things of no moral or practical account it is wise 
 to be conciliatory and compliant. The most decided of men need 
 not be impolite, or unpleasing in society. But when duty or pro 
 priety demands it, no one should be ashamed to speak No. 
 
 "Few have learned to speak this word 
 
 When it should be spoken ; 
 Resolution is deferred, 
 Vows to virtue broken. 
 
 More of courage is required, 
 
 This one word to say, 
 Than to stand where shots are fired 
 
 In the battle fray, 
 
124 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 Use it fitly, and ye ll see 
 
 Many a lot below 
 May be schooled, and nobly ruled 
 
 By power to utter No. " 
 
 But to begin again: Most persons prefer something as the 
 theme of their discourse ; by way of variety, and for the sake of 
 steering out of the beaten track, we insist on nothing. That the 
 origin of this shadowless subject, like much of our legendary lore, 
 is enveloped in the mists of remote antiquity, as well as shrouded 
 in the obscurity of modern metaphysics, will not be disputed. It 
 will be further admitted that nothing is a slender peg to hang any 
 ideas upon ; it is premised, therefore, that the expectations of the 
 reader, in this respect, should be restrained within moderate limits, 
 as otherwise it is possible, from paucity of wit on our part, the 
 present attempt at its illustration may prove less than nothing. 
 Were we, according to clerical precedent, to divide, and sub-divide 
 our subject, its hydra-heads would, we fear, be found brainless 
 phantoms, and the fabled task of Hercules but prove alike profit 
 less to the reader, and perplexing to the writer. 
 
 Nothing, or no thing, is applied either as a noun or adjective 
 stands for non-existence no-entity or nihility, from the Latin root 
 nihil. Its antagonistic term is something; and, although it is like 
 comparing shadow with substance, yet, however invidious the 
 comparison may prove, we are of necessity compelled to adopt the 
 alternative. Talk of the mysteries of metaphysics what are they 
 as contrasted with the inextricable mazes of this strange, inde 
 scribable phantasm ? What, indeed, can be affirmed of a thing 
 that has no physical existence ? All we can say of it is, that it is 
 not extant, or in legal phrase non est inventus. In this dilemma, 
 our only escape is to treat it negatively ; this indeed seems per 
 fectly consistent with the nature and attributes of our ghostly 
 subject. First, then, nothing is nothing ; not anything : its 
 history consequently is a series of negations no beginning no 
 existence no end ; and yet, paradoxical as it may sound, nothing 
 
SOMETHING ABOUT NOTHING. 125 
 
 I 
 
 is associated with almost everything. It enters into all the 
 sinuosities and diversified circumstances of our social economy, 
 as well as links itself with the sublime story of the steller firma 
 ment. In this view, our intangible topic begins to assume a 
 seemingly opaque form. For example, the great globe we inhabit 
 is suspended upon nothing ; and as to its original substance, 
 for aught we know to the contrary, it was evoked into being, 
 by the fiat of its Divine Author out of nothing. And as it 
 seems to have puzzled astronomers to determine both the origin 
 and destiny of the moon, conjecture may not go widely astray, if a 
 like mysterious paternity be assigned to the luminous orb, the poets 
 so delight to celebrate. Then, again, as to the three kingdoms of 
 nature animal, vegetable, mineral what are their source and des 
 tiny ? Can we discern the point of their origin or their dissolution ? 
 The words of an old song seem to chime in here so well, that we 
 must be excused citing them in this place. 
 
 "When rhyming with reason at first were in fashion, 
 And poets and authors indulg d in their passion, 
 Select what they might, for their subject was new, 
 And that s more than our modern scribblers can do 
 
 The ancients have work d upon each thing in nature, 
 Describ d its variety, genius and feature ; 
 They having exhausted all fancy could bring, 
 As nothing is left, why of nothing we sing. 
 From nothing we came, and whatever our station, 
 To nothing we owe an immense obligation ; 
 Whatever we gain, or whatever we learn, 
 In time we shall all into nothing return. 
 
 This world came from nothing, at least so says history ; 
 Of course about nothing there s something of mystery ; 
 Man came from nothing, and by the same plan, 
 Woman was made from the rib of a man. 
 Since then a man thinks a nothing of taking, 
 A woman to join and again his rib making ; 
 As nothing can give so much joy to his life, 
 Since nothing s so sweet as a good humor d wife. 
 
126 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 Thinking of nothing is some folk s enjoyment, 
 Doing of nothing is many s employment; 
 The love of this nothing have some folks so strong 
 They say nothing do nothing all the day long ; 
 Some pass their time nothing beginning, 
 By nothing losing, and by nothing winning; 
 Nothing they buy, and nothing they sell, 
 Nothing they know and nothing thoy tell. 
 
 There s something in nothing exceedingly clever, 
 Nothing will last out for ever and ever ; 
 Time will make everything fade away fast, 
 While nothing will surely endure to the last. 
 
 That life is all nothing its plainer and plainer, 
 
 So he who gets nothing is surely a gainer ; 
 
 Thus much we prove pretty plain, 
 
 Take nothing from nothing, there ll nothing remain 
 
 Thus with this nothing the time out we re spinning, 
 
 Nothing will sometimes set many folks grinning, 
 
 Reader, believe it, while all this is true, 
 
 And the author wrote this having nothing to do." 
 
 Nothing was in vogue in ancient times, quite as universally as 
 in ours. The Egyptian task masters, (to cite the authority of 
 Holy Writ,) required the captive Israelites to fabricate bricks out 
 of nothing. A certain English bishop, on a certain occasion, 
 found, to his surprise, placed on his pulpit, in lieu of his usual 
 written sermon, merely some sheets of blank paper. His presence 
 of mind, however, furnished him ample material for he is said to 
 have preached one of the best discourses he ever delivered from 
 his text nothing. He commenced, as usual, turning over the 
 leaves, by saying, " Here, my brethren, is nothing ; and out of 
 nothing God created the world !" etc. Many a sermon has ended 
 in nothing, but this is the only instance we remember in which 
 nothing furnished its commencement, its substance, and its close, 
 with such signal success. Again, nothing is the very life and soul 
 of many spasmodic jokes 
 
SOMETHING ABOUT NOTHING. 127 
 
 Many things are poetically said to " end in smoke," more may 
 be truthfully said to result in nothing. How many bright and 
 cherished schemes of the devotees of mammon, resolve themselves 
 into nothing : the same may be predicated of the plotting maneu 
 vers of designing dowagers, in the game of husband hunting of 
 the hapless adventurer in pursuit of matrimony " under difficulties," 
 and of the golden visions of deluded diggers at the auriferous sands 
 of the Pacific. 
 
 Nothing seems to pervade almost every department of our social 
 existence. Many a man of opulence will boastingly assure you, he 
 began the world with nothing, and found it first-rate capital j 
 another less favored of blind fate, or fortune failing in the like 
 experiment, deplores its delusive cheat, yet still clinging to the 
 deception, keeps next to nothing all his life. 
 
 Every one, doubtless, remembers the story of the economic 
 individual, whose inventive wit brought his horse to live without 
 eating, or to live upon nothing and, at the same time, to a finish 
 of his existence an expedient which seems to have been in process 
 of enactment among the ill-starred inhabitants of Ireland ; the 
 terms of whose subsistence being "nothing a day, and find your 
 self." If the famishing for the food animal, complain of their 
 impoverished condition, ought not our sympathies to be extended 
 towards those who, though luxuriously cared for in all other 
 respects, pine with intellectual starvation ; whose heads, instead 
 of being luminous with undying thoughts, present but a dreary 
 vacuity. The remark is no less applicable to the human heart 
 the fabled shrine of the affections. What a "pleasing and univer 
 sal fiction " is it to suppose that anything of the kind really exists 
 in that sentimental locality, at least, in but too many instances. 
 Some in their vain search for the mysterious organ, wishing to take 
 the most indulgent view of the matter, apologetically suggest, in 
 behalf of the "heartless," "that his heart cannot be in the right 
 place." Cupidity, as well as Cupid, often causes organic diseases 
 of the heart ; in the former case producing a contraction, in the 
 
128 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 latter an expansion of that ductile organ. It has been suggested, 
 that as extremes are said to meet, and money hunting has much to 
 do with modern matrimonial matches, possibly the two words may 
 be indebted to a common source. Cupidity is likely not only to take 
 special care of "number one," and, when he records his will, " to cut 
 off his son with a shilling," but also to leave nothing to his friends, 
 neighbors and acquaintance. Cupid, on the other hand, if left to 
 himself, promises most liberally, and treats his votaries occasionally 
 to a taste of his nectar and ambrosia ; yet too often his promisory 
 notes become dishonored at maturity, he becomes bankrupt, and 
 pays nothing in the pound. 
 
 Not only are some people s heads, instead of being replenished 
 with ideas within, or hair without, endowed with nothing; but 
 their pockets and purses are frequently in as mendicant a condi 
 tion. How many, again, patiently linger, and long for, the demise 
 of some remarkable instance of longevity, vainly hoping to share 
 some pecuniary immunity; but all their patience goes for nothing. 
 There is a class of bold individuals, who are astonished at nothing 
 they make nothing of a trip across the Atlantic the grand 
 tour of Europe a voyage to the Celestials or an expedition to 
 the new El-dorado of the west. Such imperturbable spirits there 
 are, who make nothing of wearing a shabby coat and worse con 
 tinuations nothing of breaking their word of honor or of intrud 
 ing without permission into their neighbor s house, and under the 
 strange hallucination that meum, and tuum, are convertible terms, 
 display their fancy in the selection and appropriation of whatever 
 they can most conveniently secure. Again, there are frigid sub 
 jects, who make nothing of the scorching rays of a meridian sum 
 mer sun; others who place the like estimate upon the withering 
 blasts of a northern winter. Some, also, who act as though the 
 profession, and acting out of a religious life, were nothing and 
 that time and eternity shared a like estimate. But we shall weary 
 the reader with rambling repetitions; and truth to say, we do not 
 yet see " the beginning of the end" to our topic. If we may take 
 
SOMETHING ABOUT NOTHING. 129 
 
 breath, and venture an anticipatory conclusion, we should say that 
 nothing is ecumenic and that it is not only antithetical with, but 
 twin-brother of, something; for nothing negatively, is something 
 but positively nothing; it is yet always in close proximity, or 
 juxta-position, with something. How many grave and sagacious 
 men devote their whole lives to the contemplation and pursuit of 
 nothing; for one of "the high priests of learning confessed, in 
 effect, the truth, as he surveyed the unexplored ocean before him. 
 The learned scribes have, therefore, come to the conclusion that 
 there is nothing in the world. Old Francis Quarles arrives at a 
 similar issue, in one of his quaint " Emblems." A ballon or blad 
 der, if exhausted of air, is said to be full of nothing ; the same 
 may be affirmed of the genus, homo, in many varieties. Nothing 
 seems to possess advantages over metaphysics, if not indeed over 
 everything else for the former addresses our reason merely, the 
 latter our senses. We can see nothing ; who, hunting a ghost in a 
 haunted room, or any other wild-goose chase, has not returned 
 answer that he saw nothing ? Nothing may be heard, but only 
 when everybody and everything else is silent ; it may also be tasted 
 for who has not heard the expressively laconic complaint from 
 a dissatisfied palate, that it tastes like nothing. The same may 
 be predicated of the senses of smelling and feeling. Some, as we 
 before intimated, are impervious to feeling under any calamity; 
 for they feel nothing; such is their immobility, that the loss of 
 property, character, friends, or relations, are all nothing to them. 
 A word about nobody. 
 
 Nobody is a most mischievous and meddlesome personage; for 
 he is often engaged in the perpetration of some marvelous deeds. 
 He is often guilty of arson, murder, and other grand misdemean 
 ors ; he stirs up strife, and severs firm friends. It is also true that 
 there are some "bright lights" in his character, and occasionally 
 he is nobly implicated in some noble acts of beneficence. A 
 certain tradesman who had long suffered, during his occasional 
 absence from the counter, from the carelessness of that invisible 
 
 6* 
 
130 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 and irresponsible imp, " Nobody," at length bestowed the name on 
 his eldest apprentice, and held him accountable for all the acts of 
 the bodiless evil-doer. 
 
 We offer to our fair readers the following attempt to make 
 something out of nothing : 
 
 " U OaObutIO u, 
 no but me ; 
 let not my a go, 
 But give I u so." 
 
 The English version reads thus : 
 
 " You sigh for a cypher, but I sigh for you ; 
 sigh for no cypher, but sigh for me : 
 let not my sigh for a cypher go, 
 But give sigh for sigh, for I sigh for you so." 
 
 Some, again, love nothing others more amiable, hate it, and 
 others are said to fear nothing. Some erudite authors fill their pon 
 derous pages in reality with nothing, although ostensibly with 
 words. What, indeed, could afford more demonstrable evidence 
 of its verity, than this present writing nothing commenced it, 
 nothing continued it, and nothing must close it; and as this 
 brings us to the dilemma of its endless duration, we at once take 
 refuge in the following clever "summing up" of a sonnet, by an 
 anonymous writer : 
 
 " Mysterious nothing! how shall I define 
 
 Thy shapeless, baseless, placeless emptiness ; 
 Nor form, nor color, sound, nor size are thine. 
 
 Nor words, nor fingers, can thy voice express ; 
 But though we cannot thee to ought compare, 
 
 A thousand things to thee may likened be, 
 And though thou art with nobody no where, 
 
 Yet half mankind devote themselves to thee, 
 How many books thy history contain, 
 
 How many heads thy mighty plans pursue, 
 
SOMETHING ABOUT NOTHING. 131 
 
 What lab ring hands thy portion only gain, 
 
 What busy-bodies thy doings only do, 
 To thee the great, the proud, the giddy bend, 
 
 And, like iny sonnet all in nothing end." 
 
 We might here, perhaps, have effected a safe retreat from the 
 entaglement of our knotty topic, were we not desirous of atoning 
 for our trifling, by an attempt to educe a moral from it. Lest 
 some should think we have proved the obverse of what we pro 
 posed, and actually made nothing out of nothing, we are frank to 
 confess, this is not what we designed in the treatment of this 
 untenable and intractable topic. But to our moral. 
 
 Some unfortunate persons, there may be, who are accustomed 
 erroneously to construe the term we have so often played upon, as 
 synonymous with others of a very different signification. For 
 instance, those who are addicted to "libations deep" would have 
 you believe that intoxication is nothing, so would the purloiner, 
 theft; the profane, swearing; the indolent, industry; and the 
 man of violence, murder. 
 
 " T is nothing says, the fool ; but says his friend 
 T is nothing, sir, will bring you to your end !" 
 
 And this sagacious couplet brings us to ours, in the words of 
 a well-remembered classic author, which may be construed accord 
 ing to the taste of the reader, without impugning the modesty 
 of the writer. 
 
 " Nihil tetigit non ornavit !" 
 
PASTIMES AND SPORTS. 
 
 " Of recreation, there is none 
 So free as fishing is alone ; 
 All other pastimes do no less 
 Than mind and body doth possess. 
 My hand alone my work can do, 
 So I can fish and study too." 
 
 IT has been said that recreation, exactly considered, is an advan 
 tage which few, if any, are willing altogether to forego, and which 
 the most severe philosophy does not deny. It is, in one form or 
 other, the object of universal pursuit, for without its participation 
 to some extent, life would lose its principal attraction, and man 
 kind would degenerate into the settled gloom of moody melancholy. 
 Relaxation from the severer toils of life is as necessary to human 
 existence, as light is to the physical universe; without its appropri 
 ate indulgence, all the pleasant things which impart their thousand 
 charms to our social economy, would at once become eclipsed in 
 
PASTIMES AND SPORTS. 133 
 
 the darkness of desolation and despair. If it be true that man is 
 the only animal that laughs, is it fair to infer that, by an- occa 
 sional indulgence of his risible faculty, he is but fulfilling a part of 
 his destiny. Very much might be urged in favor of a hearty 
 laugh ; it is not only highly exhilarating, but also very infectious, 
 and the doctors tell us it is an excellent help to digestion and 
 health. Shakspeare s advice is not only admissible, but decidedly 
 to be commended, where he says : 
 
 " Frame thy mind to mirth and merriment, 
 Which bars a thousand harms, and lengthens life." 
 
 Who does not prefer a smiling face to a frowning one the 
 jocund Spring to the dark forms of Winter ? Somebody has 
 said he would any day sacrifice a good dinner to gaze on a beauti 
 ful face; and scarcely any face looks otherwise when it is lit up 
 with smiles ; especially if it be a woman s. 
 
 There are some ascetic souls whose lugubrious visages cast dark 
 shadows wherever they go, and whose presence, like the fabled 
 Upas tree, diffuses a deadly poison over all the felicities and 
 gaieties of life. All nations have proved by common consent the 
 fallacy of seeking to impose restraints against the necessary recre 
 ations of life the temporary respite from toil; while the stern 
 necessities of our mental and physical constitution have long 
 since invested the usage with the authority of law. D Israeli has 
 an amusing chapter devoted to the amusements of the learned, 
 from which we shall cite a few facts illustrative of, and introduc 
 tory to our subject : 
 
 "It seems that among the Jesuits it was a standing rule of 
 order, that after an application to study of two hours, the mind 
 should be bent by some relaxation, however trifling. When 
 Petavius was engaged upon his Dogmata Theologica, a work of 
 the most profound erudition, the favorite recreation of the learned 
 father, was at the close of every second hour, to twirl his chair 
 round for five minutes. Agesilaus, it is well known, amused him- 
 
134 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 self and his children by riding on a stick : the great Scipio 
 diverted himself by picking up shells on the sea shore. Tycho 
 Brahe amused himself with polishing glasses for spectacles and 
 mathematical instruments ; and Descartes beguiled himself of his 
 literary labors, like John Evelyn, Pope, Cowper, and many 
 others, in, the culture of flowers. The great Samuel Clarke, was 
 fond of regaling his logical abstractions by sundry antics, such as 
 leaping over tables and chairs, and the ridiculous pastimes 
 indulged in by the eccentric Dean Swift, are doubtless remem 
 bered by the reader. Contemplative men seem to have been 
 fond of amusements accordant with their pursuits and habits. 
 The tranquil recreation of angling, has won a preference with 
 many over more boisterous pursuits; from the fascinations 
 imparted to it by the quaint and delightful work of Izaac 
 Walton. Sir Henry Watton styles angling, Idle time not 
 idly spent; to a meditative mind, possibly, it may be so, but we 
 think many a devotee of fly fishing/ will be found to have been 
 much more lavish in his expenditure of time, than is warranted 
 by its results. Paley, it may be remembered, was accustomed to 
 indulge in this pursuit : he had a portrait painted with a rod and 
 line in his hand, a somewhat singular characteristic for the sage 
 and reverend author of Natural Theology. 7 There are certain 
 national indications connected with the amusements and recre 
 ations of a people. For example, the French, unlike ourselves 
 and the English, who toil and tug at business from morn to dewy 
 eve/ spend half their time in their numerous resorts of amuse 
 ment, and emphatically take it cooly / business of any kind being 
 with them rarely an engrossing pursuit. 
 
 "The Italian devotes three-fourths of his precious time/ to 
 similar follies and fetes; and the Spaniard is next of kin to him 
 in this respect, for he both can scarcely be said to enjoy his 
 leisure, since his life is almost uniformly a state of inertness. 
 The German, on the contrary, is all the while absorbed in mystic 
 abstractions, and etherializing aloft in the fumes of his meerschaum." 
 
PASTIMES AND SPORTS. 135 
 
 " Almost everything else may be lost to a man s history," says 
 Horace Smith, "but its sports and pastimes; the diversions of a 
 people being commonly interwoven with some immutable element 
 of the general feeling, or perpetuated by circumstances of climate 
 or locality, these will frequently survive when every other 
 national peculiarity has worn itself out, and fallen into oblivion." 
 As the minds of children, modified by the forms of society, are 
 pretty much the same in all countries, and at all epochs, there 
 will be found but little variation in their ordinary pastimes, a 
 remark no less applicable to those nations, which, from their non- 
 advancement in civilization, may be said to have still retained 
 their childhood. 
 
 Many of our school-games are known to have existed from the 
 earliest antiquity. The province of the historian seems scarcely 
 to have included the record in detail, of many of the more social 
 enjoyments and domestic sports of olden time : these, although 
 unwritten, still perpetuate themselves by oral transmission. We 
 do not intend to dilate at length upon these, but simply to take a 
 glance at the more prominent diversions and frolics with which 
 society in former times beguiled itself of its sorrows, and the 
 severer duties of life. We refrain from tracing our subject back 
 to its earliest origin the pastimes of a rude age because they 
 would naturally be expected to partake, in no small degree, of the 
 manners and habits, of which they were the reflex. We may 
 infer from our own Indians, that athletic exercises and sports, as 
 well as mimic military manoeuvres, and the chase, were among the 
 primitive diversions of mankind. Even down to the days of 
 Elizabeth, the popular pastimes were rude and brutalizing in the 
 extreme ; so that we must not venture to inquire very curiously 
 concerning these matters, prior to that age; if we would judge 
 them by the refinement and taste which are characterized by our 
 modern modes of diversion, such as music, the fine arts, drama, 
 and literary entertainments. 
 
 We merely glance at the festivals, games and amusements of 
 
136 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 the Jews, Greeks and Romans, with their Olympic and Gladia 
 torial encounters, etc., and present the reader with a rough outline, 
 illustrative of those of the moderns. 
 
 Field sports still exist, under certain modifications, as they did 
 under the "Mosaic dispensation:" for we read of Nimrod, "a 
 mighty hunter," and the progenitor of his class. The chase has 
 supplied the theme for more than one of the early classic writers ; 
 Xenophon repudiated hunting as well as Solon. By the Roman 
 law, game was never deemed an exclusive privilege, except when 
 extending over private lands, when permission was to be obtained 
 of the proprietor. When Rome became overrun by the Goths and 
 Vandals, they perverted the natural rights to a royal one ; a 
 feature it still retains in many European States ; the prescrip 
 tive right to hunt over certain grounds being vested in the sove 
 reign, or those to whom the crown may delegate it. Accord 
 ing to Street, Edward the Confessor, though more of a monk 
 than a monarch, "took the greatest delight to follow a pack 
 of swift hounds in pursuit of game, and to cheer them on with his 
 voice." 
 
 He was equally pleased with hawking, and every day after 
 divine service he spent his time in one or other of these favorite 
 pursuits ; which indeed were the usual pastimes of the " upper 
 ten thousand" of those rude days. Edward III. was such a 
 devotee to sports of this kind that even during his hostile engage 
 ments with France, he could not refrain from the indulgence. 
 While in the French dominions he had with him, -according to 
 Froissart, sixty couple of stag-hounds and as many hare-hounds, 
 every day amusing himself at intervals with hunting or hawking. 
 He is said to have kept a princely stud of horses and six hundred 
 dogs for this purpose. 
 
 This passion extended itself during the middle ages to the clergy ; 
 for Chaucer satirizes the monks for their predilection for the hun 
 ter s horn over the " trumpet of the gospel ;" and even in later 
 times in England, sporting bishops and vicars have not been want- 
 
PASTIMES AND SPORTS. 137 
 
 ing to provoke the just indignation of society. Queen Elizabeth 
 used to patronize these sports, with a retinue of her courtly dames 
 and lordly knights, even as late as her seventy-seventh year at 
 which time it is recorded, " that her majesty was excellently dis 
 posed to hunting, for every second day she was to be seen on 
 horseback, continuing the sport for a long time." 
 
 There is, it must be confessed, something picturesque in hawking 
 and falconry, at least we think so, judging from the pictures and 
 descriptions which have descended to us. Falconry, according to 
 Smith, in his book on " Games and Festivals," appears to have 
 been carried to great perfection, and to have been extensively 
 pursued in the different countries of Europe about the twelfth cen 
 tury, when it was the favorite amusement, not only of kings and 
 nobles, but of ladies of distinction, and the clergy, who attached 
 themselves to it no less zealously than they had done to hunting, 
 although it was equally included in the prohibitary canons of the 
 church. For several ages no person of rank was represented with 
 out the hawk upon his hand, as an indisputable criterion of station 
 and dignity : the bird of prey (no inappropriate emblem of nobility 
 in the feudal ages) was never suffered to be long absent from the 
 wrist. In traveling, visiting, or the transaction of affairs of busi 
 ness, the hawk still remained perched upon the hand, which it 
 stamped with distinction. 
 
 A writer of the fifteenth century severely reprobates the inde 
 cency of the custom then prevailing of introducing these strange 
 insignia into the churches during divine service. The passage is 
 thus rendered from the German by Barclay : 
 
 " Into the churche then conies another sotte, 
 Withouten devotion jetting up and downe 
 For to be scene, and showe his garded cote. 
 Another on his fiste a sparhawk or fawcoone, 
 Or else a cockow, wastinge so his shone : 
 Before the aulter he to and fro doth wander, 
 Even with as great devotion as doth a gander. 
 
138 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 In comes another, his hounds at his tayle, 
 With lynes and leases, and other like baggage : 
 His doggs barke; so that withouten fayle, 
 The whole churche is troubled by their outrage." 
 
 Henry VIII. came near making his exit in a deep slough at 
 Kitchen, in Hertfordshire, by the breaking of his pole, an instru 
 ment used for leaping rivulets and brooks, when hawking was fol 
 lowed on foot. One almost regrets the non-success of the accident, 
 as in ridding the country of a royal monster, the lives of his estim 
 able wives might have escaped the sacrifice of his tyranny and vice. 
 From the frequent mention of hawking by the water-side, by the 
 writers of the time, it is to be inferred that the pursuit of aquatic 
 fowl afforded the most diversion. The custom became obsolete 
 about the end of the sixteenth century. 
 
 With respect to archery, it is sufficient to remark that the bow 
 was the most ancient and common of all weapons ; Ishmael, the 
 wanderer, was an archer so were the heroes of Homer, and the 
 warriors of most nations. During the Heptarchy, Offrid, son of 
 Edwin, King of Northumberland, was slain by an arrow ; other 
 historic celebrities might be mentioned who shared a similar fate. 
 The Saxons claim the introduction of both the long and cross-bow 
 into Britain ; their successors the Danes were also great archers. 
 
 The well-known story of Alfred the Great in the peasant s cot 
 tage, suffering her cakes to burn, was owing to his being engaged 
 in preparing his bow and arrows. Of the great power and pre 
 cision with which arrows may be discharged, we have sufficient 
 evidence without that afforded by the apochryphal exploits of 
 Robin Hood or William Tell. Our Indians may be cited as speci 
 mens of the wonderful exactness of aim of which the instrument is 
 susceptible. "The Turkish bow," quoth Lord Bacon, "givetha 
 very forcible shoot, inasmmch as it hath been known that the arrow 
 has pierced a sheet target, or a piece of brass of two inches thick !" 
 An arrow, it has been stated, with a round wooden head, has been 
 shot upwards of four hundred and eighty yards from the standing. 
 
PASTIMES AND SPORTS. 139 
 
 William Rufus, it will be remembered, was indebted to one of these 
 swift-winged messengers of death, for his dismission from the field 
 of strife : and the famous battle of Cressy bore testimony to their 
 fatal use, to no inconsiderable extent ; as well as the memorable 
 contest of Agincourt, in 1415. The practice of archery possesses 
 undoubted advantages in point of health and exercise, over most of 
 the athletic diversions, or field sports, without any of their objec 
 tionable features. "It is an exercise," says Moseley, in his essay 
 on archery, " adapted to every age, and every degree of strength ; 
 it is not necessarily laborious, as it may be discontinued the 
 moment it becomes fatiguing ; a pleasure not to be enjoyed by the 
 hunter, who, having finished his chase, perceives that he must 
 crown his toil with an inanimate ride to his bed of forty miles. 
 Archery is attended with no cruelty : it sheds no innocent blood, nor 
 does it torture harmless animals ; charges which lie heavy against 
 some other amusements. It has been said that a reward was for 
 merly offered to him who could invent a new pleasure. Had such a 
 reward been held forth by the ladies of the present day, he who 
 introduced archery, as a female exercise, would have deservedly 
 gained the prize there are so few diversions in the open air, in 
 which woman can join with satisfaction, suitable amusements have 
 been wanting to invite them. Archery has, however, contributed 
 admirably to supply this defect, and in a manner the most desirable 
 that could be wished." 
 
 The practice of baiting animals so naturally ^revolting to the 
 popular taste of the present age, seems, in former times, to have 
 been invested with something of the chivalrous and romantic. 
 These cruel entertainments are generally supposed to have origi 
 nated with the Moors ; Julius Ca3sar introduced them among the 
 Romans, from them it was adopted by the Spaniards, the Portu 
 gese, the English, etc. The Spaniards have been the most barbar 
 ous in their refined cruelities in connection with this brutal sport; 
 they have also invested its ceremonies with greater splendor and 
 pageantry. To them the words of Thomson are eloquent of import: 
 
140 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 " Each social feeling fell, 
 And joyless inhumanity pervades 
 And petrifies the heart." 
 
 In the Greek bull-fights, several of these devoted animals \vi re 
 turned out by an equal number of horsemen, each combatant 
 selecting his choice of a victim, which he never quitted till he had 
 vanquished. From the following account of a bull-fight in the 
 Coliseum at Rome, 1332, extracted from Muratori by Gibbon, 
 some idea may be formed of the ceremonies and dangers attending 
 these extraordinary and brutalizing exhibitions : 
 
 " A general proclamation as far as Rimini and Ravenna, invited 
 the nobles to exercise their skill and courage in this perilous 
 adventure. The Roman ladies were marshaled in three squad 
 rons, and seated in three balconies, which were lined with scarlet 
 cloth. The lots of the champions were drawn by an old and 
 respectable citizen, and they descended into the arena to encoun 
 ter the wild animals on foot, with a single spear. Amid the 
 crowd were the names, colors and devices of twenty of the 
 most conspicuous knights of Rome. The combats of the amphi 
 theatre were dangerous and bloody. Every champion successively 
 encountered a wild bull, and the victory may be ascribed to 
 the quadrupeds, since no more then eleven were left on the 
 field with the loss of nine wounded, and eighteen killed on the side 
 of their adversaries. Some of the noblest families might mourn, 
 but the pomp of the funerals in the churches of St. John Lateran, 
 and St. Maria Maggiore, afforded a second holiday to the people, 
 which was, of course, a thing of superior moment. Doubtless it 
 was not in such conflicts that the blood of the Romans should 
 have been shed ; yet in blaming their rashness, we are compelled 
 to applaud their gallantry," continues our author, " and the noble 
 volunteers, who display their munificence and risk their lives under 
 the balconies of the fair, excite a more generous sympathy than 
 the thousands of captives and malefactors, who were reluctantly 
 dragged to the scene of slaughter." 
 
PASTIMES AND SPORTS. 141 
 
 In Madrid, it is only during the summer these sanguinary scenes 
 are exhibited, on account of the amphitheatre or circus, in which 
 the spectators assemble, being uncovered. The following is a brief 
 description of the ceremonies, which commence by a kind of pro 
 cession, in which the combatants, on horse and on foot, appear, 
 after which two alguazils, dressed in perukes and black robes, 
 advance, with great affected gravity, on horseback, and ask the 
 president for the signal for the commencement of the entertain 
 ment. This is immediately given, and the fierce animal makes his 
 appearance, rushing from his place of confinement into the circle, 
 furious and eager for the fray. The officers of justice, who have 
 nothing to do with the bull, hasten to retire, which is the prelude 
 to the cruel pleasure the spectators are evidently impatiently wait 
 ing to enjoy. As the animal rushes in, he is received with loud 
 shouts, which rend the air, and tend to excite to frenzy the infuria 
 ted beast ; when the picadores or equestrian combatants, dressed 
 in a quaint old Castilian costume, and armed with a long lance, 
 wait to meet and repel their antagonist. These encounters require 
 of course, extraordinary courage and dexterity ; and formerly they 
 were regarded as marks of honorable ambition and distinction, 
 having sometimes been contended for by those of noble blood. 
 Even at the present time hidalgos are said to solicit the honor of 
 fighting the bull on horseback, and they are then previously pre 
 sented to the audience under the auspices of a patron connected 
 with the court. If the animal becomes terror-struck, and seeks 
 to avoid his persecutors, the execrations of the intelligent audi 
 ence are showered upon his devoted head, and if nothing else can 
 awaken his courage and fury, the cry of perros ! perros ! brings 
 forth new enemies, and huge dogs are let loose upon him. He 
 then tosses the dogs into the air, and although they usually fall 
 down stunned and mangled, they generally renew their attack till 
 their adversary falls, thus an ignoble sacrifice to the wanton cru 
 elty of his lordly masters. Sometimes the bull, irritated by the 
 pointed steel, gores the horse and overturns his rider, who, when 
 
i42 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 dismounted and disarmed, would be exposed to imminent danger 
 did not attendant combatants divert the animal s attention by 
 holding before him pieces of cloth of various colors. This act is 
 attended, however, with great peril, the only rescue being by jump 
 ing over the barrier, which throws the spectators into a chaos of 
 confusion from fear of the rabid animal s making a direct descent 
 upon themselves. Our details of this inhuman custom have been, 
 however, already too extended, and we return to more agreeable 
 pursuits, in the hope that, in this boasted age of progress, some 
 enlightened spirits may give a more worthy direction to the pas 
 times of the people of that once chivalrous, but now degenerate 
 nation. It is to be regretted, however, that the sin of baiting 
 animals does not rest alone with the Spaniards or the ancient 
 Romans, although the gladiatorial exploits of the cruel mon 
 sters, Nero and Commodus, surpass all for their savage brutality. 
 James I., amongst other sapient performances, perpetrated a 
 "Boke of Sports," for the regulation of popular pastimes and 
 amusements, intimating by it what particular kinds of recreation 
 were to be allowed on Sundays and festivals of the church such 
 as running, vaulting, morrice-dancing, etc., and prohibiting, upon 
 those days, bowling, bear, and bull-baitings. A quaint old writer, 
 Cartwright, (temp., 1572,) endeavoring to prove the impropriety 
 of an established form of prayer for the church service; among 
 other arguments, uses the following : " He (the clergyman) 
 posteth it over as fast as he can gallope, for either he hath two 
 places to serve, or else there are some gaymes to be played in the 
 afternoon, to wit : such as lying for the whet-stones, heathenish 
 dancing for the ringe, or a beare or a bull to be bated, or else a 
 jackanapes to ride horseback, or an interlude to be played in 
 churche." Bishop Burnet, in his "History of his own Times," 
 speaking of this noted monarch, complains that his court fell 
 into much extravagance in masquerading "both king and court 
 going about masked, going into houses unknown, and dancing 
 there with a great deal of wild frolic." This state of things 
 
PASTIMES AND SPORTS. 143 
 
 included the early religious dramas and plays, in which the hea 
 then mythology and low buffoonery were strangely intermingled. 
 
 As early as the ninth century, this pursuit formed an item of 
 education, and was patronized by the noble. Alfred the Great 
 was an expert hunter at twelve years of age ; and Edward the 
 Confessor, according to the ancient chronicles, " took the greatest 
 delight to follow a pack of swift hounds in pursuit of game, and 
 to cheer them on with his voice." William the Norman, and 
 several of his crowned successors down to James I., seem to have 
 been alike addicted to the pastime. The last named individual is 
 said to have divided his time equally betwixt his standish, his bot 
 tle and his hunting, the last had his fair weather, the two former 
 his dull and cloudy. The bishops and nobles of the middle ages 
 hunted with great state, and not a few of the moderns are still to 
 be found in England, to do honor to the custom, both laymen and 
 clergy, commons and nobles. 
 
 In Hallam s " History of the Middle Ages" are many interesting 
 particulars touching the irrepressible eagerness of the clergy for 
 this recreation, with the ineffectual attempts of councils and 
 decrees for its suppression. What should we think in our day, of 
 an archbishop, with a retinue of two hundred persons for his train, 
 (maintained at the expense of the Abbey, and the other religious 
 establishments,) being met on their route, hunting from parish 
 to parish ? yet such an event actually took place in England, 
 A. D. 1321. We have alluded to the fact that Queen Elizabeth was 
 accustomed to indulge in the sports of the field at an advanced 
 age ; and she was not the only member of the fair sex, who 
 affected a passion for this manly pastime, for we find that in the 
 seventeenth century, certain fair huntresses of Bury, in Suffolk, 
 equipped themselves for the chase as men a habit we might add, 
 " more honored in the breach than the observance." In the year 
 1758 a lady undertook to ride 1000 miles in as many hours; 
 which feat she actually accomplished in one-third of that time: 
 and even as recently as 1804 another undertook an equestrian 
 
144 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 race against a Mr. Flint for five hundred guineas, at Knavesmire, 
 in Yorkshire ; she won the first heat, and would have achieved the 
 second, had not her saddle-girth slipped. As she came in, she 
 was cheered by the immensely assembled crowd with 
 
 " Push on, dear lady pray don t the whip stint, 
 To beat such as you must have the heart of a Flint." 
 
 We read of some singular cases of blind sportsmen; among 
 that class was the Rev. Mr. Stokes, who is said to have performed 
 some surprising feats of "a leap in the dark." When he had to 
 leap, the servant accompanying used to ring a.bell: and another 
 individual, also blind, who was attached to the Marquis of Gran- 
 by s celebrated hunt, was equally expert, although he had usually 
 no attendant: he trusted to chance. Prof. Saunderson, of Cam 
 bridge, a profound mathematician, though quite blind, was so 
 fascinated with the chase, that he continued to hunt till an 
 advanced period of his life. His horse was accustomed to follow 
 that of his servant, and his delight was extreme when he heard 
 the cry of the hounds and huntsmen, expressing his raptures with 
 all the eagerness of those who possessed their sight. What real 
 interest blind men can possibly experience in madly scampering 
 over hedges and ditches, it is difficult to divine. 
 
 Our Indians have what they call the " Hunters Feast" which 
 somewhat resembles the Pentecost of the ancient Hebrews. Once 
 a year certain tribes, beyond the Ohio, used to select from their num 
 ber twelve men, who went out and provided themselves with a like 
 riumber of deer, when, after placing a heap of stones, so as to form 
 a sort of altar, they sacrifice the spoil. It has been contended 
 that a still closer analogy subsists between other of the Indian 
 festivals and customs, with those of the nation referred to ; from 
 which it has been conjectured that they were originally indebted 
 to a common origin. The reader will doubtless excuse the follow 
 ing digression, even in a desultory essay, since he will form a good 
 idea of the times and the sports then prevalent, from the quotation 
 
PASTIMES AND SPORTS. 145 
 
 we venture to subjoin. The quaint lines to which we refer are 
 from a work printed at London, 1611, entitled "The lettinge of 
 humour s bloode in the head-vane ; with a new Morisce danced by 
 seven Satyrss upon the bottome of Diogenes tubbe! n 
 
 "Man, I dare challenge thee to throw the sledge, 
 To jump, or leape over ditch and hedge, 
 To wrestle, play at stoolebal, or to runne, 
 To pitch the barre, or to shoot off a gunne ; 
 To play at loggets, nine holes, or ten pinnes, 
 Or trye it out at foot-ball by the shinnes; 
 At ticktack, Irish nodde, mawe, or ruffe, 
 At hot-cockles, leap-frog, or blindman-buffe ; 
 To drinke halfe-pots, or deal at the whole can; 
 To play at base or pen-and-ynkhorn Sir I han ; 
 To dance the morris, play at barley-breake, 
 At all exploy tes a man can thinke or speake ; 
 At shove-groate, venter-poynte, or crosse and pile, 
 At beshrow him that s laste at yonder style ; 
 At leapinge o er a midsummer-bon-fier, 
 Or at the drawing deer out of the myer : 
 At any of these, or all these presently, 
 Wagge but your finger, I am for you, I." 
 
 We do not purpose any curious inquiries into these multitu 
 dinous diversions of our sober forefathers : enough for us to know 
 that they had so liberal a variety, and that they seemed to indulge 
 them so heartily. As to the morality of the chase, we have 
 nothing to say on that subject, except> that if the charge of cruelty 
 lie in the case of hunting game, the same may be alleged against 
 angling, which pursuit good old Izaak Walton so manfully defends, 
 and so pleasantly discourses about. If there are plaintive and 
 placid pleasures for the angler, there are exhilerating and inspiring 
 associations for the hunter. 
 
 Says Rennie, " Angling, as a sport, requires as much enthusiasm 
 as poetry, and as much patience as mathematics. I could not be 
 more than six or seven years old, when I sailed out one day to the 
 
 7 
 
146 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 river Ayr, with a bent pin for a hook, as Christopher North has 
 described so graphically and well ;" but instead of a minnow or a 
 beardie (the loach or stone loach of the South), I hooked a large 
 trout; my yarn thread was strong enough to twitch out the trout to 
 the green bank, where I stood, but the bank unfortunately sloped 
 down to the water s edge, and my bent pin having no barb to 
 take a firm hold, the trout slipped off, and sprang down the bank, 
 and in an instant, to my unutterable grief, was lost in the dark 
 waters. I never angled with bent pin again; as I grew older my 
 passion for trout fishing absorbed many of my thoughts and much 
 of my time, but far from unprofi tably ; for I have no doubt that 
 this had great influence on my studies to the present time." 
 
 Angling has ever been regarded a most manly, healthful, and 
 attractive sport or recreation. It was practised by the Patriarchs 
 and Apostles by the learned, the benevolent, and the heavenly- 
 minded at later periods; and, indeed, it has been followed with 
 the greatest avidity by persons in every rank and condition in life, 
 if not from the " beginning," surely from a time so remote, that 
 human records and the traditions of men " run not the contrary." 
 
 That the Patriarchs practised angling and fishing, is proven by 
 the following passages from the Old Testament : " Canst thou 
 draw out leviathan with a hook ? or his tongue with a cord which 
 thou leitest doicnl"* "They take up all of them with the angle, 
 they catch them in their bit, and gather them in their drag."^ 
 "The Lord God hath sworn by His Holiness that, lo, the days 
 shall come upon you, that they shall take you away with hooks, 
 and your prosperity with fish hooks. % " The mourners also shall 
 mourn, and all they that cast angk in the brooks shall lament, 
 and they that spread>rate upon the waters shall languish." 
 
 That a majority, at least of the apostles were fishermen, is 
 evident from the 21st chapter of St. John s Gospel, where it is 
 recorded that seven of them were together at the sea of Tiberius, 
 
 * Job, 41 : 1, 2. t Habakkuk, 31 : 15. J Amos, 4:2. $ Isaiah, 19 : 8 
 
PASTIMES A ND SPORTS. 141 
 
 and " Simon Peter said unto them, I go a fishing, and they 
 say unto him, we also go with thee." But the Apostle Peter is 
 the only one of the twelve who is known to have been an angler; 
 and this is shown in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, 17 : 27, 
 where our Lord says to Peter, " Go thou to the sea and cast 
 a hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up, and when thou 
 hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money." 
 
 Izaak Walton says : "In this pleasant and harmless Art of 
 Angling, a man hath none to quarrel with but himself, and he 
 may employ his thoughts in the noblest studies, almost as freely as 
 in his closet. The minds of anglers are usually more calm and 
 composed than others; and suppose he take nothing, yet he 
 enjoyeth a delightful walk, by pleasant views, in sweet pastures, 
 among odoriferous flowers, which gratify his senses and delight 
 his mind;" and he adds, "I know no sort of men less subject to 
 melancholy than the anglers ; many have cast off other recreations 
 and embraced it, but I never knew an angler wholly cast off his 
 affection to his beloved recreation." 
 
 In the autobiography of the eccentric Lord Herbert of Cher- 
 bury, we find these quaint and seemingly paradoxical observations, 
 touching horsemanship : " I do not approve of the running of 
 horses, there being much cheating in that kind of exercise ; neither 
 do I see why a brave man should delight in a creature, whose 
 chief use is to help him run away yet a good rider on a good 
 horse, is as much above himself and others as this world can make 
 him." Next to the chase and shooting, angling was the principal 
 out-door amusement, even with the gentler sex. In the reign 
 of Charles II., ladies used to practice the art in the Canal of St. 
 James Park, London ; according to Izaak Walton, " their tackle 
 was very beautiful and costly, which they were fond of displaying." 
 The piscatory art being one of our most popular of pastimes, it is 
 unnecessary for us to dilate upon its fascinating attractions to those 
 of a contemplative turn of mind. Some inveterate anglers must 
 have a curious history to give of their experience ; for many of 
 
148 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 them have been odd fish themselves flat fish, we may say, in some 
 instances, since they willsit on a damp, muddy bank the live-long 
 day, contented if they are but regaled with even the "delicious 
 symptoms of nibble ;" while others are perfectly resigned to their 
 fate, if they are but privileged to watch the wary fish as they wag 
 their tails at his line, and adroitly steer away from the decoy of 
 his tempting bait. These gentry need to be like good Izaak Wal 
 ton, of a contemplative habit, since such is their devotion to the 
 pursuit, that they sometimes have no more substantial " food for 
 reflection." There are certain individuals whose mawkish sensi 
 bilities are offended at the cruelties of catching the tenants of the 
 stream ; we share no sympathy with such, however, for if nature s 
 laws ordain that the big fishes are to prey upon the little ones, we 
 see no reason why creation s lord should not also appropriate any 
 of them to his own use. Besides this, it will be recollected, the 
 apostles even included fishermen. 
 
 We pass now to notice briefly the well-known and popular 
 sport Ahorse-racing, and its kindred associations. It has been 
 conjectured that these amusements of the turf were in vogue with 
 the Saxons, from the fact that Hugh, the founder of the House 
 of the Caputs of France, among other royal gifts, " presented seve 
 ral running horses, with their saddles and bridles," etc. The grave 
 John Locke, in one of his private journals, (167 9,) writes as follows: 
 
 " The sports of England, which perhaps a curious stranger 
 would be glad to see, are horse-racing, hawking and hunting, 
 bowling, at Marebone and Putney, he may see several persons of 
 quality bowling two or three times a week all the summer; wrest 
 ling in Lincoln s Inn Fields, every evening all summer; bear and 
 bull-baiting, and sometimes prizes at the Bear Garden; shooting 
 in the long bow, and stob-ball in Tothill Fields; cudgel-playing at 
 several places in the country ; and hurling in Cornwall." 
 
 Of wrestling and pugilistic games we forbear to speak ; we 
 may, however, remark en passant, that gymnastics and calisthenics 
 are a meet substitute for the former, since they include all their 
 
PASTIMES AND SPORTS. 149 
 
 advantages in the development of physical strength, without any 
 of their objectionable features. As a winter sport, skating natur 
 ally suggests itself as one of the naost adoption. This diversion is 
 mentioned by a monkish writer as far back as 1170. A fast 
 skater, on good ice, will nearly equal the race-horse for a short 
 distance ; in the year 1838, Mr. Simpson, of Cambridge, England, 
 is said to have skated over a surface of forty miles, on indifferent 
 ice, in two hours and a half ; and mention is made of others hav 
 ing shated two miles in five minutes. This is a diversion in which 
 ladies may participate with grace, and- it is also an invigorating 
 and healthful exercise. Hundreds of the London belles may be 
 seen thus sportively employed on a fine winter s day on the Serpen 
 tine river, Hyde Park. Like buffalo hunting the most exciting 
 because hazardous of all sports however, skating is attended with 
 the occasional risk of a fall on the ice, and sometimes under it, 
 affording the courageous skater the benefit of a cold bath, with the 
 chance of an entailed rheumatism, if not, indeed, loss of life itself. 
 From the suggestion of a ducking under the ice, one is naturally 
 reminded of swimming, or voluntary bathing, than which few 
 expedients are more conducive to health and longevity. The world 
 is now awake to this, and even the faculty are found frank enough 
 to confess the fact, and recommend frequent ablutions. Our object 
 being simply to take a swift survey of the recreative pursuits of 
 mankind, we shall not be expected to offer anything touching the 
 art and mystery of any. The important utility, in cases ,of acci 
 dent, of being able to swim, every one knows, but every one does 
 not acquire the art notwithstanding ; yet it is easy of attainment, 
 and also adds much to the pleasure of bathing. Cramps, crabs, 
 and the chance of becoming food for fishes, are among the doubt 
 ful attractions of old Neptune, healthfulness and vigor to the 
 young, and rejuvenescence to the aged, as well as a delicious 
 physical enjoyment, while in his rough embraces, are among the 
 positive pleasures. 
 
 Tennis was a favorite game among the Romans ; it is less ha 
 
150 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 vogue in modern times, cricket having to some extent usurped its 
 place. The latter is a peculiarly English pastime ; it is much more 
 frequently indulged in Europe than in this country. All classes 
 play at it in England ; some years past there was a strong contest 
 between eleven Greenwich pensioners, with only one leg a piece, 
 against an equal number of their brethren, who were minus an arm, 
 but the one-legged boys won. As with many other English sports, 
 females often join the band of cricketers : some time ago there was 
 a match played between an equal number of married and unmar 
 ried females ; in which the matrons came off victors. Among the 
 pastimes of the people, we ought to refer to dancing the most 
 universal, as well as one of the most ancient of all. During the 
 earlier ages it was invested with the sanctity of a religious rite 
 the Levitical law of the Jews requiring it to be exhibited at the 
 celebration of their solemn feasts ; the Psalms of David make fre 
 quent allusions to the practice, and, indeed, it is the opinion of 
 some of the learned in Biblical criticism, that every psalm had its 
 appropriate dance attached to it. In the temples at Jerusalem, 
 Alexandria, and elsewhere in the East, a stage was erected for 
 these exercises, called the choir a term still retained in our 
 churches, and now appropriated to the singers. The Greeks and 
 Romans adopted dancing at their festivals after their ancestors, 
 and the practice has continued uninterruptedly down to our own 
 times. Even the red men of the forest have their various dances, 
 devoted to the seasons, hunting and war ; and we might include 
 the dancing Methodists and the Shakers in the category, as well 
 as our modern theatrical performances of the ballet, the more 
 private waltz and polka, etc. 
 
