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 Iknlcfterbocficr IRuggets 
 
 Nugget—" A diminutive mass of precious m.etal 
 
 20 VOI,S. NOW READY 
 For full list see end of this volume
 
 Essays of Eli a 
 
 CHARLES LAMB 
 
 NEW YORK AXD LONDON 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 Ube Tftnicfecrbocfter press
 
 Press ol 
 P. Putnam's sons 
 New York
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The South-Sea House 
 
 Oxford in the Vacation 
 
 Christ's Hospital Five-and-Thirty Years Ago 
 The Two Races of Men .... 
 
 New Year's Eve 
 
 Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist . 
 
 A Chapter on Ears 
 
 All Fools' day 
 
 A Quakers' Meeting 
 
 The Old and the New School-Master 
 Imperfect Sympathies .... 
 
 Witches, and Other Night Fears . 
 Valentine's Day ...... 
 
 My Relations ..... 
 
 Mackery End, in Hertfordshire . 
 
 My First Play 
 
 Modern Gallantry 
 
 The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple 
 
 Grace before Meat 
 
 Vol. I. iii 
 
 3 
 
 17 
 
 27 
 50 
 60 
 71 
 83 
 92 
 98 
 107 
 122 
 137 
 148 
 
 154 
 165 
 174 
 182 
 190 
 209 
 
 2230735
 
 iv Contents 
 
 Dream-Children : A Revery 221 
 
 Distant Correspondents 228 
 
 The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers . . 239 
 A Complaint of the Decay of Beggars in the 
 
 Metropolis 252 
 
 A Dissertation upon Roast Pig 265 
 A Bachelor's Complaint of the Behavior of 
 
 Married People 278 
 
 On Some of the Old Actors 290
 
 ESSAYS OF BI.IA
 
 CO ^^M. .. 
 
 ELIA 
 
 THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE. 
 
 READER, in thy passage from the Bank — 
 where thou hast been receiving thy half- 
 yearly dividends (supposing thou art a lean 
 annuitant like myself) — to the Flower Pot, to 
 secure a place for Dalston, or Shacklewell, or 
 some other thy suburban retreat northerly, — 
 didst thou never observe a melancholy-looking, 
 handsome, brick and stone edifice, to the left — 
 where Threadneedle-street abuts upon Bishops- 
 gate? I dare say thou hast often admired its 
 magnificent portals, ever gaping wide, and dis- 
 closing to view a grave court, with cloisters, 
 and pillars, with few or no traces of goers-in or 
 comers-out, — a desolation something like Bal- 
 clutha's.* 
 
 This was once a house of trade, — a centre of 
 busy interests. The throng of merchants was 
 
 * I passed by the walls of Balclutha, and they were 
 desolate.— OssiAN.
 
 Bsgagg of JElia 
 
 here — the quick pulse of gain — and here some 
 forms of business are still kept up, though the 
 soul be long since fled. Here are still to be 
 seen stately porticos ; imposing staircases, ofifices 
 roomy as the state apartments in palaces — de- 
 serted, or thinly peopled with a few straggling 
 clerks ; the still more sacred interiors of court 
 and committee-rooms, with venerable faces of 
 beadles, door-keepers — directors seated in form 
 on solemn days (to proclaim a dead dividend), 
 at long worm-eaten tables, that have been ma- 
 hogany, with tarnished gilt-leather coverings, 
 supporting massy silver inkstands long since 
 dry ; — the oaken wainscots hung with pictures 
 of deceased governors and sub-governors, of 
 Queen Anne, and the two first monarchs of the 
 Brunswick dynasty ; — huge charts, which sub- 
 sequent discoveries have antiquated ; dusty- 
 maps of Mexico, dim as dreams, — and sound- 
 ings of the Bay of Panama ! The long passages 
 hung with buckets, appended, in idle row, to 
 walls, whose substance might defy any, short 
 of the last, conflagration : — with vast ranges of 
 cellarage under all, where dollars and pieces-of- 
 eight once lay, an "unsunned heap," for Mam- 
 mon to have solaced his solitary heart withal, — 
 long since dissipated, or scattered into air at 
 the blast of the breaking of that famous 
 BuBBlyE.
 
 Zbc SoutbsSea Ibouse 
 
 Such is the South-Sea House. At least, 
 such it was forty years ago, when I knew it, — a 
 magnificent relic ! What alteration may have 
 been made in it since, I have had no opportuni- 
 ties of verifj-ing. Time, I take for granted, has 
 not freshened it. No wind has resuscitated the 
 face of the sleeping waters. A thicker crust by 
 this time stagnates upon it. The moths that 
 were then battening upon its obsolete ledgers 
 and day-books, have rested from their depreda- 
 tions, but other light generations have suc- 
 ceeded, making fine fretwork among their 
 single and double entries. Layers of dust have 
 accumulated (a superfcetation of dirt!) upon the 
 old layers, that seldom used to be disturbed, 
 save by some curious finger, now" and then, in- 
 quisitive to explore the mode of bookkeeping 
 in Queen Anne's reign ; or, with less hallowed 
 curiosity, seeking to unveil some of the mys- 
 teries of that tremendous hoax, whose extent 
 the petty peculators of our day look back upon 
 with the same expression of incredulous ad- 
 miration, and hopeless ambition of rivalry, as 
 would become the puny face of modern con- 
 spiracy contemplating the Titan size of Vaux's 
 superhuman plot. 
 
 Peace to the manes of the Bubble ! Silence 
 and destitution are upon thy walls, proud house, 
 for a memorial !
 
 Bssags of J&Ua 
 
 Situated as thou art, in the very heart of 
 stirring and living commerce, — amid the fret 
 and fever of speculation, — with the Bank, and 
 the 'Change, and the India-House about thee, 
 in the heydey of present prosperity, with their 
 important faces, as it were, insulting thee, their 
 poorneighbor out of bushtess, — to the idle and 
 merely contemplative, — to such as me, old 
 house ! there is a charm in thy quiet : — a 
 cessation — a coolness from business — an indo- 
 lence almost cloistral — which is delightful ! 
 With what reverence have I paced thy great 
 bare rooms and courts at eventide ! They 
 spoke of the past : — the shade of some dead 
 accountant, with visionary pen in ear, would 
 flit by me, stiff as in life. Living accounts and 
 accountants puzzle me. I have no skill in 
 figuring. But thy great dead tomes, which 
 scarce three degenerate clerks of the present 
 day could lift from their enshrining shelves — 
 with their old fantastic flourishes, and decora- 
 tive rubric interlacings — their sums in triple 
 columniations, set down with formal super- 
 fluity of ciphers — with pious sentences at the 
 beginning, without which our religious ances- 
 tors never ventured to open a book of business, 
 or bill of lading — the costly vellum covers of 
 some of them almost persuading us that we are 
 got into some better library, — are very agree-
 
 ^be Soutb*Sea Ibouse 
 
 able and edifying spectacles. I can look upon 
 these defunct dragoons witli complacency. The 
 hea\^, odd-shaped, ivory -handled penknives (our 
 ancestors had every thing on a larger scale 
 than we have hearts for) are as good as any 
 thing from Herculaneum. The pounce-boxes 
 of our days have gone retrograde. 
 
 The very clerks which I remember in the 
 South-Sea House — I speak of forty years back 
 — had an air very diflferent from those in the 
 public ofi&ces that I have had to do with since. 
 They partook of the genius of the place. 
 
 They were mostly (for the establishment did 
 not admit of superfluous salaries) bachelors. 
 Generally (for they had not much to do) per- 
 sons of a curious and speculative turn of mind. 
 Old-fashioned, for a reason mentioned before. 
 Humorists, for they were of all descriptions ; 
 and, not having been brought together in early 
 life (which has a tendency to assimilate the 
 members of corporate bodies to each other), but 
 for the most part placed in this house in ripe 
 or middle age, they necessarily carried into 
 it their separate habits and oddities, unquali- 
 fied, if I may so speak, as into a common stock. 
 Hence they formed a sort of Noah's ark. Odd 
 fishes. A lay-monastery. Domestic retainers 
 in a great house, kept more for show than for 
 use. Yet pleasant fellows, full of chat, — and
 
 8 JBsea^s of Blia 
 
 not a few among them had arrived at considera- 
 ble proficiency on the German flute. 
 
 The cashier at that time was one Bvans, a 
 Cambro-Briton. He had something of the cho- 
 leric complexion of his countrymen stamped 
 on his visage, but was a worthy, sensible man 
 at bottom. He wore his hair, to the last, pow- 
 dered and frizzed out, in the fashion which I re- 
 member to have seen in caricatures of what was 
 termed in my young days, Maccaronies. He 
 was the last of that race of beaux. Melancholy 
 as a gibcat, over his counter all the forenoon, I 
 think I see him making up his cash (as they 
 call it) with tremulous fingers, as if he feared 
 every one about him was a defaulter; in his 
 hypochondry ready to imagine himself one ; 
 haunted at least with the idea of the possibility 
 of his becoming one ; his trustful visage clear- 
 ing up a little over his roast neck of veal at An- 
 derton's at two (where his picture still hangs, 
 taken a little before his death by desire of the 
 master of the coffee-house, which he had fre- 
 quented for the last five and twenty years), but 
 not attaining the meridian of its animation till 
 evening brought on the hour of tea and visit- 
 ing. The simultaneous sound of his well- 
 known rap at the door with the stroke of the 
 clock announcing six, was a topic of never-fail- 
 ing mirth in the families which this dear old
 
 Cbe Soutb=Sca 1bou6e 
 
 bachelor gladdened with his presence. Then 
 was his forte, his glorified hour ! How would 
 Le chirp, and expand, over a muffin ! How 
 would he dilate into secret history. His coun- 
 trymen, Pennanthimself in particular, could not 
 be more eloquent than he in relation to old and 
 new London — the site of old theatres, churches, 
 streets gone to decay — where Rosamond's Pond 
 stood — the Mulberry-gardens — and the Conduit 
 in Cheap — with many a pleasant anecdote, de- 
 rived from paternal tradition, of those grotesque 
 figures which Hogarth has immortalized in his 
 picture of Noon, — the worthy descendants of 
 those heroic confessors who, flying to this coun- 
 try from the wrath of Louis the Fourteenth and 
 his dragoons, kept alive the flame of pure reli- 
 gion in the sheltering obscurities of Hog Lane, 
 and the vicinity of the Seven Dials ! 
 
 Deputy, under Bvans, was Thomas Tame. 
 He had the air and stoop of a nobleman. You 
 would have taken him for one, had you met 
 him in one of the passages leading to Westmin- 
 ster Hall. By stoop, I mean that gentle bending 
 of the body forwards, which, in great men, 
 must be supposed to be the effect of an habitual 
 condescending attention to the applications of 
 their inferiors. While he held you in converse, 
 you felt strained to the height in the colloquy. 
 The conference over, you were at leisure to
 
 lo :606aB6 of :i£Ua 
 
 smile at the comparative insignificance of the 
 pretensions which had just awed you. His in- 
 tellect was of the shallowest order. It did not 
 reach to a saw or a proverb. His mind was in 
 its original state of white paper. A sucking- 
 babe might have posed him. What was it 
 then ? Was he rich ? Alas ! no. Thomas 
 Tame was very poor. Both he and his wife 
 looked outwardly gentlefolks, when I fear all 
 was not well at all times within. She had a 
 neat meagre person, which it was evident she 
 had not sinned in over-pampering ; but in its 
 veins was noble blood. She traced her descent, 
 by some labyrinth of relationship which I never 
 thoroughly understood, — much less can explain 
 with any heraldic certainty at this time of day, 
 to the illustrious but unfortunate house of Der- 
 wentwater. This was the secret of Thomas' 
 stoop. This was the thought — the sentiment — 
 the bright solitary star of your lives — ye mild 
 and happy pair — which cheered you in the 
 night of intellect, and in the obscurity of your 
 station ! This was to you instead of riches, in- 
 stead of rank, instead of glittering attainments ; 
 and it was worth them all together. You in- 
 sulted none with it ; but while you wore it as a 
 piece of defensive armor only, no insult like- 
 wise could reach you through it. Deciis et sola- 
 fnen.
 
 ^be Soutb^Sea Ibouse 
 
 Of quite another stamp was the then account- 
 ant, John Tipp. He neither pretended to high 
 blood, nor, in good truth, cared one fig about 
 the matter. He "thought an accountant the 
 greatest character in the world, and himself the 
 greatest accountant in it." Yet John was not 
 without his hobby. The fiddle relieved his va- 
 cant hours. He sang, certainly, with other 
 notes than to the Orphean lyre. He did, in- 
 deed, scream and scrape most abominably. His 
 fine suite of official rooms in Threadneedle- 
 street, which, without any thing very substan- 
 tial appended to them, were enough to enlarge 
 a man's notions of himself that lived in them 
 (I know not who is the occupier of them nov/), 
 resounded fortnightly to the notes of a concert 
 of "sweet breasts," as our ancestors would have 
 called them, culled from club-rooms and or- 
 chestras — chorus-singers — first and second vio- 
 loncellos — double basses — and clarionets, — who 
 ate his cold mutton and drank his punch and 
 praised his ear. He sate like Lord Midas 
 among them. But at the desk Tipp was quite 
 another sort of creature. Thence all ideas that 
 were purely ornamental were banished. You 
 could not speak of any thing romantic without 
 rebuke. Politics were excluded. A newspaper 
 was thought too refined and abstracted. The 
 whole duty of man consisted in writing off" di\d-
 
 jeesa^s of Blfa 
 
 dend warrants. The striking of the annual 
 balance in the company's books (which, per- 
 haps, differed from the balance of last year in 
 the sum of 25/. is. 6d.) occupied his days and 
 nights for a month previous. Not that Tipp 
 was blind to the deadness of things (as they call 
 them in the city) in his beloved house, or did 
 not sigh for a return of the old stirring days 
 when South-Sea hopes were young (he was 
 indeed equal to the wielding of any of the most 
 intricate accounts of the most flourishing com- 
 pany in these or those days) ; but to a genuine 
 accountant the difference of proceeds is as 
 nothing. The fractional farthing is as dear to 
 his heart as the thousands which stand before 
 it. He is the true actor, who, whether his part 
 be a prince or a peasant, must act it with like 
 intensity. With Tipp form was every thing. 
 His life was formal. His actions seemed ruled 
 with a ruler. His pen was not less erring than 
 his heart. He made the best executor in the 
 world ; he was plagued with incessant executor- 
 ships accordingly, which excited his spleen and 
 soothed his vanity in equal ratios. He would 
 sw^ear (for Tipp swore) at the little orphans, 
 whose rights he would guard with a tenacity 
 like the grasp of the dying hand that commend- 
 ed their interests to his protection. With all 
 this there was about him a sort of timidity (his
 
 ^be Soutb*Sea tbouse 13 
 
 few enemies used to give it a worse name), a 
 something which, in reverence to the dead, we 
 will place, if you please, a little on this side of 
 the heroic. Nature certainly had been pleased 
 to endow John Tipp wnth a sufficient measure 
 of the principle of self-preservation. There is 
 a cowardice which we do not despise, because it 
 has nothing base or treacherous in its elements ; 
 it betrays itself, not you ; it is mere tempera- 
 ment ; the absence of the romantic and enter- 
 prising ; it sees a lion in the way, and will not, 
 with Fortinbras, " greatly find quarrel in a 
 straw," w^hen some supposed honor is at stake. 
 Tipp never mounted the box of a stage-coach in 
 his life, or leaned against the rails of a balcony, 
 or walked upon the ridge of a parapet, or 
 looked down a precipice, or let off a gun, or 
 went upon a water party, or would willingly let 
 you go, if he could have helped it ; neither was 
 it recorded of him that, for lucre or for intimida- 
 tion, he ever forsook friend or principle. 
 
 Whom next shall we summon from the dusty 
 dead, in whom common qualities become un- 
 common ? Can I forget thee, Henry Man, the 
 wit, the polished man of letters, the author, of 
 the South-Sea House, who never enteredst thy 
 office in a morning, or quittedst it in midday 
 (what didst thou in an office ?) without some 
 quirk that left a sting ? Thy jibes and thy
 
 14 :i£60ag0 of Blia 
 
 jokes are now extinct, or survive but in two 
 forgotten volumes, which I had the good fortune 
 to rescue from a stall in Barbican, not three 
 days ago, and found thee terse, fresh, epigram- 
 matic, as alive. Thy wit is a little gone by in 
 these fastidious days — thy topics are staled by 
 the "new-born gauds " of the time, — but great 
 thou used to be in Public Ledgers, and in 
 Chronicles, upon Chatham and Shelburne, and 
 Rockingham, and Howe, and Burgoyne, and 
 Clinton, and the war which ended in the tearing 
 from Great Britain her rebellious colonies, — 
 and Keppel, and Wilkes, and Sawbridge, and 
 Bull, and Dunning, and Pratt, and Richmond, — 
 and such small politics. 
 
 A little less facetious, and a great deal more 
 obstreperous, was fine rattling, rattle-headed 
 Plumer. He was descended — not in a right 
 line, reader, (for his lineal pretensions, like his 
 personal, favored a little of the sinister bend) — 
 from the Plumers of Hertfordshire. So tradi- 
 tion gave him out, and certain family features 
 not a little sanctioned the opinion. Certainly 
 old Walter Plumer (his reputed author) had 
 been a rake in his days, and visited much in 
 Italy, and had seen the world. He was uncle, 
 bachelor-uncle, to the fine old whig still living, 
 who has represented the county in so many 
 successive parliaments, and has a fine old man-
 
 XLbc Soutb^Sea Ibouse 15 
 
 sion near Ware. Walter flomished in George 
 the Second's days, and was the same who was 
 summoned before the House of Commons about 
 a business of franks, with the old Duchess of 
 Marlborough. You may read of it in Johnson's 
 " Life of Cave. " Cave came off cleverly in that 
 business. It is certain our Plumer did nothing 
 to discountenance the rumor. He rather 
 seemed pleased whenever it was, with all 
 gentleness, insinuated. But, besides his family 
 pretensions, Plumer was an engaging fellow, 
 and sang gloriously. 
 
 Not so sweetly sang Plumer as thou sangest, 
 mild, childlike, pastoral M. ; a flute's breath- 
 ing less divinely whispering than thy Arcadian 
 melodies, when, in tones worthy of Arden, thou 
 didst chant that song sung by Amiens to the 
 banished Duke, which proclaims the winter 
 wind more lenient than for a man to be un- 
 grateful. Thy sire was old surly M., the un- 
 approachable church-warden of Bishopsgate. 
 He knew not what he did, when he begat thee, 
 like spring, gentle offspring of blustering 
 winter : — only unfortunate in thy ending, 
 which should have been mild, conciliatory, 
 swan-like. 
 
 Much remains to sing. Many fantastic 
 shapes rise up, but they must be mine in pri- 
 vate ; — already I have fooled the reader to the
 
 i6 JEssags of :6lia 
 
 top of his bent ; — else could I omit that strange 
 creature Woollett, who existed in trying the 
 question and bought litigations ? — and still 
 stranger, inimitable, solemn Hepworth, from 
 whose gravity Newton might have deduced the 
 law of gravitation. How profoundly would he 
 nib a pen — with what deliberation would he 
 wet a wafer ! 
 
 But it is time to close — night's wheels are 
 rattling fast over me — it is proper to have done 
 with this solemn mockery. 
 
 Reader, what if I have been playing with 
 thee all this while ? — peradventure the very 
 names, which I have summoned up before thee, 
 are fantastic — insubstantial — like Henry Pim- 
 pernel, and old John Naps of Greece. 
 
 Be satisfied that something answering to 
 them has had a being. Their -importance is 
 from the past.
 
 OXFORD IX THE VACATION. 
 
 Casting a preparatory glance at the bottom 
 of this article — as the wary connoisseur in 
 prints, with cursory eye, (which, while it reads, 
 seems as though it read not,) never fails to con- 
 sult the qiiis sculpsit in the corner, before he 
 pronounces some rare piece to be a Vivares, or 
 a Woollett — methinks I hear you exclaim, 
 Reader, Who is Elia ? 
 
 Because in my last I tried to divert thee with 
 some half- forgotten humors of some old clerks 
 defunct, in an old house of business, long since 
 gone to decay, doubtless you have already set 
 me down in your mind as one of the self-same 
 college — a votary of the desk — a notched and 
 cropt scrivener — one that sucks his sustenance, 
 as certain sick people are said to do, through a 
 quill. 
 
 Well, I do agnize something of the sort. I 
 confess that it is my humor, my fancy — in the 
 forepart of the day, when the mind of your man 
 of letters requires some relaxation (and none 
 better than such as at first sight seems most
 
 i8 Bssags of JElia 
 
 abhorrent from his beloved studies) to while 
 away some good hours of my time in the con- 
 templation of indigos, cottons, raw silks, piece- 
 goods, flowered or otherwise. In the first place 
 . . . and then it sends you home with 
 such increased appetite to your books . . . 
 not to say, that your outside sheets, and waste 
 wrappers of foolscap, do receive into them, 
 most kindly and naturally, the impression of 
 sonnets, epigrams, essays — so that the very 
 parings of a counting-house are, in some sort, 
 the settings up of an author. The enfranchised 
 quill, that has plodded all the morning among 
 the cart-rucks of figures and ciphers, frisks and 
 curvets so at its ease over the flowery-carpet 
 ground of a midnight dissertation. It feels its 
 promotion. ... So that you see, upon the 
 whole, the literary dignity of Elia is very little, 
 if at all, compromised in the condescension. 
 
 Not that, in my anxious detail of the many 
 commodities incidental to the life of a public 
 ofl&ce, I would be thought blind to certain 
 flaws, which a cunning carper might be able to 
 pick in this Joseph's vest. And here I must 
 have leave, in the fulness of my soul, to regret 
 the abolition, and doing-away-with altogether, 
 of those consolatory interstices, and sprinklings 
 of freedom, through the four seasons, — the red- 
 letter days, now become, to all intents and pur-
 
 ©SforD In tbe IDacation 19 
 
 poses, dead-letter days. There was Paul, and 
 Stephen, and Barnabas — 
 
 Andrew and John, men famous in old times 
 
 — we were used to keep all their days holy, as 
 long back as I was at school at Christ's. I 
 remember their effigies, by the same token, in 
 the old Basket Prayer Book. There hung Peter 
 in his uneasy posture — holy Bartlemy in the 
 troublesome act of flaying, after the famous 
 Marsyas by Spagnoletti. I honored them all, 
 and could almost have wept the defalcation of 
 Iscariot — so much did we love to keep holy 
 memories sacred ; — only methought I a little 
 grudged at the coalition of the better Jude 
 with Simon — clubbing (as it were) their sancti- 
 ties together, to make up one poor gaudy-day 
 between them — as an economy unworthy of the 
 dispensation. 
 
 These were bright visitations in a scholar's 
 and a clerk's life — "far off their coming 
 vShone." — I was as good as an almanac in those 
 days. I could have told you such a saint's day 
 falls out next week, or the week after. Per- 
 adventure the Bpiphany, by some periodical 
 infelicity, would, once in six years, merge in 
 the Sabbath. Now am I little better than one 
 of the profane. Let me not be thought to 
 arraign the wisdom of my civil superiors, who
 
 JB66n>50 ot JElia 
 
 have judged the further observation of these 
 holy tides to be papistical, superstitious. Only 
 in a custom of such long standing, methinks, 
 if their Holinesses the Bishops had, in decency, 
 been first sounded — but I am wading out of my 
 depths. I am not the man to decide the limits 
 of civil and ecclesiastical authority — I am plain 
 Elia — no Selden, nor Archbishop Usher — 
 though at present in the thick of their books, 
 here in the heart of learning, under the shadow 
 of the mighty Bodley. 
 
 I can here play the gentleman, enact the 
 student. To such a one as myself, who has 
 been defrauded in his young years of the sweet 
 food of academic institution, nowhere is so 
 pleasant, to while away a few idle weeks at, as 
 one or other of the Universities. Their vaca- 
 tion, too, at this time of the year, falls in so 
 pat with ours. Here I can take my walks un- 
 molested, and fancy myself of what degree or 
 standing I please. I seem admitted ad eiuideni. 
 I fetch up past opportunities. I can rise at the 
 chapel-bell, and dream that it rings for me. In 
 moods of humility I can be a Sizar, or a Ser- 
 vitor. When the peacock- vein rises, I strut a 
 Gentleman Commoner. In graver moments I 
 proceed Master of Arts. Indeed I do not think 
 I am much unlike that respectable character. 
 I have seen your dim-eyed vergers, and bed-
 
 ©jforD In tbe li)acation 
 
 makers in spectacles, drop a bow or a curtsy, as 
 I pass, wisely mistaking me for something of 
 the sort. I go about in black, which favors the 
 notion. Only in Christ Church reverend quad- 
 rangle, I can be content to pass for nothing 
 short of a Seraphic Doctor. 
 
 The walks at these times are so much one's 
 own, — the tall trees of Christ's, the groves of 
 Magdalen ! The halls deserted, and with open 
 doors inviting one to slip in unperceived, and 
 pay a devoir to some Founder, or noble or royal 
 Benefactress (that should have been ours), 
 whose portrait seems to smile upon their over- 
 looked beadsman, and to adopt me for their 
 own. Then, to take a peep in by the way at 
 the butteries, and sculleries, redolent of 
 antique hospitality ; the immense caves of 
 kitchens, kitchen fireplaces, cordial recesses ; 
 ovens whose first pies were baked four cen- 
 turies ago ; and spits which have cooked for 
 Chaucer ! Not the meanest minister among 
 the dishes but is hallowed to me through his 
 imagination, and the Cook goes forth a Man- 
 ciple. 
 
 Antiquity ! thou wondrous charm, what art 
 thou ? that being nothing, art every thing ! 
 When thou cueri, thou were not antiquity — then 
 thou wert nothing, but hadst a remoter anti- 
 quity, as thou calledst it, to look back to with
 
 jEssa^e of Blia 
 
 blind veneration ; thou thyself being to thyself 
 flat, jejune, nwderfi ! What mystery lurks in 
 this retroversion? or what half Januses* are 
 we, that cannot look forward with the same 
 idolatry with which we forever revert ! The 
 mighty future is nothing, being every thing ! 
 the past is every thing, being nothing ! 
 
 What were thy dark ages ? Surely the sun 
 rose as brightly then as now, and man got him 
 to his work in the morning. Why is it we can 
 never hear mention of them without an accom- 
 panying feeling as though a palpable obscure 
 had dimmed the face of things, and that our an- 
 cestors wandered to and fro groping ! 
 
 Above all thy rarities, old Oxenford, what do 
 most arride and solace me are thy repositories 
 of mouldering learning, thy shelves. 
 
 What a place to be in is an old library ! It 
 seems as though all the souls of all the writers 
 that have bequeathed their labors to these Bod- 
 leians were reposing here as in some dormitor}-, 
 or middle state. I do not want to handle, to 
 profane the leaves, their winding-sheets. I 
 could as soon dislodge a shade. I seem to in- 
 hale learning, walking amid their foliage ; and 
 the odor of their old moth-scented coverings is 
 fragrant as the first bloom of those sciential 
 apples which grew amid the happy orchard. 
 * Januses of one face.— Sir Thomas Browne.
 
 ©jforD in tbe IDacation 23 
 
 Still less have I curiosity to disturb the elder 
 repose of MSS. Those varies lediones, so tempt- 
 ing to the more erudite palates, do but disturb 
 and unsettle my faith. I am no Herculanean 
 raker. The credit of the three witnesses might 
 have slept unimpeached for me. I leave these 
 curiosities to Porson, and to G. D. — whom, by 
 the way, I found busy as a moth over some rot- 
 ten archive, rummaged out of some seldom-ex- 
 plored press, in a nook at Oriel. With long 
 poring, he is grown almost into a book. He 
 stood as passive as one by the side of the old 
 shelves. I longed to new coat him in russia, 
 and assign him his place. He might have mus- 
 ..ered for a tall Scapula. 
 
 D. is assiduous in his visits to these seats of 
 learning. No inconsiderable portion of his mod- 
 erate fortune, I apprehend, is consumed in jour- 
 neys between them and Clifford's-inn — where, 
 like a dove on the asp's nest, he has long taken 
 up his unconscious abode, amid an incongruous 
 assembly of attorneys, attorneys' clerks, appari- 
 tors, promoters, vermin of the law, among whom 
 he sits " in calm and sinless peace." The fangs 
 of the law pierce him not — the winds of litiga- 
 tion blow over his humble chambers — the hard 
 sheriflf's ofi&cer moves his hat as he passes — 
 legal nor illegal discourtesy touches him — none 
 thinks of offering violence or injustice to him
 
 24 JB66a^6 of }£l(a 
 
 — you would as soon ** strike an abstract 
 idea." 
 
 D. has been engaged, he tells me, through a 
 course of laborious years, in an investigation 
 into all curious matter connected with the two 
 Universities, and has lately lit upon a MS. col- 
 lection of charters, relative to C , by which 
 
 he hopes to settle some disputed points, particu- 
 larly that long controversy between them as to 
 priority of foundation. The ardor with which 
 he engages in these liberal pursuits, I am afraid, 
 has not met with all the encouragement it 
 
 deserved, either here, or at C . Your caputs 
 
 and heads of colleges care less than anybody 
 else about these questions. Contented to suck 
 the milky fountains of their Alma Maters, with- 
 out inquiring into the venerable gentlewomen's 
 years, they rather hold such curiosities to be im- 
 pertinent — unreverend. They have their good 
 glebe lands in nianu, and care not much to rake 
 into the title deeds. I gather at least so much from 
 other sources, for D. is not a man to complain. 
 
 D. started like an unbroke heifer, when I in- 
 terrupted him. A priori it was not very prob- 
 able that we should have met in Oriel. But D, 
 would have done the same had I accosted him 
 on the sudden in his own walks in Clifford' s-inn, 
 or in the Temple. In addition to a provoking 
 short-sightedness (the effect of late studies and
 
 ©£for& In tbe Dacatlon 25 
 
 watchings at the midnight oil), D. is the most 
 absent of men. He made a call the other morn- 
 ing at our friend M.'s in Bedford Square, and, 
 finding nobody at home, was ushered into the 
 hall, where, asking for pen and ink, with 
 great exactitude of purpose he enters me his 
 name in the book — which ordinarily lies about 
 in such places, to record the failures of the un- 
 timely or unfortunate ^isitor — and takes his 
 leave with many ceremonies and professions of 
 regret. Some two or three hours after, his walk- 
 ing destinies returned him into the same neigh- 
 borhood again, and again the quiet image of the 
 fireside circle at M.'s — Mrs. M. presiding at it 
 like a Queen Lar, with pretty A. S. at her side — 
 striking irresistibly on his fancy, he makes 
 another call (forgetting that they were '* cer- 
 tainly not to return from the country before 
 that day week "), and disappointed a second 
 time, inquires for pen and paper as before ; 
 again the book is brought, and in the line just 
 above that in which he is about to print his 
 second name (his re-script) — his first name 
 (scarce dry) looks out upon him like another 
 Sosia, or as if a man should suddenly en- 
 counter his own duplicate! The effect may 
 be conceived. D. made many a good resolu- 
 tion against any such lapses in future. I hope 
 he will not keep them too rigorously.
 
 26 JEsen^e ot Blia 
 
 For with G. D. — to be absent from the body 
 is sometimes (not to speak it profanely) to be, 
 present with the Lord. At the very time when 
 personally encountering thee, he passes on with 
 no recognition — or, being stopped, starts like a 
 thing surprised — at that moment, reader, he is 
 on Mount Tabor — or Parnassus — or co-sphered 
 with Plato — or, with Harrington, framing " im- 
 mortal commonwealths " — devising some plan 
 of amelioration to thy country, or thy species — 
 peradventure meditating some individual kind- 
 ness or courtesy to be done to f/iee thyself, the 
 returning consciousness of which made him to 
 start so guiltily at thy obtruded personal pres- 
 ence. 
 
 D. is delightful anywhere, but he is at the 
 best in such places as these. He cares not much 
 for Bath. He is out of his element at Buxton, 
 at Scarborough, or Harrowgate. The Cam and 
 the Isis are to him * ' better than all the waters 
 of Damascus." On the Muses' hill he is happy, 
 and good, as one of the Shepherds on the 
 Delectable Mountains ; and when he goes about 
 with you to show you the halls and colleges, 
 you think you have with you the Interpreter at 
 the House Beautiful.
 
 CHRIST'S HOSPITAL FIVE-AND-THIRTY 
 YKARS AGO. 
 
 IN Mr. Lamb's *' Works," published a year or 
 two since, I find a magnificent eulogy on 
 my old school,^ such as it was, or now appears 
 to him to have been, between the years 1782 and 
 1789. It happens, very oddly, that my own 
 standing at Christ's was nearly corresponding 
 with his : and, with all gratitude to him for his 
 enthusiasm for the cloisters, I think he has 
 contrived to bring together whatever can be 
 said in praise of them, dropping all the other 
 side of the argument most ingeniously. 
 
 I remember L. at school ; and can well recol- 
 lect that he had some peculiar advantages, 
 which I and others of his school-fellows had 
 not. His friends lived in town, and were near 
 at hand ; and he had the privilege of going to 
 see them, almost as often as he wished, through 
 some invidious distinction which was denied to 
 
 * Recollections of Christ's Hospital.
 
 28 JEssa^s of JElia 
 
 us. The present worthy sub-treasurer to the 
 Inner Temple can explain how that happened. 
 He had his tea and hot rolls in a morning, 
 while we were battening upon our quarter-of-a- 
 penny-loaf — our crug — moistened with attenu- 
 ated small beer, in wooden piggins, smacking 
 of the pitched leathern jack it was poured 
 from. Our Monday's milk porridge, blue and 
 tasteless, and the pease soup of Saturday coarse 
 and choking, were enriched for him with a slice 
 of " extraordinary bread and butter," from the 
 hot loaf of the Temple, The Wednesday's mess 
 of millet, somewhat less repugnant — (we had 
 three banyan to four meat days in a week) 
 was endeared to his palate with a lump of 
 double-refined, and a smack of ginger (to make 
 it go down the more glibly) or the fragrant cin- 
 namon. In lieu of our half-pickled Sundays, 
 quite fresh boiled beef on Thursdays (strong as 
 caro equina)^ with detestable marigolds floating 
 in a pail to poison the broth — our scanty mut- 
 ton scrags on Fridays — and rather more savory, 
 but grudging portions of the same flesh, rotten- 
 roasted or rare, on the Tuesdays (the only dish 
 which excited our appetites, and disappointed 
 our stomachs in almost equal proportion) — he 
 had his hot plate of roast veal, or the more 
 tempting griskin (exotics unknown to our pal- 
 ates), cooked in the paternal kitchen (a great
 
 Cbrisrs tboepltal 29 
 
 thing), and brought him daily by his maid or 
 aunt ! I remember the good old relative (in 
 whom love forbade pride), squatting down upon 
 some odd stone in a by-nook of the cloisters, 
 disclosing the viands (of higher regale than 
 those cates which the ravens ministered to the 
 Tishbite); and the contending passions of L. at 
 the unfolding. There w^as love for the bringer ; 
 shame for the thing brought, and the manner 
 of its bringing ; sympathy for those who were 
 too many to share in it ; and, at top of all, hun- 
 ger (eldest, strongest of the passions !) predom- 
 inant, breaking down the stony fences of shame, 
 and awkwardness, and a troubled over-con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 I was a poor friendless boy. My parents and 
 those who should care for me, were far away. 
 Those few acquaintances of theirs, which they 
 coidd reckon upon being kind to me in the 
 great city, after a little forced notice, which 
 they had the grace to take of me on my first 
 arrival in town, soon grew tired of my holiday 
 visits. They seemed to them to recur too 
 often, though I thought them few enough ; and 
 one after another they all failed me, and I felt 
 myself alone among six hundred playmates. 
 
 O the cruelty of separating a poor lad from 
 his early homestead ! The yearnings which I 
 used to have toward it in those unfledged years !
 
 30 jSse^^e ot Blla 
 
 How, in my dreams, would my native town 
 
 (far in the west) come back, with its church 
 and trees, and faces ! How I would wake weep- 
 ing, and in the anguish of my heart, exclaim 
 upon sweet Calne in Wiltshire. 
 
 To this late hour of my life, I trace impress- 
 ions left by the recollection of those friendless 
 holidays. The long warm days of summer never 
 return but they bring with them a gloom from 
 the haunting memory of those ivhole-day leaves, 
 when by some strange arrangement we were 
 turned out, for the livelong day, upon our own 
 hands, whether we had friends to go to, or none. 
 I remember those bathing excursions to the 
 New River, which L. recalls with such relish, 
 better, I think, than he can — for he was a home- 
 seeking lad, and did not much care for such 
 water-pastimes : — How merrily we would sally 
 forth into the fields ; and strip under the first 
 warmth of the sun, and wanton like young dace 
 in the streams ; getting us appetites for noon, 
 which those of us that were penniless (our 
 scanty morning crust long since exhausted) had 
 not the means of allaying — while the cattle, 
 and the birds, and the fishes, were at feed about 
 us and we had nothing to satisfy our cravings 
 — the very beaut}^ of the day, and the exercise 
 of the pastime, and the sense of liberty, setting 
 a keener edge upon them ! — How faint and Ian-
 
 CbvieVB IboBpital 31 
 
 guid, finally, we would return, toward night- 
 fall, to our desired morsel, half-rejoicing, half- 
 reluctant, that the hours of our uneasy liberty 
 had expired ! 
 
 It was worse in the days of winter, to go 
 prowling about the streets objectless — shiver* 
 ing at cold windows of print-shops, to extract a 
 little amusement ; or haply, as a last resort in 
 the hopes of a little novelty, to pay a fifty-times 
 repeated visit (where our individual faces should 
 be as well known to the warden as those of his 
 own charges) to the Lions in the Tower — to 
 whose levee, by courtesy immemorial, we had 
 a prescriptive title to admission. 
 
 L.'s governor (so we called the patron who 
 presented us to the foundation) lived in a man- 
 ner under his paternal roof. Any complaint 
 which he had to make was sure of being at- 
 tended to. This was understood at Christ's, 
 and was an effectual screen to him against the 
 severity of masters, or worse tyranny of the 
 monitors. The oppressions of these young 
 brutes are heart-sickening to call to recollec- 
 tion. I have been called out of my bed, and 
 waked for the purpose^ in the coldest winter 
 nights — and this not once, but night after night 
 — in my shirt, to receive the discipline of a 
 leathern thong, with eleven other sufferers, be- 
 cause it pleased my callow overseer, when there
 
 32 jBsease ot Blia 
 
 had been any talking heard after we were gone 
 to bed, to make the last six beds in the dormi- 
 tory, where the youngest children of us slept, 
 answerable for an offence they neither dared to 
 commit, nor had the power to hinder. The 
 same execrable tyranny drove the younger part 
 of us from the fires, when our feet were perishing 
 with snow ; and, under the cruelest penalties, 
 forbade the indulgence of a drink of water when 
 we lay in sleepless summer nights, fevered with 
 the season and the day's sports. 
 
 There was one H., who, I learned, in after 
 days, was seen expiating some maturer offence 
 in the hulks. (Do I flatter myself in fancying 
 that this might be the planter of that name, 
 who suffered — at Nevis, I think, or St. Kitts — 
 some few years since ? My friend Tobin was 
 the benevolent instrument of bringing him to 
 the gallows.) This petty Nero actually brand- 
 ed a boy, who had offended him, with a red-hot 
 iron ; and nearly starved forty of us, with ex- 
 acting contributions, to the one half of our 
 bread, to pamper a young ass, which, incredible 
 as it may seem, with the connivance of the 
 nurse's daughter (a young flame of his) he had 
 contrived to smuggle in, and keep upon the 
 leads of the ward, as they called our dormito- 
 ries. This game went on for better than a 
 week, till the foolish beast, not able to fare
 
 Cbrist's 1b06pital 
 
 well but he must cry roast meat — happier than 
 Caligula's minion, could he have kept his own 
 counsel — but, foolisher, alas ! than any of his 
 species in the fables — waxing fat, and kicking, 
 in the fulness of bread, one unlucky minute 
 would needs proclaim his good fortune to the 
 world below ; and, laying out his simple throat, 
 blew such a ram's-horn blast as (toppling down 
 the walls of his own Jericho) set concealmen\ 
 any longer at defiance. The client was dis 
 missed, with certain attentions, to Smithfield • 
 but I never understood that the patron under- 
 went any censure on the occasion. This was ii^ 
 the stewardship of L.'s admired Perry. 
 
 Under the same facile administration, car 
 L. have forgotten the cool impunity with which 
 the nurses used to carry away openly, in open 
 platters, for their own tables, one out of two 
 of every hot joint, which the careful matron 
 had been seeing scrupulously weighed out for 
 our dinners ? These things were daily prac- 
 tised in that magnificent apartment, which L. 
 (grown connoisseur since, we presume) praises 
 so highly for the grand paintings " by Verrio, 
 and others," with which it is " hung round and 
 adorned." But the sight of sleek, well-fed 
 blue-coat boys in pictures was, at that time. I 
 believe, little consolatory to him, or us, the 
 li\dng ones, who saw the better part of our pro-
 
 34 JEssaps ot Blia 
 
 visions carried away before our faces by har- 
 pies ; and ourselves reduced (with the Trojan 
 in the hall of Dido) 
 
 To feed our mind with idle portraiture. 
 
 L. has recorded the repugnance of the school 
 to £-a£-s, or the fat of fresh beef boiled ; and 
 sets it down to some superstition. But these 
 unctuous morsels are never grateful to young 
 palates (children are universally fat-haters), and 
 in strong, coarse, boiled meats, unsalted, are de- 
 testable. A gag-eater in our time was equiva- 
 lent to a ghoul, and held in equal detestation. 
 suffered under the imputation : 
 
 'T was said 
 He ate strange flesh. 
 
 He was observed, after dinner, carefully to 
 gather up the remnants left at his table (not 
 many, nor very choice fragments you may credit 
 me), — and, in an especial manner, these disrep- 
 utable morsels, which he would convey away, 
 and secretly stow in the settle that stood at his 
 bedside. None saw when he ate them. It was 
 rumored that he privately devoured them in the 
 night. He was watched, but no traces of such 
 midnight practices were discoverable. Some 
 reported that on leave-days he had been seen 
 to carry out of the bounds a large blue check
 
 Gbrist'6 Ibospital 35 
 
 handkerchief, full of something. This, then, 
 must be the accursed thing. Conjecture next 
 was at work to imagine how he could dispose 
 of it. Some said he sold it to to the beggars. 
 This belief generally prevailed. He went about 
 moping. None spake to him. No one would 
 play with him. He was excommunicated ; put 
 out of the pale of the school. He was too pow- 
 erful a boy to be beaten, but he underwent 
 every mode of that negative punishment w^hich 
 is more grievous than many stripes. Still he 
 persevered. At length he was observed by two 
 of his school-fellows, who were determined to 
 get at the secret, and had traced him one leave- 
 day for that purpose, to enter a large worn-out 
 building, such as there exist specimens of in 
 Chancery-lane, which are let out to various 
 scales of pauperism, with open door and a com- 
 mon staircase. After him they silently slunk 
 in and followed by stealth up four flights, and 
 saw him tap at a poor wicket, which was opened 
 by an aged woman, meanly clad. Suspicion 
 was now ripened into certainty. The informers 
 had secured their victim. They had him in 
 their toils. Accusation was formally preferred, 
 and retribution most signal was looked for. 
 ]Mr. Hathaway, the then steward (for this hap- 
 pened a little after my time), with that patient 
 sagacity which tempered all his conduct, deter-
 
 36 lEem^B of :iElia 
 
 mined to investigate the matter before he pro- 
 ceeded to sentence. The result was, that the 
 supposed mendicants, the receivers or purchas- 
 ers of the mysterious scraps, turned out to be 
 
 the parents of , an honest couple come to 
 
 decay — whom this seasonable supply had, in all 
 probability, saved from mendicancy ; and that 
 this young stork, at the expense of his own 
 good name, had all this while been only feed- 
 ing the old birds ! The governors on this 
 occasion, much to their honor, voted a present 
 
 relief to the family of , and presented him 
 
 with a silver medal. The lesson which the 
 steward read upon rash judgment, on the oc- 
 casion of publicly delivering the medal to , 
 
 I believe would not be lost upon his auditory. 
 I had left school then, but I well remember 
 
 . He was a tall, shambling youth, with a 
 
 cast in his eye, not at all calculated to conciliate 
 hostile prejudices. I have since seen him car- 
 rying a baker's basket. I think I heard he did 
 not do quite so well by himself as he had done 
 by the old folks. 
 
 I was a hypochondriac lad, and the sight of a 
 boy in fetters, upon the day of my first putting 
 on the blue clothes, was not exactly fitted to 
 assuage the natural terrors of initiation. I was 
 of tender years, barely turned of seven, and 
 had only read of such things in books or seen
 
 Cbrist's Ibospttal 37 
 
 them but in dreams. I was told he had run 
 away. This was the punishment for the first 
 ofiFence. As a novice I was soon after taken to 
 see the dungeons. These were little, square, 
 Bedlam cells, where a boy could just lie at his 
 length upon straw and a blanket — a mattress, I 
 think, was afterwards substituted — with a peep 
 of light, let in askance from a prison orifice at 
 top, barely enough to read by. Here the poor 
 boy was locked in by himself all day, without 
 sight of any but the porter, who brought him 
 his bread and water — who might not speak to 
 him; — or of the beadle, who came twice a week 
 to call him out to receive his periodical chas- 
 tisement, which was almost welcome, because 
 it separated him for a brief interval from soli- 
 tude ; — and here he was shut up by himself of 
 flights, out of the reach of any sound, to suffer 
 whatever horrors the weak nerves and supersti- 
 tion incident to his time of life might subject 
 him to.* This was the penalty for the second 
 offence. Wouldst thou like, reader, to see what 
 became of him in the next degree ? 
 
 The culprit, who had been a third time an offen- 
 
 * One or two instances of lunacy, or attempted suicide, 
 accordingly, at lentrth convinced the governors of the 
 impolicy of this part of the sentence ; and the midnight 
 torture to the spirits was dispensed with. This fancy of 
 dungeons for children was a sprout of Howard's brain ; 
 for which (saving the reverence due to Holy Paul) me- 
 thinks I could willingly spit upon his statue.
 
 38 JEssa^s of Blta 
 
 der, and whose expulsion was at this time deemed 
 irreversible, was brought forth, as at some sol- 
 emn auto da fS^ arrayed in uncouth and most 
 appalling attire — all trace of his late " watchet 
 weeds " carefully effaced, he was exposed in a 
 jacket resembling those which London lamp- 
 lighters formerly delighted in, with a cap of the 
 same. The effect of this divestiture was such 
 as the ingenious devisors of it could have an- 
 ticipated. With his pale and frighted features, 
 it was as if some of those disfigurements in 
 Dante had seized upon him. In this disguise- 
 ment he was brought into the hall {L.'s favorite 
 statei^ooni), where awaited him the whole num- 
 ber of his school-fellows, w^hose joint lessons 
 and sports he was thenceforth to share no 
 more ; the awful presence of the steward, to be 
 seen for the last time ; of the executioner bea- 
 dle, clad in his state robe for the occasion ; and 
 of two faces more, of direr import, because 
 never but in these extremities visible. These 
 were governors, two of whom, by choice or 
 charter, were always accustomed to officiate at 
 these Ultima Siipplicia ; not to mitigate (so at 
 least we understood it), but to enforce the utter- 
 most stripe. Old Bamber Gascoigne and Peter 
 Aubert, I remember, were colleagues on one 
 occasion, when the beadle turning rather pale, 
 a glass of brandy was ordered to prepare him
 
 Cbrfst's Ibospital 39 
 
 for the mysteries. The scourging was, after the 
 old Roman fashion, long and stately. The lie- 
 tor accompanied the criminal quite round the 
 hall. We were generally too faint with attend- 
 ing to the previous disgusting circumstances to 
 make accurate report with our eyes of the de- 
 gree of corporal suffering inflicted. Report, of 
 course, gave out the back knotty and livid. 
 After scourging, he was made over in his Sa7i 
 Benito to his friends, if he had any (but com- 
 monly such poor runagates were friendless), or 
 to his parish oflBcer, who, to enhance the effect 
 of the scene, had his station allotted to him on 
 the outside of the hall gate. 
 
