>J
 
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 1J. ^ 
 
 ^
 
 Ex Libris 
 0. K. OGDEN 
 
 ESSAYS 
 
 SKETCHES OF CHARACTER, 
 
 BY THK r.ATK 
 
 RICHARD AYTON, ESQ. 
 
 A MEMOIR OF HIS LIFE. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED FOR TAYLOR AND HESSEV, 
 
 93, FLEET-STREET, 
 
 AND 13, WATERLOO-PLACE, I'Ar.L-MALL. 
 
 lcS25.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 fRI\Ti:r) BY THOMAS DAVISON, WHITEFRIAKS.
 
 tr^'- 
 
 PR 
 4044 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 Richard Ayton, the author of the following 
 essays, was born in London in the year 1786. He 
 was the fourth son of the late William Ayton, esq. 
 of Macclesfield in Cheshire, and the grandson of the 
 late William Ayton, esq. banker of Lombard-street. 
 He received the first rudiments of his education at 
 the late Mr. Revoult''s at Walworth, but upon the 
 removal of his father from London to Macclesfield, 
 in the year 1794, he was placed at the grammar 
 school of that town, under the tuition of the Rev. 
 Dr. Davies : here he was indefatigable in his studies, 
 and, by his own zeal and the friendly aid of his most 
 able and kind instructor, he became an excellent 
 Greek and Latin scholar. At this period of his life 
 
 a 2
 
 IV MEMOIR. 
 
 he distinguislied himself by his good sense, his 
 hiiniour, his copious flow of words, and his happy 
 selection of them; and these qualifications deter- 
 mined his father to educate him for the bar, and to 
 send him to college ; but the lamented death of his 
 father, and that of his grandfather, which took place 
 within a few months of each other, in the years 1799 
 and 1800, so diminished the resources of his family, 
 that the idea of sending him to college was relin- 
 quished, although the rest of the plan was retained ; 
 and it was thought advisable in furtherance of it to 
 send him for a year, to study the law under an 
 eminent solicitor at Manchester : here his industry 
 forsook him, and it is tolerably certain that he 
 reaped no professional benefit from this probation. 
 At the end of the year he came to London, and was 
 placed with one of our first special pleaders for two 
 years : but his dislike of the law gained ground daily, 
 and he passed his time in any way rather than in the 
 study of it. At the completion of these two years, 
 he became of age ; and as soon as he attained the 
 absolute control of his property, he quitted the 
 law and went to reside on the coast of Sussex, in
 
 MEMOIll. V 
 
 the vain hope of limiting his expenses to the small- 
 ness of his income. 
 
 A short time convinced him of the error of his 
 calculation, but did not alter his mode of life : he 
 continued to employ a portion of his time in great 
 bodily exercise, and devoted the remainder to an 
 extensive though desultory reading. In his youth 
 he had been ratlier a timid boy, and was supposed 
 by his brothers somewhat deficient in constitutional 
 courage ; but as he advanced towards manhood, a 
 moral courage had supplied this original defect ; 
 and during his residence on the coast he often 
 voluntarily braved the dangers of the sea in the 
 most fearless manner : frequently he went out in 
 boisterous weather on board one of the fishing- 
 boats, exposed of course to all the privations of his 
 hardy companions, and often passed the night in 
 alternately aiding them in their pursuits, and in 
 contemplating the beautiful or awful scenes by 
 which he was surrounded. He at length purchased 
 a boat sufficiently small to be managed by himself 
 alone, and in this he passed the greatest part of his 
 lime ; and by this means grew so well acquainted
 
 vi MEMOin. 
 
 with the southern coast, that more than once, when 
 in bad weather a distressed foreign ship has been oft' 
 the town where he resided, making signals for a 
 pilot, when none happened to be on shore, he has 
 launched his little skift' and gone to her assistance, 
 and carried her safe into her destined haven. On 
 one occasion he had nearly perished, for, having 
 spent some hours in fishing at a considerable distance 
 from the shore, he was overtaken near nightfall by 
 a violent storm blowing directly off" the land ; his 
 sail therefore was useless to him, and his utmost 
 exertions with his oars could barely keep him sta- 
 tionary : in this situation he remained for some 
 hours, till his strength decreasing, he found himself 
 fast drifting on to the Margate sands, the breakers 
 upon which every flash of hghtning disclosed with 
 terrible distinctness ! The imminent peril in which he 
 was gave him fresh energy, and for another hour 
 he struggled against the death which seemed to 
 await him, and which the smallest remission of his 
 efforts would have rendered inevitable, when a 
 change of wind relieved him from his danger, and 
 enabled him lo reach the shore about five miles
 
 MEMOIR. Vll 
 
 from his home, where lie arrived early in the morn- 
 ing in a state of extreme exhaustion. 
 
 The death of one of his brothers in the year 1811, 
 which distressed him deeply, occasioned a change in 
 his mind, and brought him to London, where he 
 passed nearly two years on a visit to a friend. He 
 could not, however, be persuaded to resume the 
 study of the law ; but in aid of his small income he 
 accepted a place in one of the public offices, the 
 duties of which were so monotonous, and the salary 
 so small, that he gladly relinquished it, and accepted 
 the invitation of Mr. W. Daniell, to accompany 
 him in his projected tour round the coast of Great 
 Britain for the purpose of writing an account of it. 
 He occupied two summers in this pursuit, and the 
 two first volumes of that work are written by him, 
 and from them some extracts will be found in this 
 volume. An alteration in Mr. W. DanielPs plan, 
 by which the literary portion of the work was to be 
 materially diminished, induced Mr. R. Ayton to 
 decline proceeding with it ; and he now turned his 
 attention to dramatic writing, and produced an ad- 
 mirable farce on the subject of Craniology; but
 
 MKMOIlt. 
 
 altliough it was supported by the great actoi* for 
 whom the principal character was designed, it was 
 rejected by the managers, from an apprehension 
 that the mass of the pubUc was not sufficiently ac- 
 quainted with the subject to give it a chance of 
 success. His next work was a farce called " Who 
 can I be?'' which was played one night at Covent 
 Garden with considerable approbation, but was not 
 repeated. His next farce, called " The Six Phy- 
 sicians," was played at Covent Garden, but did not 
 succeed. He afterwards produced a comedy and a 
 melodrame, neither of which was accepted by the 
 managers. He next presented to the manager of 
 the English Opera House some light pieces freely 
 translated from the French : two of them, " The 
 Rendezvous" and " The Ladies among themselves," 
 were eminently successful ; but the emolument he 
 derived from this source was so trifling as to de- 
 termine him to write no more for the stage. 
 
 About this time his health being considerably 
 impaired, he imagined that a short sea voyage 
 would be beneficial to him ; he therefore went by 
 sea to Scarborouirh : he remained there three
 
 MEMOIR. IX 
 
 months, and with recruited health and spirits pre- 
 pared for his return to London : unhappily, his 
 fondness for the sea made him overlook the late- 
 ness of the season, and determined him to come 
 back in the same way which had afforded him so 
 much pleasure a short time before, and accordingly 
 he took his passage in a merchant-vessel ; but the 
 ship proved leaky, the crew inexperienced, the 
 wind adverse, and the weather tempestuous. It 
 was nearly three weeks before he reached London, 
 and, during the whole of that time, the cabin in 
 which he slept was drenched by the seas which the 
 vessel shipped, and he himself was obliged for his own 
 sake to perform all the offices of a sailor, — and he 
 was, in truth, the ablest on board, and by his strength 
 and activity in cutting away the wreck of the foretop- 
 mast, he saved the ship from being wrecked. In 
 this service he either strained, or received a violent 
 blow upon one of his ankles, the consequence of 
 which was a wound which could not be healed, and 
 which growing gradually worse, at length confined 
 him to his bedroom for more than twelve months. 
 In the spring of 18^1 he was sufficiently recovered
 
 X MEMOIR. 
 
 to go by slow journeys to the coast of Sussex, and 
 there he regained the use of his ankle sufficiently to 
 walk without crutches; but his general health had 
 sustained a severe shock, and continued in a most 
 precarious state. During the last eighteen months of 
 his stay there, the essays which form this volume were 
 written, — they were written, therefore, under the 
 pressure of a most painful disease, and under the still 
 heavier pressure of mental anxiety, arising from a 
 firm belief that he should not recover. What might 
 not have been expected from such a mind under 
 happier circumstances ! In the month of July, 1823, 
 he became so much worse, that his removal to 
 London was absolutely necessary for the benefit of 
 medical advice : — he bore his journey without much 
 apparent fatigue, but his complaint gained daily 
 ground. 
 
 Immediately on his arrival he was visited by 
 Dr. Darling, who, with a liberality that characterizes 
 him, attended him unremittingly and gratuitously 
 at his lodgings. Shortly afterwards his health, for 
 some day.s, appeared to improve ; and there was lea- 
 son to hope that his spirits might rally, and his
 
 MEMOIU. XI 
 
 constitution recover its former strength. But a cold 
 which he caught soon after he had finished his beau- 
 tiful story of " Sea-Roaraers" frustrated all the ex- 
 pectations of his friends. He was obliged to take 
 to his bed, and in a few days breathed his last. 
 Dr. Darling visited him two or three times every 
 day ; and all that medical skill and kindness could 
 effect was done for him. But it was too late. The 
 system was too much debilitated by former attacks 
 to resist this, and he sank into the grave apparently 
 an old man at the age of 36 or 37. He lamented his 
 approaching death only as it prevented hm from ful- 
 filling the many plans he had formed of benefiting the 
 world, as far as he could, by his writings. His worldly 
 prospects had certainly nothing in them to make 
 him in love with life, and his views of death were 
 cheerful and serene. But still for the above pur- 
 pose, and for that alone, he wished to live. All 
 his plans however died with him, for not a leaf 
 of manuscript was found at his lodgings after his 
 death. How much he might have done, we have 
 the best means of judging from what he did. And 
 from a review of the essays in this volume, it will
 
 XU MEMOIJ!. 
 
 ap|x^ai- evident, that his power to instruct and de- 
 li<:;ht the world by his writings fell nothing short of 
 his inclination. 
 
 The character of Mr. Ay ton's mind was vigour ; 
 that of his disposition was enthusiasm. Upon every 
 subject, even the most trivial, he thought strongly, 
 •and felt deeply. This might, perhaps, have given 
 both to his writings and conversation a tone of 
 exaggeration ; but it also bestowed upon them a 
 livehness and force which compelled notice, and 
 generally drew admiration. It is impossible to read 
 a sentence in the next portion of this volume with- 
 out being struck with the originality of the concep- 
 tions and the energy of the language. Upon the 
 most common-place topics, which we should have 
 thought had been already worn thread-bare by 
 preceding writers, our author is novel and eloquent. 
 He sets his picture in a new light, and in a thou- 
 sand lights. He appears rather to find a difficulty 
 in rejecting than in raising new images. They 
 are not only abundant, but exuberant. So accu- 
 mulated, indeed, are the particulars of his descrip- 
 tions, that we might impute ihem more to labour
 
 MEMOIR. Xm 
 
 than to luxuriance of mind, if we had not known the 
 author. But his conversation and his most familiar 
 letters were of the same stamp. He spoke with 
 great fluency, yet with a degree of intense vigour 
 scarcely below that which is exhibited in his essays. 
 His letters also betray the same unpremeditated 
 strength of mind, the same involuntary enthusiasm 
 of disposition. We wish we could present our 
 readers with a few of these, but they are of too 
 personal and private a nature. 
 
 During his last illness at the sea-side he had been 
 much visited by a person whose opinions u}X)n sacred 
 subjects were strongly tinctured with infidelity, and 
 who had taken great pains to instil his principles 
 into the mind of his auditor. His effbrts, however, 
 it appears, produced quite a contrary result to that 
 which he had expected. The extravagance of his 
 doctrines led Mr. Ayton to examine minutely both 
 them and those to which they were opposed. He 
 had not before, perhaps, deeply reflected on the 
 subject of religion, but his illness, and the visit of 
 this man, had a most beneficial effect upon him. 
 Upon his arrival in Loudon some weeks preceding
 
 MKMOIU. 
 
 his death, he had bccoino a dctcM-niincdly religious 
 cliaracter. He was perhaps rather more enthusiastic 
 than he would have continued to be, yet his views 
 of religion were sound and rational. His piety was 
 the result of conviction, and his faith was supported 
 and approved by iiis reason. 
 
 It will be seen, from the Essays which follow 
 this brief memoir, that Mr. Ayton was a man of no 
 common powers of mind, and of a very unusual 
 goodness of disposition. They exhibit a never- 
 ceasing advocacy of the best principles of the heart, 
 the best affections of our nature ; a playful wit, and 
 an elegant fancy ; striking thoughts, vivid images, 
 and graphic descriptions : all expressed in language 
 at once copious and energetic. The genius which 
 pervades them must command our attention, as 
 the goodness which dictated them deserves our 
 approval.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 ON THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH IN THE YOUNG 
 
 AND THE OLD . . ... 1 
 ON THE DIVERSITY OF OPINIONS WITH RE- 
 GARD TO LIKENESSES IN PORTRAITS . 14 
 ON THE MORAL INFLUENCE OF ETIQUETTE 
 
 AND PARADE 27 
 
 OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS, AND "mR. MARTIN's 
 
 act" 43 
 
 OF EXAGGERATION AND MATTER-OF-FACT 
 
 PEOPLE . . . . . 65 
 
 ON HONESTY . . ... 84 
 
 ON HUNTING ... . 103 
 
 A SHIPWRECK . . . . . 142 
 
 ON BEAUTY, AND OTHER CONDITIONS OF FACE 167 
 
 ON FAME AND MONUMENTS . . 191 
 
 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR . 214 
 
 ACCOUNT OF A DESCENT INTO A COAL-MINE . 251
 
 ON THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH IN THE 
 YOUNG AND THE OLD. 
 
 The child is rich in hope, and longs to be a man ; 
 the man lias his treasures in memory, and wishes 
 that he had always been a child. We are all pleased 
 to look back upon ourselves as school-boys, and 
 recall, with a mournful tenderness, those thoughtless 
 happy days when we had masters to instruct us that 
 we were born to suffer and to die, but when the 
 feeling was, that we had life within us, whose prin- 
 ciple was enjoyment, and whose duration without 
 end. Whether our school-days are the happiest of 
 our lives is a contested question; but there can be 
 no doubt, I think, as to those of them passed out of 
 school. I have no great favour, I confess, for ma- 
 sters, and cannot conscientiously defend the agree- 
 ableness of lessons^ or the pleasing propriety of being- 
 flogged for not attending to them ; but the play- 
 ground ! and the holidays ! — no, there is nothing 
 
 li
 
 a ON Tin: sriuiT of youth 
 
 like ilicMn afterwards, — In cstimatinp; tlie Imppincss 
 of a school-boy, people are apt to think more of tlie 
 school than of the boy. — He is not happy in conse- 
 quence of being at school, but in spite of it. I may 
 incur some disgrace with elderly gentlemen, but I 
 shall have all the boys on my side, I believe, when 
 I admit, absolutely, that school is but a dreary 
 place : it is not worse, however, than the after- 
 schools in which men must learn to toil and suffer ; 
 while the boys have an advantage all their own, in 
 the unconquerable sportiveness of their age. On 
 this ground I am clearly disposed to conclude, that 
 school-days are the happiest of our lives. 
 
 How beautiful is that law of playfulness, which 
 governs the youth of all created animals ! How 
 glorious that short-lived era of the blood, when 
 school-boys, and puppies, and kittens, caper and 
 dance, by a sort of instinct, or necessity ! This irre- 
 sistible gaiety is not the result of superior health 
 and strength : it is the exulting spirit of mere life 
 in the newly born — an elementary joyousness, which 
 requires no aid from without, which is not excited 
 in them, but is a part of them. The child, in proof 
 of its being, might say, in the spirit of the philoso- 
 pher — I rejoice, therefore, I am. — We, whom years
 
 IN THE YOUNG AND THE OLD. 3 
 
 and knowledge have invested with the prerogative 
 of being serious, smile at the ecstasies of youthful 
 levity, with a sympathy moderated by contempt. 
 Poor, foolish creature, how ha})py it allows itself to 
 be ! Pleasant enough, we exclaim ; but, ah ! if it 
 knew what was to come ! We shake our prophetic 
 heads when we see the lambs frisking about us, and 
 think of mutton. 
 
 This triumphant sense of life has different degrees 
 of duration, according to varieties in moral and 
 constitutional temperament ; it may give way, before 
 its natural period, to the shocks of accident ; some- 
 times it is prolonged almost to that term which we 
 call our years of discretion ; and sometimes it bursts 
 out in brief transports through the gloom and the 
 cares of perfect reason and melancholy maturity. 
 Once in a way, in a spring morning, perhaps, a 
 gentleman of sober habits feels himself, on the first 
 taste of the air, very unaccountably disposed. — If 
 lie be in the country, he falls incontinently to rolling 
 in the grass, or takes to kicking his heels, or tries a 
 short run with a jump at the end of it, with other 
 caprices of motion, which have nothing at all to 
 do with getting on, and for which, very likely, he 
 heartily despises himself. He is soon relieved. His 
 
 b2
 
 * ON Tin: SPIRIT OF YOUTH 
 
 habitual feelings, and numberless little circumstances 
 of his daily experience, are at hand to quell his 
 roniping vivacity at a moment's notice. He feels a 
 twinge of the rheumatism, or recollects a bad bar- 
 gain, — and we see no more of his jumps. 
 
 For my part, Avhenever a fit of this sort of 
 coltishness comes upon me, I not only indulge in it 
 without remorse, but encourage it by all the means 
 in my power. Oh ! for the secret of commanding 
 such a spirit at all times ! the noble art of going 
 through life with a hop and a skip ! How grievous 
 it is that we cannot always be boys ; that we cannot 
 grow from three feet to six, without an absolute 
 change of nature ! Lady iVIary Wortley observes, 
 with her usual liveliness, " It is a maxim with me^ 
 to be vounc: as Ions: as one can. There is nothincf 
 can pay one for that valuable ignorance which is 
 the companion of youth ; those sanguine, groundless 
 hopes, and that lively vanity, which make up all the 
 happiness of life. — To my extreme mortification, I 
 find myself growing wiser and wiser every day."" 
 " ""Tis folly to be wise," is not a mere conceit. But 
 we can^ help it. The most limited experience of 
 life is sufficient to dispel the charming illusions of 
 iirnorance. — Everv dav, from the hour of our birth,
 
 IN THE YOUNG AND THE OLD. .5 
 
 takes from us some happy error, never to return. 
 The fugitive enchantments of our swaddling-clothes 
 are superseded by the frail wonders of short coats ; 
 these again we are soon taught to despise ; and so, 
 as we live, we are reasoned or ridiculed out of all 
 our jocund mistakes, till the full-grown man sees 
 things as they are, and is just wise enough to be 
 miserable. Ah ! a Jack -a-lan tern ! At this hour 
 of my sad maturity, I remember the throb of heart 
 with which I used to welcome this metaphysical 
 stranger ; how I chuckled and crowed, as my dazzled 
 eye followed him through the changeful figures of 
 his fantastical harlequinade. — What it was, or how 
 it came, it never occurred to me to inquire; it was 
 regarded simply as one of the delicious accidents of 
 life, sent on purpose to puzzle and to please. Soon, 
 however, a tender instructor broke in upon my sense- 
 less delight, and explained to me the cause of the 
 phenomenon. From that moment the sprightly 
 meteor danced and gamboled unheeded over my 
 head. — Who remembers, without regret, the ex- 
 tinction of his thrilling belief on the subject of that 
 grim couple in Guildhall, Gog and Magog? " And 
 do they really come down.?" Why ride in a coach, 
 when one is no longer convinced that the houses are
 
 () ON TIFF. SPIRIT OF YOUTH 
 
 runiiino- away alter one another on each side of us? 
 Wlio cares for Punch when he is nearly certain 
 that he is not alive? and what do we go to a play 
 for, after the time when we turned to mamma to 
 beg her not to let the man stab the lady? And 
 then the Man in the moon ! — not to mention the 
 precision with which you absolutely made out his 
 face! Can we forget that such things were, and 
 can we forgive ourselves that they cease to be ? 
 
 But if we regret the changes which time and 
 knowledge produce in the sights and sounds of the 
 physical world as they affect our young fancies, how 
 much more may we grieve for those which they 
 establish in our moral attributes, our passions, af- 
 fections, loves, and aversions! What a cost of 
 honest nature goes to make up a gentleman ! Talk 
 of teaching dogs to dance — what is it, compared 
 with the barbarity necessary to make a man, in the 
 common sense of the term, polite? There is a 
 politeness, the gift of nature ; but it has many awk- 
 wardnesses and simplicities of feeling, gesture, and 
 can-iage, which must be removed or refined before 
 it will pass current in the commerce of genteel life. 
 See the poor biped turning out his toes in the stocks ; 
 see him under the slow torture of elaborating a
 
 IN THE YOUNG AND THE OLD. 7 
 
 bow, and then trace him through all the heart-aches 
 of his moral drilling, that system of disguising, 
 cramping, twisting, and pinching, by which, inside 
 
 and out, body and soul Lord help us! what 
 
 have we done to deserve all this ? 
 
 The school-boy looks forward with rapture to the 
 time when, says he, " I shall be my own master." 
 Idle anticipation ! • His first essay, perhaps, as a 
 free agent, is in the critical business of love; Iiis 
 young heart burning for the realities of that tender 
 passion which he has doted on in the creations of 
 poetry and romance. He is informed, however, 
 that he must not love Miss Brown, for whom he is 
 really dying, because she is only beautiful and ami- 
 able — he must learn, nevertheless, he is told, to love 
 the ugly Miss Jones, because she is rich, with the 
 same sort of respect for his natural predilections as 
 was shown when he was formerly taught to swallow 
 rhubarb without making faces, like a man. He has 
 a sincere friendship for an old crony of his school 
 days, because he admires his talents and honours 
 his principles; but he must learn to give him up, 
 or see him at the risk of being disinherited, because 
 he is wickedly of a family opposite to his father in 
 political intercbtb and opinions. He has a just in-
 
 S ON TIIK SPIIilT OF YorTll 
 
 (liiinalioii against a certain patriot who sold Iiis 
 conscience for a place ; but he must learn to treat 
 him with respect, because who knows what may 
 happen. He is disposed to be on very easy terms 
 with an agreeable foreigner who falls in his way ; 
 but he must learn to be shy and distant, because 
 nobody knows him : while he must go premedi- 
 tatedly to dine with IMr. Crump, notorious only for 
 his dulness, because, in fact, he lives at the next 
 door but one, and is an old acquaintance. He 
 plays at whist, which he abhors, lest Mrs. Screw 
 should be out of humour ; drinks wine, which 
 always makes hira ill, because he is asked ; goes to 
 bed, when he is not sleepy, because it is eleven 
 o'clock ; and gets up, when dying for more sleep, 
 because it is time to rise; sits shivering with cold, 
 because it is June ; faints for want of food, because 
 dinner is not ready; or eats without hunger, because 
 it is ready; sees visitors who only annoy him, be- 
 cause they call ; and then annoys himself and them, 
 because he must return their visit ; goes out when 
 he would rather be within, because his horse is at 
 the door ; and stays at home when he is longing to 
 be abroad, because it is only noon, and nobody goes 
 out till two. And this is being his own master.
 
 IN THE YOUNG AND THE OLD. \} 
 
 No pity for simple nature, straight-forward will, 
 and comfortable ignorance. Learn — learn — is the 
 cry, — till we give up all we love, and bear all we hate. 
 While yet untaught and unpractised, how eager are 
 we to trust all that smile upon us ; to give all we can 
 to all that want ; to love and to hate as the heart 
 directs ; to speak what we think, and all we think ; 
 to despise all that is despicable ; to cherish those that 
 have served us ; to love our country for its own sake ; 
 and to love religion for God's sake ! But alas ! what 
 sad havoc do instruction and fashion make with these 
 native impulses and fresh desires ! Confidence must 
 learn to look about her ; charity, to listen to reason 
 and to self; love, how to keep a house over its head ; 
 hate, not to make faces ; sincerity, to hold its tongue ; 
 scorn, to be polite ; gratitude, to forget ; patriotism, 
 to get a place ; and religion, to be a bishop. 
 
 " Men are but children of a larger growth,"" might 
 be a high compliment to human nature — but, unfor- 
 tunately, it is not true. If old age could be re- 
 garded only as a condition of ripe infancy, it would 
 be full of attraction and endearment ; but, stamped 
 with the impress of the world, with all its tricks, its 
 shuffling wisdom and callous experience, it no more 
 resembles ihc open soul of childhood, than a sallow
 
 k) ON THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH 
 
 and wrinkled skin resembles the smootlmess, and 
 softness, and bloom of its smiling face. Once in a 
 century, indeed, one meets a man who may seem to 
 make out the vision of the poet — one who has borne 
 the shock of conflicting interests and passions, un- 
 taught, or at least unchanged ; who has pushed his 
 way through the crowd of this villanous world, and 
 yet, m every respect of moral simplicity, still wears 
 his bib and tucker and eats with a spoon. Such a 
 person makes but a bad figure " on Change," and 
 would be out of all decent costume at court. He is 
 much too young for the law, and not quite old enough 
 for the churcli. It is not impossible that you miglit 
 find him among the curates; but never think of 
 looking for him in a wig. I have known one in- 
 dividual of this description, and only one ; a joyous 
 baby of threescore, with whom I once went a bird- 
 nesting in company with his grand-children. It 
 was in a spring morning, early, when the dew still 
 sparkled on the grass, and all nature was an image 
 of youth and freshness. The gi-ey head of my com- 
 panion might be considered a little out of season ; 
 but his cheerful eye, his lively talk, and ready laugh, 
 were in perfect keeping Avith the general scene. 
 Time had set his mark upon him ; but, like an old
 
 IN THE YOUNG AND THE OLD. 11 
 
 thorn, he blossomed to the last. Age had stiffened 
 his joints, and hardened his sinews ; but his affections 
 were still full of spring and flexibility. He could 
 not exactly play at leap-frog ; but he could still stand 
 and look on with wonderful agility. I would not 
 have these considered as the happiest instances of his 
 childishness. The simpleton, after sixty winters, 
 was still warm-hearted and disinterested ; had still 
 faith in the natural kindliness of man ; and an im- 
 moveable conviction, that to do good was to be happy, 
 and to be happy, the end of his living. He was not 
 ignorant of the use and the power of money ; but 
 somehow or other, it was seldom connected in his 
 mind with anymore dignified associations than bulPs- 
 eyes and sugar-balls ; and he never could be brought 
 to admit, by any force of calculation, that it was a 
 component part of love and friendship. lie had 
 many other peculiarities, which he cherished with a 
 reference to his own feelings, rather than the opinion 
 of the world. He had a shocking habit of lauehinsr 
 at grave faces, and at all sorts of gravities not 
 founded in sincerity. He could look sad, and be 
 sad, at a tale of distress, and had a laugh always ripe 
 for a joke, or even the intention of one ; but the 
 artifices of affectation, mere physiognomical solem-
 
 12 ON Tin; sriKiT of yoi'Tii 
 
 iiity, or a smile discovering more teelli than ])lea- 
 santrv, excited in liim no kind of emotion. His 
 sister, who, in relation to him, was altogether of the 
 Antipodes, was perpetually oppressing him with 
 the remark, — " Brother, you ought to know better." 
 But, poor man, he never improved — like all children, 
 lie was very impatient of leading-strings, and would 
 be running alone though he got many a bump on 
 the liead for his pains. He died, I grieve to say, a 
 martyr to a game at nine-pins. 
 
 Such characters, according to my observation, 
 are among the rarest in the motley crowd of man- 
 kind. An " old buck," and an " old boy,"" are 
 common phrases ; but they apply rather to a system 
 of blood and juices, than to any moral distinctions. 
 A fine " old hoy^ is one somewhat shrunk, perhaps, 
 in the legs, and a little protuberant in the belly, but 
 active withal — who wears buckskins — is carnivorous, 
 — no flinchcr from the bottle, and can walk up 
 stairs without touching the banisters. I by no 
 means wish to undervalue the merits of such a per- 
 son. It is said of him, " that he wears sui-prisingly 
 well,"''' as one says of a pair of boots ; and that, let 
 me tell you, is something. The " old boy,''' how- 
 ever, whom I desiderate, is quite of another de-
 
 IN THE YOUNG AND THE OLD. 13 
 
 scription ; he would answer better, perhaps, to the 
 world's denomination of an oJdJvol; one whom a 
 knave might cheat, or a hypocrite over-reach, some- 
 what more easily than they could practise upon 
 other people; and with whom they might have 
 gained all their ends, fairly and openly, by trusting 
 to that benevolence which was as little able to deny 
 as to suspect. The Vicar of Wakefield, when he 
 suffered himself in his wisdom and experience to be 
 cheated out of his horse by the cosmogony man, 
 was certainly an old fool. His son Moses had the 
 excuse of youth, and the fatalism of his thundcr- 
 and-lio'htnino; great coat — but the great Monoga- 
 mist — what shall we say for him ? This same vicar, 
 indeed, is a delicious example, in all respects, of the 
 kind of old boy so much the object of my love and 
 respect ; and as I have mentioned him, I will leave 
 the associations inseparable from his name to perfect 
 and embellish for me the character that I have been 
 aiming to illustrate.
 
 ON THE DIVERSITY OF OPINIONS 
 
 WITH REGARD TO LIKENESSES 
 
 IN PORTRAITS. 
 
 When a portrait-painter has once advanced to the 
 merit or fortune of being fashionable, his labours 
 are smooth and pleasant enough. He paints with a 
 name, and is admired by law. The question with 
 his patrons is not, a head of an acquaintance, or 
 a whole-length of a friend ; but a portrait by Mr. 
 Varnish. He looks his sitters in the face with con- 
 fidence, neither confounded by beauty, nor intimi- 
 dated by ugliness. He commits to canvas the exact 
 pig''s-head of a certain nobleman without offence, 
 and copies out the eyes of the lovely countess as 
 much to her satisfaction as her glass. " AVho is 
 that .'"' you ask — pointing to the head of a man, or 
 a woman, or a child. " That is Mr. Varnish,"" you 
 hear, and there can be no further question. 
 
 It is a very different sort of business, however,
 
 ON THE DIVERSITY OF OPINION'S, &C. 15 
 
 with the less favoured professors of the art, with 
 those who are required to make hkenesses as well as 
 portraits. To transcribe literally the most im- 
 practicable countenances, to fulfil the expectations 
 of fastidious beauty, to pacify the alarms of captious 
 ugliness, to satisfy the partialities of blind or mi- 
 croscopic affection, and finally, to conciliate unani- 
 mity among the most obstinate elements of disagree- 
 ment, are tasks requiring no common degree of skill, 
 fortitude, and patience. There is no subject, per- 
 haps, on which opinion runs into more unreasonable 
 variations and caprices, than on this of likenesses in 
 portraits ; a fact which is the more extraordinary, 
 seeing; that the matter is referable to definite rules 
 and certain grounds of comparison. We may allow 
 people to differ as they please, whether Miss Juliet 
 is as handsome as her cousin, or whether blue eyes 
 are more beautiful than black. These are points, 
 interesting as they may be, of mere taste and fancy, 
 not to be controlled by any law, test, or measuz-e. 
 But the infinity of the Alderman's mouth, and the 
 bulk and bearings of his nose, are questions of 
 geometry, determinable with as much precision a& 
 the width of the Thames, or the prominence of 
 Beachy Head. Nevertheless, commit these objects
 
 1() ON THF. niVRltSITV OF OPINIONS WITH 
 
 to p.'ipcr ill their just proportions — ay, even to an 
 ineli, and vou shall find not two of his acquaintance 
 asrree to recognise in them their friend the Alderman. 
 The fact is, that eyes, nose, and mouth, are among 
 the least important marks from which many persons 
 derive their impressions of certain faces. Strangers, 
 indeed, naturally judge from these great cardinal 
 signs, and they judge alike. Those who know 
 nothing of a man but his face will very readily con- 
 cur in one verdict on his likeness, if an artist do but 
 tolerable justice to the broad forms and arrangement 
 of his features. Of the fifty thousand people who 
 look upon Mr. Stock, as he walks from his house 
 to the Exchange, there will not probably be three 
 who see any thing in his face but a pair of red eyes, 
 and a strange, lawless mouth, kept open by a sort 
 of tusks instead of teeth. With the multitude, 
 
 Miss A is invariably an elderly gentlewoman, 
 
 sallow, and squinting a little ; while Mr. C is, 
 
 without exception, a plain, black-looking man, with 
 a hook nose. These individuals, however, bear a 
 very different aspect in the estimation of their friends. 
 
 In several parts of Northamptonshire, Miss A 
 
 Is said to be still pretty ; and that lady herself, with 
 all her experience, wonders at nothing so much as to
 
 REGARD TO LIKENESSES IN PORTRAITS. 17 
 
 hear people call Mr. C plain. In countenances 
 
 with which we are very familiar, we often perceive a 
 variety of minute and indefinable casts of expression, 
 many hints and shadows of meaning, spirit, or af- 
 fection, that are hidden from a hasty or indifferent 
 observer. " That is the best part of beauty,"" says 
 Lord Bacon, " which a picture cannot express, — no, 
 nor a first sight of the life." These deep secrets, 
 these intimacies of the countenance, if I may call 
 them so, have nothing to do with its grosser attri- 
 butes, as a thing of eyes, nose, and other features — 
 yet, being connected frequently with certain cha- 
 racteristic peculiarities of understanding, temper, 
 and feeling, they are inseparably blended with all 
 our thoughts and knowledge of an individual, and 
 we consider them indispensable in any portrait that 
 assumes to be a just representation of him. Hence 
 spring all the anxieties and perplexities of the un- 
 fortunate artist. It is his fate to please nobody, be- 
 cause he fails to seize upon with precision, not the 
 plain elements of which every head is composed, but 
 those mysterious lineaments, and fragile looks, which 
 no one pretends to define or explain, but which all 
 concur in understanding as indescribable " some- 
 things," "nameless what shall we call Vm," "jc ne
 
 is ON Tiir. oiVF.nsiTv of opinions with 
 
 serais tiuoi's,"" with other loose definitions which, 
 whatever they may be, are certainly not amenable 
 to brush and canvas. He may make a perfect copy 
 of all that he sees, and all that the whole world sees, 
 in a face ; and yet meet with nothing but dissatis- 
 faction and abuse on the part of his employer, be- 
 cause he has omitted to notice some unutterable 
 piece of fancy-work, the sign perhaps of a moment, 
 perceptible only by two people on earth, and by them 
 only at chosen periods, probably, when it pleases the 
 gentleman to pvit on some unimaginable description 
 of smile. He may effect all that in the nature of 
 things he can reasonably contend or hope for, and 
 yet reap nothing but disappointment. — " Yes," a 
 lady will say, " I freely admit all that you contend 
 for — the eyes are like, and the nose, and the mouth, 
 and the chin — I cannot deny it — the hair too, and 
 the shape of the head, are to the life — and yet, alto- 
 gether, I can — not look at that face, and fancy it my 
 husband.*'"' 
 
 The artist may derive some comfort in his dis- 
 graces, when he remembers, that there is no more 
 unanimity on the subject of living likenesses, than 
 on the essays of his art. The grounds of difference 
 are the same in either case. Every observer is either
 
 REGARD TO LIKENESSES IN PORTRAITS. 19 
 
 blind to what others see, or sees something that 
 escapes their notice. You think that the Admiral 
 is the very picture, in vulgar phrase, of his brother, 
 but, rely upon it, you will find no one else that sees 
 the slightest resemblance between them. You know, 
 and will readily admit, that the faces of the two have 
 in every feature a distinct form and character ; but 
 are ignorant, it may be, that their perfect resem- 
 blance is made out in your eyes merely by a slight 
 movement of the head in talking, which they have 
 in common, and which nobody but yourself has 
 taken the trouble to make himself familiar with. 
 The human face has often been compared to a book, 
 and, among other resemblances, it is in the same 
 manner liable to be so encumbered with the " notes 
 variorwn,'''' so disguised by new readings, and curious 
 analysis, that Nature herself might fail to know 
 her own work, in the representations of her com- 
 mentators. What an infinite vai'iety of opinions and 
 feelings there is about the face of the beautiful Miss 
 
 M on the part of the crowd that see and adore 
 
 her. They all agree as to the quality of her com- 
 plexion, the colour of her eyes, and the shape of her 
 nose and mouth ; but, among these palpable glories 
 of her face, each has some secret idol — some pet 
 
 c2
 
 '20 ON THE DIVERSITY OF OPINIONS WITH 
 
 enchantment, which his own pecuhar eyes have dis- 
 covered — a something amounting almost to a look, 
 perhaps ; an inexpressible kind of half-closing of — 
 not both eyes — and yet not altogether of only one ; 
 a segment of some unprecedented sort of smile — 
 particularly on the left side of the mouth ; a dropping 
 of the eyebrows — no— not a frown, nor any thing 
 like it ; a movement of the chin, observable only 
 when the mouth is neither open nor shut ; and other 
 exquisite diversities, which an artist might overlook, 
 but which each proprietor thinks absolutely essential 
 to the perfect loveliness of his mistress. In such a 
 case, what is an unfortunate limner to do ? There 
 is some reason in insisting upon the utmost fidelity 
 and nicety of imitation, as far as relates to every thing 
 that you can positively swear to in a face, of a sub- 
 stantive form, however minute, whether of flesh and 
 blood, or bone, or gristle, or horn. I would hold 
 out to the end of time for an eloquent wart, and 
 would as soon give up my life as a favourite mole; 
 but for such phantasies and idealisms as looks or half- 
 looks, and smiles of all descriptions and degrees, no 
 man can equitably be responsible. 
 
 The greatest pei-plexities to which a portrait- 
 painter is exposed, spring, not so much from those
 
 REGARD TO LIKENESSES IN PORTRAITS. "i 
 
 with whom he is principally concerned, as from a 
 crowd of monitors, at once indifferent and officious, 
 wlio make it a duty to call upon the portraits of their 
 acquaintance, and pass sentence upon them before 
 their suspension. He must produce a likeness, that 
 not only the person most interested shall consider 
 perfect, but which all the friends of that person shall 
 combine to pronounce a full transcript of all the nice 
 whims and delicate pretensions, which they may feel 
 or feign on the subject. He paints a portrait, for 
 example, of a lady's daughter, and is happy to hear 
 the mother admit, that he has done all she could 
 desire. This reward, poor man, iscruelly treacherous 
 and transitory. The lady, in the fulness of her sa- 
 tisfaction, sends all her friends to admire the portrait; 
 each of whom — or how could he be a friend ? — points 
 out some distinct defect, but for which the likeness 
 had been complete. However contradictory in their 
 suggestions, the lady attends to them, one by one, 
 with great candour; and day after day, as her diffi- 
 culties arise, repairs to lay them at the door of the 
 persecuted painter. " I am sorry, sir," so she salutes 
 him, " that I am come to find fault." '"■ Fault ! ma- 
 dam," replies the artist — *' you may remember that 
 but yesterday, — " " Yes — yes," interposes the lady,
 
 ':22 ON THE DIVERSITY OF OPINIONS WITH 
 
 " that's very true — but, upon consideration, I must 
 think there wants a Uttle more colour — though that's 
 not what I mean neither. My daughter has a de- 
 scription of bloom — not what we understand by 
 colour — nor yet pale by any means — a something 
 very difficult to explain, or to paint, I dare say, but 
 which Mr. BroAvn very justly thinks more charac- 
 teristic of ray daughter's style of beauty, than any 
 other property of her face." The artist does some- 
 thing or nothing, and the lady is again satisfied ; but 
 only in consideration of having set her heart upon 
 some new objection of equal importance. " Just the 
 thing," she now observes, — " the very tint of nature. 
 Mr. Brown, I am sure, will be quite easy now — the 
 colour is exact — but the eyes, sir, the eyes, — there 
 certainly is somethmg- wanting there." " Upon my 
 word, madam," says the artist, " I do not perceive 
 the defect." " Nay, now do look again," continues 
 the lady ; " I don't want them too brilliant, and I 
 would not for the world have them dull. My 
 daughter, without doubt, has black, sparkling eyes — 
 but at the same time, (with an expression between 
 laughing and A\eeping) a kind of gay melancholy — 
 you understand me, — a sort of — of — the French now 
 would tell you what I mean in a moment : it is 6U7iic-
 
 REGARD TO LIKENESSES IN PORTRAITS. U'o 
 
 thing that one does not often see — and vvhicli, Mrs. 
 Smirk assures me, is the thing of all others which 
 makes my daughter's eyes so charming." The artist 
 alters again — and so he goes on, quite in opposition 
 to his own judgment and feeling, the blind drudge 
 of unintelligible criticism, till he has entirely ruined 
 the picture in his own estimation, affronted the lady 
 past all colouring, and made enemies of the whole 
 host of her friends, on a thousand grounds of irre- 
 concileable contradiction. 
 
