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MISCELLANIES. 
 
 IProse anJ> IDerse. 
 
 •¥^ 
 
 VOLUME II, 
 
BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO^ 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
MISCELLANIES: 
 
 lpro0C anb IDeree. 
 
 BY 
 
 WI LLIAM MAGI NN 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 R. W. MONTAGU. 
 
 TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. II. 
 
 LONDON: 
 SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON 
 
 CROWN BUILDINGS, r88 FLEET STREET, E.G. 
 
 iS8t; 
 
 [A!/ rights re segued, ] 
 
/\Go(Z.^/ 
 
 Ci. 
 
CONTENTS OF VOL. 11. 
 
 farmer's '* essay on the learning of SHAKESPEARE 
 CONSIDERED . . . . . 
 
 LADY MACBETH 
 
 BOB BURKE's DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY OF THE 48TH 
 A VISION OF PURGATORY .... 
 '*THE SOLDIER BOY '* .... 
 
 TO MY DAUGHTERS 
 
 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY .... 
 
 THE IRISHMAN AND THE LADY 
 LAMENT FOR LORD BYRON 
 
 ODOHERTY'S DIRGE 
 
 PANDEMUS POLYGLOTT .... 
 
 DRINK 
 
 CRAMBAMBULEE 
 
 DRINK AWAY 
 
 DROUTHINESS 
 
 ROYAL VISIT TO IRELAND 
 
 REMARKS ON SHELLEY'S ADONAIS . 
 
 THE WINE-BIBBER's GLORY — A NEW SONG 
 
 A RUNNING COMMENTARY ON THE RITTER BANN . 
 
 CRITIQUE ON LORD BYRON 
 
 MOORE-ISH MELODIES 
 
 >) 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 
 117 
 
 187 
 188 
 189 
 257 
 
 261 
 262 
 283 
 284 
 285 
 287 
 290 
 300 
 312 
 
 327 
 
 335 
 
vi CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGJK 
 THE EQUALITY OF THE SEXES ....•• 34^ 
 
 MR. GRANTLEY BERKELEY AND HIS NOVEL, ** BERKELEY 
 
 castle" . 344 
 
 DEFENCE OF '* ERASER'S MAGAZINE" IN THE BERKELEY 
 
 AFFAIR 356 
 
 TWO SONNETS ON A LATE ROARING EXPEDITION TO THE 
 
 LORDS 371 
 
 THE FUNERAL OF ACHILLES 373 
 
 FIRST APPEARANCE OF HELEN . 381 
 
MISCELLANIES. 
 
 I 
 
 jfarmer's ''Bssa^ on tbe learning ot 
 Sbaftspeare'' ConsibereD. 
 
 I. 
 
 Dear Sir, — As there appears to be a revived zeal for com- 
 mentatorship on Shakspeare, I may be perhaps allowed to 
 roll my tub among the rest ; and the first service I wish to 
 perform is to rid, or at least to give some reasons for ridding, 
 all future editors of a superfluous swelling in the shape of 
 Dr. Farmer's Essay on the Learning of Shakspeare^ which has 
 long been a regular encumbrance on the variorum editions. 
 In the subjoined letter, if you will be so good as to print it, 
 your readers, who I hope are in number equal to the whole 
 reading public of Great Britain and Ireland, and the 
 Colonies, — 
 
 ** From sunny Indus to the Pole, — 
 
 will find my reasons for not thinking highly of the Master 
 of Emmanuel, or his Shakspearian labours. The critical 
 clique to which he belonged was peculiarly absurd ; and we 
 have only to cast a glance upon his face, as preserved in an 
 engraving by Harding, to see that the feeble smirk of fat- 
 headed and scornful blockheadism self-satisfied, with that 
 peddling pedantry of the smallest order which entitled its 
 possessor to look down with patronising pity on the loftiest 
 genius, is its prevailing feature. Perhaps somebody may 
 think it worth while to contradict this assertion by a host of 
 collegiate opinions in his favour, backed by a list of super- 
 
 VOL. II. A 
 
a FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 lative panegyrics on his learning, and excellence of wisdom 
 and wit, culled from various quarters ; and I shall not dis- 
 pute their justice or undervalue their merit. I am only 
 dealing with the Essay before me, and with his picture as 
 I find it in the splendid Cracherode copy of Steevens (a pre- 
 sentation one) in the British Museum. 
 
 Let me ask the favour of a couple of dozen lines before 
 I close my note, and they are intended to say that Charles 
 Knight's Shakspeare (or as he thinks proper, '' after much 
 consideration," to spell the word Shakspere: he might as 
 well spell his own name Night) is, in its conception and 
 management, one of the most valuable presents made not 
 merely to Shakspearian, but to general antiquarian, litera- 
 ture. I know that there are many more famous, elaborate, 
 deeply pondered, and technical repertories of antiquarian 
 lore. I know also that there have been criticisms of higher 
 pretence, and, in some instances, of far higher genius, upon 
 these illustrious dramas than what we have in the brief 
 notes which he is publishing ; but in taking the combina- 
 tion of graphic exhibition by admirably executed woodcuts 
 (in most cases worth a waggonload of comment) of objects 
 now to be traced by poring research, but so familiar as to 
 be made matter of trite allusion in the days of Elizabeth, 
 with fairly-digested and well-condensed scholia^ meeting all 
 the ordinary difficulties and explaining the ordinary puzzles 
 of the sadly mangled text, I do not know where to find a 
 book in which poetry is so aided by antiquarian knowledge 
 and pictorial skill. All this, however, will not allow me to 
 say that the text still does not want a revision much more 
 searchingly careful than that which Heminge and Condell 
 gave it, or that with which the successors of these gentle- 
 men have been satisfied. — Permit me to subscribe myself, 
 with great respect, dear Mr. Yorke, faithfully yours, William 
 Maginn. 
 
 [It gives us great pleasure to print Dr. Mag inn's letter; 
 but we are not answerable for any of its statements or arc^u- 
 ments. We must divide his communication into two parts. 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 3 
 
 " Let us ask the favour," to use his own phrase, of saying 
 that Tyas's Illustrated Shakspeare is a highly creditable 
 publication, containing occasionally excellent observations,, 
 handsomely illustrated, and (what in these days ought not 
 to be forgotten when '^ Exchequer-bills are such a price/' as 
 the song says) marvellously cheap. — O. Y.] 
 
 DR. FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE LEARNING OF 
 SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 
 
 BY WILLIAM MAGINN, ESQ., LL.D. 
 
 I HAVE always considered Dr. Farmer's '^ celebrated Essay," 
 as Steevens calls it, on the learning of Shakspeare as a 
 piece of pedantic impertinence not paralleled in literature. 
 The very style and manner in which this third or fourth- 
 rate scholar, undistinguished by any work of reputation 
 whatever, speaks of '' the old bard," as he usually entitles 
 Shakspeare, are as disgusting as the smirking complacency 
 with which he regards his own petty labours. " The rage of 
 parallelisms," he says in his preface, ''is almost over, and 
 in truth nothing can be more absurd. This was stolen 
 from one classic, that from another; and, had I not stepped 
 in to his rescue, poor Shakspeare had been stripped as 
 naked of ornament as when he first held horses at the door 
 of the play-house." His having ever held horses at the 
 door of the playhouse is an idle fiction, w^hich the slightest 
 consideration bestowed on the career of his fortunes in 
 London would suffice to dispel ; but it is introduced here 
 to serve the purpose of suggesting to Farmer's readers that 
 the original condition of Shakspeare was menial, and 
 therefore that it is improbable he had received an education 
 fitting him to acquire a knowledge of ancient or foreign 
 learning. 
 
 *' Had / not come to his rescue," says Dr. Farmer, ^^poor 
 Shakspeare would have been stripped bare," &c. Passing 
 
4 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 the insolence and self-conceit of this assertion, may we not 
 ask from whom was Shakspeare to be rescued? From 
 some zealous commentators, it appears, who indulged in a 
 rage for collecting parallelisms, i,e. passages in the classical 
 authors in which they thought they found resemblances 
 to passages in Shakspeare. In this task they sometimes 
 were fanciful, and saw likenesses where none existed ; but 
 not one of them accused Shakspeare of theft There is a 
 vast difference between a thief and an imitator. Who has 
 ever accused Milton or Virgil of stealing from Homer? 
 Who is so insane as to think that Paradise Lost or the 
 JEneid stand in need of ''a rescue" from the annotators 
 who point out the passages of the Iliad^ or other poems, 
 from which many of the most beautiful and majestic orna- 
 ments of the more modern great epics are derived ? No- 
 body, of the most common sense, can imagine that illustra- 
 tions of this kind strip the poets naked, or call for the 
 assistance of such rescuers as Farmer. 
 Elsewhere he says : 
 
 ^' These critics" (those who maintain Shakspeare's claims on 
 learning) ^^and many others, their coadjutors, have supposed 
 themselves able to trace Shakspeare in the writings of 
 the ancients, and have sometimes persuaded us of their own 
 learning, whatever became of their author^s. Plagiarisms have 
 been discovered in every natural description and every moral 
 sentiment. Indeed, by the kind assistance of the various 
 excerpta^ sente7iticB, zx\^ floi'es^ this business may be effected 
 with very little expense of time or sagacity, as Addison 
 hath demonstrated in his comment on Chevy Chase, and 
 Wagstafif on Tom Thumb ; and I myself will engage to give 
 you quotations from the elder English writers (for, to own 
 the truth, I was once idle enough to collect such) which shall 
 carry with them at least an equal degree of similarity. But 
 there can be no occasion of wasting any future time in this 
 department: the world is now in possession of marks of 
 imitation^ 
 
 No doubt the world does possess the work, and equally 
 is it doubtless that the world has totally forgotten the boon. 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 5 
 
 A more worthless piece of trumpery criticism, empty parade, 
 and shallow reading does not exist than this extolled com- 
 position of Bp. Hurd, and therefore it is justly entitled to 
 the laboriously fine compliment here paid it by Farmer."^ 
 
 * There is one piece of literary imitation or plagiarism which Hurd would 
 not have remarked if he had known of its existence. As it is somewhat 
 curious, and as relevant to Shakspeare as at least nine-tenths of the com- 
 mentaries upon him, I extract a notice of it from Erasers Literary 
 Chronicle : 
 
 ''Steevens remarked that nothing short of an Act of Parliament could 
 compel any one to read the sonnets of Shakspeare, a declaration highly to 
 the credit of his taste, and quite decisive as to his capabiUty of properly 
 editing the plays. It is certain, however, that the sonnets are not very 
 generally read, and the same fate has befallen the prose works of Milton. 
 Of this I cannot produce a more extraordinary proof than what I find in 
 D' Israeli's Quarrels of Authors. He has been speaking of the celebrated 
 controversy between Warburton and Lowth, and subjoins this note : — 
 
 ' ' ' The correct and elegant taste of Lowth, with great humour, detected 
 the wretched taste in which Warburton's prose style was composed ; he did 
 nothing more than print the last sentence of the Inquiry on Prodigies in 
 measured lines, without, however, changing the place of a single word, and 
 this produced some of the most turgid blank verse ; Lowth describes it as 
 the musa pcdestris got on horseback in high prancing style. I shall give a 
 few lines only of the final sentence in this essay : — 
 
 * Methinks I see her, like the mighty eagle 
 Renewing her immortal youth, and purging 
 Her opening sight at the unobstructed beams 
 Of our benign meridian sun,' &c. 
 
 All this will, as many other lines, stand word for word in the original prose 
 of our tasteless writer ; but, to show his utter want of even one imagination, 
 his translations in imitation of Milton* s style are precisely like this ridicu- 
 lous prose. ' 
 
 *'We thought that the most famous passage in Milton's most famous 
 English prose work, the Areopagitica, must have been known to all readers 
 of our language : ' Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation 
 rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks : 
 methinks I see her as an eagle muing her mighty youth, and kindling her 
 undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam, purging and unsealing her long- 
 abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance,' &c. &c. ; and yet 
 here we find Warburton pillaging without any acknowledgment, as if he 
 were safe in its obscurity ; and the ' correct and elegant ' Lowth treating it 
 as wretched, turgid, and inharmonious bombast. Lowth, too, be it re- 
 marked, was a grammarian of our language by profession ! And, to wind 
 up all, here we have Warburton's plagiarism passed unknown, and Lowth's 
 critique adopted with due panegyric, by a painstaking and generally 
 correct explorer of our antiquities and our literary history, whose studies 
 
6 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 It would indeed be wandering far away from the ques- 
 tion which I intend to discuss, if I were to enter upon 
 the distinction between imitation and plagiarism, or attempt 
 to define the line at which one begins and the other ends ; 
 but it is not going out of the way to pronounce the sen- 
 tences just quoted very absurd. Excerpta^ sente?ziice^ Jiores 
 will give but little assistance in tracing out imitations ; for 
 these compilations are in general nothing more than collec- 
 tions of commonplaces which suggest themselves to reflective 
 or poetic minds in all ages and countries pretty much in 
 the same manner. We must adopt a very different course 
 of reading if we wish to show, from the peculiarities of 
 thought or expression which are to be found in one poet, 
 whether he has or has not suggested the phrase or the idea 
 to a successor. When this is judiciously done, it reflects 
 honour on the taste and the reading of the critic. If the 
 execution of such task be ridiculous, as sometimes it will 
 be, the ridicule surely ought to attach to the commentator, 
 not to the author. Shakspeare is not to be esteemed 
 unlearned because Upton has sometimes been preposterous ; 
 and yet that is the argument which runs throughout this 
 ^'celebrated Essay." 
 
 Addison's critique on C/ievy Chase, whether intended 
 as jest or earnest, is in neither department very successful. 
 The ballad poetry of England was in his time matter of 
 mock to '' the Town," the sparkish Templar, the wits of the 
 coff'ee-houses, and the men of mode ; and those who, like 
 Thomas Hearne, applied themselves to the antiquities of 
 English literature were especial butts of scorn. Addison, 
 deeply imbued with this spirit, determined to be patronising 
 at the expense of the old ballad ; but, not being altoo-ether 
 delivered over to the demon of goi7f, he could not refrain 
 from expressing, now and then, genuine admiration of the 
 picturesque touches in Chevy Chase^ for some of which he 
 
 have, moreover, led him to the most careful perusal of the literature and 
 politics of the days of Charles I., to which he has devoted so much historical 
 attention." 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPE ARE CONSIDERED. 7 
 
 found resemblances in the battle-poems of antiquity. Those 
 resemblances are, in fact, unavoidable ; for the poetic inci- 
 dents of war, either in action or passion, are so few and so 
 prominently striking that they must occur to every poet, 
 particularly to those who live among the scenes of which 
 they sing ; but, on the whole, so little was Addison qualified 
 to perform the task of judging of the merits of the subject 
 he selected for his criticism that he took as his text, not 
 the real Chevy Chase of Richard Sheale, in the time of 
 Henry VI. — that which stirred the heart of Sir Philip 
 Sidney as with a trumpet — but a modern rifaciinento, 
 made, in all probability, not fifty years before Addison was 
 born, in every respect miserably inferior to the original, 
 and in which are to be found those passages and expressions 
 which excite the merriment of the jocular. He could not 
 have bestowed much attention on our ballad lore, and, 
 consequently, not critically known anything of its spirit, 
 for if he had he might have found, as well as Hearne, that 
 the true ballad was " The Perse owt of Northumberlande." 
 As for Wagstaffe's To7?i Thumbs that is an avowed joke 
 upon Addison's critique on Chevy Chase^ and in many parts 
 amusingly executed, to the discomfiture of the Spectato?\ 
 It is full of the then fashionable fooleries about Bentley ; 
 and the author, being a medical man, could not avoid 
 having a fling at brother-doctors : it is now hardly remem- 
 bered.* If, instead of quizzing Addison for his critique on 
 
 * Ex. gr. : **The following part of this canto (the old ballad of Tom 
 Thuvib) is the relation of our hero's being put into a pudding, and con- 
 veyed away in a tinker's budget ; which is designed by our author to 
 prove, if it is understood literally, that the greatest men are subject to mis- 
 fortunes. But it is thought by Dr. B tly to be all mythology, and to 
 
 contain the doctrine of the transmutation of metals, and is designed to 
 show that all matter is the same, though differently modified. He tells 
 me he intends to publish a distinct treatise on this canto ; and I don't 
 question but he'll manage the dispute with the same learning, conduct, 
 and good manners he has done others, and as Dr. Salmon uses in his 
 corrections of Dr. Sydenham and the Dispensatory. The next canto is 
 the story of Tom Thumb's being swallowed by a cow, and his deliverance 
 out of her, which is treated of at large by Giordano Bruno^ in his Spaccio de 
 la Bestia trionfante ; which book, though very scarce, yet a certain gentle- 
 
8 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 Chevy Chase, and selecting the old ballad of To7n Thumb 
 as his theme, the facetious physician could have made 
 the Tom Thumb of Fielding, familiarised to us in Kane 
 O'Hara's version, the object of his comment, then, as that 
 renowned drama was originally written as a parody on the 
 favourite tragedies of the day, it would be easy seriously to 
 trace the remote original of the parodist in the direct original 
 of the burlesqued tragedian. If we could prove, for instance, 
 that Thomson was indebted to any prior dramatist for 
 
 "O Sophonisba ! Sophonisba, O ! " 
 
 that writer might claim the corresponding exclamation in 
 To7n Thmiib : — 
 
 *^ O Huncamunca ! Huncamunca, O ! " 
 
 as his original property, and the similarity of imitation 
 insinuated by Farmer might be understood. 
 
 man, who has it in his possession, has been so obliging as to let everybody 
 know where to meet with it. After this you find him carried ofif by a 
 raven, and swallowed by a giant ; and 'tis almost the same story as that of 
 Ganimede and the Eagle in Ovid : — 
 
 * Now by a raven of strength. 
 Away poor Tom was borne. 
 
 * Nee mora: percusso mendacibus cere pen nis 
 Abripit Iliaden,' " 
 A Comment upon the History of Tom Thumb, London, 171 1. 
 
 There are some pretty fair jokes in pp. 11-15, 18. (Sec. Wagstaffe did not 
 know how near the truth his jest lay when he attributes the origin of the 
 fable to antiquity as remote as that of the Druids. The conclusion 
 of his pamphlet is amusing now, ''If," continues my bookseller, '*vou 
 have a mind that it should turn to advantage with treason or heresy, o-et 
 censured by the parliament or convocation, and condemned to be burnt by 
 the hands of the common hangman, and you can't fail having a multitude 
 of readers, by the same reason a notorious 7'ogue has such a number of 
 followers to the gallows.'' It is now hard to say what is or is not 
 tieason. Heresy is not worth sixpence in the book-market. There is no 
 Convocation practically existing ; the literary hangman, like the school- 
 master, has gone abroad ; and as for the censure of Parliament, since that 
 assembly has been reformed, it would not influence the sale of a copy more 
 or less of a twopenny tract, or a five-pound folio. 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 9 
 
 But these are not cases in point; nor would Farmer's 
 own collection of passages, in which the writers of antiquity 
 might be supposed to supply resemblances to what we find 
 in English writers, affect the question in the least degree ; 
 for if by these writers he means Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate, 
 Surrey, Wyatt, Skelton, &c., they were all men of extensive 
 reading in various languages, and had ample knowledge of 
 preceding authors, and sufficient access for the purpose of 
 borrowing, or imitating, or stealing, if they pleased. In 
 making his collection, though Farmer designates it idleness, 
 he might have been profitably employed, for he was a man 
 of extensive and desultory reading, with the advantage of 
 having a great library at his service, being the principal 
 librarian of the University of Cambridge ; — he was idly 
 employed, indeed, when he took upon himself the office of 
 " rescuing " Shakspeare. 
 
 There is, however, in his Essay an amusing proof that 
 he was practically acquainted with the art of plagiarism. 
 Shakspeare, he informs us, came out of the hand of Nature, 
 '' as some one else expresses it, like Pallas out of Jove's head, at 
 full growth and mature." Well did he know who this some 
 one else was, for he quotes elsewhere "the preface to his" (that 
 some one else's) "elegant translation of Terence." This is to 
 be applauded, for it is one of the best and most approved tricks 
 of the plagiary trade to pilfer with an appearance of candour, 
 which givesthe contrabandist all the credit of the appropriated 
 passage with those who know not whence it comes, leaving 
 him at the same time a loophole of retreat when detected, by 
 pointing out how he had disclaimed its originafity. But the 
 some one else, who happened to be George Colman the elder, 
 was not the kind of person to submit in silence ; and accord- 
 ingly, in the next edition of his Terence, he claims his 
 '' thunder " as zealously as Dennis himself. " It is whimsical 
 enough," he observes, " that this some one else^ whose 
 expression is here quoted to countenance the general notion 
 of Shakspeare's want of literature, should be no other than 
 myself* Mr. Farmer does not choose to mention where he 
 
lo FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 met with the expression oi some one else, and some one else 
 does not choose to mention where he dropped it." This is 
 very lofty on the part of Colman. I do not know that any 
 one has taken the trouble of seeking where he dropped it, 
 but an anonymous critic \Ed. Varioru7n, Shakspeare of 
 1813, p. 91, vol. ii.] has shown us where he found it, 
 namely, in Dr. Young's Conjectures on Original Co7nposition : 
 " An adult genius comes out of Nature's hands, as Pallas 
 out of Jove's head, at full growth, and mature. Shakspeare's 
 genius was of this kind." It is excessively diverting to find 
 Farmer pilfering from Colman, and Colman claiming the 
 stolen property only to be convicted that he had himself 
 stolen it from Young. I have noticed this trifle principally 
 to illustrate the difference between literary imitation and 
 literary thieving. To any one acquainted with classical 
 mythology the idea of comparing original genius starting 
 into the world at once in full vigour of strength and beauty, 
 without the tedious process of infant care and culture, to 
 the goddess of Wisdom bursting full armed from the brain 
 of Jupiter might readily occur. Two people, or two hun- 
 dred and fifty-two people, might think of the same thing, 
 and yet he who came second, or two hundred and fifty- 
 second, be as original as the man who came first. This 
 would be a case of coincidence. If a verse-maker had seen 
 the sentence of Young, and turned it into metre as 
 thus — 
 
 As from the forehead of the Olympian king 
 
 Sprang Pallas armed, so, full grown and mature, 
 
 Adult from Nature's hand does Genius spring, 
 No tedious hours of nurture to endure : 
 
 it would be a case of imitation. The verse-maker has con- 
 tributed something in the shape of labour, at least, to the 
 composition as he exhibits it; if not ''the vision and the 
 faculty divine," yet " the single, double, and the triple 
 rhymes;" but if we find not merely the obvious idea, but 
 the peculiar phraseology, as " coming out of Nature's hand ; " 
 as " Pallas \not Minerva^ out of Jove's [not Jupiter's'] head ; " 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. ii 
 
 as " at full growth and mature ; " and these phrases applied 
 not to genius in general, but to the particular genius which 
 was orignally designated, without any alteration of form, or 
 any acknowledgment of the author of whom the borrower 
 found it, then it is a direct case of literary theft, or, if it be 
 more polite so to style it, a case of plagiarism. 
 
 Enough of this. The principle of Farmer's Essay is that, 
 because injudicious commentators thought they found in 
 the classics what Shakspeare had not found there, the " old 
 bard " never could have consulted the classics at all. By 
 such a process the same case could be proved against 
 Milton himself. P. Hume discovers, for example, that 
 amerced in the line 
 
 *' Millions of spirits for his fault amerced 
 Of heaven " 
 
 has " a strange affinity with the Greek atj.%ohcf)^ to deprive^ to 
 take aiifay^^^ as Homer has used it, much to our purpose, 
 Odyss. viii. 64 : 
 
 '' The muse amerced him of his eyes, but gave him the 
 faculty of singing sweetly ; " amerced being, in fact, a techni- 
 cal word of our law, derived to us from the Norman-French 
 amercier. Newton is of opinion that Milton, by his use of 
 the word gazed in the line in Co??ius : 
 
 " This nymph that ^a5:W upon his clustering locks " 
 
 deduced it from aya^o^a/ — gaze being a Saxon word of old 
 Teutonic root, Ge-sean {contentis oculis aspicere, says Skinner). 
 It would be easy to give other examples, but let these suffice. 
 Some future Farmer may adduce, as a proof of the ignorance 
 or folly of those who were preposterously determined to 
 prove that Milton had read Homer, that they found it 
 necessary to press words derived from our Saxon or Norman 
 ancestors into their service as coming from the Greek, 
 which therefore Milton did not understand. Or again, when 
 Bentley remarks that 
 
12 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 " Thrice he assay'd, and thrice, in spite of scorHr 
 Tears, such as angels weep, burst forth," 
 
 is suggested by Ovid's 
 
 •' Ter conata loqui, ter fletibus ora rigavit," 
 
 the doctor has pointed out the wrong authority ; because as 
 we find that Sackville in his Induction of the Mirror for 
 Magist7'ates^ last stanza, has 
 
 ** Thryse he began to tell his doleful tale, 
 And thryse the sighs did swallow up his voice," 
 
 it must have been not to Ovid, but to Sackville, Milton is 
 indebted. Or, finally (for it is not worth while to waste 
 time on suppositions so ridiculous), when Addison assures 
 us that miscreated^ embryon^ and other words are coined by 
 Milton, appropriately referring to a nonsensical '^ discourse in 
 Plutarch which shows us how frequently Homer made use 
 of the same liberty " [well indeed was Plutarch qualified to 
 judge of th^fontes of the language of Homer !] ; while, on 
 the contrary, we find these words common in Spenser, 
 Sylvester, Donne, Massinger, Browne, and others, who long 
 precede the Paradise Lost, are we to come forward to the 
 rescue of Milton, and defend him from the charge of coining 
 and uttering words not duly licensed, because Addison 
 happened not to have read or remembered the translation 
 of Du Bartas, the plays of Massinger, the poems of Donne, 
 the British Pastorals, or the Faerie Queene ? On Farmer's 
 principle, that the author is responsible for the ignorance or 
 folly of his critic, all this should be. 
 
 He commences by adducing what external testimony he 
 can gather to prove Shakspeare's want of learning. His 
 witnesses are — I take them as he sets them down — 
 
 I. Ben Jonson's often-quoted line about Shakspeare's 
 small Latin and less Greek, which Farmer takes care to 
 tell us was quoted more than a century before his time — in 
 1 65 1 — as small Latin, and rw Greek, by W. Towers, in a 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 13 
 
 panegyric on Cartwright ; '^ whether an error or not," the 
 candid critic will not undertake to decide. 
 
 2. Drayton, the countryman and acquaintance of Shaks- 
 peare, determines his excellence by his naturall braine 
 only. 
 
 3. Digges, a wit of the town before our poet left the 
 stage, is very strong on the point : 
 
 ** Nature only helpt him, for looke thorow 
 This whole book,* thou shalt find he doth not borow 
 One phrase from Greekes, nor Latines imitate, 
 Nor once from vulgar languages translate." 
 
 4. Suckling opposed his easier st7^ain to iht sweat of the 
 learned Jonson. 
 
 5. Denham assures us that all he had was from old mother- 
 wit. 
 
 6. Everybody remembers Milton's celebration of his 
 native wood-notes wild. 
 
 7. Dryden observes, prettily enough, that ^' he wanted 
 not the spectacles of books to read Nature." 
 
 8. The ever-memorable Hales, of Eton, had too great a 
 knowledge both of Shakspeare and the ancients to allow 
 much acquaintance between them ; and urged very justly 
 on the part of genius, in opposition to pedantry, that '' if he 
 had not read the ancients, he had not stolen from them ; " 
 and, if any topic was produced from a poet of antiquity, he 
 would undertake to show somewhat on the same subject 
 at least as well written as Shakspeare. 
 
 9. Fuller declares positively that his learning was very 
 little. Nature was all the art used upon him, as he hiinself, 
 if alive, would confess. 
 
 10. Shakspeare has in fact confessed it, when he apolo- 
 gised for his untutored lines to the Earl of Southampton. 
 
 11. ''This list of witnesses," says Farmer, triumphantly 
 summing up, " might be easily enlarged, but I flatter myself 
 I shall stand in no need of such evidence." 
 
 * The first folio to which the poem in which these lines occur was to have 
 been prefixed. 
 
14 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE - 
 
 Taking them seriatim^ the first is the only one worthy of 
 the slightest attention. Ben Jonson knew Shakspeare inti- 
 mately, and was in every way qualified to offer an opinion 
 on his learning. All the silly surmises of his hostility or 
 jealousy tov/ards Shakspeare, with which Steevens and 
 other critics of the same calibre cram their notes, have 
 been demonstrated to be mere trash, undeserving of a 
 moment's notice. Ben had a warm-hearted affection, a 
 deeply grateful feeling, and a profound admiration for 
 Shakspeare, which he displayed during the life and after the 
 death of his illustrious friend. It is a most unfair and un- 
 just calumny on so eminent an ornament of our literature, 
 or any literature, as Ben Jonson to assert or insinuate the 
 contrary. Jealousy or envy could have had no part in his ap- 
 preciation of Shakspeare's learning ; and this dictum proves 
 nothing, until we can determine what is the quantity of 
 either which Ben Jonson would have characterised as much 
 Latin or Greek. So practised and exact a scholar would 
 estimate but cheaply anything short of a very considerable 
 quantity of both. If Bentley were to speak of Farmer, or 
 any other man of similar pretensions to classical knowledge, 
 it is highly probable the unsparing doctor would have said 
 that such people knew nothing at all of either Greek or 
 Latin ; and yet the Master of Emmanuel must have been 
 tolerably well versed in both, even if thus disparaged by the 
 Master of Trinity. The criticoriwi longe maxiirms would 
 have intended nothing more than that scholars of inferior 
 grade were not to be compared with those viri darissifni 
 atqne eruditissimi^ among whom Bentlehis docttsswius was 
 himself so eminent. In like manner Jonson, in this oft- 
 quoted line, only meant to say that Shakspeare's acquire- 
 ments in the learned languages were small in comparison 
 with those of professed scholars of scholastic fame. But 
 surely it is not necessary to consider that, because Shak- 
 speare was not as erudite as Casaubon, he must be set 
 down as totally ignorant ? In fact, we ought to quote Jonson 
 as an authority on the side' opposed to that espoused by 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 15 
 
 Farmer : for the possession of any Greek knowledge at all 
 in the days of Elizabeth argues a very respectable know- 
 ledge of Latin ; because at that time it was only through 
 Latin, and by means of no small acquaintance with its 
 literature, that the Greek language could be ever so slightly 
 studied. 
 
 2. Drayton's compliment to Shakspeare's natural brain. 
 
 3. Digges's assurance that Nature only helpt him. 
 
 4. Suckling's preference of his easier strain to the learned 
 sweat of Jonson. 
 
 5. Denham's assertion that all he had was from old 
 mother-wit. 
 
 6. [I pass Milton for a moment] Dryden's pretty 
 remark on the spectacles of art, &c. 
 
 7. [I postpone Hales.] Fuller's positive declaration about 
 art and nature, &c.: all these intend the one thing, that the 
 genius of Shakspeare, his natural brain, his old mother- wit, 
 is the gift which, by fastening him upon the thoughts and 
 feelings of mankind, has rendered him immortal. Had he 
 possessed all the learning of the Scaligers, would not such 
 acquirements, and the fame attendant, have been matters 
 altogether of no consideration, compared with Hamlet^ 
 Macbeth^ Ro7neo — any of his plays ? In these hunted-up 
 opinions, all of them hastily thrown out, there runs the 
 false and foolish distinction between nature and art in 
 works of genius. The great masters in any of the elevating 
 branches of human thought excel inferior spirits as much 
 in the art of composition, in critical arrangement of detail, 
 in the due keeping of minor parts, in exactness as well as 
 in delicacy of taste, as they do in the grander powers that 
 awaken terror or pity, amazement or admiration. Sure I 
 am that true criticism would detect more material sins 
 against taste and art, the favourite topics of the school of 
 gout^ in any one of the tragedies of Corneille, Voltaire, or 
 Racine, great as the talents of their authors unquestionably 
 were, than hypercriticism could venture to point out as such 
 in all the tragedies of Shakspeare. Men, however, who 
 
1 6 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 are full of the idea that there is something opposed to each 
 other in poetical art and poetical nature may justly im- 
 agine that, where they see the latter so transcendent, there 
 is a necessary absence of the former. Suckling, for example, 
 when he prefers the easier strain of Shakspeare to the 
 learned sweat of Jonson, implies an opinion that the sweat 
 was owing to an abundance of learning, and the easiness, 
 therefore, to a want of it. He need not have looked further 
 than the Comus of his own contemporary to find that grace, 
 airiness, and elegance, almost rivalling the easiest parts of 
 the As yoic Like It of Shakspeare, may abound in a mask 
 wTitten by one more learned still than Jonsoa 
 
 8. What the ever-memorable Hales of Eton [who, not- 
 withstanding his epithet. Farmer says, " is, I fear, almost 
 forgotten,'' i.e, in the time of his Essay ; in our time he is 
 wholly so] maintained is true enough, but nothing to the 
 point. From Shakspeare passages on any given subject 
 can no doubt be produced, rivalling the noblest of the 
 ancient authors, and surpassing most of them ; and he has 
 others peculiar to himself, in paths not before trodden. 
 How does this prove that he had never read the classics } 
 If the prayer of Milton to Urania, that she w^ould assist 
 him in soaring above the Aonian mount, above the fli^^ht 
 of Pegasean wing, were granted, does it therefore follow 
 that he had never visited the mountain of the Muses, or fled 
 with the steed of Pagan poesy? Or when Lucretius 
 boasts — 
 
 '* Avia Pieridum peragro loca, nuUius ante 
 Tritasolo," 
 
 are we to imagine that he never was in company with those 
 who travelled with the Pierides, and had trodden in their 
 habitual paths ? 
 
 9. Milton's wood-notes wild are, indeed, familiar to every 
 one ; but the reference to them here proves only that 
 Farmer misunderstood what the poet meant. The passacre 
 in which they occur is 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 17 
 
 " Towered cities please us then, 
 And the busy hum of men, 
 
 • • • • • c 
 
 And pomp, and feast, and revelry, 
 With mask and antique pageantry ; 
 Such sights as youthful poets dream 
 On summer eves by haunted stream. 
 Then to the well-trod stage anon, 
 If Jonson's learned sock be on, 
 Or sweetest Shakspeare, Fancy's child, 
 Warble his native wood-notes wild." 
 
 That is, the mirthful man desires to see at Court ?nasks^ 
 in which Ben Jonson excelled, and in the theatre his learned 
 comedies. And as the courtly pageantry summons before 
 him romantic visions, then to the stage he goes to see those 
 poetic dreams on sufnmer eves embodied by the fanciful 
 creations of Shakspeare, sweetly singing free forest ditties, 
 warbling, without any other source of inspiration but the 
 sylvan scene around, notes native to himself, and equally 
 native to the wood — the ^'boscareccie inculte aveiie'''' of Tasso. 
 The reference in H Allegro is almost by name to Mid- 
 summer- Nighfs Dream^ and has nothing to do with the 
 general question of Shakspeare's learning. If we wished to 
 be critical in Farmer-like fashion, w^e might observe that 
 the title which Milton borrows from Love's Labour's Lost^ to 
 apply to the poet himself, belongs in the original to a cha 
 acter precisely the reverse of being unlearned : 
 
 " This child of fancy ^ that Armado hight, 
 For interim to our studies shall relate, 
 In high-born words, the worth of many a knight 
 From tawny Spain, lost in the world's debate " 
 
 — one who for himself would prefer to use veni^ vidi^ vici ; 
 but, for information of the '^ base and obscure vulgar," con- 
 descends to ''anatomise'' it into English (act iv. sc. i); 
 who is described by Holofernes (act v. sc. i) as too pere- 
 grinate, — a racker of orthography, and so forth ; and who 
 concludes the play by a duet (''When daisies pied," &c.) 
 
 VOL. II. B 
 
iS FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 between Hiems and Ver, whom he stoops to inform us to 
 be Winter and Spring. 
 
 lo. The poet's own declaration to his noble patron, that 
 his lines are untutored^ is, it seems, a proof of his want of 
 learning. With such critics we must indeed talk by the 
 card. Are we to take it for granted that Horace, whose 
 boast in his Odes is 
 
 "Exegi monumentum aere perennius," 
 
 wishes us to believe him at his word when he tells us, in 
 his Satires, that we are not to consider him a poet? 
 that Persius really thought himself a ^^ semipaganus ? " that 
 Juvenal was in earnest when he classed himself with a 
 ridiculous versifier? I take these instances at random, 
 merely because I happen to have a collection of Latin poetry 
 lying before me; for hundreds of other specimens of this 
 mock-modesty might be collected in every literature. Are 
 we to believe Shakspeare himself, for example, when he 
 makes his chorus tell us, at the end of Henry /^, that the 
 play w^hich contains '^ O ! for a muse of fire ! ^' — the ex- 
 hortations of Archbishop Chichely, the commonwealth of 
 the bees, Henry's reflections on ceremony, his glorious 
 speeches urging the attack on Harfleur and rousing to the 
 battle of St. Crispin's day, the chorus descriptive of the 
 eve of Agincourt, and many other passages of poetic thought 
 and brilliancy, were written ^' with rough and all unable pen," 
 or to suppose, with the chorus at its beginning, that it was 
 dictated by a "flat, unraised spirit''? We must take these 
 things not merely with a grain but a handful of salt. 
 Farmer himself, if he had had the fortune of beino- elected 
 a bishop, would, I venture to say, have thought it an ex- 
 tremely harsh construction of the text, if the chapter had 
 construed his ^^ Nolo Episcopari'^ as literally as he here 
 construes Shakespeare's confession of his beino- tiiitiifored, 
 
 II. There only remains of the cloud of witnesses Farmer's 
 own testimony that the number might easily be enlaroed. 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 19 
 
 This is a figure of rhetoric of which I know not the name ; 
 but it is of frequent use in courts and parliaments, when 
 the speaker, having said everything he could think of, con- 
 cludes with '' I shall say no more ; " and that precisely be- 
 cause he has no more to say. Farmer had exhausted every 
 authority that he could gather ; and the sum of his labours 
 is that Jonson, in the pride of his own erudition, thought 
 little of the classical attainments of Shakspeare ; that Hales 
 asserted, and truly, that he could find parallel passages to 
 the best things in the classics in our own poet ; that Milton 
 admired the wild and native forest poetry of Midsummer- 
 Night'' s Dixam ; and that readers in general, who do not 
 take the trouble of critically examining the writings they 
 enthusiastically admire, are so struck with the original 
 genius of the author that they deem it unnecessary to 
 suppose him in any considerable degree indebted to the 
 ordinary aids of learning and scholarship. Be it observed 
 that not one of them except Ben Jonson had better oppor- 
 tunities of forming a judgment than ourselves. Digges 
 would find himself much puzzled to prove that in the whole 
 folio of the plays there is not one phrase imitated from 
 Greek or Latin, or a single translation. Fuller, who says 
 that if the author were alive he would confess his learning 
 to have been little, knew scarcely anything about him, as 
 his few trifling, vague, and erroneous anecdotes prove. 
 Denham may assure us Shakspeare was indebted merely 
 to his old mother-wit ; but who assured Denham ? In fact, 
 the ignorance of anything connected with Shakspeare, dis- 
 played by wits and critics of the days of Charles II., is 
 absolutely wonderful, and not at all creditable to the mob 
 of gentlemen who writ with ease. 
 
 A lamer case than Farmer's was in fact never exhibited, 
 so far as evidence is considered. Such, however, was not 
 his own opinion ; for having generously left some testimony 
 behind as unnecessary, he proceeds to go through the 
 various critics and commentators who have held different 
 opinions on the question. Gildon (whom of course he 
 
20 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 insults because he was insulted in the Dunciad), Sewell, and 
 Upton declare absolutely for the learning of Shakspeare. 
 Pope thinks that there is but little ground for the common 
 opinion of his want of learning ; Theobald is unwilling to 
 believe him to be so poor a scholar as many have laboured 
 to represent him, but will not be too positive ; Dr. Grey 
 thinks his knowledge of Greek and Latin cannot be reason- 
 ably called in question ; Dr. Dodd considers it proved that 
 he was not such a novice in learning as some people pre- 
 tend ; and Mr. Whalley — but I must transcribe this passage 
 from Farmer: — ''Mr. Whalley, the ingenious editor of 
 Jonson, hath written a piece expressly on this side of the 
 question ; perhaps from a very excusable partiaHty he was 
 willing to draw Shakspeare from the field of nature to 
 classic ground, where alone he knew his author could 
 possibly cope with him." I must transcribe this, I say, 
 because it is a beautiful specimen of that style of fine 
 writing and elegant turn of compliment which must have 
 been irresistible in a Common-room. Warburton exposes 
 the weakness of some arguments from suspected imitations, 
 but offers others which Farmer supposes he could have as 
 easily refuted. And Dennis, who is slandered from the 
 same motive as that which dictated the insult to Gildon, 
 declares that '' he who allows Shakspeare had learning, and 
 a learning with the ancients, ought to be looked upon as a 
 detractor from the glory of Great Britain ; " a subject 
 which very much disturbed Pope's unlucky victim. 
 
 Farmer's principal quarrel seems to be with Upton, 
 whom he treats most unfairly. Of him he says : '' He, hke 
 the learned knight, at every anomaly of grammar or metre, 
 
 ' Hath hard words ready to show why, 
 And tell what rule he did it by.' 
 
 How would the old bard have been astonished to have 
 found that he had very skilfully given the trochaic dimeter 
 brachycatalectic^ commonly called the ithyphallic^ measure 
 to the witches of Macbeth ; and that now and then a halting 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 21 
 
 verse afforded a most beautiful instance of the pes proceleiis- 
 viaticus!''^ I have followed the typography of Farmer, 
 because in that seems to me to lie all his jest. What 
 Shakspeare's knowledge of Greek and Latin prosody, if 
 any, might have been, we cannot tell ; and perhaps he 
 neither knew nor cared for the technical names given by 
 their prosodians to feet and verses; nor shall I, in this 
 inappropriate place, be tempted to inquire whether these 
 names are at all applicable to English verse. Perhaps they 
 are not, and yet nobody objects to calling our ordinary 
 heroic verse iambic. Bentley, I know, maintains, in the 
 preface to his edition of Terence, that '^ut Latini omnia 
 metrorum genera de Graecis acceperunt, ita nostrates sua 
 de Latinis ; " and makes it, in his own energetic way, 
 '^ matter of complaint and indignation \dole?idum atque 
 indignandui7i\ that from the time of the revival of letters 
 liberally educated boys should be driven by the ferula and 
 the birch S^ferula scuticaqtie cogf^ to learn dactylic metres, 
 which the genius of our native language does not admit ; 
 while, through the fault of their masters, they are wholly 
 ignorant of the Terentian metres, which, nevertheless, they 
 are continually singing, without knowing it, at home and 
 in the streets." Bentley proceeds to give examples, one of 
 which is: ^'Quin et lambicus ille xaraX^^^r/xog Terentio 
 multum et merito amatus apud nostros quoque in magna 
 gratia est : 
 
 * Nam si remit- 
 He's decently 
 
 -tent qufppiam 
 run through the lungs 
 
 Philumenam 
 and there's an end 
 
 dol6res 
 o'bully.'" 
 
 Now certainly the author of this elegant English line — it 
 looks like one of Tom D'Urfey's — would be much astonished 
 to be told he had written an iambic tetrameter catalectic ; 
 and yet, on Bentley's principle, nothing could be more true. 
 Admit that the Greek and Latin method of scansion is 
 applicable to English verse, and what Farmer sneers at in 
 Upton is undisputably correct. '^ Shakspeare," says the 
 learned prebendary in his Critical Observations^ '^uses 
 
22 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 not only the iambic, but the trochaic measure: as, for 
 example, the trochaic dimeter brachycatalectic, commonly 
 called the ithyphallic, consisting of three trochees : 
 
 " Bacche I Bacchg 
 Wh^re hast I th6u been, 
 
 Bacche. 
 sister?" — Macbeth, 
 
 Upton says not a word of Shakspeare's skilful use of this 
 metre; and ''the commonly called^^' which excites the 
 typographic merriment of Farmer, is but the ordinary 
 phraseology of the prosodians. '' Metru77i est trochaicum 
 brachycatalecticwii^ vulgo ithyphallicum ; " i.e. commonly so 
 called by the people who wrote it or sang it ; not, of course, 
 commonly by another people among whom it can be known 
 only to laborious scholars. If we described a particular 
 measure as ''the octosyllabic metre, commonly called Hudi- 
 brastic," the phrase would sound strange and pedantic to 
 those who had never heard of Hudibras. The pes pro- 
 celeusmaticiiSy Upton truly observes, sometimes of itself 
 constitutes an anapaestic line. If, then, we call such verses 
 as "over park, over pale" anapaestic, we must admit that 
 Shakspeare uses occasionally the license of the ancients in 
 introducing spondees and dactyles in the metre. 
 
 ** Through bush [ through briar, 
 ' Through flood j through fire," 
 
 are Upton's instances. He does not represent them 
 as beautiful examples of the pes proceleusmaticus^ and I 
 cannot see that there is anything halting in their versifica- 
 tion, Shakspeare, admitting Bentley's theory to be correct, 
 and the ordinary nomenclature of prosodians applicable to 
 English verse, wrote iambics, trochaics, anapaestics, in all 
 the varieties of monometer, dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, 
 catalectic, acatalectic, brachycatalectic, and other species 
 and genera of metre designated by epithets of learned 
 sound, just as M. Jourdain spoke prose all his hfe without 
 knowing it ; or as in Ireland, the finest peasantry under the 
 sun (when they can get them) feast upon solatia tuberosa 
 condimented with muriate of soda^ which, to their unen- 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 23 
 
 lightened minds, appear to be nothing more than potatoes 
 and salt. Yet you would not laugh at the botanist or 
 chemist who gave these substances their scientific names. 
 Why then think it ridiculous that the prosodian should 
 make use of the phraseology of his art ? But suppose him 
 perfectly absurd in this, as well as in considering the 
 English words haver and having Greek expressions derived 
 from s-^ttcc and ^Tr^og rov s^ovra ; in deriving Truepe?iny from 
 rjuTTavoi/ ; in referring the gravedigger's speech, '' Ay, tell me 
 that and zmyoke^^' to the (BovXurog of the Greeks ; or in 
 describing the "orphan heirs of fixed destiny" as an elegant 
 Graecism, 6^cf>cz\^og ab opcf^vog^ acting in darkness and obscur- 
 ity ; all of which, being precisely the most ridiculous things 
 in Upton, Farmer has carefully picked out ; what is it to 
 Shakspeare ? How does it promote Farmer's argument ? 
 
 It promotes not his argument at all ; but it is of this dis- 
 honest use, that readers whose minds are not generally 
 turned to classical or etymological criticism, on seeing these 
 things heaped together in jest as ridiculously applied to an 
 author so vernacularly popular as their familiar and national 
 dramatist, are led to think that all disquisitions of the kind 
 are equally laughable ; and that he who imagines Shak- 
 speare to have known anything whatever of a species of 
 erudition exhibited to them in so absurd a form must be 
 nothing better than a peddling pedant, unworthy of being 
 attended to. It being considered in the highest degree 
 improbable that Shakespeare purposely wrote " Where hast 
 thou been, sister?" as a trochaic dimeter brachycatalectic, 
 and something rather comical to find T^ruepenny derived 
 from the rPU'Trapoy of the Clouds of Aristophanes, with the 
 learned interpretation of his scholiast annexed, it is easy 
 for such logicians as Dr. Farmer to conclude that, if such 
 be the shifts necessary to give '^ the old bard " a reputation 
 for learning, the cause must be desperate indeed. It is, 
 however, incumbent on them to show that they are necessary, 
 and that Shakspeare is to be answerable for the etymo- 
 logical crotchets of Upton. Before we part with him, let 
 
24 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 me say that there is a considerable quantity of valuably 
 directed reading in Upton's observations, and occasionally 
 a display of sound sense and good criticism. He must not 
 be judged by the appearance he makes in Farmer's pamphlet. 
 Being a venturous etymologist, he indulges sometimes in 
 whimsical escapades — as which of the tribe does not ? — 
 sometimes more and sometimes less laughable than those 
 of his brethren. He has nothing, for example, so wonder- 
 ful as Menage's derivation of the French word chez from 
 the Latin apud ; and yet it would require much hardihood 
 or ignorance to laugh at Menage. 
 
 Dismissing, therefore. Dr. Farmer's war upon Upton, let 
 us come to his main charges affecting Shakespeare. 
 
 1. He first addresses himself to Antony and Cleopatra^ 
 in the third act of which Octavius savs : 
 
 *' Unto her 
 He gave the Establishment of Egypt ; made her 
 Of Lower Syria, Cyprus, Lydia^ 
 Absolute queen." 
 
 Lydia^ says the critic, should be Libya^ as in Plutarch 't^ojtt^v 
 
 Retain the reading Lydia^ says Farmer; for Shakspeare 
 took it not from the Greek of Plutarch, but the English of 
 Sir Thomas North. " First of all he did establish Cleopatra 
 queen of Egypt, of Cyprus, of Lydia^ and the Lower 
 Syria." 
 
 2. Again in the fourth act : 
 
 '*My messenger 
 He hath whipp'd with rods ; dares me to personal combat, 
 Caesar to Antony. Let the old ruffian know 
 I have many other ways to die ; meantime 
 Laugh at his challenge." 
 
 This is altered by Upton into 
 
 " Let the old ruffian know 
 He hath many other ways to die ; meanwhile 
 I laugh at his challenge," 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 25 
 
 This relieves Augustus from admitting his inferiority in 
 personal combat to Antony, and is exactly what we find in 
 Plutarch. Retain the reading, however, replies Farmer ; 
 because Shakspeare was misled by the ambiguity of the 
 old translation. " Antonius sent again to challenge Caesar 
 to fight him ; Caesar answered, That he had many other 
 ways to die than so." 
 
 3. In the third act oi Julius Ccesar Antony, reading the 
 will, says : 
 
 "Moreover, he hath left you all his walks, 
 His private arbours, and new-planted orchards 
 On this side Tiber." 
 
 Read, says Theobald, on that side Tiber ; 
 
 '* Trans Tiberim, prope Caesaris hortos," 
 
 and Plutarch "ti^oolv tod 'TrorafMov^ beyond the Tiber. Retain 
 the text, says Farmer ; for we find in North : '^ He left his 
 gardens and arbours unto the people, which he had on this 
 side of the river Tiber. 
 
 4. '' Hence," i^e, from Sir Thomas North's translation of 
 Plutarch, proceeds the Essay, '' had our author his charac- 
 teristic knowledge of Brutus and Antony, upon which much 
 argumentation for his learning hath been founded ; and 
 hence, literatim^ the epitaph on Timon, which it was once 
 presumed he had corrected from the blunders of the Latin 
 version by his own superior knowledge of the original." 
 
 5. Pope says : " The speeches copied from Plutarch in 
 Corio/amis may, I think, be as well made an instance of 
 the learning of Shakspeare as those copied from Cicero in 
 Catiline of Ben Jonson." To confute this opinion. Dr. 
 Farmer extracts at length the famous speech of Volumnia: 
 
 '* Should we be silent and not speak, our raiment 
 And state of bodies would bewray what life 
 We've led since thy exile," &c., 
 
 which he contrasts with the same speech in North's Plutarch, 
 also transcribed at length. " If we helde our peace (my 
 
25 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 Sonne) and determined not to speeke, the state of our poor 
 bodies and poorest sight of our raiment would easily bewray 
 to thee what hfe we have led at home, since thy exile and 
 abode abroad/' &c. It certainly is indisputable that Shak- 
 speare has done very little more than to throw North's prose 
 into blank verse. 
 
 These are all the passages from Plutarch. ''I could 
 furnish you," says Farmer, " with many more instances, but 
 these are as good as a thousand." On this figure of speech 
 I have remarked already. Farmer brought all he thought 
 of any value to his argument, and ceased furnishing more 
 when he had no more to furnish. Let us now consider 
 what he has furnished. 
 
 I. That in Shakspeare Antony is made to give Cleopatra 
 Zydia, when in Plutarch, and in fact, he gave her Libya is 
 perfectly true. It is true, also, that the mistake occurs in 
 Sir Thomas North ; but an exact hunter after these choses 
 de nea7it ought to have looked somewhat further. North 
 avowedly translated not from the original, but from the 
 French of Amyot. Farmer quotes the epigram about it : 
 
 'Twas Greek at first, that Greek was Latin made ; 
 That Latin, French ; that French to EngUsh strayed. 
 
 And in Amyot,^ p. 1132, ed. 1579, we find ^'qu'il establis- 
 soit premierement Cleopatra, Reyne d'-^gypte, de Cypre, 
 de Li^/ye, et de la basse Syrie." Was Shakespeare, if he 
 hunted at all for an authority (which, of course, he did not), 
 bound to hunt further than his original's original ? 
 
 * In Amyot it was at first probably only a misprint, but I find it is con- 
 tinued even in the editions of An. X. and XL In Leonard Aredn, from 
 whom he probably translated, the word is correctly Li^yas, as it appears in 
 the edition of Gemusoeus, Lugdun. 1552, vol. iii. p. 635. There might 
 have been an earlier edition ; for Gemusasus says, in his dedication, that 
 he presents Plutarch " civitate Roman^ no7i quidein nunc pritno donatum, 
 sed Graecorum coUatione exemplarium, mendis quae merant permultas et 
 valde graves detersis, mirifice restitutum." This was the kind of work 
 which Farmer and critics of his caste seem to have expected from Shak- 
 speare ; that he was to present North ** Graecorum collatione exemplarium 
 — mirifice restitutum.'' 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 27 
 
 2. In the repartee of Octavius the point is this: "1 
 decline Antonius's challenge, because /le has many other 
 ways to die [public execution, suicide, &c.], besides being 
 killed in duel with me, which will be the certain consequence 
 if I meet him.'' As it appears in the received text of 
 Shakespeare, it implies : " I decline the challenge, because 
 7 have many other ways to die, besides that arising from 
 the chance of throwing away my life in a brawl with an old 
 ruffian." This hardly implies a confession of inferiority, 
 although it is not the original repartee. But I am not 
 quite so sure that Shakspeare wrote it as we have it. It 
 appears thus : 
 
 " Let the old ruffian know 
 I have many other ways to die ; meantime, 
 Laugh at his challenge. 
 Meccenas. Caesar must know," &c. 
 
 The last line, being unmetrical, is mended by inserting 
 needs : 
 
 ** Laugh at his challenge — Caesar needs must know.'" 
 
 Taking the repartee literally as it appears in North, Shak- 
 speare's ordinary practice may afford a better reading : 
 
 ** Let the old ruffian know 
 He hath many other ways to die than so. 
 Meantime, I laugh at 's challenge. 
 
 Mec, Caesar must know." 
 
 Now, where we find certain proofs of negligent editing, we 
 have a right to give our suspicions of incorrectness fuller 
 scope. May not this passage have been amended by the 
 player-editors, or the printers ? Is it any very violent con- 
 jecture to imagine that Shakspeare had seized the spirit of 
 Plutarch, and written, 
 
 '* He hath many other ways to die than so,** 
 
 being the exact words of North, without alteration of a letter 
 except the necessary change of ha/>^ for ha^, and that some 
 printing or editorial blundering has jumbled the pronouns ? 
 
28 ^ FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 The supposition is in complete conformity with Shakspeare s 
 practice ; and it removes the metrical difficulty. 
 
 3. It is true that Caesar bequeathed to the Roman people 
 his wardens on that side Tiber : -^sfa^ ^-ot; ^oTa[j.o\) as 
 Plutarch translates trans Tibcrim. North, followed by 
 Shakspeare, gives it on this side. The mistake, again, is to 
 be referred to Amyot — au defd for au dela. And I repeat 
 my former question, was Shakspeare bound to look further? 
 
 4. From North, Shakspeare had his characteristic know- 
 ledge of Brutus and Antony ! Were it said that Plutarch, 
 either in Greek or Latin, French or EngUsh, supplied Shak- 
 speare with his materials for drawing those characters, 
 nobody would demur : but I should be surprised, indeed, 
 if any one maintained that in the dry bones of the old 
 Boeotian there could be found anything more than the 
 skeletons of the living men called out of the valley of 
 Jehoshaphat by Shakspeare. Plutarch or North gave him 
 the characters of his Greek or Roman heroes, just as much 
 as Holinshed and Hall gave him those of Henry V. or 
 Richard HI. ; as Saxo-Grammaticus^ or the Tragedie of 
 Hamblet^ supplied him with Hamlet the Dane ; as Fordun 
 or Buchanan, or the English chroniclers, helped him to 
 create Macbeth ; or the old Tragical History of B emeus and 
 fuliet furnished him with the characters, grave and gay, 
 
 brilliant and tragic, which fill the scene of that ''story of 
 such wo." This will not pass. The epitaph on Timon 
 is certainly to be found in North — so minute a critic as 
 Farmer ought not to have said literatim^ because more than 
 a letter, a whole word, consisting of eight letters, " wretches^^ 
 is altered into another word of eight letters also, but for the 
 most part different, '^ caitives ; ^^ or, perhaps, even of nine, if 
 7nore majoi'um you spell it ^^ caitiffes?'* 
 
 5. I have already admitted that Volumnia's speech in 
 Coriolanus is nothing more than a transposition, as Bayes 
 would call it, of North's prose into blank verse. It is 
 therefore clearly proved that Shakspeare used Sir Thomas's 
 translation as the text-book of Antony and Cleopatra^ fulius 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 29 
 
 CcBsar and Coriolanus ; that in three, or, if my reading be 
 admitted, two passages, it misled him ; and that in a fourth 
 he merely versified its prose. I protest, however, against 
 being supposed to admit that in North or in Plutarch he 
 found his Greek and Roman characters. How does all 
 this trumpery prove that he could not have read Plutarch in 
 the original ? 
 
 In this manner it will be replied : — If he had read the 
 original, he would not have made the blunders of Lydia for 
 Libya^ or ''on this side Tiber'' for ''on that side Tiber." 
 This is petty criticism indeed. Did any one ever imagine 
 that it was the duty of Shakspeare to turn verbal critic, and 
 correct the blunders of the versions of North or Amyot by 
 his own superior Greek erudition ? And the answer will be : 
 '' Yes, Theobald." 
 
 A worse-used man does not exist in our literature than 
 this same poor Theobald. He was, in truth, the first useful 
 commentator on Shakspeare, Rowe and Pope having done 
 little or nothing more than adorn the art of editorship with 
 their names. It is the commentary of Theobald that 
 guides all his successors, including those who most insult 
 him. His reading, though ill digested, was multifarious, 
 and his skill in conjectural criticism of no mean order. 
 That he was full of self-conceit, and inspired by a jealous 
 dislike of Pope, which tinges his notes with unpleasant acer- 
 bities, and crowds them with disproportionately triumphant 
 swellings over the detection of real or supposed errors in the 
 merest trifles, is not to be denied. Pope, he thought, and 
 with some justice, had treated him unfairly, in deviating 
 from the paths of poetry to intrude into the walks of com- 
 mentatorship, especially as it was known that Theobald had 
 been long engaged upon Shakspeare before the booksellers 
 enlisted Pope. It was hard, he felt, that a great name 
 should be called in to blight the labours of his life ; and he 
 was determined to show that, however great that name 
 might be in its proper region, it was small enough when it 
 wandered elsewhere. He might fairly complain against the 
 
30 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 literary ambition which, not satisfied with its triumphs in 
 the Essay on Man, in Abelard and Eloisa, in the transla- 
 tion of Homer, in the Rape of the Lock, in epic and pastoral, 
 wit and satire, was resolved to crush an humbler votary of 
 letters, whose highest pretension was not loftier than to 
 shine as a scholiast. Ahab, when not content with govern- 
 ing the kingdom of Israel he coveted Naboth's poor garden 
 of herbs, and obtained it through the owner's destruction, 
 could not have appeared more atrocious than Pope in the 
 eyes of Theobald; and, having found his enemy where he 
 had him at some advantage, he resolved to show no mercy. 
 
 It will be admitted, also, that his notes are often of an 
 unconscionable length — a fault which he shares with the 
 classical commentators. His contemporary, Hemsterhusius, 
 for example, so much admired by his brother critics \at 
 quantiis vir ! is the enthusiastic exclamation of Ilgen, on 
 the mention of his name], is thrice as prosy. Theobald had 
 vowed to treat Shakspeare as a classic, and therefore 
 bestowed his tediousness upon him with as much good-will 
 and generosity as his more erudite fellow-labourers did 
 upon the authors of Greece and Rome. But, with all these 
 defects, it was he who set the example of a proper collation 
 of the original editions; for as to his predecessors, Rowe 
 did not collate at all, and Pope's collations are so slight and 
 careless as to be scarcely worth notice. He examined the 
 text with minute accuracy ; he read much oi that reading 
 which Pope, who as a poet and a man of taste was perfectly 
 right in despising, but as an editor equally wrong in neglect- 
 ing, stigmatised, because he was too lazy to consult, as being 
 never read, alluding (in the Du7iciad) to the very case of 
 Theobald ; and thereby threw much light upon the meaning 
 of his author ; while, by pointing out the path to other 
 commentators, he was the indirect cause of throwino- much 
 more ; and, on the whole, he must be considered as one of 
 the most useful pioneers in Shakspearian commentatorship. 
 He did not aspire to much higher glory. 
 
 I am dwelHng on Theobald, because I find him occupying 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 31 
 
 SO much attention in this pamphlet of Farmer's. Indepen- 
 dently of fifty sneers directed against him for his edition of 
 Shakspeare, the doctor goes out of his way to discuss at 
 much length the authenticity of the Double Falsehood, 
 " which Mr. Theobald was desirous of palming on the 
 world as a posthumous play of Shakspeare." If this be an 
 error, as undoubtedly it is, it is almost shared by Pope, who, 
 as Farmer himself remarks, refers it to the Shakspearian 
 age. With great sagacity the pamphlet proceeds to show 
 that the accenting of aspect in the modern manner, instead 
 of aspect in the more ancient, detects the later date of the 
 play. This is followed by a discussion on its pronunciation 
 in Milton, with the accustomed sneer on ^^such commen- 
 tators ; " one of them being Bentley. Then comes his 
 opinion that the play was written by Shirley ; wound up by 
 a couple of passages from that dramatist and Donne, to 
 which Farmer thinks Milton was indebted in his Paradise 
 Lost. All this needless digression is introduced merely to 
 have a fling at Theobald for having wished to appropriate 
 to himself some lines, which it seems were particularly 
 admired — I know not by whom — from the Double Falsehood, 
 which, ^' after all, is superior to Theobald.""^ 
 
 * " After all, The Double Falsehood is superior to Theobald. One pas- 
 sage, and one only, in the whole play, he pretended to have written : 
 
 * Strike up, my masters. 
 
 But touch the strings with a religious softness ; 
 Teach Sound to languish through the night's dull ear, 
 Till Melancholy start from her lazy couch, 
 And Carelessness grow convert to Attention.' 
 
 These lines were particularly admired ; and his vanity could not resist the 
 opportunity of claiming them ; but his claim had been more easily allowed 
 to any other part of the performance." — Farmer. The poetry appears to 
 me to be as dull as the wit of the doctor. I subjoin Farmer's illustration of 
 Milton from Donne, to show that, if he had pleased to question Milton's 
 learning, he might have done it in the same way that he has questioned 
 Shakspeare's : " You must not think me infected with the spirit of Lauder, 
 if I give you another of Milton's imitations : 
 
 ' The swan with arched neck 
 
 Between her white wings manthng proudly, rows 
 
 Her state with oary feet.' " 
 
32 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 As it is no very remarkable crime to be a bad editor of 
 Shakspeare, we might wonder why this poor devil of a critic 
 was so rancorously hunted, did we not find the cause in 
 his having incurred the hostility of Pope in the plenitude 
 of the poet's power and popularity, and enjoyed the friend- 
 ship of Warburton at the period of the embryo bishop's 
 poverty. Pope having made him the hero of the Dunciad, 
 it was necessary that Warburton should for ever disclaim all 
 association with his quondam brother in Grub Street, and 
 show, by a perpetual strain of insult, that nothing beyond a 
 slight and contemptuous approach towards the relation of 
 patron and dependant ever existed between them. Hence 
 his studied confusion, in the shape of an antithesis, between 
 his ''accidental connections" with Theobald and Sir 
 Thomas Hanmer : "The one was recommended to me as 
 a poor man, the other as a poor critic ; and to each of 
 them, at different times, I communicated a great number of 
 observations, which they managed, as they saw fit, to the 
 relief of their several distresses. As to Mr. Theobald, who 
 wanted money, I allowed him to print what I gave him for 
 
 "The ancient poets," says Mr. Richardson, *'have not hit upon this 
 beauty ; so lavish have they been of the beauty of the swan. Homer calls 
 the swan long-necked, dovXLxodeipov ; but how much more pittoresque if he 
 had arched this length of neck." For this beauty, however, Milton was 
 beholden to Donne; whose name, I believe, at present is better known 
 than his writings : 
 
 '' Like a ship in her full trim, 
 
 A swan so white that you may unto him 
 Compare all whitenesse, but himselfe to none, 
 Glided along ; as he glided watch'd. 
 And with his arched neck this poore fish catch 'd." 
 
 The arching of the neck is unquestionably to be found in Donne, but 
 rowing the oary feet comes from Silius Italicus : 
 
 *' Haud secus Eridani stagnis rip^ve Caystri 
 Innatat albus olor, pronoque immobile corpus 
 Dat fluvio, et pedibus tacitas eremigat undas,'^'^ 
 
 In the Farmer style of argument it would be easy to prove that Milton 
 had never read Sihus, because he might have read Donne. 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 33 
 
 his own advantage," &c. This is pitiful work. Warburton 
 was just as poor as Theobald when he pretends he patron- 
 ised him ; and it will be seen by Nichols's Illustrations of 
 the Literary History of the Nineteenth Century that they 
 were on such terms of critical intimacy as to make it as 
 likely that Theobald assisted Warburton in such matters as 
 Warburton Theobald. It was in after years, when the fame 
 of the bishop was at its zenith, that the accidental discovery 
 of a letter from him to Concanen (who is abused in the 
 Dunciad for no earthly reason but that, being a small 
 political writer, he was connected with some ephemeral 
 pubUcations which provoked Pope, and is consequently 
 ^'whipt at the cart's tail" in Warburton's notes) proved that 
 he had in the commencement of his literary career been 
 intimately connected with ''the Dunces." This discovery 
 made a great noise, as if it had been a matter of the 
 slightest importance, which indeed it was not, except for the 
 purpose of annoying the Warburtonians "^ — as it did in no 
 small degree ; and the letter, with the history of its detection, 
 is duly printed in Malone's edition of Shakspeare among 
 other irrelevant matter, to the needless swelling of that 
 crescens cadaver^ and made the subject of various sagacious 
 remarks and expressions of wonder, so great was the im- 
 pression of awe produced by the satires of Pope. The 
 Dunciad is now forgotten, and, but for the surrounding 
 matter of the poem it accompanies, would never be re- 
 printed. As it is Pope's, it must make part of every edition 
 of his works ; for, as some of his happiest lines tell us, — 
 
 * Warburton was dead about a year before Malone ventured on any- 
 thing so desperate as publishing the letter, though it had been found 
 several years previously, and then he prefaced it with a whining apology. 
 See the history of the whole affair in Nichols's Literaij Anecdotes^ vol. v. 
 p. 534 ; and Nichols's Illustrations of Literary History, vol. ii. p. 195, 
 where will be found a most extended correspondence of Warburton, 
 Theobald, and Concanen. The sycophancy of Hurd to Warburton, Lit, 
 Anec,^ p. 535, on the subject of his former acquaintance with Concanen is 
 sickening. I wish somebody would arrange these books of Nichols's. They 
 are full of the most valuable matter, but presented in a manner so confused 
 as to render consulting them a work of no small puzzle. 
 
 VOL. II. C 
 
34 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 * * Pretty ! in amber to observe the forms 
 Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms ! 
 The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, 
 But wonder how the Devil they got there." 
 
 But it was once esteemed quite as rich and rare as the amber 
 in which it is now preserved, and nothing was considered 
 more scandalous than to refrain from insulting its victims. 
 Mallet, for example, a paltry creature, thought he said 
 something very witty and wise, as well as tending to bow 
 his way up in the world, when, in his Verbal Criticism^ he 
 vented such a distich as (I quote from memory ; it is not 
 worth while verifying such things) — 
 
 " But not a sprig of laurel graced these ribalds, 
 From slashing Bentley down to piddling Tibbalds." 
 
 And Farmer, in the pamphlet I am following, appends a 
 note to inform us that Dennis was expelled from his college 
 for attempting to stab a man in the dark. '' Pope," he adds, 
 ''would have been glad of this anecdote." Perhaps he 
 might ; for, with all his genius, he was in his personal spites 
 small-minded. But what has it to do in an Essay on the 
 Leaiming of Shakspeare'i Exactly this. To those with 
 whom Shakspeare was an old bard the Dunciad was an 
 immortal poem, as worthy of finding its scholiasts as 
 Aristophanes ; and Farmer wished to assist with his bit of 
 knowledge. To quit Theobald, however, let me remark 
 that a satire in which Defoe appears only as a pilloried 
 pamphleteer ; Gibber as a dull dunce ; Mrs. Centlivre as a 
 cook's wife ; Bentley as a letter-quibbling blockhead ; Bur- 
 net as a hack paragraph-writer, and so forth, cannot be 
 applauded for its justice. It is really a pity to see so much 
 mastery of language and harmony of verse wasted on pur- 
 poses so unworthy ; and I have often thought it still more 
 matter of regret that Johnson himself, ragged of knee, 
 and gobbling broken meat behind a screen in St. John's 
 Gate, cheered by the applause of Walter Harte, admitted to 
 the honour of being dinner companion of his peddling em- 
 ployer (if the story be true, which, however, may be doubted) 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 35 
 
 —that Johnson, tattered in attire by the tailoring and half- 
 starved by the dinnering of Cave, should have followed the 
 fashion in speaking hardly of an unfortunate wight already 
 blasted by lightnings flung by the dii majorum among the 
 literature of the day. 
 
 We have now got very nearly through half Dr. Farmer's 
 pamphlet; and the main fact as yet established is that 
 Shakspeare used North's translation of Plutarch. All the 
 Greek that remains to be disposed of is — 
 
 I. The passage in Timon of Athens^ act iv. sc. iii.: 
 
 " The sun 's a thief, and with his great attraction 
 Robs the vast sea. The moon 's an arrant thief," &c., 
 
 is generally referred to Anacreon's nineteenth ode, n yy\ 
 iLiKahfx Tivsi, X. T. X. And some one [name not quoted] 
 imagines that it would be puzzling to prove that there was 
 a Latin translation of Anacreon at the time Shakspeare 
 wrote his Timon of Athens. '' This challenge," replies 
 Farmer, ^'is peculiarly unhappy; for I do not at present 
 recollect any other classic (if, indeed, with great deference 
 to Mynheer De Pauw" — this is wit — ''Anacreon may be 
 numbered among them) that was originally published with 
 two Latin translations.'* And what of that ? It may show 
 the bibliographical ignorance of the anonymous some one, 
 and the bibliographical knowledge of Farmer ; but how does 
 it affect Shakspeare ? At first sight, we should suppose 
 that some concession to his " small Latin '' was here in- 
 tended ; that if the "old bard" could not be allowed to 
 understand the Greek of Anacreon, he might be deemed 
 sufficiently learned to read the Latin of Stephanus or 
 Andreas. But no. Puttenham, in his Arte of Poetry^ 
 quotes some one of a reasonable good facilitie in translation, 
 who had translated certaine of Anacreon's odes from the 
 translation of Ronsard, the French poet. Now, continues 
 Farmer, this identical ode is to be met in Ronsard ; and, in 
 compassion to the ignorance of his readers, he transcribes 
 it : 
 
36 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 *' La terre les eaux va boivant, 
 L'arbre la boit par sa racine," &c. 
 
 Now I contend, as Farmer had not seen the book referred 
 to by Puttenham, and could not therefore know that it con- 
 tained a version of this ode from Ronsard, he was at least 
 hardy in his reference to it. The plagiary censured by 
 Puttenham was John Southern ; and it is nothing to Far- 
 mer's purpose if we find the identical Anacreontic in 
 Ronsard, if it is not in Southern also. If it happens that 
 it is not one of the stolen odes — i,e. if they were stolen, 
 which, with deference to Puttenham, does not appear so 
 very clear — in Southern's collection, Farmer's argument falls 
 to the ground. But suppose it there, and in the most pro- 
 minent place, what then ? If Mr. Milman wrote a tragedy 
 now, and introduced into it an imitation of Anacreon, are 
 we therefore to contend that he was indebted for it to Mr. 
 Moore, and could not consult the original Greek? The 
 argument is that wherever an English translation of a 
 classic could be found, no matter how worthless or obscure, 
 we are to presume that Shakspeare made that his study, 
 from inability to read any other language. Verily this is 
 begging the question. I think it highly probable that Shak- 
 speare had the idea from Ronsard, whose popularity had 
 not been effaced in his time ; but, really, it is not so 
 wonderful a feat to master the Greek of Anacreon as to 
 make me consider it impossible that he drew it from the 
 fountain-head. At all events, we may contend that he did 
 not draw^ it from the source indicated by Farmer, until it is 
 proved that it is there to draw."^ 
 
 2. Mrs. Lenox maintains that in Troilus and Cressida^ 
 when Achilles is roused to battle by the death of Patroclus, 
 Shakspeare must have had the Iliad itself in view, as the 
 
 * The only notice I know of Southern is in the European Magazine for 
 June 1788 ; and as the writer, though he must have known of Farmer's 
 pamphlet, says nothing of this translation of Ronsard, or Anacreon, it is 
 probable that it does not exist. 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 37 
 
 incident is not to be found in the old story — the Reacyel of 
 the Historyes of Troy. 
 
 3. Mr. Upton is positive the siveet oblivious antidote in- 
 quired after by Macbeth could be nothing but the nepenthe 
 described in the Odyssey : 
 
 There is, contends Dr. Farmer, no necessity of sending 
 us to the Iliad or the Odyssey , for the circumstance of 
 Patroclus might be learned from Alexander Barclay's S/iip 
 of Fooles : " Who list the story of Patroclus to reade," &c.; 
 and nepenthe more fully from Spenser than from Homer 
 himself. Certainly more fully, for Homer dismisses it in 
 six or seven lines in the Odyssey ; but Spenser does not 
 give one remarkable word which Homer supplies, and of 
 which we find the equivalent in Shakspeare. I copy what 
 Farmer quotes from the Fctcrie Queene^ b. iv. c. iii. st. 43 : 
 
 ** Nepenthe is a drinck of soveragne ^race, 
 
 Devized by the gods, for to asswage 
 Hart's grief, and bitter gall away to chace ; 
 
 Instead thereof sweet peace and quietage 
 It doth establish in the troubled mind," &c. 
 
 This is unquestionably a fine poetical amplification of 
 Homer, but it misses the word i^iXrjdou — oblivioics. Where 
 did Shakspeare find this? Perhaps in the Latin translation 
 — ^'malorum ohlivionem inducens omnium;'' perhaps in 
 Virgil's " longa oblivia potant." Certainly not in Spenser. 
 It is fair to Upton to remark that he is not positive on the 
 point ; nor does he say the antidote could be nothing else 
 but the nepenthe described in the Odyssey. He quotes the 
 passage from Macbeth, and then in a note {^Crit. Obser. p. 
 56) merely says: '^ Alluding to the nepenthe, a certain 
 mixture of which, perhaps, opium was one of the ingredients, 
 Homer's Odyssey, d. 221, N^j^gv^f^," &c. There is no positive- 
 ness here ; the allusion to the nepenthe is plain, no matter 
 whence Shakspeare derived it ; and Upton merely indicates 
 the source from which it must have originally been derived. 
 
38 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 I think a critical examination of the passages would lead to 
 a strong suspicion that Shakspeare had Homer in his eye. 
 The medicament flung into the bowl by Helen to cheer her 
 guests, was oc^^oXov — anger-banishing, one that could ''minister 
 to a mind diseased;" vri'rsvdig^ generally interpreted as sorrow- 
 chasing, that could '' pluck from the memory a deep-rooted 
 sorrow ;" xaxoov sTrlXyjdov amavrm — oblivion-causing of all 
 troubles; that would ''raze out the written troubles of the 
 brain/' " Give me the sweet oblivious antidote," says 
 Macbeth, "that would cleanse the stuffed bosom of that 
 perilous stuff that weighs upon the heart." It is here, says 
 Homer. This nepenthe would check the tear from flowing, 
 even if father, brother, mother, or son were slaughtered 
 before the eyes of him who drinks the cf>dpfji,aKov sTrlXYidov^ the 
 oblivious antidote : 
 
 ** That nepenthes, which the wife of Thone, 
 In Egypt, gave to Jove-born Helena.""*^ 
 
 The coincidence of the passages is so striking that 1 think 
 it impossible that Shakspeare should not have read this 
 part of Homer, at least in the original or translation. There 
 was, in spite of Farmer's aff"ected doubt, no Chapman when 
 Macbeth was written to assist him, but there were some 
 curious French translations, and no lack of versions into the 
 Latin. With respect to the incident of Patroclus, he might 
 certainly have found it in Barclay ; but he also might have 
 found it in Homer, and I much prefer the latter supposition. 
 Troilus and Cressida seems, indeed, written as an antagonism 
 of the Homeric characters, so marked and peculiar as to 
 leave a strong impression that the originals were studied. 
 It would appear as if Shakspeare was trying his strength 
 against Homer ; as if he said " The world has, for centuries, 
 rung with the fame of^^^r Ulysses. Well ! here stands miney 
 He has, accordingly, produced a character comparable 
 only with that depicted by the great master himself, and far 
 surpassing the conceptions of the Greek dramatists and 
 
 * Comus, V. 675, 6. 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 39 
 
 Ovid, by all of whom Ulysses is degraded. Both in Shaks- 
 peare and Homer he is eminently wise ; but in the former 
 he appears, as Dr. Johnson calls him, the calm Ulysses ; in 
 the latter, ever active. The one is grave and cautious ; the 
 other ready to embark in any adventure, in undoubting 
 reliance on his readiness of expedient. The eloquence of 
 the one is didactic, as becomes a speaker in a drama ; of 
 the other, narrative, as suited to the epic. The one is 
 prescient, providing against difficulties ; the other TroAvroo-iroSy 
 certain to overcome them when they arrive. Shakspeare 
 could not have written 
 
 ** The glorious tale to King Alcinous told," 
 
 and he therefore did not attempt it. Homer, if he had 
 made the attempt, could not have surpassed the wisdom 
 and the poetry of such speeches as those in the third scene 
 of the first act of Troilus and Cressida ; such as ''The 
 specialty of rule hath been neglected '^ [how politically 
 applicable to the events of the last few years !] ; in the third 
 scene of the third act, " Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his 
 back ;" or, indeed, throughout the whole play. It appears, 
 I repeat, to be a studied antagonism ; and, at all events, I 
 think it would not be far short of a miracle if Shakespeare 
 had not read in some language the Iliad and the Odyssey^ — 
 ^'The tale of Troy divine'' as told by him who, alone of 
 the uninspired sons of song, was his equal or superior. 
 
 4. '' But whence have we the plot of Timo7i, except from 
 the Greek of Lucian ? " Farmer ridicules this fancy ; and 
 I do not know who ever asserted it. In the first place, it 
 need not have been derived from the Greek of Lucian ; for 
 Erasmus had translated Timon into Latin many a year before 
 Shakspeare was born. In the second place, those who 
 have read the two Timons well know that, except in the 
 one circumstance of Timon's being a misanthrope who fled 
 from society to the woods, and there found some gold while 
 dio-aino-, there is nothing in common between them. As 
 for the conception of the characters, they are distinct as the 
 
40 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 poles asunder. The misanthrope of Lucian is such as might 
 be expected from the pen of a smart sarcastic litterateur 
 occupied with the petty cares, and satirising the petty follies, 
 of a small prating circle cooped up in a literary town, read- 
 ing over and over again the one set of poets, or philosophers, 
 or orators ; continually commentating, criticising, quibbling, 
 jesting, wrangling, parodying, and never casting an eye 
 beyond their own clique, the gossiping affairs of which they 
 deemed of prime importance. Accordingly, the Greek 
 Timon opens his imprecation to Jupiter with a bead-roll of 
 poetical epithets, and a sneer at the contrivances of metre- 
 mongers ; and continues, in a strain of sarcasm directed as 
 much against the mythological fables, in Lucian's day falling 
 everywhere into disrepute, as against mankind. Much time 
 is then spent in witty dialogues between Jupiter, Mercury, 
 and Plutus, on the difficulty of acquiring or retaining wealth, 
 and its unequal distribution, written in the manner of gay 
 comedy. When Timon is again invested w^ith riches, he 
 fulminates a misanthropical decree against the human race ; 
 but his curses are little more than a somewhat extravagant 
 badinage. His very first w^ords betoken the author ; they 
 are parodies on the poets, things uppermost in the mind of 
 the rhetorician, the lecturer, and the reviewer, but which 
 certainly would not occur to the mind of a man stung to 
 madness by his injuries, — fj.CKayyo\uiv roov xaxoDv, as he him- 
 self says, and rejoicing in the name of hater of man (xa/ 
 6vo,u,a fjLsv g(Trw i MI2AN0PnnO2 rjdiarov ; though he tells US 
 that he is to look upon men but as statues of stone or brass, 
 which cannot be objects of hatred. He is to feast by him- 
 self, to sacrifice by himself, to put the funeral crown upon 
 himself after he is dead. These mere jocularities are cast 
 in the appropriate form of a mock-decree. He is then 
 visited by a trencher-friend, who had deserted him w^hen he 
 could keep no table, and an ungrateful fellow, whom he 
 had assisted in affluence, and who neglected him in poverty. 
 These surely are no uncommon cases ; and they are treated 
 in a sketchy, light, burlesque manner, probably with some 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 41 
 
 real individuals in view. Then (for the constant objects of 
 Lucianic satire must come at last) appear an orator, with a 
 farcical decree ; and a philosopher, with a parody on a 
 philosophic lecture. These were the classes of mankind 
 great in Lucian's eyes, and on them he always expends the 
 utmost rigour of his satiric rage. Timon very properly 
 kicks all these people out, and so ends the petite comedte. 
 
 It answered, I suppose, the purpose for which its author 
 intended it. The priests were no doubt angry or amused ; 
 they had a more dangerous and deadly foe at hand, in the 
 resistless march of Christianity, to be seriously annoyed by 
 mere squibs. The orators and philosophers sketched under 
 the names of Demeas and Thrasycles (the latter is evidently 
 drawn from the life), and the real persons (if any) who were 
 intended byGnathonides and Philiades, were in all probability 
 as indignant on the appearance of the lively lampoon, and 
 complained as bitterly of the licentiousness of libellous 
 MSS., as the victims of witty newspapers or magazines in 
 our own days inveigh against the licentiousness of a libellous 
 press. The style is gay and sprightly, its observations 
 shrewd and pleasant, and the sketches graphic and close 
 to life. But what have they in common with the harrowing 
 creation of the Shakspearian Timon "^ What are Lucian's 
 angriest denunciations but childish trifling, compared with 
 the curse upon Athens with which the fourth act of the 
 English misanthrope opens — the desperate prayer that 
 matrons should be unchaste, children disobedient, authority 
 spurned, virginity turned to filth and shamelessness, poverty 
 scoffed at, murder, theft, pillage made the regular order of 
 human conduct? 
 
 " Maid, to thy master's bed. 
 
 Thy mistress is o' the brothel ! — Son of sixteen, 
 Pluck the lin'd crutch from the old limping sire ; 
 With it beat out his brains ! Piety and fear, 
 Religion to the gods, peace, justice, truth. 
 Domestic awe, night-rest, and neighbourhood, 
 Instructions, manners, mysteries, and trades, 
 Degrees, observances, customs, and laws, 
 
42 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 Decline to your confounding contraries, 
 And yet confusion live ! " 
 
 Shakspeare did not find anything like this in jesting Lucian. 
 Again, compare the Greek Timon's exclamation on finding 
 the gold with the parallel passage in Shakspeare, or con- 
 trast the visitors sent to each. I have already enumerated 
 those to Lucian — triflers all. To the other Timon come 
 the broken military adventurer at war with his country ; and 
 he is counselled to spare none — not age, sex, youth, infancy, 
 holiness, wretchedness, all being equally infamous and 
 detestable ; and that task done, having made 
 
 " Large confusion, and thy fury spent, 
 Confounded be thyself ! " 
 
 — the abandoned woman, strongly advised to ply her pro- 
 
 fligate trade so as to spread misery and disease ; — the rascal 
 thief, whose profession is justified on the ground that he is 
 only doing openly what all the rest of mankind practises 
 under seemly covers of hypocritical observance : 
 
 * • The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power 
 Have unchecked theft. Love not yourselves : away : 
 Rob one another. There's more gold : Cut throats ; 
 All that you meet are thieves. To Athens go, 
 Break open shops, [for] nothing can you steal, 
 But thieves do lose it. Steal not less, for this 
 I give you ; and gold confound you howsoever ! 
 Amen.'' 
 
 Shakspeare found all this in Lucian, just as much as he 
 found it in another of Dr. Farmer's authorities, yi^^/^ Drum^s 
 Entertainrnefit. There is no need for contrastinsf the 
 characters any further. I am very much of opinion, from 
 Farmer's suggesting the similarity at all, that whether Shak- 
 speare was indebted to Lucian or not, the doctor had never 
 read the Greek dialoguist ; at least with anything like 
 attention. 
 
 Such, then, detailed at length with all its examples, is Dr. 
 Farmer's argument to prove that Shakspeare was ignorant 
 of Greek. Briefly summed up, the whole will amount to 
 this : That some critics, especially Upton, have been over- 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 43 
 
 zealous in tracing resemblances of passages or phrases in 
 Greek to what we find in Shakspeare, which certainly is no 
 fault of the '' old bard ; " that in constructing his classical 
 plays, instead of reading the Greek of Plutarch,— of which 
 there might, perhaps, have been a hundred copies in 
 England during his life, — he consulted the English trans- 
 lation of Sir Thomas North, who, having copied the blunders 
 of Claude Amyot, was thereby the means of transferring a 
 couple of trifling errors to Jitlhcs Ccesar and Antony and 
 Cleopatra ; that because an invisible poet named Southern 
 had translated Ronsard, who had translated Anacreon, 
 Shakspeare could not read even the Latin translation 
 of the Teian odes ; that because in the Ship of Fooles is to 
 be found an incident referred to in the Iliad and in the 
 Faerie Qtieene^ a description of the Nepenthe of the Odyssey^ 
 S'nakspeare could not have known anything of Homer ; 
 and finally that, as Lucian had written a light comedy on 
 Timon, those who supposed the deep tragedy on the same 
 subject in English was dictated by the Greek were very 
 much mistaken. And this is the pamphlet which has, in 
 the opinion of competent critics, " settled the question for 
 ever ! '' It has settled one question for ever : that the mass 
 of conceited ignorance among the reading public and the 
 ordinary critical rabble of the middle of the last century 
 was profusedly abundant. 
 
 Having dismissed the details of the Greek question, I 
 shall proceed to consider the proofs of Shakspeare's igno- 
 rance of other languages. And first, 
 
 [Dr. Maginn must stop here for this month. — O. Y.] 
 
 11. 
 
 I was proceeding to say, when Mr. Yorke, impatient of 
 my inordinate intrusion on his pages, abruptly cut me short 
 last month, that I should have somewhat more trouble with 
 the Latin part of Dr. Farmer's Essay than with the Greek ; 
 not from any potency in the argument, or variety in the way 
 
44 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 of putting it, but from the confused and desultory manner in 
 which his instances and examples are brought forward. In 
 the edition I am using (Isaac Reed's, of 1813), where it 
 occupies the first eighty-six pages of the second volume, 
 the proofs to convict Shakspeare of ignorance commence 
 at p. 34, and are brought to a close with an exulting — 
 " Thus much for the learning of Shakspeare with respect 
 to the ancient languages," at p. 73 ; but these forty pages 
 are far, indeed, from being devoted to the proposed theme. 
 In them we find ample stores of miscellaneous information 
 — such as that we may venture to look into the Roviaunt 
 of the JKose, "notwithstanding Master Prynne hath so posi- 
 tively assured us on the word of John Guerson, that the 
 author [Jehan de Mehun] is most certainly damned, if he 
 did not care for a serious repentance;" that "poor Jehan 
 had raised the expectations of a monastery in France by 
 the legacy of a great chest and the weighty contents of it, 
 but it proved to be filled with nothing but vetches," on 
 which the friars refused him Christian burial; that if "our 
 zealous puritan [Prynne] had known of this he would not 
 have joined in the clamour against him ; " that Sir Charles 
 Hanbury Williams "literally stole [an epigram] from Ange- 
 rianus, as he appears in the Delitice Hal. Poet, by Gruter, 
 under the anagrammatic name of ' Ranutius Gherus ' " 
 1 60S, vol. i. p. 189 (which, it must be admitted, is at least 
 as sounding a piece of learning as Upton's dimeter trochaic 
 brachycatalectic, commonly called ithyphallic, which excites 
 so much of Farmer's jocularity) ; that " such biographers as 
 Theophilus Gibber and the writer of the life of Sir Philip 
 (Sidney) prefixed to the modern editions," are wrong in 
 assigning the date of 1613 to the Arcadia^ Dr. Farmer him- 
 self having actually a copy in his own possession, " printed 
 for W. Ponsonbie, 1590, 4to., which hath escaped the 
 notice of the industrious Ames, and the rest of our typo- 
 graphical antiquaries ; " that " Mr. Urry, probably misled 
 by his predecessor, Speght," was wrong in beino- deter- 
 mined, Procrustes like, to force every line in the Canter- 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 45 
 
 bury Tales to the same standard, the attention of our old 
 poets being ^Mirected to the ccesural patise, as the gramma- 
 rians call it " [Upton again !] ; that Mr. Menage quotes a 
 canon upon us, — '^Si quis dixerit episcopum podagra 
 laborare, anathema sit ; " that Skelton, in his rambling 
 manner, gives a curious character of Wolsey, which is 
 made a peg whereon to hang a note upon Skelton him- 
 self and his laureateship ; that Mr. Garrick is '^ a gentleman, 
 who will always be allowed the first com7nentator on Shaks- 
 peare, when he does not carry us beyond himself," which, 
 to use the language of one of Lady Morgan's heroes in 
 
 (I forgot what novel) is " mighty nate ; " that Mr. 
 
