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 ESSAYS BY LEIGH HUNT. 
 
ESSAYS ^?a 
 
 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES, 
 BY 
 
 ARTHUR SYMONS. 
 
 LONDON:- 
 WALTER SCOTT, 24 WARWICK LANE, 
 
 PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 1887. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION ..... 
 
 DREAMS ON THE BORDERS OF THE LAND OF POETRY 
 POCKET-BOOKS AND KEEPSAKES 
 OF THE SIGHT OF SHOPS — I. . 
 „ „ ,, II. . 
 
 THE FAIR REVENGE ... 
 
 DEATHS OF LITTLE CHILDREN 
 WALKS HOME BY NIGHT: WATCHMEN 
 ON THE GRACES AND ANXIETIES OF PIG DRIVING 
 AN EARTH UPON HEAVEN 
 A " NOW " (descriptive OF A HOT DAY) 
 
 „ (descriptive OF A COLD DAY) 
 
 ON THE realities OF IMAGINATION 
 SPRING AND DAISIES 
 CHAUCER 
 
 THE OLD GENTLEMAN 
 THE OLD LADY . 
 WINDOWS 
 PANTOMIMES 
 SHAKING HANDS 
 COACHES 
 POETICAL ANOMALIES OF SHAPE 
 
 PAGE 
 
 vii 
 
 I 
 
 8 
 
 20 
 28 
 35 
 41 
 45 
 52 
 55 
 59 
 62 
 67 
 
 74 
 80 
 82 
 86 
 90 
 98 
 103 
 105 
 125 
 
VI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF HIPPOCRATES 
 
 BREAKFAST IN SUMMER 
 
 TEA-DRINKING 
 
 A FEW THOUGHTS ON SLEEP 
 
 COLOUR . , 
 
 THE WAITER 
 
 OF STICKS 
 
 ANACREON 
 
 BRICKLAYERS, AND AN OLD BOOK 
 
 THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN 
 
 GETTING UP ON COLD MORNINGS 
 
 SEAMEN ON SHORE 
 
 SOCIAL GENEALOGY 
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHDAY 
 
 SPIRIT OF THE ANCIENT MYTHOLOGY' 
 
 ANGLING 
 
 OF DREAMS 
 
 SPRING 
 
 A CHAPTER ON HATS 
 
 A TALE FOR A CHIMNEY-CORNER 
 
 THE CAT BY THE FIRE 
 
 PLEASANT MEMORIES CONNECTED WITH THE METROPOLIS 
 
 SECRET OF SOME EXISTING FASHIONS 
 
 THOUGHTS AND GUESSES ON HUMAN NATURE 
 
 MY BOOKS 
 
 NOTES . 
 
» 3ntrot)uction. 
 
 AMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT was born at 
 
 Southgate, a pleasant rural village in the parish of 
 Edmonton, on the 19th of October 1784, From 
 his father he inherited tropical blood: his mother, 
 Mary Shewell, was a native of Philadelphia, 
 though she, like her husband, was of English descent. A son of 
 mirth and melancholy, he quaintly calls himself, playing on the 
 etymological significance of his parents' names. Isaac Hunt, the 
 father, was a courtly claret-drinking clergyman, with an elocution- 
 ary taste for sermons, and a propensity for getting into debt ; a 
 charming society-man of the pulpit — eloquent, elegant, shiftless, 
 and incorrigibly light-hearted. His wife, a sad and suffering 
 woman, never ceased to believe in him, and to admire his fine 
 voice and manners ; and when he graduated from Anglican 
 orthodoxy to Unitarianism, and thence to Universalism, she 
 followed him in seeking new ways to heaven, as she had followed 
 him in his rudderless courses through life. She was a gentle, 
 half-crushed creature, with some remains still left of an early 
 decision and energy of character ; kind and considerate to all, 
 so that she even owed her death to the consequences of an act of 
 impulsive charity. It was from her that her son derived a faint 
 but distinct under-current of melancholy, and a spirit of anxious 
 conscientiousness — timorous of wrong to the extent of pain, and 
 
viii INTR on UCTION. 
 
 steadfast for a principle to the verge of temerity, — which, all 
 through his life, served to chasten the gaiety of temperament 
 that came to him from his father. 
 
 After seven or eight frail years of early childhood, Leigh 
 Hunt went to school at Christ Hospital, not many months 
 after Coleridge had left it for Cambridge and Lamb for the 
 South Sea House. Hunt's account of his school-days is the most 
 charming episode in that delightful book, his Autobiography, 
 Notwithstanding the fastidiousness which his mother's delicate 
 training had fostered, and which, at first, brought him into 
 some natural trouble with his comrades, he seems on the whole 
 to have passed seven pleasant enough years in the cloisters. It 
 is true that the boys had not always quite enough to eat, and 
 no holidays to speak of; true also that the head-master, Boyer, 
 a tyrannical pedant, drove learning into the heads of his scholars 
 by sheer force of muscle. But Leigh Hunt had resources of his 
 own ; and though he came to regard Homer with horror, disliked 
 Cicero, and cared for neither Horace nor Ovid, he devoured 
 Tooke's Pantheon, text and plates, and doted on certain sixpenny 
 numbers of Spenser, Gray and Collins. He wrote verses, in 
 imitation or emulation of his favourite peets : one on Winter, 
 inspired by Thomson, and a Fairy King, and odes after 
 Gray. Prose essays, or themes, he wrote in common with 
 the other boys ; but with great reluctance, and to the special 
 contempt of the master. He formed friendships, three in 
 number, bordering on adoration ; and at thirteen he fell 
 in love with a lively cousin, two years older than himself, 
 who called him petit garqon. He visited the house and studio 
 of West the painter, thus becoming at an early age familiar 
 with art ; and still oftener, and with yet greater delight, a large 
 old-fashioned house, with a garden, in Austin Friars, — a Garden 
 of Eden to the boy, and a House Beautiful. Best of all was 
 the one holiday of three weeks spent in a country-house in 
 Surrey, one divine August, among fields and books. " I read, 
 walked, had a garden and orchard to run in ; and fields that 
 I could have rolled in, to have my will of them." 
 
 Toward the end of 1799, Leigh Hunt, then fifteen, doffed 
 
INTRODUCTION. ix 
 
 the blue skirts and assumed the unfamiliar hat He spent 
 some years without much purpose, dabbling in law in his 
 brother Stephen's office, haunting the bookstalls, visiting 
 friends and writing verses. In 1802 his father, with character- 
 istic unwisdom, gathered up his son's blotted paper, and 
 published the verses under the title of Juvenilia; or, a 
 Collection of Poems written between the Ages of Twelve and 
 Sixteen. The book was only too successful, and for a while 
 the precocious boy was very much spoiled. It was not 
 long, however, before the panic of French invasion struck fire 
 out of the British flint ; and Leigh Hunt, never likely to be 
 backward in a public duty, lost no time in enrolling himself 
 among the volunteers. A nascent interest in the stage 
 became strengthened and directed by a casual contact, in the 
 ranks, with three well-known actors ; and after breaking ground, 
 in private, with a tragedy, a comedy and a farce, Hunt began 
 his career as a prose writer by contributing theatrical criticisms 
 to the Traveller (soon after merged in the Globe), under the 
 signature of " Mr. Town, Junior, Critic and Censor-General" — a 
 pseudonym derived from his accepted model, at that time, of 
 lively essay-writing, the Connoisseur of George Colman and 
 Bonnell Thornton. In 1805 he contributed similar papers to his 
 brother's journal, the Neius. These papers had all the laborious 
 cleverness and precocious severity of judgment which we might 
 expect in a critic of twenty ; but they had one sterling and at that 
 time startling novelty of merit, — absolute independence ; and they 
 obtained a deserved success. In 1808 the two brothers, John 
 and Leigh, founded the weekly paper, 77^1? Examiner. 
 
 This action, with all it entailed, stands out in the mainly 
 subjective history of Hunt with special prominence. Its first 
 consequence was to draw the student, the verse-writer, the 
 self-absorbed critic, out into the world — the everyday world, 
 where existence is noisy, dusty, disturbed, a wrangle of passions 
 and politics. The new paper soon made its way : it became 
 respected, the organ of thoughtful people, the centre of en- 
 lightenment and free principles. By the Government and the 
 extreme Tories it was looked on with a natural suspicion ; for 
 
X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 its independent advocacy of reform wore at that time an 
 alarming hue of radicalism ; and its tone, even more than its 
 principles, was trenchantly aggressive. Within two or three 
 years the paper was honoured with three ministerial prosecu- 
 tions, each in itself unsuccessful, but leading up to the fourth 
 and triumphant attack, by which the brothers were sentenced 
 to two years' imprisonment in separate gaols, and to the pay- 
 ment of a fine of ;^5oo each. The famous article of the 22nd 
 March 18 12 was certainly as libellous as truth could make it ; and, 
 as Hunt himself says, if the Prince Regent had been magnani- 
 mous enough to waive the legal punishment which he was 
 enabled to exact, he would have himself disproved the worst 
 accusations of his censor. He did not ; and the brothers went 
 to prison. 
 
 The two years of prison-life were not an unmixed misfortune 
 to Leigh Hunt. In 1809 he had married Marianne, the 
 daughter of Thomas and Ann Kent, and he was allowed the 
 company of his wife and children. He had two rooms, which 
 he furnished with books and busts, flowers and piano, and 
 papered with a trellis of roses ; and in a yard outside he made a 
 garden, with flower-beds, a grass-plot, and even trees. Among 
 the books he bought at this period was the enormous collection 
 of poetry named the Parnaso Italiano — a " lump of sunshine " to 
 him then, as he says, and an appreciable influence in much of 
 his subsequent verse and prose. He continued to write for the 
 Examiner, and, beside some other poetical work, composed the 
 greater part of the Story of Rimini, which was finished and 
 published in the spring of 1816. Above all, he made the 
 acquaintance of his " friend of friends," Shelley ; of Hazlitt, 
 Bentham, Sir John Swinburne, Cowden Clarke; he was visited by 
 Byron, Moore and the Lambs. He came out of prison with 
 somewhat lowered health and spirits, but a wiser man, poorer 
 indeed in pocket, but richer in himself and in friends. 
 
 For the next six or seven years (from February 3, 181 5, to 
 November 15, 1821) Hunt lived in London (much of the time at 
 Hampstead), writing for the Examiner, translating Italian for 
 the booksellers, publishing the verses called Foliage, and — what 
 
INTRODUCTION. xi 
 
 is of much more importance — writing his most remarkable series 
 of essays, the flower of his finest moments, — the papers issued in 
 weekly numbers under the name of The Indicator. He was at 
 this time closely associated with Shelley, Keats and Lamb, and, 
 to some extent, with Coleridge. His recollections of Shelley and 
 Lamb, in the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of the Autobio- 
 graphy, are full of sympathy and appreciation ; of Coleridge he 
 has also written admirably, though he never saw very much of 
 him, nor, apparently, felt for him much regard ; concerning 
 Keats it was only natural that he should write with a certain 
 constraint. In 1822, at Shelley's solicitation, he determined on 
 going to Italy, to join Byron and Shelley in a proposed Liberal 
 quarterly. The whole affair was unfortunate. After a miserable 
 protracted journey, the Hunts arrived in the summer of 1822 at 
 Leghorn, where they met Byron, and, being joined by Shelley, 
 proceeded to Pisa. Within a few days came the tragedy of 
 Lerici, and Shelley's ashes were laid to rest beneath the Pyramid 
 of Cestius. Between Byron and Hunt there never had been very 
 much real cordiality, and it was not long before the relations 
 between them grew strained, and were broken. The famous and 
 ill-fated Liberal came to an end after four numbers, and with it 
 Hunt's prospects and hopes in Italy. Hunt considered himself, 
 probably with justice, to have been aggrieved by Byron ; and in 
 1 828, after his return to England, he was ill-advised enough to put 
 into print a book on Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries, 
 a book which he afterwards regretted having written, not because 
 he considered it false, or at least insincere, but because he saw 
 it to have been uncharitable and uncalled-for. Before the rup- 
 ture with Byron he had lived for a while at Genoa ; shortly 
 afterwards he went to Florence, taking up his abode, after a 
 brief interval, in the country, at Boccaccio's Maiano, about two 
 miles out of the city. There he lived till the autumn of 1825, 
 more or less ill and disconsolate, obtaining impressions and 
 translating Redi's Bacchus in Tuscany. He wrote at this time 
 the Wishing-Cap Papers for the Examiner, and a work entitled 
 Christianism; or, Belief and Uttbelief Reconciled, which was 
 privately printed in 1832 by the wish and at the expense of 
 
xii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 John Forster. This was the first draft of The Religion of the 
 Hearty completed and published more than twenty years later. 
 On the loth of September, 1825, Hunt left Villa Morandi for 
 England, very glad to be going ; he reached London on the 
 14th of October, and took a house at Highgate. 
 
 Leigh Hunt was now forty-one, and he had thirty-four years — • 
 nearly half his life — to come ; but during all those years he 
 rarely lived out of London, and never took any more active part 
 in public affairs than by the publication of his books and serials, 
 and the performance of his two plays. At Highgate he was 
 in the midst of his favourite English scenery, and never, perhaps, 
 was he more happy than in those days, strolling about the 
 meadows with his day-dreams, his Spenser, his Italian pastorals, 
 and writing the weekly numbers of The Companion^ a periodical 
 consisting of essays in the manner of the Itidicator and comments 
 after the style of the Examiner. Sir Ralph Esher, an attempt 
 to paint the Court of Charles the Second in a fictitious autobio- 
 graphy — scarcely a novel — was written about this time at Epsom, 
 where Hunt lived for a short period before returning finally to 
 London. He first settled at St. John's Wood, where he under- 
 took the daily publication of a little paper, literary and theatrical, 
 of four pages folio, called The Taller, which lasted from 
 September 4, 1830, till March 31, 1832. It was a failure. He 
 wrote the whole of it himself, and the work, as well it might, 
 nearly killed him. In 1833 he had the satisfaction of seeing the 
 successful publication of his Poetical Works ; and in the sum- 
 mer of the same year he removed to a quiet corner of Chelsea, 
 there to make the acquaintance of his neighbour, Carlyle. He 
 lived at Chelsea seven years, doing journalistic work, compos- 
 ing the poem entitled Caplain Sivord and Captain Pen, and 
 writing a number of plays, of which only two were ever performed 
 — The Legend of Florence in 1840, and a comedy called Lovers' 
 Amazements in 1858. The London Journal, a literary mis- 
 cellany, set up by Leigh Hunt in 1834, and brought to an end 
 within two years' time, contained most of the essays afterwards 
 published as The Seer, in the form of a companion volume to 
 the Indicator. In 1840 Hunt removed to Kensington, where 
 
INTRODUCTION. xiii 
 
 he wrote Stories from the Italian Poets, A Jar of Honey 
 from Mount Hybla, The Palfrey : a Love-story of Old Times, 
 the concluding portion of The Town, the greater part of the 
 Autobiography, and the criticism in Imagination afid Faticy, 
 Wit and Humour and A Book for a Corner. " The same un- 
 varied day," he tells us " saw me reading or writing, ailing, 
 jesting, reflecting, rarely stirring from home but to walk, interested 
 in public events, in the progress of society, in the 'New Reforma- 
 tion ' (most deeply), in things great or small, in a print, in a 
 plaster-cast, in a hand-organ, in the stars, ... in the flower 
 on my table, in the fly on my paper while I write." The years 
 had brought him, together with more than his share of domestic 
 troubles, friends, and fame, and quiet, if not leisure, to read and 
 write, and they had left him the cheerful mind to enjoy them 
 all. In 1852 his life was saddened by the loss of his youngest 
 son, Vincent. Under the shadow of that loss he completed the 
 religious work of which mention has already been made. It 
 was published in 1853, under the name of The Religion of t lie 
 Heart. In 1857 he endured a second affliction in the death of 
 his wife ; and on August the 28th, 1859, he himself quietly 
 passed away, within two months of completing his seventy-fifth 
 year. 
 
 The position of Leigh Hunt in our literature might easily be 
 exaggerated, and still more easily under-estimated. Born in the 
 year of Johnson's death, he died only two years earlier than Mrs. 
 Browning ; and during the whole of an exceptionally long career 
 he was, both in prose and in poetry, exceptionally prominent 
 without ever attaining quite the first rank. In poetry, his influence 
 can be traced in Keats, and he had the honour of being assaulted 
 by Blackwood sindi the Quarterly as the leader of the " Cockney " 
 school. In prose he belonged to the generation of Lamb, 
 Coleridge, Landor, De Quincey, Hazlitt. From the earliest years 
 of the century down to to-day, or at least yesterday, his name 
 has been a household word ; yet he has left us little, perhaps 
 nothing, of a secured immortality, and before the name of any of 
 the comrades beside whom he worked and wrought on equal 
 terms, his own name pales and flickers. He himself perhaps 
 
3dv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 expected nothing more ; he made no extravagant claims on his 
 day or its morrow. Of his books he said, " They never pre- 
 tended to be anything greater than birds singing among the 
 trees:" nor are they. But to be that only is to be something 
 delightful. 
 
 It has to be remembered, in passing judgment on Leigh Hunt, 
 that nearly the whole of his work was produced rapidly, to meet 
 temporary requirements ; that he had not always the choice of 
 work ; and that he never had leisure to polish, to correct, to 
 eliminate. He had a ready and most genuine inspiration, an 
 immense diligence, and the necessity to write for his living. As 
 a consequence, he has left us a mass of work which is much of 
 it still pleasant to read, but of very varying and very uncertain 
 value as literature. No single achievement, with the possible 
 exception of the Autobiography, stands out boldly from its 
 fellows, firm enough to build a reputation on. Every book, 
 almost every essay, has its charming and admirable qualities, 
 side by side with others less charming and less admirable ; so 
 that to find work of Leigh Hunt with which we can be definitely 
 and completely satisfied, work practically flawless and rounded, 
 is rare, more so, I think, than in almost any other writer of at all 
 equal eminence. How far this is due to the circumstances 
 under which it was composed, and how far to inherent 
 limitations, it would be difficult, I suppose impossible, to 
 decide. I can only say that, while I think much, very much, 
 must be allowed in Hunt's favour, on the score of external 
 pressure, we have no reason to suppose him capable, under 
 more favourable circumstances, of any work of altogether 
 sustained elevation. He certainly did not possess the secret of 
 that alchemy by which Charles Lamb distilled the very essence 
 of his quality into each small essay and every little note or 
 fragment. Hunt's quality, as it is, is diluted through hundreds 
 of essays and over thousands of pages ; and it is, to say the 
 least, unlikely that he could ever have manifested himself 
 altogether differently— could ever have stamped quite finally 
 his image and superscription on any conceivable circle of 
 currency. 
 
INTR OD UCTION. xv 
 
 Hunt's best work is to be found in his most spontaneous and 
 casual writings — in his periodical essays, written for the most 
 part rapidly, and at the beck of any chance suggestion, but on 
 a plan and in a manner perfectly suited to his capacity. He 
 had a model after his own heart in the Spectator Qi Kd^^xsan 
 and Steele, the two essayists with whom, of all his predecessors, 
 he had most in common. To something of eighteenth century 
 humour and sobriety he added a certain modern sparkle and 
 informal lightness of touch ; with a bookish intelligence, 
 acutely cognisant of men and things through a medium of 
 reminiscence and reflection, quite peculiar to himself. With 
 the essays we must join the Autobiography^ — "a pious, in- 
 genious, altogether human and worthy book," as Carlyle rightly 
 styled it — in which a congenial subject, lending itself, turn by 
 turn, to the exhibition of his finest characteristics, is so graphi- 
 cally and delicately treated that we can claim for it something of 
 permanent value, of abiding interest. Many of Hunt's books 
 are little more than compilations ; compilations made, as a rule, 
 with lively skill, and pleasant enough to read ; but still, com- 
 pilations. The volume of essays most easily accessible, 
 the excellently-named Men^ Women, and Books, does him 
 great injustice. A Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla comes 
 midway between the better and the lesser work ; the two 
 volumes of annotated selections from the English poets, 
 Imagination and Fancy, and Wit and Humour, lean more 
 definitely to the former. Hunt's literary notes and jottings are 
 always good in substance or in form, often in both. His reading 
 was unusually wide, and his sympathies, vivid and ready as they 
 were, were held in check, balanced and directed, by an excel- 
 lent and impartial judgment. He is usually safe, little likely to 
 be hurried into an excess of enthusiasm or flung upon a raid 
 of vituperation. His notes are not, like those of Lamb, actual 
 revelations ; he had not the profound and subtle insight of 
 Coleridge ; but as a careful and accurate appraiser of values, 
 his hand and eye are exceptionally sure. Nor is he without 
 flashes of the rarer sort of insight, as the recognition of the now 
 famous character of De Flores in Middleton's Changeling— vt. 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 recognition which he was the first to give — sufficiently proves. 
 He was beyond almost any writer a lover of books, and 
 everything he wrote was written, as it were, under their shadow. 
 A single one of his works stands quite apart and by itself— 7%2 
 Religion of the Heart, This book, and the feelings which 
 prompted it, must be taken into account in any consideration of 
 Leigh Hunt, for it represents very fully the religious side of an 
 essentially pious nature. "A natural piety, no less than cheer- 
 fulness, has," he remarks in the Preface, and he never said a 
 truer thing, " ever pervaded my writings ; the cheerfulness, 
 indeed, was a part of the piety, flowing from the same tendency 
 to love and admire." The Religion of the Heart is a sort of 
 devotional manual, curiously minute and ceremonial in some of 
 its arrangements, but breathing a spirit of large humanity and 
 most serious and genial piety. The latter and later portion of 
 it is mainly a compilation, and it deals with controversial matters 
 on which opinions must always be very much divided ; but the 
 earlier half, without ever being profound, or opening new high- 
 roads of thought, is exquisitely just, pious and reasonable — the 
 voice of a good heart on the lips of a beautiful speaker. It is 
 Hunt's only work of the kind, but it is the manifestation, as I have 
 intimated, of a pervading principle. Hunt's literary merits are 
 singularly dependent on his moral qualities ; his essential 
 peculiarity, his special originality, being the offspring of two 
 ideas — the idea of Happiness, and the idea of Duty. In the 
 Seventeenth of the " Rules of Life and Manners" contained in 
 The Religion of the Heart, we find the following maxim : — 
 
 " To consider the healthy, and therefore, as far as mortality 
 permits, happy exercise of all the faculties with which we have 
 been gifted, as the self-evident final purpose of our being, so far 
 as existence in this world is concerned ; and as constituting 
 therefore the right of every individual human creature, and the 
 main earthly object of all social endeavour." 
 
 In these words Leigh Hunt expresses his firmest conviction and 
 touches the very spring of his literary method. He wrote to 
 make men happy, and to advocate their making themselves 
 happy. He assures us that he wrestled with dark problems, that 
 
INTRODUCTION^. xvii 
 
 he grappled with the powers of evil and of doubt. If so, it was 
 as the angel in Raphael's picture grapples with the Fiend — 
 easily, gracefully, without noise or dust or disarray of conflict. 
 He tells us nothing of the sterner realities of life, the blacker 
 depths of thought ; but he calls out our minds to see the beauty 
 making for happiness in the common things around us. He 
 brings poetry to our breakfast-table, and strikes light out of the 
 pebble at our feet. But his delight in the beauty of the visible 
 world is not a delight purely ccsthetic ; he does not see with 
 the eye of the painter, to whom the beautiful is supremely 
 interesting for and in itself. He presses beauty into the 
 service of man, and constitutes it an auxiliary and helpmate of 
 happiness. He would have a world of happy and good men 
 and women, pleasing one another and themselves, and delight- 
 ing to read Spenser, to look at pictures, to wander in the fields, 
 to see plays— their life being all the time a sort of gentle and 
 moral play. He is a lounger in the gardens of literature ; a 
 plucker of fruits from the trees of unfallen Edens. In his 
 company we are travellers in enchanted countries, not indeed on 
 the high-roads, not in the cities, but among the meadows, in the 
 villages and pastoral places, with our face to the sunlight and 
 our feet in the long grass. His choicest essays give us the 
 very sense of golden summer afternoons — an innocent entire 
 voluptuousness of mind and body. This is conceivably less 
 mighty a role to play than that role of Elijah on Carmel 
 enacted so impressively by Leigh Hunt's neighbour and friend 
 at Chelsea ; it is not less useful in its way. 
 
 Leigh Hunt does not distinctly brace the moral fibre ; but he 
 does not relax it. That idea of Happiness, of which I have 
 spoken, was closely connected with its twin-born idea of Duty — 
 a strain, we might say, of his mother's Puritan blood mingling 
 with and tempering the warm Barbadian blood of his father. 
 His sensuous nature, his tropical temperament, his Italianised 
 imagination, are kept in check — kept sweet and clean and pure 
 — by a delicately English sense of the abidingness and the 
 authority of moral sanctions, of Duty— not the Pagan nor the 
 Puritan, but Wordsworth's "stern Daughter of the voice of God," 
 
 b 
 
xviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 who makes the perfume of the flowers and the light and colour 
 of the stars. Thus it is that the Ldens of his fancy have 
 no snake, the enchanted gardens no Armida. It is amusing to 
 hear him apologising for the "vivacity — I will not call it levity" 
 of his writings : as if apology were needed ! Wholesome 
 air and sweet sunshine are not too common to be less than the 
 most precious of our possessions ; and in literature the 
 pleasantness of air and sunshine, such as we meet in the pages 
 of Leigh Hunt, is not common at all. 
 
 Leigh Hunt's range, in his essays, is wide ; but his topics may 
 all be classed under the two heads of Books and Nature. Under 
 the second head I would include genre pictures such as Hunt 
 defined when, in the introduction to just such a sketch as he 
 was describing, he; said, " Writers, we think, might oftener 
 indulge themselves in direct picture-making — that is to say, in 
 detached sketches of men and things, which should be to 
 mattners what those of Theophrastus are to character." The 
 country essays, and the lessons and pictures from common 
 things, are among the most delightful and the most character- 
 istic of his writings; a few of rare pensiveness and serious 
 imagination touch our deeper feelings most finely ; the bookish 
 papers have the constant charm of the book-lover, and run 
 frequently into the highest reaches of fancy and of style ; but 
 the genre pictures have a peculiar attractiveness of their own, 
 not exceeded, in its kind, by the qualities of any of the others. 
 The fancy, the homely and remote knowledge, the quiet enjoy- 
 able humour contained in these unpretentious little sketches, 
 are of such fine and yet simple and taking quality, that they 
 hold a distinct place in literature — a place not of the highest, 
 but pleasant, and one to be frequented. 
 
 That woi'd " pleasant " seems to have a peculiar appropriate- 
 ness to Leigh Hunt, and comes first to the lips and last in 
 speaking of him. He is the pleasatitest writer we have ; to him 
 belongs that "sweet temperature of thought" which Landor 
 observed in Addison, and that " attractive countenance, with 
 which he meets us upon every occasion." I cannot think that 
 Leigh Hunt was of the build and stature to "wrestle with and 
 
INTRODUCTION. xix 
 
 conquer Time;" his flight was the swallow's — short, uneven, 
 uncertain — and, like the swallow, his day may be over with the 
 summer. But he is specially eminent among the lesser men, 
 and to neglect him is to lose a pleasure which we can get only 
 from him. He is never quite without attractiveness ; but his 
 best writings are those in which a congenial subject carries him 
 away, in which he finds scope for an often felicitous fancy, and a 
 frequently charming grace of style. 
 
 ARTHUR SYMONS. 
 
ESSAYS. 
 
 DREAMS ON THE BORDERS OF THE LAND 
 OF POETRY. 
 
 I. THE DEMANDS OF POETRY. 
 
 HAVE not been in the habit of making 
 memorandums for my verses. Such verse as 
 I could write I have written at once. But 
 the older I grow, the more reverent notions I 
 entertain of poetry; and as I cannot aspire 
 to put anything into verse, and pretend to call it poetry, 
 without shaping it in the best manner of which I am 
 capable (for poetry, without the fit sculpture of verse, is no 
 more to be called poetry, than beauty conceived is beauty 
 accomplished), so I have neither leisure to pay it the 
 requisite attention, nor can I afford the spirit and emotion 
 necessary for this task above all others. The greatest of all 
 poets (who, according to Plato, is God) uttered the planets 
 in his energy, and they went singing around him, perfect. 
 Milton (not to speak it with profaneness, after that unreach- 
 able instance) could pour forth his magnificent verses, 
 mighty and full of music, like a procession towards a temple 
 of glory. We conceive of Shakespeare, that he had a still 
 easier might, and that the noblest verses to him were no 
 
 195 
 
2 ASSAYS. 
 
 greater difficulty than talking. He dispensed them as 
 Nature does the summer showers and the thunder. Alas ! 
 to us petty men, who are not sure that we have even 
 the right of being 
 
 " Proud to be less, but of that godlike race," 
 
 to US and our inferior natures there are sometimes toils in 
 life less voluntary and more exhausting than poetry, in 
 reposing from which it is not always possible for us to 
 labour even with the minor energies necessary to throw out 
 the forms within our capacity. We cannot wrestle -to fit 
 purpose even with that pettier god within us. We cannot 
 condense those lighter vapours of inspiration into their 
 most vigorous and graceful shape, and feel a right to say to 
 the world, " Behold ! " 
 
 A poet's hand should be like the energy within the oak, 
 to make strong ; and like the wind that bends its foliage, to 
 make various. Without concentration, and without variety, 
 there is neither strength of imagination, nor beauty of 
 verse. Alas ! I could no more look to making verses with 
 an ambition of this sort, wearied as I am at present, than 
 I could think of looking through burning glasses for eyes, or 
 hewing the solid rock into a dance of the Graces. 
 
 But I have the wish to be a poet, and thoughts will arise 
 within me as painful not to express as a lover's. I therefore 
 write memorandums for verse; — thoughts that might 
 perhaps be worthy of putting into that shape, if they could 
 be properly developed ; — hints and shadows of something 
 poetical, that have the same relationship to actual poetry 
 as the little unborn spirits that perish by the waters of 
 Lethe have to the souls that visit us, and become immortal. 
 
 II. MY BOWER. 
 
 I seek not for grand emotions when I muse. My Iffe 
 has had enough of them. I seek for enjoyment and 
 repose ; and, thanks to the invincible youthfulness of my 
 heart, I find them with as much ease in my green world as 
 giant sorrows have found me in the world of strife. 
 
ON THE BORDERS OF POETRY. 3 
 
 Woods and meadows are to me an enchanted ground, 
 of which a knight-errantry of a new sort has put me in 
 possession. 
 
 In the indulgence of these effusions I lay my head as on 
 the pillow before I sleep, as on the grass in summer, as on 
 the lap that soothes us. O lovers of books and of nature, 
 lovers of one another, lovers of love, rest with me under my 
 bowers ; and the shadows of pleasant thoughts shall play 
 upon your eyelids. 
 
 III. ON A BUST OF BACCHUS. 
 
 Gigantic, earnest, luxuriant, his head a very bower of hair 
 and ivy ; his look a mixture of threat, and reassurance, and 
 the giving of pleasure ; the roughness of wine is in his eyes, 
 and the sweetness of it on his lips. Annibal Caracci would 
 have painted such a face, and grown jealous when his 
 mistress looked at it. 
 
 To those shoulders belong the hands that lifted the satyr 
 by the nape of the neck, and played with the lion's mouth 
 as with a dog's. 
 
 Cannot you see the glow in the face, even though 
 sculptured ? a noontide of the south in its strength ? with 
 dark wells in the eyes, under shining locks and sunny 
 leaves ? The geniality of his father Jove is in it, with the 
 impetuosity of wine : but it is the lord, not the servant, 
 of wine ; the urger of the bowl among the divinities, when 
 the pulses of heaven are in movement with song and dance, 
 and goddess by the side of god looks downward. 
 
 Such did he appear when Ariadne turned pale with loving 
 him ; and he said, with divine insolence in his eyes, " Am 
 I not then better than a mortal ? " 
 
 IV. THE GAINS OF A LOVE UNVULGAR. 
 
 No : — admire beauty as I may, I cannot love it unless it 
 be lovely ; unless it be kind and sincere, and have a soul in 
 it befitting the body. Some, in thinking of a face, are con- 
 tent with a sprightly substance : the true woman is lost upon 
 
4 ESS A YS. 
 
 them : animated waxwork would do as well. Of such are 
 those who flatter themselves, that they know most of the 
 sex, and who speak of it with an air of stupid cunning. 
 These men are incapable even of the voluptuousness they 
 affect. Not knowing the soul of beauty, they do not 
 properly know even the body of it. 
 
 Others include a sense of grace ; others the mind, the 
 wit, the affections, all that makes the human being a 
 charmer, and puts twenty souls instead of one into the 
 wish to thank and to delight her. When lovers of the 
 vulgar sort receive a kiss from the lips of such a woman 
 (unworthy they to receive it ! and mistaken she to believe 
 them better !) they are sensible but of one kind of beauty; 
 they kiss the lip and the substance only. The others, when 
 they receive it — grace, beauty, intelligence, the affections, 
 the rosy colour, the good-heartedness, and the truth — 
 yes, all these are to be found in the lip, and they kiss 
 them alL 
 
 V. SPRING AND SUMMER. 
 
 The golden line is drawn between winter and summer. 
 Behind, all is bleakness, and darkness, and dissolution. 
 Before, is hope, and soft airs, and the flowers, and the 
 sweet season of hay; and people will cross the fields, 
 reading, or walking with one another (lovers) ; and instead 
 of the rain that soaks death into the heart of green things, 
 will be the rain which they drink with delight ; and there 
 will be sleep on the grass at mid-day, and early rising in 
 the morning, and long moonlight evenings with quiet 
 walks ; and we shall sit with our window open, and hear 
 the rooks. 
 
 Already the rains are well-tempered. We care not for 
 the chillness, for it is vernal, the cold of a young hand 
 instead of an old one : and at noon, when the sun slips 
 from out a blue interval of sky, we feel him warm on our 
 backs. 
 
 Passing the top of the green lane, a gush of song bursts 
 
ON THE BORDERS OF POETRY. 5 
 
 out upon us from the ivy-bush that clothes the sides of the 
 old house. 
 
 See ! — birds come by fives and tens in the meadows, 
 agile, unseen before, springing away with a song. And the 
 tops of the horse-chesnut boughs look as if they glowed 
 into the air with life. 
 
 VI. RAIN AND SUNSHINE IN MAY. 
 
 Can anything, out of the pale of the affections, be more 
 lovely than the meadows between the rains of May, when 
 the sun smites them on the sudden like a painter, and they 
 laugh up at him, as if he had lighted a loving cheek ! 
 
 And did I say they were out of the pale of the affections ? 
 See how my language contradicts me : for all lovely things 
 hang together ; neither can a true note of pleasure be 
 touched, but all the chords of humanity respond to it. 
 
 I speak of a season when the returning threats of cold, 
 and the resisting warmth of summer-time, make robust 
 mirth in the air ; when the winds imitate on a sudden the 
 vehemence of winter ; and silver- white clouds are abrupt in 
 their coming down ; and shadows in the grass chase one 
 .another, panting, over the fields, like a pursuit of spirits. 
 With undulating necks they pant forward, like hounds or 
 the leopard. 
 
 See ! the cloud is after the light, gliding over the country 
 like the shadow of a god. 
 
 And now the meadows are lit up here and there with 
 sunshine, as if the soul of Titian were standing in Heaven 
 and playing his fancies upon them. Green are the trees in 
 shadow ; but the trees in the sun, how twenty-fold green 
 they are — rich and variegated with gold. Ovid's parrot 
 inhabits such foliage in the Birds' Elysium. 
 
 VII. AN EVENING LANDSCAPE. 
 
 Did anybody ever think of painting a picture in writing? 
 I mean literally so, marking the locaUties as in a map. 
 
6 ESS A YS 
 
 The other evening I sat in a landscape that would have 
 enchanted Cuyp. 
 
 Scene — a broken heath, with hills in the distance. The 
 immediate picture stood thus, the top and the bottom of it 
 being nearly on a level in the perspective : — 
 
 Trees in a sunset, at no great distance from the foreground. 
 
 A group of cattle under them, party-coloured, 
 
 principally red, standing on a small landing place ; 
 
 the Sun coming upon them through the trees. 
 
 A rising ground A rising ground 
 
 Broken ground. 
 
 with trees. with trees. 
 
 Another landing place, nearly on a level 
 
 with the cows, the spectator sitting and looking at them. 
 
 The Sun came warm and serious on the glowing red of 
 the cattle, as if recognising their evening hues ; and every- 
 thing appeared full of that quiet spirit of consciousness, 
 with which Nature seems rewarded at the close of its day 
 labours. 
 
 VIII. A SIGHT OF THE GODS. 
 
 I sat upon a green platform under pines, my legs resting 
 over the edge upon a natural step ; and a valley lay before 
 me, in a heath, oval, perfect, with hills in the distance. 
 And I said, " By the love I bear you, visions of beauty, 
 come before me, and play me magnificent shows ! " 
 
 And they came. 
 
 And I saw gods and white goddesses, of mighty stature 
 but lovely; for coarseness was not discernible in their 
 features, but all beauty. And they floated in and about, 
 
ON THE BORDERS OF POETR Y. ^ 
 
 as my thought summoned them, leclining on the air in the 
 easiness of their will. 
 
 And there was Apollo, and he slew the Python in a 
 twilight ; and Aurora and the morn broke, all gold and 
 roses ; and the Graces, and the whole place became white 
 with lilies ; and there was Paris giving the apple ; and the 
 Muses ; and Hercules and Alceste ; and Pan, Pomona, 
 Hylas, and Zephyr and Flora, and the Hesperides. Zephyr 
 took Flora into the air with a net, as the Italian poet sings; 
 and the twins of Leda passed, with their dancing lights ; 
 and Hercules led along Alceste, who in the faintness of her 
 death had been as mighty as he. 
 
 Sometimes music poured in, as from a hundred fountains ; 
 and sometimes a goddess called. Not a leaf then stirred ; 
 but the silence trembled. I heard Venus speak ; which 
 was as if there should never be sorrow more. 
 
 Xr. BEAUTY NOT EXAGGERATED BY IMAGINATION. 
 
 They say that I speak too highly of what I admire ; and 
 that half the beauties which I discern in any object I put 
 there myself. Believe them not. Nature has been before 
 us. We only read what she has written. If others cannot 
 read as much, is that the fault of the book ? No : it is 
 their own. 
 
 Look at one of the simplest and the most beautiful 
 objects in the world, a cheek ; and tell us, how came it ? 
 What a thought was the cheek itself, when Nature created 
 it 1 And do you suppose that a vulgar eye estimates it 
 enough ? Put the question to those who can do something 
 like it themselves ; to Raphael, or to the poets. 
 
 As the poet's thought is worth what it produces, so the 
 cheek of the beauty is worth what it can suggest 
 
ESSA YS. 
 
 POCKET-BOOKS AND KEEPSAKES. 
 
 If publications of this nature proceed as they have begun, 
 we sKall soon arrive at the millennium of souvenirs. Instead 
 of engravings, we shall have paintings by the first masters ; 
 our paper must be vellum ; our bindings in opal and 
 amethyst ; and nobody must read us except in a room full 
 of luxury, or a bower of roses. As to the proprietor of the 
 work, he will not condescend to be wholesale. He will 
 take up the trade of Keepsakes exclusively; and Pitt 
 diamonds are not to be sold by the lump. The purchaser 
 will bring a casket for his duodecimo, and deposit a gem. 
 
 The reader knows that splendid passage in Marlowe, 
 where the rich Jew of Malta, standing amongst his treasures, 
 and scorning his more vulgar gains, riots in contemplation 
 of the mighy concentrated wealth of his rubies and emeralds. 
 The lines tell, one by one, as if they were diamonds them- 
 selves. The fellow cuts them, as out of a quarry, with a 
 pleasure amounting to the austere; and, with the same 
 easy sternness and severity of gusto, piles them monoton- 
 ously before us, insolently magnificent. He should have 
 been a proprietor of pocket-books. 
 
 *' As for those Samnites, and the men of Uzz, 
 That bought my Spanish oils and wines of Greece, 
 Here have I pursed their paltry silverlings. 
 Fie ! what a trouble 'tis to count this trash ! 
 Give me the merchants of the Indian mines 
 That trade in metal of the purest gold ; 
 The wealthy Moor, that in the eastern rocks 
 Without control can pick his riches up. 
 And in his house keep pearls like pebble stones ; 
 Receive them free, and sell them by the weight ; 
 Bags of fiery opals, sapphires, amethysts, 
 jacinths, hard topas, grass-green emeralds. 
 Beauteous rubies, sparkling diamonds, 
 And seld-seen costly stones of so great price. 
 As one of them, indifferently rated, 
 And of a caract of this quality, 
 May serve, in peril of calamity. 
 To ransom great kings from captivity. 
 
POCKET-BOOKS AND KEEPSAKES. 9 
 
 This is the ware wherein consists my wealth ; 
 
 And thus, methinks, should men of judgment frame 
 
 Their means of trafiSc from the vulgar trade, 
 
 And as their wealth increaseth, so enclose 
 
 Infinite riches in a little room. 
 
 But now how stands the wind ? 
 
 Into what corner peers my halcyon's bill? 
 
 Ha ! to the east ? yes : see, how stand the vanes ? 
 
 East and by south : why then I hope my ships 
 
 I sent for Egj'pt, and the bordering isles, 
 
 Are gotten up by Nilus' winding banks : 
 
 Mine argosies from Alexandria, 
 
 Loaden with spice and silks, now under sail, 
 
 Are smoothly gliding down by Candy shore 
 
 To Malta through our Mediterranean sea." 
 
 'Sdeath, sir; nothing but a Pocket-book could have 
 brought him to this pass. Just so will the proprietor of 
 "The Perfection," or "The Ne Plus Ultra," or "The 
 Rapture," or "The Too Much," (or whatever else our 
 future publications may be called), stand among his shelves 
 of souvenirs, and talk of his former trade and of his present 
 
 As for those Baldwins, and the men of Long, 
 
 That bought my Walter Scotts and cookery books, 
 
 Here have I pursed their paltry sovereigns. 
 
 Fie, what a trouble 'tis to count such books ! 
 
 Give me the dealers in the souvenirs, 
 
 That trade in volumes worth their weight in gold, 
 
 Myself their chief, that with my princely funds 
 
 Without control can buy good authors up ; 
 
 And in my house heap books like jewelry ; 
 
 Printed with ink with wine in it, and bound 
 
 By fellows, as at operas, in kid gloves ; 
 
 Books bound in opal, sapphire, amethyst, 
 
 With topaz tooling, Eden green morocco. 
 
 That once was slippers to an emperor ; 
 
 And full of articles of so great price, 
 
 As one of them, indifferently written, 
 
 And not ascribed unto a man of quality, 
 
 Might ser%'e, in peril of a writ of Middlesex, 
 
 To ransom great bards from captivity. 
 
 This is the sort of publishing for me : 
 
 And thus, methinks, should noble booksellers 
 
 Discrepate matters from the vulgar trade, 
 
 And as their wealth increaseth, so enclose 
 
lo ESSAYS. 
 
 Infinite profit in a little book. 
 
 But now how stands the ledger 
 
 Into what pockets peer my Christmas bills ? 
 
 Ila ! to the duke's ! and see — how stands the clock ? 
 
 Three, and half-past : why then I hope my men 
 
 I sent to Grosvenor Place and Hyde Park corner 
 
 Are gotten up by Mr. Bootle's house ; 
 
 My gatherers-in from th' east and Albany, 
 
 Serious with drafts immense, now under button, 
 
 Are smoothly gliding down by Saville Row, 
 
 To Bond Street, through our Hanoverian ways. 
 
 We are much tempted to go on with these beatific visions 
 of bookselhng, and bring all the luxuries in Spenser and 
 Ben Jonson to bear upon them ; but we should fill our pages 
 with quotations. Besides, we should be the death of some 
 worthy Bibliomaniacs who, in addition to their love of old 
 books, are polygamious in their reading, and judiciously 
 fond of the new. There is Mr. Utterson, whom his friend, 
 the Rev. Thomas Frognall Dibdin, describes as " looking 
 with unceasing delight " at the " beauteous and instructive 
 tomes " upon his shelves ; — we should fix him in that 
 posture for ever; and as to the Rev. Thomas himself, who 
 cannot bear, as it is, a common sumptuous publication, 
 " tickled up with the enticing tooling of Charles Lewis," he 
 would fairly be lost and swallowed up in the splendours we 
 should set before him. Frognall, already saltatory, would 
 leap out of his vellum. 
 
 'i'he history of Pocket-books and their forerunners, 
 Almanacks, Calendars, Ephemerides, etc., is ancient beyond 
 all precedent : even the Welshman's genealogy, the middle 
 of which contained the creation of the world, is nothing to 
 it. See Milton's Latin poem, De Idect Flatonicd. The 
 Hydraulic calendars of the Egyptians are things of yester- 
 day ; the wooden ones of our Saxon ancestors were to-morrow 
 compared with it. We shall therefore decline tracing it 
 from all Eternity (who, according to Milton, was the first 
 person that kept a pocket-book), and content ourselves 
 with observing that the pocket-book, in the ordinary sense 
 of the word, is the same thing as the table-book or tablets 
 
FOCKET-BOOKS AND KEEPSAKES. 1 1 
 
 of old, with an almanack attached to it. Tablets {tavolcfte) 
 came to us, like almost everything else, from Italy ; and are 
 still to be purchased, made of the same materials as of old — 
 slate, ivory, etc. There is mention of a table-book so late 
 as the time of Walsh, who has written some agreeable 
 verses on one ; and of Swift, whose ridicule of the bad 
 spelling in " A Lady's Ivory Table-book " hastened, no 
 doubt, the reformation that has long taken place in that 
 matter ; a fault, by-the-way, for which, as in other cases, his 
 own sex was responsible, and not theirs : not to mention 
 that lords as well as ladies could be very heterographical in 
 those days. Swift, indeed, admits the incorrectness of 
 " beau-spelling ; " but Pope himself sometimes spelt as 
 badly as his mother. 
 
 It was about that time that books of paper were found to 
 be more convenient to the pocket than tablets, and then 
 the word was changed from Table to Pocket-book. For a 
 long period they partook of the usual unwieldiness of a first 
 invention. A pocket-book of the time of our grandmothers 
 no more resembles a pocket-book now, at least not the ones 
 in vogue, than a watch of Charles's time, with a leathern 
 case and cat-gut machinery, and as big round as a turnip, 
 resembles the bijoux that are hung at the end of neck- 
 laces. But then our grandmothers had pockets ! And 
 pockets of what size ! Too grateful are we for the apples 
 and home-made cakes which they used to draw out of them, 
 to speak of them with irreverence. At present, a grand- 
 mother must call at the pastry-cooks' as she comes along ; 
 and reticules hold little, and bundles are not the thing. 
 The muft' does something indeed for us, but that is only in 
 winter; and what is a muff to those glorious old dimity 
 paniers, which would have held a feast ! We say " us," 
 because we make a point of partaking on these occasions ; 
 and though we have no grandmother, we have long had a 
 grandmother-in-law, and law makes no difference in apples. 
 Apples-in-law are very good things. But everything was on 
 a large, warm, household scale in those days. We remem- 
 ber a series of pocket-books in a great drawer, that, in 
 
12 ESSA YS. 
 
 addition to their natural size, seemed all to have grown 
 corpulent in consequence of being fed with receipts, and 
 copies of verses, and cuttings out of newspapers. The 
 hook of the clasp had got from eyelet to eyelet, till it could 
 unbuckle no further. These books, in the printed part, 
 contained acrostics and rebuses, household recipes for 
 various purposes, and a list of public events. There was 
 love, politics, and eating. It is a pity the readers could not 
 grow as corpulent as their pocket-books, with as little harm. 
 The cosy memorials we speak of lay in a drawer full of 
 crums of lavender, like so many abbots in clover. 
 
 Pocket-books, now-a-days, are all for compression and 
 minuteness. They endeavour to contain the greatest 
 quantity of matter in the smallest compass ; to which end 
 the little nonpareil types now in use are of great service. 
 We were acquainted once with a painstaking lover of his 
 ease, who would not undergo any trouble whatever which 
 he could avoid by a shrewd exercise of a greater. He 
 would lay stratagems not to put coals on the fire ; and by a 
 series of politic manceuvres contrive to avoid snuffing a 
 candle. This person, when shown a copy of the Literary 
 Pocket-book, which happened to be larger than the usual 
 ones, looked melancholy, and asked how he was to carry it 
 about with him. At the same time he drew his own from 
 his pocket: when it was allowed, that a gentleman who 
 could carry nothing bigger than that showed his good sense 
 in refusing to bring on himself such a load of responsibility ; 
 and we all respected him accordingly. A person may now 
 have the old Pocket-book, the old Almanack, and the old 
 Tablets (in the shape of leaves of vellum) all confined in a 
 Lilliputian book no thicker than a penny's worth of ginger- 
 bread. The diffusion of literature has carried off the verses 
 and stories from pocket-books of this description, now 
 called Souvenirs, Atlases, and Pocket Remembrancers ; and 
 as the smallness of the type enables them to aftord a great 
 addition of letterpress, there have come up, by degrees, all 
 those lovely lists of lords and commons, and household 
 officers, and battle array of Army and Navy, which form the 
 
POCKET-BOOKS AND KEEPSAKES. 13 
 
 sole literature of many an aspiring youth in employment, 
 and many a lieutenant's sister on a rainy Sunday. Here 
 people read the names of dukes and marquises till they 
 fancy coronets on their own heads : there the cabinet 
 ministers and lord-gold-sticks make a noble clatter, the 
 yeoman of the mouth gaping mystery at the conclusion ; 
 and there one sees one's cousin Tom mentioned, and knows 
 in what delicious year one's uncle was promoted to a 
 lieutenant-colonelcy. Afterwards come the bankers, with 
 each his pleasing address ; and lastly, the hackney-coach 
 fares, so very useful, that everybody resolves to lug them 
 out and convict the coachman on the spot ; which he never 
 does, because he knows it will be to no purpose. 
 
 The pocket-books that now contain any literature are 
 " got up," as the phrase is, in the most unambitious style. 
 The rivalry of the day will probably mend them. Common- 
 places of a certain description will always be saleable, 
 because they flatter the self-love of a great number of 
 readers, who are pleased to find their notions re-echoed, 
 and who think they could write pretty nearly as well. 
 But emulation compels change of some sort. There is 
 room for plenty of novelty in every species of pocket-book. 
 Even lists might be increased to great advantage, and 
 turned in a new manner. In some things, it must be 
 owned, it would be difficult to improve. Those little 
 delicate engravings of landscapes and country seats, at the 
 heads of the pages in the Regent's Pocket-book, were, in 
 particular, a happy thought. The graces of vignettes, 
 however, are endless. Mr. Stothard could turn any 
 pocket-book into a nest of Cupids. Every subject might 
 have its allegory, and every allegory be crammed full of 
 beauties. Flowers, outlines, portraits, antiques, miniature 
 copies of Claude and Poussin, such as have been lately 
 poured forth at Paris — all these, and fifty other things, 
 might be put in greater requisition, and turned to account 
 for all parties. 
 
 We are now come, however, to a new and more splendid 
 species of pocket-book, in which a great deal of this is 
 
14 ESSA YS. 
 
 done. There are pocket-books in a new but very proper 
 sense — namely, books for the pocket, without implying that 
 they are to be written in. We speak, in the first place, of 
 those little editions of popular works which appear in the 
 glass-cases of the booksellers' shops every Christmas, and 
 with their varied and glittering bindings tempt the beholders 
 to make presents. Among these are works now exploded 
 in the circles of literature, such as the Tasso and Ariosto 
 of Hoole, Glover's Leonidas, etc. ; but almost any books 
 are better than none. A taste for the very commonest 
 verses, like that for the commonest tunes on a hand- 
 organ, is an addition to the humanities, and serves to 
 keep the best things alive. Other publications of this 
 kind are of the highest order, such as Pope and Milton ; 
 and there are many of the intermediate class very 
 good and fitting. A spirited bookseller, however, might 
 make a new and profitable addition to the stock. The 
 bindings are seldom very costly, but they are more so than 
 ordinary, sufficient to render the present graceful ; and they 
 are generally in good taste. On opening the book we meet, 
 as in a door-way, the elegant ideal beauties of Mr. Westall, 
 or the interesting women of the junior Corbould ; and if 
 we start sometimes to find them in company with Hervey's 
 Meditations, or the Night-Thoughts of Dr. Young, we agree, 
 upon reflection, that nothing can be more natural. Hervey 
 looks as if he presented us with a piece of involuntary 
 candour; and the doctor's nocturnal cogitations are consider- 
 ably improved. Women are very clerical. Hervey may be 
 band ; but woman is gown. 
 
 It struck somebody who was acquainted with the 
 literary annuals of Germany, and who reflected upon this 
 winter flower-bed of the booksellers — these ])ocket-books, 
 souvenirs, and Christmas presents, all in the lump — that he 
 would combine the spirit of all of them, as far as labour, 
 season, and sizability went; and omitting the barren or 
 blank part, and being entirely original, produce such a 
 pocket-book as had not been yet seen. The magician in 
 Boccaccio could not have done better. Hence arose the 
 
POCKET-BOOKS AND KEEPSAKES. 15 
 
 Forget-me-not, the Literary Souvenirs, the Amulets, and 
 the Keepsakes, which combine the original contribution of 
 the German annual with the splendid binding of the Christ- 
 mas English present. Far are those for whom this article 
 is written from undervaluing the works of their predecessors, 
 or the contest with their rivals. It is a contest of sunbeams 
 which shall produce the finest gems ; whose tree, or whose 
 parterre, shall burst out into a flush of more splendid 
 blossoms. 
 
 Nan nostrum inter vos tantas componere lites. For our 
 part we enjoy them all. We confess we are anxious in 
 behalf of one in particular; and do hope, that as every 
 single copy of all the others may be the best and wiiquest 
 that ever was seen, so every one of ours may be uniquesse- 
 ment, so that Messrs. Payne and Foss may not know what to 
 think, and Mr. Thomas Frognall Dibdin may be obliged to 
 be held do^vn, lest he should do himself a bliss-chief: mis- 
 chief it could not be from so ecstatic a cause. We fear he 
 would attempt to devour the book. 
 
 To confess a weakness, we must own to a greater 
 sympathy with the outsides of books than our mention of 
 this gentleman might imply. Respecting the insides we 
 sometimes venture to difler with him. We cannot go so far 
 as to be transported with anything that he thinks festive in 
 old monkery, or spotless in modern prudery, the immaculate 
 and very profitable Shakespeares not excepted. We cannot 
 consent to doubt with Thomas respecting the merits of Sir 
 Richard Steele, or to admit his comparative nothingness 
 with regard to Addison ; albeit we allow that the latter, 
 besides a very great man, was a sort of born clergyman, 
 and a member of the privy council. We are not in the 
 habit, with Frognall, of leaping up to kiss and embrace 
 every " enticing " edition in vellum, and every " sweetly- 
 toned, mellow-toned, yellow morocco binding," calling 
 them " precious," " comforting," " bright," beauteous," 
 "bewitching," "large and lovely," and "irresistible;" 
 epithets of which we allow the full force in their proper 
 places. But we must say, that in common with Mr. Dibdin, 
 
i6 ESSAYS. 
 
 we /lare a penchant for good and suitable, and even rich 
 and splendid bindings ; and would fain have the scorch- 
 ing sun strike upon a whole room full of them, with all 
 the colours of a flower-garden or a cathedral window. 
 We confess our hearts misgave us when we quoted the 
 passage about Mr. Utterson, for we are very much of his 
 opinion, and can gaze with delight at a splendid set of 
 shelves. Buonaparte, they say, had a room in which he 
 used to recline on a sofa, and gaze on a window painted 
 with the escutcheons of his vassal monarchs. We could lie 
 in the same manner and gaze on things much better worth 
 looking at — the souls of great men attired in gorgeous 
 dresses. We would have our library as splendid as the 
 casement in the " Eve of St. Agnes." Our Milton should 
 be as " richly dight " as anything " storied " on glass, with 
 organ-pipes clustered on the back. We would have our 
 Chaucer (not an old but an ever young and morning poet) 
 " painted with delight," like his own daisied meadows. 
 Spenser should be in a very Bower of Bliss ; and as to our 
 Arabian Nights, we would have them, if we could, bound and 
 lettered by genii, and dazzling with all the wealth "of Ormus 
 and of Ind." They should cast a light upon the carpet. 
 
 The genius of binding, we trust, will put forth all its 
 powers on thousands of Keepsakes. 
 
 " Sudate, fuochi, a preparer metalli." 
 
 Return, Charles Lewis ; the feign'd voice is past, 
 That smok'd thy tools. Return, ye new Du Sueils, 
 And call the dyers, and bid them hither cast 
 Their skins, and colours of a thousand hues. 
 Bring hither all your quaint enamelling men. 
 
 I .ct US behold once again whate'er is seen 
 
 On fable or romance of Grallier's hand, 
 
 Begirt with Elzevirs and attic nights ; 
 
 And all who now, book-bit or infidel, 
 
 Tool it in calf-skin, or in skin of russ, 
 
 In vellum, or morocco, or what's-his-name, 
 
 Or what the smugglers brought from Gallic shore, 
 
 When Beaumarchais with all his presses fell 
 
 By fond establishment. 
 
POCKET-BOOKS AND KEEPSAKES. 17 
 
 As we had nothing to do with the christening, we may be 
 allowed to express our approbation of the word Keepsake. 
 It is a good English word ; cordial, unpremeditated, con- 
 cise ; extremely to the purpose ; and, though plain, implies 
 a value. It also sets us reflecting on keepsakes in general, 
 and on the givers of them; and these are pleasant thoughts. 
 We have the pleasure of writing our words, this moment, 
 with a keepsake, on a keepsake, and of dipping our pen 
 into a keepsake. On one side of us are two others, filled 
 with leaves and flowers ; and on three sides, books multi- 
 farious, comprising many more. Thus are we a gifted 
 writer in one sense, if in no other, and we are very proud 
 of it ; because the givers were such as had a right to give, 
 and the receipts were for respect and affection's sake 
 only. 
 
 A present, it is said, should be rare, new, and suitable ; 
 neither so priceless as to be worth nothing in itself, nor yet 
 so costly as to bring an obligation on the receiver. We 
 know of no such cautious niceties between friends. The 
 giver, indeed, must have the right to bestow ; but let this 
 be the case, and a straw from such a hand shall be worth a 
 sceptre from another. A keepsake, in particular, as it 
 implies something very intimate and cordial, is above these 
 ceremonious niceties. We may see what people think of 
 the real value of keepsakes, by the humble ones which they 
 do not hesitate to bestow in wills. 
 
 Petrarch, it is true, when he bequeathed a winter garment 
 to his friend Boccaccio to study in, apologised for " leaving 
 so poor a memorial to so great a man ; " but this was only 
 to show his sense of the other's merits : he knew that the 
 very grace of the apology supplied all the riches it lamented 
 the want of, and that Boccaccio, when he sat enveloped in 
 his warm gov^Ti, would feel " wrapped up in his friend," as 
 Montaigne said of his father. Something that has been 
 about a friend's person completes the value of a keepsake. 
 Thus people bequeath their very hearts to friends, or even 
 to places they have been attached to ; and this is what gives 
 to a lock of hair a value above all other keepsakes : it is a 
 
 196 
 
1 8 ^^-^^KS*. 
 
 part of the individual's self. Franklin made no apology 
 when he left Washington his " fine crab-tree walking stick, 
 with a gold head curiously wrought in the form of the cap 
 of hberty." 
 
 A book may be thought not so good a keepsake as 
 some others, because it is not so durable. In the present 
 instance it may be also objected, that this sort of pocket- 
 book has grown too large for the pocket; and that it 
 cannot be so conveniently taken about with us as it might 
 be. But a book will last us one's life if we choose ; and as 
 to carrying it always with us, we do not always have any 
 friend at one's side. Those who love a book, and especially 
 the giver of it, will not be deterred by a size like that of the 
 present one from taking it into fields and gardens; and in 
 the house the size gives it an advantage over miniature 
 publications, having more to show for itself, and to be 
 adorned with ; not to mention that we can make presents 
 of it to our grandmothers, without insulting their venerable 
 eyesight. 
 
 But what renders a book more valuable as a keepsake 
 than almost any other is, that, like a friend, it can talk 
 with and entertain us. And here we have one thing to 
 recommend, which to all those who prize the spirit of books 
 and of regard above the letter, can give to a favourite 
 volume a charm inexpressible. It is this : that where such 
 an affectionate liberty can be taken either in right of play- 
 ing the teacher, or because the giver of the book is sure of 
 a sympathy in point of taste with the person receiving it, 
 the said giver should mark his or her favourite passages 
 throughout (as delicately as need be), and so present, as it 
 were,, the author's and the giver's minds at once. We had 
 once the pleasure of seeing a great poet occupied, for this 
 very purpose, in reading the Fairy Queen, and marking 
 every verse that pleased him. 
 
 For our parts, if friends and lovers chose to set their 
 invention to work, and try how far they could make a 
 literary keepsake the representative of all other keepsakes, 
 we are of opinion that they would realise much more than 
 
POCKET-BOOKS AND KEEPSAKES. 19 
 
 they are aware of, and find it an agreeable pastime instead 
 of a difficulty. It would be very costly, it is true ; and in 
 most cases there is as much good taste in avoiding exces- 
 sive costliness, as there is in giving princely way to it in 
 others. One precious name, or little inscription at the 
 beginning of the volume, where the hand that wrote it is 
 known to be generous in its wishes, if not in its means, is 
 worth all the binding in St. James's. But if our invention 
 were taxed in the style of the Jew of Malta, and we had his 
 rubies and diamonds to pay the cost with, we would pamper 
 one of these keepsakes into such a book, that the beholder 
 of it on a friend's table should not know whether it were 
 the book itself, or the casket that contained it. First, we 
 would have a copy printed on vellum : the cover should be 
 thick with emerald and crystal : keepsakes of all kinds 
 should glitter without and within ; hearts in ruby, and fervid 
 letters in opal : there should be illuminations, and minia- 
 tures, and crowds of sculpture and arabesque in the smallest 
 compass : a border of the exquisitest flowers on ivory 
 should run round it; and, the easiest thing of all, there 
 should be a crystal with a key to it in the midst, that when 
 the heart was full, the locks -of hair might be kissed. 
 
 How fortunate for empty hands, that one blessing upon 
 the head can beat all these riches ! and yet to imagine it is 
 in some measure to give. The finest new year's present, 
 that we ever read of, was given by Davenant to the lady of 
 his firiend and patron, Endymion Porter. See the style in 
 which he makes it, and which Marlowe himself would have 
 exulted to witness : 
 
 TO THE LADY OLIVIA PORTER. 
 
 A PRESENT UPON A NEW YEAR's DAY. 
 
 Goe ! hunt the whiter ermine ! and present 
 
 His wealthy skin, as the daye's tribute sent 
 
 To my Endymion's love ; though she be far 
 
 More gently smooth, more soft than ermines are ! 
 
 Goe ! climbe that rock ! and when thou there hast found 
 
 A star, contracted in a diamond, 
 
20 ESSA VS. 
 
 Give it Endymion's love ; whose glorious eyes 
 Darken the starry jewels of the skies ! 
 Goe ! dive into the southern sea ! and when 
 Thou 'ast found (to trouble the nice sight of men) 
 A swelling pearle, and such whose single worth 
 Boasts all the wonders which the seas bring forth, 
 Give it Endymion's love ! whose every teare 
 Would more enrich the skilfull jeweller. 
 How I command ! how slowly they obey ! 
 The churlish Tartar will not hunt to-day ; 
 Nor will that lazy, sallow Indian strive 
 To climbe the rock ; nor that dull Negro dive. 
 Thus poets, like to kings, by trust deceived. 
 Give oftener, what is heard of, than received. 
 
 After all, it is easy to combine with a literary keepsake 
 the most precious of all the keepsakes — hair. A braid of 
 it may be used instead of ribbon to mark the page with, 
 and attached to the book in the usual way of a register. 
 And so, with this return home from our altitudes, we 
 conclude. 
 
 OF THE SIGHT OF SHOPS. 
 
 Though we are such lovers of the country, we can admire 
 London in some points of view ; and among others, from 
 the entertainment to be derived from its shops. Their variety 
 and brilliancy can hardly fail of attracting the most sluggish 
 attention : and besides reasons of this kind, we can never 
 look at some of them without thinking of the gallant figure 
 they make in the Arabian Nights, with their Bazaars and 
 Bezesteins; where the most beautiful of unknowns goes 
 shopping in a veil, and the most graceful of drapers is taken 
 blindfold to see her. He goes, too smitten at heart to think 
 of the danger of his head ; and finds her seated among her 
 slaves (exquisite themselves, only very inferior), upon which 
 she encourages him to sit near her, and lutes are played; 
 upon which he sighs, and cannot help looking tenderly ; 
 upon which she claps her hands, and a charming collation 
 
OF THE SIGHT OF SHOPS. 21 
 
 is brought in ; upon which they eat, but not much. A 
 dance ensues, and the ocular sympathy is growing tenderer, 
 when an impossible old woman appears, and says that the 
 Sultan is coming. Alas ! How often have we been waked 
 up, in the person of the young draper or jeweller, by that 
 ancient objection ! How have we received the lady in the 
 veil, through which we saw nothing but her dark eyes and 
 rosy cheeks ! How have we sat cross-legged on cushions, 
 hearing or handhng the lute, whose sounds faded away like 
 our enamoured eyes! How often have we not lost our 
 hearts and left hands, like one of the Calendars ? Or an 
 eye, like another ? Or a head ; and resumed it at the end 
 of the story ? Or slept (no, not slept) in the Sultan's 
 garden at Schiraz with the fair Persian. 
 
 But to return (as well as such enamoured persons can) to 
 our shops. We prefer the country a million times over for 
 walking in generally, especially if we have the friends in it 
 that enjoy it as well ; but there are seasons when the very 
 streets may vie with it. If you have been solitary, for 
 instance, for a long time, it is pleasant to get among your 
 fellow-creatures again, even to be jostled and elbowed. If 
 you live in town, and the weather is showery, you may get 
 out in the intervals of rain, and then a quickly-dried pave- 
 ment and a set of brilliant shops are pleasant. Nay, we 
 have known days, even in spring, when a street shall outd^ 
 the finest aspects of the country ; but then it is only when 
 the ladies are abroad, and there happens to be a run of 
 agreeable faces that day. For whether it is fancy or not, or 
 whether certain days do not rather bring out certain people, 
 it is a common remark, that one morning you shall meet a 
 succession of good looks, and another encounter none but 
 the reverse. We do not merely speak of handsome faces ; 
 but of those which are charming, or otherwise, whatever be 
 the cause. We suppose, that the money-takers are all 
 abroad one day, and the heart-takers the other. 
 
 It is to be observed, that we are not speaking of utility in 
 this article, except indeed the great utility of agreeableness. 
 A candid leather-cutter therefore will pardon us, if we do 
 
22 ESSAYS. 
 
 not find anything very attractive in his premises. So will 
 his friend the shoemaker, who is bound to Uke us rural 
 pedestrians. A stationer too, on obvious accounts, will 
 excuse us for thinking his a very dull and bald-headed 
 business. We cannot bear the horribly neat monotony of 
 his shelves, with their load of virgin paper, their slates and 
 slate pencils that set one's teeth on edge, their pocket-books, 
 and above all, their detestable ruled account-books, which 
 at once remind one of the necessity of writing, and the 
 impossibility of writing anything pleasant on such pages. 
 The only agreeable thing in a stationer's shop, when it has 
 it, is the ornamental work, the card-racks, hand-screens, etc., 
 which remind us of the fair morning fingers that paste and 
 gild such things, and surprise their aunts with presents of 
 flowery boxes. But we grieve to add, that the prints which 
 the stationers furnish for such elegancies are not in the 
 very highest taste. They are apt to deviate too scrupulously 
 from the originals. Their well-known heads become too 
 anonymous. Their young ladies have casts in their eyes, a 
 little too much on one side even for the sidelong divinities 
 of Mr Harlowe. 
 
 In a hatter's shop we can see nothing but the hats ; and 
 the reader is acquainted with our pique against them. The 
 beaver is a curious animal, but the idea of it is not entertain- 
 ing enough to convert a window full of those requisite 
 nuisances into an agreeable spectacle. It is true, a hatter, 
 like some other tradesmen, may be pleasanter himself, by 
 reason of the adversity of his situation. We cannot say 
 more for the crewe/shop next door, — a name justly provo- 
 cative of a pun. It is customary, however, to have 
 sign-paintings of Adam and Eve at these places ; which is 
 some relief to the monotony of the windows; only they 
 remind us but too well of these cruel necessities to which 
 they brought us. The baker's next ensuing is a very dull 
 shop, much inferior to the ginger-bread baker's, whose 
 parliament we used to munch at school. The tailor's 
 makes one as melancholy to look at it as the sedentary 
 persons within. The hosier's is worse ; particularly if it has 
 
OF THE SIGHT OF SHOPS. 23 
 
 a Golden Leg over it ; for that precious limb is certainly 
 not symbolical of the weaver's. The windows, half board 
 and half dusty glass, which abound in the City, can scarcely 
 be turned to a purpose of amusement, even by the most 
 attic of drysalters. We own we have half a longing to 
 break them, and let in the light of nature upon their 
 recesses ; whether they belong to those more piquant 
 gentlemen, or to bankers, or any other high and wholesale 
 personages. A light in one of these windows in the morn- 
 ing is, to us, one of the very dismallest reflections on 
 humanity. We wish we could say something for a tallow- 
 chandler's, because everybody abuses it : but we cannot. 
 It must bear its fate like the man. A good deal might be 
 said in behalf of candle-light ; but in passing from shop to 
 shop the variety is so great, that the imagination has not 
 time to dwell on any one in particular. The ideas they 
 suggest must be obvious and on the surface, A grocer's 
 and tea-dealer's is a good thing. It fills the mind instantly 
 with a variety of pleasant tastes, as the ladies in Italy on 
 certain holidays pelt the gentlemen with sweetmeats. An 
 undertaker's is as great a balk to one's spirits as a loose 
 stone to one's foot It gives one a deadly jerk. But it is 
 pleasant upon the whole to see the inhabitant looking 
 carelessly out of doors, or hammering while humming a 
 tune ; for why should he die a death at every fresh order 
 for a coffin ? An undertaker walking merrily drunk by the 
 side of a hearse is a horrid object ; but an undertaker 
 singing and hammering in his shop is only rapping death 
 himself on the knuckles. The dead are not there ; the 
 altered fellow- creature is not there ; but only the living 
 man, and the abstract idea of death ; and he may defy that 
 as much as he pleases. An apothecary's is the more deadly 
 thing of the two ; for the coffin may be made for a good old 
 age, but the draught and the drug are for the sickly. An 
 apothecary's looks well, however, at night-time, on account 
 of the coloured glasses. It is curious to see two or three 
 people talking together in the light of one of them, and 
 looking profoundly blue. There are two good things in the 
 
24 ^^-S"^ vs. 
 
 Italian warehouse, — its name and its olives ; but it is chiefly 
 built up of gout. Nothing can be got out of a brazier's 
 windows, except by a thief : but we understand that it is a 
 good place to live at for those who cannot procure water- 
 falls. A music-shop, with its windows full of title-pages, is 
 provokingly insipid to look at, considering the quantity of 
 slumbering enchantment inside, which only wants waking. 
 A bookseller's is interesting, especially if the books are very 
 old or very new, and have frontispieces. But let no author 
 with or without money in his pocket, trust himself in the 
 inside, unless, like the bookseller, he has too much at home. 
 An author is like a baker ; it is for him to make the sweets, 
 and others to buy and enjoy them. And yet not so. Let 
 us not blaspheme the " divinity that stirs within us." The 
 old comparison of the bee is better; for even if his toil at 
 last is his destruction, and he is killed in order to be 
 plundered, he has had the range of nature before he dies. 
 His has been the summer air, and the sunshine, and the 
 flowers; and gentle ears have listened to him, and gentle 
 eyes have been upon him. Let others eat his honey that 
 please, so that he has had his morsel and his song. — A 
 bookstall is better for an author than a regular shop ; for 
 the books are cheaper, the choice often better and more 
 ancient ; and he may look at them, and move on without 
 the horrors of not buying anything; unless, indeed, the 
 master or mistress stands looking at him from the shop 
 door ; which is a vile practice. It is necessary, we suppose, 
 to guard against pilferers ; but then ought not a stall-keeper, 
 of any perception, to know one of us real magnanimous 
 spoilers of our gloves from a sordid thief? A tavern and 
 coffee-house is a pleasant sight, from its sociality ; not to 
 mention the illustrious club memories of the times of 
 Shakespeare and the Tatlers. We confess that the com- 
 monest public-house in town is not such an eyesore to us as 
 it is to some. There may be a little too much drinking 
 and roaring going on in the middle of the week ; but what, 
 in the meantime, are pride, and avarice, and all the unsocial 
 vices about ? Before we object to public-houses, and above 
 
OF THE SIGHT OF SHOPS. 25 
 
 all to their Saturday evening recreations, we must alter the 
 systems that make them a necessary comfort to the poor 
 and laborious. Till then, in spite of the vulgar part of the 
 polite, we shall have an esteem for the "Devil and the Bag 
 o' Nails ; " and like to hear, as we go along on Saturday 
 night, the applauding knocks on the table that follow the 
 song of '■'■Lovely Nan" or '■^ Brave Captain Death" or 
 " Tobacco is an Indian Weed,^' or " Why, Soldiers, why; " 
 or ^^ Says Plato, why should ?nan be vain;^^ or that 
 judicious and unanswerable ditty commencing 
 
 " Now what can man more desire 
 Nor sitting by a sea-coal fire : 
 And on his knees," etc. 
 
 We will even refuse to hear anything against a gin-shop, 
 till the various systems of the moralists and economists are 
 discussed, and the virtuous leave off seduction and old 
 port. In the meantime, we give up to anybody's dislike 
 the butcher's and fishmonger's. And yet see how things 
 go by comparison. We remember, in our boyhood, a lady 
 from the West Indies, of a very delicate and high-bred 
 nature, who could find nothing about our streets that more 
 excited her admiration than the butchers' shops. She had 
 no notion, from what she had seen in her own country, that 
 so ugly a business could be carried on with so much neat- 
 ness, and become actually passable. An open potato-shop 
 is a dull, bleak-looking place, except in the height of 
 summer. A cheesemonger's is then at its height of annoy- 
 ance, unless you see a paviour or bricklayer coming out 
 with his three penn'orth on his bread — a better sight than 
 the glutton's waddling away from the fishmonger's. A 
 poulterer's is a dead-bodied business, with its birds and 
 their lax necks. We dislike to see a bird anywhere but in 
 the open air, alive and quick. Of all creatures, restraint 
 and death become its winged vivacity the least. For the 
 same reason we hate aviaries. Dog-shops are tolerable. A 
 cook-shop does not mingle the agreeable with the useful. 
 We hate its panes, with. Ham and j5^^ scratched upon them 
 
26 ESSA YS. 
 
 in white letters. An ivory-turner's is pleasant, with its red 
 and white chessmen, and little big-headed Indians on 
 elephants; so is a toy-shop, with its endless delights for 
 children. A coachmaker's is not disagreeable, if you can 
 see the painting and panels. An umbrella-shop only 
 reminds one of a rainy day, unless it is a shop for sticks 
 also, which, as we have already shown, are meritorious 
 articles. The curiosity-shop is sometimes very amusing, 
 with its mandarins, stuffed birds, odd old carved faces, and 
 a variety of things as indescribable as bits of dreams. The 
 greengrocer carries his recommendation in his epithet. 
 The hairdressers are also interesting as far as their hair 
 goes, but not as their heads— we mean the heads in their 
 windows. One of the shops we like least is an angling 
 repository, with its rod for a sign, and a fish dancing in the 
 agonies of death at the end of it. We really cannot see 
 what equanimity there is in jerking a lacerated carp out of 
 water by the jaws, merely because it has not the power of 
 making a noise ; for we presume that the most philosophic 
 of anglers would hardly delight in catching shrieking fish. 
 An optician's is not very amusing, unless it has those 
 reflecting-glasses in which you see your face run off on each 
 side into attenuated width, or upwards and downwards in 
 the same manner, in dreary longitude. A saddler's is good, 
 because it reminds one of horses. A Christian sword- 
 maker's or gunmaker's is edifying. A glass-shop is a 
 beautiful spectacle ; it reminds one of the splendours of a 
 fiiiry palace. We like a blacksmith's for the sturdy looks 
 and thumpings of the men, the swarthy colour, the fiery 
 sparkles and the thunder-breathing throat of the furnace. 
 Of other houses of traffic, not common in the streets, there 
 is something striking to us in the large, well-conditioned 
 horses of the brewers, and the rich smoke rolling from out 
 their chimneys. We also greatly admire a wharf, with its 
 boats, barrels, and packages, and the fresh air from the 
 water, not to mention the smell of pitch. It carries us at 
 once a hundred miles over the water. For similar reasons, 
 the crabbedest old lane has its merits in our eyes, if there is 
 
OF THE SIGHT OF SHOPS. a; 
 
 a sailmaker's in it, or a boat-builder's, and water at the end. 
 How used old Roberts of Lambeth to gratify the aspiring 
 modesty of our school- coats, when he welcomed us down to 
 his wherries and captains on a holiday, and said, " Blue 
 against Black at any time," meaning the Westminster boys ! 
 And the colleges will ratify his praise, taking into considera- 
 tion the difference of the numbers that go there from either 
 cloisters. But of all shops in the streets a printseller's 
 pleases us the most We would rather pay a shilling to 
 Mr. Colnaghi, Mr. Molteno, or Messieurs Moon and Boys, 
 to look at their windows on one of their best-furnished 
 days, than we would for many an exhibition. We can 
 see fine engravings there, translations from Raphael and 
 Titian, which are newer than hundreds of originals. We 
 do not despise a pastry-cook's, though we would rather not 
 eat tarts and puffs before the half-averted face of the 
 prettiest of accountants, especially with a beggar watching 
 and praying all the while at the door. We need not 
 expatiate on the beauties of a florist's, where you see 
 unwithering leaves, and roses made immortal. A dress 
 warehouse is sometimes really worth stopping at, for its 
 flowered draperies and richly coloured shawls. But one's 
 pleasure is apt to be disturbed (ye powers of gallantry ! bear 
 witness to the unwilling pen that writes it) by the fair faces 
 that come forth, and the half-polite, half-execrating expression 
 of the tradesman that bows them out ; for here takes place 
 the chief enjoyment of the mystery yclept shopping ; and 
 here, while some ladies give the smallest trouble unwillingly, 
 others have an infinity of things turned over, for the mere 
 purpose of wasting their own time and the shopman's. We 
 have read of a choice of a wife by cheese. It is difficult to 
 speak of preference in such matters, and all such single 
 modes of trial must be something equivocal ; but we must 
 say, that of all modes of the kind, we should desire no 
 better way of seeing what ladies we admired most, and 
 whom least, than by witnessing this trial of them at a linen- 
 draper's counter. 
 