 The description of the lavolta, in Sir John Davies poem on 
 dancing, the "Orchestra," (1596) shows that it must have closely 
 resembled the dance which we fondly boast of as one of the great 
 inventions of the nineteenth century. It runs as follows : 
 
 " Yet is there one, the most delightful kind, 
 A lofty jumping, or a leaping round, 
 
PASTIMES AND SPORTS. 151 
 
 Where arm and arm the dancers are entwined, 
 
 And whirl themselves with strict embracements bound ; 
 And still their feet an anapoest do sound ; 
 An anapsest is all their music song, 
 Whose first two feet are short, and third is long/ 
 
 Good old Bishop Hall observes, " Recreation is intended to the 
 mind as whetting is to the scythe, to sharpen the edge of it, which 
 otherwise would grow dull and blunt. He therefore that spends 
 his whole time in recreation is ever whetting, never mowing ; as 
 contrarily, he that always toils, and never recreates, is ever mow 
 ing, never whetting laboring much to little purpose : as good no 
 scythe, as no edge. I would so interchange that I neither be dull 
 with work nor idle and wanton with recreation." 
 
 Every nation has its dance, of one kind or another; so that 
 universality proves that it is a natural recreation. It is indeed, the 
 best exercise for the limbs, and it is on this account highly recom 
 mended by physicians. It has this advantage too, as practised in 
 civil society ; it promotes social intercourse between the two sexes ; 
 refines and softens the manners of the one, and gives confidence 
 to the other. Yet uniting these advantages, dancing by some is 
 highly condemned. They object to it as a misapplication of time, 
 and as calculated to divert the attention from objects of higher 
 importance. True we ought not to let any pleasure occupy too much 
 of our time and attention, but that youth needs some amusements, 
 no person of age, when he calls to remembrance his own days of 
 joyance, will deny. And what amusement is there more inno 
 cent and rational than that of dancing ? It is innocent as it trans 
 gresses no positive rule, either human or divine ; and rational as it 
 tends to improve the person, the heart and the nfanners. Still 
 we are frank to admit that as indulged in much of our modern 
 fashionable society, dancing is made the occasion of inducing laxity 
 in both morals and manners. This is its bane. 
 
 As a recreative entertainment, dancing has much to recommend 
 it to preference, as well as its tendency to develop the grace 
 
152 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 and poetry of motion. There are numerous domestic games 
 and pastimes which might be mentioned, both of past times 
 and the present; it may suffice simply to name the following 
 chess and cards. An instance of chess upon a large scale is 
 recorded of Don John of Austria, who had a room in his 
 palace which had a pavement of checkered white and black 
 marble; upon this living men, in varied costumes, moved under 
 his directions, according to the laws of chess. It is also related 
 of a Duke of Weimar, that he had squares of black and white 
 marble on which he played at chess with real soldiers. A game 
 a chess involves sometimes a severe test of temper; it is said 
 the Swedish maidens used formerly to try the mettle of their 
 husbands elect at the chess table, and that this ordeal decided 
 their fate in the affair of matrimony. According to Mr. Basterot, 
 a late French authority, this game was invented during the sixth 
 century by an Indian Brahmin, called Sisla, who presented his 
 invention to the reigning monarch, Sirham, requesting as a reward, 
 one grain of wheat for the first square, two grains for the second, 
 and four for the third, and so on, in geometrical progression, up 
 to the sixty-fourth; to reach the amount of this humble request, 
 the author informs us, would require the entire wheat crop of 
 France during one hundred and forty years. Of billiards, dice, 
 and other games usually associated with the practice of gambling, 
 as well as of theatricals in general, it is not necessary to speak, 
 they being already familiar to the reader. 
 
 We take our leave of the subject in the eloquent words of 
 Alison, whose apology must commend itself to all : 
 
 " It were unjust and ungrateful to conceive that the amuse 
 ments of life are altogether forbidden by its beneficent Author. 
 They serve, on the contrary, important purposes in the economy 
 of life, and are destined to produce important effects both upon 
 our happiness and character. They are the wells of the desert ; 
 the kind resting-places in which toil may relax, in which the weary 
 spirit may recover its tone, and where the desponding mind mny 
 
PASTIMES AND SPORTS. 153 
 
 reassume its strength and its hopes. They are, in another view, 
 of some importance to the dignity of individual character. In 
 everything we call amusement, there is generally some display of 
 taste and imagination ; some elevation of- the mind from mere 
 animal indulgence. 
 
 " Even in the scenes of relaxation, therefore, they have a ten 
 dency to preserve the dignity of human character, and to fill up 
 the vacant and unguarded hours of life with occupations, innocent 
 at least, if not virtuous. But their principal effect, perhaps, is 
 upon the social character of man. Whenever amusement is 
 sought, it is in the society of our brethern ; and whenever it is 
 in our sympathy with the happiness of those around us. It be 
 speaks the disposition of benevolence, and it creates it. When 
 men assemble, accordingly, for the purpose of general happiness 
 or joy, they exhibit to the thoughtful eye one of the most pleas 
 ing appearances of their original character. They leave behind 
 them, for a time, the faults of their station and the asperities of 
 their temper; they forget the secret views and the selfish purposes 
 of their ordinary life, and mingle with the crowd around them 
 with no other view than to receive and communicate happiness. 
 It is a spectacle which it is impossible to observe without emotion; 
 and while the virtuous man rejoices at- that evidence which it 
 affords of the benevolent constitution of his nature, the pious man 
 is apt to bless the benevolence of that God who thus makes the 
 wilderness and the solitary place to be glad, and whose wisdom 
 renders even the hours of amusement subservient to the cause of 
 virtue. It is not, therefore, the use of the innocent amusements 
 of life which is dangerous, but the abuse of them; it is not when 
 they are occasionally, but when they are constantly pursued ; when 
 the love of amusement degenerates into a passion; and when, 
 from being an occasional indulgence, it becomes a habitual 
 desjre." 
 
DISTINGUISHED MEN. 
 
 " The grave s the pulpit of departed man, 
 From it he speaks." 
 
 " The tongues of dying men 
 Enforce attention like deep harmony : 
 Where words are scarce, they re seldom spent in vain. 
 For they breathe truth, that breathe their words in pain." SHAKSFF.ARE. 
 
 PLINY asserts that he has frequently odserved, amongst the 
 noble actions and remarkable sayings of distinguished persons in 
 either sex, those which have been most celebrated have not always 
 been the most worthy of admiration. The remark is no less true 
 at the present day. Many of the unostentatiously great have 
 passed away without the loud clarion of fame to echo their virtues 
 to the living multitudes ! But for this, what a rich store of instruc 
 tion might have been garnered from the final utterances of many 
 a heaven-bound spirit. "If," says an eminent theologian, "the 
 reputation of the living were the only source from which the honor 
 of our race is derived, the death of an eminent man would be a 
 subject of immitigable grief." It is the lot of few to attain great 
 distinction, before death has placed them above the distorting 
 medium through which men are seen by their contemporaries. It 
 is the lot of still fewer to attain it by qualities which exalt the 
 
DYING WORDS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN. 155 
 
 character of our species. Envy denies the capacity of some ; 
 slander stigmatizes the principles of others ; fashion gives an occa_ 
 sional currency to false pretensions ; and the men by whom the 
 age is hereafter to be known, are often too much in advance of it 
 to be discernible by the common eye. All these causes combine to 
 reduce the stock of living reputation as much below the real 
 merits of the age, as it is below the proper dignity of man ; and he 
 who should wish to elevate his spirit by great examples of wisdom, 
 genius and patriotism, if he could not derive them from the illus 
 trious dead, would have better reason than the son of Philip, to 
 weep at the limits which confined him. To part with the great 
 and good from a world which thus want them, and not to receive 
 thereafter the refreshing influence of their purified and exalted 
 fame, would be to make death almost the master of our virtue, as 
 he appears to be of our perishable bodies. The living and dead 
 are, however, but one family ; and the moral and intellectual afflu 
 ence of those, who have gone before, remains to enrich their pos 
 terity. The great fountain of human character lies beyond the 
 limits of mortal life, where the passions cannot invade it. It is in 
 that region, that among innumerable proofs of man s nothingness, 
 are preserved the records of his immortal descent and destiny. It 
 is there the spirits of all ages, after their sun is set, are gathered 
 into one firmament, to shed their unquenchable light upon us. It 
 is in the great assembly of the dead, that the philosopher and the 
 patriot, who have passed from life, complete their benefaction to 
 mankind, by becoming imperishable examples of virtue. Beyond 
 the circle of those private affections which cannot choose, but 
 shrink from the shafts of death, there is no grief then for the 
 departure of the eminently good and wise. No tears but those of 
 gratitude, should fall into the graves of such as are gathered in 
 honor to their forefathers. By their now unenvied virtues and 
 talents, they have become a new possession to posterity ; and when 
 we commemorate them, and pay the debt which is their due, we 
 increase and confirm our own inheritance. Cyrus, in his last ago- 
 
156 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 nies, desired the Persians to rejoice at his funeral, and not to 
 lament as if he were really dead. 
 
 The ideas usually entertained respecting dissolution, are very 
 unphilosophical. We are accustomed to associate the separation 
 of the soul and body with horror and dread, as if death were 
 necessarily agonizing and distressing, but this is far from being the 
 case universally; the instances, indeed, to the contrary, are both 
 numerous and striking. How frequently do we witness the 
 departure of a spirit from its frail tenement, marked by all the 
 placidity of a summer sun-set, wholly insensible to pain rather 
 indeed, joyously relinquishing its hold on things terrestrial ! Dr. 
 Hunter was an instance of this kind. A few moments prior to 
 his decease, he said to a friend who attended him, "If I had 
 strength to hold a pen, I would write how easy and pleasant a 
 thing it is to die." 
 
 How grateful the contrast afforded by the last expressions of 
 Addison, although savoring somewhat of ostentation, whose spirit 
 was illumed by the cheering light of Divine truth. When he 
 called to his bedside his profligate son-in-law, exclaiming, "Behold, 
 with what tranquility a Christian can die 1" 
 
 Russell Lowell says, "Why should men ever be afraid to die, 
 but that they regard the spirit as secondary to that which is but 
 its mere appendage and conveniency its symbol, its word, its 
 means of visibility ? If the soul lose this poor mansion of hers by 
 the sudden conflagration of disease, or by the slow decay of age, 
 is she therefore houseless and shelterless ? If she cast away this 
 soiled and tattered garment, is she therefore naked ? A child 
 looks forward to a new suit, and dons it joyfully; we cling to our 
 rags and foulness. We should welcome death as one who brings 
 us tidings of the finding of long-lost titles to a large family estate, 
 and set out gladly to take .possession, though it may be, not 
 without a natural tear for the humbler home we are leaving. 
 Death always means us a kindness, though he has often a gruff 
 way of offering it. 
 
DYING WORDS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN. 157 
 
 "The realm of death seems an enemy s country to most men, 
 on whose shores they are loathly driven by stress of weather. 
 To the wise man it is the desired port where he moors his bark 
 gladly, as in some quiet haven of the Fortunate Isles. It is the 
 golden west into which his sun sinks, and sinking, casts back a 
 glory upon the leaden cloud-rack which had darkly beseiged 
 his day. 
 
 " We look at death through the cheap-glazed windows of the 
 flesh, and believe him the monster which the flawed and cracked 
 glass represents him." 
 
 The moralist inquires, how a man has lived? our curiosity is 
 even more excited as to how he died; ajid it is a no less interest 
 ing question to ascertain what influence mental cultivation has 
 exerted on his last moments. 
 
 The dying words of the great are regarded with thrilling inter 
 est. They often serve as indices to the previous life of individuals, 
 as well as of their final destiny. 
 
 The pious Wesley, anticipating his approaching dissolution, 
 exclaimed, "The best of all is, God is with us." John Locke 
 exclaimed, " the depth of the riches of the goodness and 
 knowledge of God. I have lived long enough, and am thankful 
 that I have enjoyed a happy life, but after all look upon this life 
 as nothing better than vanity." .Says Young : 
 
 " Death is the crown of life ; 
 
 Were death denied, poor men would live in vain ; 
 Were death denied, to live would not be life." 
 
 How fearful and appaling is the contrast presented by the 
 death of the scoffer and the infidel. 
 
 " Brutes die but once ; 
 Blest incommunicable privilege for which 
 Proud man, who rules the globe ami reads the stars, 
 Philosopher or hero, sighs in vain." 
 
 No ray of hope seems to gild his passage to the eternal world. 
 
158 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 He gives no evidence, as does the good man when about to fall, 
 with " one eye on death, and one full-fixed on heaven." 
 
 The scoffer and the infidel may insultingly deride the pious 
 believer, who takes the Word of God as " the man of his counsel;" 
 they may affect to construe his joyous expressions to be mere exci 
 tations of the brain, and his hopes of a blissful immortality all a 
 delusion; but inwardly, when honest with themselves, though 
 cheats to the world, they will surely desire, with Balaam, to 
 "die the death of the righteous." "Men may live fools, but 
 fools they cannot die." The solemn hour of death brings a man 
 to sober reason s sway, and the prospect of the grave which, 
 " as a dark lattice, lets in eternal day" to the good man s view 
 serves but to increase the darkness that hangs about the dying 
 reprobate. 
 
 The death of cultivated men, has sometimes been marked by 
 serenity and composure, from the ascendancy of their mental 
 powers overcoming the terrors of death. This is, however, most 
 triumphantly exhibited in the decease of the Christian, since he 
 brings to the solemn occasion the soul-transporting influences of a 
 " hope full of immortality." The degrees of mental supremacy in 
 dissolution, cause the differences which characterize the last 
 hours of men of various nations. The prevailing unintellectual 
 tendencies of the Turks induce, consequently, their greater tena 
 city to life, from their indolent love of animal indulgence; the 
 recklessness and uncivilized habits of the Arabs, and other 
 predatory races, account for their utter indifference to the value 
 of existence; and the calm philosophy of the Germans, their 
 stoicism; while the mercurial volatility, and irritability of the 
 French, supply us with the solution of the causes which render 
 them no less the victims of disquietude at the period *of dissolution. 
 
 Seneca endured pains that were long and violent, as he lay 
 with his veins opened, pouring forth his life; yet his sufferings, 
 acute as they must have been, could not repress his fortitude or 
 his eloquence. He dictated, we learn from history, a discourse to 
 
DYING WORDS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN. 159 
 
 two secretaries, which was read with great avidity after his death 
 by the people, but which has since perished in the wreck of time. 
 Says a contemporary : 
 
 " What a lesson is there taught in the withering rebuke and 
 apostrophe of Caesar, when he fell, cleft to the ground by the con 
 spirators daggers : Et tu, Brute 1 It reveals the faithlessness 
 of friends, though deemed as firm as the sea-beaten rock ; it shows 
 the poignancy of the sorrow that momentarily wrung the Emper 
 or s bosom, when he perceived Brutus foremost in dealing the 
 fatal blows. Et tu, Brute P surely those words speak volumes 
 lessons that should ever be garnered up fondly ! The remark of 
 the wicked and voluptuous Nero, in his dying moments, is worthy 
 of record : Is this your fidelity ? said he to a freedman, who, 
 under pretence of staying the blood, was endeavoring to hasten 
 his master s death." 
 
 The poet Lucan, in the very act of expiring, repeated the beau- 
 ful description, in his own poem of the " Pharsalia" of a person 
 in his precise circumstances. 
 
 The story of Arria exhibits a memorable instance of heroic 
 fortitude. Foetus, her husband, having joined Scribonianus, who 
 was in arms, in Illyria, against Claudius, was taken, after the 
 death of the latter, and condemned to death. Arria, having in 
 vain solicited his life, persuaded him to destroy himself, rather 
 than submit to an ignominious end. Pliny records, she plunged 
 the dagger into her breast, and then presented it to her husband, 
 exclaiming, " Pretus, it is not painful 1" Marc Anthony died, 
 exhorting Cleopatra not to lament, but to congratulate him upon 
 his former felicity ; since he considered himself as one who had lived 
 the most powerful of men, and at last as perishing by the hand of 
 a Roman. Cleopatra s end was equally indicative of her char 
 acter; her love to Anthony, even after his decease, remained true. 
 In all her georgeous robes she feasted at a splendid banquet, 
 previous to applying the asp; her attendants found her on a 
 gilded couch, even 
 
160 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 " More beautiful in death than life." 
 
 Near her, Inas, one of her faithful attendants, was stretched life 
 less at her feet ; and Charmion, herself almost expiring, was set 
 tling the diadem upon Cleopatra s head. " Alas !" cried one of 
 the messengers, " was this well done, Charmion ?" " Yes," she 
 replied, "it was well done; such a death becomes a glorious 
 queen, descended from a race of noble ancestors." On pronounc 
 ing these words, she fell down and died with her much-loved 
 mistress. So much for heathen heroism and devotedness. 
 
 We have many instances of persons who have evinced their 
 strength of mind, by composing verses when on the point of death. 
 The Emperor Adrian, before expiring, it is stated, composed the 
 celebrated epigram, " Animula Vagula Blandula." Salmasius, 
 attacked by a mortal disease, still young, and while in momentary 
 expectation of death, composed his epitaph in verse. We have 
 abundance of instances on record, however, of the last moments of 
 celebrated men, evincing 
 
 " The ruling passion strong in death." 
 
 And .even is this the case with some of that limited number of the 
 world s great thinkers and seers, who discern 
 
 " The far-off mountain-tops of distant thoughts, 
 That men of common stature never saw," 
 
 When Alfieri drew near his end, he was persuaded to see a 
 priest, but on his appearing, he begged him to defer his visit to 
 another day. On the morrow, when the official again appeared, 
 he urged, " At present I have but a few minutes to live," and 
 entreating that the Countess of Albany widow of Stuart, the 
 Pretender might be called, exclaimed, on seeing her, " Clasp my 
 hand, my dear friend, I die !" and immediately expired. Petrarch 
 died of apoplexy, seated in his library, with one arm resting on a 
 book. De Lagny, who was intended by his friends for the study 
 
DYING WORDS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN. 161 
 
 of the law, having fallen on Euclid, found it so congenial to his 
 disposition, that he devoted himself to mathematics. In his last 
 moments, when he retained no further recollection of the friends 
 surrounding his bed, one of them, perhaps to make a philosophical 
 experiment, thought proper to ask him the square of 12 ; our 
 dying mathematician instantly, and perhaps without knowing that 
 he answered, replied, " 144." Pere Bouhours was a French gram 
 marian, who had been justly accused of paying too scrupulous 
 an attention to the minutia3 of letters. He was more solicitous of 
 his words than his thoughts. It is said, that when he was dying, 
 he called out to his friends, (a correct grammarian to the last,) 
 " Je VAS, ou jtf VAIS mourir; Vun ou Pautre se dit" When Mal- 
 herbe was dying, he reprimanded his nurse for making use of a 
 solecism in her language. And when his confessor represented to 
 him the felicities of a future state, in low and trite expressions, 
 the dying critic thus interrupted him, "Hold your tongue; 
 your wretched style only makes me out of conceit with them." 
 The favorite studies and amusements of the learned La Moth le 
 Yayer consisted in accounts of the most distant countries. He 
 gave a striking proof of the influence of this master-passion, when 
 death hung upon his lips. Bernier, the celebrated traveler, enter 
 ing, and drawing the curtains of his bed to take his eternal fare 
 well, the dying man turned to him, and with a faint voice inquired, 
 "Well, my friend, what news from the Great Mogul?" The 
 virtuous Erasmus, when dying, exclaimed, "Bomine! Domine ! 
 fac finem ! fac finem !" Boyle, having prepared his proof for the 
 printer, pointed to where it lay when dying. The last words of 
 Lord Chesterfield were, " Give Dayroles a chair." The last words 
 of Nelson were, " Tell Collingwood to bring the fleet to an anchor." 
 Charles I., on the scaffold, said, " I fear not death ! death is not 
 terrible to me." Sir Thomas More pleasantly said, when mount 
 ing the scaffold, " I pray you see me up safe ; and for my coming 
 down, let me shift for myself." Rousseau called his wife to the 
 bedside, and told her to throw up the window, " that he might see 
 
162 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 once more the magnificent scene of nature." How noble the tes 
 timony of Frederic V., of Denmark, who, in his last moments 
 exclaimed, "It is a great consolation to me, in my last hour, that 
 I have never wilfully offended any one, and that there is not a 
 drop of blood on my hands." Whether true or fabulous, Homer 
 is said to have died of grief, at not being able to expound a 
 riddle, propounded by some simple fisherman "Leaving what s 
 took, what we took not, we bring !" a knotty point, it is true, 
 but scarcely worth the expense of one s precious vitality. 
 
 Chaucer repeated in his last moments, the " Balade made 
 by Geoffrey Chaucyer, upon his dethe bedde, lying in his grete 
 anguisse." As few readers may be familiar with these beautiful 
 stanzas, we subjoin a portion of them, with the orthography 
 modernized : 
 
 " Fly from the crowd, and be to virtue true, 
 
 Content with what thou hast tho it be small ; 
 To hoard brings hate ; nor lofty thoughts pursue 
 
 He who climbs high endangers many a fall, 
 Envy s a shade that ever waits on fame, 
 And oft the sun that rises, it will hide. 
 Trace not in life a vast expensive scheme, 
 But be thy wishes to thy state allied. 
 Be mild to others, to thyself severe, 
 So truth shall shield thee, or from hurt or fear." 
 
 Waller affords a somewhat similar instance with the above. 
 He expired in the act of rehearsing some favorite passage from 
 Virgil. The Earl of Roscornmon, when about to expire, uttered, 
 with the energy of devotion, these two lines of his version of 
 Dies Ira3 : 
 
 " My God, my father, and my friend, 
 Do not forsake me in my end." 
 
 Tassb s dying request to Cardinal Cynthia, is expressive of that 
 settled melancholy which hung over him through -life : "I have 
 but one favor to ask," said he, " that you would collect my works, 
 
DYING WORDS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN. 163 
 
 and commit them to the flames; particularly my Jerusalem Deliv 
 ered." t But how beautifully pathetic are the last words he uttered 
 " In manus tuas Domine" though life became extinct before 
 he could pronounce more. Klopstock expired in the rehearsal 
 of his own beautiful verses, descriptive of the death of Mary, the 
 sister of Mary and Lazarus. This song of Mary, observes Madame 
 de Stael, was sung at the public funeral of the poet. 
 
 It is well known that Dr. Johnson, with all his powerful- 
 intellect, such was his singular dread of dissolution, that he oould 
 scarcely be persuaded to execute his will, lest the act should 
 hasten his end. When a friend called upon him he exclaimed, 
 in a melancholy tone, " Jam moriturus." The " dread monster," 
 on the last day of his existence, came to his mental appre 
 hension envisaged with all the horrors that had so haunted 
 him through life. Hazlitt on his death-bed presented a melan 
 choly spectacle. His highly cultivated powers were tasked to 
 their utmost. Yet fickle fortune was so chary of her favors that 
 he early became the victim of calumny, poverty and death. On 
 his death-bed he was so distressed with the sense of his pecuniary 
 obligations, that he dictated a letter to Jeffrey, of Edinburgh, 
 soliciting a grant of money. The reply came with .50 the day 
 after his decease. Byron was of excessive nervous irritability; he 
 died, according to Dr. Madden, muttering inaudibly some verses 
 about his sister and child, but so inarticulately as not to have been 
 understood. Cowper, the most surprising instance of nervous mel 
 ancholy throughout the greater period of his life-time, happily 
 was permitted to resign his spirit, cheered by the blessed assurance 
 of Christian hope, his end was as calm as a sleep. Mary, Scot 
 land s ill-fated Queen, met death under the most appalling circum 
 stances, with a degree of firmness and heroic resolution, strikingly 
 opposed to what might have been looked for from so gentle a 
 creature, oppressed with such heavy misfortunes, deserted by 
 every professed friend, with only her faithful little dog to share 
 her sorrows. 
 
164 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY 
 
 Clarendon s pen dropped from his hand when seized with a 
 palsy, which put an end to his existence. 
 
 The dying exclamation of the excellent Bishop Porteus is indi 
 cative of a mind in happy harmony with nature and nature s God. 
 Sitting in his library, at Fulham, on a balmy eve of May, the 
 countenance of the good prelate beamed with a transient glow, 
 and in the grateful gladness of his heart he exclaimed, as his 
 delighted eye caught a glimpse of the setting sun, " 0, that glori 
 ous stm !" " Soon after," adds his biographer, "he fell asleep, and 
 a brighter sun broke upon him." 
 
 Napoleon s last words were, "tete cParmee" an unmistakable 
 evidence how his thoughts were occupied on the eve of his depar 
 ture from his warlike career. What words could be supposed 
 more in accordance with the tenor of his history ? He died in his 
 military garb, which he had ordered to be put on a short time 
 previous to his dissolution. 
 
 Instances occur to us of terrible death-beds, such as that of the 
 wretched atheist, Altamont, the sad story of whose mental anguish, 
 at the moment of dissolution, is too harrowing for recital here. 
 
 Cardinal Beaufort, accused of having murdered the Duke of 
 Gloucester, the faithful remembrance of which seemed to have 
 filled his mind with indescribable terrors; for it is stated, his end 
 was one of the most terrible ever witnessed. His last words were 
 " And must I then die ? will not all my riches save me ? I could 
 purchase a kingdom, if that would save my life ! What ! is there 
 no bribing death ?" Shakspeare s description of the Cardinal s 
 death is awfully yet scrupulously true. 
 
 The death-bed of the Countess of Nottingham was one of re 
 morse, from her faithless conduct towards the unfortunate Earl of 
 Essex. Tis said Elizabeth shook her on her dying couch, with 
 " God may forgive you, but I never will." This same queen, in 
 her turn, endured the pangs of an unappeased conscience in her 
 last moments; for she exclaimed, " All my possessions for a moment 
 of time." On the other hand, how many have met death as a 
 
DYING WORDS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN. 165 
 
 holy thing, rejoicing in the casting off the bondage of earth; a 
 calm and peace have pervaded their actions, and a smile has 
 heightened their angelic looks, as they fled from time to eternity. 
 Anne Boleyn was perfectly resigned to her fate ; her thoughts 
 were on another world. She observed, clasping her neck, " It is 
 but small very small." The deaths of that hapless yet beauti 
 ful pair, Lord Dudley and the unfortunate Lady Jane Grey, were 
 marked by a pious and settled composure:* of the latter tis truth 
 fully said 
 
 " Yet here she kneels in her unfolding years, 
 
 All yet unreached the height of womanhood, 
 Kneels face to face with death, and feels no fears, 
 Though the keen axe be soon to drink her blood : 
 Calm looks she, as the seaman on the flood, 
 Which, though it loudly rage, and wildly foam, 
 Shall bear him bravely to his distant home." 
 
 D Aubigne, in his History of the Reformation, thus describes 
 the last hours of Cardinal Wolsey. " On Monday morning tor 
 mented by gloomy farebodings, Wolsey asked what was the time 
 of day. Past eight o clock/ replied Cavendish. That cannot 
 
 be, said the Cardinal ; eight o clock ! No ! for by eight 
 
 o clock you shall lose your master. At six o clock on Tuesday, 
 Kingston having come to inquire about his health, Wolsey said to 
 him, I shall not live long. Be of good cheer, rejoined the 
 Governor of the Tower. Alas, Master Kingston ! exclaimed 
 the Cardinal, if I had served God as diligently as I have served 
 the King, he would not have given me over in my grey hairs ! 
 and then he added with downcast head, This is my just reward 1 
 What a judgment upon his own life ! 
 
 " On the very threshold of eternity, for he had but a few minutes 
 more to live, the Cardinal summoned up all his hatred against the 
 Reformation, and made a last effort. The persecution was too 
 slow to please him. Master Kingston, he said, attend to my 
 last request; tell the King that I conjure him, in God s name, to 
 
166 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 destroy the new pernicious sect of Lutherans; and then, with 
 astonishing presence of mind in this his last hour, Wolsey described 
 the misfortunes which the Hussites had, in his opinion brought 
 upon Bohemia; and then coming to England, he recalled the times 
 of Wickliffe, and Sir John Oldcastle. He grew animated; his 
 dying eyes yet shot forth fiery glances 1 He trembled, lest Henry 
 VIII., unfaithful to the Pope, should hold out his hands to the 
 Reformers. Master Kingston/ said he in conclusion, the King 
 should know that if he tolerates heresy, God will take away his 
 power, and we shall then have mischief upon mischief barrenness, 
 scarcity and disorder to the utter destruction of this Realm. 
 
 "Wolsey was exhausted by the effort. After a momentary 
 silence he resumed, with a dying voice, Master Kingston, fare 
 well ! My time draweth on fast. Forget not what I have said 
 and charged you withal ; for when I am dead, ye shall, perad ven 
 ture, understand my words better ! It was with difficulty he 
 uttered these words; his tongue began to falter, his eyes became 
 fixed his sight failed him. He breathed his last at the same 
 minute the clock struck eight; and the attendants standing round 
 his bed looked at each other in affright. It was the 20th of 
 November, 1530. 
 
 Sir Isaac Newton died in the act of winding up his watch a 
 singular emblem of the winding up of his own career. Haller, 
 feeling his pulse, exclaimed, " the artery ceases to beat," and 
 instantly expired. The following stanzas, penned On he bed of 
 sickness, merit notice, from their richness and soft harmony. The 
 author s name is Wood, who resided in Kent, England, compara 
 tively unknown to fame; yet his muse is evidently endowed with a 
 keen relish for Nature s beauties, for he seems to riot in her 
 magnificent charms. Feelingly he wrote, on his dying couch, the 
 
 following : 
 
 " Now bear me hence away, 
 I like not this close room, so small and dim ; 
 Around the curtained bed are shadows grim, 
 Which jauntly play, 
 
DYING WORDS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN. 167 
 
 Turning my mind from prayer ; 
 I know they tell me of my coming fate, 
 But oli ! not here I would the change await 
 
 In the cool air." 
 
 Haydn s faculties, like those of many other men celebrated for 
 their genius, were impaired before his frame. His latter years 
 were those of a drooping and demented old man. He was some 
 times visited by strangers; they found him in a simple chamber, 
 sitting before "a desk, with the melancholy look of one who felt 
 that all his early powers were gone. When he took notice of his 
 visitors he smiled, and tears stole down his cheeks; but he some 
 times seemed to feel sudden bursts of memory, and talked strik 
 ingly of his early career. 
 
 When the war broke out between Austria and France, in 1809, 
 the intelligence roused Haydn, and exhausted the shattered rem 
 nant of his remaining strength. He was continually inquiring for 
 news; he went every moment to his piano, and sang, with the 
 slender voice left to him 
 
 " God preserve the Emperor !" 
 
 The French armies advanced with gigantic strides. At length, 
 having reached Schoenbrun, half a league s distance from Haydn s 
 little garden, they fired, the next morning, fifteen hundred cannon 
 shot, within two yards of his house, upon Vienna, the town which 
 he so much loved. The old man s imagination represented it as 
 given up to fire and sword. Four bombs fell close to his house 
 His two servants ran to him full of terror. The old man, rousing 
 himself, got up from his easy-chair, and with a dignified air, 
 demanded, "Why this terror? Know that no disaster can come 
 where Haydn is." A convulsive shivering prevented him from 
 proceeding, and he was carried to his bed. His strength dimin 
 ished sensibly. Nevertheless, having caused himself to be carried 
 to his piano, he sung thrice, as loud as he was able " God pre 
 serve the Emperor !" It was the song of the swan. While at the 
 piano, he fell into a kind of stupor, and expired. 
 
168 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 Haydn was very religious during the whole of his life. At the 
 commencement of all his scores, he inscribed, In nomine, Dominie, 
 or Soli Deo gloria; and at the conclusion of all of them is written, 
 Laus Deo. When, in composing, he felt his imagination decline, 
 or was stopped by some difficulty which then appeared insur 
 mountable, he rose from the piano-forte and began to run over his 
 rosary, and he said he never found this method fail. "When, 
 says lie, "I was employed upon The Creation, I felt myself 
 so penetrated with religious feeling, that, before I sat down to 
 the instrument, I prayed to God with earnestness, that He would 
 enable me to praise Him worthily." This master-piece was the 
 fruit of nine years toil. 
 
 We give another anecdote of his brother-composer, Mozart : he 
 seems, however, to have suffered, like Johnson, from prevailing 
 fears of death. There is something strikingly beautiful and 
 touching in the circumstances of his death. " His sweetest song 
 was the last he sung " the " Requiem" He had been employed 
 upon this exquisite piece for several weeks his soul filled with 
 inspirations of richest melody, and already claiming kindred with 
 immortality. After giving it its last touch, and breathing into it 
 that undying spirit of song which was to consecrate it through all 
 time, as his " cygnean strain," he fell into a gentle and quiet 
 slumber. At length, the light footsteps of his daughter Emilie 
 awoke him. " Come hither," said he, " my Emilie my task is 
 done the Requiem my Requiem is finished." "Say not so, 
 dear father," said the gentle girl, interrupting him, as tears stood 
 in her eyes; "you must be better you look better, for even now 
 your cheek has a glow upon it. I am sure we will nurse you well 
 again let me bring you something refreshing." " Do not deceive 
 yourself, my love," said the dying father; " this wasted form can 
 never be restored by human aid. From Heaven s mercy alone do 
 I look for aid, in this my dying hour. You spoke of refreshment, 
 my Emilie take these, my last notes sit down by my piano 
 here sing them with the hymn of thy sainted mother let me 
 
DYING WORDS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN. 169 
 
 once more hear those tones which have been so long my solace- 
 ment and delight." Emilie obeyed; and with a voice enriched 
 with tenderest emotion, sung the following stanzas : 
 
 " Spirit ! thy labor is o er ! 
 
 Thy term of probation is run, 
 Thy steps are now bound for the untrodden shore. 
 And the race of immortals begun. 
 
 Spirit ! look not on the strife 
 Or the pleasures of earth with regret 
 Pause not on the threshold of limitless life, 
 To mourn for the day that is set. 
 
 Spirit ! no fetters can bind, 
 No wicked have power to molest ; 
 There the weary, like thee the wretched, shall find 
 A haven a mansion of rest. 
 
 Spirit ! how bright is the road 
 For which thou art now on the wing ! 
 Thy home it will be with thy Savionr and God, 
 Their loud hallelujahs to sing." 
 
 As she concluded, she dwelt for a moment upon the low, 
 melancholy notes of the piece, and then turning from the instru 
 ment, looked in silence for the approving smile of her father. It 
 was the still, passionless smile which the rapt and joyous spirit 
 had left, with the seal of death upon those features. 
 
 The demise of Beethoven was peculiarly impressive. He had 
 been visibly declining, when suddenly he revived a bright smile 
 illumed his features, as he softly murmured, " I shall hear in 
 heaven," and then sung in a low, but distinct voice the lines from 
 one of his own beautiful hymns 
 
 " Briider ! Uber m Sternenzeldt, 
 Muss ein lieber Voter wohnen." 
 
 We turn again, for a moment, to the closing scenes of some of 
 
 8 
 
170 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 the earlier poets, citing a few cases at random. The two we 
 commence with are melancholy enough. 
 
 Otway, the dramatist, died at the early age of thirty-four; 
 though, in the manner of his death, his biographers somewhat 
 differ. It is said that, having been compelled by his necessities 
 to contract debts, and hunted by the terriers of the law, he 
 retired to a public house on Tower Hill, where he died of want; 
 or, as it is related by one of his biographers, by swallowing a 
 piece of bread, which charity had supplied after a long fast. He 
 went, as is reported, almost in a nude state, and in the rage of 
 hunger, finding a gentlemen in a neighboring coffee-house, he 
 asked him for a shilling. The gentleman gave him a guinea; 
 when Otway, going away, bought a roll, and was choked with 
 the first mouthful. Pope says that Otway died of a fever, 
 caught by a violent pursuit of a thief, who had robbed one of his 
 friends. But that indigence, and its concomitants, sorrow and 
 despondency, pressed hard upon him, has never been denied, 
 whatever immediate cause might have brought him to the grave. 
 
 Philip Massinger, the immediate successor of Shakspeare, and 
 second only to him as a dramatic poet, often as majestic, and 
 generally more elegant than his master, was as powerful a ruler 
 of the understanding as the Bard of Avon was of the passions. 
 And yet, with such rare talents, Massinger appears to have main 
 tained a constant struggle with adversity, and to have enjoyed no 
 gleam of sunshine. Life was to him one long wintry day, and 
 "shadows, clouds and darkness" sat upon it. For its quaint 
 terseness, we here cite some stanzas on death by one of the old 
 poets : 
 
 " The longer life, the more offence ; 
 
 The more offence, the greater pain ; 
 The greater pain, the less defense; 
 
 The less defense, the lesser gain 
 The loss of gain long ill doth try, 
 Wherefore, come, death, and let me die. 
 
DYING WORDS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN. Ill 
 
 The shorter life, less count I find: 
 
 The less account, the sooner made ; 
 The count soon made, the merrier mind ; 
 
 The merrier mind doth thought invade 
 Short life, in truth, this thing doth try, 
 Wherefore, come, death, and let me die. 
 
 Comej gentle death, the ebb of care ; 
 
 The ebb of care, the flood of life ; 
 The flood of life, the joyful fare ; 
 
 The joyful fare, the end of strife 
 The end of strife, that thing wish I, 
 Wherefore, come, death, and let me die." 
 
 The last lines penned by Sir Walter Raleigh, on the night pre 
 vious to his execution, may be familiar to the reader : they 
 commence 
 
 " Go, Soul, the body s guest, 
 
 Upon a thankless errand, 
 Fear not to touch the best, 
 
 The truth shall be thy warrant ; 
 Go, since I needs must die, 
 And give the world the lie. 
 
 ^ Go, tell the Court it glows 
 
 And shines like soften wood ; 
 Go, tell the Church it shows 
 
 What s good, and doth no good. 
 If Church and Court reply, 
 Then give them both the lie." 
 
 When on the scaffold, he desired to see the axe ; and feeling 
 the edge of it, said to the sheriff, "This is a sharp medicine, but 
 a sure remedy for all evils !" Being asked which way he chose to 
 place himself on the block, he replied, " So the heart be right, it 
 is no matter which way the head lies ;" and giving the signal, he 
 received the stroke with the most perfect composure. Such was 
 the end of this great and illustrious man, of whom the age was not 
 worthy. 
 
172 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 When the poet Goethe, after more than the usually allotted 
 term of human existence, was met by the summons, it found him 
 still busy with the pen, the implement at once of his pleasure and 
 his power ; and he sank as a child, who, with the glow of the 
 day s activity still on his cheek, looking forward to a morrow of 
 hope and joy, folds himself to sleep. " Let the light enter," were 
 his last words, " echoed, we may suppose," says his biographer, 
 " from a region where all is light." 
 
 We gather from the interesting memoirs of that surprising 
 woman, Madame de Stael, that her last expressions, addressed to 
 Chateaubriand, were, " I have loved God, my father, and liberty ;" 
 and on quoting the memorable words of Fonteuelle, "I am a 
 Frenchman, fourscore years old, yet I never ridiculed the slightest 
 virtue ;" she added, with strong emphasis, " I can say as much of 
 the slightest suffering " a noble confession, worthy of all imitation. 
 
 We find when that voluminous writer, Sir Walter Scott, was 
 near his end, he expressed a wish to Lockhart, his son-in-law, that 
 he would read to him ; and when asked from what book, he 
 replied, "Need you ask? there is but one !" Lockhart then read 
 the 14th chap, of John s Gospel, "Let not your heart be troubled," 
 etc., to which, adds the biographer, Sir Walter listened with mild 
 devotion, and then replied " Well, this is a great comfort ; I have 
 followed you distinctly, and I feel as if I were yet to be myself 
 again /" 
 
 It is refreshing to find some evidences of deep consciousness of 
 the vast solemnity befitting a dying hour, among men endowed 
 beyond the average of their race with intellectual strength ; as in 
 the case of Grotius, who, on being asked for his dying admonition, 
 exclaimed, " Be serious !" All his vast learning did not allow him 
 to think lightly of the paramount claims of those things which 
 make for our eternal peace. Sir William Jones, one of the most 
 brilliant geniuses that ever lived, affords similar evidence of the 
 right estimate of human learning, compared with the more impor 
 tant concerns of the future world. " It matters not," says Johnson, 
 
DYING WORDS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN. 173 
 
 " how a man dies, but how he lives." And even skeptical Rousseau 
 observes: "The great error is, placing such an estimate on this 
 life, as if our being depended on it, and we were nothing after 
 death." To attach ourselves but slightly to human affairs, is the 
 best method of learning to die. When Garrick showed Dr. John 
 son his fine house and gardens, at Hampton Court, instead of his 
 replying in the language of flattery, he exclaimed, " Ah ! David, 
 David, these are the things which make a death-bed terrible." 
 And at the dying couch of one of the ancient philosophers, when 
 some attendants were softly speaking upon some metaphysical 
 topic, he eagerly opened his eyes, and said, "Let me understand 
 what you are discoursing about, that then I may die." Alas 1 
 how little, after all their toil and assiduity, can even the greatest 
 men attain ! Newton confessed to this, when he compared his 
 vast scientific acquisitions in the view of the boundless regions of 
 unexplored knowledge, to a child picking up pebbles by the sea side. 
 To thinking minds, time is never so impressively marked, as by 
 the successive exit of the great men of an age. The constellation 
 which ushered in the present epoch, is going out one by one. 
 Goethe, Scott, Byron, Coleridge, Lamb, Southey, have departed; 
 and the amiable and enchanting melody of L. E. L. and Felicia 
 Hemans, we hear no longer in new outgushings of their muse. 
 
 The closing scenes of Mrs. Hemans life display her affection 
 in a high and rich degree. The recurrences to childhood show 
 how quiet her conscience, and how mellowed her memory: her 
 conversations with her sister all breathe a hope of immortality; 
 the anxious yearning of a mind free from the impurities of earth, 
 and ready to participate in that pleasure which is shared in a land 
 her own pen has so touchingly depicted : 
 
 " Dreams cannot picture a world so fair, 
 Sorrows and death may not enter there, 
 Time doth not breathe on its fadeless bloom." 
 
 As is the case with most, if not all who write, day after day, 
 
174 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 for the bread that perisheth, she endured rather, than enjoyed 
 life. A heart disease, with all its distressing accompaniments, 
 harassed her mind, and wore away her frame, which, we are told, 
 became towards the last, almost etherealized. At the compara 
 tively early age of forty-one, on the eve of the Sabbath, her 
 spirit passed away, to enter on the Sabbath of eternal rest, earth 
 having scarcely "profaned what was born for the skies." On her 
 tomb, in St. Ann s Church, Dublin, is inscribed one of her own 
 beautiful verses her most appropriate epitaph : 
 
 " Calm on the bosom of thy God, 
 
 Fair spirit ! rest thee now ! 
 E en while with us thy footsteps trod, 
 
 His seal was on thy brow. 
 Dust to the narrow home beneath ! 
 
 Soul to its place on high ! 
 They that have seen thy look in death, 
 
 No more may fear to die." 
 
 The following lines were written by John Keats on his death 
 bed, and are the last verses ever penned by that gifted young 
 poet. It will be remembered he died through intense grief, on 
 account of the too severe and unjust criticisms of G-ifford, the 
 English Juvenal. The youthful poet was removed to Italy where 
 he expired; and the last sad words he whispered were, "I die of 
 a broken heart." Many pieces have purported to be his last pro 
 duction; but these now transcribed are the last that ever emanated 
 from his pen : 
 
 " My spirit s lamp is faint and weak, 
 
 My feeble senses bow ; 
 Death s finger pales my fad ng cheek, 
 His seal is on my brow. 
 
 My heart is as a withered leaf, 
 
 Each fibre dead and sere ; 
 And near me sits the spectre grief, 
 
 To drain each burning tear ! 
 
DYING WORDS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN. It5 
 
 The earth is bright with buds and bees, 
 The air with purple beams 
 
 The winds are swimming in the trees, 
 Or sporting on the streams. 
 
 But not for me the blossom s breath 
 Nor winds, nor sunny skies 
 
 I languish in the arms of death, 
 And feed my soul with sighs ! 
 
 I sigh to hope come back again, 
 
 My heart is weak for thee ! 
 But woe is me ! my sighs are vain 
 
 She flies from misery ! 
 
 It is not that I fear to die, 
 
 That burns my withered breast 
 
 But thus to waste with agony, 
 And sigh, and wish for rest. 
 
 To count the minutes one bj one, 
 
 And long for coming light : 
 And ere the lingering day is done, 
 
 To languish for the night. 
 
 To feel that sinking of the mind, 
 
 That nothingness of soul ; 
 Where all is dead and dark and blind, 
 
 As drops of Lethe s bowl ! 
 
 And yet, sunny Italy! 
 
 T were sweet to find a tomb, 
 Where wild flowers ever strewn by thee, 
 
 Above my couch shall bloom ! 
 
 Farewell my harp! I kiss thy strings, 
 Go hang thee in the bowers ; 
 
 Where oft thy dreamy whisperings 
 Have charmed the buried hours ! 
 
 And if some finger fain would wake 
 
 Thine unremembered lay, 
 And bid thy sleeping silence break, 
 
 Then, haply, wilt thou say : 
 
176 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 * Oh ! stranger, scatter roses, 
 
 And slips of cypress burn 
 A broken heart reposes 
 
 Within this silent urn. " 
 
 There is something, we repeat, singularly sad and solemn in these 
 departures. Its great ones seem the essential features of %i age; 
 and when they are removed, " a chill comes over us," to use the 
 expressive words of an elegant author: "the ground seems taken 
 from under our feet; we feel as though a change of dispensation 
 were at hand an untried and unknown future were about to open 
 before us." 
 
 Rousseau desired them to open the blinds and take him to 
 the window, that he might see the garden again, and the glory 
 of the setting sun. Erasmus, in his last moments, was restless 
 and full of tribulation, crying from time to time, " Lorjl make an 
 end 1" Bayle, author of the Philosophical Dictionary, on the con 
 trary, was collected and deliberate to the last, and engaged in 
 correcting some proofs for the printer. When the latter entered 
 the room for one of the sheets, Bayle gave it to him and expired. 
 
 Scarron, on his death-bed, said to those who were weeping 
 about him, among whom was the future Madame de Maintenon, the 
 celebrated mistress of Louis XIV., "You cannot cry so much for 
 me, mes enfans, as I have made you laugh in my time." The gay 
 and gallant Chastelard, who was beheaded in Edinburgh, after 
 they had ferretted him out from the apartment of Mary Queen of 
 Scots, consoled himself by repeating with a good deal of courage 
 and pathos, one of Rensard s lyrics, on the scaffold, as his most 
 appropriate viaticum. 
 
 Among the last words of Robert Burns before he took his last 
 eager gulph from the physic cup, and fell convulsively to the foot 
 of the bed were: "Don t let the awkward sqad fire over me ! 
 alluding to a body of Dumfries militia, of which he was a mem 
 ber, and the military pretensions of which he looked on, to the 
 last, with a sense of humorous disparagement. 
 
DYING WORDS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN. 177 
 
 When Pope sat in his chair dying, a friend called to see him, 
 (just after his physician, who spake encouragingly of his illness, 
 had gone out,) and asked him how he did. "I am dying, sir, 
 of a hundred good symptoms," said the great wit, in a peevish 
 voice. 
 
 Grotius cried out, "Oil have consumed my days in labo 
 rious trifling !" Dr. Johnson lamented many things in his past 
 career, but when the light of evangelical truth broke in upon his 
 mind, he obtained Christian peace, in which he died. Baron 
 Haller died expressing his renewed confidence in God s mercy, 
 through Jesus Christ. 
 
 Julian, the apostate, exclaimed, as he fell wounded, fighting 
 with the Persians, " Thou hast conquered me, Galilean !" The 
 deist Hobbes said, with horror, in his last moments, "I am taking 
 a fearful leap in the dark." Cardinal Mazarine, " my poor 
 soul, what is to become of thee ? whither wilt thou go ?" 
 
 The following afford a brilliant contrast to some of the forego 
 ing instances. 
 
 The aged Simeon, as he took the young Saviour in his arms, 
 said, " Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, accor 
 ding to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." When 
 the proto-martyr Stephen fell beneath the missiles of his enemies, 
 he exclaimed, " Lord Jesus receive my spirit," and, getting upon 
 his knees, he cried with a loud voice, " Lord, lay not this sin to 
 their charge !" and when he had said this he fell asleep. The 
 Apostle Paul, just before his martydrom, exclaimed: "I have 
 fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the 
 faith ; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, 
 which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day !" 
 
 Ignatius, who, by the edict of the Emperor Trajan, was brought 
 from Antioch to Rome to be thrown to the lions in the Amphi 
 theatre, ceased not to exhort Christians on the way, saying, " My 
 Lord was crucified for me !" " Abjure Christianity or you shall 
 be thrown to the wild beasts," said the Roman Proconsul to the 
 
ITS SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 aged Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna. " Let them come on," cried 
 Polycarp, " we Christians are not accustomed to change better to 
 worse, but from bad to better." The venerable Hilary, Bishop 
 of Poictiers, A. D. 385, in his dying moments, thus addressed his 
 soul : " Soul, thou hast served Christ these seventy years, and art 
 thou afraid to die ? Go out soul, go out !" 
 
 " Come and sit near me ; let me lean on you," said Wilbefforce 
 to a friend a few minutes before his death. Afterward, putting 
 his arms around that friend, he said : " God bless you, my dear." 
 He became agitated somewhat, and then ceased speaking. Pre 
 sently, however, he said : "I must leave you, my fond friend ; we 
 shall walk no further through this world together ; but I hope we 
 shall meet in heaven. Let us talk of heaven. Do not weep for 
 
 me, dear , do not weep, for I am very happy ; but think of 
 
 me, and let the thought make you press forward. I never knew 
 happiness till I found Christ a Saviour. Read the Bible read 
 the Bible 1 Let no religious book take its place. Through all my 
 perplexities and distresses I never read any other book, and I 
 never felt the want of any other. It has been my hourly study ; 
 and all my knowledge of the doctrines, and all my acquaintance 
 with the experience and realities of religion, have been derived 
 from the Bible only. I think religious people do not read the 
 Bible enough. Books about religion may be useful enough, but 
 they will not do instead of the simple truth of the Bible." He 
 afterwards spoke of the regret of parting with friends. "No 
 thing," said he, " convinces me more of the reality of the change 
 within me, than the feelings with which I can contemplate a sepa 
 ration from my family. I now feel so weaned from earth, my 
 affections so much in heaven, that I can leave you all without a 
 regret ; yet I do not love you less, but God more." 
 