 Ames, who searched after books of this sort with the 
 utmost avidity, had not seen " the ttuo tomes which Tom 
 Rawlinson would have called justa volumina,^'' of W. 
 Painter's Palace of Pleasures^ ''when he published his 
 Typographical Antiquities^ as appears from his blunders 
 about them; and possibly I myself" [even I!] ''might 
 have remained in the same predicament, had I not been 
 favoured with a copy by my generous friend Dr. Lort ; " 
 that he " must correct a mark in the Life of Spenser which 
 is impotently levelled at the first critics of the age " in the 
 Biographia Britannica^ followed by a dissertation on the 
 date of Tasso's Gierusalem??te Liberata^ introduced chiefly to 
 " assure the biographer," who assigns it to 1583, " that / have 
 met with at least six other editions preceding his date of 
 the first publication ; " that Gabriel Harvey desired only to 
 be '' epitaph' d i\it inventor of the English hexameter," and 
 for a while every one would be halting on Roman feet ; 
 that the ridicule of our fellow-collegian. Hall, in one of his 
 satires, and the reasoning of Daniel, in his Defence of Rhyme 
 against Campion, presendy reduced us to our original 
 Gothic ; that he had met with a facetious piece of Sir John 
 Harrington, printed in 1596 (and possibly there was an 
 earlier edition), called the Metamorphosis of Ajax ; that 
 ^' A Compendious or Brief Examination of Certayne Ordi- 
 nary Complaints, &c., by William Shakspeare, gentleman," 
 
46 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 reprinted in 1751, was falsely attributed to our author; ^* / 
 having at last met with the original edition," and with 
 great ingenuity discovered that it was the composition of 
 William Stafford ; that '' poor Anthony "—he means Anthony 
 Wood— had too much reason for his character of Aubrey ; ^ 
 with an abundance of more stuff of the same kind, curious 
 perhaps occasionally, and calculated to inspire us with due 
 reverence for the bibliographical industry and acumen of 
 Dr. Farmer, but having no more connection with the ques- 
 tion whether Shakspeare knew Latin or not than it has 
 with the quadrature of the circle. And, even where we find 
 points adduced which do bear upon that question, they are 
 urged in so rambling and discursive a manner that it is 
 scarcely possible to meet them without being tediously 
 diffusive upon petty trifles. 
 His Latin task opens thus : 
 
 " Perhaps the advocates for Shakspeare's knowledge of the 
 Latin language may be more successful. Mr. Gildon takes the 
 van. ^ It is plain that he was acquainted with the fables of 
 antiquity very well: that some of the arrows of Cupid are pointed 
 with lead and others with gold, he found in Ovid ; and what he 
 speaks of Dido, in Virgil ; nor do I know any translation of 
 these poets so ancient as Shakspeare's time.' The passages 
 on which these sagacious remarks are made occur in A Mid- 
 stwimer-NigMs Drea77t^ and exhibit, we see, a clear proof of 
 acquaintance with the Latin classics. But we are not answer- 
 able for Mr. Gildon^s ignorance. He might have been told of 
 Caxton and Douglas, of Surrey and Stanyhurst, of Phaer and 
 Tvvyne, of Fleming and Golding,of Turberville and Churchyard ! 
 But these fables were easily known, without the help of either 
 the originals or the translations. The fate of Dido had been 
 sung very early by Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate ; Marlowe 
 
 ^ "It is therefore sufficiently clear that poor Anthony had too much 
 reason for his character of Aubrey. You will find it in his own account of 
 his life, published by Hearne, which I would earnestly recommend to any 
 hypochondriac : 
 
 *"A pretender to antiquities, roving, magotie-headed, and sometimes 
 little better than erased ; and, being exceedingly credulous, would stuff his 
 many letters sent to A. W. with folliries and misformations.'" 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPE4RE CONSIDERED. 47 
 
 had even already introduced her to the stage ; and Cupid's arrows 
 appear with their characteristic differences in Surrey, in Sidney, 
 in Spenser, and every sonneteer of the time. Nay, their very 
 names were exhibited long before in The Ro7na7C7it of the RoseP 
 
 Farmer upsets here the argument of his pamphlet, when 
 he says that we are not to be answerable for the ignorance 
 of Gildon. Of course we are not ; neither is Shakspeare. 
 It may be true that Dr. Farmer had read more, and was 
 better acquainted with literature in general, and particularly 
 in its antiquarian departments, than Gildon. It would be 
 strange indeed if the librarian of Cambridge,"^ living among 
 books, and easy of fortune, did not in such particulars 
 surpass a poor hack-critic (Farmer, of course, does not 
 forget to remind us of his " ill-starred rage " against Dennis)! 
 writing for his bread, and picking information at the scantiest 
 sources ; but, I repeat, how can the literary distance between 
 Gildon and Farmer affect Shakspeare ? 
 
 A gentleman of the name of Charles Armitage Brown 
 published last year a volume called Shakspeare's Autobio- 
 graphical Poems, % one chapter of which is dedicated to the 
 
 * I find I have made a mistake in saying in the last number of this 
 Magazine that Dr. Farmer, when he wrote his Essay, had the advantage 
 of being able to consult a great library, in consequence of his being prin- 
 cipal librarian of Cambridge. The Essay was published in 1766, and the 
 Doctor was not appointed protobibliothecarius of the University until 1778. 
 But he was always a library hunter ; and of course, whether librarian or 
 not, the literary stores of Cambridge were at his service. We are also told 
 in the Annual Necrology (quoted by Nichols in the History of Leicestershi?'e, 
 vol. iv. p. 944) that he had gathered by sixpenny purchases at bookstands 
 "an immense number of books, good, bad, and indifferent." The cata- 
 logue of his library contains many curious articles. 
 
 f After saying, in the text of his Essay, " one of the first and most 
 vehement assertors of the learning of Shakspeare was the editor of his poems, 
 the well-known Mr. Gildon," he adds in a note : " Hence, perhaps, the ill- 
 starred rage between this critick and his elder brother, John Dennis, so 
 pathetically lamented in the DunciadP The verses referred to are : 
 *' Ah, Dennis ! Gildon, ah ! what ill-starred rage 
 Divides a friendship long confirmed by age ? " 
 
 X Shakspeare's Autobiographical Poems. Being his Sonnets clearly 
 developed : with his Character, drawn chiefly from his Works. By Charles 
 Armitage Brown. 
 
48 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 question of. his learning ; and in this I find a fair remark 
 upon the passage I have just extracted from Farmer^s Essay : 
 ''His (Shakspeare's) frequent appropriate use of the heathen 
 mythology, and of the classical heroes, has been brought 
 forward as evidence of his learning ; but, as Dr. Farmer has 
 shown, that knowledge might have been gained, as well 
 as now, without Greek or Latin. Yet, had he displayed 
 ignorance on these subjects, he might be proved somewhat 
 unlearned.'^ Unquestionably ; and he must have been ex- 
 posed to perpetual blundering if he never drew elsewhere 
 than at second-hand. Dr. Farmer has proved no more than 
 that Shakspeare inight have learned the Pagan lore from 
 English authorities. Granted ; but it is strange logic to 
 argue that therefore he was incapable of learning it anywhere 
 else. I do not know who taught the art of syllogism at 
 Cambridge in Dr. Farmer^s time ; but certainly neither 
 '' German Crouzaz, nor Dutch Bursgersdyck "'^ could refrain 
 from crying negatur to the mt?ior which would lead to such 
 a conclusio. 
 
 As the page or two following the sentences above taken 
 from Mr. Brown has a direct reference to the question w^e 
 are discussing, I continue the extract : 
 
 *^ Accordingly, the annotators have brought forward no less 
 than three examples of this ignorance, which, happily, at least 
 two of them prove nothing but the ignorance of his critics. 
 The first is in He?try /K, Part IL^ where Hecuba's dream of 
 a firebrand is called Althea's — a mistake certainly, but one 
 which rather proves he was acquainted with both stories. Be- 
 sides, Dr. Johnson, who notices it, ought to have remembered, 
 as an editor, a line in He7iry VI. Part IL^ which Shakspeare, 
 if he did not write it, must have well known, and which proves 
 he was aware of the nature of Althea's brand : 
 
 * As did the fatal brand Althea burn'd.' 
 
 " Henley brings forward the second example from Macbeth^ 
 thus annotating on the words ' Bellona's bridegroom : ' — ' This 
 passage may be added to the many others which show how 
 
 * Dunciad, b. iv. v. 198. 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 49 
 
 little he knew of ancient mythology.' The many others !— 
 where are they? In the meantime,' why is Henley's classic 
 lore offended ? Is it because he had never heard, among the 
 ancients, of Bellona's bridegroom? Alas! it was Macbeth 
 himself the poet meant ! Had he been termed, in his capacity 
 of a soldier, a son of Mars, the liberty would have been as 
 great, but, owing to the triteness of the appellation, not to be 
 cavilled at as a proof of ignorance, though it would have made 
 the doughty Thane of Glamis the brother of Cupid. What 
 Shakspeare said, poetically said, was that the warlike hero 
 was worthy of being the bridegroom of the goddess of war. 
 This is the passage : 
 
 ' Norway himself, with terrible numbers, 
 Assisted by that most disloyal traitor 
 The Thane of Cawdor, 'gan a dismal conflict ; 
 Till that Bellona's bridegroom, lapp'd in proof, 
 Confronted him with self-comparisons, 
 Point against point rebellious, arm 'gainst arm, 
 Curbing his lavish spirit. ' 
 
 ' Steevens gives us the third proof of ignorance in these 
 lines from the Merchant of Ve7iice : 
 
 * In such a night 
 Stood Dido, with a willow in her hand. 
 Upon the wild sea-banks, and waved her love 
 To come again to Carthage.* 
 
 ^This passage/ quoth Steevens in a matter-of-fact note, ^con- 
 tains a small instance, out of many that might be brought, 
 to prove that Shakspeare was no reader of the classics.' Out 
 of many that might be brought ! Why not bring them ? And 
 why was this brought .^ Purely because Virgil did not describe 
 Dido with a willow i7i herhandl Steevens ought to have known, 
 according to Virgil, that Dido was forsaken by her lover, and 
 that the giving her the allegorical willow was nothing more nor 
 less than a poetical description of her love-lorn state. As for 
 the other instances, I have not found them ; the 'many others,' 
 and the 'many that might be brought.' These critics remind 
 me of the drunken magistrate who, seeing himself in a looking- 
 glass at the moment he expected a criminal to be brought before 
 him, cried out : 'Ah, thou caitiff! many a time and oft hast 
 thou been brought before me ! '" 
 
 VOL. II. D 
 
so . FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 On this I may observe : i. That the quotation from 
 Henry VI. is decisive that Shakspeare did know the history 
 of Althea's brand ; but, if we refer to the passage in Be?iry 
 JV.^ we shall see that it was not by any means necessary 
 that he should exhibit his learning there : 
 
 •' Bard. Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away ! 
 Page. Away, you rascally Althea's dream, away ! 
 P. Hen. Instruct us, boy : What dream, boy? 
 
 Page. Marry, my lord, Althea dreamed she was delivered of a firebrand, 
 and therefore I call him her dream." . 
 
 The prince is so much enraptured with this "good 
 interpretation " that he gives the boy a crown as a reward. 
 The blunder is evidently designed; and Shakspeare is as 
 much answerable for the degree of mythological learning 
 displayed by the page as for the notions of grammatical pro- 
 priety entertained by Mrs. Quickly. I think, however, that 
 Mr. Brown is wrong in ascribing to Dr. Johnson any desire 
 of bringing this supposed error forward to aid the cause of 
 proving Shakspeare unlearned. 
 
 2. That Henley's observations on Bellona's bridegroom 
 are absurd, and Mr. Brown's comment is indisputably cor- 
 rect. Let me take, or make, this opportunity for saying 
 that Dr. Farmer informs us, "as for the play of Macbeth 
 itself, it hath lately been suggested, from Mr. Guthrie's 
 Essay on English Tragedy., that the port7^ait of Macbeth's 
 wife is copied from Buchanan, whose spirit, as well as words, 
 is translated into the play of Shakspeare ; and it had signified 
 nothing to have pored only on Holinshed iox facts. ''^ Farmer 
 very truly remarks that there is nothing in Buchanan to 
 justify this assertion : " ' Animus etiam, per se ferox, prope 
 quotidianis conviciis uxoris (quae omnium consiliorum ei 
 erat conscia) stimulabatur.' This is the whole that Buchanan 
 says of the lady'^ Shakspeare undoubtedly took the story 
 from Holinshed, who had abridged it from Bellenden's 
 translation of The noble Clerk., Hector Boece, as Farmer is 
 able to prove by the salutation of the witches being given 
 
 I 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED, 51 
 
 in the tragedy, not as in Buchanan, but as it appears in 
 Holinshed, after Bellenden, who follows Boethius.* Yet, 
 if we could suppose that Shakspeare looked beyond the 
 English version, we might discover an authority for mend- 
 ing some halting lines in the play, which have occupied its 
 critics ; as, for example : 
 
 "Where the place ? 
 
 Upon the heath, 
 There to meet with Mac bet h."^^ 
 
 Now, this lame line should be w^hat Upton would call a 
 trochaic dimeter catalectic, and not brachycatalectic ; and 
 accordingly Pope, not, indeed, consulting the learned 
 labours of the prosodian, but his own ear, altered it to — 
 
 " There I go to meet Macbeth,'' 
 
 And Capell proposes : * 
 
 *' There to 7neet with brave Macbeth,'' 
 
 And again : 
 
 ** Dismayed not this 
 Our captains^ Macbeth and Banquo ? 
 
 Yes." 
 
 Steevens remarks that some word, necessary to complete 
 the verse, has been omitted in the old copy ; and Sir Thomas 
 Hanmer proposes "^ Our captains, brave Macbeth,^' &c. 
 If the word were allowed to be pronounced as a trisyllable, 
 it would suit the metre in the above-quoted lines, and else- 
 where : 
 
 "* **We can demonstrate that Shakspeare had not the story from 
 Buchanan. According to him, the weird sisters salute Macbeth : ' Una 
 Angusiae Thanum, altera Moraviae, tertia regem,^ Thane of Angus, and of 
 Murray, &c. ; but according to Holinshed, immediately from Bellenden, as 
 it stands in Shakspeare, "The first of them spake and sayde, 'All hayle, 
 Makbeth, thane of Glammis :' the second of them said, ' Hayle, Makbeth, 
 thane of Cawdor ;' but the third said, 'AH hayle, Makbeth, that hereafter 
 shall be King of Scotland.' " 
 
 *' I. Witch. All hail, Macbeth ! Hail to thee, thane of Glammis ! 
 
 2. Witch, All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Cawdor! 
 
 3. Witch, All hail, Macbeth! that shall be king hereafter." 
 
52 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 ** There to meet with Mac-a-beth."* 
 ** Our captains, Mac-a-heth and Banquo? 
 
 Yes." 
 
 In Holinshed the word is Makbeth ; but Fordun, his remote 
 authority, as being the authority of Hector Boethius, calls him 
 Machabeics sive Machabeda, In Steevens's notes will be found 
 a passage, extracted from the Scoto Chronicon^ in which the 
 latter spelling occurs : " Subito namque post mortem 
 Machahedce convenerunt quidam ex ejus parentela," &c. 
 I do not insist on this trifle, to maintain that Shakspeare 
 made the Scoto Chronicon his study — I should, indeed, be 
 very much astonished if he had ; but it is as strong an 
 evidence of his having done so as any of Farmer's can be 
 allowed to be proofs that he had not consulted any authors 
 but those which were to be found in English. 
 
 But, if I care little for the learning or the logic of Dr. 
 Farmer, I own I care less for such criticism as that of Mr. 
 Guthrie. I have never seen his Essay on English Tragedy^ 
 and assuredly shall not look for it, being quite satisfied as 
 to the ability and discrimination of the critic who discovers 
 that Shakspeare copied the portrait of Lady Macbeth from 
 Buchanan, or any one else. There certainly is something 
 graphic in the sentence above quoted from the poetic 
 historian, describing in few words the naturally ferocious 
 mind of Macbeth, spurred on by the fierce reproaches which 
 his wife, intimately conscious of all his designs, urged against 
 him almost day by day; but the conception of such a 
 character, though less prosaic than that in Holinshed, who 
 tells us that she 'May sore upon her husband, to attempt 
 the thing, as she that was very ambitious, brenning in 
 unquenchable desire to bear the name of queene," is lower 
 ten thousand fathoms deep than that of the Lady Macbeth 
 of Shakspeare. She is, in truth, the stimulated, not the 
 stimulator — the follower, not the leader, of her husband's 
 designs — sacrificing her feelings and affections, unsexing 
 herself to promote his cherished ambition — hoping that his 
 first crime was to be the last — frightened and broken- 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 53 
 
 hearted when she finds him determined on wading re- 
 morselessly through murder — submitting in terrified silence 
 to his sanguinary projects — clinging to him, in desperate 
 fidelity, during his ruined fortunes and his detested career, 
 and inspiring even his bloody nature with its last human 
 feeling — shielding her remorse from human eye as long as 
 she has power to conceal her thoughts, but manifesting it 
 in bitter agony when diseased sleep deprives her of control 
 over her movements — and finally dying, amid the wail of 
 women, at the moment when fate had unrelentingly deter- 
 mined that her husband should perish amid accumulated 
 horrors. If this lady is found by Guthrie portrayed in 
 Buchanan, then, great as were the talents of him 
 
 "whose honour'd bones 
 Are laid 'neath old Greyfriars' stones," * 
 
 I can only say that he never found anything like such power 
 of portraiture or poetry in himself. The story of Macbeth 
 might have been suggested by the classical Latin of Buchanan, 
 or the homely Enghsh of Holinshed ; but Lady Macbeth 
 was suggested by an inspiration not derived from annalist 
 
 or historian. 
 
 3. That the willow of Dido is properly explained by Mr. 
 Brown. Steevens's note is stark nonsense. In Virgil, Dido 
 is described as endeavouring to persuade -^neas to return 
 to her, after the canvas had invoked the breeze — 
 
 *' Puppibus et laeti nautce imposuere coronas." 
 
 It would be idle to quote at length the story of Dido's sorrows, 
 which everybody has by heart. It is enough to say that 
 the lines spoken by Lorenzo, in the Merchant of Venice, are 
 no more than a picturesque condensation of what we find 
 in Virgil {^n. iv. 296-590)— as descriptive of the struggles 
 of Dido to retain her faithless lover; her woe when 
 
 ♦ George Buchanan is buried in the Greyfriars' Churchyard in Edinburgh. 
 
54 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 she saw his preparations for departure on the wild sea 
 bank — 
 
 '* Toto properari littore : circum 
 Undique convenere," Sec, 
 
 and her endeavours, through Anna (as the willow of her 
 hand), to wave him back to Carthage. Mr. Brown, however, 
 is mistaken if he thinks that no more than the three passages 
 which he has here selected as specimens of impertinent 
 airs of superiority in learning over Shakspeare are all that 
 can be found in Steevens and other commentators of similar 
 grade. I could, without exaggeration, produce a hundred 
 other impertinences equally flagrant; but I must get on for 
 the present with Dr. Farmer. 
 
 Whalley observes that when in the Teinpest it is said — 
 
 *' High queen of state, 
 Great Juno comes ; I know her by her^a^V," 
 
 the allusion is to the dknhn incedo regina of Virgil. Bishop 
 Warburton thinks that, in the Merchant of Venice^ the oath 
 ^^by two-headed Jamis'^'^ shows Shakspeare's knowledge of 
 the antique ; and, quoth Dr. Sewell, ^' Shakspeare hath 
 somewhere a Latin motto " (which, by the way, is a very 
 dishonest manner of quoting) : are not these some proofs 
 of Shakspeare's knowledge ? " No," says Dr. Farmer, 
 -*' they are not ; because Taylor, the water poet, alludes to 
 Juno's port and majesty, and the double face of Janus; and 
 has besides a Latin motto, and a whole poem upon it into 
 the bargain. 
 
 ''You perceive, my dear sir," continues Farmer, "how 
 vague and indeterminate such arguments must be ; for in 
 fact this sweet swan of Thames, as Mr. Pope calls him, 
 hath more scraps of Latin and allusions to antiquity than 
 are anywhere to be met with in the writings of Shakspeare. 
 I am sorry to trouble you with trifles, yet what must be 
 done when grave men insist upon them ?" 
 
 What must be done, indeed, when we find that a grave 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 55 
 
 man insists upon it that the confessedly casual acquaintance 
 at second-hand "^ with the classical mythology displayed by 
 Taylor should be a proof that the knowledge of Shak- 
 speare, or of anybody else, is necessarily of the same descrip- 
 tion? Burns made no pretension to an acquaintance with 
 Greek or Latin, and yet we can find abundance of allusions 
 to the heathen gods and goddesses in his poems. Is that 
 a reason for believing, because we have the same allusions 
 in Lord Byron, that his lordship had no means of consulting 
 the originals in which those deities are native ? 
 
 This I should say in any case : but there is a peculiar 
 dishonesty in the reference of Farmer's Essay (dishonesty 
 of one kind or other is, indeed, its characteristic through- 
 out) to Warburton's note on '' two-headed Janus." In the 
 Merchant of Venice^ act i. sc. i, Salanio (as the name of the 
 character is commonly spelt) says, jesting upon Antonio's 
 unexplainable sadness, that they might 
 
 * * Say you are sad, 
 Because you are not merry ; and 'twere as easy 
 For you to laugh, and leap, and say you are merry, 
 Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus, 
 Nature hath formed strange fellows in her time ; "— 
 
 some, in short, that will laugh, and others that will weep, 
 without any assignable cause. On which Warburton 
 
 remarks : 
 
 " Here Shakspeare shows his knowledge in the antique. 
 By two-headed Janus is meant those antique, bifrontine 
 heads, which generally represent a young and smiling face, 
 together with an old and wrinkled one, being of Pan and 
 Bacchus, of Saturn and Apollo, &c. These are not un- 
 
 * Taylor tells us that, when he got from possum Xo posset, he could not 
 get any further. This nmst be intended as a piece of wit ; for, if he got as 
 far as possum at all, he must have passed through sum and its mflections ; 
 and there is no more difficulty in proceeding from fosset to possemus than 
 from esset to essemus, and so forth. The posset of Taylor is, I suspect, a 
 sack-Z^j-j-^/. He forsook the grammar in which he found the possum, for 
 the bowl in which he found \^^ posset. 
 
S6 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 common in collections of antiques, and in the books of the 
 antiquaries, as Montfaucon, Spanheim, &c." 
 
 I do not know that there was much learning requisite to 
 discover this ; but the illustration of Bishop Warburton is 
 elegant, and, to all appearance, just. The mere double 
 face in the water poet is what may occur to any looker upon 
 a picture of Janus; but the fair aspect of the beauteous 
 Apollo on one side, while the other exhibits the wrinkled 
 visage of Saturn, suggests a poetical type of a man melancholy 
 and gay by turns, for no other reason save the pleasure of 
 the maker who '' formed so strange a fellow." 
 
 When Dodd refers Rii7nour painted full of tongues to the 
 description of Fame in Ovid or Virgil, we are reminded 
 that she has been represented by Stephen Hawes, in his 
 Pasty me of Fleasicre^ as 
 
 " A goodly lady envyroned about 
 With tongues of fire ; " 
 
 that something of the same kind is to be found in Sir 
 Thomas More's Pageants ; in her elaborate portrait by 
 Chaucer in the Book of Fame ; and in John Higgins's Legend 
 of King Albanade, I do not think it was necessary that 
 Shakspeare should have read Virgil or Ovid, Hawes or 
 Higgins, More or Chaucer, to borrow from them so obvious 
 an idea as that of bedecking the representative of Rumour 
 in a garment painted with tongues ; which was, indeed, his 
 ordinary attire, as in the pageant of Henry VIII. described 
 by Holinshed, and of James I. described by Dekker (see 
 the notes of Warton and Steevens on the Induction of the 
 Second Part of He7iry IV.). Dodd's learning, therefore, 
 was misplaced ; but it proves nothing against the learn- 
 ing of Shakspeare. ^:iht\2i\s {Pantagrtie I ^ lib. v. cap. 31) 
 furnishes a somewhat analogous person to Rumour ; namely, 
 Oiiidire^ with an innumerable quantity of ears,"^ as well as 
 
 * In the chapter, Coinment au pays de Satin nous veismes Ouldre tenant 
 eschole de tesmoignerie : " Sans plus sejourner nous transport^mes en lieu 
 ou c'estoit, et veismes ung petit vieillard bossu, contrefaict et monstrueux, on 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 57 
 
 tongues. A critic like Dr. Dodd might suggest that this 
 too was borrowed from the Fame of Virsil : 
 
 " Cui, quot sunt corpore plumae, 
 Tot linguae, totidem ora sonant, tot subrigit aures,^'' 
 
 And if a critic like Farmer found anything of the same 
 kind in a French poet, of or before the times of the far- 
 famed romance of Gargantua and Pantagruel, even in 
 Rominagrobis himself, he might, in perfect consistency with 
 the argument of this ^^ celebrated Essay," maintain that 
 the humourist did not find his prototype in Latin, but 
 in French; and therefore^ because the former critic was 
 mistaken, that Rabelais was incapable of reading Virgil. 
 The same observation applies to Farmer's reply to a remark 
 made by the author of The Beauties of Poetry^ who says that 
 he " cannot but wonder that a poet, whose classical images 
 are composed of the finest parts, and breathe the very 
 spirit of ancient mythology, should pass for being illiterate : 
 
 * See what a grace was seated on his brow ! 
 Hyperion's curls : * the front of Jove himself: 
 An eye like Mars to threaten and command : 
 A station like the herald Mercury, 
 New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill.'" 
 
 " Illiterate," says Farmer, " is an ambiguous term : the 
 question is whether poetic history would be only known by 
 an adept in languages." It certainly can, though by no 
 means so easily in the time of Queen Elizabeth as in ours, 
 when English literature alone will supply as much of such 
 
 le nommoit Ouidire : il avoit la gueulle fendue jusques aux aureilles, dedans 
 la gueulle sept langcune, et chacune langue fendue en sept parties : quoyque 
 ce feust, de toutes sept ensemblement parloit divers propous, et languaiges 
 divers : avoit aussi parmy la teste, et le reste du corps autant d'aureilles 
 comme jadis eut Argus d'yeulx. " 
 
 * Farmer remarks that Hyperion is used with the same error in quantity 
 by Spenser. It would be a piece of mere affectation to pronounce the 
 word otherwise in English ; and even in Greek the iota is lengthened only 
 through the necessity of the hexameter in which it could not otherwise have 
 a place. The iota of lu)v ]s short. 
 
58 FAJIMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 history as can be obtained by the most diligent reader of 
 the Greek and Roman poets. Farmer refers us to Stephen 
 Bateman's Golden Booke of the Leaden Gods^ ^Slh ^^^ 
 several other laborious compilations on the subject ; and 
 adds that " all this and much more mythology might as 
 perfectly have been learned from the Testament of Creseide 
 and the Faerie Queene as from a regular Pantheon, or 
 Polymates himself.'^ This is true enough (though I certainly 
 do not believe that Shakspeare ever read a line of Bate- 
 man's work, which might more appropriately be styled the 
 Leaden Book of the Golden Gods) ; but even the Faerie 
 Quee7ie could not supply any picture so truly imbued with a 
 classical taste, and breathing the very style and manner 
 of the classics, as the passage from Harnlet, Compare it 
 with Phaer's version of Virgil, quoted by Malone ; and it 
 will be seen that Shakspeare, who appears to have had in 
 his mind Mercury's descent upon Mount Atlas in the fourth 
 jF^neid^ has seized the spirit of the Roman poet better than 
 his translator : 
 
 " And now approaching neere, the top he seeth and mighty Hms 
 Of Atlas mountain tough, that Heaven on boyst'rous shoulders beares. 
 There first on ground with wings of might doth Mercury arrive ; 
 Then down from thence, right over seas, himselfe doth headlong drive. " 
 
 The oris^inal is : 
 
 6( 
 
 Jamque volans apicem et latera ardua cernit 
 Atlantis duri, coelum qui vertice fulcit. 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 Hie primum paribus nitens Cyllenius alis 
 Constitit." 
 
 " Paribus alis " are not '' wings of night," as Phaer trans- 
 lates them ; on the contrary, the wdngs of Mercury are 
 the lightest in the whole plumage of mythology ; easy, as 
 Home Tooke makes Sir Francis Burdett say,^ to be taken 
 
 * Diversions of Purley, part i. ch. i. in Richard Taylor's edition of 
 1829, vol. i. p. 26. " These are the artificial wings of Mercury, by means 
 of which the Argus eyes of philosophy have been cheated. 
 
 "'//". It is my meaning. 
 
 ** ' B. Well. We can only judge of your opinion after we have heard 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 59 
 
 off, and not, like those of other winged deitres, making part 
 of his body. Nor does " then first on ground doth Mercury 
 arrive '' convey the idea expressed in " constitit:' The airy 
 and musical metre of Ha77ilet brings before us no heavy- 
 winged god ; and Shakspeare, by his peculiar use of the 
 word statio7i^ gives us the very phraseology of Virgil; exhibit- 
 ing, as in a picture or statue, the light but vigorous figure 
 of Mercury, newly descended from heaven, and stafidiug in 
 the full-developed grace of his celestial form as the herald 
 of the gods, not arriving^ as per coach or train, on the 
 summit of a heaven-kissing hill. I think it more probable 
 that Shakspeare had his images directly from Virgil, not 
 from Phaer; and, if he substituted the picturesque word 
 " heaven-kissing hill " for the harsher description of rough 
 and aged Atlas in the ^neid^ it is because, in speaking of 
 his father, Hamlet did not use any other expressions than 
 those of majesty, elegance, and beauty. 
 
 I own that I am growing weary (and I fear that the same 
 feeling extends to my readers, if any have had patience to 
 get so far) of this peddling work. I shall not, therefore, 
 meddle with Dr. Farmer's correction of Upton for altering 
 hangman to '^henchman — a page, piisio^^'' in what Don 
 Pedro says of Benedic>^ ^ [not Benedic/, as Farmer by an 
 
 how you maintain it. Proceed, and strip him of his wings. They seem 
 easy enough to be taken off; for it strikes me now, after what you have 
 said, that they are indeed put on in a pecuhar manner, and do not, hke 
 those of other winged deities, make a part of his body. You have only to 
 loose the strings from his feet and take off his cap.'" 
 
 ^ **In Much Ado about Nothing, Don Pedro says of the insensible 
 Benedict, ' He hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's bow-string, and the httle 
 hangman dare not shoot at him.' 
 
 ''This mythology is not recollected in the ancients, and therefore the 
 critic hath no doubt but his author wrote ^Henchman — a page^ pusio : and, 
 this word seeming too hard for the printer, he translated the little urchin 
 into a hangman ; a character no way belonging to him.' 
 
 ** But this character was not borrowed from the ancients. It came from 
 the Arcadia of Sir Philip Sidney : 
 
 'Millions of years this old drivell, Cupid, hves ; 
 While still more wretch, more wicked he doth prove ; 
 
6o FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 ordinary mistake calls him] ; nor with his discovery that 
 Shakspeare might have been indebted for 
 
 " Most sure the goddess 
 On whom those airs attend " "**" 
 
 to Stanyhurst's translation : '' No doubt a godesse/' as well 
 as to the original, " O dea^ certe ;'' nor with his now super- 
 seded black-letter reading of the Hystorie of Hamblet, by 
 which he overthrows the sage suspicions of Dr. Grey and 
 Mr. Whalley, that Shakspeare iniist have read Saxo Grafn- 
 maticus in the original Latin, " as no translation had been 
 made into any modern language ; " nor with his controversy 
 with George Colman the elder, and Bonnell Thornton, as 
 to whether the disguise of the Pedant in the Taini7ig of the 
 Shrezv was taken from that of the Sycophanta in the Tri- 
 numnius^ or on Shakspeare's other obligations to Plautus 
 and Terence ; nor with his proof that the translations of 
 some of Ovid's Epistles, which were attributed to Shak- 
 speare, and considered (I know not by whom) to be the 
 sheet-anchor by which his reputation for learning is to hold 
 fast, were in reality the work of Thomas Heywood — I shall 
 do myself the pleasure of passing by all these wonderful 
 things, leaving them without comment to the judgment of 
 the reader. I shall only notice the following points, and 
 that as briefly as I can : — 
 
 I. In the prologue of Troilus and Cressida the six gates 
 of Troy are called, in the folio — 
 
 Till now at length that Jove an office gives 
 (At Juno's suite who much did Argus love), 
 In this our world a hangman for to be 
 Of all those fooles that will have all they see.' " 
 
 So far Farmer. I quote the passage from Sir Philip, chiefly for the 
 benefit of those who delight in nicknaming Lord Palmerston Cupid, and 
 alluding to his perennial tenacity to office. It may serve also to describe 
 the vigour of his government, as well as the improvement made in his 
 administration by length of time ; while his late connection with Maroto 
 would seem to indicate that he is qualifying for the last office here assigned 
 to Cupid. 
 
 * Tempest. Act i. sc. 2. 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 6i 
 
 ** Dardan and Tymbria, Ilias, Chetas, Trojan, 
 And Antenonydus." 
 
 Theobald alters these to 
 
 " Dardan and Thymbria, Ilia, Scaea, Trojan, 
 And Antenorides," 
 
 after Dares Phrygius, cap. iv. : " Ilio portas fecit quorum 
 nomina haec sunt, Antenoridae, Dardaniae, Iliae, Scaeae, 
 Thymbraeae, Trojanae ; " but Farmer refers to the Troy Boke 
 of Lydgate, where they are called Dardanydes, Tymbria, 
 Helyas, Cetheas, Trojana, Anthonydes. In late editions 
 they appear as 
 
 *' Dardan and Tymbria, Ilias, Chetas, Trojan, 
 And Antenorides." 
 
 Agreeing with Dr. Farmer that Shakspeare found them in 
 I^ydgate, not in Dares, I should prefer reading Cetheas for 
 Chetas^ and A?itho?iydes (which is not very far from the folio 
 reading, Antenonydus) for Antenorides ; for that would be 
 more consonant with Shakspeare's usual method of exactly 
 transcribing his originals. But I do not agree with the 
 Doctor that Theobald's having supposed it necessary that 
 Shakspeare should have read Dares is of any value in an 
 argument to prove the poet destitute of learning. It merely 
 proves that, in this instance at least, Theobald was destitute 
 of sense. I have already expressed my opinion that the 
 play of Troilus and Cressida was written as a sort of trial of 
 strength with Homer in the art of delineating character ; 
 and, at all events, Shakespeare must have known enough of 
 Homer to be aware that there is nothing about Cressida, 
 or Troilus's love for her, in the Iliad or the Odyssey. If he 
 had ever troubled himself about Dares, he would have 
 found that he was a gentleman of great credibility. '' Dares 
 Phrygius, qui banc historiam scripsit, ait se militasse usque 
 dum Troja capta est ; hos se vidisse quum induciae essent, 
 partim proelio interfuisse." Cap. xii. Madame Dacier, who 
 edited the book, is quite in a passion with him, and scolds 
 with all the energy of a Frenchwoman: '' Et hoc" (the 
 
62 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 mention of a Dares by Ptolemaeus Hephaestion, who tells us 
 that he (Dares) was /^i/;;/^Gi/a 'E^cro^oi' — the adviser of Hector 
 not to kill Patroclus, and also by ^lian) '^ illud est quod 
 homini nugaci et inepto consilium fecit, ut sub illius Daretis 
 nomine, qui nusquam comparebat, libellum ilium quern 
 hodie habemus in lucem mitteret, fingens ilium a Cornelio 
 Nepote Latine translatum.'' His story was, however, a 
 great favourite in the middle ages, when Homer was scarcely 
 known to the western world ; and it came to Lydgate 
 throu2:h the medium of Guido Colonna. Now as Shak- 
 speare, without having the learning of dodissima Domina 
 Dacieria, must have considered the story of Troy, as told 
 by Lydgate after Colonna, and by Colonna after Dares the 
 Phrygian, who actually made the Trojan campaigns under 
 the command of Hector to whose staff he was attached, 
 to be nothing better than the work of a homo nugax et 
 ineptiis^ it could not have occurred to him that it was at all 
 necessary he should correct Lydgate by the sham Cornelius 
 Nepos, even if copies of Dares Phrygius had in his time 
 been as plenty as blackberries, especially as he might easily 
 have discovered that these six gates are wholly apocryphal ; 
 two only of the six, the Dardan and the Scaean, being men- 
 tioned by Homer — of course, the orthodox authority — and 
 these two being in fact but one. For the Tymbrian, Ilian, 
 Trojan, and Antenoridan, we are indebted to the ocular 
 testimony of the mnemon of Hector. 
 
 n. The famous speech of Claudio in Measure for 
 Measure : 
 
 "Ay, but to die, and go we know not where — 
 To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot ; 
 This sensible warm motion to become 
 A kneaded clod ; and the delighted ^ spirit 
 
 * The delighted spirit. This word puzzles the commentators. War- 
 burton's explanation, viz. "the spirit accustomed here to ease and 
 delights," is rather strained. Johnson proposes benighted ; Therlby, 
 delinquent; Hanmer, dilated. Perhaps we might read delated; i.e. 
 informed against. 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 63 
 
 To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside 
 In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice ; 
 To be imprisoned in the viewless winds, 
 And blown with restless violence round about 
 The pendant world " 
 
 is generally considered as derived from Virgil's description 
 of the Platonic Hell : 
 
 *' Ergo exercentur poenis, veterumque malorum 
 Supplicia expendunt. Aliae panduntur inanes 
 Suspensae ad ventos : aliis sub gurgite vasto 
 Infectum eluitur scelus aut exuritur igni :" 
 
 and the similarity is no doubt so striking as to justify that 
 opinion. I must transcribe Farmer's remarks, in opposi- 
 tion : 
 
 " Most certainly the ideas of *a spirit bathing in fiery floods,' 
 of residing 'in thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice,' or of being 
 'imprisoned in the viewless winds/ are not original in our 
 author ; but I am not sure that they came from the Platonic 
 hell of Virgil. The monks also had their hot and their cold 
 hell. *The fyrste is fyre that ever brenneth, and never gyveth 
 lighte,' says an old homily ; 'the second is passyng colde that, 
 yf a grete hyll of fyre were casten therein, it sholde torn to yce.' 
 One of their legends, well remembered in the time of Shak- 
 speare, gives us a dialogue between a bishop and a soul tor- 
 mented in a piece of ice, which was brought to cure a grete 
 brennmg heate in his foot : take care you do not interpret this 
 the gout, — for I remember Mr. Menage quotes a canon upon 
 us : — 
 
 ' Si quis dixerit episcopum PODAGRA laborare, anathema sit.* 
 
 Another tells us of the soul of a monk fastened to a rock, which 
 the winds were to blow about for a twelvemonth, and purge of 
 its enormities. Indeed, this doctrine was before now intro- 
 duced into poetic fiction, as you may see in a poem 'where 
 the lover declareth his pains to exceed far the pains of hell,' 
 among the many miscellaneous ones subjoined to the works of 
 Surrey. Nay, a very learned and inquisitive brother-antiquary, 
 our Greek professor, hath observed to me, on the authority of 
 Blefkenius, that this was the ancient opinion of the inhabitants 
 
64 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 of Iceland, who were certainly very little read either in the 
 poet or the philosopher. 
 
 " After all, Shakspeare's curiosity might lead him to irans- 
 lations. Gawin Douglas really changes the Platonik hell into 
 the ' punytion of saulis in purgatory ;' and it is observable that 
 when the ghost informs Hamlet of his doom there — 
 
 ' Till the foul crimes done in his days of nature 
 Are burnt and purged away ' — 
 
 the expression is very similar to the bishop's. I will give you 
 his version as concisely as I can. ^ It is a needful thing to 
 suffer panis and torment ; sum in the wyndis, sum under the 
 watter, and in the fire uthir sum ; — thus the mony vices 
 
 ' Contrakkit in the corpis be done away 
 AndpurgitJ " "^ 
 
 Does any one imagine that Shakspeare set himself to 
 grub in quest of this monastic lore, or studied the Icelandic 
 labours of Blefkenius ? Those critics are laughed at who 
 imagine that he had read Saxo Grammaticus to learn the 
 particulars of the story of Hamlet ; and yet they are more 
 rational than the Doctor, who laughs at them : for the 
 history, no matter through what channels it reached Shaks- 
 peare, is to be traced originally, and almost exclusively, to 
 the Danish historian, while notions and fancies of infernal 
 tortures are diffused throughout all ages and countries. 
 When Claudio, in his speech, expresses his apprehension 
 that it may be his fate after death 
 
 ■^ This, however, is not the version of the passage in Virgil to which it is 
 supposed Shakspeare is indebted. I subjoin that part of Douglas : 
 ** Sum stentit bene in wisnand wyndiswake, 
 Of some the cryme committed clengit be 
 Vnder the watter, or the hidduous se ; 
 And in the fyre the gilt of other sum 
 Is purifyit and clengit al and sum 
 Ilkane of vs his ganand purgatory 
 Mon suffir." 
 
 I quote from the same edition as Dr. Farmer ; that published in Edin- 
 burgh in 1710. 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 65 
 
 " to be worse than worst 
 Of those that lawless and uncertain thoughts 
 Imagine howling^ " . 
 
 Dr. Johnson finely interprets the words in italics to mean 
 ^^ conjecture sent out to wander, without any certain direc- 
 tion, and ranging through possibilities of pain." In this 
 melancholy wandering the conjecture of the saga-singing 
 scald, or the legend-manufacturing monk, could not in its 
 material attributes differ widely from the fictions of the 
 poet, or the speculations of the philosopher. All, equally 
 men, had but the same sources, physical or spiritual, to 
 draw upon for images of sorrow and suffering. That 
 Milton, when he dooms his fallen angels to 
 
 *' feel by turns the bitter change 
 Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce, 
 From beds of raging fire to starve in ice," 
 
 remembered this speech of Claudio, • is plain from the 
 slightest comparison of the passages; but it cannot be 
 doubted that to one so deeply and variously read in theo- 
 logy in all its departments (and in what branch of literature 
 was not Milton deeply and variously read ?) the legendary 
 hell of the monks, and the infernal mythology of the 
 Scandinavian, as related by Blefkenius and all other acces- 
 sible authorities of the time, were perfectly familiar. We 
 may also be certain that he did not stop at the monks, but 
 was well acquainted with the more ancient ecclesiastical 
 authorities— as St. Jerome.^ On the other hand, to suppose 
 that Shakspeare, with Virgil before him, preferred consult- 
 ino" the Le^-enda Aiirea^ or Blefkenius de Islandia, of which, 
 in\ll probability, he had never heard, is a supposition of 
 
 * St. Jerome on Job xxiv. 19 (rendered in his Vulgate "ad nimium 
 calorem transeat ab aquis nivium ") has: ''quasi duas Gehennas sanctus 
 Job dicere mihi videtur, ignis et'frigoris, per quas diabolus hasreticus et 
 homo impius commutetur. Forte in ipsa Gehenna tahs sensuum cruciatus 
 fiet iUis qui in ea torquebuntur, ut nunc quasi ignem ardentem sentiant, 
 nunc nimium algoris incendium ; et poenalis commutatio sit, nunc frigus 
 sentientibus, nunc calorem." 
 
 VOL. II. ^ 
 
66 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 most preposterous pedantry. He found his ^' Most sure 
 the goddess," &c., in Stanyhurst's ^neid ; his purgatory, 
 in Gawin Douglas's u^neid ; and Malone sends him to find 
 his picture of Mercury in Phaer's ^neid. Might we not 
 ask, Is it impossible that mere curiosity might have led him 
 to look into Virgil's y£neid? 
 
 III. Ovid also he must have known only in translation, 
 for the following reasons : — 
 
 ''Prospero, in The Teinpest^ begins the address to his 
 attendant spirits — 
 
 *' * Ye elves of hills, of standing lakes, and groves.'" 
 
 This speech Dr. Warburton rightly observes to be borrowed 
 from Medea in Ovid : and '' it proves," says Mr. Holt, 
 *' beyond contradiction, that Shakspeare was perfectly ac- 
 quainted with the sentiments of the ancients on the subject 
 of enchantments." The original lines are these : 
 
 *' Auraeque, et vend, montesque, amnesque, lacusque, 
 Dlque omnes nemorum, dlque omnes noctis adeste. 
 [Quorum ope, cum volui, ripis mirantibus, amnes 
 In fontes rediere suos ; concussaque sisto, 
 Stantia concutio cantu freta ; nubila pello ; 
 Nubilaque induco : ventos abigoque vocoque ; 
 Vipereas rumpo verbis et carmine fauces : 
 Vivaque saxa, sua convulsaque robora terra, 
 Et silvas moveo, jubeoque tremiscere montes ; 
 Et mugire solum, manesque exire sepulcris. 
 Te quoque, Luna, traho, quamvis Temesaea labores 
 -^ra tuos minuant. Currus quoque carmine nostro 
 Pallet avi ; pallet nostris Aurora venenis."] 
 
 It happens, however, that the translation by Arthur 
 Golding is by no means literal, and Shakspeare has closely 
 followed it : 
 
 ** * Ye ayres and windes, ye elves of hills, of brookes and woods alone, 
 Of standing lakes, and of the night, approche ye everychone ; 
 [Through helpe of whom (the crooked bankes much wondering at the 
 
 thing) 
 I have compelled streames to run cleane backward to their spring. 
 By charmes I make the calm seas rough, and make the rough seas 
 
 playne ; 
 And cover all the skie with cloudes, and chase them thence againe. 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 67 
 
 By charmes I raise and lay the windes, and burst the viper's jaw ; 
 
 And from the bowels of the earth both stones and trees do draw. 
 
 Whole woods and forests I remove— I make the mountains shake ; , 
 
 And even the earth itself to groane, and fearfully to quake. 
 
 I call up dead men from their graves ; and thee, O lightsome moone, 
 
 I darken oft, though beaten brass abate thy peril soon : 
 
 Our sorcerie dims the morning fair, and darks the sun at noone/ &c.] 
 
 Fol 81." 
 
 Dr. Farmer has not supplied those parts of the quotations 
 which I have enclosed in brackets, but I have put them 
 together for further comparison. Mr. Holt, whose very 
 title-page*^ proves him to have been a very silly person, 
 which character every succeeding page of his Attempt amply 
 sustains, could scarcely have read the passages of Shak- 
 speare and Ovid together, when he said that the former was 
 proved to be perfectly acquainted with the sentiments of the 
 ancients, so far as close following of the Latin poet in this 
 speech of Prospero affords such proof. It shows, however, 
 that Shakspeare was perfectly acquainted with the difference 
 between the enchantments of the ancients and those which 
 were suitable to the character of his Prospero. Golding, 
 indeed, mistook his author, when he translated 
 
 • ' Montesque, amnesque, lacusque, 
 Dlque omnes nemorum, dique omnes noctis adeste," 
 
 by '^ye elves of hills, of brooks, and woods alo7ie, of stand- 
 ing lakeSj^and of the night;" for the deities invoked by Medea 
 were anything but what, in our language, attaches to the 
 idea of elves ; while the epithet alone^ though perhaps 
 defensible, is intruded without sufficient warrant into the 
 translation, and does not convey the exact thought intended 
 by Ovid's '^ Dique omnes nemorum.'^'' But what was unsuit- 
 able for Ovid was perfecly suitable for Shakspeare ; and, 
 accordingly, he had no scruple of borrowing a few words 
 of romantic appeal to the tiny deities of fairy superstition. 
 
 * An Attempt to rescue that aunciente English Poet and Playwright, 
 Maister Williaume Shakespeare, from the Errours faulsely charged upon 
 him by certain new-fangled Wits. London, 1749. 8vo. 
 
68 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 The lines immediately following " Ye ayres and winds " 
 &c., address the powers which, with printless foot, dance 
 upon the sands ; which, by moonshine, form the green, sour 
 ringlets not touched by the ewe, which make midnight 
 mushrooms for pastime, which rejoice to hear the solemn 
 curfew ; and not one of these things is connected with the 
 notions of aerial habitants of wood or stream in classical 
 days. When Shakspeare returns to Ovid, he is very little 
 indebted to Golding. We find, indeed, in the Te7?ipest that 
 Prospero boasts of having " bedimmed the noontide sun," 
 which resembles Golding's 
 
 '* Our sorcerie dims the morning fair, and darks the sun at noone.'* 
 
 But the analogous passage in Ovid would have been, in its 
 literal state, of no use to Prospero : 
 
 " Currus quoque carmine nostro 
 
 Pallet avi.'' 
 
 With this obligation, however, the compliment due to Gold- 
 ing ceases. Ope quorum. " Through help of whom." Golding. 
 " By whose aidP Shakspeare. Vivaque saxa^ sua convulsaque 
 robora terra et silvas moveo. '' And from the bowels of the 
 earth, both stones and t7'ees do draw''' Golding. " Rifted 
 Jove's stout oak (robora) with his own bolt ; and by his 
 spurs plucked up (sua convulsa terra) the pine and cedar." 
 Shakspeare. Manesque exire sepulcris. " I call up dead 
 men from their graves." Golding. '^Graves, at my 
 command, have waked their sleepers ; oped, and let them 
 forth." Shakspeare. Ovid has contributed to the invoca- 
 tion of Prospero at least as much as Golding. 
 
 IV. Warburton imagined that the word suggestion.^ in Queen 
 Catherine's character of Wolsey in Henry VIII. ^ "is used 
 with great propriety and seeming knowledge of the Latin 
 tongue ; " and he proceeds to settle the sense of it from 
 the late Roman writers and their glossers. The passage is 
 this : ' 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEAEE CONSIDERED. 69 
 
 ** He was a man 
 
 Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking 
 Himself with princes ; one that by suggestion 
 Ty'd all the kingdom. Simony was fair play ; 
 His own opinion was his law. I' the presence, 
 He would say untruths ; and be ever double, 
 Both in his words and meaning. He was never, 
 But where he meant to ruin, pitiful : 
 His promises were, as he then was, mighty ; 
 But his performance, as he is now, nothing. 
 Of his own body he was ill, and gave 
 The clergy ill example," 
 
 Warburton's interpretation of the word from the Roman 
 writers and their glossers is " Suggestio est, cum magistratus 
 quilibet principi salubre consilium suggerit;" which, however, 
 is not exactly Shakspeare's meaning. He had it, as Farmer 
 truly says, from Holinshed : 
 
 '' This cardinal was of great stomach, for he compted himself 
 equal with princes, and craftie stiggestion got into his hands in- 
 numerable treasure : he forced little on simonie ; and was not 
 pitifuU, and stood affectionate in his own opinion : in open 
 presence he would lie and seie untruth, and was double both in 
 speech and meaning : he would promise much and performe 
 little : he was vicious of his bodie, and gave the clergie evil 
 example.'' 
 
 Edit. 1587, p. 922. 
 
 Warburton was here, as frequently, too learned, and 
 looked further than his author, who looked only to Holin- 
 shed, Nor is the word used either in dramatist or historian 
 precisely in the Roman sense. Suggestion is purely a legal 
 phrase to signify an information, somewhat of the same 
 nature as ex officio informations of the present day. It 
 appears to be as ancient as the Common Law itself; but it 
 was so extended by the statutes of the 3d and 7th Hen. 
 VIL as to supersede the legal and orderly jurisdiction of 
 the King's Bench. The word is, indeed, originally derived 
 from the gloss quoted by Warburton ; but the utile co7isiIium, 
 which was suggested to the prince, became in practice, under 
 the Tudors, a mere instrument to extort money. The more 
 
70 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 obnoxious statute of Hen. VII. was repealed in the first 
 year of Hen. VIIL, and Wolsey was more cautious than 
 his predecessors. Holinshed therefore calls his suggestion 
 '' craftie ; " but all through the play, as well as in contem- 
 porary acts, will be found loud complaints of the extortions 
 by which he amassed " innunierable treasure." As I am not 
 writing the history of England, or the times of Henry VIIL, 
 I only refer to the ordinary authority ; adding that of the 
 legal meaning of the word suggestion Dr. Farmer or the 
 commentators say nothing. Toilet talks of there being such 
 a thing as suggestion to the king or pope, which would trench 
 on treason : and Johnson, in his Dictionary, does not give 
 the law explanation of the word. Whatever may have been 
 the seefning knowledge of Shakspeare in Latin, it is plain 
 that his seeming knowledge of English was more copious than 
 that of those who lecture him. It was not at all necessary 
 that he should go to Roman glossers to find the fitting use 
 of a legal term of his own language. It occurs in many of 
 our old authors, as in Chaucer : 
 
 *' Dampned was he to die in that prison 
 For Roger, which that bishop was of Pise, 
 Had on him made a false suggestion y" &c. 
 
 In this speech of Katharine the word succeeding sugges- 
 tion has occasioned some controversy. Sir Thomas Hanmer 
 proposed to read, " one that by suggestion tythed all the 
 kingdom ; " and Dr. Farmer agrees with him, supporting 
 the reading by a passage from Hall, in which Wolsey is re- 
 presented as telling the lord-mayor and aldermen that though 
 half their substance would be too little for his demands, yet 
 that, upon an average, a tenth would be sufficient : ^' Sirs, 
 speake not to breake the thynge that is concluded, for some 
 shall not paie the tejith part, and so7ne more." Warburton 
 explains the word tyd as a term of gaming, and signifying 
 equalled. The bishop might have supported his interpre- 
 tation by a passage in Hall, in which Wolsey is accused of 
 having, by various extortions under form of law, " made his 
 threasure egall with the kynges ; " but I doubt if such was its 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 71 
 
 meaning in the time of Shakspeare. Toilet, objecting to 
 tytied on the ground that as Katharine had already accused 
 Wolsey of having extorted a sixth {ie. almost doiMe-tythed 
 the country), she would not now, in this hostile summing 
 up of his pohtical career, diminish the charge— interprets 
 tfd as " hmited, circumscribed, sets bounds to the liberties 
 and properties of all persons in the kingdom ; " which is 
 rather strained. Shall I offer a guess ? Might it not have 
 been 
 
 4 
 
 " One that by suggestion 
 Flafd all the kingdom " ? 
 
 If anybody wishes to laugh at my conjecture, he has my 
 consent ; but I could say something in its favour neverthe- 
 less. The Roman maxim, we all know, is that a good 
 shepherd should shear, not flay his flock; but Wolsey, 
 being in Queen Katharine's opinion the reverse of a bonus 
 pastor, preferred the latter operation. Valeat quanhwi ! I 
 certainly think there is some corruption in the received 
 text. 
 
 V. '^ It is scarcely worth mentioning," says the Essay, 
 " that two or three Latin passages, which are met with in 
 our author, are immediately transcribed from the story or 
 the chronicle before him.'' It is not worth mentioning at 
 all, for how is a quotation to be given except in the exact 
 words of the authority ? In Henry K, Farmer remarks that 
 the maxim of Gallic law, " In terram Salicam mulieres ne 
 succedant," cited by Archbishop Chicheley in his argument, 
 is found in HoHnshed. This is a wonderful discovery ; to 
 which may be added that the whole speech, as we have it 
 in Shakspeare, is merely a transposition of Holinshed's 
 prose into blank verse. Nothing more was meditated. 
 Holinshed copied Hall, making the blunder of substituting 
 Louis the tenth for Louis the ninth, which Shakspeare of 
 course followed. Whencesoever derived, the speech bears 
 all the impress of being reported — I speak technically and 
 professionally ; and if it contains some historical errors, 
 which rouse the easily excitable spleen of Ritson, we may 
 
72 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 probably impute them not to Shakspeare, or Holinshed, or 
 Hall, but to the Most Reverend orator himself. On the 
 principle repeatedly laid down in the Essay, the dramatist 
 must be convicted of ignorance, because he did not study 
 the genealogies of ^' King Pepin, which deposed Childerich,'' 
 and set everything right about 
 
 "the lady Lingare, 
 Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son 
 To Lewis the emperor, and Lewis the son 
 Of Charles the Great," 
 
 and all the other persons pressed, without much ceremony, 
 into his service by the Carthusian archbishop. 
 
 But if it be a cheap piece of Latinity to be able to quote 
 this bit of Salic law, which certainly proves nothing more 
 than that Shakspeare had read Holinshed, and could 
 understand five or six Latin words, Dr. Farmer could not, 
 I think, so easily account for a passage which occurs a little 
 further on, in the speech of the Duke of Exeter : "^ 
 
 *' While that the armed hand doth fight abroad, 
 The advised head defends itself at home ; 
 For government, though [r. through] high and low and lower, 
 Put into parts, doth keep in one concent, 
 Congruing in a full and natural close, 
 Like music." 
 
 Theobald pointed out the similarity between these lines 
 and a passage in the second book of Cicero's De Republica : 
 '' Sic ex summis, et mediis, et infimis interjectis ordinibus 
 ut sonis, moderatam ratione civitatem consensu dissimili- 
 orum concinere ; et quae harmonia a musicis dicitur in cantu, 
 eam esse in civitate concordiam.*' In Knight's edition of 
 Heriry V. it is justly remarked that, if Theobald had taken 
 the whole passage as quoted by St. Augustine, the parallelism 
 would seem closer ; and it is impossible that it can be 
 accidental. In Shakspeare's time, and for a couple of 
 
 * Ought not this learning to be transferred from the Duke to the Bishop 
 of Ely? 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEAEE CONSIDERED. 73 
 
 centuries later, this fragment of Cicero was to be found only 
 in a treatise of St. Augustine, supposed — ^justly, I think — to 
 have been suggested by the JDe Republica. Where did 
 Shakspeare find it then ? We have no translation to help 
 us here. Knight's commentator refers to Plato as the 
 originator of the thought, observing that '' Cicero's De 
 Republica was, as far as we know, an adaptation of Plato's 
 Republic ; the sentence we have quoted is almost literally to 
 be found in Plato ; and, what is still more curious, the lines 
 of Shakspeare are more deeply imbued with the Platonic 
 philosophy than the passage in Cicero ; " a position which 
 he succeeds in proving. The most remarkable thing is, 
 that Shakspeare has really caught the main argument of 
 the treatise, and expounded it in a few lines almost as a 
 commentator. In the Nugce Curialice of John of Salisbury, 
 who had evidently read this lost book, the passage does not 
 occur ; only half of it is in what was found by Mai. But 
 in the Nugce Curialice we have the simile of the bees, as 
 patterns of good government, with a long extract from 
 "Maro" {Georg. lib. iv. v. 149, &c.), and also the distinction 
 between the manus ar7nata, — the armed hand which is to 
 defend kingdoms, and the prince who, as the caput of the 
 state, is to hold council at home. It is altogether a puzzling 
 piece of critical inquiry. No illiterate man, at all events, 
 found the passage. 
 
 VI. I have, I think, noticed every point of Latin ignorance 
 adduced by Farmer, except one : 
 
 " In the Merchaiit of Ve7iice, the Jew, as an apology for his 
 cruelty to Antonio, rehearses many sympathies and a7ttipathies, 
 for which 7to reason ca7i be re7idered : 
 
 ' Some love not a gaping pig ; 
 And others, when the bagpipe sings i' th' nose, 
 Cannot contain their urine for affection, ' 
 
 This incident Dr. Warburton supposes to be taken from a 
 passage in Scaliger's Exercitatio7is against Cardan : ' Narrabo 
 tibi jocosam sympathiam Reguli Vasco7iis equitis. Is, dum 
 
74 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 viveret audito phonningis sono, urinam illico facere cogebatur/ 
 ^And/ proceeds the doctor, ^to make this jocular story still 
 more ridiculous, Shakspeare, I suppose, translated phorminx 
 by bagpipes! 
 
 " Here we seem fairly caught ; for Scaliger's work was 
 never, as the term goes, done into English. But luckily, in an 
 old translation from the French of Peter le Loier, entitled A 
 treatise of Specters^ or strange Sights^ Visions^ and Apparitions^ 
 appeai'ing sensibly tcjito Men^ we have this identical story from 
 Scaliger ; and, what is still more, a marginal note gives us, in 
 all probability, the very fact alluded to, as well as the word of 
 Shakspeare : ' Another gentleman of this quality liued of late 
 in Deuon, neere Excester, who could not endure the playing on 
 a bagpipe.^"^ 
 
 Scaliger was much more read in the days of Elizabeth 
 than any ordinary dipper into books in the present day may 
 be inclined to imagine. Why did he not notice the follow- 
 ing note by Warburton on Lovers Labour^ s Lost^ act v. sc. i, 
 where Holofernes declares the fashionable pronunciation of 
 words to be ''abominable"? — 
 
 " This is abominable, &c.] He has here well imitated the 
 language of the most redoubtable pedants of that time. On such 
 occasions Joseph Scaliger used to break out, ' Abominor, 
 execror. Asinitas mera est impietas,' &c. ; and he calls his 
 adversary ' Lectum stercore maceratum, demoniacum, recu- 
 mentum, inscitiae sterquilinium, stercus diaboli, scarabseum, 
 larvam, pecus postremum, bestiarium, infame, propudium, 
 Kadapfxa — Warbtirton,^^ 
 
 I should be very reluctant, indeed, to say that this quota- 
 tion is literally correct, unless I saw it in Scaliger, among 
 whose works it is scarcely worth while to hunt it out, well 
 knowing the danger of quoting after the bishop when he 
 does not give a reference ; but if it be in Scaliger, as it 
 appears in Warburton, I can only say that Dr. Farmer did 
 not act fairly in passing it by. 
 
 So much for the Latin part of Dr. Farmer's performance. 
 It has literally proved nothing towards his purpose. A 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 75 
 
 man, by teasing himself to death in reading Translations, 
 Pantheons, Flores, Sententiae, Delectus, Polymetes, Elegant 
 Extracts, and all that miserable second-hand work, might 
 do something towards what is to be found in Shakspeare. 
 He m\^\,— perhaps — but only perhaps. Is it not a thing 
 as easily to be believed that Shakspeare could read — 
 
 " Aliae panduntur inanes 
 Ad ventos," 
 
 soft Pagan Latin of Virgil, as easily as " Sum stentit bene in 
 wisnand wyndis wake," &c., the wondrously hard Scoto- 
 Saxon of Douglas ; or endeavour to master the smooth 
 verses of j^neid as the rugged hexameters of Stanyhurst ? 
 
 The knowledge or ignorance of Shakspeare with respect 
 to the modern languages remains to be considered. The 
 consideration will be brief; and with that, and some reflec- 
 tions on dramatic composition in general, I shall, with the 
 permission of Mr. Yorke, release my reader in the next 
 number. 
 
 HI. 
 
 I fulfil the promise of here releasing my readers from 
 any further remarks on Dr. Farmer, and shall not trouble 
 them with much more verbal controversy. 
 
 The concluding pages of the Doctor's Essay are devoted 
 to Shakspeare's knowledge of the modern languages. And, 
 first, of Italian : 
 
 ^' It is evident, we have been told, that he was not unac- 
 quainted with the Italian ; but let us inquire into the evidence. 
 Certainly some Italian words and phrases appear in the works 
 of Shakspeare ; yet, if we had nothing else to observe, their 
 orthography might lead us to suspect them not to be of the 
 author's importation. But we can go further, and prove this. 
 When Pistol ' cheers up himself with ends of verse,' he is only a 
 copy of Hanniball Gonsaga, who ranted on yielding himself a 
 prisoner to an English captain in the Low Countries, as you 
 
76 PAEMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 may read in an old collection of tales, called JVzis, Fits^ and 
 Fancies : 
 
 ' Si fortuna me tormenta, 
 II speranza me contenta.' 
 
 And Sir Richard Hawkins, in his voyage to the South Sea, 
 1593, throws out the same jingling distich, on the loss of his 
 pinnace." 
 
 A magnificent judge Dr. Farmer appears to be of Italian ! 
 I avail myself here willingly of what is said by Mr. Brown 
 in his Shakspeare's Autobiography : — 
 
 '' Dr. Farmer thus speaks of the Italian words introduced 
 into his plays : ' Their orthography might lead us to suspect 
 them to be not of the writer's importation.' Whose, then, with 
 bad orthography? I cannot understand this suspicion; but 
 perhaps it implies that the words, being incorrectly printed, 
 were not originally correct. The art of printing was formerly 
 far from being so exact as at present ; but even now, I beg 
 leave to say, I rarely meet with an Italian quotation in an 
 English book that is correct ; yet I can perceive plainly enough, 
 from the context, the printer is alone to blame. In the same 
 way I see that the following passage, in the Ta7ni7ig of the 
 Shrew^ bears evident marks of having been correct before it 
 was corrupted in the printing of the first folios, and that it 
 originally stood thus : 
 
 ' Petruchio, Con tutto il core ben* trovato, — may I say. 
 Hortensio. Alia nostra casa ben' venuto, molto onorato signor mio 
 Petruchio. * 
 
 These words show an intimate acquaintance with the mode 
 of salutation on the meeting of two Italian gentlemen ; and 
 they are precisely such colloquial expressions as a man might 
 well pick up in his travels through the country. My own 
 opinion is that Shakspeare, beyond the power of reading it, 
 which is easily acquired, had not much knowledge of Italian ; 
 though I believe it infinitely surpassed that of Steevens, or of 
 Dr. Farmer, or of Dr. Johnson ; that is, I believe that, while 
 they pretended to pass an unerring judgment on his Italian, 
 they themselves must have been astonishingly ignorant of the 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 77 
 
 language. Let me make good my accusation against all three. 
 It is necessary to destroy their authority in this instance. 
 
 '' Steevens gives this note in the Tami7ig- of the Shrew : — 
 ' Me pardonato. We should read, Mi pardoiiate' Indeed, we 
 should read no such thing as two silly errors in two common 
 words. Shakspeare may have written Mi perdo7ti^ or Per- 
 donateini ; but why disturb the text further than by changing 
 the syllable par into per ? It then expresses, instead oi pardo7i 
 7ne^ me being pardo7ted^ and is suitable both to the sense and 
 the metre : 
 
 * Me perdonato, — gentle master mine.' 
 
 ^' Dr. Farmer says: When Pistol ' cheers up himself with ends 
 of verse/ he is only a copy of Hanniball Gonsaga, who ranted 
 on yielding himself a prisoner to an English captain in the Low 
 Countries, as you may read in an old collection of tales, called 
 Wits^ Fits^ a7id Fa?tcies : 
 
 * Si fortuna me tormenta, 
 II speranza me contenta.' 
 
 This is given as Italian, not that of the ignorant Pistol, nor of 
 Shakspeare, but of Hanniball Gonsaga ; but how comes it 
 that Dr. Farmer did not look into the first few pages of a 
 grammar, to teach him that the lines must have been these ? — 
 
 * Se fortuna mi tormenta, 
 La speranza mi contenta.' 
 
 And how could he corrupt orthography (a crying sin with him) 
 in the name of Annibale Gonzaga .^ 
 
 *' Upon this very passage Dr. Johnson has a note, and, 
 following the steps of Sir Thomas Hanmer, puts his foot, with 
 uncomm'on profundity, in the mud. He says : ' Sir Thomas 
 Hanmer reads, Sifoi^tima Tue tor7nenta, il sperare 77ie C07ite7ita^ 
 which is undoubtedly the true reading ; but perhaps it was 
 intended that Pistol should corrupt it.' Perhaps it was ; but 
 ' undoubtedly' the Doctor, in his ' true reading' containing five 
 blunders in eight words, has carried corruption too far." 
 
 If Shakspeare had all the Italian knowledge of the 
 Delia Cruscans, he could not have made Pistol quote 
 this saying in any other way. Pistol's acquaintance with 
 
78 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 any foreign language was of course picked up from jest- 
 books, or from the conversation of those whose sayings 
 contribute to fill works of the kind ; but it is pleasant to 
 find Drs. Farmer and Johnson bearing testimony to the 
 accuracy of broken Italian, and making matters still worse 
 than Pistol. We must admit that, as Dr. Farmer referred 
 only to the IVtis^ Fits^ and Fancies^ he was not bound to 
 give the name of Hanniball Gonsaga, or the Italian distich, 
 otherwise than as he there found them. It might have 
 been expected from so exact a critic that he should have 
 expressed his opinion that the Italian was not perfectly 
 correct ; and his having omitted to do so may lead to the 
 suspicion that he knew as little about the matter as Dr. 
 Johnson himself, who lectures Shakspeare with all the 
 gravity, but by no means the accuracy, of Holofernes. 
 The second piece of Italian is almost as amusing : 
 
 " ' Master Pa^je, sit ; good Master Page, sit : proface^ what 
 you want in meat, we'll have in drink,' says Justice Shallow's 
 factotum^ Davy, in the Second Part of Henry IV. Pro/ace Sir 
 Thomas Hanmer observes to be Italian, horn profaccza^ — much 
 good may it do you. Mr. Johnson rather thinks it a mistake 
 ior perforce. Sir Thomas Hanmer, however, is right : yet it is 
 no argument for his author's Italian knowledge." 
 
 Then follow three quotations from Heywood, Dekker, 
 
 and Water-poet Taylor, in which the word occurs. Other 
 
 English authorities are added by the commentators. So far 
 
 so good : but the learned mind of Steevens misgives him. 
 
 *' I am still," he says, ''in doubt whether there be such an 
 
 Italian word ^lS profaccia. Baretti has it not, and it is more 
 
 probable that we received it from the French ; prof ace being 
 
 a colloquial abbreviation of the phrase, Bo7i prou leur face ; 
 
 ie. Much good may it do them. See Cotgrave in voce 
 
 Frou.^^ And Malone informs us that '' Sir Thomas Hanmer 
 
 (as an ingenious friend observes to me) was mistaken in 
 
 supposing profaccia a regular {regular !) Italian word ; the 
 
 proper expression being buon pro vi faccia^ much good may 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 79 
 
 It do you ! Profaccia is, however, I am informed, a cant 
 term used by the common people in Italy, though it is not 
 inserted in the best Italian dictionaries." The fact is that 
 proface, or prouface, or prounface, is a No7-inan word, derived 
 from the \^2Xva pi-oficiat, signifying, as Cotgrave says, though 
 he does not give its origin, " Much good may it do you " 
 {i.e. my pledging) ; and has no connection with Italian at 
 all.* The most diverting part of the business is the con- 
 jectural sagacity of Johnson in xtz.^vcig perforce. Had poor 
 Theobald done anything of the kind, or "the Oxford 
 Editor," how sharp and biting would have been the indig- 
 nation of the variorum critics ! Dr, Farmer, knowing no- 
 thing of the matter, never suspected that Sir Thomas 
 Hanmer had made a mistake as to the Italianism of pro- 
 faccia ; for his next sentence is : " But the editors are not 
 contented without coining Italian." Frofaccia, therefore, 
 to Farmer was not a coined word. The words which are 
 coined are rivo — monarcho — baccare. 
 
 I. '■'■ Rivo^^ says the doctor, " is an expression of tlie mad- 
 cap Prince of Wales; which Sir Thomas Hanmer cor- 
 rects to ribi, drink away, or again, as it should rather be 
 translated. Dr. Warburton accedes to this ; and Mr. John- 
 son hath admitted it into his text, but with an observation 
 that rivo might possibly be the cant of the English taverns." 
 Sir Thomas Hanmer had not read Marston, or many other 
 of our older wits, or he would have found that rivo is what 
 Johnson conjectured it to be. This is no great harm ; but 
 fancying that ribi is Italian for " drink away," or " drink 
 again," is no remarkable proof of the Tuscan knowledge of 
 the critic who proposed the reading, or of those who ad- 
 
 * Roqueforte : Glossaire de la Langue Romane. " Prouface, proun- 
 face : Souhait qui veut dire, bien vous fasse ; proficiat. " It is used so lately as 
 by Paul Louis Courrier, in his translation of Lucian's Ass : Bon froute 
 fasse " vol iii. p. 47 ; but he was an avowed imitator of the antique style. 
 There is no authority for it in his Greek original ; and I am not sure that 
 he uses it properly, for he employs it merely as an ironical wish for good 
 luck, without any reference to drinking. I suppose it is now obsolete m 
 France. 
 
8o FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 mitted it. Rhw^ however, is not Italian ; and it has not 
 been traced to any European language in anything like the 
 sense intended in the English authors. I suspect that it is 
 only ribaux — rakes, ribalds. '' Ho, my blades ! my bullies !" 
 Aux ribaux ! Rivo ! I do not press the conjecture, but 
 refer for some authority to a note.*^ 
 
 * Ribaldi, says Ducange, were '' velites, enfans perdus, milites, qui prima 
 pi'oelia tentabant." Of course they were the least valued troops — thence 
 any good-for-nothing fellows, *'good enough to toss " in an army ; and, as 
 these people led profligate and dissolute lives, "usurpatadeinde Ribaldomm 
 vox pro hominibus vilissimis, abjectis, perditis, scortatoribus ; " in French, 
 ribaux, Ducange supphes several quotations, of which I take a couple: — 
 
 " Gulielmus Gz/^*<2r/ MS. 
 Bruient soudoiers et ribaus, 
 Qui de tout perdre sont si baus, 
 
 — Roman de la Rose, 
 Mais Ribaus ont les cuers si baus, 
 Portant sacs de charbon en Greve, 
 Que la peine riens ne leur greve." 
 
 In earlier times it was not a word of reproach ; and the ribands in the 
 
 days of Phihppe Augustus were *'soldats d'^ite auxquels ce prince avoit 
 
 grande cr^ance en ses exploits militaires." But, as Pasquier remarks : ' 
 
 ' ' Peu-^-peu cette compagnie de ribands, qui avoit tenu dedans la France 
 
 lieu de primaut^ entre les guerrierss'abatardit, tomba en Topprobre de tout 
 
 le monde, et en je ne sais quelle engeance de putassiers." They continued 
 
 to hang about the Court of France in the middle ages, which, like all other 
 
 Courts of the time, was filled with a crowd of idle followers ; and they were 
 
 subjected to the government of an ofiicer named roi de ribaux^ part of 
 
 whose duty was to keep the palace in eating time free of disorderly persons. 
 
 It is ordered in 1317 : ' ' Item assavoir est que les huissiers de salle, si tost 
 
 comme Ten auracrie, Atix queux^ feront vuider la salle de toutes gens, fors 
 
 ceus qui doivent mengier, et les doivent livrer k Phuys de la salle aux varlets 
 
 de porte et les varlots de porte aux portiers ; et les portiers doivent tenir la 
 
 cour nette, et les livrer au roy des ribaux : et le roy des ribaux doit garder, 
 
 que il n'entre plus k la porte, et cil que sera trouv^ defaillans sera pugny 
 
 par le maistre de Thostel, qui servira la journ^e." I conjecture that when 
 
 the proper officer cried " Aux queux ! " [i.e. cooks !] the cry might be met 
 
 by the gang turned out to make room for these "qui doivent mengier," 
 
 with ' ' Aux ribaux ; " and thence made, by an easy lapse, ribaux^ rivaux, 
 
 rivo as the peculiar rallying-call of drunken people. It is so used by the 
 
 prince, in the very place referred to, when he shouts for Falstaff : " Rivo ! 
 
 says the drunkard— call in ribs, call in tallow." 
 
 It is sometimes joined with Castiliano, as in Marlowe's Jew of Malta ; 
 
 "Hey, Rivo Castilliano, man's a man," 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. Si 
 
 2. For monarcJio, in Love's Labour's Lost, Sir Thomas 
 Hanmer, who was not aware that there was actually a 
 fantastic character well known by that name in London in 
 the days of Elizabeth, proposed to read mammuccia. An 
 infelicitous conjecture at the best. And, 
 
 3. For baccare, in the Ta??iing of the Shrew (a common 
 English phrase of the time, whatever its exact etymology 
 may be, and I own that I have not seen as yet anything 
 very satisfactory), Theobald, and Warburton, and Heath 
 propose baccalare as the Italian for '*' a graduated scholar, 
 and thence ironically for a pretender to scholarship." 
 
 Now, neither viammiiccia nor baccalare is coined. They 
 are good Italian words, though not at all wanted in the 
 places to which they are introduced by the conjectural 
 critics. But why should Shakspeare be pronounced igno- 
 rant of Italian, because Sir Thomas Hanmer, unaware of 
 the existence of a real man nicknamed Monarcho, which 
 was excusable enough, and Warburton unread in our EHza- 
 bethan literature, which in a commentator on Shakspeare 
 is not quite so excusable, made a couple of unhappy conjec- 
 tures, proving nothing more than that they were not infallible 
 in verbal criticism ? As for baccalare, Nares, in his Glossary, 
 remarks that '' the word (backare) was unpropitious to critics, 
 
 And in the old comedy of Look about You, 
 
 *' And Rivo will he cry, and Castile too.'' 
 
 *'Castiliano" was, in all probabiHty, a rallying-cnMn the Spanish armies. 
 {Castilla is three times cried at the coronation of kings in Spain : 
 
 *' While trumpets rang, and heralds cried ' Castile,' " 
 
 Scott's Don Roderick, st. xliii.] 
 
 And as the Spaniards had the reputation of being great swaggerers, they 
 mio-ht be fitly called on, as associates, by those who were shouting for the 
 ribaux. Steevens quotes the lines from Marlowe and the old play, in a 
 note on Twelfth Night, act i. sc. 3, where Sir Toby cries out, "What, 
 wench ! Castiliano vulgo—iox here comes Sir Andrew Aguecheek." For 
 vul'^^o Warburton proposes volto ; as if recommending Maria to put on her 
 o-rave solemn looks, which is the last advice Toby would think of giving ; 
 ^ d she does just the contrary. Perhaps it should be '^Castiliano luego : '' 
 •• Castilian, at once." Vulgo and Ivego might be easily confounded. 
 
 VOL. 11. ^ 
 
82 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 who would have changed it to baccalare^ an Italian word of 
 reproach." Baccalare is not very propitious to Nares him- 
 self, because it is scarcely a word of reproach. The Delia 
 Cruscans, in giving its second meaning, say : ^' Dicesi altresi 
 d' uomo de gran reputazione, ma per lo piu per ischerzo. 
 Lat. Vir eximius^ prcEcellens,, singidarisr Hardly words of 
 reproach, any more than bone vir in Terence, though ap- 
 plied by the angry master to the cheating slave. I doubt 
 very much, indeed, that baccalare is ever applied, by itself, 
 in jest {per ischerzo)^ but is used sometimes jokingly, not 
 reproachfully, when it is accompanied by gran. Gran 
 baccalare is one who gives himself great airs ; as we some- 
 times call a noisy swaggerer a great hero, or a great officer, 
 without offering any affront to the names of officer or hero. 
 The examples in the Delia Crusca bear out this view of its 
 meaning. Ex. gr. Bocc. Nov. 15, 24 : — ''Vide uno, il 
 quale per quello che comprender pote, mostrava d'essere 
 gran bacalare^ con una barba nera, e folta al volto.'^ Galat. 
 28. — '' Millitandosi, e dicendo di avere le maraviglie, e di 
 essere gran bacalari^^^ &c. &c. 
 
 If these be the only proofs of Shakspeare^s want of 
 Italian knowledge, never was case more meagre. They 
 amount exactly to this, that Shakspeare uses four words 
 quite common in his time, two of which his commentators, 
 for whose ignorance it is not reasonable that he should 
 answer, corrupt into Italian ; and two more, which, though 
 these gentlemen think differently, are not Italian at all, or 
 intended as such ; and that, elsewhere, he makes a buffoon 
 character quote a couple of ungrammatical jingles from a 
 jest book, which his critics by mending make more corrupt. 
 A noble style of argument ! particularly in the case of an 
 author who elsewhere employs Italian words and quotations 
 with perfect propriety and correctness. 
 
 Dr. Farmer supposes the learning of the Shrew not to be 
 " originally the work of Shakspeare, but restored by him to 
 the stage, with the whole Induction of the Tinker, and 
 some other occasional improvements," &c. The reasons he 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 83 
 
 gives for this opinion are not over-sagacious ; and our in- 
 creased knowledge of dramatic history and bibliography has 
 left them no value whatever. If the play be Shakspeare's at 
 all, Dr.^ Farmer is sure that it is one of his earliest produc- 
 tions : in which he is supported by Malone {Chronological 
 Order of Shakspeare's Plays, No. 6); who admits, however, 
 that he had formerly been of a different opinion, which I 
 thmk he was very wrong in altering. But as I have noticed 
 the play, not with any intention of descanting on its intrinsic 
 merits (though sadly urged thereto by Bishop Kurd's most 
 absurd and somewhat offensive observations on the In- 
 duction, contained in his pedantic and ridiculous com- 
 mentary on the Epistle to Augustus), but of pointing out a 
 very different theory respecting the date and origin of the 
 play, I shall not enter upon the question of its poetical or 
 dramatic value. It is contended that it was one of the 
 latter plays, and written after a journey to Italy. 
 
 " I proceed," says Mr. Brown, ^' to show he was in Italv from 
 the internal evidence of his works ; and I begin with his Ta77tiiig 
 of the Shrew, where the evidence is the strongest. This comedy 
 was entirely rewritten from an older one by an unknown hand, 
 with some, but not many, additions to the fable. It should 
 first be observed that in the older comedy, which we possess, 
 the scene is laid in and near Athens, and that Shakspeare 
 removed it to Padua and its neighbourhood ; an unnecessary 
 change if he knew no more of one country than of the other. 
 The dramatis perso7icE next attract our attention. Baptista is 
 no loneer erroneously the name of a woman, as in Hamlet, but 
 of a man. All the other names, except one, are pure Italian, 
 though most of them are adapted to the English ear. Biondello, 
 the name of a boy, seems chosen with a knowledge of the 
 lano-nao-e, — as it sio^nifies a little fair-haired fellow. Even the 
 shrew has the Italian termination to her name, Katharina. 
 The exception is Curtis, Petruchio's servant, seemingly the 
 housekeeper at his villa ; which, as it is an insignificant part, 
 may have been the name of the player; but, more probably, it 
 is a corruption of Cortese. 
 
 " Act i. scene i. A public place. For an open place, or a 
 square in a city, this is not a home-bred expression. It may 
 
84 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 be accidental ; yet it is a literal translation of U7ia piazza 
 piiblica^ exactly what was meant for the scene. 
 
 '^The opening of the comedy, which speaks of Lombardy 
 and the university of Padua, might have been written by a 
 native Italian. 
 
 * Tranio, since — for the great desire I had 
 To see fair Padua, nursery of arts, — 
 I am arrived for fruitful Lombardy, 
 The pleasant garden of great Italy. 
 • • • « • 
 
 Here let us breathe, and happily institute 
 A course of learning, and ingenious studies.' 
 
 "The very next line I found myself involuntarily repeating, 
 the s 
 Pisa : — 
 
 at the sight of the grave countenances within the walls of 
 
 ^ Pisa, renowned for grave citizens. 
 
 ) * 
 
 They are altogether a grave people in their demeanour, their 
 history, and their literature such as it is. I never met with 
 the anomaly of a merry Pisan. Curiously enough, this line is 
 repeated, word for word, in the fourth act. Lucentio says, his 
 father came 'of the Bentivolii.' This is an old Italian plural. 
 A mere Englishman would write 'of the Bentivolios.' Besides, 
 there was, and is, a branch of the Bentivolii in Florence, where 
 Lucentio says he was brought up. But these indications, just 
 at the commencement of the play, are not of great force. We 
 now come to something more important ; a remarkable proof 
 of his having been aware of the law of the country in respect to 
 the betrothment of Katharina and Petruchio, of which there is 
 not a vestige in the older play. The father gives her hand to 
 him, both parties consenting before two witnesses, who declare 
 themselves such to the act. Such a ceremony is as indissoluble 
 as that of marriage, unless both parties should consent to annul 
 
 •^ It could hardly be expected that, while I write, a confirmatory com- 
 mentary, and from the strangest quarter, should turn up on these words ; 
 but so it is. A quarrel lately occurred in Youghal, arising from a dispute 
 about precedency between two ladies at a ball ; and one of the witnesses, 
 a travelled gentleman, in his cross-examination, gives the following opinion 
 
 of Pisa : "I did not see in the room that night ; he is now in Pisa, 
 
 which I don't think a pleasanter place than a court of justice : I think it a 
 
 d d sickening place. It is much too holy for me." This was deposed 
 
 to so lately as the loth of October 1839. — W. M. 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 85 
 
 It. The betrothment takes place in due form, exactly as in 
 many of Goldoni's comedies : 
 
 Baptisa, , , Give me your hands ; 
 God send you joy, Petruchio ! 'tis a match. 
 
 Gremio and Tranio, Amen ! say we ; we will be witnesses.' 
 
 Instantly Petruchio addresses them as ^father and wife;' 
 because, from that moment, he possesses the legal power of a 
 husband over her, saving that of taking her to his own house. 
 Unless the betrothment is understood in this hght, we cannot 
 account for the father's so tamely yielding afterwards to Petru- 
 chio's whim of going in his ' mad attire ' with her to the church. 
 Authority is no longer with the father ; in vain he hopes and 
 requests the bridegroom will change his clothes ; Petruchio is 
 peremptory in his lordly will and pleasure, which he could not 
 possibly be without the previous Italian betrothment. 
 
 '* Padua lies between Verona and Venice, at a suitable distance 
 from both, for the conduct of the comedy. Petruchio, after 
 being securely betrothed, sets off for Venice, the very place for 
 finery, to buy ' rings and things, and fine array ' for the wedding ; 
 and, when married, he takes her to his country-house in the 
 direction of Verona, of which city he is a native. All this is 
 complete, and in marked opposition to the worse than mistakes 
 in the Two Ge7itlemen of Verona^ which was written when he 
 knew nothing whatever of the country. 
 
 " The rich old Gremio, when questioned respecting the 
 dower he can assure to Bianca, boasts, as a primary considera- 
 tion, of his richly furnished house : — 
 
 * First, as you know, my house within the city 
 Is richly furnished with plate and gold ; 
 Basins and ewers, to lave her dainty hands ; 
 My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry : 
 In ivory coffers I have stuff' d my crowns, 
 In cypress chests my arras, counterpoints, 
 Costly apparel, tents, and canopies ; 
 Fine linen, Turkey cushions 'boss'd with pearl, 
 Valance of Venice gold in needlework, 
 Pewter and brass, and all things that belong 
 To house, or housekeeping.' 
 
 *' Ladv Morgan, in her Italy, says (and my observation 
 corroborates her account) : There is not an article here described 
 that I have not found in some one or other of the palaces of 
 
86 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 Florence, Venice, and Genoa — the mercantile republics of 
 Italy — even to the ' Turkey cushions 'bossM with pearl.' She 
 then adds : ' This is the knowledge of genius, acquired by the 
 rapid perception and intuitive appreciation,' &c., never once 
 suspecting that Shakspeare had been an eye-witness of such 
 furniture. For my part, unable to comprehend the intuitive 
 knowledge of genius, in opposition to her ladyship's opinion I 
 beg leave to quote Dr. Johnson: — 'Shakspeare, however 
 favoured by nature, could impart only what he had learned. 
 With this text as our guide it behoves us to point out how he 
 could obtain such an intimate knowledge of facts, without 
 having been, like Lady Morgan, an eye-witness to them.' 
 
 " In addition to these instances, the whole comedy bears an 
 Italian character, and seems written as if the author had said 
 tq his friends, ' Now I will give you a comedy built on Italian 
 manners, neat as I myself have imported.' Indeed, did I not 
 know its archetype with the scene in Athens, I might suspect 
 it to be an adaptation of some unknown Italian play, retaining 
 rather too many local allusions for the English stage. 
 
 "" Some may argue that it was possible for him to learn all 
 this from books of travels now lost, or in conversation with 
 travellers ; but my faith recoils from so bare a possibility when 
 the belief that he saw what he described is, in every point of 
 view, without difficulty, and probable. Books and conversation 
 may do much for an author ; but should he descend to par- 
 ticular descriptions, or venture to speak of manners and customs 
 intimately, is it possible he should not once fall into error with 
 no better instruction ? An objection has been made, imputing 
 an error in Grumio's question, are the ' 7'ushes strewedV But 
 the custom of strewing rushes in England belonged also to 
 Italy ; this may be seen in old authors, and their very word, 
 gmncare^ now out of use, is a proof of it. English Christian 
 names, incidentally introduced, are but translations of the same 
 Italian names, as Catarina is called Katharina and Kate ; and, 
 if they were not, comedy may well be allowed to take a Uberty 
 of that nature." 
 
