5'/; i.v:'.:^^;j:«:< ' < w^?:i ^W:^mc>\')<\ w< «-.%:*• ." v./^;^**'' >% «X<>.C«/. WV.' lil: ^<.«; :<■< < :<^ ^O'A^i'/V ^^^ iy,.: loyvv. "><<• !><•<'*<' <<<><,'<. <-!;' ;i;'6v >'<'<<>< :\c^Avy.w: X>AWiVi m^^^K' WA''AQAw W:\\UU'.C'W/ ('AA f^i 'm-M^ /A'VAuy/' AV' "tf ^A •;y^i;- •:'^:' WVAy ^'mw AAvAAAW /i^'i iS:)J;'i:;;^::is *;v;:;iv!<: .:<<:< ;.1.S «NS*i's^ f,< • .' <:Ai^A<*'A( .<, <'»■ aass_ER4l£l Book. • h '^ ':- GopiglttS?. COPYRIGHr DEPOSm K. Charles Lamb After the painting by William Hazlitt f^m^'n €n^li^\) Clas^sftcs; THE ESSAYS OF ELIA BY CHARLES LAMB SELECTED AND EDITED BY H. E. COBLENTZ SOUTH DIVISION HIGH SCHOOL, MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN BOSTON, U.S.A. D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHEES 1909 LIBRAHYof CONGRtS,^ Tv/o Cooies Received MAR 5 1^09 CopiTiiiiU fcntry CLASS 4L. ^^c, fio, Copyright, 1909, By D. C. Heath & Co. EDITOR'S PREFACE Portia's comment on Falconbridge, " How oddly he is suited ! I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behavior every- where," might be deftly shifted by a critic to suit this prepa- ration of Lamb's Essays of Elia. The editor has, indeed, and herewith frankly acknowledges the fact, laid heavy hands on much material gathered by others far more able than he. No one can edit Lamb's Essays without following the master editors, — Lucas, Ainger, MacDonald, — and the present editor has gladly followed in the tracks of these giants, though, to quote Lowell, "with legs painfully short." But he trusts that while " His office than the reaper's may be meaner, But still some praise is due unto the gleaner." For he has garnered the material with only one point in mind — to make a student's edition, suitable and pleasing to those who may thus be led to a keener and sweeter appreciation of what constitutes real humor. If he has succeeded in doing this, he feels that the motley in the editor's work will not be much in evidence. H. E. C. lU CONTENTS PAGE Biographical Outline of the Life of Charles Lamb . vii A Selected List op Books relating to Lamb . . xii Lamb's Personal Traits xiii THE ESSAYS OF ELIA (Selected) First Series The South-Sea House 1 Oxford in the Vacation . 9 Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago .... 17 The Two Races of Men 31 New Year's Eve . . . 37 Mrs. Battle's Opinions on "Whist 44 A Chapter on Ears . . .51 A Quakers' Meeting . . *" 67 Imperfect Sympathies 63 Witches and Other Night Fears . . . . . . 71 Valentine's Day . . . 78 My Relations 82 Mackery End, in Hertfordshire 89 The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple 94 Grace before Meat 106 Dream-Children : A Reverie 114 Distant Correspondents ' . 118 The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers 124 A Dissertation upon Roast Pig 132 The Last Essays of Elia Preface to the Last Essays . . . . . . .141 Blakesmoor in H shire ....... 144 V VI CONTENTS Poor Relations Stage Illusion Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading The Old Margate Hoy . Sanity of True Genius Captain Jackson .... The Superannuated Man Barbara S .... Rejoicings upon the New Year's Coming of Age Old China . . . . . Popular Fallacies. iii. That a Man must not Laugh at his own Jest V. That the Poor copy the Vices of the Rich vi. That Enough is as good as a Feast ix. That the Worst Puns are the Best xi. That we must not look a Gift Horse in the Mouth xii. That Home is Home though it is never so Homely xiv. That we should rise with the Lark XV. That we should lie down with the Lamb Critical and Explanatory Notes Explanatory Index . . . . . Suggestions and Questions for Study Questions and Topics por Review PAGB 150 157 161 167 176 179 184 192 197 203 209 210 212 212 215 217 222 224 227 255 308 318 BIOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE OF THE LIFE OF CHARLES LAMB 1775. Charles Lamb was born in London, in Crown Office Row, Feb. 10. in the Temple. Of the seven children in the Lamb family, three survived their early childhood — Charles, and Mary, ten years older than he, and John, twelve years older. 1781. Charles and Mary Lamb attended William Bird's school in. Fetter Lane. " I am sure that neither my sister nor myself brought any [language] out of it but a little of our native English." 1782. He obtained a presentation to a scholarship at Christ's Hos- pital, where he remained for seven years. Here he met Coleridge, who was to be his lifelong friend. Lamb was a fair student, acquiring a good knowledge of Latin and attain- ing the rank of deputy-Grecian — the second highest rank in the school. 1789. He secured a clerkship in the South-Sea House, where his brother John was already employed. 1796. He published four sonnets in a volume of Poems by S. T. Coleridge. "The effusions signed C. L.," says Coleridge in the preface to the book, " were written by Mr. Charles Lamb of the India House. Independently of the signature, their superior merit would have sufficiently distinguished them." Of these sonnets one was on Mrs. Siddons, one was " written at midnight by the sea-side after a voyage," and two were on the writer's love for Ann Simmons, the mysterious Alice W n, of the Essays. According to Lamb himself this love affair was the cause of his mind failing about this time. To use his own characteristic words in a letter to Coleridge, " The six weeks that finished last year and began this, your humble servant spent agreeably in a madhouse at Hoxton." Happily, Lamb never again suffered an attack of insanity. Mary Lamb, however, was never free from occasional attacks of the family curse. In September of this year, Mary, while vii Vlll INTRODUCTION in a violent frenzy brought on by the family cares and by too close application to needle-work, killed her mother. Lamb's letter to Coleridge, written September 27th, telling about the affair, is one of the most pathetic and forlorn letters ever written. Lamb bound himself to a perpetual guardianship of his sister, and on this condition she was released. She suffered many similar attacks of insanity during her long life, but never again committed any disastrous deed. 1797. Charles and Mary Lamb began their life of " dual loneliness." A second edition of Poems by S. T. Coleridge, to which are now added Poems by Charles Lamb and Charles Lloyd was published. Lamb's contribution to the volume was fifteen sonnets and occasional verses, best characterized by the term " plaintive." He visited Coleridge at Nether Stowey, where he met Wordsworth. 1798. He published a pathetic story entitled A Tale of Rosamund Gray, a " miniature romance." His best-known poem, " The Old Familiar Faces," was published in this year. 1799. Lamb met Thomas Manning, a Cambridge mathematician and orientalist, who was a man of fine intellect and subtle humor, — such a man as befitted Lamb for companionship and correspondence. Lamb described him as the most "wonderful man" he had ever met. 1800. Early in this year Lamb and his sister removed from their Queen Street lodgings to Chapel Street, Pentonville. In the spring Mary fell ill again. Lamb wrote, " Mary got better again, but her constantly being liable to these attacks is dreadful ; nor is it the least of our evils that her case and all our story is so well known around us. We are in a manner marked." About this time Lamb began to write paragraphs and trifles for the newspapers. 1801. Lamb removed to No. 16 Mitre Court Buildings, the Temple. 1802. He published a five-act drama in blank verse entitled John Woodvil. This play had been submitted, previous to its pub- lication, to John Kemble, then manager of Drury Lane Theatre, who declined to produce it on the stage. Although the play has some masterly lines in it, it is, nevertheless, crude in structure and in characterization. With his sister, Lamb spent a holiday at Keswick, Coleridge's home. 1803. Lamb wrote one of his most beautiful poems, "Hester," in memory of Hester Savory, a Quaker girl whom he had often BIOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE IX met in his walks about Pentonville. Though he had never spoken to her, he had great admiration for her evident sweet- ness and goodness, so much admiration, indeed, that one may almost believe that Lamb was in love with her. 1804. Lamb met William Hazlitt, who painted Lamb's portrait, beiug at that time as much of a painter as a critic. The two men were different in temperament and in their intellectual bias, but were, none the less, good friends. De Quincey and Lamb met at the India House office late in this year, or pos- sibly early in the following year. 1805. He made his first literary venture for children — a little book of rhymes and pictures entitled The King and Queen of Hearts. 1806. Mr. H., a farce by Lamb, was produced by the proprietors of Drury Lane. It was a failure. " The curtain fell amid a storm of hisses, in which Lamb is said to have taken a con- spicuous share " (Ainger) . The Tales from Shakespeare was begun. Mary wrote at this time, " You should like to see us, as we often sit writing at one table (but not on one cushion sitting), like Hermia and Helena, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, ; or rather like an old Darby and Joan, I taking snuff, and he groaning all the while, and saying he can make noth- ing of it, which he always says till he has finished, and then he finds out he has made something of it." 1807. Tales from Shakespeare "by Charles Lamb " was published. For some reason, now unknown, Mary Lamb's name was omitted on the title-page, although she had paraphrased the comedies. Lamb always maintained that her work was the better. Lamb next set to work on The Adventures of Ulysses, based on Chapman's translation of the Odyssey. " Chapman is divine, and my abridgment has not quite emptied him of his divinity." 1808. The Adventures of Ulysses was published. A far more im- portant work. Specimens of English Dramatic Poets who Lived about the Time of Shakespeare, was also published. This book laid the foundation of Lamb's reputation as a critic, as a student of the drama, and as a great prose writer. Mrs. Leicester's School (dated 1809), by both Charles and Mary, was published. Of the ten stories in the book, Lamb wrote three. 1809. The Lambs removed to No. 34 Southampton Buildings, Chan- cery Lane, thence to No. 4 Inner Temple Lane. Poetry for Children, the joint work of Charles and Mary, was published. X INTEODUCTIOX 1810. Lamb visited Hazlitt at Winterslow. Leigh Hunt projected a new quai'terly magazine, the Reflector, "to be written mainly by old Christ's Hospitallers, of whom Lamb was not least important." Two of Lamb's best critical essays, those upon Hogarth and Shakespeare's tragedies, were published in the Reflector — which lived through only four numbers. The essays named were not published until 1811. 1811-1816. Eventless years. The literary unproductiveness of this period was probably due to Lamb's close confinement and overwork at the India House. In 1815, Lamb's salary rose suddenly from " about £240 to £480, whence it was to mount steadily to £700 in 1821, and to £730 in his last year of office " (Lucas). It was probably in 3815 that Charles and Mary Lamb again visited Mackery End, in Hertfordshire. 1816 was a happy year for the Lambs — though it, too, was a lean year for literature and even for letters. 1817. Lamb removed to No. 20 Russell Street, Covent Garden. This move brought him near to the theatres — Covent Garden Theatre at the back and Drury Lane diagonally just across the way. Thus Lamb added many theatrical personages to his list of friends and acquaintances, notably Miss Kelly, Mundun, and Macready. On December 28th Lamb attended a party at Haydon's in Lisson Grove, a party which has become immortal for two reasons : first because Wordsworth, Lamb, Keats, and Landseer were there, and secondly because it was there that the unfortunate Comptroller of Stamps, a Mr. Kingston, was made the victim of one of Lamb's immortal jokes. The story is told in nearly all biographies of Lamb. (Cf. Ainger's Life, p. 85 ff.) 1818. Lamb's complete works were published in two volumes. 1819. He proposed marriage to Fanny Kelly, but was rejected. 1820. Lamb was presented by Hazlitt to the editor of the newly established London Magazine. Lamb wrote his first essay, " The South-Sea House," for the August number of the Lon- don. From this time we may date the high tide of Charles Lamb's genius. 1821. John Lamb, Charles's brother, died. His death inspired Lamb to write his beautiful essay, " Dream-Children." 1822. The Lambs visited France, where Mary had another brief attack of her malady. Lamb left but little record of this visit, and never referred to it in his Essays. BIOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE XI 1823. The Essays of Elia, Lamb's best-known book, was published. Lamb left London for Colebrook Row, Islington. 1 824. Lamb was in indifferent health and published nothing between December, 1823, and September, 1824. Elia was resumed iu September with " Blakesmoor in H shire." 1825. On March 29th Lamb retired from the service of the East India House with a pension of £450. (See notes on " The Superannuated Man.") 1826. He began his " Popular Fallacies " in the January issue of the New Monthly Magazine. The London Magazine came to an, end. 1827. He wrote the exquisite lines " On an Infant Dying as soon as Born " — in memory of the lost child of Tom Hood. In Sep- tember the Lambs moved to Chase Side, Enfield. (See note on "Old China.") 1828. An American edition of Lamb's Essays was published. 1829. Owing to Mary's frequent relapses, Lamb took lodgings with the Westwoods, at their cottage, " forty-two inches nearer London." 1830. Lamb's Album Verses was published by Maxon, who was later the husband of the adopted daughter of Charles and Mary Lamb, Emma Isola. 1833. Lamb removed to Bay Cottage, Edmonton. He also pub- lished The Last Essays of Ella. 1834. In July Coleridge died, and the loss of his lifelong friend was Lamb's death-blow. On December 27th, " murmuring in his last moments the names of his dearest friends, he passed tranquilly out of life." "On the following Saturday his remains were laid in a deep grave in Edmonton churchyard, made in a spot which, about a fortnight before, he had pointed out to his sister on an afternoon's wintry walk, as the place where he wished to be buried." 1847. Mary Lamb died, aged 82, on May 20th. A SELECTED LIST OF BOOKS RELATING TO LAMB I. Editions Lucas, E. V., Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, 7 vols. MacDonald, William, The Works of Charles Lamb, 12 vols. AiNGER, Alfred, The Works of Charles Lamb, 6 vols. II. Biography Lucas, E. V., The Life of Charles Lamb, 2 vols. AiNGER, Alfred, Charles Lamb, in the "English Men of Let- ters" series. De Quince y, Thomas, Biographical Essays. Talfourd, Thomas Noon, Memoirs of Charles Lamb, edited and annotated by Percy Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald, Percy, Charles Lamb, His Friends, His Haunts, and His Books. Procter, B. W. ("Barry Cornwall"), Charles Lamb: A Memoir, Martin, E. B., In tlie Footprints of Charles Lamb. III. Criticism and Appreciations Pater, Walter, Appreciations. Patmore, p. G., My Friends and Acquaintances. Robinson, Henry Crabb, Diary. Hunt, Leigh, Autobiography . Hazlitt, William, Spirit of the Age, Essay, "On Persons One Would Wish to Have Seen." Swinburne, A. C, Miscellanies, essay on "Charles Lamb and George Wither." Birrell, Augustine, Obiter Dicta. Gilchrist, Mrs., Mary Lamb. Stoddard, R. H., Personal Recollections. HuTTON, Laurence, Literary Landmarks of London. Southey, C. C, Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey. xii LAMB'S PERSONAL TRAITS In His Schooldays "Lamb was an amiable, gentle boy, very sensible and keenly observing, indulged by his school-fellows and by his master on account of his infirmity of speech. His counte- nance was mild, his complexion clear brown, with an ex- pression which might lead you to think that he was of Jewish descent. His eyes were not each of the same color, one was hazel, the other had specks of gray in the iris, mingled as we see red spots in the blood-stone. His step was plantigrade, which made his walk slow and pecuHar, adding to the staid appearance of his figure. I never heard his name mentioned without the addition of Charles, although, as there was no other boy of the name of Lamb, the addition was unneces- sary; but there was an implied kindness in it, and it was a proof that his gentle manners excited that kindness. His delicate frame and his difficulty of utterance, which was increased by agitation, unfitted him for joining in any bois- terous.sport.'' — Charles V. Le Grige. His Personal Appearance and Some Characteristics "I do not know whether Lamb had any oriental blood in his veins, but certainly the most marked complexional char- acteristic of his head was a Jewish look, which pervaded every portion of it, even to the sallow and uniform complexion, and the black and crispy hair standing off loosely from the head, as if every single hair was independent of the rest. The nose, too, was large and slightly hooked, and the chin rounded and elevated to correspond. There was altogether a Rabbinical look about Lamb's head, which was at once striking and impressive. xiii Xiv INTRODUCTION "Thus much of form chiefly. In point of intellectual character and expression, a finer face was never seen, nor one more fully, however vaguely, corresponding with the mind whose features it interpreted. There was the gravity usually engendered by a life passed in book-learning, without the slightest tinge of that assumption and affectation which almost always attend the gravity so engendered; the inten- sity and elevation of general expression that mark high genius, without any of its pretension and its odditj^: the sadness waiting on fruitless thoughts and baffled aspirations, but no evidences of that spirit of scorning and contempt which these are apt to engender. Above all, there was a pervading sweetness and gentleness which went straight to the heart of every one who looked on it; and not less so perhaps that it bore about it an air, a something, seeming to tell that it was not put on — for nothing would be more unjust than to tax Lamb with assuming anything, even a virtue, which he did not possess — but preserved and per- severed in spite of opposing and contradictory feelings within, that struggled in vain for mastery."" — Peter G. Patmore in My Friends aiid Acquaintances. " Charles Lamb had a head worthy of Aristotle, with as fine a heart as ever beat in human bosom, and limbs very fragile to sustain it, . . . There never was a true portrait of Lamb. His features were strongly yet delicately cut ; he had a fine eye as well as forehead; and no face carried in it greater marks of thought and feeling. ... As his frame, so was his genius. It was as fit for thought as could be, and equally as unfit for action; and this rendered him melancholy, ap- prehensive, humorous, and willing to make the best of every- thing as it was, both from tenderness of heart, and abhorrence of alteration. His understanding was too great to admit an absurdity; his frame was not strong enough to deliver it from a fear. His sensibility to strong contrasts was the foundation of his humor, which was that of a wit at once melancholy and willing to be pleased. He would beard a superstition, and shudder at the old phantasm while he did LAMB S PERSONAL TRAITS XV it. One could have imagined him cracking a jest in the teeth of a ghost, and then melting into thin air himself, out of sympathy with the awful." — Leigh Hunt in Autobiography. His Conversation "There was L himseK, the most delightful, the most provoking, the most witty and sensible of men. He always made the best pun, and the best remark in the course of the evening. His serious conversation, like his serious writing, is his best. No one ever stammered out such fine, piquant, deep, eloquent things in half a dozen hah-sentences as he does. His jests scald like tears: and he probes a question with a play upon words. . . . There was no fuss or cant about him ; nor were his sweets or his sours ever diluted with one particle of affectation. — William Hazlitt in Conversation of Authors. His Stammering "In miscellaneous gatherings Lamb said little unless an opening arose for a pun. And how effectual that sort of small shot was from him, I need not say to anybody who remembers his infirmity of stammering, and his dexterous management of it for purposes of light and shade. He was often able to train the roll of stammers into settling upon the words immediately preceding the effective one, by which means the keynote of the jest or sarcasm, benefitting b}^ the sudden liberation of his embargoed voice, was delivered with the force of a pistol-shot. That stammer was worth an annul tj^ to him as an ally of his wit. Firing under coA'er of that advantage he did triple execution; for, in the first pJace, the distressing s}Tnpathy of the hearers with his distress of utterance won for him unavoidably the silence of deep atten- tion ; and then, whilst he had us all hoaxed into attitude of mute suspense by an appearance of distress that he perhaps did not really feel, down came a plunging shot into the very thick of us, T\4th ten times the effect it would else have had." — Thomas De Quincey in Biographical Essays. XVI INTRODUCTION His Eumor "Charles was frequently merry; but ever at the back of his merriment there reposed a grave depth, in which rich colors and tender lights were inlaid. For his jests sprang from his sensibility; which was as open to pleasure as to pain. This sensibility, if it somewhat impaired his vigor, led him into curious and delicate fancies, and taught him a liking for things of the highest relish, which a mere robust jester never tastes.'' — Bryan W. Procter in Charles Lamb : a Memoir. His Whimsicality "His style of playful bluntness when speaking to his inti- mates was strangely pleasant — nay, welcome : it gave you the impression of his liking you well enough to be rough and unceremonious with you : it showed you that he felt at home with you. It accorded with what you knew to be at the root of an ironical assertion he made — that he always gave away gifts, parted with presents, and sold keepsakes. It underlay in sentiment the drollery and reversed truth of his saying to us, ' I always call my sister Maria when we are alone together, Mary when we are with our friends, and Moll before the servants.'" — Mary Cowden Clarke in Recollections of Writers. His Hatred of Affectation "The very basis of Lamb's character was laid in horror of affectation. If he found himself by accident using a rather fine word, notwithstanding that it might be the most forcible in that place (the word arrest, suppose, in certain situations for the word catch), he would, if it were allowed to stand, make merry with his own grandiloquence at the moment; and, in after-moments, he would continually ridicule that class of words, by others carried to an extreme of pedantry." — Thomas De Quincey in Literary Reminiscences. lamb's peesonal traits xvii "Lamb never affected any spurious gravity. Neither did he ever act the Grand Senior. He did not exact that com- mon copy-book respect, which some asinine persons would fain command on account of the mere length of their years. . . . There was nothing of Sir Oracle about Lamb. On the contrary, at sight of a solemn visage that ' creamed and mantled like the standing pool/ he was the first to pitch a mischievous stone to disturb the duck-weed. 'He was a boy-man/ as he truly said of Elia; 'and his manners lagged behind his years.' He liked to herd with people younger than himself. Perhaps, in his fine generalizing way, he thought that, in relation to eternity, we are all contempora- ries. However, without reckoning birthdays, it was always ' Hail fellow, well met ; ' and although he was my elder by a quarter of a century, he never made me feel, in our excur- sions, that I was 'taking a walk with the schoolmaster.' '' — Thomas Hood in Literary Reminiscences. "He was the most humble and unpretending of human beings, the most thoroughly sincere, the most impatient of simulation or dissimulation, and the one who threw himself the most unreservedly for your good opinion upon the plain natural expression of his real qualities, as nature had formed them, without artifice, or design, or disguise more than you find in the most childlike of children.'' — Thomas De Quincey in Literary Reminiscences. His Love for Old Authors "No one, as I believe, will ever taste the flavor of certain writers as he has done. He was the last true lover of An- tiquity. Although he admitted a few of the beauties of modern times, yet in his stronger love he soared backward to old acclivities, and loved to rest there. He had more real knowledge of old English literature than any man whom I ever knew. He was not an antiquarian. He neither hunted after commas, nor scribbled notes which confounded his text. The Spirit of the author descended upon him; and XVlll INTRODUCTION he felt it. With Burton and Fuller, Jeremy Taylor, and Sir Thomas Browne, he was intimate. The ancient poets, chiefly the dramatic poets, were his especial friends. He knew every point and turn of their wit, all the beauty of their characters; loving each for some one distinguishing par- ticular, and despising none.'' — Bryan W. Procter in Charles Lamb : a Memoir. "Mr. Lamb has the very soul of an antiquarian, as this implies a reflecting humanity; the film of the past hovers forever before him. He is shy, sensitive, the reverse of everything coarse, vulgar, obtrusive, and commonplace. His spirit clothes itself in the garb of elder time, homelier but more durable. ... "Mr. Lamb has a distaste to new faces, to new books, to new buildings, to new customs. . . . His affections revert to and settle on the past; but then even this must have something personal and local in it to interest him deeply and thoroughly. He pitches his tent in the suburbs of existing manners, and brings down his account of character to the few straggling remains of the last generation." — William Hazlitt in Spirit of the Age. "Mr. Lamb is the only imitator of old English style I can read with pleasure ; and he is so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of his authors, that the idea of imitation is almost done away. There is an inward unction, a marrowy vein both in the thought and feeling, an intuition, deep and lively, of his subject, that carries off any quaintness or awkwardness aris- ing from an antiquated style and dress. The matter is com- pletely his own, though the manner is assumed. Perhaps his ideas are altogether so marked and individual, as to require their point and pungency to be neutralized by the affectation of a singular but traditional form of conveyance. Tricked out in the prevailing costume, they would probably seem more startling and out of the way. The old English authors. Burton, Fuller, Coryate, Sir Thomas Browne, are a kind of mediators between us and the more eccentric and whimsical LAMB S PERSONAL TRAITS XIX modern, reconciling us to his peculiarities. I must confess that what I like best of his papers under the signature of Elia (still I do not presume, amidst such excellence, to decide what is most excellent) is the account of Mrs. Battle's ' Opin- ions on Whist,' which is also the most free from obsolete allusions and turns of expression, — '"A well of native English undefiled.' " — William Hazlitt in Table Talk. His Dislike for the Country "Very curious was the antipathy of Charles to objects that are generally so pleasant to other men. It was not a passing humor, but a lifelong dislike. He admired the trees, and the meadows, and murmuring streams in poetry. I have heard him repeat some of Keats 's beautiful lines in the *Ode to the Nightingale,' about the 'pastoral eglantine,' with great delight. But that was another thing: that was an. object in its proper place: that was a piece of art. Long ago he had admitted that the mountains of Cumberland were grand objects Ho look at, but' (as he said) Hhe houses in the street were the places to live in.' I imagine that he would no more have received the former as an equivalent for his own modest home, than he would have accepted a portrait as a substitute for a friend. He was, beyond all other men whom I have met, essentially metropolitan. He loved 'the sweet security of streets,' as he said; 'I would set up my tabernacle there.'" — Bryan W. Procter in Charles Lamb : a Memoir. "The country was to Lamb precisely what London is to thoroughly country people born and bred, who, however they may long to see it for the first time, and are lost in