THE FRIENDLY "I TOWN EDW.V. LUCAS ft 7J 96 THE BALLAD OF BOUILLABAISSE W. M. Thackeray. 97 OLD VEUVE .... George Meredith . IOO To R. A. M. S. W. E. Henley 1 02 CLARET John Keats . 103 AN AGED AND A GREAT WINK George Meredith . 104 -ANOTHER INVITATION Anon . 107 SIR PETER .... T. L. Peacock 108 THE POPE .... S. Lover . . 109 "MIDNIGHT DARLINGS" CANDLE-LIGHT Charles Lamb H3 BALLADE OF THE BOOKWORM . Andrew Lang "5 MY BOOKS .... Austin Dob son 116 To LIVE MERRILY . A'. Herrick . 117 ODE ON THE POETS. J. Keats 119 THE POET .... Sir Philip Sidney . 121 READING . Charles Lamb . 122 PAGE OLD BOOKS ARE BEST Beverly Cheiv 123 A WISH T. E. Brown 123 CHAUCER H. W. Longfellow . 124 ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAP- MAN'S HOMER John Keats . 124 THE ODYSSEY .... Andrew Lang 125 SOPHOCLES .... Greek Anthology . 126 ARISTOPHANES .... 126 126 MELEAGER .... > 127 W S. Landor 127 T E. Brown 128 To SIR HENRY GOODYERE Ben Jonson . 128 DUMAS W. M. Thackeray . 129 HAZLITT'S WAY W. Hazlitt . 130 " FOR HUMAN DELIGHT " E. FitzGerald 135 To THE GENTLE READER Andrew Lang 136 MUSIC AND PAINTING WlND-MUSIQUE Samuel Pepys 141 WITH A GUITAR TO JANE P. B. Shelley 141 EVEN TAVERN-MUSICKE . Sir T. Browne 145 DURING Music J. B. B. Nichols . MS SONG William Strode 147 AT A SOLEMN Music John Milton . 147 MlSS LlNLEY .... C. R. Leslie . 149 BEETHOVEN AND MOZART E. FitzGerald 150 BACH'S ORGAN WORKS . T. E. Brown 151 THE LITTLE FLOWER-POT Samuel Pepys 151 JAMES ELI A, CONNOISSEUR . Charles Lamb , 152 PACK A PORTRAIT .... Thomas Dekker . 1 54 F FitzGerald . 154 SIR JOSHUA .... W. Hazlitt . .155 RUBENS W. M. Thackeray . 1 57 THOMSON AND THE PAINTERS . W. H. Pyne . 159 THE PLAY SALATHIEL PAVY Ben Jonson . . 165 AN EXCELLENT ACTOR . Sir T. Overbury . 1 66 NELL GWYNN .... Samuel Pepys . 167 MRS. MOUNTFORT . Colley Gibber . 168 SIR ROGER AT THE PLAY J. Addison . . 171 DAVY Charles Dibdin . 174 MRS. JORDAN .... Leigh Hunt . .174 > .... Charles Lamb . 176 MUNDEN ..... 177 CHARLES KEMBLE . Fanny Kemble . 178 MRS. SIDDONS .... John Wilson . .179 EDMUND KEAN W. Hazlitt . .180 ... Fanny Kemble . 181 ELLEN TERRY .... Anna Gannon . 182 THE DANCERS .... W.M.Thackeray. 183 DUCROW John Wilson. . 184 YOUTH IN THE CITY SALLY IN OUR ALLEY Henry Carey . 189 A BALLAD UPON A WEDDING. Sir John Suckling . 191 THE CHRONICLE A. Cowky . . 196 (1 H. Williams . 199 THE CANE-BOTTOMED CHAIR . W. M. Thackeray. 200 JENNY KISS'D ME HESTER Leigh Hunt . Charles Lamb . 203 . 203 YOUTH AND ART R. Browning . 205 BRIDGET AND THE FOLIO Charles Lamb . 208 A CREDO W. M. Thackeray . 209 "ToM AND JERRY" )> . 211 EPIGRAM W. S. Landor . 212 To MINERVA . Thomas Hood . 212 THE TAVERN THE DEAD HOST'S WELCOME . John Fletcher 215 A TAVERN SCENE . Shakespeare . . 216 VERSES AT THE DEVIL TAVERN Ben Jonson . . 219 To BEN JONSON R. Herrick . . 219 THE MERMAID TAVERN . /. Keats . 220 MR. GALLASPY T. Amory . 221 GLORIOUS JOHN Sir Waller Scott . 222 DR. JOHNSON'S TAVERN WISDOM James Boswell . 22S LAVENGRO AT THE HOLY LANDS George Borrow . 226 THE CONNIVING-HOUSE . T. Amory . 228 THE PAST APRIL 30, 1667 Samuel Pepys 2 3 I ON A FLY-LEAF Walter Learned 231 THE EIGHT-DAY CLOCK . Alfred Cochrane 233 To SPRING GARDENS J. Addison . 235 Austin Dobson 237 THE MUFFIN-MAN . A.J. . . 239 WHEN WE WERE POOR . Charles Lamb . 241 LONDON PAGE THI: LAST LEAF . O. II'. Holmes . 242 WALPOLE'S VIEW . . . Horace IValpole . 247 BLOOMSBURY .... Wilfred Whitten . 249 HAZLITT s VIEW . . . IV. Hazlitt . . 250 NOVEMBER BLUE . . . Mrs. Meynell . 253 AN ISLAND OF QUIET . . N. Hawthorne . 253 ST. JAMES'S STREET . . F. Locker Lampson 254 THE THAMES .... Stephen Gwynn . 257 WESTMINSTER BRIDGE . . W. Words-worth . 258 FERDINAND DISCOVERS LONDON B.Disraeli . . 258 THE CITY AT NIGHT . . Thomas Carlyle . 261 A SONG OF FLEET STREET . Alice Werner . 263 TWO LONDONERS JOHNSON AND HIS BOSWELL . James Boswell . 267 GOOD TOWNSMEN JOLLY JACK . . . . W. M. Thackeray . 277 THE TRAVELLING TAILOR . Thornton and Col- man . . .279 BEAU TIBBS .... Oliver Goldsmith . 281 CHARLES LAMB . . . W. Hazlitt . . 283 MRS. BATTLE .... Charles Lamb . 285 FITZPATRICK SMART, ESQ. . /. Hill Burton . 288 JEM WHITS .... Charles Lamb . 294 W /. R. Lowell. . 297 WHITTLE AND SARRATT . . W. Hazlitt . . 300 J. F. . . . '. . / R. Lowell. . 301 PAGE W. Hazlitt . . 303 XAVIER MARMIER . O. Uzanne . . 306 SIR ROGER'S DEATH J. Addison . . 309 THE CURE'S PROGRESS . Austin Dobson . 313 THE COURTLY POETS A MOST NOBLE LADY John Heywood (?) . 317 SONG Anon. . . -319 "THERE is NONE" . Robert, Earl of Essex . . 320 To CELIA .... Ben Jonson . -321 ON A GIRDLE .... Edmund Waller . 321 To ALTHEA .... Richard Lovelace . 322 AN EXCELLENT NEW BALLAD. fames, Marquis of Montrose . . 323 To LUCASTA .... Richard Lovelace . 325 GRATIANA DANCING 325 To HIS COY MISTRESS Andrew Marvel! . 326 ON A HALFPENNY . . Henry Fielding . 328 AN ELEGY .... William Browne . 329 AN EPITAPH .... Ben Jonson . . 329 LOVE AND AGE T. L, Peacock . 330 E. G. DE R THE POST To HIS SON VINCENT CORBET. R. Corbet . . 335 To LADY MARGARET CAVEN- DISH HOLLES-HARLEY . Mat. Prior . . 336 To A CHILD OF QUALITY . 336 STEELE'S WAY .... Sir R. Steeh . 338 xiv PAGE STELLA'S BIRTHDAY. . . J. Swift . . 341 To MR. THOMAS SOUTHERNE . A. Pope . . 341 WALPOLE'S WAY . . . Horace Walpole . 342 VINNY BOURNE . . . W. Cowper . . 345 THE CANDIDATE ... ,, 346 KEATS'S WAY . . . . /. Keats . . 348 A POET'S SON .... Charles Lamb . 350 RURAL DEATH-IN-LIFE ,, . 353 SYDNEY SMITH'S WAY . . Sydney Smith . 355 JEREMY TAYLOR'S WAY . . Jeremy Taylor . 356 THE WISE MEN Vixi L. S. . . .358 THE CANON'S MAXIMS . . Sydney Smith . 359 HORACE, BOOK n. ODE x. . IV. Cowper . . 360 CONTENTMENT . . . O. W. Holmes . 362 THE WORLD . . . . H. Walpole . . 364 THE MAN OF LIFE UPRIGHT . Thomas Campion . 366 OF A CONTENTED MIND . . Thomas Lord Vanx 367 MY MlND TO ME A KINGDOM is Sir Edward Dyer . 368 No ARMOUR AGAINST FATE . J. Shirley . . 370 EPIGRAM W. S. Landor . 371 LIFE A. L. Barbanld . 371 THE END W. E. HenLy . 37:5 AWAKENING THE MEADOWS IN SPRING . E. FitzGerald . 375 OLD OCTOBER Hail, old October, bright and chill, First freedman from the summer sun ! Spice high the bowl, and drink your fill ! Thank heaven, at last the summer's done ! Come, friend, my fire is burning bright, A fire's no longer out of place, How clear it glows ! (there's frost to-night,) It looks white winter in the face. You've been to " Richard." Ah! you've seen A noble play : I'm glad you went ; But what on earth does Shakespeare mean By "winter of our discontent " ? Be mine the Tree that feeds the fire ! Be mine the sun knows when to set ! Be mine the months when friends desire To turn in here from cold and wet ! The sentry sun, that glared so long O'erhead, deserts his summer post ; Ay, you may brew it hot and strong : "The joys of winter " come, a toast ! Shine on the kangaroo, thou sun ! Make far New Zealand faint with fear ! Don't hurry back to spoil our fun, Thank goodness, old Octpber's here ! Thomas Constable. Winter Nights & ^> *> o o "\ T OW winter nights enlarge ^ ^ The number of their hours ; And clouds their storms discharge Upon the airy towers. Let now the chimneys blaze And cups o'erflow with wine, Let well-tuned words amaze With harmony divine ! Now yellow waxen lights Shall wait on honey love, While youthful revels, masques, and Courtly sights Sleep's leaden spells remove. This time doth well dispense With lovers' long discourse ; Much speech hath some defence, Though beauty no remorse. All do not all things well : Some measures comely tread, Some knotted riddles tell, Some poems smoothly read. 3 The summer hath his joys, And winter his delights ; Though love and all his pleasures are but toys, They shorten tedious nights. Thomas Campion. The Preludings o o o o & THE preludings of Winter are as beautiful as those of the Spring. In a grey December day, when, as the farmers say, it is too cold to snow, his numbed fingers will let fall doubtfully a few star-shaped flakes, the snowdrops or the anemones that harbinger his more assured reign. Now, and now only, may be seen, heaped on the horizon's eastern edge, those "blue clouds" from forth which Shakespeare says that Mars "doth pluck the masoned turrets." Sometimes also, when the sun is low, you will see a single cloud trailing a flurry of snow along the southern hills in a wavering fringe of purple. And when at last the real snow- storm comes, it leaves the earth with a virginal look on it that no other of the seasons can rival, compared with which, indeed, they seem soiled and vulgar. And what is there in nature so beautiful as the next morning after such confusion of the elements ? Night has no silence like this of a busy day. All the batteries of noise are spiked. We see the movement of life as a deaf man sees it, a mere wraith of the clamorous 4 existence that inflicts itself on our ears when the ground is bare. The earth is clothed in innocence as a garment. Every wound of the landscape is healed ; whatever was stiff has been sweetly rounded as the breast of Aphrodite ; what was unsightly has been covered gently with a soft splendour, as if, Cowley would have said, Nature had cleverly let fall her handkerchief to hide it. If the Virgin (Notre Dame de la Neige) were to come back, here is an earth that would not bruise her foot, nor stain it. It is " The fanned snow That's bolted by the northern blasts twice o'er ; Soffiata e stretta dai venti Schiavi, \Vmnowed and packed by the Sclavonian winds," packed so hard sometimes on hill-slopes that it will bear your weight. What grace is in all the curves, as if every one of them had been swept by that inspired thumb of Phidias's journeyman. /. R. Lowell. Winter *> *> > o o o o "\ I 7" HAT heart could have thought of you ? ^ * Past our devisal (O filigree petal !) Fashioned so purely, Fragilely, surely, 6 From what Paradisal Imagineless metal, Too costly for cost ? Who hammered you, wrought you, From argentine vapour? " God was my shaper. Passing surmisal, He hammered, He wrought me, From curled silver vapour, To lust of His mind : Thou couldst not have thought me i So purely, so palely, Tinily, surely, Mightily, frailly, Insculped and embossed, With His hammer of wind, And His graver of frost." Francis Thompson. The Snow- Walkers o o *o- o T T E who marvels at the beauty of the world in * * summer will find equal cause for wonder and admiration in winter. It is true the pomp and the pageantry are swept away, but the essential elements remain, the day and the night, the mountain and the valley, the elemental play and succession and the perpetual presence of the infinite sky. In winter the 7 stars seem to have rekindled their fires, the moon achieves a fuller triumph, and the heavens wear a look of more exalted simplicity. Summer is more wooing and seductive, more versatile and human, appeals to the affections and the sentiments, and fosters inquiry and the art impulse. Winter is of a more heroic cast, and addresses the intellect. The severe studies and disciplines come easier in the winter. One imposes larger tasks upon himself, and is less tolerant of his own weaknesses. The tendinous part of the mind, so to speak, is more developed in winter : the fleshy, in summer. I should say winter had given the bone and sinew to Literature, summer the tissues and the blood. The simplicity of winter has a deep moral. The return of Nature, after such a career of splen- dour and prodigality, to habits so simple and austere, is not lost either upon the head or the heart. It is the philosopher coming back from the banquet and the wine to a cup of water and a crust of bread. John Burroughs, The Winter Glass > o o o 'T'HEN let the chill Sirocco blow, And gird us round with hills of snow ; Or else go whistle to the shore, And make the hollow mountains roar, 8 Whilst we together jovial sit Careless, and crown'd with mirth and wit ; Where though bleak winds confine us home. Our fancies round the world shall roam. We'll think of all the friends we know, And drink to all worth drinking to : When having drank all thine and mine, We rather shall want health than wine. But where friends fail us, we'll supply Our friendships with our charity. Men that remote in sorrows live, Shall by our lusty brimmers thrive. We'll drink the wanting into wealth, And those that languish into health, The afflicted into joy, th' opprest Into security and rest. The worthy in disgrace shall find Favour return again more kind, And in restraint who stifled lie, Shall taste the air of liberty. The brave shall triumph in success, The lovers shall have mistresses, Poor unregarded virtue praise, And the neglected poet bays. 9 Thus shall our healths do others good, Whilst we ourselves do all we would ; For freed from envy and from care, What would we be but what we are ? 'Tis the plump grape's immortal juice That does this happiness produce, And will preserve us free together, Maugre mischance, or wind and weather. Then let old Winter take his course, And roar abroad till he be hoarse, And his lungs crack with ruthless ire, It shall but serve to blow our fire. Let him our little castle ply With all his loud artillery, Whilst sack and claret man the fort, His fury shall become our sport. Or, let him Scotland take, and there Confine the plotting Presbyter ; His zeal may freeze, whilst we, kept warm With love and wine, can know no harm. Charles Cotton. 10 At the Sign of the Jolly Jack o - "W'OU merry folk, be of good cheer, * For Christmas comes but once a year. From open door you'll take no harm By winter if your hearts are warm ; So ope the door, and hear us carol The burthen of our Christmas moral Be ye merry and make good cheer, For Christmas comes but once a year ; Scrape the fiddle and beat the drum, And bury the night ere morning come. There was an inn beside a track, As it might be, the Jolly Jack ; Upon a night, whate'er its name, There kept they Christmas all the same. They sit in jovial round at table, While Christ was lying in the stable. They make merry and have good cheer, For Christmas comes but once a year ; They scrape the fiddle and beat the drum, And they'll bury the night ere morning come. The jolly landlord stands him up, And welcomes all to bite and sup ; He has a hearty face and red, He knows not Who lies in his shed. What harm, if he be honest and true, That he may be Christ's landlord too ? II So he makes merry and has good cheer, For Christmas comes but once a year ; He scrapes his fiddle and beats his drum, And he'll bury the night ere morning come. The landlord's son sits in his place, He bows his head and says his grace ; He leads his partner to the dance, And the light of love is in his glance. If his thoughts are handsome as his face, What matter if Christ be in the place ? So he makes merry and has good cheer, For Christmas comes but once a year ; He scrapes his riddle and beats his drum, And he'll bury the night ere morning come. Of all the folk that night, I ween, Some were honest and some were mean ; If all were honest, 'twas well for all, For Christ was sleeping in the stall. But never may Englishmen so fare That they at Christmas should forbear To make them merry and have good cheer, For Christmas comes but once a year ; To scrape the fiddle and beat the drum, And bury the night ere morning come. Geojfrey Smith. 12 To his Saviour, a Child ; A Present, by a Child O, prettie child, and beare this Flower Unto thy little Saviour ; And tell Him, by that Bud now blown, He is the Rose of Sharon known : When thou hast said so, stick it there Upon His Bibb, or Stomacher : And tell Him (for good handsell too) That thou hast bought a Whistle new, Made of a clean straight oaten reed, To charme His cries (at time of need) Tell Him, for Corall, thou hast none ; But if thou hadst, He sho'd have one ; But poore thou art, and known to be Even as monilesse as He. Lastly, if thou canst win a kisse From those mellifluous lips of His ; Then never take a second on, To spoile the first impression. Robert Herrick. Old Christmas o o o o O now is come our joyful'st feast ; Let every man be jolly. Each room with ivy-leaves is dress'd, And every post with holly. 13 Though some churls at our mirth repine, Round your foreheads garlands twine, Drown sorrow in a cup of wine, And let us all be merry. Now all our neighbours' chimneys smoke, And Christmas blocks are burning ; Their ovens they with baked meats choke. And all their spits are turning. Without the door let sorrow lie, And if for cold it hap to die, We'll bury 't in a Christmas pie, And evermore be merry. Now every lad is wondrous trim, And no man minds his labour ; Our lasses have provided them A bag-pipe and a tabor. Young men and maids, and girls and boys s Give life to one another's joys, And you anon shall by their noise Perceive that they are merry. Rank misers now do sparing shun, Their hall of music soundeth, And dogs thence with whole shoulders run, So all things there aboundeth. The country-folks themselves advance, With crowdy-muttons come out of France ; And Jack shall pipe, and Jill shall dance, And all the town be merry. '4 Ned Swash hath fetch'd his bands from pawn, And all his best apparel ; Brisk Nell hath bought a ruff of lawn With droppings of the barrel ; And those that hardly all the year Had bread to eat or rags to wear, Will have both clothes and dainty fare, And all the day be merry. Now poor men to the justices With capons make their arrants, And if they hap to fail of these They plague them with their warrants. But now they feed them with good cheer, And what they want they take in beer, For Christmas comes but once a year, And then they shall be merry. Good farmers in the country nurse The poor, that else were undone. Some landlords spend their money worse. On lust and pride in London. There the roysters they do play, Drab and dice their lands away, Which may be ours another day, And therefore let's be merry. The client now his suit forbears, The prisoner's heart is eased, The debtor drinks away his cares, And for the time is pleased. 15 Though others' purses be more fat, Why should we pine or grieve at that? Hang sorrow, care will kill a cat, And therefore let's be merry ! Hark now the wags abroad do call Each other forth to rambling ; Anon you'll see them in the hall, For nuts and apples scrambling. Hark how the roofs with laughter sound I Anon they'll think the house goes round, For they the cellar's depth have found, And there they will be merry. The wenches with their wassail bowls About the streets are singing, The boys are come to catch the owls, The wild mare in is bringing. Our kitchen-boy hath broke his box, And to the dealing of the ox Our honest neighbours come by flocks, And here they will be merry. Now kings and queens poor sheepcotes have, And mate with everybody ; The honest now may play the knave, And wise men play at noddy. Some youths will now a-mumming go, Some others play at rowland-hoe, And twenty other gameboys, moe, Because they will be merry. 16 Then wherefore, in these merry days, Should we, I pray, be duller ? No ; let us sing some roundelays To make our mirth the fuller. And, whilst inspired thus we sing, Let all the streets with echoes ring ; Woods and hills, and everything, Bear witness we are merry. George Wither, The Mahogany Tree o CHRISTMAS is here : ^-" Winds whistle shrill, Icy and chill, Little care we : Little we fear Weather without, Sheltered about The Mahogany Tree. Once on the boughs Birds of rare plume Sang, in its bloom ; Night-birds are we : Here we carouse, Singing like them, Perched round the stem Of the jolly old tree. Here let us sport, Boys, as we bit ; Laughter and wit Flashing so free. Life is but short- When we are gone. Let them sing on Round the old tree. Evenings we knew, Happy as this ; Faces we miss, Pleasant to see. Kind hearts and true, Gentle and just, Peace to your dust ! We sing round the tree Care, like a dun, Lurks at the gate : Let the dog wait ; Happy we'll be ! Drink, every one ; Pile up the coals, Fill the red bowls Round the old tree ! Drain we the cup. Friend, art afraid ? Spirits are laid In the Red Sea. 18 Mantle it up ; Empty it yet ; Let us forget, Round the old tree. Sorrows, begone ! Life and its ills, Duns and their bills, Bid we to flee. Come with the dawn, Blue-devil sprite, Leave us to-night Round the old tree. William Makepeace Thackeray. Ceremonies for Christmasse -o o /~*OME, bring with a noise, ^-' My merrie, merrie boyes, The Christmas Log to the firing ; While my good Dame, she Bids ye all be free ; And drink to your hearts' desiring. With the last yeere's brand Light the new block, and For good successe in his spending, On your Psaltries play, That sweet luck may Come while the Log is a-tending. '9 Drink now the strong Beere, Cut the white loafe here, The while the meat is a-shredding ; For the rare Mince-Pie And the Plums stand by To fill the Paste that's a-kneading. Robert Herrick. Dr. Opimian on Christmas -> o o T MYSELF think much of Christmas and all its -^ associations. I always dine at home on Christ- mas Day, and measure the steps on my children's heads on the wall, and see how much higher each of them has risen since the same time last year, in the scale of physical life. There are many poetical charms in the heraldings of Christmas. The halcyon builds its nest on the tranquil sea. " The bird of dawning singeth all night long." I have never verified either of these poetical facts. I am willing to take them for granted. I like the idea of the Yule- log, the enormous block of wood carefully selected long before, and preserved where it would be thoroughly dry, which burned in the old-fashioned hearth. It would not suit the stoves of our modern saloons. We could not burn it in our kitchens, where a small fire in the midst of a mass of black iron roasts, and bakes, and boils, and steams, and broils, 20 and fries, by a complicated apparatus which, what- ever may be its other virtues, leaves no space for a Christmas fire. I like the festoons of holly on the walls and windows ; the dance under the mistletoe ; the gigantic sausage ; the baron of beef ; the vast globe of plum-pudding, the true image of the earth, flattened at the poles ; the tapping of the old October ; the inexhaustible bowl 01" punch ; the life and joy of the old hall, when the squire and his household and his neighbourhood were as one. I like the idea of what has gone, and I can still enjoy the reality of what remains. I have no doubt Harry's father burns the Yule-log, and taps the old October. Perhaps, instead of the beef, he produces a fat pig roasted whole, like Eumaeus, the divine swineherd in the Odyssey. Thomas Love Peacock. (" Gryll Grange.") Christmas Merrymaking o o o *~nHE fire with well-dried logs supplied * Went roaring up the chimney wide ; The huge hall-table's oaken face, Scrubbed till it shone, the day to grace, Bore then upon its massive board No mark to part the squire and lord. Then was brought in the lusty brawn By old blue-coated serving man ; 21 Then the grim boar's-head frowned on high, Crested with bay and rosemary. Well can the green -garbed ranger tell How, when, and where the monster fell, What dogs before his death he tore, And all the baiting of the boar. The wassail round, in good brown bowls, Garnished with ribbons blithely trowls. There the huge sirloin reeked ; hard by Plum-porridge stood and Christmas pie ; Nor failed old Scotland to produce At such high-tide her savoury goose. Then came the merry masquers in, And carols roared with blithesome din ; If unmelodious was the song, It was a hearty note and strong. Who lists may in their mumming see Traces of ancient mystery ; White shirts supplied the masquerade, And smutted cheeks the visors made : But oh ! what masquers richly dight Can boast of bosoms half so light ! England was merry England when Old Christmas brought his sports again. ''Twas Christmas broached the mightiest ale, 'Twas Christmas told the merriest tale ; A Christmas gambol oft would cheer The poor man's heart through half the year. Sir Walter Scott, 22 FRIENDS AND THE FIRE Reading ends in melancholy ! Wine breeds vices and diseases ! Wealth's but a care, and Love but folly ; Only Friendship truly pleases ! My wealth, my books, my flask, my MOLLY, Farewell all, if Friendship ceases ! Matthew Prior. Conversation is but carving ; Give no more to every guest Than he's able to digest ; Give him always of the prime, And but a little at a time ; Give to all but just enough, Let them neither starve nor stuff, And that each may have his due, Let your neighbour carve for you. Sir Walter Scott. My friend, what you said to me about the smoking - cell vibrated to my very heart, as worthy of the kindness which, for many years and upon many subjects, you had professed, and you had felt, and you had practically manifested towards my- self. So, into the little room, of which you spoke so courteously. I will come; talk unreservedly, cheerfully, and abundantly upon anything or nothing ; and fumigate the ceiling from the hot, and copious, and fragrant exhalations of my pipe. Dr. Parr. To my Worthy Friend, Master T. Lewes o EES not my friend, what a deep snow Candies our country's woody brow ? The yielding branch his load scarce bears, Oppress'd with snow and frozen tears ; While the dumb rivers slowly float, All bound up in an icy coat. Let us meet then ! and while this world In wild eccentrics now is hurl'd, Keep we, like nature, the same key, And walk in our forefathers' way. Why any more cast we an eye On what may come, not what is nigh ? Why vex ourselves with fear or hope, And cares beyond our horoscope ? Who into future times would peer, Looks oft beyond his time set here, And cannot go into those grounds But through a churchyard, which them bounds. Sorrows and sighs and searches spend, And draw our bottom to an end, But discreet joys lengthen the lease, Without which life were a disease ; 25 And who this age a mourner goes, Doth with his tears but feed his foes. Henry Vaughan. Heraclitus (After Callimachus) o o o '"PHEY told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were *- dead, They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed. I wept as I remembered how often you and I Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky. \ And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest, A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest, Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake ; For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take. William Cory. To Mr. Lawrence o o o o *e> /""'YRIACK, whose grandsire, on the royal bench ^-' Of British Themis, with no mean applause Pronounc'd, and in his volumes taught, our laws, Which others at their bar so often wrench ; To-day deep thoughts resolve with me to drench In mirth, that after no repenting draws ; Let Euclid rest, and Archimedes pause, And what the Swede intend, and what the French. To measure life learn thou betimes, and know Toward solid good what leads the nearest way ; For other things mild Heav'n a time ordains, And disapproves that care, though wise in show, That with superfluous burden loads the day, And, when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains. /. Milton. 27 Mr. William Hervey MY sweet companion, and my gentle peer, Why hast thou left me thus unkindly here, Thy end for ever, and my life, to moan ? O thou hast left me all alone ! Thy soul and body, when death's agony Besieged around thy noble heart, Did not with more reluctance part Than I, my dearest friend, do part from thee. Ye fields of Cambridge, our dear Cambridge, say, Have ye not seen us walking every day ? Was there a tree about which did not know The love betwixt us two ? Henceforth, ye gentle trees, for ever fade, Or your sad branches thicker join, And into darksome shades combine, Dark as the grave wherein my friend is laid. Large was his soul ; as large a soul as e'er Submitted to inform a body here ; High as the place 'twas shortly in Heaven to have, But low and humble as his grave ; So high that all the virtues there did come As to the chiefest seat Conspicuous, and great ; So low that for me too it made a room. 28 Knowledge he only sought, and so soon caught, As if for him knowledge had rather sought ; Nor did more learning ever crowded lie In such a short mortality. Whene'er the skilful youth discoursed or writ, Still did the notions throng About his eloquent tongue ; Nor could his ink flow faster than his wit. His mirth was the pure spirits of various wit, Yet never did his God or friends forget; And when deep talk and wisdom came in view, Retired, and gave to them their due. For the rich help of books he always took, Though his own searching mind before Was so with notions written o'er, As if wise Nature had made that her book. With as much zeal, devotion, piety, He always lived, as other saints do die. Still with his soul severe account he kept, Weeping all debts out ere he slept. Then down in peace and innocence he lay, Like the sun's laborious light, Which still in water sets at night, Unsullied with his journey of the day. But happy thou, ta'en from this frantic age, Where ignorance and hypocrisy does rage I A fitter time for heaven no soul ere chose, The place now only free from those. . 2 9 There 'mong the blest thou dost for ever shine, And wheresoe'er thou cast thy view Upon that white and radiant crew, See'st not a soul cloth'd with more light than thine. Abraham Cowley. Friends \7OU ask me " why I like him." Nay, - I cannot ; nay, I would not, say. I think it vile to pigeonhole The pros and cons of a kindred soul. You " wonder he should be my friend." But then why should you comprehend ? Thank God for this a new surprise : My eyes, remember, are not your eyes. Cherish this one small mystery ; And marvel not that love can be ' In spite of all his many flaws." In spite ? Supposing I said " Because." A truce, a truce to questioning : " We two are friends " tells everything. Yet if you must know, this is why : Because he is he and I am I. E. V. L. 3 Mimnermus in Church o o o < YOU promise heavens free from strife, Pure truth, and perfect change of will ; But sweet, sweet is this human life, So sweet, I fain would breathe it still. Your chilly stars I can forego, This warm kind world is all 1 know. You say there is no substance here, One great reality above : Back from that void I shrink in fear, And child-like hide myself in love : Show me what angels feel. Till then, I cling, a mere weak man, to men. You bid me lift my mean desires From faltering lips and fitful veins To sexless souls, ideal quires, Unwearied voices, wordless strains : My mind with fonder welcome owns One dear dead friend's remembered tones. Forsooth the present we must give To that which cannot pass away ; All beauteous things for which we live By laws of time and space decay. But oh, the very reason why I clasp them, is because they die. William Cory. 3 1 By the Fireside -> o <> & T T OW well I know what I mean to do * When the long dark autumn-evenings come And where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue ? With the music of all thy voices dumb, In life's November too ! I shall be found by the fire, suppose, O'er a great wise book as beseemeth age, While the shutters flap as the cross-wind blows. And I turn the page, and I turn the page, Not verse now, only prose ! Till the young ones whisper, finger on lip, " There he is at it, deep in Greek : Now then, or never, out we slip To cut from the hazels by the creek A mainmast for our ship ! " I shall be at it indeed, my friends : Greek puts already on either side Such a branch-work forth as soon extends To a vista opening far and wide, And I pass out where it ends. The outside-frame, like your hazel-trees But the inside-archway widens fast, And a rarer sort succeeds to these, And we slope to Italy at last, And youth, by green degrees. 32 I follow wherever I am led, Knowing so well the leader's hand : Oh woman-country, wooed not wed, Loved all the more by earth's male-lands, Laid to their hearts instead ! Look at the ruined chapel again, Half-way up in the Alpine gorge ! Is that a tower, I point you plain, Or is it a mill, or an iron-forge Breaks solitude in vain ? A turn, and we stand in the heart of things ; The woods are round us, heaped and dim ; From slab to slab how it slips and springs, The thread of water single and slim, Through the ravage some torrent brings ! Does it feed the little lake below ? That speck of white just on its marge Is Pella ; see, in the evening-glow, How sharp the silver spear-heads charge When Alp meets heaven in snow ! On our other side is the straight-up rock ; And a path is kept 'twixt the gorge and it By boulder-stones, where lichens mock The marks on a moth, and small ferns fit Their teeth to the polished block. c 33 Oh the sense of the yellow mountain-flowers, And thorny balls, each three in one, The chestnuts throw on our path in showers ! For the drop of the woodland fruit's begun, These early November hours, That crimson the creeper's leaf across Like a splash of blood, intense, abrupt, O'er a shield else gold from rim to boss, And lay it for show on the fairy-cupped Elf-needled mat of moss, By the rose-flesh mushrooms, undivulged Last evening nay, in to-day's first dew Yon sudden coral nipple bulged, Where a freaked fawn-coloured flaky crew Of toadstools peep indulged. And yonder, at foot of the fronting ridge That takes the turn to a range beyond, Is the chapel reached by the one-arched bridge Where the water is stopped in a stagnant pond Danced over by the midge. The chapel and bridge are of stone alike, Blackish-grey and mostly wet ; Cut hemp-stalks steep in the narrow dyke. See here again, how the lichens fret And the roots of the ivy strike ! 34 Poor little place, where its one priest comes On a festa-day, if he comes at all, To the dozen folk from their scattered homes, Gathered within that precinct small By the dozen ways one roams To drop from the charcoal-burners' huts, Or climb from the hemp-dressers' low shed, Leave the grange where the woodman stores his nuts, Or the wattled cote where the fowlers spread Their gear on the rock's bare juts. It has some pretension too, this front, With its bit of fresco half-moon-wise Set over the porch, Art's early wont : Tis John in the Desert, I surmise, But has borne the weather's brunt Not from the fault of the builder, though, For a pent-house properly projects Where three carved beams make a certain show, Dating good thought of our architect's Five, six, nine, he lets you know. And all day long a bird sings there, And a stray sheep drinks at the pond at times ; The place is silent and aware ; It has had its scenes, its joys and crimes, But that is its own affair. 35 My perfect wife, my Leonor, Oh heart, my own, oh eyes, mine too, Whom else could I dare look backward for, With whom beside should I dare pursue The path grey heads abhor ? For it leads to a crag's sheer edge with them ; Youth, flowery all the way, there stops Not they ; age threatens and they contemn, Till they reach the gulf wherein youth drops, One inch from life's safe hem ! With me, youth led ... I will speak now, No longer watch you as you sit Reading by fire-light, that great brow And the spirit-small hand propping it, Mutely, my heart knows how When, if I think but deep enough, You are wont to answer, prompt as rhyme ; And you, too, find without rebuff Response your soul seeks many a time Piercing its fine flesh-stuff. My own, confirm me ! If I tread This path back, is it not in pride To think how little I dreamed it led To an age so blest that, by its side, Youth seems the waste instead ? 36 My own, see where the years conduct ! At first, 'twas something our two souls Should mix as mists do ; each is sucked In each now : on, the new stream rolls, Whatever rocks obstruct. Think, when our one soul understands The great Word which makes all things new When earth breaks up and heaven expands,. How will the change strike me and you In the house not made with hands ? Oh, I must feel your brain prompt mine, Your heart anticipate my heart, You must be just before, in fine, See and make me see, for your part, New depths of the divine ! But who could have expected this When we two drew together first Just for the obvious human bliss, To satisfy life's daily thirst With a thing men seldom miss? Come back with me to the first of all. Let us lean and love it over again, Let us now forget and now recall, Break the rosary in a pearly rain, And gather what we let fall ! 37 What did I say? that a small bird sings All day long, save when a brown pair Of hawks from the wood float with wide wings Strained to a bell : 'gainst noon-day glare You count the streaks and rings. But at afternoon or almost eve Tis better ; then the silence grows To that degree you half believe It must get rid of what it knows, Its bosom does so heave. Hither we walked then, side by side, Arm in arm and cheek to cheek, And still I questioned or replied, While my heart, convulsed to really speak, Lay choking in its pride. Silent the crumbling bridge we cross, And pity and praise the chapel sweet, And care about the fresco's loss, And wish for our souls a like retreat, And wonder at the moss. Stoop and kneel on the settle under, Look through the window's grated square : Nothing to see ! For fear of plunder, The cross is down and the altar bare, As if thieves don't fear thunder. 38 We stoop and look in through the grate, See the little porch and rustic door, Read duly the dead builder's date ; Then cross the bridge that we crossed before, Take the path again but wait ! Oh moment, one and infinite ! The water slips o'er stock and stone ; The West is tender, hardly bright : How grey at once is the evening grown One star, its chrysolite ! We two stood there with never a third, But each by each, as each knew well : The sights we saw and the sounds we heard, The lights and the shades made up a spell Till the trouble grew and stirred Oh, the little more, and how much it is ! And the little less, and what worlds away ! How a sound shall quicken content to bliss, Or a breath suspend the blood's best play, And life be a proof of this ! Had she willed it, still had stood the screen So slight, so sure, 'twixt my love and her : I could fix her face with a guard between, And find her soul as when friends confer, Friends lovers that might have been. 39 For my heart had a touch of the woodland-time, Wanting to sleep now over its best. Shake the whole tree in the summer-prime, But bring to the last leaf no such test ! " Hold the last fast ! " runs the rhyme. For a chance to make your little much, To gain a lover and lose a friend, Venture the tree and a myriad such, When nothing you mar but the year can mend But a last leaf fear to touch ! Yet should it unfasten itself and fall Eddying down till it find your face At some slight wind best chance of all ! Be your heart henceforth its dwelling-place You trembled to forestall ! Worth how well, those dark grey eyes, That hair so dark and dear, how worth That a man should strive and agonize, And taste a veriest hell on earth For the hope of such a prize ! You might have turned and tried a man, Set him a space to weary and wear, And prove which suited more your plan, His best of hope or his worst despair, Yet end as he began. 40 But you spared me this, like the heart you are, And filled my empty heart at a word. If two lives join, there is oft a scar, They are one and one, with a shadowy third ; One near one is too far. A moment after, and hands unseen Were hanging the night around us fast ; But we knew that a bar was broken between Life and life : we were mixed at last In spite of the mortal screen. The forests had done it ; there they stood ; We caught for a moment the powers at play They had mingled us so, for once and good, Their work was done we might go or stay, They relapsed to their ancient mood. How the world is made for each of us ! How all we perceive and know in it Tends to some moment's product thus, When a soul declares itself to wit, By its fruit, the thing it does ! Be hate that fruit or love that fruit, It forwards the general deed of man, And each of the Many helps to recruit The life of the race by a general plan Each living his own, to boot 41 I am named and known by that moment's feat ; There took my station and degree ; So grew my own small life complete, As nature obtained her best of me One born to love you, sweet ! And to watch you sink by the fireside now Back again, as you mutely sit Musing by fire-light, that great brow, And the spirit-small hand propping it, Yonder, my heart knows how ! So, earth has gained by one man the more, And the gain of earth must be heaven's gain too ; And the whole is well worth thinking o'er When autumn comes : which I mean to do One day, as I said before. Robert Browning. Mr. Hunter o *t> o o o T T IS humour was perfectly equable, set beyond the * -* reach of fate ; gout, rheumatism, stone and gravel might have combined their forces against that frail tabernacle, but when I came round on Sunday evening, he would lay aside Jeremy Taylors Life of Christ and greet me with the same open brow, the same kind formality of manner. His opinions and sympathies dated the man almost to a decade. He 42 had begun life, under his mother's influence, as an admirer of Junius, but on maturer knowledge had transferred his admiration to Burke. He cautioned me, with entire gravity, to be punctilious in writing English ; never to forget that I was a Scotchman, that English was a foreign tongue, and that if I attempted the colloquial, I should certainly be shamed : the remark was apposite, I suppose, in the days of David Hume. Scott was too new for him ; he had known the author known him, too, for a Tory ; and to the genuine classic a contemporary is always something of a trouble. He had the old love, serious love of the play ; had even, as he was proud to tell, played a certain part in the history of Shakespearian revivals, for he had successfully pressed on Murray, of the old Edinburgh Theatre, the idea of producing Shakespeare's fairy pieces with great scenic display. A moderate in religion, he was much struck in the last years of his life by a conversation with two young lads, revivalists. " H'm," he would say "new to me. I have had h'm no such ex- perience." It struck him, not with pain, rather with a solemn philosophic interest, that he, a Christian as he hoped, and a Christian of so old a standing, should hear these young fellows talking of his own subject, his own weapons that he had fought the battle of life with, "and h'm not understand." In this wise and graceful attitude he did justice to himself and others, reposed unshaken in his old beliefs, and recognised their limits without anger or alarm. His 43 last recorded remark, on the last night of his life, was after he had been arguing against Calvinism with his minister and was interrupted by an intolerable pang. " After all," he said, " of all the 'isms, I know none so bad as rheumatism." My own last sight of him was some time before, when we dined together at an inn ; he had been on circuit, for he stuck to his duties like a chief part of his existence ; and I remember it as the only occasion on which he ever soiled his lips with slang a thing he loathed. We were both Roberts ; and as we took our places at table, he addressed me with a twinkle : " We are just what you would call two bob." He offered me port, I remember, as the proper milk of youth; s; oke of "twenty-shilling notes " ; and throughout the meal was full of old- world pleasantry and quaintness, like an ancient boy on a holiday. But what I recall chiefly was his confession that he had never read Othello to an end. Shakespeare was his continual study. He loved nothing better than to display his knowledge and memory by adducing parallel passages from Shakespeare, passages where the same word was employed, or the same idea differently treated. But Othello had beaten him. "That noble gentleman and that noble lady h'm too painful for me." The same night the hoardings were covered with posters, " Burlesque of Othello" and the contrast blazed up in my mind like a bonfire. An unforgettable look it gave me into that kind man's soul. His acquaintance was indeed a liberal and pious education. All the humanities were 44 taught in that bare dining-room beside his gouty footstool. He was a piece of good advice ; he was himself the instance that pointed and adorned his various talk. Nor could a young man have found elsewhere a place so set apart from envy, fear, discontent, or any of the passions that debase ; a life so honest and composed ; a soul like an ancient violin, so subdued to harmony, responding to a touch in music as in that dining-room, with Mr. Hunter chatting at the eleventh hour, under the shadow of eternity, fearless and gentle. R. L. Stevenson. To O. W. Holmes. On his Seventy-Fifth Birthday Wendell, why need count the years Since first your genius made me thrill, If what moved then to smiles or tears, Or both contending, move me still ? What has the Calendar to do With poets? What Time's fruitless tooth With gay immortals such as you, Whose years but emphasise your youth ? One air gave both their lease of breath ; The same paths lured our boyish feet ; One earth will hold us safe in death, With dust of saints and scholars sweet. 