28 ESSA YS. 
 
 II. 
 
 In the general glance that we have taken at shops, we 
 found ourselves unwillingly compelled to pass some of them 
 too quickly. It is the object, therefore, of the present article 
 to enter into those more attractive thresholds, and look a 
 little about us. We imagine a fine day ; time, about noon j 
 scene, any good briUiant street. The ladies are abroad in 
 white and green ; the beaux lounging, conscious of their 
 waists and neckcloths ; the busy pushing onward, conscious 
 of their bills. 
 
 To begin, then, where our shopping experience began, 
 with the toy-shop — 
 
 Visions of glory, spare our aching sight ! 
 
 Ye just-breech'd ages, crowd not on our soul I 
 
 We still seem to have a lively sense of the smell of that 
 gorgeous red paint which was on the handle of our first 
 wooden sword ! The pewter guard also — how beautifully 
 fretted and like silver did it look ! How did we hang it 
 round our shoulder by the proud belt of an old ribbon ; — 
 then feel it well suspended ; then draw it out of the sheath, 
 eager to cut down four savage men for ill-using ditto of 
 damsels ! An old muif made an excellent grenadier's cap ; 
 or one's hat and feather, with the assistance of three surrep- 
 titious large pins, became fiercely modern and military. 
 There it is, in that corner of the window — the same identical 
 sword, to all appearance, which kept us awake the first 
 night behind our pillow. We still feel ourselves little boys 
 while standing in this shop ; and for that matter, so we do 
 on other occasions. A field has as much merit in our eyes, 
 and ginger-bread almost as much in our mouths, as at that 
 daisy-plucking and cake-eating period of hfe. There is the 
 trigger-rattling gun, fine of its kind, but not so complete a 
 thing as the sword. Its memories are not so ancient : for 
 Alexander or St. George did not fight with a musket. 
 Neither is it so true a thing ; it is not " like life," The 
 trigger is too much like that of a cross-bow; and the 
 
OF THE SIGHT OF SHOPS. 29 
 
 pea which it shoots, however hard, produces, even to the 
 imaginative faculties of boyhood, a humihating flash of the 
 mock-heroic. It is difiicult to fancy a dragon killed wnth a 
 pea : but the shape and appurtenances of the sword being 
 genuine, the whole sentiment of massacre is as much in its 
 wooden blade as if it were steel of Damascus. The drum 
 is still more real, though not so heroic. — In the corner 
 opposite are battledores and shuttle-cocks, which have 
 their maturer beauties ; balls, which possess the additional 
 zest of the danger of breaking people's windows ; — ropes, 
 good for swinging and skipping, especially the long ones 
 which others turn for you, while you run in a masterly 
 manner up and down, or skip in one spot with an easy and 
 endless exactitude of toe, looking alternately at their 
 conscious faces ; — blood-allies, with which the possessor of a 
 crisp finger and thumb-knuckle causes the smitten marbles 
 to vanish out of the ring ; kites, which must appear to more 
 vital birds a ghastly kind of fowl, with their grim, long, white 
 faces, no bodies, and endless tails ; — 'Cricket-bats, manly to 
 handle ; — trap-bats, a genteel inferiority ; — swimming-corks, 
 despicable ; — horses on wheels, an imposition on the infant 
 public ; — rocking-horses, too much like Pegasus, ardent yet 
 never getting on ; — Dutch toys, so like life, that they ought 
 to be better ; — Jacob's ladders, flapping down one over 
 another their tintinnabulary shutters ; — dissected maps, 
 from which the infant statesmen may learn how to dovetail 
 provinces and kingdoms ; — paper posture-makers, who hitch 
 up their knees against their shoulder-blades, and dangle 
 their legs like an opera dancer ; — Lilliputian plates, dishes, 
 and other household utensils, in which a grand dinner is 
 served up out of half an apple ; — boxes of paints, to colour 
 engravings with, always beyond the outline ; — ditto of bricks, 
 a very sensible and lasting toy, which we except from a 
 grudge we have against the gravity of infant geometricks ; — 
 whips, very useful for cutting people's eyes unawares ; — 
 hoops, one of the most ancient as well as excellent of toys ; 
 — sheets of pictures, from A apple-pie up to farming, 
 military, and zoological exhibitions, always taking care that 
 
30 ESSA YS. 
 
 the Fly is as large as the Elephant, and the letter X 
 exclusively appropriated to Xerxes ; — musical deal-boxes, 
 rather complaining than sweet, and more like a peal of 
 bodkins than bells ; — penny trumpets, awful at Bartlemy- 
 tide; — ^jews' harps, that thrill and breathe between the lips 
 like a metal tongue j — carts — carriages — hobby-horses, upon 
 which the infant equestrian prances about proudly on his 
 own feet ; — in short, not to go through the whole represen- 
 tative body of existence — dolls, which are so dear to the 
 maternal instincts of little girls. We protest, however, 
 against that abuse of them, which makes them full-dressed 
 young ladies in body, while they remain infant in facej 
 especially when they are of frail wax. It is cultivating 
 finery instead of affection. We prefer good, honest, plump 
 limbs of cotton and sawdust, dressed in baby-linen ; or 
 even our ancient young friends, with their staring dotted 
 eyes, red varnished faces, triangular noses, and Rosinante 
 wooden limbs — not, it must be confessed, excessively 
 shapely or feminine, but the reverse of fragile beauty, and 
 prepared against all disasters. 
 
 The next step is to the Pastry-cook's, where the plain bun 
 is still the pleasantest thing in our eyes, from its respect- 
 ability in those of childhood. The pastry, less patronised 
 by judicious mothers, is only so much elegant indigestion : 
 yet it is not easy to forget the pleasure of nibbling away 
 the crust all round a raspberry or currant tart, in order 
 to enjoy the three or four delicious semicircular bites at 
 the fruity plenitude remaining. There is a custard with 
 a wall of paste round it, which provokes a siege of this kind; 
 and the cheese-cake has its amenities of approach. The 
 acid flavour is a relief to the mawkishness of the biffin or 
 pressed baked apple, and an addition to the glib and 
 quivering lightness of the jelly. Twelfth Cake, which, when 
 cut, looks like the side of a rich pit of earth covered with 
 snow, is pleasant from warmer associations. Confectionery 
 does not seem in the same request as of old ; its paint has 
 hurt its reputation. Yet the school-boy has still much to 
 say for its humbler suavities. Kisses are very amiable and 
 
OF THE SIGHT OF SHOPS. 31 
 
 allegorical. Eight or ten of them, judiciously wrapped up 
 in pieces of letter-paper, have saved many a loving heart the 
 trouble of a less eloquent billet-doux. Candied citron we 
 look upon to be the very acmd and atticism of confectionery 
 grace. Preserves are too much of a good thing, with the 
 exception of the jams that retain their fruit-skins. " Jam 
 satis." They qualify the cloying. Yet marmalade must 
 not be passed over in these times, when it has been raised 
 to the dignity of the peerage. The other day there was a 
 Duke of Marmalade in Hayti, and a Count of Lemonade, — 
 so called, from places in which those eminent relish^ are 
 manufactured. After all, we must own that there is but one 
 thing for which we care much at a pastry-cook's, except our 
 old acquaintance the bun ; especially as we can take up that 
 and go on. It is an ice. Fancy a very hot day; the blinds 
 down ; the loungers unusually languid ; the pavement burn- 
 ing one's feet ; the sun, with a strong outline in the street, 
 baking one whole side of it like a brick-kiln; so that 
 everybody is crowding on the other, except a man going to 
 intercept a creditor bound for the Continent. Then think 
 of a heaped-up ice, brought upon a salver with a spoon. 
 What statesman, of any warmth of imagination, would not 
 pardon the Neapolitans in summer, for an insurrection on 
 account of the want of ice ? Tliink of the first sidelong 
 dip of the spoon in it, bringing away a well-sliced lump ; 
 then of the sweet wintry refreshment, that goes lengthening 
 down one's throat ; and lastly, of the sense of power and 
 satisfaction resulting from having had the ice. 
 
 Not heaven itself can do away that slice ; 
 
 But what has been, has been ; and I have had my ice. 
 
 There are two more excellent shops we must not omit 
 — the fruiterer's and the sculptor's. There is great beauty 
 as well as agreeableness in a well-disposed fruiterer's 
 window. Here are the round piled-up oranges, deepening 
 almost into red, and heavy with juice; the apple, with its 
 brown red cheek, as if it had slept in the sun; the pear, 
 swelling downwards ; thronging grapes, like so many tight 
 
32 ESS A YS. 
 
 little bags of wine ; the peach, whose handsome leathern 
 coat strips off so finely; the pearly or niby-like currants, 
 heaped in light long baskets ; the red little mouthful of 
 strawberries ; the larger purple ones of plums ; cherries, 
 whose old comparison with lips is better than anything new ; 
 mulberries, dark and rich with juice, fit to grow over what 
 Homer calls the deep black-watered fountains ; the swelling 
 pomp of melons ; the rough inexorable-looking cocoa-nut, 
 milky at heart ; the elaborate elegance of walnuts ; the 
 quaint cashoo-nut ; almonds, figs, raisins, tamarinds, green 
 leaves, — in short, 
 
 •'Whatever Earth, all-bearing mother, yields 
 In India East or West, or middle shore 
 In Pontus or the Punick coast, or where 
 Alcinous reigned, fruit of all kinds, in coat 
 Rough, or smooth rind, or bearded husk, or shell." 
 
 — Milton. 
 
 There is something of more refined service in waiting 
 upon a lady in a fruit-shop than in a pastry-cook's. The 
 eating of tarts, as Sir Walter Scott handsomely saith in his 
 Life of Dry den (who used to enjoy them, it seems, in com- 
 pany with " Madam Reeves "), is " no inelegant pleasure ;" 
 but there is something still more graceful and suitable in the 
 choosing of the natural fruit, with its rosy lips and red 
 cheeks. A white hand looks better on a basket of plums 
 than in the doubtful touching of syrupy and sophisticated 
 pastry. There is less of the kitchen about the fair visitor. 
 She is more Pomona-like, native, and to the purpose. We 
 help her, as we would a local deity. 
 
 " Here be grapes whose lusty blood 
 Is the learned poets good, 
 Sweeter yet did never crown 
 The head of Bacchus ; — nuts more brown 
 Than the squirrels' teeth that crack them ; 
 Deign, O fairest fair, to take them. 
 For these black-ey'd Driope 
 Hath often times commanded me, 
 With my clasped knee to climb ; 
 See how well the lusty time 
 
OF THE SIGHT OF SHOPS. 33 
 
 Hath deckt their lising cheeks in red. 
 
 Such as on your lips is spread. 
 
 Here be berries for a Queen, 
 
 Some be red, some be green ; 
 
 These are of that luscious meat, 
 
 The great God Pan himself doth eat. 
 
 All these, and what the woods can yield, 
 
 The hanging mountain or the field, 
 
 I freely offer, and ere long 
 
 Will bring you more, more sweet and strong. 
 
 Till when humbly leave I take, 
 
 Lest the great Pan do awake, 
 
 That sleeping lies in a deep glade. 
 
 Under a broad beech's shade." 
 
 — Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess. 
 
 How the poets double every delight for us, with their 
 imagination and their music ! 
 
 In the windows of some of the sculptors' shops, artificial 
 fruit may be seen. It is a better thing to put up on a mantel- 
 piece than many articles of greater fashion ; but it gives 
 an abominable sensation to one's imaginary teeth. The 
 incautious epicure who plunges his teeth into "a painted 
 snowball" in Italy can hardly receive so jarring a balk to 
 his gums as the bare apprehension of a bite at a stone 
 peach ; but the farther you go in a sculptor's shop the better. 
 Many persons are not aware that there are show-rooms in 
 these places, which are well worth getting a sight of by some 
 small purchase. For the best plaster-casts the Italian shops, 
 such as Papera's in Marylebone Street, Golden Square, and 
 Sarti's in Greek Street, are the best. Of all the shop- 
 pleasures that are " not inelegant," an hour or two passed 
 in a place of this kind is surely one of the most polite. 
 Here are the gods and heroes of old, and the more bene- 
 ficent philosophers, ancient and modern. You are looked 
 upon, as you walk among them, by the paternal majesty 
 of Jupiter, the force and decision of Minerva, the still more 
 arresting gentleness of Venus, the budding compactness of 
 Hebe, the breathing inspiration of Apollo. Here the 
 Celestial Venus, naked in heart and body, ties up her 
 locks, her drapery hanging upon her lower limbs. Here 
 
 197 
 
34 ^^^^KS". 
 
 the Belvidere Apollo, breathing forth his triumphant dis- 
 dain, follows with an earnest eye the shaft that has killed 
 the seipent. Here the Graces, linked in an affectionate 
 group, meet you in the naked sincerity of their innocence 
 and generosity, their hands " open as day," and two 
 advancing for one receding. Here Hercules, like the build- 
 ing of a man, looks down from his propping club, as if half 
 disdaining even that repose. There Mercury, with his light 
 limbs, seems just to touch the ground, ready to give a start 
 with his foot and be off again. Bacchus, with his riper 
 cheek, and his thicker hanging locks, appears to be eyeing 
 one of his nymphs. The Vatican Apollo near him leans 
 upon the stump of a tree, the hand which hangs upon it 
 holding a bit of his lyre, the other arm thrown up over his 
 head, as if he felt the air upon his body, and heard it sing- 
 ing through the strings. In a corner on another side is the 
 Crouching Venus of John of Bologna, shrinking just before 
 she steps into the bath. The Dancing Faun is not far off, 
 with his animal spirits, and the Piping Faun, sedater because 
 he possesses an art more accomplished. Among the other 
 divinities, we look up with veneration to old Homer's head, 
 resembling an earthly Jupiter. Plato beholds us with a 
 bland dignity — a beauty unimpairable by years. How 
 different from the brute impulse of Mars, the bloated self- 
 will of Nero, or the dull and literal effeminacy of some of 
 the other emperors ! There is a sort of presence in sculpture, 
 more than in any other representations of art. It is curious 
 to see how instinctively people will fall into this sentiment 
 when they come into a place with busts and statues in it, 
 however common. They hush, as if the images could hear 
 them. In our boyhood, some of our most delightful holi- 
 days were spent in the gallery of the late Mr. West, in 
 Newman Street. It runs a good way back from the street, 
 crossing a small garden, and opening into loftier rooms on 
 the other side of it. We remember how the world used to 
 seem shut out from us the moment the street-door was 
 closed, and we began stepping down those long carpeted 
 aisles of pictures, with statues in the angles where they 
 
THE FAIR REVENGE. 35 
 
 turned. We had observed everybody walk down them in 
 this way, Uke the mild possessor of the mansion, and we 
 went so likewise. We have walked down with him at night 
 to his painting-room, as he went in his white flannel gown, 
 with a lamp in his hand, which shot a lustrous twilight upon 
 the pictured walls in passing; and everything looked so 
 quiet and graceful, that we should have thought it sacrilege 
 to hear a sound beyond the light tread of his footsteps. 
 But it was the statues that impressed us still more than the 
 pictures. It seemed as if Venus and Apollo waited our 
 turning at the corners;' and there they were, always the 
 same, placid and intuitive, more human and bodily than the 
 paintings, yet too divine to be over real. It is to that house 
 with the gallery in question, and the little green plot of 
 ground, surrounded with an arcade and busts, that we owe 
 the greatest part of our love for what is Italian and belongs 
 to the fine arts. And if this is a piece of private history, 
 with which the readers have little to do, they will excuse it 
 for the sake of the greatest of all excuses, which is Love. 
 
 THE FAIR REVENGE. 
 
 Aganippus, king of Argos, dying without heirs male, 
 bequeathed his throne to his only daughter, the beautiful 
 and beloved Daphles. This female succession was dis- 
 pleasing to a nobleman who held large possessions on the 
 frontiers ; and he came for the first time towards the court, 
 not to pay his respects to the new queen, but to give her 
 battle. Doracles (for that was his name) was not much 
 known by the people. He had distinguished himself for as 
 jealous an independence as a subject could well assume; 
 and though he had been of use in repelling invasion 
 during the latter years of the king, he had never made 
 his appearance to receive his master's thanks personally. 
 A correspondence, however, was understood to have gone 
 on between him and several noblemen about the court; 
 
3 6 i:ssA vs. 
 
 and there were those who, in spite of his inattention to 
 popularity, suspected that it would go hard with the young 
 queen, when the two armies came face to face. 
 
 But neither these subtle statesmen, nor the ambitious 
 young soldier Doracles, were aware of the effects to be pro- 
 duced by a strong personal attachment. The young queen, 
 amiable as she was beautiful, had involuntarily baffled his 
 expectations from her courtiers, by exciting in the minds of 
 some a real disinterested regard, while others nourished a 
 hope of sharing her throne instead. At least they specu- 
 lated upon becoming each the favourite minister, and held 
 it a better thing to reign under that title and a charming 
 mistress, than be the servants of a master, wilful and 
 domineering. By the people she was adored ; and when 
 she came riding out of her palace on the morning of the 
 fight, with an unaccustomed spear standing up in its rest by 
 her side, her diademed hair flowing a little off into the wind, 
 her face paler than usual, but still tinted with its roses, and 
 a look in which confidence in the love of her subjects, and 
 tenderness for the wounds they were going to encounter, 
 seemed to contend for the expression, the shout which they 
 sent up would have told a stouter heart than a traitor's that 
 the royal charmer was secure. 
 
 The queen, during the conflict, remained in a tent upon 
 an eminence, to which the younger leaders vied who should 
 best spur up their smoking horses, to bring her good news 
 from time to time. The battle was short and bloody. 
 Doracles soon found that he had miscalculated his point ; 
 and all skill and resolution could not set the error to rights. 
 It was allowed, that if either courage or military talent could 
 entitle him to the throne, he would have a right to it ; but 
 the popularity of Daphles supplied her cause with all the 
 ardour which a lax state of subjection on the part of the 
 more powerful nobles might have denied it. When her 
 troops charged, or made any other voluntary movement, 
 they put all their hearts into their blows ; and when they 
 were compelled to await the enemy, they stood as inflexible 
 ^s walls of iron. It was Uke hammering upon metal 
 
THE FAIR REVENGE. 37 
 
 statuary ; or staking the fated horses upon spears riveted in 
 stone. Doracles was taken prisoner. The queen, re-issuing 
 from her tent, crowned with laurel, came riding down the 
 eminence, and remained at the foot with her generals, 
 while the prisoners were taken by. Her pale face kept as 
 royal a countenance of composed pity as she could manage 
 while the commoner rebels passed along, aching with their 
 wounded arms fastened behind, and shaking back their 
 bloody and blinding locks for want of a hand to part them. 
 But the blood mounted to her cheeks when the proud and 
 handsome Doracles, whom she now saw for the first time, 
 blushed deeply as he cast a glance at his female conqueror, 
 and then stepped haughtily along, handling his gilded chains 
 as if they were an inditferent ornament. "I have conquered 
 him," thought she; " it is a heavy blow to so proud a head; 
 and as he looks not unamiable, it might be politic, as well 
 as courteous and kind in me, to turn his submission into a 
 more willing one." Alas ! pity was helping admiration to a 
 kinder set of offices than the generous-hearted queen sus- 
 pected. The captive went to his prison a conqueror after 
 all, for Daphles loved him. 
 
 The second night, after having exhibited in her manners 
 a strange mixture of joy and seriousness, and signified to 
 her counsellors her intention of setting the prisoner free, 
 she released him with her own hands. Many a step did she 
 hesitate as she went down the stairs ; and when she came 
 to the door, she shed a full, but soft, and, as it seemed to 
 her, a wilful and refreshing flood of tears, humbling herself 
 for her approaching task. When she had entered, she 
 blushed deeply, and then turning as pale, stood for a 
 minute silent and without motion. She then said, "Thy 
 queen, Doracles, has come to show thee how kindly she 
 can treat a great and gallant subject, who did not know 
 her;" and with these words, and almost before she was 
 aware, the prisoner was released, and preparing to go. He 
 appeared surprised, but not off his guard, nor in any temper 
 to be over grateful. " Name," said he, " O queen, the con- 
 ditions on which I depart, and they will be faithfully kept." 
 
38 J!:SSAYS. 
 
 Daphles moved her lips, but they spote not. She waved 
 her head and hand with a deadly smile, as if freeing him 
 from all conditions, and he was turning to go, when she fell 
 senseless on the floor. The haughty warrior raised her 
 with more impatience than good-will. He could guess at 
 love in a woman ; but he had but a mean opinion both of 
 it and her sex ; and the deadly struggle in the heart of 
 Daphles did not help him to distinguish the romantic pas- 
 sion which had induced her to put all her past and virgin 
 notions of love into his person, from the commonest liking 
 that might flatter his soldierly vanity. 
 
 The queen, on awaking from her swoon, found herself 
 compelled, in very justice to the intensity of a true passion, 
 to explain how pity had brought it upon her. " I might 
 ask it," said she, " Doracles, in return," and here she 
 resumed something of her queen-like dignity; "but I feel 
 that my modesty will be sufficiently saved by the name of 
 your wife ; and a substantial throne, with a return that shall 
 nothing perplex or interfere with thee, I do now accordingly 
 offer thee, not as the condition of thy freedom, but as a 
 diversion of men's eyes and thoughts from what they will 
 think ill in me, if they find me rejected." And in getting 
 out that hard word, her voice faltered a little, and her eyes 
 filled with tears. 
 
 Doracles, with the best grace his lately defeated spirit 
 could assume, spoke in willing terms of accepting her otfer. 
 They left the prison, and his full pardon having been pro- 
 claimed, the courtiers, with feasts and entertainments, vied 
 who should seem best to approve their mistress's choice, for 
 so they were quick to understand it. The late captive, 
 who was really as graceful and accomplished as a proud 
 spirit would let him be, received and returned all their 
 attention in princely sort, and Daphles was beginning to 
 hope that he might turn a glad eye upon her some day, 
 when news was brought her that he had gone from court, 
 nobody knew whither. The next intelligence was too 
 certain. He had passed the frontiers, and was leaguing 
 with her enemies for another struggle. 
 
THE FAIR REVENGE. 39 
 
 From that day gladness, though not kindness, went out 
 of the face of Daphles. She wrote him a letter, without a 
 word of reproach in it, enough to bring back the remotest 
 heart that had the least spark of sympathy ; but he only 
 answered it in a spirit which showed that he regarded the 
 deepest love but as a wanton trifle. That letter touched 
 her kind wits. She had had a paper drawn up, leaving hira 
 her throne in case she should die ; but some of her ministers, 
 availing themselves of her enfeebled spirit, had summoned 
 a meeting of the nobles, at which she was to preside in the 
 dress she wore on the day of victory, the sight of which, it 
 was thought, with the arguments which they meant to use, 
 would prevail upon the assembly to urge her to a revocation 
 of the bequest. Her women dressed her whilst she was 
 almost unconscious of what they were doing, for she had 
 now begun to fade quickly, body as well as mind. They 
 put on her the white garments edged with silver waves, in 
 remembrance of the stream of Inachus, the founder of the 
 Argive monarchy ; the spear was brought out, to be stuck 
 by the side of the throne, instead of the sceptre ; and their 
 hands prepared to put the same laurel on her head which 
 bound its healthy white temples when she sat on horseback 
 and saw the prisoner go by. But at sight of its twisted and 
 withered green, she took it in her hand, and looking about 
 her in her chair with an air of momentary recollection, began 
 picking it, and letting the leaves fall upon the floor. She 
 went on thus, leaf after leaf, looking vacantly downwards, 
 and when she had stripped the circle half round, she leaned 
 her cheek against the side of her sick chair, and shutting 
 her eyes quietly, so died. 
 
 The envoys from Argos went to the court of Calydon, 
 where Doracles then was, and bringing him the diadem 
 upon a black cushion, informed him at once of the death of 
 the queen, and her nomination of him to the throne. He 
 showed little more than a ceremonious gravity at the former 
 news ; but could ill contain his joy at the latter, and set off 
 instantly to take possession. Among the other nobles who 
 feasted him, was one who, having been the companion of 
 
40 JSSSA YS. 
 
 the late king, had become like a second father to his 
 unhappy daughter. The new prince observing the melan- 
 choly which he scarcely affected to repress, and seeing him 
 look up occasionally at a picture which had a veil over it, 
 asked him what the picture was that seemed to disturb him 
 so, and why it was veiled. " If it be the portrait of the late 
 king," said Doracles, "pray think me worthy of doing 
 honour to it, for he was a noble prince. Unveil it, pray. 
 I insist upon it. What ! am I not worthy to look upon my 
 predecessors, Phorbas ? " And at these words he frowned 
 impatiently. Phorbas, with a trembling hand, but not for 
 want of courage, withdrew the black covering ; and the 
 portrait of Daphles, in all her youth and beauty, flashed 
 upon the eyes of Doracles. It was not a melancholy face. 
 It was drawn before misfortune had touched it, and sparkled 
 with a blooming beauty, in which animal spirits and good- 
 nature contended for predominance. Doracles paused and 
 seemed struck. "The possessor of that face," said he, 
 inquiringly, " could never have been so sorrowful as I have 
 heard ? " " Pardon me, sir," answered Phorbas, " I was as 
 another father to her, and knew all." " It cannot be," 
 returned the prince. The old man begged his other guests 
 to withdraw a while, and then told Doracles how many fond 
 and despairing things the queen had said of him, both before 
 her wits began to fail and after. " Her wits to fail ! " mur- 
 mured the king ; ** I have known what it is to feel almost a 
 mad impatience of the will ; but I knew not that these 
 gentle creatures, women, could so feel for such a trifle." 
 Phorbas brought out the laurel-crown, and told him how the 
 half of it became bare. The impatient blood of Doracles 
 mounted, but not in anger, to his face ; and, breaking up 
 the party, he requested that the picture might be removed 
 to his own chamber, promising to return it. 
 
 A whole year, however, did he keep it ; and as he had 
 no foreign enemies to occupy his time, nor was disposed to 
 enter into the common sports of peace, it was understood 
 that he spent the greatest part of his time, when he was not 
 in council, in the room where the picture hung. In truth, 
 
DEATHS OF LITTLE CHILDREN. 4I 
 
 the image of the once smiUng Daphles haunted him wherever 
 he went ; and to ease himself of the yearning of wishing her 
 ahve again and seeing her face, he was in the habit of being 
 with it as much as possible. His self-will turned upon him, 
 even in that gentle shape. Millions of times did he wish 
 back the loving author of his fortunes, whom he had treated 
 with so clownish an ingratitude ; and millions of times did 
 the sense of the impotence of his wish run up in red hurry 
 to his cheeks, and help to pull them into a gaunt melan- 
 choly. But this is not a repaying sorrow to dwell upon. 
 He was one day, after being in vain expected at council, 
 found lying madly on the lioor of the room, dead. He had 
 torn the 'portrait from the wall. His dagger was in his 
 heart, and his cheek lay upon that blooming and smiling 
 face, which, had it been living, would never have looked so 
 at being revenged. 
 
 DEATHS OF LITTLE CHILDREN. 
 
 A Grecian philosopher being asked why he wept for the 
 death of his son, since the sorrow was in vain, replied, 
 " I weep on that account." And his answer became his 
 wisdom. It is only for sophists to contend that we, whose 
 eyes contain the fountains of tears, need never give way to 
 them. It would be unwise not to do so on some occasions. 
 Sorrow unlocks them in her balmy moods. The first bursts 
 may be bitter and overwhelming; but the soil on which 
 they pour would be worse without them. They refresh the 
 fever of the soul — the dry misery which parches the 
 countenance into furrows, and renders us liable to our most 
 terrible "flesh-quakes." 
 
 There are sorrows, it is true, so great, that to give them 
 some of the ordinary vents is to run a hazard of being over- 
 thrown. These we must rather strengthen ourselves to 
 resist, or bow quietly and drilv down, in order to let them 
 
42 £SSA YS. 
 
 pass over us, as the traveller does the wind of the desert. 
 But where we feel that tears would relieve us, it is false 
 philosophy to deny ourselves at least that first refreshment ; 
 and it is always false consolation to tell people that because 
 they cannot help a thing, they are not to mind it. The 
 true way is, to let them grapple with the unavoidable 
 sorrow, and try to win it into gentleness by a reasonable 
 yielding. There are griefs so gentle in their very nature 
 that it would be worse than false heroism to refuse them a 
 tear. Of this kind are the deaths of infants. Particular 
 circumstances may render it more or less advisable to 
 indulge in grief for the loss of a little child ; but, in general, 
 parents should be no more advised to repress their first tears 
 on such an occasion, than to repress their smiles towards a 
 child surviving, or to indulge in any other sympathy. It is 
 an appeal to the same gentle tenderness ; and such appeals 
 are never made in vain. The end of them is an acquittal 
 from the harsher bonds of affliction — from the tying down 
 of the spirit to one melancholy idea. 
 
 It is the nature of tears of this kind, however strongly 
 they may gush forth, to run into quiet waters at last. We 
 cannot easily, for the whole course of our lives, think with 
 pain of any good and kind person whom we have lost. It 
 is the divine nature of their qualities to conquer pain and 
 death itself; to turn the memory of them into pleasure; to 
 survive with a placid aspect in our imaginations. We are 
 writing at this moment just opposite a spot which contains 
 the grave of one inexpressibly dear to us. We see from our 
 window the trees about it, and the church spire. The green 
 fields lie around. The clouds are travelling overhead, 
 alternately taking away the sunshine and restoring it. The 
 vernal winds, piping of the flowery summer-time, are 
 nevertheless calling to mind the far-distant and dangerous 
 ocean, which the heart that lies in that grave had many 
 reasons to think of. And yet the sight of this spot does not 
 give us pain. So far from it, it is the existence of that 
 grave which doubles every charm of the spot ; which links 
 the pleasures of our childliood and manhood together; 
 
DEATHS OF LITTLE CHILDREN 43 
 
 which puts a hushing tenderness in the winds, and a patient 
 joy upon the landscape ; which seems to unite heaven and 
 earth, mortaHty and immortaUty, the grass of the tomb and 
 the grass of the green field ; and gives a more maternal 
 aspect to the whole kindness of nature. It does not hinder 
 gaiety itself. Happiness was what its tenant, through all 
 her troubles, would have diffused. To diffuse happiness, 
 and to enjoy it, is not only carrying on her wishes, but 
 realising her hopes ; and gaiety, freed from its only 
 pollutions, malignity and want of sympathy, is but a child 
 playing about the knees of its mother. 
 
 The remembered innocence and endearments of a child 
 stand us instead of virtues that have died older. Children 
 have not exercised the voluntary ofhces of friendship -, they 
 have not chosen to be kind and good to us ; nor stood by 
 us, from conscious will, in the hour of adversity. But they 
 have shared their pleasures and pains with us as well as 
 they could ; the interchange of good ofhces between us has, 
 of necessity, been less mingled with the troubles of the 
 world ; the sorrow arising from their death is the only one 
 which we can associate with their memories. These are 
 happy thoughts that cannot die. Our loss may always 
 render them pensive ; but they will not always be painful. 
 It is a part of the benignity of Nature that pain does not 
 survive like pleasure, at any time, much less where the 
 cause of it is an innocent one. The smile will remain 
 reflected by memory, as the moon reflects the light upon us 
 when the sun has gone into heaven. 
 
 When writers like ourselves quarrel with earthly pain (we 
 mean writers of the same intentions, without implying, of 
 course, anything about abilities or otherwise), they are mis- 
 understood if they are supposed to quarrel with pains of 
 every sort. This would be idle and effeminate. They do 
 not pretend, indeed, that humanity might not wish, if it 
 could, to be entirely free from pain ; for it endeavours, at 
 all times, to turn pain into pleasure : or at least to set off 
 the one with the other, to make the former a zest and 
 the latter a refreshment. The most unaffected dignity of 
 
44 ESSA KX 
 
 suffering does this, and, if wise, acknowledges it. The 
 greatest benevolence towards others, the most unselfish relish 
 of their pleasures, even at its own expense, does but look 
 to increasing the general stock of happiness, though content, 
 if it could, to have its identity swallowed up in that splendid 
 contemplation. We are far from meaning that this is to be 
 called selfishness. We are far, indeed, from thinking so, 
 or of so confounding words. But neither is it to be called 
 pain when most unselfish, if disinterestedness be truly under- 
 stood. The pain that is in it softens into pleasure, as the 
 darker hue of the rainbow melts into the brighter. Yet 
 even if a harsher line is to be drawn between the pain and 
 pleasure of the most unselfish mind (and ill-health, for 
 instance, may draw it), we should not quarrel with it if it 
 contributed to the general mass of comfort, and were of a 
 nature which general kindliness could not avoid. Made as 
 we are, there are certain pains without which it would be 
 difficult to conceive certain great and overbalancing 
 pleasures. We may conceive it possible for beings to be 
 made entirely happy ; but in our composition something of 
 pain seems to be a necessary ingredient, in order that 
 the materials may tvun to as fine account as possible, though 
 our clay, in the course of ages and experience, may be 
 refined more and more. We may get rid of the worst 
 earth, though not of earth itself 
 
 Kow the liability to the loss of children — or rather what 
 renders us sensible of it, the occasional loss itself — seems to 
 be one of these necessary bitters thrown into the cup of 
 humanity. We do not mean that every one must lose one 
 of his children in order to enjoy the rest ; or that every 
 individual loss afliicts us in the same proportion. We 
 allude to the deaths of infants in general. These might be 
 as few as we could render them. But if none at all ever 
 took place, we should regard every little child as a man or 
 woman secured ; and it will easily be conceived what a 
 world of endearing cares and hopes this security would 
 endanger. The very idea of infancy would lose its con- 
 tinuity with us. Girls and bovs would be future men and 
 
WALKS HOME B Y NIGHT. 45 
 
 women, not present children. They would have attained 
 their full growth in our imaginations, and might as well 
 have been men and women at once. On the other hand, 
 those who have lost an infant, are never, as it were, without 
 an infant child. They are the only persons who, in one 
 sense, retain it always, and they furnish their neighbours 
 with the same idea. The other children grow up to man- 
 hood and womanhood, and suffer all the changes of 
 mortality. This one alone is rendered an immortal child. 
 Death has arrested it with his kindly harshness, and blessed 
 it into an eternal image of youth and innocence. 
 
 Of such as these are the pleasantest shapes that visit our 
 fancy and our hopes. They are the ever-smiling emblems 
 of joy ; the prettiest pages that wait upon imagination. 
 Lastly, *' Of these are the "kingdom of heaven." Wherever 
 there is a province of that benevolent and all-accessible 
 empire, whether on earth or elsewhere, such are the gentle 
 spirits that must inhabit it. To such simplicity, or the 
 resemblance of it, must they come. Such must be the 
 ready confidence of their hearts and creativeness of their 
 fancy. And so ignorant must they be of the " knowledge 
 of good and evil," losing their discernment of that self- 
 created trouble, by enjoying the garden before them, and 
 not being ashamed of what is kindly and innocent. 
 
 WALKS HOME BY NIGHT. 
 
 WATCHMEN. 
 
 The readers of these our lucubrations need not be informed 
 that we keep no carriage. The consequence is, that being 
 visitors of the theatre, and having some inconsiderate 
 frientls who grow pleasanter and pleasanter till one in the 
 morning, we are great walkers home by night ; and tliis has 
 
46 ESS A YS. 
 
 made us great acquaintances of watchmen, moonlight, mied- 
 light, and other accompaniments of that interesting hour. 
 Luckily we are fond of a walk by night. It does not always 
 do us good ; but that is not the fault of the hour, but our own, 
 who ought to be stouter ; and therefore we extract what 
 good we can out of our necessity, with becoming temper. 
 It is a remarkable thing in nature, and one of the good- 
 naturedest things we know of her, that the mere fact of 
 looking about us, and being conscious of what is going on, 
 is its own reward, if we do but notice it in good-humour. 
 Nature is a great painter (and art and society are among 
 her works), to whose minutest touches the mere fact of 
 becoming alive is to enrich the stock of our enjoyments. 
 
 We confess there are points liable to cavil in a walk 
 home by night in February. Old umbrellas have their weak 
 sides ; and the quantity of mud and rain may surmount the 
 picturesque. Mistaking a soft piece of mud for hard, and 
 so filling your shoe with it, especially at setting out, must be 
 acknowledged to be " aggravating." But then you ought to 
 have boots. There are sights, indeed, in the streets of 
 London, which can be rendered pleasant by no philosophy \ 
 things too grave to be talked about in our present paper ; 
 but we must premise, that our walk leads us out of town, 
 and through streets and suburbs of by no means the worst 
 description. Even there we may be grieved if we will. 
 The farther the walk into the country, the more tiresome 
 we may choose to find it ; and when we take it purely to 
 oblige others, we must allow, as in the case of a friend of 
 ours, that generosity itself on two sick legs may find limits 
 to the notion of virtue being its own reward, and reasonably 
 '* curse those comfortable people " who, by the lights in 
 their windows, are getting into their warm beds, and saying 
 to one another, " Bad thing to be out of doors to-night." 
 
 Supposing, then, that we are in a reasonable state of 
 health and comfort in other respects, we say that a walk 
 home at night has its merits, if you choose to meet with 
 them. The worst part of it is the setting out ; the closing 
 of the door upon the kind faces that part with you. But 
 
WALKS HOME B Y NIGHT. 47 
 
 their words and looks, on the other hand, may set you well 
 off. We have known a word last us all the way home, and 
 a look make a dream of it. To a lover, for instance, no walk 
 can be bad. He sees but one face in the rain and darkness ; 
 the same that he saw by the light in the warm room. This 
 ever accompanies him, looking in his eyes ; and if the most 
 pitiable and spoilt face in the world should come between 
 them, startling him with the saddest mockery of love, he 
 would treat it kindly for her sake. But this is a begging of 
 the question. A lover does not walk. He is sensible 
 neither to the pleasures nor pains of walking. He treads 
 on air ; and in the thick of all that seems inclement has 
 an avenue of light and velvet spread for him, like a sovereign 
 prince. 
 
 To resume, then, like men of this world. The advantage 
 of a late hour is, that everything is silent and the people 
 fast in their beds. This gives the whole world a tranquil 
 appearance. Inanimate objects are no calmer than passions 
 and cares now seem to be, all laid asleep. The human 
 being is motionless as the house or the tree ; sorrow is 
 suspended ; and you endeavour to think that love only is 
 awake. Let not readers of true delicacy be alarmed, for 
 we mean to touch profanely upon nothing that ought to be 
 sacred ; and as we are for thinking the best on these 
 occasions, it is of the best love we think \ love of no heart- 
 less order, and such only as ought to be awake with the 
 stars. 
 
 As to cares and curtain-lectures, and such-like abuses of 
 the tranquillity of night, we call to mind, for their sakes, all 
 the sayings of the poets and others about " balmy sleep," 
 and the soothing of hurt minds, and the weariness of sorrow, 
 which drops into forgetfulness. The great majority are 
 certainly " fast as a church " by the time we speak of; and 
 for the rest, we are among the workers who have been 
 sleepless for their advantage ; so we take out our licence to 
 forget them for the time being. The only thing that shall 
 remind us of them is the red lamp, shining afar over the 
 apothecary's door ; which, while it does so, reminds us also 
 
4S ESS A YS. 
 
 that there is help for them to be had. I see him now, the 
 pale blinker suppressing the conscious injustice of his anger 
 at being roused by the apprentice, and fumbling himself out 
 of the house, in hoarseness and great-coat, resolved to make 
 the sweetness of the Christmas bill indemnify him for the 
 bitterness of the moment. 
 
 But we shall be getting too much into the interior of the 
 houses. By this time the hackney-coaches have all left the 
 stands — a good symptom of their having got their day's 
 money. Crickets are heard, here and there, amidst the 
 embers of some kitchen. A dog follows us. Will nothing 
 make him " go along ? " We dodge him in vain ; we run ; 
 we stand and " hish ! " at him, accompanying the pro- 
 hibition with dehortatory gestures, and an imaginary picking 
 up of a stone. We turn again, and there he is vexing our 
 skirts. He even forces us into an angry doubt whether he 
 will not starve, if we do not let him go home with us. Now 
 if we could but lame him without being cruel ; or if we were 
 only an overseer, or a beadle, or a dealer in dog-skin ; or a 
 political economist, to think dogs unnecessary. Oh ! come, 
 he has turned a comer, he has gone ; we think we see him 
 trotting off at a distance, thin and muddy, and our heart 
 misgives us. But it was not our fault ; we were not 
 " hishing " at the time. His departure was lucky, for he 
 had got our enjoyments into a dilemma; our "article" 
 would not have known what to do with him. These are 
 the perplexities to which your sympathisers are liable. We 
 resume our way, independent and alone ; for we have no 
 companion this time, except our never-to-be-forgotten and 
 ethereal companion, the reader. A real arm within 
 another's puts us out of the pale of walking that is to be 
 made good. It is good already. A fellow-pedestrian is 
 company — is the party you have left ; you talk and laugh, 
 and there is no longer anything to be contended with. But 
 alone, and in bad weather, and with a long way to go, here 
 is something for the temper and spirits to grapple with and 
 turn to account ; and accordingly we are booted and 
 buttoned up, an umbrella over our heads, the rain pelting 
 
WALKS HOME B Y NIGHT. 4^ 
 
 upon it, and the lamp-light shining in the gutters ; " mud- 
 shine," as an artist of our acquaintance used to call it, with 
 a gusto of reprobation. Now, walk cannot well be worse ; 
 and yet it shall be nothing if you meet it heartily. There is 
 a pleasure in overcoming obstacles \ mere action is some- 
 thing ; imagination is more ; and the spinning of the blood, 
 and vivacity of the mental endeavour, act well upon one 
 another, and gradually put you in a state of robust con- 
 sciousness and triumph. Every time you set down your leg 
 you have a respect for it. The umbrella is held in the hand 
 like a roaring trophy. 
 
 We are now reaching the country : the fog and rain are 
 over; and we meet our old friends the watchmen, staid, 
 heavy, indifferent, more coat than man, pondering, yet not 
 pondering, old but not reverend, immensely useless. No ; 
 useless they are not ; for the inmates of the houses think 
 them otherwise, and in that imagination they do good. We 
 do not pity the watchmen as we used. Old age often cares 
 little for regular sleep. They could not be sleeping perhaps 
 if they were in their beds ; and certainly they would not be 
 earning. What sleep they get is perhaps sweeter in the 
 watch-box, — a forbidden sweet ; and they have a sense of 
 importance, and a claim on the persons in-doors, which, 
 together with the amplitude of their coating-, and the 
 possession of the box itself, make them feel themselves, not 
 without reason, to be *' somebody." They are peculiar and 
 official. Tomkins is a cobbler as well as they ; but then he 
 is no watchman. He cannot speak to " things of night ; " 
 nor bid " any man stand in the king's name." He does not 
 get fees and gratitude from the old, the infirm, and the 
 drunken; nor "let gentlemen go;" nor is he "a parish- 
 man." The churchwardens don't speak to him. If he put 
 himself ever so much in the way of " the great plumber," he 
 would not say, " How do you find yourself, Tomkins ? " — 
 " An ancient and quiet watchman." Such he was in the 
 time of Shakespeare, and such he is now. Ancient, because 
 he cannot help it ; and quiet, because he will not help it, if 
 possible ; his object being to procure quiet on all sides, his 
 
 198 
 
56 £SSA VS. 
 
 own included. For this reason he does not make too 
 much noise in crying the hour, nor is offensively par- 
 ticular in his articulation. No man shall sleep the worse 
 for him, out of a horrid sense of the word " three." 
 The sound shall be three, four, or one, as suits their mutual 
 convenience. 
 
 Yet characters are to be found even among watchmen. 
 They are not all mere coat, and lump, and indifference. 
 By-the-way, what do they think of in general ? How do they 
 vary the monotony of their ruminations from one to two, and 
 from two to three, and so on ? Are they comparing them- 
 selves with the unofficial cobbler ; thinking of what they 
 shall have for dinner to-morrow ; or what they were about 
 six years ago ; or that their lot is the hardest in the world, 
 as insipid old people are apt to think, for the pleasure of 
 grumbling ; or that it has some advantages nevertheless, 
 besides fees ; and that if they are not in bed, their wife is ? 
 
 Of characters, or rather varieties among watchmen, we 
 remember several. One was a Dandy Watchman, who used 
 to ply at the top of Oxford Street, next the park. We 
 called him the dandy, on account of his utterance. He had 
 a mincing way with it, pronouncing the a in the word " past " 
 as it is in /laf, making a little preparatory hem before he 
 spoke, and then bringing out his "past ten" in a style of 
 genteel indifference ; as if, upon the whole, he was of that 
 opinion. 
 
 Another was the Metallic Watchman, who paced the 
 same street towards Hanover Square, and had a clang in 
 his voice like a trumpet. He was a voice and nothing 
 else ; but any diiference is something in a watchman. 
 
 A third, who cried the hour in Bedford Square, was re- 
 markable in his calling for being abrupt and loud. There 
 was a fashion among his tribe just come up at that time, of 
 omitting the words " past " and " o'clock," and crying only 
 the number of the hour. I know not whether a recollection 
 I have of his performance one night is entire matter of fact, 
 or whether any subsequent fancies of what might have taken 
 place are mixed up with it; but my impression is, that as I 
 
WALKS HOME B Y NIGHT. 51 
 
 was turning the corner into the square with a friend, and 
 was in the midst of a discussion in which numbers were 
 concerned, we were suddenly startled, as if in solution of 
 it, by a brief and tremendous outcry of — One. This 
 paragraph ought to have been at the bottom of the page, 
 and the word printed abruptly round the comer. 
 
 A fourth watchman was a very singular phenomenon, a 
 Reading Watchman. He had a book, which he read by 
 the light of his lantern ; and instead of a pleasant, gave you 
 a very uncomfortable idea of him. It seemed cruel to pitch 
 amidst so many discomforts and privations one who had 
 imagination enough to wish to be relieved from them. 
 Nothing but a sluggish vacuity befits a watchman. 
 
 But the oddest of all was the Sliding Watchman. Think 
 of walking up a street in the depth of a frosty winter, with 
 long ice in the gutters, and sleet over head, and then figure 
 to yourself a sort of bale of a man in white coming sliding 
 towards you with a lantern in one hand, and an umbrella 
 over his head. It was the oddest mixture of luxury and, 
 hardship, of juvenility and old age ! But this looked 
 agreeable. Animal spirits carry everything before them ; 
 and our invincible friend seemed a watchman for Rabelais. 
 Time was run at and butted by him like a goat. The slide 
 seemed to bear him half through the night at once ; he 
 slipped from out of his box and his commonplaces at one 
 rush of a merry thought, and seemed to say, " Everything's 
 in imagination ; — here goes the whole weight of my office." 
 
 But we approach our home. How still the trees ! How 
 deliciously asleep the country ! How beautifully grim and 
 nocturnal this wooded avenue of ascent against the cold 
 white sky ! The watchmen and patrols, which the careful 
 citizens have planted in abundance within a mile of their 
 doors, salute us with their " Good mornings ; " — not so 
 welcome as we pretend ; for we ought not to be out so 
 late ; and it is one of the assumptions of these fatherly old 
 fellows to remind us of it. Some fowls, who have made a 
 strange roost in a tree, flutter as we pass them ; — another 
 pull up the hill, unyielding ; a few strides on a level; and 
 
52 J^SSA VS. 
 
 there is the light in the window, the eye of the warm soul of 
 the house — one's home. How particular, and yet how 
 universal, is that word ; and how surely does it deposit 
 every one for himself in his own nest ! 
 
 ON THE GRACES AND ANXIETIES OF 
 PIG-DRIVING. 
 
 From the perusal of this article we beg leave to warn off 
 vulgar readers of all denominations, whether of the " great 
 vulgar or the small." Warn, did we say ? We drive them 
 off; for Horace tells us that they, as well as pigs, are to be 
 so treated. Odi profamim vulgus, says he, et arceo. But do 
 thou lend thine ear, gentle shade of Goldsmith, who didst 
 make thy bear-leader denounce "everything as is low;" 
 and thou, Steele, who didst humanise upon public-houses 
 and puppet-shows ; and Fielding, thou whom the great 
 Richardson, less in that matter (and some others) than thy- 
 self, did accuse of vulgarity, because thou didst discern 
 natural gentility in a footman, and yet was not to be taken 
 in by the airs of Pamela and my Lady G. 
 
 The title is a little startling ; but " style and sentiment," 
 as a lady said, " can do anything." Remember, then, gentle 
 reader, that talents are not to be despised in the humblest 
 walks of life ; we will add, nor in the muddiest. The other 
 day we happened to be among a set of spectators who 
 could not help stopping to admire the patience and address 
 with which a pig-driver huddled and cherished onward his 
 drove of unaccommodating eleves, down a street in the 
 suburbs. He was a born genius for a manoeuvre. Had he 
 originated in a higher sphere he would have been a general, 
 or a stage-manager, or, at least, the head of a set of monks. 
 Conflicting interests were his forte ; pig-headed wills, and 
 proceedings hopeless. To see the hand with which he did 
 
ON PIG-DRIVING. 53 
 
 it ! How hovering, yet firm ; how encouraging, yet com- 
 pelling ; how indicative of the space on each side of him, 
 and yet of the hne before him ; how general, how particular, 
 how perfect ! No barber's could quiver about a head with 
 more lightness of apprehension ; no cook's pat up and pro- 
 portion the side of a pasty with a more final eye. The 
 whales, quoth old Chapman, speaking of Neptune, 
 
 "The whales exulted under him, and knew their mighty king." 
 
 The pigs did not exult, but they knew their king. Un- 
 wiUing was their subjection, but " more in sorrow than in 
 anger." They were too far gone for rage. Their case was 
 hopeless. They did not see why they should proceed, but 
 they felt themselves bound to do so ; forced, conglomerated, 
 crowded onwards, irresistibly impelled by fate and Jenkins. 
 Often would they have bolted under any other master. 
 They squeaked and grunted as in ordinary; they sidled, 
 they shuffled, they half stopped ; they turned an eye to all 
 the little outlets of escape ; but in vain. There they stuck 
 (for their very progress was a sort of sticking), charmed into 
 the centre of his sphere of action, laying their heads 
 together, but to no purpose ; looking all as if they were 
 shrugging their shoulders, and eschewing the tip-end of the 
 whip of office. Much eye had they to their left leg ; shrewd 
 backward glances ; not a little anticipative squeak and 
 sudden rush of avoidance. It was a superfluous clutter, and 
 they felt it ; but a pig finds it more difficult than any other 
 animal to accommodate himself to circumstances. Being 
 out of his pale, he is in the highest state of wonderment 
 and inaptitude. He is sluggish, obstinate, opinionate, not 
 very social ; has no desire of seeing foreign parts. Think 
 of him in a multitude, forced to travel, and wondering what 
 the devil it is that drives him I Judge by this of the talents 
 of his driver. 
 
 We beheld a man once, an inferior genius, inducting a 
 pig into the other end of Long Lane, Smithfield. He had got 
 him thus far towards the market. It was much. His air 
 announced success in nine parts out of ten, and hope for the 
 
54 £SSA VS. 
 
 remainder. It had been a happy morning's work ; he had 
 only to look for the termination of it ; and he looked (as a 
 critic of an exalted turn of mind would say) in brightness and 
 in joy. Then would he go to the public-house, and indulge 
 in porter and a pleasing security. Perhaps he would not 
 say much at first, being oppressed with the greatness of his 
 success ; but by degrees, especially if interrogated, he would 
 open, like -^neas, into all the circumstances of his journey 
 and the perils that beset him. Profound would be his set 
 out ; full of tremor his middle course ; high and skilful his 
 progress ; glorious, though with a quickened pulse, his 
 triumphant entry. Delicate had been his situation in 
 Ducking Pond Row ; masterly his turn at Bell Alley. We 
 saw him with the radiance of some such thought on his 
 countenance. He was just entering Long Lane. A gravity 
 came upon him, as he steered his touchy convoy into this 
 his last thoroughfare. A dog moved him into a little 
 agitation, darting along; but he resumed his course, not 
 without a happy trepidation, hovering as he was on the 
 borders of triumph. The pig still required care. It was 
 evidently a pig with all the peculiar turn of mind of his 
 species ; a fellow that would not move faster than he could 
 help; irritable, retrospective ; picking objections, and prone 
 to boggle ; a chap with a tendency to take every path but 
 the proper one, and with a sidelong tact for the alleys. 
 
 He bolts ! 
 
 He's off! — Evasit ! erupit ! 
 
 " Oh," exclaimed the man, dashing his hand against his 
 head, lifting his knee in an agony, and screaming with all 
 the weight of a prophecy which the spectators felt to be too 
 true — " Hill go up all rnanner of streets /^^ 
 
 Poor fellow 1 we think of him now sometimes, driving up 
 Duke Street, and not to be comforted in Barbican. 
 
AN EARTH UPON HEAVEN. 55 
 
 AN EARTH UPON HEAVEN. 
 
 Somebody, a little while ago, wrote an excellent article in 
 the New Monthly Magazine on " Persons one would wish 
 to have known." He should write another on "Persons 
 one could wish to have dined with." There is Rabelais, 
 and Horace, and the Mermaid roysters, and Charles 
 Cotton, and Andrew Marvell, and Sir Richard Steele, cum 
 muliis aliis : and for the colloquial, if not the festive part, 
 Swift, and Pope, and Dr. Johnson, and Burke,,and Home 
 Tooke. What a pity one cannot dine with them all 
 round ! People are accused of having earthly notions of 
 heaven. As it is difficult to have any other, we may be 
 pardoned for thinking that we could spend a very pretty 
 thousand years in dining and getting acquainted with all 
 the good fellows on record ; and having got used to them, 
 we think we could go very well on, and be content to wait 
 some other thousands for a higher beatitude. Oh, to wear 
 out one of the celestial lives of a triple century's duration, 
 and exquisitely to grow old, in reciprocating dinners and 
 teas with the immortals of old books ! Will Fielding 
 " leave his card " in the next world ? Will Berkeley (an 
 angel in a wig and lawn sleeves !) come to ask how 
 Utopia gets on 1 Will Shakespeare (for the greater the 
 man, the more the good-nature might be expected) know by 
 intuition that one of his readers (knocked up with bliss) in 
 dying to see him at the Angel and Turk's Head, and 
 come lounging with his hands in his doublet-pockets 
 accordingly 1 
 
 It is a pity that none of the great geniuses, to whose lot 
 it has fallen to describe a future state, has given us his own 
 notions of heaven. Their accounts are all modified by the 
 national theology ; whereas the Apostle himself has told us, 
 that we can have no conception of the blessings intended 
 for us. " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard," etc. After 
 this, Dante's shining lights are poor. Milton's heaven, 
 with the armed youth exercising themselves in military 
 
56 ESSA YS. 
 
 games, is worse. His best Paradise was on earth, and a 
 very pretty heaven he made of it. For our parts, admit- 
 ting and venerating as we do the notion of a heaven 
 surpassing all human conception, we trust that it is no 
 presumption to hope that the state mentioned by the 
 Apostle is the Jlnal heaven ; and that we may ascend and 
 gradually accustom ourselves to the intensity of it, by 
 others of a less superhuman nature. Familiar as we are 
 both with joy and sorrow, and accustomed to surprises and 
 strange sights of imagination, it is difficult to fancy even 
 the delight. of suddenly emerging into a new and boundless 
 state of existence, where everything is marvellous and 
 opposed to our experience. We could wish to take gently 
 to it ; to be loosed not entirely at once. Our song desires 
 to be " a song of degrees." Earth and its capabilities — are 
 these nothing ? And are they to come to nothing 1 Is 
 there no beautiful realisation of the fleeting type that is 
 shown us ? No body to this shadow ? No quenching to 
 this taught and continued thirst 1 No arrival at these 
 natural homes and resting-places, which are so heavenly to 
 our imaginations, even though they be built of clay, and 
 are situate in the fields of our infancy 1 We are becoming 
 graver than we intended ; but to return to our proper 
 style : — nothing shall persuade us, for the present, that 
 Paradise Mount, in any pretty village in England, has not 
 another Paradise Mount to correspond, in some less perish- 
 ing region ; that is to say, provided anybody has set his 
 heart upon it : — and that we shall not all be dining, and 
 drinking tea, and complaining of the weather (we mean, 
 for its not being perfectly blissful) three hundred years 
 hence, in some snug interlunar spot, or perhaps in the 
 moon itself, seeing that it is our next visible neighbour, 
 and shrewdly suspected of being hill and dale. 
 
 It appears to us, that for a certain term of centuries, 
 Heaven must consist of something of this kind. In a word, 
 we cannot but persuade ourselves, that to realise every- 
 thing that we have justly desired on earth, will be heaven ; 
 .*-we mean, for that period : and that afterwards, if we 
 
AN EARTH UPON HEA VEN 57 
 
 behave ourselves in a proper pre-angelical manner, we shall 
 go to another heaven, still better, where we shall realise all 
 that we desired in our first. Of this latter we can as yet 
 have no conception ; but of the former, we think some of 
 the items may be as follow : — 
 
 Imprimis, — (not because friendship comes before love in 
 point of degree, but because it precedes it, in point of time, 
 as at school we have a male companion before we are old 
 enough to have a female) — Impi'imis, then, a friend. He 
 will have the same tastes and inclinations as ourselves, 
 with just enough difference to furnish argument without 
 sharpness; and he will be generous, just, entertaining, and 
 no shirker of his nectar. In short, he will be the best 
 friend we have had upon earth. We shall talk together 
 " of afternoons ; " and when the Earth begins to rise (a 
 great big moon, looking as happy as we know its inhabitants 
 vdll be), other friends will join us, not so emphatically our 
 friend as he, but excellent fellows all ; and we shall read 
 the poets, and have some sphere-music (if we please), or 
 renew one of our old earthly evenings, picked out of a 
 dozen Christmases. 
 
 Item, a mistress. In heaven (not to speak it profanely) 
 we know, upon the best authority, that people are " neither 
 married or given in marriage ; " so that there is nothing 
 illegal in the term. (By-the-way, there can be no clergy- 
 men there, if there are no ofl3.cial duties for them. We do 
 not say there will be nobody who has been a clergyman. 
 Berkeley would refute that ; and a hundred Welsh curates. 
 But they would be no longer in orders. They would refuse 
 to call themselves more Reverend than their neighbours.) 
 Item, then, a mistress; beautiful, of course, — an angelical 
 expression, — a Peri, or Houri, or whatever shape of per- 
 fection you choose to imagine her, and yet retaining the 
 likeness of the woman you loved best on earth ; in fact, she 
 herself, but completed ; all her good qualities made perfect, 
 and all her defects taken away (with the exception of one 
 or two charming little angelical peccadilloes, which she can 
 only get rid of in a post-future state); good-tempered, 
 
58 JSSSA VS. 
 
 laughing, serious, fond of everything about her without 
 detriment to her special fondness for yourself, a great 
 roamer in Elysian fields and forests, but not alone (they go 
 in pairs there, as the jays and turtle-doves do with us) ; but, 
 above all things, true ; oh, so true, that you take her word 
 as you would a diamond, nothing being more transparent, 
 or solid, or precious. Between writing some divine poem, 
 and meeting our friends of an evening, we should walk 
 with her, or fly (for we should have wings, of course) like a 
 couple of human bees or doves, extracting delight from 
 every flower, and with delight filling every shade. 
 
 Item, books. Shakespeare and Spenser should write us 
 new ones! Think of that. We would have another 
 Decameron : and Walter Scott (for he will be there too ; — 
 we mean to beg Hume to introduce us) shall write us forty 
 more novels, all as good as the Scotch ones ; and Radical 
 as well as Tory shall love him. It is true, we speak 
 professionally, when we mention books. 
 
 We think, admitted to that equal sky, 
 The Arabian Nights must bear us company. 
 
 When Gainsborough died, he expired in a painter's 
 enthusiasm, saying, "We are all going to heaven, and 
 Vandyke is of the company." — He had a proper fore- 
 taste. Virgil had the same light, when he represented the 
 old heroes enjoying in Elysium their favourite earthly 
 pursuits ; only one cannot help thinking, with the natural 
 modesty of reformers, that the taste in this our interlunar 
 heaven will be benefited from time to time by the know- 
 ledge of new-comers. We cannot well fancy a celestial 
 ancient Briton delighting himself with painting his skin, 
 or a Chinese angel hobbling a mile up the Milky Way in 
 order to show herself to advantage. 
 
 For breakfast, we must have a tea beyond anything 
 Chinese. Slaves will certainly not make the sugar; but 
 there will be cows for the milk. One's landscapes cannot 
 do without cows. 
 
DESCRIPTIVE OF A HOT DAY. 
 
 59 
 
 For horses we shall ride a Pegasus, or Ariosto's Hip- 
 pogrifF, or Sinbad's Roc. We mean, for our parts, to ride 
 them all, having a passion for fabulous animals. Fable 
 will be no fable then. We shall have just as much of it as 
 we like ; and the Utilitarians will be astonished to find how 
 much of that sort of thing will be in request. They will 
 look very odd, by-the-bye, — those gentlemen, when they first 
 arrive ; but will soon get used to the delight, and find 
 there was more of it in their own doctrine than they 
 imagined. 
 
 The weather will be extremely fine, but not without such 
 varieties as shall hinder it from being tiresome. April will 
 dress the whole country in diamonds; and there will be 
 enough cold in winter to make a fire pleasant of an even- 
 ing. The fire will be made of sweet-smelling turf and 
 sunbeams ; but it will have a look of coal. If we choose, 
 now and then we shall even have inconveniences. 
 
 A "NOW." 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE OP A HOT DAY. 
 
 Now the rosy- (and lazy-) fingered Aurora, issuing from 
 her saffron house, calls up the moist vapours to surround 
 her, and goes veiled with them as long as she can; till 
 Phcebus, coming forth in his power, looks everything out 
 of the sky, and holds sharp, uninterrupted empire from his 
 throne of beams. Now the mower begins to make his 
 sweeping cuts more slowly, and resorts oftener to the beer. 
 Now the carter sleeps atop of his load of hay, or plods 
 with double slouch of shoulder, looking out with eyes 
 winking under his shading hat, and with a hitch upward 
 of one side of his mouth. Now the little girl at her grand- 
 mother's cottage-door watches the coaches that go by, with 
 her hand held up over her sunny forehead. Now labourers 
 look well resting in their white shirts at the doors of rural 
 
6o ESSA VS. 
 
 ale-houses. Now an elm is fine there, with a seat under it ; 
 and horses drink out of the trough, stretching their yearn- 
 ing necks with loosened collars ; and the traveller calls for 
 his glass of ale, having been without one for more than ten 
 minutes ; and his horse stands wincing at the flies, giving 
 sharp shivers of his skin, and moving to and fro his 
 ineffectual docked tail ; and now Miss Betty Wilson, the 
 host's daughter, comes streaming forth in a flowered gown 
 and ear-rings, carrying with four of her beautiful fingers 
 the foaming glass, for which, after the traveller has drank 
 it, she receives with an indifferent eye, looking another 
 way, the lawful twopence. Now grasshoppers "fry," as 
 Dryden sajis. Now cattle stand in water, and ducks are 
 envied. Now boots, and shoes, and trees by the road-side, 
 are thick with dust ; and dogs, rolling in it, after issuing 
 out of the water, into which they have been thrown to 
 fetch sticks, come scattering horror among the legs of the 
 spectators. Now a fellow who finds he has three miles 
 further to go in a pair of tight shoes is in a pretty 
 situation. Now rooms with the sun upon them become 
 intolerable ; and the apothecary's apprentice, with a bitter- 
 ness beyond aloes, thinks of the pond he used to bathe in 
 at school. Now men with powdered heads (especially if 
 thick) envy those that are unpowdered, and stop to wipe 
 them up hill, with countenances that seem to expostulate 
 with destiny. Now boys assemble round the village pump 
 with a ladle to it, and delight to make a forbidden splash 
 and get wet through the shoes. Now also they make 
 suckers of leather, and bathe all day long in rivers and 
 ponds, and make mighty fishings for " tittle-bats." Now 
 the bee, as he hums along, seems to be talking heavily of 
 the heat. Now doors and brick-walls are burning to the 
 hand ; and a walled lane, with dust and broken bottles 
 in it, near a brick-field, is a thing not to be thought of. 
 Now a green lane, on the contrary, thick-set with hedge- 
 row elms, and having the noise of a brook " rumbling in 
 pebble-stone," is one of the pleasantest things in the world. 
 Now, in town, gossips talk more than ever to one 
 
DESCRIPTIVE OF A HOT DAY. 61 
 
 another, in rooms, in door-ways, and out of window, always 
 beginning the conversation with saying that the heat is 
 overpowering. Now blinds are let down, and doors thrown 
 open, and flannel waistcoats left off, and cold meat 
 preferred to hot, and wonder expressed why tea continues 
 so refreshing, and people delight to sliver lettuces into 
 bowls, and apprentices water door-ways with tin canisters 
 that lay several atoms of ' dust. Now the water-cart, 
 jumbling along the middle of the street, and jolting the 
 showers out of its box of water, really does something. 
 Now fruiterers' shops and dairies look pleasant, and ices 
 are the only things to those who can get them. Now 
 ladies loiter in baths ; and people make presents of flowers ; 
 and wine is put into ice ; and the after-dinner lounger 
 recreates his head with applications of perfumed water out 
 of long-necked bottles. Now the lounger, who cannot 
 resist riding his new horse, feels his boots bum him. Now 
 buck-skins are not the lawn of Cos. Now jockeys, walking 
 in great-coats to lose flesh, curse inwardly. Now five fat 
 people in a stage-coach hate the sixth fat one who is com- 
 ing in, and think he has no right to be so large. Now 
 clerks in office do nothing but drink soda-water and spruce- 
 beer, and read the newspaper. Now the old-clothesman 
 drops his solitary cry more deeply into the areas on the hot 
 and forsaken side of the street ; and bakers looks vicious ; 
 and cooks are aggravated ; and the steam of a tavern- 
 kitchen catches hold of us like the breath of Tartarus. 
 Now delicate skins are beset with gnats ; and boys make 
 their sleeping companion start up, with playing a burning- 
 glass on his hand ; and blacksmiths are super-carbonated ; 
 and cobblers in their stalls almost feel a wish to be 
 transplanted ; and butter is too easy to spread ; and the 
 dragoons wonder whether the Romans liked their helmets ; 
 and old ladies, with their lappets unpinned, walk along 
 in a state of dilapidation ; and the servant maids are afraid 
 they look vulgarly hot; and the author, who has a plate 
 of strawberries brought him, finds that he has come to the 
 end of his writintr. 
 
62 ASSAYS. 
 
 A "NOW." 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE OF A COLD DAY. 
 
 " Now, all aiuid the rigours of the year." — Thomson. 
 
 A FRIEND tells us, that having written a " Now," descriptive 
 of a hot day, we ought to write another, descriptive of a 
 cold one ; and accordingly we do so. It happens that we 
 are, at this minute, in a state at once fit and unfit for the 
 task, being in the condition of the little boy at school, who, 
 when asked the Latin for " cold," said he had it " at his 
 fingers' ends ;" but this helps us to set off with a right taste 
 of our subject ; and the fire, which is clicking in our ear, 
 shall soon enable us to handle it comfortably in other 
 respects. 
 
 Now, then, to commence. — But first, the reader who is 
 good-natured enough to have a regard for these papers, 
 may choose to be told of the origin of the use of this word 
 Now, in case he is not already acquainted with it. It was 
 suggested to us by the striking convenience it affords to 
 descriptive writers, such as Thomson and others, who are 
 fond of beginning their paragraphs with it, thereby saving 
 themselves a world of trouble in bringing about a nicer 
 conjunction of the various parts of their subject. 
 
 Now when the first foul torrent of the brooks — 
 
 Now flaming up to heaven the potent sun — 
 
 Now when the cheerless empire of the sky — 
 
 But now — 
 
 When now — 
 
 Where now — 
 
 For now — etc. 
 
 We say nothing of similar words among other nations, or 
 of a certain But of the Greeks which was as useful to them 
 on all occasions as the And so of the little children's stories. 
 Our business is with our old indigenous friend. No other 
 Now can be so present, so instantaneous, so extremely Now, 
 as our own Now. The now of the Latins — Nunc, or Jam, 
 
DESCRIPTIVE OF A COLD DA Y. 63 
 
 as he sometimes calls himself — is a fellow of past ages. 
 He is no Now. And the Nun of the Greek is older. How 
 can there be a Now which was Then? a ^^ Now-then" as we 
 sometimes barbarously phrase it. " Now and then " is 
 intelligible ; but " Now-then " is an extravagance, fit only 
 for the delicious moments of a gentleman about to crack his 
 bottle, or to run away with a lady, or to open a dance, or 
 to carve a turkey and chine, or to pelt snow-balls, or to 
 commit some other piece of ultra-vivacity, such as excuses 
 a man from the nicer proprieties of language. 
 
 But to begin. 
 
 Now the moment people wake in the morning they 
 perceive the coldness with their faces, though they are 
 warm with their bodies, and exclaim " Here's a day ! " and 
 pity the poor little sweep, and the boy with the water- 
 cresses. How anybody can go to a cold ditch, and gather 
 water-cresses, seems marvellous. Perhaps we hear great 
 lumps in the street of something falling ; and, looking 
 through the window, perceive the roofs of the neighbouring 
 houses thick with snow. The breath is visible, issuing 
 from the mouth as we lie. Now we hate getting up, and 
 hate shaving, and hate the empty grate in one's bed-room ; 
 and water freezes in ewers, and you may set the towel 
 upright on its own hardness, and the window-panes are 
 frost-whitened, or it is foggy, and the sun sends a dull, 
 brazen beam into one's room ; or, if it is fine, the windows 
 outside are stuck with icicles ; or a detestable thaw, has 
 begun, and they drip ; but, at all events, it is horribly cold, 
 and delicate shavers fidget about their chambers, looking 
 distressed, and cherish their hard-hearted enemy, the razor, 
 in their bosoms, to warm him a little, and coax him into a 
 consideration of their chins. Savage is a cut, and makes 
 them think destiny really too hard. 
 
 Now breakfast is fine ; and the fire seems to laugh at us 
 as we enter the breakfast-room, and say, " Ha ! ha ! here's a 
 better room than the bed-chamber ! " and we always poke 
 it before we do anything else ; and people grow selfish 
 about seats near it ; and little boys think their elders 
 
64 ESSA YS. 
 
 tyrannical for saying, " Oh, you don't want the fire ; your 
 blood is young." And truly that is not the way of stating 
 the case, albeit young blood is warmer than old. Now the 
 butter is too hard to spread ; and the rolls and toast are at 
 their maximum ; and the former look glorious as they issue 
 smoking out of the flannel in which they come from the 
 baker's ; and people who come with single knocks at the 
 door are pitied ; and the voices of boys are loud in the 
 street, sliding or throwing snow-balls ; and the dustman's 
 bell sounds cold ; and we wonder how anybody can go about 
 selling fish, especially with that hoarse voice ; and school- 
 boys hate their slates, and blow their fingers, and detest 
 infinitely the no-fire at school ; and the parish-beadle's nose 
 is redder than ever. 
 
 Now sounds in general are dull, and smoke out of 
 chimneys looks warm and rich, and birds are pitied, hopping 
 about for crumbs, and the trees look wiry and cheerless, 
 albeit they are still beautiful to imaginative eyes, especially 
 the evergreens, and the birch with boughs like dishevelled 
 hair. Now mud in roads is stitf, and the kennel ices over, 
 and boys make illegal slides in the pathways, and ashes are 
 strewed before doors ; or you crunch the snow as you tread, 
 or kick mud-flakes before you, or are horribly muddy in 
 cities. But if it is a hard frost, all the world is but- 
 toned up and great-coated, except ostentatious elderly gentle- 
 men, and pretended beggars with naked feet ; and the 
 delicious sound of "All hot " is heard from roasted apple 
 and potato stalls, the vendor himself being cold, in spite of 
 his "hot," and stamping up and down to warm his feet; 
 and the little boys are astonished to think how he can eat 
 bread and cold meat for his dinner, instead of the smoking 
 apples. 
 
 Now skaters are on the alert ; the cutlers' shop-windows 
 abound with their swift shoes ; and as you approach the 
 scene of action (pond or canal) you hear the dull grinding 
 noise of the skates to and fro, and see tumbles, and Banbury 
 cake-men and blackguard boys playing " hockey," and ladies 
 standing shivering on the banks, admiring anybody but 
 
DESCRIPTIVE OE A CO ID DAY. 65 
 
 their brother, especially the gentleman who is cutting 
 figures of eight, who, for his part, is admiring his own 
 figure. Beginners affect to laugh at their tumbles, but are 
 terribly angry, and long to thump the by-stantlers. On 
 thawing days, idlers persist to the last in skating or sliding 
 amidst the slush and bending ice, making the Humane- 
 Society-nian ferocious. He feels as if he could give them 
 the deaths from which it is his business to save them. 
 When you have done skating you come away, feeling at 
 once warm and numb in the feet, from the tight effect of 
 the skates ; and you carry them with an ostentatious air of 
 indifference, as if you had done wonders ; whereas you 
 have fairly had three slips, and can barely achieve the 
 inside edge. 
 
 Now riders look sharp, and horses seem brittle in the 
 legs, and old gentlemen feel so ; and coachmen, cabmen, and 
 others, stand swinging their arms across at their sides to 
 warm themselves ; and blacksmiths' shops look pleasant, and 
 potato shops detestable ; the fishmongers' still more so. 
 We wonder how he can live in that plash of wet and cold 
 fish without even a window. Now clerks in offices envy 
 the one next the fire-place ; and men from behind counters 
 hardly think themselves repaid by being called out to speak 
 to a countess in her chariot ; and the wheezy and effeminate 
 pastrycook, hatless and aproned, and with his hand in his 
 breeches-pockets (as the graphic Cruikshank noticeth in his 
 almanack) stands outside his door, chilling his household 
 warmth with attending to the ice which is brought him, and 
 seeing it unloaded into his cellar like coals. Comfortable 
 look the Miss Joneses, coming this way with their muffs and 
 furs; and the baker pities the maid-servant cleaning the 
 steps, who, for her part, says she is not cold, which he finds 
 it diflicult to believe. 
 
 Now dinner rejoiceth the gatherers together, and cold 
 meat is despised, and the gout defieth the morrow, thinking 
 it but reasonable on such a day to inflame itself with 
 "t'other bottle ;" and the sofa is wheeled round to the fire 
 after dinner, and people proceed to burn their legs in their 
 
 199 
 
66 ESSA YS. 
 
 boots, and little boys their faces ; and young ladies are 
 tormented between the cold and their complexions, and 
 their fingers freeze at the pianoforte, but they must not say 
 so, because it will vex their poor, comfortable grand-aunt, 
 who is sitting with her knees in the fire, and who is so 
 anxious that they should not be spoilt. 
 
 Now the muffin-bell soundeth sweetly in the streets, 
 reminding us, not of the man, but his muffins, and of 
 twilight, and evening, and curtains, and the fireside. Now 
 play-goers get cold feet, and invalids stop up every crevice 
 in their rooms, and make themselves worse ; and the streets 
 are comparatively silent ; and the wind rises and falls in 
 meanings ; and the fire burns blue and crackles ; and an 
 easy-chair with your feet by it on a stool, the lamp or 
 candles a little behind you, and an interesting book just 
 opened where you left ofi", is a bit of heaven upon earth. 
 People in cottages crowd close into the chimney, and tell 
 stories of ghosts and murders, the blue flame afibrding 
 something like evidence of the facts. 
 
 '* The owl, with all her feathers, is a-cold," 
 
 or you think her so. The whole country feels like a 
 petrifaction of slate and stillness, cut across by the wind ; 
 and nobody in the mail-coach is warm but the horses, who 
 steam pitifully when they stop. The " oldest man " makes 
 a point of never having " seen such weather." People have 
 a painful doubt whether they have any chins or not ; ears 
 ache with the wind ; and the waggoner, setting his teeth 
 together, goes puckering up his cheeks, and thinking the 
 time will never arrive when he shall get to the Five Bells. 
 
 At night, people become sleepy with the fireside, and long 
 to go to bed, yet fear it on account of the different 
 temperature of the bed-room ; which is furthermore apt to 
 wake them up. Warming-pans and hot-water bottles are in 
 request; and naughty boys eschew their night-shirts, and 
 go to bed in their socks. 
 
 " Yes," quoth a little boy, to whom we read this passage, 
 " and make their younger brother go to bed first." 
 
ON THE REALITIES OF IMAGINATION. 67 
 
 ON THE REALITIES OF IMAGINATION. 
 