 This, certainly, is ingenious, as also are the arguments 
 drawn by Mr. Brown from Othello and the Merchant of 
 Venice ; and I understand that a later lady-traveller in Italy 
 than Lady Morgan coincides in the same view of the case ; 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEAEE CONSIDERED. 87 
 
 and she is a lady who ought to know " How to Observe." 
 At all events, there is nothing improbable that Shakspeare, 
 or any other person of cultivated mind or easy fortune— 
 and he was both— should have visited the famed and 
 fashionable land of Italy. There was much more energy 
 and action among the literary men — among men in general, 
 mdeed— of the days of Elizabeth than of the last century ; 
 when making '^the grand tour," as they called it, was con- 
 sidered an undertaking to be ventured on only by a great 
 lord or squire, who looked upon it as a formal matter of his 
 life. The sparks, and wits, and critics, and moralists, and 
 dramatists, and so forth, in the time of the first Georges, 
 Cockneyised in London or confined themselves to the 
 universities. One set did not look beyond the coffee-houses, 
 taverns, inns of court, public-houses, and play-houses of the 
 metropolis ; the views of the others were in general confined 
 to the easier shelves of the library, or the wit and tobacco 
 of the common room. Going abroad required an effort 
 beyond ordinary calculation or ordinary ambition. To get 
 as far as Paris was an event demanding much thought and 
 preparation beforehand, and entitling him who performed 
 it to much wonderment ever after. Italy was quite out of 
 their line ; and those who travelled to a region so remote 
 had marvels to tell for ever. Professed, or rather pro- 
 fessional, tours were made there, resulting in collections of 
 letters crammed with accounts of bad dinners, detestable 
 roads, diabolical inns, and black-whiskered banditti ; or 
 ponderous works commonplacing about admirable antiques, 
 astonishing architecture, supereminent paintings, divine 
 scenery, and celestial climates. The buoyant spirit of the 
 friends of Raleigh, Sidney, and Essex was gone. No war, no 
 taking of service, nothing calling on the notice of "a man 
 of action," led to the Continent in the sodden days which 
 followed the peace of Utrecht, and preceded the outburst 
 of the French Revolution ; and the means and appliances 
 by which a trip to Constantinople is nowadays as little 
 rei?arded, and as lightly provided for, as a trip to Calais in 
 
88 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 the days of our grandsires were not in being. The nation 
 was asleep in the middle of the last century, and its litera- 
 ture snored in the general slumber. "In great Eliza's 
 golden time " it was not only awake, but vigorous in the rude 
 strength of manly activity. The spirit of sea-adventure was 
 not dead while Drake and his brother ''shepherds of the 
 ocean " lived ; and an enthusiastic mind of that period would 
 think far less and make far less talk about a voyage to the 
 Spanish Main than Johnson did, near a couple of centuries 
 afterwards, of jolting to the North of Scotland. The activity 
 of Shakspeare or his contemporaries is not to be judged of 
 by the sloth of their successors "upon town,'' or "in the 
 literary world." It is to me evident that Shakspeare had 
 been at sea, from his vivid description of maritime pheno- 
 mena and his knowledge of the management of a vessel, 
 whether in calm or storm. The very first note of Dr. Johnson 
 brings him and his author into a contrast not very favour- 
 able to the commentator. On the opening of the Tempest 
 we are told: "In this naval dialogue, perhaps the first 
 example of sailors' language upon the stage, there are, as I 
 have been told by a skilful navigator,, some inaccuracies and 
 contradictory orders." 
 
 If to stumble on the threshold be unlucky, this is a most 
 unlucky opening. In the first place, an acquaintance with 
 Shakspeare himself ought to have made the Doctor know 
 that in Pericles^ Prince of Tyre, generally attributed to him 
 (I have no doubt that he wrote, or rewrote, every line of it), 
 produced some fifteen or sixteen years before the Tempest^ 
 there was a scene of sea language ; and, in the next place, 
 Constantine, second Lord Mulgrave, an experienced sailor 
 (he was the Captain Phipps who sailed towards the North 
 Pole, and a captain in the navy at the age of twenty-one — 
 no jobbing, of course), proves by a practical and scientific 
 analysis of the boatswain's orders, not only that each was 
 the very best that could be given in the impending danger, 
 but that all were issued in the exact order in which they 
 were required. This Constantine, Lord Mulgrave, was 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 89 
 
 uncle of the present Marquess of Normanby ; so that, on 
 the principle of family merit, even the Tories ought to abate 
 their wrath somewhat against the ex-lord-lieutenant, on the 
 ground of his connection with one who, beside having been 
 at sea Nelson's earliest captain, may boast of contributing 
 to save the national favourite of old England 
 
 *' Whose flag has braved a thousand years 
 The battle and the breeze," 
 
 from the reputation of being no better than a landlubber. 
 Lord Mulgrave's note, which is a very clever one, will be 
 found in BoswelFs Shakspeare, vol. xv. pp. 184-6, at the end 
 of the Tejnpest. His lordship says that perhaps Shakspeare 
 might have picked up his nautical knowledge from conversa- 
 tion ; but, though his lordship tells that to the marines, as 
 a sailor he does not believe it. It is, indeed, possible that 
 he might ; it is highly probable that he obtained it from 
 actual observation. If we are disinclined (why we should 
 be so I cannot tell) to grant that he travelled in foreign 
 countries, is it too much to suppose that he might have 
 made a voyage to Cork, on a visit to his friend Spenser, 
 dwelling beneath 
 
 ** Old Father Mole— Mole hight that mountain gray, 
 That walls the north side of ArmuUa's vale " ? 
 
 From Italian, thus triumphantly disposed of, we are 
 called upon to consider Shakspeare's Spanish. This item 
 is short. Dr. Grey is willing to suppose that the plot of 
 Rovieo and Juliet may be borrowed from a comedy of Lopes 
 de Vega; and, ^'In the Induction to the Taming of the 
 Shrew^ the Tinker attempts to talk Spanish ; and, con- 
 sequently [the italics are Farmer's], the author himself was 
 acquainted with it. Faiicas pallabris ; let the world slide : 
 Sessa I '' As pocas palabras was an ordinary cant expression 
 of the time, and used in several plays, those who imagined 
 that Shakspeare's knowledge of Spanish was a necessary 
 consequence of his using those two words must not be 
 considered as very sage personages. I know not who they 
 
90 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 were : but I know when it is assumed as a proof of ignorance 
 of Spanish that Shakspeare quoted two words of it in jest, 
 which had been quoted elsewhere before, the logic is strange; 
 nor, when I learn that Dr. Grey is mistaken in imagining 
 that Romeo and Juliet was derived from ^ a comedy [so 
 marked, I cannot tell why] of Lopei" de Vega,' [so spelt, I 
 well know why ; because, Farmer's reading having been 
 only casually Spanish, he did not know or think there was 
 any need of taking the trouble to inquire what was the real 
 name of the dramatist,] am I inclined to believe that, 
 because Shakspeare did not find an Italian story in a Spanish 
 author, he could not have read Spanish. He knew as much 
 of it, at all events, as his critics. I copy the following from 
 Archdeacon Nares's Glossary^ a work of considerable pre- 
 tence, and very disproportionate information. He is com- 
 menting on the phrase michiiig vialicho in Hamlet: '4t 
 seems agreed that this word is corrupted from the Spanish 
 malhecor^ which signifies a poisoner. By miching malicho 
 he means a skulking poisoner; or it may mean mischief 
 from malheco^ evil action, which seems to me more probable ; 
 consequently, if mincijig malicho be the right reading, its 
 signification may be delicate mischief.' Now the words are, 
 not inalheco and malhecor^ but malhecho and malhechor, />., 
 malefactiim and malefactor^ from which they are derived, 
 and meaning no more than ill-deed and ill-doer^ having 
 nothing peculiar to connect them with poisoning or poisoner. 
 That the next is corrupt, I am sure ; and I think Dr. 
 Farmer's substitution of 7nimicking Alalbecco a most unlucky 
 attempt at emendation. In the old copies it is munching 
 malicho^ in which we find the traces of the true reading — 
 mucho malhecho^ much mischief. 
 
 ** ' Marry Aluchd Malhecho ~\i means mischief.'" 
 
 On this passage Malone observes : '• Where our poet 
 met with the word mallecho, which in Minsheu's Spanish 
 Dictionary is defined ??ialefactum^ I am unable to explain ; " 
 which is to be deplored. Might not Malone, without any 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 91 
 
 great stretch of critical sagacity, have suspected that he met 
 it while reading Spanish ? 
 
 Remains but French. Of this, too, Shakspeare is ignorant, 
 as of all things else ; and yet '' In the play of Henry V. 
 we have a whole scene in it, and in many other places it 
 occurs familiarly in the dialogue.'' This is true, and one 
 might think that it was tolerably sufficient to estabhsh the 
 fact that the writer of the dialogue knew the language. 
 Farmero aliter visum. " We may observe, in general, that 
 the early editions have not half the quantity, and every 
 sentence, or rather every word, most ridiculously blundered. 
 Those, for several reasons, could not be possibly published 
 by the author; and it is extremely probable that the French 
 ribaldry was at first inserted by a different hand, as the 
 many additions most certainly were after he had left the 
 stage. Indeed, every friend to his memory will not easily 
 believe that he was acquainted with the scene between 
 Catharine and the old gentlewoman, or surely he would 
 not have admitted such obscenity and nonsense." 
 
 I am sorry for the introduction of this scene, but on a diffe- 
 rent ground. The obscenity, few as the lines are in which it 
 occurs, and trifling if compared with what we find in con- 
 temporary French writers, — and not at all polluting, as it 
 turns merely on an indelicate mispronunciation of a couple 
 of English words, — is in all probability interpolated. It is 
 precisely such gag as actors would catch at; and we must 
 recollect that Catharine and Alice were originally per- 
 sonated, not by women, but by boys. Yet I am sorry that 
 it appears there, because it has always tended to give those 
 foreigners who know French and do not know English — a 
 circumstance once almost universal among critical readers 
 out of England, and, though the balance is fast altering, 
 still anything but uncommon in many parts of Europe — 
 a false idea of the general contents of Shakspeare's plays. 
 The French critics of the gou^ school, anxious to cry down 
 the English dramatist, made the most of this scene: and 
 represented to the ignorant all his plays as being of a similar 
 
92 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 character. This is to be regretted ; but in this case, as in 
 all others, truth lives out at last. The scene is no specimen 
 at all of Shakspeare's genius, and a poor one of his wit. 
 It is, however, a proof that he knew French. But ''it is to 
 be hoped that he did not understand it.'' Then it must 
 be supposed by the hoper than he was a fool. Who can 
 believe that he inserted, without being acquainted with 
 what it meant, a scene in a play of which, as I shall soon 
 have an opportunity of remarking more at large, he took 
 uncommon care? As for the misprinting, there is not a 
 line of any foreign language which is not barbarously 
 blundered in the quartos and folios; and, as Dr. Farmer 
 well knew, no argument could be founded upon any such 
 circumstance. 
 
 We have next, however, a very acute remark, for which 
 we are indebted to the worthy Sir John Hawkins : — 
 
 "Mr. Hawkins, in the appendix to Mr. Johnson's edition, 
 hath an ingenious observation to prove that Shakspeare, sup- 
 posing the French to be his, had very little knowledge of the 
 language. ^Est il possible d'exchapper la force de ton bras V^ 
 says a Frenchman. ' Brass, cur ! ' replies Pistol. Almost 
 every one knows that the French word bras is pronounced 
 bratc ; and what resemblance does this bear to brass! Dr. 
 Johnson makes a doubt whether the pronunciation of the 
 French language may not be changed since Shakspeare's 
 time ; if not, says he, it may be suspected that some other man 
 wrote the French scenes. But this does not appear to be the 
 case, at least in this termination, from the rules of the gram- 
 marians, or the practice of the poets. I am certain of the 
 former from the French Alphabeth of De la Mothe, and the 
 Orthoepia Gallica of John Eliot ; and of the latter from the 
 rhymes of Marot, Ronsard, and Du Bartas, &c." 
 
 The logic of this is at least entertaining. The scene is 
 not Shakspeare's because he could not write French, and 
 yet the mispronunciation of the word bras proves that it 
 was written by one who had very Httle knowledge of the 
 language. Which horn of this dilemma are we to be caught 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 93 
 
 upon? Here is a clever, idiomatic, burlesque scene in 
 French, and in (what is as difficult to write consistently) an 
 English patois of French, damaged, as Hawkins, Johnson, 
 and Farmer think, by the mispronunciation of one word. 
 Why, it does not require much consideration to perceive 
 that whoever wrote the scene, even if the mispronuncia- 
 tion were of the utmost importance, knew French intimately 
 well. Whether the word is brass or braw, no external reason 
 whatever existing for our believing it not to proceed from 
 the pen of Shakspeare, to Shakspeare it must be attri- 
 buted. There is a great quantity of French in this play, so 
 introduced — in the speeches of the Dauphin and his com- 
 panions, for example — as not to be separable from the rest 
 of the dialogue ; and the very scene, blemished in the ears 
 of these exact critics, is, with an admirable dramatic artifice, 
 introduced into the place where it occurs for a reason 
 which will take a little time to explain. 
 
 The battle of Agincourt was the last of the great feudal 
 battles. Firearms were then speedily altering the whole 
 face of tactical warfare ; and that species of prowess which 
 was so highly esteemed in the Middle Ages gradually be- 
 came, long before Shakspeare's time, of less moment in 
 actual combat. The knights sorely felt the change- 
 perhaps the greatest made by physical means in the pro- 
 gress of society until the late applications of steam ; and 
 many a gentleman participated in the indignation expressed 
 by the dainty courtier against villainous saltpetre. With 
 this display of personal valour the poetic interest of battles 
 in a great measure departed. A modern battle has often 
 sublime, but seldom picturesque, features. Chance too 
 much predominates over the fate of individuals to render 
 victory or defeat in any visible degree dependent upon the 
 greatest bravery, or the meanest cowardice, of any smgle 
 person engaged ; and the romantic or chivalrous bard cannot 
 deal with masses. When Burke said that the age of 
 chivalry was gone, because ten thousand swords did not 
 leap out of their scabbards to fight in the cause of Mane 
 
94 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 Antoinette, the orator might have reflected — if orators ever 
 reflect upon anything but the harmony of trope and figure 
 — that the days of chivalry had departed long before,— 
 from the moment, in fact, that these ten thousand swords 
 had become but secondary instruments in war. Milton is 
 not the only poet (Ariosto, Spenser, and others, were before- 
 hand with him) who assigns the invention of gunpowder to 
 the Devil. It would be rather out of place to prove that, unless 
 his Satanic majesty has an interest in rendering battles less 
 sanguinary, he has no claim to the honour; but the knights 
 were interested in crying out against an invention which 
 deprived them, safe in the panoply of plate and mail, of 
 the power of winning fame at the cheap rate of slaughter- 
 ing imperfectly armed, or altogether unarmed, peasants and 
 burghers ; and the poets had to complain of the loss of 
 the picturesque features of the fight, in which at present 
 ''nought distinct they see." Agincourt had no successor 
 in the history of the world ; for never again came such a 
 host of axe-and-spear-brandishing princes, and dukes, and 
 lords into personal conflict ; nor could any other field boast 
 of such a royal fellowship of death. "^ It was also the last 
 great victory in Shakspeare's time that the English had 
 won over the French. The war in France in Henry the 
 Sixth's reign was little more than a guerilla tumult in which 
 the invaders, despite of " Henry's conquest, Bedford's vigil- 
 ance, your deeds of war," and all the other topics invoked 
 by Duke Humphrey in declaring his grief; and of the many 
 acts of individual bravery and energy of Talbot and others, 
 were sure to be at last defeated in campaigns against a 
 people gradually forgetting their domestic animosities to 
 unite against foreign ravage. The wars of the Roses drew 
 us from France to wield the lamentable arms of civil con- 
 test ; and when at last " the flowers were blended in love 
 
 * The list fills more than three pages of Monstrelet, fol. 230, 231. Ed. 
 1595. ^^^ ^^^y ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ chapter (cxlviii.) marks the sad feeling of the 
 historian: *' Comment plusieurs princes, et autres notables seigneurs de 
 diuers pays, furent morts d ccste piteuse besongne.** 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 95 
 
 and sisterly delight," the system which called forth such 
 invasions as that of Henry V., and gave colour to such 
 claims as those adduced to render " France his true inherit- 
 ance, was gone. Our present political arrangements, which 
 are essentially anti-chivalric, had commenced' their opera- 
 tions. The sixteenth century found us engaged in religious 
 dissensions ; and the eye, anxious to look upon the brightest 
 spot of our military glory, had nowhere to rest upon but 
 Agincourt. That field therefore, dear at once to the 
 poet of chivalry and of England, is throughout this play of 
 Henry V. treated with peculiar honour and respect. Shak- 
 speare apologises for the scantiness of his theatrical means 
 to represent so glorious a battle : 
 
 "And so our scene must to the battle flv. 
 Where (O for pity !) we shall much disgrace, 
 With four or five most vile and ragged foils, 
 Right ill-disposed in brawl ridiculous, 
 The name of Agincourt." 
 
 This is one of the strongest touches of national feeling 
 in all the plays. "^ In Julius Ccesar he had made no such 
 
 * Schlegel remarks that in this play only has he introduced an Irishman 
 and Scotchman speaking their patois of English. As it also contains the 
 Welshman, Fluellen, representatives from the three kingdoms and the prin- 
 cipality are present at Agincourt. The industry of Malone, followed by 
 Boswell, has rescued a few Irish words from a corruption which sadly 
 puzzled and embroiled former critics. The qualitie calmie custtire nie of 
 the old copy of Henjy V, act iv. sc. 4, was conjectured by Malone to be 
 no more than a burden of a song, " When as I view your comely grace," — 
 Calen custure me, &c. And Boswell finds this to be in reality an old 
 Irish song, preserved in Playford's Musical Companion, where it appears 
 as Callino castore me. It is not very hard for an Irish reader to disen- 
 tangle from this Colleen (or, more Celtically, cailin) og, astore ?ne, — " Pretty 
 girl, my darling forever." It was, perhaps, all the Irish that Shakspeare 
 had, having learned it, as we may have supposed Pistol would have done, 
 from hearing it sung as a refrain. The words have no application to what 
 the poor Frenchman says ; but, as he concludes by ^^/-ite, Pistol retorts by 
 a somewhat similar word and as unintelligible, cal-Quo, On account of 
 this general nationality of the play I am inclined to think, in spite of Home 
 Tooke's somewhat angry assertion when claiming i7Jtp as Saxon, that 
 "our lanc^uage has absolutely nothing from the Welsh" (Div, Purl, vol. 
 ii p. '^4» 4^^)) ^^^^^ when Henry V. is twice called "an impe of fame, '' the 
 
96 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 apology for the raggedness of the foils, or the ridiculous 
 brawl that represented Philippi, which crushed for ever the 
 once resistless oligarchy of Rome ; or in Antony and Cleo- 
 patra^ for the like poverty in the representation of Actium, 
 that gave the sovereignty of the Roman world, of which 
 France was then no more than a conquered province, and 
 into which England was soon about to be incorporated by 
 the sword, to Augustus. Far more famous in Shakspeare's 
 eyes was Agincourt ; though, unlike those great Roman 
 battles, it left scarcely any consequences of lasting import- 
 ance behind ; and at the close of the century and a half 
 which elasped between its being fought and the birth of 
 the dramatist who approaches it with so much reverence, 
 it was, for all practical purposes, as much forgotten as the 
 battles of Richard Coeur de Lion in the Holy Land. 
 English feelings did not so argue ; and their great ex- 
 pounder only spoke in more eloquent and swelling lan- 
 guage the thoughts of all his countrymen, when he made 
 Henry predict that the names of Harry the king and his 
 noble companions would be for ever the theme of gratula- 
 tion. 
 
 " And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by 
 From this day to the ending of the world, 
 But we in it shall be remembered." * 
 
 Welsh origin, justly or not assigned to the word, might not have been un- 
 known or forgotten. The Welsh blood of Henry is continually insisted 
 upon. 
 
 * Johnson has a very strange note on these hues : " It maybe observed 
 that we are apt to promise ourselves a more lasting memory than the 
 change of human things admits. This prediction is not ve7'ijied. The feast 
 of Crispin passes by without any mention of Agincourt." How curiously 
 Dr. Johnson has proved, by writing this very note, that he well knew that 
 there was not the shghtest chance of his forgetting that Agincourt was 
 fought upon St. Crispin's Day ! It is in all probability the only battle of 
 which he could, without reference to books, have given the precise date. 
 Blenheim, Ramilies, Malplaquet, Oudenarde, were fought about the period 
 of his own birth ; and yet we may be tolerably certain that he could not 
 upon an instant have told the days on which they occurred, — perfectly sure 
 that he could not assign the saints to whom those days were dedicated. If 
 the Doctor, in place of this bit of cheap moralising, had reflected as a critic 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 97, 
 
 Such, certainly, was the case in Shakspeare's time ; and 
 if the lapse of a couple of centuries has thrown its renown 
 into the shade, it is because fields of fame and spheres of 
 action which he could not have anticipated fill our recollec- 
 tions, and so occupy our thoughts (to say nothing of altered 
 views of the causes and objects of war) as to make us think 
 less of a feudal battle, which has nothing but the undaunted 
 courage with which such tremendous odds were met [and 
 that certainly is deserving of the admiration of all to whom 
 bravery is dear] to recommend it to our memories ; on 
 which, however, it is indelibly stamped only by Shak- 
 speare. 
 
 But, with his feelings respecting Agincourt, what could 
 he do with the battle? He was ashamed of representino- 
 in actual 7nelee King Henry V., Bedford, Exeter, Warwick 
 and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloster, by the ragged foils and 
 beggarly appurtenances which he could command. He 
 therefore left them out altogether ; and to fill up the battle 
 he supplies this scene, in which the buffoon braggart Pistol 
 
 on the prediction which called forth his comment, he would have seen that 
 Shakspeare, in promising immortal remembrance of the day on which 
 Agincourt was fought, gave the immortahty by the very words of promise. 
 The dates of other fields, thought the poet, may be forgotten ; but, as lono- 
 as the English language lasts, /shall take care, by means of this speech, 
 that by all who know the English tongue, by all men, — wherever English 
 literature can penetrate — and that will be all over the world, — the names of 
 those who commanded at Agincourt, the day on which that battle was 
 fought, and the saints to whom it was dedicated, shall be freshly remem- 
 bered ; and he has kept his word. He has not " promised himself a more 
 lasting memory" than he contemplated. Homer has shown us the same 
 confidence of immortahty. See //. IX. 431, where Achilles says that it 
 was predicted, if he warred against Troy, he should never return to his 
 native land, but his glory would be ever imperishable. " Notandum hie," 
 says Clarke, " quam singulari quamque modesto poeta artificio gloriam 
 dicat AchiUis suo factam poemate sempiternam. Non, exegi dixit monu- 
 ment um ; TiOTijamque opus exegi ; nusquam sui meminit omnino ; nusquam 
 suorum operum ; nusqua.m pa tricB ; nusquam, ne "partium quidem suariim ; 
 ut adeo Europseusne fuerit ipse, an Asiaticus, plane non constet. Sed 
 ^^y^^V/^-y nomen atque famam immortalitati tradidit." This note would be 
 applicable in almost all parts to Shakspeare. Clarke, it will be allowed, 
 was a more perspicacious critic, and better understood the meaning and 
 intention of his author than Johnson. 
 
 VOL. IL C 
 
98 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 is made to occupy the audience, and to tickle their national 
 vanity by capturing and bullying a French gentleman. 
 The French translator, Le Tourneur (whose version, take it 
 all in all, is highly creditable ; and which, for not only 
 the difficulty of the task of translating such plays, but the 
 absolute odium their translator risked in undertaking to 
 praise and set off an author denounced by the dominant 
 , school of gout as something so offensive as to render it a 
 shame and disgrace even to quote his name in France, 
 ought to have saved him from the dull buffoonery of 
 Steevens), omits the scene, as unworthy of Shakspeare, 
 from the text, and degrades it into a note. I can well 
 appreciate the feeUng ; but if he reasoned not as a French- 
 man, but as a dramatic critic, he would have seen that the 
 only, method Shakspeare possessed of escaping the diffi- 
 culty of caricaturing Agincourt against his will, by turning 
 it, in consequence of his want of means, into a ridiculous 
 brawl, was to seize upon that part of it which might be 
 treated as avowed drollery and burlesque. And this scene, 
 so justly and so skilfully introduced, Dr. Farmer wishes us 
 to attribute to some other hand than that of him who so 
 carefully considered, planned, and arranged the play. And 
 why ? Because bras is pronounced brass — not brau ! Lofty 
 criticism ! 
 
 ' ' The critic eye — that microscope of wit, 
 Sees hairs, and pores, examines bit by bit ; 
 How parts relate to pa?'ts^ or they to whole ^ — 
 The body's harmony, the beaming soul, 
 Are things which Burman, Kuster, Wasse, shall see 
 When man's whole frame is obvious to a flea." 
 
 • The satire upon Burman, Kuster, and Wasse, in those 
 lines from the Dunciad, is unjust ; because these learned 
 men pretended to nothing beyond that which they learnedly 
 performed, — the grammatical or scholastical explication of 
 the text and language of their authors, over whom they 
 never presumed to take airs of superior information. As 
 they made no boast of coming to the rescue of the old 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 99 
 
 bards on whom they commented, or looked beyond the 
 limits they had assigned to themselves, the sneer on the 
 extent of their vision is unjust and inapplicable ; but this 
 finding out that bras should be brau^ while the relation of 
 parts to parts, and they to the whole, in this scene of 
 Pistol, introduced as it is in Heiiry V., is a most satis- 
 factory proof of the flea-like glance of Farmer. He hints 
 (it is hard to catch anything like a positive assertion in the 
 Essay) that the French scene had appeared before in some 
 other play on the same subject, — quoting from Nash's Pierce 
 Peijnilesse^ his Supplication to the Devil: ''What a glorious 
 thing it is to have Henry the Fifth represented on the stage 
 leading the French king prisoner, and forcing both him and 
 the Dolphi?i to swear fealty." In the first place, ''the 
 French scene," if it be intended by that phrase to mean the 
 scene written in French, had never appeared on the stage 
 before ; and, secondly, Shakspeare, by substituting Pistol's 
 exploits for those of the king, escaped the ridicule directed 
 against the elder plays, or mummeries, produced upon this 
 popular subject, and made a jest of by Nash. 
 
 As for the pronunciation of b?^as^ we are gravely told by 
 Sir William Rawlinson that almost everybody knows that 
 it is pronounced brau ; and so Farmer's authorities and the 
 commentators in general inform us. Pasquier in his letters 
 laughs at the Scotch who by an escorche^ or Escoce, turn 
 madame into moudam.^ What would he have thought of 
 the rule which rhymes bras with law^ paw^ Jaza^ daw, draw, 
 &c. ? Davenant, quoted by Steevens in the notes, has made 
 it do so ; and Pope, we know, has some of the same kind 
 in his " Town and Country Mouse : " 
 
 ** lays down the law 
 
 Que 9a est bon — ah ! goutez qa " [saw]. 
 
 So have many others ; but, to borrow Johnson's words and 
 
 * ** Comme nous voyons I'Escossois voulant representer nostre langue 
 par un escorche, ou pour mieux dire par un Escoce Fran9ois, pour Madame, 
 dire Moudam." — Recherches de la France, p. 755. He did not forget 
 Pantagruel and the Limosin. 
 
100 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE : 
 
 argument on the passage in Shakspeare which we are now. 
 discussing, " if the pronunciation of the French language be 
 not changed since [Pope's] time, which is not unUkely, it 
 may be suspected that some other man wrote the [above 
 distich.]" Bras rhymes 7io7i/ with the first syllable of 
 /a-ther. The question, however, is, Was the final s of 
 such words sounded in Shakspeare's time ? In correct or 
 fashionable French it unquestionably was not, unless before 
 a vowel, but just at that time a revolution was going forward 
 among the French with respect to the sounding of s. 
 Pasquier tells us that in his youth (he died in 1615, ^ged 
 87) it was pronounced in honne^te, and a little before in 
 such words as eschole^ &c., as now it is in espece. Robert 
 Stephens, in his grammar, says that ^'' utplurimuin omtttitur^^ 
 in words of the kind ; and Theodore Beza notes the 
 variation of its sound in different places, as Bowie observes, 
 in the Archceologia^ voL vi. pp. 76-8. Pasquier, who has a 
 long letter on the subject, thinks it probable that it was 
 originally sounded in such words as corp^-, temp^, a>$"pre, — - 
 derived from corpus, tempus, asper. It really is a question 
 hardly worth debating. That to our ears it was once 
 sounded is plain, from the O ye^- retained by our criers ; 
 from our pronunciation of Pari^-, Calais, which we once held 
 as masters, and other cities, Brussellei-, Marseille^-; of the 
 names of Loui^, Charlei*, &c. In my own memory, 
 Bordeaux was generally pronounced Biirducks : in a passage 
 quoted further on, from Laneham's letter from Killingworth, 
 it seems in the days of Elizabeth to have been called Bur- 
 deauj*. And, at all events, if it be of such moment, cannot 
 the most precise purist be satisfied by reading, — " Est il 
 impossible d'eschapper la force de ton bras — ah ! " or 
 " bras, sieur ? " I must remark that the French translator 
 does not express the same doubt of the propriety of the 
 pronunciation as the English critics. Le Tourneur merely 
 says : ^' Bras est pris par Pistol pour le mot Anglois brass, 
 du cuivre/' His ears, it appears, are less sensitive than 
 those of Hawkins or Farmer. 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEAEE CONSIDERED. loi 
 
 Pasquier might have afforded a hint to Malone that when 
 he said ''the word moy'' (in this same scene of Henry V.) 
 '' proves, in my apprehension decisively, that Shakspeare, 
 or whoever furnished him with his French (if, indeed, he 
 was assisted by any one), was unacquainted with the true 
 pronunciation of the language," he was talking without full 
 knowledge of the subject. He objects to may being made 
 a rhyme to destroy. Now, we find in a letter addressed by 
 Pasquier to Ramus, on the occasion of the latter's French 
 grammar, the following remarks : — " Le courtisan aux mots 
 douillets nous couchera de ces paroles : Reyne^ allet, teriet^ 
 
 venet^ mefiet Ni vous ni moy (je m'asseure) ne 
 
 prononcerons, et moins encores escrirons ces mots de reyjie^ 
 &c. ; ains demeurerons en nos anciens qui sont forts, 7vyne^ 
 alloit^ ve7ioit^ tenoit^ lueiioity — P. 57, vol. ii. CEuvres. Ed. 
 Amst. 1723. Again, in the same letter, of which he gives 
 as the analysis, " Sgavoir si Torthographe Fran^oise se doit 
 accorder avec le parler,'' after stating that oy is a diphthong, 
 '' qui est nee avec nous, ou qui par une possession imme- 
 moriale s'y est tournee en nature," he complains that Ramus 
 has directed 7noy^ toy^ soy, &c., as if they were written moe, 
 toe, soe, &c. : "Car de ces mots moy, toy, soy, nos anciens 
 firent moyen, toyen, soyen, moye, toye, soye. Comme nous 
 voyons dans le Romafi de la Rose, et autres vieux livres, 
 que nous avons depuis eschangez en Mien, tien,^^ &c. The 
 fact is that printing was then beginning to reduce in every 
 country its national language to a common standard of 
 pronunciation. Holofernes, in Loves Labours Lost, com- 
 plains of the rackers of orthography, who speak doiit, fine, 
 when they should say dou^t, det for de^t, C2iid for calf (these 
 are the men who pronounce bras, braw), &c. Pasquier 
 is equally indignant against those who call roy7ie, reyne, or 
 alloit, allet. The courtisans aux mots douillets, of whom he 
 elsewhere complains more at length (p. 46), as having, in 
 consequence of being nursed in moliesse, transferred "la 
 purete de nostre langue en une grammaire tout effeminee,'' 
 might have laid it down as a canon that bras and ;//^/ should 
 
102 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 be pronounced as we now have them. We may be sure 
 there was some patois in Shakspeare's time to justify the 
 pronunciation he adopted, and the neglect of which might 
 once have been lamented by those who, like Pasquier, 
 remembered with regret the old mode of talking ; as the 
 Scotch judge, who, in Lockhart's Mathew Wald^ attributes 
 the decadence of Scotland to the corruption of the tongue, 
 which compelled people to call a /lay a flee."^ It is quite 
 consistent with usual practice, in the midst of this learned 
 exposition of Shakspeare's ignorance, to find Johnson 
 informing us that a moy is a piece of money, whence moi 
 d'or, or moi of gold. The doctor would find it hard to 
 discover the mint from which mays were issued. Moidore 
 is Portuguese; moeda [i.e,^ moneta] de ouro. It is, indeed, 
 far easier to discover ignorance in the variorum notes than 
 in the text of Shakspeare.t 
 
 I have but two more instances with which to weary my 
 readers ; and of these shall take Farmer's last proof — his 
 " irrefragable argument" — first: — 
 
 "But, to come to a conclusion, I will give an irrefragable 
 argument that Shakspeare did not understand two very common 
 words in the French and Latin languages. According to the 
 
 * ** They might hae gaen on lang eneugh for me, if they had been con- 
 tent wi' their auld improvements o' ca'ing a flae, a flee ; and a puinding, a 
 pounding : but now, tapsal-teerie's the word." — P. 257. 
 
 f On the subject of coins I may remark that, in Timon of AtJiens, act 
 iii. sc. I, Lucullus, wishing to bribe Timon's servant, Flaminius, says to 
 him : ' * Here's three solidares for thee. '' On which Steevens says : " I believe 
 this coin is from the mint of the poet." Nares thinks otherwise ; but, being 
 one of the most unlucky of conjectural critics, has nothing better to propose 
 than solidate^ from solidata, which is no coin at all, but a day's pay for a 
 soldier. I have proposed, elsewhere, saludore, i,e. salut d'^or, adopted 
 into the English in the same form as moidore. Salutes, so called because 
 they were stamped with a figure of the angelic salutation, were coined by 
 Henry V. immediately after the treaty of Troyes. See Ruding's Annals of 
 the Coinage, vol. ii. p. 308. Du Cange has the word : ' ' Salus et Salut. 
 Nummus aureus, in Francia ab Henrico V., Rege Angliae cusus," &c. In 
 Rymer's Chaj't,, an. 1430, we have "pro summa quinqueginta millium 
 salutiorum auri," <S:c. In Rabelais, liv. v. c. 54, " Neuf cens quatorze 
 saluz d'or'' are given as marriage portions to the girls who waited at table. 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 103 
 
 articles of agreement between the conqueror Henry and the 
 King of France, the latter was to style the former (in the cor- 
 rected French of the former editions), 'Nostre tres cher filz 
 Henry, roy d'Angleterre ; ' and in Latin. ^ Pr^clarissimus fiHus, 
 &c. 'What,' says Dr Warburton, 'is tres cher in French, 
 pr(Eclarissi7mcs in Latin ? We should read prcBcarissiums: 
 This appears to be exceedingly true. But how came the 
 blunder? It is a typographical one in Holinshed, which Shak- 
 speare copied ; but must indisputably have corrected, had he 
 been acquainted with the languages. ' Our said father, during 
 his life, shall name, call, and write us in French in this manner : 
 " Nostre tres chier filz Henry, roy d'Engleterre ; and in Latine, 
 in this manner, Pr^clarissimus filius noster."' Edit. 1587, p. 
 574-'^ 
 
 This proves neither more nor less than that Shakspeare 
 followed Holinshed; and that Warburton was not over- 
 reasonable in thinking that the poet ought to have turned 
 verbal critic on the text of the historian. We now know 
 that, in the treaty of Troyes, the French text faithfully 
 represents the Latin. We have had an infinity of works on 
 diplomacy since Shakspeare's time, and one of the most 
 furious (and at the same time most comical) of his 
 censors, Rymer, has supplied us with the Fo^dera^ among 
 which the treaty may be found ; but what means had 
 Shakspeare, unless he turned parchment-hunter for the 
 purpose, of knowing but that Holinshed had authority for 
 marking a variance betw^een the French and Latin text? 
 Might not King Henry have been described as most illus- 
 trious in Latin, and most dear in French 'i Might it not 
 have been imagined that the conqueror, fresh from the 
 slaughter of Agincourt, would have, in the unknown tongue, 
 been described by an epithet indicating his renown, won at 
 the expense of the blood and the glory of France, while in 
 the language of those upon whom his stern rule was forced 
 the epithet was changed for one indicative of affection ? Or 
 — what is, I suppose, the truth — might not Shakspeare have 
 copied right before him, as he found his text, without bestow- 
 ing a further thought upon the matter } As to his being 
 
104 FARMER'S E^'SAY ON THE 
 
 ignorant of the meaning of clams and cher^ the notion is 
 preposterous. 
 
 ^^ Terre, terre, s'escria Pantagruel, je voy terre." I see 
 land. One observation more, and I have done. 
 
 "It hath been observed that the giant of Rabelais is some- 
 times alluded to by Shakspeare ; and in his time no translation 
 w^as extant. But the story was in every one's hand. 
 
 " In a letter by one Laneham, or Langham, for the name is 
 written differently, concerning the entertainment at Killing- 
 woorth Castle, printed 1575, we have a list of the vulgar 
 romances of the age : ' King Arthurz Book, Huon of Burdeaus, 
 Friar Rous, Howleglass, and Gargantua.^ Meres mentions 
 him equally hurtful to young minds with the Four So7ts of 
 Aymo7i^ and the Seveii Chainpio7is. And John Taylor had 
 him likewise in his catalogue of authors^ prefixed to Si7^ 
 C7'egory No7ise7icey 
 
 The most ordinary readers, thanks to Sir Walter Scott, 
 now know something more of one Laneham, or Langham, 
 and " the entertainment at Killingwoorth Castle," than Dr. 
 Farmer did ; but let that pass. Let me pass also another 
 question, whether the Gargantua of Langham was exactly 
 that of Rabelais. From the company in which he is intro- 
 duced, I think it probable that this Gargantua might have 
 been one of the imitations of the original romance, in 
 which (see Brunet's Stipple 77ient^ under Rabelais) Arthur, 
 and Merlin, and the heroes of the Greek fable, were 
 inserted among the personages whom the great Alcofribas 
 has immortalised. That Shakspeare had read Rabelais 
 I have no doubt ; and, if he read him at all, it must have 
 been in French. Malone, who supposes such a supposi- 
 tion to be heresy, positively asserts that there was a trans- 
 lation of Rabelais in Shakspeare's time. It would be a 
 rare treasure to a bibliographer if a copy were found. 
 Farmer, however, who in the above passage asserts the 
 contrary, is right — there w^as none; but he is wrong in 
 thinking that there is no other intimation of Shakspeare's 
 acquaintance with Rabelais than the mere mention of 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 105 
 
 Gargantua. The brawling boatswain, in the first scene of 
 the Tempest, is evidently taken from Friar John. In the 
 same emergency they show the same riotous courage, 
 bustling energy, and contempt for the apprehensions of 
 others. The commands of the boatswain, ''Down with 
 the topmast ; yare ; lower, lower ; bring her to try with 
 main-course," &c., found their prototypes in many an 
 order of John and his pillot : '' Au trinquet de gabie, inse, 
 inse. Aulx boulingues de contremeaine. Le cable au 
 capestan. Vire, vire, vire. Le main a Tinsail, inse, inse. 
 Plaunte le heaulme. Tiens fort a guarant. Pare les 
 couets. Pare les escoutes. Pare les boHnes. Amure 
 babord. Le heaulme soubs le vent. Casse escoute de 
 tribord, fils de putain., ^(Tu es bien aise, homme de bien, 
 dist Frere Jean au matelot, d entendre nouvelles de ta 
 mere.) Vien du lo. Pres du plain. Hault la barre. 
 (Haulte est, respondoient les matelots.) Taille vie," &c. 
 
 In Ozeirs not over-accurate translation : '' Put the helm 
 a-weather. Steady, steady. Hawl your aftermizzen bow- 
 lines. Hawl, hawl, hawL Thus, thus, and no nearer. 
 Mind your steerage. Mind your steerage. Bring your 
 maintack aboard. Clear your sheets. Clear your bow- 
 lines," &c. 
 
 The boatswain's complaint of the inactivity of his pas- 
 sengers, and his cry of '^A plague upon your howling," 
 resemble John's indignation against Panurge : '^ Panurge 
 le pleuart, Panurge le criart, tu ferois beaucoup mieulx 
 nous aydant ici, que la, pleurant comme une vasche," &c. 
 The boatswain is '' a wide-chapped rascal ; " and John is 
 *'bien fendu de gueule." (Liv. i. chap, xxvii.) Gonzalo 
 declares he has great comfort in the boatswain, because 
 there is no drowning mark upon him, his countenance 
 being perfect gallows; and is positive that he will be 
 hanged yet, ^'though every drop of water swear against 
 it, and gape at wid'st to glut him.'' John entertains the 
 same opinion of Panurge : " Par le dinge froc que je porte, 
 dist Frere Jean k Panurge, couillon mon amy, durant la 
 
ic6 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 tempeste, tu as eu paour sans cause et sans raison ; car tes 
 destinees fatales ne sont h perir en eaiie. Tu seras hault 
 en Taer certainement pendu, ou brusle guaillard comma 
 ung p^re." The description of the tempest, given by 
 Ariel, resembles in many particulars that in Rabelais : — 
 
 "I boarded the king*s ship ; now on the beak, 
 Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin, 
 I flamed amazement. Sometimes I'd divide, 
 And burn in many places ; on the topmast, 
 , The yards and boltsprit, would I flame distinctly, 
 
 Then meet and join : Jove's lightnings, the precursors 
 O' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary 
 And sight out-running were not. The fire, and cracks 
 Of sulphurous roaring, the most mighty Neptune 
 Seem'd to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble, 
 
 Yea, his dread trident shake 
 
 Not a soul 
 But felt a fever of the mad, and played 
 Some tricks of desperation." 
 
 ^' Le ciel tonner du hault, fouldroyer, esclairer, pluvoir, 
 gresler, Taer perdre sa transparence, devenir opaque, tene- 
 breux, et obscurci, si que aultre lumiere ne nous apparois- 
 soit que les fouldres, esclaires, et infractions des flambantes 
 nuees : les categides, thielles, lelapes, et presteres enflamber 
 tout autour de nous par les psoloentes, arges, elicies, et 
 aultres ejaculations ether^es — nos aspects touts estre dissi- 
 pez, et perturbez, les horrifiques Typhons surpendre les 
 monteuses vagues du courant, &c." L. iv. ch. xlviii, 
 
 " Blow till thou burst thee, wind," says the boatswain ; 
 and 
 
 •' The king's son, Ferdinand, 
 With hair upstarting (then like reeds, not hair), 
 Was the first man that leaped ; cried, * I/ell is empty y 
 And all tlie devils are here,,' " 
 
 So Friar John : '' Tonnez, diables, petez, rottez, fiantez. . . 
 Je croy que touts les millions de diables tiennent icy leur 
 chapitre provincial, ou briguent pour election de nouveau 
 recteur/' And elsewhere : " Vrayment voicy bien esclaire, 
 et bien tonne. Je croy que touts les diables sont des- 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 107 
 
 chainez aujourd'huy, ou que Proserpine est en travail 
 d'enfant, Tous les diables dancent aux sonnettes." When 
 Gonzalo is willing to " give a thousand furlongs of sea for 
 an acre of barren ground, long heath, brown furze [r. with 
 Sir Thomas Hanmer, ling, heath, broom, furze], anything. 
 The wills above be done ! but I would fain die a dry 
 
 death " — we are reminded of Panurge : " Pleust a Dieu ^ 
 
 je feusse en terre ferme bien a mon aise," with his panegyric 
 on the happiness of cabbage-planters, and Pantagruel's 
 abhorrence of a death by water : '^ Je ne veulx entrer en la 
 dispute de Socrates, et des Academiques ; mort n'estre de 
 soy maulvaise, mort n^estre de soy a craindre. Je dis cette 
 espece de mort par naufraige estre, ou rien n'estre a 
 craindre. Car, comme est la sentence d'Homere chose 
 griefve, abhoneste, et denaturee est perir en men" It is 
 not probable that these coincidences, and there are many 
 more elsewhere, are accidental ; but I may remark that it 
 is very certain that Sir John Hawkins, whom we have seen 
 rebuking Shakspeare for ignorance of French, had not read 
 Rabelais, the most famous French author of the times in 
 which Shakspeare was born. In his remarkably trumpery 
 life of Dr. Johnson, p. 304, ed. 1787 [I do not suppose 
 there is any other], in order to show off his learning. Sir 
 John introduces an extract from Sir Thomas Urquhart's 
 account of the Admirable Crichton, given in Sir Thomas's 
 usual style. Among other marvels related of the hero we 
 are told that ^^immediately after that he domineers in a 
 bare unlined gowne, with a pair of whips in the one hand, 
 and Corderius in the other : and in suite thereof he hondre- 
 sponded it with a pair of pannierlike breeches, a mountera- 
 cap on his head, and a knife in a wooden sheath, dagger- 
 ways, by his side;" i,e. like a German of the day. Sir 
 John Hawkins is much puzzled to account for "hondre- 
 sponded," and affixes a note upon it : " For this strange 
 word no meaning can be found;'' that is, can be found 
 by Sir John Hawkins. It so happens, however, that the 
 strange word is in Rabelais, whom this Sir Thomas 
 
io8 FAEMER'S ESSAY OX THE 
 
 Urquhart had translated. When the Gascon, Gratianauld, 
 native of St. Sever, challenges the Germans, camping out- 
 side Stockholm, to fight him (lib. iii. c. xv.), they are called 
 ho?idrespo7idres. " Ne respondant personne, il passe au 
 camp des hondrespondres ;'''' i.e. heavy fellows, weighing a 
 hundred pounds. "II a voulu," says Du Chat, ''par ce 
 mot de hondrespondres nous donner a entendre le centum- 
 p07idiu77i par lequel les Latins designant tout fardeau lourd 
 meme excedent le poids d'un quintal." As Sir John 
 Hawkins did not know where to find anything about a 
 word in Rabelais so prominently introduced by Rabelais's 
 translator, we may be excused from thinking his apprecia- 
 tion of Shakspeare's knowledge of the French of the six- 
 teenth century of no surpassing value : as much, perhaps, 
 as Dr. Farmer's knowledge of the language of him whom 
 he calls " Hanssach the Shoemaker.'' 
 
 Let this suffice. The '' celebrated Essay of Dr. Farmer " 
 is nothing more than a pitiful collection of small learning ; 
 useful perhaps, occasionally, if intended to illustrate the 
 author on whom he was writing — though, indeed, not 
 remarkably valuable in that particular — but utterly con- 
 temptible in the employment to which he has assigned it. 
 He has proved, what no one of common-sense ever doubted, 
 that .Shakspeare in his classical plays did not look beyond 
 the English translation of Plutarch, or in his historical plays 
 beyond the popular annalist, Holinshed ; and that, having 
 made such a resolution, he adhered to their text without 
 further research. Lord Byron thought proper, as a sort of 
 tour de force^ to versify, in his Do7i Jua7t^ passages taken from 
 prose works ; as, for instance, the accounts of many real 
 shipwrecks turned into the description of that in the second 
 canto ; the siege of Ismail in the seventh, taken from the 
 '' Essai sur I'Histoire Ancienne et Moderne de la Nouvelle 
 Russie, par le Marquis Gabriel de Castlenau," &c. Now 
 we find it stated by Lord Byron in verse, canto vii. st. 8, 
 that 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 109 
 
 " The fortress is call'd Ismail, and is placed 
 Upon the Danube's left branch and left bank ; " 
 
 which is no. more than a translation of Castlenau's prose 
 " Ismael est situe sur la rive gauche du bras gauche du 
 Danube." Suppose Castlenau mistaken, and that the situa- 
 tion of Ismail was on the rig/if bank, was Lord Byron bound 
 to take the trouble of correcting it, any more than of mea- 
 suring the distances and dimensions of the town, to ascer- 
 tain, when he wrote st. 9, 
 
 * ' It stands some eif^^hty versts from the high sea, 
 And measures round of toises thousands three," 
 
 that his French authority was correct to a toise or a verst in 
 stating that it was '^a peu pres a quatre-vingts versts de la 
 mer: elle a pres de trois milles toises de tour''? It would 
 be just as rational as the complaint made by Farmer that 
 Shakspeare should have copied North's translation of 
 Amyot's mistranslation, which represents Caesar as having 
 bestowed on the Roman people his gardens " on f/iis side 
 Tiber," instead of checking it by ascertaining that Plutarch 
 had written 'Trs^av rov ^orufjLov. With this discovery, and 
 some clumsy joking upon Upton and one or two others 
 who *'had found in Shakspeare more than Shakspeare 
 knew," the merits of the Essay cease. Nothing is proved 
 of the want of learning of Shakspeare. He quotes no Greek ; 
 indeed, it would have been very strange if he had. Some 
 commentators ignorantly suppose French or northern words 
 to be Italian; and that is to serve as a proof that he who, 
 upon proper occasion, makes true Italian quotations knows 
 nothing of the language. A few words of Spanish occur in 
 his plays ; some of them had been quoted elsewhere : ergo, 
 Shakspeare knew no Spanish. French and Latin abound in 
 his plays ; but as there is a supposed mispronunciation in 
 the one, and a chance exists that sedulous hunting in the 
 most out-of-the-way places might procure some store of the 
 latter : therefore we are to be certain that he knew nothing 
 of either tongue. The consummation of impudence is the 
 following: 
 
no FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 ^' I hope, my good friend, you have by this time acquitted our 
 great poet of all piratical depredations on the ancients, and are 
 ready to receive my conchision. He remembered, perhaps, 
 enough of his school-boy learning to put the ///^, hag^ hog into the 
 mouth of Sir Hugh Evans, and might pick up in the writers of 
 the time, or the course of his conversation, a familiar phrase or 
 two of French or Italian ; but his sttcdies were most demonstra- 
 tively confined to naticre and his own langtiage.^^ 
 
 Who would believe that, in the works concerning which 
 Dr. Farmer comes to this monstrous conclusion^ very many 
 whole sentences, and some hundreds of Latin, French, and 
 Italian words occur, always quoted and introduced with the 
 most perfect propriety, and often with admirable felicity and 
 wit? The very scene in which Farmer found this Hig^ hag^ 
 hog^ is a proof that Shakspeare knew a great deal more, and 
 that he could afford to trifle with his knowledge. It is im- 
 possible to conceive the character of Holofernes in Lovers 
 LabouT^s Lost^ or that of Dr. Caius in the Merry Wives of 
 Windsor^ to have been written by a man not perfectly versant 
 in Latin and French. All through the plays the style is 
 filled with words derived from foreign languages, happily 
 naturalised and adapted to the genius of our tongue. Min- 
 ute allusions to what is to be found in various foreign 
 literatures are abundant There exists, in short, as 
 much reason to charge Dr. Johnson wath a w^ant of know- 
 ledge of Latin or Greek as Shakspeare. It is a position 
 which I should not scruple undertaking to prove from 
 his Commentary, if I were allowed to use the method of 
 Farmer. 
 
 But I shall not detain my readers any longer. My object 
 has been to show that, whether Shakspeare was possessed of 
 learning or not, there is nothing in Dr. Farmer's celebrated 
 Essay — an essay of which its author tells us ^'one of the 
 first critics of the age declared it had for ever decided the 
 question," to convict the poet of ignorance ; and, therefore, 
 that all future editors may disencumber themselves of 
 the Doctor's flippant labours. Anything valuable in the 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. iii 
 
 pamphlet, and that is not much, has been duly gathered 
 into notes, and there it may remain. The sophistry which 
 turned into proofs of Shakspeare's ignorance the anxiety of 
 Upton, and other scholars more learned than judicious, to 
 find classical learning where nothing of the kind was thought 
 of, or apply classical rules and technical denominations to 
 plain English, is not worth preserving. Shakspeare must 
 not be pronounced illiterate because Upton was pedantic, 
 Warburton crotchety, or Colman, as Farmer assures us, 
 better employed than in reading a translation of Ariosto. 
 That ordinary readers should think only of the genius and 
 eloquence, the wit and pathos, the profound reasoning and 
 shrewd common-sense, conveyed in poetry exquisite in all 
 styles from the sublime to the grotesque, which are profusely 
 scattered through every page of his works, and pay but 
 secondary attention to those marks of learning which in 
 less gifted compositions would force themselves upon atten- 
 tion, is not to be wondered at ; but there is no excuse for 
 a commentator or '' editor in form,'' as Farmer calls himself, 
 who cannot see in them any literary knowledge beyond Hig, 
 hag, hog. It requires, in my opinion, no small quantity of 
 reading of every kind to write a fit commentary on Shak- 
 . speare. Farmer unfairly says : ''Those who apply solely to 
 the ancients for this purpose may, with equal wisdom, 3tudy 
 the Talmud for an exposition of Tristram Shandy:' The 
 libraries of Cambridge would have supplied Dr. Farmer with 
 materials sufficient to prove that much of the commonplaces 
 of general drollery and story-telling— much of what fills the 
 pages of the Joe Millers of Europe, had its origin in the 
 Rabbinical writings, or the older traditions whence they were 
 compiled ; and that many an ordinary jest, and many a scrap 
 of eccentric learning in Tristram Shandy, is traceable to 
 the Talmud, though Sterne did not go there to find them. 
 A Hebrew reader wishing to display his own erudition, 
 rather than to explain his author, might cull from the rarely 
 opened Mischnas and Gemaras of Jerusalem and Babylon 
 (and do it without much trouble or learning either, by 
 
112 FARMER'S ESSAY ON THE 
 
 merely turning over Bartoloccius) ^ materials to afford 
 strange illustrations of any volume of Rabelaisian drollery; 
 and, according as his task was executed, produce a work of 
 pedantry or learning, of interest or of folly: but what ana- 
 logy is there between the cases of Shakspeare and Sterne in 
 the comparison here instituted? The chances that Sterne 
 had ever read any Hebrew are rather small, still smaller that 
 he was acquainted with even the Rabbinical letters in which 
 the Talviud is written. No odds ever laid would be too 
 great to set against his having, for a moment, consulted one 
 of its pages. Can we say the same of Shakspeare and the 
 classics ? He may not, perhaps, have read Homer in the 
 original Greek, though I see nothing in his plays to /r^z'^ 
 the contrary, and should receive any external evidence 
 showing that he was acquainted with the language without 
 surprise. Sure I am that nowhere has Shakspeare afforded 
 us such an evidence of a want of critical reading of Homer, 
 coupled with such a general ignorance of the ordinary rules 
 of Greek grammar and metre, as Dr. Johnson in his note on 
 the line ''A caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford," in 
 Richard IL^ act i. sc. 2. ''Caitiff originally signified a 
 prisoner [which it never did] ; next a slave, from the condi- 
 tion of prisoners ; then a scoundrel, from the qualities of a 
 slave : — 
 
 'H^^cri; TTjS dperrjs airoaivvraL ^oijXlov -^/xap.'* 
 
 On this Holt White remarks that the learned commentator, 
 quoting from memory, '' has compressed a couplet into a 
 single line ;'' and most learnedly has he managed it. In 
 the first place, it is a pleasant mark of scholarship to mis- 
 quote one of the best-known and most frequently cited 
 
 passages of the Odyssey — (if Shakspeare had done so ! ); 
 
 and, secondly, Eumaeus, the divine swineherd, who speaks 
 the lines, has to thank Johnson for a superfluous article 
 
 * Particularly in his third volume, where the Talmud is described at 
 great prohxity. Some jokes, which passed on the Middle Ages as occidental, 
 will be found at pp. 603-4. — Bihliotheca Magna Rabbinica. 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 113 
 
 (^rrjg ol^sttj;)^ a false quantity {a^oanvrai before 3), and an 
 un-Homeric sentiment, by attributing to the "servile day,' 
 that which Homer attributes to the far-seeing Jove. We 
 cannot say of the doctor as Mercury says of Charon — ^vyz 
 'jraoiuhig. In commenting on a writer so multifarious and 
 drawing his allusions from such various sources as Shak- 
 speare, it would indeed be absurd to confine ourselves solely 
 to consulting classical writers for the purposes of illustration ; 
 but it would be equally absurd to neglect them altogether 
 out of respect to a theory of his literary ignorance, conceived 
 in impertinence, and supported by such weak reasons and 
 paltry instances as those urged and adduced by Farmer. 
 It seems to me just as reasonable to believe that Sterne had 
 studied Rabbi Hakkadosh as to maintain that Shakspeare 
 had not read Virgil and Ovid, and was not master of the 
 languages of France and Italy. 
 
 What I principally complain of, and what in fact induced 
 me to write these papers, is the tone of cool insult displayed 
 towards one of the greatest men that ever appeared in the 
 world, by every puny pedant who had gone through the 
 ceremonial of Hig, hag^ hog. One tells us that Shakspeare 
 had no acquaintance with the history of literature. Here 
 we are assured by a man who is not able to explain ordinary 
 words of Italian or French that Shakspeare could not have 
 read these languages, and was obliged to look to transla- 
 tions for a scanty knowledge of Rabelais, Ronsard, or 
 Montaigne. Want of knowledge of Latin is thrust upon 
 him by persons superficially acquainted with its language or 
 its literature, and who would assuredly blunder in any at- 
 tempt to write it. Ritson accuses him of ignorance, because 
 he has mixed names of different languages in Hamlet^ the 
 said Ritson not being able to distinguish Arthur of the 
 Round Table from the constellation Arcturus ; "^ men who 
 
 * Hamlet act i. sc. i. "The strange indiscriminate use of Italian and 
 
 names in this and other plays makes it obvious that the author 
 
 Tttle conversant in even the rudiments of either language." — Ritson, 
 
 o- cious reason, and worthy of the critic ! We find in a letter of his to 
 
 VOL. 11. ^ 
 
114 FARMER'S ESSAY OX THE 
 
 know not the technical words of our courts are content to 
 give him credit for a mere scrivener's knowledge of law ; 
 Cockneys, who could not tell the stem from the stern of a 
 ship, jfind him guilty of not knowing seamen's language ; 
 Steevens is inclined to think that he had no means of ascer- 
 taining the names of the flowers of the field ; critics of 
 Hampstead or Fleet Street, " who never rowed in gondola/' 
 are quite certain that Italy was terra incognita to him; 
 
 Robert Surtees, published by Sir Harris Nicholas, a request to have a trans- 
 lation made for him of a singular epigram by Bishop Aldhelm. Other 
 learned persons had assisted him in this difficult work of recondite scholar- 
 ship, but he was not satisfied ; for with these, such as they are, and the help 
 of Ainsworth s Dictionary, I have endeavoured to make a sort of trans- 
 lation, line for line, as well as I could." He then prattles about Arthure's, or 
 King Arthur's Wain : — " Though I have never met with Arthur's wain in 
 any book or map." Lydgate, Douglas, and Owen are then referred to for 
 Arthure's plough, Arthure's hufe, and Arthure's harp ; and then come the 
 "obscure and obsolete words" of Aldhelm. I give the first two lines, and 
 Ritson's translation : 
 
 ^^ De Artur. 
 
 Sydereis stipor turmis in vertice mundi 
 Esseda, famoso gesto cognomine vulgi." 
 
 ''Of Arthur. 
 With starry troops I am environed in the pole of the world, 
 In a war-chariot, a famous surname of the people being born 1 " 
 
 '*A famous surname of the people being born!" What can this mean? 
 The bishop's verses relate to the star Arcturus ; a line drawn from which, 
 N. by N.W., falls in with the last star of the Great Bear, or the Charles's 
 Wain. Arcturus is therefore made to say that he bears the wain known 
 by the famous cogno?nen vulgi — i,e. of the ploughman — the Churl's Wain, 
 which in aftertimes was corrupted into the Charles's Wain. Ritson was 
 deceived by the spelling usual in old manuscripts of Arturus for Arcturus 
 (" Ar/us non Ar^rtus ; scriptum video in antiquissimis libris prascipueque in 
 Virgilio Carpensi,'' says Aldus Manutius, in his OrthographicB Ratio^ p. -]"]) ; 
 and he accordingly pressed Bishop Aldhelm's epigram (as he calls it, the 
 bishop styles his compositions aenigmata) into the service of the Round 
 Table. I do not know where he found it ; but, if it was in Aldhelm's Poet- 
 tea Nonnulla, edited by Delrio (Moguntiae, 1601, p. 63), the preceding 
 aenigma on the vertigo poli, which concludes with an allusion to the rapidity 
 of tlie motion of the septem sidera, might have given him a hint. Whether 
 Arcturus had anything to do with Arthur, is a very different question indeed ; 
 but there is no question as to the utter ignorance of Latin manifested, and 
 confessed, by this critic of Shakspeare's Latinity. I am sorry to see this 
 letter quoted, with some admiration, in Eraser s Magazine^ vol. ix. p. 614. 
 
LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE CONSIDERED. 115 
 
 Johnson assures us that whenever he meddles with geo- 
 graphy, he goes astray, the doctor having, when he wrote 
 the note, merely gone astray himself : in short, it would be 
 easy to prove, from the assertions of Shakspeare's conmien- 
 tators, that there was nothing in the world — language, history, 
 geography, law, theology, antiquity, art, science, down to 
 domestic botany — in which his ignorance was not profound ; 
 but not more easy than to select from their own labours a 
 most complete body of ignorance with respect to all the 
 subjects on which they are most sarcastic and pungent, pro- 
 found and dogmatic, at his expense. 
 
 It is not worth the labour to make the collection. I have 
 only to conclude by willingly admitting that the readers of 
 Shakspeare have good reason to be obliged to the commen- 
 tators in general for what they have done — that they have 
 considerably improved the text, explained many a difficult 
 passage, interpreted many an obscure word, and, by diligent 
 reading and research, thrown much light over the plays. 
 For this they deserve their due portion of praise ; those 
 among them, especially, who thought less of themselves 
 than of Shakspeare. They by no means merit the sweeping 
 censures of Tooke, Mathias,"^ and others. I know, also, 
 that commentators on works so voluminous, full of so many 
 troublesome difficulties of all kinds, and requiring such an 
 extended and diversified course of reading, must make mis- 
 takes, and therefore that their errors or rash guesses should 
 
 * In the Diversions of Pur ley Tooke says: "The ignorance and pre- 
 sumption of his commentators have shamefully disfigured Shakspeare 's text. 
 The first folio, notwithstanding some few palpable misprints, requires none 
 of their alterations. Had they understood English as well as he did, they 
 would not have quarrelled with his language." And again: "Rack is a 
 very common word, most happily used, and ought not to be displaced be- 
 cause the commentators knew not its meaning. If such a rule were adopted, 
 the commentators themselves would, most of them, become speechless." — 
 Vol. ii. pp. 389-91, 4to. Yet he departs from the foho to read "one dowle 
 that's in my plume, '^'^ for the folio plumbe in the Tempest^ p. 259 ; and, in 
 Antony and Cleopatra, his commentary alters the rack dis limes into dis 
 limbs, p. 392. Mathias's attack on the commentators in his Pursuits 
 of Literature was once very popular. It is alluded to even by Schlegel. 
 
ii6 FARMER'S ESSAY ON SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 be leniently judged ; but no great leniency can be ex- 
 tended to those who, selecting the easiest part of the task 
 for themselves — that of dipping into the most obvious 
 classical writers — should, on the strength of very small 
 learning, set themselves up as entitled to sneer at a sup- 
 posed want of knowledge in Shakspeare, while their own 
 criticisms and comments afford countless indications, ^' vocal 
 to the intelligent," that they have themselves no great 
 erudition to boast of. 
 
 Apologising to your readers for so long detaining them, 
 through your indulgence, from pleasanter matter, I have the 
 honour to be, dear Mr Yorke, faithfully yours, 
 
 William Maginn. 
 
 Oct. 25 \St. Crispi7i's Day\. 
 
" Then gently scan your brother man, 
 More gently sister woman." — Burns. 
 
 *' Je donne mon avis, non comme bon, mais comme mien." 
 
 — Montaigne. 
 
 The ladies of Shakespeare have, of course, riveted the atten- 
 tion, and drawn to them the sympathies, of all who have 
 read or seen his plays. The book-trained critic, weighing 
 words and sentences in his closet ; the romantic poet, 
 weaving his verses by grove or stream ; the polished occu- 
 pant of the private box; the unwashed brawler of the gallery ; 
 the sedate visitant of the pit — are touched, each in his 
 several way, by the conjugal devotion and melancholy fate 
 of Desdemona, the high-souled principle of Isabella, the 
 enthusiastic love and tragic end of Juliet, the maternal 
 agonies of Constance, the stern energies of Margaret of 
 Anjou, the lofty resignation of Katharine, the wit and 
 romance of Rosalind, frolic of tongue, but deeply feeling at 
 heart ; the accomplished coquetries of Cleopatra, redeemed 
 and almost sanctified by her obedient rushing to welcome 
 death at the call ringing in her ear from the grave of her 
 self-slain husband ; the untiring affection of Imogen, 
 Ophelia's stricken heart and maddened brain, or the filial 
 constancy of Cordelia. Less deeply marked, but all in 
 their kind beautiful, are the innocence of Miranda, the 
 sweetness of Anne Page, the meek bearing — beneath the 
 obtrusion of undesired honours — of Anne Boleyn, the 
 playful fondness of Jessica ; but I should run through all 
 the catalogue of Shakespeare's plays were I to continue the 
 enumeratioa The task is unnecessary, for they dwell in 
 
Ii8 LADY MACBETH. 
 
 the hearts of all, of every age, and sex, and condition. They 
 nestle in the bosoms of the wise and the simple, the seden- 
 tary and the active, the moody and the merry, the learned 
 and the illiterate, the wit of the club, the rustic of the farm, 
 the soldier in camp, the scholar in college ; and it affords a 
 remarkable criterion of their general effect that even in 
 those foreign countries which, either from imperfect know- 
 ledge, defective taste, or national prejudice, set little value 
 on the plays of Shakespeare, while Hamlet, Richard, Mac- 
 beth, King John, Lear, and Falstaff are unknown or rejected, 
 the names of Desdemona and Juliet are familiar as house- 
 hold words. 
 
 No writer ever created so many female characters, or 
 placed them in situations of such extreme diversity ; and in 
 none do we find so lofty an appreciation of female excellence. 
 The stories from which the great dramatists of Athens 
 drew their plots were, in most of their striking incidents, 
 derogatory to woman. The tale of Troy divine, the war of 
 Thebes, the heroic legends, were their favourite, almost their 
 exclusive, sources; and the crimes, passions, and misfortunes 
 of Clytemnestra and Medea, Phsedra and Jocasta, could 
 only darken the scene. An adulterous spouse aiding in the 
 murder of her long-absent lord, the king of men, returning 
 crowned with conquest; a daughter participating in the 
 ruthless avenging by death inflicted on a mother by a son ; 
 an unpitying sorceress killing her children to satiate rage 
 against her husband ; a faithless wife endeavouring to force 
 her shameless love on her step-son, and by false accusation 
 consigning him for his refusal to destruction beneath his 
 father's curse ; a melancholy queen linked in incestuous 
 nuptials to her own offspring : these ladies are the heroines 
 of the most renowned of the Greek tragedies ; and the con- 
 sequences of their guilt and misfortune compose the fable of 
 many more. In some of the Greek plays, as the Eumenides, 
 we have no female characters except the unearthly inhabi- 
 tants of Heaven or Hell. In the most wondrous of them all, 
 Prometheus Fettered, appears only the mythic lo ; in the 
 
LADY MACBETH. 119 
 
 Persians, only the ghost of Atossa, who scarcely appertains 
 to be womankind. In some, as Philoctetes, women form no 
 part of the dramatis personce ; in others, as the Seven against 
 Thebes, they are of no importance to the action of the 
 piece ; or, as in the Suppliants, serve but as the Chorus ; 
 and in many more are of less than secondary importance. 
 Euripides often makes them the objects of those ungallant 
 reflections which consign the misogynic dramatist to such 
 summary punishment from the irritated sex in the comedies 
 of Aristophanes ; and in the whole number, in the thirty- 
 three plays extant, there are but two women who can affect 
 our softer and nobler emotions. The tender and unremitting: 
 care of Antigone for her blind, forlorn, and aged father, her 
 unbending determination to sacrifice her lover and her life 
 sooner than fail in paying funeral honours to her fallen 
 brother ; and, in Alcestis, her resolute urging that her own life 
 should be taken to preserve that of a beloved husband — invest 
 them with a pathetic and heroic beauty. But in the one we 
 are haunted by the horrid recollections of incest and fratricide, 
 and in the other we are somewhat indignant that we should 
 be forced to sympathise with an affection squandered upon 
 so heartless a fellow as Admetus, who suffers his wife to 
 perish in his stead with the most undisturbed conviction of 
 the superior value of his own existence, pouring forth all 
 the while the most melodious lamentations over her death, 
 but never for a moment thinking of coming forward to pre- 
 vent it. They are beautiful creations nevertheless. 
 
 The Greek dramatists were in a great measure bound to 
 a particular class of subjects ; but in general the manner 
 in which an author treats the female character affords one 
 of the main criteria by which the various gradations of 
 o-enius may be estimated. By the highest genius woman is 
 always spoken of with a deep feeling of the most reverential 
 delicacy. Helen is the cause of the war immortalised by 
 the Iliad; but no allusion to her lapse is made throughout 
 the poem save by herself, deploring in bitter accents what 
 she has done. She wishes that she had died an evil death 
 
I20 LADY MACBETH. 
 
 before she had followed Paris ; she acknowledges herself to 
 be unworthy of the kindred of those whom she describes as 
 deserving of honour ; her conscience suggests that her far- 
 famed brothers, " whom one mother bore," are in the field 
 when the warring chieftains meet in truce, but dare not 
 show themselves among their peers through shame of the 
 disgrace she has entailed upon them ; and at the last she 
 lays bare her internal feeling that insult is the lot she de- 
 serves by the warm gratitude with which she acknowledges, 
 in her bitter lament over the corpse of Hector, that he had 
 the generosity never to address her with upbraiding. The 
 wrath of Achilles is roused for the injury inflicted upon him 
 by carrying off Briseis, dear to his heart, " spear-captured as 
 she was." She is restored by the penitent Agamemnon, 
 with solemn vows that she returns pure and uninsulted. 
 Of Andromache I think it unnecessary to speak. In the 
 Odyssey, it is true, we have Circe and Calypso ; but they 
 are goddesses couching with a mortal, and excite no human 
 passion. We meet them in the region oi '' speciosa iiiira- 
 cula^^ where Cyclops, and Sirius, and Lotus-eaters dwell; 
 where the King of the Winds holds his court, and whence 
 is the passage to Erebus. In that glorious mixture of 
 adventure and allegory, the Voyage of Ulysses, we may take 
 those island-beauties to be the wives and sweethearts whom 
 sailors meet in every port ; or, following the stream of 
 moralists and commentators, look upon the fable to be no 
 more than 
 
 ** Truth severe in fairv fiction dressed." 
 
 In other parts of the poem we might wish for more warm- 
 heartedness in Penelope ; but under her circumstances 
 caution is excusable, and she must be admitted to be a 
 pattern of constancy and devotion. The Helen of the 
 Odyssey is a fine continuation of the Helen of the Iliad. 
 Still full of kindly feminine impulses, still sorrowing when 
 she thinks of the misfortunes she has occasioned, her griefs 
 have lost the intense poignancy with which they afflicted 
 
LADY MACBETH. 121 
 
 her while leading a life degrading her in her own eyes, and 
 exposing her to affronts of which she could not complain. 
 Restored to the husband of her early affections, consoled 
 by his pardon, and dwelling once more amid the scenes of 
 her youth — absence from which, and absence so occasioned, 
 she had never ceased to regret in wasting floods of tears — 
 the Helen of the Odyssey comes before us no longer utter- 
 ing the accents of ceaseless self-reproach, but soothed, if 
 not pacified in soul. We have the lull after the tempest — 
 the calm following the whirlwind. 
 
 Virgil is a great poet indeed, though few will now agree 
 with Scaliger that he is equal, far less superior, to Homer. 
 Dido is the blot upon the ^neid. The loves of the Cartha- 
 ginian queen might have made, and in the hands of Virgil 
 would have made, a charming poem, treated separately ; a 
 poem far superior in execution to the Hero and Leander of 
 Musaeus, but a work of the same order. As it stands, the 
 episode, if it can be so called, utterly ruins the epic character 
 of the hero. St. Evremond has said that ^neas had all the 
 qualities of a monk ; it is plain that he had not the feelings 
 of a gentleman ; and we cannot wonder that his first wife 
 wandered from his side, and that he met with so violent an 
 opposition when he sought another. Virgil, after his conduct 
 to Dido, had not the courage to introduce him to Lavina 
 in person, and leaves him undefended to the angry tongue 
 of her mother. The poet was justly punished for his fourth 
 book ; for in all those which follow he has not ventured 
 to introduce any female characters but incendiaries, sibyls, 
 shrews, and furies. 
 
 When Dante took Virgil as his guide in the infernal 
 regions, he did not follow his master in dwelling on the 
 pleasures or the gentler sorrows of illicit love. His ghostly 
 women appear stern or subdued of port. The lady who is 
 best known to the English reader, Francesca di Rimini, 
 forms no exception. Nothing can be more grave and 
 solemn than the tale of her hapless passion as told in the 
 Inferno. It is pervaded throughout by such sorrow and 
 
122 LADY MACBETH. 
 
 remorse as we might expect to find in a region whence hope 
 is excluded. Accordingly, how far different is its impression 
 from that left on the mind by the same story when told 
 merely as a love-tale by Mr. Leigh Hunt ! I do not say 
 this in disparagement of that picturesque and graphic poem, 
 the "Story of Rimini,'' which has been exposed to the most 
 unjustifiable criticism, but to mark the manner in which 
 men of talent and men of genius handle the same subject 
 The ladies of Tasso, though not vigorously sketched, and 
 in general imitated from the Latin poets — I speak of his 
 Jerusalem — are conceived in a spirit of romantic chivalry; 
 and, even when the witching Armida leads Rinaldo astray, 
 the poet diverts our attention from the blandishments of the 
 enchantress to dazzle us by the wonders of magic groves 
 and gardens. Poor Tasso besides wishes to persuade us — 
 perhaps in some moody hours he had persuaded himself — 
 that he intended the whole poem for an allegory, in which 
 Armida was to play some edifying part — I forget what. In 
 the poets of romance we do not look for the severer style 
 of the epic ; but the forest-ranging heroines of Ariosto and 
 Spenser, " roaming the woodland, frank and free," have an 
 air of self-confiding independence and maiden freshness 
 worthy of the leafy scenes through which they move, that 
 renders it impossible to approach them with other thoughts 
 than those of chivalrous deference. If Spenser, in his canto 
 of Jealousy, makes the lady of the victim of that weak 
 passion treat her husband as he anticipated, why, she errs 
 with no man of mortal mould, but chooses as her mates 
 the jolly satyrs wonning in the wood ; and Spenser has his 
 allegory too. Ariosto took no trouble to make explanations, 
 being satisfied, I suppose, with the character given of his 
 poetry by Cardinal Hippolyto ; and even he has the grace 
 to beg the ladies, to whose service he had from the beginning 
 dedicated his lays, to avert their eyes when he is about to 
 sing the strange adventures of Giocondo. 
 
 The theme of Milton in ^' Paradise Lost " hardly admits of 
 the devolopment of ordinary human feelings ; but his sole 
 
LADY MACBETH. 123 
 
 Eve has grace in all her steps, and all her actions too. In 
 " Paradise Regained ^^ his subject was badly chosen ; and he 
 feared, from religious motives, to introduce the Virgin. In 
 " Comus," his Lady is a model of icy chastity, worthy of the 
 classic verse in which she is embalmed ; but Dalilah, in 
 '^Samson Agonistes," is the more dramatic conception. 
 Ornate and gay, she makes urgent court to her angry hus- 
 band, with no better fate than to be by him inexorably 
 repelled. She presses upon him all the topics that could 
 lead to reconciliation, but the sense of his wrongs is too 
 acute to allow of pardon ; and at last she bursts away with 
 the consoling reflection that, though spurned by him, and 
 made the object of reproach in Israelitish songs, she shall 
 be hymned and honoured in those of her own country as a 
 deliverer. Milton was unhappy in his wives and daughters ; 
 and his domestic manners appear to have been harsh and 
 unamiable. In his prose works — his Tetrachordon, for 
 example — he does not display any kindly feeling for the sex ; 
 but when he clothed himself in his singing-robes, and soared 
 above the cares of everyday life to expatiate in the purer 
 regions of poetry, the soul of the poet softened and sublimed ; 
 like his own Adam, his sterner nature relented ; and though 
 he could not make Samson pardon Dalilah, he will not let 
 her depart unhonoured. In '^ Paradise Lost " he had spoken 
 of her disparagingly : 
 
 "So rose the Danite strong, 
 Herculean Samson, from the harlot lap 
 Of Philistsean Dalilah "— 
 
 but when she comes before him, as it were, in bodily 
 presence, he leaves all the words of reproach to her irri- 
 tated lord, and suggests to her topics of self-justification, 
 dismissing her from the stage, not as a faithless wife, but 
 as an heroic woman who had sacrificed her affections to 
 her country, and who retires after humiliating herself in 
 vain to reap the reward of her patriotic conduct among 
 her people and her kindred. 
 
124 LADY MACBETH. 
 
 If we turn from the epic and tragic to the other depart- 
 ments of literature in which genius can be exercised, we 
 shall find the feeling much the same. Those who write 
 from observation of what is going on in the world — the 
 novelist, the comic-writer, the satirist — must take the world 
 as it is, and lay it before us in its mixture of good and 
 evil. There is no need, however, that the latter should be 
 forcibly thrust upon us. The task of the satirists appears 
 to me the lowest in which talent can be employed. The 
 most famous among them, Juvenal, tells us truly that the 
 rigidi ceiisicra cachinni — the part chosen by Democritus — 
 is easy to any one. We must rise above it, as he has done 
 in some of his satires — as in that sublime poem in which 
 the passage occurs (the tenth, or the thirteenth and four- 
 teenth) — and forget the wit or the censor, to assume the 
 loftier bearing of the moralist. I should have wondered 
 that the same mind which produced these noble effusions 
 could have perpetrated the enormities of the sixth satire 
 and some others, if I did not reflect that Rome, originally 
 an asylum for robbers, was nothing more than a standing 
 camp, with the virtues and vices, the manners and the feel- 
 ings of a camp, to the day of its downfall. Rape and 
 violence procured its first women, and it would seem as 
 if the original act had influenced their feelings to the sex 
 throughout. It is certain that theirs is the only hterature 
 in the world in which no female character is delineated 
 worthy of the slightest recollection — a striking circum- 
 stance, and well deserving critical investigation ; but it 
 would now lead us too far from our subject, from which 
 indeed I have delayed too long already. We must get 
 back to Shakespeare, staying only to remark that if Boc- 
 caccio and his imitator, Chaucer, have intermingled licen- 
 tious tales in their miscellaneous collection, they have done 
 so only in compliance with the supposed necessity of delin- 
 eating every species of life, and that they hasten to show 
 that they could be of finer spirit when emancipated from 
 the thraldom of custom ; that Cervantes chequers the comic 
 
LADY MACBETH. 
 
 I2S 
 
 of Don Quixote with visions of graceful and romantic 
 beauty ; and that such will be found to be the case more 
 or less in every composition that takes firm hold of the 
 human mind. I except, of course, works of morals, science, 
 and philosophy; and under those heads must come the 
 unromantic and unpoetic books of wit, and even buffoonery, 
 if they be doomed to last. Rabelais will live for ever to 
 speak vocally to the intelligent; but mere licentiousness 
 must perish. Indulgence in woman-scorning ribaldry inflicts 
 due punishment upon talent itself, if it be prostituted to 
 such miserable work. The melancholy abiUty which has 
 been so successful in La Pucelle affords a sufficient reason 
 why its author failed when he attempted a Henriade. 
 
 Supereminent over all the great geniuses of the world — 
 and with no others have I compared him — is Shakespeare 
 in his women. Homer was not called upon to introduce 
 them in such number or variety, nor could they enter so 
 intimately into the action of his poems. Still less was 
 there opportunity for their delineation in Milton. But 
 Shakespeare's is the unique merit that, being a dramatist 
 wielding equally the highest tragic and the lowest comic, 
 and therefore compelled to bring females prominently 
 forward in every variety of circumstance, he has carefully 
 avoided themes and situations which might inspire either 
 horror or disgust, or excite licentious feeling. We have 
 in him no Phaedra, Clytemnestra, or Medea ; no story like 
 those of Jocasta, or Monimia, or the Mysterious Mother. 
 He would have recoiled from what is hinted at in " Manfred. '^ 
 Even the Myrrha of Sardanapalus could not have found a 
 place among his heroines. In none of his plots, comic or 
 tragic, does female frailty form an ingredient. The only 
 play in which ladies have been betrayed is Measure for 
 Measure; and there he takes care that their misfortune 
 shall be amended, by marrying Mariana to Angelo, and 
 ordering Claudio to restore honour to Julietta whom he had 
 wrono-ed. Nowhere else does a similar example occur, 
 and there it is set in strong contrast with the high-toned 
 
:I26 LADY MACBETH. 
 
 purity of Isabella. In the instances of slandered women, 
 it seems to delight him to place them triumphant over 
 their slanderers ; as Hero in '' Much Ado about Nothing," 
 Hermione in the *' Winter's Tale," Imogen in " CymbeHne." 
 All his heroes woo with the most honourable views ; there 
 is no intrigue in any of his plays, no falsehood to the 
 marriage-bed. Those who offer illicit proposals are exposed 
 to ruin and disgrace. Angelo falls from his lofty station ; 
 Prince John is driven from his brother's court; Falstaff, 
 the wit and courtier, becomes a butt when his evil star 
 leads him to make lawless courtship to the Wives of 
 Windsor. The innocent and natural love of Miranda in 
 the '' Tempest" affords a striking contrast to the coarse and 
 disgusting passion of Dorinda — a character thrust into the 
 play as an improvement by no less a man than Dryden. 
 Here again we may remark how great is the distance which 
 separates genius of the first order even from that which 
 comes nearest to it. The two most detestable women ever 
 drawn by Shakespeare — Regan and Goneril — are both in 
 love with Edmund ; but we have no notice of their passion 
 until the moment of their death, and then we find that, 
 wicked as were the thoughts which rankled in their bosoms, 
 no infringement of the laws of chastity was contemplated ; 
 marriage was their intention : '^ I was contracted to them 
 both,'' says Edmund ; *' all three now marry in an instant." 
 With his dying breath he bears testimony that in the midst 
 of their crimes they were actuated by the dominant feeling 
 of woman : 
 
 " Yet Edmund was beloved ; 
 The one the other poisoned for his sake, 
 And after slew herself." 
 
 Emilia is accused by lago, in soliloquy, as being suspected 
 of faithlessness to his bed, but he obviously does not 
 believe the charge : 
 
 " I hate the Moor ; 
 And it is thought abroad that 'twixt my sheets 
 
LADY MACBETH. ' 127 
 
 He has done my office ; / know not if't be t7'ue, 
 But I, for mere suspicion in that kind, 
 Will do as if for surety." 
 
 He uses it merely as an additional excuse for hating the 
 Moor ; a paUiation to his conscience in the career which he 
 is about to pursue. Queen Gertrude's marriage with her 
 brother-in-law is made the subject of severe animadversion ; 
 but it does not appear that she had dishonoured herself in 
 the life of her first husband, or was in any manner partici- 
 pant in the crime of Claudius. Hamlet, in the vehemence 
 of his anger, never insinuates such a charge ; and the Ghost, 
 rising to moderate his violence, acquits her, by his very 
 appearance at such a time, of any heinous degree of guilt. 
 As for the gross theory of Tieck respecting Ophelia, it is 
 almost a national insult. He maintains that she had yielded 
 to Hamlet's passion, and that its natural consequences had 
 driven her to suicide. Such a theory is in direct opposition 
 to the retiring and obedient purity of her character, the tenor 
 of her conversations and soliloquies, the general management 
 of the play, and what I have endeavoured to show is the 
 undeviating current of Shakspeare's ideas. If the German 
 critic propounded this heresy to insult English readers 
 through one of their greatest favourites in revenge for the 
 ungallant reason which the Archbishop of Canterbury, in 
 Henry V., assigns as the origin of the Salique law, he might 
 be pardoned ; but, as it is plainly dictated by a spirit of 
 critical wickedness and blasphemy, I should consign him, 
 in spite of his learning, acuteness, and Shakespearian know- 
 ledge, without compassion, to the avenging hands of Lysis- 
 trata. 
 
 Such, in the plays where he had to create the characters, 
 w^as the course of Shakespeare. In the historical plays, 
 where he had to write by the book, it is not at all different. 
 Scandal is carefully avoided. Many spots lie on the fame 
 of Queen Elinor, but no difference is made to them by the 
 hostile tongue which describes the mother-queen as a second 
 Ate, stirring her son, King John, to blood and strife. Jane 
 
128 LADY MACBETH. 
 
 Shore, of whom Rowe, a commentator on Shakespeare too, 
 made a heroine, is not introduced on the stage in Richard 
 III. Poor Joan of Arc is used brutally, it must be owned; 
 but it is not till she is driven to the stake that she confesses 
 to an infirmity which not even her barbarous judges can 
 seriously believe. We must observe, besides, that the first 
 part of Henry VI. can scarcely be considered a play of 
 Shakespeare, for he did little more than revise the old play 
 of that name. To the charge of the old dramatists, too, 
 must be set the strange exhibition of Margaret of Anjou 
 mourning over the head of the Duke of Suffolk in the second 
 part. When Shakespeare has that vigorous woman to him- 
 self, as in Richard III., she shows no traces of such weak- 
 ness ; she is the heroic asserter of her husband's rights, the 
 unsubdued but not-to-be-comforted mourner over her foully- 
 slaughtered son. He makes the scenes of the civil wars sad 
 enough ; the father kills the son, the son the father, under 
 the eyes of the pitying king ; but there is no hint of outrage 
 on women. He contrives to interest us equally in Katharine 
 of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. Everything that poetry can 
 do is done to make us forget the faults of Cleopatra, and 
 to incline us to think that a world was well lost for that/(f/// 
 nez retrousse. We should in vain search the writings of the 
 Romans themselves for such Roman ladies as those of" Cori- 
 olanus^' and "Julius Caesar." In his camps and armies we 
 have much mihtary tumult and raihng, but nowhere the intro- 
 duction of licentious scenes. If Alcibiades be attended by 
 his Phryne and Timandra, and Falstaff have his poll clawed 
 like a parrot by Doll Tearsheet, the Athenian ladies are in- 
 troduced as a vehicle for the fierce misanthropy of Timon ; 
 and the fair one of Eastcheap acts as a satire upon the im- 
 potent desires of the withered elder, the dead elm, whom 
 she clasps in her venal embraces. They are drawn in their 
 true colours : no attempt is made to bedeck them with sen- 
 timental graces — to hold them up to sympathetic admiration 
 with the maudlin novelist, or to exhibit them as "interest- 
 ino- young females " with the police-reporter. They lift not 
 
LADY MACBETH. 129 
 
 their brazen fronts in courts and palaces ; in obscure corners 
 they ply their obscene trade. We know that it is their 
 vocation, and dismiss them from our minds. There is no 
 corruption to be feared from the example of the inmates of 
 Mr. Overdone's establishment or Mrs. Quickly's tavern. 
 Shakespeare exhibits only one fallen lady in all his plays 
 — and she is Cressida. But " Troilus and Cressida" 
 deserve a separate paper, if for no other reason, yet because 
 it is a play in which Shakespeare has handled the same 
 characters as Homer. It is worth while to consider in 
 what points these greatest of poets agree, and in what they 
 differ. 
 
 Such, then, is the female character as drawn in Shakespeare. 
 It is pure, honourable, spotless, ever ready to perform a 
 kind action, never shrinking from a heroic one. Gentle 
 and submissive where duty or affection bids, firm and un- 
 daunted in resisting the approaches of sin, or shame, or 
 disgrace ; constant in love through every trial ; faithful and 
 fond in all the great relations of life, as wife, as daughter, as 
 sister, as mother, as friend ; witty or refined, tender or 
 romantic, lofty or gay ; her failings shrouded, her good and 
 lovely qualities brought into the brightest light — she appears 
 in the pages of the mighty dramatist as if she were the 
 cherished daughter of a fond father, the idolised mistress of 
 an adoring lover, the very goddess of a kneeling worshipper. 
 I have catalogued most of the female names which adorn 
 the plays. One is absent from the list. She is absent — 
 the dark lady of that stupendous work which, since the 
 Eumenides, bursting upon the stage with appalling howl in 
 quest of the fugitive Orestes, electrified with terror the 
 Athenian audience, has met no equal. I intend to maintain 
 that Lady Macbeth, too, is human in heart and impulse ; 
 that she is not meant to be an embodiment of the Furies. 
 
 Macbeth is the gloomiest of the plays. Well may its 
 hero say that he has supped full of horrors. It opens with 
 the incantations of spiteful witches, and concludes with a 
 series of savage combats, stimulated by quenchless hate on 
 
 VOL. II. I 
 
I30 LADY MACBETH. 
 
 one side, and by the desperation inspired by the conscious- 
 ness of unpardonable crime on the other. In every act we 
 have blood in torrents. The first man who appears on the 
 stage is the bleeding captain. The first word uttered by 
 earthly lips is "What bloody man is that? " The tale which 
 the captain relates is full of fearful gashes, reeking wounds, 
 and bloody execution. The murder of Duncan, in the 
 second act, stains the hands of Macbeth so deeply as to 
 render them fit to incarnadine the multitudinous seas, and 
 make the green — one red. His lady imbrues herself in the 
 crimson stream, and gilds the faces of the sleeping grooms 
 with gore. She thus affords a pretence to the Thane for 
 slaughtering them in an access of simulated fury : 
 
 " Their hands and faces were all badged with bloody 
 So were their daggers, which unwiped we found 
 Upon their pillows." 
 
 Macbeth carefully impresses the sanguinary scene upon his 
 hearers : 
 
 " Here lay Duncan, 
 His silver skin laced with his golden bloody 
 And his gashed stabs looked like a breach in nature 
 For ruin's wasteful entrance ; there the murderers, 
 Steeped in the colours of their trade, their daggers 
 Unmannerly breeched in ^^r^." 
 