45 Our legends from one source were drawn, I scarce distinguish yours from mine, And dorit we make the Gentiles yawn With " You remembers ? " o'er our wine ! If I, with too senescent air, Invade your elder memory's pale, You snub me with a pitying " Where Were you in the September Gale ? " Both stared entranced at Lafayette, Saw Jackson dubbed with LL.D.; What Cambridge saw not strikes us yet As scarcely worth one's while to see. Ten years my senior, when my name In Harvard's entrance-book was writ, Her halls still echoed with the fame Of you, her poet and her wit. 'Tis fifty years from then to now : But your Last Leaf renews its green, Though, for the laurels on your brow (So thick they crowd) 'tis hardly seen The oriole's fledglings fifty times Have flown from our familiar elms ; As many poets with their rhymes Oblivion's darkling dust o'erwhelms. 46 The birds are hushed, the poets gone Where no harsh critic's lash can reach. And still your wingM brood sing on To all who love our English speech. Nay, let the foolish records be That make believe you're seventy-five : You're the old Wendell still to me, And that's the youngest man alive. The grey-blue eyes, I see them still, The gallant front with brown o'erhung, The shape alert, the wit at will, The phrase that stuck, but never stung. You keep your youth as yon Scotch firs, Whose gaunt line my horizon hems, Though twilight all the lowland blurs, Hold sunset in their ruddy stems. You with the elders ? Yes, 'tis true, But in no sadly literal sense, With elders and coevals too, Whose verb admits no preterite tense. Master alike in speech and song Of fame's great antiseptic Style, You with the classic few belong Who tempered wisdom with a smile. 47 Outlive us all ! Who else like you Could sift the seedcorn from our chaff, And make us with the pen we knew Deathless at least in epitaph ? /. R. Lowell. Clay " "\ 1 7E are but clay," the preacher saith ; V V The heart j s clay, and clay the brain, And soon or late there cometh death To mingle us with earth again." Well, let the preacher have it so, And clay we are, and clay shall be ; Why iterate ? for this I know, That clay does very well for me. When clay has such red mouths to kiss, Firm hands to grasp, it is enough : How can I take it aught amiss We are not made of rarer stuff? And if one tempt you to believe His choice would be immortal gold, Question him, Can you then conceive A warmer heart than clay can hold ? Or richer joys than clay can feel ? And when perforce he falters nay, 48 Bid him renounce his wish, and kneel In thanks for this same kindly clay. E. V. L. Edmund Quincy e> o o *z> D Friend, farewell ! Your kindly door again I enter, but the master's hand in mine No more clasps welcome, and the temperate wine, That cheered our long nights, other lips must stain : All is unchanged, but I expect in vain The face alert, the manners free and fine, The seventy years borne lightly as the pine Wears its first down of snow in green disdain : Much did he, and much well ; yet most of all I prized his skill in leisure and the ease Of a life flowing full without a plan ; For most are idly busy ; him I call Thrice fortunate who knew himself to please, Learned in those arts that make a gentleman. /. R. Lowell Inter Sodales a pipe the Angel of Conversation Loosens with glee the tassels of his purse, And, in a fine spiritual exaltation, Hastens, a rosy spendthrift, to disburse The coins new minted of imagination. D 49 An amiable, a delicate animation Informs our thought, and earnest we rehearse The sweet old farce of mutual admiration Over a pipe. Heard in this hour's delicious divagation How soft the song ! the epigram how terse ! With what a genius for administration We rearrange the rumbling universe, And map the course of man's regeneration Over a pipe. W. E. Henley. To C. F. Bradford. On the Gift of a Meerschaum Pipe o *> o -> 2> -^ T I""HE pipe came safe, and welcome too, * As anything must be from you ; A meerschaum pure, 'twould float as light As she the girls call Amphitrite. Mixture divine of foam and clay, From both it stole the best away : Its foam is such as crowns the glow Of beakers brimmed by Veuve Clicquot ; Its clay is but congested lymph Jove chose to make some choicer nymph ; And here combined, why, this must be The birth of some enchanted sea, Shaped to immortal form, the type And very Venus of a pipe. 5 When high I heap it with the weed From Lethe wharf, whose potent seed Nicotia, big from Bacchus, bore And cast upon Virginia's shore, I'll think, So fill the fairer bowl And wise alembic of thy soul, With herbs far-sought that shall distil, Not fumes to slacken thought and will, But bracing essences that nerve To wait, to dare, to strive, to serve. When curls the smoke in eddies soft, And hangs a shifting dream aloft, That gives and takes, though chance-designed, The impress of the dreamer's mind, I'll think, So let the vapours bred By Passion, in the heart or head, Pass off and upward into space, Waving farewells of tenderest grace, Remembered in some happier time, To blend their beauty with my rhyme. While slowly o'er its candid bowl The colour deepens (as the soul That burns in mortals leaves its trace Of bale or beauty on the face), I'll think, So let the essence rare Of years consuming make me fair ; So, 'gainst the ills of life profuse, Steep me in some narcotic juice ; And if my soul must part with all That whiteness which we greenness call, Smooth back, O Fortune, half thy frown, And make me beautifully brown ! Dream-forger, I refill thy cup With reverie's wasteful pittance up, And while the fire burns slow away, Hiding itself in ashes grey, I'll think, As inward Youth retreats, Compelled to spare his wasting heats, When Life's Ash-Wednesday comes about, And my head's grey with fires burnt out While stays one spark to light the eye, With the last flash of memory, 'Twill leap to welcome C. F. B., Who sent my favourite pipe to me. /. A'. Lowell. Mounsey o o o *o >e> ^? T T E is the oldest frequenter of the place, the latest * - 1 sitter-up, well-informed, inobtrusive, and that sturdy old English character, a lover of truth and justice. I never knew Mounsey approve of anything unfair or illiberal. There is a candour and upright- ness about his mind which can neither be wheedled 52 nor brow-beat into unjustifiable complaisance. He looks straight-forward as he sits with his glass in his hand, turning neither to the right nor the left, and I will venture to say that he has never had a sinister object in view through life. Mrs. Battle (it is recorded in her Opinions on Whist) could not make up her mind to use the word " Go ." Mounsey from long practice has got over this difficulty, and uses it incessantly. It is no matter what adjunct follows in the train of this despised monosyllable : whatever liquid comes after this prefix is welcome. Mounsey, without being the most communicative, is the most conversible man I know. The social principle is inseparable from his person. If he has nothing to say, he drinks your health ; and when you cannot from the rapidity and carelessness of his utterance catch what he says, you assent to it with equal confidence : you know his meaning is good. His favourite phrase is, " We have all of us something of the coxcomb " ; and yet he has none of it himself. Before I had exchanged half a dozen sentences with Mounsey, I found that he knew several of my old acquaintance (an immediate introduction of itself, for the discussing the characters and foibles of common friends is a great sweetener and cement of friendship) and had been intimate with most of the wits and men about town for the last twenty years. He knew Tobin, Wordsworth, Porson, Wilson, Paley, Erskine, and many others. He speaks of Paley's pleasantry and unassuming manners, and describes Person's 53 long potations and long quotations formerly at the Cider-Cellar in a very lively way. He has doubts, however, as to that sort of learning. On my saying that I had never seen the Greek Professor but once, at the Library of the London Institution, when he was dressed in an old rusty black coat, with cobwebs hanging to the skirts of it, and with a large patch of coarse brown paper covering the whole length of his nose, looking for all the world like a drunken car- penter, and talking to one of the Proprietors with an air of sauvity, approaching to condescension, Mounsey could not help expressing some little uneasiness for the credit of classical literature. " I submit, sir, whether common sense is not the principal thing? What is the advantage of genius and learning if they are of no use in the conduct of life?" Mounsey is one who loves the hours that usher in the morn, when a select few are left in twos and threes like stars before the break of day, and when the discourse and the ale are "aye growing better and better." William Hazlitt. Conversation *> o o *z> o \/E pow'rs who rule the tongue, if such there are, * And make colloquial happiness your care, Preserve me from the thing I dread and hate, A duel in the form of a debate. 54 The clash of arguments and jar of words, Worse than the mortal brunt of rival swords, Decide no question with their tedious length, For opposition gives opinion strength, Divert the champions prodigal of breath, And put the peaceably dispos'd to death. thwart me not, sir Soph, at ev'ry turn, Nor carp at ev'ry flaw you may discern ; Though syllogisms hang not on my tongue, 1 am not surely always in the wrong ; Tis hard if all is false that I advance, A fool must now and then be right by chance. Not that all freedom of dissent I blame ; No there I grant the privilege I claim. A disputable point is no man's ground ; Rove where you please, 'tis common all around. Discourse may want an animated No, To brush the surface, and to make it flow ; But still remember, if you mean to please, To press your point with modesty and ease. The mark, at which my juster aim I take, Is contradiction for its own dear sake. Set your opinion at whatever pitch, Knots and impediments make something hitch ; Adopt his own, 'tis equally in vain, Your thread of argument is snapp'd again ; The wrangler, rather than accord with you, Will judge himself deceiv'd, and prove it too. Vociferated logic kills me quite, A noisy man is always in the right 55 I twirl my thumbs, fall back into my chair, Fix on the wainscot a distressful stare, And, when I hope his blunders are all out, Reply discreetly To be sure no doubt! A story, in which native humour reigns, Is often useful, always entertains : A graver fact, enlisted on your side, May furnish illustration, well applied ; But sedentary weavers of long tales Give me the fidgets, and my patience fails. 'Tis the most asinine employ on Earth, To hear them tell of parentage and birth, And echo conversations, dull and dry, Embellish'd with He said, and so said I. At ev'ry interview their route the same, The repetitions make attention lame ; We bustle up with unsuccessful speed, And in the saddest part cry Droll indeed! The path of narrative with care pursue, Still making probability your clew ; On all the vestiges of truth attend, And let them guide you to a decent end. Of all ambitions man may entertain, The worst, that can invade a sickly brain, Is that which angles hourly for surprise, And baits its hook with prodigies and lies. Credulous infancy, or age as weak, Are fittest auditors for such to seek, 56 Who to please others will themselves disgrace, Yet please not, but affront you to your face. A great retailer of this curious ware Having unloaded and made many stare, Can this be true ? an arch observer cries, Yes, (rather mov'd) I saw it with these eyes : Sir ! I believe it on that ground alone ; I could not, had I seen it with my own. A tale should be judicious, clear, succinct The language plain, and incidents well link'd ; Tell not as new what ev'ry body knows, And, new or old, still hasten to a close ; There, centring in a focus round and neat, Let all your rays of information meet. What neither yields us profit nor delight Is like a nurse's lullaby at night : Guy Earl of Warwick and fair Eleanore, Or giant-killing Jack, would please me more. W. Cowper. The Indian Weed T HIS Indian weed now withered quite, Though green at noon, cut down at night, Shows thy decay ; All flesh is hay : Thus think, and smoke tobacco. 57 The pipe, so lily-like and weak, Does thus thy mortal state bespeak ; Thou art e'en such, Gone with a touch : Thus think, and smoke tobacco,, And when the smoke ascends on high, Then thou behold'st the vanity Of worldly stuff, Gone with a puff : Thus think, and smoke tobacco. And when the pipe grows foul within, Think on thy soul defiled with sin : For then the fire It does require : Thus think, and smoke tobacco. And seest the ashes cast away, Then to thyself thou mayest say, That to the dust Return thou must : Thus think, and smoke tobacco. The Same Spiritualised o o o ~\ 1 7AS this the plant for thee cut down ? So was the plant of great renown, Which Mercy sends For nobler ends. Thus think, and smoke tobacco. 58 Doth juice medicinal proceed From such a naughty foreign weed? Then what's the power Of Jesse's flower ? Thus think, and smoke tobacco. The promise, like the pipe, inlays, And by the mouth of faith conveys What virtue flows From Sharon's rose. Thus think, and smoke tobacco. In vain the unlighted pipe you blow, Your pains in outward means are so Till heavenly fire Your heart inspire. Thus think, and smoke tobacco. The smoke, like burning incense, towers, So should a praying heart of yours With ardent cries Surmount the skies. Thus think, and smoke tobacco. Ralph Erskine. Harry Carey's General Reply, to the Libelling Gentry, who are angry at his Welfare -> W ITH an honest old friend and a merry old song, And a flask of old port, let me sit the night long, 59 And laugh at the malice of those who repine That they must swig porter while I can drink wine. I envy no mortal tho' ever so great, Nor scorn I a wretch for his lowly estate ; But what I abhor and esteerrt as a curse Is poorness of Spirit, not poorness in Purse. Then dare to be generous, dauntless, and gay, Let's merrily pass life's remainder away ; Upheld by our friends, \ve our foes may despise, For the more we are envied, the higher we rise. Henry Carey. The Fire o ^> o ^> o A S night drew on, and, from the crest ** Of wooded knolls that ridged the west, The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank From sight beneath the smothering bank, We piled, with care, our nightly stack Of wood against the chimney-back, The oaken log, green, huge, and thick, And on its top the stout back-stick ; The knotty fore-stick laid apart, And filled between with curious art The ragged brush ; then, hovering near, We watched the first red blaze appear, Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, 60 Until the old, rude-furnished room Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom. Shut in from all the world without, We sat the clean-winged hearth about, Content to let the north-wind roar In baffled rage at pane and door, While the red logs before us beat The frost-line back with tropic heat ; And ever, when a louder blast Shook beam and rafter as it passed, The merrier up its roaring draught The great throat of the chimney laughed ; The house-dog on his paws outspread Laid to the fire his drowsy head, The cat's dark silhouette on the wall A couchant tiger's seemed to fall ; And, for the winter fireside meet, Between the andirons' straddling feet, The mug of cider simmered slow, The apples sputtered in a row, And, close at hand, the basket stood With nuts from brown October's wood. What matter how the night behaved ? What matter how the north-wind raved ? Blow high, blow low, not all its snow Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow. /. C. Whittier. 61 Sanctuary o o o o o o "~PIS pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat, -* To peep at such a world ; to see the stir Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd ; To hear the roar she sends through all her gates At a safe distance, where the dying sound Falls a soft murmur on th' uninjur'd ear. Thus sitting, and surveying thus at ease The globe and its concerns, I seem advanc'd To some secure and more than mortal height, That lib'rates and exempts me from them all. It turns submitted to my view, turns round With all its generations : I behold The tumult, and am still. The sound of war Has lost its terrours ere it reaches me ; Grieves, but alarms me not. I mourn the pride And av'rice that make man a wolf to man ; Hear the faint echo of those brazen throats, By which he speaks the language of his heart, And sigh, but never tremble at the sound. He travels and expatiates, as the bee From flow'r to flow'r, so he from land to land ; The manners, customs, policy, of all Pay contribution to the store he gleans ; He sucks intelligence in ev'ry clime, And spreads the honey of his deep research At his return a rich repast for me. He travels, and I too. I tread his deck, Ascend his topmast, through his peering eyes 62 Discover countries, with a kindred heart Suffer his woes, and share in his escapes ; While fancy, like the finger of a clock, Runs the great circuit, and is still at home. William Cowper. Travels by the Fireside *> *o *&> HP HE ceaseless rain is falling fast -* And yonder gilded vane, Immovable for three days past, Points to the misty main. It drives me in upon myself, And to the fireside gleams, To pleasant books that crowd my shelf, And still more pleasant dreams. I read whatever bards have sung Of lands beyond the sea, And the bright days when I was young Come thronging back to me. I fancy I can hear again The Alpine torrent's roar, The mule-bells on the hills of Spain, The sea at Elsinore. 63 I see the convent's gleaming wall Rise from its groves of pine, And towers of old cathedrals tall, And castles by the Rhine. 1 journey on by park and spire, Beneath centennial trees, Through fields with poppies all on fire, And gleams of distant seas. I fear no more the dust and heat, No more I feel fatigue, While journeying with another's feet, O'er many a lengthening league. Let others traverse sea and land, And toil through various climes, I turn the world round with my hand, Reading these poets' rhymes. From them I learn whatever lies Beneath each changing zone, And see, when looking with their eyes, Better than with mine own. H. W. Longfellow 64 An Ember Picture ^> -& o <3 T T OVV strange are the freaks of memory I The lessons of life we forget, While a trifle, a trick of colour, In the wonderful web is set, Set by some mordant of fancy, And, spite of the wear and tear Of time or distance or trouble, Insists on its right to be there. A chance had brought us together ; Our talk was of matters-of-course ; We were nothing, one to the other, But a short half-hour's resource. We spoke of French acting and actors, And their easy, natural way ; Of the weather, for it was raining As we drove home from the play. We debated the social nothings We bore ourselves so to discuss ; The thunderous rumours of battle Were silent the while for us. Arrived at her door, we left her With a drippingly hurried adieu, And our wheels went crunching the gravel Of the oak-darkened avenue. E 65 As we drove away through the shadow, The candle she held in the door From rain-varnished tree-trunk to tree-trunk Flashed fainter, and flashed no more ;-- Flashed fainter, then wholly faded Before we had passed the wood ; But the light of the face behind it Went with me and stayed for good. The vision of scarce a moment, And hardly marked at the time, It comes unbidden to haunt me, Like a scrap of ballad-rhyme. Had she beauty ? Well, not what they call so ; You may find a thousand as fair ; And yet there's her face in my memory, With no special claim to be there. As I sit sometimes in the twilight, And call back to life in the coals Old faces and hopes and fancies Long buried, (good rest to their souls !) Her face shines out in the embers ; I see her holding the light, And hear the crunch of the gravel And the sweep of the rain that night. 66 Tis a face that can never grow older, That never can part with its gleam, 'Tis a gracious possession for ever, For is it not all a dream ? J. R. Lowell. Fancy "C* VER let the Fancy roam, r* Pleasure never is at home : At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth, Like to bubbles when rain pelteth ; Then let winged Fancy wander Through the thought still spread beyond her Open wide the mind's cage-door, She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar. O sweet Fancy ! let her loose ; Summer's joys arc spoilt by use, And the enjoying of the Spring Fades as does its blossoming ; Autumn's red-lipp'd fruitage too, Blushing through the mist and dew, Cloys with tasting : What do then ? Sit thee by the ingle, when The sear faggot blazes bright, Spirit of a winter's night ; When the soundless earth is muffled, And the caked snow is shuffled 67 From the ploughboy's heavy shoon ; When the Night doth meet the Noon In a dark conspiracy To banish Even from her sky. Sit thee there, and send abroad, With a mind self-overaw'd, Fancy, high-commission'd : send her ! She has vassals to attend her : She will bring, in spite of frost, Beauties that the earth has lost ; She will bring thee, all together, All delights of summer weather ; All the buds and bells of May, From dewy sward or thorny spray ; All the heaped Autumn's wealth, With a still, mysterious stealth : She will mix these pleasures up Like three fit wines in a cup, And thou shalt quaff it : thou shalt hear Distant harvest-carols clear ; Rustle of the reaped corn ; Sweet birds antheming the morn : And, in the same moment hark ! 'Tis the early April lark, Or the rooks, with busy caw, Foraging for sticks and straw. Thou shalt, at one glance, behold The daisy and the marigold ; White-plum'd lilies, and the first Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst ; 68 Shaded hyacinth, alway Sapphire queen of the mid-May ; And every leaf, and every flower Pearled with the self-same shower. Thou shall see the field-mouse peep Meagre from its celled sleep ; And the snake all winter-thin Cast on sunny bank its skin. ; Freckled nest-eggs thou shall see Hatching in the hawthorn-tree, When the hen-bird's wing doth rest Quiet on her mossy nest ; Then ihe hurry and alarm When the bee-hive casts its swarm ; Acorns ripe down-pattering, While the autumn breezes sing. Oh, sweet Fancy ! let her loose ; Every thing is spoilt by use : Where's the cheek that doth not fade, Too much gaz'd at ? \Vhere's the maid Whose lip mature is ever new? Where's the eye, however blue, Doth not weary ? Where's the face One would meet in every place ? Where's the voice, however soft, One would hear so very oft ? At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth Like to bubbles when rain pelteth. 69 Let, then, winged Fancy find Thee a mistress to thy mind : Dulcet-eyed as Ceres' daughter, Ere the God of Torment taught her How to frown and how to chide ; With a waist and with a side White as Hebe's, when her zone Slipt its golden clasp, and down Fell her kirtle to her feet, While she held the goblet sweet, And Jove grew languid. Break the mesh Of the Fancy's silken leash ; Quickly break her prison-string, And such joys as these she'll bring. Let the winged Fancy roam, Pleasure never is at home. John Keats. The Children's Hour T) ETWEEN the dark and the daylight, *-' When the night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day's occupations That is known as the Children's Hour. I hear in the chamber above me The patter of little feet, The sound of a door that is opened And voices soft and sweet. 70 From my study I see in the lamplight, Descending the broad hall stair, Grave Alice and laughing Allegra, And Edith with golden hair. A whisper and then a silence ; Yet I know by their merry eyes They are plotting and planning together To take me by surprise. A sudden rush from the stairway, A sudden raid from the hall ! By three doors left unguarded They enter my castle wall ! They climb up into my turret O'er the arms and back of my chair : If I try to escape, they surround me ; They seem to be everywhere. They almost devour me with kisses, Their arms about me entwine, Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen In his Mouse Tower on the Rhine ! Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti, Because you have scaled the wall, Such an old moustache as I am Is not a match for you all ! 71 I have you fast in my fortress, And will not let you depart, But put you down into the dungeon In the round-tower of my heart. And there will I keep you for ever, Yes, for ever and a day, Till the walls shall crumble to ruin, And moulder in dust away ! H. W. Longfellow, MORE FRIENDS Once on a time I used to dream Strange spirits moved about my way, And I might catch a vagrant gleam, A glint of pixy or of fay ; Their lives were mingled with my own, So far they roamed, so near they drew ; And when I from a child had grown, I woke and found my dream was true. For one is clad in coat of fur, And one is decked with feathers gay ; Another, wiser, will prefer A sober suit of Quaker grey : This one's your servant from his birth, And that a Princess you must please, And this one loves to wake your mirth, And that one likes to share your ease. O gracious creatures, tiny souls ! You seem so near, so far away, Yet while the cloudland round us rolls, We love you better every day. Margaret Benson. We had much billiards ; music, too, and company ; I could take no part in the two first ; I love most of the last that I know, and as there were two or three children, and two or three-and-forty dogs, I could not want amusement, for I generally prefer both to what the common people call Christians. Horace Walpole (to Lady Ossory), Upon his Spaniell Trade e> o -o TVJ OW thou art dead, no eye shall ever see, For shape and service, Spaniell like to thee. This shall my love doe, give thy sad death one Teare, that deserves of me a million. R. Herrick. My Terrier *> ~o ~ o \ SCOTCH patrician, sandy-haired, * Whose forefathers would whine and gambol Round some forgotten lowland laird, Companions of his morning ramble ; He wakes a Northern memory still Of salmon in the river leaping, Of grouse that call upon the hill, And sunlight on the larch-wood sleeping. Alas ! his lot is cast in lines That more prosaic patterns follow, Far from the fragrance of the pines, From heathered slope and misty hollow ; 75 To all among the hurrying wheels Where crowds are thick and streets are gritty A close attendant at my heels, He treads the pavement of the City. Now curled upon the rug he lies, Yet, as I write, his head he raises To gaze at me with anxious eyes, As though to bid me sing his praises ; Then, dozing off again, renews The ecstasy of ancient habits, And, whining in his dreams, pursues A multitude of phantom rabbits. The pleasures of his daily round Might, were his nature less convivial. In process of the years be found Somewhat monotonous and trivial ; Each night the handiwork of Spratt He hails with healthy acclamation, Each day he greets my stick and hat With furious barks of approbation. One would suppose a walk with me Scarce merited such boisterous greeting. Yet blissful prospects he can see Of many a courteous wayside meeting With other dogs, who never fail To rouse an interest none may measure And set the apex of his tail A-trembling with mysterious pleasure. 76 Though you might think that each surmised That he had many a canine brother, They all seem curiously surprised Day after day to see each other ; In that pricked ear and eager eye Astonishment may be detected, And those spasmodic leaps imply A flavour of the unexpected. I wish my pen for him could claim A character for great astuteness, Or hopes of an enduring fame Based on phenomenal acuteness ; But since I hope that I possess A reputation for veracity, I have not in the public press Told anecdotes of his sagacity. Of no attainments he can boast I venture the confession sadly Though round the table he will coast And beg assiduously but badly ; Yet his devotion makes amends, And when my nerves are strung and restive. The best of faithful silent friends, I find him pleasantly suggestive. For I am sure that here is one Who, whatsoe'er my fault and failing, Whatever I have said or done Will spare me rough abuse and railing ; 77 When criticism waxes cold, In hours of bitter introspection, Still in that doggish heart I hold A changeless standard of perfection. He reads me morals, too, who find So much to agitate and vex me, And to the riddles of mankind So many answers that perplex me ; He who his little life surveys With spirits buoyant and unflagging, And needs such trifling joys to raise His tail to a contented wagging. Alfred Cochrane. The Dog *e> <2> > -> ~> so '"PHE faults of the dog are many. He is vainer * than man, singularly greedy of notice, singularly intolerant of ridicule, suspicious like the deaf, jealous to the degree of frenzy, and radically devoid of truth. The day of an intelligent small dog is passed in the manufacture and the laborious communication of falsehood ; he lies with his tail, he lies with his eye, he lies with his protesting paw ; and when he rattles his dish or scratches at the door, his purpose is other than appears. But he has some apology to offer for the vice. Many of the signs which form his dialect have come to bear an arbitrary meaning, clearly 73 understood both by his master and himself; yet when a new want arises he must either invent a new vehicle of meaning, or wrest an old one to a different purpose ; and this necessity frequently recurring must tend to lessen his idea of the sanctity of symbols. Meanwhile the dog is clear in his own conscience, and draws, with a human nicety, the distinction between formal and essential truth. Of his punning perversions, his legitimate dexterity with symbols, he is even vain ; but when he has told and been detected in a lie, there is not a hair upon his body but confesses guilt. To a dog of gentlemanly feeling, theft and falsehood are disgraceful vices. The canine, like the human, gentleman demands in his misdemeanours Montaigne's "je ne sais quoi de ge'ne'reux? He is never more than half ashamed of having barked or bitten ; and for those faults into which he has been led by the desire to shine before a lady of his race, he retains, even under physical correction, a share of pride. But to be caught lying, if he understands it, instantly uncurls his fleece. R. L. Stevenson. My Last Terrier ~t> > o T MOURN " Patroclus," whilst I praise * Young " Peter " sleek before the fire, A proper dog, whose decent ways Renew the virtues of his sire ; 79 " Patroclus " rests in grassy tomb, And " Peter " grows into his room. For tho', when Time or Fates consign The terrier to his latest earth, Vowing no wastrel of the line Shall dim the memory of his worth, I meditate the silkier breeds, Yet still an Amurath succeeds : Succeeds to bind the heart again To watchful eye and strenuous paw, To tail that gratulates amain Or deprecates offended Law ; To bind, and break, when failing eye And palsied paw must say good-bye. Ah, had the dog's appointed day But tallied with his master's span, Nor one swift decade turned to grey The busy muzzle's black and tan, To reprobate in idle men Their threescore empty years and ten ! Sure, somewhere o'er the Stygian strait " Panurge " and " Bito," " Tramp " and " Mike, In couchant conclave watch the gate, Till comes the last successive tyke, 80 Acknowledged with the countersign : " Your master was a friend of mine ^ In dreams I see them spring to greet, With rapture more than tail can tell, Their master of the silent feet Who whistles o'er the asphodel, And thro' the dim Elysian bounds Leads all his cry of little hounds. John Halsham. On the Collar of Mrs. Dingley's Lap-Uog o T)RAY steal me not, I'm Mrs. Dingley's, *- Whose Heart in this four-footed Thing lies. Jonathan Swift. Islet the Dachs o o o o o /~\UR Islet out of Helgoland, dismissed ^-^ From his quaint tenement, quits hates and loves. There lived with us a wagging humorist In that hound's arch dwarf-legged on boxing-gloves. George Meredith. 81 Geist's Grave -o *o o o o TTOUR years ! and didst thou stay above The ground, which hides thee now, but four And all that life, and all that love, Were crowded, Geist ! into no more? Only four years those winning ways, Which make me for thy presence yearn, Call'd us to pet thee or to praise, Dear little friend ! at every turn ? That loving heart, that patient soul, Had they indeed no longer span, To run their course, and reach their goal And read their homily to man ? That liquid, melancholy eye, From whose pathetic, soul-fed springs Seem'd surging the Virgilian cry, 1 The sense of tears in mortal things That steadfast, mournful strain, consoled By spirits gloriously gay, And temper of heroic mould What, was four years their whole short day ? 1 Sunt lacrimae rerum. 82 Yes, only four ! and not the course Of all the centuries yet to come, And not the infinite resource Of Nature, with her countless sum Of figures, with her fulness vast Of new creation evermore, Can ever quite repeat the past, Or just thy little self restore. Stern law of every mortal lot ! Which man, proud man, finds hard to bear And builds himself I know not what Of second life I know not where. But thou, when struck thine hour to go, On us, who stood despondent by, A meek last glance of love didst throw, And humbly lay thee down to die. Yet would we keep thee in our heart Would fix our favourite on the scene, Nor let thee utterly depart And be as if thou ne'er hadst been. And so there rise these lines of verse On lips that rarely form them now ; While to each other we rehearse : Such ways, such arts, such looks hadst thou .' 83 We stroke thy broad brown paws again, We bid thee to thy vacant chair, We greet thee by the window-pane, We hear thy scuffle on the stair. We see the flaps of thy large ears Quick raised to ask which way we go ; Crossing the frozen lake, appears Thy small black figure on the snow ! Nor to us only art thou dear, Who mourn thee in thine English home ; Thou hast thine absent master's tear, Dropt by the far Australian foam. Thy memory lasts both here and there, And thou shalt live as long as we. And after that thou dost not care ! In us was all the world to thee. Yet, fondly zealous for thy fame, Even to a date beyond our own, We strive to carry down thy name By mounded turf and graven stone. We lay thee, close within our reach, Here, where the grass is smooth and warm, Between the holly and the beech, Where oft we watch'd thy couchant form, 84 Asleep, yet lending half an ear To travellers on the Portsmouth road ; There build we thee, O guardian dear, Mark'd with a stone, thy last abode ! Then some, who through this garden pass, When \ve too, like thyself, are clay, Shall see thy grave upon the grass, And stop before the stone, and say : People who lived here long ago Did by this stone, it seems, intend To name for future times to know The due hs -hound Geist, their little friend. Matthew Arnold. To my Cat o ^> *> o o HALF loving-kindliness, and half-disdain, Thou comest to my call serenely suave, With humming speech and gracious gestures grave, In salutation courtly and urbane : Yet must I humble me thy grace to gain For wiles may win thee, but no arts enslave, And nowhere gladly thou abidest save Where naught disturbs the concord of thy reign. 85 Sphinx of my quiet hearth ! who deignst to dwell, Friend of my toil, companion of mine ease, Thine is the lore of Ra and Rameses ; That men forget dost thou remember well, Beholden still in blinking reveries, With sombre sea-green gaze inscrutable. Graham R. Tomson, To a Cat o o o o I STATELY, kindly, lordly friend, Condescend Here to sit by me, and turn Glorious eyes that smile and burn, Golden eyes, love's lustrous meed, On the golden page I read. All your wondrous wealth of hair, Dark and fair, Silken-shaggy, soft and bright As the clouds and beams of night, Pays my reverent hand's caress Back with friendlier gentleness. Dogs may fawn on all and some As they come ; You, a friend of loftier mind, Answer friends alone in kind. 86 Just your foot upon my hand Softly bids it understand. Morning round this silent sweet Garden-seat Sheds its wealth of gathering light, Thrills the gradual clouds with might Changes woodland, orchard, heath, Lawn and garden there beneath. Fair and dim they gleamed below : Now they glow Deep as even your sun-bright eyes, Fair as even the wakening skies. Can it not or can it be Now that you give thanks to see? May you not rejoice as I, Seeing the sky Change to heaven revealed, and bid Earth reveal the heaven it hid All night long from stars and moon ; Now the sun sets all in tune ? What within you wakes with day, Who can say ? All too little may we tell, Friends who like each other well, What might haply, if we might Bid us read our lives aright. 87 II Wild on woodland ways your sires Flashed like fires ; Fair as flame and fierce as fleet, As with wings on wingless feet Shone and sprang your mother, free, Bright and brave as wind or sea. Free and proud and glad as they, Here to-day Rests or roams their radiant child, Vanquished not, but reconciled, Free from curb of aught above Save the lovely curb of love. Love through dreams of souls divine Fain would shine Round a dawn whose light and song Then should right our mutual wrong Speak, and seal the love-lit law Sweet Assisi's seer foresaw. Dreams were theirs ; yet haply may Dawn a day When such friends and fellows born, Seeing our earth as fair at morn, May for wiser love's sake see More of heaven's deep heart than we. Algernon Charles Swinburne. 