 When the chain was placed on the neck of John Huss, he ex 
 claimed with a smile : " Welcome this chain, for Christ s sake 1" 
 The faggots having been piled up to his neck, the Duke of Bavaria, 
 in brutal manner, called on him to abjure. " No, no," cried the 
 
DYING WORDS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN. 179 
 
 martyr, "I take God to witness I preached none but his own 
 pure doctrines, and what I taught I am ready to seal with 
 my blood." Jerome, of Prague, who followed Huss to the stake 
 after a few months, said to the executioner who was about to 
 kindle the fire behind him, " Bring thy torch hither ; do thine 
 office before my face ; had I feared death I might have avoided 
 it." The last words Luther was heard to utter were : " Into thy 
 hands I commend my spirit. Thou hast redeemed me, Lord 
 God of truth." " Nothing but heaven," said the mild Melancthon, 
 when asked by his friends if he wanted anything. And then he 
 gently fell asleep in Christ. George Wishart cried out at the 
 stake, " For the sake of the true Gospel, given me by the grace 
 of God, I suffer this day with a glad heart. Behold and consider 
 my visage ye shall not see me change color I fear not this fire." 
 The last prayer offered by Tindall, who translated the Bible, and 
 suffered martyrdom in 1536, was, " Lord, open the King of 
 England s eyes." Lawrence Saunders, who suffered martyrdom 
 during the reign of Queen Mary, kissed the stake to which he was 
 bound, exclaiming, " Welcome the Cross of Christ ; welcome life 
 everlasting !" " Be of good heart, brother," cried Ridley to Lat- 
 imer, "for our God will either assauge this flame, or enable us to 
 abide it." Latimer replied, "Be of good comfort, brother ; for 
 we shall this day light such a candle in England as, by God s 
 grace, shall never be put out." Bergerus, a councillor of the Em 
 peror Maximilian, said, on his dying bed, " Farewell, farewell, 
 all earthly things, and welcome Heaven." George Buchanan, the 
 ornament of Scottish literature, who could write Latin verse with 
 a purity almost worthy of the Augustan age, was taken with his 
 last illness when in the country. To the message of King James, 
 who summoned him to be at Court in twenty days, he sent this 
 reply: "Before the days, mentioned by your Majesty, shall be ex 
 pired, I shall be in that place where few kings enter." The Marquis 
 of Argyle, when advancing to the scaffold, said, " I would die as a 
 Roman, but I choose rather to die as a Christian." Among the last 
 
180 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 words of Claude were these: " I am so oppressed that I can attend 
 only to two of the great truths of religion, namely, the mercy of 
 God, and the gracious aids of the Holy Ghost." 
 
 For the last fourteen years of his life, the philosophic John 
 Locke applied himself to the study of the Scriptures. " Blessed 
 be God," said he on his death-bed, "for what the law has shown 
 to man ; blessed be his name for justifying him through faith in 
 Christ ; and thanks be to thy name, God, for having called me 
 to the knowledge of the Divine Saviour." When that great philos 
 opher and divine, President Edwards, was dying, some in his cham 
 ber were lamenting his departure as a frown on the College, and a 
 heavy stroke on the Church, not supposing that he attended to 
 them, or even heard them ; turning his dying eyes on them, he 
 said, " Trust in God, and you need net fear." These were his last 
 words. Edward Payson, of Portland, went out of the world with 
 the song of an angel on his lips. When laboring under very acute 
 pains, he exclaimed, " These are God s arrows, but they are sharp 
 ened with love." 
 
 The last words of Mr. Jefferson, who died just half a century 
 after the passage of his immortal Declaration of Independence, 
 were, " I resign my soul to God, and my daughter to my .country!" 
 The dying words of John Adams, the same day, were still more 
 characteristic of the man. A few minutes before he died, being 
 roused by the firing of a cannon, and told that his neighbors were 
 rejoicing for the 4th of July, he exclaimed, "It is a great and 
 glorious day," and expired with the words, " Independence for 
 ever 1" on his lips. 
 
 The last expressions of J. Q. Adams, were, " It is the last of 
 earth ;" and those of our revered Washington more significant 
 and hopeful "It is well." What a moral grandeur gathers 
 around the death-scene of the great and good of earth, when 
 sanctified by a religious faith ; and how fearful the contrast when 
 the departing spirit leaves the world all unprepared, unannealed, 
 unblessed, with all the terrible premonitions of a coming judgment. 
 
DYING WORDS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN. 
 
 181 
 
 Says a recent writer : " Life s last hours are grand testing hours. 
 Death tries all our principles, and lays bare all our foundation. 
 Yast numbers have been found to act the hypocrite in life, who 
 were forced to be honest in the hour of death. What atheists 
 have owned their principles, what wordlings have bewailed their 
 folly when death approached 1 Misgivings of the heart that have 
 been kept secret through life, have come out in death ; and many 
 who seemed all right and fair for heaven, have had to declare 
 that they had only been self-deceived. It has been said, " man 
 may not dissemble in death," hence the value of dying testimonies. 
 We gather the last words, the last acts, the last experiences ; and 
 we treasure them up as indubitable evidences in favor or against 
 the character of those that wore their value as tests of character, 
 and all have felt their force." 
 
THE POETRY OF PLANTS. 
 
 Speak no harsh words of earth : she is our mother, 
 And few of us, her sons, who have not added 
 A wrinkle to her brow. She gave us birth , 
 We drew our nurture from her ample breast ; 
 And there is coming for us both an hour 
 When we shall pray that she will ope her arms 
 And take us back again." ALEXANDER SMITH. 
 
 "The least of God s works it is refreshing to look at a dried leaf, or a straw, 
 makes me feel myself in good company." HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 " BEAUTY," says an eloquent writer, "is God s handwriting a 
 way-side sacrament : welcome it in every fair face, every fair field 
 and flower, every fair sky, and give thanks to Him the fountain 
 of all loveliness for it, drink it in simply and earnestly with all 
 your eyes ; it is a charmed draught a cup of blessing. Never 
 lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful ; for there is many 
 an avenue to our heart, besides our ears and brains ; many a 
 
THE POETRY OF PLANTS. 183 
 
 sight and sound and scent, of which we have never even thought, 
 that helps to shape our characters. Do not trees talk have they 
 not leafy lungs do they not, at sunrise, when the wind is low, and 
 the birds are carroling their songs, play sweet music ? Who has 
 ever heard the soft whisper of the green leaves in Spring time, on, 
 a sunny morning, that did not feel as though rainbow gleams of 
 gladness were running through his heart ? And then when the 
 morning-glory, like a nun before the shrine of God, discloses her 
 beautiful face, and the moss-roses open their crimson lips, spark 
 ling with the nectar that falls from heaven, who does not bless his 
 Maker ? And when Autumn comes, the season of " the sere and 
 yellow leaf," when the wheat is in its golden prime, and the corn 
 waves like silken tassels in the charmed air, is not minded of the 
 reaper Death ?" Well may Akenside exclaim, 
 
 " With what attractive charms this goodly frame 
 Of nature touches the consenting hearts 
 Of mortal man. For him the Spring 
 Distils her dews, and from the silken gem 
 Its lucid leaves unfolds ; for him the hand 
 Of Autumn tinges every fertile branch 
 With blooming gold, and blushes like the morn 
 Each passing hour sheds tribute from her wings ; 
 And still new beauties meet his lonely walk, 
 And loves unfelt attract him. Not a breeze 
 Flies o er the meadow, not a cloud imbibes 
 The setting sun s effulgence, not a strain 
 From all the tenants of the warbling shade 
 Ascends, but whence his bosom can partake 
 Fresh pleasure unreproved." 
 
 To a mind thus attuned, the beauties, harmonies and sublimities 
 of nature make their appeal, with an eloquence all-persuasive, and 
 a power irresistibly fascinating. It is amid such sabbath scenes 
 of peace that the heart becomes ennobled with thoughts of the 
 pure and beautiful, it is here that the gentler virtues cluster, and 
 the sister graces diffuse around their benign and blessed influence. 
 
184 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 The fair face of nature, so redolent of varied beauty, becomes a 
 sacred contemplation, linked with fragrant memories of "the loved 
 and lost," the joyous and bright, though brief hours of child 
 hood, the endearing ties of kindred, the maturer sweets of friend 
 ship and love, and the dark days of sadness and desolation. The 
 happy, Eden home of our first parents was a glorious garden of 
 embowered beauty; and even the Divine Redeemer made the leafy 
 solitudes of Gethsemane, and the Olive groves of the Mount, sacred 
 by His presence, as the chosen scene of His sufferings, and celes 
 tial communings. 
 
 How many and forcible are the teachings wooing us back to 
 God, whispered to us by the soft, breathing zephyr, amid the sigh 
 ing of the foliage, or in the gentle murmur of the rippling stream? 
 And how sweetly is the soul subdued to serenity and bliss, from its 
 sad unrest of worldly solicitude, by these hallowed influences : 
 while the tumult of passion, and the corrosions of care become 
 hushed and soothed : 
 
 " The world is too much with us ; late and soon, 
 Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers ; 
 And the mute expression of sweet nature s voices, 
 Are drowned amid the turmoil of life s noises ; 
 Where thoughts of fear and darkness come unbidden, 
 And love and hope are into silence chidden." 
 
 The poets have sought to portray the beauties of Flora, let it 
 be ours to attempt a survey of the bolder magnificence of the 
 forest. What can be more sublime and spirit-stirring than to 
 " thread the mazy grove," to wander beneath the thick overhang 
 ing foliage, penetrating into its embowered recesses ? The imposing 
 grandeur of the scene impresses us with a religious awe, and we 
 bow lowly and reverently before these visible tokens of the Creator s 
 benificence and power, as seen in their myriad forms of variegated 
 richness and vernal beauty. From the creeping ivy, that clings 
 with fond tenacity to the crumbling ruin, as if to rescue it from 
 
THE POETRY OF PLANTS. 185 
 
 the destroying touch of time, to the stately " kings of the forest," 
 reared in their colossal strength and leafy grandeur, what a world 
 of wonders is encircled, inviting our astonished and admiring gaze. 
 With what infinite variety of surpassing beauty is the broad realm 
 of nature decked what an endless succession of delicate forms, 
 do we discover in the spiral grass, the genera of plants, and the 
 ever-varying foliage of trees, all of which evince some peculiar 
 characteristics of habit or structure to arrest attention. It is this 
 very exuberance of nature s charms, however, that prevents our 
 just appreciation of their excellence, for who is accustomed to 
 render her duteous homage ? While the weary wanderer over the 
 arid sands of the East pines in vain for the leafy shelter of the 
 spreading cedar, the yew, or the oak, we enjoy their full immuni 
 ties. The weeping elm, with its rich pendulous branches, the sturdy 
 oak, the roseate foliage of the maple, " clad in scarlet and gold," 
 the hoary poplar, the " silver abele," the " tulip-tree," with its 
 brilliant, glossy leaves, and blossoms, " giving their odor to the 
 stars, and despising the minor denizens of the forest," with many 
 others, with whose generous shade, graceful outline, and exceeding 
 beauty, all are familiar. If for no other purpose we should cherish 
 and cultivate these attractive objects as majestic forms of beauty, 
 which none can contemplate without having the finer sensibilities 
 of their nature brought into exercise.^ Trees, therefore, may well 
 be regarded with grateful love, if not with a feeling of veneration ; 
 not only did they form the luxurious arbors of repose in Eden, they 
 constituted also the arched and leafy temple of the first worship 
 pers ; and it was, moreover, beneath the shadows of their thick 
 embowered recesses, that the tragedy of the first transgression was 
 enacted. 
 
 Trees have been objects of regard and veneration in all ages : 
 frequent mention of them is made in both sacred and profane his 
 tory. Pilgrimages were made to the oaks of Mamre, near Hebron, 
 from the time of Abraham to that of Constantine ; forests and 
 groves were consecrated in early periods of time as sites of religious 
 
186 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 worship, both by the Jews as well as the surrounding heathen 
 nations. The oratories of the Jews were beneath the shadow of 
 olive trees : groves also formed the primitive temples and shrines 
 of the heathen deities. Many trees of the east were distin 
 guished as especial objects of regard by the orientals : the valley 
 of Hinnom was esteemed so venerable that it was even personified 
 as a god ; and in such esteem did they hold the cedars of Lebanon 
 that one of the most dreaded threats of Sennacherib was, that he 
 would level them with the ground. The principal trees of Pales 
 tine are thus grouped together, and made use of as the expressive 
 symbols of poetry, by the author of Ecclesiasticus : "I was exalted 
 like a cedar in Libanus, and as a Cyprus tree upon the mountains 
 of Hermon ; I was exalted like a palm tree in Engaddi, and as a 
 rose plant in Jericho, as a fair olive tree in a pleasant field, and 
 grew up as a plane tree by the water. As the turpentine tree I 
 stretched out my branches, and my branches are the branches of 
 honor and grace : as the vine brought I forth pleasant savor, and 
 my flowers are the fruit of honor and riches." The Syrians per 
 sonified their god Ilimrnon under the figure of a pomegranate ; the 
 Babylonians also are believed to have regarded it as a sacred 
 emblem. In the Romish church palms are still held sacred, and it 
 will be recollected branches of the palm tree were strewd in the 
 way when the Saviour made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. 
 Tacitus, iu describing the ceremony of consecrating the capitol, 
 after it had been repaired by Vespasian, states that the first part 
 of the ceremony consisted in the soldiers entering with boughs of 
 these trees, in which the gods were supposed to take the greatest 
 delight, and that then the vestal virgins sprinkled the floor with 
 water. 
 
 The ancient Druids of Gaul, Britain and Germany were accus 
 tomed to perform their mystic rites and sacrifices in the recesses 
 of the forest ; and our pilgrim fathers did rightful homage to the 
 God of the universe and of liberty, under a like canopy. 
 
 Trees have been made the fertile theme of poets, mythologists 
 
THE POETRY OF PLANTS. 181 
 
 and moralists, from the earliest times down to our own ; and 
 beautiful are the fancies and fictions with which they have been 
 adorned by them. Let us glance for a moment at the uses of 
 trees : for example, there is the papyrus of Egypt, the inner skin 
 or sliced pith of which, joined and polished, was used for writing- 
 paper by the ancients, whose ingenuity in its preparation was fur 
 ther displayed in the great" length of its rolls. Belzoni describes a 
 sheet he saw, measuring twenty-three feet long by one and a half 
 broad. Some eighteen hundred manuscripts dug from the lava of 
 Herculanaeum are of papyrus. Of fruit trees, with which all are 
 familiar, it is needless to speak ; we may, however, refer to the 
 date tree, which affords to many tribes of Upper Egypt, and to 
 multitudes in other countries, almost their only provision. It is a 
 remarkable instance of the design of Providence to render most 
 parts of the earth habitable, that the date-palm abounds every 
 where on the verge of the vast African desert, where no grain, and 
 scarcely any other tree can grow. Linnaeus asserts that the region 
 of palms was the first country of our race, and that man is essen 
 tially palmivorous. Buckhardt informs us that date trees often 
 constitute the dowry of an eastern bride. The bread-fruit tree 
 supplies the natives of the Polynesian isles their principal article 
 of diet : its fruit is as large as a melon, the eatable part white as 
 snow, and when roasted has a sweet taste. The cocoa-nut tree 
 supplies, as we all know, a pleasant kind of food with a milky 
 fluid ; the plantain called banana is in the torrid zone what wheat 
 and rice are to other regions; one plant produces seventy or 
 eighty pounds of fruit, and Humboldt computes the produce of 
 bananas to that of wheat as one hundred and thirty-three to one. 
 The maple and the beet root alike supply a saccharine matter, 
 which is used very generally; and the birch tree yields, by incision, 
 a copious supply of juice, which is made the basis of a light and 
 agreeable wine. The beautiful Spanish chestnut tree also bears a 
 fruit upon which the Genoese are said largely to subsist ; and we 
 are all acquainted with the article, for when roasted it divides the 
 
188 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 choice with the hazel, the hickory, walnut, the brazil, and other 
 nuts. Not every buyer, or even seller of sago, knows it to be the 
 heart of a tree, nor that it is used in Asia for bread. When 
 mature, which is about thirty years growth, the branches show a 
 yellowish meal ; the tree is then felled, and on splitting it the sago 
 appears, resembling the pith of elder. The eatable sago is the 
 meal parted from the filaments. It is stated by M Culloch that 
 this sago palm when young is covered with prickles to protect it 
 from predatory animals. Then there is the vegetable dairy the 
 shea tree of Africa, which yields a rich butter from its boiled 
 kernels, and which will keep a whole year without salt. Other 
 milk trees are said to have been discovered in Ceylon and Deme- 
 rara. The coffee plant, or tree, for it sometimes attains to eigh 
 teen feet in height, yields the well-known berry from which we 
 derive the delicious beverage used at breakfast : its countepart, 
 the tea plant, also possesses a world-wide fame, and forms the decoc 
 tion so refreshing to the weary, and is such an indispensable 
 accompaniment with the loquacious Johnsons and Piozzis of all 
 countries. 
 
 If you will pardon the digression from dietetics to the doctors, 
 we would suggest sundry nauseous nostrums, which, although 
 unpalatable, are yet of essential utility in patching up our perish 
 ing humanity. For instance, there is Peruvian bark, of which 
 some two dozen varieties are described by botanists. It grows 
 upon a mountain tree, on an elevation usually of five thousand feet 
 above the level of the sea ; its trunk, owing to the frequent scaling 
 of the bark, is said to be seldom seen thicker than the arm, 
 although it attains a great height. A resinous medicine is 
 extracted from the copaiva tree of the West India Isles, and the 
 manna tree of Sicily a species of ash yields a medicinal sub 
 stance, not unknown to childhood, and yet not very eagerly sought 
 for its flavor. Camphor is distilled from the roots of a tree of that 
 name, growing in Borneo and Sumatra ; logwood, and the bark 
 of mahogony, are also of some use in medicine : but possibly the 
 
THE POETRY OF PLANTS. 189 
 
 reader has no especial fancy for physic, and we will quit this 
 branch of the subject. 
 
 Trees and plants are also made serviceable, as in the case of our 
 first parents, for clothing : for example, cotton, so extensively 
 cultivated by our southern neighbors. There are some trees, 
 indigenous to Asia and the West Indies, which produce cotton: 
 nankeen is also a fabric produced from a cotton tree, native 
 to China. Cloth is said to be fabricated from the fibres of the 
 bark of a mulberry tree, by the South Sea Islanders, which pre 
 sents, after bleaching, a silky texture and very respectable appear 
 ance : and it will be remembered, the denizens of more refined 
 communities are indebted to another species of this tree for some 
 of their silken fabrics ; while we derive the bark used for tanning 
 leather from the oak, the mimosa and other trees, so that it will 
 be seen we stand indebted, not only for many internal comforts, 
 but some external advantages also, to the scions of the forest ; and 
 even when trees have served for utility, and graceful decoration to 
 the cottage or the landscape, we cut them down for fuel, or con 
 vert them to a thousand other important uses in the construction 
 of ships, houses, and the numerous arts of life. 
 
 It will further be recollected that it is to the buried forest of a 
 former and remote age, that we are indebted for the valuable 
 resources of the coal mine. Says Dr. Buckland, "we are all 
 brought into immediate connexion with the vegetation that clothed 
 the ancient earth, before one half of its actual surface had yet 
 been formed. The trees of the primeval forests have not, like 
 modern trees, undergone decay, yielding back their elements to 
 soil and the atmosphere by which they had been nourished ; but 
 treasured up in subterranean store-houses, have been transformed 
 into enduring beds of coal, which in these latter ages have become 
 to man the sources of heat and light and wealth. We prepare 
 our food, and maintain our forges and furnaces, and the power of 
 our steam-engines, with the remains of plants of ancient forms 
 and extinct species, which were swept from the earth ere the for- 
 
190 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 mation of the transition strata was completed. Our instruments 
 of cutlery, the tools of our mechanics and the countless machines 
 which we construct by the infinitely varied applications of iron, 
 are derived from ore, for the most part coeval with, or more 
 ancient than the fuel, by the aid of which we reduce it to its 
 metalic state, and apply it to innumerable uses in the economy of 
 human life. Thus from wrecks of forests that waved upon the 
 surface of the primeval lands, and from fenugious mud that was 
 lodged at the bottom of primeval waters, we derive our chief 
 supplies of coal and iron these two fundamental elements of art 
 and industry which contribute more than any other mineral pro 
 duction of earth to increase the riches, and multiply the comforts, 
 and ameliorate the condition of mankind." 
 
 We might refer also to the several oils and gases which are 
 exuded from living trees, as well as the various kinds of timber 
 they produce ; but our limits forbid. There are, however, other 
 substances important to the arts of life, of which, without trees, 
 we should be destitute: one of the most remarkable is the bark 
 of the cork-tree,^ the barking of which takes place every ten 
 years, while its age often extends to two hundred years. The 
 olive-tree, again, furnishes a luxury both of the table and the 
 toilette, as well as another material for artificial light. Shepherd, 
 in his work on trees, to which we have already been indebted for 
 many interesting facts, speaks of an ancient and entirely hollow 
 specimen of this tree (which rivals the oak in longevity) that has 
 produced no less than 240 quarts of oil a year. The India-rubber 
 tree affords a product capable of such various and still multiply 
 ing use, that to be cut off from this article of commerce would 
 now be a serious loss to the accommodations of civilized life: the 
 caoutchouc tree, it seems must yield up some of its honors to one 
 of more recent discovery the gutta-percha of Singapore and 
 Borneo. Another latent benefit derived from trees, deserves 
 notice: we refer to the purificative influence of their foliage upon 
 the atmosphere, for it is the leaves of plants and trees that act 
 
THE POETRY OF PLANTS. 191 
 
 upon the air like human lungs, by absorbing carbon and evolving 
 vital air for animal respiration. Air, it is known, passes from the 
 human lungs charged with a large quantity of carbonic gas, but 
 the wisdom of Omnipotence, by fitting this deleterious gas to the 
 wants of the vegetable kingdom, has converted it into a most use 
 ful adjunct in the economy of creation, for it is returned into the 
 atmosphere in the form of oxygen, or vital air. Thus, unsuspected 
 and unheeded by us, the innumerable leaves of our forests and 
 arbor trees form a vast summer laboratory of vital air, which con 
 tributes, to an incalculable extent, to the support and health of 
 animal existence. Some remarkable instances might be cited of 
 the extreme longevity of trees, which would doubtless prove no 
 less interesting. The age of most trees may be computed by the 
 number of concentric rings in the trunk each zone denoting a 
 year : estimated by this process, which can be done on a standing 
 tree by extracting a cylinder with the trephine saw, the antiquity 
 of some is, it has- been conjectured, coeval with that of the Mosaic 
 Cosmogany. Three kinds of trees afford wonderful instances of 
 this apparently antediluvian date ; the gum dragon-tree, of which 
 there are specimens in Kew Gardens, the ape s bread-tree of 
 the tropic, whose trunk measures sometimes from eighty to ninety 
 feet in circumference, and a species of Cypress, a specimen of 
 which is said to be existing in a church-yard near Oaxaca, Mexico, 
 the trunk of which is ninety-three feet round, and another at Cha- 
 pultepec one hundred and seventeen feet ten inches in girt. This 
 latter was observed as a tree of wondrous magnitude by the Span 
 ish conquerers, and is affirmed by M. de Candalle, "to go back 
 certainly to the origin of the present state of the world, an epoch" 
 he says, " of which it is the most indisputable monument." There 
 is said to be a singular yew tree in Perthshire, called the Fortingal, 
 the trunk of which is a mere shell and forms an arch through 
 which Highland funerals pass: it is supposed to have existed 
 from the commencement of the Christian era, and may yet survive 
 for centuries to come. Of the cedars of Lebanon, which Lamar- 
 
192 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 tine visited in 1832, he thus writes: "they are the most renowned 
 of natural monuments; the Arabs highly venerate them, and say 
 that they understand the changes of the seasons, spreading or 
 contracting their boughs as the snow is about to fall or to melt, 
 they could not otherwise sustain the immense weight of snow which 
 would collect upon their massy foliage." Southey thus refers to 
 this fact in his " Thalaba;" 
 
 " Their broad, round spreading branches, when they felt 
 The snow, rose upward in a point to heaven." 
 
 The most wonderful tree on record is the chestnut upon Mount 
 ./Etna, although, according to recent accounts, it has lost much of 
 its original dignity. It is described by travelers as having the 
 appearance of five distinct trees, covering an area of two hundred 
 and four feet in diameter: from close examination there are believed 
 to be the evidences of these trunks having originally sprung from 
 one source ; and the opinion is fortified by the indications in an 
 ancient map of Sicily, fully corroborating its dimensions. 
 
 The vast antiquity of these stately trees is unquestioned; and 
 they are regarded with a feeling of religious veneration. 
 
 Of oaks many marvelous things are recorded, both as to their 
 extreme longevity and gigantic proportions; the like is mentioned 
 by various writers touching the pine, the myrtle of Van Dieman s 
 land, the yew, the banyan, elm, etc., but we must not pause 
 to refer to them. Among the various purposes to which celebra 
 ted and colossal trees have been devoted in former times, may be 
 named, the oak in Oxfordshire, the huge trunk of which, Evelyn 
 says, was converted into a prison for felons; Queen Elizabeth s 
 oak at Huntingdon, still extant, at which a great hall was erected, 
 and where some exploits in archery were performed by her, and 
 scenes of gallantry were enacted; and that of Boscobel, which 
 formed the place of shelter for the fugitive monarch, Charles II.; 
 not to allude to others which boast like distinctions. 
 
THE POETRY OF PLANTS. 193 
 
 Many of the poets of past times have linked their fame with 
 their favorite trees: in Windsor Forest is an oak bearing the 
 inscription " Here Pope sung," and the name of Gray is con 
 nected with the Burnham beeches, and Johnson, it will be recol 
 lected had his favorite willow. 
 
 Having made a cursory survey of some of the leafy giants of 
 the forests, let us glance at one or two specimens of mammoth 
 plants, such for example as the colossal water-lily of British 
 Guiana, the leaves of which measure eighteen feet, and its flower 
 from four to five feet in circumference. This vegetable wonder 
 bears a magnificent flower consisting of many hundred petals of 
 various tints from the pure white to the rose and pink. The 
 jungles of Sumatra boast of a plant of more gigantic dimen 
 sions, it is called the Rafflesia Arnoldi, after its discoverer Sir 
 Stamford Raffles. This is, perhaps, the greatest prodigy of the 
 vegetable kidgdom; it measured a yard across, the petals being 
 twelve inches high, and a foot apart from each other: the necta- 
 rium would hold twelve pints, and the weight of the flower was 
 estimated at fifteen pounds. Many of the tropical plants of 
 .America exhibit similar proportions ; the magnolia grandiflora 
 rises ninety feet in height, with a diameter of three feet, while the 
 leaves are from eight to nine feet in length; its beautiful white 
 blossoms are of like dimensions: it is doubtless one of the most 
 superb of vegetable productions of which we have any knowledge. 
 The Agave Americana or, as it is sometimes called, century plant, 
 from its having erroneously been supposed to blossom only once 
 in a hundred years, is a majestic specimen, has a stem rising 
 sometimes forty or fifty feet high, bearing hundreds of greenish- 
 white blossoms on an elegant branched spike. The taliput palm 
 of Ceylon, presents another instance of the marvelous, rising two 
 hundred feet in height, the leaves of which measure eleven feet in 
 length by sixteen in breadth. From the vast and stupendous we 
 now descend to the extremely minute and delicate; and here we 
 meet with wonders even yet more astounding, as, by the aid of the 
 
 9 
 
194 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 lenses of the microscope, we discover specs of vegetation infini- 
 tesimally small, but in whose delicate structure traces are yet no 
 less to be detected of the infinite skill of the Creator. One of 
 the most extraordinary of microscopic plants is the achlya proli- 
 fera, whose soft, silky threads may sometimes be seen adhering to 
 the surface of gold fishes: it has the appearance of a whitish 
 slime, but is a true vegetable growth. The green slimy matt IT 
 often observable on the surface of stagnant waters is of the same 
 order; and when submitted to a powerful microscope is found to 
 consist of transparent threads exquisitely minute, packed closely 
 together as the pile of velvet: each thread is terminated by a ball 
 which is estimated at one twelve hundredths of an inch in diam 
 eter, which contains a fluid filled with granules. Another of these 
 curious vegetable parasites is the mucor mucedo, which abounds in 
 bruised fruit and other substances containing fecula or sugar: it 
 belongs to that class of fungi, commonly called moulds seen on 
 stale bread. These insect-plants possess wonderful fecundity and 
 the speed of their generative process is equally astonishing. Nor 
 are such microscopic instances of vegetable life to be found merely 
 among parasitic fungi, there are others equally minute, and still 
 more marvelous in the aggregate, which are of independent 
 growth, which twine and interlace their tiny branches into a net 
 work as tough as the strongest felt, and extending over many 
 yards of surface. These are the fresh-water confervoe, of which 
 the substance called " water-flannel," may be taken as a well-known 
 example. A specimen is thus described by a correspondent of the 
 Gardener s Chronicle for 1843 : 
 
 " A friend put into my hand the other day a yard or two of 
 what seemed a coarse kind of flannel, gray on one side, and green 
 ish on the other, and a full quarter of an inch in thickness. It had 
 been thrown up by the river Trent, and washed ashore in vast 
 sheets. Those who had seen it pronounced it a manufactured 
 article : and so it was, but by the hand of nature. When this 
 substance is handled, it is harsh to the touch, although composed 
 
THE POETRY OF PLANTS. 195 
 
 of the finest threads. To the naked eye, it presents no character 
 by which it may be known from any coarse and loosely-woven 
 cloth. The microscope reveals its nature. It is then found to 
 consist of myriads of jointed threads, whose joints are composed 
 alternately sideways and vertically ; they are here and there trans 
 parent, but for the most part opaque and rough to the eye. The 
 white side is more opaque than the other, and more unexaminable ; 
 but if a little muriatic acid be added to the water in which the 
 fragments of water-flannel float, copious bubbles of air appear- 
 These are bubbles of carbonic acid, extricated by the action of the 
 muriatic acid on a coating of carbonate of lime, with which the 
 plant is more or less completely invested. If, after this operation, 
 the threads are again examined, the contents of the joints become 
 visible : in the green parts of the flannel, they were filled with an 
 irregular mass of green matter ; in the white part with myriads of 
 globules, intermixed with a shapeless substance. The globules are 
 the seeds. If a little iodine be then given to the flannel, it is 
 readily absorbed ; and the contents, shapeless matter, globules, 
 and all, become deep violet, showing that all this substance is 
 starch. Hence it appears that the water-flannel is a microscopic 
 plant, composed of jointed threads, secreting carbonate of lime on 
 their surface, and forming seeds composed of starch within them. 
 And when we consider that the joints are smaller than the eye can 
 detect, while each contains from fifty to one hundred seeds, it may 
 easily be conceived with what rapidity such a plant is multiplied. 
 Besides which, as their contents consist to a great extent of starch, 
 the most readily organisable of vegetable materials, the means of 
 growth with which the plant is provided are far more ample than 
 anything we know of in the higher orders of the vegetable 
 kingdom." 
 
 This vegetable swarms on stagnant pools, where it lives on 
 decomposed particles, and thus, while it tends to purify the waters, 
 itself becomes food for myriads of animalcules. Much more curi 
 ous information remains to be mentioned respecting mosses, lichens 
 
196 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 and other forms of flowerless vegetation, even yeast might be 
 adduced as another instance, for it is supposed by botanists to 
 belong to this genera of the vegetable world, which, according to 
 Humboldt, comprises forty-four thousand species. The main object 
 of a plant during growth seems to be the reproduction of its kind : 
 whether the term of its being be limited to a day, a year, or cen 
 turies, its sole effort, as it proceeds from leaf to stem, from stem 
 to branch, and from branch to flower and fruit, is the multiplica 
 tion of itself. This is variously effected : by seeds, by spores or 
 embryo plants, by tubers, by runners which put forth shoots as 
 they elongate, by branches which send down roots, either by slips 
 or detached branches or single leaves. The most familiar process 
 of reproduction common to all flowering plants is the first 
 named. Seeds are merely leaves preserved in peculiar cerements 
 against the return of the season of growth : they are also furnished 
 with a sufficiency of nutriment for the embryo plant, till its roots 
 shall have struck into the soil, and it expands into the atmosphere. 
 Their coverings also evince the ingenious contrivance of nature, for 
 these provide against the several contingencies to which they may 
 be subjected : for example, the cocoa has a tough fibrous coir and 
 woody nut, impervious alike to drought and rain the chestnut, a 
 compact leathery envelope the peach, a hard, strong drape the 
 apple, a fleshy pome, enclosing leathery cells the pea and bean, 
 a pod of parchment. This accounts, to a great degree, for the 
 modern marvel, that even the seeds taken from the hand of an 
 Egyptian mummy, more than three thousand years old, should 
 have yet retained their vitality, and thus produced a crop of wheat. 
 The various metamorphoses which occur to plants and flowers, 
 present an interesting topic of research, embracing the vast 
 changes and improvements which cultivation of soil, transplanting, 
 and the important effects of chemistry, as applied to agriculture, 
 have produced. The principal phenomena of vegetable life, or 
 irritability, are those caused by atmospheric influences, those 
 depending upon the touch of other bodies, and those which appear 
 
THE POETRY OF PLANTS. 197 
 
 to be perfectly spontaneous. The former, especially, include all 
 such plante or flowers as close their leaves during night, when 
 they are said to sleep, as well as those that open or shut their 
 petals to the sun ; or exhibit sensitiveness to touch, as in the 
 instance of Venus fly-trap, a native of Canada, which, not unlike 
 other natives of that soil, discovers singular irritability of temper 
 ament. A poetical fancy has even invested vegetable life with the 
 attributes of sensation and enjoyment ; but the hypothesis is 
 unsustained by science, notwithstanding polypi and sponges seem 
 to approach very close to a demonstration of the theory. There 
 may be a seeming analogy between the brain and nerves of ani 
 mals, and the vessels of plants, but there is nothing like indentity 
 between the respective functions of the two great kingdoms. Not 
 withstanding all the light which modern science has shed upon 
 organic life, the learned are yet undecided as to the precise boun 
 dary line which divides these two departments of animated nature 
 between the lowly forms of corallines, sponges, and polypi, and the 
 more dormant specimens of the animal kingdom. Here, however, 
 we close our brief sketch of the more remarkable and anoma 
 lous features of vegetable life, conscious that a subject of such 
 surpassing interest, has failed of its full development : yet believ 
 ing that, as a topic of recreative study, it may with confidence be 
 commended to a more extended investigation on the part of the 
 reader, for its resources are as exhaustless as they are rife with 
 delightful interest. 
 
 " Not a plant, a leaf, a flower, but contains 
 A folio volume, we may read, and read, 
 And read again, and still find something new 
 Something to please, something to instruct, 
 Even in the noisome weed." 
 
INFELICITIES OF THE INTELLECTUAL. 
 
 "A spot near Cripplegate extends 
 
 Grub street, tis called the modern Pindus ; 
 Where (not that bards are never friends) 
 
 Bards might shake hands from adverse windows." HUDIBRAS 
 
 THE subject we propose to contemplate in the present chapter, 
 presents the various fallacies and foibles of the literary profession. 
 Without attempting a psychological analysis of literary life, we 
 propose simply to group together a few of the more striking 
 idiosyncracies which seem to be indigenous to great minds. If 
 frailty and fame are twin attributes, one might be tempted to 
 conclude that nature designed such an allotment as an equipoise, 
 to silence the envy of those from whom she has withheld her 
 noblest endowments in the one case, and to serve as a counter 
 acting check to the inordinate self-esteem, which their possession 
 might otherwise superinduce in the other. 
 
 Possession of the creative faculty, says Leigh Hunt, pre-sup- 
 poses a superiority to adverse circumstances, and "low thoughted 
 
INFELICITIES OF THE INTELLECTUAL. 199 
 
 care ;" and Goldsmith, sitting in his garret with a worsted stock 
 ing on his head : 
 
 " Where the Red Lion, staring o er the way, 
 Invites each passing stranger, that can pay," 
 
 in spite of bailiffs, writs, debts, duns, and milk scores, the most 
 horrible that even Hogarth imagined, was still a happy fellow, 
 satisfied that he wonld pay if he could, which is all that is neces 
 sary to establish the morale of his character upon high ground, he 
 leaves the affairs of the world to right themselves, and enjoys the 
 everlasting day rule of his imagination. So it was with Fielding, 
 Goldsmith, Steele, and others, honorable in literature, and so also 
 with Handel, Mozart, and Weber, in music ; and it is one of the 
 kindly recompenses of nature, by which she contrives, on the 
 whole, to adjust so equitably the good and the evil of this life, 
 that when injury to the individual arises from an excess of sym 
 pathy with the mass, that injury is commonly but lightly felt. It 
 is affecting to think that during the composition of his great mas 
 ter-pieces, Mozart s family at times wanted the common necessaries 
 of life. Such adversity must have been a sharp thorn in the side 
 of so gentle and sensitive a nature as his. Handel s immortal 
 oratorios were produced under similar circumstances, after the 
 attack of a threatening and fatal disorder, that resulted in his 
 total blindness. 
 
 It is supposed, and with great reason, that but for these precise 
 circumstances, men of genius, naturally indolent, would not have 
 achieved so much, or so well ; under more favorable auspices their 
 energies would have remained dormant, for lack of stimulus. Burns 
 was an instance of an author writing for love, and not for money, 
 for he got little pecuniary reward for his exquisite effusions, and 
 was ever in pecuniary embarrassments. Beaumont asserts that a 
 man of genius could no more help putting his thoughts on paper, 
 than a traveler in a burning desert could help drinking when he 
 sees* water. To quote his words : 
 
200 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 " No more can he whose mind 
 Joys in the muses, hold from that delight, 
 When nature and his full thoughts bid him write." 
 
 Before entertaining the reader with our citation of the eccen 
 tricities and trials of the author, it will not be inopportune to 
 remind him of the curious mode in which the public requite his 
 literary labors : the usual awards of a man of genius being a 
 marble monument to his memory, while in life denying him suste 
 nance ; making " their luminous leaves," to adopt the phrase of a 
 modern journalist, " to flourish like the yew tree, because planted 
 over a grave." We shall not pause to inquire into the causes 
 which have provoked such injustice towards a class so signally 
 meriting a course of treatment diametrically the reverse of this, 
 or why succeeding posterity have perpetuated the like crusade 
 against the craft of authorship ; it is enough for regret to find it 
 so. Our forefathers, however, must have had their patience pretty 
 severely taxed, by the prolixity of some of the early scribes. What 
 should we think of twenty-one huge folios? yet we find, in 1651, 
 a writer of such interminable dimensions ; while another, Peter 
 D Alva, even extended his learned lucubrations to no less than 
 forty-eight, in an abortive attempt to expound a mystery unfath 
 omable, and which his labyrinth of words but rendered the more 
 mysterious. While, not to name Confucius or the reputed six 
 hundred volumes by the French bishop, Du Bellay, we might 
 remind the reader of the astounding intimation given by St. 
 Jerome, to the effect that he had perused six thousand books writ 
 ten by Origen, who " daily wearied seven notaries, and as many 
 boys, in writing after him !" It ought not to have amazed his 
 friends, therefore, to have learned of the sickness of that multifa 
 rious writer, Sir John Hill, (the author of the "Vegetable Sys 
 tem,") when he confessed it was in consequence of over working 
 himself on seven productions at once ! We read of Hans Sacks, a 
 ]S"uremburg shoemaker, who lived about the clpse of the fifteenth 
 century, and who seems to have apportioned his labors equally 
 
INFELICITIES OF THE INTELLECTUAL. 201 
 
 between boots and books, the praiseworthy arts of making poetry 
 and pumps, sonnets and shoes, to the 77th year of his age ; when 
 he took an inventory of his poetical stock in trade, and found, 
 according to his own calculation, that his works filled thirty folio 
 volumes, all written with his own hand. They comprised 4200 
 songs ; 208 comedies, tragedies and farces ; 1700 fables, miscel 
 laneous poems arid tales, and 73 military and love songs forming 
 a grand total of six thousand and forty-eight pieces, small and 
 great ; out of which he culled as many as filled three great folios, 
 which were published in the year 1558-61. How strangely the 
 early scribes seem to have coveted the ambition of being volu 
 minous writers, not remembering that Persius became immortal 
 from the transmission of but two sheets of paper inscribed by 
 his pen. 
 
 It would be easy to multiply instances of the kind in the several 
 departments of authorship, especially in those once prolific themes, 
 Alchemy, Astrology, and other wonderfully occult matters, and 
 even in Theology the latter, we remember to have read some 
 where, boasting of an early commentator, whose elaborate exposi 
 tion of St. Matthew, even an abridged edition of which, in small 
 type, occupied no less than a thousand folio pages. But we have 
 cited enough ; we shall therefore glance at some other eccentrici 
 ties of the learned for the edification of the reader. The bards 
 have had their loves, as Mrs. Jameson s very pleasant work on that 
 subject sufficiently attests ; and we shall not attempt to add to 
 what has been already so admirably exhibited of this feature of 
 the literary character, save simply the mention of a name she has 
 omitted to notice we refer to that of Colletet, who is reported to 
 have shared the honors of matrimonial alliance with three of his 
 domestics in succession, to each of whom he paid the tribute of his 
 muse in heroic verse. D Israeli has collected from the dust of 
 departed days, among other curious matters, many amusing par 
 ticulars respecting the subjects authors have chosen to dilate upon ; 
 shall we glance at a few ? In classic times we have Apuleius and 
 
202 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 Agrippa, succeeded by many moderns, who, to evince their irony 
 and wit, selected that fabled emblem of wisdom the ass. 
 
 In Butler s Remains, it is remarked, that " there is a kind of 
 physiognomy in the titles of books, no less than in the faces of 
 men, by which a skillful observer will as well know what to expect 
 from the one as the other." 
 
 Generally speaking, this is correct. But the optician who 
 should happen to purchase a book entitled, A New Invention, or a 
 Paire of Cristall Spectacles, by helpe whereof may be read so small a 
 print, that what twenty sheets of paper will hardly contain shall be 
 discovered in one, (1644) would find, to his surprise, that it has 
 nothing to do with his business, but relates to the civil war. So 
 also might mistakes very readily occur with regard to Home 
 Tooke s celebrated Diversions of Purky, which a village book-club 
 actually ordered at the time of its publication, under the impres 
 sion that it was a book of amusing games. 
 
 In Chambers Journal is a curious paper on the subject of book 
 titles, from which we quote the following paragraph : 
 
 " Some titles are agreeably short, and others wonderfully long. 
 A few years since, a work was issued with the laconic title of It ; 
 and for days previous to its publication, the walls of London were 
 placarded with the words, " Order It," " Buy It," " Read It." 
 The old naturalist Lovell published a book at Oxford, in 1661, 
 entitled Panzoologicomineralogia, which is nearly as long a word as 
 Rabelais proposed title for a book, namely, Antipericatametapar- 
 hengedamphicribrationes ! ! " 
 
 According to Stowe s Chronicle, the title of Domesday Book 
 arose from the circumstance of the original having been carefully 
 preserved in a sacred place at Westminster cloisters, called Domus 
 Dei, or House of God. 
 
 The Latin poetasters seem to have their merits called somewhat 
 in question by the title of John Peter s curious and very scarce 
 work, A New Way to make Latin Verses, whereby any one of ordi 
 nary capacity that only knows the A, B t C, and can count nine, 
 
INFELICITIES OF THE INTELLECTUAL. 203 
 
 though he understands not one word of Latin, or what a verse means, 
 may be plainly taught to make thousands of Hexameter and Pentameter 
 Verses, which shall be true Latin, true Verse, and Good Sense, ( 1679). 
 In 1559 appeared a book, entitled The Key to Unltnown Know 
 ledge, or a Shop of Five Windows, 
 
 " Which if you do open, 
 To cheapen and copen, 
 You will be unwilling, 
 For many a shilling, 
 To part with the profit 
 Which you shall have of it." 
 
 The mottoes on title pages are often very curious. The follow 
 ing is from a book called Gentkmen, look about you : 
 
 " Read this over if you re wise, 
 If you re not, then read it twise : 
 If a fool, and in the gall 
 Of bitterness, read not at all." 
 
 Another, from Whitney s Emblems, (1586) : 
 
 " Peruse with heede, then friendly judge, and balming rash refraine; 
 So maist thou reade unto thy good, and shalte requite my paine." 
 
 One Joshua Barnes wrote a poem with the design of proving 
 the authorship of the Iliad traceable to King Solomon; and 
 another French critic, Daurat, who lived in the sixteenth century, 
 pretended, according to Scaliger, to find all the Bible in Homer. 
 Du Guere wrote an eulogium on wigs. Erasmus amused himself 
 by discussing The praise of folly, in his work entitled Moria Enco 
 mium, which, for the sake of the pun, he dedicated to Sir Thomas 
 More. Pierrius Treatise on beards Homer s war between The frogs 
 and mice, and Lucian s dissertation on A fly, present a curious tri 
 umvirate of classic taste ; and Gray s ode on The death of a cat 
 Pope s epic verses on A lock of hair, and Swift s Meditation on a 
 
204 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 broomstick, may serve as their companions in modern times. And 
 as we have already seen ingenuity itself seems to have been over 
 tasked in the fabrication of the titles of books in early times, as, 
 indeed, it is again becoming in our own ; authors of the olden time 
 used to puff their own works, by affixing "taking titles" to them; 
 such as A rig/it merrie and wittie enterlude, verie pleasante to reade, 
 etc. A marvellous wittie treatise, etc. A delectable, pithie and righte 
 profitable war he, etc. Addison s Spectator proved so successful, 
 that it provoked Johnson to adopt The Idler and Rambler. A 
 very amusing blunder was committed by a certain French critic, 
 who, notwithstanding the conventional use of the term, rendered 
 it Le Chevalie-r Errant, and who, afterwards, on meeting with the 
 " Colossus of English literature," addressed him with the astound 
 ing and complimentary epithet of Mr. Vagabond ! 
 
 A pamphlet, published in 1703, had the following strange title: 
 The Deformitie of Sin Cured, a sermon preached at St. Michael s, 
 Crooked Lane, before the Prince of Orange, by the Rev. J. Crook- 
 shanks. Sold by Mathew Denton, at the Crooked Billet, near 
 Cripplegate, and by all booksellers. The words of the text are, 
 " Every crooked path shall be made straight." The Prince, before 
 whom it was delivered, was deformed in person ! 
 
 Many adopted allegorical titles. In theological works these 
 were most frequent such as "The Heart of Aaron," "The Bones 
 of Joseph," " The Garden of Nuts," and a host of others, even 
 less allowable, might be adduced: as, "Afan to drive away flies," 
 a treaties on purgatory ; The shop of the spiritual apothecary, 
 Matches lighted by divine fire, The gun of penitence, etc. One of 
 famous Puritan memory, Sir Humphrey Lind, published a book, 
 which a Jesuit answered by another, entitled, A pair of spectacles 
 for Sir Humphrey Lind ; the doughty knight retorted by, A case 
 for Sir Humphrey Lind s spectacles. Gascoigne s title page is no 
 less quaint than copious: " A hundred sundrie flowres bounde vp 
 in one small poesie: gathered partly by translation in the fyne and 
 outlandish gardens of Euripides, Ovid, Petrarch, Ariosto, and 
 
INFELICITIES OF THE INTELLECTUAL. 205 
 
 others ; and partly by invention out of our own fruitefull orchardes 
 in England: yielding sundrie and divers swete savours of tragical, 
 comical, and moral discourses, both pleasant and profitable to the 
 well-smelling noses of learned readers." It is fortunate for these 
 laborious scribes that they lived in times when they found readers 
 courageous enough to venture beyond their titles. 
 
 But as we have elsewhere cited some of these oddities, we pro 
 ceed to notice those foibles and frailties of the learned, which 
 present a prolific theme for our contemplation ; in some instances 
 these are traceable to physical causes, superinduced by their pecu 
 liar habits and pursuits, and in others, not unfrequently to the 
 neglect which their seclusion ancb overwrought sensibilities pro 
 voked from their cotemporaries. All the devotees of the pen are 
 more or less the victims of nervous debility caused by their habits 
 of excessive mental effort. Thus, to overtask the powers of the 
 intellect, it is reasonable to expect, will as naturally tend to ener 
 vate them, as we find the like exertion of the bodily functions 
 resulting in lassitude and fatigue. Dr. Johnson thus expresses 
 himself on this equivocal state between actual health and disease: 
 " I pine in the solitude of sickness, not bad enough to be pitied, 
 and not well enough to be endured;" yet this powerful writer was 
 never so great as when he was in this gloomy state: he then 
 exhibited most of the vast opulence and gigantic energy of his 
 intellect, as well as his delicate analysis of the secret sensibilities 
 of the heart, as portions of his correspondence sufficiently evince. 
 This feeling of physical languor and ennui, made the author of the 
 Castle of Indolence, so indolent himself, that he was reluctant to 
 rise from his bed; and when once remonstrated against the prac 
 tice by a friend, replied, " Troth, mon, I see nae motive for rising." 
 He was so excessively lazy, that he once was seen to be eating 
 fruit from a peach tree, as it grew, standing with both hands in 
 Ms pockets. It would be uncharitable, however, to suppose 
 Thomson a fit denizen for the Apragapolis of old, " a city built 
 for those void of business." 
 