 These solemn pageantries were not played off 
 so often as to spoil the general mirth of the 
 community. We had plenty of exercise and 
 recreation after school hours ; and for myself, I 
 must confess that I was never happier than in 
 them. The Upper and the Lower Grammar 
 Schools were held in the same room ; and 
 an imaginary line only divided their bounds. 
 Their character was as different as that of the 
 inhabitants on the two sides of the Pyrenees. 
 The Rev. James Boyer was the Upper Master ; 
 but the Rev. Matthew Field presided over that 
 portion of the apartment of which I had the 
 good fortune to be a member. We lived a life 
 as careless as birds. We talked and did just
 
 40 'Beea^e of Blia 
 
 what we pleased, and nobody molested us. We 
 carried an accidence, or a grammar, for form ; 
 but for any trouble it gave us, we might take 
 two years in getting through the verbs depo- 
 nent, and another two in forgetting all that we 
 had learned about them. There was now and 
 then the formality of saying a lesson, but if you 
 had not learned it, a brush across the shoulders 
 (just enough to disturb a fly) was the sole re- 
 monstrance. Field never used the rod ; and in 
 truth he wielded the cane with no great good- 
 will — holding it "like a dancer." It looked in 
 his hands rather like an emblem, than an in- 
 strument of authority ; and an emblem, too, 
 he was ashamed of. He was a good easy man, 
 that did not care to ruffle his own peace, nor 
 perhaps set any great consideration upon the 
 value of juvenile time. He came among us, 
 now and then, but often stayed away whole 
 days from us ; and when he came, it made no 
 difference to us — he had his private room to re- 
 tire to, the short time he stayed, to be out of 
 the sound of our noise. Our mirth and uproar 
 went on. We had classics of our own, without 
 being beholden to "insolent Greece or haughty 
 Rome," that passed current among us — " Peter 
 Wilkins " — " The Adventures of the Hon. Cap- 
 tain Robert Boyle "— " The Fortunate Blue 
 Coat Boy " — and the like. Or we cultivated a
 
 Cbrist's Ibospital 41 
 
 turn for mechanic and scientific operations, 
 making little sun-dials of paper, or weaving those 
 ingenious parentheses called cat-cradles ; or 
 making dry peas to dance upon the end of a 
 tin pipe ; or studying the art military over that 
 laudable game, "French and English," and a 
 hundred other such devices to pass away the 
 time — mixing the useful with the agreeable — as 
 would have made the souls of Rousseau and 
 John Locke chuckle to have seen us. 
 
 Matthew Field belonged to that class of 
 modest divines who affect to mix in equal 
 proportion the gentleman, the scholar, and the 
 Christia7i ; but, I know not how, the first in- 
 gredient is generally found to be the predomi- 
 nating dose in the composition. He was en- 
 gaged in gay parties, or with his courtly bow at 
 some episcopal levee, when he should have 
 been attending upon us. He had for many 
 years the classical charge of a hundred chil- 
 dren, during the four or five first years of their 
 education ; and his very highest form seldom 
 proceeded further than two or three of the 
 introductory fables of Phaedrus. How things 
 were suffered to go on thus, I cannot guess. 
 Boyer, who was the proper person to have 
 remedied these abuses, always affected, perhaps 
 felt, a delicacy in interfering in a province not 
 strictly his own. I have not been without my
 
 42 lB63a^6 Of iBiia. 
 
 suspicions, that he was not altogether dis- 
 pleased at the contrast we presented to his end 
 of the school. We were a sort of Helots to his 
 young Spartans. He would sometimes, with 
 ironic deference, send to borrow a rod of the 
 Under Master, and then, with Sardonic grin, 
 observe to one of his upper boys "how neat 
 and fresh the twigs looked." While his pale 
 students were battering their brains over Xeno- 
 phon and Plato, with a silence as deep as that 
 enjoined by the Samite, we were enjoying our- 
 selves at our ease in our little Goshen. We saw 
 a little into the secrets of his discipline, and the 
 prospect did but the more reconcile us to our 
 lot. His thunders rolled innocuous for us ; his 
 storms came near, but never touched us ; con- 
 trary to Gideon's miracle, while all around were 
 drenched, our fleece was dry.* His boys turned 
 out the better scholars ; we, I suspect, have the 
 advantage in temper. His pupils cannot speak 
 of him without something of terror allaying 
 their gratitude ; the remembrance of Field 
 comes back with all the soothing images of 
 indolence, and summer slumbers, and work 
 like play, and innocent idleness, and Elysian 
 exemptions, and life itself a " plajdng holi- 
 day." 
 
 Though suflSiciently removed from the juris- 
 * Cowley.
 
 Cbrist's Ibospital 43 
 
 diction of Boyer, we were near enough (as I 
 have said) to understand a little of his system. 
 We occasionally heard sounds of the Ululan- 
 teSy and caught glances of Tartarus. B. was a 
 rabid pedant. His English style was crampt to 
 barbarism. His Easter anthems (for his duty 
 obliged him to those periodical flights) were 
 grating as scrannel pipes.- He would laugh, 
 ay, and heartily, but then it must be at Flac- 
 
 cus' quibble about Rex or at the tristis 
 
 severitas in vtiltu, or inspicere i?i patinas, of 
 Terence — thin jests, which at their first broach- 
 ing could hardly have had vis enough to move 
 a Roman muscle. He had two wigs, both pe- 
 dantic, but of different omen. The one serene, 
 smiling, fresh powdered, betokening a mild 
 day. The other, an old, discolored, unkempt, 
 angry caxon, denoting frequent and bloody 
 execution. Woe to the school, when he made 
 his morning appearance in his passy, or pas- 
 sionate wig. No comet expounded surer. J. 
 B. had a heavv hand. I have known him 
 
 * In this and every thing B. was the antipodes of his 
 coadjutor. WTiile the former was digging his brains for 
 crude anthems, worth a pig-nut, F. would be recreating 
 his gentlemanly fancy in the more flowery walks of the 
 Muses. A little dramatic effusion of his, under the name 
 of Vertumnus and Pomona, is not yet forgotten by the 
 chroniclers of that sort of literature. It was accepted 
 by Garrick, but the town did not give it their sanction. 
 B. used to say of it, in a wa3- of half-compliment, half- 
 irony, that it was too classical for representation.
 
 44 JB66a^6 ot Blia 
 
 double his knotty fist at a poor trembling child 
 (the maternal milk hardly dry upon its lips) 
 with a "Sirrah, do 3'ou presume to set your 
 wits at me?" — Nothing was more common 
 than to see him make a headlong entry into 
 the school-room, from his inner recess, or 
 library, and, with turbulent eye, singling out a 
 lad, roar out, " Od's my life, sirrah," (his 
 favorite adjuration) "I have a great mind to 
 whip you," — then, with as sudden a retracting 
 impulse, fling back into his lair — and, after a 
 cooling lapse of some minutes (during which 
 all but the culprit had totally forgotton the 
 context) drive headlong out again, piecing out 
 his imperfect sense, as if it had been some 
 Devil's Litany, with the expletory yell, — " a?id 
 / wii,!,, ^00 ! " — In his gentler moods, when the 
 rabidus furor was assuaged, he had resort to 
 an ingenious method, peculiar, for what I have 
 heard, to himself, of whipping the boy, and 
 reading the Debates, at the same time ; a para- 
 graph, and a lash between ; which in those 
 times, when parliamentary oratory was most at 
 a height and flourishing in these realms, was 
 not calculated to impress the patient with a 
 veneration for the diffuser graces of rhetoric. 
 
 Once, and but once, the uplifted rod was 
 known to fall ineffectual from his hand — when 
 droll, squinting W. — having been caught put-
 
 Gbn6rs 1b06pital 45 
 
 ting the inside of the master's desk to a use for 
 which the architect had clearly not designed it, 
 to justify himself, with great simplicity averred 
 that he did not know that the thing had been 
 forewarned. This exquisite irrecognition of 
 any law antecedent to the oral or declaratory, 
 struck so irresistibly upon the fancy of all who 
 heard it (the pedagogue himself not excepted) 
 — that remission was unavoidable. 
 
 L. has given credit to B.'s great merits as an 
 instructor. Coleridge, in his literar)^ life, has 
 pronounced a more intelligible and ample en- 
 conium on them. The author of the Country 
 Spectator doubts not to compare him with the 
 ablest teachers of antiquity. Perhaps we can- 
 not dismiss him better than with the pious 
 ejaculation of C, when he heard that his old 
 master was on his death-bed: "Poor J. B. ! — 
 may all his faults be forgiven ; and may he be 
 wafted to bliss by little cherub boys all head 
 and wings, with no bottoms to reproach his 
 sublunar)' infirmities." 
 
 Under him were many good and sound schol- 
 ars bred. First Grecian of my time was Lance- 
 lot Pepys Stevens, kindest of boys and men, 
 since Co-grammar-master (and inseparable com- 
 panion) with Dr. T e. 
 
 What an edifying spectacle did this brace of 
 friends present to those who remembered the
 
 46 J£66ai50 of Blla 
 
 anti-socialities of their predecessors ! You never 
 met the one by chance in the street without a 
 wonder, which was quickly dissipated by the 
 almost immediate sub-appearance of the other. 
 Generally arm-in-arm, these kindly coadjutors 
 lightened for each other the toilsome duties of 
 their profession, and when, in advanced age, 
 one found it convenient to retire, the other was 
 not long in discovering that it suited him to 
 lay down the fasces also. Oh, it is pleasant, as 
 it is rare, to find the same arm linked in yours 
 at forty, which at thirteen helped it to turn 
 over the " Cicero De Amicitia," or some tale of 
 Antique Friendship, which the young heart 
 even then was burning to anticipate ! Co- 
 Grecian with S. was Th., who has since exe- 
 cuted with ability various diplomatic functions 
 at the Northern courts. Th. was a tall, dark, 
 saturnine youth, sparing of speech, with raven 
 locks. Thomas Fanshaw Middleton followed 
 him (now Bishop of Calcutta), a scholar and 
 a gentleman in his teens. He has the repu- 
 tation of an excellent critic ; and is author 
 (besides the Country Spectator) of a Treatise 
 on the Greek Article, against Sharpe. M. is 
 said to bear his mitre high in India, where the 
 regni novitas (I dare say) sufficiently justifies 
 the bearing. A humility quite as primitive as 
 that of Jewel or Hooker might not be exactly
 
 Cbrist's Ibospltal 47 
 
 fitted to impress the minds of those Anglo- 
 Asiatic diocesans with a reverence for home in- 
 stitutions, and the church which those fathers 
 watered. The manners of M. at school, though 
 firm, were mild and unassuming. Next to M. 
 (if not senior to him) was Richards, author of 
 the Aboriginal Britons, the most spirited of 
 the Oxford prize poems ; a pale, studious 
 Grecian. Then followed poor S., ill-fated M. ! 
 of these the Muse is silent. 
 
 Finding some of Edward's race 
 Unhappy, pass their annals by. 
 
 Come back into memory, like as thou w^ert in 
 the day spring of thy fancies, with hope like a 
 fiery column before thee — the dark pillar not 
 yet turned — Samuel Taylor Coleridge — I^ogi- 
 cian, Metaphysician, Bard ! How have I seen 
 the casual passer through the Cloisters stand 
 still, entranced with admiration (while he 
 weighed the disproportion between the speech 
 and the garb of the young Mirandula), to hear 
 thee unfold, in thy deep intonations, the mys- 
 teries of Jamblichus, or Plotinus (for even in 
 those years thou waxedst not pale at such 
 philosophic draughts), or reciting Homer in his 
 Greek, or Pindar — while the walls of the old 
 Gray Friars re-echoed to the accents of the iti- 
 spired charity-boy ! Many were the " wit-com-
 
 48 JEssaiPS of Blia 
 
 bats" (to dally awhile with the words of old 
 Fuller) between him and C. V. he G., which 
 two I behold like a vSpanish great galleon, and 
 an English man-of-war ; Master Coleridge, like 
 the former, was built far higher in learning, 
 solid, but slow in his performances. C. V. Le G. , 
 with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk but 
 lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack 
 about, and take advantage of all winds, by the 
 quickness of his wit and invention. 
 
 Nor shalt thou, their compeer, be quickly for- 
 gotten, Allen, with the cordial smile and still 
 more cordial laugh, with which thou w^ere 
 wont to make the old Cloisters shake, in thy 
 cognition of some poignant jest of theirs ; or 
 the anticipation of some more material and, per- 
 adventure, practical one of thine own. Extinct 
 are those smiles, with that beautiful counte- 
 nance, with which (for thou wert the Nireus 
 formosiLS of the school) in the days of thy ma- 
 turer waggery, thou didst disarm the wrath of 
 infuriated town-damsel, who, incensed by pro- 
 voking pinch, turning tigress-like round, sud- 
 denly converted by thy angel-look, exchanged 
 
 the half-formed terrible " bl ," for a gentler 
 
 greeting — " bless thy handsome face .'" 
 
 Next follow two, who ought to be now alive, 
 and the friends of Elia — the junior Le G. 
 and F., who, impelled, the former by a ro\nng
 
 Gbrl6t'6 Ibospital 49 
 
 temper, the latter by too quick a sense of neg- 
 lect — ill capable of enduring the slights poor 
 Sizars are sometimes subject to in our seats of 
 learning — exchanged their Alma Mater for the 
 camp : perishing, one by climate, and one on 
 the plains of Salamanca : — Le G., sanguine, 
 volatile, sweet-natured ; F. , dogged, faithful, 
 anticipative of insult, warm-hearted, with some- 
 thing of the old Roman height about him. 
 
 Fine, frank-hearted Fr., the present master 
 of Hertford, with Marmaduke T., mildest of 
 Missionaries — and both my good friends still — 
 close the catalogue of Grecians in my time.
 
 THE TWO RACES OF MEN. 
 
 THE human species, according to the best 
 theory I can form of it, is composed of two 
 distinct races, the vie7i who borrow, and the vien 
 who lefid. To these two original diversities 
 maybe reduced all those impertinent classifica- 
 tions of Gothic and Celtic tribes, white men, 
 black men, red men. All the dwellers upon 
 earth, "Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites," 
 flock hither and do naturally fall in with one 
 or other of these primary distinctions. The in- 
 finite superiority of the former, which I choose 
 to designate as the great race, is discernible in 
 their figure, port, and a certain instinctive 
 sovereignty. The latter are bom degraded. 
 " He shall serve his brethren." There is some- 
 thing in the air of one of this cast, lean and 
 suspicious ; contrasting with the open, trusting, 
 generous manners of the other. 
 
 Observe who have been the greatest borrow- 
 ers of all ages — Alcibiades — Falstaflf — Sir Rich-
 
 ^be ^wo IRaces of /iRen 51 
 
 ard Steele — our late incomparable Brinsley — 
 what a family likeness in all four ! 
 
 What a careless, even deportment hath your 
 borrower ! what rosy gills ! what a beautiful 
 reliance on Providence doth he manifest, — tak- 
 ing no more thought than lilies ! What con- 
 tempt for money, — accounting it (yours and 
 mine especially) no better than dross ! What 
 a liberal confounding of those pedantic distinc- 
 tions of vieuvi and tuuni ! or rather, what a noble 
 simplification of language (beyond Tooke), 
 resolving these supposed opposites into one 
 clear, intelligible pronoun adjective ! — What 
 near approaches doth he make to the primitive 
 coniniuniiy, — to the extent of one half of the 
 principle at least. 
 
 He is the true taxer who ''calleth all the 
 world up to be taxed" ; and the distance is as 
 vast between him and one of us, as subsisted 
 between the Augustan Majesty and the poorest 
 obolary Jew that paid it tribute-pittance at 
 Jerusalem ! — His exactions, too, have such a 
 cheerful, voluntary air ! So far removed from 
 your sour parochial or state gatherers, — those 
 inkhorn varlets, who carry their want of wel- 
 come in their faces ! He cometh to you with a 
 smile, and troubleth you with no receipt ; con- 
 fining himself to no set season. Every day is 
 his Candlemas, or his Feast of Holy Michael.
 
 52 jBesn^e of iBiia 
 
 He applieth the lene tormentum of a pleasant 
 look to your purse, — which to that gentle 
 warmth expands her silken leaves, as naturally 
 as the cloak of the traveller, for which sun and 
 wind contended ! He is the true Propontic 
 which never ebbeth ! The sea which taketh 
 handsomely at each man's hand. In vain the 
 victim, whom he delighteth to honor, struggles 
 with destiny ; he is in the net. Lend there- 
 fore cheerfully, O man ordained to lend — that 
 thou lose not in the end, with thy worldly 
 penny, the reversion promised. Combine not 
 preposterously in thine own person the penal- 
 ties of Lazarus and of Dives ! — but, when 
 thou seest the proper authority coming, meet 
 it smilingly, as it were half-way. Come, a hand- 
 some sacrifice ! See how light he makes of it ! 
 Strain not courtesies with a noble enemy. 
 
 Reflections like the foregoing were forced 
 upon my mind by the death of my old friend, 
 Ralph Bigod, Esq., who parted this life on Wed- 
 nesday evening ; dying, as he had lived, with- 
 out much trouble. He boasted himself a 
 descendant from mighty ancestors of that name, 
 who heretofore held ducal dignities in this 
 realm. In his actions and sentiments he belied 
 not the stock to which he pretended. Early in 
 life he found himself invested with ample 
 revenues : which, with that noble disinterested-
 
 Cbe Zwo IRacee ot /llbeu 53 
 
 ness which I have noticed as inherent in men 
 of the gfeat race^ he took almost immediate 
 measures entirely to dissipate and bring to noth- 
 ing ; for there is something revolting in the 
 idea of a king holding a private purse ; and the 
 thoughts of Bigod were all regal. Thus fur- 
 nished by the very act of disfurnishment ; get- 
 ting rid of the cumbersome luggage of riches, 
 more apt (as one sings) 
 
 To slacken virtue, and abate her edge, 
 
 Than prompt her to do aught may merit praise. 
 
 he set forth, like some Alexander, upon his 
 great enterprise, " borrowing and to borrow ! " 
 In his periegesis, or triumphant progress 
 throughout this island, it has been calculated 
 that he laid a tithe part of the inhabitants under 
 contribution. I reject this estimate as greatly 
 exaggerated ; — but having had the honor of ac- 
 companying my friend divers times, in his per- 
 ambulations about this vast city, I own I was 
 greatly struck at first with the prodigious 
 number of faces we met, who claimed a sort of 
 respectful acquaintance with us. He was one 
 day so obliging as to explain the phenomenon. 
 It seems, these were his tributaries ; feeders of 
 his exchequer ; gentlemen, his good friends (as 
 he was pleased to express himself), to whom he 
 had occasionallv been beholden for a loan.
 
 54 Been^e ot Blla 
 
 Their multitudes did no way disconcert him. 
 He rather took a pride in numbering them ; 
 and, with Comus, seemed pleased to be "stocked 
 with so fair a herd." 
 
 With such sources, it was a wonder how he 
 contrived to keep his treasury always empty. 
 He did it by force of an aphorism, which he had 
 often in his mouth, that "money kept longer 
 than three days' stinks." So he made use of it 
 while it was fresh. A good part he drank away, 
 (for he was an excellent toss-pot) : some he 
 gave away, the rest he threw away, literally 
 tossing and hurling it violently from him — as 
 boys do burrs, or as if it had been infectious, — 
 into ponds, or ditches, or deep holes, inscrutable 
 cavities of the earth; or he would bury it 
 (where he would never seek it again) by a 
 river's side under some bank, which (he would 
 facetiously observe) paid no interest — but out 
 away from him it must go peremptorily, as 
 Hagar's offspring into the wilderness, while it 
 was sweet. He never missed it. The streams 
 were perennial which fed his fisc. When new 
 supplies became necessary, the first person that 
 had the felicity to fall in with him, friend or 
 stranger, was sure to contribute to the defi- 
 ciency. For Bigod had an undeniable way with 
 him. He had a cheerfid, open exterior, a quick 
 jovial eye, a bald forehead, just touched with
 
 Zbc Zxoo IRaces of /iRen 55 
 
 gray {cana fides). He anticipated no excuse, 
 and found none. And, waiving for a while my 
 theory as to the great race, I would put it to the 
 most untheorizing reader, who may at times 
 have disposable coin in his pocket, whether it 
 is not more repugnant to the kindliness of his 
 nature to refuse such a one as I am describing, 
 than to say no to a poor petitionary rogue (your 
 bastard borrower), who, by his mumping vis- 
 nomy, tells you, that he expects nothing better ; 
 and, therefore, whose preconceived notions and 
 expectations you do in reality so much less 
 shock in the refusal. 
 
 When I think of this man, his fiery glow of 
 heart ; his swell of feeling ; how^ magnificent, 
 how ideal he was ; how great at the midnight 
 hour ; and when I compare with him the com- 
 panions with whom I have associated since, I 
 grudge the saving of a few idle ducats, and 
 think that I am fallen into the society of 
 lenders, and little men. 
 
 To one like Elia, w^hose treasures are rather 
 cased in leather covers than closed in iron 
 coffers, there is a class of alienators more for- 
 midable than that which I have touched upon ; 
 I mean your borrowers of books — those mutila- 
 tors of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of 
 shelves, and creators of odd volumes. There is 
 Comberbatch, matchless in his depredations !
 
 56 Bssai^s ot Blia 
 
 That foul gap in the bottom shelf facing you, 
 like a great eye-tooth knocked out — (you are 
 now with me in my little back study in Blooms- 
 bury, reader ! — with the huge vSwitzer-like 
 tomes on each side (like the Guild-hall giants, 
 in their reformed posture, guardiant of noth- 
 ing) once held the tallest of my folios, Opera 
 Bonaventurcs^ choice and massy divinity, to 
 which its two supporters (school divinity also, 
 but of a lesser calibre — Bellarmine, and Holy 
 Thomas) showed but as dwarfs — itself an As- 
 capart ! — that Comberbatch abstracted upon the 
 faith of a theory he holds, which is more easy, 
 I confess, for me to suffer by than to refute, 
 namely, that ''the title to property in a book 
 (my Bonaventure, for instance) is in exact ratio 
 to the claimant's powers of understanding and 
 appreciating the same." Should he go on act- 
 ing upon this theory, which of our shelves is 
 safe? 
 
 The slight vacuum in the left-hand case — 
 two shelves from the ceiling — scarcely distin- 
 guishable but by the quick e3'e of a loser — was 
 whilom the commodious resting-place of Brown 
 on Urn Burial. C. will hardly allege that he 
 knows more about that treatise than I do, who 
 introduced it to him, and was, indeed, the first 
 (of the modems) to discover its beauties — but 
 so have I known a foolish lover to praise his
 
 ^be Zvoo IRaces of /nben 57 
 
 mistress in the presence of a rival more qual- 
 ified to carr>' her ofif than himself. Just below, 
 Dodsley's dramas want their fourth volume, 
 where Vittoria Corombona is. The remaining 
 nine are as distasteful as Priam's refuse sons, 
 when the Fates borrowed Hector, Here stood 
 the ' ' Anatomy of Melancholy, ' ' in sober state. 
 There loitered the " Complete Angler "; quiet as 
 in life, by some stream side. In yonder nook, 
 "John Buncle," a widower- volume, with " eyes 
 closed," mourns his ravished mate. 
 
 One justice I must do my friend, that if he 
 sometimes, like the sea, sweeps away a trea- 
 sure, at another time, sea-like, he throws up as 
 rich an equivalent to match it. I have a small 
 under-coUection of this nature (my friend's 
 gatherings in his various calls) picked up, he 
 has forgotten at what odd places, and deposit- 
 ed with as little memory at mine. I take in 
 these orphans, the twice deserted. These 
 proselytes of the gate are welcome as the true 
 Hebrews. There they stand in conjunction ; 
 natives, and naturalized. The latter seem as 
 little disposed to inquire out their true lineage 
 as I am. I charge no warehouse-room for 
 these deodands, nor shall ever put myself to 
 the ungentlemanly trouble of advertising a sale 
 of them to pay expenses. 
 
 To lose a volume to C. carries some sense and
 
 58 :600ag6 ot JElfa 
 
 meaning in it. You are sure that he will make 
 one hearty meal of your viands, if he can give 
 no account of the platter after it. But what 
 moved thee, wayward, spiteful K., to be so im- 
 portunate to carry off with thee, in spite of 
 tears and adjurations to thee to forbear, the 
 "Letters" of that princely woman, the thrice 
 noble Margaret Newcastle ? — knowing at the 
 time, and knowing that I knew also, thou most 
 assuredly wouldst never turn over one leaf of 
 the illustrious folio : — what but the mere spirit 
 of contradiction, and childish love of getting 
 the better of thy friend ? Then, worst cut of 
 all ! to transport it with thee to the Gallican 
 land — 
 
 Unworthy land to harbor such a sweetness, 
 A virtue in which all ennobling thoughts dwelt, 
 Pure thoughts, kind thoughts, high thoughts, her sex's 
 wonder ! 
 
 — hadst thou not thy play-books, and books 
 of jests and fancies, about thee, to keep thee 
 merry, even as thou keepestall companies with 
 thy quips and mirthful tales? Child of the 
 Green-room, it was unkindly done of thee. 
 Thy wife, too, that part-French, better-part 
 Englishwoman ! — that she could fix upon no 
 other treatise to bear away, in kindly token of 
 remembering us, than the works of Fulke 
 Greville, Lord Brook — of which no French-
 
 trbc Zvoo IRaces of I^cn 59 
 
 man, nor woman of France, Italy, or England, 
 was ever by nature constituted to comprehend 
 a title ! IVas there not Zimmerman on Soli- 
 tude ? 
 
 Reader, if haply thou art blessed with a mod- 
 erate collection, be shy of showing it ; or if thy 
 heart overfloweth to lend them, lend thy books ; 
 but let it be to such a one as S. T. C. — he will 
 return them (generally anticipating the time 
 appointed) with usury ; enriched with annota- 
 tions tripling their value. I have had experi- 
 ence. Many are these precious MSS. of his — 
 (in matter oftentimes, and almost in quantity 
 not unfrequently, vying with the originals) in 
 no very clerkly hand — legible in my Daniel ; in 
 old Burton ; in Sir Thomas Browne ; and those 
 abstruser cogitations of the Greville, now, alas ! 
 wandering in Pagan lands. I counsel thee, 
 shut not thy heart, nor thy library, against S. 
 T. C.
 
 NEW YEAR'S EVE. 
 
 EVERY man hath two birthdays : two days, 
 at least, in every year, which set him 
 upon revolving the lapse of time as it affects 
 his mortal duration. The one is that which in 
 an especial manner he termeth his. In the 
 gradual desuetude of old observances, this 
 custom of solemnizing our proper birthday 
 hath nearly passed away, or is left to children, 
 who reflect nothing at all about the matter, nor 
 understand any thing in it beyond cake and 
 orange. But the birth of a New Year is of an 
 interest too wide to be pretermitted by king or 
 cobbler. No one ever regarded the first of Jan- 
 uary with indifference. It is that from which 
 all date their time, and count upon what is left. 
 It is the nati\dty of our common Adam. 
 
 Of all sound of all bells — (bells, the music 
 nighest bordering upon heaven) — most solemn 
 and touching is the peal which rings out the 
 Old Year. I never hear it without a gathering- 
 up of my mind to a concentration of all the 
 images that have been diffused over the past
 
 flew l^ear'0 iBvc 
 
 twelve-month ; all I have done or suffered, per- 
 formed or neglected — in that regretted time. I 
 begin to know its worth, as when a person 
 dies. It takes a personal color ; nor was it a 
 poetical flight in a contemporary, when he 
 exclaimed, 
 
 I saw the skirts of a departing Year. 
 
 It is no more than what in sober sadness 
 every one of us seems to be conscious of, in 
 that awful leave-taking. I am sure I felt it, 
 and all felt it with me, last night ; though some 
 of my companions affected rather to manifest 
 an exhilaration at the birth of the coming year, 
 than any very tender regrets for the decease of 
 its predecessor. But I am none of those who — 
 
 Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest. 
 
 I am naturally, beforehand, shy of novelties ; 
 new books, new faces, new years — from some 
 mental twist which makes it difficult in me to 
 face the prospective. I have almost ceased to 
 hope ; and am sanguine only in the prospects 
 of other (former) years. I plunge into foregone 
 visions and conclusions. I encounter pellmell 
 with past disappointments. I am armor-proof 
 against old discouragements. I forgive, or 
 overcome in fancy, old adversaries. 1 play 
 over again /or love, as the gamesters phrase it,
 
 62 Bssa^s of Blia 
 
 games, for which I once paid so dear. X would 
 scarce now have any of those untoward acci- 
 dents and events of my life reversed. I would 
 no more alter them than the incidents of some 
 well-contrived novel. Methinks it is better that 
 I should have pined away seven of my golden- 
 est years, when I was thrall to the fair hair, and 
 fairer eyes, of Alice W n, than that so pas- 
 sionate a love-adventure should be lost. It was 
 better that our family should have missed that 
 legacy, which old Dorrell cheated us of, than 
 that I should have at this moment two thousand 
 pounds in banco, and be without the idea of 
 that specious old rogue. 
 
 In a degree beneath manhood, it is my in- 
 firmity to look back upon those early days. Do 
 I advance a paradox, when I say, that, skipping 
 over the intervention of forty years, a man may 
 have leave to love himself, without the imputa- 
 tion of self-love ? 
 
 If I know aught of myself, no one whose 
 mind is introspective — and mine is painfully 
 so — can have a less respect for his present 
 identity, than I have for the man Elia. I know 
 him to be light, and vain, and humorsome ; a 
 notorious . . . ; addicted to ... ; averse 
 from counsel, neither taking it nor offering 
 it ; — . . . besides ; a stammering buffoon ; 
 what you will ; lay it on, and spare not ; I sub-
 
 "Mew gear's Mve 63 
 
 scribe to it all, and much more than thou canst 
 be willing to lay at his door — but for the child 
 Elia, that "other me," there in the background 
 — I must take leave to cherish the remembrance 
 of that young master — with as little reference, 
 I protest, to this stupid changeling of five-and- 
 forty, as if it had been a child of some other 
 house, and not of my parents. I can bry over 
 its patient smallpox at five, and rougher medic- 
 aments. I can lay its poor fevered head upon 
 the sick pillow at Christ's, and wake with it in 
 surprise at the gentle posture of maternal ten- 
 derness hanging over it, that unknown had 
 watched its sleep. I know how it shrank from 
 any the least color of falsehood. God help 
 thee, Elia, how art thou changed ! Thou art 
 sophisticated. I know how honest, how coura- 
 geous (for a weakling) it was — how religious, 
 how imaginative, how hopeful ! From what 
 have I not fallen, if the child I remember was 
 indeed myself, — and not some dissembling 
 guardian, presenting a false identity, to give 
 the rule to my unpractised steps, and regulate 
 the tone of my moral being ! 
 
 That I am fond of indulging, beyond a hope 
 of sympathy, in such retrospection, may be the 
 symptom of some sickly idiosyncrasy. Or is it 
 owing to another cause : simply, that being 
 without wife or familv, I have not learned to
 
 64 lEssa^s of Elfa 
 
 project myself enough out of myself; and 
 having no offspring of my own to dally with, I 
 turn back upon memory, and adopt my own 
 early idea, as my heir and favorite ? If these 
 speculations seem fantastical to thee, reader — 
 (a busy man, perchance), if I tread out of the 
 way of thy sympathy, and am singularly con- 
 ceited only, I retire, impenetrable to ridicule, 
 under the phantom-cloud of Elia. 
 
 The elders, with whom I was brought up, 
 were of a character not likely to let slip the 
 sacred observance of any old institution ; and 
 the ringing out of the Old Year was kept by 
 them with circumstances of peculiar ceremony. 
 In those days the sound of those midnight 
 chimes, though it seemed to raise hilarity in all 
 around me, never failed to bring a train of pen- 
 sive imagery into my fancy. Yet I then scarce 
 conceived what it meant, or thought of it as a 
 reckoning that concerned me. Not childhood 
 alone, but the young man till thirty, never 
 feels practically that he is mortal. He knows 
 it indeed, and, if need were, he could preach a 
 homily on the fragility of life ; but he brings it 
 not home to himself, any more than in a hot 
 June we can appropriate to our imagination the 
 freezing days of December. But now, shall I 
 confess a truth ? — I feel these audits but too 
 powerfully. I begin to count the probabilities
 
 Bew l^ear'0 Bvc 65 
 
 of my duration, and to grudge at the expendi- 
 ture of moments and shortest periods, like 
 misers' farthings. In proportion as the years 
 both lessen and shorten, I set more count upon 
 their periods, and -would fain lay my ineffectual 
 finger upon the spoke of the great wheel. I 
 am not content to pass away " like a weavers' 
 shuttle." Those metaphors solace me not, nor 
 sweeten the unpalatable draught of mortality. 
 I care not to be carried with the tide, that 
 smoothly bears human life to eternity ; and re- 
 luct at the inevitable course of destiny. I am 
 in love with this green earth ; the face of town 
 and countr)^ ; the unspeakable rural solitudes, 
 and the sweet security of streets. I would set 
 up my tabernacle here. I am content to stand 
 still at the age to which I am arrived ; I, and 
 my friends ; to be no younger, no richer, no 
 handsomer. I do not want to be weaned by 
 age ; or drop, like mellow fruit, as they say, 
 into the grave. Any alteration, on this earth 
 of mine, in diet or in lodging, puzzles and dis- 
 composes me. IVIy household-gods plant a ter- 
 rible fixed foot, and are not rooted up without 
 blood. They do not willingly seek Lavinian 
 shores. A new state of being staggers me. 
 
 Sun, and sky, and breeze, and solitary walks, 
 and summer holidays, and the greenness of 
 fields, and the delicious juices of meats and
 
 66 jEseaiss ot Ella 
 
 fishes, and society, and the cheerful glass, and 
 candlelight, and fireside conversations, and in- 
 nocent vanities, and jests, and irony itself ^do 
 these things go out with life ? 
 
 Can a ghost laugh, or shake his gaunt sides, 
 when you are pleasant with him ? 
 
 And you, my midnight darlings, my Folios ! 
 must I part wnth the intense delight of having 
 you (huge armfuls) in my embraces? Must 
 knowledge come to me, if it come at all, by 
 some awkward experiment of intuition, and no 
 longer by this familiar process of reading ? 
 
 Shall I enjoy friendships there, wanting the 
 smiling indications which point me to them 
 here, — the recognizable face — the "sweet assur- 
 ance of a look" ? 
 
 In winter this intolerable disinclination to 
 dying — to give it its mildest name — does more 
 especially haunt and beset me. In a genial Au- 
 gust noon, beneath a sweltering sky, death is 
 almost problematic. At those times do such 
 poor snakes as myself enjoy an immortality. 
 Then we expand and bourgeon. Then we are 
 as strong again, as valiant again, as wise again, 
 and a great deal taller. The blast that nips and 
 shrinks me, puts me in thoughts of death. All 
 things allied to the insubstantial, wait upon that 
 master-feeling ; cold, numbness, dreams, per- 
 plexity ; moonlight itself, with its shadowy and
 
 Haew l!?ear'0 iBvc 67 
 
 spectral appearances, — that cold ghost of the 
 sun, or Phoebus' sickly sister, like that innu- 
 tritious one denounced in the Canticles : — I am 
 none of her minions — I hold with the Persian. 
 
 Whatsoever thwarts, or puts me out of my way, 
 brings death into my mind. All partial evils, 
 like humors, run into that capital plague-sore. 
 < have heard some profess an indifference to 
 Ufe. Such hail the end of their existence as a 
 port of refuge ; and speak of the grave as of 
 some soft arms, in which they may slumber as 
 on a pillow. Some have wooed death — but out 
 upon thee, I sa}- , thou foul, ugly phantom ! I 
 detest, abhor, execrate, and (with Friar John) 
 give thee to sixscore thousand devils as in no 
 instance to be excused or tolerated, but shunned 
 as an universal viper ; to be branded, proscribed, 
 and spoken evil of ! In no way can I be brought 
 to digest thee, thou thin, melancholy Privation, 
 or more frightful and confounding Positive ! 
 
 Those antidotes, prescribed against the fear 
 of thee, are altogether frigid and insulting, like 
 thyself. For what satisfaction hath a man, that 
 he shall " lie down with kings and emperors in 
 death," who in his lifetime never greatly coveted 
 the society of such bedfellows? — or, forsooth, 
 that "so shall the fairest face appear " ? — why, 
 
 to comfort me, must Alice W n be a goblin? 
 
 More than all, I conceive disgust at those im-
 
 68 lB6Qa^6 Of Blia 
 
 pertinent and misbecoming familiarities, in- 
 scribed upon your ordinary tombstones. Every 
 dead man must take upon himself to be lectur- 
 ing me with his odious truism, that "Such as 
 he now is I must shortly be." Not so shortly, 
 friend, perhaps, as thou imaginest. In the 
 meantime I am alive. I move about. I am 
 worth twenty of thee. Know thy betters ! Thy 
 New Years' days are past. I survive, a jolly 
 candidate for 1821. Another cup of wine — and 
 while that turncoat bell, that just now mourn- 
 fully chanted the obsequies of 1820 departed, 
 with changed notes lustily rings in a successor, 
 let us attune to its peal the song made on a like 
 occasion by hearty, cheerful Mr. Cotton. 
 
 Tun NEW YEAR. 
 
 Hark, the cock crows, and yon bright star 
 Tells us, the day himself s not far ; 
 And see where, breaking from the night, 
 He gilds the western hills with light. 
 With him old Janus doth appear, 
 Peeping into the future year. 
 With such a look as seems to say, 
 The prospect is not good that way. 
 Thus do we rise ill sights to see, 
 And 'gainst ourselves to prophesy ; 
 When the prophetic fear of things 
 A more tormenting mischief brings, 
 More full of soul-tormenting gall 
 Than direst mischiefs can befall. 
 But stay ! but stay ! methinks my sight
 
 1FICVV l^ear's Bve 69 
 
 Better inform 'd by clearer light, 
 
 Discerns sereneness in that brow, 
 
 That all contracted seem'd but now. 
 
 His revers'd face may show distaste, 
 
 And frown upon the ills are past ; 
 
 But that which this way looks is clear, 
 
 And smiles upon the Xew-bom Year. 
 
 He looks too from a place so high, 
 
 The Year lies open to his eye ; 
 
 And all the moments open are 
 
 To the exact discoverer. 
 
 Yet more and more he smiles upon 
 
 The happy revolution. 
 
 Why should we then suspect or fear 
 
 The influences of a year ? 
 
 So smiles upon us the first mom, 
 
 And speaks us good so soon as bom. 
 
 Plague on 't ! the last was ill enough, 
 
 This cannot but make better proof; 
 
 Or, at the worst, as we brush 'd through 
 
 The last, why so we may this too ; 
 
 And then the next in reason shou'd 
 
 Be superexcellently good : 
 
 For the worst ills (we daily see) 
 
 Have no more perpetuity 
 
 Than the best fortunes that do fall ; 
 
 Which also bring us wherewithal 
 
 I^onger their being to support, 
 
 Than those do of the other sort ; 
 
 And who has one good j'ear in three, 
 
 And yet repines at destiny, 
 
 Appears ungrateful in the case. 
 
 And merits not the good he has. 
 
 Then let us welcome the New Guest, 
 
 With lusty brimmers of the best ; 
 
 Mirth always should Good Fortune meet,
 
 70 jEssa^s of BUa 
 
 And renders e'en Disaster sweet ; 
 And though the Princess turn her back. 
 Let us but line ourselves with sack, 
 We better shall by far hold out. 
 Till the next Year she face about. 
 
 How say you, reader ? Do not these verses 
 smack of the rough magnanimity of the old 
 English vein ? Do they not fortify like a cor- 
 dial , enlarging the heart, and productive of 
 sweet blood and generous spirits in the concoc- 
 tion ! Where be those puling fears of death, 
 just now expressed or affected ? Passed like a 
 cloud — absorbed in the purging sunlight of clear 
 poetry — clean washed away by a wave of gen- 
 uine Helicon, your only Spa for these hypo- 
 chonderies. And now another cup of the gen- 
 erous ! and a merry New Year, and many of 
 them to you all, my masters !
 
 MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST. 
 
 " A CLEAR fire, a clean hearth, and the rigor 
 l\ of the game." This was the celebrated 
 wish of old Sarah Battle (now with God), who, 
 next to her devotions, loved a good game of 
 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 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 adversan,-, who has 
 slipped a wrong card, to take it up and play 
 another. These insufferable trifles 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,
 
 72 JBeea^e ot JElla 
 
 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 favors. She never 
 made a revoke, nor even passed it over in her 
 adversary without exacting the utmost forfeit- 
 ure. She fought a good fight— cut and thrust. 
 She held 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 supersti- 
 tions ; and I have heard her declare, under the 
 rose, that hearts was her favorite 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 miscellaneous con- 
 versation during its progress. As she emphati- 
 cally observed, * ' cards were cards ' ' ; and if I ever 
 saw unmingled distaste in her fine last-century 
 countenance, it was at the airs of a young gen- 
 tleman of a literary turn, who had been with 
 difficulty persuaded to take a hand, and who, 
 in his excess of candor, declared that he 
 thought there was no harm in unbending the 
 mind now and then, after serious studies, in
 
 /IRrs. :t6attle's ©pinions on XUbiet 73 
 
 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 afterwards over a book. 
 
 Pope was her favorite author ; his " Rape of 
 the Lock " her favorite work. She once did 
 me the honor to play over with me (with the 
 cards) his celebrated game of Ombre in that 
 poem ; and to explain to me how far it agreed 
 with, and in what points it would be found to 
 differ from, tradrille. Her illustrations were 
 apposite and poignant ; and I have had the 
 pleasure of sending the substance of them to 
 Mr. Bowles ; but I suppose they came too late 
 to be inserted among his ingenious notes upon 
 that author. 
 
 Quadrille, she has often told me, was her first 
 love ; but whist had engaged her maturer es- 
 teem. The former, she said, was showy and 
 specious, and likely to allure young persons. 
 The uncertainty and quick shifting of partners 
 — a thing which the constancy of whist abhors 
 — the dazzling supremacy and regal investiture 
 of Spadille — absurd, as she justly observed, in 
 the pure aristocracy of whist, where his crown 
 and garter give him no proper power above his 
 brother nobility of the Aces ; — the giddy vanity,
 
 74 Bssa^s of Blta 
 
 so taking to the inexperienced, of playing 
 alone ; above all, the overpowering attractions 
 of a Sans Prendre Vole, — to the triumph of 
 which there is certainly nothing parallel or ap- 
 proaching, in the contingencies of whist ; — all 
 these, she would say, make quadrille a game of 
 captivation to the young and enthusiastic. But 
 whist was the soldier game — that was her word. 
 It was a long meal ; not like quadrille, a feast 
 of snatches. One or two rubbers might coex- 
 tend in duration with an evening. They gave 
 time to form rooted friendships, to cultivate 
 steady enmities. She despised the chance- 
 started, capricious, and ever-fluctuating alli- 
 ances of the other. The skirmishes of quadrille, 
 she would say, reminded her of the petty ephem- 
 eral embroilments of the little Italian states, de- 
 picted by Machiavel, perpetually changing pos- 
 tures and connection ; bitter foes to-day, su- 
 gared darlings to-morrow ; kissing and scratch- 
 ing in a breath ; — but the wars of whist were 
 comparable to the long, steady, deep-rooted, 
 national antipathies of the great French and 
 English nations. 
 
 A grave simplicity was what she chiefly ad- 
 mired in her favorite game. There was noth- 
 ing silly in it, like the nob in cribbage — noth- 
 ing superfluous. No flushes — that most irra- 
 tional of all pleas that a reasonable being can
 
 ^rs. JSattle's ©pinions on Ulbist 75 
 
 set up ; — that any one should claim four by vir- 
 tue of holding cards of the same mark and 
 color, without reference to the playing of the 
 game, or the individual worth or pretensions of 
 the cards themselves ! She held this to be a 
 solecism ; as pitiful an ambition in cards as al- 
 literation is in authorship. She despised super- 
 ficiality, and looked deeper than the colors of 
 things. Suits were soldiers, she would say, and 
 must have a uniformity of array to distinguish 
 them ; but w^hat should we say to a foolish 
 squire, who should claim a merit from dressing 
 up his tenantry in red jackets, that never were 
 to be marshalled — never to take the field ? She 
 even wished that whist were more simple than 
 it is ; and, in my mind, would have stripped it 
 of some appendages, which in the state of 
 human frailty, may be venially, and even com- 
 mendably, allowed of. She saw no reason for 
 the deciding of the trump by the turn of the 
 card. Why not one suit alw^ays trumps ? Why 
 two colors when the mark of the suits would 
 have sufficiently distinguished them without it? 
 " But the eye, my dear Madam, is agreeably 
 refreshed with the variety. Man is not a creat- 
 ure of pure reason — he must have his senses 
 delightfully appealed to. We see it in Roman 
 Catholic countries, where the music and the 
 paintings draw in many to worship, whom your
 
 76 iBeea^e of BUa 
 
 Quaker spirit of un sensualizing would have 
 kept out. You yourself have a pretty collec- 
 tion of paintings, — but confess to me, whether, 
 walking in your gallery at Sandham, among 
 those clear Vandykes, or among the Paul Pot- 
 ters in the anteroom, you ever felt your bosom 
 glow with an elegant delight, at all comparable 
 to f/ia^ you have it in your power to experience 
 most evenings over a well-arranged assortment 
 of the court-cards? — the pretty antic habits, 
 like heralds in a procession — the gay triumph- 
 assuring scarlets — the contrasting deadly-killing 
 sables — the ' hoary majesty of spades ' — Pam in 
 all his glory ! 
 