 There is not a more unthinking way of talking than to say 
 such and such pains and pleasures are only imaginary, and 
 therefore to be got rid of or undervalued accordingly. 
 There is nothing imaginary in the common acceptation of 
 the word. The logic of Moses in the Yicar of Wakefield 
 is good argument here : — " Whatever is, is." Whatever 
 touches us, whatever moves us, does touch and does move 
 us. We recognise the reality of it, as we do that of a hand 
 in the dark. We might as well say that a sight which 
 makes us laugh, or a blow which brings tears into our eyes, 
 is imaginary, as that anything else is imaginary which 
 makes us laugh or weep. We can only judge of things by 
 their effects. Our perception constantly deceives us, in 
 things with which we suppose ourselves perfectly con- 
 versant ; but our reception of their effect is a different 
 matter. Whether we are materialists or immaterialists, 
 whether things be about us or within us, whether we think 
 the sun is a substance, or only the image of a divine 
 thought, an idea, a thing imaginary, we are equally agreed 
 as to the notion of its warmth. But on the other hand, as 
 this warmth is felt differently by different temperaments, so 
 what we call imaginary things affect different minds. What 
 we have to do is not to deny their effect, because we do not 
 feel in the same proportion, or whether we even feel it at 
 all ; but to see whether our neighbours may not be moved. 
 If they are, there is, to all intents and purposes, a moving 
 cause. But we do not see it ? No ; — neither perhaps do 
 they. They only feel it; they are only sentient, — a word 
 which implies the sight given to the imagination by the 
 feelings. But what do you mean, we may ask in return, by 
 seeing] Some rays of light come in contact with the eye; 
 they bring a sensation to it ; in a word, they touch it ; and 
 the impression left by this touch we call sight. How far 
 does this differ in effect from the impression left by any 
 other touch, however mysterious 1 An ox knocked down by 
 
68 ESSA VS 
 
 a butcher, and a man knocked down by a fit of apoplexy, 
 equally feel themselves compelled'to drop. The tickling of 
 a straw and of a comedy equally move the muscles about 
 the mouth. The look of a beloved eye will so thrill the 
 frame, that old philosophers have had recourse to a doctrine 
 of beams and radiant particles flying from one sight to 
 another. In fine, what is contact itself, and whydoes.it 
 affect us 1 There is no one cause more mysterious than 
 another, if we look into it. 
 
 Nor does the question concern us like moral causes. We 
 may be content to know the earth by its fruits ; but how to 
 increase and improve them is a more attractive study. If, 
 instead of saying that the causes which moved in us this or 
 that pain or pleasure were imaginary, people were to say 
 that the causes themselves were removable, they would be 
 nearer the truth. When a stone trips us up, we do not fall 
 to disputing its existence : we put it out of the way. In 
 like manner, when we suflfer from what is called an imagin- 
 ary pain, our business is not to canvass the reality of it. 
 Whether there is any cause or not in that or any other 
 perception, or whether everything consist not in what is 
 called effect, it is sufficient for us that the effect is real. 
 Our sole business is to remove those second causes, which 
 always accompany the original idea. As in deliriums, for 
 instance, it would be idle to go about persuading the patient 
 that he did not behold the figures he says he does. He 
 might reasonably ask us, if he could, how we know anything 
 about the matter ; or how we can be sure that in the 
 infinite wonders of the universe certain realities may not 
 become apparent to certain eyes, whether diseased or not. 
 Our business would be to put him into that state of health 
 in which human beings are not diverted from their offices 
 and comforts by a liability to such imaginations. The best 
 reply to his question would be, that such a morbidity is 
 clearly no more a fit state for a human being than a dis- 
 arranged or incomplete state of works is for a watch ; and 
 that seeing the general tendency of nature to this complete- 
 ness or state of comfort, we naturally conclude that the 
 
ON THE REALITIES OF IMAGINATION. 69 
 
 imaginations in question, whether substantial or not, are 
 at least not of the same lasting or prevailing description. 
 
 We do not profess metaphysics. We are indeed so little 
 conversant with the masters of that art, that we are never 
 sure whether we are using even its proper terms. All that we 
 may know on the subject comes to us from some reflection 
 and some experience ; and this all may be so little as to 
 make a metaphysician smile ; which, if he be a true one, he 
 will do good-naturedly. The pretender will take occasion, 
 from our very confession, to say that we know nothing. 
 Our faculty, such as it is, is rather instinctive than reason- 
 ing ; rather physical than metaphysical ; rather sentient 
 because it loves much, than because it knows much ; rather 
 calculated by a certain retention of boyhood, and by its 
 wanderings in the green places of thought, to light upon a 
 piece of the old golden world, than to tire ourselves, and 
 conclude it unattainable, by too wide and scientific a search. 
 We pretend to see farther than none but the worldly and 
 the malignant. And yet those who see farther may not see 
 so well. We do not blind our eyes with looking upon the 
 sun in the heavens. We believe it to be there, but we find 
 its light upon earth also ; and we would lead humanity, if we 
 could, out of misery and coldness into the shine of it. Pain 
 might still be there \ must be so, as long as we are mortal j 
 
 " For oft we still most weep, since we are hnman : " 
 
 but it should be pain for the sake of others, which is noble ; 
 not unnecessary pain inflicted by or upon them, which it is 
 absurd not to remove. The very pains of mankind struggle 
 towards pleasures ; and such pains as are proper for them 
 have this inevitable accompaniment of true humanity, — 
 that they cannot but realise a certain gentleness of enjoy- 
 ment. Thus the true bearer of pain would come round to 
 us; and he would not grudge us a share of his burden, 
 though in taking from his trouble it might diminish his 
 pride. Pride is but a bad pleasure at the expense of others. 
 The great object of humanity is to enrich everybody. If it 
 is a task destined not to succeed, it is a good one from its 
 
70 ESSA YS. 
 
 very nature ; and fulfils at least a glad destiny of its own. 
 To look upon it austerely is in reality the reverse of 
 austerity. It is only such an impatience of the want of 
 pleasure as leads us to grudge it in others ; and this 
 impatience itself, if the sufferer knew how to use it, is but 
 another impulse, in the general yearning, towards an equal 
 wealth of enjoyment. 
 
 But we shall be getting into other discussions. — The 
 ground-work of all happiness is health. Take care of this 
 ground ; and the doleful imaginations that come to warn us 
 against its abuse will avoid it. Take care of this ground, 
 and let as many glad imaginations throng to it as possible. 
 Read the magical works of the poets, and they will come. 
 If you doubt their existence, ask yourself whether you feel 
 pleasure at the idea of them ; whether you are moved into 
 delicious smiles, or tears as delicious. If you are, the result 
 is the same to you, whether they exist or not. It is not 
 mere words to say that he who goes through a rich man's 
 park, and sees things in it which never bless the mental 
 eyesight of the possessor, is richer than he. He is richer. 
 More results of pleasure come home to him. The ground is 
 actually more fertile to him : the place haunted with finer 
 shapes. He has more servants to come at his call, and 
 administer to him with full hands. Knowledge^ sympathy, 
 imagination, are all divining-rods, with which he discovers 
 treasure. Let a painter go through the grounds, and he 
 will see not only the general colours of green and brown, 
 but their combinations and contrasts, and the modes in 
 which they might again be combined and contrasted. He 
 will also put figures in the landscape if there are none there, 
 flocks and herds, or a solitary spectator, or Venus lying 
 with her white body among the violets and primroses. Let 
 a musician go through, and he will hear " differences 
 discreet " in the notes of the birds and the lapsing of the 
 water-fall. He will fancy a serenade of wind instruments 
 in the open air at a lady's window, with a voice rising 
 through it ; or the horn of the hunter ; or the musical cry 
 of the hounds, 
 
ON THE REALITIES OF IMAGINATION. 71 
 
 " Matched in mouth like bells, 
 Each under each ; " 
 
 or a solitary voice in a bower, singing for an expected 
 lover ; or the chapel organ, waking up like the fountain of 
 the winds. Let a poet go through the grounds and he will 
 heighten and increase all these sounds and images. He will 
 bring the colours from heaven, and put an unearthly mean- 
 ing into the voice. He will have stories of the sylvan 
 inhabitants ; will shift the population through infinite 
 varieties ; will put a sentiment upon every sight and sound ; 
 will be human, romantic, supernatural ; will make all nature 
 send tribute into that spot. 
 
 We may say of the love of nature what Shakespeare says 
 of another love, that it 
 
 " Adds a precious seeing to the eye," 
 
 And we may say also, upon the like principle, that it adds a 
 precious hearing to the ear. This and imagination, which 
 ever follows upon it, are the two purifiers of our sense, 
 which rescue us from the deafening babble of common cares, 
 and enable us to hear all the affectionate voices of earth and 
 heaven. The starry orbs, lapsing about in their smooth and 
 sparkling dance, sing to us. The brooks talk to us of 
 solitude. The birds are the animal spirits of nature, 
 carolling in the air, like a careless lass. 
 
 " The gentle gales, 
 Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense 
 Native perfumes ; and whisper whence they stole 
 Those balmy spoils." — Paradise Lost, book iv. 
 
 The poets are called creators, because with their magical 
 words they bring forth to our eyesight the abundant images 
 and beauties of creation. They put them there, if the 
 reader pleases ; and so are literally creators. But whether 
 put there or discovered, whether created or invented (for 
 invention means nothing but finding out), there they are. 
 If they touch us, they exist to as much purpose as anything 
 else which touches us. If a passage in King Lear brings the 
 
7« ESSA YS. 
 
 tears into our eyes, it is real as the touch of a sorrowful 
 hand. If the flow of a song of Anacreon's intoxicates us, it 
 is as true to a pulse within us as the wine he drank. We 
 hear not their sounds with ears, nor see their sights with 
 eyes ; but we hear and see both so truly, that we are moved 
 with pleasure ; and the advantage, nay even the test, of 
 seeing and hearing, at any time, is not in the seeing and 
 hearing, but in the ideas we realise, and the pleasure we 
 derive. Intellectual objects, therefore, inasmuch as they 
 come home to us, are as true a part of the stock of nature 
 as visible ones ; and they are infinitely more abundant. 
 Between the tree of a country clown and the tree of a 
 Milton or Spenser, what a difference in point of productive- 
 ness ! Between the plodding of a sexton through a 
 church-yard and the walk of a Gray, what a difference ! 
 What a difference between the Bermudas of a ship-builder 
 and the Bermoothes of Shakespeare ! the isle 
 
 " Full of noises, 
 Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not ; " 
 
 the isle of elves and fairies, that chased the tide to and fro 
 on the sea-shore ; of coral-bones and the knell of sea-nymphs; 
 of spirits dancing on the sands, and singing amidst the 
 hushes of the wind ; of Caliban, whose brute nature 
 enchantment had made poetical; of Ariel, who lay in 
 cowslip bells, and rode upon the bat ; of Miranda, who wept 
 when she saw Ferdinand work so hard, and begged him to 
 let her help ; telling him, 
 
 " I am your wife, if you will marry me ; 
 If not, I'll die your maid. To be your fellow 
 You may deny me ; but I'll be your servant, 
 Whether you will or no." 
 
 Such are the discoveries which the poets make for us ; 
 worlds to which that of Columbus was but a handful of 
 brute matter. America began to be richer for us the other 
 day, when Humboldt came back and told us of its luxuriant 
 and gigantic vegetation ; of the myriads of shooting lights, 
 
ON THE REALITIES OF IMAGINATION. 73 
 
 which revel at evening in the southern sky ; and of that 
 grand constellation, at which Dante seems to have made so 
 remarkable a guess {Purgatorio, cant, i., v. 22). The 
 natural warmth of the Mexican and Peruvian genius, set 
 free from despotism, will soon do all the rest for it ; awaken 
 the sleeping riches of its eyesight, and call forth the glad 
 music of its affections. 
 
 Imagination enriches everything. A great library contains 
 not only books, but 
 
 " The assembled souls of all that men held wise." 
 
 — Dayenant. 
 
 The moon is Homer's and Shakespeare's moon, as well as 
 the one we look at. The sun comes out of his chambei" in 
 the east, with a sparkling eye, " rejoicing like a bridegroom." 
 The commonest thing becomes like Aaron's rod, that budded. 
 Pope called up the spirits of the Cabala to wait upon a lock 
 of hair, and justly gave it the honours of a constellation j 
 for he has hung it, sparkling for ever in the eyes of posterity. 
 A common meadow is a sorry thing to a ditcher or a 
 coxcomb ; but by the help of its dues from imagination and 
 the love of nature, the grass brightens for us, the air soothes 
 us, we feel as we did in the daisied hours of childhood. Its 
 verdures, its sheep, its hedge-row elms, — all these, and all 
 else which sight, and sound, and associations can give it, are 
 made to furnish a treasure of pleasant thoughts. Even 
 brick and mortar are vivified, as of old, at the harp of 
 Orpheus, A metropolis becomes no longer a mere collection 
 of houses or of trades. It puts on all the grandeur of its 
 history, and its literature ; its towers, and rivers ; its art, 
 and jewellery, and foreign wealth ; its multitude of human 
 beings all intent upon excitement, wise or yet to learn ; the 
 huge and sullen dignity of its canopy of smoke by day ; the 
 wide gleam upwards of its lighted lustre at night-time ; and 
 the noise of its many chariots, heard at the same hour, 
 when the wind sets gently towards some quiet suburb. 
 
74 ^SSA YS. 
 
 SPRING AND DAISIES. 
 
 Spring, while we are writing, is complete. The winds 
 have done their work. The shaken aii*, well tempered and 
 equalised, has subsided ; the genial rains, however thickly 
 they may come, do not saturate the ground beyond the 
 power of the sun to dry it up again. There are clear 
 crystal mornings ; noons of blue sky and white cloud ; 
 nights, in which the growing moon seems to lie looking at 
 the stars, like a young shepherdess at her flock. A few 
 days ago she lay gazing in this manner at the solitary 
 evening star, like Diana, on the slope of a valley, looking 
 up at Endymion. His young eye seemed to sparkle out 
 upon the world ; while she, bending inwards, her hands 
 behind her head, watched him with an enamoured 
 dumbness. 
 
 But this is the quiet of Spring. Its voices and swift 
 movements have come back also. The swallow shoots by 
 us, like an embodied ardour of the season. The glowing 
 bee has his will of the honied flowers, grappling with them 
 as they tremble. We have not yet heard the nightingale 
 or the cuckoo ; but we can hear them with our imagination, 
 and enjoy them through the content of those who have. 
 
 Then the young green. This is the most apt and perfect 
 mark of the season — the true issuing forth of the Spring. 
 The trees and bushes are putting forth their crisp fans ; 
 the lilac is loaded with bud ; the meadows are thick with 
 the bright young grass, running into sweeps of white and 
 gold with the daisies and butter-cups. The orchards 
 announce their riches, in a shower of silver blossoms. The 
 earth in fertile woods is spread with yellow and blue 
 carpets of primroses, violets, and hyacinths, over which the 
 birch-trees, like stooping nymphs, hang with their thicken- 
 ing hair. Lilies-of-the-valley, stocks, columbines, lady- 
 smocks, and the intensely red piony which seems to 
 anticipate the full glow of summer-time, all come out to 
 
SFJiING AND DAISIES. 75 
 
 ■wait upon the season, like fairies from their subterraneons 
 palaces. 
 
 Who is to wonder that the idea of love mingles itself 
 with that of this cheerful and kind time of the year, setting 
 aside even common associations ? It is not only its youth, 
 and beauty, and budding life, and "the passion of the 
 groves," that exclaim with the poet, 
 
 " Let those love now, who never loved before ; 
 And those who always loved, now love the more." 
 
 All our kindly impulses are apt to have more sentiment in 
 them than the world suspect ; and it is by fetching out 
 this sentiment, and making it the ruling association, that 
 we exalt the impulse into generosity and refinement, instead 
 of degrading it, as is too much the case, into what is selfish, 
 and coarse, and pollutes all our systems. One of the 
 greatest inspirers of love is gratitude — not merely on its 
 common grounds, but gratitude for pleasures, whether 
 consciously or unconsciously conferred. Thus we are 
 thankful for the delight given us by a kind and sincere 
 face ; and if we fall in love with it, one great reason is, 
 that we long to return what we have received. The same 
 feeling has a considerable influence in the love that has 
 been felt for men of talents, whose persons or address have 
 not been much calculated to inspire it. In spring-time, joy 
 awakens the heart : with joy awakes gratitude and nature ; 
 and in our gratitude we return, on its own principle of 
 participation, the love that has been shown us. 
 
 This association of ideas renders solitude in spring, and 
 solitude in winter, two very different things. In the latter, 
 we are better content to bear the feelings of the season by 
 ourselves : in the former, they are so sweet as well as so 
 overflowing, that we long to share them. Shakespeare, in 
 one of his sonnets, describes himself as so identifying the 
 beauties of the Spring with the thought of his absent 
 mistress, that he says he forgot them in their own character, 
 and played with them only as with her shadow. See how 
 exquisitely he turns a commonplace into this fancy ; and 
 
76 ESSA VS. 
 
 what a noblo, brief portrait of April he gives us at the 
 beginning. There is indeed a wonderful mixture of softness 
 and strength in almost every one of the lines. 
 
 " From you have I been absent in the spring, 
 When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, 
 Hath put a spirit of youth in everything ; 
 That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him. 
 Yet not the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell 
 Of different flowers in odour and in hue, 
 Could make me any summer's story tell. 
 Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew : 
 Nor did I wonder at the lilies white. 
 Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose : 
 They were but sweet, but patterns of delight, 
 Drawn after yoiT, you pattern of all those. 
 Yet seemed it winter still ; and, you away. 
 As with your shadow, I with these did play." 
 
 Shakespeare was fond of alluding to April. He did not 
 allow May to have all his regard, because she was richer, 
 Perdita, crowned with flowers, in the Winters T'ale, is 
 beautifully compared to 
 
 "Flora, 
 Peering in April's front." 
 
 There is a line in one of his sonnets, which, agreeably to 
 the image he had in his mind, seems to strike up in one's 
 face, hot and odorous, like perfume in a censer. 
 
 " In process of the seasons have I seen 
 Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned." 
 
 His allusions to Spring are numerous in proportion. We 
 all know the song containing that fine line, fresh from the 
 most brilliant of pallets : — 
 
 ' ' When daisies pied, and violets blue, 
 And lady-smocks all silver white. 
 And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue, 
 Do paint the meadows with delight." 
 
 We owe a long debt of gratitude to the daisy ; and we 
 take this opportunity of discharging a millionth part of it. 
 
SPRING AND DAISIES. 77 
 
 If we undertook to pay it all, we should have had to write 
 such a book as is never very likely to be written — a journal 
 of numberless happy hours in childhood, kept with the 
 feelings of an infant and the pen of a man. For it would 
 take, we suspect, a depth of delight and a subtlety of words 
 to express even the vague joy of infancy, such as our 
 learned departures from natural wisdom would find it more 
 difficult to put together, than criticism and comfort, or an 
 old palate and a young relish. — But knowledge is the 
 widening and the brightening road that must conduct us 
 back to the joys from which it led us ; and which it is 
 destined perhaps to secure and extend. We must not 
 quarrel with its asperities, when we can help. 
 
 We do not know the Greek name of the daisy, nor do 
 the dictionaries inform us ; and we are not at present in the 
 way of consulting books that might. We always like to 
 see what the Greeks say to these things, because they had 
 a sentiment in their enjoyments. The Latins called the 
 daisy Bellis or Bellus, as much as to say Nice One. With 
 the French and Italians it has the same name as a Pearl 
 — Marguerite, Margarita, or, by way of endearment, 
 Margheretina. The same word was the name of a woman, 
 and occasioned infinite intermixtures of compliment about 
 pearls, daisies, and fair mistresses. Chaucer, in his beauti- 
 ful poem of the Flower and the Leaf, which is evidently 
 imitated from some French poetess, says, 
 
 " And at the laste there began anon 
 A lady for to sing right womanly 
 A bargaiet in praising the daisie, 
 For as me thought among her notes sweet, 
 She said "Si douset est la Margarete." 
 
 " The Margaret is so sweet." Our Margaret, however, in 
 this allegorical poem, is undervalued in comparison with 
 the laurel ; yet Chaucer perhaps was partly induced to 
 translate it on account of its making the figure that it 
 does; for he has informed us more than once, in a very 
 particular manner, that it was his favourite flower, ile 
 
78 ESSA YS. 
 
 says that he finds it ever new, and that he shall love it till 
 his " heart dies ; " and afterwards, with a natural picture 
 of his resting on the grass, 
 
 " Adown full softMey I gan to sink, 
 And leaning on my elbow and my side, 
 The long day I shops me for to abide 
 For nothing else, and I shall not lie, 
 But for to look upon the daisie ; 
 That well by reason men it call may 
 The daisie, or else the eye of day." 
 
 This etymology, which we have no doubt is the real one, is 
 repeated by Ben Jonson, who takes occasion to spell the 
 word " days-eyes ; " adding, with his usual tendency to 
 overdo a roatter of learning, 
 
 " Days-eyes, aud the lippes of cows ; 
 
 videlicet, cowslips : which is a disentanglement of com- 
 pounds, in the style of our pleasant parodists : 
 
 " Puddings of the plum, 
 
 And fingers of the lady." 
 
 Mr. Wordsworth introduces his homage to the daisy with a 
 passage from George Wither ; which, as it is an old 
 favourite of ours, and extremely applicable both to this 
 article and our whole work, we cannot deny ourselves the 
 pleasure of repeating. It is the more interesting, inasmuch 
 as it was written in prison, where the freedom of the 
 author's opinions had thrown him. He is speaking of his 
 Muse, or Imagination. 
 
 " Her divine skill taught me this ; 
 That from everything I saw 
 I could some instruction draw, 
 And raise pleasure to the height 
 From the meanest object's sight. 
 By the murmur of a spring, 
 Or the least bough's rustelling ; 
 By a daisy, whose leaves spread 
 Shut, when Titan goes to bed ; 
 
SFjRING and daisies. 79 
 
 Or a shady bush or tree ; 
 She could more infuse in me, 
 Than all Nature's beauties can 
 In some other wiser man." 
 
 Mr. Wordswortli undertakes to patronise the Celandine^ 
 because nobody else will notice it ; which is a good reason. 
 But though he tells us, in a startling piece of information, 
 that 
 
 " Poets, vain men in their mood, 
 Travel with the multitude," 
 
 yet he falls in with his old brethren of England and 
 Korniandy, and becomes loyal to the daisy. 
 
 Mr. Wordsworth calls the daisy " an unassuming 
 commonplace of Nature," which it is ; and he praises it 
 very becomingly for discharging its duties so cheerfully, in 
 that universal character. But we cannot agree with him 
 in thinking that it has a "homely face." Not that we 
 should care if it had ; for homeliness does not make 
 ugliness ; but we appeal to everybody, whether it is proper 
 to say this of la belle Marguerite. In the first place, its 
 shape is very pretty and slender, but not too much so. 
 Then it has a boss of gold, set round and irradiated with 
 silver points. Its yellow and fair white are in so high a 
 taste of contrast, that Spenser has chosen the same colours 
 for a picture of Leda reposing : 
 
 " Oh wondrous skill and sweet wit of the man I 
 That her in daffodillies sleeping laid, 
 From scorching heat her dainty limbs to shade." 
 
 It is for the same reason that the daisy, being chiefly 
 white, makes such a beautiful show in company with the 
 buttercup. But this is not all ; for look at the back, and 
 you find its fair petals blushing with a most delightful red. 
 And how compactly and delicately is the neck set in green ! 
 Belle et douce Marguerite, aimahle soiur du roi Kingcup, we 
 would tilt for thee with a hundred pens, against the stoutest 
 poet that did not find perfection in thy cheek. 
 
8o ESSA YS, 
 
 But here somebody may remind us of the spring showers, 
 and wliat drawbacks they are upon going into the fields. — 
 Not at all so, when the spring is really confirmed, and the 
 showers but April-like and at intervals. Let us turn our 
 imaginations to the bx-ight side of spring, and we shall 
 forget the showers. You see they have been forgotten just 
 this moment. Besides, we are not likely to stray too far 
 into the fields ; and if we should, are there not hats, 
 bonnets, barns, cottages, elm-trees, and good wills? We 
 may make these things zests, if we please, instead of 
 drawbacks. 
 
 • CHAUCER. 
 
 Chaucer (with Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton) is one 
 of the Four Great English Poets ; and it is with double 
 justice that he is called the Father of English Poetry, for, 
 as Dante did with Italian, he helped to form its very lan- 
 guage. Nay, it burst into luxuriance in his hands, like a 
 sudden month of May. Instead of giving you the idea of 
 an " old " poet, in the sense which the word vulgarly 
 acquires, there is no one, upon acquaintance, who seems so 
 young, consistently with maturity of mind. His poetry 
 rises in the land like a clear morning, in which you see 
 everything with a rare and crystal distinctness, from the 
 mountain to the minutest flower, — towns, solitudes, human 
 beings, — open doors, showing you the interior of cottages 
 and of palaces, — fancies in the clouds, fairy-rings in the 
 grass ; and in the midst of all sits the mild poet, alone, his 
 eyes on the ground, yet with his heart full of everything 
 round him, beating, perhaps, with the bosoms of a whole 
 city, whose multitudes are sharing his thoughts with the 
 daisy. His nature is the greatest poet's nature, omitting 
 nothing in its sympathy (in which respect he is nearer to 
 Shakespeare than either of their two illustrious brethren) ; 
 
CHAUCER. 8 1 
 
 and he combines an epic power of grand, comprehensive, 
 and primitive imagery, with that of being contented with 
 the smallest matter of fact near him, and of luxuriating in 
 pure, vague, animal spirits, like a dozer in a field. His 
 gaiety is equal to his gravity, and his sincerity to both. 
 You could as little think of doubting his word as the point 
 of the pen that wrote it. It cuts as clear and sharp into 
 you as the pen on the paper. His belief in the good and 
 beautiful is childlike ; as Shakespeare's is that of everlast- 
 ing and manly youth. Spenser's and Milton's are more 
 scholarly and formal. Chaucer excels in pathos, in humour, 
 in satire, character, and description. His graphic faculty 
 and healthy sense of the material strongly ally him to the 
 painter ; and perhaps a better idea could not be given of 
 his universality than by saying, that he was at once the 
 Italian and the Flemish painter of his time, and exhibited 
 the pure expression of Raphael, the devotional intensity of 
 Domenechino, the colour and corporeal fire of Titian, the 
 manners of Hogarth, and the homely domesticities of 
 Ostade and Teniers ! His faults are, coarseness, which was 
 that of his age, — and in some of his poems, tediousness, 
 which is to be attributed to the same cause, — a book being 
 a book in those days, written by few, and when it was 
 written, tempting the author to cram into it everything 
 that he had learned, in default of there being any encyclo- 
 paedias. That tediousness was no innate fault of the poet's 
 is strikingly manifest, not only from the nature of his 
 genius, but from the fact of his throwing it aside as he 
 grew older and more confident, and spoke in his own per- 
 son. The " Canterbury Tales," his last and greatest work, 
 is almost entirely free from it, except where he gives us a 
 long prose discourse, after the fashion of the day ; and in 
 no respect is his " Palamon and Arcite " more remarkable 
 than in the exquisite judgment with which he has omitted 
 everything superfluous in his prolix original, *' The Teseide," 
 — the work of the great and poetical-natured, but not great 
 poet, Boccaccio ; — (for Boccaccio's heart and nature were 
 poems ; but he could not develop them well in verse). 
 
 200 
 
82 • ESS A YS. 
 
 THE OLD GENTLEMAN. 
 
 Our Old Gentleman, in order to be exclusively himself, 
 must be either a widower or a bachelor. Suppose the 
 former. We do not mention his precise age, which would 
 be invidious : — nor whether he wears his own hair or a wig, 
 which would be wanting in universality. If a wig, it is a 
 compromise between the more modern scratch and the 
 departed glory of the toupee. If his own hair, it is white, 
 in spite of his favourite grandson, who used to get on the 
 chair behind him, and pull the silver hairs out, ten years 
 ago. If he is bald at top, the hair-dresser, hovering and 
 breathing about him like a second youth, takes care to give 
 the bald place as much powder as the covered, in order that 
 he may convey to the sensorium within a pleasing indis- 
 tinctness of idea respecting the exact limits of skin and 
 hair. He is very clean and neat ; and in warm weather is 
 proud of opening his waistcoat half-way down, and letting 
 so much of his frill be seen, in order to show his hardiness 
 as well as taste. His watch and shirt-buttons are of the 
 best ; and he does not care if he has two rings on a finger. 
 If his watch ever failed him at the club or coffee-house, he 
 would take a walk every day to the nearest clock of good 
 character, purely to keep it right. He has a cane at home, 
 but seldom uses it, on finding it out of fashion with his 
 elderly juniors, He has a small cocked hat for gala days, 
 which he lifts higher from his head than the round one 
 when bowed to. In his pockets are two handkerchiefs (one 
 for the neck at night-time), his spectacles, and his pocket- 
 book. The pocket-book, among other things, contains a 
 receipt for a cough, and some verses cut out of an odd sheet 
 of an old magazine, on the lovely Duchess of A., beginning — 
 
 " When beauteous Mira walks the plain." 
 
 He intends this for a commonplace book which he keeps, 
 consisting of passages in verse and prose, cut out of news- 
 papers and magazines, and pasted in columns, some of them 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN. 83 
 
 rather gay. His principal other books are Shakespeare's 
 Plays and Milton's Paradise Lost ; the Spectator, the 
 History of England, the Works of Lady W. M. Montague, 
 Pope and Churchill ; Middleton's Geography ; the Gentle- 
 man's Magazine ; Sir John Sinclair on Longevity ; several 
 plays with portraits in character ; Account of Elizabeth 
 Canning, Memoirs of George Ann Bellamy, Poetical Amuse- 
 ments at Bath-Easton, Blair's Works, Elegant Extracts ; 
 Junius as originally published ; a few pamphlets on the 
 American War and Lord George Gordon, etc., and one on 
 the French Revolution. In his sitting-rooms are some 
 engravings from Hogarth and Sir Joshua ; an engraved 
 portrait of the Marquis of Granby ; ditto of M. le Comte 
 de Grasse surrendering to Admiral Rodney ; a humorous 
 piece after Penny ; and a portrait of himself, painted by Sir 
 Joshua. His wife's portrait is in his chamber, looking upon 
 his bed. She is a little girl, stepping forward with a smile, 
 and a pointed toe, as if going to dance. He lost her when 
 she was sixty. 
 
 The Old Gentleman is an early riser, because he intends 
 to live at least twenty years longer. He continues to take 
 tea for breakfast, in spite of what is said against its 
 nervous effects, having been satisfied on that point some 
 years ago by Dr. Johnson's criticism on Hanway, and a 
 great liking for tea previously. His china cups and saucers 
 have been broken since his wife's death, all but one, which 
 is religiously kept for his use. He passes his morning in 
 walking or riding, looking in at auctions, looking after his 
 India bonds or some such money securities, furthering some 
 subscription set on foot by his excellent friend Sir John, or 
 cheapening a new old print for his portfolio. He also hears 
 of the newspapers, not caring to see them till after dinner 
 at the coffee-house. He may also cheapen a fish or so, the 
 fishmonger soliciting his doubting eye as he passes with a 
 profound bow of recognition. He eats a pear before 
 dinner. 
 
 His dinner at the coffee-house is served up to him at the 
 accustomed hour, in the old accustomed way, and by the 
 
84 ESSA YS. 
 
 accustomed waiter. If William did not bring it the fish 
 would be sure to be stale and the flesh new. He eats no 
 tart, or, if he ventures on a little, takes cheese with it. 
 You might as soon attempt to persuade him out of his 
 senses as that cheese is not good for digestion. He takes 
 port ; and if he has drunk more than usual, and in a more 
 private place, may be induced, by some respectful inquiries 
 respecting the old style of music, to sing a song composed 
 by Mr. Oswald or Mr. Lampe, such as — 
 
 " Chloe, by that borrowed kiss," 
 or 
 
 "Come, gentle god of soft repose," 
 
 or his wife's favourite ballad, beginning — 
 
 " At Upton on the hill, 
 There lived a happy pair." 
 
 Of course, no such exploit can take place in the coffee- 
 room : but he will canvass the theory of that matter there 
 with you, or discuss the weather, or the markets, or the 
 theatres, or the merits of " my Lord North " or " my Lord 
 Rockingham ; " for he rarely says simply, lord : it is gener- 
 ally " my lord," trippingly and genteelly off the tongue. If 
 alone after dinner, his great delight is the newspaper, 
 which he prepares to read by wiping his spectacles, care- 
 fully adjusting them on his eyes, and drawing the candle 
 close to him, so as to stand sideways betwixt his ocular aim 
 and the small type. He then holds the paper at arm's 
 length, and dropping his eyelids half down and his mouth 
 half open, takes cognisance of the day's information. If he 
 leaves off, it is only when the door is opened by a new- 
 comer, or when he suspects somebody is over-anxious to get 
 the paper out of his hand. On these occasions he gives an 
 important hem ! or so, and resumes. 
 
 In the evening our Old Gentleman is fond of going to 
 the theatre, or of having a game of cards. If he enjoys the 
 latter at his own house or lodgings, he likes to play with 
 
THE OLD GENTLEMAN. 55 
 
 some friends whom he has known for many years ; but an 
 elderly stranger may be introduced, if quiet and scientific ; 
 and the privilege is extended to younger men of letters, 
 who, if ill players, are good losers. Not that he is a miser, 
 but to win money at cards is like proving his victory by 
 getting the baggage ; and to win of a younger man is a 
 substitute for his not being able to beat him at rackets. 
 He breaks up early, whether at home or abroad. 
 
 At the theatre he likes a front row in the pit. He comes 
 early, if he can do so without getting into a squeeze, and 
 sits patiently waiting for the drawing up of the curtain, 
 with his hands placidly lying one over the other on the top 
 of his stick. He generously admires some of the best per- 
 formers, but thinks them far inferior to Garrick, Woodward, 
 and Olive. During splendid scenes, he is anxious that the 
 little boy should see. 
 
 He has been induced to look in at Vauxhall again, but 
 likes it still less than he did years back, and cannot bear it 
 in comparison with Ranelagh. He thinks everything looks 
 poor, flaring, and jaded. ** Ah ! " says he, with a sort of 
 triumphant sigh, '* Ranelagh was a noble place ! Such 
 taste, such elegance, such beauty ! There was the Duchess 
 of A., the finest woman in England, sir ; and Mrs. L., a 
 mighty fine creature ; and Lady Susan What's-her-name, 
 that had that unfortunate afiair with Sir Charles. Sir, 
 they came swimming by you like the swans." 
 
 The Old Gentleman is very particular in having his slip 
 pers ready for him at the fire when he comes home. He is 
 also extremely choice in his snuff, and delights to get a 
 fresh boxfull in Tavistock Street in his way to the theatre. 
 His box is a curiosity from India. He calls favourite 
 young ladies by their Christian names, however slightly 
 acquainted with them \ and has a privilege of saluting all 
 brides, mothers, and, indeed, every species of lady, on the 
 least holiday occasion. If the husband, for instance, has 
 met with a piece of luck, he instantly moves forward, and 
 gravely kisses the wife on the cheek. The wife then says, 
 " My niece, sir, from the country ; " and he kisses the 
 
86. ESSA YS. 
 
 niece. The niece, seeing her cousin biting her lips at the 
 joke, says, "My cousin Harriet, sir;" and he kisses the 
 cousin. He " laever recollects such weather," except dur- 
 ing the " Great Frost," or when he rode down w4th " Jack 
 Skrimshire to Newmarket." He grows young again in his 
 little grandchildren, especially the one which he thinks 
 most like himself, which is the handsomest. Yet he likes 
 best, perhaps, the one most resembling his wife ; and will 
 sit with him on his lap, holding his hand in silence, for a 
 quarter-of-an-hour together. He plays most tricks with the 
 former, and makes him sneeze. He asks little boys in 
 general who was the father of Zebedee's childreji. If his 
 grandsons are at school he often goes to see them, and 
 makes them blush by telling the master or the upper- 
 scholars that they are fine boys, and of a precocious genius. 
 He is much struck when an old acquaintance dies, but adds 
 that he lived too fast, and that poor Bob was a sad dog in 
 his youth — " a very sad dog, sir, mightily set upon a short 
 life and a merry one." 
 
 When he gets very old indeed, he will sit for whole 
 evenings, and say little or nothing ; but informs you that 
 there is Mrs. Jones (the housekeeper) — " She'll talk." 
 
 THE OLD LADY. 
 
 If the Old Lady is a widow and lives alone, the manners 
 of her condition and time of life are so much the more 
 apparent. She generally dresses in plain silks, that make 
 a gentle rustling as she moves about the silence of her 
 room ; and she wears a nice cap with a lace border, that 
 comes under the chin. In a placket at her side is an old 
 enamelled watch, unless it is locked up in a drawer of her 
 toilet, for fear of accidents. Her waist is rather tight and 
 trim than otherwise, as she had a fine one when young j 
 
THE OLD LADY. 87 
 
 and she is not sorry if you see a pair of her stockings 
 on a table, that you may be aware of the neatness of 
 her leg and foot. Contented with these and other evident 
 indications of a good shape, and letting her young friends 
 understand that she can afford to obscure it a little, she 
 wears pockets, and uses them well too. In the one is her 
 handkerchief, and any heavier matter that is not likely to 
 come out with it, such as the change of a sixpence ; in 
 the other is a miscellaneous assortment, consisting of a 
 pocket-book, a bunch of keys, a needle-case, a spectacle- 
 case, crumbs of biscuit, a nutmeg and grater, a smelling- 
 bottle, and, according to the season, an orange or apple, 
 which after many days she draws out, warm and glossy, 
 to give to some little child that has well behaved itself. 
 She generally occupies two rooms, in the neatest condition 
 possible. In the chamber is a bed with a white coverlet, 
 built up high and round, to look well, and with curtains 
 of a pastoral pattern, consisting alternately of large plants, 
 and shepherds and shepherdesses. On the mantel-piece 
 are more shepherds and shepherdesses, with dot-eyed sheep 
 at their feet, all in coloured ware : the man, perhaps, in 
 a pink jacket and knots of ribbons at his knees and shoes, 
 holding his crook lightly in one hand, and with the other 
 at his breast, turning his toes out and looking tenderly at 
 the shepherdess : the woman holding a crook also, and 
 modestly returning his look, with a gipsy-hat jerked up 
 behind, a very slender waist, with petticoat and hips to 
 counteract, and the petticoat pulled up through the 
 pocket-holes, in order to show the trimness of her ankles. 
 But these patterns, of course, are various. The toilet 
 is ancient, carved at the edges, and tied about with a 
 snow-white drapery of muslin. Beside it are various 
 boxes, mostly japan ; and the set of drawers are exquisite 
 things for a little girl to rummage, if ever little girl be 
 so bold, — containing ribbons and laces of various kinds ; 
 linen smelling of lavender, of the flowers of which there 
 is always dust in the corners ; a heap of pocket-books for 
 a series of years ; and pieces of dress long gone by, such 
 
88 ESSA YS. 
 
 as head-fronts, stomachers, and flowered satin shoes, with 
 enormous heels. The stock of letters are under especial 
 lock and key. So much for the bed-room. In the sitting- 
 room is rather a spare assortment of shining old mahogany 
 furniture, or carved arm-chairs equally old, with chintz 
 draperies down to the ground ; a folding or other screen, 
 with Chinese figures, their round, little-eyed, meek faces 
 perking sideways ; a stufled bird, perhaps in a glass case 
 (a living one is too much for her) ; a portrait of her 
 husband over the mantel-piece, in a coat with frog-buttons, 
 and a delicate frilled hand lightly inserted in the waistcoat; 
 and opposite him on the wall is a piece of embroidered 
 literature, framed and glazed, containing some moral 
 distich or maxim, worked in angular capital letters, with 
 two trees or parrots below, in their proper colours ; the 
 whole concluding with an ABC and numerals ; and the 
 name of the fair industrious, expressing it to be " her 
 work, Jan. 14, 1762." The rest of the furniture consists of 
 a looking-glass with carved edges, perhaps a settee, a 
 hassock for the feet, a mat for the little dog, and a small 
 set of shelves, in which are the Spectator and Guardian^ 
 the Turkish Spy, a Bible and Prayer Book, Young's Night 
 Thoughts with a piece of lace in it to flatten, Mrs. Rowe's 
 Devout Exercises of the Heart, Mrs. Glasse's Cookery, and 
 perhaps Sir Charles Grandison, and Clarissa. John 
 Buncle is in the closet among the pickles and preserves. 
 The clock is on the landing-place between the two room 
 doors, where it ticks audibly but quietly ; and the landing- 
 place, as well as the stairs, is carpeted to a nicety. The 
 house is most in character, and properly coeval, if it is 
 in a retired suburb, and strongly built, with wainscot 
 rather than paper inside, and lockers in the windows. 
 Before the windows should be some quivering poplars. 
 Here the Old Lady receives a few quiet visitors to tea, 
 and perhaps an early game at cards : or you may see 
 her going out on the same kind of visit herself, with a 
 light umbrella running up into a stick and crooked ivory 
 handle, and her little dog, equally famous for his love 
 
THE OLD LADY. 89 
 
 to her and captious antipathy to strangers. Her grand- 
 children dislike him on holidays, and the boldest sometimes 
 ventures to give him a sly kick under the table. A\'^hen 
 she returns at night, she appears, if the weather happens 
 to be doubtful, in a calash : and her servant in pattens, 
 follows half behind and half at her side, with a lantern. 
 
 Her opinions are not many nor new. She thinks the 
 clergyman a nice man. The Duke of Wellington, in 
 her opinion, is a very great man ; but she has a secret 
 preference for the Marquis of Granby. She thinks the 
 young women of the present day too forward, and the 
 men not respectful enough; but hopes her grandchildren 
 will be better ; though she differs with her daughter in 
 several points respecting their management. She sets 
 little value on the new accomplishments ; is a great though 
 delicate connoisseur in butcher's meat and all sorts of 
 housewifery ; and if you mention waltzes, expatiates on 
 the grace and fine breeding of the minuet. She longs to 
 have seen one danced by Sir Charles Grandison, whom she 
 almost considers as a real person. She likes a walk of 
 a summer's evening, but avoids the new streets, canals, 
 etc., and sometimes goes through tlie church-yard, "where 
 her children and her husband lie buried, serious, but not 
 melancholy. She has had three great epochs in her life : 
 — her marriage — her having been at court, to see the King 
 and Queen and Royal Family — and a compliment on 
 her figure she once received, in passing, from Mr. Wilkes, 
 whom she describes as a sad, loose man, but engaging. 
 His plainness she thinks much exaggerated. If anything 
 takes her at a distance from home, it is still the court ; 
 but she seldom stirs, even for that. The last time but one 
 that she went, was to see the Duke of Wirtemberg ; and 
 most probably for the last time of all, to see the Princess 
 Charlotte and Prince Leopold. From this beatific vision 
 she returned with the same admiration as ever for the fine 
 comely appearance of the Duke of York and the rest of the 
 family, and great delight at having had a near view of 
 the Princess, whom she speaks of with smiling pomp and 
 
90 ESSA YS. 
 
 lifted mittens, clasping them as passionately as she can 
 together, and calling her, in a transport of mixed loyalty 
 and self-love, a fine royal young creature, and " Daughter 
 of Endand." 
 
 WINDOWS 
 
 The other day a butterfly came into our room and began 
 beating himself against the upper panes of a window half 
 open, thinking to get back. It is a nice point — relieving 
 your butterfly — he is a creature so delicate. If you handle 
 him without ceremony, you bring away on your fingers 
 something which you take to be down, but which is plumes 
 of feathers ; and as there are no fairies at hand, two atoms 
 high, to make pens of the quills, and write " articles " on 
 the invisible, there would be a loss. Mr. Bentham's ghost 
 would visit us, shaking his venerable locks at such un- 
 necessary-pain-producing and reasonable-pleasure-preventing 
 heedlessness. Then if you brush him downwards, you stand 
 a chance of hurting his antennie, or feelers, and of not 
 knowing what mischief you may do to his eyes, or his sense 
 of touch, or his instruments of dialogue ; for some philo- 
 sophers hold that insects talk with their feelers as dumb 
 people do with their fingers. However, some sufiering must 
 be hazarded in order to prevent worse, even to the least and 
 most delicate of heaven's creatures, who would not know 
 pleasure if they did now know pain; and perhaps the 
 merrier and happier they are in general, the greater the 
 lumps of pain they can bear. Besides, all must have their 
 share, or how would the burden of the great blockish 
 necessity be equally distributed : and finally, what business 
 had little Papilio to come into a place unfit for him, and 
 get bothering himself with glass 1 Oh, faith ! — your 
 butterfly must learn experience, as well as your Buonaparte. 
 There was he, beating, fluttering, flouncing, — wondering 
 
WINDOWS. 91 
 
 that he could not get through so clear a matter (for so glass 
 appears to be to insects as well as to men), and tearing his 
 silkt-n little soul out with ineffectual energy. What plumage 
 he must have left upon the pane ! What feathers and 
 colours, strewed about, as if some tine lady had gone mad 
 against a ball-room door, for not being let in ! 
 
 But we had a higher simile for him than that, "Truly," 
 thought we, " little friend, thou art like some of the great 
 German transcendentalists, who, in thinking to reach at 
 heaven by an impossible way (such at least it seemeth at 
 present), run the hazard of cracking their brains, and spoil- 
 ing their wings for ever ; whereas, if thou and they would 
 but stoop a little lower, and begin with earth first, there, 
 before thee, lieth open heaven as well as earth ; and thou 
 mayest mount high as thou wilt, after thy own happy 
 fashion, thinking less and enjoying all things." 
 
 And hereupon we contrived to get him downwards, — and 
 forth out into the air sprang he, — first against the lime- 
 trees, and then over them into the blue ether, — as if he had 
 resolved to put our advice into practica 
 
 We have before spoken of the fret and fury into which 
 the common fly seems to put himself against a window. 
 Bees appear to take it more patiently, out of a greater 
 knowledge ; and slip about with a strange air of hopeless- 
 ness. They seem to " give it up." These things, as Mr. 
 Pepys said of the humanities at court, "it is pretty to 
 observe." Glass itself is a phenomenon that might alone 
 serve a reflecting observer with meditation for a whole 
 morning, — so substantial and yet so air-like, so close and 
 compact to keep away the cold, yet so transparent and facile 
 to let in light, the gentlest of all things, — so palpably some- 
 thing, and yet to the eye and the perceptions a kind of 
 nothing ! It seems absolutely to deceive insects in this 
 respect, which is remarkable, considering how closely they 
 handle it, and what microscopic eyes we suppose them to 
 have. We should doubt (as we used to do) whether we did 
 not mistake their ideas on the subject, if we had not so often 
 seen their repeated dashings of themselves against the panes, 
 
92 ESS A YS. 
 
 their stoppings (as if to take breath), and then their recom- 
 mencement of the same violence. It is difficult to suppose 
 that they do this for mere pleasure, for it looks as if they 
 must hurt themselves. Observe in particular the tremen- 
 dous thumps given himself by that great hulking fellow of 
 a fly, that Ajax of the Diptera, the blue-bottle. Yet in. 
 autumn, in their old age, flies congregate in. windows as 
 elsewhere, and will take the matter so quietly as sometimes 
 to stand still for hours together. We suppose they love the 
 warmth, or the light ; and that either they have found out 
 the secret as to the rest, or 
 
 "Years have brought the philosophic mind." 
 
 Why should Fly plague himself any longer with household 
 matters which he cannot alter ? He has tried hard in his 
 time ; and now he resigns himself like a wise insect, and 
 will taste whatsoever tranquil pleasures remain for him, 
 without beating his brains or losing his temper any longer. 
 In natural livers, pleasure survives pain. Even the arti- 
 ficial, who keep up their troubles so long by pride, self-will, 
 and the want of stimulants, contrive to get more pleasure 
 than is supposed out of pain itself, especially by means of 
 thinking themselves ill-used, and of grumbling. If the 
 heart (for want of better training) does not much keep up 
 its action with them, the spleen does ; and so there is action 
 of some sort : and whenever there is action, there is life ; 
 and life is found to have something valuable in it for its 
 own sake, apart from ordinary considerations either of pain 
 or pleasure. But your fly and your philosopher are for 
 pleasure too, to the last, if it be harmless. Give old Musca 
 a grain of sugar, and see how he will put down his proboscis 
 to it, and dot, and pound, and suck it in, and be as happy as 
 an old West India gentleman pondering on his sugar cane 
 and extracting a pleasure out of some dulcet recollection. 
 
 Gamblers, for want of a sensation, have been known to 
 start up from their wine, and lay a bet upon two rain-drops 
 coming down a pane of glass. How poor are those gentry, 
 
WINDOWS. 93 
 
 even when they win, compared with observers whose re- 
 sources need never fail them ! To the latter, if they please, 
 the rain-drop itself is a world, — a world of beauty and 
 mystery and aboriginal idea, bringing before them a thou- 
 sand images of proportion, and reflection, and the elements, 
 and light, and colour, and roundness, and delicacy, and 
 fluency, and beneficence, and the refreshed flowers, and the 
 growing corn, and dew-drops on the bushes, and the tears 
 that fall from gentle eyes, and the ocean and the rainbow, 
 and the origin of all things. In water we behold one of the 
 old primeval mysteries of which the world was made. Thus, 
 the commonest rain-drop on a pane of glass becomes a visitor 
 from the solitudes of time. 
 
 A window, to those who have read a little in Nature's 
 school, thus becomes a book, or a picture, on which her 
 genius may be studied, handicraft though the canvas be, 
 and little as the glazier may have thought of it. Not that 
 we are to predicate ignorance of your glazier now-a-days, 
 any more than of other classes that compose the various 
 readers of penny and three-half-penny philosophy, — cheap 
 visitor, like the sunbeams, of houses of all sorts. The 
 glazier could probably give many a richer man information 
 respecting his glass, and his diamond, and his putty (no 
 anti-climax in these analytical days), and let him into a 
 secret or two, besides, respecting the amusement to be 
 derived from it. (We have just got up from our work to 
 inform ourselves of the nature and properties of the said 
 mystery, putty ; and should blush for the confession, if the 
 blush would not imply that a similar ignorance were less 
 common with us than it is.) 
 
 But a window is a frame for other pictures besides its 
 own ; sometimes for moving ones, as in the instance of a 
 cloud going along, or a bird, or a flash of lightning ; some- 
 times for the distant landscape, sometimes the nearer one, 
 or the trees that are close to it, with their lights and 
 shades ; often for the passing multitude. A picture, a 
 harmony, is observable, even in the drapery of the curtains 
 that invest it ; much more in the sunny vine-leaves or roses 
 
94 ESSA YS. 
 
 that may be visible on the borders, or that are trailed 
 against it, and which render many a poor casement so 
 pleasant. The other day, in a very humble cottage window 
 in the suburbs, we saw that beautiful plant, the nasturtium, 
 trained over it on several strings ; which must have fur- 
 nished the inmates with a screen as they sate at their work 
 or at their tea inside, and at the same time permitted them 
 to see through into the road, thus constituting a far better 
 blind than is to be found in many great houses. Sights 
 like these give a favourable impression of the dispositions 
 and habits of the people within, — show how superior they 
 are to their sophistications, if rich, and how possessed of 
 natural refinement, if among the poorer classes. Oh ! the 
 human mind is a fine graceful thing everywhere, if the 
 music of nature does but seize its attention, and throw it 
 into its natural attitude. But so little has the " school- 
 master " yet got hold of this point, or made way with it, 
 and so occupied are men with digging gold out of the 
 ground, and neglecting the other treasures which thpy toss 
 about in profusion during the operation (as if the clay were 
 better than the flowers which it produced), that few make 
 the most of the means and appliances for enjoyment that lie 
 round about them, even in their very walls and rooms. 
 Look at the windows down a street, and generally speaking 
 they are all barren. The inmates might see through roses 
 and geraniums, if they would ; but they do not think of it, 
 or not with loving knowledge enough to take the trouble. 
 Those who have the advantage of living in the country or 
 the subui'bs, are led in many instances to do better, though 
 their necessity for agreeable sights is not so great. But the 
 presence of nature tempts them to imitate her. There are 
 few windows anywhere which might not be used to better 
 advantage than they are, if we have a little money, or can 
 procure even a few seeds. We have read an art of blowing 
 the fire. There is an art even in the shutting and opening 
 of windows. People might close them more against dull 
 objects, and open them more to pleasant ones, and to the 
 air. For a few pence they might have beautiful colours 
 
WINDOWS. 95 
 
 and odours, and a pleasing task, emulous of the showers of 
 April, beneficent as May ; for they who cultivate flowers in 
 their windows (as we have hinted before) are led instinct- 
 ively to cultivate them for others as well as themselves; 
 nay, in one respect they do it more so ; for you may observe 
 that wherever there is this "fenestral horticulture" (as 
 Evelyn would have called your window-gardening), the 
 flowers are turned with their faces towards the street. 
 
 But "there is an art in the shutting and opening of 
 windows." — Yes, for the sake of air (which ought to be had 
 night as well as day, in reasonable measure, and with pre- 
 cautions), and for the sake of excluding, or admitting, what 
 is to be seen out of doors. Suppose, for example, a house 
 is partly opposite some pleasant, and partly some unpleasant, 
 object ; the one, a tree or garden ; the other, a gin-shop or 
 a squalid lane. The sight of the first should be admitted as 
 constantly as possible, and with open window. That of the 
 other, if you are rich enough, can be shut out with a painted 
 blind, that shall substitute a beautiful landscape for the 
 nuisance, or a blind of another sort will serve the purpose ; 
 or if even a blind cannot be afforded, the shutters may be 
 partly closed. Shutters should always be divided in two, 
 horizontally, as well as otherwise, for purposes of this kind. 
 It is sometimes pleasant to close the lower portion, if only 
 to preserve a greater sense of quiet and seclusion, and to 
 read or write the more to yourself ; light from above having 
 both a softer and stronger effect than when admitted from 
 all quarters. We have seen shutters, by judicious manage- 
 ment in this way, in the house of a poor man who had a 
 taste for nature, contribute to the comfort and even 
 elegance of a room in a surprising manner, and (by the 
 opening of the lower portions and the closure of the upper) 
 at once shut out all the sun that was not wanted, and 
 convert a row of stunted trees into an appearance of 
 interminable foliage, as thick as if it had been in a forest. 
 
 " But the fact was otherwise ; " cries some fastidious 
 personage, more nice than wise ; " you knew there was no 
 forest, and therefore could not have been deceived." 
 
96 JUSSA YS. 
 
 " Well, my dear sir, but deception is not necessary to 
 everyone's pleasure ; and /act is not merely what you take 
 it for. The fact of there being no forest might have been 
 the only fact with yourself, and so have prevented the 
 enjoyment ; but to a livelier fancy there would have been 
 the fact of the imagination, of the forest (for everything is 
 a fact which does anything for us), and there would also 
 have been the fact of having cultivated the imagination, 
 and the fact of our willingness to be pleased, and the fact 
 of the books we have read, and above all, the fact of the 
 positive satisfaction. If a man be pleased, it is in vain 
 you tell him he has no cause to be pleased. The 
 cause is proved by the consequence. Whether the cause 
 be rightly or wrongly cultivated is another matter. The 
 good of it is assumed in the present instance ; and it would 
 take more facts than are in the possession of a 'mere 
 matter-of-fact man ' to disprove it. Matter of fact and 
 spirit of fact must both be appreciated, in order to do justice 
 to the riches of nature. We are made of mind as well as 
 body, — of imagination as well as senses. The same mysterious 
 faculty which sees what is before the eyes, sees also what 
 is suggested to the memory. Matter of fact is only the 
 more palpable world, around which a thousand spirits of 
 fact are playing, like angels in a picture. Not to see both 
 is to be a poor unattended creature, who walks about in 
 the world conscious of nothing but himself, or at best of 
 what the horse-jockey and the coach-maker has done for 
 him. If his banker fails, he is ruined ! Not so those who, 
 in addition to the resources of their industry, have stock in 
 all the banks of nature and art (pardon us this pun for 
 the sake of what grows on it), and whose consolations 
 cannot wholly fail them, as long as they have a flower to 
 look upon,, and a blood not entirely vitiated." 
 
 A window high up in a building, and commanding a fine 
 prospect, is a sort of looking out of the air, and gives a 
 sense of power, and of superiority to earth. The higher 
 also you go, the healthier. We speak of such windows as 
 Milton fancied, when he wished that his lamp should be 
 
WINDOWS. 
 
 97 
 
 seen at midnight in " some high lonely tower ; " a passage 
 justly admired for the good-nature as well as loftiness of the 
 •wish, thus desiring that wayfarers should be the better for 
 his studies, and enjoy the evidence of their fellow-creature's 
 vigils. But elevations of this kind are not readily to be 
 had. As to health, we believe that a very little lift above 
 the ground-floor, and so on as you ascend, grows healthier 
 in proportion. Malaria (bad air) in the countries where 
 a plague of that kind is prevalent, is understood to be con- 
 fined to a certain distance from the earth ; and we really 
 believe, that even in the healthiest quarters, where no 
 positive harm is done by nearness to it, the air is better as 
 the houses ascend, and a seat in a window becomes valuable 
 in proportion. By-and-by, perhaps, studies and other 
 favourite sitting-rooms will be built accordingly ; and more 
 retrospective reverence be shown to the " garrets " that 
 used to be so famous in the annals of authorship. The 
 poor poet in Pope, who lay 
 
 " High in Drury Lane, 
 Lull'd by soft zephyrs through the broken pane,'' 
 
 was better off there than if he had occupied the ground- 
 floor. For our parts, in order that we may save the dignity 
 of our thrce-half-penny meditations, and at the same time 
 give evidence of practising what we preach, we shall finish 
 by stating, that we have written this article in a floor 
 neither high enough to be so poetical, nor low enough for 
 too earthly a prose, — in a little study made healthy by an 
 open window, and partly screened from overlookers by a 
 bit of the shutter, while our look-out presents us with a 
 world of green leaves, and a red cottage top, a gothic tower 
 of a church in the distance, and a glorious apple-tree close 
 at hand, laden with its yellow balls. 
 
 "Studded with apples, a beautiful show." 
 
 Some kindness of this sort Fortune has never failed to 
 preserve to us, as if in return for the love we bear to her 
 rolling globe ; and now that the sincerity of our good-will has 
 
 201 
 
98 ESSA YS. 
 
 become known, none seem inclined to grudge it us, or to 
 dispute the account to which we may turn it, for others as 
 well as ourselves. 
 
 PANTOMIMES. 
 
 He that says he does not like a pantomime, either says 
 what he does not think, or is not so wise as he fancies 
 himself. He should grow young again, and get wiser. 
 •' The child," as the poet says, *' is father to the man ; " and 
 in this instance he has a very degenerate offspring. Yes : 
 John Tomkins, aged 35, and not liking pantomimes, is a 
 very unpromising little boy. Consider, Tomkins, you have 
 still a serious regard for pudding, and are aml)itious of 
 being thought clever. Well, there is the Clown, who will 
 sympathise with you in dumplings ; and not to see into the 
 cleverness of Harlequin's quips and metamorphoses is to 
 want a perception which other little boys have by nature. 
 Not to like pantomimes is not to like animal spirits : it is 
 not to like motion ; not to like love ; not to like a jest upon 
 dulness and formality ; not to smoke one's uncle ; not to 
 like to see a thump in the face ; not to laugh ; not to fancy j 
 not to like a holiday ; not to know the pleasure of sitting 
 up at Christmas ; not to sympathise with one's children ; 
 not to remember that we have been children ourselves; 
 nor that we shall grow old, and be as gouty as Pantaloon, 
 if we are not as wise and as active as they. 
 
 Not wishing to be dry on so pleasant a subject, we shall 
 waive the learning that is in us on the origin of these 
 popular entertainments. It will be sufficient to observe, 
 that among the Italians, from whom we borrowed them, 
 they consisted of a run of jokes upon the provincial pecu- 
 liarities of their countrymen. Harlequin, with his giddy 
 vivacity, was the representative of the inhabitant of one 
 state ; Pantaloon, of the imbecile carefulness of another j 
 the Clown, of the sensual, macaroni-eating Neapolitan, with 
 
PANTOMIMES. 99 
 
 his instinct for eschewing danger ; and Columbine, Har- 
 lequin's mistress, was the type, not indeed of the outward 
 woman (for the young ladies were too restrained in that 
 matter), but of the inner girl of all the lasses in Italy, — the 
 tender fluttering heart, — the little dove (colonibina), ready 
 to take flight with the first lover, and to pay ofl' old scores 
 with the gout and the jealousy, that had hitherto kept her 
 in durance. 
 
 The reader has only to transfer the characters to those of 
 his own countrymen, to have a lively sense of the effect 
 which these national pictures must have had in Italy. 
 Imagine Harlequin a gallant adventurer from some 
 particular part of the land, full of life and fancy, sticking 
 at no obstacles, leaping gates and windows, hitting olf a 
 satire at every turn, and converting the very scrapes he 
 gets in to matters of jest and triumph. The old gentleman 
 that pursues him is a miser from some manufacturing town, 
 whose ward he has run away with. The Clown is a London 
 cockney, with a prodigious eye to his own comfort and 
 muffins, — a Lord Mayor's fool, who loved " everything that 
 was good ; " and Columbine is the boarding-school girl, ripe 
 for running away with, and making a dance of it all the 
 way from Chelsea to Gretna Green. 
 
 Pantomime is the only upholder of comedy, when there 
 is nothing else to show for it. It is the satirist, or cari- 
 caturist of the times, ridiculing the rise and fall of hats and 
 funds, the growth of aldermen or of bonnets, the pretences 
 of quackery ; and watching innovations of all sorts, lest 
 change be too hasty. But this view of it is for the older 
 boys. For us, who, upon the strength of our sympathy, 
 boast of being among the young ones, its life, its motion, 
 its animal spirits, are the thing. We sit among the shining 
 faces on all sides of us, and fancy ourselves at this moment 
 enjoying it. What whim ! what fancy ! what eternal 
 movement ! The performers are like the blood in one's 
 veins, never still ; and the music runs with equal vivacity 
 through the whole spectacle, like the pattern of a watered 
 ribbon. 
 
loo ESS A YS. 
 
 In comes Harlequin, demi-masked, party-coloured, nimble- 
 toed, lithe, agile ; bending himself now this way, now that ; 
 bridling up like a pigeon ; tipping out his toe like a dancer ; 
 then taking a fantastic skip ; then standing ready at all 
 points, and at right angles with his omnipotent lath-sword, 
 the emblem of the converting power of fancy and light- 
 heartedness. Giddy as we think him, he is resolved to show 
 us that his head can bear more giddiness than we fancy ; 
 and lo ! beginning with it by degrees, he whirls it round 
 into a very spin, with no more remorse than if it were a 
 button. Then he draws his sword, slaps his enemy, who 
 has just come upon him, into a settee ; and springing upon 
 him, dashes through the window like a swallow. Let ua 
 hope that Columbine and the high road are on the other 
 side, that he is already a mile on the road to Gretna : for 
 
 Here comes Pantaloon, with his stupid servant ; not the 
 Clown, but a proper grave blockhead, to keep him in heart 
 with himself. What a hobbling old rascal it is ! How 
 void of any handsome infirmity ! His very gout is owing 
 to his having lived upon twopence farthing. Not finding 
 Harlequin and Columbine, he sends his servant to look in 
 the further part of the house, while he hobbles back to see 
 what has become of that lazy fellow, the Clown. 
 
 He, the cunning rogue, who has been watching mid-way, 
 and now sees the coast clear, enters in front, — round-faced, 
 goggle-eyed, knock-kneed, but agile to a degree of the dis- 
 located, with a great smear for his mouth, and a cap on his 
 head, half fool's and half cook's. Commend him to the 
 dinner that he sees on table, and that was laid for Harlequin 
 and his mistress. Merry be their hearts : there is a time 
 for all things ; and while they dance through a dozen inns 
 to their hearts' content, he will eat a Sussex dumpling or so. 
 Down he sits, contriving a luxurious seat, and inviting 
 himself with as many ceremonies as if he had the whole 
 day before him : but when he once begins, he seems as if he 
 had not a moment to lose. The dumpling vanishes at a 
 cram ; — the sausages are abolished : — down go a dozen 
 yards of macaroni : and he is in the act of paying his duties 
 
PANTOMIMES. lOi 
 
 to a gallon of rum, when in come Pantaloon and his servant 
 at opposite doors, both in search of the glutton, both furious, 
 and both resolved to pounce on the rascal headlong. They 
 rush forward accordingly ; he slips from between them with 
 a " Hallo, I say ; " and the two poor devils dash their heads 
 against one another, like rams. They rebound fainting 
 asunder to the stage-doors; while the Clown, laughing with 
 all his shoulders, nods a health to each, and finishes his 
 draught. He then holds a great cask of a snuff-box to each 
 of their noses, to bring them to; and while they are 
 sneezing and tearing their souls out, jogs off at his leisure. 
 
 Ah — here he is again on his road. Harlequin with his lass, 
 fifty miles advanced in an hour, and caring nothing for his 
 pursuers, though they have taken the steam-coach. Now 
 the lovers dine indeed ; and having had no motion to 
 signify, join in a dance. Here Columbine shines as she 
 ought to do. The little slender, but plump rogue ! How 
 she winds it hither and thither with her trim waist, and her 
 waxen arms ! now with a hand against her side, tripping it 
 with no immodest insolence in a hornpipe ; now undulating 
 it in a waltz; or "caracoling" it, as Sir Thomas Urquhart 
 would say, in the saltatory style of the opera ; — but always 
 Columbine ; always the little dove who is to be protected ; 
 something less than the opera-dancer, and greater ; more 
 unconscious, yet not so ; and ready to stretch her gauze 
 wings for a flight, the moment Riches would tear her from 
 Love. 
 
 But these introductions of the characters by themselves 
 do not give a sufficient idea of the great pervading spirit of 
 pantomime, which is motion ; motion for ever, and motion 
 all at once. Mr. Jacob Bryant, who saw everything in 
 anything, and needed nothing but the taking a word to 
 pieces to prove that his boots and the Constellation Bootes 
 were the same thing, would have recognised in the word 
 Pantomime the Anglo-antediluvian compound, a Pant-o'- 
 miines ! that is to say, a set of Mimes or Mimics, all 
 panting together. Or he would have detected the obvious 
 Anglo-Greek meaning of a set of Mimes, expressing Fan^ or 
 
102 ESSAYS. 
 
 Everything, by means of the Toe, — Pan-Toe-Mime. Be 
 this as it may, Pantomime is cei'tainly a representation of 
 the vital principle of all things, from the dance of the 
 planets down to that of Damon and Phillis. Everything in 
 it keeps moving ; there is no more cessation than there is 
 in nature ; and though we may endeavour to fix our atten- 
 tion upon one mover or set of movers at a time, we are 
 conscious that all are going on. The Clown, though we do 
 not see him, is jogging somewhere ; — Pantaloon and his 
 servant, like Saturn and his ring, are still careering it 
 behind their Mercury and Venus ; and when Harlequin and 
 Columbine come in, do we fancy they have been resting 
 behind the scenes ? The notion ! Look at them ; they are 
 evidently in full career : they have been, as well as are, 
 dancing ; and the music, which never ceases whether they 
 are visible or not, tells us as much. 
 
 Let readers, of a solemn turn of mistake, disagree witli us 
 if they please, provided they are ill-humoured. The 
 erroneous, of a better nature, we are interested in ; having 
 known what it is to err like them. These are apt to be 
 mistaken out of modesty (sometimes out of a pardonable 
 vanity in wishing to be esteemed) ; and in the case before 
 us, they will sin against the natural candour of their hearts 
 by condemning an entertainment which they enjoy, because 
 they think it a mark of sense to do so. Let them know 
 themselves to be wiser than those who are really of that 
 opinion. There is nothing wiser than a cheerful pulse, and 
 all innocent things which tend to keep it so. The crabbedest 
 philosopher that ever lived (if he was a philosopher, and 
 crabbed against his will) would have given thousands to feel 
 as they do ; and he would have known that it redounded 
 to his honour, and not to' his disgrace, to own it. 
 
SHAKING HANDS. 103 
 
 SHAKING HANDS. 
 
 Among the first things which we remember noticing in the 
 manners of people, were two errors in the custom of 
 shaking hands. Some, we observed, grasped everybody's 
 hand alike, — with an equal fervour of grip. You would 
 have thought that Jenkins was the best friend they had in 
 the world ; but on succeeding to the squeeze, though a 
 slight acquaintance, you found it equally flattering to your- 
 self ; and on the appearance of somebody else (whose name, 
 it turned out, the operator had forgotten) the crush was no 
 less complimentary : the face was as earnest and beam- 
 ing, the " glad to see you " as syllabical and sincere, and 
 the shake as close, as long, and as rejoicing, as if the 
 serai-unknown was a friend come home from the Deserts. 
 
 On the other hand, there would be a gentleman, now and 
 then, as coy of his hand as if he were a prude, or had a 
 whitlow. It was in vain that your pretensions did not go 
 beyond the " civil salute " of the ordinary shake ; or that 
 being introduced to him in a friendly manner, and expected 
 to shake hands with the rest of the company, you could not 
 in decency omit his. His fingers, half coming out and half 
 retreating, seemed to think that you were going to do them 
 a mischief ; and when you got hold of them, the whole 
 shake was on your side ; the other hand did but proudly or 
 pensively acquiesce — there was no knowing which ; you 
 had to sustain it, as you might a lady's in handing her to a 
 seat ; and it was an equal perplexity to know whether to 
 shake or to let it go. The one seemed a violence done to 
 the patient, the other an awkward responsibility brought 
 upon yourself. You did not know, all the evening, whether 
 you were not an object of dislike to the person ; till, on 
 the party's breaking up, you saw him behave like an 
 equally ill-used gentleman to all who practised the same 
 unthinking civility. 
 
 Both these errors, we think, might as well be avoided ; 
 but, of the two, we must say we prefer the former. If it 
 
104 ^^^^KS*. 
 
 does not look so much like particular sincerity, it looks 
 more like general kindness ; and if those two virtues are to 
 be separated (which they assuredly need not be, if con- 
 sidered without spleen), the world can better afford to 
 dispense with an unpleasant truth than a gratuitous 
 humanity. Besides, it is more difficult to make sure of the 
 one than to practice the other, and kindness itself is the 
 best of all truths. As long as we are sure of that, we are 
 sure of something, and of something pleasant. It is always 
 the best end, if not in every instance the most logical 
 means. 
 
 This manual shyness is sometimes attributed to modesty, 
 but never, we suspect, with justice, unless it be that sort of 
 modesty whose fear of committing itself is grounded in 
 pride. "Want of address is a better reason ; but this 
 particular instance of it would be grounded in the same 
 feeling. It always implies a habit either of pride or 
 mistrust. We have met with two really kind men who 
 evinced this soreness of hand. Neither of them, perhaps, 
 thought himself inferior to anybody about him, and both 
 had good reason to think highly of themselves, but both 
 had been sanguine men contradicted in their early hopes. 
 There was a plot to meet the hand of one of them with a 
 fish-slice, in order to show him the disadvantage to which 
 he put his friends by that flat mode of salutation ; but the 
 conspirator had not the courage to do it. Whether he 
 heard of the intention we know not, but shortly afterwards 
 he took very kindly to a shake. The other was the only 
 man of a warm set of politicians who remained true to his 
 first hopes of mankind. He was impatient at the change 
 in his companions, and at the folly and inattention of the 
 rest ; but though his manner became cold, his consistency 
 remained warm, and this gave him a right to be as strange 
 as he pleased. 
 
COACHES, 105 
 
 COACHES. 
 
 According to the opinion commonly entertained respecting 
 an author's want of riches, it may be allowed us to say 
 that we retain from childhood a considerable notion of " a 
 ride in a coach." Nor do we hesitate to confess, that by 
 coach we especially mean a hired one ; from the equivocal 
 dignity of the post-chaise, down to that despised old cast- 
 away, the hackney. 
 
 It is true that the carriage, as it is indifferently called 
 (as if nothing less genteel could carry any one), is a more 
 decided thing than the chaise ; it may be swifter even than 
 the mail, leaves the stage at a still greater distance in every 
 respect, and (forgetting what it may come to itself) darts 
 by the poor old lumbering hackney with immeasureable 
 contempt. It rolls with a prouder ease than any other 
 vehicle. It is full of cushions and comfort ; elegantly 
 coloured inside and out ; rich, yet neat ; light and rapid, 
 yet substantial. The horses seem proud to draw it. The 
 fat and fair-wigged coachman " lends his sounding lash," 
 his arm only in action and that but little, his body well set 
 with its own weight. The footman, in the pride of his 
 nonchalance, holding by the straps behind, and glancing 
 down sideways betwixt his cocked-hat and neckcloth, stands 
 swinging from east to west upon his springy toes. The 
 horses rush along amidst their glancing harness. Spotted 
 dogs leap about them, barking with a princely superfluity 
 of noise. The hammer-cloth trembles through all its fringe. 
 The paint flashes in the sun. We, contemptuous of every- 
 thing less convenient, bow backwards and forwards with a 
 certain indifferent air of gentility, infinitely predominant. 
 Suddenly, with a happy mixture of turbulence and truth, 
 the carriage dashes up by the curb-stone to the very point 
 desired, and stops with a lordly wilfulness of decision. Tlie 
 coachman looks as if nothing had happened. The footman 
 is down in an instant ; the knocker reverberates into the 
 farthest corner of the house ; doors, both carriage and house, 
 
io6 ESSAYS. 
 
 are open ; — we descend, casting a matter-of-course eye at 
 the bystanders ; and the moment we touch the pavement, 
 the vehicle, as if conscious of what it has carried, and 
 relieved from the weight of our importance, recovers from 
 its sidelong inclination with a jerk, tossing and panting, as 
 it were, for very breath, like the proud heads of the horses. 
 
 All this, it must be owned, is very pretty ; but it is also 
 gouty and superfluous. It is too convenient, — too exacting, 
 — too exclusive. We must get too much for it, and lose 
 too much by it. Its plenty, as Ovid says, makes us poor. 
 We neither have it in the republic of letters, nor would 
 desire it in any less Jacobinical state. Horses, as many as 
 you please, provided men have enough to eat ; hired coa lies, 
 a reasonable number : — but health and good-humour at 
 all events. 
 
 Gigs and curricles are things less objectionable, because 
 they cannot be so relied upon as substitutes for exercise. 
 Our taste in them, we must confess, is not genuine. How 
 shall we own it 1 We like to be driven, instead of drive ; — 
 to read or look about us, instead of keeping watch on a 
 horse's head. We have no relish even for vehicles of this 
 description that are not safe. Danger is a good thing 
 for giving a fillip to a man's ideas ; but even danger, 
 to us, must come recommended by something useful. We 
 have no ambition to have Tandem written on our 
 tombstone. 
 
 The prettiest of these vehicles is the curricle, which is 
 also the safest. There is something worth looking at in the 
 pair of horses, with that sparkling pole of steel laid across 
 them. It is like a bar of music, comprising their harmonious 
 course. But to us, even gigs are but a sort of unsuccessful 
 run at gentility. The driver, to all intents and purposes, 
 had better be on the horse. Horseback is the noblest way 
 of being carried in the world. It is cheaper than any other 
 mode of riding ; it is common to all ranks ; and it is manly, 
 graceful, and healthy. The handsomest mixture of danger 
 with dignity, in the shape of a carriage, was the tall phaeton 
 with its yellow wings. We remember looking up to it with 
 
COACHES. 107 
 
 respect in our childhood, partly for its loftiness, partly for 
 its name, and partly for the show it makes in the prints to 
 novels of that period. The most gallant figure which 
 modern driving ever cut was in the person of a late Duke 
 of Hamilton ; of whom we have read or heard somewhere, 
 that he used to dash round the streets of Rome, with his 
 horses panting, and his hounds barking about his phaeton, 
 to the equal fright and admiration of the Masters of the 
 World, who were accustomed to witness nothing higher 
 than a lumbering old coach, or a cardinal on a mule. 
 
 A post-chaise involves the idea of travelling, which in 
 the company of those we love is home in motion. The 
 smooth running along the road, the fresh air, the variety of 
 scene, the leafy roads, the bursting prospects, the clatter 
 through a town, the gaping gaze of a village, the hearty 
 appetite, the leisure {your chaise waiting only upon your 
 own movements), even the little contradictions to home- 
 comfort, and the expedients upon which they set us, all put 
 the animal spirits at work, and throw a novelty over the 
 road of life. If anything could grind us young again, it 
 would be the wheels of a post-chaise. The only monotonous 
 sight is the perpetual up-and-down movement of the pos- 
 tillion, who, we wish exceedingly, could take a chair. His 
 occasional retreat to the bar which occupies the place of a 
 box, and his affecting to sit upon it, only remind us of its 
 exquisite want of accommodation. But some have given 
 the bar, lately, a surreptitious squeeze in the middle, and 
 flattened it a little into something obliquely resembling an 
 inconvenient seat. 
 
 If we are to believe the merry Columbus of Down-Hall, 
 calashes, now almost obsolete for any purpose, used to be 
 hired for travelling occasions a hundred years back ; but he 
 preferred a chariot ; and neither was good. Yet see how 
 pleasantly good humour rides over its inconveniences. 
 
 " Then answer'd 'Squire Morley, ' Pray get a calash, 
 That in summer may burn, and in winter may splash ; 
 I love dirt and dust ; and 'tis always my pleasure 
 To take with me much of the soil that I measure." 
 
io8 ESSA YS. 
 
 But Matthew thought better ; for Matthew thought right, 
 And hired a chariot so trim and so tight, 
 That extremes both of winter and summer might pass ; 
 For one window was canvas, the other was glass. 
 
 "Draw up," quoth friend Matthew; "Pull down," quoth 
 
 friend John ; 
 " We shall be both hotter and colder anon." 
 Thus, talking and scolding, they forward did speed ; 
 And Kalpho paced by under Newman the Swede. 
 
 Into an old inn did this equipage roll. 
 At a town they call Hodson, the sign of the Bull ; 
 Near a nymph with an urn that divides the highway. 
 And into a puddle throws mother of tea. 
 
 " Come here, my sweet landlady, pray how d'ye do ? 
 Wliere is Cicely so cleanly, and Prudence, and Sue ? 
 And where is the widow that dwelt here below ? 
 And the hostler that sung about eight years ago ? 
 
 And where is your sister, so mild and so dear. 
 Whose voice to her maids like a trumpet was clear ? " 
 " By my troth," she replies, "you grow younger, I think : 
 And pray, sir, what wine does the gentleman drink ? 
 
 "Why now let me die, sir, or live upon trust, 
 
 If I know to which question to answer you first : 
 
 Why, things, since I saw you, most strangely have varied ; 
 
 The hostler is hang'd, and the widow is married. 
 