 Direful thoughts immediately follow, and the sky itself 
 participates in the horror. The old man who can well 
 remember threescore and ten, during which time he had 
 witnessed dreadful hours and strange things, considers all 
 as mere trifles compared with the sore night of Duncan's 
 murder : 
 
 '* The heavens, 
 Thou seest, as troubled with man's act, 
 Threaten his bloody stage ; by the clock 'tis day, 
 And yet dark night strangles the travelhng lamp." 
 
 The horses of Duncan forget their careful training, and 
 their natural instincts, to break their stalls and eat each 
 other. Gloom, ruin, murder, horrible doubts, unnatural 
 
LADY MACBETH. 131 
 
 suspicions, portents of dread in earth and heaven, surround 
 us on all sides. In the third act desperate assassins, 
 incensed by the blows and buffets of the world, weary with 
 disasters, tugged with fortune, willing to wreak their hatred 
 on all mankind, and persuaded that Banquo has been their 
 enemy, set upon and slay him, without remorse and with- 
 out a word. The prayer of their master to Night, that 
 she would with 
 
 ''Bloody and invisible hand 
 Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond," 
 
 which kept him in perpetual terror, is in part accomplished ; 
 and he w^ho was his enemy in, as he says, 
 
 * ' Such bloody distance, 
 That every minute of his being thrusts 
 Against my life " — 
 
 lies breathless in the dust. The murderers bring the 
 witness of their deed to the very banquet-chamber of the 
 expecting king. They come with blood upon the face. 
 The hardened stabber does not communicate the tidings of 
 his exploit in set phrase. He minces not the matter : his 
 language is not culled from any trim and weeded vocabulary ; 
 and the king compliments him in return, in language equally 
 vernacular and unrefined : 
 
 ** Mur, My lord, his throat is cut ; that I did for him. 
 Mac, Thou art the best o' the cut-throats." 
 
 Cheered by this flattering tribute to his merits, the 
 accomplished artist goes on, in all the pride of his pro- 
 fession, to show that he had left no rubs or botches in his 
 work. Macbeth, after a burst of indignation at the escape 
 of Fleance, recurs to the comfortable assurance of Banquo's 
 death, and asks, in the full certainty of an answ^er in the 
 affirmative : 
 
 " But Banquo's safe? 
 Alur. Ay, my good lord: safe in a ditch he bides, 
 
132 LADY MACBETH. 
 
 With twenty trenched gashes on his head ; 
 The least a death to nature. 
 Mac. Thanks for that.'' 
 
 Presently the gory locks of Banquo's spectre attest the truth 
 of what the murderer has told, and the banquet breaks up 
 by the flight, rather than the retirement, of the astonished 
 guests ; leaving Macbeth dismally, but fiercely, pondering 
 over thoughts steeped in slaughter. The very language of 
 the scene is redolent of blood. The word itself occurs in 
 almost every speech. At the conclusion of the act come 
 the outspeaking of suspicions hitherto only muttered, and 
 the determination of the Scottish nobles to make an effort 
 which may give to their tables meat, sleep to their eyes, and 
 free their feasts and banquets from those bloody knives, the 
 fatal hue of which haunted them in their very hours of 
 retirement, relaxation, or festival. 
 
 The sanguine stain dyes the fourth act as deeply. A 
 head severed from the body, and a bloody child, are the 
 first apparitions that rise before the king at the bidding of 
 the weird sisters. The blood-boltered Banquo is the last 
 to linger upon the stage, and sear the eyes of the amazed 
 tyrant. The sword of the assassin is soon at work in the 
 castle of Macduff; and his wife and children fly from the 
 deadly blow, shrieking " murder " — in vain. And the fifth 
 act — from its appalling commencement, when the sleeping 
 lady plies her hopeless task of nightly washing the blood- 
 stained hand, through the continual clangour of trumpets 
 calling, as clamorous harbingers, to blood and death to its 
 conclusion, when Macduff, with dripping sword, brino-s in 
 the freshly hewn-off head of the '' dead butcher," to lay it 
 at the feet of the victorious Malcolm — exhibits a sequence 
 of scenes in which deeds and thoughts of horror and 
 violence are perpetually, and almost physically, forced upon 
 the attention of the spectator. In short, the play is one 
 clot of blood from beginning to end. It was objected to 
 Alfieri (by Grimm, I believe) that he wrote his trao-edies 
 not in tears, but blood, Shakespeare could write in tears 
 
LADY MACBETH. 13 
 
 when he pleased. In Macbeth he chose to dip his pen in 
 a darker current. 
 
 Nowhere in the course of the play does he seek to be- 
 guile us of our tears. We feel no more interest in the 
 gracious Duncan, in Banquo, in Lady Macduff, than we do 
 in the slaughtered grooms. We feel that they have been 
 brutally murdered ; and, if similar occurrences were to take 
 place in Wapping or Rotherhithe, London would be in com- 
 motion. All the police from A to Z would be set on the 
 alert, the newspapers crammed with paragraphs, and a hot 
 search instigated after the murderer. If taken, he would be 
 duly tried, wondered at, gazed after, convicted, hanged, and 
 forgotten. We should think no more of his victim than we 
 now think of Hannah Browne. The other characters of the 
 play, with the exception of the two principal, are nonentities. 
 We care nothing for Malcolm or Donalbain, or Lennox or 
 Rosse, or the rest of the Scottish nobles. Pathetic, indeed, 
 are the words which burst from Macduff when he hears the 
 astounding tidings that all his pretty chickens and their dam 
 have been carried off at one fell swoop ; but he soon shakes 
 the woman out of his eyes, and dreams only of revenge. 
 His companions are slightly affected by the bloody deed, 
 and grief is in a moment converted into rage. It is but a 
 short passage of sorrow, and the only one of the kind. 
 What is equally remarkable is, that we have but one slight 
 piece of comic in the play — the few sentences given to the 
 porter ; "^ and their humour turns upon a gloomy subject for 
 
 * The speech of this porter is in blank verse : — 
 
 " Here is a knocking indeed ! If a man 
 Were porter of hell-gate, he should have old 
 Turning the key. Knock — knock — knock ! Who is there, 
 In the name of Beelzebub ? Here is a farmer 
 That hanged himself [upjon the expectation 
 Of plenty : come in time. Have napkins enough 
 About you. Here you'll sweat for it. Knock — knock ! 
 Who's there, in the other devil's name? [P] faith 
 Here's an equivocator, that could swear 
 In both the scales 'gainst either scale ; [one] who 
 Committed treason enough for God's sake, yet 
 
134 LADY MACBETH. 
 
 jest — the occupation of the keeper of the gates of HelL 
 With these two exceptions — the brief pathos of Macduff, 
 and the equally brief comedy of the porter — all the rest is 
 blood. Tears and laughter have no place in this cavern of 
 death. 
 
 Of such a gory poem Macbeth is the centre, the moving 
 spirit From the beginning, before treason has entered his 
 mind, he appears as a man delighting in blood. The captain, 
 announcing his deeds against Macdonwald, introduces him 
 bedabbled in slaughter : — 
 
 "For brave Macbeth — well he deserves that name — 
 Disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel, 
 Which smoked with bloody execution, 
 Like valour's minion carved out his passage 
 Until he faced the slave ; 
 
 And ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him, 
 Till he unseamed him from the nave to the chops,* 
 And fixed his head upon our battlements." 
 
 After this desperate backstroke, as Warburton justly calls 
 it, Macbeth engages in another combat equally sanguinary. 
 He and Banquo 
 
 Cannot equivocate to Heaven. Oh ! come in, 
 
 Equivocator. Knock — knock — knock! Who's there? 
 , 'Faith, here's an English tailor come hither 
 
 For stealing out of a French hose. Come in, tailor. 
 
 Here you may roast your goose. 
 
 Knock — knock — 
 
 Never in quiet. 
 . Who are you ? but this place is too cold for hell. 
 
 I'll devil-porter it no longer. I had thought 
 
 T' have let in some of all professions, 
 
 That go the primrose-path to th' everlasting darkness." 
 
 The alterations I propose are very slight. Upon for on, Pfaith {ox faith, 
 and the introduction of the word one in a place where it is required. The 
 succeeding dialogue is also in blank verse. So is the sleeping-scene of Lady 
 Macbeth ; and that so palpably that I wonder it could ever pass for prose. 
 — W. M. 
 
 * Warburton proposes that we should read "from the nape to the chops," 
 as a more probable wound. But this could hardly be called unseaming ; 
 and the wound is intentionally horrid, to suit the character of the play. 
 So, for the same reason, when Duncan is murdered, we are made to remark 
 that the old man had much blood in him, — W, M. 
 
LADY MACBETH. 135 
 
 " Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe ; 
 
 Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds, 
 Or memorise another Golgotha, 
 I cannot tell." 
 
 Hot from such scenes, he is met by the witches. They 
 promise him the kingdom of Scotland. The gUttering prize 
 instantly affects his imaginaton. He is so wrapt in thought, 
 at the very moment of its announcement, that he cannot 
 speak. He soon informs us what is the hue of the visions 
 passing through his mind. The witches had told him he 
 was to be king : they had not said a word about the means. 
 He instantly supplies them : 
 
 " Why do I yield to that suggestion 
 Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair, 
 And make my seated heart knock at my ribs 
 Against the use of nature ? " 
 
 The dreaded word itself soon comes : 
 
 *'My thought, whose MURDER yet is but fantastical, 
 Shakes so my single state of man that function 
 Is smothered in surmise." 
 
 To a mind so disposed temptation is unnecessary. The 
 thing was done. Duncan was marked out for murder before 
 the letter was written to Lady Macbeth, and she only 
 followed the thought of her husband. 
 
 Love for him is in fact her guiding passion. She sees^ 
 that he covets the throne — that his happiness is wrapped 
 up in the hope of being a king — and her part is accordingly 
 taken without hesitation. With the blindness of affection 
 she persuades herself that he is full of the milk of human 
 kindness, and that he would reject false and unholy ways 
 of attaining the object of his desire. She deems it, there- 
 fore, her duty to spirit him to the task. Fate and rneta- 
 physcial aid, she argues, have destined him for the golden 
 round of Scotland. Shall she not lend her assistance ? 
 She does not ask the question twice. She will. Her sex, 
 her woman's breasts, her very nature, oppose the task she 
 has prescribed to herself; but she prays to the ministers of 
 murder — to the spirits that tend on mortal thoughts — to 
 
I -.6 LADY MACBETH. 
 
 J 
 
 make thick her blood, and stop up the access and passage 
 of remorse ; and she succeeds in mustering the desperate 
 courage which bears her through. Her instigation was not, 
 in reaUty, wanted. Not merely the murder of Duncan, but 
 of Malcolm, was already resolved on by Macbeth : 
 
 *• The Prince of Cumberland ! That is a step 
 On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap, 
 For in my way it lies. Stars ! hide your fires, 
 Let not light see my black and dark desires !" 
 
 As the time for the performance of the deed approaches, 
 he is harassed by doubts ; but he scarcely shows any traces 
 of compunction or remorse. He pauses before the crime — 
 not from any hesitation at its enormity, but for fear of its 
 results — for fear of the poisoned chalice being returned to 
 his own lips — for fear of the trumpet-tongued indignation 
 which must attend the discovery of the murder of so popular 
 a prince as Duncan ; one who has borne his faculties so 
 meekly, and loaded Macbeth himself with honours. He is 
 not haunted by any feeling for the sin, any compassion for 
 his victim : the dread of losing the golden opinions he has 
 so lately won, the consequences of failure, alone torment 
 him. His wife has not to suggest murder, for that has been 
 already resolved upon ; but to' represent the weakness of 
 •drawing back, after a resolution has once been formed. 
 She well knows that the momentary qualm will pass off; 
 that Duncan is to be slain, perhaps when time and place 
 will not so well adhere. Now, she argues — now it can be 
 done with safety. Macbeth is determined to wade through 
 slaughter to a throne. If he passes this moment, he loses 
 the eagerly-desired prize, and lives for ever after a coward 
 in his own esteem ; or he may make the attempt at a 
 moment when detection is so near at hand, the stroke which 
 sends Duncan to his fate will be but the prelude of the de- 
 struction of my husband. She therefore rouses him to do 
 at once that from which she knows nothing but fear of 
 detection deters him ; and, feeling that there are no con- 
 scientious scruples to overcome, applies herself to show that 
 
LADY MACBETH. 137 
 
 the present is the most favourable instant. It is for him 
 she thinks — for him she is unsexed — for his ambition she 
 works — for his safety she provides. 
 
 Up to the very murder Macbeth displays no pity — no 
 feeling for anybody but himself. Fear of detection still 
 haunts him, and no other fear : 
 
 "Thou sure and steadfast earth, 
 Hear not my steps which way they walk, for fear 
 Ihe very stones prate of my whereabout." 
 
 As Lady Macbeth says, it is the frustrated attempt, not the 
 crime, that can confound him. When it has been accom- 
 plished, he is for a while visited by brain-sick fancies ; and 
 to her, who sees the necessity of prompt action, is left the 
 care of providing the measures best calculated to avert the 
 dreaded detection. She makes light of facing the dead, 
 and assures her husband that 
 
 "A Httle water clears us of this deed. 
 How easy it is then !" 
 
 Does she indeed feel this? Are these the real emotions 
 of her mind ? Does she think that a little water will wash 
 out what has been done, and that it is as easy to make all 
 trace of it vanish from the heart as from the hand ? She 
 shall answer us from her sleep, in the loneliness of mid- 
 night, in the secrecy of her chamber. Bold was her bear- 
 ing, reckless and defying her tongue, when her husband 
 was to be served or saved ; but the sigh bursting from her 
 heavily-charged breast, and her deep agony when she feels 
 that, so far from its being easy to get rid of the witness of 
 murder, no washing can obliterate the damned spot, no 
 perfume sweeten the hand once redolent of blood, prove 
 that the recklessness and defiance were only assumed. We 
 find at last what she had sacrificed, how dreadful was the 
 struggle she had to subdue. Her nerve, her courage, 
 mental and physical, was unbroken during the night of 
 murder; but horror was already seated in her heart. Even 
 then a touch of what was going on in her bosom breaks 
 
138 LADY MACBETH. 
 
 forth. When urging Macbeth to act, she speaks as if she 
 held the strongest ties of human nature in contempt : 
 
 *' I have given suck, and know 
 How tender 'lis to love the babe that milks me : 
 I would, when it was smiling in my face, 
 Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums, 
 And dashed the brains out, had I but so sworn 
 As you have done to this." 
 
 Is she indeed so unnatural — so destitute of maternal, of 
 womanly feeling? No. In the next scene we find her 
 deterred from actual participation in killing Duncan, be- 
 cause he resembled her father in his sleep. This is not 
 the lady to pluck the nipple from the boneless gums of her 
 infant, and dash out its brains. Her language is exagge- 
 rated in mere bravado, to taunt Macbeth's infirmity of pur- 
 pose by a comparison with her own boasted firmness ; but, 
 if the case had arisen, she who had recoiled from injuring 
 one whose life stood in the way of her husband's hopes 
 from a fancied resemblance to her father would have seen 
 in the smile of her child a talisman of resistless protec- 
 tion. 
 
 The murder done, and her husband on the throne, she 
 is no longer implicated in guilt. She is unhappy in her 
 elevation, and writhes under a troubled spirit in the midst 
 of assumed gaiety. She reflects with a settled melancholy 
 that 
 
 '^ Naught's had, all's spent, 
 When our desire is got without content. 
 'Tis safer to be that which we destroy 
 Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy." 
 
 This to herself. To cheer her lord, she speaks a different 
 language in the very next line : 
 
 *' How now, my lord! why do you keep alone, 
 Of sorriest fancies your companions making ; 
 Using those thoughts which should indeed have died 
 With those they think on ?" 
 
 Her own thoughts, we have just seen, were full as sorry as 
 
LADY MACBETH. J39 
 
 those of her husband; but she can wear a mask. Twice 
 only does she appear after her accession to the throne ; 
 once masked, once unmasked ; once seated at high 
 festival, entertaining the nobles of her realm, full of grace 
 and courtesy, performing her stately hospitalities with 
 cheerful countenance, and devising with rare presence of 
 mind excuses for the distracted conduct of her husband ; 
 once again, when all guard is removed, groaning in 
 despair. 
 
 The few words she says to Macbeth after the guests 
 have departed, almost driven out by herself, mark that her 
 mind is completely subdued. She remonstrates with him 
 at first for having broken up the feast ; but she cannot 
 continue the tone of reproof when she finds that his 
 thoughts are bent on gloomier objects. Blood is for ever 
 on his tongue. She had ventured to tell him that the 
 visions which startle him were but the painting of his brain, 
 and that he was unmanned in folly. He takes no heed of 
 what she says, and continues to speculate — at first in dis- 
 traction, then in dread, and lastly in savage cruelty — upon 
 blood. The apparition of Banquo almost deprives him of 
 his senses. He marvels that such things could be, and 
 complains that a cruel exception to the ordinary laws of 
 nature is permitted in his case. Blood, he says, 
 
 (( 
 
 has been shed ere now in the olden time, 
 
 Ere human statute purged the gentle weal " : 
 
 and in more civilised times also ; but, when death came, 
 no further consequences followed. Now, not even twenty 
 mortal murders (he remembered the number of deadly 
 gashes reported by the assassin) will keep the victim in his 
 grave. As long as Banquo's ghost remains before him, he 
 speaks in the same distracted strain. When the object of 
 his special wonder, by its vanishing, gives him time to 
 reflect, fear of detection, as usual, is his first feeling : 
 
 *' It will have blood, they say ; blood will have blood ! " 
 
 The most improbable witnesses have detected murder. 
 
l40 LADY MACBETH. 
 
 Stones, trees, magotpies, choughs, have disclosed the 
 secretest man of blood. Then come cruel resolves, to rid 
 himself of his fears. Mercy or remorse is to be henceforth 
 unknown ; the firstlings of his heart are to be the firstlings 
 of his hand ; the bloody thought is to be followed instantly 
 by the bloody deed. The tiger is now fully aroused in his 
 soul : 
 
 **I am in blood 
 Stept in so far that, should I wade no more, 
 Returning were as tedious as go o'er." 
 
 He sees an enemy in every castle ; everywhere he plants 
 his spies ; from every hand he dreads an attempt upon his 
 life. Nearly two centuries after the play was written the 
 world beheld one of its fairest portions delivered to a rule 
 as bloody as that of the Scottish tyrant; and so true to 
 nature are the conceptions of Shakespeare, that the speeches 
 of mixed terror and cruelty, which he has given to Macbeth, 
 might have been uttered by Robespierre. The atrocities 
 of the Jacobin, after he had stept so far in blood, were 
 dictated by fear. '' Robespierre,'' says a quondam satellite, 
 '' devenait plus sombre ; son air renfrogne repoussait tout le 
 monde ; il ne parlait que d'assassinat encore d'assassinat, 
 toujours d'assassinat. Ill avait peur que son sombre ne 
 Tassassinat." 
 
 Lady Macbeth sees this grisly resolution, and ceases to 
 remonstrate or interfere. Her soul is bowed down before 
 his, and he communicates with her no longer. He tells 
 her to be ignorant of what he plans, until she can applaud 
 him for what he has done. When he abruptly asks her 
 
 " How say'st thou— that Macduff denies his person 
 At our great bidding ? " 
 
 she, well knowing that she has not said anything about it, 
 and that the question is suggested by his own fear and 
 suspicion, timidly inquires : 
 
 *' Have you sent to him, sir ? " 
 
 The last word is an emphatic proof that she is wholly 
 
LADY MACBETH. 141 
 
 subjugated. Too well is she aware of the cause and the 
 consequence of Macbeth's sending after Macduff; but she 
 ventures not to hint. She is no longer the stern-tongued 
 lady urging on the work of death, and taunting her husband 
 for his hesitation. She now addresses him in the humbled 
 tone of an inferior ; we now see fright and astonishment 
 seated on her face. He tells her that she marvels at his 
 words, and she would fain persuade herself that they are 
 but the feverish effusions of an overwrought mind. Sadly 
 she says — 
 
 •' You lack the season of all nature — sleep.'* 
 
 Those are the last words we hear from her waking lips ; 
 and, with a hope that repose may banish those murky 
 thoughts from her husband's mind, she takes, hand in hand 
 with him, her tearful departure from the stage ; and seeks 
 her remorse-haunted chamber, there to indulge in useless 
 reveries of deep-rooted sorrow, and to perish by her own 
 hand amid the crashing ruin of her fortunes, and the fall of 
 that throne which she had so fatally contributed to win. 
 
 He now consigns himself wholly to the guidance of the 
 weird sisters ; and she takes no part in the horrors which 
 desolate Scotland, and rouse against him the insurrection 
 of the enraged Thanes. But she clings to him faithfully in 
 his downfall. All others, except the agents of his crimes 
 and his personal dependants, have abandoned him ; but 
 she, with mind diseased, and a heart weighed down by the 
 perilous stuff of recollections that defy the operation of 
 oblivious antidote, follows him to the doomed castle of 
 Dunsinane. It is evident that he returns her affection, by 
 his anxious solicitude about her health, and his melancholy 
 recital of her mental sufferings. He shows it still more 
 clearly by his despairing words when the tidings of her death 
 are announced. Seyton delays to communicate it ; but at 
 last the truth must come — that the queen is dead. It is the 
 overflowing drop in his cup of misfortune : 
 
 " She should have died hereafter; 
 There would have been a time for such a word." 
 
142 LADY MACBETH. 
 
 I might have borne it at some other time ; but now — now — 
 now that I am deserted by all— penned in my last fortress — 
 feeling that the safeguards in which I trusted are fallacious 
 — now it is indeed the climax of my calamity that she who 
 helped me to rise to what she thought was prosperity and 
 honour — who clung to me through a career that inspired all 
 else with horror and hate — and who, in sickness of body 
 and agony of mind, follows me in the very desperation of 
 my fate, should at such an hour be taken from me — I am 
 now undone indeed ! He then, for the first time, reflects 
 on the brief and uncertain tenure of life. He has long 
 dabbled in death, but it never before touched himself so 
 closely. He is now aweary of the sun ; now finds the deep 
 curses which follow him sufficiently loud to pierce his ear ; 
 now discovers that he has already lived long enough; and 
 plunges into the combat, determined, if he has lived the 
 life of a tyrant, to die the death of a soldier, wath harness 
 on his back. Surrender or suicide does not enter his mind ; 
 with his habitual love of bloodshed he feels a sava2:e 
 pleasure in dealing gashes all around : and at last, w^hen he 
 finds the charms on which he depended of no avail, flings 
 himself, after a slight hesitation, into headlong conflict with 
 the man by whose sword he knows he is destined to fall, 
 with all the reckless fury of despair. What had he now to 
 care for? The last tie that bound him to human kind was 
 broken by the death of his wife, and it was time that his 
 tale of sound and fury should come to its appropriate close. 
 Thus fell he whom Malcolm in the last speech of the play 
 calls "the dead butcher." By the same tongue Lady Mac- 
 beth is stigmatised as the fiend-like queen. Except her 
 share in the murder of Duncan — which is, however, quite 
 sufficient to justify the epithet in the mouth of his son — she 
 does nothing in the play to deserve the title ; and for her 
 crime she has been sufficiently punished by a life of disaster 
 and remorse. She is not the tempter of Macbeth. It does 
 not require much philosophy to pronounce that there were 
 no such beings as the weird sisters ; or that the voice that 
 
LADY MACBETH. 143 
 
 told the Thane of Glamis that he was to be king of Scotland 
 was that of his own ambition. In his own bosom was brewed 
 the hell-broth, potent to call up visions counselling tyranny 
 and blood; and its ingredients were his own evil passions 
 and criminal hopes. Macbeth himself only believes as 
 much of the prediction of the witches as he desires. The 
 same prophets who foretold his elevation to the throne 
 foretold also that the progeny of Banquo would reign ; and 
 yet, after the completion of the prophecy so far as he is 
 himself concerned, he endeavours to mar the other part by 
 the murder of Fleance. The weird sisters are, to him, no 
 more than the Evil Spirit which, in Faust, tortures Margaret 
 at her prayers. They are but the personified suggestions of 
 his mind. She, the wife of his bosom, knows the direction 
 of his thoughts ; and, bound to him in love, exerts every 
 energy, and sacrifices every feeling, to minister to his hopes 
 and aspirations. This is her sin, and no more. He retains, 
 in all his guilt and crime, a fond feeling for his wife. Even 
 when meditating slaughter and dreaming of blood, he 
 addresses soft words of conjugal endearment; he calls her 
 '^ dearest chuck," while devising assassinations with the 
 foreknowledge of which he is unwilling to sully her mind. 
 Selfish in ambition, selfish in fear, his character presents no 
 point of attraction but this one merit. Shakespeare gives 
 us no hint as to her personal charms, except w^hen he 
 makes her describe her hand as ^Mittle." We may be sure 
 that there were few ^^more thorough-bred or fairer fingers" 
 in the land of Scotland than those of its queen, whose 
 bearing in public toward Duncan, Banquo, and the nobles 
 is marked by elegance and majesty, and in private by 
 affectionate anxiety for her sanguinary lord. He duly 
 appreciated her feelings ; but it is pity that such a woman 
 should have been united to such a man. If she had been 
 less strong of purpose, less worthy of confidence, he would 
 not have disclosed to her his ambitious designs ; less 
 resolute and prompt of thought and action, she would not 
 have been called on to share his guilt ; less sensitive or more 
 
144 LADY MACBETH. 
 
 hardened, she would not have suffered it to prey for ever 
 like a vulture upon her heart. She affords, as I consider 
 it, only another instance of what women will be brought to 
 by a love which listens to no considerations, which dis- 
 regards all else besides, when the interests, the wishes, the 
 happiness, the honour, or even the passions, caprices, and 
 failings of the beloved object are concerned ; and if the 
 world, in a compassionate mood, will gently scan the softer 
 errors of sister-woman, may we not claim a kindly construing 
 for the motives which plunged into the Aceldama of this 
 blood-washed tragedy the sorely-urged and broken-hearted 
 Lady Macbeth ? 
 
JSob :Kurf?e's Duel witb Bnsign Bra^^ ot 
 
 tbe 48tb. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 HOW BOB WAS IN LOVE WITH MISS THEODOSIA MACNAMARA. 
 
 '' When the 48th were quartered in Mallow I was there 
 on a visit to one of the Purcells who abound in that part 
 of the world, and, being some sixteen or seventeen years 
 younger than I am now, thought I might as well fall in 
 love with Miss Theodosia Macnamara. She was a fine 
 grown girl, full of flesh and blood, rose five foot nine at 
 least when shod, had many excellent points, and stepped 
 out slappingly upon her pasterns. She was somewhat of a 
 roarer, it must be admitted, for you could hear her from 
 one end of the Walk to the other ; and I am told that, as 
 she has grown somewhat aged, she shows symptoms of 
 vice ; but I knew nothing of the latter, and did not mind 
 the former, because I never had a fancy for your nimini- 
 pimini young ladies, with their mouths squeezed into the 
 shape and dimensions of a needle's eye. I always suspect 
 such damsels as having a very portentous design against 
 mankind in general. 
 
 ^'She was at Mallow for the sake of the Spa, it being 
 understood that she was consumptive, though I'll answer 
 for it her lungs were not touched ; and I never saw any 
 signs of consumption about her, except at meal times, when 
 her consumption was undoubtedly great. However, her 
 mother, a very nice middle-aged woman — she w^as of the 
 O'Regans of the West, and a perfect lady in her manners, 
 
 VOL. II. K 
 
146 BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. 
 
 with a very remarkable red nose, which she attributed to a 
 cold which had settled in that part, and which cold she 
 was always endeavouring to cure with various balsamic 
 preparations taken inwardly — maintained that her poor 
 chicken, as she called her, was very delicate, and required 
 the air and water of Mallow to cure her. Theodosia (she 
 was so named after some of the Limerick family) or, as 
 we generally called her, Dosy, was rather of a sanguine 
 complexion, with hair that might be styled auburn, but 
 which usually received another name. Her nose was 
 turned up, as they say was that of Cleopatra ; and her 
 mouth, which was never idle, being always employed in 
 eating, drinking, shouting, or laughing, was of considerable 
 dimensions. Her eyes were piercers, with a sHght tendency 
 to a cast ; and her complexion was equal to a footman's 
 plush breeches, or the first tinge of the bloom of morning 
 bursting through a summer cloud, or what else verse-making 
 men are fond of saying. I remember a young man who 
 was in love with her writing a song about her, in which 
 there was one or other of the similes above mentioned, I 
 forget which. The verses were said to be very clever, as 
 no doubt they were ; but I do not recollect them, never 
 being able to remember poetry. Dosy's mother used to 
 say that it was a hectic flush. If so, it was a very permanent 
 flush, for it never left her cheeks for a moment, and, had it 
 not belonged to a young lady in a galloping consumption, 
 would have done honour to a dairymaid. 
 
 ^'Pardon these details, gentlemen," said Bob Burke, 
 sighing ; " but one always thinks of the first loves. Tom 
 Moore says that there's nothing half so sweet in life as 
 young love's dram ; ' and talking of that, if there's anything 
 left in the brandy bottle, hand it over to me. Here's to 
 the days gone by ! They will never come again. Dear Dosy, 
 you and I had some fun together. I see her now with her 
 red hair escaping from under her hat, in a pea-green habit, 
 a stiff" cutting whip in her hand, licking it into Tom the 
 Devil, a black horse that would have carried a sixteen- 
 
BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. 147 
 
 stoner over a six-foot wall, following Will Wrixon's hounds 
 at the rate of fifteen miles an hour, and singing out ' Go it, 
 my trumps ! ' These are the recollections that bring tears in 
 a man's eyes/' 
 
 There were none visible in Bob's; but, as he here finished 
 his dram, it is perhaps a convenient opportunity for con- 
 cluding a chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HOW ENSIGN BRADY WENT TO DRINK TEA WITH MISS 
 
 THEODOSIA MACNAMARA. 
 
 ^' The day of that hunt was the very day that led to my 
 duel with Brady. He was a long, straddling, waddle- 
 mouthed chap, who had no more notion of riding a hunt 
 than a rhinoceros. He was mounted on a showy-enough- 
 looking mare, w^hich had been nerved by Rodolphus Booti- 
 man, the horse-doctor, and though ' a good 'un to look at, 
 was a rum 'un to go ; ' and before she was nerved, all the 
 work had been taken out of her by long Lanty Philpot, 
 who sold her to Brady after dinner for fifty pounds, she 
 being not worth twenty in her best day, and Brady giving 
 his bill at three months for the fifty. My friend the ensign 
 was no judge of a horse, and the event showed that my 
 cousin Lanty was no judge of a bill, not a cross of the fifty 
 having been paid from that day to this, and it is out of the 
 question now, it being long past the statute of limitations, 
 to say nothing of Brady having since twice taken the benefit 
 of the Act. So both parties jockeyed one another, having 
 that pleasure, which must do them instead of profit. 
 
 ''She was a bay chestnut, and nothing would do Brady 
 but he must run her at a little gap which Miss Dosy was 
 going to clear, in order to show his gallantry and agility ; 
 and certainly I must do him the credit to say that he did 
 get his mare on the gap, which was no small feat ; but there 
 she broke down, and off went Brady, neck and crop, into 
 
148 BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. 
 
 as fine a pool of stagnant green mud as you would ever 
 wish to see. He was ducked regularly in it, and he came 
 out, if not in the jacket, yet in the colours of the Rifle 
 Brigade, looking rueful enough at his misfortune, as you 
 may suppose. But he had not much time to think of the 
 figure he cut, for before he could well get up who should 
 come right slap over him but Miss Dosy herself upon Tom 
 the Devil, having cleared the gap and a yard beyond the 
 pool in fine style. Brady ducked, and escaped the horse, 
 a little fresh daubing being of less consequence than the 
 knocking out of his brains, if he had any ; but he did not 
 escape a smart rap from a stone which one of Tom's heels 
 flung back with such unlucky accuracy as to hit Brady right 
 in the mouth, knocking out one of his eye teeth (which I 
 do not recollect). Brady clapped his hand to his mouth, 
 and bawled, as any man might do in such a case, so loud 
 that Miss Dosy checked Tom for a minute to turn round, 
 and there she saw him making the most horrid faces in the 
 world, his mouth streaming with blood, and himself painted 
 green from head to foot, with as pretty a coat of shining 
 slime as was to be found in the province of Munster. ' That's 
 the gentleman you just leapt over. Miss Dosy,' said I, for I 
 had joined her; *and he seems to be in some confusion.' 
 ' I am sorry,' said she, ^ Bob, that I should have in any way 
 offended him or any other gentleman by leaping over him, but 
 I can't wait now. Take him my compliments, and tell him 
 I should be happy to see him at tea at six o'clock this 
 evening, in a different suit' Off she went, and I rode back 
 with her message (by which means I was thrown out), and 
 (would you believe it?) he had the ill manners to say 'the 
 h ; ' but I shall not repeat what he said. It was im- 
 polite to the last degree, not to say profane : but perhaps he 
 may be somewhat excused under his peculiar circumstances. 
 There is no knowing what even Job himself might have 
 said immediately after having been thrown off his horse 
 into a green pool, with his eye-tooth knocked out, his 
 mouth full of mud and blood, on being asked to a tea-party. 
 
BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. 149 
 
 " He — Brady, not Job — went, nevertheless ; for on our 
 return to Miss Dosy's lodging we found a triangular note, 
 beautifully perfumed, expressing his gratitude for her kind 
 invitation, and telling her not to think of the slight accident 
 which had occurred. How it happened, he added, he could 
 not conceive, his mare never having broken down with him 
 before — which was true enough, as that was the first day he 
 ever mounted her — and she having been bought by himself 
 at a sale of the Earl of Darlington's horses last year, for 
 two hundred guineas. She was a great favourite, he went 
 on to say, with the Earl, who often rode her, and ran at 
 Doncaster by the name of Miss Russell. All this latter 
 part of the note was not quite so true, but then it must 
 be admitted that when we talk about horses we are not 
 tied down to be exact to a letter. If we were, God help 
 TattersalFs ! 
 
 '' To tea, accordingly, the ensign came at six, wiped clean, 
 and in a different set-out altogether from what he appeared 
 in on emerging from the ditch. He was, to make use of a 
 phrase introduced from the ancient Latin into the modern 
 Greek, togged up in the most approved style of his Majesty's 
 48th Foot. Bright was the scarlet of his coat ; deep the 
 blue of his facings." 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Antony Harrison, here inter- 
 rupting the speaker. ''The 48th are not royals, and you 
 ought to know that no regiment but those which are 
 royal sport blue facings. I remember once upon a time, 
 in a coffee-shop, detecting a very smart fellow who wrote 
 some clever things in a magazine published in Edinburgh 
 by one Blackwood, under the character of a military man, 
 not to be anything of the kmd, by his talking about ensigns 
 in the Fusileers — all the world knowing that in the Fusileers 
 there are no ensigns, but in their place second lieutenants. 
 Let me set you right there, Bob. The facings your friend 
 Brady exhibited to the wondering gaze of the Mallow tea- 
 table must have been buff — pale buff." 
 
 " Buff, black, blue, brown, yellow, Pompadour, brick- 
 
ISO BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. 
 
 dust, no matter what they were/' continued Burke, in no 
 wise pleased by the interruption ; '' they were as bright as 
 they could be made, and so was all the lace, and other 
 traps which I shall not specify more minutely, as I am in 
 presence of so sharp a critic. He was, in fact, in full dress — 
 as you know is done in country quarters — and, being not a 
 bad plan and elevation of a man, looked well enough. 
 Miss Dosy, I perceived, had not been perfectly ignorant of 
 the rank and condition of the gentleman over whom she 
 had leaped, for she was dressed in her purple satin body 
 and white skirt, which she always put on when she wished 
 to be irresistible, and her hair was suffered to flow in long 
 ringlets down her fair neck — and, by Jupiter, it was fair as 
 a swan's, and as majestic too — and no mistake. Yes ! Dosy 
 Macnamara looked divine that evening. 
 
 " Never mind ! Tea was brought in by Mary Keefe, 
 and it was just as all other teas have been and will be. 
 Do not, however, confound it with the wafer-sliced and hot- 
 watered abominations which are inflicted, perhaps justly, 
 on the wretched individuals who are guilty of haunting 
 soirees and conversazio7tes in this good and bad city of 
 London. The tea was congou or souchong, or some other 
 of these Chinese affairs, for anything I know to the contrary ; 
 for, having dined at the house, I was mixing my fifth 
 tumbler when tea was brought in, and Mrs. Macnamara 
 begged me not to disturb myself, and, she being a lady for 
 whom I had a great respect, I complied with her desire ; 
 but there was a potato-cake, an inch thick and two feet 
 in diameter, which Mrs. Macnamara informed me in a 
 whisper was made by Dosy after the hunt. 
 
 " ^Poor chicken,' she said, 'if she had the strength, she 
 has the willingness ; but she is so delicate. If you saw her 
 handling the potatoes today.' 
 
 '' ' Madam,' said I, looking tender, and putting my hand 
 on my heart, ' I wish I was a potato ! ' 
 
BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. 151 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HOW ENSIGN BRADY ASTONISHED THE NATIVES AT MISS 
 
 THEODOSIA MACNAMARA'S. 
 
 '^ I THOUGHT this was an uncommonly pathetic wish, 
 after the manner of the Persian poet Hafiz j but it was 
 scarcely out of my mouth when Ensign Brady, taking a 
 cup of tea from Miss Dosy's hand, looking upon me with 
 an air of infinite condescension, declared that I must be 
 the happiest of men, as my wish was granted before it was 
 made. I was preparing to answer, but Miss Dosy laughed 
 so loud that I had not time, and my only resource was to 
 swallow what I had just made. The ensign followed up his 
 victory without mercy. 
 
 " ' Talking of potatoes, Miss Theodosia,' said he, looking 
 at me, ^puts me in mind of truffles. Do you know this 
 most exquisite cake of yours much resembles a gateau aiix 
 t7'uffes'i By Gad! how Colonel Thornton, Sir Harry 
 Millicent, Lord Mortgageshire, and that desperate fellow, 
 the Honourable and Reverend Dick Sellenger, and I, used 
 to tuck in truffles when we were quartered in Paris. 
 Mortgageshire — an uncommon droll fellow ; I used to call 
 his lordship Morty — he called me Brad — we were on such 
 terms ; and we used to live together in the Rue de la Paix, 
 that beautiful street close by the Place Vendome, where 
 there's the pillar. You have been at Paris, Miss Macnamara?' 
 asked the ensign, filling his mouth with a half-pound bite 
 of the potato-cake at the same moment. 
 
 '^ Dosy confessed that she had never travelled into any 
 foreign parts except the kingdom of Kerry; and, on the 
 same question being repeated to me, I w^as obliged to 
 admit that I was in a similar predicament. Brady was 
 triumphant. 
 
 " * It is a loss to any man,' said he, ' not to have been in 
 Paris. I know that city well, and so I ought ; but I did 
 many naughty things there.' 
 
152 BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. 
 
 ^' ' O fie ! ' said Mrs. Macnamara. 
 
 "^O madam/ continued Brady, ^ the fact is that the 
 Paris ladies were rather too fond of us English. When I say 
 English I mean Scotch and Irish as well ; but, nevertheless, 
 I think Irishmen had more good luck than the natives of 
 the other two islands.' 
 
 " ' In my geography book,' said Miss Dosy, ^ it is put 
 down only as one island, consisting of England, capital 
 London, on the Thames, in the south ; and Scotland, 
 capital Edinburgh, on the Forth, in the north ; popula- 
 tion ' , 
 
 '' ' Gad ! you are right,' said Brady, ^ perfectly right, 
 Miss Macnamara. I see you are quite a blue. But, as I 
 was saying, it is scarcely possible for a good-looking young 
 English officer to escape the French ladies. And then I 
 played rather deep ; on the whole, however, I think I may 
 say I won. Mortgageshire and I broke Frascati's one night 
 — we won a hundred thousand francs at rouge, and fifty- 
 four thousand at roulette. You would have thought the 
 croupiers would have fainted ; they tore their hair with 
 vexation. The money, however, soon went again — we 
 could not keep it. As for wine, you have it cheap there, 
 and of a quaUty which you cannot get in England. At 
 Very's, for example, I drank chambertin — it is a kind of 
 claret — for three francs two sous a bottle, which was beyond 
 all comparison far superior to what I drank, a couple of 
 months ago, at the Duke of Devonshire's, though his Grace 
 prides himself on that very wine, and sent to a particular 
 binn for a favourite specimen, when I observed to him I 
 had tasted better in Paris. Out of politeness I pretended 
 to approve of his Grace's choice ; but I give you my honour 
 — only I would not wish it to reach his Grace's ears — it was 
 not to be compared to what I had at Very's for a moment' 
 
 ''So flowed on Brady for a couple of hours. The 
 Tooleries, as he thought proper to call them ; the Louvre, 
 with its pictures, the removal of which he deplored as a 
 matter of taste, assuring us that he had used all his 
 
BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. 153 
 
 influence with the Emperor of Russia and the Duke of 
 Wellington to prevent it, but in vain ; the Boulevards, the 
 opera, the theatres, the Champs Elysees, the Montagues 
 Russes — everything, in short, about Paris was depicted to 
 the astonished mind of Miss Dosy. Then came London — 
 where he belonged to I do not know how many clubs, and 
 cut a most distinguished figure in the fashionable world. 
 He was of the Prince Regent's set, and assured us on his 
 honour that there was never anything so ill-founded as the 
 stories afloat to the discredit of that illustrious person. 
 But on what happened at Carlton House he felt obliged to 
 keep silence, the Prince being remarkably strict in exacting 
 a promise from every gentleman whom he admitted to his 
 table not to divulge anything that occurred there, a violation 
 of which promise was the cause of the exclusion of Brum- 
 mell. As for the Princess of Wales he would rather not 
 say anything. 
 
 '' And so forth. Now, in those days of my innocence, I 
 believed these stories as gospel, hating the fellow all the 
 while from the bottom of my heart, as I saw that he made 
 a deep impression on Dosy, who sat in open-mouthed 
 wonder, swallowing them down as a common-councilman 
 swallows turtle. But times are changed. I have seen 
 Paris and London since, and I believe I know both villages 
 as well as most men, and the deuce a word of truth did 
 Brady tell in his whole narrative. In Paris, when not in 
 quarters (he had joined some six or eight months after 
 Waterloo), he lived au cinquantieme in a dog-hole in the 
 Rue Git-le-Coeur (a street at what I may call the Surrey 
 side of Paris) among carters and other such folk ; and in 
 London I discovered that his principal domicile was in one 
 of the courts now demolished to make room for the fine 
 new gimcrackery at Charing Cross. It was in Round Court, 
 at a pieman's of the name of Dudfield." 
 
 " Dick Dudfield ? '' said Jack Ginger. ^^ I knew^the man 
 well — a most particular friend of mine. He was a duffer 
 besides being a pieman, and was transported some years 
 
154 BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. 
 
 ago. He is now a flourishing merchant in Australasia, and 
 will, I suppose, in due time be grandfather to a member of 
 Congress." 
 
 ^' There it was that Brady lived then," continued Bob 
 Burke, '' when he was hobnobbing with Georgius Quartus, 
 and dancing at Almack's with Lady Elizabeth Conynghame. 
 Faith, the nearest approach he ever made to royalty was 
 when he was put into the King's own Bench, where he 
 sojourned many a long day. What an ass I was to believe 
 a word of such stuff ! But, nevertheless, it goes down with 
 the rustics to the present minute. I sometimes sport a 
 duke or so myself, when I find myself among yokels, and I 
 rise vastly in estimation by so doing. What do we come 
 to London or Paris for, but to get some touch of knowing 
 how to do things properly ? It would be devilish hard, I 
 think, for Ensign Brady, or Ensign Brady's master, to do 
 me nowadays by flamming off titles of high life." 
 
 The company did no more than justice to Mr. Burke's 
 experience, by unanimously admitting that such a feat was 
 all but impossible. 
 
 '^I was," he went on, "a good deal annoyed at my 
 inferiority, and I could not help seeing that Miss Dosy was 
 making comparisons that were rather odious, as she glanced 
 from the gay uniform of the ensign on my habiliments, 
 which having been perpetrated by a Mallow tailor with a 
 hatchet, or pitchfork, or pickaxe, or some such tool, did 
 not stand the scrutiny to advantage. I was, I think, a 
 better-looking fellow than Brady. Well, well, laugh if you 
 like. I am no beauty, I know; but, then, consider that 
 what I am talking of was sixteen years ago, and more ; and 
 a man does not stand the battering I have gone through for 
 these sixteen years with impunity. Do you call the thirty 
 or forty thousand tumblers of punch, in all its varieties, 
 that I have since imbibed, nothing ? '^ 
 
 ''Yes," said Jack Ginger with a sigh, ''there was a song 
 we used to sing on board the Brifnstone^ when cruising 
 about the Spanish main — 
 
BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. 155 
 
 * If Mars leaves his scars, jolly Bacchus as well 
 Sets his trace on the face, which a toper will tell ; 
 But which a more merry campaign has pursued, 
 The shedder of wine, or the shedder of blood ? ' 
 
 I forget the rest of it. Poor Ned Nixon ! It was he who 
 made that song; he was afterwards bit in two by a shark, 
 having tumbled overboard in the cool of the evening, one 
 fine summer day, off Port Royal/' 
 
 " Well, at all events,'^ said Burke, continuing his narra- 
 tive, '' I thought I was a better-looking fellow than my 
 rival, and was fretted at being sung down. I resolved to 
 outstay him, and, though he sat long enough, I, who was 
 more at home, contrived to remain after him, but it was 
 only to hear him extolled. 
 
 '' ' A very nice young man,' said Mrs. Macnamara. 
 
 ^^'An extreme nice young man,' responded Miss Theo- 
 dosia. 
 
 " ' A perfect gentleman in his manners ; he puts me 
 quite in mind of my uncle, the late Jerry O'Regan,' observed 
 Mrs. Macnamara. 
 
 '' ' Quite the gentleman in every particular,' ejaculated 
 Miss Theodosia. 
 
 ^' ' He has seen a great deal of the world for so young a 
 man,' remarked Mrs. Macnamara. 
 
 '' ' He has mixed in the best society, too,' cried Miss 
 
 Theodosia. 
 
 " ^ It is a great advantage to a young man to travel,' 
 
 quoth Mrs. Macnamara. 
 
 '' 'And a very great disadvantage to a young man to be 
 always sticking at home,' chimed in Miss Theodosia, looking 
 at me; "it shuts them out from all chances of the elegance 
 which we have just seen displayed by Ensign Brady of the 
 48th Foot.' 
 
 '' ' For my part,' said I, ' I do not think him such an 
 elegant fellow at all. Do you remember, Dosy Macnamara, 
 how he looked when he got up out of the green puddle 
 to-day?' 
 
156 BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. 
 
 '^'Mr. Burke,' said she, 'that was an accident that might 
 happen any man. You were thrown yourself this day week, 
 on clearing Jack Falvey's wall, so you need not reflect on 
 Mr. Brady.' 
 
 " ' If I was,' said I, ' it was as fine a leap as ever was 
 made ; and I was on my mare in half a shake afterwards. 
 Bob Buller of Ballythomas, or Jack Pendergast, or Fergus 
 O'Connor, could not have rode it better. And you 
 too ' 
 
 " ' Well,' said she, ' I am not going to dispute with you. 
 I am sleepy, and must get to bed.' 
 
 " ' Do, poor chicken,' said Mrs. Macnamara soothingly ; 
 *and. Bob, my dear, I wish it was in your power to go 
 travel, and see the Booleries and the Toolleyvards, and the 
 rest, and then you might be, in course of time, as genteel 
 as Ensign Brady.' 
 
 '' 'Heigho !' said Miss Dosy, ejecting a sigh. ^Travel, 
 Bob, travel.' 
 
 " ' I will,' said I at once, and left the house in the most 
 abrupt manner, after consigning Ensign Brady to the 
 particular attention of Tisiphone, Alecto, and Megaera, all 
 compressed into one emphatic monosyllable. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HOW BOB BURKE, AFTER AN INTERVIEW WITH BARNEY PUL- 
 VERTAFT, ASCERTAINED THAT HE WAS DESPERATELY IN 
 LOVE WITH MISS THEODOSIA MACNAMARA. 
 
 " On leaving Dosy's lodgings I began to consult the state 
 of my heart. Am I really, said I, so much in love as to 
 lose my temper if this prating ensign should carry off the 
 lady? I was much puzzled to resolve the question. I 
 walked up and down the Spa Walk, whiffing a cigar, for a 
 quarter of an hour, without being able to come to a 
 decision. At last, just as the cigar was out, my eye caught 
 
BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. 157 
 
 a light in the window of Barney Pulvertaft the attorney — 
 old Six-and-Eightpence, as we used to call him. I knew 
 he was the confidential agent of the Macnamaras ; and, as 
 he had carried on sixteen lawsuits for my father, I thought 
 I had a claim to learn something about the affairs of Miss 
 Dosy. I understood she was an heiress, but had never 
 until now thought of inquiring into the precise amount of 
 her expectancies. Seeing that the old fellow was up, I 
 determined to step over, and found him in the middle of 
 law-papers, although it was then rather late, with a pot- 
 bellied jug of the bee-hive pattern by his side, full of 
 punch, or rather, I should say, half full, for Six-and-Eight- 
 pence had not been idle. His snuff-coloured wig was 
 cocked on one side of his head, his old velveteen breeches 
 open at the knee, his cravat off, his shirt unbuttoned, his 
 stockings half down his lean legs, his feet in a pair of 
 worsted slippers. The old fellow was, in short, relaxed for 
 the night ; but he had his pen in his hand. 
 
 '^ ' I am only filling copies of capiases^ Bob,' said he ; 
 ' light and pleasant work, which does not distress one in an 
 evening. There are a few of your friends booked here. 
 What has brought you to me so late to-night ? But your 
 father's son is always welcome. Ay, there were few men 
 like your father. Never staggered in a lawsuit in his life ; saw 
 it always out to the end, drove it from court to court. If he 
 was beat, why, so much the worse, but he never fretted ; if 
 he won, faith ! he squeezed the opposite party well. Ay, 
 he was a good-hearted, honest, straightforward man. I wish 
 I had a hundred such clients. So here's his memory 
 anyhow ! 
 
 '' Six-and-Eightpence had a good right to give the toast, 
 as what constituted the excellence of my father in his eyes 
 had moved most of the good acres of Ballyburke out of the 
 family into the hands of the lawyers ; but from filial duty I 
 complied with the attorney's request the more readily, 
 because I well knew, from long experience, that his skill in 
 punch-making was unimpeachable. So we talked about my 
 
158 BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. 
 
 father's old lawsuits, and I got Barney into excellent humour 
 by letting him tell me of the great skill and infinite adroit- 
 ness which he had displayed upon a multiplicity of occasions. 
 It was not, however, until we were deep in the second jug, 
 and Six-and-Eightpence was beginning to show symptoms of 
 being cut^ that I ventured to introduce the subject of my 
 visit. I did it as cautiously as I could, but the old fellow 
 soon found out my drift. 
 
 " ' No,' hiccuped he, ' Bob, 'twon't — 'twon't — do. Close 
 as green — green wax. Never te-tell profess-profess-pro- 
 fessional secrets. Know her expec — hiccup — tances to a ten- 
 ten-penny. So you are after — after — her ? Ah, Bo-bob ! 
 She'll be a ca-catch — let not a wo-word from me. No — 
 never. Bar-ney Pe-pulverta-taft is game to the last. 
 Never be-betrayed ye-your father. God rest his soul — he 
 was a wo-worthy man.' 
 
 " On this recollection of the merits of my sainted sire 
 the attorney wept; and in spite of all his professional 
 determinations, whether the potency of the fluid or the 
 memory of the deceased acted upon him, I got at the facts. 
 Dosy had not more than a couple of hundred pounds in 
 the world — her mxOther's property was an annuity which 
 expired with herself; but her uncle by the father's side, 
 Mick Macnamara of Kawleash, had an estate of at least 
 five hundred a year, which, in case of his dying without 
 issue, w^as to come to her, besides a power of money saved ; 
 Mick being one who, to use the elegant phraseology of my 
 friend the attorney, would skin a flea for the sake of selling 
 the hide. All this money, ten thousand pounds, or some- 
 thing equally musical, would in all probability go to Miss 
 Dosy; the ;^5oo a year was hers by entail Now, as her 
 uncle was eighty-four years old, unmarried, and in the last 
 stage of the palsy, it was a thing as sure as the bank that 
 Miss Dosy was a very rich heiress indeed. 
 
 '^'So— so,' said Six-and-Eightpence — ' this — this— is 
 strictly confiddle-confid-confiddledential. Do — do not say 
 a word about it I ought not to have to-told it — but, you 
 
BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. 159 
 
 do-dog, you wheedled it out of me. Da-dang it, I co-could 
 not ref-refuse your father's so-son. You are ve-very like 
 him — as I sa-saw him sitting many a ti-time in that cha- 
 chair. But you nev-never will have his spu-spunk in a sho- 
 shoot (suit). There, the lands of Arry-arry-arry-bally-bally- 
 be-beg-clock-clough-macde-de-duagh — confound the wo- 
 word — of Arryballybegcloughmacduagh, the finest be-bog 
 in the co-country, are ye-yours ; but you haven't spu-spunk 
 to go into Cha-chancery for it, like your worthy fa-father, 
 Go-god rest his soul. Blow out that se-second ca-candle, 
 Bo-bob, for I hate waste.' 
 
 "There's but one in the room, Barney,' said I. 
 
 " ' You mean to say,' hiccuped he, ' that I am te-te-tipsy ? 
 Well, well, ye-young fe-fellows, well, I am their je-joke. 
 However, as the je-jug is out, you must be je-jogging. 
 
 Early to bed, and early to rise, is the way to be . 
 
 However, le-lend me your arm up the sta-stairs, for they are 
 very slip-slippery to-night' 
 
 '' I conducted the attorney to his bedchamber, and safely 
 stow^ed him into bed, while he kept stammering forth praises 
 on my worthy father, and upbraiding me with want of 
 spunk in not carrying on a Chancery suit begun by him 
 some twelve years before for a couple of hundred acres of 
 bog, the value of which would scarcely have amounted to the 
 price of the parchment expended on it. Having performed 
 this duty, I proceeded homewards, labouring under a 
 variety of sensations. 
 
 " How delicious is the feeling of love when it first takes 
 full possession of a youthful bosom ! Before its balmy 
 influence vanish all selfish thoughts, all grovelling notions. 
 Pure and sublimated, the soul looks forward to objects 
 beyond self, and merges all ideas of personal identity in 
 aspirations of the felicity to be derived from the being 
 adored. A thrill of rapture pervades the breast ; an intense 
 but bland flame permeates every vein — throbs in every 
 pulse. Oh, blissful period ! brief in duration, but crowded 
 with thoughts of happiness never to recur again ! As I 
 
i6o BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. 
 
 gained the Walk, the moon was high and bright in heaven, 
 pouring a flood of mild light over the trees. The stars 
 shone with sapphire lustre in the cloudless sky; not a 
 breeze disturbed the deep serene. I was alone. I thought 
 of my love — of what else could I think? What I had just 
 heard had kindled my passion for the divine Theodosia 
 into a quenchless blaze. Yes, I exclaimed aloud, I do love 
 her. Such an angel does not exist on the earth. What 
 charms ! What innocence ! What horsewomanship ! 
 Five hundred a year certain ! Ten thousand pounds in 
 perspective ! I'll repurchase the lands of Ballyburke ; Til 
 rebuild the hunting-lodge in the Galtees ; I'll keep a pack 
 of hounds, and live a sporting life. Oh, dear, divine 
 Theodosia, how I do adore you ! I'll shoot that Brady, and 
 no mistake. How dare he interfere where my affections 
 are so irrevocably fixed ? 
 
 "Such were my musings. Alas ! How we are changed as 
 we progress through the world ! That breast becomes arid 
 which once was open to every impression of the tender 
 passion. The rattle of the dice-box beats out of the head 
 the rattle of the quiver of Cupid ; and the shuffling of the 
 cards renders the rustling of his wings inaudible. The 
 necessity of looking after a tablecloth supersedes that of 
 looking after a petticoat ; and we more willingly make an 
 assignation with a mutton-chop than with an angel in 
 female form. The bonds of love are exchansfed for those 
 of the conveyancer ; bills take the place of billets ; and we 
 do not protest, but are protested against, by a three-and- 
 sixpenny notary. Such are the melancholy effects of age. 
 I knew them not then. I continued to muse full of sweet 
 thoughts, until gradually the moon faded from the sky — 
 the stars went out — and all was darkness. Morning: sue- 
 ceeded to night, and on awaking I found that, owing to 
 the forgetfulness in which the thoughts of the fair Theodosia 
 had plunged me, I had selected the bottom step of old 
 Barney Pulvertaft's door as my couch, and was awakened 
 from repose in consequence of his servant-maid (one Norry 
 
BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. i6i 
 
 Mulcahy) having emptied the contents of her — washing-tub 
 over my slumbering person. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 HOW BOB BURKE, AFTER CONSULTATION WITH WOODEN-LEG 
 WADDY, FOUGHT THE DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY FOR 
 THE SAKE OF MISS THEODOSIA MACNAMARA. 
 
 "At .night I had fallen asleep fierce in the determination 
 of exterminating Brady ; but with the morrow cool reflec- 
 tion came, made probably cooler by the aspersion I had 
 suffered. How could I fight him when he had never given 
 me the slightest affront ? To be sure, picking a quarrel is 
 not hard, thank God, in any part of Ireland ; but, unless I 
 was quick about it, he might get so deep into the good 
 graces of Dosy, who was as flammable as tinder, that even 
 my shooting him might not be of any practical advantage to 
 myself. Then, besides, he might shoot me ; and, in fact, 
 I was not by any means so determined in the affair at seven 
 o'clock in the morning as I was at twelve o'clock at night. 
 I got home, however, dressed, shaved, &c., and turned out. 
 ' I think,' said I to myself, ' the best thing I can do is to 
 go and consult Wooden-leg Waddy ; and, as he is an early 
 man, I shall catch him now.' The thought was no sooner 
 formed than executed ; and in less than five minutes I was 
 walking with Wooden-leg Waddy in his garden at the back 
 of his house, by the banks of the Blackwater. 
 
 ''Waddy had been in the Hundred-and-First, and had 
 seen much service in that distinguished corps." 
 
 ''I remember it well during the war," said Anthony 
 Harrison ; '' we used to call it the Hungry-and- Worst ; but it 
 did its duty on a pinch nevertheless." 
 
 '' No matter," continued Burke ; " Waddy had served a 
 good deal, and lost his leg somehow, for which he had a 
 pension besides his half-pay, and he lived in ease and 
 affluence among the bucks of Mallow. He was a great 
 
 VOL. n. L 
 
1 62 BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. 
 
 hand at settling and arranging duels, being what we generally 
 call in Ireland tx. judgmatical "^oxi of man — a word which, I 
 think, might be introduced with advantage into the English 
 vocabulary. When I called on him, he was smoking his 
 meerschaum as he walked up and down his garden in an old 
 undress coat, and a fur cap on his head. I bade him good 
 morning ; to which salutation he answered by a nod and 
 a more prolonged whiff. 
 
 " ^ I want to speak to you. Wooden-leg,' said I, ^ on a 
 matter which nearly concerns me.' On which I received 
 another nod and another whiff in reply. 
 
 " ^The fact is,' said I, 'that there is an Ensign Brady of 
 the 48th quartered here, with whom I have some reason to 
 be angry, and I am thinking of calling him out. I have 
 come to ask your advice whether I should do so or not. 
 He has deeply injured me by interfering between me and 
 the girl of my affections. What ought I to do in such a 
 case ? ' 
 
 '' 'Fight him, by all means,' said Wooden-leg Waddy. 
 
 '' ' But the difficulty is this : he has offered me no affront, 
 direct or indirect; we have no quarrel whatever; and he 
 has not paid any addresses to the lady. He and I have 
 scarcely been in contact at all. I do not see how I can 
 manage it immediately with any propriety. What then can 
 I do now?' 
 
 '' ' Do not fight him by any means," said Wooden-leg 
 Waddy. 
 
 '' 'Still these are the facts of the case. He, whether 
 intentionally or not, is coming between me and my mistress, 
 which is doing me an injury perfectly equal to the grossest 
 insult. How should I act ?' 
 
 " ' Fight him by all means,' said Wooden-leg Waddy. 
 
 '' ' But then I fear if I were to call him out on a ground- 
 less quarrel, or one which would appear to be such, that I 
 should lose the good graces of the lady, and be laughed at 
 by my friends, or set down as a quarrelsome and dangerous 
 companion.' 
 
BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. 163 
 
 ^' ' Do not fight him then by any means/ said Wooden- 
 leg Waddy. 
 
 " 'Yet, as he is a military man, he must know enough of 
 the etiquette of these affairs to feel perfectly confident that 
 he has affronted me ; and the opinion of a military man, 
 standing, as of course he does, in the rank and position of a 
 gentleman, could not, I think, be overlooked without dis- 
 grace..' 
 
 '' ' Fight him by all means,' said Wooden-leg Waddy. 
 
 ^' ' But then, talking of gentleman, I own he is an officer 
 of the 48th ; but his father is a fish-tackle seller in John 
 Street, Kilkenny, who keeps a three-halfpenny shop where 
 you may buy everything, from a cheese to a cheese-toaster, 
 from a felt hat to a pair of brogues, from a pound of brown 
 soap to a yard of huckaback towels. He got his commission 
 by his father's retiring from the Ormonde interest, and acting 
 as whipper-in to the sham freeholders from Castlecomer ; 
 and I am, as you know, of the best blood of the Burkes — 
 straight from the De Burgos themselves ; and, when I think 
 of that, I really do not like to meet this Mr Brady.' 
 
 *' ' Do not fight him by any means,' said Wooden-leg 
 Waddy." 
 
 " This advice of your friend Waddy to you," said Tom 
 Meggot, interrupting Burke, '' much resembles that which 
 Pantagruel gave Panurge on the subject of his marriage, as 
 I heard a friend of mine, Percy, of Gray's Inn, reading to 
 me the other day." 
 
 " I do not know the people you speak of," continued Bob ; 
 '^ but such was the advice which Waddy gave me. 
 
 " ' Why,' said I, ' Wooden-leg, my friend, this is like play- 
 ing battledore and shuttlecock ; what is knocked forward 
 with one hand is knocked back with the other. Come, tell 
 me what I ought to do.' 
 
 '' ' Well,' said Wooden-leg, taking the meerschaum out of 
 his mouth, 'in dubiis suspice^ &c. Let us decide it by 
 tossing a halfpenny. If it comes down head^ you fight ; if 
 harp^ you do not. Nothing can be fairer.' 
 
1 64 BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. 
 
 " I assented. 
 
 '' ' Which/ said he, ' is it to be — two out of three, as at 
 Newmarket, or the first toss to decide ? ' 
 
 " 'Sudden death,' said I, 'and there will soon be an end 
 of it.' 
 
 " Up went the halfpenny, and we looked with anxious 
 eyes for its descent, when, unluckily, it stuck in a gooseberry 
 bush. 
 
 " ' I don't like that,' said Wooden-leg Waddy ; ' for it's a 
 token of bad luck. But here goes again.' 
 
 " Again the copper soared to the sky, and down it came 
 — head. 
 
 " ' I wish you joy, my friend,' said Waddy ; ' you are to 
 fight. That was my opinion all along, though I did not like 
 to commit myself I can lend you a pair of the most 
 beautiful duelling pistols ever put into a man's hand — 
 Wogden s, I swear. The last time they were out, they shot 
 Joe Brown of Mount Badger as dead as Harry the Eighth.' 
 
 " ' Will you be my second ? ' said I. 
 
 " ' Why, no,' replied Wooden-leg, ' I cannot ; for I am 
 bound over by a rascally magistrate to keep the peace, because 
 I barely broke the head of a blackguard bailiff, who came here 
 to serve a writ on a friend of mine, with one of my spare legs. 
 But I can get you a second at once. My nephew. Major Mug, 
 has just come to me on a few days' visit, and, as he is quite 
 idle, it will give him some amusement to be your second. 
 Look up at his bedroom— you see he is shaving himself.' 
 
 " In a short time the Major made his appearance, dressed 
 with a most military accuracy of costume. There was not 
 a speck of dust on his well-brushed blue suftout ; not a 
 vestige of hair, except the regulation whiskers, on his closely- 
 shaven countenance. His hat was brushed to the most 
 glossy perfection ; his boots shone in jetty glow of Day and 
 Martin. There was scarcely an ounce of flesh on his hard 
 and weather-beaten face, and, as he stood rigidly upright, 
 you would have sworn that every sinew and muscle of his 
 body was as stiff as whipcord. He saluted us in military 
 
BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. 165 
 
 Style, and was soon put in possession of the case. Wooden- 
 leg Waddy insinuated that there were hardly as yet grounds 
 for a duel. 
 
 " 'I differ/ said Major Mug, ^decidedly. The grounds 
 are ample. I never saw a clearer case in my life, and I 
 have been principal or second in seven-and-twenty. If I 
 collect your story rightly, Mr. Burke, he gave you an abrupt 
 answer in the field, which was highly derogatory to the lady 
 in question, and impertinently rude to yourself?' 
 
 " ' He certainly,' said I, ' gave me what we call a short 
 answer ; but I did not notice it at the time, and he has 
 since made friends with the young lady.' 
 
 " ^It matters nothing,' observed Major Mug, ^what you 
 may think, or she may think. The business is now in 7ny 
 hands, and I must see you through it. The first thing to be 
 done is to write him a letter. Send out for paper ; let it be 
 gilt-edged,Waddy, that we may do the thing genteelly. I'll 
 dictate, Mr Burke, if you please.' 
 
 " And so he did. As well as I can recollect, the note 
 was as follows : — 
 
 **' Spa Walk, Mallow, yi^;^^ 3, 18 — 
 ^ Eight d clock in the vioriiing. 
 
 " ^ Sir, — A desire for harmony and peace, which has at all 
 times actuated my conduct, prevented me yesterday from 
 asking you the meaning of the short and contemptuous 
 message which you commissioned me to deliver to a certain 
 young lady of our acquaintance, whose name I do not 
 choose to drag into a correspondence. But, now that there 
 is no danger of its disturbing any one, I must say that in 
 your desiring me to tell that young lady she might consider 
 herself as d — d, you were guilty of conduct highly un- 
 becoming of an officer and a gentleman, and subversive of 
 the discipline of the hunt. — I have the honour to be, sir, 
 your most obedient humble servant, 
 
 " ' Robert Burke. 
 
 *' ^ P.S. — This note will be delivered to you by my friend, 
 Major Mug, of the 3d West Indian ; and you will, I trust, 
 

 1 66 BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. 
 
 see the propriety of referring him to another gentleman 
 without further delay/ 
 
 " That, I think, is neat,' said the Major. ' Now seal it 
 with wax, Mr. Burke, with wax, and let the seal be your 
 arms. That's right. Now direct it.' 
 Ensign Brady?' 
 
 No, no; the right thing would be, ''Mr. Brady, 
 Ensign, 48th Foot/' but custom allows "Esquire." That 
 will do — " Thady Brady, Esq., Ensign, 48th Foot, Barracks, 
 Mallow." He shall have it in less than a quarter of an 
 hour.' 
 
 " The Major was as good as his word, and in about half 
 an hour he brought back the result of his mission. The 
 Ensign, he told us, was extremely reluctant to fight, and 
 wanted to be off, on the ground that he had meant no 
 offence, did not even remember having used the expression, 
 and offered to ask the lady if she conceived for a moment 
 he had any idea of saying anything but what was compli- 
 mentary to her. 
 
 " ' In fact,' said the Major, ' he at first plumply refused 
 to fight; but I soon brought him to reason. ''Sir," said I, 
 "you either consent to fight or refuse to fight. In the first 
 case, the thing is settled to hand, and we are not called 
 upon to inquire if there was an affront or not ; in the 
 second case, your refusal to comply with a gentleman's re- 
 quest is of itself an offence for which he has a right to call 
 you out. Put it, then, on any grounds, you must fight 
 him. It is perfectly indifferent to me what the grounds 
 may be ; and I have only to request the name of your 
 friend, as I too much respect the coat you wear to think 
 that there can be any other alternative." This brought the 
 chap to his senses, and he referred me to Captain Codd of 
 his own regiment, at which I felt much pleased, because 
 Codd is an intimate friend of my own, he and I having 
 fought a duel three years ago in Falmouth, in which I lost 
 the tip of this little finger, and he his left whisker. It was 
 a near touch. He is as honourable a man as ever paced a 
 
BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. 167 
 
 ground ; and I am sure he will no more let his man off the 
 field until business is done than I would myself.' 
 
 '' I own/' continued Burke, " I did not half relish this 
 announcement of the firm purpose of our seconds ; but I 
 was in for it, and could not get back. I sometimes thought 
 Dosy a dear purchase at such an expense ; but it was no 
 use to grumble. Major Mug was sorry to say that there 
 was a review to take place immediately, at which the Ensign 
 must attend, and it was impossible for him to meet me 
 until the evening ; ^ but,' added he, ' at this time of the 
 year it can be of no great consequence. There will be 
 plenty of light till nine, but I have fixed seven. In the 
 meantime you may as well divert yourself with a little pistol- 
 practice ; but do it on the sly, as, if they were shabby enough 
 to have a trial, it would not tell well before the jury.' 
 
 '^ Promising to take a quiet chop with me at five, the 
 Major retired, leaving me not quite contented with the state 
 of affairs. I sat down, and wrote a letter to my cousin, 
 Phil Purdon of Kanturk, telling him what I was about, and 
 giving directions what was to be done in the case of any 
 fatal event. I communicated to him the whole story — 
 deplored my unhappy fate in being thus cut off in the flower 
 of my youth — left him three pair of buckskin breeches — 
 and repented my sins. This letter I immediately packed 
 off by a special messenger, and then began half a dozen 
 others, of various styles of tenderness and sentimentality, to 
 be delivered after my melancholy decease. The day went 
 off fast enough I assure you, and at five the Major and 
 Wooden-leg Waddy arrived in high spirits. 
 
 " ' Here, my boy,' said Waddy, handing me the pistols, 
 * here are the flutes ; and pretty music, I can tell you, they 
 make.' 
 
 " * As for dinner,' said Major Mug, ' I do not much care; 
 but, Mr. Burke, I hope it is ready, as I am rather hungry. 
 We must dine lightly, however, and drink not much. If 
 we come off with flying colours, we may crack a bottle 
 together by and by. In case you shoot Brady, I have every- 
 
1 68 BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. 
 
 thing arranged for our keeping out of the way until the 
 thing blows over ; if he shoot you, FU see you buried Of 
 course, you would not recommend anything so ungenteel 
 as a prosecution. No. I'll take care it shall all appear in 
 the papers, and announce that Robert Burke, Esq., met his 
 death with becoming fortitude, assuring the unhappy sur- 
 vivor that he heartily forgave him, and wished him health 
 and happiness.' 
 
 '''I must tell you,' said Wooden-leg Waddy, 'it's all 
 over Mallow, and the whole town will be on the ground to 
 see it. Miss Dosy knows of it, and is quite delighted. She 
 says she will certainly marry the survivor. I spoke to the 
 magistrate to keep out of the way, and he promised that, 
 though it deprived him of a great pleasure, he would go 
 and dine five miles off — and know nothing about it. But 
 here comes dinner. Let us be jolly.' 
 
 " I cannot say that I played on that day as brilliant a 
 part with the knife and fork as I usually do, and did not 
 sympathise much in the speculations of my guests, who 
 pushed the bottle about with great energy, recommending 
 me, however, to refrain. At last the Major looked at his 
 watch, which he had kept lying on the table before him 
 from the beginning of dinner, started up, clapped me on 
 the shoulder and, declaring it only wanted six minutes and 
 thirty-five seconds of the time, hurried me off to the scene 
 of action, a field close by the Castle. 
 
 ''There certainly was a miscellaneous assemblage of the 
 inhabitants of Mallow, all anxious to see the duel. They 
 had pitted us like game-cocks, and bets were freely taken 
 as to the chances of our killing one another, and the par- 
 ticular spots. One betted on my being hit in the jaw, 
 another was so kind as to lay the odds on my knee. A 
 tolerably general opinion appeared to prevail that one or 
 other of us was to be killed ; and much good-humoured 
 joking took place among them while they were deciding 
 which. As I was double the thickness of my antagonist, I 
 was clearly the favourite for being shot, and I heard one 
 
BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. 169 
 
 fellow near me say, ^ Three to two on Burke, that he's shot 
 first — I bet in ten-pennies/ 
 
 '^ Brady and Codd soon appeared, and the preliminaries 
 were arranged with much punctilio between our seconds, 
 who mutually and loudly extolled each other's gentleman- 
 like mode of doing business. Brady could scarcely stand 
 with fright, and I confess that I did not feel quite as Hector 
 of Troy or the Seven Champions of Christendom are 
 reported to have done on several occasions. At last the 
 ground was measured — the pistols handed to the principals 
 — the handkerchief dropped — whiz ! went the bullet within 
 an inch of my ear — and crack ! went mine exactly on 
 Ensign Brady's waistcoat pocket. By an unaccountable 
 accident there was a five-shilling piece in that very pocket, 
 and the ball glanced away, while Brady doubled himself 
 down, uttering a loud howl that might be heard half a 
 mile off. The crowd was so attentive as to give a huzza for 
 my success. 
 
 " Codd ran up to his principal, who was writhing as if he 
 had ten thousand colics, and soon ascertained that no 
 harm was done. 
 
 '' ' What do you propose,' said he to my second — ^ What 
 do you propose to do, Major?' 
 
 '' As there is neither blood drawn nor bone broken,' said 
 the Major, ' I think that shot goes for nothing.' 
 
 " ' I agree with you,' said Captain Codd. 
 
 '' ' If your party will apologise,' said Major Mug, ' I'll 
 take my man off the ground.' 
 
 " ' Certainly,' said Captain Codd, ' you are quite right. 
 Major, in asking the apology ; but you know that it is my 
 duty to refuse it.' 
 
 '''You are correct, Captain,' said the Major. ^I then 
 formally require that Ensign Brady apologise to Mr. Burke.' 
 
 '" As I formally refuse it,' said Captain Codd. 
 
 " ' We must have another shot, then,' said the Major. 
 
 " ' Another shot, by all means,' said the Captain. 
 
 *" Captain Codd,' said the Major, 'you have shown 
 
170 BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. 
 
 yourself in this, as in every transaction of your life, a perfect 
 gentleman.^ 
 
 " ^ He who would dare to say,' replied the Captain, ^ that 
 Major Mug is not among the most gentlemanlike men in 
 the service would speak what is untrue.' 
 
 " Our seconds bowed, took a pinch of snuff together, and 
 proceeded to load the pistols. Neither Brady nor I was 
 particularly pleased at these complimentary speeches of the 
 gentlemen, and I am sure, had we been left to ourselves, 
 would have declined the second shot. As it was, it 
 appeared inevitable. 
 
 "Just, however, as the process of loading was completing, 
 there appeared on the ground my cousin Phil Purdon, 
 rattling in on his black mare as hard as he could lick. 
 When he came in sight he bawled out : 
 
 " 'I want to speak to the plaintiff in this action — I mean 
 to one of the parties in this duel. I want to speak to you. 
 Bob Burke.' 
 
 ^' ' The thing is impossible, sir,' said Major Mug. 
 
 " ' Perfectly impossible, sir,' said Captain Codd. 
 
 " ' Possible or impossible is nothing to the question,' 
 shouted Purdon ; ' Bob, I 7nusf speak to you.' 
 
 " ' It is contrary to all regulation,' said the Major. 
 
 " ^ Quite contrary,' said the Captain. 
 
 "Phil, however, persisted, and approached me. ^x\re 
 you fighting about Dosy Mac ? ' said he to me in a whisper. 
 
 " ' Yes,' I rephed. 
 
 " ^ And she is to marry the survivor, I understand?' 
 
 " 'So I am told,' said L 
 
 " ' Back out. Bob, then ; back out, at the rate of a hunt. 
 Old Mick Macnamara is married.' 
 
 " ' Married !' I exclaimed. 
 
 " ' Poz,' said he. ' I drew the articles myself He married 
 his housemaid, a girl of eighteen; and' — here he whis- 
 pered. 
 
 " ' What,' I cried, ' six months ! ' 
 
 " 'Six months,' said he, ' and no mistake.' 
 
BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. 171 
 
 " ' Ensign Brady,' said I, immediately coming forward, 
 ' there has been a strange misconception in this business. 
 I here declare, in presence of this honourable company, 
 that you have acted throughout like a man of honour and 
 a gentleman ; and you leave the ground without a stain on 
 your character.' 
 
 " Brady hopped three feet off the ground with joy at the 
 unexpected deliverance. He forgot all etiquette, and came 
 forward to shake me by the hand. 
 
 '' ' My dear Burke,' said he, 'it must have been a mistake. 
 Let us swear eternal friendship.' 
 
 " ' For ever,' said I, ' I resign you Miss Theodosia.' 
 
 '' ' You are too generous,' he said, ' but I cannot abuse 
 your generosity.' 
 
 '''It is unprecedented conduct,' growled Major Mug. 
 ' ril never be second to a Pekin again.' 
 
 " ' My principal leaves the ground with honour,' said 
 Captain Codd, looking melancholy nevertheless. 
 
 " ' Humph ! ' grunted Wooden-leg Waddy, lighting his 
 meerschaum. 
 
 " The crowd dispersed much displeased, and I fear my 
 reputation for valour did not rise among them. I went off 
 with Purdon to finish a jug at Carmichael's, and Brady 
 swaggered off to Miss Dosy's. His renown for valour won 
 her heart. It cannot be denied that I sunk deeply in her 
 opinion. On that very evening Brady broke his love, and 
 was accepted. Mrs. Mac. opposed, but the red-coat pre- 
 vailed. 
 
 " 'He may rise to be a general,' said Dosy, 'and be a 
 knight, and then I will be Lady Brady.' 
 
 " ' Or if my father should be made an earl, angelic 
 Theodosia, you would be Lady Thady Brady,' said the 
 ensign. 
 
 " ' Beautiful prospect ! ' cried Dosy. ' Lady Thady Brady ! 
 What a harmonious sound ! ' 
 
 *' But why dally over the detail of my unfortunate loves ? 
 Dosy and the ensign were married before the accident which 
 
172 BOB BURKE'S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY. 
 
 had befallen her uncle was discovered; and, if they be 
 not happy, why, you and I may. They have had eleven 
 children, and, I understand, he now keeps a comfortable 
 eating-house close by Cumberland basin in Bristol. Such 
 was my duel with Ensign Brady of the 48th." 
 
 " Your fighting with Brady puts me in mind that the 
 finest duel I ever saw," said Joe Macgillycuddy, ''was 
 between a butcher and a bull-dog, in the Diamond of 
 Derry." 
 
 " I am obliged to you for your comparison," said Burke, 
 ''but I think it is now high time for dinner, and your 
 beautiful story will keep. Has anybody the least idea where 
 ' dinner is to be raised ? ' 
 
 To this no answer was returned ; and we all began to 
 reflect with the utmost intensity. 
 
H Vision ot purgatory. 
 
 The churchyard of Inistubber is as lonely a one as you 
 would wish to see on a summer's day or avoid on a .winter's 
 night. It is situated in a narrow valley, at the bottom of 
 three low, barren, miserable hills, on which there is nothing 
 green to meet the eye — tree or shrub, grass or weed. The 
 country beyond these hills is pleasant and smiling : rich 
 fields of corn, fair clumps of oaks, sparkling streams of 
 water, houses beautifully dotting- the scenery, which gently 
 undulates round and round as far as the eye can reach ; 
 but once across the north side of Inistubber Hill, and you 
 look upon desolation. There is nothing to see but, down 
 in the hollow, the solitary churchyard with its broken wall, 
 and the long lank grass growing over the gravestones, 
 mocking with its melancholy verdure the barrenness of the 
 rest of the landscape. It is a sad thing to reflect that the 
 only green spot in the prospect springs from the grave ! 
 
 Under the east window is a mouldering vault of the De 
 Lacys, a branch of a family descended from one of the 
 conquerors of Ireland ; and there they are buried when the 
 allotted time calls them to the tomb. On these occasions 
 a numerous cavalcade, formed from the adjoining districts 
 in all the pomp and circumstance of woe, is wont to fill 
 the deserted churchyard, and the slumbering echoes are 
 awakened to the voice of prayer and wailing, and charged 
 with the sigh that marks the heart bursting with grief, or 
 the laugh escaping from the bosom mirth-making under the 
 cloak of mourning. Which of these feeHngs was pre- 
 dominant when Sir Theodore de Lacy died is not written 
 in history ; nor is it necessary to inquire. He had lived 
 
174 A VISION OF PURGATORY. 
 
 a jolly, thoughtless life, rising early for the hunt, and retir- 
 ing late from the bottle ; a good-humoured bachelor who 
 took no care about the management of his household, 
 provided that the hounds were in order for his going out, 
 and the table ready on his coming in ; as for the rest, an 
 easy landlord, a quiet master, a lenient magistrate (except 
 to poachers), and a very excellent foreman of a grand jury. 
 He died one evening while laughing at a story which he 
 had heard regularly thrice a week for the last fifteen years 
 of his life ; and his spirit mingled with the claret. 
 
 In former times, when the De Lacys were buried, there 
 was a grand breakfast, and all the party rode over to the 
 church to see the last rites paid. The keeners lamented ; 
 the country people had a wake before the funeral and a 
 dinner after.it— and there was an end. But with the march 
 of mind came trouble and vexation. A man has now-a-days 
 no certainty of quietness in his coffin — unless it be a patent 
 one. He is laid down in the grave and, the next morning, 
 finds himself called upon to demonstrate an interesting fact ! 
 No one, I beUeve, admires this ceremony ; and it is not to 
 be wondered at that Sir Theodore de Lacy held it in 
 especial horror. ^' I'd like," he said one evening, " to catch 
 one of the thieves coming after me w^hen I'm dead. By 
 the God of War, Pd break every bone in his body ! But," 
 he added with a sigh, '' as I suppose I'll not be able to take 
 my own part then, upon you I leave it, Larry Sw^eeney, to 
 watch me three days and three nights after they plant me 
 under the sod. There's Doctor Dickenson there — I see 
 the fellow looking at me. Fill your glass, Doctor : here s 
 your health ! And shoot him, Larry (do you hear ?), shoot 
 the doctor like a cock if he ever comes stirring up my 
 poor old bones from their roost of Inistubber." 
 
 " Why, then," Larry answered, accepting the glass which 
 followed this command, ''long life to both your honours; 
 and it's I that would like to be putting a bullet into Dr. 
 Dickenson — Heaven between him and harm ! — for wanting 
 your honour aw^ay, as if you was a horse's head, to a bon- 
 
A VISION OF PURGATORY. 175 
 
 fire. There's nothing, I 'shure you, gintlemin, poor as I 
 am, that would give me greater pleasure.'^ 
 
 '' We feel obliged, Larry," said Sir Theodore, '' for your 
 good wishes." 
 
 " Is it I pull you out of the grave, indeed ? " continued 
 the whipper-in (for such he was) ; " Vd let nobody pull your 
 honour out of any place, saving 'twas Purgatory ; and out 
 of that Td pull you myself, if I saw you going f/iere.^' 
 
 "I am of opinion, Larry," said Dr. Dickenson, ''you'd 
 turn tail if you saw Sir Theodore on that road. You might 
 go farther and fare worse, you know." 
 
 ''Turn tail!" replied Larry. "It's I that wouldn't— I 
 appale to St. Patrick himself over beyond " — pointing to a 
 picture of the Prime Saint of Ireland which hung in gilt 
 daubery behind his master's chair, right opposite to him. 
 
 To Larry's horror and astonishment the picture, fixing its 
 eyes upon him, winked with the most knowing air, as if 
 acknowledging the appeal. 
 
 " What makes you turn so white, then, at the very 
 thought?" said the doctor, interpreting the visible conster- 
 nation of our hero in his own way. 
 
 ''Nothing particular," answered Larry; "but a wakeness 
 has come strong over me, gintlemin ; and, if you have no 
 objection, I'd like to go into the air for a bit." 
 
 Leave was of course granted, and Larry retired amid the 
 laughter of the guests : but, as he retreated, he could not 
 avoid casting a glance on the awful picture; and again the 
 Saint winked, with a most malicious smile. It was im- 
 possible to endure the repeated infliction, and Larry rushed 
 down the stairs in an agony of fright and amazement. 
 
 " May be," thought he, " it might be my own eyes that 
 wasn't quite steady — or the flame of the candle. But no ! 
 He winked at me as plain as ever I winked at Judy 
 Donaghue of a May morning. What he manes by it I can't 
 say : but there's no use of thinking about it ; no, nor of 
 talking neither, for who'd believe me if I tould them of 
 it?" 
 
176 A VISION OF PURGATORY. 
 
 The next evening Sir Theodore died, as has been men- 
 tioned, and in due time thereafter was buried, according to 
 the custom of the family, by torchlight in the churchyard of 
 Inistubber. All was fitly performed; and although Dicken- 
 son had no design upon the jovial knight — and, if he had 
 not, there was nobody within fifteen miles that could be 
 suspected of such an outrage — yet Larry Sweeney was 
 determined to make good his promise of watching his 
 master. '' I'd think little of telling a lie to him, by the way 
 of no harm, when he was alive," said he, wiping his eyes 
 as soon as the last of the train had departed, leaving him 
 with a single companion in the lonely cemetery ; '' but now 
 that he's dead — God rest his soul ! — I'd scorn it. So Jack 
 Kinaley, as behoves my first cousin's son, stay you with me 
 here this blessed night, for betune you and I it ain't lucky 
 to stay by one's self in this ruinated old rookery, where 
 ghosts (God help us !) is as thick as bottles in Sir Theodore's 
 cellar." 
 
 '' Never you mind that, Larry," said Kinaley, a discharged 
 soldier who had been through all the campaigns of the 
 Peninsula : ^^ never mind, I say, such botherations. Hain't 
 I lain in bivouack on the field at Salamanca, and Tallawora, 
 and the Pyrumnees, and many another place beside, when 
 there was dead corpses lying about in piles, and there was 
 no more ghosts than kneebuckles in a ridgemint of High- 
 landers. Here ! Let me prime them pieces, and hand us 
 over the bottle. We'll stay snug under this east window, 
 for the wind's coming down the hill, and I defy " 
 
 "None of that bould talk, Jack," said his cousin. " As 
 for what ye saw in foreign parts, of dead men killed a-fight- 
 ing, sure that's nothing to the dead — God rest 'em ! — that's 
 here. There, you see, they had company, one with the other, 
 and, being killed fresh-like that morning, had no heart to 
 stir ; but here, faith ! 'tis a horse of another colour." 
 
 " May be it is," said Jack ; " but the night's coming on ; 
 so I'll turn in. Wake me if you see anything ; and, after 
 I've got my two hours' rest, I'll relieve you." 
 
A VISION OF PURGATORY. 177 
 
 With these words the soldier turned on his side under 
 shelter of a grave, and, as his libations had been rather copi- 
 ous during the day, it was not long before he gave audible 
 testimony that the dread of supernatural visitants had had 
 no effect in disturbing the even current of his fancy. 
 
 Although Larry had not opposed the proposition of his 
 kinsman, yet he felt by no means at ease. He put in practice 
 all the usually recommended nostrums for keeping away un- 
 pleasant thoughts. He whistled ; but the echo sounded so 
 sad and dismal that he did not venture to repeat the experi- 
 ment. He sang ; but, when no more than five notes had 
 passed his lips, he found it impossible to get out a sixth, for 
 the chorus reverberated from the ruinous walls was de- 
 struction to all earthly harmony. He cleared his throat ; 
 he hummed; he stamped; he endeavoured to walk. All 
 would not do. He wished sincerely that Sir Theodore had 
 gone to Heaven — he dared not suggest even to himself, just 
 then, the existence of any other region — without leaving on 
 him the perilous task of guarding his mortal remains in so 
 desperate a place. Flesh and blood could hardly resist it ! 
 Even the preternatural snoring of Jack Kinaley added to 
 the horrors of his position ; and, if his application to the 
 spirituous soother of grief beside him was frequent, it is 
 more to be deplored on the score of morality than wondered 
 at on the score of metaphysics. He who censures our hero 
 too severely has never watched the body of a dead baronet 
 in the churchyard of Inistubber at midnight. '' If it was a 
 common, dacent, quite, well-behaved churchyard a'self," 
 thought Larry half aloud ; '^ but when 'tis a place like 
 this forsaken ould berrin' ground, which is noted for 
 villainy " 
 
 '' For what, Larry?" inquired a gentleman stepping out 
 of a niche which contained the only statue time had 
 spared. It was the figure of Saint Colman, to whom 
 the church was dedicated. Larry had been looking at the 
 figure as it shone forth in ebon and ivory in the light and 
 shadow of the now high-careering moon. 
 
 VOL. II. M 
 
178 A VISION OF PURGATORY. 
 
 " For what, Larry ? '' said the gentleman ; " for what do 
 you say the churchyard is noted?'' 
 
 '' For nothing at all, please your honour/' replied Larry, 
 '' except the height of gentility." 
 