88 THE TABLE AND THE BINN When you rise from your Dinner as light as before, Tis a sign you have eat just enough and no more. Thomas Gray. I am no Quaker at my food. I confess I am not indifferent to the kinds of it. Those unctuous morsels of deer's flesh were not made to be received with dispassionate services. I hate a man who swallows it, affecting not to know what he is eating. I suspect his taste in higher matters. I shrink instinctively from one who professes to like minced veal. There is a physiog- nomical character in the tastes for food. C holds that a man cannot have a pure mind who refuses apple-dumplings. I am not certain but he is right. Charles Lamb. Dr. Middleton misdoubted the future as well as the past of the man who did not, in becoming gravity, exult to dine. That man he deemed unfit for this world and the next. George Meredith. Ben Invites a Friend to Supper o ^> *& r I ^O-NIGHT, grave sir, both my poor house and I Do equally desire your company : Not that we think us worthy such a guest, But that your worth will dignify our feast, With those that come ; whose grace may make that seem Something, which else would hope for no esteem. It is the fair acceptance, sir, creates The entertainment perfect, not the cates. Yet shall you have, to rectify your palate, An olive, capers, or some better sallet Ushering the mutton : with a short-legg'd hen, If we can get her full of eggs, and then, Limons, and wine for sauce : to these, a coney Is not to be despair'd of for our money ; And though fowl now be scarce, yet there are clerks, The sky not falling, think we may have larks. I'll tell you of more, and lie, so you will come : Of partridge, pheasant, woodcock, of which some May yet be there ; and godwit if we can ; Knat, rail, and ruff too. Howsoe'er, my man 9' Shall read a piece of Virgil, Tacitus, Livy, or of some better book to us, Of which we'll speak our minds, amidst our meat ; And I'll profess no verses to repeat To this if aught appear, which I not know of, That will the pastry, not my paper, show of, Digestive cheese, and fruit there sure will be ; But that which most doth take my muse and me, Is a pure cup of rich Canary wine, Which is the Mermaid's now, but shall be mine : Of which had Horace or Anacreon tasted, Their lives, as do their lines, till now had lasted. Tobacco, nectar, or the Thespian spring, Are all but Luther's beer, to this I sing. Of this we will sup free, but moderately, And we will have no Pooly, or Parrot by ; Nor shall our cups make any guilty men : But at our parting, we will be, as when We innocently met. No simple word, That shall be utter'd at our mirthful board, Shall make us sad next morning ; or affright The liberty, that we'll enjoy to-night. Ben Jonson. Ad Ministram o o ,/> o <. P\EAR Lucy, you know what my wish is, I hate all your Frenchified fuss ; Your silly entrees and made dishes Were never intended for us. 92 No footman in lace and in ruffles Need dangle behind my arm-chair ; And never mind seeking for truffles, Although they be ever so rare. But a plain leg of mutton, my Lucy, I prithee get ready at three : Have it smoking, and tender and juicy, And what better meat can there be ? And when it has feasted the master, 'Twill amply suffice for the maid ; Meanwhile I will smoke my canaster, And tipple my ale in the shade. William Makepeace Thackeray. Roast Pig e> o o o o o T T must be agreed, that if a worthy pretext for so dangerous an experiment as setting houses on fire (especially in these days) could be assigned in favour of any culinary object, that pretext and excuse might be found in ROAST PIG. Of all the delicacies in the whole mundus edibilis, I will maintain it to be the most delicate -princeps obsoniorum. I speak not of your grown porkers things between pig and pork those hobbydehoys but a young and tender suckling under a moon old guiltless as yet 93 of the sty with no original speck of the amor immunditia:, the hereditary failing of the first parent, yet manifest his voice as yet not broken, but some- thing between a childish treble and a grumble the mild forerunner, or prceludium, of a grunt. He must be roasted. I am not ignorant that our ancestors ate them seethed, or boiled but what a sacrifice of the exterior tegument ! There is no flavour comparable, I will contend, to that of the crisp, tawny, well - watched, not over- roasted, crackling, as it is well called the very teeth are invited to their share of the pleasure at this banquet in overcoming the coy, brittle resistance with the adhesive oleaginous O call it not fat but an indefinable sweetness growing up to it the tender blossoming of fat fat cropped in the bud taken in the shootin the first innocence the cream and quintessence of the child-pig's yet pure food the lean, no lean, but a kind of animal manna or, rather, fat and lean (if it must be so) so blended and ru ning into each other, that both together make but one ambrosian result, or common substance. Behold him, while he is doing it seemeth rather a refreshing warmth, than a scorching heat, that he is so passive to. How equably he twirleth round the string ! Now he is just done. To see the extreme sensibility of that tender age, he hath wept out his pretty eyes radiant jellies shooting stars See him in the dish, his second cradle, how meek he lieth ! wouldst thou have had this innocent grow 94 up to the grossness and indocility which too often accompany maturer swinehood ? Ten to one he would have proved a glutton, a sloven, an obstinate, dis- agreeable animal wallowing in all manner of filthy conversation from these sins he is happily snatched away Ere sin could blight, or sorrow fade, Death came with timely care his memory is odoriferous no clown curseth, while his stomach half rejecteth, the rank bacon no coal- heaver bolteth him in reeking sausages he hath a fair sepulchre in the grateful stomach of the judicious epicure and for such a tomb might be content to die. Charles Lamb. A Salad ^> -& o *> o o nnO make this condiment, your poet begs The pounded yellow of two hard-boil'd eggs ; Two boil'd potatoes, pass'd through kitchen sieve, Smoothness and softness to the salad give ; Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl, And, half-suspected, animate the whole. Of mordant mustard add a single spoon, Distrust the condiment that bites so soon ; But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault, To add a double quantity of salt ; 95 Four times the spoon with oil from Lucca drown, And twice with vinegar procured from town ; And, lastly, o'er the flavoured compound toss A magic soupgon of anchovy sauce. Oh, green and glorious ! Oh, herbaceous treat ! Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat : Back to the world he'd turn his fleeting soul, And plunge his fingers in the salad-bowl ! Serenely full, the epicure would say, Fate cannot harm me, I have dined to-day. Sydney Smith. Fish IV /T UCH do I love, at civic treat, * * *- The monsters of the deep to eat ; To see the rosy salmon lying, By smelts encircled, born for frying ; And from the china boat to pour, On flaky cod, the flavour'd shower. Thee, above all, I much regard, Flatter than Longman's flattest bard, Much honour'd turbot ! sore I grieve Thee and thy dainty friends to leave. Sydney Smith. 96 The Ballad of Bouillabaisse & ^> o A STREET there is in Paris famous, ^ * For which no rhyme our language yields, Rue Neuve des Petits Champs its name is The New Street of the Little Fields. And here's an inn, not rich and splendid, But still in comfortable case ; The which in youth I oft attended, To eat a bowl of Bouillabaisse. This Bouillabaisse a noble dish is A sort of soup or broth, or brew, Or hotchpotch of all sorts of fishes, That Greenwich never could outdo ; Green herbs, red peppers, mussels, saffron, Soles, onions, garlic, roach, and dace : All these you eat at TERRA'S tavern, In that one dish of Bouillabaisse. Indeed, a rich and savoury stew 'tis ; And true philosophers, methinks, Who love all sorts of natural beauties, Should love good victuals and good drinks. And Cordelier or Benedictine Might gladly, sure, his lot embrace, Nor find a fast-day too afflicting, Which served him up a Bouillabaisse. G 97 I wonder if the house still there is? Yes, here the lamp is, as before ; The smiling red-cheeked tcaillere is Still opening oysters at the door. Is TERR still alive and able ? I recollect his droll grimace : He'd come and smile before your table, And hope you liked your Bouillabaisse. We enter nothing's changed or older. " How's Monsieur TERR, waiter, pray ? The waiter stares, and shrugs his shoulder " Monsieur is dead this many a day." " It is the lot of saint and sinner, So honest TERRE'S run his race." "What will Monsieur require for dinner?" " Say, do you still cook Bouillabaisse ? " " Oh, oui, Monsieur," 's the waiter's answer ; " Quel vin Monsieur desire-t-il ? " "Tell me a good one." "That I can, Sir : The Chambertin with yellow seal." " So TERRE'S gone," I say, and sink in My old accustom'd corner place ; " He's done with feasting and with drinking, With Burgundy and Bouillabaisse." My old accustom'd corner here is, The table still is in the nook ; Ah ! vanish'd many a busy year is This well-known chair since last I took. 98 When first I saw ye, cart luoghi, I'd scarce a beard upon my face, And now a grizzled, grim old fogy, I sit and wait for Bouillabaisse. Where are you, old companions trusty Of early days here met to dine ? Come, waiter ! quick, a flagon crusty I'll pledge them in the good old wine. The kind old voices and old faces My memory can quick retrace ; Around the board they take their places, And share the wine and Bouillabaisse. There's JACK has made a wondrous marriage : There's laughing TOM is laughing yet ; There's brave AUGUSTUS drives his carriage ; There's poor old FRED in the Gazette; On JAMES'S head the grass is growing : Good Lord ! the world has wagged apace Since here we set the Claret flowing, And drank, and ate the Bouillabaisse. Ah me ! how quick the days are flitting ! I mind me of a time that's gone, When here I'd sit, as now I'm sitting, In this same place hut not alone. 99 A fair young form was nestled near me, A dear, dear face looked fondly up, And sweetly spoke and smiled to cheer me There's no one now to share my cup. I drink it as the Fates ordain it. Come, fill it, and have done with rhymes : Fill up the lonely glass, and drain it In memory of dear old times. Welcome the wine, whate'er the seal is ; And sit you down and say your grace With thankful heart, whate'er the meal is. Here comes the smoking Bouillabaisse ! William Makepeace Thackeray. Old Veuve o o ** > o o '""P'HEY were known at the house of the turtle and - the attractive Old Veuve : a champagne of a sobered sweetness, of a great year, a great age, count- ing up to the extremer maturity attained by wines of stilly depths ; and their worthy comrade, despite the wanton sparkles, for the promoting of the state of reverential wonderment in rapture, which an ancient wine will lead to, well you wot. The silly-girly sugary crudity has given way to the womanly suavity, matronly composure, with yet the sparkles ; they as- cend ; but hue and flavour tell of a soul that has come to a lodgement there. It conducts the youthful man 100 to temples of dusky thought ; philosophers partaking of it are drawn by the arms of garlanded nympths about their necks into the fathomless of inquiries. It presents us with a sphere, for the pursuit of the thing \ve covet most. It bubbles over mellowness ; it has, in the marriage, with Time, extracted a spice of individuality from the saccharine : by miracle, one would say, were it not for our knowledge of the right noble issue of Time when he and good things unite. There should be somewhere legends of him the wine-flask. There must be meanings to that effect in the Mythology, awaiting unravelment. For the subject opens to deeper than cellars, and is a tree with vast ramification of the roots and the spread- ing growth, whereon half if not all the Mythic Gods, Inferior and Superior, Infernal and Celestial, might be shown sitting in concord, performing in concert, harmoniously receiving sacrificial offerings of the black or the white ; and the black not extinguishing the fairer fellow. Tell us of a certainty that Time has embraced the wine-flask, then may it be asserted (assuming the great year for the wine, i.e. combina- tions above) that a speck of the white within us who drink will conquer, to rise in main ascension over volumes of the black. It may, at a greater venture, but confidently, be said in plain speech, that the Bacchus of auspicious birth induces ever to the worship of the loftier deities. George Meredith. (" One of our Conquerors") 101 To R. A. M. S. THE Spirit of Wine Sang in my glass, and I listened With love to his odorous music, His flushed and magnificent song. " I am health, I am heart, I am life ! For I give for the asking The fire of my father the sun, And the strength of my mother the earth, Inspiration in essence, I am wisdom and wit to the wise, His visible muse to the poet, The soul of desire to the lover, The genius of laughter to all. " Come, lean on me, ye that are weary, Rise, ye faint-hearted and doubting, Haste, ye that lag by the way ! I am pride, the consoler ; Valour and hope are my henchmen ; I am the angel of rest. " I am life, I am wealth, I am fame ! For I captain an army Of shining and generous dreams ; And mine, too, all mine, are the keys Of that secret spiritual shrine, Where, his work-a-day soul put by, Shut in with his saint of saints With his radiant and conquering self! Man worships, and talks, and is glad. " Come, sit with me, ye that are lonely, Ye that are paid with disdain, Ye that are chained, and would soar ! I am beauty and love ; I am friendship, the comforter ; I am that which forgives and forgets." The Spirit of Wine Sang in my heart, and I triumphed In the savour and scent of his music, His magnetic and mastering song. IV. E. Henley. Claret *o *e> o <> -o o T LIKE Claret. Whenever I can have Claret I must * drink it, 'tis the only palate affair that I am at all sensual in. For really 'tis so fine it fills one's mouth with gushing freshness then goes down cool and feverless then you do not feel it quarrelling with your liver no, it is rather a Peacemaker, and lies as quiet as it did in the grape ; then it is as fragrant as the Queen Bee, and the more ethereal Part of it mounts 103 into the Brain, not assaulting the cerebral apartments like a bully in a badhouse looking for his trull, and hurrying from door to door bouncing against the wainscot, but rather walks like Aladdin about his enchanted palace so gently that you do not feel his step. Other wines of a heavy and spiritous nature transform a man into a Silenus : this makes him a Hermes and gives a Woman the soul and im- mortality of an Ariadne, for whom Bacchus always kept a good cellar of claret and even of that he could never persuade her to take above two cups. I said this same claret is the only palate- passion I have I forgot game I must plead guilty to the breast of a partridge, the back of a hare, the backbone of a grouse, the wing and side of a pheasant, and a woodcock passim. John Keats. An Aged and a Great Wine o o o PHE leisurely promenade up and down the lawn with ladies and deferential gentlemen, in anticipation of the dinner-bell, was Dr. Middleton's evening pleasure. He walked as one who had formerly danced (in Apollo's and the young god Cupid's) elastic on the muscles of the calf and foot, bearing his iron-grey head in grand elevation. The hard labour of the day approved the cooling exercise and the crowning refreshments of French cookery 104 and wines of known vintages. He was happy at that hour in dispensing wisdom or nugce to his hearers, like the western sun, whose habit it is, when he is fairly treated, to break out in quiet splendours, which by no means exhaust his treasury. Blest indeed above his fellows, by the height of the cross-bow-winged bird in a fair-weather sunset sky above the pecking sparrow, is he that ever in the recurrent evening of his day sees the best of it ahead and soon to come. He has the rich reward of a youth and manhood of virtuous living. Dr. Middleton misdoubted the future as well as the past of the man who did not, in becom- ing gravity, exult to dine. That man he deemed unfit for this world and the next. An example of the good fruit of temperance, he had a comfortable pride in his digestion, and his political sentiments were attuned by his veneration of the Powers rewarding virtue. We must have a stable world where this is to be done. The Rev. Doctor was a fine old picture ; a specimen of art peculiarly English ; combining in himself piety and epicurism, learning and gentlemanliness, with good room for each and a seat at one another's table : for the rest, a strong man, an athlete in his youth, a keen reader of facts and no reader of persons, genial, a giant at a task, a steady worker besides, but easily discomposed. Sir Willoughby advanced, appearing in a cordial mood. "I need not ask you whether you are better," he said to Clara, sparkled to Laetitia, and raised a key to the level of Dr. Middleton's breast, remarking, " I am going down to my inner cellar." " An inner cellar ! " exclaimed the doctor. " Sacred from the butler. It is interdicted to Stone- man. Shall I offer myself as a guide to you ? My cellars are worth a visit." " Cellars are not catacombs. They are, if rightly constructed, rightly considered, cloisters, where the bottle meditates on joys to bestow, not on dust mis- used ! Have you anything great ? " "A great wine aged ninety." " Is it associated with your pedigree, that you pronounce the age with such assurance ? " " My grandfather inherited it." "Your grandfather, Sir Willoughby, had meritorious offspring, not to speak of generous progenitors. What would have happened had it fallen into the female line ! I shall be glad to accompany you. Port ? Hermitage ? " " Port" " Ah ! we are in England ! " "There will just be time," said Sir Willoughby, inducing Dr. Middleton to step out. A chirrup was in the Rev. Doctor's tone : " Hocks, too, have compassed age. I have tasted senior Hocks. Their flavours are as a brook of many voices ; they have depth also. Senatorial Port ! we say. We cannot say that of any other wine. Port is deep-sea 1 06 deep. It is in its flavour deep mark the difference. It is like a classic tragedy, organic in conception. An ancient Hermitage has the light of the antique ; the merit that it can grow to an extreme old age ; a merit. Neither of Hermitage nor of Hock can you say that it is the blood of those long years, retaining the strength of youth with the wisdom of age. To Port for that ! Port is our noblest legacy ! Observe, I do not compare the wines ; I distinguish the qualities. Let them live together for our enrichment ; they are not rivals like the Idasan Three. Were they rivals, a fourth would challenge them. Burgundy has great genius. It does wonders within its period ; it does all except to keep up in the race ; it is short- lived. An aged Burgundy runs with a beardless Port. I cherish the fancy that Port speaks the sentences of wisdom, Burgundy sings in inspired Ode. Or put it, that Port is the Homeric hexameter, Burgundy the Pindaric dithyramb. What do you say ? " George Meredith. (" The Egoist.") Another Invitation o *& o T BEG you come to-night and dine. *- A welcome waits you, and sound wine, The Roederer chilly to a charm, As Juno's breath the claret warm, 107 The sherry of an ancient brand. No Persian pomp, you understand, A soup, a fish, two meats, and then A salad fit for aldermen (When aldermen, alas the days ! Were really worth their mayonnaise) ; A dish of grapes whose clusters won Their bronze in Carolinian sun ; Next, cheese for you the Neufchatel, A bit of Cheshire likes me well ; Cafe au lait or coffee black, With Kirsch or Kiimmel or cognac (The German band in Irving Place By this time purple in the face) ; Cigars and pipes. These being through, Friends shall drop in, a very few Shakespeare and Milton, and no more. When these are guests I bolt the door, With " Not at home " to anyone Excepting Alfred Tennyson. Anon. Sir Peter T N his last binn Sir Peter lies, Who knew not what it was to frown : Death took him mellow, by surprise, And in his cellar stopp'd him down. 1 08 Through all our land we could not boast A knight more gay, more prompt than he, To rise and fill a bumper toast, And pass it round with THREE TIMES THREE. None better knew the feast to sway, Or keep Mirth's boat in better trim ; For Nature had but little clay Like that of which she moulded him. The meanest guest that grac'd his board Was there the freest of the free, His bumper toast when Peter pour'd, And pass'd it round with THREE TIMES THREE. He kept at true good humour's mark The social flow of pleasure's tide : He never made a brow look dark, Nor caused a tear, but when he died. No sorrow round his tomb should dwell : More pleased his gay old ghost would be, For funeral song, and passing bell, To hear no sound but THREE TIMES THREE. Thomas Love Peacock. The Pope '"THE Pope, he leads a happy life, -*- He fears not married care nor strife, He drinks the best of Rhenish wine, I would the Pope's gay lot were mine. 109 But then all Happy's not his life, He has not maid, nor blooming wife ; Nor child has he to raise his hope I would not wish to be the Pope. The Sultan better pleases me, His is a life of jollity ; His wives are many as he will I would the Sultan's throne then fill. But even he's a wretched man, He must obey his Alcoran ; And dares not drink one drop of wine I would not change his lot for mine. So then I'll hold my lowly stand, And live in German Vaterland ; I'll kiss my maiden fair and fine, And drink the best of Rhenish wine. Whene'er my maiden kisses me, I'll think that I the Sultan be ; And when my cheery glass I tope, I'll fancy that I am the Pope. Samuel Lovet no "MIDNIGHT DARLINGS" While you converse with lords and dukes, I have iheir betters here my books : Fixed in an elbow-chair at ease, I choose companions as I please. I'd rather have one single shelf Than all my friends, except yourself ; For, after all that can be said, Our best acquaintance are the dead. T. Sheridan (Swift's). Give me Leave to enjoy myself. That place, that does Contain my books, the best companions, is To me a glorious court, where hourly I Converse with the old sages and philosophers. And sometimes for variety, I confer With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels ; Calling their victories, if unjustly got, Unto a strict account : and, in my fancy, Deface their ill-planned statues. Can I then Part with such constant pleasures, to embrace Uncertain vanities? No ; be it your care To augment a heap of wealth ; it shall be mine To incre se in knowledge. Lights there, for my study ! John Fletcher (The Elder Brother), Candle-Light *t> o o o o T T AIL, candle-light ! without disparagement to sun *-* or moon, the kindliest luminary of the three if we may not rather style thee their radiant deputy, mild viceroy of the moon ! We love to read, talk, sit silent, eat, drink, sleep, by candle-light. They are everybody's sun and moon. This is our peculiar and household planet. Wanting it, what savage unsocial nights must our ancestors have spent, wintering in caves and unillumined fastnesses ! They must have lain about and grumbled at one another in the dark. What repartees could have passed, when you must have felt about for a smile, and handled a neighbour's cheek to be sure that he understood it ? This accounts for the seriousness of the elder poetry. It has a sombre cast (try Hesiod or Ossian), derived from the tradition of those unlantern'd nights. Jokes came in with candles. . . . There is absolutely no such thing as reading, but by a candle. We have tried the affectation of a book at noon-day in gardens, and in sultry arbours ; but it was labour thrown away. Those gay motes in the beam come about you, hovering and teazing, like so !i 113 many coquettes, that will have you all to their self; and are jealous of your abstractions. By the mid- night taper, the writer digests his meditations. By the same light, we must approach to their perusal, if we would catch the flame, the odour. It is a mockery, all that is reported of the influential Phoebus. No true poem ever owed its birth to the sun's light. They are abstracted works "Things that were bora, when none but the suH night, And his dumb y <> SHALL I be thought fantastical, if I confess that the names of some of our poets sound sweeter, and have a finer relish to the ear to mine, at least than that of Milton or of Shakespeare ? It may be, that the latter are more staled and rung upon in common discourse. The sweetest names, and which carry a perfume in the mention, are, Kit Marlowe, Drayton, Drummond of Hawthornden, and Cowley. Much depends upon when and where you read a book. In the five or six impatient minutes before the dinner is quite ready, who would think of taking up the Faerie Queene for a stop-gap, or a volume of Bishop Andrewes' sermons ? Milton almost requires a solemn service of music to be played before you enter upon him. But he brings his music, to which, who listens, had need bring docile thoughts and purged ears. Winter evenings the world shut out with less of ceremony the gentle Shakespeare enters. At such a season, the Tempest, or his own Winter's Tale These two poets you cannot avoid reading aloud to yourself, or (as it chances) to some single person listening. More than one and it degenerates into an audience. Books of quick interest, that hurry on for incidents, are for the eye to glide over only. It will not do to read them out. Charles Lamb. 122 Old Books are Best o o &> o D books are best ! With what delight Does " Faithorne fecit " greet our sight ; On frontispiece or title-page Of that old time, when on the stage " Sweet Nell '' set " Rowley's " heart alight ! And you, O friend, to whom I write, Must not deny, e'en though you might, Through fear of modern pirates' rage, Old books are best. What though the print be not so bright, The paper dark, the binding slight ? Our author, be he dull or sage, Returning from that distant age So lives again, we say of right : Old books are best. Beverly Chew. A Wish M> o M> o ^e> o OF two things on z : with Chaucer let me ride, And hear the Pilgrims' tales ; or, that denied, Let me with Petrarch in a aew-sprent grove Ring endless changes on the bells of love. T. E. Brown. 123 Chaucer o o o o o o AN old man in a lodge within a park ; The chamber walls depicted all around With portraitures of huntsman, hawk, and hound, And the hurt deer. He listeneth to the lark, Whose song comes with the sunshine through the dark Of painted glass in leaden lattice bound ; He listeneth and he laugheth at the sound, Then writeth in a book like any clerk. He is the poet of the dawn, who wrote The Canterbury Tales, and his old age Made beautiful with song ; and as I read I hear the crowing cock, I hear the note Of lark and linnet, and from every page Rise odours of ploughed field or flowery mead. H. W. Longfellow, On First Looking into Chapman's Homer o \l\ UCH have I travell'd in the realms of gold, *' And many goodly states and kingdoms seen ; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. -Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne : Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold : 124 Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken ; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He star'd at the Pacific and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise Silent, upon a peak in Darien. /. Keats. The Odyssey o o o o * A S one that for a weary space has lain, Lulled by the song of Circe and her wine, In gardens near the pale of Proserpine, Where that yEasan isle forgets the main, And only the low lutes of love complain, And only shadows of wan lovers pine, As such an one were glad to know the brine Salt on his lips, and the large air again, So gladly from the songs of modern speech Men turn, and see the stars, and feel the free Shrill wind beyond the close of heavy flowers, And through the music of the languid hours, They hear like ocean on a western beach The surge and thunder of the Odyssey. Andrew Lang. 125 Sophocles *> o o o o ^> GENTLY over the tomb of Sophocles, gently creep, O ivy, flinging forth thy pale tresses, and all about let the rose-petal blow, and the clustered vine shed her soft tendrils round, for the sake of the wise- hearted eloquence mingled of the Muses and Graces that lived on his honeyed tongue. Simmias. (J. W. Mackail's translation.) Aristophanes <> e> o o o r I "'HE Graces, seeking to take a sanctuary that will not fall, found the soul of Aristophanes. Plato. (J. W. Mackail's translation.) Pindar *o ^> ^> ^ A S high as the trumpet's blast outsounds the thin flute, so high above all others did thy lyre ring ; nor idly did the tawny swarm mould their waxen- celled honey, O Pindar, about thy tender lips : witness the horned god of Maenalus when he sang thy hymn and forgot his own pastoral reeds. Antipater of Sidon. (J. W. Mackail's translation.) 126 Meleager o *> -^> *t> *> o 'THREAD softly, O stranger; for here an old man -* sleeps among the holy dead, lulled in the slumber due to all, Meleager son of Eucrates, who united Love of the sweet tears and the Muses with the joyous Graces ; whom God-begotten Tyre brought to manhood, and the sacred land of Gadara, but lovely Cos nursed in old age among the Meropes. But if thou art a Syrian, say Salam, and if a Phoenician, Naidios, and if a Greek, Hail ; they are the same. Meleager. (J. W. Mackail's translation. ) Catullus ' I "ELL me not what too well I know About the bard of Sirmio Yes, in Thalia's son Such stains there are as when a Grace Sprinkles another's laughing face With nectar, and runs on. Walter Savage Lnndor. 127 Boccaccio o o *> o *> - "OOCCACCIO.for you laughed all laughs that are *-* The Cynic scoff, the chuckle of the churl, The laugh that ripples over reefs of pearl, The broad, the sly, the hugely jocular : Men call you lewd and coarse, allege you mar The music that, withdrawn your ribald skirl, Were sweet as note of mavis or of merle Wherefore they frown, and rate you at the bar. One thing is proved : To count the sad degrees Upon the Plague's dim dial, catch the tone Of a great death that lies upon a land, Feel nature's ties, yet hold with steadfast hand The diamond, you are three that stand alone You, and Lucretius, and Thucydides. T. E. Brown. To Sir Henry Goodyere o -o ^> o WHEN I would know thee, Goodyere, my thought looks Upon thy well-made choice of friends and books ; Then do I love thee, and behold thy ends In making thy friends books, and thy books friends. Ben Jonson. 128 Dumas o ^> o o o o "\T7HAT book so delighted him, and blinded him * to all the rest of the world, so that he did not care to see the apple-woman with her fruit, or (more tempting still to sons of Eve) the pretty girls with their apple cheeks, who laughed and prattled round the fountain ? What was the book ? Do you suppose it was Livy, or the Greek grammar ? No ; it was a Novel that you were reading, you lazy, not very clean, good-for-nothing, sensible boy. It was D'Artagnan locking up General Monk in a box, or almost succeeding in keeping Charles the First's head on. It was the prisoner of the Chateau d'lf cutting himself out of the sack fifty feet under the water (I mention the novels I like best myself novels without love or talking, or any of that sort of nonsense, but containing plenty of fighting, escaping, robbery, and rescuing) cutting himself out of the sack and swim- ming to the island of Monte Cristo. O Dumas ! O thou brave, kind, gallant old Alexandra ! I hereby offer thee homage, and give thee thanks for many pleasant hours. I have read thee (being sick in bed; for thirteen hours of a happy day, and had the ladies of the house fighting for the volumes. Be assured that lazy boy was reading Dumas (or I will go so far as to let the reader here pronounce the eulogium, or insert the name of his favourite author) ; and as for the anger, or it may be, the reverberations of his schoolmaster, or the remonstrances of his father, or I 129 the tender pleadings of his mother that he should not let the supper grow cold I don't believe the scape- grace cared one fig. No ! Figs are sweet, but fictions are sweeter. W. M. Thackeray. Hazlitt's Way o ^> *> -o o OH, delightful ! To cut open the leives, to inhale the fragrance of the scarcely dry paper, to ex- amine the type to see who is the printer (which is some clue to the value that is set upon the work), to launch out into regions of thought and invention never trod till now, and to explore characters that never met a human eye before this is a luxury worth sacrificing a dinner-party or a few hours of a spare morning to. When I take up a work that I have read before (the oftener the better) I know what I have to expect. The satisfaction is not lessened by being anticipated. When the entertainment is altogether new, I sit down to it as I should to a strange dish, turn and pick out a bit here and there, and am in doubt what to think of the composition. There is a want of confidence and security to second appetite. New-fangled books are also like made-dishes in this respect, that they are generally little else than hashes and rifaccimenti of what has been served up entire and in a more natural state at other times. Besides, in thus turning to a 130 well-known author, there is not only an assurance that my time will not be thrown away, or my palate nauseated with the most insipid or vilest trash, but I shake hands with, and look an old tried and valued friend in the face, compare notes, and chat the hours away. It is true, we form dear friendships with such ideal guests dearer, alas ! and more lasting, than those with our most intimate acquaintance. In read- ing a book which is an old favourite with me (say the first novel I ever read), I not only have the pleasure of imagination and of a critical relish of the work, but the pleasures of memory added to it. It recalls the same feelings and associations which I had in first reading it, and which I can never have again in any other way. Standard productions of this kind are links in the chain of our conscious being. They bind together the different scattered divisions of our personal identity. They are landmarks and guides in our journey through life. They are pegs and loops on which we can hang up, or from which we can take down, at pleasure, the wardrobe of a moral imagina- tion, the relics of our best affections, the tokens and records of our happiest hours. They are " for thought and for remembrance ! " They are like Fortunatus's Wishing-Cap they give us the best riches those of Fancy ; and transport us, not over half the globe, but (which is better) over half our lives, at a word's notice ! I think of the time "when I was in my father's house, and my path ran down with butter and honey," when I was a little thoughtless child, and had no other wish or care but to con my daily task and be happy ! Tom Jones, I remember, was the first work that broke the spell. It came down in numbers once a fortnight, in Cooke's pocket edition, embellished with cuts. I had hitherto read only in school-books, and a tiresome ecclesiastical history (with the exception of Mrs. Radcliffe's Romance of the Forest} : but this had a different relish with it, "sweet in the mouth," though not "bitter in the belly." It smacked of the world I lived in, and in which I was to live arid showed me groups, "gay creatures," not "of the element," but of the earth ; not " living in the clouds," but travelling the same road that I did ; some that had passed on before me, and others that might soon over- take me. My heart had palpitated at the thoughts of a boarding-school ball, or gala-day at midsummer or Christmas : but the world I had found out in Cooke's edition of the British Novelists was to me a dance through life, a perpetual gala -day. The sixpenny numbers of this work regularly contrived to leave off just in the middle of a sentence, and in the nick of a story. With what eagerness I used to look forward to the next number, and open the prints ! Ah ! never again shall I feel the enthusiastic delight with which I gazed at the figures, and anticipated the story and adventures of Major Bath and Commodore Trunion, of Trim and my Uncle Toby, of Don Quixote and Sancho and Dapple, of Gil Bias and Dame Borenza Sephora, of Laura and the fair Lucretia, whose lips open and shut like buds of roses. To what nameless 132 ideas did they give rise, with what airy delights I filled up the outlines, as I hung in silence over the page! The greatest pleasure in life is that of reading, while we are young. I have had as much of this pleasure as perhaps anyone. As I grow older, it fades ; or else the stronger stimulus of writing takes off the edge of it. At present I have neither time nor inclination for it : yet I should like to devote a year's entire leisure to a course of the English Novelists ; and perhaps clap on that sly old knave, Sir Walter, to the end of the list. It is astonishing how I used formerly to relish the style of certain authors, at a time when I myself despaired of writing a single line. Probably this was the reason. It is not in mental as in natural ascent intellectual objects seem higher when we survey them from below, than when we look down from any given elevation above the common level. My three favourite writers about the time I speak of were Burke, Junius, and Rousseau. I was never weary of admiring and wondering at the felicities of the style, the turns of expression, the refinements of thought and sentiment : I laid the book down to find out the secret of so much strength and beauty, and took it up again in despair, to read on and admire. So I passed whole days, months, and I may add, years ; and have only this to say now, that as my life began, so I could wish that it may end. The last time I tasted this luxury in its full perfection was one day 133 after a sultry day's walk in summer between Farnham and Alton. I was fairly tired out ; I walked into an inn-yard (I think at the latter place) ; I was shown by the waiter to what looked at first like common out- houses at the other end of it, but they turned out to be a suite of rooms, probably a hundred years old the one I entered opened into an old-fashioned garden, embellished with beds of larkspur and a leaden Mercury ; it was. wainscoted, and there was a grave- looking, dark -coloured portrait of Charles II. hanging over the tiled chimney-piece. I had Love for Love in my pocket, and began to read ; coffee was brought in in a silver coffee-pot ; the cream, the bread and butter, everything was excellent, and the flavour of Congreve's style prevailed over all. I prolonged the entertain- ment till a late hour, and relished this divine comedy better even than when I used to see it played by Miss Mellon, as Miss Prue ; Bob Palmer, as Tattle ; and Bannister, as honest Ben. This circumstance happened just five years ago, and it seems like yesterday. If I count my life so by lustres, it will soon glide away ; yet I shall not have to repine, if, while it lasts, it is enriched with a few such recollections ! William Hazlitt. 134 " For Human I )elight " o o o o A FTER once more going through my Don ^*- Quixote ("siempre verde " too, if ever Book was), I returned to another of the Evergreens, Boccaccio, which I found by a Pencil mark at the Volume's end I had last read on board the little Ship I then had, nine years ago. And I have shut out the accursed " Eastern Question " by reading the Stories, as the " lieta Brigata " shut out the Plague by telling them. Perhaps Mr. Lowell will give us Boccaccio one day, and Cervantes? And many more, whom Ste. Beuve has left to be done by him. I fancy Boccaccio must be read in his Italian, as Cervantes in his Spanish: the Language fitting either "like a Glove," as we say. Boccaccio's Humour in his Country People, Friars, Scolds, etc., is capital : as well, of course, as the easy Grace and Tenderness of other Parts. One thinks that no one who had well read him and Don Quixote would ever write with a strain again, as is the curse of nearly all modern Literature. I know that " Easy Writing is d d hard Reading." Of course the Man must be a Man of Genius to take his Ease : but if he be, let him take it. I suppose that such as Dante, and Milton, and my Daddy [Wordsworth], took it far from easy : well, they dwell apart in the Empyrean ; but for Human Delight, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Boccaccio, and Scott ! Edward FitzGerald (to C. E. Norton). '35 To the Gentle Reader o o o o "A French writer (whom I love well) speaks of three kinds of companions men, women, and books." Sir John Davys. '"PHREE kinds of companions, men, women and books, Were enough, said the elderly Sage, for his ends. And the women we deem that he chose for their looks, And the men for their cellars : the books were his friends : " Man delights me not," often, " nor woman," but books Are the best of good comrades in loneliest nooks. For man will be wrangling for women will fret About everything infinitesimal small : Like the Sage in our Plato, I'm "anxious to get On the side " on the sunnier side " of a wall." Let the wind of the world toss the nations like rooks, If only you'll leave me at peace with my Books. And which are my books? Why, 'tis much as you please, For given 'tis a book, it can hardly be wrong, And Bradshaw himself I can study with ease, Though for choice I might call for a Sermon or Song; And Locker on London, and Sala on Cooks, And " Tom Brown," and Plotinus, they're all of them Books. 136 There's Fielding to lap one in currents of mirth ; There's Herrick to sing of a flower or a fay ; Or good Maitre Frangoys to bring one to earth, If Shelley or Coleridge have snatched one away ; There's Muller on Speech, there's Gurney on Spooks, There's Tylor on Totems, there's all sorts of Books. There's roaming in regions where every one's been, Encounters where no one was ever before ; There's " Leaves" from the Highlands we owe to the Queen, There's Holly's and Leo's Adventures in Kor ; There's Tanner, who dwelt with Pawnees and Chinooks You can cover a great deal of country in Books. There are books, highly thought of, that nobody reads, There's Gensius' dearly delectable tome On the Cannibal he on his neighbour who feeds And in blood-red morocco 'tis bound, by Derome ; There's Montaigne here (a Foppens), there's Roberts (on Flukes), There's Elzevirs, Aldines, and Gryphius' Books. There's Bunyan, there's Walton, in early editions, There's many a quarto uncommonly rare ; There's quaint old Quevedo, a dream with his visions ; There's Jonson the portly, and Burton the spare ; There's Boston of Ettrick, who preached of the " Crooks In the Lots " of us mortals, who bargain for Books. 