a week's empty admiration of its 'sights and wonders,' would literally die of homesickness if compelled to remain long in it. I remember, when wandering once with Lamb among the pleasant scenery about Enfield shortly after his retirement there, I was congratulating him on the change between these walks and his accustomed ones about Ishngton, Dalston, and XX INTRODUCTION the like. But I soon found that I was treading on tender ground, and he declared afterwards, with a vehemence of expression extremely unusual with him, and almost with tears in his eyes, that the most squalid garret in the most confined and noisome purlieu of London would be a paradise to him, compared with the fairest dwelling placed in the loveliest scenery of Hhe country/ 'I hate the country!' he exclaimed, in a tone and with an emphasis which showed not only that the feeling came from the bottom of his soul, but that it was working ungentle and sinister results there, that he was himself almost alarmed at. Away from London, Lamb's spirits seemed to shrink and retire inwards and his body to fade and wither like a plant in an uncongenial soil." — Peter G. Patmore in My Friends and Acquaintances. His Delight in Children "He delighted in children, and in teUing them strange, wild stories. A daughter of Sheridan Knowles used to tell how, as a very little girl, she had been taken out by Charles Lamb for a day's holiday to see all the shows, and how on meeting a Punch's show, they sat down together on a door- step and saw the entertainment through not only one, but a whole series, which for him as well as for his little compan- ion seemed to have an inexhaustible charm. Once too, I have heard on the same authority, he saw a group of hun- gry little faces wistfully looking into the window of a pastry cook's shop ; he went in and came out, and distributed cakes all around." — Percy Fitzgerald in Charles Lamb, his Friends, his Haunts, and his Books. His Heroism "The fact that distinguished Charles Lamb from other men was his entire devotion to one grand and tender pur- pose. There is, probably, a romance involved in every life. In his life it exceeded that of others. In gravity, in acute- ness, in his noble battle with a great calamity, it was beyond lamb's personal traits xxi the rest. Neither the pleasure nor the toil ever distracted him from his holy purpose. Everything was made sub- servient to it. He had an insane sister, who, in a moment of uncontrollable madness, had unconsciously destroyed her own mother ; and to protect and save this sister — a gentle woman, who had watched like a mother over his own infancy — the whole length of his life was devoted. What he en- dured, through the space of nearly forty years, from the incessant fear and frequent recurrence of his sister's insanity, can now only be conjectured. In this constant and uncom- plaining endurance, and in his steady adherence to a great principle of conduct, his life was heroic." — Bryan W. Procter in Charles Lamb : a Memoir. " Except to the few who were acquainted with the tragical occurrences of Lamb's early life, some of his peculiarities seemed strange, — to be forgiven, indeed, to the excellences of his nature and the dehcacy of his genius, but still, in themselves, as much to be wondered at as deplored. The sweetness of his character, breathed through his writings, was felt even by strangers; but its heroic aspect was un- guessed, even by many of his friends. Let them now con- sider it, and ask if the annals of self-sacrifice can show any- thing in human action and endurance more lovely than its self-devotion exhibits ! It was not merely that he saw, through the ensanguined cloud of misfortune which had fallen upon his family, the unstained excellence of his sister, whose madness had caused it ; that he was ready to take her to his own home with reverential affection, and cherish her through life; that he gave up for her sake all meaner and more selfish love, and all the hopes which youth blends with the passion which disturbs and ennobles it; not even that he did all this cheerfully, and without pluming himself upon his brotherly nobleness as a virtue, or seeking to repay him- self (as some uneasy martyrs do) by small instalments of long repining, — but that he carried the spirit of the hour in which he first knew and took his course, to his last." — Thomas N. Talfourd in Memoirs of Charles Lamb. 2 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA huge charts, which subsequent discoveries have antiquated; — dusty maps of Mexico, dim as dreams, and soundings of the Bay of Panama ! The long passages hung with buckets, appended, in idle row, to walls, whose substance might defy any, short of the last, conflagration: with vast ranges of cellarage under all, where dollars and pieces of eight once lay, an "unsunned heap," ^ for Mammon to have solaced his solitary heart withal — long since dissipated, or scat- tered into air at the blast of the breaking of that famous Bubble. Such is the South-Sea House. At least such it was forty years ago, when I knew it — a magnificent relic ! What alterations may have been made in it since, I have had no opportunities of verifying. Time, I take for granted, has not freshened it. No wind has resuscitated the face of the sleeping waters. A thicker crust by this time stag- nates upon it. The moths, that were then battening upon its obsolete ledgers and day-books, have rested from their depredations, but other light generations have succeeded, making fine fretwork among their single and double entries. Layers of dust have accumulated (a superfoetation of dirt !) upon the old layers, that seldom used to be disturbed, save by some curious finger, now and then, inquisitive to explore the mode of book-keeping in Queen Anne's reign; or, with less hallowed curiosity, seeking to unveil some of the mysteries of that tremendous hoax, whose extent the petty peculators of our day look back upon with the same expression of in- credulous admiration and hopeless ambition of rivalry, as would become the puny face of modern conspiracy con- templating the Titan size of Vaux's superhuman plot. Peace to the manes of the Bubble ! Silence and des- titution are upon thy walls, proud house, for a memorial ! Situated, as thou art, in the very heart of stirring and living commerce — amid the fret and fever of speculation — with the Bank, and the 'Change, and the India House ^ From Milton's Comus, 398. Lamb may also have had in mind the treasury of Mammon as described in the Faerie Queene, Book ii. canto 7, stanzas 3, 4, 5, and 20. THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE 6 about thee, in the heyday of present prosperity, with their important faces, as it were, insulting thee, their poor neigh- bor out of business — to the idle and merely contemplative — to such as me, old house ! there is a charm in thy quiet : — a cessation — a coolness from business — an indolence almost cloistral — which is delightful ! With what reverence have I paced thy great bare rooms and courts at eventide ! They spoke of the past : — the shade of some dead account- ant, with visionary pen in ear, would flit by me, stiff as in life. Living accounts and accountants puzzle me. I have no skill in figuring. But thy great dead tomes, which scarce three degenerate clerks of the present day could lift from their enshrining shelves — with their old fantastic flourishes and decorative rubric interlacings — their sums in triple columniations, set down with formal superfluity of ciphers — with pious sentences at the beginning, without which our religious ancestors never ventured to open a book of business, or biU of lading — the costly vellum covers of some of them almost persuading us that we are got into some better library — are very agreeable and edifying spectacles. I can look upon these defunct dragons with complacency. Thy heavy odd-shaped ivory-handled penknives (our an- cestors had everything on a larger scale than we have hearts for) are as good as anything from Herculaneum. The pounce-boxes of our days have gone retrograde. The very clerks which I remember in the South-Sea House — I speak of forty years back — had an air very different from those in the public offices that I have had to do with since. They partook of the genius of the place ! They were mostly (for the establishment did not admit of superfluous salaries) bachelors. Generally (for they had not much to do) persons of a curious and speculative turn of mind. Old-fashioned, for a reason mentioned before; humorists, for they were of all descriptions; and, not having been brought together in early life (which has a tendency to assimilate the members of corporate bodies to each other"), but, for the most part, placed in this house in ripe or middle age, they necessarily carried into it their 4 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA separate habits and oddities, unqualified, if I may so speak, as into a common stock. Hence they formed a sort of Noah's ark. Odd fishes. A lay-monastery. Domestic retainers in a great house, kept more for show than use. Yet pleasant fellows, full of chat — and not a few among them had arrived at considerable proficiency on the German flute. The cashier at that time was one Evans, a Cambro-Briton. He had something of the choleric complexion of his country- men stamped on his visage, but was a worthy, sensible man at bottom. He wore his hair, to the last, powdered and frizzed out, in the fashion which I remember to have seen in caricatures of what were termed, in my young days, Mac- caronies. He was the last of that race of beaux. Melan- choly as a gib-cat over his counter all the forenoon, I think I see him making up his cash (as they call it) with tremulous fingers, as if he feared every one about him was a defaulter ; in his hypochondry, ready to imagine himself one ; haunted, at least, with the idea of the possibility of his becoming one : his tristful visage clearing up a little over his roast neck of veal at Anderton's at two (where his picture still hangs, taken a little before his death by desire of the master of the coffee- house which he had frequented for the last five-and-twenty years), but not attaining the meridian of its animation till evening brought on the hour of tea and visiting. The simultaneous sound of his well-known rap at the door with the stroke of the clock announcing six, was a topic of never- failing mirth in the families which this dear old bachelor gladdened with his presence. Then was his forte, his glorified hour ! How would he chirp and expand over a muffin ! How would he dilate into secret history ! His countryman, Pennant himself, in particular, could not be more eloquent than he in relation to old and new London — the site of old theatres, churches, streets gone to decay — where Rosa- mond's pond stood — the Mulberry Gardens — and the Conduit in Cheap — with many a pleasant anecdote, derived from paternal tradition, of those grotesque figures which Hogarth has immortalized in his picture of Noon — the worthy descendants of those heroic confessors, who, flying THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE 5 to this country from the wrath of Louis the Fourteenth and his dragoons, kept ahve the flame of pure rehgion in the sheltering obscurities of Hog Lane and the vicinity of the Seven Dials ! Deputy, under Evans, was Thomas Tame. He had the air and stoop of a nobleman. You would have taken him for one, had you met him in one of the passages leading to Westminster Hall. By stoop, I mean that gentle bending of the body forwards, which, in great men, must be supposed to be the effect of an habitual condescending attention to the applications of their inferiors. While he held you in con- verse, you felt strained to the height in the colloquy. The conference over, you were at leisure to smile at the compara- tive insignificance of the pretensions which had just awed you. His intellect was of the shallowest order. It did not reach to a saw or a proverb. His mind was in its original state of white paper. A sucking babe might have posed him. What was it then ? Was he rich ? Alas, no ! Thomas Tame was very poor. Both he and his wife looked outwardly gentlefolks, when I fear all was not well at all times within. She had a neat meagre person, which it was evident she had not sinned in over-pampering; but in its veins was noble blood. She traced her descent, by some labyrinth of relation- ship, which I never thoroughly understood, — much less can explain with any heraldic certainty at this time of day, — • to the illustrious but unfortunate house of Derwentwater. This was the secret of Thomas's stoop. This was the thought — the sentiment — the bright solitary star of your lives, — ye mild and happy pair, — which cheered you in the night of intellect, and in the obscurity of your station ! This was to you instead of riches, instead of rank, instead of glittering attainments: and it was worth them all together. You insulted none with it; but, while you wore it as a piece of defensive armor only, no insult likewise could reach you through it. Decus et solamen} Of quite another stamp was the then accountant, John Tipp. He neither pretended to high blood, nor in good ^ Honor and consolation, Vergil, ^neid, x. 858. 6 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA truth cared one fig about the matter. He "thought an accountant the greatest character in the world, and him- self the greatest accountant in it." Yet John was not without his hobby. The fiddle relieved his vacant hours. He sang, certainly, with other notes than to the Orphean lyre. He did, indeed, scream and scrape most abomi- nably. His fine suite of official rooms in Threadneedle Street, which, without anything very substantial appended to them, were enough to enlarge a man's notions of himself that lived in them (I know not who is the occupier of them now^), resounded fortnightly to the notes of a concert of "sweet breasts,^' as our ancestors would have called them, culled from club-rooms, and orchestras — chorus singers — first and second violoncellos — double basses — and clario- nets — who ate his cold mutton, and drank his punch, and praised his ear. He sat like Lord Midas among them. But at the desk Tipp was quite another sort of creature. Thence all ideas, that were purely ornamental, were banished. You could not speak of anything romantic without rebuke. Politics were excluded. A newspaper was thought too re- fined and abstracted. The whole duty of man consisted in writing off dividend warrants. The striking of the annual balance in the company's books (which, perhaps, differed from the balance of last year in the sum of £25, Is. 6d.) occu- pied his days and nights for a month previous. Not that Tipp was blind to the deadness of things (as they called them in the city) in his beloved house, or did not sigh for a re- turn of the old stirring days when South-Sea hopes were young (he was indeed equal to the wielding of any the most intricate accounts of the most flourishing company in these or those days) : but to a genuine accountant the difference ^ I have since been informed, that the present tenant of them is a Mr. Lamb, a gentleman who is happy in the possession of some choice pictures, and among them a rare portrait of Milton, which I mean to do myself the pleasure of going to see, and at the same time to refresh my memory with the sight of old scenes. Mr. Lamb has the character of a right -courteous and communicative collector. [Lamb's note.] THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE 7 of proceeds is as nothing. The fractional farthing is as dear to his heart as the thousands which stand before it. He is the true actor, who, whether his part be a prince or a peasant, must act it with hke intensity. With Tipp form was every- thing. His Hfe was formal. His actions seemed ruled with a ruler. His pen was not less erring than his heart. He made the best executor in the world : he was plagued with incessant executorships accordingly, which excited his spleen and soothed his vanity in equal ratios. He would swear (for Tipp swore) at the little orphans, whose rights he would guard with a tenacity like the grasp of the dying hand that commended their interests to his protection. With all this there was about him a sort of timidity (his few enemies used to give it a worse name) — a something which, in reverence to the dead, we will place, if you please, a little on this side of the heroic. Nature certainly had been pleased to endow John Tipp with a sufficient measure of the principle of self- preservation. There is a cowardice which we do not despise, because it has nothing base or treacherous in its elements; it betrays itself, not you: it is mere temperament; the absence of the romantic and the enterprising; it sees a lion in the way, and will not, with Fortinbras, "greatly find quarrel in a straw," ^ when some supposed honor is at stake. Tipp never mounted the box of a stage-coach in his life; or leaned against the rails of a balcony; or walked upon the ridge of a parapet; or looked down a precipice; or let off a gun ; or went upon a water-party ; or would will- ingly let you go if he could have helped it: neither was it recorded of him, that for lucre, or for intimidation, he ever forsook friend or principle. Whom next shall we summon from the dusty dead,^ in whom common qualities become uncommon? Can I for- get thee, Henry Man, the wit, the polished man of letters, the author, of the South-Sea House? who never enteredst thy office in a morning or quittedst it in midday (what didst thou in an office?) without some quirk that left a sting ! Thy gibes and thy jokes are now extinct, or survive ^Hamlet, iv. 4. 53-56. ^ Cf . Macbeth, v. 5. 22. 8 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA but in two forgotten volumes, which I had the good fortune to rescue from a stall in Barbican, not three days ago, and found thee terse, fresh, epigrammatic, as alive. Thy wit is a little gone by in these fastidious days — thy topics are staled by the "new-born gauds "^ of the time: — but great thou used to be in Public Ledgers, and in Chronicles, upon Chatham, and Shelburne, and Rockingham, and Howe, and Burgoyne, and Clinton, and the war which ended in the tearing from Great Britain her rebellious colonies, — and Keppel, and Wilkes, and Sawbridge, and Bull, and Dunning, and Pratt, and Richmond — and such small politics. A little less facetious, and a great deal more obstreperous, was fine rattling, rattleheaded Plumer. He was descended, — not in a right line, reader (for his lineal pretensions, like his personal, favored a little of the sinister bend) — from the Plumers of Hertfordshire. So tradition gave him out; and certain family features not a little sanctioned the opinion. Certainly old Walter Plumer (his reputed author) had been a rake in his days, and visited much in Italy, and had seen the world. He was uncle, bachelor-uncle, to the fine old whig Gtill living, who has represented the county in so many successive parliaments, and has a fine old mansion near Ware. Walter flourished in George the Second's days, and was the same who was summoned before the House of Com- mons about a business of franks, with the old Duchess of Marlborough. You may read of it in Johnson's Life of Cave. Cave came off cleverly in that business. It is cer- tain our Plumer did nothing to discountenance the rumor. He rather seemed pleased whenever it was, with all gentle- ness, insinuated. But besides his family pretensions, Plumer was an engaging fellow, and sang gloriously. Not so sweetly sang Plumer as thou sangest, mild, child- like, pastoral M ; a flute's breathing less divinely whis- pering than thy Arcadian melodies, when, in tones worthy of Arden, thou didst chant that song sung by Amiens to the banished duke, which proclaims the winter wind more lenient than for a man to be ungrateful. Thy sire was old surly ^ Troilus and Cressida, iii, 3. 175. OXFORD IN THE VACATION 9 M , the unapproachable church-warden of Bishopsgate. He knew not what he did, when he begat thee, hke spring, gentle offspring of blustering winter : — only unfortunate in thy ending, which should have been mild, conciliatory, swan-like. Much remains to sing. Many fantastic shapes rise up, but they must be mine in private : — already I have fooled the reader to the top of his bent; else could I omit that strange creature Woollett, who existed in trying the ques- tion, and bought litigations ! — and still stranger, inimitable, solemn Hepworth, from whose gravity Newton might have deduced the law of gravitation. How profoundly would he nib a pen — with what deliberation would he wet a wafer ! • But it is time to close — night's wheels are rattling fast over me — it is proper to have done with this solemn mockery. Reader, what if I have been playing with thee all this while — peradventure the very names, which I have sum- moned up before thee, are fantastic — insubstantial — like Henry Pimpernel, and old John Naps of Greece: Be satisfied that something answering to them has had a being. Their importance is from the past. OXFORD IN THE VACATION Casting a preparatory glance at the bottom of this article — as the very connoisseur in prints, with cursory eye (which, while it reads, seems as though it read not), never fails to consult the quis sculpsit^ in the corner, before he pro- nounces some rare piece to be a Vivares, or a Woollett — me- thinks I hear you exclaim. Reader, Who is Elia? Because in my last I tried to divert thee with some half- forgotten humors of some old clerks defunct, in an old house of business, long since gone to decay, doubtless you have already set me down in your mind as one of the self- ^ The signature of the engraver. "Who was the engraver?" is the literal translation. 10 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA same college — a votary of the desk — a notched and cropt scrivener — one that sucks his sustenance, as certain sick people are said to do, through a quill. Well, I do agnize something of the sort. I confess that it is my humor, my fancy — in the fore-part of the day, when the mind of your man of letters requires some relaxa- tion (and none better than such as at first sight seems most abhorrent from his beloved studies) — to while away some good hours of my time in the contemplation of indigos, cottons, raw silks, piece-goods, flowered or otherwise. In the first place . . . and then it sends you home with such increased appetite to your books . . . not to say, that your outside sheets, and waste wrappers of foolscap, do receive into them, most kindly and naturally, the impression of sonnets, epi- grams, essays — so that the very parings of a counting- house are, in some sort, the settings up of an author. The enfranchised quill, that has plodded all the morning among the cart-rucks of figures and ciphers, frisks and curvets so at its ease over the flowery carpet-ground of a midnight dissertation. — It feels its promotion. ... So that you see, upon the whole, the literary dignity of Elia is very little, if at all, compromised in the condescension. Not that, in my anxious detail of the many commodities incidental to the life of a public office, I would be thought blind to certain flaws, which a cunning carper might be able to pick in this Joseph's vest. And here I must have leave, in the fulness of my soul, to regret the abolition, and doing- away-with altogether, of those consolatory interstices, and sprinklings of freedom, through the four seasons, — the red-letter days, now become, to all intents and purposes, dead-letter days. There was Paul, and Stephen, and Barna- bas — Andrew and John, men famous in old times. — we were used to keep all their days holy, as long back as when I was at school at Christ's. I remember their effigies, by the same token, in the old Baskett Prayer Book. There hung Peter in his uneasy posture — holy Bartlemy OXFORD IN THE VACATION 11 in the troublesome act of flaying, after the famous Marsyas by Spagnoletti. — I honored them all, and could almost have wept the defalcation of Iscariot — so much did we love to keep holy memories sacred : — only methought I a little grudged at the coalition of the better Jude with Simon — clubbing (as it were) their sanctities together, to make up one poor gaudy-day between them — as an economy unworthy of the dispensation. These were bright visitations in a scholar's and a clerk's life — "far off their coming shone.'' ^ — I was as good as an almanac in those days. I could have told you such a saint's- day falls out next week, or the week after. Perad venture the Epiphany, by some periodical infelicity, would, once in six years, merge in a Sabbath. Now am I little better than one of the profane. Let me not be thought to arraign the wisdom of my civil superiors, who have judged the further observation of these holy tides to be papistical, superstitious. Only in a custom of such long standing, methinks, if their Holinesses the Bishops had, in decency, been first sounded — but I am wading out of my depths. I am not the man to decide the limits of civil and ecclesias- tical authority — I am plain Elia — no Selden, nor Arch- bishop Usher — though at present in the thick of their books, here in the heart of learning, under the shadow of the mighty Bodley. I can here play the gentleman, enact the student. To such a one as myself, who has been defrauded in his young years of the sweet food of academic institution, nowhere is so pleasant, to while away a few idle weeks at, as one or other of the Universities. Their vacation, too, at this time of the year, falls in so pat with ours. Here I can take my walks unmolested, and fancy myself of what degree or stand- ing I please. I seem admitted ad eundem? I fetch up past opportunities. I can rise at the chapel-bell, and dream 1 Paradise Lost, vi. 767-769. 2 For ad eundem gradum, admitted without examination to the same degree; a privilege mutually granted the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford. 12 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA thab it rings for me. In moods of humility I can be a Sizar, or a Servitor. When the peacock vein rises, I strut a Gentle- man Commoner. In graver moments, I proceed Master of Arts. Indeed I do not think I am much unlike that respectable character. I have seen your dim-eyed vergers, and bed-makers in spectacles, drop a bow or a curtsy, as I pass, wisely mistaking me for something of the sort. I go about in black, which favors the notion. Only in Christ Church reverend quadrangle, I can be content to pass for nothing short of a Seraphic Doctor. The walks at these times are so much one's own, — the tall trees of Christ's, the groves of Magdalen ! The halls deserted, and with open doors, inviting one to slip in un- perceived, and pay a devoir to some Founder, or noble or royal Benefactress (that should have been ours) whose portrait seems to smile upon their over-looked beadsman, and to adopt me for their own. Then, to take a peep in by the way at the butteries, and sculleries, redolent of antique hospitality: the immense caves of kitchens, kitchen fire- places, cordial recesses; ovens whose first pies were baked four centuries ago ; and spits which have cooked for Chaucer ! Not the meanest minister among the dishes but is hallowed to me through his imagination, and the Cook goes forth a Manciple. Antiquity! thou wondrous charm, what art thou? that, being nothing, art everything ! When thou wert, thou wert not antiquity — then thou wert nothing, but hadst a remoter antiquity, as thou calledst it, to look back to with blind veneration; thou thyself being to thyself flat, jejune, modern! What mystery lurks in this retroversion? or what haK Janus es ^ are we, that cannot look forward with the same idolatry with which we for ever revert ! The mighty future is as nothing, being everything ! the past is everything, being nothing ! What were thy dark ages ? Surely the sun rose as brightly then as now, and man got him to his work in the morning. Why is it we can never hear mention of them without ^ Januses of one face. — Sir Thomas Browne. [Lamb's note.] OXFORD IN THE VACATION 13 an accompanying feeling, as though a palpable obscure had dimmed the face of things, and that our ancestors wandered to and fro groping ! Above all thy rarities, old Oxenford, what do most arride and solace me, are thy repositories of mouldering learning, thy shelves What a place to be in is an old library ! It seems as though all the souls of all the writers, that have bequeathed their labors to these Bodleians, were reposing here, as in some dormitory, or middle state. I do not want to handle, to profane the leaves, their winding-sheets. I could as soon dislodge a shade. I seem to inhale learning, walking amid their foliage; and the odor of their old moth-scented coverings is fragrant as the first bloom of those sciential apples which grew amid the happy orchard. Still less have I curiosity to disturb the elder repose of MSS. Those varice lectiones,^ so tempting to the more erudite palates, do but disturb and unsettle my faith. I am no Herculanean raker. The credit of the three witnesses might have slept unimpeached for me. I leave these curiosities to Porson, and to G. D. — whom, by the way, I found busy as a moth over some rotten archive, rummaged out of some seldom-explored press, in a nook at Oriel. With long poring, he is grown almost into a book. He stood as pas- sive as one by the side of the old shelves. I longed to new- coat him in russia, and assign him his place. He might have mustered for a tall Scapula. D. is assiduous in his visits to these seats of learning. No inconsiderable portion of his moderate fortune, I appre- hend, is consumed in journeys between them and Clifford's Inn — where, like a dove on the asp's nest, he has long taken up his unconscious abode, amid an incongruous assembly of attorneys, attorneys' clerks, apparitors, promoters, vermin of the law, among whom he sits, "in calm and sinless peace." ^ ^ Various readings; referring to the differences in the several manuscripts. 