 These are no common hardships, we must allow ; 
 yet how provide a remedy ? I am at a loss what to 
 propose. In the first instance, an artist might fairly 
 claim that his labours should be subjected to only 
 conceivable principles, and practicable regulations. 
 Further — if in the production of a portrait, he suc- 
 ceed in satisfying one — and one million — he should 
 be considered independent, I think, of an interme- 
 diate forty or fifty, the formidable band of friends, 
 all conspiring to differ from him and from each other. 
 Having conciliated the agreement of all cursory ob- 
 servers, and the severer judgment of any single in- 
 timate, it may be pronounced of him, that he has 
 completed as perfect and comprehensive a likeness 
 as can be expected from human art — though I by
 
 ^i4 ON THE DIVERSITY OE OPlMON^> WITil 
 
 no means profess to despise those profound and ex- 
 clusive detections, which induce Mrs. Tomkins and 
 Mr. Simpson to think, as they say, for themselves ; 
 that is, to overlook what is plain to all eyes but their 
 own. In spite of general rules, and the clearest de- 
 finitions, people will indulge in these deviations and 
 caprices ; and, whatever partial inconveniences may 
 resvilt from them, they are, upon the whole, very 
 beneficial to the comfort and concord of society. 
 It would be a sad thing if all faces were to be be- 
 holden, by all, in the same point of view ; if there 
 were no partial versions, by which "lack lustre- 
 eyes," wide mouths, and red noses, could be brought 
 together, in the tender relation of lovers, and the 
 useful connexion of husbands and wives. As more 
 than half the world must, conscientiously and in 
 strict law, be accounted ugly, how consoling it is that 
 the phancy of taste and opinion on this subject can 
 so qualify the most positive institutions — so limit 
 and extenuate the most stubbora facts of the human 
 face, as to supply a ready evasion from this apparent 
 rigour of destiny. The ugliest may take comfort from 
 the persuasion, that in some corner of the kingdom, 
 there is an individual — perhaps more than one — 
 A\ ho could not only look at him and forgive him, but
 
 REGARD TO LIKENESSES IN PORTRAITS. ^5 
 
 discover something, in all that is most exceptionable 
 and mal a propos in his countenance, with power to 
 captivate and endear. Let any one look around at 
 the numerous fond couples of his acquaintance, who 
 are peacefully smiling in each other's faces, in de- 
 fiance of realities and the common verdict of man- 
 kind, and he must acknowledge, that beauty is but a 
 name, and ugliness a chimera. In effect there are no 
 such things. Poetry, and novels and romances, have 
 made a certain combination of auburn hair, blue eyes, 
 Greek noses, and pearl teeth, an indispensable part 
 of the materiel of true love ; but, in the commerce 
 of the living world, this is all sheer nonsense. De- 
 pend upon it that, in spite of arbitrary standards, 
 there is no one so ugly who has not his oglings, his 
 amorous looks, and languishing smiles — and that 
 somebody or other has the heart to relish and return 
 them. Nay, beauty itself chooses ugliness for its 
 mate, without thinking it ugly. Look at Mr. and 
 
 Mrs. P . How balsamic is such an union to us 
 
 that are ugly ! I mean not to utter a word in dis- 
 paragement of beauty — but I see no harm in extend- 
 ing its empire by multiplying its attributes. A man 
 may have a just sense of all that is essentially, and 
 by universal assent, most lovely — and yet, under
 
 .'2(i ON THE DIVERSITY OF OPINIONS, &C. 
 
 some inexplicable illusion, fix his own final ciioicc 
 upon features that no one thinks agreeable but him- 
 self. He may make his quotations from twenty 
 established belles, drink to the tyranny of all the 
 reigning toasts — and then go and surrender up his 
 soul for ever, to a mouth charmingly awry, and teeth 
 divinely not in rows. This is as it should be. By 
 such bye laws as these Nature elicits hannony from 
 the jarring elements of the world ; thus, amidst all 
 her seeming inequalities and inconsistencies, by a 
 series of kindly compensations, she assimilates all 
 conditions, and provides means for making every 
 one contented and happy.
 
 ON THE MORAL INFLUENCE OF 
 ETIQUETTE AND PARADE. 
 
 Some philosophers and declaimers, disgusted with 
 the vanities of poUte society, have conckided that 
 happiness and true dignity can exist only in the 
 savage state. Herein, I think, they are manifestly 
 wrong. There is an intermediate state, surely, be- 
 tween the opposite extremes of barbarism and extra- 
 vao^ant refinement, better suited than either of them 
 to the free and right exercise of man''s intellectual 
 endowments and natural aifections. Man was right, 
 it appears to me, when he betook himself to soap and 
 water ; neither is he without a respectable plea for 
 his use of combs ; nor can I, in my heart, think much 
 the worse of him, for declining to eat his meat either 
 raw or alive. In his moral conditions too, as well as 
 in his external circumstances, I can make many al- 
 lowances for his departure from some of the simpli- 
 cities of Otahcite. His emancipation from thievish
 
 28 ON TllK MOIIAI, INFLUENCE 
 
 propensities, for instance, may be borne wiili ; and 
 liis neglect of tlie " good old practice"'^ of knock- 
 ing young children or old persons on the head, when 
 considered troublesome or unnecessary, is, in my 
 opinion, absolutely commendable. These modest 
 improvements are within the verge of the interme- 
 diate state that I have mentioned; and no man, per- 
 haps, in clothes and his senses, would deliberately 
 condemn them. If there were no such state, how- 
 ever, and the question of preference lay between a 
 condition purely natural or savage, and the highest 
 degree of what we call refinement — between a wig- 
 wam and a palace, the Boshies-men and the hcait 
 monde — a man might hesitate in his decision, yet not 
 }ie mad ; or might finally turn from kings and their 
 courts, and give his choice to his kindred in the woods, 
 yet not be indifferent to the glories of human intel- 
 lect, and the charms of human love and kindness. 
 
 Coarseness is the besetting sin of uncivilized hfe — 
 while civilization in its excess degenerates into effe- 
 minacy, frivolity, and all the timid vices, headed by 
 their chief, hypocrisy. Now coarseness is by no 
 means incompatible with the highest attributes of 
 mind, and often enters even into the gentlest chari- 
 ties of our nature — not indeed without violence to
 
 OF ETIQUETTE AND PARADE. i29 
 
 the softness of their exterior forms, but without in- 
 jury to their vital pith and substance. We certainly 
 cannot say this of that combination of feebleness, 
 coldness, and affectation, however set off by polish, 
 which is the peculiar produce of " the best society." 
 The noblest creations of mind in poetry have 
 abounded with extreme coarseness ; and it has been 
 questioned, whether this quality, the result of an ir- 
 responsible boldness and freedom, be not in some 
 degree inseparable from the highest order of genius. 
 The rules which govern taste, it iias been said, 
 frighten invention; they make a man at once decent 
 and dull ; lead to a smooth and unerring mediocrity, 
 secure only of not giving offence, and at the same 
 time subdue all that has most power to yield delight. 
 Be this as it may in poetry, it is certain that, in the 
 conduct of life, a studious and exclusive attention 
 to refinement, with its small delicacies and critical 
 punctilios, invariably tends to reduce substance and 
 vigour, to cripple all freedom of action, and stifle all 
 warmth and alacrity of feeling. Asperities are re- 
 moved — coarseness is softened down ; but with the 
 same kind of consequences as attend the labours of 
 certain renovators of old pictures, who, offended by 
 here and there a speck of dirt, set themselves to
 
 30 ON TIIF. MORAL INFLUENCE 
 
 scrubbing and scraping with such resolution, that 
 dirt, and colour, and form, yield before them, and a 
 picture finally comes forth from their hands, smooth 
 and clean — and nothing else. 
 
 Man, to shelter himself from the cold, put on 
 clothing ; and, without stopping to inquire at present 
 how much he may have lost by this measure in power 
 and freedom of bodily action, as he gained something 
 in point of comfort and enjoyment, we will admit 
 that he did well. Having thus satisfied a plain ne- 
 cessity, he begins, under new influences of laziness 
 and leisure, to improve and refine ; makes a sort of 
 plaything of his dress ; converts it, without the least 
 regard to its original purposes, into a simple subject 
 of experimental decoration; pursues a continual 
 round of unmeaning changes, only because they are 
 changes, not adapting his finery to his body, but 
 forcing his body to be the servant of his finery, 
 turning it into a mere clothes-peg, — a convenient 
 kind of thing made to show off the beauty of red 
 cloth and shining satin. We admire all this, it is 
 true ; though it would be difficult to justify ourselves 
 for so doing to good taste — if taste has any con- 
 nexion with plain sense and common propriety. In 
 the matter of dress, taste would certainlv admit
 
 OF ET[QUETTE AND PARADE. 31 
 
 nothing tending to disguise the " fair proportions" 
 of the body, or to obstruct the ease, and grace, and 
 dignity, of its natural movements. We admire fine 
 clothes wherever we see them ; but purely on their 
 own account. We look with delight on a procession 
 of the nobility in their state dresses — a mere doting 
 on rlcli stuffs and gaudy colours — an idle adora- 
 tion of irrelevant velvet and impertinent feathers. 
 "We should admire them in the same spirit were 
 they hung with variegated lamps ; or could come to 
 the grace, I have no doubt, with a little discipUne, 
 of regarding with a pleasing wonder Knights Grand 
 Crosses, and commanders, rolling and ducking along 
 in the guise of " Jach in the Green.'''' I have heard 
 of a tribe of people in America, or somewhere, who, 
 being rather ill-provided with the ordinary manu- 
 factures that supply the magnificence of dress, help 
 out their poverty by borrowing from the more 
 costly and portable part of their household furni- 
 ture. Among them you shall see a dignitary, on 
 state occasions, covered, under pretence of shirt and 
 coat, with a miscellaneous load of crockery and 
 hardware — glittering and jingling in a musical attire 
 of tea-pots, spoons, warming-pan, and fire-irons. 
 Very pretty all this, I am ready to grant, in a bare
 
 82 ON THE MORAL INFLUENCE 
 
 view of ornament. I am maintaining only, tliat 
 such adventurous niceties are a})t to do violence to 
 qualities of far more importance than ornament. 
 AVc sneer at the naked savage, besmeared with tal- 
 low and ochre ; and his embellishments are certainly 
 coarse enough, ill-applied, and none of the sweetest : 
 but be it remembered that, simple and greasy as he 
 stands, he can run down a fox at a moment's notice, 
 or swim a river, or scale a precipice ; while a Knight 
 Grand Cross, in the full glory of his wardrobe, shall 
 scarcely perchance be able to walk without help. — 
 After all, simplicity is the prime element of all that 
 is truly great and lastingly pleasing. Whatever 
 the proprietors of silk breeches and cocked hats 
 may think of the matter, the naked figure exhibits 
 man in his most striking form of beauty and power. 
 I am not contending that every man out of his 
 clothes is an Apollo : it is enough for my argument 
 if it be admitted, that Apollo in a coat and breeches 
 would at once lose all his dignity and grace. 
 
 A scheme of torture, analogous to that applied 
 to dress, is extended by " the first circles" to all theii* 
 concernments. Their passions and affections, their 
 loves and friendships, are so encumbered with dull 
 rites and irrelevant forms, that they can scarcely live
 
 OF ETIQUETTE AND PARADE. 33 
 
 under the load. They accumulate drapery and 
 figure-work, till substance is quite buried under 
 show, and nothing remains but hollow signs and 
 heartless appearances ; till dropping a card at his 
 door is a visit to an acquaintance, and sending an 
 empty coach to his funeral is mourning for a friend. 
 Etiquette is the sovereign controller of conduct, — 
 the sole representative of nature, among certain 
 classes. They cast out the unruly souls that were 
 born with them, banish rebellious reason and prag- 
 matical conscience, and fill themselves with an en- 
 tirely new order of machinery, quiet, precise, pas- 
 sive — and as true to the Court Calendar as the 
 needle to the pole. The vulgar, or the mass of 
 mankind, have heads and hearts, and will be thrust- 
 ing; themselves forward into all the serious duties 
 and illustrious cares of Hfe ; so that nothing con- 
 nected with the highest aims of reason and in- 
 vention, or with the noblest or the kindest affec- 
 tions, is left untouched by their vile participation. 
 How then are " the great" to distinguish themselves ? 
 What sacred peculiarities can they assume, except 
 certain small modes, superadded to the ordinary 
 ways of doing ordinary things, which the multitude 
 are too full of business and enjoyment to notice or 
 
 D
 
 34 ON THE MOR \L INFLUENCE 
 
 imitate? Shut out from the animating bustle of 
 common life — its anxious wants and earnest inte- 
 rests, they have no resource against time, and no 
 provision for glory, except that of investing little 
 things with great names ; dignifying trifles by mag- 
 nificent devices, and helping out their shortness and 
 insipidity with circuitous ceremony and intricate 
 parade. Think of the popular process of despatch- 
 ing a pound or two of food into the stomach, to re- 
 lieve hunger and emptiness, and then turn your at- 
 tention to the multiplied entanglements — the plot 
 and stratagem, of a grand dinner-party in high life. 
 You and I "jump into"" our clothes — "just swallow 
 a mouthful," — "toss off"" a draught — put on oia- 
 hats and " are off,"" — and still find enough to do be- 
 fore we take another jump — into bed: but such 
 brevities of conduct would absolutely annihilate the 
 great for twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four. 
 We talk of the twinkling of an eye — and half a 
 minute — divisions of time which a man of quality 
 has no conception of. His business is delay ; his 
 enjoyment, not to be lively in every thing, but to 
 be long. 
 
 The worst effect of these forms and superfluities 
 is, that they break down the energies of the mind.
 
 OF ETIQUETTE AND PARADE. OO 
 
 and thoroughly incapacitate a man from acting, in 
 any circumstances, with directness and promptitude. 
 They are not to be cast aside, as an artisan puts off 
 his Sunday clothes, when they might distract his 
 attention and. obstruct his labour. Once become 
 endeared and habitual, they cling to a man for ever. 
 Though adapted only to the service of a morning 
 levee or an evening ball, he will be faithful to them 
 under every aspect of fortune. If called upon for 
 despatch by any untried emergency, however critical 
 and perilous, he is called in vain : he must still refer 
 to his httle system of regulated movements, and 
 prescribed delays ; he has no notion of sudden im- 
 pulses, and sudden action; he must have his ap- 
 pointed signals, and due permits ; and, though death 
 should stare him in the face, will provide for his 
 safety only according to law. He loves forms for 
 their own sake; they have been capable, he has 
 found, of giving interest to the smallest occasions, 
 and the greatest occasions cannot induce him to dis- 
 pense with them. The fatal capture of Louis XVI. 
 at Varennes, was caused, Madame de Stael declares, 
 " by some delays of form and ceremony, without 
 which it was impossible for the king to get into his 
 coach."" As for bundling him in at once, and 
 
 d2
 
 36 ON TIIK MORAL INFLUENCE 
 
 scam pcvinjv oft' with liini for his hfe, as though he 
 had been nothing but a man in his senses, it was not 
 to be thought of. True, the danger was pressing 
 and nothing less than death — but the Gold Stick .' 
 and the Silver Stick ! and all the other sticks, bear- 
 ing or borne, would you think of neglecting them 
 for a moment, or in any moment ? 
 
 Cardinal de Retz gives us an account of a charm- 
 ing little interlude of court politics happening in his 
 time, which is strikingly illustrative of the absorbing 
 influence of forms, and the kind of serious and im- 
 passioned frivolity that they fix in the mind — a 
 frivolity not to be daunted by the threats and frowns 
 of the most momentous occasions. At a period when 
 the nation was in arms for its best and dearest 
 rights, and the monarchy trembled to its base, 
 the Prince of Conde interceded, with his high au- 
 thority, to have a stool at court granted to the 
 Countess of Foix, a privilege hitherto enjoyed only 
 by duchesses. Mazarin opposes the measure with 
 his whole soul, and incites all the young noblemen 
 at court to resist, with their lives, all orders of stools 
 that were not granted upon special warrant. The 
 prince seeing this formidable array, headed by the 
 Mareschal de L'Hopital, thought it prudent to re-
 
 OF ETIQUETTE AND PARADE. 37 
 
 cede ; though still not without trying some means of 
 gratifying the pride and jealousy of his friend the 
 countess. As he could not raise her to a stool, the 
 next best mode of establishing an equality, he 
 thought, would be to pull the duchesses down ; and 
 accordingly, he proposed that all stools of all pri- 
 vileged houses should be suppressed. The family 
 of Rohan was the first of the number, and would as 
 soon have given up their lives. De Retz now took 
 the alarm, and resolved upon a counter-assembly 
 " for maintaining the stool of the house of Rohan.*" 
 He used, at the same time, all his personal influence 
 with the Prince of Conde, and prevailed. " I pro- 
 mise you," said that great man, " not to oppose the 
 privilege of the stool, in the house of Rohan." This 
 point established, people could then proceed to con- 
 sider, whether some measures might not be adopted 
 for saving Paris from massacre and pillage. — De 
 Retz relates his story with the most perfect gravity, 
 being himself not a little infected with the great 
 epidemic of courts, the disease of frivolity and forms. 
 Hurrying one day to mediate between the soldiers 
 and the people, in the heat and peril of a bloody 
 scuffle, he had one of his pages wounded, he informs 
 us, " who held up his cassock behind.''' Conceive a
 
 ;38 ON Tiir. moral influence 
 
 man so attended in such a moment ! Cardinals, it 
 may be said, always have their train-bearers : and 
 this is precisely what I have been contending for. 
 The great must have their forms, cost what it may; 
 fashion governs them like a fatality, bending to 
 neither time nor circumstance. In their blind obe- 
 dience, they remind me of a Uttle animal I have read 
 of, called the Lapland Marmot, whose instinct it is, 
 when in motion, to advance invariably straight for- 
 wards. Whatever impediments may oppose it, fire 
 or water, this instinct prevails : it can indulge in 
 neither circuit nor " short cut ;" if it encounters a 
 well, it plunges into it, and is seen crawling up on 
 the other side ; if it is stopped by a hay-stack, it 
 gnaws its way through it ; if it meets a boat on the 
 water, it passes over it — in short, it gives way to 
 nothing, and goes round nothing, but keeps boring 
 on in its inflexible hne, " through dense and rare,"" 
 though its life should be the sacrifice of its constancy. 
 Age and approaching death, one would imagine, 
 might sober even a courtier ; force him at last to be 
 in earnest ; to put away all solemn trifling and im- 
 posture, and prepare for his change in simplicity 
 and truth. The case, however, is otherwise. De- 
 crepitude, with its rigid back, may have its little
 
 OF ETIQUETTE AND PARADE. 39 
 
 tricks; and something in tlie way of juggle and 
 show may be got up even on a death-bed. As long- 
 as there is breath, there may be etiquette — nay, 
 when a man has ceremoniously ceased to exist, his 
 cold and corrupting remains may still go through 
 their course of mummery, under the direction of his 
 surviving and sympathetic friends : he may *' lie in 
 state" till he is quite rotten, and then be carried to 
 the grave in the face of day, amidst the palpable woe 
 of a thousand coaches, all respectfully empty, a 
 state horse, and a lid of feathers. Madame du 
 Deffand, on her death-bed, though without an atom 
 of religious feeling in her heart, would on no account 
 go out of the world without the polite custom of a 
 clergyman — making, however, an especial provision 
 against being disturbed by any seriousness of mean- 
 ing on the occasion. " Monsieur le Cure," said the 
 dying penitent to the priest who attended her, " you 
 will be perfectly satisfied with me, as I shall be with 
 you, if you perplex me with no reasons, (}uestions, 
 or sermons." Montaigne cites a very remarkalile 
 instance of death-bed foolery. Speaking of the in- 
 significance of death in certain minds, he mentions a 
 great man, who spent his last hours in arranging the 
 honours of his own funeral. Having earnestly so-
 
 40 ON Tin: MOKAl, INFLUliNCi; 
 
 licitod tlie attendance of his friends of rank and 
 wealth, and settled with minute exactness the whole 
 method and order of this his final show, he seemed 
 quite at case, and died content. *' I have seldom 
 lieard," adds INIontaignc, " of so long-lived a vanity." 
 
 On such a system of refinement as this, the great, 
 that is, the very great, found their claims to supe- 
 riority over the hulk of mankind — the vulgar, the 
 people, the rabble, or any other contemptuous col- 
 lective you please, that shall designate the active, 
 thinking, feeling crowd, whose pitiful lot it is to fill 
 up their time witli useful industry, or natural en- 
 joyments. He is the first in rank who is least in- 
 dependent of rules and ceremonies. The Court 
 Calendar, that unanswerable distributor of degrees, 
 so determines, and there can be no doubt of it. A 
 peer is greater than a baronet, a duke is greater than 
 a peer, and a king takes precedence of all. Greater 
 than a king ! — Inconceivable ! A Welsh bishop 
 made an apology to James I. for preferring God — 
 to his Majesty. The question of precedence was 
 delicate, but the Deity, it was believed, in the 
 phrase of the court, had the pas. 
 
 Contemplating enormities like these, one is dis- 
 })obcd almost to justify Rousseau, or any man, in
 
 OF ETIQUETTE AND PARADE. 41 
 
 abhorring the very name of civiUzation, and, in a 
 paroxysm of overpowering disgust, might exclaim, 
 — " Send us to our caves again — strip us to the 
 wind, and rain, and sun ; give us our gross loves — 
 our fierce hatred — oiu' bloody revenge ; — any thing, 
 if it be but nature." Such a burst over, we soon 
 take heart again, and perceive that there is no press- 
 ing necessity for adopting so tremendous a remedy. 
 Etiquette, in its mawkish mixture of stateliness and 
 imbecility, though the exclusive currency of the 
 "first society,"" does not certainly represent human 
 nature in an attractive dress. But civilization is not 
 responsible for its abominations, and she can point 
 to millions upon millions of useful, intelligent, and 
 happy creatures of her work, to refute such a scandal. 
 We may remember too for our comfort, that even 
 in the class which, by right of station, is most charge- 
 able with the sins of vanity and affectation, there are 
 numberless illustrious examples, with whom high 
 rank is but subsidiary to all that can exalt and adorn 
 human nature. The mere puppets of etiquette arc, 
 in this country at least, in a minority, even at court. 
 'IMie capa})ility of folly is pretty equally distributed 
 among all classes : we can onlv say, that it is most
 
 42 ON Tin; MOUAL INFLUENCE, &C. 
 
 likely to meet with dangerous encouragement among 
 those who are farthest removed from the restraints 
 of wholesome labour, and the sobering cares of com- 
 mon life. A man who has his bread to get, has no 
 time to make himself vcrij ridiculous.
 
 OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS, AND 
 "MR. MARTIN'S ACT." 
 
 There can scarcely be two opinions about the feel- 
 ing with which cruelty of every description should 
 be regarded. It may be difficult to bring people to 
 one judgment as to what constitutes cruelty : some 
 will stop at blood, while others will go as far as 
 bones ; but there is a degree of the crime which all 
 will agree to look upon with unqualified abhorrence ; 
 conceding to it no palliation on any account — none 
 resulting from the power and dignity of the brute 
 that inflicts it; and none, undoubtedly, from the 
 meanness or helplessness of the object on whom it is 
 exercised. Our poor fellow-creatures on all fours, 
 if they had no claims to our active care and kindness 
 from their manifold services in our behalf, have, 
 from their mere community with us in the great in- 
 heritance of flesh and blood and sense of pain, an 
 undeniable title to our mercy and forbearance. In
 
 44 or CKUKLTY TO ANIMALS, 
 
 the relation between man and horse, custom, and 
 a soit of convenience, have determined, tliat the 
 former should be the rider : but, notwithstanding 
 this enormous distinction, there are still such affini- 
 ties between the two, as should relieve him who is 
 undermost from the positive contempt of his supe- 
 rior, or at least protect him from all superfluous ty- 
 ranny and tortm-e. In few words, bacause a forked 
 creature, in a coat and hat, conceives himself made 
 on purpose to sit astride an animal with four legs 
 and a tail, it does not therefore follow that he has a 
 clear right to maltreat it, in wantonness either of 
 sport or rage. There seems to be no very decisive 
 objection, on the part of the horse, to the man's first 
 fancy : he may ride and, for aught I know, be in- 
 nocent : but the testimony of his own flesh will as- 
 sure him, that to lash a horse to the bare bones is 
 an act of inhuman iniquity. 
 
 Nothing then but praise is due to the motives, at 
 least, of the individual, to whose exertions we owe 
 the late Act for the pi*evention or punishment of 
 cruelty. He has employed no common pains in the 
 business ; not resting content with the bare triumph 
 of his Act, but taking upon himself the quite extra- 
 senatorial task of seeing it enforced — of hunting up
 
 AND "MR. martin's ACT." 45 
 
 game, as it were, in the high-ways, on which to tiy 
 the effect of his new machinery. Offices so very 
 practical are rather a novelty in parliamentary life, 
 if I am not a careless observer. Any man might 
 have borne the toil of talking the new Act through 
 the House of Commons : but Mr. Martin, when he 
 had done this, had not done half his work. With 
 him, the noise of St. Stephen's is but as a proem to 
 the noise of Smithfield : he escapes from the con- 
 fusion of the benches, only to launch into the uproar 
 of the pens. " The honourable gentleman opposite," 
 and " the worthy member on the left," are but a 
 joke at the top of their voices : the music of market- 
 day in Smithfield is a far more serious matter. To 
 appear in that brute-Babel, and no more, is heroism, 
 in a familiar way : — what then shall we say of a 
 Member of Parliament, who ventures there for the 
 express purpose of catching a drover .'' 
 
 To be quite serious, such a way of going to work 
 shows hearty intentions, to say the least of it. The 
 wisdom of such measures, and their efficacy, in re- 
 ference to either offending man or suffering brute, 
 are, I think, exceedingly questionable. With a 
 thorough detestation of cruelty, I cannot regard it, 
 in this case, as a fit subject for legislation. There
 
 46 OF CRUKMY TO ANIMALS, 
 
 t-an be no pity iov the cowardly ruffian wlio considers 
 the helpless dependence of animals as a motive only 
 for abusing them ; yet I cannot see liow, on this ac- 
 count, he can be fairly made amenable to penal law. 
 I would cheerfully see him punished ; though cer- 
 tainly not by means of any special provision, of- 
 fensive to the general principles of liberty. — Every 
 man has a right, in popular phrase, to do what he 
 pleases with his own property; and such a right 
 being admitted, with what consistency can we sub- 
 ject him to penalties, for beating his horse, his ox, 
 or his dog — a kind of living chattels, which uni- 
 versal custom recognises to be as much his pure, 
 passive property, as his tables and chairs ? I can at 
 once understand the fitness of making an individual 
 accountable to public justice for ill-using his neigh- 
 bour's horse, or beast of any kind ; but to seize upon 
 him as a criminal, and reduce him to beggary, or 
 throw him into a prison, for any severities that he 
 pleases to inflict upon a beast of his own, appears 
 to me to be an act of arbitrary oppression, entirely 
 at variance with all the analogies of English law. 
 Moral justice cannot always be made a ground for 
 legislative enactments. We check the free-agency 
 of pick-pockets and house-breakers, with the consent
 
 AND "MR. martin's ACT.'" 47 
 
 of all the world : but crimes of a far deeper dye, in 
 a moral point of view, must be permitted to go 
 unpunished, at least in a legal sense, if they do not 
 come within a certain line, which the usage of ages 
 has assigned as the limit of legal authority. All 
 the finer parts of morality are not within the juris- 
 diction of the courts. INIany a gentleman must be 
 allowed to go at large, for whom the stocks would 
 be a very inadequate reward. One may indulge in 
 a pious wish concerning such a person — but no 
 more. 
 
 If a man, by an act of unmeasured severity to a 
 horse, were not less an offender against the general 
 feeling and practice of the world than against abs- 
 tract justice, I should still not think that there was 
 a case made out for the interference of the legisla- 
 ture. But in truth he is no trangrcssor against 
 the public in any sense. He acts in no worse spirit 
 than others do towards animals in their power : he 
 is encouraged in his ferocity by general example ; 
 he sees all men combining to make their horses as 
 useful as possible — all, high and low, agreeing in a 
 callous assumption of their extreme services, with 
 just so much respect, in return, for their comforts 
 and enjoyments, as is consistent with tiic .selfish in-
 
 48 OF era F.LTY TO ANIMALS, 
 
 tc'ivst which thi'v have in ihcir preservation. This 
 is a harsh description of a civilized people — yet, is it 
 not a true one ? If there is a hearty wish abroad to 
 abolish cruelty, let us have no catit ; let us not set 
 to work with any suspicious timidity, but probe the 
 question to the very bottom. 
 
 Do I mean then to sav, that no man would hesi- 
 tate to beat his horse without mercy ? — No — cer- 
 tainly not. I do say, however, that thousands, who 
 might shrink from an act of immediate violence — 
 who might scruple to tear flesh or draw blood — do, 
 nevertheless, adopt, encourage, or connive at, a 
 treatment of horses, compared with which, as a 
 cause of deep and lasting suffering to those animals, 
 the utmost powers of the lash are but as a fly-bite. 
 Here and there a fellow may be found brutal enough 
 to lash a horse till the blood flows ; and by such 
 acts, one horse, probably, in one hundred, is subject, 
 from time to time, to a momentary pain ; while all 
 men remorselessly avail themselves of the conve- 
 nience of post-chaises and stage-coaches, the conduct 
 of which sends ninety horses out of a hundred, 
 through a lingering course of torturing disease, to 
 a premature death. Is cruelty, as far as it is a 
 matter interesting to horses, chargeable only to the
 
 AND " MR. martin's \CT." 49 
 
 firs.t-mcntioncd description of offenders? A car- 
 man, in a ragged coat and dirty shirt, strikes his 
 fore-horse on the nose with the butt-end of his whip, 
 and the animal feels the smart for a full hour and a 
 half; while a sporting gentleman, of the first fashion 
 from top to toe, mounts his ^^Javourite mare," and 
 goads it on to the performance of some desperate 
 match against time — its agonizing exertions either 
 killing it on the spot, or inflicting upon it some dire 
 disease in the lungs, or heart, or limbs, to last as long- 
 as its life. If either of these two delinquents is a fit 
 mark for punishment, which should have the pre- 
 ference ? — Speak out — don't be thinking about the 
 coats of the parties— the carman strikes in mere 
 passion ; the gentleman has five hundred pounds 
 depending on his match. If cruelty can admit of 
 an excuse, who, if he has any warmer feeling about 
 him than a Jew-pedlar, will deny, that the carman 
 has the best to propose ? 
 
 It is this view of the case that gives me a peculiar 
 distaste for the spirit of Mr. Marthi's Jet. It dis- 
 penses punishment wiili no equal justice. I would 
 have no legislation at all in any such matters, and 
 certainly not such legislation as this. We see its 
 penalties visited only upon those who have rags and 
 
 E
 
 50 OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS, 
 
 dirt against them, with want of education, and other 
 circumstances of their condition, which should plead 
 in their favour; while it spares others, who have no 
 better claim to exemption than what they derive 
 from better dress, together with more knowledge, 
 and more refinement, which should be regarded t)nly 
 as an aggravation of their wrong-doing. It is 
 really quite absurd to see a man hunting out for 
 cruel people who abuse horses, yet fixing his sole 
 attention upon Smithfield drovers and hacknev- 
 coachmen ; as if there were no carriages likely to 
 present game of this sort, except those with numbers 
 upon them. Make drovers and hackney-coachmen 
 as tender-hearted as you please ; but the object de- 
 sired is relief for horses — the race — and such a plan 
 as this, in relation to such an object, is as a drop 
 to the ocean. The cruelty, I contend, is general. 
 Whatever might be the docility of the horse, under 
 a system of gentle instruction, custom has decided, 
 that he shall be controlled by means of violence and 
 coercion ; and I have no doubt that a majority of 
 the senators, who, in their wisdom and tenderness, 
 passed the late act against cruelty, deliberated with 
 whips in their hands and spurs at their heels. That 
 such instruments, in the power of passionate or
 
 AND "MR. martin's ACT." 51 
 
 thoughtless men, of all ranks, will often be employed 
 for objects very remote from the simple management 
 of a horse, there can be no doubt. And where is 
 the remedy ? The exercise of these weapons is in- 
 dulged in universally with such indefinite freedom, 
 that if law would oppose it with effect, or on any 
 principle of equal dealing, it must be by one sweep- 
 ing blow, levelled at all who ride or drive. The at- 
 tempt to assign punishment to certain degrees or 
 certain persons, in a species of offence so indeter- 
 minate and widely spread, must infallibly be attended 
 with endless perplexity, and intolerable partiality. 
 
 All outrageous violence towards animals, not 
 countenanced by common custom, must be delivered 
 over for punishment, it appears to me, to nothing 
 but the scorn arising from public feeling and 
 opinion. Such a check may be feeble and rarely 
 interposed, and it is very disgraceful that it should 
 be so ; but being so, it is perfectly futile to think of 
 aiding and quickening it by Acts of Parliament. 
 Law follows, not leads, the course of public opinion. 
 I have no notion of indictino- a whole kino;dom into 
 gentleness, or of softening the national mind by the 
 rough agency of the police. We must wait for the 
 dev^lopement of other and surer sources of improve- 
 
 E 2
 
 />2 OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS, 
 
 ment. AVc may wait long, but we must wait pa- 
 tiently. Cruelty is not quite discarded, if all be 
 true that we hear of, between man and man ; how 
 long it may be, before there shall be nothing but 
 kindness between man and horse — Heaven knows. 
 If it be thought, that such a consummation can 
 be advanced by the direct violence of law, in the 
 name of sincerity and fair play, let it be dealt im- 
 partially, and in earnest. Decree at once, that fine 
 and imprisonment shall be the reward of every man, 
 wuthout distinction, who gives unnecessary pain to 
 any thing that lives. If the carman's whip is to be 
 actionable, why spare the spurs of " the nobility, 
 gentry, and others," pieces of studied and prepense 
 cruelty, on the very face of them ? We shall hear, 
 perhaps, of " necessary cruelty," — or some such 
 sophistication, in defence of abuses sanctified by 
 general use, or high authority. As if cruelty were 
 only culpable, when prompted by thoughtless rage — 
 or were justified, when applied deliberately, in the 
 holy pursuit of profit and amusement. To lash a 
 horse in a coal-cart is a crime ; to lash him on a race- 
 ground is only ■ the way to make him win. 
 
 What right have we, I should wish to know, to 
 punish hackney-coachmen for " cruelty to animals,"
 
 AND "MR. martin's ACT."" S3 
 
 while we pass by certain gentlemen in red coats, who, 
 on any given morning, will mount their horses, and 
 ride them, it may be, till they drop from exhaustion, 
 that they may keep close to a pack of ravenous 
 dogs, set on by them, first, to terrify, through an 
 hour or two of agony, and then to destroy, a poor 
 defenceless hare. Nay, hunting is a most agreeable 
 and enlivening exercise ! I know it, but we are 
 talking about cruelty to animals, and the propriety 
 of legislating on such a subject. Bull-baiting is 
 illegal, I believe, or subject, in some way, to mayors 
 or constables ; but who can be blind to the striking 
 difference, in point of cruelty, between baiting a bull 
 and baiting a hare ? Besides, consider the sorts 
 of company that usually attend the sport of bull- 
 baiting. 
 
 Is mere wantonness of cruelty to be the ground 
 of punishment.'' Why then leave untaxed the bar- 
 barous and senseless practice of cutting off the tails 
 of horses — in losing which they are exposed to more 
 pain than they would derive from whips, if every 
 body used them like those who use them most.'' 
 They are in the way — I have heard people say ; in 
 their way, they mean, I suppose, if they have a 
 meaning. Why do we permit a man to go at large
 
 54 OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS, 
 
 who cuts oft' his terrier's ears, when he shall not 
 propose any better excuse for such an aggression 
 than, that " somehow or other, he never thinks a 
 terrier looks like a terrier with Ions ears?"" How 
 comes it that the alderman is not called upon to 
 atone for ages of crimped cod? But stay — this 
 particular may escape, probably, under the head of 
 " necessary cruelties."" If a man is to be brought 
 to account for injuring a horse, why allow him to 
 torture a mouse or maltreat a fly with impunity ? 
 These animals are so insignificant, it may be said, 
 mere vermin ; and what if they are so ? the question 
 is not of dignity or usefulness, but of cruelty — and 
 " the poor beetle that we tread upon — in corporal 
 sufferance — "'"' 
 
 I have been led to say rather more on this part of 
 my subject than I had intended. I find myself de- 
 fending the cause of man, when I had simply pro- 
 posed to myself to become the advocate of brutes. 
 My chief objection, after all, to Mj: Marthi's Act 
 is, not that it is unjust and unequal in its dispensa- 
 tion of punishment (a blot, however, that I by no 
 means make light of), but that it does not afford a 
 shadow of relief to the poor animals which it pro- 
 fesses to befriend. Among all their sufferings, it
 
 AND ''MR. martin's ACT." 53 
 
 singles out for redress the very lightest, and tliat 
 which is least accessible to control and correction. 
 In reference to the whole race of horses, mere wan- 
 ton or savage abuse must be an injury of very rare 
 occurrence; and were they relieved from all the 
 other modes of oppression under which they groan, 
 their liabihty to this single casualty would still be 
 the same. Acts of deliberate cruelty might be made, 
 perhaps, to yield to the terrors of law ; the same 
 power that has limited the number of passengers to 
 be carried in and on a coach, for the security of the 
 human traveller, might interpose to regulate the 
 length of stages, for the comfort of horses; but to 
 sup])ose that the passion of anger is to be banished 
 by Act of Parliament, or that such an authority 
 sIkiII prevent an intemperate man from now and 
 then beating his horse, or any thing else that falls in 
 his way, is perfectly absurtl. Men will not deal 
 better by their horses than they do by their wives : 
 they will beat them occasionally ; and to direct a 
 powerless blow, under pretence of relief, at this 
 partial grievance, while all their great, general, and 
 constant injuries remain unredressed, is nothing but 
 mockery. What would the ladies say, if they were 
 dependent for all their rights in society on positive
 
 od Ol CKUETY TO ANIMALS, 
 
 law, whicii should make no other provision in their 
 favour, than that their husbands should not beat 
 I hem. A man, it might be enaeted, may exert any 
 decent sovereignty over his wife, or turn her to any 
 useful account, lock her up in perpetual confinement, 
 or keep her to hard labour during all her waking- 
 hours, that she may relieve him from the })ain of 
 tilling the ground, and hewing wood, and carrying- 
 water ; but he shall not lay a finger upon her in the 
 way of chastisement. Work her to death and wel- 
 come — but let him touch a hair of her head in anger 
 at his peril. Thank God, the women have a better 
 security for the consideration that is their due, 
 in the general gallantry and polish of the age. 
 Cherished, admired, respected, they would never 
 think of complaining, as a body, that here and there 
 a man had come to the enormity of beating his wife. 
 Such a matter is grievous enough, to be sure, as it 
 
 falls upon Mrs. B , or Mrs. C , but is no 
 
 concern for the sex. 
 
 If our poor horses, in like manner, could but 
 secure a little uniform moderation in their general 
 treatment ; if they could put away that single but 
 woful curse of their kind, over-work, they would 
 have fair reason to be content, and might well de-
 
 AND "MR. martin's ACT." 57 
 
 spise the small annoyances and chance-blows coin- 
 cident with irritable coachmen and impatient riders. 
 The lash is the least of their sufferings. ReUeve 
 them from excessive labour, and the train of misery 
 connected with it, and you will have done for them 
 all that the most sanguine humanity could hope for 
 or desire. Could they speak, they would, I have no 
 doubt, check our vanity by telling us, that they 
 laugh at the puny violences that can come from the 
 mere muscles of a man. What are these compared 
 with the kicks which it sometimes pleases them to 
 exchange with one another ? What is a hand to an 
 animal with a hoof? They care not, they would 
 say, for the whip, on its own account, however law- 
 lessly applied ; they complain only of the decorous 
 and measured use of it, as a means of urging them 
 on to exertions beyond their strength, and fatal to 
 their health. Observe a team of horses in an inn- 
 yard, just liberated from a stage-coach — smoking 
 and drenched with sweat, their heads sunk, panting, 
 and painfully blowing out their breath, their knees 
 bent and stiffened, their tails quiveiing, every 
 muscle in their bodies trembling with agitation; see 
 them in this state limping and staggering into their 
 stable, that they may take such rest as their aching
 
 58 OF ( Kl'ELTV TO ANIMALS, 
 
 bones will allow them, and recover so much slrenglU 
 as will fit them to be worked and worn down again. 
 What comfort would these wretched animals re- 
 ceive, in the depth of their misery, could you make 
 them understand that Mr. MartbCs eye was upon 
 them, and that the ferocious driver, who whipped 
 his near leader for a minute and a half, on a certain 
 Wednesday, would surely be brought to punish- 
 ment ? Don't insult us, they might say, with your 
 niggardly sympathy — don't talk to us of cruel 
 drivers — protect us from cruel proprietors, and 
 cruel travellers. You are brushing gnats from our 
 hides, when we have wounds at our hearts. 
 
 The proprietors of post-horses have determined 
 by cold calcidation, that the most profitable way of 
 dealing with them is " to get as imich work out of 
 tlieni''' as possible, by the speediest means ; that a 
 horse is turned to more account, when worked to 
 death in two years, than he would be by a longer 
 life of more moderate exertion. With this truth 
 before them, they suffer no anxiety about the feel- 
 ings of the animals to puzzle their arithmetic ; re- 
 garding them only as abstract quantities — so nuicli 
 horse-power — not so much horse-flesh. Could the 
 legislature interfere with safety, or any chance of
 
 AND "MR. martin's ACT." 59 
 
 success, to repress such cruelties as these ? Would 
 it be borne, that the law should presume to settle 
 for every man the task-work of his horse ; to tax 
 journeys, in addition to turnpikes, with penalties 
 on excessive galloping, and immoderate duration ? 
 Would any such regulations be submitted to for a 
 moment ; affecting, as they would, not only pro- 
 prietors of post-horses, but travellers of all denomi- 
 nations, from the noble spu'its who have nothing to 
 do but to rattle in and out of the metropolis, as if 
 life and death were on their speed, to the humble 
 itinerant, who must curse, and swear, and whip over 
 his way, as best he may, that his " saiid O" may be 
 in time for the market ? They clearly would not. 
 Though such interference might at once secure 
 horses from all their oppression, it must not be em- 
 ployed ; because, however excellent in its particular 
 spirit and effect, it would be an infraction of general 
 rules connected with the whole body of our rights 
 and privileges. If, then, so large a benefit to all 
 horse-kind must yield to these general rules, why 
 break them for so insignificant an object as that of 
 saving a few individuals from the least oppressive 
 among the multitude of abuses to which they are 
 exposed ? ^Vhy arrest the horse-whipping driver 
 on the outside of a carriage, while you hesitate to
 
 60 OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS, 
 
 check llio horsc-killing gentleman in the inside? I 
 verily suspect, that the difference between outside 
 and inside, between jacket and coat, is the best 
 excuse that can be assigned for so plain a con- 
 tradiction. 
 