137 There's Ruskin to keep one exclaiming, " What next ? " There's Browning to puzzle, and Gilbert to chaff, And " Marcus Aurelius" to soothe one if vexed, And good Marcus Tuainus to lend you a laugh ; And there's capital tomes that are filled with fly hooks, And I've frequently found them the best kind of Books. Andrew Lang. 138 MUSIC AND PAINTING "I always loved music; whoso hath skill in this art, the same is of good kind, fitted for all things. . . . Music is a fair gift of God, and near allied to divinity. I would not for a great matter be destitute of the small skill in music which I have. . . . "Whoso condemneth music, as all seducers do, with them I am not content ; next unto Theologia, I give the place and highest honour to Musica. For thereby all anger is forgotten ; the devil is driven away ; unchastity, pride, and other blas- phemies by music are expelled. We also see how David and all the saints brought their divine cogitations and contempla- tions, their rhymes and songs, into verse." Martin Luther. In the beginning, man went forth each day some to do battle, some to the chase ; others, again, to dig and to delve in the field all that they might gain and live, or lose and die. Until there was found among them one, differing from the rest, whose pursuits attracted him not, and so he staid by the tents with the women, and traced strange devices with a burnt stick upon a gourd. This man, who took no joy in the ways of his brethren who cared not for conquest, and fretted in the field this designer of quaint patterns this deviser of the beautiful who perceived in Nature about him curious curvings, as faces are seen in the fire this dreamer apart, was the first artist. . . . We have then but to wait until, with the mark of the gods upon him there come among us again the chosen who shall continue what has gone before. Satisfied that, even were he never to appear, the story of the beautiful is already complete hewn in the marbles of the Parthenon and broidered, with the birds, upon the fan of Hokusai at the foot of Fusi-yama. /. McNeill Whistler. Wind-Musique o *> *& o *> "1 1 7ITH my wife to the King's House to see "The * * Virgin Martyr," the first time it hath been acted a great while : and it is mighty pleasant ; not that the play is worth much, but it is finely acted by Beck Marshall. But that which did please me beyond anything in the whole world, was the wind-musique when the angel comes down ; which is so sweet that it ravished me, and indeed, in a word, did wrap up my soul so that it made me really sick, just as I have formerly been when in love with my wife ; that neither then, nor all the evening going home, and at home, I was able to think of anything, but remained all night transported, so as I could not believe that ever any musique hath that real command over the soul of a man as this did upon me ; and makes me resolve to practise wind-musique, and to make my wife do the like. Samuel Pefy-s. With a Guitar to Jane ^ o -o- *> \ KIEL to MIRANDA : Take ** This slave of Music, for the sake Of him who is the slave of thee, And teach it all the harmony 141 In which thou can'st, and only thou, Make the delighted spirit glow, Till joy denies itself again, And, too intense, is turned to pain ; For by permission and command Of thine own Prince Ferdinand, Poor Ariel sends this silent token Of more than ever can be spoken; Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who, From life to life must still pursue Your happiness ; for thus alone Can Ariel ever find his own. From Prospero's enchanted cell, As the mighty verses tell, To the throne of Naples, he Lit you o'er the trackless sea, Flitting on, your prow before, Like a living meteor. When you die, the silent Moon, In her interlunar swoon, Is not sadder in her cell Than deserted Ariel. When you live again on earth, Like an unseen star of birth, Ariel guides you o'er the sea Of life from your nativity. Many changes have been run Since Ferdinand and you begun Your course of love, and Ariel still Has tracked your steps and served your will. 142 Now, in humbler, happier lot, This is all remembered not ; And now, alas ! the poor sprite is Imprisoned for some fault of his, In a body like a grave ; From you he only dares to crave, For his service and his sorrow, A smile to-day, a song to-morrow. The artist who this idol wrought To echo all harmonious thought, Felled a tree, while on the steep The woods were in their winter sleep, Rocked in that repose divine On the wind-swept Apennine ; And dreaming, some of Autumn past, And some of Spring approaching fast And some of April buds and showers, And some of songs in July bowers, And all of love ; and so this tree Oh, that such our death may be ! Died in sleep, and felt no pain, To live in happier form again : From which, beneath Heaven's fairest star, The artist wrought the loved Guitar ; And taught it justly to reply To all who question skilfully, in language gentle as thine own ; Whispering in enamoured tone '43 Sweet oracles of woods and dells, And summer winds in sylvan cells, For it had learnt all harmonies Of the plains and of the skies, Of the forests and the mountains, And the many-voiced fountains; The clearest echoes of the hills, The softest notes of falling rills, The melodies of birds and bees, The murmuring of summer seas, And pattering rain, and breathing dew, And airs of evening; and it knew That seldom-heard, mysterious sound Which, driven on its diurnal round, As it floats through boundless day, Our world enkindles on its way. All this it knows; but will not tell To those who cannot question well The Spirit that inhabits it. It talks according to the wit Of its companions; and no more Is heard than has been felt before, By those who tempt it to betray These secrets of an elder day: But sweetly as its answers will Flatter hands of perfect skill, It keeps its highest, holiest tone For our beloved Jane alone. Percy Bysshe Shelley. 144 Even Tavern-Musicke o o o o "H* VEN that vulgar and tavern - musick, which * * makes one man merry, another mad, strikes in 'me a deep fit of devotion, and a profound con- templation of my Maker. There is something in it of divinity more than the ear discovers : it is an hieroglyph ical and shadowed lesson of the whole world, and creatures of God, such a melody to the ear, as the whole world, well understood, would afford the understanding. In brief, it is a sensible fit of that harmony which intellectually sounds in the ears of God. It unties the ligaments of my frame, takes me to pieces, dilates me out of myself, and by degrees methinks resolves me into heave". Sir Thomas Browne. During Music e> > o o *e. T) LAY on, play on : we have no need of light ; *- Play on, play on : why should \ve wish to see ? The notes fall softly ; softly falls the night, And builds a barrier between you and me. Play on, play on : let nothing break the spell ; Play on, play on : tired are my eyes and brain ; The music and the darkness like them well, And soothe their restlessness to rest again. Darkness and music flooding all the room, Shadow and sound, a blinding and a cry ; Nothing beside the music and the gloom They are all, they are life and death, they are you and I. I think the charm can never change or cease, I cannot tell how long I have been here, I only know that this is perfect peace, A mystic calm, a heaven in a tear. I have no longing for things great and fair, Beauty and strength and grace of word or deed, For all sweet things my soul has ceased to care, Infinite pity - that is all its need. No hallowed transport of the heavenly throng, No happy echo from the saints' abode, The voice of many angels and their song, The river flowing from the feet of God ; Only the vague remembrance of a dream, Dwelling, a plaintive presence, in the mind, Only the patient murmur of a stream, Only a bird's cry borne upon the wind. Lights now ! the sound ebbs, the enchantment flies Ah, it was sweet ; but these are sweeter far The perfect innocency of your eyes, Your smile more lovely than the first-born star. /. B. B. Nichols. 146 Song -e> o o *o xc> ~\ T THEN whispering strains do softly steal * * With creeping passion through the heart, .And when at every touch \ve feel Our pulses beat, and bear a part ; When threads can make A heart-string quake ; Philosophy Can scarce deny, The soul consists of harmony. Oh, lull me, lull me, charming air, My senses rock'd with wonder sweet ! Like snow on wool thy fallings are Soft like a spirit are thy feet. Grief who need fear That hath an ear ? Down let him lie, And slumbering die, And change his soul for harmony. William Strode. At a Solemn Music T) LEST pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven's joy, -^ Sphere-born harmonious Sistejs, Voice and Verse ! Wed your divine sounds, and mixt power employ, Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce, And to our high-raised phantasy present That undisturbed Song of pure concent Aye sung before the sapphire-colour'd throne To Him that sits thereon, With saintly shout and solemn jubilee ; Where the bright Seraphim in burning row Their loud uplifted angel-trumpets blow ; And the Cherubic host in thousand quires Touch their immortal harps of golden wires, With those just Spirits that wear victorious palms. Hymns devout and holy psalms Singing everlastingly : That we on earth, with undiscording voice May rightly answer that melodious noise ; As once we did, till disproportion'd sin Jarr'd against nature's chime, and with harsh din Broke the fair music that all creatures made To their great Lord, whose love their motion swa/d In perfect diapason, whilst they stood In first obedience, and their state of good. O may we soon again renew that Song, And keep in tune with Heaven, till God ere long To his celestial concert us unite, To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light ! John Milton. 148 Miss Linley o o o o o o r I *O Loton the landscape-drawer, a Dutchman, living * in St. James's Market ; but there saw no good pictures. But by accident he did direct us to a painter that was then in the house with him, a Dutch- man, newly come over, one Evereest, who took us to his lodging close by, and did show us a little flower- pot of his. drawing, the finest thing that ever, I think, I saw in my life ; the drops of dew hanging on the leaves, so as I was forced again and again to put my finger to it, to feel whether my eyes were deceived or no. He do ask 7o/. for it : I had the vanity to bid him 2o/. But a better picture I never saw in my whole life ; and it is worth going twenty miles to see it. Thence, leaving Baity there, I took my wife to St. James's, and there carried her to the Queene's chapel, the first time I ever did it ; and heard ex- cellent musick, but not so good as by accident I did hear there yesterday as I went through the Park from White Hall to see Sir W. Coventry, which 1 have forgot to set down in my Journal yesterday. Samuel Pepys. James Elia, Connoisseur o & *o- o T T does me good, as I walk towards the street of * my daily avocation, on some fine May morning, to meet him marching in a quite opposite direction, with a jolly handsome presence, and shining sanguine face, that indicates some purchase in his eye a Claude or a Hobbima for much of his enviable leisure is consumed at Christie's, and Phillips's or where not, to pick up pictures, and such gauds. On these occasions he mostly stoppeth me, to read a short lecture on the advantage a person like me possesses above himself, in having his time occupied with business which he must do assureth me that he often feels it hang heavy on his hands wishes he had fewer holidays and goes off Westward Ho ! chanting a tune to Pall Mall perfectly convinced that he has convinced me while I proceed in my opposite direction tuneless. 152 It is pleasant again to see this Professor of In- difference doing the honours of his new purchase, when he has fairly housed it. You must view it in every light, till he has found the best placing it at this distance, and at that, but always suiting the focus of your sight to his own. You must spy at it through your fingers, to catch the aerial perspective though you assure him that to you the landscape shows much more agreeable without that artifice. Woe be to the luckless wight, who does not only not respond to his rapture, but who should drop an unseasonable in- timation of preferring one of his anterior bargains to the present ! The last is always his best hit his " Cynthia of the minute." Alas ! how many a mild Madonna have I known to come in a Raphael ! keep its ascendency for a few brief moons then, after certain intermedial degradations, from the front drawing-room to the back gallery, thence to the dark parlour, adopted in turn by each of the Carracci, under successive lowering ascriptions of filiation, mildly breaking its fall consigned to the oblivious lumber-room, go out at last a Lucca Giordano, or plain Carlo Maratti 1 Charles Lamb. '53 A Portrait > o o o -o o TV /T Y Infelice's face, her brow, her eye, *** The dimple on her cheek ; and such sweet skill Hath from the cunning workman's pencil flown, These lips look fresh and lovely as her own. False colours last after the true be dead. Of all the roses grafted on her cheeks, Of all the graces dancing in her eyes, Of all the music set upon her tongue, Of all that was past woman's excellence In her white bosom ; look, a painted board Circumscribes all ! Thomas Dekker. Portraits o o o o o & 1" AM all for a little Flattery in Portraits : that is, so * far as, I think, the Painter or Sculptor should try at something more agreeable than anything he sees sitting to him : when People look either bored, or smirking : he should give the best possible Aspect which the Features before him might wear, even if the Artist had not seen that Aspect. Especially when he works for Friends or Kinsfolk : for even the plainest face has looked handsome to them at some happy moment, and just such we like to have perpetuated. Edward FitzGerald (to W. H. Thompson). r 54 Sir Joshua o o o o o o IR JOSHUA must have had a fine time of it with his sitters. Lords, ladies, generals, authors, opera-singers, musicians, the learned and the polite, besieged his doors, and found an unfailing welcome. What a rustling of silks ! What a fluttering of flounces and brocades ! What a cloud of powder and perfumes ! What a flow of periwigs ! What an exchange of civilities and of titles ! What a recognition of old friendships, and an introduction of new acquaintance and sitters ! It must, I think, be allowed that this is the only mode in which genius can form a legitimate union with wealth and fashion. There is a secret and sufficient tie in interest and vanity. Abstract topics of wit or learning do not furnish a connecting link : but the painter, the sculptor, come in close contact with the persons of the Great. The lady of quality, the courtier, and the artist, meet and shake hands on this common ground ; the latter exercises a sort of natural juris- diction and dictatorial power over the pretensioi s of the first to external beauty and accomplishment, which produces a mild sense and tone of equality ; and the opulent sitter pays the taker of flattering likenesses handsomely for his trouble, which does not lessen the sympathy between them. There is even a satisfaction in paying down a high price for a picture it seems as if one's head was worth something ! During the first sitting, Sir Joshua '55 did little but chat with the new candidate for the fame of portraiture, try an attitude, or remark an expression. His object was to gain time, by not being in haste to commit himself, until he was master of the subject before him. No one ever dropped in but the friends and acquaintance of the sitter it was a rule with Sir Joshua that from the moment the latter entered, he was at home the room belonged to him but what secret whisperings would there be among these, what confidential, inaudible communica- tions ! It must be a refreshing moment, when the cake and wine had been handed round, and the artist began again. He, as it were, by this act of hospitality assumed a new character, and acquired a double claim to confidence and respect. In the meantime, the sitter would perhaps glance his eye round the room, and see a Titian or a Vandyke hanging in one corner, with a transient feeling of scepticism whether he should make such a picture. How the ladies of quality and fashion must bless themselves from being made to look like Dr. Johnson or Goldsmith ! How proud the first of these would be, how happy the last, to fill the same armchair where the Burnburys and the Hornecks had sat ! How superior the painter would feel to them all ! By "happy alchemy of mind," he brought out all their good qualities and reconciled their defects, gave an air of studious ease to his learned friends, or lighted up the face of folly and fashion with intelli- gence and graceful smiles. Those portraits, however, that were most admired at the time, do not retain their pre-eminence now : the thought remains upon the brow, while the colour has faded from the cheek, or the dress grown obsolete ; and after all, Sir Joshua's best pictures are those of his worst sitters his children. They suited best with his unfinished style ; and are like the infancy of the art itself happy, bold, and careless. Sir Joshua formed the circle of his private friends from the Mite of his sitters ; and Vandyke was, it appears, on the same footing with his. When any of those noble or distinguished persons whom he has immortalised with his pencil, were sitting to him, he used to ask them to dinner, and afterwards it was their custom to return to the picture again, so that it is said that many of his finest portraits were done in this manner, ere the colours were yet dry, in the course of a single day. Oh ! ephemeral works to last for ever! W. Hazlitt. Rubens o o -o *o o *> "\1 7"ITH what astonishing rapidity he travels over * his canvas ; how tellingly the cool lights and warm shadows are made to contrast and relieve each other ; how that blazing blowsy penitent in yellow satin and glittering hair carries down the stream of J57 light across the picture ! This is the way to work, my boys, and earn a hundred florins a day. See ! I am as sure of my line as a skater of making his figure of eight ! and down with a sweep goes a brawny arm or a flowing curl of drapery. The figures arrange themselves as if by magic. The paint-pots are exhausted in furnishing brown shadows. The pupils look wondering on, as the master careers over the canvas. Isabel or Helena, wife No. i or No. 2, are sitting by, buxom, exuberant, ready to be painted ; and the children are boxing in the corner, waiting till they are wanted to figure as cherubs in the picture. Grave burghers and gentlefolks come in on a visit. There are oysters and Rhenish always ready on yonder table. Was there ever such a painter? He has been an ambassador, an actual Excellency, and what better man could be chosen ? He speaks all the languages. He earns a hundred florins a day. Prodigious ! Thirty-six thousand five hundred florins a year. Enormous ! He rides out to his castle with a score of gentlemen after him, like the Governor. That is his own portrait as Saint George. You know he is an English knight? Those are his two wives as the two Maries. He chooses the handsomest wives. He rides the handsomest horses. He paints the handsomest pictures. He gets the handsomest prices for them. That slim young Van Dyck, who was his pupil, has genius too, and is painting all the noble ladies in England, and turning the heads of some of them. And Jordaens what a droll dog 158 and clever fellow ! Have you seen his fat Silenus ? The master himself could not paint better. And his altar-piece at Saint Bavon's? He can paint you anything, that Jordaens can a drunken jollification of boors and doxies, or a martyr howling with half his skin off. What a knowledge of anatomy ! But there is nothing like the master nothing. He can paint you his thirty -six thousand five hundred florins' worth a year. Have you heard of what he has done for the French Court ? Prodigious ! I can't look at Rubens's pictures without fancying I see that handsome figure swaggering before the canvas. W. M. Thackeray. Thomson and the Painters 'S was such a shop, if shop it might -* be called, that roof had none, saving the common roof of the Old Exchange. Yet the inclined plane in front, 'twas like a stall, on which he exposed his various stock in trade, together with the shelves, was so arranged, that it was only a little platform within, whereon was placed his desk, you could see the idlers who stood in front, turning over his quires of music, or peeping at the pictured books, of which he usually had exposed a few for show. Within were rows of shelves, with nooks and crannies stuffed with old plays, 159 rare pamphlets, and other literary printed relics, which he scarcely sought to dispose of, being himself a man of reading. He knew more chit-chat anecdote of composers and musicians, than any of his fraternity, and was a host of information to the venerable Burney, and furnished Sir John Hawkins with many rich materials for his History of Music. He had an end- less fund of lively stories of Bird, Kent, Harrington, Purcell, Croft, and his old master Boyce ; and a catalogue of others, replete with humour ; and it was said that there was not an air from the time of Queen Elizabeth, that he could not play, or hum, immediately on its being named. His singing was highly amusing ; for although, when a boy, in the Chapel-Royal, he possessed an exquisite treble, yet when his voice broke it changed to a nasal squeaking, which con- tinued to the last. Arne used to call him the Reed- bird, not from his resemblance to that native warbler of the mill-stream, but from the similitude of his snuffling note to the reed of the clarionet, applied singly to the upper member of that powerful instru- ment. Richard Wilson and Willy Thomson were great cronies. The cheerful musicseller was not much hurried, as Frank Hayman was wont to say of many ingenious wights in his day, whose talents were neglected, or who, in short, had little business. Hence his fireside was a solace to the misanthrope painter, than whom no mortal of his transcendent talent had ever greater cause to complain. Perhaps it is injustice 1 60 to his memory to write him down misanthrope ; cer- tainly he became a cynic and who but must lament the cause ! Marlowe had heard Sir Joshua Reynolds speak of the picturesque effect of the Strand, as it burst upon him early one morning as he came through Exeter 'Change Gate, on his way to the Royal Academy in the Strand. The sun, then due east, held the new church in a mass of rich grey, and the morning beam shed its rays with Rubens-like splendour on each side, glancing obliquely on the projections of old Somerset House, and upon the plastered gables of the old- fashioned houses that stood out of the parallel of the street. Reynolds, though a painter of portraits, was a great observer of these incidental bursts of light ; hence his backgrounds are ofttimes worthy the mind of Titian. Reynolds' description of the scene deter- mined,, Marlowe to make a study on the spot ; and, waiting for a promising morn, he rose early, and roused Wilson on his way, who reluctantly followed, murmuring as he went, " O ! Sir Joshua proclaims it fine ! Come, troop on, Marlowe, or the evanescent splendour of your scene will fade away, and leave you to guess at another of his experimental visions." This sarcastic reflection was a hit at the fading, and sudden loss of splendor, of some of that great portrait painter's best works. Wilson, in his sour mood, usually wielded a two-edged sword. Marlowe at this period was aiming at a meretricious style of effect, regardless of his future fame. L I'M It was my good fortune that morning to bend my early walk to Convent Garden, where I still am wont to lounge in summer, to enjoy the cheerful scene of high market, long before the sluggard is awake, and delight my eyes with the vast display of fruits and vegetables, fresh in their bloom from the adjacent country. There may the melancholic see smiling industry counting her wealth, and the murmurer learn a lesson of thankfulness to the Giver of all Good, for converting our once sterile soil into the garden of the world ! Would that our worthy metropolitans led their children once a year at least, at early day, to view this mighty store of kind nature's choicest gifts ! In the midst of the bustling scene, I met the worthy painters, and was readily tempted to accompany them upon their interesting expedition. "There," said Wilson, pointing to the bulk before an herb-shop, "there sat poor Hogarth, when he sketched his ' Morning ' : the little urchins, with satchels on their backs, were two of old John Dick's boys, creeping like snails unwillingly to school." W. H. Pyne. (" Wine and Walnuts?} 162 THE PLAY I am aware that many of my readers may censure my want of taste. Let me, however, shelter myself under the authority of a very fashionable baronet in the brilliant world, who, on his attention being called to the fragrance of a May evening in the country, observed, "This may be very well ; but for my part I prefer the smell of a flambeau at the playhouse. " James Boswell. But when we got in, and I beheld the green curtain that veiled a heaven to my imagination, which was soon to be disclosed the breathless anticipations I endured ! I had seen some- thing like it in the plate prefixed to Troilus and Cressida, in Rowe's Shakespeare the tent scene with Diomede and a sight of that plate can always bring back in a measure the feeling of that evening. The boxes at that time, full of well- dressed women of quality, projected over the pit ; and the pilasters reaching down were adorned with a glistering sub- stance (I Know not what) under glass (as it seemed), resembling a homely fancy but I judged it to be sugar-candy yet, to my raised imagination, divested of its homelier qualities, it appeared a glorified candy ! the orchestra lights at length arose, those " fair Auroras ! " Once the bell sounded. It was to ring out yet once again and, incapable of the anticipation, I reposed my shut eyes in a sort of resignation upon the n?aternal lap. It rang the second time. The curtain drew up. Charles Lamb. An Epitaph on Salathiel Pavy, a Child of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel o o o s> \ T 7EEP with me, all you that read * * This little story ; And know, for whom a tear you shed Death's self is sorry. It was a child that so did thrive In grace and feature, As Heaven and Nature seem'd to strive Which own'd the creature. Years he number'd scarce thirteen, When fates turn'd cruel, Yet three fill'd zodiacs had he been The stage's jewel ; And did act (what now we moan) Old men so duly, As, sooth, the Parcae thought him one lie play'd so truly. So, by error to his fate They all consented, But viewing him since, alas, too late 1 They have repented ; 165 And have sought, to give new birth, In baths to steep him ; But being much too good for earth, Heaven vows to keep him. Benjonson. An Excellent Actor o o "II 7HATSOEVER is commendable to the grave * orator is most exquisitely perfect in him, for by a full and significant action of body he charms our attention. Sit in a full theatre and you will think you see so many lines drawn from the circumference of so many ears, while the actor is the centre. He doth not strive to make nature monstrous ; she is often seen in the same scene with him, but neither on stilts nor crutches ; and for his voice, 'tis not lower than the prompter, nor louder than the foil or target. By his action he fortifies moral precepts with examples, for what we see him personate we think truly done before us : a man of a deep thought might apprehend the ghost of our ancient heroes walked again, and take him at several times for many of them. He is much affected to painting, and tis a question whether that make him an excellent player, or his playing an exquisite painter. He adds grace to the poet's labours, for what in the poet is but ditty, in him is both ditty and music. He entertains us in the best leisure of our life that is, between meals ; the most 166 unfit time for study or bodily exercise. The flight of hawks and chase of wild beasts, either of them are delights noble; but some think this sport of men the worthier, despite all calumny. All men have been of his occupation; and indeed, what he doth fefgnedly, that do others essentially This day one plays a monarch, the next a private person; here one acts a tyrant, on the morrow an exile; a parasite this man to night, to morrow a precisian; and so of divers others. I observe, of all men living, a worthy actor in one kind is the strongest motive of affection that can be; for, when he dies, we cannot be persuaded any man can do his parts like him. But, to conclude, I value a worthy actor by the corruption of some few of the quality as I would do gold in the ore I should not mind the dross, but the purity of the metal. Sir Thomas Overbury. N T cll Gwynn o o o *sr o \ FTER dinner with my wife to the King's house to see "The Mayden Queene," a new play of Dryden's, mightily commended for the regularity of it, and the strain and wit: and the truth is, there is a comical part done by .\\-ll, which is Florimell, that I never can hope ever to see the like done again by man or woman The King and Duke of York were at the play. But so great performance of a comical part was never, I believe, in the world before as Nell do this, 167 both as a mad girle, then most and best of all when she comes in like a young gallant; and hath the motions and carriage of a spark the most that ever I saw any man have. It makes me, I confess, admire her. Samuel Pepys. Mrs. Mountfort o o o o o MRS. Mountfort . . . was mistress of more variety of humour than I ever knew in any one woman actress. This variety, too, was attended with an equal vivacity, which made her excellent in characters ex- tremely different. As she was naturally a pleasant mimic, she had the skill to make that talent useful on the stage, a talent which may be surprising in a conversation, and yet be lost when brought to the theatre, which was the case of Estcourt already mentioned; but where the elocution is round, distinct, voluble, and various, as Mrs. Mountfort's was, the mimic, there, is a great assistant to the actor. Nothing, though ever so barren, if within the bounds of nature, could be flat in her hands. She gave many heightening touches to characters but coldly written, and often made an author vain of his work, that in itself had but little merit. She was so fond of humour, in what low part soever to be found, that she would make no scruple of defacing her fair form, to come heartily into it; for when she was eminent in desirable characters of wit and humour, in higher life, 1 68 she would be in as much fancy, when descending into the antiquated Abigail of Fletcher, as when triumph- ing in all the airs, and vain graces, of a fine /ady ; a merit, that few actresses care for. In a play of D'Urfey's, now forgotten, called the " Western Lass," which part she acted, she transformed her whole being, body, shape, voice, language, look, and features, into almost another animal ; with a strong Devonshire dialect, a broad laughing voice, a poking head, round shoulders, an unconceiving eye, and the most bedizening, dowdy dress, that ever covered the untrained limbs of a Joan Trot. To have seen her here, you would have thought it impossible the same creature could ever have been recovered to what was as easy to her, the gay, the lively, and the desirable. Nor was her humour limited to her sex ; for, while her shape permitted, she was a more adroit pretty fellow than is usually seen upon the stage : her easy air, action, mien, and gesture, quite changed from the quoif, to the cocked hat, and cavalier in fashion. People were so fond of seeing her a man, that when the part of Bays in the " Rehearsal," had, for some time, lain dormant, she was desired to take it up, which I have seen her act with all the true coxccmbly spirit and humour, that the sufficiency of the character required. But what found most employment for her whole various excellence at once, was the part of Melantha, in " Marriage Alamode." Melantha is as finished an impertinent as ever fluttered in a drawing-room, and seems to contain the most complete system of 169 female foppery, that could possibly be crowded into the tortured form of a fine lady. Her language, dress, motion, manners, soul, and body, are in a continual hurry to be something more than is necessary or commendable. And though I doubt it will be a vain labour, to offer you a just likeness of Mrs. Mountfort's action, yet the fantastic impression is still so strong in my memory, that I cannot help saying something, though fantastically, about it. The first ridiculous airs that break from her, are, upon a gallant, never seen before, who delivers her a letter from her father, recommending him to her good graces, as an honour- able lover. Here, now, one would think she might naturally show a little of the sex's decent reserve, though never so slightly covered. No, sir ; not a tittle of it ; modesty is the virtue of a poor-souled country gentlewoman ; she is too much a court lady. to be under so vulgar a confusion ; she reads the letter, therefore, with a careless, dropping lip, and an erected brow, humming it hastily over, as if she were impatient to outgo her father's commands, by making a complete conquest of him at once ; and that the letter might not embarrass her attack, crack ! she crumbles it at once into her palm, and pours upon him her whole artillery of airs, eyes, and motion ; down goes her dainty, diving body, to the ground, as if she were sinking under the conscious load of her own attractions ; then launches into a flood of fine language and compliment, still playing her chest forward in fifty falls and risings, like a swan upon 170 waving water ; and, to complete her impertinence, she is so rapidly fond of her own wit, that she will not give her lover leave to praise it : silent, assenting bows, and vain endeavours to speak, are all the share of the conversation he is admitted to, which, at last, he is relieved from, by her engagement to half a score visits, which she swims from him to make, with a promise to return in a twinkling. Colley Cibber. Sir Roger at the Play o *> *> o A S soon as the house was full, and the candles * lighted, my old friend stood up, and looked about him with that pleasure which a mind seasoned with humanity naturally feels in itself, at the sight of a multitude of people who seem pleased with one another, and partake of the same common entertain- ment. I could not but fancy to myself, as the old man stood up in the middle of the pit, that he made a very proper centre to a tragic audience. Upon the entering of Pyrrhus, the knight told me that he did not believe the king of France himself had a better strut. I was indeed very attentive to my old friend's remarks, because I looked upon them as a piece of natural criticism, and was well pleased to hear him, at the conclusion of almost every scene, telling me that he could not imagine how the play would end. One while he appeared much concerned for Andromache ; and, 171 a little while after, as much for Hermione ; and was ex- tremely puzzled to think what would become of Pyrrhus. When Sir Roger saw Andromache's obstinate refusal to her lover's importunities, he whispered me in the ear, that he was sure she would never have him ; to which he added, with a more than ordinary vehemence, "You can't imagine, sir, what it is to have to do with a widow." Upon Pyrrhus's threatening afterwards to leave her, the knight shook his head and muttered to himself, " Ay, do if you can." This part dwelt so much upon my friend's imagination, that at the close of the third act, as I was thinking of something else, he whispered me in my ear, "These widows, sir, are the most perverse creatures in the world. But pray," says he, "you that are a critic, is this play according to your dramatic rules, as you call them ? Should your people in tragedy always talk to be understood? Why, there is not a single sentence in this play that I do not know the meaning of." The fourth act very luckily began before I had time to give the old gentleman an answer. "Well," says the knight, sitting down with great satisfaction, " I suppose we are now to see Hector's ghost." He then renewed his attention, and, from time to time, fell a- praising the widow. He made indeed a little mistake as to one of her pages, whom, at his first entering, he took for Astyanax ; but he quickly set himself right in that particular, though, at the same time, he owned he should have been very glad to have seen the little boy, who, says he, must needs be a very fine child by 172 the account that is given of him. Upon Hermione's going off with a menace to Pyrrhus, the audience gave a loud clap, to which Sir Roger added, " On my word, a notable young baggage ! " As there was a very remarkable silence and stillness in the audience during the whole action, was it natural for them to take the opportunity of these intervals between the acts, to express their opinion of the players and of their respective parts. Sir Roger, hearing a cluster of them praise Orestes, struck in with them, and told them, that he thought his friend Pylades was a very sensible man. As they were afterwards applauding Pyrrhus, Sir Roger put in a second time. " And let me tell you," says he, " though he speaks but little, I like the old fellow in whiskers as well as any of them." Captain Sentry seeing two or three wags who sat near us lean with an attentive ear towards Sir Roger, and fearing lest they should smoke the knight, plucked him by the elbow, and whispered something in his ear that lasted till the opening of the fifth act. The knight was wonderfully attentive to the account which Orestes gives of Pyrrhus his death, and at the conclusion of it, told me it was stich a bloody piece of work that he was glad it was not done upon the stage. Seeing afterwards Orestes in his raving fit, he grew more than ordinarily serious, and took occasion to moralise, in his way, upon an evil conscience, adding, that Orestes in his madness looked as if he saw something. Joseph Addison. 