2 An adaptation from Wordsworth's The White Doe of Rylstone, line 48. 14 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA The fangs of the law pierce him not — the winds of Htigation blow over his humble chambers — the hard sherijff 's officer moves his hat as he passes — legal or illegal discourtesy touches him — none thinks of offering violence or injustice to him — you would as soon "strike an abstract idea." D. has been engaged, he tells me, through a course of laborious years, in an investigation into all curious matter connected with the two Universities; and has lately lit upon a MS. collection of charters, relative to C , by which he hopes to settle some disputed points — particu- larly that long controversy between them as to priority of foundation. The ardor with which he engages in these liberal pursuits, I am afraid, has not met with all the en- couragement it deserved, either here or at C . Your caputs, and heads of colleges, care less than anybody else about these questions. — Contented to suck the milky fountains of their Alma Maters, without inquiring into the venerable gentlewomen's years, they rather hold such curiosities to be impertinent — unreverend. They have their good glebe lands in manu,^ and care not much to rake into the title-deeds. I gather at least so much from other sources, for D. is not a man to complain. D. started like an unbroke heifer, when I interrupted him. A priori ^ it was not very probable that we should have met in Oriel. But D. would have done the same, had I accosted him on the sudden in his own walks in Clifford's Inn, or in the Temple. In addition to a provoking short- sightedness (the effect of late studies and watchings at the midnight oil), D. is the most absent of men. He made a call the other morning at our friend M.'s in Bedford Square; and, finding nobody at home, was ushered into the hall, where, asking for pen and ink, with great exacti- tude of purpose he enters me his name in the book — which ordinarily lies about in such places, to record the failures of the untimely or unfortunate visitor — and takes his leave with many ceremonies, and professions of regret. Some two or three hours after, his walking destinies returned ^ In hand ; in their possession. ^ Presumptively. OXFORD IN THE VACATION 15 him into the same neighborhood again, and again the quiet image of the fireside circle at M.'s — Mrs. M. presiding at it hke a Queen Lar, with pretty A. S. at her side — strik- ing irresistibly on his fancy, he makes another call (forgetting that they were "certainly not to return from the country before that day week") and disappointed a second time, in- quires for pen and paper as before : again the book is brought and in the Une just above that in which he is about to print his second name (his re-script) — his first name (scarce dry) looks out upon him like another Sosia, or as if a man should suddenly encounter his own duphcate ! — The effect may be conceived. D. made many a good resolution against any such lapses in future. I hope he will not keep them too rigorously. For with G. D. — to be absent from the body, is some- times (not to speak it profanely) to be present with the Lord. At the very time when, personally encountering thee, he passes on with no recognition or, being stopped, starts like a thing surprised — at that moment, Reader, he is on Mount Tabor — or Parnassus — or co-sphered with Plato — or, with Harrington, framing " immortal common- wealths" — devising some plan of amehoration to thy country, or thy species peradventure meditating some individual kindness or courtesy, to be done to thee thyself, the returning consciousness of which made him to start so guiltily at thy obtruded personal presence. [D. commenced life, after a course of hard study in the house of "pure Emanuel," as usher to a knavish fanatic schoolmaster at . . ., at a salary of eight pounds per annum, with board and lodging. Of this poor stipend, he never received above half in all the laborious years he served this man. He tells a pleasant anecdote, that when poverty, staring out at his ragged knees, has sometimes compelled him, against the modesty of his nature, to hint at arrears. Dr. would take no immediate notice, but after supper, when the school was called together to even-song, he would never fail to introduce some instructive homily against riches, and the corruption of the heart occasioned through the 16 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA desire of them — ending with "Lord, keep Thy servants, above all things, from the heinous sin of avarice. Having food and raiment, let us therewithal be content. Give me Agur's wish'' — and the like — which, to the httle auditory, sounded like a doctrine full of Christian prudence and simphcity, but to poor D. was a receipt in full for that quarter's demand at least. And D. has been under-working for himself ever since; — drudging at low rates for unappreciating booksellers, — wasting his fine erudition in silent corrections of the classics, and in those unostentatious but solid services to learning which commonly fall to the lot of laborious scholars, who have not the heart to sell themselves to the best ad- vantage. He has published poems, which do not sell, because their character is unobtrusive, like his own, and because he has been too much absorbed in ancient literature to know what the popular mark in poetry is, even if he could have hit it. And, therefore, his verses are properly, what he terms them, crotchets; voluntaries; odes to liberty and spring; effusions; little tributes and offerings, left behind him upon tables and window-seats at parting from friends' houses; and from all the inns of hospitality, where he has been courteously (or but tolerably) received in his pilgrimage. If his muse of kindness halt a little behind the strong lines in fashion in this excitement-loving age, his prose is the best of the sort in the world, and ex- hibits a faithful transcript of his own healthy, natural mind, and cheerful, innocent tone of conversation.] D. is delightful anywhere, but he is at the best in such places as these. He cares not much for Bath. He is out of his element at Buxton, at Scarborough, or Harrowgate. The Cam and the Isis are to him "better than all the waters of Damascus." On the Muses' hill he is happy, and good, as one of the Shepherds on the Delectable Mountains ; and when he goes about with you to show you the halls and colleges, you think you have with you the Interpreter at the House Beautiful. Christ's hospitai^ 17 CHRIST'S HOSPITAL FIVE AND THIETY YEARS AGO In Mr. Lamb's "Works," published a year or two since, I find a magnificent eulogy on my old school,^ such as it was, or now appears to him to have been, between the years 1782 and 1789. It happens, very oddly, that my own standing at Christ's was nearly corresponding with his; and, with all gratitude to him for his enthusiasm for the cloisters, I think he has contrived to bring together whatever can be said in praise of them, dropping all the other side of the argument most ingeniously. I remember L. at school; and can well recollect that he had some peculiar advantages, which I and others of his school-fellows had not. His friends lived in town, and were near at hand; and he had the privilege of going to see them, almost as often as he wished, through some in- vidious distinction, which was denied to us. The present worthy sub-treasurer to the Inner Temple can explain how that happened. He had his tea and hot rolls in a morning, while we were battening upon our quarter of a penny loaf — ■ our crug — moistened with attenuated small beer, in wooden piggins, smacking of the pitched leathern jack it was poured from. Our Monday's milk porritch, blue and tasteless, and the pease soup of Saturday, coarse and choking, were enriched for him with a slice of " extraordinary bread and butter," from the hot-loaf of the Temple. The Wednesday's mess of millet, somewhat less repugnant — (we had three banyan to four meat days in the week) — was endeared to his palate with a lump of double-refined, and a smack of ginger (to make it go down the more glibly) or the fra- grant cinnamon. In lieu of our half-pickled Sundays, or quite fresh boiled beef on Thursdays (strong ascaro equina^), with detestable marigolds floating in the pail to poison the ^ Recollections of Christ's Hospital. [Lamb's note.] ^ Horseflesh. 18 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA broth — our scanty mutton scrags on Fridays — and rather more savory, but grudging, portions of the same flesh, rot- ten-roasted or rare, on the Tuesdays (the only dish which excited our appetites, and disappointed our stomachs, in almost equal proportion) — he had his hot plate of roast veal, or the more tempting griskin (exotics unknown to our palates), cooked in the paternal kitchen (a great thing), and brought him daily by his maid or aunt ! I remember the good old relative (in whom love forbade pride) squat- ting down upon some odd stone in a by-nook of the cloisters, disclosing the viands (of higher regale than those cates which the ravens ministered to the Tishbite) ; and the con- tending passions of L. at the unfolding. There was love for the bringer ; shame for the thing brought, and the manner of its bringing; sympathy for those who were too many to share in it; and, at top of all, hunger (eldest, strongest of the passions !) predominant, breaking down the stony fences of shame, and awkwardness, and a troubling over- consciousness. I was a poor friendless boy. My parents, and those who should care for me, were far away. Those few acquaintances of theirs, which they could reckon upon being kind to me in the great city, after a little forced notice, which they had the grace to take of me on my first arrival in town, soon grew tired of my holiday visits. They seemed to them to recur too often, though I thought them few enough ; and, one after another, they all failed me, and I felt myself alone among six hundred playmates. O the cruelty of separating a poor lad from his early home- stead ! The yearnings which I used to have towards it in those unfledged years ! How, in my dreams, would my native town (far in the west) come back, with its church, and trees, and faces ! How I would wake weeping, and in the anguish of my heart exclaim upon sweet Calne in Wiltshire ! To this late hour of my life, I trace impressions left by the recollection of those friendless holidays. The long warm days of summer never return but they bring with them a gloom from the haunting memory of those whole-day leaves Christ's hospital 19 when, by some strange arrangement, we were turned out, for the Uve-long day, upon our own hands, whether we had friends to go to, or none. I remember those bathing-excur- sions to the New River, which L. recalls with such relish, better, I think, than he can — for he, was a home-seeking lad, and did not much care for such water-pastimes : — How merrily we would sally forth into the fields ; and strip under the first warmth of the sun ; and wanton like young dace in the streams; getting us appetites for noon, which those of us that were penniless (our scanty morning crust long since exhausted) had not the means of allaying — while the cattle, and the birds, and the fishes, were at feed about us, and we had nothing to satisfy our cravings — the very beauty of the day, and the exercise of the pastime, and the sense of liberty, setting a keener edge upon them ! — How faint and languid, finally, we would return, towards night-fall, to our desired morsel, half -rejoicing, half -reluctant, that the hours of our uneasy liberty had expired ! It was worse in the days of winter, to go prowling about the streets objectless — shivering at cold windows of print shops, to extract a little amusement; or haply, as a last resort, in the hopes of a little novelty, to pay a fifty-times repeated visit (where our individual faces should be as well known to the warden as those of his own charges) to the Lions in the Tower — to whose levee, by courtesy immemorial, we had a prescriptive title to admission. L.'s governor (so we called the patron who presented us to the foundation) lived in a manner under his paternal roof. Any complaint which he had to make was sure of being attended to. This was understood at Christ's, and was an effectual screen to him against the severity of masters, or worse tyranny of the monitors. The oppressions of these young brutes are heart-sickening to call to recollection. I have been called out of my bed, and waked for the 'purpose, in the coldest winter nights — and this not once, but night after night — in my shirt, to receive the discipline of a leath- ern thong, with eleven other sufferers, because it pleased my callow overseer, when there has been any talking heard 20 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA after we were gone to bed, to make the six last beds in the dormitory, where the youngest children of us slept, answerable for an offence they neither dared to commit, nor had the power to hinder. — The same execrable tyranny drove the younger part of us from the fires, when our feet were perishing with snow; and, under the cruellest penalties, forbade the indul- gence of a drink of water, when we lay in sleepless summer nights, fevered with the season and the day's sports. There was one H , who, I learned in after days, was seen expiating some maturer offence in the hulks. (Do I flatter myself in fancying that this might be the planter of that name, who suffered — at Nevis, I think, or St. Kitts, — some few years since ? My friend Tobin was the benevolent instrument of bringing him to the gallows.) This petty Nero actually branded a boy, who had offended him, with a red- hot iron ; and nearly starved forty of us, with exacting con- tributions, to the one half of our bread, to pamper a young ass, which, incredible as it may seem, with the connivance of the nurse's daughter (a young flame of his) he had con- trived to smuggle in, and keep upon the leads of the ward, as they called our dormitories. This game went on for better than a week, till the foolish beast, not able to fare well but he must cry roast meat — happier than Caligula's minion, could he have kept his own counsel — but, foolisher, alas ! than any of his species in the fables — waxing fat, and kicking, in the fulness of bread, one unlucky minute would needs proclaim his good fortune to the world below; and, laying out his simple throat, blew such a ram's horn blast, as (top- pling down the walls of his own Jericho) set concealment any longer at defiance. The client was dismissed, with certain attentions, to Smithfield; but I never understood that the patron underwent any censure on the occasion. This was in the stewardship of L.'s admired Perry. Under the ssiine facile administration, can L. have forgotten the cool impunity with which the nurses used to carry awaj^ openly, in open platters, for their own tables, one out of two of every hot joint, which the careful matron had been seeing scrupulously weighed out for our dinners? These things P3 o Christ's hospital 21 were daily practised in that magnificent apartment, which L. (grown connoisseur since, we presume) praises so highly for the grand paintings "by Verrio and others/' with which it is "hung round and adorned/' But the sight of sleek well-fed blue-coat boys in pictures was, at that time, I believe, little consolatory to him, or us, the living ones, who saw the better part of our provisions carried away before our faces by harpies; and ourselves reduced (with the Trojan in the hall of Dido) To feed our mind with idle portraiture.^ L. has recorded the repugnance of the school to gags, or the fat of fresh beef boiled ; and sets it down to some super- stition. But these unctuous morsels are never grateful to young palates (children are universally fat-haters), and in strong, coarse, boiled meats, unsalted, are detestable. A gag-eater in our time was equivalent to a goule, and held in equal detestation. suffered under the imputation : .... 'Twas said He ate strange flesh.^ He was observed, after dinner, carefully to gather up the remnants left at his table (not many, nor very choice frag- ments, you may credit me) — and, in an especial manner, these disreputable morsels, which he would convey away, and secretly stow in the settle that stood at his bedside. None saw when he ate them. It was rumored that he privately devoured them in the night. He was watched, but no traces of such midnight practices were discoverable. Some re- ported, that, on leave-days, he had been seen to carry out of the bounds a large blue check handkerchief, full of some- thing. This then must be the accursed thing. Conjecture next was at work to imagine how he could dispose of it. Some said he sold it to the beggars. This belief generally prevailed. He went about moping. None spake to him. No one would play with him. He was excommunicated; put out of the pale of the school. He was too powerful a * Cf. Vergil's jEneid, i. 464. ^ cf, Antony and Cleopatra, i. 4. 67-68. 22 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA boy to be beaten, but he underwent every mode of that nega- tive punishment, which is more grievous than many stripes. Still he persevered. At length he was observed by two of his school-fellows, who were determined to get at the secret, and had traced him one leave-day for that purpose, to enter a large worn-out building, such as there exist specimens of in Chancery Lane, which are let out to various scales of pauperism, with open door, and a common staircase. After him they silently slunk in, and followed by stealth up four flights, and saw him tap at a poor wicket, which was opened by an aged woman, meanly clad. Suspicion was now ripened into certainty. The informers had secured their victim. They had him in their toils. Accusation was formally pre- ferred, and retribution most signal was looked for. Mr. Hathaway, the then steward ' (for this happened a little after my time), with that patient sagacity which tempered all his conduct, determined to investigate the matter, before he proceeded to sentence. The result was, that the supposed mendicants, the receivers or purchasers of the mysterious scraps, turned out to be the parents of , an honest couple come to decay, — whom this seasonable supply had, in all probability, saved from mendicancy: and that this young stork, at the expense of his own good name, had all this while been only feeding the old birds ! — The governors on this occasion, much to their honor, voted a present relief to the family of , and presented him with a silver medal. The lesson which the steward read upon rash judgment, on the occasion of publicly delivering the medal to , I believe, would not be lost upon his auditory. — I had left school then, but I well remember . He was a tall, shambling youth, with a cast in his eye, not at all calculated to conciliate hostile prejudices. I have since seen him carry- ing a baker's basket. I think I heard he did not do quite so well by himself as he had done by the old folks. I was a hypochondriac lad; and the sight of a boy in fetters, upon the day of my first putting on the blue clothes, was not exactly fitted to assuage the natural terrors of initia- tion. I was of tender years, barely turned of seven ; and had Christ's hospital 23 only read of such things in books, or seen them but in dreams. I was told he had run away. This was the punishment for the first offence. — As a novice I was soon after taken to see the dungeons. These were little, square, Bedlam cells, where a boy could just lie at his length upon straw and a blanket — a mattress, I think, was afterwards substituted — with a peep of light, let in askance, from a prison-orifice at top, barely enough to read by. Here the poor boy was locked in by himself all day, without sight of any but the porter who brought him his bread and water — who might not speak to him; — or of the beadle, who came twice a week to call him out to receive his periodical chastisement, which was almost welcome, because it separated him for a brief interval from solitude : -^ and here he was shut up by himself of nights, out of the reach of any sound, to suffer whatever horrors the weak nerves, and superstition incident to his time of life, might subject him to.^ This was the penalty for the second offence. Wouldst thou like, Reader, to see what became of him in the next degree ? The culprit, who had been a third time an offender, and whose expulsion was at this time deemed irreversible, was brought forth, as at some solemn auto dafe,^ arrayed in un- couth and most appalling attire — all trace of his late " watchet weeds" carefully effaced, he was exposed in a jacket, re- sembling those which London lamplighters formerly delighted in, with a cap of the same. The effect of this divestiture was such as the ingenious devisers of it could have anticipated. With his pale and frighted features, it was as if some of those disfigurements in Dante had seized upon him. In this dis- ^ One or two instances of lunacy, or attempted suicide, accord- ingly, at length convinced the governors of the impolicy of this part of the sentence, and the midnight torture to the spirits was dispensed with. — This fancy of dungeons for children was a sprout of Howard's brain; for which (saving the reverence due to Holy Paul) methinks I could willingly spit upon his statue. [Lamb's note.] 2 Act of faith (Portuguese). The ceremony of executing a judg- ment of the Inquisition by which a heretic was condemned to be burned. 24 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA guisement he was brought into the hall (L.'s favorite state- room), where awaited him the whole number of his school- fellows, whose joint lessons and sports he was thenceforth to share no more ; the awful presence of the steward, to be seen for the last time ; of the executioner beadle, clad in his state robe for the occasion ; and of two faces more, of direr import, because never but in these extremities visible. These were governors ; two of whom, by choice, or charter, were always accustomed to officiate at these Ultima Supplicia;'^ not to mitigate (so at least we understood it), but to enforce the uttermost stripe. Old Bamber Gascoigne, and Peter Aubert, I remember, were colleagues on one occasion, when the beadle turning rather pale, a glass of brandy was ordered to prepare him for the mysteries. The scourging was, after the old Roman fashion, long and stately. The lictor accompanied the criminal quite round the hall. We were generally too faint with attending to the previous disgusting circumstances to make accurate report with our eyes of the degree of corporal suffering inflicted. Report, of course, gave out the back knotty and livid. After scourging, he was made over, in his San Benito, to his friends, if he had any (but commonly such poor runagates were friendless), or to his parish officer, who, to enhance the effect of the scene, had his station allotted to him on the outside of the hall gate. These solemn pageantries were not played off so often as to spoil the general mirth of the community. We had plenty of exercise and recreation after school hours; and, for myself, I must confess that I was never happier than in them. The Upper and the Lower Grammar Schools were held in the same room ; and an imaginary line only divided their bounds. Their character was as different as that of the inhabitants on the two sides of the Pyrenees. The Rev. James Boyer was the Upper Master, but the Rev. Matthew Field presided over that portion of the apartment of which I had the good fortune to be a member. We lived a life as careless as birds. We talked and did just what we pleased, and nobody molested us. We carried an accidence, or a ^ Extreme punishments, i.e. capital punishments. Christ's hospital 25 grammar, for form ; but, for any trouble it gave us, we might take two years in getting through the verbs deponent, and another two in forgetting all that we had learned about them. There was now and then the formality of saying a lesson, but if you had not learned it, a brush across the shoulders (just enough to disturb a fly) was the sole remonstrance. Field never used the rod ; and in truth he wielded the cane with no great good will — holding it "like a dancer.'' ^ It looked in his hands rather like an emblem than an instrument of authority ; and an emblem, too, he was ashamed of. He was a good easy man, that did not care to ruffle his own peace, nor perhaps set any great consideration upon the value of juvenile time. He came among us, now and then, but often staid away whole days from us ; and when he came, it made no difference to us — he had his private room to retire to, the short time he staid, to be out of the sound of our noise. Our mirth and uproar went on. We had classics of our own, without being beholden to "insolent Greece or haughty Rome,'' ^ that passed current among us — Peter Wilkins — The Adventures of the Hon. Capt. Robert Boyle — the Fortunate Blue-Coat Boy — and the like. Or we cultivated a turn for mechanic or scientific operations; making little sun-dials of paper; or weaving those ingenious parentheses, called cat-cradles ; or making dry peas to dance upon the end of a tin pipe ; or studying the art military over that laudable game "French and English," and a hundred other such de- vices to pass away the time — mixing the useful with the agreeable — as would have made the souls of Rousseau and John Locke chuckle to have seen us. Matthew Field belonged to that class of modest divines who affect to mix in equal proportion the gentleman, the scholar, and the Christian; but, I know not how, the first ingredient is generally found to be the predominating dose in the com- position. He was engaged in gay parties, or with his courtly bow at some episcopal levee, when he should have been at- tending upon us. He had for many years the classical charge ^ Antony and Cleopatra, iii. 2. 35-36. 2 From Ben Jonson's Lines on Shakespeare. 26 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA of a hundred children, during the four or five first years of their education ; and his very highest form seldom proceeded further than two or three of the introductory fables of Phsedrus. How things were suffered to go on thus, I cannot guess. Boyer, who was the proper person to have remedied these abuses, always affected, perhaps felt, a delicacy in interfering in a province not strictly his own. I have not been without my suspicions, that he was not altogether displeased at the contrast we presented to his end of the school. We were a sort of Helots to his young Spartans. He would sometimes, with ironic deference, send to borrow a rod of the Under Master, and then, with sardonic grin, observe to one of his upper boys, "how neat and fresh the twigs looked." While his pale students were battering their brains over Xenophon and Plato, with a silence as deep as that enjoined by the Samite, we were enjoying ourselves at our ease in our little Goshen. We saw a little into the secrets of his discipline, and the prospect did but the more reconcile us to our lot. His thunders rolled innocuous for us; his storms came near, but never touched us ; contrary to Gideon's miracle, while all around were drenched, our fleece was dry.