 It is often, and unjustly, required from a person 
 who finds fault with any scheme of improvement, 
 that he should suggest a better, or be silent ; as if 
 the simple detection of error were little other than a 
 crime. Objecting, as I do, to Mr. Martin'' s Act, as 
 oppressive, partial, and useless, what profound plan, 
 it may be asked, would I propose, as likely to 
 operate in its place more equitably, and with greater 
 effect ? In this ripe age of civilization, I have no 
 great expectations, I confess, that any very sudden 
 discoveries will be made, for the further advance- 
 ment of justice and gentleness among men. If we 
 sin now, it is not in ignorance. Public opinion and 
 common custom, I have said, seem to me to be the 
 only rightful restraint, beyond every man*'s own 
 conscience, for the species of cruelty that I have 
 been treating of; and if these great authorities are 
 more disposed in this case, as I conceive the}^ are, 
 to encourage than repress the abuse, who has the 
 best and readiest means of bringing them to a more 
 decent sense of their duty .'' I should not address
 
 AND "MR. martin's ACT. 01 
 
 myself to the obscure ruffians who have hitherto 
 been the only victims of M?; Martinis Act. You 
 may fine, and imprison, and terrify a carman for 
 beating his horse, and produce no other effect upon 
 public feeling, but that of diverting its sympathy 
 from the proper object, and fixing it upon the least 
 deserving brute of the two. I should appeal rather 
 to the high and mighty, to those who, from emi- 
 nence of station, are most within the view of the 
 world, and whose example is most influential upon 
 general conduct. I beg to repeat, however it may 
 startle those who have had their fine horrors of 
 drovers and monsters with cart-whips, that we are 
 all cruel alike : we all give our countenance and co- 
 operation to the maltreatment of horses; and if there 
 is an honest design of protecting them by punisliing 
 their oppressors, let not the penalty be wasted on 
 the lowest, but fall where it is alone likely to bring 
 forth good fruits, upon the highest. The rich, who 
 make most use of horses, are beyond question the 
 great cause of all their serious and lasting pains. 
 Let them concur in adopting a more considerate 
 and merciful treatment of them, and il/r. Martins 
 Act may be permitted to retire. Look at the style 
 of travelling in this country, not among carts and
 
 62 OF CRUELTY TO ANTMALS, 
 
 vagg'ons, — but among post-chaises and gentlemen's 
 carriages ! Let those who liave a silly pleasure, or 
 sillier pride, in scampering desperately along the 
 roads, for the passing glory of raising a little wonder 
 and dust, reflect upon the consequences of these 
 dazzling deeds to the poor animals who bear a pain- 
 ful and unwilling part in them. So far is cruelty 
 from being the exclusive vice of the poor, that, of 
 any given party of dashing travellers, you shall find 
 the driver, the unsanctified post-boy, the only one 
 who has the slightest tenderness for the horses ; and 
 it is well if he can maintain this feeling against 
 the persuasion, threats, and bribery of his betters. 
 *' Push on, my lad, push on, we'll remember you,"" 
 is dinned in his ears till, it is too probable, his 
 frailty yields, and, " to please the gentlemen,"" he 
 turns savage at last. Let the impatient spirits who 
 are in the habit of poking their heads out of the 
 front windows of chaises, and crying out, " Push 
 on,"" substitute for such harsh phrases the more 
 kindly injunction of "Gently, my lad, gently,"" 
 and they will do incalculably more, they may assure 
 themselves, for the relief of horses, than they who 
 go about to denounce the unlicensed cruelty of the 
 vulgar.
 
 AND " MR. martin's ACT."" 63 
 
 I am not at all confident, that these recommenda- 
 tions, were they likely to be heard, would be listened 
 to with much respect. People are not cruel for 
 cruelty's sake ; but they will not readily. give up the 
 least of their enjoyments, if they can be reproached 
 with nothing but cruelty. They have no delight 
 in giving pain ; but they will cling with obstinacy 
 even to trifles that are pleasurable to themselves, 
 and painful only to others. How can one expect 
 that the world will give up any of its habitual in- 
 dulgences in favour of brutes that perish, when he 
 remembers the history of the slave trade — how long 
 it was before we could be driven from a few paltry 
 gains and base advantages, that devoted millions of 
 human beings to the extremity of human misery 
 and degradation ? With such a precedent in me- 
 mory, with what face could he propose, in these 
 hard times too, that the profits of any man should 
 suffer the reduction of a farthing, that horses might 
 not die of the glanders, — now that farmers are 
 obliged to give the labour of two horses to one .'' 
 
 But I have said enough. The time may come, 
 when these miserable entanglements and difficulties, 
 that stand in the wav of universal beneficence, shall
 
 (it OF (RIET.TY TO WIMAI.S, &C. 
 
 be removed, r'nonoh lias been clone to kcc]i hope 
 alive : it is not quite absurd, while it is certainly 
 very pleasint;, to imagine some Utopian futurity, 
 when man, and the meanest creature that lives, shall 
 have their full rights and enjoyments.
 
 OF EXAGGERATION AND MATTER- 
 OF-FACT PEOPLE. 
 
 The triitli should bo spoken undoublcdly, and 
 always spoken — that is, when we ilo speak. Silence 
 may be a lie, under circumstances; but ordinary 
 moralists will scarcely think it cognizable under the 
 head of " telling lies." Not to perplex myself with 
 fine distinctions, how few tliere are of those who 
 open their mouths, that, with any kind of certainty 
 and constancy, speak the piu'c truth. I have nothing 
 to say just now of grave and pondered lies of the 
 devil's colour ; I advert only to that general laxity 
 and ineptitude of expression in familiar discourse 
 or description, which, with no great dishonesty of 
 meaning, do violence in various degrees to things 
 as they are, and are known to be. Exaggeration 
 strikes one in a moment as the most connnon among 
 colloquial misdemeanors, though, providing it ;il 
 once conio from the heart, and have some "method
 
 (iG OF EXAGGERATION 
 
 in it,"' I think it by no means unpleasant, nor, with 
 all its boldness, so apt to mislead as many figures of 
 a more cold and balancing character. If a man give 
 me the right spirit of things, I can allow him a little 
 harmless licentiousness in piling up of quantities. 
 If he do not distort and disguise, he may magnify, 
 and will not deceive or offend me. Let him not 
 confound black with white, and I will not quarrel 
 with him about very black, and very white. I 
 should stipulate literally and formally for the " true 
 stuff';" but, secure of this, a man may intensify it as 
 he pleases : I understand him ; I know his ardent 
 ways and liberal measures, and can at any time 
 dilute him down to proof. 
 
 There is an inborn tendency in the human mind 
 (where there is mind) to amplification — to swell 
 out beyond the limits of nature and truth. Our 
 souls are too big for our bodies, and our perceptions 
 and impressions pitched too high for the scale and 
 circumstances of the physical world in which we 
 live. Our middle-size belies us : we are all Patago- 
 nians in our hearts and our tongues — little creatures 
 with our fifteen hundred steps to a mile, who never- 
 theless find this earth, with its spare deserts and 
 imtrodden forests, too circumscribed for our free
 
 AND MATTER-OF-FACT PEOPLE. 07 
 
 elbow-room. Our language, our descri}3tive phrases, 
 however they may be tamed down in signification 
 by common use, have been framed as for a race of 
 giants in a giant world. The more moderate among 
 us, in describing the wonders of a gale of wind 
 at sea, would scarcely be so narrow-minded as to 
 talk of waves rising thirty or forty feet, instead of 
 *' mountains high/"' How should you credit that 
 a man could be wet through two coats, unless he 
 asseverated that it rained "as if heaven and earth 
 were coming together," at the least ? " When the 
 louse feeds," says BufFon, " the blood is seen to 
 rtish like a torrent into the stomach." Could one 
 have said more, in severe justice, of a lion ? 
 
 This sublimity of style will not bear to be tried 
 by the nice weights and measures of truth, yet it is 
 not always adopted with the simple intention to de- 
 ceive. The difficulty, as well as the desire, of ex- 
 citing attention, urges us into dishonest vehemence 
 and magnificent mis-statements. The world is suf- 
 ficiently fastidious not to feel curiosity about fa- 
 miliar appearances, common forms, and trite opi- 
 nions. The only resource then is in the extraordi- 
 nary : the object is not to inform but to surprise ; 
 and for this purpose we are driven, not to our ex- 
 
 f2
 
 68 OF EXAGGERATION 
 
 perience, but to our invention. We must create : 
 the Alps will not do — we must })ile Pelion upon 
 Ossa. 
 
 Considerable art, however, is necessary in these 
 daring efforts, or they may fail to produce the 
 notice which they aim at, or any notice at all. 
 Mere over-grown exaggeration will not astonish 
 us; if its gross bulk be not quickened with a due 
 proportion of livehness, it is only so much waste 
 and darkness. Some of our modern dramatists 
 give us heroes and heroines of a monstrous size and 
 shape ; but, in their anxiety to make them big, they 
 forget to make them men and women. As a ranting 
 actor will tear a passion to rags, one of these impro- 
 vident poets will blow it up till it is almost choked, 
 and cannot speak to be understood. In their im- 
 provements upon the httleness of nature, they not 
 only exceed her limits, but disfigure all her forms 
 and proportions : they are faithful to neither the 
 measure nor the pattern of her works. Their 
 greatness is nothing but corpulency, uninformed 
 with any principle of life and activity. We might 
 bear a Cupid seven feet high, if he retained his ac- 
 customed beauty and sprightliness ; but it is cruel to 
 see our httle favourite tumefied into a dull, unwieldy
 
 AND MATTER-OF-FACT PEOPLE. 69 
 
 lump, a sort of anasarcous, or Daniel Lambert fairy, 
 with no compensation for the change but in his in- 
 creased dimensions and stone-weight. This style 
 of exaggeration is frequently employed by persons 
 of tame and unimpassioned spirits, and in their 
 hands it is certainly a most deadening and over- 
 whelming instrument. I know not how minds of 
 such a temperament should deviate into such un- 
 suitable vices ; but so it is ; we often see profound 
 dulness troubled with a strange, lumbering ambition 
 for the great and the wonderful. We do not com- 
 plain of these heavy fabulists, that they strain, per- 
 vert, or obscure the truth : they convey no likelihood 
 of it — no sign — no shadow ; their uninspired exu- 
 berance falling upon you with the dead weight of 
 sheer impossibility. There is often a perfidious 
 solemnity and decorum in the general manner of 
 the sort of persons I allude to, that adds greatly to 
 the perplexity of their hearers. When a vivacious 
 enthusiast bursts out into some violent description, 
 his spirit, his look, tone, and gestures, at once alarm 
 our watchfulness, and put us upon our guard. He 
 has no sly and indirect means of lulling our suspi- 
 cions and cheating us into belief. He may have his 
 lies, but they are lies which wear their hearts on
 
 70 OF EXAGGERATION 
 
 their sleeves. Not so with your slow, prosing 
 hyperbolist, who with a steady eye doles out his cold 
 extravagance and dull excess. You can come to 
 no squares with him, yet you look at him and know 
 not how to understand him. Nothing can be more 
 puzzling. 
 
 This anomalous variety excepted, I have rather a 
 kindness than otherwise for a little honest exaggera- 
 tion ; and every species of it, leaden or mercurial, is 
 prefei-able, I am ready to maintain, to its opposite — 
 cold-blooded and penurious exactness. — The whole 
 host of long-bow-men, light troops and heavy, are 
 far less annoying, and, paradoxical as it may appear, 
 less hostile to the more essential parts of truth, than 
 the little teasing tribe — the minute, higgling wor- 
 shippers of matter-of-fact. A man who in a transport 
 of passion gives an undue extension to any deter- 
 minate quantity of time, or space, or any thing else, 
 does not exaggerate in any ill sense ; he deceives no- 
 body except those without passion, the posts of the 
 human race. His object is not to define a frigid 
 reality as established by law, but to describe it ac- 
 cording to the impression which it made, and was 
 likely to make, upon his mind, under a particular 
 state of excitement. He has no thought about
 
 AND MATTER-OF-FACT PEOPLE. 71 
 
 " Stubborn facts ;"" he makes them, and very fairly, 
 I think, malleable to his will, and susceptible of any 
 variations of form that his feelings require. People 
 were cool and collected when they set about making 
 facts; and it is very hard that a man in a fury 
 should be bound by them. Ready-made facts will 
 not suit him ; they must be all purely his own. He 
 is above statutes and tables, and will own no alle- 
 giance to common rules and measures. Surely he 
 must be a very heartless person who will not admit, 
 that an hour is not always neither more nor less than 
 sixty minutes, and that a mile is not invariably only 
 a mile. A matter-of-fact man has no conception of 
 such an extravagance: he grants no indulgences; 
 law is law with him, and he will abide by it to death. 
 A mile, he will have it, is a mile ; and the worst 
 of it is, he has certain odious proofs and literal 
 standards in his favour, which, backed by his oath, 
 he will quote against a liberal adversary, till there 
 seems nothing left for it but to own that the block- 
 head is correct. In vain you strive to move hini 
 from his position by appealing to his passions or his 
 imagination, these gifts in him (if he have them at 
 all) being under such certain control, that he car- 
 ries them about with him as securely and cere-
 
 i" OF EXAGGERATION 
 
 raoiiiously as his gloves and his stick. Never hope 
 to exasperate him into a thought of apostasy from 
 absolute Cocker, London measure, or avoirdupois. 
 He stands out for a fact ; and though it be stripped 
 to positive nakedness, or robbed of its living mar- 
 row, he will still cling to it — still hug his bit of bar- 
 ren dryness, if it be but according to book and " his 
 bond." 
 
 I look upon these miserable fribblers as the most 
 intolerable plagues that go about to disturb the 
 ease, cordiality, and trusting freedom, of familiar 
 conversation. One of these, among a company of 
 lively men, is as bad as the " Six Acts.'''' There is 
 no speaking before him ; he lies in wait for every 
 trivial lapse, and is ready to arrest on the spot every 
 unimportant misnomer of time, or place, or person. 
 He will stop a good anecdote, just before its finest 
 moment, to ask for its credentials ; and cut off the 
 denouement of a pathetic tale to question its parish. 
 To pun in his presence would be as bad as to deny 
 his existence : he and equivoque (the name is enough) 
 could never be brought together but to fight. The 
 humour of the thing too is, that these poor starve- 
 lings, with their bigoted strictness and peddling 
 precision, set themselves up for lovers of truth.
 
 AND MATTER-OF-FACT PEOPLE. 73 
 
 But the truth is not in them, nor for them. A little 
 niggardly truth, perhaps, a crum of certainty, they 
 may pick up ; but of truth, in its entire spirit — of 
 " the whole truth," — they have no notion. They 
 will discriminate between John and Thomas, and 
 authenticate a day of the month with fatal accuracy, 
 and, to secure such points, will let the whole interest 
 of a story, catastrophe and all, pass by them, " like 
 the wind which they regard not." All that is warm, 
 fluent, and animating in discourse, is husk and chaff 
 to them, if there be not something that they can 
 swear to : when the joke is complete, and the laugh 
 has gone round, " Now," they will say, steadying 
 themselves in their chairs, and collecting their 
 powers, "let us come to particulars.'''' With all 
 their professed antipathy to exaggeration, they are 
 themselves exaggerators of the most contemptible 
 description — those who attach extravagant import- 
 ance to trifles, and busy themselves to demonstrate 
 circumstances that are not worth a thought. There 
 is something noble at least in the error of a man who 
 exaggerates only what is in itself great and exalted ; 
 but he that would measure a hair, or weigh a 
 feather, is guilty of an hyperbole (if so generous a 
 term is not too good for him) that admits of no
 
 74 OF EXAGGERATION 
 
 excuse. These scrupulists — these baters down, are 
 themselves far more remote from truth generally 
 than tliose wliom they are so pleased to charge with 
 incorrectness. A man overpowered with thirst 
 says, that he could drink the Thames dry — and I 
 believe him — that is, I very distinctly apprehend 
 that he is excessively thirsty. A matter-of-fact man 
 would receive such an assertion as an insult, and 
 would take upon himself to prove, if he could keep 
 from passion, that it was, from the nature of things, 
 an absolute falsehood. He Avould lay down the 
 maximum of a possible di'aught, and the way would 
 be clear before him. He has no allowance for the 
 natural language of an eager appetite ; but summons 
 up his soul, with all its experience, to justify the 
 capacity of a quart pot. A lover about to be se- 
 parated for a few weeks from his mistress affirms 
 that he shall not see her again for ages — and he is 
 perfectly right — or what man of spirit would conde- 
 scend to fall in love ? Who shall put definite limits 
 to the duration of a week, a day, or an hour, spent 
 in the absence or the presence of a mistress .'' The 
 lover, with his weeks a century long, tells you pretty 
 plainly that he is desperately impatient — tells you 
 the truth, I contend, in contem})t of any little
 
 AND MATTER-OF-FACT PEOPLE. 75 
 
 huckster in matter-of-fact, who would compute the 
 ardours of a lover with the same beggarly exactness 
 with which he would measure a yard of tape, or 
 compare the dates of a butcher's bill. 
 
 I was walking once in company with two persons, 
 one of whom was a fine, precipitate, ad libitum 
 fellow, warm of heart, and hasty of tongue; the 
 other, a simple, direct man, who looked at things 
 in their just proportions, and was nice even to the 
 smallest fractions in all his affirmations. Briefly, I 
 was with an enthusiast and a matter-of-fact man. 
 The former was miserable, and had every reason to 
 be so, in regard both to his existing condition and 
 his future prospects. He suddenly broke forth, " I 
 never expect to be in any way better off' than the 
 wretched beggar there before us."" " Yes — yes," 
 interposed his friend, more readily than was usual 
 with him, " with prudence, you may be a degree 
 better as long as you live." The warm man could 
 not bear this, and he angrily retorted, " Now, d — 
 it ! can you never be a little less precise ? You 
 mean, I suppose, to comfort me ; yet what consola- 
 tion is it to be assured, that I am and may be just a 
 degree — after your freezing manner — a strict, ex- 
 emplary dcgi'ec, above the lowest of my sr)ccies .''''"'
 
 76 OF EXAGGERATION 
 
 The Other still kept his temper, and insisted, mo- 
 destly, but resolutely, " that a degree was a degree," 
 — and there the matter ended. 
 
 I would not be understood to object to precision 
 and minuteness, when these qualities are important, 
 or when they can be attended to without disturbance 
 to points of higher consideration. The most sub- 
 ordinate circumstances and indifferent relations of 
 great events may be interesting, in the same manner 
 as trifles, down to a buckle, or a shirt-pin, are worth 
 notice, when connected ^v^tll persons distinguished 
 by extraordinary actions or talents. I would have 
 all given of things that are worth giving : what is 
 admirable cannot be too complete. I complain not 
 of the matter-of-fact man on such grounds ; but that 
 the little parts of high matters, or of all matters, — 
 those which by their nature are alone reducible to 
 an arithmetical certainty — are the sole objects of his 
 regard. Affecting to worship Truth, he sees her 
 not in her full majesty ; but overlooks her covering 
 I'obes and flowing draperies, (to speak of something 
 more than " the naked Truth/') to fasten upon a 
 button. He would mention no particulars of the 
 great storm with such unqualified satisfaction as 
 that it commenced at twenty-three minutes past
 
 AND MATTER-OF-FACT PEOPLE. T7 
 
 four, A.M. on the 6th November, A.D. 1723. 
 Of facts of mind and feeling he makes no account : 
 he must have facts in a ring-fence ; realities of the 
 Ahnanack. He cares not to hear that a man died : 
 he must know "cohere he died and xdien he died. 
 
 Persons of tliis stamp make excellent lawyers: 
 they should never travel out of Westminster-Hall. 
 In the intricacy and darkness of the law, there is an 
 obvious fitness in that watchful jealousy, which 
 would as soon see a kingdom overthrown as a name 
 or a date abused. But a matter-of-fact man will 
 carry the captious spirit of a legal process into his 
 moral judgments — turn lawyer against himself — ■ 
 cross-question the evidence of his own heart — cheat 
 himself, against his broadest convictions, into a kind 
 of accidental innocence — deliver himself from a 
 piece of conscious roguery, because his name is not 
 Timothy. He has always some petty flaw, or lucky 
 difference, that will suffice, at a pinch, for a " not 
 guilty," after the manner of the charity-boy Avho 
 robbed a woman's orchard, and being asked whether 
 that was the way in which he performed his " duty 
 to his neighbour," replied, that the old lady lived in 
 another parish. These people affect extreme in- 
 dignation at the scandalous opinion of tiie world, if,
 
 78 OF EXAGGEUATION 
 
 in appreciating their conduct, it makes some light 
 error in particulars, though it may be perfectly just 
 in its general spirit and bearing. Fame avers that 
 Mr. Shuffle cheated the other night at cards, to 
 the amount of thirteen shillings and sixpence — and 
 that, therefore, he is a knave ; against which decision 
 he contends, that the sum was only twelve shillings 
 — and that, therefore, he is an honest man. Mr. 
 
 D is universally reported to be always drunk : 
 
 he is mightily out of humour, however, with so 
 gross a charge, and makes out, clearly enough, that 
 he was sober on part of last Thursday, and the 
 
 whole of Palm Sunday. Mrs. F is said to 
 
 wear a wig, at which she is grievously offended, 
 pro\ing, that she wears only di front — and that even 
 that does not cover more than three-fourths of her 
 head. There is no defence against such slanderous 
 imputations as these but patience: the innocent, 
 we see, are not safe. "I am accustomed," says 
 Voltaire, " to bear patiently the invectives of an ill- 
 natured world ; in this respect resembling the ladies, 
 who ai'e often accused of having had twenty lovers, 
 when they never exceeded three." 
 
 Matter-of-fact men, it is thought, are good ser- 
 vants, whose highest merit is to do as tliey are
 
 AND MATTER-OF-FACT PEOPLE. 79 
 
 bidden, to be precise and punctual in the nicest 
 circumstances of their duty. I would not deny them 
 what credit they may deserve ; but I cannot, even 
 in such lowly capacity, allow them unconditional 
 praise. A master had need to be very select in his 
 own phrases before he absolutely trusts them. — 
 Who would wish to be obeyed to the very letter in 
 all his orders, for three days together? In the 
 changeful bustle of this various life, a modicum of 
 discretionary power and spontaneous action should 
 be permitted to the humblest and most svibservient 
 agents. A punctilious menial may serve you to 
 your heart's desire for two days, and bring you to I 
 know not what sorrow or shame on the third, by no 
 other crime than an unlucky obedience to your 
 commands. You desire that your horse shall be 
 always at the door at eleven o'clock, and that your 
 dinner shall invariably be on the table at four; but 
 take care, in your heedless strictness, that your 
 horse be not found some morning perishing, accord- 
 ing to orders, at your door, for half a dozen hours 
 in a pelting rain ; or that your mutton be not, at 
 your special request, cooling itself to stone, while 
 you are distinctly known to be a good hour and a 
 half away from it.
 
 so OF EXAGCiF.KATIoX 
 
 Matter-of-fact men, again, it might be thought, 
 would form admirable soldiers ; and so they would, 
 no doubt, as far as a formal attention to the petty 
 detail of an imperious diseiplinc could make them 
 so ; but such a habit would not often be found com- 
 bined, I fancy, with the impetuous heroism and 
 daring which, as Bonaparte was the first in modem 
 times to prove, is so much more effective, as an in- 
 strument of war, than a dull system of rigorous 
 drilling and intricate manoeuvres. The Germans 
 are matter-of-fact soldiers — no troops being so re- 
 markable, more by force of education, I believe, 
 than of natural temperament, for their submission 
 to an unvarying formality in all their martial move- 
 ments. They do nothing extempore ; nothing by 
 accident — surrendering themselves up, as INIadame 
 de Stael says, to " a sort of pedantic tactics," in the 
 place of liveliness and enterprise. They would de- 
 spise defeat if "according to rule," and scarcely 
 prize victory if in opposition to it. Methodical and 
 predetermined in all their proceedings, you may 
 calculate, to the division of a degree, what they can 
 do and will do ; but never expect from them one of 
 those fine harebrained and dazzling exploits, which 
 are sometimes achieved by more flighty spirits, under
 
 AND MATTER-OF-FACT PEOPLE. 81 
 
 the impulse only of a stubborn will and reckless 
 confidence. 
 
 I remember a curious instance of military exact- 
 ness in the conduct of a soldier (a German by the 
 way) who was stationed as a sentinel on Margate 
 Pier-head, during a night-storm of tremendous 
 violence, in the course of which nearly the whole 
 pier was destroyed by an irruption of the sea, the 
 high-street of the town undermined, and many of 
 the houses washed down. In this dreadful night, 
 Avhich was made more bitter by a fall of snow and 
 intense cold, the poor fellow stuck to his station till 
 liis life was in the most imminent danger. He was 
 found by some seamen, who went to his relief, 
 clinging to. a post, and with great difficulty main- 
 taining his hold against the sea which dashed over 
 him — and which, not long after his removal, swept 
 away the very ground on which he had stood, and 
 made a free passage into the harbour. When he was 
 asked how he could be such a fool as to stay there 
 only to be drowned, he barely said, that " he had no 
 thought of moving till he was relieved^ and that it 
 still wanted a full half-hour of the time." Had this 
 devotedness to duty and contempt of danger been 
 shown for any useful or generous purpose, I could
 
 82 OF F.XAOr.F.P.ATIOX 
 
 have worsliippid the man ; but I have no frreat 
 consideration for the mere steady stupidity which 
 could hold him fast at such a moment, and at such 
 a risk, when he had no worthier pretence tlian his 
 respect for the formalities of the parade. This 
 man, who would not stir from liis useless post to 
 save his own life, would not have stirred, I suspect, 
 to save the whole town from destruction. And 
 herein is the danger of trusting too freely to such 
 minds, on the strength only of their slavish docility 
 and literal obedience. They are very well while 
 the road is straight, but they are lost without 
 resource whenever they come to a turning. My 
 affection, I confess, is for men of a warmer, more 
 adventurous and inventive, kind, who, in spite of 
 their occasional errors of exaggeration and preci- 
 pitancy, are, take them for all in all, better framed 
 for the mingled and shifting circumstances of human 
 action and suffering. If my way lay through a 
 travelled country, I would put up with a Scotch- 
 man, or a worse man, as my guide over the exact 
 roads — the true bridges — and the right fords; but 
 if my unprecedented journey was over a pathless 
 desert, obstructed by quagimres and quicksands, 
 and fruitful of accidents, requiring sudden plans,
 
 AND MATTER-OF-FACT PEOPLE. 83 
 
 and sudden changes of plans, I would choose for my 
 leader an Irishman. A hull, it may be insinuated, 
 would be an awkward matter in a bog — but I abide 
 by my preference notwithstanding. The Irishman 
 wovild blunder through with me, or I am mistaken.
 
 84 
 
 ON HONESTY. 
 
 1 LOOK upon moral honesty, as consisting of a pure 
 and unconditional respect for the distinctions of 
 meum et tuum for their own sake, to be the rarest 
 quality in human nature. Indeed, if it might not 
 appear too bold for a prefatory remark, I should go 
 so far as to deny the existence of any such quality 
 altogether, setting it down as a chimera of the 
 schools, or at best as a fanciful possibility — the 
 philosopher''s stone of ethics. I am not learned in 
 the Spurzheim topography of the skull, and there- 
 fore cannot lay a demonstrative finger on the spot ; 
 but if there be truth in the science, I venture to af- 
 firm that his " secretiveness''* has an answering bump 
 on every head among us that is out of its first cap. 
 Observe the dispositions and habits of children and 
 savages, or of any people in whom inclination has 
 not been adulterated by the artifices of law. How 
 unaffected, how guileless is their knavery ! It sits
 
 ON HONESTY. 85 
 
 upon them not as an acquired sin, but as a piece of 
 natural' freedom, — a fine generous error of the ori- 
 ginal heart. The South Sea islanders, with their 
 pretty primitive tricks, have been shockingly used 
 by their various visitors. They have always been 
 reported to be thieves, in our European sense of 
 that opprobrious title, and treated accordingly. 
 Poor honest rogues not of their own making, I pity 
 them heartily ! It is true, they would become pro- 
 prietors of a hatchet, or a ten-penny nail, let it 
 belong to whom it might ; and what then ? The 
 true thieves, it has always appeared to me, were 
 those who had the heart to make them restore what 
 it so suited them to call their own. I could as soon 
 have reclaimed an apple that a baby had stolen 
 from my pocket, as have defrauded one of these 
 simple creatures of any thing that it had pleased 
 him in his liberality to take from me. Homo sum, 
 nihil humani a me alienum puto — in other words, 
 my brethren of Owhyhee should have picked my 
 pockets, and welcome. 
 
 How nearly allied are covetousness and dis- 
 honesty ! — and arc we not all covetous ? We are 
 alive, at least, to the great directing impulse of the 
 robber, however we may have learned, on prudential
 
 8() ON HONESTY. 
 
 considerations, to moderate its action. We refrain, 
 I grant ; but our mouths water, — and that is not to 
 be innocent. The mala mens — the desire — the 
 diagnostic bump, are not to be removed. — Thieving 
 is a hard word, a low plirase for general applica- 
 tion ; let us call it the disposition to humour our 
 wants, the longing to appropriate whatever presents 
 itself to our tastes and fancies as agreeable or conve- 
 nient. We are not all thieves, in the vulgar sense 
 of the term — far from it. A thief is not a man who 
 has a love of taking to himself whatsoever pleases 
 him, but one who will take, in contempt of all con- 
 sequences. He is insensible to infamy, and therein 
 differs from us all, — not in that he is dishonest. 
 But how should there be infamy connected with 
 offences to which we have all an eager, if not an 
 equal, proclivity ? There is a sort of conventional 
 shame that protects our possessions, not the shame 
 of dishonesty, but the shame of the gallows. In 
 the absence of any provision in our moral sense, it 
 was necessary, for the security of property, to set up 
 a prejudice against being hanged. The desire of 
 keeping, coeval and conspiring with the desire of 
 getting, made it suitable, upon the whole, that laws 
 should be appointed for restraining the licentious-
 
 ON HONESTY. 87 
 
 ness of the general hand. Avarice, with whatever 
 pain, has politic reasons for checking the ardour 
 of its great provider, Covetousness. — Such artificial 
 checks, however, can be regarded only in the light 
 of commercial regulations, of effectual service to the 
 morality of the shops, but without much influence 
 upon that of our minds. We have no instinctive 
 horror of dishonesty in our nature, as we have of 
 many other crimes. We have no sense of naked 
 and intrinsic deformity in it, and therefore dress it 
 up in frightful clothing — black its face, and then 
 call it a monster. It is no true fiend, but " a painted 
 devil," which we permit, by a species of collusion, 
 to call the blushes to our cheeks, and make our 
 hearts quake within us. The judge — the bar — the 
 rope — these are the dread supplements which con- 
 stitute its sin and shame. A man would bear to 
 hear any thing of an ancestor but that he had been 
 hanged. Were a nobleman to be convicted of 
 " stealing to the amount of forty shillings,"" we 
 should despise him, not for the enormity of his 
 crime, but for the stigma of its punishment. That 
 lie should no longer be an honest man we coukl 
 bear; but he is no longer a gentleman — and we 
 close our hearts against him for ever. We give
 
 88 ON HONESTY. 
 
 omsclvcs airs, because we feel that wc could uoi 
 luivc exposed ourselves to such a penalty, and so 
 call ourselves honest We are respecters of the law, 
 not honest. A rogue (if such names must be) who 
 secures a good prize from the pocket of another, is 
 a "lucky dog;"" we hear of his success^ and wink, 
 and look sly and sympathetic at one another : take 
 the wretch to Bow-street, and you make him a thief, 
 wliom we may not countenance. 
 
 In the crowd. 
 
 May it please your Excellency, your thief looks 
 Exactly like the rest, or rather better ; 
 'Tis only at the bar, and in the dungeon. 
 That wise men know your felon by his features. 
 
 If there is no sacrifice of gentility and public 
 character ; if a man is low enough in the world to be 
 hanged without discredit, mere thieving, even in its 
 compound iniquity of crime and penalty, is not 
 regai'ded with any very serious displeasure. The 
 thief is hanged, to be sure, in deference to our anti- 
 social interests in our watches, snuff-boxes, and 
 pocket-handkerchiefs; but, morally speaking, how 
 arc we affected ? One of the sprightliest articles I 
 remember in a celebrated Review was on the sub- 
 ject of Botan/j Buy — and who wonders. ? See our
 
 ON HONESTY. 89 
 
 polite reports, with their regular formulary of wit 
 and banter ; the jokes on the bench ; the facetious- 
 ness of counsel, and the general waggery that 
 sparkles on the face of the whole court, where no- 
 thing more heinous is in question than a little sleight 
 of hand by which property has changed its owner. 
 One wonders sometimes how the comedy should be 
 wound up into "guilty,"" — whips, chains, or death. 
 What hearty glee and laughter are always called 
 forth by the representation of the Beggar's Opera — 
 a whole theatre, boxes — pit — galleries, betrayed 
 into one expression of chuckling consciousness, not 
 by the touches of general satire, or innocent play- 
 fulness, with which the piece abounds, but by the 
 villany of the business — the irresistible Filch. This 
 spectacle is too much for our caution ; it breaks 
 through all our assumptions of affectation and dis- 
 guise, and discovers our true kind and class, in the 
 manner that a handful of nuts brought out, in a 
 moment, the inalienable ape-hood of the monkey- 
 players. The neatness, and suitable drollery, with 
 which poor little Simmons used to whisk away a 
 neighbour's handkerchief was acknowledged — felt, 
 by the whole house. Could not people sit for ever, 
 let me ask, to witness the ravenous thievery of
 
 90 ON HONESTY. 
 
 Grimaldi ? — Could we ever tire, as long as he would 
 be stealing sausages for our entertainment ? It is 
 wonderful, indeed, as the song says, that " we have 
 not better company — at Tyburn Tree/' 
 
 The law, in setting up its fences and land-marks, 
 mercifully left us some open ground — a patch of 
 common here and there, on which we may indulge 
 our free natures without fear or responsibility. In 
 these " liberties," there is no security for our fair 
 conduct but our in-born honesty ; and how does it 
 acquit itself in its office ? Tell a winning gamester 
 that he has taken the whole worldly support from 
 some poor wretch, and given him over, with a wife 
 and children, to famine or a jail ; appeal to his ho- 
 nesty, you have potent claims ; tell him that the man 
 whom he has ruined had no exclusive title to the 
 money which he risked ; that, if callous on his own 
 account, he had no right to play away the interests 
 of his wife and children in his property ; in short, 
 that he was dishonest in his losses, and that the 
 winner must be equally so in his gains, differing 
 only, as the receiver differs from the thief. " Very 
 afflicting,"" the gamester will allow, or, more cha- 
 racteristically, "very imlucky'"' — but will he restore 
 the money ? — not a stiver.
 
 ON HONESTY. 91 
 
 A gentleman cannot be a horse-stealer, for ob- 
 vious reasons; but may he not sell a horse to an 
 acquaintance, and conceal, or not proclaim, his 
 blemishes ? We are very willing at all events to 
 take a warranty, even from " the best nobleman in 
 the land/"' Stealing books in a friendly familiar 
 way; pocketing carelessly a light pamphlet, or 
 portable poem, is not felony ; and what is the con- 
 sequence ? Every man who has a library gives out 
 with angry determinacy, that he never lends a book : 
 he does not wish to be personal ; but press him, and 
 he will inform you, that he never in his life lent one 
 that was returned. I have myself lost (lost indeed !) 
 the fifteenth number of the Edinburgh Review, 
 and, with all I can say, I have not a friend who 
 has the candour to come forward and confess the 
 robbery. Stealing other people's thoughts out of 
 books, I just mention, as decidedly of kin to the 
 great family-failing that I am treating of. There is 
 vindictive law, however, for this description of pil- 
 fering — the critics ! — not over-honest themselves, as 
 witness — their extracts. 
 
 Law, if it confines our hands, cannot control 
 our hearts : it may not allow us to be thieves, but it 
 cannot make us honest. Look at the old lady (we
 
 9i2 ON HONESTY. 
 
 all know whom) at llie whist-table. What is it 
 that keeps her from sweeping into her own la]) 
 every six-pence on the board ? Watch her unholy 
 eagerness ; her daring equivocations ; her " two by 
 honours" — always; her flushed and hurrying agita- 
 tions on the very borders of petty larceny, and say 
 if she is lionest: — sincerely, does she despise the 
 thought of six-penccs that do not belong to her ? 
 The good lady has a horror of Sir Robert Birnie 
 that may not be acknowledged by Bill Soames, but 
 is she more honest .'' The familiar caution of " Hold 
 up your cards, sir," is really very little removed in 
 the spirit of its signification from the well-known 
 cry of " Mind your pockets, ladies and gentlemen." 
 A round game, if the truth may be told, is no other, 
 as concerns the minds of the parties, than a general 
 scramble — a " snatch" at the pool — a " go it" for 
 the sweepstakes. People may talk as they please 
 about playing fair, and the rules of the game, but 
 the essence of the sport is precisely fingering. 
 There is no sight more unpleasant than a party of 
 young women at a round game, striving with red- 
 dened and fierce faces to make beffgars of one 
 another. I have seen a beautiful girl of eighteen 
 rendered positively offensive to look at, by the
 
 ON HONESTY. 9^» 
 
 bravo-like manner with which she would turn u]) 
 vingt-un. I could have yielded up what money I 
 over carry, or have to carry, to a regular " stand 
 and deliver," on Finchley Common, with far less 
 reluctance, than to this Macheath of the card-table. 
 The mistaken creature robbed herself of so much, 
 while she was robbing me, that I could in no way 
 pardon her. For my part, I would sooner see 
 women drinking brandy than winning half-crowns. 
 If they will play at cards, let it be only " for love," 
 or some such lady-like stake. They should know 
 the interests of their own attractions ; yet surely a 
 pretty woman is guilty of a grievous miscalculation, 
 when she wastes her smiles and frowns on a pool at 
 loo. How can an angel with any face be asking a 
 gentleman, one dying for her perhaps, for change 
 for a pound note, or three six-pences for eighteen- 
 pence.'* The whole business has a detestable taint 
 of meanness, vulgarity, and hard-heartedness, about 
 it. Wax lights and rose-wood tables cannot sanctify 
 such exhibitions: — with the Countess behind her 
 cards, and the purple-nosed hag at the fair behind 
 her round-about, "one down — two down," — the 
 little, dirty, narrow, degrading passion is the same. 
 IJut I am wandering. —
 
 94' ON HONESTY. 
 
 I have stated the desire of gratifying our wants 
 to be the soul of dishonesty ; and it will be found, I 
 believe, that people are honest in proportion to the 
 fewness of their wants. Who is honest .'' He who 
 has no want that he cannot supply, and no wish that 
 he cannot satisfy. Savages, who want, or procure 
 with difficulty and imperfectly, the first necessaries 
 of life, are thieves by fatality. To tell them to be 
 honest is like telling them not to be hungry. A 
 civilized people then, in a land of abundance, arc 
 alone " all honourable men ?"" By no means — for if 
 among them the more imperative necessities of our 
 condition are fully and readily provided for, they 
 have an infinity of superadded wants, the growth of 
 luxury and refinement, that are quite sufficient to 
 preserve our original secrctiveiiess in full life and 
 activity. A man who v/ants food and clothing, and 
 one who wants a carriage and an opera-box, are 
 equally in the broad way of dishonesty. I speak of 
 dishonesty in relation to pure moral principle : that 
 we keep our fingers in order is nothing ; the poor 
 savages will not be behind our politeships in this 
 point of decorum, when it shall please them, on 
 "some fair future day," to set up lawyers, judges, 
 and gibbets. The inequalities that prevail, and
 
 ON HONESTY. 95 
 
 must prevail, in civiliztxl society, will not allow our 
 minds to be at rest : there is always something to 
 envy and to want, even for those who have more 
 than they want. A gentleman who can feed fifty 
 mouths, besides his own, at dinner-time, might be 
 said to have enough, were it not notorious that 
 
 Lord C frequently sits down to a meal with 
 
 two hundred guests at his table. The baronet is 
 always in a state of temptation till he is a lord ; and 
 the lord is any body's man but his own, as long- 
 as there is a ribbon or a garter which he does not 
 possess. There is no " highest"" amongst men — no 
 pre-eminent resting-place for any one, from whence 
 he can see nothing that is not beneath him. Kings 
 have their competitors, and are as full of wants as 
 paupers. Dishonesty in such high personages is 
 called ambition ; but call it what you please, it is the 
 same restless and rapacious greediness, acting ac- 
 cording to its station and its opportunities, as in- 
 fluences the meanest amongst us. Kings would be 
 sacking territories and pilfering prerogative, in the 
 same spirit with which beggars would be robbing 
 hen-roosts. It has been justly observed that, as 
 respects manners and moral character, there arc 
 many striking points of resemblance between the
 
 96 ON HONESTY. 
 
 extreme conditions of" hninan life — between kings 
 and the lowest of their subjects. The parties are 
 alike free from responsibility, the one being too high, 
 and the other too low, to be reached by the checks 
 of custom and public opinion. It proves so, I think, 
 very unequivocally, in the affair of honesty. The 
 whole world, I sincerely believe, is a knave at 
 bottom ; but a man distinguished only by a good 
 coat on his back must keep his nature down, and, 
 whatever may be his dreams, must wake and walk 
 as the law directs. Kings and the man of rags 
 alone do as they please : there is no " pining in 
 thought"" for them ; they leave dreaming to those 
 beneath or above them, and dash gallantly into the 
 field of action, your only fearless depredators. 
 Were I a king — but I forbear ; — my modesty faints 
 before so strange an hypothesis. 
 