 "All these might be dispensed with; and 
 with their naked names upon the drab paste- 
 board, the game might go on very well, pic- 
 tureless. But the beauty of cards woiild be ex- 
 tinguished forever. Stripped of all that is im- 
 aginative in them, they must degenerate into 
 mere gambling. Imagine a dull deal board, or 
 drum-head, to spread them on, instead of that 
 nice verdant carpet (next to Nature's), fittest 
 arena for those courtly combatants to play 
 their gallant jousts and tourneys in ! Ex- 
 change those delicately-turned ivory markers 
 — (w^ork of Chinese artists, unconscious of their 
 symbol, or as profanely slighting their true 
 application as the arrantest Ephesian journey-
 
 /Dbrs. :JBattle'6 ©pinions on XQbist 77 
 
 man that turned out those little shrines for the 
 goddess) — exchange them for little bits of 
 leather (our ancestors' money), or chalk and a 
 slate ! " 
 
 The old lady, with a smile, confessed the 
 soundness of my logic ; and to her approbation 
 of my arguments on her favorite topic that 
 evening, I have always fancied myself indebted 
 for the legacy of a curious cribbage-board, made 
 of the finest Sienna marble, which her mater- 
 nal uncle (old Walter Plumer, whom I have 
 elsewhere celebrated), brought with him from 
 Florence ; — this, and a trifle of five hundred 
 pounds, came to me at her death. 
 
 The former bequest (which I do not least 
 value) I have kept with religious care ; though 
 she herself, to confess a truth, was never greatly 
 taken with cribbage. It was an essentially 
 vulgar game, I have heard her say, — disputing 
 with her uncle, who was very partial to it. She 
 could never heartily bring her mouth to pro- 
 nounce " Go " — or ''That 'j a go.'^ She called 
 it an ungrammatical game. The pegging 
 teased her. I once knew her to forfeit a rubber 
 (a five-dollar stake), because she would not 
 take advantage of the turn-up knave, which 
 would have given it her, but w^hich she must 
 have claimed by the disgraceful tenure of de- 
 claring " two for his heels.'' There is some-
 
 78 Bssags of Blta 
 
 thing extremely genteel in this sort of self- 
 denial. Sarah Battle was a gentlewoman born. 
 Piquet she held the best game at the cards 
 for two persons, though she would ridicule the 
 pedantry of the terms, — such as pique — repique 
 — the capot, — they savored (she thought) of 
 affectation. But games for two, or even three, 
 she never greatly cared for. She loved the 
 quadrate, or square. She would argue thus : 
 Cards are warfare ; the ends are gain, with 
 glory. But cards are war, in disguise of a 
 sport ; when single adversaries encounter, the 
 ends proposed are too palpable. By themselves, 
 it is too close a fight ; M'ith spectators, it is not 
 much bettered. No looker-on can be interested, 
 except for a bet, and then it is a mere affair of 
 money ; he cares not for your luck sympatheti- 
 cally, or for your play. Three are still worse ; 
 a mere naked war of every man against every 
 man, as in cribbage, without league or alli- 
 ance ; or a rotation of petty and contradictory 
 interests, a succession of heartless leagues, and 
 not much more hearty infractions of them, as 
 in tradrille. But in square games {she vieant 
 whist), all that is possible to be attained in 
 card-playing is accomplished. There are the 
 incentives of profit with honor, common to 
 every species, — though the latter can be but 
 very imperfectly enjoyed in those other games,
 
 ^r6. :JBattle'6 ©pinions on "Cabist 79 
 
 where the spectator is only feebly a participa- 
 tor. But the parties in whist are spectators and 
 principals too. They are a theatre to them- 
 selves, and a looker-on is not wanted. He is 
 rather worse than nothing, and an imperti- 
 nence. Whist abhors neutrality, or interests 
 beyond its sphere. You glory in some surpris- 
 ing stroke of skill or fortune, not because a 
 cold — or even an interested — bystander wit- 
 nesses it, but because your />ar/?«^r sympathizes 
 in the contingency. You can win for two. 
 You triumph for two. Two are exalted. Two 
 again are mortified ; which divides their dis- 
 grace, as the conjunction doubles (by taking off 
 the invidiousness) your glories. Two losing to 
 two are better reconciled, than one to one in 
 that close butchery. The hostile feeling is 
 weakened by multiplying the channels. War 
 has become a civil game. By such reasonings 
 as these the old lady was accustomed to defend 
 her favorite pastime. 
 
 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 sub- 
 tlety of her conclusion, — chance is nothing, 
 but w^here something else depends upon it. It 
 is ob\ious that cannot h^ glory. What rational 
 cause of exultation could it give to a man to
 
 8o jessai^s of ;Elta 
 
 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 num- 
 ber, 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 fool- 
 ish, 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, they were a mere system of 
 overreaching. 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 peo- 
 ple playing at chess in a corner of a room, 
 whilst whist was stirring in the centre, would 
 inspire her with insufferable horror and ennui. 
 Those well-cut similitudes of Castles, and 
 Knights, the hnagery 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
 
 asvs. :fiSattle'6 Opinions on XUbist Si 
 
 fancy. They reject form and color. A pencil 
 and drv' slate (she used to say) were the proper 
 arena for such combatants. 
 
 To those puny objectors against cards, as nur- 
 turing the bad passions, she would retort, that 
 man is a gaming animal. He must be always 
 trying to get the better in something or other ; 
 — that this passion can scarcely be more safely 
 expended than upon a game at cards ; that 
 cards are a temporary illusion ; in truth, a mere 
 drama ; for we do but p/ay at being mightily 
 concerned, where a few idle shillings are at 
 stake, yet, during the illusion, we are as might- 
 ily concerned as those whose stake is crowns 
 and kingdoms. They are a sort of dream-fight- 
 ing ; much ado ; great battling and little blood- 
 shed ; mighty means for disproportioned ends ; 
 quite as diverting, and a great deal more in- 
 noxious, than many of those more serious 
 games of life which men play, without esteem- 
 ing them to be such. 
 
 With great deference to the old lady's judg- 
 ment in these matters, I think I have experi- 
 enced some moments in my life, when playing 
 at cards /or 7iothing has even been agreeable. 
 When I am in sickness, or not in the best 
 spirits, I sometimes call for the cards, and play 
 a game at piquet for love with my cousin 
 Bridget— Bridget Elia.
 
 82 J6s0ag0 of Blia 
 
 I grant there is something sneaking in it; 
 but with a toothache, or a sprained ankle, — 
 when you are subdued and humble, — you are 
 glad to put up with an inferior spring of action. 
 
 There is such a thing in nature, I am con- 
 vinced, as sick -whist. 
 
 I grant it is not the highest style of man — I 
 deprecate the manes of Sarah Battle — she lives 
 not, alas ! to whom I should apologize. 
 
 At such times, those terms, which my old 
 friend objected to, come in as something ad- 
 missible. I love to get a tierce or a quatorze, 
 though they mean nothing. I am subdued to 
 an inferior interest. Those shadows of winning 
 amuse me. 
 
 That last game I had with my sweet cousin 
 (I capotted her) — (dare I tell thee, how foolish 
 I am ?) — I wished it might have lasted forever, 
 though we gained nothing, and lost nothing ; 
 though it was a mere shade of play, I would be 
 content to go on in that idle folly forever. The 
 pipkin should be ever boiling, that was to pre- 
 pare the gentle lenitive to my foot, which 
 Bridget was doomed to apply after the game 
 was over ; and, as I do not much relish appli- 
 ances, there it should ever bubble. Bridget 
 and I should be ever playing.
 
 A CHAPTER OX EARS. 
 
 I HAVE no ear. 
 Mistake me not reader — nor imagine that I 
 am by nature destitute of those exterior twin 
 appendages, hanging ornaments, and (archi- 
 tecturally speaking) handsome volutes to the 
 human capital. Better my mother had never 
 borne me. I am, I think, rather delicately than 
 copiously provided with those conduits ; and I 
 feel no disposition to envy the mule for his 
 plenty, or the mole for her exactness, in those 
 ingenious labyrinthine inlets — those indispens- 
 able side intelligencers. 
 
 Neither have I incurred, or done any thing 
 to incur, with Defoe, that hideous disfigure- 
 ment, which constrained him to draw upon 
 assurance — to feel "quite unabashed," and at 
 ease upon that article. I was never, I thank 
 my stars, in the pillory ; nor, if I read them 
 aright, is it within the compass of my destiny, 
 that I ever should be.
 
 84 B66ai26 ot Blia 
 
 When therefore I say that I have no ear, you 
 will understand me to mean— /or music. To 
 say that this heart never melted at the concord 
 of sweet sounds, would be a foul self-libel. 
 " JVafeT parted from the Sea^' never fails to 
 move it strangely. So does " /« Infancy.'''' 
 But they were used to be sung at her harpsi- 
 chord (the old-fashioned instrument in vogue in 
 those days) by a gentlewoman — the gentlest, 
 sure, that ever merited the appellation — the 
 sweetest— why should I hesitate to name Mrs. 
 S., once the blooming Fanny Weatheral of 
 the Temple — who had power to thrill the soul 
 of Elia, small imp as he was, even in his long 
 coats ; and to make him glow, tremble, and 
 blush with a passion, that not faintly indicated 
 the dayspring of that absorbing sentiment, 
 which was afterwards destined to overwhelm 
 and subdue his nature quite, for Alice W n. 
 
 I even think that sentimejitally I am disposed 
 to harmony. But organically I am incapable of 
 a tune. I have been practising " God save the 
 King " all my life ; whistling and humming of 
 it over to myself in solitary comers ; and am not 
 yet arrived, they tell me, within many quavers 
 of it Yet hath the loyalty of Elia never been 
 impeached. 
 
 I am not without suspicion, that I have an 
 undeveloped faculty of music within me. For
 
 U Cbaptcr on Bars 
 
 thrumming in my wild way, on my friend A.'s 
 piano, the other morning, while he was en- 
 gaged in an adjoining parlor, — on his return he 
 was pleased to say, " /le thought it could not be 
 the maid!'''' On his first surprise at hearing 
 the keys touched in somewhat an airy and 
 masterful way, not dreaming of me, his sus- 
 picions had lighted on Jenny. But a grace, 
 snatched from a superior refinement, soon con- 
 vinced him that some being — technically per- 
 haps deficient, but higher informed from a 
 principle common to all the fine arts — had 
 swayed the keys to a mood which Jenny, with 
 all her (less cultivated) enthusiasm, could never 
 have elicited from them. I mention this as a 
 proof of my friend's penetration, and not with 
 any view of disparaging Jenny. 
 
 Scientifically I could never be made to under- 
 stand (yet have I taken some pains) what a 
 note in music is ; or how one note should differ 
 from another. Much less in voices can I dis- 
 tinguish a soprano from a tenor. Onl}^ some- 
 times the thorough-bass I contrive to guess at, 
 from its being supereminently harsh and dis- 
 agreeable. I tremble, however, for my mis- 
 application of the simplest terms of that which 
 I disclaim. While I profess my ignorance, I 
 scarce know what to say I am ignorant of. I 
 hate, perhaps, by misnomers. Sostenuto and
 
 86 B6sas6 of Blia 
 
 adagio stand in a like relation of obscurity to 
 me ; Sol, Fa, Mi, Re, is as conjuring as Bara- 
 lipion. 
 
 It is hard to stand alone in an age like this — 
 (constituted to the quick and critical perception 
 of all harmonious combinations, I verily believe, 
 beyond all preceding ages, since Jubal stumbled 
 upon the gamut) to remain, as it were, singly 
 unimpressible to the magic influences of an art, 
 which is said to have such an especial stroke at 
 soothing, elevating, and refining the passions. 
 Yet, rather than break the candid current of my 
 confessions, I must avow to you, that I have 
 received a great deal more pain than pleasure 
 from this so cried-up faculty. 
 
 I am constitutionally susceptible of noises. A 
 carpenter's hammer, in a warm summer noon, 
 will fret me into more than midsummer mad- 
 ness. But those unconnected, unset sounds are 
 nothing to the measured malice of music. The 
 ear is passive to those single strokes ; willingly 
 enduring stripes while it hath no task to con. 
 To music it cannot be passive. It will strive — 
 mine at least will — 'spite of its inaptitude, to 
 thrid the maze ; like an unskilled eye painfully 
 poring upon hieroglyphics. I have sat through 
 an Italian Opera, till, for sheer pain, and inex- 
 plicable anguish, I have rushed out into the 
 noisiest places of the crowded streets, to solace
 
 B Gbapter on J6ars 87 
 
 myself with sounds, which I was not obliged to 
 follow, and get rid of the distracting torment of 
 endless, fruitless, barren attention ! I take refuge 
 in the unpretending assemblage of honest com- 
 mon-life sounds ; — and the purgatory of the 
 Enraged Musician becomes my paradise. 
 
 I have sat at an Oratorio (that profanation of 
 the purposes of the cheerful playhouse) watch- 
 ing the faces of the auditory in the pit (what a 
 contrast to Hogarth's Laughing Audience !) im- 
 movable, or affecting some faint emotion — till 
 (as some have said, that our occupations in the 
 next world will be but a shadow of what de- 
 lighted us in this) I have imagined myself in 
 some cold Theatre in Hades, where some of the 
 forms of the earthly one should be kept up, with 
 none of the enjoyment ; or like that 
 
 Party in a parlor 
 
 All silent, and all damn'd. 
 
 Above all, those insufferable concertos, and 
 pieces of music, as they are called, do plague 
 and embitter my apprehension. Words are 
 something ; but to be exposed to an endless 
 battery of mere sounds ; to be long a-dying ; to 
 lie stretched upon a rack of roses ; to keep up 
 languQr by unintermitted effort ; to pile honey 
 upon sugar, and sugar upon honey, to an in- 
 terminable tedious sweetness ; to fill up sound
 
 J600ai20 of BUa 
 
 with feeling, and strain ideas to keep pace with 
 it ; to gaze on empty frames, and be forced to 
 make the pictures for yourself ; to read a book, 
 all slops, and be obliged to supply the verbal 
 matter ; to invent extempore tragedies to an- 
 swer to the vague gestures of an inexplicable 
 rambling mime; — these are faint shadows of 
 what I have undergone from a series of the 
 ablest executed pieces of this empty inslru- 
 mental music. 
 
 I deny not, that in the opening of a concert, 
 I have experienced something vastly lulling 
 and agreeable ; — afterwards followeth the lan- 
 guor and the oppression. Like that disappoint- 
 ing book in Patmos ; or like the comings on of 
 melancholy, described by Burton, doth music 
 make her first insinuating approaches : " Most 
 pleasant it is to such as are melancholy given 
 to walk alone in some solitary grove, betwixt 
 wood and water, by some brook side, and to 
 meditate upon some delightsome and pleasant 
 subject, which shall affect him most, ainabilis 
 insania, and mentis gralissmms error ; a most 
 incomparable delight to build castles in the air, 
 to go smiling to themselves, acting an infinite 
 variety of parts, which they suppose, and 
 strongly imagine they act, or that th^y see 
 done. So delightsome these toys at first, they 
 could spend whole days and nights without
 
 B Cbapter on JEars 89 
 
 sleep, even whole years in such contemplations, 
 and fantastical meditations, which are like so 
 many dreams, and will hardly be drawn from 
 them, — winding and unwinding themselves as 
 so many clocks, and still pleasing their humors, 
 until at the last the SCENE TURNS upon a sud- 
 den, and they being now habituated to such 
 meditations and solitary places, can endure no 
 company, can think of nothing but harsh and 
 distasteful subjects. Fear, sorrow, suspicion, 
 stibrusticus piidor, discontent, cares, and weari- 
 ness of life, surprise them on a sudden, and 
 they can think of nothing else ; continually 
 suspecting, no sooner are their eyes open, but 
 this infernal plague of melancholy seizeth on 
 them, and terrifies their souls, representing 
 some dismal object to their minds ; which now, 
 b}' no means, no labor, no persuasions, they can 
 avoid, they cannot be rid of, they cannot resist." 
 
 Something like this ''scene turning" I 
 have experienced at the evening parties, at the 
 
 house of my good Catholic friend Nov ; 
 
 who, by the aid of a capital organ, himself the 
 most finished of players, converts his drawing- 
 room into a chapel, his week-days into Sundays, 
 and these latter into minor heavens."^ 
 
 When my friend commences upon one of 
 
 * I have been there, and still would go ; 
 'T is like a little heaven below.— Dr. Watts.
 
 go ^603^0 of JElia 
 
 those solemn anthems, which peradventure 
 struck upon my heedless ear, rambling in the 
 side aisles of the dim Abbey, some five-and- 
 thirty years since, waking a new sense, and 
 putting a soul of old religion into my young 
 apprehension— (whether it be that, in which the 
 Psalmist, weary of the persecutions of bad men, 
 wisheth to himself dove's wings — or that other, 
 which, with a like measure of sobriety and pa- 
 thos, inquireth by what means the young man 
 shall best cleanse his mind) — a holy calm per- 
 vadeth me. I am for the time 
 
 rapt above earth, 
 
 And possess joys not promised at my birth. 
 
 But when this master of the spell, not content 
 to have laid his soul prostrate, goes on, in his 
 power, to inflict more bliss than lies in her ca- 
 pacity to receive, — impatient to overcome her 
 " earthly ' ' with his " heavenly " — still pouring 
 in, for protracted hours, fresh waves and fresh 
 from the sea of sound, or from that inexhausted 
 German ocean^ above which, in triumphant 
 progress, dolphin seated, ride those Arions, 
 Haydn and Mozart, wdth their attendant Tri- 
 tons, Bach, Beethove7i, and a countless tribe, 
 whom, to attempt to reckon up, would but 
 plunge me again in the deeps, — I stagger under 
 the weight of harmony, reeling to and fro at my
 
 21 Gbapter on jE^vb gi 
 
 wits' end ; — clouds, as of frankincense, oppress 
 me — priests, altars, censers, dazzle before me — 
 the genius of his religion hath me in her toils — 
 a shadowy triple tiara invests the brow of my 
 friend, late so naked, so ingenious, — he is Pope, 
 — and by him sits, like as in the anomaly of 
 dreams, a she-Pope too, — tri-coroneted like him- 
 self ! — I am converted, and yet a Protestant ; — 
 at once malleus hereticorum, and myself grand 
 heresiarch : or three heresies centre in my per- 
 son. I am Marcion, Ebion, and Cerinthus — 
 Gog and Magog — what not? — till the coming 
 in of the friendly supper-tray dissipates the 
 figment, and a draught of true Lutheran beer 
 (in which chiefly my friend shows himself no 
 bigot) at once reconciles me to the rationalities 
 of a purer faith ; and restores to me the genu- 
 ine unterrifying aspects of my pleasant-counte- 
 nanced host and hostess.
 
 ALL FOOLS' DAY. 
 
 THE compliments of the season to my 
 worthy masters, and a merry first of April 
 to us all ! 
 
 Many happy returns of this day to you — and 
 you — and you, sir — nay, never frown, man, nor 
 put on a long face upon the matter. Do not 
 we know one another ? What need of ceremony 
 among friends ? We have all a touch of t/ia^ 
 same — you understand me — a speck of the mot- 
 ley. Beshrew the man who on such a day as 
 this, WiQ general festival, should affect to stand 
 aloof I am none of those sneakers. I am free 
 of the corporation, and care not who knows it. 
 He that meets me in the forest to-day, shall 
 meet with no wiseacre, I can tell him. Stidtus 
 sum. Translate me that, and take the meaning 
 of it to yourself for your pains. What ! man, 
 we have four quarters of the globe on our side, 
 at the least computation. 
 
 Fill us a cup of that sparkling gooseberry, —
 
 BU 3fools' 2)as 93 
 
 we will drink no wise, melancholy, political 
 port on this day, — and let us troll the catch of 
 Amiens — due ad me — due ad me,^r-h.ow goes it ? 
 
 Here shall tie see 
 Gross fools as he. 
 
 Now would I give a trifle to know historically 
 and authentically, who was the greatest fool 
 that ever lived. I would certainly give him 
 a bumper. 'Marry, of the present breed, I think 
 I could, without much difficulty, name you the 
 part}'. 
 
 Remove your cap a little farther, if you 
 please ; it hides my bauble. And now each 
 man bestride his hobby, and dust away his bells 
 to what tune he pleases. I will give you, for 
 my part, 
 
 The crazy old church clock, 
 
 And the bewilder'd chimes. 
 
 Good master Bmpedocles, you are welcome. 
 It is long since you went a salamander-gather- 
 ing down ^tna. Worse than samphire-pick- 
 ing by some odds. 'T is a mercy your worship 
 did not singe your mustachios. 
 
 Ha ! Cleombrotus ! and what salads in faith 
 did you light upon at the bottom of the Medi- 
 terranean ? You were founder, I take it, of the 
 disinterested sect of the Calenturists. 
 
 Gebir, my old freemason and prince of plas-
 
 94 }£s0a^0 ot IBlm 
 
 terers at Babel, bring in your trowel, most An- 
 cient Grand ! You have claim to a seat here at 
 my right hand, as patron of the stammerers. 
 You left your work, if I remember Herodotus 
 correctly, at eight hundred million toises, or 
 thereabout, above the level of the sea. Bless 
 us, what a long bell you must have pulled, to 
 call your top workmen to their luncheon on the 
 low grounds of Shinar. Or did you send up 
 your garlic and onions by a rocket ? I am a 
 rogue if I am not ashamed to show you our 
 monument on Fish-Street Hill, after your alti- 
 tudes. Yet we think it somewhat. 
 
 What, the magnanimous Alexander in tears ? 
 — cry, baby, put its finger in its eye, it shall 
 have another globe, round as an orange, pretty 
 moppet ! 
 
 Mister Adams 'odso, I honor your coat — 
 
 pray do us the favor to read to us that sermon, 
 which you lent to Mistress Slipslop — the twenty 
 and second in your portmanteau there — on Fe- 
 male Incontinence — the same — it will come in 
 most irreverently and impertinently seasonable 
 to the time of the day. 
 
 Good Master Raymund Ivully, you look wise. 
 Pray correct that error. 
 
 Duns, spare your definitions. I must fine you 
 a bumper, or a parados. We will have nothing 
 said or done syllogistically this day. Remove
 
 BU 3Fool0' 2)a^ 95 
 
 those logical forms, waiter, that no gentleman 
 break the tender shins of his apprehension 
 stumbling across them. 
 
 Master Stephen, you are late. Ha ! Cokes, 
 is it you? Aguecheek, my dear knight, let me 
 pay my devoir to you. Master Shallow, your 
 worship's poor servant to command. Master 
 Silence, I will use a few words with you. Slen- 
 der, it shall go hard if I edge not you in some- 
 where. You six will engross all the poor wit of 
 the company to-day. I know it, I know it. 
 
 Ha ! honest R., my fine old Librarian of 
 Ludgate, time out of mind, art thou here again ? 
 Bless thy doublet, it is not over-new, threadbare 
 as thy stories ; — what dost thou flitting about 
 the world at this rate ? Thy customers are ex- 
 tinct, defunct, bed-rid, have ceased to read long 
 ago. Thou goest still among them, seeing if, 
 peradventure, thou canst hawk a volume or two. 
 Good Granville S., thy last patron, is flown. 
 
 King Pandion, he is dead, 
 All thy friends are lapt in lead. 
 
 Nevertheless, noble R., come in, and take 
 your seat here, between Armado and Quisada ; 
 for in true courtesy, in gravity, in fantastic 
 smiling to thyself, in courteous smiling upon 
 others, in the goodly ornature of well-appar- 
 alled speech, and the commendation of wise
 
 96 :essa^0 of BUa 
 
 sentences, thou art nothing inferior to those 
 accomplished Dons of Spain. The spirit of chiv- 
 alry forsake me forever, when I forget thy sing- 
 ing the song of Macheath, which declares that 
 he might be happy with either situated between 
 those two ancient spinsters, — when I forget the 
 inimitable formal love which thou didst make, 
 turning now to the one, and now to the other, 
 with that Malvolian smile — as if Cervantes, not 
 Gay, had written it for his hero ; and as if thou- 
 sands of periods must revolve, before the mir- 
 ror of courtesy could have given his invidious 
 preference between a pair of so goodly-proper- 
 tied and meritorious-equal damsels. . . . 
 
 To descend from these altitudes, and not to 
 protract our Fools' Banquet beyond its appro- 
 priate day, — for I fear the second of April is not 
 many hours distant, — in sober verity I will con- 
 fess a truth to thee, reader. I love a Fool — as 
 naturally, as if I were of kith and kin to him. 
 When a child, with childlike apprehensions, 
 that dived not below the surface of the matter, 
 I read those Par-ables — not guessing at the in- 
 volved wisdom, — I had more yearnings towards 
 that simple architect, that built his house upon 
 the sand, than I entertained for his more cau- 
 tious neighbor ; I grudged at the hard censure 
 pronounced upon the quiet soul that kept his 
 talent ; and — prizing their simplicity beyond
 
 BU ^ool9* 2)as 97 
 
 the more provident, and, to my apprehension, 
 somewhat iinferninine wariness of their compet- 
 itors — I felt a kindliness, that almost amounted 
 to a tendre, for those five thoughtless virgins. I 
 have never made an acquaintance since, that 
 lasted, or a friendship that answered, with any 
 that had not some tincture of the absurd in 
 their characters. I venerate an honest obliquity 
 of understanding. The more laughable blun- 
 ders a man shall commit in your company, the 
 more tests he giveth you, that he will not be- 
 tray or overreach you. I love the safety which 
 a palpable hallucination warrants ; the security 
 which a word out of season ratifies. And take 
 my word for this, reader, and say a fool told it 
 to you, if you please, that he who hath not a 
 dram of folly in his mixture, hath pounds of 
 much worse matter in his composition. It is 
 observed, that "the foolisherthe fowl or fish, — 
 woodcocks — dotterels — cods' heads, — etc., the 
 finer the flesh thereof"; and what are com- 
 monly the world's received fools, but such 
 whereof the world is not worthy? and what 
 have been some of the kindliest patterns of our 
 species, but so many darlings of absurdity, 
 minions of the goddess, and her white boys ? 
 Reader, if you wrest my words beyond their 
 fair construction, it is not I, but you, that are 
 the April Fool,
 
 A QUAKERS' MEETING. 
 
 stillborn Silence ! thou that art 
 
 Floodgate of the deeper heart ! 
 
 Offspring of a heavenly kind ! 
 
 Frost o' the mouth, and thaw o' the mind 
 
 Secrecy's confidant, and he 
 
 Who makes religion mystery ! 
 
 Admiration's speaking'st tongue ! 
 
 I^eave thy desert shades among 
 
 Reverend hermits' hallov^^'d cells, 
 
 Where retired devotion dvp^ells ! 
 
 With thy enthusiasms come, 
 
 Seize our tongues, and strike us dumb ! * 
 
 READER, would'st thou know what true 
 peace and quiet mean ; would'st thou find 
 a refuge from the noises and clamors of the 
 multitude ; would'st thou enjoy at once solitude 
 and society ; would'st thou possess the depth of 
 thine own spirit in stillness, without being shut 
 out from the consolatory faces of thy species ; 
 would'st thou be alone, and yet accompanied ; 
 solitary, yet not desolate ; singular, yet not 
 
 * From " Poems of all Sorts," by Richard Fleckno, 
 1653.
 
 B QuaF^ers' faceting 99 
 
 without some to keep thee in countenance ; a 
 unit in aggregate ; a simple in composite ; — 
 come with me into a Quakers' JNIeeting. 
 
 Dost thou love silence deep as that "before 
 the winds were made"? go not out into the 
 wilderness ; descend not into the profundities 
 of the earth ; shut not up thy casements ; nor 
 pour wax into the little cells of thy ears with 
 little-faith 'd self-mistrusting Ulysses. Retire 
 with me into a Quakers' Meeting. 
 
 For a man to refrain even from good words, 
 and to hold his peace, it is commendable ; but 
 for a multitude, it is great mastery. 
 
 What is the stillness of the desert, compared 
 with this place ? what the uncommunicating 
 muteness of fishes? — here the goddess reigns 
 and revels. " Boreas, and Cesias, and Argestes 
 loud," do not with their inter-confounding up- 
 roars more augment the brawl — nor the waves 
 of the blown Baltic with their clubbed sounds 
 — than their opposite (Silence, her sacred self) 
 is multiplied and rendered more intense by 
 numbers, and by sympathy. She too hath her 
 deeps, that call unto deeps. Negation itself 
 hath a positive more and less ; and closed eyes 
 would seem to obscure the great obscurity of 
 midnight. 
 
 There are wounds which an imperfect soli- 
 tude cannot heal. By imperfect I mean that
 
 JE0sa^6 of :iElia 
 
 which a man enjoy eth by himself. The perfect 
 is that which he can sometimes attain in crowds, 
 but nowhere so absolutely as in a Quakers' 
 Meeting. Those first hermits did certainly un- 
 derstand this principle, when they retired into 
 Egyptian solitudes, not singly, but in shoals, to 
 enjoy one another's want of conversation. The 
 Carthusian is bound to his brethren by this 
 agreeing spirit of incommunicativeness. In 
 secular occasions, what so pleasant as to be 
 reading a book through a long winter evening, 
 with a friend sitting by — say, a wife — he, or 
 she, too, (if that be probable,) reading another, 
 without interruption, or oral communication } 
 — can there be no sympathy without the gabble 
 of words ? Away with this inhuman, shy, sin- 
 gle, shade- an d-cavern-haunting solitariness. 
 Give me. Master Zimmermann, a sympathetic 
 solitude. 
 
 To pace alone in the cloisters or side aisles 
 of some cathedral, time-stricken ; 
 
 Or under hanging mountains, 
 Or by the fall of fountains ; 
 
 is but a vulgar luxury, compared with that 
 which those enjoy who come together for the 
 purposes of more complete, abstracted solitude. 
 This is the loneliness "to be felt." The Abbey 
 Church of Westminster hath nothing so solemn
 
 B (iiuafiere' Meeting 
 
 so spirit-soothing, as the naked walls and 
 benches of a Quakers' Meeting. Here are no 
 tombs, no inscriptions, — 
 
 Sands, ignoble things, 
 
 Dropt from the ruined sides of kings ; — 
 
 but here is something which throws Antiquity 
 herself into the foreground — SiLEXCE — eldest 
 of things — language of old Night — primitive 
 Discourser — to which the insolent decays of 
 mouldering grandeur have but arrived by a vio- 
 lent, and, as w^e may say, unnatural progres- 
 sion. 
 
 How reverend is the view of these hushed heads, 
 Looking tranquillity ! 
 
 Nothing-plotting, nought-caballing, unmis- 
 chievous synod ! convocation without intrigue ! 
 parliament without debate ! what a lesson dost 
 thou read to council, and to consistory ! If my 
 pen treat of you lightly — as haply it will wan- 
 der — yet my spirit hath gravely felt the wisdom 
 of your custom, when sitting among you in 
 deepest peace, which some out-welling tears 
 would rather confirm than disturb, I have re- 
 verted to the times of your beginnings, and the 
 sowings of the seed by Fox and Dewesbury. I 
 have witnessed that which brought before my 
 eyes your heroic tranquillity, inflexible to the 
 rude jests and serious violences of the insolent
 
 JEssa^e ot JEUa 
 
 soldiery, republican or royalist, sent to molest 
 you, — for ye sat betwixt the fires of two perse- 
 cutions, the outcast and offscouring of church 
 and presbytery. I have seen the reeling sea- 
 ruffian, who had wandered into your receptacle 
 with the avowed intention of disturbing your 
 quiet, from the very spirit of the place receive 
 in a moment a new heart, and presently sit 
 among ye, as a lamb amidst lambs. And I re- 
 member Penn before his accusers, and Fox in 
 the bail dock, where he was lifted up in spirit, 
 as he tells us, and " the Judge and the Jur>' be- 
 came as dead men under his feet." 
 
 Reader, if you are not acquainted with it, I 
 would recommend to you, above all church-nar- 
 ratives, to read Sewel's " History of the Quak- 
 ers." It is in folio, and is the abstract of the 
 Journals of Fox and the primitive Friends. It 
 is far more edifying and affecting than any 
 thing you will read of Wesley and his col- 
 leagues. Here is nothing to stagger you, noth- 
 ing to make you mistrust, no suspicion of alloy, 
 no drop or dreg of the worldly or ambitious 
 spirit. You will here read the true story of 
 that much-injured, ridiculed man, (who perhaps 
 hath been a by-word in your mouth) — ^James 
 Nay lor : what dreadful sufferings, with what 
 patience, he endured, even to the boring 
 through of his tongue with red-hot iron, with-
 
 U ^\xn\\cxe* Meeting 103 
 
 out a murmur ; and with what strength of 
 mind, when the delusion he had fallen into, 
 which they stigmatized for blasphemy, had given 
 way to clearer thoughts, he could renounce his 
 error, in a strain of the beautifullest humility, 
 yet keep his first grounds, and be a Quaker 
 still ! — so different from the practice of your 
 common converts from enthusiasm, who, when 
 they apostatize, apostatize all, and think they 
 can never get far enough from the society of 
 their former errors, even to the renunciation of 
 some saving truths, with which they had been 
 mingled, not implicated. 
 
 Get the writings of John Woolman by heart ; 
 and love the early Quakers. 
 
 How far the followers of these good men in 
 our days have kept to the primitive spirit, or 
 in what proportion they have substituted for- 
 mality for it, the Judge of Spirits can alone 
 determine. I have seen faces in their assem- 
 blies, upon which the dove sat visibly brooding. 
 Others again I have watched, when my thoughts 
 should have been better engaged, in which I 
 could possibly detect nothing but a blank in- 
 anity. But quiet was in all, and the disposition 
 to unanimity, and the absence of the fierce con- 
 troversial workings. If the spiritual pretensions 
 of the Quakers have abated, at least they make 
 few pretences. Hypocrites they certainly are
 
 I04 jE06a^6 ot JElia 
 
 ^ 
 
 not, in their preaching. It is seldom indeed 
 that you shall see one get up amongst them to 
 hold forth. Only now and then a trembling, 
 female, generally ajicient, voice is heard — you 
 cannot guess from what part of the meeting it 
 proceeds — with a low, buzzing, musical sound, 
 laying out a few words, which "she thought 
 might suit the condition of some present," with 
 a quaking diffidence, which leaves no possi- 
 bility of supposing that any thing of female 
 vanity was mixed up, where the tones were so 
 full of tenderness and a restraining modesty. 
 The men, for what I have observed, speak 
 seldomer. 
 
 Once only, and it was some years ago, I wit- 
 nessed a sample of the old Foxian orgasm. It 
 was a man of giant stature, who, as Words- 
 worth phrases it, might have danced "from 
 head to foot equipt in iron mail. ' ' His frame 
 was of iron too. But he was malleable. I saw 
 him shake all over with the spirit — I dare not 
 say of delusion. The strivings of the outer man 
 were unutterable — he seemed not to speak, 
 but to be spoken from. I saw the strong man 
 bowed down, and his knees to fail — his joints 
 all seemed loosening. It was a figure to set off 
 against Paul Preaching. The words he uttered 
 were few, and sound — he was evidently resist- 
 ing his will — keeping down his own word-wis-
 
 % Quakers* Meeting 105 
 
 dom with more mighty efifort, than the world's 
 orators strain for theirs. ' ' He had been a wiT 
 in his youth," he told us, with expressions cf a 
 sober remorse. And it was not till long after 
 the impression had begun to wear away, that I 
 was enabled, with something like a smile, to 
 recall the striking incongruity of the confes- 
 sion — understanding the term in its worldly 
 acceptation — with the frame and physiognomy 
 of the person before me. His brow would have 
 scared away the Levites — the Jocos Risus-que — 
 faster than the Loves fled the face of Dis at 
 Enna. By zui^, even in his youth, I will be 
 sworn, he understood something far within the 
 limits of an allowable liberty. 
 
 More frequently the Meeting is broken up 
 without a word having been spoken. But th^ 
 mind has been fed. You go away with a ser- 
 mon not made with hands. You have been in 
 the milder cavern of Trophonius ; or as in some 
 den, where that fiercest and savagest of all wild 
 creatures, the ToxGUE, that unruly member, has 
 strangely lain tied up and captive. You have 
 bathed with stillness. O, when the spirit is sore 
 fettered, even tired to sickness of the janglings, 
 and nonsense-noises of the world, what a balm 
 and solace it is, to go and seat yourself, for a 
 quiet half hour, upon some undisputed corner 
 of a bench, among the gentle Quakers !
 
 io6 JEssa^s of :6Ua 
 
 Their garb and stillness conjoined, present a 
 uniformity, tranquil and herd-like — as in the 
 pasture, — " forty feeding like one." 
 
 The very garments of a Quaker seem incapa- 
 ble of receiving a soil ; and cleanliness in them 
 to be something more than the absence of its 
 contrary. Every Quakeress is a lily ; and when 
 they come up in bands to their Whitsun-confer- 
 ences, whitening the easterly streets of the me- 
 tropolis, from all parts of the United Kingdom, 
 they show like troops of the Shining Ones.
 
 THE OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOL- 
 MASTER. 
 
 MY reading has been lamentably desultory 
 and immethodical. Odd, out-of-the-way 
 old English plays and treatises, have supplied 
 me with most of my notions, and ways of feel- 
 ing. In every thing that relates to science, I 
 am a whole Encyclopaedia behind the rest of 
 the world. I should have scarcely cut a figure 
 among the franklins, or country gentlemen, in 
 King John's days. I know less geography than 
 a school-boy of six weeks' standing. To me a 
 map of old Ortelius is as authentic as Arrow- 
 smith. I do not know whereabout Africa 
 merges into Asia ; whether Ethopia lie in one 
 or other of those great divisions ; nor can form 
 the remotest conjecture of the position of New 
 South Wales, or Van Diemen's Land. Yet do 
 I hold a correspondence with a very dear friend 
 in the first-named of these two Terrae Incog- 
 nitse. I have no astronomy. I do not know 
 where to look for the Bear, or Charles' Wain ; 
 the place of any star ; or the name of any of
 
 io8 jessa^s ot Blia 
 
 them at sight. I guess a Venus only by her 
 brightness ; and if the sun on some portentous 
 morn were to make his first appearance in the 
 West, I verily believe, that, while all the world 
 were gasping in apprehension about me, I alone 
 should stand unterrified, from sheer incuriosity 
 and want of observation. Of history and chro- 
 nology I possess some vague points, such as one 
 cannot help picking up in the course of mis- 
 cellaneous study ; but I never deliberately sat 
 down to a chronicle, even of my own country. 
 I have most dim apprehensions of the four 
 great monarchies ; and sometimes the Assyrian, 
 sometimes the Persian, floats as Jirs^, in my 
 fancy. I make the widest conjectures concern- 
 ing Egypt and her shepherd kings. My friend 
 M., with great painstaking, got me to think I 
 understood the first proposition in Euclid, but 
 gave me over in despair at the second. I am 
 entirely unacquainted with the modern lan- 
 guages ; and, like a better man than myself, 
 have "small Latin, and less Greek." I am a 
 stranger to the shapes and texture of the com- 
 monest trees, herbs, flowers, — not from the cir- 
 cumstance of my being town-born, — for I should 
 have brought the same inobservant spirit into 
 the world with me, had I first seen it "on Dev- 
 on's leafy shores, " — and am no less at a loss 
 among purely town-objects, tools, engines,
 
 ^be Scbool^/IRastcr 109 
 
 mechanic processes. Not that I affect igno- 
 rance — but my head has not many mansions, 
 nor spacious ; and I have been obliged to fill it 
 with such cabinet curiosities as it can hold with- 
 out aching. I sometimes wonder how I have 
 passed my probation with so little discredit in 
 the world, as I have done, upon so meagre a 
 stock. But the fact is, a man may do very well 
 with a very little knowledge, and scarce be 
 found out, in mixed company ; everybody is so 
 much more ready to produce his own, than to 
 call for a display of your acquisitions. But in a 
 tete-a-tete there is no shuffling. The truth will 
 out. There is nothing which I dread so much 
 as the being left alone for a quarter of an hour 
 with a sensible, well-informed man, that does 
 not know me. I lately got into a dilemma of 
 this sort. 
 
 In one of my daily jaunts between Bishops- 
 gate and Shacklewell, the coach stopped to 
 take up a staid-looking gentleman, about the 
 wrong side of thirty, who was giving his part- 
 ing directions (while the steps were adjusting) 
 in a tone of mild authority, to a tall youth, 
 who seemed to be neither his clerk, his son, 
 nor his ser\"ant, but something partaking of all 
 three. The youth was dismissed, and we drove 
 on. As we were the sole passengers, he natur- 
 ally enough addressed his conversation to me ;
 
 no JEssa^s of l£Ua 
 
 and we discussed the merits of the fare, the 
 civility and punctuality of the driver ; the cir- 
 cumstance of an opposition coach having been 
 lately set up, with the probabilities of its suc- 
 cess, — to all which I was enabled to return 
 pretty satisfactory answers, having been drilled 
 into this kind of etiquette by some years' daily 
 practice of riding to and fro in the stage afore- 
 said, — when he suddenly alarmed me by a 
 startling question, whether I had seen the show 
 of prize cattle that morning in Smithfield? 
 Now, as I had not seen it, and do not greatly 
 care for such sort of exhibitions, I was obliged 
 to return a cold negative. He seemed a little 
 mortified as well as astonished at my declara- 
 tion, as (it appeared) he was just come fresh 
 from the sight, and doubtless had hoped to 
 compare notes on the subject. However, he 
 assured me that I had lost a fine treat, as it far 
 exceeded the show of last year. We were now 
 approaching Norton Folgate, when the sight of 
 some shop- goods ticketed freshened him up 
 into a dissertation upon the cheapness of cot- 
 tons this spring. I was now a little in heart, 
 as the nature of my morning avocations had 
 brought me into some sort of familiarity with 
 the raw material ; and I was surprised to find 
 how eloquent I was becoming on the state of 
 the India market, — when, presently, he dashed
 
 Ube ScbooU/Bbaster 
 
 my incipient vanity to the earth at once, by 
 inquiring whether I had ever made any calcu- 
 lation as to the value of the rental of all the 
 retail shops in London. Had he asked of me 
 what song the Siren sang, or what name 
 Achilles assumed when he hid himself among 
 women, I might, with Sir Thomas Browne, 
 have hazarded a "wade solution."* My com- 
 panion saw' my embarrassment, and, the alms- 
 houses beyond Shoreditch just coming in view, 
 with great good-nature and dexterity shifted 
 his conversation to the subject of public chari- 
 ties ; which led to the comparative merits of 
 provision for the poor in past and present times, 
 with observations on the old monastic institu- 
 tions, and charitable orders ; but, finding me 
 rather dimly impressed with some glimmering 
 notions from old poetic associations, than 
 strongly fortified with any speculations redu- 
 cible to calculation on the subject, he gave the 
 matter up ; and, the country beginning to open 
 more and more upon us, as we approached the 
 turnpike at Kingsland (the destined termina- 
 tion of his journey), he put a home thrust upon 
 me, in the most unfortunate position he could 
 have chosen, by advancing some queries rela- 
 tive to the North Pole Expedition, While I 
 was muttering out something about the pan- 
 * " Urn Burial."
 
 112 Bssa^s ot BUa 
 
 orama of those strange regions (which I had 
 actually seen), by way of parrying the ques- 
 tion, the coach stopping relieved me from any 
 further apprehensions. My companion getting 
 out, left me in the comfortable possession of 
 my ignorance ; and I heard him, as he went off, 
 putting questions to an outside passenger, who 
 had alighted with him, regarding an epidemic 
 disorder that had been rife about Dalston, and 
 which my friend assured him had gone through 
 five or six schools in that neighborhood. The 
 truth now flashed upon me, that my companion 
 was a school-master ; and that the youth whom 
 he had parted from at our first acquaintance, 
 must have been one of the bigger boys, or the 
 usher. He was evidently a kind-hearted man, 
 who did not seem so much desirious of provok- 
 ing discussion by the questions which he put, as 
 of obtaining information at any rate. It did 
 not appear that he took any interest, either, in 
 such kind of inquiries, for their own sake ; but 
 that he was in some way bound to seek for 
 knowledge. A greenish-colored coat which he 
 had on, forbade me to surmise that he was a 
 clergyman. The adventure gave birth to some 
 reflections on the difference between persons of 
 his profession in past and present times. 
 
 Rest to the souls of those fine old peda- 
 gogues ; the breed, long since extinct, of the
 
 ^be ScbooIs/lRaster 113 
 
 Lilys, and the Lin acres ; who believing that all 
 learning was contained in the languages which 
 they taught, and despising every other acquire- 
 ment as superficial and useless, came to their 
 task as to a sport ! Passing from infancy to age, 
 they dreamed away all their days as in a gram- 
 mar-school. Revolving in a perpetual cycle of 
 declensions, conjugations, syntaxes, and proso- 
 dies ; renewing constantly the occupations 
 which had charmed their studious childhood; 
 rehearsing continually the part of the past ; 
 life must have slipped from them at last like 
 one day. They were always in their first 
 garden, reaping harvests of their golden time, 
 among their Flori and their Spici-legia ; in 
 Arcadia still, but kings ; the ferule of their 
 sway not much harsher, but of like dignity 
 with that mild sceptre attributed to King Basil- 
 eus ; the Greek and Latin, their stately Pamela 
 and their Philoclea ; with the occasional dunc- 
 ery of some untoward tyro, servnng for a re- 
 freshing interlude of a Mopsa or a clown 
 Damoetas ! 
 
 With what a savor doth the preface to Colet's 
 or (as it is sometimes called) Paul's ' ' Accidence, ' ' 
 set forth ! "To exhort every man to the learn- 
 ing of grammar that intendeth to attain the 
 understanding of the tongues, wherein is 
 contained a great treasury of wisdom and
 
 114 B60as6 ot Blla 
 
 knowledge, it would seem but vain and lost 
 labor ; for so much as it is known, that nothing 
 can surely be ended, whose beginning is either 
 feeble or faulty ; and no building be perfect 
 whereas the foundation and groundwork is 
 ready to fall, and unable to uphold the burden 
 of the frame." How well doth this stately pre- 
 amble (comparable to those which Milton com- 
 mendeth as "having been the usage to prefix 
 to some solemn law, then first promulgated by 
 Solon, or Lycurgus,") correspond \s-ith and illus- 
 trate that pious zeal for conformity, expressed 
 in a succeeding clause, which would fence about 
 grammar-rules, with the severity of faith-arti- 
 cles ! — "as for the diversity of grammars, it is 
 well profitably taken away by the Kings 
 Majesties wisdom, who, foreseeing the incon- 
 venience, and favorably pro\'iding the remedie, 
 caused one kind of grammar by sundry learned 
 men to be diligently drawn, and so to be set 
 out, only ever}'' where to be taught, for the use 
 of learners, and for the hurt in changing of 
 schoolmaisters. " What a gusto in that which 
 follows : " wherein it is profitable that he [the 
 pupil] can orderly decline his noun, and his 
 verb." //z'^ noun ! 
 
 The fine dream is fading away fast ; and the 
 least concern of a teacher in the present day is 
 to inculcate grammar rules.
 
 Zbc ScbooU/Hbaster 115 
 
 The modern school-master is expected to 
 know a httle of every thing, because his pupil is 
 required not to be entirely ignorant of any 
 thing. He must be superficially, if I may say 
 so, omniscient. He is to know something 
 of pneumatics, of chemistry', of whatever is 
 curious, or proper to excite the attention of the 
 youthful mind ; an insight into mechanics is 
 desirable, with a touch of statistics ; the quality 
 of soils, etc.; botany, the constitution of his 
 country, ciwi multis aliis. You may get a no- 
 tion of some part of his expected duties by con- 
 sulting the famous Tractate on Education, 
 addressed to Mr. Hartlib. 
 