 The stranger was about four feet high, dressed in what 
 might be called glowing garments if, in spite of their form, 
 their rigidity did not deprive them of all claim to such an 
 appellation. He wore an antique mitre upon his head ; 
 his hands were folded upon his breast ; and over his right 
 shoulder rested a pastoral crook. There was a solemn 
 expression in his countenance, and his eye might truly 
 be called stony. His beard could not well be said to 
 wave upon his bosom ; but it lay upon it in ample pro- 
 fusion, stiffer than that of a Jew on a frosty morning after 
 mist. In short, as Larry soon discovered to his horror on 
 looking up at the niche, it was no other than Saint Colman 
 himself, who had stept forth indignant, in all probability, at 
 the stigma cast by the watcher of the dead on the church- 
 yard of which his Saintship was patron. 
 
 He smiled with a grisly solemnity — just such a smile as 
 you might imagine would play round the lips of a milestone 
 (if it had any) — at the recantation so quickly volunteered 
 by Larry. ''Well/' said he, " Lawrence Sweeney" 
 
 '' How well the old rogue," thought Larry, '' knows my 
 name ! " ' 
 
 " Since you profess yourself such an admirer of the merits 
 of the churchyard of Inistubber, get up and follow me, till I 
 show you the civilities of the place, for I'm master here, 
 and must do the honours." 
 
 "Willingly would I go with your worship," replied our 
 friend ; " but you see here I am engaged to Sir Theodore, 
 who, though a good master, was a mighty passionate man 
 when everything was not done as he ordered it ; and I am 
 feared to stir." 
 
 ''Sir Theodore," said the saint, "will not blame you for 
 following me. I assure you he will not." 
 
 " But then " said Larry. 
 
A VISION OF PURGATORY. 179 
 
 ^^ Follow me ! " cried the saint in a hollow voice; and, 
 casting upon him his stony eye, drew poor Larry after him, 
 as the bridal guest was drawn by the lapidary glance of the 
 Ancient Mariner, or, as Larry himself afterwards expressed 
 it, '' as a jaw-tooth is wrinched out of an ould woman with 
 a pair of pinchers." 
 
 The saint strode before him in silence, not in the least in- 
 commoded by the stones and rubbish which at every step 
 sadly contributed to the discomfiture of Larry's shins, who 
 followed his marble conductor into a low vault situated at 
 the west end of the church. In accomplishing this, poor 
 Larry contrived to bestow upon his head an additional 
 organ, the utility of which he was not craniologist enough 
 to discover. 
 
 The path lay through coffins piled up on each side of the 
 way in various degrees of decomposition ; and excepting 
 that the solid footsteps of the saintly guide, as they smote 
 heavily on the floor of stone, broke the deadly silence, all 
 was still. Stumbling and staggering along, directed only by 
 the casual glimpses of light afforded by the moon where it 
 broke through the dilapidated roof of the vault and served 
 to discover only sights of woe, Larry followed. He soon 
 felt that he was descending, and could not help wondering 
 at the length of the journey. He began to entertain the 
 most unpleasant suspicions as to the character of his 
 conductor; but what could he do? Flight was out of the 
 question, and to think of resistance was absurd. " Needs 
 must, they say," thought he to himself, 'Svhen the Devil 
 drives. I see it's much the same when a Saint leads." 
 
 At last the dolorous march had an end ; and, not a little 
 to Larry's amazement, he found that his guide had brought 
 him to the gate of a lofty hall before which a silver lamp, 
 filled with naphtha, '' yielded light as from a sky." From 
 within loud sounds of merriment were ringing ; and it was 
 evident, from the jocular harmony and the tinkling of 
 glasses, that some subterranean catch-club were not idly 
 employed over the bottle. 
 
i8o A VISION OF PURGATORY, 
 
 *' Who's there ? " said a porter, roughly responding to the 
 knock of Saint Colman. 
 
 ^'Be so good/' said the saint mildly, "my very good 
 fellow, as to open the door without further questions, or I'll 
 break your head. I'm bringing a gentleman here on a visit, 
 whose business is pressing." 
 
 ^' May be so," thought Larry; "but what that business 
 may be is more than I can tell." 
 
 The porter sulkily complied with the order, after having 
 apparently communicated the intelligence that a stranger 
 was at hand ; for a deep silence immediately followed the 
 tipsy clamour, and Larry, sticking close to his guide, whom 
 he now looked upon almost as a friend when compared with 
 these underground revellers to whom he was about to be 
 introduced, followed him through a spacious vestibule, 
 which gradually sloped into a low-arched room where the 
 company was assembled. 
 
 And a strange-looking company it was. Seated round 
 a long table were three and twenty grave and venerable 
 personages, bearded, mitred, stoled and croziered, — all 
 living statues of stone, like the saint who had walked out 
 of his niche. On the drapery before them were figured the 
 images of the sun, moon and stars— -the inexplicable bear — 
 the mystic temple built by the hand of Hiram — and other 
 symbols of which the uninitiated know nothing. The 
 square, the line, the trowel were not wanting, and the 
 hammer was lying in front of the chair. Labour, however, 
 was over, and, the time for refreshment having arrived, 
 each of the stony brotherhood had a flagon before him ; 
 and when we mention that the saints were Irish, and that 
 St. Patrick in person was in the chair, it is not to be won- 
 dered at that the mitres, in some instances, hung rather 
 loosely on the side of the heads of some of the canonized 
 compotators. Among the company were found St. Senanus 
 of Limerick, St. Declan of Ardmore, St. Canice of Kilkenny, 
 St. Finbar of Cork, St. Michan of Dublin, St. Brandon of 
 Kerry, St. Fachnan of Ross, and others of that holy brother- 
 
A VISION OF PURGATORY. i8i 
 
 hood. A vacant place, which completed the four-and- 
 twentieth, was kept for St. Colman, who, as everybody 
 knows, is of Cloyne ; and he, having taken his seat, 
 addressed the President to inform him that he had brought 
 the man. 
 
 The man (Larry himself) was awestruck with the company 
 in which he so unexpectedly found himself, and trembled 
 all over when, on the notice of his guide, the eight-and-forty 
 eyes of stone were turned directly upon himself. 
 
 ''You have just nicked the night to a shaving, Larry," 
 said St. Patrick. ''This is our chapter-night, and myself 
 and brethren are here assembled on merry occasion ! — You 
 know who I am?" 
 
 "God bless your Riverince !" said Larry, "it's I that do 
 well. Often did I see your picture hanging over the door 
 of places where it is" — lowering his voice — "pleasanter to 
 be than here, buried under an ould church." 
 
 " You may as well say it out, Larry," said St. Patrick. 
 " And don't think I'm going to be angry with you about it, 
 for I was once flesh and blood myself. But you remember the 
 other night saying that you would think nothing of pulling 
 your master out of Purgatory if you could get at him there, 
 and appealing to me to stand by your words." 
 
 " Y-e-e-s," said Larry most mournfully, for he recollected 
 the significant look he had received from the picture. 
 
 "And," continued St. Patrick, " you remember also that 
 I gave you a wink, which, you know, is as good any day as 
 a nod — at least, to a blind horse." 
 
 " I^m sure your Riverince," said Larry with a beating 
 heart, "is too much of a gintleman to hold a poor man 
 hard to every word he may say of an evening ; and there- 
 fore " 
 
 " I was thinking so," said the saint. " I guessed you'd 
 prove a poltroon when put to the push. What do you 
 think, my brethren, I should do to this fellow ? " 
 
 A hollow sound burst from the bosoms of the unanimous 
 assembly. The verdict was short but decisive : 
 
i82 A VISION OF PURGATORY. 
 
 " Knock out his brains ! " 
 
 And, in order to suit the action to the word, the whole 
 four-and-twenty rose at once, and, with their immovable 
 eyes fixed firmly on the face of our hero — who, horror-struck 
 with the sight as he was, could not close his — they began 
 to glide slowly but regularly towards him, bending their 
 line into the form of a crescent so as to environ him on all 
 sides. In vain he fled to the door ; its massive folds 
 resisted mortal might. In vain he cast his eyes around in 
 quest of a loop-hole of retreat — there was none. Closer 
 and closer pressed on the slowly-moving phalanx, and the 
 uplifted croziers threatened soon to put their sentence into 
 execution. Supplication was all that remained — and Larry 
 sank upon his knees. 
 
 '' Ah then ! ''' said he ; ^' gintlemin and ancient ould saints 
 as you are, don't kill the father of a large small family who 
 never did hurt to you or yours. Sure, if 'tis your will that 
 
 I should go to no matter who, for there's no use in 
 
 naming his name — might I not as well make up my mind to 
 go there alive and well, stout and hearty, and able to face 
 him, as with my head knocked into bits, as if I had been 
 after a fair or a patthren ? " 
 
 " You say right," said St. Patrick, checking with a motion 
 of his crozier the advancing assailants, who thereupon 
 returned to their seats. " I'm glad to see you coming to 
 reason. Prepare for your journey." 
 
 '' And how, please your Saintship, am I to go ? " asked 
 Larry. 
 
 " Why," said St. Patrick, '' as Colman here has guided 
 you so far, he may guide you further. But as the journey 
 is into foreign parts, where you arn't likely to be known, 
 you had better take this letter of introduction, which may 
 be of use to you." 
 
 " And here, also, Lawrence," said a Dublin saint (perhaps 
 Michan), " take you this box also, and make use of it as he 
 to whom you speak shall suggest." 
 
A VISION OF PURGATORY. 183 
 
 ''Take a hold, and. a firm one," said St. Colman, ''Law- 
 rence, of my cassock, and we'll start." 
 
 " All right behind ? " cried St. Patrick. 
 
 " All right !" was the reply. 
 
 In an instant vault, table, saints, bell, church faded int o 
 air ; a rustling hiss of wings was all that was heard, and 
 Larry felt his cheek swept by a current, as if a covey of 
 birds of enormous size were passing him. [It was in all 
 probability the flight of the saints returning to Heaven; 
 but on that point nothing certain has reached us up to the 
 present time of writing.] He had not a long time to 
 wonder at the phenomenon, for he himself soon began to 
 soar, dangling in mid-sky to the skirt of the cassock of his 
 sainted guide. Earth, and all that appertains thereto, 
 speedily passed from his eyes, and they were alone in the 
 midst of circumfused ether, glowing with a sunless light. 
 Above, in immense distance, was fixed the firmament, 
 fastened up with bright stars, fencing around the world 
 with its azure wall. They fled far before any distinguish- 
 able object met their eyes. At length a long white streak, 
 shining like silver in the moonbeam, was visible to their 
 sight. 
 
 " That," said St. Colman, " is the Limbo which adjoins 
 the earth, and is the highway for ghosts departing the 
 world. It is called in Milton, a book which I suppose, 
 Larry, you never have read " 
 
 " And how could I, please your worship," said Larry, 
 " seein' I don't know a B from a bull's foot ? " 
 
 " Well, it is called in Milton the Paradise of Fools ; and, 
 if it were indeed peopled by all of that tribe who leave the 
 world, it would contain the best company that ever figured 
 on the earth. To the north you see a bright speck?" 
 
 "I do." 
 
 '' That marks the upward path — narrow and hard to find. 
 To the south you may see a darksome road — broad, smooth, 
 and easy of descent. That is the lower way. It is 
 thronged with the great ones of the world; you may see 
 
184 A VISION OF PURGATORY. 
 
 their figures in the gloom. Those who are soaring upwards 
 are wrapt in the flood of light flowing perpetually from that 
 single spot, and you cannot see them. The silver path on 
 which we enter is the Limbo. Here I part with you. You 
 are to give your letter to the first person you meet. Do 
 your best; be courageous, but observe particularly that 
 you profane no holy name, or I will not answer for the 
 consequences." 
 
 His guide had scarcely vanished when Larry heard the 
 tinkling of a bell in the distance ; and, turning his eyes in 
 the quarter whence it proceeded, he saw a grave-looking 
 man in black, with eyes of fire, driving before him a host of 
 ghosts with a switch, as you see turkeys driven on the 
 western road at the approach of Christmas. They were 
 on the highway to Purgatory. The ghosts were shivering 
 in the thin air, which pinched them severely now that they 
 had lost the covering of their bodies. Among the group 
 Larry recognised his old master, by the same means that 
 Ulysses, -.^neas, and others recognised the bodiless forms 
 of their friends in the regions of Acheron. 
 
 ^^ What brings a living person," said the man in black, " on 
 this pathway? I shall make legal capture of you, Larry 
 Sweeney, for trespassing. You have no business here." 
 
 ^^ I have come," said Larry, plucking up courage, " to 
 bring your honour's glory a letter from a company of 
 gintlemin with whom I had the pleasure of spending the 
 evening underneath the ould church of Inistubber." 
 
 '' A letter? " said the man in black. "Where is it ?" 
 
 '^ Here, my lord," said Larry. 
 
 "Ho!" cried the black gentleman on opening it; "I 
 know the handwriting. It won't do, however, my lad ; — I 
 see they want to throw dust in my eyes." 
 
 "Whew!" thought Larry. "That's the very thing. 
 'Tis for that the ould Dublin boy gave me the box. I'd 
 lay a tenpenny to a brass farthing that it's filled with Lundy- 
 foot." 
 
 Opening the box, therefore, he flung its contents right 
 
A VISION OF PURGATORY. 185 
 
 into the fiery eyes of the man in black, while he was still 
 occupied in reading the letter; — and the experiment was 
 successful. 
 
 " Curses ! Tche — tche — tche — Curses on it ! " exclaimed 
 he, clapping his hands before his eyes, and sneezing most 
 lustily. 
 
 ^' Run, you villains, run," cried Larry to the ghosts ; 
 " run, you villains, now that his eyes are off you. O master, 
 master ! Sir Theodore, jewel ! Run to the right-hand side, 
 make for the bright speck, and God give you luck ! " 
 
 He had forgotten his injunction. The moment the word 
 was uttered he felt the silvery ground sliding from under 
 him ; and with the swiftness of thought he found himself 
 on the flat of his back, under the very niche of the old 
 church wall whence he had started, dizzy and confused with 
 the measureless tumble. The emancipated ghosts floated 
 in all directions, emitting their shrill and stridulous cries in 
 the gleaming expanse. Some were again gathered by their 
 old conductor ; some, scudding about at random, took the 
 right-hand path, others the left. Into which of them Sir 
 Theodore struck is not recorded ; but, as he had heard the 
 direction, let us hope that he made the proper choice. 
 
 Larry had not much time given him to recover from his 
 fall, for almost in an instant he heard an angry snorting 
 rapidly approaching ; and, looking up, whom should he see 
 but the gentleman in black, with eyes gleaming more 
 furiously than ever, and his horns (for in his haste he had 
 let his hat fall) relieved in strong shadow against the moon ? 
 Up started Larry ; — away ran his pursuer after him. The 
 safest refuge was, of course, the church. Thither ran our 
 hero, 
 
 As darts the dolphin from the shark, 
 Or the deer before the hounds ; 
 
 and after him — fiercer than the shark, swifter than the 
 hounds — fled the black gentleman. The church is cleared, 
 the chancel entered ; and the hot breath of his pursuer 
 glows upon the outstretched neck of Larry. Escape is im- 
 
1 86 A VISION OF PURGATOKY. 
 
 possible ; the extended talons of the fiend have clutched 
 him by the hair. 
 
 " You are mine ! " cried the demon. ^' If I have lost 
 any of my flock, I have at least got you ! " 
 
 " O St. Patrick ! " exclaimed our hero in horror. " O 
 St. Patrick, have mercy upon me, and save me ! " 
 
 " I tell you what. Cousin Larry," said Kinaley, chucking 
 him up from behind a gravestone where he had fallen; 
 " all the St. Patricks that ever were born would not have 
 saved you from ould Tom Picton if he caught you sleeping 
 on your post as IVe caught you now. By the word of an 
 ould soldier he'd have had the provost-marshal upon you, 
 and I'd not give twopence for the loan of your life. And 
 then, too, I see you have drunk every drop in the bottle. 
 What can you say for yourself ? " 
 
 " Nothing at all " said Larry, scratching his head ; " but 
 it was an unlucky dream, and I'm glad it's over." 
 
''Zhc SolOier 3Bo^/' 
 
 I GIVE my soldier-boy a blade 
 
 In fair Damascus fashioned well : 
 Who first the glittering falchion swayed. 
 
 Who first beneath its fury fell, 
 I know not ; but I hope to know 
 
 That for no mean or hireling trade, 
 To guard no feeling base or low, 
 
 I give my soldier-boy a blade. 
 
 Cool, calm, and clear, the lucid flood 
 
 In which its tempering work was done ; 
 As calm, as clear, as cool of mood 
 
 Be thou whene'er it sees the sun : 
 For country's claim, at honour's call, 
 
 For outraged friend, insulted maid, 
 At mercy's voice to bid it fall, 
 
 I give my soldier-boy a blade. 
 
 The eye which marked its peerless edge,- 
 
 The hand that weighed its balanced poise, 
 Anvil and pincers, forge and wedge, 
 
 Are gone with all their flame and noise : 
 And still the gleaming sword remains. 
 
 So, when in dust I low am laid, 
 Remember, by those heartfelt strains, 
 
 I gave my soldier-boy a blade. 
 
Zo /IDs Daugbters. . 
 
 O MY darling little daughters ! 
 
 my daughters, lov'd so well ! 
 Who by Brighton's breezy waters 
 
 For a time have gone to dwell. 
 Here I come with spirit yearning, 
 
 With your sight my eyes to cheer, 
 When this sunny day returning 
 
 Brings my forty-second year. 
 
 Knit to me in love and duty 
 
 Have you been, sweet pets of mine ! 
 Long in health and joy and beauty 
 
 May it be your lot to shine ! 
 And at last when, God commanding, 
 
 1 shall leave you both behind, 
 May I feel, with soul expanding, 
 
 I shall leave you good and kind ! 
 
 May I leave my Nan and Pigeon 
 
 Mild of faith, of purpose true, 
 Full of faith and meek religion, 
 
 With many joys and sorrows few ! 
 Now I part with fond caressing. 
 
 Part you now, my daughters dear : 
 Take, then take your father's blessing 
 
 In his forty-second year. 
 
/Ilbajims ot ©Dobett^* 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 I HAVE often thought that the world loses much valuable 
 information from the laziness or diffidence of people who 
 have it in their power to communicate facts and observations 
 resulting from their own experience, and yet neglect doing 
 so. The idlest or most unobservant has seen, heard, or 
 thought something which might conduce to the general 
 stock of knowledge. A single remark may throw light on a 
 doubtful or a knotty point ; a solitary fact, observed by a 
 careless individual, and which may have escaped the notice 
 of other observers, however acute, may suffice to upset or 
 to establish a theory. 
 
 For my part, my life has been abundantly checkered. I 
 have mixed in society of all kinds, high and low. I have 
 read much, written much, and thought a little ] — very little, 
 it is true, but, still, more than nine-tenths of people who 
 write books. I am still in the prime of my life, and, I be- 
 lieve, in the vigour of my intellect. I intend, therefore, to 
 write down as they occur to me, without binding myself to 
 any order, whether expressed or understood, any general 
 reflections that may occur on men and manners, on the 
 modes of thought and action, on the hopes, fears, wishes, 
 doubts, loves, and hatreds of mankind. It is probable that 
 what I shall write will not be worth reading. I cannot 
 help that. All my bargain is that I shall give genuine re- 
 flection, and narrate nothing but what I have seen and 
 
 heard. 
 
 I was one day in the Salopian Coffee-house near Charing 
 Cross, taking a bowl of ox-tail soup, when a venerable and 
 
I90 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 imposing-looking gentleman came in. The coffee-room of 
 that house is small, and it so happened that every box was 
 occupied — that is, had a gentleman or two in it. The 
 elderly gentleman looked about a little confused, and every- 
 body in the room gazed at him, without offering him a share 
 of any table. Such is the politeness and affability of the 
 English. I instantly rose, and requested him to be seated 
 opposite me. He complied with a bow ; and, after he had 
 ordered what he wanted, we fell into conversation. He was 
 a thoughtful man, who delivered his sentences in a weighty 
 and well-considered style. He did not say much, but what 
 he did say was marked with the impress of thought. I 
 found, indeed, that he was a man of only one reflection ; 
 but that was a great one. He cast his eye solemnly over 
 the morning paper, which happened to contain the an- 
 nouncement of many bankruptcies. This struck the key- 
 note of his one reflection. " Sir," said he to me, laying 
 down the paper, and taking his spoon cautiously between 
 his fingers, without making any attempt to lift it to his mouth, 
 *^ sir, I have now lived in this world sixty-three years, through 
 at least forty of which I have not been a careless or inat- 
 tentive spectator of what has been passing around me ; and 
 I have uniformally found, when a man lives annually on 
 a sum less than his year's income — say, five hundred, or five 
 thousand, or five hundred thousand pounds — for the sum 
 makes no difference — that that man's accounts are clear at 
 the end of the twelvemonth, and that he does not run into 
 debt. On the contrary, I have uniformly found, when a 
 man lives annually on a sum more than his year's income — 
 say, five hundred, five thousand, or five hundred thousand 
 pounds — for the sum makes no difference — that that man's 
 accounts are liable, at the end of the twelvemonth, to get 
 into confusion, and that it must end by his running into 
 debt. Believe me, sir, that such is the result of my forty 
 and odd years' experience in the world." 
 
 The oracular gravity in which this sentence was delivered 
 —for he paused between every word, I might say between 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 191 
 
 every syllable, and kept the uplifted spoon all the time in 
 suspense between the plate of mulligatawny and his lip, 
 which did not receive the savoury contents until the last 
 syllable died away — struck me with peculiar emphasis, and 
 I puzzled my brain to draw out if possible something 
 equally profound to give in return. Accordingly, after look- 
 ing straight across at him for a minute, with my head firmly 
 imbedded on my hands while my elbows rested on the 
 table, I addressed him thus: ^'Sir," said I, ''I have only 
 lived thirty-three years in the world, and cannot, of course, 
 boast of the vast experience which you have had ; neither 
 have my reasoning faculties been exerted so laboriously as 
 yours appear to have been ; but from twenty years' con- 
 sideration I can assure you that I have observed it as a 
 general rule, admitting of no exception, and thereby in itself 
 forming an exception to a general rule, that if a man walks 
 through Piccadilly, or the Strand, or Oxford Street — for the 
 street makes no difference, provided it be of sufficient length 
 — without an umbrella or other defence against a shower, 
 during a heavy fall of rain, he is inevitably wet ; while, on 
 the contrary, if a man walks through Piccadilly, or the Strand, 
 or Oxford Street — for the street makes no difference — during 
 fine dry weather, he runs no chance whatever of being wet 
 to the skin. Believe me, sir, that such is the result of my 
 twenty and odd years' experience in the world/' 
 
 The elderly gentleman had by this time finished his soup. 
 '' Sir," said he, " I agree with you. I like to hear rational 
 conversation. Be so good as to give me your card. Here 
 is mine. Name an early day to dine with me. Waiter, 
 what's to pay ? Will you, sir, try my snuff? I take thirty- 
 seven. I wish you, sir, a good morning." So saying, he 
 quitted the box, leaving me to ruminate upon the discovery 
 made by a man who had lived sixty-three years in the world, 
 and had observed its ways for forty and odd years of that 
 period. I thought with myself that I too, if I set about it 
 seriously to reflect, might perhaps come to something as 
 striking- and original; and have accordingly set about this 
 
192 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 little work, which I dedicate to your kindness, gentle reader. 
 If from it you can extract even one observation conducive 
 towards making you a better or a happier man, the end has 
 been answered which was proposed to himself by, gentle 
 reader, your most obedient and very humble servant, 
 
 Morgan Odoherty. 
 
 Salopian, May r, 1824, P,T.T, 
 
 MAXIM FIRST. 
 
 f 
 
 If you intend to drink much after dSxva^x^ never drink much 
 at dinner, and particularly avoid mixing wines. If you 
 begin with Sauterne, for example, stick to Sauterne, though, 
 on the whole, red wines are best. Avoid malt liquor most 
 cautiously ; for nothing is so apt to get into the head 
 unawares, or, what is almost as bad, to fill the stomach with 
 wind. Champagne, on the latter account, is bad. Port, 
 three glasses at dinner — claret, three bottles after : behold 
 the fair proportion, and the most excellent wines. 
 
 MAXIM SECOND. 
 
 It is laid down in fashionable life that you must drink 
 champagne after white cheese — water after red. This is 
 mere nonsense. The best thing to be drunk after cheese is 
 strong ale, for the taste is more coherent. We should al- 
 ways take our ideas of those things from the most constant 
 practitioners. Now, you never hear of a drayman, who lives 
 almost entirely on bread and cheese, thinking of washing 
 it down with water, far less with champagne. He knows 
 what is better. As for champagne, there is a reason against 
 drinking it after cheese, which I could give if it were cleanly. 
 It is not so, and therefore I am silent concerning it ; but 
 it is true. 
 
 N.B. — According to apophthegm the first, ale is to be 
 
MAXIMS OF OPOHERTY. 193 
 
 avoided in case a wet night is expected — as should cheese 
 also. I recommend ale only when there is no chance of a 
 man's getting a skinful. 
 
 MAXIM THIRD. 
 
 A punster, during dinner, is a most inconvenient animal. 
 He should, therefore, be immediately discomfited. The art 
 of discomfiting a punster is this : Pretend to be deaf; and 
 after he has committed his pun, and just before he expects 
 people to laugh at it, beg his pardon, and request him 
 to repeat it again. After you have made him do this three 
 times, say : Oh ! that is a pun, I believe. I never knew a 
 punster venture a third exhibition under similar treatment. 
 It requires a little nicety, so as to make him repeat it in 
 proper time. If well done, the company laugh at the pun- 
 ster, and then he is ruined for ever. 
 
 MAXIM FOURTH. 
 
 A fine singer, after dinner, is a still greater bore, for he 
 stops the wine. This we pardon in a slang or drinking 
 song, for such things serve as shoeing-horns to draw on 
 more bottles, by jollifying your host; so that, though the 
 supply may be slow, it is more copious in the end ; but a 
 fine song-singer only serves to put people in mind of tea. 
 You, therefore, not only lose the circulation of the bottle 
 while he is getting through his crotchets and quavers, but 
 he actually tends to cut off the final supply. He then by 
 all means is to be discouraged. These fellows are always 
 most insufferably conceited, so that it is not very easy to 
 keep them down, but it is possible nevertheless. One of 
 the best rules is, as soon as he has sung the first verse, and 
 while he is taking breath for the second, applaud him most 
 vociferously, as if all was over ; and say to the gentleman 
 farthest from you at table, that you admire the conclusion 
 of this song very much. It is ten to one but his musical 
 pride will take affront, and he will refuse to sing any more, 
 saying or muttering something savage about your want of 
 
 VOL. II. N 
 
194 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 taste or politeness. For that, of course, you will not care 
 three straws, having extinguished him. If the company 
 press him to go on, you are safe, for he will then decidedly 
 grow restive to show his importance, and you will escape 
 his songs for the rest of the evening. 
 
 Or, after he has really done, and is sucking in the bravo 
 of the people at table, stretch across to him and say : You 
 sung that very well, Mr. a-a-a ; very well indeed ; but did you 
 not (laying a most decided emphasis upon the not)^ did you 
 not hear Mr. Incledon, or Mr Braham (or anybody else 
 whom you think most annoying to him) sing in some play, 
 pantomime, or something ? When he answers, No, in a pert, 
 snappish style — for all these people are asses — resume your 
 most erect posture, and say quite audibly to your next 
 neighbour : So I thought. This twice repeated is a dose. 
 
 MAXIM FIFTH. 
 
 Brougham the politician is to be hated, but not so every 
 Brougham. In this apophthegm I particularly have an eye 
 to John Waugh Brougham, Esq., wine-merchant, or am^oikric^ 
 in the court of the Pnyx, Athens, and partner of Samuel 
 Anderson, Esq. — a man for whom I have a particular regard. 
 This Mr. Brougham has had the merit of reintroducing 
 among the axjroy&on^ of Attica the custom of drinking Vin de 
 Bordeaux from the tap ; a custom which, more especially in 
 hot weather, is deserving of much commendation and dili- 
 gent observance. One gets the tipple much cheaper in this 
 way ; and I have found, by personal experience, that the 
 headache, of which copious potation of this potable is pro- 
 ductive, yields at once to a dose of the Seidlitz, whereas that 
 arising from old-bottled claret not unfrequently requires a 
 touch of the Glauber — an offensive salt, acting harshly and 
 ungenteelly upon the inner Adam. 
 
 MAXIM SIXTH. 
 
 A Whig is an ass. 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 195 
 
 MAXIM SEVENTH. 
 
 Tap claret tastes best out of a pewter pot There is 
 something solemn and affecting in these renewals of the 
 antique observances of the symposium. I never was so 
 pleasantly situated as the first time I saw on the board of 
 friend Francis Jeffrey, Esq., editor of a periodical work 
 published in Athens, a man for whom I have a particular 
 regard, an array of these venerable concerns, inscribed 
 ''More Majorum." Mr. Hallam furnished the classic motto 
 to Mr. Jeffrey, who is himself as ignorant of Latin as Mr. 
 Cobbett ; for he understood the meaning to be ''more in 
 the jorum," until Mr. Pillans expounded to him the real 
 meaning; of Mr. Hallam. 
 
 MAXIM EIGHTH. 
 
 A story-teller is so often a mighty pleasant fellow that it 
 may be deemed a difficult matter to decide whether he 
 ought to be stopped or not. In case, however, that it be 
 required, far the best way of doing it is this : After he has 
 discharged his first tale, say across to some confederate 
 (for this method requires confederates, like some jugglers' 
 tricks) : Number one. As soon as he has told a second, in 
 like manner say : Number two. Perhaps he may perceive 
 it, and if so he stops : if not, the very moment his third 
 story is told, laugh out quite loud, and cry to your friend : 
 " I trouble you for the sovereign. You see I was right, 
 when I betted that he would tell these three stories exactly 
 in that order, in the first twenty minutes after his arrival in 
 the room." Depend on it he is mum after that. 
 
 MAXIM NINTH. 
 
 If your host is curious in wines, he deserves much en- 
 couragement, for the mere operation of tasting seven or 
 eight kinds of wine goes far toward pouching for you an 
 additional bottle. However; it may happen that he is 
 
196 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 becoming a bore by bamming you with stuff of wine which 
 he says is sherry of God knows how long, or hock of the 
 days of Noah, and it all the while the rinsing of wine-tubs. 
 That must be put down with the utmost severity. Good 
 manners will not permit you to tell him the truth, and 
 rebel at once under such unworthy treatment : but if you 
 wear a stiff collar, a la George Qitatre^ much may be done 
 by turning your head round on the top of the vertebrae, 
 and asking him in the most cognoscenti style : '^ Pray, sir, 
 have you ever tasted sheeraz, the favourite wine of Hafiz, 
 you know?" — Perhaps he may have tasted it, and thereby 
 defeat you by saying so ; in which case you must imme- 
 diately make a double reserve by adding — ^' For it always 
 puts me in mind of that famous Chinese wine that they 
 make at Yang-poo-tchoo-foo-nim-pang, which strikes me to 
 be most delicious drinking." If you beat him this way 
 two or three times, by mentioning wines he never heard of 
 [and, in order to make quite sure of that, it will be best to 
 mention those which never were in existence], you will out- 
 cfow him in the opinion of the company, and he, finding 
 his popularity declining, will not go on with any further 
 display. 
 
 MAXIM TENTH. 
 
 On the subject of the last apophthegm it must be re- 
 marked that you should know that the most famous 
 Rhenish is made at Johannisberg ; a very small farm — so 
 small that every drop made on it is consumed by the pro- 
 prietor, Prince Metternich, or given away to crowned heads. 
 You can always dumfound any panegyrist of his Rhine 
 wine by mentioning this circumstance. '*Ay, ay,'' you 
 may say, '' it is pretty passable stuff, but it is not Johannis- 
 berg. I lived three years in that part of the country, and I 
 flatter myself I am a judge.'' 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 197 
 
 MAXIM ELEVENTH. 
 
 The Reverend Edward Irving, a man for whom I have a 
 particular regard, is nevertheless a quack. I never saw so 
 horrible a squint ; gestures so uncouth, a " tottle of the 
 whole" so abominable. He is a dandy about his hair and 
 his shirt-collar. He is no more an orator than his country- 
 man Joseph is a philosopher. Set down as maxim the 
 eleventh that every popular preacher is a goose. 
 
 MAXIM TWELFTH. 
 
 The work " De Tribus Impostoribus " never had any 
 existence. — Well, be it so. I intend to supply this defici- 
 ency soon, and my trio shall consist of Neddy Irving, Joe 
 Hume, and The Writer Tam ; three men for whom I 
 have a particular regard. 
 
 MAXIM THIRTEENTH. 
 
 Poetry does not sell again in England for thirty years to 
 come. Mark my words. No poetry sells at present, except 
 Scott's and Byron's, and these not much. None of even 
 their later poems have sold. HaUdon Hill, Don Juan, &c. 
 &c., are examples of what I mean. Wordsworth's poetry 
 never sold : ditto Southey's : ditto even Coleridge's, which 
 Is worth them both put together : ditto John Wilson's : ditto 
 Lamb's : ditto Miss Baillie's : ditto Rogers' : ditto Cotde's, 
 of whom Canning singeth : — 
 
 *' Great Cottle, not he whom the Alfred made famous, 
 Bat TosE PH, of Bristol— the Brot her of^mos. '\ 
 
 There was a pause in poetry-reading from the time of Pope 
 till the time of Goldsmith, Again, there was a dead stop 
 between Goldy and the appearance of the Scots Minstrelsy. 
 We have now got enough to keep our fancy from starva- 
 tion for thirty or forty years to come. I hate repletion. 
 
198 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 MAXIM FOURTEENTH. 
 
 Poetry is like claret ; one enjoys it only when it is very 
 new or when it is very old. 
 
 MAXIM FIFTEENTH. 
 
 If you want good porter in London, you must always 
 inquire where there is a stand of coal-heavers. The gentle- 
 men of the press have voted porter ungenteel of late, after 
 the manner of the Tenth. They deal chiefly in gin and 
 water, at threepence sterling the tumbler ; and their chief 
 resorts are the Wrekin, and Ofifley's Burton ale-house, near 
 Covent Garden, where He of the Trombone and I have 
 occasionally amused ourselves contemplating their orgies. 
 The Finish is a place where they may also be seen now 
 and then — I mean the upper ranks. The Cyder Cellar I 
 do not admire — nor the Eccentric neither — but chaciin a son 
 goilf. 
 
 MAXIM SIXTEENTH. 
 
 The Londoners have got a great start of the provincials, 
 Irish, Scotch, Yorkshire, &c., in the matter of dinner hours. 
 I consider five or even six o'clock as too early for a man 
 deeply engaged in business. By dining at seven or eight, 
 one gains a whole hour or two of sobriety, for the purpose of 
 transacting the more serious affairs of life. In other words, 
 no man can do anything but drink after dinner ; and thus 
 it follows that, the later one dines, the less does one's drink- 
 ing break in upon that valuable concern, time, of which, 
 whatever may be the case with others, I for one have 
 always had more than of money. A man, however busy, 
 who sits down to dinner as eight strikes, may say to him- 
 self with a placid conscience : Come, fair play is a jewel — 
 day is over — nothing but boozing until bed-time. 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 199 
 
 MAXIM SEVENTEENTH. 
 
 John Murray is a first-rate fellow in his way, but he 
 should not publish so many baddish books, written by 
 ""gentlemen and ladies who have no merit except that of 
 'Bguring 'in the elegan t coteries of May-fair. There seems 
 to me to be no greater impertinence than that of a man of 
 fashion pretending to understand the real feelings of man. 
 A Byron or so appears once in a hundred years or so 
 perhaps ; but then even Byron was always a roiie^ and had 
 seen the froth foam over the side of many a pewter pot ere 
 he attempted to sing Childe Harold's melancholious moods. 
 A man has no conception of the true sentimental sadness 
 of the poetic mind unless he has been blind-drunk once 
 and again, mixing tears with toddy, and the heigho with the 
 hiccup. What can these dandies know who have never 
 even spent a cool morning in The Shades? No good 
 poetry was ever written by a character in silk stockings. 
 Hogg writes in corduroy breeches and top-boots : Coleridge 
 in black breeches and gray worsteds : Sir Walter in rig-and- 
 furrows : Tom Moore in Connemaras, all his good songs — 
 Lalla Rookh, I opine, in economy-silks : Tom Campbell 
 wrote his old affairs bareheaded and without breeches. 
 Ritter Bann, on the contrary, smells of natty stocking panta- 
 loons and a scratch wig : Lord Byron wears cossacks in 
 spite of Almack's : Allan Cunningham sports a leathern 
 apron : William Wordsworth rejoices in velveteens : and 
 Willison Glas's the same. It is long since I have seen Dn 
 Southey, but I understand he has adopted the present 
 fashion of green silk stockings with gold clocks : Barry 
 Cornwall wears a tawny waistcoat of beggar's velvet, with 
 silver frogs, and a sham platina chain twisted through two 
 button holes. Leigh Hunt's yellow breeches are well 
 known ; so are my own Wellingtons for that matter. 
 
200 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 MAXIM EIGHTEENTH. 
 
 Lord Byron recommends hock and soda-water in the 
 crop-sickness. My own opinion is in favour of five drops 
 of laudanum and a teaspoonful of vinegar in a tumbler of 
 fair spring water. Try this : although much may also be 
 said in praise of that maxim which Fielding has inserted in 
 one of his plays — the Covent Garden Tragedy, I think, — 
 videlicet, that "the most grateful of all drinks is 
 
 ' Cool small-beer unto the waking drunkard. 
 
 9 )> 
 
 MAXIM NINETEENTH. 
 
 Nothing can be more proper than the late parliamentary 
 grant of half a million for the building of new churches. 
 
 MAXIM TWENTIETH. 
 
 What I said in Maxim Third of stopping punsters must 
 be understood with reservation. Puns are frequently pro- 
 vocative. One day, after dinner with a Nabob, he was 
 giving us Madeira — 
 
 London — East India — picked — particular ; 
 
 then a second thought struck him, and he remembered that 
 he had a few flasks of Constantia in the house, and he pro- 
 duced one. He gave us just a glass a-piece. We became 
 clamorous for another, but the old Qui-hi was firm in refusal. 
 ''Well, well,'' says Sydney Smith, a man for whom I have 
 a particular regard, "since we can't double the Cape, we 
 m-ust e'en go back to Madeira." We all laughed — our host 
 most of all — and he too, luckily, had his joke. "Be of 
 Good Hope, you shall double it ; " at which we all laughed 
 still more immoderately, and drank the second flask, 
 
 MAXIM TWENTY-FIRST. 
 
 What stuff for Mrs. Hemans, Miss Porden, &c. &c., to 
 be writing plays and epics ! There is no such thing as 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 201 
 
 female genius. The only good thing that women have 
 written are Sappho's Ode upon Phaon, and Madame de 
 Stael's Corinne ; and of these two good things the inspira- 
 tion is simply and entirely that one glorious feeling in 
 which, and in which alone, woman is the equal of man. 
 
 MAXIM TWENTY-SECOND. 
 
 There is a kind of mythological Jacobitism going just 
 
 now which I cannot patronise. You see Barry Cornwall, 
 and other great poets of his calibre, running down Jupiter 
 and the existing dynasty very much, and bringing up old 
 Saturn and the Titans. This they do in order to show off 
 learning and depth, but they know nothing after all of the 
 sky gods. I have long had an idea of writing a dithyrambic 
 in order to show these fellows how to touch off mythology. 
 Here is a sample — 
 
 Come to the meeting, there's drinking and eating, 
 
 Plenty and famous, your beUies to cram : 
 Jupiter Ammon, with gills red as salmon, 
 
 Twists round his eyebrows the horns of a ram. 
 
 Juno the she-cock has harnessed her peacock, 
 Warming the way with a drop of a dram ; 
 
 Phoebus Apollo in order will follow, 
 
 Lighting the road with his old patent flam. 
 
 Cuckoldy Vulcan, despatching a full can, 
 
 Limps to the banquet on tottering ham ; 
 Venus her sparrows, and Cupid his arrows, 
 
 Sport on th' occasion — fine infant and dam. 
 
 Mars, in full armour, to follow his charmer, 
 
 Looks as ferocious as Highlander Sam ; 
 Jocus and Comus ride tandem with Momus, 
 
 Cheering the road with gibe, banter, and bam. 
 
 Madam Latona, the old Roba Bona, 
 
 Simpering as mild as a fawn or a lamb, ^ 
 
 Drives with Aurora the red-nosed Signora, 
 With fingers as rosy as raspberry jam. 
 
 There is real mythology for you ! 
 
202 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 MAXIM TWENTY-THIRD. 
 
 The English really are, after all, a mighty 'cute people. 
 I never went anywhere when I was first imported that they 
 did not find me out to be an Irishman the moment I 
 opened my mouth. And how think ye ? Because I used 
 at first to call always for a /^/ of porter ; whereas, in Eng- 
 land, they never drink more than a pint at a draught. 
 
 MAXIM TWENTY- FOURTH. 
 
 I do not agree with Doctor Adam Clarke's translation of 
 mnD, in Genesis. I think it must mean a serpent, not an 
 ourang-outang. Bellamy's Ophion is, however, a weak 
 work, which does not answer Clarke, for whom he is 
 evidently no match on the score of learning. There is, 
 after all, no antipathy between serpents and men naturally, 
 as is proved by the late experiments of Monsieur Neille in 
 America. 
 
 MAXIM TWENTY-FIFTH. 
 
 A man saving his wine must be cut up savagely. Those 
 who wish to keep their expensive wines pretend they do 
 not like them. Yqu meet people occasionally who tell you 
 it is bad taste to give champagne at dinner — at least in their 
 opinion — Port and Teneriffe being such superior drinking. 
 Some, again, patronise Cape Madeira, and tell you that the 
 smack is very agreeable ; adding sometimes in a candid 
 and patriotic tone that, even if it were not, it would become 
 us to try to bring it into fashion, it being the only wine 
 grown in his Majesty's dominions. 
 
 In Ireland and Scotland they always smuggle in the 
 tumblers or the bowl. Now, I hold that if punch w^as raised 
 by taxation or otherwise (but Jupiter Amnion avert the 
 day !) to a guinea a bottle, everybody would think it the 
 balmiest, sweetest, dearest, and most splendid of fluids ; a 
 fluid to which King Burgundy or Emperor Tokay themselves 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 203 
 
 should hide their diminished heads ; and it is, consequently, 
 a liquor which I quaff most joyously — but never when I 
 think it brought in from any other motive than mere affec- 
 tion to itself. I remember dining one day with Lord 
 
 (I spare his name) in the south of Ireland, and my friend 
 Charley Crofts was also of the party. The claret went lazily 
 round the table, and his lordship's toad-eaters hinted that 
 they preferred punch, and called for hot water. My lord 
 gave in, after a humbug show of resistance, and whisky 
 punch was in a few minutes the order of the night. Charley, 
 however, to the annoyance of the host, kept swilling away 
 
 at the claret, on which Lord lost all patience, and said 
 
 to him : '' Charley, you are missing quite a treat. This punch 
 is so excellent.'^ — ^' Thank ye, my lord," said Charley; " I 
 am a plain man, who does not want trates. I am no epicure, 
 so I stick to the claret.'^ 
 
 MAXIM TWENTY-SIXTH. 
 
 When a man is drunk, it is no matter upon what he has 
 got drunk. 
 
 He sucks with equal throat, as up to all, 
 
 Tokay from Hungary, or beer the small. — Pope. 
 
 MAXIM TWENTY-SEVENTH. 
 
 The great superiority of Blackwood's Magazine over all 
 other works of our time is that one can be allowed to speak 
 one's mind there. There was never yet one word of genuine 
 unsophisticated truth in the Edinburgh, the Quarterly, or 
 indeed in any other of the periodicals — in relation, I mean, 
 to anything that can be called opinion or sentiment. All 
 is conventional mystification, except in Ebony, the jewel, 
 alone. Here alone can a man tell smack out that he is a 
 Tory, an Orangeman, a Radical, a Catholic, anything he 
 pleases to be, to the back-bone. No necessity for conciha- 
 tory mincing and paring away of one's own intellect. I love 
 
204 MAXIMS OF ODOHETITY. 
 
 whisky punch ; I say so. I admire Wo rdsworth and Don 
 Juan; I say so. Southey is a humbug; wxll, let it be said 
 distinctly. Tom Campbell is in his dotage ; why conceal a 
 fact like this ? I scorn all paltering with the public : I hate 
 all shuffling, equivocating, trick, stuff, nonsense. I write in 
 Blackwood^ because there Morgan ODoherty can be Morgan 
 ODoherty. If I wrote in the Quarterly^ I should be 
 bothered (partly with, and partly without, being conscious 
 of it) with a hampering, binding, fettering, nullifying sort of 
 notion that I must make myself, pro tonpore^ a bit of a 
 Gifford ; and so of everything else. 
 
 MAXIM TWENTY-EIGHTH. 
 
 Much is to be said in favour of toasted cheese for supper. 
 It is the cant to say that Welsh rabbit is heavy eating. I 
 know this ; but have I really found it to be so in my own 
 case ? Certainly not. I like it best in the genuine Welsh 
 way, however — that is, the toasted bread buttered on both 
 sides profusely, then a layer of cold roast beef with mustard 
 and horse-radish, and then, on the top of all, the superstratum 
 of Cheshire thoroughly saturated, while in the process of 
 toasting, with cwrw,"^ or, in its absence, genuine porter, black 
 pepper, and shallot vinegar. I peril myself upon the asser- 
 tion that this is not a heavy supper for a man who has been 
 busy all day till dinner in reading, writing, walking, or riding 
 — who has occupied himself between dinner and supper in 
 the discussion of a bottle or two of sound wine, or any 
 equivalent — and who proposes to swallow at least three 
 tumblers of something hot ere he resigns himself to the 
 embrace of Somnus. With these provisoes, I recommend 
 toasted cheese for supper. And I bet half-a-crown that 
 Kitchener coincides with me as to this. 
 
 * Pronounced croo^ is the name of ale in Wales. 
 
/Ilbajtms of ©Boberti^/ 
 
 PART THE SECOND. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Gentle Reader, — Few pieces of cant are more common 
 than that which consists in re-echoing the old and ridiculous 
 cry of "variety is charming;'' "' toujour s perdrix^^^ &c. &c. 
 &c. I deny the fact. I want no variety. Let things be 
 really good, and I for one am in no danger of wearying of 
 them. For example, to rise every day about half after nine 
 — eat a couple of eggs and muffins, and drink some cups of 
 genuine, sound, clear coffee — then to smoke a cigar or so — 
 read the Chronicle — skim a few volumes of some first-rate 
 new novel, or perhaps pen a libel or two in a light sketchy 
 vein — then to take a bowl of strong, rich, invigorating soup 
 — then to get on horseback, and ride seven or eight miles, 
 paying a visit to some amiable, well-bred, accomplished 
 young lady in the course of it, and chattering away an 
 hour with her, 
 
 ** Sporting with Amaryllis in the shade, 
 Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair," 
 
 as Milton expresses it — then to take a hot-bath, and dress — « 
 then to sit down to a plain substantial dinner, in company 
 with a select party of real good, honest, jolly Tories — and 
 to spend the rest of the evening with them over a pitcher 
 of cool Chateau-Margaux, singing, laughing, speechifying, 
 blending wit and wisdom, and winding up the whole with 
 a devil and a tumbler or two of hot rum-punch. — This, 
 repeated day after day, week after week, month after month, 
 
2o6 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 and year after year, may perhaps appear, to some people, a 
 picture pregnant with ideas of the most sickening and dis- 
 gusting monotony. Not so with me, however. I am a 
 plain man. I could lead this dull course of uniform unvaried 
 existence for the whole period of the millenniun. Indeed 
 I mean to do so. 
 
 Hoping that you, benevolent reader, after weighing 
 matters with yourself in calm contemplation for a few 
 minutes, may be satisfied that the view I have taken is the 
 right one, I now venture to submit to your friendly notice 
 a small additional slice of the same genuine honest cut-and- 
 come-again dish, to \vhich I recently had the honour of 
 introducing you. Do not, therefore, turn up your nose in 
 fashionable fastidiousness ; but mix your grog, light your 
 pipe, and — laying out your dexter leg before you in a 
 comfortable manner upon a well-padded chair, or sofa, or 
 footstool (for the stuffing of the cushion, not the form of 
 the furniture, is the point of real importance), and, above 
 all, take particular care that your cravat, braces, w^aistband, 
 &c. &c. &c., be duly relaxed — proceed, I say, wath an easy 
 body, and a well-disposed, humble, and meditative mind, 
 to cast your eye over a few more of those " pebbles " (to use 
 a fine expression of the immortal Burke), which have been 
 rounded and polished by long tossing about in the mighty 
 ocean of the intellect of, gentle reader, your most devoted 
 servant, Morgan ODoherty. 
 
 Blue Posts, J^tcjie 19, 1824. 
 
 MAXIM TWENTY-NINTH. 
 
 Whenever there is any sort of shadow of doubt as to the 
 pohtics of an individual, that individual has reason to be 
 ashamed of his politics ; in other w^ords, he is a Whig. A 
 Tory always deals above board. Your Whig, on the other 
 hand, particularly your Whigling, or young Whig, may have, 
 and in point of fact very often has, his private reasons for 
 wishing to keep the stain of which he is conscious as much 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 207 
 
 in the shade as may be. It is wonderful how soon such 
 characters make up their minds when they are once fairly 
 settled in a good thing. 
 
 MAXIM THIRTIETH. 
 
 Hock cannot be too much, claret cannot be too little, 
 iced. Indeed, I have my doubts whether any red wine 
 should ever see the ice-pail at all. Burgundy, unquestionably, 
 never should ; and I am inclined to think, that with regard 
 to hermitage, claret, &c., it is always quite sufficient to wrap 
 a wet towel (or perhaps a wisp of wet straw is better still) 
 about the bottle, and put it in the draft of a shady window 
 for a couple of hours before enjoyment. I do not mention 
 port, because that is a winter wine. 
 
 MAXIM THIRTY-FIRST. 
 
 In whatever country one is, one should choose the dishes 
 of the country. Every really national dish is good ; at 
 least, I never yet met with one that did not gratify my 
 appetite. The Turkish pilaws are most excellent : but the 
 so-called French cookery of Pera is execrable. In like 
 manner, roast beef with Yorkshire pudding is always a 
 prime feast in England, while John Bull's fricandeaux^ 
 souffles^ &c., are decidedly anathema. What a horror, 
 again, is a bifteck of the Palais Royal ! On the same 
 principle — (for all the fine arts follow exactly the same 
 principles) — on the same principle it is that while Principal 
 Robertson, Dugald Stewart, Dr. Thomas Brown, and all the 
 other would-be-English writers of Scotland have long since 
 been voted tame, insipid, and tasteless diet, the real haggis- 
 bag of a Robert Burns keeps, and must always keep, its 
 place. 
 
 MAXIM THIRTY-SECOND. 
 
 Never take lobster-sauce to salmon ; it is mere painting 
 of the lily, or, I should rather say, of the rose. The only 
 
2o8 MAXIMS or ODOHERTY. 
 
 true sauce for salmon is vinegar, mustard, Cayenne pepper, 
 and parsley. Try this once^ my dear Dr. Kitchener, and I 
 have no hesitation in betting three tenpennies that you will 
 never depart from it again while the breath of gastronomy 
 is in your nostrils. As for the lobster, either make soup of 
 him, or eat him cold (with cucumber) at supper. 
 
 • 
 
 MAXIM THIRTY-THIRD. 
 
 I talked in the last maxim of cold lobster for supper ; but 
 this requires explanation. If by accident you have dined in 
 a quiet way, and deferred for once the main business of 
 existence until the night, then eat cold lobster, cold beef, 
 or cold anything you like for supper ; but in the ordinary 
 case, when a man has already got his two bottles, or perhaps 
 three under his belt, depend on it, the supper of that man 
 should be hot — hot — hot — 
 
 "Nunquam aliud Natura, aliud Sapientia docet." 
 
 Such is my simple view of the matter ; but a friend at my 
 elbow, who is always for refining on things, says that the 
 philosophical rule is this : " When you have been drinking 
 cold wune or cold punch, your supper ought to be a devil, 
 or at least something partaking of the devil character : and, 
 on the other hand, when you have been swallowing mulled 
 wine, or hot punch, or hot toddy, something cold, with 
 vinegar, salad, &c., should form the supper." I have given 
 you my friend^s theory in his own w^ords. If men of sense 
 would but communicate the results of their different experi- 
 ments to the public, we should soon have abundant data for 
 the settlement of all these disputes. 
 
 MAXIM THIRTY-FOURTH. 
 
 It is a common thing to hear big wigs prosing against 
 dri?iking as ^' a principal source of the evil that we see in 
 this world." I heard a very big wig say so myself the other 
 day from the bench, and we have all heard the same cant, 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 209 
 
 ad nauseam tisque^ from the pulpit. There cannot, however, 
 be a more egregious mistake. Had Voltaire, Robespierre, 
 Buonaparte, Talleyrand, &c., been all a set of jolly, boozing 
 lads, what a mass of sin and horror, of blasphemy, uproar, 
 bloodthirsty revolution, wars, battles, sieges, butcherings, 
 ravishings, &c. &c. &c., in France, Germany, Egypt, Spain, 
 Sicily, Syria, North America, Portugal, &c., had been spared 
 within the last twenty or thirty years ! Had Mahomet been 
 a comfortable, social good fellow, devotedly fond of his 
 pipe and pot, would not the world have avoided the whole 
 of the humbug of Islamism? — a superstition, reader, that 
 has chained up and degraded the intellect of man in so 
 many of the finest districts of the globe during the space of 
 so many long centuries. Is it not manifest that, if Southey 
 had been a greater dealer in quarts, his trade would have 
 been more limited as to quartos? It is clear, then, that 
 loyalty, religion, and literature have had occasion, one and 
 all of them, to bemoan not the wine-sop, but the milk-sop, 
 propensities of their most deadly foes. 
 
 MAXIM THIRTY-FIFTH. 
 
 In making our estimate of a man's character we should 
 always lay entirely out of view whatever has any connection 
 with '' the womankind.'' In fact, we all are, or have been, 
 or shall be, — or, if this be too much, we all at least might, 
 could, w^ould, or should be, — fools, quoad hoc. I wish this 
 were the worst of it : but enough. 
 
 MAXIM THIRTY-SIXTH. 
 
 The next best thing to a really good woman is a really 
 good-natured one. 
 
 MAXIM THIRTY-SEVENTH. 
 
 The next worst thing to a really bad man (in other words, 
 a knave) is a really good-natured one (in other words, a 
 foot). 
 
 VOL. II. O 
 
2IO MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 MAXIM THIRTY-EIGHTH. 
 
 A fool admires likeness to himself; but, except in the 
 case of fools, people fall in love with something unlike 
 themselves ; a tall man with a short woman ; a Httle man 
 with a strapper ; fair people with dark ; and so on. 
 
 MAXIM THIRTY-NINTH. 
 
 A married woman commonly falls in love with a man as 
 unlike her husband as is possible ; but a widow very often 
 marries a man extremely resembling the defunct. The 
 reason is obvious. 
 
 MAXIM FORTIETH. 
 
 You may always ascertain whether you are in a city or a 
 village, by finding out whether the inhabitants do or do not 
 care for, or speak about, anything three days after it has 
 happened. 
 
 MAXIM forty-first. 
 
 « 
 
 There are four kinds of men : the Whig who has always 
 been a Whig, the Tory who has once been a Whig, the 
 Whig who has once been a Tory, and the Tory who has 
 always been a Tory. Of these I drink willingly only with 
 the last, — considering the first as a fool, the second as a 
 knave, and the third as both a fool and a knave ; but, if I 
 must choose among the others, give me the mere fool. 
 
 MAXIM FORTY-SECOND. 
 
 Never boozify a second time wath the man whom you 
 have seen misbehave himself in his cups. I have seen a 
 great deal of life, and I stake myself upon the assertion 
 that no man ever says or does that brutal thing when drunk 
 which he would not also say or do when sober if he dtcrst. 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 211 
 
 MAXIM FORTY-THIRD. 
 
 In literature and in love we generally begin in bad taste. 
 I myself wrote very pompous verses at twenty, and my first 
 flame was a flaunting, airy, artificial attitudiniser, several 
 years older than myself. By means of experience we 
 educate our imagination, and become sensible to the charm 
 of the simple and the unaffected, both in belles and belles- 
 lettres. Your septuagenarian of accomplished taste discards 
 epithets with religious scrupulosity, and prefers an innocent 
 blushing maiden of sixteen to all the blazing duchesses of 
 St. James's. 
 
 MAXIM FORTY-FOURTH. 
 
 Nothing is more disgusting than the coram publico endear- 
 ments in which new-married people so frequently indulge 
 themselves. The thing is obviously indecent ] but this I 
 could overlook, were it not also the perfection of folly and 
 imbecility. No wise man counts his coin in the presence 
 of those who, for aught he knows, may be thieves ; .and no 
 good sportsman permits the pup to do that for which the 
 doGf must be corrected. 
 
 o 
 
 MAXIM FORTY-FIFTH. 
 
 A husband should be very attentive to his wife until the 
 first child is born. After that she can amuse herself at 
 home, while he resumes his jolly habits. 
 
 MAXIM FORTY-SIXTH. 
 
 Never believe in the intellect of a Whig merely because 
 you hear all the Whigs trumpet him ; nay, hold fast your 
 faith that he is a dunderhead, even although the Pluckless 
 pipe symphonious. That is, you will please to observe, 
 merely a plain English version of that good old adagium : 
 
 '^ Mille licet cyphris cyphranim millia jungas, 
 Nil praeter magnum confides nihilum," 
 
212 .MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 MAXIM FORTY-SEVENTH. 
 
 There are two methods of mail-coach travelling ; the gen- 
 erous and the sparing. I have tried both, and give my 
 voice decidedly for the former. It is all stuff that you hear 
 about eating and drinking plentifully inducing fever, &c. 
 &c., during a long journey. Eating and drinking copiously 
 produce nothing, mind and body being well regulated, but 
 sleepiness ; and I know no place where that inclination may 
 be indulged less reprehensibly than in a mail-coach for at 
 least sixteen hours out of the four-and-twenty. In travelling, 
 I make a point to eat whenever I can sit down, and to 
 drink (ale) whenever the coach stops. As for the interim, 
 when I can neither eat nor drink, I smoke if upon deck, 
 and snuff if inside. 
 
 N.B. — Of course, I mean when there is no opportunity of 
 flirtation. 
 
 MAXIM FORTY-EIGHTH, 
 
 If you meet with a pleasant fellow in a stage-coach, dine 
 and get drunk with him, and, still holding him to be a 
 pleasant fellow, hear from his own lips just at parting that 
 he is a Whig— diO not change your opinion of the man. 
 Depend on it he is quizzing you. 
 
 MAXIM FORTY-NINTH. 
 
 Show me the young lady that runs after preachers, and 
 I will show you one who has no particular aversion to men. 
 
 MAXIM FIFTIETH. 
 
 There are only three liquors that harmonise with smok- 
 ing ; beer, coffee, and hock. Cigars altogether destroy the 
 flavour of claret, and indeed of all red wines except 
 Auchmanshauser^ which, in case you are not knowing in 
 such matters, is the produce of the Burgundy grape trans- 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 213 
 
 planted to the banks of the Rhine ; a wine for which I have 
 a particular regard. 
 
 MAXIM FIFTY-FIRST. 
 
 He whose friendship is worth having must hate and be 
 hated. 
 
 MAXIM FIFTY-SECOND. 
 
 Your highly popular young lady seldom — I believe I 
 might say 7iever — inspires a true, deep, soul-filling passion. 
 I cannot suppose Juliet d'Etagne to have been a favourite 
 partner in a ball-room. She could not take the trouble to 
 smile upon so many fops. 
 
 MAXIM FIFTY-THIRD. 
 
 The intensely amorous temperament in a young girl 
 never fails to stamp melancholy on her eye-lid. The lively, 
 rattling, giggling romp may be capable of a love of her 
 own kind, but never the true luxury of the passion. 
 
 MAXIM FIFTY-FOURTH. 
 
 No fool can be in love. N.B. — It has already been laid 
 down that all good-natured men are fools. 
 
 MAXIM FIFTY-FIFTH. 
 
 Nothing is more overrated, in common parlance at least, 
 than the influence of personal handsomeness in men. For 
 my part I can easily imagine a woman (I mean one really 
 worth being loved by) falling in love with a Balfour of 
 Burleigh : but I cannot say the same thing as to a young 
 Milnwood. A real Rebecca would, I also think, have been 
 more likely to fall in love with the Templar than with 
 Ivanhoe ; but these, I believe, were both handsome fellows 
 in their several styles. The converse of all this applies to 
 the case of women. Rousseau did not dare to let the small- 
 
214 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 pox permanently injure the beauty of his Heloise. One 
 would have closed the book had he destroyed the sine qua 
 non of all romance. 
 
 MAXIM FIFTY-SIXTH. 
 
 Whenever you see a book frequently advertised, you may 
 be pretty sure it is a bad one. If you see a puff quoted in 
 the advertisement, you may be quite sure. 
 
 MAXIM FIFTY-SEVENTH. 
 
 Employ but one tradesman of the same trade, and let him 
 be the first man in his line. He has the best materials, 
 and can give the best tick ; and one long bill is, at all times, 
 a mere trifle on the man's mind, compared with three short 
 ones. 
 
 MAXIM FIFTY-EIGHTH. 
 
 I cannot very well tell the reason, but such is the fact : 
 the best boots and shoes are made at York ; I mean as to 
 the quality of the leather. 
 
 MAXIM FIFTY-NINTH. 
 
 Be on your guard when you hear a young lady speak 
 slightingly of a young gentleman with whom she has any 
 sort of acquaintance. She is probably in love with him, 
 and will be sure to remember what you say after she is 
 married. But if you have been heedless enough to follow 
 her lead, and abuse him, you must make the best of it. If 
 you have great face, go boldly at her, and, drawing her into 
 a corner, say, '^ Aha ! do you remember a certain conversa- 
 tion we had ? Did you think I was not up to your tricks 
 all the time?" Or, better still, take the bull hy the horns, 
 and say, '^ So ho ! you lucky dog. I could have prophesied 
 this long ago. She and I were always at you when we met: 
 she thought I did not see through the affair. Poor girl ! 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 215 
 
 she was desperately in for it, to be sure. By Jupiter, what 
 a fortunate fellow you have been ! " &c. &c. &c. Or, best 
 of all, follow my own plan ; i.e. don't call till the honeymoon 
 is over. 
 
 MAXIM SIXTIETH. 
 
 It is the prevailing humbug for authors to abstain from 
 putting their names on their title-pages; and well may I 
 call this a humbug, since of every book that ever attracts the 
 smallest attention the author is instantly just as well known 
 as if he had clapt his portrait to the beginning of it. This 
 nonsense sometimes annoys me, and I have a never-failing 
 method. My way is this : I do not, as other people do, 
 utter modest, mincing little compliments, in hopes of seeing 
 the culprit blush, and thereby betray himself. This is much 
 too pretty treatment for a man guilty of playing upon the 
 public; and, besides, few of them can blush. I pretend the 
 most perfect ignorance of the prevailing and, of course, just 
 suspicion ; and, the moment the work is mentioned, I begin 
 to abuse it up hill and down dale. The company tip me 
 the wLik, nod, frown in abundance — no matter. On I go, 
 inordiius^ and one of two things is the result, viz. : — either the 
 anonymous hero waxeth wroth, and in that case the cat is 
 out of the poke for ever and a day ; or he takes it in good 
 part, keeping his countenance with perfect composure ; and 
 then it is p7wed. that he is really a sensible fellow, and by 
 consequence really has a right to follow his own fancies, 
 however ridiculous. 
 
 MAXIM SIXTY-FIRST. 
 
 Lord Byron observes that the daily necessity of shaving 
 imposed upon the European male places him on a level 
 as to misery with the sex to whose share the occasional 
 botheration of parturition has fallen. I quite agree with his 
 lordship ; and in order to diminish, as far as in me lies, the 
 pains of my species, I hereby lay down the result of my ex- 
 
2i6 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 perience in abrasion. If I had ever lain-in, I would have 
 done my best for the ladies too. But to proceed : First, 
 then, buy your razors at Facet's — a queer, dark-looking, 
 little shop in Ficcadilly, a few doors eastward from the 
 head of St. James's Street. He is a decent, shrewd, intelli- 
 gent old man, makes the best blades in Europe, tempers 
 every one of them with his own hand, and would sooner 
 cut his throat than give you a second-rate article. Secondly, 
 in stropping your razor (and a piece of plain buff leather 
 is by far the best strop), play from you, not towards you. 
 Thirdly, anoint your head over night, if the skin be in any 
 degree hard or dry, or out of repair, with cold cream, or, 
 better still, with bear's grease. Fourthly, whether you have 
 anointed or not, wash your face carefully and copiously 
 before shaving, for the chief difficulty almost always arises 
 from dust, perspiration, &c., clogging the roots of the beard. 
 Fifthly, let your soap be the Fasta di Castagna. Sixthly, 
 let your brush be a ///// one of canieVs hair. Seventhly, in 
 spite of Sir John Sinclair, always use hot water — soiling 
 water. These are the seven golden rules. i 
 
 N.B. — Use the strop again after you have done shaving, 
 and get old Paget, if possible, to give you a lesson in netting 
 your razors. If you cannot manage, send them to him to 
 set — ^^ay, even if you live hundreds of miles from Loidon. 
 Feople send to town about their coats, boots, &c.; but what 
 are all these things to the real comfort of a man compared 
 with a good razor } \ 
 
 MAXIM SIXTY-SECOND. , 
 
 Ass-milk, they say, tastes exceedingly like woman's. Nd 
 wonder. 
 
 MAXIM SIXTY-THIRD. 
 
 A smoker should take as much care about his cigars as a 
 wine-bibber does of his cellar ; yet most of them are exceed- 
 ingly remiss and negligent. The rules are as follows : First, 
 keep a large stock — for good tobacco improves very much 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 217 
 
 by time — say enough for two years' consumption. Secondly, 
 keep them in the coolest place you have, provided it be per- 
 fectly dry ; for a cigar that is once wet is useless and irre- 
 claimable. Thirdly, keep them always in air-tight cannisters 
 — for the common wooden boxes play the devil. 
 
 N.B. — The tobacco laws are the greatest opprobrium of 
 the British code. We laid those most extravagant duties 
 on tobacco at the time when North America was a part of 
 our own empire, and we still retain them in spite of rhyme 
 and reason. One consequence is that twtxy gentleman who 
 smokes smuggles ; for the duties on manufactured tobacco 
 amount to a prohibition : it is, I think, no less than eighteen 
 shillings per pound ; and what is a pound of cigars ? Why 
 does not the Duke of Sussex speak up in the House of 
 Lords ? ''I like King George, but I can't afford to pay 
 duties," quoth Nanty Ewart ; and I quite agree with the 
 inimitable Nanty. 
 
 MAXIM SIXTY-FOURTH. 
 
 No cigar-smoker ever committed suicide. 
 
 MAXIM SIXTY-FIFTH. 
 
 In making hot toddy, or hot punch, you must put in the 
 spirits before the water : in cold punch, grog, &c., the other 
 way. Let Dr. Hope explain the reason. I state facts. 
 
 MAXIM SIXTY-SIXTH. 
 
 The safety of women consists in one circumstance : Men 
 do not possess at the same time the knowledge of thirty- 
 five and the blood of seventeen. 
 
 MAXIM SIXTY-SEVENTH. 
 
 The extreme instance of the bathos is this : Any modern 
 sermon after the Litany of the Church of England. 
 
2i8 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 MAXIM SIXTY-EIGHTH. 
 
 The finest of all times for flirting is a wedding. They 
 are all agog, poor things. 
 
 MAXIM SIXTY-NINTH. 
 
 To me there is nothing very stareworthy in the licentious- 
 ness of a few empresses, queens, &c., of whom we have all 
 heard so much. After all, these elevated females only 
 thought themselves the equals of common men. 
 
 MAXIM SEVENTIETH. 
 
 If prudes were as pure as they would have us believe, 
 they would not rail so bitterly as they do. We do not 
 thoroughly hate that which we do not thoroughly under- 
 stand. 
 
 MAXIM SEVENTY-FIRST. * 
 
 {Composed after six months^ residence in Athens,^ 
 
 John Brougham for bordeaux, 
 
 Robert Cockburn for champagne, 
 John Ferguson for hocks, 
 
 Cay for Sherris sack of Spain. 
 
 Phin for rod, pirn, and hooks, 
 
 Dunn for congd and salaam, 
 Baib'e Blackwood for books, 
 
 Macvey Napier for balaam. 
 
 Sir Walter for fables, 
 
 Peter Robertson for speeches, 
 Mr. Trotter for tables, 
 
 Mr. Bridges for breeches. 
 
 Gall for coaches and gigs, 
 
 Steele for ices and jam, 
 Mr. Urquhart for wigs, 
 
 Mr. Jeffrey for bam. 
 
 Lord Morton for the zebra, 
 
 Billy Allan for the brush, 
 Johnny Leslie for the Hebrew, 
 
 And myself for a blush. 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 219 
 
 MAXIM SEVENTY-SECOND. 
 
 People may talk as they like, but, after all, London is 
 London. Now, somebody will say, here is a foolish tauto- 
 logy ; does not everybody know that ? Hooly and fairly, 
 my friend, it is ten to one if you know it. If you were 
 asked what are the fine things of London ; what is it that 
 gives it its metropolitan and decidedly superior character ; 
 you would say Parliament — St. James's — Carlton House 
 — the Parks — Almack's — White's — Brooks's — Crockford's 
 — Boodle's — Regent Street — the Theatres — the Dioramas — 
 the Naturoramus — the fiddle-de-devils. Not one of these 
 is in London, except perhaps the last, for I do not know 
 what that is ; but London itself, the city inside Temple 
 Bar, is the place for a philosopher. 
 
 Houses of lath may flourish or may fade : 
 
 Bob Nash may make them as Bob Nash has made. 
 
 But can Bob Nash {quern honoris causa 7iomino) create the 
 glories of Cockney-land ? Can he build a Watling Street — 
 narrow, dirty, irregular, it is true, but still a Roman way, 
 trod by proud praetors, and still to be walked over by you 
 or me, in the same form as it was trampled by the ^' hob- 
 nail " of the legionary soldier, who did service at Pharsalia ? 
 What is London Stone, a black lump in a hole of the wall 
 of a paltry church (the London Stone Coffee-house oppo- 
 site is a very fair concern), but a Roman milliarium laid 
 down there, for anything you know to the contrary, by 
 Julius Agricola, who discovered Scotland, and was the 
 friend of Cornelius Tacitus, according to the rules enacted 
 by the roadmeters of old Appius Claudius ? But I must 
 not go on with the recollection of London. Curses on the 
 Cockney school of scribblers ! They, who know nothing, 
 have, by writing in praise of Augusta Trinobantum (I use 
 this word on purpose, in order to conceal from them what 
 I mean), made us sick of the subject. I, therefore, have 
 barely adverted to the Roman times, for luckily they have 
 
220 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 not had the audacity to pretend to any acquaintance with 
 such a period. 
 
 The Court ! Why, to be sure, it contains the King, 
 whom, as a Tory, I reverence as an integral portion of the 
 State — I hate to hear him called the Chief Magistrate, as if 
 he was but an upper sort of Lord Waithman — and whom 
 as a man I regard ; but my attachment is constitutional, 
 and in the present case personal, and not local. The same 
 may be said of Parliament. As for the clubs, why, they 
 are but knots of humdrum people after all, out of all which 
 you could not shake five wits. The Almackites are asses 
 — the theatres stuff — the fashionables nothing. In money 
 • — in comfort — in cookery — in antiquity — in undying subjects 
 for quizzification — in petty Jewesses — as Spenser says : 
 
 Jewessa, sunny bright, 
 
 Adorn d with gold and jewels shir 
 
 inning cleare — 
 
 London proper I back against Southwark and Westminster, 
 including all the adjacent ha7ns^ and steads^ and tons^ and 
 wells. Where can we find the match for the Albion in 
 Aldergate Street, as thou goest from St. Martin-le-Grand to 
 the territory of Goswell Street, in the whole world, take the 
 world either ways, from Melville Island to Van Dieman's 
 Land, or from Yeddo in the Island of Japan to Inveragh 
 in the kingdom of Kerry, and back again ? Nowhere ! 
 But I am straying from my cups. 
 
 Retournons, dist Grandgousier, ^ nostre propos. 
 Quel ? dist Gargantua. 
 
 Why, punch-making. 
 
 MAXIM SEVENTY-THIRD. 
 
 In making 'rack punch you ought to put two glasses of 
 rum to three of arrack. A good deal of sugar is required ; 
 but sweetening, after all, must be left to taste. Kitchener 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 221 
 
 is frequently absurd when he prescribes by weight and 
 measure for such things. Lemons and limes are also 
 matter of palate, but two lemons are enough for the above 
 quantity. Put then an equal quantity of water — />. not five 
 but six glasses, to allow for the lemon juice — and you have 
 a very pretty three tumblers of punch. Mix in a jug. If 
 you are afraid of headaches — for, as Xenophon says of 
 another kind of Eastern tipple, 'rack punch is xs^aXaXyg; 
 — put twice as much water as spirits. I, however, never 
 used it that way for my own private drinking. 
 
 MAXIM SEVENTY-FOURTH. 
 
 The controversy respecting the fit liquor for punch is far 
 from being set at rest. As some folk mention Dr. Kitchener, 
 I may as well at once dispose of him. In his 477th nostrum 
 he professes to give you a receipt for making lemonade in a 
 minute, and he commences by bidding you to mix essence 
 of lemon peel by degrees with capillaire. How that is to 
 be done in a minute passes my comprehension. But, 
 waiving this, he proceeds to describe the process of acid- 
 makinsf, and then, in the coolest manner and most audacious 
 way in the world, bids you put a spoonful of it into a pint 
 of water, which will produce a very agreeable sherbet. '' The 
 addition of rum or brandy," quoth our hero, " will convert 
 this into punch directly.'' What a pretty way of doing 
 business this is ! It is just as much as if I were to say : Get 
 a flint — the addition of a stock, lock, and barrel to which 
 will convert it into a gun directly. Why, the spirits were 
 first to be considered. 
 
 MAXIM SEVENTY-FIFTH. 
 
 Brandy I do not think good punch. The lemon does 
 not blandly amalgamate, and sugar hurts the vinous flavour. 
 Nor is it over good as grog. I recommend brandy to be used 
 as a dram solely. In drinking claret, when that cold wine 
 
222 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 begins, as it will do, to chill the stomach, a glass of brandy 
 after every four glasses of claret corrects the frigidity. 
 
 N.B. — Brandy, and indeed all other drams, should be 
 taken at one sup, no matter how large the glass may be. 
 The old rule of '' never to make two bites of a cherry " 
 applies with peculiar emphasis to cherry brandy. 
 
 MAXIM SEVENTY-SIXTH. 
 
 Rum is the liquor consecrate to grog. Half-and-half is 
 the fair proportion. Grog should never be stirred with a 
 spoon, but immediately drunk as soon as the rum has been 
 poured in. Rum punch is apt to be heavy on the stomach ; 
 and, unless very old, it has not peculiar merit as a dram. 
 The American pine-apple rum is fine drinking, and I wonder 
 it is not introduced into this country. In my last Maxims I 
 omitted to panegyrise the peach brandy of our Transatlantic 
 brethren ; an omission which I beg leave here to correct. 
 
 MAXIM SEVENTY-SEVENTH. 
 
 The pursers on board ships water the rum too much. 
 You hear fools in Parliament and elsewhere prating about 
 the evils of impressment : but the real grievances of the 
 Navy are left untouched. Croker should take this up, for 
 it would make him extensively popular. 
 
 MAXIM SEVENTY-EIGHTH. 
 
 Shrub is decidedly a pleasant drink, particularly in the 
 morning. It is, however, expensive. Sheridan used to say 
 it was better to drink champagne out of economy ; for, said 
 he, your brains get addled with a single flask of champagne, 
 whereas you drink rum shrub all night before you are pro- 
 perly drunk. Sheridan was a great man. , 
 
MAXIMS or ODOHERTY. 223 
 
 MAXIM SEVENTY-NINTH. 
 
 As for arrack, I can't say I like it. You would bam the 
 first Mull or Qui-hi of them all by infusing a couple of 
 scruples of the flowers of benjamin in a bottle of rum. 
 You would see him snuffing it up his nose, and swearing 
 that he would know its fragrance at the distance of a 
 parasang. The flowers of benjamin cost about twopence. 
 The best place for 'rack is Vauxhall ; but I suspect they 
 run this hum on you. At Tom's in Cornhill you get it 
 genuine. 
 
 MAXIM EIGHTIETH. 
 
 Of Tom's, thus casually presented to my mind, let me 
 indulge in the recollection. Coff'ee-house, redolent of cash, 
 what magnificent associations of ideas do you not create ! 
 By you for generations has rolled the never-ceasing flow of 
 wealth ; the chink of money, since the memory of man, 
 has not been checked within your hearing. Yet, with the 
 insouciance of a sublime philosophy, your cooks and waiters 
 have never turned away from their works of gastrosophy to 
 think of the neighbouring millions. How superb is your 
 real turtle-soup — how peppery your mulligatawny — how 
 particular your Madeira ! Depend upon it, the places for 
 dining in are the city taverns or coffee-houses. You have 
 not, I am sure, a skip-jack monkey hopping behind your 
 chair ; you have no flaming mirror glowering out on you in 
 all the majesty of a deep gilt frame ; you have no marble 
 chimney-pieces, pleasant to look at, but all telling accursedly 
 against you in the bill. Instead of them you have steady- 
 going waiters, all duly impressed with the dead certainty of 
 their working up gradually to be tavern-keepers themselves — 
 thence men of potency in the ward — in time merchants of 
 some degree — aldermen in due course, perhaps ; and per- 
 haps the vista presented to their mental optics is gilded at 
 the end by the august chain of Lord Mayor. They bow 
 to you for a penny, while a jackanapes at the West End 
 
224 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 would toss up his nose at half-a-crown. The prudence of 
 their visitors makes them prudent themselves. The eastern 
 pence are hoarded, while the western tvvo-and-sixpennies 
 are flung to the winds, after the thousands of dandies who 
 have bestowed them. Then their boxes are dark and 
 dingy, but warm and cosy. A clock ticks audibly to 
 remind you of the necessity of keeping good hours, even 
 in the midst of revelry. Even if a man gets muzzy in one 
 of them, it is a sober intoxication. You are thinking of 
 profit and loss in the meanderings of your intellect ; and 
 you retire to rest to dream of the necessity of industry and 
 attention. 
 
 MAXIM EIGHTY-FIRST. 
 
 When you write any outlandish lingo, always correct the 
 press yourself. In my 24th Maxim, a most erudite and 
 important one, the word nachash is printed nechadadi. 
 After this, let no conjectural emendation be deemed too 
 wild. When we see sh \p\ converted by a printer into 
 dhdhj [m], what blunders must not have been made in the 
 days of MSS. ! And yet you hear fools prating about the 
 impropriety of meddling with the text. 
 
 MAXIM EIGHTY-SECOND. 
 
 Maxims are hard reading, demanding a constant stretch 
 of the intellectual faculties. Every word must be diligently 
 pondered, every assertion examined in all its bearings, 
 pursued witth a keen eye to its remotest consequences, 
 rejected with a philosophic calmness, or treasured up with 
 the same feeling as a " ?cr7j^aa g^ as/," a '^ possession to 
 eternity." 
 
/IBajims ot ©Bobert^. 
 
 PART THE THIRD. 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 Gentle Reader, — I have already said that I do not fear 
 the danger of cloying you with this my Series of Maxims. 
 Toiij ours per drix^ &C.5 is a true saying, no doubt, for you do 
 get tired of partridges [which, ut obiter dictum^ that is, in 
 plain English, en passant^ are very so-so in France], but 
 there is no danger of your getting tired of a varied dinner. 
 Thus in this affair of mine, if it were, like the New MoJithly 
 Magazine^ a series of humdrum papers eternally upon the 
 same subjects, you would certes feel no little lassitude. But 
 I humbly submit to your superior judgment that I am not 
 by an5^ means in the predicament of that old-womanly jour- 
 nal edited by my friend Tom Campbell of Glasgow, a man 
 for whom I Imve a particular esteem, and concerning whom 
 I shall probably tell a good story next month. 
 
 I honestly have stuck by my original bargain with you, 
 gentle reader, and given you downright and actual observa- 
 tions on human life. There is not a maxim which I have 
 not tried, as Dr. William Kitchener did his cookery recipes. 
 In all other books of maxims which I have read, the 
 greater proportion by far is mere moonshine, of no practical 
 utility whatever. I have a vague recollection of having read 
 a book by Dr. Hunter, of York, I believe, from which all I 
 gleaned — certaintly all that has stuck to my memory — is an 
 advice to have your stairs painted stone colour to save soap ; 
 to send your cards to your bookbinder to shave off their 
 edges, which will permit you to play with them three times 
 
 VOL. II. P 
 
226 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 as long as you otherwise would ; and, if your wife wears a 
 wig, never to look at her bare skull, for it is a hideous 
 spectaclec Of which the two first are piperly, and the third 
 I know nothing about, not being enrolled in the ranks of 
 matrimony. 
 
 So also in '^Lacon, or Few Things in Many Words," I 
 defy you to point out a solid practical maxim ; at least I 
 cannot recollect one. And, if not practical, they are naught. 
 The contrary of the law of theology holds in this case. In 
 Scotland I have heard people say, ''It is no sound doc- 
 trine : it is the law o' warks." Now, unless apophthegms are 
 exclusively confiined to works^ their doctrine is not sound. 
 While writing this, I have happened perchance to take up a 
 morning paper, wherein I find excerpts from the Maxims of 
 one Balthasar Gracian ; and what are they ? '' Learn to 
 obtain and preserve reputation ; " a pretty copy-line for a 
 school-boy, I own. '^ Learn to command your passions. 
 The passions are the breeches of the mind ;" he might as 
 well have said the petticoats of the Celtic. Who learns any- 
 thing by such twaddle } 
 
 In a word, gentle reader, these things pass away. If they 
 
 glitter or dazzle, they are but a kind of Fata Morgana^ 
 
 which is baseless and transient, and altogether different from 
 
 the Effata Morgana^ by which name you may, if you like, 
 
 call the dicta of, unalterably thine, gentle reader, 
 
 Morgan ODoherty. 
 Ambrose's, Athens, 
 August 27, 1824. 
 
 MAXIM EIGHTY-THIRD. 
 
 We moderns are perhaps inferior to our ancestors in 
 nothing more than in our epitaphs. The rules, nevertheless, 
 for making a good epitaph are exceedingly simple. You 
 should study a concise, brief, and piquant diction ; you 
 should state distinctly the most remarkable points in the 
 character and history of the defunct, avoiding, of course, the 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 227 
 
 error into which Pope so often fell, of omitting the name of 
 the individual in your verses, and leaving it to be tagged to 
 the tail or beginning of the piece, with a separate and prosaic 
 '^hic jacetr Thirdly, there should be, if possible, some 
 improvement of the subject, — some moral or religious or 
 patriotic maxim, — which the passenger carries with him, and 
 forgets not. I venture to present, as a happy specimen, the 
 following, which is taken from a tombstone in Winchester 
 churchyard, and which tradition ascribes to a late venerable 
 prelate of that see, Dr. Hoadly : 
 
 "Private John Thoms lies buried here, 
 Who died of drinking cold small beer : — 
 Good Christian! drink no beer at all, 
 Or, if you will drink beer, don't drink it small." 
 
 Nothing can exceed the nervous pith and fine tone of 
 this, both in the narrative and the didactic parts. It is 
 really a gem, and confers honour on the Bishop ; on whom, 
 by the way, a clever enough little epitaph was written shortly 
 after his death, by a brother Whig and D.D. Bishop 
 Hoadly was, in this doctor's opinion, a heretical scribe, and 
 his monument encroached too much on one of the great 
 pillars of the Cathedral : 
 
 **Here lying Hoadly lies, whose book 
 Was feebler than his bier : — 
 Alive, the Church he fain had shook, 
 But undermines it here." 
 
 maxim eighty-fourth. 
 
 There is not a truer saying in this world than that truth 
 lies on the surface of things. The adage about its lying in 
 a well was invented by some solemn old ass, some ^^passy- 
 measures pagan,'' as Sir Toby Belch calls him, who was 
 ambitious of being thought deep, while, in point of fact, he 
 was only muddy. Nothing that is worth having or knowing 
 is recondite or difficult to be discovered. Go into a ball- 
 room, and your eye will in three seconds light (and fix) on 
 
228 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 the beauty. Ask the stupidest host in the world to bring 
 you the best thing he has in his house, and he will, without 
 doubt, set a bottle of claret forthwith on your table. Ask 
 the most perfect goose of a bookseller who is the first poet 
 in the world, and he will name Shakespeare. Ask Macvey 
 which is the best Magazine, and he will utter in response 
 the name of Blackwood. I have never been able to under- 
 stand the advantages of hard study, deep researches, learned 
 investigations, &c. &c. &c. Is there any really good author 
 lying concealed among the litter of lumber ransacked only 
 by the fingers of the bibliomaniacs ? Is there anything equal 
 to punch, with which the drinking public in general remains 
 unacquainted ? I think not. I therefore take things easy. 
 
 MAXIM EIGHTY-FIFTH. 
 
 , Few idiots are entitled to claver on the same form with 
 the bibliomaniacs ; but indeed, to be a collector of anything, 
 and to be an ass^ are pretty nearly equivalent phrases in the 
 language of all rational men. No man collects anything of 
 which he really makes use. Who ever suspected Lord 
 Spencer or his factotum, little Dibdin, of reading "i The old 
 Quaker at York, who has a museum of the ropes at which 
 eminent criminals have dangled, has no intention to make 
 any airy and tassel-like termination of his own terrestrial 
 career, for that would be quite out of character with a man 
 of his brims. In like manner it is now well known that the 
 three thousand three hundred and thirty-three young ladies 
 who figure on the books of the Seraglio have a very idle life 
 of it, and that, in point of fact, the Grand Seignior is a 
 highly respectable man. The people that collect pictures, 
 also, are, generally speaking, such folk as Sir John Leicester, 
 the late Angerstein, and the like of that. The only two 
 things that I have any pleasure in collecting are bottles of 
 excellent wine and boxes of excellent cigars — articles of the 
 first of which I flatter myself I know rather more than even 
 Lord Eldin does of pictures ; and of the latter whereof I 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 229 
 
 make rather more use than old Mustapho can be supposed 
 to do of his 3333 knick-knacks in petticoats — or rather, I 
 beg their ladyships' pardon, in trousers. 
 
 MAXIM EIGHTY-SIXTH. 
 
 Something I was saying recalls to my mind the intense 
 scorn I have for what they call seeing sights ! When you go 
 out to visit a friend in the country, ''I am so glad to see 
 you, my dear fellow," says he; ''come away, and you shall 
 feast your eyes on our grand cascade — abbey — lake — castle 
 — plain — forest," or whatever the sight of that vicinity may 
 happen to be. If he took you out to his field, and said, 
 " Look at these sheep ; are you a judge ? which of them 
 shall I order to be killed ? '' or asked one to give him an 
 opinion about the state of his hot-house, to inspect the 
 drawing of his fish-pond, or anything of this kind, the man 
 might be borne with. But in general indoor prospects are 
 the best. What purling brook matches the music of my 
 gurgling bottle ? What is an old roofless cathedral compared 
 to a well-built pie ? 
 
 MAXIM EIGHTY-SEVENTH. 
 
 Of late they have got into a trick of serving up the roasted 
 pig without his usual concomitants. I hate the innovating 
 spirit of this age ; it is my aversion, and will undo the 
 country. Always let him appear erect on his four legs, with 
 a lemon in his mouth, a sprig of parsley in his ear, his 
 trotters bedded on a lair of sage. One likes to see a pig 
 appear just as he used to do upon the board of a Swift, a 
 Pope, an Arbuthnot. Take away the customs of a people, 
 and their identity is destroyed. 
 
 MAXIM EIGHTY-EIGHTH. 
 
 Claret should always be decanted. I find it necessary to 
 observe this, because the vile Frenchified fashion of shoving 
 
230 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 the black bottles about is fast coming into vogue in certain 
 quarters. These outlandish fellows drink their wine out of 
 the black bottle for two reasons : first, that they can't afford 
 crystal ; and, secondly, because, sending all their best wine 
 over to us, they, of course, are in the habit of consuming 
 weak secondary trash among themselves, which will not 
 keep, and has therefore no time for depositing grounds. 
 But why should we imitate such creatures as these ? The 
 next thing, I suppose, will be to have ruffles without a shirt, 
 and to masticate frog's blubber. No good can come of 
 lowering our good old national pride, antipathies, and prin- 
 ciples in general. 
 
 MAXIM EIGHTY-NINTH. 
 
 Liberality, conciliation, &c. &c., are roundabout words 
 for humbug in its lowest shape. One night lately I had a 
 very fine dream. I dreamt I was in Heaven. Some of the 
 young angels were abusing the Devil bitterly. Hold, hold ! 
 said an ancient-looking seraph, in a very long pair of wings, 
 but rather weak in the feather ; you must not speak in this 
 way. Do not carry party-feelings into private life. The 
 Devil is a person of infinite talent ; a very extraordinary per- 
 son indeed. Such a speaker ! &c. &c. &c. In regard to 
 dreams, I have now adopted the theory of the late Dr. 
 Beattie, author of the Minstrel, a poem ; for I had been 
 supping that night among the Pluckless. 
 
 MAXIM NINETIETH. 
 