 There are wants which seem to be craving and 
 impetuous, in proportion as they are far-fetched and 
 irrelevant, or removed from common feeling and par- 
 ticipation. Collectors — those who number among 
 their wants rare prints and pictures, an unique gem, 
 or solitary coin — are thieves to a man. The hanker- 
 ing of the collector is complex, being founded on his 
 rejvret for what he has not, and for what others have.
 
 ON HONESTY. 97 
 
 ITo would glory in acquiring a Queen Anne's 
 farlhing, l)ut would be still sleepless, if he could 
 not take it from Mr. Davies. Bury it — let it not 
 be at all, and he might be content ; but that it 
 should be, and for another, is intolerable. Rarities 
 in a national museum create no envy ; they belong 
 to nobody : it is in the house of a friend that they 
 become provoking, and drive a man to sin. That 
 it is possible for a virtuoso of common pretensions, 
 so beset and excited, to be strictly honest, I quite 
 deny. Mr. Longfoot has not stolen, I know, and 
 will not, and would not steal, I believe, a Hogarth 
 print in my possession, which is just xoanthig to 
 make his set complete ; but, between friends, let me 
 ask him, if he has not in his heart purloined it a 
 hundred times over. If, as he stood with his eyes 
 fixed upon it last Tuesday, for instance, in a state of 
 abstraction, he was not rioting in the luxury of an 
 hypothetical felony, I am a greater dunce at inter- 
 preting a reverie than I should be willing to consider 
 myself. I have myself some virtu about me, and 
 have of course my " confessions'" on the subject, if 
 I choose to make them. My collection, as yet, is 
 fairly come by, I believe; but I should be much 
 
 11
 
 98 ON HONESTY. 
 
 ((bligoil to Mr. II. if lie would not show me tliat 
 Otffo of his any more. Vcrhum sat. 
 
 A great city is a perilous school for dishonesty, 
 not only from the rehef that it ex}^{)scs to the naked 
 and hungry, but from the ostentatious enticements 
 to enjoyment with which it meets every whimsical 
 wish and want that can enter the imagination of 
 luxurious man. The gorgeous shops of London, 
 which invent for us lialf the wants that they supply, 
 arc enoucrli to make the best of us tremble for the 
 possible consequences. Where is the person, gentle 
 or simple, that can walk through Oxford-street, and 
 be sensible, within his own bosom, that he is an 
 honest man ? The things are all for sale, we know ; 
 but what is to become of " poor human nature,"" witli 
 no money in her pocket. Look at those youngsters, 
 who, with slabbering mouths and vindictive eyes, 
 beset the windows of the pastrycooks; observe that 
 shabby oldish gentleman with the green spectacles, 
 dreaming and sighing away half the morning at the 
 outside (he dares not go in) of the curiosity-shop ; 
 mark that lean thoughtful person (he has not six- 
 pence in the world) handling that precious turbot ; 
 and the gaily-dressed spark, a door or two farther
 
 ON HONESTY. 99 
 
 on, pondering over those enthralling cases of rings, 
 seals, and shirt-pins; see how the smart jockey in 
 top-boots there stares at, till he almost owns, every 
 Dcnnet and Tilbury at the coach-makers ; and with 
 what a kingly smile that poor-author-likc-looking 
 man surveys the phenomena of the cook's shop — he 
 is eating that ham with the glass between them ; and 
 then note the women, the crowds, well-dressed and 
 ill-dressed, old and young, who haunt the shops as 
 under a spell ; not those who bargain or buy — let 
 them pass — but the far greater multitudes who 
 flutter about the windows and doors, who look, and 
 think, and fancy, and guess, and wonder, and like, 
 and wish, and try, and touch, and — all but take; — 
 these various persons, innocent as they seem, and as 
 they are in the judgment of the law, what are they 
 before their consciences ? — Such indulgences are so 
 habitual to us, and pass through our minds in such 
 easy and rapid succession, that we pay no deep at- 
 tention to them in their particulars, and suffer our- 
 selves night after night (so graceless do we become) 
 to sleep and forget them. It would be curious, 
 and not uninstructive, were a person, in mercantile 
 phrase, to open a regular account against himself 
 touching such proceedings, so that all his contraband
 
 100 
 
 ON HONESTY 
 
 imaginations before shop-windows might be occa- 
 sionally served up to him in a full and formal bill 
 of lading. A day-book like this, honcsfhj kept 
 (there's the rub again) would be as a looking-glass, 
 in which a man might see his true face, though one 
 which he and his friends might scarcely be willing 
 to own. Any lady thinking herself honest would 
 be startled, I dare say, at a diary of but a single 
 morning's fraudulence set forth in full amount; — 
 four dozen Cashmire shawls — twelve gross of straw 
 bonnets — one hundred lace caps, and so on, a mul- 
 titudinous litter of ill-gotten property turned out 
 before her conscience, which might remind her with 
 advantage of those veritable heaps of plunder, that 
 are frequently brought to light in the hands of some 
 practical rogue, and strewed, to the amazement of 
 the world, before the eyes of some inquisitor of 
 the poUce. The lady, perhaps, sees no ghosts of 
 skeleton-keys, pick-locks, and iron crows, amidst 
 her fancy-pillage, — but there the goods are — I stick 
 to that; — and how came they there .^ Shopping 
 and shop-lifting, I fear, are but too frequently, 
 in a moral sense, convertible terms : the latter has a 
 very bad name, and certainly deserves it, while her 
 hypocrite- sister, who professes " to pay for every
 
 ON HONESTY. 101 
 
 thing," looks the world in the face, and meets with 
 reverence. Pay for every thing ! — I have seen a 
 lady, after poring for two hours over unfurled 
 roods of cambrics, prints, and muslins, till the whole 
 counter was a pile of ruin and disorder before her, 
 finally come to a conclusion for three yards of penny 
 bobbin, and take her leave. If this lady had not 
 more for her money than was honest, I give up the 
 question. 
 
 Upon the whole, I am clearly of opinion, that a 
 man who has it at heart to be wholly honest, who, 
 while he would scorn to be a thief, would keep his 
 inclinations also " from picking and stealing,"" must 
 avoid the haunts of fashionable wants and necessi- 
 ties, fly from cities and all large assemblages of his 
 fellows, and not rest with confidence, till he reaches 
 the mountains of Switzerland or Wales. In these 
 simple regions, where enough to eat is pretty nearly 
 the limit of civilization, he will find the only home 
 of pure, uncoveting honesty. The savage is a 
 craver — rneum or tuum — he eats any thing that he 
 can get ; but in the condition next above his, where 
 every one is sure of his lawful dinner, and no one 
 has learned any other want, — there, people are by 
 necessity content ; there, no one covets what another 

 
 102 ON HONESTY. 
 
 has not got. Perfect plenty and perfect equality 
 leave no motive for stealing or wishing: every 
 stomach is full — ahd for the rest — rocks and water- 
 falls move no envy, they are yours and mine ; the 
 sky has no partialities, it covers us all. This is to 
 be honest on very hard terms, to be sure : it is better, 
 perhaps, to be a bit of a rogue in good company.
 
 ON HUNTING. 
 
 I AM not going, I promise, to be scientific, and 
 deep, and unintelligible on my subject. I once 
 asked a sportsman of the highest authority, how 
 long it might require to make a man of common 
 parts a perfect fox-hunter. He informed me, that 
 common parts would do nothing at all ; but that 
 "a clever fellow," with favourable opportunities 
 and severe application, might in four years, he 
 thought it probable, fit himself to appear, with 
 respectability at least, in any "hunt" that he was 
 actpiainted with. As for perfect fox-hunters — 
 there are not three, he assured me, in the three 
 kingdoms. Now, I do not propose to developc any 
 mysteries of the chase, such as my sage informant 
 nuist have contemplated, when he laid down this 
 serious course of discipline and induction. I am 
 not one of the perfect fox-hunters of these realms ; 
 but havnig been in the way of late of seeing a good
 
 101 ON HUNTING. 
 
 (leal of \aiious uiock-s of hunting, I would, for the 
 benefit of the uninitiated, set down the results of my 
 observation — giving them, I trust, a sufficient notion 
 of what really belongs to an amusement which, as 
 they must have heard, supplies for six months in 
 the year, to gentlemen in the country, the staple- 
 interest of life. The gj-eenest need not fear from 
 me any swaggering airs of superiority : I will not 
 seek to perplex them by mystifying trifles, nor 
 mortify them in their helplessness, like some bul- 
 lying smatterers that 1 wot of, by means only of a 
 little technical slang. The dignity of what I have 
 to state shall not be wrapped up in any unfair dis- 
 guises, but be honestly exposed before them, no 
 better than common English can make it. 
 
 It will give clearness, perhaps, to some of my 
 details, if, preparatory to taking the field, I give 
 some little account of the nature of the country (on 
 the coast of Sussex) w^hich has been the scene of my 
 experience in the chase. The Sussex Downs, as all 
 Brighton knows, generally present a very uninte- 
 resting appearance — a combination of round-topped, 
 lumpish hills, shelving down generally with a rapid 
 descent, but smooth, and equal, and uniform, as the 
 inside of a bowl. In some parts of the county.
 
 ON HUNTING. 105 
 
 liovvcvcr, they exhibit a more cliversitied character. 
 About a mile to the northward of the little town 
 of Seaford, commences a district of open or down- 
 country, which, to the birds who look upon it from 
 mid-air, must have very much the aspect of a solid 
 ocean — so multitudinous are the chasms and glens 
 by which it is divided. These glens seldom exceed 
 a hundred feet in depth ; their sides are always 
 steep, sometimes nearly perpendicular, having con- 
 cave surfaces, smoothed and planed, as if by human 
 art. Most of them are so narrow at the bottom, as 
 scarcely to afford room for the wheels of a cart ; and 
 they intersect each other like the streets of a town. 
 One of these narrow green alleys forms a complete 
 and most regular circle, from which, at various in- 
 tervals, diverge other alleys of the same character, 
 which pursue short windings among the hills, and 
 may lead you, if tempted to follow them, by very 
 unexpected openings into the circle again. The 
 whole of these downs, hills, and hollows, are un- 
 rl'lievcd by a tree or bush ; but covered with a short 
 herbage, and chequered with furze-brakes, which 
 give shelter to an abundance of foxes, hares, and 
 ])artridges. 
 
 Such a country, considered in relation to hunting.
 
 IOC ON HUNTING. 
 
 has this peculiarity, niy reader will apprehend, that 
 it offers no leaps — no immortality for those who 
 would break their necks over stone walls and stake- 
 bound hedges, Wc have hills, however, with their 
 steep sides slippery as glass, and perforated with 
 rabbit-holes, which supply quite as much dignity 
 to the chase as can be required from difficulty and 
 peril. In critical moments of the day, you will see 
 heroes rush down these hills with a thoughtless im- 
 petuosity, that nothing but the occasion can excuse. 
 You must have a horse carefully broken and tu- 
 tored to such experiments; when you will find 
 him, as you desire it, freely skating down with you 
 some hundred feet, rarely taking his legs from the 
 ground, yet keeping himself upon them with won- 
 derful skill and certainty. There is always a degree 
 of risk, it may be supposed, in these lubricous 
 descents; but what is the life of a man, when the 
 question is the death of a fox ? But to our sport : 
 and first for — 
 
 THE HARRIERS. 
 
 The establishment in which I have been a ])arty 
 in this department of the cliate is only a farmer^ 
 *' hunt," affecting no stjlc or pomp, but prosecuting
 
 ON HUNTING. 107 
 
 its essential business with a degree of spirit not to 
 be surpassed. The pack was kept till very lately, 
 and had been kept for some forty years, by the 
 celebrated " Old Martin," — so I venture to call 
 him, for, within one degree of latitude at least, his 
 name was as general as the air. He was the finest 
 old man I ever saw — xoas, I say, (melancholy 
 tense !) for, with sorrow I speak it, he is now no 
 more. At the time when I first knew him, he was 
 some years beyond seventy, yet I'uddy and fresh 
 as the morning — firm, muscular, active — despising 
 cold, and rain, and hail, and hurricanes, and bat- 
 tling through the utmost fatigues of the manly exer- 
 cise in which he delighted, with all the gaiety of 
 youth. He was reputed to be the most fearless 
 rider in the county ; yet his daring was not greater 
 than his skill, for he never met with an accident. 
 During the season, he used to hunt, just as at fivc- 
 and-twenty, three days in a week, regularly follow- 
 ing his huntsman from the kennel at ten in the 
 morning, and returning with him at nightfall. 
 Frost and snow apart, no description of weather 
 had power to keep him at home on a hunting-day. 
 As master of the pack, he had a s{)ccial character 
 U) maintain, which would not allow him to shrink
 
 108 ON IIINTING. 
 
 from circumstances, thai his loss rcstiicted com- 
 panions of the field might hesitate to face. Come 
 what come might, the hounds were always at the 
 place of meeting at the predestined hour ; and 
 many and many a time has the old gentleman fol- 
 lowed up the chase through a whole day of ceaseless 
 rain, and raving wind, with no partner but his 
 huntsman, who travelled on foot, and was seldom 
 near him. The distintjuishin"; mark in his dress 
 was a white smock-frock, out of which he was never 
 seen except at church on Sundays. From this 
 homely garb, together with an extreme plainness 
 and simplicity in his general character and habits, 
 he was regarded as the last surviving representative 
 of any note in this part of the world, of the old 
 school of farmers, as it existed before farmers had 
 coated and booted themselves into gentlemen. That 
 he did not think it becoming to cast off his frock on 
 light pretences may be inferred from the fact, that 
 he was worth above a hundred thousand pounds. 
 He was called by his brother-sportsmen, in allusion 
 to his frock, the fiag-admiral ; his white drapery 
 flapping in the wind, and far seen on the hills, being 
 an excellent signal for loiterers gone astray, who 
 misht be sure that the frock and the hounds were
 
 ON HUNTIXG. 109 
 
 not far apart. I was with him, I have a pride in 
 recollecting, on the last day that he was permitted 
 to iuint on those hills, which for half a century he 
 had gladdened with his merry halloo ! and hark 
 forward ! He was ill, and looked suddenly and 
 alarmingly altered ; but he brightened up at the 
 spirit-stirring call of his dogs, and rode well through- 
 out the chase — true, to the latest moment, to the 
 only amusement which he had ever considered 
 worth the notice of a man. The hunt closed on 
 this occasion at precisely half-past two o^clock ; and 
 at that hour, to give some notion of the spirit of this 
 gallant old man, he set off to ride seven miles to 
 some dinner of business at Pevensey, and came 
 back to his bed at night. He never went out again. 
 His complaint was some febrile disorder which was 
 not to be subdued. After a few days of suffering, 
 he was, with some hesitation on his own part 
 attended for the first time in his memory by a 
 doctor, a sort of mediator for whom he had always 
 expressed the greatest contempt. There was no 
 hope among his friends from this hour: he took 
 physic and — died. Such a man is not to be re- 
 placed. There will be no more hunting, it is agreed.
 
 no ON HUNTING. 
 
 OH the heights of Fu'le. Hounds if you Hkc, and 
 people to follow them — but no more hunting. 
 
 For the other members of the " hunt," a more 
 cursory notice will suffice. They consisted of about 
 a dozen farmers, of various ages, from twenty to 
 fifty, — hard, tough, sturdy fellows, with iron fibres 
 and dauntless hearts ; together widi five or six vete- 
 rans, an invalid company, who, though prevented 
 by age and infirmity, by lameness, rheumatism, and 
 dislocations, from joining in the activities of the 
 field, could not consent to retire altogether from the 
 scene, but would be crawling about to see and hear 
 what was going on ; helping out their little part in 
 the present sport, by the recollections which it called 
 forth of better and brisker days. One of them had 
 a dislocated hip, the result of a fall from his horse, 
 which made his seat on the saddle so wearisome and 
 uneasy, that he was obliged to dismount every half- 
 hour, to relieve himself by a change of posture. He 
 admitted that hunting was grown a somewhat pain- 
 ful exercise to him ; but he had hunted;, he said, 
 with Old Martin for forty years, and — what could 
 he do ? " Besides,"" said he, " I can rest now and 
 then, and my mare (I will say that for her) is the
 
 ON HUNTING. Ill 
 
 easiest beast in the world, — so that, somehow or 
 othei', I contrive, thank God, to make out a morn- 
 ing''s amusement yet."" This open country, with its 
 commanding eminences, is very favourable to those 
 veterans, allowing them generally, with a few judi- 
 cious changes on their part in their posts of observa- 
 tion, to be within sight or sound of the hunt from 
 the starting to the death. The hare, indeed, will 
 sometimes run from them out of all reasonable 
 bounds, but in that event they have expectation 
 and conjecture to keep them warm ; and will will- 
 ingly wait for an hour or two till the return of the 
 dogs, finding an ample reward for their patience in 
 the very earliest news that takes air, of all that has 
 transpired in their absence. 
 
 On one of those mornings which sportsmen com- 
 bine to call fine, and which keep every body else 
 within doors, these " merry men air meet to bent 
 up the covers, let us say, of Norton-Top. A plea- 
 sant rain and welcome ; but a bright sun never made 
 a fine morning yet, or Old Martin knew notliiiig 
 about it. Let there not be much wind cither, if 
 you would prosper, this being an agent almost as 
 offensive to the moist scent as the sun. The liounds 
 (thirty to the pack) are uncoupled, and, after a pre-
 
 Uii ON HUNTING. 
 
 liisivc roll, aiul slmke, and run, dash into the blood- 
 letting thicket of furze, or hawdi, as we call it, mi- 
 mindful of the pins and needles that would obstruct 
 their passage, save that here and there you may 
 licar a testy yelp, or a surly growl, as the disposi- 
 tion of the creature may be, from one over-hasty, 
 or perhaps, as Old Martin would say, " out of hu- 
 mour this morning." The horsemen scatter them- 
 selves wide, and keep beating away with their whips, 
 while now and then a promising cry bursts from 
 some favourite dog, just to preserve our attention 
 from sleeping, and assure us that we are amused. 
 That's Jozoler again ! — she is just before him ; the 
 cry becomes more general, quick, and pressing — 
 they are hot upon her trail — and presently, out she 
 skips, and away for her life — a fine hare to be sure 
 — holla ! a view — holla ! True to the shout, the 
 dogs are out of the thicket in a moment — down go 
 their fatal noses to the ground — they catdi the 
 scent, and gaily they run, the whole pack setting 
 up a full, loud, continuous cry, which rolls out upon 
 the wind in a stream of pervading melody, that 
 seems like the natural music of the hills. Have I 
 a reader who has not heard this cry ? Oh ! let him 
 rouse himself; life is short ; let him not die in igno-
 
 ON HUNTING, 113 
 
 raucc ; Catalan! will come to km ; away then to 
 Leicestershire, or Northumberland, or Cornwall, — 
 any where — but do let him hear this blithe field- 
 song of the hounds. Sincerely, it is beautiful. 
 
 There is nothing violent and hurried in hare- 
 hunting, like the first burst after a fox : the men of 
 might, who ride close to the dogs or thereabouts, 
 set off at an easy gallop, not more than agreeable to 
 a horse of common powers ; while the elders are 
 seen edging away at a brisk walk for some neigh- 
 bouring point, near which the hare will go, or ought 
 to go, as they will prove unanswerably, should she 
 venture to transgress the received rules and pre- 
 cedents. She generally returns to the seat from 
 which she was put up, running, as all the world 
 knows, in a circle, or something sometimes like it, 
 we had better say, that we may keep on good terms 
 with the mathematical. At starting, she tears away 
 at her utmost speed for a mile or more, and distances 
 the dogs half way ; she then returns, diverging a 
 little to the right or left, that she may not run into 
 the mouths of her enemies — a necessity which ac- 
 counts for, what we call, the circularity of her course. 
 Her flight from home is direct and precipitate ; but 
 on her way back, when she has gained a little time 
 
 1
 
 Ill ON HUNTING. 
 
 for consideration and stratagem, she describes a cu- 
 rious labyrinth of short turnings and windings, as 
 if to perplex the dogs by the intricacy of her track. 
 These are her usual proceedings, though they are 
 hable to many innovations, dcj)ending, among other 
 causes, upon the temptrature of the scent, which, as 
 it A'^aries the activity of the dogs, will often vary 
 the movements of the hare. But these are distinc- 
 tions to be sufficiently explained only in the field. 
 " She'll come back here,'' said I : " What !" replied 
 Old Martin, "with the wind at east?" and I was 
 silenced. 
 
 The hounds, v.hom we left in full cry, continue 
 their music without remission as long as they are 
 faithful to the scent; as a summons, it should seem, 
 like the seaman's cry, to pull together, or keep to- 
 gether ; and it is a certain proof to themselves and 
 their followers that they are in the right way. On 
 the instant that they are " at fault," or lose the 
 scent, they are silent, and the whole pack immedi- 
 ately disperse and scour over the ground, that they 
 may nose out their game again. When their mouths 
 become mute, however, their tails begin to speak, 
 and explain, as they wag, with the eloquence of 
 words, tlicir eagerness and impatience : as long, as
 
 ON HUNTING. 1 15 
 
 these are in motion there is hope ; when thev settle 
 into stiUness, all is lost. There are five or six dogs 
 in the pack of known sagacity and experience, who 
 are looked up to by the rest, in all circumstances of 
 embarrassment, for counsel and direction. If some 
 ignorant puppy, of no name or nose, presumes to 
 state his opinion in a doubtful case, in some light 
 inconsequential speech, nobody thinks of attending 
 to it, except the huntsman, perhaps, with his re- 
 proving whip ; but if the unerring Trollop, or old 
 Jowler, set up their decisive voices, the challenge is 
 answered by every mouth in the pack ; a simulta- 
 neous rush is made to the spot, the scent is reco- 
 vered, and all is life and action once more. 
 
 These " faults" are very frequent occurrences, 
 and, if they are not too much prolonged, rather aid 
 the interest of the sport than otherwise, inasmuch 
 as they call forth all the varied instincts of the dogs 
 and their game, and bring into exercise the most 
 hidden knowledge, and the nicest discrimination, of 
 the sportsmen. I speak only from my own feelings 
 on the subject, and it is proper to acknowledge that, 
 in the general opinion, a " fault" is a fault. The 
 weather, in its impression on the scent, is the great 
 father of " faults;"" but ihev may arise from other 
 
 I ii
 
 IK) ON HUNTIXG. 
 
 accidents, even wlien the day is in every respect fa- 
 vourable. Tlie intervention of ploughed land, on 
 which the scent soon cools or evaporates, is at 
 least perilous; but sheep-stains, recently left by a 
 flock, are fatal ; they cut off the scent irrecoverably, 
 making a gap, as it were, in the clue, in which the 
 dogs have not even a hint for their guidance. These 
 dicta of mine are meant to apply only to our own 
 particular " hunt ;" other packs, in differently con- 
 ditioned countries, have, no doubt, "faults" of their 
 own, which I know nothing about. No?! omnia, &c. 
 An hour and a half may be stated as the average 
 duration of a chase, with all its interruptions, in 
 which time the hare may run ten or twelve miles; 
 but if the scent is strong, and she is closely pressed, 
 she may come to her death in considerably less time, 
 after running a much greater distance. At the lat- 
 ter end of the season, in February and March, the 
 hares become exceedingly w ild, and run with all the 
 vigour and determinacy of a fox, justifying the well- 
 known comparative, " as mad as a March hare." 
 We have it on record, safe for our posterity, that 
 on the 13th of February, 1822, a hare, put up by 
 old Martin himself, led us a chase of twenty-five 
 miles, in which she ran through seven wasn't it
 
 ON HUNTING. 117 
 
 seven, Mr. Stace ? yes, seven parishes, swam across 
 a river, and back again, and finally made her escape, 
 leaving dogs, and horses, and men breadiless, and 
 worn out behind her. But I am too talkative by 
 half, and they always said so of me in the field. We 
 started, I think, from Norton-Top : suppose then, 
 after the usual rounds, that you see the hare at last 
 (a sorry mark for so many foes) sorely beleaguered 
 — looking dark and draggled — and limping hea- 
 vily along; then stopping to listen — again totter- 
 ing on a little — and again stopping ; and at every 
 step, and every pause, hearing the death-cry grow 
 nearer and louder. At this period the sternness of 
 my purpose would relent : I was always inclined to 
 say, like Macbeth, " we will proceed no further in 
 this business," and would willingly have given the 
 little animal a kinder reward than awaited her, for 
 the amusement that she had afforded me. But it 
 might not be : the dogs rush in upon her and seize 
 her — the horsemen gallop up — cut away with their 
 whips — hold up the game — and the cry is dead! 
 dead ! dead ! There might happen to be no horse- 
 man near at this moment ; in which case, the hare, 
 bones, skin, and all, would in a few seconds be di- 
 vided, and swallowed amongst the hounds, no signs
 
 lis ON IIUNTINC;. 
 
 being left but the stains of blood upon their jaws. 
 But so disgraceful a casualty as this was rare in- 
 deed under the reign of our vigilant and active com- 
 mander. I loved to see him always at this crown- 
 ing scene of our sport. He would seize the hare, 
 and throw it at his feet, to indicate its death to the 
 dogs, who, looking up at him, and baying and howl- 
 ing, would cluster in a circle round him, keeping 
 precisely at whip''s length from the centre, or their 
 master — our father-sportsman, who stood like a con- 
 queror — his venerable face suffused all over with a 
 placid triumph, which it was impossible not to sym- 
 pathise with. Presently he would prepare for his 
 last offices to the hare on this side the dish. Diving 
 into the depths of his capacious breeches-pocket — 
 the right pocket — whose hard contents were plainly 
 mapped out in grease and dirt on the outside — he 
 would ])ull forth his knife of all work — deliberately 
 open it — make the right incision, tear out the en- 
 trails of the animal, and dash them among the dogs 
 — at the same time, with insidious and crimsoned 
 finger (foi he loved a joke), widening the mouth of 
 some staring shepherd-boy, who would be standing 
 at his elbow. Poor Old jMartin ! Not two months 
 ago, I saw him doing, looking, joking, just as I
 
 ON HUNTING. 119 
 
 have described him. Peace be with you, my old 
 friend ! your good deeds — generous — charitable — 
 were not few ; and if to love a drizzly morning three 
 days in a week be no sin, you can have little to 
 answer for. 
 
 COURSING. 
 
 This is a gentle exercise, not unfriendly to a 
 sunny morning — hunting fit for a lady — indeed, the 
 dogs employed seem made on purpose for the ladies. 
 The greyhound, I think, is the most beautiful ani- 
 mal in the world — beautiful, not only from its 
 graceful lines and perfect symmetry, but from the. 
 palpable expediency of its frame in all its parts, as a 
 thing of speed. The powers of other brutes are not 
 obvious till they are discovered to us in action ; but 
 a single glance at the greyhound, even in repose, 
 assures us that its business is to run. There is no 
 other animal, that I know of, so entirely dependent 
 for its prey on swiftness of foot ; and there is none 
 in which nature has provided for this single attri- 
 bute with so cautious and delicate a hand. In com- 
 paring the greyhound with other dogs, it is curious 
 to observe, while it preserves all their generic di- 
 stinctions, the numerous and mimite deviations that
 
 120 ox HUNTING. 
 
 occur ill every division of its structure, adapted to 
 the particular destination of its powers. Its small 
 pointed head; its long, light, fleshless body; the 
 curved and flexible spine acting with the force of a 
 spring; its long, sinewy, tapering legs; its close, 
 thin skin, unencumbered with a wrinkle or a hair 
 that could be spared — all these are peculiarities that 
 distinguish it from every other dog, and are all 
 speakingly in aid of one design. Even the pendu- 
 lous, cord-like tail, that seems to steal along after 
 the animal, without a movement to waste, is full of 
 appropriate character. The creature seems to have 
 no bowels ; the yawning, hungry vacuum in their 
 place being objected to by some solid fudges as un- 
 sightly ; though, with all deference, I think it a 
 beauty, if not in itself, in its combination with the 
 general structure of the dog, and the whole meaning 
 of its expressive figure. Any other dog, so thin 
 in all respects, would be full of clumsy protube- 
 rances, and appear uncouth and death-like ; but the 
 greyhound, a mere skeleton in a skin, cushioned 
 only with a few tense, springy muscles about the 
 loins and shoulders, which you may count like the 
 ribs, has yet not a sharp point or hard angle about
 
 ox HUNTING. 131 
 
 it ; its finely-turned mechanism presenting only 
 a series of gentle bends and wavy lines, a perfect 
 model of shapeliness and elegance. 
 
 There is a gentleness in the disposition of this 
 beautiful animal that is quite in harmony with the 
 dehcacy of its form. It approaches you with a 
 timid, crouching fondness, to be daunted by a look, 
 unless you would encourage it to rapture by a word, 
 and then, — Oh ! the fantastical gambols — the kan- 
 garoo-like jumps, the wild careering of its three- 
 league legs, vainly striving for play in a narrow 
 circle round you ! — if it should not happen to prefer, 
 which it often does, a kiss, placing its paws upon 
 your shoulders, and bringing you nose to nose, were 
 you as tall as the Irish giant. It is an interesting 
 sight to see them in the field, before they are un- 
 coupled for the course, all their energies alive and 
 !<truggling for action. I have noticed them par- 
 ticularly when sitting upon their haunches, so tall 
 and so prim — their fore-legs stiffened out, and lift- 
 ing them up like two slender columns — their necks 
 arched, their ears erect, and their eyes eagerly fol- 
 lowing the distant horsemen . If a greyhound were to 
 flit for its portrait, this should be the moment. No 
 man of any manners would think of speaking to a
 
 1252 ON HUNTING. 
 
 greyhound as he would to any other dog : even their 
 rude grooms think it necessary to temper their fa- 
 miliarity to them Avith a select language, and a tone 
 of becoming softness. " What, Miss Sweetlips l""" 
 I heard a fellow say to a cream-coloured, satin- 
 skinned lady, that kept whining and fretting, as she 
 sat perked up beside him ; " are you for a hare this 
 morning — and would you foul this fine nose of yours 
 with blood? eh ! you baggage?" — just as one might 
 notice some pretty wickedness in a capricious beauty 
 in petticoats. Blood has an ill sound ; but there is 
 nothing fierce or ravenous about them, nevertheless 
 — nothing beyond a sprightly animation — a hunter's 
 spirit, that rejoices rather in the hills and free air, 
 and the chase, than thirsts for slaughter. Their thin 
 bodies are exceedingly susceptible of cold, and, in 
 a state of inaction, cannot resist the sharpness of 
 the winter's wind without a convulsive shuddering. 
 Some sportsmen, witli not more tenderness than is 
 decent, provide them with body-cloths, in whicli 
 they are enveloped till it is their turn to run ; and 
 they of coarser feelings, who might laugh at the 
 notion of supplying the pretty creatures with their 
 pelisses, should, at least, place them, till they are 
 wanted, under the lee of a hedge or a cornstack, or
 
 ON HUNTING. H;J3 
 
 any shelter that might be at hand. They would 
 run the better for such care, they may depend 
 upon it. 
 
 As the greyhound has no gift of smell, and can 
 hunt only in view of his game, it is desirable, as will 
 occur to my most sedentary reader, to provide a 
 liare for him at some distance from any cover, so 
 that he may have free scope for a trial of his speed. 
 The hare seems to be at once aware of the nature of 
 her enemy, and that she is safe as long as she is con- 
 cealed ; for if you dislodge her from a thicket, she 
 will not take to a far flight, but slip into some other 
 part of the cover, and there lie quiet, with an auda- 
 city which she would not think of venturing upon, 
 with the keen-nosed harriers at her heels. The 
 furze is scattered in large patches about the downs ; 
 but there are extensive spaces of clear turf, with 
 here and there a farm, surrounded by some acres of 
 land in tillage; and these are the best places for 
 your game. The hares which are bold enough to 
 leave their covers generally seek out the ploughed 
 land, choosing sheltered seats among the furrows, 
 where they will sit perfectly still for a whole day, 
 never voluntarily stirring till night allows them to 
 move and feed with securitv. The horsemen, six
 
 124 ON HUNTING. 
 
 or eight, it may be, range themselves in an open 
 file, and pace slowly over the field, each looking 
 sharp over his allotted space, so that not an inch 
 of ground escapes examination. The hare cowers 
 down so close, and is so much of the colour of the 
 ground, that it requires an eye of some experience 
 to detect one on her seat. The dogs (a couple only) 
 contribute no aid to this preparatory service of 
 starting the game ; but follow the horses, quiet 
 vacant and passive, till the view holla is given, and 
 the hare is in motion before them. The greyhound, 
 in a state of nature, would, if hares were to be its 
 only food, have little chance of growing fat. With 
 a powerless nose, and rather a dull eye, it will pass 
 within a yard of a hare on her seat, and not observe 
 her. With such defects on his part, added to the 
 defensive arts with which nature has supplied his 
 prey, his single endowment of speed would scarcely, 
 one should imagine, preserve him from famine. 
 The mouse has a name for excessive lying still, but 
 it is outdone in this particular, I fancy, by the hare, 
 who sagaciously apprehending how much her lightest 
 movement might assist the eyes of her seekers, lies 
 like a clod on the ground ; as danger approaches, 
 she still maintains, if I may say so, her presence of
 
 ON HUNTING. 125 
 
 mind ; the sight of the hounds almost upon her, and 
 the shouts of the men, cannot startle her into indis- 
 cretion. To such an extremity will she try this 
 scheme of evasion, that you are obliged to go up to 
 her, and positively push her from her seat; and 
 then, the spell once broken, away she flits, bound- 
 ing over the ground like a cricket-ball ; the cry is 
 given ; the hounds see her and pursue — they draw 
 near — they are upon her — they have her — no, she 
 turns, and they overshoot her— now again — the 
 black dog; — she must die — no — there was a " fling 
 off'!" — she heads them again — away, puss — now, 
 Mellish, now, my boy — the dogs for a hundred — 
 stay — yes — she''s down — no — I see her — no — yes — 
 she leaves them — she gains her cover — she is safe. 
 
 Three minutes are about the duration of an or- 
 dinary course, during which, if short, the interest 
 of the spectator is always on the strain, on extremest 
 tip-toe — a point of agitation, which they who have 
 seen " neck and neck" on a race-course will readily 
 appreciate. It is beautiful to see the antagonist 
 powers and resources with which nature has supplied 
 the hare, in her apparently unequal contest with the 
 surpassing speed of her pursuers. They very soon 
 overtake her at the first start ; but at the moment
 
 I9() ON HUNTING. 
 
 when tlioy sprinc^ forwiinl to seize her, she darts 
 away to tlie riglit or left, with the (|iiickness of 
 hghtning, and is twenty yards away from thcni 
 before they can retract their long legs, and level at 
 her again ; a few seconds may bring tliem to her ; 
 but as she runs before them, she keeps tossing and 
 throwing herself from them in a marvellous manner, 
 continually escaping from their open mouths by 
 some sudden movement, which the eye can scarcely 
 follow ; yet, amidst all her distractions, never for- 
 getting her main object ; but, after every shift and 
 double, still pointing to her cover. A more terrify- 
 nm struijfirle than she goes through cannot be ima- 
 eined. With the harriers she has time and re- 
 spites ; but here she is, during the whole run, in the 
 very presence of death ; the dogs touch her, run 
 over her — the sound of their panting is never out of 
 lier ears, and allows her not the pause of a moment 
 for a hope of deliverance. An idea mav be formed 
 of the success with which the little animal exerts 
 herself in this desperate conflict, from the fact, that 
 in a whole day's coursing, at which I was present, 
 with twelve couple of dogs, each couple of which 
 had, at least, one fair course, only three liares were 
 killed.
 
 ON HUNTING. 1ST 
 
 The greyhounds have no notion of stopping at 
 the cover when they see the hare enter ; but, still 
 confident in their legs, keep sweeping on, till the 
 continued non-appearance of their game checks 
 their spirit, when they stand staring about them in 
 a stupid puzzle, as if wondering how they should 
 possibly have been left behind. Though quite 
 without resource, they will stand for a long time 
 before they give up all hope, in defiance of whistling 
 and hallooing; till at last, with many a lingering 
 look they drag themselves away, and return at 
 a snail's space, dispirited and abashed, to their 
 keepers. There are greyhounds who are criminal 
 enough, when the hare is put up, not to follow her, 
 but to repair with all haste at once to her cover, 
 and there wait to receive her. This is called 
 " running cunning," and is not considered fair play 
 — fair enough, perhaps, as between the dogs and 
 the hare, but a direct fraud against the amusement 
 of the sportsmen. 
 
 Coursing altogether is but a dull business. The 
 actual run is a scene of very anxious interest; but 
 the want of variety and continuous action in the 
 sport makes it very tiresome to those who have fol- 
 lowed the liarriers or the fox-hounds. There is
 
 1!.>S ON IIUNTINO. 
 
 not exercise enougli to keep the blood in motion : 
 the game lies entirely between the dogs and the 
 hare, stripped of the great attraction of all hunt- 
 ing — the competition of horses and riders. I have 
 seen the sport in some perfection too; our downs 
 having been visited the other day by a grand party 
 from London, profound breeders, who came down 
 with a cart-load of dogs, on purpose to prove to us 
 that we in the country here know nothing about a 
 greyhound. WiUing to reap all sorts of profit from 
 their dogs, they "backed" them with certain sums 
 against any booby mongrels that we could bring 
 against them. The farmers, however, with all their 
 inexperience, contrived to win all the money. The 
 dogs of the Londoners, not to bear malice, were of 
 a fine breed, and in the highest condition ; but being 
 accustomed to run in a level country, they could 
 not contend, against our long hills, and the vigour 
 and. activity of the hares bred upon them. These 
 persons are looked upon in the country rather in 
 the light of dog-fanciers than sportsmen. Their 
 half-crown bets are very town-bred, and betray a 
 spirit that has nothing to do with the true inspira- 
 tion of the field. They had one individual with 
 them whom I cannot refrain from mentioning a
 
 ON HUNTING. 129 
 
 little more at lengtii — a Cockney all over — who was 
 present at a hunt, on this occasion, for the first time 
 in his life. I shall never forget him, I hope. His 
 dress was charmingly characteristical, and, without 
 other introduction, expounded him to every one in 
 a moment. The day was bitterly cold ; and all of 
 us, save this stranger, were buttoned up to the 
 chins in good fear-nought drab coats, that effectually 
 kept out the weather, and looked as if they did so. 
 The appearance was altogether comfortable, and 
 quite in season. The Cockney appeared in a green 
 coat, puffed and puckered at the shoulders — very 
 short, with the skirts pared away into a delicate 
 swallow-tail, exposing more than his hips behind — 
 a slight linen waistcoat without buttons, or with 
 only three or four, the space between the stomach 
 and neck opening freely, to give egress to a flaunt- 
 ing frill — tight, white, cotton breeches (I speak the 
 bare truth) — kerseymere leggings — pimijnsh look- 
 ing shoes — and a fur cap. The costume surely was 
 perfect. He was, as may be supposed, very speedily 
 penetrated bone-deep by the cold, though, to do 
 him justice, he made no complaint, except by the 
 chattering of his teeth, and certain involuntary and 
 St. Vitus-likc movements that would be takintr
 
 130 ON HUNTING. 
 
 place HOW and tlicn in various parts of his lunly. 
 There was nothing vcrv observable in his moile of 
 richnij, only that lie turned his knees and toes out 
 like a dancing-master, by which act he had a very 
 loose, detached seat ; and, as he made little use of 
 liis stirrups, was shot up to a prodigious height 
 from his saddle, at every step of his horse — his 
 white breeches appearing to descend and rebound 
 in the manner of a piece of India rubber. Of 
 course he was the general butt of the company, who 
 all prepared, in the same jovial spirit, to make the 
 most of the unexpected rarity that the chances of 
 the morning had drop])cd amongst them. When 
 the hare was put up, " Let the gentleman holla,'"' 
 they exclaimed — and forthwith he uttered a try 
 such as hound never heard : " Let the gentleman 
 put her up,'"* it was next proposed ; and lie pi'o- 
 ceeded to frighten away the hare, waving a pocket 
 handkerchief, and crying, hiish ! Imish ! as an old 
 woman repels a goose : " Let the gentleman ride — 
 ride, sir, ride," — and away he went — bump — bum}> 
 — over the startled hills, all alone — followed only 
 by shouts of laughter, himself the game — the view 
 — the whole hunt of the day. It was not long before 
 he seemed to perceive that he was entertaining the
 
 ON HUNTING. 
 