 All these things — these, or the desire of them, 
 — he is expected to instil, not by set lessons 
 from professors, which he may charge in the 
 bill, but at school-intervals, as he walks the 
 streets, or saunters through green fields (those 
 natural instructors), with his pupils. The least 
 part of what is expected from him, is to be done 
 in school hours. He must insinuate knowledge 
 at the mollia tempora fandi. He must seize 
 every occasion — the season of the year — the 
 time of the day — a passing cloud — a rainbow — a 
 wagon of hay — a regiment of soldiers going by 
 — to inculcate something useful. He can re- 
 ceive no pleasure from a casual glimpse of Na- 
 ture, but must catch at it as an object of instruc-
 
 ii6 jessa^s of Blia 
 
 tion. He must interpret beauty into the 
 picturesque. He cannot relish a beggar-man, 
 or a gypsy, for thinking of the suitable improve- 
 ment. Nothing comes to him, not spoiled by 
 the sophisticating medium of moral uses. The 
 Universe — that Great Book, as it has been 
 called — is to him indeed, to all intents and pur- 
 poses, a book, out of which he is doomed to 
 read tedious homilies to distasting school-boys. 
 Vacations themselves are none to him, he is 
 only rather worse off than before ; for common- 
 ly he has some intrusive upper-boy fastened 
 upon him at such times ; some cadet of a great 
 family ; some neglected lump of nobility, or 
 gentry ; that he must drag after him to the play, 
 to the Panorama, to Mr. Hartley's Orrery, to the 
 Panopticon, or into the country, to a friend's 
 house, or his favorite watering-place. Wher- 
 ever he goes, this uneasy shadow attends him. 
 A boy is at his board, and in his path, and in all 
 his movements. He is boy-rid, sick of perpet- 
 ual boy. 
 
 Boys are capital fellows in their own way, 
 among their mates ; but they are unwholesome 
 companions for grown people. The restraint is 
 felt no less on the one side, than on the other. 
 Even a child, "that plaything for an hour," 
 tires always. The noises of children, playing 
 their own fancies — as I now hearken to them by
 
 Cbe Scbools^aster 117 
 
 fits, sporting on the green before my window, 
 while I am engaged in these grave speculations 
 at my neat suburban retreat at Shacklewell — 
 by distance made more sweet — inexpressibly 
 take from the labor of my task. It is like 
 writing to music. They seem to modulate my 
 periods. They ought at least to do so, — for in 
 the voice of that tender age there is a kind of 
 poetry, far unlike the harsh prose-accents of 
 man's conversation. I should but spoil their 
 sport, and diminish my own sympathy for 
 them, by mingling in their pastime. 
 
 I would not be domesticated all my days with 
 a person of very superior capacity to my own, — 
 not, if I know myself at all, from any consider- 
 ations of jealousy or self-comparison, for the 
 occasional communion with such minds has 
 constituted the fortune and felicity of my life, 
 — but the habit of too constant intercourse with 
 spirits above you, instead of raising you, keeps 
 you down. Too frequent doses of original 
 thinking from others, restrain what lesser por- 
 tion of that faculty you may possess of your 
 own. You get entangled in another man's 
 mind, even as you lose yourself in another 
 man's grounds. You are walking with a tall 
 varlet, whose strides out-pace yours to lassitude. 
 The constant operation of such potent agency 
 would reduce me, I am convinced, to imbecility.
 
 Bssa^s ot lElia 
 
 You may derive thoughts from others ; your 
 way of thinking, the mould in which your 
 thoughts are cast, must be your own. Intellect 
 may be imparted, but not each man's intellec- 
 tual frame. 
 
 As little as I should wish to be always thus 
 dragged upward, as little (or rather still less) is 
 it desirable to be stunted downward by your 
 associates. The trumpet does not more stun 
 you by its loudness, than a whisper teases you 
 by its provoking inaudibility. 
 
 Why are we never quite at our ease in the 
 presence of a school-master? — because we are 
 conscious that he is not quite at his ease in ours. 
 He is awkward, and out of place, in the society 
 of his equals. He comes like Gulliver from 
 among his little people, and he cannot fit the 
 stature of his understanding to yours. He can- 
 not meet you on the square. He wants a point 
 given him, like an indifferent whist-player. He 
 is so used to teaching, that he wants to be 
 teaching you. One of these professors, upon 
 my complaining that these little sketches of 
 mine were any thing but methodical, and that I 
 was unable to make them otherwise, kindly 
 offered to instruct me in the method by which 
 young gentlemen in his seminary were taught 
 to compose English themes. The jests of a 
 school-master are coarse, or thin. They do not
 
 ^be Scbools/iRaster ng 
 
 tell out of school. He is under the restraint of 
 a formal or didactive hypocrisy in company, as a 
 clergyman is under a moral one. He can no 
 more let his intellect loose in society, than the 
 other can his inclmations. He is forlorn among 
 his coevals ; his juniors cannot be his friends. 
 
 "I take blame to myself," said a sensible 
 man of this profession, writing to a friend re- 
 specting a youth who had quitted his school 
 abruptly, "that your nephew was not more at- 
 tached to me. But persons in my situation are 
 more to be pitied, than can well be imagined. 
 We are surrounded by 3'oung and, consequently, 
 ardently affectionate hearts, but we can never 
 hope to share an atom of their affections. The 
 relation of master and scholar forbids this. 
 How pleasing this must be to you, how I envy 
 your feelings ! my friends will sometimes say 
 to me, when they see young men whom I have 
 educated, return after some years' absence from 
 school, their eyes shining with pleasure, while 
 they shake hands with their old master, bring- 
 ing a present of game to me, or a toy to my 
 wife, and thanking me in the warmest terms for 
 my care of their education. A holiday is begged 
 for the boys ; the house is a scene of happiness ; 
 I, only, am sad at heart. This fine-spirited and 
 warm-hearted youth, who faiicies he repays his 
 master with gratitude for the care of his boyish
 
 JEssa^s of BIta 
 
 years — this young man — in the eight long years 
 I watched over him with a parent's anxiety, 
 never could repay me with one look of genuine 
 feeling. He was proud, when I praised ; he was 
 submissive, when I reproved him ; but he did 
 never love me ; — and what he now mistakes for 
 gratitude and kindness for me, is but the pleas- 
 ant sensation which all persons feel at revisit- 
 ing the scenes of their boyish hopes and fears ; 
 and the seeing on equal terms the man they 
 were accustomed to look up to with reverence. 
 My wdfe too," this interesting correspondent 
 goes on to say, "my once darling Anna, is the 
 wife of a school-master. When I married her, 
 — knowing that the wife of a school-master 
 ought to be a busy notable creature, and fearing 
 that my gentle Anna would ill supply the loss 
 of my dear bustling mother, just then dead, who 
 never sat still, was in every part of the house in 
 a moment, and whom I was obliged sometimes 
 to threaten to fasten down in a chair, to save 
 her from fatiguing herself to death, — I expressed 
 my fears that I was bringing her into a way of 
 life unsuitable to her ; and she, who loved me 
 tenderly, promised for my sake to exert herself 
 to perform the duties of her new situation. She 
 promised, and she has kept her word. What won- 
 ders will not woman's love perform? My house 
 is managed with a propriety and decorum un-
 
 ^be Scbools/lbaster 
 
 known in other schools ; my boys are well fed, 
 look healthy, and have every proper accommo- 
 dation ; and all this is performed with a careful 
 economy, that never descends to meanness. 
 But I have lost my gentle, helpless Anna ! 
 When we sit down to enjoy an hour of repose 
 after the fatigue of the day, I am compelled to 
 listen to what have been her useful (and they 
 are really useful) employments through the 
 day, and what she proposes for her to-morrow's 
 task. Her heart and her features are changed 
 by the duties of her situation. To the boys, she 
 never appears other than the master's wife, and 
 she looks up to me as the boy's master ; to whom 
 all show of love and affection would be highly 
 improper, and unbecoming the dignity of her 
 situation and mine. Yet this my gratitude for- 
 bids me to hint to her. For my sake she sub- 
 mitted to be this altered creature, and can I re- 
 proach her for it ? " — For the communication of 
 this letter, I am indebted to my cousin Bridget.
 
 IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES. 
 
 I am of a constitution so general, that it consorts and 
 sympathizeth with all things ; I have no antipathy, or 
 rather idiosyncrasy in any thing. Those natural repug- 
 nances do not touch me, nor do I behold with prejudice 
 the French, Italian, Spaniard, or Dutch. — "Religio 
 Medici." 
 
 THAT the author of the "Religio Medici," 
 mounted upon the airy stilts of abstrac- 
 tion, conversant about notional and conjectural 
 essences ; in whose categories of Being the pos- 
 sible took the upper hand of the actual ; should 
 have overlooked the impertinent individualities 
 of such poor concretions as mankind, is not 
 much to be admired. It is rather to be won- 
 dered at, that in the genius of animals he should 
 have condescended to distinguish that species 
 at all. For myself — earthbound and fettered to 
 the scene of my activities, — 
 
 standing on earth, not rapt above the sky, 
 
 I confess that I do feel the differences of man-
 
 •ffmpertect Sgmpatbies 123 
 
 kind, national or individual, to an unhealthy- 
 excess. I can look with no indifferent eye 
 upon things or persons. Whatever is, is to me 
 a matter of taste or distaste ; or when once it 
 becomes indifferent, it begins to be disrelishing. 
 I am, in plainer words, a bundle of prejudices — 
 made up of likings and dislikings — the veriest 
 thrall to sympathies, apathies, antipathies. In 
 a certain sense, I hope it may be said of me that 
 I am a lover of my species. I can feel for all 
 indifferently, but I cannot feel toward all equally. 
 The more purely English w^ord that expresses 
 sympathy, will better explain my meaning. I 
 can be a friend to a worthy man, who upon an- 
 other account cannot be my mate or fellow. I 
 cannot like all people alike.* 
 
 I have been trying all my life to like Scotch- 
 men, and am obliged to desist from the experi- 
 ment in despair. They cannot like me, — and 
 in truth, I never knew one of that nation who 
 
 *I would be understood as confining myself to the sub- 
 ject of imperject sympathies. To nations or classes of men 
 there can be no direct antipathy. There may be individ- 
 uals born and constellated so opposite to another indi- 
 vidual nature, that the same sphere cannot hold them. 
 I have met with my moral antipodes, and can believe 
 the story of two person^ meeting (who never saw one 
 another before m their lives) and instantly fighting. 
 
 We by proof find there should be 
 
 'Twixt man and man such an antipathy, 
 That though he can show no just reason why 
 For any former wrong or injury
 
 124 )B66tL^6 ot JEUa 
 
 attempted to do it. There is something more 
 plain and ingenuous in their mode of proceed- 
 ing. "We know one another at first sight. 
 There is an order of imperfect intellects (under 
 which mine must be content to rank) which in 
 its constitution is essentially anti-Caledonian. 
 The owners of the sort of faculties I allude to 
 have minds rather suggestive than compre- 
 hensive. They have no pretences to much 
 clearness or precision in their ideas, or in their 
 manner of expressing them. Their intellectual 
 wardrobe (to confess fairly) has few whole 
 pieces in it. They are content with fragments 
 and scattered pieces of Truth. She presents no 
 full front to them — a feature or side-face at the 
 most. Hints and glimpses, germs and crude 
 essays at a system, is the utmost they pretend 
 to. They beat up a little game peradventure — 
 and leave it to knottier heads, more robust con- 
 stitutions, to run it down. The light that lights 
 
 Can neither find a blemish in his fame, 
 Nor aught in face or feature justly blame, 
 Can challenge or accuse him of no evil, 
 Yet notwithstanding, hates him as a devil. 
 The lines are from old Hej'wood s " Hierarchic of An- 
 gels," and he subjoins a curious story in confirmation, 
 of a Spaniard who attempted to assassinate a King Fer- 
 dinand of Spain, and being put to the rack could give 
 no other reason for the deed but an inveterate antipathy 
 which he had taken at the first sight of the king. 
 
 The cause which to that act compell'd him 
 
 Was, he ne'er loved him since he first beheld him.
 
 flmpertcct Sgmpatbies 125 
 
 them is not steady and polar, but mutable and 
 shifting ; waxing, and again waning. Their 
 conversation is accordingly. They will throw 
 out a random word in or out of season, and be 
 content to let it pass for what it is worth. They 
 cannot speak always as if they were upon their 
 oath, — but must be understood, speaking oi 
 writing, with some abatement. They seldoi... 
 wait to mature a proposition, but e'en bring it 
 to market in the green ear. They delight to 
 impart their defective discoveries as they arise, 
 without waiting for their full development. 
 They are no systematizers, and would but err 
 more by attempting it. Their minds, as I said 
 before, are suggestive merely. The brain of a 
 true Caledonian (if I am not mistaken) is con- 
 stituted upon quite a different plan. His 
 Minerva is born in panoply. You are never 
 admitted to see his ideas in their growth, — if, 
 indeed, they do grow, and are not rather put 
 together upon principles of clock-work. You 
 never catch his mind in an undress. He never 
 hints or suggests any thing, but unlades his 
 stock of ideas in perfect order and complete- 
 ness. He brings his total wealth into company, 
 and gravely unpacks it. His riches are always 
 about him. He never stoops to catch a glitter- 
 ing something in your presence to share it with 
 j'ou, before he quite knows whether it be true
 
 126 J£00as0 or j£Ua 
 
 touch or not. You cannot cry halves to any 
 thing that he finds. He does not find, but 
 bring. You never witness his first apprehension 
 of a thing. His understanding is always at its 
 meridian, — you never see the first dawn, the 
 early streaks. He has no falterings of self- 
 suspicion. Surmises, guesses, misgivings, half- 
 intuitions, semi-consciousnesses, partial illumi- 
 nations, dim instincts, embryo conceptions, 
 have no place in his brain or vocabulary. The 
 twilight of dubiety never falls upon him. Is he 
 orthodox — he has no doubts. Is he an infidel — 
 he has none either. Between the affirmative 
 and the negative there is no border-land with 
 him. You cannot hover with him upon the 
 confines of truth, or wander in the maze of a 
 probable argument. He always keeps the path. 
 You cannot make excursions with him — for he 
 sets you right. His taste never fluctuates. His 
 morality never abates. He cannot compromise, 
 or understand middle actions. There can be 
 but a right and a wrong. His conversation is 
 as a book. His affirmations have the sanctity 
 of an oath. You must speak upon the square 
 with him. He stops a metaphor like a sus- 
 pected person in an enemy's country. "A 
 healthy book ! " — said one of his countrymen 
 to me, who had ventured to give that appella- 
 tion to "John Buncle," — "Did I catch rightly
 
 Umpertect Ssmpatbies 127 
 
 what you said? I have heard of a man in 
 health, and of a healthy state of body, but I do 
 not see how that epithet can be properly applied 
 to a book." Above all, you must beware of 
 indirect expressions before Caledonian. Clap 
 an extinguisher upon your irony, if you are un- 
 happily blest with a vein of it. Remember you 
 are upon your oath. I have a print of a grace- 
 ful female after Leonardo da Vinci, which I 
 
 was showing off to Mr. . After he had 
 
 examined it minutely, I ventured to ask him 
 how he liked my beauty (a foolish name it 
 goes by among my friends J, — when he very 
 gravely assured me that " he had considerable 
 respect for my character and talents," [so he 
 was pleased to say,] "but had not given him- 
 self much thought about the degree of my 
 personal pretensions." The misconception 
 staggered me, but did not seem much to dis- 
 concert him. Persons of this nation are par- 
 ticularly fond of affirming a truth — which 
 nobody doubts. They do not so properly 
 affirm, as annunciate it. They do indeed 
 appear to have such a love of truth (as if, like 
 virtue, it were valuable for itself), that all 
 truth becomes equally valuable, whether the 
 proposition that contains it be new or old, 
 disputed, or such as is impossible to become a 
 subject of disputation. I was present not long
 
 T28 J606ag0 of Blia 
 
 since at a party of North Britons, where a son 
 of Burns was expected, and happened to drop a 
 silly expression (in my South British way), 
 that I wished it were the father instead of the 
 sou, — when four of them started up at once to 
 inform me that "that was impossible, because 
 he was dead." An impracticable wish, it seems, 
 was more than they could conceive. Swift has 
 hit off this part of their character, namely, their 
 love of truth, in his biting way, but with an il- 
 liberality that necessarily confines the passage 
 to the margin.* The tediousness of these 
 people is certainly provoking. I wonder if they 
 ever tire one another ? In my early life I had a 
 passionate fondness for the poetry of Burns. I 
 have sometimes foolishly hoped to ingratiate 
 myself with his countrymen by expressing it. 
 But I have always found that a true Scot re- 
 sents your admiration of his compatriot, even 
 more than he would your contempt of him. 
 The latter he imputes to your "imperfect ac- 
 
 * There are some people who think they sufiaciently 
 acquit themselves, and entertain their company, with re- 
 lating facts of no consequence, not at all out of the road 
 of such common incidents as happens every day ; and 
 this I have observed more frequently among the Scots 
 than any other nation, who are very careful not to 
 omit the minutest circumstances of time or place ; 
 which kind of discourse, if it were not a little relieved by 
 the uncouth terms and phrases, as well as accent and 
 gesture peculiar to that country, would be hardly toler- 
 able.— //^z«/5 towards an Essay 07i Convetsation.
 
 tlmperfect S^nipatbies 129 
 
 quaintance with many of the words which he 
 uses " ; and the same objection makes it a pre- 
 sumption in you to suppose that you can admire 
 him. Thomson they seem to have forgotten. 
 Smollett they have neither forgotten nor for- 
 given, for his delineation of Rory and his com- 
 panion, upon their first introduction to our me- 
 tropolis. Speak of Smollett as a great genius, and 
 they will retort upon you Hume's History com- 
 pared with his Continuation of it. What if the 
 historian had continued " Humphrey Clinker " ? 
 I have, in the abstract, no disrespect for Jews. 
 They are a piece of stubborn antiquity, com- 
 pared with which Stonehenge is in its nonage. 
 They date beyond the Pyramids. But I should 
 not care to be in habits of familiar intercourse 
 with any of that nation. I confess that I have 
 not the nerves to enter their synagogues. Old 
 prejudices cling about me. I cannot shake ofiF 
 the story of Hugh of Lincoln. Centuries of 
 injury, contempt, and hate, on the one side, — of 
 cloaked revenge, dissimulation, and hate on the 
 other, — between our and their fathers, must 
 and ought to affect the blood of the children. I 
 cannot believe it can run clear and kindly yet ; 
 or that a few fine words, such as candor, liber- 
 ality, the light of a nineteenth century, can 
 close up the breaches of so deadly a disunion. 
 A Hebrew is nowhere congenial to me. He is
 
 I30 lEeea^e of JElla 
 
 least distasteful on 'Change — for the mercantile 
 spirit levels all distinctions, as all are beauties 
 in the dark. I boldly confess that I do not rel- 
 ish the approximation of Jew and Christian, 
 which has become so fashionable. The recip- 
 rocal endearments have, to me, something 
 hypocritical and unnatural in them. I do not 
 like to see the Church and Synagogue kissing 
 and congeeing in awkward postures of an af- 
 fected civility. If l/iey are converted, why do 
 they not come over to us altogether ? Why 
 keep up a form of separation, when the life of 
 it is fled ? If they can sit with us at table, why 
 do they kick at our cookery ? I do not under- 
 stand these half convertites. Jews christianiz- 
 ing — Christians judaizing — puzzle me. I like 
 fish or flesh. A moderate Jew is a more con- 
 founding piece of anomaly than a wet Quaker. 
 The spirit of the synagogue is essentially sepa- 
 rative. B. would have been more in keep- 
 ing if he had abided by the faith of his fore- 
 fathers. There is a fine scorn in his face, which 
 nature meant to be of Christians. The He- 
 brew spirit is strong in him, in spite of his 
 proselytism. He cannot conquer the Shibbo- 
 leth. How it breaks out when he sings, " The 
 Children of Israel passed through the Red Sea ! " 
 The auditors, for the moment, are as Egyptians 
 to him, and he rides over our necks in triumph.
 
 flmpcrfect S^mpatbies 131 
 
 There is no mistaking him. B. has a strong 
 expression of sense in his countenance, and it is 
 confirmed by his singing. The foundation of 
 his vocal excellence is sense. He sings with 
 understanding, as Kemble delivered dialogue. 
 He would sing the Commandments, and give 
 an appropriate character to each prohibition. 
 His nation, in general, have not over-sensible 
 countenances. How should they? — but you sel- 
 dom see a silly expression among them. Gain 
 and the pursuit of gain, sharpen a man's visage. 
 I never heard of an idiot being bom among 
 them. Some admire the Jewish female phy- 
 siognomy, I admire it — but with trembling. 
 Jael had those full dark inscrutable eyes. 
 
 In the Negro countenance you will often 
 meet with strong traits of benignity. I have 
 felt yearnings of tenderness towards some of 
 those faces — or rather masks — that have looked 
 out kindly upon one in casual encounters in 
 the streets and highways. I love what Fuller 
 beautifully calls — these " images of God cut in 
 ebony." But I should not like to associate 
 with them, to share my meals and my good 
 nights with them — because they are black. 
 
 I love Quaker ways, and Quaker worship. I 
 venerate the Quaker principles. It does me 
 good for the rest of the day when I meet any of 
 their people in my path. When I am rufiled or
 
 t32 Bssa^e ot Blia 
 
 disturbed by any occurrence, the sight or quiet 
 voice of a Quaker acts upon me as a ventilator, 
 lightening the air, and taking off a load from 
 the bosom. But I cannot like the Quakers (as 
 Desdemona would say) " to live with them." I 
 am all over sophisticated — with humors, fan- 
 cies, craving hourly sympathy. I must have 
 books, pictures, theatres, chit-chat, scandal, 
 jokes, ambiguities, and a thousand whim- 
 whams, which their simpler taste can do with- 
 out. I should starve at their primitive banquet. 
 My appetites are too high for the salads which 
 (according to Evelyn) Eve dressed for the 
 angel, my gusto too excited 
 
 To sit a guest with Daniel at his pulse. 
 
 The indirect answers which Quakers are often 
 found to return to a question put to them may 
 be explained, I think, without the vulgar as- 
 sumption that they are more given to evasion 
 and equivocating than other people. They 
 naturally look to their words more carefully, 
 and are more cautious of committing them- 
 selves. They have a peculiar character to keep 
 up on this head. They stand in a manner upon 
 their veracity. A Quaker is by law exempted 
 from taking an oath. The custom of resorting 
 to an oath in extreme cases, sanctified as it is 
 by all religious antiquity, is apt (it must be con-
 
 •ffmperfect S^mpatblee 133 
 
 fessed) to introduce into the laxersort of minds 
 the notion of two kinds of truth — the one ap- 
 plicable to the solemn affairs of justice, and the 
 other to the common proceedings of daily in- 
 tercourse. As truth bound upon the conscience 
 by an oath can be but truth, so in the common 
 affirmations of the shop and the market-place a 
 latitude is expected, and conceded upon ques- 
 tions wanting this solemn covenant. Some- 
 thing less than truth satisfies. It is common to 
 hear a person say, "You do not expect me to 
 speak as if I were upon my oath." Hence a 
 great deal of incorrectness and inadvertency, 
 short of falsehood, creeps into ordinary conver- 
 sation ; and a kind of secondary or laic-truth is 
 tolerated, where clergy -truth, — oath-truth, by 
 the nature of the circumstances, is not required. 
 A Quaker knows none of this distinction. His 
 simple affirmation being received upon the most 
 sacred occasions, without any further test, 
 stamps a value upon the words w^hich he is to 
 use upon the most indifferent topics of life. He 
 looks to them, naturally, w4th more severity. 
 You can have of him no more than his word. 
 He knows, if he is caught tripping in a casual 
 expression, he forfeits, for himself at least, his 
 claim to the invidious exemption. He knows 
 that his syllables are weighed ; and how far a 
 consciousness of this particular watchfulness,
 
 134 lEem^s of Blfa 
 
 exerted against a person, has a tendency to pro- 
 duce indirect answers, and a diverting of the 
 question by honest means, might be illustrated, 
 and the practice justified, by a more sacred ex- 
 ample than is proper to be adduced on this oc- 
 casion. The admirable presence of mind, which 
 is notorious in Quakers upon all contingencies, 
 might be traced to this imposed self-watchful- 
 ness, if it did not seem rather an humble and 
 secular scion of that old stock of religious con- 
 stancy, which never bent or faltered in the 
 Primitive Friends, or gave way to the wunds of 
 persecution, to the violence of judge or accuser, 
 under trials and racking examinations. "You 
 will never be the wdser, if I sit here answering 
 your questions till midnight," said one of those 
 upright Justicers of Penn, who had been put- 
 ting law-cases with a puzzling subtlety. ' ' There- 
 after as the answers may be," retorted the 
 Quaker. The astonishing composure of this 
 people is sometimes ludicrously displayed in 
 lighter instances. I was travelling in a stage- 
 coach with three male Quakers, buttoned up in 
 the straightest non-conformity of their sect. 
 We stopped to bait at Andover, where a meal, 
 partly tea apparatus, partly supper, was set be- 
 fore us. My friends confined themselves to the 
 tea-table. I, in my way, took supper. When 
 the landlady brought in the bill, the eldest of
 
 IFmperfect S^mpatbles 135 
 
 my companions discovered that she had charged 
 for both meals. This was resisted. Mine 
 hostess was very clamorous and positive. Some 
 mild arguments were used on the part of the 
 Quakers, for which the heated mind of the good 
 lady seemed by no means a fit recipient. The 
 guard came in with his usual peremptory no- 
 tice. The Quakers pulled out their money and 
 formally tendered it — so much for tea, — I in 
 humble imitation tendering mine — for the sup- 
 per which I had taken. She would not relax in 
 her demand. So they all three quietly put up 
 their silver, as did myself, and marched out of 
 the room, the eldest and gravest going first, 
 with myself closing up the rear, who thought I 
 could not do better than follow the example of 
 such grave and warrantable personages. We 
 got in. The steps went up. The coach drove 
 off. The murmurs of mine hostess not very in- 
 distinctly or ambiguously pronounced, became 
 after a time inaudible, — and now my conscience, 
 which the whimsical scene had for a while sus- 
 pended, beginning to give some twitches, I 
 waited, in the hope that some justification 
 would be offered by these serious persons for 
 the seeming injustice of their conduct. To my 
 great surprise, not a syllable was dropped on the 
 subject. They sat as mute as at a meeting. At 
 length the eldest of them broke silence by in-
 
 136 
 
 Bssai^s ot JEIia 
 
 quiring of his next neighbor, " Hast thee heard 
 how indigoes go at the India House?" — and 
 the question operated as a soporific on my 
 moral feeling as far as Bxeter.
 
 WITCHES, AND OTHER NIGHT FEARS. 
 
 WE are too hasty when we set down our an- 
 cestors in the gross for fools, for the 
 monstrous inconsistencies (as they seem to us) 
 involved in their creed of witchcraft. In the 
 relations of this visible world we find them to 
 have been as rational and shrewd to detect an 
 historic anomaly as ourselves. But when once 
 the in\-isible world w^as supposed to be opened, 
 and the lawless agency of bad spirits assumed, 
 what measures of probability, of decency, of 
 fitness, or proportion — of that which distin- 
 guishes the likely from the palpable absurd — 
 could they have to guide them in the rejection 
 or admission of any particular testimony? 
 That maidens pined away, wasting inwardly as 
 their waxen images consumed before a fire — 
 that com was lodged, and cattle lamed — that 
 whirlwinds uptore in diabolic revelrv- the oaks 
 of the forests — or that spits and kettles only 
 danced a fearful innocent vagary about some 
 rustic's kitchen when no wind was stirring, — 
 were all equally probable where no law of
 
 138 B60ai56 Of BUa 
 
 agency was understood. That the prince of the 
 powers of darkness, passing by the flower and 
 pomp of the earth, should lay preposterous 
 siege to the weak fantasy of indigent eld — has 
 neither likelihood nor unlikelihood a priori 
 to us, who have no measure to guess at his 
 policy, or standard to estimate what rate those 
 anile souls may fetch in the devil's market. 
 Nor, when the wicked are expressly symbol- 
 ized by a goat, was it to be . wondered at so 
 much, that he should come sometimes in that 
 body and assert his metaphor. That the inter- 
 course was opened at all between both worlds, 
 was perhaps the mistake, — but that once as- 
 sumed, I see no reason for disbelieving one 
 attested story of this nature more than another 
 on the score of absurdity. There is no law to 
 judge of the lawless, or canon by which a 
 dream may be criticised. 
 
 I have sometimes thought that I could not 
 have existed in the days of received witchcraft ; 
 that I could not have slept in a village where 
 one of those reputed hags dw^elt. Our ancestors 
 were bolder or more obtuse. Amidst the uni- 
 versal belief that these wretches wete in league 
 with the author of all evil, holding hell tribu- 
 tary to their muttering, no simple Justice of the 
 Peace seems to have scrupled issuing, or silly 
 Headborough serving, a warrant upon them, —
 
 IMitcbes, anO otber Iftigbt ^ears 139 
 
 as if they should subpoena Satan ! Prospero in 
 his boat, with his books and wand about him, 
 suffers himself to be conveyed away at the 
 mercy of his enemies to an unknown island. 
 He might have raised a storm or two, we think, 
 on the passage. His acquiescence is in exact 
 analogy to the non-resistance of witches to the 
 constituted powers. What stops the Fiend in 
 Spenser from tearing Guyon to pieces, — or who 
 had made it a condition of his prey, that Guyon 
 must take assay of the glorious bait, — we have no 
 guess. We do not know the laws of that country. 
 From my childhood I was extremely inquisi- 
 tive about witches and witch-stories. My maid, 
 and more legendar}- aunt, supplied me with 
 good store. But I shall mention the accident 
 which directed my curiosity originally into this 
 channel. In my father's book-closet, the "His- 
 tory of the Bible" by Stackhouse occupied a 
 distinguished station. The pictures with which 
 it abounds — one of the ark, in particular, and 
 another of Solomon's temple, delineated with 
 all the fidelity of ocular admeasurement, as if 
 the artist had been upon the spot — attracted 
 my childish attention. There was a picture, 
 too, of the Witch raising up Samuel, which I 
 wish that I had never seen. We shall come to 
 that hereafter. Stackhouse is in two huge 
 tomes, — and there was a pleasure in removing
 
 140 :600as0 of ;eila 
 
 folios of that magnitude, which, with infinite 
 straining, was as much as I could manage, 
 from the situation which they occupied upon 
 an upper shelf. I have not met with the work 
 from that time to this, but I remember it con- 
 sisted of Old Testament stories, orderly set 
 down, with the objection appended to each 
 story, and the solutio?i of the objection regu- 
 larly tacked to that. The objection was a sum- 
 mary of whatever difficulties had been opposed 
 to the credibility of the history, by the shrewd- 
 ness of ancient or modern infidelity, drawn up 
 with an almost complimentary excess of can- 
 dor. The solution was brief, modest, and satis- 
 factory. The bane and antidote were both 
 before you. To doubts so put, and so quashed, 
 there seemed to be an end forever. The dragon 
 lay dead, for the foot of the veriest babe to 
 trample on. But — like as was rather feared 
 than realized from that slain monster in Spen- 
 ser — from the womb of those crushed errors 
 young dragonets would creep, exceeding the 
 prowess of so tender a Saint George as my- 
 self to vanquish. The habit of expecting ob- 
 jections to every passage, set me upon starting 
 more objections, for the glory of finding a solu- 
 tion of my own for them. I became staggered 
 and perplexed, a skeptic in long coats. The 
 pretty Bible stories which I had read, or heard
 
 XUltcbes, anD otber Iftigbt fcdxe 141 
 
 read in church, lost their purity and sin- 
 cerity of impression, and were turned into so 
 many historic or chronologic theses to be de- 
 fended against whatever impugners. I was not 
 to disbelieve them, but — the next thing to that 
 — I was to be quite sure that some one or other 
 would or had disbelieved them. Next to mak 
 ing a child an infidel, is the letting him kno^iy 
 that there are infidels at all. Credulity is the 
 man's weakness, but the child's strength. O 
 how ugly sound Scriptural doubts from the 
 mouth of a babe and a suckling ! I should 
 have lost myself in these mazes, and have 
 pined away, I think, with such unfit sustenance 
 as these husks afibrded, but for a fortunate 
 piece of ill-fortune, which about this time befell 
 me. Turning over the picture of the ark with 
 too much haste, I unhappily made a breach in 
 its ingenious fabric, — driving my inconsiderate 
 fingers right through the two larger quadru- 
 peds — the elephant, and the camel — that stare 
 (as well they might) out of the last two win- 
 dows next the steerage in that unique piece of 
 naval architecture. Stackhouse was hence- 
 forth locked up, and became an interdicted 
 treasure. With the book, the objectio7is and 
 solutions gradually cleared out of my head, and 
 have seldom returned since in any force to 
 trouble me. But there was one impression
 
 142 jeasa^s of BKa 
 
 which I had imbibed from Stackhouse, which 
 no lock or bar could shut out, and which was 
 destined to try my childish nerves rather more 
 seriously. That detestable picture ! 
 
 I was dreadfully alive to nervous terrors. 
 The nighttime, solitude, and the dark, were my 
 hell. The sufferings I endured in this nature 
 would justify the expression. I never laid my 
 head on my pillow, I suppose, from the fourth 
 to the seventh or eighth year of my life — so far 
 as memory serves in things so long ago — with- 
 out an assurance, which realized its own 
 prophecy, of seeing some frightful spectre. Be 
 old Stackhouse then acquitted in part, if I say, 
 that to his picture of the Witch raising up 
 Samuel — (O that old man covered with a man- 
 tle !) — I owe, not my midnight terrors, the hell 
 of my infancy, but the shape and manner of 
 their ^^sitation. It was he who dressed up for 
 me a hag that nightly sat upon my pillow, — a 
 sure bed-fellow, when my aunt or my maid 
 was far from me. All day long, while the book 
 was permitted me, I dreamed waking over his 
 delineation, and at night (if I may use so bold 
 an expression) awoke into sleep, and found the 
 vision true. I durst not, even in the daylight, 
 once enter the chamber where I slept, without 
 my face turned to the window, aversely from 
 the bed where my witch-ridden pillow was.
 
 inaitcbes, anb otber IRi^bt ^ears 143 
 
 Parents do not know wliat they do when they 
 leave tender babes alone to go to sleep in the 
 dark. The feeling about for a friendly arm — 
 the hoping for a familiar voice — ^when they 
 wake screaming — and find none to soothe 
 them, — what a terrible shaking it is to their 
 poor nerves ! The keeping them up to mid- 
 night, through candlelight and the unwhole- 
 some hours, as they are called — would, I am 
 satisfied, in a medical point of view, prove the 
 better caution. That detestable picture, as I 
 have said, gave the fashion to my dreams, — if 
 dreams they were, — for the scene of them was 
 invariably the room in which I lay. Had I never 
 met with the picture, the fears would have come 
 self-pictured in some shape or other, — 
 
 Headless bear, black man, or ape, — 
 
 but, as it was, my imaginations took that form. 
 It is not book, or picture, or the stories of fool- 
 ish servants which create these terrors in chil- 
 dren. They can at most but give them a 
 direction. Dear little T. H., who of all chil- 
 dren has been brought up with the most scru- 
 pulous exclusion of every taint of superstition 
 — who was never allowed to hear of goblin or 
 apparition, or scarcely to be told of bad men, 
 or to read or hear of any distressing story, — 
 finds all this world of fear, from which he has
 
 144 Bssage ot Blia 
 
 been so rigidly excluded ab extra, in his own 
 "thick-coming fancies"; aud from his little 
 midnight pillow, this nurse-child of optimism 
 will start at shapes, unborrowed of tradition, in 
 sweats to which the reveries of the cell-damned 
 murderer are tranquillity. 
 
 Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimeras dire — 
 stories of Calaeuo and the Harpies — may repro- 
 duce themselves in the brain of superstition, — 
 but they were there before. They are tran- 
 scripts, types, — the archetypes are in us, and 
 eternal. How else should the recital of that, 
 which we know in a waking sense to be false, 
 come to affect us at all ? — or 
 
 Names, whose sense we see not, 
 Fray us with things that be not ? 
 
 Is it that we naturally conceive terror from such 
 objects, considered in their capacity of being 
 able to inflict upon us bodily injury ? O, least 
 of all ! These terrors are of older standing. 
 They date beyond body, — or, without the body 
 they would have been the same. All the cruel, 
 tormenting, defined devils in Dante, — tearing, 
 mangling, choking, stifling, scorching demons, 
 — are they one half so fearful to the spirit of a 
 man as the simple idea of a spirit unembodied 
 following him — 
 
 lyike one that on a lonesome road 
 Doth walk in fear and dread,
 
 TlClitcbes, auD otber IRigbt ^fcars 145 
 
 And having once tum'd round, walks on 
 And turns no more his head ; 
 Because he knows a frightful fiend 
 Doth close behind him tread.* 
 
 That the kind of fear here treated of is purely 
 spiritual, — that it is strong in proportion as it 
 is objectless upon earth, — that it predominates 
 in the period of sinless infancy, — are difficulties 
 the solution of which might aflford some proba- 
 ble insight into our ante-mundane condition, 
 and a peep at least into the shadowland of pre- 
 existence. 
 
 My night fancies have long ceased to be af- 
 flictive. I confess an occasional nightmare ; 
 but I do not, as in early youth, keep a stud of 
 them. Fiendish faces, with the extinguished 
 taper, will come and look at me ; but I know 
 them for mockeries, even while I cannot elude 
 their presence, and I fight and grapple with 
 them. For the credit of my imagination, I am 
 almost ashamed to say how tame and prosaic 
 my dreams are grown. They are never roman- 
 tic, seldom even rural. They are of architect- 
 ure and of buildings, — cities abroad, which I 
 have never seen and hardly have hoped to see. 
 I have traversed, for the seeming length of a 
 natural day, Rome, Amsterdam, Paris, Lisbon 
 — their churches, palaces, squares, market- 
 
 * Mr. Coleridge's " Ancient Mariner."
 
 146 Bssags ot jeiia 
 
 places, shops, suburbs, ruins, with an inex- 
 pressible sense of delight — a map-like distinct- 
 ness of trace — and a daylight vividness of vision, 
 that was all but being awake. I have formerlj' 
 travelled among the Westmoreland fells, my 
 highest Alps, — but they are objects too mighty 
 for the grasp of my dreaming recognition ; and 
 I have again and again aw^oke with ineffectual 
 struggles of the inner eye, to make out a shape 
 in any way whatever, of Helvellyn. Methought I 
 was in that country, but the mountains were gone. 
 The poverty of my dreams mortifies me. There 
 is Coleridge, at his will can conjure up icy domes, 
 and pleasure-houses for KublaKhan, and Abys- 
 sinian maids, and songs of Abara, and caverns. 
 
 Where Alph, the sacred river, runs, 
 
 to vSolace his night solitudes, — when I cannot 
 muster a fiddle. Barry Cornwall has his tritons 
 and his nereids gambolling before him in noc- 
 turnal visions, and proclaiming sons born to 
 Neptune, — when my stretch of imaginative 
 activity can hardly, in the night season, raise 
 up the ghost of a fish-wife. To set mj' failures 
 in somewhat a mortifying light, — it was after 
 reading the noble Dream of this poet, that my 
 fancy ran strong upon these marine spectra : 
 and the poor plastic power, such as it is, within 
 me set to work, to humor my folly in a sort of
 
 "CGlitcbes, anD otber Bigbt ^fears 147 
 
 dream that very night. Methought I was upon 
 the ocean billows at some sea nuptials, riding 
 and mounted high, with the customary train 
 sounding their conches before me (I myself, you 
 may be sure, the leading god), and jollily we 
 went careering over the main, till just where 
 Ino Leucothea should have greeted me (I think 
 it was Ino) with a white embrace, the billows 
 gradually subsiding, fell from a sea-roughness 
 to a sea-calm, and thence to a river motion, and 
 that river (as happens in the familiarization of 
 dreams) was no other than the gentle Thames, 
 which landed me in the wafture of a placid 
 wave or two, alone, safe, and inglorious, some- 
 where at the foot of Lambeth palace. 
 
 The degree of the soul's creativeness in sleep 
 might furnish no whimsical criterion of the 
 quantum of poetical faculty resident in the 
 same soul waking. An old gentleman, a friend 
 of mine, and a humorist, used to carry this no- 
 tion so far, that when he saw any stripling of 
 his acquaintance ambitious of becoming a poet, 
 his first question would be: "Young man, 
 what sort of dreams have you?" I have so 
 much faith in my old friend's theory, that when 
 I feel that idle vein returning upon me, I pres- 
 ently subside into my proper element of prose, 
 remembering those eluding nereids, and that 
 inauspicious inland landing.
 
 VALENTINE'S DAY. 
 
 HAIIv to thy returning festival, old Bishop 
 Valentine. Great is thy name in the ru- 
 bric, thou venerable Archflamen of Hymen ! 
 Immortal Go-between ; who and what manner 
 of person art thou ? Art thou but a name, typi- 
 fying the restless principle which impels poor 
 humans to seek perfection in union ? or wert 
 thou indeed a mortal prelate, with thy tippit 
 and the rochet, thy apron on, and decent lawn 
 sleeves? Mysterious personage ! like unto thee, 
 assuredly, there is no other mitred father in the 
 calendar ; not Jerome, nor Ambrose, nor Cyril ; 
 nor the consigner of undipt infants to eternal 
 torments, Austin, whom all mothers hate ; nor 
 he who hated all mothers, Origen ; nor Bishop 
 Bull, nor Archbishop Parker, nor Whitgift. 
 Thou comest attended with thousands and ten 
 thousands of little Loves, and the air is 
 
 Brush 'd with the hiss of rustling wings. 
 
 Singing Cupids are thy choristers and thy pre-
 
 Dalentlne'6 Bag 149 
 
 centers ; and instead of the crosier, the mysti- 
 cal arrow is borne before thee. 
 
 In other words, this is the day on which those 
 charming Uttle missives, ycleped Valentines, 
 cross and inter-cross each other at every street 
 and tmrning. The wear^^ and all forespent two- 
 penny postman sinks beneath a load of delicate 
 embarrassments, not his own. It is scarcely 
 credible to what an extent this ephemeral court- 
 ship is carried on in this loving town, to the 
 great enrichment of porters, and detriment of 
 knockers and bell-wnres. In these little visual 
 interpretations, no emblem is so common as the 
 heart — that little three-cornered exponent of all 
 our hopes and fears, — the bestuck and bleeding 
 heart ; it is twisted and tortured into more alle- 
 gories and ajSfectations than an opera-hat. What 
 authority we have in history or mythology for 
 placing the head-quarters and metropolis of God 
 Cupid in this anatomical seat rather than in any 
 other, is not very clear ; but we have got it, and 
 it will serve as well as any other. Else we might 
 easily imagine, upon some other system which 
 might have prevailed for any thing which our 
 pathology know^s to the contrar>^, a lover ad- 
 dressing -his mistress, in perfect simplicity of 
 feeling: "Madam, my liver and fortune are 
 entirely at your disposal" ; or putting a deli- 
 cate question : " Amanda, have you a midriff
 
 I50 JCseai^s of }El(a 
 
 to bestow?" But custom has settled these 
 things, and awarded the seat of sentiment to 
 the aforesaid triangle, while its less fortunate 
 neighbors wait at animal and anatomical dis- 
 tance. 
 
 Not many sounds in life, and I include all 
 urban and all rural sounds, exceed in interest a 
 knock at the door. It " gives a very echo to the 
 throne where Hope is seated." But its issues 
 seldom answer to this oracle within. It is so 
 seldom that just the person we want to see 
 comes. But of all the clamorous visitations the 
 welcomest in expectation is the sound that 
 ushers in, or seems to usher in, a Valentine. 
 As the raven himself was hoarse that announced 
 the fatal entrance of Duncan, so the knock of 
 the postman on this day is light, airy, confi- 
 dent, and befitting one that bringeth good 
 tidings. It is less mechanical than on other 
 days. You will say : ' ' That is not the post, I 
 am sure." Visions of Love, of Cupids, of 
 Hymens ! — delightful eternal commonplaces, 
 which "having been will always be" ; which 
 no schoolboy nor schoolman can write away ; 
 having your irreversible throne in the fancy 
 and affections, — what are your transports when 
 the happy maiden, opening with careful finger, 
 careful not to break the emblematic seal, bursts 
 upon the sight of some well-designed allegory,
 
 Dalentine*6 2)as 151 
 
 some type, some youthful fancy, not without 
 
 verses — 
 
 Ivovers all, 
 A madrigal, 
 
 or some such device not over abundant in sense, 
 — young love disclaims it, — and not quite silly, 
 — something between wind and water, a chorus 
 where the sheep might almost join the shep- 
 herd, as they did, or as I apprehend they did, 
 in Arcadia. 
 
 All Valentines are not foolish, and I shall not 
 easily forget thine, my kind friend (if I may 
 have leave to call you so) H. B. B. B. lived op- 
 posite a young maiden whom he had often 
 
 seen, unseen, from his parlor window in C e 
 
 Street. She was all joyousness and innocence, 
 and just of an age to enjoy receiving a Valen- 
 tine, and just of a temper to bear the disap- 
 pointment of missing one with good-humor. 
 E. B. is an artist of no common powers ; in the 
 fancy parts of designing, perhaps inferior to 
 none ; his name is known at the bottom of 
 many a well-executed vignette in the way of 
 his profession, but no further ; for E. B. is 
 modest, and the world meets nobody half-way. 
 E. B. meditated how he could repay this young 
 maiden for many a favor which she had done 
 him unknown ; for when a kindly face greets 
 us, though but passing by, and never knows us
 
 152 :E6sa^6 ot iBlia 
 
 again, nor we it, we should feel it as an obliga- 
 tion ; and E. B. did. This good artist set him- 
 self at work to please the damsel. It was just 
 before Valentine's Day, three years since. He 
 wrought, unseen and unsuspected, a wondrous 
 work. We need not say it was on the finest 
 gilt paper with borders, — full, not of common 
 hearts and heartless allegory, but all the pret- 
 tiest stories of love from Ovid, and older poets 
 than Ovid (for E. B. is a scholar). There was 
 Pyramus and Thisbe, and be sure Dido was not 
 forgot, nor Hero and Leander, and swans more 
 than sang in Cayster, with mottoes and fanciful 
 devices such as beseemed — a work, in short, of 
 magic. Iris dipt the woof. This on Valentine's 
 eve he commended to the all-swallowing in- 
 discriminate orifice (O ignoble trust !) of the 
 common post ; but the humble medium did its 
 duty, and from his watchful stand, the next 
 morning, he saw the cheerful messenger knock, 
 and by and by the precious charge delivered. 
 He saw, unseen, the happy girl unfold the Val- 
 entine, dance about, clap her hands, as one 
 after one the pretty emblems unfolded them- 
 selves. She danced about, not with light love 
 or foolish expectations, for she had no lover ; 
 or, if she had, none she knew that could 
 have created those bright images which de- 
 lighted her. It was more like some fairy pres-
 
 tDatcntinc'6 Da^ 153 
 
 ent, a Godsend, as our familiarly pious ances- 
 tors termed a benefit received where the bene- 
 factor was unknown. It would do her no 
 harm. It would do her good forever after. It 
 is good to love the unknown. I only give this 
 as a specimen of E. B. and his modest way of 
 doing a concealed kindness. 
 