173 Davy <> o o o ^^ & /^ARRICK would indulge some few friends but ^-^ it was very rare with what he used to call his rounds. This he did by standing behind a chair, and conveying into his face every kind of passion, blending one into the other, and as it were shadowing them with a prodigious number of gradations. At one moment you laughed, at another you cried ; now he terrified you, and presently you conceived yourself something horrible, he seemed so terrified at you. Afterwards he drew his features into the appearance of such dignified wisdom that Minerva might have been proud of the portrait ; and then degrading, yet admirable transition he became a driveller. In short, his face was what he obliged you to fancy it age, youth, plenty, poverty, everything it assumed. Charles Dibdin. Mrs. Jordan o *t> I \ /T RS. JORDAN was inimitable in exemplifying the consequences of too much restraint in ill- educated Country Girls, in Romps, in Hoydens, and in Wards on whom the mercenary have designs. She wore a bib and tucker, and pinafore, with a bouncing propriety, fit to make the boldest spectator alarmed at the idea of bringing such a household responsibility 174 on his shoulders. To see her when thus attired shed blubbering tears for some disappointment, and eat all the while a great thick slice of bread and butter, weeping, and moaning, and munching, and eyeing at every bite the part she meant to bite next, was a lesson against will and appetite worth a hundred sermons of our friends on board the hoy ; and, on the other hand, they could assuredly have done and said nothing at all calculated to make such an impression in favour of amiableness as she did, when she acted in gentle, generous, and confiding characters. The way in which she would take a friend by the cheek and kiss her, or make up a quarrel with a lover, or coax a guardian into good-humour, or sing (without accom- paniment) the song of " Since then I'm doom'd," or " In the dead of the night," trusting, as she had a right to do, and as the house wished her to do, to the sole effect of her sweet, mellow, and loving voice the reader will pardon me, but tears of pleasure and regret come into my eyes at the recollection, as if she personified whatsoever was happy at that period of life, and which was gone like herself. The very sound of the little familiar word bud from her lips (the abbreviation of husband), as she packed it closer, as it were, in the utterance, and pouted it up with fondness in the man's face, taking him at the same time by the chin, was a whole concentrated world of the power of loving. Leigh Hunt. '75 II "T^HOSE who have only seen Mrs. Jordan within ^ the last ten or fifteen years, can have no adequate notion of her performance of such parts as Ophelia ; Helena, in All's Well that Ends Well ; and Viola in this play. Her voice had latterly acquired a coarseness, which suited well enough with her Nells and Hoydens, but in those days it sank, with her steady melting eye, into the heart. Her joyous parts in which her memory now chiefly lives in her youth were outdone by her plaintive ones. There is no giving an account how she delivered the disguised story of her love for Orsino. It was no set speech, that she had foreseen, so as to weave it into an harmonious period, line necessarily following line, to make up the music yet I have heard it so spoken, or rather read, not without its grace and beauty but, when she had declared her sister's history to be a "blank," and that she "never told her love," there was a pause, as if the story had ended and then the image of the " worm in the bud " came up as a new suggestion and the heightened image of " Patience " still followed after that, as by some growing (and not mechanical) process, thought springing up after thought, I would almost say, as they were watered by her tears. So in those fine lines Write loyal cantos of contemned love Hollow your name to the reverberate hills there was no preparation made in the foregoing image for that which was to follow. She used no rhetoric in 176 her passion; or it was nature's own rhetoric, most legitimate then, when it seemed altogether without rule or law Charles Lamb. Munden *t> ^> o o o o "INHERE is one face of Farley, one face of Knight, * one (but what a one it is!) of Liston; but Munden has none that you can properly pin down, and call his. When you think he has exhausted his battery of looks, in unaccountable warfare with your gravity., suddenly he sprouts out an entirely new set of features, like Hydra He is not one, but legion. Not so much a comedian, as a company. If his name could be multiplied like his countenance, it might fill a play bill. He, and he alone, literally makes faces: applied to any other person, the phrase is a mere figure, denoting certain modifications of the human countenance. Out of some invisible wardrobe he dips for faces, as his friend Suett used for wigs, and fetches them out as easily I should not be surprised to see him some day put out the head of a river horse; or come forth a pewitt, or lapwing, some feathered metamorphosis. . . . Who like him can throw, or ever attempted to throw, a preternatural interest over the commonest daily life objects? A table, or a joint stool, in his conception, rises into a dignity equivalent to M ,77 Cassiopeia s chair. It is invested with constellatory importance. You could not speak of it with more deference, if it were mounted into the firmament. A beggar in the hands of Michael Angelo, says Fuseli, rose the Patriarch of Poverty. So the gusto of Munden antiquates and ennobles what it touches. His pots and his ladles are as grand and primal as the seething pots and hooks seen in old prophetic vision A tub of butter, contemplated by him amounts to a Platonic idea. He understands a leg of mutton in its quiddity. He stands wondering, amid the common place materials of life, like primaeval man with the sun and stars about him. Charles Lamb. Charles Kemble o ^> ^> o er T HAVE acted Ophelia three times with my father, * and each time, in that beautiful scene where his madness and his love gush forth together like a torrent swollen with storms, that bears a thousand blossoms on its troubled waters, I have experienced such deep emotion as hardly to be able to speak. The exquisite tenderness of his voice, the wild compassion and forlorn pity of his looks, bestowing that on others which, above all others, he most needed; the melancholy restlessness, the bitter self- scorning; every shadow of expression and intonation 178 was so full of all the mingled anguish that the human heart is capable of enduring, that my eyes scarce fixed on his ere they filled with tears ; and long before the scene wa? over, the letters and jewel- cases I was tendering to him were wet with them. The hardness of professed actors and actresses is something amazing. After this part, I could not but recall the various Ophelias I have seen, and commend them for the astonishing absence of everything like feeling which they exhibited. Oh, it made my heart sore to act it ! Fanny Kemble. Mrs Siddons o o -&> o > T I TE trust that we have too much good sense to attempt painting a picture of Sarah Siddons. In her youth it is said she was beautiful, even lovely, and won men's hearts as Rosalind. But beauty is a fading flower ; it faded from her face ere one wrinkle had touched that fixed paleness which seldom was tinged with any colour, even in the whirlwind of passion. Light came and went across those finest features at the coming or going of each feeling and thought ; but faint was the change of hue ever visible on that glorious marble. It was the magnificent countenance of an animated statue, in the stillness of its idealised beauty instinct with all the emotions of 179 our mortal life. Idealised beauty ! Did we not say that beauty had faded from her face? Yes, but it was overspread with a kindred expression, for which we withhold the name only because it seemed more divine, inspiring awe that overpowered while it mingled with delight, more than regal say rather, immortal. Such an image surely had never before trod, nor ever again will tread, the enchanted floor. In all stateliest shows of waking woe she dwindled the stateliest into insignificance ; her majesty made others mean ; in her sunlike light all stars " paled their ineffectual fires." But none knew the troubled grandeur of guilt till they saw her in Lady Macbeth, walking in her sleep, and as she wrung her hands, striving in vain to wash from her the engrained murder, " Not all the perfumes of Arabia could sweeten this little hand ! :> The whisper came as from the hollow grave ; and more hideously haunted than ever was the hollow grave, seemed then to be the cell of her heart ! Shakespeare's self had learned something then from a sight of Siddons. John Wilson, Edmund Kean ^> ^> o o o I FT is impossible to form a higher conception of Richard in. than that given by Kean : never was character represented by greater distinctness and 180 precision, and perfectly articulated in every part. If Kean did not succeed in concentrating all the lines of the character, he gave a vigour and relief to the part which we have never seen surpassed. He was more refined than Cooke; bolder and more original than Kemble. The scene with Lady Anne was an admirable specimen of bold and smiling duplicity. Wily adulation was firmly marked by his eye, and he appeared like the first tempter in the garden. Kean's attitude in leaning against the pillar was one of the most graceful and striking positions ever witnessed. It would serve a Titian, Raphael, or Salvator Rosa as a model. The transition from the fiercest passion to the most familiar tone, was a quality which Kean possessed over every other actor that ever appeared. Many attempted this style, and all have most egregiously failed. William Hazlitt. n T/" EAN is gone, and with him are gone Othello, * * Sliylock, and Richard. I have lived among those whose theatrical creed would not permit them to acknowledge him as a great actor; but they must be bigoted indeed who would deny that he was a great t,a-iiius a man of most original and striking powers, careless of art, ]>erha|s because he did not need it, but possessing those rare gifts of nature without which art is as a dead body. \Vliu iliat ever heard 181 will ever forget the beauty, the unutterable tenderness of his reply to Desdemoncfs entreaties for Cassia " Let him come when he will ; I can deny thee nothing " ; the deep despondency of his " Oh, now farewell " ; the miserable anguish of his " Oh, Desdemona, away, away ! " Who that ever saw will ever forget the fascination of his dying eyes in Richard, when deprived of his sword ; the wondrous power of his look seemed yet to avert the uplifted arm of Richmond. If he was irregular and unartist- like in his performance, so is Niagara compared with the waterworks of Versailles. Fanny Kemble. Ellen Terry o o o o OME say she is not human This strange elusive woman That she's some gay enchanting elf From out the sea or sky ; But I Believe she's just her gracious self. Some ever praise the acting, And others, all-exacting, Her silences adore. But when She speaks her own free mind, I find She is the most attractive then. 182 Another generation Shall list in veneration, As all describe her haunting art, And sing her merits high ; But I Shall tell them of her gentle heart. Anna Gannon. The Dancers o -o* ~o o o T N the reign of George iv., I give you my honour, all the dancers at the opera were as beautiful as Houris. Even in William iv.'s time, when I think of Duvernay prancing in as the Bayadere, I say it was a vision of loveliness such as mortal eyes can't see now-a-days. How well I remember the tune to which she used to appear ; Kaled used to say to the Sultan, " My lord, a troop of those dancing and singing gurls called Bayaderes approach," and, to the clash of cymbals, and the thumping of my heart, in she used to dance ! There has never been any- thing like it never. There never will be I lauyh to scorn old people who tell me about your Noblet, your Montessu, your Vestris, your Parisot pshaw, the senile twaddlers ! And the impudence of the young men, with their music and their dancers of to-day : I tell you the women are dreary old creatures. I tell you one air in an opera is just like another, and they send all rational creatures to sleep. Ah, Ronzi de Begnis, thou lovely one ! Ah, Caradori, thou smiling angel ! Ah, Malibran ! W. M. Thackeray. Ducrow o o *> <> -o o ^HEPHERD. After a', sir, it canna be denied that * ' the human race are maist extraordinary creturs. What canna they, by constant practice, be brought to perform ? It's a perplexin' place yon Circus ; ae man draps doun in the dust, and awa' out o' the door on his doup ; anither after him, \vi' a' celerity, on his elbows ; a third after him again, soomin' on dry laun' at the rate o' four miles an hour ; a fourth perpen- dicular on the pawms o' his hauns ; and a fifth on the croon o' his head, without ever touchin' the grun' wi' his loofs ava. A' the while, the lang-luggit fule, wi' a maist divertin' face, balancin' himsell cross-legged on a chair wi' ae foot, is spinnin' roun' like a whirligig. Ordinary sittin' or walkin' seems perfectly stupid after that feet superfluous, and legs an incumbrance. North. But Ducrow, James, Ducrow ? Shepherd. Then in comes a tall, pleasant-looking fallow o' a German, ane Herr Benjamin, wha thinks nae mair o' balancin' a beam o' wood, that micht be a roof-tree to a house, on his wee finger, than if it were a wundle-strae ; then gars a sodger's musket, wi' the point o' the beggonet on his chin, spin roun' 184 till it becomes nearly invisible; no' content wi' that, up wi' a ladder aneath his lip, wi' a laddie on't, as easily as if it were a leddy's fan; and, feenally, con- cludes wi' twa mail-cotch wheels on the mouth o' him. North. But Ducrow, James, Ducrow? Shepherd. Yon's a beautifu' sicht, sir at ance music, dancin', statuary, painting, and poetry! The crcturs aneath him soon cease to seem horses, as they accelerate round the circus, wi' a motion a' their ain, unlike to that o' ony ither four-footed quadrupeds on the face o' this earth, mair gracefu' in their easy swift- ness than the flight o' Arabian coursers ower the desert, and to the eye o' imagination some rare and new-created animals, fit for the wild and wondrous pastimes o' that greatest o' a' magicians Man. North. But Ducrow, James, Ducrow? Shepherd. As if inspired, possessed by some spirit, over whom the laws o' attraction and gravity hae nae control, he dallies wi' danger, and bears a charmed life, safe as the pigeon that you will afttimes see gang tapsy-turvy amang the clouds, and tumblin' doun to within a yard o' the earth, then re-ascend, like an arrow, into the sunshine, and, wheelin' roun' and roun' in aft-repeated circles, extend proudly a' its burnished plumage to the licht, till the een are pained, and the brain diz/.y to behold the aerial brichtness beautifyin' the sky. North. Bravo, James excellent go on. Shepherd. \Vha the deevil was Castor, that the 185 ancients made a god o' for his horsemanship a god o' and a star in comparison wi' yon Ducraw? A silly thocht is a Centaur man and a horse in ane in which the dominion o' the man is lost, and the superior incorpsed wi' the inferior natur'. Ducraw "rides on the whirlwind, and directs the storm." And oh, sir ! how saftly, gently, tenderly, and like the dyin' awa' o' fast fairy music in a dream, is the subsidin' o' the motion o' a' the creturs aneath his feet, his ain gestures, and his ain attitudes, and his ain actions, a' correspondin' and congenial wi' the ebbin' flight ; even like some great master o' music wha doesna leave aff when the soun" is at its heicht, but gradually leads on the sowls o' the listeners to a far profounder hush o' silence than reigned even before he woke to ecstasy his livin' lyre. John Wilson (Christopher North), 1 86 YOUTH IN THE CITY Shal. O, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night in the windmill in Saint George's field ? Fal. No more of that, good Master Shallow, no more of that. Shal. Ha! 'twas a merry night. And is Jane Nightwork alive? Fal. She lives, Master Shallow. Shal. She never could away with me. Fal. Never, never ; she would always say she could not abide Master Shallow. Shal. By the mass, I could anger her to the heart. She was then a bona-roba. Doth she hold her own well ? Fal. Old, old, Master Shallow. Shal. Nay, she must be old ; she cannot oioose but be old ; certain she's old ; and had Robin Nightwork by old Nightwork before I came to Clement's Inn. Sil. That's fifty-five year ago. Shal. Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that this knight and I have seen! Ha, Sir John, said I well? Fal. We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow. Shal. That we have, that we have, that we have; in faith, Sir John, we have: our watch-word was " Hem boys! " Come, let's to dinner ; come, let's to dinner : Jesus, the days that we have seen! Come, come. Shakespeare. Sally in our Alley all the girls that are so smart, There's none like pretty Sally ; She is the darling of my heart, And she lives in our alley. There is no lady in the land Is half so sweet as Sally ; She is the darling of my heart, And she lives in our alley. Her father he makes cabbage-nets, And through the streets does cry 'em ; Her mother she sells laces long To such as please to buy 'em : But sure such folks could ne'er beget So sweet a girl as Sally ! Slje is the darling ol'my heart, And she lives in our alley. When she is by I leave my work, I love her so sincerely ; My master comes like any Turk, And bangs me most severely 189 But let him bang his bellyful, I'll bear it all for Sally; She is the darling of my heart, And she lives in our alley. Of all the days that's in the week I dearly love but one day, And that's the day that comes betwixt A Saturday and Monday; For then I'm drest all in my best, To walk abroad with Sally; She is the darling of my heart, And she lives in our alley. My master carries me to Church, And often I am blamed Because I leave him in the lurch As soon as text is named; I leave the Church in sermon-time, And slink away to Sally; She is the darling of my heart, And she lives in our alley. When Christmas comes about again> then I shall have money; I'll hoard it up, and box it all, I'll give it to my honey: 1 would it were ten thousand pound I'd give it all to Sally; She is the darling of my heart, And she lives in our alley. 190 My master and the neighbours all Make game of me and Sally, And, but for her, I'd better be A slave and row a galley; But when my seven long years are* out, O then I'll marry Sally, O then we'll wed, and then we'll bed . . . But not in our alley! H. Carey. A Ballad upon a Wedding o o T TELL thee, Dick, where I have been, Where I the rarest things have seen; O things without compare! Such sights again cannot be found In any place on English ground, Be it at wake or fair. At Charing Cross, hard by the way Where we (thou knowst) do sell our hay, There is a house with stairs; And there did I see coming down Such folks as are not in our town, Forty at least, in pairs. Amongst the rest, one pest'lent fine (.His beard no bigger, tho', than mine) Walk'd on before the rest; 191 Our landlord looks like nothing to him : The king (God bless him !) 'twould undo him, Should he go still so drest. At Coujse-a-park, without all doubt, He should have first been taken out By all the maids i' th' town : Though lusty Roger there had been, Or little George upon the green, Or Vincent of the Crown. But wot you what ? The youth was going To make an end of all his wooing ; The parson for him staid : Yet by his leave (for all his haste), He did not so much wish all past, (Perchance) as did the maid. The maid, and thereby hangs a tale, For such a maid no Whitsun-ale Could ever yet produce : No grape that's kindly ripe, could be So round, so soft, so plump as she, Nor half so full of juice. Her finger was so small, the ring Would not stay on which they did bring ; It was too wide a peck : And to say truth (for out it must) It look'd like the great collar (just) About our young colt's neck. 192 Her feet beneath her petticoat, Like little mice, stole in and out, As if they fear'd the light : But O ! she dances such a way ! No sun upon an Easter-day Is half so fine a sight He would have kist her once or twice, But she would not, she was so nice, She would not do't in sight : And then she lookt, as who should say I will do what I list to-day ; And you shall do't at night. Her cheeks so rare a white was on, No daisy makes comparison ; Who sees them is undone ; For streaks of red were mingled there, Such as are on a Cath'rine pear, The side that's next the sun. Her lips were red ; and one was thin, Compared to that was next her chin (Some bee had stung it newly) ; But, Dick, her eyes so guard her face, I durst no more upon them gaze, Than on the sun in July. N 193 Her mouth so small, when she does speak, Thou'd'st swear her teeth her words did break, That they might passage get ; But she so handled still the matter, They came as good as ours, or better, And are not spent a whit. Passion o' me ! how I run on ! There's that that would be thought upon, I trow, besides the bride : The business of the kitchen's great, For it is fit that men should eat ; Nor was it there denied. Just in the nick the cook knock'd thrice, And all the waiters in a trice His summons did obey ; Each serving-man, with dish in hand, March'd boldly up, like our train'd-band, Presented, and away. When all the meat was on the table, What man of knife, or teeth, was able To stay to be intreated ? And this the very reason was, Before the parson could say grace, The company were seated. 194 Now hats fly off, and youth carouse"; Healths first go round, and then the house, The bride's come thick and thick ; And when 'twas named another's health, Perhaps he made it hers by stealth, (And who could help it, Dick ?) O' th" sudden up they rise and dance; Then sit again, and sigh, and glance ; Then dance again, and kiss. Thus sev'ral ways the time did pass, Till ev'ry woman wish'd her place, And ev'ry man wish'd his. By this time all were stol'n aside To counsel and undress the bride ; But that he must not know : But yet 'twas thought he guess'd her mind, And did not mean to stay behind Above an hour or so. When in he came (Dick) there she lay Like new fal'n snow melting away, ('Twas time, I trow, to part :) Kisses were now the only stay, Which soon she gave, as who would say, Good boy ! with all my heart. 1 Sir John Suckling. 1 Three stanzas have been reluctantly omitted. 195 The Chronicle : A Ballad > o o TV /[ ARGARITA first possess'd, ** If I remember well, my breast, Margarita first of all ; But when awhile the wanton maid With my restless heart had play'd, Martha took the flying ball. Martha soon it did resign To the beauteous Catharine. Beauteous Catharine gave place (Though loth and angry she to part With the possession of my heart) To Eliza's conquering face. Eliza till this hour might reign, Had she not evil counsel ta'en : Fundamental laws she broke, And still new favourites she chose, Till up in arms my passions rose, And cast away her yoke. Mary then, and gentle Anne, Both to reign at once began ; Alternately they swayed : And sometimes Mary was the fair, And sometimes Anne the crown did wear, And sometimes both I obey'd. 196 Another Mary then arose, And did rigorous law impose A mighty tyrant she '. Long, alas '. should I have been Under that iron-sceptred queen, Had not Rebecca set me free. When fair Rebecca set me free, : T\vas then a golden time with me, But soon those pleasures fled ; For the gracious princess died In her youth and beauty's pride, And Judith reigned in her stead. One month, three days, and half an hour, Judith held the sovereign power : Wondrous beautiful her face ! But so weak and small a wit, That she to govern was unfit, And so Susanna took her place. But when Isabella came, Arm'd with a resistless flame, And th' artillery of her eye ; Whilst she proudly marched about, Greater conquests to find out, She beat out Susan by the bye 197 But in her place I then obey'd Black-ey'd Bess, her viceroy maid, To whom ensued a vacancy : Thousand worse passions then possess'd The interregnum of my breast ; Bless me from such an anarchy ! Gentle Henrietta then, And a third Mary, next began ; Then Joan, and Jane, and Audria ; And then a pretty Thomasine, And then another Catharine, And then a long et caetera. But should I now to you relate The strength and riches of their state, The powder, patches, and the pins, The ribbons, jewels, and the rings, The lace, the paint, and warlike things, That make up all their magazines : If I should tell the politic arts To take and keep men's hearts ; The letters, embassies, and spies, The frowns, and smiles, and flatteries, The quarrels, tears, and perjuries, (Numberless, nameless mysteries !) 198 And all the little lime-twigs laid By Machiavel, the waiting maid ; I more voluminous should grow (Chiefly if I, like them, should tell All change of weather that befel) Than Holinshed or Stow. But I will briefer with them be, Since few of them were long with me : An higher and a nobler strain My present emperess does claim, Heleonora, first o' th' name, Whom God grant long to reign. Abraham Cow ley. A Ballad in imitation of Martial, Lib. vi. Ep. 34, on Lady Ilchester asking Lord Ilchester, How many kisses he would have? o BETTY ! come, give me sweet kisses ! For sweeter no Girl ever gave ! But why, in the midst of our blisses, Do you ask me, How many I'd have ? I'm not to be stinted in pleasure, Then, prithee, dear BETTY ! be kind ! For as I love thee beyond measure, To numbers I'll not be confined : 199 Count the bees that on Hybla are straying ! Count the flowers that enamel the fields ! Count the flocks that on Tempe are playing ; Or the grains that each Sicily yields ! Count how many stars are in heaven ! Go, reckon the sands on the shore ! And when so many kisses you've given, I still shall be asking for more ! To a heart full of love, let me hold thee ! A heart that, dear BETTY ! is thine ! In my arms I'll for ever enfold thee, And curl round thy neck like a vine ! What joy can be greater than this is ? My life on thy lips shall be spent ! But those who can number their kisses, Will always with few be content ! Sir Charles Hanbury Williams. The Cane-bottom'd Chair *> o > T N tattered old slippers that toast at the bars, *- And a ragged old jacket perfumed with cigars, Away from the world and its toils and its cares, I've a snug lit.tle kingdom up four pair of stairs. To mount to this realm is a toil, to be sure, But the fire there is bright and the air rather pure ; And the view I behold on a sunshiny day Is grand, through the chimney-pots over the way. 200 This snug little chamber is cramm'd in all nooks With worthless old knicknacks and silly old books, And foolish old odds and foolish old ends, Crack'd bargains from brokers, cheap keepsakes from friends. Old armour, prints, pictures, pipes, china (all crack'd), Old rickety tables, and chairs broken-backed ; A twopenny treasury, wondrous to see ; What matter ? 'tis pleasant to you, friend, and me. No better divan need the Sultan require, Than the creaking old sofa that basks by the fire ; And 'tis wonderful, surely, what music you get From the rickety, ramshackle, wheezy spinet. That praying-rug came from a Turcoman's camp ; By Tiber once twinkled that brazen old lamp ; A Mameluke fierce yonder dagger has drawn : 'Tis a murderous knife to toast muffins upon. Long, long through the hours, and the night, and the chimes, Here we talk of old books, and old friends, and old times ; As we sit in a fog made of rich Latakie, This chamber is pleasant to you, friend, and me. But of all the cheap treasures that garnish my nest, There's one that I love and I cherish the best ; 201 For the finest of couches that's padded with hair I never would change thee, my cane-bottom'd chair. Tis a bandy-legg'd, high-shoulder'd, worm-eaten seat, With a creaking old back, and twisted old feet ; But since the fair morning when Fanny sat there, I bless thee and love thee, old cane-bottom'd chair. If chairs have but feeling, in holding such charms, A thrill must have pass'd through your wither'd old arms ! I look'd, and I long'd, and I wish'd in despair ; I wish'd myself turn'd to a cane-bottom'd chair. It was but a moment she sat in this place, She'd a scarf on her neck, and a smile on her face ! A smile on her face, and a rose in her hair, And she sat there, and bloom'd in my cane-bottom'd chair. And so I have valued my chair ever since, Like the shrine of a saint, or the throne of a prince ; Saint Fanny, my patroness, sweet I declare, The queen of my heart and my cane-bottom'd chair. When the candles burn low, and the company's gone, In the silence of night as I sit here alone I sit here alore, but we yet are a pair My Fanny I see in my cane-bottom'd chair. 202 She comes from the past, and revisits my room ; She looks as she then did, all beauty and bloom ; So smiling and tender, so fresh and so fair, And yonder she sits in my cane-bottom'd chair. William Makepeace Thackeray. Jenny kiss'd me o o *> o JENNY kiss'd me when we met, Jumping from the chair she sat in ; Time, you thief ! who love to get Sweets into your list, put that in. Say I'm weary, say I'm sad ; Say that health and wealth have miss'd me ; Say I'm growing old, but add Jenny kiss'd me ! Leigh hunt. Hester o *s o o o o Ma nil 1003. "P\EAR MANNING, I send you some verses I have *-^ made on the death of a young Quaker you may have heard me speak of as being in love with for some years while I lived at Pentonville, though I had never spoken to her in my life. She died about a month since. If you have interest with the Abbe de 203 Lisle, you may get 'em translated : he has done as much for the Georgics. When maidens such as Hester die, Their place ye may not well supply, Though ye among a thousand try, With vain endeavour. A month or more hath she been dead, Yet cannot I by force be led To think upon the wormy bed, And her together. A springy motion in her gait, A rising step, did indicate Of pride and joy no common rate, That flush'd her spirit. I know not by what name beside I shall it call : if 'twas not pride, It was a joy to that allied, She did inherit. Her parents held the Quaker rule, Which doth the human feeling cool, But she was train'd in Nature's school, Nature had blest her. A waking eye, a prying mind, A heart that stirs, is hard to bind, A hawk's keen sight ye cannot blind, Ye could not Hester. 204 My sprightly neighbour, gone before To that unknown and silent shore, Shall we not meet, as heretofore, Some summer morning, When from thy cheerful eyes a ray Hath struck a bliss upon the day, A bliss that would not go away, A sweet forewarning ? Charles Lamb. Youth and Art T T once might have been, once only : * We lodged in a street together, You, a sparrow on the housetop lonely, I, a lone she-bird of his feather. Your trade was with sticks and clay, You thumbed, thrust, patted, and polished, Then laughed, " They will see some day " Smith made, and Gibson demolished." My business was song, song, song ; I chirped, cheeped, trilled, and twittered, " Kate Brown's on the boards ere long, "And Grisi's existence embittered ! " 205 I earned no more by a warble Than you by a sketch in plaster ; You wanted a piece of marble, I needed a music-master. We studied hard in our styles, Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos, For air, looked out on the tiles, For fun, watched each other's windows. You lounged, like a boy of the South, Cap and blouse nay, a bit of beard too ; Or you got it, rubbing your mouth With fingers the clay adhered to. And I soon managed to find Weak points in the flower-fence facing, Was forced to put up a blind, And be safe in my corset lacing. No harm ! It was not my fault If you never turned your eye's tail up, As I shook upon E in alt, Or ran the chromatic scale up : For spring bade the sparrows pair, And the boys and girls gave guesses, And stalls in our street looked rare With bulrush and water-cresses. 206 Why did not you pinch a flower In a pellet of clay and fling it ? Why did not I put a power Of thanks in a look, or sing it ? I did look, sharp as a lynx (And yet the memory rankles), When models arrived, some minx Tripped up-stairs, she and her ankles. But I think I gave you as good ! " That foreign fellow, who can know " How she pays, in a playful mood, " For his tuning her that piano ? " Could you say so, and never say, " Suppose we join hands and fortunes, " And I fetch her from over the way, " Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes ? " No, no ; you would not be rash, Nor I rasher and something over : You've to settle yet Gibson's hash, And Grisi yet lives in clover. But you meet the Prince at the Board, I'm queen myself at bals-part, I've married a rich old lord, And you're dubbed knight and an R.A. 207 Each life's unfulfilled, you see ; It hangs still, patchy and scrappy : We have not sighed deep, laughed free, Starved, feasted, despaired, been happy. And nobody calls you a dunce, And people suppose me clever : This could but have happened once, And we missed it, lost it for ever. Robert Browning. Bridget and the Folio o o o o you remember the brown suit, which you made to hang upon you, till all your friends cried shame upon you, it grew so thread-bare and all because of that folio Beaumont and Fletcher, which you dragged home late at night from Barker's in Covent Garden ? Do you remember how we eyed it for weeks before we could make up our minds to the purchase, and had not come to a determination till it was near ten o'clock of the Saturday night, when you set off from Islington, fearing you should be too late and when the old bookseller with some grumbling opened his shop, and by the twinkling taper (for he was setting bedwards) lighted out the relic from his dusty treasures and when you lugged it home, wish- ing it were twice as cumbersome and when you presented it to me and when we were exploring 208 the perfectness of it (collating you called it) and while I was repairing some of the loose leaves with paste, which your impatience would not suffer to be left till day-break was there no pleasure in being a poor man ? or can those neat black clothes which you wear now, and are so careful to keep brushed, since we have become rich and finical, give you half the honest vanity with which you flaunted it about in that over-worn suit your old corbeau for four or five weeks longer than you should have done, to pacify your conscience for the mighty sum of fifteen or sixteen shillings was it ? a great affair we thought it then which you had lavished on the old folio. Now you can afford to buy any book that pleases you, but I do not see that you ever bring me home any nice old purchases now. Charles Lamb. A Credo R the sole edification Of this decent congregation, Goodly people, by your grant I will sing a holy chant I will sing a holy chant If the ditty sound but oddly, Twas a father, wise and godly, Sang it so long ago o 209 Then sing as Martin Luther sang, As Doctor Martin Luther sang : " Who loves not wine, woman, and song, He is a fool his whole life long ! " He, by custom patriarchal, Loved to see the beaker sparkle ; And he thought the wine improved, Tasted by the lips he loved By the kindly lips he loved. Friends, I wish this custom pious Duly were observed by us, To combine love, song, wine, And sing as Martin Luther sang, As Doctor Martin Luther sang : " Who loves not wine, woman, and song, He is a fool his whole life long ! " Who refuses this our Credo, And who will not sing as we do, Were he holy as John Knox, I'd pronounce him heterodox, And from out this congregation, With a solemn commination, Banish quick the heretic, Who will not sing as Luther sang, As Doctor Martin Luther sang : " Who loves not wine, woman, and song, He is a fool his whole life long ! " W. M, Thackeray. " Tom and Jerry " o o o o o T) UT the pictures ! oh ! the pictures are noble ^ still ! First, there is Jerry arriving from the country, in a green coat and leather gaiters, and being measured for a fashionable suit at Corinthian House, by Corinthian Tom's tailor. Then away for the career of pleasure and fashion. The park! delicious excite- ment ! The theatre ! the saloon !! the green-room ! ! ! Rapturous bliss the opera itself! and then perhaps to Temple Bar, to knock down a Charley there! There are Jerry and Tom, with their tights and little cocked hats, coming from the opera very much as gentlemen in waiting on Royalty are habited now. There they are at Almack's itself, amidst a crowd of high-bred personages, with the Duke of Clarence himself looking at them dancing. Now, strange change, they are in Tom Cribb's parlour, where they don't seem to be a whit less at home than in fashion's gilded halls : and now they are at Newgate, seeing the irons knocked off the malefactors' legs previous to execution. . . . Now we haste away to merrier scenes : to Tattersall's (ah, gracious powers ! what a funny fellow that actor was who performed Dicky Green in that scene at the play !) ; and now we are at a private party, at which Corinthian Tom is waltzing (and very gracefully, too, as you must confess) with Corinthian Kate, whilst Bob Logic, the Oxonian, is playing on the piano ! W. M. Thackeray. 211 Epigram o -^> *e> o > *& COME, Sleep ! but mind ye ! if you come without The little girl that struck me at the rout, By Jove ! I would not give you half a crown For all your poppy-heads and all your down. W. S. Landor. To Minerva o o o o (From the Greek) TV l\ Y temples throb, my pulses boil, **-* I'm sick of Song, and Ode, and Ballad So Thyrsis, take the midnight oil, And pour it on a lobster salad. My brain is dull, my sight is foul, I cannot write a verse, or read, Then Pallas, take away thine Owl, And let us have a Lark instead. Thomas Hood. 212 THE TAVERN A good sherris-sack hath a two-fold operation in it. It ascends me into the brain ; dries me there all the foolish, and dull, and crudy vapours which environ it ; makes it apprehen- sive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes ; which, delivered o'er to the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The second property of your excellent sherris is, the warming of the blood ; which, before cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice ; but the sherris warms it, and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extreme: it illumineth the face, which, as a beacon, gives warning to all the rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm ; and then the vital commoners and inland petty spirits muster me all to their captain, the heart, who, great, and puffed up with this retinue, doth any deed of courage ; and this valour comes of sherris. ... If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle I would teach them should be to forswear thin potations, and to addict themselves to sack. Sir John Falstaff (via Shakespeare). The Dead Host's Welcome o o *o '' I "IS late and cold : slir up the fire ; -* Sit close, and draw the table nigher ; Be merry, and drink wine that's old, A hearty medicine 'gainst a cold ! Your beds of wanton down the best, Where you shall tumble to your rest ; I could wish you wenches too, But I am dead, and cannot do. Call for the best the house may ring, Sack, white, and claret, let them bring, And drink apace, while breath you have ; You'll find but cold drink in the grave : Plover, partridge, for your dinner, And a capon for the sinner, You shall find ready when you're up, And your horse shall have his sup : Welcome, welcome shall fly round, And I shall smile, though underground. John Fletcher. 215 A Tavern Scene o <> o *s* o T^ALSTAFF (speaking as Henry iv. to his son] Harry, I do not only marvel where thou spendcst thy time, but also how thou art accompanied : for though the camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears. That thou art my son, I have partly thy mother's word, partly my own opinion ; but chiefly a villainous trick of thine eye, and a foolish hanging of thy nether lip, that doth warrant me. If then thou be son to me, here lies the point : why, being son to me, art thou so pointed at ? Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher, and eat blackberries ? a ques- tion not to be asked. Shall the son of England prove a thief, and take purses ? a question to be asked. There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast often heard of, and it is known to many in our land by the name of pitch : this pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile ; so doth the company thou keepest ; for, Harry, now . I do not speak to thee in drink, but in tears ; not in pleasure, but in passion ; not in words only, but in woes also : and yet there is a virtuous man, whom I have often noted in thy company, but I know not his name. P. Hen. What manner of man, an it like your majesty ? Fal. A goodly portly man, i' faith, and a corpulent ; of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage ; and, as I think, his age some fifty, or, b/r 216 lady, inclining to threescore ; and now I remember me, his name is Falstaff: if that man should be lewdly given, he deceiveth me ; for, Harry, I see virtue in his looks. If then the tree may be known by the fruit, as the fruit by the tree, then, peremptorily I speak it, there is virtue in that Falstaff: him keep with, the rest banish. And tell me now, thou naughty varlet, tell me, where bast thou been this month? P. Hen. Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for me, and I'll play my father. Fal. Depose me? If thou dost it half so gravely, so majestically, both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a rabbit-sucker or a coulter's hare. P. Hen. Well, here I am set. Fal. And here I stan 1 : judge, my masters. P. Hen. Now, Harry, whence come you? Fal. My noble lord, from Eastcheap. P. Hen. The complaints I hear of thee are grievous Fal. 'Sblood, my lord, they are false : nay, I'll tickle ye for a young prince, i' faith. P. Hen. Swearest thou, ungracious boy ? henceforth ne'er look on me. Thou art violently carried away from grace : there is a devil haunts thee, in the likeness of an old fat man, a tun of man is thy com- panion. Why dost thou converse with that trunk of humours, that bolting-hutch of beastliness, that swollen parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manning- tree ox with the pudding in his belly, that reverend 217 vice, that grey iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in years ? Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink it? wherein neat and cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat it? wherein cunning, but in craft? wherein crafty, but in villainy? wherein villainous, but in all things ? wherein worthy, but in nothing ? Fal. I would your grace would take me with you : whom means your grace ? P. Hen. That villainous abominable misleader of youth, Falstaff, that old white-bearded Satan. Fal. My lord, the man I know. P. Hen. I know thou dost. Fal. But to say I know more harm in him than in myself, were to say more than I know. That he is old, the more the pity, his white hairs do witness it : but that he is, saving your reverence, a whore- master, that I utterly deny. If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked ! If to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damned : if to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh's lean kine are to be loved. No, my good lord ; banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins ; but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant, being, as he is, old Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry's company, banish not him thy Harry's com- pany, banish not him thy Harry's company : banish plump Jack, and banish all the world. W, Shakespeare, 218 Verses placed over the Door at the Entrance into the Apollo Room at the Devil Tavern o T17ELCOME all who lead or follow, * To the Oracle of Apollo- Here he speaks out of his pottle, Or the tripos, his tower bottle : All his answers are divine, Truth itself doth flow in wine. Hang up all the poor hop-drinkers, Cries old Sim, the king of skinkers ; He the half of life abuses, That sits watering with the Muses. Those dull girls no good can mean us ; Wine it is the milk of Venus, And the poet's horse accounted : Ply it, and you all are mounted. 'Tis the true Phcebian liquor, Cheers the brain, makes wit the quicker, Pays all debts, cures all diseases, And at once three senses pleases. Welcome all who lead or follow, To the Oracle of Apollo. Benjonson. To Ben Jonson A H Ben ! ** Say how or when Shall we, thy guests, 219 Meet at those lyric feasts, Made at the Sun, The Dog, the Triple-Tun; Where we such clusters had, As made us nobly wild, not mad ; And yet each verse of thine Out-did the meat, out-did the frolic wine. My Ben ! Or come agen, Or send to us Thy wits' great overplus ; But teach us yet Wisely to husband it, Lest we that talent spend ; And having once brought to an end That precious stock, the store Of such a wit, the world should have no more. Robert Herrtck. The Mermaid Tavern o *o o O OULS of Poets dead and gone, v ' What Elysium have ye known, Happy field or mossy cavern, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern? Have ye tippled drink more fine Than mine host's Canary wine ? Or are fruits of Paradise Sweeter than those dainty pies 220 Of venison ? O generous food ! Drest as though bold Robin Hood Would, with his maid Marian, Sup and bowse from horn and can. I have heard that on a day Mine host's sign-board flew away, Nobody knew whither, till An astrologer's old quill To a sheep- skin gave the story, Said he saw you in your glory, Underneath a new old-sign Sipping beverage divine, And pledging with contented smack The Mermaid in the Zodiac. Souls of Poets dead and gone, What Elysium have ye known, Happy field or mossy cavern, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern ? John Keats Mr. Gallaspy *o o o *& o ALLASPY was the tallest and strongest man I have ever seen, well-made, and very handsome ; had wit and abilities, sang well, and talked with great sweetness and fluency, but was so extremely wicked that it were better for him if he had been a natural fool. By his vast strength and activity, his riches and 221 eloquence, few things could withstand him. He drank seven-in-hand that is, seven glasses so placed between the fingers of his right hand that, in drinking, the liquor fell into the next glasses, and thereby he drank out of the first glass seven glasses at once. This was a common thing, I find from a book in my possession, in the reign of Charles IT., in the madness that followed the restoration of that profligate and worth- less prince. But this gentleman was the only man I ever saw who could or would attempt to do it ; and he made but one gulp of whatever he drank. He did not swallow a fluid like other people, but if it was a quart, poured it in as from pitcher to pitcher. When he smoked tobacco, he always blew two pipes at once, one at each corner of his mouth, and threw the smoke out at both his nostrils. Thomas Amory. ("John Bunde.") Glorious John o o o o & " "JVJAY but, my dear Master Halcro," said his * ^ hearer, somewhat impatiently, " I am desir- ous to hear of your meeting with Dryden." "What, with glorious John? true ay where was I ? At the Wits' Coffeehouse. Well, in at the door we got the waiters, and so forth, staring at me ; for as to Thimblethwaite, honest fellow, his was a well-known face. I can tell you a story about that " 222 "Nay, but John Dryden?" said Mordaunt, in a tone which deprecated farther digression. "Ay, ay, glorious John where was I? Well, as we stood close by the bar, where one fellow sat grinding of coffee, and another putting up tobacco into penny parcels a pipe and a dish cost just a penny then and there it was that I had the first peep of him. One Dennis sat near him, who " "Nay, but John Dryden what like was he?" demanded Mordaunt. " Like a little fat old man, with his own grey hair, and in a full-trimmed black suit, that sat close as a glove. Honest Thimblethwaite let no one but himself shape for glorious John, and he had a slashing hand at a sleeve, I promise you. There he sat in his suit of full trimmed black; two years due was the bill, as mine honest landlord afterwards told me, and such an eye in his head ! none of your burning, blighting, falcon eyes, which we poets are apt to make a rout about, but a soft, full, thoughtful, yet penetrating glance never saw the like of it in my life, unless it were little Stephen Kleancogg's, the fiddler, at Papastow, who " " Nay, but John Dryden ?" said Mordaunt, who, for want of better amusement, had begun to take a sort of pleasure in keeping the old gentleman to his narrative, as men herd a restive sheep, when they wish to catch him. He returned to his theme, with his usual phrase of " Ay, true glorious John. Well, sir, he cast his eye, such as I have described it, on my 223 landlord, and 'Honest Tim,' said he, 'what hast thou got here?' and all the wits, and lords, and gentlemen, that used to crowd round him, like the wenches round a pedlar at a fair, they made way for us, and up we came to the fireside, where he had his own established chair, I have heard it was carried to the balcony in summer, but it was by the fireside when I saw it, so up came Tim Thimblethwaite, through the midst of them, as bold as a lion, and I followed with a small parcel under my arm, which 1 had taken up partly to oblige my landlord, as the shop porter was not in the way, and partly that I might be thought to have something to do there, for you are to think there was no admittance at the Wits' for strangers who had no business there. I have heard that Sir Charles Sedley said a good thing about that " Nay, but you forget glorious John," said Mordaunt. " Ay, glorious you may well call him. They talk of their Blackmore, and Shadwell, and such like, not fit to tie the latchets of John's shoes' Well,' he said to my landlord, 'what have you got there?' and he, bowing, I warrant, lower than he would to a duke, said he had made bold to come and shew him the stuff which Lady Elizabeth had chose for her night- gown. 