206 , SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 Some of the habits and methods of study exhibit curious traits 
 of character. The historian Mezerai studied by candlelight; and 
 so accustomed was he to this use, that even at noon-day, and in 
 the summer too, as if neither the heat nor the light of the burning 
 sun were available for him, he is reported generally to have waited 
 upon his company to the very door with a candle in his hand. 
 When the famous Brindley encountered any extraordinary diffi 
 culty in the execution of his mechanical labors, he usually retired 
 to his bed, where he has been known to be ensconced one, two, 
 and even three whole days, till he had acquired strength to sur 
 mount it; when he would get up and finish his design. This prac 
 tice contravenes Dr. Whittaker s advice to Mr. Boyce, which 
 ran as follows : "First, to study always standing; second, never 
 to study in a window; and third, never to go to bed with his feet 
 cold." Pope, besides being an epicure, would sometimes lie in bed 
 at Lord Bolingbroke s for whole days together. 
 
 It must be obvious, that indolent ease is as bad in its effects on 
 the health as over-working. Lord Bacon is a case in point, with 
 others, including the three divines, Hervey, Toplady, and Dr. 
 Owen, the last of whom once exclaimed, that he would gladly 
 barter all his learning obtained in bed for his lost health. Euri 
 pides studied in a dark cave Demosthenes at night, and apart 
 from the habitations of men and the monks of the monastic 
 times, in the hidden cloisters and ascetic cells; but we do not see 
 that a neatly-fitted and convenient library or study offers less 
 immunities to the votaries of science or the muses, than those 
 abodes referred to. Not a few literary men seem to have loved 
 "libations deep;" but we should not, perhaps, regard this species 
 of moral delinquency with a stern vision of modern teetotalism, 
 as the inebriate was not, till modern days, outlawed from the best 
 society. ^Eschylus is said to have been always under the influence 
 of the rosy god when he wrote: it is related, then his face looked 
 ferocious perhaps to this cause may be referred his vigorous 
 imaginativeness. A similar weakness might also be chargeable 
 
INFELICITIES OF THE INTELLECTUAL. 207 
 
 on Alcseus, Aristophanes, and others of the classic age. Porson, 
 the eminent Greek scholar, was a great tippler, while Anacreon 
 only feigned the bacchanalian in his writings. In later days, 
 Tasso and Schiller might be classed with the foregoing. Sir Wil 
 liam Blackstone was considerably indebted to "good old port" for 
 some of his Commentaries; and even Addison and Byron must 
 also be named, the latter confessing to the world that his poem of 
 Don Juan, was the joint product of genius and gin and water. 
 Without presuming any commentary on such indulgences, we pre 
 fer quoting the description of one Prynne, who bequeathed to 
 posterity some forty volumes, for perpetrating one of which he 
 was barbarously doomed to have his ears cropped in the pillory, 
 and was almost suffocated by the immolation of his huge volumes 
 in which he maintained that it was Pope Alexander VII., who, 
 in the " disguise of a coalman," came over to England and caused 
 the great fire of London, etc. Aubrey says of him, " His manner 
 of studie was thus: he wore a long quilt cap, which came two or 
 three inches over his eies, which served him for an umbrella to 
 defend his eies from the light; about every three houres, his man 
 was to bring him a roll and a pott of ale, to refocillate his wasted 
 spirits; so he studied and drank, and this maintained him till night, 
 when he made a good supper." These are but few of the modes 
 resorted to by literary men to produce mental excitement; many 
 singular contrarieties of disposition they afford us; but we had 
 forgotten Dryden, who used to ply himself with physic and phle 
 botomy before sitting down to any important work. His fancy 
 would be the least likely to captivate our modern authors, as it 
 must now be obvious to the reading community, we are fast 
 receding from the age of voluntary self-martyrdom. 
 
 To what curious extremes their habits of mental abstraction 
 would have led, but for the indulgence of authors in such harmless, 
 though singular pastimes, it is difficult to conjecture. Newton, 
 when once engaged on a mathematical subtlety, would suffer noth 
 ing to interrupt his investigations. It is related of him that more 
 
208 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 than on one such occasion he kept the dinner waiting three whole 
 hours : and a similar interval also once intervened in the very act 
 of his assuming his nether garments. Morel, the French writer, 
 possessed such devotion to study, that when the fatal sickness of 
 his wife, and shortly afterwards her death, were announced to him, 
 he could not be prevailed upon to resign his pen, but simply 
 replied, " I am very sorry, she was a good woman." And another 
 learned scribe, no less indifferent to connubial claims, actually 
 devoted the whole of his wedding day to his books. Mason, the 
 author of the " Spiritual Treasury," while engaged upon that work, 
 being called upon by a person in business, gave his name and 
 address ; but when the author subsequently referred to the card 
 on which he ought to have written the same, it contained instead 
 the following Acts, 2:2! This is about equal to the divine, 
 who for the first time appearing with spectacles which he did not 
 use, as he placed them over his forehead, being met with the obser 
 vation, " Well, doctor, so you have at last taken to spectacles," 
 replied, "Yes, I found I could not read without them, and wonder 
 I have so long." 
 
 Among the pains and penalties of authorship, the critical cen 
 sorship of the press has had its share. Cumberland once said, 
 " authors should be shelled like the rhinoceros;" but it would be 
 hard, says one, were the linnet, or the nightindale, to cease from 
 warbling, because they cannot sing in a storm. Severe and 
 unmerited criticism has been but too frequently the bane of litera 
 ture, although, as in the instance of Byron, it has ultimately tended 
 to elicit the nobler development of talent, which otherwise might 
 never have been brought into action. Some writers have been 
 driven mad, and others have actually died of criticism. Hawkes- 
 worth was a case of the latter, and Tasso the former. Voltaire 
 called these " dreaded ministers of literary justice," la canailk de la 
 litterature, but he, like Pope, suffered retribution at their hands ; 
 and no less remarkable is the fact of the erroneous criticism of 
 some of the learned respecting the productions of other writers. 
 
INFELICITIES OF THE INTELLECTUAL. 209 
 
 One memorable case might be named here, which went beyond 
 mere criticism : we refer to that of Count Mazarin, who kept a 
 complete collection of the libels written against him it amounted 
 to forty-six quarto volumes ; and there have been also more 
 instances than one of unfortunate writers of state libels, being com 
 pelled to recant them in the most emphatic manner by eating 
 literally their own words. One occurred at Moscow, where the 
 poor advocate of the liberties of the people paid this most unmer 
 ciful penalty of his patriotism. A scaffold being erected in a 
 conspicuous part of the city, with a surgeon on one side, and the 
 knout on the other, our hapless author was compelled to swallow 
 his book, leaf by leaf, neatly rolled up like a lottery ticket taking 
 what the surgical attendant deemed a suitable quantum at a time 
 for a digestible meal, during three whole days in which he accom 
 plished the humiliating task, to the singular entertainment of the 
 populace he had sought to serve. He, at any rate, could subscribe 
 to the sentiment, that a great book is a great bore. 
 
 An amusing anecdote is related of a certain French writer, who, 
 failing to please the critics of his day, by his avowed productions, 
 afterwards resorted to the expedient of publishing three volumes 
 of poetry and essays, as the works of a journeyman blacksmith. 
 The trick succeeded all France was in amazement ; and the 
 poems of this child of nature this untutored genius this inspired 
 son of Yulcan, as he was now called, were immediately and enthu 
 siastically praised, even by the very critics who before repudiated 
 the effusions of the same pen. Byron was condemned, among 
 other crimes, for not having dated his first poems from the purlieus 
 of Grub-street ; and Keats was barbarously attacked in a similar 
 manner, by no less a critic than Gifford a circumstance to which 
 has been remotely ascribed the premature decease of that gifted 
 poet ; for, on reading the article in question, his feelings became 
 so excited, that he burst a blood-vessel, which induced consump 
 tion, of which he died at the age of twenty-four. Moore relates 
 that such also was the effect of the savage attack upon Byron, that 
 
210 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 a friend who happened to call on him shortly after he had read it, 
 inquired whether he had received a challenge, such fierce defiance 
 was depicted in his countenance. It was about the same time that 
 the opposite critical organ commenced a paper on Wordsworth s 
 " Excursion," with the derisive words "This will never do; we 
 give him up as altogether incurable and beyond the power of criti 
 cism." The sweet scftmeteer of Windennere has fortunately out 
 lived the ignorant intolerance of this sapient censor, as he now 
 occupies the highest honors of the temple of fame. Poor Kirke 
 White was another sad instance of literary assassination : when 
 only seventeen he published his volume of poems, in hopes by its 
 sale of procuring sufficient money to enable him to go to college ; 
 but he was doomed to the merciless cruelties of an attack in the 
 Monthly Review. How grievously the unjust criticism tortured 
 his sensitive mind, may be gathered from his own words : " This 
 Review," he says, "goes before me wherever I turn my steps, 
 and is, I verily believe, an instrument in the hands of Satan to 
 drive me to distraction." Southey kindly consoled and encou 
 raged him to persevere, but wasting disease soon hurried the 
 young poet away, and it was Southey & friendly hand that first 
 gathered his scattered and despised works, and gave them to the 
 world. 
 
 The philosophic Newton was far from being invulnerable to the 
 shafts of his critical opponents ; for even Whiston, the friend of 
 twenty years, forfeited his favor for all time by a single contradic 
 tion ; for " No man," says he, " was of a more fearful temper." 
 Winston farther declares, that he would not have thought proper 
 to have published his" work against Newton s Chronology in his 
 lifetime, as he firmly believed it would have killed him ; and it was 
 the expressed opinion of Dr. Bentley, that Locke s thorough refu 
 tation of the Bishop s metaphysics about the Trinity, actually 
 hastened his end. 
 
 Our sympathies become the more deeply enlisted for the penalties 
 of authorship, when we remember the pains with which the pro- 
 
INFELICITIES OF THE INTELLECTUAL. 211 
 
 ductions of genius have been accompanied ; and these are not likely 
 to be overrated by the many. Numerous instances are upon 
 record, proving that the emanations of mind have been attended 
 with severe* and laborious industry: and we may as well cite a 
 few, perhaps, here. 
 
 So scrupulously fastidious was Pope as to nicety of expression, 
 that it is known he seldom committed to the press anything till it 
 had passed under his repeated inspection and revision, sometimes 
 keeping it by him even a year or more for the purpose ; and his 
 publisher, Dodsley, on one occasion deemed it easier to reprint the 
 whole of his corrected proofs than attempt the needed emendations. 
 Thomson, Akenside, Gray, and Cowper, were equally devoted in 
 their elaboration of a line ; and Goldsmith gave seven long years 
 to the perfection of his inimitable production, the Deserted Vil 
 lage : producing, on the average, something like three or four lines 
 per diem, which he thought a good day s work. Hume and 
 Robertson were incessantly laboring over their language the 
 latter used even to write his sentences on small slips of paper, and 
 after rounding and polishing them to his satisfaction, he entered 
 them in a book, which afterwards was again subjected to a final 
 revision. 
 
 Many an immortal work, that is a source of exquisite enjoyment 
 to mankind, has been written with the blood of the author, at the 
 expense of his happiness and of his life. Even the most jocose 
 productions have been composed with a wounded spirit. Cowper s 
 humorous ballad of Gilpin was written in a state of despondency 
 that bordered upon madness. " I wonder," says the poet, in a 
 letter to Mr. Newton, " that a sportive thought should ever knock 
 at the door of rny intellects, and still more that it should gain 
 admittance. It is as if harlequin should intrude himself into the 
 gloomy chamber where a corpse is deposited in state." Our very 
 greatest wits have not been men of a gay and vivacious disposition. 
 Of Butler s private history, nothing remains but the record of his 
 miseries, and Swift was seldom known to smile. Lord Byron, who 
 
212 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 was irritable and unhappy, wrote some of the most amusing stanzas 
 of Don Juan in his dreariest moods. Hood, the great punster, 
 is another case in point. In fact, an author s style is always but 
 a doubtful indication of his heart. 
 
 Burke had all his principal works printed once or twice at a 
 private press before submitting them to his publisher. Johnson 
 and Gibbon were exceptions to these, it is true ; they wrote spon 
 taneously, and their first draft was the only one they gave to the 
 press : and yet the majesty and beauty of their diction remain, 
 unsurpassed at the present day. The French writers, Rosseau and 
 St. Pierre, carried their scrupulosity to an amusing excess. The 
 former used to write out his new Heloise on fine gilt-edged paper, 
 and with the two-fold affection of a lover and a parent, repeatedly 
 rehearsed his effusions to the ravishment of his own delighted ears 
 before sending them to the printer ; and the latter transcribed his 
 Paul and Virginia no less than nine times, with the view of ren 
 dering it as perfect as any mundane thing may be. Sheridan, it 
 has been well observed, watched long and anxiously for a bright 
 idea, and when he was visited with one, he sought to attire it suit 
 ably, and afterwards discovered no less assiduity in rewarding it 
 with a glass or two of generous port. Burns was another hard 
 worker with his brain ; when his fickle muse jaded, he used to 
 rock himself on a chair, and gaze upon the sky, patiently waiting 
 her inspiration. He was fastidious to a fault in the perfecting of 
 his phrase and rhythm. The same delicate sense characterises 
 Byron, Scott, Moore, Campbell, and Bulwer, the last of whom 
 used to victimise the printer for seven successive revises. We 
 might swell the list of laborious writers still further, but it is need 
 less ; and yet we have not alluded to many who devoted their 
 whole lives to a single production, like Dr. Copland, whose re 
 nowned Dictionary of Practical Medicine has already occupied his 
 undivided attention some twenty-five years. We cannot, how 
 ever, refrain from quoting one more name that of the erudite, 
 but ill-fated Castell, the author of Lexicon Heptaglotton, since it 
 
INFELICITIES OF THE INTELLECTUAL. 213 
 
 presents so singular an example of great generosity, combined 
 with the most herculean literary industry. He was literally a 
 martyr to letters, a case of voluntary immolation of himself and 
 his fortune to his darling pursuits. It is impossible to read un 
 moved his pathetic appeal to Charles II., in which he laments the 
 seventeen years of incredible pains, during which he thought him 
 self idle when he had not devoted sixteen or eighteen hours a 
 day to the Lexicon ; that he had expended all his inheritance, 
 (more than twelve thousand pounds) ; that it had broken liis con 
 stitution, and left him blind, as well as poor. When this invalu 
 able Polyglott was published, the copies remained unsold on his 
 hands ; for the learned Castell had anticipated the curiosity and 
 knowledge of the public by a full century. He had so completely 
 devoted himself to Oriental studies, that they had a very remark 
 able consequence ; for he had totally forgotten his own language, 
 and could scarcely spell a single word. This appears in some of 
 his English letters, preserved by Mr. Nichols, in his " Literary 
 Anecdotes." 
 
 It is supposed that above five hundred of his Lexicons were un 
 sold at the time of his death. They were placed by his neice and 
 executrix in a room at Martin, in Surrey, where for some years 
 they lay at the mercy of the rats ; and when they came into the 
 possession of this lady s executors, scarcely one complete volume 
 could be formed out of the remainder, and the whole load of 
 learned rags sold only for seven pounds ! A single imperfect copy 
 recently sold for a larger sum. 
 
 Pity that the awards of fame should come so laggardly to her 
 true votaries ; but so it is. In how many cases has it been proven 
 that the only requitals of transcendent genius have been poverty, 
 dishonor, and sometimes an inglorious end ; leaving it to after 
 times to repair the injustice of lordly ignorance and superstitious 
 intolerance. Roger Bacon, the parent of more original discoveries 
 than any of his day, committed this treason against his cotempo- 
 raries, and in consequence enlisted their persecution for his crime, 
 
214 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 having been twice imprisoned, once for the long period of ten years. 
 To say nothing of his claims to numerous works on the explo 
 ded science of alchemy, posterity have yet allowed his title to the 
 discovery of gunpowder and the telescope. - We might readily 
 refer to other instances of the kind, even down to the times of 
 Fulton. But where to limit our rambling pen, in dilating upon 
 the misfortunes of authors, is no easy task, the instances that occur 
 are so manifold and marvelous. What shall we say of the cruel 
 and heartless ingratitude shown to the intellectual, magnanimous 
 and humane Bentivoglio, who, when reduced to the extremest dis 
 tress, caused by his own munificence, was actually refused admis 
 sion into the very hospital himself had erected. 
 
 " Thus birds for others build the downy nest ; 
 Thus sheep for others bear the fleecy vest ; 
 Thus bees collect for others honey d food ; 
 Thus ploughs the patient ox for others good." 
 
 Prideaux, afterwards bishop of Worcester, was in early life so 
 poor as to be obliged to walk on foot to the university, where 
 he at first obtained a menial situation in the kitchen of Exeter 
 College, which college he did not leave till he became one of its 
 fellows. The two Milners, who wrote the well-known history of 
 the Christian Church, were originally weavers, as was also Dr. 
 White, late regius professor of Arabic. The celebrated John 
 Hunter received scarcely any education until he had attained the 
 age of twenty, and then was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker : yet 
 he became one of the greatest anatomists that ever lived. 
 
 Numerous as have been the institutions designed for the relief 
 of the indigent poor, but one is only known to have been erected 
 for the especial benefit of the hapless author ; and this, established 
 by Pope Urban VIII., bore the strangely significant name of the 
 "Retreat of the Incurables," as if implying that its devotees were 
 deemed irreclaimable alike from the crime of poverty and author 
 ship. To glance adown the stream of time for a moment, we may 
 
INFELICITIES OF THE INTELLECTUAL. 215 
 
 mention many memorable cases of the pecuniary discomfiture of 
 literary men, whose names are as valued with us as the precious 
 metals are with the miserly worshipper of mammon. Homer, (if 
 such a personage ever lived,) we are informed, was not only de 
 prived the use of his optics, but was miserably in need of the 
 necessaries of life, and had to rehearse his ballads to the vul 
 gar populace for his meagre subsistence. Plautus, combined, for 
 the convenience of his stomach, the avocations of poet with that 
 of a turner of a mill. Terrence and Boethius died in " durance 
 vile ;" Cervantes died for lack of bread ; and tfie well-known 
 author of the " Lusiad," ended his career ignobly in an almshouse. 
 Tasso was subjected to the most humiliating exigencies : on one 
 occasion, having addressed a sonnet to his favorite cat, in which 
 he begs the light of her eyes to write by, as he was too poor to 
 buy a candle ! Collins mental derangement and death were superin 
 duced by long neglect ; Steele lived in a perpetual state of warfare 
 with bailiffs; and Goldsmith usually suffered similar distractions ; 
 Lee, Fielding, Otway, Savage, De Lolme, Butler, Chatterton, 
 Cotton, Anton, Fletcher, Kirke White, Logan, Burns, and others, 
 whose writings emblazon the escutcheon of fame, afford unequivo 
 cal evidence of the fact that opulence and authorship are not twin 
 sisters. Rushworth, whose valuable historical collections remained 
 without a printer, was doomed to prison for the balance of his 
 life, a period of six long years ; while Boyce was actually found 
 dead in a garret, with a blanket thrown over his shoulders, fas 
 tened by a wooden skewer, with a pen in his hand. 
 
 " When Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive, 
 No generous patron would a dinner give. 
 See him, resolved to clay and turned to dust, 
 Presented with a monumental bust ! 
 The Poet s fate is here in emblem shown 
 He asked for bread, and he received a stone." 
 
 A recent instance of the supremacy of poetry over poverty, 
 
216 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 may be seen in the case of Cooper, the Chartist. Dr. Croly pro 
 nounced his "Prison Rhyme" "the most wonderful effort of intel 
 lectual power produced within the past century/ Our poet adds 
 his name to the illustrious list of those who have turned a prison 
 into a palace. In his cell in Stafford Jail, what visions of beauty 
 and magnificence, and what ecstacies and raptures have been expe 
 rienced as a counterbalance against the solitude, silence and suffer 
 ing consequent upon his incarceration. 
 
 Sterne relates the following story of himself : "I happened to 
 be acquainted with a young man who had been bound apprentice 
 to a stationer in Yorkshire: he had just then finished his time, set 
 up in London, and had rented a window in one of the alleys in the 
 city. I hired one of the panes of glass from my friend, and stuck 
 up the following advertisement on it with a wafer: 
 
 " Epigrams, Anagrams, Paragragrams, Chronograms, 
 Monograms, Epitaphs, Epithilamiums, Prolognes, Epilogues, 
 Madrigals, Interludes, Advertisements, Letters, Petitions, 
 Memorials on every occasion, Essays on all Subjects, Pamph 
 lets for or against the Ministry, with Sermons upon every 
 text, or for any sect, to be written here on reasonable 
 terms, by A. B. PHILOLOGER. 
 
 "The uncommonness of the titles occasioned numerous applica 
 tions; and at night I used privately to glide into my office to 
 digest the notes or heads of the day, and receive the earnests, 
 which were directed always to be left with the memorandums; the 
 writing to be paid for on delivery, according to the subject. The 
 ocean of vice and folly that opened itself to my view during the 
 period I continued in this odd department of life, shocked and dis 
 gusted me so much, that the very moment I had realized a small 
 sum, and discharged the rent of my pane, I closed the horrid 
 scene." 
 
 Bloomfield, the pastoral poet, by dint of working, acquired a 
 bed of his own, and hired a room up one pair of stairs, at No. 14 
 Bell Alley. It was while living here that he sent the manuscript 
 
INFELICITIES OF THE INTELLECTUAL. 217 
 
 of "The Farmer s Boy" to Mr. Capel Loft, who was so delighted 
 with it that he undertook all the charges of publishing. Dry den, 
 for less than three hundred pounds, sold Tonson ten thousand 
 verses, as may be seen by the agreement which has been published. 
 Savage, in the pressing hour of distress, sold that eccentric poem 
 " The Wanderer," which had occupied him several years, for ten 
 pounds. Even the great Milton, as every one knows, sold his 
 immortal work for ten pounds to a bookseller, being too poor to 
 undertake the printing of it on his own account: and Otway, a 
 dramatic poet of the first class, is known to have perished of 
 hunger. Defoe, author of two hundred books and pamphlets, died 
 insolvent. Sheriden and his wife had to write for their daily " leg 
 of mutton," a joint concern, although a very slender one. 
 
 " Verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound; 
 
 All at her work the village maiden sings, 
 
 Nor, while she turns the giddy wheel around, 
 
 Resolves the sad vicissitudes of things." 
 
 " And thus it happens that the poet, rich in his poverty, carries 
 with him sweet grapes to quench his thirst, and greenest trees to 
 shelter his repose. The stormy day is better for him than the 
 calm. We are told by naturalists that birds of paradise fly best 
 against the wind; it drifts behind them the gorgeous train of 
 feathers, which only entangle their flight with the gale. Pure 
 imagination, of which the loveliest of winged creatures is the 
 fitting emblem, seems always to gain a vigor and grace by the 
 tempests it encounters, and in contrary winds to show the brighest 
 plumage." * 
 
 Even Dryden sunk into neglect in his old age, having died in a 
 garret, in an obscure corner of London ; being visited by a friend 
 in his last moments, who commiserated his situation, he replied, 
 "You feel and weep for my sufferings, but never mind, the pang 
 
 Willmott. 
 
 10 
 
218 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 will soon be all over." Chatterton, in Brooke street, starved two 
 days before he cut his throat ; Dr. Johnson was once found in the 
 most desponding hopelessness in a garret, destitute even of ink and 
 paper with which to transcribe his lucubrations. When Goldsmith 
 had nearly completed his " Vicar," fits landlady one day surprised 
 him by a demand for his board and lodging ; and on his declaring 
 his utter inability to meet it, she proposed to cancel her claim on 
 his becoming her spouse ; this the timely arrival of Johnson pre 
 vented, as he aided him in the liquidation of the debt. Dr. John 
 son relates with infinite humor the circumstance of his rescuing 
 Goldsmith from a ridiculous dilemma by the purchase money of his 
 " Vicar of Wakefield," which he sold on his behalf to Dodsley, and, 
 it is thought, for the sum of ten pounds only. He had run up a 
 debt with his landlady, for board and lodging, of some few pounds, 
 and was at his wits -end how to wipe off the score, and keep a roof 
 over his head, except by closing with a very staggering proposal on 
 her part, and taking his creditor to wife, whose charms were very 
 far from alluring, whilst her demands were extremely urgent. In 
 this crisis of his fate, he was found by Johnson in the act of medi 
 tating on the melancholy alternative before him. He showed 
 Johnson his manuscript of the " Vicar of Wakefield," but seemed 
 to be without any plan or even hope of raising money upon the 
 disposal of it. When Johnson cast his eye upon it he discovered 
 something that gave him hope, and immediately took it to Dods 
 ley, who paid down the price above mentioned in ready money, and 
 added an eventual condition upon its future sale. Johnson de 
 scribed the precautions he took in concealing the amount of the 
 sum he had in hand, which he prudently administered to him by a 
 guinea at a time. In the event he paid off the landlady s score, 
 and redeemed the person of his friend from her clutches. 
 
 If we turn to France, we shall there find even stronger instances 
 of the hapless destiny of genius. Vaugelas, one of the politest 
 writers, and one of the most honest men of his time, was surnamed 
 the Owl, from his being obliged to keep within all day, and venture 
 
INFELICITIES OF THE INTELLECTUAL. 219 
 
 out only by night, through fear of his creditors. His last will is 
 very remarkable. After bequeathing all his worldly substance to 
 the discharge of his debts, he goes on thus : 
 
 " But as there still may remain some creditors unpaid, even after 
 all that I have shall be disposed of, in such a case it is my last will 
 that my body should be sold to the surgeons to fhe best advan 
 tage, and that the purchase money should go to the discharging 
 those debts which I owe to society ; so that if I could not, while 
 living, at least when dead I may be useful." 
 
 That is "honest to the back-bone" at any rate. 
 
 In our own times, how many sad instances of poverty being the 
 inheritance of poets, occur to the memory? the great "poet 
 of the poor," Ebenezer Elliott, followed the calling of an iron 
 monger ; Clare that of a common day-laborer ; Hogg was a 
 shepherd-boy ; Miller a basket-maker ; Kirk White originally car 
 ried out the basket of the butcher, whichJie afterwards exchanged 
 for the hosier s loom. 
 
 D Israeli has a prolific chapter on this subject ; among their 
 other misfortunes, he collates the following cases of incarceration 
 of authors ; his object, however, being to show that their imprison 
 ment rather promoted than retarded the progress of their studies. 
 It was while immured within the gloomy walls of a dungeon that 
 Boethius composed his well-known " Consolations of Philosophy," 
 Grotius wrote his "Commentary on St. Matthew," and Buchanan 
 his excellent " Paraphrases." The renowned Cervantes, in Bar- 
 bary, and " Fleta," written in the " Fket," afford similar proofs ; 
 the name of the place, though not of the author, having been pre 
 served, in commemoration of the fact ; while another work, 
 "Fleta Minor," or "the laws of art and nature in knowing the 
 bodies of metals," by Petters, 1683, derived also its title from the 
 circumstance of its having been translated from the German dur 
 ing the author s confinement in this prison. Louis XII., and 
 Margaret, consort of Henry IT. of France, as well as Charles I. 
 of England, made good use of the pen under similar circumstances 
 
220 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 the latter having indited his well-known Eikon Basilike, or the 
 Royal Image, the authorship of which has given rise to so much 
 curious speculation among the learned. Queen Elizabeth, while 
 confined by her sister Mary, wrote several poems, which are said 
 never to have been equalled after her enlargement; and the unfor 
 tunate Mary, Queen of Scots, during her long imprisonment, pro 
 duced many pleasing poetic compositions, one of which, her Last 
 Prayer, we transcribe for the sake of its plaintive melody and 
 beauty. It was written originally in Latin ; we append an 
 English rendering of it, for the benefit of those who prefer a ver 
 nacular version : 
 
 " Oh ! Domine Deus, " Oh ! my God and my Lord, 
 
 Speravi in te I have trusted in thee ; 
 
 Oh ! carime Jesu, Oh ! Jesu, my Love, 
 
 Nunc libera me. Now liberate me. 
 
 In dura catena, In my enemies power, 
 
 In misera prona In affliction s sad hour 
 
 Desidero te. I languish for thee. 
 
 Languendo, gemendo, In sorrowing, weeping, 
 
 Et genuflectendo, And bending the knee, 
 
 Adoro, imploro I adore and implore thee 
 
 Ut liberes me !" To liberate me !" 
 
 In glancing over the story of many a literary life, -how touching 
 are its appeals to our own sympathy ! Who can read the above 
 without feeling their force ? It is not every one who has philoso 
 phy enough to abide the impudent reply made to the learned 
 Frenchman, Treret, who, on being summarily taken from his sick 
 bed to the Bastile, after patiently submitting for several weeks to 
 his " durance vile," on inquiring for what offence he was so treated, 
 received from his officer the following heartless and insolent 
 response : " Sir, I think you have a deal of curiosity !" Every 
 one has read the history and woes of Silvio Pellico, the author of 
 Francesco, da Rimini, and other renowned Italian tragedies, whose 
 love of poetry survived so many years of his gloomy incarceration. 
 
INFELICITIES OF THE INTELLECTUAL. 221 
 
 Sir Walter Raleigh s memorable "History of the World," 
 although unfinished, remains a noble monument of his learning, 
 industry, and indomitable perseverance, under circumstances so 
 apparently adverse to the cultivation of letters as those in which 
 he was placed, during the gloomy lapse of his eleven years impri 
 sonment. We might also cite numerous others ; but two more 
 names must suffice ; they are of equal celebrity both being 
 remarkable instances of high genius, although remotely opposite in 
 character. We refer to Voltaire and Bunyan, the former, who, 
 while in the Bastile, sketched the plan and partly completed 
 his Henriadde; and the latter, who, during his cruel incarceration, 
 in Bedford jail, produced his world renowned Pilgrim s Progress. 
 And how many more, like McDiarmid, have exhibited the sad 
 combination of genius allied to abject poverty? who, as D Israeli 
 relates, while engaged upon his "System of Military Defence," 
 became so study-worn and emaciated that his hollow eyes seemed 
 like dim lamps shining in the tomb. His entire life was, indeed, 
 one continuous strife with the fell spoiler ; often the day passed 
 cheerfully without its meal, but never without its page ! 
 
 An enthusiastic temperament is also often the accompaniment 
 of genius a feature of character that renders it the easy victim of 
 delusion and credulity. Numerous instances might be adduced in 
 proof. Sir Isaac Newton was half inoculated with the absurdities 
 of judicial astrology. Dr. Johnson was proverbially superstitious. 
 What curious paradoxes may be seen between the writings and 
 actions of the same men. Hobbes, the deist, was a most devout 
 believer in ghosts and spiritual existences. Locke, the matter-of- 
 fact philosopher, was an inordinate reader of romance, and revelled 
 in works of fiction. And too truly has the character of the great 
 Francis Yerulam been depicted as " the wisest, greatest, meanest 
 of mankind !" 
 
 Turn we for a moment to the domestic peculiarities of the 
 learned, we shall find no less abundant evidence of the verity of 
 their true designation genus irritabile. Johnson evinced his ner- 
 
222 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 vous irritability by biting his nails to the very quick. Another 
 worthy but eccentric bibliopole, William Coke, of Leith, who died 
 some dozen years since, presents also a singular instance of a 
 quick and irritable temperament ; although we may scarcely won 
 der at his case, he having given us, if not an all-sufficient, at any 
 rate, a somewhat ludicrous due to his malady, for he was actually 
 caught one day rubbing his head in whiskey ! no marvel that he 
 was hot-headed. Others again indulged strange vagaries and 
 humors; such as Menage, who, while science covered his head 
 with laurels, used to cover his feet with several pairs of stockings. 
 Pope used to brace himsell up with corsets. It is related that 
 Magliabecchi, the learned librarian to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, 
 used to divert himself with pelting spiders. He seldom left his 
 books, for he usually ate, drank and slept among them ; thus imi 
 tating the domestic propensities for his favorites. Sir Walter 
 Scott entertained an absurd opinion that his poetic vein never 
 flowed happy except between the vernal and autumnal equinoxes ; 
 he was accustomed to rise at four, and walk about his room in a 
 state of nudity, calling it his air-breath. Rousseau, when doomed 
 to the company of the common-place, occupied himself with knitting 
 lace strings, which he evidently preferred to long yarns. Bloom- 
 field wrote his Farmer s Boy with chalk upon the top of a pair of 
 bellows a wind instrument, till then a novelty in the choir of the 
 Muses. The author, it is thus evident, is both more at ease and 
 more to advantage in his study than anywhere else ; and it is not 
 surprising that we find him covet this seclusive retreat, and indulge 
 his predilection sometimes at the expense of the rules of etiquette 
 and courtesy. 
 
 Montesquieu s complaining epistle to a friend, affords evidence 
 of this, where he intimates that the frequent and protracted visits 
 of certain intruders caused much detriment to the progress of his 
 works. Another scribe was so avaricious of his time, that his 
 frequent appeals proving unavailing, he caused to be inscribed 
 over the door of his study the inviting announcement, that who- 
 
INFELICITIES OF THE INTELLECTUAL. 223 
 
 ever remained there must join in his labors. Melancthon, like 
 Evelyn, was so chary of his time allotted to study, that he would 
 note the intervals wasted by intrusive visitants, in order to redeem 
 them from the hours devoted to repose. Others have been driven 
 to the forlorn expedient of escaping from their window, being so 
 hedged in by their considerate friends, as to be allowed of no 
 more convenient egress; and Boyle, actually had to resort to the 
 advertising columns of a newspaper, to secure exemption from 
 similar annoyances. A few words touching the connubial infeli 
 cities of the learned will bring our chapter to a close. That there 
 have existed some renowned in the annals of literature, who, like 
 Budceus, enjoyed the singular good fortune to retain the full mea 
 sure of matrimonial happiness, conjoined with the pleasures of lit 
 erary pursuits, cannot be denied; but it may be doubted whether 
 these do not form exceptions to rule. This great writer found in 
 his wife an invaluable assistant in his arduous studies; ever at his 
 side, assiduously collating, comparing, or transcribing, she con 
 tributed essentially to the reduction of his* literary toils. In one 
 of his letters he represents himself as married to two wives, one 
 of whom blessed him with pleasant little ones, the other with 
 books. Evelyn was no less felicitous in this respect, for he was 
 indebted for much of his success to his amiable wife, whose refined 
 taste and skill were equal to any emergency; and whose breast 
 was fired with the same passion that inflamed her husband s pen; 
 it was to her ingenious pencil the embellishment to his translation 
 of Lucretius owed its origin. It is also true that many, we might 
 perhaps say the majority of great men, seem to have repudiated 
 matrimony altogether, probably from some premonition of their 
 disqualification for its enjoyments. A host of great names occur 
 to us, presenting an astounding array of sturdy old bachelors, 
 enough to startle the complacency of the most charitable of the 
 fair sex. Michael Angelo, Boyle, Newton, Locke, Bayle, Shen- 
 stone, Leibnitz, Hobbes, Yoltaire, Pope, Adam Smith, Swift, 
 Thomson, Akenside, Arbuthnot, Hume, Gibbon, Cowper, Gold- 
 
224 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 smith, Gay, Lamb, Washington Irving, et cum multis aliis, were 
 all decided for celebacy. Michael Angelo replied to a remon 
 strance on the subject, that he had espoused his art, and his works 
 were his children. Dr. Radcliffe lived and died unmarried ; 
 although within five or six years prior to his decease, he fell des 
 perately in love with a patient of rank, wealth and beauty, triple 
 charms to fascinate even an old beau; but alas for this gallant 
 hero, his suit became non-suited, and to his mortification his rejec 
 ted addresses were afterwards immortalized by Steele in his 
 "Tattler." Without staying to inquire into the causes which 
 superinduce this anti-social feature of the literary character, it 
 may not be amiss to notice some of its anomalies. For example, 
 Smollett, whose writings are but too frequently found not only 
 prurient, but indelicate, was yet unimpeachable in his morals. 
 La Fontaine wrote fictions, fertile in intrigues, but he is not known 
 to have left one amour on record in which he personally enacted a 
 part. Sir Thomas More, who was a strenuous advocate of free 
 toleration, yet himself became a fierce and bigoted persecutor; 
 and Young, although constantly denouncing a love of preferment, 
 was all his life long secretly pining after it, and, while the most 
 sombrous of poets, was in private life a trifling punster. Cowper, 
 the melancholy and misanthropic, perpetrated, that laughter-pro 
 voking ballad, Johnny Gilpin; and we find a similar contradictory 
 characteristic in Sterne s whining over a dead donkey, while he 
 proved himself bankrupt in human sympathy and natural affection, 
 beating his wife, and leaving his maternal parent desolate and 
 neglected in her last moments. 
 
 Byron s misanthropy, also, was only to be found in his pen; for 
 his moral self seemed a strange compound of vanity and affecta 
 tion, united with a love of the ludicrous, sarcasm and irony. And 
 poor Hood, the punster, whose master-passion gave melancholy 
 evidence of its absorbing power over him, even at the hour of dis 
 solution, while his wit was vibrating the national heart, his own 
 suffered from the extremest melancholy. Among the many extern- 
 
THE POETRY OF PLANTS. 225 
 
 pore puns he uttered in his sickness, in describing to a friend his 
 near approach to dissolution, he could not resist his ruling impulse, 
 for he added, " I came so near to death s door, that I heard the 
 creaking of its hinges." 
 
 It would be no uninteresting literary speculation, remarks Mr. 
 D Israeli, to describe the difficulties which some of our most favor 
 ite works encountered in their manuscript state, and even after they 
 had passed through the press. Sterne, when he had finished his 
 first and second volumes of "Tristram Shandy," offered them to a 
 bookseller at York for fifty pounds, but was refused : he came to 
 town with his MSS., and he and Robert Dodsley agreed in a man 
 ner, of which neither repented. 
 
 "The Rosciad," with all its merit, lay for a considerable time 
 in a dormant state, till Churchill and his publisher became impa 
 tient, and almost hopeless of success. "Burn s Justice" was dis 
 posed of by its author, who was weary of soliciting booksellers to 
 purchase the MS. for a trifle, and now it yields an annual income. 
 Collins burnt his odes before the door of his publisher. The 
 " Essay on Truth," by Dr. Beattie, could find no publisher to pur 
 chase it, and was printed by two friends of the author, at their 
 joint expense. " The Hfstorical Connexion of the Old and New 
 Testament," by Shuckford, is also reported to have been seldom 
 inquired after for about twelve months. The MS. of Dr. Prideaux s 
 " Connexion," is well-lino wn to have been offered to five or six of 
 the most eminent booksellers, during the space of at least two 
 years, to no purpose, none of them undertaking to print that 
 excellent work. It lay in obscurity till Archdeacon Echard, the 
 author s friend, strongly recommended it to Tonson. It was pur 
 chased, and the publication was very successful. The undertaker 
 of the translation of Rapin, after a very considerable part of the 
 work had been published, was not a little doubtful of its success, 
 and was strongly inclined to drop the design. It proved at last to 
 be a most profitable literary adventure. It is, perhaps, useful to 
 record, that while the fine compositions of genius, and the elabo- 
 
 10* 
 
226 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 rate works of erudition, are doomed to encounter these obstacles 
 to fame, and seldom more than slightly remunerated, books of 
 another description are rewarded in a most princely manner : at 
 the recent sale of a bookseller, the copy-right of " Yyse s Spelling- 
 Book" was sold at the enormous price of 2,200, with an annuity 
 of fifty guineas to the author. Like many other works, which 
 have since become classics, Thomson s "Seasons" long in vain 
 sought a publisher. Beresford received but .20 for " His Miseries 
 of Human Life," yet the work is said to have ultimately realized 
 5,000. Shall we infer from this that the booksellers are utterly 
 destitute of critical acumen ? On the contrary, while they have 
 been influenced by the prevailing popular taste, they have been 
 usually conspicuous for their liberality to authors, since they are 
 their patrons and friends. 
 
 " Poetry is," according to Coleridge, " its own exceeding great 
 reward," and this is about all the awards which fall to its votaries. 
 Intellectual endowments are of themselves- too costly and rare to 
 be vulgarized by sordid gains. Yet who does not compassionate 
 the privations and poverty of the mighty minds, whose genius has 
 enriched the realm of thought with the bright creations of fancy, 
 or whose patient and laborious studies* have revealed to us the 
 great mysteries of science a wealth so vast, that no pecuniary 
 returns on our part could adequately compensate. 
 
CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. 
 
 " Let s talk of graves, and worms, and epitaphs " 
 
 THERE is scarcely any subject of more touching interest, or one 
 that awakens a deeper sympathy in the human heart. If we may 
 not hold intercourse with the venerated dead, the mind is instinc 
 tively beguiled into a reverie so irresistibly bewitching that we 
 seem to share a silent colloquy with our ghostly companions ; and 
 then our thoughts anticipate our own, in musing over their last, 
 long resting place. 
 
 " Man s home is in the grave ! 
 
 Here dwell the multitude ; we gaze around, 
 We read their monuments, we sigh, and while 
 We sigh, we sink." 
 
 The early, though now almost obsolete usage of decking the 
 
228 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 graves of the deceased with flowers a custom observed among the 
 Greeks and Romans, and even down to modern times in many 
 parts of England, Wales and Germany is fraught with the most 
 delightful associations ; and induces an elevation of sentiment and 
 a poetry of feeling, equally calculated to mollify our grief, and to 
 invest the sepulchre with the kindling emotions of hope and immor 
 tality. The epitaph of the founder of Grecian tragedy, the cele 
 brated Sophocles, written by Simonides, proves that such a custom 
 of honoring the illustrious dead then existed : 
 
 " Wind, gentle evergreen, to form a shade 
 Around the tomb where Sophocles is laid. 
 Sweet ivy, wind thy boughs and intertwine 
 With blushing roses and the clustering vine ; 
 So shall thy lasting leaves, with beauty hung, 
 Prove a fit emblem of the lays he sung." 
 
 There can scarcely be imagined a more delightful place, than 
 that valley of unfading green and everlasting flowers, where Sadi, 
 the royal Persian poet, is entombed. Hafiz, of the same nation, 
 and scarcely less renewed as a poet, planted with his own hands 
 the cypress under which be directed his body to be entombed, and 
 over which, for ages, his enthusiastic admirers and countrymen 
 scattered roses, and hung chaplets of flowers. " We adorn 
 graves," says Evelyn, "with flowers and redolent plants, just 
 emblems of the life of man, which has been compared in the Holy 
 Scriptures to those fading beauties, whose roots being buried in 
 dishonor, rise again in glory." 
 
 These hallowed rites of burial in some of tharural districts of 
 the fatherland have been so exquisitely detailed by Irving in his 
 Sketch Book, that it would be presumptuous temerity in us to 
 indulge in such recitals ; yet we may be allowed to attest the 
 faithfulness of his admirable sketches, having been an -eye-witness 
 of several such touching scenes in England and South Wales ; and 
 a listener to many a. mournful dirge, as the pageantry of death 
 moved noiselessly on. 
 
CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. 229 
 
 " These token flowers that tell 
 What words could never speak so well," 
 
 were rendered peculiarly expressive of the circumstances of the 
 deceased ; for example, at the funeral of a young female, the 
 chaplet-wreath of white roses was borne by one of her own sex 
 and age before the corpse, the token of virgin purity and inno 
 cence, and afterwards hung over her accustomed seat at the 
 church ; the rose was also sometimes blended with the lily as the 
 emblem of frail mortality ; the red rose for such as had been 
 remarkable for benevolence ; and when it was intended to betoken 
 the hapless loves or sorrows of the departed, the yew and cypress 
 were used. Stanley, the poet, who wrote about the middle of the 
 seventeenth century, sighs out the following plaintive strain : 
 
 " Yet strew 
 Upon my dismal grave 
 Such offerings as you have, 
 
 Forsaken cypresse and yew ; 
 For kinder flowers can take no birth 
 Or growth from such unhappy earth." 
 
 Alas for the unpoetic artificialities of modern innovation, which 
 have preferred to rear the mighty mausoleum, in the stead of these 
 modest and eloquent, though frails memorials of those once loved ; 
 as if, because the sculptured marble were a more enduring monu 
 ment, it could also embalm the memory of its sacred deposit with 
 the fragrant incense of the flower s sweet breath. The magic 
 lines of Shakspeare apply with singular force and appositeness, 
 when he says, 
 
 " With fairest flowers, 
 
 Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, 
 I ll sweeten thy sad grave ; thou shalt not lack 
 The flower that s like thy face, pale primrose, nor 
 The azured harebell, like thy veins ; no, nor 
 The leaf of eglantine ; whom not to slander, 
 Outsweetened not thy breath." 
 
 
230 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 Where is the heart, in its gushings of sorrow, that would not, 
 as the unbidden tear bedews the sainted grave, yield to such spon 
 taneous offerings of affection, and bind an osier round the sod ; 
 but "pathos expires under the slow labor of the chisel," says 
 the essayist to whom we have referred, "and becomes chilled 
 among the cold conceits of sculptured marble." How varied the 
 emotions excited by a visit to the rural cemetery ; the noisy tur 
 moil of busy life yields to the peaceful quiescence of the tomb, 
 and we envy not the being whose sensibilities are so obture, as to 
 induce in him an abiding preference for the farmer, without award 
 ing one passing tribute to the memory of the departed. Here are 
 alone to be found a panacea for the many sorrows of human wo ; 
 the mother s anguished bosom no longer yearns for her lost idol, 
 and all the hallowed love of kindred, once rifled and dissevered, 
 have passed away in the common companionship of the tomb ; 
 while even the " envy, malice, and uncharitableness " of those of 
 sterner mould, are alike hushed in undisturbed harmony and rest. 
 And around a sainted mother s grave what peculiar sanctity seems 
 to hover, investing the hallowed ground with a sacredness and 
 sublimity that irresistibly excite emotions of grateful veneration, 
 compared with which the gorgeous paraphernalia attendant on the 
 funeral obsequies of an Alexander fall upon the heart with sick 
 ening disgust. The funeral car of the deceased Emperor, sustained 
 a vaulted golden room, eight cubits in width, and twelve in length; 
 the dome was decorated with rubies, carbuncles and emeralds, and 
 embellished by four historical paintings. Above the chamber, 
 between its ceiling and the roof, the space was occupied by a 
 quadrangular throne of gold, ornamented with figures in relief, to 
 which golden rings were appended, bearing garlands of flowers 
 that were daily renewed. Above the whole was a golden crown, 
 of such huge dimensions that a tall man could stand upright within 
 it ; and when the sun s rays fell on it, it shone with inconceivable 
 splendor. In the chamber lay the lifeless body of Alexander, em 
 balmed in aromatics, and enshrined in a coffin of massive gold. 
 
CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. 231 
 
 A similar feeeling of reverence is awakened as we find ourselves 
 surrounded by the tombs of the mighty dead the great men of 
 past ages as for instance, the Poet s Corner of Westminster 
 Abbey. And alas ! what a humiliating lesson is here taught the 
 eager votaries of human ambition ; with the exceptions of Shaks- 
 peare and Addison, scarcely any of the memorials of the great 
 founders of our vernacular literature, exceed the simple records of 
 their names, and the duration of their mortal sojourn on the earth. 
 Yet simple as such mementoes are, they appeal more eloquently to 
 the heart than any other, they awaken a deeper sympathy between 
 the living and the dead. This is especially true with respect to 
 the author. We read his history in his works, and fancy almost 
 we share a personal acquaintance with him still. 
 
 "Our cathedrals and old churches," writes Willmott, "grey 
 with the rust of centuries, speak to the heart through the eye. 
 Death is never unlovely, but meets us with the Gospel upon his 
 lips, and the garland of hope upon his forehead. Addison might 
 well delight to pass an afternooon among the tombs of Westmin 
 ster Abbey. The truest and most cheering eloquence speaks from 
 the grave of piety. The white marble monument of William of 
 Wykeham, is a livelier exhortation to Christian benevolence than 
 a philosophic treatise upon generosity. If we delight to keep 
 green the graves of our poets, who have beguiled with their music 
 the sorrows of life, our feelings become enlivened by purer eleva 
 tion, when lingering by the sepulchres of those who have minis 
 tered to us of the oracles of heavenly wisdom. We call to mind 
 their hallowed example of holy living their illuminated wisdom, 
 their chastened temper, and their serene and happy exit from a 
 life of sorrow and self-denial, which was to them " a baptism unto 
 immortality." 
 
 The first place of worship in the Acropolis of Athens was the 
 sepulchre of Cecrops. It may be fairly inferred, that the tombs 
 of the Athenians were the origin of their temples. The epitaph of 
 Virgil, said to have been the product of his own pen, is as follows: 
 
232 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 " Mantua me genuit : Calabri rapuere : tenet mine 
 Parthenope : cecini pascua, rura, duces." 
 
 For its brevity, this epitaph may be regarded as a fair specimen 
 of the Grecian standard of excellence in this species of writing. 
 It may be rendered " I sang flocks, tillage, heroes ; Mantua 
 gave me life ; Brundusium death, Naples a grave." One of the 
 most ancient Greek inscriptions, erected over the warriors at the 
 battle of Potidaea, (432 B. C.,) is still in existence, although in a 
 mutilated state, being among the Elgin Marbles at the British 
 Museum. 
 
 Prior to the introduction of the Christian religion into Britain, 
 (A. D. 600,) the Pagans possessed no religious edifices, as the 
 massive Dridical remains on Salisbury Plain even to this day bear 
 testimony. We are indebted to the monks for the establishment 
 of the numerous monasteries which, in after times, studded the land ; 
 and which originated our more modern churches. The term minster 
 is a corruption from monastery, and originally designated a secret 
 place for prayer. In England, churchyards for burial are not of 
 earlier date than the year 850 ; and it appears that burial in 
 churches and chapels were unknown till the fifteenth century. 
 The places of inhumation, according to the Roman law, were 
 universally excluded from the precincts of their cities. 
 