 "And Prue left a child for the parish to nurse, 
 And Cicely went off with a gentleman's purse ; 
 And as to my sister, so mild and so dear. 
 She has lain in the churchyard full many a year." 
 
 " Well ; peace to her ashes ! Wliat signifies grief? 
 She roasted red veal, and she powder'd lean beef : 
 Full nicely she knew to cook up a fine dish ; 
 For tough were her pullets, and tender her fish. " — Pkior. 
 
 This quotation reminds us of a little poem by the same 
 author, entitled the Secretary, which, as it is short, and 
 runs upon chaise- wheels, and seems to have slipped the 
 notice it deserves, we will do ourselves the pleasure of 
 
COACHES. 109 
 
 adding. It was written when he was Secretary of Embassy 
 at the Hague, where he seems to have edified the Dutch 
 with his insisting upon enjoying himself. The astonishment 
 with which the good Hollander and his wife look up to him 
 as he rides, and the touch of yawning dialect at the end, 
 are extremely pleasant. 
 
 " While with labour assiduous due pleasure I mix, 
 And in one day atone for the business of six, 
 In a little Dutch chaise on a Saturday night, 
 On my left hand my Horace, a nymph on my right : 
 No Memoirs to compose, and no Post-boy to move, 
 That on Sunday may hinder the softness of love ; 
 For her, neither visits, nor parties at tea, 
 Nor the long-winded cant of a dull Refugee : 
 This night and the next shall be hers, shall be mine, — 
 To good or ill-fortune the third we resign : 
 Thus scorning the world and superior to fate, 
 I drive on my car in processional state. 
 So with Phia through Athens Pisistratus rode ; 
 Men thought her Minerva, and him a new god. 
 But why should I stories of Athens rehearse, 
 Where people knew love, and were partial to verso? 
 Since none can with justice my pleasures oppose. 
 In Holland half drowned in interest and prose ? 
 By Greece and past ages what need I be tried. 
 When the Hague and the present are both on my side? 
 And is it enough for the joys of the day. 
 To think what Anacreon or Sappho would say ] 
 When good Vandergoes, and his provident vrow. 
 As they gaze on my triumph, do freely allow, 
 That, search all the province, you'll find no man dAr is 
 So blest as the EnglisJien Hecr Secrctar is." 
 
 If Prior had been living now he would have found the 
 greatest want of travelling accommodation in a country for 
 whose more serious wants we have to answer, without 
 having her wit to help us to an excuse. There is a story 
 told of an Irish post-chaise, the occupier of which, without 
 quitting it, had to take to his heels. It was going down 
 hill as fast as wind and the impossibility of stopping could 
 make it, when the foot passengers observed a couple of legs 
 underneath, emulating, with all their might, the rapidity of 
 
TTO ESSAYS. 
 
 the wheels. The bottom had come out ; and the gentleman 
 was obliged to run for his life. 
 
 We must relate another anecdote of an Irish post-chaise, 
 merely to show the natural tendencies of the people to be 
 lawless in self-defence. A friend of ours, who was travelling 
 among them, used to have this proposition put to him by 
 the postillion whenever he approached a turnpike — " Plase 
 your honour, will I drive at the pike 1 " The pike hung 
 loosely across the road. Luckily, the rider happened to be 
 of as lawless a turn for justice as the driver, so the answer 
 was always a cordial one — " Oh yes — drive at the pike." 
 The pike made way accordingly ; and in a minute or two 
 the gate people were heard and seen, screaming in vain 
 after the illegal charioteers. 
 
 ' ' Fertur equis auriga, neque audit currus." — Virgil. 
 
 " The driver 's borne beyond their swearing, 
 And the post-chaise is hard of hearing." 
 
 As to following them, nobody in Ireland thinks of 
 moving too much, legal or illegal. 
 
 The pleasure to be had in a mail-coach is not so much at 
 one's command as that in a post-chaise. There is generally 
 too little room in it, and too much hurry out of it. The 
 company must not lounge over their breakfast, even if they 
 are all agreed. It is an understood thing that they are to 
 be uncomfortably punctual. They must get in at seven 
 o'clock, though they are all going upon business they do not 
 like or care about, or will have to wait till nine before they 
 can do anything. Some persons know how to manage this 
 haste, and breakfast and dine in the cracking of a whip. 
 They stick with their fork, they joint, they sliver, they 
 bolt. Legs and wings vanish before them like a dragon's 
 before a knight-errant. But if one is not a clergyman or a 
 regular jolly fellow, one has no chance this way. To be 
 diffident or polite is fatal. It is a merit eagerly acknow- 
 ledged, and as quickly set aside. At last you begin upon a 
 leg, and are called off. 
 
COACHES. Ill 
 
 A very troublesome degree of science is necessary for 
 being well settled in the coach. We remember travelling 
 in our youth, upon the north road, with an orthodox 
 elderly gentleman of venerable peruke, who talked much 
 with a grave-looking young man about universities, and won 
 our inexperienced heart with a notion that he was deep in 
 Horace and Virgil. He was deeper in his wig. Towards 
 evening, as he seemed restless, we asked with much diffi- 
 dence whether a change, even for the worse, might not 
 relieve him ; for we were riding backwards, and thought 
 that all elderly people disliked that way. He insinuated 
 the very objection; so we recoiled from asking him again. 
 In a minute or two, however, he insisted that we were 
 uneasy ourselves, and that he must relieve us for our own 
 sake. We protested as filially as possible against this ; but 
 at last, out of mere shame of disputing the point with so 
 benevolent an elder, we changed seats with him. After an 
 interval of bland meditation, we found the evening sun full 
 in our face. His new comfort set him dozing ; and every 
 now and then he jerked his wig in our eyes, till we had the 
 pleasure of seeing him take out a nightcap and look very 
 ghastly. The same person, and his serious young com- 
 panion, tricked us out of a good bed we happened to get at 
 the inn. 
 
 The greatest peculiarity attending a mail-coach arises 
 from its travelling at night. The gradual decline of talk, 
 the incipient snore, the rustling and shifting of legs and 
 nightcaps, the cessation of other noises on the road — the 
 sound of the wind or rain, of the moist circuit of the wheels, 
 and of the time-beating tread of the horses — all dispose the 
 traveller, who cannot sleep, to a double sense of the little 
 that is left him to observe. The coach stops, the door 
 opens, a rush of cold air announces the demands and merits 
 of the guard, who is taking his leave, and is anxious to 
 remember us. The door is clapped to again ; the sound of 
 everything outside becomes dim ; and voices are heard 
 knocking up the people of the inn, and answered by issuing 
 yawns and excuses. Wooden shoes clog heavily about. 
 
112 JSSSAVS. 
 
 The horses' mouths are heard, swilling the water out of 
 tubs. All is still again, and some one in the coach takes a 
 long breath. The driver mounts, and we resume our way. 
 It happens that we can sleep anywhere except in a mail- 
 coach ; so that we hate to see a prudent, warm, old fellow, 
 who has been eating our fowls and intercepting our toast, 
 put on his night-cap in order to settle himself till morning. 
 We rejoice in the digs that his neighbour's elbow gives him, 
 and hail the long-legged traveller that sits opposite. A 
 passenger of our wakeful description must try to content 
 himself with listening to the sounds above mentioned ; or 
 thinking of his friends ; or turning verses, as Sir Richard 
 Blackmore did, " to the rumbling of his coach's wheels." 
 
 The stage-coach is a great and unpretending accommoda- 
 tion. It is a cheap substitute, notwithstanding all its 
 eighteen-penny and two-and-sixpenny temptations, for keep- 
 ing a carriage or a horse ; and we really think, in spite of 
 its gossiping, is no mean help to village liberality ; for its 
 passengers are so mixed, so often varied, so little yet so 
 much together, so compelled to accommodate, so willing to 
 pass a short time pleasantly, and so liable to the criticism 
 of strangers, that it ia hard if they do not get a habit of 
 speaking, or even thinking more kindly of one another than 
 if they mingled less often, or under other circumstances. 
 The old and infirm are treated with reverence ; the ailing 
 sympathised with ; the healthy congratulated ; the rich not 
 distinguished ; the poor well met ; the young, with their 
 faces conscious of ride, patronised, and allowed to be extra. 
 Even the fiery, nay the fat, learn to bear with each other ; 
 and if some high- though ted persons will talk now and then 
 of their great acquaintances, or their preference of a 
 carriage, there is an instinct which tells the rest that they 
 would not make such appeals to their good opinion if they 
 valued it so little as might be supposed. Stoppings and 
 dust are not pleasant, but the latter may be had on grander 
 occasions ; and if anyone is so unlucky as never to keep 
 another stopping himself, he must be content with the 
 superiority of his virtue. 
 
COACHES. iij 
 
 The mail or stage-coachman, upon the whole, is no 
 inhuman mass of great-coat, grufFness, civility, and old 
 boots. The latter is the politer, from the smaller range of 
 acquaintance, and his necessity for preserving them. His 
 face is red, and his voice rough, by the same process of 
 drink and catarrh. He has a silver watch with a steel- 
 chain, and plenty of loose silver in his pocket, mixed with 
 halfpence. He serves the houses he goes by for a clock. 
 He takes a glass at every alehouse ; for thirst, when it is 
 dry, and for warmth when it is wet. He likes to show the 
 judicious reach of his whip, by twigging a dog or a goose on 
 the road, or children that get in the way. His tenderness 
 to descending old ladies is particular. He touches his hat 
 to Mr. Smith. He gives " the young woman " a ride, and 
 lends her his box-coat in the rain. His liberality in impart- 
 ing his knowledge to any one that has the good fortune to 
 ride on the box with him is a happy mixture of deference, 
 conscious possession, and familiarity. His information 
 chiefly lies in the occupancy of houses on the road, prize- 
 fighters. Bow Street runners, and accidents. He concludes 
 that you know Dick Sams, or Old Joey, and proceeds to 
 relate some of the stories that relish his pot and tobacco in 
 the evening. If any of the four-in-hand gentry go by, he 
 shakes his head, and thinks they might find something 
 better to do. His contempt for them is founded on 
 modesty. He tells you that his oflf-hand horse is as pretty 
 a goer as ever was, but that Kitty — "Yeah, now there, 
 Kitty, can't you be still % Kitty's a devil, sir, for all you 
 would'nt think it." He knows that the boys on the road 
 admire him, and gives the horses an indifferent lash with his 
 whip as they go by. If you wish to know what rain and 
 dust can do, you should look at his old hat. There is 
 an indescribably placid and paternal look in the position of 
 his corduroy knees and old top-boots on the foot-board, 
 with their pointed toes and never-cleaned soles. His 
 heau-ideal of appearance is a frock-coat, with mother-o'- 
 pearl buttons, a striped yellow waistcoat, and a flower in 
 his mouth. 
 
tl4 ^^^^KS". 
 
 " But all our praises why for Charles aud Robert ? 
 Rise, honest Mews, and sing the classic Bobart" 
 
 Is the quadrijugal virtue of that learned person still 
 extant? That Olympic and Baccalaureated charioteer? — 
 That best educated and most erudite of coachmen, of whom 
 Dominie Sampson is alone worthy to speak 1 That sin- 
 gular punning and driving commentary on the Sunt quos 
 curriculo collegisse ? In short, the worthy and agreeable 
 Mr. Bobart, Bachelor of Arts, who drove the Oxford 
 stage some years ago, capped verses and the front of his 
 hat with equal dexterity, and read Horace over his brandy- 
 and-water of an evening ? We had once the pleasure of 
 being beaten by him in that capital art, he having brought 
 up against us an unusual number of those cross-armed 
 letters, as puzzling to verse-cappers as iron-cats unto 
 cavalry, ycleped X's ; which said warfare he was pleased 
 to call to mind in after times, unto divers of our comrades. 
 The modest and natural greatness with which he used to 
 say " Yait " to his horses, and then turn round with his 
 rosy gills, and an eye like a fish, and give out the required 
 verse, can never pass away from us, as long as verses or 
 horses run. 
 
 Of the hackney-coach we cannot make as short work as 
 many persons like to make of it in reality. Perhaps it is 
 partly a sense of the contempt it undergoes, which induces 
 us to endeavour to make the best of it. But it has its 
 merits, as we shall show presently. In the account of its 
 demerits we have been anticipated by a new, and we are 
 sorry to say a very good, poetess, of the name of Lucy 
 
 V L , who has favoured us with a sight of a 
 
 manuscript poem, in which they are related with great 
 nicety and sensitiveness. 
 
 Reader. What, sir, sorry to say that a lady is a good 
 poetess 1 
 
 Indicator. Only inasmuch, madam, as the lady gives 
 such authority to the antisocial view of this subject, and 
 will not agree with us as to the beatitude of the hackney- 
 coach. — But hold : — upon turning to the manuscript again, 
 
COACHES. 115 
 
 we find that the objections are put into the mouth of a 
 dandy courtier. This makes a great difference. The 
 hackney resumes all which it had lost in the good graces of 
 the fair authoress. The only wonder is, how the courtier 
 could talk so well. Here is the passage : — 
 
 " Eban, untempted by the Pastry-cooks 
 (Of Pastry he got store within the Palace), 
 With hasty steps, wrapp'd cloak, and solemn looks. 
 Incognito upon his errand sallies ; 
 His smelling-bottle ready for the alleys ; 
 He pass'd the Hurdy-gurdies with disdain, 
 Vowing he'd have them sent on board the galleys : 
 Just as he made his vow, it 'gan to rain. 
 
 Therefore he call'd a coach, and bade it drive amain. 
 
 ' I'll pull the string, ' said he, and further said, 
 ' Polluted Jarvey ! Ah, thou filthy hack ! 
 Whose strings of life are all dried up and dead, 
 AVhose linsey-wolsey lining hangs all slack, 
 Whose rug is straw, whose wholeness is a crack ; 
 And evermore thy steps go clatter-clitter ; 
 Whose glass once up can never be got back. 
 Who prov'st, with jolting arguments and bitter, 
 That 'tis of vile no-use to travel in a litter. 
 
 ' Thou inconvenience ! thou hungry crop 
 For all corn ! thou snail creeper to and fro, 
 Who while thou goest ever seem'st to stop. 
 And fiddle-faddle standest while you go ; 
 r the morning, freighted with a weight of woe, 
 Unto some Lazar-house thou journiest, 
 And in the evening tak'st a double row 
 Of dowdies, for some dance or party drest, 
 Besides the goods meanwhile thou movest east and west. 
 
 ' By thy ungallant bearing and sad mien. 
 An inch appears the utmost thou couldst budge ; 
 Yet at the slightest nod, or hint, or sign. 
 Round to the curb-stone patient dost thou trudge, 
 School'd in a beckon, learned in a nudge ; 
 A dull-eyed Argus watching for a fare ; 
 Quiet and plodding, thou dost bear no grudge 
 To whisking Tilburies or Phaetons rare, 
 Curricles, or Slail-coaches, swift beyond compare.' 
 
116 ESSAYS. 
 
 Philosophising thus, he pull'd the check, 
 And bade the coachman wheel to such a street ; 
 AVho turning much his body, more his neck, 
 Louted full low, and hoarsely did him greet." 
 
 The tact here is so nice of the infirmities which are but 
 too likely to beset our poor old friend, that we should only 
 spoil it to say more. To pass then to the merits. 
 
 One of the greatest helps to a sense of merit in other 
 things is a consciousness of one's own wants. Do you 
 despise a hackney-coach 1 Get tired ; get old ; get young 
 again. Lay down your carriage, or make it less uneasily 
 too easy. Have to stand up half-an-hour, out of a storm, 
 under a gateway. Be ill, and wish to visit a friend who is 
 worse. Fall in love, and want to sit next your mistress. 
 Or if all this will not do, fall in a cellar. 
 
 Ben Jonson, in a fit of indignation at the niggardliness 
 of James the First, exclaimed, " He despises me, I suppose, 
 because I live in an alley : — tell him his soul lives in an 
 alley." We think we see a hackney-coach moving out of 
 its ordinary patience, and hear it say, " You there, who sit 
 looking so scornfully at me out of your carriage, are your- 
 self the thing you take me for. Your understanding is a 
 hackney-coach. It is lumbering, rickety, and at a stand. 
 When it moves it is drawn by things like itself. It is at 
 once the most stationary and the most servile of common- 
 places. And when a good thing is put into it, it does not 
 know it." 
 
 But it is difiicult to imagine a hackney-coach under so 
 irritable an aspect. Hogarth has drawn a set of hats or 
 wigs with countenances of their own. We have noticed 
 the same thing in the faces of houses ] and it sometimes 
 gets in one's way in a landscape-painting, with the outlines 
 of the rocks and trees. A friend tells us that the hackney- 
 coach has its countenance, with gesticulation besides : and 
 now he has pointed it out, we can easily fancy it. Some of 
 them look chucked under the chin, some nodding, some com- 
 ing at you sideways. We shall never find it easy, however, 
 to fancy the irritable aspect above mentioned. A hackney- 
 
COACHES. 
 
 117 
 
 coach always appeared to us the most quiescent of movables. 
 Its horses and it, slumbering on a stand, are an emblem of 
 all patience in creation, animate and inanimate. The sub- 
 mission with which the coach takes every variety of the 
 weather, dust, rain, and wind, never moving but when 
 some eddying blast makes its old body shiver, is only 
 surpassed by the vital patience of the horses. Can any- 
 thing better illustrate the poet's line about 
 
 " — Years that bring the philosophic mind," 
 
 than the still-hung head, the dim indiflFerent eye, the 
 dragged and blunt-cornered mouth, and the gaunt imbecility 
 of body dropping its weight on three tired legs in order to 
 give repose to the lame one % When it has blinkers on, 
 they seem to be shutting up its eyes for death, like the 
 windows of a house. Fatigue and the habit of suffering 
 have become as natural to the creature as the bit to its 
 mouth. Once in half-an-hour it moves the position of its 
 leg, or shakes its drooping ears. The whip makes it go, 
 more from habit than from pain. Its coat has become 
 almost callous to minor stings. The blind and staggering 
 fly in autumn might come to die against its cheek. 
 
 Of a pair of hackney-coach horses, one so much resembles 
 the other that it seems unnecessary for them to compare 
 notes. They have that within them which is beyond the 
 comparative. They no longer bend their heads towards 
 each other as they go. They stand together as if uncon- 
 scious of one another's company. But they are not. An 
 old horse misses his companion, like an old man. The 
 presence of an associate, who has gone through pain and 
 suffering with us, need not say anything. It is talk, and 
 memory, and everything. Something of this it may be to 
 our old friends in harness. What are they thinking of 
 while they stand motionless in the rain ? Do they remem- 
 ber 1 Do they dream % Do they still, unperplexed as 
 their old blood is by too many foods, receive a pleasure 
 from the elements ; a dull refreshment from the air and 
 sun 1 Have they yet a palate for the hay which they pull 
 
Ii8 ASSAYS. 
 
 so feebly ? or for the rarer grain which induces them to 
 perform their only voluntary gesture of any vivacity, and 
 toss up the bags that are fastened on their mouths, to get 
 at its shallow feast ? 
 
 If the old horse were gifted with memory (and who 
 shall say he is not, in one thing as well as another ?), it 
 might be at once the most melancholy and pleasantest 
 faculty he has ; for the commonest hack has probably 
 been a hunter or racer ; has had his days of lustre and 
 enjoyment; has darted along the course, and scoured the 
 pasture ; has carried his master proudly, or his lady gently ; 
 has pranced, has galloped, has neighed aloud, has dared, 
 has forded, has spurned at mastery, has graced it and made 
 it proud, has rejoiced the eye, has been crowded to as an 
 actor, has been all instinct with life and quickness, has had 
 his very fear admired as courage, and been sat upon by 
 valour as its chosen seat. 
 
 " His ears up-prick'd ; his braided hanging mane 
 Upon his compass'd crest now stands on end ; 
 His nostrils drink the air ; and forth again, 
 As from a furnace, vapours doth he send ; 
 
 His eye, which scornfully glistens like fire, 
 Shows his hot courage and his high desire- 
 Sometimes he trots as if he told the steps, 
 With gentle majesty, and modest pride ; 
 Anon he rears upright, curvets and leaps, 
 As who would say, lo ! thus my strength is tried, 
 And thus I do to captivate the eye 
 Of the fair breeder that is standing by. 
 
 What recketh he his rider's angry stir, 
 
 His flattering holla, or his Siarid, I say ? 
 
 What cares he now for curb, or pricking spur ? 
 
 For rich caparisons, or trappings gay ? 
 
 He sees his love, and nothing else he sees, 
 For nothing else with his proud sight agrees. 
 
 Look, when a painter would surpass the life, 
 In limning out a well-proportion'd steed, 
 His art with nature's workmanship at strife, 
 As if the dead the living should exceed ; 
 
COACHES. 119 
 
 So dill this horse excel a common one, 
 
 In shape, in courage, colour, pace, and bone. 
 
 Round-hoof d, short-jointed, fetlock shag and long, 
 
 Broad breast, full eyes, small head, and nostril wide ; 
 
 High crest, short ears, straight legs, and passing strong ; 
 
 Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide ; 
 Look, what a horse should have, he did not lack. 
 Save a proud rider on so proud a back." 
 
 Alas ! his only riders now are the rain and a sordid 
 harness % The least utterance of the wretchedest voice 
 makes him stop and become a fixture. His loves were in 
 existence at the time the old sign, fifty miles hence, was 
 painted. His nostrils drink nothing but what they cannot 
 help, — the water out of an old tub. Not all the hounds in 
 the world could make his ears attain any eminence. His 
 mane is scratchy and lax. The same great poet who wrote 
 the triumphal verses for him and his loves, has written 
 their living epitaph : — 
 
 " The poor jades 
 Lob down their heads, dropping the hide and hips, 
 The gum down roping from their pale dead eyes ; 
 And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit 
 Lies foul with chew'd grass, still and motionless." 
 
 —K. Henry V., Ad 1. 
 
 There is a song called the "High-mettled Racer," 
 describing the progress of a favourite horse's life, from its 
 time of vigour and glory, down to its furnishing food for 
 the dogs. It is not as good as Shakespeare ; but it will do 
 to those who are half as kind as he. We defy anybody to 
 read that song, or be in the habit of singing it or hearing 
 it sung, and treat horses as they are sometimes treated. 
 So much good may an author do, who is in earnest, and 
 does not go in a pedantic way to work. We will not say 
 that Plutarch's good-natured observation about taking care 
 of one's old horse did more for that class of retired servants 
 than all the graver lessons of philosophy. For it is philos- 
 ophy which first sets people thinking ; and then some of 
 
120 ESSAYS. 
 
 them put it in a more popular shape. But we will venture 
 to say that Plutarch's observation saved many a steed of 
 antiquity a superiluous thump ; and in this respect the 
 author of the "High-mettled Racer" (Mr. Dibdin we 
 believe, no mean man in his way) may stand by the side of 
 the old illustrious biographer. Next to ancient causes, to 
 the inevitable progress of events, and to the practical part 
 of Christianity (which persons, the most accused of irreligion, 
 have preserved like a glorious infant, through ages of blood 
 and fire) the kindliness of modern philosophy is more 
 immediately owing to the great national writers of Europe, 
 in whose schools we have all been children : — to Voltaire in 
 France, and Shakespeare in England. Shakespeare, in his 
 time, obliquely pleaded the cause of the Jew, and got him 
 set on a common level with humanity. The Jew has since 
 been not only allowed to be human, but some have under- 
 taken to show him as the "best good Christian though he 
 knows it not." We shall not dispute the title with him, 
 nor with the other worshippers of Mammon, who force him to 
 the same shrine. We allow, as things go in that quarter, 
 that the Jew is as great a Christian as his neighbour, and 
 his neighbour as great a Jew as he. There is neither love 
 nor money lost between them. But, at all events, the Jew 
 is a man ; and with Shakespeare's assistance the time has 
 arrived when we can afford to acknowledge the horse for a 
 fellow-creature, and treat him as one. We may say for 
 him, upon the same grounds and to the same purpose, as 
 Shakespeare said for the Israelite, " Hath not a horse 
 organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions ? hurt with 
 the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by 
 the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter 
 and summer, as a Christian is?" Oh — but some are always 
 at hand to cry out — it would be effeminate to think too 
 much of these things ! — Alas ! we have no notion of asking 
 the gentlemen to think too much of anything. If they will 
 think at all, it will be a great gain. As to effeminacy (if 
 we must use that ungallant and partial word, for want of a 
 better) it is cruelty that is effeminate. It is selfishness 
 
COACHES, 121 
 
 that is effeminate. Anything is effeminate which would 
 get an excitement, or save a proper and manly trouble, at the 
 undue expense of another. How does the case stand then 
 between those who ill-treat their horses and those who 
 spare them ? 
 
 To return to the coach. Imagine a fine coach and pair, 
 which are standing at the door of a house, in all the pride 
 of their strength and beauty, converted into what they may 
 both become, a hackney, and its old shamblers. Such is 
 one of the meditations of the philosophic eighteenpenny 
 rider. A hackney-coach has often the arms of nobility on 
 it. As we are going to get into it we catch a glimpse of 
 the faded lustre of an earl's or marquis's coronet, and think 
 how many light and proud hearts have ascended those now 
 rickety steps. In this coach perhaps an elderly lady once 
 rode to her wedding, a blooming and blushing girl. Her 
 mother and sister were on each side of her ; the bridegroom 
 opposite in a blossom-coloured coat. They talk of every- 
 thing in the world of which they are not thinking. The 
 sister was never prouder of her. The mother with difficulty 
 represses her own pride and tears. The bride, thinking he 
 is looking at her, casts down her eyes, pensive in her joy. 
 The bridegroom is at once the proudest, and the humblest, 
 and the happiest man in the world. For our parts, we sit 
 in a corner, and are in love with the sister. "We dream 
 she is going to speak to us in answer to some indifferent 
 question, when a hoarse voice comes in at the front window 
 and says, "Whereabouts, sirl" 
 
 And grief has consecrated thee, thou reverend dilapida- 
 tion, as well as joy ! Thou hast carried unwilling as well 
 as willing hearts ; hearts that have thought the slowest of 
 thy paces too fast ; faces that have sat back in a corner of 
 thee, to hide their tears from the very thought of being 
 seen. In thee the destitute have been taken to the poor- 
 house, and the wounded and sick to the hospital ; and 
 many an arm has been round many an insensible waist. 
 Into thee the friend or the lover has hurried, in a passion 
 of tears, to lament his loss. In thee he has hastened to 
 
122 ESSAYS. 
 
 condole the dying or the wretched. In thee the father, or 
 mother, or the older kinswoman, more patient in her years, 
 has taken the little child to the grave, the human jewel 
 that must be parted with. 
 
 But joy appears in thee again, like the look-in of the sun- 
 shine. If the lover has gone in thee unwillingly, he has 
 also gone willingly. How many friends hast thou not 
 carried to merry-meetings ! How many young parties to 
 the play ! How many children, whose faces thou hast 
 turned in an instant from the extremity of lachrymose 
 weariness to that of staring delight. Thou hast contained 
 as many different passions in thee as a human heart ; and 
 for the sake of the human heart, old body, thou art vener- 
 able. Thou shalt be as respectable as a reduced old 
 gentleman, whose very slovenliness is pathetic. Thou shalt 
 be made gay, as he is over a younger and richer table, and 
 thou shalt be still more touching for the gaiety. 
 
 We wish the hackney-coachman were as interesting a 
 machine as either his coach or horses ; but it must be 
 owned, that of all the driving species he is the least agree- 
 able specimen. This is partly to be attributed to the life 
 which has most probably put him into his situation ; partly 
 to his want of outside passengers to cultivate his gentility j 
 and partly to the disputable nature of his fare, which 
 always leads him to be lying and cheating. The waterman 
 of the stand, who beats him in sordidness of appearance, is 
 more respectable. He is less of a vagabond, and cannot 
 cheat you. Nor is the hackney-coachman only disagreeable 
 in himself, but, like Falstaff reversed, the cause of disagree- 
 ableness in others ; for he sets people upon disputing with 
 liiin in pettiness and ill-temper. He induces the mercenary 
 to be violent, and the violent to seem mercenary. A man 
 whom you took for a pleasant, laughing fellow, shall all of a 
 sudden put on an irritable look of calculation, and vow that 
 he will be charged with a constable rather than pay the 
 sixpence. Even fair woman shall waive her all-conquering 
 softness, and sound a shrill trumpet in reprobation of the 
 extortionate charioteer, whom, if she were a man, she says, 
 
COACHES. i«3 
 
 she would expose. Being a woman, then, let her not 
 expose herself. Oh, but it is intolerable to be so im- 
 posed upon ! Let the lady, then, get a pocket-book, if 
 she must, with the hackney-coach fares in it ; or a 
 pain in the legs, rather than the temper ; or, above 
 all, let her get wiser, and have an understanding that 
 can dispense with the good opinion of the hackney-coach- 
 man. Does she think that her rosy lips were made to 
 grow pale about two-and-sixpence ; or that the expression 
 of them will ever be like her cousin Fanny's if she goes on % 
 The stage-coachman likes the boys on the road, because 
 he knows they admire him. The hackney-coachman knows 
 that they cannot admire him, and that they can get up 
 behind his coach, which makes him very savage. The cry 
 of " Cut behind ! " from the malicious urchins on the pave- 
 ment wounds at once his self-love and his interest. He 
 would not mind overloading his master's horses for another 
 sixpence, but to do it for nothing is what shocks his 
 humanity. He hates the boy for imposing upon him, and 
 the boys for reminding him that he has been imposed upon ; 
 and he would willingly twinge the cheeks of all nine. The 
 cut of his whip over the coach is malignant. He has 
 a constant eye to the road behind him. He has also an eye 
 to what may be left in the coach. He will undertake to 
 search the straw for you, and miss the half-crown on 
 purpose. He speculates on what he may get above his 
 fare, according to your manners or company ; and knows 
 how much to ask for driving faster or slower than usual. 
 He does not like wet weather so much as people suppose ; 
 for he says it rots both his horses and harness, and he takes 
 parties out of town when the weather is fine, which pro- 
 duces good payments in a lump. Lovers, late supper-eaters, 
 and girls going home from boarding-school, are his best pay. 
 He has a rascally air of remonstrance when you dispute 
 half the overcharge, and according to the temper he is in, 
 begs you to consider his bread, hopes you will not make 
 such a fuss about a trifle ; or tells you, you may take his 
 number or sit in the coach all night. 
 
184 ESSA YS. 
 
 A great number of ridiculous adventures must have taken 
 place in which hackney-coaches were concerned. The story 
 of the celebrated harlequin Lunn, who secretly pitched 
 himself out of one into a tavern window, and when the 
 coachman was about to submit to the loss of his fare, 
 astonished him by calling out again from the inside, is too 
 well known for repetition. There is one of Swift, not 
 perhaps so common. He was going, one dark evening, to 
 dine with some great man, and was accompanied by some 
 other clergymen, to whom he gave their cue. They were 
 all in their canonicals. When they arrive at the house, 
 the coachman opens the door, and lets down the steps. 
 Down steps the Dean, very reverend in his black robes ; 
 after him comes another personage, equally black and 
 dignified; then another; then a fourth. The coachman, 
 who recollects taking up no greater number, is about to 
 put up the steps, when another clergyman descends. After 
 giving way to this other, he proceeds with great confidence 
 to toss them up, when lo ! another comes. Well, there 
 cannot, he thinks, be more than six. He is mistaken. 
 Down comes a seventh, then an eighth "; then a ninth ; all 
 with decent intervals ; the coach, in the meantime, rocking 
 as if it were giving birth to so many daemons. The coach- 
 man can conclude no less. He cries out, " The devil ! the 
 devil ! " and is preparing to run away, when they all burst 
 into laughter. They had gone round as they descended, 
 and got in at the other door. 
 
 We remember in our boyhood an edifying comment on 
 the proverb of "all is not gold that glistens." The 
 spectacle made such an impression upon us, that we recol- 
 lect the very spot, which was at the corner of a road in the 
 way from Westminster to Kennington, near a stone-mason's. 
 It was a severe winter, and we were out on a holiday, 
 thinking, perhaps, of the gallant hardships to which the 
 ancient soldiers accustomed themselves, when we suddenly 
 beheld a group of hackney-coachmen, not, as Spenser says 
 of his witch, 
 
 " Busy, as seemed, about some wicked gin," 
 
POETICAL ANOMALIES OF SHAPE. 125 
 
 but pledging each other in what appeared to us to be little 
 glasses of cold water. What temperance, thought we ! 
 What extraordinary and noble content ! What more than 
 Roman simplicity ! Here are a set of poor Englishmen, 
 of the homeliest order, in the very depth of winter, quench- 
 ing their patient and honourable thirst with modicums of 
 cold water ! O true virtue and courage! O sight worthy 
 of the Timoleons and Epaminondases ! We know not how 
 long we remained in this error; but the first time we 
 recognised the white devil for what it was — the first time 
 we saw through the crystal purity of its appearance — was a 
 great blow to us. We did not then know what the 
 drinkers went through ; and this reminds us that we have 
 omitted one great redemption of the hackney-coachman's 
 character — his being at the mercy of all chances and 
 weathers. Other drivers have their settled hours and pay. 
 He only is at the mercy of every call and every casualty ; 
 he only is dragged, without notice, like the damned in 
 Milton, into the extremities of wet and cold, from his 
 alehouse fire to the freezing rain ; he only must go any- 
 where, at what hour and to whatever place you choose, his 
 old rheumatic limbs shaking under his weight of rags, and 
 the snow and sleet beating into his puckered face, through 
 streets which the wind scours like a channel. 
 
 POETICAL ANOMALIES OF SHAPE. 
 
 It is not one of the least instances of the force of habit to 
 see how poetry and mythology can reconcile us to shapes, 
 or rather combinations of shape, unlike anything in nature. 
 The dog-headed deities of the Egyptians were doubtless not 
 so monstrous in their eyes as in ours. The Centaurs of the 
 Greeks, as Ovid has shown us, could be imagined possess- 
 ing beauty enough for a human love story ; and our imagin- 
 ations find nothing at all monstrous in the idea of an angel, 
 
126 ASSAYS. 
 
 though it partakes of the nature of the bird. The angel, it 
 is true, is the least departure from humanity. Its wings 
 are not an alteration of the human shape, but an addition 
 to it. Yet, leaving a more awful wonder out of the ques- 
 tion, we should be startled to find pinions growing out of 
 the shoulder-blades of a child ; and we should wait with 
 anxiety to 'see of what nature the pinions were, till we 
 became reconciled to them. If they turned out to be 
 ribbed and webbed, like those of the imaginary dragon, 
 conceive the horror ! If, on the other hand, they became 
 feathers, and tapered off, like those of a gigantic bird, com- 
 prising also grace and splendour, as well as the power of 
 flight, we can easily fancy ourselves reconciled to thera. 
 And yet again, on the other hand, the flying women, 
 described in the Adventures of Peter Wilkins, do not shock 
 us, though their wings partake of the ribbed and webbed 
 nature, and not at all of the feathered. We admire Peter's 
 gentle and beautiful bride, notwithstanding the phenomenon 
 of the graundee, its light whalebone-like intersections, and 
 its power of dropping about her like drapery. It even 
 becomes a matter of pleasant curiosity. We find it not at 
 all in the way. We can readily apprehend the delight he 
 felt at possessing a creature so kind and sensitive ; and can 
 sympathise with him in the happiness of that bridal even- 
 ing, equally removed from prudery and grossness, which he 
 describes with a mixture of sentiment and voluptuousness 
 beyond all the bridals we ever read. 
 
 To imagine anything like a sympathy of this kind, it is 
 of course necessary that the diflerence of form should con- 
 sist in addition, and not in alteration. But the un-angel- 
 like texture of the flying apparatus of fair Youwarkee 
 (such, if we remember, is her name) helps to show us the 
 main reason why we are able to receive pleasure from the 
 histories of creatures only half-human. The habit of read- 
 ing prevents the first shock ; but we are reconciled in pro- 
 portion to their possession of what we .are pleased to call 
 human qualities. Kindness is the great elevator. The 
 Centaurs may have killed all the Lapithae, and shown 
 
POETICAL ANOMALIES OF SHAPE. 127 
 
 considerable generalship to boot, without reconciling us to 
 the brute part of them; but the brutality melts away before 
 the story of their two lovers in Ovid. Drunkenness and 
 rapine made beasts of them ; — sentiment makes human 
 beings. ' Polyphemus in Homer is a shocking monster, not 
 because he has only one eye, but because he murders and 
 eats our fellow-creatures. But in Theocritus, where he is 
 Galatea's lover, and sits hopelessly lamenting his passion, 
 we only pity him. His deformity even increases our pity. 
 We blink the question of beauty, and become one-eyed for 
 his sake. Nature seems to do him an injustice in gifting 
 him with sympathies so human, and at the same time pre- 
 venting them from being answered ; and we feel impatient 
 with the all-beautiful Galatea, if we think she ever showed 
 him scorn as well as unwillingness. We insist upon her 
 avoiding him with the greatest possible respect. 
 
 These fictions of the poets, therefore, besides the mere 
 excitement which they give the imagination, assist remotely 
 to break the averseness and uncharitableness of human 
 pride. And they may blunt the point of some fancies that 
 are apt to come upon melancholy minds. When Sir 
 Thomas Browne, in the infinite range of his metaphysical 
 optics, turned his glass, as he no doubt often did, towards 
 the inhabitants of other worlds, the stories of angels and 
 Centaurs would help his imaginative good-nature to a more 
 willing conception of creatures in other planets unlike 
 those on earth; toother "lords of creation;" and other, 
 and perhaps nobler humanities, noble in spirit, though 
 dillering in form. If indeed there can be anything in the 
 starry endlessness of existence nobler than what we can 
 conceive of love and generosity. 
 
128 ASSAYS. 
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF HIPPOCRATES. 
 
 In tlie time of the Norman reign in Sicily, a vessel bound 
 from that island for Smyrna was driven by a Vesterly 
 wind upon the island of Cos, The crew did not know 
 where they were, though they had often visited the island ; 
 for the trading towns lay in other quarters, and they saw 
 nothing before them but woods and solitudes. They found, 
 however, a comfortable harbour ; and the wind having 
 fallen in the night, they went on shore next morning for 
 water. The country proved as solitary as they thought 
 it ; which was the more extraordinary, inasmuch as it 
 was very luxuriant, full of wild-figs and grapes, with a rich 
 uneven ground, and stocked with goats and other animals, 
 who fled whenever they appeared. The bees were remark- 
 ably numerous ; so that the wild honey, fruits, and delicious 
 water, especially one spring which fell into a beautiful 
 marble basin, made them more and more wonder, at every 
 step, that they could see no human inhabitants. 
 
 Thus idling about and wondering, stretching themselves 
 now and then among the wild thyme and grass, and now 
 getting up to look at some specially fertile place which 
 another called them to see, and which they thought might 
 be turned to fine trading purpose, they came upon a mound 
 covered with trees, which looked into a flat, wide lawn 
 of rank grass, with a house at the end of it. They crept 
 nearer towards the house along the mound, still continuing 
 among the trees, for fear they were trespassing at last 
 upon somebody's property. It had a large garden wall at 
 the back, as much covered with ivy as if it had been built 
 of it. Fruit-trees looked over the wall with an unpruned 
 thickness ; and neither at the back nor front of the house 
 Avere there any signs of humanity. It was an ancient 
 marble building, where glass was not to be expected in the 
 windows ; but it was much dilapidated, and the grass 
 grew up over the steps. They listened again and again ; 
 but nothing was to be heard like a sound of men ; nor 
 
THE DA UGHTER OF HIPFOCRA TES. 1 2 9 
 
 scarcely of anything else. There was an intense noonday 
 silence. Only the hares made a rustling noise as they ran 
 about the long hiding grass. The house looked like the 
 tomb of human nature amidst the vitality of earth. 
 
 " Did you see 1 " said one of the crew, turning pale, 
 and hastening to go. " See what ? " said the others. 
 " What looked out of the window." They all turned their 
 faces towards the house, but saw nothing. Upon this they 
 laughed at their companion, who persisted, however, with 
 great earnestness, and with great reluctance at stopping, 
 to say that he saw a strange, hideous kind of face look 
 out of window. " Let us go, sir," said he, to the Captain ; 
 — "for I tell ye what: I know this place now: and 
 you, Signor Gualtier," continued he, turning to a young 
 man, " may now follow that adventure I have often heard 
 you wish to be engaged in." The crew turned pale, and 
 Gualtier among them. " Yes," added the man, " we are 
 fallen upon the enchanted part of the island of Cos, where 
 
 the daughter of Hush ! Look there ! " They turned 
 
 their faces again, and beheld the head of a large serpent 
 looking out of window. Its eyes were direct upon them ; 
 and stretching out of window, it lifted back its head with 
 little sharp jerks like a fowl ; and so stood keenly gazing. 
 
 The terrified sailors would have begun to depart quick- 
 lier than they did, had not fear itself made them move 
 slowly. Their legs seemed melting from under them. 
 Gualtier tried to rally his voice. " They say," said he, 
 " it is a gentle creature. The hares that feed right in front 
 of the house are a proof of it; — let us all stay." The 
 others shook their heads, and spoke in whispers, still 
 continuing to descend the mound as well as they could. 
 "There is something unnatural in that very thing," said the 
 Captain : " but we will wait for you in the vessel, if 
 you stay. We will, by St. Ermo." The Captain had not 
 supposed that Gualtier would stay an instant; but seeing 
 him linger more than the rest, he added the oath in 
 question, and in the meantime was hastening with the 
 others to get away. The truth is, Gualtier was, in one 
 
 203 
 
I30 ESSAYS. 
 
 respect, more frightened than any of them. His legs 
 were more rooted to the spot. But the same force of 
 imagination that helped to detain him, enabled him to 
 muster up courage beyond those who found their will more 
 powerful : and in the midst of his terror he could not 
 help thinking what a fine adventure this would be to tell 
 in Salerno, even if he did but conceal himself a little, and 
 stay a few minutes longer than the rest. The thought, 
 however, had hardly come upon him, when it was succeeded 
 by a fear still more lively ; and he was preparing to follow 
 the others with all the expedition he could contrive, 
 when a fierce rustling took place in the trees behind 
 him, and in an instant the serpent's head was at his 
 feet. Gualtier's brain as well as heart seemed to sicken, 
 as he thought the monstrous object scented him like a 
 bear ; but despair coming in aid of a courage naturally 
 fanciful and chivalrous, he bent his eyes more steadily, 
 and found the huge jaws and fangs not only abstaining 
 from hurting him, but crouching and fawning at his feet 
 like a spaniel. At the same time he called to mind the 
 old legend respecting the creature, and, corroborated as 
 he now saw it, he ejaculated with good firmness, "In 
 the name of God and his saints, what art thou 1 " 
 
 "Hast thou not heard of me?" answered the serpent 
 in a voice whose singular human slenderness made it 
 seem the more horrible. " I guess who thou art," 
 answered Gualtier ; — " the fearful thing in the island of Cos." 
 
 " I am that loathly thing," replied the serpent ; " once 
 not so." And Gualtier thought that its voice trembled 
 sorrowfully. 
 
 The monster told Gualtier that what was said of her 
 was true ; that she had been a serpent hundreds of years, 
 feeling old age and renewing her youth at the end of 
 each century ; that it was a curse of Diana's which had 
 changed her ; and that she was never to resume a human 
 form, till somebody was found kind and bold enough to 
 kiss her on the mouth. As she spoke this word, she raised 
 her crest, and sparkled so with her fiery green eyes, 
 
THE DA UGHTER OF HIPPO CRA TES. 1 3 1 
 
 dilating at the same time the corners of her jaws, that the 
 young man thrilled through his very scalp. He stept 
 back, with a look of the utmost horror and loathing. The 
 creature gave a sharp groan inwardly, and after rolling 
 her neck franticly on the ground, withdrew a little back 
 likewise, and seemed to be looking another way. Gualtier 
 heard two or three little sounds as of a person weeping 
 piteously, yet trying to subdue its voice ; and looking with 
 breathless curiosity, he saw the side of the loathly creature's 
 face bathed in tears. 
 
 " Why speakest thou, lady," said he, " if lady thou 
 art, of the curse of the false goddess Diana, who never 
 was, or only a devil % I cannot kiss thee," — and ho 
 shuddered with a horrible shudder as he spoke, " but 
 I will bless thee in the name of the true God, and even 
 mark thee with his cross." 
 
 The serpent shook her head mournfully, still keeping it 
 turned round. She then faced him again, hanging her 
 head in a dreary and desponding manner. " Thou knowest 
 not," said she, "what I know. Diana both was and never 
 was ; and there are many other things on earth which are 
 and yet are not. Thou canst not comprehend it, even 
 though thou art kind. But the heavens alter not, neither 
 the sun nor the strength of nature ; and if thou wert 
 kinder, I should be as I once was, happy and human. 
 Suffice it, that nothing can change me but what I said." 
 
 " Why wert thou changed, thou fearful and mysterious 
 thing % " said Gualtier. 
 
 " Because I denied Diana, as thou dost," answered the 
 serpent ; " and it was pronounced an awful crime in me, 
 though it is none in thee ; and I was to be made a thing 
 loathsome in men's eyes. Let me not catch thine eye, 
 I beseech thee ; but go thy way and be safe j for I feel 
 a cruel thought coming on me, which will shake my inner- 
 most soul, though it shall not harm thee. But I could 
 make thee suffer for the pleasure of seeing thine anguish ; 
 even as some tyrants do : and is not that dreadful 1 " 
 And the monster openly shed tears, and sobbed. 
 
132 ^^-^-^Ks: 
 
 There was something in this mixture of avowed cruelty, 
 and weeping contradiction to it, which made Gualtier 
 remain in spite of himself. But fear was still uppermost in 
 his mind when he looked upon the mouth that was to be 
 kissed ; and he held fast round the tree with one hand, and 
 his sword as fast in the other, watcliing the movements of 
 her neck as he conversed. " How did thy father, the sage 
 Hippocrates," asked he, "suffer thee to come to this V 
 " My father," replied she, " sage and good as he was, was 
 but a Greek mortal ; and the great Virgin was a worshipped 
 Goddess. I pray thee, go." She uttered the last word in 
 a tone of loud anguish ; but the very horror of it made 
 Gualtier hesitate, and he said, " How can I know that 
 it is not thy destiny to deceive the merciful into this 
 horrible kiss, that then and then only thou mayest devour 
 them 1 " 
 
 But the serpent rose higher at this, and looking around 
 loftily, said, in a mild and majestic tone of voice, " O ye 
 green and happy woods, breathing like sleep ! safe and 
 quiet population of these leafy places, dying brief deaths ! 
 O sea ! earth ! O heavens, never uttering syllable to man ! 
 Is there no way to make better known the meaning of your 
 gentle silence, of your long basking pleasures and brief 
 pains ? And must the want of what is beautiful and kind 
 from others, ever remain different from what is beautiful 
 and kind in itself 1 And must form obscure essence ; and 
 human confidence in good from within never be bolder than 
 suspicion of evil from without 1 O ye large-looking and 
 grand benignities of creation, is it that we are atoms in a 
 dream, or that your largeness and benignity are in those 
 only who see them, and that it is for us to hang over ye 
 till we wake you into a voice with our kisses 1 I yearn to 
 be made beautiful by one kind action, and beauty itself 
 will not believe me ! " 
 
 Gualtier, though not a foolish youth, understood little or 
 nothing of this mystic apostrophe ; but something made him 
 bear in mind, and really incline to believe, that it was a 
 transformed woman speaking to him ; and he was making a 
 
THE DA UGHTER OF HIPPOCRA TES. 1 3 3 
 
 violent internal eiTort to conquer his repugnance to the kiss, 
 when some hares, starting from him as they passed, ran and 
 cowered behind the folds of the monster ; and she stooped 
 her head, and licked them. " By Christ," exclaimed he, 
 " whom the wormy grave gathered into its arms to save us 
 from our corruptions, I will do this thing ; so may he have 
 mercy on my soul, whether I live or die : for the very hares 
 take refuge in her shadow." And shuddering and shutting 
 his eyes, he put his mouth out for her to meet ; and he seemed 
 to feel, in his blindness, that dreadful mouth approaching; 
 and he made the sign of the cross ; and he murmured 
 internally the name of him who cast seven devils out of 
 Mary Magdalen, that afterwards anointed his feet ; and in 
 the midst of his courageous agony he felt a small mouth 
 fast and warm upon his, and a hand about his neck, and 
 another on his left hand ; and opening his eyes, he dropped 
 them upon two of the sweetest that ever looked into the 
 eye of man. But the hares fled ; for they had loved the 
 serpent, but knew not the beautiful human being. 
 
 Great was the fame of Gualtier, not only throughout the 
 Grecian islands, but on both continents ; and most of all in 
 Sicily, where every one of his countrymen thought he had 
 had a hand in the enterprise, for being born on the same 
 soil. The Captain and his crew never came again ; for 
 alas ! they had gone off without waiting as they promised. 
 But Tancred, Prince of Salerno, came himself with a 
 knightly train to see Gualtier, who lived with his lady in 
 the same place, all her past sufferings appearing as nothing 
 to her before a month of love ; and even sorrowful habit 
 had endeared it to her. Tancred, and his knights and 
 learned clerks, came in a noble ship, every oar having a 
 painted scutcheon over the rowlock ; and Gualtier and his 
 lady feasted them nobly, and drank to them amidst music 
 in cups of Hippocras — that knightly liquor afterwards so 
 renowned, which she retained the secret of making from 
 her sage father, whose name it bore. And when King 
 Tancred, with a gentle gravity in the midst of his mirth, 
 expressed a hope that the beautiful lady no longer 
 
134 ESSAYS. 
 
 worshipped Diana, Gualtier said, " No, indeed, sir ; " and 
 she looked in Gualtier's face, as she sat next him, with the 
 sweetest look in the world, as who should say, *' No, indeed : 
 — I worship thee and thy kind heart." 
 
 . BREAKFAST IN SUMMER. 
 
 Breakfast in Summer ! " cries a reader, in some narrow 
 street in a city : "that means, I suppose, a breakfast out of 
 doors, among trees ; or, at least, in some fine breakfast- 
 room, looking upon a lawn, or into a conservatory. I have 
 no such breakfast-room ; the article is not written for me. 
 However, let us see what it says; — let us see whether, 
 according to our friend's receipt, 
 
 ' One can hold 
 A silver-fork, and breast of pheasant on't, 
 By thinking of sheer tea, and bread and butter.' 
 
 Nay let us do him justice too. Fancy is a good thing, 
 though pheasant may be better. Come, let us see what he 
 says ; — let us look at his Barmecide breakfast ; — at all the 
 good things I am to eat and drink without tasting them." 
 
 Editor. Reader, thou art one of the right sort. Thy 
 fancy is large, though thy street be narrow. In one thing 
 only do we find thee deficient. Thy faith is not perfect. 
 
 Reader. How? Am I not prepared to enjoy what I 
 cannot have ? And do I not know the Barmecide ? Am I 
 not a reader of the Arabian Nights — a willing visitor of 
 that facetious personage who set the imaginary feast before 
 the poor, hungry devil Shacabac, and made him drunk with 
 invisible wine, till, in the retributive intoxication of the 
 humour, mine host got his ears boxed 1 
 
 Editor. Hallo — what is that you are saying 1 — Oh, you 
 ♦'intend nothing personal." Well, it is luckily added ; for, 
 
BREAKFAST IN SUMMER. 1 3 5 
 
 look you — we should otherwise have " heaped coals of fire 
 on your head." The want of faith we complain of is not 
 the want of faith in books and fancies, but in us and our 
 intentions towards thyself ; for how cainest thou to suppose 
 that we intended omitting thy breakfast — thy unsopliisti- 
 cated cup of bohea, and most respectable bread and butter % 
 Why, it is of and to such breakfasts that we write most. 
 The others, unless their refinement be of the true, universal 
 sort, might fancy they could do without us ; whereas those 
 that really can do so, are not unwilling to give us reception, 
 for sympathy's sake, if for nothing else. To enjoy is to 
 reciprocate. We have the honour (in this our paper 
 person) of appearing at some of the most refined breakfast- 
 tables in the kingdom, some of these being at the same 
 time the richest, and some the poorest, that epicure could 
 seek or eschew ; that is to say, unintellectual epicure ; and 
 when such a man is found at either, we venture to aflirm 
 that he misses the best things to be found near him. It 
 does not become us to name names ; but we may illustrate 
 the matter by saying, that, had it been written forty years 
 back, we have good reason to think that the intentions of 
 this our set of essays would have procured it no contempt- 
 uous welcome at the breakfast-table of Fox with his lords 
 about him, or Burns with his "bonny Jeanie" at his side. 
 Porcelain, or potter's clay, silver or pewter, potted meats, 
 oatmeal, or bacon, are all one to us, provided there is a 
 good appetite, and a desire to make the best of loliat is be/ore 
 us. Without that, who would breakfast with the richest of 
 fools 1 And with it, who that knows the relish of wit and 
 good-humour would not sit down to the humblest fare with 
 inspired poverty 1 
 
 Now the art of making the best of ichat is before us (not 
 in forgetfulness of social advancement, but in encourage- 
 ment of it, and in aid of the requisite activity or pauence, 
 as the case may require) is one of the main objects of this 
 publication ; and as the commoner breakfast seems to 
 require it most, it is to such tables the present paper is 
 chiefly addressed,^ — always supposing that the breakfaster is 
 
1 36 ESSA YS. 
 
 of an intelligent sort; and not without a hope of suggesting 
 a pleasant fancy or so to the richest tables that may want 
 it. And there are too many such ! — perhaps because the 
 table has too many "good things" on it already, — too 
 much potted gout, and twelve-shilling irritability. 
 
 Few people, rich or poor, make the most of what they 
 possess. In their anxiety to increase the amount of the 
 means for future enjoyment, they are too apt to lose sight 
 of the capability of them for present. Above all, they 
 overlook the thousand helps to enjoyment which lie round 
 about them, free to everybody, and obtainable by the very 
 willingness to be pleased, assisted by that fancy and imagina- 
 tion which nature has bestowed, more or less, upon all 
 human beings. Some miscalled Utilitarians, incapable of 
 their own master's doctrine, may affect to undervalue fancy 
 and imagination, as though they were not constituent pro- 
 perties of the human mind, and as if they themselves, the 
 mistakers, did not enjoy even what they do by their very 
 assistance ! Why, they have fancies for this or that 
 tea-cup, this or that coat, this or that pretty face ! They 
 get handsome wives, when they can, as well as other people, 
 and when plain ones would be quite as " useful ! " How 
 is that ? They pretend to admire the green fields, the blue 
 sky, and would be ashamed to be insensible to the merits of 
 the flowers. How can they take upon them to say where 
 the precise line should be drawn, and at what point it is 
 we are to cease turning these perceptions of pleasure and 
 elegance to account 1 
 
 The first requisite towards enjoying a breakfast, or any- 
 thing else, is the willingness to be pleased ; and the greatest 
 proof and security of this willingness is the willingness to 
 please others. "Better" (says a venerable text) "is a 
 dinner of herbs, where peace is, than a stalled ox with 
 contention." Many a breakfast, that has every other 
 means of enjoyment, is turned to bitterness by unwilling, 
 discordant looks, perhaps to the great misery of some 
 persons present, who would give and receive happiness if 
 at any other table. Now, breakfast is a foretaste of the 
 
BREAKFAST IN SUMMER. 1 3 7 
 
 •whole day. Spoil that, and we probably spoil all. Begin 
 it well, and if we are not very silly, or ill-taught persons 
 indeed, and at the mercy of every petty impulse of anger 
 and offence, we in all probability make the rest of the day 
 worthy of it. These petty impulses are apt to produce 
 great miseries. And the most provoking part of the busi- 
 ness is, that for want of better teaching, or of a little 
 forethought, or imagination, they are sometimes indulged 
 in by people of good hearts, who would be ready to tear 
 their hair for anguish, if they saw you wounded or in a fit, 
 and yet will make your days a heap of wretchedness, by the 
 eternal repetition of these absurdities. 
 
 It being premised, then, that persons must come to 
 breakfast without faces sour enough to turn the milk (and 
 we begin to think that our cautions on this head are 
 unnecessary to such readers as are likely to patronise us), 
 we have to inform the most unpretending breakfaster — the 
 man the least capable of potted meats, partridges, or pre- 
 serves, — that in the commonest tea-equipage and fare which 
 is set upon his board, he possesses a treasure of pleasant 
 thoughts ; and that if he can command but the addition of 
 a flower, or a green bough, or a book, he may add to them 
 a visible grace and luxury, such as the richest wits in the 
 nation would respect. 
 
 " True taste," says one of these very persons (Mr. Rogers, 
 in his notes to a poem), " is an excellent economist. She 
 delights in producing great efiects by small means." This 
 maxim holds good, we see, even amidst the costliest ele- 
 gancies ; how much more is it precious to those whose 
 means are of necessity small, while their hearts are large? 
 Suppose the reader is forced to be an economist, and to 
 have nothing on his breakfast-table but plain tea and bread 
 and butter. Well ; he is not forced also to be sordid, or 
 wretched, or without fancy, love, or intelligence. Neither 
 are his tea-cups forced to be ill-shaped, nor his bread and 
 butter ill-cut, nor his table-cloth dirty ; and shapeliness and 
 cleanliness are in themselves elegancies, and of no mean 
 order. The spirit of all other elegance is in them, — that of 
 
138 ASSAYS. 
 
 selectness, — of the superiority to what is unfit and super- 
 fluous. Besides, a breakfast of this kind is the preference, 
 or good old custom, of thousands who could afford a richer 
 one. It may be called the staple breakfast of England ; 
 and he who cannot make an excellent meal of it, would be 
 in no very good way with the luxuries of a George the 
 Fourth, still less with the robust meats of a huntsman. 
 Delicate appetites may reasonably be stimulated a little, 
 till regularity and exercise put them in better order ; and 
 nothing is to be said against the innocencies of honeys and 
 marmalades. But strong meats of a morning are only for 
 those who take strong exercise, or who have made up their 
 minds to defy the chances of gout and corpulence, or the 
 undermining predigestion of pill-taking. 
 
 If the man of taste is able to choose his mode of break- 
 fasting in summer time, he will of course invest it with all 
 the natural luxuries within his reach. He will have it in a 
 room, looking upon grass and trees, hung with paintings, 
 and furnished with books. He will sit with a beautiful 
 portrait beside him, and the air shall breathe freshly into his 
 room, the sun shall colour the foliage at his window, and 
 shine betwixt their chequering shadows upon the table ; 
 and the bee shall come to partake the honey he has made 
 for him. 
 
 But suppose that a man capable of relishing all these 
 good things does not possess one of them,— at least can 
 command none that require riches. Nay, suppose him 
 destitute of everything but the plainest fare, in the plainest 
 room, and in the least accommodating part of the city. 
 What does he do? Or what, upon reflection, may he be 
 led to do 1 Why, his taste will have recourse to its own 
 natural and acquired riches, and make the utmost it can out 
 of the materials before it. It will show itself superior to 
 that of thousands of ignorant rich men, and make its good- 
 will and its knowledge open sources of entertainment to 
 him unknown, to treasures which they want the wit to 
 unlock. Be willing to be pleased, and the power will come. 
 Be a reader, getting all the information you can ; and every 
 
BREAKFAST IN SUMMER. 1 3 9 
 
 fresh information will paint some commonplace article for 
 you with brightness. Such a man as we have described 
 will soon learn not to look upon the commonest table or 
 chair without deriving pleasure from its shape or shape- 
 ability ; nor on the cheapest and most ordinary tea-cup, 
 without increasing that gratification with fifty amusing 
 recollections of books, and plants, and colours, and strange 
 birds, and the quaint domesticities of the Chinese. 
 
 For instance, if he breakfasts in a room of the kind just 
 mentioned (which is putting the case as strongly as we can, 
 and implies all the greater comforts that can be drawn from 
 situations of a better kind), he will select the snuggest or 
 least cheerless part of the room to set his table in. If he 
 can catch a glimpse of a tree from any part of a window 
 (and a great many more such glimpses are to be had in the 
 city than people would suppose), he will plant his chair, if 
 possible, within view of it ; or if no tree is to be had, per- 
 haps the morning sun comes into his room, and he will 
 contrive that his table shall have a slice of that. He will 
 not be unamused even with the Jack-o'-lantern which strikes 
 up to the ceiling, and dances with the stirring of his tea, 
 glancing and twinkling like some chuckling elfin eye, or 
 reminding him of some wit making his brilliant reflections, 
 and casting a light upon commonplaces. The sun is ever 
 beautiful and noble, and brings a cheerfulness out of heaven 
 itself into the humblest apartment, if we have but the spirit 
 to welcome it. 
 
 But if we have neither tree nor sun, and nobody with us 
 to make amends, suppose it winter time, and that we have 
 a fire. This is sun and company too, and such an associate 
 as will either talk with us, if we choose to hear it, or leave 
 us alone, and give us comfort unheard. It is now summer 
 time, however, and we had better reserve our talk of fires 
 for cold weather. Our present object is rather to point out 
 some new modes of making the best of imaginary wants 
 than to dilate upon luxuries recognised by all. 
 
 Suppose, then, that neither a fire, the great friend in-doors, 
 nor sunshine, the great friend out-of-doors, be found with 
 
140 ESS A YS. 
 
 U3 in our breakfast-room, — that we could neither receive 
 pleasure from the one, if we had it, nor can command a 
 room into which the other makes its way, — what ornament 
 is there, — what supply of light or beauty could we discover, 
 at once exquisite and cheap, — that should furnish our 
 humble board with a grace, precious in the eyes of the 
 most intelligent among the rich ? Flowers. — Set flowers on 
 your table, a whole nosegay, if you can get it, — or but two 
 or three, — or a single flower, — a rose, a pink, nay, a daisy. 
 Bring a few daisies and butter-cups from your last field 
 walk, and keep them alive in a little water ; aye, preserve 
 but a bunch of clover, or a handful of flowering grass, one 
 of the most elegant as well as cheap of nature's productions, 
 — and you have something on your table that reminds you 
 of the beauties of God's creation, and gives you a link with 
 the poets and sages that have done it most honour. Put 
 but a rose, or a lily, or a violet on your table, and you and 
 Lord Bacon have a custom in common ; for that great and 
 wise man was in the habit of having the flowers in season 
 set upon his table, — morning, we believe, noon, and night ; 
 that is to say, at all his meals ; for dinner, in his time, was 
 taken at noon ; and why should he not have flowers at all 
 his meals, seeing that they were growing all day 1 Now 
 here is a fashion that shall last you for ever, if you please ; 
 never changing with silks, and velvets, and silver forks, nor 
 dependent upon the caprice of some fine gentleman or lady, 
 who have nothing but caprice and change to give them 
 importance and a sensation. The fashion of the garments 
 of heaven and earth endures for ever, and you may adorn 
 your table with specimens of their drapery, — with flowers 
 out of the fields, and golden beams out of the blue ether. 
 
 Flowers on a morning table are specially suitable to the 
 time. They look like the happy wakening of the creation ; 
 they bring the perfumes of the breath of nature into your 
 room ; they seem the representations and embodiments of 
 the very smiles of your home, the graces of its good-morrow, 
 — proofs that some intellectual beauty is in ourselves, or 
 those about us ; some house Aurora (if we are so lucky as 
 
BREAKFAST IN SUMMER. 141 
 
 to have such a companion) helping to strew our life with 
 sweets, or in ourselves some masculine mildness not unworthy 
 to possess such a companion, or unlikely to gain her. 
 
 Even a few leaves, if we can get no flowers, are far better 
 than no such ornament, — a branch from the next tree, or 
 the next herb-market, or some twigs that have been plucked 
 from a flowering hedge. They are often — nay, always — 
 beautiful, particularly in spring, when their green is ten- 
 derest. The first new boughs in spring, plucked and put 
 into a water-bottle, have often an effect that may compete 
 with flowers themselves, considering their novelty ; and, 
 indeed, 
 
 " Leaves would be counted flowers, if earth had none." 
 
 (There is a verse for the reader, and not a bad one, con- 
 sidering its truth.) We often have vines (such as they are, 
 — better than none) growing upon the walls of our city 
 houses, — or clematis, or jessamine, — perhaps ivy on a bit of 
 an old garden-wall, or a tree in a court. We should pluck 
 a sprig of it, and plant it on our breakfast-table. It would 
 show that the cheap elegancies of earth, the universal gifts 
 of the beauty of nature, are not thrown away upon us. 
 They shadow prettily over the clean table-cloth or the pas- 
 toral milk, like a piece of nature brought in-doors. The 
 tender bodies of the young vernal shoots above mentioned, 
 put into water, might be almost fancied clustering together 
 with a sort of virgin delicacy, like young nymphs, mute- 
 struck, in a fountain. Nay, any leaves, not quite faded, 
 look well, as a substitute for the want of flowers, — those of 
 the common elm, or the plane, or the rough oak (especially 
 when it has become gentle with its acorn tassels), or the 
 lime, which is tasseled in a more flowery manner, and has 
 a breath as beautiful. Ivy, which is seldom or never 
 brought in-doors, greatly deserves to be better treated, 
 especially the young shoots of it, which point in a most 
 elegant manner over the margin of a glass or decanter, 
 seeming to have been newly scissored forth by some fairy 
 hand, or by its own invisible quaint spirit, as if conscious 
 
142 ESSAYS. 
 
 of the tendency within it. Even the green tips of the fir- 
 trees, which seem to have been brushed by the golden pencil 
 of the sun, when he resumes his painting, bring a sort of 
 light and vernal joy into a room, in default of brighter 
 visitors. But it is not necessary to a loving and reflecting 
 spirit to have anything so good as those. A bit of elm-tree 
 or poplar would do, in the absence of anything rarer. For 
 our parts, as far as ourself alone is concerned, it seems to 
 us that we could not be mastered by the blackest storm of 
 existence, in the worst pass that our pilgrimage could bring 
 us to, as long as we had shelter over our heads, a table with 
 bread and a cup of tea upon it, and a single one of these 
 green smiles upon the board, to show us that good-natured 
 Nature was alive. 
 
 Does any reader misgive himself, and fancy that to help 
 himself to such comforts as these would be " trifling ? " Oh, 
 let him not so condescend to the ignorance of the proud or 
 envious. If this were trifling, then was Bacon a trifler, 
 then was the great Cond6 a trifler, and the old Republican 
 Ludlow, and all the great and good spirits that have loved 
 flowers, and Milton's Adam himself — nay, heaven itself; 
 for heaven made these harmless elegancies, and blessed 
 them with the universal good-will of the wise and innocent. 
 To trifle is not to make use of small pleasures for the help 
 and refreshment of our duties, but to be incapable of that 
 real estimation of either which enables us the better to 
 appreciate and assist both. The same mighty energy which 
 whirls the earth round the sun, and crashes the heavens 
 with thunderbolts, produces the lilies of the valley, and the 
 gentle dew-drops that keep them fair. 
 
 To return, then, to our flowers and our breakfast-table, — 
 were time and place so cruel as not to grant us even a twig, 
 still there is a last resource, and a rich one, too, — not quite 
 so cheap as the other, but obtainable now-a-days by a few 
 pence, and which may be said to grow also on the public 
 walls, — a book. We read, in old stories, of enchanters who 
 drew gardens out of snow, and of tents no bigger than a 
 nut-shell, which opened out over a whole army. Of a like 
 
BREAKFAST IN SUMMER. 143 
 
 nature is the magic of a book, — a casket, from which you 
 may draw out, at will, bowers to sit under, and afiectionate 
 beauties to sit by, and have trees, flowers, and an exquisite 
 friend, all at one spell. We see it now before us, standing 
 among the cups, edgeways, plain-looking, perhaps poor and 
 battered, perhaps bought of some dull huckster in a lane for 
 a few pence. On its back we read, in old worn-out letters 
 of enchantment, the word " Milton ; " and upon opening it, 
 lo ! we are breakfasting forthwith 
 
 " Betwixt two aged oaks 
 
 On herbs and other country messes 
 Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses," 
 
 in a place which they call " Allegro." Or the word on the 
 back of the casket is " Pope," and instantly a beauty in a 
 " neglig6 " makes breakfast for us, and we have twenty 
 sylphs instead of butterflies tickling the air round about us, 
 and comparing colours with the flowers, or pouncing upon 
 the crumbs that threaten to fall upon her stomacher. Or 
 " Thomson " is the magic name ; and a friend still sweeter 
 sits beside us, with her eyes on ours, and tells us, with a 
 pressure on the hand and soft, low words, that our cup 
 awaits us. Or we cry aloud " Theocritus ! " plunging into 
 the sweetest depths of the country, and lo! we breakfast 
 down in a thick valley of leaves and brooks and the brown 
 summer-time, upon creams and honey- combs, the guest of 
 bearded Pan and the Nymphs ; while at a distance on his 
 mountain-top, poor, overgrown Polyphemus, tamed and 
 made mild with the terrible sweet face of love, which has 
 frightened him with a sense of new thoughts, and of 
 changes which cannot be, sits overshadowing half of the 
 vineyards below him ; and with his brow in tears, blows 
 his harsh reeds over the sea. 
 
144 ESSAYS. 
 
 TEA-DRINKING. 
 
 The very word tea, so petty, so infantine, so winking-eyed, 
 so expressive, somehow or other, of something inexpressibly 
 minute and satisfied with a little (tee /), resembles the idea 
 one has (perhaps a very mistaken one) of that extraordinary 
 people, of whom Europeans know little or nothing, except 
 that they sell us this preparation, bow back again our 
 ambassadors, have a language consisting only of a few 
 hundred words, gave us CAirwi-ware and the strange 
 pictures on our tea-cups, made a certain progress in 
 civilisation long before we did, mysteriously stopped at it 
 and would go no further, and, if numbers and the customs 
 of "venerable ancestors" are to carry the day, are at once 
 the most populous and the most respectable nation on the 
 face of the earth. As a population they certainly are a 
 most enormous and wonderful body ; but, as individuals, 
 their ceremonies, their trifling edicts, their jealousy of 
 foreigners, and their tea-cup representations of themselves 
 (which are the only ones popularly known), impress us 
 irresistibly with a fancy that they are a people all toddling, 
 little-eyed, little-footed, little-bearded, little-minded, quaint, 
 overweening, pig-tailed, bald-headed, cone-capped or pagoda- 
 hatted, having childish houses and temples with bells at 
 every corner and story, and shuffling about in blue land- 
 scapes, over "nine-inch bridges," with little mysteries of 
 bell-hung whips in their hands, — a boat, or a house, or 
 a tree, made of a pattern, being over their heads or 
 underneath them (as the case may happen), and a bird 
 as large as the boat, always having a circular white space 
 to fly in. Such are the Chinese of the tea-cups and the 
 grocers' windows, and partly of their own novels too, 
 in which everything seems as little as their eyes, little odes, 
 little wine-parties, and a series of little satisfactions. How- 
 ever, it must be owned, that from these novels one 
 gradually acquires a notion that there is a great deal more 
 good sense and even good poetry among them than one 
 
TEA-DRINKING. 145 
 
 had fancied from the accounts of embassies and the 
 autobiographical paintings on the China-ware ; and this 
 is the most probable supposition. An ancient and great 
 nation, as civilised as they, is not likely to be so much 
 behind-hand with us in the art of living as our self- 
 complacency leads us to imagine. If their contempt of us 
 amounts to the barbarous, perhaps there is a greater share 
 of barbarism than we suspect in our scorn of them. 
 
 At all events, it becomes us to be grateful for their tea. 
 What a curious thing it was, that all of a sudden the 
 remotest nation of the East, otherwise unknown, and 
 foreign to all our habits, should convey to us a domestic 
 custom which changed the face of our morning refresh- 
 ments ; and that, instead of ale and meat, or wine, all the 
 polite part of England should be drinking a Chinese 
 infusion, and setting up earthenware in their houses, 
 painted with preposterous scenery ! We shall not speak 
 contemptuously, for our parts, of any such changes in the 
 history of a nation's habits, any more than of the changes 
 of the wind, which now comes from tlie west, and now from 
 the east, doubtless for some good purpose. It may be 
 noted, that the introduction of tea-drinking followed the 
 diffusion of books among us, and the growth of more 
 sedentary modes of life. The breakfasters upon cold beef 
 and " cool tankards " were an active, horse-riding genera- 
 tion. Tea-drinking times are more in-door, given to 
 reading, and are riders in carriages, or manufacturers 
 at the loom or the steam-engine. It may be taken as an 
 axiom, — the more sedentary, the more tea-drinking. The 
 conjunction is not the best in the world ; but it is natural, 
 till something better be found. Tea-drinking is better than 
 dram-drinking : a practice which, if our memory does not 
 deceive us, was creeping in among the politest and even 
 the fairest circles, dui-ing the transition from ales to teas. 
 When the late Mr. Hazlitt, by an effort worthy of him, 
 suddenly left off the stiff glasses of brandy-and-water by 
 which he had been tempted to prop up his disappointments, 
 or rather to loosen his tongue at the pleasant hour of 
 
 204 
 
I46 JTSSAVS 
 
 supper, he took to tea-drinking ; and it must be owned, was 
 latterly tempted to make himself as much amends as he 
 could for his loss of excitement in the quantity he allowed 
 himself ; but it left his mind free to exercise its powers ; — 
 it " kept," as Waller beautifully says of it, 
 
 " The palace of the soul serene ; " 
 
 not, to be sure, the quantity, but the tea itself, compared 
 ■with the other drink. The prince of tea-drinkers was Dr. 
 Johnson, one of the most sedentary of men, and the most 
 unhealthy. It is to be feared his quantity suited him still 
 worse; though the cups, of which we hear such multi- 
 tudinous stories about him, were very small in his time. 
 It -was he that wrote, or rather effused, the humorous 
 request for tea, in ridicule of the style of the old ballads 
 (things, be it said without irreverence, which he did not 
 understand so well as "his cups"). The verses were 
 extempore, and addressed to Mrs. Thrale : — 
 
 " And now, I pray thee, Hetty dear, 
 
 Tliat tliou wilt give to me, 
 "With cream and sugar soften'd well, 
 Another dish of tea. 
 
 But hear, alas ! this mournful truth, 
 
 Nor hear it with a frown, — 
 Thou canst not make the tea so fast 
 
 As I can gulp it down. " 
 
 Now this is among the pleasures of reading and reflect- 
 ing men over their breakfast, or on any other occasion. 
 The sight of what is a tiresome nothing to others, shall 
 suggest to them a hundred agreeable recollections and 
 speculations. There is a tea-cup, for example. " Well, 
 what is a tea-cup ! " a simpleton might cry ; — "it holds my 
 tea — that's all." Yes, that's all to you and your poverty- 
 stricken brain ; we hope you are rich and prosperous, 
 to make up for it as well as you can. But to the right tea- 
 driuker, the cup, we see, contains not only recollections of 
 
TEA-DRINKING. 147 
 
 eminent brethren of the bohea, but the whole Chinese 
 nation, with all its history, Lord Macartney included ; 
 nay, for that matter, Ariosto and his beautiful story of 
 Angelica and Medoro ; for Angelica was a Chinese ; and 
 then collaterally come in the Chinese neighbours and 
 conquerors from Tartary, with Chaucer's 
 
 ' ' — Story of Cambuscan bold," 
 
 and the travels of Marco Polo and others, and the Jesuit 
 missionaries, and the Japanese with our friend Golownin, 
 and the Loo Choo people, and Confucius, whom Voltaire 
 (to show his learning) delights to call by his proper native 
 appellation of Kong-foo-tsee (reminding us of Congo tea) ; 
 and then we have the Chinese Tales, and Goldsmith's 
 Citizen of the World, and Goldsmith brings you back to 
 Johnson again and the toa-drinkings of old times ; and 
 then we have the Rape of the Lock before us, with Belinda 
 at breakfast, and Lady Wortley Montague's tea-table 
 eclogue, and the domestic pictures in the TatJer and 
 Spectator, with the passions existing in those times for 
 china-ware, and Horace Walpole, who was an old woman 
 in that respect ; and, in short, a thousand other memories, 
 grave and gay, poetical and prosaical, all ready to wait 
 upon anybody who chooses to read books, like spirits at the 
 command of the book- readers of old, who, for the advan- 
 tages they had over the rest of the world, got the title of 
 Magicians. 
 
 Yea, pleasant and rich is thy sight, little tea-cup (large, 
 though, at breakfast), round, smooth, and coloured ; — com- 
 posed of delicate earth, — like the earth, producing flowers, 
 and birds, and men ; and containing within thee thy 
 Lilliputian ocean, which we, after sending our fancy sailing 
 over it, past islands of foam called "sixpences," and 
 mysterious bubbles from below, will, giant-like, engulf j — 
 
 But hold — there's a fly in. 
 
 Now, why could not this inconsiderate monster of the air 
 be content with the whole space of the heavens round about 
 him, but he must needs plunge into this scalding pool? 
 
148 ESSAYS. 
 
 Did he scent the sugar t or was it a fascination of terror 
 from the heat 1 " Hadst thou my three kingdoms to range 
 in," said James the First to a fly, " and yet must needs get 
 into my eye 1 " It was a good-natured speech, and a 
 natural. It shows that the monarch did his best to get the 
 fly out again ; at least we hope so ; and therefore we follow 
 the royal example in extricating the little winged wretch, 
 who has struggled hard with his unavailing pinions, and 
 become drenched and lax with the soaking. He is on the 
 dry, clean cloth. Is he dead 1 No : — the tea was not so 
 hot as we supposed it : — see, he gives a heave of himself 
 forward ; then endeavours to drag a leg up, then another, 
 then stops, and sinks down, saturated and overborne with 
 wateriness ; and assuredly, from the inmost soul of him, he 
 sighs (if flies sigh, — which we think they must do some- 
 times, after attempting in vain, for half-an-hour, to get 
 through a pane of glass). However, his sigh is as much 
 mixed with joy as fright and astonishment and a horrible 
 hot bath can let it be ; and the heat has not been too much 
 for him ; a similar case would have been worse for one of 
 us with our fleshy bodies ; — for see ! after dragging himself 
 along the dry cloth, he is fairly on his legs ; he smoothes 
 himself, like a cat, first one side, then the other, only with 
 his legs instead of his tongue ; then rubs the legs together, 
 partly to disengage them of their burthen, and parti}' as if 
 he congratulated himself on his escape ; and now, finally, 
 opening his wings (beautiful privilege ! for all wings, except 
 the bat's, seem beautiful, and a privilege, and fit for envy), 
 he is off again into the air, as if nothing had happened. 
 