'And which of your geese is that, Tim, who has got it tucked under his wing?' 'He is an Orkney goose, if it please you, Mr. Dryden,' said Tim, who had wit at will, 'and he hath brought you a copy of verses for your honour to look at.' ' Is he 224 amphibious?' said glorious John, taking the paper, and methought I could rather have faced a battery of cannon than the crackle it gave as it opened,- though he did not speak in a way to dash one neither ; and then he looked at the verses, and he was pleased to say, in a very encouraging way indeed, with a sort of good-humoured smile on his face, and certainly for a fat elderly gentleman, for I would not compare it to Minna's smile, or Brenda's, he had the pleasantest smile I ever saw, 'Why, Tim,' he said, 'this goose of yours will prove a swan on our hands.' With that he smiled a little, and they all laughed, and none louder than those who stood too far off to hear the jest ; for every one knew when he smiled there was something worth laughing at, and so took it upon trust. Sir Walter Scott. (" The Pirate"} Dr. Johnson's Tavern Wisdom o o o '"T'HERE is no private house in which people can -* enjoy themselves so well as at a capital tavern. ..." No, sir ; there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn." He then repeated, with great emotion, Shenstone's lines 1 "Whoe'er has travell'd life's dull round, Where'er his stages may have been, May sigh to think he still has found The warmest welcome at an inn." p 225 In contradiction to those who have a wife and children prefer domestick enjoyments to those which a tavern affords, I have heard him assert, that a tavern chair -was the throne of human felicity. " As soon," said he, " as I enter the door of a tavern, I experience an oblivion of care, and a freedom from solicitude : when I am seated I find the master courteous, and the servants obsequious to my call ; anxious to know and ready to supply my wants : wine there exhilarates my spirits, and prompts me to free conversation, and an interchange of discourse with those I most love : I dogmatise and am contradicted, and in this conflict of opinions and sentiments I find delight." James Boswell. Lavengro at the Holy Lands *e> o o T WAS now in the Strand, and, glancing about, I * perceived that I was close by an hotel, which bore over the door the somewhat remarkable name of Holy Lands. Without a moment's hesitation I entered a well-lighted passage, and, turning to the left, I found myself in a well-lighted coffee-room, with a well-dressed and frizzled waiter before me. " Bring me some claret," said I, for I was rather faint than hungry, and I felt ashamed to give a humbler order to so well-dressed an individual. The waiter looked at me for a moment, then, making a low bow, he bustled off, and I sat myself down in the box nearest 226 to the window. Presently the waiter returned, bearing beneath his left arm a long bottle, and between the fingers of his right hand two large purple glasses ; placing the latter on the table, he produced a cork- screw, drew the cork in a twinkling, set the bottle down before me with a bang, and then, standing still, appeared to watch my movements. You think I don't know how to drink a glass of claret, thought I to myself. I'll soon show you how we drink claret where I come from ; and, filling one of the glasses to the brim, I flickered it for a moment between my eyes and the lustre, and then held it to my nose ; having given that organ full time to test the boquet of the wine, I applied the glass to my lips, taking a large mouthful of the wine, which I swallowed slowly and by degrees, that the palate might likewise have an opportunity of performing its functions. A second mouthful I dis- posed of more summarily ; then, placing the empty glass upon the table, I fixed my eyes upon the bottle, and said nothing ; whereupon the waiter, who had been observing the whole process with considerable attention, made me a bow yet more low than before, and turning on his heel, retired with a smart chuck of his head, as much as to say, It is all right ; the young man is used to claret. George Borrow. 337 The Conniving-House o o o o r I "'HE Conniving-house (as the gentlemen of Trinity *- called it in my time, and long after) was a little public-house, kept by Jack Macklean, about a quarter of a mile beyond Ringsend, on the top of the beach, within a few yards of the sea. Here we used to have the finest fish at all times ; and, in the season, green peas, and all the most excellent vegetables. The ale here was always extraordinary, and everything the best ; which, with its delightful situation, rendered it a delightful place of a summer's evening. Many a delightful evening have I passed in this pretty thatched house with the famous Larry Grogan, who played on the bagpipes extremely well ; dear Jack Lattin, match- less on the fiddle, and the most agreeable of com- panions ; that ever-charming young fellow, Jack Wall, the most worthy, the most ingenious, the most engaging of men, the son of Counsellor Maurice Wall ; and many other delightful fellows, who went in the days of their youth to the shades of eternity. When I think of them and their evening songs " We "will go to Johnny Macklearts, to try if his ale be good or no" c. and that years and infirmities begin to oppress me what is life ? Thomas Amory. ("John B uncle.") 228 THE PLAY Time goes, you say? Ah no ; Alas ! Time stays, we go : Or else, were this not so, What need to chain the hours, For youth were always ours ? Time goes, you say? ah no ! Austin Dob son (after Ronsard). What's not destroy'd by Time's devouring hand? Where's Troy, and where's the May-Pole in the Strand? James B rams ton. What's past is prologue. Shakespeare. April 30, 1667 o o o *& o TV /f Y wife away down with Jane and W. Hewer A to Woolwich, in order to a little ayre and to lie there to-night, and so to gather May-dew to-morrow morning, which Mrs. Turner hath taught her is the only thing in the world to wash her face with ; and I am contented with it. I by water to Fox-hall, and there walked in Spring-garden. A great deal of company, and the weather and garden pleasant : and it is very pleasant and cheap going thither, for a man may go to spend what he will, or nothing, all as one. But to hear the nightingale and other birds, and here fiddles and there a harp, and here a Jew's trump, and here laughing, and there fine people walking, is mighty divertising. Samuel Pepys. On a Fly-leaf of a Book of Old Plays o A T Cato's Head in Russell Street ** These leaves she sat a-stitching ; I fancy she was trim and neat, Blue-eyed and quite bewitching. 231 Before her on the street below, All powder, ruffs, and laces, There strutted idle London beaux To ogle pretty faces ; While, filling many a Sedan chair With monstrous hoop and feather In paint and powder London's fair Went trooping past together. Swift, Addison, and Pope, mayhap They sauntered slowly past her, Or printer's boy, with gown and cap, For Steele, went trotting faster. For beau nor wit had she a look ; Nor lord nor lady minding, She bent her head above this book, Attentive to her binding. And one stray thread of golden hair, Caught on her nimble fingers, Was stitched within this volume, where Until to-day it lingers. Past and forgotten, beaux and fair, Wigs, powder, all outdated ; A queer antique, the Sedan chair, Pope, stiff and antiquated. 232 Yet as I turn these odd old plays, This single stray lock finding, I'm back in those forgotten days, And watch her at her binding. Walter Learned The Eight-Day Clock o o o " I "HE days of Bute and Grafton's fame, Of Chatham's waning prime, First heard your sounding gong proclaim Its chronicle of Time ; Old days when Dodd confessed his guilt, When Goldsmith drave his quill, And genial gossip Horace built His house on Strawberry Hill. Now with a grave unmeaning face You still repeat the tale, High-towering in your sombre case, Designed by Chippendale ; Without regret for what is gone, You bid old customs change, As year by year you travel on To scenes and voices strange. We might have mingled with the crowd Of courtiers in this hall, The fans that swayed, the wigs that bowed, But you have spoiled it all ; 233 We might have lingered in the train Of nymphs that Reynolds drew, Or stared spell-bound in Drury Lane At Garrick but for you. We might in Leicester Fields have swelled The throng of beaux and cits, Or listened to the concourse held Among the Kitcat wits ; Have strolled with Selwyn in Pall Mall, Arrayed in gorgeous silks, Or in Great George Street raised a yell For Liberty and Wilkes. This is the life which you have known, Which you have ticked away, In one unmoved unfaltering tone That ceased not day by day, While ever round your dial moved Your hands from span to span, Through drowsy hours and hours that proved Big with the fate of man. A steady tick for fatal creeds, For youth on folly bent, A steady tick for worthy deeds, And moments wisely spent ; No warning note of emphasis, No whisper of advice, No ruined rake or flippant miss s For coquetry or dice. 234 You might, I think, have hammered out With meaning doubly clear, The midnight of a Vauxhall rout In Evelina's ear ; Or when the night was almost gone, You might, the deals between, Have startled those who looked upon The cloth when it was green. But no, in all the vanished years Down which your wheels have run, Your message borne to heedless ears Is one and only one No wit of men, no power of kings, Can stem the overthrow Wrought by this pendulum that swings Sedately to and fro. Alfred Cochrane. To Spring Gardens o -e> <> -^> /CHICKEN-SKIN, delicate, white, ^*-' Painted by Carlo Vanloo, Loves in a riot of light, 237 Roses and vaporous blue ; Hark to the dainty frou-frou ! Picture above, if you can, Eyes that could melt as the dew, This was the Pompadour's fan ! See how they rise at the sight, Thronging the CEil de Boeuf through, Courtiers as butterflies bright, Beauties that Fragonard drew, Talon-rouge, falbala, queue, Cardinal, Duke, to a man, Eager to sigh or to sue, This was the Pompadour's fan I Ah, but things more than polite Hung on this toy, voyez-vons / Matters of state and of might, Things that great ministers do ; Things that, may be, overthrew Those in whose brains they began Here was the sign and the cue, This was the Pompadour's fan ! ENVOY Where are the secrets it knew ? Weavings of plot and of plan ? But where is the Pompadour, too ? This was the Pompadour's Fan ! Austin Dob son. 238 The Muffin-Man A LITTLE man, who muffins sold ** When I was little too, Carried a face of giant mould, But tall he never grew. His arms were legs for length and size. His coat-tail touch'd his heels ; His brows were forests o'er his eyes, His voice like waggon-wheels. When fallen leaves together flock, And gusts begin to squall, And suns go down at six o'clock, You heard his muffin-call. Born in the equinoctial blast, He came and shook his bell ; And with the equinox he pass'd, But whither none could tell. Some thought the monster turn'd to dew When muffins ceased to reign, And lay in buds the summer through, Till muffin-time again ; Or satyr, used the woods to rove, Or even old Caliban, Drawn by the lure of oven-stove To be a muffin-man. 2 39 The dwarf was not a churlish elf, Who thought folks stared to scoff; But used deformity itself To set his muffins off. He stood at doors and talk'd with cooks While strangers took his span ; And grimly smiled at childhood's looks On him, the muffin-man. When others fled from nipping frost, And hid from drenching skies, And when in fogs the street was lost, You saw his figure rise. One night his tinkle did not sound, He failed each 'customed door ; Twas first of an eternal round Of nights he walk'd no more. When borne in arms, my infant eye In restless search began ; The nursery- maid was wont to cry, " See, John, the muffin-man." My path, with things familiar spread, Death's foot had seldom cross'd, And when they said that John was dead, I stood in wonder lost. 240 New muffin-men, from lamp to lamp, With careless glance I scan ; For none can ever raze thy stamp, O John, thou muffin-man ! Thou standest snatch'd from time and storm, A statue of the soul ; And round thy carved and goblin form Past days past days unroll ! We will not part affection dim This song shall help to fan, And memory, firmer bound to him, Shall keep her muffin-man. A.J. When we were Poor o > o <> " T WISH the good old times would come again," -*- she said, " when we were not quite so rich. I do not mean, that I want to be poor ; but there was a middle state " so she was pleased to ramble on " in which I am sure we were a great deal happier. A purchase is but a purchase, now that you have money enough and to spare. Formerly it used to be a triumph. When we coveted a cheap luxury (and O ! how much ado I had to get you to consent in those times !) we were used to have a debate two Q 241 or three days before, and to weigh the for and against, and think what we might spare it out of, and what saving we could hit upon, that should be an equiva- lent. A thing was worth buying then, when we felt the money that we paid for it. ... When you came home with twenty apologies for laying out a less number of shillings upon that print after Lionardo, which we christened the ' Lady Blanche ' ; when you looked at the purchase, and thought of the money and thought of the money, and looked again at the picture was there no pleasure in being a poor man ? Now you have nothing to do but to walk into Colnaghi's, and buy a wilderness of Lionardos. Yet do you?" Charles Lamb. The Last Leaf ^> o *> ^> T SAW him once before, As he passed by the door, And again The pavement stones resound, As he totters o'er the ground With his cane. They say that in his prime, Ere the pruning-knife of Time Cut him down, 242 Not a better man was found By the Crier on his round Through the town. But now he walks the streets, And he looks at all he meets Sad and wan, And he shakes his feeble head, That it seems as if he said, " They are gone. 5 The mossy marbles rest On the lips that he has prest In their bloom, And the names he loved to hear Have been carved for many a year On the tomb. My grandmamma has said, Poor old lady, she is dead Long ago, That he had a Roman nose, And his cheek was like a rose In the snow. But now his nose is thin, And it rests upon his chin Like a staff, And a crook is in his back, And a melancholy crack In his laugh. 243 I know it is a sin For me to sit and grin At him here ; But the old three-cornered hat, And the breeches, and all that, Are so queer ! And if I should live to be The last leaf upon the tree In the spring, Let them smile, as I do now, At the old forsaken bough Where I cling. O. W. Holmes. 244 LONDON "Now I'm sick to go 'Ome go 'Ome go 'Ome! No, I ain't m.uninysick, because my uncle brung me up, but I'm sick for London again ; sick for the sounds of 'er, an' the sights of 'er, and the stinks of 'er ; orange-peel and hasphalte an' gas comin' in over Vaux'all Bridge. Sick for the rail goin' down to Box '111 with yor gal on your knee an' a new clay pipe in your face. That, an' the Stran' lights where you knows ev'ry one, an' the Copper that takes you up is a old friend that tuk you up before, when you was a little, smitchy boy lying loose 'tween the Temple an' the Dark Harches." Rudyard Kipling via Stanley Ortheris. LONDON AND THE ARTIST And when the evening mist clothes the riverside with poetry, as with a veil, and the poor buildings lose themselves in the dim sky, and the tall chimneys become campanili, and the warehouses are palaces in the night, and the whole city hangs in the heavens, and fairy-land is before us then the wayfarer hastens home ; the working man and the cultured one, the wise man and the one of pleasure, cease to understand, as they have ceased to see, and Nature, who, for once, has sung in tune, sings her exquisite song to the artist alone, her son and her master her son in that he loves her, her master in that he knows her. /. M'Neill Whistler. Walpole's View o o o o o o ^> T T appears to me that there is an an iable mixture * of two opposite characters in a person who chances to have passed his youth in London, and who has retired into the country for the rest of his life. We may find in such a one a social polish, a pastoral simplicity. He rusticates agreeably, and vegetates with a degree of sentiment. He comes to the next post-town to see for letters, watches the coaches as they pass, and eyes the passengers with a look of familiar curiosity, thinking that he too was a gay fellow in his time. He turns his horse's head down the narrow lane that leads homewards, puts on an old coat to save his wardrobe, and fills his glass nearer to the brim. As he lifts the purple juice to his lips and to his eye, and in the dim solitude that hems him round, thinks of the glowing line This bottle's the sun of our table 250 another sun rises upon his imagination the sun of his youth, the blaze of vanity, the glitter of the metropolis, "glares round his soul, and mocks his closing eyelids/' the distant roar of coaches is in his ears the pit stare upon him with a thousand eyes Mrs. Siddons, Bannister, King, are before him he starts as from a dream, and swears he will to London ; but the expense, the length of way deters him, and he rises the next morning to trace the footsteps of the hare that has brushed the dewdrops from the lawn, or to attend a meeting of Magistrates ! Man in London becomes, as Mr. Burke has it, a sort of " public creature." He lives in the eye of the world, and the world in his. If he witnesses less of the details of private life, he has better opportunities of observing its larger masses and varied movements. He sees the stream of human life pouring along the streets its comforts and embellishments piled up in the shops the houses are proofs of the industry, the public buildings of the art and magnificence of man ; while the public amusements and places of resort are a centre and support for social feeling. A playhouse alone is a school of humanity, where all eyes are fixed on the same gay or solemn scene, where smiles or tears are spread from face to face, and where a thousand hearts beat in unison ! Look at the company in a country theatre (in comparison) and see the cold- ness, the sullenness, the want of sympathy, and the way in which they turn round to scan and scrutinise one another. In London there is a public ; and each man is part of it. We are gregarious, and affect the kind. We have a sort of abstract existence ; and a community of ideas and knowledge (rather than local proximity) is the bond of society and good-fellowship. I do not think there is anything deserving the name of society to be found out of London : and that for the two following reasons. First, there is neighbourhood elsewhere, accidental or unavoidable acquaintance : people are thrown together by chance or grow together like trees ; but you can pick your society nowhere but in London. The very persons that of all others you would wish to associate with in almost every line of life (or at least of intellectual pursuit) are to be met with there. It is hard if out of a million of people you cannot find half a dozen to your liking. Indi- viduals may seem lost and hid in the size of the place ; but, in fact, from this very circumstance you are within two or three miles' reach of persons that without it you would be some hundreds apart from. I like the country very well, if I want to enjoy my own company ; but London is the only place for equal society, or where a man can say a good thing or express an honest opinion without subjecting himself to being insulted, unless he first lays his purse on the table to back his pretensions to talent or independence of spirit. I speak from experience. London is the only place in which the child grows completely up into the man. William Hazlitt. 252 November Blue S~\ HEAVENLY colour ! London town ^-^ Has blurred it from her skies And, hooded in an earthly brown, Unheaven'd the city lies. No longer standard-like this hue Above the broad road flies ; Nor does the narrow street the blue Wear, slender pennon-wise. But when the gold and silver lamps Colour the London dew, And, misted by the winter damps, The shops shine bright anew Blue comes to earth, it walks the street, It dyes the wide air through ; A mimic sky about their feet, The throng go crowned with blue. Mrs. Meynell. An Island of Quiet o o *> o -s~ T N Holborn I went through an arched entrance, *- over which was "Staples Inn." In a court opening inwards from this there was a surrounding seclusion of quiet dwelling-houses, with beautiful green shrubbery and grass-plots in the court, and a great many sun-flowers in full bloom. The windows 253 were open ; it was a lovely summer afternoon, and I have a sense that bees were humming in the court, though this may have been suggested by my fancy, because the sound would have been so well suited to the scene. A boy was reading at one of the windows. There was not a quieter spot in England than this, and it was very strange to have drifted into it so suddenly out of the bustle a'nd rumble of Holborn ; and to lose all this repose as suddenly, on passing through the arch of the outer court. In all the hundreds of years since London was built, it has not been able to sweep its roaring tide over that little island of quiet. Nathaniel Hawthorne. St. James's Street o *& o o T. JAMES'S STREET, of classic fame, For Fashion still is seen there : St. James's street 1 I know the name, I almost think I've been there ! Why, that's where Sacharissa sigh'd When Waller read his ditty ; Where Byron lived, and Gibbon died, And Alvanley was witty. A famous Street ! To yonder Park Young Churchill stole in class-time : Come, gaze on fifty men of mark, And then recall the past time. 254 The plats at White's, the play at Crock's, The bumpers to Miss Gunning ; The bonhomis of Charley Fox, And Selwyn's ghastly funning. The dear old Street of clubs and cribs, As north and south it stretches, Still seems to smack of Rolliad squibs, And Gillray's fiercer sketches ; The quaint old dress, the grand old style, The mots, the racy stories ; The wine, the dice, the wit, the bile The wit of Whigs and Tories. At dusk, when I am strolling there, Dim forms will rise around me ; Lepel flits past me in her chair, And Congreve's airs astound me ! And once Nell Gwynne, a frail young Sprite, Look'd kindly when I met her ; I shook my head, perhaps, but quite Forgot to quite forget her. The Street is still a lively tomb For rich, and gay, and clever ; The crops of dandies bud and bloom, And die as fast as ever. Now gilded youth loves cutty pipes, And slang that's rather scaring ; It can't approach its prototypes In taste, or tone, or bearing. 255 In Brummell's day of buckle shoe, Lawn cravats, and roll collars, They'd fight, and woo, and bet and lose, Like gentlemen and scholars : I'm glad young men should go the pace, I half forgive Old Rapid ; These louts disgrace their name and race So vicious and so vapid ! Worse times may come. Bon ton, indeed, Will then be quite forgotten, And all we much revere will speed From ripe to worse than rotten : Let grass then sprout between yon stones, And owls then roost at Boodle's, For Echo will hurl back the tones Of screaming Yankee Doodles. I love the haunts of old Cockaigne, Where wit and wealth were squandered ; The halls that tell of hoop and train, Where grace and rank have wander'd ; Those halls where ladies fair and leal First ventured to adore me ! Something of that old love I feel For this old Street before me. f. Locker Lamp son. 256 The Thames o o o *t> & HPHE river that we know and love best the * river that sums up for us the beauty of London lies between Waterloo Bridge and Chelsea, and the symbols of it are the barges. Up and down they drift with the tide, or lie at their moorings, broad and deep, grimy, yet beautiful in their strong curves, laden almost awash with all manner of goods ; sometimes singly, oftener in strings with a noisy tugboat puffing outrageously at the head of the tow. But the tug is not doing the work ; it is the river, whose laden body- carries on steadfastly all these monstrous burdens, majestic in its motion, neither hasting nor resting, nor feeling the weight. That beauty the grace ol calm strength no one can help feeling who looks at the stream, and, to gain a notion of its force, watches therrace and swirl of all that weight of water round the piers. But the river is incomparable too for the mere charm of colour and line. You may see it yellow in the sun through fog, as if it really ran gold ; often blue of a clear day ; but .oftenest of all, and still more beautiful, a silver grey, just broken, like a roughness on the metal, with flaws of wind or eddies. It is beautiful too in the dark, when you have merely the sense of its flow, and a steamer passes, its red light an eye in the gloom, its dark hull showing, and behind that a long trail of black heavy timber boats scarcely discerned. But the most beautiful time of all, here as elsewhere in London, and more R 257 beautiful here than anywhere else, is just in the half- light when the lamps are first lit. Stephen Ginynn. Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1803 o o o o <> ARTH has not anything to show more fair : Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty : This city now doth like a garment wear The beauty of the morning ; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky ; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill ; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep ! The river glideth at his own sweet will : Dear God ! the very houses seem ash ep ; And all that mighty heart is lying still ! M 'illiam Wordsworth . Ferdinand discovers London e> ^> -o O EVERAL hours had elapsed, when, awaking from **^ a confused dream, in which Armine and all he had lately seen were blended together, he found his 258 fellow-travellers slumbering, and the mail dashing along through the illuminated streets of a great city. The streets were thickly thronged. Ferdinand stared at the magnificence of the shops blazing with lights, and the multitude of men and vehicles moving in all directions. The guard sounded his bugle with treble energy, and the coach suddenly turned through an arched entrance into the courtyard of an old- fashioned inn. His fellow-passengers started and rubbed their eyes. " So ! We have arrived, I suppose," grumbled one of these gentlemen, taking off his night-cap. " Yes, gentlemen, I am happy to say our journey is finished," said a more polite voice, "and a v.ry pleasant one I have found it. Porter, have the goodness to call me a coach." '* And one for me," added a gruff voice. " Mr. Glastonbury," whispered the awe-struck Fer- dinand, "is this London?" " This is London : but we have yet two or three miles to go before we reach our quarters. I think we had better alight and look after our luggage. Gentle- men, good-evening ! " Mr. Glastonbury hailed a coach, into which, having safely deposited their portmanteaus, he and Ferdinand entered ; but our young friend was so entirely over- come by his feelings and the genius of the place, that he was quite unable to make an observation. Each minute the streets seemed to grow more spacious and more brilliant, and the multitude more 2 59 dense and more excited. Beautiful buildings, too, rose oefore him ; palaces, and churches, and streets, and squares of imposing architecture ; to his inexperi- encedeyeandunsophisticatedspirit their route appeared a never-endin r triumph. To the hackney-coachman, however, who had no imagination, and who was quite satiated with metropolitan experience, it only appeared that he had had an exceeding good fare, and that he was jogging up from Bishopsgate Street to Charing Cross. ... In spite of the strange clatter in the streets, Ferdinand slept well, and the next morning, after an early breakfast, himself and his fellow-traveller set out on their peregrinations. Young and sanguine, full of health and enjoyment, innocent and happy, it was with difficulty that Ferdinand could restrain his spirits as he mingled in the bustle of the streets. It was a bright, sunny morning, and although the end of June, the town was yet quite full. "Is this Charing Cross, sir? I wonder if we shall ever be able to get over. Is this the fullest part of the town, sir? What a fine day, sir! How lucky we are in the weather ! We are lucky in everything ! Whose house is that ? Northumberland House ! Is it the Duke of Northumberland's? Does he live there? How I should like to see it ! Is it very fine ? Who is that ? What is this ? The Admiralty ! Oh, let me see the Admiralty ! The Horse Guards ! Oh ! where, where ? Let us set our watches by the Horse Guards. The guard of our coach always sets his watch by the Horse Guards. Mr. Glastonbury, which 260 is the best clock, the Horse Guards or St. Paul's? Is that the Treasury ? Can we go in ? That is Downing Street, is it? I never heard of Downing Street. What do they do in Downing Street ? Is this Charing Cross still, or is it Parliament Street ? Where does Charing Cross end, and where does Parliament Street begin ? By Jove, I see Westminster Abbey ! " B. Disraeli. ( ' ' Henrietta Temple. " ) The City at Night o o o o o " /1CH, mein Lieber!" said he once, at midnight, *^ when we had returned from the Coffee-house in rather earnest talk, "it is true sublimity to dwell "here. These fringes of lamplight, struggling up "through smoke and thousandfold exhalation, some "fathoms into the ancient reign of Night, what "thinks Bootes of them, as he leads his Hunting- " Dogs over the Zenith in their leash of sidereal "fire? That stifled hum of Midnight, when Traffic " has lain down to rest ; and the chariot-wheels of "Vanity, still rolling here and there through distant "streets, are bearing her to Halls roofed-in, and "lighted to the due pitch for her ; and only Vice and "Misery, to prowl or to moan like nightbirds, are "abroad : that hum, I say, like the stertorous, unquiet "slumber of sick Life, is heard in Heaven! Oh. 261 "under that hideous coverlet of vapours, and putre- " factions, and unimaginable gases, what a Ferment- " ing- vat lies simmering and hid ! The joyful and " the sorrowful are there ; men are dying there, men " are being born ; men are praying, on the other " side of a brick partition, men are cursing ; and "around them all is the vast, void Night. The " proud Grandee still lingers in his perfumed saloons, "or reposes within damask curtains ; Wretchedness "cowers into truckle-beds, or shivers hunger-stricken " into its lair of straw : in obscure cellars, Rouge " et Noir languidly emits its voice-of-destiny to "haggard hungry Villains; while Councillors of State "sit plotting, and playing their high chess-game, "whereof the pawns are Men. The Lover whispers " his mistress that the coach is ready ; and she, full of " hope and fear, glides down, to fly with him over the "borders: the Thief, still more silently, sets-to his "picklocks and crowbars, or lurks in wait till the "watchmen first snore in their boxes. Gay mansions, "with supper-rooms and dancing-rooms, are full of " light and music and high-swelling hearts ; but, in " the Condemned Cells, the pulse of life beats tremu- " lous and faint, and blood-shot eyes look out through "the darkness, which is around and within, for the "light of a stern last morning. Six men are to be "hanged on the morrow : comes no hammering from "the Rabenstein? their gallows must even now be "o" building. Upwards of five -hundred -thousand " two-legged animals without feathers lie round us, in 262 " horizontal position ; their heads all in nightcaps, and "full of the foolishest dreams. Riot cries aloud, and "staggers and swaggers in his rank dens of shame ; "and the Mother, with streaming hair, kneels over "her pallid dying infant, whose cracked lips only her "tears now moisten. All these heaped and huddled "together, with nothing but a little carpentry and "masonry between them ; crammed in, like salted "fish in their barrel ; or weltering, shall I say, like "an Egyptian pitcher of tamed vipers, each struggling " to get its head above the others : such work goes "on under that smoke-counterpane! But I, mein " ll'erther, sit above it all; I am alone with the " Stars." Thomas Carlyle. (" Sartor A'esartus.") A Song of Fleet Street *> <& o o T^LEET STREET! Fleet Street! Fleet Street in * the morning, With the old sun laughing out behind the dome o( Paul's, Heavy wains a-driving, merry winds a-striving, White clouds and blue sky above the smoke stained walls. Fleet Street ! Fleet Street ! Fleet Street in the noontide, East and west the streets packed close, and roaring like the sea ; 263 With laughter and with sobbing we feel the world's heart throbbing, And know that what is throbbing is the heart of you and me. Fleet Street ! Fleet Street ! Fleet Street in the evening, Darkness set with golden lamps down Ludgate Hill a- row : Oh ! hark the voice o' th' city that breaks our hearts with pity, That crazes us with shame and wrath, and makes us love her so. Fleet Street ! Fleet Street ! morning, noon, and star- light, Through the never-ceasing roar come the great chimes clear and slow ; " Good are life and laughter, though we look before and after, And good to love the race of men a little ere we go.' ; Alice Werner. 264 TWO LONDONERS: JOHNSON AND HIS BOSWELL Johnson grown old, Johnson in the fulness ot his fame and in the enjoyment of a competent fortune, is better known to us than any other man in history. Every thing about him, his coat, his wig, his figure, his face, his scrofula, his St. Vitus's dance, his rolling walk, his blinking eye, the outward signs which too clearly marked his approbation of his dinner, his insatiable appetite for fish-sauce and veal-pie with plums, his inextinguishable thirst for tea, his trick of touching the posts as he walked, his mysterious practice of treasuring up scraps of orange-peel, his morning slumbers, his mid-night disputations, his contortions, his mutterings, his gruntings, his puffings, his vigorous, acute, and ready eloquence, his sarcastic wit, his vehemence, his insolence, his fits of tempestuous rage, his queer inmates, old Mr. Levett and blind Mrs. Williams, the cat Hodge and the negro Frank, all are as familiar to us as the objects by which we have been surrounded from childhood. T, B, Macaulay, Two Londoners e> & o o ^> I T WISHED to make my chief residence in London, the great scene of ambition, instruction, and amusement a scene which was to me, comparatively speaking, a heaven upon earth. Johnson. " Why, sir, I never knew any one who had such a gust for London as y.m have, and yet I cannot blame you for your wish to live there." I suggested a doubt, that if I were to reside in London, the exquisite zest with which I relished it in occasional visits might go off, and I might grow tired of it. Johnson, "Why, sir, you find no man, at all intel- lectual, who is willing to leave London. No, sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life ; for there is in London all that life can afford." II Johnson. " If a man walks out in the country, there is nobody to keep him from walking in again ; but if a man walks out in London, he is not sure when 267 he shall walk in again. A great city is, to be sure, the school for studying life ; and ' The proper study of mankind is man,' as Pope observes." Bosivell. " I fancy London is the best place for Society:" III We dined tete-&-tete at the Mitre. ... I regretted much leaving London, where I had formed many agreeable connections. " Sir," said he, " I don't wonder at it : no man fond of letters leaves London without regret." IV Talking of a London life, he said, " The happiness of London is not to be conceived but by those who have been in it. I will venture to say, there is more learning and science within the circumference of ten miles from where we now sit, than in all the rest of the kingdom." Bosivell. "The only disadvantage is, the great distance at which people live from one another." Johnson. " Yes, sir ; but that is occasioned by the largeness of it, which is the cause of all the other advantages." V It having been observed that there was little hospitality in London ; Johnson. " Nay, sir, any man who has a name, or who has the power of pleasing, will be very generally invited in London." 268 VI We walked in the evening in Greenwich Park. He asked me, I suppose by way of trying my disposition, " Is not this very fine?" Having no exquisite rel.sh of the beauties of nature, and being more delighted with "the busy hum of men," I answered, "Yes, sir; but not equal to Fleet-street." Johnson. "You are right, sir." VII Johnson. "... A man cannot know modes of life as well in Minorca as in London, but he may study mathematicks as well in Minorca. 1 ' . . . Boswell. " I own, sir, the spirits which I have in London make me do everything with more readiness and vigour. I can talk twice as much in London as anywhere else." VIII fohnson. "... Let us take a walk from Charing- cross to White-chapel, through, I suppose, the greatest series of shops in the world. What is there in any of these shops (if you except gin-shops) that can do any human being any harm ': " Goldsmith. "Well, sir, I'll accept your challenge. The very next shop to Northumberland-house is a pickle-shop." Johnson. " Well, sir ; do we not know that a maid 269 can, in one afternoon, make pickles sufficient to serve a whole family for a year ? nay, that five pickle-shops can serve all the kingdom. Besides, sir, there is no harm done to anybody by the making of pickles, or the eating of pickles." IX Johnson was much attached to London : he observed, that a man stored his mind better there than any where else ; and that in remote situations a man's body might be feasted, but his mind was starved, and his faculties apt to degenerate, from want of exercise and competition. No place, he said, cured a man's vanity and arrogance so well as London ; for as no man was either great or good per se, but as compared with others not so good or great, he was sure to find in the metropolis many his equals, and some his superiors. He observed, that a man in London was in less danger of falling in love indiscreetly, than any where else ; for there the difficulty of deciding between the conflicting pre- tensions of a vast variety of objects kept him safe. He told me he had frequently been offered country preferment, if he would consent to take Orders ; but that he could not leave the improved society of the capital, or consent to exchange the exhilarating joys and splendid decorations of public life, for the obscurity, insipidity, and uniformity of remote situations. 