 131 
 
 lookers-on ; and he bore his exposure with a cheer- 
 fuhiess and good-humour which richly deserved a 
 warmer pair of breeches. He became, at length, 
 quite altered by the cold : his face, which, for some 
 time, had preserved a tolerable paleness, now turned 
 to blue; he positively looked less, and was in a 
 course, it seemed, of disappearing altogether : yet 
 he was still warm of heart — manfully left his little 
 coat unbuttoned, and kept his frill and toes out with 
 as much formality as on his first appearance. 
 When we had been out about five hours, the poor 
 fellow came up to me with his watch in his hand, 
 and, with a voice that could scarcely force its way 
 through his stiffened lips, observed ; " Half an 
 hour's more sporty and then it will be dark." He 
 wished me to understand that he regretted this ap- 
 proaching deliverance, which, in my judgment, 
 very nearly concerned his life. I took no part, I 
 beg to say, in the common conspiracy against him. 
 I had my irresistible sense of his preposterousness, 
 and many a rich smile at all his noodlmg ways ; but 
 I manifested no sign, I trust, that could in any way 
 be offensive to him. I had much talk with him ; and, 
 as T have exposed his weak points, I think it but 
 ffiir to f-ay tliat I found in him a great deal of in-
 
 13^ ON HUNTING. 
 
 tclliojcnce, apart from any relation to his saclcilc, 
 together with a kindness- and urbanity (no un- 
 common qualities in Cockneyism, let them laugh at 
 it as they please) which would have hesitated, I 
 think, on any provocation, to have wounded the 
 feelings of those who had been so merry at his 
 expense. Even as a sportsman, he had qualities 
 which miglit have redeemed him from contempt. I 
 defend not his practice in putting up a hare ; but 
 there was no lack of spirit and moral courage in the 
 man ; and he proved it under a course of protracted 
 suffering, which I truly believe would have daunted 
 any or all of the ruddy, brawny, bull-headed per- 
 sons, who, in their greater conceit and warmer coats, 
 had laughed at him so unsparingly. He could have 
 had no interest in the sport, except what it was his 
 bitter fortune to be obliged to affect ; he was a mere 
 mark for ridicule and a piercing wind ; yet I am 
 convinced that he would have sat and perished in 
 his saddle, rather than have uttered a murmur; — 
 an instance of Cockney-heroism, which all Toolcy- 
 street surely may be proud of. 
 
 FOX-HUNTING. 
 
 As a .single })ack of fox-hounds perform their 
 regular rounds through tlie count v, for the benefit
 
 ON HUNTING. 133 
 
 of all subscribing 'squires, they of course visit us 
 only in our turn ; and according to the rarity of 
 their appearance is the sensation that they produce. 
 The news travels from farm to farm, a week before- 
 hand ; while contradictory reports take wing, pub- 
 lished no one knows how, for the sole purpose, it 
 should seem, of tormenting and trifling with the 
 public anxiety. On the appointed day, the " earths" 
 (certain holes in which the politic fox is prone to 
 hide) are stopped ; the shepherds have orders to 
 keep their dogs in hand ; the sheep, and such 
 vermin, arc removed ; and every preparation is 
 made to give full effect to the coming achievement. 
 By ten o'clock the downs are all alive ; little detach- 
 ments of horse are assembling from all points ; some 
 looming up in more than their just dimensions on 
 the misty hills; others seen only as dim specks, in 
 the distance, and all streaming on towards head- 
 quarters. And there are the hounds — there — 
 something white, don't you see .'' glancing amongst 
 the furze; and here come the huntsman and the 
 whipper-in, in their scarlet coats and velvet caps; 
 Gad ! but our poor farmers' hunt must not be 
 talked of on this day — and hark ! the horn : — • 
 thou";h that is an instrument of no manner of
 
 134) ON HUNTING. 
 
 use; and as ilic huntsman applies it hastily to his 
 mouth once or twice only in the clay, to produce 
 some miserable syncope-passage — a little asthmatic, 
 broken, bleating ; it has about as much melody as 
 moaning in it. 
 
 Tlie muster may amount to fifty horsemen, of 
 whom twenty may be in red coats — the flower of 
 the field, conspicuous alike for the gaudiness of 
 their dress, the beauty and true hunter-look of 
 their horses, and the completeness of all their 
 appointments. A few, even among the gentlemen, 
 do not affect scarlet, such as the apothecary and the 
 parson, with two or three grey-headed Nimrods, 
 who, though out of uniform, are not to be mistaken 
 from any distance, being made out to be fox- 
 hunters as soon as they are made out to be any 
 thing. Next in rank come the farmers, a jolly set, 
 all for straight-forward work and " no nonsense ;"" 
 lower down are a couple of butchers, beef-red, and 
 blue-frocked ; lower still an itinerant horse-dealer 
 on his take-in ; and last, and lowest, a stranger with 
 a huge shawl-patterned neckcloth, whom nobody 
 knows, whence he came, or what he can be; a 
 dubious figure, half jockey, half highwayman, 
 mounted on his bit of blood, which can scarcely
 
 ON HUNTING. 135 
 
 stand, yoii see, but which, he assures you, is "a 
 devil to go." A rabble rout of people on foot serve 
 to swell the numbers and noise. 
 
 An eye, not quite absorbed by the business of the 
 day, may fall upon some rather grotesque figures, 
 considered in their pretensions to the honours of 
 the chase. I remember one, whom 1 used to regard 
 with animated wonder, a portly piece of corpulency, 
 Avhose diameters, from head to foot, and fi"om back 
 to front, must have been nearly equal — a round of 
 beef on horseback. His cubical legs, which scarcely 
 reached below the flaps of his saddle, were made for 
 any thing but clinging, and afforded no counter 
 weight to the preponderating tonnage of his upper 
 works ; so that, at every movement and stop of his 
 horse, he had a fearful proclivity to topple over — ■ 
 reminding me of those little cork tumblers with 
 leaden heels, which xvill fall on their feet ; only that 
 this fox-hunter was governed by a pollaritij of his 
 own, his tendency being to settle or gravitate on his 
 head. Contrasted with this spherical gentleman, 
 you might see a lean, lathy figure — nothing but 
 length, — growing up from his saddle like a May- 
 pole, but kept firm by proportionate legs, straight- 
 ened out like a pair of open compasses, and pegging
 
 136 ON HUNTING. 
 
 him down to his stirrups. A liorse might as well 
 attempt to dislodge his skin as a rider of this make. 
 Thei-e was another individual, whom I always (for 
 he was a constant attendant) took peculiar interest 
 in ; an invalid too obviously, though full of the 
 esprit du corps; wearing only one coat like his 
 neighbours, and unconscious, I sincerely hope, that 
 I counted the edges of four waistcoats beneath it. 
 He was miserably crippled in one leg, and rode only 
 with one stirrup ; yet he trusted this ill-conditioned 
 frame of his on a most alarming horse, that looked 
 as if just taken up from a winter's riot on a common. 
 The attendance of a person like this speaks much 
 for the attractions of hunting : if such a one can find 
 his morning's account in it, what must it be to the 
 strong and healthy P 
 
 When the fox-hounds pay us a visit, we generally 
 meet at the same place, Firle Hill, the loftiest land 
 in this part of Sussex, and very favourable to the 
 scenery of the hunt, in the command which it gives 
 of a magnificent prospect over nearly the whole 
 country. At the bottom of this hill, which is almost 
 as steep as a wall, is a young plantation, the favourite 
 retreat of the fox, and into this the hounds are 
 let loose, and left, with the co-operation of the
 
 ON HUNTING. 137 
 
 huntsman and the wliipper-in, to ferret him out, 
 while the gentlemen stand aloof and look on. This 
 is the most picturesque scene of the whole hunt ; 
 an artist would go no farther. The horsemen are 
 scattered in groups along the edge of the hill, of all 
 colours and conditions ; some lolling in their saddles, 
 and out of their stirrups; others pacing about on 
 foot ; with here and there ajigure, studying attitude 
 as well as ease, one leg crossing the other and rest- 
 ing on the toe, and one arm encircling the neck of 
 his horse, just as we see it at the Exhibition in 
 Somerset House ; not to forget the horses, the 
 patient hacks of the farmers, face to face, dozing 
 and nodding, and the hunters of mettle pawing 
 and prancing, or showing off their noble forms like 
 statues against the sky. While these easy and 
 social parties are gossiping on the hill-top, news of 
 the business that is going on below reaches the ear 
 from time to time, in the baying of the dogs, and 
 tlie cheering of the huntsman ; every sound, as it 
 strikes against the hollowed front of the hill, swell- 
 ing out into a loud report, which penetrates far and 
 wide into die unseen recesses of the wood, and 
 conveys a notion of savage loneliness and vacancy. 
 This part of the sport is often rather tediously
 
 138 ON HUNTING. 
 
 protracted, if tediousncss can be imputed to two 
 hours of total inactivity, which must be sometimes 
 endured, before tlie fox can be dislodged from his 
 cover. Perfectly alive to the perils which await 
 him without, his slyship, though he may occasion- 
 ally show himself to reconnoitre, has no notion of 
 travelling, as long as he has a stratagem left, which 
 can secure him the reprieve of a minute at home. 
 At length, baited and worried out of all his cunning 
 and corners, he comes forth in earnest, and fairly 
 trusts his life to his legs. The fox is a beautiful 
 animal, though he certainly carries about him, in his 
 figure, and in all his gestures and motions, very 
 marked signs of that lax morality, that wiliness and 
 treachery, which have gained him a name of infamy 
 through the world. His long low body, with perfect 
 stillness, and with no visible action proportioned to 
 the actual swiftness of his pace, steals along the 
 ground, like a thief as he is, to be hooted at, and 
 hissed, and execrated, as he runs; and, finally, to 
 die without pity, a just atonement to the sheep-fold 
 and the hen-roost. 
 
 As the fox breaks away, tally-liol resounds 
 through the air — tremendous warning, — the last 
 order — the " England expects that every man icill
 
 ON HUNTING. 139 
 
 do his duty^'' If beating up the cover is the most 
 picturesque scene of the hunt, this is its highest 
 point of excitement — the instant of choking, tre- 
 mulous expectation, immediately before action — to 
 be likened to nothing, as any fox-hunter will tell 
 you, but the few moments that precede going into 
 battle. The dismounted have vaulted into their 
 saddles, the loungers have pulled up their bridles, 
 and sent their legs to their quarters — all is ready — 
 intensely ready — when the collected hounds, in full 
 cry, come maddening up the hill, the scent breast- 
 high before them — onward they go; and follows, 
 like a thunder-clap, the wild, tumultuary charge — 
 the brush or a broken neck — Tally-ho! 
 
 I have little more to say. The business of the 
 field has four hours of preparation for one of action ; 
 and even so it must be with my narrative. Of the 
 fifty horsemen who joined in the first charge, about 
 six, perhaps, may ride through the chase within 
 sight of the dogs, Avhom it is their destiny to follow 
 without stop or question ; here are no short cuts, no 
 calculation ; " follow my leader" is their law, over 
 hill and hollow, through mud and water, brake and 
 briar, with as little discrimination, on their part, as 
 if they wore moving at the mercy of the wind. Of
 
 140 ON HUNTING. 
 
 tlie remainder of the company, Iwo-lhirds arc in 
 some ten minutes " tlirown out," lost past help and 
 hope; the rest survive a little longer; but, one after 
 another, are lurched at last, though they may still 
 continue to push on, under a sort of necessity of 
 proceeding, and rewarded occasionally, if they have 
 luck, by something like hiteH'igence — a respectable 
 report — so that they may sleep at night with a pretty 
 near guess as to the part of the county that may 
 have been the scene of the death. I have been sup- 
 posing, that the fox runs gallantly twenty or thirty 
 miles to his end ; but he may happen, in no long- 
 time after starting, to " take earth," Anglice, get 
 into a hole, and put the huntsman to an hour's toil 
 before he can be dug out, and induced to take 
 mr. Such a check gives the gentlemen behind time 
 to rally and come up, and the business begins again. 
 And this is fox-hunting; in my estimation, not 
 comparable, as an amusement, with hare-hunting, 
 if company, and a friendly coalition of powers and 
 purposes, with a full observation of the actions of 
 the dogs and their game, be, as I take them to be, 
 the agreeable circumstances of hunting. It is mere 
 riding — post-boy ""s work. There is getting the 
 brush indeed; but then, like the great prize in the
 
 ON HUNTING. 141 
 
 lottery, only one can get it. I have the general 
 voice against me. Fox -hunters despise the harriers ; 
 there is not speed enough with them, they say ; and 
 this is the true secret of their preference : there is 
 no contest of riders — no room for horse-pride, the 
 loftiest pride, I fancy, that is. 
 
 In my account of these sports, I know not that I 
 have made out any ground for the enthusiasm with 
 which they are pursued. It is necessary, perhaps, 
 to be present to vniderstand this. At all events, 
 as incidental to a morning's ride, hunting may be 
 allowed to be a pleasing diversion. Every body must 
 have felt sometimes the dulness of taking exercise 
 only for its own sake : a hunt gives an object — 
 something to follow ; and for my part, with three or 
 four bold fellows in company, I should not care if 
 it were a pig.
 
 142 
 
 A SHIPWRECK. 
 
 On the 26th of last November, late in the day, a 
 
 solitary vessel was discovered off , on the 
 
 coast of Sussex, whose broad, round, and elevated 
 bows and stern bespoke her plainly to be Dutch. 
 She was loitering on the waters, as these Dutch ves- 
 sels are apt to do, while her general movements and 
 conduct, in relation to the shore under her lee, the 
 state of the tide, and the coming night, indicated 
 the doubts and embarrassments of a stranger. She 
 was an object of deep interest to a little group 
 of fishermen, assembled at their ordinary evening 
 council at the capstan, and the opinion among them 
 was, that evil awaited her. The appearances of the 
 weather were fearful : the sky was foul with vapour, 
 and the sun, low in the west, stood staring through 
 the mist with a pale, rayless, and portentous face, 
 that told of approaching danger and disaster. There 
 was little wind, but the sea roared loudly, and came
 
 A SHIPWRECK. 143 
 
 rollino- in with an agitated swell, which, old John 
 Read remarked, denoted that the gale was already 
 up to windward, and would soon be upon us. He 
 was right ; before dark it blew a storm, and the last 
 time the stranger-ship was seen from the land afloat, 
 she was bending down to her beam ends under a 
 press of sail, doing her utmost to gain an offing, and 
 weather Beachy Head. It was not to be. At ten 
 oV-lock, and at about high-water, the wind blowing 
 dismally, and a monstrous sea on, she came ashore, 
 running nearly close up under the lofty chalk cliffs, 
 
 half a mile east of . The crew were speedily 
 
 relieved from all apprehensions about their safety, 
 by the retiring of the tide, when all hands on board 
 
 combined with all , in the anxious labour of 
 
 saving what they could of the cargo, before the 
 coming on of the next flood. The vessel proved to 
 be De Jonge Nicolaas, of two hundred tons burthen, 
 laden with wine and brandy from Cette, and bound 
 to Amsterdam. 
 
 Dutch ships bear a reasonable resemblance to 
 Dutch men, and are to the ships of most other na- 
 tions, what dull, plodding, steady men are to men 
 of genius and quick passions. They sail slowly 
 and heavily, but thev are safe sea-boats, and derive
 
 144< A SHIPWRECK. 
 
 many and great advantages, in the various vicissi- 
 tudes of a voyage, from the pecuharities of mould 
 and construction, which will not allow them to be 
 swift and lively. As they draw very little water, 
 they drift away broadside to leeward when sailing 
 near the wind ; and for their head-way, their bows 
 arc about as well formed for cutting through the 
 water as their broadsides. Thus appointed, the 
 Dutchman, in a fleet of all flags, will inevitably 
 bring up the rear ; but he bears this distinction in a 
 spirit of quietism that keeps his ship quite in coun- 
 tenance ; and replies to your ridicule by letting you 
 know that he can walk his forecastle and quarter- 
 deck in a gale with dry shoes, while you shall be 
 plunging your fine front bowsprit-under, — or can 
 make a small harbour, or ground on the main and 
 step ashore, while you must keep the sea, or strike 
 in deep water and be drowned. To fit your ships 
 ratlier for encountering the shore than the sea, is 
 not in the highest spirit of enterprise ; but we must 
 remember, that if, under such a system of pruden- 
 tial preparation, Columbus had not discovered Ame- 
 rica, Perouse, perhaps, had not been lost. The 
 difference, after all, is only as between despatch and 
 delay. The Dutch do all, or are in a course of
 
 A SHIPWRECK. 145 
 
 doing all, that other nations do ; and as nothing is 
 denied to perseverance, they will, before doomsday, 
 do all that is to be done. It is not their way to 
 push themselves forwards into the foremost ranks, as 
 discoverers and inventors; yet they are not idle; 
 they are always following, and, only let them choose 
 their own century, they will not always be behind. 
 If they are to act extempore, you must at least give 
 them time. 
 
 I went forth at daylight to see the unfortunate 
 Nicolaas, and was just in time to witness her last 
 battle with sea and storm, and her final overthrow. 
 I have often thought, that a gibbet on the beach 
 at would make it, as a picture of desola- 
 tion, quite complete. An effect of as much force, 
 perhaps, was supplied by the masts and tattered 
 rigging of the wreck, which were just distinguishable 
 through the mist of the surf, and combining with 
 the natural bleakness and dreariness of the place, 
 gave a depth of meaning to the gloom of a black 
 November morning, which went at once to the 
 heart. The gale had abated considerably, but it 
 had left its signs. Vast, lowering, bloated clouds, 
 full of wrath and mischief, darkened the sky ; and 
 the sea, swollen by a spring flood, was bordered to 
 
 L
 
 146 A SHIPWRECK. 
 
 the distance of half a mile from the shore with 
 tiers of hurrying, foaming, crashing breakers, on 
 the verge of which the devoted ship stood, like 
 a criminal before his executioners. She had as yet 
 suffered no material damage visibly, and looked 
 altogether so sound and compact, that there were 
 some hopes and more fears that she might live 
 through the battery of another flood, and, if more 
 moderate weather should succeed before night, be 
 got afloat again, and even (who could tell ?) show 
 her old hull in Amsterdam once more. An un- 
 prejudiced spectator, however, could scarcely ob- 
 serve the character and action of the sea that was 
 rapidly advancing, and calculate upon any other 
 result than her destruction. 
 
 A great concourse of people from the neighbour- 
 ing villages and farms had been brought to the spot 
 by tidings of the accident ; shopkeepers, great and 
 small ; artisans, high and low ; farmers, ploughmen, 
 shepherds, and fishermen — everybody, and his wife 
 and children too — all of whom conceived that they 
 had, at least, a contingent interest in the vessel and 
 her rich contents. No one could possibly stay at 
 home on so tempting an occasion. AVithered and 
 forgotten old women, not seen abroad twice in a
 
 A SHIPWRECK. 147 
 
 twelvemonth, emerged into life, and were out in the 
 world again ; mothers with infants in their arms, 
 and large families clinging to their aprons — veteran 
 paupers from the poor-house, stumping about on 
 sticks and crutches — all found time, and strength, 
 and resolution, enough, to join the crowd, on this 
 great day of invitation. The inliabitants of the 
 coast look upon a wreck as a largess of the elements, 
 which it would be almost a sin not to receive with 
 grateful alacrity. They sally out to enjoy the good 
 things provided for them by such a visitation, with 
 precisely the same sense of general right and wel- 
 come, as they might do, were it to please the skies 
 to rain bread, and cheese, and beer. 
 
 I followed the various throng up to the top of 
 the cliff, — a smooth-shaven, perpendicular precipice, 
 from whence we had a clear view of the vessel, 
 lying at the depth of a hundred and fifty feet 
 beneath us, and heard, or thought we heard, the 
 cracking of her planks and timbers, and could note 
 the effect of every wave that burst over her, through 
 the whole progress of her ruin. How magnified in 
 our apprehension was the mightiness of the ocean by 
 the interposition of this victim, which it was destroy- 
 ing before our eyes ! As the heavy, beetling seas 
 
 l2
 
 148 A SHIPWRECK. 
 
 came roaring on to the attack, they seemed, in our 
 fancies, to be raging with a savage joy, like monsters 
 over their prey. It was hke looking upon wild 
 beasts at feeding-time. I could not help feeling, as 
 the vessel from time to time showed her shattered 
 deck through the parting foam, a sort of pity and 
 sympathy for her, as though she had been, not a 
 thing of wood and iron only, but of life and sensa- 
 tion ; and the same sentiment was obviously shared 
 by the crowd about me — a momentary mercy — a 
 " natural tear'' — prevailing over the selfishness of 
 their final hopes and wishes. It was not the loss of 
 property that any body felt or cared for : it was the 
 ship — the Nicolaas — that we deplored, the friend 
 and companion of man, his home and helpmate, 
 through many a day of danger and distress, now 
 cast forth to perish without a hand to aid her. 
 " Poor thing !" said a woman near me ; " Lord help 
 her !" drawled out another. There were four or five 
 strangers present, heavy, ruddy, fat-faced men, 
 bulkily clothed in Flushing jackets and trowsers, 
 who were remarkable among the anxious crowd, as 
 preserving countenances untouched by the lightest 
 sign of curiosity or disturbance. Sleep might have 
 closed their eyes, but could scarcely have added to
 
 A SHIPWRECK. 149 
 
 the calmness and repose of their looks. These 
 were Dutchmen, the crew of the vessel — and what 
 was it all to them ? They had their pipes ; and if 
 they smoked on the top of a cliff' in Sussex, on 
 board the Nicolaas, or on the borders of one of 
 their own dikes — where was the mighty difference ?''"'' 
 After the vessel had been exposed for about half 
 an hour to the full range of the sea, her masts, 
 loosened from the bottom, and carrying all before 
 them, descended slowly, and with a crashing noise, 
 to the water. This was a fatal signal : the next sea 
 completed her destruction at a blow ; it struck her, 
 and she disappeared, scattered into fragments, like 
 a cask with the hoops knocked off*; no vestige of 
 her whole bulk being again visible, except now and 
 then a timber-head, sticking up like a black post in 
 the hollow of a sea. At this final act of the cata- 
 strophe I looked up wistfully into the face of one of 
 the Dutchmen, shook my head, and so, in my best 
 Dutch, told him how sincerely I condoled with him. 
 He evidently understood me, for he took his pipe 
 from his mouth — ejected a cataract of saliva over 
 his shoulder — shook out the ashes — rammed down 
 the remaining charge with a tawny, broken-nailed 
 thumb — replaced the pipe between his teeth — blew
 
 loO A SHIPWRECK. 
 
 out a cloud of smoke mth three or four sharp, sud- 
 den, puffs — found all riglit — and thereupon looked, 
 not as if the Nicolaas was not, but as if she had 
 never been. I quite hated the fellow for his bar- 
 barous resignation. He and his shipmates, with 
 mute sobriety, now returned to the town, where 
 they at once seemed as used to the place, and as 
 little moved and wondering, as the posts. These 
 are your men for troublesome times: a revolution 
 that moved them would move the hills. An 
 earthquake, nothing less, could put them out of 
 their way. 
 
 On the ebbing of the tide, there was " a rush," as 
 at the opening of the doors at the theatre, for good 
 places or prizes under the cliffs, and we immediately 
 found ourselves amidst the ruinous litter of the 
 Avreck. No one asked now — where is she? — She 
 was every where. I never saw a vessel in so short 
 a time so completely broken up. To the extent of 
 a mile and a half, the beach directly under the cliff 
 was strewed, without the clear space of a yard, with 
 her fragments and her cargo. A person not familiar 
 with such sights would have supposed that here 
 were materials for a dozen ships ; and the pipes of 
 wine, three hundred in number, lying in clusters of
 
 A SHIPWRECK. 151 
 
 four and five, as far as the eye could see them 
 along the beach, seemed cargo enough to have 
 filled them. A little wreck, as they say of a little 
 blood, makes a great show ; and in a state of dis- 
 persion gives a very deceitful account to the eye of 
 its actual quantity. 
 
 As there were no lives to be lost or saved, it may 
 be imagined that, as a spectacle, the mere rubbish 
 of broken beams and timbers must have been dull 
 and insignificant. But this was by no means the 
 case. A wreck, as a sign only of the power and 
 danger of the sea, is always an impressive sight ; 
 and, though the crew may have been only Dutch- 
 men, is full of associations connected with human 
 interests, which will not allow us to look upon it 
 without emotion. The ruins of a house, destroyed 
 by fire, are always an object of earnest curiosity ; we 
 gaze anxiously amongst the blackened ruins upon 
 every trace of our old acquaintance, rooms, and 
 their furniture; a stove and a poker, a bit of 
 papered wall, or any such familiar images of do- 
 mestic comfort and security, become full of a deep 
 and melancholy interest. It is the same with a 
 wreck : every poor cast-away plank has its story — 
 every renmant of deck and cabin something to say
 
 152 A SHIPWRECK. 
 
 in its desolation, that may stop a man for a moment 
 to think and to sigh. I observed the cook*'s huge 
 black boiler, full of sand, pebbles, and sea-weed, 
 lying in dismal companionship with the vessePs 
 figure-h^ad, a goggle-eyed gentleman with flowing 
 locks and a three-cornered hat, radiant all over with 
 green and gold. Ah ! what did all this coxcombry 
 avail hini now ? Pieces of rope and ragged canvas, 
 bedding, coats, boxes, lay jumbled together with 
 the splintered fragments of the ship amongst the 
 beach and weeds ; a blanket stuck upon the jagged 
 points of a broken mast — here and there was a 
 drowned hat and a shoe, not to forget a pair of blue 
 breeches, of the true Batavian mould, pasted out in 
 full dimensions against the white face of a chalk 
 rock, — a striking example of the mixed ludicrous 
 and pathetic. 
 
 I had wandered about for an hour, keeping at a 
 distance from the people and their noise, that I 
 might enjoy, if I may say so, the natural circum- 
 stances of the scene without disturbance ; and was 
 on my return, when I met a man lustily singing 
 out a jovial song, tumbling about, and snapping 
 his fingers with an emphasis that clearly showed he 
 cared not a fig for the world. Such manners pro-
 
 A SHIPWRECK. 
 
 153 
 
 duced in me an unpleasant revulsion of feeling, for 
 they certainly were not in harmony with dreadful 
 precipices, the awful voice of the sea, and the 
 mournful memorials of its fury that lay in my path. 
 Ay (said I to myself), this rascal has been mo- 
 ralizing for his part over the contents of one of the 
 wine-casks, having eluded, no doubt, the vigilante 
 of the guards. Presently I met another exactly in 
 the same plight ; and " a third, whose air was like 
 the former;"" till, on rounding a projecting point of 
 rock, I had the whole company again before me — 
 all revolutionized since I had last seen them, and 
 brought by the same means to the same likeness. 
 The devil could not have added a more artful bait 
 to the ordinary temptations of a wreck than this 
 provoking cargo. It was irresistible : flesh and 
 blood, in Sussex at least, literally could not stand 
 against it. I never saw drunkenness on such a 
 scale, or in such variety before. One has seen at 
 a fair considerable numbers very fully drunk, but 
 still they were the exceptions — the minority, and 
 served rather, like the red flowers in a corn-field, 
 to diversify the crowd, than to mark its general 
 character and condition. Here, on the contrary, in 
 a multitude of four or five hundred people, the
 
 154 A SHIPWRECK. 
 
 sober man was the rarity, and so much so, that, 
 like one bonnet in the " pit," he was quite lost in 
 the reeling tumult by which he was surrounded. 
 The whole history of getting drunk was here ex- 
 hibited at one point of time; from the earliest 
 symptoms of innovation, up all the steps to the 
 very top of the ascending flight — and then down 
 again on the other side, lower and lower, even to 
 the bottom — the level " dead drunk." The chatter- 
 ing, the laughing, the singing, the bawling, the 
 jigging, the quarrelling, the challenging, the fight- 
 ing, the staring, the silent, the sulky, the senti- 
 mental, the rolling, the falling, the fallen — were all 
 confounded together, and composed certainly as wild 
 a set of figures for a picture of the sea-beach at noon- 
 day as the most riotous imagination could desire. 
 You might go through all Cook's Voyages, I fancy, 
 and not find for it a worthy companion-piece. 
 The women confined themselves principally to 
 dancing and singing, clamorously beset by a host of 
 squalling children — drunk too, poor little sufferers ; 
 the boys, of all sizes, were kicking one another's 
 hats into the sea, pulling off the women's caps, 
 huzzaing at a fight, or shouting and laughing at 
 some methodistical old beldame, who would be
 
 A SHIPWRECK. 155 
 
 preaching in her cups ; while the men, every one 
 who was not absolutely ^Zo de se, and quiet at his 
 length, were at work — or enacting every extra- 
 vagance of Bedlamites, as they played at rolling 
 casks into carts. And were there no superintendants 
 to check such doings ? Oh ! yes — fifty, if there was 
 one ; but, somehow or other, these men of authority 
 were, of all the persons on their legs, the most 
 helplessly drunk; having arms in their hands, it 
 appeared to me, for no other purpose, but that they 
 might themselves drink without stint or question. 
 At the top of every loaded cart that moved away, 
 you beheld one of these " safe-conducts," an officer 
 they called him, lolloping about with a drawn 
 sword, and a face of solemn incompetency, his 
 whole surviving powers being insufficient for the 
 maintenance of his seat, let alone his dignity, for 
 any two minutes of his journey. We had half a 
 dozen dragoons too, galloping along the beach, and 
 slashing the air with their sabres, and rolling about 
 in their saddles, with a freedom that must have 
 ended in twenty tumbles, had they been any thing 
 less than drunk — and dragoons. There were still 
 higher powers, even gangers and supervisors, who 
 had been equally open to the seductions of the
 
 156 A SHIPWRECK. 
 
 "rosy god." The rabble tiad accomplished their 
 sly potations in holes and corners, with a bladder, 
 a hat, or a shoe, for a goblet ; but, with the ma- 
 gistracy, all was done openly and becomingly — 
 such are the advantages of authority. 
 
 In the course of my ramble, I joined a little 
 group who had assembled round a mighty cask, 
 and taken it into their heads that it was necessary 
 they should pronounce upon the nature of its con- 
 tents. A large can, holding some quarts by way 
 of sample, was filled and handed over to the chief 
 man, already much disguised, though capable of 
 much more. He collected himself, as a collector 
 should, on receiving the rich measure, swallowed a 
 mouthful, and continued for a minute deliberately 
 smacking his lips, with his head declined a little, 
 and his eyes fixed in a profound, calculating, 
 judicial stare ; then another mouthful, with smack- 
 ing as before, and another, and another, — till, tired 
 of this dribbling and doubting, he determined to 
 have a fair taste at once ; and, with the help of both 
 hands, began gulping down a horse-like draught, 
 which lasted as long as his breath, when the can, 
 splashing and swashing, was redeemed from his un- 
 steady grasp, and with a crapulous hiccup, he an-
 
 A SHIPWRECK. 157 
 
 nounced that it was — " port, de — de — decidedly 
 port." The can was then filled and emptied again 
 and again, as it performed its rounds among the 
 whole jury of inquisitors, who came to the same 
 verdict, that it could be nothing but port, and all 
 " for the benefit of the underwriters." 
 
 There was one cask at a considerable distance 
 from the rest, which I found under the special 
 charge of a sailor belonging to the Preventive 
 Service, who, remote from the general tumult, was 
 abiding here "in single blessedness,"" about as 
 happy and helpless as it is in the power of wine to 
 make a man. Not knowing with what command I 
 might be commissioned, he thought it necessary, on 
 seeing me, to put on a grave, superintending face ; 
 and, as he stood minueting before the cask, with a 
 cutlass in his hand, and the brass knob of a huge 
 pistol staring out from his breast, he formed alto- 
 gether the most ludicrously contradictory figure I 
 ever beheld. " What cheer, mate, what cheer .^" 
 said I : " All's well," said he ; and immediately fell 
 flat upon his back. Now, thought I, he must cer- 
 tainly acknowledge his delinquency : but no : after 
 much uncalled-for plunging and sprawling, for 
 which he damned himself soundly, he contrived to
 
 158 A SHIPWRECK. 
 
 bring himself to a perpendicular again, and, to my 
 amazement, fixed upon me the same official, respon- 
 sible face, as before, which would have me to know, 
 that he was as sober as a judge. I could resist the 
 appeal no longer, but burst out into a loud laugh, 
 in which the poor fellow at last very cordially 
 joined me ; though the approach of his command- 
 ing officer soon spoiled the joke, and I left him to 
 authenticate his temperance with what success he 
 mig-ht. 
 
 There were two hundred casks of wine, as they 
 called it, saved, and of these, it was in due time 
 discovered, there was not a single one which had 
 not been tapped and tasted. It was three days 
 before the whole cargo was deposited in a store- 
 house; and though, after the first day, it was pro- 
 tected against any general violence, there were still 
 such opportunities of indulgence through the milki- 
 ness, or zoininess, rather, of the sentinels, that not a 
 man in the town was quite himself, as long as there 
 was a cask left. They began early ; there is 
 nothing like it. I met many most despotically 
 drunk before sun-rise; which, indeed, is not to be 
 wondered at, when we consider that they had been 
 drinking all night. Cold, sour, turbid wine, drunk
 
 A SHIPWRECK. 159 
 
 out of a rusty tin can, in the open air, at seven 
 o'clock, on a wet morning, in November ! How I 
 envy them their stomachs ! Some bruised heads, 
 and a few broken legs, were among the results of 
 this Bacchanalian jollity ; and black eyes, fist-made, 
 are to this hour still traceable in their last livery of 
 blue and yellow. 
 
 It had occurred to me on the first day of the 
 revels, as I looked upon so many senseless carcasses, 
 lying like corpses on the strand, that darkness and 
 the flowing tide might bring some of them into 
 peril, from which they were little in a condition to 
 escape; and had it not been for the exertions of 
 sisters almost sober, and wives only half-drunk, it 
 
 might have proved a sad day for indeed. 
 
 As it was, only one fatal accident occurred. 
 
 A dragoon, a fine young man, with his horse, 
 was found drowned on the following morning, by 
 some mischance or misconduct which nobody could 
 explain. He was observed late in the night quite 
 frantic with drink, and, unfortunately, the specta- 
 tors themselves were too much elevated for thoughts 
 of danger or precaution. By what strange myste- 
 rious ties is our death sometimes related to events, 
 remote, one might have thought, from all possible
 
 160 A SHIPWRECK. 
 
 connexion with it ! I had seen this man, on the 
 evening when the vessel first appeared, talking with 
 some of his comrades about her distress; and he 
 retired with tliom, no doubt, to his snug quarters, 
 blessing himself in his enjoyments and security. 
 His story was plain and intelligible enough when it 
 was all over; but how inconceivable would he have 
 thought it, had he been told, at the moment when 
 he was pitying the labouring ship, that she would 
 bring death to only one — and that the one would be 
 himself! 
 
 I should be happy to find out some grounds of 
 excuse, or palliation at least, for the spirit of plun- 
 der that prevails on our coasts, and is so general, 
 indeed, that it may almost be imputed to us as a 
 national reproach. At no very distant period, the 
 business of *' wrecking"" was often combined with 
 acts of merciless violence and ferocity, that the 
 Cossacks or the Malays might have been ashamed 
 to acknowledge. People were not then satisfied 
 with robbing the ship, but would fall upon the un- 
 fortunate crew, carry off their little property, tear 
 their clothes from their backs, and, if they resisted, 
 knock them on the head. Such barbarities are 
 now, thank God, seldom heard of. I have witnessed
 
 A SHIPWKECK. 
 
 161 
 
 many shipwrecks on various parts of the coast, but 
 certainly never saw ill-usage or inhumanity of any 
 kind extended towards the crews. On the contrary, 
 the first consideration, with all denominations of 
 people, even those who would be most forward to 
 plunder when the season came, was invariably to 
 make every effort in their power for the preservation 
 of lives. In this generous labour, which is engaged 
 in without a thought of reward, I have seen so 
 many examples of the noblest courage and self- 
 devotedness on the part of the " rogues and va- 
 grants" of the sea-side, that I am almost willing to 
 forgive them the ordinary trespasses of their trade. 
 As the Reviewer said of Lord Byron''s Corsair, they 
 have " every virtue under heaven except common 
 honesty." It is the ship and her cargo alone that 
 they regard with hostility ; and even these, in the 
 present improved state of feeling on such subjects, 
 are not condemned till they have had, what is con- 
 sidered, a fair trial. As long as a vessel holds 
 together, and can be called a ship, they admit that 
 it fairly belongs to its proprietors ; but as soon as it 
 is broken up and scattered in fragments along the 
 shore, it is nothing — its identity is gone for ever. 
 In this state of dissolution, they consider it as at 
 
 M
 
 162 A SHIPWRECK. 
 
 once emancipated from all exclusive claims of owner- 
 ship, and cast, beyond all recognized boundaries of 
 law and right, upon some waste element, as it were, 
 or scramble-land, open to any adventurer who fears 
 not the sea and surf. They do not feel that plunder 
 in such a case is chargeable with any degree of 
 cruelty and injustice : the sea, they say, has done all 
 the mischief; we only take what it pleases to send 
 us; and, whether it be lobsters and flat-fish, or 
 pieces of plank and coils of rope, we hold ourselves 
 equally innocent. You might tell them, that a 
 considerable part of a wreck might be collected for 
 the benefit of the owners; but you cannot tell 
 them what part ; and, as they know that a con- 
 siderable proportion of it is hkely to be swept away 
 by the sea, they choose to think that all which they 
 save is justly made their own. A certain quantity 
 may or may not be recovered — nothing can be 
 more doubtful — and in the meantime, the whole 
 lies in so loose a state, so unnoticed and unguarded, 
 so much in short like something lost, that they can- 
 not help believing that it belongs to any body who 
 will stoop to pick it up. " We found it," they say, 
 " and there can be no harm in that."" You may tell 
 them too, that if there is no other owner, the lord
 
 A SHIPWRECK. 163 
 
 of the manor has the first turn; but the reasonable- 
 ness of his priority is quite beyond their compre- 
 hension, and, to speak honestly, I do not wonder 
 at it. His estate, they think, terminates with the 
 land, and has no continuity, as far as interest and 
 authority are concerned, with the shore : that belongs 
 to the sea, which belongs, they contend, to every 
 body. How far does the lord paramount push 
 his dominions ? To low-water mark ? High-water 
 mark is his natural frontier according to the popular 
 opinion, and I am greatly inclined to agree with it. 
 If he has a just title to every old cask and plank 
 that is cast on the shore by the sea, he may with 
 equal propriety, as it appears to me, claim all its 
 natural produce, the fish, as far as I know not what 
 mark; and in this manner, our sovereign squires 
 round the kingdom might come to the grace of 
 parcelling out the ocean among themselves, as they 
 have parcelled out the air, and make it as criminal 
 to pick up a periwinkle, as to shoot a partridge. 
 
 The occasional interference of lords of manors, 
 with their arrogant and unintelligible pretensions, 
 tends rather to quicken, than restrain, the general 
 eagerness for plunder. " If you come to that, what 
 business has he with it more than another .''"''' I have 
 
 M 2
 
 IGi A SHIPWRECK. 
 
 been often asked by some of these rapacious people, 
 and I never could answer them to their satisfaction 
 or my own. Convince them that " wrecking'" is 
 robbery, and they will cheerfully desist from the 
 practice. It is by no means the needy and knavish 
 alone whom you may see hovering with eager eyes 
 and ready hands about a stranded ship: men of 
 substance and character, who hold their heads high 
 in the world, attend vestries, and sit upon juries, 
 join in the pursuit without scruple or shame. The 
 baker, the butcher, the grocer, the whole aristocracy 
 of the village, are perfectly prepared to pick up any 
 little portable God-send on the sea^shore, that may 
 come in their way ; though they are all, undoubt- 
 edly, people who would scorn to soil their hands 
 by any of the vulgar modes of plain and admitted 
 dishonesty. Mr. , our respectable black- 
 smith and bell-hanger, would not hesitate to Jind 
 property belonging to a wreck, to the amount of 
 twenty or thirty pounds, or more, if he could be so 
 lucky ; but he would sooner die, I am sure, than 
 pick a neighbour's pocket of a penny, and would 
 combine with all honest men to hoot down the 
 ^vretch who could be guilty of such a deed, as too 
 infamous for this earth.
 
 A SHIPWRECK. 
 
 165 
 
 Ignorance and prejudice, confirmed and endeared 
 by immemorial habit, are the cause of these moral 
 inconsistencies ; and they are the more obstinate, no 
 doubt, as they happen to have a little present profit 
 on their side. All such blinds will eventually be 
 cleared away, I trust, by that " growing intelligence 
 of the age," which we hear so much of just now, 
 but which has not yet got quite so far as the coast. 
 Severe laws and violent punishments would have no 
 effect: as they would not enlighten the minds of 
 " wreckers," they would be regarded only, like the 
 game-laws and the penalties against smuggling, as 
 tyrannical exertions of authority against the poor 
 man's right of a livelihood. The victory will not 
 be speedy or easy, whatever are the means applied ; 
 as any one may convince himself, who will take the 
 trouble to reason a little with a " wrecker" on the 
 nature of his opinions. I have done my best, as a 
 good subject, to open the eyes of such offenders as 
 have fallen in my way ; but, whatever I may be fit 
 for, I have not discovered in myself any gift of 
 making converts amongst them. I talk to them of 
 doing as they would be done by ; and they answer 
 me, that they will have no such new-fangled doc- 
 trines on the sea-shore ; and that what was no sin
 
 166 A SHIPWRECK. 
 
 with their fathers before them, can scarcely be sin 
 in them. What ! not let a man take what the sea 
 sends ? — there will be no living in England then, if 
 this is to be law. They talk of a good wreck- 
 season, as of a good herring-season, and thank 
 Providence for both.
 
 ON BEAUTY, AND OTHER CONDITIONS 
 OF FACE. 
 
 " Fair is foul, and foul is fair." 
 
 Nothing has exposed Beauty to so much odium 
 and ill-will, as the bombastic misrepresentations of 
 her professed encomiasts and flatterers. Like most 
 earthly sovereigns, she owes her worst enemies to 
 the blundering zeal and officiousness of her friends. 
 The poets, or the courtiers and danglers of her 
 council, have invested her with such outrageous 
 prerogatives, extended her empire so much beyond 
 its natural limits, and made her altogether of so 
 much more importance in the system of the world, 
 than she is or ought to be, that nine-tenths of the 
 human race, who are not of her family, feeling 
 themselves irremediably proscribed, insulted, and 
 degraded, by her arrogant assumptions, have no 
 resource, as a measure of self-defence and justifica- 
 tion, but in flat rebellion. I am myself, I perceive,
 
 IG8 ox BEAUTY, 
 
 betrayed into tlic common strain of the Ultras on 
 this subject, and am talking as of a goddess, when 
 I mean nothing more in my heart, than a pair of 
 agreeable eyes, and rosy cheeks. I beg to correct 
 myself. 
 