 Epitaphs were not in vogue in England till the reign of James I. ; 
 his mother, the unfortunate Mary, Queen of Scots, often amused 
 herself when at the French court in compiling this species of 
 writing. Hearses erected in the church signified a candlestick fur 
 nished with different lights, and erected at the head of the ceno 
 taph. They were called in the time of Edward III. castro doloris. 
 Moveable hearses were earlier in use : the name, as applied to 
 the vehicle containing the corpse, was adopted in the reign of 
 William and Mary. 
 
 " During the middle ages in England," says Sir Kenelm Digby, 
 "there were no monuments of decoration, corresponding with the 
 heathen philosophy ; if at the funerals of great nobles or kings, 
 
CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. 233 
 
 there was a more magnificent pageant, it was always ecclesiastical, 
 always monastic never secular or military." Yet we find the fol 
 lowing brief account of Oliver Cromwell s funeral in Westminster 
 Abbey, which was attended with great pomp, and which is but 
 little reconcilable to republican notions : " the walls were hung 
 with two hundred and forty escutcheons ; the splendid sorrows 
 that did adorn the hearse were twenty-six large embossed shields 
 and twenty-four smaller with crowns ; sixty badges with his crest ; 
 thirty-six scrolls, with mottoes ; his effigy, carved and superbly 
 arrayed ; a velvet pall which contained eighty yards." Not long 
 after this event, his grave was rifled with ruthless desecration by 
 the royalists, his body hung in chains, and his head " exposed to 
 the peltings of the pitiless storm" for twenty years ! How 
 humiliating the transition : the outrage was, however, but a reflex 
 of the tyrannical spirit of the age. In early times, in England, a 
 custom prevailed of arraying the deceased in the most costly and 
 sumptuous ornaments they once possessed ; but how infinitely more 
 touching and true to nature are the rural simplicities of an English 
 country funeral, in its demonstrations of grief. We shall now 
 present a few specimens of early monumental inscriptions. 
 
 (rough, in his " Sepulchral Monuments," gives the following 
 curious and early specimen. It is dated 1420, in St. Peter s 
 Church, at St. Albans: 
 
 " In ye yere of Christ on thousand and four hundryd full trew with four 
 
 and sixtene 
 
 I, Richard Skipwithe, gentylman in birthe, late fellow of New Inne, 
 In my age twenti, on my soul partyed from the bodee in August an 
 
 16th day, 
 
 And now I ly her abyding God s mercy under this stone in clay, 
 Desyring you that this sal see unto the meyden pray for mee, 
 Like as you wold that other for ye shold." 
 
 In St. Martin s Church, London, the following ingenious com 
 position is inscribed to the memory of a son of mortality, yclept 
 Florens Caldwell, 1590 : 
 
234 
 
 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 Earth goes to ^ f As mould to mould, 
 
 Earth treads on I I Glittering in gold, 
 
 Earth as to * Eartn j Return ne er should, 
 
 Earth shall be Goe where he would. 
 
 ; Earth upon 
 Earth goes to 
 Earth though on 
 Earth shall from 
 
 f Consider may, 
 I Naked away, 
 Earth j Be stout and gay, 
 I Passe poore away, 
 
 " Be merciful and charitable, 
 Relieve the poore as thou art able ; 
 A shroud to thy grave 
 Is all that thou shalt have !" 
 
 Another relic of this species of writing, on an old monument 
 in St. Ann and St. Agnes , London, is equally ingenious, and much 
 more laconic and excellent : 
 
 " Qu an tris di c vul stra 
 
 os guis ti ro urn nere vit" 
 H san chris mi t mu la 
 
 In this distich the last syllable of each word in the upper line is 
 the same as that of each corresponding word in the last line, and 
 is to be found in the centre. It reads thus : 
 
 Quos anguis tristi diro cum vulnere stravit 
 Hos sanguis christi miro turn munere lavit. 
 
 Translated thus : 
 
 Those who have felt the serpent s venom d wound 
 In Christ s miraculous blood have healing found. 
 
 We meet with many like the preceding, that are admirable in 
 their religious sentiment, but a large majority of the epitaphs, 
 prior and immediately subsequent to the Reformation, are worse 
 than contemptible. Among the attempts at the facetious, take 
 the following : 
 
CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. 235 
 
 ON THE DUKE OF MARYBOROUGH. 
 
 " Here lies John, Duke of Marlborough, 
 Who run the French through and through ; 
 He married Sarah Jennings, spinster, 
 Died at Windsor, and was buried at Westminster." 
 
 In St. Beimel s, Paul s Wharf, London : 
 
 " Here lies one More, and no more than he, 
 One More, and no More ! how can that be ? 
 Why one More, and no more, may well lie here alone ; 
 But here lies one More, and that s more than one !" 
 
 FROM BROOM CHURCHYARD, ENGLAND. 
 
 " God be praised ! 
 Here is Mr. DUDLEY, senior, 
 
 And JANE, his wife, also, 
 Who, whilst living, was his superior : 
 
 But see what Death can do, 
 Two of his sons also lie here, 
 
 One Walter, t other Joe : 
 They all of them went in the year 1510 below." 
 
 In St. Michael s Churchyard, Aberystwith, is another to the 
 memory of David Davies, Blacksmith : 
 
 " My Sledge and Hammer lay reclined, 
 My Bellows, too, have lost their wind, 
 My Fire s extinct, my Forge decayed, 
 And in the dust my vice is laid ; 
 My coal is spent, my Iron gone, 
 My Nails are drove my work is done." 
 
 The following epitaph is transcribed from one of the local his 
 tories of Cornwall : 
 
 " Father and Mother and I 
 
 Lies buried here as under : 
 Father and Mother lies buried here, 
 And I lies buried yonder." 
 
236 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 FROM CUNWALLOW CHURCHYARD, CORNWALL. 
 [It may be read either backwards or forwards.] 
 " Shall we all die ? 
 
 We shall die all, 
 All die shall we 
 Die all we shall." 
 
 In St. Germain s, in the Isle of Man, the following very singu 
 lar epitaph is yet to be seen, in Latin, over the tomb of Dr. Sam 
 uel Rutter, formerly prebendary of Litchfield, and afterwards 
 Bishop of Sodor and Man : 
 
 " In this house 
 which I have borrowed from 
 my brethren the worms, 
 
 lie I, 
 
 SAMUEL, by Divine permission, 
 Bishop of this Island. 
 
 Stop, reader ; 
 behold, and smile at 
 
 THE PALACE OF A BISHOP ! 
 
 who died May 30, 
 
 in the year 
 
 1653." 
 
 An Hibernian epitaph reads as follows it is taken from the 
 old churchyard at Belturbet, Ireland : 
 
 "Here lies John Higley, whose father and mother were 
 
 drowned in their passage from America. 
 Had they both lived, they would have been buried here /" 
 
 In St. Michael s churchyard, Crooked lane, London, is the fol 
 lowing laconic record : 
 
 Here lieth, wrapped in clay, 
 
 The body of William Wray ; 
 ^ I have no more to say !" 
 
 
 The following admonitory voice from a tomb in Thetford church- 
 
CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. 237 
 
 yard, Norfolk, will at least be perused with interest by the advo 
 cates of the temperance cause : 
 
 " My grandfather lies buried here, 
 My cousin Jane, and two uncles dear ; 
 My father perished with an inflammation in his eyes, 
 My sister dropt down dead in the Minories : 
 
 But the reason why I m here interred, according to my thinking, 
 Is owing to my good living and hard drinking ! 
 Therefore, good people, if you wish to live long, 
 Don t drink too much wine, brandy, gin, or anything strong." 
 
 With two or three additional specimens of the facetious, we will 
 gladly turn to something exhibiting a graver and better taste. In 
 Selby churchyard, York, is the following attempt at the ludicrous, 
 in memory of one Miles : 
 
 " This tombstone is a Milestone, hah, how so ? 
 Because, beneath lies Miles, who s Miles below." 
 
 Here we have another from the Emerald isle ; mysteriously 
 calculated to suppress all inquisitiveness as to the departed. 
 
 " Here lies Pat Steele . 
 That s very thrue : 
 Who was he ? what was he ? 
 What s that to you ?" 
 
 Over the grave where Shakspeare s dust reposes, is inscribed the 
 following well-known quaint abjuration : 
 
 " Good Friend, For Jesvs Sake Forbeare 
 To Digg the Dvst Enclosed here : 
 Blest Be ye Man yt Spares These Stones, 
 And Cursed Be Him yt Moves My Bones." 
 
 We quote another antique specimen, on a tombstone in the 
 same churchyard (Stratford) : 
 
 
238 SALAD Ft)R THE SOLITARY. 
 
 " Death creeps abought on hard, 
 And steals abroad on seen, 
 Hur darts are suding, and her arrows keen, 
 Hur strocks are deadly, com they soon or late, 
 When being struck repentance is too late, 
 Death is a minut, full of suding sorrow, 
 Then live to day, as thou may st dy to morrow. 
 Anno Domony 1690." 
 
 In Handon churchyard, Middlesex, the following inscription to 
 the memory of a certain member of the medical fraternity, who 
 seems at least not to have been indifferent to the good things of 
 life, however great his penchant for drugs : 
 
 " ON THOMAS CROSSFIELD, M. D. 
 
 " Beneath this stone, Tom Crossfield lies, 
 Who cares not now who laughs or cries ; 
 He laughed when sober, and when mellow, 
 Was a harum-scarum harmless fellow : 
 He gave to none designed offence, 
 So Honi soit qui mal y pense (!)" 
 
 The subjoined is copied from an old churchyard at Llanfllantw- 
 thyl, Wales : 
 
 " Under this stone lies Meredith Morgan, 
 Who blew the bellows of our church organ ; 
 Tobacco he hated, to smoke most unwilling, 
 Yet never so pleased as when pipes he was filling ; 
 No reflection on him for rude speech could be cast, 
 Though he made our old organ give many a blast. 
 No puffer was he, though a capital blower, 
 He could fill double G, and now lies a note lower." 
 
 Byron wrote the following epitaph on John Adams, of South 
 well, a carrier, who died of drunkenness : 
 
 "John Adams lies here, of the parish of Southwell, 
 A carrier who carried the can to his mouth well ; 
 He carried so much, and he carried so fast. 
 He could carry no more so was carried at last ; 
 For the liquor he drank being too much for one, 
 He could not carry off, so he s now carri-on." 
 
CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. 239 
 
 We close our comic selections with the following brief and pithy 
 epitaphs on Drs. Walker and Fuller ; the former, it will be remem 
 bered, wrote a work on " English Particles." That to his me 
 mory is : 
 
 " Here lie Walker s Particles." 
 And the other reads as followeth : 
 
 " Here lies Fuller s earth." 
 
 In the churchyard of St. Anne, Soho, London, is the following 
 curious epitaph on Theodore, King of Corsica ; it is from the pen 
 of Horace Walpole: " Near this place is interred Theodore, King 
 of Corsica, who died in this parish, Dec. 11, 1756 ; immediately 
 after leaving the King s Bench prison, by the benefits of the act 
 of Insolvency ; in consequence he registered his kingdom of Cor 
 sica for the use of his creditors. 
 
 " The Grave, great teacher, to a level brings 
 Heroes and beggars, galley-slaves and kings ; 
 But Theodore this moral learned, ere dead ; 
 Fate poured its lessons on his living head, 
 Bestowed a kingdom, and denied him bread." 
 
 The following is the chronicle of an extraordinary character: 
 
 " Beneath this stone in sound repose, 
 Lies William Rich, of Lydeard close ; 
 Eight wives he had, yet none survive, 
 And likewise children eight times five ; 
 
 Of great grand-children five times four, 
 Rich born, rich bred, yet fate adverse, 
 His wealth and fortune did reverse ; 
 
 He lived and died immensely poor, 
 
 July the tenth, aged nine-four !" 
 
 The following is the well-known inscription on the grave-stone 
 of Matthew Proir, written by himself : 
 
240 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 " Painters and heralds, by your leave, 
 
 Here lie the bones of Matthew Prior : 
 The son of Adam and of Eve ; 
 
 Let Bourbon or Nassau go higher !" 
 
 Garrick s epitaph on Quin, in the Abbey Church, at Bath, has 
 been copied oftener than it has been exceeded. We know of 
 very few entitled to rank in a higher class : 
 
 " The tongue which set the table in a roar, 
 
 And charmed the public ear, is heard no more : 
 
 Closed are those eyes, the harbingers of wit, 
 
 Which spake before the tongue, what Shakspeare writ. 
 
 Cold is that hand, which ever was stretched forth, 
 
 At friendship s call, to succor modest worth. 
 
 Here lies James Quin ! Deign, reader, to be taught, 
 
 Whate er thy strength of body, force of thought ; 
 
 In Nature s happiest mould, however cast, 
 
 To this complexion thou must come at last !" 
 
 The one on William Hogarth, in Chiswick churchyard, by Gar- 
 rick, is in excellent taste : 
 
 " Farewell, great painter of mankind, 
 
 Who reach d the noblest point of art ; 
 . Whose pictur d morals charm the mind, 
 
 And through the eye correct the heart ! 
 If genius fire thee, reader, stay ; 
 
 If nature touch thee, drop a tear : 
 If neither move thee, turn away, 
 
 For Hogarth s honor d dust lies here. 
 
 Some distinguished men have amused themselves, while living, 
 by inditing epitaphs for themselves. Franklin, and the great law 
 yer and orientalist, Sir William Jones, have left characteristic 
 performances of this kind in prose. 
 
 Turn we to the silent sleeping place of " good old Izaak Wai-, 
 ton" the author of one of the daintiest and pleasantest of 
 books the Complete Angler. It is a book to be enjoyed on the 
 
CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. 241 
 
 river s bank, amid luxuriant scenery, such as he describes, with the 
 melodious ditties of birds overhead, and bright skies bending over, 
 and gilding the limped waters beside him. In Silkstede s chapel, 
 situated on the banks of the beautiful Ichen, near the venerable 
 city of Winchester, may be seen the grave of this worthy old 
 angler ; it is indicated by a blue stone, with the following lines 
 traced upon it : 
 
 " Here resteth the body of 
 MR. IZAAK WALTON 
 
 who died on the 15th of December, 1683. 
 
 " Alas ! he s gone before ; 
 Gone to return no more. 
 Our panting breasts aspire 
 After their aged sire, 
 Whose well-spent life did last 
 Full many years and past ; 
 And now he hath begun 
 That which will ne er be done : 
 Crowned with eternal bliss, 
 We wish our souls with his. 
 
 VoTIS MODESTIS SIC FELERUNT LIBERI." 
 
 Writing of the cremation of Shelley s body On the sea-shore,. 
 Byron says, you can have no idea what an extraordinary effect 
 such a funeral pile has on a desolate shore, with mountains in the 
 back ground and the sea before, and the singular appearance the 
 salt and frankincense gave to the flame. All of Shelley was con 
 sumed, except his heart, which would not take the flame, and is 
 now preserved in spirits of wine. 
 
 The Turks designate the grounds appropriated for the remains 
 of the dead, by the expressive term, " Cities of Silence" a name, 
 which, we learn by oriental travelers, acquires additional force 
 from the vast extent of ground marked by these monumental 
 stones, before he arrives at the abodes of the living. The elo j-^ it 
 author of " Anastatius" refers to their curious usages of interment 
 
 11 
 
242 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 at the larger Moslem cemeteries of Constantinople and Scutari, 
 caused by the dislike of the Turks to re-open the ground where it 
 is known a corpse has already been deposited. The splendid 
 mosque, called that of Suleiman, at Constantinople, was erected by 
 that monarch as a memorial of the grief experienced for the death 
 of his eldest son, Muhammed. The coffin containing the remains 
 of this prince lies by the side of that of the Sultan Selirn, on 
 whose tomb is the proud epitaph " On this day Sultan Selim 
 passed to an eternal kingdom, leaving the empire of the world to 
 Suleiman." The tombs of other Sultans are also attached to the 
 various mosques which they constructed or embellished. We shall 
 not stay to describe these tombs, but simply remark, that the slabs 
 by which the graves are usually denoted, are perforated with holes, 
 through which beautiful flowers grow and diffuse their fragrance 
 and their leaves around. The grounds are thickly planted with 
 trees, which afford a grateful shade ; and were it not for the gro 
 tesque turbaned headstones, the effect would inspire deep solem 
 nity. The Turkish females are accustomed to visit the last resting 
 places of their deceased friends on Fridays, on which day they have 
 a conceit that they return to a consciousness of their severed ties. 
 It is curious to observe that the Turks never use a coffin in their 
 burials ; indeed much of the distinctive character, or prejudices, of 
 various nations may be gathered from their funeral customs. In 
 the East Indies, previously to consigning their dead to the grave, 
 they dry the corpse by fire : elsewhere they have been disposed of 
 by the more summary process of a watery grave, or been given a 
 prey to wild beasts or vultures. 
 
 In Cartmell churchyard, Westmoreland, there is a neat tomb 
 stone to the memory of Mr. John Fell, who had been for many 
 years an active surveyor of the turnpike roads from Kirby Ken- 
 dal to Kirby Irleth. Upon the stone are the following appropri 
 ate lines : 
 
 * Reader, doth he not merit well thy praise, 
 Whose practice was through life to mend his ways . " 
 
CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. 243 
 
 The following remarkable epitaph, at the entrance of the church 
 of San Salvador, in the city of Oviedo, in Spain, erected by a 
 prince named Silo, with a very curious Latin inscription, may be 
 read two hundred and seventy ways, by beginning with the capital 
 S in the centre. 
 
 SILO PRINCEPS FECIT. 
 TICEFSPECNCEPSFECIT 
 ICEFSPECNINCEPSFECI 
 CEFSPECNIRINCEPSFEC 
 EFSPECNIRPRINCEPSFE 
 FSPECNIRPOPRINCEPSF 
 
 SPECNIRPOLOPRINCEPS 
 PECNIRPOLILOPRINCEP 
 ECNIRPOLISILOPRINCE 
 PECNIRPOLILOPRINCEP 
 SPECNIRPOLOPRINCEPS 
 FSPECNIRPOPRINCEPSF 
 EFSPECNIRPRINCEPSFE 
 CEFSPECNIRINCEPSFEC 
 ICEFSPECNINCEPSFECI 
 TICEFSPECNCEPSFECIT 
 
 On the tomb are inscribed these letters : 
 
 H. S. E. S. S. T. T. L. 
 
 Which are the initials of the following Latin words : 
 Hie Situs est Silo, sit tibi terra levis. 
 
 [In English.] 
 " Here lies Silo. May the earth lay light on him." 
 
 The epitaph of Michael Drayton, another of the Elizabethan 
 poets, said by some to be the composition of Ben Jonson, and 
 by others to be by Quarles, has also a species of quaint beauty 
 and solemnity which raises it above the ordinary level. It was 
 originally in gilt letters : 
 
244 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 " MICHAEL DRAITOKT, Esq. 
 
 A memorable poet of this age, 
 
 Exchanged his laurell for a crowne of glorye, 
 
 A. 1631. 
 
 Doe, pious Marble ! let thy readers knowe 
 
 What they and what their children owe 
 
 To DRAITON S name, whose sacred dust 
 
 We recommend unto thy TRUST : 
 Protect his memory, and preserve his storye, 
 Remaine a lasting monument of his glorye ; 
 
 And when thy ruines shall disclaime 
 
 To be the treasu rer of his name, 
 
 His name that cannot fade shall be 
 
 An everlasting monument to thee." 
 
 Here is a beautiful inscription in the English burying-ground 
 at Bourdeaux. 
 
 " There was a sweet and nameless grace, 
 That wander d o er her lovely face ; 
 And from her pensive eye of blue, 
 Was magic in the glance which flew. 
 Her hair of soft and gloomy shade, 
 In rich luxuriance curling stray d ; 
 But when she spoke, or when she sung, 
 Enchantment on her accents hung, 
 Where is she now ? where all must be 
 Sunk in the grave s ob*scurity. 
 Yet never never slumber d there 
 A mind more pure a form more fair !" 
 
 The great Cemetery of Pere la Chaise, was consecrated as a 
 public place of sepulture in 1804 : it derived its present name from 
 the favorite confessor to Louis XIY., and Madame de Maintenon. 
 Within its boundaries formerly stood an establishment belonging 
 to the Jesuits, called the " Maison de Mont Louis," subsequently, 
 in 1763, on the suppression of the order, the estate was sold, and 
 passing into the hands of the public authorities, it became applied 
 to its present purpose. This cemetery occupies an area of one 
 
CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. 245 
 
 hundred acres ; it is laid out in picturesque style ; its beautiful, 
 rich foliage, and funereal flowers, have an effect solemn and deeply 
 imposing, intersected as they are, by its variegated monumental 
 structures ; albeit there are to be seen many painful indications 
 of the mummeries of monkish affectation, and tfo lack of the silly 
 vanities, and far-fetched conceits which alike disfigure most of the 
 burial-grounds elsewhere. 
 
 The chapel, in which funeral ceremonies are performed, is about 
 sixty feet in height ; it is chaste and imposing in its architectural 
 proportions, and is lighted within by a window in the centre of the 
 roof. Of the numerous interesting tombs which decorate these 
 grounds, we can only mention a few. That of Abelard and 
 Heloise represents a Gothic chapel of much beauty. 
 
 A large monument has been here erected to the memory of the 
 French poet, De Lille, another to the chemist Foucroy, Madame 
 Cottin, the authoress, La Fontaine, Moliere, Joseph Bonaparte, 
 Sonnmi, the naturalist, St. Pierre, Langes, the Orientalist, Laplace, 
 Cuvier, Denon, Yolney, Talma, Haiiy, Madame Dufresnoy (called 
 the tenth Muse), and Madame Blanchard, who perished in 1819, 
 by her balloon taking fire. The tomb of the unfortunate Madame 
 Blanchard is surmounted by a globe in flames. On that of La 
 Fontaine sits very composedly a black fox, while two bas reliefs in 
 bronze represent, one his fable of the Wolf and Stork, and the 
 other, that of the Wolf and the Lamb. Le Fevre has a magnifi 
 cent sarcophagus, where two figures of Fame are crowning his 
 bust, and a serpent, the emblem of immortality, encircling his 
 sword ; while Ney, " the bravest of the brave," sleeps unmarked, 
 save by a single cypress. 
 
 Some of the humbler memorials more than compensate for the 
 absence of splendor, by their touching simplicity ; take the follow 
 ing specimens: "Pauvre Marie! a 29 ans." "A ma Mere." 
 " A mon Pere" The reader must pardon the sudden transition, 
 but we have another of a totally different character, which we may 
 consider, for want of a better term, the Epitaph prudential ; it may 
 
246 
 
 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 be rendered thus : " Here lies N., the best of fathers, the most 
 tender of husbands ; his disconsolate widow still keeps the fancy shop, 
 Rue Richelieu, No. / n And, as a set-off to the above, please 
 take the annexed, from the same cemetery : 
 
 " Ci git ma femme ; c est bien, 
 Pour son repose, et le mien !" 
 
 Much might be written respecting the tombs which are so 
 thickly clustered within the vaulted aisles of Westminster Abbey, 
 and beneath the vast dome of the great metropolitan Cathedral 
 of London. On entering the Abbey at the south-east transept, 
 
 called " Poets Corner," the mind becomes overwhelmed with the 
 stately grandeur and mournful magnificence of the " solemn tem 
 ple ;" its lofty, gilded roof, its gloomy cloisters, and 
 
CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. 247 
 
 " Storied windows richly dight, 
 Shedding a dim religious light," 
 
 at once fill the mind with a solemn reverence and awe; as you 
 find yourself surrounded with the sainted effigies of the mighty 
 dead. The monument, to the memory of Spencer, originally 
 erected by Anne, Countess of Dorset, and having fallen into decay, 
 was restored, in 1768, precisely in its old form : 
 
 " Heare lyes (expecting the second 
 Comminge of our Saviour CHRIST 
 JESUS) the body of Edmond Spencer, 
 The Prince of Poets in his tyme, 
 Whose divine spirit needs noe 
 Other witnesse than the works 
 Which he left behind him. 
 He was borne in London, in the yeare 1553, 
 And died in the year 1598." 
 
 Chaucer was buried in the cloisters of Westminister Abbey, 
 without the building, but removed to the south aisle in 1555; 
 Spencer lies near him. Beaumont, Drayton, Cowley, Denham, 
 Dryden, Rowe, Addison, Prior, Congreve, Gay, Jonson, Sheri 
 dan, and Campbell, all lie within Westminster Abbey. Shaks- 
 peare, as every one knows, was buried in the chancel of the church 
 at Stratford, where there is a monument to his memory. Chap 
 man and Shirley are buried at St. Giles in the Fields; Marlowe, 
 in the church-yard of St. Paul s Deptford; Fletcher and Massin- 
 ger, in the church-yard of St. Saviour s, Southwark; DrTDonne, 
 in Old St. Paul s; Edward Waller, in Beaconfield church-yard; 
 Milton, in the church-yard of St. Giles , Cripplegate; Butler, in 
 the church-yard of St. Paul s Covent Garden; Otway, no one 
 knows where; Garth, in the church-yard at Harrow; Pope, in 
 the church at Twickenham; Swift, in St. Patrick s, Dublin; 
 Savage in the church-yard of St. Peter s, Dublin; Parnell, at 
 Chester, where he died on his way to Dublin; Dr. Young, at 
 Walwyn, in Hertfordshire, of which place he was the rector; 
 
248 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 Thomson, in the church-yard at Richmond, in Surrey; Collins, 
 in St. Andrew s Church, at Chichester; Gray > in the church-yard 
 at Stoke-Pogis, where he conceived his Ekgy; Goldsmith, in the 
 church-yard of the Temple Church; Falconer, at sea, with "all 
 ocean for his grave " Churchill, in the church-yard of St. Mar 
 tin s, Dover; Cowper, in the church at Dereham; Chatterton, in 
 a church-yard belonging to the parish of St. Andrew s, Holborn; 
 Burns, in St. Michael s church-yard, Dumfries; Ayron, in the 
 church at Hucknall, near Newstead; Crabbe, at Trowbridge; 
 Coleridge, in the church at Highgate ; Sir Walter Scott in Dry- 
 burgh Abbey; Southey, in Crosthwaite church, near Keswich. 
 
 Passing over the* rude figures of abbots in the cloisters, coeval 
 with the time of William of Normandy, we come to St. Edward s 
 Chapel, which is full of very ancient remains; the shrine of King 
 Edward stands nearly in the centre. In the same chapel, a huge 
 marble coffin containing the body of Edward, remarkable as hav 
 ing been opened in 1774, by a deputation of the Society of Anti 
 quarians, when the body was found in a state of complete preser 
 vation, having on two robes, one of gold and silver tissue, the 
 other of crimson velvet, a sceptre in each hand, a crown on his 
 head, and many jewels still quite bright. 
 
 But we must not linger over the numerous ancient relics with 
 which every niche of this vast abbey, and its several chapelries, are 
 so rife. The Poets Corner is indebted for its renown, less to the 
 sculptor s skill, than the great names to whose memory it has 
 sought to do homage. Pope, although he contributed more epi 
 taphs, than any besides, for others, has no memorial here of his 
 own. It is true he did not always confer these mournful tributes 
 without due consideration for his poetic skill. We remember one 
 instance in which he received twenty guineas for his effusion a 
 very laconic one, moreover, since it did not exceed as many words, 
 although in this consisted its singular merits. It is as follows : 
 
 " She was, but words are wanting to say what ; 
 Think what a wife should be, and she was that !" 
 
CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. 249 
 
 Pope was fond of writing epitaphs. The most valuable is con 
 sidered to be that on Mrs. Corbet. It is in the north aisle of the 
 parish church of St. Margaret, Westminster : 
 
 " Here rests a woman, good without pretence, 
 Blest with plain reason and with sober sonse ; 
 No conquest she, but o er herself desired ; 
 No arts essay d, but not to be admired. 
 Passion and pride were to her soul unknown, 
 Convinced that virtue only is our own. 
 So unaffected, so composed a mind, 
 So firm, yet soft, so strong, yet so refined, 
 Heaven, as its purest gold by tortures tried ; 
 The saint sustained it, but the woman died." 
 
 The character and most prominent discoveries of Sir Isaac New 
 ton are summed up in his epitaph, of which we give a translation : 
 
 " Here lies interred Isaac Newton, knight, who, with an energy 
 of mind almost divine, guided by the light of mathematics purely 
 his own r first demonstrated the motions and figures of the planets, 
 the paths of comets, and the causes of the tides ; who discovered, 
 what before his time no one had ever suspected, that the rays of 
 light are differently refrangible, and that this is the cause of col 
 ors ; and who was a diligent, penetrating, and faithful interpreter 
 of nature, antiquity, and the sacred writings. In his philosophy, 
 he maintained the majesty of the Supreme Being; in his manners 
 he expressed the simplicity of the Gospel. Let mortals congrat 
 ulate themselves that the world has seen so great and excellent a 
 man, the glory of human nature." 
 
 Brief monumental inscriptions are, after all, the most eloquent. 
 What can exceed that of Sir Christopher Wren, in St. Paul s 
 Cathedral, of which he was the well known architect : 
 
 " Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice !" 
 and we might add that to the memory of Sir Isaac Newton : 
 
 " Isaacum Newton quern immortalem Testantur tempus, natura, ccelum, 
 mortalem hoc marmor Fatetur ! * 
 
 11* 
 
250 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 One of the simplest epitaphs to be met with, perhaps, is that 
 of Pope Adrian, said to have been written by himself : 
 
 " Adrianus, Papa VI., hie situs est, que nihil sibi 
 Infelicius in vita, quam quod imperaret duxit." 
 
 And then, again, that ingenius and striking inscription, at Cracow, 
 on Copernicus, in which the very words of Scripture, which were 
 used as a pretext for the persecution of the great truth he dis 
 covered, are employed for his epitaph : 
 
 " Sta, sol, ne moveare." 
 
 Luther s last resting-place is marked by a plain marble slab, at 
 Wirtemburg, bearing, simply, his name in Latin, with the date of 
 his birth and death : also that memorialising that great hero 
 of three revolutions Lafayette. 
 
 Rural funerals in England are indicative of many provincial 
 characteristics : yet they are, for the most part, calculated, 
 from their combination of simplicity and seriousness, to stir the 
 heart. The Scotch discover less of deep feeling, while the Irish 
 evince this to a greater extent ; their funeral processions being 
 composed of a long retinue of men, women, and even children, 
 clad in their rude yet variedly picturesque garbs; their stopping at 
 cross-roads, and muttering of prayers, in their deep, slow, and 
 modulated chant, known as the Irish cry, or ululu, strike the be 
 holder as something remarkably imposing and effecting. In "the 
 world of London," it is, of course, far different, where an individ 
 ual may die without scarcely his next door neighbor being aware 
 of the fact ; the usual indication is given by the mutes, with their 
 muffled standards at the door. If there is less of real feeling ex 
 hibited, there is more of solemn pomp and parade : for instance, a 
 pall is generally borne before the hearse, garnished with nodding 
 plumes, which also deck the hearse itself, and the horses, which 
 are always of a jet black ; while the mourners are enveloped in 
 sable cloaks, scarfs, and hat-bands. 
 
CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. 251 
 
 The cemetery at Stoke Newington acquires peculiar interest, 
 from the circumstance of its having been formed in Abney Park, 
 where Dr. Watts so frequently strolled during his long residence 
 at the hospitable mansion of Sir Thomas Abney. The west of 
 London, and Westminster cemetery, differs from all the modern 
 burial places around the metropolis. The grounds are very beau 
 tifully laid out in the Italian style : its chapel, monuments, and 
 other buildings, are very imposing. The enclosure, in the neighbor 
 hood of Highgate, is the North London Cemetery. Its leading 
 feature is a small abbey-like building, with an octangular and or 
 namental dome. A beautiful window of painted glass, represent 
 ing the ascension of our Saviour, adorns its extremity. Column, 
 pyramid, sarcophagus, tomb, vase, and sculptured stone, arrest the 
 eye, while a gigantic mound is seen canopied with a goodly cedar; 
 and the beautiful Gothic church crowning the brow of the hill, 
 with its heaven-directed spire, peers above the upper verge of this 
 sainted place of graves. Beauty and death appear, in this lovely 
 spot, to have entered into a compact together ; for, while the lat 
 ter delves freely beneath the soil, the former reigns in undisputed 
 possession of its surface. Art has done much, but nature scarcely 
 less to render this place of sepulture beautiful. Flowers bloom in 
 luxuriant profusion, while the mountain ash, the laburnum, syca 
 more, acacia, laurel, and rose-tree, all minister to the enchantment 
 of the scene. 
 
 In musing over these memorials of the departed, the mind is 
 intuitively impressed with the consciousness of our own mortality, 
 coupled with the heart-inspiring hope of that day when the sleep 
 ing dead shall be restored, and our disunited atoms once more 
 assume their wonted form and comeliness. Yes 
 
 "God formed them from the dust, and He once more 
 Will give them strength and beauty as before, 
 Though strewn as widely as the desert air, 
 As winds can waft them, or the waters bear." 
 
 The grave of the " Dairyman s Daughter," in the old church- 
 
252 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 yard of the hamlet of Arreton, Isle of Wight, has become endeared 
 to the Christian heart by the magic pen of Legh Richmond. We 
 visited the hallowed spot some years ago. The churchyard and 
 parsonage are approached by one of the most enchanting rural 
 lanes the fancy could conceive. The venerable church is five cen 
 turies old. The grave is indicated by a plain marble slab, with 
 the following inscription: 
 
 " TO THE MEMORY OF 
 
 ELIZABETH WALLBRIDGE, 
 
 THE DAIRYMAN S DAUGHTER, 
 Who died, May 30, 1801, aged 31 years. 
 
 She being dead, yet speaketh. 
 
 Stranger, if e er by chance or feeling led, 
 Upon this hallowed turf thy footsteps tread, 
 Turn from the contemplation of this sod, 
 And think of her whose spirit rests with God. 
 Lowly her lot on earth ; but He, who bore 
 Tidings of grace and blessings to the poor, 
 Gave her, His truth and, faithfulness to prove, 
 The choicest pleasures of His boundless love 
 Faith, that dispell d affliction s darkest gloom, 
 Hope, that could cheer the passage to the tomb 
 Peace, that not Hell s dark legions could destroy 
 And, love, that filled the soul with heavenly joy. 
 Death of its sting disarmed, she knew no fear, 
 But tasted heaven e en while she linger d here. 
 Oh ! happy saint, may we, like thee, be blest 
 In life be faithful, and in death find rest." 
 
 This is the sainted shrine of one whose touching life story has 
 been read in almost every language, in the palace and the cottage, 
 shedding the fragrance of a holy religion on the hearts of thou 
 sands, and been the means of inciting others to emulate the pos 
 session of " a like precious faith." 
 
 Bunhill Fields, once known as the Artillery Grounds, in the 
 
CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. 253 
 
 City Road, was first leased by the City of London, in 1665, to Dr. 
 Tindall, who converted the grounds into a cemetery for the Dis 
 senters. It is in the vicinity of the celebrated chapel, called the 
 Tabernacle of good old Whitfield, the largest in the metropolis, and 
 it contains an almost incalculable number of bodies ; some who 
 repose in its hallowed precincts, will always impart to it the most 
 interesting and endearing associations. There sleep all that was 
 mortal of John Bunyan,* Dr. Watts, Howe, Bates, and Owen, 
 with others of scarcely less enduring fame. 
 
 On a square marble monument, which covers the mortal remains 
 of the world-renowned Christian poet, is the following inscription : 
 
 "ISAAC WATTS, D. D. 
 November 25, 1748, Aet. 75. 
 In uno Jesu Omnia." 
 
 How many pilgrim feet have turned towards this last resting- 
 place of the gifted and the good. 
 
 A few words now respecting our own cemeteries. At Quincy, 
 Massachusetts, is one of the earliest epitaphs of New England. 
 It is inscribed to the memory of a distinguished clergygman of 
 the olden time, Moses Fiske, who died August 10, 1808. 
 
 " Braintree, thy prophet s gone, this tomb inters 
 The Rev. Moses Fiske his sacred hearse. 
 Adore heaven s praiseful art, that formed the man, 
 Who soules, not to himself, but Christ oft won : 
 Sailed through the straits with Peter s family, 
 Renowned, and Gaius hospitality, 
 Paul s patience, James prudence, John s sweet love 
 Is landed, entered, cleared, and crowned above !" 
 
 In Roxbury churchyard, Massachusetts, we find the following 
 
 * Though there is nothing on the stone to mark it as a cenotaph, it is believed that 
 Bunyan was not buried in Bunhill Fields, but this is said to be the only monument that 
 was raised to his memory, except that more imperishable one, his immortal work. 
 
254 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 quaint lines. They are inscribed to Thomas Dudley, a governor 
 of the colony, who died 1653. set. 77. 
 
 "THOMAS DUDLEY, 
 
 Ah ! old must die. 
 
 A Death s head on your hand, you need not weare, 
 A dying head you on your shoulders beare. 
 You neede not one to mind you, you must dye, 
 You in your name may spell mortalitye. 
 Younge men may dye, but old men these dye must : 
 Twill not be long before you turne to dust. 
 Before you turne to dust ! ah ! must! old ! dye ! 
 What shall younge doe, when old in dust doe lye ? 
 When old in dust lye, what New England doe ? 
 When old in dust doe lye, its best dye too." 
 
 At Trenton, New Jersey, there may be seen the following beau 
 tifully expressive lines, inscribed over the tomb of Mrs. Mary 
 Dunbar, who died in 1808 : 
 
 " The meed of merit ne er shall die, 
 Nor modest worth neglected lie. 
 The fame that pious virtue gives, 
 
 The Memphian monuments outlives. 
 Reader, wouldst thou secure such praise, 
 Go, learn Religion s pleasant ways." 
 
 Another, equally touching, is sculptured on the grave-stone of 
 the Rev. Daniel Little, who died at Kennebunk, in 1801. It is 
 as follows : 
 
 " Memento mori ! preached his ardent youth, 
 Memento mori ! spoke maturer years ; 
 Memento mori ! sighed his latest breath, 
 Memento mori ! now this stone declares !" 
 
 
 
 Elihu Yale, the founder of Yale College, at New Haven, Con 
 necticut, lies buried at the church in Wrexham, Wales. His 
 monument, a plain altar tomb, bears this inscription : 
 
CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. 255 
 
 " Born in America, in Europe bred, 
 In Afric traveled, and in Asia wed ; 
 Where long he lived and thrived, in London dead. 
 Much good, some ill, he did ; so hope all s even, 
 And that his soul through mercy s gone to Heaven. 
 You that survive, and read this tale, take care, 
 For this most certain exit to prepare, 
 Where blest in peace the actions of the just 
 Smell sweet, and blossom in the silent dust." 
 
 In Concord, Massachusetts, there is the following remarkable 
 antithetical inscription over one of the sable sons of Africa : 
 
 " God wills us free ; man wills us slaves. I will as God wills, God s 
 will be done ! Here lies the body of John Jack, a native of Africa, who 
 died March, 1773, aged 60 years. Though born in a land of slavery, he 
 was born free ; though he lived in a land of liberty, he lived a slave ; 
 till by his honest, though stolen labors, he acquired the source of sla 
 very, which gave him his freedom, though not long before his death, the 
 grand tyrant set him on a footing with kings. Though a slave to vice, 
 he practised those virtues without which kings are but slaves." 
 
 At Springfield, Massachusetts, is a tombstone to the memory 
 of Mary, wife of Ebenezer Holyoke, who died in 1657, inscribed 
 as follows : 
 
 " She ytlyes here, was while she stood, 
 A very glorie of womanhoode : 
 Even here was sowne most pretious dust, 
 Which surely shall rise with the just." 
 
 The beautiful cemetery of Mount Auburn, occupying about 
 twenty acres, presents the most picturesque alternations of hill 
 and valley, whose labyrinthine shades make it the very beau ideal 
 of a place of sepulture. Here repose the ashes of many a sainted 
 name ; and here, too, may be found many a touching record of 
 departed worth : Spurzheim s monument is the first that greets 
 the eye of the visitor as he enters the enclosure. Laurel Hill 
 Cemetery is to Philadelphia what Mount Auburn is to Boston: 
 
256 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 its natural and artificial beauties bid fair to rival even those of 
 the first named. Godfrey, the inventor of the quadrant, has been 
 brought to this necropolis, and a handsome monument erected 
 over his remains. Commodore Hull, also reposes here. 
 
 To the lovers of rural beauty, the sequestered shades of Green 
 wood have an indescribable fascination. The sad solemnity of its 
 associations predisposes the mind for an appreciation of its exceed 
 ing loveliness. We pass from the city of the living into the city 
 of the dead, as we would into another and a fairer world. Around 
 us are still spires and towers and palaces, and humble homes, as in 
 the thronged abodes of life, but oh, how silent ! and our lips are 
 still, here, as if we felt the presence of their spirits who are sleep 
 ing about us ; their spirits, which in the beauty of the scene find 
 fit changes for the margin of the river of life immortal. 
 
 Standing at the eastern verge of this Necropolis, on Ocean Hill, 
 where the pious Abeel sleeps under a column, in white simplicity 
 reflecting his experience, we look off through Sycamore Grove, 
 and Grassy Dell, and beyond Highland Avenue, to the elevation, 
 where death won so many, long ago, in the battle of Brooklyn, 
 and where now sleep, with their brothers of the revolutionary 
 strife, the heroes who fell in Mexico all their conflicts ended 
 now, and they in the rest which would be eternal but for that last 
 trumpet which shall startle all the armies to the grand and 
 ultimate review. A more pleasing emotion is awakened as we 
 pause, in that vicinity, by the obelisk which marks the grave of 
 Dr. Forry ; or, not far from that, by the temple in which art has 
 gathered her ministers to tell the mournful history of the sudden 
 death of Miss Canda, with whom her friends best joy and hope 
 went from the world ; or, near Sylvan Bluff, by the monument 
 which the artist Catlin has reared over the gentle wife, who for 
 seven years accompanied him on his wild and hazardous journeys 
 in the wilderness, and finally died, some few years ago, in Paris. 
 There are all conditions, all varieties, in death as in life, and the 
 wanderer in Greenwood turns from the graves we have mentioned 
 
CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. 257 
 
 to that of the beautiful Indian, Do-hum-me, who came to see the 
 white man s palaces, with a delegation of his tribe, living beyond 
 the prairies, and died here, a few years ago. It is down by the 
 margin of Sylvan Lake, and close by it is the modest column 
 erected to " poor MacDonald Clarke," in whose numbers, if there 
 was " more of madness, and more of melancholy," there was also 
 more of genius than glows in the works of some of greater genius. 
 Barry Cornwall thus beautifully moralizes upon the brevity of 
 life : 
 
 " We are born ; we laugh ; we weep ; 
 
 We love ; we droop ; we die ! 
 Ah ! wherefore do we laugh or weep ? 
 
 Why do we live or die ? 
 Who knows that secret deep ? 
 
 Alas, not I ! 
 
 Why doth the violet spring 
 
 Unseen by human eye ! 
 Why do the radiant seasons bring 
 
 Sweet thoughts that quickly fly ? 
 Why do our fond hearts cling 
 
 To things that die ? 
 
 We toil through pain and wrong ; 
 
 We fight and fly ; 
 We love ; we lose ; and then, ere long, 
 
 Stone-dead we lie. 
 life, is all thy song, 
 
 Endure and die ! " 
 
 The grave of our great Washington, at Mount Yernon, is the 
 shrine which the national heart most venerates, yet it is allowed 
 to suffer the spoliation of time. 
 
 Jefferson lies in a church-yard at Monticello. The grave is 
 marked by a granite obelisk, eight feet high, and on a piece of 
 marble inserted in its southern face are inscribed the three acts for 
 which he thought he best deserved to be remembered by posterity. 
 
200 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 The inscription was found among his papers after his death, in his 
 own handwriting, and is in these words : . 
 " Here lies buried 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON, 
 
 Author of the Declaration of American Independence, 
 
 Of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, 
 
 And Father of the University of Virginia. 
 
 Madison sleeps in a country church-yard : so does Monroe ; so 
 does John Quincy Adams. Jackson slumbers within the groves of 
 the Hermitage, in the tomb erected by himself. General Taylor 
 occupies an unpretending tomb in the public cemetery of Louisville. 
 Aaron Burr s grave is at Princeton, New Jersey, but recently 
 indicated by the erection of a monument. It is surrounded by the 
 monuments of Jonathan Edwards, John Witherspoon, Ashbell 
 Green, and other deceased officers of Princeton College, whereof 
 Burr s father was once president. Calhoun s grave is in St. Phil 
 lip s church-yard, Charleston. 
 
 It is worth while noting a few of the singularities of custom 
 with regard to mourning for the deceased : in Europe as well as in 
 our own country, black is, of course, considered the appropriate 
 habiliment, as representing the eclipse of life, and the darkness of 
 the tomb ; but in China white is used, as expressive of the belief 
 that the dead are in heaven, the place of purity. In Egypt, 
 again, the color is yellow, because it represents the decaying of 
 trees and flowers, while blue is sometimes employed in Turkey, to 
 denote the sky as the place of departed spirits, etc. The ancient 
 Scandinavians celebrated the entrance into life with mourning, and 
 the departure out of It with rejoicing : and even in Scotland, the 
 bagpipe and dance were used formerly at the latter ; we find it 
 recorded that a piper officiated thus in Perthshire, as late as 1736. 
 Equally ingenious and curious have been the expedients employed 
 by individuals to secure a lasting memorial, or to defy the ravages 
 of time, in all ages ; from the embalming process of the Egyptians 
 to the modern mode of preventing decomposition by the infusion 
 
CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. 259 
 
 of arsenic. Many remarkable things might also be cited, touching 
 the eccentricities of men at, or previous to, their decease, respecting 
 their frail tenement. 
 
 At Dorking, in Surrey, we remember visiting the spot on the 
 summit of Box-hill, where a certain mad captain of the British 
 army, ordained by his will that he should be buried head down 
 wards, as his conceit was, that the world was crazy, or upside 
 down, and when he expected to awake again, he thought his posi 
 tion would place him right. At Guy s Hospital, one of its attend 
 ant surgeons enjoined it upon his executors to have his body 
 enclosed in a glass coffin, several inches thick, that the students 
 might observe the gradual process of decomposition ; and the re 
 mains of the so-called prophet, Mahomet, it is known, are poised 
 in mid-air, between earth and heaven, suspended by a magnet : 
 many other absurdities might be added, but it is needless ; they 
 proclaim no less truly, if not so manifestly, their folly, as did the 
 illiterate sculptor who, having to inscribe the well known admoni 
 tory line, " Sic transit gloria mundi" with great self-complacency, 
 presumed to change the last word to suit his purpose, as descrip 
 tive of the day of its inscription, and which he rendered as follows: 
 Sic transit gloria Tuesday (!) Are we at liberty to add a single 
 reflection deduced from the subject. It is related of the Empress 
 Josephine, that her last words were to the effect that she never 
 caused a single tear to flow : such a record is of itself a monu 
 ment more enduring to the human heart than all the magnificence 
 of the costly mausoleum, or the gilded shrine ; and when the fame 
 of the warrior s prowess shall have been forgotten, or the melo 
 dious measures of the poet s muse cease to be sung, the simple, 
 silent appeals of modesty, virtue and heaven-born faith, will far 
 out-live them all ; it is over such the sweet lines of Bryant apply: 
 
 " Stoop o er the place of graves, and softly sway 
 The sighing herbage by the gleaming stone : 
 And they who near the church-yard s willows stray, 
 And listen in the deepening gloom alone, 
 
260 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 May think of gentle souls now passed away, 
 Like the pure breath into the vast unknown, 
 
 Sent forth from heaven among the sons of men, 
 And gone into the boundless heaven again." 
 
 If pausing over some cherished dust, we recall the truth and 
 beauty that once were associated with it, it is only that we may 
 look thence into the future, where all sweet impulses shall be in 
 perfect and perpetual bloom ; that we may contrast the life, amid 
 darkness and toil, that is passed, with the life that is to come, 
 dimly seen, far away, by the "delectable mountains." 
 
 We close our chapter on these mementoes of mortality with the 
 following impressive passage from the London Eclectic : 
 
 " How beautiful is the memory of the dead ! What a holy 
 thing it is in the human heart, and what a chastening influence it 
 sheds upon human life ! How it subdues all the harshness that 
 grows up within us in the daily intercourse with the world ! How 
 it melts our unkindness, softens our pride, kindling our deepest 
 love, and waking our highest aspirations ! Is there one who has 
 not some loved friend gone into the eternal world, with whom he 
 delights to live again in memory ? Does he not love to sit down 
 in the hushed and tranquil hours of existence, and call around him 
 the face, the form, so familiar and cherished to look into the eye 
 that mirrored not more clearly his own face than the soul which 
 he loves to listen to the tones which he loves to listen to, the 
 tones which were once melody in his ear,. and have echoed softly 
 in his ear since they were hushed to his senses ? Is there a spirit 
 to which heaven is not brought nearer, by holding some kindred 
 soul ? How friend follows friend into the happy dwelling-place of 
 the dead, till we find at length that they who loved us on the 
 heavenly shore are more than they who dwell among us ! Every 
 year witnesses the departure of some one whom we knew and 
 loved ; and when we recall the names of all who have been near 
 to us in life, how many of them we see passed into that city which 
 is imperishable. 
 
CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. 261 
 
 " The blessed dead 1 how free from stain is our love for them 1 
 The earthly taint of our affections is buried with that which was 
 corruptible, and the divine flame in its purity illumines our breast. 
 We have now no fear of losing them. They are fixed for us eter 
 nally in the mansions prepared for our re-union. We shall find 
 them waiting for us, in their garments of beauty. The glorious 
 dead ! how reverently we speak their names ! Our hearts are 
 sanctified by their words which we remember. How wise they 
 have now grown in the limitless fields of truth ! How joyous they 
 have become by the undying fountains of pleasure ! The immor 
 tal dead ! how unchanging is their love for us ! How tenderly 
 they look down upon us, and how closely they surround our being! 
 How earnestly they rebuke the evil of our lives. 
 