270 X Once, upon reading that line in the curious epitaph quoted in the Spectator, Born in New England, did in London die ; he laughed, and said, " I do not wonder at this. It would have been strange, if, born in London, he had died in New England." XI Bos-well. "... The airs in ' The Beggars' Opera,' many of which are very soft, never fail to render me gay, because they are associated with the warm sensations and high spirits of London." XII "Johnson. London is nothing to some people ; but to a man whose pleasure is intellectual, London is the place. And there is no place where economy can be so well practised as in London : more can be had here for the money, even by ladies, than any where else. You cannot play tricks with your fortune in a small place, you must make a uniform appearance. Here a lady may have well-furnished apartments, and elegant dress, without any meat in her kitchen." I was amused by considering with how much ease and coolness he could write or talk to a friend, exhorting him not to suppose that happiness was not to be found in other places as in London ; when he himself 271 was at all times sensible of its being, comparatively speaking, a heaven upon earth. The truth is, that by those who from sagacity, attention, and experience have learnt the full advantage of London, its pre- eminence over every other place, not only for variety of enjoyment, but for comfort, will be felt with a philosophical exultation. The freedom from remark and petty censure with which life may be passed there, is a circumstance which a man who knows the teasing restraint of a narrow circle must value highly. Mr. Burke, whose orderly and amiable domestick habits might make the eye of observation less irksome to him than to most men, said once very pleasantly in my hearing, " Though I have the honour to represent Bristol, I should not like to live there ; I should be obliged to be so much upon my good behaviour" In London, a man may live in splendid society at one time, and in frugal retirement at another, without animadversion. There, and there alone, a man's own house is truly his castle, in which he can be in perfect safety from intrusion whenever he pleases. I never shall forget how well this was expressed to me one day by Mr. Meynell : " The chief advantage of London," said he, " is, that a man is always so near his burrow" XIII Talking of London, he observed, " Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets 272 and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts. It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crowded together, that the wonderful immensity of London consists." XIV Dr. Johnson, on his return to town in 1762 :" I wandered about for five days, and took the first con- venient opportunity of returning to a place where, if there is not much happiness, there is, at least, such a diversity of good and evil, that slight vexations do not fix upon the heart." XV He said, a country gentleman should bring his lady to visit London as soon as he can, that they may have agreeable topics for conversation when they are by themselves. XVI Johnson. " London is a good air for ladies." XVII Such was his love of London, so high a relish had he of its magnificent extent, and variety of intellectual entertainment, that he languished when absent from it, his mind having become quite luxurious from the long habit of enjoying the Metropolis ; ... he still found that such'conversation as London affords could be found nowhere else. s 273 XVIII He said he was engaged to go out in the morning. " Early, sir?" said I. Johnson. "Why, sir, a London morning does not go with the sun." XIX It was a delightful day : as we walked to St. Clement's church, I again remarked that Fleet-street was the most cheerful scene in the world. " Fleet- street," said I, " is in my mind more delightful than Tempe." Johnson. "Aye, sir." 274 GOOD TOWNSMEN . . . Where soft joys prevail, where people are convoked to pleasure and the philosopher looks on smiling and silent, where love and laughter and deifying wine abound, . . . Many of the wisest, most virtuous, and most beneficent parts that are to be played upon the Theatre of Life are filled by gratuitous performers, and pass, among the world at large, as phases of idleness. Robert Louis Stevenson, Jolly Jack \ \ 7HEN fierce political debate Throughout the isle was storming, And Rads attacked the throne and state, And Tories the reforming : To calm the furious rage of each, And right the land demented, Heaven sent us Jolly Jack, to teach The way to be contented. Jack's bed was straw, 'twas warm and soft, His chair, a three-legged stool ; His broken jug was emptied oft, Yet, somehow, always full. His mistress' portrait decked the wall, His mirror had a crack ; Yet, gay and glad, though this was all His wealth, lived Jolly Jack. To give advice to avarice, Teach pride its mean condition, And preach good sense to dull pretence, Was honest Jack's high mission. 277 Our simple statesman found his rule Of moral in the flagon, And held his philosophic school Beneath the "George and Dragon." When village Solons cursed the Lords, And called the malt-tax sinful, Jack heeded not their angry words, But smiled and drank his skinful. And when men wasted health and life In search of rank and riches, Jack marked aloof the paltry strife, And wore his threadbare breeches. " I enter not the Church," he said, " But I'll not seek to rob it ; " So worthy Jack Joe Miller read, While others studied Cobbett. His talk it was offcast and fun, His guide the Almanack ; From youth to age thus gaily run The life of Jolly Jack. And when Jack prayed, as oft he would; He humbly thanked his Maker, " I am," said he, " O Father good ! Nor Catholic nor Quaker : Give each his creed, let each proclaim His catalogue of curses ; I trust in Thee, and not in them, In Thee and in Thy mercies ! 278 "Forgive me if, midst all Thy works, No hint I see of damning, And think there's faith among the Turks, And hope for e'en the Brahmin. Harmless my mind is and my mirth, And kindly is my laughter ; I cannot see the smiling earth, And think there's hell hereafter." Jack died ; he left no legacy, Save that his story teaches : Content to peevish poverty ; Humility to riches. Ye scornful great, ye envious small, Come follow in his track ; We all were happier, if we all Would copy Jolly Jack. W. M. Thackeray. The Travelling Tailor ^ & o o /^\UR meal being ended, my companion took his pipe ; and we laid our heads together for the good of the nation, when we mauled the French terribly both by land and sea. At last, among other talk, he happened to ask me, if I lived in the city? As I was desirous of hearing his remarks, I answered that I had never seen London. "Never seen it?" says he. " Then you have never seen one of the finest 279 sights in the whole world. Paris is but a dog-hole to it." There luckily hung a large map of London over the chimney-piece, which he immediately made me get from my chair to look at. "There," says he, "there's London for you. You see it is bigger than the map of all England." He then led me about, with the end of his pipe, through all the principal streets from Hyde-Park to Whitechapel. " That," says he, "is the River Thames There's London Bridge There my Lord Mayor lives That's Poule's There the Monument stands : and now, if you was but on the top of it, you might see all the houses and churches in London." I expressed my astonishment at every particular ; but I could hardly refrain laugh- ing, when, pointing out to me Lincoln's-Inn Fields " There," said he, " there all the noblemen live." At last, after having transported me all over the town, he set me down in Cheapside, " which," he said, " was the biggest street in the city. And now," says he, " I'll show you where I live. That's Bow church and thereabouts where my pipe is there just there my shop stands." He concluded with a kind invitation to me to come and see him ; and, pulling out a book of patterns from his coat pocket, assured me, that if I wanted any thing in his way, he could afford to let me have a bargain. " The Connoisseur? 280 Beau Tibbs o & o *> <> HPHERE was Lamb himself, the most delightful, -L the most provoking, the most witty and sensible of men. He always made the best pun, and the best 283 remark in the course of the evening. His serious conversation, like his serious writing, is his best. No one ever stammered out such fine piquant, deep, eloquent things in half a dozen half-sentences as he does. His jests scald like tears ; and he probes a question with a play upon words. What a keen, laughing, hare-brained vein of home-felt truth ! What choice venom ! How often did we cut into the haunch of letters, while we discussed the haunch of mutton on the table ! How we skimmed the cream of criticism ! How we got into the heart of con- troversy ! How we picked out the marrow of authors ! " And, in our flowing cups, many a good name and true was freshly remembered." Recollect (most sage and critical reader) that in all this I was but a guest ! Need I go over the names ? They were but the old everlasting set Milton and Shakespeare, Pope and Dryden, Steele and Addison, Swift and Gay, Field- ing, Smollett, Sterne, Richardson, Hogarth's prints, Gaude's landscapes, the Cartoons at Hampton Court, and all those things that, having once been, must ever be. The Scotch Novels had not then been heard of: so we said nothing about them. In general, we were hard upon the moderns. The author of the " Rambler " was only tolerated in Boswell's " Life " of him ; and it was as much as any one could do to edge in a word for " Junius." Lamb could not bear "Gil Bias." This was a fault. I remember the greatest triumph I ever had was in persuading him, after some years' difficulty, that Fielding was better than Smollett 284 On one occasion, he was for making out a list of persons famous in history that one would wish to see again at the head of which were Pontius Pilate, Sir Thomas Browne, and Dr. Faustus but we black-balled most of his list ! But with what a gusto would he describe his favourite authors, Donne, or Sir Philip Sidney, and call their most crabbed passages delicious \ He tried them on his palate as epicures taste olives, and his observations had a smack in them, like a roughness on the tongue. With what discrimination he hinted a defect in what he admired most as in saying that the display of the sumptuous banquet in " Paradise Regained " was not in true keeping, as the simplest fare was all that was necessary to tempt the extremity of hunger and stating that Adam and Eve in " Paradise Lost " were too much like married people. W. Hazlitt. Mrs. Battle o > o o o o " A CLEAR fire, a clean hearth, and the rigour of * the game." Th ; s was the celebrated wish of old Sarah Battle (now with God), who, next to her devotions, loved a good game at whist. She was none of your lukewarm gamesters, your half-and-half players, who have no objection to take a hand, if you want one to make up a rubber ; who affirm that they have no pleasure in winning ; that they like to win one game 285 and lose another ; that they can while away an hour very agreeably at a card-table, but are indifferent whether they play or no ; and will desire an adversary, who has slipt a wrong card, to take it up and play another. These insufferable triflers are the curse of a table. One of these flies will spoil a whole pot. Of such it may be said, that they do not play at cards, but only play at playing at them. Sarah Battle was none of that breed. She detested them, as I do, from her heart and soul ; and would not, save upon a striking emergency, willingly seat herself at the same table with them. She loved a thorough-paced partner, a determined enemy. She took, and gave, no concessions. She hated favours. She never made a revoke, nor ever passed it over in her adversary without exacting the utmost forfeiture. She fought a good fight : cut and thrust. She held not her good sword (her cards) " like a dancer." She sat bolt upright ; and neither showed you her cards, nor desired to see yours. All people have their blind side their superstitions ; and I have heard her de- clare, under the rose, that Hearts was her favourite suit. I never in my life and I knew Sarah Battle many of the best years of it saw her take out her snuff-box when it was her turn to play ; or snuff a candle in the middle of a game ; or ring for a servant, till it was fairly over. She never introduced or connived at mis- cellaneous conversation during its process. As she emphatically observed, cards were cards : and if I 286 ever saw unmingled distaste in her fine last-century countenance, it was at the airs of a young gentleman of a literary turn, who had been with difficulty per- suaded to take a hand ; and who, in his excess of candour, declared that he thought there was no harm in unbending the mind now and then, after serious studies, in recreations of that kind ! She could not bear to have her noble occupation, to which she wound up her faculties, considered in that light. It was her business, her duty, the thing she came into the world to do, and she did it. She unbent her mind after- wardsover a book. . . . No inducement could ever prevail upon her to play at any game, where chance entered into the composition, for nothing. Chance, she would argue and here again, admire the subtlety of her conclusion ! chance is nothing, but where something else depends upon it. It is obvious, that cannot be glory. What rational cause of exultation could it give to a man to turn up size ace a hundred times together by himself ? or before spectators, where no stake was depending ? Make a lottery of a hundred thousand tickets with but one fortunate number and what possible principle of our nature, except stupid wonderment, could it gratify to gain that number as many times successively, without a prize? Therefore she disliked the mixture of chance in backgammon, where it was not played for money. She called it foolish, and those people idiots, who were taken with a lucky hit under such circumstances. Games of pure skill were as little to her fancy. Played for a stake, 287 they were a mere system of over-reaching. Played for glory, they were a mere setting of one man's wit, his memory, or combination - faculty rather against another's ; like a mock engagement at a review, bloodless and profitless. She could not conceive a game wanting the spritely infusion of chance, the handsome excuses of good fortune. Two people playing at chess in a corner of a room whilst whist was stirring in the centre, would inspire her with unsuffer- able horror and ennui. Those well-cut similitudes of Castles, and Knights, the imagery of the board, she would argue (and I think in this case justly), were entirely misplaced and senseless. Those hard-head contests can in no instance ally with the fancy. They reject form and colour. A pencil and dry slate (she used to say) were the proper arena for such com- batants. Charles Lamb. Fitzpatrick Smart, Esq. o o o *> ET us now summon the shade of another departed * ' victim Fitzpatrick Smart, Esq. He too, through a long life, had been a vigilant and enthus- iastic collector, but after a totally different fashion. He was far from omnivorous. He had a principle of selection peculiar and separate from all other's, as was his own individuality from other men's. You could not classify his library according to any of the accepted 288 nomenclatures peculiar to the initiated. He was not a black-letter man, or a tall copyist, or an uncut man, or a rough-edge man, or an early-English-dramatist, or an Elzevirian, or a broadsider, or a pasquinader, or an old -brown -calf man, or a Grangerite, or a tawny-moroccoite, or a gilt-topper, a marbled-insider, or an editio princeps man ; neither did he come under any of the more vulgar classification of collectors whose thoughts run more upon the usefulness for study than upon the external conditions of their library, such as those who affect science, or the classics, or English poetic and historical literature. There was no way of defining his peculiar walk save by his own name it was the Fitzpatrick- Smart walk. In fact, it wound itself in infinite windings through isolated spots of literary scenery, if we may so speak, in which he took a personal interest. There were historical events, bits of family history, chiefly of a tragic or a scandalous kind, efforts of art or of literary genius on which, through some hidden intellectual law, his mind and memory loved to dwell ; and it was in reference to these that he collected. If the book were the one desired by him, no anxiety and toil, no pay- able price, was to be grudged for its acquisition. If the book were an inch out of his own line, it might be trampled in the mire for aught he cared, be it as rare or costly as it could be. It was difficult, almost impossible, for others to pre- dicate what would please this wayward sort of taste, and he was the torment of the book-caterers, who T 289 were sure of a princely price for the right article, but might have the wrong one thrown in their teeth with contumely. It was a perilous, but, if successful, a gratifying thing to present him with a book. If it happened to hit his fancy, he felt the full force of the compliment, and overwhelmed the giver with his courtly thanks. But great observation and tact were required for such an adventure. The chances against an ordinary thoughtless gift-maker were thousands to one ; and those who were acquainted with his strange nervous temperament, knew that the existence within his dwelling-place of any book not of his own special kind, would impart to him the sort of feeling of uneasy horror which a bee is said to feel when an earwig comes into its cell. Presentation copies by authors were among the chronic torments of his existence. While the complacent author was perhaps pluming himself on his liberality in making the judicious gift, the recipient was pouring out all his sarcasm, which was not feeble or slight, on the odious object, and wondering why an author could have entertained against him so steady and enduring a malice as to take the trouble of writing and printing all that rubbish with no better object than disturbing the peace of mind of an inoffensive old man. Every tribute from such dona ferentes cost him much un- easiness and some want of sleep for what could he do with it? It was impossible to make merchan- dise of it, for he was every inch a gentleman. He could not burn it, for under an acrid exterior he had 290 a kindly nature. It was believed, indeed, that he had established some limbo of his own, in which such unwelcome commodities were subject to a kind of burial or entombment, where they remained in existence, yet were decidedly outside the circle of his household gods. These gods were a pantheon of a lively and grotesque aspect, for he was a hunter after other things besides books. His acquisitions included pictures, and the various commodities which, for want of a distinctive name, auctioneers call "mis- cellaneous articles of vertu." He started on his accumulating career with some old family relics, and these, perhaps, gave the direction to his subsequent acquisitions, for they were all, like his books, brought together after some self-willed and peculiar law of association that pleased himself. A bad, even an inferior, picture he would not have for his taste was exquisite unless, indeed, it had some strange history about it, adapting it to his wayward fancies, and then he would adopt the badness as a peculiar recom- mendation, and point it out with some pungent and appropriate remark to his friends. But though, with these peculiar exceptions, his works of art were faultless, no dealer could ever calculate on his buy- ing a picture, however high in artistic merit or tempting as a bargain. With his ever-accumulating collection, in which tiny sculpture and brilliant colour predominated, he kept a sort of fairy world around him. But each one of the mob of curious things he 291 preserved had some story linking it with others, or with his peculiar fancies, and each one had its precise place in a sort of epos^ as certainly as each of the persons in the confusion of a pantomime or a farce has his own position and functions. After all, he was himself his own greatest curiosity. He had come to manhood just after the period of gold-laced waistcoats, small-clothes, and shoe-buckles, otherwise he would have been long a living memorial of these now antique habits. It happened to be his lot to preserve down to us the earliest phase of the pantaloon dynasty. So, while the rest of the world were booted or heavy shod, his silk-stockinged feet were thrust into pumps of early Oxford cut, and the predominant garment was the surtout, blue in colour, and of the original make bef .re it came to be called a frock. Round his neck was wrapped an ante- Brummelite neckerchief (not a tie), which projected in many wreaths like a great poultice and so he took his walks abroad, a figure which he could himself have turned into admirable ridicule. One of the mysteries about him was, that his clothes, though unlike any other person's, were always old. This characteristic could not even be accounted for by the supposition that he had laid in a sixty years' stock in his youth, for they always appeared to have been a good deal worn. The very umbrella was in keeping it was of green silk, an obsolete colour ten years ago and the handle was of a peculiar crosier- like formation in cast -horn, 292 obviously not obtainable in the market. His face was ruddy, but not with the ruddiness of youth ; and, bearing on his head a Brutus wig of the light-brown hair which had long ago legitimately shaded his brow, when he stood still except for his linen, which was snowy white one might suppose that he had been shot and stuffed on his return home from college, and had been sprinkled with the frowzy mouldiness which time imparts to stuffed animals and other things, in which a semblance to the freshness of living nature is vainly attempted to be preserved. So if he were motionless ; but let him speak, and the internal freshness was still there, an ever-blooming garden of intellectual flowers. His antiquated costume was no longer grotesque it harmonised with an antiquated courtesy and high-bred gentleness of manner, which he had acquired from the best sources, since he had seen the first company in his day, whether for rank or genius. And conversation and manner were far from exhausting his resources. He had a wonderful pencil it was potent for the beautiful, the terrible, and the ridiculous ; but it took a wayward wilful course, like everything else about him. He had a brilliant pen, too, when he chose to wield it ; but the idea that he should exercise any of these his gifts in common display before the world, for any even of the higher motives that make people desire fame and praise, would have sickened him. His faculties were his own as much as his collection, and to be used according to his caprice and pleasure. So fluttered 293 through existence one who, had it been his fate to have his own bread to make, might have been a great man. Alas for the end ! Some curious annotations are all that remain of his literary powers some drawings and etchings in private collections all of his artistic. His collection, with its long train of legends and associations, came to what he himself must have counted as dispersal. He left it to his housekeeper, who, like a wise woman, converted it into cash while its mysterious reputation was fresh Huddled in a great auction-room, its several cata- logued items lay in humiliating contrast with the decorous order in which they were wont to be arranged. Sic transit gloria mundi. John Hill Burton. Jem White <=> o o & *t> o* A /T Y pleasant friend JEM WHITE was so impressed *** with a belief of metamorphoses like this fre- quently taking place, that in some sort to reverse the wrongs of fortune in their poor changelings, he instituted an annual feast of chimney-sweepers, at which it was his pleasure to officiate as host and waiter. It was a solemn supper held in Smithfield, upon the yearly return of the fair of St. Bartholomew. Cards were issued a week before to the master-sweeps in and about the metropolis, confining the invitation 294 to their younger fry. Now and then an elderly stripling would get in among us, and be good- naturedly winked at ; but our main body were infantry. One unfortunate wight, indeed, who, relying upon his dusky suit, had intruded himself into our party, but by tokens was providentially discovered in time to he no chimney-sweeper (all is not soot which looks so), was quoited out of the presence with universal in- dignation, as not having on the wedding garment ; but in general the greatest harmony prevailed. The place chosen was a convenient spot among the pens at the north side of the fair, not so far distant as to be impervious to the agreeable hubbub of that vanity ; but remote enough not to be obvious to the inter- ruption of every gaping spectator in it. The guests assembled about seven. In those little temporary parlours three tables were spread with napery, not so fine as substantial, and at every board a comely hostess presided with her pan of hissing sausages. The nostrils of the young rogues dilated at the savour. JAM l-;s \\'HITE, as head waiter, had charge of the first table ; and myself, with our trusty companion BIGOD, ordinarily ministered to the other two. There was clambering and jostling, you may be sure, who should get at the first table for Rochester in his maddest days could not have done the humours of the scene with more spirit than my friend. After some general expression of thanks for the honour the company had done him, his inaugural ceremony was to clasp the greasy waist of old dame Ursula (the 295 fattest of the three), that stood frying and fretting, half-blessing, half-cursing "the gentleman," and im- print upon her chaste lips a tender salute, whereat the universal host would set up a shout that tore the concave, while hundreds of grinning teeth startled the night with their brightness. O it was a pleasure to see the sable younkers lick in the unctuous meat, with his more unctuous sayings how he would fit the tit bits to the puny mouths, reserving the lengthier links for the seniors how he would intercept a morsel even in the jaws of some young desperado, declaring it " must to the pan again to be browned, for it was not fit for a gentleman's eating" how he would recommend this slice of white bread, or that piece of kissing-crust, to a tender juvenile, advising them all to have a care of cracking their teeth, which were their best patrimony, how genteelly he would deal about the small ale, as if it were wine, naming the brewer, and protesting, if it were not good, he should lose their custom ; with a special recommendation to wipe the lip before drinking. Then we had our toasts "The King," the "Cloth," which, whether they understood or not, was equally diverting and flattering; and for a crowning sentiment, which never failed, " May the Brush supersede the Laurel." All these, and fifty other fancies, which were rather felt than comprehended by his guests, would he utter, standing upon tables, and prefacing every sentiment with a " Gentlemen, give me leave to propose so and so," which was a prodigious comfort to those young 296 orphans ; every now and then stuffing into his mouth (for it did not do to be squeamish on these occasions) indiscriminate pieces of those reeking sausages, which pleased them mightily, and was the savouriest part, you may believe, of the entertainment. Charles Lamb. W. T F you had walked to what was then Sweet Auburn * by the pleasant Old Road, on some June morning thirty years ago, you would very likely have met two other characteristic persons, both phantasmagoric now, and belonging to the past. Fifty years earlier, the scarlet-coated, rapiered figures of Vassall, Lech- mere, Oliver, and Brattle creaked up and down there on red-heeled shoes, lifting the ceremonious three- cornered hat, and offering the fugacious hospitalities of the snuff-box. They are all shadowy alike now, not one of your Estruscan Lucumos or Roman Consuls more so, my dear Storg. First is \V., his queue slender and tapering, like the tail of a violet crab, held out horizontally by the high collar of his shepherd's - grey overcoat, whose style was of the latest when he studied at Leyden in his hot youth. The age of cheap clothes sees no more of those faithful old garments, as proper to their wearers and as distinctive as the barks of trees, and by long use 297 interpenetrated with their very nature. Nor do we see so many Humors (still in the old sense) now that every man's soul belongs to the Public, as when social distinctions were more marked, and men felt that their personalities were their castles, in which they could intrench themselves against the world. Now-a-days men are shy of letting their true selves be seen, as if in some former life they had committed a crime, and were all the time afraid of discovery and arrest in this. Formerly they used to insist on your giving the wall to their peculiarities, and you may still find examples of it in the parson or the doctor of retired villages. One of W.'s oddities was touching. A little brook used to run across the street, and the sidewalk was carried over it by a broad stone. Of course there is no brook now. What use did that little glimpse of a ripple serve, where the children used to launch their chip fleets ? W., in going over this stone, which gave a hollow resonance to the tread, had a trick of striking upon it three times with his cane, and muttering, " Tom, Tom, Tom ! " I used to think he was only mimicking with his voice the sound of the blows, and possibly it was that sound which suggested his thought, for he was remembering a favourite nephew, prematurely dead. Perhaps Tom had sailed his boats there ; perhaps the reverberation under the old man's foot hinted at the hollowness of life ; perhaps the fleeting eddies of the water brought to mind fatfugaces annos. W., like P., wore amazing spectacles, fit to transmit no smaller image than the 298 page of mightiest folios of Dioscorides or Hercules de Saxonia, and rising full-disked upon the beholder like those prodigies of two moons at once, portending change to monarchs. The great collar disallowing any independent rotation of the head, I remember he used to turn his whole person in order to bring their foci to bear upon an object. One can fancy that terrified Nature would have yielded up her secrets at once, without cross-examination, at their first glare. Through them he had gazed fondly into the great mare's-nest of Junius, publishing his observations upon the eggs found therein in a tall octavo. It was he who introduced vaccination to this Western World. Malicious persons disputing his claim to this distinc- tion, he published this advertisement : " Lost, a gold snuff-box, with the inscription, 'The Jenner of the Old World to the Jenner of the New.' Whoever shall return the same to Dr. shall be suitably rewarded." It was never returned. Would the search after it have been as fruitless as that of the alchemist after his equally imaginary gold ? Malicious persons persisted in believing the box as visionary as the claim it was meant to buttress with a semblance of reality. He used to stop and say good-morning kindly, and pat the shoulder of the blushing school- boy who now, with the fierce snowstorm wildering without, sits and remembers sadly those old meetings and partings in the June sunshine. /. R, Lowell. 209 Whittle and Sarratt o o -e> o T T E was a large, plain, fair-faced Moravian * * preacher, turned physican. He was an honest man, but vain of he knew not what. He was once sitting where Sarratt was playing a game at chess without seeing the board ; and after remaining for some time absorbed in silent wonder, he turned suddenly to me and said, "Do you know, Mr. Hazlitt, that I think there is something I could do ? " " Well, what is that ? " " Why, perhaps you would not guess, but I think I could dance, I'm sure I could ; ay, I could dance like Vestris ! " Sarratt, who was a man of various accomplishments (among others one of the Fancy), afterwards bared his arm to convince us of his muscular strength, and Mrs. Whittle going out of the room with another lady, said, " Do you know, Madam, the Doctor is a great jumper!" Moliere could not outdo this. Never shall I forget his pulling off his coat to eat beaf-steaks on equal terms with Martin Burney. Life is short, but full of mirth and pastime, did we not so soon forget what we have laughed at, perhaps that we may not remember what we have cried at ! Sarratt the chess-player was an extraordinary man. He had the same tenacious, epileptic faculty in other things that he had at chess, and could no more get any other ideas out of his mind than he could those of the figures on the board. He was a great reader, but had not the least taste. Indeed, the violence of his memory tyrannised over 300 and destroyed all power of selection. He could repeat Ossian by heart, without knowing the best passage from the worst ; and did not perceive he was tiring you to death by giving you an account of the breed, education, and manners of fighting-dogs for hours together. The sense of reality quite super- seded the distinction between the pleasurable and the painful. He was altogether a mechanical philosopher. William Hazlitt. J. F. o *> ^> > o o o AND this reminds me of J. F., who, also crossed in love, allowed no mortal eye to behold his face for many years. The eremitic instinct is not peculiar to the Thebais, as many a New England village can testify ; and it is worthy of consideration that the Romish Church has not forgotten this among her other points of intimate contact with human nature. F. became purely vespertinal, never stirring abroad till after dark. He occupied two rooms, migrating from one to the other, as the necessities of housewifery demanded, thus shunning all sight of womankind, and being practically more solitary in his dual apartment than Montaigne's Dean of St Hilaire in his single one. When it was requisite that he should put his signature to any legal instrument, (for he was an anchorite of ample means,) he wrapped himself in a blanket, allowing nothing to be seen but 3' the hand which acted as scribe. What impressed us boys more than anything else was the rumour that he had suffered his beard to grow, such an anti- Sheffieldism being almost unheard of in those days, and the peculiar ornament of man being associated in our minds with nothing more recent than the patriarchs and apostles, whose effigies we were obliged to solace ourselves with weekly in the Family Bible. He came out of his oysterhood at last, and I knew him well, a k'.nd-hearted man, who gave annual sleigh-rides to the town-paupers, and supplied the poor children with school-books. His favourite topic of conversation was Eternity, and, like many other worthy persons, he used to fancy that meaning was an affair of aggregation, and that he doubled the intensity of what he said by the sole aid of the multiplication-table. " Eternity ! " he used to say, " it is not a day ; it is not a year ; it is not a hundred years ; it is not a thousand years ; it is not a million years ; no, sir," (the sir being thrown in to recall wandering attention,) " it is not ten million years ! " and so on, his enthusiasm becoming a mere frenzy when he got among his sextillions, till I sometimes wished he had continued in retirement. He used to sit at the open window during thunder-storms, and had a Grecian feeling about death by lightning. In a certain sense he had his desire, for he died suddenly, not by fire from heaven, but by the red flash of apoplexy, leaving his whole estate to charitable uses. /. R. Lowell. 302 Cavanagh o o o o o o TT is not likely that any one will now see the game -* of fives played in its perfection for many years to come for Cavanagh is dead, and has not left his peer behind him. It may be said, that there are things of more importance than striking a ball against a wall there are things, indeed, which make more noise and do as little good, such as making war and peace, making speeches and answering them, making verses and blotting them, making money and throw- ing it away. But the game of fives is what no one despises who has ever played at it. It is the finest exercise for the body, and the best relaxation for the mind. The Roman poet said, that " Care mounted behind the horseman and stuck to his skirts." But this remark would not have applied to the fives-player. He who takes to playing at fives is twice young. He feels neither the past nor the future " in the instant." Debts, taxes, " domestic treason, foreign levy, nothing can touch him further." He has no other wish, no other thought, from the moment the game begins, but that of striking the ball, of placing it, of making it ! This Cavanagh was sure to do. Whenever he touched the ball, there was an end of the chase. His eye was certain, his hand fatal, his presence of mind complete. He could do what he pleased, and he always knew exactly what to do. He saw the whole game, and played it ; took instant advantage of his adversary's weakness, and recovered balls, as if by a 33 miracle and from sudden thought, that every one gave for lost. He had equal power and skill, quick- ness, and judgment. He could either outwit his antagonist by finesse, or beat him by main strength. Sometimes, when he seemed preparing to send the ball with the full swing of his arm, he would by a slight turn of his wrist drop it within an inch of the line. In general, the ball came from his hand, as if from a racket, in a straight horizontal line ; so that it was in vain to attempt to overtake or stop it. As it was said of a great orator that he never was at a loss for a word, and for the properest word, so Cavanagh always could tell the degree of force necessary to be given to a ball, and the precise direction in which it should be sent. He did his work with the greatest ease ; never took more pains than was necessary ; and while others were fagging themselves to death, was as cool and collected as if he had just entered the court. His style of play was as remarkable as his power of execution. He had no affectation, no trifling. He did not throw away the game to show off an attitude, or try an experiment. He was a fine, sensible, manly player, who did what he 'could, but that was more than any one else could even affect to do. His blows were not undecided and ineffectual lumbering like Mr. Wordsworth's epic poetry, nor wavering like Mr. Coleridge's lyric prose, nor short of the mark like Mr. Brougham's speeches, nor wide of it like Mr. Canning's wit, nor foul like the "Quarterly," not let balls like the "Edinburgh 34 Review." Cobbett and Junius together would have made a Cavanagh. He was the best up-hill player in the world ; even when his adversary was fourteen, he would play on the same or better, and as he never flung away the game through carelessness and conceit, he never gave it up through laziness or want of heart. The only peculiarity of his play was, that he never volleyed, but let the balls hop ; but if they rose an inch from the ground, he never missed having them. There was not only nobody equal, but nobody second to him. It is supposed that he could give any other player half the game, or beat him with his left hand. . . . Cavanagh died from the bursting of a blood-vessel, which prevented him from playing for the last two or three years. This, he was often heard to say, he thought hard upon him. He was fast recover- ing, however, when he was suddenly carried' off, to the regret of all who knew him. As Mr. Peel made it a qualification of the present Speaker, Mr. Manners Sutton, that he was an excellent moral character, so Jack Cavanagh was a zealous Catholic, and could not be persuaded to eat meat on a Friday, the day on which he died. We have paid this willing tribute to his memory. ' ' Let no rude hand deface it, And his forlorn ' Hie Jacrt.' " William Heulitt. 305 Xavier Marmier o o *> ^> *> T N the first rank of ever-faithful book-hunters we * must place Xavier Marmier. His specialty was books in foreign languages, from Italian to the lan- guages of the North, popular tales, and all that we to-day know as folk-lore. And, besides collecting these books, he made frequent and distant journeys. The only books he did not like finding in the stall- keeper's box were those he bought with most eager- ness ; he knew from long experience what number of excellent books were to be found on the parapets, and he could not suffer any of his to remain there. Ardently and continuously did he make a clean sweep of Marmiers, and such were the sympathy and respect with which he was surrounded that no one attempted to take advantage of this vainglorious but inoffensive mania by exaggerating the price, or by buying here and there in order to sell to him again the works of the worthy book-hunter, which are by no means rare in second-hand shops. Book-hunting was for this academician such a serious function that he wore a special costume for the purpose ; he could stow away bundles of books in his pockets, which were numerous and as deep as sacks. But in no other respect did he resemble the remarkable bibliomaniac of the Vie de Bohtme. Of perfect politeness, in which were revived the best traditions of the old rtgime> Xavier Marmier never forgot after a bargain to offer the stall-keeper a cigarette, or, if the stall-keeper were a 306 woman, to take a sweetmeat-box from his pocket and beg her to accept a chocolate pastille. Anecdotes abound regarding this amiable man of letters ; a respectable collection could be made of Marmicrana. Here are one or two, to stimulate the appetite : Not long ago M. Marmier bought for two sous a book which seemed to interest him greatly ; to run through it after he had bought it he sat down on the stall-keeper's seat, after offering \\.rn. a smoke. A moment afterwards he said to him : "Ah ! mon ami, you would not believe how pleased I am ; I have been looking for this work for ten years;" and he put a five-franc piece into the hand of the astonished dealer. Another time he had just bought at a low price a book of no importance, which he thought might some day come in useful, when it came on to rain, and he had to take shelter on the terrace of a neighbouring cafe. lie asked for a glass of milk, and began to examine the volume. In turning over the leaves he came to two stuck together, and on separating them found a hundred-franc note hidden there by some bibliophile. At this moment he distinctly heard somebody close to him saying so sorrowfully, " To- morrow I have to pay up. My wife and children will be in the street. I will sell the whole shop to-day. I have only taken six sous, which a gentleman with a ribbon gave me, and the day is over now the rain has come. Good-bye to trade, as far as I am con- 37 cerned ! " The " gentleman with a ribbon " Marmier recognised as himself; the man who was groaning at the neighbouring table was none other than the stall-keeper who had sold him the book in which he had just made such an unlikely find. The academician rose, took the stall-keeper's hand, and slipped into it the hundred-franc note. " Look here, my friend," he said, " you forgot what was in the book you sold me just now. I return it to you ! " Finally, in his will he inserted a clause which de- serves to be quoted at length : " In remembrance of the happy moments I have passed among the book- stall-keepers on the quays of the left bank moments which I reckon among the pleasantest of my life I leave to these worthy stall-keepers a sum of 1000 francs. I desire that this amount shall be expended by these good and honest dealers, who number fifty or thereabouts, in paying for a jolly dinner and in spending an hour in conviviality and in thinking of me. This will be my acknowledgment for the many hours I have lived intellectually in my almost daily walks on the quays between the Pont Royal and the Pont Saint-Michel." Octave Uzanne. 