^ His boys turned out the better scholars ; we, I suspect, have the advantage in temper. His pupils cannot speak of him without something of terror allaying their gratitude; the remembrance of Field comes back with all the soothing images of indolence, and summer slumbers, and work like play, and innocent idleness, and Elysian exemptions, and life itself a "playing holiday." ^ Though sufficiently removed from the jurisdiction of Boyer, we were near enough (as I have said) to understand a little of his system. We occasionally heard sounds of the Ulu- lantes, and caught glances of Tartarus. B. was a rabid pedant. His English style was crampt to barbarism. His Easter anthems (for his duty obliged him to those periodical flights) were grating as scrannel pipes. ^ — He would laugh — • 1 Cowley. [Lamb's note.] 2 j Henry IV. i. 2. 227. ^ In this and everything B. was the antipodes of his coadjutor. While the former was digging his brains for crude anthems, worth Christ's hospital 27 ay, and heartily — but then it must be at Flaccus's quibble about Rex ^ — or at the tristis severitas in vultu,^ or inspicere in patinas,^ of Terence — thin jests, which at their first broaching could hardly have had vis enough to move a Roman muscle. — He had two wigs, both pedantic, but of different omen. The one serene, smiling, fresh powdered, betokening a mild day. The other, an old discolored, unkempt, angry caxon, denoting frequent and bloody execution. Woe to the school, when he made his morning appearance in his passy, or passionate wig. No comet expounded surer. — J. B. had a heavy hand. I have known him double his knotty fist at a poor trembling child (the maternal milk hardly dry upon its lips) with a "Sirrah, do you presume to set your wits at me ? " — Nothing was more common than to see him make a headlong entry into the schoolroom, from his inner recess, or library, and, with turbulent eye, singling out a lad, roar out, '^Od's my life,* sirrah" (his favorite adjura- tion), "I have a great mind to whip you," — then, with as sudden a retracting impulse, fling back into his lair — and, after a cooling lapse of some minutes (during which all but the culprit had totally forgotten the context), drive headlong out again, piecing out his imperfect sense, as if it had been some Devil's Litany, with the expletory yell — "and I will too.'' — In his gentler moods, when the rabidus furor ^ was a pig-nut, F. would be recreating his gentlemanly fancy in- the more flowery walks of the Muses. A little dramatic effusion of his, under the name of Vertumnus and Pomona, is not yet forgotten by the chroniclers of that sort of literature. It was accepted by Garrick, but the town did not give it their sanction. - — B. used to say of it in a way of half-compliment, half^rony, that it was too classical for representation. [Lamb's note.] ^ Flaccus, i.e. Horace, in his Satires, Book I. vii. 33, plays on the word Hex, where the word has the double meaning of a "king" (the literal translation of the word) and also of an individual. 2 Puritanic rigor in his countenance. ^ To look into the stew-pans. In Terence's play entitled Adelphi, a father advises his son to look into the lives of men as into a mirror, and a slave, who hears the advice, counsels the kitchen scullions to look into the stew-pans as into a mirror. * As God is my life. ^ Raging frenzy or madness. 28 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA assuaged, he had resort to an ingenious method, pecuUar, for what I have heard, to himself, of whipping the boy, and reading the Debates, at the same time; a paragraph, and a lash between; which in those times, when parliamentary oratory was most at a height and flourishing in these realms, was not calculated to impress the patient with a veneration for the diffuser graces of rhetoric. Once, and but once, the uplifted rod was known to fall ineffectual from his hand — when droll squinting W hav- ing been caught putting the inside of the master's desk to a use for which the architect had clearly not designed it, to justify himself, with great simplicity averred, that he did not know that the thing had been forewarned. This exquisite irrecognition of any law antecedent to the oral or declaratory, struck so irresistibly upon the fancy of all who heard it (the pedagogue himself not excepted) that remission was un- avoidable. L. has given credit to B.'s great merits as an instructor. Coleridge, in his literary life, has pronounced a more intelli- gible and ample encomium on them. The author of the Country Spectator doubts not to compare him with the ablest teachers of antiquity. Perhaps we cannot dismiss him better than with the pious ejaculation of C when he heard that his old master was on his death-bed: "Poor J. B. ! — may all his faults be forgiven ; and may he be wafted to bliss by little cherub boys, all head and wings, with no bottoms to reproach his sublunary infirmities." Under him were many good and sound scholars bred. — First Grecian of my time was Lancelot Pepys Stevens, kindest of boys and men, .since Co-grammar-master (and inseparable companion) with Dr. T e. What an edifying spectacle did this brace of friends present to those who re- membered the anti-socialities of their predecessors ! — You never met the one by chance in the street without a won- der, which was quickly dissipated by the almost immediate sub-appearance of the other. Generally arm-in-arm, these kindly coadjutors lightened for each other the toilsome duties of their profession, and when, in advanced age, one found it Christ's hospital 29 convenient to retire, the other was not long in discovering that it suited him to lay down the fasces also. Oh, it is pleasant, as it is rare, to find the same arm linked in yours at forty, which at thirteen helped it to turn over the Cicero De Amicitia,^ or some tale of Antique Friendship, which the young heart even then was burning to anticipate ! — Co- Grecian with S. was Th , who has since executed with ability various diplomatic functions at the Northern courts. Th was a tall, dark, saturnine youth, sparing of speech, with raven locks. — Thomas Fanshaw Middleton followed him (now Bishop of Calcutta), a scholar and a gentleman in his teens. He has the reputation of an excellent critic; and is author (besides the Country Spectator) of a Treatise on the Greek Article, against Sharpe. — M. is said to bear his mitre high in India, where the regni novitas ^ (I dare say) sufficiently justifies the bearing. A humility quite as primi- tive as that of Jewel or Hooker might not be exactly fitted to impress the minds of those Anglo-Asiatic diocesans with a reverence for home institutions, and the church which those fathers watered. The manners of M. at school, though firm, were mild and unassuming. — Next to M. (if not senior to him) was Richards, author of the Aboriginal Britons, the most spirited of the Oxford Prize Poems; a pale, studious Grecian. — Then followed poor S , ill-fated M ! of these the Muse is silent. Finding some of Edward's race Unhappy, pass their annals by.^ Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the day- spring of thy fancies, with hope like a fiery column before 1 Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 b.c.) was a Roman lawyer and orator who wrote a memorable essay entitled De Amicitia — On Friendship. 2 From Vergil's Mneid, i. 563: "An infant realm and fortune hard Compel me thus my shores to guard." 5 Prior's Carmen Secular e for 1700, stanza viii : "Finding some of Stuart's race Unhappy, pass their annals by." 30 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA thee — the dark pillar not yet turned — Samuel Taylor Coleridge — Logician, Metaphysician, Bard ! — How have I seen the casual passer through the Cloisters stand still, en- tranced with admiration (while he weighed the dispropor- tion between the speech and the garh of the young Mirandula) , to hear thee unfold, in thy deep and sweet intonations, the mysteries of Jamblichus, or Plotinus (for even in those years thou waxedst not pale at such philosophic draughts) , or recit- ing Homer in his Greek, or Pindar — while the walls of the old Grey Friars reechoed to the accents of the inspired charity-boy! — Many were the "wit-combats'' (to dally awhile with the words of old Fuller), between him and C. V. Le G , "which two I behold like a Spanish great galleon, and an English man of war : Master Coleridge, like the former, was built far higher in learning, solid, but slow in his per- formances. C. V. L., with the English man of war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention." • Nor shalt thou, their compeer, be quickly forgotten, Allen, with the cordial smile, and still more cordial laugh, with which thou wert wont to make the old Cloisters shake, in thy cogni- tion of some poignant jest of theirs; or the anticipation of some more material, and peradventure practical one, of thine own. Extinct are those smiles, with that beautiful coun- tenance, with which (for thou wert the Nireus formosus ^ of the school), in the days of thy maturer waggery, thou didst disarm the wrath of infuriated town-damsel, who, incensed by provoking pinch, turning tigress-like round, suddenly con- verted by thy angel-look, exchanged the half-formed terrible "6Z ," for a gentler greeting — "bless thy handsome face ! " Next follow two, who ought to be now alive, and the friends of Elia — the junior Le G and F ; who impelled, the former by a roving temper, the latter by too quick a sense ^ "Nireus, the most beauteous man that came up under Ilios of all the Danaans after the noble son of Peleus." — Homer's Iliad, ii. 673. Lang, Leaf, and Meyers' translation. THE TWO RACES OF MEN 31 of neglect — ill capable of enduring the slights poor Sizars are sometimes subject to in our seats of learning — exchanged their Alma Mater for the camp ; perishing, one by climate, and one on the plains of Salamanca : — Le G , sanguine, volatile, sweet-natured ; F , dogged, faithful, anticipa- tive of insult, warm-hearted, with something of the old Roman height about him. Fine, frank-hearted Fr , the present master of Hertford, with Marmaduke T , mildest of Missionaries — and both my good friends still — close the catalogue of Grecians in my time. THE TWO RACES OF MEN The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow, and the men who lend. To these two original diversi- ties may be reduced all those impertinent classifications of Gothic and Celtic tribes, white men, black men, red men. All the dwellers upon earth, "Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites,'' ^ flock hither, and do naturally fall in with one or other of these primary distinctions. The infinite superior- ity of the former, which I choose to designate as the great race, is discernible in their figure, port, and a certain instinctive sovereignty. The latter are born degraded. "He shall serve his brethren." ^ There is something in the air of one of this cast, lean and suspicious ; contrasting with the open, trusting, generous manners of the other. Observe who have been the greatest borrowers of all ages — Alcibiades — Falstaff — Sir Richard Steele — our late incomparable Brinsley — what a family likeness in all four ! What a careless, even deportment hath your borrower ! what rosy gills ! what a beautiful reliance on Providence doth he manifest, — taking no more thought than lilies ! What contempt for money, — accounting it (yours and mine especially) no better than dross ! ^hat a liberal confounding ^ Acts ii. 9. ? Crenesim. Jx. 25. 32 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA of those pedantic distinctions of meum and tuum ! or rather, what a noble simphfication of language (beyond Tooke), resolving these supposed opposites into one clear, intelligible pronoun adjective ! — What near approaches doth he make to the primitive community, — to the extent of one half of the principle at least ! — He is the true taxer who "calleth all the world up to be taxed;'' ^ and the distance is as vast between him and one of us, as subsisted between the Augustan Majesty and the poorest obolary Jew that paid it tribute-pittance at Jerusa- lem ! — His exactions, too, have such a cheerful, voluntary air! So far removed from your sour parochial or state- gatherers, — those ink-horn varlets, who carry their want of welcome in their faces ! He cometh to you with a smile, and troubleth you with no receipt ; confining himself to no set season. Every day is his Candlemas, or his feast of Holy Michael. He applieth the lene tormentum ^ of a pleasant look to your purse, — which to that gentle warmth expands her silken leaves, as naturally as the cloak of the traveler, for which sun and wind contended ! ^ He is the true Propontic which never ebbeth ! The sea which taketh handsomely at each man's hand. In vain the victim, whom he dehghteth to honor, struggles with destiny; he is in the net. Lend therefore cheerfully, man ordained to lend — that thou lose not in the end, with thy worldly penny, the reversion promised. Combine not preposterously in thine own person the penalties of Lazarus and of Dives ! — but, when thou seest the proper authority coming, meet it smilingly, as it were half-way. Come, a handsome sacrifice ! See how light he makes of it ! Strain not courtesies with a noble enemy. Reflections like the foregoing were forced upon my mind by the death of my old friend, Ralph Bigod, Esq., who parted ^ Luke ii. 1. 2 A gentle or mild stimulus ; so used by Horace, where the expres- sion is descriptive of the influence of wine. 3 In iE sop's fable the Sun and the Wind contend with a traveler to take off his cloak. The Wind only makes the traveler wrap his cloak the closer; the warm Sun, however, causes him to doff it. THE TWO RACES OF MEN 33 this life on Wednesday evening ; dying, as he had hved, with- out much trouble. He boasted himself a descendant from mighty ancestors of that name, who heretofore held ducal dignities in this realm. In his actions and sentiments he be- lied not the stock to which he pretended. Early in life he found himself invested with ample revenues ; which, with that noble disinterestedness which I have noticed as inherent in men of the great race, he took almost immediate measures entirely to dissipate and bring to nothing : for there is some- thing revolting in the idea of a king holding a private purse ; and the thoughts of Bigod were all regal. Thus furnished, by the very act of disf urnishment ; getting rid of the cumber- some luggage of riches, more apt (as one sings) To slacken virtue, and abate her edge. Than prompt her to do aught may merit praise,^ he set forth, like some Alexander, upon his great enterprise, "borrowing and to borrow!" In his periegesis, or triumphant progress throughout this island, it has been calculated that he laid a tythe part of the inhabitants under contribution. I reject this estimate as greatly exaggerated : — but having had the honor of ac- companying my friend, divers times, in his perambulations about this vast city, I own I was greatly struck at first with the prodigious number of faces we met, who claimed a sort of respectful acquaintance with us. He was one day so oblig- ing as to explain the phenomenon. It seems, these were his tributaries; feeders of his exchequer; gentlemen, his good friends (as he was pleased to express himself) , to whom he had occasionally been beholden for a loan. Their multitudes did no way disconcert him. He rather took a pride in numbering them; and, with Comus, seemed pleased to be "stocked with so fair a herd." ^ With such sources, it was a wonder how he contrived to keep his treasury always empty. He did it by force of an aphorism, which he had often in his mouth, that "money kept longer than three days stinks." So he made use of it ^ Paradise Regained, ii. 455. . ^ Comus, 151-153. 34 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA while it was fresh. A good part he drank away (for he was an excellent toss-pot), some he gave away, the rest he threw away, literally tossing and hurling it violently from him — as boys do burrs, or as if it had been infectious, — into ponds, or ditches, or deep holes, inscrutable cavities of the earth ; — or he would bury it (where he would never seek it again) by a river's side under some bank, which (he would facetiously observe) paid no interest — but out away from him it must go peremptorily, as Hagar's offspring into the wilderness, while it was sweet. He never missed it. The streams were perennial which fed his fisc. When new supplies became necessary, the first person that had the felicity to fall in with him, friend or stranger, was sure to contribute to the deficiency. For Bigod had an undeniable way with him. He had a cheerful, open exterior, a quick jovial eye, a bald forehead, just touched with grey {cana fides ^). He anticipated no excuse, and found none. And, waiving for a while my theory as to the great race, I would put it to the most untheorizing reader, who may at times have disposable coin in his pocket, whether it is not more repugnant to the kindliness of his nature to refuse such a one as I am describing, than to say no to a poor petitionary rogue (your bastard borrower), who, by his mumping visnomy, tells you that he expects nothing better; and, therefore, whose preconceived notions and expectations you do in reality so much less shock in the refusal. When I think of this man ; his fiery glow of heart ; his swell of feeling ; how magnificent, how ideal he was ; how great at the midnight hour ; and when I compare with him the com- panions with whom I have associated since, I grudge the saving of a few idle ducats, and think that I am fallen into the society of lenders, and little men. To one like Elia, whose treasures are rather cased in leather covers than closed in iron coffers, there is a class of alienators more formidable than that which I have touched upon; I mean your borrowers of books — those mutilators of collec- tions, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd ^ The honor due to gray hairs. Vergil's JEneid, i. 292. THE TWO RACES OF MEN 35 volumes. There is Comberbatch, matchless in his depreda- tions ! That foul gap in the bottom shelf facing you, like a great eye-tooth knocked out — (you are now with me in my little back study in Bloomsbury, Reader !) — with the huge Switzer-like tomes on each side (hke the Guildhall giants, in their reformed posture, guardant of nothing) once held the tallest of my folios, Opera Bonaventurce,^ choice and massy divinity, to which its two supporters (school divinity also, but of a lesser calibre, — Bellarmine, and Holy Thomas) showed but as dwarfs, — itself an Ascapart ! — that Comber- batch abstracted upon the faith of a theory he holds, which is more easy, I confess, for me to suffer by than to refute, namely, that "the title to property in a book" (my Bona- venture, for instance) " is in exact ratio to the claimant's powers of understanding and appreciating the same." Should he go on acting upon this theory, which of our shelves is safe ? The slight vacuum in the left-hand case — two shelves from the ceiling — scarcely distinguishable but by the quick eye of a loser — was whilom the commodious resting-place of Browne on Urn Burial. C. will hardly allege that he knows more about that treatise than I do, who introduced it to him, and was indeed the first (of the moderns) to discover its beauties — but so have I known a foolish lover to praise his mistress in the presence of a rival more qualified to carry her off than himself. — Just below, Dodsley's dramas want their fourth volume, where Vittoria Corombona is ! The remainder nine are as distasteful as Priam's refuse sons, when the Fates borrowed Hector. Here stoqd the Anatomy of Melancholy, in sober state. — There loitered the Complete Angler; quiet as in life, by some stream side. In yonder nook, John Buncle, a widower- volume, with "eyes closed," mourns his ravished mate. One justice I must do my friend, that if he sometimes, like the sea, sweeps away a treasure, at another time, sea- like, he throws up as rich an equivalent to match it. I 1 The works of St. Bonaventura, the ' Seraphic Doctor.' 36 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA have a small under-collection of this nature (my friend's gatherings in his various calls), picked up, he has forgotten at what odd places, and deposited with as little memory at mine. I take in these orphans, the twice-deserted. These proselytes of the gate are welcome as the true Hebrews. There they stand in conjunction; natives, and naturalized. The latter seem as Httle disposed to inquire out their true lineage as I am. — I charge no warehouse-room for these deodands, nor shall ever put myself to the ungentlemanly trouble of advertising a sale of them to pay expenses. To lose a volume to C. carries some sense and meaning in it. You are sure that he will make one hearty meal on your viands, if he can give no account of the platter after it. But what moved thee, wayward, spiteful K,, to be so importunate to carry off with thee, in spite of tears and adjurations to thee to forbear, the Letters of that princely woman, the thrice noble Margaret Newcastle ? — knowing at the time, and knowing that I knew also, thou most as- suredly wouldst never turn over one leaf of the illustrious folio : — what but the mere spirit of contradiction, and childish love of getting the better of thy friend ? — Then, worst cut of all! to transport it with thee to the Galilean land — Unworthy land to harbor such a sweetness, A virtue in which all ennobling thoughts dwelt. Pure thoughts, kind thoughts, high thoughts, her sex's wonder I hadst thou not thy play-books, and books of jests and fancies, about thee, to keep thee merry, even as thou keepest all companies with thy quips and mirthful tales? Child of the Green-room, it was unkindly done of thee. Thy wife, too, that part-French, better-part-Enghshwoman ! — that she could fix upon no other treatise to bear away, in kindly token of remembering us, than the works of Fulke Greville, Lord Brook — of which no Frenchman, nor woman of France, Italy, or England, was ever by nature constituted to comprehend a tittle ! Was there not Zimmerman on Soli- tude P NEW year's eve 37 Reader, if haply thou art blessed with a moderate collec- tion, be shy of showing it ; or if thy heart overfloweth to lend them, lend thy books; but let it be to such a one as S. T. C. — he will return them (generally anticipating the time ap- pointed) with usury; enriched with annotations, tripling their value. I have had experience. Many are these pre- cious MSS. of his — (in matter oftentimes, and almost in quan- tity not unfrequently, vying with the originals) in no very clerkly hand — legible in my Daniel; in old Burton; in Sir Thomas Browne; and those abstruser cogitations of the .Greville, now, alas ! wandering in Pagan lands. — I counsel thee, shut not thy heart, nor thy library, against S. T. C. NEW YEAR'S EVE Every man hath two birth-days : two days at least, in every year, which set him upon revolving the lapse of time, as it affects his mortal duration. The one is that which in an especial mannel' he termeth his. In the gradual desuetude of old observances, this custom of solemnizing our proper birth- day hath nearly passed away, or is left to children, who re- flect nothing at all about the matter, nor understand anything in it beyond cake and orange. But the birth of a New Year is of an interest too wide to be pretermitted by king or cobbler. No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference. It is that from which all date their time, and count upon what is left. It is the nativity of our common Adam. Of all sound of all bells — (bells, the music nighest border- ing upon heaven) — most solemn and touching is the peal which rings out the Old Year. I never hear it without a gathering-up of my mind to a concentration of all the images that have been diffused over the past twelvemonth; all I have done or suffered, performed or neglected, in that regretted time. I begin to know its worth, as when a person 38 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA dies. It takes a personal color ; nor was it a poetical flight in a contemporary, when he exclaimed — I saw the skirts of the departing Year/ It is no more than what in sober sadness every one of us seems to be conscious of, in that awful leave-taking. I am sure I felt it, and all felt it with me, last night ; though some of my companions affected rather to manifest an exhilara- tion at the birth of the coming year, than any very tender regrets for the decease of its predecessor. But I am none of those who — Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.^ I am naturally, beforehand, shy of novelties; new books, new faces, new years, — from some mental twist which makes it difficult in me to face the prospective. I have almost ceased to hope; and am sanguine only in the prospects of other (former years). I plunge into foregone visions and conclusions. I encounter pell-mell with past disappoint- ments. I am armor-proof against old discouragements. I forgive, or overcome in fancy, old adversaries. I play over again for love, as the gamesters phrase it, games for which I once paid so dear. I would scarce now have any of those untoward accidents and events of my life reversed. I would no more alter them than the incidents of some well-contrived novel. Methinks, it is better that I should have pined away seven of my goldenest years, when I was thrall to the fair hair, and fairer eyes, of Alice W n, than that so passion- ate a love adventure should be lost. It was better that our family should have missed that legacy, which old Dorrell cheated us of, than that I should have at this moment two thousand pounds in banco,^ and be without the idea of that specious old rogue. In a degree beneath manhood, it is my infirmity to look * Coleridge's Ode to the Departing Year, 1796. 