 Good-morrow to my Valentine, sings poor 
 Ophelia, and no better w4sh, but with better 
 auspices, we wish to all faithful lovers who are 
 too wise to despise old legends, but are content 
 to rank themselves humble diocesans of old 
 Bishop Valentine and his true church.
 
 MY RELATIONS. 
 
 I AM arrived at that point of life at whicli a 
 man may account it a blessing, as it is a 
 singularity, if he have either of his parents sur- 
 viving. I have not that felicity — and some- 
 times think feelingly of a passage in Browne's 
 " Christian Morals," where he speaks of a man 
 that hath lived sixty or seventy years in the 
 world. " In such a compass of time," he says, 
 '* a man may have a close apprehension what it is 
 to be forgotten when he hath lived to find none 
 who could remember his father, or scarcely the 
 friends of his youth, and may sensibly see with 
 what a face in no longer time Oblivion will 
 look upon himself" 
 
 I had an aunt, a dear and good one. She 
 was one whom single-blessedness had soured to 
 the world. She often used to say that I was the 
 only thing in it which she loved, and when she 
 thought I was quitting it she grieved over me 
 with a mother's tears. A partiality quite so ex- 
 clusive my reason cannot altogether approve. 
 She was from morning till night poring over
 
 Ifb^ IRelations 155 
 
 good books and devotional exercises. Her 
 favorite volumes were "Thomas a Kempis," in 
 Stanhope's translation, and a Roman Catholic 
 Prayer-Book, with the matins and complines 
 regularly set dowm, — terms which I was at that 
 time too young to understand. She persisted in 
 reading them, although admonished daily con- 
 cerning their Papistical tendency, and went to 
 church every Sabbath, as a good Protestant 
 should do. These were the only books she 
 studied, though I think at one period of her 
 life she told me she had read, with great satis- 
 faction, the "Adventures of an Unfortunate 
 Young Nobleman." Finding the door of the 
 chapel in Essex Street open one day, — it was 
 in the infancy of that heresy, — she w^ent in, 
 liked the sermon and the manner of worship, 
 and frequented it at intervals for some time 
 after. She came not for doctrinal points, 
 and never missed them. With some little 
 asperities in her constitution, which I have 
 above hinted at, she was a steadfast, friendly 
 being, and a fine old Christian. She was 
 a woman of strong sense, and a shrewd mind — 
 extraordinary at a repartke, one of the few oc- 
 casions of her breaking silence — else she did 
 not much value wit. The only secular employ- 
 ment I remember to have seen her engaged in 
 was the splitting of French beans, and drop-
 
 156 B60ag0 ot Blfa 
 
 ping them into a china basin of fair water. The 
 odor of those tender vegetables to this day 
 comes back upon my sense, redolent of soothing 
 recollections. Certainly it is the most delicate 
 of culinary operations. 
 
 Male aunts, as somebody calls them, I had 
 none — to remember. By the uncle's side I may 
 be said to have been bom an orphan. Brother 
 or sister I never had any — to know them. A 
 sister, I think, that should have been Elizabeth, 
 died in both our infancies. What a comfort, or 
 what a care, may I not have missed in her ! 
 But I have cousins sprinkled about in Hert- 
 fordshire, — besides two, with whom I have 
 been all my life in habits of the closest intimacy, 
 and whom I may term cousins par excellence. 
 These are James and Bridget Elia. They are 
 older than myself by twelve, and ten years ; and 
 neither of them seem disposed, in matters of 
 advice and guidance, to waive any of the pre- 
 rogatives which primogeniture confers. May 
 they continue still in the same mind ; and when 
 they shall be seventy-five, and seventy-three 
 years old (I cannot spare them sooner), persist 
 in treating me in my grand climateric precisely 
 as a stripling, or younger brother ! 
 
 James is an inexplicable cousin. Nature hath 
 her unities, which not every critic can penetrate, 
 or, if we feel, we cannot explain them. The
 
 /BbS IRelations 157 
 
 pen of Yorick, and of none since his, could have 
 drawn J. B. entire, — those fine Shandean lights 
 and shades, which make up his story. I must 
 limp after in my poor antithetical manner, as 
 the fates have given me grace and talent. J. E. 
 then — to the eye of a common observer at least 
 — seemeth made up of contradictory- principles. 
 The genuine child of impulse, the frigid philoso- 
 pher of prudence — the phlegm of my cousin's 
 doctrine is invariably at war with his tempera- 
 ment, which is high sanguine. With always 
 some fire-new project in his brain, J, E. is the 
 systematic opponent of innovation, and crier 
 down of every thing that has not stood the test 
 of age and experiment. With a hundred fine 
 notions chasing one another hourly in his fancy, 
 he is startled at the least approach to the ro- 
 mantic in others ; and, determined by his own 
 sense in everything, commends jj/<9z^ to the guid- 
 ance of common-sense on all occasions. With 
 a touch of the eccentric in all which he does, or 
 says, he is only anxious that you should not 
 commit yourself by doing any thing absurd or 
 singular. On my once letting slip at table that 
 I was not fond of a certain popular dish, he 
 begged me at any rate not to say so — for the 
 world would think me mad. He disguises a 
 passionate fondness for works of high art 
 (whereof he hath amassed a choice collection).
 
 158 iBeea^e ot Blia 
 
 under the pretext of buying only to sell again — 
 that his enthusiasm may give no encourage- 
 ment to yours. Yet, if it were so, why does 
 that piece of tender, pastoral Domenichino hang 
 still by his wall ? — is the ball of his sight much 
 more dear to him ? or what picture-dealer can 
 talk like him ? 
 
 Whereas mankind in general are observed to 
 warp their speculative conclusions to the bent 
 of their individual humors, Ms theories are sure 
 to be in diametrical opposition to his constitu- 
 tion. He is courageous as Charles of Sweden, 
 upon instinct ; chary of his person upon prin- 
 ciple, as a travelling Quaker. He has been 
 preaching up to me, all my life, the doctrine of 
 bowing to the great — the necessity of forms, 
 and manner, to a man's getting on in the world. 
 He himself never aims at either, that I can dis- 
 cover, — and has a spirit that would stand up- 
 right in the presence of the Cham of Tartary. 
 It is pleasant to hear him discourse of patience 
 — extolling it as the truest wisdom, — and to see 
 him during the last seven minutes that his din- 
 ner is getting read3^ Nature never ran up in her 
 haste a more restless piece of workmanship than 
 when she moulded this impetuous cousin, — and 
 Art never turned out a more elaborate orator 
 than he can display himself to be, upon this 
 favorite topic of the advantages of quiet and
 
 /Rg IRelations 159 
 
 contentedness in the state, whatever it be, that 
 we are placed in. He is triumphant on this 
 theme, when he has you safe in one of those 
 short stages that ply for the western road, in a 
 very obstructing manner, at the foot of John 
 Murray's street, — where you get in when it is 
 empty, and are expected to wait till the vehicle 
 hath completed her just freight, — a trying three 
 quarters of an hour to some people. He won- 
 ders at your fidgetiness, — "where could we be 
 better than we are, thus sitting, thus consult- 
 ing f'' — " prefers, for his part, a state of rest to 
 locomotion," — with an eye all the while upon 
 the coachman, — till at length, waxing out of 
 all patience, at your cuant of it, he breaks out 
 into a pathetic remonstrance at the fellow for 
 detaining us so long over the time which he had 
 professed, and declares peremptorily, that "the 
 gentleman in the coach is determined to get 
 out, if he does not drive on that instant. ' ' 
 
 Very quick at inventing an argument, or de- 
 tecting a sophistry, he is incapable of attending 
 yo2i in any chain of arguing. Indeed, he makes 
 wild work with logic ; and seems to jump at 
 most admirable conclusions by some process, 
 not at all akin to it. Consonantly enough to 
 this, he hath been heard to deny, upon certain 
 occasions, that there exists such a faculty at all 
 in man as reason ; and wondereth how man
 
 i6o Bssa^s ot J? Ita 
 
 came first to have a conceit of it, — enforcing his 
 negation with all the might of 7'easoning he is 
 master of He has some speculative notions 
 against laughter, and will maintain that laugh- 
 ing is not natural to him, — when peradventure 
 the next moment his lungs shall crow like 
 Chanticleer. He says some of the best things 
 in the world — and declareth that wit is his aver- 
 sion. It was he who said, upon seeing the Eton 
 boys at play in their grounds, — What a pity to 
 think, that these fine ingenuous lads in a few 
 years will all be changed into frivolous Mem- 
 bers of Parliament ! 
 
 His youth was fiery, glowing, tempestuous, — 
 and in age he discovereth no symptom of cool- 
 ing. This is that which I admire in him. I 
 hate people who meet Time half-way. I am for 
 no compromise with that inevitable spoiler. 
 While he lives, J. E. will take his swing. It 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 en\dable leisure is consumed at Christie's 
 and Phillips' — or where not, to pick up pic- 
 tures, and such gauds. On these occasions he 
 mostly stoppeth me, to read a short lecture on
 
 /Ifcg IRelations i6i 
 
 the advantages a person like me possesses above 
 himself in ha^dng his time occupied with busi- 
 ness which he must do, — assureth me that he 
 often feels it hangs 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 con\4nced me, — while I 
 proceed in my opposite direction, tuneless. 
 
 It is pleasant again to see this Professor of 
 Indifference doing the honors of his new pur- 
 chase, when he has fairly housed it. You must 
 view it in ever>- 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 as- 
 sure 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 intimation 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 
 ascendancy for a few brief moons, — then, after 
 certain intermedial degradations, from the front 
 drawing-room to the back gallery', thence to the 
 dark parlor, — adopted in turn by each of the
 
 i62 jEssai^s ot Slia 
 
 Carracci, under successive lowering ascriptions 
 of filiation, mildly breaking its fall,— consigned 
 to the obli\4ous lumber-room, go out at last a 
 Lucca Giordano, or plain Carlo Maratti ! — 
 which things when I beheld — musing upon the 
 chances and mutabilities of fate below, hath 
 made me to reflect upon the altered condition 
 of great personages, or that woful Queen of 
 Richard the Second — 
 
 set forth in pomp 
 
 She came adorned hither liks sweet May, 
 Sent back like Hallowmas or shortest day. 
 
 With great love for you, J. E. hath but a lim- 
 ited symyathy with what you feel or do. He 
 lives in a world of his own, and makes slender 
 guesses at what passes in your mind. He never 
 pierces the marrow of your habits. He will tell 
 an old established play-goer, that Mr. Such-a- 
 one, of So-and-so (naming one of the theatres), 
 is a very lively comedian — as a piece of news ! 
 He advertised me but the other day of some 
 pleasant green lanes which he had found out 
 for me, knowing me to be a great walker, in 
 my own immediate vicinity — who have haunted 
 the identical spot any time these twenty years ! 
 He has not much respect for that class of feel- 
 ings which goes by the name of sentimen- 
 tal. He applies the definition of real evil to
 
 /IRS IRelatlons 163 
 
 bodily sufferings exclusively — and rejecteth all 
 others as imaginary. He is affected by the sight, 
 or the bare supposition, of a creature in pain, to 
 a degree which I have never witnessed out of 
 womankind. A constitutional acuteness to this 
 class of suffering may in part account for this. 
 The animal tribe in particular he taketh under 
 his especial protection, A broken-winded or 
 spur-galled horse is sure to find an advocate in 
 him. An overloaded ass is his client forever. 
 He is the apostle to the brute kind — the never- 
 failing friend of those who have none to care for 
 them. The contemplation of a lobster boiled, 
 or eels skinned alive, will wring him so, " all for 
 pity he could die. " It will take the savor from 
 his palate, and the rest from his pillow for days 
 and nights. With the intense feeling of Thomas 
 Clarkson, he wanted only the steadiness of pur- 
 suit, and unity of purpose, of that "true yoke- 
 fellow with Time," to have effected as much for 
 the Animal, as he hath done for the Negro 
 Crealion. But my uncontrollable cousin is but 
 imperfectly formed for purposes which demand 
 cooperation. He cannot wait. His ameliora- 
 tion plans must be ripened in a day. For this 
 reason he has cut but an equivocal figure in be- 
 nevolent societies, and combinations for the 
 alleviation of human sufferings. His zeal con- 
 stantly makes him to outrun, and put out, his
 
 164 Bssa^s ot Blla 
 
 coadjutors. He thinks of relieving, — while they 
 think of debating. He was blackballed out of 
 a society for the Relief of . . . because the 
 fervor of his humanity toiled beyond the formal 
 apprehension, and creeping processes of his 
 associates. I shall always consider this dis- 
 tinction as a patent of nobility in the Elia 
 family ! 
 
 Do I mention these seeming inconsistencies 
 to smile at, or upbraid my unique cousin ! 
 Marry, heaven, and all good manners, and the 
 understanding that should be between kins- 
 folk, forbid ! With all the strangeness of this 
 stra7igest of the Elias — I would not have him in 
 one jot or tittle other than he is ; neither would 
 I barter or exchange my wild kinsman for the 
 most exact, regular, and every way consistent 
 kinsman breathing. 
 
 In my next, reader, I may perhaps give you 
 some account of my cousin Bridget, — if you are 
 not already surfeited with cousins — and take 
 you by the hand, if you are willing to go with 
 us, on an excursion which we made a summer 
 or two since, in search of more cousins, 
 
 Through the green plains of pleasant Hertfordshire.
 
 MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE. 
 
 BRIDGET ELIA has been my housekeeper 
 for many a long year. I have obligations 
 to Bridget, extending beyond the period of 
 memorj'. We housed together, old bachelor 
 and maid, in a sort of double singleness ; with 
 such tolerable comfort, upon the whole, that I, 
 for one, find in myself no sort of disposition to 
 go out upon the mountains, with the rash king's 
 offspring, to bewail my celibacy. We agree 
 pretty well in our tastes and habits — yet so, as 
 "with a difference." We are generally in har- 
 mony, with occasional bickerings — as it should 
 be among near relations. Our sympathies are 
 rather understood than expressed ; and once, 
 upon my dissembling a tone in my voice more 
 kindly than ordinary, my cousin burst into 
 tears, and complained that I was altered. We 
 are both great readers in different directions. 
 While I am hanging over (for the thousandth 
 time) some passage in old Burton, or one of 
 his strange contemporaries, she is abstracted in 
 some modern tale, or adventure, whereof our
 
 i66 jEssa^s ot ;eiia 
 
 common reading-table is daily fed with assidu- 
 ously fresh supplies. Narrative teases me. I 
 have little concern in the progress of events. 
 She must have a story — well, ill, or indifferently 
 told — so there be life stirring in it, and plenty 
 of good or evil accidents. The fluctuations of 
 fortune in fiction — and almost in real life — have 
 ceased to interest, or operate but dully upon 
 me. Out-of-the-way humors and opinions — 
 heads with some diverting twist in them — the 
 oddities of authorship please me most. My 
 cousin has a native disrelish of any thing that 
 sounds odd or bizarre. Nothing goes down 
 with her that is quaint, irregular, or out of the 
 road of common sympathy. She " holds nature 
 is more clever," I can pardon her blindness 
 to the beautiful obliquities of the " Religio 
 Medici," but she must apologize to me for cer- 
 tain disrespectful insinuations, which she has 
 been pleased to throw out latterly, touching the 
 intellectuals of a dear favorite of mine, of the 
 last century but one, — the thrice noble, chaste, 
 and virtuous, but again somewhat fantastical, 
 and original-brained, generous Margaret New- 
 castle. 
 
 It has been the lot of my cousin, oftener per- 
 haps than I could have wished, to have had for 
 her associates and mine, free-thinkers, — leaders 
 and disciples of novel philosophies and sys-
 
 /Iftac??crs lenC), in Iberttor^sblre 167 
 
 terns ; but she neither wrangles with, nor ac- 
 cepts their opinions. That which was good and 
 venerable to her, when a child, retains its au- 
 thority over her mind still. She never juggles 
 or plays tricks with her understanding. 
 
 We are both of us inclined to be a little too 
 positive ; and I have observed the results of our 
 disputes to be almost uniformly this, — that in 
 matters of fact, dates, and circumstances it 
 turns out that I was in the right, and my cousin 
 in the wrong. But where we have differed upon 
 moral points ; upon some things proper to be 
 done, or let alone ; whatever heat of opposition, 
 or steadiness of con\nction I set out with, I am 
 sure always, in the long run, to be brought over 
 to her way of thinking. 
 
 I must touch upon the foibles of my kins- 
 woman with a gentle hand, for Bridget does not 
 like to be told of her faults. She hath an awk- 
 ward trick (to say no worse of it) of reading in 
 company ; at which times she will answer yes 
 or no to a question, without fully understanding 
 its purport, — which is provoking, and deroga- 
 tory in the highest degree to the dignity of the 
 putter of the said question. Her presence of 
 mind is equal to the most pressing trials of life, 
 but will sometimes desert her upon trifling oc- 
 casions. When the purpose requires it, and is 
 a thing of moment, she can speak to it greatly ;
 
 i68 :i£66a\)6 of ;EIta 
 
 but in matters which are not stuflF of the con- 
 science, she hath been known sometimes to let 
 slip a word less seasonably. 
 
 Her education in youth was not much attend- 
 ed to, and she happily missed all that train of 
 female garniture which passeth by the name of 
 accomplishments. She was tumbled early, by 
 accident or design, into a spacious closet of 
 good old English reading, without much selec- 
 tion or prohibition, and browsed at will upon 
 that fair and wholesome pasturage. Had I 
 twenty girls, they should be brought up exactly 
 in this fashion. I know not whether their 
 chance in wedlock might not be diminished by 
 it, but I can answer for it that it makes (if the 
 worst comes to the worst) most incomparable 
 old maids. 
 
 In a season of distress she is the truest com- 
 forter, but in the teasing accidents and minor 
 perplexities, which do not call out the will to 
 meet them, she sometimes maketh matters 
 worse by an excess of participation. If she 
 does not always divide your trouble, upon the 
 pleasanter occasions of life she is sure always to 
 treble your satisfaction. She is excellent to be 
 at a play with or upon a visit, but best when she 
 goes a journey with you. 
 
 We made an excursion together a few sum- 
 mers since into Hertfordshire, to beat up the
 
 /Rbacker^ BnD, in "IberttorDsbtre 169 
 
 quarters of some of our less-known relations in 
 that fine com country. 
 
 The oldest thing I remember is Mackery End, 
 or Mackarel End, as it is spelt, perhaps more 
 properly, in some old maps of Hertfordshire ; 
 a farm-house, — delightfully situated within a 
 gentle walk from Wheathampstead, I can just 
 remember having been there on a visit to a 
 great-aunt, when I was child, under the care of 
 Bridget, who, as I have said, is older than my- 
 self by some ten years. I wish that I could 
 throw into a heap the remainder of our joint 
 existences, that we might share them in equal 
 di\4sion. But that is impossible. The house 
 was at that time in the occupation of a substan- 
 tial yeoman, who had married my grandmother's 
 sister. His name was Gladman. My grand- 
 mother was a Bruton, married to a Field. The 
 Gladmans and the Brutons are still flourishing 
 in that part of the country, but the Fields are 
 almost extinct. More than forty years have 
 elapsed since the visit I speak of; and for the 
 greater portion of that period we have lost sight 
 of the other two branches also. Who or what 
 sort of persons inherited Mackery End — kin- 
 dred or strange folk — we were afraid almost to 
 conjecture, but determined some day to explore. 
 
 By somewhat a circuitous route, taking the 
 noble park at Luton in our way from Saint Al-
 
 Bssa^B ot JElla 
 
 bans, we arrived at the spot of our anxious 
 curiosity about noon. The sight of the old farm- 
 house, though every trace of it was effaced from 
 my recollection, affected me with a pleasure 
 which I had not experienced for many a year. 
 For though / had forgotten it, we had never 
 forgotten being there together, and we had been 
 talking about Mackery End all our lives, till 
 memory on my part became mocked with a 
 phantom of itself, and I thought I knew the 
 aspect of a place, which, when present, O how 
 unlike it was to l/iat which I had conjured up 
 so many times instead of it ! 
 
 Still the air breathed balmily about it ; the 
 season was in the " heart of June " and I could 
 say with the poet : 
 
 But thou that didst appear so fair 
 
 To fond imagination ; 
 Dost rival in the light of day 
 
 Her delicate creation ! 
 
 Bridget's was more a waking bliss than mine, 
 for she easily remembered her old acquaintance 
 again, — some altered features, of course, a little 
 grudged at. At first, indeed, she was ready 
 to disbelieve for joy ; but the scene soon re- 
 confirmed itself in her affections, — and she 
 traversed every outpost of the old mansion, to 
 the wood-house, the orchard, the place where
 
 Abacherg BnD, In IbcrttorDsbirc 171 
 
 the pigeon-house had stood (house and birds 
 ■were alike flown) — with a breathless impatience 
 of recognition, which was more -pardonable per- 
 haps than decorous at the age of fifty odd. But 
 Bridget in some things is behind her years. 
 
 The only thing left was to get into the house, 
 — and that was a difficulty which to me singly 
 would have been insurmountable ; for I am ter- 
 ribly shy in making myself known to strangers 
 and out-of-date kinsfolk. Love, stronger than 
 scruple, winged my cousin in without me ; but 
 she soon returned with a creature that might 
 have sat to a sculptor for the image of Welcome. 
 It was the youngest of the Gladmans ; who, by 
 marriage with a Brutou, had become mistress of 
 the old mansion. A comely brood are the Bru- 
 tons. Six of them, females, w^ere noted as the 
 handsomest young women in the country. But 
 this adopted Bruton, in my mind, was better 
 than they all — more comely. She was bom too 
 late to have remembered me. She just recol- 
 lected in early life to have had her cousin Brid- 
 get once pointed out to her, climbing a stile. 
 But the name of kindred, and of cousinship, 
 was enough. Those slender ties, that prove 
 slight as gossamer in the rending atmosphere of 
 a metropolis, bind faster, as we found it, in 
 hearty, homely, loving Hertfordshire. In five 
 minutes we were as thoroughly acquainted as
 
 172 Bsea^s ot lElla 
 
 if we had been born and bred up together ; were 
 familiar, even to the calUng each other by our 
 Christian names. So Christians should call one 
 another. To have seen Bridget, and her — it. 
 was like the meeting of the two scriptural cous- 
 ins ! There was a grace and dignity, an apti- 
 tude of form and stature, answering to her 
 mind, in this farmer's wife, which would have 
 shined in a palace— or so we thought it. We 
 were made welcome by husband and wife 
 equally — we, and our friend that was with us. 
 I had almost forgotten him, — but B. F. will not 
 so soon forget that meeting, if peradventure he 
 shall read this on the far distant shores where the 
 kangaroo haunts. The fatted calf was made 
 ready, or rather was already so, as if in antici- 
 pation of our coming ; and, after an appropri- 
 ate glass of native wine, never let me forget with 
 what honest pride this hospitable cousin made us 
 proceed to Wheathampstead, to introduce us 
 (as some new-found rarity) to her mother and 
 sister Gladmans, who did indeed know some- 
 thing more of us, at a time when she almost 
 knew nothing. With that corresponding kind- 
 ness we were received by them also, — how Brid- 
 get's memory, exalted by the occasion, warmed 
 into a thousand half-obliterated recollections of 
 things and persons, to my utter astonishment, 
 and her own — and to the astoundment of B. F.
 
 /flbacherg lEn^, in "IberttorDsbicc 173 
 
 who sat by, almost the only thing that was not 
 a cousin there,— old effaced images of more than 
 half-forgotten names and circumstances still 
 crowding back upon her as w^ords written in 
 lemon come out upon exposure to a friendly 
 warmth, — when I forget all this, then may my 
 country cousins forget me ; and Bridget no 
 more remember, that in the days of weakling 
 infancy I was her tender charge, — as I have 
 been her care in foolish manhood since, — in 
 those pretty pastoral walks, long ago, about 
 Mackery End, in Hertfordshire.
 
 MY FIRST PLAY. 
 
 AT the north end of Cross Court there yet 
 stands a portal, of some architectural pre- 
 tensions, though reduced to humble use, serv- 
 ing at present for an entrance to a printing- 
 office. This old door-way, if you are young, 
 reader, you may not know was the identical pit 
 entrance to old Drury — Garrick's Drury, — all 
 of it that is left. I never pass it without shak- 
 ing some forty years from off my shoulders, re- 
 curring to the evening when I passed through 
 it to see my first play. The afternoon had been 
 wet, and the condition of our going (the elder 
 folks and myself) was, that the rain should 
 cease. With what a beating heart did I watch 
 from the window the puddles, from the stillness 
 of which I was taught to prognosticate the de- 
 sired cessation ! I seem to remember the last 
 spurt, and the glee with which I ran to an- 
 nounce it. 
 
 We went with orders, which my godfather, F. 
 had sent us. He kept the oil-shop (now Davies')
 
 ^S 3fir5t ipla^ 175 
 
 at the corner of Featherstone Buildings, in Hol- 
 born. F. was a tall, grave person, lofty in 
 speech, and had pretensions above his rank. 
 He associated in those days with John Palmer, 
 the comedian, whose gait and bearing he seemed 
 to copy; if John (which is quite as likely) did 
 not rather borrow somewhat of his manner 
 from my godfather. He was also known to, 
 and visited by Sheridan. It was to his house 
 in Holborn that young Brinsley brought his 
 first wife on her elopement with him from a 
 boarding-school at Bath, — the beautiful Maria 
 Linley. My parents were present (over a quad- 
 rille table) when he arrived in the evening with 
 his harmonious charge. From either of these 
 connections it may be inferred that my god- 
 father could command an order for the then 
 Drury Lane Theatre at pleasure, — and, indeed, 
 a pretty liberal issue of those cheap billets, in 
 Brinsley's easy autograph, I have heard him say 
 was the sole remuneration which he had re- 
 ceived formany years' nightlyilluminationof the 
 orchestra and various avenues of that theatre, — 
 and he was content it should be so. The honor 
 of Sheridan's familiarity — or supposed famil- 
 iarity — was better to my godfather than money. 
 F. was the most gentlemanly of oilmen ; 
 grandiloquent, yet courteous. His delivery of 
 the commonest matters of fact w^as Ciceronian.
 
 176 JE05as0 ot JElia 
 
 He had two Latin words almost constantly in 
 his mouth, (how odd sounds Latin from an oil- 
 man's lips!) which my better knowledge since 
 has enabled me to correct. In strict pronuncia- 
 tion they should have been sounded vice versd, 
 — but in those young years they impressed me 
 with more awe than they would now do, read 
 aright from Seneca or Varro, — in his own pecul- 
 iar pronunciation, monosyllabically elaborated, 
 or Anglicized, into something like verse verse. 
 By an imposing manner, and the help of these 
 distorted syllables, he climbed (but that was 
 little) to the highest parochial honors which St. 
 Andrews has to bestow. 
 
 He is dead,— and thus much I thought due to 
 his memory, both for my first orders (little 
 wondrous talismans ! — slight keys, and insig- 
 nificant to outward sight, but opening to me 
 more than Arabian paradises !), and moreover 
 that by his testamentary beneficence I came 
 into possession of the only landed property 
 which I could ever call my own, — situate near 
 the roadway \dllage of pleasant Puckeridge, in 
 Hertfordshire. When I journeyed down to take 
 possession, and planted foot on my own 
 ground, the stately habits of the donor de- 
 scended upon me, and I strode (shall I confess 
 the vanity ?) with larger paces over my allot- 
 ment of three quarters of an acre, with its com-
 
 /IRl2 3flr0t ipia^ 1^7 
 
 modious mansion in the midst, with the feeling 
 of an English freeholder that all betwixt sky 
 and centre was my own. The estate had passed 
 into more prudent hands, and nothing but an 
 agrarian can restore it. 
 
 In those days were pit orders. Beshrew the 
 uncomfortable manager who abolished them ! — 
 with one of these we went. I remember the 
 waiting at the door — not that which is left — but 
 between that and an inner door in shelter, — O 
 when shall I be such an expectant again ! — 
 with the cry of nonpareils, an indispensable 
 play-house accompaniment in those days. As 
 near as I can recollect, the fashionable pronun- 
 ciation of the theatrical fruiteresses then was, 
 *' Chase some oranges, chase some numparels, 
 chase a bill of the play" ; — chase pro chuse. 
 But when we got in, I beheld the green curtain 
 that veiled a heaven to my imagination, which 
 was soon to be disclosed — the breathless antici- 
 pation I endured ! I had seen something like 
 it in the plate prefixed to Troilus and Cressida, 
 in Rowe's Shakspeare, — 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 substance (I know
 
 178 Bsea^s of lEUa. 
 
 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, inca- 
 pable of the anticipation, I reposed my shut eyes 
 in a sort of resignation upon the maternal lap. 
 It rang the second time. The curtain drew up, 
 — I was not past six years old, and the play was 
 Artaxerxes ! 
 
 I had dabbled a little in the Universal His- 
 tory, — the ancient part of it, — and here was the 
 court of Persia. It was being admitted to a 
 sight of the past. I took no proper interest in 
 the action going on, for I understood not its 
 import, — but I heard the word Darius, and I 
 was in the midst of Daniel. All feeling was 
 absorbed in \nsion. Gorgeous vests, gardens, 
 palaces, princesses, passed before me. I knew 
 not players. I was in Persepolis for the time, 
 and the burning idol of their devotion almost 
 converted me into a worshipper. I was awe- 
 struck, and believed those significations to be 
 something more than elemental fires. It was 
 all enchantment and a dream. No such pleas- 
 ure has since visited me but in dreams. Harle- 
 quin's invasion followed ; where, I remember,
 
 /Ilb^ JFlrst pla^ 179 
 
 the transformatiou of the magistrates into 
 reverend beldams seemed to me a piece of grave 
 historic justice, and the tailor carrying his own 
 head to be as sober a verity as the legend of St. 
 Denys. 
 
 The next play to which I was taken was the 
 Lady of the Manor, of which, with the excep- 
 tion of some scenery, very faint traces are left 
 in my memory. It was followed by a panto- 
 mime, called Lun's Ghost— a satiric touch, 
 I apprehend, upon Rich, not long since dead — 
 but to my apprehension (too severe for satire), 
 Ivun was as remote a piece of antiquity as Lud 
 — the father of a line of Harlequins — trans- 
 mitting his dagger of lath (the wooden sceptre) 
 through countless ages. I saw the primeval 
 Motley come from his silent tomb in a ghastly 
 vest of white patchwork, like the apparition of 
 a dead rainbow. So Harlequins (thought I) 
 look when they are dead. 
 
 My third play followed in quick succession. 
 It was the Way of the World. I think I must 
 have sat at it as grave as a judge ; for, I remem- 
 ber, the hysteric affectations of good Lady Wish- 
 fort affected me like some solemn tragic pas- 
 sion. Robinson Crusoe followed ; in which 
 Crusoe, man Friday, and the parrot, were as 
 good and authentic as in the story. The clown- 
 ery and pantaloonery of these pantomimes have
 
 i8o Bssa^e ot Blla 
 
 clean passed out of my head. I believe, I no 
 more laughed at them, than at the same age I 
 should have been disposed to laugh at the gro- 
 tesque Gothic heads (seeming to me then re- 
 plete with dev'out meaning) that gape, and 
 grin, in stone around the inside of the old 
 Round Church (my church) of the Templars. 
 
 I saw these plays in the season 1 781-2, when I 
 was from six to seven years old. After the inter- 
 vention of six or seven other years (for at school 
 all play -going was inhibited) I again entered the 
 doors of a theatre. That old Artaxerxes even- 
 ing had never done ringing in my fancy. I ex- 
 pected the same feelings to come again with the 
 same occasion. But we differ from ourselves 
 less at sixty and sixteen, than the latter does 
 from six. In that interval what had I not lost ! 
 At the first period I knew nothing, discrimi- 
 nated nothing. I felt all, loved all, wondered 
 all— 
 
 Was nourished, I could not tell how, — 
 
 I had left the temple a devotee, and was re- 
 turned a rationalist. The same things were 
 there materially ; but the emblem, the reference, 
 was gone ! The green curtain w'as no longer a 
 veil, drawn between two worlds, the unfolding 
 of which was to bring back past ages to present a 
 " royal ghost, " — but a certain quantity of green
 
 ^S jfirst plas i8i 
 
 taize, which was to separate the audience for a 
 given time from certain of their fellow-men who 
 were to come forward and pretend those parts. 
 The lights — the orchestra lights — came up a 
 clumsy machinery. The first ring, and the sec- 
 ond ring, was now but a trick of the prompter's 
 bell — which had been, like the note of the 
 cuckoo, a phantom of a voice, no hand seen or 
 guessed at which ministered to its warning. 
 The actors were men and women painted. I 
 thought the fault was in them ; but it was in 
 myself, and the alteration which those many 
 centuries — of six short twelvemonths — had 
 wrought in me. Perhaps it was fortunate for me 
 that the play of the evening was but an indif- 
 ferent comedy, as it gave me time to crop some 
 unreasonable expectations, which might have 
 interfered with the genuine emotions with 
 which I was soon after enabled to enter upon 
 the first appearance to me of Mrs. Siddons in 
 Isabella. Comparison and retrospection soon 
 yielded to the present attraction of the scene ; 
 and the theatre became to me, upon a new 
 stock, the most delightful of recreations.
 
 MODERN GALLANTRY. 
 
 IN comparing modern vnth ancient manners, 
 we are pleased to compliment ourselves upon 
 the point of gallantry ; a certain obsequious- 
 ness, or deferential respect, which we are sup- 
 posed to pay to females, as females. 
 
 I shall believe that this principle actuates our 
 conduct, when I can forget, that in the nine- 
 teeth century, of the era from which we date 
 our civility, we are but just beginning to leave 
 off the very frequent practice of whipping 
 female in public, in common with the coarsest 
 male offenders. 
 
 I shall believe it to be influential, when I can 
 shut my eyes to the fact, that in England 
 women are still occasionally — hanged. 
 
 I shall believe in it, when actresses are no 
 longer subject to be hissed off a stage by gen- 
 tlemen. 
 
 I shall believe in it, when Dorimant hands a 
 fish-wife across the kennel ; or assists the apple-
 
 /HboDern Gallantry 1S3 
 
 woman to pick up her wandering fruit, which 
 some unlucky dray has just dissipated. 
 
 I shall believe in it, when the Dorimants in 
 humbler life, who would be thought in their 
 way notable adepts in this refinement, shall act 
 upon it in places where they are not known, or 
 think themselves not observed, — when I shall 
 see the traveller for some rich tradesman part 
 with his admired box-coat, to spread it over the 
 defenceless shoulders of the poor woman who 
 is passing to her parish on the roof of the same 
 stage-coach with him, drenched in the rain, — 
 when I shall no longer see a woman standing 
 up in the pit of a London theatre, till she is sick 
 and faint with the exertion, with men about 
 her, seated at their ease, and jeering at her dis- 
 tress ; till one, that seems to have more man- 
 ners or conscience than the rest, significantly 
 declares "she should be welcome to his seat, 
 if she were a little younger and handsomer." 
 Place this dapper warehouse-man, or that 
 rider, in a circle of their own female acquaint- 
 ance, and you shall confess you have not seen a 
 politer-bred man in Lothbury. 
 
 Lastly, I shall begin to believe that there is 
 some such principle influencing our conduct, 
 when more than one half of the drudgery'- and 
 coarse servitude of the world shall cease to be 
 performed by women.
 
 i84 Bssags of JElla 
 
 Until that day comes, I shall never believe 
 this boasted point to be any thing more than a 
 conventional fiction ; a pageant got up between 
 the sexes, in a certain rank, and at a certain 
 time of life, in which both find their account 
 equally. 
 
 I shall be even disposed to rank it among the 
 salutary fictions of life, when in polite circles I 
 shall see the same attentions paid to age as to 
 youth, to homely features as to handsome, to 
 coarse complexions as to clear, — to the woman, 
 as she is a woman, not as she is a beauty, a for- 
 tune, or a title. 
 
 I shall believe it to be something more than 
 a name, when a well-dressed gentleman in a 
 well-dressed company can advert to the topic of 
 female old age without exciting, and intending 
 to excite, a sneer; — when the phrases "anti- 
 quated virginity," and such a one has "over- 
 stood her market," pronounced in good com- 
 pany, shall raise immediate ofience in man, or 
 woman, that shall hear them spoken. 
 
 Joseph Paice, of Bread-street Hill, merchant, 
 and one of the directors of the South-Sea Com- 
 pany — the same to whom Edwards, the Shaks-- 
 peare commentator, has addressed a fine son- 
 net — was the only pattern of consistent gallantry 
 I have met with. He took me under his shelter 
 at an early age, and bestowed some pains upon
 
 /HboDern ©allantrs 185 
 
 me. I owe to his precepts and example what- 
 ever there is of the man of business (and that is 
 not much) in my composition. It was not his 
 fault that I did not profit more. Though bred 
 a Presbyterian, and brought up a merchant, he 
 was the finest gentleman of his time. He had 
 not one system of attention to females in the 
 drawing-room, and another in the shop, or at 
 the stall. I do not mean that he made no dis- 
 tinction. But he never lost sight of sex, or 
 overlooked it in the casualties of a disadvan- 
 tageous situation. I have seen him stand 
 bareheaded — smile if you please — to a poor ser- 
 vant-girl, while she has been inquiring of him 
 the way to some street — in such a posture of 
 unforced civility, as neither to embarrass her in 
 the acceptance, nor himself in the offer, of it. 
 He was no dangler, in the common acceptation 
 of the word, after women ; but he reverenced 
 and upheld, in every form in which it came be- 
 fore him, womanhood. I have seen him — nay, 
 smile not — tenderly escorting a market-woman, 
 whom he had encountered in a shower, exalting 
 his umbrella over her poor basket of fruit, that 
 it might receive no damage, with as much care- 
 fulness as if she had been a countess. To the 
 reverend form of Female Eld he would yield 
 the wall (though it were to an ancient beggar- 
 woman) with more ceremony than we can afford
 
 i86 Bssa^s of jElla 
 
 to show our grandams. He was the Preux Chev- 
 alier of Age ; the Sir Calidore or Sir Tristans 
 to those who have no Calidores or Tristans to 
 defend them. The roses, that had long faded 
 thence, still bloomed for him in those withered 
 and yellow cheeks. 
 
 He was never married, but in his youth he 
 paid his addresses to the beautiful Susan Win- 
 stanley — old Winstanley's daughter of Clapton, 
 who dying in the early days of their courtship, 
 confirmed in him the resolution of perpetual 
 bachelorship. It was during their short court- 
 ship, he told me, that he had been one day 
 treating his mistress to a profusion of civil 
 speeches — the common gallantries — to which 
 kind of thing she had hitherto manifested no 
 repugnance — but in this instance with no effect. 
 He could not obtain from her a decent acknowl- 
 edgment in return. She rather seemed to re- 
 sent his compliments. He could not set it down 
 to caprice, for the lady had always shown her- 
 self above that littleness. When he ventured, 
 on the following day, finding her a little better 
 humored, to expostulate with her on her cold- 
 ness of yesterday, she confessed, with her usual 
 frankness, that she had no sort of dislike to his 
 attentions ; that she could even endure some 
 high-flown compliments ; that a young woman 
 placed in her situation had a right to expect all
 
 /IRo^ern Gallantry 187 
 
 sorts of civil things said to her ; that she hoped 
 she could digest a dose of adulation, short of 
 insincerity, with as little injury to her humility 
 as most young women ; but that — a little before 
 he had commenced his compliments — she had 
 overheard him by accident, in rather rough lan- 
 guage, rating a young woman, who had not 
 brought home his cravats quite to the appointed 
 time, and she thought to herself, " As I am Miss 
 Susan Winstanley, and a young lady, — a re- 
 puted beauty, and known to be a fortune — I 
 can have my choice of the finest speeches from 
 the mouth of this very fine gentleman who is 
 courting me, — but if I had been poor Mary 
 Such-a-one {^naming the milliner) — and had 
 failed of bringing home the cravats to the ap- 
 pointed hour — though perhaps I had sat up half 
 the night to forward them — what sort of com- 
 pliments should I have received then ? And 
 my woman's pride came to my assistance ; and 
 I thought, that if it were only to do me honor, 
 a female, like myself, might have received 
 handsomer usage ; and I was determined not 
 to accept any fine speeches, to the compromise 
 of that sex, the belonging to which was after 
 all my strongest claim and title to them." 
 
 I think the lady discovered both generosity, 
 and a just way of thinking, in this rebuke which 
 she gave her lover ; and I have sometimes im-
 
 i88 Bssass ot Blia 
 
 agined, that the uncommon strain of courtesy, 
 which through life regulated the actions and 
 behavior of my friend toward all womankind 
 indiscriminately, owed its happy origin to this 
 seasonable lesson from the lips of his lamented 
 mistress. 
 
 I w4sh the whole female world would enter- 
 tain the same notion of these things that Miss 
 Winstanley showed. Then we should see some- 
 thing of the spirit of consistent gallantry ; and 
 no longer witness the anomaly of the same man 
 — a pattern of true politeness to a wife — of cold 
 contempt, or rudeness, to a sister — the idolater 
 of his female mistress — the disparager and de- 
 spiser of his no less female aunt, or unfortunate 
 — still female — maiden cousin. Just so much 
 respect as a woman derogates from her osvn 
 sex, in whatever condition placed — her hand- 
 maid or dependent — she deserves to have dimin- 
 ished from herself on that score ; and probably 
 will feel the diminution, when youth, and 
 beauty, and advantages, not inseparable from 
 sex, shall lose of their attraction. What a 
 woman should demand of a man in courtship, 
 or after it, is first — respect for her as she is a 
 woman ; and next to that to be respected by 
 him above all other women. But let her stand 
 upon her female character as upon a founda- 
 tion ; and let the attentions, incident to indi-
 
 /IBot)ern Oallantrg 
 
 189 
 
 vidual preference, be so many pretty addita- 
 ments and ornaments — as many, and as fanciful 
 as you please — to that main structure. Let her 
 first lesson be with sweet Susan Winstanley — 
 to reverence her sex.
 
 THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER 
 TEMPLE. 
 
 I WAS born, and passed the first seven years 
 of my life, in the Temple. Its church, its 
 halls, its gardens, its fountain, its river, I had 
 almost said — for in those young years, what was 
 this king of rivers to me but a stream that 
 watered our pleasant places ? These are of my 
 oldest recollections. I repeat, to this day, no 
 verses to myself more frequently, or with kind- 
 lier emotion, than those of vSpenser, where he 
 speaks of this spot. 
 
 There when they came, whereas those bricky towers, 
 The which on Themmes brode aged back doth ride, 
 Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers, 
 There whylome wont the Templar knights to bide, 
 Till they decayed through pride. 
 
 Indeed, it is the most elegant spot in the me- 
 tropolis. What a transition for a countryman 
 visiting London for the first time — the passing 
 from the crowded Strand or Fleet Street, by 
 unexpected avenues, into its magnificent ample 
 squares, it classic green recesses ! What a cheer-
 
 Zbc ®ID JBencbcrs 191 
 
 fill, liberal look hath that portion of it, which, 
 from three sides, overlooks the greater garden ; 
 that goodly pile 
 
 Of building strong, albeit of Paper hight, 
 
 confronting with massive contrast, the lighter, 
 older, more fantastically shrouded one, named 
 of Harcourt, with the cheerful Crown-ofiice Row 
 (place of my kindly engendure), right opposite 
 the stately stream, which washes the garden- 
 foot with her yet scarcely trade-polluted waters, 
 and seems but just weaned from her Twicken- 
 ham Naiades ! a man would give something to 
 have been bom in such places. What a col- 
 legiate aspect has that fine Elizabethan hall, 
 where the fountain plays, which I have made 
 to rise and fall, how many times, to the astound- 
 ment of the young urchins, my contemporaries, 
 who, not being able to guess at its recondite 
 machinery, were almost tempted to hail the 
 wondrous work as magic ! What an antique 
 air had the now almost effaced sundials, with 
 their moral inscriptions, seeming coevals with 
 that Time which they measured, and to take 
 their revelations of its flight immediately from 
 heaven, holding correspondence with the foun- 
 tain of light ! How would the dark line steal 
 imperceptibly on, watched by the eye of child- 
 hood, eager to detect its movement, never
 
 192 Basa^s of jBiia 
 
 catclied, nice as an evanescent cloud, or the 
 first arrests of sleep ! 
 
 Ah ! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand 
 
 Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived ! 
 
 What a dead thing is a clock, with its pon- 
 derous embowelments of lead and brass, its 
 pert or solemn dulness of communication, com- 
 pared with the simple altar-like structure, and 
 silent heart-language of the old dial ! It stood 
 as the garden god of Christian gardens. Why- 
 is it almost everywhere vanished ? If its busi- 
 ness-use be superseded by more elaborate in- 
 ventions, its moral uses, its beauty, might have 
 pleaded for its continuance. It spoke of moder- 
 ate labors, of pleasures not protracted after sun- 
 set, of temperance, and good hours. It was the 
 primitive clock, the horologe of the first world. 
 Adam could scarce have missed it in Paradise. 
 It was the measure appropriate for sweet plants 
 and flowers to spring by, for the birds to appor- 
 tion their silvery warblings by, for flocks to 
 pasture and be led to fold by. The shepherd 
 ' ' carved it out quaintly in the sun ' ' ; and, 
 turning philosopher by the very occupation, 
 provided it with mottoes more touching than 
 tombstones. It was a pretty device of the 
 gardener, recorded by Marvell, who, in the days 
 of artificial gardening, made a dial out of herbs
 
 XLbc Qlt> JSencbers 193 
 
 and flowers. I must quote his verses a little 
 higher up, for they are full, as all his serious 
 poetrj^ was, of a witty delicacy. They will not 
 come in awkwardly, I hope, in a talk of foun- 
 tains, and sundials. He is speaking of sweet 
 garden scenes : 
 
 What wondrous life is this I lead ! 
 Ripe apples drop about my head. 
 The luscious clusters of the vine 
 Upon my mouth do crush their wine. 
 The nectarine, and curious peach, 
 Into my hands themselves do reach. 
 Stumbling on melons, as I pass, 
 Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass. 
 Meanwhile the mind from pleasure less 
 Withdraws into its happiness. 
 The mind, that ocean, where each kind 
 Does straight its own resemblance find ; 
 Yet it creates, transcending these, 
 Far other worlds, and other seas, 
 Annihilating all that 's made 
 To a green thought in a green shade. 
 Here at the fountain's sliding foot, 
 Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root, 
 Casting the body's vest aside, 
 My soul into the boughs does glide ; 
 There, like a bird it sits and sings. 
 Then wets and claps its silver wings, 
 And, till prepared for longer flight, 
 Waves in its plumes the various light. 
 How well the skilful gardener drew, 
 Of flowers and herbs this dial new. 
 Where, from above, the milder sun 
 Does through a fragrant zodiac run ;
 
 194 Bssa^s of BUa 
 
 And, as it works, the industrious bee 
 Computes its time as well as we. 
 How could such sweet and wholesome hours 
 Be reckon'd, but with herbs and flowers. * 
 
 The artificial fountains of the metropolis are, 
 in like manner, fast vanishing. Most of them 
 are dried up, or bricked over. Yet, where one 
 is left, as in that little green nook behind the 
 South-Sea House, what a freshness it gives to 
 the dreary pile ! Four little winged marble boys 
 used to play their virgin fancies, spouting out 
 ever fresh streams from their innocent wanton 
 lips in the square of Lincoln's Inn, when I was 
 no bigger than they were figured. They are 
 gone, and the spring choked up. The fashion, 
 they tell me, is gone by, and these things are 
 esteemed childish. Why not then gratify chil- 
 dren by letting them stand ? I^awyers, I sup- 
 pose, were children once. They are awakening 
 images to them at least. Why must every thing 
 smack of man and mannish ? Is the world all 
 grown up ? Is childhood dead ? Or is there 
 not in the bosoms of the wisest and best some 
 of the child's heart left, to respond to its earliest 
 enchantments? The figures were grotesque. 
 Are the stiff-wigged living figures, that still 
 flitter and chatter about that area, less Gothic 
 in appearance ? or is the splutter of their hot 
 * From a copy of verses entitled The Garden.
 