 If there be truth in the famihar rant that we hear 
 so much of, both said and sung, on the accident of 
 beauty, those who are not beautiful stand convicted 
 at once — signed — branded — as outcasts from the 
 dearest benefits and first honours of our being. 
 What peace can there be in the world under such a 
 dispensation of its blessings .'' If a perfect face is 
 the only bait that can tempt an angel from the skies, 
 what is to be the recompense of the unfortunate 
 with a wide mouth, and a turn-up nose? 
 
 The extravagant influence claimed for beauty 
 has this peculiar ill-effect, that it produces nothing 
 but fretfulness and bad fellowship in both of the 
 great classes into which human-kind is divided : 
 those without the pale are burning with envy and 
 malice against those within, who in their turn are 
 harassed by the same order of feelings, and by 
 others not at all more gentle and friendly, towards 
 one another. With the ladies, the very name is a 
 watch-word that calls to arms and to battle ; like
 
 AND OTHER CONDITIONS OF FACE. 169 
 
 some hereditary feud of political party, incapable 
 of settlement, and never to be discussed or thought 
 of without heat, and rage, and unappeasable con- 
 tradiction. This lady, who is ugly, makes her life 
 miserable, by her ceaseless anxiety to prove that 
 there is no such quality as beauty; and another, 
 who is beautiful, is equally removed from happiness, 
 by the restless pains with which she insists that it 
 is the lot of no one but herself. " A woman," says 
 the President Henault, " will praise one of her sex 
 for any thing but her beauty ;"" that is, she will 
 praise her for any or every honourable distinction, 
 for the very purpose of denying that she has the 
 
 smallest pretensions of face. "Miss is very 
 
 clever, and plays charmingly on the harpsichord — 
 in other words, she is any thing but handsome." 
 
 No persons have a more hyperbolical opinion of 
 the power and glory of beauty, than the unelect ; 
 and hinc illoe lacJirymcc ; hence undoubtedly their 
 peevishness and spite. They attach to it a signifi- 
 cance that is altogether romantic, and with this ex- 
 aggerated estimate of it in their hearts, betray their 
 secret with their tongues, either by denying its ex- 
 istence against the most irresistible evidence, or by 
 refusing to it that moderate degree of control which
 
 170 ON BEAUTY, 
 
 really and plainly belongs to it. A woman of sense 
 and feeling, without exterior attractions, regards a 
 beauty as an unrighteous tyrant ; one who, on the 
 strength of her mere clay, usurps all hearts ; arro- 
 gates to herself the empire of love, — a passion 
 which she can neither understand nor requite, to 
 the exclusion of those who, whatever may be their 
 features, alone have souls fit for its home and its 
 worship. This is not true : — beauty has no such 
 excesses to answer for. The conduct of men, since 
 the Deluge, has proved, that love (the true thing) 
 is not mere fealty to a face. The very least an- 
 gelical, who reasonably contend for all the mind 
 and feeling of the sex, should know, that all which 
 is most profound and impassioned in that sentiment 
 which beauty, to say the worst of it, can no more than 
 inspire, will be given to their worthiness ; and with 
 this distinguished advantage, that, being raised on 
 the only safe foundation, it mil, when once ac- 
 corded to them, endure for ever. Beauty may be 
 a short cut to that eminence, which ugliness, or any 
 thing else that you please better than beauty, must 
 reach by a dark, doubtful, and circuitous route: 
 but if her possession is more immediate, it is less 
 secure ; if her rule is more absolute, it is less con-
 
 AND OTHER CONDITIONS OF FACE, 171 
 
 stant and durable. If an ugly woman of wit and 
 worth cannot be loved till she is known, — a beautiful 
 fool will cease to please when she is found out. 
 
 A greater variety — a more certain and rapid 
 succession of miscellaneous homage — this truly is 
 chargeable to beauty ; but surely the ultra-senti- 
 mental should not make this barren honour a sub- 
 ject for their envy and disquiet. Instantaneous 
 and universal admiration — the eye-worship of the 
 world, is unquestionably the reward of the best 
 faces ; and the male-contents had much better come 
 into the general opinion with a good grace, than be 
 making themselves at once unhappy and ridiculous, 
 by their hollow and self-betraying recusancy. Let 
 them face the truth boldly ; it is not worth the 
 pains of opposition. Concede to the pretty tyrant 
 all that she asks and can obtain, and it is still but a 
 trifle. There are differences of opinion, it is true, 
 on this point. Madame de Stael, with all her 
 genius and knowledge, and with no imperfect con- 
 sciousness of her merits, is reported to have declared, 
 that she would cheerfully have given up her accu- 
 mulated and various distinctions, for the single at- 
 tribute of beauty. Her name is high authority 
 certainly, but will scarcely sanctify such profanation
 
 112 ON BEAUTY, 
 
 as this. If she really made so silly a declaration, 
 and made it from her heart, it proves only, that 
 profound sensibility, and a generous ambition, were 
 not among the number of her many eminent quali- 
 fications. The woman — the Frenchwoman — was 
 uppermost, in spite of all her philosophy. If fame, 
 the notice of numbers, was her object, she must 
 have been a loser by the exchange of means which 
 she desired ; for she never could have been seen so 
 extensively as she has been heard. If it was the 
 dominion of love that she calculated upon, we must 
 conclude that, being already married, her pride 
 Avould have been to please, not a husband, but a 
 host. So weak an aspiration might be pardoned in 
 a girl too young to feel a sterling passion, and to 
 form a rational preference; but one who, without 
 beauty, had already secured its noblest triumphs — 
 what was the gift to do for her ? what influence was 
 it to bring that could aid — nay, in the spirit in 
 which it was coveted, that Avould not obstruct her 
 feelings and duties, as a wife and a mother.'' Her 
 husband, we may presume, was satisfied : for whose 
 sake then was she so desirous of personal charms ? 
 Such a preference, in France, I dare say, might 
 be considered to be in the very finest spirit of
 
 AND OTHER CONDITIONS OF FACE. 173 
 
 feminine tenderness and dignity. A faddling old 
 heau of that country, St. Evremond, has asserted 
 that " a woman would sooner lose her lover than 
 her beauty ;"" and the fact is certainly conceivable. 
 It is possible that a woman would resign a lover 
 for that which won him ; the particular attachment 
 of any single heart, for the glory of general con- 
 quest ; the man for the species. She may dote 
 upon Thomas, perhaps ; but would see him drown 
 liimself, rather than lose the lustre of a pair of eyes 
 which have been the ruin of Thomas, and may 
 destroy, if she pleases, Richard, and Robert, and 
 as many more as she may chance to look upon. 
 There is nothing anti-Gallican at least, I fancy, in 
 this liberal mode of feeling. Where there is no 
 domestic privacy, where the whole business of life 
 centres in public exhibition and display, it is but 
 natural that a woman's chief care should be to 
 make herself as diffusive as possible. In our own 
 country, where a woman does not consider her 
 loveliness as misapplied in the nursery, or al- 
 together thrown away upon a husband, such heart- 
 less levity, if not without examples, would be 
 scorned, I trust, by the sex. 
 
 I would not fall into the opposite extreme of
 
 174 ON BEAUTY, 
 
 Turkish watchfulness and monopoly. Though she 
 should not be always gadding about, I would 
 not withhold from beauty her reasonable liberties, 
 or lock her up in constant confinement, with no 
 witnesses but the company provided for her by love 
 and the law. Let her not forget that she has a 
 heart for one ; and I will admit, under such limita- 
 tions as modesty may suggest, that she has a face 
 for all. A pretty woman w^as made, I suppose, 
 among other things, to be looked at ; and she is, 
 therefore, not without excuse, if it be her pride to 
 appear now and then among her fellow-creatures, 
 purely as a show. The preservation of her dignity, 
 with such freedom of display, will depend, of 
 course, upon the art and delicacy with which she 
 may keep up her air of humihty und unconscious- 
 ness. 
 
 I am purposely considering beauty only in its 
 simplest elements and simplest effects, detached 
 entirely from its power of inspiring love — not be- 
 cause I exactly doubt its power, but because I 
 sincerely believe that it has no exclusive privileges 
 in this respect — no pretensions for which ample 
 equivalents may not be presented by every one 
 with the face of woman. Even thus stripped and
 
 AND OTHER CONDITIONS OF FACE. 175 
 
 isolated — a mere gaud and toy — it has manifest 
 advantages. It is pleasing, exceedingly pleasing, 
 only to look at a beautiful woman ; and there can 
 be nothing disagreeable in the sensation of being 
 the object so looked upon. What may be the 
 kind and amount of gratification, it is not for me to 
 decide. It must be something : abuse, despise, the 
 bauble, as we please, it would be as well, after all, 
 to be good-looking, if you could so manage the 
 matter, particularly as there is no reason why you 
 should not when you are about it, to have every 
 other quality that can exalt or adorn our nature. 
 
 One mode of consolation with people whose per- 
 fections are all out of sight, is, to assume it as a 
 physiological fact, that where nature has been scru- 
 pulously careful in the moulding and finishing 
 of her visible and material work — where she has 
 laboured hard at a blue eye, or touched and re- 
 touched upon the fall of a pair of shoulders — she 
 has been proportionably hasty and negligent in her 
 mysterious preparations for that unseen, but not 
 unimportant, functionary, the brain. It is not a 
 tenet, with these schismatics, that there is no such 
 thing as beauty; they modestly hold only, that 
 wherever it betrays itself, it is a sure sign of mental
 
 176 ON BEAUTY, 
 
 imbecility. " Very pretty, but a fool," is their in- 
 variable award ; as if sense and knowledge could 
 only wear a set of irregular features and a sallow 
 complexion. — Without inquiring into the reason- 
 ableness of this statement, I venture to say, that it 
 is in direct contradiction to popular opinion. By 
 common courtesy, the handsome man is at least 
 not a fool till you know him : as long as there is 
 nothing against him but his good looks, they may 
 fairly be consorted, in your fancy, with every 
 embellishment of mind that can give beauty a 
 meaning, or ugliness a mask. You cannot decide 
 what it may be his fate to discover of himself; and 
 as he stands before you, only an Apollo, he demands 
 from you a hberal construction. He may be as 
 captivating as wit can make him — equal, perhaps, 
 to any man, in all his hidden attributes, as he is 
 superior, you see, to most men, in his outward form 
 and proportions. He and the most hideous of men 
 are equal till they speak, as men ; and this being so, 
 his beauty is just so much clear and unopposed ad- 
 vantage. He is a philosopher — a lawgiver — in the 
 pubhc streets; and has moreover the best turned 
 leg that you shall see among ten thousand. 
 
 Qualifications, indeed, far less prepossessing, and
 
 AND OTHER CONDITIONS OF FACE. 177 
 
 that appeal much less forcibly to the heart, than 
 beauty, are quite sufficient to gain a person credit 
 for his full share of all the gifts and acquirements 
 that are natural to his place in society. The spirit 
 of that liberal maxim of our law, which holds a man 
 innocent till he is proved to be guilty, directs ge- 
 nerally, under certain conditions, all our judgments, 
 or guesses, rather, as to the powers and pretensions 
 of all who present themselves to our notice. One 
 of the conditions is, that a man shall not be very 
 poor — not stand forward in the undisguised infamy 
 of a shabby coat and torn breeches. Such a one, it 
 is a hundred to one, without inquiry, is either a 
 blockhead or a rogue. A well-dressed man, on the 
 contrary, is prima facie a pleasant fellow : till it is 
 known what he is, we agree at once (his hat is 
 warrant enough for us) that he is what he may be 
 and what he ought to be. All the higher qualities 
 of the mind, like the distinctions of rank, are in- 
 cluded with particular provisions of the wardrobe 
 and the toilet. An individual ties his neckcloth in 
 a given style, and comes forth a scholar and a gen- 
 tleman of course. Every one has credit for those 
 endowments which belong to certain classes of 
 coats: my lord duke and his butler are, with the 
 
 N
 
 178 ON BEAUTY, 
 
 million, just a pair, A good coat may not be quite 
 so effective as a good person — but, combined, they 
 are irresistible. The fact is so ; there is no good in 
 making oneself uneasy about it. Wc, who are not 
 more conscious of our moral superiority, than of 
 our less promising appearance, may sneer, for our 
 hearts'" ease, at the obvious emptiness of the cox- 
 comb who, with the aid of his exterior alone, is 
 carrying away from us all admiration; but the 
 provoking truth is, that, while his fine person and 
 fine clothes are largely admired for their own sakes, 
 they are still more especially triumphant, from 
 their natural connexion, in the estimation of the 
 many, with a hundred fine qualities of the soul, of 
 which, in reality, the ninny is as guiltless as his 
 
 horse. " Well," says Miss B , " I must say, 
 
 that Charles is the most entertaining young man 
 that ever I met with ; and, Lucy, don't you think 
 he is remarkably handsome ?" This is putting the 
 cart before the horse, but the ladies are not aware 
 of any such blunder. They know that the spark is 
 handsome, and they find him agreeable, not, as 
 they conclude in the simplicity of their hearts, for 
 that plain reason ; — but because he is so clever, so 
 gay, so humorous, so any thin^ indeed but — six
 
 AND OTHER CONDITIONS OF FACE. 179 
 
 feet high and a httle over — though they will not 
 deny his meritoriousness on that account — and why 
 should they ? 
 
 This supremacy of beauty, where people can be 
 judged only by their looks, is so incontestable, that 
 a plain, weakly man, whatever may be his mental 
 powers, cannot find himself, apart from those who 
 know and value him, hemmed in amongst strangers 
 by the tall and the plump and the ruddy, ^vithout 
 a slight sense of unworthiness and abasement. In 
 such circumstances, in spite of reason and inno- 
 cence, he cannot help feeling a little ashamed of 
 himself. The pale poet, whose works enchant us 
 all, is nobody in the Park : with his shrunk cheeks 
 and spindle legs, he sneaks along, as little noticed 
 as a fly ; while a thousand fond eyes are fixed on 
 the gay and handsome apprentice there, with just 
 intellect enough to make the clothes which make 
 him. He will be despised, I admit, as soon as he 
 is explained — but till then, his superiority in the 
 passing notice of the multitude is not to be denied. 
 It is not my purpose to claim for beauty any thing 
 not intrinsically its own. I will admit the folly 
 when it is fairly proved — the possible folly — but I 
 will not allow that a fine face is by a law of destiny 
 
 N 2
 
 180 ON BEAUTY, 
 
 the only type of a weak head. On the contrary, I 
 
 devoutly believe that the lovely eyes of Mary E 
 
 are the index of a mind full of intelligence, fancy, 
 and tenderness ; and no one but herself shall ever 
 shake this opinion. She mat/ have, and therefore, 
 for me, has, the richest endowments of the soul ; 
 and, superadded to these, she has a face which any 
 man might be proud to idolize for its own sake — 
 for a Aveek at least. The season of explanation and 
 contempt may come — but still there is a triumph. 
 
 This then is the undeniable advantage of beauty : 
 it may fail when convicted as an idiot ; but till then 
 it is secure of attention and respect. It cannot make 
 head against talents in direct conflict and fair bat- 
 tle ; but, under its own colours, with a sort of neu- 
 trality on the part of mind, it sails through the 
 world, conquering and to conquer. The ugly may 
 desire, and the beautiful dread, to be known — the 
 difference between them in the interim being, that 
 the former are disregarded, while the latter are fol- 
 lowed and admired. Let wisdom with its plain 
 face regard this difference without malice; for, 
 after all, what is it worth.'' — a little empty, pre- 
 carious, perishable homage. It is compliment 
 enough to the sovereignty of mind, that beauty
 
 AND OTHER CONDITIONS OF FACE. 181 
 
 must at least be supposed to be united with it, 
 before it can assume its full authority. There is 
 no limit to the influence of talents and hard-favoured 
 countenances among friends, or wherever they have 
 a field for action ; eventually they must and will 
 prevail, and may well afford to concede to beauty 
 its fickle triumphs and brief superiority, to wink 
 good-naturedly at the simpleton's tricks; and, as 
 they know she cannot maintain her ground against 
 the scrutiny of near friends and judges, to allow 
 her, without snarling, all the credit she can raise, 
 in her light and skimming communication with the 
 ignorant crowd. The vain butterfly, they know, 
 will be discovered to be a worm at last. 
 
 There is a danger, however, which the ugly find 
 it difficult to put up with, with any degree of 
 patience. It sometimes happens, they say, even 
 when the creatures are thoroughly detected — 
 established fools — that they still maintain their in- 
 fluence undiminished. You may see a lady, on 
 the strength of nothing in the world but a pair of 
 .sparkling eyes, tyrannize over her husband — a sen- 
 sible, discriminating man, too — as if he was the 
 meanest and simplest of slaves. Love at first sight 
 with such dolls might be forgiven ; we complain
 
 182 ON BEAUTY, 
 
 that the love sometimes has the hardihood to bear a 
 second siglit — one a twelvemonth long, perhaps. 
 There is some truth in this, but it must not be 
 valued at more than it is worth. The fascination 
 of beauty may for a time be so predominant as to 
 warp or suspend our judgment, and make us con- 
 found the nature and differences of things. It is 
 very conceivable that a man, haunted by a pretty 
 face, may, till he is a little reconciled to his familiar, 
 find himself involuntarily referring to it as his sole 
 standard and authority, in questions with which it 
 has no concern — mistaking good teeth, perhaps, for 
 good nature, and a silly remark for a dimple in the 
 chin. But such blind adoration as this, unless 
 where two fools come together, must soon have 
 a period. It is impossible to be intimate with 
 folly without despising it. Every body thinks the 
 pretty Mrs. D agreeable, except her hus- 
 band ; and he, good man, to do him justice, and 
 not to speak of beauty too lightly, resisted convic- 
 tion with all becoming obstinacy and gallantry. 
 Every charm of his wife's face and person supplied 
 him in its turn with weapons, sword and shield, 
 against every effort she made to disenchant herself. 
 Her eyes served him for many a day as a sure ar-
 
 AND OTHER CONDITIONS OF FACE. 183 
 
 tillery against all that she chose to say, or not to say. 
 She had no tastes or feelings in common with him ; 
 — but then her complexion ! It required almost 
 six months to convince him, that this was not an 
 excuse for her falling asleep when he was reading- 
 Guy Mannering to her. He took shelter behind 
 her legs, for I know not how long, against an idle 
 habit she had of never being serious, except when 
 called upon to understand a joke. He found an 
 answer to his wit in her ankles; her foot was a 
 repartee for a month ; and after heavy weeks of un- 
 mitigated dulness and empty trifling, he still looked 
 upon her lips as eloquence. She drove him at 
 length, however, from all his positions and defences, 
 and he is now certified that his wife is a fool. 
 
 Now an ill-conditioned countenance, accompanied, 
 as it always is of course, with shining abilities, and 
 all the arts of pleasing, has this signal compensation ; 
 that it improves under observation, grows less and 
 less objectionable the more you look into it and the 
 better you know it ; till it becomes almost agreeable 
 on its own accoimt — nay, really so — actually pretty : 
 whereas beauty, we have seen, witless beauty, can- 
 not resist the test of long acquaintance, but declines, 
 as you gaze, while in the full pride of its perfec-
 
 181. 
 
 ON BEAUTY, 
 
 tion ; " fades on the eye, and palls upon the sense," 
 with all its bloom about it. Talents bribe and 
 bias the judgment in favour of ordinary features, in 
 the same manner that it is sometimes bewitched by 
 beauty in behalf of folly ; with this distinction, that 
 in the first case the error, once formed, knows no 
 change ; and in the other is but a passing dream — 
 the mistake of a month — the fascination of a honey- 
 moon. 
 
 I may illustrate this point, I hope, without the 
 charge of irreverence, by some notice of our senti- 
 ments with regard to brute animals, who, whatever 
 may be their own convictions, are, in our opinions, 
 distinguished by great personal contrasts, many 
 gradations of comeliness, and striking differences of 
 feeling and intelligence. I went the other day to 
 visit a collection of wild beasts, which had just 
 arrived in a retired country town, where, being 
 quite new to most of the people, they were received 
 with eager curiosity. The first word uttered by 
 every one on his entrance into the place of exhibi- 
 tion was some expression of sudden and irresistible 
 disgust at the elephant — that monster of matter, 
 and miracle of mind, as BufFon calls it — an animal 
 that nature seems to have only half made; the
 
 AND OTHER CONDITIONS OF FACE. 185 
 
 sketch, the rough -draught of a brute; a mass of 
 deformity rendered hideous by a resemblance only 
 to life— like the sculptor''s statue just visible in the 
 block ; or some creature that a child might scrawl 
 upon paper. Look at his clubbed, post-like legs ! 
 What a foot and ankle ! And then his tail ! — if 
 ever a tail were ignominious, it is his : and mercy ! — 
 his carcass ! — mean with all its magnitude, — his 
 hogged back — sneaking haunches — and rugged, 
 sooty, stony, hide ! — a hay-stack set upon piles, or 
 the waggon that encloses him, might as soon be 
 mistaken for a living being. Loathsome ! frightful ! 
 dreadful ! such was the style of comment that 
 escaped from the mouths of men and women, as 
 they cast a hasty and scornful glance upon this 
 wise brute of the East. They then crowded about 
 the dens of the other beasts, and nothing was heard 
 but exclamations of delight and admiration at the 
 grand mane of the lion, the rich spotted skin of the 
 tiger, and the dazzling stri})es of the zebra. It was 
 curious to observe how soon this feeUng subsided, 
 how soon the interest of mere colour and form was 
 exhausted, and lost in satiety — indifference — dis- 
 regard. In the mean time, a little group that 
 have recovered from the hurry of their first im-
 
 186 ON BEAUTY, 
 
 pressions, and are in a state to receive the truth, 
 assemble about the poor patient piece of overgrown 
 awkwardness, whom we have just so much abused 
 — the calumniated elephant. He begins to be 
 found out — he has had time to unfold himself, and 
 his party every moment increases : now a deserter 
 from the lion, and now a turn-coat from the tiger, 
 come over to his side, till at last the whole com- 
 pany, who had so lately combined to vilify him, are 
 jostling and elbowing one another, to witness his 
 sagacity and share his notice. No one talks of 
 his unsightliness now ; his intelligence, his gentle 
 manners, and kind, communicative, eye, have won 
 all hearts : he is the sole favourite — the pet of the 
 show. The miracles of his trunk-exercise alone 
 are worth all the lions in the world, and the zebras 
 to boot. Observe with what mixed propriety, 
 handiness, and grace, he turns, and curves, and 
 curls, that wonderful instrument, which can knock 
 .down a house, or pick up a pin ! See with what 
 politeness and tenderness he gives his keeper the 
 wall ! — a horse would tread upon your toes and 
 say nothing; but he knows his own weight and 
 your worth better. Look at him ! a lamb in every 
 thing but littleness: — like Elia"'s giantess, "he
 
 AND OTHER CONDITIONS OF FACE. 187 
 
 goeth mincingly*" — being nine thousand six hun- 
 dred pounds weight. And is this a creature to be 
 despised for his hide? No, no — the women now 
 are patting his iron sides, and think him "really 
 not so very ugly ;" they coax him, and joke, and 
 laugh with him, and pull out their halfpence un- 
 grudgingly, to buy him cakes, and see him eat 
 them. " Now, ma'am, observe," says the keeper — 
 and straight he pokes a biscuit into that droll little 
 puckered mouth of his, like a letter into a letter- 
 box — and that is all you have for your penny. 
 And now a mother trusts her infant to his keeping; 
 he cradles it in a bend of his trunk, and stands 
 motionless, like a figure of patience and parental 
 love. The child screams, and he hears and under- 
 stands ; nay, fear not, he would not, his eye swears 
 to you he would not, harm it, for his liberty. 
 There is no standing this — bursts of applause — 
 *' noble brute" — " generous animal" — " tender soul" 
 — come quick from all tongues ; nay, as a climax to 
 his triumph, even, " pretty creature," is not spared, 
 so true it is that, "handsome is, that handsome 
 does." To pursue the parallel to the utmost of its 
 bearing on my subject, I may state that this af- 
 fectionate admiration was not more lively than it
 
 188 ON BEAUTY, 
 
 will be durable. The good folks will soon forget 
 the lion's mane and the zebra'^s stripes; but their 
 interchange of kindly thoughts and kindly acts 
 with the elephant are matters of the head and 
 heart, and are not to be forgotten. 
 
 To return to my humanities. I have hitlierto 
 presumed, in compliance with the exactions of the 
 censorious, that a person, to be handsome, must be 
 without mind and feeling ; and have made out, I 
 think, even Avith this admission, that good looks 
 have still their term of reverence. But, as I have 
 already intimated, my actual opinions are far less 
 harsh and exclusive. However the case may be 
 between the tiger and the elephant, I am by no 
 means assured that, with us, the highest intelli- 
 gence, and the most engaging manners, are in- 
 separable from the coarsest figures. The elephants 
 amongst us have their sure reward, and they deserve 
 it {tliat is my moral) ; but we are not all elephants 
 that look so. I have no faith in the natural 
 alliance of beauty and folly : whatever may be the 
 laws of its distribution, I believe that mind has no 
 uniform dependence upon our eyes and noses; I 
 believe that there are no mutual influences between 
 wisdom and a white skin ; in a word, that the
 
 AND OTHER CONDITIONS OF FACE. 189 
 
 loveliest woman on earth may have all the wit, and 
 fancy, and tenderness, and polish, and grace, that 
 
 ennoble the sallow Mrs. B , and the red-haired 
 
 Miss C . I am aware of the disturbance that 
 
 I may raise about my ears, by this inordinate de- 
 claration. Am I raving ? do I know what I mean ? 
 What excuse do I propose to the worthy many, 
 the ugly, the plain, the middling, and the so-so, 
 when I thus load the few — the elect, forsooth, with 
 the means of gaining, not alone all eyes, but all 
 hearts.!^ Patience — patience — the case is not al- 
 tered a tittle. If the beautiful win hearts and 
 retain them (for that is the desideratum) they 
 derive their power from their intellects, and their 
 affections, from all those qualities which they have 
 in common with the ugly ; (our language is sadly 
 deficient in terms for those who are not handsome) ; 
 while their beauty is still no more than I have 
 described it to be — a light additament — not eyes 
 and nose, but their colour and shape ; a pretty, a 
 very pretty, trifle, well worth the having ; but not 
 worth the pride and arrogance of many that have 
 it, nor the envy and ill-humour of more that want 
 it. This is the fact, be assured : quote not from
 
 190 ON BEAUTY, &C. 
 
 Moore or his imitators; look to nature and truth 
 look round upon your married acquaintance. 
 
 There is one certain comfort for all those who 
 are foolish and cruel enough to desire it. The 
 most beautiful must lose their beauty — a forfeiture 
 that at once atones for all their crimes of face. 
 The leveller, Fifty ^ will have his day, when the 
 beauty will find no sighs for her losses in any heart 
 but her own. I advert to this pitiless epoch, much 
 less as a consolation to the envious, than as a warn- 
 ing to those whom it most concerns ; and with this 
 warning (beware and be wise), dehvered with all 
 friendliness and respect from one not of the elect, I 
 conclude.
 
 ON FAME AND MONUMENTS. 
 
 To be forgotten, is almost as much the general lot 
 as to die, yet few submit to this dreary particular 
 of our common sentence without a hope of some 
 mitigation and allowance. We will not yield to 
 death tamely, we think : let him stop our present 
 breath and take us from future action; our past 
 lives at least, we fondly imagine, are beyond his 
 reach — these we may make our proxies, our present 
 and future, among the generations of men, and so 
 secure a sort of being in this world, even when we 
 hope to be breathing, thinking, and enjoying, in a 
 better. I have heard people say that they could 
 think with more patience of dying, than of being 
 buried ; and I can understand their feeling in this 
 respect. It is explicable, indeed, by that sympathy 
 which quickens our tears and deepens our sobs at a 
 burial — as if there was almost another death for 
 one departed, in this his final abstraction from the
 
 192 
 
 ON FAME AND MONUMENTS. 
 
 sight of the living- world. We feel as if there was 
 a loss after death, and its completion was in the 
 grave. To die is to forget ; to be buried is to be 
 forgotten. 
 
 This horror of oblivion was not planted in our 
 souls only to sadden us, it being, perhaps, the most 
 powerful and permanent of all motives to useful 
 and honourable action. Let those, who would not 
 be forgotten, deserve to be remembered. The 
 achievements which tend most to raise the minds, 
 to humanize the feelings, and improve the condition 
 of men, are the best securities for a cherished and 
 lasting life in their memories. There is no burial 
 for the great benefactors of their kind. But the 
 love of fame is an universal passion ; and it would 
 be hard if some degree of the enjoyment w ere not 
 permitted to the crowd who, wanting ability or 
 opportunity, cannot exactly comply w^th the severe 
 condition of deserving it. Attention must not be 
 confined to those talkers only w'ho have something to 
 say. Every one w^ho has a tongue has his lingual 
 
 rights — his vocal privileges. Even Mr. 
 
 speakSi and thereupon is called " the honourable 
 gentleman." The love of life may, in strictness, 
 be defensible only, like the love of fame, as it is
 
 ON FAME AND MONUMENTS. 193 
 
 combined with the love and the power of being- 
 useful ; yet would it be a harsh measure to put all 
 those worthy persons to death, who have no reasons 
 for being spared, except a simple fancy for being- 
 alive. As the meanest has his pretensions to his 
 life in the flesh, his decent pride of eating, drinking, 
 and sleeping, so he would do his little best to hold 
 his inch of posthumous place ; and if there be room, 
 why turn him out? A joint boiled to-day and 
 baked to-morrow, as life, and a name over a vestry- 
 door or on a new pump, as immortality, are allow- 
 ances which it is scarcely worth while to look 
 grudgingly upon. As for me, who take my rank 
 amongst the minnows, and not as a Triton either, I 
 have a due fellow-feeling for their humble emula- 
 tion and tiny pride; and would for their benefit, 
 passing without notice all the great bases of sterling 
 and enduring fame, say a few words on the com- 
 parative value of those small foundations, to which 
 they must trust the precarious fortunes of their 
 after-lives and dignities. 
 
 Publicity and permanency are the chief qualities, 
 I imagine, which every one would desire in his 
 monument, or locum tenens, in this world ; but as 
 these cannot often be found combined in sucli crea-
 
 194" ON FAME AND MONUMENTS. 
 
 tions as are equal to the mediocrity of ordinary 
 men, he must choose between them, or go without 
 them, as his means may allow, or his fancy suggest. 
 An epitaph, as being a special and exclusive illustra- 
 tion of your particular case, seems to be an obvious 
 mode of notoriety ; and as it is open to the iiumblest 
 aspirants (for there are always plenty of hands, I 
 believe, ready to undertake such things at so much 
 a virtue), it is naturally in pretty general use and 
 favour. Yet in truth it is but a poor perishable 
 record, beneath the ambition of any one who courts 
 even a moderate share of immortality. We have 
 no reason to complain of epitaphs, that they are 
 niggardly and lukewarm in their notices; to give 
 them their due, they say quite enough of us 
 generally — but where is the security for theii* being 
 believed and remembered, or read ? A few com- 
 plimentary stanzas may be delivered over to the 
 keeping of print — and how are you the more 
 famous for that.'* Who sees them.? Who reads 
 them ? If you could make interest with some poet, 
 safe in his own renown, to spare you a few lines, 
 (any thing would do), you might, perhaps, come in 
 amongst his minor pieces in some sweep-all edition 
 of his works, and so, as it were, be taken in tow
 
 ON FAME AND MONUMENTS. 195 
 
 down to future ages. I knoWno other means of 
 keeping an epitaph afloat. 
 
 The church-yard, that centre of universal interest 
 and observation, should seem, in point of situation, 
 not ill-recommended to the candidates for fame; 
 yet, loaded as it is with sculptured stone and monu- 
 mental brass, it can confer little distinction either 
 in degree or duration. Here is publicity more than 
 enough ; but no individuality ; you are but one in a 
 crowd ; your claims to notice are confounded with 
 those of your fellows; while the whole mass of 
 tombs aff'ects the living, only as one great memento 
 of general mortality. Then again the vulgarity of 
 the place ! It is not every one, were there the op- 
 portunity, who would be willing to travel to poste- 
 rity with the canaille of the common ground. Not 
 to insist upon this objection, there is the insecurity 
 of possession to check our hopes and mortify our 
 pride. An inscription is soon worn away, and who 
 expects to be renewed in the stone by his great- 
 grand-children ? The age of martyrs is gone, and 
 there is no " Old Mortality'"' who would waste his 
 time upon us poor drones who die in our beds. I 
 would not willingly expose myself to a charge 
 of unbecoming levity towards any of the natural 
 
 o 2
 
 190 ON FAME AND MONUMENTS. 
 
 solemnities of this momentous subject. I have no 
 such thought in my heart ; but our whims and 
 vanities — a good-humoured laugh at them can do 
 no harm, I believe, whether they be on the earth or 
 under it. I have my human right of a word on 
 this topic, be it merry or otherwise : I am a party 
 concerned. It is not like the rich man sneering at 
 the poor, or the proud man taunting the humble : 
 I claim no exemptions : my turn will come. I can- 
 not twit my neighbour with the meanness of being 
 buried one of these days. We ^vill move, however, 
 to more open ground. 
 
 It is by no means necessary, for the preservation 
 of a name, that you should have a monument made 
 expressly for yourself, with an immediate reference 
 in all its parts and intentions to your person and 
 merits. There may be something flattering to the 
 feelings in this sort of undivided greatness; but, 
 from the imperfectness of man's art, and the fragi- 
 lity of such materials as he can control and com- 
 bine, it is humblingly transitory, as I have shown ; 
 not very lively or distinct, and, moreover, exceed- 
 ingly expensive. There is a great variety of ready- 
 made monuments in still life and inanimate nature, 
 which, if they appear in themselves to have little
 
 ON FAME AND MONUMENTS. 197 
 
 concern with man''s good or evil fame, may yet be 
 made pertinent to him by the consent and courtesy 
 of society. If you will travel far enough, where 
 such things are not already bespoke, you may, by 
 the transference of your name, adopt, and identify 
 yourself with, an island — a strait — a mountain — a 
 promontory — or " a queer hummock," — and so go 
 halves with them in the notice of the world. If 
 monuments of this compound character are less 
 personal, and excite less of present attention, than 
 more appropriate works of statuary or sculpture, 
 they are considerably cheaper, we must remember, 
 and, if not quite so vivacious, will carry you down 
 into far more distant ages of time. Such forms of 
 existence are somewhat too dull, I acknowledge, to 
 please my fancy ; but tastes differ. It is not every 
 one, indeed, who has interest to get such honours, 
 who can take his place among the " Croker Heads,'''* 
 and " Pitt Points^'' and such lofty company ; we, 
 therefore, of lower powers, must content ourselves 
 with more petty and perishable objects, which may, 
 perhaps, compensate us for their greater frailty, by 
 their greater liveliness, and their more constant and 
 intimate communion with the eyes, and tongues, 
 and thoughts of men.
 
 198 ON FAME AND MONUMENTS. 
 
 What think you of being a stage-coach with six 
 insides, as The Wellington ? This is a common 
 vehicle of fame, and, with its horn (trumpet), fame- 
 like, is certainly a jolly, noisy, rattling, kind of 
 remembrancer, that may make a man as notorious, 
 over some hundred miles or so, on any of the great 
 roads, as a moderate ambition should desire. Your 
 life must have a period in such a state — its journey''s 
 end ; and as you are but a tenant at wiU, you are, 
 of course, exposed to all the changes that are pe- 
 culiar to that uncertain tenure. Not to mention 
 the common wear and tear of wheels, there can be 
 no comfortable reliance on the affection and fidelity 
 of coach proprietors. Such people will be truckling 
 to every flashy novelty of the passing hour ; and no 
 man should be surprised to see the Old Original 
 Cornxcallis brightened up in a moment, without 
 provocation or apology, into the New Opposition 
 Canning. Nevertheless, this condition of being is 
 better than nothing. 
 
 Our horses, who perform so many hard services 
 for us, are no bad hacks for our names. People of 
 limited merits, at least, may trust themselves to 
 
 worse reporters. Mr. M 's bay colt Jones 
 
 (I forget the pedigree) will, if there ever was truth
 
 ON FAME AND MONUMENTS. 199 
 
 in two pair of legs, do incalculably more towards 
 the celebrity of the name it bears, than ever will 
 be done for it by Mr. Jones. We honour these 
 animals with our names, we are pleased to say ; but 
 that is as it may happen. What if the brute should 
 turn out an Eclipse ? Who would be the gainer 
 
 then ? I have a dog called after Lord , and, 
 
 unless his lordship be strangely scandalized, his 
 
 vicegerent with a tail but comparisons, they 
 
 say, are odious. 
 
 Some prefer a ship — a man-of-war — as their 
 deputy ; and it is undoubtedly an official, to which 
 any man may be proud to confide his name. As a 
 three-decker, or a tight frigate, you might, by a 
 fortunate concurrence of circumstances, be lifted 
 on even to the utmost period (and a period there 
 must be) of subcelestial immortality. If you could 
 engage for a smart war, a gallant action, and some 
 great death on board, you would at once be mixed 
 up with events for history, — become " booked," as 
 they say of a parcel, and sure of your place to the 
 end of time at least. There are other casualties 
 too, out of the ordinary course of service, that 
 might raise yt)u to very enviable distinction. Who 
 would have thought of the marvellous chance that
 
 200 ON FAME AND MONUMENTS. 
 
 fell upon the old Nortlmmberland'^ But luck like 
 this no man has a right to calculate upon ; and, as 
 the world goes, you might find your life as a ship 
 neither very glorious nor very long — let me see — 
 fifty years (at the outside) of easy sailing between 
 Plymouth and the Downs, with an occasional trip 
 to the West Indies and back again ; to which may 
 be appended ten years more of a kind of second- 
 ary existence, under jury-masts, or as a sheer hulk, 
 and floating prison. This is about the best that 
 you could reasonably hope for ; and you must not 
 conceal from yourself, that you might be pre- 
 maturely despatched by the common accidents of 
 the sea, or hurried off in your prime by the dry-rot. 
 jMerchant ships I barely allude to, for they are 
 scarcely fit for a gentleman"'s use. No one, I pre- 
 sume, above a tallow-chandler, would desire to be 
 the William of Yarmouth. 
 
 A street — a town — (think of Romulus) — are 
 good monuments on many accounts, independent 
 of durability, and more dear to our feelings even 
 than that very important quahty. They are, as 
 one may say, pleasant, cheerful, monuments, that 
 will keep a man''s name, not only alive always, but 
 awake. For my part, I should like very well to be
 
 ON FAME AND MONUMENTS. 201 
 
 a square — a terrace — or a row ; and should prefer 
 them to a hill or a headland, on the principle of " a 
 short life and a merry one." I might on any 
 disastrous day be burned out by a fire, or expunged 
 by other interlopers ; but then as long as I toas 
 permitted to endure, how infinitely should I be 
 looked at and talked of ! Never out of somebody 
 or other's mouth from year's end to year's end — 
 thousands of people continually inquiring after and 
 trying to find me out ; and a bag-full of letters 
 daily, with the same invariable reference to me ! 
 More homage might be done to my name during a 
 single week as a street, than might be incident to it 
 as a hill in five centuries. I can conceive no 
 pleasure in moping out my immortality as an 
 Egyptian desert, or an eternal mountain at the 
 North Pole. I have not the smallest wish to be 
 Melville Island: I would rather be Houndsditch. 
 I should not feel comfortable as Botany Bay: 
 Waterloo I might have put up with ; but, if I had 
 my free choice, I think I would be Hyde-Park- 
 Corner. On the same grounds of preference, were 
 I to live beyond the grave as a book, I would rather 
 be some light, lively, volume, to be thumbed, and 
 dog's-eared, and tossed about from table to chair
 
 202 ON FAME AND MONUMENTS. 
 
 for my little term of fame, and then be forgotten 
 for ever, than some huge folio, immortal and im- 
 moveable, on the top shelf — the Pole of the library 
 — dull region of primeval dust, and perpetual cob- 
 webs. 
 
 There are people who have a strange fancy for 
 trusting their names under the foundation-stone of 
 a new bridge, or church, or free-mason's lodge. I 
 consider this to be the very worst scheme of fame 
 that ever was invented. Fame ! — it is wilfully 
 hiding yourself from day; hoarding yourself up, in 
 the blundering spirit of the miser, who at once se- 
 cretes, and nullifies his gold. You may amuse your- 
 self with the notion, and there you are snug and out 
 of harm's way for centuries ; but if nobody is to see, 
 hear, or think of you, in your solitude, you are not 
 a whit more alive, as it appears to me, under your 
 stone, than in your coffin. It is in fact precisely 
 burying yourself alive. If these structures tumbled 
 to pieces ^v^th the same order and etiquette with 
 which they are founded, you might, perhaps, be 
 turned up to the light again for a moment among 
 some remote generations of men — which would be 
 pleasing; — but, as they are not in the habit of 
 going to ruin so methodically, you would, in all
 
 ON FAME AND MONUMENTS. 203 
 
 probability, never be released from your confine- 
 ment ; and, for any purposes of notoriety, might as 
 well be ending your days with Mr. Southey's Arva- 
 ian, "ten thousand thousand fathoms down in an 
 ice-rift." No — heaven keep me and my friends 
 from the foundation-stone of a bridge ! 
 