2 Pope's Homer's Odyssey, xvi. 84. ^ Italian. Literally, in the bank ; standing to my credit. NEW year's eve 39 back upon those early days. Do I advance a paradox when I say that, skipping over the intervention of forty years, a man may have leave to love himself, without the imputation of self-love ? If I know aught of myself, no one whose mind is intro- spective — and mine is painfully so — can have a less respect for his present identity than I have for the man Elia. I know him to be light, and vain, and humorsome ; a noto- rious . . . ; addicted to . . . ; averse from counsel, neither taking it, nor offering it ; — . . . besides ; a stammering buffoon; what you will; lay it on, and spare not; I sub- scribe to it all, and much more, than thou canst be willing to lay at his door — but for the child Elia — that " other me," there, in the background — I must take leave to cherish the remembrance of that young master — with as little reference, I protest, to this stupid changeling of five-and-forty, as if it had been a child of some other house, and not of my parents. I can cry over its patient small-pox at five, and rougher medicaments. I can lay its poor fevered head upon the sick pillow at Christ's, and wake with it in surprise at the gentle posture of maternal tenderness hanging over it, that un- known had watched its sleep. I know how it shrank from any the least color of falsehood. — God help thee, Elia, how art thou changed ! — Thou art sophisticated. — I know how honest, how courageous (for a weakling) it was — how reli- gious, how imaginative, how hopeful ! From what have I not fallen, if the child I remember was indeed myself, — and not some dissembling guardian, presenting a false identity, to give the rule to my unpractised steps, and regulate the tone of my moral being ! That I am fond of indulging, beyond a hope of sympathy, in such retrospection, may be the symptom of some sickly idiosyncrasy. Or is it owing to another cause : simply, that being without wife or family, I have not learned to project myself enough out of myself ; and having no offspring of my own to dally with, I turn back upon memory, and adopt my own early idea, as my heir and favorite ? If these specula- tions seem fantastical to thee, Reader (a busy man, per- 40 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA chance), if I tread out of the way of thy sympathy, and am singularly conceited only, I retire, impenetrable to ridicule, under the phantom cloud of Elia. The elders, with whom I was brought up, were of a charac- ter not likely to let slip the sacred observance of any old institution; and the ringing out of the Old Year was kept by them with circumstances of peculiar ceremony. — In those days the sound of those midnight chimes, though it seemed to raise hilarity in all around me, never failed to bring a train of pensive imagery into my fancy. Yet I then scarce conceived what it meant, or thought of it as a reckon- ing that concerned me. Not childhood alone, but the young man till thirty, never feels practically that he is mortal. He knows it indeed, and, if need were, he could preach a homily on the fragility of life ; but he brings it not home to himself, any more than in a hot June we can appropriate to our imagi- nation the freezing days of December. But now, shall I con- fess a truth ? — I feel these audits but too powerfully. I begin to count the probabilities of my duration, and to grudge at the expenditure of moments and shortest periods, like misers' farthings. In proportion as the years both lessen and shorten, I set more count upon their periods, and would fain lay my ineffectual finger upon the spoke of the great wheel. I am not content to pass away ^' like 'a weaver's shuttle." ^ Those metaphors solace me not, nor sweeten the unpalatable draught of mortality. I care not to be carried with the tide, that smoothly bears human life to eternity; and reluct at the inevitable course of destiny. I am in love with this green earth ; the face of town and coun- try ; the unspeakable rural solitudes, and the sweet security of streets. I would set up my tabernacle here. I am con- tent to stand still at the age to which I am arrived ; I, and my friends : to be no younger, no richer, no handsomer. I do not want to be weaned by age ; or drop, like mellow fruit, as they say, into the grave. — Any alteration, on this earth of mine, in diet or in lodging, puzzles and discomposes me. My household gods plant a terrible fixed foot, and are not rooted 1 Job vii. 6. NEW year's eve 41 up without blood. They do not willingly seek Lavinian shores. A new state of being staggers me. Sun, and sky, and breeze, and solitary walks, and summer holidays, and the greenness of fields, and the delicious juices of meats and fishes, and society, and the cheerful glass, and candle-light, and fireside conversations, and innocent vani- ties, and jests, and irony itself — do these things go out with life? Can a ghost laugh, or shake his gaunt sides, when you are pleasant with him? And you, my midnight darlings, my Folios; must I part with the intense delight of having you (huge armfuls) in my embraces? Must knowledge come to me, if it come at all, by some awkward experiment of intuition, and no longer by this familiar process of reading ? Shall I enjoy friendships there, wanting the smiling indi- cations which point me to them here, — the recognizable face — the " sweet assurance of a look ? " ^ In winter this intolerable disinchnation to dying — to give it its mildest name — does more especially haunt and beset me. In a genial August noon, beneath a sweltering sky, death is almost problematic. At those times do such poor snakes as myself enjoy an immortality. Then we expand and burgeon. Then we are as strong again, as valiant again, as wise again, and a great deal taller. The blast that nips and shrinks me, puts me in thoughts of death. All things allied to the insubstantial, wait upon that master feeling; cold, numbness, dreams, perplexity; moonlight itself, with its shadowy and spectral appearances, — that cold ghost of the sun, or Phoebus's sickly sister, like that innutritions one de- nounced in the Canticles : — I am none of her minions — I hold with the Persian.^ Whatsoever thwarts, or puts me out of my way, brings ^ Adapted from Roydon's Elegy on Sir Philip Sidney: "A sweet attractive kind of grace, A full assurance given by looks." 2 Sun-worship had its origin in Persia. 42 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA death, unto my mind. All partial evils, like humors, run into that capital plague-sore. — I have heard some profess an indifference to life. Such hail the end of their existence as a port of refuge; and speak of the grave as of some soft arms, in which they may slumber as on a pillow. Some have wooed death but out upon thee, I say, thou foul, ugly phantom ! I detest, abhor, execrate, and (with Friar John) give thee to six-score thousand devils, as in no instance to be excused or tolerated, but shunned as a universal viper; to be branded, proscribed, and spoken evil of ! In no way can I be brought to digest thee, thou thin, melancholy Privation, or more frightful and confounding Positive ! Those antidotes, prescribed against the fear of thee, are altogether frigid and insulting, like thyself. For what satis- faction hath a man, that he shall ''lie down with kings and emperors in death," who in his lifetime never greatly coveted the society of such bed-fellows? — or, forsooth, that "so shall the fairest face appear"? — why, to comfort me, must AHce W n be a goblin ? More than all, I conceive disgust at those impertinent and misbecoming familiarities, inscribed upon your ordinary tombstones. Every dead man must take upon himself to be lecturing me with his odious truism, that " Such as he now is, I must shortly be." Not so shortly, friend, perhaps, as thou imaginest. In the meantime I am alive. I move about. I am worth twenty of thee. Know thy betters ! Thy New Years' Days are past. I survive, a jolly candidate for 1821. Another cup of wine — and while that turn-coat bell, that just now mournfully chanted the obsequies of 1820 departed, with changed notes lustily rings in a successor, let us attune to its peal the song made on a like occasion, by hearty, cheerful Mr. Cotton. THE NEW YEAR Hark, the cock crows, and yon bright star Tells us the day himself 's not far; And see where, breaking from the night, He gilds the western hills with light. NEW year's eve 43 With him old Janus doth appear, Peeping into the future year, With such a look as seems to say The prospect is not good that way. Thus do we rise ill sights to see, And 'gainst ourselves to prophesy; When the prophetic fear of things A more tormenting mischief brings, More full of soul-tormenting gall Than direst mischiefs can befall. But stay ! but stay I methinks my sight, Better informed by clearer light, Discerns sereneness in that brow That all contracted seemed but now. His re vers' d face may show distaste, And frown upon the ills are past; But that which this way looks is clear, And smiles upon the New-born Year. He looks too from a place so high. The Year lies open to his eye; And all the moments open are To the exact discoverer. Yet more and more he smiles upon The happy revolution. Why should we then suspect or fear The influences of a year, So smiles upon us the first mom. And speaks us good so soon as born? Plague on't ! the last was ill enough, This cannot but make better proof; Or, at the worst, as we brush'd through The last, why so we may this too; And then the next in reason should Be superexcellently good: For the worst ills (we daily see) Have no more perpetuity Than the best fortunes that do fall; Which also bring us wherewithal Longer their being to support. Than those do of the other sort: And who has one good year in three. And yet repines at destiny, Appears ungrateful in the case, And merits not the good he has. Then let us welcome the New Guest With lusty brimmers of the best: Mirth always should Good Fortune meet. And render e'en Disaster sweet: 44 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA And though the Princess turn her back, Let us but hne ourselves with sack, We better shall by far hold out, Till the next Year she face about. How say you, Reader — do not these verses smack of the rough magnanimity of the old English vein? Do they not fortify like a cordial ; enlarging the heart, and productive of sweet blood, and generous spirits, in the concoction ? Where be those puling fears of death, just now expressed or affected ? — Passed like a cloud — absorbed in the purging sunlight of clear poetry — clean washed away by a wave of genuine Helicon, your only Spa for these hypochondries. And now another cup of the generous ! and a merry New Year, and many of them, to you all, my masters ! MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST "A CLEAR fire, a clean hearth,* and the rigor of the game." This was the celebrated wish of old Sarah Battle (now with God), who, next to her devotions, loved a good game of whist. She was none of your lukewarm gamesters, your half-and- half players, who have no objection to take a hand, if you want one to make up a rubber ; who affirm that they have no pleasure in winning ; that they like to win one game and lose another; that they can while away an hour very agreeably at a card-table, but are indifferent whether they play or no ; and will desire an adversary, who has slipped a wrong card, to take it up and play another.^ These insufferable triflers are the curse of a table. One of these flies will spoil a whole pot. Of such it may be said that they do not play at cards, but only play at playing at them. Sarah Battle was none of that breed. She detested them, ^ This was before the introduction of rugs, Reader. You must remember the intolerable crash of the unswept cinders betwixt your foot and the marble. [Lamb's note.] 2 As if a sportsman should tell you he liked to kill a fox one day and lose him the next. [Lamb's note.] S MRS. battle's opinions ON WHIST 45 as I do, from her heart and soul ; and would not, save upon a striking emergency, willingly seat herself at the same table with them. She loved a thorough-paced partner, a deter- mined enemy. She took, and gave, no concessions. She hated favors. She never made a revoke, nor ever passed it over in her adversary without exacting the utmost for- feiture. She fought a good fight : cut and thrust. She held not her good sword (her cards) "like a dancer." She sat bolt upright ; and neither showed you her cards, nor desired to see yours. All people have their blind side — their super- stitions; and I have heard her declare, under the rose, that Hearts was her favorite suit. I never in my life — and I knew Sarah Battle many of the best years of it — saw her take out her snuff-box when it was her turn to play ; or snuff a candle in the middle of a game ; or ring for a servant, till it was fairly over. She never intro- duced, or connived at, miscellaneous conversation during its process. As she emphatically observed, cards were cards; and if I ever saw unmingled distaste in her fine last-century countenance, it was at the airs of a young gentleman of a literary turn, who had been with difficulty persuaded to take a hand ; and who, in his excess of candor, declared, that he thought there was no harm in unbending the mind now and then, after serious studies, in recreations of that kind ! She could not bear to have her noble occupation, to which she wound up her faculties, considered in that light. It was her business, her duty, the thing she came into the world to do, — and she did it. She unbent her mind afterwards — over a book. Pope was her favorite author : his Rape of the Lock her favorite work. She once did me the favor to play over with me (with the cards) his celebrated game of Ombre in that poem ; and to explain to me how far it agreed with, and in what points it would be found to differ from, tradrille. Her illustrations were apposite and poignant ; and I had the pleasure of sending the substance of them to Mr. Bowles; but I suppose they came too late to be inserted among hia ingenious notes upon that author. 46 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA Quadrille, she has often told me, was her first love; but whist had engaged her maturer esteem. The former, she said, was showy and specious, and likely to allure young persons. The uncertainty and quick shifting of partners — a thing which the constancy of whist abhors; the dazzling supremacy and regal investiture of Spadille — absurd, as she justly observed, in the pure aristocracy of whist, where his crown and garter give him no proper power above his brother-nobility of the Aces ; — the giddy vanity, so taking to the inexperienced, of playing alone; above all, the over- powering attractions of a Sans Prendre Vole,^ — to the tri- umph of which there is certainly nothing parallel or approach- ing, in the contingencies of whist ; — all these, she would say, make quadrille a game of captivation to the young and en- thusiastic. But whist was the solider game : that was her word. It was a long meal; not, like quadrille, a feast of snatches. One or two rubbers might co-extend in duration with an evening. They gave time to form rooted friendships, to cultivate steady enmities. She despised the chance- started, capricious, and ever-fluctuating alliances of the other. The skirmishes of quadrille, she would say, reminded her of the petty ephemeral embroilments of the little Itahan states, depicted by Machiavel: perpetually changing postures and connections ; bitter foes to-day, sugared darlings to-morrow ; kissing and scratching in a breath ; — but the wars of whist were comparable to the long, steady, deep-rooted, rational antipathies of the great French and English nations. A grave simplicity was what she chiefly admired in her favorite game. There was nothing silly in it, like the nob in cribbage — nothing superfluous. No flushes — that most irrational of all pleas that a reasonable being can set up : — that any one should claim four by virtue of holding cards of the same mark and color, without reference to. the play- ing of the game, or the individual worth or pretensions of the cards themselves ! She held this to be a solecism ; as pitiful an ambition at cards as alliteration is in authorship. She despised superficiality, and looked deeper than the colors of * See Quadrille in the Explanatory Index. MRS. battle's opinions ON WHIST 47 things. — Suits were soldiers, she would say, and must have a uniformity of array to distinguish them : but what should we say to a foolish squire, who should claim a merit from dressing up his tenantry in red jackets, that never were to be marshalled — never to take the field ? — She even wished that whist were more simple than it is; and, in my mind, would have stripped it of some appendages, which, in the state of human frailty, may be venially, and even commend- ably, allowed of. She saw no reason for the deciding of the trump by the turn of the card. Why not one suit always trumps ? — Why two colors, when the mark of the suits would have sufficiently distinguished them without it ? " But the eye, my dear madam, is agreeably refreshed with the variety. Man is not a creature of pure reason — he must have his senses delightfully appealed to. We see it in Roman Catholic countries, where the music and the paintings draw in many to worship, whom your quaker spirit of unsensualiz- ing would have kept out. — You yourself have a pretty col- lection of paintings — but confess to me, whether, walking in your gallery at Sandham, among those clear Vandykes, or among the Paul Potters in the ante-room, you ever felt your bosom glow with an elegant delight, at all comparable to that you have it in your power to experience most evenings over a well-arranged assortment of the court-cards ? — the pretty antic habits, like heralds in a procession — the gay triumph-assuring scarlets — the contrasting deadly-killing sables — the 'hoary majesty of spades' — Pam in all his glory! — "All these might be dispensed with; and with their naked names upon the drab pasteboard, the game might go on very well, pictureless; but the beauty of cards would be extin- guished for ever. Stripped of all that is imaginative in them, they must degenerate into mere gambling. Imagine a dull deal-board, or drum head, to spread them on, instead of that nice verdant carpet (next to nature's), fittest arena for those courtly combatants to play their gallant jousts and turneys in ! — Exchange those delicately-turned ivory markers — (work of Chinese artist, unconscious of their symbol, — or 48 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA as profanely slighting their true application as the arrantest Ephesian journeyman that turned out those little shrines for the goddess) — exchange them for little bits of leather (our ancestors' money) or chalk and a slate \" — The old lady, with a smile, confessed the soundness of my logic; and to her approbation of my arguments on her favorite topic that evening, I have always fancied myself indebted for the legacy of a curious cribbage-board, made of the finest Sienna marble, which her maternal uncle (old Walter Plumer, whom I have elsewhere celebrated) brought with him from Florence : — this, and a trifle of five hundred pounds, came to me at her death. The former bequest (which I do not least value) I have kept with religious care; though she herself, to confess a truth, was never greatly taken with cribbage. It was an essentially vulgar game, I have heard her say, — disputing with her uncle, who was very partial to it. She could never heartily bring her mouth to pronounce "Go," ^ or "That's a go." ^ She called it an ungrammatical game. The pegging teased her. I once knew her to forfeit a rubber (a five-dollar stake) because she would not take advantage of the turn-up knave, which would have given it her, but which she must have claimed by the disgraceful tenure of declaring "tivofor his heels." ^ There is something extremely genteel in this sort of self-denial. Sarah Battle was a gentlewoman born. Piquet she held the best game at the cards for two persons, though she would ridicule the pedantry of the terms — such as pique — repique — the capot — they savored (she thought) of affectation. But games for two, or even three, she never greatly cared for. She loved the quadrate, or square. She would argue thus : - — Cards are warfare : the ends are gain, with glory. But cards are war, in disguise of a sport : when single adversaries encounter, the ends proposed are too palpable. By themselves,' it is too close a fight ; with spectators, it is not much bettered. No looker-on can be interested, except for a bet, and then it is a mere affair of money; he cares not for your luck sympathetically, or for ^ See Cribbage in the Explanatory Index. MRS. battle's opinions ON WHIST 49 your play. — Three are still worse ; a mere naked war of every man against every man, as in cribbage, without league or alliance ; or a rotation of petty and contradictory interests, a succession of heartless leagues, and not much more hearty infractions of them, as in tradrille. — But in square games (she meant whist), all that is possible to be attained in card- playing is accomplished. There are the incentives of profit with honor, common to every species — though the latter can be but very imperfectly enjoyed in those other games, where the spectator is only feebly a participator. But the parties in whist are spectators and principals too. They are a theatre to themselves, and a looker-on is not wanted. He is rather worse than nothing, and an impertinence. Whist abhors neutrality, or interests beyond its sphere. You glory in some surprising stroke of skill or fortune, not because a cold — or even an interested — bystander witnesses it, but because your partner sympathizes in the contingency. You win for two. You triumph for two. Two are exalted. Two again are mortified ; which divides their disgrace, as the con- junction doubles (by taking off the invidiousness) your glories. Two losing to two are better reconciled, than one to one in that close butchery. The hostile feeling is weakened by mul- tiplying the channels. War becomes a civil game. By such reasonings as these the old lady was accustomed to de- fend her favorite pastime. No inducement could ever prevail upon her to play at any game, where chance entered into the composition, for nothing. Chance, she would argue — and here again, admire the sub- tlety of her conclusion; — chance is nothing, but where some- thing else depends upon it. It is obvious that cannot be glory. What rational cause of exultation could it give to a man to turn up size ace a hundred times together by himself ? or before spectators, where no stake was depending ? — Make a lottery of a hundred thousand tickets with but one fortunate number — and what possible principle of our nature, except stupid wonderment, could it gratify to gain that number as many times successively, without a prize? Therefore she disliked the mixture of chance in backgammon, 50 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA where it was not played for money. She called it foolish, and those people idiots, who were taken with a lucky hit under such circumstances. Games of pure skill were as little to her fancy. Played for a stake, they were a mere system of over-reaching. Played for glory, they were a mere setting of one man's wit, — his memory, or combination-faculty rather — against another's; like a mock-engagement at a review, bloodless and profitless. She could not conceive a game wanting the spritely infusion of chance, the handsome excuses of good fortune. Two people playing at chess in a corner of a room, whilst whist was stirring in the centre, would inspire her with insufferable horror and ennui. Those well- cut similitudes of Castles and Knights, the imagery of the board, she would argue (and I think in this case justly), were entirely misplaced and senseless. Those hard head-contests can in no instance ally with the fancy. They reject form and color. A pencil and dry slate (she used to say) were the proper arena for such combatants. To those puny objectors against cards, as nurturing the bad passions, she would retort that man is a gaming animal. He must be always trying to get the better in something or other : — that this passion can scarcely be more safely ex- pended than upon a game at cards : that cards are a tem- porary illusion; in truth, a mere drama; for we do but play at being mightily concerned, where a few idle shillings are at stake, yet, during the illusion, we are as mightily con- cerned as those whose stake is crowns and kingdoms. They are a sort of dream-fighting ; much ado ; great battling and little bloodshed; mighty means for disproportioned ends: quite as diverting, and a great deal more innoxious, than many of those more serious games of life, which men play without esteeming them to be such. With great deference to the old lady's judgment on these matters, I think I have experienced some moments in my life when playing at cards /or nothing has even been agreeable. When I am in sickness, or not in the best spirits, I sometimes call for the cards, and play a game at piquet for love with my cousin Bridget — Bridget Elia. A CHAPTER ON EARS 51 I grant there is something sneaking in it : but with a tooth- ache, or a sprained ankle, — when you are subdued and humble, — you are glad to put up with an inferior spring of action. There is such a thing in nature, I am convinced, as sick whist. I grant it is not the highest style of man — I deprecate the manes of Sarah Battle — she lives not, alas ! to whom I should apologize. At such times, those terms which my old friend objected to, come in as something admissible — I love to get a tierce or a quatorze, though they mean nothing. I am subdued to an inferior interest. Those shadows of winning amuse me. That last game I had with my sweet cousin (I capotted ^ her) — (dare I tell thee, how foolish I am ?) — I wished it might have lasted for ever, though we gained nothing, and lost nothing, though it was a mere shade of play : I would be content to go on in that idle folly for ever. The pipkin should be ever boiling, that was to prepare the gentle lenitive to my foot, which Bridget was doomed to apply after the game was over : and, as I do not much relish appliances, there it should ever bubble. Bridget and I should be ever playing. A CHAPTER ON EARS I HAVE no ear. — Mistake me not. Reader — nor imagine that I am by nature destitute of those exterior twin appendages, hanging orna- ments, and (architecturally speaking) handsome volutes to the human capital. Better my mother had never borne me. — I am, I think, rather delicately than copiously provided with those conduits; and I feel no disposition to envy the mule for his plenty, or the mole for her exactness, in those ingenious labyrinthine inlets — those indispensable side- intelligencers. ^ Won all the tricks, thus adding forty points to the score. 52 THE ESSAYS OF ELI A Neither have I incurred, or done anything to incur, with Defoe, that hideous disfigurement, which constrained him to draw upon assurance — to feel "quite unabashed,"^ and at ease upon that article. . I was never, I thank my stars, in the pillory ; nor, if I read them aright, is it within the com- pass of my destiny, that I ever should be. When therefore I say that I have no ear, you will under- stand me to mean — for music. To say that this heart never melted at the concord of sweet sounds, would be a foul self- libel. "Water parted from the sea" ^ never fails to move it strangely. So does "In infancy." ^ But they were used to be sung at her harpsichord (the old-fashioned instrument in vogue in those days) by a gentlewoman — the gentlest, sure, that ever merited the appellation — the sweetest — why should I hesitate to name Mrs. S , once the blooming Fanny Weatheral of the Temple — who had power to thrill the soul of Elia, small imp as he was, even in his long coats ; and to make him glow, tremble, and blush with a passion, that not faintly indicated the day-spring of that absorbing sentiment, which was afterwards destined to overwhelm and subdue his nature quite, for Alice W n. I even think that sentimentally I am disposed to harmony. But organically I am incapable of a tune. I have been prac- tising "God save the King " all my life ; whistling and humming of it over to myself in solitary corners; and am not yet ar- rived, they tell me, within many quavers of it. Yet hath the loyalty of Eha never been impeached. 1 am not without suspicion that I have an undeveloped faculty of music within me. For thrumming, in my wild way, on my friend A.'s piano, the other morning, while he was engaged in an adjoining parlor, — on his return he was pleased to say, "he thought it could not be the maid!" On his first surprise at hearing the keys touched in somewhat an airy ^ "Earless on high stood, unabashed, Defoe." — Dunciad. [Lamb's note.] 2 Songs by Arne in Artaxerxes, the first play that Lamb ever attended, when he was "not past six years old." The event is recorded in the essay entitled "My First Play." A CHAPTER ON EARS 53 and masterful way, not dreaming of me, his suspicions had hghted on Jenny. But a grace, snatched from a superior refinement, soon convinced him that some being — technically perhaps deficient, but higher informed from a principle com- mon to all the fine arts — had swayed the keys to a mood which Jenny, with all her (less cultivated) enthusiasm, could never have elicited from them. I mention this as a proof of my friend's penetration, and not with any view of disparag- ing Jenny. Scientifically I could never be made to understand (yet have I taken some pains) what a note in music is ; or how one note should differ from another. Much less in voices can I distinguish a soprano from a tenor. Only sometimes the thorough-bass I contrive to guess at, from its being superemi- nently harsh and disagreeable. I tremble, however, for my misapplication of the simplest terms of that which I disclaim. While I profess my ignorance, I scarce know what to say I am ignorant of. I hate, perhaps, by misnomers. Sostenuto ^ and adagio ^ stand in the like relation of obscurity to me ; and Sol, Fa, Mi, Re, is as conjuring as Baralipton} It is hard to stand alone in an age like this, — (constituted to the quick and critical perception of all harmonious combi- nations, I verily believe, beyond all preceding ages, since Jubal stumbled upon the gamut,) — to remain, as it were, singly unimpressible to the magic influences of an art which is said to have such an especial stroke at soothing, elevating, and refining the passions. — Yet, rather than break the candid current of my confessions, I must avow to you that I have received a great deal more pain than pleas- ure from this so cried-up faculty. 1 am constitutionally susceptible of noises. A carpenter's ^ Sostenuto : a musical term, meaning sustained or prolonged. Adagio means slowly. 2 A technical term used in logic. Lamb means that the technics of music are as unmeaning to him as the term Baralipton is to a man who knows sound logical argument, but who would be con- fused if he were to name the steps in his arguments by the technical terms used in logic. 