 There are two kinds of drinking which I disapprove of — 
 I mean dram-drinking and port-drinking. I talk of the 
 drinking of these things in great quantities and habitually ; 
 for, as to taking a few drams and a few glasses of port every 
 day, that is no more than I have been in the custom of 
 doing for many years back. I have many reasons that I 
 could render for the disgust that is in me, but I shall be 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 231 
 
 contented with one. These potables, taken in this way, 
 iatally injure a man's personal appearance. The drinker of 
 drams becomes either a pale, shivering, blue-and-yellow- 
 looking, lank-chopped, miserable, skinny animal, or his eyes 
 oYid cheeks are stained with a dry, fiery, dusky red, than 
 ^'hich few things can be more disgusting to any woman of 
 leal sensibility and true feminine delicacy of character. 
 The port-drinkers, on the other hand, get blowsy about the 
 diops, have trumpets of noses covered with carbuncles, and 
 acquire a muddy look about the eyes. Vide the Book of 
 the Church, passim. For these reasons do not, on any 
 account, drink port or drams, and, per conversum^ drink as 
 much good claret, good punch, or good beer as you can 
 get hold of, for these liquors make a man an Adonis. Of 
 the three, claret conveys perhaps the most delicate tinge to 
 the countenance ; nothing gives the air of a gentleman so 
 completely as that elegant lassitude about the muscles of 
 the face which, accompanied with a gentle rubicundity, 
 marks the man whose blood is in a great proportion vi?i-de- 
 Bordcaux. There is a peculiar delicacy of expression about 
 the mouth also, which nothing but the habit of tasting ex- 
 quisite claret, and contemplating works of the most refined 
 genius, can ever bestow. Punch, however, is not without 
 its own peculiar merits. If you want to see a fine, com- 
 manding, heroic-looking race of men, go into the Tontine 
 Coffee Room of Glasgow, and behold the effects of my friend 
 Mr. Thomas Hamilton's rum, and the delicious water of the 
 Arns fountain, so celebrated in song; or just stop for a 
 minute at the foot of Millar Street, and see what you shall 
 see. Beer, though last, is not least in its beautifying powers. 
 A beer-drinker's cheek is Hke some of the finest species of 
 apples, 
 
 •* the side that's next the sun." 
 
 Such a cheek carries one back into the golden age, remind- 
 ing us of Eve, Helen, Atalanta, and I know not what more. 
 Upon the whole I should, if called upon to give a decided 
 
232 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 opinion as to these matters in ttie present state of my infor- 
 mation and feelings, say as follows : Give me the cheek d 
 a beer-bibber, the calf of a punch-bibber, and the moutn 
 of a claret-bibber — which last, indeed, I already have. i 
 A^.jB. — Butlers should be allowed a good deal of port, for 't 
 makes them swell out immensely, and gives them noses d-lu- 
 Bardolph ; and the symptoms of good eating and drinking 
 should be set forth a little in caricatiira upon the outwarl 
 man of such folk, just as we wish inferior servants to weir 
 crimson breeches, pea-green coats, andpther extravaganzas 
 upon finery. As for dram-drinking, I think nobody ough: 
 to indulge in it except a man under sentence of death, who 
 wishes to make the very most of his time, and who knows 
 that, let him live never so quietly, his complexion will inevi- 
 tably be quite spoilt in the course of the w^eek. A gallon of 
 good stout brandy is a treasure to a man in this situation ; 
 though, if I were in his place, I rather think I should still 
 stick to my three bottles of claret and dozen c\g^x% per diem ; 
 for I should be afraid of the other system's effects upon my 
 nervous system. 
 
 ^ 
 
 MAXIM NINETY-FIRST. 
 
 In one of my previous Maxims I have laid it down that 
 ''the intensely amorous temperament in a female stamps 
 melancholy on her eyelid." This, I find, has given rise to 
 much remark, and a considerable controversy is still going 
 on in one of the inferior periodicals. Shakespeare, however, 
 is entirely on my side. When he was a young man, and 
 wrote his Troilus and Cressida, he appears indeed to have 
 thought otherwise. It was then that he made his Ulysses 
 say : 
 
 *' Fie, fie upon her ! 
 
 There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip ! 
 Nay, her foot speaks : her wanton spirits look out 
 At every joint and motion of her body. 
 Oh, these encounterers ! so glibe of tongue, 
 That give accosting welcome ere it comes, 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 233 
 
 And wide unclasp the tablets of their thoughts 
 To every ticklish reader. Set them down 
 For sluttish spoils of opportunity, 
 And daughters of the game '* 
 
 Animated and beautifully said, but the theory of the sage 
 Greek quite false ! The same poet, after looking at human 
 nature for a number of years, arrived at truer views. It 
 was then that he represented Juliet — 
 
 " See how she keeps her cheek upon her hand ! " 
 
 It was then that he conceived the rich and meditative 
 voluptuousness of the all-accomplished Cleopatra, and de- 
 scribed the pious resolves of "the curled Antony," as feeble 
 and ineffectual when opposed to the influence of that 
 
 " Grave charm, 
 
 Whose eye becked forth his wars, and called them home ; — 
 Whose bosom was his crownet, his chief end/' 
 
 Helen, in Homer, is also uniformly represented as a melan- 
 choly creature ; and the most pathetic thing that has ever 
 been written is her lamentation over her virtue in the 24th 
 Iliad. To conclude, the late Rev. Lawrence Sterne (a 
 prime connoisseur) has recorded, in distinct terms, his 
 opinion as to which is "the most serious of all passions.'' 
 We four then are of the same way of thinking as to this 
 matter. 
 
 MAXIM NINETY-SECOND. 
 
 In helping a lady to wine, always fill the glass to the very 
 brim, for custom prevents them from taking many glasses 
 at a time ; and I have seen cross looks when the rule has 
 been neglected by young and inexperienced dandies. 
 
 MAXIM NINETY-THIRD. 
 
 The King, if Sir Thomas Lawrence's last and best picture 
 of him may be believed, wears, when dressed for dinner, a 
 very short blue surtout, trimmed with a little fur, and em- 
 
234 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 broidered in black silk upon the breast, all about the button- 
 holes, &c. — black breeches and stockings, and a black 
 stock. I wish to call general attention to this, in the hopes 
 of seeing his Majesty's example speedily and extensively 
 adopted. The modern coat is the part of our usual dress 
 which has always given most disgust in the eye of people of 
 taste ; and I am, therefore, exceedingly happy to think that 
 there is now a probability of its being entirely exploded. 
 The white neckcloth is another abomination, and it also 
 must be dismissed. A blue surtout, and blue trousers 
 richly embroidered down the seams, form the handsomest 
 dress which any man can wear within the limits of European 
 costume. 
 
 MAXIM NINETY-FOURTH. 
 
 Mediocrity is always disgusting, except, perhaps, medioc- 
 rity of stature in a woman. Give me the Paradise Lost, the 
 Faerie Queen, the Vanity of Human Wishes, that I may 
 feel myself elevated and ennobled : give me Endymion, or 
 the Flood of Thessaly, or Pye's Alfred, that I may be 
 tickled and amused. But on no account give me an 
 eminently respectable poem of the Beattie or Campbell 
 class, for that merely sets one to sleep. In like fashion give 
 me, if you wish to make me feel in the heaven of heavens, 
 a hookah There is no question that this is the Paradise 
 Gained of the smoker. But, if you cannot give me that, 
 give me a cigar, with which whoso is not contented deserves 
 to inhale sixteen pipes of assafoetida per diem in secula 
 sectdorum. What I set my face against is the vile mediocrity 
 of a pipe properly so called. No pipe is cleanly but the 
 common Dutch clay, and that is a great recommendation, 
 I admit ; but there is something so hideously absurd in the 
 appearance of a man with a clay pipe in his mouth that I 
 rather wonder anybody can have courage to present himself 
 in such a position. The whole tribe of 7neerschaums^ &c., 
 are filthiness itself. These get saturated with the odious 
 oil of the plant, and are, in fact, poisonous. The only way 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 235 
 
 in which you can have a pipe at once gay-looking and 
 cleanly is to have a glass tube within it, which can be 
 washed with water immediately after use ; but then the 
 glass gets infernally hot. On the whole, unless you be a 
 grandee, and can afford to have a servant expressly devoted 
 to the management of your smoking concerns, in which case 
 a hookah is due to yourself, the best way is to have nothing 
 
 but cigars. 
 
 MAXIM NINETY-FIFTH. 
 
 The Havana cigar is unquestionably at the head. You 
 know it by the pecuHar beauty of the firm, brown, smooth, 
 delicately-textured, and soj't leaf : and, if you have anything 
 of a nose, you can never be deceived as to its odour, for it 
 is a perfect bouquet The Chinese cheroots are the next in 
 order ; but the devil of it is that one can seldom get them, 
 and then they are always dry beyond redemption. The 
 best Chinese cheroots have a delicate greyish tinge ; and, if 
 they are not complete sticks, put them into an air-tight 
 vessel with a few slices of a good juicy melon, and in the 
 course of a few hours they will extract some humidity from 
 their neighbours. Some people use a sliced apple^ others 
 a carroty either of which may do when a melon is not to be 
 had : but that is the real article when attainable. As to all 
 the plans of moistening cigars by means of tea-leaves, rum- 
 grog, &c., they are utterly absurd, and no true smoker ever 
 thinks of them. Manilla cigars occupy the third station in 
 my esteem, but their enormous size renders them incon- 
 venient. One hates being seen sucking away at a thing 
 like a walking-cane. I generally find that Gliddon of Lon- 
 don has the best cigars in the market. George Cotton of 
 Edinburgh is also very recherche in these articles. But, as 
 I believe I once remarked before, a man must smuggle in 
 the present state of the code. 
 
 N.B. — It will be observed that I have changed my views 
 as to some very serious parts of this subject since the year 
 of grace 1818, when I composed my verses to my pipe — 
 
236 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 *' Divine invention of the age of Bess," &c. 
 
 which John Schetky is so fond of reciting, and which Byron 
 plagiarised so audaciously in his mutineering production. 
 As my friend Mr Jeffrey lately said, when toasting Radical 
 Reform, ''Time makes us all wiser.'' 
 
 MAXIM NINETY-SIXTH. 
 
 Cold whisky-punch is almost unheard of out of Ireland, 
 and yet, without instituting any invidious comparisons, it is 
 a liquor of most respectable character, and is frequently 
 attainable where cold rzim-punch is not. The reason why 
 it has got a bad name in Great Britain is that they make it 
 with cold water, whereas it ought always to be made with 
 boiling water, and allowed to concoct and cool for a day or 
 two before it is put on the table. In this way the materials 
 get more intensely amalgamated than cold water and cold 
 whisky ever do get. As to the beautiful mutual adaptation 
 of cold rum and cold water, that is beyond all praise, and 
 indeed forms a theme of never-ceasing admiration, being 
 one of Nature's most exquisite achievements. Sturm has 
 omitted it, but I mean to make a supplement to his Reflec- 
 tions when I get a little leisure. 
 
 MAXIM NINETY-SEVENTH. 
 
 No real smoker uses any of these little knick-knackeries 
 they sell under the name of cigar-tubes and the like of 
 that. The chief merit of the thing is the extreme gentleness 
 and delicacy with which the smoke is drawn out of the leaf 
 by the loving and animated contact, and eternally varying 
 play and pressure, of that most wonderful piece of refined 
 mechanism, the lip of man ; whereas, if you are to go to 
 work upon a piece of silver, ivory, horn, wood, or whatever 
 these concerns are made of, you lose the whole of this, and, 
 indeed, you may as well take a pipe at once. 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 237 
 
 MAXIM NINETY-EIGHTH. 
 
 The reason why many important matters remain in 
 obscurity and doubt is that nobody has adopted the proper 
 means for having them cleared up. For example, one 
 often hears of a man making a bargain with one friend of 
 his that whichsoever of the pair happens to die first will, 
 if possible, revisit the glimpses of the moon, and thereby 
 satisfy the survivor of the existence of ghosts. This, how- 
 ever, is ridiculous, because it is easy to see that there may 
 be special circumstances to prevent this particular spirit 
 from doing what is wanted. Now, to put an end to this at 
 once, I hereby invite one and all of my friends who pursue 
 this maxim to pay me a visit of the kind alluded to. Surely 
 you cannot all be incapable of doing the thing if it is to be 
 done at all. 
 
 MAXIM NINETY-NINTH. 
 
 In order to know what cod really is, you must eat it at 
 Newfoundland. Herring is not worthy of the name, except 
 on the banks of Lochfine in Argyleshire ; and the best 
 salmon in the whole world is that of the Boyne. Dr. 
 Kitchener, in all probability, never tasted any one of these 
 things ; and yet the man writes a book upon cookery ! It 
 is really too much for a man to write about salmon who 
 never ate it until it had been kept for ten days in a tub of 
 snow, which is the case with all that comes to London, 
 excepting the very few salmon caught in the Thames, and 
 these are as inferior in firmness and gusto to those of a 
 mountain stream as the mutton of a Lincolnshire squire is 
 to that of Sir Watkin of Wales or Jamie Hogg of Ettrick. 
 This fish ought to be eat as soon as possible after he is 
 caught. Nothing can then exceed the beautiful curdiness 
 of his texture, whereas your kept fish gets a flaccidity that 
 I cannot away with. 
 
 N.B. — Simple boiling is the only way with a salmon just 
 caught ; but a gentleman of standing is much the better for 
 
238 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 being cut into thickish slices — cut across I mean — and 
 grilled with cayenne. I have already spoken as to the 
 sauce. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDREDTH. 
 
 The best of all pies is a grouse-pie ; the second a black- 
 cock-pie ; the third a woodcock-pie (with plenty of spices) ; 
 the fourth a chicken-pie (ditto). As for a pigeon-pie, it is 
 not worthy of a place upon any table, so long as there are 
 chickens in the world. A rook-pie is a bad imitation of 
 that bad article ; and a beefsteak-pie is really abominable. 
 A good pie is excellent when hot ; but the test of a good 
 pie is " How does it eat cold ? '' — Apply this to the examples 
 above cited, and you will find I am correct. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND FIRST. 
 
 Never taste anything but whisky on the moors. Porter 
 or ale blows you up, and destroys your wind. Wine gets 
 acid immediately on an empty stomach. And put no water 
 to your whisky, for, if you once begin swilling water, you 
 will never stop till you make a bag of yourself. A thimble- 
 ful of neat spirits once an hour is the thing ; but one 
 bumper at starting, and another exactly at noon, are found 
 very wholesome. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND SECOND. 
 
 No man need be afraid of drinking a very considerable 
 quantity of neat whisky when in the wilds of Ireland and 
 Scotland. The mountain air requires to be balanced by 
 another stimulus ; and, if you wish to be really well, you 
 must always take a bumper before you get out of bed, and 
 another after getting into it, according to the fashion of 
 the country you are in. 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. ' 239 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND THIRD. 
 
 The Scotch writers of our day seem to consider it as an 
 established thing that their country furnishes the best 
 breakfast in Europe ; but this I cannot swallow — I mean 
 the assertion, not the breakfast, which I admit to be 
 excellent, but deny to be peerless. The fact is that break- 
 fast is among the things that have never yet received any- 
 thing like the attention merited. The best breakfast is 
 unquestionably that of France. Their coffee, indeed, is not 
 quite equal to that of Germany, but the eatables are 
 unrivalled ; and I may be wrong, but somehow or other I 
 can never help thinking that French wines are better in the 
 morning than any others. It is here that we are behind 
 every other nation in Europe — the whole of us, English, 
 Scotch, and Irish ; we take no wine at breakfast. 
 
 A philosophic mind devoted to this subject would, I 
 think, adopt a theory not widely different from the following ; 
 which, however, I venture to lay down with much diffidence. 
 I say, then, that a man's breakfast should be adapted to his 
 pursuits — it should come to his business as well as to his 
 bosom. The man who intends to study all the morning 
 should take a cup or two of coffee, a little well-executed 
 toast, and the wing of a partridge or grouse when in season ; 
 at other times of the year a small slice of cold chicken, 
 with plenty of pepper and mustard. This light diet prepares 
 him for the elastic exercise of his intellectual powers. On 
 the other hand, if you are going to the fox-chace, or to the 
 moors, or to any sphere of violent bodily exertion whatever, 
 in this case your breakfast will be good and praiseworthy 
 exactly in proportion as it approaches to the character of a 
 good and praiseworthy dinner. Hot potatoes, chops, beef- 
 steaks, a pint of Burgundy, a quart of good old beer — these 
 are the sort of materials a sportsman's dejeuner should 
 consist of. Fried fish is an excellent thing also — particularly 
 the herring. If you have been tipsy over night, and feel 
 squeamish, settle your heart with half a glass of old Cognac 
 
240 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 ere you assume the knife and fork; but on no account 
 indulge the whimsies of your stomach so as to go without 
 a real breakfast. '' Lappetit vte?it en mangeant^' quoth the 
 most veracious of adages; therefore begin boldly upon 
 something very highly peppered, and as hot as Gomorrah, 
 and then no fear of the result. You will feel yourself 
 another man when you have laid in a pound of something. 
 Of tea I have on various occasions hinted my total 
 scorn. It is a weak, nervous affair, adapted for the digestion 
 of boarding-school misses, whose occupation is painting 
 roses from the life, practising quadrilles, strumming on the 
 instrument, and so forth. Old people of sedentary habits 
 may take chocolate if they like it. I for my part stick to 
 coffee when I am studious. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTH. 
 
 By eating a hearty breakfast you escape the temptation 
 of luncheon ; a snare into which he who has a sufficient 
 respect for his dinner will rarely fall 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTH. 
 
 I agree with Falstaff in his contempt for the prevalent 
 absurdity of eating eggs, eggs, eggs at breakfast. '' No 
 pullet-sperm is my brewage,'' says I. I prefer the chicken 
 to the egg, and the hen, when she is really a fine bird, and 
 well roasted or grilled, to the chicken. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTH. 
 
 Cold pig's face is one of the best things in the world for 
 breakfast, but it should not be taken unless you are to be 
 active shortly after, for it is so good that one can scarcely 
 lielp taking a great deal when one begins to it. Eat it with 
 shallot, vinegar, and French mustard. Fruit at breakfast is 
 what I cannot recommend; but, if you will take it, be sure 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 241 
 
 not to omit another dram after it, for, if you do, you will 
 certainly feel heavyish all the morning. 
 
 N.B, — The best breakfast-dram is whisky when it is 
 really very old and fine, but brandy is more commonly to 
 be had in perfection among the majority of my readers. 
 Cherry brandy is not the thing at breakfast ; it is too sweet, 
 and not strong enough. In the Highlands of Scotland 
 people of extraordinary research give you whisky strongly 
 impregnated with a variety of mountain herbs. And this, I 
 am bound to admit, is attended with the most admirable 
 consequences ; but they will not part with their receipts. 
 Therefore it is not worth while for me to do more than 
 merely allude to the fact. Be sure you take it when on the 
 spot. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTH. 
 
 Some people wear cossacks with silk stockings. Nothing 
 can be in worse taste. These gentlemen seem to think 
 that their cossacks smack of the Don^ whereas nothing can 
 be so decidedly oriental. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTH. 
 
 Never wear a coat with a velvet collar — not even a sur- 
 tout. This maxim is, however, almost unnecessary ; for no 
 tailor, whose coat it is possible to wear, would ever think of 
 putting a velvet collar on any vesture intended to be worn 
 on the west side of Temple Bar. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND NINTH. 
 
 Never eat turtle at the west end of the town, except at 
 the houses of the West Indians. The turtle at the occi- 
 dental coffee-houses is always lean and poor, and wants the 
 oriental richness and flavour of Bleaden's. 
 
 VOL. II. Q 
 
242 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND TENTH. 
 
 There is nothing so difficult as the invention of a new 
 tie. You might almost as easily find out a sixth order of 
 architecture. I once made a drawing of a nodus from a 
 lachrymatory discovered at Herculaneum, and found it had 
 a good effect when reduced to practice. Its great beauty 
 was that you did not know where the knot began nor 
 where it ended. Even of the originality of this tie I was 
 for some time doubtful, till one evening at the opera I 
 heard Hughes Ball exclaim, in an ecstasy of surprise and 
 admiration, '' By G — d, there's a new tie ! " 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVENTH. 
 
 Man and wife generally resemble each other in features, 
 never in disposition. A good-natured man marries a shrew; 
 a choleric man, an insensible lump of matter ; a witty man, 
 an insipid woman ; and a very great fool, a blue-stocking. 
 
 The reason of the resemblance in face I take to be this. 
 Every man thinks himself the handsomest person in exist- 
 ence ; and therefore, in looking out for a wife, he always 
 chooses the woman that most nearly resembles himself. 
 
 The reason for dissimilarity in disposition is even more 
 plain. Every one respects another for the quality, good or 
 bad, which he himself wants. Besides, this sort of opposi- 
 tion prevents the holy and happy state from getting flat, as 
 it otherwise would, and produces upon it the same effects 
 as acids upon an alkali. The worthy Bishop of Durham was 
 lamenting to Dr. Paley the death of his wife. '' We lived 
 nineteen years together,'^ said his lordship, ''and never had 
 two opinions about anything in all that time. What think 
 you of that, Doctor ? " '' Indeed, my lord," rejoined Paley, 
 in his broad CarUsle accent, " I think it must ha' been verra 
 flat.'' I am orthodox, and quite agree with Dr. Paley. 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 243 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND TWELFTH. 
 
 Some people talk of devils ; all our common devils are 
 damnable. The best devil is a slice of roast ham which 
 has been basted with Madeira and then spiced with 
 Cayenne. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEENTH. 
 
 In Paris there is no restaurateur whose house unites all 
 the requisites for dining well. I have had long experience 
 of them, and can speak with authority. Beauvilliers' is a 
 good quiet house, where you get all the regular French 
 dishes admirably dressed. His fricassees de poulet are not 
 to be surpassed ; they have a delicate flavour of the almond, 
 which is quite inimitable ; and \i\^ pates and vol-au-vents are 
 superb. But he has neither his vegetables nor his venison 
 so early as Very. I don't by any means agree with those 
 people who extol the cookery at Very's ; it is excellent, 
 certainly, but not better than that of the other first-rate 
 houses. The thing in which Very really surpasses all the 
 rest is in his desserts ; his fruits are magnificent, and look 
 as if they came from the gardens of Brobdignag. I used to 
 like the cookery and the chambertin of the Trots freres 
 Provenfaux^ but I think this house has fallen off latterly in 
 everything but those deliciQUS. salads---" spots of greenery,'' 
 as TVTf.TJo HrrdgF'calj ^them. The cookery at Grignon^s' I 
 "TtTInlra^ecidedly bad ; but his white wines, and particularly 
 the Haut Barsac, have what my friend Goethe call a 
 paradise clearness and odour. The only place where one 
 can dine well, from soup down to Curagoa, is at the Rocher 
 de Cancale, though it stands in a villainous dirty street. If 
 anybody wants to know how far the force of French 
 cookery can go, let him dine at the Rocher — especially if he 
 is a piscivorous person like myself. The soups are beyond 
 all praise — and the potage printanVere (spring soup) ab- 
 solutely astounds you by the prematurity of vegetation 
 which it proves. I ate asparagus soup at the Rocher de 
 
244 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 Cancale on the i8th of January. Rupes Cancaliensis, esto 
 perpetua ! 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEENTH. 
 
 At a restaurateur's, when you ask for any wine above the 
 pitch of vin ordinaire^ always examine the cork before you 
 allow the so77imelier to draw it. This is a maxim worth any 
 money. The French have an odious custom of allowing 
 people to have half bottles of the higher wines. The 
 waiters, of course, fill up the bottle with an inferior sort, 
 and seal it again ; so that you frequently get your Sauterne 
 christened with Chablis. I am sorry to be obliged to say 
 that at the Rocher de Cancale this trick is very commonly 
 played off. It certainly injures the respectability of the 
 house, and even endangers the throne of the Bourbons. I 
 ought here in gratitude to mention that at Prevofs^ one of 
 the best of the second-rate restaurateurs, I have drunk 
 delicious Chateau grille — a wine very rarely found in the 
 cartes. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEENTH. 
 
 / 
 
 In Paris, when you have two invitations for the same 
 evening (one from an English and one from an Irish 
 lady), always accept the latter. You may be quite sure of 
 having supper at the Irish house, which will not be the 
 case at the English one ; and you may depend upon having 
 the best punch. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTEENTH. 
 
 As a general rule, never accept an invitation to a French 
 soiree, unless you are fond of Eau sucree Ecarte at night 
 and disorder of the colon next morning. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEENTH. 
 
 When you have an invitation to one or more parties in 
 the same evening, always accept that of an old maid (if you 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 245 
 
 receive one) in preference to the others. You are sure of 
 being better received, and — I don't know for what reason, 
 but the fact is so — old maids are generally fond of that last 
 of the day, commonly called supper. Your attention, be- 
 sides, to the lots of iced punch dispenses you from paying 
 much to the ladies a la glace^ who muster in great force on 
 such occasions. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTEENTH. 
 
 Never wear a bright purple coat. It does not harmonise 
 well with any colour of trousers. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND NINETEENTH. 
 
 All the poets whom I have ever seen, except Sir Walter 
 Scott, look lean and hungry. I do not except Coleridge, 
 because he never writes. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTIETH. 
 
 'he best coffee in Paris is made at the Cafe des Colonnes, 
 — or, as Mr. Jeffrey rejoiceth more to spell it, the Caffee 
 des MiLLES Colonnes ; and the liqueurs are superb. The 
 Belle Limonadiere, alas ! hath passed away, but the rooms 
 are more splendid than ever. . There is a paradise opened 
 lately qnjhg_EQul.e.vard^ called the Ca/e Turc ; but then it 
 is on the Boulevard du Temple ; and whoever went there 
 's in^re-th e Re v olution? — The gaiTlens are "but half lighted, 
 so as to throw a delicious and dreamy twilight about you ; 
 and this contrasts admirably with the blaze of glory which 
 flashes on you as you enter the saloon itself, all glittering 
 with mirrors and glowing with gold, and fretted with what 
 seemed diamonds, rubies, and amethysts. The Cafe is 
 built in the form of a superb Turkish hall, and is gorgeous 
 ST rhe~Opium-Eater's Oriental Dreams, or_a_chapter in 
 Varhek 1 Mn"Wbrds worth describes this cafe: 
 
246 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 " Fabric it seems of diamond and of gold, 
 With golden column upon column high 
 Uplifted — towers, that on their restless fronts 
 Bear stars — illumination of all gems — 
 Far sinking into splendour, without end ! " 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIRST. 
 
 Nothing is so humiliating to a man of reflection, on 
 awaking in the morning, as the conviction which forces 
 itself upon him that he has been drunk the night before. 
 I do not mean, gentle reader, that he repents him of having 
 been drunk — this he will, of course, consider meritorious — 
 but he cannot help the intruding persuasion that all the 
 things he uttered after he entered into a state of civihsation 
 (if he recollects anything about them) were utter stupidities, 
 which he mistook at the time for either wit, wisdom, or 
 eloquence. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SECOND. 
 
 People often say of a man that he is a cunning fellow. 
 This can never be true, for, if he were, nobody could find 
 out that he was* 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-THIRD. 
 
 Cayenne pepper in crystal is a most meritorious inven- 
 tion of those worthy lads, the Waughs in Regent Street. 
 Before their time the flavour of cayenne could never be 
 equally distributed through soups and sauces. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FOURTH. 
 
 No artist or musician that was ever good for anything as 
 such was ever good for anything else. Even Michael Angelo 
 was a very indiff'erent poet, though Mr. Wordsworth has 
 taken the trouble to translate some of his sonnets, 
 
 -^ MUM i mWH 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 247 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIFTH. 
 
 It is singular that scarcely any tailor who can make a 
 coat well can make pantaloons. Such tailors are like 
 those historical painters who could paint figures, but not 
 landscapes. Stulz is the Raphael of tailors, but he is 
 falling fast into a hard and dry style of cutting ; Nugee is 
 the Correggio. But there is no Michael Angelo — no master 
 of the gran contorno. Place is the Radical tailor ; but, 
 since he became a Westminster reviewer, he is more 
 engaged in cutting up than cutting out. I wonder if he 
 sends in his bills quarterly as well as his reviews ! Came- 
 ron & Co., the army tailors of Henrietta Street, make the 
 best pantaloons in London ; and nobody can achieve like 
 them a pair of tight pantaloons — a thing, as Dr. Johnson 
 pathetically observes, always expected, and never found ! 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SIXTH. 
 
 There is one sort of tie which is very difficult to make, 
 and which I cannot explain to my readers without a 
 diagram. It contains in itself, however, the elements of 
 all other ties ; and when a man can make this one well, he 
 has the secret of all the rest. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SEVENTH. 
 
 Much is said about the French politeness. I do not 
 think them a polite people, and for this reason. In France, 
 if you ever do get drunk, it must be while the ladies are at 
 table, for they quit it along with you. Now I hold it to 
 be a proof of utter want of politeness to get drunk before 
 women ; and not to get drunk at all proves a man to be 
 equally unfit for a state of civilisation. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHTH. 
 
 Despise humbug. I once dined with Wilberforce in 
 company with a black who had been manumitted. Mr. 
 Wilberforce's reason for placing him at table with gentle- 
 
248 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 men was that "he was a man and a brother.'' I think 
 Mr. Wilberforce's white servants must have thought their 
 case very hard as compared with that of the ex-slave. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINTH. 
 
 Of whisky there are more numerous varieties than of any 
 other spirit. Perhaps, however, in this I may be deceived, 
 for my greater intimacy with that fluid may make me more 
 sensitive as to the minute distinctions of taste. It is pro- 
 bable that in France the palate of the connoisseur is equally 
 cognoscent of the varieties of brandy. I repent that, during 
 my late tour in that country, I did not make inquiries on 
 this most important point ; but I shall decidedly ask my 
 friend, the Vicomte d'Arlincourt — a man for whom I have 
 particular esteem — concerning it, when I next shall have the 
 pleasure of seeing him at Ambrose's. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTIETH. 
 
 With respect to the last maxim it is to be remarked, in 
 corroboration of the hypothesis there hinted at [Jiinted at^ I 
 say, for I by no means pledge myself to the dead certainty 
 of the fact), that a most particular diversity of taste exists in 
 the several rums. Antigua has a peculiar smack and relish, 
 by which it is to be known from Jamaica at first gulp. Yet it 
 is very possible {experto crede) to bam even a connoisseur by 
 giving him good whisky, free from the empyreumatic taste 
 which is frequently observable on several even of licensed 
 whiskies, and always on potheen^ mixed subdolously with 
 burnt brown sugar. It is a great imitation. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FIRST. 
 
 To return to whisky. Inishowen is generally accounted 
 the best potheen ; but, as far as regards my own private 
 drinking, I prefer that manufactured at Roscrea, in the 
 county of Tipperary, where I have frequently drunk it with 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 249 
 
 the Rev. John Hamilton, who, by the by, is most untruly 
 and unfairly abused by the little Whig libeller, Tom Moore, 
 in his Fudge Family (p. 61), in company, to be sure, with 
 much higher people; which, of course, is a consolation. 
 Potheen improves much by age. I must say that one 
 principal reason of its being preferred to Parliament whisky 
 arises from the natural propensity to do what is forbidden ; 
 and I add as my candid opinion that, if it were taxed, it 
 would not be in such estimation as that procured by scien- 
 tific distillation from large stills ; that is, if the great distillers 
 could be depended upon for honesty, and were not to be 
 suspected shrewdly of making use of other ingredients than 
 malt. 
 
 N,B, — I here intended to have gone in at some length as 
 to the divers qualities of all the whisky fluids of the empire, 
 and with a minute and critical and, on mine honour, an 
 impartial survey of the whole, to have given my opinion on 
 their various merits or demerits : but I fear that the consi- 
 deration would be too lengthy for a list of mere maxims. 
 Brevity is the very soul (not of wit, to be sure, in this case, 
 for that vain and frivolous ingredient ought to be far from 
 our thoughts when discussing subjects of interest to the 
 human race, but) of apophthegms ; but when these my 
 Maxims are gathered, as, God willing, they shall be, into a 
 separate volume, I shall, after this part of them, insert a 
 long and deeply-meditated paper, in which I shall chemically, 
 scientifically, compotically, and empirically — a word which 
 I here use, Mr. Coleridge, in its true and original sense — 
 discuss the whole subject, in such a way that, like Dr. 
 Barrow preaching before King Charles the Second, it will 
 be universally conceded to me that I have exhausted it. 
 Mr. William Thomas Brand and Sir Humphrey Davy have 
 kindly consented to draw up the chemical tables with the 
 same precision as they have already done those for wines. 
 I have also in hand a paper written by a couple of inge- 
 nious philosophers ''On the Uses and Abuses of Porter,'' 
 seriously summed up by them with that skill and talent 
 
250 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 which so truly marks these eminent and erudite men ; and 
 that, too, I shall insert in some conspicuous part of my 
 volume. It will be found to be a very instructive and 
 interesting paper. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SECOND. 
 
 In parts out of Ireland you cannot convince people of 
 the right method of pronouncing and spelling potheen. 
 They will have it that it is Potch-cheen, or some such thing. 
 It is simply the diminutive of pot^ and would, indeed, be 
 more correct without the medial h^ which, however, has 
 gained insertion in consequence of the thick utterance of 
 the people. So squire makes squireen^ a poor little squire, as. 
 
 *' We'll take it kind if you'll provide 
 Ki^^ squireens,'' — Thomas Moore. 
 
 JDevotee^ contracted (by aphaeresis) to ^votee^ becomes 
 hwteen^ to signify a little, mean, superstitious worshipper. 
 Buckeen is a poor attempt at being a hick^ such as you 
 see in Princes Street, Edinburgh, for instance, &:c. &c So 
 potteen corrupted to potheen is a little pot, and thence, 
 by a natural metonymy, signifies the production of that 
 utensil. 
 
 A curious book might be written on mispronunciation. 
 Is there a man in ten who calls Bolivar correctly ? Every 
 one almost is ready to rhyme him as 
 
 Bold Simon Bolivar, 
 
 Match for old Oliver, &c., &g. 
 
 Whereas it should be 
 
 Few can deceive, or 
 Baffle Bolivar. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-THIRD. 
 
 In playing dominos you cannot be said to have a good 
 hand unless you have five of one number, and one of these 
 a double. This well played, with first move, ought in 
 general to win the game. 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 251 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FOURTH. 
 
 In vino Veritas is an old saying, but scarcely a true one. 
 Men's minds, when elevated by wine or anything else, 
 become apt to exaggeration of feeling of every kind. I have 
 often found In vino asperitas to be a much truer dictum. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FIFTH. 
 
 Some people tell you that you should not drink claret 
 after strawberries. They are wrong, if the claret be good. 
 The milky taste of good claret coheres admirably with the 
 strawberry ; somewhat like cream. If the claret be bad, it 
 is quite a different affair ; and suspect it, if you find the 
 master of the house anxious not to make the test. George 
 Faulkner of Dublin — I was going to say my friend Faulkner, 
 until I recollected that he was dead some thirty odd years 
 before I was born — Swift's printer. Footers Peter Paragraph — 
 who does not know George? — used to sit a whole night with 
 a solitary strawberry at the bottom of his glass, over which 
 he used to pour generally four bottles of claret. ^' I do so," 
 George would say, ^^ because a doctor recommended it to me 
 for its cooling qualities." The idea that cold wine should 
 not be drunk after cool fruit is nonsense. If you feel the 
 claret chill you, you will find the remedy in the seventy-fifth 
 maxim of this series. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SIXTH. 
 
 If you be an author, never disturb yourself about little 
 squibs, &c., against you. If you do, you will never be at 
 rest. If you want to annoy the squibber, pretend never to 
 have heard of them. It is only five days ago since I was 
 in company with Rogers and Tom Moore, and no pair 
 could harmonise better. Yet who does not know Tom's 
 epigram on Sam ? Rogers had made him a present of a 
 copy of Paradise Lost, in which there was the very common 
 
252 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 frontispiece of the Devil, in the shape of a serpent, twining 
 round down the Tree of Knowledge, with the fatal apple in 
 his mouth, which he was in the act of presenting to Eve ; 
 and under it Tom, instigated no doubt by the evil spirit 
 whose picture he was inspecting, wrote — 
 
 ''With equal good nature, good grace, and good looks, 
 
 As THE devil gave APPLES, SAM ROGERS GIVES BOOKS." 
 
 An unkind return, certainly, for civility. The cut at the 
 looks was particularly unfair, as Mr. Rogers is a bachelor; 
 but he only laughed, as he always does, and the thing 
 passed off like water from a duck's back. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SEVENTH. 
 
 Never repine on account of that mediocrity of station in 
 which it has pleased Providence to place you. Why should 
 you do so ? Would you wish to be the king ? I for one 
 should unquestionably consider that situation as a decided 
 bore. What ! Submit to have all your motions placarded 
 in the papers? low scribes spouting away, pro and con, 
 every time you alter your dress, your house, your ministers, 
 your tipple — anything, in short ? What ! To be surrounded 
 by an eternal retinue of lords and grooms, and God knows 
 all what? A shocking state of suffering, indeed, and 
 demanding more than Christian endurance. I would not 
 be king, in anything like a free country at least, upon any 
 possible terms. If one were a real despot, the case might 
 be better, I admit ; for then one could appoint some under- 
 scrub of a viceroy, or lord-lieutenant, or captain-general, or 
 so, to hold the courts, give the grand dinners, sign the death- 
 warrants, ride in state, and all the rest of it, in place of one ; 
 while you enjoyed yourself, as it pleased your fancy, in 
 some central retreat, such as Capreae, or the Happy Valley 
 in Rasselas. But even that is not what I envy. I have no 
 wish to exercise despotic power, and therefore I have no 
 wish to possess it. Any crown would be to me so much du 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 253 
 
 trop. What is the object of human life? To be happy — 
 admitted. In what does happiness consist? In deciding 
 who shall, and who shall not, be hung? In having a flag 
 on the top of the house ? In talking politics with Canning, 
 Eldon, Liverpool, Metternich, Hardenberg, Pozzo di Borgo ? 
 — I despise all such doings. Does a man enjoy his beef- 
 steak, his bottle of excellent port or claret, his cigar, his 
 flirtation, his anything you please to think of, a bit the more 
 for being called king, or duke, or emperor, or so ? Not 
 one bit. I utterly deny the thing. Were I not Morgan 
 ODoherty, I should like to be Mustapha Abu Selim. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-EIGHTH. 
 
 I scarcely look upon it as much better to be a duke than 
 to be a king. On the contrary, I have often thought it is 
 almost as bad. You are annoyed with the same eternal 
 troop of hangers-on, only they are, if possible, of a still more 
 inferior description. Your house is not your own, nor your 
 time either ; for the one is always full of humdrum bores, 
 crack-wits, assenting idiots, lions, lionesses, and I know not 
 what trash ; and the other is taken up all the after-part of 
 every day with doing the civil to these creatures ; and all 
 the morning you have cursed letters to write about country 
 gentlemen's sons wanting livings, dandies that aspire to sit 
 in the Foreign Office, political tracasseries, farms to let, 
 money to raise, bonds, mortgages, promises to and from 
 Mr. Peel — in short, as I said before, your are never your 
 own man. The late Duke of Norfolk, to be sure, used to 
 dine every day by himself, in one of the boxes of a common 
 coffee-house in Covent Garden, drink two bottles of port, 
 and then rumble home to St. James's Square in a jarvie. 
 He did so. Well, and can't I do the same thing quite as 
 well without being called '^Your Grace" at the end of 
 every pint of wine ? I can, and I know it. Nay, I am of 
 opinion that I can do the same thing more comfortably than 
 the Duke, for I can do it without any human creature taking 
 
254 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 the slightest notice of what I do. He was not merely the 
 stout gentleman in the grey coat — and I am the tall one in 
 the blue. No, there was always some suspicion of his rank 
 floating about, or at least suspected of doing so — no real 
 sense of the delights of perfect obscurity. In point of fact, 
 such adventitious affairs have no influence whatever on the 
 real sum of human felicity. I remember one day I was 
 walking with my friend Dr. Mullion, and we came in front 
 of Burlington House. ^'Mull," says I, ^'what a noble 
 piansion this is ! Look at it attentively, my hearty." He 
 fixed his finq grey eye upon the stately pile and, after 
 perusing it with the utmost diligence of admiration for some 
 space, made answer : '' It zs a grand house indeed, man. 
 Hech me, man ! What a dinner I could eat in a house like 
 that!" Chewing the cud of this philosophical reflection, 
 we jogged along for a minute or two till the well-known 
 azure pillars of Cork Street happened to attract my friend's 
 notice. My mind was still brimfuU of the beautiful archi- 
 tecture, stately air, grand outline, &c. &c. &c. of the patrician 
 mansion which we had just left to leeward, when, lo and 
 behold ! the Doctor gives me a little touch on the elbow, 
 just as much as to hint whereabouts we were. ''Pooh, 
 pooh !" said I, starting round upon him. '' Confound your 
 blood, Dr. Mullion ! What makes you attract my attention 
 to this low, shabby, dirty, abominable piece of plebeian 
 brick-work, ornamented in front with two vile, shapeless 
 wooden posts with foreheads villainous low, and daubed 
 over with a little sky-blue paint ! — pooh, pooh !" " Weel 
 aweel," quoth Mull, ''say what you like, but, hech me, 
 man ! what a dinner I could eat in a house like that !'' 
 This did me. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-NINTH. 
 
 It was a long while ere I discovered the most convenient 
 method of supporting my drawers. It is a bore to have a 
 separate pair of braces, and the usual schemes of looping are, 
 
MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 255 
 
 all of them, liable to objections. The true way is : Have 
 two small pieces of tape placed horizo-nially along the waist- 
 band of the nether integuments, at those parts of them which 
 correspond to the parts of the upper touched by the extremi- 
 ties of the braces ; have these horizontal tapes, say three 
 inches to each, attached firmly to the substance of the 
 waistband ; and then pass the brace under the open part of 
 the tape, before you bring it in contact with the button on 
 the breeches. This is one of those inventions which will 
 stand the test so long as the present general system of 
 breeches-making is retained ; but that, I freely admit, 
 appears to me to be by no means free from radical defects. 
 The pressure comes too exclusively on particular parts of 
 the shoulders. By a row of buttons all round, this evil 
 might be remedied. That again would involve incon- 
 veniences of quite another, though perhaps an even more 
 distressing, order. On the whole, this is a matter which 
 modern artists have too much neglected ; and I hereby 
 promise, by means of a separate and distinct Maxim, to 
 make not only the fame, but the fortune, of the man who, 
 within six months from this date, satisfies me that he has 
 paid proper attention to the hint now conveyed. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND FORTIETH. 
 
 No young lady should ever go to a masquerade in any 
 dress associated in the minds of mankind with the habits 
 of an inferior order of society. Put you on the dress of a 
 pretty Abigail, and the Devil is in it if there be no gay lad 
 ready enough to treat you as he would treat a pretty 
 Abigail. The same objection applies to the whole race of 
 milk-maids, haymakers, nuns, &c. &c. Every one thinks 
 it fair to be a little particular in his attentions to beings of 
 these orders. So, if you go after the pubfication of this 
 Maxim, we shall all know what you are expecting. 
 
256 MAXIMS OF ODOHERTY. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-FIRST. 
 
 Instead of a Maxim there ought to be a volume, ay, a 
 quarto, upon the order to be observed in the wines handed 
 round during dinner. I have long ago mentioned that I 
 disapprove, on general and philosophical principles, of a 
 great mixture of wines during the repast ; but this was said 
 with an eye to those, on the one side, who, unlike myself, 
 are of a delicate stomachic organisation, and to those, on 
 the other, who, like myself, intend to take a proper dose 
 after dinner is down. The man who has the stomach, or 
 the man who intends to exemplify the sobriety, of a horse 
 may mix wines to a very considerable extent ; nay, in fact, 
 ought to do so. The rule is this : Begin with the wines of 
 the most delicate aroma and flavour, and terminate with 
 those of a more decided character. Let the burgundies 
 come immediately after the soup ; then the champagnes ; 
 the hocks last. Burgundy, after anything sweet has 
 touched the mouth, is not worth drinking. After cham- 
 pagne, and still more after hock, it is quite insipid. 
 Attend to this carefully, for I often see things grievously 
 misplaced. 
 
 MAXIM ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-SECOND. 
 
 The preceding Maxim will probably give rise to much 
 and anxious discussion. To narrow the field, therefore, I 
 take this opportunity of declaring that there are two liquids 
 which may be eternally varied in their application during 
 dinner, with which you may begin and end, and which you 
 may intersperse, ad libitiwt^ whenever you like, and what- 
 ever you have been eating and drinking. These two gifts 
 are sherry and cold rum-punch. With regard to them you 
 never can go wrong. They can no more be out of place 
 in a dinner than a fine tree in a landscape or a fine woman 
 in a boudoir. 
 
Ube 5tlsbman anC) tbe Xab^» 
 
 ( To be sung with boisterous expression, ) 
 
 I. 
 
 There was a lady lived at Leith, 
 
 A lady ver}^ stylish, man ; 
 And yet, in spite of all her teeth, 
 She fell in love with an Irishman. 
 A nasty, ugly Irishman, 
 A wild, tremendous Irishman — 
 A tearing, swearing, thumping, bumping, ramping, roaring 
 Irishman. 
 
 II. 
 
 His face was no ways beautiful. 
 
 For with small-pox 'twas scarr'd across ; 
 And the shoulders of the ugly dog 
 Were almost doubled a yard across. 
 O, the lump of an Irishman, 
 The whisky-devouring Irishman- 
 
 The great he-rogue, with his wonderful brogue, the fighting. 
 
 rioting Irishman. 
 
 III. 
 
 One of his eyes was bottle-green, 
 
 And the other eye was out, my dear ; 
 
 And the calves of his wicked-looking legs 
 Were more than two feet about, my dear. 
 
 VOL, II. R 
 
258 THE IRISHMAN AND THE LADY. 
 
 O, the great big Irishman, 
 The rattling, battling Irishman — 
 The stamping, ramping, swaggering, staggering, leathering 
 swash of an Irishman. 
 
 IV. 
 
 He took so much of Lundy-foot, 
 
 That he used to snort and snuffle — O ! 
 And in shape and size the fellow's neck 
 Was as bad as the neck of a buffalo. 
 Oh, the horrible Irishman, 
 The thundering, blundering Irishman — 
 The slashing, dashing, smashing, lashing, thrashing, hashing 
 Irishman. 
 
 V. 
 
 His name was a terrible name, indeed. 
 
 Being Timothy Thady Mulligan ; 
 And whenever he emptied his tumbler of punch, 
 He'd not rest till he filled it full again. 
 The boozing, bruising Irishman, 
 The 'toxicated Irishman — 
 The whisky, frisky, rummy, gummy, brandy, no dandy 
 Irishman. 
 
 VI. 
 
 This was the lad the lady loved, 
 
 Like all the girls of quality ; 
 And he broke the skulls of the men of Leith 
 Just by the way of jollity. 
 
 Oh, the leathering Irishman, 
 The barbarous, savage Irishman — 
 The hearts of the maids, and the gentlemen's heads, were 
 bother'd, I'm sure, by this Irishman. 
 
Xament 3for Xort) Ib^ron* 
 
 Air — The Last Rose of Surnuier, 
 
 Lament for Lord Byron 
 
 In full flow of grief, 
 As a sept of Milesians 
 
 Would mourn o'er their chief ! 
 With the loud voice of weeping, 
 
 With sorrow^'s deep tone, 
 We shall keen o'er our poet, 
 
 " All faded and gone." 
 
 Though in far Missolonghi 
 
 His body is laid ; 
 Though the hands of the stranger 
 
 His lone grave have made ; 
 Though no foot from Old England 
 
 Its surface will tread, 
 Nor the sun of Old England 
 
 Shine over its head ; 
 
 Yet, bard of the Corsair, 
 
 High-spirited Childe ; 
 Thou who sang'st of Lord Manfred 
 
 The destiny wild ! 
 Thou star, whose bright radiance 
 
 Illumined our verse, 
 Our souls cross the blue seas 
 
 To mourn o'er thy hearse. 
 
26o LAMENT FOR LORD BYRON. 
 
 Thy faults and thy follies, 
 
 Whatever they were, 
 Be their memory dispersed 
 
 As the winds of the air ; 
 No reproaches from me 
 
 On thy course shall be thrown : 
 Let the man who is sinless 
 
 Uplift the first stone. 
 
 In thy vigour of manhood 
 
 Small praise from my tongue 
 Had thy fame or thy talents. 
 
 Or merriment wrung ; 
 For that Church, and that State, and 
 
 That monarch I loved, 
 Which too oft thy hot censure 
 
 Or rash laughter moved. 
 
 But I hoped in my bosom 
 
 That moment would come, 
 When thy feelings would wander 
 
 Again to their home. 
 For that soul, O lost Byron ! 
 
 In brillianter hours. 
 Must have turned to its country — 
 
 Must still have been ours. 
 
 Now slumber, bright spirit ! 
 
 Thy body, in peace, 
 Sleeps with heroes and sages, 
 
 And poets of Greece ; 
 While thy soul, in the tongue of 
 
 Even greater than they, 
 Is embalmed till the mountains 
 
 And seas pass away. 
 
Oh ! when 1 am departed and passed away. 
 Let's have no lamentations or sounds of dismay — 
 Meet together, kind lads, o'er a three-gallon bowl, 
 And so toast the repose of Odoherty's soul. 
 
 Down, derry down. 
 
 If my darling girl pass, gently bid her come in ; 
 
 To join the libation she'll think it no sin ; 
 
 Though she choose a new sweetheart, and doff the black 
 
 gown. 
 She'll remember me kindly when down — down — down — 
 
 Down, derry down. 
 
panbemus pol^Glott 
 
 It has been well observed by somebody that any man 
 could make an interesting book if he would only give, 
 honestly and without reserve, an account of such things 
 as he himself had seen and heard ; but if a man should add 
 to this a candid history of his remarkable friends and 
 acquaintance, how infinitely would he enhance the interest 
 of his own ! Some folks call this method of biography 
 prosy — Heaven help their unphilosophical shortsightedness ! 
 Wherein consists the charm of Benvenuto Cellini's account 
 of himself, which nobody can deny to be the fie plus ultra 
 of all conceivable autobiographies ? Why, it clearly arises 
 from these two sources : first, from his not scrupling to 
 give a straightforward narrative of every shadow of an 
 adventure he lighted upon, not hesitating a moment to tell 
 the whole truth at least, however often he may be so obliging 
 as to favour us with a matter of ten times as much as that 
 same ; and, secondly, from the number of persons and 
 personages he introduces his reader to, from the magnifi- 
 cent Francis to the unhappy engraver (I think), whom he 
 despatched in so judicious a manner by that memorable 
 thrust of his dagger into the back of the poor man's neck, 
 whereby he so scientifically separated the vertebrae, and 
 interrupted the succession of the spinal marrow, to the 
 immediate attainment of his laudable object — to wit, the 
 release of his fellow-sinner from his worldly sorrows. Again, 
 in the other sex, from the lovely and capricious Duchess of 
 Florence, with her rings and cameo and trumpery, down to 
 the frail one whose fondness for Benvenuto so repeatedly 
 jeopardised his capacity for enjoying the same. But there 
 
PANDEMUS POLYGLOTT. 263 
 
 is a third charm about the good artist's book ; and this may, 
 perhaps, outweigh the other tvro — namely, his introduction 
 of the heroes and magnates of his age en deshabille. Truly, 
 if he who can show us a king, two popes, a reigning duke 
 or two, duchesses, nobles, courtiers, and cardinals by the 
 squadron, all in dressing-gowns and slippers, be not set up 
 in the high places among those who have delighted their 
 fellows, wherewithal shall a man claim that distinction? 
 But I flatter myself that, charming as Benvenuto is, I must 
 even supersede him by as much as learning is of more 
 account than throat- or marble-cutting, and learned men 
 than heroes, &c. 
 
 But the world is not going at this time to enjoy the full 
 benefit of my experiences. Let it suffice for the present 
 that I afford mankind a glimpse of one of the most re- 
 markable of men ; one of those who leave their reputation 
 as a legacy to their species, having had the uncommon 
 forbearance to abstain from imparing the same in any 
 degree by enjoying it themselves. 
 
 Without further preface then, reader, give me leave to 
 present to you Doctor Pandemus Polyglott, LL.D., Lugd. 
 Bat. Olim. Soc, member of no end of societies, literary 
 and antiquarian, historical, philosophical, &c. &c. I would 
 give you his tail of initials at full length, if it were not that 
 I have generally found the dullest people take most pains in 
 his behalf — and the Doctor is not dull — and, moreover, he 
 has won by his pen a tail so considerable that it could not 
 be doubled up in less than twice the space of that which 
 the great hero of the age, Wellington, has carved out with 
 his sword, and which may be found occupying a good 
 half page of the Army List. Besides, Dr. Polyglott is a 
 living character ; and though now as fine a specimen of an 
 octogenarian as may be met with in a June day's march, 
 yet he has not done winning to himself those bright scholarly 
 honours which so safely insure to their possessors an enviable 
 obscurity with reference to the generality of people. 
 
 The Doctor, though a colossus of mind, has had the 
 
264 PANDEMUS POLYGLOTT. 
 
 firmness through life to forego all those mundane advan- 
 tages which his wondrous powers must have obtained for 
 him had such been his pleasure ; and as in early life he 
 gave himself up to the allurements of classical literature, so 
 with a constancy seldom rivalled did he in manhood and 
 in age still does he adhere to the same sweet mistress. 
 The fruits of this affection are manifold, as some forty MS. 
 folios testify; but, while the Doctor lives, his intimates 
 alone will have the benefit of their acquaintance; for he 
 is far too chary of his own personal comfort, too sensible 
 of his own dignity, to sacrifice the one, or diminish his own 
 proud sense of the other, by trusting the smallest of his 
 learned labours to the caprice or indifference of a world 
 engaged for the most part in pursuits which he looks down 
 upon with pity, and would regard, if he were less good 
 than he is, with contempt. 
 
 But these limits will not allow me to do justice to a 
 tithe of the merits of my worthy Nestor; so, reader, we 
 (you and I) must be content with what the allotted space 
 will admit. You will not be surprised, after the slight 
 insight I have given you into the character of Dr. Poly- 
 glott's mind, and the extent of his erudition, to learn that 
 the good cheerful old man is altogether ^' wrapt and thro wly 
 lapt " in reminiscences and thoughts, the beginning, middle, 
 and end whereof are classical. 
 
 ^^Ay, ay, boy,'^ said he to me (I am forty-five) one day, 
 when I had been lauding and magnifying sundry of our 
 own poets in his presence, " Ay, ay, boy, call 'em poets if 
 you will — mere mushrooms — Shakespeare — didst ever hear 
 of Sophocles ? — Jonson — Bah ! — poor neoteric stuff — ver- 
 nacular. There is but one good couplet in the language, 
 only one." 
 
 "And whose is that, sir?'' I ventured to ask. 
 
 "Pope's.'' 
 
 I was thunderstruck, so often had I heard the old man 
 revile "Pope, the Anti-Homeric," as he delighted to call 
 
PANDEMUS POLYGLOTT. 265 
 
 him, " the clipper of the old Greek's soHd coin, to reduce 
 it to the beggarly standard of wit's understanding." 
 ''Pope's, sir?" said I, in wonder; ^'pray, repeat it." 
 Slowly and deliberately did the Doctor recite : 
 
 « 
 
 " They who a hving marble seek 
 Must carve in Latin or in Greek." 
 
 Never till this hour had I dreamt of the possibility of the 
 Doctor having read a line of English poetry, except in a 
 translation, and I ventured to hint thus much. 
 
 ''Not read English poetry !" said he. "Why, half my 
 amusements would be at an end were it not for your so- 
 called poets — common plagiarists. Not one of them but 
 goes on the highway to plunder the old Greeks and Romans. 
 Oh ! how I love to nab the filchers." 
 
 Here was new ground broken between me and the 
 Doctor, and right well have I profited by it. In almost 
 every branch of modern poetry have I tried him, and 
 almost invariably has he shown me that our great men are 
 but pickers-up of the crumbs that have fallen from the 
 tables of their masters, of old parallel passages that most 
 men can quote. But what astonishes me most is the 
 readiness with which the Doctor detects whole pieces 
 translated from the more obscure ancients; many of them, 
 indeed, whose works are generally beUeved to be lost 
 entirely. Having been frequently startled at this, I thought 
 I would se/ him with a poem, for which he could have no 
 ancient parallel; accordingly, one evening, I read him, 
 from the Anti-Jacobin, Canning's Knifegrinder. 
 
 "The varlet ! " cried the Doctor, "reach me vol. 17 of 
 the MSS." 
 
 I gave it him, and forthwith did he spread before my 
 eyes the following : 
 
266 
 
 PANDEMUS POLYGLOTT. 
 
 Za7r0t/ca. 
 
 (piKavOpiOTTos KUL 6 atSTjporeKTCjv. 
 ^iKapOpcoTros. 
 TTTj /3a5(fets, tttojx^ cndrjporeKTOP ; 
 
 7] 6' 65os arvcpXrjy acpaXepos 6' 6 kv- 
 
 kXos. 
 ^vxpos el, KCLXovcTL irepccKeXr} /cat 
 
 TprjfMa yaXrjpos, 
 
 Sapphica. 
 
 Philanthropus et Faber 
 Ferrarius. 
 
 DiALOGUS. 
 
 Philanthropus, 
 *'Hinc iter quonaiii, Faber o 
 
 e^ene r 
 
 LVK dyavo^ aide, cnBrjpoTeKTOv, 
 ocTTLS ev dL(ppoLS [xaXaKOLGL kXlvel, 
 deipop (hs Kpa^ai " xpaXidas re Srjyu 
 7]5e jULaxcLtpas.'' 
 
 Et via horrescit, rota claudi- 
 
 catque ; 
 Flat notus ; rimis petasus laborat, 
 Tritaque bracca. 
 
 ^'O Faber languens, patet baud 
 
 superbis, 
 Appia ut rhedis habet otiantes, 
 Quid sit ad cctem vocitare cul- 
 
 tros 
 
 Fissaque ferra. 
 
 TLs de a, wrap, (Jxre G-tSrjpoSrjyeLP ; '* Die, Faber, cultrosacuisse quis 
 
 TLS rvpappos a dcppeos rjdLKrjKep ; te 
 
 ^ pieyas a 6 yacoKparcvp ; 6 irpea^vs ; "Egit? anne in te locuples tyran- 
 
 t) VSt/cos alcrxp(j^s ; nus 
 
 Saeviit? terraedominus? sacerdos? 
 Causidicusve ? 
 
 rjdiKTja' 6 yatoKparcvp ae drjpcop '' Ob feras terrae dominus neca- 
 
 KecpLepojp ; rj cr' e/cSe/careus 6 wpecr^vs ; tas ? 
 
 i) 'kolkos XrjdTTjs airepeyKe aov to Aut tenax poscens decumas sa- 
 
 irap d: dyo^va cerdos ? 
 
 Lite vel rem causidicus maligne 
 Abstulit omnem ? 
 
 (olcrda TopLTrapov '^'NLepoiriop ra XPV- ** Nonne nosti ' Jura Hominum* 
 
 era;'') Paini? 
 
 (TTaypLar oIktol ep ^Xecpapoip rpeovacp, Ecce ! palpebris lacrymae tremis- 
 €K7reaoPT eiTrrjs oirorap av iriKpas cunt, 
 
 pLvOop cLPtas. Inde casurae simul explicaris 
 
 Tristia fata." 
 
 l^icdTjpOTeKTOJP, 
 UV0OP ; (birOTTOL' eTTOS OVK €X^ tC 
 
 €P AcaTTT/Xety o' or iwipop ^X^^^j 
 
 Faber. 
 
 ''Fata— Di magni ! nihil est 
 quod edam, 
 
PANDEMUS POLYGLOTT. 
 
 267 
 
 fiov yaXrjpop ijde TreptaKeXr) tcs 
 
 dpv\J/' ev dywvL. 
 
 dWa pa^Sovxoi rore pi eWov avSpes, 
 rjyayop de pi avrcKa irpos StKacrrrjv. 
 %(i SiKaarrjs iroaoKaKr} pL idrjKep 
 
 (icrre irXavrjTa, 
 
 Ni quod hesterna ut biberem in 
 
 popina 
 Nocte lis orta ! heu ! periere 
 
 braccae 
 
 Atque galerus. 
 
 " Pacis occurrunt mihi turn min- 
 
 istri, 
 Meque Proetoris rapiunt ad aul- 
 
 am : 
 Praetor erronis properat numella 
 Figere plantas. 
 
 pvv 5e x^^PotTjp pieya aoi Trpoirtpcop, '' Jamque gaudebo tibi si pro- 
 
 deairoTa ^vdov dewas, el av SoLrjs. pinem 
 
 ^paxpi ipLoiy' dXV ovirore pLoi ra ptep Poculum, tete mihi dante num- 
 
 TToXcTLKa /xeXXet. mum ; 
 
 Me tamen stringo, neque, pro 
 virili, 
 
 Publica euro." 
 
 ^LXap9p(s)7ros. Philanthropns, 
 
 dpaxP'Ci COL ; rax' ^Is didrjp direXOe, "An tibi nummum ? potius 
 
 (TxerXc, OS TLPeip KaKa roaa d/SofXet?, ruinam ; 
 
 (pavX^ dpatadrf, ddoKcpLacT, decKes, Perdite, ulcisci mala tanta no- 
 
 eK^oXipi, a(ppop. lens ; 
 
 Sordide, infelix, inhoneste, prave 
 Turpis et excors." 
 
 Sapphics. 
 
 The Friend of Humanity and the Knifegrinder. 
 
 Friend of Humanity. 
 
 ** Needy Knifegrinder ! whither art thou going? 
 Rough is the road ; thy wheel is out of order ; 
 Bleak blows the blast ; your hat has got a hole in't. 
 
 So have your breeches. 
 
 ** Weary knifegrinder, little know the proud ones, 
 Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike- 
 Road, what hard work 'tis crying all day, ' Knives and 
 
 Scissors to grind O.' 
 
268 PANDEMUS POLYGLOTT. 
 
 *' Tell me, Knifegrinder, how came you to grind knives? 
 Did some rich man tyrannically use you? 
 Was it the 'squire ? or parson of the parish ? 
 
 Or the attorney ? 
 
 " Was it the 'squire for kilhng of his game ? or 
 Covetous parson for his tithes distraining ? 
 Or roguish lawyer made you lose your little 
 
 All in a lawsuit ? 
 
 '* Have you not read the * Rights of Man ' by Tom Paine ? 
 Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids, 
 Ready to fall as soon as you have told your 
 
 Pitiful story." 
 
 Knifegrinder^ 
 
 " Story ! God bless you ? I have none to tell, sir ; 
 Only last night a-drinking at the Chequers, 
 This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were 
 
 Torn in a scuffle. 
 
 " Constables came up for to take me into 
 Custody ; they took me before the justice ; 
 Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish 
 
 Stocks for a vagrant. 
 
 ' ' I should be glad to drink your honour's health in 
 A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence ; 
 But for my part I never love to meddle 
 
 With politics, sir." 
 
 Friend of Humanity. 
 
 *'/give thee sixpence ! I will see thee damn'd first, 
 Wretch, whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance ; 
 Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded, 
 
 Spiritless outcast. " 
 
 " There, sir," cried the Doctor. ^' Even George Canning's 
 hands were not so clean, you see ; now I will tell you how, 
 as I take it, he came by the original. In the University 
 Library at Leyden, where I first got my fellowship, were 
 near a cart-load of MSS. of various ages and languages. 
 The greater part of these had, as far as I could learn, never 
 been examined, and they were indeed considered as little 
 better than lumber. Fired by the success which had 
 attended An2;elo Mai's researches in a similar field, I dili- 
 
PANDEMUS POLYGLOTT. 
 
 269 
 
 gently set about examining, collating, and transcribing 
 
 these MSS. Among the rest was a small volume of 
 
 tattered parchment, of singularly ancient appearance, and 
 
 grievously decayed by the action of damp and vermin. To 
 
 this, which was apparently a MS. of the tenth century, I 
 
 devoted my most serious attention, and succeeded in 
 
 deciphering the present very curious dialogue, which is, I 
 
 believe, unique, and two other poems. The Latin version 
 
 was made by Professor Groetbaum, who printed the three 
 
 poems, and circulated an impression of five copies among 
 
 his most select friends. One of these copies was purchased 
 
 at the sale of Professor Krautstuffer's library, after his 
 
 death, by an Englishman named Heber, I think, who 
 
 came express from London upon the occasion, and gave 
 
 for the tract a sum equal to about forty-two pounds 
 
 English. From this copy, I doubt not, arose George 
 
 Canning's translation. 
 
 Turning over the leaves of the folio the Doctor had bid 
 me reach for him, my eye lighted upon the following anac- 
 reontic, which I very easily recollected as an old English 
 acquaintance, in spite of his present Greek costume. I 
 named this fact to the Doctor, and ventured to suggest the 
 possibility of his having been imposed upon by some of his 
 scholarly friends at Leyden : but I will first transcribe the 
 poems, Greek and English, and then give the reader Dr. 
 Polyglott's highly interesting account : 
 
 els fxviav irLvovaav olvov, 
 iroXvepye, iroXvirpay/JLOv, 
 KaradLyJ/ocjaa /JLVca, 
 dye drjra, av/JLirLio/uLep' 
 
 jmeya X^'-P^' ^^^ ^^^ ^^'^^ 
 fxedv Trap to8\ tjp dvPTjcrrj 
 
 pO(p€€LV VLV €KpO(peiV T€, 
 
 dpeire vvv ^lov tol repTrva, 
 oXiyos ^Los, ^poixvs re. 
 
 6 5' ifXOS T€ cos 0' OJULOIO), 
 
 reXos d/uitpcj €l<TTpexovre. 
 Sepos ev aov ear ifxov de 
 
 PFrzUen extempore by a Gentleman^ oc- 
 casioned by a fly drinking out of his 
 cup. 
 **Busy, curious, thirsty fly, 
 Drink with me and drink as I ; 
 Freely welcome to my cup, 
 Couldst thou sip, and sip it up. 
 Make the most of life you may, 
 Life is short and fades away. 
 
 ** Both alike are mine and thine, 
 Hastening quick to their decline ; 
 
270 PANDEMUS POLYGLOTT. 
 
 irXeou ovSep iariv, el Kat Thine's a summer, mine no more, 
 
 rpis eveanv eUoa' avrcp. Though repeated to threescore. 
 
 Oepe (hs rpLs eiKoa elaap, Threescore summers, when they're 
 
 ^paxe cos /cat ep (j^avovvrai. Will appear as short as one ! " [gone, 
 
 '' Marvellous ! " cried the Doctor, when I had recited to 
 him this well-known song — '' Marvellous ! That ode, sir, I 
 doubt not, was written by Anacreon himself. That the 
 Azyovatv a/ yvvaixsg should be admitted into all collections, 
 while this is rejected, appears to me the consummation of 
 critical injustice." 
 
 *' As how, sir?" 
 
 "Why, you know^ the ^Xsyovatv x. r. X.' was discovered by 
 Henri Estienne on an old book-cover. 
 
 " Assuredly, sir," continued the Doctor. " When the 
 vellum came to be stripped from the cover, and strictly ex- 
 amined, on the of/ier side appeared the ode, of which this 
 unknown translator has tried to palm off his version upon 
 us for an original drinking-song. Too bad — too bad ! No 
 doubt, copies of both odes were taken, and, less doubt, they 
 were distributed among the literati of that time, by which 
 means some stray copy having in a later age -fallen into the 
 hands of our anonymous plagiary, he has done this evil 
 thing." 
 
 The Doctor, like most other persons of taste, is much 
 addicted to music, and in his early days was no mean pro- 
 ficient therein ; but his great age now materially interferes 
 with his enjoyment of this pleasure, for he is somewhat deaf, 
 and, as he facetiously observes, there are trumpeters enough 
 in concert rooms without him. However, he does not alto- 
 gether abstain from the delights of harmony, for it is his 
 rule to attend one concert, and only one, during the season. 
 On these occasions I am always his companion ; and in the 
 course of this duty last season I had a very striking proof 
 of his readiness in detecting plagiarism. We were at the 
 Hanover Square Rooms, and it was a benefit concert, I for- 
 get whose, but all the musical magnates in London were 
 there. Presently appeared Henry Phillips to sing his admir- 
 
PANDEMUS POLYGLOTT. 
 
 271 
 
 able ditty, '' Woman." During the song I observed that the 
 Doctor appeared surprised and somewhat puzzled ; when it 
 was over, he desired me to refer to the libretto, and tell him 
 the author's name ; it was written down as by Geo. Wither. 
 
 ^' It is a robbery," said the Doctor. 
 
 '•It is a mutilation," said I. ''Some hod-and-mortar 
 litterateur has been paring down to concert-room dimensions 
 one of the few lyrics that give Withers a claim to the title of 
 poet." 
 
 " Oh ho ! " cried the Doctor. " Then when we get home 
 I will show you what a thief even a puritan may be." 
 
 Our conversation was here interrupted by the appearance 
 of an elegant young lady, who came forward and sung the 
 following song, which, to my no small amusement, and the 
 equal annoyance of sundry of his neighbours, the Doctor 
 actually accompanied with its monkish original ; thus — 
 
 Dr. Polyglott. 
 
 O Terrse puella, 
 Auricoma, bella, 
 Mens puraque, et ora 
 Te vetant decora 
 Incolere tribus 
 Mortalium, quibus 
 Sunt verba fervoris 
 At corda rigoris. 
 Nobiscum vagare, 
 Fit domus in aere ; 
 
 O Terrae puella, 
 Auricoma, bella ! 
 Sis pars chorearum 
 Cum sum ma nympharum 
 In nocte aestiva, 
 Sub Cynthia viva, 
 Dum Musica tales 
 Dat sonitus quales 
 Non quisquam audivit 
 Sub sole qui vivit. 
 
 Young Lady. 
 
 Child of Earth, 
 With the golden hair, 
 Thy soul is too pure, 
 And thy face too fair, 
 To dwell with creatures 
 Of mortal mould, 
 Whose lips are warm 
 As their hearts are cold. 
 Roam, Roam, 
 To our fairy home. 
 
 Child of Earth, 
 With the golden hair, 
 Thou shalt dance 
 With the Fairy Queen 
 O' summer nights 
 On the moon-lit green, 
 To music murmuring 
 Sweeter far 
 Than ever was heard 
 'Neath the morning star. 
 
 Roam, roam, &c. 
 
 Great was the Doctor's glee at this detection, and greater 
 was mine at his mode of making it known. Indeed all was 
 
272 PANDEMUS POLYGLOTT. 
 
 glee with us that evening ; and when we had returned home, 
 and disposed of that sine qua non of all sensible amusement- 
 hunters, a light supper after the play or concert or whatever 
 it may be, and the Doctor's meerschaum (one of his Leyden 
 habits) was in high puff, we naturally took to talking over 
 the evening's entertainment. Of course the various per- 
 formers passed in review, and, among the rest, Phillips 
 escaped not the hearty commendations of both of us. 
 
 **By the by," said the Doctor, *' you called his ^ Woman' 
 a mutilation. Have you the ballad as written by Wither?" 
 
 '^ I have," said I, producing a volume of Ritson's Collec- 
 tion. 
 
 " And here is its original," said the Doctor, laying his hand 
 on one of the aforenamed vols, of his MSS. ''Now let us 
 read ; begin thou." And I began : 
 
 Dr. Polyglott. Myself. 
 
 Anne ego depositis tabescam viribus Shall I, wasting in despair, ' 
 
 exspes, Die because a woman's fair? 
 
 Et patiar cum sit faemina pulcra mori ? Or make pale my cheek with care 
 
 Annemeaspalloregenascuraanxiatinget, Because another's rosy are? 
 
 Quod petit alterius mala colore rosam ? Be she fairer than the day, 
 
 Exsuperet splendore diem sine labe Or the flowery fields in May; 
 venustas, If she think not well of me, 
 
 Florigerumve parit quod nova Maia Wl^at care I how fair she be? 
 decus ; 
 Illi ni videar qui sim bene dignus amatu, 
 Egregium refert quid decus omne mihi ? 
 
 Anne ego collabi patiar meacordadolore, Should my heart be grieved or 
 
 Quod mansueta fuit fa:mina visa mihi ? pine, 
 
 Ingenio vel qace cum sit bene praedita 'Cause I see a womankind? 
 
 culto, Or a well-disposed nature 
 
 Orasimul monstret qualia adoret amor? Joined with a lovely feature? 
 
 Si pictate suA,, si mansuetudine laudes Be she meeker, kinder than 
 
 Turturis exsuperet, vel, pelicane, tuas ; Turtle-dove or pelican; 
 In me ni pia sit, ni sit mansueta puella, If she be not so to me, 
 
 CJuid refert pietas officiosa mihi ? What care I how kindshebe? 
 
 Fcxmina quod prsestat reliquis bonitate, Shall a woman's virtues move 
 
 movebit Me to perish for her love? 
 
 Ergone dum peream me muliebris amor? Or her well-deservings known 
 
 Sint merita illius summa dignissima laude, Make me quite forget my own? 
 
PANDEMUS POLYGLOTT. 273 
 
 Nonneigiturmeritisimmemoripsemei? Be she with such goodness blest 
 
 Actu si bonitas ita conspiciatur in omni, As may gam her name of Best : 
 
 Ut ductum e mentis Optima nomen erit ; If she be not such to me, 
 
 Me nisi participem placeat bonitatis habere, What care I how good she be ? 
 
 Quid refert quanta sit bonitate mihi ? 
 
 QuodFortunanimisvideaturlargapuellae, 'Causeherfortuneseems too high, 
 
 Anne ego desipiens in mala fata ruam ? Shall I play the fool and die ? 
 
 Mos est ingenium quels nobile, puraque Those that bear a noble mind, 
 
 mens est, When they want of riches find, 
 
 Exiguse quando comperiuntur opes, Think what with them they 
 
 Quid cum divitiis facerent reputare salaces would do, 
 
 Qui gaza fiunt deficiente proci. Who without them dare to woo ; 
 
 Et nisi fas in ea talem mihi cernere And unless that mind I see, 
 
 mentem What care I though great she 
 
 Quid refert , quam vis magna puella mihi? be ? 
 
 Magna sit, aut bona, sit mansueta aut Great, or good, or kind, or fair, 
 denique pulchra, I will ne'er the more despair. 
 
 Spem me non igitur destituisse sinam ; If she love me, this believe, 
 In me, crede mihi, foveat si pectus amo- I will die ere she shall grieve ; 
 rem, If she slight me when I woo, 
 
 Ipse prius patiar qudm gemat ilia I can scorn and let her go ; 
 mori ; If she be not made for me, 
 
 Quod si sincere parvi me pendat aman- What care I for whom she be? 
 tem. 
 In rem contemptse fas sit abire malam ; 
 Scihcet ut placeat mihi ni sit facta 
 puella, 
 Quid refert cui sit facta puella mihi? 
 
 '' A pretty tolerable proof of disregard to the Eighth Com- 
 mandment, I think/' continued the Doctor ; ''but don't let 
 us be too hard upon poor George. He was a fine fellow in 
 his way, and, sorry as was the rubbish he perpetrated in after 
 time, this song must be admitted to be far above much of 
 the same kind of poetry at that day. It is, at least, a most 
 excellent translation. '' 
 
 ''Surely, sir," said I, "the author of that poem must have 
 been proud of his translator." 
 
 "Possibly," replied the Doctor, "if he understood Eng- 
 lish ; but I suspect two bars to the author's enjoyment — 
 first, his not understanding the language ; and, secondly, 
 his not having lived to Withers's time. In short, the author 
 ^^s unknown. I take him to have been some one of the 
 
 VOL. II. S 
 
274 PANDEMUS POLYGLOTT. 
 
 Belgic writers of the earlier part of the i6th century — 
 Hadrian Marius, perhaps, or one of those bright satellites 
 revolving round the planet of Julius Caesar Scaliger." 
 
 I ventured to suggest to Dr. Polyglott the possibility of 
 some more modern bard having translated Withers's English 
 into Latin ; and reminded the Doctor of the great number 
 of excellent songs produced about the date of that under 
 discussion, viz. 1620. 1 remember particularly specifying 
 Waller's '' Rose " as of surpassing excellence in its line. But 
 I had taken an unfortunate view of the matter : my first 
 suggestion called forth from the Doctor a most vigorous 
 expression of contempt for my judgment. Good old man ! 
 I think I see him now, as, v<7r^ 6(f)^v(f IdcAjv^ and emitting a fog 
 of reek from both ends of his ecume de 7?ier^ lie curled his lip 
 and cried, ''Translate English into Latin! Fie, oh, fie! 
 The world never yet held a fool capable of such absurdity. 
 Why, sir, it would be to dress a lazar in a royal robe. But 
 it is too gross a notion to be entertained — pooh !'' and forth 
 rushed another eruption of smoke and sparks from the bowl ; 
 for his pipe was finished, and the act of refilling it alone 
 restored him to sufificient composure to notice my mention 
 of Waller. 
 
 ''That 'Rose' you talk of," said the Doctor, "I know it 
 well. That robbery of Waller's was the death of a professor 
 at Leyden." 
 
 "How, sir?" asked I, modestly. 
 
 "Thus," replied the Doctor. " Watinstern, in those days 
 Professor of Humanity, foolishly fell in love; and disdaining, 
 as in duty bound, if not in taste, the vernacular, wrote the 
 original of the ' Rose' upon the obdurate Frau JacqueHne 
 von Krakertsting ; and, it was rumoured, would have won 
 her by it had she chanced to have understood the language 
 it was written in. Copies, were multiplied among the literati, 
 and much fame resulted to the Professor, who, upon the ill 
 success of his forlorn hope upon the damsel, pined and 
 became consumptive. One day a friend, thinking to delight 
 him (for he was what is called an excellent English scholar), 
 
PANDEMUS POLYGLOTT. 
 
 275 
 
 brought him Waller's version, which was just then in high 
 vogue ; Watinstern read and admired it ; but finding that 
 the Briton had not acknowledged the Batavian origin of his 
 poemation, and, moreover, had omitted the fine pair of moral 
 couplets which close it, fell into so violent a train of angry 
 objurgation upon his meanness that excessive wrath pro- 
 duced an attack of haemophthysis, which in a few days 
 carried off the Professor, who is reported to have expired 
 muttering Martial's line : 
 
 ' Stat contra dicitque tibi tua pagina : fur es.' 
 
 But here is Watinstern's poem. Place Waller's alongside it, 
 and judge for yourself what cause the former had for his 
 wrath : " 
 
 - WATINSTERN. 
 
 I, Rosa, purpurei flos jocundissime 
 prati, 
 Die cui labe pari tempora meque 
 terit, 
 Illius laudes tecum persaepeparanti, 
 Quam pulchra et dulcis visa sit 
 ilia mihi. 
 
 Die cui flore datur primo gaudere 
 juventae, 
 Gratia quae verb ne videatur 
 avet ; 
 Neseia forte virum si te genuisset 
 eremus, 
 Mortem tu laudis neseia passa 
 fores. 
 
 Nil valet omnino lucem male passa 
 venustas. 
 In lucem veniat protenus ilia, 
 jube, 
 Quam petit omnis amor virgo pa- 
 tiatur amorem, 
 Nee, cum miretur quis, stet in 
 ore rubor. 
 
 Tum morere, ut rerum videat com- 
 munia fata 
 Rararum, fato conscia facta tuo. 
 
 Waller. 
 
 Go, lovely Rose, 
 Tell her, that wastes her time and me, 
 
 That now she knows, 
 When I resemble her to thee. 
 How sweet and fair she seems to be. 
 
 Tell her that^s young. 
 And shuns to have her beauties spied, 
 
 That hadst thou sprung) 
 In valleys where no men abide, 
 Thou might'st have uncommended 
 died. 
 
 Small is the worth 
 Of beauty from the light retired 
 
 Bid her come forth, 
 Suffer herself to be desired, 
 And not blush so to be admired. 
 
 Then die ; that she 
 The common fate of all things rare 
 May read in thee ; 
 
276 PANDEMUS POLYGLOTT. 
 
 Parte frui fas est quam parva tern- How small a part of time they share, 
 poris illis, That are so wondrous bright and fair. 
 
 Quels tantum veneris tantaque 
 forma datur. 
 
 Sed quamvis moriare, tamen post Yet though they fade, 
 
 fata peracta From thy dead leaves let fragrance 
 Qui fuit ante tuis frondibus adsit rise, 
 
 odor. And teach the maid 
 
 Temnere sic discat Pietatem Tern- That goodness Time's rude hand de- 
 poris arma ; fies, 
 
 Vivere Virtutem cum mera For- And virtue lives when beauty dies. 
 ma perit. 
 
 " Hold thee ! " cried the Doctor, as I read the last stanza 
 of the " Rose." " Why, how is this ? Surely Waller did not 
 translate Watinstern's four last lines after all ? " 
 
 I replied by showing the Doctor how Kirke White had 
 added that stanza, and how it was found, in his autograph, 
 upon the margin of his copy of Waller. 
 
 " There again ! " cried my learned friend. '^ You see they 
 are all like ; not one will acknowledge that he is a mere 
 translator. I dare be sworn Ben Jonson, if he were alive, 
 would deny his obligations to Joannes Secundus, Muretus, 
 &c., for some of his best amatory pieces. You know of 
 course how much he is their debtor ? " 
 
 I confessed my ignorance of the matter. 
 
 " I thought as much," said Dr. Polyglott. " I was led to 
 suspect it when I lighted the other day in a collection upon 
 a little poem, professing to be an original of Ben's, and 
 beginning, 
 
 *Take, oh take those hps away,' <S:c." 
 
 '^ Surely," said I, '' that is genuine." 
 
 " Oh, surely !" replied the Doctor, with a smile, ''as genuine 
 a translation as possible of this poem of Secundus." 
 
 He handed me a volume of his MSS., and I began, 
 according to his direction, to read. 
 
 " Stop ! " interrupted the^ Doctor ; '' do you know the 
 English ?" , 
 
 ^' I do," said I. ^ 
 
r 
 
 PANDEMUS POLYGLOTT. 
 
 277 
 
 Well, then, repeat it, line for line, with the original, and 
 you will be better able to judge how far the Englishman is 
 indebted to him of the Hague/' 
 I read as follows : — 
 
 Carmen :— Auctore Joanne Se- 
 CUNDO Hagensi. 
 
 Hinc ista, hinc procul amove labella, 
 Quae tarn dulce fuere perjurata ; 
 Aurorae et radiis pares ocellos, 
 Luces mane novum e via trahentes. 
 At refer mihi basia hue, sigilla, 
 Frustra impressa tamen, sigilla 
 
 amoris. 
 Oh ! cela nivis ista colla, cela, 
 Ornant quae gremium tibi gelatum ; 
 Quorum in culminibus roase vi- 
 
 gentes 
 Sunt quales referunt Aprilis horae ; 
 At primum mea corda liberate, 
 His a te gelidis ligata vinclis. 
 
 Song by Ben Jonson. 
 
 Take, oh take those lips away, 
 That so Sweetly were forsworn ; 
 
 And those eyes, the break of day, 
 Lights that do mislead the morn 
 
 But my kisses bring again, 
 
 Seals of love, but seal'd in vain. 
 
 Hide, oh hide those hills of snow, 
 Which thy frozen bosom bears ; 
 On whose tops the pinks that grow 
 
 Are of those that April wears ; 
 But first set my poor heart free, 
 Bound in these icy chains by thee. 
 
 "It is very Strange," murmured I, reluctantly forced to 
 admit the Doctor s charge against " Rare Ben." " But how 
 does it happen that this poem does not appear in any of the 
 numerous editions of Secundus ? ^' 
 
 " Oh ! that is easily accounted for," answered the Doctor. 
 " None of Secundus's works were published during his life. 
 Indeed it was probably owing to the piracy of a German 
 bookseller of the T6th century that they were not suffered 
 to perish." 
 
 I begged the Doctor to relate the story to me ; and he con- 
 tinued : "Upon the execution of Sir Thomas More, you know, 
 all Europe rung with indignant reproaches against the royal 
 monster of England ; and Secundus, then a spirited youth of 
 two-and-twenty or so, wrote an epitaph and nenia upon the 
 murdered ex-Chancellor. These were only circulated among 
 his private friends (being considered somewhat too hard 
 upon his patron, the Emperor's uncle, for publication), until 
 a copy fell into the hands of the above-mentioned bibliopole, 
 
278 PANDEMUS POLYGLOTT. 
 
 ^vho printed and published the two poems in the early part 
 of the year 1536 ; but the pirated copy was so unlike that 
 which Secundus had written that Hadrian Marius, in 
 vindication of his brother's scholarship, had the poems 
 printed from his own copy ; and they w^ere published during 
 the same year at Louvain. Much posthumous fame accrued 
 to Secundus from this publication ; and in 1538 the men of 
 Leyden gave the world the first edition of the same author's 
 jusily celebrated Basia. Secundus's works are now much 
 sought after by the scholars of Leyden, and there are still 
 several pieces of his preserved among the MSS. in the 
 University Library. You will find copies of them all in that 
 volume. This is among the number ; and I, at least, have 
 no doubt whatever of its authenticity. 
 
 I thanked the Doctor for his narrative, and hazarded an 
 expression of surprise at his peculiar leadiness in detecting 
 this kind of literary buccaneering. 
 
 " My dear boy," replied he, '•' you can have no idea how 
 general the evil practice is. Indeed I wonder other scholars 
 have not taken up the cudgels in defence of the plundered 
 Grecians and Latinists. Now you yourself might do the 
 State some service in this respect if you would, and you 
 cannot conceive how entertaining the pursuit is." 
 
 I modestly professed my incapability. 
 
 '^Why, truly," said the Doctor, ''you are not at present 
 quick at detecting a plagiarism ; but by practice and the 
 aid of my volumes you would in a few years become capable 
 of filling my place in the learned world when I shall vacate 
 it. But you must devote yourself to a severe course of 
 study ere you can hope to attain the requisite amount of 
 proficiency. Why, it is a curious fact that I heard you not 
 many days ago unconsciously chanting a bacchanalian ode 
 of Caesius Bassus." 
 
 ''Me, sir!" cried I, in amazement. "Why I thought 
 there were no remains of that lyrist extant ? " 
 
 "So think many," said the Doctor; "but I know the 
 reverse. Among the shockingly mutilated MSS. whence I 
 
PANDEMUS POLYGLOTT. 
 
 279 
 
 rescued the Greek Sapphics, which I showed you the other 
 day, beginning <7:ri (3udi<^ug; x. r. X. was a very much injured 
 paper MS. containing several fragments of lyric odes, one 
 only of which I was enabled to make out entirely, and that 
 only after much toil, and by the aid of a good deal of 
 conjecture. That ode I heard you vocalising in its Anglicised 
 condition, as 'The Glasses sparkle on the Board.' Come 
 now, chant it again, and I will reward you with the Alcaic 
 original as an accompaniment." 
 
 I did as I was bid : and after this manner was the Doctor's 
 assertion proved : 
 
 Carmen ; Auctore Ccesio Basso. Song : The Glasses sparkle. 
 
 En ! pocla mensiscompositismicant ; 
 Vini refulget purpureus color ; 
 Regnant voluptates, feruntque 
 Gaudia deliciasque secum. 
 Invitat Euhoe ! nox est ; absit dies ; 
 Indulgeamus nune genium mero, 
 Mergamus et curae vel atri 
 Quod superest cyatho doloris. 
 
 Sunt qui gravari tristitia ferunt 
 Vitam ; sed o ! ne credite fabulani — 
 An Liber effundit dolorem ? 
 An Veneris lacrymas ocelli ? 
 Omnis Catonum copia desipit 
 Vinclisvolentum stringere gaudia ; — 
 Si vita fert luctum, sodales, 
 Heus iterum ! cyatho lavemus. 
 
 Poeta labi quam rapid^ monet 
 
 Tempus ; quid ergo, quid sapientius 
 
 Qukm spargere in pennis Faler- 
 
 num, 
 
 Cumque movet celeres morari? 
 
 Haec nostra nox est ; nos quoque 
 
 floribus 
 Spargemus horas usque volubiles ; 
 Mergamus et curae vel atri 
 
 Quod superest cyatho Doloris, 
 
 The glasses sparkle on the board, 
 
 The wine is ruby bright ; 
 The reign of pleasure is restored, 
 
 Of ease and gay delight : 
 The day is gone ; the night's our 
 own, 
 
 Then let us feast the soul ; 
 Should any pain or care remain, 
 
 Why drown it in the bowl. 
 
 This world they say's a world of 
 woe, 
 
 But that I do deny ; 
 Can sorrow from the goblet flow ? 
 
 Or pain from beauty's eye ? 
 The wise are fools with all their 
 rules, 
 
 Who would our joys control. 
 If life's a pain, I say't again, 
 Why drown it in the bowl. 
 
 That time flies fast the poet sings, 
 
 Then surely 'twould be wise 
 In rosy wine to dip his wings, 
 
 And catch him as he flies. 
 This night is ours : then strew with 
 flow'rs 
 
 The moments as they roll ; 
 If any pain or care remain, 
 
 Why drown it in the bowl. 
 
2So PANDEMUS POLYGLOTT. 
 
 ''And is that an ode of Caesius Bassus, sir?" asked I. 
 " What a pity you could not recover any more." 
 
 ''Ah !" cried the Doctor, "it was a pity, the more so as 
 the MS. is unique." 
 
 " By the by," said I, " how did you discover it to belong 
 to Bassus ? " 
 
 " Why, thus : — Upon a very much tattered leaf, detached 
 from the rest (the MS. was in the form of a book), I found 
 the letters C . . . s B . . . i C . . . na. The hiatus are 
 obviously to be filled up thus : Caesii Bassi Carmina." 
 