 A portrait, on canvas or in stone, though not 
 within the class of monuments ready-made, and free 
 of cost, is yet a means of extending a little the 
 natural allowance of life, which is within the reach 
 of common men. I think little of it myself. Your 
 vanity may be gratified by leaving a representative 
 so purely and exclusively personal to yourself; but 
 the misfortune is, that these kind of trustees, while 
 they may preserve your face, are very apt to lose 
 your name. If you allow yourself to be transcribed 
 by an inferior hand, you know very well that ere 
 long your resting-place will be among the enigma- 
 tical lumber of some repertory of " Marine Stores," 
 — the Capulet''s tomb of such productions ; and if 
 you apply to an artist of eminence, you may find 
 his name so paramount and absorbing, as to carry 
 you to posterity, not as Mr. B. or Mrs. W., but as 
 " a Lawrence," or " an Owen." Why should you 
 let out your features for the benefit only of another"'s
 
 204 ON FAME AND MONUMENTS. 
 
 reputation ? If I were dead and gone, I would not 
 give two-pence to be " a Titian ;" — And yet I 
 would too ; yes — yes — there must be something in 
 that — a secret satisfaction — I only mean to say that 
 such a distinction is not the road to glory. A 
 portrait is a memorial rather for private or family 
 affection, than for public fame. It should never 
 travel from its native walls, and the tutelary par- 
 tialities of its own friends and relations. At home, 
 as " a little ugly gentleman over the settee," it may 
 give a man a sort of immortality of domestic life — 
 keep him warm in the love and esteem of his 
 kindred, down to the remotest limit of tradition — 
 even to his grand-children — and thenceforward 
 hold him in preservation, to the end of colour and 
 canvas, as an ancestor, at least, or a curiosity, 
 perhaps, worth something for the cut of his coat 
 and the tie of his neck-cloth. Once out of doors 
 and at large, it is no longer a portrait, but a paint- 
 ing ; no longer you, but a fine piece of colour, or a 
 noble design. 
 
 There is one method, now I think of it, of inti-o- 
 ducing yourself to the public as a portrait, without 
 change of place and consequent danger to your 
 identity : — I allude to the agency of the sign-post.
 
 ON FAME AND MONUMENTS. 205 
 
 A sign is really no bad guardian and dispenser of 
 a name : but it is not for the vulgar, for those 
 whom nobody knows. It cannot be made the 
 founder of a name : a man must have done some- 
 thing before he can take the place of the Saracen''s 
 Head. As an accessary to other sources of fame, 
 it is not beneath the consideration of any one who 
 has an honest ambition to multiply his acquaintance. 
 The extra-genteel may affect to think it low — and 
 why ? — what are their exquisite reasons ? It may 
 not add any material brilliancy to your rank among 
 the best company in the higher regions — the " dress 
 walks" of fame; but, as a means of publishing 
 yourself to the multitude, who have no access to 
 the prouder evidences of your greatness, where will 
 you find a more effective chaperon, or more useful 
 master of the ceremonies ? How many are there at 
 this time of day, even among the polite and well- 
 taught, who, if they would speak the truth, derive 
 their liveliest impressions of old Benbow and Rod- 
 ney from their honest faces swinging aloft, or staring 
 steadily from their frames, at inn-doors and ale- 
 houses ! Envy, rankling envy, must be at the 
 bottom of their contempt, who profess to despise 
 such distinctions. Talk about low indeed ! Who
 
 206 ON FAME AND MONUMENTS. 
 
 will make you a sign ? You give yourself airs of 
 haughtiness and self-denial, but — " let me whisper 
 in your lug — You^-e aiblins nae temptation." The 
 only sensible objection that I can propose to sig7is, 
 as depositories of our posthumous life, is the pre- 
 cariousness — the briefness of their reign. They do 
 in some instances maintain a specific symbolization 
 with wonderful constancy, through all changes of 
 time, men, manners, and customs ; but it is rather 
 in favour of abstractions — allegories — fictions — 
 prodigies (what shall we call them ?) than of any 
 definite lady or gentleman. There will be no end 
 to the Good Woman — no upper end worth talking 
 of, certainly ; the Green Man and Still is still 
 green ; and the King's Head never dies ; but the 
 King of Prussia, I fear, is fading fast ; our first 
 and second Georges look deadly dull, and dim, and 
 pale ; and the Z>?/A;c of Cumberlarid (I think it 
 must be the Duke of Cumberland) has only a speck 
 or two of horse — a rag of coat — a scrap of hat — 
 half a face — a bit of sword, and a leg, to stand 
 between him and oblivion. There is an exception, 
 and only one that occurs to me, to this law of signal 
 death. The Sliakspeare'' s Head (just the head for 
 lasting) has not grown a day older within the me-
 
 ON FAME AND MONUMENTS 207 
 
 mory of man. Yes — there is another — the Garrick''s 
 Head (a very good head in its way) stands almost 
 cheek by jowl with the immortal poet, and keeps 
 itself young and fresh in the light of his countenance. 
 Cutting or scratching a name on a tree, a wall, or 
 an inn-window, is, in the way of monument-making, 
 the simplest and most unpretending deed that I can 
 think of — the humblest exercise of the love of fame 
 — of that great passion of high and low, which will 
 work with a pin's point, and has cumbered the 
 earth with the pyramids. Yet how blind is our 
 pride ! how limited our foresight ! Works thus 
 insignificant — the labour of a minute — the merest 
 hints of ambition, have lived through more cen- 
 turies than the proudest productions of human art 
 and toil. On some of the walls of Pompeii (if I re- 
 member rightly) the scrawlings — the " T. Jenkins,"" 
 " I love you," and " Burdett for ever," of the Roman 
 soldiers, are still visible — frail memorials, preserved 
 by the same catastrophe that buried the town and 
 its people, and now brought to light, when the 
 ETERNAL CITY has Scarcely a vestige left of all that 
 it contained of great, and good, and fair. In the 
 little village of IBowncss, on the Cumberland border 
 of the Solway Frith, the traveller, if he have ardour
 
 208 ON FAME AND MONUMENTS. 
 
 enough to hunt for them, may see here and there a 
 smooth tablet of freestone (fragments from the 
 Picts"' wall) set in like a picture on the unhewn 
 front of a cottage or a barn, showing names, Roman 
 names, as rudely cut, and nearly as old, as those at 
 Pompeii, and whose authors, no doubt, as little 
 calculated upon a reader outliving the era of Rome. 
 I have pretty nearly exhausted, I believe, the 
 whole catalogue of monuments, as supplied by the 
 materials and ingredients of our own world. The 
 heavens present a more barren field to our ambition. 
 The fleeting clouds will not abide at our bidding ; 
 and there are no points of note, or marks of dif- 
 ference — no resting-places for us in the blue ether — 
 the equal and infinite sky. The stars are the only 
 objects that we can separate and individualize, and 
 they are all engaged. Oh ! to have been the moon 
 — the sonnet-hallowed moon ! But that is out of 
 the question now : — she is the moon. I have not 
 heard that comets have yet been appropriated by 
 human vanity, and I see not why they should be 
 disregarded. Their visits are few and far between ; 
 but what a stir they make when they do come ! 
 The Prince Regent Comet ! it sounds as well as the 
 Prince Regent Bath Coach. It is Fontenclle, I
 
 ON FAME AND MONUMENTS. 209 
 
 think, who observes, that " as the very things (our 
 monuments) which should secure us from death, 
 moulder away, and die after their manner — as a 
 city — a province — nay, an empire, cannot be re- 
 sponsible for our immortality — it is no bad plan to 
 give your name to a star, which lasts for ever." 
 The stars are creditable monuments, no doubt — 
 sound funds in which to vest a name ; but I do not 
 see why they are better than any solid parts of our 
 earth in sufficient quantity. A hill or a valley you 
 might not be willing to trust — then choose a conti- 
 nent or a good bouncing island. He who adopts a 
 star has a whole world to himself, which is certainly 
 preferable to any part of a world ; so much I grant ; 
 but the notion that the stars will be more durable 
 as our monuments, than the four quarters of our 
 own globe, is purely fanciful. Allowing them this 
 precedence in stability, as an honour to themselves, 
 as stars, it is still an enigma to me, how we are to 
 perpetuate in them our mortal interests and vanities. 
 We cannot conjecture what revolutions and cata- 
 strophes await those bodies ; but, admitting that our 
 dear planet is to perish first, how, after its dissolu- 
 tion, are we to preserve our names here or in the 
 heavens .'* There the stars are, to be sure, and may 
 
 p
 
 210 ON FAINIE AND MONUMENTS. 
 
 be ; but where will be our authority for the Jupiter 
 and the Mars — the Liverpool and the Wellington, 
 amongst them ? No — when the earth tumbles to 
 pieces, there is an end of the Georghim Sidits, as 
 surely as of the Laureate's hexameters. We must 
 not confound the perishable name with the im- 
 mortal star. It is not as if our excellent monarch 
 had become an indestructible part and parcel of 
 this luminary. We loyal earthites may be pleased 
 to think so; but what may the moonites and the 
 whole " starry host" say to such a notion ? The 
 star was, before we discovered it, and we cannot be 
 permitted to name it, as if we had made it. A 
 transitory conjunction — a pretty compliment, per- 
 haps, to both parties, during the natural life of this 
 terraqueous globe — but no farther: the nature of 
 things forbids it. 
 
 Yet I freely allow that, to our feelings and 
 natural prejudices, the name and the thing are in 
 most cases inseparable. Beacliy Head is a lofty 
 promontory on the Sussex coast ; and this same 
 promontory is — is Beacliy Head. There is nothing 
 more to be said about it. It is the same ^vith the 
 names of persons. The name and the individual 
 are so identified and confused — so co-existent, co-
 
 ON FAME AND MONUMENTS. 211 
 
 ordinate, and co-operative, that the imagination can 
 scarcely separate them. They are one to all in- 
 tents and purposes. Who is that gentleman ? — Mr. 
 Jones. And who is Mr. Jones .'' There he stands. 
 Turn them as you will, you cannot part them : 
 they must be and die together. There are persons, 
 indeed, who change their names, and, we are given 
 to believe, live ; but such self-desertion is a most 
 barbarous and unnatural practice, to which I can 
 scarcely concede my faith, and to which I never can 
 reconcile my affections. I cannot help considering 
 it as a kind of suicide. A man's name is so much 
 flesh of his flesh, particularly in the estimation of 
 his friends, that he can scarcely get rid of it without 
 
 blood-guiltiness. When my friend E , is not 
 
 E , or he, he is lost to me : I know him not ; 
 
 he is a stranger ; Mr. Anybody. By such an act of 
 exchange (which, if it is not robbery, is murder in 
 this instance), a man at least destroys all his past 
 being — kills and buries a whole life of impressions, 
 associations, and recollections, that were as real as 
 himself. He begins again : he is another and not 
 the same. Who is Lord Bexley ? Mr. Vansittart 
 that was — the deceased Mr. Vansittart. It is so : 
 our habits and prejudices — in short, it is so. Nay 
 
 p2
 
 212 ON FAME AND MONUMENTS. 
 
 — you may say — there is Lord Bexley just as usual 
 — semper idem : — but where is Mr. Vansittart ? 
 No — I enter my solemn protest against all such 
 doings — such puzzling anomalies — such vicarious 
 representations of ourselves. I cannot allow a man 
 to stand proxy for himself. Lord Bexley, or Mr. 
 Vansittart either — or neither — as you please ; but 
 not both, and both in one. An addition, a partner- 
 ship, in this particular, would be less offensive, 
 perhaps, than an absolute change: — not that I 
 approve even of this degree of tampering with our 
 reality ; but of the two evils, or crimes, it is the 
 least. A Co. might with a little use become endura- 
 ble. It is best, however, to leave ourselves alone. 
 
 Some people have a dislike to certain titles in 
 very great men, simply as titles, which derogate, 
 they think, from the nobiUty of mind. They are 
 not willing, for instance, that a fine poet should be 
 a lord. I do not agree with this sentiment to its 
 utmost extent. If the title has been long attached 
 to the man — has long co-existed with his charac- 
 teristic actions, and personal adventures, it becomes, 
 not only not degrading, but could not be withdrawn 
 without violence to our feelings. I could not bear 
 that Lord Bacon, or Sir Isaac Newton, should give
 
 ON FAME AND MONUMENTS. 213 
 
 up even his name of mere rank ; but if the grave 
 were unfortunately open to court-honours, I could 
 never submit with patience to Lord Shakspeare. 
 He must be born again, or you could not lower him 
 down to such a dignity without profanation. The 
 man must have time to ennoble the title, or it may 
 be worse than an encumbrance. It is a dangerous 
 measure for a great man, as they say, to retire on a 
 title : if he cannot begin, or at least go on, with one, 
 he must be a loser by the accession — a loser of 
 himself. His title can have no retrospective in- 
 fluence, except to darken and confound. The old 
 man we knew ; the new lord is an experiment.
 
 SEA-ROAMERS.— OLD JOHNNY 
 WOLGAR. 
 
 " List ye landsmen all to me." 
 
 That " one half of the world does not know how 
 the other half lives,"'"' is a very ancient truth, I fancy, 
 and, in spite of the advances of knowledge, it is per- 
 fectly applicable, I believe, in the present era of 
 mankind. Every man has his own world, or a little 
 plot cut out of the gi-eat mass to which his own 
 wants and habitudes confine his experience, and 
 
 which he calls " the world."*"" The Duke of 
 
 has so many courses served up to his dinner-table 
 daily, the remains of which, he is positive, are re- 
 moved to be consumed by his servants; and this, 
 he determines, is the way of " the world." Every 
 body does so. He wears a coat three weeks, and 
 then makes it over to his butler — and that is how 
 people get clothed. Not a dozen streets from his 
 princely mansion, there are human beings wonder-
 
 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 215 
 
 ing, whether " the hone hashed up with a few 
 potatoes will do for to-morrow;" others agreeing 
 that a bit of mutton " is rather high, but will do to 
 make broth of:"" and a fellow-creature protesting 
 that, shabby as his coat is, it will go a month or two 
 yet — turned ; yet such things are as inconceivable 
 to the Duke as if they were occurrences of another 
 planet. Has his Grace the smallest conception that 
 there is such a stratagem on our earth as ?-e-beaver- 
 ing a hat, and reviving a pair of trowsers ? Not 
 lie, believe it. 
 
 There are means of earning a subsistence — modes 
 of human toil, so out of the great high-ways of in- 
 dustry — so disconnected from the regular rattle and 
 bustle of the community — so lowly — lone, and in- 
 dependent of all general interests ; that, with regard 
 to ordinary observers, they may be said to be abso- 
 lutely invisible to the naked eye. You must search 
 for them — stoop down to them — handle them — as 
 you would some minute and mysterious process of 
 animal life — put your ear to them — smell at them — 
 before you can ascertain or guess at their nature 
 and use. What is that strange-looking man about .? 
 What then — pampered sloth ! You will not go and 
 see? Well— stay a litde, and I will tell you all
 
 ^16 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 
 
 about it. I can assure the great Duke before- 
 mentioned, that he may see an old man clad in 
 black sack-cloth, with a rope round his waist — bent, 
 and wan and grey — pass by his window daily at his 
 breakfast-time, who feeds and clothes himself (just 
 as his Grace may see) with the profit accruing from 
 old bones which he picks up from the public streets. 
 I am positively serious, yet his Grace, I dare say, 
 will pause from his chocolate, and listen to the fact 
 with the same sort of incredulous wonder with 
 which he might hear that there are living beings 
 some hundred thousands of times less than a mite. 
 And this too is far — far indeed, from the hmit of 
 human littleness and desolation. 
 
 The accidents of my life have often brought me 
 into very intimate communion with the poor, so as 
 to make me perfectly familiar with their dispositions 
 and habits, as dependent upon the peculiar circum- 
 stances of their condition, and let me into many 
 secrets of strange drudgery and privation, which, as 
 I never saw them mentioned under any head in the 
 quarterly reports of our ever-increasing prosperity, 
 are, I imagine, very little known or felt for out of 
 the bosoms of the sufferers. The obscurity, re- 
 moteness, and narrowness of their " world" — and
 
 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 217 
 
 the extreme insig-nificance of their relations with 
 the worlds of other people, readily account for the 
 sort of exile in which they live from common sym- 
 pathy ; a state still further secured to them by the 
 gentle and quiet humility of their own manners and 
 deportment — for, though the last — the lowest among 
 the sons of toil, they are never forward to announce 
 themselves in the angry language of repining and 
 discontent. They have still something to lose who 
 lift up their voices to remonstrate and threaten. 
 The poor patient drudges of whom I am speaking, 
 who have nothing more to fear — and they know not 
 what to gain — lay down their heads nightly in per- 
 fect gratitude that they are permitted to live. Oh ! 
 how beautiful are the dispensations of nature ! how 
 certain her consolations ! how all-covering her cha- 
 rities in every condition of human existence ! 
 
 I have lately been much in the company of a class 
 of lowly labourers, calling themselves Sea-JRoamers, 
 who work out, I think, about as stubborn and pre- 
 carious a " daily bread" from this earth of ours, as 
 any men who have ever fallen under my observa- 
 tion. They are not of the order of adventurers 
 called wreckers : the service of the wrecker is un- 
 certain and occasional; whereas, the roamer is a
 
 218 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR 
 
 never-failing attendant at the sea side, where he 
 wanders about from morning till night, to pick up 
 (if God sends him luck, says he) the refuse — the 
 ofFal of the sea, native and extraneous, that is cast 
 ashore by the tides. The nature and extent of the 
 returns given by this occupation to a life of toil, 
 through a winter's season and severities, I will ex- 
 plain in due time. The circumstances of the sea- 
 roamer may derive a certain fanciful dignity from 
 the external scenery in which he moves, — from his 
 bold familiarity with storm and rain, and the un- 
 disputed freehold which he has and enjoys in the 
 ample sky, and the pure breath of the bountiful 
 sea ; but, in all essential respects of rank and conse- 
 quence, he stands in about the same relation to 
 society, as those Cyclops-like figures, vnih sacks at 
 their backs, which my London readers, no doubt^ 
 must have often seen lurking about under back 
 walls, and in dingy corners, rifling the treasures of 
 cinder-heaps. These searchers of cinders are more 
 abject in their appearance ; they are black — blear- 
 eyed, and have a furtive, larcenous look about 
 them, which is not prepossessing; but still they 
 may be honest (when back doors are shut), and as 
 to substantial profits they rather outdo, I believe,
 
 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY AVOLGAR. 219 
 
 the poor rangers of the beach. I shall, perhaps, 
 best illustrate the nature and vicissitudes of sea- 
 roaming, by some little account of the life of one of 
 its most assiduous followers; a man with whose 
 ways I liappen to be deeply conversant, and who 
 surely deserves some notice, as having been long 
 known between Castle Point and Birley Gap, on 
 
 the coast of S , as " King of the Roamers." I 
 
 adopt this plan too the more readily, seeing that 
 this distinguished old beach-man had, independent 
 of his merits and services in his profession, many 
 peculiarities in his actions, manners, and deport- 
 ment, that rendered him a very interesting per- 
 sonage; so much so, that, even among the dull 
 partners of his labours, he had the credit of being 
 " quite a character." Half an hour's biography, 
 collected from his pilgrimage of nearly four-score 
 years on this globe, may not be unentertaining, I 
 hope, to the reader, and, perhaps, not quite unin- 
 structive. 
 
 " Old Johnny Wolgar" had always Uved in his 
 
 native place, a small town on the coast of S , 
 
 where, in one form of enterprise or another, he had 
 always, as the phrase is, followed the sea. I pi'oposc 
 to say httle of him but what I actually saw during
 
 220 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY 'SVOLGAR 
 
 the last two years of his hfe. Through the vigour 
 of his manhood he had been an industrious and 
 able fisherman — was part-owner of a boat and nets 
 — could make a trip to " the other side^ once in a 
 season — board an Indiaman in the channel on a 
 dark night, and " all that sort of thing," — got 
 married — came to be a father, and lived prosper- 
 ously ; till Time at length had his usual effects with 
 Johnny as with all flesh ; he grew old — was decided 
 to be not seaworthy — sold his share in the boat that 
 he could no longer serve — turned shrimper and 
 purveyor of periwinkles, till he could no longer stoop 
 to pick them up — and so dwindled away, step by 
 step — till he finally settled into a roamcr, content to 
 take his pittances from the bounty of that element, 
 from which he had once gallantly forced, as it were, 
 his subsistence — a poor pensioner of the waves — an 
 humble dependent on the chance-medley of " jettsom 
 and flottsom."" 
 
 He went on in this character without change, or 
 wish for change, for many years ; and at the period 
 when I first became acquainted with him, and when 
 he was seventy-two years old, he was still a simple 
 roamer, relying on his own exertions for his sub- 
 sistence, and for that of a wife about as old and
 
 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 221 
 
 crazy as himself. The first sight of him told you at 
 once that he was no common man. You could not 
 pass him on the heach like an every-day fish, I pro- 
 mise you. In his appearance were signs of age and 
 decrepitude rather more marked than the years he 
 had passed seemed to warrant: but Johnny had 
 " lived hard" — in a very hard sense of the word. 
 His face was hollow and grim — the eyes little bet- 
 ter than blanks — dim — pale — deep-sunk in his head, 
 and overthatched with a white bushy brow; — the 
 nose long and sharp — and the jaws skeletonized, 
 and grizzled over from cheek to throat with a stub- 
 bly beard an inch in length. His skin had not a 
 tinge of red upon it, but, without any hue of sick- 
 liness, was mellowed by sun and wind, and age, into 
 a fine Rembrandt tan, and furrowed, and puckered, 
 and knotted, like the bark of an old tree. On this 
 time-worn and weather-beaten head grew a very 
 picturesque sort of hat, painted black and glazed, 
 with a cupola top and a broad flapping brim, from 
 beneath which dropped down a few lank locks of 
 wiry hair. With all this ruggedness, there was an 
 expression of extreme mildness and benevolence in 
 his countenance : every feature was roughened and 
 disfigured by long suffering and exposure; but
 
 222 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 
 
 amongst all his marks of hard usage, there was not 
 one of ill-humour or discontent. Of his person you 
 might fairly declare that it was still entire : he had 
 all his limbs about him, though in truth, his usu- 
 fruct in them was singularly limited. Rheumatism, 
 he used to say, had clapped him in irons all over ; 
 his joints were all double-locked, and would as litde 
 bend as his shin bones. But in losing his su])ple- 
 ness, he had fortunately hardened upright, and it 
 was among his few vanities that, if no longer apt at 
 a hornpipe, he was as stiff and straight as a Prussian 
 grenadier. He wore a smock frock on his body, 
 while his lower limbs were smothered in rags, so that 
 he had not in the least the appearance of a creature 
 of coat and breeches, but may have been said rather 
 to have been bandaged than dressed. By various 
 means, direct or indirect, he contrived at least to 
 provide a sufficiency of covering to keep out the 
 weather, — and that done, his utmost pride on the 
 score of dress was thoroughly satisfied. 
 
 This rigid body, so confined and mummied, will 
 scarcely be thought properly appointed for walking, 
 or any such violences. In fact, my old friend per- 
 formed all his excursions on horseback, and he con- 
 sidered this means of loco-motion, that was still
 
 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 223 
 
 spared to him, as an ample compensation for all the 
 losses and crosses with which he had to reproach 
 the weather and the world. " Keeping a horse,'"' 
 had not the same meaning with him as with or- 
 dinary riders. His horse was not a supernumerary 
 servant, to be used one day and neglected another, 
 as whim might suggest, but the main spring of his 
 whole system — his staff of life — to have deprived 
 him of it would have been to doom him to perpetual 
 imprisonment, and shut him out from all the uses of 
 the world. It was his legs — his liberty — his every 
 thing. How he supported this necessary creature I 
 could never exactly ascertain. In the summer time 
 it fed cheaply if not abundantly (it was neither 
 glutton nor epicure, I answer for it) on the com- 
 pound and spontaneous vegetation of hedges and 
 ditches ; and during the barrenness of winter, a little 
 eleemosynary damaged hay, from one kind farmer 
 or another, was sufficient, it was found, to keep off' 
 absolute famine : what farther provision there was, 
 I am not, I confess, prepared to set forth. The 
 horse. Bob — or " Old Bob," as lie was most perti- 
 nently defined, was precisely the one that I should 
 have chosen for Johnny, for it was impossible to 
 conceive any thing more happily in keeping with
 
 224 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 
 
 all his peculiarities. I never saw his exact parallel, 
 yet I have no bad eye, as we say, for a horse. He 
 was some sixteen years old when I had first the luck 
 to see him, and, as far as looks were concerned, could 
 not have been older had he lived sixteen centuries. 
 Every bone in his body was anatomically defined, 
 all his flesh appearing, as it were, to have been 
 dragged from his sides, and to bag down in a vast 
 tense pot-belly. His great lumping head bore about 
 the same proportion to his straight, scraggy neck, 
 that a pump bears to its handle ; and at his opposite 
 extremity, bounding the spinal line of his sharp, 
 knotty back, was another oddity quite as charac- 
 teristical, in the shape of a tail, which stuck out 
 horizontally, and consisted of about a foot of naked 
 stump, fringed near the root with a scanty and ir- 
 regular vdsp of grizzly hair. He had been origin- 
 ally a black, but his coat, as black coats are wont, 
 had apostatized into a jNIulatto; and, like all old 
 coats too, betrayed every rent and mending that it 
 had suffered in its whole course of wear and tear, 
 together with large and frequent spots of bare, 
 corny skin, which stared out like patches of another 
 stuff, and gave the poor animal the same ragged, 
 motley, beggar-like aspect that distinguished his
 
 SEA-ROAMERS. OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 225 
 
 loving master. On this reverend hack, with a sack 
 for his saddle, Johnny usually took his station 
 about an hour after day-light, and was seldom 
 restored to the ground before dark. His labour 
 and ceremony of mounting were by no means the 
 least entertaining act of his day to lookers-on, 
 though a sore tax on his own infirmities. With 
 the help of two or three neighbours, who would 
 always willingly be present, and his own hooked 
 fingers, he contrived to scramble up and fall upon 
 his belly across his horse's back, where he lay 
 straightened out and see-sawing like a plank, till 
 he was stopped by his friends, who would swing 
 him round, force open "his damned obstinate 
 legs," as he called them, and push him, and pull 
 him, and poke him about, and so, at last, compel 
 him to sit. This difficulty conquered, he had still 
 much to do before he got fairly under way. As he 
 had no fund of ready activities about him for acci- 
 dents as they might happen, it was an object to 
 make his furniture and himself fast at once in the 
 posture in which they were to remain, and which 
 was best suited to his convenience and the general 
 necessities of his voyage. And first his basket was 
 handed up to him, the receptacle of his prizes,
 
 22G SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 
 
 which he duly placed on his left thigh : he then in- 
 troduced his left arm with the assistance of the right 
 under the arch of the handle, and secured both 
 articles in their places, by means of three or four 
 turns of the bridle round his wrist. Bob, with 
 many other faculties, had entirely lost his sense of 
 bridle, yet the implement was still retained, and, 
 bitless as it was, fastened to his head as to a post, 
 not only for decency ""s sake, but as something for 
 Johnny to take hold of for his ease and security. 
 Now as our adventurer never dismounted when 
 abroad, unless tempted by a mighty prize indeed, 
 and as the act of dismounting and again mounting 
 was, with such casual help as he could procure, in 
 itself equivalent to at least half a day's work, he had 
 provided against the necessity of leaving his seat by 
 a simple instrument of his own invention — a long 
 pole with a spike and hook at one end, with which 
 he had learned to stick, pick, pull, and bring to 
 basket all such valuables as he was ordinarily in the 
 habit of meeting with. He grasped this pole in the 
 centre, bearing it as a knight bears his lance, and 
 derived from it an air of Quixotic dignity and pre- 
 tension that added greatly to the whimsicality of his 
 whole figure and deportment. Thus fully equipped.
 
 SEA-llOAMERS. OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 227 
 
 he fearlessly trusted himself to the elements, making 
 his way at a steady and solemn pace to the shore, 
 to which all the winter through he was as constant 
 as the tides. To have lived within sight of his 
 bounds and not to have known him, would have 
 been like not to have known the sky. During all 
 the stormy season of the year he was as one of the 
 natural parts of the sea-side, a something that one 
 could as little have afforded to miss as a point of the 
 bay, or the sands at low-water. There was cliff-— 
 and beach — and wind — and rain — and sea — and 
 surf, and — " Old Johnny Wolgar." For me who 
 was a sea-roamer like himself, there seldom passed 
 a day in which I did not encounter him, and from 
 our continual familiarity we soon became sworn 
 friends and allies. I watched him narrowly, and 
 have him, I think, in all his lineaments and actions 
 thoroughly by heart. His riding was delicious. 
 Nothing could be more sedate and slow than Bob's 
 pace (he had but one), and a man on his back 
 would naturally have been subjected to little more 
 agitation than in his easy chair. But Johnny had a 
 series of actions — a regular body- work entirely of 
 his own making, which, contrasted with the grave 
 deportment of his beast, had a very ludicrous effect. 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 SEA-ROAMERS. OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 
 
 A hasty observer might have attributed these 
 actions to fair riding, but they were, in truth, in 
 conformity rather with the speed at which his horse 
 ought to have gone, than to any movements which 
 he could actually be charged with. This system of 
 self-impulsion (which gave him the air of outriding 
 his horse all to nothing) was originally adopted, 
 perhaps, from testiness and impatience, and came 
 at length to be persisted in as a mere habit — though 
 it had the good effect of giving him a degree of 
 exercise and warmth, which it was quite foreign 
 from Bob's will or power to be in any way accessary 
 to. The limits of authority and service had been 
 long settled between them ; their acts were all grown 
 into matters of custom and prescription, and there 
 was no resistance on one side, because there was no 
 command on the other. Each may have had his 
 vagrant wishes — his unruly thoughts of a little 
 faster or a little slower ; but these never ripened into 
 deeds. At every twentieth pace, Johnny stopped ; 
 and at every thirtieth pace. Bob stopped : Johnny 
 stopped to see or fancy he saw something ; and 
 Bob stopped — it was not easy to say why — but he 
 did — and so they proceeded, if such a term can be 
 applied to them, darkling on their way through
 
 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 
 
 gloom and mist at the edge of the roaring surf, as 
 satisfied with their destiny and each other as any 
 couple in the world. I never discovered by what 
 means of communication they conversed together : 
 that there was no interpretation of purposes through 
 whip, spur, or bridle, I can affirm ; neither was 
 there a word spoken — g-ee-up or g'ee-zoo. There 
 must have been some secret sympathy between 
 them, I suspect, on all the great topics of the day, 
 which each obeyed as an instinct — or it may be that 
 Bob had as much taste and as ready an eye for a 
 waif as, his rider, and that so, under one impulse, 
 they moved and paused together with such silent 
 harmony. Be this as it may. Bob invariably, and 
 of his free will, stopped just where it was expected 
 he should, resuming his course in his own good 
 time ; and for this punctual service on his master's 
 account, Johnny, to do him justice, gave him un- 
 limited licence in his own stops — still, however, 
 preserving his personal independence, manifested 
 by that same voluntary of his which I have spoken 
 of — bowing and bobbing about on his stock-fast 
 steed, like a child astride on a chair. 
 
 The journey, conducted on these principles, 
 amounted (including the outward and homeward
 
 230 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 
 
 passage) to about five miles, and was performed 
 generally in about seven hours. As a feat of ac- 
 tivity, this may not be thought much of, yet, with 
 its usual accompaniment of wind and wet, it would 
 have killed thousands, I fancy, who make far more 
 noise in the world than Johnny. For his part, he 
 made not the least account of the weather, as it ad- 
 dressed itself to his poor old hide ; considering it 
 good or bad only as it furnished provision for his 
 basket. A fine day was a storm of wind from the 
 south-west ; and if there was a deluge of rain with 
 it^ — why so — it was a mere chip in porridge. He sat 
 in the rain Avith as much composure and apparent 
 unconsciousness as a gooseberry bush. Not that he 
 had a preference for such exposure, but that, duty 
 impelling, and his character as a roamer being at 
 stake, he had brought himself to this Spartan con- 
 tempt of suffering. The south-east and south-west 
 gales, the fiercest of the winter, were precisely those 
 that sent most riches to the shore, so that if ever 
 there was a day in the week peculiarly bad, Johnny 
 had always the luck to be in the thick of it. He 
 was often, to be sure, buffeted about by the wind 
 most cruelly ; and, in the weakliness of his latter 
 days, had sometimes much ado to maintain himself
 
 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. S31 
 
 ill any decent posture of ease, safety, or dignity. 
 You might have seen him in a squall, clinging with 
 both arms round his horse's neck — tail to wind, — 
 his basket capsized and hastening fitfully homewards 
 — his lance overboard — and himself in momentary 
 danger of his dismissal before the rage of the 
 tempest. This he called "lying-to." On such 
 occasions his fragmental dress would be sorely dis- 
 composed, entire vestments would be blown from 
 his back ; while such rigging as still adhered to him 
 became so loosened and at large, that he rattled in 
 the wind like a ship " in stays." In this disordered 
 plight, the dripping old Triton had to encounter, 
 on his way home through the village, the wit and 
 banter of his fellow-townsmen, who being mostly 
 seafaring people, would hit him off in a variety of 
 nautical allusions, making out, in his lamentable 
 figure, all the circumstances of a three-decker that 
 had just been hurricaned over the Atlantic. All 
 this Johnny bore with a seaman's patience : he had 
 withstood the roaring and blasts of the gale without 
 flinching or fear, and it would have been hard 
 indeed if he was to be put out of his way by the 
 breath of man. 
 
 His capabilities of endurance, in this war of wind
 
 232 SEA-ROAMERS. OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 
 
 and rain, were a striking exemplification of the force 
 of habit. He certainly did not derive them from 
 the soundness and activity of his internal organs, or 
 the energies of his muscular system : he was misera- 
 bly feeble — in every way worn out — yet he lived 
 through a series of daily outrages that would have 
 overpowered many a man with ten times his strength 
 and powers of generating heat. His skin seemed 
 entirely to have lost its excitability to the impres- 
 sions of cold and wet ! the whole outer crust of the 
 man had become callous and insensible. He never 
 " caught cold"" — indeed, he had never any particular 
 disorder belonging to him — being sensible only of 
 an equal and uniform decay — a regular and uni- 
 versal abatement of the vital principle. He was very 
 old in short. All the injury that the weather could 
 do him it had done ; he was as stiff and cramped as 
 it was possible to be, and having reached this degree 
 of fixedness and schirrosity alive, he trusted his im- 
 penetrable trunk to the inclemencies of the skies, 
 as confidently as his water-proof hat. The same 
 remarks will precisely apply to his fellow-traveller 
 Bob, of whom it could no longer be said that he was 
 nimble and frisky, but who would stand to be pelted 
 at by a winter''s rain with a degree of spirit and ala-
 
 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 233 
 
 crity, that would have shamed the best Arabian 
 that ever was bred. 
 
 I do not mean it to be implied from this account 
 of Johnny's hardihood that he was never cold ; he 
 was always so, as cold as any thing that has life — 
 cold as a frog under the ice. It was only that he 
 had no painful sense of such a state of body : he did 
 not Jeel cold, though in point of fact he was well 
 aware that he was never warm. His whole tangible 
 frame, — the surface of him had been for some years, 
 he imagined, dead : there might still, he suspected, 
 be some slight processes of heat going on about his 
 heart ; but this feeble sun of his system was so 
 nearly burned out, that it had no sympathies to 
 spare for its remote dependencies — no fellow-feeling 
 for the tips of him — no touch of kindness for distant 
 relations in fingers and toes. His looks when 
 abroad were hyperborean — quite Polar ; and might 
 liave served for a head of winter. A crystal drop 
 always hung like a gem at his nose — and his eyes 
 streamed with icy tears. 
 
 In his manners, Johnny was exceedingly respect- 
 ful, preserving a stately ceremoniousness in his de- 
 portment, that savoured much of what wc under- 
 stand by the " old school" of politeness. He was
 
 234 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 
 
 none of your " free and easy" gentlemen, affected 
 no republican rudeness and familiarity by way of 
 asserting his rights — had a horror of radicalism — 
 (he was one who had something to lose I warrant 
 you) — and never took a liberty with any man. 
 Whenever we met he always took off his hat — held 
 it scrupulously at some distance from his head, and 
 made me a most deferential bow. I did not like 
 this humility of obeisance, for though a great ad- 
 mirer of gentleness of manners, and no confounder 
 of the distances and degrees that separate the classes 
 of men — yet age with me has its own rank — its 
 dignities in Avrinkles and white hairs, that supersede 
 all other distinctions. When a very old man, 
 though in rags, prostrates himself before me, an 
 upstart of yesterday, I cannot help feeling a sense 
 of impropriety in the act — of violence done to the 
 just order of precedence, as founded in the laws of 
 natural etiquette, which no lowliness and beggary 
 on his side can reconcile me to. The distinctions 
 of rank should surely be maintained ; but what is 
 greater, in its claims to tender and respectful con- 
 sideration, than threescore and ten ? Johnny was 
 pretty nearly a match for any body — but a few 
 paces from that common home which makes equals
 
 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 2t55 
 
 of US all. With such feelings, I soon explained to 
 him that he might spare his bow ; but whatever may 
 have been the worthiness of my intentions, they 
 quite missed their mark, for the old man was so 
 taken with what he was pleased to think my con- 
 descension in tliis respect, that he bowed to me with 
 ten times more determinacy than ever — defeating 
 me in the perverse spirit of Steele's funeral recruits 
 — "the more he gave them — the merrier they 
 looked." 
 
 It will scarcely be supposed that I was so incurious 
 as not to have my peep into his basket. I would 
 not trifle with my reader's suspense ; but what does 
 he suppose that I saw there ? What was the result 
 of the laborious preparations — the toilsome marches 
 — and long scuffling with the tempest that I have 
 explained to him ^ The produce was variable ; but 
 the following inventory may be relied upon as a 
 pretty fair representation of its kind and amount for 
 four days out of the six. " A piece of wood— oak 
 —with a nail in it ; (important :) three pieces of 
 rope ; (not worth much, but fit for oakum any day :) 
 an old shoe — slight, and upper leather wanting; 
 (good for nothing — but will burn :) a bit of stranded 
 fish of the flat kind — much bruised, and rather 'on
 
 236 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 
 
 the go;' (to be reserved for dame Wolgar"'s judg- 
 ment :) a piece of canvas — a mere rag, and quite 
 rotten ; (see how it turns out when dry — and when 
 the worst's told will do for the paper-makers:) a 
 piece of blue cloth — coarse — but in tolerable pre- 
 servation ; (do for a seat for son-in-law's breeches — 
 make a mop — or a thousand things :) seven bones 
 of the cuttle-fish (sold at three-pence a pound, to 
 make pounce — or ' something white' for the doctors :) 
 the brim of a hat ; (no great matter, but to be taken 
 home for — consideration :) a ship's block belonging 
 to — (Hush !)." Add to this miscellany, a handful 
 or two of sticks or chips for fire-wood, and you will 
 have what Johnny would have esteemed a very rea- 
 sonable day's allowance. One of the articles, the 
 bones of the cuttle-fish, valued at three-pence a 
 pound, may raise an image of gain, which it is 
 necessary to quahfy a little. True it is that these 
 bones could be sold at three-pence a pound, and a 
 pound, with all Johnny's spirit and perseverance, 
 could be collected in about a week. In the be- 
 ginning of the winter, indeed, when these fish cast 
 their bones (an odd habit ! but I speak on Johnny's 
 credit, being myself but superficial — only skin-deep 
 — on cuttle-fish) they might be procured in greater
 
 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 237 
 
 abundance; but, even M'itli this golden time in- 
 cluded, he did not make up for the merchant more 
 than a bushel in a winter. " And what, Johnny," 
 said I, " may be the average amount of your daily 
 profits?" "Why, sir," said he, "taking one day 
 with another, I think I might go so far as to say 
 four-pence a day." He sometimes got less — some- 
 times nothing — but he sometimes got more — six- 
 pence — a shilling — and this very precariousness of 
 his returns gave an animation to his pursuit, that 
 blinded him to its worthlessness, and was its own 
 sufficient reward. " I wonder what it will be 
 to-day" — he would say at starting; and this 
 wonder at his age — was worth any thing. A tub 
 of gin might be picked up — there was no telling — 
 and here was a ground of hope that sent him day 
 after day to the beach, with a heart as light as his 
 bask et. 
 
 He had his comforts too of a more substantial 
 character. Little as you might have thought of 
 him, he had generally a piece of bread and cheese 
 stowed away in some hole of his dress or other. 
 This he called his dinner, and, incredible as it may 
 appear to some people, he desired not a better. He 
 never was hungry, and had outlived therefore all 
 relish in eating. He used to talk of his stomach as
 
 238 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 
 
 if it and he were two persons ; as if he had no living 
 sympatliies with it, and provided for its necessities 
 as for those of his horse, or any foreign matter de- 
 pendent on his care. " My stomach,"" he would 
 say, " wants something — but / care little about it." 
 He knew that he should become faint and weak by 
 long inanition, and, to avoid this extremity, required 
 himself to eat, having certain signs through the day 
 out of himself, which regulated for him the seasons 
 when this duty was to be performed. It was not — 
 " I feel hungry,"" but, " it is low- water,"" or " the 
 flood-tide is making,"" and out came the bread and 
 cheese. 
 
 Bob was still more abstemious, though his appe- 
 tite probably, if he could have told his mind, was 
 not quite so neutral on the subject of food as that of 
 his master. He had a wonderful faculty of living 
 both in and on the air, and tasted nothing else from 
 early morning till he returned to his damaged hay 
 at night. In the meanwhile, his monstrous belly 
 grew larger and larger, as it grew emptier, though 
 certain querulous expressions from within an- 
 nounced, from time to time, that this inflation had 
 no refreshment in it. As the day advanced, Bob's 
 visceral lamentations grew more urgent and audible, 
 till they finally settled into an awful and continuous
 
 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 239 
 
 rumbling and rolling, like the muttering of distant 
 thunder ; and when it came to this pass, his master 
 knew that it was time to be thinking of home. 
 