 " Let men talk pleasantly of the dead, as those who no longer 
 suffer and are tried as those who pursue no longer the fleeting, 
 but have grasped and secured the real. With them the fear aud 
 the longings, the hope, and the terror, and the pain are past : the 
 fruition of life has begun. How unkind, that when we put away 
 their bodies, we should cease the utterance of their names. The 
 tender-hearted dead who struggle so in parting from us ! why 
 should we speak of them in awe, and remember them only with 
 sighing? Yery dear were they when hand clasped hand, and 
 heart responded to heart. Why are they less dear when they 
 have grown worthy a higher love than ours, and their perfected 
 souls might receive even our adoration ! By their hearth-side, 
 and by their grave-side, in solitude, and amid the multitude, think 
 cheerfully and speak lovingly of the dead." 
 
 " We die and disappear ! 
 
 Of myriads passed within the veil, but one 
 Has e er returned the mystery to clear ! 
 
 He God s incarnate Son ! 
 Then was the dark obscure made light, 
 
 O er Death and Grave the victory was won, 
 And life immortal brought to light !" 
 
THE SHRINES OF GENIUS. 
 
 ; More sweet than odors caught by him who sails 
 Near spicy shores of Araby the blest, 
 A thousand times more exquisitely sweet 
 The freight of holy feeling which we meet 
 In thoughtful moments, wafted on the gales 
 From fields where good men walk, or bowers wherein they rest." 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 " The love 
 
 Of mighty minds doth hallow, in the core 
 Of human hearts, the ruin of a wall 
 Where dwelt the wise and wondrous." BYROW. 
 
 How universal is the influence of association. The home of 
 childhood however humble becomes invested with a thousand 
 endearing charms, which cluster around the heart with sweet and 
 enduring tenacity, compared with which, the most ravishing 
 beauties of nature, or glittering blandishments of art, lose all 
 
THE SHRINES OF GENIUS. 263 
 
 their witchery and force. This feeling, which seems closely 
 allied to that of consanguinity, love, or friendship, transfers itself 
 to inanimate objects, times, and places, which the presence of 
 those once loved or venerated may have hallowed ; thus trans 
 forming them into sainted shrines, at which memory loves to be 
 the devoted worshipper. " One of the best secrets of our enjoy 
 ment," says Hazlitt, " lies in the art of cultivating pleasant asso 
 ciations." Everything connected with the children of genius 
 awakens universal sympathy ; the places where they have dwelt 
 and labored in thought, which have witnessed their sufferings and 
 mental anguish, and given birth to the brilliant creations of intel 
 lect, necessarily acquire a sacredness and an interest unknown to 
 any other. 
 
 Says a contemporary, "The associations of literature are 
 a world of pleasure in themselves. The cultivated mind finds 
 beauty and delight everywhere that its bright presence has lin 
 gered ; its sympathies will cling to the most barren rock, or the 
 most desolate heath, where the shadow of genius has fallen, and 
 its footsteps have trod. Greece is something more than Greece 
 to him ; it is the land of Homer and of song, of Plato and of the 
 Academy, of Phidias and of sculpture. Italy is not so much the 
 seat of the Caesars, as it is the synonym of the Ciceros and the 
 Yirgils ; and, more recently, of those great names in art, which 
 have been well said to be the admiration and despair of all modern 
 successors. And so it is still ; for the truth is, that from genius 
 embodying itself in literature, there emanates an all-hallowing in 
 fluence, extending even to the inanimate of nature. Whatever it 
 touches, it consecrates whatever it breathes upon, it rescues from 
 oblivion ; the hamlet, which but for this, would never have looked 
 out from its depth in the greenwood, has risen into the world s 
 regard, and becomes the Mecca and Medina of many a willing 
 pilgrim. How many have passed the Janiculum hill since the eve 
 of that day on which Tasso received the stroke of death, before the 
 laurel could be wreathed on his brow ! How many have stood, in 
 
264 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 solemn musing, by the hamlet of Arqua, where the lover of Laura, 
 freed from her ethereal passion, sleeps the unwaking sleep, though 
 still felt to be the pervading spirit of these mountain solitudes I 
 How many have wandered through the streets of Florence, in 
 bootless quest of the localities of Dante and Boccaccio ! Nor in 
 our own country is the spell less powerful. Avon! the unconscious 
 witness of the ever-waking fame of its Shakspeare ; how sphere- 
 like the music of its waters ! how deeply consecrate by the most 
 interesting of associations ! Abbotsford ! the residence of the 
 northern Aristo ; how ceaseless the march of that wondering ret 
 inue already begun to traverse its now spiritless halls ! The low, 
 thatched Cottage of Burns ! has it not echoed the footsteps of 
 many a wrapt admirer of its former inmate ? And even the shady 
 retreat of Drumlrnond, and the pastoral solitude of Ramsay, have 
 they not, too, participated in the tribute thus paid to genius, in all 
 ages and climes ! " 
 
 To begin with a few literary localities, the first with which we 
 commence, although somewhat inodorous in name, from its having 
 long been considered as synonymous with poverty, wretchedness, 
 and crime, St. Giles we might yet mention two names con 
 nected with it, rendered immortal in verse, Chapman, the earliest, 
 and perhaps one of the best translators of Homer; and Andrew 
 Marvell,-the accomplished wit, poet, and patriot ; all that was 
 mortal of whom, reposes in a sepulchre of its parish church. Turn 
 we to another classic ground, the Borough of Southwark, 
 in its precincts once stood the well-remembered Globe Theatre, of 
 which Shakspeare was at one time proprietor. Shakspeare s first 
 appearance in public life was as attendant at the door of this 
 theatre, which stood near Bankside. Bankside, Southwark, is 
 also full of interest, from the fact of its being the spot where the 
 great dramatist lived during his stay in London. " Stratford-on- 
 Avon," (the birth-place of Skakspeare, and where he lies en 
 tombed,) says an eloquent writer in Blackwood, "does not contain 
 the remains of mere English genius ; it is the place of pilgrimage 
 
THE SHRINES OF GENIUS. 265 
 
 to the entire human race. The names of persons of all nations 
 are to be found, as on the summit of the Pyramids, encircled on 
 the walls of Shakspeare s house ; his grave is the common resort 
 of the generous and enthusiastic of all ages, and countries, and 
 times. All feel they can 
 
 " Rival all but Shakspeare s name below." 
 
 Near the Globe were the Bear-Gardens, where Elizabeth, her 
 nobles and ladies, used to solace their tender sensibilities with ele 
 gant sport bear-hunting. Two other early dramatists, Beau 
 mont and Fletcher, also lived near neighbors with the great drama 
 tist. The mortal remains of Fletcher and Massinger rest within 
 the time-honored walls of St. Saviour s. In this vicinity formerly 
 stood that famous rendezvous of the wits of olden time the 
 Tabard, whence Chaucer set out with his " Pilgrims" on his route 
 for Canterbury. Here, also, lived and died the contemporary of 
 the latter Gower. 
 
 The favorite resort of the learned of those days, Raleigh, 
 Spenser, Jonson, "Philip Sydney, and others, was the Mermaid 
 Tavern, Friday street, Cheapside; here Shakspeare and Jonson 
 used to sharpen each other s wits. Dryden s dwelling was situated 
 in Fetter lane, formerly called Fleur-de-Lis Court : this venerable 
 pile is known to the curious by two grim-looking lions in stone, 
 over the door-way. This spot witnessed most of the poets toils 
 and sufferings till they ceased in the quiet of Westminster Abbey. 
 Dr. Johnson s house, in Bolt Court, Fleet street, no longer exists. 
 The accomplished author of the "Pleasures of Memory" relates, 
 that when he was a boy of fourteen, he had a violent desire to see 
 -the great lexicographer, who was then the acknowledged head of 
 English literature. He did not know him, nor was he acquainted 
 with any one who had that advantage : and in this emergency he 
 determined to introduce himself, with the hope that the visit of so 
 young an admirer would prove its own excuse. He went accord 
 ingly, to Bojt Court ; but when he got his hand upon the knocker, 
 
 12 
 
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 his heart failed him, and he came away, and never renewed the 
 attempt. 
 
 Goldsmith has hallowed a dirty spot in London, by his residence 
 there ; it is called Green Arbor Court, Old Bailey. Here Oliver 
 resided in the outset of his career, ere his fame dawned upon the 
 world ; and here he completed his " Inquiry into the Present 
 State of Polite Literature in Europe," and wrote those amusing 
 papers, which were afterwards collected, under the title of " The 
 Citizen of the World." The author was writing his " Inquiry," in 
 a wretched, dirty room, in which there was but one chair ; and 
 when he, from civility, offered it to his visitors himself was obliged 
 to sit in the window. This house was the last in the alley, 
 looking on a descent, known by the name of " Break-neck- 
 stairs." 
 
 East Smithfield was the birth-place of that rare poet of the 
 elder school, Spenser. The chequered career of the gentle author 
 of the Faerie Queene is familiar to the reader his residence, 
 Kilcolman Castle, Ireland its being fired by the populace his 
 return to England poverty and disasters, and subsequent death, 
 in an obscure lodging-house in King street, Westminster. His 
 death was more honored than his life ; for, says Camden, his 
 hearse was attended by poets ; and mournful elegies and poems, 
 with the pens that wrote them, were thrown into his tomb in 
 Westminster Abbey. 
 
 Pope awoke to being in a place no less ante-poetic than Lombard 
 street a street where bankers and money-changers are as rife in 
 that day as now. Pope s residence at Twickenham is well-known ; 
 near his dwelling, the tree may be seen, inscribed with the 
 words, Here Pope sung;" under whose shelter and shade he- 
 produced many of his effusions. He sleeps in the east end of 
 Twickenham church. 
 
 John Milton s birth-place was in Bread street, Cheapside, at the 
 " Spread Eagle ;" the house, however, was consumed in the Great 
 Fire of London. Milton was proverbially addicted to changing 
 
THE SHRINES OF GENIUS. 26t 
 
 his abode ; few more noted instances of the kind being upon 
 record. He is believed to have written his " L Allegro" and "II 
 Penseroso " at Horton, in Buckinghamshire ; his great epic, at 
 least the earlier portions, were penned at a house at Forest Hill, 
 near Oxford. The poet afterwards resided in a large house in 
 Aldersgate street, London, where he carried on the craft of a 
 schoolmaster, politician, and philosopher. His noble advocacy of 
 liberal opinions, it will be remembered, brought him little fame and 
 less fortune. From this spot he removed to a house in Holborn, 
 facing Lincoln s Inns Fields, thence to lodgings in Scotland Yard, 
 near Whitehall, and finally, to the dwelling, still extant, in West 
 minster, looking into St. James Park. Here he lost his sight, 
 which his political opponents ascribed to the anger of Heaven for 
 his abetting the popular cause. The ancient front of this memo 
 rable building forms now its back, and overlooks the fine garden 
 of the late Jeremy Bentharn. Near the top of this ancient front 
 is a stone, bearing this inscription 
 
 ** Sacred to Milton, the prince of poets." 
 
 This memento was put up by Hazlitt, who rented the house for 
 some years, solely because it was once the abode of John Milton. 
 Lest any tourist should be in quest of its locale, we will add, it 
 stands in York street, west of Westminster Abbey, No. 19. At 
 the commencement of the Plague, Milton lived in Bunhill Fields ; 
 he soon removed to the residence of a wealthy Quaker at Chal- 
 fount, at which place he doubtless dictated his " Paradise Re 
 gained," to his then wife, Elizabeth Minshall. The poet s last 
 house " the narrow house appointed for all living" was a grave 
 in the chancel of St. Giles, Cripplegate. Lord Bacon has be 
 queathed the memory of his noble genius to Gray s Inn, where he 
 lived and wrote. The corner of Fleet street and Chancery lane 
 witnessed the advent of the poet Cowley. Two renowned painters, 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds and Hogarth, immortalized their art in 
 Leicester square, at the house since called the Sabloniere Hotel. 
 
 
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 And again in St. James square, with its neighborhood, we might 
 mention several illustrious names as its inhabitants : Newton 
 lived in St. Martin s street, on the south side of the square ; and 
 Steele, in Bury street. Byron first saw the light in Hollis street, 
 Hanover square ; he wrote his " Hours of Idleness" at Newark, 
 his " Siege of Corinth" in Piccadilly, overlooking the Green Park. 
 Cowper s rural retreat was at Olney, Buckinghamshire? Cave s 
 house, the frequent resort of Johnson and Goldsmith, was at St. 
 John s Gate, Clerkenwell a venerable relic, still extant. At No. 
 3 Ivy lane, leading to the great book mart, Paternoster row, there 
 was formerly a tavern, frequented by the literati of those days, 
 where, according to the Spectator, " was held the Humdrum Club, 
 who used to sit together, smoke their pipes, and say nothing till 
 midnight." Franklin worked at Wall s Printing-house in 1725, 
 situate in Portugal street, Lincoln s Inn Fields ; he lodged at a 
 house facing the Catholic chapel, in Duke street. At the mention 
 of such associations, how" many reflections suggest themselves ; 
 but we refrain. 
 
 It is worthy of remark, that poets have all loved the rivers ! 
 Need we mention the banks of the Doon, or the braes of Yarrow, 
 the lonely retirements of the Duddon, or the streams by which 
 Edmund Spenser walked in his glory, "breathing bright dreams of 
 hope and blessing, and murmuring, as he walked their margin, a 
 music sweeter than their own !" 
 
 Alas ! the cherished boon has been but too frequently denied to 
 the majority of those who have sought " to build the lofty rhyme," 
 for they have been generally found located in a lofty apartment, 
 as if privation and poverty could best propitiate the muse. 
 
 Speaking of localities, we ought not to omit the mention of the 
 too notorious Grub street, of poetical memory. " We never think 
 of a garret," says Ryan, in his " Poetry and Poets," "but an infi 
 nitude of melancholy and lanky associations of skin and bone, poor 
 poets and authors, come thronging on our imaginations. All ideas 
 of the sins of the flesh evaporate on our entrance, for if all the 
 
THE SHRINES OF GENIUS. 269 
 
 flesh that ever inhabited a garret were to be duly weighed in the 
 balances, we are of opinion that it would not amount to a ton 
 In walking up the steps that lead to this domiciliary appendage 
 of genius, we are wholly overcome by the sanctity of the spot. 
 We think of it as the resort of greatness the cradle and grave 
 of departed intellect, and pay homage to it in a sullen smile, or a 
 flood of tears. How venerable does it appear, at least, if it is a 
 genuine garret, with its angular projections, like the fractures in 
 poor Goldsmith s face, its tattered and threadbare walls, like old 
 Johnson s wig, and its numberless loopholes of retreat, for the 
 north wind to peep through and cool the poet s imagination. 
 The very forlornness of its situation inspires elevated ideas in pro 
 portion to its altitude ; it seems isolated from the world, and 
 adapted solely to the intimate connection that genius holds with 
 heaven." 
 
 It was in one of these ^rial abodes that poor Otway con 
 ceived and penned that affecting tragedy, " Venice Preserved ;" 
 and also the facetious and witty Butler his " Hudibras," which, 
 while it contributed to the convulsive merriment of the court and 
 all classes of readers, its ill-fated author pined in his solitary attic, 
 under the inconvenient pangs of starvation. 
 
 It is grateful to reflect, however, that all are not found domi 
 ciled in these upper regions. Some, on the contrary, moving 
 among the upper circles of society instead ; such as Pliny, in early 
 times, and Voltaire, Pope, Rogers, and others, among the 
 moderns. Others, again, have appeared under the most obscure 
 circumstances, and bounded into notoriety by the force of their 
 .genius. Of this class, we might mention Keats, the most "poet 
 ical of poets," who was born in a stable at Moorfields, London. 
 The history of this unfortunate yet brilliant writer exhibits a sad 
 picture of the casualties which too frequently befall the devotees 
 of the muse. Repairing to Italy for the recovery of his enfee 
 bled health, he expired in the arms of a friend, in 1820, ere he had 
 attained to the noontide of life. The same may be said of the no 
 
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 less extraordinary, though erratic poet, Shelley. But the sorrows 
 of both have long since been hushed ; they sleep "beneath one of 
 the antique weed-grown towers surrounding Rome :" and Keats 
 beside him, " under the pyramid which is the tomb of Cestius." 
 The latter once said, in anticipation of his near approaching end, 
 that he felt already the daisies growing over him proving the 
 deep love of poetic beauty which glowed in his heart. 
 
 Let us not omit a passing tribute to one of the most promising 
 but ill-fated of the sons of song, poor Chatterton, who, on his 
 arrival from Bristol, vainly struggling against the iron destiny 
 that seemed to crush him unpitied because unknown, and who 
 immured himself in an obscure apartment in Brook street, Hoi- 
 born. Here, after some days of starvation, he yielded to the 
 demon of despair, and destroyed himself. We have paid the 
 tribute of a tear at the shrine of his suffering, sorrow, and sin. 
 Poor Chatterton, whom Wordsworth styles 
 
 " The sleepless boy, who perished in his pride !" 
 
 He is buried near the workhouse, Shoe Lane, without a stone to 
 point the spot. Wonder his memory should thus suffer desecra 
 tion, while the magnificent mausoleum is erected to the honor of 
 the titled ignoramus. 
 
 In Salisbury Court lived Thomas Sackvill, Earl of Dorset, the 
 precursor of Spenser. Here also resided Richardson, where he 
 kept his printing-office. The Temple is eminently classic in its 
 associations. Crown-office Row, Temple, was the birth-place of 
 Charles Lamb: he styles it in his " Elia" " Cheerful Crown- 
 office Row, place of my kindly engender." Many illustrious names 
 clustre about these antique buildings. Raleigh, Seldon, Claren- 
 den, Congreve, Wyckerly, Fielding, Burke, Johnson, Cowper, 
 Rowe, Beaumont, Ford and Goldsmith, had chambers^ here. 
 Then to think of the Boar s Head, Eastcheap, the rendezvous of 
 the departed worthies, wits and poets of olden times Addison, 
 Dryden, Ben Jonson, Pope and Butler, the last of whom lived 
 
THE SHRINES OF GENIUS. 211 
 
 sometime, and died in Rose street, and was buried in Covent Gar 
 den church, where Peter Pindar also lies. Sir Philip and Alger 
 non Sydney, both lived at their mansion on the north side of 
 Leicester Square, at the back of which was Dryden s residence. 
 Sir Thomas More lived at Chelsea. Addison lived and died at 
 Holland House, Kensington. 
 
 Holland House is rife with historic incidents. The surrounding 
 park includes about three hundred acres, of which sixty-three are 
 laid out as pleasure grounds. Over a rural seat the following 
 couplet is inscribed : 
 
 " Here Rogers sat, and here for ever dwell 
 With me those Pleasures that he sang so well." 
 
 It was at Holland House of which he became possessed by mar 
 riage, that Addison 
 
 " Taught us how to live ; and, oh ! too high 
 A price for knowledge, taught us how to die !" 
 
 Abraham Cowley s name is associated with Chertsey and Barn 
 Elms, both in the county of Surrey. The house at Chertsey yet 
 
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 remains, somewhat modernized. Over the door is a small tablet 
 of stone, on which is inscribed, 
 
 " Here the last accents fell from Cowley s tongue." 
 
 Close to the pretty lodge leading to Stoke church, and in a 
 well-kept and enclosed garden, is a cenotaph erected to the mem 
 ory of Gray. From the high bank on which it is placed, we 
 look down into one of those deep lanes so full of beauty, and see 
 pretty ferns growing out of the red sand-stone rocks, with wild 
 violets, strawberries, and other plants intermixed. In another 
 direction, and across a field, is Gray s church-yard, almost sur 
 rounded with high fir-trees covered with ivy, which impart a pleas 
 ing gloom in summer to the spot. It is impossible to approach it 
 without feeling that it is a spot calculated to have inspired the 
 poet with those feelings which drew from him his beautiful and 
 well-known "Elegy." Here he wrote; here he wandered, and 
 here he was buried. But where is his monument ? We look for 
 it in vain, either in the church or church-yard. There is, indeed, 
 the tomb of "the careful, tender mother of many children, one 
 of whom had the misfortune to survive her." That child was 
 Thomas Gray, the poet. In that same simple tomb his ashes 
 repose, with those of the mother he so affectionately loved. 
 
 Ireland claims a passing allusion: if its literary localities are 
 less numerous, they are scarcely less interesting. To begin with 
 the metropolis: there is Glasnevin, with its recollections of Tick- 
 ell, Addison, Parnell, and the rest of that brilliant circle which 
 there met; there is Swift s birth-place in Hoey s Court, and his 
 tomb in St. Patrick s; there is 12 Dorset street, where Sheridan 
 first drew his breath, and Aungier street, where his biographer, 
 Thomas Moore, was born. And how many a one even the 
 admirer of her poetry passes 20 Dawson street, without think 
 ing of Mrs. Hemans; yet in that house the " falcon-hearted dove " 
 folded its wing and fell asleep, and in the vaults of St. Anne s 
 church, hard by, her mortal remains are laid. 
 
THE SHRINES OF GENIUS. 273 
 
 Thompson s natal place was Ednam, near Kelso, Scotland; he 
 removed thence to Southdean, where he is supposed to have 
 indited hS justly celebrated "Seasons;" afterwards he repaired 
 to a house near Richmond, in what is called Kew-foot lane. His 
 remains rest in Richmond church where, a brass tablet is erected 
 to his memory. The dwelling-place of the great German poet, 
 Schiller, where he lived and sung, is still exta.nt, situate in the 
 village of Gohlis, Leipsic. The rural cottage stands in a retired 
 nook from the road. Says a modern tourist, 
 
 " It is so modest, so humble, that it hardly seems to dare to 
 look over the tall stone fence and lordly gate, which modern 
 respect and enthusiasm have erected before it. Its narrow face 
 of rude mortar is covered with a creeping vine, and over two 
 little windows, which peep out from under the sharply-slanting 
 roof, catching the rays of the evening s sun, are written the 
 words, Schiller s Study. The gate itself bears the following 
 inscription : 
 
 * Here dwelt 
 
 N SCHILLER. 
 
 and wrote the Song of Joy, 
 in the year 
 1785. 
 
 " How simple and touching a moral is here 1 In poverty, in 
 distress, in want of friends and bread as yet unrenowned as 
 yet unpatronized by dukes, and unsolicited by kings an exile a 
 stranger, here dwelt Schiller, and wrote the Song of Joy ! 
 Blessed be the spirit of poetry, which can thus change sorrow 
 into rejoicing. Next to the glorious hope whose consolation 
 passeth all understanding, this spirit of ideal beauty and happi 
 ness this inward power of investing the outward life and its 
 changing circumstances with hues of light and joy, this is the 
 best gift of God to man. O, let us not despise the poet ! His 
 mission is holy and good. He teaches us to see fresh beauty in 
 
 12* 
 
214 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 the works and ways of God, to wear the fetters of care more 
 lightly about us, and to find roses in the rockiest path that duty 
 and affliction ever trod." 
 
 Rogers, the poet of two ages, still resides in his elegant man 
 sion at St. James s Place. Barry Cornwall, lives in Harley- 
 street, Cavendish Square ; Walter Savage Landor, at Bath; 
 Tennyson, at Twickenham ; Carlyle, at Chelsea; and Sir E. Bulwer 
 Lytton, at his splendid estate, Kuebworth Park. 
 
 Franklin, lodged in Little Britain, and worked in Palmer s 
 printing office, Bartholomew Close. He also lived at No. 7 Cra 
 ven street, Strand : and in Duke street, Lincoln s Inn Fields, 
 opposite the Catholic Chapel. The house in which Franklin spent 
 his early days is still extant, it is at the corner of Union and 
 Hanover streets, Boston : a shrine of genius to tempt pilgrim 
 feet. In Gray s Inn, Holborn, lived Pym and Hampden. John 
 Howard spent his youth in Long lane, Smithfield, near Alders- 
 gate street. 
 
 It is worthy of remark, that, as in Europe, so is it here in 
 America our northern cities have been more prolific in great 
 men than any other section of country. Portland, in Maine, may 
 boast of being the birth-place of the following distinguished 
 American writers: Willis, Neal, Longfellow, and others. 
 
 Berkshire is also classic soil. In a little study, five feet by four, 
 still pointed out in a wooden house at Stockbridge, Jonathan 
 Edwards wrote his " Treatise on the Will." It stands directly 
 opposite the mansion of the Sedgwick family. 
 
 "Bryant, "says a contemporary, "must have caught, in these his 
 native woods, that silent love of nature which prompted him to 
 hold communion with her outward forms, and to record the vari 
 ous language which she speaks; while in return he has rendered 
 classic the peak of Monument Mountain, the windings of Green 
 river, and many other scenes less noted, but not a whit less beau 
 tiful." He now resides at Roslyn, Long Island. 
 
 Pittsfield, Massachusetts, is the home of Oliver Wendell 
 
THE SHRINES OF GENIUS. 275 
 
 Holmes. Within sight of the house of Dr. Holmes, is that of 
 Hermann Melville, the author of " Ornoo," and "Typee." 
 
 At Lenox, lives Miss Catharine M. Sedgwick, whose various 
 tales are well and widely known. Many of them are founded on 
 New England scenes, and one of them at least, the Boy of Mount 
 Rhigi, is directly connected with -the lofty mountains, and the 
 Bash Bish waterfall in the southwestern corner of this country. 
 It was here that Mrs. Fanny Kemble Butler spent so many 
 months of her recent visit to America. G. P. R. James, the 
 novelist, has a beautiful place in Stockbridge, near the Icy Glen. 
 
 Not far away is the summer residence of Maunsell B. Field. 
 Hawthorne, resides at Concord. 
 
 Bancroft, the American historian, lived during his early days 
 at Round Hill, Northampton; Dana, at Cape Ann, Massachu 
 setts; Prescott s family mansion, rife with historic associations, 
 is at Pepperell, Massachusetts. Cooper s residence was Otsego 
 Hill, Cooperstown, New York; Everett resides in his own house 
 in Summer street, Boston; Emerson at Concord; Longfellow at 
 Craigic house, Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Webster lived, 
 died, and now reposes in his dreamless sleep, at Marshfield, Massa 
 chusetts ; Simms resides on his southern plantation at Woodlands, 
 South Carolina, and Kennedy at Ellicott s Mills, Maryland. 
 Paulding still lives on the banks of the Hudson. Washington 
 Irving, whose classic pen has invested this noble river with the 
 witchery of romance, dwells in a little bijou of a vine-clad 
 cottage also rife with storied interest at Sunny Side. The 
 great American Naturalist, Audubon, lived, when not wander 
 ing amid the wild prairies of the west, at his beautiful villa at 
 Bloomingdale. 
 
 Here we close our notes of the notable .localities of the learned, 
 although our list might well be expanded to double its extent. 
 
THE SELFISH AND THE SOCIAL. 
 
 " We live in deeds, not years ; in thoughts, not breaths ; 
 In feelings, not in figures on a dial. 
 We should count time by heart throbs. He most lives 
 Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best ; 
 And he whose heart beats quickest lives the longest." 
 
 JAMES MARTINEAU. 
 
 THE question whether man is capable of performing an act of 
 pure disinterestedness, has long since furnished a theme rife with 
 interest to the metaphysician and the moralist. Doubtless the 
 most specious and plausible, as well as popular hypothesis, is that 
 of the negative of the question, which has numbered among its 
 more prominent defenders, Helvetius, Hobbes, and Lord Shaftes- 
 bury : the converse of the proposition, has enlisted the zealous 
 advocacy of Hazlitt, who has brought to the discussion of the sub 
 ject his usual analytic skill, ingenius reasoning, and apt illustra 
 tion. Without intending to follow implicitly the ratiocinative 
 process pursued by these learned disputants, we shall present a 
 succinct view of the several arguments adduced by the respective 
 writers. A due regard to one s own interest, it is admitted, is a 
 duty of paramount importance self-preservation is the first law 
 of our being, and Shakspeare endorses the axiom when he says, 
 
 " Self-love is not so vile a sin 
 As self-neglecting." 
 
 But there is certainly no necessity to carry out the rule to such 
 extremes as to infringe upon the social rights of our fellow-men. 
 It is true man is an individualism a separate existence a little 
 
THE SELFISH AND THE SOCIAL. 2T7 
 
 world in himself, but it is no less true that he is governed by the 
 same gravitating laws that control the universe. Do not the 
 starry hosts move in harmonious companionship, reciprocating the 
 joyous radiance of their celestial light, and the blushing, many- 
 tinted flowers diffuse around their rich and varied fragrance, min 
 gling their honeyed breath in the glad anthems of their Maker s 
 praise, while the luxuriant foliage of the forest trees bend their 
 leafy branches, and sigh responsive to the whispers of the amorous 
 wind ? The fainting flowers drink in with delight the nectared 
 dew, distilled at eventide with grateful, sympathetic joy, and they 
 greet again with ecstatic smiles the dawn of the new-born day. 
 The feathered choristers, as they carol forth their celestial min 
 strelsy, soar in sweet society as they sing, causing the welkin to 
 resound with the varied strains of their delicious melody. In fine, 
 the innumerable tenants of earth, sea and sky all proclaim to man 
 the heaven-born truth that God is love, and that all the emana 
 tions of His benificence and power are linked together by the 
 golden chains of universal sympathy. On the other hand, such 
 are the peculiar circumstances in which he is placed, that man is 
 necessarily compelled to be, to a certain extent, selfish. If, there 
 fore, it be an admitted truth, that man is the creature of circum 
 stance, it would seem to follow that the characteristic becomes 
 less a crime than a calamity. In civilized society, such is the 
 apochryphal character of the world s charities, that forlorn and 
 friendless indeed is the condition of the unendowed. " Help your 
 self, and your friends will love you," is the proverbial maxim of 
 mankind, and it assuredly continues in full force at the present 
 day. When the kindly offices of friendship are Aot required, how 
 lavishly are they proffered, but let the dark shades of adversity 
 gather thickly around us, and how vainly may we wait for the 
 boasted sympathetic aid. The "battle of life" involves a constant 
 struggle for the acquisition of wealth ; while in the contest, cupid 
 ity, cunning and the caprices of fortune form the leading elements. 
 To enter the lists successfully, a man must be fitly panoplied, he 
 
278 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 must bravely contend for the prize, for should he fall ingloriously 
 in the strife, his fate is sealed, and he is soon trampled upon by 
 the more daring and successful. Brilliant successes await but 
 comparatively few, but in most well-regulated communities, fewer 
 still are denied the necessaries and conveniences of life ; and if 
 any, through casualties or disasters, fail of securing these, the 
 arena is still open to their renewed endeavors. The progressive 
 tendency of the social spirit is to fraternize mankind, to equalize 
 the distribution of property; but as at present constituted, the 
 social system is to a great degree divided into the two great 
 classes of the affluent and the poor, the extremes of which may 
 be seen in the great capital of modern refinement and civilization 
 London. In England, it is well known, the most sumptuous 
 displays of magnificence and splendor are contrasted by the most 
 appalling instances of the direst destitution and distress : while 
 those whom an iron destiny has placed under its servile conditions 
 are debarred access to the hearts of their opulent masters. The 
 divine axiom, " it is more blessed to give than to receive," is a pre 
 cept little known to their refined code, and the benisons of benev 
 olence are terms almost unknown to their polite vocabulary. The 
 pampered and privileged patrician, surrounded by all the appli 
 ances of luxury and affluence, is too far removed by the artificial 
 restrictions of caste, to heed the sighing and sorrowing of the suf 
 fering children of penury and want. There are, however, a few 
 noble exceptions to this, and joy to the world, their number is on 
 the increase. Nor are instances of public benefaction wanting in 
 our own happy land, for if we have not in our own day a Howard 
 to visit our lazarettos and prisons, we have yet many a self-sacri 
 ficing philanthropist seeking to mitigate the wants of the depressed 
 and needy, men, the noblest of their race, who delight in the 
 luxury of doing good, 
 
 " Brave conquerors for such they are, 
 That war against their own affections, 
 And the huge army of the world s desires." 
 
THE SELFISH AND THE SOCIAL. 219 
 
 The Deity has not only constituted man a social being, he has 
 also ordained this moral attribute a source of his most exquisite 
 enjoyment ; so that He who possesses a spirit of benevolence in its 
 highest development, is necessarily the happiest of mortals. 
 
 " Soft peace it brings, wherever it arrives, 
 It builds our quiet, latent hope revives, 
 Lays the rough paths of nature smooth and even, 
 And opens in each heart a little heaven." 
 
 Some generous-hearted beings there are who seem to devote their 
 lives, and to derive their principal enjoyment in ministering to the 
 happiness of their kind : these are the joyous spirits that ever 
 
 " Make sunshine in a shady place," 
 
 dispel from the suffering spirit the demon of despair, and reflect 
 the radiance of celestial love all around, changing the heart s 
 wilderness of worldly care into a cultured garden of all pleasant 
 things. Says an anonymous writer, " There is a large and fertile 
 space in every life, in which might be planted the oaks and fruit 
 trees of enlightened principle and virtuous habit, which, growing 
 up, would yield to old age an enjoyment, a glory, and a shade." 
 Despite all efforts to meliorate their condition, however, some peo 
 ple there are who will not consent to be made happy : they find 
 their greatest satisfaction in incessant grumbling, and repining 
 against the decisions of their destiny. Discontent, like a murky 
 cloud impervious to the light of heaven, broods ever upon their 
 darkened horizon, no matter whether their condition be one of 
 privation or of prosperity, they are alike dissatisfied with their lot. 
 
 " They err who say life it not sweet, 
 Though cares are long and pleasures fleet ; 
 Though smiles and tears, and sun and storm, 
 Still change life s ever-varying form. 
 Thfc mind that looks on things aright, 
 Sees through the clouds the deep blue light." 
 
 Cheerfulness is an amulet, a charm to make us permanently con- 
 
280 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 tented and happy. " A cheerful man feels well, does well, and 
 loves things which are good ; while he who is always sad, doeth 
 ill in the very sorrow he evinceth." Long-faced, sanctimonious 
 people are generally avoided, and very justly so, for who wishes to 
 partake of their malady ? Whereas, those accustomed to look on 
 the sunny side of life, are ever courted for the genial spirit they 
 diffuse about them. 
 
 Says a sprightly writer, " He who administers medicine to the 
 sad heart, in the shape of wit and humor, is most assuredly a good 
 Samaritan. A cheerful face is nearly as good for an invalid as 
 healthy weather. To make a sick man think he is dying, all that 
 is necessary is to look half dead yourself! Open, unrestrained 
 merriment, is a safety valve to the heart and disposition. If over 
 burdened with the noxious gases of care, pull the string of wit, 
 up flies the valve of fun, and out go the troubles and vexations of 
 life to the four winds of heaven. It is a fact beyond dispute, that 
 mirth is as innate in the mind as any other quality that nature has 
 planted there it only wants cultivation, and the more we cultivate 
 it, the more fruitful it becomes. Mirror-like, the world reflects 
 back to us the picture which we present to its surface. A cheer 
 ful heart paints the world as it sees it like a sunny landscape ; 
 the morbid mind depicts it like a sterile wilderness ; and thus 
 chameleon-like, life takes its hue of light or shade from the soul on 
 which it rests, dark or sunny, as the case may be." 
 
 Dr. Johnson used to say that a habit of looking on the best side 
 of every event is better than a thousand pounds a year. Bishop 
 Hall quaintly remarks, " for every bad there might be a worse, and 
 when a man breaks his leg, let him be thankful that it was not his 
 neck !" When Fenelon s library was on fire, " God be praised," he 
 exclaimed, " that it is not the dwelling of some poor man ! This is 
 the true spirit of submission one of the most beautiful traits that 
 can possess the human heart. Resolve to see this world on its 
 sunny side, and you have almost half won the battle of life at the 
 outset. 
 
THE SELFISH AND THE SOCIAL. 281 
 
 " A smile on the face and kind words on the tongue, 
 Will serve you as passports all nations among ; 
 A heart that is cheerful, a spirit that s fre^ 
 Will carry you bravely o er life s stormy sea. 
 
 Talk not of fortune, talk not of fate 
 We make our own troubles, however we prate ! 
 This world would be honey where now it is gall, 
 Were we but contented and merry withal ! 
 
 
 
 In the midst of our song, in the midst of our cheer, 
 We gratefully will our Creator revere ; 
 And for ever and aye we 11 the grand secret prize, 
 That unless we are merry, we cannot be wise." 
 
 Too many people look upon half the vicissitudes of life as exces 
 sive bores ; and simply because, in their limited knowledge, they 
 can see no essential use in a thing, which, for the moment, may 
 cause them temporary annoyance, they unhesitatingly condemn it. 
 But nothing is worthless ; it is only ignorance as to its appropri 
 ate use that renders anything of little value. Countless wealth 
 lies hidden in all the creations of God, and every green herb and 
 root contains uncounted riches for the use of man. How true it 
 is, that in the perfect circle of creation, nothing could be spared, 
 for there is design in all things. Man, in his weakness, would 
 crush the myriads of insects that people the air, or fatten on 
 decayed substances. He can see no use in the thistle that springs 
 up spontaneously to mock the indolence of the husbandman ; he 
 questions the wisdom of Divine Providence when the pestilence 
 claimeth its victims, yet he knows not but it sweepeth away a 
 mightier and unknown curse. It has been beautifully said that 
 the foreknown station of a rush is as fixed as the station of a king ; 
 and doubtless the sailing of a cloud hath Providence for its pilot. 
 
 Of all the numerous bores with whom society is afflicted, none 
 is more pestilential than the sour man the fellow who is always 
 dissatisfied, grumbling, and discontented. He is not satisfied with 
 being uncomfortable himself, but he seeks to spread a shade of 
 
282 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 discomfort all around him. If he would be content to confine his 
 mutterings and murmurings to himself, and to maintain a strict 
 seclusion, he might be pardoned and pitied; but when he thrusts 
 his grievances upon society, he then becomes, as Dogberry elo 
 quently observes, " most tolerable, and not to be endured." 
 
 " The sour man is always sour ; the milk of human kindness in his 
 breast is curdled there is no sweetness in the acid principle of his 
 composition p nature has given him a quantum suffidt of lemon- 
 juice, but has forgotten the saccharine ingredient. He is sour 
 from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same ; in sun 
 shine and moonlight, twilight and gaslight. When he awakes in 
 the morning, he grumbles because it is time to get up ; his coffee 
 is always too hot or too cold ; his toast and steak either overdone 
 or underdone ; he finds nothing satisfactory in the morning papers ; 
 he is always in the opposition, let whatever party be in govern 
 ment. When he goes out he invariably grumbles at the weather; 
 if it is a little cool, he calls it Arctic weather; if it is mild, he 
 compares it to the- tropics ; if it drizzles, he declares it rains pitch 
 forks, and a gentle breeze is a hurricane." 
 
 Those who assume a mournful and sad air, though they differ 
 somewhat from the sour man, are much after the same school, 
 save that the weeping philosopher is generally mourning for him 
 self. He will never set out upon a journey without first fortifying 
 himself, by bringing to mind all the horrible steamboat accidents, 
 and stage-coach tragedies, and dismal robberies, and murders of 
 travelers that have occurred within the last half century. He will 
 thus be prepared to "sup full of horrors on the road." 
 
 When the engine whistles on approaching a crossing, he will 
 immediately feel certain of a coming collision, and will screw his 
 body into all manner of impossible shapes to meet it ; while the 
 ordinary signal of the engineer s bell, on board the boat, will 
 instantly suggest the explosion of the boiler, and the destruction 
 of all the passengers. The porter who takes his carpet bag will 
 bear the aspect of a highway robber ; and the pretty waiting-maid 
 
THE SELFISH AND THE SOCIAL. 203 
 
 at the hotel, as she hands him his sugar for the coffee, will be 
 taken for a Lucretia Borgia in disguise, serving him with allo 
 pathic doses of arsenic or corrosive sublimate ! 
 
 The laughing philosopher is the very antipodes of both the spe 
 cimens referred to. .He enjoys everything as he goes along ; he 
 makes fun of every little mistake he encounters on life s pilgrimage; 
 and a tumble in a stage-coach, or a slip from a rail, are regarded 
 as a matter of course. His flow of spirits never slackens till the 
 tide of life has ceased to ebb ; hence he always appears ten years 
 younger than he actually is. His hair never turns gray, or, at 
 least, seems never to do so ; his step never loses its elasticity ; he 
 trips through life as gaily and unconcernedly as he walks through 
 a quadrille, and succeeds not only in making himself, but every 
 one around him, happy; aud as the pursuit of happiness is the 
 main object of life, his philosophy, beyond a doubt, is the only true 
 one. " They pass best over the world," said Queen Elizabeth, 
 " who trip over it quickly ; for it is but a bog if we stop, we sink 1" 
 
 Grumbling is said to be a characteristic of the English a part 
 of his very psychology; nor is his near kinsman the Yankee far 
 removed from the influence of a similar propensity, for he is rarely 
 contented with his present pecuniary acquisitions. An opposite 
 disposition is a far wiser one, as well as a happier ; and, since the 
 longer we live in the world, and the more we test the value of 
 mundane friendships, we prove their insincerity ; it is better to be 
 fortified against surprisals and disappointments by cherishing a 
 good opinion of, and maintaining a good acquaintance with one 
 self. In the words of a contemporary: 
 
 "You cannot find a more companionable person than yourself, 
 if proper attention be paid to the individual. Yourself will go 
 with you wherever you like, and come away when you please 
 approve your jokes, assent to your propositions, and, in short, be 
 in every way agreeable, if you only learn and practice the true art 
 of being on good terms with yourself. This, however, is not so 
 easy as some imagine, who do not often try the experiment. 
 
284 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 Yourself, when it catches you in company with no other person, is 
 apt to be a severe critic on your faults and foibles, and when you 
 are censured by yourself, it is generally the severest and most 
 intolerable species of reproof. It is on this account that you are 
 afraid of yourself, and seek any associates, no matter how inferior, 
 whose bold chat may keep yourself from playing the censor. 
 Yourself is likewise a jealous friend. If neglected and slighted, 
 it becomes a bore, and to be left, even a short time, by yourself is 
 then regarded as actually a cruel penance, as many find when 
 youth, health, or wealth have departed. How* important is it 
 then to know thyself/ to cultivate thyself, to respect thyself, to 
 love thyself warmly but rationally. A sensible self is the best of 
 guides, for few commit errors but in broad disregard of its admo 
 nitions. It tugs continually at the skirt of men to draw them 
 from their cherished vices. It holds up its shadowy finger in 
 warning when you go astray, and it sermonizes sharply on your 
 sins after they have been committed. Our nature is twofold, and 
 its noblest part is the self to which we refer. It stands on the 
 alert to check the excess of the animal impulses, and though it 
 becomes weaker in the fulfillment of its task by repeated disap 
 pointments, it is rarely so enfeebled as to be unable to rise up 
 occasionally sheeted and pale, like Richard s victims, to overwhelm 
 the offender with bitter reproaches. Study, therefore, to be on 
 good terms with yourself it is happiness to be truly pleased with 
 yourself." 
 
 A man s life djvested of the social virtues must necessarily be 
 one of wretchedness ; for they constitute as truly and essentially 
 an integral part of his own happiness, as they confer happiness 
 upon those around him : it is suicidal to neglect their cultivation. 
 To yield oneself to the impulsive influences of blind caprice, 
 humor, faction, or zeal, is to contravene self-interest ; since the 
 claims of kindred and the common weal are inseparably connected 
 with our own. Philosophers, however, have sought to urge this 
 principle to an unreasonable extreme, by insisting that the univer- 
 
THE SELFISH AND THE SOCIAL. 285 
 
 sal love of our species was but a fuller development of self-love ; 
 and that consequently no act of pure, disinterested benevolence 
 could possibly exist. Magnanimity and courage, as well as phi 
 lanthropy and patriotism have been classed together under the 
 same category as merely modifications of this universal self-love. 
 It is the supremacy of wisdom to cherish this passion, or principle, 
 and to submit to its rule under the guidance and authority of 
 reason ; for rightly to estimate life is to value it in proportion to 
 the amount of real good it confers. If happiness be the chief 
 good, and of which all are in diligent pursuit, our reason would 
 teach us, that not in blindly obeying the selfish impulses or pas 
 sions of our nature should we attain its possession, but by simply 
 submitting our conduct to the arbitration and test of that reason, 
 irrespective of present, personal, or ostensible advantage. Lord 
 Shaftesbury remarks that a great many people pass for very good- 
 natured persons, for no other reason than because they care about 
 nobody but themselves ; and consequently, as nothing annoys 
 them but what touches their own interest, they never irritate 
 themselves unnecessarily about what does not concern them, and 
 seem to be made of the very milk of human kindness. This kind 
 of good-nature is, of course, the most consummate selfishness, par 
 taking, in no small degree, of a love of indolence and exclusive 
 personal indulgence : such individuals are apparently inoffensive 
 and harmless in society, but they are injurious, because in the way. 
 They are drones in the hives of human industry, or if they accu 
 mulate, the common weal is little benefitted by their acquisition. 
 Hazlitt has some remarks precisely in point : " Your good-natured 
 man is, generally speaking, one who does not like to be put out 
 of his way ; and a long as he can help it, that is, till the provoca 
 tion comes home to himself, will not. He does not create fictitious 
 uneasiness out of the distresses of others ; he does not fret and 
 fume, and make himself uncomfortable about things he cannot 
 mend, and that no way concern him, even if he could : but then 
 there is no one who is more apt to be disconcerted by what puts 
 
286 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 him to any personal inconvenience, however trifling ; who is more 
 tenacious of his self-indulgences, however unreasonable ; or who 
 resents more violently any interruption of his ease and comforts 
 the very trouble he is put to in resenting it being felt as an aggra 
 vation of the injury. A person of this character feels no emotions 
 of anger, if you tell him of the devastation of a province, or the 
 massacre of the inhabitants of a town, or the enslaving of a 
 people ; but if his dinner is spoiled, he is thrown into irretrievable 
 consternation and confusion. He thinks nothing can go amiss, as 
 long as he is at his ease, though possibly a pain in his little finger 
 renders him so peevish and impatient that no one can approach 
 his presence." Such are the protean forms of human life that it is 
 next to impossible for a man to assume the same aspect under its 
 manifold phases, and yet be honest ; a disposition like that we have 
 exhibited, cannot therefore consist with strict moral integrity. 
 Such a Jesuitical spirit is indeed far more to be deprecated than its 
 opposite extreme, because of its deceit and hypocrisy. Good 
 nature, such as has been delineated, has been defined " humanity 
 that costs nothing, 1 for it incurs no risk of martyrdom in any 
 cause ; while it sacrifices all on the altar of self-interest. 
 
 " Self is the medium least refined of all 
 
 Through which opinion s searching beam can fall ; 
 And passing there, the clearest, steadiest ray 
 Will tinge its light, and turn its line astray." 
 
 It is difficult to analyse the true motive which induces the 
 patriot to serve his country s interest at the seeming expense of 
 his own ; it must be either a pure sentiment of disinterested 
 patriotism, or that of an ardent love of popular renown. The 
 same may be said of the philanthropist, and the pioneer mission 
 ary ; the latter, however, is doubtless actuated by the higher con 
 victions of religious obligation. It is possible also for a man to 
 prefer the interests of his friend to his own, from a feeling of pure 
 benevolence ; although history and experience furnish but few 
 
THE SELFISH AND THE SOCIAL. 287 
 
 instances of such exalted virtue. It is contended by writers 
 adverse to the proposition, that this benevolence towards others is 
 always found in proportion to the utility they are likely to be of to 
 the party in return. We thus prefer our fellow-citizens to strangers, 
 our friends to our fellow-citizens, and our family connexions above 
 all : for the more intimate the relationship the more increased is the 
 reflex influence and advantage to be derived. It is further urged 
 that this is equally true irrespective of all collateral or accidental 
 circumstances ; if our friend or his family be wealthy, we share the 
 advantages in proportion to his influence and power or if in 
 poverty, our sympathy and regard are not withdrawn, from the 
 conviction that in ,the possible contingencies of fortune, we also . 
 may ourselves hereafter need succor. They also alledge that our 
 sympathies become enlisted towards the suffering, not from a 
 genuine desire to compassionate their distress, but from the remem 
 brance of having endured the like ourselves, or in proportion to 
 the fear we may cherish of becoming its victims. This is specious 
 reasoning, fallacious and sophistical. The inference above deduced, 
 that benevolence is merely a reflection of self-love, is founded on 
 the assumption that we always feel for others in proportion to the 
 advantage they are of to us and this assumption is a false one. 
 The argument, of Hazlitt may be thus briefly stated that the 
 habitual or known connection between our own welfare and that 
 of others, is one great source of our attachment to them, is not 
 denied ; but to insist that it is the exclusive one, and that bene 
 volence has not a natural basis of its own to rest upon, as well as 
 self-love, is contrary to the dictates of sound reason and human 
 experience. Grant this, and the actual effects which we observe , 
 in human life, will follow, from both principles combined : for 
 example, take that purest of all earthly loves the affection of 
 the mother for her child it cannot be the effect of the good 
 received or bestowed, or the child s power of conferring benefits, 
 or its standing in need of assistance. Are not the fatigues 
 which the mother undergoes for the child its helpless condition, 
 
ZOO SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 its little vexations, its sufferings from ill-health or accidents, addi 
 tional claims upon maternal tenderness, and act as so many causes 
 that tend to increase its devotion ? 
 
 " The domestic fireside is a seminary of infinite importance. It is 
 important because it is universal, and because the education it 
 bestows, being woven in with the woof of childhood, gives form 
 and color to the whole texture of life. There are few who can 
 receive the honors of a college, but all are graduates of the heart. 
 The learning of the university may fade from recollection ; its 
 classic lore may moulder in the halls of memory; but the simple 
 lessons of home, enameled upon the heart of childhood, defy the 
 rust of years, and outlive the more mature, but less vivid pictures 
 of after days. So deep, so lasting, are the impressions of early 
 life, that you often see a man in the imbecility of age, holding 
 fresh in his recollection the events of childhood, while all the wide 
 space between that and the present hour, is a forgotten waste." 
 