 ^be ©ID JSencbers 195 
 
 rhetoric one half so refreshing and innocent as 
 the little cool playful streams those exploded 
 cherubs uttered ? 
 
 They have lately Gothicized the entrance to 
 the Inner Temple Hall, and the library front ; to 
 assimilate them, I suppose, to the body of the 
 hall, which they do not at all resemble. What 
 has become of the winged horse that stood 
 over the former ? a stately arms ! and who has 
 removed those frescoes of the Virtues, which 
 Italianized the end of the Paper Building? — my 
 first hint of allegory I They must account to me 
 for these things, which I miss so greatly. 
 
 The terrace is, indeed, left, which we used to 
 call the parade ; but the traces are passed away 
 of the footsteps w^hich made its pavement 
 awful ! It is become common and profane. 
 The old benchers had it almost sacred to them- 
 selves, in the forepart of the day at least. They 
 might not be sided or jostled. Their air and 
 dress asserted the parade. You left wide spaces 
 betwixt you, when you passed them. We walk 
 on even terms with their successors. The ro- 
 guish eye of J 11, ever ready to be delivered 
 
 of a jest, almost invites a stranger to vie a re- 
 partee with it. But what insolent familiar 
 durst have mated Thomas Coventry? — whose 
 person was a quadrate, his step massy and ele- 
 phantine, his face square as a lion's, his gait
 
 196 l£63ti^6 Of BUa 
 
 peremptory and path-keeping, indivertible from 
 his way as a moving column, the scarecrow of 
 his inferiors, the browbeater of equals and su- 
 periors, who made a solitude of children wher- 
 ever he came, for they fled his insufferable 
 presence, as they would have shunned an Elisha 
 bear. His growl was as thunder in their ears, 
 whether he spake to them in mirth or in re- 
 buke, his invitatory notes, being indeed, of all, 
 the most repulsive and horrid. Clouds of snuff, 
 aggravating the natural terrors of his speech, 
 broke from each majestic nostril, darkening the 
 air. He took it not by pinches, but a palmful at 
 once, diving for it under the mighty flaps of his 
 old-fashioned waistcoat pocket ; his waistcoat 
 red and angry, his coat dark rappee, tinctured 
 by dye original, and by adjuncts, with buttons of 
 obsolete gold. And so he paced the terrace. 
 
 By his side a milder form was sometimes to 
 be seen ; the pensive gentility of Samuel Salt. 
 They were coevals, and had nothing but that 
 and their benchership in common. In politics 
 Salt was a Whig, and Coventry a stanch Tory. 
 Many a sarcastic growl did the latter cast out — 
 for Coventry had a rough spinous humor — at 
 the political confederates of his associate, which 
 rebounded from the gentle bosom of the latter 
 like cannon balls from wool. You could not 
 ruffle Samuel Salt,
 
 trbe ©10 :©encbcr6 197 
 
 S. had the reputation of being a very clever 
 man, and of excellent discernment in the cham- 
 ber practice of the law. I suspect his knowl- 
 edge did not amount to much. When a case of 
 difficult disposition of money, testamentary or 
 otherwise, came before him, he ordinarily 
 handed it over with a few instructions to his 
 man Lovel, who was a quick little fellow, and 
 would despatch it out of hand by the light of 
 natural understanding, of which he had an un- 
 common share. It was incredible what repute 
 for talents S. enjoyed by the mere trick of grav- 
 ity. He was a shy man ; a child might pose him 
 in a minute, — indolent and procrastinating to 
 the last degree. Yet men would give him credit 
 for vast application, in spite of himself. He was 
 not to be trusted with himself with impunity. 
 He never dressed for a dinner party but he for- 
 got his sword — they wore swords then — or some 
 other necessary part of his equipage. Lovel 
 had his eye upon him on all these occasions, 
 and ordinarily gave him his cue. If there was 
 any thing which he could speak unseasonably ; 
 he was sure to do it. He was to dine at a rela- 
 tive's of the unfortunate Miss Blandy on the 
 day of her execution ; — and L. who had a wary 
 foresight of his probable hallucinations, before 
 he set out, schooled him with great anxiety not 
 in any possible manner to allude to her story
 
 that day. S. promised faithfully to observe the 
 injunction. He had not been seated in the par- 
 lor, where the company was expecting the din- 
 ner summons, four minutes, when, a pause in 
 the conversation ensuing, he got up, looked 
 out of the window, and pulling down his ruffles 
 — an ordinary motion with him — observed, " it 
 was a gloomy day," and added, "Miss Blandy 
 must be hanged by this time, I suppose." In- 
 stances of this sort were perpetual. Yet S. was 
 thought by some of the greatest men of his 
 time a fit person to be consulted, not alone in 
 matters pertaining to the law, but in the ordi- 
 nary niceties and embarrassments of conduct — 
 from force of manner entirely. He never 
 laughed. He had the same good fortune among 
 the female world, — was a known toast with the 
 ladies, and one or two are said to have died for 
 love of him — I suppose, because he never trifled 
 or talked gallantry with them, or paid them, in- 
 deed, hardly common attentions. He had a 
 fine face and person, but wanted, methought, 
 the spirit that should have shown them off with 
 advantage to the women. His eye lacked lustre. 
 Not so, thought Susan P. ; who, at the ad- 
 vanced age of sixty, was seen, in the cold even- 
 ing time, unaccompanied, wetting the pave- 
 ment of B d Row, with tears that fell in 
 
 drops which might be heard, because her friend
 
 Ebe ©ID :©encbcr6 199 
 
 had died that day — he, whom she had pursued 
 with a hopeless passion for the last forty years, 
 — a passion, which years could not extinguish 
 or abate ; nor the long-resolved, yet gently-en- 
 forced, puttings off of unrelenting bachelor- 
 hood dissuade from its cherished purpose. Mild 
 Susan P., thou hast now thy friend in heaven ! 
 
 Thomas Coventry was a cadet of the noble 
 family of that name. He passed his youth in 
 contracted circumstances, which gave him 
 early those parsimonious habits which in after- 
 life never forsook him ; so that, with one wind- 
 fall or another, about the time I knew him he 
 was master of four or five hundred thousand 
 pounds ; nor did he look, or walk, worth a 
 moidore less. He lived in a gloomy house op- 
 posite the pump in Serjeant's Inn, Fleet Street. 
 J., the counsel, is doing self-imposed penance in 
 it, for what reason I divine not, at this day. C. 
 had an agreeable seat at North Cray, where he 
 seldom spent above a day or two at a time in 
 the summer ; but preferred, during the hot 
 months, standing at his window in this damp, 
 close, well-like mansion, to watch, as he said, 
 "the maids drawing water all day long." I 
 suspect he had his within-door reasons for the 
 preference. Hie currus et arnia fuere. He 
 might think his treasures more safe. His house 
 had the aspect of a strong-box. C. was a close
 
 200 JSs6a>SB ot JBlia 
 
 huuks — a hoarder rather than a miser — or, if a 
 miser, none of the mad Blwes breed, who have 
 brought discredit upon a character, which can- 
 not exist without certain admirable points of 
 steadiness and unity of purpose. One may hate 
 a true miser, but cannot, I suspect, so easily de- 
 spise him. By taking care of the pence, he is 
 often enabled to part with the pounds, upon a 
 scale that leaves us careless generous fellows 
 halting at an immeasurable distance behind. 
 C. gave away 30,000/. at once in his life-time to 
 a blind charity. His housekeeping was severely 
 looked after, but he kept the table of a gentle- 
 man. He would know who came in and who 
 went out of his house, but his kitchen chimney 
 was never suffered to freeze. 
 
 Salt was his opposite in this, as in all — never 
 knew what he was worth in the world ; and 
 having but a competency for his rank, which 
 his indolent habits w^ere little calculated to im- 
 prove, might have suffered severely if he had 
 not had honest people about him. Lovel took 
 care of every thing. He w^as at once his clerk, 
 his good servant, his dresser, his friend, his 
 ' ' flapper, ' ' his guide, stop-watch, auditor, treas- 
 iirer. He did nothing without consulting Lov- 
 el, or failed in any thing without expecting 
 and fearing his admonishing. He put himself 
 almost too much in his hands, had they not
 
 trbe ®l& J5encber3 
 
 been the purest in the world. He resigned his 
 title almost to respect as a master, if L. could 
 ever have forgotten for a moment that he was 
 a servant. 
 
 I knew this Lovel. He was a man of an in- 
 corrigible and losing honesty. A good fellow 
 withal, and "would stride." In the cause of 
 the oppressed he never considered inequalities, 
 or calculated the number of his opponents. He 
 once wrested a sword out of the hand of a man 
 of quality that had drawn upon him, and pum- 
 melled him severely with the hilt of it. The 
 swordsman had ofifered insult to a female — an 
 occasion upon which no odds against him could 
 have prevented the interference of Lovel. He 
 would stand next day bareheaded to the same 
 person, modestly to excuse his interference — 
 for ly. never forgot rank, where something 
 better was not concerned. L. was the live- 
 liest little fellow breathing, had a face as gay as 
 Garrick's, whom he was said greatly to re- 
 semble (I have a portrait of him which confirms 
 it), possessed a fine turn for humorous poetry 
 — next to Swift and Prior — moulded heads in 
 clay or plaster-of-Paris to admiration, by the 
 dint of natural genius merely ; turned cribbage 
 boards, and such small cabinet toys, to perfec- 
 tion ; took a hand at quadrille or bowls with 
 equal facility ; made punch better than any
 
 202 l£66ti^6 Of BUa 
 
 man of his degree in England ; had the mer- 
 liest quips and conceits ; and was altogether as 
 brimful of rogueries and inventions as you 
 could desire. He was a brother of the angle, 
 moreover, and just such a free, hearty, honest 
 companion as Mr. Isaak Walton would have 
 chosen to go a-fishing with. I saw him in his 
 old age and the decay of his faculties, palsy- 
 smitten, in the last sad stage of human weak- 
 ness — "a remnant most forlorn of what he 
 was," — yet even then his eye would light up 
 upon the mention of his favorite Garrick. He 
 was greatest, he would say, in Bayes — "was 
 upon the stage nearly throughout the whole 
 performance, and as busy as a bee." At inter- 
 vals, too, he would speak of his former life, and 
 how he came up a little boy from Lincoln to go 
 to service, and how his mother cried at parting 
 with him, and how he returned, after some few 
 years' absence, in his smart new livery, to see 
 her, and she blessed herself at the change, and 
 could hardly be brought to believe that it was 
 "her own bairn." And then, the excitement 
 subsiding, he would weep, till I have wished 
 that sad second childhood might have a mother 
 still to lay its head upon her lap. But the com- 
 mon mother of us all in no long time after re- 
 ceived him gently into hers. 
 
 With Coventry, and with Salt, in their walks
 
 trbc ©l^ 3Bcnchcv6 203 
 
 upon the terrace, most commonly Peter Pierson 
 would join to make up a third. They did not 
 walk linked arm in arm in those days — "as 
 now our stout triumvirs sweep the streets," — 
 but generally with both hands folded behind 
 them for state, or with one at least behind, the 
 other carr}-ing a cane. P. was a benevolent, 
 but not a prepossessing man. He had that in 
 his face which you could not term unhappiuess ; 
 it rather implied an incapacity of being happy. 
 His cheeks were colorless even to whiteness. 
 His look was uninviting, resembling (but with- 
 out his sourness) that of our great philanthro- 
 pist. I know that he did good acts, but I could 
 never make out what he was. Contemporary 
 with these, but subordinate, was Daines Bar- 
 rington — another oddity. He walked burly and 
 square — in imitation, I think, of Coventry — 
 howbeit he attained not to the dignity of his 
 prototype. Nevertheless, he did pretty well, 
 upon the strength of being a tolerable anti- 
 quarian, and having a brother a bishop. When 
 the account of his year's treasurership came to 
 be audited, the following singular charge was 
 unanimously disallowed by the bench : " Item, 
 disbursed Mr. Allen, the gardener, twenty shil- 
 lings, for stuff to poison the sparrows, by my 
 orders." Next to him was old Barton — a jolly 
 negation, who took upon him the ordering of
 
 204 )BB6a^6 Of Blia 
 
 the bills of fare for the parliament chamber, 
 where the benchers dine — answering to the com- 
 bination rooms at College — much to the ease- 
 ment of his less epicm*ean brethren. I know 
 nothing more of him. Then Read, and Two- 
 penny — Read, good-humored and personable — 
 Twopenny, good-humored, but thin, and felici- 
 tous in jests upon his own figure. If T. was 
 thin, Wharry was attenuated and fleeting. 
 Many must remember him (for he was rather of 
 later date) and his singular gait, which was per- 
 formed by three steps and a jump regularly suc- 
 ceeding. The steps were little efforts, like that 
 of a child beginning to walk ; the jump com- 
 paratively vigorous, as a foot to an inch. Where 
 he learned this figure, or what occasioned it, I 
 could never discover. It was neither graceful 
 in itself, nor seemed to answer the purpose any 
 better than common walking. The extreme 
 tenuity of his frame, I suspect, set him upon it. 
 It was a trial of poising. Twopenny would 
 often rally him upon his leanness, and hail him 
 as brother Lusty ; but W. had no relish of a 
 joke. His features were spiteful. I have heard 
 that he would pinch his cat's ears extremely, 
 when any thing had offended him. Jackson, 
 — the omniscient Jackson he was called— was of 
 this period. He had the reputation of possess- 
 ing more multifarious knowledge than any man
 
 ^be ©ID JBcncbers 205 
 
 of his time. He was the Friar Bacon of the less 
 literate portion of the Temple. I remember a 
 pleasant passage, of the cook applying to him, 
 with much formality of apology, for instructions 
 how to write down edge bone of beef in his bill 
 of commons. He was supposed to know, if any 
 man in the world did. He decided the orthog- 
 raphy to be as I have given it — fortifying his 
 authority with such anatomical reasons as dis- 
 missed the manciple (for the time) learned and 
 happy. Some do spell it yet, perversely, aitch 
 bone, from a fanciful resemblance between its 
 shape and that of the aspirate so denominated. 
 I had almost forgotten Mingay with the iron 
 hand — but he was somewhat later. He had lost 
 his right hand by some accident, and supplied 
 it with a grappling-hook, w^hich he wielded 
 with a tolerable adroitness. I detected the 
 substitute before I was old enough to reason 
 whether it were artificial or not. I remember 
 the astonishment it raised in me. He was a 
 blustering, loud-talking person ; and I recon- 
 ciled the phenomenon to my ideas as an em- 
 blem of power — somewhat like the horns in 
 the forehead of Michael Angelo's Moses. Baron 
 Maseres, who walks (or did till very lately) in 
 the costume of the reign of George the Second, 
 closes my imperfect recollections of the old 
 *>enchers of the Inner Temple.
 
 2o6 Bssai^s of Blla 
 
 Fantastic forms, whither are you fled ? Or, if 
 the like of you exist, why exist they no more 
 for me ? Ye inexplicable half-understood ap- 
 pearances, why comes in reason to tear away 
 the preternatural mist, bright or gloomy, that 
 enshrouded you? Why make ye so sorry a 
 figure in my relation, who made up to me — to 
 my childish eyes — the mythology of the Tem- 
 ple? In those days I saw gods as "old men 
 covered with a mantle," walking upon the 
 earth. Let the dreams of classic idolatry perish 
 — extinct be the fairies and fairy trumpery of 
 legendary fabling, in the heart of childhood, 
 there will, forever, spring up a well of innocent 
 or wholesome superstition, — the seeds of ex- 
 aggeration will be busy there, and vital — from 
 every-day forms educing the unknown and the 
 uncommon. In that little Goshen there will be 
 light, when the grown world flounders about in 
 the darkness of sense and materiality. While 
 childhood, and while dreams, reducing child- 
 hood, shall be left, imagination shall not have 
 spread her holy wings totally to fly the earth. 
 
 P. S. — I have done injustice to the soft shade 
 of Samuel Salt. See what it is to trust to im- 
 perfect memory', and the erring notices of child- 
 hood ! Yet I protest I alwa3-s thought that he 
 had been a bachelor ! This gentleman, R. N.
 
 trbe ©lb McncbcvB 207 
 
 informs me, married young, and losing his lady 
 in childbed, within the first year of their union, 
 fell into a deep melancholy, from the effects of 
 which probably he never thoroughly recovered. 
 In what a new light does this place his rejection 
 (O call it by a gentler name !) of mild Susan 
 P., unravelling into beauty certain peculi- 
 arities of this shy and retiring character ! 
 Henceforth, let no one receive the narratives of 
 Elia for true records ! They are, in truth, but 
 shadows of fact — verisimilitudes, not verities — 
 or sitting but upon the remote edges and out- 
 skirts of history. He is no such honest chron- 
 icler as R. N. , and would have done better per- 
 haps to have consulted that gentleman, before 
 he sent these incondite reminiscences to press. 
 But the worthy sub-treasurer — who respects his 
 old and his new masters — would but have been 
 puzzled at the indecorous liberties of Elia. The 
 good man wots not, peradventure, of the license 
 which 3Iagazmes have arrived at in this plain- 
 speaking age, or hardly dreams of their ex- 
 istence beyond the Gentleman'' s — his farthest 
 monthly excursions in this nature having been 
 long confined to the hoi}'- ground of honest 
 Urban' s obituary. May it be long before his 
 own name shall help to swell those columns of 
 unenvied flattery ! Meantime, O ye New Bench- 
 ers of the Inner Temple, cherish him kindly,
 
 2o8 jSssags of jeiia 
 
 for he is himself the kindliest of human crea- 
 tures. Should infirmities overtake him — he is 
 yet in green and vigorous senility — make allow- 
 ance for them, remembering that *'ye your- 
 selves are old." So may the Winged Horse, 
 your ancient badge and cognizance, still flour- 
 ish ! so may future Hookers and Seldens illus- 
 trate your church and chambers ! so may the 
 sparrows, in default of more melodious choris- 
 ters, unpoisoned, hop about your walks ! so may 
 the fresh-colored and cleanly nursery maid, who, 
 by leave, airs her playful charge in your stately 
 gardens, drop her prettiest blushing curtesy as ye 
 pass, reductive of juvenescent emotion ! so may 
 the younkers of this generation eye you, pacing 
 your stately terrace, with the same superstitious 
 veneration, with which the child Elia gazed on 
 the Old Worthies that solemnized the parade 
 before ye !
 
 GRACE BEFORE MEAT. 
 
 THE custom of saying grace at meals had, 
 probably, its origin in the early times of 
 the world, and the hunter state of man, when 
 dinners were precarious things, and a full meal 
 was something more than a common blessing ! 
 when a bellyful was a windfall, and looked like 
 a special providence. In the shouts and tri- 
 umphal songs with which, after a season of 
 sharp abstinence, a lucky booty of deer's or 
 goat's flesh would naturally be ushered home, 
 existed, perhaps, the germ of the modern grace. 
 It is not otherwise easy to be understood, why 
 the blessing of food — the act of eating — should 
 have had a particular expression of thanksgiv- 
 ing annexed to it, distinct from that implied 
 and silent gratitude with which we are expected 
 to enter upon the enjoyment of the many other 
 various gifts and good things of existence. 
 
 I ow^n that I am disposed to say grace upon 
 twenty other occasions in the course of the day 
 besides my dinner. I want a form for setting
 
 j£60a^0 ot }£Ua 
 
 out upon a pleasant walk, for a moonlight ram- 
 ble, for a friendly meeting, or a solved problem. 
 Why have we none for books, those spiritual 
 repasts — a grace before Milton — a grace before 
 Shakspeare — a devotional exercise proper to be 
 said before reading the " Fairy Queen"? — but 
 the received ritual having prescribed these forms 
 to the solitary ceremony of manducation, I shall 
 confine my observation to the experience which 
 I have had of the grace, properly so called, — 
 commending my new scheme for extension to 
 a niche in the grand philosophical, poetical, 
 and perchance in part heretical, liturgy, now 
 compiling by my friend Homo Humanus, for 
 the use of a certain snug congregation of Uto- 
 pian Rabelaesian Christians, no matter where 
 assembled. 
 
 The form, then, of the benediction before eat- 
 ing has its beauty at a poor man's table, or at 
 the simple and unprovocative repast of children. 
 It is here that the grace becomes exceedingly 
 graceful. The indigent man, who hardly knows 
 whether he shall have a meal the next day or 
 not, sits down to his fare with a present sense of 
 the blessing, which can be but feebly acted by 
 the rich, into whose minds the conception of 
 wanting a dinner could never, but by some ex- 
 treme theory, have entered. The proper end of 
 food — the animal sustenance — is barely contem-
 
 Grace betore /IReat 
 
 plated by them. The poor man's bread is his 
 daily bread, literally his bread for the day. 
 Their courses are perennial. 
 
 Again, the plainest diet seems the fittest to be 
 preceded by the grace. That which is least 
 stimulative to appetite, leaves the mind most 
 free for foreign considerations. A man may 
 feel thankful, heartily thankful, over a dish of 
 plain mutton with turnips, and have leisure to 
 reflect upon the ordinance and institution of 
 eating ; when he shall confess a perturbation of 
 mind, inconsistent with the purposes of the 
 grace, at the presence of venison or turtle. 
 "When I have sat (a rams hospes) at rich men's 
 tables, with the savory soup and messes steam- 
 ing up the nostrils, and moistening the lips of 
 the guests with desire and a distracted choice, 
 I have felt the introduction of that ceremony to 
 be unseasonable. With the ravenous orgasm 
 upon you, it seems impertinent to interpose a 
 religious sentiment. It is a confusion of pur- 
 pose to mutter out praises from a mouth that 
 waters. The heats of epicurism put out the 
 gentle flame of devotion. The incense which 
 rises round is pagan, and the bellygod inter- 
 cepts it for his own. The very excess of the 
 provision beyond the needs, takes away all 
 sense of proportion between the end and the 
 means. The giver is veiled by his gifts. You
 
 JE66ti>ee of Blla 
 
 are startled at the injustice of returning tfianks 
 — for what ? — for having too much, while so 
 many starve. It is to praise the gods amiss. 
 
 I have observed this awkwardness felt, scarce 
 consciously^ perhaps, by the good man who says 
 the grace. I have seen it in clergymen and 
 others — a sort of shame — a sense of the co-pres- 
 ence of circumstances which unhallow the bless- 
 ing. After a devotional tone put on for a few 
 seconds, how rapidly the speaker will fall into 
 his common voice ! helpinghimself or his neigh- 
 bor, as if to get rid of some uneasy sensation of 
 hypocrisy. Not that the good man was a hypo- 
 crite, or was not most conscientious in the dis- 
 charge of the duty ; but he felt in his inmost 
 mind the incompatability of the scene and the 
 viands before him with the exercises of a calm 
 and rational gratitude. 
 
 I hear somebody exclaim — Would you have 
 Christians sit down at table, like hogs to their 
 troughs, without remembering the Giver? — no, 
 ^—1 would have them sit down as Christians, 
 remembering the Giver, and less like hogs. Or 
 if their appetites must run riot, and they must 
 pamper themselves with delicacies for which 
 east and west are ransacked, I would have them 
 postpone their benediction to a fitter season, 
 when appetite is laid ; when the still small voice 
 can be heard, and the reason of the grace re-
 
 (5race before /iReat 213 
 
 turus — with temperate diet and restricted dishes. 
 Gluttony and surfeiting are no proper occasions 
 for thanksgiving. When Jeshurun waxed fat, 
 we read that he kicked. Virgil knew the harpy- 
 nature better, when he put into the mouth of 
 Celseno any thing but a blessing. We may be 
 gratefully sensible of the deliciousness of some 
 kinds of food beyond others, though that is a 
 meaner and inferior gratitude ; but the proper 
 object of the grace is sustenance, not relishes ; 
 daily bread, not delicacies ; the means of life, 
 and not the means of pampering the carcass. 
 With what frame or composure, I wonder, can 
 a city chaplain pronounce his benediction at 
 some great Hall-feast, when he knows that his 
 last concluding pious word — and that, in all 
 probability, the sacred name which he preaches 
 is but the signal for so many impatient harpies 
 to commence their foul orgies, with as little 
 sense of true thankfulness (which is temper- 
 ance) as those Virgilian fowl ! It is well if the 
 good man himself does not feel his devotions a 
 little clouded, those foggy sensuous steams 
 mingling with and polluting the pure altar 
 sacrifice. 
 
 The severest satire upon full tables and sur- 
 feits is the banquet which vSatan, in the Para- 
 dise Regained, provides for a temptation in the 
 wilderness :
 
 214 JEgsa^s ot jeiia 
 
 A table richly spread in regal mode 
 Witli dishes piled, and meats of noblest sort 
 And savor ; beasts of chase, or fowl of game, 
 In pastry built, or from the spit, or boiled, 
 Gris-amber-steamed ; all fish from sea or shore, 
 Freshet or purling brook, for which was drained 
 Pontus, and I^ucrine bay, and Afric coast. 
 
 The Tempter, I warrant you, thought these 
 cates would go down without the recommenda- 
 tory preface of a benediction. They are Hke to 
 be short graces where the Devil plays the host. 
 I am afraid the poet wants his usual decorum in 
 this place. Was he thinking of the old Roman 
 luxury, or of a gaudy day at Cambridge ? This 
 was a temptation fitter for a Heliogabalus. The 
 whole banquet is too civic and culinary, and 
 the accompaniments altogether a profanation of 
 that deep, abstracted holy scene. The mighty 
 artillery of sauces, which the cook-fiend con- 
 jures up, is out of proportion to the simple 
 wants and plain hunger of the guest. He that 
 disturbed him in his dreams, from his dreams 
 might have been taught better. To the tem- 
 perate fantasies of the famished Son of God, 
 what sort of feasts presented themselves ? — He 
 dreamed indeed. 
 
 As appetite is wont to dream. 
 Of meats and drinks, nature's refreshment sweet. 
 
 But what meats ?
 
 (3race bctore ^eat 215 
 
 Him thought, he by the brook of Cherith stood, 
 
 And saw the ravens with their horny beaks 
 
 Food to Elijah bringing even and morn ; 
 
 Though ravenous, taught to abstain from what they 
 
 brought : 
 He saw the prophet also how he fled 
 Into the desert, and how there he slept 
 Under a Juniper ; then how awaked 
 He found his supper on the coals prepared, 
 And by the angel was bid rise and eat, 
 And ate the second time after repose. 
 The strength whereof sufficed him forty days ; 
 Sometimes, that with Elijah he partook, 
 Or as a guest with Daniel at his pulse. 
 
 Nothing in Milton is finelier fancied than 
 these temperate dreams of the divine Hun- 
 gerer. To which of these two visionary ban- 
 quets, think you, would the introduction of 
 what is called the grace have been the most fit- 
 ting and pertinent ? 
 
 Theoretically I am no enemy to graces ; but 
 practically I own that (before meat especially) 
 they seem to involve something awkward and 
 unseasonable. Our appetites, of one or another 
 kind, are excellent spurs to our reason, which 
 might otherwise but feebly set about the great 
 ends of preserving and continuing the species. 
 They are fit blessings to be contemplated at a 
 distance with a becoming gratitude ; but the 
 moment of appetite (the judicious reader will 
 apprehend me) is, perhaps, the least fit season
 
 2i6 Bseai^s of J£lia 
 
 for that exercise. The Quakers, who go about 
 their business of every description with more 
 calmness than we, have more title to the use of 
 these benedictory prefaces, I have always ad- 
 mired their silent grace, and the more because 
 I have observed their applications to the meat 
 and drink following to be less passionate and 
 sensual than ours. They are neither gluttons 
 nor wine-bibbers as a people. They eat, as a 
 horse bolts his chopped hay, with indifference, 
 calmness, and cleanly circumstances. They 
 neither grease nor slop themselves. When I see 
 a citizen in his bib and tucker, I cannot imagine 
 it a surplice, 
 
 I am no Quaker at my food. I confess I am 
 not indifferent to the kinds of it. Those unctu- 
 ous 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 phy- 
 siognomical character in the tastes for food. 
 C. holds that a man cannot have a pure mind 
 who refuses apple-dumplings. I am not cer- 
 tain but he is right. With the decay of my first 
 innocence, I confess a less and less relish daily 
 for those innocuous cates. The whole vegeta- 
 ble tribe have lost their gust with me. Only I
 
 (Brace bctore /iBeat 217 
 
 stick to asparagus, which still seems to inspire 
 gentle thoughts. I am impatient and queru- 
 lous under culinary disappointments, as to come 
 home at the dinner hour, for instance, expecting 
 some savory mess, and to find one quite taste- 
 less and sapidless. Butter ill melted — that com- 
 monest of kitchen failures — ^puts me beside my 
 tenor. The author of the ' ' Rambler ' ' used to 
 make inarticulate animal noises over a favorite 
 food. Was this the music quite proper to be 
 preceded by the grace ? or would the pious man 
 have done better to postpone his devotions to a 
 season when the blessing might be contem- 
 plated with less perturbation ? I quarrel with 
 no man's tastes, nor would set my thin face 
 against those excellent things, in their way, 
 jollity and feasting. But as these exercises, 
 however laudable, have little in them of grace 
 or gracefulness, a man should be sure, before 
 he ventures so to grace them, that while he is 
 pretending his devotions otherwhere, he is not 
 secretly kissing his hand to some great fish — 
 his Dagon — with a special consecration of no 
 ark but the fat tureen before him. Graces are 
 the sweet preluding strains to the banquets of 
 angels and children ; to the roots and severer 
 repasts of the Chartreuse ; to the slender, but 
 not slenderly acknowledged, refection of the 
 poor and humble man ; but at the heaped-up
 
 2i8 iBesa^B ot JBiia 
 
 boards of the pampered and the luxurious they 
 become of dissonant mood, less timed and tuned 
 to the occasion, methinks, than the noise of 
 those better befitting organs would be which 
 children hear tales of, at Hog's Norton. We 
 sit too long at our meals, or are too curious in 
 the study of them, or too disordered in our ap- 
 plication to them, or engross too great a portion 
 of those good things (which should be common) 
 to our share, to be able with any grace to say 
 grace. To be thankful for what w^e grasp ex- 
 ceeding our proportion, is to add hypocrisy to 
 injustice. A lurking sense of this truth is what 
 makes the performance of this duty so cold and 
 spiritless a service at most tables. In houses 
 where the grace is as indispensable as the nap- 
 kin, who has not seen that never-settled ques- 
 tion arise, as to zako shall say it ? while the good 
 man of the house and the visitor clergyman, or 
 some other guest, belike of next authority, 
 from years of gravity, shall be bandying about 
 the office between them as a matter of compli- 
 ment, each of them not unwilling to shift the 
 awkw^ard burden of an equivocal duty from his 
 own shoulders? 
 
 I once drank tea in company with two Metho- 
 dist divines of different persuasions, whom it 
 was my fortune to introduce to each other for 
 the first time that evening. Before the first cup
 
 Grace before ^eat 219 
 
 was handed around, one of these reverend gen- 
 tlemen put it to the other, with all due solem- 
 nity, whether he chose to say ajiy thing. It 
 seems it is the custom with some sectaries to 
 put up a short prayer before this meal also. His 
 reverend brother did not at first quite appre- 
 hend him, but upon an explanation, with little 
 less importance he made answer that it was not 
 a custom known to his church ; in which cour- 
 teous evasion the other acquiescing for good 
 manners' sake, or in compliance with a weak 
 brother, the supplementary or tea-grace was 
 waived altogether. With what spirit might not 
 Lucian have painted two priests oi his religion 
 playing into each other's hands the compliment 
 of performing or omitting a sacrifice — the hun- 
 gry God meantime, doubtful of his incense, 
 with expectant nostrils hovering over the two 
 flamens, and (as between two stools) going 
 away in the end without his supper. 
 
 A short form upon these occasions is felt to 
 want reverence ; a long one, I am afraid, can- 
 not escape the charge of impertinence. I do 
 not quite approve of the epigrammatic concise- 
 ness with which that equivocal wag (but my 
 pleasant school-fellow) C. V. L., when impor- 
 tuned for a grace, used to inquire, first slyly 
 leering down the table, " Is there no clergyman 
 here?" — significantly adding, "Thank G ."
 
 }E06aK?s of JElfa 
 
 Nor do I think our old form at school quite per- 
 tinent, where we were used to preface our bald 
 bread-and-cheese suppers with a preamble, con- 
 necting with that humble blessing a recognition 
 of benefits the most awful and overwhelming to 
 the imagination which religion has to offer. 
 Non tunc illis erat locus. I remember we were 
 put to it to reconcile the phrase " good creat- 
 ures, "upon which the blessing rested, with the 
 fare set before us, wilfully understanding that 
 expression in a low and animal sense — till some 
 one recalled a legend, which told how, in the 
 golden days of Christ's, the young Hospitallers 
 were wont to have some smoking joints of roast 
 meat upon their nightly boards, till some pious 
 benefactor, commiserating the decencies, rather 
 than the palates, of the children, commuted 
 our flesh for garments, and gave us — horresco 
 ref evens — trousers instead of mutton. 
 
 ^^
 
 DREAM-CHILDREN ; A REVERY. 
 
 CHILDREN love to listen to stories about 
 their elders, when they were children ; to 
 stretch their imagination to the conception of a 
 traditionary great-uncle, or grandame, whom 
 they never saw. It was in this spirit that my 
 little ones crept about me the other evening to 
 hear about their great-grandmother Field, who 
 lived in a great house in Norfolk (a hundred 
 times bigger than that in which thej^ and papa 
 lived) which had been the scene — so at least it 
 was generally believed in that part of the coun- 
 try — of the tragic incidents which they had 
 lately become familiar with from the ballad of 
 the Children in the Wood. Certain it is that 
 the whole story of the children and their cruel 
 uncle was to be seen fairly carved out in wood 
 upon the chimney-piece of the great hall, the 
 whole story down to the Robin Redbreasts ; till 
 a foolish rich person pulled it down to set up a 
 marble one of modern invention in its stead.
 
 222 jEssagB ot :ieua 
 
 with no story upon it. Here Alice put out one 
 of her dear mother's looks, too tender to be 
 called upbraiding. Then I went on to say how 
 religious and how good their great-grandmother 
 Field was, how beloved and respected by every- 
 body, though she was not indeed the mistress 
 of this great house, but had only the charge of 
 it (and yet in some respects she might be said 
 to be the mistress of it too) committed to her 
 by the owner, who preferred living in a newer 
 and more fashionable mansion which he had 
 purchased somewhere in the adjoining county ; 
 but still she lived in it in a manner as if it had 
 been her own, and kept up the dignity of the 
 great house in a sort while she lived, which 
 afterwards came to decay, and was nearly pulled 
 down, and all its old ornaments stripped and 
 carried away to the owner's other house, where 
 they were set up, and looked as awkward as if 
 some one were to carry away the old tombs 
 they had seen lately at the Abbey, and stick 
 them up in Lady C.'s tawdry gilt drawing- 
 room. Here John smiled, as much as to say, 
 "that would be foolish indeed." And then I 
 told how, when she came to die, her funeral 
 was attended by a concourse of all the poor, 
 and some of the gentry too, of the neighbor- 
 hood for many miles round, to show their re- 
 spect for her memory, because she had been
 
 S)ream*Gbilt)ren ; B IRcverg 223 
 
 such a good and religious woman ; so good in- 
 deed that she knew all the Psaltery by heart, 
 ay, and a great part of the Testament besides. 
 Here little Alice spread her hands. Then I told 
 what a tall, upright, graceful person their great- 
 grandmother Field once was ; and how in her 
 youth she was esteemed the best dancer, — here 
 Alice's little right foot played an involuntary 
 movement, till, upon my looking grave, it de- 
 sisted, — the best dancer, I was saying, in the 
 count}', till a cruel disease, called a cancer, 
 came, and bowed her down with pain ; but it 
 could never bend her good spirits, or make 
 them stoop, but they were still upright, be- 
 cause she was so good and religious. Then I 
 told how she was used to sleep by herself in a 
 lone chamber of the great lone house ; and how 
 she believed that an apparition of two infants 
 was to be seen at midnight gliding up and down 
 the great staircase near where she slept, but 
 she said "those innocents would do her no 
 harm " ; and how frightened I used to be, 
 though in those days I had my maid to sleep 
 with me, because I was never half so good or 
 religious as she, — and yet I never saw the in- 
 fants. Here John expanded all his eyebrows, 
 and tried to look courageous. Then I told how 
 good she was to all her grandchildren, ha\dng 
 us to the great house in the holidays, where I
 
 224 Bssags of :eila 
 
 in particular used to spend many hours by my- 
 self, in gazing upon the old busts of the twelve 
 Caesars, that had been Emperors of Rome, till 
 the old marble heads would seem to live again, 
 or I to be turned into marble with them ; how I 
 never could be tired with roaming about that 
 huge mansion, with its vast empty rooms, with 
 their worn-out hangings, fluttering tapestry, and 
 carved oaken panels, with the gilding almost 
 rubbed out, — sometimes in the spacious old- 
 fashioned gardens, which I had almost to my- 
 self, unless when now and then a solitarj- gar- 
 dening man would cross me, — and how the 
 nectarines and peaches hung upon the walls, 
 without my ever offering to pluck them , because 
 they were forbidden fruit, unless now and then, 
 — and because I had more pleasure in strolling 
 about among the old melancholy-looking yew- 
 trees, or the firs, and picking up the red berries, 
 and the fir-apples, which were good for nothing 
 but to look at, — or in lying about upon the 
 fresh grass with all the fine garden smells 
 around me, — or basking in the orangery, till I 
 could almost fancy myself ripening too along 
 with the oranges and the limes in that grateful 
 warmth, — or in watching the dace that darted 
 to and fro in the fish-pond, at the bottom of the 
 garden, with here and there a great sulky pike 
 hanging midway down the water in silent state.
 
 2)ream»CbUDren ; B IRcvcrg 225 
 
 as if it mocked at their impertinent friskings ; 
 — I had more pleasure in these busy-idle diver- 
 sions than in all the sweet flavors of peaches, 
 nectarines, oranges, and such-like common 
 baits of children. Here John slyly deposited 
 back upon the plate a bunch of grapes, which, 
 not unobserved by Alice, he had meditated di- 
 viding with her, and both seemed willing to 
 relinquish them for the present as irrelevant. 
 Then, in a somewhat more heightened tone, I 
 told how, though their great-grandmother Field 
 loved all her grandchildren, yet in an especial 
 manner she might be said to love their uncle, 
 John L., because he was so handsome and 
 spirited a youth, and a king to the rest of us ; 
 and, instead of moping about in solitary corners, 
 like some of us, he would mount the most met- 
 tlesome horse he could get, when but an imp no 
 bigger than themselves, and make it carrj^ him 
 half over the county in a morning, and join the 
 hunters when there were any out, — and yet he 
 loved the old great house and gardens too, but 
 had too much spirit to be always pent up within 
 their boundaries, — and how their uncle grew up 
 to man's estate as brave as he was handsome, to 
 the admiration of every body, but of their great- 
 grandmother Field most especially ; and how 
 he used to carry me upon his back when I was 
 a lame-footed boy — for he was a good bit older
 
 226 jeseags ot JEUa 
 
 than me — many a mile when I could not walk 
 for pain ; — and how in after-life he became 
 lame-footed too, and I did not always (I fear) 
 make allowances enough for him when he was 
 impatient and in pain, nor remember sufi&cient- 
 ly how considerate he had been to me when I 
 was lame-footed ; and how, when he died, 
 though he had not been dead an hour, i1 
 seemed as if he had died a great while ago, sucl 
 a distance there is betwixt life and death ; and^ 
 how I bore his death, as I thought, pretty well 
 at first, but afterwards it haunted and haunted 
 me ; and though I did not cry or take it to 
 heart as some do, and as I think he would have 
 done if I had died, yet I missed him all day 
 long, and knew not till then how much I had 
 loved him. I missed his kindness, and I missed 
 his crossness, and wished him to be alive again, 
 to be quarrelling with him (for we quarrelled 
 sometimes), rather than not have him again, 
 and was uneasy without him, as he their poor 
 uncle must have been when the doctor took off 
 his limb. Here the children fell a-crj'ing, and 
 asked if their little mourning which they had 
 on was not for Uncle John, and they looked up, 
 and prayed me not to go on about their uncle, 
 but to tell them some stories about their pretty 
 dead mother. Then I told how, for seven long 
 years, in hope sometimes, sometimes in despair.
 
 ©ceamsCbllOren ; B IRever^ 227 
 
 yet persisting ever, I courted the fair Alice 
 W n ; and, as much as children could under- 
 stand, I explained to them what coyness, and 
 difiSculty, and denial meant in maidens, — when 
 suddenly, turning to Alice, the soul of the first 
 Alice looked out at her eyes with such a reality 
 of representment, that I became in doubt which 
 of them stood there before me, or whose that 
 bright hair was ; and while I stood gazing, both 
 the children gradually grew fainter to my view, 
 receding, and still receding, till nothing at last 
 but two mournful features were seen in the 
 uttermost distance, which, without speech, 
 strangely impressed upon me the effects of 
 speech : " We are not of Alice, nor of thee, nor 
 are we children at all. The children of Alice 
 call Bartrum father. We are nothing ; less 
 than nothing, and dreams. We are only what 
 might have been, and must wait upon the 
 tedious shores of the Lethe millions of ages be- 
 fore we have existence, and a name " ; — and im- 
 mediately awaking, I found myself quietly 
 seated in my bachelor arm-chair, where I had 
 fallen asleep, with the faithful Bridget un- 
 changed by my side, — but John L. (or James 
 Elia) was gone forever.
 
 DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS. 
 
 IN A I^ETTER TO B. F., ESQ., AT SYDNEY, NEW 
 SOUTH WAI.es. 
 
 M" 
 
 DEAR F. : — When I think how welcome 
 the sight of a letter from the world where 
 you were born must be to you in that strange 
 one to which you have been transplanted, I 
 feel some compunctious visitings at my long 
 silence. But, indeed, it is no easy effort to set 
 about a correspondence at our distance. The 
 weary world of waters between us oppresses the 
 imagination. It is difficult to conceive how a 
 scrawl of mine should ever stretch across it. It 
 is a sort of presumption to expect that one's 
 thoughts should live so far. It is like writing 
 for posterity ; and reminds me of one of Mrs. 
 Rowe's superscriptions, " Alcander to Strephon 
 in the Shades." Cowley's Post- Angel is no 
 more than would be expedient in such an inter- 
 course. One drops a packet at Lombard Street, 
 and in twenty-four hours a friend in Cumber-
 
 Blstant Correspondents 229 
 
 land gets it as fresh as if it came in ice. It is 
 only like whispering through a long trumpet. 
 But suppose a tube let down from the moon, 
 with yourself at one end, and the man at the 
 other ; it would be some balk to the spirit of 
 conversation, if you knew the dialogue ex- 
 changed with that interesting theosophist would 
 take two or three revolutions of a higher lumin- 
 ary in its passage. Yet for aught I know, you 
 may be some parasangs nigher that primitive 
 idea — Plato's man — than we in England here 
 have the honor to reckon ourselves. 
 
 Epistolary matter usually compriseth three 
 topics : news, sentiment, and puns. In the lat- 
 ter I include all non-serious subjects ; or sub- 
 jects serious in themselves, but treated after my 
 fashion, non-seriously. And first, for news. In 
 them the most desirable circumstance, I suppose, 
 is that they shall be true. But what security 
 can I have that what I now send you for truth 
 shall not, before you get it, unaccountably 
 turn into a lie ? For instance, our mutual friend 
 P. is at this present writing — my Now — in good 
 health, and enjoys a fair share of worldly repu- 
 tation. You are glad to hear it. This is natural 
 and friendly. But at this present reading — your 
 Xoui — he may possibly be in the Bench, or 
 going to be hanged, which in reason ought to 
 abate something of your transport (z. e., at hear-
 
 230 JBeea^e ot J6l(a 
 
 ing he was -well, etc.), or at least considerably 
 to modify it. I am going to the play this even- 
 ing, to have a laugh with Mundcn. You have 
 no theatre, I think you told me, in your land of 
 
 d d realities. You naturally hck your lips 
 
 and envy me my felicity. Think but a moment, 
 and you will correct the hateful emotion. Why 
 it is Sunday morning with you, and 1823. This 
 confusion of tenses, this grand solecism of two 
 pi'-esents^ is in a degree common to all postage. 
 But if I sent you word to Bath or Devizes, that 
 I was expecting the aforesaid treat this evening, 
 though at the moment you received the intelli- 
 gence my full feast of fun would be over, yet 
 there would be for a day or two after, as you 
 would well know, a smack, a relish left upon 
 my mental palate, which would give rational 
 encouragement for you to foster, a portion, at 
 least, of the disagreeable passion which it was 
 in part my intention to produce. But ten 
 months hence, your envy or your sympathy 
 would be as useless as a passion spent upon the 
 dead. Not only does truth, in these long inter- 
 vals unessence herself, but (what is harder) one 
 cannot venture a crude fiction, for the fear that 
 it may ripen into a truth upon the voyage. 
 What a wdld improbable banter I put upon you 
 some three j^ears since — of Will Weatherall 
 having married a servant-maid ! I remember
 
 Bistant Correspondents 231 
 
 gravely consulting you how we were to receive 
 her — for Will's wife was in no case to be re- 
 jected ; and your no less serious replication in 
 the matter ; how tenderly you advised an ab- 
 stemious introduction of literary topics before 
 the lady, with a caution not to be too forward in 
 bringing on the carpet matters more within the 
 sphere of her intelligence ; your deliberate judg- 
 ment or rather wise suspension of sentence, 
 how far jacks, and spits, and mops could, with 
 propriety, be introduced as subjects ; whether 
 the conscious avoiding of all such matters in 
 discourse would not have a worse look than the 
 taking of them casually in our way ; in what 
 manner we should carry ourselves to our maid 
 Beck}', Mrs. William Weatherall being by ; 
 whether we should show more delicacy, and a 
 truer sense of respect for Will's wife, by treat- 
 ing Becky with our customary chiding before 
 her, or by an unusual deferential civility paid 
 to Becky as to a person of great worth, but 
 thrown by the caprice of fate into a humble 
 station. There were difficulties, I remember, 
 on both sides, which you did me the favor to 
 state with the precision of a lawyer, united to the 
 tenderness of a friend. I laughed in my sleeve 
 at your solemn pleadings, when lo ! while I was 
 valuing myself upon this flam put upon you in 
 New South Wales, the devil in England, jealous
 
 232 JEssa^g of jeUa 
 
 possibly of any lie-children not his own, or 
 working after ray copy, has actually instigated 
 our friend (not three days since) to the com- 
 mission of a matrimony, which I had only con- 
 jured up for your diversion. William Weather- 
 all has married Mrs. Cotterel's maid. But to 
 take it in its truest sense, you will see, my dear 
 F., that news from me must become history to 
 you ; which I neither profess to write nor in- 
 deed care much for reading. No person, under 
 a diviner, can with any prospect of veracity, 
 conduct a correspondence at such an arm's 
 length. Two prophets, indeed, might thus in- 
 terchange intelligence with effect ; the epoch of 
 the writer (Habakkuk) falling in with the true 
 present time of the receiver (Daniel) ; but then 
 we are no prophets. 
 