54 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA hammer, in a warm summer noon, will fret me into more than midsummer madness. But those unconnected, unset sounds, are nothing to the measured malice of music. The ear is passive to those single strokes; willingly enduring stripes while it hath no task to con. To music it cannot be passive. It will strive — mine at least will — 'spite of its inaptitude, to thrid the maze; like an unskilled eye painfully poring upon hieroglyphics. I have sat through an Italian Opera, till, for sheer pain, and inexplicable anguish, I have rushed out into the noisiest places of the crowded streets, to solace myself with sounds which I was not obliged to follow, and get rid of the distracting torment of endless, fruitless, barren attention ! I take refuge in the unpretending assemblage of honest common-life sounds ; — and the purgatory of the Enraged Musician becomes my paradise. I have sat at an Oratorio (that profanation of the purposes of the cheerful playhouse) watching the faces of the auditory in the pit (what a contrast to Hogarth's Laughing Audience !) immovable, or affecting some faint emotion — till (as some have said, that our occupations in the next world will be but a shadow of what delighted us in this) I have imagined myself in some cold Theatre in Hades, where some of the forms of the earthly one should be kept up, with none of the enjoyment , or like that Party in a parlor All silent, and all damned.* Above all, those insufferable concertos, and pieces of music, as they are called, do plague and embitter my apprehension. — Words are something; but to be exposed to an endlest battery of mere sounds ; to be long a dying ; to lie stretched upon a rack of roses; to keep up languor by unintermitted effort ; to pile honey upon sugar, and sugar upon honey, to an interminable tedious sweetness; to fill up sound with feeling, and strain ideas to keep pace with it; to gaze on empty frames, and be forced to make the pictures for your- ^ From a stanze in Wordsworth's first edition of Peter Bell, after- wards omitted. A CHAPTER ON EARS 55 self; to read a book all stops and be obliged to supply the verbal matter; to invent extempore tragedies to answer to the vague gestures of an inexplicable rambling mime — these are faint shadows of what I have undergone from a series of the ablest-executed pieces of this empty instrumental music. I deny not, that in the opening of a concert, I have experi- enced something vastly lulling and agreeable : — afterwards foUoweth the languor and the oppression. — Like that disap- pointing book in Patmos; or, like the comings on of mel- ancholy, described by Burton, doth music make her first insinuating approaches : — ''Most pleasant it is to such as are melancholy given, to walk alone in some solitary grove, betwixt wood and water, by some brook side, and to meditate upon some delightsome and pleasant subject, which shall affect him most, amabilis insania,^ and mentis gratissimus error} A most incomparable delight to build castles in the air, to go smiling to themselves, acting an infinite variety of parts, which they suppose, and strongly imagine, they act, or that they see done. — So delightsome these toys at first, they could spend whole days and nights without sleep, even whole years in such contemplations, and fantastical meditations, which are like so many dreams, and will hardly be drawn from them — winding and unwinding themselves as so many clocks, and still pleasing their humors, until at the last the SCENE TURNS UPON A SUDDEN, and they being now habitated to such meditations and solitary places, can endure no com- pany, can think of nothing but harsh and distasteful subjects. Fear, sorrow, suspicion, subrusticus pudor,^ discontent, cares, and weariness of life, surprise them en a sudden, and they can think of nothing else : continually suspecting, no sooner are their eyes open, but this infernal plague of melan- choly seizeth on them, and terrifies their souls, representirj some dismal object to their minds ; which now, by no means, no labor, no persuasions, they can avoid, they cannot be rid of, they cannot resist." Something like this "scene turning" I have experienced * Delightful madness and a most pleasing hallucination. 2 Rustic bashfulness. 56 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA at the evening parties, at the house of my good Catholic friend Nov ; who, by the aid of a capital organ, himself the most finished of players, converts his drawing-room into a chapel, his week days into Sundays, and these latter into minor heavens.^ When my friend commences upon one of those solemn anthems, which peradventure struck upon my heedless ear, rambling in the side aisles of the dim Abbey, some five and thirty years since, waking a new sense, and putting a soul of old religion into my young apprehension — (whether it be that, in which the Psalmist, weary of the persecu- tions of bad men, wisheth to himself dove's wings — or that other which, with a like measure of sobriety and pathos, inquireth by what means the young man shall best cleanse his mind) — a holy calm pervadeth me. — I am for the time rapt above earth. And possess joys not promised at my birth.^ But when this master of the spell, not content to have laid a soul prostrate, goes on, in his power, to inflict more bliss than lies in her capacity to receive, — impatient to overcome her ''earthly" with his ''heavenly," — still pour- ing in, for protracted hours, fresh waves and fresh from the sea of sound, or from that inexhausted German ocean, above which, in triumphant progress, dolphin-seated, ride those Arions Haydn and Mozart, with their attendant Tritons, Bach, Beethoven, and a countless tribe, whom to attempt to reckon up would but plunge me again in the deeps, — I stagger under the weight of harmony, reeling to and fro at my wits' end ; — clouds, as of frankincense, oppress me — priests, altars, censers, dazzle before me — the genius of his religion hath me in her toils — a shadowy triple tiara invests the brow of my friend, late so naked, so ingenuous — he is ^ I have been there, and still would go — 'Tis like a little heaven below. — Dr. Watts. [Lamb's note.] 2 Cf. Walton's The Complete Angler, I. ch. iv. : " I was for that time lifted above earth ; And possest joys not promised by my birth." A QUAKERS' MEETING 57 Pope, — and by him sits, like as in the anomaly of dreams, a she-Pope too, — tri-coronated like himself ! — I am con- verted, and yet a Protestant ; — at once malleus hereticorum,^ and myself grand heresiarch : or three heresies centre in my person : — I am Marcion, Ebion, and Cerinthus — Gog and Magog — what not ? — till the coming in of the friendly supper-tray dissipates the figment, and a draught of true Lutheran beer (in which chiefly my friend shows himself no bigot) at once reconciles me to the rationalities of a purer faith; and restores to me the genuine unterrifying aspects of my pleasant-countenanced host and hostess. A QUAKERS' MEETING Still-born Silence ! thou that art Flood-gate of the deeper heart ! Offspring of a heavenly kind I Frost o' the mouth, and thaw o' the mind I Secrecy's confidant, and he Who makes religion mystery ! Admiration's speaking'st tongue I Leave, thy desert shades among, Reverend hermits' hallow'd cells, Where retired devotion dwells I With thy enthusiasms come. Seize our tongues, and strike us dumb I ^ Reader, would'st thou know what true peace and quiet mean; would'st thou find a refuge from the noises and clamors of the multitude; would'st thou enjoy at once solitude and society; would'st thou possess the depth of thine own spirit in stillness, without being shut out from the consolatory faces of thy species ; would'st thou be alone and yet accompanied; solitary, yet not desolate; singular, yet not without some to keep thee in countenance; a unit ^ Hammer of heretics. A book with this title was written by the German, Johann Faber (1478-1541), who opposed the Protestant Revolt. ^ From Poems of all Sorts, by Richard Fleckno, 1653. 58 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA in aggregate ; a simple in composite : — come with me into a Quakers' Meeting. Dost thou love silence deep as that "before the winds were made"? go not out into the wilderness, descend not into the profundities of the earth; shut not up thy case- ments; nor pour wax into the little cells of thy ears, with little-faithed self-mistrusting Ulysses.^ — Retire with me into a Quakers' Meeting. For a man to refrain even from good words, and to hold his peace, it is commendable ; but for a multitude, it is great mastery. What is the stillness of the desert compared with this place ? what the uncommunicating muteness of fishes ? — here the goddess reigns and revels. — ''Boreas, and Cesias, and Argestes loud," ^ do not with their inter-confounding uproars more augment the brawl — nor the waves of the blown Baltic with their clubbed sounds — than their oppo- site (Silence her sacred self) is multiplied and rendered more intense by numbers and by sympathy. She too hath her deeps, that call unto deeps. Negation itself hath a positive more and less; and closed eyes would seem to obscure the great obscurity of midnight. There are wounds which an imperfect solitude cannot heal. By imperfect I mean that which a man enjoyeth by himself. The perfect is that which he can sometimes attain in crowds, but nowhere so absolutely as in a Quakers' Meeting. — Those first hermits did certainly understand this principle, when they retired into Egyptian solitudes, not singly, but in shoals, to enjoy one another's want of con- versation. The Carthusian is bound to his brethren by this agreeing spirit of incommunicativeness. In secular occa- sions, what so pleasant as to be reading a book through a ^ "The ship stood still, Ulysses guessed that the island of the Sirens was not far off, and that they had charmed the air so with their magic singing. Therefore he made him cakes of wax, as Circe had instructed him, and stopped the ears of his men with them." Lamb's Adventures of Ulysses, Chapter III. 2 Paradise Lost, x. 699. The north, the northeast, and the north- west winds. A QUAKERS' MEETING 59 long winter evening, with a friend sitting by — say, a wife — • he, or she, too (if that be probable), reading another without interruption, or oral communication ? — can there be no sympathy without the gabble of words ? — away with this inhuman, shy, single, shade-and-cavern-haunting solitariness. Give me, Master Zimmerman, a sympathetic solitude. To pace alone in the cloisters or side aisles of some cathe- dral, time-stricken; Or under hanging mountains, Or by the fall of fountains; ^ is but a vulgar luxury compared with that which those enjoy who come together for the purposes of more com- plete, abstracted solitude. This is the loneliness "to be felt." — The Abbey Church of Westminster hath nothing so solemn, so spirit soothing, as the naked walls and benches of a Quakers' Meeting. Here are no tombs, no inscriptions, Sands, ignoble things, Dropt from the ruined sides of kings — ^ but here is something which throws Antiquity herself into the foreground — Silence — eldest of things — language of old Night — primitive discourser — to which the insolent decays of mouldering grandeur have but arrived by a violent, and, as we may say, unnatural progression. How reverend is the view of these hushed heads, Looking tranquillity I ^ Nothing-plotting, nought-caballing, unmischievous synod! convocation without intrigue ! parliament without debate ! what a lesson dost thou read to council, and to consistory ! — if my pen treat of you lightly — as haply it will wander — yet my spirit hath gravely felt the wisdom of your custom, when, sitting among you in deepest peace, which some out- welling tears would rather confirm than disturb, I have re- verted to the times of your beginnings, and the sowings of ^ Pope's Ode to St. Cecilia's Day. 2 Beaumont's On the Tombs in Westminster Abbey. ' Cf. Congreve's Mourning Bride, ii. 1. 60 THE ESSAYS OF ELI A the seed by Fox and Dewesbury. — I have witnessed that which brought before my eyes your heroic tranquilhty, in- flexible to the rude jests and serious violences of the insolent soldiery, republican or royalist, sent to molest you — for ye sate betwixt the fires of two persecutions, the outcast and off-scouring of church and presbytery. — I have seen the reeling sea-ruffian, who had wandered into your receptacle with the avowed intention of disturbing your quiet, from the very spirit of the place receive in a moment a new heart, and presently sit among ye as a lamb amidst lambs. And I remember Penn before his accusers, and Fox in the bail dock, where he was lifted up in spirit, as he tells us, and "the Judge and the Jury became as dead men under his feet." Reader, if you are not acquainted with it, I would recom- mend to you, above all church-narratives, to read Sewel's History of the Quakers. It is in folio, and is the abstract of the journals of Fox and the primitive Friends. It is far more edifying and affecting than anything you will read of Wesley and his colleagues. Here is nothing to stagger you, nothing to make you mistrust, no suspicion of alloy, no drop or dreg of the worldly or ambitious spirit. You will here read the true story of that much-injured, ridiculed man (who perhaps hath been a byword in your mouth) — James Nay- lor : what dreadful sufferings, with what patience, he en- dured, even to the boring through of his tongue with red-hot irons, without a murmur; and with what strength of mind, when the delusion he had fallen into, which they stigmatized for blasphemy, had given way to clearer thoughts, he could renounce his error, in a strain of the beautifullest humility, yet keep his first grounds, and be a Quaker still ! — so dif- ferent from the practice of your common converts from enthusiasm, who, when they apostatize, apostatize all, and think they can never get far enough from the society of their former errors, even to the renunciation of some saving truths, with which they had been mingled, not implicated. Get the writings of John Woolman by heart; and love the early Quakers. How far the followers of these good men in our days A QUAKERS' MEETING 61 have kept to the primitive spirit, or in what proportion they have substituted formaUty for it, the Judge of Spirits can alone determine. I have seen faces in their assembhes upon which the dove sate visibly brooding. Others, again, I have watched, when my thoughts should have been better engaged, in which I could possibly detect nothing but a blank inanity. But quiet was in all, and the disposition to unanim- ity, and the absence of the fierce controversial workings. — If the spiritual pretensions of the Quakers have abated, at least they make few pretences. Hypocrites they certainly are not, in their preaching. It is seldom, indeed, that you shall see one get up amongst them to hold forth. Only now and then a trembling, female, generally ancient, voice is heard — you cannot guess from what part of the meeting it proceeds — with a low, buzzing, musical sound, laying out a few words which ''she thought might suit the condition of some present," with a quaking diffidence, which leaves no possibility of supposing that anything of female vanity was mixed up, where the tones were so full of tenderness, and a restraining modesty. — The men, for what I have observed, speak seldomer. Once only, and it was some years ago, I witnessed a sample of the old Foxian orgasm. It was a man of giant stature, who, as Wordsworth phrases it, might have danced "from head to foot equipt in iron mail." ^ His frame was of iron too. But he was malleable. I saw him shake all over with the spirit — I dare not say, of delusion. The strivings of the outer man were unutterable — he seemed not to speak, but to be spoken from. I saw the strong man bowed down, and his knees to fail — his joints all seemed loosening — it was a figure to set off against Paul preaching — the words he uttered were few, and sound — he was evidently resisting his will — keeping down his own word-wisdom with more mighty effort than the world's orators strain for theirs. " He had been a wit in his youth," he told us, with expressions of a sober remorse. And it was not till long after the im- * Cf. Wordsworth's "'Tis said that some have died for love." 62 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA pression had begun to wear away that I was enabled, with something Hke a smile, to recall the striking incongruity of the confession — understanding the term in its worldly acceptation — with the frame and physiognomy of the per- son before me. His brow would have scared away the Levites — the Jocos Risus-que — faster than the Loves fled the face of Dis at Enna. — By wit, even in his youth, I will be sworn he understood something far within the limits of an allowable liberty. More frequently the Meeting is broken up without a word having been spoken. But the mind has been fed. You go away with a sermon not made with hands. You have been in the milder caverns of Trophonius; or as in some den, where that fiercest and savagest of all wild crea- tures, the Tongue, that unruly member, has strangely lain tied up and captive. You have bathed with still- ness. — 0, when the spirit is sore fretted, even tired to sickness of the j anglings and nonsense-noises of the world, what a balm and a solace it is to go and seat yourself, for a quiet half-hour, upon some undisputed corner of a bench, among the gentle Quakers ! Their garb and stillness conjoined, present a uniformity, tranquil and herd-like — as in the pasture — "forty feeding like one."^ The very garments of a Quaker seem incapable of re- ceiving a soil; and cleanliness in them to be something more than the absence of its contrary. Every Quakeress is a lily ; and when they come up in bands to their Whitsun conferences, whitening the easterly streets of the metropolis, from all parts of the United Kingdom, they show like troops of the Shining Ones. ^ Wordsworth's Lines Written in March. IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES 63 IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES I am of a constitution so general, that it consorts and sympathizeth with all things; I have no antipathy, or rather idiosyncrasy, in anything. Those national repugnancies do not touch me, nor do I behold with prejudice the French, Italian, Spaniard, or Dutch. — Religio Medici. That the author of the Religio Medici, mounted upon the airy stilts of abstraction, conversant about notional and conjectural essences; in whose categories of Being the possible took the upper hand of the actual; should have overlooked the impertinent individualities of such poor concretions as mankind, is not much to be admired. It is rather to be wondered at, that in the genus of animals he should have condescended to distinguish that species at all. For myself — earth-bound and fettered to the scene of my activities, — Standing on earth, not rapt above the sky,^ I confess that I do feel the differences of mankind, national or individual, to an unhealthy excess. I can look with no indifferent eye upon things or persons. Whatever is, is to me a matter of taste or distaste; or when once it be- comes indifferent, it begins to be disrelishing. I am, in plainer words, a bundle of prejudices — made up of likings and dislikings — the veriest thrall to sympathies, apathies, antipathies. In a certain sense, I hope it may be said of me that I am a lover of my species. I can feel for all in- differently, but I cannot feel towards all equally. The more purely-English word that expresses sympathy, will better explain my meaning. I can be a friend to a worthy man, who upon another account cannot be my mate or fellow. I cannot like all people alike. ^ ^ Cf. Paradise Lost, vii. 23. 2 1 would be understood as confining myself to the subject of im'perfect sympathies. Tq nations or cja^^es of men there can be 64 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA I have been trying all my life to like Scotchmen, and am obliged to desist from the experiment in despair. They cannot like me — and in truth, I never knew one of that nation who attempted to do it. There is something more plain and ingenuous in their mode of proceeding. We know one another at first sight. There is an order of imperfect intellects (under which mine must be content to rank) which in its constitution is essentially anti-Caledonian. The owners of the sort of faculties I allude to, have minds rather sug- gestive than comprehensive. They have no pretences to much clearness or precision in their ideas, or in their manner of expressing them. Their intellectual wardrobe (to confess fairly) has few whole pieces in it. They are content with fragments and scattered pieces of Truth. She presents no full front to them — a feature or side-face at the most. Hints and glimpses, germs and crude essays at a system, is the utmost they pretend to. They beat up a little game perad- venture — and leave it to knottier heads, more robust con- no direct antipathy. There may be individuals born and constel- lated so opposite to another individual nature, that the same sphere cannot hold them. I have met with my moral antipodes, and can believe the story of two persons meeting (who never saw one an- other in their lives) and instantly fighting. We by proof find there should be 'Twixt raan and man such an antipathy, That though he can show no just reason why For any former wrong or injury. Can neither find a blemish in his fame, Nor aught in face or feature justly blame, Can challenge or accuse him of no evil. Yet notwithstanding hates him as a devil. The lines are from old Hej'wood's Hierarchie of Angels, and he subjoins a curious story in confirmation, of a Spaniard who attempted to assassinate a king Ferdinand of Spain, and being put to the rack could give no other reason for the deed but an inveterate antipathy which he had taken to the first sight of the king, The cause which to that act compell'd him Was, he ne'er loved hini since he first beheld him. [Lamb's note.] IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES 65 stitutions, to run it down. The light that hghts them is not steady and polar, but mutable and shifting: waxing, and again waning. Their conversation is accordingly. They will throw out a random word in or out of season, and be content to let it pass for what it is worth. They cannot speak always as if they were upon their oath — but must be understood, speaking or writing, with some abatement. They seldom wait to mature a proposition, but e'en bring it to market in the green ear. They delight to impart their defective discoveries as they arise, without waiting for their full development. They are no systematizers, and would but err more by attempting it. Their minds, as I said before, are suggestive merely. The brain of a true Caledonian (if I am not mistaken) is constituted upon quite a different plan. His Minerva is born in panoply. You are never admitted to see his ideas in their growth — if, indeed, they do grow, and are not rather put together upon principles of clock-work. You never catch his mind in an undress. He never hints or suggests anything, but unlades his stock of ideas in per- fect order and completeness. He brings his total wealth into company, and gravely unpacks it. His riches are always about him. He never stoops to catch a glittering something in your presence to share it with you, before he quite knows whether it be true touch or not. You cannot cry halves to anything that he finds. He does not find, but bring. You never witness his first apprehension of a thing. His under- standing is always at its meridian — you never see the first dawn, the early streaks. — He has no falterings of self- suspicion. Surmises, guesses, misgivings, half-intuitions, semi-consciousnesses, partial illuminations, dim instincts, embryo conceptions, have no place in his brain or vocabu- lary. The twilight of dubiety never falls upon him. Is he orthodox — he has no doubts. Is he an infidel — he has none either. Between the affirmative and the negative there is no border-land with him. You cannot hover with him upon the confines of truth, or wander in the maze of a prob- able argument. He always keeps the path. You cannot make excursions with him — for he sets you right. His taste 66 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA never fluctuates. His morality never abates. He cannot compromise, or understand middle actions. There can be but a right and a wrong. His conversation is as a book. His affirmations have the sanctity of an oath. You must speak upon the square with him. He stops a metaphor like a suspected person in an enemy's country. "A healthy book ! " — said one of his countrymen to me, who had ven- tured to give that appellation to John Buncle, — ''Did I catch rightly what you said? I have heard of a man in health, and of a healthy state of body, but I do not see how that epithet can be properly applied to a book." Above all, you must beware of indirect expressions before a Caledonian. Clap an extinguisher upon your irony, if you are unhappily blest with a vein of it. Remember you are upon your oath. I have a print of a graceful female after Leonardo da Vinci, which I was showing off to Mr. . After he had examined it minutely, I ventured to ask him how he liked my beauty (a foolish name it goes by among my friends) — when he very gravely assured me, that "he had considerable respect for my character and talents'' (so he was pleased to say), ''but had not given himself much thought about the degree of my personal pretensions." The misconception staggered me, but did not seem much to disconcert him. — Persons of this nation are particularly fond of affirming a truth — which nobody doubts. They do not so properly affirm, as annun- ciate it. They do indeed appear to have such a love of truth (as if, like virtue, it were valuable for itself) that all truth becomes equally valuable, whether the proposition that con- tains it be new or old, disputed, or such as is impossible to become a subject of disputation. I was present not long since at a party of North Britons, where a son of Burns was expected; and happened to drop a silly expression (in my South British way), that I wished it were the father instead of the son — when four of them started up at once to inform me, that "that was impossible, because he was dead." An impracticable wish, it seems, was more than they could con- ceive. Swift has hit off this part of their character, namely, their love of truth, in his biting way, but with an illiberality IMPERFECT SYMPATHI*ES 67 that necessarily confines the passage to the margin.