 Again, we not only participate in the successes of our friends, 
 but also in their reverses and trials, not for the reason already 
 assigned, so much as from real regard to their welfare : benevo 
 lence is not therefore a mere physical reflection of self-love : it is 
 more the result of moral feeling, or at least a combination with 
 this. It is the nature of compassion or pity, to forget self, in the 
 commiseration of the sufferings of another. 
 
 
 " T is a little thing 
 
 To give a cup of water; yet its draught 
 Of cool refreshment, drained by fevered lips, 
 May give a shock of pleasure to the frame 
 More exquisite than where nectarian juice 
 Renews the life of joy in happier hours." 
 
 Says Bishop Butler, there are three distinct perceptions, or in 
 ward feelings upon sight of persons in distress, real sorrow or 
 concern for the misery of our fellow-creatures, some degree of 
 satisfaction from a consciousness of our freedom from that misery, 
 
THE SELFISH AND THE SOCIAL. 
 
 and, as the mind passes on from one thing to another, it is not un 
 natural from such an occasion to reflect upon our own liability to 
 the same, or other calamities. The two last frequently accompany 
 the first, but it is the first only, which is properly compassion, of 
 which the distressed are objects, and which directly carries us with 
 calmness and thought to their assistance. Any one of these, from 
 various and complicated reasons, may in particular cases prevail 
 over the other two ; and there are, lie supposes, instances where the 
 bare sight of distress, without our feeling any compassion for it, 
 may be the occasion of either, or both, of the two latter. Sup 
 posing, therefore, that our most generous feelings and actions were 
 so far equivocal, the object only bearing a show of disinterested 
 ness, the secret motive being always selfish, this would be no 
 reason for rejecting the common use of the term disinterested 
 benevolence, which expresses nothing more than an immediate 
 reference of our actions to the good of others, as self-love ex 
 presses a conscious reference of them to our own good as means 
 to an end. In other words, self-love can mean only one of 
 these three things ; the conscious pursuit of our own good as 
 such, the love of physical pleasure, and aversion to physical 
 pain, or the gratification derived from our sympathy with 
 others : if all our actions do not proceed from one of those 
 three principles, they are not all resolvable into self-love. Te 
 gument is susceptible of varied illustration, did our limits admit of 
 amplification. In conclusion, we would venture to affirm, that as 
 n g. iieral rule , there is no exclusive principle of self-love in 
 human mind, constantly impelling us, as a set pnrpos-*, TO pursue 
 our own advantage, and nothing but that. That since -yrnpathy 
 and self-love are inconsistent, and we invest man with the attri- 
 Vnf< of ideas of things out of himself, and to be influenced by 
 them, he must necessarily cease to be a merely selfish agent. He 
 is then under another law and another necessity, and in spite of 
 himsi-lf is forced out of the direct line of his own interest, both 
 future and present, by other principles inseparable from his nature 
 
 13 
 
290 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 as an intelligent being. Our sympathy, therefore, is not the ser 
 vile, ready tool of our self-love, but this latter principle is itself 
 subservient to, and overruled by the former, that is, an attach 
 ment to others is a real, independent principle of human action. 
 The only sense, then, in which our sympathy with others can be 
 construed into self-love, must be that the mind is so constituted, 
 that without forethought, or any reflection in itself, or when seem 
 ing most occupied with others, it is still governed by the same 
 universal feeling of which it is wholly unconscious ; and that we 
 indulge in compassion, only because, and in so far as it coincides 
 with our own immediate gratification. It is doubtless in this 
 sense we are to apply the lines of Pope : 
 
 " Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake, 
 As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake ; 
 The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds, 
 Another still, and still another speeds ; 
 Friend, parent, neighbor, first its will embrace ; 
 His country next next the whole human race." 
 
 In fine, the argument may be summed up in the Divine require 
 ments, " love thy neighbor as thyself." In proportion as we sub 
 ordinate the selfish principle, we accelerate our personal enjoy 
 ment. The purest pleasure of life is the consciousness of loving 
 and being beloved. 
 
 " Grant me, Heaven, my earnest prayer 
 Whether life of ease or care 
 Be the one to me assigned, 
 That each coming year may find 
 Loving thoughts and gentle words 
 Twined within my bosom s chords, 
 And that age may but impart 
 Riper freshness to my heart !" 
 
PLEASURES OF THE PEN. 
 
 " OF all writers, the poet," says Washington Irving, "becomes 
 the most fascinated with his gentle vocation. Others may write 
 from the head, but he writes from the heart, and the heart will 
 always understand him. He is the faithful portrayer of Nature, 
 whose features are always the same, and always interesting. 
 Prose writers are voluminous and unwieldly; their pages crowded 
 with commonplaces, and their thoughts expanded into tedious- 
 ness. But with the true poet every thing is terse, touching, or 
 brilliant. He gives the choicest thoughts in the choicest lan 
 guage. He illustrates them by every thing that he sees most 
 striking in nature and art. He enriches them by pictures of 
 human life, such as it is passing before him. His writings, there 
 fore, contain the spirit, the aroma, if I may use the phrase, of the 
 age in which he lives. They are caskets which enclose within a 
 small compass the wealth of the language its family jewels, 
 Wftich are thus transmitted in a portable form to posterity. The 
 letting may occasionally be antiquated, and require now and then 
 
292 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 to be renewed, as in the case of Chaucer; but the brilliancy and 
 intrinsic value of the gems continue unaltered. Cast a look back 
 over the long reach of literary history. What vast valleys of 
 dullness, filled with monkish legends and academical controversies ! 
 What bogs of theological speculations ! What dreary wastes of 
 metaphysics ! Here and there only do we behold the heaven-illu 
 minated bards, elevated like beacons on their widely-separated 
 heights, to transmit the pure light of poetical intelligence from 
 age to age." 
 
 ** Thorow earth, and waters deepe, 
 
 The pen by skill doth passe ; 
 And featly nyps the worlde s abuse, 
 
 And shoes us in a glasse, 
 The vertu and the vice 
 
 Of every wight alyve; 
 The honey-combe the bee doth make, 
 
 Is not so sweet in hyve, 
 As are the golden leves 
 
 That drope from poet s head ; 
 Which doth surmount our common talke, 
 
 As farre as dross doth lead." 
 
 " He that enlarges his curiosity after the works of nature," 
 says Johnson, " demonstrably multiplies the inlets of happiness ; 
 therefore we should cherish ardor in the pursuit of knowledge, 
 remembering that a blighted spring makes a barren year, and 
 that the vernal flowers, however beautiful and gay, are only 
 intended by nature as preparatory to autumnal fruits." The 
 works of genius are full of magic; rings upon which the genii 
 ever wait; such books, in a pre-eminent sense combine the utile 
 et dulce. 
 
 " Books are not seldom talismans and spells." There is a kind of 
 analogy between the love of certain books, and that of particular 
 individuals, derived, doubtless, from associations common to all. 
 This feeling often dims the eye of riper years, when it chances to 
 wander again over the favorite pages of our school days, over 
 
PLEASURES OF THE PEN. 293 
 
 such works as Robinson Crusoe, or the Yicar of Wakefield, each 
 leaf then brings back from the well-guarded stores of memory the 
 cherished forms, now passed away, of those who shared with us 
 the relish of their first perusal. How tenaciously the pleasant 
 recollection of some choice books will stick to us through life; we 
 feel more than a fraternal love for them. It is not surprising, 
 therefore, that the true devotees of literature and literary pur 
 suits should become the willing, if not eager victims of the pas 
 sion, in a still stronger degree. If men are characterized by their 
 company, why then may they not be by their choice of books ? 
 Doubtless many a dormant genius has received its first impulse 
 and direction from some particular author; and in some cases, to 
 this cause may be primarily ascribed the beneficial and important 
 purposes to which that geuius has been applied. Our allusion to 
 that old favorite, Robinson Crusoe, reminds us of many illustrious 
 men of letters with whom it became a first and favorite book. 
 Among these might be named Marmontel, Rousseau, Blair, 
 Beattie, Johnson, Chalmers, Scott, Clare, and Charles Lamb; 
 the last of whom, in his confession of the fact, says, "That its 
 deep interest and familiar style, render it alike delightful to all 
 ranks and classes." Johnson also admitted more, adding, he 
 believed "Nobody ever laid down the book without wishing it 
 longer;" and Marmontel s testimony is no less decidedly approving; 
 for he states that Robinson Crusoe was the first book he ever 
 read with exquisite pleasure. 
 
 " The Pilgrim s Progress " is another universal favorite per 
 haps the most perfect and picturesque specimen of allegorical 
 writing in any language ; the peculiarity of which is its striking 
 versimilitude, imparting to the pure creations of the author s rich, 
 exuberant imagination, the impress of truth. Modern criticism, 
 indeed, has ventured to assign to this work a rank even equal 
 with that of Homer, the sublime epic of Milton, and the mighty 
 genius of the world s great poet ! Coleridge, referring to Bun- 
 yan s " Pilgrim," observes, that " though composed in the lowest 
 
294 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 style of English, it is without slang or false grammar. This won 
 derful work is one of the few which may be read repeatedly and 
 and each time with new pleasure. " I read it once," he says, " as 
 a theologian, and let me assure you there is great theological 
 acumen in the work ; once with devotional feeling, and once as 
 a poet. I would not have believed beforehand, that Galvanism 
 could be painted in such exquisitely delightful colors. I know of 
 no book, (the Bible being excepted, as above all comparison,) 
 which, according to my judgment and experience, I could so 
 safely recommend, as teaching and enforcing the whole system of 
 saving truth, as the Pilgrim s Progress. I am convinced that it 
 is incomparably the best summary of evangelical Christianity ever 
 produced by a writer not miraculously inspired." Little dreamed 
 the poor, despised tinker, what an almost superhuman influence his 
 humble pen was destined to exert in all after time. What an 
 incalculable amount of copies of this production, have been printed 
 in the several languages of the civilized world. 
 
 Sidney s Arcadia, and the pure fount of song of that " true and 
 gentle poet," Spenser, were the well-known chosen associates of 
 many master minds of old such as Milton, Shakspeare, Waller, 
 Cowley, etc. Dr. Johnson loved Walton s life of Dr. Donne, and 
 Lady Montague s Letters. He says, according to Boswell, that 
 the reader who does not relish the first named work is no phi 
 losopher, and he who does not enjoy the second is no Christian. 
 
 Benjamin Franklin says that Plutarch s Lives, Defoe s Essay on 
 Projects, and a work entitled Essays to do Good, were his three 
 favorite books, and those from which he derived the most advan 
 tage. Speaking of the last, he states, " When I was a boy, I 
 met this book, which was written, I think, by the father of Dr. 
 Mather, of Boston. It gave me such a turn of thinking, as to 
 have an influence on my conduct through life ; for I have always 
 set a greater value on the character of a doer of good, than any 
 other kind of reputation ; and if I have been a useful citizen, the 
 public owes the advantage of it to that book." Franklin, again, 
 
PLEASURES OF THE PEN. 295 
 
 has been the favorite of many young persons, who have had to 
 thank his sagacious pages and his maxims of industry and economy 
 for their success in life. It is beautiful thus to see wisdom become 
 traditionary. " When at school/ writes Dr. Alexander Murray, 
 the celebrated orientalist, "I read Paradise Lost, which from that 
 time has influenced and inflamed my imagination. I cannot 
 describe the ardor or various feelings with which I perused, 
 studied, and admired that first-rate work." 
 
 Speaking of this sublime production of Milton a work every 
 body admires, but scarce any body reads what a vast mine of 
 poetic wealth does it enclose ! Fuseli thought the second book of 
 Paradise Lost the grandest effort of the human mind, the deep 
 treasures of which appear altogether too massive and gorgeous 
 for the purpose of our modern mercenary and unpoetic age. 
 
 Ossian was the favorite of two distinguished characters, who 
 certainly appear very dissimilar in all other respects, except in that 
 of their literary tastes Napoleon and Dr. Parr. The latter 
 says, " I read Ossian when a boy, and was enamored with it. 
 When at college, I again read Ossian with increased delight. I 
 now, although convinced of the imposture, find pleasure in read 
 ing Macpherson.V Hudibras was a great favorite with Dr. Blair, 
 the theologian. 
 
 Chaucer s text book was Aristotle s Philosophy : Shelley s 
 Sophocles, and Keat s, also a copy of which was found clasped 
 to his breast when he was drowned. Homer, Virgil and Horace 
 have charmed and inspired a host of illustrious men. Bossuet, th& 
 French divine, was once found with Homer on his table, while 
 preparing one of his famous orations, when he exclaimed to his 
 visitor, "I have always Homer beside me when I compose my 
 sermons ; for I love to light my lamp at the sun." Hume and 
 Fox both sought their relaxation from severer toil, in luxuriating 
 over the glowing pages of Yirgil and Euripides. Burns first and 
 fondly cherished tome was the Life of William Wallace, and his 
 next the Life of Hannibal. "Hannibal," says he, "gave my 
 
296 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 young ideas such a turn, that I used to strut in raptures up and 
 down after the recruiting drum and bagpipe, and wish myself tall 
 enough to be a soldier ; while the story of Wallace poured a 
 Scottish prejudice into my veins, which will boil along there till 
 the flood-gates of life shut in eternal rest." Shakspeare has been 
 the universal favorite of the sons of genius ; but the enthusiasm 
 of one humble admirer, Joseph Blacket, the shoemaker poet, is 
 too interesting to be passed over. In his twelfth year, Blacket 
 witnessed Kemble s performance of Richatd III. Before this he 
 had neither read nor beheld a play ; but thenceforth Shakspeare 
 was his favorite author. "I robbed the pillow of its due," says 
 he, " and in the summer season, would read till the sun had retired, 
 then wait with anxious expectation for his earliest gleam, to dis 
 cover to my enraptured fancy the sublime beauties of that great 
 master." In consequence of this close study of Shakspeare, a 
 dramatic tone, observes his biographer, " pervaded the whole mass 
 of his papers. I have traced it on bills, receipts, backs of letters, 
 shoe-patterns, slips of paper-hangings, grocery wrappers, magazine 
 covers, battalion orders for the volunteer corps of St. Pancras, 
 wherein he served, and on various other scraps, on which his ink 
 could scarcely be made to retain the impression of his thoughts, 
 yet most of them crowded on both sides, and much interlined." 
 
 Hazlitt s pet book was Rousseau s " Confessions." He confesses 
 the intense delight he derived from its perusal at an early age. 
 Swift s Tale -of a Tub was the singular choice of Cobbett.* 
 
 "He gives the following account of his first meeting with it: " When only eleven 
 years old, with three pence in my pocket my whole fortune I perceived, at Rich 
 mond, in a book-seller s window, this little book, marked. Price, three pence. Its 
 odd title excited my curiosity ; I bought it in place of my supper. So impatient 
 was 1 to examine it, that I got over into a field at the upper corner of Kew Gar 
 dens, and sat down to read, on the shady side of a hay-stack. The book was so 
 different from anything I had read before it was something so new to my mind, 
 that, though I could not at all understand some parts of it, still it delighted me 
 beyond measure, and produced, what 1 have always considered, a sort of birth of 
 intellect. I read on till it was dark, without any thought of supper or bed. When 
 I could see no longer, I put it into my pocket, and fell asleep beside the stack, till 
 
PLEASURES OF THE PEN. 29T 
 
 Thompson s Seasons was Bloomfield s favorite selection : it was 
 also Clare s ; and even the celebrated bibliographer, Dr. Dibdin, 
 admits that he enjoyed many quiet readings of the latter, while 
 seated in the deepening glooms of Bagley Wood. He designates 
 the "Castle of Indolence" as one of the most enchanting poems 
 in the language. Lord Byron s greatest favorites were Burton s 
 Anatomy of Melancholy, D Isracli s Illustrations of the Literary 
 Character, and Scott s novels. The first work, he says, contains 
 more solid information than any twenty other works ever compiled 
 in the English language ; the second, he says, he read, perhaps, 
 oftener than any, and that it had often been to him a consolation 
 and a pleasure; of the last named, Scott s novels, he tells us "I 
 never travel without them ; they are a perfect library in themselves, 
 a perfect literary treasure; I could read them once a year with 
 fresh pleasure." Johnson confessed that Old Burton was the first 
 book that ever compelled him to rise from his bed earlier than he 
 otherwise wished. How many, like Lord Oxford, have enjoyed 
 the delicious humor of " Don Quixotte ?" 
 
 Among the pleasures of the pen, may be classed the love of 
 study, and a passion for reading. Says Burton on this head : 
 " Looking about this world of books, I could even live and die 
 among such meditations, and take more delight and true comfort 
 of mind in them, than in all wealth or sport. There is a sweet 
 ness, which, as Circe s cup, bewitcheth a student : he cannot leave 
 off, as well may witness those laborious hours, days and nights, 
 spent in their voluminous treatises. So sweet is the delight of 
 study." Richard de Bury was so enamored of his literary collec 
 tions, that he gave utterance to his love of books, under the title 
 of his " Philobiblion." 
 
 Good old Bishop Hall thus writes on the pleasure of study : 
 
 the birds awaked me in the morning ; and then I started off, still reading my little 
 book. I could relish nothing beside ; I carried it about with me wherever I went, 
 till, when about twenty years old, I lost it In a box that fell overboard in the bay oi 
 Fundy." . 
 
 13* 
 
298 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 " What a heaven lives the scholar in, that at once, in one close 
 room, can daily converse with all the glorious Martyrs and 
 Fathers ! that can single out, at pleasure, either sententious 
 Tertullian, or grave Cyprian, or resolute Jerome, or flowing Chry- 
 sostom, or divine Ambrose, or devout Bernard, or, who alone is 
 all these, heavenly Augustine ; and talk with them, and hear their 
 wise and holy counsels, verdicts, and resolutions. * * 
 Let the world contemn us ; while we have these delights, we can 
 not envy them ; we cannot wish ourselves other than we are. 
 Study itself is our life : from which we would 
 not be barred for a world : how much sweeter, then, is the fruit 
 of study, the conscience of knowledge ! in comparison whereof, 
 the soul that hath once tasted it easily contemns all human comfort. 
 
 " Go now, ye worldlings, and insult over our paleness, our need- 
 iness, our neglect. Ye could not be so jocund, if you were not 
 so ignorant : if you did not want knowledge, you would not over 
 look him that hath it. For me, I am so far from emulating you, 
 that I profess I would as lief be a brute beast, as an ignorant rich, 
 man." 
 
 Mental pleasures never cloy ; unlike those of the body, they are 
 increased by repetition, approved by reason, and strengthened by 
 enjoyment. 
 
 The Scholar, in Chaucer, would rather have 
 
 " At his bedde s head 
 
 A twenty bokes, clothed in blacke and red, 
 Of Aristotle, and his philosophic, 
 Than robes rich, or fiddle, or psalterie." 
 
 Holman, of the British navy, who, though wholly blind, pro 
 duced several amusing books of travels ; some years since he re 
 turned to England, from a tour of six years in Spain, Portugal, 
 Egypt, etc. His notes of travel were usually put together by 
 any fellow-traveler who would confer the service. 
 
 " My great stimulus in writing," says Shelley, in one of his let- 
 
PLEASURES OF THE PEN. 299 
 
 ters, " is to have the approbation of those who feel kindly towards 
 me." Buffon says, his hours of composition were the most luxurious 
 and delightful of his life. The agonies and raptures of composi 
 tion are thus described by one who probably experienced both : 
 
 " When happiest fancy has inspired the strain, 
 How oft the malice of one luckless word 
 Pursues the enthusiast, to the social bound, 
 Haunts him, belated, on the silent plains ; 
 Yet he repines not, if his thoughts stand clear, 
 At last, of hinderance and obscurity, 
 Fresh as the star that crowns the hour of morn." 
 
 The pleasures of writing are among the chief incentives to 
 authorship. There are millions of men, says Byron, who have 
 never written a book, but few who have written only one. 
 
 " Literature," says a modern essayist, " has its solitary pleasures, 
 and they are many ; it has also its social pleasures, and they are 
 more. The Persian poet, Sardi, teaches a moral in one of his 
 apologues. Two friends passed a summer day in a garden of 
 roses ; one satisfied himself with admiring their colors and inhaling 
 their fragrance ; the other filled his bosom with the leaves, and 
 enjoyed at home, during several days, with his family, the deli- 
 ciousness of the perfume. The first was the solitary, the second 
 the social student. He wanders among many gardens of thought, 
 bat always brings back some flower in his hand. Who can esti 
 mate the advantages that may result from this toil, and this ap 
 plication of it." 
 
 The domestic life of virtuous genius has many delightful pic 
 tures to soothe and engage our eyes. Who would not like to see 
 Richardson reading chapters of his novels to his listening friends, 
 in his favorite grotto ; and Sterne, when by his own fireside with 
 his daughter copying, and his wife knitting. He thus portrays 
 the scene : 
 
 " I am scribbling away at my Tristram. These two volumes are, 
 I think, the best I shall write as long as I live ; it is, in fact, my 
 
300 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 hobby-horse, and so much am I delighted with my uncle Toby s 
 imaginative character, that I am become an enthusiast. My 
 Lydia helps to copy for me, and my wife knits and listens as I 
 read her chapters." 
 
 The domestic history of the amiable Cowper, notwithstanding 
 his abiding melancholy, presents us with some placid and even 
 glowing pictures: when contemplated seated on his sofa, re 
 hearsing each newly constructed passage to his faithful Mary 
 Unwin. 
 
 In their method of economizing time, we find a certain uniform 
 ity in the practice of authors and students, of gathering up their 
 spare minutes. Some writers yielding to their pleasing toils over 
 the midnight lamp ; others, again, devoting the early dawn of day 
 to the sweet and silent communings of their muse. Says an 
 anonymous writer : 
 
 " The morning has been especially consecrated to study by the 
 example of the Christian scholar. Hackett calls it, very prettily, 
 and in the spirit of Cowley, or Carew, the the mother of honey 
 dews and pearls, which drop upon the paper from the student s 
 pen. The learned and excellent Bishop Jewell affords a very de 
 lightful specimen of the day of an English scholar, who not only 
 lived among his books, but among men. He commonly rose at 
 four o clock, had private prayers at five, and attended the public 
 service of the church in the cathedral at six. The remainder of 
 the morning was given to study. One of his biographers has 
 drawn a very interesting sketch of Jewell during the day. At 
 meals, a chapter being first read, he recreated himself with scho 
 lastic wars between young scholars whom he entertained at his 
 table. After meals, his doors and ears were open to all suits and 
 causes ; at these times, for the most part, he dispatched all those 
 businesses which either his place or others importunity forced 
 upon him, making gain of the residue of this time for his study. 
 About the hour of nine at night, he called his servants to an ac 
 count how they had spent the day, and admonished them accord 
 
PLEASURES OF THE PEN. 301 
 
 ingly. From this examination, to his study, (how long it is 
 uncertain, oftentimes after midnight, ) and so to bed ; wherein, 
 after some part of an author read to him by the gentlemen of his 
 bed-chamber, commending himself to the protection of his Saviour, 
 he took his rest. " 
 
 " An acquaintance with the biography of illustrious musicians, 
 proves that they reason incoherently, and with a short sight, who 
 eternally talk of having the path of genius smoothed, and of set 
 ting it above circumstances ; for the lives of eminent men of this 
 class display the most admirable energies developed, and the most 
 enthusiastic projects brought to bear, purely by the pressure of 
 the very annoyances sought to be removed. Possession of the 
 creative faculty pre-supposes a superiority to adverse circumstances 
 and low-thoughted care. 
 
 So it was with Fielding, Goldsmith, Steele, and many others 
 honorable in literature: so also with Handel, Mozart, and Weber, 
 in music ; and it is one of the kindly recompenses of nature, by 
 which she contrives to adjust, so equitably, the good and evil in 
 this life. We owe that magnificent oratorio, the " Messiah," and 
 others of his masterly productions, to the author s most adverse 
 circumstances ; and it is doubted, whether men of genius gener 
 ally, would have achieved half as much as they have, had their 
 circumstances in life been more propitious. Sir Walter Scott 
 wrote his " Waverly," however, for love not of pelf, but his pen. 
 Not so his subsequent romances. Beaumont was of opinion that 
 a man of genius could no more help putting his thoughts on paper, 
 than a traveler in a burning desert can help drinking when he sees 
 water. 
 
 A word about book-stalls establishments which, humble in 
 themselves, have been the resort in past days of many a true 
 son of genius. Our collective literary spoils are not exclusively 
 to be found garnishing the shelves of the library, or the booksel 
 ler s store ; there are sundry other interesting little nooks and 
 corners in the wide world as attractive to the real book-worm as 
 
302 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 the honey-pot to bees, where learned personages seek their literary 
 aliment, and with as eager an appetite. 
 
 Book-stalls were the cheap literature of a former age. Ben 
 Jonson was probably a haunter of them, when a working brick 
 layer, he used to be seen with a trowel in one hand and a book in 
 the other. Lackington was a constant frequenter of these lowly 
 depositories of literary wares. The amusing anecdote of his book 
 versus a leg of mutton, which his spouse commissioned him to pur 
 chase, his process of reasoning the matter, and final decision in 
 favor of the food intellectual, reveals the first glimpses of his cha 
 racter. Charles Lamb relates a somewhat similar story of his 
 purchase of a folio, " Beaumont and Fletcher," at a book-stall. 
 He had marked it longingly, but was delayed by want of money. 
 He almost daily passed the place to see if the book was still there, 
 fearful lest it should be gone. At length, late one Saturday night, 
 having mustered the necessary sum thirteen shillings off he set 
 to the shop, never dreaming of the possibility of its being shut. 
 Finding this the case, and the worthy proprietor gone to his noc 
 turnal repose, he was not yet, however, to be baulked of his prey, 
 for he presently commenced a rapping at the door, sufficient to 
 have awakened the seven sleepers. The bookseller came out, at 
 length, in the direst alarm, half-clad, and grumblingly took the 
 thirteen pieces of silver in exchange for the twin dramatists, 
 whom the delighted author carried away in high exultation and 
 rapture. 
 
 Stall-readers a class of porers who don t buy are as old as 
 the days of John Milton, if not of still more remote origin, for he 
 alludes to such. To quote the phrase of the London Quarterly, 
 " to poor lovers of learning, old and young, these stalls are to the 
 famishing, as tables spread in the wilderness." 
 
 An early habit of frequenting book-stalls is never quite over 
 come, even after one has long become a purchaser in higher fields 
 of literature. Leigh Hunt pleasantly confesses to this weakness, 
 if such it be: 
 
PLEASURES OF THE PEN. 303 
 
 "We still find ourselves halting (says he) at the humblest book 
 stall, as we used to do when fresh from school. In vain have we 
 got cold feet at it, shivering, wind-beaten sides, and black-fingered 
 gloves. The dusty old siren still delays us, charming with immor 
 tal beauty inside her homely attire, and singing songs of old poets. 
 We still find ourselves diving into the sixpenny or threepenny box 
 in spite of eternal disappointment, and running over whole windows 
 of books, which we saw but three days before, for the twentieth 
 time, and of which we could repeat by heart a good third of the 
 titles. Nothing disconcerts us but absolute dirt, or an ill-tempered 
 looking woman. We have ourselves precisely the same habits. 
 Nothing delights us more than to overhaul some dingy tome, and 
 read a chapter gratuitously. Occasionally, when we have opened 
 some very attractive old book, we have stood reading for hours at 
 the stall, lost in a brown study and worldly forgetfulness, and 
 should probably have read on to the end of the last chapter, had not 
 the vender of published wisdom offered, in a satirically polite way, 
 to bring us out a chair. Take a chair, sir : you must be tired. " 
 
 How many of the illustrious among the bibliographic fraternity 
 in our own land, as well as in England, date their rise from these 
 young beginnings. The grand recommendation of the book it its 
 economy and accessibility. Those of small means know well how 
 to appreciate all this, who, perhaps, when unable to replenish 
 their slender collections, even on these advantageous terms, may, 
 in the words of Kenyon, console themselves 
 
 " Oh, sweet t will be or hope would so believe 
 When close round life its fading tints of eve, 
 To turn again our earlier volumes o er, 
 And love them then, because we ve loved before, - 
 And inly bless the waning hour that brings 
 A will to lean once more on simple things. 
 If this be weakness, welcome life s decline ; 
 If this be second childhood, be it mine." 
 
 Sometimes rare specs are to be me-t with in the way of black 
 
304 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 letter books at these stalls. The veritable book-collectors know 
 this. 
 
 Irving observes in his paper on the mutations of literature : 
 "The fact that every age receives the impress of some peculiar 
 development in its literary taste from its writers, cannot, we think, 
 be denied. If we turn to that age so rife with noble authors the 
 Elizabethan we have the distinctive features of terseness and 
 vigor, combined with lofty beauty of imagination a species of the 
 arabesque in literature, peculiar to its great epoch. Ficticious 
 writing, the drama, and poetry: seem to acquire a certain hue and 
 character from the dominant habits and tastes of the times, in 
 succession, unless, as is sometimes the case, they give form to new 
 conceptions, which, in their turn, become extinct, and are usurped 
 by new modes of expression, thought and feeling. The produc 
 tion of Edgeworth, Austin, and Mrs. Sherwood, made way for 
 those of Scott, Bulwer, and James works of a totally different 
 school. And in poetry, in place of Milton, Quarles, Pope, Dry- 
 den, and Cowper, we have had Moore, Byron, and Wordsworth ; 
 while instead of Shakspeare, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, 
 and Wycherley, we have a host of dramatists, who, however much 
 below their grade of merit, yet they differ in many of their essen 
 tial characteristics. But perhaps the most obvious dissimilarity of 
 style is observable among the essayists and graver writers in 
 philosophy, science, ethics, and religion, of which the Pilgrim s 
 Progress almost the only conspicuous specimen that has de 
 scended to us from the wreck of the arch-despoiler affords a suf 
 ficient proof ; while the same is seen in the Addisonian school of 
 essayists, compared with our modern Hazlitts and Leigh Hunts. 
 In spite of all mutations, the cadences of the true muse must live 
 still in the sweet echoes that reverberate through the caverns of 
 human thought. The poet s forms of speech are deathless, for in him 
 
 Language was a perpetual Orphic song, 
 Which ruled, with Doedal harmonie, a throng 
 Of thoughts and forms. 
 
PLEASURES OF THE PEN. 305 
 
 Let us note some of the curious modes in which writers have 
 indulged their quaint conceits and felicitous thoughts. 
 
 About the middle of the seventeenth century, the scribes, or 
 rather those whose ambition was not of the most soaring order, 
 used to divert themselves, and rack their inventive powers by tortur 
 ing and twisting their verses into odd devices and shapes, expres 
 sive of the themes they discussed as might be expected, to the 
 serious detriment of their poetic merit. Many of these fantastic 
 performances were of grotesque or even ludicrous description such 
 as fans and toilet-glasses and frocks, for love songs ; wine-glasses, 
 bottles and flagons, for drinking songs ; pulpits, altars and tomb 
 stones, for religious verses and epitaphs, and even flying angels, 
 Grecian temples and Egyptian Pyramids, for patriotic effusions. 
 We read of one, much renowned in his day for the fabrication of 
 these curious literary wares, yclept Benlowes, styled by his Cam 
 bridge contemporaries " the excellently learned." Of this eccen 
 tric knight of the quill Butler has some rather caustic criticisms. 
 He says : 
 
 " There is no feat of activity, nor gambols of wit, that ever was 
 performed by man, from him that vaults on Pegasus, to him that 
 tumbles through the hoop of an anagram, but Benlowes has got 
 the mastery of it, whether it be high-rope wit or low-rope wit. 
 He has all sorts of echoes, rebusses, chronograms, etc. As for 
 altars and pyramids in poetry, he has outdone all men that way ; 
 for he has made a gridiron and a frying-pan in verse, that, besides 
 the likeness in shape, the very tone and sound of the words did 
 perfectly represent the noise made by these utensils ! When he 
 was a captain he made all the furniture of his horse, from the bit 
 to the crupper, the beaten poetry, every verse being fitted to the 
 proportion of the thing, with a moral allusion to the sense of the 
 thing : as the bridle of moderation, the saddle of content, and the 
 crupper of constancy ; so that the same thing was to the epigram 
 and emblem, even as a mule is both horse and ass." 
 
 Specimens of this species of embkmatic poetry of the seventeenth 
 
306 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 century may be familiar to many ; yet we venture to subjoin 
 a modern imitation in our own vernacular, which, we presume, 
 will please not only the general reader, but all patrons of pure 
 water : 
 
 THE WINE-GLASS. 
 
 Who hath woe ? Who hath sorrow ? 
 
 Who hath contentions ? Who 
 
 hath wounds without cause ? 
 
 Who hath redness of eyes ? 
 
 They that tarry long at the 
 
 wine ! They that go to 
 
 seek mixed wine ! Look 
 
 not thou upon the 
 
 wine when it is red 
 
 when it giveth its 
 
 colour in the 
 
 CUP; 
 
 when it 
 
 moveth itself 
 
 aright. 
 
 At 
 
 the last 
 
 it biteth like a 
 serpent, and stingeth like an adder. 
 
 The reader will pardon our indulging an extract or two from 
 productions which, for their exquisite melody or ideal beauty, are 
 preeminently poetic : we give the following lines from Suckling s 
 beautiful ode, 
 
 " Pr ythee why so pale, fond lover, 
 Pr ythee why so pale?" etc., 
 
 has been quoted by Congreve as one of the most excellent in our 
 tongue. 
 
 The following, given in Lord Oxford s works by an old Eng 
 lish writer, is unquestionably one of the most exquisite and regular 
 odes extant : 
 
PLEASURES OF THE PEN. 307 
 
 " Only tell her that I love, 
 
 Leave the rest to her and fate, 
 Some kind planet from above, 
 May perhaps her pity move ; 
 
 Lovers on their stars must wait, 
 Only tell her that I love. 
 
 Why, oh, why should I despair, 
 
 Mercy s pictured in her eye ; 
 If she once vouchsafe to hear, 
 Welcome hope and welcome fear ; 
 
 She s too good to let me die, 
 Why, oh, why should I despair." 
 
 The subjoined stanzas also speak for themselves in their delicacy 
 of feeling and refined taste; the author is Samuel Daniel, who 
 lived in the year of grace 1590 : 
 
 " Love is a sickness full of woes, 
 
 All remedies refusing ; 
 A plant that most with cutting grows, 
 Most barren with best using. 
 
 Why so ? 
 
 More we enjoy it, more it dies ; 
 If not enjoyed it sighing cries, 
 Heigh ho ! 
 
 Love is a torment of the minde, 
 
 A tempest everlasting ; 
 And Jove hath made it of a kinde, 
 Not well, nor full, nor fasting. 
 
 Why so ? 
 
 More we enjoy it, more it dies ; 
 If not enjoyed, it sighing cries, 
 Heigh ho !" 
 
 Coleridge pronounced the following sonnet on Night, by the 
 Rev. Blanco White, the finest and most grandly conceived in our 
 language : 
 
308 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 " Mysterious Night ! when our first parents knew 
 Thee, from report divine, and heard thy name, 
 Did he not tremble for this lovely frame 
 
 This glorious canopy of light and blue ? 
 
 Yet neath a current of translucent dew, 
 Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, 
 Hesperus with the hosts of heaven came, 
 
 And, lo ! Creation widened in man s view. 
 
 Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed, 
 Within thy beams, sun ? or, who could find, 
 
 Whilst fly, and leaf, and insect stood revealed, 
 That to such countless orbs thou mad st us blind ? 
 
 Why do we, then, shun death with anxious strife 
 
 If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life ?" 
 
 The favorite lines of Coleridge, on " Youth and Age," cannot 
 fail to be read with pleasure : 
 
 _ 
 
 " Verse, a breeze mid blossoms straying, 
 Where hope clung feeding like a bee 
 Both were mine ! Life went a maying 
 With Nature, Hope and Poesy, 
 
 When I was young ! 
 When I was young ! ah, woeful when ! 
 Ah for the change twixt now and then ! 
 This breathing house not built with hands, 
 This body that does me grevious wrong, 
 O er airy cliffs and glittering sands, 
 
 How lightly then it flashed along 
 Like those trim skiffs unknown of yore, 
 
 On winding lakes, and rivers wide, 
 That ask no aid of sail or oar, 
 
 That fear no spite of wind or tide. 
 * * * * 
 
 Oh, youth ! for years so many and sweet 
 T is known that thou and I were one, 
 
 I ll think it but a fond conceit 
 It cannot be that thou art gone ! 
 
 Thy vesper bell hath not yet tolled, 
 
 And thou wert aye a masker bold ! 
 
PLEASURES OF THE PEN. 309 
 
 What strange disguise hast now put on, 
 To make believe that thou art gone ?" 
 
 Of the echo-poems, D Israeli has some amusing specimens: the 
 wit of these performances consisted in the construction of the last 
 syllables, so that on being repeated, as if by an echo, it should 
 convey a separate and pointed meaning. At times, this fancied 
 repetition had an effect corresponding with that of the Irishman s 
 echo, which not merely repeated his sentences, but varied them 
 to make more fun, and even answered them: for when he said 
 
 " How do you do ?" 
 his echo replied, 
 
 " Pretty well I thank you." 
 
 Another species of literary diversion may be noticed in the 
 curious combinations of words, mostly in Latin, by some of the 
 early writers, in which, however, their wit is less discernible than 
 their patient ingenuity. One of these has calculated that the 
 following verses might be changed in their order, and re-combined 
 in thirty-nine million nine hundred and sixteen thousand eight 
 hundred different ways; and that to complete the writing out of 
 this series of combinations, it would occupy a man ninety-one 
 years and forty-nine days, if he wrote at the rate of twelve hun 
 dred verses daily. This is the wondrous distich : 
 
 " Lex, grex, rex, spes, res, jus, thus, sal, sol bona lux, laus ! 
 Mars, mors, sors, fraus, foex, styx, nox, crux, pus, mala cis, lis !" 
 
 This singular jumble in poetry has been thus rendered into English: 
 
 "Law, flocks, king, hopes, riches, right, incense, salt, sun good 
 
 torch, praise to you, 
 
 Mars, death, destiny, fraud, impurity, Styx, night, the cross, 
 bad humors, and evil power, may you be condemned." 
 
 Among the ingenious pastimes of poets, we must notice the fol 
 lowing, which is unique in its way each word reads the same 
 backwards and forwards : 
 
310 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 " Odo tenet mulum, 
 
 Madidam mappam tenet anna." 
 
 This couplet cost the author, says an old book, a world of foolish 
 labor. 
 
 The following Latin verse, which is composed with much inge 
 nuity, affords two very opposite meanings by merely transposing 
 the order of the words : 
 
 " Prospicimus modo, quod durabunt tempore longo, 
 Foedera, nee patriae pax cito diffugiet." 
 
 " Diffugiet cito pax patriae, nee fbedera longo, 
 Tempore durabunt, quod modo prospicimus." 
 
 Among our collection of ingenious literary productions, Dean 
 Swift s celebrated Latin puns deserve a place; they will live with 
 the language, for they have neVer been excelled. This species of 
 composition, consists of Latin words, and allowing for false spell 
 ing, and the running the words into each other, contain good sense 
 
 in English as well as Latin. For example, 
 
 
 
 " Apud in is almi de si re, "A pudding is all my desire, 
 
 Mimis tres I ne ver re qui re, My mistress I never require, 
 
 Alo veri findit a gestis, A lover I find it a jest is, 
 
 His miseri ne ver at restis." His misery never at rest is." 
 
 " Mollis abuti, " Moll is a beauty, 
 Has an acuti, Has an acute eye, 
 
 No lasso finis, No lass so fine is, 
 
 Omni de armistress, Oh my dear mistress, 
 
 Cantu disco ver, Can t you discover 
 
 Meas alo ver ?" Me as a lover ?" 
 
 A very learned Frenchman, in conversatioa with Dr. Wallace, 
 of Oxford, about the year 1650, and author of a grammar of the 
 English language written in Latin, after expatiating with the 
 Doctor on the copiousness of the French language, and its rich 
 ness in derivations and synonymes, produced, by way of illustra 
 tion, the following four lines on rope-making : 
 
PLEASURES OF THE PEN. 311 
 
 * Quand un cordier, cordant, veult corder un corde ; 
 Pour sa corde corder, trois cordons ill accord ; 
 Mais, si un des cordons de la corde decorde, 
 Le cordon decordand fait decorder la corde." 
 
 To show that the English language was at least equally rich and 
 copius, Dr. Wallace immediately translated the French into as 
 many lines of English, word for word, using the word twist to 
 express the French corde : 
 
 " When a twister a twisting, will twist him a twist : 
 For the twisting his twist, he three twines doth entwist ; 
 But if one of the twines of the twist do untwist, 
 The twine that untwisteth, untwisteth the twist." 
 
 Here were verbs, nouns, participles and synonymes to match the 
 French. To show farther the power and versatility of the Eng 
 lish, the doctor added the four following lines, which continue the 
 subject : 
 
 " Untwisting the twine that untwisted between, 
 He twirls with his twister the two in a twine ; 
 Then twice having twisted the twines of the twine, 
 He twisteth the twine he had twined in twain." 
 
 The French funds had been exhausted at the outset. Not so with 
 the English ; for Dr. Wallace, pushing his triumph, added yet four 
 other lines, which follow : 
 
 " The twain that in twining before in the twine, 
 As twins were intwisted, he now doth entwine ; 
 Twixt the twain intertwisting a twine more between, 
 He, twirling his twister, makes a twist of the twine." 
 
 Dr. Adam Clarke, to whom we are indebted for the record of 
 the preceding trial of skill between the two philologists, adds in 
 conclusion, that " he questions whether there is another language 
 in the universe capable of such a variety of flections, or which 
 
312 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 can afford so many terms and derivatives, all legitimate, coming 
 from the same radix, without borrowing a single term from another 
 tongue, or coining one for the sake of the sound; for there is not 
 a word used by Dr. Wallace in these lines which is not purely 
 Anglo-Saxon, not one exotic being entertained." 
 
 The following lines, from Gray, "The ploughman homeward 
 plods his weary way," has been found to admit of eighteen trans 
 positions, without destroying the rhyme or altering the sense ; 
 the reader will be content with the following : 
 
 " The weary ploughman plods his homeward way. 
 The weary ploughman homeward plods his way. 
 The ploughman, weary, plods his homeward way. 
 The ploughman, weary, homeward plods his way. 
 Weary the ploughman plods his homeward way. 
 Weary the ploughman homeward plods his way. 
 Homeward the ploughman plods his weary way. 
 Homeward the weary ploughman plods his way. 
 Homeward the ploughman, weary, plods his way. 
 The homeward ploughman weary plods his way. 
 The homeward ploughman plods his weary way." 
 
 Southey, it may be remembered, so highly esteemed Cowper s 
 beautiful Lines to his Mother s Portrait, that he is reported to 
 have said, he would willingly barter all he had written for their 
 authorship. This is high tribute to the amiable yet melancholy 
 muse of Cowper ; but we are digressing. We therefore return to 
 our anomalous and curious selections ; and first, beg to present an 
 ingenius piece of literary Mosaic : 
 
 " The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, 
 In every clime, from Lapland to Japan ; 
 To fix one spark of beauty s heavenly ray, 
 The proper study of mankind is man. 
 
 Tell! foi you can, what is it to be wise, 
 
 Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain ? 
 
 The man of Ross ! each lisping babe replies, 
 And drags, at each remove, a length ning chain. 
 
PLEASURES OF THE PEN. 313 
 
 All ! who can tell how hard it is to climb 
 
 Far as the solar walk or milky-way ? 
 Procrastination is the thief of time, 
 * v Let Hercules himself do what he may. 
 
 Tis education forms the common mind, 
 The feast of reason and the flow of soul ; 
 
 I must be cruel only to be kind, 
 
 And waft a sigh from Indus to the pole. 
 
 Syphax ! I joy to meet thee thus alone, 
 
 Where er I roam, whatever lands I see ; 
 A youth to fortune and to fame unknown, 
 
 In maiden meditation fancy free. 
 
 Farewell ! and whereso er thy voice be tried, 
 Why to yon mountain turns the gazing eye, 
 
 With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, 
 That teach the rustic moralist to die. 
 
 Pity the sorrows of a poor old man, 
 
 Whose beard descending swept his aged breast ; 
 
 Laugh where we must, be candid where we can, 
 Man never is, but always to be blest." 
 
 The following is another specimen of literary ingenuity. Two 
 words of opposite meanings, spelled with exactly the same letters, 
 form a Telestick ; that is, the letters beginning the lines when 
 united were to give one of the words, and the letters at the end 
 were to produce the other thus : 
 
 " U-nite and untie are the same so say yo-U 
 N-ot in wedlock, I wean, has the unity bee-N 
 I-n the drama of marriage, each wandering gou-T 
 T-o a new face would fly all except you and I, 
 E-ach seeking to alter the spell in their scen-E." 
 
 The following specimen of alliteration evinces more ingenuity 
 than anything else of the kind extant : 
 
314 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 THE SEIGE OF BELGRADE. 
 
 " An Austrian Army, Awfully Arrayed, 
 Boldly, By Battery, Beseiged Belgrade ; 9 
 
 Cossack Commanders Cannonading Come, 
 Dealing Destruction s Devastating Doom ; 
 Every Endeavor Engineers Essay, 
 For Fame, For Fortune Fighting Furious Fray ! 
 Generals Gainst Generals Grapple Gracious God ! 
 How Honors Heav n Heroic Hardihood ! 
 Infuriate, Indiscriminate, In 111, 
 Kinsmen Kill Kindred, Kindred Kinsmen Kill ! 
 
 Labor Low Levels Longest, Loftiest Lines ; 
 
 Men March Mid Mounds, Mid Moles, Mid Murd rous Mines ; 
 
 Now Noisy, Noxious Numbers Notice Naught 
 
 Of Outward Obstacles Opposing Ought ; 
 
 Poor Patriots ! Partly Purchas d, Partly Press d, 
 
 Quite Quaking, Quickly Quarter, Quarter Quest. 
 
 Eeason Returns, Religious Right Redounds, 
 
 Suwarrow Stops Such Sanguinary Sounds ; 
 
 Truce To Thee Turkey ! Triumph To Thy Train ! 
 
 Unjust, Unwise, Unmerciful Ukraine ! 
 
 Vanish Vain Victory ! Vanish Victory Vain ! 
 
 Why Wish We Warfare ? Wherefore Welcome Were 
 
 Xerxes, Ximenas, Xanthus, Xavier, 
 
 Yield, Yield, Ye Youths ! Ye Yoemen Yield Your Yell ! 
 
 Zeno s, Zarpater s, Zoroaster s Zeal ; 
 
 Attracting All, Arms Against Acts Appeal. 
 
 As affording an illustration of the union of sound and sense, take 
 the following well-known lines : 
 
 " When Ajax strives some rock s vast weight to throw, 
 The words, too, labor, and the line moves slow : 
 Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain, 
 Flies o er the imbending corn, and skims along the main." 
 
 Our last will not be deemed the least in wit, point or power. 
 It is from the pen of the well-known, and lamented Thomas Hood; 
 and it is worthy of the inimitable humorist. The subject is the 
 
PLEASURES OF THE PEN. 315 
 
 month, November, -in England synonymous with fogs, long visages, 
 and suicides. Every line begins with the first syllable of the 
 word, which, after so many lispings, the last line spells outright : 
 
 " No sun no moon ! 
 
 No morn no noon 
 
 No dawn no dusk no proper time of day 
 No sky no earthly view 
 No distance looking blue 
 
 No roads no streets no tother side the way 
 No end to any row 
 No indication where the crescents go 
 No tops to any steeple 
 
 No recognition of familiar people 
 
 No courtesies for showing em 
 No knowing em 
 
 No travelers at all no locomotion 
 
 No inkling of the way no motion 
 
 No go by land or ocean 
 
 No mail no post 
 
 No news from any foreign coast 
 
 No park no ring no afternoon gentility 
 No company no nobility 
 
 No warmth no cheerfulness no healthful ease 
 No comfortable feel in any member 
 
 No shade no shine no butterflies no bees 
 No fruits no flowers no leaves no birds 
 No-vember ! 
 
 We close our citations with a remarkable instance of involun 
 tary poetic prose ; it is from the distinguished author of the 
 " Sketch Book." The passage occurs near the commencement of 
 the sixth book of his humorous History of New York, where it 
 stands as plain prose : 
 
316 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 " The gallant warrior starts from soft repose, 
 From golden visions and voluptuous ease ; 
 Where, in the dulcet piping time of peace, 
 He sought sweet solace after all his toils. 
 No more in Beauty s syren lap reclined, 
 He weaves fair garlands for his lady s brows ; 
 No more entwines with flowers his shining sword, 
 Nor through -the live-long summer s day 
 Chaunts forth his love-sick soul in madrigals. 
 To manhood roused, he spurns the amorous flute, 
 Dofls from his brawny back the robe of peace, 
 And clothes his pampered limbs in panoply of steel. 
 O er his dark brow, where late the myrtle waved, 
 Where wanton roses breathed enervate love, 
 He rears the beaming casque and nodding plume ; 
 Grasps the bright shield and ponderous lance, 
 Or mounts with eager pride his fiery steed, 
 And burns for deeds of glorious chivalry." 
 