308 Sir Roger's Death o o o o o Heu pittas f heu prisca Jides I Virg., ^. vi. 878. Mirror of ancient faith ! Undaunted worth ! Inviolable truth ! Dry den. \ I 7E last night received a piece of ill-news at our club which very sensibly afflicted every one of us. I question not but my readers themselves will be troubled at the hearing of it. To keep them no longer in suspense, Sir Roger de Coverley is dead. He departed this life at his house in the country, after a few weeks' sickness. Sir Andrew Freeport has a letter from one of his correspondents in those parts, that informs him the old man caught a cold at the county sessions, as he was very warmly promoting an address of his own penning, in which he succeeded according to his wishes. But this particular comes from a whig justice of peace, who was always Sir Roger's enemy and antagonist. I have letters both from the chaplain and Captain Sentry, which mention nothing of it, but are filled with many particulars to the honour of the good old man. I have likewise a letter from the butler, who took so much care of me last summer when I was at the knight's house. As my friend the butler mentions, in the simplicity of his heart, several circumstances the others have passed over in silence, I shall give my reader a copy of his letter, without any alteration or diminution. 39 " HONOURED SIR, Knowing that you was my old master's good friend, I could not forbear sending you the melancholy news of his death, which has afflicted the whole country, as well as his poor servants, who loved him, I may say, better than we did our lives. I am afraid he caught his death the last county-sessions, where he would go to see justice done to a poor widow woman, and her fatherless children, that had been wronged by a neighbouring gentleman ; for you know, sir, my good master was always the poor man's friend. Upon his coming home, the first complaint he made was, that he had lost his roast-beef stomach, not being able to touch a sirloin, which was served up according to custom ; and you know he used to take great delight in it. From that time forward he grew worse and worse, but still kept a good heart to the last. Indeed, we were once in great hopes of his recovery, upon a kind message that was sent him from the widow lady whom he had made love to the forty last years of his life ; but this only proved a lightning before death. He has bequeathed to this lady, as a token of his love, a great pearl necklace, and a couple of silver bracelets set with jewels, which belonged to my good old lady his mother. He has bequeathed the fine white gelding that he used to ride a hunting upon to his chaplain, because he thought he would be kind to him ; and has left you all his books. He has, moreover, bequeathed to the chaplain a very pretty tenement with good lands about it. It being a very cold day when he made his will, he left for mourning to every man in the parish, 310 a great frieze-coat, and to every woman a black riding hood. It was a most moving sight to see him take leave of his poor servants, commending us all for our fidelity, whilst we were not able to speak a word for weeping. As we most of us are grown greyheaded in our dear master's service, he has left us pensions and legacies, which we may live very comfortably upon the remaining part of our days. He has bequeathed a great deal more in charity, which is not yet come to my knowledge, and it is peremptorily said in the parish that he has left money to build a steeple to the church : for he was heard to s .y some time ago, that, if he lived two years longer- Covcrlcy church should have a steeple to it. The chaplain tells everybody that he made a very good end, and never speaks of him without tears. He was buried, according to his own directions, among the family of the Covet leys, on the left hand of his father Sir Arthur. The coffin was carried by six of his tenants, and the pall held up by six of the quorum. The whole parish followed the corpse with heavy hearts, and in their mourning suits ; the men in frieze, and the women in riding hoods. Captain Sentry, my master's nephew, has taken posses- sion of the Hall-house, and the whole estate. When my old master saw him a little before his death, he shook him by the hand, and wished him joy of the estate which was falling to him, desiring him only to make a good use of it, and to pay the several legacies, and the gifts of charity, which he told him he had left as quit-rents upon the estate. The captain truly seems 3" a courteous man, though he says but little. He makes much of those whom my master loved, and shows great kindness to the old house-dog, that you know my poor master was so fond of. It would have gone to your heart to have heard the moans the dumb creature made on the day of my master's death. He has never enjoyed himself since ; no more has any of us. It was the melancholiest day for the poor people that ever happened in Worcestershire. This being all from, honoured sir, your most sorrowful servant, EDWARD BISCUIT. " P.S. My master desired, some weeks before he died, that a book, which comes to you by the carrier, should be given to Sir Andrew Freeport in his name." This letter, notwithstanding the poor butler's manner of writing it, gave us such an idea of our good old friend, that upon the reading of it there was not a dry eye in the club. Sir Andrew, opening the book, found it to be a collection of acts of parliament. There was in particular the Act of Uniformity, with some passages in it marked by Sir Roger's own hand. Sir Andrew found that they related to two or three points which he had disputed with Sir Roger, the last time he appeared at the club. Sir Andrew, who would have been merry at such an incident on another occasion, at the sight of the old man's hand-writing burst into tears, and put the book into his pocket. 312 Captain Sentry informs me that the knight has left rings and mourning for every one in the club. Joseph Addison. The Curd's Progress o o ^> o \J\ ON SI EUR the Cure down the street ^ * Comes with his kind old face, With his coat worn bare, and his straggling hair, And his green umbrella-case. You may see him pass by the little " Grande Place? And the tiny " Hotel-de- Ville " ; He smiles as he goes, to thefauriste Rose, And the pompier Theophile. He turns, as a rule, through the " Marcht" cool, Where the noisy fish-wives call ; And his compliment pays to the "belle The'rese" As she knits in her dusky stall. There's a letter to drop at the locksmith's shop, And Toto, the locksmith's niece, Has jubilant hopes, for the Cure gropes In his tails for a. pain effyice. There's a little dispute with a merchant of fruit, Who is said to lie heterodox, That will ended be with a "Ufa/m, out'/' And a pinch from the Curb's box. 3*3 There is also a word that no one heard To the furrier's daughter Lou ; And a pale cheek fed with a flickering red, And a " Bon Dieu garde M'sieu / " But a grander way for the Sous-Prefet, And a bow for Ma'anYselle Anne ; And a mock " off-hat " to the Notary's cat, And a nod to the Sacristan : For ever through life the Cure goes With a smile on his kind old face With his coat worn bare, and his straggling hair. And his green umbrella-case. Austin Dobson* THE COURTLY POETS A sweet attractive kinde of grace, A full assurance given by lookes, Continuall comfort in a face, The lineaments of gospell hookes, I trowe that countenance cannot lie, Whose thoughts are legible in the eie. Was never eie did see that face, Was never eare did heare that tong, Was never minde did minde his grace, That ever thought the travell long ; But eies and eares, and ev'ry thought, Were with his sweete perfections caught. Matthew Roydon^ A Description of a Most Noble Lady o IVE place, you ladies, and begone ! Boast not yourselves at all ! For here at hand approacheth one Whose face will stain you all. The virtue of her lively looks Excels the precious stone ; I wish to have none other books To read or look upon. In each of her two crystal eyes Smileth a naked boy ; It would you all in heart suffice To see that lamp of joy. I think Nature hath lost the mould Where she her shape did take ; Or else I doubt if Nature could So fair a creature make. She may be well compared Unto the Phoenix kind, Whose like was never seen nor heard, That any man can find. 3'7 In life she is Diana chaste, In truth Penelope ; In work and eke in deed stedfast, What will you more we say ? If all the world were sought so far, Who could find such a wight ? Her beauty twinkleth like a star Within the frosty night. Her roseal colour comes and goes With such a comely grace, More ruddier, too, than doth the rose Within her lively face. At Bacchus' feast none shall her meet Ne at no wanton play, Nor gazing in an open street, Nor gadding as a stray. The modest mirth that she doth use Is mixed with shamefastness ; All vice she doth wholly refuse, And hateth idleness. O Lord ! it is a world to see How virtue can repair, And deck her in such honesty, Whom nature made so fair. 3-3 Son" Truly she doth so far exceed Our women nowadays, As doth the gillyflower a weed ; And more a thousand ways. How might I do to get a grafif Of this unspotted tree? For all the rest are plain but chaff", Which seem good corn to be. This gift alone I shall her give : When death doth what he can, Her honest fame shall ever live Within the mouth of man. John Heywooit(!\ T OVE not me for comely grace, "* I <>r my pleasing eye or fa. <, Nor for any outward part, No, nor for my constant heart ; For these may faile, or turn to ill, So thou and I shall sever. Keep therefore a true woman's eye, And love me still, but know not why : So hast thou the same reason still To doat upon me ever. Anon. There is none, O, none but you ! o ^> r I ^HERE is none, O, none but you, ^ Who from me estrange the sight, Whom mine eyes affect to view, And chained ears hear with delight. Others' beauties others move : In you I all the graces find ; Such are the effects of love, To make them happy that are kind. Women in frail beauty trust ; Only seem you kind to me ! Still be truly kind and just, For that can't dissembled be. Dear, afford me then your sight ! That, surveying all your looks, Endless volumes I may write, And fill the world with envied books. Which when after ages view, All shall wonder and despair, Women, to find a man so true, And men, a woman half so fair ! Robert, Earl of Essex. 320 To Celia to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine ; Or leave a kiss but in the cup, And I'll not look for wine. The thirst that from the soul doth rise Doth ask a drink divine ; But might I of Jove's nectar sup, I would not change for thine. I sent thee late a rosy wreath, Not so much honouring thee As giving it a hope that there It could not wither'd be : But thou thereon didst only breathe, And sent'st it back to me ; Since when it grows, and smells, I swear, Not of itself, but thee ! Ben Junson. On a Girdle r I "HAT which her slender waist confin'd, * Shall now my joyful temples bind ; No monarch but would give his crown His arms might do what this has done. It was my Heaven's extremest sphere, The pale which held that lovely deer x 321 My joy, my grief, my hope, my love Did all within this circle move ! A narrow compass ! and yet there Dwelt all that's good, and all that's fair , Give me but what this riband bound, Take all the rest the sun goes round. Edmund Waller. To Althea, from Prison o o <. ~\ \ 7 HEN Love with unconfined wings * * Hovers within my gates, And my divine Althea brings To whisper at the grates ; When I lie tangled in her hair, And fetter'd to her eye, The birds that wanton in the air Know no such liberty. When flowing cups run swiftly round With no allaying Thames, Our careless heads with roses bound, Our hearts with loyal flames ; W'hen thirsty grief in wine we steep, When healths and draughts go free, Fishes that tipple in the deep Know no such liberty. 322 When (like committed linnets) I With shriller throat shall sing The sweetness, mercy, majesty, And glories of my King ; When I shall voice aloud, how good He is, how great should be, Enl.irgod winds, that curl the flood, Know no such liberty. Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage ; Minds innocent and quiet take That for a hermitage : If I have freedom in my love, And in my soul am free, Angels alone that soar above Enjoy such liberty. Richard Lovelace, An Excellent New Ballad :> o MY dear and only love, I pray That little world of thec Be governed by no other sway Than purest monarchy ; For if confusion have a part, Which virtuous souls abhor, .And hold ;i .vc/Win thine heart, I'll never love thee more. 323 As Alexander I will reign, And I will reign alone ; My thoughts did evermore disdain A rival on my throne. He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, That dares not put it to the touch, To gain or lose it all. But I will reign and govern still, And always give the law, And have each subject at my will, And all to stand in awe ; But 'gainst my batteries if I find Thou kick, or vex me sore, As that thou set me up a blind, I'll never love thee more. And in the empire of thine heart, Where I should solely be, If others do pretend a part, Or dare to vie with me, Or if committees thou erect, And go on such a score, I'll laugh and sing at thy neglect, And never love thee more. But if thou wilt prove faithful, then, And constant of thy word, I'll make thee glorious by my pen, And famous by my sword j 3 2 4 I'll serve thee in such noble ways Was never heard before ; I'll crown and deck thee all with bays, And love thee more and more. James, Marquis of Mont rose. To Lucasta, on going to the Wars o *e> " I ^ELL me not, Sweet, I am unkind, -* That from the nunnery Of your chaste breast and quiet mind To war and arms I fly. True : a new Mistress now I chase, The first foe in the field ; And with a stronger faith embrace A sword, a horse, a shield. Yet this inconstancy is such As you too shall adore ; I could not love thee, Dear, so much, Lov'd I not Honour more ! Richard Lovelace. (iratiana Dancing *t> o o < SHE beat the happy pavement By such a star made firmament, Which now no more the roof envies ! 3 2 5 But swells up high, with Atlas even, Bearing the brighter, nobler heaven, And, in her, all the deities. Each step trod out a Lover's thought, And the ambitious hopes he brought Chain'd to her brave feet with such arts, Such sweet command and gentle awe, As, when she ceased, we sighing saw The floor lay paved with broken hearts. Richard Lovelact, To his Coy Mistress o o <^ <* T T AD we but world enough and time, *- -* This coyness, lady, were no crime. We would sit down and think which way To walk, and pass our long love's day. Thou by the Indian Ganges' side Shouldst rubies find : I by the tide Of Humber would complain. I would Love you ten years before the Flood, And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews. My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires and more slow. An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze ; 326 Two hundred to adore each breast, But thirty thousand to the rest ; An age at least to every part, And the last age should show your heart For, lady, you deserve this state, Nor would I love at lower rate. But at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near, And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity. Thy beauty shall no more be found, Nor in thy marble vault shall sound My echoing song ; then worms shall try That long-preserved virginity, And your quaint honour turn to dust, And into ashes all my lust. The grave's a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace. Now, therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires, Now, let us sport us while we may ; And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour, Than languish in his slow-chapt power 1 Let us roll all our strength, and all Our sweetness, up into one ball ; And tear our pleasures with rough strife, Thorough the iron gates of life ! 3 2 7 Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run. Andrew Maruell. On a Halfpenny which a Young Lady gave a Beggar, and which the Author redeemed for Half a Crown *> > e> o o "TAEAR little, pretty, favourite ore, "^ That once increased Gloriana's store ; That lay within her bosom blest, Gods might have envied thee thy rest ! I've read, imperial Jove of old For love transform'd himself to gold : And why for a more lovely lass May he not now have lurk'd in brass ? O, rather than from her he'd part He'd shut that charitable heart, That heart whose goodness nothing less Than his vast power could dispossess. From Gloriana's gentle touch Thy mighty value now is such, That thou to me art worth alone More than his medals are to Sloane. Henry Fielding. 328 An Elegy T T NDERNEATH this sable hearse ^ Lies the subject of all verse, Sidney's sister Pembroke's mother Death, ere thou hast slain another, Learn 'd and fair and good as she, 1*11116 shall throw his dart at thee. William Browne. An Epitaph Vouldst thou hear what man can say In a little? reader, stay. T T NDERNEATH this stone doth lie ^ As much beauty as could die ; Which in life did harbour give To more virtue than doth live. If at all she had a fault, Leave it buried in the vault. One name was Elizabeth, The other, let it sleep with death : Fitter where it died to tell, Than that it lived at all. Farewell ! Ren Jonson, 329 Love and Age o o o o < T PLAY'D with you 'mid cowslips blowing, -*- When I was six and you were four ; When garlands weaving, flower-balls throwing, Were pleasures soon to please no more. Thro' groves and meads, o'er grass and heather, With little playmates, to and fro, We wander'd hand in hand together ; But that was sixty years ago. You grew a lovely roseate maiden, And still our early love was strong ; Still with no carf. our days were laden, They glided joyously along ; And I did love you very dearly How dearly, words want power to show ; I thought your heart was touched as nearly ; But that was fifty years ago. Then other lovers came around you, Your beauty grew from year to year, And many a splendid circle found you The centre of its glittering sphere. I saw you then, first vows forsaking, On rank and wealth your hand bestow ; O, then, I thought my heart was breaking, But that was forty years ago. 33 And I lived on, to wed another : No cause she gave me to repine ; And when I heard you were a mother, I did not wish the children mine. My own young flock, in fair progression, Made up a pleasant Christmas row : My joy in them was past expression ; But that was thirty years ago. You grew a matron plump and comely, You dwelt in fashion's brightest blaze ; My earthly lot was far more homely ; But I too had my festal days. No merrier eyes have ever glisten'd Around the hearth-stone's wintry glow, Than when my youngest child was christen'd : But that was twenty years ago. Time passed. My eldest girl was married, And I am now a grandsire grey ; One pet of four years old I've carried Among the wild-flower'd meads to play. In our old fields of childish pleasure, Where now, as then, the cowslips blow, She fills her basket's ample measure, And that is not ten years ago. But though first love's impassioned blindness Has passed away in colder light, I still have thought of you with kindness, And shall do, till our last good-night. 33' The ever-rolling silent hours Will bring a time we shall not know, When our young days of gathering flowers Will be an hundred years ago. T. L. Peacock. E. G. de R. o > o o o > o o *e> I T F you are like me, you are fretting at the weather. *- We have not a leaf, yet, large enough to make an apron for a Miss Eve of two years old. Flowers and fruits, if they come at all this year, must meet together as they do in a Dutch picture ; our lords and ladies, however, couple as if it were the real Gioventu dell' anno. Lord Albermarle, you know, has dis- 342 appointed all his brothers and my niece ; and Lord Fitzwilliam is declared sposo to Lady Charlotte Ponsonby. It is a pretty match, and makes Lord Besborough as happy as possible. Masquerades proceed in spite of Church and King. That knave the Bishop of London persuaded that good soul the Archbishop to remonstrate against them ; but happily the age prefers silly follies to serious ones, and dominos, comme de raison, carry it against lawn sleeves. There is a new Institution that begins to make, and if it proceeds, will make a considerable noise. It is a club of both sexes to be erected at Almack's, on the model of that of the men of White's. Mrs. Fitzroy, Lady Pembroke, Mrs. Meynell, Lady Mclyneux, Miss Pelham, and Miss Lloyd are the foundresses. I am ashamed to say I am of so young and fashionable a society ; but as they are people I live with, I choose to be idle rather than morose. I can go to a young supper, without forgetting how much sand is run out of the hour-glass. Yet I shall never pass a triste old age in turning the Psalms into Latin or English verse. My plan is to pass away calmly ; cheerfully if I can ; sometimes to amuse myself with the rising generation, but to take care not to fatigue them, nor weary them with old stories, which will not interest them, as their adventures do not interest me. Age would indulge prejudices if it did not sometimes polish itself against younger acquaintance, but it must be the work of folly if one hopes to contract friendships with them, or 343 desires it, or thinks one can become the same follies, or expects that they should do more than bear one for one's good-humour. In short, they are a pleasant medicine, that one should take care not to grow fond of. Medicines hurt when habit has annihilated their force ; but you see I am in no danger. I intend by degrees to decrease my opium, instead of augmenting the dose. Good-night ! You see I never let our long-lived friendship drop, though you give it so few opportunities of breathing. II SERENDIPITY r I "HIS discovery I made by a talisman, which Mr. -^ Chute calls the Sortes Walpoliance, by which I find every thing I want, a pointe nominee, wherever I dip for it. This discovery, indeed, is almost of that kind which I call " Serendipity" a very expressive word, which, as I have nothing better to tell you, I shall endeavour to explain to you : you will under- stand it better by the derivation than by the definition. I once read a silly fairy tale, called " The Three Princes of Serendip " : as their Highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of : for instance, one of them discovered that a mule blind of the right eye had travelled the same road lately, because the grass was eaten only on the left side, where it was 344 worse than on the right now do you understand Serendipity ? One of the most remarkable instances of this accidental sagacity (for you must observe that no discovery of a thing you are looking for comes under this description) was of my Lord Shaftesbury, who, happening to dine at Lord Chancelloi Clarendon's, found out the marriage of the Duke of York and Mrs. Hyde, by the respect with which her mother treated her at table. Horace Walpole. Vinny Bourne o o o o o T LOVE the memory of Vinny Bourne. I think *- him a better Latin poet than Tibullus, Propertius, Ausonius, or any of the writers in his way, except Ovid, and not at all inferior to him. I love him, too, with a love of partiality, because he was usher of the fifth form at Westminster when I passed through it. He was so good-natured, and so indolent, that I lost more than I got by him ; for he made me as idle as himself. He was such a sloven, as if he had trusted to his genius as a cloak for everything that could disgust you in his person ; and indeed in his writings he has almost made amends for all. His humour is entirely original ; he can speak of a magpie or a cat in terms so exquisitely appropriated to the character he draws, that one would suppose him animated by 345 the spirit of the creature he describes. And with all this drollery there is a mixture of rational, and even religious, reflection at times, and always an air of pleasantry, good-nature and humanity, that makes him, in my mind, one of the most amiable writers in the world. It is not common to meet with a writer who can make you smile, and yet at nobody's expense ; who is always entertaining, and yet always harmless ; and who, though always elegant, and classical to a degree not always found even in the classics them- selves, charms more by the simplicity and playfulness of his ideas, than by the neatness and purity of his verse ; yet such was poor Vinny. I remember seeing the Duke of Richmond set fire to his greasy locks, and box his ears to put it out again. , W. Coivper. The Candidate -o & ^> o > ~\\ 7"E were sitting yesterday after dinner the two * * ladies and myself very composedly, and without the least apprehension of any such intrusion, in our snug parlour, one lady knitting, the other netting, and the gentleman winding worsted, when, to our unspeakable surprise, a mob appeared before the window, a smart rap was heard at the door, the boys hallooed, and the maid announced Mr. Grenville. Puss was unfortunately let out of her box, so that the candidate, with all his good friends at his heels, was 346 refused admittance at the grand entry, and referred to the back door, as the only possible way of approach. Candidates are creatures not very susceptible of affronts, and would rather, I suppose, climb in at a window than be absolutely excluded. In a minute the yard, the kitchen, and the parlour were filled. Mr. Grenville, advancing towards me, shook me by the hand with a degree of cordiality that was extremely seducing. As soon as he and as many more as could find chairs were seated, he began to open the intent of his visit. I told him I had no vote, for which he readily gave me credit. I assured him I had no influence, which he was not equally inclined to believe, and the less, no doubt, because Mr. Ashburner, the drapier, addressing himself to me at that moment, informed me that I had a great deal. Supposing that I could not be possessed of such a treasure without knowing it, I ventured to confirm my first assertion by saying that if I had any I was utterly at a loss to imagine where it could be, or wherein it consisted. Thus ended the conference. Mr. Grenville squeezed me by the hand again, kissed the ladies, and withdrew. He kissed likewise the maid in the kitchen, and seemed upon the whole a most loving, kissing, kind-hearted gentleman. He is very young, genteel, and handsome. He has a pair of very good eyes in his head, which not being sufficient, as it should seem, for the many nice and difficult purposes of a senator, he has a third also, which he wore suspended by a riband from his buttonhole. The boys hallooed, the 347 dogs barked, puss scampered ; the hero, with his long train of obsequious followers, withdrew. W. Coivper. Keats's Way*s* o o o o o I. MR. DILKE ' I "HE place I am speaking of puts me in mind of a -*- circumstance which occurred lately at Dilke's. I think it very rich and dramatic and quite illustrative of the little quiet fun that he will enjoy sometimes. First I must tell you that their house is at the corner of Great Smith Street, so that some of the windows look into one street, and the back windows into another round the corner. Dilke had some old people to dinner I know not who, but there were two old ladies among them. Brown was there they had known him from a child. Brown is very pleasant with old women, and on that day it seems behaved himself so winningly that they became hand and glove together, and a little complimentary. Brown was obliged to depart early. He bid them good-bye and passed into the passage. No sooner was his back turned than the old women began lauding him. When Brown had reached the street door, and was just going, Dilke threw up the window and call'd : " Brown ! Brown ! They say you look younger than ever you did." Brown went on and had just turned the corner into the other street when Dilke appeared 348 at the back window, crying : " Brown ! Brown ! By God, they say you're handsome ! " II. UNCLE DERHALL you know Uncle Derhall? He is a little man with an innocent powdered upright head he lisps with a protruded underlip he has two nieces, each one would weigh three of him one for height and the other for breadth he knew Bartolozzi. He gave a supper, and ranged his bottles of wine all up the Kitchen and Cellar stairs quite ignorant of what might be drank it might have been a good joke to pour on the sly bottle after bottle into a washing tub and roar for more. If you were to trip him up it would discompose a Pigtail and bring his under lip nea r er to his nose. He never had the good luck to lose a silk Handkerchief in a Crowd, and therefore has only one topic of conversation Bartolozzi. III. WINCHESTER IN 1819 ' I "HE side streets here are excessively maiden- -*- ladylike : the door-steps always fresh from the flannel. The knockers have a staid, serious, nay almost awful quietness about them. I never saw so quiet a collection. Lions' and Rams' heads. The doors are of most part black, with a little brass handle just above the keyhole, so that in Winchester a man may very quietly shut himself out of his own house. John Keats. 349 A Poet's Son -o o <> o 25 Nov., 1819. MISS WORDSWORTH, You will think me negligent but I wanted to see more of Willy, before I ventured to express a prediction. Till yesterday I had barely seen him Virgilium Tantum Vidi but yesterday he gave us his small company to a bullock's heart and I can pronounce him a lad of promise. He is no pedant nor bookworm, so far I can answer. Perhaps he has hitherto paid too little attention to other men's inventions, preferring, like Lord Foppington, the "natural sprouts of his own." But he has observation, and seems thoroughly awake. I am ill at remembering other people's bon mots, but the following are a few. Being taken over Waterloo Bridge, he remarked that if we had no mountains, we had a fine river at least, which was a Touch of the Comparative, but then he added in a strain which augured less for his future abilities as a Political Economist, that he supposed they must take at least a pound a week Toll. Like a curious naturalist he inquired if the tide did not come up a little salty. This being satisfactorily answered, he put another question as to the flux and reflux, which being rather cunningly evaded than artfully solved by that she- Aristotle Mary, who muttered something about its getting up an hour sooner and sooner every day, he sagely replied, "Then it must come to the same thing at last," which was a speech worthy of an 35 infant Halley ! The Lion in the 'Change by no means came up to his ideal standard. So impossible it is for Nature in any of her works to come up to the standard of a child's imagination. The whelps (Lionets) he was sorry to find were dead, and on particular enquiry his old friend the Ouran Outang had gone the way of all flesh also. The grand Tiger was also sick, and expected in no short time to exchange this transitory world for another or none. But again, there was a Golden Eagle (I do not mean that of Charing) which did much arride and console him. William's genius, I take it, leans a little to the figurative, for being at play at Tricktrack (a kind of minor Billiard-table which we keep for smaller wights, and sometimes refresh our own mature fatigues with taking a hand at) not being able to hit a ball he had iterate aimed at, he cried out, " I cannot hit that beast." Now the balls are usually called men, but he felicitously hit upon a middle term, a term of approximation and imaginative reconciliation, a some- thing where the two ends, of the brute matter (ivory) and their human and rather violent personification into men, might meet, as I take it, illustrative of that Excellent remark in a certain Preface about Imagination, explaining "like a sea-beast that had crawled forth to sun himself." Not that I accuse William Minor of hereditary plagiary, or conceive the image to have come ex traduce. Rather he seemeth to keep aloof from any source of imitation, and purposely to remain ignorant of what mighty 351 poets have done in this kind before him. For, being asked if his father had ever been on Westminster Bridge, he answer'd that he did not know. It is hard to discern the Oak in the Acorn, or a Temple like St. Paul's in the first stone which is laid, nor can I quite prefigure what destination the genius of William Minor hath to take. Some few hints I have set down, to guide my future observations. He hath the power of calculation in no ordinary degree for a chit. He combineth figures, after the first boggle, rapidly. As in the Tricktrack board, where the hits are figured, at first he did not perceive that 15 and 7 made 22, but by a little use he could combine 8 with 25 and 33 again with 16, which approacheth something in kind (far let me be from flattering him by saying in degree) to that of the famous American boy. I am sometimes inclined to think I perceive the future satirist in him, for he hath a sub-sardonic smile which bursteth out upon occa- sion, as when he was asked if London were as big as Ambleside, and indeed no other answer was given, or proper to be given, to so ensnaring and provoking a question. In the contour of scull certainly I discern something paternal. But whether in all respects the future man shall transcend his father's fame, Time the trier of geniuses must decide. Be it pronounced peremptorily at present, that Willy is a well-mannerd child, and though no great student, hath yet a 1 vely eye for things that lie before him. 352 Given in haste from my desk at Leadenhall. Your's and yours' most sincerely C. Rural Death-in-Life o o o o o o o r I ^ELL me whether I am likely to see you before I -* go to Paris, which will be early in February. I hate you for being so indifferent about me. I live 3 6 4 in the world, and yet love nothing ; care a straw for nothing, but two or three old friends, that I have loved these thirty years. You have buried yourself with half-a-dozen parsons and 'squires, and yet never cast a thought upon those you have always lived with. You come to town for two months, grow tired in six weeks, hurry away, and then one hears no more of you till next winter. I don't want you to like the world, I like it no more than you ; but I stay awhile in it, because while one sees it one laughs at it, but when one gives it up one grows angry with it ; and I hold it is much wiser to laugh than to be out of humour. You cannot imagine how much ill blood this per- severance has cured me of ; I used to say to myself, " Lord ! this person is so bad, that person is so bad, I hate them." I have now found out that they are all pretty much alike, and I hate nobody. Having never found you out, but for integrity and sincerity, I am much disposed to persist in a friendship with you ; but if I am to be at all at the pains of keeping it up, I shall imitate my neighbours (I don't mean those at next door, but in the Scripture sense of neighbour, anybody,) and say, "That is a very good man, but I don't care a farthing for him." Till I have taken my final resolution on that head, I am yours most cordially. Horace Walpole (to George Montagu). 365 The Man of Life Upright HPHE man of life upright, -*- Whose guiltless heart is free From all dishonest deeds, Or thought of vanity ; The man whose silent days In harmless joys are spent, Whom hopes cannot delude, Nor sorrow discontent : That man needs neither tower Nor armour for defence, Nor secret vaults to fly From thunder's violence. He only can behold With unaffrighted eyes The horrors of the deep And terrors of the skies. Thus, scorning all the cares That fate or fortune brings, He makes the heaven his book, His wisdom heavenly things ; Good thoughts his only friends, His wealth a well-spent age, The earth his sober inn, And quiet pilgrimage. Thomas Campion (or Francis Bacon). 366 Of a Contented Mind o o HPHE glories of our blood and state -*- Are shadows, not substantial things ; There is no armour against fate, Death lays his icy hand on kings : Sceptre and crown Must tumble down, And in the dust be equal made With the poor crooked scythe and spade. Some men with swords may reap the field, And plant fresh laurels where they kill ; But their strong nerves at last must yield ; They tame but one another still : Early or late, They stoop to fate, And must give up their murmuring breath, When they, pale captives, creep to death. The garlands wither on your brow, Then boast no more your mighty deeds ; 370 Upon Death's purple altar now, See, where the victor-victim bleeds : Your head must come To the cold tomb ; Only the actions of the just Smell sweet, and blossom in their dust. James Shirley. Epigram o o o > o o T STROVE with none, for none was worth my strife ; * Nature I loved, and, next to nature, art ; I warm'd both hands before the fire of life ; It sinks, and I am ready to depart. Walter Savage Landor. Life o -G o *c. (Fragment) T IFE ! I know not what thou art, ^ ' But know that thou and I must part ; And when, or how, or where we met, I own to mc's a secret yet. Life ! we've been Ion, Through pleasant and through cloudy weather ; 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear ; 37* Then steal away, give little warning, Choose thine own time ; Say not Good-night, but in some brighter clime Bid me Good-morning. A. L. Barbauld. The End > ^> o > ^> -> "\ T THAT is to come we know not. But we know * That what has been was good was good to show, Better to hide, and best of all to bear. We are the masters of the days that were. We have lived, we have loved, we have suffered '. . . even so. Shall we not take the ebb who had the flow ? Life was our friend. Now, if it be our foe Dear, though it spoil and break us ! need we care What is to come ? Let the great winds their worst and wildest blow, Or the gold weather round us mellow slow ; We have fulfilled ourselves, and we can dare, And we can conquer, though we may not share In the rich quiet of the after-glow, What is to come. W. E. Henley. 372 AWAKENING The Meadows in Spring 'HP IS a dull sight ** To see the year dying, When winter winds Set the yellow wood sighing ; Sighing, oh sighing ! When such a time cometh, I do retire Into an old room Beside a bright fire ; Oh, pile a bright fire ! And there I sit, Reading old things, Of knights and lorn damsels, While the wind sings Oh, drearily sings ! I never look out Nor attend to the blast ; For all to be seen Is the leaves falling fast Falling, falling ! 375 But close at the hearth, Like a cricket, sit I, Reading of summer And chivalry Gallant chivalry ! Then with an old friend I talk of our youth How 'twas gladsome, but often Foolish, forsooth : But gladsome, gladsome Or to get merry We sing an old rhyme, That made the wood ring again In summer time Sweet summer time ! Then go we to smoking, Silent and snug : Nought passes between us, Save a brown jug Sometimes ! And sometimes a tear Will rise in each eye, Seeing the two old friends, So merrily So merrily ! 376 And ere to bed Go we, go we, Down on the ashes We kneel on the knee, Praying together I Thus, then, live I, Till, 'mid all the gloom, By heaven ! the bold sun Is with me in the room, Shining, shining ! Then the clouds part, Swallows soaring between The spring is alive, And the meadows are green 1 jump up, like mad, Break the old pipe in twain, And away to the meadows, The meadows again ! Edward FitzGcrald. 377 POSTSCRIPT A BOOK that represented at all fully the urbane * *- spirit in English literature would run to many volumes. I have attempted only to give, as it were, the spirit of the spirit. Towards this end I have been kindly permitted, by authors and publishers, to use many copyright pieces, of which I hope the following list of thanks is complete: To Mr. George Meredith for extracts from The Egoist, One of our Conqueror -j.and Poems (Constable*; to Mr.Swinburne for the poem " To a Cat " from his Poetical Works (Chatto & Windus,; to Mrs. Henley for poems by \V. K. Henley in ./ Hook of I'l-rscs (N'utt); to Mr. Francis Thompson for " To a Snow-flake" in .' r<>t'/>i Y (Constable ; to Mr. Lloyd ( >sbourne for two passage^ from R. L. Stevenson's Memories ami /*>;- traits iChatt(j & \Vindus,; to Mi^>, lienson for the versi-s on pets from The Soul of a ( 'at (Heineinann ); to Houghton, Miftlin & Co., the authorized j)iiblish- ers of the works of Lowell, Whittiei, Longfrllow, and Holmes, for poems by these authors; to Me-^rs. Macmillan for Matthew Arnold's "Grist's (iravr," two poems by T. E. Urown, and passages lioin 379 Edward FitzGerald's letters; to Mr. Forrester Scott for "John Halsham's " "My Last Terrier"; to Mr. Alfred Cochrane for two poems from Collected Verses (Longmans); to Mrs. Marriott Watson for Graham R. Tomson's " To my Cat" ; to Mr. Lang for three poems; to Mr. J. W. Mackail for epigrams from his translation of the Greek Anthology (Longmans); to Mr. Bowyer Nichols for the poem "During Music" from Loves Looking-Glass; to Mr. Wilfred Whitten for the lines on " Bloomsbury "; to Mrs. Meynell for "November Blue"; to Mr. Stephen Gwynn for a passage on the Thames from his Decay of Sensibility (Lane); to Mr. Austin Dobson for "The Cure's Progress" and "On a Fan" from his Poems (Kegan Paul); to Mr. Godfrey Locker Lampson for his father's "St. James's Street" from London Lyrics (Macmillan); to Mr. Elliot Stock for the account of Xavier Marmier from the translation of M. Uzanne's book on the Book-Hunters of Paris; to the Rev. Thomas Constable for the lines on "Old October"; to Mr. A. L. Humphreys for Mr. Smith's " At the Sign of the Jolly Jack" from Village Carols; to Mr. George Allen for the poems from the late William Cory's lonica; to the owner of the copyright and Messrs. Smith, Elder for a poem from Browning's Dramatis Persona ; to Miss Alice Werner for a " Song of Fleet Street " ; and to the editor of the Spectator for allowing several poems to be taken from his pages. There remain three or four poems by poets, American and English, inaccessible to me, whe will not, I trust, resent their appearance here. I 1 1 ill** - ' SHK W: A 000 102 646 7