 He may forget it, being an inconsiderate and giddy fly ; 
 but it is to us, be it remembered by our conscience, that he 
 owes all which he is hereafter to enjoy. His suctions of 
 sugar, his flights, his dances on the window, his children, 
 yea, the whole House of Fly, as far as it depends on him 
 their ancestor, will be owing to us. We have been his 
 providence, his guardian angel, the invisible being that 
 rescued him without his knowing it. What shall we add, 
 reader? Wilt thou laugh, or look placid and content, — 
 
A FEW THOUGHTS ON SLEEP. 149 
 
 humble, and yet in some sort proud withal, and not consider 
 it as an unbecoming meeting of ideas in these our most 
 mixed and reflective papers, — if we argue from rescued flies 
 to rescued human beings, and take occasion to hope, that in 
 the midst of the struggling endeavours of such of us as have 
 to wrestle with fault or misfortune, invisible pity may look 
 down with a helping eye upon ourselves, and that what it 
 is humane to do in the man, it is divine to do in that which 
 made humanity. 
 
 A FEW THOUGHTS ON SLEEP. 
 
 Tnis is an article for the reader to think of when he or 
 she is warm in bed, a little before he goes to sleep, the 
 clothes at his ear, and the wind moaning in some distant 
 crevice. 
 
 " Blessings," exclaimed Sancho, " on him that first 
 invented sleep 1 It wraps a man all round like a cloak." 
 It is a delicious moment certainly — that of being well 
 nestled in bed, and feeling that you shall drop gently to 
 sleep. The good is to come, not past : the limbs have been 
 just tired enough to render the remaining in one posture 
 delightful : the labour of the day is done. A gentle failure 
 of the perceptions comes creeping over one: — the spirit of 
 consciousness disengages itself more and more, with slow 
 and hushing degrees, like a mother detaching her hand 
 from that of her sleeping child ; — the mind seems to have 
 a balmy lid closing over it, like the eye; — 'tis closing; — 
 'tis more closing ; — 'tis closed. The mysterious spirit has 
 gone to take its airy rounds. 
 
 It is said that sleep is best before midnight : and Nature 
 herself, with her darkness and chilling dews, informs us so. 
 There is another reason for going to bed betimes ; for it is 
 universally acknowledged that lying late in the morning is 
 a great shortener of life. At least, it is never found in 
 
ISO ASSAYS. 
 
 company with longevity. It also tends to make people 
 corpulent. But these matters belong rather to the subject 
 of early rising than of sleep. 
 
 Sleep at a late hour in the morning is not half so 
 pleasant as the more timely one. It is sometimes, however, 
 excusable, especially to a watchful or overworked head ; 
 neither can we deny the seducing merits of " t' other 
 doze," — the pleasing wilfulness of nestling in a new posture, 
 when you know you ought to be up, like the rest of the 
 house. But then you cut up the day, and your sleep the 
 next night. 
 
 In the course of the day few people think of sleeping, 
 except after dinner ; and then it is often rather a hovering 
 and nodding on the borders of sleep than sleep itself. 
 This is a privilege allowable, we think, to none but the old, 
 or the sickly, or the very tired and care-worn ; and it should 
 be well understood before it is exercised in company. To 
 escape into slumber from an argument ; or to take it as an 
 affair of course, only between you and your biliary duct ; 
 or to assent with involuntar-y nods to all that you have just 
 been disputing, is not so well ; much less, to sit nodding 
 and tottering beside a lady ; or to be in danger of dropping 
 your head into the fruit-plate or your host's face ; or of 
 waking up, and saying "Just so" to the bark of a dog; 
 or "Yes, madam," to the black at your elbow. 
 
 Care-worn people, however, might refresh themselves 
 oftener with day-sleep than they do ; if their bodily state is 
 such as to dispose them to it. It is a mistake to suppose 
 that all care is wakeful. People sometimes sleep, as well 
 as wake, by reason of their sorrow. The difference seems 
 to depend upon the nature of their temperament ; thoiigh 
 in the most excessive cases, sleep is perhaps Nature's never- 
 failing relief, as swooning is upon the rack. A person with 
 jaundice in his blood shall lie down and go to sleep at noon- 
 day, when another of a different complexion shall find his 
 eyes as uncloseable as a statue's, though he has had no sleep 
 for nights together. Without meaning to lessen the dignity 
 of suffering, which has quite enough to do with its waking 
 
A FEW THOUGHTS ON SLEEP. 151 
 
 hours, it is this that may often account for the profound 
 sleeps enjoyed the night before hazardous battles, executions, 
 and other demands upon an over-excited spirit. 
 
 The most complete and healthy sleep that can be taken 
 in the day is in summer-time, out in a field. There is, 
 perhaps, no solitary sensation so exquisite as that of 
 slumbering on the grass or hay, shaded from the hot sun by 
 a tree, with the consciousness of a fresh but light air 
 running through the wide atmosphere, and the sky stretch- 
 ing far overhead upon all sides. Earth, and heaven, and a 
 placid humanity seem to have the creation to themselves. 
 There is nothing between the slumberer and the naked and 
 glad innocence of nature. 
 
 Next to this, but at a long interval, the most relishing 
 snatch of slumber out of bed is the one which a tired 
 person takes before he retires for the night, while lingering 
 in his sitting-room. The consciousness of being very sleepy, 
 and of having the power to go to bed immediately, gives 
 great zest to tbe unwillingness to move. Sometimes he sits 
 nodding in his chair ; but the sudden and leaden jerks of 
 the head to which a state of great sleepiness renders him 
 liable, are generally too painful for so luxurious a moment ; 
 and he gets into a more legitimate posture, sitting sideways 
 with his head on the chair-back, or throwing his legs up at 
 once on another chair, and half reclining. It is curious, 
 however, to find how long an inconvenient posture will be 
 borne for the sake of this foretaste of repose. The worst of 
 it is, that on going to bed the charm sometimes vanishes ; 
 perhaps from the colder temperature of the chamber ; for a 
 fireside is a great opiate. 
 
 Speaking of the painful positions into which a sleepy 
 lounger will get himself, it is amusing to think of the more 
 fantastic attitudes that so often take place in bed. If we 
 could add anything to the numberless things that have been 
 said about sleep by the poets, it would be upon this point. 
 Sleep never shows himself a greater leveller. A man in his 
 waking moments may look as proud and self-possessed as he 
 pleases. He may walk proudly, he may sit proudly, he 
 
T ^2 ESS A VS. 
 
 may eat his dinner proudly ; he may shave himself with an 
 air of infinite superiority ; in a word, he may show himself 
 grand and absurd upon the most trifling occasions. But 
 Sleep plays the petrifying magician. He arrests the 
 proudest lord as well as the humblest clown in the most 
 ridiculous postures : so that if you could draw a grandee 
 from his bed without waking him, no limb-twisting fool in 
 a pantomime should create wilder laughter. The toy with 
 the string between its legs is hardly a posture-master more 
 extravagant. Imagine a despot lifted up to the gaze of 
 his valets, with his eyes shut, his mouth open, his left hand 
 under his right ear, his other twisted and hanging helplessly 
 before him like an idiot's, one knee lifted up, and the other 
 leg stretched out, or both knees huddled up together ; — 
 ■what a scarecrow to lodge majestic power in ! 
 
 But Sleep is kindly even in his tricks ; and the poets 
 have treated him with proper reverence. According to the 
 ancient mythologists he had even one of the Graces to wife. 
 He had a thousand sons, of whom the chief were Morpheus, 
 or the Shaper ; Icelos, or the Likely ; Phantasus, the 
 Fancy ; and Phobetor, the Terror. His dwelling some 
 writers place in a dull and darkling part of the earth ; 
 others, with greater compliment, in heaven ; and others, 
 with another kind of propriety, by the sea-shore. There is 
 a good description of it in Ovid; but in these abstracted 
 tasks of poetry the moderns outvie the ancients ; and there 
 is nobody who has built his bower for him so finely as 
 Spenser. Archimago, in the first book of the Faerie Queene 
 (Canto I. St. 39), sends a little spirit down to Morpheus to 
 fetch him a Dream : 
 
 " He, making speedy way through spersed ayre, 
 And through the world of waters, wide and deepc, 
 To Morpheus' house doth hastily repaire. 
 Amid the bowels of the earth full steepe 
 And low, where dawning day doth never peepe, 
 His dwelling is. There, Tethys his wet bed 
 Doth ever wash ; and Cynthia still doth steepe 
 In silver dew his ever-drouping head, 
 
 "Whiles s^d Night oyer hinx her mantle black doth spre4» 
 
A FEW THOUGHTS ON SLEEP. 153 
 
 And more to lull him iu his slumber soft 
 A trickling strearae from high rocke tumbling downe, 
 And ever-drizzling rain upon the loft, 
 Mixed with a murmuring winde, much like the aoune 
 Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swoune. 
 No other noise, nor people's troublous cryes, 
 As still are wont to annoy the walled towne, 
 Might there be heard ; but careless Quiet lyes, 
 Wrapt iu eternall silence, far from enimyes." 
 
 Chaucer has drawn the cave of the same god with greater 
 simplicity ; but nothing can have a more deep and sullen 
 effect than his cliffs and cold running waters. It seems as 
 real as an actual solitude, or some quaint old picture in a 
 book of travels in Tartary. He is telling the story of Ceyx 
 and Alcyone in the poem called his Dream. Juno tells a 
 messenger to go to Morpheus and " bid him creep into the 
 body " of the drowned king, to let his wife know the fatal 
 event by his apparition. 
 
 " This messenger tooke leave, and went 
 Upon his way ; and never he stent 
 Till he came to the dark valley. 
 That stant betweeno rockes tWey. 
 There never yet grew come, ne gias. 
 Ne tree, ne nought that aught was. 
 Beast, ne man, ne naught else ; 
 Save that there were a few wells 
 Came running fro the cliffs adowne. 
 That made a deadly sleeping soune. 
 And runnen downe right by a cave, 
 That was under a rocky grave, 
 Amid the valley, wonder-deepe. 
 There these goddis lay asleepe, 
 Morpheus and Eclympasteire, 
 That was the god of Sleepis heire. 
 That slept and did none other worke." 
 
 Where the credentials of this new son and heir, Eclym- 
 pasteire, are to be found, we know not ; but he acts very 
 much, it must be allowed, like an heir-presumptive, in 
 sleeping and doing " none other work." 
 
 We dare not trust ourselves with many quotations upon 
 
154 ESSAYS. 
 
 sleep from the poets ; tliey are so numerous as well as 
 beautiful. We must content ourselves with mentioning 
 that our two most favourite passages are one in the 
 Philoctetes of Sophocles, admirable for its contrast to a 
 scene of terrible agony, which it closes ; and the other the 
 following address in Beaumont and Fletcher's tragedy of 
 Valentiniariy the hero of which is also a sufferer under 
 bodily torment. He is in a chair, slumbering ; and these 
 most exquisite lines are gently sung with music : — 
 
 " Care-charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes, 
 Brother to Death, sweetly thyself dispose 
 Ou this afflicted prince. Fall like a cloud 
 In Ejentle showers : give nothing that is loud 
 Or painful to his slumbers : easy, sweet, 
 And as a purling stream, thou son of Night, 
 Pass by his troubled senses ; sing his pain 
 Like hollow murmuring wind, or silver rain : 
 Into this prince, gently, oh gently slide. 
 And kiss him into slumbers, like a bride." 
 
 How earnest and prayer-like are these pauses ! How 
 lightly sprinkled, and yet how deeply settling, like rain, 
 the fancy ! How quiet, afi'ectionate, and perfect the 
 conclusion ! 
 
 Sleep is most graceful in an infant ; soundest, in one who 
 has been tired in the open air ; completest, to the seaman 
 after a hard voyage ; most welcome, to the mind haunted 
 with one idea ; most touching to look at, in the parent that 
 has wept ; lightest, in the playful child ; proudest, in the 
 bride adored. 
 
 COLOUR. 
 
 In this beloved, beautiful, but sometimes foggy, and too often 
 not very brilliant country of ours, we are not fond enough 
 of colours, — not fond enough of a beauty of which Nature 
 
COLOUR. 155 
 
 herself is evidently very fond, and with which, like all the rest 
 of her beauties, it is the business of civilised man to adorn 
 and improve his own well-being. The summer season is a 
 good time for becoming acquainted with them, for it is then 
 we see them best, and may acquire a relish for them against 
 the insipidity of winter. We remember a dyer in Genoa 
 who used to hang out his silks upon a high wall opposite his 
 shop, where they shone with such lustre under the blue sky 
 (we particularly remember some yellow ones) that it was a 
 treat to pass that way. You hailed them at a distance, like 
 
 "another sun 
 Risen at noonday ; " 
 
 or as if Nature herself had been making some draperies out 
 of butter-cups, and had just presented the world with the 
 phenomenon. It is the blue sky and clear air of their 
 native land which have made the Italian painters so famous 
 for colouring; and Rubens and Watteau, like wise men, 
 saw the good of transferring the beauty to the less fortunate 
 climate of Flanders. One of the first things that attracted 
 our notice in Italy was a red cap on the head of a boatman. 
 In England, where nobody else wears such a cap, we should 
 have thought of a butcher ; in Italy the sky set it off to 
 such advantage, that it reminded us of a scarlet bud. 
 
 The Puritans, who did us a great deal of good, helped to 
 do this harm for us. They degraded material beauty and 
 gladness, as if essentially hostile to what was spiritually 
 estimable ; whereas the desirable thing is to show the com- 
 patibility of both, and vindicate the hues of the creation. 
 Thus, the finest colours in men's dresses have at last almost 
 come to be confined to livery servants and soldiers. A 
 soldier's wife, or a market-woman, is the only female that 
 ventures to wear a scarlet cloak ; and we have a favourite 
 epithet of vituperation, gaudy, which we bestow upon all 
 colours that do not suit our melancholy. It is sheer want 
 of heart and animal spirits. We were not always so. 
 Puritanism, and wars, and debts, and the Dutch succession, 
 and false ideas of utility, have all conspired to take gladness 
 
156 ESSA VS. 
 
 out of our eyesight, as well as jollity cub of our pockets. 
 We shall recover a better taste, and, we trust, exhibit it to 
 better advantage than before ; but we must begin by having 
 faith in as many good things as possible, and not think ill 
 of any one of heaven's means of making us cheerful, because 
 in itself it is cheerful. " If a merry meeting is to bo 
 wished," says the man in Shakespeare, " may God prohibit 
 it." So the more obviously cheerful and desirable anything 
 is, the more we seem to beg the question in its disfavour. 
 Reds, and yellows, and bright blues are " gaudy ; " we 
 must have nothing but browns, and blacks, and drab-colour 
 or stone. Earth is not of this opinion ; nor the heavens 
 either. Gardens do not think so ; nor the fields, nor the 
 skies, nor the mountains, nor dawn, nor sunset, nor light 
 itself, which is made of colours and holds them always ready 
 in its crystal quiver, to shoot forth and divide into loveliness. 
 The beautiful attracts the beautiful. Colours find homes of 
 colour. To red go the red rays, and to purple the purple. 
 The rainbow reads its beauteous lecture in the clouds, 
 showing the sweet division of the hues ; and the mechanical 
 "philosopher," as he calls himself, smiles with an air of 
 superiority, and thinks he knows all about it, because the 
 division is made. 
 
 The little child, like the real philosopher, knows more, for 
 his " heart leaps up," and he acknowledges a glad mystery. 
 He feels the immensity of what he does 7iot know ; and 
 though the purely mechanical-minded man admits that sucli 
 immensity exists with regard to himself, he does not feel it 
 as the child or the wiser man does, and therefore he does 
 not truly perceive, — does not thoroughly take it into his 
 consciousness. He talks and acts as if he had come to the 
 extent of his knowledge — and he has so. But beyond the 
 dry line of knowledge lies beauty, and all which is beautiful 
 in hope and exalting in imagination. 
 
 We feel as if there were a moral as well as material 
 beauty in colour, — an inherent gladness, — an intention on 
 the part of Nature to share with us a pleasure felt by her- 
 self. Colours are the smiles of Nature. When they arg 
 
THE WAITER. 157 
 
 extremely smiling, and break forth into other beauty 
 besides, they are her laughs; as in the flowers. The 
 " laughing flowers," says the poet ; and it is the business 
 of the poet to feel truths beyond the proof of the mecha- 
 nician. Nature, at all events, humanly speaking, is manifestly 
 very fond of colour, for she has made nothing without it. 
 Her skies are blue ; her fields green ; her waters vary with 
 her skies ; her animals, minerals, vegetables, are all coloured. 
 She paints a great many of them in apparently superfluous 
 hues, as if to show the dullest eye how she loves colour. 
 The pride of the peacock, or some stately exhibition of a 
 quality very like pride, is a singular matter of fact, 
 evidently connected with it. Youthful beauty in the 
 human being is partly made up of it. One of tlie three 
 great arts with which Providence has adorned and human- 
 ised tlie mind, — Painting, — is founded upon the love and 
 imitation of it. And the magnificence of empire can find 
 nothing more precious, either to possess, or be proud of 
 wearing, than 
 
 "Fiery opals, sapphires, amethysts, 
 Jacinths, hard topaz, grass-green emeralds, 
 Beauteous rubies, sparkling diamonds, 
 And seld-seen costly stones of so great price, 
 As one of them, indifferently rated, 
 May serve in peril of calamity 
 To rausom great kings from captivity." 
 
 THE WAITER. 
 
 Going into the City the other day upon business, we took 
 a chop at a tavern, and renewed our acquaintance, after 
 years of interruption, with that swift and untiring person- 
 age, yclept a waiter. We mention this long interval of 
 acquaintance in order to account for any deficiencies that 
 may be found in our description of him. Our readers, 
 perhaps, will favour us with a better. He is a character 
 
1 5fi l!:SSA YS. 
 
 before the public : thousands are acquainted with him, 
 and can fill up the outline. But we felt irresistibly impelled 
 to sketch him ; like a portrait-painter who comes suddenly 
 upon an old friend, or upon an old servant of the family. 
 
 We speak of the waiter properly and generally so called 
 — the representative of the whole, real, ofiicial race — and 
 not of the humorist or other eccentric genius occasionally 
 to be found in it — moving out of the orbit of tranquil but 
 fiery waiting — not absorbed — not devout towards us — not 
 silent or monosyllabical ; — fellows that affect a character 
 beyond that of waiter, and get spoiled in club-rooms and 
 places of theatrical resort. 
 
 Your thorough waiter has no ideas out of the sphere of 
 his duty and the business; and yet he is not narrow-minded 
 either. He sees too much variety of character for that, and 
 has to exercise too much consideration for the " drunken 
 gentleman." But his world is the tavern, and all mankind 
 but its visitors. His female sex are the maid-servants and 
 his young mistress, or the widow. If he is ambitious, he 
 aspires to marry one of the two latter : if otherwise, and 
 Molly is prudent, he does not know but he may carry her 
 ofi" some day to be mistress of the Golden Lion at Chinks- 
 ford, where he will " show off" in the eyes of Betty Laxon 
 who refused him. He has no feeling of noise itself but as 
 the sound of dining, or of silence but as a thing before 
 dinner. Even a loaf with him is hardly a loaf ; it is so 
 many " breads." His longest speech is the making out of a 
 bill viva voce — " Two beefs — one potatoes — three ales — 
 two wines — six-and-twopence " — which he does with an 
 indifferent celerity, amusing to new-comers who have been 
 relishing their fare, and not considering it as a mere set of 
 items. He attributes all virtues to everybody, provided 
 they are civil and liberal ; and of the existence of some 
 vices he has no notion. Gluttony, for instance, with him, 
 is not only inconceivable, but looks very like a virtue. He 
 sees in it only so many more " beefs," and a generous scorn 
 of the bill. As to wine, or almost any other liquor, it is 
 out of vour power to astonish him with the quantity you 
 
THE WAITER. 159 
 
 call for. His "Yes, sir," is as swift, indifferent, and 
 official at the fifth bottle as at the first. Reform and other 
 public events he looks upon purely as things in the 
 newspaper, and the newspaper as a thing taken in at 
 taverns, for gentlemen to read. His own reading is 
 confined to "Accidents and OfTences," and the advertise- 
 ments for Butlers, which latter he peruses with an 
 admiring fear, not choosing to give up "a certainty." 
 When young he was always in a hurry, and exasperated 
 his mistress by running against the other waiters, and 
 breaking the "neguses." As he gets older, he learns to 
 unite swiftness with caution ; declines wasting his breath 
 in immediate answers to calls ; and knows, with a slight 
 turn of his face and elevation of his voice, into what 
 precise corner of the room to pitch his " Coming, sir." 
 If you told him that, in Shakespeare's time, waiters said 
 " Anon, anon, sir," he would be astonished at the 
 repetition of the same word in one answer, and at the use 
 of three words instead of two ; and he would justly infer 
 that London could not have been so large, nor the chop- 
 houses so busy, in those days. He would drop one of the 
 two syllables of his " Yes, sir," if he could ; but business 
 and civility will not allow it ; and therefore he does what 
 he can by running them together in the swift sufficiency of 
 his "Yezzir." 
 
 " Thomas ! " 
 
 «« Yezzir." 
 
 " Is my steak coming % '' 
 
 "Yezzir." 
 
 " And the pint of port ? " 
 
 " Yezzir." 
 
 " You'll not forget the postman?" 
 
 " Yezzir." 
 For in the habit of his acquiescence Thomas not seldom 
 says " Yes, sir," for " No, sir," the habit itself rendering 
 him intelligible. 
 
 His morning dress is a waistcoat or jacket ; his coat is 
 for afternoons. If the establishment is flourishin^r, he likes 
 
i5o ASSAYS. 
 
 to get into black as he grows elderly ; by which time also 
 he is generally a little corpulent, and wears hair-powder, 
 dressing somewliat laxly about the waist, for convenience 
 of movement. Not, however, that he draws much upon 
 that part of his body, except as a poise to what he carries ; 
 for you may observe that a waiter, in walking, uses only 
 his lower limbs, from his knees downwards. The move- 
 ment of all the rest of him is negative, and modiiied solely 
 by what he bears in his hands. At this period he has a 
 little money in the funds, and his nieces look up to him. 
 He still carries, however, a napkin under his arm, as well as 
 a cork-screw in his pocket ; nor, for all his long habit, can 
 he help feeling a satisfaction at the noise he makes in 
 drawing a cork. He thinks that no man can do it better ; 
 and that Mr. Smith, who understands wine, is thinking so 
 too, though he does not take his eyes off the plate. In his 
 right waistcoat pocket is a snuffbox, with which he supplies 
 gentlemen late at night, after the shops are shut up, and 
 when they are in desperate want of another fillip to their 
 sensations, after the devil and toasted cheese. If par- 
 ticularly required he will laugh at a joke, especially at 
 that time of night, justly thinking that 'gentlemen towards 
 one in the morning '^will be facetious." He is of opinion 
 it is in " human nature " to be a little fresh at that period, 
 and to want to be put into a coach. 
 
 He announces his acquisition of property by a bunch of 
 seals to his watch, and perhaps rings on his fingers ; one of 
 them a mourning ring left him by his late master, the other 
 a present either from his nieces' father, or from some ultra- 
 good-natured old gentleman whom he helped into a coach 
 one night, and who had no silver about him. 
 
 To see him dine, somehow, hardly seems natural. And 
 he appears to do it as if he had no right. You catch him at 
 his dinner in a corner — huddled apart — "Thomas dining !" 
 instead of helping dinner. One fancies that the stewed 
 and hot meats and the constant smoke ought to be too 
 much for him, and that he should have neither appetite nor 
 time for such a meal 
 
OF STICKS. i6i 
 
 Once a-year (for he has few holidays) a couple of 
 pedestrians meet him on a Sunday in the fields, and cannot 
 conceive for the life of them who it is ; till the startling 
 recollection occurs — " Good God ! It's the waiter at tho 
 Grogram 1 " 
 
 OF STICKS. 
 
 Among other comparative injuries which we are accustomed 
 to do to the characters of things animate and inanimate, in 
 order to gratify our human vanity, such as calling a rascal 
 a dog (which is a great compliment), and saying that a 
 tyrant makes a beast of himself (which it would be a very 
 good thing, and a lift in the world, if he could), is a habit 
 in which some persons indulge themselves, of calling insipid 
 things and persons sticks. Such and such a one is said to 
 write a stick ; and such another is himself called a stick ; — 
 a poor stick, a mere stick, a stick of a fellow. 
 
 We protest against this injustice done to those useful and 
 once flourishing sons of a good old stock. Take, for 
 instance, a common cherry stick, which is one of the 
 favourite sort. In the first place, it is a very pleasant sub- 
 stance to look at, the grain running round it in glossy and 
 shadowy rings. Then it is of primaeval antiquity, handed 
 down from scion to scion through the most flourishing of 
 genealogical trees. In the third place, it is of Eastern 
 origin ; of a stock which it is possible may have furnished 
 Haroun Al Raschid with a djereed, or Mahomet with a 
 camel-stick, or Xenophon in his famous retreat with fences, 
 or Xerxes with tent-pins, or Alexander with a javelin, or 
 Sardanapalus with tarts, or Solomon with a simile for his 
 mistress's lips, or Jacob with a crook, or Methusalera with 
 shadow, or Zoroaster with mathematical instruments, or the 
 builders of Babel with scaffolding. Lastly, how do you 
 know but that you may have eaten cherries off this very 
 
 205 
 
1 62 ASSAYS. 
 
 stick ? for it was once alive with sap, and rustling with 
 foliage, and powdered with blossoms, and red and laughing 
 with fruit. Where the leathern tassel now hangs may 
 have dangled a bunch of berries ; and instead of the brass 
 ferule poking in the mud, the tip was growing into the air 
 with its youngest green. 
 
 The use of sticks in general is of the very greatest 
 antiquity. It is impossible to conceive a state of society in 
 which boughs should not be plucked from trees for some 
 purpose of utility or amusement. Savages use clubs, 
 hunters require lances, and shepherds their crooks. Then 
 came the sceptre, which is originally nothing but a staff, or 
 a lance, or a crook, distinguished from others. The Greek 
 Mord for sceptre signifies also a walking-stick. A mace, 
 however plumped up and disguised with gilding and a 
 heavy crown, is only the same thing in the hands of an 
 inferior ruler ; and so are all other sticks used in office, 
 from the baton of the Grand Constable of France down to 
 the tip-staff of a constable in Bow Street. As the shepherd's 
 dog is the origin of the gentlest whelp that lies on a hearth- 
 cushion, and of the most pompous barker that jumps about 
 a pair of greys, so the merest stick used by a modern 
 Arcadian, when he is driving his flock to Leadenhall 
 Market with a piece of candle in his hat, and No. 554 on 
 his arm, is the first great parent and original of all authori- 
 tative staves, from the beadle's cane wherewith he terrifies 
 charity-boys who eat bull's-eyes in church-time, up to the 
 silver mace of the verger, to the wands of parishes and 
 governors, — the tasselled staff wherewith the Band-Major 
 so loftily picks out his measured way before the musicians, 
 and which he holds up when they are to cease ; to the 
 White Staff of the Lord Treasurer ; the court-officer 
 emphatically called the Lord Gold Stick ; the Bishop's 
 Crosier (Pedum Episcopate), whereby he is supposed to pull 
 back the feet of his straying flock ; and the royal and 
 imperial sceptre aforesaid, whose holders, formerly called 
 Shepherds of the people (Iloi/ji.ev€<5 AaCTi'), were seditiously 
 said to fleece more than to protect. The Vaulting-Staff, a 
 
OF STICKS. 163 
 
 luxurious instrument of exercise, must have been used in 
 times immemorial for passing streams and rough ground 
 ■with. It is the ancestor of the staff with which Pilgrims 
 travelled. The Staff and Quarter-Staff" of the country 
 Robin Hoods is a remnant of the war-club. So is the 
 Irish Shilelah, which a friend has well-defined to be " a 
 stick with two butt-ends." The originals of all these that 
 are not extant in our own country may still be seen 
 wherever there are nations uncivilised. The Negro Prince, 
 who asked our countrymen what was said of him in Europe, 
 was surrounded in state with a parcel of ragged fellows with 
 shilelahs over their shoulders — Lord Old Sticks. 
 
 But sticks have been great favourites with civilised as 
 well as uncivilised nations ; only the former have used 
 them more for help and ornament. The Greeks were a 
 sceptropherous people. Homer probably used a walking- 
 stick because he was blind ; but we have it on authority 
 that Socrates did. On his first meeting with Xenophon, 
 which was in a narrow passage, he barred up the way with 
 his stick, and asked him, in his good-natured manner, where 
 provisions were to be had. Xenophon having told him, he 
 asked again, if he knew where virtue and wisdom were to 
 be had ; and this reducing the young man to a nonplus, he 
 said, " Follow me, and learn ; " which Xenophon did, and 
 became the great man we have all heard of. The fatherly 
 story of Agesilaus, who was caught amusing his little boy 
 with riding on a stick, and asked his visitor whether he was 
 a father, is too well known for repetition. 
 
 There is an illustrious anecdote connected with our 
 subject in Roman history. The highest compliment which 
 his countrymen thought they could pay to the first Scipio 
 was to call him a walking-stick ; for such is the signification 
 of his name. It was given him for the filial zeal with 
 which he used to help his old father about, serving his 
 decrepit age instead of a staff. But the Romans were not 
 remarkable for sentiment. What we hear in general of 
 their sticks, is the thumpings which servants get in their 
 plays ; and above all, the famous rods which the lictors 
 
164 £SSAYS. 
 
 carried, and which being actual sticks, must have inflicted 
 horrible dull bruises and malignant stripes. They were 
 pretty things, it must be confessed, to carry before the chief 
 magistrate ! just as if the King or the Lord Chancellor were 
 to be preceded by a cat-o'-nine-tails. 
 
 Sticks are not at all in such request with modern times 
 as they were. Formerly, we suspect, most of the poorer ranks 
 in England used to carry them, both on account of the 
 prevalence of manly sports, and for security in travelling ; 
 for before the invention of posts and mail-coaches, a trip to 
 Scotland or Northumberland was a thing to make a man 
 write his will. As they came to be ornamented, fashion 
 adopted them. The Cavaliers of Charles the First's time 
 were a sticked race, as well as the apostolic divines and 
 Puritans, who appear to have carried staves because they 
 read of them among the patriarchs. Charles the First, 
 when at his trial, held out his stick to forbid the Attorney- 
 General's proceeding. There is an interesting little story 
 connected with a stick, which is related of Andrew 
 IMarvell's father (worthy of such a son), and which, as it ia 
 little known, we will repeat ; though it respects the man 
 more than the machine. He had been visited by a young 
 lady, who in spite of a stormy evening persisted in returning 
 across the Humber, because her family would be alarmed 
 at her absence. The old gentleman, high-hearted and 
 cheerful, after vainly trying to dissuade her from perils 
 which he understood better than she, resolved in his 
 gallantry to bear her company. He accordingly walked 
 with her down to the shore, and getting into the boat, 
 threw his stick to a friend, with a request, in a lively tone 
 of voice, that he would preserve it for a keepsake. He then 
 cried out merrily, " Ho-hoy for heaven ! " and put off with 
 his visitor. They were drowned. 
 
 As commerce increased, exotic sticks grew in request 
 from the Indies. Hence the Bamboo, the Whanghee, the 
 Jambee which makes such a genteel figure under Mr. Lilly's 
 auspices in the Tatler ; and our light modern cane, which 
 the Sunday stroller buys at sixpence the piece, with a twist 
 
OF STICKS. 165 
 
 of it at the end for a handle. The physicians, till within 
 the last few score of years, retained, among other fopperies 
 which they converted into gravities, the wig and gold-headed 
 cane. The latter had been an indispensable sign-royal of 
 fashion, and was turned to infinite purposes of accomplished 
 gesticulation. One of the most courtly personages ia the 
 " Bape of the Lock " is 
 
 " Sir Plume, of amber snnff-tox justly vain, 
 And the uice conduct of a clouded cane." 
 
 Sir Richard Steele, as we have before noticed, is reproached 
 by a busy-body of those times for a habit of jerking his 
 stick against the pavement as he walked. When swords 
 were abolished by Act of Parliament, the tavern-boys took 
 to pinking each other, as injuriously as they could well 
 manage, with their walking-sticks. Macklin the player was 
 tried for his life for poking a man's eye out in this way. 
 Perhaps this helped to bring the stick into disrepute ; for 
 the use of it seems to have declined more and more, till it 
 is now confined to old men, and a few among the younger. 
 It is unsuitable to our money-getting mode of rushing hither 
 and thither. Instead of pinking a man's ribs or so, or 
 thrusting out his eye from an excess of the jovial, we break 
 his heart with a bankruptcy. 
 
 Canes became so common before the decline of the use of 
 sticks, that whenever a man is beaten with a stick, let it be 
 of what sort it may, it is still coinmon to say that he has 
 had a " caning : " which reminds us of an anecdote more 
 agreeable than surprising ; though the patient doubtless 
 thought the reversa A gentleman who was remarkable for 
 the amenity of his manners, accompanied by a something 
 which a bully might think it safe to presume upon, found 
 himself compelled to address a person who did not know- 
 how to " translate his style," in the following words, which 
 were all delivered in the sweetest tone in the world, with an 
 air of almost hushing gentility : — " Sir, I am extremely sorry 
 — to be obliged to say, — that you appear to have a very 
 erroneous notion of the manners that become your situation 
 
1 66 ESS A YS. 
 
 in life ; — and I am compelled with great reluctance, to add " 
 (here he became still softer and more delicate), " that, if you 
 do not think fit, upon reflection, to alter this very extra- 
 ordinary conduct towards a gentleman, I shall be under the 
 
 necessity of caning you." The other treated the thing 
 
 as a joke ; and, to the delight of the by-standers, received a 
 very grave drubbing. 
 
 There are two eminent threats connected with caning in 
 the history of Dr. Johnson. One was from himself, when 
 he was told that Foote intended to mimic him on the stage. 
 He replied, that if " the dog " ventured to play his tricks 
 with him, he would step out of the stage-box, chastise him 
 before the audience, and then throw himself upon their 
 candour and common sympathy. Foote desisted, as he 
 had good reason to do. The Doctor would have read him 
 a stout lesson, and then made a speech to the audience 
 as forcible ; so that the theatrical annals have to regret 
 that the subject and Foote's shoulders were not afforded 
 him to expatiate upon. It would have been a fine 
 involuntary piece of acting, — the part of Scipio by Dr. 
 Johnson. The other threat was against the Doctor himself 
 from Macpherson, the compounder of Ossian. It was for 
 denying the authenticity of that work ; a provocation the 
 more annoying, inasmuch as he did not seem duly sensible 
 of its merits. Johnson replied to Macpherson's letter by 
 one of contemptuous brevity and pith ; and contented him- 
 self with carrying about a large stick, with which he 
 intended to repel Macpherson in case of an assault. Had 
 they met, it would have been like " two clouds over the 
 Caspian ; " for both were large-built men. 
 
 We recollect another bacular Johnsonian anecdote. When 
 he was travelling in Scotland, he lost a huge stick of his in 
 the little treeless island of Mull. Boswell told him he 
 would recover it : but the Doctor shook his head. " No, 
 no," said he ; *' let anybody in Mull get possession of it, 
 and it will never be restored. Consider, sir, the value of 
 such a piece of timber here." 
 
 The most venerable sticks now surviving are the smooth 
 
OF STICKS. 167 
 
 amber-coloured canes in the possession of old ladies. They 
 have sometimes a gold head, but oftener a ci'ook of ivory. 
 But they have latterly been much displaced by liglit 
 umbrellas, the handles of which are imitations of them ; 
 and these are gradually retreating before the young parasol, 
 especially about town. The old ladies take the wings of the 
 stage-coaches, and are run away with by John PuUen, in a 
 style of infinite convenience. The other sticks in use are 
 for the most part of cherry, oak, and crab, and seldom 
 adorned with more than a leather tassel : often with 
 nothing. Bamboo and other canes do not abound, as might 
 be expected from our intercourse with India ; but commerce 
 in this, as in other respects, has overshot its mark. People 
 cannot afford to use sticks, any more than bees could in 
 their hives. Of the common sabbatical cane wo have 
 already spoken. There is a sufficing little manual, equally 
 light and lissom, yclept an ebony switch ; but we have not 
 seen it often. 
 
 That sticks, however, are not to be despised by the 
 leisurely, anyone who has known what it is to want words, 
 or to slice off the head of a thistle, will allow. The utility 
 of the stick seems divisible into three heads : first, to give 
 a general consciousness of power ; second, which may be 
 called a part of the first, to help the demeanour ; and third, 
 which may be called a part of the second, to assist a man 
 over the gaps of speech — the little awkward intervals, 
 called want of ideas. 
 
 Deprive a man of his stick, who is accustomed to carry 
 one, and with what a diminished sense of vigour and grace- 
 fulness he issues out of his house ! Wanting his stick, he 
 wants himself. His self-possession, like Acres's on the 
 duel-ground, has gone out of his fingers' ends ; but restore 
 it him, and how he resumes his energy ! If a common 
 walking-stick, he cherishes the top of it with his fingers, 
 putting them out and back again, with a fresh desire to feel 
 it in his palm ! How he strikes it against the ground, and 
 feels power come back to hia arm ! How he makes the 
 pavement ring with the ferule, if in a street j or decapitates 
 
1 68 ESSAYS. 
 
 the downy thistles aforesaid, if in a field ! Then if it be a 
 switch, how firmly he jerks his step at the first infliction of 
 it on the air ! How he quivers the point of it as he goes, 
 holding the handle with a straight-dropped arm and a tight 
 grasp ! How his foot keeps time to the switches ! How 
 he twigs the luckless pieces of lilac or other shrubs that 
 peep out of a garden railing ! And if a sneaking-looking 
 dog is coming by, how he longs to exercise his despotism 
 and Iiis moral sense at once, by giving him an invigorating 
 twinge ! 
 
 But what would certain men of address do without their 
 cane or switch? There is an undoubted Rhabdosophy, 
 Sceptrosophy, or Wisdom of the Stick, besides the famous 
 Divining Rod, with which people used to discover treasures 
 and fountains. It supplies a man with inaudible remarks, 
 and an inexpressible number of graces. Sometimes, breath- 
 ing between his teeth, he will twirl the end of it upon his 
 sti'etched-out toe ; and this means, that he has an infinite 
 number of easy and powerful things to say, if he had -« 
 mind. Sometimes he holds it upright between his knees, 
 and tattoes it against his teeth or under-lip, which implies 
 that he meditates coolly. On other occasions he switches 
 the side of his boot with it, which announces elegance in 
 general Lastly, if he has not a bon-mot ready in answer 
 to one, he has only to thrust his stick at your ribs, and say, 
 " Ah ! you rogue ! " which sets him above you in an instant, 
 as a sort of patronising wit who can dispense with the 
 necessity of joking. 
 
 At the same time, to give it its due zest in life, a stick 
 has its inconveniences. If you have yellow gloves on, and 
 drop it in the mud, a too hasty recovery is awkward. To 
 have it stick between the stones of a pavement is not 
 pleasant, especially if it snap the ferule off; or more espe- 
 cially if an old gentleman or lady is coming behind you, 
 aTid after making them start back with winking eyes, it 
 threatens to trip them up. To lose the ferule on a country 
 road renders the end liable to the growth of a sordid brush, 
 which, not having a knife with you, or a shop in which to 
 
ANACREON. 169 
 
 borrow one, goes pounding the wet up against your legs. 
 In a crowded street you may have the stick driven into a 
 large pane of glass ; upon which an unthinking tradesman, 
 utterly indifferent to a chain of events, issues forth and 
 demands twelve-and-sixpence. 
 
 ANACREON. 
 
 It has been said of ladies when they write letters, that 
 they put their minds in their postscripts — let out the real 
 object of their writing, as if it were a second thought, or a 
 thing comparatively indifferent. You very often know tho 
 amount of a man's knowledge of an author by the remark 
 he makes on him, after he has made the one which he 
 thinks proper and authorised. As, for example, you will 
 mention Anacreon to your friend A. in a tone which 
 implies that you wish to know his opinion of him, and he 
 shall say — 
 
 " Delightful poet, Anacreon — breathes the very spirit of 
 love and wine. His Greek is very easy," 
 
 All the real opinion of this gentleman respecting Ana- 
 creon lies in what he says in these last words. His Greek 
 is easy ; that is, our scholar has had less trouble in learning 
 to read hira than with other Greek poets. This is all he 
 really thinks or feels about the "delightful Anacreon." 
 
 So with B. You imply a question to B. in the same tone, 
 and he answers, " Anacreon ! Oh ! a most delightful poet, 
 Anacreon — charming — all love and wine. — The best edition 
 of him is Spalefti's." 
 
 This is all that B. knows of Anacreon's " love and wine." 
 " The best edition of it is Spaletti's ; " that is to say, 
 Spaletti is the Anacreon wine-merchant most in repute. 
 
 So again with C. as to his knowledge of the translations 
 of the '« delightful poet." 
 
I70 ESSAYS. 
 
 " Translations of Anacreon ! Delightful poet — too 
 delightful, too natural and peculiar, to be translated — 
 simplicity — naivete — Fawkes's translation is elegant — 
 Moore's very elegant but diffuse. — Nobody can translate 
 Anacreon. Impossible to give any idea of the exquisite 
 simplicity of the Greek." 
 
 This gentleman has never read Cowley's translations from 
 Anacreon ; and if he had, he would not have known which 
 part of them was truly Anacreontic and which not. He 
 makes up his mind that it is impossible to give " any idea 
 of the exquisite simplicity of the Greek ; " meaning, by that 
 assertion, that he himself cannot, and therefore nobody else 
 can. His sole idea of Anacreon is, that he is a writer 
 famous for certain beauties which it is impossible to trans- 
 late. As to supposing that the spirit of Anacreon may oc- 
 casionally be met with in poets who have not translated him, 
 and that you may thus get an idea of him without recur- 
 ring to the Greek at all, this is what never entered his head : 
 for Nature has nothing to do with his head ; it is only books 
 and translations. Love, nature, myrtles, roses, wine have 
 existed ever since the days of Anacreon; yet he thinks nobody 
 ever chanced to look at these things with the same eyes. 
 
 Thus, there is one class of scholars who have no idea 
 of Anacreon except that he is easy to read ; another, who 
 confine their notions of him to a particular edition ; and a 
 third, who look upon him as consisting in a certain elegant 
 impossibility to translate. There are more absurdities of 
 pretended scholarship on this and all other writers, which 
 the truly learned laugh at, and know to be no scholarship 
 at all. Our present business is to attempt to give some idea 
 of what they think and feel with regard to Anacreon, and 
 what all intelligent men would think and feel if they 
 understood Greek terms for natural impressions. To be 
 unaffectedly charmed with the lovelieness of a cheek, and 
 the beauty of a flower, are the first steps to a knowledge of 
 Anacreon, Those are the grammar of his Greek, and 
 pretty nearly the dictionary too. 
 
 Little is known of the life of Anacreon. There is reason 
 
ANACREON. 171 
 
 to believe that he was born among the richer classes ; that 
 he was a visitor at the courts of princes ; and that, agree- 
 ably to a genius which was great enough, and has given 
 enough delight to the world, to warrant such a devotion of 
 itself to its enjoyments, he kept aloof from the troubles of 
 his time, or made the best of them, and tempted them to 
 spare his door. It may be concluded of him, that his 
 existence (so to speak) was passed in a garden ; for he lived 
 to be old ; which in a man of his sensibility and indolence 
 implies a life pretty free from care. It is said tliat he died 
 at the age of eighty-five, and was then choked with a 
 grape-stone — a fate generally thought to be a little too 
 allegorical to be likely. He was born on the coast of Ionia 
 (part of the modern Turkey), at Teos, a town south of 
 Smyrna, in the midst of a country of wine, oil, and 
 sunshine ; and thus partook strongly of those influences of 
 climate which undoubtedly occasion varieties in genius, 
 as in other productions of nature. As to the objectionable 
 parts of his morals, they belonged to his age, and have 
 no essential or inseparable connection with his poetry. We 
 are therefore glad to be warranted in saying nothing about 
 them. All the objectionable passages might be taken 
 out of Anacreon, and he would still be Anacreon ; and the 
 most virtuous might read him as safely as they read of 
 flowers and butterflies. Cowley, one of the best of men, 
 translated some of his most Anacreontic poems. We pro- 
 fess to breathe his air in the same spirit as Cowley, and 
 shall assuredly bring no poison out of it to our readers. 
 The truly virtuous are as safe in these pages as they 
 can be in their own homes and gardens. But cheerful- 
 ness is a part of our religion, and we choose to omit not 
 even grapes in it, any more than nature has omitted them. 
 
 Imagine, then, a good-humoured old man, with silver 
 locks, but a healthy and cheerful face, sitting in the 
 df^lightful climate of Smyrna, under his vine or his olive, 
 with his lute by his side, a cup of his native wine before 
 him, and a pretty peasant girl standing near him, who 
 has perhaps brought him a basket of figs, or a bottle of 
 
172 ESSAYS. 
 
 milk corked with vine leaves, and to whom he is giving a 
 rose, or pretending to make love. 
 
 For we are not, with the gross literality of dull or vicious 
 understandings, to take for granted everything that a poet 
 says on all occasions, especially when he is old. It is 
 mere gratuitous and suspicious assumption in critics who 
 tell us that such men as Anacreon passed " whole lives " 
 in the indulgence of " every excess and debauchery." 
 They must have had, in the first place, prodigious 
 constitutions, if they did, to live to be near ninety ; and 
 secondly, it does not follow that because a poet speaks like 
 a poet, it has therefore taken such a vast deal to give him 
 a taste, greater than other men's, for what he enjoys. 
 Redi, the author of the most famous Bacchanalian poem in 
 Italy, drank little but water. St. Evremond, the French 
 wit, an epicure professed, was too good an epicure not to 
 be temperate and preserve his relish. Debauchees, who are 
 fox-hunters, live to be old, because they take a great deal 
 of exercise ; but it is not likely that inactive men should ; 
 unless they combined a relish for pleasure with some very 
 particular kinds of temperance. 
 
 There is generally, in Anacreon's earnest, a touch of 
 something which is not in earnest, — which plays with the 
 subject, as a good-humoured old man plays with children. 
 There is a perpetual smile on his face between enthusiasm 
 and levity. He truly likes the objects he looks upon 
 (otherwise he could not have painted them truly), and he 
 will retain as much of his youthful regard for them as 
 he can. He does retain much, and he pleasantly pretends 
 more. He loves wine, beauty, flowers, pictures, sculptures, 
 dances, birds, brooks, kind and open natures, everything 
 that can be indolently enjoyed ; not, it must be confessed, 
 with the deepest innermost perception of their beauty 
 (which is more a characteristic of modern poetry than 
 of ancient, owing to the difference of their creeds), but with 
 the most elegant of material perceptions, — of what lies in 
 the surface and tangibility of objects, — and with an admir- 
 able exemption from whatsoever does not belong to them, 
 
ANACREON. 173 
 
 — from all false taste and the mixture of impertinences. 
 With regard to the rest, he had all the sentiment which 
 good-nature implies, and nothing more. 
 
 Upon those two points of luxury and good taste the 
 character of Anacreon, as a poet, wholly turns. He is the 
 poet of indolent enjoyment, in the best possible taste, and 
 with the least possible trouble. He will enjoy as much 
 as he can, but he will take no more pains about it than 
 he can help, not even to praise it. He would probably 
 talk about it, half the day long, for talking would cost 
 him nothing, and it is natural to old age; but when he 
 comes to write about it, he will say no more than the 
 impulse of the moment incites him to put down, and he 
 will say it in the very best manner, both because the truth of 
 his perception requires it, and because an affected style and 
 superfluous words would give him trouble. He would, 
 it is true, take just so much trouble, if necessary, as should 
 make his style completely suitable to his truth ; and if 
 his poems were not so short, it would be difficult to a 
 modern writer to think that they could flow into such 
 excessive ease and spirit as they do, if he had not taken 
 the greatest pains to make them. But besides his impulses, 
 he had the habit of a life upon him. Hence the composi- 
 tions of Anacreon are remarkable above all others in the 
 world for being "short and sweet." They are the very 
 thing, and nothing more, required by the occasion ; for the 
 animal spirits, which would be natural in other men, and 
 might lead them into superfluities, would not be equally so 
 to one who adds the indolence of old age to the niceties of 
 natural taste : and therefore, as people boast, on other 
 occasions, of calling things by their right names, and " a 
 spade, a spade," so when Anacreon describes a beauty or a 
 banquet, or wishes to convey his sense to you of a flower, 
 or a grasshopper, or a head of hair, there it is ; as true 
 and as free from everything foreign to it as the thing 
 itself. 
 
 Look at a myrtle-tree or a hyacinth, inhale its fragrance, 
 admire its leaves or blossom, then shut your eyes, and 
 
174 ASSAYS. 
 
 think how exquisitely the myrtle tree is what it is, and 
 how beautifully unlike everything else, — how pure iu 
 simple yet cultivated grace. Such is one of the odes of 
 Anacreon. 
 
 BRICKLAYERS, AND AN OLD BOOK. 
 
 It is a very hot day and a " dusty day ; " you are passing 
 through a street in which there is no shade, — a new street, 
 only half-built and half-paved — the areas unfinished as you 
 advance (it is to be hoped no drunken man will stray there) 
 — the floors of the houses only raftered (you can't go in and 
 sit down) — broken glass, at the turnings, on the bits of 
 garden wall — the time, noon — the month, August — the 
 whole place glaring with the sun, and coloured with yellow 
 brick, chalk, and lime. Occasionally you stumble upon the 
 bottom of an old saucepan, or kick a baked shoe. 
 
 In this very hot passage through life you are longing for 
 soda-water, or for the sound of a pump, when suddenly you 
 
 " Hear a trowel tick against a brick," 
 
 and down a ladder by your side, which bends at every step, 
 comes dancing, with hod on shoulder, a bricklayer, who 
 looks as dry as his vocation, — his eyes winking, his mouth 
 gaping ; his beard grim with a week's growth, the rest of 
 his hair like a badger's. You then, for the first time, see a 
 little water by the wayside, thick and white with chalk ; and 
 are doubting whether to admire it as a liquid or detest it 
 for its colour, when a quantity of lime is dashed against the 
 sieve, and you receive in your eyes and mouth a taste of the 
 dry and burning elements of mortar, without the refreshment 
 of the wet. Finally, your shoe is burned ; and as the brick- 
 layer says something to his fellow in Irish, who laughs, you 
 fancy that he is witty at your expense, and has made some 
 ingenious bull. 
 
BRICKLAYERS, AND AN OLD BOOK. 175 
 
 *' A pretty picture, Mr. Seer ! and very refreshing, this 
 hot weather ! " 
 
 Oh, but you are only a chance-acquaintance of us, my dear 
 sir ; you don't know what philosophies we writers and 
 readers of " The Seer " possess, which renders us " lords of 
 ourselves," unencumbered even with the mighty misery of a 
 hot day, and the hod on another man's shoulder. You, 
 unfortunate, easy man, have been thinking of nothing but 
 the "aggravations" of the street all this while, and aro 
 ready to enter your house after the walk, in a temper to 
 kick off your shoes into the servant's face. We, besides 
 being in the street, have been in all sorts of pleasant and 
 remote places j have been at Babylon ; have been at 
 Bagdad ; have bathed in the river Tigris, the river of that 
 city of the " Arabian Nights ; " nay, have been in Paradise 
 itself ! led by old Bochart and his undeniable maps, where 
 you see the place as " graphically set forth " as though it 
 had never vanished, and Adam and Eve walking in it, 
 taller than the trees. We are writing upon the very book 
 this moment instead of a desk, a fond custom of ours ; 
 though, for dignity's sake, we beg to say we have a desk; 
 but we like an old folio to write upon, written by some 
 happy, believing hand, no matter whether we go all lengths 
 or not with his sort of proof, provided he be in earnest and 
 a good fellow. 
 
 Let us indulge ourselves a moment, during this hot 
 subject, with the map in question. It is now before us, the 
 river Euphrates running up through it in dark fulness, and 
 appearing through the paper on which we are writing like 
 rich veins. Occasionally we take up the paper to see it 
 better; the garden of Eden, however, always remaining 
 visible below, and the mountains of Armenia at top. The 
 map is a small folio size, darkly printed, with thick letters ; 
 a good stout sprinkle of mountains ; a great tower to mark 
 the site of Babylon ; trees, as formal as a park in those 
 days, to shadow forth the terrestrial paradise, with Adam 
 and Eve, as before mentioned ; Greek and Hebrew names 
 here and there mingled with the Latin ; a lion, towards the 
 
176 ^^-^^KS". 
 
 north-west, sitting in Armenia, and bigger than a mountain; 
 some other beast, "stepping west" from the Caspian sea; 
 and a great tablet in the south-west corner, presenting the 
 title of the map, the site of Eden, or the Terrestrial 
 Paradise (Edenis, seu Paradisi Terrestris Situs), surmounted 
 with a tree, and formidable with the Serpent ; who, suddenly 
 appearing from one side of it with the apple in his mouth, 
 is startling a traveller on the other. These old maps are as 
 good to study as pictures and books : and the region before 
 us is specially rich — reverend with memories of scripture, 
 pompous with Alexander's cities, and delightful with 
 the " Arabian Nights." You go up from the Persian Gulf at 
 the foot, passing (like Sinbad) the city of Caiphat, where 
 " bdellium " is to be had, and the island of Bahrim, famous 
 for its pearl fishery (Bahrim Insula Margaritarum Piscat. 
 Celebris) ; then penetrate the garden of Eden, with the 
 river Euphrates, as straight as a canal ; pass the Cypress- 
 grove, which furnished the wood of which the ark w^as 
 made ; Mousal, one of our old friends in the " Arabian 
 Nights ; " Babylon, famous for a hundred fanes, the 
 sublime of hrick-huUding ; NS']nm the " Naarda of Ptolemy," 
 a " celebrated school of the Jews ; " Ur (of the Chaldees), 
 the country of Abraham ; Noah's city, Xw/irj Ga/tavwv, the 
 city of Eight, so called from the eight persons that came out 
 of the ark ; Omar's Island, where there is a mosque (says 
 the map) made out of the relics of the ark ; Mount Ararat, 
 on the top of which it rested ; and thence you pass the 
 springs of the Tigris and the Euphrates into Colchis with 
 its Golden Fleece, leaving the Caspian sea on one side and the 
 Euxine on the other, with Phasis, the country of pheasants, 
 and Cappadocia, where you see the mild light shining on 
 the early Christian church ; and you have come all this way 
 through the famous names of Persia, and Arabia, and 
 Armenia, and Mesopotamia, and Syria, and Assyria, with 
 Arbela on the right hand, where Darius was overthrown, 
 and Damascus on the left, rich, from time immemorial to 
 this day, with almost every Eastern association of ideas, 
 sacred and profane. 
 
BRICKLAYERS, AND AN OLD BOOK. \ti 
 
 In regions of this nature did sincere, book-loving, 
 scholarly Bochart spend the days of his mind, — by far the 
 greater portion of the actual days of such a man's life ; and 
 for that reason we, who, though not so scholarly, love books 
 as well as he did, love to have the folio of such a man under 
 our paper for a desk, — making his venerable mixture of 
 truth and fiction a foundation, as it were, for our own love 
 of both, and rendering the dream of his existence, in some 
 measure, as tangible to us as it was to himself, in the shape 
 of one of his works of love. Do people now-a-days, — do 
 even we ourselves, — love books as they did in those times ? 
 It is hardly possible, seeing how the volumes have multi- 
 plied to distract choice and passion, and also how small in 
 size tliey have become, — octavos and duodecimos. A little 
 book is indeed " a love " (to use a modern phrase), — 
 and fitted to carry about with us in our walks and 
 pockets : but then a great book, — a folio, — was a thing to 
 look up to, — to build, — a new and lawful Babel, — and 
 therefore it had an aspect more like a religion. — Well ; love 
 is religion too, and of the best ; and so we will return to 
 our common task. 
 
 Now observe, casual reader of " The Seer," what such 
 of us as are habituated to it found in our half-built street. 
 You take a brick perhaps for an ordinary bit of burnt clay, 
 fit only to build No. 9 Golf Street, Little Meadows ; and 
 to become a brick-bat, and be kicked to pieces in an old 
 alley. O thou of little bookstall ! Why, the very manu- 
 facture is illustrious with antiquity — with the morning 
 beams that touched the housetops of Shinaar ; — there is a 
 clatter of brick-making in the fields of Accad ; and the work 
 looks almost as ancient to this day, with its straw-built 
 tents and its earthy landscape. Kot desolate, therefore, or 
 unrefreshed, were we in our new and hot street ; for the 
 fii'st brick, like a talisman, transported us into old Babylon, 
 with its tower and its gardens ; and there we drove our 
 chariot on the walls, and conversed with Herodotus, and got 
 out of the way of Semiramis, and read, as men try to read 
 at this day, the arrow-headed letters on the bricks, — as easy 
 
 206 
 
178 ASSAYS. 
 
 to us at that time as ABC; though what they mean 
 now, nei tiler we nor Mr. Rich can tell. The said brick, as 
 our readers have seen, thence took us into paradise, and so 
 through all the regions of Mesopotomia and the Arabian 
 Nights, with our friends Bochart and Bedreddin Hassan ; 
 and returning home, what do we descry 1 The street itself 
 alone ! No ! Ben Jonson, the most illustrious of brick- 
 layers, handling his trowel on the walls of Chancery Lane, 
 and the obstinate remnants of Roman brick and mortar 
 lurking still about London, and Spenser's celebration of — ■ 
 
 ' ' Those hricktj towers 
 The which on Themmes brode aged backe doe ride, 
 Where now the studious lawyers have their bowres ; " 
 
 to wit, the Temple ; and then we think of our old and 
 picture-learned friend, our lamented Hazlitt, who first 
 taught us not to think white cottages better than red, 
 especially among trees, noting to us the finer harmony of 
 the contrast — to which we can bear instant and curious 
 testimony ; for passing the other day through the gate that 
 leads from St. James's Park into the old court, betwixt 
 Sutherland and Marlborough Houses, we marvelled at what 
 seemed to our near-sighted eyes a shower of red colours in a 
 tree to the right of us, at the corner ; which colours, upon 
 inspection, proved to be nothing better than those of the 
 very red bricks that boi'dered the windows of the building 
 behind the trees. We smiled at the mistake ; but it was 
 with pleasure ; for it reminded us that even defects 
 of vision may have their compensations ; and it looked 
 like a symbol of the pleasures with which fancy and 
 commonplace may conspire to enrich an observer willing 
 to be pleased. 
 
THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 179 
 
 THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
 
 Having met in the HarUian Miscellany with an account of 
 a pet thief of ours, the famous Du Vail, who flourished in 
 the time of Charles the Second, and wishing to introduce 
 hira worthily to the readers, it has brought to mind such a 
 number of the light-fingered gentry, his predecessors, that 
 we almost feel hustled by the thoughts of them. Our sub- 
 ject, we may truly fear, will run away with us. We feel 
 beset, like poor Tasso in his dungeon ; and are not sure that 
 our paper will not suddenly be conveyed away from under 
 our pen. Already we miss some excellent remarks, which 
 we should have made in this place. If the reader should 
 meet with any of that kind hereafter, upon the like subject, 
 in another man's writings, twenty to one they are stolen 
 from us, and ought to have enriched this our plundered 
 exordium. He that steals an author's purse may emphat- 
 ically be said to steal trash ; but he that filches from him his 
 
 good things Alas ! we thought our subject would be 
 
 running away with us. We must keep firm. We must 
 put something heavier in our remarks, as the little thin 
 Grecian philosopher used to put lead into his pockets, lest 
 the wind should steal hira. 
 
 The more rufiianly crowd of thieves should go first as 
 pioneers; but they can hardly be looked upon as progen- 
 itors of our gentle Du Vail ; and besides, with all their 
 ferocity, some of them assume a grandeur, from standing in 
 the remote shadows of antiquity. There was the famous 
 son, for instance, of Vulcan and Medusa, whom Virgil calls 
 the dire aspect of half-human Cacus — Semihominis Caci 
 facies dira. (^neid, b. viii. v. 194.) He was the raw- 
 head-and-bloody-bones of ancient fable. He lived in a cave 
 by Mount Aventine, breathing out fiery smoke, and haunt- 
 ing King Evander's highway like the ApoUyon of " Pilgrim's 
 Progress." 
 
 " Seraperque recenti 
 
 Caede tepebat humus ; foribusque adfixa superbis 
 
 Ora virum tristi pendebaut pallida tabo." 
 
i8o ESSAYS. 
 
 " The place about was ever in a plash 
 Of steaming blood ; and o'er the insulting door 
 Hung pallid human heads, defaced with dreary gore." 
 
 He stole some of the cows of Hercules, and dragged them 
 backwards into his cave to prevent discovery ; but the oxen 
 happening to low, the cows answered them ; and the demi- 
 god, detecting the miscreant in his cave, strangled him after 
 a hard encounter. ,This is one of the earliest sharping 
 tricks upon record. 
 
 Autolycus, the son of Mercury (after whom Shakespeare 
 christened his merry rogue in the Winters Tale), was a 
 thief suitable to the greater airiness of his origin. He is 
 said to have performed tricks which must awake the envy 
 even of horse-dealers ; for in pretending to return a capital 
 horse which he had stolen, he palmed upon the owners a 
 sorry jade of an ass ; which was gravely received by those 
 flats of antiquity. Another time he went still farther ; for 
 having conveyed away a handsome bride, he sent in ex- 
 change an old lady, elaborately hideous ; yet the husband 
 did not find out the trick till he had got off. 
 
 Autolycus himself, however, was outwitted by Sisyphus, 
 the son of jS^oIus. Autolycus was in the habit of stealing 
 his neighbours' cattle, and altering the marks upon them. 
 Among others he stole some from Sisyphus ; but notwith- 
 standing his usual precautions, he was astonished to find 
 the latter come and pick out his oxen as if nothing had 
 happened. He had marked them under the hoof. Auto- 
 lycus, it seems, had the usual generosity of genius ; and 
 was so pleased with this evidence of superior cunning, that 
 some say he gave him in marriage his daughter Anticlea, who 
 was afterwards the wife of Laertes, the father of Ulysses. 
 According to others, however, he only favoured him with his 
 daughter's company for a time, a fashion not yet extinct in 
 some primitive countries ; and it was a reproach made 
 against Ulysses that Laertes was only his pretended, and 
 Sisyphus his real, father. Sisyphus has the credit of being 
 the greatest knave of antiquity. His famous punishment 
 in hell, of being compelled to roll a stone up a hill to all 
 
THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN 18 1 
 
 eternity, and seeing it always go down again, is attributed 
 by some to a characteristic trait, which he could not help 
 playing off upon Pluto. It was supposed by the ancients 
 that a man's ghost wandered in a melancholy manner upon 
 the banks of the Styx, as long as his corpse remained without 
 burial, Sisyphus on his death-bed purposely charged his 
 wife to leave him unburied ; and then begged Pluto's per- 
 mission to go back to earth on his parole, merely to punish 
 lier for so scandalous a neglect. Like the lawyer, however, 
 who contrived to let his hat fall inside the door of heaven, 
 and got St. Peter's permission to step in for it, Sisyphus 
 would not return j and so when Pluto had him again, ho 
 paid him for the trick with setting him upon this everlasting 
 job. 
 
 The exploits of Mercury himself, the god of cunning, may 
 be easily imagined to surpass everything achieved by pro- 
 faner hands. Homer, in the hymn to his honour, has given 
 a delightful account of his prematurity in swindling. He 
 had not been born many hours before he stole Vulcan's 
 tools. Mars' sword, and Jupiter's sceptre. He beat Cupid 
 in a wrestling bout on the same day ; and Venus caressing 
 him for his conquest, he returned the embrace by filching 
 away her girdle. He would also have stolen Jupiter's 
 thunderbolts, but was afraid of burning his fingers. On 
 the evening of his birthday he drove off the cattle of 
 Admetus, which Apollo was tending. The good-humoured 
 god of wit endeavoured to frighten him into restoring 
 them ; but could not help laughing when, in the midst of 
 his threatenings, he found himself without his quiver. 
 
 The history of thieves is to be found either in that of 
 romance or in the details of the history of cities. The 
 latter have not come down to us from the ancient world, 
 with some exceptions in the comic writers, immaterial to 
 our present purpose, and in the loathsome rhetoric of 
 Petronius. The finest thief in old history is the pirate who 
 made that famous answer to Alexander, in which he said 
 that the conqueror was only the mightier thief of the two. 
 The story of the thieving architect in Herodotus we will 
 
1 82 ESSAYS. 
 
 tell another time. We can call to mind no other thieves in 
 the Greek and Latin writers (always excepting political 
 ones) except some paltry fellows who stole napkins at 
 dinner ; and the robbers in Apuleius, the precursors of those 
 in Gil Bias. When we come, however, to the times of the 
 Arabiaias and of chivalry, they abound in all their glory, 
 both great and small. Who among us does not know by 
 heart the story of the never-to-be-forgotten Forty Thieves, 
 with their treasure in the green wood, their anxious 
 observer, their magical opening of the door, their captain, 
 their concealment in the jars, and the scalding oil, that, as 
 it were, extinguished them groaning, one by one 1 Have 
 we not all ridden backwards and forwards with them to the 
 wood a hundred times ? — watched them, with fear and 
 trembling, from the tree? — sewn up, blindfolded, the four 
 quarters of the dead body ?— and said " Open Sesam6 " to 
 every door at school 1 May we ride with them again and 
 again ; or we shall lose our appetite for some of the best 
 things in the world. 
 
 We pass over those interlopers in our English Family, 
 the Danes ; as well as Rollo the Norman, and other free- 
 booters, who only wanted less need of robbery to become 
 respectable conquei-ors. In fact, they did so, as they got 
 on. We have also no particular worthy to select from 
 among that host of petty chieftains who availed themselves 
 of their knightly castles and privileges to commit all sorts 
 of unchivalrous outrages. These are the giants of modern 
 romance ; and the Veglios, Malengins, and Pinabellos, of 
 Pulci, Spenser, and Ariosto. They survived in the petty 
 states of Italy a long while ; gradually took a less solitary, 
 though hardly less ferocious shape, among the fierce 
 political partisans recorded by Dante ; and at length 
 became represented by the men of desperate fortunes, who 
 make such a figure, between the gloomy and the gallant, in 
 Mrs. RadclifFe's Mysteries of Udolpho. The breaking up of 
 the late kingdom of Italy, with its dependencies, has again 
 revived them in some degree ; but not, we believe, in any 
 shape above common robbery. The regular modern thief 
 
THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 183 
 
 seems to make his appearance for the first time in the 
 imaginary character of Brunello, as described by Boiardo 
 and Ariosto. He is a fellow that steals every valuable 
 that comes in his way, The way in which he robs 
 Sacripant, king of Circassia, of his horse, has been ridiculed 
 by Cervantes ; if iiideed he did not rather repeat it with 
 great zest : for his use of the theft is retrflly not sucli a 
 caricature as in Boiardo and his great follower. While 
 Sancho is sitting lumpishly asleep upon the back of his 
 friend Dapple, Gines de Passamonte, the famous thief, 
 comes and gently withdraws the donkey from under him, 
 leaving the somniculous squire propped upon the saddle 
 with four sticks. His consternation on waking may be 
 guessed. But in the Italian poets the Circassian prince 
 has only fallen into a deep meditation, when Brunello 
 draws away his steed. Ariosto appears to have thought 
 this extravagance a hazardous one, though he could not 
 deny himself the pleasure of repeating it ; for he has 
 made Sacripant blush when called upon to testify how 
 the horse was stolen from him. (Orlando Furio, lib. xxvii. 
 St. 84.) 
 
 In the Italian Novels and the old French Tales are a 
 variety of extremely amusing stories of thieves, all most 
 probably founded on fact. We will give a specimen as we 
 go, by way of making this article the completer. A doctor 
 of laws in Bologna had become rich enough, by scraping 
 money together, to indulge himself in a grand silver cup, 
 which he sent home one day to his wife from the goldsmith's. 
 There were two sharping fellows prowling about that day 
 for a particular object ; and getting scent of the cup, they 
 laid their heads together, to contrive how they might indulge 
 themselves in it instead. One of them accordingly goes to 
 a fishmonger's and buys a fine lamprey, which he takes to 
 the doctor's wife, with her husband's compliments, and he 
 would bring a company of his brother doctors with him to 
 dinner, requesting in the meantime that she would send 
 back the cup by the bearer, as he had forgotten to have his 
 arms engraved upon it. The good lady, happy to obey all 
 
1 84 ^^^^KS". 
 
 these pleasing impulses on the part of master doctor, takes 
 in the fish, and sends out the cup, with equal satisfaction ; 
 and sets about getting the dinner ready. The doctor 
 comes home at his usual hour, and finding his dinner so 
 much better than ordinary, asks, with an air of wonder, 
 where was the necessity of going to that expense : upon 
 which the wife, putting on an air of wonder in her turn, 
 and proud of possessing the new cup, asks him where are 
 all those brother doctors whom he said he should bring 
 with him. " What does the fool mean '? " said the testy old 
 gentleman. " Mean ! " rejoined the wife — " What does this 
 mean 1 " pointing to the fish. The doctor looked down with 
 his old eyes at the lamprey. *' God knows," said he, " what 
 it means. I am sure I don't know what it means more 
 than any other fish, except that I shall have to pay a pretty 
 sum for every mouthful you eat of it." — " Why, it was 
 your own doing, husband," said the wife ; " and you will 
 remember it, perhaps, when you I'ecollect that the same man 
 that brought me the fish was to take away the cup to have 
 your name engraved upon it." At this the doctor started 
 back, with his eyes as wide open as the fish's, exclaiming, 
 " And you gave it him, did you 'i " — " To be sure I did," 
 returned the good housewife. The old doctor here began a 
 passionate speech, which he suddenly broke off; and after 
 stamping up and down, the room, and crying out that he 
 was an undone advocate, ran quivering out into the street 
 like one frantic, asking everybody if he had seen a man 
 with a lamprey. The two rogues were walking all this 
 time in the neighbourhood ; and seeing the doctor set off 
 in his frantic fit to the goldsmith's, and knowing that he 
 who brought the lamprey had been well disguised, they 
 began to ask one another, in the jollity of their triumph, 
 what need there was for losing a good lamprey, 
 because they had gained a cup. The other, therefore, went 
 to the doctor's house, and putting on a face of good news, 
 told the wife that the cup was found. " Master doctor," 
 said he, " bade me come and tell you that it Avas but a joke 
 of vour old friend What's-his-name. " — *' Oastellani, I 
 
THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 185 
 
 warrant me," said the wife, with a face broad with delight. 
 "The same," returned he; — "Master doctor says that 
 Signer Castellani, and the other gentlemen he spoke of, are 
 waiting for you at the Signer's house, where they purpose 
 to laugh away the choler they so merrily raised, with a 
 good dinner and wine, and to that end they have sent me 
 for the lamprey." — "Take it in God's name," said the good 
 woman ; " I am heartily glad to see it go out of the house, 
 and shall follow it myself speedily." So saying, she gave 
 him the fine hot fish, with some sauce, between two dishes ; 
 and the knave, who felt already round the corner with 
 glee, slid it under his cloak, and made the best of his way 
 to his companion, who lifted up his hands and eyes at 
 sight of him, and asked twenty questions in a breath, and 
 chuckled, and slapped his thigh, and snapped his fingers 
 for joy, to think what a pair of fools two rogues had to do 
 with. Little did the poor despairing doctor, on his return 
 home, guess what they were saying of him as he passed the 
 wall of the house in which they were feasting. " Heyday !" 
 cried the wife, smiling all abroad, as she saw him enter- 
 ing, "what, art thou come to fetch me then, bone of my 
 bone 1 Well ; if this isn't the gallantest day I have seen 
 many a year! It puts me in mind — it puts me in mind" 
 
 Here the chirping old lady was about to remind the 
 
 doctor of the days of his youth, holding out her arms and 
 raising her quivering voice, when (we shudder to relate) 
 she received a considerable cufF on the left cheek. " You 
 make me mad," cried the doctor, " with your eternal 
 idiotical nonsense. What do you mean by coming to fetch 
 you, and the gallantest day of your life ? May the devil 
 fetch you, and me, and that invisible fiend that stole the 
 cup." — " What 1 " exclaimed the wife, suddenly changing 
 her tone from a vociferous complaint which she had un- 
 thinkingly set up, " did you send nobody then for the 
 lamprey 1" Here the doctor cast his eyes upon the 
 bereaved table; and unable to bear the shame of this 
 additional loss, however trivial, began tearing his hair and 
 beard, and hopping about the room, giving his wife a new 
 
1 86 ESSAYS. 
 
 and scandalous epitliet at every step, as if he was dancing 
 to a catalogue of her imperfections. The story shook all 
 the shoulders in Bologna for a month after. 
 
 We will relate another story from the same Italian 
 novelist that supplied our last. This is a digression ; but 
 it is as well to introduce it, in order to take away a certain 
 bitterness out of the mouth of the other's moral. Our 
 author is Massuccio of Salerno, a novelist who disputes 
 with Bandello the rank next in popularity to Boccaccio. 
 We have not the original by us, and must be obliged to an 
 English work for the groundwork of our story, as we have 
 been to Paynter's Palace of Pleasure for the one just related. 
 But we take the liberty usual with the repeaters of these 
 stories ; we retain the incidents, but tell them in our own 
 way, and imagine what might happen in the intervals. 
 
 Two Neapolitan sharpers, having robbed a Genoese 
 mei'chant of his purse, make the best of their way to 
 Sienna, where they arrive during the preaching of St. 
 Bernardin. One of them attends a sermon with an air of 
 conspicuous modesty and devotion, and afterwards waits 
 upon the preacher, and addresses him thus : " Reverend 
 father, you see before you a man, poor indeed, but honest. 
 I do not mean to boast ; God knows, I have no reason. 
 Who upon earth has reason, unless it be one who will be 
 the last to boast, like yourself, holy father 1 " Here the 
 saintly orator shook his head. " I do not mean," resumed 
 the stranger, " to speak even of the reverend and illus- 
 trious Bernardin, but as of a man among men. For my part, 
 I am, as it were, a creeping thing among them ; and yet I 
 am honest. If I have any virtue, it is that. I crawl right 
 onward in my path, looking neither to the right nor to the 
 left ; and yet I have my temptations. Reverend father, I 
 have found this purse. I will not deny, that being often in 
 want of the common necessaries of life, and having been 
 obliged last night, in particular, to sit down faint at the 
 city gates, for want of my ordinary crust and onion, which 
 I had given to one (God help him) still worse off than 
 myself, I did cast some looks — I did, I say, just open the 
 
THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN 187 
 
 purse, and cast a wistful eye at one of those shining pieces 
 that lay one over the other inside, with something like a 
 wish that I could procure myself a meal with it, unknown 
 to the lawful proprietor. But my conscience, thank 
 Heaven, prevailed. I have to make two requests to you, 
 reverend father. First, that you will absolve me for this 
 my offence \ and second, that you will be pleased to mention 
 in one of your discourses, that a poor sinner from Milan, 
 on his road to hear them, has found a purse, and would 
 willingly restore it to the right owner. I would fain give 
 double the contents of it to find him out ; but then, what 
 can I do 1 All the wealth I have consists in my honesty. 
 Be pleased, most illustrious father, to mention this in your 
 discourse, as modestly as becomes my nothingness ; and to 
 add especially, that the purse was found on the road from 
 Milan, lying, miraculously as it were, upon a sunny bank, 
 open to the view of all, under an olive-tree, not far from a 
 little fountain, the pleasant noise of which peradventure 
 had invited the owner to sleep," The good father, at 
 hearing this detail, smiled at the anxious sincerity of the 
 poor pilgrim, and, giving him the required absolution, 
 promised to do his utmost to bring forth the proprietor. 
 In his next sermon he accordingly dwelt with such 
 eloquence on the opportunities thrown in the way of the 
 rich who lose purses to behave nobly, that his congrega- 
 tion several times half rose from their seats out of 
 enthusiasm, and longed for some convenient loss of property 
 that might enable them to show their disinterestedness. 
 At the conclusion of it, however, a man stepped forward, 
 and said, that anxious as he was to do justice to the finder 
 of the purse, which he knew to be his the moment he saw 
 it (only he was loth to interrupt the reverend father), he 
 had claims upon him at home, in the person of his wife and 
 thirteen children — fourteen perhaps, he might now say — 
 which, to his great sorrow, prevented him from giving the 
 finder more than a quarter of a piece ; this, however, he 
 offered him with the less scruple, since he saw the seraphic 
 disposition of the reverend preacher and his congregation, 
 
1 88 ESSAYS. 
 
 who, he had no doubt, would make ample amends for this 
 involuntary deficiency on the part of a poor family man, the 
 whole portion of whose wife and children might be said to 
 be wrapped up in that purse. His sleep under the olive- 
 tree had been his last for these six nights (here the other 
 man said, with a tremulous joy of acknowledgment, that it 
 was indeed just six nights since he had found it) ; and 
 Heaven only knew when he should have had another, if 
 his children's bread, so to speak, had not been found again." 
 With these words, the sharper (for such, of course, he was) 
 presented the quarter of a piece to his companion, who 
 made all but a prostration for it ; and hastened with the 
 purse out of the church. The other man's circumstances 
 were then inquired into, and as he was found to have 
 almost as many children as the purse-owner, and no pos- 
 sessions at all, as he said, but his honesty — all his children 
 being equally poor and pious — a considerable subscription 
 was raised for him ; so large indeed, that on the appear- 
 ance of a new claimant next day, the pockets of the good 
 people were found empty. This was no other than the 
 Genoese merchant, who having turned back on his road 
 when he missed his purse, did not stop till he came to 
 Sienna, and heard the news of the day before. Imagine 
 the feelings of the deceived people ! Saint Bernardin was 
 convinced that the two cheats were devils in disguise. The 
 resident canon had thought pretty nearly as much all 
 along, but had held his tongue, and now hoped it would be a 
 lesson to people not to listen to everybody who could talk, 
 especially to the neglect of Saint Antonio's monastery. As 
 to the people themselves, they thought variously. Most of 
 them were mortified at having been cheated ; and some 
 swore they never would be cheated again, let appearances 
 be what they might. Others thought that this was a resolu- 
 tion somewhat equivocal, and more convenient than happy. 
 For our parts, we think the last were right : and this 
 reminds us of a true English story, more good than 
 striking, which we heard a short while ago from a friend. 
 He knew a man of rugged manners, but good heart (not 
 
THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 189 
 
 that the two things, as a lover of parentheses will say, aro 
 at all bound to go together), who had a wife somewhat 
 given to debating with hackney-coachmen, and disputing 
 acts of settlement respecting half-miles and quarter-miles, 
 and abominable additional sixpences. The good housewife 
 was lingering at the door, and exclaiming against one of 
 these monstrous charioteers, whose hoarse, low voice was 
 heard at intervals, full of lying protestations and bad 
 weather, when the husband called out from a back-room, 
 "Never mind there, never mind — let her be cheated; let 
 her be cheated." 
 