 It may be imagined from the account that I have 
 given of his habits and modes of passing his time, 
 that his life, so destitute of all that is commonly 
 esteemed pleasurable and comfortable, must, of ne- 
 cessity, have been a miserable one. But it was no 
 such thing ; had it been so, I should not liave treated 
 it so lightly and mirthfully. He was the most un- 
 interruptedly cheerful creature that ever I conversed 
 with ; not alone placid and patient, but full of an 
 active, bustling happiness, extracted from the very 
 circumstances that might have been regarded as his 
 most grievous hardships. His business was the 
 delight of his heart. The difficulties and uncertain- 
 ties of his pursuit invested it with a dignity and a 
 complication of relations, that kept his mind in con- 
 tinual and healthful agitation, and preserved in it, 
 what is so rarely felt at his age in any condition, an 
 interest in the common revolutions of the seasons, 
 and the daily necessity of being alive. He was 
 awake in every sense when he was not asleep ; and 
 liad found out the great secret of ease and content- 
 ment, in having always something before him that
 
 240 SF.A-ROAMERS. OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 
 
 he considered worth doing or suffering. Ho did 
 not affect to love cold and rain on their own account ; 
 but he had some little pretence for exposing himself 
 to them — and then is heroism nothing? Is glory 
 nothing ? Old gentlemen in their easy chairs and 
 by their fire-sides will scarcely believe that the con- 
 summation of all their brother Johnny's pleasures 
 (and pleasures they were) was being wet to the skin ; 
 yet to my knowledge it was simply so. It is excite- 
 ment — emotion — that people want, and this Johnny 
 never was without. He attached as much import- 
 ance to his occupation, and combined his plots 
 and calculations, with as much earnestness and so- 
 lemnity, as if he had been a secretary of state. What 
 does the pampered and gouty old alderman care to 
 know, that the wind will be westerly next Wednes- 
 day ; and that the sun went down last night in a 
 fog bank? He is not moved, not he, though it be 
 certain that spring tides are coming, which will lay 
 bare the Cuckmore Sands, and the Fore-Ness 
 Rock. The world goes on without him, and he 
 heeds it not; but languishes in a living death, in 
 the midst of abundance, a finished fortune, and 
 completed hopes. No such apathy ever fell upon 
 Johnny ; he looked out upon the heavens to the last.
 
 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 241 
 
 like one who had a personal concern — a voice in the 
 great operations of nature ; studied the lee and the 
 weather sky, and the prognostications of the north- 
 west (a mighty point with him) with as much anxiety 
 as though he had had treasures due from all the 
 quarters of the globe. A change of wind gave a new 
 face to his destiny ; and a shower of rain was a sign 
 pregnant with infinite expectations. Even his 
 grievances (for the best of us must have some care) 
 had a vivacity and variety in them, that in the end 
 did him service — stirred him up — and kept the 
 elements of his mind and feelings sound, sweet, and 
 wholesome. An east wind, for instance, was not 
 received by him with the mere puny peevishness of 
 age and rheumatism; he abused it heartily, and 
 showed you on this topic that he had a tongue in his 
 head, which would not bear an injury tamely. Was 
 it not a smooth-water wind .'* Was it not a sheep's- 
 head wind .'* — A perverse — starving — beggarly wind, 
 that never brought good to man or brute, since the 
 days of Adam.'* He never sunk into dulness — 
 melancholy or despondence. If he was crossed, he 
 was angry — and once in a way it is good to be angry. 
 " Curse the east wind, and welcome — but cheer up 
 withal ; never despair, man : the south-west will come 
 
 R
 
 242 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 
 
 again, never fear, with its hurricanes and driving 
 rains — its bottom-sweeping seas — its beach-stirring 
 surfs, and cuttle-fish bones." There is something 
 in these matters, we must allow, and they are surely 
 better than utter indolence and satiety. 
 
 Supplementary to his pleasing fatigues abroad, 
 Johnny had the matchless comfort of an easy and 
 quiet home, enlivened by the presence of one who 
 had been his helpmate for fifty years, and in all the 
 offices of affection and respect was still untired. 
 His wife had a little more bodily activity than he 
 had, and devoted all her surviving faculties to his 
 service, and a sincere co-operation with him in his 
 adventures by the sea-side. These were quite as 
 important in her estimation as in his, and as far as 
 her department in the concern allowed, she was quite 
 as eager and persevering in promoting them. When 
 he was with her, there was always enough to do; 
 and, in his absence, she had to set things in order 
 for his return — and might help out the lingering 
 time by visions of strange findings, and dreams of 
 El Dorado. No man could be more decidedly 
 " master in his own house"" than Johnny : yet he 
 was not harshly so — but rather, let me say, through 
 the influence of his deserts — his importance in the
 
 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 243 
 
 State — his basket^-of his knowledge and services ; 
 and, above all, of his wants and infirmities. There 
 was something beautiful in his wife's perfect sub- 
 mission to him ; she obeyed him, as it were involun- 
 tarily ; his wants and wishes were to her as her will 
 — the necessity that determined her motives, and 
 directed all her actions. There is striking truth in 
 Bacon*'s remark, that wives are young men's mis- 
 tresses, and old men's nurses. A rheumatic lover 
 — a worshipper with a white beard, is neither to be 
 expected nor desired ; and, oh ! how much it speaks 
 for the enduring kindness and constancy of women, 
 that when we masters desist from our patronizing 
 attentions, and lordlily demand their ministration in 
 the day of our decline, they forget not their fealty, 
 but look down upon, and serve us — pity, and obey 
 us. The sight of this old woman, herself so feeble 
 and wasted, hovering about her wreck of a husband, 
 with fearful tenderness — tyrannized over by his de- 
 pendence — enslaved by his helplessness — was really 
 as much as a bachelor (poor barren unit) could bear. 
 Such were the duties and delights of Johnny's 
 winter days. In the summer, whose gentle winds 
 and moderate seas bring no harvest to the beach, he 
 forsook his nahiral haunts, cast away his lance and 
 
 r2
 
 244 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 
 
 basket, and appeared in the tame, dull cliaracter 
 of an inland traveller and trader. Shrimping and 
 prawning, according to the regular roamer's calen- 
 dar, should have succeeded to the business of the 
 winter ; but as these tasks involved the necessity of 
 standing and stooping, Johnny, who ^vas nobody 
 on the ground, was obliged to resign them to more 
 pliant frames, and in the flowery month of May, 
 retired absolutely and most reluctantly from all his 
 maritime connexions. Amongst his worldly goods, 
 he numbered a cart, which had descended to him 
 from his father, though he had mended it till you 
 might almost say he had made it. One of the 
 wheels, I believe, was aboriginal, and he used to 
 point it out as something not to be matched by 
 modern wheelwrights, and certainly not by its com- 
 panion. In this vehicle, such as it was, with Bob 
 appended, and freighted with a light cargo of nuts, 
 gingerbread, and such child's matters, together with 
 a few fish occasionally, when he could raise money 
 or credit for the purchase, he visited the neighbour- 
 ing villages and farms — the delight of little children 
 — the play-thing of village maids — and the butt of 
 every clown that had a joke and a grin to spare. 
 By such excursions he beguiled a little the long
 
 SEA-ROAMERS. OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 245 
 
 light of the summer ; but they yielded him a misera- 
 ble profit, and no cordial pleasure in any way. He 
 would return sometimes bringing sad accounts of 
 trade, and the condition of the country. " There 
 never were such times — would you believe it .'* — a 
 pint and a half of nuts — three ha'p'orth of ginger- 
 bread — with three whitings — and a dab — no more 
 — and a day's work — it was enough to ruin any 
 man." " The fact is," said he, " there is no money," 
 — and he put on a definitive look that added — and 
 you have mi^ authority for saying so. I fear that 
 Johnny was no unprejudiced reporter on this sub- 
 ject. Independent of his beggarly gains, he had a 
 manifest distaste for the whole huckstering business, 
 and never spoke of it in any of its circumstances 
 without scorn. He pursued it as a duty, and 
 because something like a daily task was necessary 
 to his existence : but he was clearly like a creature 
 out of his element in his cart. He languished under 
 the tiresome sameness and stillness of sunny skies 
 and dusty roads; and yearned for the animating 
 violences, and all the hurly-burly of the beach, with 
 a piping gale from the south. Besides there was a 
 meanness — a paltry narrowness in all his inland 
 transactions that humbled and dispirited him. He
 
 246 SEA-ROAM ERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 
 
 who had so long been used to deal with the ocean, 
 and bargain with the storm, could ill condescend to 
 higgle with a child for a halfpenny, and squabble 
 mth an old wife over a stale mackerel. With this 
 indisposition to his commercial concerns, he attended 
 to them but irregularly, and dozed away much of 
 his time on the beach, stretched at his length in the 
 sun, whose warmth kept him alive, supplying the 
 place in his system of those kindling hopes and 
 stirring chances, which bore him so bravely through 
 the severities of his winter campaigns. Bob, in the 
 meanwhile, who did not examine things so curiously, 
 we may suppose, yielded to the leisure and quietness 
 of these holiday-times with no apparent dissatisfac- 
 tion. Tethered at the roadside, he had free access 
 to the pasture of a parched, powdered hedge ; and 
 if he got not a full meal, he had his next best bless- 
 ing in this world, — a long stop. There he stood, 
 the nucleus of a cloud of flies — a picture of patience 
 — vacant — noteless — or sometimes napping bro- 
 kenly — with no care but how to keep his heavy 
 drowsy head from the ground. 
 
 As my own summer tastes led me rather to the 
 solitudes of meadows and corn-fields than to the 
 haunts of my fellows, my communication with
 
 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 247 
 
 Johnny was not so constant at this season as in the 
 winter ; but we occasionally met in the roads, and I 
 saw quite enough of him in his new character to 
 complete my general portrait of him. If he had a 
 satisfaction in his cart, it was derived certainly from 
 his horse, and the pride of driving ; he had no little 
 conceit in himself as " a whip." The first time I 
 ever met him on the road, he asked me how I 
 thought Bob "looked in harness."" My own in- 
 terest (that perhaps of an idle and listless mind) in 
 the small doings of this simple creature, may be 
 betraying me, I fear, into a prolixity of trifling, 
 that may be tiresome to my readers. I hasten — ■ 
 poor old soul ! as he did — to his end. 
 
 Towards the close of a wet and stormy day in 
 Februai-y last, a man living at a tide-mill close upon 
 the sea-shore observed Johnny''s horse, at the di- 
 stance of about half a mile from him, standing alone 
 on the beach, his rider being nowhere to be seen. 
 As such a circumstance was not quite unprecedented, 
 he retired to his work, giving it little consideration ; 
 but when, in half an hour afterwards, he looked out 
 again and saw things precisely in the same posture, 
 he began to think, making all due allowances for 
 their peculiar usages, there was something in this
 
 !2i8 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 
 
 protracted stedfastness of the horse, and conceal- 
 ment of his master, tliat Avas strange and alarming. 
 An hour elapsed — the night was drawing on, and 
 still there was no change ; when the man, a good- 
 natured fellow, who knew Johnny well, and would 
 not have had him come to harm for a trifle, felt his 
 apprehensions so much awakened, that he deter- 
 mined to walk down to the place where the horse 
 stood, and ascertain what was the matter. When 
 he had got better than half way, he began hallooing 
 as he walked, and then stopped in the fearful hope 
 of seeing Johnny's well-known hat peep up above 
 the long level ridge of the shingles, and hearing 
 himself hailed in his turn ; but no such image ap- 
 peared on the dreary waste, and no voice but his 
 own mingled with the raving of the wind and the 
 roar of the surf. He then advanced till he distin- 
 guished the body of the old man, lying on its face, 
 stretched stiff out (as it always was, lying or stand- 
 ing,) and close under his horse, whose nose was 
 drooping down, till it rested apparently on the 
 shoulders of his master. With a sickening; fore- 
 boding of the truth that held back his feet, the man 
 was still wilUng to hope that the travellers were both 
 asleep, and he called out lustily upon Johnny ; but
 
 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 249 
 
 received no notice in return, except from the horse, 
 who raised his head, looked at him for a moment, 
 and then resumed his former attitude, to wait for 
 another signal of release, which was never to be seen 
 again. The friendly miller now hastened at once 
 to the body, "gave it a bit of a kick," crying, 
 " Master Wolgar, Master Wolgar," stooped down, 
 and turning over the face, which was bloody, and 
 rooted down among the stones, found the old 
 roamer stiff and cold — that indeed he had been for 
 years, and alive — but he was now stiff and cold, and 
 dead. His horse's bridle was still twisted as usual 
 round his wrist, and, had he not been discovered 
 before dark, the patient beast, confined by that 
 slight bond as by a chain of iron, would have stood, 
 probably, till he had dropped and perished by his 
 master's side. 
 
 It was " a fit," people said, that thus suddenly 
 terminated poor Johnny's career ; and the coroner 
 with all his skill could make out little more than 
 what will be reported of us all in our turn, that he 
 was " found dead." This was following uj) his 
 business with a gallantry that was worthy of him — 
 facing the enemy to the last moment, and dying 
 under arms. He had complained of no indisposi-
 
 ~50 SEA-ROAMERS. — OLD JOHNNY WOLGAR. 
 
 lion, no unusual sensations on last leaving his home ; 
 but started on his expedition with his accustomed 
 alacrity — beat his way against wind and rain, to 
 the ordinary boundary of his outward voyage — and 
 there "brought up,"" to rest from his roaming for 
 ever. 
 
 How much I grieved for his loss — what gloom 
 was cast over my solitary rambles on the shore, by 
 this sudden removal of his friendly familiar face — 
 my readers may guess ; I will not oppress them with 
 any parade of sentiment. To my imagination the 
 beach has been haunted ever since ; in certain states 
 of the weather I still see the grotesque figure of the 
 mounted roamer poking and peering about on the 
 border of the surf. 
 
 In a few days a solemn bell announced to us poor 
 Johnny ""s funeral — always an impressive scene in a 
 small community, where all are known, and the 
 meanest is missed. There was no lack of honest 
 mourners to follow him ; and if I breathed out my 
 prayer with the rest for his peace, it was an act of 
 obsequiousness (to say nothing of feeling) which I 
 owed him, had it been only in return for the many, 
 many times that he had bared his white head to the 
 wind in courtesy to me.
 
 ACCOUNT OF A DESCENT INTO A 
 COAL-MINE *. 
 
 Having seen all the operations connected with the 
 coals above-ground, I was determined before I left 
 Whitehaven to descend down one of the pits and 
 see the wonders below. A gentleman of the place, 
 who had himself frequently made the experiment, 
 and who from his knowledge was well able to satisfy 
 the questions and hesitations of a novice, kindly 
 consented to bear me company. The William Pitt 
 mine was the scene of my adventure, the last opened 
 and said to be the best planned work of its kind, and 
 the most complete in all its conveniences of any in 
 the kingdom. The shaft leading down to it is near 
 the foot of the hill, which flanks the town to the cast. 
 Having equipped ourselves in a dress suited to the 
 dirtiness of our expedition, we repaired to the spot, 
 
 * From Daniell's Voyage round Great Britain.
 
 252 DESCENT INTO A COAL-MINE. 
 
 and I took a peep into the black and bottomless 
 hole without shrinking from my determination to 
 go down. The coals are drawn up in baskets, 13 
 cwt. at a time, by the power of steam. The shaft 
 is divided into three parts, one for the ejection of 
 water, one for the operations of the engine, and one 
 for the basket. Preparatory to our descent, our 
 guide, one of the stewards, cried out, " Coming 
 down," to the people below, a warning which is also 
 attended to by the man at the engine, who moderates 
 its speed when any one is about to descend. The 
 voice was answered from the depths below by a 
 strange, hollow, distant, but loud cry, which rather 
 thrilled through my marrow — but I had now ad- 
 vanced too far in the business to retreat with 
 honour. We fixed ourselves in the basket, stand- 
 ing, with our hands grasping the chain, the word 
 was given, and down we glided with a smooth and 
 scarcely perceptible motion through a duct about 
 six feet in diameter, and wooded all round. I kept 
 my eyes fixed on the aperture above, which con- 
 tracted as I fell, till at a vast depth I was obliged to 
 look down, as ray head grew dizzy, and small pieces 
 of coal and drops of water struck with unpleasant 
 force against my face. As we descended lower all
 
 DESCENT INTO A COAL-MINE. 253 
 
 became darkness, the noise over our heads grew 
 gradually more indistinct, till it died away, and a 
 dreary silence ensued, broken only occasionally by 
 the grating of the basket against the walls. At 
 length, after a descent of five hundred and seventy- 
 six feet, I heard the voices of men below me, and 
 presently perceived two dim lights. These were at 
 the High Eye, formerly the bottom of the shaft, on 
 a level with which is a great extent of workino-s. I 
 asked no questions here — " steady the basket,*" cried 
 our guide, and in a moment we were again in utter 
 darkness. In a quarter of a minute more I heard 
 other voices below me — the basket stopped, and we 
 soon found ourselves on our feet at the bottom, six 
 hundred and thirty feet from the light. 
 
 I could here distinguish nothing but a single 
 candle, with the obscure form of a man by it — all 
 around was pitch dark, not a ray of light reaching 
 the bottom from the mouth of the shaft. Before we 
 proceeded to explore the mine, we were recom- 
 mended to remain quiet a little in order to collect 
 ourselves, and while we were thus striving to be 
 composed, my nerves were momentarily shocked by 
 a combination and succession of strange noises, 
 among which the loud clank of the chain, as the
 
 254 DESCENT INTO A COAL-MINE. 
 
 empty basket dashed to the ground, was particularly 
 offensive. I never saw the object, and had no notice 
 of its approach till its infernal crash idways came to 
 make me jump out of myself. While we were con- 
 versing here on the possible accidents that might 
 occur in ascending or descending in the basket, we 
 were told of a poor woman who lately had an ex- 
 traordinary escape. It was her business to attach 
 the chain to the basket, and while she was in the act 
 of doing this, her hand became somehow entangled, 
 and the man at the engine setting it in motion 
 before the proper time, she was pulled from the 
 ground before she could extricate herself, and 
 dragged up, as she hung by one arm, to the top of 
 the pit, with no injury but a slight laceration of her 
 hand. 
 
 I had not become quite reconciled to the clank of 
 the chain when we were summoned to go on. From 
 the foot of the shaft we proceeded through a very 
 long passage cut through rock, with the roof arched, 
 and like the sides faced with bricks and white- 
 washed. All the rock passages throughout the 
 mine are faced with bricks in a similar manner, an 
 enormously expensive precaution, but absolutely 
 necessary to prevent the falling down of loose frag-
 
 DESCENT INTO A COAL-MINE. 255 
 
 ments of stone. I cannot describe scientifically, or 
 with any degree of clearness and certainty, all the 
 methods of proceeding that have been adopted in 
 laying out these vast subterranean works, and 
 indeed such an account is scarcely called for, as the 
 mine no doubt very much resembles in its general 
 plan many others that have been often described. 
 In its present state, as far as I could ascertain as I 
 groped my way through the darkness, it appeared, 
 in the meeting and crossing of its numerous pass- 
 ages, to resemble the streets of a city — and of a 
 city of no mean extent, for we sometimes walked for 
 nearly half a mile without turning, between walls of 
 coal or rock. To the right and left of the long- 
 lanes are workings, hollow spaces, five yards wide 
 and twenty deep, between each of which a solid 
 column, fifteen yards wide and twenty deep, is left 
 for the support of the roof, so that only one third of 
 a bed of coal is taken away. Mr. Pennant observed 
 that these columns appeared to him to be stores for 
 future fuel, but they are left standing merely from 
 necessity, and no material portion of them could be 
 removed without danger to the great superstructure 
 which they tend to uphold. 
 
 The coals are dragged from the workings in
 
 ^6 DESCENT INTO A COAL-MINR. 
 
 baskets, one at a time, by horses, and carried to a 
 place of general rendezvous, where by means of a 
 crane they are placed on to the trams, nine of 
 which, bearing a burthen of nearly six tons, are 
 drawn by a single horse to the shaft. A tram is a 
 square board supported by four very low wheels, 
 and a horse drags nine of them with their full cargo 
 along an iron rail-way, without any apparent effort. 
 The ventilation of the mine in its remotest corners 
 is said to be as perfect as is necessary, though I 
 confess that in some places I felt no little difficulty 
 in breathing. The air is rarefied by heat from a 
 large fire kept constantly burning, and the current 
 directed to the various workings through conduits 
 formed by boarded partitions placed about a foot 
 distant from the walls. Doors are placed at inter- 
 vals in the long passages, which stop the air in its 
 course, and force it through the conduits in the 
 workings to the right or left. A current of air cir- 
 culating through a multiplicity of foul and heated 
 passages and chambers, must necessarily become 
 languid in its motion and impure in its quality as 
 it gets remote from its source; but though I had 
 occasionally to complain of some obstruction in the 
 freedom of my respiration, our guide declared that
 
 DESCENT INTO A COAL-MINE. 25T 
 
 he never felt the sliglitest inconvenience. I am not 
 however inclined to generalize on the authority of 
 this person's perception of the agreeable or dis- 
 agreeable, for in the midst of every kind of abomi- 
 nation that could be offensive to the eyes, ears, and 
 nose of a man, who felt as a man, he walked along 
 as if he had no senses, or senses quite distinct from 
 my ov/n, with the most profound unconcern. 
 
 The sensations excited in me as I was descending 
 down the pit did not readily subside, and I wan- 
 dered about the mine with my mind very much upon 
 the alert, and under an indistinct apprehension of 
 some possible danger, which gave intensity to my 
 interest in every thing that I heard and saw. A 
 dreariness pervaded the place which struck upon 
 the heart — one felt as if beyond the bounds allotted 
 to man or any living being, and transported to some 
 hideous region unblest by every charm that cheers 
 and adorns the habitable world. We traced our way 
 through passage after passage in the blackest dark- 
 ness, sometimes rendered more awful by a death-like 
 silence, which was now and then broken by the 
 banging of some distant door, or an explosion of 
 gunpowder, that pealed with a loud and long report 
 through the unseen recesses of the mine, and gave 
 
 s
 
 258 DESCENT INTO A COAL-MINE. 
 
 US some idea of its vast extent. Occasionally a light 
 appeared in the distance before us, which did not 
 dispel the darkness so as to discover by whom it was 
 borne, but advanced like a meteor through the 
 gloom, accompanied by a loud rumbling noise, the 
 cause of which was not explained to the eye till we 
 were called upon to make way for a horse, which 
 passed by with its long line of baskets, and driven 
 by a young girl, covered with filth, debased and 
 profligate, and uttering some low obscenity as she 
 hurried by us. We were frequently interrupted 
 in our march by the horses proceeding in this man- 
 ner with their cargoes to the shaft, and always 
 driven by girls, all of the same description, ragged 
 and beastly in their appearance, and with a shame- 
 less indecency in their behaviour, which, awe-struck 
 as one was by the gloom and loneliness around one, 
 had something quite frightful in it, and gave the 
 place the character of a hell. All the people whom 
 we met with were distinguished by an extraordinary 
 wretchedness; immoderate labour and a noxious 
 atmosphere had marked their countenances with the 
 signs of disease and decay ; they were mostly half 
 naked, blackened all over with dirt, and altogether 
 so miserably disfigured and abused, that they looked
 
 DESCENT INTO A COAL-MINE. ^59 
 
 like a race fallen from the common rank of men, and 
 doomed, as in a kind of purgatory, to wear away 
 their lives in these dismal shades. 
 
 I was much affected at the sight of the first in- 
 dividual whom I saw in one of the workings. He 
 was sitting on a heap of coals, pausing from his 
 labour, at the extremity of a narrow cavern, as 
 gloomy a prison as ever was beheld. When we 
 approached him he looked up, and showed a coun- 
 tenance which might have been that from which 
 Sterne drew his portrait of a captive. He was an 
 old man, and suffering had so added to the effects 
 of age in his looks, that it was truly pitiable to see 
 so worn and wasted a creature still owing to hard 
 labour the support of his cheerless life. He was 
 naked down to his waist, and exposed a body lean 
 and emaciated : his hair was grey, and his face 
 deeply furrowed and seamed with lines made by 
 streams of sweat that had trickled down his black- 
 ened skin — a figure expressive of more wretchedness 
 and humiliation tlian I ever saw before in a human 
 being. This man was considered a very fortunate 
 person, for he had worked forty-two years in the 
 mines and never met with an accident. Few of the 
 miners had served a third of this time who could not 
 
 s2
 
 260 DESCENT INTO A COAL-MINE. 
 
 show some marks of the dangers of their employ- 
 ment, either from the firing of hydrogen or the fall 
 of fragments of rock or coal. The coal is some- 
 times so loose and shattery that it cannot be safely 
 worked without more caution than is often practised 
 by the miners, who, if they escape all injury for one 
 day, are apt to forget on another that there can be 
 any danger. 
 
 One class of sufferers in the mine moved my 
 compassion more than any other, a number of 
 children who attend at the doors to open them when 
 the horses pass through, and who in this duty are 
 compelled to linger through their lives, in silence, 
 solitude, and darkness, for sixpence a day. When 
 I first came to one of these doors, I saw it open 
 without perceiving by what means, till, looking 
 behind it, I beheld a miserable little wretch standing 
 without a light, silent and motionless, and re- 
 sembling in the abjectness of its condition sorle 
 reptile peculiar to the place, rather than a human 
 creature. On speaking to it I was touched with 
 the patience and uncomplaining meekness with 
 which it submitted to its horrible imprisonment, 
 and the little sense that it had of the barbarity of its 
 unnatural parpnts. Few of the children thus in-
 
 DESCENT INTO A COAL-MINE. 261 
 
 humanly sacrificed were more than eight years old, 
 and several were considerably less, and had barely 
 strength sufficient to perform the office that was re- 
 quired from them. On their first introduction into 
 the mine the poor little victims struggle and scream 
 with terror at the darkness, but there are found 
 people brutal enough to force them to compliance, 
 and after a few trials they become tame and spirit- 
 less, and yield themselves up at least without noise 
 and resistance to any cruel slavery that it pleases 
 their masters to impose upon them. In the winter- 
 time they never see day-light except on a Sunday, 
 for it has been discovered that they can serve for 
 thirteen hours a day without perishing, and they are 
 pitilessly compelled to such a term of solitary con- 
 finement, with as little consideration for the injury 
 that they suffer, as is felt for the hinges and pullies 
 of the doors at which they attend. As soon as they 
 rise from their beds they descend down the pit, and 
 they are not relieved from their prison till, exhausted 
 with watching and fatigue, they return to their beds 
 again. Surely the savages who murder the children 
 which they cannot support are merciful compared 
 with those who devote them to a life like this. 
 After rambling about for nearly an hour through
 
 262 DESCENT INTO A COAL-MINE. 
 
 the mazes of the mine, occasionally meeting a pas- 
 senger, or visiting a labourer in his solitary cell, we 
 were conducted to a spacious apartment, where our 
 ears were saluted with the sound of many voices 
 mingHng together in noisy merriment. This was a 
 place of rendezvous whither the baskets of coals 
 Avere brought from the workings and fixed on the 
 trams, and a party of men and girls had met 
 together here, who were joining in a general ex- 
 pression of mirth, that was strangely contrasted 
 with the apparent misery of their condition, and the 
 dreariness of the spot where they were assembled. 
 There was an unusual quantity of light in this 
 chamber which showed its black roof and walls, and 
 shone upon the haggard faces and ruffian-like 
 figures of the people, who were roaring with laugh- 
 ter at a conversation which outraged all decency, 
 and resembled, as it appeared to my imagination, a 
 band of devils. Some coarse jokes levelled at 
 myself and my companion, which we did not think 
 it prudent either to parry or return, drove us from 
 this boisterous assembly, and we were soon hidden 
 again in the silent and lonely depths of the mine. 
 
 Our guide now led us to a passage where, in a 
 small stream of water that flowed through it, wc
 
 DESCENT INTO A COAL-MINE. 263 
 
 heard some air bubbling up which he knew to be 
 hydrogen : he applied a candle to it, when it in- 
 stantly took fire, burning with a clear blueish light, 
 in a flame not larger than that from a small lamp. 
 It continued visible when we had receded to a con- 
 siderable distance from it, and had a very beautiful 
 appearance, shining like a brilliant star in the dark- 
 ness, and giving an effect of exceeding depth to the 
 gloomy avenue before us. While we were gazing 
 at it with the profoundest stillness around us, we 
 were startled by a report as loud as a clap of 
 thunder, proceeding from an explosion of gun- 
 powder. On going to the spot from whence it 
 came, we found some men working a passage 
 through a bed of rock, called, in the language of 
 miners, o. faulty a phenomenon too familiar in coal- 
 mines to require any comment from me. This part 
 of the mine was very remote from the shaft, and so 
 imperfecdy ventilated, that the heat and stench in it 
 were scarcely supportable. 
 
 Not far from this place our guide regarded me 
 with a very big and significant look, and produced 
 all the effect that he intended on my mind when he 
 informed me that I was walking under the sea, and 
 had probably ships sailing over my head. Con-
 
 ^64 DESCENT INTO A COAL-MINE. 
 
 sidering this as tlie most extraordinary situation 
 that we had been in during our subterranean ex- 
 cursion, he pulled out a bottle of spirits from his 
 pocket and drank our healths and a safe return to 
 us, with all due solemnity. This rite fulfilled, we 
 turned our steps towards the shaft, oppressed by 
 the heat and foulness of the air, and anxious again 
 to see the day. We had walked about four miles 
 in various directions, but had not explored half the 
 mine, even in its lower part, and had a labyrinth of 
 excavations over our heads, as numerous and ex- 
 tensive as those through which we had been ram- 
 bling, and separated from them by a roof only nine 
 fathoms thick. I was astonished to hear that the 
 whole of this immense work was the labour of 
 scarcely ten years — that the extensive space through 
 which we had passed, and the whole mine that we 
 had left unexplored, were within this short period a 
 solid body of coal and rock. The labour going on 
 before our eyes appeared quite insignificant, and 
 imagination could scarcely conceive the formation 
 by such means of this vast place, which struck one 
 rather as some strange creation by the giant hands 
 of nature. 
 
 We ascended to the higher works by a very steep
 
 DESCENT INTO A COAL-MINE. 265 
 
 path, which, at an elevation of about sixty feet from 
 the lower level, opens into the shaft. The miners 
 figuratively call the shaft the eye of the mine, and 
 this inlet into the upper excavations is denominated 
 the High Eye. It was here that our guide had 
 given his warning of ' steady the basket,' lest it 
 should strike against the landing in its descent. All 
 the coals procured from the under workings were 
 formerly dragged up to this point by horses, but 
 the task was found so difficult and tedious that 
 it was thought expedient to sink the shaft to its 
 present level. From the edge of the landing-place 
 at the High Eye, I had a peep at the day through 
 the opening which appeared at a dreadful height 
 above my head, and contracted to a spot not bigger 
 than the palm of my hand. 
 
 As we were not promised a sight of any novelty 
 in the upper mine, we did not enter it, but returned 
 to the lower one, from whence we proceeded to the 
 shaft of the James mine, through a long up-cast 
 passage, which, in consequence of a late accident, 
 exhibits one of the most awful spectacles that can 
 be conceived. An unusual quantity of coals were 
 taken from it, and it was thought necessary, for the 
 support of the roof, to plant two rows of posts under
 
 266 DESCENT INTO A COAL-MINE. 
 
 it, which were composed of the trunks of the largest 
 oaks that could be procured. They had not been 
 fixed long when the roof began to sink, descending 
 very slowly, but with irresistible force, and bending 
 or breaking every tree that stood beneath it. It 
 did not sink much more than a foot, and people 
 now pass fearlessly under it, in the conviction that 
 it has permanently settled. The passage, however, 
 bears a very tremendous appearance, and I did not 
 go through it without some agitation. The broken 
 and splintered trees still remain, and are such for- 
 midable mementos of the insecurity of the roof, that 
 I involuntarily quickened my pace as I looked at 
 them, lest I should hear the coals again cracking 
 over my head. This part of our expedition was 
 rendered exceedingly disagreeable by a sulphurous 
 stream of water which flowed down the steep, cast- 
 ing forth an odour which touched even the nose of 
 our guide. At the top of the passage are the stables 
 belonging to the two mines, in which forty horses 
 are kept, which never see the light. The animals 
 were all remarkably sleek and fat, seeming to suffer 
 no degree of injury from the impurity of the air, so 
 pernicious to man. They have one advantage over 
 their fellow-labourers of tlie nobler species, in being
 
 DESCENT INTO A COAL-MINE. 267 
 
 subject only to moderate work, and this may be one 
 cause of their superior plumpness and healthiness. 
 
 After leaving the stables I soon heard the clank 
 of the basket chain in the James's pit, which called 
 upon me to collect my resolution for the journey 
 that awaited me before I could again be lodged in 
 safety on the surface of the earth. This pit is not 
 so deep, by a hundred and twenty feet, as that by 
 which we descended, and a faint circle of daylight 
 appeared on the ground at the bottom, which, sick 
 as I was of the darkness, I thought very beautiful. 
 The man at the engine having been warned that we 
 were about to ascend, we again committed ourselves 
 to the basket, and soon mounted aloft, gliding 
 through the void so softly and silently, that one 
 might have imagined oneself under the wand of an 
 enchanter. I watched the hght with some anxiety 
 as it strengthened upon the faces of my companions, 
 till we reached the top, where the bright sky, and 
 the fields, and the sea, and the busy crowd of 
 people, and all the cheerful bustle of life, burst 
 upon my view with an effect in the highest degree 
 exhilarating and delightful. 
 
 I had certainly been very much entertained in 
 the mine, and did not consider the annoyances that
 
 268 DESCENT INTO A COAL-MINE. 
 
 I endured, or the danger that I imagined, as over- 
 balancing the amusement of my visit to it. The 
 time spent in the basket was a trial of the nerves not 
 speedily to be forgotten, though a man should 
 scarcely venture to talk of nerves on such an occa- 
 sion, for it is no uncommon thing for ladies to go 
 down the pit, and I have not heard of any who 
 behaved otherwise than with courage and patience. 
 Accidents sometimes happen from the inveterate 
 carelessness of the people, who, in their familiarity 
 with danger, lose all thought of caution. A few 
 days before I descended, the rope had broken while 
 the empty basket was going down, not in conse- 
 quence of any imperfection, that could not be rea- 
 sonably suspected, but from having been worn out 
 by long use. And yet there are people appointed 
 to superintend all the machinery employed in the 
 mines, and see, from time to time, that it is trust- 
 worthy. The ropes used in these pits are flat, and 
 are much more durable than round ropes, being less 
 apt to be cramped or cracked as they roll round the 
 ^vindlass. A rope will last for three or four years, 
 and this durability it is that encourages the thought- 
 lessness of those to whose observation they are 
 trusted.
 
 DESCENT INTO A COAL-MINE. 2G9 
 
 There are several passages into the mines by in- 
 clined planes, and six shafts ; three, at considerable 
 distances from each other, on each side of the town. 
 The mines comprehend a connexion of workings 
 from six to seven miles in extent east and west, and 
 from two to three miles on the transverse line. The 
 whole of the town is undermined, without the least 
 danger, as is supposed, to its security; and the 
 workings extend under the harbour, and seven 
 hundred yards under the sea. Six hundred people, 
 of various descriptions, are employed under ground, 
 and more than a hundred horses. I was surprised 
 to see so few men labouring at the excavations, till 
 I learned the quantity of work that a single indivi- 
 dual can perform. A man can separate five tons of 
 coals in a day, and this is not considered as an ex- 
 traordinary exertion. Twenty score of baskets, 
 each basket containing 13 cwt. of coals, are drawn 
 up from each of the six pits every day, which, cal- 
 culating six days in the week, makes the annual 
 quantity of coals separated from the mines amount 
 to 486,720 tons. 
 
 In one's admiration of these vast results of in- 
 dustry and contrivance, one may spare a thought on 
 the condition of the people employed, who are sunk
 
 270 DESCENT INTO A COAL-MINE. 
 
 into a state of the lowest wretchedness and wicked- 
 ness. I have no disposition to indulge in any affecta- 
 tion of fine feehng, or to signalize my philanthropy 
 by any idle sentiinentality about the ordinary hard- 
 ships incident to the labouring classes. The wants 
 of society make it unavoidable that some of us 
 should suffer under disgusting and unwholesome 
 occupations. We must have coals, and men must 
 be found to dig them, in contempt of evils that em- 
 bitter and shorten their lives. But if, in considera- 
 tion of the general good of the community, it is not 
 fit that we should regard partial misery with too 
 keen a sensibility, it is not necessary that we should 
 run into the opposite extreme, and view with total 
 indifference the condition of those who are toiling 
 and suffering for our advantage. The people in the 
 mines are looked upon as mere machinery, of no 
 worth or importance beyond their horse power. 
 The strength of a man is required in excavating the 
 workings, women can drive the horses, and children 
 can open the doors; and a child or a woman is 
 sacrificed, where a man is not required, as a matter 
 of economy, that makes not the smallest account of 
 human life in its calculations. In consequence of 
 the employment of women in the mines, the most
 
 DESCENT INTO A COAL-MINE. 271 
 
 abominable profligacy prevails among the people. 
 One should scarcely have supposed that there would 
 be any temptations to sin in these gloomy and loath- 
 some caverns, but they are made the scenes of the 
 most bestial debauchery. If a man and woman 
 meet in them, and are excited by passion at the 
 moment, they indulge it, without pausing to inquire 
 if it be father and daughter, or brother and sister, 
 that are polluting themselves with incest. In re- 
 cording this shocking fact, I speak from authority 
 that is not to be doubted. Great God ! and can 
 nothing be done for the redemption of these wretched 
 slaves.'* Is it unavoidable, that while they give up 
 almost every blessing of life, they must sacrifice soul 
 as well as body ? These dismal dungeons are cer- 
 tainly not fit places for women and children, the 
 removal of whom would be an act of humanity not 
 dearly paid for, though it should wring a few pounds 
 from the hard economy that rules their service. 
 The estimation in which women are held is one test 
 of the civilization of a people ; and it is somewhat 
 scandalous, in a country of gallant men, to see them 
 sacrificed to the rough drudgery of coal-mines. If 
 there were nothing but the filthiness of their occupa- 
 tion to complain of, it would be no extravagant re-
 
 272 DESCENT INTO A COAL-MINE. 
 
 finement to feel that their sex should preserve tlieni 
 from it; it is not a little offensive to see them 
 changed into devils in their appearance, but it is 
 afflicting indeed to witness the perversion that takes 
 place in their moral character. They lose every 
 quality that is graceful in woman, and become a set 
 of coarse, licentious Avretches, scorning all kind of 
 restraint, and yielding themselves up, with shame- 
 less audacity, to the most detestable sensuality. 
 Their abominations are confined during the day to 
 the dark recesses of the mines ; but at night they 
 are cast up from the pits like a pestilence, to con- 
 taminate the town. We must have coals, as I have 
 said, but we may have them through the intercession 
 of a little humanity and liberality, without this 
 lavish waste of morality. 
 
 I have already adverted to the hapless condition 
 of the children confined under ground, and I 
 willingly say a word or two more in their behalf. 
 Such an abuse of them is, without doubt, in the 
 highest degree disgi-aceful to those who command 
 their services, and calls for execration from every 
 mind that is open to any feelings of kindness and 
 charity. We have lately raised a cry that will save 
 thousands, in a distant country, from the pains and
 
 DESCENT INTO A COAI.-MIXE. 273 
 
 the ignominy of a miserable slavery, and should 
 not behold with unconcern any thing that bears the 
 stamp of slavery at home. I am not comparing the 
 injury done to these children to the wide-spread 
 mischief of the slave trade, but they may both be 
 referred to the same kind of cold-blooded tyranny ; 
 and a man torn from his country and his home, and 
 forced under the lash of a task-master, hi a foreign 
 land, has scarcely more reason to complain of in- 
 justice and cruelty than a child thus dragged from 
 the light, from all the natural joys in which child- 
 hood delights, and buried in a dark solitude for 
 thirteen hours a day. One might have imagined, 
 that in this country at least children might be com- 
 mitted to the care and protection of their parents 
 without apprehending any material or extended 
 abuse. But among people broken down by poverty, 
 or brutalized by vice, the moral affections become 
 cold and dull ; and there are multitudes of wretches 
 who, for bread or gin, are ready to sell their 
 children to any kind of misery. The victims im- 
 mured in these mines prove the fact ; and in further 
 confirmation of it one might adduce the wretched 
 little slaves of chimney-sweepers, a numerous class 
 of beings most infamously oppressed, whom it is not 
 
 T
 
 274 DESCENT IXTO A ( OAL-MINE. 
 
 too serious to call a reproach to the country. The 
 law will not allow a man to starve his child or to flog 
 it to death, but he may cast it from his care with 
 impunity, and devote it to a servitude that does 
 cruel violence to its nature — either sends it to an 
 early grave, or, if it lives, leaves it to struggle with 
 the torments of an enfeebled constitution. Surely 
 some legislative interference is required to restrain 
 so barbarous and unwarrantable an exertion of 
 power — to prevent the exposure of children to 
 loathsome and unhealthy occupations, at least till 
 they are of an age to give their consent. The cries 
 of the little beings condemned to the mines have 
 never, I imagine, reached the ears of their noble 
 proprietor ; and if he should hear of their condition 
 through my means, and secure their release, I shall 
 have been accessary to an act of charity that I shall 
 remember with pleasure through life. 
 
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