 Then as to sentiment. It fares little better 
 with that. This kind of dish, above all, re- 
 quires to be sers^ed up hot ; or sent off in water- 
 plates, that your friend may have it almost as 
 warm as yourself. If it have time to cool, it is 
 the most tasteless of all cold meats. I have 
 often smiled at a conceit of the late Lord C. 
 It seems that, travelling somewhere about 
 Geneva, he came to some pretty green spot, or 
 nook, where a willow, or something, hung so 
 fantastically and invitingly over a stream — was 
 it? — or a rock? — no matter, — but the stillness
 
 distant Correspondents 233 
 
 and the repose, after a weary journey 't is like- 
 ly, in a languid moment of his Lordship's hot, 
 restless life, so took his fancy that he could 
 imagine no place so proper, in the event of his 
 death, to lay his bones in. This was all very 
 natural and excusable as a sentiment, and 
 shows his character in a very pleasing light. 
 But when from a passing sentiment it came to 
 be an act ; and when, by a positive testament- 
 ary disposal, his remains were actually carried 
 all that way from England ; who was there, 
 some desperate sentimentalists excepted, that 
 did not ask the question, Why could not his 
 Lordship have found a spot as solitary, a nook 
 as romantic, a tree as green and pendent, with 
 a stream as emblematic to his pmnpose, in Sur- 
 rey, in Dorset, or in Devon ? Conceive the 
 sentiment boarded up, freighted, entered at the 
 Custom House (startling the tide-waiters with 
 the novelty), hoisted into a ship. Conceive it 
 pawed about and handled between the rude 
 jests of tarpaulin ruffians, — a thing of its deli- 
 cate texture, — the salt bilge wetting it till it be- 
 came as vapid as a damaged lustring. Suppose 
 it in material danger (mariners have some 
 superstition about sentiments) of being tossed 
 over in a fresh gale to some propitiatory shark 
 (spirit of Saint Gothard, save us from a quietus 
 so foreign to the deviser's purpose !) but it has
 
 234 Bsea^s of JBUa 
 
 happily evaded a fishy consummation. Trace 
 it then to its lucky landing — at Lyons shall we 
 say? — I have not the map before me — jostled 
 upon four men's shoulders — baiting at this 
 town — stopping to refresh at t' other village — 
 waiting a passport here, a license there ; the 
 sanction of the magistracy in this district, the 
 concurrence of the ecclesiastics in that canton ; 
 till at length it arrives at its destination, tired 
 out and jaded, from a brisk sentiment, into a 
 feature of silly pride or tawdry, senseless affec- 
 tation. How few sentiments, my dear F., I am 
 afraid we can set down, in the sailor's phrase, 
 as quite sea-worthy. 
 
 Lastly, as to the agreeable levities, which, 
 though contemptible in bulk, are the twinkling 
 corpuscula which should irradiate a right 
 friendly epistle, — your puns and small jests 
 are, I apprehend, extremely circumscribed in 
 their sphere of action. They are so far from a 
 capacity of being packed up and sent beyond 
 sea, they will scarce endure to be transported 
 by hand from this room to the next. Their 
 vigor is as the instant of their birth. Their 
 nutriment for their brief existence is the in- 
 tellectual atmosphere of the bystanders ; or 
 this last is the fine slime of Nilus — the melior 
 lutus — whose maternal recipiency is as neces- 
 sary as the sol pater to their equivocal genera-
 
 2)i6tant Corre6pon&ents 235 
 
 tion. A pun hath a hearty kind of present ear- 
 kissing smack with it ; you can no more trans- 
 mit it in its pristine flavor, than you can send a 
 kiss. Have you not tried in some instances to 
 palm off a yesterday's pun upon a gentleman, 
 and has it answered ? Not but it was new to 
 his hearing, but it did not seem to come new 
 from you. It did not hitch in. It was like 
 picking up at a village ale-house a two-day's- 
 old newspaper. You have not seen it before, 
 but you resent the stale thing as an affront. 
 This sort of merchandise above all requires a 
 quick return. A pun, and its recognitory 
 laugh, must be coinstantaneous. The one is 
 the brisk lightning, the other the fierce thun- 
 der. A moment's interval, and the link is 
 snapped. A pun is reflected from a friend's 
 face as from a mirror. Who would consult 
 his sweet visnomy, if the polished surface were 
 two or three minutes (not to speak of twelve 
 months, my dear F.) in giving back its copy ? 
 
 I cannot image to myself whereabout you 
 are. When I try to fix it, Peter Wilkin's 
 island comes across me. Sometimes you seem 
 to be in the Hades of Thieves. I see Diogenes 
 prying among you with his perpetual fruitless 
 lantern. What must you be willing by this 
 time to give for the sight of an honest man ! 
 You must almost have forgotten how we look.
 
 236 iBesa^e of Blia 
 
 And tell me, what your Sydneyites do ? are 
 they th . . V . ng all day long ? Merciful 
 heaven ! what property can stand against such 
 depredation ! The kangaroos — your Aborigines 
 — do they keep their primitive simplicity un- 
 Europe tainted, with those little short fore 
 puds, looking like a lesson framed by nature to 
 the pickpocket ! Marry, for diving into fobs 
 they are rather lamely provided, a priori ; but 
 if the hue-and-cry were once up, they would 
 show us as fair a pair of hind-shifters as the ex- 
 pertest locomotor in the colony. We hear the 
 most improbable tales at this distance. Pray, 
 is it true that the young Spartans among you 
 are born with six fingers, which spoils their 
 scanning? It must look very odd; but use 
 reconciles. For their scansion, it is less to be 
 regretted, for if they take it into their heads to 
 be poets, it is odds but they turn out, the 
 greater part of them, vile plagiarists. Is there 
 much difference to see, too, between the son of 
 a th . . f, and the grandson ? or where does the 
 taint stop ? Do you bleach in three or in four 
 geuerations ? I have many questions to put, 
 but ten Delphic voyages can be made in 
 a shorter time than it wnll take to satisfy 
 my scruples. Do you grow your own 
 hemp? What is your staple trade, — exclusive 
 of the national profession, I mean? Your
 
 Distant Correspondents 237 
 
 locksmiths, I take it, are some of your great 
 capitalists. 
 
 I am insensibly chatting to you as familiarly 
 as when we used to exchange good-morrows 
 out of our old contiguous windows, in pump- 
 famed Hare Court in the Temple. Why did you 
 ever leave that quiet corner ? Why did I ? — with 
 its complement of four poor elms, from whose 
 smoke-dyed barks, the theme of jesting rural- 
 ists, I picked my first lady-birds ! M}- heart is 
 as dry as that spring sometimes proves in a 
 thirsty August, when I revert to the space that 
 is between us ; a length of passage enough to 
 render obsolete the phrases of our English 
 letters before they can reach you. But while I 
 talk, I think you hear me, — thoughts dallying 
 with vain surmise, — 
 
 Aye me ! while these the seas and sounding shores 
 Hold far away. 
 
 Come back, before I am grown into a very 
 old man, so as you shall hardly know me. 
 Come, before Bridget walks on crutches. Girls 
 whom you left children have become sage ma- 
 trons while you are tarr>-ing there. The bloom- 
 ing Miss W^ r (you remember Sally W" r) 
 
 called upon us j-esterday, an aged crone. Folks, 
 whom you knew, die off every year. Formerly, 
 I thought that death was wearing out, — I stood
 
 238 
 
 Bseai^s of Blla 
 
 ramparted about so with many healthy friends. 
 The departure of J. W., two springs back, cor- 
 rected my delusion. Since then the old divorce 
 has been busy. If you do not make haste to 
 return there will be little left to greet you, of 
 me, or mine.
 
 THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS. 
 
 I LIKE to meet a sweep — -understand me — 
 not a grown sweeper, — old chimney-sweep- 
 ers are by no means attractive, — but one of 
 those tender novices, blooming through their 
 first nigritude, the maternal washings not quite 
 effaced from the cheek, — such as come forth 
 with the dawn, or somewhat earlier, with their 
 little professional notes sounding like the peep 
 peep of a young sparrow ; or liker to the matin 
 lark should I pronounce them, in their aerial 
 ascents not seldom anticipating the sunrise ? 
 
 I have a kindly yearning towards these dim 
 specks — ^poor blots — innocent blacknesses. 
 
 I reverence these young Africans of our own 
 growth — these almost clergy imps, who sport 
 their cloth without assumption ; and from their 
 little pulpits (the tops of chimneys), in the 
 nipping air of a December morning, preach a 
 lesson of patience to mankind. 
 
 When a child, what a mj-sterious pleasure it
 
 240 iBssa^e ot iBlia. 
 
 was to witness their operation ! to see a chit 
 no bigger than one's self, enter, one knew not 
 by what process, into what seemed the fauces 
 Averni, — to pursue him in imagination, as he 
 went sounding on through so many dark sti- 
 fling caverns, horrid shades ! — to shudder with 
 the idea that " now, surely, he must be lost 
 forever ! " — to revive at hearing his feeble shout 
 of discovered delight, — and then (O fulness of 
 delight !) running out of doors, to come just in 
 time to see the sable phenomenon emerge in 
 safety, the brandished weapon of his art victo- 
 rious like some flag waved over a conquered 
 citadel ! I seem to remember having been told 
 that a bad sweep was once left in a stack with 
 his brush, to indicate which way the wind blew. 
 It was an awful spectacle, certainly ; not much 
 unlike the old stage direction in Macbeth, where 
 the "Apparition of a child crowned, with a tree 
 in his hand, rises." 
 
 Reader, if thou meetest one of these small 
 gentry in thy early rambles, it is good to give 
 him a penny. It is better to give him twopence. 
 If it be starving weather, and to the proper 
 troubles of his hard occupation, a pair of kibed 
 heels (no unusual accompaniment) be super- 
 added, the demand on thy humanity will surely 
 rise to a tester. 
 
 There is a composition, the groundwork of
 
 Zbc ipraise of CbimnevsSvvcepere 241 
 
 which I have understood to be the sweet wood 
 yclept sassafras. This wood, boiled down to a 
 kind of tea, and tempered \vnth an infusion of 
 milk and sugar, hath to some tastes a delicacy 
 beyond the China luxury. I know not how 
 thy palate may relish it ; for myself, with every 
 deference to the judicious Mr. Read, who hath 
 time out of mind kept open a shop (the only 
 one he avers in London) for the vending of 
 this "wholesome and pleasant beverage," on 
 the south side of Fleet Street, as thou ap- 
 proachest Bridge Street — the only Salopian 
 house — I have never ventured to dip my own 
 particular lip in a basin of his commended in- 
 gredients — a cautious premonition to the olfac- 
 tories constantly whispering to me, that my 
 stomach must infallibly, with all due courtesy, 
 decline it. Yet I have seen palates, otherwise 
 not uninstructed in dietetical elegancies, sup it 
 up with avidity. 
 
 I know not by what particular conformation 
 of the organ it happens, but I have always 
 found that this composition is surprisingly 
 gratifying to the palate of a young chimney- 
 sweeper, — whether the oily particles (sassafras is 
 slightly oleaginous) do attenuate and soften 
 the fuliginous concretions, which are some- 
 times found (in dissections) to adhere to the 
 roof of the mouth in these unfledged practition-
 
 242 Besags of JElla 
 
 ers ; or whether Nature, sensible that she had 
 mingled too much of bitter wood in the lot of 
 these raw victims, caused to grow out of the 
 earth her sassafras for a sweet lenitive ;— but so 
 it is, that no possible taste or odor to the senses 
 of a young chimney-sweeper can convey a deli- 
 cate excitement comparable to this mixture. 
 Being penniless, they will yet hang their black 
 heads over the ascending steam, to gratify one 
 sense if possible, seemingly no less pleased 
 than those domestic animals — cats — when they 
 purr over a new-found sprig of valerian. There 
 is something more in these sympathies than phi- 
 losophy can inculcate. 
 
 Now albeit Mr. Read boasteth, not without 
 reason, that this is the only Salopian house ; 
 yet be it known to thee, reader, — if thou art 
 one who keepest what are called good hours, 
 thou art happily ignorant of the fact — he hath 
 a race of industrious imitators, who from stalls, 
 and under open sky, dispense the same savory 
 mess to humbler customers, at that dead time 
 of the dawn, when (as extremes meet) the rake, 
 reeling home from his midnight cups, and the 
 hard-handed artisan leaving his bed to resume 
 the premature labors of the day, jostle, not un- 
 frequently to the manifest disconcerting of the 
 former, for the honors of the pavement. It is 
 the time when, in summer, between the expired
 
 Zbc praise ot Cblmner^Sweepers 243 
 
 and the not yet relumined kitchen-fires, the 
 kennels of our fair metropolis give forth their 
 least satisfactory odors. The rake, who wish- 
 eth to dissipate his o'er-night vapors in grateful 
 coffee, curses the ungenial fume as he passeth ; 
 but the artisan stops to taste, and blesses the 
 fragrant breakfast. 
 
 This is saloop — the precocious herb-woman's 
 darling, — the delight of the earl}^ gardener, 
 who transports his smoking cabbages by break 
 of day from Hammersmith to Covent Garden's 
 famed piazzas, — the delight, and oh ! I fear, 
 too often the envy, of the unpennied sweep. 
 Him shouldst thou haply encounter, with his 
 dim visage pendent over the grateful steam, 
 regale him with a sumptuous basin (it will cost 
 thee but three half-pennies) and a slice of deli- 
 cate bread and butter (an added half-penny) — 
 so may thy culinary fires, eased of the o'er- 
 charged secretions from thy worse-placed hospi- 
 talities, curl up a lighter volume to the welkin, 
 — so may the descending soot never taint thy 
 costly well-ingredienced soups, — nor the odious 
 cr}-, quick-reaching from street to street, of the 
 fifed chi)n7iey, invite the rattling engines from 
 adjacent parishes, to disturb for a casual scintil- 
 lation thy peace and pocket ! 
 
 I am by nature extremely susceptible of street 
 affronts ; the jeers and taunts of the populace ;
 
 244 jEsea^s of Blia 
 
 the low-bred triumph they display over the 
 casual trip, or splashed stocking, of a gentle- 
 man. Yet can I endure the jocularity of a 
 young sweep with something more than for- 
 giveness. In the last winter but one, pacing 
 along Cheapside with my accustomed precipi- 
 tation when I walked westward, a treacherous 
 slide brought me upon my back in an instant. 
 I scrambled up with pain and shame enough, — 
 yet outwardly trying to face it down, as if 
 nothing had happened, — when the roguish grin 
 of one of these young wits encountered me. 
 There he stood, pointing me out with his dusky 
 finger to the mob, and to a poor woman (I sup- 
 pose his mother) in particular, till the tears for 
 the exquisiteness of the fun (so he thought it) 
 w^orked themselves out at the corners of his 
 poor red eyes, red from many a previous weep- 
 ing, and soot-inflamed, yet twinkling through 
 all with such a joy, snatched out of desolation, 
 that Hogarth — but Hogarth has got him al- 
 ready (how could he miss him ?) in the March 
 to Finchley, grinning at the pieman, — there he 
 stood, as he stands in the picture, irremovable, 
 as if the jest was to last forever, — with such a 
 maximum of glee, and minimum of mischief, in 
 his mirth — for the grin of a genuine sweep hath 
 absolutely no malice in it — that I could have 
 been content, if the honor of a gentleman might
 
 Zhc praise ot Cbimnc^^Swcepers 245 
 
 endure it, to have remained his butt and his 
 mockery till midnight. 
 
 I am by theor\^ obdurate to the seductiveness 
 of what are called a fine set of teeth. Every pair 
 of rosy lips (the ladies must pardon me) is a 
 casket presumably holding such jewels ; but, 
 methinks, they should take leave to ''air" 
 them as frugally as possible. The fine lady, or 
 fine gentleman, who show me their teeth, show 
 me bones. Yet must I confess, that from the 
 mouth of a true sweep a display (even to osten- 
 tation) of those white and shining ossifications, 
 strikes me as an agreeable anomaly in manners, 
 and an allowable piece of foppery. It is, as 
 
 when 
 
 A sable cloud 
 Turns forth her silver lining on the night. 
 
 It is like some remnant of gentry not quite ex- 
 tinct ; a badge of better days ; a hint of nobility 
 — and, doubtless, under the obscuring darkness 
 and double night of their forlorn disguisement, 
 oftentimes lurketh good blood, and gentle con- 
 ditions, derived from lost ancestry, and a lapsed 
 pedigree. The premature apprenticements of 
 these tender victims give but too much encour- 
 agement, I fear, to clandestine and almost in- 
 fantile abductions ; the seeds of civility and true 
 courtesy, so often discernible in these young 
 grafts (not otherwise to be accounted for).
 
 246 JEssa^s ot }£lla 
 
 plainly hint at some forced adoptions; many 
 noble Rachels, mourning for their children, 
 even in our days, countenance the fact ; the tales 
 of fairy-spiriting may shadow a lamentable 
 verity, and the recovery of the young Montagu 
 be but a solitary instance of good fortune out of 
 many irreparable and hopeless de filiations. 
 
 In one of the state-beds at Arundel Castle, a 
 few years since — under a ducal canopy — (that 
 seat of the Howards is an object of curiosity to 
 visitors, chiefly for its beds, in which the late 
 duke was especially a connoisseur) — encircled 
 with curtains of delicatest crimson, with starry 
 coronets inwoven — folded between a pair of 
 sheets whiter and softer than the lap where 
 Venus lulled Ascanius — was discovered by 
 chance, after all methods of search had failed, 
 at noonday, fast asleep, a lost chimney-sweeper. 
 The little creature, having somehow confounded 
 his passage among the intricacies of those lord- 
 ly chimneys, by some unknown aperture had 
 alighted upon this magnificent chamber ; and, 
 tired with his tedious explorations, was unable 
 to resist the delicious invitement to repose, 
 which he there saw exhibited ; so creeping be- 
 tween the sheets very quietly, laid his black 
 head upon the pillow, and slept like a young 
 Howard. 
 
 Such is the account given to the visitors at
 
 ^be praise ot Cbimncv^Sweepers 247 
 
 the Castle. But I cannot help seeming to per- 
 ceive a confirmation of what I have just hinted 
 at in this story, A high instinct was at work 
 in the case, or I am mistaken. Is it probable 
 that a poor child of that description, with what- 
 ever weariness he might be visited, would have 
 ventured, under such a penalty as he would be 
 taught to expect, to uncover the sheets of a 
 duke's bed, and deliberately to lay himself 
 down between them, when the rug, or the car- 
 pet, presented an obvious couch, still far above 
 his pretensions — is this probable, I would ask, 
 if the great power of nature, which I con- 
 tend for, had not been manifested within him, 
 prompting to the adventure? Doubtless this 
 young nobleman (for such my mind misgives 
 me that he must be) was allured by some mem- 
 ory, not amounting to full consciousness, of his 
 condition in infancy, when he was used to be 
 lapped by his mother, or his nurse, in just such 
 sheets as he there found, into which he was now 
 but creeping back as into his proper Incunabula, 
 and resting-place. By no other theory than by 
 this sentiment of a preexistent state (as I may 
 call it) can I explain a deed so venturous, and, 
 indeed, upon any other system so indecorous, in 
 this tender, but unseasonable, sleeper. 
 
 My pleasant friend Jem White was so im- 
 pressed by a belief of metamorphoses like this
 
 248 Bssags ot jeUa 
 
 frequently taking place, that in some sort to 
 reverse the wrongs of fortune in these poor 
 changelings, he instituted an annual feast of 
 chimne3'-s\veepers, 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 invi- 
 tation 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 provi- 
 dentially discovered in time to be no chimney- 
 sweeper, (all is not soot which looks so,) was 
 quoited out of the presence with universal 
 indignation, as not having on the wedding gar- 
 ment ; but in general the greatest harmony pre- 
 vailed. The place chosen was a convenient spot 
 among the pens, at the north side of the fair, 
 not so far distant as to be imper\dous to the 
 agreeable hubbub of that vanity ; but remote 
 enough not to be ob\dous to the interruption of 
 every gaping spectator in it. The guests assem- 
 bled about seven. In those little temporary 
 parlors three tables were spread with napery, 
 not so fine as substantial, and at every board a
 
 Zbc lI^rai6c of Cbimnep=S\veeper0 249 
 
 comely hostess presided with her pan of hissing 
 sausages. The nostrils of the young rogues 
 dilated at the savor. James White, as head 
 waiter, had charge of the first table ; and my- 
 self, with our trusty companion Bigod, ordina- 
 rily 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 hu- 
 mors of the scene with more spirit than my 
 friend. x\fter some general expression of 
 thanks for the honor the company had done 
 him, his inaugural ceremony was to clasp the 
 greasy waist of old dame Ursula (the fattest of 
 the three), that stood frjdng and fretting, half- 
 blessing, half-cursing "the gentleman," and 
 imprint upon her chaste lips a tender salute, 
 whereat the universal host would set up a shout 
 that tore the concave, while hundreds of grin- 
 ning teeth startled the night with their bright- 
 ness. Oh, it was a pleasure to see the sable younk- 
 ers lick in the unctuous meat, with his more 
 unctuous sayings, — how he would fit the titbits 
 to the puny mouths, reserving the lengthier 
 links for the seniors, — how he would intercept 
 a morsel even in the jaws of some young despe- 
 rado, declaring it " must to the pan again be 
 browned, for it was not fit for a gentleman's 
 eating," — how he would recom.mend this slice
 
 250 )BB6ti^B Of Blia 
 
 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 rec- 
 ommendation 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 pref- 
 acing every sentiment with a " Gentlemen, give 
 me leave to propose so and so," which was a 
 prodigious comfort to those young orphans ; 
 every now and then stuffing into his mouth 
 (for it did not do to be squeamish on these 
 occasions) indiscriminate pieces of those reek- 
 ing sausages, which pleased them mightily, and 
 was the savoriest part, you may believe, of the 
 entertainment. 
 
 Golden lads and lasses must, 
 
 As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. 
 
 James White is extinct, and with him these 
 suppers have long ceased. He carried away
 
 ^be ipraise of Cbimne^*S\veeper6 251 
 
 with him half the fun of the world when he 
 died — of my world at least. His old clients 
 look for him among the pens ; and, missing 
 him, reproach the altered feast of St. Bartho- 
 lomew, and the glory of Smithfield departed 
 forever.
 
 A COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF 
 BEGGARS IN THE METROPOLIS. 
 
 THE all-sweeping besom of societarian refor- 
 mation — your only modem Alcides' club 
 to rid the time of its abuses — is uplift with 
 many-handed sway to extirpate the last flut- 
 tering tatters of the bugbear Mendicity from 
 the metropolis. Scrips, wallets, bags, — staves, 
 dogs, and crutches, — the whole mendicant fra- 
 ternity with all their baggage, are fast posting 
 out of the purlieus of this eleventh persecution. 
 From the crowded crossing, from the corners 
 of streets and turnings of alleys, the parting 
 Genius of Beggar}^ is with "sighing sent." 
 
 I do not approve of this wholesale going to 
 work, this impertinent crusado, or belliim ad 
 exterminationem, proclaimed against a species. 
 Much good might be sucked from these Beg- 
 gars. 
 
 They were the oldest and honorablest form 
 of pauperism. Their appeals were to our com- 
 mon nature ; less revolting to an ingenious
 
 Xlbc 5)ecai? of JBeggars 253 
 
 mind than to be a suppliant to the particular 
 humors or caprice of any fellow-creature, or set 
 of fellow-creatures, parochial or societarian. 
 Theirs were the only rates uninvidious in the 
 le\y, ungrudged in the assessment. 
 
 There was a dignity springing from the very 
 depth of their desolation ; as to be naked is to 
 be so much nearer to the being a man, than to 
 go in livery. 
 
 The greatest spirits have felt this in their re- 
 verses ; and when Dyonisius from king turned 
 schoolmaster, do we feel any thing towards him 
 but contempt? Could Vandyke have made a 
 picture of him, swaying a ferula for a sceptre, 
 which would have affected our minds with the 
 same heroic pity, the same compassionate ad- 
 miration, with which we regard his Belisarius 
 begging for an odolnm ? Would the moral 
 have been more graceful, more pathetic ? 
 
 The Blind Beggar in the legend — the father 
 of pretty Bessy — whose story doggerel rhymes 
 and ale-house signs cannot so degrade or atten- 
 uate, but that some sparks of a lustrous spirit 
 will shine through the disguisements, — this 
 noble Earl of Cornwall (as indeed he was) and 
 memorable sport of fortune, fleeing from the 
 unjust sentence of his liege lord, stripped of all, 
 and seated on the flowering green of Bethnal, 
 with his more fresh and springing daughter by
 
 254 jEesa^B ot J6lia 
 
 his side, illumining his rags and his beggary, — 
 would the child and parent have cut a better 
 figure doing the honors of a counter, or expi- 
 ating their fallen condition upon the three-foot 
 eminence of some sempstering shopboard ? 
 
 In tale or history your Beggar is ever the just 
 antipode to your King. The poets and roman- 
 cical writers (as dear Margaret Newcastle would 
 call them), when they would most sharply and 
 feelingly paint a reverse of fortune, never stop 
 till they have brought down their heio in good 
 earnest to rags and the wallet. The depth of 
 the descent illustrates the height he falls from. 
 There is no medium which can be presented to 
 the imagination without offence. There is no 
 breaking the fall. Lear, thrown from his pal- 
 ace, must divest him of his garments, till he 
 answer "mere nature"; and Cresseid, fallen 
 from a prince's love, must extend her pale 
 arms, pale with other whiteness than of beauty, 
 supplicating lazar alms with bell and clap-dish. 
 
 The Lucian wits knew this very well ; and, 
 with a converse policy, when they would ex- 
 press scorn of greatness without the pity, they 
 show us an Alexander in the shades cobbling 
 shoes, or a Semiramis getting up foul linen. 
 
 How would it sound in song, that a great 
 monarch had declined his affections upon the 
 daughter of a baker ? yet, do we feel the imagi-
 
 Cbe Decas of ^Qcg^avB 255 
 
 nation at all violated when -we read the "true 
 ballad," where King Cophetua woos the beggar 
 maid? 
 
 Pauperism, pauper, poor man, are expressions 
 of pity, but pity alloyed with contempt. No 
 one properly contemns a beggar. Poverty is a 
 comparative thing, and each degree of it is 
 mocked by its "neighbor grice." Its poor 
 rents and comings-in are soon summed up and 
 told. Its pretences to property are almost ludi- 
 crous. Its pitiful attempts to save excite a 
 smile. Ever)' scornful companion can weigh 
 his trifle-bigger purse against it. Poor man re- 
 proaches poor man in the streets with impolitic 
 mention of his condition, his own being a shade 
 better, while the rich pass by and jeer at both. 
 No rascally comparative insults a beggar, or 
 thinks of weighing purses with him. He is not 
 in the scale of comparison. He is not under 
 the measure of property. He confessedly 
 hath none, anymore than a dog or a sheep. No 
 one twitteth him with ostentation above his 
 means. No one accuses him of pride, or up- 
 braideth him with mock humility. None jostle 
 with him for the wall, or pick quarrels for 
 precedency. No wealthy neighbor seeketh to 
 eject him from his tenement. No man sues 
 him. No man goes to law with him. If I were 
 not the independent gentleman that I am,
 
 256 je^sa^s of BKa 
 
 rather than I would be a retainer to the great, 
 a led captain, or a poor relation, 1 would choose, 
 out of the delicacy and true greatness of my 
 mind, to be a beggar. 
 
 Rags, which are the approach of poverty, are 
 the beggar's robes, and graceful insignia of his 
 profession, his tenure, his full dress, the suit in 
 which he is expected to show himself in public. 
 He is never out of the fashion, or limpeth awk- 
 wardly behind it. He is not required to put on 
 court mourning. He weareth all colors, fearing 
 none. His costume hath undergone less change 
 than the Quaker's. He is the only man in the 
 universe who is not obliged to study appear- 
 ances. The ups and downs of the world con- 
 cern him no longer. He alone continueth in 
 one stay. The price of stock or land affecteth 
 him not. The fluctuations of agricultural or 
 commercial prosperity touch him not, or at 
 worst but change his customers. He is not ex- 
 pected to become bail or surety for any one. 
 No man troubleth him with questioning his re- 
 ligion or politics. He is the only free man in 
 the universe. 
 
 The mendicants of this great city were so 
 many of her sights, her lions. I can no more 
 spare them than I could the Cries of London, 
 No comer of a street is complete without them. 
 They are as indispensable as the ballad singer ;
 
 tTbe £)ecas of :fiSeggar6 257 
 
 and in their picturesque attire as ornamental as 
 the signs of old London. They were the standing 
 morals, emblems, mementos, dial-mottoes, the 
 spital sermons, the books for children, the salu- 
 tary checks and pauses to the high and rushing 
 tide of greasy citizenry : 
 
 1,00k 
 Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there. 
 
 Above all, those old blind Tobits that used to 
 line the wall of Lincoln's-Inn Garden, before 
 modern fastidiousness had expelled them, cast- 
 ing up their ruined orbs to catch a ray of pity, 
 and (if possible) of light, with their faithful Dog 
 Guide at their feet, — whither are they fled ? or 
 into what corners, blind as themselves, have 
 they been driven, out of the w^holesome air and 
 sun-warmth ; immersed between four walls, in 
 what withering poorhouse do they endure the 
 penalty of double darkness, where the chink 
 of the dropt half-penny no more consoles their 
 forlorn bereavement, far from the sound of the 
 cheerful and hope-stirring tread of the passen- 
 ger ? Where hang their useless staves ; and 
 who will farm their dogs ? Have the overseers 
 
 of St. L caused them to be shot ? or were 
 
 they tied up in sacks, and dropt into the 
 
 Thames, at the suggestion of B , the mild 
 
 rector of — -- — ?
 
 258 JBeea^s of JBlia 
 
 Well fare the soul of unfastidious Vincent 
 Bourne, most classical, and, at the same time, 
 most English of the Latinists I — who has treated 
 of this human and quadrupedal alliance, this 
 dog and man friendship, in the sweetest of his 
 poems, the "Epitaphium in Canem," or "Dog's 
 Epitaph." Reader, peruse it, and say if cus- 
 tomary sights, which could call up such gentle 
 poetry as this, were of a nature to do more harm 
 or good to the moral sense of the passengers 
 through the daily thoroughfares of a vast and 
 busy metropolis. 
 
 Pauperis hie Iri requieseo Lyciscus, herilis, 
 Dum vixi, tutela vigil coluraenque senectse, 
 Dux cseco fidus : nee, me ducente, solebat, 
 Praetenso hinc atque hinc baculo, per iniqua locorum 
 Incertam explorare viam ; sed fila secutus, 
 Quae dubios regerent passds, vestigia tuta 
 Fixit iuoffenso gressu ; gelidumque sedile 
 In nudo nactus saxo, qu^ prsetereuntium 
 Unda frequens confluxit, ibi miserisque tenebras, 
 Ivamentis, noctemque oculis ploravit obortam. 
 Ploravit nee frustra ; obolum dedit alter et alter, 
 Queis corda et mentem indiderat natura benignam. 
 Ad latus interea jaeui sopitus herile, 
 Vel mediis vigil in somnis ; ad herilia jussa 
 Auresque atque animum arrectus, seu frustula amic^ 
 Porrexit sociasque dapes, seu longa diei 
 Taedia perpessus, reditum sub nocte parabat. 
 Hi mores, haec vita fuit, dum fata sinebant, 
 Dum neque languebam morbis, uec inerte senect^ ; 
 Qua; tandem obrepsit, veterique satellite caecum 
 Orbavit dominum : prisci sed gratia facti
 
 Zhc H)eca\2 of Beggavs 259 
 
 Ne tota intereat, longos delecta per annos, 
 Exiguum hunc Inis tumulum de cespite fecit, 
 Etsi inopis, non iugratae, munuscula dextrae ; 
 Carmine signavitque brevi, dominumque canemque 
 Quod memoret, fidumqiie canetn dominumque benig- 
 num. 
 
 Poor Irus' faithful wolf-dog here I lie, 
 
 That wont to tend my old blind master's steps, 
 
 His guide and guard : nor, while my service lasted, 
 
 Had he occasion for that staff, with which 
 
 He now goes picking out his path in fear 
 
 Over the highways and crossings ; but would plant, 
 
 Safe in the conduct of my friendly string, 
 
 A firm foot forward still, till he had reach'd 
 
 His poor seat on some stone, nigh where the tide 
 
 Of passers-by in thickest confluence flow'd : 
 
 To whom with loud and passionate laments 
 
 From morn to eve his dark estate he wail'd. 
 
 Nor wail'd to all in vain : some here and there, 
 
 The well-disposed and good, their pennies gave. 
 
 I meantime at his feet obsequious slept ; 
 
 Not all-asleep in sleep, but heart and ear 
 
 Prick'd up at his least motion, to receive 
 
 At his kind hand my customary crumbs, 
 
 And common portion in his feast of scraps ; 
 
 Or when night warn'd us homeward, tired and spent 
 
 With our long day and tedious beggary. 
 
 These were my manners, this my way of life, 
 Till age and slow disease me overtook, 
 And sever'd from my sightless master's side. 
 But lest the grace of so good deeds should die, 
 Through tract of years in mute oblivion lost, 
 This slender tomb of turf hath Irus reared, 
 Cheap monument of no ungrudging hand. 
 And with short verse inscribed it to attest.
 
 26o lEeetixie ot lEUti 
 
 In long and lasting union to attest, 
 The virtues of the Beggar and his Dog. 
 
 These dim eyes have in vain explored for 
 some months past a well-known figure, or part 
 of the figure of a man, who used to glide his 
 comely upper half over the pavements of Lon- 
 don, wheeling along with most ingenious celer- 
 ity upon a machine of wood : a spectacle to 
 natives, to foreigners, and to children. He was 
 of a robust make, with a florid, sailor-like com- 
 plexion, and his head was bare to the storm and 
 sunshine. He was a natural curiosity, a specu- 
 lation to the scientific, a prodigy to the simple. 
 The infant would stare at the mighty man 
 brought down to his own level. The common 
 cripple would despise his own pusillanimity, 
 viewing the hale stoutness and hearty heart of 
 this half-limbed giant. Few but must have no- 
 ticed him, for the accident which brought him 
 low took place during the riots of 1780, and he 
 has been a groundling so long. He seemed 
 earthborn, an Antaeus, and to suck in fresh 
 vigor from the soil which he neighbored. He 
 was a grand fragment : as good as an Elgin 
 marble. The nature which should have re- 
 cruited his reft legs and thighs was not lost, 
 but only retired into his upper parts, and he was 
 half a Hercules. I heard a tremendous voice 
 thundering and growling, as before an earth-
 
 ^be Deca^ ot ^Beggars 261 
 
 quake, and, casting down my eyes, it was this 
 mandrake reviling a steed that had started at 
 his portentous appearance. He seemed to want 
 but his just stature to have rent the offending 
 quadruped in shivers. He was as the man part of 
 a centaur, from which the horse half had been 
 cloven in some dire Lapithan controversy. He 
 moved on, as if he could have made shift with 
 yet half of the body-portion which was left him. 
 The OS sicblime was not wanting ; and he threw 
 out yet a jolly countenance upon the heavens. 
 Forty-and-two years had he driven this out-of- 
 door trade ; and now that his hair is grizzled in 
 the service, but his good spirits noway impaired, 
 because he is not content to exchange his free 
 air and exercise for the restraints of a poor- 
 house, he is expiating his contumacy in one of 
 those houses (ironically christened) of Correc- 
 tion. 
 
 Was a daily spectacle like this to be deemed 
 a nuisance, which called for legal interference 
 to remove ? or not rather a salutary and a 
 touching object, to the passers-by in a great 
 city? Among her shows, her museums, and 
 supplies of ever-gaping curiosity (and what else 
 but an accumulation of sights — endless sights — 
 is a great city ; or for what else is it desirable ?) 
 was there not room for one Lusus (not Na- 
 turce, indeed, but) Accidentium ? What if in
 
 262 jeega^s of Blia 
 
 forty-and-two years' going about, the man had 
 scraped together enough to give a portion to 
 his child (as the rumor ran), of a few hundreds, 
 — whom had he injured? — whom had he im- 
 posed upon? The contributors had enjoyed 
 their sight for their pennies. What if after 
 being exposed all day to the heats, the rains, 
 and the frosts of heaven, — shuffling his ungainly 
 trunk along in an elaborate and painful mo- 
 tion, — he was enabled to retire at night to enjoy 
 himself at a club of his fellow-cripples over a 
 dish of hot meat and vegetables, as the charge 
 was gravely brought against him by a clergy- 
 man deposing before a House of Commons' 
 Committee, — was this^ or was his truly paternal 
 consideration, which (if a fact) deserved a statue 
 rather than a whipping-post, and is inconsist- 
 ent at least with the exaggeration of nocturnal 
 orgies which he has been slandered with, — a 
 reason that he should be deprived of his chosen, 
 harmless, nay, edifying way of life, and be com- 
 mitted in hoary age for a sturdy vagabond ? 
 
 There was a Yorick once, whom it would not 
 have shamed to have sat down at the cripple's 
 feast, and to have thrown in his benediction, 
 ay, and his mite too, for a companionable sym- 
 bol. " Age, thou hast lost thy breed." 
 
 Half of these stories about prodigious for- 
 tunes made by begging are (I verily believe)
 
 Zbc S)ccai5 of McQQaxs 263 
 
 misers' calumnies. One was much talked of in 
 the public papers some time since, and the 
 usual charitable inferences deduced. A clerk 
 in the bank was surprised with the announce- 
 ment of a five-hundred-pound legacy left him 
 by a person whose name he was a stranger to. 
 It seems that in his daily morning walks from 
 Peckham (or some village thereabouts) where he 
 lived, to his office, it had been his practice for 
 the last twenty years to drop his half-penny 
 duly into the hat of some blind Bartimeus, 
 that sat begging alms by the way-side in the 
 Borough. The good old beggar recognized his 
 daily benefactor by the voice only ; and, when 
 he died, left all the amassings of his alms (that 
 had been half a century perhaps in the accumu- 
 lating), to his old bank friend. Was this a story 
 to purse up people's hearts, and pennies, against 
 giving an alms to the blind ? — or not rather a 
 beautiful moral of well-directed charity on the 
 one part, and noble gratitude on the other ! 
 
 I sometimes wish I had been that bank clerk. 
 
 I seem to remember a poor old grateful kind 
 of creature, blinking, and looking up with his 
 no eyes in the sun. 
 
 Is it possible I could have steeled my purse 
 against him ? 
 
 Perhaps I had no small change. 
 
 Reader, do not be frightened at the hard
 
 264 Bssags ot Blia 
 
 ■words, imposition, imposture— ^zV^, and ask 
 no questions. Cast thy bread upon the waters. 
 Some have unawares (like this bank clerk) en- 
 tertained angels. 
 
 Shut not thy purse-strings always against 
 painted distress. Act a charity sometimes. 
 When a poor creature (outwardly and visibly 
 such) comes before thee, do not stay to inquire 
 whether the " seven small children," in whose 
 name he implores thy assistance, have a verita- 
 ble existence. Rake not into the bowels of un- 
 welcome truth, to save a half-penny. It is good 
 to believe him. If he be not all that he pre- 
 tendeth, give, and under a personate father of 
 a family, think (if thou pleasest) that thou hast 
 relieved an indigent bachelor. When they 
 come with their counterfeit looks, and mump- 
 ing tones, think them players. You pay your 
 money to see a comedian feign these things, 
 which, concerning these poor people, thou 
 canst not certainly tell whether they are feigned 
 or not.
 
 A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG. 
 
 MANKIND, says a Chinese manuscript, 
 which my friend M. was obliging enough 
 to read and explain to me, for the first seventy 
 thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing or 
 biting it from the living animal, just as the}' do 
 in Abj'ssinia to this day. This period is not ob- 
 scurely hinted at by their great Confucius in the 
 second chapter of his "Mundane IMutations," 
 where he designates a kind of golden age by 
 the term Cho-fang, literally the Cook's Holi- 
 day. The manuscript goes on to say, that the 
 art of roasting or rather broiling (which I take 
 to be the elder brother) was accidentally dis- 
 covered in the manner following : The swine- 
 herd, Ho-ti, ha^dng gone out into the woods 
 one morning, as his manner was, to collect 
 mast for his hogs, left his cottage in the care 
 of his eldest son, Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, 
 who being fond of playing with fire, as younk- 
 ers of his age commonly are, let some sparks
 
 266 )B66ti^6 ot lEUa 
 
 escape into a bundle of straw, which kindled 
 quickly, spread the conflagration over every 
 part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced 
 to ashes. Together with the cottage (a sorry 
 antediluvian makeshift of a building, you may 
 think it), what was of much more importance, 
 a fine litter of new-farrowed pigs, no less than 
 nine in number, perished. China pigs have 
 been esteemed a luxury all over the East, from 
 the remotest periods that we read of. Bo-bo 
 was in the utmost consternation, as you may 
 think, not so much for the sake of the tene- 
 ment, which his father and he could easily 
 build up again with a very few branches, and 
 labor of an hour or two, at any time, as for the 
 loss of the pigs. While he was thinking what 
 he should say to his father, and wringing his 
 hands over the smoking remnants of one of 
 those untimely sufferers, an odor assailed his 
 nostrils, unlike any scent which he had before 
 experienced. What could it proceed from? — 
 not from the burnt cottage, — he had smelt that 
 smell before, — indeed this was by no means the 
 first accident of the kind w^hich had occurred 
 through the negligence of this unlucky young 
 firebrand. Much less did it resemble that of 
 any known herb, weed, or flower. A premoni- 
 tory moistening at the same time overflowed 
 his nether lip. He knew not what to think.
 
 B S)i66ertation upon IRoast pig 267 
 
 He next stooped down to feel the pig, if 
 there were an}' signs of life in it. He 
 burnt his fingers, and to cool them he applied 
 them in his booby fashion to his mouth. Some 
 of the crumbs of the scorched skin had come 
 away with his fingers, and for the first time in 
 his life (in the world's life indeed, for before 
 him no man had known it, he tasted — crack- 
 lifig ! Again he felt and fumbled at the pig. It 
 did not burn him so much now, still he licked 
 his fingers from a sort of habit. The truth at 
 length broke into his slow understanding, that 
 it was the pig that smelt so, and the pig that 
 tasted so delicious ; and surrendering himself 
 up to the new-born pleasure, he fell to tearing 
 up whole handfuls of the scorched skin with the 
 flesh next it, and was cramming it down his 
 throat in his beastly fashion, when his sire en- 
 tered amid the smoking rafters, armed with re- 
 tributory' cudgel, and finding how affairs stood, 
 began to rain blows upon the young rogue's 
 shoulders, as thick as hailstones, which Bo-bo 
 heeded not any more tham if they had been 
 flies. The tickling pleasure, which he experi- 
 enced in his lower regions had rendered him 
 quite callous to any inconveniences he might 
 feel in those remote quarters. His father might 
 lay on, but he could not beat him from his pig, 
 till he had fairly made an end of it, when, be-
 
 268 Basags of jeiia 
 
 coming a little more sensible of his situation, 
 something like the following dialogue ensued. 
 
 "You graceless whelp, what have you got 
 there devouring? Is it not enough that you 
 have burnt me down three houses with your 
 dog's tricks, and be hanged to you ! but you 
 must be eating fire, and I know not what; — 
 what have you got there, I say ? " 
 
 " O father, the pig, the pig! do come and 
 taste how nice the burnt pig eats." 
 
 The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He 
 cursed his son, and he cursed himself that ever 
 he should beget a son that should eat burnt 
 
 pig- 
 
 Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharp- 
 ened since morning, soon raked out another 
 pig, and fairly rending it asunder, thrust the 
 lesser half by main force into the fists of Ho-ti, 
 still shouting out : " Bat, eat, eat the burnt pig, 
 father, only taste ; O Lord! " — with such like 
 barbarous ejaculations, cramming all the while 
 as if he would choke. 
 
 Ho-ti trembled in every joint while he grasped 
 the abominable thing, wavering whether he 
 should not put his son to death for an unnatu- 
 ral young monster, when the crackling scorch- 
 ing his fingers, as it had done his son's, and ap- 
 plying the same remedy to them, he in his turn 
 tasted some of its flavor, which, make what sour
 
 H Dissertation upon IRoast pig 269 
 
 mouths he would for a pretence, proved not 
 altogether displeasing to him. In conclusion 
 (for the manuscript here is a little tedious) both 
 father and son fairly sat down to the mess, and 
 never left off till they had dispatched all that 
 remained of the litter. 
 
 Bo-bo was strictly enjoined not to let the se- 
 cret escape, for the neighbors would certainly 
 have stoned them for a couple of abominable 
 wretches, who could think of improving upon 
 the good meat which God had sent them. Nev- 
 ertheless, strange stories got about. It was ob- 
 sen,'ed that Ho-ti's cottage was now burnt down 
 more frequently than ever. Nothing but fires 
 from this time forward. Some would break out 
 in broad day, others in the nighttime. As often 
 as the sow farrowed, so sure was the house of 
 Ho-ti to be in a blaze ; and Ho-ti himself, which 
 was the more remarkable, instead of chastising 
 his son, seemed to grow more indulgent to him 
 than ever. At length they were watched, the 
 terrible mystery discovered, and father and son 
 summoned to take their trial at Pekin, then an 
 inconsiderable assize town. Evidence was 
 given, the obnoxious food itself produced in 
 court, and verdict about to be pronounced, when 
 the foreman of the jury begged that some of the 
 burnt pig, of which the culprits stood accused, 
 might be handed into the box. He handled it,
 
 270 jEssa^e of JElia 
 
 and they all handled it ; and burning their fin- 
 gers, as Bo-bo and his father had done before 
 them, and nature prompting to each of them the 
 same remedy, against the face of all the facts, 
 and the clearest charge which judge had ever 
 given, — to the surprise of the whole court, 
 townsfolk, strangers, reporters, and all present, 
 — without leaving the box, or any manner of 
 consultation whatever, they brought in a sim- 
 ultaneous verdict of Not Guilty. 
 
 The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked 
 at the manifest iniquity of the decision ; and 
 when the court was dismissed, went privily, and 
 bought up all the pigs that could be had for love 
 or money. In a few days his Lordship's town- 
 house was observed to be on fire. The thing 
 took wing, and now there was nothing to be 
 seen but fire in every direction. Fuel and pigs 
 grew enormously dear all over the district. The 
 insurance offices one and all shut up shop. 
 People built slighter and slighter every day, 
 until it was feared that the very science of ar- 
 chitecture would in no long time be lost to the 
 world. Thus this custom of firing houses con- 
 tinued, till in process of time, says my manu- 
 script, a sage arose, like our Locke, who made 
 a discovery, that the flesh of swine, or indeed 
 of any other animal, might be cooked [biirnt^ 
 as they called it) without the necessity of con-
 
 B dissertation upon tRoast HMcj 271 
 
 suminor a whole house to dress it. Then first 
 began the rude form of a gridiron. Roasting 
 by the string or spit came in a century or two 
 later ; I forget in whose dynasty. By such slow 
 degrees, concludes the manuscript, do the most 
 useful, and seemingly the most obvious arts 
 make their way among mankind. 
 