^ The tediousness of these people is certainly provoking. I wonder if they ever tire one another ! — In my early life I had a passionate fondness for the poetry of Burns. I have some- times foolishly hoped to ingratiate myself with his country- men by expressing it. But I have always found that a true Scot resents your admiration of his compatriot even more than he would your contempt of him. The latter he imputes to your "imperfect acquaintance with many of the words which he uses;" and the same objection makes it a presump- tion in you to suppose that you can admire him. — Thomson they seem to have forgotten. Smollett they have neither forgotten nor forgiven for his delineation of Rory and his companion, upon their first introduction to our metropolis. — Speak of Smollett as a great genius, and they will retort upon you Hume's History compared with his Continuation of it. What if the historian had continued Humphrey Clinker? I have, in the abstract, no disrespect for Jews. They are a piece of stubborn antiquity, compared with which Stonehenge is in its nonage. They date beyond the pyra- mids. But I should not care to be in habits of familiar intercourse with any of that nation. I confess that I have not the nerves to enter their synagogues. Old prejudices cling about me. I cannot shake off the story of Hugh of Lincoln. Centuries of injury, contempt, and hate, on the one side, — of cloaked revenge, dissimulation, and hate, on the other, between our -and their fathers, must and ought to affect the blood of the children. I cannot beheve it can run clear and kindly yet ; or that a few fine words, such as 1 There are some people who think they sufficiently acquit them- selves, and entertain their company, with relating facts of no con- sequence, not at all out of the road of such common incidents as happen every day; and this I have observed more frequently among the Scots than any other nation, who are very careful not to omit the minutest circumstances of time or place; which kind of dis- course, if it were not a little reheved by the uncouth terms and phrases, as well as accent and gesture, pecuhar to that country, would be hardly tolerable. — Hints towards an Essay on Conversa- tion. [Lamb's note.] 68 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA candor, liberality, the light of a nineteenth century, can close up the breaches of so deadly a disunion. A Hebrew is nowhere congenial to me. He is least distasteful on 'Change — for the mercantile spirit levels all distinctions, as all are beauties in the dark. I boldly confess that I do not relish the approximation of Jew and Christian, which has become so fashionable. The reciprocal endearments have, to me, something hypocritical and unnatural in them. I do not like to see the Church and Synagogue kissing and con- geeing in awkward postures of an affected civility. If they are converted, why do they not come over to us alto- gether? Why keep up a form of separation, when the life of it is fled? If they can sit with us at table, why do they kick at our cookery? I do not understand these half con- vertites. Jews christianizing — Christians judaizing — puz- zle me. I like fish or flesh. A moderate Jew is a more con- founding piece of anomaly than a wet Quaker. The spirit of the synagogue is essentially separative. B would have been more in keeping if he had abided by the faith of his forefathers. There is a fine scorn in his face, which nature meant to be of Christians. The Hebrew spirit is strong in him, in spite of his proselytism. He cannot conquer the Shibboleth. How it breaks out, when he sings, " The Children of Israel passed through the Red Sea!'' The auditors, for the moment, are as Egyptians to him, and he rides over our necks in triumph. There is no mistaking him. B has a strong expression of sense in his countenance, and it is con- firmed by his singing. The foundation of his vocal excellence is sense. He sings with understanding, as Kemble delivered dialogue. He would sing the Commandments, and give an appropriate character to each prohibition. His nation, in general, have not over-sensible countenances. How should they ? — but you seldom see a silly expression among them. — Gain, and the pursuit of gain, sharpen a man's visage. I never heard of an idiot being born among them. — Some admire the Jewish female-physiognomy. I admire it — but with trembling. Jael had those full dark inscrutable eyes. In the Negro countenance you will often meet with strong IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES 69 traits of benignity. I have felt yearnings of tenderness towards some of these faces — or rather masks — that have looked out kindly upon one in casual encounters in the streets and highways. I love what Fuller beautifully calls — these "images of God cut in ebony.'' But I should not hke to associate with them, to share my meals and my good nights with them — because they are black. I love Quaker ways, and Quaker worship. I venerate the Quaker principles. It does me good for the rest of the day when I meet any of their people in my path. When I am ruffled or disturbed by any occurrence, the sight, or quiet voice of a Quaker, acts upon me as a ventilator, lightening the air, and taking off a load from the bosom. But I cannot like the Quakers (as Desdemona would say) "to live with them." I am all over sophisticated — with humors, fan- cies, craving hourly sympathy. I must have books, pictures, theatres, chit-chat, scandal, jokes, ambiguities, and a thousand whim-whams, which their simpler taste can do without. I should starve at their primitive banquet. My appetites are too high for the salads which (according to Evelyn) Eve dressed for the angel ; ^ my gusto too excited To sit a guest with Daniel at his pulse.^ The indirect answers which Quakers are often found to return to a question put to them may be explained, I think, without the vulgar assumption, that they are more given to evasion and equivocating than other people. They naturally look to their words more carefully, and are more cautious of committing themselves. They have a peculiar character to keep up on this head. They stand in a manner upon their veracity, A Quaker is by law exempted from taking an oath. The custom of resorting to an oath in extreme cases, sanctified as it is by all religious antiquity, is apt (it must be confessed) to introduce into the laxer sort of minds the notion of two kinds of truth — the one applicable to the solemn affairs of justice, and the other to the common proceedings of daily intercourse. As truth bound upon the conscience by an * Paradise Lost, v. 315 ff. ^ Paradise Regained, ii. 278. 70 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA oath can be but truth, so in the common affirmations of the shop and the market-place a latitude is expected and con- ceded upon questions wanting this solemn covenant. Some- thing less than truth satisfies. It is common to hear a person say, "You do not expect me to speak as if I were upon my oath." Hence a great deal of incorrectness and inadvertency, short of falsehood, creeps into ordinary conversation; and a kind of secondary or laic-truth is tolerated, where clergy- truth — oath-truth, by the nature of the circumstances, is not required. A Quaker knows none of this distinction. His simple affirmation being received upon the most sacred occa- sions, without any further test, stamps a value upon the words which he is to use upon the most indifferent topics of life. He looks to them, naturally, with more severity. You can have of him no more than his word. He knows, if he is caught tripping in a casual expression, he forfeits, for himself at least, his claim to the invidious exemption. He knows that his syllables are weighed — and how far a consciousness of this particular watchfulness, exerted against a person, has a tendency to produce indirect answers, and a diverting of the question by honest means, might be illustrated, and the prac- tice justified, by a more sacred example than is proper to be adduced upon this occasion. The admirable presence of mind, which is notorious in Quakers upon all contingencies, might be traced to this imposed self- watchfulness — if it did not seem rather an humble and secular scion of that old stock of religious constancy, which never bent or faltered, in the Primitive Friends, or gave way to the winds of persecution, to the violence of judge or accuser, under trials and racking examinations. "You will never be the wiser, if I sit here answering your questions till midnight," said one of those upright Justicers to Penn, who had been putting law-cases with a puzzling subtlety. "Thereafter as the answers may be," retorted the Quaker. The astonishing composure of this people is sometimes ludicrously displayed in lighter instances. — I was travelling in a stage-coach with three male Quakers, buttoned up in the straitest nonconformity of their sect. We stopped to bait at Andover, where a meal, I WITCHES AND OTHER NIGHT FEARS 71 partly tea apparatus, partly supper, was set before us. My friends confined themselves to the tea-table. I in my way took supper. When the landlady brought in the bill, the eldest of my companions discovered that she had charged for both meals. This was resisted. Mine hostess was very clamorous and positive. Some mild arguments were used on the part of the Quakers, for which the heated mind of the good lady seemed by no means a fit recipient. The guard came in with his usual peremptory notice. The Quakers pulled out their money and formally tendered it — so much for tea -^ I, in humble imitation, tendering mine — for the supper which I had taken. She would not relax in her demand. So they all three quietly put up their silver, as did myself, and marched out of the room, the eldest and gravest going first, with myself closing up the rear, who thought I could not do better than follow the example of such grave and warrantable personages. We got in. The steps went up. The coach drove off. The murmurs of mine hostess, not very indistinctly or ambiguously pronounced, became after a time inaudible — and now my conscience, which the whimsical scene had for a while suspended, begin- ning to give some twitches, I waited, in the hope that some justification would be offered by these serious persons for the seeming injustice of their conduct. To my great surprise not a syllable was dropped on the subject. They sat as mute as at a meeting. At length the eldest of them broke silence, by inquiring of his next neighbor, "Hast thee heard how indigos go at the India House ? " and the question operated as a soporific on my moral feeling as far as Exeter. WITCHES AND OTHER NIGHT FEARS We are too hasty when we set down our ancestors in the gross for fools, for the monstrous inconsistencies (as they seem to us) involved in their creed of witchcraft. In the relations of this visible world we find them to have been 72 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA as rational, and shrewd to detect an historic anomaly, as ourselves. But when once the invisible world was sup- posed to be opened, and the lawless agency of bad spirits assumed, what measures of probability, of decency, of fit- ness, or proportion — of that which distinguishes the likely from the palpable absurd — could they have to guide them in the rejection or admission of any particular testimony? — That maidens pined away, wasting inwardly as their waxen images consumed before a fire — that corn was lodged, and cattle lamed — that whirlwinds uptore in diabolic revelry the oaks of the forest — or that spits and kettles only danced a fearful-innocent vagary about some rustic's kitchen when no wind was stirring — were all equally probable where no law of agency was understood. That the prince of the powers of darkness, passing by the flower and pomp of the earth, should lay preposterous siege to the weak fantasy of indigent eld — has neither likelihood nor unlikelihood h priori to us, who have no measure to guess at his policy, or standard to estimate what rate those anile souls may fetch in the devil's market. Nor, when the wicked are expressly symbolized by a goat, was it to be wondered at so much, that he should come sometimes in that body, and assert his metaphor. — That the intercourse was opened at all between both worlds was perhaps the mistake — but that once assumed, I see no reason for disbelieving one attested story of this nature more than another on the score of ab- surdity. There is no law to judge of the lawless, or canon by which a dream may be criticised. I have sometimes thought that I could not have existed in the days of received witchcraft; that I could not have slept in a village where one of those reputed hags dwelt. Our ancestors were bolder or more obtuse. Amidst the universal belief that these wretches were in league with the author of all evil, holding hell tributary to their mut- tering, no simple justice of the peace seems to have scrupled issuing, or silly headborough serving, a warrant upon them — as if they should subpoena Satan ! — Prospero in his boat, with his books and wand about him, suffers himself to be WITCHES AND OTHER NIGHT FEARS 73 conveyed away at the mercy of his enemies to an unknown island. He might have raised a storm or two, we think, on the passage. His acquiescence is in exact analogy to the non-resistance of witches to the constituted powers. — What stops the Fiend in Spenser from tearing Guyon to pieces — or who had made it a condition of his prey that Guyon must take assay of the glorious bait — we have no guess. We do not know the laws of that country. From my childhood I was extremely inquisitive about witches and witch-stories. My maid, and more legendary aunt, supplied me with good store. But I shall mention the accident which directed my curiosity originally into this channel. In my father's book-closet the History of the Bible by Stackhouse occupied a distinguished station. The pic- tures with which it abounds — one of the ark, in particular, and another of Solomon's temple, delineated with all the fidelity of ocular admeasurement, as if the artist had been upon the spot — attracted my childish attention. There was a picture, too, of the Witch raising up Samuel, which I wish that I had never seen. We shall come to that hereafter. Stackhouse is in two huge tomes; and there was a pleasure in removing folios of that magnitude, which, with infinite straining, was as much as I could manage, from the situation which they occupied upon an upper shelf. I have not met with the work from that time to this, but I remember it consisted of Old Testament stories, orderly set down, with the objection appended to each story, and the solution of the objection regularly tacked to that. The objection was a summary of whatever difficulties had been opposed to the credibility of the history by the shrewdness of ancient or modern infidelity, drawn up with an almost complimen- tary excess of candor. The solution was brief, modest, and satisfactory. The bane and antidote were both before you. To doubts so put, and so quashed, there seemed to be an end for ever. The dragon lay dead, for the foot of the veriest babe to trample on. But — hke as was rather feared than reahzed from that slain monster in Spenser — from the womb of those crushed errors young dragonets would creep, 74 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA exceeding the prowess of so tender a Saint George as myself to vanquish. The habit of expecting objections to every passage set me upon starting more objections, for the glory of finding a solution of my own for them. I became staggered and perplexed, a sceptic in long-coats. The pretty Bible stories which I had read, or heard read in church, lost their purity and sincerity of impression, and were turned into so many historic or chronologic theses to be defended against whatever impugners. I was not to disbelieve them, but — the next thing to that — I was to be quite sure that some one or other would or had disbelieved them. Next to making a child an infidel, is the letting him know that there are infidels at all. Credulity is the man's weakness, but the child's strength. O, how ugly sound scriptural doubts from the mouth of a babe and a suckling ! — I should have lost myself in these mazes, and have pined away, I think, with such unfit sustenance as these husks afforded, but for a fortunate piece of ill-fortune which about this time befell me. Turning over the picture of the ark with too much haste, I unhappily made a breach in its ingenious fabric — driving my inconsiderate fingers right through the two larger quadru- peds, the elephant and the camel, that stare (as well they might) out of the two last windows next the steerage in that unique piece of naval architecture. Stackhouse was hence- forth locked up, and became an interdicted treasure. With the book, the objections and solutions gradually cleared out of my head, and have seldom returned since in any force to trouble me. But there was one impression which I had imbibed from Stackhouse, which no lock or bar could shut out, and which was destined to try my childish nerves rather more seriously. — That detestable picture ! I was dreadfully alive to nervous terrors. The night-time solitude, and the dark, were my hell. The sufferings I en- dured in this nature would justify the expression. I never laid my head on my pillow, I suppose, from the fourth to the seventh or eighth year of my life — so far as memory serves in things so long ago — without an assurance, which realized its own prophecy, of seeing some frightful spectre. Be old WITCHES AND OTHER NIGHT FEARS 75 Stackhouse then acquitted in part, if I say, that to his picture of the Witch raising up Samuel — ■■ (0 that old man covered with a mantle !) — I owe — not my midnight terrors, the hell of my infancy — but the shape and manner of their visitation. It was he who dressed up for me a hag that nightly sate upon my pillow — a sure bedfellow, when my aunt or my maid was far from me. All day long, while the book was permitted me, I dreamed waking over his delinea- tion, and at night (if I may use so bold an expression) awoke into sleep, and found the vision true. I durst not, even in the daylight, once enter the chamber where I slept, without my face turned to the window, aversely from the bed where my witch-ridden pillow was. Parents do not know what they do when they leave tender babes alone to go to sleep in the dark. The feeling about for a friendly arm — the hoping for a familiar voice — when they wake screaming — and find none to soothe them — what a terrible shaking it is to their poor nerves ! The keeping them up till midnight, through candle-light and the unwholesome hours, as they are called, — would, I am satisfied, in a medical point of view, prove the better caution. — That detestable picture, as I have said, gave the fashion to my dreams — if dreams they were — for the scene of them was invariably the room in which I lay. Had I never met with the picture, the fears would have come self -pictured in some shape or other — Headless bear, black man, or ape — * but, as it was, my imaginations took that form. — It is not book, or picture, or the stories of foolish servants, which create these terrors in children. They can at most but give them a direction. Dear little T. H., who of all children has been brought up with the most scrupulous exclusion of every taint of superstition — who was never allowed to hear of goblin or apparition, or scarcely to be told of bad men, or to read or hear of any distressing story — finds all this world of fear, from which he has been so rigidly excluded ab extra,^ *A remembrance from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, "The Abstract of Melancholy." ^ Externally, 7G THE ESSAYS OF ELIA in his own 'Hhick-coming fancies;"^ and from his little midnight pillow, this nurse-child of optimism will start at shapes, unborrowed of tradition, in sweats to which the reveries of the cell-damned murderer are tranquillity. GoT-gons, and Hydras, and Chimseras dire — stories of Celseno and the Harpies — may reproduce themselves in the brain of superstition — but they were there before. They are transcripts, types — the archetypes are in us, and eternal. How else should the recital of that, which we know in a waking sense to be false, come to affect us at all ? — or Names, whose sense we see not, Fray us with things that be not ? ^ Is it that we naturally conceive terror from such objects, considered in their capacity of being able to inflict upon us bodily injury? — 0, least of all! These terrors are of older standing. They date beyond body — or, without the body, they would have been the same. All the cruel, tormenting, defined devils in Dante — tearing, mangling, choking, stifling, scorching demons — are they one half so fearful to the spirit of a man, as the simple idea of a spirit unembodied following him — Like one .that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turn'd round, walks on And turns no more his head; Because he knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread.^ That the kind of fear here treated of is purely spiritual — that it is strong in proportion as it is objectless upon earth — that it predominates in the period of sinless infancy — are difficulties, the solution of which might afford some probable insight into our ante-mundane condition, and a peep at least into the shadowland of preexistence. My night fancies have long ceased to be afflictive. I confess an occasional nightmare ; but I do not, as in early youth, keep a stud of them. Fiendish faces, with the ex- * Macbeth, v. 3. 38. ^ Spenser's Epithalamion, 343-344. ^ Mr. Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. [Lamb's note.] i WITCHES AND OTHER 'NIGHT FEARS 77 tinguished taper, will come and look at me ; but I know them for mockeries, even while I cannot elude their presence, and I fight and grapple with them-. For the credit of my imagina- tion, I am almost ashamed to say how tame and prosaic my dreams are grown. They are never romantic, seldom even rural. They are of architecture and of buildings — cities abroad, which I have never seen and hardly have hope to see. I have traversed, for the seeming length of a natural day, Rome, Amsterdam, Paris, Lisbon — their churches, palaces, squares, market-places, shops, suburbs, ruins, with an inexpressible sense of delight — a map-like distinctness of trace, and a day-light vividness of vision, that was all but being awake. — I have formerly travelled among the Westmoreland fells — my highest Alps, — but they are objects too mighty for the grasp of my dreaming recognition; and I have again and again awoke with ineffectual struggles of the inner eye, to make out a shape, in any way whatever, of Helvellyn. Methought I was in that country, but the mountains were gone. The poverty of my dreams mortifies me. There is Coleridge, at his will can conjure up icy domes, and pleasure-houses for Kubla Khan, and Abyssinian maids, and songs of Abara, and caverns. Where Alph, the sacred river, runs,* to solace his night solitudes — when I cannot muster a fiddle. Barry Cornwall has his tritons and his nereids gamboling be- fore him in nocturnal visions, and proclaiming sons born to Neptune — when my stretch of imaginative activity can hardly, in the night season, raise up the ghost of a fish-wife. To set my failures in somewhat a mortifying light — it was after reading the noble Dream of this poet, that my fancy ran strong upon these marine spectra; and the poor plastic power, such as it is, within me set to work to humor my folly in a sort of dream that very night. Methought I was upon the ocean billows at some sea nuptials, riding and mounted high, with the customary train sounding their conchs before me (I myself, you may be sure, the leading god), and joUily ^ Coleridge's Kuhla Khan. 78 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA we went careering over the main, till just where Ino Leucothea should have greeted me (I think it was Ino) with a white embrace, the billows gradually subsiding, fell from a sea rough- ness to a sea calm, and thence to a river motion, and that river (as happens in the familiarization of dreams) was no other than the gentle Thames, which landed me, in the wafture of a placid wave or two, alone, safe and inglorious, some- where at the foot of Lambeth Palace. The degree of the soul's creativeness in sleep might furnish no whimsical criterion of the quantum of poetical faculty resident in the same soul waking. An old gentleman, a friend of mine, and a humorist, used to carry this notion so far, that when he saw any stripling of his acquaintance ambitious of becoming a poet, his first question would be, — "Young man, what sort of dreams have you ? " I have so much faith in my old friend's theory, that when I feel that idle vein re- turning upon me, I presently subside into my proper element of prose, remembering those eluding nereids, and that in- auspicious inland landing. VALENTINE'S DAY Hail to thy returning festival, old Bishop Valentine ! Great is thy name in the rubric, thou venerable Archflamen of Hymen! Immortal Go-between; who and what manner of person art thou? Art thou but a name, typifying the restless principle which impels poor humans to seek perfec- tion in union? or wert thou indeed a mortal prelate, with, thy tippet and thy rochet, thy apron on, and decent lawn sleeves ? Mysterious personage ! Like unto thee, assuredly, there is no other mitred father in the calendar ; not Jerome, nor Ambrose, nor Cyril; nor the consigner of undipt infants to eternal torments, Austin, whom all mothers hate ; nor he who hated all mothers, Origen; nor Bishop Bull, nor Arch- bishop Parker, nor Whitgift. Thou comest attended with thousands and ten thousands of little Loves, and the air is valentine's day 79 Brush'd with the hiss of rustling wings .^ Singing Cupids are thy choristers and thy precentors ; and in- stead of the crosier, the mystical arrow is borne before thee. In other words, this is the day on which those charming little missives, ycleped Valentines, cross and intercross each other at every street and turning. The weary and all for- spent twopenny postman sinks beneath a load of delicate embarrassments, not his own. It is scarcely credible to what an extent this ephemeral courtship is carried on in this loving town, to the great enrichment of porters, and detri- ment of knockers and bell-wires. In these little visual inter- pretations, no emblem is so common as the heart, — that little three-cornered exponent of all our hopes and fears, — the bestuck and bleeding heart; it is twisted and tortured into more allegories and affectations than an opera hat. What authority we have in history or mythology for placing the headquarters and metropolis of god Cupid in this anatomical seat rather than in any other, is not very clear ; but we have got it, and it will serve as well as any other. Else we might easily imagine, upon some other system which might have prevailed for anything which our pathology knows to the contrary, a lover addressing his mistress, in perfect simplicity of feeling, "Madam, my Z^wrand fortune are entirely at your disposal;" or putting a delicate question, "Amanda, have you a midriff to bestow?" But custom has settled these things, and awarded the seat of sentiment to the afore- said triangle, while its less fortunate neighbors wait at animal and anatomical distance. Not many sounds in life, and I include all urban and all rural sounds, exceed in interest a knock at the door. It "gives a very echo to the throne where hope is seated."^ ^ Paradise Lost, i. 768. 2 Cf. Twelfth Night, ii. 4. 20. This is one of Lamb's free adapta- tions in a quotation. It is notable that the quotation is not isolated, but holds an integral part in the composition of the thought in the essay. A reading of the whole scene from Twelfth Night will show that the thought and the atmosphere of the essay are conceived in the spirit of the entire scene. 80 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA But its issues seldom answer to this oracle within. It is so seldom that just the person we want to see comes. But of all the clamorous visitations the welcomest in expectation is the sound that ushers in, or seems to usher in, a Valentine. As the raven himself was hoarse that announced the fatal entrance of Duncan,* so the knock of the postman on this day is light, airy, confident, and befitting one that bringeth good tidings. It is less mechanical than on other days ; you will say, ''That is not the post, I am sure.'' Visions of Love, of Cupids, of Hymens ! — delightful eternal commonplaces, which ''having been will always be;''^ which no school-boy nor school-man can write away; having your irreversible throne in the fancy and affections — what are your trans- ports, when the happy maiden, opening with careful finger, careful not to break the emblematic seal, bursts upon the sight of some well-designed allegory, some type, some youth- ful fancy, not without verses — Lovers all, A madrigal,' or some such device, not over-abundant in sense — young Love disclaims it, — and not quite silly — something between wind and water, a chorus where the sheep might almost join the shepherd, as they did, or as I apprehend they did, in Arcadia. All Valentines are not foolish ; and I shall not easily forget thine, my kind friend (if I may have leave to call you so) E. B . E. B. lived opposite a young maiden, whom he had often seen, unseen, from his parlor window in C e Street. She was all joyousness and innocence, and just of an age to enjoy receiving a Valentine, and just of a temper ^ Macbeth, i. 5. 39. 2 Cf. Wordsworth's lines in the Ode, On Intimations of Immortality, X. 14-15: "The primal sympathy which having been must ever be.'"' 3 "But a' never lived to touch it — a 'began all in a moment to sing * Lovers all, a Madrigall ' : 'Twas the only song Master Abram ever learned out of book" (Davy to Shallow, describing Slender's death, Falstaff's Letters, by James White). [Note by Hallward and Hill.] valentine's day 81 to bear the disappointment of missing one with good humor. E. B. is an artist of no common powers ; in the fancy parts of designing, perhaps inferior to none; his name is known at the bottom of many a well-executed vignette in the way of his profession, but no further; for E. B. is modest, and the world meets nobody half way. E. B. meditated how he could repay this young maiden for many a favor which she had done him unknown; for when a kindly face greets us, though but passing by, and never knows us again, nor we it, we should feel it as an obligation: and E. B. did. This good artist set himself at work to please the damsel. It was just before Valentine's day three years since. He wrought, un- seen and unsuspected, a wondrous work. We need not say it was on the finest gilt paper with borders — full, not of common hearts and heartless allegory, but all the prettiest stories of love from Ovid, and older poets than Ovid (for E. B. is a scholar). There was Pyramus and Thisbe, and be sure Dido was not forgot, nor Hero and Leander, and swans more than sang in Cayster, with mottoes and fanciful devices, such as beseemed — a work, in short, of magic. Iris dipt the woof.