 We now come to a very unrom antic set of rogues ; the 
 Spanish ones. In a poetical sense, at least, they are un- 
 romantic ; though doubtless the mountains of Spain have 
 seen as picturesque vagabonds in their time as any. There 
 are the robbers in Gil Bias, who have, at least, a respectable 
 cavern, and loads of polite superfluities. Who can forget 
 the lofty-named Captain Rolando, with his sturdy height 
 and his whiskers, showing with a lighted torch his treasure 
 to the timid stripling, Gil Bias ? The most illustrious theft 
 in Spanish story is one recorded of no less a person than 
 the fine old national hero, the Cid. As the sufferers were 
 Jews, it might be thought that his conscience would not 
 have hurt him in those days ; but " My Cid " was a kind 
 of early soldier in behalf of sentiment ; and though he went 
 tj work roughly, he meant nobly and kindly. "God 
 knows," said he, on the present occasion, " I do this thing 
 more of necessity than of wilfulness ; but by God's help I 
 shall redeem all." The case was this. The Cid, who was 
 too good a subject to please his master, the king, had 
 quarrelled with him, or rather, had been banished ; and 
 nobody was to give him house-room or food. A number of 
 friends, however, followed him ; and by the help of his 
 nephew, Martin Antolinez, he proposed to raise some 
 money. Martin accordingly negotiated the business with a 
 couple of rich Jews, who, for a deposit of two chests full of 
 spoil, which they were not to open for a year, on account of 
 political circumstances, agreed to advance six hundred 
 
I90 £SSA YS. 
 
 marks. " Well, then," said Martin Antolinez, " ye see 
 that the night is advancing ; the Cid is in haste, give us 
 the marks." " This is not the way of business," said they ; 
 " we must take first, and then give." Martin accordingly 
 goes with them to the Cid, who in the meantime has filled 
 a couple of heavy chests with sand. The Cid smiled as they 
 kissed his hand, and said, "Ye see I am going out of the 
 land because of the king's displeasure ; but I shall leave 
 something with ye." The Jews made a suitable answer, and 
 Avere then desired to take the chests ; but, though strong 
 men, they could not raise them from the ground. This put 
 them in such spirits, that after telling out the six hundred 
 marks (which Don Martin took without weighing), they 
 offered the Cid a present of a fine red skin ; and upon Don 
 Martin's sucsestin" that he thoucrht his own services in the 
 business merited a pair of hose, they consulted a minute 
 with each other, in order to do everything judiciously, and 
 then gave him money enough to buy, not only the hose, but 
 a rich doublet and good cloak into the bargain. 
 
 The regular sharping rogues, however, that abound in 
 Spanish books of adventure, have one species of romance 
 about them of a very peculiar nature. It may be called, 
 we fear, as far as Spain is concerned, a "romance of real 
 life." We allude to the absolute want and hunger which is 
 so often the orioiinal of their sin. A vein of this cravinfj 
 nature runs throughout most of the Spanish novels. In other 
 countries theft is generally represented as the result of an 
 abuse of plenty, or of some other kind of profligacy, or 
 absolute ruin. But it seems to be an understood thing, 
 that to be poor in Spain is to be in want of the commonest 
 necessaries of life. If a poor man, here and there, happens 
 not to be in so destitute a state as the rest, he thinks him- 
 self bound to maintain the popular character for an appetite, 
 and manifests the most prodigious sense of punctuality 
 and anticipation in all matters relating to meals. Who 
 ever thinks of Sancho, and does not think of ten minutes 
 before luncheon 1 Don Quixote, on the other hand, counts 
 it ungenteel . and undignified to be hungry. The cheat 
 
THIE VES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 1 9 1 
 
 ■who flatters Gil Bias reckons himself entitled to be insult- 
 ingly triumphant, merely because he has got a dinner out 
 of him. 
 
 Of all these ingenious children of necessity, whose roguery 
 has been sharpened by perpetual want, no wit was surely 
 ever kept at so subtle and fierce an edge as that of the 
 never-to-be-decently-treated Lazarillo de Tormes. If we 
 ourselves had not been at a sort of monastic school, and 
 known the beatitude of dry bread and a draught of spring- 
 water, his history would seem to inform us, for the first 
 time, what hunger was. His cunning so truly keeps pace 
 with it, that he seems recompensed for the wants of his 
 stomach by the abundant energies of his head. One-half 
 of his imagination is made up of dry bread and scraps, 
 and the other of meditating how to get at them. Every 
 thought of his mind and every feeling of his afiection 
 coalesces and tends to one point with a ventripetal force. 
 It was said of a contriving lady that she took her very tea 
 by stratagem. Lazarillo is not so lucky. It is enough for 
 him if, by a train of the most ingenious contrivances, he 
 can lay successful siege to a crust. To rout some broken 
 victuals, to circumvent an onion or so, extraordinary, is 
 the utmost aim of his ambition. An ox-foot is his 5eaw 
 ideal. He has as intense and circuitous a sense of a piece 
 of cheese as a mouse at a trap. He swallows surreptitious 
 crumbs with as much zest as a young servant-girl does 
 a plate of preserves. But to his story. He first serves a 
 blind beggar, with whom he lives miserably, except when 
 he commits thefts, which subject him to miserable beatings. 
 He next lives with a priest, and finds his condition worse. 
 His third era of esuriency takes place in the house of 
 a Spanish gentleman ; and here he is worse off than ever. 
 The reader wonders, as he himself did, how he can possibly 
 ascend to this climax of starvation. To overreach a blind 
 beggar might be thought easy. The reader will judge by a 
 specimen or two. The old fellow used to keep his mug of 
 liquor between his legs,, that Lazarillo might not touch it 
 without his knowledge. He did, however; and the beggar 
 
19? £SSAVS. 
 
 discovering it, took to holding the mug in future by the 
 handle. Lazarillo then contrives to suck some of the 
 liquor off with a I'eed, till the beggar defeats this contriv- 
 ance by keeping one hand upon tlie vessel's mouth. His 
 antagonist upon this makes a hole near the bottom of the 
 mug, filling it up with wax, and so tapping the can with as 
 much gentleness as possible, whenever his thirst makes him 
 bold. This stratagem thi'ew the blind man into despair. 
 He '* used to swear and domineer," and wish both the 
 pot and its contents at the devil. The following account 
 of the result is a specimen of the English translation of the 
 work, which is done with great tact and spirit, we know 
 not by whom, but it is worthy of De Foe. Lazarillo is 
 supposed to tell his adventures himself. '"You won't 
 accuse me any more, I hope,' cried I, * of drinking your 
 wine, after all the fine precautions you have taken to 
 prevent it 1 ' To that he said not a word ; but feeling all 
 about the pot, he at last unluckily discovered the hole, 
 which dissembling at that time, he let me alone till next 
 day at dinner. Not dreaming, my reader must know, 
 of the old man's malicious stratagem, but getting in 
 between his legs, according to ray wonted, custom, and 
 receiving into my mouth the distilling dew, and pleasing 
 myself with the success of my own ingenuity, my eyes 
 upward, but half shut, the furious tyrant, taking up the 
 sweet, but hard pot, with both his hands, flung it down 
 again with all his force upon my face ; with the violence of 
 which blow, imagining the house had fallen upon my head, 
 I lay sprawling without any sentiment or judgment ; my 
 forehead, nose, and mouth gushing out of blood, and the 
 latter full of broken teeth and broken pieces of the can. 
 From that time forward I ever abominated the monstrous 
 old churl, and in spite of all his flattering stories, could 
 easily observe how my punishment tickled the old rogue's 
 fancy. He washed my sores with wine ; and with a smile, 
 ' What sayest thou,' quoth he, ' Lazarillo 1 the thing that 
 hurt thee now restores thee to health. Courage, my boy.' 
 But all his raillery could not make me change my mind." 
 
THIE VES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 1 9 3 
 
 At another time, a countryman giving them a cluster of 
 grapes, the old man, says Lazarillo, " would needs take 
 that opportunity to show me a little kindness, after he had 
 been chiding and beating me the whole day before. So 
 setting ourselves down by a hedge, ' Come hither, Lazarillo,' 
 quoth he, • and let us enjoy ourselves a little, and eat 
 these raisins together ; which, that we may share like 
 brothers, do you take but one at a time, and be sure not to 
 cheat me, and I promise you, for my part, I shall take no 
 more.' That I readily agreed to, and so we began our 
 banquet ; but at the very second time he took a couple, 
 believing, I suppose, that I would do the same. And 
 finding he had shown me the way, I made no scruple all 
 the while to take two, three, or four at a time ; sometimes 
 more and sometimes less, as conveniently I could. When 
 we had done, the old man shook his head, and holding the 
 stalk in his hand, ' Thou hast cheated me, Lazarillo,' 
 quoth he, ' for I could take my oath, that thou hast taken 
 three at a time. — ' Who, I ! I beg your pardon,' quoth I, 
 ' my conscience is as dear to me as another.' — 'Pass that 
 jest upon another,' answered the old fox; 'you saw me take 
 two at a time without complaining of it, and therefore you 
 took three.' At that I could hardly forbear laughing ; and 
 at the same time admired the justness of his reasoning." 
 Lazarillo at length quitted the service of the old hard- 
 hearted miser, and revenged himself upon him at the same 
 time in a very summary manner. They were returning 
 home one day on account of bad weather, when they had to 
 cross a kennel which the rain had swelled to a little torrent. 
 The beggar was about to jump over it as well as he could, 
 when Lazarillo persuaded him to go a little lower down the 
 stream, because there was a better crossing ; that is, there 
 was a stone pillar on the other side, against which he knew 
 the blind old fellow would nearly dash his brains out. 
 " He was mightily pleased with my advice. 'Thou art in 
 the right on it, good boy,' quoth he, ' and I love thee with 
 all my heart, Lazarillo. Lead me to the place thou 
 speakest of; the water is very dangerous in winter, and 
 
 207 
 
194 -ESSA VS. 
 
 especially to have one's feet wet.' And again — ' Be sure 
 to set me in the right place, Lazarillo,' quoth he; 'and 
 then do thou go over first.' I obeyed his orders, and set 
 him exactly before the pillar, and so leaping over, posted 
 myself behind it, looking upon him as a man would do 
 upon a mad bull. 'Now you jump,' quoth I; 'and you 
 may get over to rights, without ever touching the water.' 
 I had scarce done speaking, when the old man, like a ram 
 that's fighting, ran three steps backwards, to take his start 
 with the greater vigour, and so his head came with a 
 vengeance against the stone pillar, which made him fall 
 back into the kennel half dead." Lazarillo stops a moment 
 to triumph over him with insulting language ; and then, 
 says he, " resigning my blind, bruised, wet, old, cross, 
 cunning master to the care of the mob that was gathered 
 about him, I made the best of my heels, without ever look- 
 ing about, till I had got the town-gate upon my back ; and 
 thence marching on a merry pace, I arrived before night at 
 Torrigo." 
 
 At the house of the priest, poor Lazarillo gets worse off 
 than before, and is obliged to resort to the most extraordi- 
 nary shifts to arrive at a morsel of bread. At one time he 
 gets a key of a tinker, and opening the old trunk in which 
 the miser kept his bread (a sight, he says, like the opening 
 of heaven), he takes small pieces out of three or four, in 
 imitation of a mouse ; which so convinces the old hunks 
 that the mice and rats have been at them, that he is more 
 liberal of the bread than usual. He lets him have in partic- 
 ular "the parings above the parts where he thought the mice 
 had been." Another of his contrivances is to palm off his 
 pickings upon a serpent, with which animal a neighbour 
 told the priest that his house had been once haunted. 
 Lazarillo, who had been used when he lived with the 
 beggar to husband pieces of money in his mouth (substi- 
 tuting some lesser coin in the blind man's hand, when people 
 gave him anything), now employs the same hiding-place 
 for his key ; but whistling through it unfortunately one 
 night, as he lay breathing hard in his sleep, the priest 
 
THIE VES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 1 9 5 
 
 concludes he has caught the serpent, and going to Lazarillo's 
 bed with a broomstick, gives him at a venture such a tre- 
 mendous blow on the head, as half murders him. The key 
 is then discovered, and the poor fellow turned out of doors. 
 
 He is now hired by a lofty-looking hidalgo ; and follows 
 him home, eating a thousand good things by anticipation. 
 They pass through the markets, however, to no purpose. 
 The squire first goes to church too, and spends an uncon- 
 scionable time at mass. At length they arrive at a dreary, 
 ominous-looking house, and ascend into a decent apartment, 
 where the squire, after shaking his cloak, and blowing off 
 the dust from a stone seat, lays it neatly down, and so 
 makes a cushion of it to sit upon. There is no other 
 furniture in the room, nor even in the neighbouring rooms, 
 except a bed " composed of the anatomy of an old hamper." 
 The truth is, the squire is as poor as Lazarillo, only too 
 proud to own it ; and so he starves both himself and his 
 servant at home, and then issues gallantly forth of a morn- 
 ing, with his Toledo by his side, and a countenance of 
 stately satisfaction ; returning home every day about noon 
 with "a starched body, reaching out his neck like a 
 greyhound." Lazarillo had not been a day in the house 
 before he found out how matters went. He was 
 beginning, in his despair of a dinner, to eat some scraps of 
 bread which had been given him in the morning, when the 
 squire, observing him, asked what he was about. " Come 
 hither, boy," said he, " what's that thou art eating % " — 
 *' I went," says Lazarillo, " and showed him three pieces 
 of bread, of which taking away the best, ' Upon my faith,' 
 quoth he, ' this bread seems to be very good.' — ' 'Tis too 
 stale and hard, sir,' said I, * to be good.' — ' I swear 'tis very 
 good," said the squire ; ' who gave it thee ? Were their 
 hands clean that gave it thee % ' — ' I took it without asking 
 any questions, sir,' answered I, 'and you see I eat it as 
 freely.' — ' Pray God it may be so,' answered the miserable 
 squire ; and so putting the bread to his mouth, he eat it 
 with no less appetite than I did mine ; adding to every 
 mouthful, ' Gadzooks, this bread is excellent.' " 
 
196 ESSAYS. 
 
 Lazarillo, in short, here finds the bare table so completely 
 turned upon him that he is forced to become provider for 
 his master as well as himself; which he does by fairly 
 going out every day and begging ; the poor squire winking 
 at the indignity, though not without a hint at keeping the 
 connection secret. The following extract shall be our 
 climax, which it may well be, the hunger having thus 
 ascended into the ribs of Spanish aristocracy. Lazarillo, 
 one lucky day, has an ox-foot and some tripe given him by 
 a butcher-woman. On coming home with his treasure, he 
 finds the hidalgo impatiently walking up and down, and 
 fears he shall have a scolding for staying so long ; but the 
 squire merely asks where he has been, and receives the 
 account with an irrepressible air of delight. " I sate 
 down," says Lazarillo, " upon the end of the stone seat, and 
 began to eat that he might fancy I was feasting ; and 
 observed, without seeming to take notice, that his eye was 
 fixed upon my skirt, which was all the plate and table 
 that I had. 
 
 " Mai/ God pity me as I had coTnpansion on that poor 
 squire: daily experience made me sensible of his trouble. 
 I did not know whether I should invite him, for since he 
 had told me he had dined I thought he would make a point 
 of honour to refuse to eat ; but in short, being very desirous 
 to supply his necessity, as I had done the day before, and 
 which I was then much better in a condition to do, having 
 already sufficiently stufied my own guts, it was not long 
 before an opportunity fairly offered itself ; for he taking 
 occasion to come near me in his walks, ' Lazarillo,' quoth 
 he (as soon as he observed me begin to eat), ' I never saw 
 anybody eat so handsomely as thee ; a body can scarce 
 see thee fall to work without desiring to bear thee com- 
 pany, let their stomachs be never so full, or their mouth be 
 never so much out of taste.' Faith, thought I to myself, 
 with such an empty belly as yours, my own mouth would 
 water at a great deal less. 
 
 " But finding he was come where I wished him : • Sir,' 
 said I, 'good stuff makes a good workman. This is 
 
THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 197 
 
 admirable bread, and here's an ox-foot so nicely dressed 
 and so well seasoned that anybody would delight to taste 
 of it.' 
 
 " * How !' cried the squire, interrupting me, *an ox-foot?' 
 — * Yes, sir,' said I, ' an ox-foot.' — * Ah ! tlieUy quoth he, 
 ' thou hast, in my opinion, the delicatest hit in Spain; there 
 being neither partridge, pheasant, nor any other thing that I 
 like nearly so well as that.' 
 
 " ' Will you please to try, sir ? ' said I (putting the ox- 
 foot in his hand, with two good morsels of bread) : 'when 
 you have tasted it, you will be convinced that it is a treat 
 for a king, 'tis so well dressed and seasoned.' 
 
 " Upon that, sitting down by my side, he began to eat, 
 or rather tp devour, what I had given him, so that the bones 
 could hardly escape. * Oh ! the excellent bit,' did he cry, 
 ' that this would be with a little garlic ! ' Ha ! thought I 
 to myself, how hastily thou eatest it without sauce. ' Gad,' 
 said the squire, ' I have eaten this as heartily as if I had 
 not tasted a bit of victuals to-day : ' which I did very readily 
 believe. 
 
 " He then called for the pitcher with the water, which 
 was as full as I had brought it home ; so you may guess 
 whether he had had any. When his squireship had drank, 
 he civilly invited me to do the like ; and thus ended our 
 feast." 
 
 We hope the reader is as much amused with this pro- 
 longation of the subject as ourselves, for we are led on 
 insensibly by these amusing thieves, and find we have more 
 to write upon them before we have done. We must give 
 another specimen or two of the sharping Spaniard out of 
 Quevedo. The Adventures, by-the-way, of Lazarillo de 
 Tormes, were written in the sixteenth century by a Spanish 
 gentleman, apparently of illustrious family, Don Diego de 
 Mendoza, who was sometime ambassador at Venice. This 
 renders the story of the hidalgo still more curious. Not 
 that the author perhaps ever felt the proud but condescend- 
 ing pangs which he describes ; this is not necessary for a 
 man of imagination. He merely meant to give a hint to 
 
198 £SSAYS. 
 
 the poorer gentry not to overdo the matter on the side of 
 loftiness, for their own sakes ; and hunger, whether among 
 the proud or the humble, was too national a thing not to be 
 entered into by his statistic apprehension. 
 
 The most popular work connected with sharping adven- 
 tures is Gil Bias, which, though known to us as a French 
 production, seems unquestionably to have originated in the 
 country where the scene is laid. It is a work exquisitely 
 easy and true ; but somehow we have no fancy for the 
 knaves in it. They are of too smooth, sneaking, and safe a 
 cast. They neither bespeak one's sympathy by necessity, 
 nor one's admiration by daring. We except, of course, the 
 robbers before mentioned, who are a picturesque patch in 
 the work, like a piece of rough poetry. 
 
 Of the illustrious Guzman d^ AlfaracJie, the most popular 
 book of the kind, we believe, in Spain, and admired, we 
 know, in this country by some excellent judges, we cannot 
 with propriety speak, for we have only read a few pages at 
 the beginning, though we read those twice over, at two 
 different times, and each time with the same intention of 
 going on. In truth, as Guzman is called by way of 
 eminence the Spanish Rogue, we must say for him, as far 
 as our slight acquaintance warrants it, that he is also " as 
 tedious as a king." They say, however, he has excellent 
 stuff in him. 
 
 We can speak as little of Marcos de Ohregon, of which a 
 translation appeared a little while ago. We have read it, 
 and, if we remember rightly, were pleased ; but want of 
 memory on these occasions is not a good symptom, Que- 
 vedo, no ordinary person, is very amusing. His Visio^is of 
 Hell, in particular, though of a very different kind from 
 Dante's, are more edifying. But our business at present is 
 with his History of Paul the Spanish Sharper, the Pattern 
 of Rogues and Mirror of Vagabonds. We do not know that 
 he deserves these appellations so much as some others ; but 
 they are to be looked upon as titular ornaments, common 
 to the Spanish Kleptocracy. He is extremely pleasant, 
 especially in his younger days. His mother, who is no 
 
THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 199 
 
 better than the progenitor of such a personage ought to be, 
 happens to have the misfortune one day of being carted. 
 Paul, who was then a school-boy, was elected king on some 
 boyish holiday j and riding out upon a half-starved horse, 
 it picked up a small cabbage as they went through the 
 market The market-women began pelting the king with 
 rotten pranges and turnip-tops ; upon which, having feathers 
 in his cap, and getting a notion in his head that they mis- 
 took him for his mother, who, agreeably to a Spanish 
 custom, was tricked out in the same manner when she was 
 carted, he hallo'd out, "Good women, though I wear 
 feathers in my cap, I am none of Alonza Saturuo de 
 Rebillo. She is my mother." 
 
 Paul used to be set upon unlucky tricks by the son of a 
 man of rank, who preferred enjoying a joke to getting 
 punished for it. Among others, one Christmas, a coun- 
 sellor happening to go by of the name of Pontio de 
 Auguirre, the little Don told his companion to call Pontius 
 Pilate, and then to run away. He did so, and the angry 
 counsellor followed after him with a knife in his hand, so 
 that he was forced to take refuge in the house of the school- 
 master. The lawyer laid his indictment, and Paul got a 
 hearty flogging, during which he was enjoined never to call 
 Pontius Pilate again ; to which he lieartily agreed. The 
 consequence was that next day, when the boys were at 
 prayers, Paul, coming to the " Belief," and thinking that he 
 was never again to name Pontius Pilate, gravely said, 
 " Sufiered under Pontio de Auguirre ; " which evidence of 
 his horror of the scourge so interested the pedagogue, that, 
 by a Catholic mode of dispensation, he absolved him from 
 the next two whippings he should incur. 
 
 But we forget that our little picaro was a thief. One 
 specimen of his talents this way, and we have done with the 
 Spaniards. He went with young Don Diego to the univer- 
 sity ; and here getting applause for some tricks he played 
 upon people, and dandling, as it were, his growing propen- 
 sity to theft, he invited his companions one evening to see 
 him steal a box of comfits from a confectioner's. He 
 
loo ESSA YS. 
 
 accordingly draws his rapier, which was stiflF and well- 
 pointed ; runs violently into the shop ; and exclaiming, 
 " You're a dead man ! " makes a fierce lunge at the confec- 
 tioner between the body and arm. Down drops the man, 
 half dead with fear; the others rush out. But what of the 
 box of comfits 1 " "Where are the box of comfits, Paul 1 " 
 said the rogues : " we do not see what you have done after 
 all, except frighten the fellow." — "Look here, my boys," 
 answered Paul. They looked, and at the end of his I'apier 
 beheld, with shouts of laughter, the vanquished box. He 
 had marked it out on the shelf ; and, under pretence of 
 lunging at the confectioner, pinked it away like a muffin. 
 
 Upon turning to Quevedo, we find that the story has 
 grown a little upon our memory as to detail ; but this is 
 the spirit of it. The prize here, it is to be observed, is 
 something eatable ; and the same yearning is a predominant 
 property of Quevedo's sharpers, as well as the others. 
 
 We must return a moment to the Italian thieves, to 
 relate a couple of stories related of Ariosto and Tasso. 
 The former was for a short period governor of Grafagnana, 
 a disturbed district in the Apennines, which his prudent 
 and gentle policy brought back from its disaflectiou. 
 Among its other troubles were numerous bands of robbers, 
 two of the names of whose leaders, Domenico Maroco and 
 Fiiippo Pacchione, have come down to posterity. Ariosto, 
 during the first days of his government, was riding out with 
 a small retinue, when he had to pass through a number of 
 suspicious-looking armed men. The two parties had scarcely 
 cleared each other, when the chief of the strangers asked a 
 servant, who happened to be at some distance behind the 
 others, who that person was. "It is the captain of the 
 citadel here," said the man — "Lodovico Ariosto." The 
 stranger no sooner heard the name than he went running 
 back to overtake the governor, who, stopping his horse, 
 waited with some anxiety for the event. " I beg your par- 
 don, sir," said he, " but I was not aware that so great a 
 person as the Signer Lodovico Ariosto was passing near me. 
 ]^[y name is Fiiippo Pacchione j and when I knew who it 
 
THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN 201 
 
 was, I could not go on without returning to pay the respect 
 due to so illustrious a name." 
 
 A doubt is thrown on this story, or rather on the par- 
 ticular person who gave occasion to it, by the similarity of 
 an adventure related of Tasso. Both of them, however, are 
 very probable, let the similarity be what it may ; for both 
 the poets had occasion to go through disturbed districts ; 
 robbers abounded in both their times ; and the leaders 
 being most probably men rather of desperate fortunes than 
 want of knowledge, were likely enough to seize such 
 opportunities of vindicating their better habits, and show- 
 ing a romantic politeness. The enthusiasm too is quite in 
 keeping with the national character ; and it is to be 
 observed that the particulars of Tasso's adventure are 
 different, though the spirit of it is the same. He was 
 journeying, it is said, in company with others, for better 
 security against the banditti who infested the borders of the 
 papal territory, when they were told that Sciarra, a famous 
 robber, was at hand in considerable force. Tasso was for 
 pushing on, and defending themselves if attacked ; but his 
 opinion was overruled ; and the company threw themselves, 
 for safety, in the city of Mola. Here Sciarra kept them in 
 a manner blocked up ; but hearing that Tasso was among 
 the travellers, he sent him word that he should not only be 
 allowed to pass, but should have safe-conduct whithersoever 
 he pleased. The lofty poet, making it a matter of delicacy, 
 perhaps, to waive an advantage of which his company could 
 not partake, declined the offer ; upon which Sciarra sent 
 another message, saying, that upon the sole account of 
 Tasso the ways should be left open. And they were so. 
 
 We can call to mind no particular German thieves, except 
 those who figure in romances, and in the Robbers of Schiller. 
 To say the truth, we are writing just now with but few 
 books to refer to ; and the better informed reader must 
 pardon any deficiency he meets with in these egregious and 
 furtive memorandums. Of the Robbers of Schiller an extra- 
 ordinary effect is related. It is said to have driven a 
 number of wild-headed young Germans upon playing at 
 
202 £:ssA vs. 
 
 banditti, not in the bounds of a school or university, but 
 seriously in a forest. The matter-of-fact spirit in which a 
 German sets about being enthusiastic is a metaphysical 
 curiosity which modern events render doubly interesting. 
 It is extremely worthy of the attention of those rare per- 
 sonages, entitled reflecting politicians. But we must take 
 care of that kind of digression. It is very inhuman of these 
 politics, that the habit of attending to them, though with 
 the greatest good-will and sincerity, will always be driving 
 a man upon thinking how his fellow-creatures are going on. 
 
 There is a pleasant, well-known story of a Prussian thief 
 and Frederick the Second. 
 
 We forget what was the precise valuable found upon the 
 Prussian soldier, and missed from an image of the Virgin 
 Mary ; but we believe it was a ring. He was tried for 
 sacrilege, and the case seemed clear against him, when he 
 puzzled his Catholic judges by informing them, that the fact 
 was, the Virgin Mary had given him that ring. Here was 
 a terrible dilemma. To dispute the possibility or even 
 probability of a gift from the Virgin Mary was to deny 
 their religion : while, on the other hand, to let the fellow 
 escape on the pretence, was to canonise impudence itself. 
 The worthy judges, in their perplexity, applied to the 
 king, who, under the guise of behaving delicately to 
 their faith, was not sorry to have such an opportunity of 
 joking it. His majesty therefore pronounced, with becom- 
 ing gravity, that the allegation of the soldier could not but 
 have its due weight with all Catholic believers ; but that in 
 future, it was forbidden any Prussian subject, military or 
 civil, to accept a present from the Virgin Mary. 
 
 The district formerly rendered famous by the exploits of 
 Scanderbeg, Prince of Epirus, and since become infamous 
 by the tyranny of Ali Bey, has been very fertile in robbers. 
 And no wonder ; for a semi-barbarous people so governed 
 become thieves by necessity. The name, indeed, as well as 
 profession, is in such good receipt with an Albanian, that, 
 according to late travellers, it is a common thing for him to 
 begin his history by saying, *' When I was a robber " 
 
THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN 203 
 
 We remember reading of some Albanian or Sclavonian 
 leader of banditti, who made his enemies suppose he had a 
 numerous force with him by distributing military caps 
 upon the hedges. 
 
 There are some other nations who are all thieves, more or 
 less ; or comprise such numbers of them as very much 
 militate against the national character. Such are the 
 piratical Malays ; the still more infamous Algerines j and 
 the mongrel tribes between Arabia and Abyssinia. As to 
 the Arabs, they have a prescriptive right, from tradition as 
 well as local circumstances, to plunder everybody. The 
 sanguinary ruffians of Ashantee and other black empires on 
 the Coast of Guinea are more like a government of 
 murderers and ogres than thieves. They are the next 
 ruffians, perhaps, in existence to slave-dealers. The gentlest 
 nation of pilferers are the Otaheitans, and something is to 
 be said for their irresistible love of hatchets and old nails. 
 Let the European trader that is without sin cast the first 
 paragraph at them. Let him think what he should feel . 
 inclined to do, were a ship of some unknown nation to come 
 upon his coast, with gold and jewels lying scattered about 
 the deck. For no less precious is iron to the South Sea 
 Islander. A Paradisiacal state of existence would be, to 
 him, not the Golden, but the Iron Age. An Otaheitan 
 Jupiter would visit his Danae in a shower of tenpenny 
 nails. 
 
 We are now come to a very multitudinous set of candi- 
 dates for the halter — the thieves of our own beloved 
 country. For what we know of the French thieves is 
 connected with them, excepting Cartouche ; and we re- 
 member nothing of him, but that he was a great ruffian, 
 and died upon that worse ruffian, the rack. 
 
 There is, to be sure, an eminent instance of a single theft 
 in the Confessions of Rousseau ; and it is the second 
 greatest blot in his book j for he suffijred a girl to be 
 charged with and punished for the theft, and maintained 
 the lie to her face, though she was his friend, and appealed 
 to him with tears. But it may be said for him, at anyrate, 
 
204 ESSA ys. 
 
 that the world would not have known the story but for 
 himself : and if such a disclosure be regarded by some as an 
 additional offence (which it may be thought to be by some 
 very delicate as well as dishonest people), we must recollect, 
 that it was the object of his book to give a plain unso- 
 phisticated account of a human being's experiences ; and 
 that many persons of excellent repute would have been 
 found to have committed actions as bad, had they given 
 accounts of themselves as candid. Dr. Johnson was of 
 opinion that all children were thieves and liars ; and some- 
 body, we believe a Scotchman, answered a fond speech about 
 human nature, by exclaiming that " human nature was a 
 rogue and a vagabond, or so many laws would not have 
 been necessary to restrain it." We venture to differ, on 
 this occasion, with both Englishman and Scotchman. Laws 
 in particular, taking the bad with the good, are quite 
 as likely to have made rogues as restrained them. But 
 we see, at anyrate, what has been suspected of more 
 . orthodox persons than Rousseau ; to say nothing of less 
 charitable advantages which might be taken of such 
 opinions. Rousseau committed a petty theft ; and miser- 
 ably did his false shame, the parent of so many crimes, 
 make him act. But he won back to their infants' lips the 
 bosoms of thousands of mothers. He restored to their 
 bereaved and helpless owners thousands of those fountains 
 of health and joy : and before he is abused, even for worse 
 things than the theft, let those whose virtue consist in 
 custom think of this. 
 
 As we have mixed fictitious with real thieves in this 
 article, in a manner, we fear, somewhat uncritical (and yet 
 the fictions are most likely founded on fact ; and the life of 
 a real thief is a kind of dream and romance), we will 
 despatch our fictitious English thieves before we come to 
 the others. And we must make shorter work of them 
 than we intended, or we shall never come to our friend Du 
 Vail. The length to which this article has stretched out 
 will be a warning to us how we render our paper liable to 
 be run away with in future. 
 
THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 205 
 
 There is a very fine story of Three Thieves in Chaucer, 
 ■which we must tell at large another time. The most 
 prominent of the fabulous thieves in England is that 
 bellipotent and immeasurable wag, FalstafF. If, for a 
 momentary freak, he thought it villainous to steal, at the 
 next moment he thought it villainous not to steal. 
 
 "Hal, I pr'ythee, trouble me no moi-e with vanity. I 
 would to God thou and I knew where a commodity of good 
 names were to be bought. An old lord of the council rated 
 me the other day in the street about you, sir ; but I 
 marked him not. And yet he talked very wisely; but I 
 regarded him not. And yet he talked wisely ; and in the 
 streets, too. 
 
 " P. Henry. Thou didst well ; for ' Wisdom cries out in 
 the streets, and no man regards it.' 
 
 " Falstaff. O, thou hast damnable iteration ; and art, 
 indeed, able to corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm 
 upon me, Hal ; God forgive thee for it ! Before I knew 
 thee, Hal, I knew nothing ; and now am I, if a man should 
 speak truly, little better than one of the wicked. I must 
 give over this life, and I will give it over ; by the Lord, an 
 I do not, I am a villain : I'll be damned for never a king's 
 son in Christendom. 
 
 "P. Henry. Where shall we take a purse to-morrow, Jack ? 
 
 " Falstoff. Where thou wilt, lad ; I'll make one : an I 
 do not, call me villain, and baffle me." 
 
 We must take care how we speak of Macheath, or we 
 shall be getting political again. Fielding's Jonathan Wild 
 the Great is also, in this sense, "caviare to the multitude." 
 But we would say more if we had room. Count Fathom, a 
 deliberate scoundrel, compounded of the Jonathan Wilds 
 and the more equivocal Cagliostros and other adventurers, 
 is a thief not at all to our taste. We are continually 
 obliged to call his mother to our recollection, in order to 
 bear him. The only instance in which the character of an 
 absolute profligate pickpocket was ever made comparatively 
 welcome to our graver feelings, is in the extraordinary story 
 of " Manon V Escaut^' by the Abb6 Prevost. It is the 
 
2o6 ESS A YS. 
 
 story of a young man, so passionately in love with a 
 profligate female, that he follows her through every species 
 of vice and misery, even when she is sent as a convict to 
 New Orleans. His love, indeed, is returned. He is 
 obliged to subsist upon her vices, and, in return, is induced 
 to help her with his own, becoming a cheat and a swindler 
 to supply her outrageous extravagances. On board the 
 convict-ship (if we recollect) he waits on her through every 
 species of squalidness, the convict-dress and her shaved head 
 only redoubling his love by the help of pity. This seems a 
 shocking and very immoral book ; yet multitudes of very 
 reputable people have found a charm in it. The fact is, not 
 only that Manon is beautiful, sprightly, really fond of her 
 lover, and, after all, becomes reformed ; but that it is 
 delightful, and ought to be so, to the human heart, to see a 
 vein of sentiment and real goodness looking out through all 
 this callous surface of guilt. It is like meeting with a tree 
 in a squalid hole of a city ; a flower or a frank face in a 
 reprobate purlieu. The capabilities of human nature are 
 not compromised. The virtue alone seems natural ; the 
 guilt, as it so often is, seems artificial, and the result of 
 some bad education or other circumstance. Nor is anybody 
 injured. It is one of the shallowest of all shallow notions 
 to talk of the harm of such works. Do we think nobody is 
 to be harmed but the virtuous ; or that there are not 
 privileged harms and vices to' be got rid of, as well as 
 unprivileged ? No good-hearted person will be injured by 
 reading " Manon I'Escaut." There is the belief in goodness 
 in it ; a faith, the want of which does so much harm, both 
 to the vicious and the over-righteous. 
 
 The prince of all robbers, English or foreign, is 
 undoubtedly Robin Hood. There is a worthy Scottish 
 namesake of his, Rob Roy, who has lately had justice done 
 to all his injuries by a countryman ; and the author, it 
 seems, has now come down from the borders to see the Rob 
 of the elder times well treated. We were obliged to tear 
 ourselves away from his first volume, to go to this ill-repay- 
 ing article. But Robin Hood will still remain the chief 
 
THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 207 
 
 and " gentlest of thieves." He acted upon a large scale, 
 or in opposition to a larger injustice, to a whole 
 political system. He " shook the supertlux " to the poor, 
 and " showed the heavens more just." However, what we 
 have to say of hira we must keep till the trees are in leaf 
 again, and the greenwood shade delightful. 
 
 We dismiss, in one rabble-like heap, the real Jonathan 
 Wilds, Avershaws, and other heroes of the Newgate 
 Calendar, who have no redemption in their rascality ; and 
 after them, for gentlemen-valets, may go the Barringtons, 
 Major Semples, and other sneaking rogues, who held on a 
 tremulous career of iniquity, betwixt pilfering and repent- 
 ing. Yet Jack Sheppard must not be forgotten, with his 
 ingenious and daring breaks-out of prison ; nor Turpin, 
 who is said to have ridden his horse with such swiftness 
 from York to London that he was enabled to set up an 
 alibi. We have omitted to notice the celebrated Bucaniers 
 of America ; but these are fellows, with regard to whom we 
 are willing to take Dogberry's advice, and " steal out of 
 their company." Their history disappoints us with its 
 dryness. 
 
 All hail ! thou most attractive of scapegraces ! thou most 
 accomplished of gentlemen of the road ! thou, worthy to be 
 called one of " the minions of the moon," Monsieur Claude 
 Du Yall, whom we have come such a long and dangerous 
 journey to see ! 
 
 Claude Du Vail, according to a pleasant account of him 
 in the Harleian Miscellany, was born at Domfront, in 
 Normandy, in the year 1643, of Pierre Du Vail, miller, 
 and IMarguerite de la Roche, the fair daughter of a tailor. 
 Being a sprightly boy, he did not remain in the country, 
 but became servant to a person of quality at Paris, and 
 with this gentleman he came over to England at the time 
 of the Restoration. It is difficult to say which came over 
 to pick the most pockets and hearts, Charles the Second or 
 Cluade du Vail. Be this as it may, his " courses " of life 
 ("for," says the contemporary historian, "I dare not call 
 them vices ") soon reduced him to the necessity of going 
 
2o8 ESSA YS. 
 
 upon the road ; and here " he quickly became so famous, 
 that in a proclamation for the taking several notorious 
 highwaymen, he had the honour to be named first." " He 
 took," says his biographer, "the generous way of padding;" 
 that is to say, he behaved with exemplary politeness to all 
 coaches, especially those in which there were ladies, making 
 a point of frightening them as amiably as possible, and 
 insisting upon returning any favourite trinkets or keep- 
 sakes, for which they chose to appeal to him with " their 
 most sweet voices." 
 
 It was in this character that he performed an exploit 
 which is the eternal feather in the cap of highway gentility. 
 We will relate it in the words of our informer. Riding out 
 with some of his confederates, "he overtakes a coach, 
 which they had set over night, having intelligence of a 
 booty of four hundred pounds in it. In the coach was a 
 knight, his lady, and only one serving-maid, who, perceiv- 
 ing five horsemen making up to them, presently imagined 
 that they were beset ; and they were confirmed in this 
 apprehension by seeing them whisper to one another and 
 ride backwards and forwards. The lady, to show she was 
 not afraid, takes a flageolet out of her pocket, and plays ; 
 Du Vail takes the hint, plays also, and excellently well, 
 upon a flageolet of his own, and in this posture he rides up 
 to the coach side. ' Sir,' says he to the person in the coach, 
 * your lady plays excellently, and I doubt not but that she 
 dances as well ; will you please to walk out of the coach, 
 and let me have the honour to dance one coranto with her 
 upon the heath?' ' Sir,' said the person in the coach, 'I 
 dare not deny anything to one of your quality and good 
 mind ; you seem a gentleman, and your request is very 
 reasonable : ' which said, the lacquey opens the boot, out 
 comes the knight, Du Vail leaps lightly off his horse, and 
 hands the lady out of the coach. They danced, and here 
 it was that Du Vail performed marvels ; the best master in 
 London, except those that are French, not being able to 
 show such footing as he did in his great riding French 
 boots. The dancing being over, he waits on the lady to her 
 
THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 209 
 
 coach. As the knight was going in, says Du Vail to him, 
 ' Sir, you have forgot to pay the music' ' No, I have not,' 
 replies the knight, and putting his hand under the seat of 
 the coach, pulls out a hundred pounds in a bag, and delivers 
 it to him, which Du Vail took with a very good grace, and 
 courteously answered, ' Sir, you are liberal, and shall have 
 no cause to repent your being so ; this liberality of yours 
 shall excuse you the other three hundred pounds:' and 
 giving him the word, that if he met with any more of the 
 crew he might pass undisturbed, he civilly takes his leave 
 of him. 
 
 " This story, I confess, justiKes the great kindness the 
 ladies had for Du Vail ; for in this, as in an epitome, are 
 contained all things that set a man off advantageously, and 
 make him appear, as the phrase is, much a gentleman. 
 First, here was valour, that he and but four more durst 
 assault a knight, a lady, a waiting-gentlewoman, a lacquey, 
 a groom that rid by to open the gates, and the coachman, 
 they being six to live, odds at football ; and besides, Du 
 Vail had much the worst cause, and reason to believe that 
 whoever should arrive would range themselves on the 
 enemy's party. Then he showed his invention and sagacity, 
 that he could, sur le champ, and, without studying, make 
 that advantage on the lady's playing on the flageolet. He 
 evinced his skill in instrumental music by playing on his 
 flageolet ; in vocal, by his singing ; for (as I should have 
 told you before) there being no violins, Du Vail sung the 
 coranto himself. He manifested his agility of body, by 
 lightly dismounting ofi" his horse, and with ease and freedom 
 getting up again, when he took his leave ; his excellent 
 deportment, by his incomparable dancing, and his graceful 
 manner of taking the hundred pounds ; his generosity, in 
 taking no more ; his wit and eloquence, and readiness at 
 repartees, in the whole discourse with the knight and lady, 
 the greatest part of which I have been forced to omit." 
 
 The noise of the proclamation made Du Vail return to 
 Paris ; but he came back in a short time for want of money. 
 His reign, however, did not last long after his restoration. 
 
 208 
 
2IO ^^^-^Ks: 
 
 lie made an unlucky attack, not upon some ill-bred 
 passengers, but upon several bottles of wine, and was taken 
 in consequence at the Hole-in-the-Wall in Chandos Street. 
 His life was interceded for in vain : he was arraigned and 
 commited to Newgate ; and executed at Tyburn in the 
 twenty-seventh year of his age ; showers of tears from fair 
 eyes bedewing his fate, both while alive in prison and when 
 dead at the fatal tree. 
 
 Du Vall's success with the ladies of those days, wliose 
 amatory taste was of a turn more extensive than delicate, 
 seems to have made some well-dressed English gentlemen 
 jealous. The writer of Du Vall's life, who is a man of wit, 
 evidently has something of bitterness in his railleries upon 
 this point ; but he manages them very pleasantly. He 
 pretends that he is an old bachelor, and has never been 
 able to make his way with his fair countrywomen, on 
 account of the French valets that have stood in his way. 
 He says he had two objects in writing the book. " One is, 
 that the next Frenchman that is hanged may not cause an 
 uproar in this imperial city ; which I doubt not but I have 
 effected. The other is a much harder task : to set my 
 countrymen on even terms with the French, as to the 
 English ladies' affections. If I should bring this about, I 
 should esteem myself to have contributed much to the good 
 of this kingdom. 
 
 " One remedy there is, which, possibly, may conduce 
 something towards it. 
 
 " I have heard that there is a new invention of transfus- 
 ing the blood of one animal into another, and that it has 
 been experimented by putting the blood of a sheep into an 
 Englishman. I am against that way of experiments ; for, 
 should we make all Englishmen sheep, we should soon 
 be a prey to the louve. 
 
 "I think I can propose the making that experiment 
 a more advantageous way. I would have all gentlemen, 
 who have been a full year or more out of France, be let 
 blood weekly, or oftener, if they can bear it. Mark how 
 much they bleed ; tranfuse so much French lacquey's 
 
GETTING UP ON COLD MORNINGS. 211 
 
 blood into them ; replenish these last out of the English 
 footmen, for it is no matter what becomes of them. Repeat 
 this operation toties quoties, and in process of time you will 
 find this event : either the English gentlemen will be as 
 much beloved as the French lacqueys, or the French 
 lacqueys as little esteemed as the English gentlemen." 
 
 Butler has left an Ode, sprinkled with his usual wit, 
 " To the happy Memory of the Most Renowned Du Vail," 
 who 
 
 " — Like a pious man, some years before 
 
 Til' arrival of his fatal hour, 
 
 Made every day he had to live 
 
 To his last minute a preparative ; 
 
 Taught the wild Arabs on the road 
 
 To act in a more gentle mode ; 
 
 Take prizes more obligingly from those, 
 
 Who never had been hred jfilo'us ; 
 
 And how to hang in a more graceful fashion 
 Thau e'er was known before to the dull English nation." 
 
 As it may be thought proper that we should end this 
 lawless article with a good moral, we will give it two 
 or three sentences from Shakespeare worth a whole volume 
 of sermons against thieving. The boy who belongs to 
 Falstafi''s companions, and who begins to see through the 
 shallowness of their cunning and way of life, says that 
 Bardolph stole a lute-case, carried it twelve miles, and sold 
 it for three halfpence. 
 
 GETTING UP ON COLD MORNINGS. 
 
 An Italian author — Giulio Cordara, a Jesuit — has %vritten a 
 poem upon insects, which he begins by insisting, that those 
 troublesome and abominable little animals were created for 
 our annoyance, and that they were certainly not inhabitants 
 of Paradise. We of the north may dispute this piece of 
 theology ; but on the other hajid, it is as clear as the snow 
 
212 ASSAYS. 
 
 on the house-tops, that Adam was not under the necessity 
 of shaving ; and that when Eve walked out of her delicious 
 bower, she did not step upon ice three inches thick. 
 
 Some people say it is a very easy thing to get up of a 
 cold morning. You have only, they tell you, to take the 
 resolution ; and the thing is done. This may be very true ; 
 just as a boy at school has only to take a flogging, and the 
 thing is over. But we have not at all made up our minds 
 upon it ; and we find it a very pleasant exercise to discuss 
 the matter, candidly, before we get up. This, at least, is not 
 idling, though it may be lying. It affords an excellent 
 answer to those who ask how lying in bed can be indulged 
 in by a reasoning being, — a rational creature. How ? 
 Why, with the argument calmly at work in one's head, and 
 the clothes over one's shoulder. Oh — it is a fine way of 
 spending a sensible, impartial half-hour. 
 
 If these people would be more charitable they would get 
 on with their argument better. But they are apt to reason 
 so ill, and to assert so dogmatically, that one could wish to 
 have them stand round one's bed, of a bitter morning, and 
 /ie before their faces. They ought to hear both sides of the 
 bed, the inside and out. If they cannot entertain them- 
 selves with their own thoughts for half-an-hour or so, it is 
 not the fault of those who can. 
 
 Candid inquiries into one's decumbency, besides the 
 greater or less privileges to be allowed a man in proportion 
 to his ability of keeping early hours, the work given his 
 faculties, etc., will at least concede their due merits to such 
 representations as the following. In the first place, says 
 the injured but calm appealer, I have been warm all night, 
 and find my system in a state perfectly suitable to a warm- 
 blooded animal. To get out of this state into the cold, 
 besides the inharmonious and uncritical abruptness of the 
 transition, is so unnatural to such a creature, that the poets, 
 refining upon the tortures of the damned, make one of their 
 greatest agonies consist in being suddenly transported from 
 heat to cold, — from fire to ice. They are " haled " out of 
 their '• beds," says Milton, by " harpy-footed furies," — fellows 
 
GETTING UP ON COLD MORNINGS. 213 
 
 who come to call them. On my first movement towards 
 the anticipation of getting up I find that such parts of the 
 sheets and bolster as are exposed to the air of the room 
 are stone-cold. On opening my eyes, the first thing that 
 meets them is my own breath rolling forth, as if in the open 
 air, like smoke out of a chimney. Think of this symptom. 
 Then I turn my eyes sideways and see the window all frozen 
 over. Think of that. Then the servant comes in. " It is 
 very cold this morning, is it not ? " — " Very cold, sir." — 
 " Very cold indeed, isn't it ? " — " Very cold indeed, sir." — 
 •' More than usually so, isn't it, even for this weather ? " 
 (Here the servant's wit and good-nature are put to a con- 
 siderable test, and the inquirer lies on thorns for the 
 answer.) " Why, sir ... I think it is." (Good creature ! 
 There is not a better or more truth-teUing servant going.) 
 *' I must rise, however — get me some warm water." — Here 
 comes a fine interval between the departure of the servant 
 and the arrival of the hot water ; during which, of course, it 
 is of " no use ? " to get up. The hot water comes. " Is it 
 quite hot?" — "Yes, sir." — "Perhaps too hot for shaving : 
 I must wait a little?" — "No sir; it will just do." (There 
 is an over-nice propriety sometimes, an officious zeal of 
 virtue, a little troublesome.) " Oh — the shirt — you must 
 air my clean shirt; — linen gets very damp this weather." — 
 " Yes, sir." Here another delicious five minutes. A knock 
 at the door. " Oh, the shirt — very well. My stockings — I 
 think the stockings had better be aired too." — " Very well, 
 sir." — Here another interval. At length everything is ready, 
 except myself. I now, continues our incumbent (a happy 
 word, by-the-bye, for a country vicar) — I now cannot help 
 thinking a good deal — who can? — upon the unnecessary 
 and villainous custom of .shaving : it is a thing so unmanly 
 (here I nestle closer) — so effeminate (here I recoil from an 
 unlucky step into the coldei part of the bed). — No wonder 
 that the Queen of France took part with the rebels against 
 that degenerate King, her husband, who first affronted her 
 smooth visage with a face like her own. The Emperor 
 Julian never showed the luxuriancy of his genius to better 
 
214 ESS A YS. 
 
 advantage than in reviving the flowing beard. Look at 
 Cardinal Bembo's picture — at Michael Angelo's — at Titian's 
 — at Shakespeare's — at Fletcher's — at Spenser's — at 
 Chaucer's — at Alfred's — at Plato's — I could name a great 
 man for every tick of my watch. — Look at the Turks, a 
 grave and otiose people. — Think of Haroun Al Raschid 
 and Bed-ridden Hassan. — Think of Wortley Montague, the 
 worthy son of his mother, above the prejudice of his time.— 
 Look at the Persian gentlemen, whom one is ashamed of 
 meeting about the suburbs, their dress and appearance are 
 so much finer than our own, — Lastly, think of the razor 
 itself — how totally opposed to every sensation of bed — how 
 cold, how edgy, how hard ! how utterly different from 
 anything like the warm and circling amplitude, which 
 
 " Sweetly recommends itself 
 Unto our gentle senses." 
 
 Add to this, benumbed fingers, which may help you to cut 
 yourself, a quivering body, a frozen towel, and a ewer full of 
 ice ; and he that says there is nothing to oppose in all this, 
 only shows that he has no merit in opposing it. 
 
 Thomson the poet, who exclaims in his " Seasons " — 
 
 " Falsely luxurious ! Will not man awake ? " 
 
 used to lie in bed till noon, because he said he had no 
 motive in getting up. He could imagine the good of rising ; 
 but then he could also imagine the good of lying still ; and 
 his exclamation, it must be allowed, was made upon 
 summer-time, not winter. We must proportion the argument 
 to the individual character. A money-getter may be drawn 
 out of his bed by three or four pence ; but this will not 
 suffice for a student. A proud man may say, " What shall 
 I think of myself, if I don't get up ? " but the more humble 
 one will be content to waive this prodigious notion of him- 
 self, out of respect to his kindly bed. The mechanical man 
 shall get up without any ado at all ; and so shall the 
 barometer. An ingenious lier in bed will find hard matter 
 
SEAMEN ON SHORE. 2 1 5 
 
 of discussion even on the score of health and longevity. 
 He will ask us for our proofs and precedents of the ill 
 effects of lying later in cold weather ; and sophisticate much 
 on the advantages of an even temperature of body ; of the 
 natural propensity (pretty universal) to have one's way ; and 
 of the animals that roll themselves up and sleep all the 
 winter. As to longevity, he will ask whether the longest 
 is of necessity the best; and whether Holborn is the 
 handsomest street in London. 
 
 SEAMEN ON SHORE. 
 
 The sole business of a seaman on shore, who has to go 
 to sea again, is to take as much pleasure as he can. The 
 moment he sets his foot on dry ground he turns his back 
 on all salt beef and other salt-water restrictions. His long 
 absence, and the impossibility of getting land pleasures 
 at sea, put him upon a sort of desperate appetite. He 
 lands, like a conqueror taking possession. He has been 
 debarred so long, that he is resolved to have that matter 
 out with the inhabitants. They must render an account to 
 him of their treasures, their women, their victualling-stores, 
 their entertainments, their everything ; and in return he will 
 behave like a gentleman, and scatter his gold. 
 
 His first sensation on landing is the strange firmness 
 of the earth, which he goes treading in a sort of heavy light 
 way, half waggoner and half dancing-master, his shoulders 
 rolling, and his feet touching and going ; the same way, in 
 short, in which he keeps himself prepared for all the 
 chances of the vessel, when on deck. There is always this 
 appearance of lightness of foot and heavy strength of upper 
 works in a sailor. And he feels it himself. He lets his 
 jacket fly open, and his shoulders slouch, and his hair grow 
 long, to be gathered into a heavy pigtail; but when full 
 
216 JSSSAYS. 
 
 dressed he prides himself on a certain gentility of toe, on a 
 white stocking and a fia/iy shoe, issuing lightly out of the 
 flowing blue trouser. His arms are neutral, hanging and 
 swinging in a curve aloof; his hands half open, as if they 
 had just been handling ropes, and had no object in life but 
 to handle them again. He is proud of appearing in a new 
 hat and slops, with a Belcher handkerchief flowing loosely 
 round his neck, and the corner of another out of his pocket. 
 Thus equipped, with pinchbeck buckles in his shoes (which 
 he bought for gold), he puts some tobacco in his mouth, 
 not as if he were going to use it directly but as if he 
 stuffed it in a pouch on one side, as a pelican does fish, to 
 employ it hereafter ; and so, with Bet Monson at his side, 
 and perhaps a cane or whanghee twisted under his other 
 arm, sallies forth to take possession of all Lubberland. 
 He buys everything that he comes athwart — nuts, ginger- 
 bread, apples, shoe-strings, beer, brandy, gin, buckles, 
 knives, a watch (two, if he has money enough), gowns and 
 handkerchiefs for Bet and his mother and sisters, dozens of 
 " Superfine Best Men's Cotton Stockings," dozens of 
 " Superfine Best Women's Cotton Ditto," best good Check 
 for Shirts (though he has too much already), infinite 
 needles and thread (to sew his trousers with some day), a 
 footman's laced hat. Bear's Grease, to make his hair grow (by 
 way of joke), several sticks, all sorts of Jcav articles, a flute 
 (which he can't play, and never intends), a leg of mutton, 
 which he carries somewhere to roast, and for a piece of 
 which the landlord of the S^ip makes him pay twice what 
 he gave for the whole ; in short, all that money can be 
 spent upon, which is everything but medicine gratis, and 
 this he would insist on paying for. He would buy all the 
 painted parrots on an Italian's head, on purpose to break 
 them, rather than not spend his money. He has fiddles 
 and a dance at the S/iip, with oceans of flip and grog ; and 
 gives the blind fiddler tobacco for sweetmeats, and half-a- 
 crown for treading on his toe. He asks the landlady, with 
 a sigh, after her daughter Nanse, who first fired his heart 
 with her silk stockings ; and finding that she is married and 
 
SEAMEN ON SHORE. 217 
 
 in trouble, leaves five half crowns for her, which the old 
 lady appropriates as part payment for a shilling in advance. 
 He goes to the Port playhouse with Bet Monson, and a 
 great red handkerchief full of apples, gingerbread nuts, and 
 fresh beef ; calls out for the fiddlers and Rule Britannia ; 
 pelts Tom Sikes in the pit ; and compares Othello to the 
 black ship's cook in his white nightcap. When he comes 
 to London, he and some messmates take a hackney-coach, 
 full of Bet Monsons and tobacco-pipes, and go through the 
 streets smoking and lolling out of window. He has ever 
 been cautious of venturing on horseback, and among his 
 other sights in foreign parts, relates with unfeigned astonish- 
 ment how he had seen the Turks ride : " Only," says he, 
 guarding against the hearer's increduhty, "they have saddle- 
 boxes to hold 'em in, fore and aft, and shovels hke for 
 stirrups." He will tell you how the Chinese drink, and the 
 Negurs dance, and the monkeys pelt you with cocoa-nuts ; 
 and how King Domy would have built him a mud hut and 
 made him a peer of the realm, if he would have stopped 
 with him, and taught him to make trousers. He has a 
 sister at a " School for Young Ladies," who blushes with a 
 mixture of pleasure and shame at his appearance ; and 
 whose confusion he completes by slipping fourpence into 
 her hand, and saying out loud that he has " no more 
 copper" about him. His mother and elder sisters at home 
 doat on all he says and does ; telling him, however, that he 
 is a great sea-fellow, and was always wild ever since he was 
 a hop-o'-my-thumb, no higher than the window locker. He 
 tells his mother that she would be a duchess in Paranaboo ; 
 at which the good old portly dame laughs and looks proud. 
 When his sisters complain of his rompmg, he says that they 
 are only sorry it is not the baker. He frightens them with 
 a mask made after the New Zealand fashion, and is 
 forgiven for his learning. Their mantel-piece is filled by 
 him with shells and shark's teeth ; and when he goes to sea 
 again, there is no end of tears, and " God bless you's ! " and 
 home-made gingerbread. 
 
 His ofiicer on shore does much of all this, only, generally 
 
2i8 ESSAIS. 
 
 speaking, in a higher taste. The moment he lands he 
 buys quantities of jewellery and other valuables, for all the 
 females of his acquaintance; and is taken in for every 
 article. He sends in a cart-load of fresh meat to the ship, 
 though he is going to town next day ; and calling in at a 
 chandler's for some candles, is persuaded to buy a dozen of 
 green wax, with which he lights up the ship at evening ; 
 regretting that the fine moonlight hinders the effect of the 
 colour. A man, with a bundle beneath his arm, accosts 
 him in an undertone ; and, with a look in which respect 
 for his knowledge is mixed with an avowed zeal for his own 
 interest, asks if his Honour will just step under the gangway 
 here, and inspect some real 'India shawls. The gallant 
 Lieutenant says to himself, " This fellow knows what's 
 what, by his face ; " and so he proves it, by being taken in 
 on the spot. When he brings the shawls home he says to 
 his sister, with an air of triumph, "There, Poll, there's 
 something for you ; only cost me twelve, and is worth 
 twenty if it's worth a dollar." She turns pale — " Twenty 
 what, my dear George? Why, you haven't given twelve 
 dollars for it, I hope ? " — " Not I, by the Lord." — " That's 
 lucky ; because you see, my dear George, that all together 
 is not worth more than fourteen or fifteen shillings." 
 " Fourteen or dfteen what ! Why it's real India, en't it ? 
 Why the fellow told me so ; or I'm sure I'd as soon " — 
 (here he tries to hide his blushes with a bluster) — 
 " I'd as soon have given him twelve douses on the 
 chaps as twelve guineas." — "Twelve guineas!'" exclaims 
 the sister ; and then drawling forth, " Why — my — dear 
 George," is proceeding to show him what the articles 
 would have cost at Condell's, when he interrupts her by 
 requesting her to go and choose for herself a tea-table 
 service. He then makes his escape to some messmates at 
 a coffee-house, and drowns his recollection of the shawls in 
 the best wine, and a discussion on the comparative merits 
 of the English and West-Indian beauties and tables. At 
 the theatre afterwards, where he has never been before, he 
 takes a lady at the back of one of the boxes for a woman of 
 
SEAMEN ON SHORE. 2 1 9 
 
 quality ; and when, after returning His long respectful gaze 
 with a smile, she turns aside and puts her handkerchief 
 to her mouth, he thinks it is in derision, till his friend 
 undeceives him. He is introduced to the lady; and ever 
 afterwards, at first sight of a woman of quality (without any 
 disparagement either to those charming personages), expects 
 her to give him a smile. He thinks the other ladies much 
 better creatures than they are taken for; and for their 
 parts, they tell him that if all men were like himself, they 
 would trust the sex again : — which, for aught we know, is 
 the truth. He has, indeed, what he thinks a very hberal 
 opinion of ladies in general ; judging them all, in a manner, 
 with the eye of a seaman's experience. Yet he will believe 
 nevertheless in the "true-love" of any given damsel whom 
 he seeks in the way of marriage, let him roam as much, or 
 remain as long at a distance, as he may. It is not that he 
 wants feehng ; but that he has read of it, time out of mind, 
 in songs ; and he looks upon constancy as a sort of exploit, 
 answering to those which he performs at sea. He is nice 
 in his watches and linen. He makes you presents of 
 cornelians, antique seals, cocoa-nuts set in silver, and other 
 valuables. When he shakes hands with you, it is like being 
 caught in a windlass. He would not swagger about the 
 streets in his uniform for the world. He is generally 
 modest in company, though liable to be irritated by what " 
 he thinks ungenilemanly behaviour. He is also liable to be 
 rendered irritable by sickness ; partly because he has been 
 used to command others, and to be served with all possible 
 deference and alacrity ; and partly, because the idea of 
 suflering pain, without any honour or profit to get by it, is 
 unprofessional, and he is not accustomed to it. He treats 
 talents unlike his own with great respect. He often 
 perceives his own so little felt, that it teaches him this 
 feeling for that of others. Besides, he admires the quantity 
 of information which people can get, without travelling like 
 himself; especially when he sees how interesting his own 
 becomes, to them as well as to everybody else. When he 
 tells a story, particularly if full of wonders, he takes care to 
 
220 ESSA YS. 
 
 maintain his character for truth and simplicity, by quahfj'ing 
 it with all possible reservations, concessions, and anticipa- 
 tions of objection ; such as, " in case, at such times as, so 
 to speak, as it were, at least, at anyrate." He seldom uses 
 ■sea-terms but when jocosely provoked by something con- 
 trary to his habits of life ; as, for instance, if he is always 
 meeting you on horseback, he asks if you never mean to 
 walk the deck again; or if he finds you studying day after 
 ■day, he says you are always overhauling your log-book. 
 He makes more new acquaintances, and forgets his old 
 •ones less, than any other man in the busy world ; for he is 
 so compelled to make his home everywhere, remembers his 
 native one as such a place of enjoyment, has all his friendly 
 TecoUections so fixed upon his mind at sea, and has so 
 much to tell and to hear when he returns, that change and 
 :separation lose with him the most heartless part of their 
 nature. He also sees such a variety of customs and 
 manners, that he becomes charitable in his opinions 
 altogether; and charity, while it diffuses the affections, 
 •cannot let the old ones go. Half the secret of human 
 intercourse is to make allowance for each other. 
 
 When the officer is superannuated or retires, he becomes, 
 if intelligent and inquiring, one of the most agreeable old 
 men in the world, equally welcome to the silent for his card- 
 playing, and to the conversational for his recollections. He 
 is fond of astronomy and books of voyages, and is immortal 
 with all who know him for having been round the world, or 
 ;seen the transit of Venus, or had one of his fingers carried 
 off by a New Zealand hatchet, or a present of feathers from 
 .an Otaheitan beauty. If not elevated by his acquirements 
 above some of his humbler tastes, he delights in a corner- 
 •cupboard holding his cocoa-nuts and punch-bowl ; has his 
 summer-house castellated and planted with wooden cannon ; 
 .and sets up the figure of his old ship, the Britannia or the 
 Lovley Nancy, for a statue in the garden ; where it stares 
 eternally with red cheeks and round black eyes, as if in 
 .astonishment at its situation. 
 
SOCIAL GENEALOGY. 221 
 
 SOCIAL GENEALOGY. 
 
 It is a curious and pleasant thing to consider, that a link of 
 personal acquaintance can be traced up from the authors of 
 our own times to those of Shakespeare, and to Shakespeare 
 himself. Ovid, in recording his intimacy with Propertius 
 and Horace, regrets that he had only seen Virgil. {Trist. 
 Lib. IV., V. 51.) But still he thinks the sight of him worth 
 remembering. And Pope, when a child, prevailed on some 
 friends to take him to a coffee-house which Dr)'den fre- 
 quented, merely to look at him ; which he did, with great 
 satisfaction. Now, such of us as have shaken hands with a 
 living poet might be able to reckon up a series of connect- 
 ing shakes, to the very hand that wrote of Hamlet, and of 
 Falstaff, and of Desdemona. 
 
 With some living poets, it is certain. There is Thomas 
 Moore, for instance, who knew Sheridan. Sheridan knew 
 Johnson, who was the friend of Savage, who knew Steele, 
 who knew Pope. Pope was intimate with Congreve, and 
 Congreve with Dryden. Dryden is said to have visited 
 Milton. Milton is said to have known Davenant ; and to 
 have been saved by him from the revenge of the restored 
 court, in return for having saved Davenant from the revenge 
 of the Commonwealth. But if the link between Dryden and 
 Milton, and Milton and Davenant, is somewhat apocryphal, 
 or rather dependent on tradition (for Richardson the painter 
 tells us the story from Pope, who had it from Betterton the 
 actor, one of Davenant's company), it may be carried at 
 once from Dryden to Davenant, with whom he was un- 
 questionably intimate. Davenant then knew Hobbes, who 
 knew Bacon, who knew Ben Jonson, who was intimate with 
 Beaumont and Fletcher, Chapman, Donne, Drayton, Cam- 
 den, Seldon, Clarendon, Sydney, Raleigh, and perhaps all 
 the great men of Elizabeth's and James's time, the greatest 
 of them all undoubtedly. Thus have we a link of " beamy 
 hands " from our own times up to Shakespeare. 
 
 In this friendly genealogy we have omitted the numerous 
 
222 ESS A YS. 
 
 side-branches or common friendships. It may be mentioned, 
 however, in order not to omit Spenser, that Davenant re- 
 sided some time in the family of Lord Brooke, the friend 
 of Sir Phihp Sidney. Spenser's intimacy with Sidney is 
 mentioned by himself in a letter, still extant, to Gabriel 
 Harvey. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHDAY. 
 
 The fifth of May, making the due allowance of twelve days 
 from the twenty-third of April, according to the change of 
 the Style, is the birthday of Shakespeare. Pleasant thoughts 
 must be associated with him in everything. If he is not to 
 be born in April, he must be born in May. Nature will 
 have him with her on her blithest holidays, like her favourite 
 lover. 
 
 O thou divine human creature — greater name than even 
 divine poet or divine philosopher — and yet thou wast all 
 three — a very spring and vernal abundance of all fair and 
 noble things is to be found in thy productions ! They are 
 truly a second nature. We walk in them, with whatever 
 society we please ; either with men, or fair women, or 
 circling spirits, or with none but the whispering airs and 
 leaves. Thou makest worlds of green trees and gentle 
 natures for us, in thy forests of Arden, and thy courtly 
 retirements of Navarre. Thou bringest us among the 
 holiday lasses on the green sward ; layest us to sleep among 
 fairies in the bowers of midsummer ; wakest us with the 
 song of the lark and the silver-sweet voices of lovers : 
 bringest more music to our ears, both from earth and from 
 the planets ; anon settest us upon enchanted islands, where 
 it welcomes us again, from the touching of invisible 
 instruments ; and after all, restorest us to our still desired 
 haven, the arms of humanity. Whether grieving us or 
 making us glad, thou makest us kinder and happier. The 
 
SHAKESPEARE S BIRTHDA V. 223 
 
 tears which thou fetchest down are like the rains of April, 
 softening the times that come after them. Thy smiles are 
 those of the month of love, the more blessed and universal 
 for the tears. 
 
 The birthdays of such men as Shakespeare ought to be 
 kept, in common gratitude and affection, like those of 
 relations whom we love. He has said, in a line full of him, 
 that 
 
 " One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." 
 
 How near does he become to us with his thousand touches ! 
 The lustre and utility of intellectual power is so increasing 
 in the eyes of the world, that we do not despair of seeing 
 the time when his birthday will be a subject of public 
 rejoicing ; when the regular feast will be served up in 
 tavern and dwelling-house, the bust crowned with laurel, and 
 the theatres sparkle with illuminations. 
 
 In the meantime, it is in the power of every admirer of 
 Shakespeare to honour the day privately. Rich or poor, 
 busy or at leisure, all may do it. The busiest finds time to 
 eat his dinner, and may pitch one considerate glass of wine 
 down his throat. The poorest may call him to mind, and 
 drink his memory in honest water. We had mechanically 
 written health, as if he were alive. So he is in spirit ; — and 
 the spirit of such a writer is so constantly with us, that it 
 would be a good thing, a judicious extravagance, a contem- 
 plative piece of jollity, to drink his health instead of his 
 memory. But this, we fear, should be an impulse. We 
 must content ourselves with having felt it here, and drinking 
 it in imagination. To act upon it, as a proposal of the day 
 before yesterday, might be too much like getting up an 
 extempore gesture, or practising an unspeakable satisfaction. 
 
 An outline, however, may be drawn of the manner in 
 which such a birthday might be spent. The tone and 
 colouring would be filled up, of course, according to the 
 taste of the parties. — If any of our readers, then, have 
 leisure as well as inclination to devote a day to the memory 
 of Shakespeare, we would advise them, in the first place, to 
 
224 £:SSA YS. 
 
 walk out, whether alone or in company, and enjoy during 
 the morning as much as possible of those beauties of nature 
 of which he has left us such exquisite pictures. They would 
 take a volume of him in their hands the most suitable to the 
 occasion ; not to hold themselves bound to sit down and 
 read it, nor even to refer to it, if the original work of nature 
 should occupy them too much ; but to read it, if they read 
 anything ; and to feel that Shakespeare was with them sub- 
 stantially as well as spiritually; — that they had him with 
 them under their arm. There is another thought connected 
 with his presence, which may render the Londoner's walk 
 the more interesting. Shakespeare had neither the vanity 
 which induces a man to be disgusted with what everybody 
 can enjoy; nor, on the other hand, the involuntary self- 
 degradation which renders us incapable of enjoying what is 
 abased by our own familiarity of acquaintanceship. About 
 the metropolis, therefore, there is perhaps not a single rural 
 spot, any more than about Stratford-upon-iVvon, which he 
 has not himself enjoyed. The south side of London was 
 the one nearest his theatre. Hyde Park was then, as it is 
 now, one of the fashionable promenades. Richmond also 
 was in high pride of estimation. At Greenwich Elizabeth 
 held her court, and walked abroad amid the gallant service 
 of the Sydneys and Raleighs. And Hampstead and High- 
 gate, with the country about them, were, as they have been 
 ever since, the favourite resort of the lovers of natural pro- 
 ductions. Nay, without repeating what has been already 
 written about the Mermaid in Cornhill, the Devil Tavern 
 in Fleet Street, the Boar's Head in Eastcheap, and other 
 town associations with Shakespeare, the reader who cannot 
 get out of London on his birthday, and who has the luck to 
 be hard at work in Chancery Lane or the Borough, may be 
 pretty certain that Shakespeare has admired the fields and 
 the May flowers there ; for the fields were close to the 
 latter, perhaps came up to the very walls of the theatre ; 
 and the suburban mansion and gardens of his friend, Lord 
 Southampton, occupied the spot now called Southampton 
 Buildings. It was really a country neighbourhood. The 
 
ANCIENT MYTHOL OGY. 225 
 
 Old Bourne (Holborn) ran by with a bridge over it; and 
 Gray's Inn was an Academic bower in the fields. 
 
 The dinner does not much signify. The sparest or the 
 most abundant will suit the various fortunes of the great 
 poet ; only it will be as well for those who can afford wine 
 to pledge Falstafi in a cup of " sherris sack," which seems 
 to have been a sort of sherry negus. After dinner Shake- 
 speare's volumes will come well on the table ; lying among 
 the dessert like laurels, where there is one, and supplying it 
 where there is not. Instead of songs, the persons present 
 may be called upon for scenes. But no stress need be 
 laid on this proposition, if they do not like to read out 
 aloud. The pleasure of the day should be as much at 
 liberty as possible ; and if the company prefer conversation, 
 it will not be very easy for them to touch upon any subject 
 which Shakespeare shall not have touched upon also. It 
 the enthusiasm is in high taste, the ladies should be crowned 
 with violets, which (next to the roses of their lips) seem to 
 have been his favourite flower. After tea should come 
 singing and music, especially the songs which Arne set from 
 his plays, and the ballad of Thou soft-flowing Avon. If an 
 engraving or bust of him could occupy the principal place 
 in the room, it would look like the " present deity " of the 
 occasion ; and we have known a very pleasant effect pro- 
 duced by everybody's bringing some quotation applicable to 
 him from his works, and laying it before his image, to be 
 read in the course of the evening. 
 
 SPIRIT OF THE ANCIENT MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 From having a different creed of our own, and always 
 encountering the heathen mythology in a poetical and fabu- 
 lous shape, we are apt to have a false idea of the religious 
 feeling of the ancients. We are in the habit of supposing, 
 whatever we allow when we come to reason upon the point, 
 
 209 
 
2 26 ESSAYS. 
 
 that they regarded their fables in the same poetical light as 
 ourselves ; that they could not possibly put faith in Jupiter, 
 Neptune, and Pluto ; in the sacrifice of innocent turtle- 
 doves, the libation of wine, and the notions about 
 Tartarus and Ixion. 
 
 Undoubtedly there were multitudes of freethinkers in the 
 ancient world. Most of the Greek poets and philosophers 
 appear to have differed with the literal notions of the many. 
 A system of refined theism is understood to have been 
 taught to the initiated in the celebrated Mysteries. The 
 doctrines of Epicurus were so prevalent in the most intel- 
 lectual age of Rome, that Lucretius wrote a poem upon 
 tliem, in which he treats their founder as a divinity ; and 
 Virgil, in a well-known passage of the Georgics ; " Felix qui 
 potuit," etc., exalts either Epicurus or Lucretius as a blessed 
 being, who put hell and terror under his feet. A sickly 
 temperament appears to have made him wish, rather than 
 be able, to carry his own scepticism so far ; yet he insinuates 
 his disbeUef in Tartarus, in the sixth book of his epic poem, 
 where .^neas and the Sibyl, after the description of the 
 lower world, go out through the ivory gate, which was the 
 passage of false visions. Caesar, according to a speech of 
 his in Sallust, derided the same notions in open senate ; 
 and Cicero, in other parts of his writings, as well as in a 
 public pleading, speaks of them as fables and impertinence, 
 — "ineptiis ac fabulis." 
 
 But however this plain-dealing may look on the part of 
 the men of letters, there is reason to believe, that even in 
 those times, the people, in general, were strong upon points 
 of faith. The extension of the Greek philosophy may have 
 insensibly rendered them familiar with latitudes of interpre- 
 tation on the part of others. They would not think it 
 impious in Cicero and Cato to have notions of the Supreme 
 Being more consistent with the elevation of their minds. 
 But for themselves, they adhered, from habit, to the literal 
 creed of their ancestors, as the Greek populace had done 
 before them. The jealous enemies of Socrates contrived to 
 have him put to death on a charge of irreverence for the 
 
ANCIENT MYTHOLOG K 227 
 
 gods. A frolic of the libertine Alcibiades, which, to say t 
 least of it, was in bad taste — the defacing the statues of 
 Mercury — was followed with important consequences. The 
 history of Socrates had the effect, in after times, at least in 
 the ancient world, of saving philosophical speculators from 
 the vindictive egotism of opinion. But even in the days of 
 Augustus, Ovid wrote a popular work full of mythological 
 fables ; and Virgil himself, whose creed perhaps only re- 
 jected what was unkindly, gave the hero of his intended 
 popular epic the particular appellation of pious. That 
 Augustus should pique himself on the same attribute proves 
 little; for he was a cold-blooded man of the world, and 
 could play the hypocrite for the worst and most despotic 
 purposes. Did he now and then lecture his poetical friends 
 upon this point, respecting their own appearances with the 
 world ? There is a curious ode of Horace (Book I. Ode 
 xxxiv.), in which he says, that he finds himself compelled 
 to give up his sceptical notions, and to attend more to 
 public worship, because it had thundered one day when the 
 sky was cloudless. The critics are divided in their opinion 
 of his object in this ode. Some think him in earnest, others 
 in jest. It is the only thing of the sort in his works, and is, 
 at all events, of an equivocal character, that would serve his 
 purpose on either side of the question. 
 
 The opinions of the ancients upon religion may be 
 divided into three general classes. The greater multitude 
 believed anything ; the very few disbelieved everything ; the 
 philosophers and poets entertained a refined natural religion, 
 which, while it pronounced upon nothing, rejected what was 
 evidently unworthy of the spirit of the creation, and regarded 
 the popular deities as personifications of its various workings. 
 All these classes had their extravagances, in proportion to 
 their ignorance, or viciousness, or metaphysical perplexity. 
 The multitude, whose notions were founded on ignorance, 
 habit, and fear, admitted many absurd, and some cruel 
 imaginations. The mere man of the world measured 
 everything by his own vain and petty standard, and thought 
 the whole goods of the universe a scramble for the cunning 
 
2 28 ESSAYS. 
 
 and hypocritical. The over-refining followers of Plato, 
 endeavouring to pierce into the nature of things by the mere 
 effort of the will, arrived at conclusions visible to none but 
 their own yearning and impatient eyes, and lost themselves 
 in the ethereal dogmatisms of Plotinus and Porphyry. 
 