 A recent Scottish critic, referring to authorship, and its revenue 
 of literary pleasures, says : 
 
 "The blind bard, who on the Chian strand beheld the Iliad 
 and Odyssey rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea, still, after 
 thousands of years, is listened to with reverence, and the soul of 
 Homer is born again in every school boy who devours him. Plato, 
 down the dark avenue of centuries, still speaks with a tone of 
 authority ; and his works, though seldom read at one time by 
 more than twenty persons in the whole earth, Yet/ says Emer 
 son, for the sake of those few persons, they come duly down to 
 us, as if God brought them in his hand. Shakspeare s dust is in 
 Stratford ; his geuius is shaking the stages of the world. Scott 
 lies helpless and solitary in Dryburgh ; but his works have wings ; 
 and where the spot so secret, or the isle so isolated, which they 
 have not visited ? To attempt to portray the joys its possessors 
 feel were a presumptuous task. But who has not felt the pleasure 
 it imparts the rapture into which it sometimes elevates the self- 
 possession into which it sometimes calms the sublime sorrow, not 
 
PLEASURES OF THE PEN. 
 
 31T 
 
 to be exchanged for a millenium of common delights, into which it 
 often melts the mirth into which it sometimes kindles? Or, if 
 you would see the pleasures of genius, as felt in their most ecstatic 
 form, see Burns striding along the banks of the Nith, composing 
 Tarn O Shanter, or rather that poem coming upon him, the tears 
 of joy coursing down his cheeks, and every feature and every tone 
 testifying to the truth of the inspiration ; or if you would see 
 them in all their pensive grandeur, behold the same poet in the 
 cold September barn-yard, on the eve commemorative of that oil 
 which his Mary from his soul was torn ; when from the stack- 
 side he eyed the planet which shone above him like another moon, 
 and poured out his impassioned song To Mary in Heaven. One 
 such example is worth a thousand abstract assertions." 
 
SLEEP AND ITS MYSTERIES. 
 
 " Sleep is Death s younger brother, and so like him, that I never dare trust 
 him without my prayers." SIR T. BROWNE. 
 
 " Sleep, that knits up the raveled sleeve of care, 
 The death of each day s life, sore labor s bath, 
 Balm of hurt minds, great nature s second course, 
 Chief nourisher in life s feast." SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 A SUBJECT so trite, we fear, will be likely to inspire the reader, 
 at the very outset, with a feeling of drowsiness ; so that if no 
 other object shall be attained by its presentation, it may possibly 
 serve to lull some wearied one to oblivious repose, and thus 
 beguile him of a portion of the irksome realities of life which 
 may have proved even less endurable. The indulgence of the 
 habit of sleep is coeval with the existence of man Adam, it 
 will be remembered, was quietly enjoying a "deep sleep," when 
 his rib was transformed into the glorious creature Eve, his espoused 
 wife. This is, of course, the most remarkable instance of sound 
 sleeping upon record : we have read of many extraordinary cases 
 of trance, somnambulism and dreams, but none to be compared 
 with his. When, wearied with the day s drudgery and toil, many 
 have, with Sancho, exclaimed, "blessings on him that first invented 
 sleep ; it wraps a man all round like a cloak !" Sleep is a com 
 mon blessing, none the worse for being common. Animals as well 
 
SLEEP AND ITS MYSTERIES. 319 
 
 as man participate in the luxury of "solemn night s repose." 
 After the day s dusty toils, how grateful is it 
 
 " To stretch the tired limbs and aching head 
 Upon our own delightful bed." 
 
 There is something inexpressibly grateful in the feeling that 
 superinduces the sweet oblivion called sleep the spirit jaded with 
 the excitement and stir of life, and the body wearied with the 
 busy doings of the day, the quiet hour of wonted repose steals 
 upon us like a charm, and we yield ourselves to its mollifying and 
 soothing influence as the panacea of every ill. It is, moreover, as 
 Young styles it : 
 
 " Man s rich restorative ; his balmy bath, 
 That supples, lubricates, and keeps in play 
 The various movements of this nice machine, 
 Which asks such frequent periods of repair, 
 When tired with vain rotations of the day, 
 Sleep winds us up for the succeeding dawn." 
 
 That genial essayist, Leigh Hunt, furnishes some pleasant 
 thoughts upon the subject, from which we cannot refrain citing a 
 passage. " It is a delicious moment, certainly," he writes, " that 
 of being well nestled in bed, and feeling that you shall drop 
 gently to sleep. The good is to come, not past ; the limbs have 
 just been tired enough to render the remaining in one posture 
 delightful ; the labor of the day is done. A gentle failure of the 
 perceptions comes creeping over one ; the spirit of consciousness 
 disengages itself more and more, with slow and hushing degrees, 
 like a mother detaching her hand from her sleeping child ; the 
 mind seems to have a balmy lid over it, like the eye ; tis closing 
 more closing tis closed. The mysterious spirit has gone to 
 make its airy rounds." 
 
 Richerand observes, " the exciting causes to which our organs 
 
320 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 are subject during the day, tend progressively to increase their 
 action. The throbbings of the heart, for instance, are more fre 
 quent at night than in the morning : and this action gradually 
 accelerated, would soon be carried to such a degree of activity as 
 to be inconsistent with life, if its velocity were not moderated at 
 intervals by the recurrence of sleep." 
 
 The day emphatically belongs to earth : we yield it without 
 reluctance to care and labor. We toil, we drudge, we pant, we 
 play the hack-horse ; we do things smilingly from which we recoil in 
 secret ; we pass by sweet spots and rare faces that our very heart 
 yearns for, without betraying the effect it costs; and thus we drag 
 through the twelve long hours, disgusted almost, but gladdened 
 withal, that the mask will have an end, and the tedious game be 
 over, and our visor and our weapons be laid aside. But the night 
 is the gift of heaven ; it brings freedom and repose ; its influence 
 falls coolly and gratefully upon the mind as well as the body ; and 
 when drops the extinguisher upon the light which glimmers upon 
 the round, untouched pillow, we, at the same time, put out i; 
 world of cares and perplexities. 
 
 But for this wonted repose how .monotonous and wearisome 
 would life become ; not man alone ; but all nature would begin 
 to faint and die, like the seared foliage of autumn. This necessity 
 for periodical repose seems to be an essential law of all animated 
 life, with scarce a single exception. The feathered tribe cease 
 their minstrelsy as the shades of eventide spread over the face of 
 all things a type of sleep itself with its closed eyelids, all seek 
 their needed rest, as the poet sings : 
 
 " All but the wakeful nightingale 
 Who all night long her am rous discant sings." 
 
 The wearied sons of toil, as well as the pampered minions of 
 luxury, alike demand this quiet respite from the cares and business 
 of the feverish day. 
 
SLEEP AND ITS MYSTERIES. 321 
 
 " Come, with thy soft embrace, 
 
 Fair solace of a toiling race, 
 And hush the tumult of the heart to peace ; 
 Draw thy warm folds together, 
 Kiss me, thou dearest almoner, 
 And tell the storm that howls without, to cease. 
 
 Upon thy loving breast 
 
 Pale sorrow sinks to rest, 
 And thou art she who dries the mourner s tears, 
 
 Hushing the bereaved one s sigh, 
 
 And with thine own sweet melody 
 Lulling to kind repose the heart s unquiet fears. 
 
 How soft thy kind arms are ! 
 
 And like sweet Avarbling sounds afar 
 That steal upon the night s breath to the soul, . 
 
 Melting its fire to tenderness : 
 
 So, to thine own pure gentleness, 
 We yield as loving slaves to thy serene control." 
 
 Some indolent folk, however, are not content with the just lim 
 itation of Heaven with respect to the allotment of its indul 
 gence, they are for abridging the hours that should be devoted to 
 the duties of active life. Says Dr. Robertson: 
 
 " Habit influences, in some degree, the amount of sleep that is 
 required. It should be said, however, that it is never well to 
 withhold any of the revenue that is justly due to the drowsy god. 
 A man may accustom himself to take so little sleep, as to be 
 greatly the loser thereby in his waking moments. It may be 
 commonly observed, that those persons who spend less time in 
 sleep than is usually found needful by others of the same age, 
 and strength, and occupation, consume a much larger portion of 
 their days than others do in a kind of dreamy vacancy, a virtual 
 inactivity of mind and body." 
 
 The hours expended in sleep are not the only hours that might 
 be justifiably deducted from the sum total of the life, as having 
 been lost to it ; numbers of moments are daily spent in an abso- 
 
 14* 
 
322 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 lute inaction of mind and body, and sleep cannot be robbed of its 
 dues without adding largely, and in a greater proportion than the 
 time habitually stolen from the sleep, to that which is wasted in 
 such waking reveries. 
 
 In fact, sleep once in twenty-four hours is as essential to the 
 existence of mammalia as the momentary respiration of fresh air. 
 The most unfavorable condition for sleep cannot prevent its ap 
 proach. Coachmen slumber on their coaches, and couriers on 
 their horses, while soldiers fall asleep on the field of battle, amidst 
 all the noise of artillery and the tumult of war. During the re 
 treat of Sir John Moore, several of the British soldiers were 
 reported to have fallen asleep on the march, and yet they con 
 tinued walking onward. The most violent passions and excite 
 ment of mind cannot preserve even powerful minds from sleep ; 
 thus Alexander the Great slept on the field of Arabela, and Na 
 poleon on that of Austerlitz. Even stripes and torture cannot 
 keep off sleep, as criminals have been known to sleep on the 
 rack. Noises, which serve at first to drive away sleep, soon 
 become indispensable to its existence ; thus a stage-coach, stop 
 ping to change horses, wakes all the passengers. The proprietor 
 of an iron forge, who slept close to the din of hammers, forges, 
 and blast furnaces, would awake if there was any interruption to 
 them during the night; and a sick miller, who had his mill stopped 
 on that account, passed sleepless nights till the mill resumed its 
 noise. Homer, in the Iliad, elegantly represents sleep as over 
 coming all men, and even the gods, except Jupiter alone. 
 
 A remarkable instance of death, caused by want of sleep, was 
 recently reported by a British officer. It was of a Chinese mer 
 chant, who had been convicted of murdering his wife, and was 
 sentenced to die by being totally deprived of his necessary sleep. 
 This singular and painful mode of extinguishing an earthly exist 
 ence, was carried into execution at Amoy, under the following 
 circumstances : 
 
 The condemned was placed in prison under care of three of 
 
SLEEP AND ITS MYSTERIES. 323 
 
 the police guard, who relieved each other every alternate hour, 
 and who prevented the prispner from falling asleep for a single 
 moment, night or day. He thus lived for nineteen days, without 
 enjoying any repose. At the commencement of the eighth day his 
 sufferings were so severe, that he implored the authorities to kitt 
 him. 
 
 There are, it is true, many provoking causes that might be ad 
 duced in extenuation of the weakness ; such, for instance, as 
 excessive bodily or mental exertion, a very dry argument, an im 
 perfect state of health, or a very prolix and prosy preacher. 
 Some one of these inflictions may have beset the reader, who, 
 perhaps, has had to confess their somniferous tendency. There 
 are others, again, who, from the too free use of the knife and fork, 
 become, after their hearty repast, the unconscious victims of simi 
 lar narcotic influence ; these, however, ought to be treated with 
 little leniency, they should rather be subjected to a deduction from 
 the night s repose, in the exact ratio of the time they thus filch 
 u-om the day s active duties. There are others who enjoy their 
 quiet siesta in an easy chair with great relish ; the proems saves the 
 necessity of locomotion, and the trouble of divesting oneself of 
 our superincumbent drapery. This mode is not, however, exactly 
 orthodox, and therefore we need not weary the reader with any 
 common-place discussion upon it. Sleep has many vagaries, one 
 of which is the strange fancy everybody yields to, of throwing 
 one s limbs into all imaginable postures and fantastic attitudes in 
 bed : nobody ever thinks of passing a night with his body straight, 
 the oblique curvature, or semi-circular form, being far more 
 generally adopted. Sleep has been styled a type of death, but it 
 has its aspects of comedy and farce also. There are said to be 
 some who sleep with one eye open ; others with both, occasionally. 
 The story of the Irishman who took a small mirror to bed with 
 him, favors the conceit : he stated as the reason of his so doing, 
 that he wished to see how he looked when asleep. There are 
 some persons who sleep with their eyes open ; and a man may 
 
324 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 stand before another man in such a situation, with a lighted candle 
 in his hand, so that the image of that person who has the light 
 may be vividly depicted on the retina of the sleeping man ; but 
 does he see ? is he sensible of it ? No I This has been magni 
 fied into a wonder ; whereas, it only proves what Dr. Darwin long 
 since asserted, that sensation does not depend upon impressions 
 made upon the nerves, but upon actions excited in them. Arouse 
 the slumberer ; awake him that sleepeth ; bring in the natural ex 
 citement into his nerves and muscles, and he would exclaim ! 
 " Bless me ! how came you here at this time of night I" 
 
 What shall we say about snorers, those nuisances of drowsy 
 neighbors. They will most frequently be found to be those 
 who have failed to make "a noise in the world" in their waking 
 moments. 
 
 If there are few who sleep with their eyes open, there are 
 more who sometimes shut their eyes to open their mouth ; and con 
 sequently they generally cry out for water in the morning. We 
 had forgot, in speaking of such as divert themselves by curious at 
 titudinizing to refer to the great class of desperate kickers : those 
 strange bipeds who cold weather or warm will kick the clothes 
 from their bed, and who seem to suppose that the bed was de 
 signed for muscular exercise, instead of repose. 
 
 People fall asleep with more or less rapidity, according to their 
 constitutional pre-disposition to somnolency, and state of health. 
 There is one peculiarity connected with the phenomenon called 
 sleep, we refer to the fact that the very effort we make to induce 
 repose, invariably tends to prevent its indulgence, while the mo 
 ment we cease to make the effort, is the time when it usually over 
 takes us. 
 
 There is, moreover, something very mysterious about this appa 
 rent suspension of conscious existence ; indeed almost all we know 
 about this physiological mystery is of a negative kind, writers 
 on the subject finding it difficult to arrive at any satisfactory con 
 clusion as to its characteristics, or the nature of the physical 
 
SLEEP AND ITS MYSTERIES. 325 
 
 change in the nervous system by which it is produced. While 
 under its influence the will seems to be in a state of suspension, 
 both the imagination and memory often still retain their sway. 
 In the functions which serve for the support of life there is no 
 material interruption ; while the physical frame itself becomes 
 insensible, to a great extent, to external objects. Thought makes 
 excursions without limitation, and travels with wonderful velocity ; 
 and yet the voluntary functions seem powerless. 
 
 " Sleep," says Mr. McMsh, "produces rather important changes 
 in the system. The rapidity of the circulation is diminished, and, 
 as a natural consequence, that of respiration: the force of neither 
 function, however is impaired; but, on the contrary, rather in 
 creased. Yascular action is diminished in the brain and organs 
 of volition; while digestion and absorption all proceed with 
 increased energy. Sleep lessens all the secretions, with one excep 
 tion that of the skin. Sleep produces peculiar effects on the 
 organs of vision. On opening the eyelids cautiously, the pupil is 
 seen to be contracted; it then quivers with an irregular motion, 
 as if disposed to dilate ; but at length ceases to move, and remains 
 in a contracted state till the person awakes." 
 
 Whatever we may be left to guess about the nature of sleep, 
 the fact that it is a necessary part of our existence is abundantly 
 evident; and the more uninterruptedly we enjoy the peaceful obli 
 vion, the greater is the amount of recruited strength and vigor 
 we derive from it. It is during the hours of sleep that the elec 
 tric battery of the nervous system becomes replenished with invig 
 orated powers, and the body with renewed vital force. To ensure 
 the full immunities of refreshing slumber, two things especially are 
 requisite a regularity as to the time of its indulgence, which 
 should always commence an hour or two before midnight; and the 
 most rigid abstinence from "hearty suppers." "An hour s sleep 
 before midnight is worth two after," and the maxim is easily to be 
 verified and tested. It is according to the analogy of all nature, 
 and it is better to obey nature s law than to infringe it. The gay 
 
326 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 votary of fashion and folly, barter health aud real enjoyment for 
 a pallid cheek and wasted form, simply because the arbitrary 
 usage of polite life, in seeking to adopt some exclusive code, per 
 vert the order of nature, by converting the hours beneficently 
 assigned to repose to the fascinations of the ball, the theatre, and 
 the brilliant soiree. Such persons usually are not only late in 
 going to their bed, but late also in leaving it. 
 
 The habit of early rising is not only conducive to health, but it 
 has been as clearly shown to tend to longevity ; numerous 
 instances in proof of this are upon record. Some even carry the 
 practice to the extreme. Frederic II., King of Prussia, rose very 
 early in the morning, and, in general gave a very short part of 
 his time to sleep. But as age increased upon him, his sleep 
 was broken and disturbed; and when he fell asleep towards the 
 morning, he frequently missed his usual early hour of rising. This 
 loss of time, as he deemed it, he bore very impatiently, and gave 
 strict orders to his attendants never to suffer him to sleep longer 
 than four o clock in the morning, and to pay no attention to his 
 unwillingness to rise. One morning, at the appointed time, the 
 page whose turn it was to attend him, and who had not been long 
 in his service, came to his bed and awoke him. " Let me sleep 
 but a little longer," said the monarch; " I am still much fatigued." 
 " Your majesty has given positive orders I should wake you so 
 early," replied the page. " But another quarter of an hour more." 
 "Not one minute," said the page: "it has struck four; I am 
 ordered to insist upon your majesty s rising." " Well," said the 
 king, "you are a brave lad; had you let me sleep on, you would 
 have fared ill for your neglect." Dean Swift says that "he never 
 knew any man to rise to eminence who lay in bed of a morning;" 
 and Dr. Franklin, in his peculiar manner, further remarks, that 
 "he who rises late may trot all day, but never overtake his 
 business." 
 
 Perhaps the most concise rule for limiting the hours of sleep, 
 may be found in the following : 
 
SLEEP AND ITS MYSTERIES. 321 
 
 " Nature requires five, 
 
 Custom gives seven, 
 Laziness takes nine, 
 And wickedness eleven." 
 
 It requires some strength of resolution to turn out of one s 
 warm bed of a cold winter morning, it must be confessed : 
 we have, it is true, to argue the case in our mind, and then pre 
 pare for the encounter. The great danger, however, usually 
 consists in our entertaining the reasoning process to too great a 
 length, while comfortably ensconced beneath the warm bed cov 
 ering. Those too, who give advice on this matter, with the full 
 consciousness of its verity, are not unfrequently found among 
 delinquents in its practical application. Who would think, for 
 example, that Thomson was such an inveterate sluggard, who 
 exclaims in his Seasons: 
 
 " Falsely luxurious ! will not man awake ? 
 And springing from the bed of sloth, enjoy 
 The cool, the fragrant, and the silent morn, 
 To meditation due, and sacred song ? 
 For is there aught in sleep can charm the wise ? 
 To lie in dead oblivion, losing half the fleeting moments 
 Of too short a life ? Total extinction of the enlightened soul ? 
 Who would in such a glooming state remain 
 Longer than nature craves, while every muse, 
 And every blooming pleasure wait without, 
 To bless the wildly devious morning walk !" 
 
 Sir Thomas Brown, in a hymn he composed on the subject, has 
 the following lines : 
 
 " Sleep is a death : make me try, 
 By sleeping, what it is to die ; 
 And as at last I lay my head 
 Upon my grave, as now my bed, 
 Where er I rest, great God let me 
 Awake again, at last with thee. 
 And thus assured behold I lie 
 Securely, or to wake or die, 
 
328 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 These are my drowsy days ; in vain 
 I now do wake to sleep again. 
 come that hour, when I shall never 
 Know sleep again, but wake for ever." 
 
 Thus much for the subject of sleep: we now have a few things 
 to say on that of dreams. The phenomena of dreaming which 
 are so remarkable, and in some respects so inexplicable, "seem to 
 be a species of pastime or relaxation of the mental powers during 
 the temporary suspension or repose of those of the body. This 
 subject has engaged the curious speculations of writers of every 
 age; and various and conflicting have been the hypotheses deduced 
 concerning it. Dreams seem to have been the divinely appointed 
 media of communication in the patriarchal age, and it was doubt 
 less owing to these real events, that a superstitious veneration for 
 dreams has obtained in all times among the nations of the world. 
 
 The Greeks and Romans divided the action of the mind, in 
 sleep, into classes, the dream, the vision, the oracle, the insom- 
 nium, and the phantasm, of which the three first were supposed 
 to be divinely inspired. To such height had the superstitious feel 
 ing with regard to dreams arisen in Rome, in the age of Augus 
 tus Caesar, that this monarch procured the passage of a law, oblig 
 ing all who had dreamed any thing respecting the State, to make 
 it publicly known. 
 
 Campbell has some expressive lines on the subject, which we 
 quote from memory: 
 
 " Well may sleep present us fictions, 
 
 Since our waking moments teem 
 With such fanciful convictions 
 
 As make life itself a dream ? 
 Half our daylight faith s a fable, 
 
 Sleep disports with phantoms too, 
 Seeming in their turn, as stable 
 
 As the world we wake to view !" 
 
 Dreams are said to be in part a reflex of our waking thoughts; 
 
SLEEP AND ITS MYSTERIES. 
 
 yet while the imagination is allowed to indulge without the re 
 straint of reason, its wildest freaks, they present but rarely a true 
 transcript of reality. Says a recent writer on this topic: 
 
 " Dreams dispute with our waking thoughts, the empire of the 
 soul; and though the world may hang about that soul the fetters 
 of avarice, or surround it with the strong meshes of guilty habit, 
 the body s torpor relieves it of the checks and controlling powers 
 of its waking activity. Thus it conjures up its unsubstantial 
 pageants; the hopes and phantasies of untold aspirations take 
 unto themselves forms and fashions of beauty and reality, which 
 delude the sleeper for awhile, then give place to shapes as 
 shadowy and transitory as themselves. 
 
 " But over the pathway of our dreams pass visions of evil as 
 well as good. To the person of low principles, and a life conform 
 ing, they come in shapes that threaten and appeal. Lean over 
 the sleeping culprit, and watch his writhings, as he listens to the 
 accusations that come to him in his dreams; the dark deeds of 
 crime and profligacy which memory bring up before him in their 
 horrid array; then turn to the cradle of the infant, who smiles 
 while sleeping, to the angels that hover round and guard it. 
 
 "These dreams are the exponents of the soul s character, and 
 let us look well to our lives if we would have them pleasant." 
 
 We may here just mention, in passing, that Lord Brougham 
 deduces an argument from the phenomena of dreaming for the 
 mind s independence of matter, and capacity of existence without 
 it. This process of reasoning, however, has been deemed liable to 
 objections, since, upon the same hypothesis, the souls of some of 
 the lower animals, many of which are known also to dream, may 
 be immortal also. Without noticing the several philosophical 
 theories suggested by this mysterious condition of the mental func 
 tions, we shall simply enumerate a few brief facts and opinions 
 respecting dreams and dreamers which we glean from reliable 
 sources. The clearness of some person s nocturnal impressions 
 appear very remarkable, and even the reasoning and inventive 
 
330 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 powers are no less astonishing. Tims Condorcet is said to have 
 attained the conclusions of some of his most abstruse unfinished 
 calculations, in his dreams. Franklin makes a similar admission 
 concerning some of his political projects, which in his waking 
 moments, sorely puzzled him. Dreams are, according to physiol 
 ogists, akin to delirium. 
 
 Dr. Abercombie states, that there is a strange analogy between 
 dreaming and insanity; and he defines the difference between the 
 two states to be, that, in the latter, the erroneous impression being 
 permanent, affects the conduct ; whereas, in dreaming, no influence 
 on the conduct is produced, because the vision is dissipated on. 
 awaking. " This definition," says Macnish, " is nearly, but not 
 wholly, correct; for, in somnambulism and sleep-talking, the con 
 duct is influenced by the prevailing dream. Dr. Rush, remarks, 
 that a dream may be considered as a transient paroxysm of 
 delirium, and delirium as a permanent dream." 
 
 Dr. Winslow observes: " Lively dreams are a sign of the excite 
 ment of nervous action. Soft dreams are a sign of slight irrita 
 tion of the brain ; often in nervous fever, announcing the approach 
 of a favorable crisis. Frightful dreams are a sign of determina 
 tion of blood to the head. Dreams of blood and red objects are 
 signs of inflammatory conditions. Dreams about rain and water 
 are often signs of diseased mucous membranes, and dropsy. 
 Dreams of distorted forms are frequently a sign of abdominal 
 obstructions, and disorder of the liver. Dreams, in which the 
 patient sees any part especially suffering, indicate diseases of that 
 part. Dreams about death often precede apoplexy, which is con 
 nected with determination of blood to the head. The nightmare, 
 with great sensitiveness, is a sign of determination of blood to the 
 chest." 
 
 To prove that, in the sleeping state, the several senses and 
 organs often successively become dormant, and in a very unusual 
 degree, it has been alledged that a slight heat applied to the soles 
 of the feet will excite dreams of burning coals, fires, volcanoes, etc. 
 
SLEEP AND ITS MYSTERIES. 331 
 
 A person who had a blister applied to his head dreamed of 
 scalping by the Indians. Dr. Sniellie gives several facts with 
 regard to persons in whom dreams would be excited by whispering 
 in their ears. Dr. Beattie adds similar testimony. 
 
 The stomach has often considerable influence in producing 
 dreams: persons who have been deprived of their usual food 
 generally dream of eating. Baron Trenck, when confined in his 
 dungeon, and almost dead with hunger, every night in his dreams, 
 beheld the luxurious and hospitable tables of Berlin. The dreams 
 of persons who have been nearly starved to death are described 
 as being peculiarly brilliant and delightful. Byron, when in Italy, 
 with some of the authors of the liberal school, used to abstain 
 from food for some days, with a view to produce the same effect 
 on their imaginations. Opium and other soporifics produce 
 dreams; and it has been observed that the sanguine more fre 
 quently dream than the phlegmatic; and that the nature of the 
 dreams generally partakes of the temperament of the dreamer. 
 
 The dreams of those born blind are very curious ; and they 
 have much difficulty in describing the sensations they experience 
 during sleep. Dr. Blacklock described it thus : " When awake, 
 he could distinguish persons in three ways : by hearing them 
 speak, by feeling their heads and shoulders, or by attending, with 
 out the aid of speech, to the sound and manner of their breathing, 
 But in sleep the objects which presented themselves were more 
 vivid, and without the intervention of any of the three modes." 
 
 And not only are dreams affected by the state of the body, but 
 it is certain that the action of mind, when asleep, may have a 
 very considerable and permanent effect upon the body. Thus, in 
 1748, Archdeacon Squire read before the Royal Society an 
 account of the case of Henry Axford, of Devizes, in Wiltshire, 
 who, at twenty-eighty years of age, through a violent cold, became 
 speechless, and continued dumb for four years, until July, 1741, 
 when, being asleep, he dreamed that " he was fallen into a furnace 
 of boiling wort : this put him into so great an agony of fright, 
 
332 SALAD FOB THE SOLITARY. 
 
 that, he actually did call out aloud, and recovered the use of his 
 tongue from that moment as effectually as ever. 
 
 Bishop Sanderson quaintly thus moralizes upon dreams: "There 
 is to be made a lawful, yea, and a very profitable use, even of our 
 ordinary dreams, and of the observing thereof. Not at all by 
 foretelling particulars of things to come, but by taking from them 
 some reasonable conjectures in the general of the present estate 
 both of our bodies and souls." 
 
 Dreamland is one of the mysteries of sleep its domain is vast 
 and independent of time and space. In a moment the mental 
 vision leaps over broad seas and inaccessible mountains ; our 
 antipodes become our near neighbors, and the dead of by-gone 
 years, by some strange incantation, re-visit us. We run over a 
 life-story in a few seconds of time, and we seem to be invested 
 with the attribute of ubiquity thus we annihilate both time and 
 distance. Dreams are sometimes felicitous and sometimes ter 
 rific. Some foreshadow our earnest wishes, others our direst 
 fears and forebodings. Some are of a texture so delicate and 
 delicious, that we fain would surrender ourselves to their seduc 
 tive illusion, although conscious they are but ideal fancies. 
 
 The physiology of dreams, says Oilier, has puzzled the most 
 profound inquirers, who, after all manner of ingenious conjectures, 
 have left the subject just where they found it. Aristotle, Macro- 
 bius, Lucretius, Democritus, and other ancients ; and Wolfius, 
 Locke, Hartley, Baxter, etc. of the moderns, have speculated in 
 vain one theory having been uniformly upset by another. Phy 
 sics are fairly baffled and confounded in the investigation ; and 
 psychology is forced to acknowledge in dreams a mystery beyond 
 her solution : 
 
 " Physic of Metaphysic begs defense, , 
 
 And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense /" 
 
 Some notable guesses have nevertheless been made ; among others, 
 that life itself is but a dream, dimly and feebly heralding the reali- 
 
SLEEP AND ITS MYSTERIES. 333 
 
 ties to come. The high-priest of English mystics, Sir Thomas 
 Brown, discourses on dreams in his " Religio Medici," after this 
 fashion : 
 
 " There is surely a nearer apprehension of anything that delights 
 us in our dreams than in our waked senses : without this I were 
 unhappy; for my awaked judgment discontents me, ever whisper 
 ing unto me that I am from my friend : but my friendly dreams in 
 night requite me, and make me think I am within his arms. I 
 thank God for my happy dreams, as I do for my good rest, for 
 there is a satisfaction unto reasonable desires, and such as can be 
 content with a fit of happiness ! and surely it is not a melancholy 
 conceit to think we are all asleep in this world, and that the conceits of 
 this life are as more dreams to those of the next ; as the phantasms of 
 the night to the conceit of the day. There is an equal delusion in both, 
 and the one doth but seem to be the emblem or picture of the other. We 
 are somewhat more than ourselves in our sleep, and the slumber 
 of the body seems to be but the waking of the soul : it is the liga- 
 tion of sense, but the liberty of reason : and our waking concep 
 tions do not match the fancies of our sleep. At my nativity, my 
 ascendant was the earthly sign of Scorpius ; I was born in the 
 planetary hour of Saturn, and I think I have a piece of that leaden 
 planet in me. I am in no way facetious, nor disposed for the 
 mirth and gilliardize of company ; yet in one dream I can compose 
 a whole comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh 
 myself awake at the conceits thereof. Were my memory as faith 
 ful as my reason is then fruitful, I would never study but in my 
 dreams ; and this time also would I choose for my devotions ; but 
 our grosser memories have then so little hold of our abstracted 
 understandings that they forget the story, and can only relate to 
 our awaked souls a confused and broken tale of that that hath 
 passed. Aristotle, who . hath written a singular Tract of Sleep, 
 hath not, methinks, thoroughly defined it : nor yet Galen, though 
 he seems to have corrected it : for noctambuloes and night walk 
 ers, though in their sleep, do yet enjoy the action of their senses ; 
 
334 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 we must therefore say that there is something in us that is not in 
 the, jurisdiction of Morpheus ; and that those abstracted and ecstatic 
 souls do walk about in their own corpse, as spirits with the bodies 
 they assume, wherein they seem to hear and feel, though indeed 
 the organs are destitute of sense, and their natures of those facul 
 ties that should inform them. Thus it is observed, that men 
 sometimes upon the hour of their departure do speak and reason 
 above themselves. For then the soul begins to be freed from the 
 ligaments of the body, begins to reason like herself, and to dis 
 course in a strain above mortality." 
 
 But it is not so much in reference to the causes and general 
 nature of dreams, as to their supposed power of divination, that a 
 few words are devoted to them in the present pages. " We know, 
 pretty well now," says Horace Walpole, in one of his letters, 
 " that dreams which used to pass for predictions, are imperfect 
 recollections." Be this as it may, the oneirocritics, when baffled 
 in their attempts to establish any similitude between the " augu 
 ries " of sleep and subsequent or preceding facts, turn about, and 
 vindicate the prophetic character of dreams by dissimilitude and 
 contrariety. Thus, they are certain to be right, one way or the 
 other. 
 
 That many remarkable and well-attested dreams have been 
 reconcileable to after events, is beyond question night visions and 
 and night promptings which could not be explained by any theory 
 of connection of ideas, or "imperfect recollections," or revival of 
 associations utterly forgotten by the waking senses. On the con 
 trary, new images have been evolved in slumber, apparently point 
 ing towards future events, or seeming to convey awful warnings 
 against unsuspected dangers, or suggesting remedies for evils long 
 endured ; and numerous are the cases wherein results have been in 
 unison with the supposed augury. Almost every person has had 
 some such experience. Credulity, therefore, is seldom at a loss for 
 food. 
 
 Instead of assigning to dreams the character of divine interposi- 
 
SLEEP AND ITS MYSTERIES. 335 
 
 tions, Milton presents Satan as their prompter when, disguised as 
 a reptile, he instils his poison into the ear of the sleeping Eve : 
 
 " Him there they found 
 Squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve, 
 Assaying by his devilish art to reach 
 The organs of her fancy, and with them forge 
 Illusions as he list, phantotns and dreams." 
 
 " A belief in the prophetic power of dreams," says Dr. Pinker- 
 ton, " was universal amongst the ancients, and has been more or 
 less continued to the present time, sometimes even amongst per 
 sons of education. Thus, we occasionally hear of individuals 
 having had mysterious communications in their dreams, and events 
 prophecied to them, which have actually come to pass. That such 
 dreams have occurred, and do yet occur, we have no doubt, but 
 we must regard the fulfilment of them as being entirely the result 
 of accident : for, as Dr. Macnish observes any person who ex 
 amines the nature of the human mind, and the manner in which it 
 operates in dreams, must be convinced that, under no circumstan 
 ces, except those of a miracle, in which the ordinary laws of na 
 ture are triumphed over, can such an event ever take place. The 
 Sacred Writings testify that miracles were common in former 
 times ; but I believe, no man of sane mind will contend, that they 
 ever occur in the present state of the world. In judging of these 
 things as now constituted, we must discard supernatural influence 
 altogether, and estimate events according to the general laws, 
 which the Great Ruler of nature has appointed for the guidance 
 of the universe. If, in the present day, it were possible to con 
 ceive a suspension of these laws, it must, as in former ages, be in 
 reference to some great event, and to serve some mighty purpose 
 connected with the general interests of the human race ; but if 
 faith is to be placed in modern miracles, we must suppose that 
 God suspended the above laws for the most trivial and useless of 
 purposes. 7 " 
 
336 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 Shelley was a great dreamer, and at one time kept a record of 
 his dreams ; whether with a view to the so-called science of oneiro- 
 criticism, is not known. 
 
 Burton, author of the " Anatomy of Melancholy," who was a 
 pious clergyman, thus quaintly discourses, in many parts of his 
 book, against greedy credulity. "They that are superstitious," 
 observes he, " are still fearing, suspecting, vexing themselves 
 with augeries, prodigies, false tales, dreams, idle works, unpro 
 fitable labors ; as Boterus observes, curd mentis ancipite versan- 
 tur : enemies to God and to themselves. In a word, as Seneca 
 concludes, Religio Deum colit, superstitio destruit : superstition des 
 troys, but. true religion honors God." 
 
 Montaigne, also, an author whose wisdom has been recognized 
 between two and three centuries, is equally strong in denouncing 
 credulity and superstition. 
 
 "There yet remain amongst us," says he, "some practises 
 of divination from the stars, from spirits, from the shapes and 
 complexions of men, from dreams and the like, (a notable ex 
 ample of the wild curiosity of our nature to grasp at and antici 
 pate future things, as if we had not enough to do to digest the 
 present.)" 
 
 The most dismal of all night-noises one of which the ghostly 
 import is fully believed by scores of unreflecting persons but 
 which is among the most innocent things in the world, is the 
 " Death-watch." This curious sound has been held to announce 
 the speedy decease of some inmate of the house wherein it is 
 heard ; and overwhelming is the dread, and torturing are the 
 heart-throes, occasioned by the ticking of this supposed fatal 
 watch. Though natural history long ago declared that these 
 sounds proceed from a little harmless insect, hundreds of believers 
 still exist who refuse to be persuaded that the noise is not pro 
 phetic of the charnel-house. Even those who have been brought 
 to credit the fact, that the ticking in question is made by an in 
 sect, are reluctant all at once to abandon a gloomy notion, and 
 
SLEEP AND ITS MYSTERIES. 331 
 
 therefore affirm that the sound is still significant of death, for, say 
 they, it comes from a spider in the act of dying, and when the 
 ticks cease, the creature is dead. 
 
 Many intelligent persons are aware that this latter opinion is 
 equally erroneous with the former ; but as others may lack such 
 correct information, it might not be altogether superfluous to state 
 that the insect in question is not a spider, but "pediculus of old 
 wood, a species of termes belonging to the order aptera in the Lin- 
 naean system." It is very diminutive. 
 
 There are two kinds of death-watches. One is very different in 
 appearance from the other. The former only beats seven or eight 
 quick strokes at a time : the latter will beat some hours together, 
 more deliberately, and without ceasing. This ticking, instead of 
 having aught to do with death, is a joyous sound, and as harmless 
 as the cooing of a dove. 
 
 It is to be regretted that Science, to which we owe so many 
 blessings, so much of health, both bodily and mental, should 
 have made an inconsiderate compromise with Superstition, by 
 naming this lively and harmless little creature, "Mortisaga."* 
 
 Burton demonstrates the delusions of those who affirm that 
 they see, supernatural visions, and hear supernatural noises : 
 
 " That they see and hear so many phantasms, chimeras, visions, 
 noises, etc., as Fienus hath discoursed at large in his book of Im 
 agination, and Lavater de Spectris, their corrupt phantasy makes 
 them see and hear that which is indeed neither heard nor seen. 
 They that much fast, or want sleep, as melancholy or sick men 
 commonly do, see visions ; or such as are weak-sighted, very tim 
 orous by nature, mad, distracted, earnestly seek. Sabini quod 
 volunt somniant, as the saying is, they dream of that they desire." 
 
 Again : "As Nercatus proves, by reason of inward vapors, and 
 humors from blood, choler, etc., diversely mixed, they apprehend 
 and see outwardly, as they suppose, divers images, which indeed are 
 
 Oilier. 
 16 
 
SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 not. As they that drink wine think all runs round, when it is in 
 their own brain, so it is with these men ; the fault and cause is 
 inward. As Galen affirms, mad men, and such as are near death, 
 quas extra se videre putant imagines, infra oculos halent, >t is in their 
 brain, that which seems to be before them ; as a concave glass re 
 flects solid bodies. * * Weak gight and a vam persua _ 
 sioii withal, may effect as much, and second causes concurring, as 
 an oar in the water makes a refraction, and seems bigger, bended 
 double, etc. The thickness of the air may cause such effects ; or 
 any object not well discerned in the dark, fear and phantasy will 
 suspect to be a ghost, a devil, etc. Quod nimis miseri timcnt, hoc 
 facile credunt, we are apt to believe and mistake in such cases. 
 Marcellus Donatus brings in a story out of Aristotle, of one An- 
 tepharon, who supposed he saw, wheresoever he was, his own 
 image in the air, as in a glass. Vitellio hath such another instance 
 of a familiar acquaintance of his, that, after the want of three or 
 four nights sleep, as he was riding by a river-side, saw another 
 riding with him, and using all such gesture as he did ; but when 
 more light appeared, it vanished. Eremites and anchorites have 
 frequently such absurd visions and revelations, by reason of much 
 fasting and bad diet. Many are deceived by legerdemain, as Reg 
 inald Scot hath well shewed in his book of the discovery of witch 
 craft." 
 
 Again : " The hearing is as frequently deluded as the sight, 
 from the same causes almost : as he that hears bells, will make 
 them sound what he list." [Whittington to wit]. " As the fool 
 thinketh, so the bell clinketh. Theophilus, in Galen, thought he 
 heard music in vapors, which made his ears sound, etc. * * - 
 Cardan mentioneth a woman that still supposed she heard the 
 devil call her, and speaking to her ; she was a painter s wife in 
 Milan. Many such illusions and voices proceed from a currupt 
 imagination."* 
 
 Oilier. 
 
SLEEP AND ITS MYSTERIES. 339 
 
 In Hone s "Year Book/ 7 a story is related to the following 
 effect : Peter Priestly, a gravestone-cutter of Wakefield, in York 
 shire, desiring to finish the epitaph on a certain tombstone, left his 
 home one evening for the church, in which he was- permitted occa 
 sionally to work. Having arrived there, he set down his lantern, 
 and, lighting another candle, resumed his rather gloomy task. Mid 
 night approached, and still his work was not completed. On a 
 sudden, a strange noise, as of the utterance of " hiss 1" or "hush !" 
 startled him. He looked round, but nothing was seen not even 
 a bat, or owl, flitting athwart the upper darkness. 
 
 Recovering from his surprise, Peter concluded he had been de 
 ceived, and plied his chisel with fresh vigor. In a few minutes, 
 however, the ominous word was again audible. He once more 
 searched, but in vain, for the cause of so uncommon a sound; and, 
 being at length terrified, was about to quit the church, when a 
 sense of duty withheld him, and he renewed his work, which was 
 completed as the clock struck twelve. While, with downcast head, 
 intently examining the epitaph he had cut, the dreadful word, 
 "hush !" came louder than ever on his ear. Peter was now fairly 
 appalled. He concluded that he himself was summoned to the 
 grave that in fact he had been carving his own " Hie JACET." 
 Tottering home, he went to bed, but could not sleep. 
 
 Next morning, his wife, happening to observe his wig, ex 
 claimed, "0, Peter ! what hast thou been doing to burn all the 
 hair off one side of thy wig ?" 
 
 "Ah, God bless thee!" vociferated the stone-cutter, jumping 
 out of bed, "thou hast cured me with that word." 
 
 The mysterious midnight sound was occasioned by the frizzling 
 of Peter s wig, as it accidentally came in contact with the candle, 
 while he bent over his work ; and the discovery thus made, af 
 forded many a jest and laugh. 
 
 Somnambulism appears to differ from dreaming chiefly in the 
 degree in which the bodily functions are affected ; in the former 
 the will seems to control the body, and its organs are more suscep- 
 
340 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 tible of the mental impressions. The incipient form of som 
 nambulism shows itself in talking in sleep : this is sometimes a 
 dangerous disease, as occasionally the most important secrets are, 
 by the very party himself, involuntarily revealed which in his 
 waking moments he would reserve with especial care. The 
 second stage of the phenomena, from which indeed it derives its 
 name, is that of walking during sleep. Numerous remarkable 
 instances of sleep-walking are to be met with one of the most 
 singular of which we remember to have read, years ago was 
 that of a certain restless youth, who, so impetuous was he to obey 
 the impulse of his nocturnal vision, that he rushed from his bed to 
 the street, clad only in the usual drapery of the dormitory, and 
 was found pursuing his route in the London streets at midnight, 
 till some humane guardian of a policeman startled him from his 
 state of dreamy complacency, and remonstrated with him as to 
 the paucity of his apparel, etc. A remarkable case of somnam 
 bulism is related in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, concerning Dr. 
 Blacklock, whose accomplishments, as a poet and a clergyman, 
 though struggling from his early infancy with all the privations of 
 blindness, are well known to the literary world. This excellent 
 man had received a presentation to the living of Kirkcudbright, 
 and his settlement was" violently opposed. He became deeply 
 agitated with the hostility exhibited against him, and after dining 
 with some friends on the day of his ordination, finding rest 
 necessary for the restoration of his exhausted spirits, he left the 
 table and retired to bed, when the following extraordinary circum 
 stance occurred : 
 
 One of his companions, uneasy *at his absence from the com 
 pany, went into his bedroom a few hours afterwards, and finding 
 him, as he supposed, awake, prevailed on him to return again into 
 the dining room. When he entered the room, two of his acquaint 
 ances were engaged in singing, and he joined in the concert, 
 modulating his voice, as usual, with taste and elegance, without 
 missing a note or syllable ; and, after the words of the song were 
 
SLEEP AND ITS MYSTERIES. 341 
 
 ended, he continued to sing, adding an extempore verse, which 
 appeared to the company full of beauty, and quite in the spirit of 
 the original. He then partook of supper, and drank a glass or 
 two of wine. His friends, however, observed him to be occasion 
 ally absent and inattentive. By and bye, he was heard speaking 
 to himself, but in so low and confused a manner as to be unintelli 
 gible. At last, being pretty forcibly aroused by Mrs. Blacklock, 
 who began to be alarmed for his intellect, he awoke with a 
 sudden start, unconscious of all that had happened, having been 
 the whole time fast asleep. 
 
 Dr. Abercrombie relates some curious instances of persons 
 having performed literary exploits during a state of somnolency ; 
 among others he speaks of a certain member of a foreign univer 
 sity, who, after having devoted himself during his waking hours to 
 the composition of some verses, which, however, he had not been 
 able to complete, seems to have been honored with more success in 
 a visitation from his muse during his nocturnal slumbers ; for the 
 following night he arose in his sleep, finished his poetic perform 
 ance, and exulting in his success returned again contentedly to his 
 couch all in a state of unconsciousness. 
 
 Take another case, and it is the only one we shall cite : it is one 
 even more remarkable, and we might add a tax upon credulity 
 were it not given by so respectable an authority. It is that of a 
 young botanical student who resided at the house of his professor 
 in London ; and who was zealously devoted to his pursuit, having 
 indeed just received the highest botanical prize from a public insti 
 tution. One night, about an hour after he had gone to bed, hav 
 ing returned from a long botanical excursion, his master, who was 
 sitting in his room below, heard a person coming down stairs with 
 a heavy measured step, and on going into the passage, found his 
 pupil with nothing on him but his hat and his shirt, his tin case 
 swung across his shoulders, and a large stick in his hand. "His 
 eyes were even more open than usual," says the narrator, "but I 
 observed he never directed them to me or to the candle which I 
 
342 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 held. While I was contemplating the best method of getting him 
 to bed again, he commenced the following dialogue : Are you 
 going to Greenwich, sir ? Yes, sir. Going by water, sir ? 
 Yes, sir. 7 May I go with you, sir ? Yes, sir ; but I am going 
 directly, therefore please to follow me. Upon this I walked up 
 to his room, and he followed me without the least error in stepping 
 up the stairs. At the side of his bed, I begged he would get into 
 the boat, as I must be off immediately. I then removed the tin 
 case from his shoulders, his hat dropped off, and he got into bed, 
 observing, he knew my face very well, he had often seen me at 
 the river s side. A long conversation then ensued between him 
 and the supposed boatman, in which he understood all that was 
 said to him, and answered quite correctly respecting botanical 
 excursions to Greenwich made by the professor and hfs pupils : and 
 named a rare plant he had lately had, of which the superintendent 
 of the botanic garden had seen only one specimen in his life, and 
 the professor only two. After some further conversation, he was 
 asked whether he knew who had gained the highest botanical 
 prize ; when he named a gentleman, but did not name himself. 
 Indeed, was the reply, did he gain the highest prize ? To this 
 he made no answer. He was then asked, Do you know Mr. 
 
 , naming himself : after much hesitation he replied, If I must 
 
 confess it, my name is . This conversation lasted three-quar 
 ters of an hour, during which time he never made an irrelevant 
 answer, and never hesitated, excepting about the prize and his own 
 name. He then lay down in bed saying, he was tired, and would 
 He upon the grass till the professor came : but he soon sat np 
 again, and held a long conversation with another gentleman who 
 then came into the room ; when he again understood everything 
 that was said to him, to which he answered no less readily and 
 accurately ; sometimes uttering long sentences without the least 
 hesitation. After a conversation of about an hour, he said, It is 
 very cold on this grass, but I am so tired I must lie down. He 
 soon after lay down and remained quiet during the rest of the 
 
SLEEP AND ITS MYSTERIES. 343 
 
 night. Next morning he had not the least knowledge of what had 
 passed, and was not even aware of having dreamt of anything 
 whatever." Some find their wits much keener while fast asleep 
 than when " wide awake." " Mankind," says a quaint writer, 
 " are so generally indisposed to think, that such drowsy souls really 
 make the world a vast dormitory. The heaven appointed destiny 
 under which they are placed, seems to protect them from reflec 
 tion | there is an opium sky stretched over all the world which con 
 tinually rains soporifics." As this is the boasted age of progress, 
 sleepers will probably be aroused by the din of the locomotive, and 
 the world in its dotage at last begin to think. Undue indulgence 
 of sleep may cheat us of much of our brief life ; but the listlessness 
 of an undisciplined mind, may accomplish as great a wrong upon 
 us, and with as wily an artifice. 
 
 An admonitory paragraph from a recent homilist, and the 
 reader may dream over our dissertation, if found to be sufficiently 
 soporific : 
 
 " The mere lapse of years is not life. To eat, drink and sleep ; 
 to be exposed to darkness and the light ; to pace around in the 
 mill of habit, and turn the wheel of wealth ; to make reason our 
 book-keeper, and turn thought into an implement of trade this is 
 not life. In all this but a poor fraction of the unconsciousness of 
 humanity is awakened ; and the sanctities still slumber which 
 make it most worth while to be. Knowledge, truth, love, beauty, 
 goodness, faith, alone can give vitality to the mechanism of exist 
 ence ; the laugh of mirth which vibrates through the heart, the 
 tears which freshen the dry wastes within, the music that brings 
 childhood back, the prayer that calls the future near, the doubt 
 which makes us meditate, the death which startles us with mys 
 tery, the hardship which forces us to struggle, the anxiety that 
 ends in trust are the true nourishment that end in being." 
 
 Shakspeare says, " Our little life is bounded by a sleep :" it is 
 well, therefore, to yield ourselves to its activities in an earnest 
 spirit, that the respite of repose may be the sweeter. The Irish- 
 
344 SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY. 
 
 man who surrendered himself to the "sweet oblivious antidote," 
 must have understood the matter, for, on being asked the secret 
 of his enjoyment, he replied that " he bent his mind to it." 
 
 Here, then, gentle reader, we reach the terminus of our excur 
 sion among the by-ways of literature. We presented at the outset 
 the various edibles with which epicures delight to regale their 
 palate : and now, at parting, a " sleeping potion." Possibly our 
 progress may have been marked by many dull and drowsy pas 
 sages, we can scarcely hope to plead innocent to this trans 
 gression against good manners, yet, leaving our misdemeanors with 
 thy clemency and candor, we cherish the hope that if our efforts 
 have failed of imparting pleasure, they have at any rate been 
 unproductive of its opposite. 
 
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