 I own I was hardly satisfied ; but I did not hke to hazard 
 offending my friend by a doubt ; so I drew his attention to 
 a copy of choriambics, wath a translation appended, being 
 the only specimen of English poetry contained in the 
 volume. 
 
 "Those poems," said the Doctor in reply to my in- 
 quiries, "were a joint tribute from myself and our excellent 
 and talented friend, Matthew Child, to the widow Schwartz, 
 upon the loss of her only son, a youth of the highest 
 promise. The lady was an Englishwoman ; so, remember- 
 ing the fate of Watinstern's poem in former days, I deter- 
 mined to procure an English translation to present with my 
 poem to my friend's widow, I selected my old friend Mat. 
 for this ofiice, and right well did he respond to my applica- 
 tion. Come, indulge me by reading the poems, Latin and 
 Endish." I read them thus : 
 
 FILIOLUM MORIBUNDUM VIDUA ALLOQUITUR — AUCTORE P. P. 
 
 Eheu ! hi gemitus, nate, tibi ; vita relabitur ; 
 
 Jamque olim roseis pallida Mors insidet in genis. 
 
 Amisere oculi jam radios ; vocis abest melos ; 
 
 Et fractus quasi flos turbinibus, prasteriit decus. 
 
 Actum est. Amplius baud corda micant — cum lacrymis parens, 
 
 Haud ingrata tamen, quod tribuit Jupiter, accipit : 
 
 Luctus corda premit ; gutta frequens ex oculis cadit 
 
 Matris, dum tibi post fata patent aethereae domus. 
 
 Ridentem genetricem assoliti saspe pedes sequi, 
 
 Nomen blaesa loqui murmuribus lingua puertiae ; 
 
 Auratae niveus quas modo frons exhibuit comas ; 
 
 Par labrumque rosae ; pallida Mors ! base ubi jam latent? 
 
PANDEMUS POLYGLOTT. 2S1 
 
 Dextra caesa tua, quem facis heu ! cuncta tenet sopor ; 
 Dum matri superest nil, tacitae nil nisi lacrymse ; 
 Aut vocem simulans hei mihi ! vox Fantaseos tuam ; 
 Aut frustra in pueri, dum repeto, flere cadavera. 
 Mox condet tumulus reliquias ex oculis meis, 
 Dum vitas miseram maesta viam solaque persequar ! 
 Manes inter amans sedem habitat primus et unicus, 
 Extremaeque hodie tecum abeunt deliciae, puer. 
 
 THE WIDOW TO HER DYING CHILD — BY MATTHEW CHILD. 
 
 That sigh's for thee, thou precious one ; life's tide is ebbing fast, 
 
 And o'er thy once all-joyous face death's sickly hue is cast. 
 
 Thine azure eye hath lost its ray, thy voice its buoyant tone, 
 
 And, like a flower the storm has crushed, thy beauty's past and gone. 
 
 Another pang, and all is o'er — the pulseless heart is still, 
 
 Meekly though sad thy mother bows to the Almighty's will ; 
 
 Grief presses heavy on my heart, my tears fall thick and fast, 
 
 But thou — thou art in heaven, my child ; life's chequer'd dream is past. 
 
 The busy feet that gladly ran thy mother's smile to greet ; 
 
 The prattling tongue that lisp'd her name in childhood's accents sweet ; 
 
 The glossy curl that beam'd like gold upon thy snowy brow ; 
 
 Thy lip, meet rival of the rose, O Death ! where are they now? 
 
 Wither'd beneath thine icy touch ; locked in thy dull cold sleep ; 
 While all the joy a mother knows is silently to weep ; 
 Or start as Fancy's echo wakes thy voice to mock her pain, 
 Then turn to gaze upon thy corse, and feel her grief is vain. 
 
 The grave, the dark cold grave, full soon will hide thee from my view, 
 
 While I my w^eary way through hfe in solitude pursue ; 
 
 My early and my only love is number'd with the dead, 
 
 And thou — my last sole joy on earth — thou too, my boy, hast fled. 
 
 " I read somewhere but a few days ago this very transla- 
 tion, without any hint of its being so." 
 
 " Impossible ! " cried the Doctor, '^ Mat. is too honour- 
 able a man for that, and you may well be sure I did not 
 
 publish it." 
 
 " Neveriheless," persisted I, " I could swear I saw it ; and 
 now I come to recollect, it is in this book/^ Taking up a 
 volume of the Saturday Magazine^ I searched, and lo ! there 
 it was at page , vol. , signed K. D. W. 
 
 *^That beats all," cried Dr. Polyglott. ''K. D. W. then 
 has robbed us both — hocus-pocusing Mat's translation into 
 
282 . PANDEMUS POLYGLOTT. 
 
 an original of his own, and plundering me at the same 
 moment.'^ 
 
 The Doctor was seriously affected ; seeing which I re- 
 commended his pillow to him, the rather as daylight was 
 breaking in— for what with the meerschaum and the Latin 
 the Doctor had lost all ken of time, and the night had sped 
 away like a winged dream. My young-hearted old patron 
 took my hint and went to bed, and so our conversation 
 ended — from the which, if our reader have derived neither 
 pleasure nor profit. Heaven help him ! If, however, he 
 have enjoyed either the one or the other, or both, let him 
 rejoice in the gratifying expectancy of farther revelations, in 
 future days, of the learned lucubrations of Dr. Pandemus 
 Polyglott 
 
When Panurge and his fellows, as Rab'lais will tell us, 
 
 Set out on a sail to the ends of the earth, 
 And jollily cruising, carousing, and boozing. 
 
 To the oracle came in a full tide of mirth. 
 Pray what was its answer ? Come tell if you can, sir : 
 
 ^Twas an answer most splendid and sage, as I think ; 
 For sans any delaying, it's summed up by saying : 
 
 The whole duty of man is one syllable — " Drink.'' 
 
 bottle mirific ! Advice beatific ! 
 
 A response more celestial sure never was known ; 
 
 1 speak for myself, I prefer it to Delphi, 
 
 Though Apollo himself on that rock fixed his throne. 
 The foplings of fashion may still talk their trash on. 
 
 And declare that the custom of toping should sink ; 
 A fig for such asses, I stick to my glasses, 
 
 And swear that no fashion shall stint me in drink. 
 
 x\nd now in full measure I toast you with pleasure, 
 The warrior — "^ 
 
 the poet — t 
 
 the statesman — J 
 and sage ; § 
 Whose benign constellation illumines the nation, 
 
 And sheds Uvely lustre all over the age ; 
 Long, long may its brightness, in glory and lightness, 
 
 Shine clear as the day-star on morning's sweet brink ! 
 May their sway ne'er diminish ! And therefore I finish, 
 By proposing the health of the four whom I drink. 
 
 ♦ Odoherty. t Hogg. t Timothy Tickler. § North, 
 
Crambamljulee* 
 
 Crambambulee ! — all the world over, 
 
 Thou'rt mother's milk to Germans true — Tra li ra. 
 
 No cure like thee can sage discover 
 
 For colic, love, or devils blue — Tra li ra. 
 
 Blow hot or cold, from morn to night, 
 
 My dream is still my soul's delight, 
 
 Cram-bam-bim-bam-bu-lee — Crambambulee ! 
 
 Hungry and chill'd with bivouacking. 
 
 We rise ere song of earliest bird — Tra li ra. 
 
 Cannon and drums our ears are cracking, 
 
 And saddle, boot, and blade's the word — Tra li ra. 
 
 " Vive en I'avant," our bugle blows, 
 
 A flying gulp and off it goes, 
 
 Cram-bam-bim-bam-bu-lee ! — Crambambulee ! 
 
 Victory's ours, off speed despatches, 
 Hourra ! The luck for once is mine — Tra li ra. 
 Food comes by morsels, sleep by snatches. 
 No time, by Jove, to wash or dine — Tra li ra. 
 From post to post my pipe I cram. 
 Full gallop smoke, and suck my dram. 
 Cram-bam-bim-bam-bu-lee ! — Crambambulee. 
 
 When I'm the peer of kings and kaisers, 
 
 An order of my own I'll found — Tra li ra. 
 
 Down goes our gage to all despisers. 
 
 Our motto through the world shall sound — Tra li ra. 
 
 " Toujours fidele et sans souci, 
 
 C'est I'ordre de Crambambulee ! " 
 
 Cram-bam-bim-bam-bu-lee ! — Crambambulee ! 
 
Bvin\i Hwa^. 
 
 I. 
 
 Come draw me six magnums of claret, 
 
 Don't spare it, 
 But share it in bumpers around ; 
 And take care that in each shining brimmer 
 
 No glimmer 
 Of skimmering daylight be found. 
 Fill away ! Fill away ! Fill away ! 
 
 Fill bumpers to those that you love, 
 For we will be happy to-day, 
 
 As the gods are when drinking above. 
 Drink away ! Drink away ! 
 
 2. 
 
 Give way to each thought of your fancies, 
 
 That dances, 
 Or glances, or looks of the fair ; 
 And beware that from fears of to-morrow 
 
 You borrow 
 No sorrow, nor foretaste of care. 
 Drink away, drink away, drink away ! 
 
 For the honour of those you adore : 
 Come, charge ! and drink fairly to-day, 
 
 Though you swear you will never drink more. 
 
 3- 
 
 I last night, cuf, and quite melancholy. 
 Cried folly ! 
 
286 DRINK AWAY. 
 
 What's Polly to reel for her fame ? 
 
 Yet ril banish such hint till the morning, 
 
 And scorning 
 Such warning to-night, do the same. 
 Drink away, drink away, drink away ! 
 
 'Twill banish blue devils and pain ; 
 And to-night for my joys if I pay, 
 
 Why, to-morrow I'll do it again. 
 
H)routbiness* 
 
 I HAD a dream, which was not all-my-eye. 
 
 The deep wells were exhausted, and the pumps 
 
 Delivered nothing but a windy groan 
 
 To those who plied their handles ; and the clouds 
 
 Hung like exsuccous sponges in the sky. 
 
 Morn came and went — and came and brought no rain 
 
 And men forgot their hunger in the dread 
 
 Of utter failure of all drink — their chops 
 
 Were all athirst for something potable ; 
 
 And they did swig, from hogsheads, brandy, wine, 
 
 Cider, brown-stout, and such like, meant to serve 
 
 For future merry-makings. Cellars dim 
 
 Were soon dismantled of the regular tiers 
 
 Of bottles, which were piled within their bins ; 
 
 Small beer was now held precious ; yea, they gulp'd 
 
 Black treacle, daubing childish visages, 
 
 Gripe-giving vinegar, and salad oil. 
 
 Nor were old phials, fill'd with doctor's stuff, 
 
 Things to be sneezed at now : they toss'd them off. 
 
 Happy were they who dwelt within the reach 
 
 Of the pot-houses, and their foaming taps. 
 
 Barrels were all a-broach, and hour by hour 
 
 The spigots ran ; and then a hollow sound 
 
 Told that the casks were out, and the Red Cow, 
 
 The Cat and Bagpipes, or the Dragon Green, 
 
 Could serve no customers ; their pots were void. 
 
 The moods of men, in this unwatery, 
 
 Small-beerless time, were different. Some sat 
 
 Unbuttoning their waistcoats, while they frowned, 
 
288 DROUTHINESS. 
 
 Scarce knowing what they did ; while hopeful, some 
 
 Buttoned their breeches-pockets up, and smiled ; 
 
 And servant lasses scurried to and fro 
 
 With mops unwet, and buckets, wondering when 
 
 The puddles would be filled, that they might scrub 
 
 The household floors ; but, finding puddles none, 
 
 They deemed their pattens would grow obsolete — 
 
 Things of forgotten ages. So they took 
 
 Their disappointed mops, and rendered them 
 
 Back to their dry receptacles. The birds. 
 
 Forsook their papery leaves. The dairy co\vs 
 
 Went dry, and were not milked. Incessantly 
 
 Ducks quacked, aye stumbling on with flabby feet 
 
 Over the sun-baked mud, which should have felt 
 
 Pulpy beneath their bills ; and eels did crawl 
 
 Out from what had been ponds, and needed not 
 
 The angler's baited hook, or wicker-pot, 
 
 To catch them now ; for they who bafiied erst, 
 
 Through sliminess, man's grasp, were still indeed 
 
 Wriggling, but dusty ; they were skinn'd for food. 
 
 He who, by lucky chance, had wherewithal 
 
 To wet his whistle took his drop apart, 
 
 And smack'd his lips alone ; small love was left : 
 
 Folks had but then one thought, and that \vas drink, 
 
 Where to be had, and what ? The w^ant of it 
 
 Made most men cross, and eke most women too. 
 
 The patient lost their patience, and tlie sour 
 
 Grew still more crabbed, sharp-nosed, and shrill-voiced. 
 
 Even cats did scratch their maiden mistresses. 
 
 Angry that milk forth came not, — all, save one. 
 
 And he was faithful to the virgin dame 
 
 Who petted him ; — but, be it not conceal'd, 
 
 The rumour ran that he his whiskers greased 
 
 From a pomatum-pot, and so he quell'd 
 
 The rage of thirst ; himself sought naught to lap, 
 
 But, with a piteous and perpetual mew, 
 
 And a quick snivelling sneeze, sat bundled up, 
 
DROUTHINESS. 289 
 
 And taking matters quietly — he lived. 
 
 The crowd forsook our village ; only two 
 
 Of the parishioners still tarried there, 
 
 And they were enemies. They met beside 
 
 (One only stood before and one behind) 
 
 The empty settle of a public-house, 
 
 Where had been heaped a mass of pots and mugs 
 
 For unavailing usage ; they snatched up 
 
 And, scraping, licked, with their pounced-parchment tongues, 
 
 The porter-pots a-dust ; their eager eyes 
 
 Dived into gin-bottles where gin was not, 
 
 Labell'd in mockery ; then they lifted up 
 
 Their eyes for one brief moment, but it was 
 
 To hang their heads more sillily, ashamed 
 
 Each of his futile quest ; but 'twas enough 
 
 For recognition, — each saw, and leered and grinned. 
 
 Even at their mutual sheepishness they grinned, 
 
 Discovering how upon each foolish face 
 
 Shyness had written Quiz. The land was dry. 
 
 Day passed, defrauded of its moistest meals, 
 
 Breakfastless, milkless, tealess, soupless, punchless. 
 
 All things were dry, — a chaos grimed with dust. 
 
 Tubs washer-womanless, replete with chinks, 
 
 Stood in their warping tressels — suds were none ; 
 
 And dirty linen lost all heart, and hope 
 
 Of due ablution ; shirts were worn a month, 
 
 White pocket-handkerchiefs were quite abandoned. 
 
 And so were nankin inexpressibles ; 
 
 Yea, most things washable, and washing seemed 
 
 To threaten that henceforth it must be named 
 
 Among lost arts. Water had fled the earth, 
 
 And left no tears in people's eyes to weep 
 
 Its sad departure ; — Drouthiness did reign 
 
 Queen over all. She was the Universe ! 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
IRoi^al Visit to 5relan&. 
 
 AUGUST XIL, MDCCCXXI. 
 
 I. THE KING'S LANDING. 
 
 PROEMIUM. 
 
 The poet 
 flabber- 
 gasted by 
 ane strange 
 apparition. 
 
 Which leav- 
 eth him in 
 ane awkward 
 doldrum, 
 after the 
 manner of 
 W. Words- 
 worth, Esq. 
 
 I. 
 
 As I was sitting on the Shannon side, 
 
 Lulled by the sound of that majestic flood, 
 A horseman on a sudden I espied, 
 
 Galloping by as quickly as he could. 
 I hailed him, but he slackened not his pace, 
 
 Still urging on his steed, a gallant grey, 
 Until he passed me ; then he turned his face, 
 
 Back towards his horse's tail, and thus did say : 
 " I ride express with news to strike you dumb. 
 Our monarch has arrived at last— King George the Fourth is 
 
 come 
 
 2. 
 
 He scarce had spoken ere away he passed 
 
 Out of my sight as rapid as a bird, 
 And left me there in much amazement cast, 
 
 Looking, perhaps, in some degree absurd. 
 The noble river rolling calmly by, 
 
 The horse, the hasty rider, all did seem, 
 Even to the vision of my outward eye. 
 
 Like the thin shadowy figments of a dream. 
 I felt, in short, as Wordsworth did, when he 
 Chanced the leech-gatherer on the moor all by himself to see. 
 
 Shaketh it 
 off, and 
 marcheth 
 homewards. 
 
 By the exertion of judicious thought. 
 At last I from this mental trance awoke, 
 
 Marvelling much how in that lonely spot 
 Upon my eyes so strange a vision broke ; 
 
 From the green bank immediately I went, 
 And into Limerick's ancient city sped. 
 
ROYAL VISIT TO IRELAND. 291 
 
 During my walk, with puzzled wonderment 
 
 I thought on what the rapid horseman said ; 
 And, as is commonly the case, when I 
 Feel any way oppressed in thought, it made me very dry. 
 
 When I arrived in brick-built George's Street, 
 
 Instinctively I there put forth my hand ga^zTr!^^^^^"^' 
 
 To where a bottle, stored with liquid sweet, 
 
 Did all upon an oaken table stand ; 
 Then turning up my little finger strait, 
 
 I gazed like Doctor Brinkley on the sky, 
 Whence heavenly thought I caught — pure and elate 
 
 Of holy harpings of deep poesy ; 
 And, ere a moment its brief flight could wing, 
 I threw the empty bottle down, to chant about the King. 
 
 Ode. 
 
 I. 
 
 A very glorious day this is indeed ! He calleth 
 
 This is indeed a very 2:lorious day ! upon Ireland 
 
 ^ . "^ . .,, J to rejoice in 
 
 For now our gracious monarch will proceed ^\^q fashion 
 
 On Irish ground his royal foot to lay. of a pot of 
 
 Rejoice, then, O my country, in a tide porter. 
 
 Of buoyant, foaming, overflowing glee ; 
 As swells the porter o'er the gallon's side, 
 
 So let your joy swell up as jovially. 
 Shout, great and little people, all and some, 
 Our monarch has arrived at last — King George the Fourth 
 has come ! 
 
 2. 
 
 Come down, ye mountains, bend your numbsculls low, Inviteth the 
 
 Ye little hills run capering to the shore, mountains 
 
 ^T in- to ane sara- 
 
 Now on your marrow-bones, all in a row, band. 
 
 From all your caves a royal welcome roar. 
 Howth is already at the water-side. 
 
 Such is that loyal mountain's duteous haste ; 
 Come then to join him, come with giant stride, 
 
 Come, I repeat, there's httle time to waste. 
 In your best suits of green depart from home. 
 For now our monarch has arrived— King George the Fourth 
 has come ! 
 
292 ROYAL VISIT TO IRELAND. 
 
 3. 
 
 Maketh of Down should despatch Morne's snowy-vested peaks, 
 I&e mosT . "^^^ Tipperary, Knocksheogowna's * hill, 
 musical. Kerry, the great Macgillycuddy's reeks, 
 
 Cork, the Galtees, studded with many a still. 
 Gallop from Wicklow, Sugarloaf the sweet ! 
 
 From Wexford, bloody Vinegar f the sour I 
 Croagh X must be there, from whose conspicuous seat 
 
 St. Patrick made the snakes from Ireland scour : 
 All, all should march, tramp off to beat of drum, 
 For now our monarch has arrived— King George the Fourth 
 has come ! 
 
 # 
 
 4. 
 A word of Rivers, dear rivers, in meandering roll 
 
 dteS? in t^he ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ Sovereign merrily along ; 
 
 style of Mas- Ye whom the mighty minstrel of old Mole § 
 
 ter Edmund Has all embalmed in his enchanting song ; 
 
 of^Kikol- ^ ^ Liffey shall be your spokesman, roaring forth 
 
 man. A very neat Address from either Bull, || 
 
 While all the rest of you, from south to north, 
 Shall flow around in currents deep and full. 
 Murmuring ^ beneath your periwigs of foam : 
 ''Our monarch has arrived at last— King George the Fourth 
 has come ! " 
 
 S- 
 Anent lakes* Killarney sulkily remains behind, 
 
 Thinking the King should come to wait on her ; 
 
 * Which, being interpreted, signifies, the hill of the fairy calf; there is 
 many a story about it.— M. CD. 
 
 f Vinegar Hill, where a decisive battle was fought in 1798 with the 
 rebels, who were totally defeated. — M, OD. 
 
 X Croagh-Patrick, in Mayo. — M. OD. 
 
 § Spenser, who dwelt beneath old father Mole, 
 
 (Mole hight that mountain gray 
 
 That walls the north side of Armulla vale.) 
 
 Collin Cloutt's co??ie home again. 
 
 He has catalogued our rivers in the Faery Queen, B. 4. Cant. 2. St. 40-44. 
 — M. OD. 
 
 II In Dubhn Bay are two sand-banks, called the North and South Bulls. 
 Not far from them is a village called Ring's-End, which gives occasion to 
 the facete to say that you enter Dublin between two bulls and a blunder. 
 — M. OD. 
 H Something Homeric — 
 
 Trept 5^ pl)0% ^QKeapoco 
 'Acppcp fJLop/xvpojp peey, K, S. — M. OD. 
 
ROYAL VISIT TO IRELAND/ 
 
 293 
 
 And, if he won't, she swears with sturdy mind 
 
 That not one step to visit him she'll stir. 
 But all the other loughs, where'er they be, 
 
 From mighty Neagh,* the stone-begetting lake, 
 To Corrib, Swilly, Gara, Dearg, or Rea, 
 
 Or Googaun-Barra,f when the Lee doth take 
 Its lively course, join in the general hum : 
 ''Our monarch has arrived at last— King George the Fourth 
 has come ! " 
 
 6. 
 
 O ye blest bogs,t true sons of Irish soil, 
 
 How can I e'er your loyal zeal express? 
 You have already risen, despising toil, 
 
 And travelled up, your Sovereign to address. 
 Clara has led the way, immortal bog, 
 
 Now Killmalady follows in his train ; 
 Allen himself must soon to join them jog 
 
 From Geashil barony with might and main, 
 In turfy thunders, shouting as they roam : 
 *' Our Sovereign has arrived at last — King George the Fourth 
 has come ! " 
 
 7. 
 
 Ha ! what's this woful thumping that I hear ? 
 
 Oh ! 'tis the Giant's Causeway moving on, 
 Heavily pacing, with a solemn cheer, 
 
 On clumsy hoofs of basalt octagon. 
 (Gigantic wanderer ! lighter be your tramp, 
 
 Or you may press our luckless cities down ; 
 'Twould be a pity, if a single stamp 
 
 Smashed bright Belfast — sweet linen-vending town). 
 Why have you travelled from your sea-beat dome ? 
 *' Because our monarch has arrived — King George the Fourth 
 has come ! " 
 
 8. 
 
 Last slopes in, sailing from the extremest south, 
 Gallant Cape Clear, a most tempestuous isle ; 
 
 Certain am I that, when she opes her mouth. 
 She will harangue in oratoric style. 
 
 Lealty of the 
 
 bogs. 
 
 Ane caution 
 to the Giant's 
 Causeway 
 not to tread 
 upon the 
 learned 
 weavers of 
 Belfast. 
 
 Showlnghow 
 Cape Clear 
 becometh 
 ane Marcus 
 Tullius. 
 
 * Est aliud stagnum quod facit ligna durescere in lapides ; homines 
 autem findunt hgna, et postquam formaverunt in eo usque ad caput anni, 
 et in capite anni lapis invenitur, et vocatur Loch-Each, ac (Lough Neagh). 
 See Mirab. Hib.— M. OD. 
 
 f i.e. The hermitage of St, Finbar, who Hved there as a recluse. He 
 was first Bishop of Cork. It is a most beautiful and romantic lake, con- 
 taining a pretty island. It is a great place of pilgrimage.— M. OD. 
 
 X Everybody has heard of the movement of the Irish bogs. — M. OD. 
 
294 
 
 ROYAL VISIT TO IRELAND. 
 
 So North and South, and East and West combine, 
 Ulster,* and Connaught, Leinster, Munster, Meath, 
 
 To hail the King, who, first of all his line, 
 Was ever seen old Ireland's sky beneath. 
 
 All shall exclaim, for none shall there be mum : 
 
 '' Our monarch has arrived at last — King George the Fourth 
 has come ! " 
 
 L'Envoy. 
 
 Mocke com- 
 mendation on 
 various folk. 
 
 I. 
 
 How living people joy, I shall not tell, 
 
 Else I should make my song a mile in length ; 
 Plebeian bards that theme may answer well, 
 
 Chanting their lays with pertinacious strength : 
 They may describe how all, both man and beast, 
 
 Have in the general glee respective shares ; 
 How equal merriment pervades the breast 
 
 Of sharks and lawyers — asses and Lord Mayors — 
 Of whelos and dandies — orators and s^eese — 
 In short, of every living thing, all in their own degrees. 
 
 Where it is 
 earnestly re- 
 quested of 
 the poets of 
 Dubhn, not 
 to slay the 
 King after 
 the fashion 
 of Anker- 
 stroem or 
 Ravaillac. 
 
 2. 
 
 But ye, remorseless rhymesters, spare the King ! 
 
 Have some compassion on your own liege Lord ! 
 Oh ! it would be a most terrific thing 
 
 Were he to death by Dubhn poets bored. 
 See ! Three sweet singers out of College bray. 
 
 And all the aldermen have hired a bard ; 
 The Castle, too, its ode, I ween, will pay, 
 
 And the newspapers have their pens prepared. 
 Be silent, then, and mute, ye unpaid fry ! 
 Let none attempt to greet the King save such great bards as I. 
 
 II. A WELCOME TO HIS MAJESTY. 
 
 Time — Groves of Blarney. 
 
 Synoptical Analysis for the benefit of Young Persons studying the So7ig. 
 
 Stanza I. Welcome in general ; in the following verses the specific excel- 
 lencies of Ireland are stated. Stanza II. i. National meat and drink, 
 and valour. Stanza III. 2. National riot in a superior style. Stanza IV. 
 
 * The five ancient kin.s:doms of Ireland.— M. OD. 
 
ROYAL VISIT TO IRELAND. 295 
 
 3. National music. Stanza V. 4. National oratory. Stanza VI. 5. Na- 
 tional gallantry. Stanzas VII. and VIII, National uproariousness. All 
 these offered for the diversion of the King. 
 
 I. 
 
 You're welcome over, my royal rover, 
 
 Coming in clover to Irish ground ; 
 You'll never spy land like this our island, 
 
 Lowland or Highland, up or down ! 
 Our hills and mountains, our streams and fountains, 
 
 Our towns and cities all so bright, 
 Our salt-sea harbours, our grass-green arbours,' 
 
 Our greasy larders will glad your sight. 
 
 2. 
 
 'Tis here you'll eat, too, the gay potato, 
 
 Being a root to feed a king ; 
 And you'll get frisky upon our whisky. 
 
 Which, were you dumb, would make you sing ; 
 And you'll see dashers, and tearing slashers, 
 
 Ready to face ould Beelzebub, 
 Or the devil's mother, or any other 
 
 Person whom you desire to drub. 
 
 3. 
 Just say the word, and you'll see a riot 
 
 Got up so quiet and polite, 
 At any minute you'd please to wish it, 
 
 Morning or evening, noon or night. 
 I'll lay a wager, no other nation 
 
 Such recreation to you could show 
 As us, all fighting with great good manners. 
 
 Laying one another down so low. 
 
 And as for music, 'tis you'll be suited 
 
 With harp or bagpipe, which you please ; 
 With woful melting, or merry lilting, 
 
 Or jovial quilting your heart to raise. 
 Sweet Catalani won't entertain you 
 
 With so much neatness of warbling tone, 
 As those gay swipers, or bold bagpipers. 
 
 Chanting in splendour over their drone. 
 
 5. 
 Then there's our speaking, and bright speech-making, 
 
 Which, when you hear, 'twill make you jump ; 
 When in its glory it comes before you, 
 
 'Twould melt the heart of a cabbage stump. 
 
296 ROYAL VISIT TO IRELAND. 
 
 'Tis so met'phoric and paregoric, 
 As fine as Doric or Attic Greek, 
 
 'Twould make Mark Tully look very dully, 
 Without a word left in his cheek. 
 
 6. 
 
 If any ladies they should invade us, 
 
 Tlie darling creatures in your suite,* 
 We'll so amuse them, and kindly use them, 
 
 That in ould Ireland they'll take root. 
 Our amorous glances, modest advances, 
 
 And smihng fancies, and all that. 
 Will so delight them that they'll be crying, 
 
 Were you to part them away from Pat. 
 
 7. 
 
 The mayors and sheriffs, in paunchy order, 
 
 And the recorders will go down 
 To gay Dunleary, all for to cheer ye. 
 
 And give you welcome to the town ; 
 But though their speeching it may be pleasing. 
 
 All written out in comely paw, 
 'Twon't be so hearty as when all parties 
 
 With million voices roar Huzza ! 
 
 8. 
 
 God bless your heart, sir, 'tis you will start, sir. 
 
 At that conspicuous thundering shout, 
 When Ireland's nation, with acclamation. 
 
 To hail their Sovereign will turn out. 
 England shall hear us, though 'tis not near us, 
 
 And the Scotch coast shall echo ring, 
 When we, uproarious, joining in chorus, 
 
 Shout to the winds, God Save the King ! 
 
 III. ODOHERTrS IMPROMPTU. 
 
 My landlady enter 'd my parlour, and said, 
 •' Bless my stars, gallant Captain, not yet to your bed? 
 The kettle is drain'd and the spirits are low, 
 Then creep to your hammock, O go, my love, go ! 
 
 Derry down, 8cc. 
 
 " Do look at your watch, sir, 'tis in your small pocket, 
 'Tis three, and the candles are all burned to the socket : 
 
 * To be pronounced Hibernically — shoot. 
 
ROYAL VISIT TO IRELAND. 297 
 
 Come move, my dear Captain, do take my advice, 
 Here's Jenny will pull off your boots in a trice. 
 
 Derry down," &c. 
 
 Jenny puU'd off my boots, and I turned into bed, 
 But scarce had I yawned twice, and pillowed my head, 
 When I dreamed a strange dream, and what to me befell 
 I'll wager a crown you can't guess ere I tell. 
 
 Derry down, &c. 
 
 Methought that to London, with sword at my side, 
 On my steed Salamanca in haste I did ride, 
 That I enter'd the Hall, 'mid a great trepidation, 
 And saw the whole fuss of the grand Coronation. 
 
 Derry down, «S:c. 
 
 Our Monarch, the King, he was placed on the throne, 
 'Mid brilliants and gold that most splendidly shone ; 
 And around were the brave and the wise of his Court, 
 In peace to advise, and in war to support. 
 
 Derry down, &c. 
 
 First Liverpool moved at his Sovereign's command ; 
 Next Sidmouth stepped forth with his hat in his hand ; 
 Then Canning peeped round with the archness of Munden, 
 And last, but not least, came the Marquis of London- 
 derry down, &c. 
 
 Then Wellington, hero of heroes, stepped forth ; 
 Then brave Graham of Lynedoch, the cock of the north ; 
 Then Hopetoun he followed, but came not alone. 
 For Anglesey's leg likewise knelt at the throne. 
 
 Derry down, &c. 
 
 But the King looked around him, as fain to survey, 
 When the warlike departed, the wise of the day ; 
 And he whisper'd the herald to summon in then 
 The legion of Blackwood, the brightest of men ! 
 
 Derry down, &c. 
 
 Oh noble the sight was, and noble should be 
 The strain that proclaims, mighty legion, of thee ! 
 The tongue of an angel the theme would require, 
 A standish of sunbeams, a goose-quill of fire. 
 
 Derry down, &c. 
 
 Like old Agamemnon, resplendent came forth. 
 In garment embroidered, great Christopher North : 
 He knelt at the throne, and then turning his head, — 
 "These worthies are at the King's service," he said. 
 
 Derry down, &c. 
 
298 ROYAL VISIT TO IRELAND. 
 
 *' Oh, Sire ! though your will were as hard to attain 
 As Gibraltar of old to the efforts of Spain, 
 The men who surround you will stand, and have stood, 
 To the last dearest drop of their ink and their blood. 
 
 Derry down, &c. 
 
 *' From the Land's End to far Johnny Groat's, if a man, 
 From Cornwall's rude boots to the MacAllister's clan, 
 Dare raise up his voice 'gainst the Church or the State, 
 We have blisters by dozens to tickle his pate, 
 
 Derry down, &c, 
 
 " We have Morris, the potent physician of Wales, 
 And Tickler, whose right-handed blow never fails. 
 And him who from loyalty's path never wander'd, 
 Himself, swa^e Odoherty, knight of the standard. 
 
 Derry down, &c. 
 
 ' * We have sage Kempferhausen, the grave and serene ; 
 And Eremus Marischall from far Aberdeen ; 
 Hugh MuUion, the Grassmarket merchant so sly, 
 With his brethren Malachi and Mordecai. 
 
 Derry down, &c. 
 
 "We have also James Hogg, the great shepherd Chaldean, 
 As sweetly who sings as Anacreon the Teian ; 
 We have Delta, whose verses as smooth are as silk ; 
 With bold William Wastle, the laird of that ilk. 
 
 Derry down, &c. 
 
 *' We have Dr. Pendragon, the D.D. from York, 
 Who sports in our ring his huge canvas of cork ; 
 And General Izzard, the strong and the gruff. 
 Who despatches his foes with a kick and a cuff. 
 
 Derry down, Sec. 
 
 "We have Seward of Christchurch, with cap and with gown, 
 A prizeman, a wrangler, and clerk of renown ; 
 And BuUer of Brazen-nose, potent to seek 
 A blinker for fools, from the mines of the Greek. 
 
 Derry down, &c. 
 
 " Nicol Jarvie from Glasgow, the last and the best 
 Of the race who have worn a gold chain at their breast ; 
 And Scott, Jamie Scott, Dr. Scott, a true blue. 
 Like the steel of his forceps as tough and as true. 
 
 Derry down, &c. 
 
 *' We have Cicero Cowden, who sports by the hour, 
 or all the tongue-waggers the pink and the flower ; 
 
ROYAL VISIT TO IRELAND. 299 
 
 And Jennings the bold, who has challenged so long 
 All the nation for brisk soda-water and sonsf." 
 
 Derry down, &c. 
 
 Methought that the king looked around him and smiled ; 
 Every phantom of fear from his breast was exiled, 
 For he saw those whose might would the demagogue chain, 
 And would shield from disturbance the peace of his reign. 
 
 Derry down, &c. 
 
 But the best came the last, for with duke and with lord 
 Methought that we feasted, and drank at the board, 
 Till a something the bliss of my sweet vision broke — 
 'Twas the watchman a-bawling, ** 'Tis past ten o'clock," 
 
 Derry down, &c. 
 
 But, before I conclude, may each man at his board 
 Be as glad as a king, and as drunk as a lord ; 
 There's nothing so decent, and nothing so neat, 
 As, when rising is past, to sit down on your seat, 
 
 Derry down, &c. 
 
IRemarfts on Sbellei^'s HDonais^ 
 
 Between thirty and forty years ago the Delia Crusca school 
 was in great force. It poured out monthly, weekly, and 
 daily, the whole fulness of its raptures and sorrows in verse, 
 worthy of any *^ person of quality." It revelled in moon- 
 light, and sighed with evening gales, lamented over plucked 
 roses, and bid melodious farewells to the '' last butterfly of 
 the season." The taste prevailed for a time ; the more 
 rational part of the public, always a minority, laughed and 
 were silent j the million w^ere in raptures, and loud in their 
 raptures. The reign of ''sympathy" was come again; 
 poetry, innocent poetry, had at length found out its true 
 language. Milton and Dryden, Pope and the whole an- 
 cestry of the English Muse, had strayed far from nature. 
 They were a formal and stiff-skirted generation, and their 
 fame was past and for ever. The trumpet of the morning 
 paper, in which these '' inventions rich " were first pro- 
 mulgated, found an echo in the more obscure fabrications 
 of the day, and milliners' maids and city apprentices pined 
 over the mutual melancholies of Arley and Matilda. 
 
 At length the obtrusiveness of this tuneful nonsense 
 grew insupportable ; a man of a vigorous judgment shook 
 off his indolence, and commenced the long series of his 
 services to British literature by sweeping away, at a brush 
 of his pen, the whole light-winged, humming, and loving 
 population. But in this world folly is immortal ; one 
 generation of absurdity swept away, another succeeds to 
 its 2:lories and its fate. The Delia Crusca school has 
 visited us again, but with some slight change of localities. 
 Its verses now transpire at one time from the retreats of 
 
REMARKS ON SHELLEY'S ADONAIS. 301 
 
 Cockney dalliance in the London suburbs ; sometimes they 
 visit us by fragments from Venice, and sometimes invade 
 us by wainloads from Pisa. In point of subject and execu- 
 tion there is but slight difference; both schools are 
 ^'smitten with nature and nature's love," run riot in the 
 intrigues of anemones, daisies and butter-cups, and rave of 
 the " riyulets proud, and the dee]^-l^lus/img stars." Of the 
 individuals in both establishments we are not quite quaUfied 
 to speak from the peculiarity of their private habits ; but 
 poor Mrs. Robinson and her correspondents are foully 
 belied, if their moral habits were not to the full as pure as 
 those of the Godwinian colony that play '^the Bacchanal 
 beside the Tuscan sea." But we must do the defunct Delia 
 Crusca the justice to say that they kept their private 
 irregularities to themselves, and sought for no reprobate 
 popularity by raising the banner to all the vicious of the 
 community. They talked nonsense without measure, were 
 simple down to the lowest degree of silliness, and ''babbled 
 of green fields " enough to make men sicken of summer, 
 but they were not daring enough to boast of impurity ; there 
 was no pestilent hatred of everything generous, true, and 
 honourable ; no desperate licentiousness in their romance ; 
 no daring and fiend-like insult to feeling, moral ties, and 
 Christian principle. They were foolish and profligate, but 
 they did not deliver themselves, with the steady devotedness 
 of an insensate and black ambition, to the ruin of society. 
 
 We have now to speak of Mr. P. B. Shelley and his poem. 
 Here we must advert to the Delia Crusca. One of the 
 characteristics of those childish persons was the restless 
 interest which they summoned the pubHc to take in every- 
 thing belonging to their own triviality. If Mrs. Robinson's 
 dog had a bad night's repose, it was duly announced to the 
 world ; Mr. Merry's accident in paring his nails solicited a 
 similar sympathy; the falling off of Mrs. R/s patch at the 
 last ball, or the stains on Mr. M.'s full-dress coat from the 
 dropping of a chandelier, came before the earth with praise- 
 worthy promptitude. All within their enchanted ring was 
 
302 REMARKS ON SHELLEY'S ADONAIS. 
 
 perfection ; but there the circle of light and darkness was 
 drawn, and all beyond was delivered over to the empire of 
 Dulness and Demogorgon. The New School are here the 
 humble imitators of those original arbiters of human fame. 
 
 The present story is thus : — A Mr. John KeatSy a young 
 man who had left a decent calling for the melancholy trade 
 of Cockney-poetry, has lately died of a consumption, after 
 having written two or three little books of verses much 
 neglected by the public. His vanity was probably wrung 
 not less than his purse ; for he had it upon the authority of 
 the Cockney Homers and Virgils that he might become a 
 light to their region at a future time. But all this is not 
 necessary to help a consumption to the death of a poor 
 sedentary man, with an unhealthy aspect, and a mind 
 harassed by the first troubles of versemaking. The New 
 School, however, will have it that he was slaughtered by a 
 criticism of the Quarterly Review. — " O flesh, how art thou 
 fishified ! ^' — There is even an aggravation in this cruelty of 
 the Review^ for it had taken three or four years to slay its 
 victim, the deadly blow having been inflicted at least as long 
 since. We are not now to defend a publication so well able 
 to defend itself. But the fact is that the Quarterly^ finding 
 before it a work at once silly and presumptuous, full of the 
 servile slang that Cockaigne dictates to its servitors, and 
 the vulgar indecorums which that Grub Street empire re- 
 joiceth to applaud, told the truth of the volume, and 
 recommended a change of manners and of masters to the 
 scribbler. Keats wrote on ; but he wrote indecently^ pro- 
 bably in the indulgence of his social propensities. He 
 selected from Boccaccio, and, at the feet of the Italian 
 Priapus, supplicated for fame and farthings. 
 
 '• Both halves the winds dispersed in empty air." 
 
 Mr. P. B. Shelley having been the person appointed by 
 the Pisan triumvirate to canonize the name of this appren- 
 tice, " nipt in the bud,^' as he fondly tells us, has accordingly 
 produced an Elegy, in which he weeps " after the manner 
 
REIVIARKS ON SHELLEY'S ADONAIS. 303 
 
 of Moschus for Bion." The canonizer is worthy of the 
 saint. '' Et vitula tu ! '' Locke says that the most re- 
 solute liar cannot lie more than once in every three 
 sentences. Folly is more engrossing; for we could prove, 
 from the present Elegy, that it is possible to write two 
 sentences of pure nonsense out of every three. A more 
 faithful calculation would bring us to ninety-nine out of 
 every hundred, or,— as the present consists of only fifty-five 
 stanzas, — leaving about five readable lines in the entire. It 
 thus commences : 
 
 ** O, weep for Adonais— he is dead ! 
 O, weep for Adonais ! though our tears 
 Thaw not the frost that binds so dear a head ! 
 And thou, sad hour ! selected from all years 
 To 7nourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers, 
 And teach them thine own sorrow^ say with me 
 Z)2:>^ Adonais ! till i\\e future does 
 Fo7'get the past. His fate and fame shall be 
 An echo and a light ! ! unto eternity. " 
 
 Now of this unintelligible stuff the whole fifty-five stanzas 
 are composed. Here an hour — a dead hour too — is to say 
 that Mr. J. Keats died along with it ! yet this hour has the 
 heavy business on its hands of mourning the loss of its 
 fellow-defunct^ and of rousing all its obscure conipee7's to be 
 taught its own sorrow^ «Sz:c. Mr. Shelley and his tribe have 
 been panegyrised in their turn for power of language ; and 
 the man of '' Table-talk '^ swears by all the gods he owns 
 that he has a great command of words, to which the most 
 eloquent effusions of the Fives Court are occasionally inferior. 
 But any man may have the command of every word in the 
 vocabulary, if he will fling them like pebbles from his sack ; 
 and even in the most fortuitous flinging they will sometimes 
 fall in pleasing though useless forms. The art of the modern 
 Delia Cruscan is thus to eject every epithet that he can 
 conglomerate in his piracy through the Lexicon, and throw 
 them out to settle as they will. He follows his own rhymes, 
 and shapes his subject to the close of his measure. He is 
 a ^lutton of all names of colours, and flowers, and smells, 
 
304 REMARKS ON SHELLEY'S ADONAIS. 
 
 and tastes, and crowds his verse with scarlet, and blue, and 
 yellow, and green ; extracts tears from everything, and 
 makes moss and mud hold regular conversations with him. 
 ^' A goose-pye talks," — it does more, it thinks, and has its 
 peculiar sensibilities, — it smiles and weeps, raves to the 
 stars, and is a listener to the western wind, as fond as the 
 author himself. 
 
 On these principles a hundred or a hundred thousand 
 verses might be made, equal to the best in Adonais, without 
 taking the pen off the paper. The subject is indifferent to 
 us, let it be the ^'Golden Age," or ''Mother Goose/'— 
 "Waterloo," or the "Wit of the Watchhouse,"— " Tom 
 Thumb," or ''Thistlewood." We will undertake to furnish 
 the requisite supply of blue and crimson daisies and 
 dandelions, not with the toilsome and tardy lutulence of 
 the puling master of verbiage in question, but with a burst 
 and torrent that will sweep away all his weedy trophies. 
 For example — Wontner, the city marshal, a very decent 
 person, who campaigns it once a year from the Mansion 
 House to Blackfriars Bridge, truncheoned and uniformed as 
 becomes a man of his military habits, had the misfortune to 
 fracture his leg on the last Lord Mayor's day. The subject 
 is among the most unpromising. We will undertake it, 
 however (premising that we have no idea of turning the 
 accident of this respectable man into any degree of ridicule) : 
 
 O WEEP FOR ADONAIS, Sec. 
 
 O weep for lVo?itner, for his leg is broke, 
 O weep for Wontner, though our pearly tear 
 Can never cure him. Dark and dimly broke 
 The thunder-cloud o'er Paul's enamelled sphere, 
 When his black barb, with lion-like career, 
 Scattered the crowd. — Coquetting mignionet. 
 Thou hyacinth fond, thou myrtle without fear, 
 Haughty geranium in your beaupots set, 
 Were then your soft and starry eyes unwet ? 
 
 The pigeons saw it, and on silver wings 
 Hung in white flutterings, for they could not fly ; 
 Hoar-headed Thames checked all his crystal springs ; 
 Day closed above his pale, imperial eye ; 
 
REaiARKS ON SHELLEY'S ADONAIS. 305 
 
 The silken zephyrs breathed a vermeil sigh. 
 ^ High Heavens ! ye Hours! and thou Ura-ni-a! 
 Where were ye then ? Reclining languidly 
 Upon some o^reen isle in the empurpled sea, 
 Where laurel-wreathen spirits love eternally. 
 
 Come to my arms," &c. 
 
 We had intended to call attention by italics to the 
 picturesque of these lines ; but we leave their beauties to 
 be ascertained by individual perspicacity, only requesting 
 their marked admiration of the epithets coquetting, fo7id, 
 fearless, and haughty, which all tastes will feel to have so 
 immediate and inimitable an appHcation to mignionet, 
 hyacinths, myrtles, and geraniums. But Percy Bysshe has 
 figured as a sentimentalist before, and we can quote largely 
 without putting him" to the blush by praise. What follows 
 illustrates his power over the language of passion. In the 
 Cenci, Beatrice is condemned to die for parricide, — a 
 situation that, in a true poet, might awaken a noble 
 succession of distressful thought. The mingling of remorse, 
 natural affection, woman's horror at murder, and alternate 
 melancholy and fear at the prospect of the grave, in Percy 
 Bysshe works up only this frigid rant : 
 
 '* How comes this hair undone ? 
 
 Its wandering strings must be what blind me so, 
 
 And yet I tied it fast ! ! 
 
 • • * . • ■ . 
 
 The sunshine on the floor is black ! The air 
 
 Is changed to vapours, such as the dead breathe 
 
 In charnel pits ! Poh ! I am choked ! There creeps 
 
 A chnging, black, contaminating mist 
 
 About me — 'tis substantial, heavy, thick. 
 
 I cannot pluck it from me, for it glues 
 
 My fingers and my limbs to one another, 
 
 And eats into my sinews, and dissolves 
 
 My flesh to a pollution," &c. «S:c. 
 
 • 
 
 So much for the history of ^' Glue," and so much easier 
 is it to rake together the vulgar vocabulary of rottenness 
 and reptilism than to paint the workings of the mind. 
 This raving is such as perhaps no excess of madness ever 
 
 VOL. II. U 
 
3o6 REMARKS ON SHELLEY'S ADONAIS. 
 
 raved, except in the imagination of a Cockney, determined 
 to be as mad as possible, and opulent in his recollections 
 of the shambles. 
 
 In the same play we have a specimen of his ^'art of 
 description.'^ He tells of a ravine : 
 
 " And in its depths there is a mighty rock, 
 Which has, from unimaginable years, 
 Sustained itself with terror and with toil! 
 Over a gulph, and with the agony 
 With which it clings^ seems slowly coursing down ; 
 Even as a wretched soul, hour after hour, 
 Clings to the mass of life, yet clinging leans^ 
 And, leaning, makes more dark the dread abyss 
 In which it fears to fall. Beneath this crag, 
 Huge as despair, as if in weariness^ 
 The melancholy mountain jj/az^;;^^ below," &c. &c. 
 
 And all this is done by a rock ! What is to be thought of 
 the terror of this novel sufferer — its toil — the agony with 
 which so sensitive a personage clings to its paternal support 
 from unimaginable years ? The magnitude of this melancholy 
 and injured monster is happily measured by its being the 
 exact size of despair I Soul becomes substantial, and darkens 
 a dread abyss. Such are Cockney darings before ''the gods, 
 and columns " that abhor mediocrity. And is it to this 
 dreary nonsense that is to be attached the name of poetry? 
 Yet on these two passages the whole lauding of his fellow- 
 Cockneys has been lavished. But Percy Bysshe feels his 
 hopelessness of poetic reputation, and therefore lifts himself 
 on the stilts of blasphemy. He is the only verseman of the 
 day who has dared, in a Christian country, to work out for 
 himself the character of direct Atheism ! In his present 
 poem he talks with impious folly of •' the efivious wrath of 
 man or God ! " — of a 
 
 *' Branded and ensanguined brow, 
 Which was like Cains or Christ's." 
 
 Offences like these generally come before a more effective 
 tribunal than that of criticism. We have heard it mentioned 
 
REMARKS ON SHELLEY'S ADONAIS. 307 
 
 as the only apology for the predominant irreligion and 
 nonsense of this person's works that his understanding is 
 unsettled. But in his preface there is none of the exuber- 
 ance of insanity ; there is a great deal of folly, and a great 
 deal of bitterness, but nothing of the wildness of his poetic 
 fustian. The Bombastes Furioso of these stanzas cools into 
 sneering in the preface ; and his language against the death- 
 dealing Quarterly Review^ which has made such havoc in 
 the Empire of Cockaigne, is merely malignant, mean, and 
 peevishly personal. We give a few stanzas of this perform- 
 ance, taken as they occur: 
 
 *' O weep for Adonais ! He is dead ! 
 
 Weep, melancholy mother, wake and weep ; 
 Yet wherefoi-e f quench within their burning bed 
 
 Thy Jlery tears, and let thy loud heart keep, 
 Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep, 
 
 For he is gone, where all things wise and fair 
 Descend/ Oh dream not that the amorous deep 
 
 Will yet restore him to the vital air. 
 
 Dtdiih feeds on his mute voice^ and laughs at our despair." 
 
 The seasons and a whole host of personages, ideal and 
 otherwise, come to lament over Adonais. They act in the 
 following manner : 
 
 ** Grief made the young Spring wild^ and she threw down 
 Her kindhng buds, as if the Autumn were, 
 Or they dead leaves, since her delight is flown, 
 For whom would she have waked the sullen year ? 
 To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear, 
 Nor to himself Narcissus, as to both, 
 Thou, Adonais ; wan they stand, and sere, 
 Amid the drooping comrades of their youth, 
 With dew all turned to tears, odour to sighing ruth." 
 
 Here is left, those whom it may concern, the pleasantest 
 perplexity, whether the lament for Mr. J. Keats is shared 
 between Phoebus and Narcissus, or Summer and Autumn. 
 It is useless to quote these absurdities any further en masse, 
 but there are flowers of poesy thickly spread through the 
 work, which we rescue for the sake of any future essayist 
 on the bathos :^ 
 
3o8 REMARKS ON SHELLEY'S ADONAIS. 
 
 Absurdity, 
 
 The green lizard, and the golden snake, 
 
 Like 2inimprisoned flowers out of their trance awake. An hour- 
 
 Say, with me 
 Died Adonais, till the Future dares 
 Forget the Past — his fate and fame shall be 
 An echo and a light to all eternity. 
 
 Whose tapers yet burn there the night of Time, 
 For which suns perished ! 
 
 Echo, — pined away 
 Into a shadow of all sounds. 
 
 / 
 
 That mouth whence it was wont to draw the breath 
 Which gave it strength to pierce the guarded wit ! 
 
 Co77ifortless ! 
 As silent lightning leaves the starless night. 
 
 Live thou whose infamy is not \hyfame/ 
 
 Thou noteless blot on a remembered name ! 
 
 We in mad trance strike with our spirif s knife 
 Invulnerable nothi?igs I 
 
 Where lofty thought 
 Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair, 
 And love, and life, contend in it — for what 
 Shall be its earthly doom— The dead hve there. 
 And move, like winds of lights on dark and stormy air. 
 
 Who mourns for Adonais — oh ! come forth, 
 Fond wretch ! and know thyself and him aright, 
 Clasp with thy panti/ig soul the pe/idulous earth! 
 
REMARKS ON SHELLEY'S ADONAIS. 309 
 
 Dart thy spirit's light 
 Beyond all worlds, until its spacious fjiight 
 Satiate the void circumference I 
 
 Then sink 
 Even to a point within our day and night, 
 And keep thy heart light, lest it make thee sink, 
 When hope has kindled hope, and lured thee to the brink. 
 
 A light is past from the revolving year ; 
 Aiid man and woman, and what still is dear 
 Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither. 
 
 That benediction which th' eclipsing curse 
 Of birth can quench not, that sustaining love 
 Which, through the web of being blindly wove 
 By man, and beast, a7zd earth, and air, and sea y 
 Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of 
 T\i^fire for which all thirst. 
 
 Death makes, as becomes him, a great figure in this 
 '^ Lament," but in rather curious operations. He is alter- 
 nately a person, a thing, nothing, &c. 
 
 He is, ''The coming bulk of Death," 
 Then " Death feeds on the mute voiced* 
 
 A clear sprite 
 Reigns over Death — 
 
 Kingly Death 
 Keeps his pale court. 
 
 Spreads apace 
 The shadow of white Death. 
 
 The damp Death 
 
 Quenched its caress — 
 
 Death 
 
 Blushed to aiinihilation / 
 
 Her distress 
 Roused Death. Death rose and smiled — 
 He lives, he wakes, 'tis Death is dead/ 
 
 As this wild waste of words is altogether beyond our com- 
 prehension, we will proceed to the more gratifying office of 
 giving a whole unbroken specimen of the poet's powers, 
 
3IO REMARKS ON SHELLEY'S ADONAIS. 
 
 exercised on a subject rather more within their sphere. 
 The following Poem has been sent to us as written by 
 Percy Bysshe, and we think it contains all the essence of 
 his odoriferous, colorific, and daisy-enamoured style. The 
 motto is from '^ Adonais.^^ 
 
 ELEGY ON MY TOMCAT. 
 
 ** And others came — Desires and Adorations, 
 Winged Persuasions, and veiled Destinies, 
 Splendours, and blooms, and glimmeriHg Incantations 
 Of hopes and fears, and twilight Phantasies ; 
 And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs ; 
 And Pleasure, blz?id with tears, led by thQgIea7n 
 Of her own dying S77izle instead of eyes I " 
 
 ELEGY. 
 
 ' ' Weep for my Tomcat ! All ye tabbies weep. 
 
 For he is gone at last ! Not dead alone, 
 In flowery beauty sleepeth he no sleep ; 
 
 Like that bewitching young Endymion ! 
 My love is dead, alas, as any stone, 
 
 That by some violet-sided smiling river 
 Weepeth too fondly ! He is dead and gone, 
 
 And fair Aurora, o'er her young believer, 
 With fingers gloved with roses, doth make moan, 
 
 And every bud its petal green doth sever. 
 
 And Phoebus sets in night for ever and for ever ! 
 And others come ! ye Splendours ! and ye Beauties ! 
 
 Ye Raptures ! with your robes of pearl and blue ; 
 Ye blushing Wonders ! with your scarlet shoe-ties ; 
 
 Ye Horrors bold ! with breasts of lily hue ; 
 Ye Hope's stem flatterers ! He would trust to you. 
 
 Whene'er he saw you with your chestnut hair, 
 Dropping sad daffodils, and rosepinks true ! 
 
 Ye Passions proud ! with lips of bright despair ; 
 Ye Sympathies ! with eyes like evening star, 
 When on the glowing east she rolls her crimson car. 
 
 Oh, bard-like spirit ! beautiful and swift ! 
 
 Sweet lover of pale night ; when Luna's lamp 
 Shakes sapphire dew-drops through a cloudy rift ; 
 
 Purple as woman's mouth, o'er ocean damp ; 
 Thy quivering rose-tinged tongue — thy steahng tramp, 
 
 The dazzling glory of thy gold-tinged tail ; 
 Thy whisker-waving lips, as o'er the swamp 
 
 Rises the meteor, when the year doth fail, 
 Like beauty in decay, all, all are flat and stale." 
 
REMARKS ON SHELLEY'S ADONAIS. 311 
 
 This poem strikes us as an evidence of the improvement 
 that an appropriate subject makes in a writer's style. It is 
 incomparably less nonsensical, verbose, and inflated than 
 Adonais ; while it retains all its knowledge of nature, vigour 
 of colouring, and felicity of language. Adonais has been 
 published by the author in Italy, the fitting soil for the 
 poem, sent over to his honoured correspondents throughout 
 the realm of Cockaigne with a delightful mysteriousness 
 worthy of the dignity of the subject and the writer. 
 
Tune — The Jolly Miller. 
 
 Quo me, Bacche, rapis tui 
 
 Plenum ? 
 
 Dulce periculum est 
 O Lenaee ! sequi Deum 
 Cingentem viridi tempora pampino. — HOR. 
 
 I. 
 
 If Horatius Flaccus made jolly old Bacchus 
 
 So often his favourite theme ; 
 If in him it was classic to praise his old Massic, 
 
 And Falernian to gulp in a stream ; 
 If Falstaff's vagaries ^bout sack and canaries 
 
 Have pleased us again and again ; 
 Shall we not make merry on port, claret, sherry, 
 
 Madeira, and sparkling champagne ? 
 
 2. 
 
 First port, that potation preferred by our nation 
 
 To all the small drink of the French ; 
 'Tis the best standing liquor for layman or vicar, 
 
 The army, the navy, the bench ; 
 'Tis strong and substantial, believe me, no man shall 
 
 Good port from my dining-room send ; 
 In your soup — after cheese — every way — it will please, 
 
 But most tete-a-tete with a friend. 
 
 3- 
 
 Fair sherry, port's sister, for years they dismissed her 
 To the kitchen to flavour the jellies ; 
 
THE WINE-BIBBERS GLORY. 313 
 
 There long she was banished, and well-ni2;h had vanished 
 
 To comfort the kitchen-maids' bellies ; 
 Till his Majesty fixt, he thought sherry when sixty 
 
 Years old like himself quite the thing. 
 So I think it but proper to fill a tip-topper 
 
 Of sherry to drink to the King. 
 
 4. 
 
 Though your delicate claret by no means goes far, it 
 
 Is famed for its exquisite flavour ; 
 ^Tis a nice provocation to wise conversation, 
 
 Queer blarney, or harmless palaver ; 
 'Tis the bond of society — no inebriety 
 
 Follows a swig of the blue ; 
 One may drink a whole ocean, nor e'er feel commotion 
 
 Or headache from Chateau Margoux. 
 
 5- 
 But though claret is pleasant to taste for the present, 
 
 On the stomach it sometimes feels cold ; 
 So to keep it all clever, and comfort your liver. 
 
 Take a glass of Madeira that's old : 
 When 't has sailed to the Indies, a cure for all wind 'tis. 
 
 And colic 'twill put to the rout ; 
 All doctors declare a good glass of Madeira 
 
 The best of all things for the gout. 
 
 6. 
 
 Then champagne ! dear champagne ! ah ! how gladly I 
 drain a 
 
 Whole bottle of Oeil de Perdrix, 
 To the eye of my charmer, to make my love warmer. 
 
 If cool that love ever could be : 
 I could toast her for ever ; but never, oh ! never, 
 
 Would I her dear name so profane ; 
 So if e'er when I'm tipsy, it slips to my lips, I 
 
 Wash it back to my heart with champagne ! 
 
314 THE WINE-BIBBEKS GLORY. 
 
 TRANSLATION OF THE WINE-BIBBER'S GLORY. 
 By Philips Potts, Esq,^ Holyhead. 
 
 ^ht^^ But your Latin is not quite classical — somewhat 
 raffish, my very good friend ? 
 
 Transeat — it is good enough for an ungrateful world. 
 
 Then what a word '' Portum " is ! and ''Claretum/' still 
 more abominable. Why, sir, it is worse and worse, as Lord 
 Norbury said when a witness confessed his name to be 
 Shaughnessy O'Shaughnessy. 
 
 iVnd how the Devil was I to get better words ? Was I to 
 put in Viiiitm Licsitanicum^ or Burdigalense, to the utter 
 confusion of my line ? As Ainsworth bids me, I have 
 clapped in Vtmim Hispaiiicum for sack against my better 
 judgment ; but my complaisance was not to extend any 
 farther. Hear, most asinine critic — hear, I say, what 
 Horatius Flaccus himself sings, as interpreted to us by the 
 melodious Phil Francis, D.D. : 
 
 Shall I 
 Be envied, if my little fund supply 
 Its frugal wealth of words— since bards, who sung 
 In ancient days, enrich 'd their native tongue 
 With large increase, &c. 
 
 Or, as I may say, paraphrasing what he writes a little 
 before : 
 
 If jolly Virgil coined a word, why not 
 Extend the selfsame privilege to Pot ? 
 
 And here you may remark that Pot is put for Potts, to 
 assist the rhyme. 
 
 Hum ! But your verses totter a little every now and then, 
 so much the more in character for a drinking song ; and 
 you alter the tune — that of the original is the Jolly Miller. 
 I have put one as harmonious — a most excellent tune — a 
 most bass tune — and as thou singest basely, basely shalt 
 thou sing it after dinner. Are all your objections answered ? 
 
 I may as well say that they are ; but 
 
THE WIXE-BIEBER'S GLORY. 315 
 
 But me no buts !— Shut thine ugly countenance, and 
 listen to my song : 
 
 PoTORis Gloria. 
 
 A LATIN MELODY. 
 
 To a Tune for itself , lately discoz^ered in Herculaneiim ; being an ancient 
 
 Roman air, or^ if not, quite as good, 
 
 I. 
 
 Si Horatio Flacco de hilari Baccho 
 
 Mos carmina esset cantare, 
 Si Massica vina vocaret divina, 
 
 Falernaque sciret potare ; 
 Si nos juvat mire Falstaffium audire 
 
 Laudantem Hispanicum memm, 
 Cor nostrum sit lastum ob Portum, Claretum, 
 
 Xerense, Campanum, Madenim. 
 
 2. 
 
 Est Portum potatio quam Anglica natio 
 
 Vinis * Galliae praetulit lautis ; — 
 Sacerdote amatur — a laicis potatur, 
 
 Consultis, militibus, nautis. 
 Si meum conclave hoc forte et suave 
 
 Vitaverit, essem iniquus, 
 Post caseum — in jure — placebit secure, 
 
 Praesertim cum adsit amicus. 
 
 3. 
 
 Huic quam\'is cognatum, Xerense damnatum 
 
 Gelata culina tingebat, 
 Vinum exul ibique diu coquo cuique 
 
 Generosum liquorem prasbebat. 
 Sed a rege putatum est valde pergratum, 
 
 Cum (ut ipse) sit sexagenarium — 
 Large ergo implendum, regique bibendum. 
 
 Opinor est nunc necessarium. 
 
 4^ 
 Claretum oh ! quam\ds haud forte (deest f nam vis) 
 
 Divino sapore notatur ; 
 Hinc dulcia dicuntur — faceta nascuntur — 
 
 Leniterque philosophizatur. 
 
 * Vinis — lautis, Ang. neat \\ines. 
 
 t Deest, one syllable. Vide Carey, p. 171. 
 
3i6 THE WINE-BIBBER'S GLORY. 
 
 Socialis potatio ! te baud fugit ratio 
 
 Purpero decoram colore ! 
 Tui maximum mare liceret potare, 
 
 Sine mentis frontisve dolore. 
 
 Esti ver6 in prsesenti claretum bibenti 
 
 Videatur imprimis jucundum, 
 Cito tamen frigescat— quod ut statim decrescat, 
 
 Vetus vinum Maderum adeundum. 
 Indos si navig^rit, vento corpus levarit, 
 
 Colicamque fugarit hoc merum. 
 Podagr^ cruciato " Vinum optimum dato " 
 
 Clamant medici docti " Maderum." 
 
 Campanum ! campanum ! quo gaudio lagenam 
 
 Ocelli perdricis sorberem ! 
 Ad dominas oculum exhauriam poculum 
 
 Tali philtro si unquam egerem — 
 Propinarem divinam — sed peream si sinam 
 
 Nomen carum ut sic profanetur, 
 Et si cum Bacchus urget ad labia surgat— 
 
 Campano ad cor revolvetur. 
 
H IRunning Commentar)? on tbe TRitter Bann. 
 
 There is, we must say, a dirty spirit of rivalry afloat at 
 present among the various periodicals, from which ours 
 only, and Mr. Nichols', the two Gentle7?ia?i's Magazi?ies, 
 are exempt. You never see the Quarterly praising the 
 lucubrations of the Edinburgh ; far less the Ediiiburgh 
 extolling those of the Quarterly. Old Monthly and New 
 Mo7ithly are in cat-and-dog opposition. Sir Richard ex- 
 claims that they have robbed him of his good name, while 
 Tom Campbell is ready to go before his Lordship of Waith- 
 man to swear that that was an impossibility. There is, 
 besides, a pair of Europeans boxing it out with most con- 
 siderable pluck ; and we are proud to perceive our good 
 friend Letts of Cornhill bearing himself boldly in the fight. 
 The Fancy Gazette disparages the labours of the illustrious 
 Egan, and Pierce is equally savage on the elegancies of 
 Jon Bee. A swarm of twopennies gallops over the land 
 ready to eat one another, so as, like the Irishman's rats in 
 a cage, to leave only a single tail behind. We, out of this 
 turmoil and scuffle, as if from a higher region, look down 
 calm and cool. Unprejudiced by influence, and uninflu- 
 enced by prejudice, we keep along the even tenor of our 
 way. We dispute not, neither do we quarrel. If the 
 golden wheels of our easy-going chariot, in its course, 
 smooth sliding without step, crush to atoms any person 
 who is unlucky enough to come under this precious weight, 
 it is no fault of ours. Let him blame destiny, and bring 
 his action against the Parcae. 
 
 So far are we from feeling anything like hostility, spite, 
 envy, hatred, malice, or uncharitableness that we rejoice 
 at the rare exhibition of talent whenever it occurs in a pub- 
 
31 8 A RUNNING COMMENTARY 
 
 lication similar to ours. We do our utmost to support the 
 cause of periodical literature in general. But for our dis- 
 interested exertions the Edinburgh Review would have 
 been long since unheard of. For many years we perpetu- 
 ated the existence of the old Scots Magazine by men- 
 tioning it in our columns. Finding it, however, useless to 
 persevere, we held our peace concerning it ; it died, and a 
 word from us again restored it to life and spirit, so that 
 Jeffrey steals from it all his Spanish literature. We took 
 notice of the Examiner long after every other decent person 
 said a word about it. Our exertions on behalf of the Scots- 
 7na7i were so great that the learned writers of that paper 
 pray for us on their bended knees. But it would be quite 
 useless, or rather impossible, for us to go over all our acts 
 of kindness. We have, indeed, reaped the benefit, for 
 never since the creation of the world was any magazine so 
 adored by everybody as ours is. It is, indeed, carried at 
 times to an absurd (nay, we must add, a blameable) length, 
 for we must exclaim with the old poet : 
 
 " If to adore an idol is idolatr)^ 
 Sure to adore a book is bibliolatry. " 
 
 An impiety to be avoided. 
 
 In pursuance of our generous system, we here beg leave 
 to call the attention of our readers to a poem in the last 
 New Mo7ithly Magazine^ written by the eminent editor of 
 that celebrated periodical, and advertised before its appear- 
 ance, with the most liberal prodigality of puffing, in all the 
 papers. Mr. Campbell is advantageously known to the 
 young gentlemen and ladies as the author of the "Plea- 
 sures of Hope,'' '^ Gertrude of Wyoming," " Lochiel's Warn- 
 ing," " O'Connor's Child," and other pleasant performances, 
 which may be purchased at the encouraging price of three 
 and sixpence sterling at the stalls of the bibliopolists of 
 High Holborn. But the poem which he has lately contri- 
 buted to the pages of the Neiv Monthly outshines these 
 compositions of his more crude and juvenile days. 
 
ON THE EITTER BANK 319 
 
 " Velut inter isfnes 
 
 Luna minores." — 
 
 It is entitled the Ritter Bann, and we do not know how we 
 can bestow a more acceptable compliment on our readers 
 than by analysing this elegant effusion. 
 
 What the words Ritter Bann mean is not at once open 
 to every capacity, and they have unfortunately given rise 
 to the most indefensible puns and quizzes in the world. 
 But we, who despise such things, by a due consultation of 
 dictionaries, lexicons, onomasticons, word-books, vocabu- 
 laries, and other similar treatises, discovered that Ritter, in 
 the Teutonic tongue, as spoken in High Germany, signi- 
 fies Rider, or Knight ; Bann is merely a man's name, the 
 
 hero being son of old Bann, Esq., of ; place, 
 
 Glamorganshire. Why a Welsh knight should be called by 
 a German title we cannot immediately conjecture, but sup- 
 pose it adopted from euphonious principles of melting 
 melody. Let the reader say the words — Ritter Bann — 
 Ritter Bann — Ritter Bann — to himself, without the assist- 
 ance of a chime of good bells, such as those of Saint 
 Pancras, Saint Mary Overy, Saint Sepulchre's, opposite 
 Newgate, Saint Botolph's, Aldgate, Saint Clement Dane's, 
 Saint Dunstan's in Fleet Street, not to mention various 
 provincial utterers of Bob Majors ; and he must be struck 
 with the fine rumbhng clang, and sit down to drink his 
 Burton at 3d. the nip with increased satisfaction. 
 
 So far for the title. Listen now to the exordium : 
 
 " The Ritter Bann from Hungary 
 
 Came back, renowned in arms ; 
 But scorning jousts of chivalry, 
 
 And love and ladies' charms. 
 While other knights held revelry, he 
 
 Was wrapt ' ' 
 
 in what ? Surtout ? Roquelaure ? Poodle Benjamin ? 
 hangup ? doblado ? frock ? wraprascal ? No, no ! What 
 then ? Sheet ? blanket ? quilt ? coverlet ? counterpane ? 
 No ? What then ? Why— 
 
120 A RUNNING COMMENTARY 
 
 J 
 
 * ' in thoughts of gloom, 
 
 And in Vienna's hostelrie 
 Slow paced his lonely room." 
 
 This is a very novel and original character in our now- 
 a-days poetry. 
 
 " There entered one whose face he knew, 
 Whose voice, he was aware. 
 He oft at mass had listened to 
 In the holy house of prayer. " 
 
 Who is this fine fellow ? Wait a moment and you shall 
 be told. 
 
 " 'Twas the abbot of Saint James's monks, 
 K fresh and fair old man." 
 
 Fresh no doubt, for you will soon learn he comes in good 
 season : 
 
 ** His reverend air arrested even 
 
 The gloomy Ritter Bann ; 
 But seeing with him an ancient dame, 
 
 Come clad in Scotch attire, 
 The Ritter's colour went and came, 
 
 And loud he spoke in ire : 
 ' Ha ! nurse of her that was my hane — ' " 
 
 Here CampbelFs Scotticism has got the better of him. 
 The lady of whom the Ritter speaks is his wife, who, in 
 Caledonia's dialect, is said to be bane of a man's barie ; but 
 in English we always say bone of my bone. We hope 
 Thomas the Rhymer will Anglicise the phrase in the next 
 edition. 
 
 *' Name not her name to me, 
 
 I wish it blotted from my brain : 
 Art poor ? Take alms and flee !" - 
 
 A very neat and pretty turn-out as any old lady would wish 
 of a summer's morning ; but it won't do. For 
 
 " ' Sir Knight,' the Abbot interposed, 
 ' This case your ear demands !' 
 And the crone cried, with a cross enclosed 
 In both her trembling hands — " 
 
 Read that second last line again. ''The crone cried with 
 
ON THE RITTER BANN. 321 
 
 a cross enclosed!^' O Pack, send the razor-grinder. 
 What do you say to that ? We can only match it by one 
 passage of Pantagruel : Lesquelles [the frozen words] en- 
 semblement fondues, ouysmes hin, hin, hin, hin, his, ticque, 
 torche, longue, bredelin, bredelac, frr, frrr, frrrr, bou, bou 
 bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, trace, trr, trr, trr, trrr, trrrr' 
 trrrrr, on, on, on, on, ouououounon, goth, magoth. '' And 
 the crone cried with a cross enclosed," 
 
 " Remember each his sentence waits, 
 And he who would ?'edut 
 Sweet Mercy's suit, on him the gates 
 Of mercy shall be shut !" 
 
 The Abbot proceeds to give our friend Ritter some novel 
 information : 
 
 *' You wedded, undispensed by church, 
 Your cousin Jane in spring ;" 
 
 Pretty colloquial style ! 
 
 ''In autumn, when you went to search 
 For churchmen's pardoning, 
 Her house denounced your marriage-band, 
 
 Betrothed her to De Grey ; 
 And the ring you put upon her — " 
 
 Her what ? Finger, perhaps. No : 
 
 " her hand 
 
 Was wrenched by force away.'' 
 
 Here commences a pleasant familiar prose narration. 
 We hke this manner of mixing prose with verse, as Mr. 
 Stewart Rose has done in his translation of Boiardo. 
 Campbell, in imitation, proceeds. '' Then wept you, Jane, 
 upon my neck, crying, ^ Help me, nurse, to flee to my 
 Howell Bann's Glamorgan hills :' 
 
 *' But word arrived, ah me ! you were not there ; 
 And 'twas their threat, by foul means or by fair, 
 To-morrow morning was to set the seal on her despair." 
 
 " I had a son," says nurse, after this little triplet, '' a sea-boy, 
 
 VOL, II. X 
 
322 A RUNNING COMMENTARY 
 
 in a ship at Hartland bay : by his aid, from her cruel kin I 
 bore my bird away. To Scotland, from the Devon's green 
 myrtle shores, we fled ; and the hand that sent the ravens 
 to Elijah gave us bread. She wrote you by my son ; but 
 he from England sent us word you had gone into some 
 far country ; in grief and gloom he heard. For they that 
 wronged you, to elude your wrath, defamed my child." 
 Whom she means here is not quite evident at first sight, for 
 she had been just speaking of her son, for whom the Ritter, 
 we opine, did not care a button whether he was famed or 
 defamed; but it will be all clear by. and by. ^'And you — 
 ay, blush, sir, as you should — believed and were beguiled." 
 In which last sentence the old lady is waxing a little terma- 
 gantish on our hands. She proceeds, however, in a minor key. 
 
 ''To die but at your feet, she vowed to roam the world; 
 and we would both have sped, and begged our bread ; but 
 so it might not be ; for, when the snowstorm beat our roof, 
 she bore a boy," — a queer effort of a snowstorm, entre nous. 
 '^ Sir Bann, who grew as fair your likeness-proof 2,% child e'er 
 grew like man." A likeness-proof! Some engraver must 
 have been talking to Tom about proof-impressions of plates, 
 and he, in the simplicity of his bachelorship, must have 
 imagined that there were proof-impressions too of children. 
 Let us, however, permit Madame la Nourice to proceed. 
 " 'Twas smiling on that babe one morn, while heath bloomed 
 on the moor, her beauty struck young Lord Kinghorn, as 
 he hunted past our door. She shunned him ; but he raved 
 of Jane, and roused his mother's pride ; who came to us in 
 high disdain, and ' Where's the face,' she cried, ' has witched 
 my boy to wish for one so wretched for his wife ? Dost 
 love thy husband ? Know my son has sworn to seek his 
 life.'" 
 
 Poetry breaks out here again in the following melodious 
 lines : 
 
 *' Her anger sore dismayed us, 
 
 For our mite was wearing scant ; 
 
 And, unless that dame would aid us, 
 
 There was none to aid our want. 
 
ON THE RITTER BANN. 323 
 
 '' So I told her, weeping bitterly, what all our woes /ladheen ; 
 and, though she was a stern lady, the tear stood in her een. 
 And she housed us both, when cheerfully my child [that is 
 not her son, the cabin-boy, but her bird Jane] to her had 
 sworn that, even if made a widow, she would never wed 
 Kinghorn. 
 
 " Here paused the nurse ; " and indeed we must say a 
 more pathetic or original story, or one more prettily or 
 pithily told, does not exist in the whole bounds of our 
 language. The nurse mistook her talent when she com- 
 menced the trade of suckling weans. She should have 
 gone to the bar, where in less than no time she would have 
 been a pleader scarcely inferior to Counsellor Phillips him- 
 self. 
 
 After the oration of the nurse then began the x\bbot, 
 standing by : " Three months ago a wounded man to our 
 abbey came to die." A mighty absurd proceeding in our 
 opinion. Had he come there to /ive, it would have been 
 much more sensible. '' He heard me long with ghastly 
 eyes" (rather an odd mode of hearing), ''and hand obdurate 
 clenched, speak of the worm that never dies and the fire 
 that is not quenched. 
 
 *' At last, by what this scroll attests, 
 
 He left atonement brief, 
 For years of anguish to the breasts 
 
 His guilt had wrung with grief. 
 ' There lived,' he said, * a fair young dame 
 
 Beneath my 7nother's roof — 
 I loved her ' '' — 
 
 Not his mother we hope ; 
 
 C( 
 
 but against my flame 
 
 Her purity was proof. 
 I feigned repentance — friendship pure ; 
 
 That mood she did not check, 
 But let her husband's miniature 
 
 Be copied from her neck." 
 
 Her husband's miniature in the days of jousts and 
 chivalries ! But great poets do not matter such trifles. 
 
324 A RUNNING COMMENTARY 
 
 We all remember how Shakespeare introduces cannon into 
 Hamlet. Pergitpoeta: 
 
 ^' As means to search him, my deceit took care to him 
 was borne nought but his picture's counterfeit, and Jane's 
 reported scorn. The treachery took: she waited wild! 
 My slave came back, and did whatever I wished : she clasped 
 her child, and swooned, and all but died." 
 
 The pathos and poetry of this beautiful, grammatical, and 
 intelligible passage is too much for us. We cannot go on 
 without assistance. We shall therefore make a glass of 
 rum grog, for we are writing this on a fine sunshiny morning. 
 As we are on the subject of grog, we may as well give it as 
 our opinion that the midshipman's method of making it, 
 as recorded by the great Joseph, is by far the most com- 
 modious. Swallow we, therefore, first a glass of rum — our 
 own drinking in Antigua — and then, baptizing it speedily 
 by the affusion of a similar quantity of water, we take three 
 jumps to mix the fluids in our stomach, and, so fortified, 
 proceed with the contemplation of the Ritter Bann. We 
 get on to a new jig tune : 
 
 * ' I felt her tears 
 For years and years 
 Quench not my flame, but STIR ! " 
 
 ** The very hate 
 I bore her mate, 
 Increased my love for her. 
 
 '^Fame told us of his glory : while joy flushed the face of 
 Jane; and while she blessed his name, her smile struck 
 fire into my brain no fears could damp. I reached the 
 camp, sought out its champion; and, if my broadsword 
 (Andrew Ferrara would be a much more poetical word, Mr. 
 Thomas) failed at last, 'twas long and well laid on. This 
 wound's my meed— my name is Kinghorn— my foe is the 
 Ritter Bann : 
 
 " The wafer to his lips was borne, 
 And we shrived the dying man. 
 
ON THE RITTER BANK. 325 
 
 He died not till you went to fight the Turks at Warradein ; 
 but I^see my tale has changed you pale. The Abbot went 
 for wine, and brought a little page, who poured it out and 
 smiled.'' 
 
 How beautiful ! and how natural at the same time ! '' I 
 see," says the old Abbot, who, we warrant, was a sound old 
 toper, a fellow who rejoiced in the delightful music of the 
 cork, '^ the curst stuff I have been talking to you has made 
 you sick in your stomach, and you must take a glass of 
 wine. What wine do you drink, hock, champagne, sau- 
 terne, dry Lisbon, Madeira, black strap, Lachryma Chrtsti? 
 My own tipple is Rhenish. See here, I have some Anno 
 Do7nini^ God knows what. Pleasure of drinking your good 
 health in the meantime.'^ 
 
 *' The stunned knight saw himself restored to childhood 
 in his child, and stooped and caught him to his breast, 
 laughed loud, and wept anon ; and with a shower of kisses 
 pressed the darling little one." 
 
 The conversation soon becomes sprightly. Nothing can 
 be better than, the colloquial tone of the dialogue. 
 
 '^ RiiterBann. And where went Jane ? 
 
 " Old Snoozer. To a nunnery, sir. Look not again so 
 pale. Kinghorn's old dame grew harsh to her. 
 
 '^ Ritter Ba7i7i. And has she taken the veil.^^ 
 
 '^ Old Snoozer. Sit down, sir ; I bar rash words. 
 
 *' They sat all three, and the boy played with the 
 Knight's broad star as he kept him on his knee. ' Think 
 ere you ask her dwelling-place,' the Abbot father said ; 
 ^time draws a veil o'er beauty's face, more deep than 
 cloistered shade : Grief may have made her what you can 
 scarce love, perhaps, for life.' ' Hush, Abbot,' cried the 
 Ritter Bann (on whom, by this time, the tipple had taken 
 considerable effect), ' or tell me where's my wife. 
 
 What follows ? Why 
 
 " The priest undid ! — (Oh Jupiter f) 
 Two doors that hid 
 
 J ?? 
 
326 A RUNNING COMMENTARY. 
 
 The inn's adjacent room ; 
 
 And there a lovely woman stood, 
 Tears bathed her beauty's bloom. 
 
 One moment may 
 
 With bliss repay 
 Unnumbered hours of pain ; 
 
 Such was the throb, 
 
 And mutual sob, 
 
 Of the Knight embracing Jane." 
 
 And such is Mr. Tom CampbeH's poem of the Ritter 
 Bann. 
 
 Need we add a word ? Did anybody ever see the like ? 
 What verse, what ideas, what language, what a story, what 
 a name ! Time was that when the brains were out the 
 man would die ; but on a change tout cela. We consien 
 Campbell's head to the notice of the phrenologicals. 
 
 Let us sing a song. Strike up the bagpipes while we 
 chaunt 
 
 The Writer Tam. 
 
 By T. Dromedary. 
 
 The Writer Tam, from Hungryland,* 
 
 Comes, famed for lays of arms,f 
 And, writing chaunts of chivalry, 
 
 The Cockney ladies charms. 
 While other hands write Balaam, he, "• 
 
 In editorial gloom, 
 In Colburn's magazinary, 
 
 Gives each his destined room. 
 
 * See Jack Wilkes' Prophecy of Famine, a poem, as Tom himself ob- 
 serves, amusing to a Scotchman from its extravagance. To oblige him, 
 therefore, the name is adopted here. — M. OD. 
 
 f The Mariners of England, The British Grenadiers, The Battle of the 
 Baltic, &C.-M. OD. 
 
Critique on Xorb 3B)?ton. 
 
 ^'Claudite jam rivos, pueri: sat prata biberunt." — Virg. 
 
 So the public at length is beginning to tire on 
 
 The torrent of poesy poured by Lord Byron ! 
 
 Some guessed this would happen : the presage proved true. 
 
 Then now let us take a brief, rapid review 
 
 Of all, or at least of each principal topic 
 
 Which serves as a theme for his muse misanthropic. 
 
 First note we the prelude which, sung by the minor, 
 Gave promise of future strains, bolder and finer ; 
 Though the bitter Scotch critic loud raised his alarum 
 And swore men and gods could not possibly bear 'em ! '^' 
 To the fame of the bard men have given a shove, 
 Whate'er may be judged of his merits above. 
 Thus stung, did the youngster assail, we must own. 
 Some names which his fury had well let alone ; 
 As a colt, who a thistle beneath his tail feels. 
 At all things around madly launches his heels. 
 
 * The Edinburgh reviewer, who vainly attempted to crush Lord Byron 
 at the commencement of his poetical career, thus began his animadversions : 
 '* The poetry of this young Lord belongs to the class which neither men 
 nor gods are said to permit. His effusions are spread over a dead flat, and 
 can no more get above or below the level than if they were so much 
 stao'nant water." Having made this estimate of the noble poet's powers, 
 which however justified by some of the minor's Hours of Idleness, must 
 preclude the Northern Seer from all pretension to the gift of second sight, 
 he adds the following wholesome advice: — "Whatever success may have 
 attended the peer's subsequent compositions, it might have been followed 
 without any serious detriment to the public. We counsel him that he do 
 forthwith abandon poetry, and turn his talents and opportunities to better 
 account."— M. OD. 
 
328 CRITIQUE ON LORD BYRON. 
 
 Yet blithely, though sharply, the young minstrel carolled 
 To Reviewers and Bards, ere he croaked with Childe 
 
 Harold, 
 That wight who, in endless Spenserian measure, 
 Roams through the wide world without object or pleasure; 
 Till at last we find out, with the pilgrim proceeding. 
 That we gain no great object nor pleasure in reading ! 
 But, first, with what glee did all palates devour 
 The fragments which bear the strange name of the Gaiour? 
 'Tis a tale full of pathos, and sweet is the verse : — 
 Would some pains in connecting have rendered it worse ? 
 
 Then next was our caterer pleased to provide us 
 With an exquisite treat in the Bride of Abydos ; 
 Zuleika, so lovely, so simple, so tender, 
 Yet firm, from her purpose no danger could bend her. 
 Sour critics may say, all this praise duly granting. 
 There seems in the plan probability wanting. 
 By what happy means could these lovers contrive, 
 With Giafifer's suspicions so warmly alive. 
 Of the harem's strict bondage to lengthen the tether. 
 And so pleasantly take their amusements together ? 
 Of Eastern serkis, though not versed in the fashions, 
 We've heard, in those climates, where boil all the passions. 
 No youth could approach, howe'er prudent they thought her. 
 The sacred retreat of his own father's daughter. — 
 Such objections are dull ; 'tis a pity to show 'em. 
 If adherence to fact would have spoiled a good poem. 
 
 Now swift in his bark sails stout Conrad the Corsair, 
 To surprise Seyd Pasha, with his three tails of horse-hair. 
 But the destinies order — unlucky mishap ! 
 That Conrad, not Seyd, should be caught in the trap. 
 Those minds must be steeled with an apathy rare, 
 Which mourn not Medora, nor sigh for Gulnare : 
 Medora, soft Queen of the Island of Thieves, 
 Whose heart, too susceptible, bursts as it grieves ! 
 The woes of Gulnare, too — we feelingly share 'em. 
 The pride, though the cold passive slave, of Seyd's harem. 
 
CRITIQUE ON LORD BYRON. 329 
 
 But touched by the robber, she mounts to the class 
 Of dames whose whole soul is inflammable gas. 
 Though caught was the Corsair, the fates had decreed 
 That this foe, though in chains, should be fatal to Seyd. 
 Ah ! sensitive reader, 'tis hard to persuade ye 
 That man could be cool to so kind a fair lady. 
 When we knew her warm heart, of his terrible fate full, 
 Risked all for his safety — 'twas somewhat ungrateful ! 
 And, since such great hazard she ran for his sake, 
 Could his fancy prefer writhing spiked on a stake, 
 To giving (but poets are full of their fibs) 
 The savage Pasha a deep thrust in the ribs? 
 Such delicate scruples we prize at a high rate, 
 They seem rather squeamish, perhaps, in a pirate ! 
 . Quick vanishes Conrad : — bold rover, adieu ! 
 But who is this Lara that starts into view ? 
 If Conrad thou art, as some people suppose. 
 Gloomy chief, thou'rt less qualmish with friends and with 
 
 foes ! 
 If strong were the " stuff o' thy conscience," oh say 
 How was Ezzelin so snugly put out of the way ? 
 We see, too, the spirit and warmth of Gulnare in 
 That feminine page, so attached and so daring ; 
 And we shrewdly suspect that the small crimson spot 
 On her amazon forehead is nearly forgot. 
 'Tis true, when the Corsair old Seyd's palace saw burn. 
 The queen of his harem had ringlets of auburn ; 
 That the page's are black contradicts not our guesses. 
 Since ladies sometimes change the hue of their tresses."^ 
 
 Then tacked to this story strange mixtures are seen. 
 Those dullest of stanzas yclep'd Jacqueline. 
 
 * The poet, in describing the faithful attendant on Count Lara, did not 
 perhaps exactly recollect his former account of Gulnare 's person : 
 
 " That form of eye so dark, and cheek so fair, 
 And auburn waves of gemmed and braided hair." 
 
 Dealers in fiction, both in verse and prose, require good memories. 
 Whether this solution, or the suggestion in the text, best meets the diffi- 
 culty, the sagacious reader will determine according to his fancy. — M. OD. 
 
330 CRITIQUE ON LORD BYRON. 
 
 Alas for poor Rogers ! 'Twas certainly hard 
 
 To be made, as a compliment, foil to a bard 
 
 Who needs no such foil, so unapt too to flatter ! 
 
 ^Twere better have borne the worst lash of his satire! 
 
 Yet of high-seasoned praise he is sometimes the organ : 
 
 This Shelley can witness, and eke Lady Morgan. 
 
 Shall Rogers's name be inscribed in this set 
 
 Whose former bright laurels none wish to forget ? 
 
 But Jacqueline sues for the garland in vain. 
 
 For Memory here brings us nothing but pain. 
 
 Can the land be much relished by Gifford and Crabbe, 
 
 Which is shared by the crazy-brained muse of Queen Mab ? 
 
 Would Dryden or Otvvay, or Congreve or Pope, 
 
 Sweet Burns, or the bard who delights us with Hope, 
 
 Be flattered to find they were joined in this me/ee, 
 
 And placed cheek by jowl with dame Morgan and Shelley P"^ 
 
 Next scowls the fell wizard, high Manfred the bold, 
 Who broods over sins which won't bear to be told. 
 'Tis a drama repulsive, but still it has force. — 
 How well does he paint the sharp pangs of remorse ! 
 That quill, which seems plucked from the wing of a raven, 
 Gives a touch almost worthy the poet of Avon. 
 