 The greatest pleasure arising to a modern imagination 
 from the ancient mythology is in a mingled sense of 
 the old popular belief and of the philosophical refine- 
 ments upon it. We take Apollo, and Mercury, and 
 Venus, as shapes that existed in popular credulity, 
 as the greater fairies of the ancient world : and we 
 regard them, at the same time, as personifications of all 
 that is beautiful and genial in the forms and tendencies of 
 creation. But the result, coming as it does, too, through 
 avenues of beautiful poetry, both ancient and modern, is so 
 entirely cheerful, that we are apt to think it must have 
 wanted gravity to more believing eyes. We fancy that the 
 old world saw nothing in religion but lively and graceful 
 shapes, as remote from the more obscure and awful hintings 
 of the world unknown, as physics appear to be from the 
 metaphysical; as the eye of a beautiful woman is from the 
 inward speculations of a Brahmin; or a lily at noonday 
 from the wide obscurity of night-time. 
 
 This supposition appears to be carried a great deal too 
 far. We will not inquire, in this place, how far the mass of 
 mankind, when these shapes were done away, did or did 
 not escape from a despotic anthropomorphitism ; nor how 
 far they were driven by the vaguer fears, and the opening of 
 a more visible eternity, into avoiding the whole subject, 
 rather than courting it; nor how it is that the nobler 
 practical religion which was afforded them has been unable 
 to bring back their frightened theology from the angry and 
 avaricious pursuits into which they fled for refuge. But, 
 setting aside the portion of terror, of which heathenism par- 
 took in common with all faiths originating in uncultivated 
 times, the ordinary run of pagans were perhaps more 
 impressed with a sense of the invisible world, in conse- 
 quence of the very visions presented to their imagination, 
 
ANCIENT MYTHOLOG V. 229 
 
 than the same description of men under a more shado^vy 
 system. There is the same difference between the two 
 things as between a populace believing in fairies and a 
 populace not believing. The latter is in the high road to 
 something better, if not drawn aside into new terrors on the 
 one hand or mere worldliness on the other. But the former 
 is led to look out of the mere worldly commonplaces about 
 it, twenty times to the other's once. It has a sense of a 
 supernatural state of things, however gross. It has a link 
 with another world, from which something like gravity is 
 sure to strike into the most cheerful heart. Every forest, to 
 the mind's eye of a Greek, was haunted with superior 
 intelligences. Every stream had its presiding nymph, who 
 was thanked for the draught of water. Every house had its 
 protecting gods, which had blessed the inmate's ancestors, 
 and which would bless him also, if he cultivated the social 
 affections : for the same word which expressed piety towards 
 the gods expressed love towards relations and friends. If 
 in all this there was nothing but the worship of a more 
 graceful humanity, there may be worships much worse as 
 well as much better. And the divinest spirit that ever 
 appeared on earth has told us that the extension of human 
 sympathy embraces all that is required of us, either to do 
 or to foresee. 
 
 Imagine the feelings with which an ancient believer must 
 have gone by the oracular oaks of Dodona ; or the calm 
 groves of the Eumenides ; or the fountain where Proserpine 
 vanished under ground with Pluto ; or the Great Temple of 
 the mysteries at Eleusis ; or the laurelled mountain Par- 
 nassus, on the side of which was the temple of Delphi, 
 where Apollo was supposed to be present in person. 
 Imagine Plutarch, a devout and yet a liberal believer, 
 when he went to study theology and philosophy at Delphi : 
 with what feelings must he not have passed along the 
 woody paths of the hill, approaching nearer every instant to 
 the divinity, and not sure that a glance of light through the 
 trees was not the lustre of the god himself going by ! This 
 is mere poetry to us, and very fine it is ; but to him it was 
 
230 ESSA YS. 
 
 poetry, and religion, and beauty, and gravity, and hushing 
 awe, and a path as from one world to another. 
 
 With similar feelings he would cross the ocean, an 
 element 'that naturally detaches the mind from earth, and 
 which the ancients regarded as especially doing so. He 
 had been in the Carpathian sea, the favourite haunt of 
 Proteus, who was supposed to be gifted above every other 
 deity with a knowledge of the causes of things. Towards 
 evening, when the winds were rising, and the sailors had 
 made their vows to Neptune, he would think of the old 
 " shepherd of the seas of yore," and believe it possible that 
 he might become visible to his eyesight, driving through the 
 darkling waters, and turning the sacred wildness of his face 
 towards the blessed ship. 
 
 In all this there is a deeper sense of another world than 
 in the habit of contenting oneself with a few vague terms 
 and embodying nothing but Mammon. There is a deeper 
 sense of another world, precisely because there is a deeper 
 sense of the present; of its varieties, its benignities, its 
 mystery. It was a strong sense of this which made a living 
 poet, who is accounted very orthodox in his religious 
 opinions, give vent, in that fine sonnet, to his impatience at 
 seeing the beautiful planet we live upon, with all its 
 starry wonders about it, so little thought of, compared with 
 what is ridiculously called the woj-ld. He seems to have 
 dreaded the symptom, as an evidence of materialism, and 
 of the planets being dry self-existing things, peopled with 
 mere successive mortalities, and unconnected with any 
 superintendence or consciousness in the universe about 
 them. It is abhorrent from all we think and feci, that they 
 should be so : and yet Love might make heavens of them, if 
 they were. 
 
 " The world is too much with us. Late and soon, 
 Getting and spending we lay waste our powers : 
 Little we see in Nature that is ours : 
 We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon I 
 This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon ; 
 The Winds that will be howling at all hours. 
 And are upgathered now like sleeping flowers j 
 
ANGLING. 231 
 
 For this, for every thing, we are out of tune ; 
 It moves us not. — Great God ! I'd rather be 
 A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn. 
 So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 
 Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; 
 Have sight of Proteus coming from the sea. 
 Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn." 
 
 ANGLING. 
 
 The anglers are a race of men who puzzle us. We do not 
 mean for their patience, which is laudable, nor for the infinite 
 non-success of some of them, which is desirable. Neither 
 do we agree with the good old joke attributed to Swift, that 
 angling is always to be considered as " a stick and a string, 
 with a fly at one end and a fool at the other." Nay, if he 
 had books with him, and a pleasant day, we can account for 
 the joyousness of that prince of punters, who, having been 
 seen in the same spot one morning and evening, and asked 
 whether he had had any success, said No, but in the course 
 of the day he had had "a glorious nibble." 
 
 But the anglers boast of the innocence of their pastime ; 
 yet it puts fellow-creatures to the torture. They pique 
 themselves on their meditative faculties; and yet their 
 only excuse is a want of thought. It is this that puzzles 
 us. Old Isaac Walton, their patriarch, speaking of his 
 inquisitorial abstractions on the banks of a river, says, 
 
 "Here we may 
 Think and pray, 
 Before death 
 Stops our breath. 
 Other joys 
 Are but toys, 
 And to bo lamented." 
 
 So saying, he " stops the breath " of a trout, by plucking 
 
232 ESS A YS. 
 
 him up into an element too thin to respire, with a hook and 
 a tortured worm in his jaws — 
 
 "Other joys 
 Are but toys." 
 
 If you ride, walk, or skate, or play at cricket, or at 
 rackets, or enjoy a ball or a concert, it is " to be lamented." 
 To put pleasure into the faces of half-a-dozen agreeable 
 women is a toy unworthy of the manliness of a worm- 
 sticker. But to put a hook into the gills of a carp — there 
 ycu attain the end of a reasonable being ; there you show 
 yourself truly a lord of the creation. To plant your feet 
 occasionally in the mud is also a pleasing step. So is 
 cutting your ankles with weeds and stones — 
 
 "Other joys 
 Are but toys." 
 
 The book of Isaac Walton upon angling is a delightful 
 performance in some respects. It smells of the country air, 
 and of the flowers in cottage windows. Its pictures of rural 
 scenery, its simplicity, its snatches of old songs, are all good 
 and refreshing ; and his prodigious relish of a dressed fish 
 would not be grudged him, if he had killed it a little more 
 decently. He really seems to have a respect for a piece of 
 salmon ; to approach it, like the grace, with his hat off. 
 But what are we to think of a man, who, in the midst of 
 his tortures of other animals, is always valuing himself on 
 his harmlessness ; and who actually f ollo\ys up one of his 
 most complacent passages of this kind with an injunction 
 to impale a certain worm twice upon the hook, because it 
 is lively, and might get off ! All that can be said of such 
 an extraordinary inconsistency is, that having been bred up 
 in an opinion of the innocence of his amusement, and pos- 
 sessing a healthy power of exercising voluntary thoughts 
 (as far as he had any), he must have dozed over the 
 opposite side of the question, so as to become almost, 
 perhaps quite, insensible to it. And angling does indeed 
 
ANGLING. 233 
 
 seem the next thing to dreaming. It dispenses with 
 locomotion, reconciles contradictions, and renders the very 
 countenance null and void. A friend of ours, who is an 
 admirer of Walton, was struck, just as we were, with the 
 likeness of the old angler's face to a fish. It is hard, 
 angular, and of no expression. It seems to have been 
 "subdued to what it worked in;" to have become native 
 to the watery element. One might have said to "Walton, 
 " Oh flesh, how art thou fishified ! " He looks like a pike, 
 dressed in broadcloth instead of butter. 
 
 The face of his pupil and follower, or, as he fondly called 
 himself, son, Charles Cotton, a poet and a man of wit, is 
 more good-natured and uneasy. Cotton's pleasures had 
 not been confined to fishing. His sympathies, indeed, htul 
 been a little superabundant, and left him, perhaps, not so 
 great a power of thinking as he pleased. Accordingly, wo 
 find in his writings more symptoms of scrupulousness upon 
 the subject than in those of his father. 
 
 Walton says that an angler does no hurt but to fish ; 
 and this he counts as nothing. Cotton argues that the 
 slaughter of them is not to be " repented ; " and he says to 
 his father (which looks as if the old gentleman sometimes 
 thought upon the subject too) — 
 
 " There whilst behind some bush we wait 
 The scaly people to betray, 
 We'll j;?roi-(3 Ujust, with treacherous bait, 
 To make the preying trout our prey." 
 
 This argument, and another about fish's being made for 
 " man's pleasure and diet," are all that anglers have to say 
 for the innocence of their sport. But they are both as 
 rank sophistications as can be ; sheer beggings of the 
 question. To kill fish outright is a difierent matter. 
 Death is common to all ; and a trout, speedily killed by a 
 man, may sufier no worse fate than from the jaws of a 
 pike. It is the mode, the lingering cat-like cruelty of 
 the angler's sport, that renders it unworthy. If fish were 
 made to be so treated, then men were also made to bo 
 
234 ^SSA YS. 
 
 racked and throttled by inquisitors. Indeed, among other 
 advantages of angling, Cotton reckons up a tame, fish-like 
 acquiescence to whatever the powerful choose to inflict. 
 
 " We scratch not our pates, 
 Nor repine at the rates 
 Our superiors impose on our living ; 
 But do frankly submit, 
 Knowing they have more wit 
 In demanding, than we have in giving. 
 
 Whilst quiet we sit, 
 
 We conclude all things fit, 
 
 Acquiescing with hearty submission," etc. 
 
 And this was no pastoral fiction. The anglers of those 
 times, whose skill became famous from the celebrity of 
 their names, chiefly in divinity, were great fallers-in with 
 passive obedience. They seemed to think (whatever they 
 found it necessary to say now and then upon that point) 
 that the great had as much right to prey upon men, as the 
 small had upon fishes ; only the men, luckily, had not hooks 
 put into their jaws, and the sides of their cheeks torn to pieces. 
 The two most famous anglers in history are Antony and 
 Cleopatra. These extremes of the angling character are 
 very edifying. 
 
 We should like to know what these grave divines would 
 have said to the heavenly maxim of " Do as you would be 
 done by." Let us imagine ourselves, for instance, a sort of 
 human fish. Air is but a rarer fluid j and at present, in 
 this November weather, a supernatural being who should 
 look down upon us from a higher atmosphere would have 
 some reason to regard us as a kind of pedestrian carp. 
 Now, fancy a Genius fishing for us. Fancy him baiting a 
 great hook with pickled salmon, and twitching up old Isaac 
 Walton from the banks of the river Lee, with the hook 
 through his ear. How he would go up, roaring and 
 screaming, and thinking the devil had got him ! 
 
 " Other joys 
 Are but toys." 
 
OF DREAMS. 235 
 
 We repeat that if fish were made to be so treated, 
 then we were just as much made to be racked and suffocated ; 
 and a foot-pad might have argued that old Isaac was made 
 to have his pocket picked, and be tumbled into the river. 
 There is no end of these idle and selfish beggings of the 
 question, which at last argue quite as much against us as for 
 us. And granting them, for the sake of argument, it is 
 still obvious, on the very same ground, that men were also 
 made to be taught better. We do not say that all anglers 
 are of a cruel nature ; many of them, doubtless, are amiable 
 men in other matters. They have only never thought, 
 perhaps, on that side of the question, or been accustomed 
 from childhood to blink it. But once thinking, their 
 amiableness and their practice become incompatible ; and 
 if they should wish, on that account, never to have thought 
 upon the subject, they would only show that they cared 
 for their own exemption from suffering, and not for its 
 diminution in general. 
 
 OF DREAMS. 
 
 The materialists and psychologists are at issue upon the 
 subject of dreams. The latter hold them to be one among 
 the many proofs of the existence of a soul : the former 
 endeavour to account for them upon principles altogether 
 corporeal. We must own that the effects of their respective 
 arguments, as is usual with us on these occasions, is not so 
 much to satisfy us with either, as to dissatisfy us with both. 
 The psychologist, with all his struggles, never appears to be 
 able to get rid of his body ; and the materialist leaves some- 
 thing extremely deficient in the vivacity of his proofs, by 
 his ignorance of that primum mobile, which is the soul of 
 everything. In the meantime, while they go on with their 
 laudable inquiries (for which we have a very sincere respect), 
 it is our business to go on recommending a taste for results 
 
236 ESSA YS. 
 
 as well as causes, and turning everything to account in this 
 beautiful star of ours, the earth. There is no reason why 
 the acutest investigator of mysteries should not enjoy his 
 existence, and have his earthly dreams made as pleasant as 
 possible ; and for our parts, we see nothing at present, 
 either in body or soul, but a medium for a world of 
 perceptions, the very unpleasantest of whose dreams are 
 but warnings to us how we depart from the health and 
 natural piety of the pleasant ones. 
 
 What seems incontrovertible in the case of dreams is, 
 that they are most apt to take place when the body is most 
 affected. They seem to turn most upon us when the 
 suspension of the will has been reduced to its most helpless 
 state by indulgence. The door of the fancy is left without 
 its keeper, and forth issue, pell-mell, the whole rout of ideas 
 or images, which had been stored within the brain, and kept 
 to their respective duties. They are like a school let loose, 
 or the winds in Virgil, or Lord Anson's drunken sailors at 
 Panama, who dressed themselves up in all sorts of ridiculous 
 apparel. 
 
 We were about to say, that being writers, we are of 
 necessity dreamers j for thinking disposes the bodily faculties 
 to be more than usually affected by the causes that generally 
 produce dreaming. But extremes appear to meet on this, 
 as on other occasions, at least as far as the meditative power 
 is concerned ; for there is an excellent reasoner now living, 
 who, telling another that he was not fond of the wilder parts 
 of the Arabian Heights, was answered with great felicity, 
 " Then you never dream." It turned out that he really 
 dreamt little. Here the link is impaired that connects a 
 tendency to indigestion with thinking on the one hand and 
 dreaming on the other. If we are to believe Herodotus, 
 the Atlantes, an African people, never dreamt ; which 
 Montaigne is willing to attribute to their never having 
 eaten anything that died of itself. It is to be presumed 
 that he looked upon their temperance as a matter of course. 
 The same philosopher, who was a deep thinker and of 
 a delicate constitution, informs us that he himself dreamt 
 
OF DREAMS. 237 
 
 but sparingly ; but then when he did, his dreams were 
 fantastic though cheerful. This is the very triumph of the 
 animal spirits, to unite the strangeness of sick dreams with 
 the cheerfulness of healthy ones. To these exceptions 
 against the usual theories we may add, that dreams are 
 by no means modified of necessity by what the mind has 
 been occupied with in the course of the day, or even of 
 months ; for during our two years' confinement in prison, 
 we did not dream more than twice of our chief subjects of 
 reflection, the prison itself not excepted. The two dreams 
 were both connected with the latter, and both the same. 
 We fancied that we had slipped out of jail, and gone to the 
 theatre, where we were horrified by seeing the faces of the 
 whole audience unexpectedly turned upon us. 
 
 It is certain enough, however, that dreams in general 
 proceed from indigestion ; and it appears nearly as much 
 so, that they are more or less strange according to the 
 waking fancy of the dreamer. It is probable that a trivial 
 degree of indigestion will give rise to very fantastic dreams 
 in a fanciful mind ; while, on the other hand, a good 
 orthodox repletion is necessary towards a fanciful creation 
 in a dull one. It shall make an epicure, of any vivacity, 
 act as many parts in his sleep as a tragedian, " for that 
 night only." The inspirations of veal, in particular, are 
 accounted extremely Delphic ; Italian pickles partake of the 
 same spirit of Dante ; and a butter-boat shall contain as 
 many ghosts as Charon's. 
 
 There is a passage in Lucian which would have made a 
 good subject for those who painted the temptations of the 
 saints. It is a description of the City of Dreams, very 
 lively and crowded. We quote after Natalis Comes, not 
 having the True History by us. The city, we are told, 
 stands in an immense plain, surrounded by a thick forest of 
 tall poppy-trees, and enormous mandragoras. The plain is 
 also full of all sorts of somniculous plants, and the trees are 
 haunted with multitudes of owls and bats, but no other 
 bird. The city is washed by the river Lethe, called by 
 others the Nightbringer, whose course is inaudible, and like 
 
238 ESSA YS. 
 
 the flowing of oil. (Spenser's follower, Browne, has been 
 here — 
 
 " Where consort none other fowl, 
 Save the bat and sullen owl ; 
 Where flows Lethe without coil, 
 Softly, like a stream of oil." 
 
 — Inner Temple Mask.) 
 
 There are two gates to the city : one of horn, in which 
 almost everything that can happen in sleep is represented, 
 as in a transparency ; the other of ivory, in which the 
 dreams are but dimly shadowed. The principal temple is 
 that of Night ; and there are others, dedicated to Truth and 
 Falsehood, who have oracles. The population consists of 
 Dreams, who are of an infinite variety of shape. Some 
 are small and slender ; others distorted, humped, and 
 monstrous ; others proper and tall, with blooming, good- 
 tempered faces. Others, again, have terrible countenances, 
 are winged, and seem eternally threatening the city with 
 some calamity ; while others walk about in the pomp and 
 garniture of kings. If any mortal comes into the place, 
 there is a multitude of Domestic Dreams, who meet him 
 with offers of service ; and they are followed by some of the 
 others that bring him good or bad news, generally false ; for 
 the inhabitants of that city are, for the most part, a lying 
 and crafty generation, speaking one thing and thinking 
 another. This is having a new advantage over us. Only 
 think of the mental reservation of a Dream ! 
 
 If Lucian had divided his city into ranks and denom- 
 inations, he might possibly have classed them under the 
 heads of Dreams Lofty, Dreams Ludicrous, Dreams 
 Pathetic, Dreams Horrible, Dreams Bodily Painful or 
 Pleasant, Dreams of Common Life, Dreams of New 
 Aspects of Humanity ; Dreams Mixed, Fantastic, and 
 utterly Confused. He speaks of winged ones, which is 
 judicious, for they are very common ; but unless Natalis 
 Comes, who is not a very bright person, misrepresents him, 
 he makes them of the melancholy class, which, in general, 
 they are not. 
 
OF DREAMS. a39 
 
 " In airy sanguine dreams aloft we bound." 
 Nothing is more common, or usually more pleasant, than 
 to dream of flying. It is one of the best specimens of the 
 race ; for besides being agreeable, it is made up of the dreams 
 of ordinary life and those of surprising combination. Thus 
 the dreamer sometimes thinks he is flying in unknown 
 regions, sometimes skimming only a few inches above the 
 ground, and wondering he never did it before. He will even 
 dream that he is dreaming about it ; and yet is so fully con- 
 vinced of its feasability, and so astonished at his never having 
 hit upon so delightful a truism, that he is resolved to practise 
 it the moment he wakes. " One has only," says he, " to give 
 a little spring with one's foot, so, and — oh ! it's the easiest 
 and most obvious thing in the world. I'll always skim here- 
 after." We dreamt once that a woman set up some Flying 
 Rooms, as a person does a tavern. We went to try them, 
 and nothing could be more satisfactory and commonplace 
 on all sides. The landlady welcomed us with a courtesy, 
 hoped for friends and favours, etc., and then showed us into 
 a spacious room, not round, as might be expected, but long, 
 and after the usual dining fashion. "Perhaps, sir," said 
 she, "you would like to try the room." Upon which we 
 made no more ado, but sprung up and made two or three 
 genteel circuits, now taking the height of it, like a house- 
 lark, and then cutting the angles, like a swallow. " Yery 
 pretty flying, indeed," said we, " and very moderate." 
 
 A house for the purpose of taking flights in, when the 
 open air was to be had for nothing, is fantastic enough ; 
 but what shall we say to those confoundings of all time, 
 place, and substance, which are constantly happening to 
 persons of any creativeness of stomach 1 Thus, you shall 
 meet a friend in a gateway, who, besides being your friend, 
 sliall be your enemy ; and besides being Jones or Torakins, 
 shall be a bull ; and besides asking you in, shall oppose 
 your entrance. Nevertheless you are net at all surprised ; 
 or if surprised, you are only so at something not surprising. 
 To be Tomkins and a bull at once is the most ordinary of 
 commonplaces ; but that, being a bull, he should have 
 
240 ESSAYS. 
 
 horns, is what astonishes you ; and you are amazed at his 
 not being in Holborn or the Strand, where he never lived. 
 To be in two places at once is not uncommon to a dreamer. 
 He will also be young and old at the same time, a school-boy 
 and a man ; will live many yeai's in a few minutes, like the 
 Sultan who dipped his head in the tub of water ; will be 
 full of zeal and dialogue upon some matter of indifference ; 
 go to the opera with a dish under his arm, to be in the 
 fashion ; talk faster in verse than prose ; and ask a set of 
 horses to a musical party, telling them that he knows they 
 will be pleased, because blue is the general wear, and 
 Mozart has gone down to Gloucestershire to fit up a house 
 for Epaminondas. 
 
 It is a curious proof of the concern which body has in 
 these vagaries, that when you dream of any particular limb 
 being in pain, you shall most likely have gone to sleep in a 
 posture that affects it. A weight on the feet will produce 
 dreams in which you are rooted to the ground, or caught by 
 a goblin out of the earth. A cramped hand or leg shall get 
 you tortured in the Inquisition ; and a head too much 
 thrown back give you the sense of an interminable visita- 
 tion of stifling. The nightmare, the heaviest punisher of 
 repletion, will visit some persons merely for lying on their 
 backs ; which shows how much it is concerned in a particu- 
 lar condition of the frame. Sometimes it lies upon the 
 chest like a vital lump. Sometimes it comes in the guise 
 of a horrid dwarf, or malignant little hag, who grins in 
 your teeth, and will not let you rise. Its most common 
 enormity is to pin you to the ground with excess of fear, 
 while something dreadful is coming up, a goblin or a mad 
 bull. Sometimes the horror is of a very elaborate descrip- 
 tion, such as being spell-bound in an old house, which has a 
 mysterious and shocking possessor. He is a gigantic de- 
 formity, and will pass presently through the room in which 
 you are sitting. He comes, not a giant, but a dwarf, of the 
 most strange and odious description, hairy, spider-like, and 
 chuckling. His mere passage is unbearable. The agony 
 arises at every step. You would protest against so 
 
OF DREAMS. 241 
 
 malignant a sublimation of the shocking, but are unable 
 to move or speak. At length you give loud and long- 
 drawn groans, and start up with a praeternatural ellbrt, 
 awake. 
 
 If horrible and fantastic dreams are the most perplexing, 
 there are pathetic ones more saddening. A friend dream- 
 ing of the loss of his friend, or a lover of that of his 
 mistress, or a kinsman of that of a dear relation, is steeped 
 in the bitterness of death. To wake and find it not true, 
 — what a delicious sensation is that ! On the other hand, 
 to dream of a friend or a beloved relative restored to us, — 
 to live over again the hours of childhood at the knee of a 
 beloved mother, to be on the eve of marrying an aflectionate 
 mistress, with a thousand other joys snatched back out of 
 the grave, and too painful to dwell upon, — what a dreary 
 rush of sensation comes like a shadow upon us when we 
 wake ! How true, and divested of all that is justly 
 called conceit in poetry, is that termination of Milton's 
 sonnet on dreaming of his deceased wife, — 
 
 " But oh, as to embrace me she inclined, 
 I waked ; she fled ; and day brought back my night" 
 
 It is strange that so good and cordial a critic as Warton 
 should think this a mez'e conceit on his blindness. An 
 allusion to his blindness may or may not be involved in it; 
 but the sense of returning shadow on the mind is true to 
 nature, and must have been experienced by every one who 
 has lost a person dear to him. There is a beautiful sonnet 
 by Camoens on a similar occasion ; a small canzone by 
 Sanazzaro, which ends with saying, that although he waked 
 and missed his lady's hand in his, he still tried to cheat 
 himself by keeping his eyes shut ; and three divine dreams 
 of Laura by Petrarch, Sonnet xxxiv. vol. 2., Sonnet Ixxix. 
 ib., and the canzone beginning 
 
 " Quando il soave mio fido conforto." 
 
 But we must be cautious how we think of the poets on 
 this most poetical subject, or wc shall write three articles 
 
 210 
 
242 ESS A YS. 
 
 instead of one. As it is, we have not left ourselves room 
 for some very agreeable dreams, which we meant to liave 
 taken between these our gallant and imaginative sheets. 
 They must be interrupted, as they are apt to be, like the 
 young lady's in the Adventures of a Lajnlog, who, blushing 
 divinely, had just uttered the words, " My Lord, I am 
 wholly yours," when she was awaked by the jumping up of 
 that officious little puppy. 
 
 SPRING. 
 
 This morning as we sat at breakfast, thinking of our 
 present subject, with our eyes fixed on a set of the British 
 Poets, which stand us instead of a prospect, there came by 
 the window, from a child's voice, a cry of " Wallflowers." 
 There had just been a shower ; sunshine had followed it ; 
 and the rain, the sun, the boy's voice, and the flowers, came 
 all so prettily together upon the subject we were thinking 
 of, that in taking one of his roots, we could not help fancy- 
 ing we had received a present from Nature herself, — with a 
 penny for the bearer. There were thirty lumps of buds on 
 this penny root ; their beauty was yet to come ; but the 
 promise was there, — the new life, — the Spring, — and the 
 rain-drops were on them, as if the sweet goddess had 
 dipped her hand in some fountain, and sprinkled them for 
 us by way of message ; as who should say, " April and 
 I are coming." 
 
 What a beautiful word is Spring ! At least one fancies 
 so, knowing the meaning of it, and being used to identify it 
 with so many pleasant things. An Italian might find it 
 harsh ; and object to the Sp and the terminating consonant ; 
 but if he were a proper Italian, a man of fancy, the worthy 
 countryman of Petrarch and Ariosto, we would convince 
 him that the word was an excellent good word, crammed as 
 
SPRING. i45 
 
 full of beauty as a bud, — and that S had the whistling of 
 the brooks in it, p and r the force and roughness of what- 
 soever is animated and picturesque, ing the singing of the 
 birds, and the whole word the suddenness and salience of 
 all that is lively, sprouting, and new — Spring, Spring-time, 
 a Spring-green, a Spring of water — to Spring — Springal, a 
 word for a young man in old (that is, ever new) English 
 poetry, which with many other words has gone out, because 
 the youthfulness of our hearts has gone out, — to come back 
 with better times, and the nine-hundredth number of the 
 work before us. 
 
 If our Italian, being very unlike an Italian, ill-natured 
 and not open to pleasant conviction, should still object to 
 our word, we would grow uncourteous in turn, and swear it 
 was a better word than his Prima-vera, — which is what he 
 calls Spring — Prima-vera, that is to say, the first Vera, or 
 Ver of the Latins, the Veer (fSrjp lonice) or Par of the 
 Greeks ; and what that means, nobody very well knows. 
 But why Prima- Vera ? and what is Secoyida, or second 
 Vera 1 The word is too long and lazy, as well as obscure, 
 compared with our brisk, little, potent, obvious, and leaping 
 Sjning, — full of all fountains, buds, birds, sweetbriars, and 
 sunbeams. 
 
 " Leaping, like wanton kids in pleasant spring," 
 
 says the poet, speaking of the " wood-born people " that 
 flocked about fair Serena. How much better the word 
 spring suits here with the word leaping, than if it had been 
 prima-vera ! How much more sudden and starting, like 
 the boundings of the kids ! Prima-vera is a beautiful word ; 
 let us not gainsay it ; but it is more suitable to the maturity, 
 than to the very springing of spring, as its first syllable 
 would pretend. So long and comparatively languid a word 
 ought to belong to that side of the season which is next to 
 summer. Ver, the Latin word, is better, — or rather Greek 
 word ; for, as we have shown before, it comes from the 
 Greek, — like almost every good thing in Latin. It is a pity 
 one does not know what it means ; for the Greeks had 
 
244 ASSAYS. 
 
 " good meanings " (as Sir Hugh Evans would say) ; and 
 their Ver, Feer, or £ar, we may be sure, meant something 
 pleasant, — possibly the rising of tlie sap ; or something 
 connected with the new air ; or with love ; for etymologists, 
 with their happy facilities, might bring it from the roots of 
 such words. Ben Jonson has made a beautiful name of its 
 adjective (Earinos, vernal) for the heroine of his " Sad 
 Shepherd,"— 
 
 "Earine, 
 
 Who had her very being, and her name, 
 
 With the first knots, or buddhigs of the Spring; 
 
 Born with the primrose and the violet, 
 
 Or earliest roses blown ; when Cupid smiled, 
 
 And Venus led the Graces out to dance ; 
 
 And all the flowers and sweets in Nature's lap 
 
 Leap'd out." 
 
 The lightest thoughts have their roots in gravity, and the 
 most fugitive colours of the world are set off by the mighty 
 back-ground of eternity. One of the greatest pleasures of 
 so light and airy a thing as the vernal season arises from 
 the consciousness that the world is young again ; that the 
 spring has come round, that we shall not all cease, and be 
 no world. Nature has begun again, and not begun for 
 nothing. One fancies somehow that she could not have 
 the heart to put a stop to us in April or May. She may 
 pluck away a poor little life here and there ; nay, many 
 blossoms of youth, — but not all, — not the whole garden of 
 life. She prunes, but does not destroy. If she did, — if 
 she were in the mind to have done with us, — to look upon 
 us as an experiment not worth going on with, as a set of 
 ungenial and obstinate compounds which refused to co- 
 operate in her sweet designs, and could not be made to 
 answer in the working, — depend upon it she would tako 
 pity on our incapability and bad humours, and conveniently 
 quash us in some dismal, sullen winter's day, just at the 
 natural dying of the year, most likely in November ; for 
 Christmas is a sort of Spring itself, a winter-flowering. 
 We care nothing for ax'guments about storms, earthquakes, 
 or other apparently unseasonable interruptions of our 
 
SPRING. 245 
 
 pleasures : — we imitate in that respect the magnanimous 
 indiiference, or what appears such, of the Great Mother 
 herself, knowing that she means us the best in the gross ; 
 • — and also that we may all get our remedies for these evils 
 in time, if we co-operate as before said. People in South 
 America, for instance, may learn from experience, and 
 build so as to make a comparative nothing of those rockings 
 of the ground. It is of the gross itself that we speak ; and 
 sure wo are, that with an eye to that, Nature does not feel 
 as Pope ventures to say she does, or sees " with equal eye " — 
 
 " Atoms or systems into rnin hurl'd, 
 And now a bubble burst, and now a world." 
 
 He may have flattered himself that he should think it a 
 fine thing for his little poetship to sit upon a star, and look 
 grand in his own eyes, from an eye so very dispassionate ; 
 but Nature, who is the author of passion, and joy, and 
 sorrow, does not look upon animate and inanimate, depend 
 upon it, with the same want of sympathy. " A world " 
 full of loves, and hopes, and endeavours, and of her own 
 life and loveliness, is a far greater thing in her eyes, rest 
 assured, than a " bubble ; " and d, fortiori, many worlds, or 
 a " system," far greater than the " atom " talked of with so 
 much complacency by this divine little whipper-snapper. 
 Ergo, the moment the kind mother gives promise of a 
 renewed year with these her green and budding signals, be 
 certain she is not going to falsify them ; and that being sure 
 of April, we are sure as far as November. As to our exist- 
 ence any further, that, we conceive, depends somewhat upon 
 how we behave ourselves ; and therefore we would exhort 
 everybody to do their best for the earth, and all that is upon it, 
 in order that it and they may be thought worth continuance. 
 What ! shall we be put into a beautiful garden, and turn 
 Tip our noses at it, and call it a " vale of tears," and all sorts 
 of bad names (helping thereby to make it so), and yet con- 
 iidently reckon that Nature will never shut it up, and have 
 done with it, or set about forming a better stock of inhabit- 
 ants ? Recollect, we beseech you, dear " Lord Worldly 
 
246 ESS A YS. 
 
 Wiseman," and you, "Sir Having," and my lady "Greedy," 
 that there is reason for supposing that man was not always 
 an inhabitant of this very fashionable world and somewhat 
 larger globe; and that perhaps the chief occupant before 
 him was only of an inferior species to ourselves (odd as you 
 may think it), who could not be brought to only know what 
 a beautiful place he lived in, and so had another chance 
 given him in a diflerent shape. Good heavens ! If there 
 were none but mere ladies and gentlemen, and city men, and 
 soldiers, upon earth, and no poets, readers, and milkmaids, 
 to remind us that there was such a thing as Nature, we 
 really should begin to tremble for Almack's and Change 
 Alley about the 20th of next October ! 
 
 A CHAPTER ON HATS. 
 
 We know not what will be thought of our taste in so 
 important a matter, but we must confess we are not fond 
 of a new hat. There is a certain insolence about it : it 
 seems to value itself upon its finished appearance, and to 
 presume upon our liking before we are acquainted with it. 
 In the first place, it comes home more like a marmot or 
 some other living creature, than a manufacture. It is 
 boxed up, and wrapt in silver paper, and brought delicately. 
 It is as sleek as a lap-dog. Then we are to take it out as 
 nicely, and people are to wonder how we shall look in it. 
 Maria twitches one this way, and Sophia that, and Caroline 
 that, and Catharine t'other. We have the difiicult task, 
 all the while, of looking easy, till the approving votes are 
 pronounced ; our only resource (which is also difficult) 
 being to say good things to all four ; or to clap the hat 
 upon each of their heads, and see what pretty milkwomen 
 they make. At last the approving votes are pronounced ; 
 and (provided it is fine) we may go forth. But how 
 
A CHAPTER ON HATS. 247 
 
 uneasy the sensation about the head ! How unlike the old 
 hat, to which we had become used, and which must now 
 make way for this fop of a stranger ! We might do what 
 we liked with the former. Dust, rain, a gale of wind, a 
 fall, a squeeze — nothing affected it. It was a true friend, a 
 friend for all weathers. Its appearance only was against it : 
 in everything else it was the better for wear. But if the 
 roads or the streets are too dry, the new hat is afraid of 
 getting dusty : if there is wind, and it is not tight, it may 
 be blown off into the dirt : we may have to scramble after 
 it through dust or mud, just reaching it with our fingers, 
 only to see it blown away again. And if rain comes on ! 
 Oh ye gallant apprentices, who have issued forth on a 
 Sunday morning, with Jane or Susan, careless either of 
 storms at nightfall, or toils and scoldings next day ! Ye, 
 who have received your new hat and boots but an hour 
 before ye set out ; and then issue forth tx-iumphantly, the 
 charmer by your side ! She, with arm in yours, and hand- 
 kerchief in hand, blushing, or eating gingerbread, trips on : 
 ye, admiring, trudge : we ask ye, whether love itself has 
 prevented ye from feeling a certain fearful consciousness of 
 that crowning glory, the new and glossy hat, when the first 
 drops of rain announce the coming of a shower? Ah, 
 hasten, while yet it is of use to haste ; ere yet the spotty 
 horror fixes on the nap ! Out with the protecting hand- 
 kerchief, which, tied round the hat, and flowing off in a 
 corner behind, shall gleam through the thickening night like 
 a suburb comet ! Trust not the tempting yawn of stable- 
 yard or gateway, or the impossible notion of a coach ! 
 The rain will continue ; and alas ! ye are not so rich as in 
 the morning. Hasten I or think of a new hat's becoming a 
 rain-spout ! Think of its well-built crown, its graceful and 
 well-measured fit, the curved-up elegance of its rim, its 
 shadowing gentility when seen in front, its arching grace 
 over the ear when beheld sideways ! Think of it also the 
 next day 1 How altered, how dejected ! 
 
 " How changed from hiin, 
 That life of measure and that soul of rim J " 
 
2 48 ESSAYS. 
 
 Think of the paper-like change of its consistence ; of its 
 limp sadness — its confused and flattened nap, and of that 
 polished and perfect circle, which neither brush nor hot iron 
 shall restore ! 
 
 We have here spoken of the beauties of a new hat ; but 
 abstractedly considered, they are very problematical. 
 Fashion makes beauty for a time. Our ancestors found a 
 grace in the cocked hats now confined to beadles, Chelsea 
 pensioners, and coachmen. They would have laughed at 
 our chimney-tops with a border : though upon the whole 
 we do think them the more graceful of the two. The best 
 modern covering for the head was the imitation of the broad 
 Spanish hat in use about thirty years back, when Mr. 
 Stothard made his designs for the Novelist's Magazine. 
 But in proportion as society has been put into a bustle, our 
 hats seem to have narrowed their dimensions : the flaps 
 were clipped ofi" more and more till they became a rim ; and 
 now the rim has contracted to a mere nothing; so that 
 what with our close heads and our tight succinct mode of 
 dress, we look as if we were intended for nothing but to 
 dart backwards and forwards on matters of business, with 
 as little hindrance to each other as possible. 
 
 This may give us a greater distaste to the hat than it 
 deserves ; but good-looking or not, we know of no situation 
 in which a new one can be said to be useful. We have seen 
 how the case is during bad weather : but if the weather is 
 in the finest condition possible, with neither rain nor dust, 
 there may be a hot sunshine ; and then the hat is too 
 narrow to shade us : no great evil, it is true ! but we must 
 have our pique out against the knave, and turn him to the 
 only account in our power : — we must write upon him. 
 For every other purpose we hold him as naught. The only 
 place a new hat can be carried into with safety is a church ; 
 for there is plenty of room there. There also takes place 
 its only union of the ornamental with the useful, if so it is 
 to be called : we allude to the preparatory ejaculation 
 whispered into it by the genteel worshipper, before he turns 
 round and makes a bow to Mr. and Mrs. Jones and the 
 
A CHAPTER ON HATS. 349 
 
 Miss Thompsons. There is a formula for this occasion ; 
 and doubtless it is often used, to say nothing of extempore 
 effusions : but there are wicked imaginations who suspect 
 that instead of devouter whisperings, the communer with 
 his lining sometimes ejaculates no more than Swallow, St. 
 James's Street; or, Augarde and Spain, Hatters, No. 51 
 Oxford Street, London : — after which he draws up his head 
 with inJSnite gravity and preparation, and makes the gentle 
 recognitions aforesaid. 
 
 But wherever there is a crowd, the new hat is worse than 
 useless. It is a pity that the general retrenchment of 
 people's finances did away with the flat opera hat, which 
 was a very sensible thing. The round one is only in the 
 way. The matting over the floor of the Opera does not 
 hinder it from getting dusty ; not to mention its chance of 
 a kick from the inconsiderate. But from the pit of the 
 other theatres you may bring it away covered with saw- 
 dust, or rubbed up all the wrong way of the nap, or 
 monstrously squeezed into a shapeless lump. The least 
 thing to be expected in a pressure is a great poke in its 
 side like a sunken cheek. 
 
 Boating is a mortal enemy to new hats. A shower has 
 you fast in a common boat ; or a sail-line, or an inexperi- 
 enced oar, may knock the hat ofi"; and then fancy it tilting 
 over the water with the tide, soaked all the while beyond 
 redemption, and escaping from the tips of your outstretched 
 fingers, while you ought all to be pulling the contrary way 
 home. 
 
 But of all wrong boxes for a new hat, avoid a mail- 
 coach. If you keep it on, you will begin nodding perhaps 
 at midnight, and then it goes jamming against the side of 
 the coach, to the equal misery of its nap and your own. If 
 you take it off", where is its refuge 1 Will the clergyman 
 take the least heed of it, who is snoring comfortably in his 
 nightcap ? Or will the farmer, jolting about inexorably 1 
 Or the regular traveller, who, in his fur-cap and infinite 
 knowledge of highway conveniences, has already beheld it 
 with contempt ? Or the old market-woman, whom it is in 
 
afo J2SSAYS. 
 
 vain to request to be tender? Or the young damsel, who 
 wonders how you can think of sleeping in such a thing ? 
 In the morning you suddenly miss your hat, and ask after 
 it with trepidation. The traveller smiles. They all move 
 their legs, but know nothing of it ; till the market-woman 
 exclaims, " Deary me ! Well — Lord, only think ! A hat 
 is it, sir ? Why, I do believe — but I'm sure I never 
 thought o' such a thing more than the child unborn — that 
 it must be a hat then which I took for a pan I've been 
 a-buying ; and so I've had my warm foot in it. Lord help 
 us, ever since five o'clock this blessed morning ! '* 
 
 It is but fair to add, that we happen to have an educated 
 antipathy to the hat. At our school no hats were worn, 
 and the cap is too small to be a substitute. Its only use is 
 to astonish the old ladies in the street, who wonder how so 
 small a thing can be kept on ; and to this end we used to 
 rub it into the back or side of the head, where it hung like 
 a worsted wonder. It is after the fashion of Catharine's 
 cap in the play : it seems as if 
 
 " Moulded on a porringer ; 
 Why, 'tis a cockle, or a walnut shell, 
 A knack, a toy, a trick, a baby's cap ; 
 A custard coffin, a bauble." 
 
 But we may not add 
 
 " I love thee well, in that thou likest it not ; " 
 
 111 befall us if we ever dislike anything about thee, old 
 nurse of our childhood ! How independent of the weather 
 used we to feel in our old friar's dress — our thick shoes, 
 yellow worsted stockings, and coarse long coat or gown ! 
 Our cap was oftener in our hand than on our head, let the 
 weather be what it would. We felt a pride as well as 
 pleasure, when everybody else was hurrying through the 
 streets, in receiving the full summer showers with uncovered 
 poll, sleeking our glad hair like the feathers of a bird. 
 
 It must be said for hats in general, that they are a very 
 ancient part of dress, perhaps the most ancient ; for a 
 negro, who has nothing else upon him, sometimes finds it 
 
A CHAPTER ON HATS. 251 
 
 necessary to guard off the sun with a hat of leaves or straw. 
 The Chinese, who carry their records farther back than any- 
 other people, are a hatted race, both narrow-brimmed and 
 broad. We are apt to think of the Greeks as a bare-headed 
 people ; and they liked to be so ; but they had hats for 
 journeying in, such as may be seen on the statues of 
 Mercury, who was the god of travellers. They were large 
 and flapped, and were sometimes fastened round under the 
 chin like a lady's bonnet. The Eastern nations generally 
 wore turbans, and do still, with the exception of the Persians, 
 who have exchanged them for large conical caps of felt. 
 The Romans copied the Greeks in their dress, as in every- 
 thing else ; but the poorer orders wore a cap like their 
 boasted Phrygian ancestors, resembling the one which the 
 reader may see upon the bust of Canova's Paris. The 
 others would put their robes about their heads upon 
 occasion — after the fashion of the hoods of the middle 
 ages, and of the cloth head-dresses which we see in the 
 portraits of Dante and Petrarch. Of a similar mode are 
 the draperies on the heads of our old Plantagenet kings and 
 of Chaucer. _ The velvet cap which succeeded appears to 
 have come from Italy, as seen in the portraits of Raphael 
 and Titian ; and it would probably have continued till the 
 French times of Charles the Second, for our ancestors up to 
 that period were great admirers of Italy, had not Philip 
 the Second of Spain come over to marry our Queen Mary. 
 The extreme heats of Spain had forced the natives upon 
 taking to that ingenious compound of the hat and umbrella, 
 still known by the name of the Spanish hat. "VVe know not 
 whether Philip himself wore it. His father, Charles the 
 Fifth, who was at the top of the world, is represented as 
 delighting in a little humble-looking cap. But we conceive 
 it was either from Philip, or some gentleman in his train, 
 that the hat and feather succeeded among us to the cap 
 and jewels of Henry the Eighth. The ascendancy of Spain 
 in those times carried it into other parts of Europe. The 
 French, not requiring so much shade from the sun, and 
 always playing with and altering their dress, as a child does 
 
252 ESSAYS. 
 
 his toy, first covered the brim with feathers, then gave 
 them a pinch in front ; then came pinches up at the side ; 
 and at last appeared the fierce and triple-daring cocked 
 hat. This disappeared in our childhood, or only survived 
 among the military, the old, and the reverend, who could 
 not willingly part with their habitual dignity. An old 
 beau or so would also retain it, in memory of its victories 
 when young. We remember its going away from the heads 
 of the foot-guards. The heavy dragoons retained it till 
 lately. It is now almost sunk into the mock-heroic, and 
 confined, as we before observed, to beadles and coachmen, 
 etc. The modern clerical beaver, agreeably to the delibera- 
 tion with which our establishments depart from all custom, 
 is a cocked hat with the front flap let down, and only a 
 slight pinch remaining behind. This is worn also by the 
 judges, the lawyers being of clerical extraction. Still, 
 however, the true cocked hat lingers here and there with a 
 solitary old gentleman ; and wherever it appears in such 
 company, begets a certain retrospective reverence. There 
 was a something in its connection with the high-bred 
 drawing-room times of the seventeenth century; in the 
 gallant though quaint ardour' of its look; and in its being 
 lifted up in salutations with that deliberate loftiness, the 
 arm arching up in front and the hand slowly raising it by 
 the front angle with finger and thumb — that could not 
 easily die. We remember when our steward at school, 
 remarkable for his inflexible air of precision and dignity, 
 left oflf his cocked hat for a round one; there was, 
 undoubtedly, though we dared only half confess it to our 
 minds, a sort of diminished majesty about him. His 
 infinite self-possession began to look remotely finite. His 
 Crown Imperial was a little blighted. It was like divesting 
 a column of its capital. But the native stateliness was 
 there, informing the new hat. He 
 
 " Had not yet lost 
 All his original beaver ; nor appeared 
 Less than arch-steward ruined, and the excess 
 Of glory obscured." 
 
A CHAPTER ON HATS. 253 
 
 The late Emperor Paul had conceived such a sense of the 
 dignity of the cocked hat, aggravated by its having been 
 deposed by the round one of the French republicans, that 
 he ordered all persons in his dominions never to dare be 
 seen in public with round hats, upon pain of being knouted 
 and sent to Siberia. 
 
 Hats being the easiest part of the European dress to be 
 taken oflf, are doffed among us out of reverence. The 
 Orientals, on the same account, put off their slippers instead 
 of turbans, which is the reason why the Jews still keep 
 their heads covered during worship. The Spanish grandees 
 have the privilege of wearing their hats in the royal pre- 
 sence, probably in commemoration of the free spirit in 
 which the Cortes used to crown the sovereign ; telling him 
 (we suppose in their corporate capacity) that they were 
 better men than he, but chose him of their own free will for 
 their master. The grandees only claim to be as good men, 
 unless their families are older. There is a well-known story 
 of a picture, in which the Virgin Mary is represented with 
 a label coming out of her mouth, saying to a Spanish gentle- 
 man who has politely taken off his hat, " Cousin, be 
 covered." But the most interesting anecdote connected 
 with a hat belongs to the family of the De Courcys, Lord 
 Kinsale. One of their ancestors, at an old period of our 
 history, having overthrown a huge and insolent champion, 
 who had challenged the whole court, was desired by the 
 king to ask him some favour. He requested that his 
 descendants should have the privilege of keeping their 
 heads covered in the royal presence, and they do so to this 
 day. The new lord, we believe, always comes to court on 
 purpose to vindicate his right. We have heard, that on 
 the last occasion, probably after a long interval, some of 
 the courtiers thought it might as well have been dispensed 
 with ; which was a foolish as well as a jealous thing, for 
 these exceptions only prove the royal rule. The Spanish 
 grandees originally took their privilege instead of receiving 
 it ; but when the spirit of it had gone, their covered 
 heads were only so many intense recognitions of the king's 
 
254 -E-SSA VS. 
 
 dignity, which it was thought such a mighty thing to re- 
 semble. A Quaker's hat is a more formidable thing than 
 a grandee's. 
 
 A TALE FOR A CHIMNEY-CORNER. 
 
 A MAN who does not contribute his quota of grim story 
 now-a-days, seems hardly to be free of the republic of 
 letters. He is bound to wear a death's-head, as part of his 
 insignia. If he does not frighten everybody, he is nobody. 
 If he does not shock the ladies, what can be expected of 
 him? 
 
 We confess we think very cheaply of these stories in 
 general. A story, merely horrible or even awful, which 
 contains no sentiment elevating to the human heart and 
 its hopes, is a mere appeal to the least judicious, least 
 healthy, and least masculine of our passions — fear. They 
 whose attention can be gravely arrested by it are in a fit 
 state to receive any absurdity with respect ; and this is the 
 reason why less talents are required to enforce it than in 
 any other species of composition. With this opinion of 
 such things, we may be allowed to say that we would 
 undertake to write a dozen horrible stories in a day, all of 
 which should make the common worshippers of power, who 
 were not in the very healthiest condition, turn pale. We 
 would tell of Haunting Old Women, and Knocking Ghosts, 
 and Solitary Lean Hands, and Empusas on One Leg, and 
 Ladies growing Longer and Longer, and Horrid Eyes 
 meeting us through Key-holes, and Plaintive Heads, and 
 Shrieking Statues, and Shocking Anomalies of Shape, and 
 Things which when seen drove people mad ; and Indigestion 
 knows what besides. But who would measure talents with 
 a leg of veal, or a German sausage ? 
 
 Mere grimness is as easy as grinning ; but it requires 
 something to put a handsome face on a story. Narratives 
 
A TALE FOR A CHIMNEY-CORNER. 255 
 
 become of suspicious merit in proportion as they lean to 
 Kewgate-like offences, particularly of blood and wounds. A 
 child has a reasonable respect for a Raw-head-and-bloody- 
 bones, because all images whatsoever of pain and terror are 
 new and fearful to his inexperienced age; but sufferings 
 merely physical (unless sublimated like those of Philoctctes) 
 are commonplaces to a grown man. Images, to become 
 awful to him, must be removed from the grossness of the 
 shambles. A death's-head was a respectable thing in tho 
 hands of a poring monk, or of a nun compelled to avoid 
 the idea of life and society, or of a hermit already buried 
 in the desert. Holbein's Dance of Death, in which every 
 grinning skeleton leads along a man of rank, from the pope 
 to the gentleman, is a good Memento Mori ; but there the 
 skeletons have an air of the ludicrous and satirical. If we 
 were threatened with them in a grave way, as spectres, we 
 should have a right to ask how they could walk about 
 without muscles. Thus many of the tales written by such 
 authors as the late Mr. Lewis, who wanted sentiment to 
 give him the heart of truth, are quite puerile. When his 
 spectral nuns go about bleeding, we think they ought in 
 decency to have applied to some ghost of a surgeon. His 
 Little Grey Men, who sit munching hearts, are of a piece 
 with fellows that eat cats for a wager. 
 
 Stories that give mental pain to no purpose, or to very 
 little purpose compared with the unpleasant ideas they 
 excite of human nature, are as gross mistakes, in their way, 
 as these, and twenty times as pernicious : for the latter 
 become ludicrous to grown people. They originate also in 
 the same extremes, of callousness, or of morbid want of 
 excitement, as the others. But more of these hereafter. 
 Our business at present is with things ghastly and 
 ghostly, 
 
 A ghost story, to be a good one, should unite, as much as 
 possible, objects such as they are in life, with a preter- 
 natural spirit. And to be a perfect one — at least to add to 
 the other utility of excitement a moral utility — they should 
 imply some great sentiment — something that comes out of 
 
256 ESSAYS. 
 
 the next world to remind us of our duties in this ; or some- 
 thing that helps to carry on the idea of our humanity into 
 after-life, even when we least think we shall take it with 
 us. When "the buried majesty of Denmark" revisits 
 earth to speak to his son Hamlet, he comes armed, as he 
 used to be, in his complete steel. His visor is raised ; and 
 the same fine face is there ; only, in spite of his punishing 
 errand and his own sufferings, with 
 
 "A countenance more in sorrow than in anger." 
 
 When Donne the poet, in his thoughtful eagerness to 
 reconcile life and death, had a figure of himself painted in 
 a shroud, and laid by his bedside in a cof&n, he did a 
 higher thing than the monks and hermits with their skulls. 
 It was taking his humanity with him into the other world, 
 not affecting to lower the sense of it by regarding it piece- 
 meal or in the framework. Burns, in his Tarn O'Shanter, 
 shows the dead in their coffins after the same fashion. He 
 does not lay bare to us their skeletons or refuse, things 
 with which we can connect no sympathy or spiritual 
 wonder. They still are flesh and body to retain the one ; 
 yet so look and behave, inconsistent in their very con- 
 sistency, as to excite the other. 
 
 " Coffins stood round like open presses, 
 Which showed the dead in their last dresses : 
 And by some devilish cantrip sleight, 
 Each, in his cauld hand, held a light. " 
 
 Re-animation is perhaps the most ghastly of all ghastly 
 things, uniting as it does an appearance of natural inter- 
 diction from the next world with a supex'natural experience 
 of it. Our human consciousness is jarred out of its self- 
 possession. The extremes of habit arid newness, of common- 
 place and astonishment, meet suddenly, without the kindly 
 introduction of death and change ; and the stranger appals 
 us in proportion. When the account appeared the other 
 day in the newspapers of the galvanised dead body, whose 
 features as well as limbs underwent such contortions, that 
 
A TALE FOR A CHIMNEY-CORNER. 2 si 
 
 it seemed as if it were about to rise up, one almost 
 expected to hear, for the first time, news of the other 
 world. Perhaps the most appalling figure in Spenser is 
 that of Maleger : {Fairy Queen, b. 11. c. xi.) 
 
 •' Upon a tygre swift and fierce he rode, 
 That as the winde ran underneath his lode, 
 Whiles his long legs nigh raught unto the ground ; 
 Full large he was of limbe, and shoulders brode, 
 But of such subtile substance and unsound, „ 
 
 That like a ghost he seemed, whose grave-clothes were unbound. 
 
 Mr. Coleridge, in that voyage of his to the brink of all 
 unutterable things, the Ancient Manner (which works out, 
 however, a fine sentiment), does not set mere ghosts or hob- 
 goblins to man the ship again, when its crew are dead ; but 
 reanimates, for a while, the crew themselves. There is a 
 striking fiction of this sort in Sale's notes upon the Koran. 
 Solomon dies during the building of the temple, but his 
 body remains leaning on a staff and overlooking the work- 
 men, as if it were alive ; till a worm gnawing through the 
 prop, he falls down. — The contrast of the appearance of 
 humanity with something mortal or supernatural is always 
 the more terrible in proportion as it is complete. In the 
 pictures of the temptations of saints and hermits, where 
 the holy person is surrounded, teazed, and enticed with 
 devils and fantastic shapes, the most shocking phantasm is 
 that of the beautiful woman. To return also to the poem 
 above mentioned. The most appalling personage in Mr. 
 Coleridge's Ancient Mariner is the Spectre-woman, who is 
 called Life-in-Death. He renders the most hideous abstrac- 
 tion more terrible than it could other%vise have been, by 
 embodying it in its own reverse. "Death," not only 
 " lives " in it ; but the *' unutterable " becomes uttered. 
 To see such an unearthly passage end in such earthliness, 
 seems to turn commonplace itself into a sort of spectral 
 doubt. 
 
 But we must come to Mr. Coleridge's story with our 
 subtlest imaginations upon us. Now let us put our knees 
 a little nearer the fire, and tell a homelier one about Life 
 
 211 
 
258 ESSAYS. 
 
 in Death. The groundwork of it is in Sandys' Commentary 
 upon Ovid, and quoted from Sabinus. 
 
 A gentleman of "Bavaria, of a noble family, was so 
 afflicted at the death of his wife, that unable to bear the 
 company of a"ny other person, he gave himself up to a 
 solitary way of living. This was the more remarkable in 
 him, as he had been a man of jovial habits, fond of his wine 
 and visitors, and impatient of having his numerous in- 
 dulgences contradicted. But in the same temper perhaps 
 might be found the cause of his sorrow ; for though he 
 would be impatient with his wife, as with others, yet his 
 love for her was one of the gentlest wills he had ; and the 
 sweet and unaffected face which she always turned upon 
 his anger might have been a thing more easy for him to 
 trespass upon while living than to forget when dead and 
 gone. His very anger towards her, compared with that 
 towards others, was a relief to him. It was rather a wish 
 to refresh himself in the balmy feeling of her patience, than 
 to make her unhappy herself, or to punish her, as some 
 would have done, for that virtuous contrast to his own 
 vice. 
 
 But whether he bethought himself, after her death, that 
 this was a very selfish mode of loving ; or whether, as some 
 thought, he had wearied out her life with habits so contrary 
 to her own ; or whether, as others reported, he had put it 
 to a fatal risk by some lordly piece of self-will, in con- 
 sequence of which she had caught a fever on the cold river 
 during a night of festivity; he surprised even those who 
 thought that he loved her by the extreme bitterness of his 
 grief. The very mention of festivity, though he was 
 patient for the first day or two, afterwards threw him into 
 a passion of rage ; but by degrees even his rage followed 
 his other older habits. He was gentle, but ever silent. 
 He ate and drank but sufficient to keep him alive ; and 
 used to spend the greater part of the day in the spot where 
 his wife was buried. 
 
 He was going there one evening, in a very melancholy 
 manner, with his eyes turned towards the earth, and had 
 
■ A TALE FOR A CHIMNEY-CORNER. 259 
 
 just entered the rails of the burial-ground, when he was 
 accosted by the mild voice of somebody coming to meet 
 him. "It is a blessed evening, sir," said the voice. The 
 gentleman looked up. Nobody but himself was allowed to 
 be in the place at that hour ; and yet he saw, with astonish- 
 ment, a young chorister approaching him. He was going 
 to express some wonder, when, he said, the modest though 
 assured look of the boy, and the extreme beauty of his 
 countenance, which glowed in the setting sun before him, 
 made an irresistible addition to the singular sweetness of 
 his voice; and he asked him, with an involuntary calmness, 
 and a gesture of respect, not what he did there, but what 
 he wished. " Only to wish you all good things," answered 
 the stranger, who had now come up, " and to give you this 
 letter." The gentleman took the letter, and saw upon it, 
 with a beating yet scarcely bewildered heart, the hand- 
 writing of his wife. He raised his eyes again to speak to 
 the boy, but he was gone. He cast them far and near 
 round the place, but there were no traces of a passenger. 
 He then opened the letter, and by the divine light of the 
 setting sun read these words : 
 
 " To my dear husband, who sorrows for his wife : 
 " Otto, my husband, the soul you regret so is returned. 
 You will know the truth of this, and be prepared with 
 calmness to see it, by the divineness of the messenger, who 
 has passed you. You will find me sitting in the public 
 walk, praying for you ; praying that you may never more 
 give way to those gusts of passion, and those curses against 
 others, which divided us. 
 
 " This, with a warm hand, from the living Bertha." 
 
 Otto (for such, it seems, was the gentleman's name) went 
 instantly, calmly, quickly, yet with a sort of benumbed 
 being, to the public walk. He felt, but w ith only a half- 
 consciousness, as if he glided without a body. But all his 
 spirit was awake, eager, intensely conscious. It seemed to 
 him as if there had been but two things in the world — Life 
 
26o ESSAYS. 
 
 and Death ; and that Death was dead. All else appeared 
 to have been a dream. He had awaked from a waking 
 state, and found himself all eye, and spirit, and locomotion. 
 He said to himself, once, as he went : " This is not a dream. 
 I will ask my great ancestors to-morrow to my new bridal 
 feast, for they are alive." Otto had been calm at first, but 
 something of old and triumphant feelings seemed again to 
 come over him. Was he again too proud and confident? 
 Did his earthly humours prevail again, when he thought 
 them least upon him 1 We shall see. 
 
 The Bavarian arrived at the public walk. It was full of 
 people with their wives and children, enjoying the beauty 
 of the evening. Something like common fear came over 
 him, as he went in and out among them, looking at the 
 benches on each side. It happened that there was only 
 one person, a lady, sitting upon them. She had her veil 
 down ; and his being underwent a fierce but short con- 
 vulsion as he went near her. Something had a little 
 bafiled the calmer inspiration of the angel that had accosted 
 him : for fear prevailed at the instant, and Otto passed on. 
 He returned before he had reached the end of the walk, 
 and approached the lady again. She was still sitting in 
 the same quiet posture, only he thought she looked at him. 
 Again he passed her. On his second return, a grave and 
 sweet courage came upon him, and in an under but firm 
 tone of inquiry he said, "Bertha?" — "I thought you had 
 forgotten me," said that well-known and mellow voice, 
 which he had seemed as far from ever hearing again as 
 earth is from heaven. He took her hand, which grasped 
 his in turn ; and they walked home in silence together, 
 the arm, which was wound within his, giving warmth for 
 warmth. 
 
 The neighbours seemed to have a miraculous want of 
 wonder at the lady's reappearance. Something was said 
 about a mock-funeral, and her having withdrawn from 
 his company for a while ; but visitors came as before, and 
 his wife returned to her household affairs. It was only 
 remarked that she always looked pale and pensive. But 
 
A TALE FOR A CHIMNEY-CORNER. 261 
 
 she was more kind to all, even than before ; and her 
 pensiveness seemed rather the result of some great internal 
 thought than of unhappiness. 
 
 For a year or two the Bavarian retained the better 
 temp^" -which he acquired. His fortunes flourished beyond 
 his earliest ambition ; the most amiable as well as noble 
 persons of the district were frequent visitors ; and people 
 said, that to be at Otto's house must be the next thing to 
 being in heaven. But by degrees his self-will returned 
 with his prosperity. He never vented impatience on his 
 wife ; but he again began to show that the disquietude it 
 gave her to see it vented on others was a secondary thing 
 in his mind to the indulgence of it. Whether it was that 
 his grief for her loss had been rather remorse than affection, 
 so he held himself secure if he treated her well ; or w^hether 
 he was at all times rather proud of her than fond ; or 
 whatever was the cause which again set his antipathies 
 above his sympathies, certain it was that his old habits 
 returned upon him ; not so often indeed, but with greater 
 violence and pride when they did. These were the only 
 times at which his wife was observed to show any ordinary 
 symptoms of uneasiness. 
 
 At length, one day, some strong, rebuff which he had 
 received from an alienated neighbour threw him into such 
 a transport of rage that he gave way to the most bitter 
 imprecations, crying with a loud voice — "This treatment to 
 
 »ne too ! To me ! To me, who if the world knew all " 
 
 At these words his wife, who had in vain laid her hand 
 upon his, and looked him with dreary earnestness in the face, 
 suddenly glided from the room. He and two or three who 
 were present were struck with a dumb horror. They said 
 she did not walk out, nor vanish suddenly ; but glided, as 
 one who could dispense with the use of feet. After a 
 moment's pause the others proposed to him to follow her. 
 He made a movement of despair ; but they went. There 
 was a short passage, which turned to the right into her 
 favourite room. They knocked at the door twice or three 
 times, and received no answer. At last one of them gently 
 
262 £SSA YS. 
 
 opened it ; and looking in they saw her, as they thought, 
 standing before a fire, which was the only light in the room. 
 Yet she stood so far ffom it, as rather to be in the middle 
 of the room ; only the face was towards the tire, and she 
 seemed looking upon it. They addressed her, but received 
 no answer. They stepped gently towards her, and still 
 received none. The figure stood dumb and unmoved. At 
 last one of them went round in front and instantly fell on 
 the floor. The figure was without body. A hollow hood 
 was left instead of a face. The clothes were standing 
 upright by themselves. 
 
 That room was blocked up for ever, for the clothes, if it 
 might be so, to moulder away. It was called the Room of 
 the Lady's Figure. The house, after the gentleman's death, 
 was long uninhabited, and at length burnt by the peasants 
 in an insurrection. As for himself, he died about nine 
 months after, a gentle and childlike penitent. He had 
 never stirred from the house since ; and nobody would 
 venture to go near him but a man who had the reputation 
 of being a reprobate. It was from this man that the 
 particulars of the story came first. He would distribute 
 the gentleman's alms in great abundance to any strange 
 poor who would accept them ; for most of the neighbours 
 held them in horror. He tried all he could to get the 
 parents among them to let some of their little children, or 
 a single one of them, go to see his employer. They said he 
 even asked it one day with tears in his eyes. But they 
 shuddered to think of it ; and the matter was not mended 
 when this profane person, in a fit of impatience, said one 
 day that he would have a child of his own on purpose. 
 His employer, however, died in a day or two. They did 
 not believe a word he told them of all the Bavarian's 
 gentleness, looking upon the latter as a sort of Ogre, and 
 upon his agent as little better, though a good-natured- 
 looking, earnest kind of person. It was said, many years 
 after, that this man had been a friend of the Bavarian's 
 when young, and had been deserted by him. And the 
 young believed it, whatever the old might do. 
 
THE CAT BY THE FIRE. 263 
 
 THE CAT BY THE FIRE. 
 
 A BLAZING fire, a warm rug, candles lit and curtains 
 drawn, the kettle on for tea (nor do the "first circles" 
 despise the preference of a kettle to an urn, as the third or 
 fourth may do), and finally, the cat before you, attracting 
 your attention, — it is a scene which everybody likes unless 
 he has a morbid aversion to cats; which is not common. 
 There are some nice inquirers, it is true, who are apt to 
 make uneasy comparisons of cats with dogs, — to say they 
 are not so loving, that they prefer the house to the man, 
 etc. But agreeably to the good old maxim, that " com- 
 parisons are odious," our readers, we hope, will continue to 
 like what is likable in anything, for its own sake, without 
 trying to render it unlikable from its inferiority to something 
 else, — a process by which we might ingeniously contrive to 
 put soot into every dish that is set before us, and to reject 
 one thing after another, till we were pleased with nothing. 
 Here is a good fireside, and a cat to it ; and it would be 
 our own faulb, if, in removing to another house and another 
 fireside, we did not take care that the cat removed with us. 
 Cats cannot look to the moving of goods, as men do. If 
 we would have creatures considerate towards us, we must 
 be so towards them. It is not to be expected of everybody, 
 quadruped or biped, that they should stick to us in spite of 
 our want of merit, like a dog or a benevolent sage. Besides, 
 stories have been told of cats very much to the credit of 
 their benignity ; such as their following a master about 
 like a dog, waiting at a gentleman's door to thank him for 
 some obligation overnight, etc. And our readers may 
 remember the history of the famous Godolphin Arabian, 
 upon whose grave a cat that had lived with him in the 
 stable went and stretched itself, and died. 
 
 The cat purrs, as if it applauded our consideration, — and 
 gently moves its tail. What an odd expression of the power to 
 be irritable and the will to be pleased there is in its face, as it 
 looks up at us 1 We must own, that we do not prefer a cat in 
 
264 ^^^-^Ks: 
 
 the act of purring, or of looking in that manner. It reminds 
 us of the sort of smile, or simmer {simper is too weak and 
 fleeting a word) that is apt to be in the faces of irritable 
 people when they are pleased to be in a state of satisfaction. 
 We prefer, for a general expression, the cat in a quiet, 
 unpretending state, and the human countenance with a look 
 indicative of habitual grace and composure, as if it were not 
 necessary to take any violent steps to prove its amiability, 
 — the "smile without a smile," as the poet beautifully 
 calls it. 
 
 Furthermore (in order to get rid at once of all that may 
 be objected to poor Pussy, as boys at school get down their 
 bad dumpling as fast as possible before the meat comes), 
 we own we have an objection to the way in which a cat 
 sports with a mouse before she kills it, tossing and jerking 
 it about like a ball, and letting it go, in order to pounce 
 upon it with the greater relish. And yet what right have 
 we to apply human measures of cruelty to the inferior 
 reflectability of a cati Perhaps she has no idea of the 
 mouse's being alive, in the sense that we have, — most 
 likely she looks upon it as a pleasant movable toy, made 
 to be eaten, — a sort of lively pudding, that oddly jumps 
 hither and thither. It would be hard to beat into the head 
 of a country squire of the old class that there is any 
 cruelty in hunting a hare ; and most assuredly it would be 
 still harder to beat mouse-sparing into the head of a cat. 
 You might read the most pungent essay on the subject into 
 her ear, and she would only sneeze at it. 
 
 As to the unnatural cruelties, which we sometimes read 
 of, committed by cats upon their offspring, they are excep- 
 tions to the common and beautiful rules of nature, and 
 accordingly we have nothing to do with them. They are 
 traceable to some unnatural circumstances of breeding or 
 position. Enormities as monstrous are to be found among 
 human beings, and argue nothing against the general 
 character of the species. Even dogs are not always 
 immaculate ; and sages have made slips. Dr. Franklin cut 
 off his son with a shilling for differing with hira in politics. 
 
THE CAT BY THE FIRE. 265 
 
 But cats resemble tigers? They are tigers in miniature? 
 "\A^ell, — and very pretty miniatures they are. And what 
 has the tiger himself done, that he has not a right to eat 
 his dinner as well as Jones ? A tiger treats a man much 
 as a cat does a mouse ; — granted ; but we have no reason 
 to suppose that he is aware of the man's sufferings, or 
 means anything but to satisfy his hunger ; and what have 
 the butcher and poulterer been about meanwhile? The 
 tiger, it is true, lays about him a little superfluously some- 
 times, when he gets into a sheep-fold, and kills more than 
 he eats ; but does not the Squire or the Marquis do pretty 
 much like him in the month of September ? Nay, do we 
 not hear of venerable judges, that would not hurt a fly, 
 going about in that refreshing month, seeking whom they 
 may lame? See the eSect of habit and education ! And 
 you can educate the tiger in no other way than by 
 attending to his stomacL Fill that, and he will want no 
 men to eat, probably not even to lame. On the other 
 hand, deprive Jones of his dinner for a day or two, and 
 see what a state he will be in, especially if he is by nature 
 irascible. Nay, keep him from it for an half-an-hour, and 
 observe the tiger propensities of his stomach and fingers, — 
 how worthy of killing he thinks the cook, and what boxes 
 of the ear he feels inclined to give the footboy. 
 
 Animals, by the nature of things, in their present state, 
 dispose of one another into their respective stomachs, 
 without ill-will on any side. They keep down the several 
 populations of their neighbours, till time may come when 
 superfluous population of any kind need not exist, and 
 predatory appearances may vanish from the earth, as the 
 wolves have done from England. But whether they may 
 or not is not a question by a hundred times so important 
 to moral inquirers as into the possibilities of human 
 education and the nonsense of ill-will. Show the nonentity 
 of that, and we may all get our dinners as jovially as we 
 can, sure of these three undoubted facts, — that life is long, 
 death short, and the world beautiful. And so we bring 
 our thoughts back again to the fireside, and look at the cat. 
 
i66 £SSA YS. 
 
 Poor Pussy ! she looks up at us again, as if she thanked 
 us for those vindications of dinner ; and symbolically gives 
 a twist of a yawn and a lick to her whiskers. Now she 
 proceeds to clean herself all over, having a just sense of the 
 demands of her elegant person, — beginning judiciously with 
 her paws, and fetching amazing tongues at her hind-hips. 
 Anon, she scratches her neck with a foot of rapid delight, 
 leaning her head towards it, and shutting her eyes, half to 
 accommodate the action of the skin, and half to enjoy the 
 luxury. She then rewards her paws with a few more 
 touches ; — look at the action of her head and neck, how 
 pleasing it is, the ears pointed forward, and the neck 
 gently arching to and fro. Finally, she gives a sneeze, and 
 another twist of mouth and whiskers, and then, curling her 
 tail towards her front claws, settles herself on her hind 
 quarters, in an attitude of bland meditation. 
 
 What does she think of? — of her saucer of milk at 
 breakfast ? or of the thump she got yesterday in the 
 kitchen for stealing the meat? or of her own meat, the 
 Tartar's dish, noble horse-flesh ? or of her friend the cat 
 next door, the most impassioned of serenaders 1 or of her 
 little ones, some of whom are now large, and all of them 
 gone? Is that among her recollections when she looks 
 pensive ? Does she taste of the noble prerogatire-sorrows 
 of man ? 
 
 She is a sprightly cat, hardly past her youth ; so, 
 happening to move the fringe of the rug a little with our 
 foot, she darts out a paw, and begins plucking it and 
 inquiring into the matter, as if it were a challenge to play, 
 or something lively enough to be eaten. What a graceful 
 action of that foot of hers, between delicacy and petulance ! 
 — combining something of a thrust out, a beat, and a 
 scratch. There seems even something of a little bit of 
 fear in it, as if just enough to provoke her courage, and 
 give her the excitement of a sense of hazard. We 
 remember being much amused with seeing a kitten mani- 
 festly making a series of experiments upon the patience of 
 its mother, — trying how far the latter would put up with 
 
TBE CAT BY THE FIRE. 267 
 
 positive bites and thumps. The kitten ran at her every 
 moment, gave her a knock or a bite of the tail ; and then 
 ran back again, to recommence the assault. The mother 
 sate looking at her, as if betwixt tolerance and admiration, 
 to see how far the spirit of the family was inherited or 
 improved by her sprightly offspring. At length, however, 
 the " little Pickle " presumed too far, and the mother, 
 lifting up her paw, and meeting her at the very nick of the 
 moment, gave her one of the most unsophisticated boxes of 
 the ear we ever beheld. It sent her rolling half over the 
 room, and made her come to a most ludicrous pause, with 
 the oddest little look of premature and wincing meditation. 
 That lapping of the milk out of the saucer is what one's 
 human thirst cannot sympathise with. It seems as if 
 there could be no satisfaction in such a series of atoms of 
 drink. Yet the saucer is soon emptied; and there is a 
 refreshment to one's ears in that sound of plashing with 
 which the action is accompanied, and which seems indica- 
 tive of a like comfort to Pussy's mouth. Her tongue is 
 thin, and can make a spoon of itself. This, however, is 
 common to other quadrupeds with the cat, and does not, 
 therefore, more particularly belong to our feline considera- 
 tion. Not so the electricity of its coat, which gives out 
 sparks under the hand ; its passion for the herb valerian 
 (did the reader ever see one roll in it \ it is a mad sight) 
 and other singular delicacies of nature, among which, 
 perhaps, is to be reckoned its taste for fish, a creature with 
 whose element it has so little to do, that it is supposed 
 even to abhor it ; though lately we read somewhere of a 
 swimming cat, that used to fish for itself. And this 
 reminds us of an exquisite anecdote of dear, dogmatic, 
 diseased, thoughtful, surly, charitable Johnson, who would 
 go out of doors himself, and buy oysters for his cat, because 
 his black servant was too proud to do it 1 Not that we con- 
 demn the black, in those enslaving, unliberating days. He 
 had a right to the mistake, though we should have thought 
 better of him had he seen farther, and subjected his pride 
 to affection for such a master. But Johnson's true pmctical 
 
268 ESSA YS. 
 
 delicacy in the matter is beautiful. Be assured that he 
 thought nothing of " condescension " in it, or of being 
 eccentric. He was singular in some things, because he 
 could not help it. But he hated eccentricity. No : in his 
 best moments he felt himself simply to be a man, and a 
 good man too, though a frail — one that in virtue as well as 
 humility, and in a knowledge of his ignorance as well as his 
 wisdom, was desirous of being a Christian philosopher; and 
 accordingly he went out, and bought food for his hungry 
 cat, because his poor negro was too proud to do it, and 
 there was nobody else in the way whom he had a right to 
 ask. What must anybody that saw him have thought, as 
 he turned up Bolt Court! But doubtless he went as 
 secretly as possible, — that is to say, if he considered the 
 thing at all. His friend Garrick could not have done as 
 much ! He was too grand, and on the great " stage " of 
 life. Goldsmith could ; but he would hardly have thought 
 of it. Beauclerc might ; but he would have thought it 
 necessary to excuse it with a jest or a wager, or some such 
 thing. Sir Joshua Reynolds, with his fashionable, fine- 
 ladypainting hand, would certainly have shrunk from it. 
 Burke would have reasoned himself into its propriety, but 
 he would have reasoned himself out again. Gibbon ! 
 Imagine its being put into the head of Gibbon I ! He and 
 his bag-wig would have started with all the horror of a 
 gentleman-usher ; and he would have rung the bell for the 
 cook's-deputy's-under-assistant-errand-boy. 
 
 Oats at firesides live luxuriously, and are the picture of 
 comfort ; but lest they should not bear their portion of 
 trouble in this world, they have the drawbacks of being 
 liable to be shut out of doors on cold nights, beatings from 
 the " aggravated " cooks, overpettings of children (how 
 should we like to be squeezed and pulled about in that 
 manner by some great patronising giants T) and last, not 
 least, horrible merciless tramples of unconscious human 
 feet and unfeeling legs of chairs. Elegance, comfort, and 
 security seem the order of the day on all sides, and you are 
 going to sit down to dinner, or to music, or to take tea, 
 
MEMORIES OF THE METROPOLIS. 269 
 
 when all of a sudden the cat gives a squall as if she was 
 mashed ; and you are not sure that the fact is otherwise. 
 Yet she gets in the way again, as before ', and dares all the 
 feet and mahogany in the room. Beautiful present sufficing- 
 ness of a cat's imagination ! Confined to the snug circle of 
 her own sides, and the two next inches of rug or carpet. 
 