 Without placing too implicit faith in the ac- 
 count above given, it 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 favor of any culi- 
 nary object, that pretext and excuse might be 
 found in roast pig. 
 
 Of all the delicacies in the whole modus edi- 
 bilis, I will maintain it to be the most delicate 
 — princeps obson ioru m . 
 
 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 of the sty — with no 
 original speck of the amor imm,unditicB , the 
 hereditary failing of the first parent, yet mani- 
 fest — his voice as yet not broken, but something 
 between a childish treble and a grumble — the 
 mild fore-runner, or prisliidiiini 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 ?
 
 272 lEsB^^B of jEUa 
 
 There is no flavor comparable, I will con- 
 tend, 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 ole- 
 aginous — O call it not fat ! but an indefinable 
 sweetness growing up to it — the tender blos- 
 soming of fat — fat cropped in the bud — taken in 
 the shoot — in 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 running into each other, 
 that both together make but one ambrosian 
 result, or common substance. 
 
 Behold him, while he is "doing" — it seem- 
 eth rather a refreshing warmth, than a scorch- 
 ing 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 in- 
 nocent grow up to the grossness and indocility 
 which too often accompany maturer swine- 
 hood ? Ten to one he would have proved a 
 glutton, a sloven, an obstinate, disagreeable ani-
 
 B Dissertation upon IRoast pic} 273 
 
 mal — wallowing in all manner of filthy conver- 
 sation, — 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 ba- 
 con, — no coal-heaver bolteth him in reeking 
 sausages, — he hath a fair sepulchre in the grate- 
 ful stomach of the judicious epicure, — and for 
 such a tomb might be content to die. 
 
 He is the best of sapors. Pineapple is great. 
 She is indeed almost too transcendant — a de- 
 light, if not sinful, yet so like to sinning that 
 really a tender conscienced person would do 
 well to pause — too ravishing for mortal taste, 
 she woundeth and excoriateth the lips that ap- 
 proach her — like lovers' kisses, she biteth — she 
 is a pleasure bordering on pain from the fierce- 
 ness and insanity of her relish — but she stop- 
 peth at the palate — she meddleth not with the 
 appetite — and the coarsest hunger might bar- 
 ter her consistently for a mutton chop. 
 
 Pig — let me speak his praise — is no less 
 provocative of the appetite, than he is satisfac- 
 tory to the criticalness of the censorious palate. 
 The strong man may batten on him, and the 
 weakling refuseth not his mild juices.
 
 274 J£63a^3 Of BUa 
 
 Unlike to mankind's mixed characters, a bun- 
 dle of virtues and vices, inexplicably inter- 
 twisted, and not to be unravelled without hazard, 
 he is — good throughout. No part of him is 
 better or worse than another. He helpeth, as 
 far as his little means extend, all around. He 
 is the least envious of banquets. He is all 
 neighbors' fare. 
 
 I am one of those who freely and ungrud- 
 gingly impart a share of the good things of this 
 life which fall to their lot (few as mine are in 
 this kind) to a friend. I protest I take as great 
 an interest in my friend's pleasures, his rel- 
 ishes, and proper satisfactions, as in mine own. 
 ''Presents," I often say, "endear Absents." 
 Hares, pheasants, partridges, snipes, barn-door 
 chickens (those " tame villatic fowl"), capons, 
 plovers, brawn, barrels of oysters, I dispense as 
 freely as I receive them. I love to taste them, 
 as it were, upon the tongue of my friend. But 
 a stop must be put somewhere. One would not, 
 like Ivcar, ' ' give every thing. ' ' I make my 
 stand upon pig. Methinks it is an ingratitude 
 to the Giver of all good flavors, to extradomi- 
 ciliate, or send out of the house, slightingly 
 (under pretext of friendship, or I know not 
 what), a blessing so particularly adapted, pre- 
 destined, I may say, to my individual palate — 
 it argues an insensibility.
 
 B Biasertation upon IRoast ipig 275 
 
 I remember a touch of conscience in this kind 
 at school. My good old aunt, who never parted 
 from me at the end of a holiday without stuff- 
 ing a sweetmeat, or some nice thing, into my 
 pocket, had dismissed me one evening with a 
 smoking plumb-cake fresh from the oven. In 
 my way to school (it was over London bridge) 
 a grayheaded old beggar saluted me (I have no 
 doubt, at this time of day, that he was a coun- 
 terfeit). I had no pence to console him with, 
 and in the vanity of self-denial, and in the 
 very coxcombry of charity, schoolboy-like, I 
 made him a present of — the whole cake ! I 
 walked on a little, buoyed up, as one is on such 
 occasions, with a sweet soothing of self-satis- 
 faction ; but before I had got to the end of the 
 bridge my better feelings returned, and I burst 
 into tears, thinking how ungrateful I had been 
 to my good aunt, to go and give her good gift 
 away to a stranger that I had never seen before, 
 and who might be a bad man for aught I knew ; 
 and then I thought of the pleasure my aunt 
 would be taking in thinking that I — I myself, 
 and not another — would eat her nice cake, — 
 and what should I say to her the next time I 
 saw her, — how naughty I was to part with her 
 pretty present I — and the odor of that spicy cake 
 came back upon my recollection, and the pleas- 
 ure and curiosity I had taken in seeing her
 
 276 JEesa^e ot iBlia 
 
 make it, and her joy when she sent it to the 
 oven, and how disappointed she would feel that 
 I had never had a bit of it in my mouth at 
 last, — and I blamed my impertinent spirit of 
 alms-giving, and out-of-place hypocrisy of good- 
 ness ; and above all I wished never to see the 
 face again of that insidious, good-for-nothing 
 old gray impostor. 
 
 Our ancestors were nice in their method of 
 sacrificing these tender victims. We read of 
 pigs whipt to death with something of a shock, 
 as we hear of any other obsolete custom. The 
 age of discipline is gone by, or it would be 
 curious to inquire (in a philosophical light 
 merely) w^hat effect this process might have 
 towards intenerating and dulcifying a substance, 
 naturally so mild and dulcet as the flesh of 
 young pigs. It looks like refining a violet. 
 Yet we should be cautious, while we condemn 
 the inhumanity, how we censure the wisdom of 
 the practice. It might impart a gusto. 
 
 I remember an hypothesis, argued upon by 
 the young students, when I was at St. Omer's, 
 and maintained with much learning and pleas- 
 antry on both sides, ' ' Whether, supposing that 
 the flavor of a pig who obtained his death by 
 whipping (per Jlagellationein extremain), su- 
 peradded a pleasure upon the palate of a man 
 more intense than any possible suffering we
 
 B S)i6sertation upon IRoast pltj 277 
 
 can conceive in the animal, is man justified in 
 using that method of putting the animal to 
 death ? " I forget the decision. 
 
 His sauce should be considered. Decidedly, 
 a few bread-crumbs, done up with his liver and 
 brains, and a dash of mild sage. But banish, 
 dear Mrs. Cook, I beseech you, the whole onion 
 tribe. Barbecue your whole hogs to your pal- 
 ate, steep them in shalots, stuff them out with 
 plantations of the rank and guilty garlic ; you 
 cannot poison them, or make them stronger 
 than they are, — but consider, he is a weakling 
 — a flower.
 
 A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT OF THE BE- 
 HAVIOR OF MARRIED PEOPLE. 
 
 AS a single man, I have spent a good deal of 
 my time in noting down the infirmities of 
 Married People, to console myself for those su- 
 perior pleasures, which they tell me I have lost 
 by remaining as I am. 
 
 I cannot say that the quarrels of men and 
 their wives ever made any great impression 
 upon me, or had much tendency to strengthen 
 me in those anti-social resolutions, which I took 
 up long ago upon more substantial considera- 
 tions. What oftenest offends me at the house 
 of married persons where I visit, is an error of 
 quite a different description ; — it is that they are 
 too loving. 
 
 Not too loving neither ; that does not explain 
 my meaning. Besides, why should that offend 
 me ? The very act of separating themselves 
 from the rest of the world, to have the fuller 
 enjoyment of each other's society, implies that 
 they prefer one another to all the world.
 
 B JBacbelor's Complaint 279 
 
 But -what I complain of is, that they carry this 
 preference so undisguisedly, they perk it up in 
 the faces of us single people so shamelessly, you 
 cannot be in their company a moment without 
 being made to feel, by some indirect hint or 
 open avowal, that you are not the object of this 
 preference. Now there are some things which 
 give no offence, while implied or taken for 
 granted merely ; but expressed, there is much 
 offence in them. If a man were to accost the 
 first homely-featured, or plainly dressed young 
 woman of his acquaintance, and tell her bluntly, 
 that she was not handsome or rich enough for 
 him, and he could not marry her, he would de- 
 serve to be kicked for his ill manners ; yet no 
 less is implied in the fact, that having access 
 and opportunity of putting the question to her, 
 he has never yet thought fit to do it. The 
 young woman understands this as clearly as if 
 it were put into words ; but no reasonable young 
 woman would think of making this the ground 
 of a quarrel. Just as little right have a married 
 couple to tell me by speeches, and looks that 
 are scarce less plain than speeches, that I am 
 not the happy man, — the lady's choice. It is 
 enough that I know I am not ; I do not want 
 this perpetual reminding. 
 
 The display of superior knowledge or riches 
 may be made sufficiently mortifying ; but these
 
 28o Bssa^s ot JElia 
 
 admit of a palliative. The knowledge which is 
 brought out to insult me, may accidently im- 
 prove me ; and in the rich man's houses and 
 pictures, his parks and gardens, I have a tempo- 
 rary usufruct at least. But the display of married 
 happiness has none of these palliatives ; it is 
 throughout pure, unrecompensed, unqualified 
 insult. 
 
 Marriage by its best title is a monopoly, and 
 not of the least in\ndious sort. It is the cunning 
 of most possessors of any exclusive pri\nlege to 
 keep their advantage as much out of sight as 
 possible, that their less favored neighbors, see- 
 ing little of the benefit, may the less be disposed 
 to question the right. But these married monop- 
 olists thrust the most obnoxious part of their 
 patent into our faces. 
 
 Nothing is to me more distasteful than that 
 entire complacency and satisfaction which beam 
 in the countenances of a new-married couple, 
 — in that of the lady particularly ; it tells you, 
 that her lot is disposed of in this world ; that 
 you can have no hopes of her. It is true, I have 
 none, nor wishes either, perhaps ; but this is 
 one of those truths which ought, as I have said 
 before, to be taken for granted, not expressed. 
 
 The excessive airs w^hich those people give 
 themselves, founded on the ignorance of us un- 
 married people, would be more offensive if they
 
 B JBacbelor's Complaint 281 
 
 were less irrational. We will allow them to un- 
 derstand the mysteries belonging to their own 
 craft better than we, who have not had the hap- 
 piness to be made free of the company ; but 
 arrogance is not content within these limits. 
 If a single person presume to offer his opinion 
 in their presence, though upon the most indif- 
 ferent subject, he is immediately silenced as an 
 incompetent person. Nay, a young married 
 lady of my acquaintance, who, the best of the 
 jest was, had not changed her condition above 
 a fortnight before, in a question which I had 
 the misfortune to differ from her, respecting the 
 properest mode of breeding oysters for the Lon- 
 don market, had the assurance to ask with a 
 sneer, how such an old bachelor as I could 
 pretend to know any thing about such matters ! 
 But what I have spoken of hitherto is nothing 
 to the airs which these creatures give themselves 
 when they come, as they generally do, to have 
 children. When I consider how little of a 
 rarity children are, — that every street and blind 
 alley swarms with them, — that the poorest peo- 
 ple commonly have them in most abundance, — 
 that there are few marriages that are not blest 
 with at least one of these bargains, — how often 
 they turn out ill, and defeat the fond hopes of 
 their parents, taking to vicious courses, which 
 end in poverty, disgrace, the gallows, etc., — I
 
 282 jBeen^se of JSlia 
 
 cannot for my life tell what cause for pride 
 there can possibly be in having them. If they 
 were young phoenixes, indeed, that were bom 
 but one in a year, there might be a pretext. 
 But when they are so common 
 
 I do not advert to the insolent merit which 
 they assume with their husbands on these occa- 
 sions. I,et them look to that. But why we, 
 who are not their natural-bom subjects, should 
 be expected to bring our spices, myrrh, and in- 
 cense, — our tribute and homage of admiration, 
 — I do not see. 
 
 ** Like as the arrows in the hand of the giant 
 even so are the young children " ; so says the 
 excellent ofiEice in our Prayer-Book appointed 
 for the churching of women. " Happy is the 
 man that hath his quiver full of them"; 
 so say I; but then don't let him discharge 
 his quiver upon us that are weaponless ; — let 
 them be arrows, but not to gall and stick us. I 
 have generally observed that these arrows are 
 double-headed : they have two forks, to be sure 
 to hit with one or the other. As for instance, 
 where you come into a house which is full of 
 children, if you happen to take no notice of 
 them (you are thinking of something else, per- 
 haps, and turn a deaf ear to their innocent ca- 
 resses), you are set down as untractable, mo- 
 rose, a hater of children. On the other hand, if
 
 H :fSacbelor*s Complaint 283 
 
 you find them more than usually engaging, — if 
 you are taken with their pretty manners, and 
 set about in earnest to romp and play mth them, 
 some pretext or other is sure to be found for 
 sending them out of the room ; they are too 
 
 noisy or boisterous, or Mr. does not like 
 
 children. With one or other of these forks the 
 arrow is sure to hit. 
 
 I could forgive their jealousy, and dispense 
 with toying with their brats, if it gives them 
 any pain ; but I think it unreasonable to be 
 called upon to love them, where I see no occa- 
 sion, — to love a whole family, perhaps, eight, 
 nine, or ten, indiscriminately, — to love all the 
 pretty dears, because children are so engaging ! 
 
 I know there is a proverb, "Love me, love 
 my dog " ; that is not always so very practicable, 
 particularly if the dog be set upon you to tease 
 you or snap at you in sport. But a dog, or a 
 lesser thing, — any inanimate substance, as a 
 keepsake, a watch or a ring, a tree, or the place 
 where we last parted when my friend went 
 away upon a long absence, I can make shift to 
 love, because I love him, and any thing that re- 
 minds me of him ; provided it be in its nature 
 indifferent, and apt to receive whatever hue 
 fancy can give it. But children have a real 
 character, and an essential being of themselves ; 
 they are amiable or unamiable per se ; I must
 
 284 :iBssai5s ot :!Ella 
 
 love or hate them as I see cause for either in 
 their qualities. A child's nature is too serious 
 a thing to admit of its being regarded as a mere 
 appendage to another being, and to be loved or 
 hated accordingly ; they stand with me upon 
 their own stock, as much as men and women 
 do. Oh ! but 3'ou will say, sure it is an attrac- 
 tive age, — there is something iu the tender 
 years of infancy that of itself charms us ? That 
 is the very reason why I am more nice about 
 them. I know that a sweet child is the sweet- 
 est thing in nature, not even excepting the 
 delicate creatures which bear them, but the 
 prettier the kind of a thing is, the more desir- 
 able it is that it should be pretty of its kind. 
 One daisy differs not much from another in 
 glory ; but a violet should look and smell the 
 daintiest. I was always rather squeamish in 
 my women and children. 
 
 But this is not the worst; one must be ad- 
 mitted into their familiarity at least, before 
 they can complain of inattention. It implies 
 ^dsits, and some kind of intercourse. But if 
 the husband be a man with whom 3'ou have 
 lived on a friendly footing before marriage — if 
 you did not come in on the wife's side — if you 
 did not sneak into the house in her train, but 
 were an old friend in fast habits of intimacy be- 
 fore their courtship was so much as thought
 
 B :(BacbeIor*6 Complaint 285 
 
 on, — look about you — your tenure is precarious 
 — before a twelvemonth shall roll over your 
 head, you shall find your old friend gradually 
 grow cool and altered towards you, and at last 
 seek opportunities of breaking with you. I 
 have scarce a married friend of my acquaintance, 
 upon whose firm faith I can rely, whose friend- 
 ship did not commence after the period of his 
 marriage. With some limitations, they can 
 endure that ; but that the good man should 
 have dared to enter into a solemn league of 
 friendship in which they were not consulted, 
 though it happened before they knew him, — 
 before they that are now man and wife ever 
 met, — this is intolerable to them. Every long 
 friendship, every old authentic intimacy, must 
 be brought into their office to be new stamped 
 w-ith their currenc}', as a sovereign prince calls 
 in the good old money that was coined in some 
 reign before he was born or thought of, to be 
 new marked and minted with the stamp of his 
 authority, before he will let it pass current in 
 the world. You may guess what luck generally 
 befalls such a rusty piece of metal as I am in 
 these new mintijigs. 
 
 Innumerable are the ways which they take to 
 insult and worm you out of their husband's 
 confidence. Laughing at all you say with a 
 kind of wonder, as if you were a queer kind of
 
 286 B6sa^6 Of :ei(a 
 
 fellow that said good things, but an oddity, is 
 one of the ways ; — they have a particular kind 
 of stare for the purpose ; — till at last the hus- 
 band, who used to defer to your judgment, and 
 would pass over some excrescences of under- 
 standing and manner for the sake of a general 
 vein of observation (not quite vulgar) which he 
 perceived in you, begins to suspect whether you 
 are not altogether a humorist, — a fellow well 
 enough to have consorted with in his bachelor 
 days, but not quite so proper to be introduced 
 to ladies. This may be called the staring way ; 
 and is that which has oftenest been put in 
 practice against me. 
 
 Then there is the exaggerating way, or the 
 way of irony ; that is, where they find you an 
 object of especial regard with their husband, 
 who is not so easily to be shaken from the last- 
 ing attachment founded on esteem which he has 
 conceived towards you, by never qualified ex- 
 aggerations to cry up all that you say or do, till 
 the good man, who understands well enough 
 that it is all done in compliment to him, grows 
 weary of the debt of gratitude which is due to 
 so much candor, and by relaxing a little on his 
 part, and taking down a peg or two in his en- 
 thusiasm, sinks at length to the kindly level of 
 moderate esteem — that "decent affection and 
 complacent kindness " tow^ards you, where she
 
 B JiSacbelor's Complaint 287 
 
 herself can join in sympathy with him without 
 much stretch and violence to her sincerity. 
 
 Another way (for the ways they have to ac- 
 complish so desirable a purpose are infinite) is, 
 with a kind of innocent simplicity, continually 
 to mistake what it was which first made their 
 husband fond of you. If an esteem for some- 
 thing excellent in your moral character was 
 that which riveted the chain which she is to 
 break, upon any imaginary discovery of a want 
 of poignancy in your conversation, she will cry, 
 "I thought, my dear, you described your friend, 
 
 Mr. , as agreat\\dt?" If, on the other 
 
 hand, it was for some supposed charm in your 
 conversation that he first grew to like you, and 
 was content for this to overlook some trifling 
 irregularities in 3'our moral deportment, upon 
 the first notice of any of these she as readily 
 exclaims : " This, my dear, is your good Mr. 
 ! " One good lady whom I took the lib- 
 erty of expostulating with for not showing me. 
 quite so much respect as I thought due to her 
 husband's old friend, had the candor to confess 
 
 to me that she had often heard Mr. speak 
 
 of me before marriage, and that she had con- 
 ceived a great desire to be acquainted with me, 
 but that the sight of me had very much disap- 
 pointed her expectations ; for from her hus- 
 band's representations of me, she had formed a
 
 JEssa^s of Blia 
 
 notion that she was to see a fine, tall, officer- 
 like looking man (I use her very- words), the 
 very reverse of which proved to be the truth. 
 This was candid, and I had the civility not to 
 ask her in return, how she came to pitch upon 
 a standard of personal accomplishments for her 
 husband's friends which differed so much from 
 his own ; for my friend's dimensions as near 
 as possible approximate to mine ; he standing 
 five feet five in his shoes, in which I have the 
 advantage of him by about half an inch ; and 
 he no more than myself exhibited any indica- 
 tions of a martial character in his air or counte- 
 nance. 
 
 These are some of the mortifications which I 
 have encountered in the absurd attempt to visit 
 at their houses. To enumerate them all would 
 be a vain endeavor. I shall therefore just 
 glance at the very common impropriety of 
 which married ladies are guilty, — of treating us 
 as if we were their husbands, and vice versa. I 
 mean, when they use us with familiarity, and 
 their husbands with ceremony. Testacea, for 
 instance, kept me the other night two or three 
 hours beyond my usual time of supping, while 
 
 she was fretting because Mr. did not come 
 
 home till the oysters were all spoiled rather 
 than she would be guilty of the impoliteness of 
 touching one in his absence. This was revers-
 
 B JSacbelor^s Complaint 289 
 
 ing the point of good manners ; for ceremony 
 is an invention to take off the uneasy feeling 
 which we derive from knowing ourselves to be 
 less the object of love and esteem with a fellow- 
 creature than some other person is. It en- 
 deavors to make up, by superior attentions in 
 little points, for that invidious preference which 
 it is forced to deny in the greater. Had 
 Testacea kept the oysters back for me, and 
 withstood her husband's importunities to go to 
 supper, she would have acted according to the 
 strict rules of propriety. I know no ceremony 
 that ladies are bound to observe to their hus- 
 bands, beyond the point of a modest behavior 
 and decorum ; therefore I must protest against 
 the vicarious gluttony of Cerasea, who at her 
 own table sent away a dish of Morellas, which 
 I was applying to with great good- will, to her 
 husband at the other end of the table, and rec- 
 ommended a plate of less extraordinary^ goose- 
 berries to my un wedded palate in their stead. 
 
 Neither can I excuse the wanton affront of 
 
 But I am weary of stringing up all my married 
 acquaintance by Roman denominations. Let 
 them amend and change their manners, or I 
 promise to record the full-length English of 
 their names, to the terror of all such desperate 
 offenders in future.
 
 ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS. 
 
 THE casual sight of an old playbill, which I 
 picked up the other day — I know not by 
 what chance it was preserved so long — tempts 
 me to call to mind a few of the players who 
 make the principal figure in it. It presents the 
 cast of parts in the " Twelfth Night " at the old 
 Drury Lane Theatre two-and-thirty years ago. 
 There is some thing very touching in these old 
 remembrances. They make us think how we 
 once used to read a playbill, — not, as now per- 
 adventure, singling out a favorite performer, 
 and casting a negligent eye over the rest ; but 
 spelling out every name, down to the very 
 mutes and servants of the scene, — when it was 
 a matter of no small moment to us whether 
 Whitfield or Packer took the part of Fabian ; 
 when Benson, and Burton, and Phillimore — 
 names of small account — had an importance 
 beyond what we can be content to attribute now 
 to the time's best actors. " Orsino, by Mr.
 
 On Some ot tbe ©ID Bctors 291 
 
 Barrymore." What a full Shakespearean sound 
 it carries ! how fresh to memory arise the 
 image, and the manner of the gentle actor ! 
 
 Those who have only seen Mrs. Jordan within 
 the last ten or fifteen years can have no ade- 
 quate 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 dis- 
 guised 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" stiil followed after that as by 
 some growing (and not mechanical) process, 
 thought springing up after thought, I would al-
 
 292 leeea^e of Blia 
 
 most say, as they were watered by her tears. 
 So in those fine lines — 
 
 Write loyal cantos of contemned love — 
 Halloo 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 her passion, or it was Nature's 
 owm rhetoric, most legitimate then, when it 
 seemed altogether without rule or law. 
 
 Mrs. Powel (now Mrs. Renard), then in the 
 pride of her beauty, made an admirable Olivia. 
 She was particularly excellent in her unbending 
 scenes in conversation with the Clown. I have 
 seen some Olivias — and those very sensible 
 actresses too — who in these interlocutions have 
 seemed to set their wits at the jester, and to vie 
 conceits with him in downright emulation. But 
 she used him for her sport like what he was, to 
 trifle a leisure sentence or two with, and then 
 to be dismissed, and she to be the Great Lady 
 still. She touched the imperious fantastic 
 humor of the character with nicety. Her fine, 
 spacious person filled the scene. 
 
 The part of Malvolio has, in my judgment, 
 been so often misunderstood, and the general 
 merits of the actor who then played it, so un- 
 duly appreciated, that I shall hope for pardon 
 if I am a little prolix upon these points.
 
 On Some of tbe ©ID Bctors 293 
 
 Of all the actors who flourished in my time — 
 a melancholy phrase if taken aright, reader — 
 Bensley had most of the swell of soul, was 
 greatest in the delivery of heroic conceptions, 
 the emotions consequent upon the presentment 
 of a great idea to the fancy. He had the true 
 poetical enthusiasm — the rarest faculty among 
 players. None that I remember possessed even 
 a portion of that fine madness which he threw 
 out in Hotspur's famous rant about glory, or 
 the transports of the Venetian incendiary at 
 the vision of the fired city. His voice had the 
 dissonance, and at times the inspiriting effect, 
 of the trumpet. His gait was uncouth and stiff, 
 but no way embarrassed by affectation ; and the 
 thorough-bred gentleman was uppermost in 
 even,^ movement. He seized the moment of 
 passion with greatest truth ; like a faithful 
 clock, never striking before the time ; never 
 anticipating or leading you to anticipate. He 
 was totally destitute of trick and artifice. He 
 seemed come upon the stage to do the poet's 
 message simply, and he did it with as genuine 
 fidelity as the nuncios in Homer deliver the 
 errands of the gods. He let the passion or 
 the sentiment do its own work without prop or 
 bolstering. He would have scorned to mounte- 
 bank it ; and betrayed none of that cleverness 
 which is the bane of serious acting. For this
 
 294 Bssags of lEUa 
 
 reason, his lago was the only endurable one 
 which I remember to have seen. No spectator 
 from his action could divine more of his artifice 
 than Othello was supposed to do. His confes- 
 sions in soliloquy alone put you in possession 
 of the mystery. There were no by-intimations 
 to make the audience fancy their own discern- 
 ment so much greater than that of the Moor — 
 who commonly stands like a great helpless 
 mark set up for mine Ancient, and a quantity 
 of barren spectators, to shoot their bolts at. 
 The lago of Bensley did not go to work so 
 grossly. There was a triumphant tone about 
 the character, natural to a general conscious- 
 ness of power ; but none of that petty vanity 
 which chuckles and cannot contain itself upon 
 any little successful stroke of its knaverj' — as 
 is common with your small villains and green 
 probationers in mischief. It did not clap or 
 crow before its time. It was not a man setting 
 his wits at a child, and winking all the while at 
 other children who are mightily pleased at be- 
 ing let into the secret ; but a consummate vil- 
 lain entrapping a noble nature into toils, against 
 which no discernment was available, where the 
 manner was as fathomless as the purpose seemed 
 dark, and without motive. The part of Malvo- 
 lio, in the "Twelfth Night," was performed by 
 Bensley with a richness and a dignity, of which
 
 On Some of tbe ©ID Bctors 295 
 
 (to judge from some recent castings of that 
 character) the very tradition must be worn out 
 from the stage. No manager in those days 
 would have dreamed of giving it to Mr. Badde- 
 ley, or Mr. Parsons ; when Bensley was occa- 
 sionally absent from the theatre, Jolin Kemble 
 thought it no derogation to succeed to the part. 
 Malvolio is not essentially ludicrous. He be- 
 comes comic but by accident. He is cold, aus- 
 tere, repelling ; but dignified, consistent, and, 
 for what appears, rather of an over-stretched 
 morality. Maria describes him as a sort of 
 Puritan ; and he might have worn his gold 
 chain with honor in one of our old round-head 
 families, in the service of a Lambert or a Lady 
 Fairfax. But his morality and his manners are 
 misplaced in Illyria. He is opposed to the proper 
 levities of the piece, and falls in the unequal 
 contest. Still his pride, or his gravity (call it 
 which you will), is inherent, and native to the 
 man, not mock or affected, which latter only 
 are the fit objects to excite laughter. His qual- 
 ity is at the best unlovely, but neither buffoon 
 nor contemptible. His bearing is lofty, a little 
 above his station, but probably not much above 
 his deserts. We see no reason why he should 
 not have been brave, honorable, accomplished. 
 His careless committal of the ring to the ground 
 (which he was commissioned to restore to Cae-
 
 296 J666as0 ot jeiia 
 
 sario), bespeaks a generosity of birth and feel- 
 ing. His dialect on all occasions is that of a 
 gentleman, and a man of education. We must 
 not confound him with the eternal old, low 
 steward of comedy. He is master of the house- 
 hold to a great princess ; a dignity probably 
 conferred upon him for other respects than age 
 or length of service. Olivia, at the first indica- 
 tion of his supposed madness, declares that she 
 "would not have him miscarry for half of her 
 dowry." Does this look as if the character 
 was meant to appear little or insignificant? 
 Once, indeed, she accuses him to his face — of 
 what ? — of being " sick of self-love " ; — but with 
 a gentleness and considerateness which could 
 not have been, if she had not thought that this 
 particular infirmity shaded some virtues. His 
 rebuke to the knight, and his sottish revellers, 
 is sensible and spirited ; and when we take into 
 consideration the unprotected condition of his 
 mistress, and the strict regard with which her 
 state of real or dissembled mourning would 
 draw the eyes of the world upon her house 
 affairs, Malvolio might feel the honor of the 
 family in some sort in his keeping; as it 
 appears not that Olivia had any more brothers, 
 or kinsmen, to look to it, — for Sir Toby had 
 dropped all such nice respects at the buttery- 
 hatch. That Malvolio w^as meant to be repre-
 
 ^n Some ot tbe 01D Bctors 297 
 
 sented as possessing estimable qualities, the ex- 
 pression of the duke, in his anxiety to have 
 him reconciled, almost infers: "Pursue him, 
 and entreat him to a peace." Even in his 
 abused state of chains and darkness, a sort of 
 greatness seems never to desert him. He argues 
 highly and well with the supposed Sir Topas, 
 and philosophizes gallantly upon his straw.* 
 There must have been some shadow of worth 
 about the man ; he must have been something 
 more than a mere vapor — a thing of straw, or 
 Jack in office — before Fabian and Maria could 
 have ventured sending him upon a court errand 
 to Olivia. There was some consonancy (as he 
 would say) in the undertaking, or the jest would 
 have been too bold even for that house of mis- 
 rule. 
 
 Bensley accordingly threw over the part an 
 air of Spanish loftiness. He looked, spake, 
 and moved like an old Castilian. He was 
 starch, spruce, opinionated, but his superstruc- 
 ture of pride seemed bottomed upon a sense of 
 worth. There was something in it beyond the 
 coxcomb. It was big and swelling, but you 
 
 * Clown. What is the opinion of Pj'thagoras concern- 
 ing wild fowl ? 
 
 jMal. That the soul of our grandam might haply in- 
 habit a bird. 
 
 Clown. What thinkest thou of his opinion ? 
 
 Mai. I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve 
 of his opinion.
 
 298 }6g6ai50 of iBlia 
 
 could not be sure that it was hollow. You 
 
 might wish to see it taken down, but you felt 
 that it was upon an elevation. He was magnifi- 
 cent from the outset ; but when the decent sobri- 
 eties of the character began to give way, and 
 the position of self-love, in his conceit of the 
 Countess' affection, gradually began to work, 
 you would have thought that the hero of La 
 Mancha in person stood before you. How he 
 went smiling to himself! with what ineffable 
 carelessness would he twirl his gold chain ! 
 what a dream it was ! you were infected with 
 the illusion, and did not wish that it should be 
 removed ! you had no room for laughter ! if an 
 unseasonable reflection of morality obtruded 
 itself, it was a deep sense of the pitiable infirm- 
 ity of man's nature, that can lay him open to 
 such frenzies, — but in truth you rather admired 
 than pitied the lunacy while it lasted, — you felt 
 that an hour of such mistake was worth an age 
 with the eyes open. Who would not wish to 
 live but for a day in the conceit of such a lady's 
 love as Olivia ? Why, the Duke would have 
 given his principality but for a quarter of a 
 minute, sleeping or waking, to have been so 
 deluded. The man seemed to tread upon air, 
 to taste manna, to walk with his head in the 
 clouds, to mate Hyperion. O ! shake not the 
 castles of his pride, — endure yet for a season.
 
 ^n Some of tbe ®ID Bctor^ 299 
 
 bright moments of confidence, — "stand still, 
 ye watches of the element," that Malvolio may 
 be still in fancy fair Olivia's lord ! But fate and 
 retribution say no ! I hear the mischievous tit- 
 ter of Maria, the witty taunts of Sir Toby, the 
 still more insupportable triumph of the foolish 
 knight, the counterfeit Sir Topas is unmasked, 
 and "thus the whirligig of time," as the true 
 clown hath it, "brings in his revenges." I 
 confess that I never saw the catastrophe of this 
 character, while Bensley played it, without a 
 kind of tragic interest. There was good foolery 
 too. Few now remember Dodd. What an 
 Aguecheek the stage lost in him ! Lovegrove, 
 who came nearest to the old actors, revived 
 the character some few seasons ago, and made 
 it sufl&ciently grotesque ; but Dodd was z7, as it 
 came out of nature's hands. It might be said to 
 remain z;z puris Jiaturalibus. In expressing 
 slowness of apprehension this actor surpassed 
 all others. You could see the first dawn of an 
 idea stealing slowly over his countenance, 
 climbing up by little and little, with a painful 
 process, till it cleared up at last to the fulness 
 of a twilight conception — its highest meridian. 
 He seemed to keep back his intellect, as some 
 have had the power to retard their pulsation. 
 The balloon takes less time in filling than it 
 took to cover the expansion of his broad moony
 
 300 iBeesL>Q0 of jeUa 
 
 face over all its quarters with expression. A 
 glimmer of understanding would appear in a 
 corner of his eye, and for lack of fuel go out 
 again. A part of his forehead would catch a 
 little intelligence and be a long time in commu- 
 nicating it to the remainder. 
 
 I am ill at dates, but I think it is now better 
 than five-and-twenty years ago, that walking in 
 the gardens of Gray's Inn — they were then far 
 finer than they are now — the accursed Verulam 
 Buildings had not encroached upon all the east 
 side of them, cutting out delicate green cran- 
 kles, and shouldering away one of two of the 
 stately alcoves of the terrace, — the survivor 
 stands gaping and relationless as if it remem- 
 bered its brother, — they are still the best gardens 
 of any of the Inns of Court, my beloved Temple 
 not forgotten, — have the gravest character, 
 their aspect being altogether reverend and law- 
 breathing, — Bacon has left the impress of his 
 foot upon their gravel walks ; taking my after- 
 noon solace on a summer day upon the afore- 
 said terrace, a comely, sad personage came 
 towards me, whom, from his grave air and 
 deportment, I judged to be one of the old 
 Benchers of the Inn. He had a serious, thought- 
 ful forehead, and seemed to be in meditations 
 of mortalit}'. As I have an instinctive awe of 
 old Benchers, I was passing him with that sort
 
 On Some of tbe ®ID Bctora 301 
 
 of sub-indicative token of respect which one is 
 apt to demonstrate towards a venerable stranger, 
 and which rather denotes an inclination to 
 greet him than any positive motive of the body 
 to that effect, — a species of humility and will- 
 worship which I observe, nine times out of ten, 
 rather puzzles than pleases the person it is 
 offered to — when the face turning full upon me, 
 strangely identified itself with that of Dodd. 
 Upon close inspection I was not mistaken. But 
 could this sad, thoughtful countenance be the 
 same vacant face of folly which I had hailed 
 so often under circumstances of gayety ; which 
 I had never seen without a smile, or recognized 
 but as the usher of mirth ; that looked out so 
 formally flat in Foppiugton, so frothily pert in 
 Tattle, so impotently busy in Backbite ; so 
 blankly divested of all meaning, or resolutely 
 expressive of none, in Acres, in Fribble, and a 
 thousand agreeable impertinences? Was this 
 the face, full of thought and carefulness, that 
 had so often divested itself at will of every 
 trace of either to give me diversion, to clear my 
 cloudy face for two or three hours at least of its 
 furrows ? Was this the face — manly, sober, in- 
 telligent — which I had so often despised, made 
 mocks at, made merry with ? The remem- 
 brance of the freedoms which I had taken with 
 it came upon me with a reproach of insult. I
 
 302 jBsea^e of Blia 
 
 could have asked it pardon. I thought it 
 looked upon me with a sense of injury. There 
 is something strange as well as sad in seeing 
 actors, your pleasant fellows particularly, sub- 
 jected to and suffering the common lot; their 
 fortunes, their casualties, their deaths, seems to 
 belong to the scene, their actions to be amenable 
 to poetic justice only. We can hardly connect 
 them with more awful responsibilities. The 
 death of this fine actor took place shortly after 
 this meeting. He had quitted the stage some 
 months, and, as I learned afterwards, had been 
 in the habit of resorting daily to these gardens 
 almost to the day of his decease. In these 
 serious walks probably he was divesting him- 
 self of many scenic and some real vanities, 
 weaning himself from the frivolities of the les- 
 ser and the greater theatre, doing gentle pen- 
 ance for a life of no very reprehensible fooleries, 
 taking off by degrees the buffoon mask, which 
 he might feel he had worn too long, and re- 
 hearsing for a more solemn cast of part. Dying, 
 he " put on the weeds of Dominic." * 
 
 If few can remember Dodd, many yet living 
 will not easily forget the pleasant creature, who 
 
 * Dodd was a man of reading, and left at his death 
 a choice collection of old English literature. I should 
 judge him to have been a man of Mnt. I know one in- 
 stance of an impromptu which no length of study could 
 have bettered. My merry friend, Jem White, had seen 
 him one evening in Aguecheek, and recognizing Dodd
 
 On Some of tbe Ql^ Bctore 303 
 
 in those days enacted the part of the Clown to 
 Dodd's Sir Andrew. Richard, or rather Dicky 
 Suett, — for so in his lifetime he delighted to be 
 called, and time hath ratified the appellation, — 
 lieth buried on the north side of the cemetery 
 of Holy Paul, to whose service his nonage and 
 tender years were dedicated. There are who 
 do yet remember him at that period, — his pipe 
 clear and harmonious. He would often speak 
 of his chorister days when he w^as " Cherub 
 Dicky." 
 
 What clipped his wings or made it expedient 
 that he should exchange the holy for the pro- 
 fane state ; whether he had lost his good voice 
 (his best recommendation to that ofiice), like 
 Sir John, '*with hallooing and singing of 
 anthems"; or whether he was adjudged to 
 lack something, even in those early years, of 
 the gravity indispensable to an occupation 
 which professeth to " commerce with the 
 skies," — I could never rightly learn ; but we 
 find him, after the probation of a twelvemonth 
 or so, reverting to a secular condition, and be- 
 come one of us. 
 
 I think he was not altogether of that timber 
 
 the next day in Fleet Street, was irresistibly impelled 
 to take off his hat and salute him as the identical knight 
 of the preceding- evening with a " Save you, Str Andrew.' 
 Dodd, not at all disconcerted at this unusual address 
 from a stranger, with a courteous, half-rebuking wave 
 of the hand, put him off with an "Away, Fool."
 
 304 J£06as0 ot :£lia 
 
 out of which cathedral seats and sounding- 
 boards are hewed. But if a glad heart — kind, 
 and therefore glad — be any part of sanctity, 
 then might the robe of Motley, with which he 
 invested himself with so much humility after 
 his deprivation, and which he wore so long 
 with so much blameless satisfaction to himself 
 and to the public, be accepted for a surplice, — 
 his white stole and a/de. 
 
 The first fruits of his secularization was an 
 engagement upon the boards of Old Drury, at 
 which theatre he commenced, as I have been 
 told, with adopting the manner of Parsons in 
 old men's characters. At the period in which 
 most of us knew him, he was no more an imi- 
 tator than he was in any true sense himself 
 imi table. 
 
 He was the Robin Goodfellow of the stage. 
 He came in to trouble all things with a welcome 
 perplexity, himself no whit troubled for the 
 matter. He was known, like Puck, by his note, 
 — Ha / Ha ! Ha ! sometimes deepening to Ho ! 
 Ho ! Ho ! with an irresistible accession, de- 
 rived, perhaps, remotely from his ecclesiastical 
 education, foreign to his prototype of O La ! 
 Thousands of hearts yet respond to the chuck- 
 ling O La ! of Dicky vSuett, brought back to 
 their remembrance by the faithful transcript of 
 his friend Mathevv's mimicry. The " force of
 
 ©n Some ot tbc ©ID Bctors 305 
 
 nature could no further go." He drolled upo-i 
 the stock of these two syllables richer than the 
 cuckoo. 
 
 Care, that troubles all the world, was forgot- 
 ten in his composition. Had he had but two 
 grains (nay, half a grain) of it, he could never 
 have supported himself upon those two spider's 
 strings, which served him (in the latter part of 
 his unmixed existence) as legs. A doubt or a 
 scruple must have made him totter, a sigh have 
 pufifed him down ; the weight of a frown had 
 staggered him, a wrinkle made him lose his 
 balance. But on he went, scrambling upon 
 those airy stilts of his, with Robin Goodfellow, 
 "through brake, through briar," reckless of a 
 scratched face or a torn doublet. 
 
 Shakespeare foresaw him when he framed 
 his fools and jesters. They have all the true 
 Suett stamp, a loose and shambling gait, a slip- 
 pery tongue, this last the ready midwife to a 
 without-pain-delivered jest ; in words, light as 
 air, venting truths deep as the centre ; with 
 idlest rhymes tagging conceit w'hen busiest, 
 singing with Lear in the tempest, or Sir Toby at 
 the buttery-hatch. 
 
 Jack Bannister and he had the fortune to be 
 more of personal favorites with the town than 
 any actors before or after. The difference, I 
 take it, was this : Jack was more beloved for his
 
 3o6 jeseags of jeua 
 
 sweet, good-natured, moral pretensions. Dicky 
 was more liked for his sweet, good-natured, no 
 pretensions at all. Your whole conscience 
 stirred with Bannister's performance of Walter 
 in the "Children in the Wood" ; but Dicky 
 seemed like a thing of Love, as Shakespeare 
 says, too young to know what conscience is. 
 He put us into Vesta's days. Evil fled before 
 him, — not as from Jack, as from an antagonist, 
 — but because it could not touch him any more 
 than a cannon-ball a fly. He was delivered 
 from the burden of that death, and w^hen death 
 came himself, not in metaphor, to fetch Dicky, 
 it is recorded of him by Robert Palmer, who 
 kindly watched his exit, that he received the 
 last stroke, neither varying his accustomed 
 tranquillity, nor tune, with the simple exclama- 
 tion, worthy to have been recorded in his epi- 
 taph,— 6> Z a ./ O La! Bobby! 
 
 The elder Palmer (of stage-treading celebrity) 
 commonly played Sir Toby in those days ; but 
 there is a solidity of wit in the jests of that 
 half-Falstaff" which he did not quite fill out. 
 He was as much too showy as Moody (who 
 sometimes took the part) was dr}- and sottish. 
 In sock or buskin there was an air of swaggering 
 gentility about Jack Palmer. He was 2i gentle- 
 man with a slight infusion of tJie footman. His 
 brother Bob (of recenter memory), who was his
 
 ®n Some ot tbe ®l^ Bctors 307 
 
 shadow in every thing while he lived, and dwin- 
 dled into less than a shadow afterwards, was a 
 gentleman with a little stronger infusion of the 
 latter ingredient ; that was all. It is amazing 
 how a little of the more or less makes a differ- 
 ence in these things. When you saw Bobby in 
 the Duke's Servant^ you said : " What a pity 
 such a pretty fellow was only a servant ! ' ' When 
 you saw Jack figuring in Captain Absolute you 
 thought you could trace his promotion to some 
 lady of quality who fancied the handsome fellow 
 in his topknot, and had bought him a com- 
 mission. Therefore, Jack in Dick Amlet was 
 insuperable. 
 
 Jack had two voices, both plausible, hypo- 
 critical, and insinuating : but his secondary or 
 supplemental voice still more decisively histri- 
 onic than his common one. It was reserved for 
 the spectator ; and the dramatis person(Z were 
 supposed to know nothing at all about it. The 
 lies of Young Wilding, and the sentiments in 
 Joseph Surface, were thus marked out in a 
 sort of italics to the audience. This secret 
 correspondence with the company before the 
 curtain (which is the bane and death of tragedy) 
 has an extremely happy effect in some kinds of 
 comedy, in the more highly artificial comedy, 
 of Congreve or of Sheridan especially, where 
 * " High Irife Below Stairs."
 
 3o8 Be&n\!6 ot jeUa 
 
 the absolute sense of reality (so indispensable 
 to scenes of interest) is not required, or would 
 rather interfere to diminish your pleasure. 
 The fact is, you do not believe in such charac- 
 ters as Surface, — the villain of artificial comedy, 
 — even while you read or see them. If you 
 did, they would shock and not divert you. 
 When Ben, in "Love for Love," returns from 
 sea, the following exquisite dialogue occurs at 
 his first meeting with his father : 
 
 Sir Sampson. Thou hast been many a weary league, 
 Ben, since I saw thee. 
 
 Ben. Ey, ey, been! Been far enough, an' that be all.— 
 Well, father, and how do all at home ? how does brother 
 Dick, and brother Val ? 
 
 Sir Sampson. Dick ! body o' me, Dick has been dead 
 these two years. I writ you word when you were at 
 I^eghorn. 
 
 Ben. Mess, that 's true ; Marry, I had forgot. Dick's 
 dead, as you say,— well, and how ?— I have a many ques- 
 tions to ask you. 
 
 Here is an instance of insensibility w^hich in 
 real life would be revolting, or rather in real 
 life could not have coexisted with the warm- 
 hearted temperament of the character. But 
 when you read it in the spirit with which such 
 playful selections and specious combinations 
 rather than strict metaphrases of nature should 
 be taken, or when you saw Bannister play it, it 
 neither did, nor does, wound the moral sense at
 
 ©n Some ot tbe ©ID Bctors 309 
 
 all. For what is Ben — ^the pleasant sailor 
 which Bannister gives us — but a piece of satire, 
 — a creation of Congreve's fancy, — a dreamy 
 combination of all the accidents of a sailor's 
 character, — his contempt of money, — his credu- 
 lity to women, — with that necessary estrange- 
 ment from home which it is just within the 
 verge of credibility to suppose might produce 
 such an hallucination as is here described. We 
 never think the worse of Ben for it, or feel it as 
 a stain upon his character. But when an actor 
 comes, and instead of the delightful phantom — 
 the creature dear to half-belief — which Bannis- 
 ter exhibited, — displays before our eyes a down- 
 right concretion of a Wapping sailor — a jolly 
 warm-hearted Jack Tar — and nothing else — 
 when, instead of investing it with a delicious 
 confusedness of the head, and a veering undi- 
 rected goodness of purpose, — he gives to it a 
 downright daylight understanding, and a full 
 consciousness of its actions ; thrusting forward 
 the sensibilities of the character with a pretence 
 as if it stood upon nothing else, and was to be 
 judged by them alone, — we feel the discord of 
 the thing ; the scene is disturbed ; a real man 
 has got in among the dramatis personce, and 
 puts them out. We want the sailor turned out. 
 We feel that his true place is not behind the 
 curtain, but in the first or second gallery.
 
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