 Are the pictures from fancy ? — fictitious or real ? 
 Surely Satan himself is the bard's beau ideal ! \ 
 
 * The noble baron, in his appendix to the Two Foscari, is pleased to 
 call Lady Morgan's Italy *'a fearless and excellent work." The world in 
 general will be more ready to subscribe to the first than the last half of the 
 panegyric. In the same place he tells us that he *' highly admires Mr. 
 Shelley's poetry, in common with all those who are not blinded by baseness 
 and bigotry." It might be wrong to advise readers to have recourse to Mr. 
 Shelley's works and judge for themselves. Those who desire to see speci- 
 mens, and to compare Lord B.'s opinion with that of other critics, will do 
 well to consult the Quarterly Review^ in which work may also be seen some 
 useful remarks on the fearless Lady Morgan's hterary labours. A few of 
 the poets of former and the present times are here noticed as having the 
 good fortune to receive honourable mention from Lord B. ; a glory they 
 enjoy in common with the Hibernian lady-errant and the poetico-meta- 
 physical maniac. David long ago designated the atheist as a fool. It is 
 more charitable to consider him as a madman. — M. OD. 
 
 f Mr. Southey has conferred the appellation of ' ' the Satanic School " on 
 
CRITIQUE ON LORD BYRON. 33 1 
 
 Yet 'tis strange that each image that glides through his Ian- 
 thorn, 
 
 From Juan, whose joy is on husbands to plant horn, 
 Who views with delight tears of damsels deluded,^ 
 To the wretch who hates all things, himself too included, 
 All in some striking feature each other resemble, 
 As in Hamlet, or Rolla, we still saw John Kemble. 
 If the draughts smack of nature, we care not a straw 
 Where he finds the dark model he chooses to draw. 
 
 Of smaller effusions I pass over loads — 
 The Family Sketch — Hebrew Melodies— Odes ; — 
 Sad Tasso's Lament — soft occasional Verses — 
 And levelled at Elgin stern Pallas's curses ; t 
 Mazeppa's long race, that intrepid rough-rider. 
 And adieus to a lady whose lord can't abide her. 
 Within two blue paste-boards what contraries meet — 
 The fragrant, the fetid, the bitter, the sweet : 
 Like a garden neglected these fences enclose 
 The violet, the nettle, the nightshade, the rose. 
 
 But amongst these sarcastic and amorous sallies. 
 Who marks not that effort of impotent malice, 
 Aimed at worth placed on high — nay, the most lofty station. 
 Whose strongest, best guard, is the love of a nation ? 
 
 a certain class of poets. The idea is as obvious as that of caUing Venice 
 the ^' Rome of the Ocean." Let the worthy Laureate, however, have un- 
 disputed claim to the original invention. — M. OD. 
 
 * Mrs. Joanna Baillie has illustrated different passions by a tragedy and 
 a comedy on each subject. Lord Byron has also thus drawn a double 
 representation of human depravity. In these Don Juan performs the part 
 of first Buffo, whilst Manfred leads those who are invested with the serious 
 buskin. — M. OD. 
 
 + Much abuse has been lavished on Lord Elgin for having sent to this 
 country the spoils of the Parthenon. If this celebrated temple could have 
 remained in security, the removal of its ornaments might have been called 
 a sort of sacrilege. But it is well known that a Turk, who wants to white- 
 wash his house, makes no scruple of destroying the finest remains of ancient 
 art for that ignoble purpose. Was it not therefore better to place these 
 precious relics under the protection of Britain, where they will be admired 
 and appreciated, than to let them remain in the power of barbarians who 
 might speedily reduce them to dust in a hme-kiln ?— M. OD. 
 
332 CRITIQUE ON LORD BYRON. 
 
 Far wide from its mark flew the shaft from the string, 
 Recoils on the archer, but wounds not the King : 
 He smiles at such censures when libellers pen 'em, 
 For truth bids defiance to calumny's venom : 
 We know 'tis the nature of vipers to bite all ; 
 But shall Byron be preacher of duties marital ? 
 
 Now to poems we turn of a different nature, 
 Where harangues Faliero, the Doge, and the traitor. 
 The Doge may be prosy; but seldom we've seen a"^ 
 Fair lady more docile than meek Angiolina. 
 Yet to move us her griefs don't so likely appear as 
 The woes the starved poet has made Belvidera's. 
 I'm far from asserting we're tempted to laugh here ; 
 But the Doge must be own'd not quite equal to Jaffier. 
 These ancient impressions the fancy still tarries on, 
 When forced with old Otway to make a comparison. 
 Oh ! best, tuneful peer, shone your genius dramatic 
 Ere your Muse set her foot on those isles Adriatic I 
 Let her shun the Rialto and halls of St. Mark, 
 Contented with Manfred to rove in the dark. 
 
 On the banks of Euphrates you better regale us, 
 AVith the feasts and the frolics of Sardanapalus. 
 Philosophic gourmand ! — ^jolly, libertine sage ! 
 Only pleasure's soft warfare determined to wage, 
 With goblet in hand, and his head crowned with roses. 
 He teaches that death everlasting repose is. 
 
 * The ending of the first line of this and the following couplet is designed 
 as an humble imitation of the manner in which Lord B. sometimes closes 
 his lines in serious as well as ludicrous poetry, in blank verse as well as in 
 rhyme. In compositions of humour it may be allowable to disjoin words 
 at pleasure, and finish a verse with a most feeble termination ; but the 
 license granted to Beppo or Don Juan would be thought unreasonable in 
 works of a graver character. Whoever takes the trouble of examining 
 Sardanapalus, the Foscari, and the Mystery of Cain, will find that the 
 lines are very differently constructed from the practice of the best preceding 
 writers. The Italian poets may have adopted some such mode in their 
 stanzas ; but the following this example will not improve the majestic 
 inceding step of the English Muse as exemplified by Shakespeare and 
 Milton.— M.OD. 
 
CRITIQUE ON LORD BYRON. 333 
 
 The tenet may fairly belong to the story ; 
 
 But here we perceive that 'tis preached con amove. 
 
 This volatile heart Grecian "Myrrha could fix, 
 
 Though he laughs at her creed about Pluto and Styx. 
 
 His love she returns when his virtues she conned over, 
 
 And was true, e'en to death, when she found him so fond 
 
 of her. 
 But the sot, whom his subjects had rated at zero. 
 Bravely fights, and then dies in a blaze like a hero ! 
 
 You can next (for stage magic you're ne'er at a loss) 
 
 carry 
 Your friends back to Venice, and show them the Foscari. 
 To these luckless isles we're transported again ! 
 Lo ! a youth, harshly judged by the Council of Ten, 
 Most wilfully rushes on horrible tortures. 
 Lest in some foreign clime he should take up his quarters ! 
 His hatred invincible tow'rds all the men is, 
 But he doats with strange love on the mere mud of Venice. 
 For the Doge— there is no known example will suit us ; 
 His phlegm patriotic out-Brutuses Brutus. 
 In his chair, whilst the rack's wrenching torments are 
 
 done, 
 He watches the pangs of his innocent son. 
 His nerves such a spectacle tolerate well ; 
 Yet he dies by a shock when the sound of a bell 
 On a sudden to Venice announces the doom, 
 That another mock-sovereign reigns in his room. 
 
 Now last, though not least, let us glance at the fable 
 Your lordship has raised on the murther of Abel 
 But chiefly that wonderful flight let us trace 
 Which Lucifer wings through the regions of space. 
 Where with speed swift as thought with his pupil he runs, 
 Treading all the bright maze of the planets and suns ; 
 And lectures the while all these objects they're viewing, 
 Like a tutor abroad, who leads out a young Bruin. 
 Thus Satan exhibits pre-Adamite spectres, 
 And lavs down his maxims there free from objectors. 
 
334 CRITIQUE ON LORD BYRON. 
 
 How we turn'd with disgust, as we listened with pain, 
 
 From the vile metaphysics he whispers to Cain ! "^ 
 
 Fit talk for the fiend and the fratricide felon ; 
 
 But this is a subject too hateful to dwell on. 
 
 A lash light as mine grave offences can trounce ill, 
 
 Then here let me end with a short word of counsel : 
 
 'Twould be wrong, noble bard, oh ! permit me to tell ye. 
 
 To establish a league with Leigh Hunt and Bysshe Shelley. 
 
 Already your readers have swallowed too much, 
 
 Like Amboyna's swollen victims when drenched by the 
 
 Dutch, t 
 The world cries, in chorus, 'tis certainly time 
 To close up your flood-gates of blank verse and rhyme. 
 Hold ! Hold ! — By the public thus sated and crammed. 
 Lest your lays, like yourself, stand a chance to be d d ! 
 
 * The demon's insinuations, tending directly to an object the reverse of 
 that which Pope aims at in his Essay on Man, the present being evidently 
 designed to make man doubt the benevolence and goodness of his Maker, 
 might justify harsher terms than are here employed. Instead of vile 
 metaphysics, they might have been termed horrible blasphemies. Let not 
 the noble author shelter himself under the example of Milton. The author 
 of Paradise Lost displays want of taste in making the Almighty argue like 
 " a school divine," as the artists of the Roman Catholic Church have done 
 in representing him under the form of an old man with a long beard ; but 
 neither the poet nor the painter intended to commit an irreverent insult. 
 Milton's devils talk and act sufficiently in character, but they are kept 
 within decent bounds. Belial himself, however qualified "to make the 
 worse appear the better reason," is not suffered by the poet to practise his 
 arts on the readers of his divine epic, — -M. OD. 
 
 f The Island of Amboyna, one of the Moluccas, was formerly occupied 
 jointly by the English and Dutch. In the year 1622 the Hollanders, 
 feeling the superiority of their numbers, which was about three to two in 
 their favour, conceived the design of making themselves masters of the 
 whole island. For this purpose they pretended to have discovered a 
 plot contrived by the English for their expulsion. Many of the English 
 settlers were accordingly arrested and exposed to torture, in order to 
 enforce a confession. Amongst the methods employed was the extraordinary 
 one here alluded to. The accused was fastened to a seat, in an upright 
 posture, with a piece of canvas fixed round his neck, extended above the 
 head in the form of a cup. Water being repeatedly poured into this 
 receptacle, it was necessary to swallow the liquid to avoid suffocation. 
 Under this infliction the bodies of the sufferers were said to be distended 
 to double their natural size. — M. OD. 
 
/Ilboore^isb /IDeloMes* 
 
 T. — THE LAST LAMP OF THE ALLEY. 
 
 The last lamp of the alley 
 
 Is burning alone ! 
 All its brilliant companions 
 
 Are shivered and gone. 
 No lamp of her kindred, 
 
 No burner is nigh, 
 To rival her glimmer, 
 
 Or light to supply. 
 
 I'll not leave thee, thou lone one 1 
 
 To vanish in smoke ; 
 As the bright ones are shattered, 
 
 Thou too shalt be broke. 
 Thus kindly I scatter 
 
 Thy globe o'er the street. 
 Where the watch in his rambles 
 
 Thy fragments shall meet. 
 
 Then home will I stagger 
 
 As well as I may ; 
 By the light of my nose sure 
 
 I'll find out the way. 
 When thy blaze is extinguished, 
 
 Thy brilliancy gone, 
 Oh ! my beak shall illumine 
 
 The alley alone. 
 
336 MOORE-ISH MELODIES. 
 
 2. — 'tis the last glass of claret. 
 
 'Tis the last glass of claret, 
 
 Left sparkling alone ; 
 All its rosy companions 
 
 Are clea7ied out and gone. 
 No wine of her kindred, 
 
 No red port is nigh, 
 To reflect back her blushes, 
 
 And gladden my eye. 
 
 I'll not leave thee, thou lone one, 
 
 This desert to crown : 
 As the bowls are all empty, 
 
 Thou too shalt float down. 
 Thus kindly I drink up 
 
 Each drop of pure red. 
 And fling the bright goblet 
 
 Clean over ?ny head. 
 
 So soon may Dame Fortune 
 
 Fling me o'er her head, 
 When I quit brimming glasses, 
 
 And bundle to bed. 
 When champagne is exhausted. 
 
 And Burgundy's gone, 
 Who would leave even claret 
 
 To perish alone ? 
 
 3. — RICH AND RARE. 
 
 Rich and rare was the chain he wore, 
 
 And a long white wand in his hand he bore ; 
 
 But oh ! his paunch strutted far beyond ^ 
 
 His bright gold chain and his snow-white wand. 
 
MOORE-ISH MELODIES. 337 
 
 " Oh, Alderman, dost thou not fear to go, 
 
 Where the turtle shall smoke and the Burgundy flow? 
 
 Are the doctors so sparing of lancet and pill, 
 
 Not to physic or bleed thee for this night's swill ? " 
 
 '' Good ma'am," said he, " I feel no alarm ; 
 Nor turtle nor Burgundy does me a harm ; 
 For though of your doctors I've had a score, 
 I but love good eating and drinking the more." 
 
 On he went, and his purple nose 
 Soon over dish, platter, and bottle glows ; 
 And long may he stuff who thus defied 
 Lancet, pill, bolus, and potion beside. 
 
 4- — TOM STOKES LIVED ONCE. 
 
 ^"^ Young Love y 
 
 Tom Stokes lived once in a 2;arret his^h 
 
 Where fogs were breathing, 
 
 And smoke was wreathing 
 Her curls to give the cerulean sky. 
 Which high up above Tom's head did lie : 
 
 His red cheeks flourished. 
 
 For Tom Stokes nourished 
 Their bloom full oft with Whitbread's showers. 
 
 But debts, though borish, must be paid. 
 And bailiffs a'n't bamm'd for many hours. 
 
 Ah ! that the nabman's evil eyes 
 
 Should ever come hither 
 
 Such cheeks to wither ! 
 The fat soon, soon began to die, 
 And Tom fell sick as the blades drew nigh. 
 
 They came one morning. 
 
 Ere Stokes had warning, 
 
 VOL. IL 
 
338 MOORE-ISH MELODIES. 
 
 j-j 
 
 And rapped at the door where the wild spark lay. 
 
 '' Oh, ho ! '' says Tom, " is it you ? Good-bye." 
 So he pack'd up his awls, and he trudged away. 
 
 5.— BILLINGSGATE MUSIC. 
 
 Hark ! Billingsgate music 
 
 Melts o'er the sea, 
 Falling light from some alehouse, 
 
 Where Kerry men be ; 
 And fishwomen's voices 
 
 Roar over the deep. 
 And waken around us 
 
 The billows from sleep. 
 
 Our potato boat gently 
 
 Wades over the wave. 
 While they call one another 
 
 Rogue, baggage, and knave ! 
 We listen — we listen — 
 
 How happy are we. 
 To hear the sweet music 
 
 Of beauteous Tralee ! 
 
 6. — TO A BOTTLE OF OLD PORT. 
 
 I. 
 
 When he who adores thee has left but the dregs 
 
 Of such famous old stingo behind. 
 Oh, say will he bluster or weep ? No, ifegs ! 
 
 He'll seek for some more of the kind. 
 He'll laugh and, though doctors perhaps may condemn. 
 
 Thy tide shall efface the decree. 
 
MOORE- ISH MELODIES. --o 
 
 •J »J 7 
 
 For many can witness, though subject to phlegm, 
 , He has always been faithful to thee ! 
 
 2. 
 
 With thee were the dreams of his earliest love, 
 
 Every rap in his pocket was thine, 
 And his very last prayer, every morning, by Jove, 
 
 Was to finish the evening in wine. 
 How blest are the tipplers whose heads can outlive 
 
 The effects of four bottles of thee, 
 But the next dearest blessing that Heaven can give 
 
 Is to stagger home muzzy from three ! 
 
 7. TO THE FINISH I WENT. 
 
 I. 
 
 To the Finish I went, when the moon it was shining:. 
 
 The jug round the table moved jovially on ; 
 I staid till the moon the next morn was declining — 
 
 The jug still was there, but the punch was all gone ! 
 And such are the joys that your brandy will promise 
 
 (And often these joys at the Finish I've known), 
 Every copper it makes in the evening ebb from us. 
 
 And leaves us next day with a headache alone ! 
 
 2. 
 
 Ne'er tell me of puns or of laughter adorning 
 
 Our revels that last till the close of the night : 
 Give me back the hard cash that I left in the morning, 
 
 For clouds dim my eye and my pocket is light. 
 Oh, who's there who welcomes that moment's returning. 
 
 When daylight must throw a new light on his frame — 
 When his stomach is sick, and his liver is burning. 
 
 His eyes shot with blood, and his brow in a flame ! 
 
TLbc lEqwalit^ of tbe Seses. 
 
 My dearest Madam, — Allow me to return my warmest ac- 
 knowledgments of the honour done me by your admirable 
 letter on the comparative merits of the two sexes. May I 
 hope that our opinions and sentiments, differing in words, 
 may be found ultimately to coincide in spirit ? You know 
 my devotion to that side of the question to which you 
 belong, and which you adorn and dignify equally by the 
 charms of your mind and your person. You maintain that 
 women are equal, in all things, to men, and that any ap- 
 parent inferiority on their parts must be attributed wholly 
 to the institutions of society. Even in bodily powers you 
 are unwilling to acknowledge defeat; and certainly, my 
 dearest madam, you have argued the topic with the most 
 captivating, the most fascinating eloquence and ingenuity. 
 You refer, in the first place, to the inferior animals, arguing, 
 my dearest madam, by analogy. Look, you say — look at 
 Newmarket ; there you behold mares running neck and 
 neck with horses, gaining king's plates and cups and stakes 
 of all sorts against them in spite of their noses, and occa- 
 sionally leaving them at the distance post. You then bid 
 me consider the canine species, and I will find the grey- 
 hound, and pointer, and terrier, and bull-bitch equal if not 
 superior to the dog in sagacity, fleetness, fierceness, and 
 ferocity. You then fly with me to the interior of Africa, 
 and, showing me in one cave a lioness and in another a 
 tigress, with their respective kittens, you ask me if the ladies 
 are not as formidable as the lords of the desert ? Turn 
 your gaze sunwards, you next exclaim, guided by that lofty 
 yell, and you may discern the female eagle returning from 
 
THE EQUALITY OF THE SEXES. 341 
 
 distant isles to her eyrie on the inland cliff, with a lamb or, 
 possibly, a child in her talons. Could her mate do more ? 
 You then beautifully describe the Amazons. And will you 
 still obstinately adhere, you ask me, to the unphilosophical 
 belief in the physical inferiority of our sex to yours, seeing 
 that, independently of other arguments, it militates against 
 the whole analogy of nature ? 
 
 My dearest madam, I acknowledge that the argument in 
 favour of your sex, drawn from the inferior animals, is a 
 very powerful one, perhaps unanswerable. Yet I believe 
 that Childers, and Eclipse, and High-Flyer, and Sir Peter, 
 and Filho da Puta, and Smolensko, and Dragon, were all 
 horses, not mares, and for their performances I respect- 
 fully refer you to the Racing Calendar. Had the two first 
 been mares, or had they been beaten by mares, I should 
 most cheerfully have acknowledged, not only the equal- 
 ity, but the superiority, of your sex, and given in my 
 palinode. 
 
 The lioness and the tigress are both on your side, and I 
 should be sorry to say a single word against such arguments. 
 May I be permitted, Ijowever, to hint that it is in fierceness 
 and ferocity, more perhaps than in strength, that they 
 excel the male, and in fierceness and ferocity awakened in 
 defence of their young? In these qualities I grant your 
 sex do greatly excel ours, especially when nursing ; and at 
 such seasons, in justice and candour, we must allow to you 
 the flattering similitude to the lioness and the tigress. I 
 also admit the force of the analogical argument in your 
 favour from birds of prey. 
 
 Passing from corporeal to mental powers, you ask why a 
 woman should not make, for example, a good bishop ? 
 Why, really, my dearest madam, I humbly confess that I 
 do not, at this moment, see any reason why you yourself 
 should not be elevated to the Bench ; and sure I am that, 
 in lawn sleeves, you would be the very beauty of holiness. 
 You have Pope Joan in your favour ; and although I do 
 not know of any instance of a lady of your years having 
 
342 THE EQUALITY OF THE SEXES. 
 
 become a spiritual peer, yet time flies, and you may expect 
 that honour when you become an old woman. 
 
 You then demand why a lady of good natural and ac- 
 quired parts may not be a general, or a judge ? and, a 
 fortiori^ anything else ! Now, my dear madam, such has 
 been the power of your eloquence and ingenuity that they 
 have completely nonplussed me, nor have I anything in 
 the shape of argument to rebut your irresistible logic. I 
 therefore fling myself on a fact, one single fact, expecting 
 an answer to it in your next letter. 
 
 Suppose, my dearest madam, for a single moment, a 
 bishop, or a judge, or a general in the family-way. How 
 could her ladyship visit her diocese ? Or would it be safe 
 to deliver her charge ? To be sure, it might be her lady- 
 ship's custom to visit her diocese but once in three years ; 
 nor are we to suppose that she is always e?icemte. But the 
 chance is greatly in favour of her being so ; nor do I think 
 that old maids would make by any manner of means good 
 bishops. I presume, my dearest madam, that you would 
 not doom the bishops of the Church of England to Catholic 
 celibacy. Such a law is foreign, I well know, to your 
 disposition ; and to say nothing of its gross and glaring 
 violation of the laws of nature herself, would it, in such a 
 case, be at all efficacious ? 
 
 I think, my dearest madam, that I hear you reply, '^I 
 would elevate no female to the Bench till she was past 
 child-bearing." What ! Would you let modest merit pine 
 unrewarded through youth, and confer dignity only on effete 
 old age ? The system, my dearest madam, would not work 
 well, and we should have neither Kayes nor Blomfields. 
 
 The same objection applies with tenfold force to a female 
 judge. Suppose, my dearest madam, that you yourself 
 were Lady Chancellor. Of the wisdom and integrity and 
 promptitude of your decisions there could not be the 
 slightest doubt, except in the minds perhaps of a Brougham, 
 a Williams, or a Denman. But although you could have 
 no qualms of conscience, yet might you frequently have 
 
THE EQUALITY OF THE SEXES. 343 
 
 qualms of another kind that would disturb or delay judg- 
 ment. While the Court ought to be sitting, you might be 
 lying in ; and while, in the character of Chancellor, you 
 ought to have been delivering a decision in your character 
 of Lady, why, my dearest madam, you might have yourself 
 been delivered of a fine thumping boy. 
 
 Finally, suppose Lord Wellington to have 'been a female. 
 He might have possessed the same coup-d'ceil^ the same 
 decision, the same fortitude, and the same resolution on 
 all occasions to conquer or die. But there are times when 
 ladies in the family-way (and we may safely take it for 
 granted that, had Lord Wellington been a female, she would 
 generally have been in that interesting situation) are not to 
 be depended on, nor can they depend upon themselves ; 
 and what if the Generalissima had been taken in labour 
 during the battle of Waterloo ? Why, such an interruption 
 would have been nearly as bad as when his lordship was 
 superseded by Sir J. Burrard daring the battle of Vimiera. 
 
 Now, my dearest madam, pray do let me have by return 
 of post an answer to this great leading fact of the case. 
 Nature seems to me to have intended women to be — 
 mothers of families. That you yourself, my respected and 
 highly-valued friend, are in an eminent degree. So kindest 
 love to Mr. M. and all the children (fourteen), not for- 
 getting that pretty puzzling pair, Thomas and Thomasine, 
 the twins. — I have the honour to be, my dearest madam, 
 with the highest consideration, your affectionate friend, 
 
 Jasper Sussex. 
 
/iDr. Orantles Betftele^ an& bis IFlovelt 
 "Berftele^ Castle/' 
 
 There is a set of persons in London who most particu- 
 larly pique themselves on being men of elegance, wit, and 
 refinement, and who are continually declaiming against 
 people who are not gentlemen. Their set, and their 
 manners, and their ideas are to form all that is worthy 
 of imitation in this world. They can talk — and some of 
 them talk pretty well too — of horses, and carriages, and 
 operas, and parks, and the last parties, and so forth ; and 
 their own sayings are recorded among themselves as 
 miracles of talent and genius. Their boots and their hats, 
 and all tailorly ingredients of appearance occurring in the 
 intermediate space between these zeniths and nadirs of 
 attire, are irreproachable, or at least they deem them so ; 
 and their conversation is lauded by themselves as the 
 summit of perfection. We think that these persons should 
 be contented with such trophies without wandering out of 
 the dignified and high-minded sphere in which they are 
 won. If they consulted their own interest they would 
 certainly take our advice. But fate is imperious ; and it 
 often drives men to show the utter futility of their preten- 
 sions. We do not know one of these fellows who, when 
 he comes forward from the circle in which he is a "gentle- 
 manly man," does not prove himself to be a blockhead, and 
 something worse. When he takes a pen in his hand, he 
 not only displays a dire ignorance and stupidity, but, in 
 nine cases out of ten, an utter meanness of thought and 
 manners and a crawling vulgarity of soul. 
 
 This may seem paradoxical. People may say. Here is a 
 
MR. GRANTLEY BERKELEY AND HIS NOVEL. 345 
 
 man brilliant at the dinner-table, elegant at a soiree, 
 dressed after by the men, run after by the women ; and 
 why should it be that he is a leper, wretched of heart and 
 lowlied of thought % It is the fact, nevertheless ; and the 
 paradox, after all, exists only in appearance. These people 
 know nothing beyond the conventional slang of society ; 
 but as the society in which they move is of that rank which 
 will always command the attention, and ought, always to 
 command the respect, of other classes, what they say and 
 do is matter of wonder to the tuft-hunter, and, we admit, 
 fairly a matter of curiosity to those who, like the ladies in 
 the Vicar of Wakefield, love to tell about dukes and lords 
 and knights of the garter. But slang is slang, no matter 
 how disguised, or to what purposes used. The slang of 
 the gilded cornices 6f St. James's is not in essence one whit 
 more dignified than the slang spoken over the beer-washed 
 tables of St. Giles's. He who is possessed of a perfect 
 knowledge of the tone current in Buckeridge Street would 
 outshine the cleverest master of the art who had not dwelt 
 amid the select circle of that interesting locality. Ask this 
 star of Hibernian emigration to write or to dictate (if he 
 has not acquired the art of writing) the results of his long 
 experience in the style and manners of the region which he 
 adorns, and you will find that he breaks down. The jest 
 is lost unless he prints his face. Pierce Egan, or Jon Bee, 
 or even Edward Bulwer — but, above all, Boz — Boz the 
 magnificent (what a pity it is that he deludes himself into 
 the absurd idea that he can be a Whig ! Mr. Pickwick 
 was a Whig, and that was only right, but Boz is just as 
 much a Whig as he is a giraffe) — any of these authors — 
 thou too among the rest, Vincent Bowling, whom we 
 shall no longer call the venerable Vincent, since it gave 
 pain and sorrow to thy most pugilistic soul — would in half 
 an hour extract all that the most celebrated hero of the 
 Rookery had invented, thought, and devised, during the 
 whole current of his life. 
 
 So in the case of the other saint, the patron of Spain, 
 
346 MR. GRANTLEY BERKELEY AND HIS NOVEL, 
 
 St. James. The chatterers and praters there have nothing 
 in them. We forget what is the exact distich "^ of Pope 
 describing the conversation of the party at the Rape of the 
 LocJz ; but it is something like this — 
 
 " In various talk the instructive hours they passed. 
 Who gave the ball or had the party last." 
 
 But we shall not go on attempting to quote from memory 
 one of the nicest pieces of ornamented verse ever written, 
 for undoubtedly we shall spoil it if we make the attempt ; 
 but we remember that the poet sums up his opinion of the 
 style of such conversation by describing it as "all that ^^ — 
 which isj indeed, sufficiently expressive of its merits. The 
 men, or things, who shine in this sort of work can do no 
 more than the hodman jester of St. Giles's, to whom we 
 have already alluded. If nature had ever bestowed upon 
 them brains — a fact very much open to dispute — those 
 brains are always wasted by the frivolities in which they 
 constantly engage and the silly talk which forms the staple 
 of their existence. But we shall go further. There are 
 gentlemen among them, no doubt ; but the trading practi- 
 tioners of the party are anything but gentlemen. If we 
 
 ^ Distich. We greatly admire Mr. Grantley Berkeley's opinion of the 
 meaning of this word. Of course, as he writes a historical romance in the 
 manner of Sir Walter Scott, he must have legends, and prophecies, and 
 mystic rhymes. How Sir Walter manages these matters it is now some- 
 what useless to say, for we rather apprehend that our readers know as 
 much about it as ourselves. How Mr. G. B. makes use of them will be 
 seen from the following charming effusion : 
 
 ** ' Lord Lisle and his party came hither to dine, 
 
 But Berkeley hath chased them from venison and wine, 
 And, lest a live witness a lie should record. 
 Here hangeth a dead one to stick by his word.' 
 
 "After laughing heartily at the attempt. Sir Maurice added: * By my 
 faith I doubt much whether the party we have so lately discomfited will 
 return to profit by thy distich,' " 
 
 Mr. Grantley Berkeley is under what Peter Robinson would call a con- 
 siderable offuscation of ideas as to the precise meaning of blarLxos ; and 
 lor " distich " we recommend him henceforward to read "fiddlestick." 
 
^^ BERKELEY CASTLE." 347 
 
 wished to speak harshly, we should say that they were in 
 general the shabbiest of mankind, constantly occupied in 
 mean arts of raising money, of defrauding creditors, of 
 keeping up appearances by the most griping and pinching 
 penury and wretchedness where no appearance is to be 
 made, bragging and boasting of conquests never made, 
 hectoring and bullying when they think it safe so to do, 
 tame and quiet enough where they think that sixpence is to 
 be had, or a kicking to be anticipated, swelling and turkey- 
 cock-like as Pistol himself to inferiors, cool and impertinent 
 to all who do not belong to their own coterie, and servile 
 and booing to those from whom they may expect a place or 
 a dinner ; — such are the characteristics of the club-haunting 
 gang, and such do they display in full relief whenever they 
 are so far left to themselves as to write a book. 
 
 Here is Bei^keley Castle lying on the table before us. In 
 the first place, what awfully bad taste it is in Mr. Grantley 
 Berkeley to write a book with such a title. What would be 
 thought of Lord Prudhoe if he were to sit down and give 
 us a book upon Alnwick? We should say it was very 
 absurd indeed. And yet there is no blot on the scutcheon of 
 the Percys, and their family played a most distinguished 
 part in all the transactions of war and peace throughout 
 England, ^' since Norman William came." We should 
 think, nevertheless, that Lord Prudhoe might have left 
 the narrative to somebody else. But in the present case 
 how absolutely disgusting is the conduct of Mr. Grantley 
 Berkeley. He should have been among the last people in 
 the world to call public attention to the history of his house. 
 Why, may we ask him, is his eldest brother pitchforked into 
 the House of Lords by the title of Lord Segrave ? Why 
 does not he sit there as Earl of Berkeley ? We are far from 
 being desirous to insult, as the paltry author of this book 
 does, the character of woman; but, when matters are 
 recorded in solemn judgments, there can be no indelicacy 
 in stating that Mr. Grantley Berkeley's mother lived with 
 Mr. Grantley Berkeley's father as his mistress, and that she 
 
348 MR. GRANTLEY BERKELEY AND HIS NOVEL, 
 
 had at least one child before she could induce the old and 
 very stupid lord to marry her. All this is set down in the 
 journals of the House of Lords. Why, then, under such 
 circumstances, bore us with long panegyrics upon the purity, 
 antiquity, and nobility of the Berkeley blood ? Why torment 
 us with a book vilely written, without any other end, object, 
 or aim but to prove that the Lord of Berkeley was a great 
 man once upon a time, and that, if there was a Lord of 
 Berkeley now who could prove that he was legitimate, he 
 would be a great man again ? If the author were a man of 
 the slightest spirit, of the smallest approach to the character 
 of a true — mind, not of a club — gentleman, he would have 
 absolutely shuddered at writing the following sentence : '' It 
 was believed (though he never avowed it) that he had held 
 a command in the regiment raised l^y my grandfather in 
 forty-five ! '' 
 
 By my grandfather ! Everybody, we suppose, has two 
 grandfathers ; and we take for granted that this great lover, 
 admirer, and adorer of women would prefer his maternal 
 to his paternal grandfather. By my grandfather ! — Truly, 
 his maternal grandfather was a man of blood, who wielded 
 steel and axe. He was, in short, a butcher in the market 
 of Gloucester, or some adjoining town, who sold mutton- 
 chops and other such commodities to all that would buy, 
 and had the honour of being parent in the second degree 
 of the illustrious author of Berkeley Castle. By my grand- 
 father ! What impudence ! 
 
 Of the Berkeley family in general it may be said that 
 not one of them was in the slightest degree distinguished. 
 They cannot, indeed, date from the Flood, and their most 
 antique title is somewhat blemished by the addition of 
 " Fitz ; '' but their blood has crept through the channels 
 mentioned by Pope as long as they are known. We shall 
 not go further than this very stupid book before us. We 
 shall not unravel the documents which its learned author 
 says are preserved '^ apud Cas/r^ de Berkeley." [The Latin 
 schoolmaster, at least, is not abroad.] We take the goods 
 
^'BERKELEY CASTLE." 349 
 
 the donkey provides us. He fixes his tale in the days of 
 the wars of the Roses; and in that war, when all the 
 honourable or the hot blood of England was up, when the 
 flowers in the Temple gardens set every bosom that had 
 courage or noble bearing within its keeping in a flame, in 
 those days the Berkeleys were distinguished only for carry- 
 ing on a lawsuit among themselves ; and skulking, hke 
 cowards, from the field, to appear as beggars before what- 
 ever faction ruled the Court. They were " beating smooth 
 the pavements between Temple Bar and Westminster Hall '' 
 while York and Lancaster fought for the throne of England ; 
 and here we have a descendant of theirs writing a book 
 about the days of those spirit-stirring and gallant wars, in 
 which he describes the great men of his lineage lying quiet 
 in their halls, locked up for fear of bailiffs — a dread which, 
 we rather imagine, has extended to some of their posterity, — 
 and actually has the impudence to put into the mouth of 
 such a skulking laggard as the last Lord Berkeley of his 
 line some impertinent observations upon the King-maker, 
 which '^ renowned Warwick " would have most liberally 
 recompensed by a kick. In fact, we do not recollect any- 
 thing in our history about the Berkeleys, except that one of 
 them was considered the proper jailer for Edward IL, and 
 that another, if Horace Walpole is to be credited, proposed 
 to George I. to kidnap his son when Prince of Wales. Of 
 honourable actions we do not at the present writing re- 
 member anything. 
 
 As for the book, it is trash. There is not the shadow of 
 a story in it. We defy Grantley Berkeley himself to make 
 out the skeleton of the tale so as to occupy twenty of our 
 lines. He has no knowledge, either literary or antiquarian. 
 For example, he calls Dray/on twice Michael Drayton 
 (vol. i. pp. 30, 31) ; he makes a groom read our authorised 
 translation of the Bible in 1468 (vol. ii. p. 172), before 
 printing had reached England, and when not one man in a 
 hundred out of the learned professions could read at all, 
 and when any Bible but the Vulgate (and that hard to be 
 
350 MR. GRANTLEY BERKELEY AND HIS NOVEL, 
 
 pronounced) was a sealed book ; he gives us a transcript of 
 a servant-maid's letter, temp. Hen. VI. ^ as thus : — 
 
 '^ Other folks does not know it, but there is one there as 
 knows the length of his foot, which he may be proud on, as 
 good right he has to do. I wish to give him notice that the 
 watches is to be doubled and set every night, as from marks 
 about the wall they knows as some one must have gotten over. 
 Should her as you knows on need assistance, there shall be a 
 white flag shew himself up at top of Nibley Knowl, when them 
 as loves her may make in. So now no more from one 
 
 ** As is not so bad as they supposes." 
 
 He imagines that the Highlanders came to the south- 
 west of England as friendly guests in the fifteenth century. 
 He makes one of them talk in such language as this, long 
 before even Gawain Douglas's time : 
 
 " Some days after this, Lord Berkeley, who set his face 
 against all jokes, whether practical or not, desiring to make Sir 
 Andrew acquainted with the fertility of his estates in compari- 
 son with those of the Highlands, took him to Slimbridge, and 
 showed him also the rich meadows Ivinsr alonsf the banks of the 
 Severn ; concluding the illustration of their capability with the 
 remark that were he, a month later in the year and over-night, 
 to stick his riding-wand in the grass where he then stood, the 
 growth of the herbage and luxuriant vegetation was so great 
 that he would not be able to find it on the following morning. 
 
 "^ Conscience, my lord,' said Sir Andrew, as usual, who made 
 it a rule never absolutely to contradict anything, 'but there my 
 puir Hieland estate wad match ye in ferteelity. By my saul, 
 were ye to tether your beast (pointing to the great white war- 
 horse which Lord Berkeley had been riding) on the hillside just 
 afore sunset, and be ever sae preceese as to the exact spot, 'twad 
 be a muckle chance if ever ye set ees on him again.'" 
 
 Now \\yv^ patois is Lowland Scotch, and very indifferently 
 executed Lowland Scotch, of the present century. To those 
 who know anything about it, the Highlander of the days of 
 Henry the Sixth spoke Gaelic, and in the present speaks 
 nothing like the dialect here crammed into his mouth. He 
 
"BERKELEY CASTLE." 351 
 
 (Mr. G. B. we mean) takes it for granted that the kilt was 
 the ordinary dress of Highlanders in those days, and actually 
 sends a man so arrayed to fight against a man at arms! 
 He is so careful of the colour of his conversation as to 
 make his characters at one time speak in this style : 
 
 a i 
 
 Dress ! ' quoth Watts with emphasis, setting down the iron 
 bit about which he had been engaged, and looking full into 
 Will's face — 'What has the like of she to do with flams and 
 finery ? She never looked so well as she used to do in her plain 
 stuff gown and a cowslip in her bosom. Now, forsooth, naught 
 but silk and satin please her ; instead of '^ Ingram, help me to 
 this," it's ''Mister Watts, be good enough to wash your hands, 
 and step this way." You admire her dress, do you ? Umph ! 
 " the crow thinks his own bird the fairest." ' 
 
 *' And again he set to work rubbing his rusty bit as if he had 
 not an hour to live. 
 
 "' But,^ rejoined Will, 'why, my friend, should she not set off 
 her person to the best advantage ? I have heard that some 
 one's groom not far hence used to admire her, and that she 
 received from Wotton fair the gayest gown the place could 
 
 boast.' 
 
 "'Thou hast heard, and what signifies it that such a hair- 
 brained gow^k as a forest archer either hears or sees ? I tell thee 
 when folks, when girls, dress above their station in life, it is an 
 outward mark of contempt for the males that should match them, 
 and but as a sign held out over the door of an inn or hostelry 
 that there is good entertainment for their betters. Why thou, 
 in thy generation of wisdom, thinkest that thou art down 
 upon me ; but, to speak in thine own terms of woodcraft, there's 
 a better buck than thou art at the head of the herd ; and the 
 white doe minds thee no more than the flies that tease her 
 
 ears.' " 
 
 And again, to introduce the same speakers, favouring us 
 with such bits as this : 
 
 '' ' Bless ye, zir,' was his reply, ' I could not plat like that. 
 'Twas my young lady as did do't the evening afore her did go ; 
 all the time speaking to, kissing, and patting the poor dumb 
 animal mv heart — as if he had been a Christian soul/ 
 
352 MR. GRANTLEY BERKELEY AND HIS NOVEL, 
 
 '' I left the stall for a seat on the corn-bin, or I could not 
 have gone on with my examination. 
 
 ''^And tell me, Watts, did Miss Isabel take her dog with 
 her?' 
 
 "' I suppose so, zir, as a an't left behind.' 
 
 " ' Did Annette go with her ? ' 
 
 " ' It's likely, zir, as she an't in the house.' 
 
 '^ ' How did they go, what was their conveyance, and when 
 did they leave the place ? ' 
 
 " ' They had horses, zir, and they left last night.' 
 
 " ' How many were there of the party ? ' 
 
 '' ' It were dark, zir, and I did not just zee.'" 
 
 Language, similarly refined, is put into the mouth of the 
 person to whom he applies, while he, in a dozen places, 
 calls the soz/briquet (and we suppose the man pretends he 
 can talk French, or knows something about it) of Black- 
 hill — . But it is idle to break such a cockroach as this upon 
 the wheel. In everything the novel is stupid, ignorant, 
 vulgar, and contemptible, and will be forgotten before our 
 pages appear by that fragment of the reading public by 
 which it was ever known. 
 
 One thing, however, we must make a few remarks upon. 
 The pseudo-aristocratical impertinence which makes the 
 author take it for granted that his hero should resign the 
 pledged mistress of his soul, because his superior fell in 
 love with her, w^e may pass by with nothing more than the 
 contemptuous remark that it must lead to the conclusion 
 that the man who formed such a conception would be ready 
 to do so himself, and to fetch and carry letters, frame asso- 
 ciations, lie and pimp, under any circumstances, with as 
 much alacrity as the cherished model of his brain — if one 
 by whom he could make anything — commanded it. What 
 Herbert Reardon, described as being deeply in love with 
 Isabel Mead, did in furthering, in the manner of Sir 
 Pandarus of Troy, the passion of Sir Maurice for the afore- 
 said Isabel, we have no doubt that Mr. Grantley Berkeley 
 knows, or supposes he knows, a person who would do. All 
 the women in this dull book are more or less tainted. It 
 
'^BERKELEY CASTLE." 353 
 
 looks to be the production of a man who has never kept 
 company, at least habitually, with ladies of soul. Take the 
 following passage : 
 
 *^ Though by disposition easily accessible to the charms of 
 beauty, and to a great degree imbued with a romantic nature, 
 still I never sought her confidence purposely for a mere personal 
 gratification, or to gain an ascendancy over the mind, in order 
 that I might then control and direct her actions. No, it was 
 not this desire that instigated me ; but there was a something 
 so refined in the female idea, so vividly brilliant in the situa- 
 tions in which man may be placed in the society of woman, 
 and so much delightful danger, if it may be thus called, in the 
 mutual confidence of the young and ardent of opposite sexes, 
 whose undisguised friendship ever trembles on the verge of love, 
 which after all is but another name, that time after time I 
 have found myself, and often almost involuntarily, attracted to 
 explore the mind and elicit the jewel from each fair casket 
 which chance has thrown in my way. That I have been de- 
 ceived in many instances, and that some few of my experiments 
 have brought me into situations the taking advantage of which 
 it was not in human nature to forego, matters not now." 
 
 There are some dozen passages of the same kind, and all 
 evidently pointing to Mr. Grantley Berkeley's personal ex- 
 periences. Now that he has the mind or the talent to 
 *' elicit the jewel," as he most stupidly phrases it, from the 
 mind of any woman worth the affection of a man of taste, 
 honour, or intellect, this novel of Berkeley Castle is quite 
 enough to prove. But that he may have sometimes ven- 
 tured to ascend from the servant-maids by whose conduct 
 and feelings he estimates those of all the female race, and 
 to offer his foul-smelling incense to women above that con- 
 dition, is possible enough. We shall, however, venture to 
 lay any odds that when the lady, for whatever reason, 
 wished to make no noise upon the subject, he was rung out ; 
 and, when a gentleman was appealed to, he, the author of 
 Berkeley Castle, was kicked out. It is time that these bes- 
 tialities towards the ladies of England should be flung forth 
 from our literature. 
 
 VOL. II. ^ 
 
354 MR. GRANTLEY BERKELEY AND HIS NOVEL, 
 
 What, after such a declaration, are we to think of the 
 dedication ? Here it is in all its length, breadth, and thick- 
 ness : 
 
 '^DEDICATION 
 
 TO THE 
 
 COUNTESS OF EUSTON. 
 
 '' In the dedication of these volumes, the author has the 
 deepest gratification, not from any idea of their value, for of 
 that he is diffident, but merely in the opportunity of proving 
 his feelings for one whom he hath ever regarded with 
 affection. 
 
 '^ As they are the first from his hand of this particular 
 description which have sought the public praise, so has he 
 naturally the greater anxiety for their success ; and though 
 at some future time he may produce a book more worthy 
 of acceptance, still he never can one in the fate of which 
 he will be so thoroughly interested/' 
 
 The horribly vulgar and ungrammatical writing of this 
 dedication is of no consequence ; it is just as good as the 
 rest of the book. But does the man, in writing to the 
 Countess of Euston that she is one '^ whom he hath {/laf/i !) 
 ever regarded with affection," mean to insinuate that he was 
 ever placed in a position to be able to use, without the 
 most absurd impertinence, the following quotations from his 
 work: — that his ''undisguised friendship trembled on the 
 verge of love/' and that " taking advantage of certain situa- 
 tions is not in human nature to forego '' ? It is a downright 
 affront ! They call Lord Euston the thin piece of Parlia- 
 ment ; could he not borrow a horsewhip ? We assure him 
 he might exercise it with perfect security. 
 
 In the midst of all this looseness and dirt we have 
 great outbursts of piety in a style of the most impassioned 
 cast. Coupling this with the general tendency of the book, 
 we are irresistibly reminded of Footers Mother Cole. Per- 
 
*' BERKELEY CASTLE." 355 
 
 haps Mr. Grantley Berkeley derives his representation, as 
 well as his birth, from another Mrs, Cole. At all events 
 this book puts an end to his puppy appearance any longer 
 in literature, as the next dissolution will put an end to his 
 nonsensical appearance in Parliament, Berkeley Castle in 
 conception is the most impertinent, as in execution it is 
 about the stupidest, it has ever been our misfortune to read. 
 It is also quite decisive of the character of the author as a 
 "gentleman." 
 
Detence of '' ^tascfs /Iftagasine '' in the 
 
 I AM told, by those whose opinions I have every reason to 
 respect, that it is incumbent upon me to offer some observa- 
 tions on the case of Messrs. Fraser and Berkeley so far as I 
 am therein concerned. I intrude myself with reluctance 
 on the attention of my readers. For many years, in constant 
 communication with the public, I have, to the utmost of my 
 power, courted privacy, because I have ever felt that the 
 less periodical writers are urged personally into notice it is 
 the better for their readers and themselves. But I am now 
 as it were forced to come forward, especially as I have 
 been stigmatised as an anonymous slanderer. 
 
 First, as to being anonymous. The custom of the 
 country, and a justly defensible custom, is that writers in 
 newspapers, magazines, reviews, &c., do not put their 
 names to their articles : a custom justly defensible be- 
 cause there is always an appearance, and often a reality, of 
 presumption or impertinence in one man setting himself up 
 in critical judgment on labours w^hich have cost certain 
 thought and time to another, or in offering an opinion upon 
 matters of public importance occupying the serious attention 
 of persons holding high station, and possessed of knowledge 
 derived from sources inaccessible to any ordinary author. 
 The '' we " of the political or literary writer is no more than 
 the index of what he wishes to be considered as his view of 
 the opinions of the party which he sometimes follows, but 
 as often ultimately leads. Speaking practically, except in 
 some personal trifles, exclusively of a jocular character, 
 
DEFENCE OF ^^ ERASER'S MAGAZINE." 357 
 
 there is really no such thing as an anonymous writer on 
 any part of the press. Who cannot at a moment's notice 
 find out the author of an article in the Edinburgh, or the 
 Quarterly, or Blackwood, or Fraser, or the Times, or the 
 Standard, or the John Bull, or the Examiner 1 In truth, 
 the prominent writers for newspapers or magazines are 
 exceedingly few in number. I have been almost twenty 
 years more or less connected with some of the most eminent, 
 and in the course of my experience do not think that I 
 could enumerate fifty names. I am sure that at present it 
 would be a matter of difficulty to me to mention twenty 
 persons to whom I should willingly commit the management 
 of any periodical work, daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly, 
 for which any one cared a thousand pounds. I speak 
 merely as a matter of trade, and a matter of trade on 
 which I feel myself, from practice and knowledge, qualified 
 to speak. It is perfectly idle, therefore, to say that the 
 couple of dozen among us who mainly interest ourselves in 
 periodical literature are anonymous. It however suits 
 some, at the bottom of whose impertinence is cowardice or 
 envy, or the more intelligible feeling of hunger, to pretend 
 to consider us so. 
 
 Having disposed of the charge of being an anonymous 
 slanderer, I may now come to that of our being slanderers 
 at all. Publicly known as we are, I deny the charge as 
 being utterly absurd. I am about to speak of the case in 
 which I am interested, declaring beforehand that in what 
 I say I have not the slightest notion of offering any offence 
 to Mr. Grantley Berkeley beyond what it may be impossible 
 to avoid. I shall presently allude to the peculiar position 
 in which we have lately stood towards each other ; but I 
 may unblamed be allowed to remark that Mr. Grantley 
 Berkeley's novel was not a good one ; that the spirit which 
 dictated the writing of a work about one's own ancestors, 
 particularly ancestors so long known but so slightly dis- 
 tino-uished, was not high-minded; that the conception of 
 the hero of the novel was paltry ; that the tendency at 
 
358 DEFENCE OF "ERASER'S MAGAZINE 
 
 »J 
 
 least of the scenes was licentious ; that the dedication of a 
 book of intrigues to a lady of unblemished reputation was a 
 thing not to be commended ; and that the image of the 
 author was, as usual, to be suspected in the cherished 
 creation of his mind. The article which I wrote might 
 have been compressed into the few lines above printed. If 
 it be any satisfaction to Mr. Berkeley, I shall say, with 
 perfect truth, that I wrote the article in a great hurry, and 
 that, business having next day taken me out of town, it was 
 not in my power to revise or correct it after it was in type. 
 If it had been otherwise, I admit that I should have altered 
 some of the expressions most exposed to cavil. For 
 example, I think, on a more serious perusal than under 
 other circumstances I should have designed to bestow upon 
 Berkeley Castle^ that though I should have designated its 
 hero, Herbert Reardon, as what he is exhibited in the 
 novel, a liar and a pimp, I should not have laid myself 
 open to the charge of Mr. Thesiger that I thereby intended 
 to have so designated Mr. Grantley Berkeley. Yet Lord 
 Byron is in general supposed to shadow himself forth in 
 Childe Harold and Don Juan ; and it would naturally occur 
 that the author put forth Herbert Reardon as his own 
 prototype. I repeat it, however, that if it had been in 
 my power to have looked over the proofs, I should have 
 changed some of the expressions which most called forth 
 the anger of the Member for West Gloucestershire. 
 
 I do not wish to press unfairly the charge of licentiousness 
 on Berkeley Castle ; and I add that there are some parts of 
 it pretty fairly written, particularly the commencement of 
 the first volume. With deference to Mr. Eraser's truly able 
 and eloquent advocate, Mr. Erie, the production is scarce 
 worthy of the dissection which he gave it. But I adhere 
 to my original proposition, that there was something so 
 peculiarly provoking in the mere fact of any of the Berkeleys 
 calling public attention to the history of their family that 
 no critic pretending to common spirit could pass it by, 
 especially after the conduct of Col. Berkeley, now crammed 
 
IN THE BERKELEY AEEAIR. 359 
 
 into the Peers as Lord Segrave, towards a man of the name 
 of Judge; and the declared determination of the family- 
 Liberals as they are — to vindicate themselves from the 
 printed expression of anything displeasing to them by the 
 infliction of the bludgeon. Sprung of a country where 
 bullying is not looked upon as a thing of much moment, 
 and of a caste which never hung back from the free utterance 
 of free opinion, such threats could have no other effect 
 upon me than to urge me to give my sentiments of dis- 
 approbation, if I felt any, with the less reluctance. 
 
 But I was sincerely and deeply sorry that an act of 
 personal violence fell upon a man who must permit me to 
 call him my friend ; on Mr. James Fraser, a gentleman to 
 whom I am under the ties of many obligations, and of the 
 most sincere friendship. It would be absurd if, in the pages 
 of his own Magazine, I further expatiated upon the feelings 
 which actuated my heart and my mind when I saw him 
 suffering from the effects of having been struck down by 
 ruffian violence. 1 heard and I believe — nay, I know, for 
 why am I here to resort to the professional technicalities 
 of the law ? — that foul advantage had been taken of his 
 defenceless situation ; that if he had been equal in strength 
 to any of the professed pugilists whom the Berkeleys once 
 were fond of patronising (and one of whom, in the present 
 instance, it appears was present for the purpose of backing 
 the assailant), he had, in consequence of the surprise and 
 the brutality, small chance of success, and that against a 
 person of power and agility so much superior, and so much 
 more cultivated, chance there was none. When I saw this, 
 if I afterwards did what I own is not on the strict principles 
 of Christian rule to be defended, I hope that there will be 
 found some palliation for my conduct. 
 
 The question of duelling must, however, be postponed 
 for a period, until I go into the main ground of quarrel 
 with the article. As for the criticism, I have no notion of 
 apologising. I hold firmly to the right which I or any other 
 person, Whig, Tory, or Radical, possessed of the power of 
 
36o DEFENCE OF "FRASER'S MAGAZINE'' 
 
 writing, may claim of expressing their opinion on matters 
 literary or political. What I said might be harsh ; but, if a 
 gentleman knows his business as a gentleman, he should 
 know that words are to be settled by those who speak them, 
 and by nobody else. 
 
 Mr. Berkeley was not so ignorant as to believe that the 
 article which offended him was written by Mr. Fraser. If 
 he had any matter of complaint against the review of his 
 book, he might have answered it in literature or in law; or, 
 if he preferred a course neither literary nor legal, he ought 
 to have taken care that he made no mistake as to the person 
 on whom his retaliation was to fall. A literary answer was, 
 I suppose, not to be thought upon without dismay ; and, as 
 he personally attacked another for what he could not have 
 had the slightest difificulty in finding out was done by me, 
 I must now confine myself to the legal complaints which 
 he made of the injury he had suffered. They are the 
 following : — 
 
 1. That an attack was made upon his family in many 
 ways, but in a manner most peculiarly insulting and injurious 
 upon his mother. 
 
 2. That he was held up, by impHcation, as being as mean 
 in conduct and character as the reviewer maintained the 
 hero of Berkeley Castle to be. 
 
 3. That it was insinuated, in a commentary on a passage 
 of the book, that he was capable of such ungentlemanlike 
 conduct to women as to expose him to the most unpleasant 
 consequences. 
 
 4. That an uncalled-for allusion had been made to the 
 Countess of Euston, who had therefore every right to be 
 offended. 
 
 5. That Lord Euston had been advised to use a horse- 
 whip over Mr. Berkeley's shoulders. 
 
 6. That Mr. Berkeley's character as a gentleman had 
 been conclusively jeoparded by his work. 
 
 I cannot find any other matter, of much importance in 
 the declaration, and the above were the points on which 
 
IN THE BERKELEY AFFAIR. 361 
 
 Mr. Thesiger dwelt. As the first requires an answer at 
 some length, I shall take the others before I proceed to 
 discuss it. 
 
 The second and third points, after all, are but one in 
 essence. Of Mr. Grantley Berkeley I scarcely knew any- 
 thing ; at this moment I do not know him by sight, and 
 should not be able to recognise him if accident were to 
 throw us together. I had heard something of his appearance 
 in Parliament ; but his efforts at legislation are never alluded 
 to but as matters of jest. Those who take the trouble of 
 reading the review of his novel will see that I, on general 
 grounds, entertain an unfavourable opinion of the class of 
 men to which he belongs. Some affairs, in which members 
 of his house — I repeat it that of himself I knew nothing — 
 figured before the public, did not tend to impress me with 
 the opinion that works emanating from Berkeley Castle 
 would be remarkable for rigidity of morals. With these 
 feelings I read the work ; and finding its hero not only 
 abandoning, at the bidding of his superior, the lady on 
 whom he had fixed his affections, but actually making him- 
 self the go-between of their secret loves, the bearer of notes, 
 the framer of assignations, and the ready messenger to pro- 
 cure stolen interviews — finding him professing the tenderest 
 love for his wife (professing it not merely to herself, whom 
 he wished to deceive, but to his readers, to whom, of course, 
 he was pouring forth his secrets) while he was carrying on 
 a heartless intrigue with a married woman, whose remorse 
 drives her to death, her lover rejoicing in getting rid of the 
 inconvenience of her devoted affection — finding that the 
 novel was filled with low intrigues, and its tone throughout 
 indicative of a degrading appreciation of the female charac- 
 ter, it was not much to be wondered at if I conceived a 
 disgust for such a personage, and a contempt for the writer 
 who made him his hero. I have already said that if I had 
 written less hastily, or had the opportunity of revising what 
 I wrote, I should have used terms less liable to the angry 
 comments of Mr. Berkeley's counsel. Their purport would, 
 
362 DEFENCE OF "ERASER'S MAGAZINE" 
 
 however, have been essentially the same. As for the 
 comment upon the assertion that the writer had, through 
 his devotion to female charms, been occasionally so led 
 away by his feelings as to place himself in situations of an 
 unpleasant kind, I do not retract a word of it. His meaning 
 is plain ; and I hope I shall have the men and women of 
 England in this case with me that if any man attempts, as 
 the passage clearly intimates, to take advantage of the un- 
 protected condition of a lady to offer her insult, he deserves 
 to be rung out, or kicked out, according as to what she 
 thinks the more judicious course for her to adopt. Mr. 
 Thesiger most justly described such a man as the meanest 
 of all cowards. I never charged, nor do I now charge, Mr. 
 Grantley Berkeley with having done anything of the kind ; 
 but, speaking hypothetically, I maintained that if he ever 
 acted according to the practice described in his novel as 
 being familiar to his hero, he amply deserved to be treated 
 in the manner I suggested. 
 
 As for offering insult to the Countess of Euston, I do 
 not think that any one who reads the passage without 
 prejudice, or a predetermined desire to find fault, could 
 discover anything of the kind. I most solemnly declare the 
 thought never entered my mind. Everything I have heard 
 of Lady Euston — and since this affair I have heard much — 
 is of the most pure and honourable character. I mean no 
 more than what I said. I thought, after the very intelligible 
 declaration that the writer was of so warm a disposition that 
 he could not resist the influence of female charms when 
 placed within their sphere, it was impertinent to allude to 
 the happy hours he had passed in the company of the 
 Countess ; and I think so still. I am misinformed if her 
 ladyship did not feel the dedication as an intrusive affront 
 Whether she did or not, I assert that I had no notion of 
 speaking of her in any other terms than those of respect. 
 That I am not now saying this for the first time will be 
 proved by the following correspondence. I should premise 
 that the assault was committed on Mr. Eraser on Wednesday, 
 
IN THE BERKELEY AFFAIR. 363 
 
 August 3d, and that I met Mr. Grantley Berkeley on Friday 
 the 5th. 
 
 LORD EUSTON AND MR. GRANVILLE BERKELEY TO 
 
 DR. MAGINN. 
 
 '' Travellers' Club^ Pall Mall^ A^cgust 7, 1836. 
 ^' Lord Euston and Mr. Granville Berkeley would be glad to 
 know whether Dr. Maginn has any objection to state, in the 
 most explicit manner possible, that it was not his intention to 
 throw out the smallest insinuation against Lady Euston when 
 he coupled her name with the two quotations from Mr. Grantley 
 Berkeley's novel of Berkeley Castle J^ 
 
 When this letter was delivered to me, I immediately 
 wrote this reply : — 
 
 DR, MAGINN TO THE EARL OF EUSTON. 
 
 "52 Beau7nont Street^ Marylebo7ie^ Monday^ Atcgust 8. 
 
 "Dr. Maginn presents his compliments to Lord Euston. He 
 has learnt that his lordship has thought he has reason to 
 complain, on behalf of the Countess of Euston, with respect to 
 some observations in a review of a novel called Berkeley Castle^ 
 which review was published in Eraser's Magazine. It is now a 
 matter of some notoriety that Dr. Maginn is the author of the 
 article complained of; and he hastens to assure Lord Euston 
 that he never for a moment intended to offer the slightest 
 affront to the Countess of Euston ; and that, if it is conceived 
 he has done so, he begs to state, in any language that may be 
 desired, his deep regret that he should be suspected of such a 
 piece of uncalled-for and unjust impertinence. 
 
 '^ Dr. Maginn would have addressed this note to Lady Euston, 
 and in terms of stronger apology, but that he feared that her 
 ladyship might have looked upon it as an intrusion not 
 warrantable ; he therefore takes the course of sending his letter 
 to Lord Euston. 
 
 " Lord Euston^ &^c. &^c. &^cJ' 
 
 r 
 
 This note was delivered to Mr. Granville Berkeley, on 
 the condition that it w^as to be considered as an apology to 
 
364 DEFENCE OF ^^ ERASER'S MAGAZINE'' 
 
 the Countess of Euston for an imaginary offence, and that 
 no pubhc use was to be made of it. Mr. Granville Berkeley 
 promised, on his own part and that of Lord Euston, that it 
 should not go beyond the private circle of the family ; and 
 these gentlemen have, as I knew they would, honourably 
 kept their word. I hope there is no breach of etiquette in 
 publishing their brief and business-like note. I have done 
 so to introduce mine, which will, I trust, show that an 
 impertinent feeling towards the Countess of Euston never 
 entered my imagination. With respect to the recommenda- 
 tion of the use of a horsewhip, on which so much stress 
 was laid, it is scarcely worthy of a serious thought. If Lord 
 Euston had felt the affront, as I imagine he might have 
 felt it, he would have acted with great propriety in following 
 my recommendation. I am quite sure, however, that he 
 would not have been such a ruffian as to strike a man when 
 he was down. His lordship must forgive me for the siliy 
 joke applied to his personal appearance. It is no harm, 
 after all, to be called a thin piece of parliament. I should 
 be extremely sorry if the heir of the house of Grafton were 
 to emulate the accomplishments cultivated by persons of 
 brawnier frame. 
 
 With respect to the sixth charge against me, that I had 
 represented Mr. Grantley Berkeley as undeserving of the 
 character of a gentleman, I leave it to those who have ex- 
 amined his conduct in this and other transactions to say if 
 I were right or wrong in my inference. It is a matter which 
 much more nearly concerns the gentlemen of West Glouces- 
 tershire, if there happen to be any there, than it concerns 
 me. 
 
 The first charge against my article is the most material. 
 It is set down as a great crime that I dared to say that the 
 decision of the House of Lords was that Lord Segrave is 
 illegitimate. Let the quarrel, then, be with the House of 
 Lords. I am amused by some dunderheaded scribblers 
 who find no fault with my having alluded to the illegitimacy 
 of Lord Segrave, but complain that any notice should be 
 
IN THE BERKELEY AFFAIR. 365 
 
 taken of the peculiar liaison between his lordship's father 
 and mother. The House of Lords has voted him to be a 
 natural son — so be it; but, if you say that his mother was 
 unmarried when he was born, you are a slanderer ! 
 
 To rubbish such as this I disdain to reply. I repeat what 
 is said in the review : What brings the man so long known 
 to us as Colonel Berkeley into the House of Lords as Lord 
 Segrave? He once passed by the title of Lord Dursley, 
 and for a while assumed that of Earl of Berkeley. Where 
 are these titles now ? With infinite scorn I look upon the 
 pretext that respect for the fame of the Countess of Berkeley 
 prevents the assumption of the peerage undoubtedly pos- 
 sessed by the family. Of the gentleman who is by law Earl 
 of Berkeley I have not the honour of knowing anything, 
 and his motives may be respectable ; but the fact that Lord 
 Segrave sits in the Peers by any other title than that which 
 would have of right belonged to him if he had been born in 
 wedlock, is of itself a waiving of the claim. Nay, more. If 
 Mr. Grantley Berkeley were to survive his immediately pre- 
 ceding brother, Mr. Moreton Berkeley, can he say that he 
 himself would not assume the present qiiasi-6.oxm2.n\. honour ? 
 or, if he declined doing so, can he promise the same for- 
 bearance from his heir ? Indeed his prefixing, by permis- 
 sion, the addition of Hon. to his name, while his eldest 
 brother remained without a title, is conclusive, so far as the 
 delicacy of the case is concerned. 
 
 I confess, no matter to what degree of being unknown it 
 may consign me, that I thought the Countess of Berkeley 
 was dead. Many years had elapsed since I had heard any- 
 thing about her : the events which brought the lady's fame 
 into question occurred more than half a century ago ; the 
 investigation into the Berkeley peerage occurred in 181 1, 
 which is now distant from us by a quarter of a century.^ Is 
 it not absurd to think that a reference, in half a dozen lines, 
 to a matter judicially recorded, and annually noticed in 
 every Peerage, could excite personal wrath in the bosom of 
 a man who could not have been more than a dozen years 
 
366 DEFENCE OF "ERASER'S MAGAZINE" 
 
 old when the Lords were deciding that his mother was not 
 married at the time indicated by what they voted to be a 
 forged entry in a church book? I should as soon have 
 thought of being called to account by the Duke of St. Albans 
 for referring to the case of Nell Gwynn. If the members of 
 the Berkeley family are desirous of finding a mark for their 
 animosity, let me recommend them the Duke of Bucking- 
 ham, who (he was then marquess) swore that their father 
 committed forgery. They may believe me when I tell them 
 that what is contained in public documents cannot be sup- 
 pressed ; and that their endeavour to put down allusion to 
 it, by resenting its publication on men of humble degree, 
 while they cautiously abstain from taking notice of its solemn 
 assertion by personages of the highest rank, will be worse 
 than useless. 
 
 I had not for a long time looked over the Berkeley case, 
 and now that I have in some degree made myself master 
 of its leading features, I say, unreservedly, that I think the 
 Countess of Berkeley to have been an ill-used and a betrayed 
 woman. I think it impossible to have come to any other 
 decision than that at which the Lords arrived ; but that she 
 acted upon motives which, if they cannot be defended, may 
 be excused, is plain from all parts of the evidence. The 
 testimony of Mr. Chapeau is much more affecting than a 
 waggon-load of such romances as Berkeley Castle. Lest it 
 should be again imagined that I am writing with an intent 
 to hurt the feelings of the Countess of Berkeley, I pass by 
 all recapitulation of this unhappy case. But I pass them 
 not until I say that though stern morality cannot defend 
 lapses from virtue, yet hard must be the heart which cannot 
 find in the story deep and tender palliatives, and immacu- 
 late indeed should be the hand that would stoop for the 
 casting of the stone. The Countess of Berkeley will not 
 care a farthing for my sentiments on such a subject ; but 
 for my own sake I say that, if I had known the evidence in 
 the Berkeley case six months ago as well as I know it now, 
 no trace of reference to her history should have fallen from 
 
IN THE BERKELEY AFFAIR. 367 
 
 my pen.^ But her own son is in fault. Why drag before 
 us the history of the Berkeleys with a story so unfortunate 
 prominent before our eyes ? Why put people in mind of 
 ''my grandfather" when, in reality, of his paternal grand- 
 father nothing whatever is known, while the history of his 
 maternal grandfather is detailed with a searching minuteness 
 in a goodly foho ? 
 
 It would, perhaps, be only fair to say that Mr. Grantley 
 Berkeley is not the first of his family who has appeared in 
 print. My readers may be amused by a specimen of the 
 correspondence of his aunt, which appears in the above- 
 mentioned folio, p. 168. She was a convenient lady, who 
 lived in Charles Street, Berkeley Square ; and the letter is 
 addressed to a Mrs. Foote, with whom the present Countess 
 of Berkeley was at that time living as lady's-maid : 
 
 '' Madam, — Actuated by the generosity of your carictor I take 
 the Liberty of Scribeling to you Begging if it will not be Too 
 great a favour that my sister may come to Town the week after 
 Christmas as I am obliged to go in the Country the week follow- 
 ing and shod be happy to see her before I go I Beg Madam I 
 may not make it Hill convenant to you or give you the smallest 
 Truble would reather suffer any disopintment my selfe than be 
 thought impirtinant or regardless of your favour to my sister. 
 She poor thing has long been in want of a friend and She tells 
 me but for you Kindness to her she would have been more un- 
 fortunate exkuse me Madam for saying Heaven will reward 
 your generous condecention to My sister and Beleave me I am 
 with real humility your humble Sir^* " S TuRNOUR." 
 
 Such literature is worthy of the authorship of Berkeley 
 Castle. Mr. Grantley Berkeley's uncle, Mr, William Tudor 
 (which was his name by perjury), is worthy of being the 
 hero of that romance. In some ridiculous articles which I 
 have seen, it has been objected to me that I called Mr. 
 Grantley Berkeley's father an old dotard. I did no such 
 thing ; but Mr. Grantley Berkeley's uncle (see p. 444 of the 
 Evidence before the Lords) called him ^'a rogue of quality." 
 I leave it to fools of quality to disentangle the difference. 
 
368 DEFENCE OF "ERASER'S MAGAZINE" 
 
 I have now, I think, answered all the objections to the 
 review of Berkeley Castle. For that review Mr. Berkeley 
 took what I shall ever consider to be a savage and cowardly 
 revenge on Mr. Fraser; and for half killing his victim a 
 jury awarded a fine of ;^ioo ! I have never heard but one 
 opinion of that verdict. It appears to me to decide that a 
 rich man may wreak his vengeance in any dastardly way he 
 thinks fit on any person who has offended him at the ex- 
 pense of a mere trifle. Of the jury who gave the verdict I 
 wish to be silent, except to say that it has afforded me a 
 justification to some extent for having done what I cannot 
 conscientiously approve. The duel is a relic of barbarous 
 ages, when it was deemed necessary, in consequence of the 
 weakness of peaceful law, to guard the feeble against the strong 
 by provisions subjecting personal collisions of moment to cer- 
 tain rules. The unprotected were excused and the strong were 
 matched against the strong. Law at last obtained the mastery, 
 and the duel was banished to the fantastic court of honour ; 
 but there it lost not its original feature. No personal advan- 
 tage ought to be allowed : the touch of a horsewhip, the flap of 
 a glove, is a sufficient demonstration of hostile intentions. 
 In England, or rather in London, it is supposed that persons 
 occupied in shopkeeping avocations are not expected to 
 give or to receive challenges. It is, therefore, an act of 
 cowardice for a man calling himself a gentleman to assault 
 a tradesman. A countryman of mine was in the habit of 
 saying that for duelling purposes he considered every man 
 a gentleman who wore a clean shirt once a week. Without 
 going to that extreme, we may fairly say that, when we offer 
 insult or violence to any man, we place that man on our 
 level. Mr. Grantley Berkeley, not differing, I admit, from 
 the members of the society in which he moves, does not 
 admit this proposition. It appears to him (and I am sorry 
 to say, to the jury) that he may exercise his personal strength 
 in taking any truculent vengeance he chooses for a hundred 
 pounds. Here, then, I think I was called for. I have ad- 
 mitted, repeatedly, that I do not defend the duel; but, if it 
 
IN THE BERKELEY AFFAIR. 369 
 
 IS to be palliated at all, it must be in such cases as that in 
 which I have been engaged. Dr. Johnson has said that 
 private war is to be defended on the same principle as public 
 war. Some exception may be taken to the analogy of our 
 great moralist; but, in this case of mine, I came forward fo 
 protect from brute outrage a class of persons whom it pleases 
 a puppy code to insult. I do not pretend to the family 
 honours of the house of Berkeley; but I am a man whom 
 no one can insult without exposing himself to those con- 
 sequences w^hich are the last alternative of a gentleman if I 
 wish to insist upon it. I have no lady nearly connected to 
 me for whom I have either to blush or to bully : and no 
 class of persons with whom I am connected shall, I hope, 
 feel their interests compromised in my hands. Of the 
 details of the duel between Mr. Grantley Berkeley and 
 myself I shall say nothing, further than that I believe both 
 seconds acted in such a manner as they thought most ser- * 
 viceable to their principals ; and of my second (Mn Hugh 
 Fraser) I cannot speak in any other terms than those of the 
 highest approbation. I have heard it said that allowing 
 three shots to be exchanged was ill-judged ; but he per- 
 mitted it in order that the quarrel might be brought to an 
 end at once. He felt, and after circumstances justified him 
 in the feeling, that it was to be made a family affair upon 
 the part of the Berkeleys ; and he decided that no room 
 should be left for cavil upon their parts. 
 
 I have now done with this dispute, I suppose, for ever; 
 but I must call attention to a part of the speech of Mr. 
 Thesiger. He appealed, in mitigation of damages, to the 
 fact that the gentleman insulted in the article was a justice 
 of peace, an officer in the army, and a member of Parlia- 
 ment. Tory as I am, and habitually respecting rank and 
 station, I do not imagine that birth, dignity, or office 
 command of themselves respect. The holder of these 
 advantages should not abuse them to their dishonour. If 
 ruffian and cowardly violence is a qualification for a magis- 
 trate I recommend Lord John Russell by all means to 
 
 VOL. II. ^ ^ 
 
370 DEFENCE OF "ERASER'S MAGAZINE. 
 
 j> 
 
 retain Mr. Grantley Berkeley in the commission of the 
 peace. If striking an unarmed man, with all advantage of 
 strength and numbers, be fitting for an officer under his 
 Majesty's colours, Lord Fitzroy Somerset ought to deem 
 Mr. Grantley Berkeley an ornament to any mess table to 
 which he is attached ; and, if exhibitions of stupidity and 
 violence are qualifications for the Reformed Parliament, I 
 wish the intelligent and independent electors of West 
 Gloucestershire joy of their representative. 
 
 William Maginn. 
 
TLvoo Sonnets on a late Soaring BspeMtion 
 
 to tbe Xorbs. 
 
 BY SIR MORGAN ODOHERTY, BART. 
 
 I. 
 
 ON SPRING RICE, IN THE CHARACTER OF GANYMEDE. 
 
 When, as the poets sing, high-judging Jove 
 
 In plenitude of premiership decreed 
 
 To give, with grace, his favourite Ganymede 
 From earth — the lower House — a kindly shove, 
 In pitchfork fashion, to the House above. 
 
 He sent his own brave bird, with hastiest speed, 
 
 Upon that noble mission to proceed : 
 Down swooping from the sky the eagle drove. 
 And caught the youth, and upward towered again, 
 
 Into Jove's court of peers. As fine a flight 
 Has Rice, the soaring Superficial, ta'en 
 
 At Melbourne's bidding. Therefore doth the wight, 
 In order that his name should be e7z regie, 
 Choose Ganymede as type, and write himself Monteagle. 
 
 11. 
 
 ON SPRING RICE, IN THE CHARACTER OF DANIEL o'rOURKE. 
 
 But not alone to Ganymede in fame 
 
 Is our up-jr/nV/^ing statesman like. Another 
 Proud hero of romance, an Irish brother 
 
372 TWO SONNETS. 
 
 (See Crofty Croker), Dan O'Rourke by name, 
 Has in his flying match done much the same. 
 
 Dan, from a dirty bog where he was sticking, 
 
 Bothering and sweating, bunghng, blundering, kicking 
 — A mock to all, a thing of jeer and game — 
 Mounted an eagle, and so reached the moon : 
 
 So Spring, all floundering in the dismal mass 
 Of his Exchequer blundering, hailed the boon 
 
 Which his Mount-Eagle sent him in distress. 
 But better Rice than Rourke has done the trick, 
 Because John Bull, not he, has played the lunatic. 
 
 M. OD. 
 
Ube ^Funeral ot Hcbilles. 
 
 The ghosts by Leucas' rock had gone 
 
 Over the ocean streams ; 
 And they had passed on through the Gates of the Sun, 
 
 And the slumberous Land of Dreams. 
 
 And onward thence to the verdant mead, 
 
 Flowering with asphodel. 
 Their course was led where the tribes of dead 
 
 In shadowy semblance dwell. 
 
 3 
 
 Achilles and Patroclus there 
 
 They found with Nestor's son, 
 And Aias, with whom could in life compare 
 
 Of the host of the Danaans none, 
 For manly form, and gallant air, 
 
 Save the faultless Peleion. 
 
 4 
 Around Achilles pressed the throng 
 
 Of ghosts in the world below ; 
 Soon passed Atrides' shade along, 
 
 Majestic, yet in woe. 
 
 5 
 About the king came crowding all 
 
 Who, by a murderous stroke, 
 With him were slain in ^gisthus' hall ; 
 
 And first Achilles spoke : 
 
374 THE FUNERAL OF ACHILLES. 
 
 " 'Twas once, Atrides, our belief 
 
 That thunder-joying Jove 
 Ne'er honoured other hero-chief 
 
 With equal share of love. 
 
 7 
 " Thy rule a mighty host obeyed, 
 
 And valiant was the array, 
 When outside Troy was our leaguer laid 
 
 For many a woful day. 
 
 8 
 
 " Yet did the gloom of dismal doom 
 
 First on thy head alight ; 
 From the fate that at birth is marked to come 
 
 Scaped never living wight. 
 
 9 
 
 *' Would that in honour on the ground, 
 Where high thou hadst held command, ~ 
 
 Thy fallen body had been found, 
 Slain upon Trojan land : 
 
 lO 
 
 ^' Where all the men of Achaean blood 
 Their chieftain's tomb mis^ht raise — 
 
 A tomb, in after-times to have stood, 
 For thy son proud mark of praise : 
 
 But 'twas fate that, by piteous death subdued. 
 Thou shouldst end thy glorious days.'^ 
 
 II 
 
 " How blest," then said Atrides' shade, 
 
 '' Thy lot, who fell in war. 
 Godlike Achilles, lowly laid, 
 
 In Troy, from Argos far. 
 
THE FUNERAL OF ACHILLES. 375 
 
 12 
 
 '^ We round thy corse, as slain it lay, 
 
 The bravest and the best 
 Of either host, the livelong day 
 
 In slaughterous combat pressed. 
 
 13 
 
 " Mid clouds of dust, that o'er the dead 
 
 In whirlwind fierce arose. 
 On the battle-field, all vastly spread, 
 
 Did thy vast limbs repose ; 
 The skill forgot, which whilome sped 
 
 Thy steed amid the foes.^ 
 
 ^ Alas! I know well how wretched is my imitation of the original. All T 
 can say is that others do not appear to me to have succeeded much better. 
 The passige occurs also in the i6th Iliad; and it is curious to find that 
 Pope has translated it (or, perhaps, in the 0^jjj<?7 suffered it to be trans- 
 lated) valously. In the Iliad his version is : 
 
 But where the rising whirlwind clouds the plains. 
 Sunk in soft dust the mighty chief remains, 
 And, stretched in death, forgers the guiding reins. 
 
 In the 'Odyssey : 
 
 In clouds of smoke, raised by the noble fray, 
 
 Great and terrific even in death you lay, 
 
 And deluges of blood flowed round you every way. 
 
 I pre3r the latter, inaccurate as it is, for I cannot reconcile myself to 
 thinkig of Achilles, />t^7as ixeyakoxiTl, as being merely '' sunk in soft dust. " 
 ' * Grat and terrific even in death you lay " is far more like. I have looked 
 throigh the versions in other European languages, but can only say that 
 the Tiost amusing is the Dutch : 
 
 Men vondt u uitgestrekt, ver van u legerwagen, 
 Soo fier noch, dat met schrik de Troijers u ontsagen. 
 
 Ve.van u legerwagen— ''i^r from your baggage wagon," or if we should 
 evei ennoble it into "thy war chariot"— is a wrong translation ; but, even if 
 it /ere perfectly correct, what a different sound from the melancholy har- 
 m-ny of XeXacr/iez/os linT0<Jvv6.[j)v ! It is only fair, however, to say that the 
 D tch Odyssey is a very remarkable book, and deserves something far better 
 
376 THE FUNERAL OE ACHILLES. 
 
 ^^ All day we fought, and no one thought 
 
 Of holding of the hand ; 
 Till a storm to an end the contest brought, 
 
 Sent by high Jove's command. 
 
 15 
 
 ^' From the field of fight thy corse we bore, 
 
 And for the ships we made ; 
 We washed away the stains of gore, 
 And thy body fair anointed o'er, 
 
 On its last of couches laid. 
 
 16 
 
 '' Hot tears did the eyes of the Danaans rain. 
 
 And they cut their flowing hair ; 
 Uprose thy mother from the main, 
 With all the immortal sea-nymph train, 
 
 At the tidings of despair. 
 
 17 
 
 ^'Loud over the sea rose the voice of w^ail, 
 And the host was filled with dread ; 
 
 And homeward they would, with hasty sail, 
 In their hollow ships have fled, 
 
 18 
 
 " Had not a man, to whom was known 
 The wisdom of days of eld, 
 
 than a joking notice. At all events, we all may comfort ourselves b the 
 reflection that even Virgil could not come nearer to his original than 
 
 Ingentem, atque ingenti vulnere victus. — ^n. X. 842. 
 
 [A better version than any here given is to be found in a couplet quted 
 by Gilbert Wakefield from Ogilby's forgotten translation : 
 
 When in a dusty whirlwind thou didst lie, 
 Thy valour lost, forgot thy chivalry, 
 
 which has a "melancholy harmony'' of its own, akin to that of XeXaajmeos 
 iinroavvdwVy though it does not express fxeyas juLeydXcoarL] 
 
THE FUNERAL OF ACHILLES. 377 
 
 Who in council ever was wisest shown, 
 
 Nestor, their flight withheld ; 
 For he spoke to them thus in sagest tone, 
 
 And their panic fear dispelled : 
 
 19 
 
 '' ' Argives,' he said, ' your steps restrain ; 
 
 Achaeans, do not flee ; 
 His mother is rising from out the main. 
 With all the immortal sea-nymph train, 
 
 The corse of her son to see.' 
 
 20 
 
 ^•The flight was checked, and round thee came 
 
 The maids of the Sea-god old ; 
 Sad weeping as they wrapt thy frame 
 
 In vesture of heavenly fold. 
 
 21 
 
 '^ A mournful dirge the Muses nine 
 
 In strains alternate sung, 
 And from every eye the tearful brine 
 
 Through the Argive host was wrung ; 
 For none could withstand the lay divine 
 
 Of the Muse's dulcet tongue. 
 
 22 
 
 " By day and night for ten days' space — 
 
 For ten days' space and seven, 
 Wept we, the men of mortal race, 
 
 And the deathless gods of Heaven. 
 
 23 
 
 ''And when the eighteenth morning came, 
 
 To the pile thy corse was borne ; 
 And many fat sheep were slain at the flame. 
 
 And steers of twisted horn. 
 
378 THE FUNERAL OF ACHILLES. 
 
 24 
 
 " With ointment rich upon the pyre, 
 
 And honey covered o'er, 
 There didst thou burn in rich attire. 
 
 Such as immortals wore. 
 
 25 
 
 ^' And many a hero-chief renowned 
 Rushed forward, foot and horse, 
 
 The blazing death-pile to surround 
 Where burnt thine honoured corse. 
 
 26 
 
 " The tumult was loud of that martial crowd, 
 Till the flame had consumed thee quite ; 
 
 And then, when the dawn of morning glowed, 
 We gathered thy bones so white. 
 
 27 
 
 " In unmixed wine, and ointment fine. 
 When the fire had ceased to burn. 
 
 We laid those relics prized of thine 
 All in a golden urn. 
 
 28 
 
 ''This costly gift thy mother brought ; 
 
 And she said it was bestowed 
 By the god of Wine — a vessel wrought 
 
 By the Fire-working god. 
 
 29 
 
 '' And there are laid thy bones so white, 
 
 Mingled, illustrious chief, 
 With his, thy friend, whose fall in fight 
 
 Wrought thee such mickle grief. 
 
THE FUNERAL OF ACHILLES. 379 
 
 '' Those of Antilochus apart 
 
 Are stored — for, of all the host, 
 After Patroclus slain, thy heart 
 
 Him loved and honoured most. 
 
 31 
 
 *' And the Argive spearmen, gathering round, 
 
 Upraised a mighty heap 
 For thy tomb, a large and lofty mound, 
 
 Upon a jutting steep. 
 
 32 
 
 '' Landmark conspicuous there for aye. 
 
 By Helle's waters wide,'^ 
 For men who may sail on a future day. 
 
 As for those of the present tide. 
 
 33 
 
 " Thy mother then the gods besought. 
 And they gave what she chose to ask ; 
 
 And many a glorious prize she brought, 
 To be won by manly tasL 
 
 34 
 
 ^' I oft before, when heroes died, 
 
 Have joined beside their tomb 
 The 5^ouths of pride, who there to bide 
 
 The feats of strength have come. 
 
 * There has been some disputation about the meaning of irXdrvs in this 
 passage ; and even in ancient times there was a suspicion that it did not 
 mean wide, but saU. Clarke, the traveller, adopts this interpretation, but it 
 is needless ; and, besides, the word bore no such meaning in the days of 
 Homer. The Hellespont, considered as a river or a stream, is wide. I 
 may remark that Lord Byron, in spite of all his boasting, did 7iof perform 
 the feat of Leander. 
 
38o THE FUNERAL OF ACHILLES. 
 
 35 
 ^' But such store of prize ne'er met my eyes 
 
 As there that day was seen, 
 Which Thetis brought for thine obsequies, 
 
 The silver-footed queen. 
 
 36 
 
 " Dear wert thou to the gods ; and now, 
 
 Even in the world beneath, 
 Thy endless glory lies not low, 
 
 Achilles, with thy death. 
 
 37 
 ^'For ever and aye that precious name 
 
 Among mankind shall live ; 
 For ever and aye the meed of fame 
 
 From all the world receive/' 
 
3first Hppearance ot Ibelen. 
 
 From her perfumed chamber wending. 
 
 Did the high-born Helen go : 
 Artemis she seemed descending, 
 
 Lady of the golden bow ; 
 Then Adrasta, bent on duty, 
 
 Placed for her the regal chair j 
 Carpet for the feet of beauty 
 
 Spread Alcippe soft and fair. 
 
 Phylo came the basket holding, 
 
 Present of Alcandra's hand ; 
 Fashioned was its silverly moulding 
 
 In old Egypt's wealthy land ; 
 She, in famous Thebe living, 
 
 Was of Polybus the spouse : 
 He wath soul of generous giving 
 
 Shared the wealth that stored his house. 
 
 Ten gold talents from his coffer, 
 
 Lavers twain of silver wTOUght, 
 With two tripods as his offer. 
 
 Had he to Atrides brought ; 
 While his lady came bestowing 
 
 Gifts to Helen rich of price. 
 Gave a distaff, golden, glowing, 
 
 Gave this work of rare device. 
 
 4 
 
 Shaped was it in fashion rounded, 
 All of silver but the brim, 
 
382 FIRST APPEARANCE OF HELEN. 
 
 Where by skilful hand 'twas bounded 
 With a golden-guarded rim. 
 
 Now to Helen Phylo bore it, 
 Of its well-spun labour full. 
 
 And the distaff laid she o'er it, 
 Wrapt in violet-tinted wool. 
 
 5 
 
 Throned, then, and thus attended, 
 
 Helena the king addressed : 
 *' Menelaus, Jove-descended, 
 
 Know'st thou who is here thy guest ? 
 Shall I tell thee, as I ponder. 
 
 What I think, or false or true ; 
 Gazing now with eyes of wonder 
 
 On the stranger whom I view ? 
 
 " Shape of male or female creature, 
 
 Like to bold Odysseus' son ; 
 Young Telemachus in feature, 
 
 As this youth I seen have none. 
 From the boy his sire departed. 
 
 And to Ilion's coast he came, 
 When to valiant war ye started 
 
 All for me — a thing of shame." 
 
 7 
 
 And Atrides spake, replying : 
 
 ^'Lady, so I think as thou, 
 Such the glance from eyeball flying. 
 
 Such his hands, his feet, his brow ; 
 Such the locks his forehead gracing ; 
 
 And I marked how, as I told 
 Of Odysseus' deeds retracing, 
 
 Down his cheek the tear-drop rolled, 
 
FIRST APPEARANCE OF HELEN. 383 
 
 8 
 
 '^ While he wiped the current straying 
 
 With his robe of purple hue/' 
 Nestor's son then answered, saying : 
 
 ^' What thou speakest, king, is true. 
 He who at thy board is sitting 
 
 Is of wise Odysseus sprung ; 
 Modest thoughts, his age befitting, 
 
 Hitherto have stilled his tongue. 
 
 9 
 
 ''To address thee could he venture, 
 
 While thy winning accents flowed, 
 In our ravished ears to enter, 
 
 As if uttered by a god ! 
 At Gerenian Nestor's sending 
 
 Comes beneath my guidance he, 
 In the hope thy well intending 
 To his guest of help may be. 
 
 10 
 
 *' Many a son feels sorrow try him 
 
 While his sire is far away, 
 And no faithful comrade by him, 
 
 In his danger prop or stay. 
 So, my friend, now vainly sighing 
 
 O'er his father absent long, 
 Finds no hand, on which relying 
 
 He may meet attempted wrong." 
 
 II 
 
 [Kindly Menelaus spake him. 
 
 Praised his sire in grateful strain. 
 Told his whilome hope to take him 
 
 As a partner in his reign ; 
 All were softened at his telhng 
 
 Of the days now past and gone ; 
 
3S4 FIRST APPEARANCE OF HELEN. 
 
 Wept Telemachus, wept Helen, 
 Fell the tears from Nestor's son. 
 
 12 
 
 Gushing came they for his brother. 
 
 Slain by Dawn-born Memnon's sword ; 
 But his grief he strove to smother, 
 
 As unfit for festal board. 
 Ceased the tears for woe and slaughter, 
 
 And again began the feast ; 
 Round Asphalion bore the water, 
 
 Tendered to each noble guest] 
 
 13 
 
 Then to banish gloomy thinking, 
 
 Helen on gay fancy bent. 
 In the wine her friends were drinking, 
 
 Flung a famed medicament : 
 Grief-dispelling, wrath-restraining. 
 
 Sweet oblivion of all woe ; 
 He the bowl thus tempered draining 
 
 Ne'er might feel a tear to flow. 
 
 14 
 
 No, not e'en if she who bore him 
 
 And his sire in death were laid ; 
 Were his brother slain before him, 
 
 Or his son with gory blade. 
 In such drugs was Helen knowing ; 
 
 Egypt had supplied her skill, 
 Where these potent herbs are growing, 
 
 Some for good, and some for ill. 
 
 PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON. 
 
^?Mjr<