 PLEASANT MEMORIES CONNECTED WITH 
 VARIOUS PARTS OF THE METROPOLIS. 
 
 One of the best secrets of enjoyment is the art of cultivat- 
 ing pleasant associations. It is an art, that of necessity 
 increases with the stock of our knowledge ; and though in 
 acquiring our knowledge we must encounter disagreeable 
 associations also, yet if we secure a reasonable quantity of 
 health by the way, these will be far less in number than 
 the agreeable ones : for unless the circumstances which gave 
 rise to the associations press upon us, it is only from want 
 of health that the power of throwing off these burdensome 
 images becomes suspended. 
 
 And the beauty of this art is, that it does not insist upon 
 pleasant materials to work on. Nor indeed does health. 
 Health will give us a vague sense of delight, in the midst 
 of objects that would tease and oppress us during sickness. 
 But healthy association peoples this vague sense with agree- 
 able images. It will comfort us, even when a painful 
 sympathy with the distresses of others becomes a part of 
 the very health of our minds. For instance, we can never 
 go through St. Giles's, but the sense of the extravagant 
 inequalities in human condition presses more forcibly upon 
 us ; and yet some pleasant images are at hand, even there, 
 to refresh it. They do not displace the others, so as to 
 injure the sense of public duty which they excite ; they 
 only serve to keep our spirits fresh for their task, and 
 hinder them from running into desperation or hopelessness. 
 
270 USSA VS. 
 
 In St. Giles's church lie Chapman, the earliest and best 
 translator of Homer ; and Andrew Marvell, the wit and 
 patriot, whose poverty Charles the Second could not bribe. 
 We are as sure to think of these two men, and of all the 
 good and pleasure they have done to the world, as of the 
 less happy objects about us. The steeple of the church 
 itself, too, is a handsome one ; and there is a flock of 
 pigeons in that neighbourhood, which we have stood with 
 great pleasure to see careering about it of a fine afternoon, 
 when a western wind had swept back the smoke towards 
 the city, and showed the white of the stone steeple piercing 
 up into a blue sky. So much for St. Giles's, whose very 
 name is a nuisance with some. It is dangerous to speak 
 disrespectfully of old districts. Who would suppose that 
 the Borough was the most classical ground in the metropolis ! 
 And yet it is undoubtedly so. The Globe theatre was 
 there, of which Shakespeare himself was a proprietor, and 
 for which he wrote some of his plays. Globe Lane, in 
 which it stood, is still extant, we believe, under that name. 
 It is probable that he lived near it : it is certain that he 
 must have been much there. It is also certain, that on the 
 Borough side of the river, then and still called the Bank- 
 side, in the same lodging, having the same wardrobe, and 
 some say, with other participations more remarkable, lived 
 Beaumont and Fletcher. In the Borough also, at St. 
 Saviour's, lie Fletcher and Massinger, in one grave ; in the 
 same church, under a monument and effigy, lies Chaucer's 
 contemporary, Gower ; and from an inn in the Borough, 
 the existence of which is still boasted, and the site pointed 
 out by a picture and inscription, Chaucer sets out his 
 pilgrims and himself on their famous road to Canterbury. 
 
 To return over the water, who would expect anything 
 poetical from East Smithfield ? Yet there was born the 
 most poetical even of poets, Spenser, Pope was born 
 within the sound of Bow-bell, in a street no less anti- 
 poetical than Lombard Street. Gray was born in Cornhill ; 
 and Milton in Bread Street, Cheapside. The presence of 
 the same great poet and patriot has given happy memories 
 
MEMORIES OF THE METROPOLIS. 271 
 
 to many parts of the metropolis. He lived in St. Bride's 
 Churchyard, Fleet Street ; in Aldersgate Street, in Jewin 
 Street, in Barbican, in Bartholomew Close ; in Holborn, 
 looking back to Lincoln's Inn Fields \ in Holborn, near 
 Red Lion Square ; in Scotland Yard ; in a house looking 
 to St. James's Park, now belonging to an eminent writer 
 on legislation, and lately occupied by a celebrated critic and 
 metaphysician ; and he died in the Artillery Walk, Bunhill 
 Fields ; and was buried in St. Giles's, Cripplegate. 
 
 Ben Jonson, who was born in "Hartshorne Lane, near 
 Charing Cross," was at one time " master " of a theatre in 
 Barbican. He appears also to have visited a tavern called 
 the Sun and Moon, in Aldersgate Street ; and is known 
 to have frequented, with Beaumont and others, the famous 
 one called the Mermaid, which was in Cornhill, 
 
 The other celebrated resort of the great wits of that time 
 was the Devil tavern, in Fleet Street, close to Temple Bar. 
 Ben Jonson lived also in Bartholomew Close, where Milton 
 afterwards lived. It is in the passage from the cloisters of 
 Christ's Hospital into St. Bartholomew's. Aubrey gives it 
 as a common opinion, that at the time when Jonson's 
 step-father made him help him in his business of brick- 
 layer, he worked with his own hands upon the Lincoln's 
 Inn garden wall, which looks towards Chancery Lane, and 
 which seems old enough to have some of his illustrious 
 brick and mortar remaining. 
 
 Under the cloisters in Christ's Hospital (which stands in 
 the heart of the city unknown to most persons, like a house 
 kept invisible for young and learned eyes) lie buried a 
 multitude of persons of all ranks ; for it was once a monas- 
 tery of Grey Friars. Among them is John of Bourbon, one 
 of the prisoners taken at the battle of Agincourt. Here 
 also lies Thomas Burdett, ancestor of the present Sir 
 Francis, who was put to death in the reign of Edward the 
 Fourth, for wishing the horns of a favourite white stag 
 which the king had killed, in the body of the person who 
 advised him to do it. And here too (a sufficing contrast) 
 lies Isabella, wife of Edward the Second, — 
 
2 72 i:ssAys. 
 
 " She-wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs, 
 Who tore the bowels of her mangled mate," — Gray. 
 
 Her " mate's " heart was buried with her, and placed upon 
 her bosom ! a thing that looks like the fantastic incoherence 
 of a dream. It is well we did not know of her presence 
 when at school ; otherwise, after reading one of Shakespeare's 
 tragedies, we should have run twice as fast round the 
 cloisters at night-time as we used. Camden, " the nourrice 
 of antiquitie," received part of his education in this school ; 
 and here also, not to mention a variety of others, known in 
 the literary world, were bred two of the best and most deep- 
 spirited writers of the present day, whose visits to the 
 cloisters we well remember. 
 
 In a palace on the site of Hatton Garden died John of 
 Gaunt. Brook House, at the corner of the street of that 
 name in Holborn, was the residence of the celebrated Sir 
 Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, the " friend of Sir Philip 
 Sidney." In the same street died, by a voluntary death of 
 poison, that extraordinary person, Thomas Chatterton, — 
 
 " The sleepless boy, who perished in his pride." 
 
 — ^V0RDSW0RTH. 
 
 He was buried in the graveyard of the workhouse in Shoe 
 Lane; — a circumstance at which one can hardly help 
 feeling a movement of indignation. Yet what could 
 l)eadles and parish officers know about such a being ? No 
 more than Horace Walpole. In Gray's Inn lived, and in 
 Gray's Inn garden meditated. Lord Bacon. In Southamp- 
 ton Row, Holborn, Cowper was fellow-clerk to an attorney 
 with the future Lord Chancellor Thurlow. At one of tlie 
 Fleet Street corners of Chancery Lane, Cowley, we believe, 
 was born. In Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, was the house 
 of Thomas Sackville, first Earl of Dorset, the precursor of 
 Spenser, and one of the authors of the first regular English 
 tragedy. On the demolition of this house, part of the 
 ground was occupied by the celebrated theatre built after 
 the Restoration, at which Betterton performed, and of 
 
MEMORIES OF THE METROPOLIS. 273 
 
 which Sir William Davenant was manager. Lastly, here 
 was the house and printing office of Richardson. In Bolt 
 Court, not far distant, lived Dr. Johnson, who resided also 
 some time in the Temple. A list of his numerous other 
 residences is to be found in Boswell. Congreve died in 
 Surrey Street, in the Strand, at his own house. At the 
 corner of Beaufort Buildings was Lilly's, the perfumer, at 
 whose house the Taller was published. In Maiden Lane, 
 Covent Garden, "Voltaire lodged while in London, at the sign 
 of the White Peruke. Tavistock Street was then, we believe, 
 the Bond Street of the fashionable world ; as Bow Street 
 was before. The change of Bow Street from fashion to the 
 police, with the theatre still in attendance, reminds one of 
 the spirit of the Beggar's Opera. Button's Coffee-house, 
 the resort of the wits of Queen Anne's time, was in Russell 
 Street, near where the Hummums now stand ; and in the 
 same street, at the south-west corner of Bow Street, was the 
 tavern where Dryden held regal possession of the arm- 
 chair. The whole of Covent Garden is classic ground, from 
 its association with the dramatic and other wits of the 
 times of Dryden and Pope. Butler lived, perhaps died, in 
 Rose Street, and was buried in Covent Garden churchyard ; . 
 where Peter Pindar the other day followed him. In 
 Leicester Square, on the site of Miss Linwood's exhibition 
 and other houses, was the town-mansion of the Sidneys, 
 Earls of Leicester, the family of Sir Philip and Algernon 
 Sidney. In the same square lived Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 and Hogarth. Dryden lived and died in Gerrard Street, in 
 a house which looked backwards into the garden of 
 Leicester House. Newton lived in St. Martin's Street, on 
 the south side of the squara Steele lived in Bury Street, 
 St. James's : he furnishes an illustrious precedent for the 
 loungers in St. James's Street, where a scandal-monger of 
 those times delighted to detect Isaac Bickerstaff in the 
 person of Captain Steele, idling before the coffee-houses, 
 and jerking his leg and stick alternately against the pave- 
 ment. We have mentioned the birth of Ben Jonson near 
 Charing Cross. Spenser died at an inn, where he put up 
 
 212 
 
274 JSSSA YS. 
 
 on his arrival from Ireland, in King Street, Westminster, — 
 the same which runs at the back of Parliament Street to 
 the Abbey. Sir Thomas More lived at Chelsea. Addison 
 lived and died in Holland House, Kensington, now the 
 residence of the accomplished nobleman who takes his 
 title from it. In Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, lived 
 Handel ; and in Bentinck Street, Manchester Square, Gib- 
 bon. We have omitted to mention that De Foe kept a 
 hosier's shop in Cornhill ; and that on the site of the present 
 Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, stood the mansion 
 of the Wriothesleys, Earls of Southampton, one of whom 
 was the celebrated friend of Shakespeare. But what have 
 we not omitted also ? No less an illustrious head than 
 the Boar's, in Eastcheap, — the Boar's-head Tavern, the 
 scene of Falstaflf's revels. But who knows not Eastcheap 
 and the Boar's-head? Have we not all been there, time 
 out of mind 1 And is it not a more real as well as notor- 
 ious thing to us than the London Tavern, or the Crown 
 and Anchor, or the Hummums, or White's, or What's-his- 
 name's, or any other of your contemporary and fleeting 
 taps ? 
 
 SECRET OF SOME EXISTING FASHIONS. 
 
 Fashions have a short life or a long one, according as 
 it suits the makers to startle us with a variety, or save 
 themselves observation of a defect. Hence fashions set by 
 young or handsome people are fugitive, and such are, 
 for the most part, those that bring custom to the milliner. 
 If we keep watch on an older one, we shall generally trace 
 it, unless of general convenience, to some pertinacity on the 
 part of the aged. Even fashions, otherwise convenient, 
 as the trousers that have so long taken place of small- 
 clothes, often, perhaps, owe their continuance to some 
 general defect, which they help to screen. The old are 
 
SECRET OF EXISTING FASHIONS. 275 
 
 glad to retain them, and so be confounded with the young ; 
 and among the latter there are more limbs, perhaps, to which 
 loose clothing is acceptable than tight. More legs and knees, 
 we suspect, rejoice in those cloaks than would be proud to 
 acknowledge themselves in a shoe and stocking. The 
 pertinacity of certain male fashions during the last twenty 
 years we think we can trace to a particular source. If it 
 be objected that the French partook of them, and that our 
 modes have generally come from that country, we suspect 
 that the old court in France had more to do with them 
 than Napoleon's, which was confessedly masculine and 
 military. The old French in this country, and the old no- 
 blesse in the other, wore bibs and trousers, when the Emperor 
 went in a plain stock and delighted to show his good leg. 
 For this period, if for this only, we are of opinion, that 
 whether the male fashions did or did not originate in 
 France, other circumstances have conspired to retain 
 them in both countries, for which the revolutionary govern- 
 ment cannot account. Mr. Hazlitt informs us in his Life 
 of Napoleon, that during the consulate all the courtiers 
 were watching the head of the state to know whether 
 mankind were to wear their own hair or powder ; and that 
 Buonaparte luckily settled the matter by deciding in favour 
 of nature and cleanliness. But here the revolutionary 
 authority stopped ; nor in this instance did it begin : for it 
 is understood that it was the plain head of Dr. Franklin, 
 when he was ambassador at Paris, that first amused, and 
 afterwards interested, the giddy polls of his new acquaint- 
 ances ; who went and did likewise. Luckily, this was 
 a fashion that suited all ages, and on that account it has 
 survived. But the bibs, and the trousers, and the huge 
 neckcloths, whence come they 1 How is it, at least, that 
 they have been so long retained ? Observe that polished 
 old gentleman, who bows so well, and is conversing with 
 the most agreeable of physicians. He made a great 
 impression in his youth, and was naturally loath to give it 
 up. On a sudden he finds his throat not so juvenile as he 
 could wish it. Up goes his stock, and enlarges. He rests 
 
276 ESS A YS. 
 
 both his cheeks upon it, the chin settling comfortably upon, 
 a bend in the middle, as becomes its delicacy. By-and-by, 
 he thinks the cheeks themselves do not present as good an 
 aspect as with so young a heart might in reason be 
 expected ; and forth issue the points of his shirt collar, and 
 give them an investment at once cherishing and spirited. 
 Thirdly, he suspects his waist to have played him a trick of 
 good living, and surpassed the bounds of youth and 
 elegance before he was well aware of it. Therefore, to keep 
 it seemingly, if not actually within limits, forth he sends a 
 frill in the first instance, and a padded set of lapels after- 
 wards. He happens to look on the hand that does all this, 
 and discerns with a sigh that it is not quite the same hand 
 to look at which the women have been transported to kiss ; 
 though, for that matter, they will kiss it still, and be 
 transported too. The wristband looks forth, and says, 
 " Shall I help to cover it ? " and it is allowed to do so, 
 being a gentlemanly finish, and impossible to the 
 mechanical But finally the legs : they were amongst the 
 handsomest in the world ; and how did they not dance ! 
 What conquests did they not achieve in the time of hoop- 
 petticoats and toupees 1 And long afterwards, were not 
 Apollo and Hercules found in them together, to the delight 
 of the dowagers? And shall the gods be treated with 
 disrespect, when the heaviness of change comes upon them 1 
 No. Round comes the kindly trouserian veil (as Dyer of 
 The Fleece would have had it) ; the legs retreat, like other 
 conquerors, into retirement ; and only the lustre of their 
 glory remains, such as Buonaparte might have envied. 
 
ON HUMAN NA TURE. 277 
 
 THOUGHTS AND GUESSES ON HUMAN 
 NATURE. 
 
 CONFUSION OP MODES OP BEING. 
 
 People undertake to settle what ideas they shall have 
 under such and such circumstances of being, when it is 
 nothing but their present state of being that enables them 
 to have those ideas. 
 
 VARIETY op the COLOURS OF PERCEPTION. 
 
 There is reason to suppose that our perceptions and 
 sensations are more different than we imagine, even upon 
 the most ordinary things, such as visible objects in general, 
 and the sense of existence. We have enough in common 
 for common intercourse j but the details are dissimilar, as 
 we may perceive in the variety of palates. All people are 
 agreed upon sweet and sour ; but one man prefers sour to 
 sweet, and another this and that variety of sour and sweet. 
 "What, then, is the use of attempting to make them 
 agree % " Why, we may try to make them agree upon 
 certain general modes of thinking and means of pleasure — 
 we may colour their existence in the gross, though we must 
 leave the particular shades to come out by themselves. 
 We may enrich their stock of ideas, though we cannot 
 control the items of the expenditure. 
 
 CANNOT. 
 
 " But what if we cannot even do this ?" The question is 
 answered by experience. Whole nations and ages have 
 already been altered in their modes of thinking. Even if 
 it were otherwise, the endeavour is itself one of the varieties; 
 one of the modes of opinion and means of pleasure. Besides, 
 CANNOT is the motto neither of knowledge nor humility. 
 There is more of pride and ignorance and despair in it 
 than of the modesty of wisdom. It would settle not only 
 the past but the future ; and it would settle the future, 
 
2 78 ESSAYS. 
 
 merely because the past has not been influenced by those 
 that use it. 
 
 Who are these men that measure futurity by the shadow 
 of their own littleness ? It is as if the loose stones lying 
 about a foundation were to say, " You can build no higher 
 than our heads." 
 
 SUPERSTITION AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 Superstition attempts to settle everything by assertion ; 
 which never did do, and never will. And like all assertors, 
 even well-inclined ones, it shows its feebleness in anger and 
 threatening. It commands us to take its problems for 
 granted, on pain of being tied up to a triangle. Then come 
 its advocates, and assert that this mode of treatment is 
 proper and logical : which is making bad worse. The 
 worst of all is, that this is the way in which the finest 
 doctrines in the world are obstructed. They are like an 
 excellent child, making the Grand Tour with a foolish over- 
 bearing tutor. The tutor runs a chance of spoiling the 
 child, and makes their presence disagreeable wherever they 
 go, except to their tradesmen. Let us hope the child has 
 done with his tutor. 
 
 SECOND THOUGHT ON THE VARIETY OF THE COLOURS OP 
 PERCEPTION. 
 
 We may gather from what we read of diseased imagina- 
 tions how much our perceptions depend upon the 
 modification of our being. We see how personal and inex- 
 perienced we are when we determine that such and such ideas 
 must take place under other circumstances, and such and 
 such truths be always indisputable. Pleasure must always 
 be pleasure, and pain be pain, because these are only names 
 for certain results. But the results themselves will be 
 pleasurable or painful, according to what they act upon. 
 A man in health becomes sickly ; he has a fever, is light- 
 headed, is hypochondriacal. His ideas are deranged, or 
 rearrange themselves ; and a set of new perceptions, and 
 colourings of his existence, take place, as in a kaleidoscope 
 
ON HUMAN NA TURE. 2 79 
 
 when we shake it. The conclusion is, that every alteration 
 of our physical particles, or of whatever else we are com- 
 pounded with, produces a different set of perceptions and 
 sensations. What we call health of body and mind is the 
 fittest state of our composition upon earth : but the state of 
 perception which is sickly to our state of existence may be 
 healthy to another. 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 Of all impositions on the public, the greatest seems to be 
 death. It resembles the threatening faces on each side the 
 Treasury. Or rather, it is a necessary bar to our tendency 
 to move forward. Nature sends us out of her hand with 
 such an impetus towards increase of enjoyment, that some- 
 thing is obliged to be set at the end of the avenue we are 
 in, to moderate our bias and make us enjoy the present 
 being. Death serves to make us think, not of itself, but ol 
 what is about us. 
 
 CHILDHOOD AKD KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 When children are in good health and temper, they have 
 a sense of existence which seems too exquisite to last. It 
 is made up of clearness of blood, freshness of perception, 
 and trustingness of heart. We remember the time when 
 the green rails along a set of suburb gardens used to fill us 
 with a series of holiday and rural sensations perfectly 
 intoxicating. According to the state of our health, we 
 have sunny glimpses of this feeling still ; to say nothing of 
 many other pleasures, which have paid us for many pains. 
 The best time to catch them is early in the morning, at 
 sunrise, out in the country. And we will here add, that life 
 never, perhaps, feels such a return of fresh and young feeling 
 upon it as in early rising on a fine morning, whether in 
 country or town. The healthiness of it, the quiet, the con- 
 scientiousness of having done a sort of young action (not to 
 add a wise one), and the sense of power it gives you over 
 the coming day, produce a mixture of buoyancy and self- 
 possession, in which a sick man must not despair of, becauso 
 
28o ESS A YS. 
 
 he does not feel it the first morning. But even this reform 
 should be adopted by degrees. The best way to recommend 
 it is to begin with allowing fair-play to the other side of the 
 question. To return to our main point. After childhood 
 comes a knowledge of evil, or a sophisticate and unhealthy 
 mode of life ; or one produces the other, and both are 
 embittered. Everything tells us to get back to a state of 
 childhood — pain, pleasure, imagination, reason, passion, 
 natural affection or piety, the better part of religion. If 
 knowledge is supposed to be incompatible with it, know- 
 ledge would sacrifice herself, if necessary, to the same cause, 
 for she also tells us to do so. But as a little knowledge 
 first leads us away from happiness, so a greater knowledge 
 may be destined to bring us back into a finer region of it. 
 
 KNOWLEDGE AND UNHAPPINESS. 
 
 It is not knowledge that makes us unhappy as we grow 
 up, but the knowledge of unhappiness. Yet as unhappiness 
 existed when we knew it not, it becomes us all to be 
 acquainted with it, that we may all have the chance of 
 bettering the condition of our species. Who would say to 
 himself, " I would be happy, though all my fellow-creatures 
 were miserable 1 " Kjiowledge must heal what it wounds, 
 and extend the happiness which it has suspended. It must 
 do by our comfort as a friend may do by one's books — 
 enrich it with its comments. One man grows up and gets 
 unhealthy without knowledge ; another, with it. The 
 former suffers and does not know why. He is unhappy, 
 and he sees unhappiness, but he can do nothing for himself 
 or others. The latter suffers and discovers why. He 
 suffers even more because he knows more ; but he learns 
 also how to diminish suffering in others. He learns, too, to 
 apply his knowledge to his own case ; and he sees, that as 
 he himself suffers from the world's want of knowledge, so 
 the progress of knowledge would take away the world's 
 suffisrings and his own. The efforts to this end worry him, 
 perhaps, and make hina sickly ; upon which, thinking ig 
 
ON HUMAN NA TURE. 281 
 
 pronounced to be injurious to health. And it may be so 
 under these circumstances. "What then, if it betters the 
 health of the many % But thinking may also teach him how- 
 to be healthier. A game of cricket on a green may do for him 
 what no want of thought would have done : while on the 
 other hand, if he shows a want of thought upon these 
 points, the inference is easy : he is not so thinking a man 
 as you took him for. Addison should have got on horse- 
 back instead of walking up and down a room in his house, 
 with a bottle of wine at each end of it. Shakespeare 
 divided his time between town and country, and in the 
 latter part of his life built, and planted, and petted his 
 daughter Susanna. Solomon in his old age played the 
 Anacreon ; and with Milton's leave, " his wisest heart " 
 was not so much out in this matter as when his royal 
 impatience induced him to say that everything was vanity. 
 
 CHILDHOOD — OLD AGE — OUR DESTINY. 
 
 There appears to be something in the composition of 
 humanity like what we have observed in that of music. 
 The musician's first thought is apt to be his finest : he must 
 carry it on, and make a second part to his air : and he 
 becomes inferior. Nature in like manner (if we may speak 
 it without profaneness) appears to succeed best in making 
 childhood and youth. The symphony is a little per- 
 turbed; but in what a sprightly manner the air sets off! 
 What purity ! What grace I What touching simplicity ! 
 Then comes sin, or the notion of it, and ** breaks the fair 
 music." Well did a wiser than the " wisest heart " bid us 
 try and continue children. But there are foolish as well as 
 wise children, and it is a special mark of the former, 
 whether little or grown, to affect manhood, and to confound 
 it with cunning and violence. Do men die, in order that 
 life and its freshness may be as often and as multitudin- 
 ously renewed as possible % Or do children grow old, that 
 our consciousness may attain to some better mode of being 
 through a rough pathl Superstition answers only to 
 
2^2 ESSAYS. 
 
 perplex us, and make us partial. Nature answers nothing. 
 But nature's calm and resolute silence tells us at once to 
 hope for the future, and to do our best to enjoy the present. 
 What if it is the aim of her workmanship to produce self- 
 moving instruments that may carry forward their own 
 good ? "A modest thought," you will say. Yet it is more 
 allied to some doctrines celebrated for their humility than 
 you may suppose. Vanity, in speculations earnest and 
 affectionate, is a charge to be made only by vanity. What 
 has it to do with them 1 
 
 ENDEAVOUR. 
 
 Either this world (to use the style of Marcus Antoninus) 
 is meant to be what it is, or it is not. If it is not, then 
 our endeavours to render it otherwise are right : — if it is, 
 then we must be as we are, and seek excitement through 
 the same means, and our endeavours are still right. In 
 either case, endeavour is good and useful ; but in one of 
 them the want of it must be a mistake. 
 
 GOOD AND EVIL. 
 
 Nature is justified (to speak humanly) in the ordinary 
 state of the world, granting it is never to be made better, 
 because the sum of good, upon the whole, is greater than 
 that of evil. For in the list of goods we are not only to 
 rank all the more obvious pleasures which we agree to call 
 such, but much that is ranked under the head of mere 
 excitement, taking hope for the ground of it, and action for 
 the means. But we have no right on that account to 
 abstain from endeavouring to better the condition of our 
 species, were it only for the sake of individual suffering. 
 Nature, who is infinite, has a right to act in the gross. 
 Nothing but an infinite suffering should make her stop ; 
 and that should make her stop, were the individual who 
 infinitely suffered the only inhabitant of his hell. Heaven 
 and earth should petition to be abolished, rather than that 
 one such monstrosity should exist : it is the absurdest as 
 
ON HUMAN NA TURE. 2 8 3 
 
 well as most impious of all the dreams of fear. To suppose 
 that a Divine Being can sympathise with our happiness is 
 to suppose that he can sympathise with our misery ; but to 
 suppose that he can sympathise with misery, and yet suffer 
 infinite misery to exist, rather than put an end to misery 
 and happiness together, is to contradict his sympathy with 
 happiness, and to make him prefer a positive evil to a nega- 
 tive one, the existence of torment to the cessation of feeling. 
 As nature, therefore, if considered at all, must be considered 
 as regulated in her operations, though infinite, we must 
 look to fugitive suffering, as nature must guard against 
 permanent ; she carves out our work for us in the gross : 
 we must attend to it in the detail. To leave everything to 
 her would be to settle into another mode of existence, or 
 stagnate into death. If it be said that she will take care 
 of us at all events, we answer — first, that she does not do 
 so in the ordinary details of life, neither earns our food for 
 us, nor washes our bodies, nor writes our books ; secondly, 
 that of things useful-looking and uncertain, she incites us 
 to know the profit and probability ; and thirdly (as we 
 have hinted in a previous observation), that not knowing 
 how far we may carry on the impulse of improvement 
 towards which she has given us a bias, it becomes us on 
 every ground, both of ignorance and wisdom, to try. 
 
 DEGRADING IDEAS OP DEITY. 
 
 The superstitious, in their contradictory representations 
 of God, call him virtuous and benevolent out of the same 
 passion of fear as induces them to make him such a tyrant. 
 They think they shall be damned if they do not believe him 
 the tyrant he is described ; — they think they shall be 
 damned also if they do not gratuitously ascribe to him the 
 virtues incompatible with damnation. Being so unworthy 
 of praise, they think he will be particularly angry at not 
 being praised. They shudder to think themselves better, 
 and hasten to make amends for it by declaring themselves 
 as worthless as he is worthy. 
 
284 ESSAYS. 
 
 GREAT DISTINCTION TO BE MADE IN BIGOTS. 
 
 There are two sorts of religious bigots, the unheaUhy and 
 the unfeeling. The fear of the former is mixed with 
 humanity, and they never succeed in thinking themselves 
 favourites of God, but their sense of security is embittered, 
 by aversions which they dare not own to themselves, and 
 terror for the fate of those who are not so lucky. The 
 unfeeling bigot is a mere unimaginative animal, whose 
 thoughts are confined to the snugness of his kennel, and 
 who would have a good one in the next world as well as in 
 this. He secures a place in heaven as he does in the Man- 
 chester coach. Never mind who sufiers outside, woman or 
 child. We once found ourselves by accident on board a 
 Margate hoy, which professed to " sail by Divine Provi- 
 dence." Walking about the deck at night to get rid of the 
 chillness which would occasionally visit our devotions to 
 the starry heavens and the sparkling sea, our foot came in 
 contact with something white, which was lying gathered up 
 in a heap. Upon stooping down we found it to be a vv^oman. 
 The Methodists had secured all the beds below, and were 
 not to be disturbed. 
 
 SUPERSTITION THE FLATTERER OF REASON. 
 
 We are far from thinking that reason can settle every- 
 thing. We no more think so than that our eyesight can 
 see into all existence. But it does not follow that we are 
 to take for granted the extremest contradictions of reason. 
 Why should we ? We do not even think well enough of 
 reason to do so. For here is one of the secrets of super- 
 stition. It is so angry at reason for not being able to 
 settle everything, that it runs in despair into the arms of 
 irrationality. 
 
 GOOD IN THINGS EVIL. 
 
 " God Almighty! 
 There is a soul of goodness in things evil, 
 Would men observingly distil it out 1 " 
 
ON HUMAN NA TURE. 285 
 
 So, with equal wisdom and good-nature, does Shakespeare 
 make one of his characters exclaim. Suffering gives strength 
 to sympathy. Hate of the particular may have a founda- 
 tion in love for the general. The lowest and most wilful 
 vice may plunge deeper, out of a regret of virtue. Even in 
 envy may be discerned something of an instinct of justice, 
 something of a wish to see fairplay, and things on a level. 
 — " But there is still a residuum of evil, of which we should 
 all wish to get rid." — Well, then, let us try. 
 
 ARTIFICE OP EXAGGERATED COMPLAINT. 
 
 Disappointment likes to make out bad to be worse, in 
 order to relieve the gnawing of its actual wound. It would 
 confuse the limits of its pain, and, by extending it too far, 
 try to make itself uncertain how far it reached. 
 
 CUSTOM, ITS SELF-RECONCILEMENTS AND CONTRADICTIONS. 
 
 Custom is seen more in what we bear than what we enjoyi 
 and yet a pain long borne so tits itself to our shoulders, that 
 we do not miss even that without disquietude. The novelty 
 of the sensation startles us. Montaigne, like our modern 
 beaux, was uneasy when he did not feel himself braced 
 up in his clothing. Prisoners have been known to wish to 
 go back to their prisons : invalids have missed the accom- 
 paniment of a gunshot wound ; and the world is angry 
 with reformers and innovators, not because it is in the 
 right, but because it is accustomed to be in the wrong. 
 This is a good thing, and shows the indestructible tendency 
 of nature to forego its troubles. But then reformers and 
 innovators must arise upon that very ground. To quarrel 
 with them upon a principle of avowed spleen is candid, and 
 has a self-knowledge in it. But to resent them as imper- 
 tinent or effeminate is at bottom to quarrel with the 
 principle of one's own patience, and to set the fear of 
 moving above the courage of it. 
 
286 £SSAYS. 
 
 ADVICE. 
 
 It has been well observed, that advice is not disliked 
 because it is advice, but because so few people know how to 
 give it. Yet there are people vain enough to hate it in 
 proportion to its very agreeableness. 
 
 HAPPINESS, HOW WE FOREGO IT. 
 
 By the same reason for which we call this earth a vale of 
 tears we might call heaven, when we got there, a hill of 
 sighs ; for upon the principle of an endless progression of 
 beatitude, we might tind a still better heaven promised us, 
 and this would be enough to make us dissatisfied with the 
 one in possession. Suppose that we have previously 
 existed in the planet Mars ; that there are no fields or trees 
 there ; and that we nevertheless could imagine them, and 
 were in the habit of anticipating their delight in the next 
 world. Suppose that there was no such thing as a stream 
 of air, — as a wind fanning one's face for a summer's day. 
 What a romantic thing to fancy ! What a beatitude to 
 anticipate ! Suppose, above all, that there was no such 
 thing as love. Words would be lost in anticipating that. 
 "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard," etc. Yet when we 
 got to this heaven of green fields and fresh airs, we might 
 take little notice of either for want of something more ; and 
 even love we might contrive to spoil pretty odiously. 
 
 MY BOOKS. 
 
 SiTTiNQ, last winter, among my books, and walled round 
 with all the comfort and protection which they and my 
 fireside could afibrd me ; to wit, a table of high-piled books 
 at my back, my writing-desk on one side of me, some 
 shelves on the other, and the feeling of the warm fire at my 
 
MY BOOKS. 287 
 
 feet ; I began to consider how I loved the authors of those 
 books, — how I loved them, too, not only for the imaginative 
 pleasures they afforded me, but for their making me love 
 the very books themselves, and delight to be in contact 
 with them. I looked sideways at my Spenser, my Theocritus, 
 and my Arabian Nights ; then above them at my Italian 
 poets ; then behind me at my Dryden and Pope, my 
 romances, and my Boccaccio ; then on my left side at my 
 Chaucer, who lay on a writing-desk ; and thought how 
 natural it was in C. L. to give a kiss to an old folio, as I 
 once saw him do to Chapman's Homer. At the same time 
 I wondered how he could sit in that front room of his with 
 nothing but a few unfeeling tables and chairs, or at best a 
 few engravings in trim frames, instead of putting a couple 
 of arm-chairs into the back-room with the books in it, where 
 there is but one window. Would I were there, with both 
 the chairs properly filled, and one or two more besides ! 
 " We had talk, sir," — the only talk capable of making one 
 forget the books. 
 
 I entrench myself in my books equally against sorrow 
 and the weather. If the wind comes through a passage, I 
 look about to see how I can fence it off by a better 
 disposition of my movables ; if a melancholy thought is 
 importunate, I give another glance at my Spenser. When 
 I speak of being in contact vdih my books, I mean it 
 literally. I like to lean my head against them. Living in 
 a southern climate, though in a part sufiiciently northern to 
 feel the winter, I was obliged, during that season, to take 
 some of the books out of the study, and hang them up near 
 the fireplace in the sitting-room, which is the only room 
 that has such a convenience. I therefore walled myself 
 in, as well as I could, in the manner above mentioned. I 
 took a walk every day, to the astonishment of the Genoese, 
 who used to huddle against a piece of sunny wall, like flies 
 on a chimney-piece ; but I did this only that I might so 
 much the more enjoy my English evening. The fire was a 
 wood fire instead of a coal ; but I imagined myself in the 
 country. I remember at the very worst that one end of my 
 
288 ESSA YS. 
 
 native land was not nearer the other than England is to 
 Italy. 
 
 While writing this article I am in my study again. Like 
 the rooms in all houses in this country which are not 
 hovels, it is handsome and ornamented. On one side it 
 looks towards a garden and the mountains ; on another to 
 the mountains and the sea. What signifies all this? I 
 turn my back upon the sea ; I shut up even one of the side 
 windows looking upon the mountains, and retain no 
 prospect but that of the trees. On the right and left of me 
 are book-shelves ; a bookcase is affectionately open in front 
 of me ; and thus kindly enclosed with my books and the 
 green leaves, I write. If all this is too luxurious and 
 effeminate, of all luxuries it is the one that leaves you the 
 most strength. And this is to be said for scholarship in 
 general. It unfits a man for activity, for his bodily part in 
 the world ; but it often doubles both the power and the 
 sense of his mental duties ; and with much indignation 
 against his body, and more against those who tyrannise 
 over the intellectual claims of mankind, the man of letters, 
 like the magician of old, is prepared " to play the devil " 
 with the great men of this world, in a style that astonishes 
 both the sword and the toga. 
 
 I do not like this fine large study. I like elegance. I like 
 room to breathe in, and even walk about, when I want to 
 breathe and walk about. I like a great library next my study; 
 but for the study itself, give me a small snug place, almost 
 entirely walled with books. There should be only one window 
 in it, looking upon trees. Some prefer a place with few or no 
 books at all — nothing but a chair or a table, like Epictetus ; 
 but I should say that these were philosophers, not lovers of 
 books, if I did not recollect that Montaigne was both. He 
 had a study in a round tower, walled as aforesaid. It is 
 true, one forgets one's books while writing — at least they 
 Bay so. For my part, I think I have them in a sort of side- 
 long mind's-eye ; like a second thought, which is none — like 
 a waterfall or a whispering wind. 
 
 I dislike a grand library to study in. I mean an immense 
 
MV BOOKS. 289 
 
 apartment, with books all in Museum order, especially wire- 
 ':afecl. I say nothing against the Museum itself, or public 
 libraries. They are capital places to go to, but not to sit 
 in ; and talking of this, I hate to read in public, and in 
 strange company. The jealous silence ; the dissatisfied 
 looks of the messengers ; the inability to help yourself ; the 
 not knowing whether you really ought to trouble the 
 messengers, much less the gentleman in black, or brown, 
 who is, perhaps, half a trustee; with a variety of other 
 jarrings between privacy and publicity, prevent one's 
 settling heartily to work. They say " they manage these 
 things better in France ; " and I dare say they do ; but I 
 think I should feel still more distrait in France, in spite of 
 the benevolence of the servitors, and the genei'ous profusion 
 of pen, ink, and paper. I should feel as if I were doing 
 nothing but interchanging amenities with polite writers. 
 
 A grand private library, which the master of the house 
 also makes his study, never looks to me like a real place of 
 books, much less of authorship. I cannot take kindly to 
 it. It is certainly not out of envy ; for three parts of the 
 books are generally trash, and I can seldom think of the 
 rest and the' proprietor together. It reminds me of a fine 
 gentleman, of a collector, of a patron, of Gil Bias and the 
 Marquis of Marialva ; of anything but genius and comfort. 
 I have a particular hatred of a round table (not the Round 
 Table, for that was a dining one) covered and irradiated 
 with books, and never met with one in the house of a clever 
 man but once. It is the reverse of Montaigne's Round 
 Tower. Instead of bringing the books around you, they all 
 seem turning another way, and eluding your hands. 
 
 Conscious of my propriety and comfort in these matters, 
 I take an interest in the bookcases as well as the books of 
 my friends. I long to meddle and dispose them after 
 my own notions. When they see this confession, they will 
 acknowledge the virtue I have practised. I believe I did 
 mention his Vjook-room to C. L., and I think he told me 
 that he often sat there when alone. It would be hard not 
 to believe him. His library, though not abounding in 
 
 213 
 
290 j;ssA vs. 
 
 Greek or Latin (which are the only things to help soine 
 persons to an idea of literature), is anything but superficial. 
 The depth of philosophy and poetry are there, the inner- 
 most passages of the human heart. It has some Latin too. 
 It has also a handsome contempt for appearance. It looks 
 like what it is, a selection made at precious intervals from 
 the book-stalls ; — now a Chaucer at nine and twopence ; 
 now a ^Montaigne or a Sir Thomas Browne at two shillings ; 
 now a Jeremy Taylor ; a Spinoza ; an old English 
 Dramatist, Prior, and Sir Philip Sidney ; and the books are 
 " neat as imported." The very perusal of the backs is 
 a "discipline of humanity." There Mi-. Soutliey takes his 
 place again with an old Radical friend : there Jeremy 
 Collier is at peace with Dryden : there the lion, 
 Martin Luther, lies down with the Quaker lamb, Sewell : 
 tliere Guzman d'Alfarache thinks himself fit company 
 for Sir Charles Grandison, and has his claims admitted. 
 Even the " high fantastical " Duchess of Newcastle, with 
 her laurel on her head, is received with grave honours, and 
 not the less for declining to trouble herself with the con- 
 stitutions of her maids. There is an approach to this in 
 the library of W. C, who also includes Italian among his 
 humanities. W. H., I believe, has no books, except mine ; 
 but he has Shakespeare and Rousseau by heart. N., who, 
 though not a book-man by profession, is fond of those 
 who are, and who loves his volume enough to read 
 it across the fields, has his library in the common sitting- 
 room, which is hospitable. H. R.'s books are all 
 too modern and finely bound, which however, is 
 not his fault, for they were left him by will, — 
 not the most kindly act of the testator. Suppose a man 
 were to bequeath us a great japan chest three feet by four, 
 with an injunction that it was always to stand on the tea- 
 table. I remember borrowing a book of H. R., which, 
 having lost, I replaced with a copy equally well bound. I 
 am not sure I should have been in such haste, even to 
 return the book, had it been a common-looking volume ; but 
 the splendour of the loss dazzled me into this ostentatious 
 
MY BOOKS. igx 
 
 piece of propriety. I set about restoring it as if I had 
 diminished his fortunes, and waived the privilege a friend 
 has to use a man's things as his own. I may venture upon 
 this ultra-liberal theory, not only because candour compels 
 me to say that 1 hold it to a greater extent, with Montaigne, 
 but because I have been a meek son in the family of book- 
 losers. I may affirm, upon a moderate calculation, that I 
 have lent and lost in my time (and I am eight-and-thirty), 
 half-a dozen decent-sized libraries, — I mean books enough 
 to fill so many ordinary bookcases. I have never 
 complained ; and self-love, as well as gratitude, makes me 
 love those who do not complain of me. 
 
 I own I borrow books with as much facility as I lend, 
 I cannot see a work that interests me on another person's 
 shelf, without a wish to carry it off; but, I repeat, that I 
 have been much more sinned against tlian sinning in the 
 article of non-return ; and am scrupulous in the article of 
 intention. I never had a felonious intent upon a book but 
 once ; and then I shall only say, it was under circumstances 
 so peculiar, that I cannot but look upon the conscience that 
 induced me to restore it, as having sacrificed the spirit of 
 its very self to the letter ; and I have a grudge against it 
 accordingly. Some people are unwilling to lend their books. 
 I have a special grudge against them, particularly those 
 who accompany their unwillingness with uneasy professions 
 to the contrary, and smiles like Sir Fretful Plagiary. The 
 friend who helped to spoil my notions of property, or rather 
 to make them too good for the world " as it goes," taught 
 me also to undervalue my squearaishness in refusing to 
 avail myself of the books of these gentlemen. He showed 
 me how it was doing good to all parties to put an ordinary 
 face on the matter ; though I know his own blushed not a 
 little sometimes in doing it, even when the good to be done 
 was for another. I feel, in truth, that even when anger 
 inclines me to exercise this privilege of philosophy, it is 
 more out of revenge than contempt. I fear that in 
 allowing myself to borrow books, I sometimes make 
 extremes meet in a very sinful manner, and do it out 
 
291 MSSA Vs. 
 
 of a refined revenge. It is like eating a miser's beef 
 at bim. 
 
 I yield to none in my love of bookstall urbanity. I 
 have spent as happy moments over the stalls as any 
 literary apprentice boy who ought to be moving onwards. 
 But I confess my weakness in liking to see some of my 
 favourite purchases neatly bound. The books I like to have 
 about me most are — Spenser, Chaucer, the minor poems of 
 Milton, the Arabian Xights, Theocritus, Ariosto, and such 
 old good-natured speculations as Plutarch's Morals. For 
 most of these I like a plain, good, old binding, never mind 
 how old, provided it wears well; but my Arabian Nights 
 may be bound in as fine and flowery a style as possible, and 
 I should love an engraving to every dozen pages. Book- 
 prints of all sorts, bad and good, take with me as much as 
 when I was a child : and I think some books, such as Prior's 
 Poems, ought always to have portraits of the authors. 
 Prior's airy face with his cap on is like having his company. 
 From early association, no edition of Milton pleases me so 
 much as that in which there are pictures of the Devil with 
 brute ears, dressed like a Roman General ; nor of Bunyau, 
 as the one containing the print of the Valley of the Shadow 
 of Death, with the Devil whispering in Christian's ear, or 
 old Pope by the wayside, and 
 
 " Vanity Fair, 
 With the Pilgrims sutTeting there." 
 
 I delight in the recollection of the puzzle I used to have 
 with the frontispiece of the Tale of a Tub, of my real horror 
 at the sight of that crawling old man, representing Avarice, 
 at the beginning of Enfield's Speaker, the Looking -Glass, or 
 some such book ; and even of the careless school-boy hats, 
 and the prim stomachers and cottage bonnets, of such 
 golden-age antiquities as the Village School. The oldest 
 and most worn-out woodcut, representing King Pippin, 
 Goody Two Shoes, or the grim Soldan, sitting with three 
 staring blots for his eyes and mouth, his sceptre in one 
 
MY BOOKS. 293 
 
 hand, and liis other five fingers raised and spread in admira- 
 tion at the feats of the Gallant London 'Prentice, cannot 
 excite in me a feeling of ingratitude. Cooke's edition of 
 the British Poets and Novelists came out when I was at 
 school : for which reason I never could put up with 
 Suttaby's or Walker's publications, except in the case of 
 such works as the Fairy Tales, which Mr. Cooke did not 
 publish. Besides, they are too cramped, thick, and mercen- 
 ary ; and the pictures are all frontispieces. They do not 
 come in at the proper places. Cooke realised the old 
 woman's heau ideal of a prayer-book, — " A little book, with 
 a great deal of matter, and a large type : " — for the type 
 was really large for so small a volume. Shall I ever forget 
 his Collins and his Gray, books at once so " superbly 
 ornamented " and so inconceivably cheap 1 Sixpence could 
 procure much before ; but never could it procure so much 
 as then, or was at once so much respected, and so little 
 cared for. His artist Kirk was the best artist, except 
 Stothard, that ever designed for periodical works ; and I 
 will venture to add (if his name rightly announces his 
 country) the best artist Scotland ever produced, except 
 Wilkie, but he unfortunately had not enough of his country 
 in him to keep him from dying young. His designs for 
 Milton and the Arabian Nights, his female extricated from 
 the water in the Tales of the Genii, and his old hag issuing 
 out of the chest of the Merchant Abadah in the same book, 
 are before me now, as vividly as they were then. He 
 possessed elegance and the sense of beauty in no ordinary 
 degree ; though they sometimes played a trick or so of 
 foppery. I shall never forget the gratitude with which 
 I received an odd number of Akenside, value sixpence, one 
 of the set of that poet, which a boarder distributed among 
 three or four of us, " with his mother's compliments." The 
 present might have been more lavish, but I hardly thought 
 of that. I remember my number. It was the one in 
 which there is a picture of the poet on a sofa, with Cupid 
 coming to him, and the words underneath, " Tempt me no 
 more, insidious love 1 " The picture and the number 
 
294 JSSSA YS. 
 
 appeared to me equally divine. I cannot help thinking 
 to this day, that it is right and natural in a gentleman to 
 sit in a stage dress, on that particular kind of sofa, though 
 on no other, with that exclusive hat and feathers on his 
 bead, telling Cupid to begone with a tragic air. 
 
 I love an author the more for having been himself a 
 lover of books. The idea of an ancient library perplexes 
 our sympathy by its map-like volumes, rolled upon 
 cylinders. Our imagination cannot take kindly to a yard 
 of wit, or to thirty inches of moral observation, rolled out 
 like linen in a draper's shop. But we conceive of Plato as 
 of a lover of books ; of Aristotle certainly ; of Plutarch, 
 Pliny, Horace, Julian, and Marcus Aurelius. Virgil, too, 
 must have been one ; and, after a fashion, Martial. May 
 I confess, that the passage which I recollect with the 
 greatest pleasure in Cicero, is where he says that books 
 delight us at home, and are no impediment abroad ; travel 
 with us, ruralise with us. His period is rounded off to 
 some purpose ; " Delectant domi, non impediunt /oris ; 
 peregrinantur, rusticantur." I am so much of this opinion 
 that I do not care to be anywhere without having a book 
 or books at hand, and like Dr. Orkborne, in the novel of 
 Camilla, stuff the coach or post-chaise with them whenever 
 I travel. As books, however, become ancient, the love of 
 them becomes more unequivocal and conspicuous. The 
 ancients had little of what we call learning. They made it. 
 They were also no very eminent buyers of books — they 
 made books for posterity. It is true, that it is not at all 
 necessary to love many books, in order to love them much. 
 The scholar, in Chaucer, who would rather have 
 
 "At his beddes head 
 A twenty hokes, clothed, in black and red, 
 Of Aristotle and liis philosoiihy, 
 Than rob^s rich, or fiddle, or psaltrie, — " - 
 
 doubtless beat all our modern collectors in his passion for 
 reading; but books must at least exist, and have acquired 
 an eminence, before their lovers can make themselves 
 
MY BOOKS, 295 
 
 known. There must be a possession, also, to perfect the 
 communion; and the mere contact is much, even wlien our 
 mistress speaks an unknown language. Dant(! puts Homer, 
 the great ancient, in his Eli/sium upon trust; but a few 
 years afterwards, Homer, the book, made its appearance in 
 Italy, and Petrarch, in a transport, put it upon his book- 
 shelves, where he adored it, like "the unknown God." 
 Petrarch ought to be the god of the bibliomaniacs, for he 
 was a collector and a man of genius, which is a union that 
 does not often happen. He copied out, with his own 
 precious hand, the manuscripts he rescued from time, and 
 then produced others for time to reverence. With his 
 head upon a book he died. Boccaccio, his friend, was 
 another ; nor can one look upon the longest and most 
 tiresome works he wrote (for he did write some tiresome 
 ones, in spite of the gaiety of his Decameron), without 
 thinking, that in that resuscitation of the world of letters 
 it must have been natural to a man of genius to add to the 
 existing stock of volumes, at whatsoever price. I always 
 pitch my completest idea of a lover of books, either in those 
 dark ages, as they are called, 
 
 C'Cui cieco a torto il cieco volgo appella — ") 
 
 or in the gay town days of Charles II., or a little after- 
 wards. In both times the portrait comes out by the force 
 of contrast. In the first, I imagine an age of iron warfare 
 and energy, with solitary retreats, in which the monk or 
 the hooded scholar walks forth to meditate, his precious 
 volume under his arm. In the other, I have a triumphant 
 example of the power of books and wit to contest the 
 victory with sensual pleasure : — Rochester, staggering 
 home to pen a satire in the style of Monsieur Boileau ; 
 Butler, cramming his jolly duodecimo with all the learning 
 that he laughed at ; and a new race of book poets come up, 
 who, in spite of their periwigs and petit-maitres, talk as 
 romantically of " the bays," as if they were priests of 
 Delphos. It was a victorious thing in books to beguile 
 even the old French of their egotism, or at least to shar^ it 
 
296 ESS A VS. 
 
 with them. ISTature never pretended to do as much. 
 And here is the difFerence between the two ages, or 
 between any two ages in which genius and art predominate. 
 In the one, books are loved because they are the records of 
 Nature and her enei'gies ; in the other, because they are the 
 records of those records, or evidences of the importance of the 
 individuals, and proofs of our descent in the new imperish- 
 able aristocracy. This is the reason why rank (with few 
 exceptions) is so jealous of literature, and loves to appro- 
 priate or withhold the honours of it, as-if they were so many 
 toys and ribbons, like its own. It has an instinct that the 
 two pretensions are incompatible. When Montaigne (a 
 real lover of books) affected the order of St. Michael, and 
 pleased himself with possessing that fugitive little piece of 
 importance, he did it because he would pretend to be above 
 nothing that he really felt, or that was felt by men in 
 general ; but at the same time he vindicated his natural 
 superiority over this weakness by praising and loving all 
 higher and lasting things, and by placing his best glory in 
 doing homage to the geniuses that had gone before him. 
 He did not endeavour to think that an immortal renown 
 was a fashion, like that of the cut of his scarf ; or that by 
 undervaluing the one, he should go shining down to pos- 
 terity in the other, perpetual lord of Montaigne and of the 
 ascendant. 
 
 There is a period of modern times, at which the love of 
 books appears to have been of a more decided nature than 
 at either of these — I mean the age just before and after the 
 Reformation, or rather all that period when book-writing 
 was confined to the learned languages. Erasmus is the god 
 of it. Bacon, a mighty bookman, saw, among his other 
 sights, the great advantage of loosening the vernacular 
 tongue, and wrote both Latin and English. I allow this is 
 the greatest closeted age of books ; of old scholars sitting in 
 dusty studies ; of heaps of " illustrious obscure," rendering 
 themselves more illustrious and more obscure by retreating 
 from the " thorny queaches " of Dutch and German names 
 into the " vacant interlunar caves " of appellations latinised 
 
AfV BOOKS. 297 
 
 or translated. I think I see all their volumes now, filling 
 the shelves of a dozen German convents. The authors are 
 bearded men, sitting in old woodcuts, in caps and gowns, 
 and their books are dedicated to princes and statesmen, as 
 illustrious as themselves. INIy old friend Wierus, who 
 wrote a thick book, De Prcesiigiis Dcemonum, was one 
 of them, and had a fancy worthy of his sedentary stomach. 
 I will confess, once for all. that I have a liking for them all. 
 It is my link with the bibliomaniacs, whom I admit into 
 our relationship, because my love is large, and my family 
 pride nothing. But still I take my idea of books read with 
 a gusto, of companions for bed and board, from the two 
 ages before mentioned. The other is of too bookworm 
 a description. There must be both a judgment and a 
 fervour; a discrimination and a boyish eagerness; and 
 (with all due humility) sometiiing of a point of contact 
 between authors worth reading and the reader. How can 
 I take Juvenal into the fields, or Valcarenghius De Aortce 
 Aneurismate to bed with me ? How could I expect to 
 walk before the face of nature with the one ; to tire 
 my elbow properly with the other, before I put out my 
 candle, and turn round deliciously on the right side ? Or 
 how could I stick up Coke upon Littleton against something 
 on the dinner-table, and be divided between a fresh 
 paragraph and a mouthful of salad ? 
 
 I take our four great English poets to have all been fond 
 of reading. Milton and Chaucer proclaim themselves for 
 hard sitters at books. Spenser's reading is evident by his 
 learning ; and if there were nothing else to show for it in 
 Shakespeare, his retiring to his native town, long before 
 old age, would be a proof of it. It is impossible for a man 
 to live in solitude without such assistance, unless he is a 
 metaphysician or mathematician, or the dullest of mankind ; 
 and any country town would be solitude to Shakespeare, 
 after the bustle of a metropolis and a theatre. Doubtless he 
 divided his time between his books, and his bowling-green, 
 and his daughter Susanna. It is pretty certain, also, that 
 be planted, and rode on horseback ; and there is evidence of 
 
298 ^SSJVS. 
 
 all sorts to make it clear, that he must have occasionally 
 joked with the blacksmith, and stood godfather for his 
 neighl>ours' children. Chaucer's account of himself must be 
 quoted, for the delight and sympathy of all true readers : — 
 
 " And as for me, thongh that I can but lite, 
 On bookes for to rede I me delite, 
 And to hem yeve I faith and full credence, 
 And in mine herte have hem in reverence 
 So hertely, that there is game none, 
 That fro my bookes maketh me to gone, 
 Bat it is seldome on the holy daie ; 
 Save certainly whan that the month of May 
 Is coinen, and that I hear the foules sing. 
 And that the flout es ginnen for to spring. 
 Farewell my booke and my devocion." 
 
 — Tfie Legend of Good Women. 
 
 And again, in the second book of his House of Fame, 
 where the eagle addresses him : — 
 
 " Thou wilt make 
 
 At night full oft thine head to ake. 
 And in thy stndy as thou writest, 
 And evermore of Love enditest. 
 In honour of him and his praisings, 
 And in his folkes furtherings, 
 And in his matter all devisest. 
 And not him ne his folke despisest. 
 Although thou mayst go in the daunse 
 Of hem, that him list not advance ; 
 Therefore as I said, ywis, 
 Jupiter considreth well this. 
 And also, beaasire, of other things ; 
 That is, thou hast no tidings 
 Of Loves folke, if they be glade, 
 Ke of nothing else that God made, 
 And not only fro ferre countree. 
 But no tidings commen to thee^ 
 Not of thy very neighbouris. 
 That dwellen almost at thy dores j 
 Thon hearest neither that ne this, 
 For whan thy labour all done is. 
 And hast made all thy rekenings, 
 Instead of rest and of new things, 
 
MV BOOKS. 299 
 
 Tbon goest home to thine house anone. 
 And all so dombe as ante stone. 
 Thou sittest at another booke. 
 Till fully dazed is thy looke." 
 
 After I think of the bookishness of Chancer and Milton, 
 I s^hvays make a groat leap to Prior and Fenton. Prior 
 was first noticed, when a boy, by Lord Dorset, sitting in 
 his uncle's tavern, and reading Horace. He describes 
 himself, years after, when Secretary of Embassy at the 
 Hague, as taking the same author with him in the 
 Saturday's chaise, in which he and his mistress used to 
 escape from town cares into the country, to the admira- 
 tion of Dutch beholders. Fenton was a martyr to contented 
 scholarship (including a sirloin and a bottle of wine), and 
 died among his books, of inactivity. " He rose late," says 
 Johnson, " and when he had risen, sat down to his books 
 and papers." A woman that once waited on him in a 
 lodging, told him, as she said, that he would "lie a-bed 
 and be fed with a spoon." He must have had an enviable 
 liver, if he was happy. I must own (if my conscience 
 would let me), that 1 should like to lead, half the year, just 
 such a life (woman included, though not that woman), the 
 other half being passed in the fields and woods, with a 
 cottage just big enough to hold us. Dacier and his wife 
 had a pleasant time of it ; both fond of books, both 
 scholars, both amiable, both wrapt up in the ancient world, 
 and helping one another at their tasks. If they were not 
 liappy, matrimony would be a rule even without an ex- 
 ception. Pope does not strike me as being a bookman ; he 
 was curious rather than enthusiastic ; more nice than wise; 
 lie dabbled in modern Latin poetry, which is a bad 
 symptom. Swift was decidedly a reader ; the Tale of a 
 Tub, in its fashion as well as substance, is the work of a 
 scholarly wit ; the Battle of Books is the fancy of a lover 
 of libraries. Addison and Steele were too much given up 
 to Button's and the town. Periodical writing, though its 
 demands seem otherwise, is not favourable to reading ; it 
 becomes too much a matter of business, and will either b? 
 
300 ESSA YS. 
 
 attended to at the expense of the writer's books, or books, 
 the very admonishers of his industry, will make him idle. 
 Besides, a periodical work, to be suitable to its character, 
 and warrant its regular recurrence, must involve some- 
 thing of a gossiping nature, and proceed upon experiences 
 familiar to the existing community, or at least likely to be 
 received by them in consequence of some previous tinge of 
 inclination. You do not pay weekly visits to your friends 
 to lecture them, whatever good you may do their minds. 
 There will be something compulsory in reading the Ram- 
 blers, as there is in going to church. Addison and Steele 
 undertook to regulate the minor morals of society, and 
 effected a world of good, with which scholarship had little 
 to do. Gray was a bookman; he wished to be always 
 lying on sofas, reading " eternal new novels of Crebillon 
 and Marivaux." This is a true hand. The elaborate and 
 scientific look of the rest of his reading was owing to 
 the necessity of employing himself : he had not health and 
 spirits for the literary voluptuousness he desired. Collins, 
 for the same reason, could, not employ himself ; he was 
 obliged to dream over Arabian tales, to let the light of the 
 supernatural world half in upon his eyes. "He loved," as 
 Johnson says (in that strain of music, inspired by tender- 
 ness), " fairies, genii, giants, and monsters ; he delighted to 
 rove through the meanders of enchantment, to gaze on the 
 magnificence of golden palaces, to repose by the waterfalls 
 of Elysian gardens." If Collins had had a better constitu- 
 tion, I do not believe that he would have written his 
 projected work upon the Restoration of Literature, fit as 
 he was by scholarship for the task, but he would have been 
 the greatest poet since the days of Milton. If his friend 
 Thomas Warton had had a little more of his delicacy of 
 organisation, the love of books would almost have made 
 him a poet. His edition of the minor poems of Milton is a 
 wilderness of sweets. It is the only one in which a true 
 lover of the original can pardon an exuberance of annota- 
 tion ; though I confess I am inclined enough to pardon any 
 notes that resemble it, however numerous. The " builded 
 
MV BOOKS. 301 
 
 rhyme " stands at the top of the page, like a fair edifice, 
 with all sorts of flowers and fresh waters at its foot. The 
 young poet lives there, served by the nymphs and fauns, 
 
 " Hinc atque hinc glomerantur Oreades. 
 Hue ades, formose puer ; tibi lilia plenis 
 Ecce ferunt nymphac calathis : tibi Candida Kais 
 Pallentes violas et sunima papavera carpens, 
 Narcissum et llorem jungit bene olentis anethi." 
 
 Among the old writers I must not forget Ben Jonsoii 
 and Donne. Cowley has been already mentioned. His 
 boyish love of books, like all the other inclinations of his 
 early life, stuck to him to the last, which is the greatest 
 reward of virtue. I would mention Izaak Walton, if I had 
 not a grudge against him. His brother fishermen, the 
 divines, were also great fishers of books. I have a grudge 
 against them and their divinity. They talked much of the 
 devil and divine right, and yet forgot what Shakespeare 
 says of the devil's friend Nero, that he is '* an angler in the 
 lake of darkness." Selden was called " the walking library 
 of our nation." It is not the pleasantest idea of him ; but 
 the library included poetry, and wit, as well as heraldry 
 and the Jewish doctors. His Table Talk is equally pithy 
 and pleasant, and truly worthy of the name, for it implies 
 other speakers. Indeed, it was actually what it is called, 
 and treasured up by his friends. Selden wrote com- 
 plimentary verses to his friends the poets, and a com- 
 mentary on Drayton's Polyolhion. Drayton was himself 
 a reader, addicted to all the luxuries of scholarship. 
 Chapman sat among his books, like an astrologer among 
 his spheres and altitudes. 
 
 How pleasant it is to reflect, that all those lovers of 
 books have themselves become books 1 What better 
 metamorphosis could Pythagoras have desired ? How 
 Ovid and Horace exulted in anticipating theirs I And 
 how the world have justified their exultation ! They had 
 a right to triumph over brass and marble. It is the only 
 visible change which changes no farther ; which generates 
 
302 ESSA Vs. 
 
 and yet is not destroyed. Consider: mines themselves 
 are exhausted ; cities perish ; kingdoms are swept away, 
 and man weeps with indignation to think that his own 
 body is not immortal. 
 
 " iMuoiono le cittk, muoiono i regni, 
 E r uom d' esser mortal par che si sdegni." 
 
 Yet this little body of thought, that lies before me in the 
 shape of a book, has existed thousands of years, nor since 
 the invention of the press can anything short of an 
 universal convulsion of nature abolish it. To a shape like 
 this, so small yet so comprehensive, so slight yet so lasting, 
 so insignificant yet so venerable, turns the mighty activity 
 of Homer, and so turning, is enabled to live and 
 warm us for ever. To a shape like this turns the placid 
 eage of Academus : to a shape like this the grandeur of 
 Milton, the exuberance of Spenser, the pungent elegance of 
 Pope, and the volatility of Prior. In one small room, like 
 the compressed spirits of Milton, can be gathered together 
 
 " The assembled soals of all that men held wise. " 
 
 May I hope to become the meanest of these existences? 
 This is a question which every author who is a lover 
 of books asks himself some time in his life ; and which 
 must be pardoned, because it cannot be helped. I know 
 not. I cannot exclaim with the poet, 
 
 " Oh that my name were number'd among theirs, 
 Then gladly would I end my mortal days." 
 
 For my mortal days, few and feeble as the rest of them 
 may be, are of consequence to others. But I should like to 
 remain visible in this shape. The little of myself that 
 pleases myself, I could wish to be accounted worth pleas- 
 ing others. I should like to survive so, were it only for 
 the sake of those who love me in private, knowing as I do 
 what a treasure is the possession of a friend's mind when 
 he is no more. At all events, nothinjr while I live and 
 
MV BOOKS. 
 
 303 
 
 think can deprive me of my value for such treasures. I 
 can help the appreciation of them while I last, and love 
 them till I die ; and perhaps, if fortune turns her face once 
 more in kindness upon me before I go, I may chance, some 
 quiet day, to lay my overheating temples on a book, and so 
 have the death I most envy. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 214 
 
NOTES. 
 
 The Essays contained in this volume are taken, with two excep- 
 tions, from The Indicator^ The Companwn, and The Seer, all 
 three, in every shape and form, long since out of print. The 
 first two papers — " Dreams on the Borders of the Land of 
 Poetry" and "Pocket-books and Keepsakes" — have never before 
 been printed under the name of their author. They are taken 
 from The Keepsake for 1828, where they appeared anonymously. 
 The Indicator, as I have stated in my introduction, was 
 originally published in serial weekly numbers, containing papers, 
 reviews, poems, paragraphs, etc., a large number of which were 
 never reprinted. Each number consisted of eight pages printed 
 in octavo (9 inches by $%), and sold at twopence. The first 
 number appeared on Wednesday, October 13, 1819; with No. 
 lii. (Wednesday, October 4, 1820) the first volume ends. No. liii. 
 (Wednesday, October 11, 1820) begins a new volume, which 
 terminated prematurely with No. Ixxvi. (Wednesday, March 21, 
 1821). This number is followed by an index to the twenty-four 
 numbers of the volume, and a note in which, on account of 
 ill-health, " the Indicator takes leave of his readers." These 
 seventy-six numbers, comprising the first series, " were printed 
 and published," says the colophon to each number, " by Joseph 
 
3o8 NOTES. 
 
 Appleyard, No. 19 Catherine Street, Strand ; and sold also by 
 A. Gliddon, importer of stuffs, No. 31 Tavistock Street, Covent 
 Garden." 
 
 On Saturday, July 5, 1823, there appeared the first number of 
 The Literary Examiner, a paper designed to relieve the columns 
 of The Examiner from the pressure of reviews and other 
 literary matter. The title-page is as follows : — " The Literary 
 Examiner J consisting of The Indicator, a Review of Books, 
 and Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose and Verse." (London : 
 Printed for H. L. Hunt, 38 Tavistock St., Covent Garden, 
 1823.) In this paper appeared twelve articles called " The 
 Indicator" (Nos. Ixxvii.-lxxxviii.), only the first seven of which 
 were by Hunt, Nos. Ixxxiv.-lxxxviii. being distinguished by a 
 sub-title, "For the Indicator." All these articles were con- 
 tained in the first sixteen issues of The Literary Examiner, 
 which ceased with No. xxvi., Saturday, December 27, 1823. 
 
 Meanwhile, another hand had continued the weekly issue of 
 77/1? Indicator, from the time when Hunt dropped it at No. 
 Ixxvi. ; No. Ixxvii. being sub-headed " No. i., New Series." 
 The publication continued up to No. c, and I believe beyond it. 
 Nos. Ixxvii. -xciv. were " Printed by W. Keene, No. 76, Brydges 
 Street, Covent Garden ; and published by T. Onwhyn, No. i, 
 Catherine Street, Strand." Nos. xcv.-c. bear the imprint of G. 
 Merle, 89, Strand. It was sold by the same Gliddon who 
 sold the original series. 
 
 The Companion, a periodical almost precisely similar in 
 nature to The Indicator, consisted of twenty-nine weekly num- 
 bers, each containing twice the number of pages as The 
 Indicator, and issued at double the price. The first number is 
 dated Wednesday, January 19, 1828 ; and the last, Wednesday, 
 July 23, 1828. It was published by Hunt & Clarke, York 
 Street, Covent Garden. 
 
NOTES. 3C9 
 
 The Seer; or, Co in/no fiplaces Refreihed, a collection of 
 essays in two parts, the first containing Nos. i.-xxxviii., and the 
 second Nos. xxxix.-lxvi., — was published in 1840-41 by Moxon. 
 " The following essays," it is stated in the preface, " have 
 been collected, for the first time, from such of the author's 
 periodical writings as it was thought might furnish another 
 publication like The Indicator. Most of them have been taken 
 from the London Journal ; the remainder from the Liberal, the 
 Monthly Repository, the Taller, and the Round Table." The 
 motto on the title-page, " Love adds a precious seeing to the 
 eye," explains the somewhat ambiguous signification of the 
 title. 
 
 In 1834 Leigh Hunt made a selection of all the essays he 
 considered worth preserving in the Indicator and Companion, 
 and published them in one volume with Colbourn. A second 
 reprint, in two parts, double-columned, was made by Moxon in 
 1840. It is from this volume that I have made my selections. 
 With a view to representing Hunt only by his very best work, I 
 have omitted a paragraph or passage here and there : no other 
 alteration has been made. For most of the bibliographical 
 details in this note I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. 
 Alexander Ireland (whose collection of published and inedited 
 work of Leigh Hunt is probably the most complete in existence), 
 and of Mr. J. Dykes Campbell, who also called my attention to 
 the two articles in the Keepsake, which he was thi first to 
 identify, from the original MSS. in his possession. 
 
 Page I. — Dreams on the Borders of the Land of Poetry. I am 
 not sure that Leigh Hunt does not touch his highest point 
 of style in the best parts of this paper. One fragment 
 in a lengthy essay {A Walk from Dulwich to Brockham) 
 has something of the same richness of sound and colour. 
 "A beautiful bed of poppies, as we entered Morden, glowed 
 
3IO NOTES. 
 
 in the setting sun, like the dreams of Titian. It looked like 
 a bed for Proserpina — a glow of melancholy beauty, con- 
 taining a joy perhaps beyond joy. Poppies, with their 
 dark ruby cups and crowned heads, the more than wine 
 colour of their sleepy silk, and the funeral look of their 
 anthers, seem to have a meaning about them beyond other 
 flowers. They look as if they held a mystery at their 
 hearts, like sleeping kings of Lethe." These last five 
 words contain more poetry than any five hundred lines 
 of Hunt's formal verse, charming in its gay and gracious 
 way as that often was. 
 Page 8. — Pocket-Books. The conceit of Eternity keeping a 
 pocket-book is derived from Milton's Latin poem, De Ided 
 Platonicd, alluded to in the text. Hunt gives in a foot- 
 note a beautiful version of the lines in question : — 
 
 " And thou, that in some antre vast, 
 Leaning afar off dost lie, 
 Otiose Eternity, 
 
 Keeping the tablets and decrees 
 Of love, and the ephemerides 
 Of the gods, and calendars 
 Of the ever festal stars." 
 
 Page 35. — The Fair Revenge. " The elements of this story," 
 says Hunt, "are to be found in the old poem called Albton''s 
 England." Shelley, with his instinct for the exquisite, 
 " took to the story," Hunt tells us {Autobiography, ch. xvi.). 
 The conclusion especially, and above all the last five 
 sentences, can scarcely be over-praised for delicacy and 
 suggestiveness of touch. Is it fanciful to think that there 
 is something, in the quiet charm of narrative, reminding 
 one of the exquisite little masterpieces, such as Denys 
 PAuxerrois or Sebastian van Storck, produced in our day 
 by a writer whose reticence, compression, and careful 
 felicity of workmanship stand in the very strongest contrast 
 to Hunt's easy fluency and diffuse luxuriance of grace .'' 
 
 Page 41. — Deaths of Little Children. This grave and tender 
 essay was a favourite with Charles Lamb. 
 
NOTES. 311 
 
 Page 52. — On (he Graces and Anxieties of Pig-Drivi7ig. "I 
 could never understand to this moment," writes Hunt, 
 " what it is that made the editor of a magazine reject an 
 article which I wrote, with the mock-heroical title of "The 
 Graces and Anxieties of Pig-Driving." I used to think he 
 found something vulgar in the title. He declared that it 
 was not he who rejected it, but the proprietor of the maga- 
 zine. The proprietor, on the other hand, declared that it 
 was not he who rejected it, but the editor. I published it 
 in a magazine of my own, The Companion^ and found it 
 hailed as one of my best pieces of writing" {^Autobiography, 
 ch. xxiii.). One testimony to this effect occurs in a letter of 
 Carlyle to Hunt, dated Craigenputtoch, April 8th, 1834. 
 Carlyle calls the paper " a most tickling, thing ; not a word 
 of which I can remember, only the whole 7^;^/ of it, pic- 
 tured in such subquizzical sweet-acid geniality of mockery, 
 stands here, and, among smaller and greater things, will 
 stand." 
 
 Page 55. — An Earth upon Heaven. Suggested, as is intimated 
 in the first sentence, by Hazlitt's famous essay on " Persons 
 one would wish to have known." 
 
 Page 59. — A " Now." " The paper that was most liked by 
 Keats, if I remember, was the one on a hot summer's day, 
 entitled 'A Now.' He was with me when I was writing 
 and reading it to him, and contributed one or two of the 
 passages." {Autobiography, ch. xvi.) 
 
 Page 67. — Realities of Imagination. This fine essay, some 
 parts of it particularly fine, is expanded and disfigured, in 
 its original form, by two lengthy digressions, containing a 
 long extract from Milton's " Comus," and another longer 
 one from Ben Jonson. These extraneous paragraphs I 
 have omitted. 
 
 Page 103. — Shaking Hands. The person last mentioned was 
 Hazlitt. 
 
 Page 105. — Coaches. The hero of the Irish post-chaise incident 
 was Shelley. The MS. poem purporting to be written by 
 Lucy V L (Lucy Vaughan Lloyd) was written by 
 
3T2 NOTES. 
 
 Keats. Anyone who is curious to know more of the 
 collegiate stage-coachman, Bobart, will find a i&^ more 
 particulars about him in the Autobiography ^ ch. v. This 
 paper was a favourite with Lamb. 
 
 Page 128. — The Daughter of Hippocrates. "This story," says 
 Leigh Hunt, " is founded on a tradition still preserved in 
 the Island of Cos, and repeated in old romances and books 
 of travels. See Dunlop's History of Fiction^ vol. ii., where 
 he gives an account of Tira7iie the White.^'' 
 
 Page 144. — Tea-Drinking. This capital little paper forms the 
 latter half of the second number of the series named 
 Breakfast in Sunwier. 
 
 Page 149. — A Few Thoughts on Sleep. " Hazlitt's favourite 
 paper (in the Indicator) was the one on Sleep ; perhaps 
 because there is a picture in it of a sleeping despot ; 
 though he repeated, with more enthusiasm than he was 
 wont to do, the conclusion about the parent and the bride." 
 {Autobiography, ch. xvi.) 
 
 Page 174. — Bricklayers and an old Book. The book is 
 Bochart's Geographia Sacra, Leyden, 1707. I have 
 omitted the prosy and not too pertinent conclusion which 
 spoils the essay in its original form ; but I should be sorry 
 altogether to lose from this volume the prize bull, as Hunt 
 justly calls it, which it encloses. Hunt himself was so 
 fond of the story that he introduced it in one or two 
 other places. "An Irish labourer laid a wager with 
 another that the latter could not carry him up the ladder to 
 the top of a house in his hod, without letting him fall. 
 The hod is occupied, the ladder ascended, there is peril at 
 every step. Above all, there is life and the loss of the 
 wager at the top of the ladder, death and success below ! 
 The house-top is reached in safety ; the wagerer looks 
 humbled and disappointed. 'Well,' said he 'you have 
 won ; there is no doubt of that ; worse luck to you 
 another time ; but at the third storey I had hopes. ^^ 
 
NOTES. 313 
 
 Page \y<^.— Thieves. After the story of the Cid's illustrious 
 theft, Hunt adds, in a foot-note too good to be lost, " See 
 Mr. Southey's excellent compilation, entitled. The Chronicle 
 of the Cid^ book iii., sec. 21. The version at the end of the 
 book, attributed to Mr. Hookham Frere, of a passage out 
 of the Poema del Cid, is the most native and terse bit 
 of translation we ever met with. It rides along, like the 
 Cid himself on horseback, with an infinite mixture of ardour 
 and self-possession ; bending, when it chooses, with grace, 
 or bearing down everything with mastery." 
 
 Page 215. — teamen on Shore. This essay gains, I think, 
 greatly by the omission of the original concluding para- 
 graph, introducing a hackneyed quotation from Chaucer. 
 
 Page 221. — Social Genealogy. I have given only the first part 
 — a small proportion — of this paper. The remaining 
 portion — " the authorities for our intellectual pedigree " — 
 contains little of interest or novelty. 
 
 Page 235. — Of Dreams. I have omitted the excerpt of 
 Coleridge's Pains of Sleep, with the digression relating 
 to it. The essay was written when Coleridge's poems 
 were considered, as Hunt says, "too imaginative to be 
 understood by the critics," and when the poem would have 
 all the efifect of unfamiliarity. 
 
 Page 269. — Meinories of the Metropolis. The "eminent writer 
 on legislation" was Bentham ; the "celebrated critic and 
 metaphysician," Hazlitt. The two scholars of Christ 
 Hospital were Coleridge and Lamb. 
 
 Page 274. — Secret of some E.vistijig Fashions. The "polished 
 old gentleman " who is seen conversing with the " most 
 agreeable of physicians," is George IV., and the physician, 
 Sir William Knighton. 
 
 Page 277. — Thoughts and Guesses on Human Nature. This 
 paper was a favourite with Lamb. 
 
 Page 286. — My Books. This paper was written during Hunt's 
 residence in Italy. The initials, "\V. H.," stand for 
 William Hazlitt; " N." stands for Vincent Novello ; 
 " H. R." indicates Henry Robinson, the treasurer of 
 
314 AZOTES. 
 
 Covent Garden Theatre, an old friend of Hunt's ; " C. L." 
 is of course Charles Lamb. I may give here, as an 
 appropriate conclusion to these jottings, and an apt 
 epilogue to the volume. Lamb's sonnet to Hunt, published 
 in the Indicator, near the beginning of an essay on 
 Coinmenda'ory Verses. 
 
 TO MY FRIEND THE INDICATOR. 
 
 " Your easy essays indicate a flow, 
 Dear friend, of brain, wliich we may elsewhere seek ; 
 And to their pages I, and hundreds, owe 
 That Wednesday is the sweetest of tlie week. 
 Such observation, wit, and sense, are shown, 
 We think the days of BickerstafF returned ; 
 And that a portion of that oil you own. 
 In his undying midniglit lamp which burned. 
 I would not lightly bruise old Priscian's liead. 
 Or wrong the rules of grammar understood ; 
 But, with the leave of Priscian be it said, 
 The Indicative is your Potential Mood. 
 Wit, poet, prose-man, party-man, translator — 
 Hunt, your best title yet is Indicator." 
 
 —Charles Lamr 
 
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