^ This on Valentine's eve he commended to the all- swallowing indiscriminate orifice (0 ignoble trust !) of the common post; but the humble medium did its duty, and from his watchful stand the next morning he saw the cheerful messenger knock, and by-and-by the precious charge delivered. He saw, unseen, the happy girl unfold the Valentine, dance about, clap her hands, as one after one the pretty emblems unfolded themselves. She danced about, not with light love or foolish expectations, for she had no lover ; or, if she had, none she knew that could have created those bright images which delighted her. It was more like some fairy present; a God-send, as our familiarly pious ancestors termed a benefit received where the benefactor was unknown. It would do her no harm. It would do her good for ever after. It is good to love the unknown. I only give this as a speci- men of E. B. and his modest way of doing a concealed kindness. 1 "Iris had dipt the woof," Paradise Lost, xi. 244. 82 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA Good morrow to my Valentine, sings poor Ophelia ; ^ and no better wish, but with better auspices, we wish to all faithful lovers, who are not too wise to despise old legends, but are content to rank themselves humble diocesans of old Bishop Valentine and his true church. MY RELATIONS I AM arrived at that point of life at which a man may account it a blessing, as it is a singularity, if he have either of his parents surviving. I have not that felicity — and some- times think feelingly of a passage in ''Browne's Christian Morals," where he speaks of a man that hath lived sixty or seventy years in the world. "In such a compass of time,'' he says, "a man may have a close apprehension what it is to be forgotten, when he hath lived to find none who could remember his father, or scarcely the friends of his youth, and may sensibly see with what a face in no long time Oblivion will look upon himself." I had an aunt, a dear and good one. She was one whom single blessedness had soured to the world. She often used to say, that I was the only thing in it which she loved ; and, when she thought I was quitting it, she grieved over me with mother's tears. A partiality quite so exclusive my reason cannot altogether approve. She was from morning till night poring over good books and devotional exercises. Her favorite volumes were ''Thomas a Kempis," in Stanhope's translation; and a Roman Catholic Prayer Book, with the * She loves Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, and through a series of unfortunate happenings becomes insane, finally drowning herself. In Hamlet, iv. 5, she sings: " Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's day All in the morning betime. And I a maid at your window To be your Valentine." MY RELATIONS 83 matins ^ and complines ^ regularly set down — terms which I was at that time too young to understand. She persisted in reading them, although admonished daily concerning their Papistical tendency; and went to church every Sabbath, as a good Protestant should do. These were the only books she studied ; though, I think, at one period of her life, she told me, she had read with great satisfaction the '^ Adventures of an Unfortunate Young Nobleman.'' Finding the door of the chapel in Essex Street open one day — it was in the infancy of that heresy — she went in, liked the sermon, and the manner of worship, and frequented it at intervals for some time after. She came not for doctrinal points, and never missed them. With some little asperities in her con- stitution, which I have above hinted at, she was a steadfast, friendly being, and a fine old Christian. She was a woman of strong sense, and a shrewd mind — extraordinary at a repartee; one of the few occasions of her breaking silence — else she did not much value wit. The only secular employment I remember to have seen her engaged in, was the splitting of French beans, and dropping them into a china basin of fair water. The odor of those tender vegetables to this day comes back upon my sense, redolent of soothing recollections. Certainly it is the most delicate of culinary operations. Male aunts, as somebody calls them, I had none — to re- member. By the uncle's side, I may be said to have been born an orphan. Brother, or sister, I never had any — to know them. A sister, I think, that should have been Eliza- beth, died in both our infancies. What a comfort, or what a care, may I not have missed in her ! — But I have cousins sprinkled about in Hertfordshire — besides two, with whom I have been all my life in habits of the closest intimacy, and whom I may term cousins par excellence. These are James and Bridget Elia. They are older than myself by twelve, and ten, years ; and neither of them seems disposed, in matters of advice and guidance, to waive any of the prerogatives which primogeniture confers. May they continue still in the same ^ The morning service, and the last prayer at night. 84 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA mind; and when they shall be seventy-five, and seventy- three, years old (I cannot spare them sooner), persist in treat- ing me in my grand climacteric precisely as a stripling, or younger brother ! James is an inexplicable cousin. Nature hath her unities, which not every critic can penetrate ; or, if we feel, we cannot explain them. The pen of Yorick, and of none since his, could have drawn J. E. entire — those fine Shandean lights and shades, which make up his story. I must limp after in my poor antithetical manner, as the fates have given me grace and talent. J. E. then — to the eye of a common observer at least — seemeth made up of contradictory principles. The genuine child of impulse, the frigid philosopher of pru- dence — the phlegm of my cousin's doctrine, is invariably at war with his temperament, which is high sanguine. With always some fire-new project in his brain, J. E. is the sys- tematic opponent of innovation, and crier-down of everything that has not stood the test of age and experiment. With a hundred fine notions chasing one another hourly in his fancy, he is startled at the least approach to the romantic in others ; and, determined by his own sense in everything, commends you to the guidance of common sense on all occasions. — With a touch of the eccentric in all which he does or says, he is only anxious that you should not commit yourself by doing anything absurd or singular. On my once letting slip at table, that I was not fond of a certain popular dish, he begged me at any rate not to say so — for the world would think me mad. He disguises a passionate fondness for works of high art (whereof he hath amassed a choice collection), under the pretext of buying only to sell again — that his enthusiasm may give no encouragement to yours. Yet, if it were so, why does that piece of tender, pastoral Domenichino hang still by his wall ? — is the ball of his sight much more dear to him ? — or what picture-dealer can talk like him ? Whereas mankind in general are observed to warp their speculative conclusions to the bent of their individual hu- mors, his theories are sure to be in diametrical opposition to his constitution. He is courageous as Charles of Sweden, MY RELATIONS 85 upon instinct; chary of his person, upon principle, as a traveUing Quaker. He has been preaching up to me, all my life, the doctrine of bowing to the great — the necessity of forms, and manner, to a man^s getting on in the world. He himself never aims at either, that I can discover, — and has a spirit that would stand upright in the presence of the Cham of Tartary. It is pleasant to hear him discourse of patience — extolling it as the truest wisdom — and to see him dur- ing the last seven minutes that his dinner is getting ready. Nature never ran up in her haste a more restless piece of workmanship than when she moulded this impetuous cousin — and Art never turned out a more elaborate orator than he can display himself to be, upon his favorite topic of the advantages of quiet and contentedness in the state, whatever it be, that we are placed in. He is triumphant on this theme, when he has you safe in one of those short stages that ply for the western road, in a very obstructing manner, at the foot of John Murray's Street — where you get in when it is empty, and are expected to wait till the vehicle hath completed her just freight — a trying three quarters of an hour to some people. He wonders at your fidgetiness, — '' Where could we be better than we are, thus sitting, thus consulting ?'' ^ — '^ prefers, for his part, a state of rest to locomotion,'' — with an eye all the while upon the coachman, — till at length, waxing out of all patience, at your want of it, he breaks out into a pathetic remonstrance at the fellow for detaining us so long over the time which he had professed, and declares peremptorily, that "the gentleman in the coach is determined to get out, if he does not drive on that instant." Very quick at inventing an argument, or detecting a sophis- try, he is incapable of attending you in any chain of arguing. Indeed, he makes wild work with logic ; and seems to jump at most admirable conclusions by some process not at all a,kin to it. Consonantly enough to this, he hath been heard to deny, upon certain occasions, that there exists such a faculty at all in man as reason; and wondereth how rnan came first to have a conceit of it — enforcing his negation 1 Paradise Lost, ii. 164. 86 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA with all the might of reasoning he is master of. He has some speculative notions against laughter, and will maintain that laughing is not natural to him — when peradventure the next moment his lungs shall crow like chanticleer. He says some of the best things in the world — and declareth that wit is his aversion. It was he who said, upon seeing the Eton boys at play in their grounds — What a pity to think that these fine ingenuous lads in a few years will all be changed into frivolous Members of Parliament ! His youth was fiery, glowing, tempestuous — and in age he discovereth no symptom of cooling. This is that which I admire in him. I hate people who meet Time half way. I am for no compromise with that inevitable spoiler. While he lives, J. E. will take his swing. — It does me good, as I walk towards the street of my daily avocation, on some fine May morning, to meet him marching in a quite opposite direction, with a jolly handsome presence, and shining san- guine face, that indicates some purchase in his eye — a Claude — or a Hobbima — for much of his enviable leisure is consumed at Christie's and Phillips's — or where not, to pick up pictures, and such gauds. On these occasions he mostly stoppeth me, to read a short lecture on the advantage a person like me possesses above himself, in having his time occupied with business which he must do — assureth me that he often feels it hang heavy on his hands — wishes he had fewer holidays — and goes off — Westward Ho ! — chanting a tune, to Pall Mall — perfectly convinced that he has con- vinced me — while I proceed in my opposite direction tune- less. It is pleasant, again, to see this Professor of Indifference doing the honors of his new purchase, when he has fairly housed it. You must view it in every light, till he has found the best — placing it at this distance, and at that, but always suiting the focus of your sight to his own. You must spy at it through your fingers, to catch the aerial perspective — though you assure him that to you the landscape shows much more agreeable without that artifice. Woe be to the luckless wight who does not only not respond to his rapture, but who MY RELATIONS 87 should drop an unseasonable intimation of preferring one of his anterior bargains to the present ! — The last is always his best hit — his " Cynthia of the minute/' ^ — Alas ! how many a mild Madonna have I known to come in — a Raphael ! — keep its ascendency for a few brief moons — then, after certain intermedial degradations, from the front drawing- room to the back gallery, thence to the dark parlor, — adopted in turn by each of the Carracci, under successive lowering ascriptions of filiation, mildly breaking its fall — consigned to the oblivious lumber-room, go out at last a Lucca Giordano, or plain Carlo Maratti ! — which things when I beheld — musing upon the chances and mutabilities of fate below, hath made me to reflect upon the altered condition of great personages, or that woeful Queen of Richard the Second — set forth in pomp, She came adorned hither like sweet May ; Sent back like Hallowmass or shortest day.^ With great love for you, J. E. hath but a limited sympathy with what you feel or do. He lives in a world of his own, and makes slender guesses at what passes in your mind. He never pierces the marrow of your habits. He will tell an old- established playgoer, that Mr. Such-a-one, of So-and-so (naming one of the theatres), is a very lively comedian — as a piece of news ! He advertised me but the other day of some pleasant green lanes which he had found out for me, knowing me to he a great walker, in my own immediate vicinity — who have haunted the identical spot any time these twenty years ! — He has not much respect for that class of feelings which goes by the name of sentimental. He applies the definition of real evil to bodily sufferings exclusively — and rejecteth all others as imaginary. He is affected by the ^ Cynthia: the goddess of the moon. The qtiotation is a recol- lection of Pope's Epistle to Martha Blount, 17-20: — " Choose a firm cloud before it fall, and in it Catch, e'er she change, the Cynthia of this minute." 2 Richard II, v. 1. 80. 88 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA ■ sight, or the bare supposition, of a creature in pain, to a degree which I have never witnessed out of womankind. A constitutional acuteness to this class of sufferings may in part account for this. The animal tribe in particular he tak- eth under his especial protection. A broken-winded or spur-galled horse is sure to find an advocate in him. An over-loaded ass is his client for ever. He is the apostle to the brute kind — the never-failing friend of those who have none to care for them. The contemplation of a lobster boiled, or eels skinned alive, will wring him so, that "all for pity he could die." ^ It will take the savor fr©m his palate, and the rest from his pillow, for days and nights. With the in- tense feeling of Thomas Clarkson, he wanted only the steadi- ness of pursuit, and unity of purpose, of that 'Hrue yoke- fellow with Time," ^ t(3 have effected as much for the Animal as he hath done for the Negro Creation. But my uncon- trollable cousin is but imperfectly formed for purposes which demand cooperation. He cannot wait. His amelioration- plans must be ripened in a day. For this reason he has cut but an equivocal figure in benevolent societies, and combi- nations for the alleviation of human sufferings. His zeal constantly makes him to outrun, and put out, his coadjutors. He thinks of relieving, — while they think of debating. He was black-balled out of a society for the Relief of ... ^ because the fervor of his humanity toiled beyond the formal apprehension and creeping processes of his associates. I shall always consider this distinction as a patent of nobility in the Elia family ! Do I mention these seeming inconsistencies to smile at, or upbraid, my unique cousin? Marry, heaven, and all good manners, and the understanding that should be between kinsfolk, forbid ! — With all the strangenesses of this strang- est of the Elias — I would not have him in one jot or tittle other than he is ; neither would I barter or exchange my wild ^ Spenser's Faerie Queene, i. 3. 1. 2 Wordsworth's Sonnet on Clarkson. 3 According to Lamb the fifteen asterisks in the original edition of the essay stood for "Distrest Sailors." MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE 89 kinsman for the most exact, regular, and every way consistent kinsman breathing. In my next, Reader, I may perhaps give you some account of my cousin Bridget — if you are not already surfeited with cousins — and take you by the hand, if you are willing to go with us, on an excursion which we made a summer or two since, in search of more cousins — ■ Through the green plains of pleasant Hertfordshire.* MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE Bridget Elia has been my housekeeper for many a long year. I have obligations to Bridget, extending beyond the period of memory. We house together, old bachelor and maid, in a sort of double singleness; with such tolerable comfort, upon the whole, that I, for one, find in myself no sort of disposition to go out upon the mountains, with the rash king's offspring,^ to bewail my celibacy. We agree pretty well in our tastes and habits — yet so, as ''with a difference." We are generally in harmony, with occasional bickerings — as it should be among near relations. Our sympathies are rather understood than expressed; and once, upon my dis- sembling a tone in my voice more kind than ordinary, my cousin burst into tears, and complained that I was altered. We are both great readers in different directions. While I am hanging over (for the thousandth time) some passage in old Burton, or one of his strange contemporaries, she is abstracted in some modern tale or adventure, whereof our * A line in one of Lamb's early sonnets. Mr. Lucas thinks it is a recollection of a line from a poem by William Vallons: — "The fruitful fields of pleasant Hertfordshire." 2 A rather far-fetched allusion to the daughter of Jephthah, Judge of Israel, who vowed to sacrifice the first thing he should meet coming out of his house on his return from battle, if he were successful. His daughter was the first to greet him. Judges xi. 30-40. 90 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA common reading-table is daily fed with assiduously fresh supplies. Narrative teases me. I have little concern in the progress of events. She must have a story — well, ill, or indifferently told — so there be life stirring in it, and plenty of good or evil accidents. The fluctuations of fortune in fiction — and almost in real life — have ceased to interest, or operate but dully upon me. Out-of-the-way humors and opinions — heads with some diverting twist in them — the oddities of authorship, please me most. My cousin has a native disrelish of anything that sounds odd or bizarre. Nothing goes down with her that is quaint, irregular, or out of the road of common sympathy. She "holds Nature more clever.'' ^ I can pardon her blindness to the beautiful ob- liquities of the Religio Medici ; but she must apologize to me for certain disrespectful insinuations, which she has been pleased to throw out latterly, touching the intellectuals of a dear favorite of mine, of the last century but one — the thrice noble, chaste, and virtuous, but again somewhat fantastical and original brained, generous Margaret New- castle. It has been the lot of my cousin, oftener perhaps than I could have wished, to have had for her associates and mine, free-thinkers — leaders, and disciples, of novel philosophies and systems ; but she neither wrangles with, nor accepts, their opinions. That which was good and venerable to her, when a child, retains its authority over her mind still. She never juggles or plays tricks with her understanding. We are both of us inclined to be a little too positive ; and I have observed the result of our disputes to be almost uni- formly this — that in matters of fact, dates, and circum- stances, it turns out that I was in the right, and my cousin in the wrong. But where we have differed upon moral points ; upon something proper to be done, or let alone ; whatever heat of opposition or steadiness of conviction I set out with, I am sure always, in the long run, to be brought over to her way of thinking. I must touch upon the foibles of my kinswoman with a ^ Gray's Epitaph of By-Words. MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE 9l gentle hand, for Bridget does not like to be told of her faults. She hath an awkward trick (to say no worse of it) of reading in company: at which times she will answer yes or no to a question, without fully understanding its purport — which is provoking, and derogatory in the highest degree to the dignity of the putter of the said question. Her presence of mind is equal to the most pressing trials of life, but will sometimes desert her upon trifling occasions. When the purpose requires it, and is a thing of moment, she can speak to it greatly ; but in matters which are not stuff of the conscience, she hath been known sometimes to let slip a word less seasonably. Her education in youth was not much attended to; and she happily missed all that train of female garniture which passeth by the name of accomplishments. She was tumbled early, by accident or design, into a spacious closet of good old English reading, without much selection or prohibition, and browsed at will upon that fair and wholesome pasturage. Had I twenty girls, they should be brought up exactly in this fashion. I know not whether their chance in wedlock might not be diminished by it ; but I can answer for it that it makes (if the worst come to the worst) most incomparable old maids. In a season of distress, she is the truest comforter; but in the teasing accidents and minor perplexities, which do not call out the will to meet them, she sometimes maketh matters worse by an excess of participation. If she does not always divide your trouble, upon the pleasanter occa- sions of life she is sure always to treble your satisfaction. She is excellent to be at a play with, or upon a visit; but best, when she goes a journey with you. We raade an excursion together a few summers since into Hertfordshire, to beat up the quarters of some of our less-known relations in that fine corn country. The oldest thing I remember is Mackery End, or Mackarel End, as it is spelt, perhaps more properly, in some old maps of Hertfordshire ; a farm-house, — delightfully situated within a gentle walk from Wheathampstead. I can just remember having been there, on a visit to a great-aunt. 92 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA when I was a child, under the care of Bridget; who, as I have said, is older than myself by some ten years. I wish that I could throw into a heap the remainder of our joint existences, that we might share them in equal division. But that is impossible. The house was at that time in the occupation of a substantial yeoman, who had married my grandmother's sister. His name was Gladman. My grand- mother was a Bruton, married to a Field. The Gladmans and the Brutons are still flourishing in that part of the county, but the Fields are almost extinct. More than forty years had elapsed since the visit I speak of; and, for the greater portion of that period, we had lost sight of the other two branches also. Who or what sort of persons inherited Mackery End — kindred or strange folk — we were afraid almost to conjecture, but determined some day to explore. By somewhat a circuitous route, taking the noble park at Luton in our way from St. Albans, we arrived at the spot of our anxious curiosity about noon. The sight of the old farm-house, though every trace of it was effaced from my recollections, affected me with a pleasure which I had not experienced for many a year. For though / had forgotten it, we had never forgotten being there together, and we had been talking about Mackery End all our lives, till memory on my part became mocked with a phantom of itself, and I thought I knew the aspect of a place which, when present, O how unlike it was to that which I had con- jured up so many times instead of it ! Still the air breathed balmily about it; the season was in the "heart of June,"^ and I could say with the poet. But thou, that didst appear so fair To fond imagination, Dost rival in the light of day Her delicate creation ! ^ Bridget's was more a waking bliss than mine, for she easily remembered her old acquaintance again — some ^ Ben Jonson's Epithalamium for Mrs. John Weston. 2 Wordsworth's Yarrow Visited. MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE 93 altered features, of course, a little grudged at. At first, indeed, she was ready to disbelieve for joy; but the scene soon re-confirmed itself in her affections — and she traversed every outpost of the old mansion, to the wood-house, the orchard, the place where the pigeon-house had stood (house and birds were alike flown) — with a breathless impatience of recognition, which was more pardonable perhaps than decorous at the age of fifty odd. But Bridget in some things is behind her years. The only thing left was to get into the house — and that was a difficulty which to me singly would have been insurmountable; for I am terribly shy in making myself known to strangers and out-of-date kinsfolk. Love, stronger than scruple, winged my cousin in without me; but she soon returned with a creature that might have sat to a sculptor for the image of Welcome. It was the youngest of the Gladmans; who, by marriage with a Bruton, had become mistress of the old mansion. A comely brood are the Brutons. Six of them, females, were noted as the handsomest young women in the county. But this adopted Bruton, in my mind, was better than they all — more comely. She was born too late to have remembered me. She just recollected in early life to have had her cousin Bridget once pointed out to her, climbing a stile. But the name of kindred and of cousinship was enough. Those slender ties, that prove slight as gossamer in the rending atmosphere of a metropolis, bind faster, as we found it, in hearty, homely, loving Hertfordshire. In five minutes we were as thoroughly acquainted as if we had been born and bred up together ; were familiar, even to the calling each other by our Christian names. So Christians should call one another. To have seen Bridget and her — it was like the meeting of the two scriptural cousins ! ^ There was a grace and dignity, an amplitude of form and stature, answer- ing to her mind, in this farmer's wife, which would have shined in a palace — or so we thought it. We were made * The Virgin Mary and Elizabeth, the mother of John the- Baptist, 94 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA welcome by husband and wife equally — we, and our frienc that was with us. — I had almost forgotten him — but B. F. will not so soon forget that meeting, if peradventure he shall read this on the far distant shores where the kan- garoo haunts. The fatted calf was made ready, or rather was already so, as if in anticipation of our coming; and, after an appropriate glass of native wine, never let me forget with what honest pride this hospitable cousin made us proceed to Wheathampstead, to introduce us (as some new-found rarity) to her mother and sister Gladmans, who did indeed know something more of us, at a time when she almost knew nothing. — With what corresponding kindness we were received by them also — how Bridget^s memory, exalted by the occasion, warmed into a thousand half-obliterated recollections of things and persons, to my utter astonishment, and her own — and to the astoundment of B. F. who sat by, almost the only thing that was not a cousin there, — old effaced images of more than half -forgotten names and circumstances still crowding back upon her, as words written in lemon come out upon exposure to a friendly warmth, — when I forget all this, then may my country cousins forget me; and Bridget no more remember, that in the days of weakling infancy I was her tender charge — as I have been her care in foolish manhood since — in those pretty pastoral walks, long ago, about Mackery End, in Hertfordshire. THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE I WAS born, and passed the first seven years of my life, in the Temple. Its church, its halls, its gardens, its foun- tain, its river, I had almost said — for in those young years, what was this king of rivers to me but a stream that watered our pleasant places ? — these are of my oldest rec- ollections. I repeat, to this day, no verses to myself more THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE 95 ~\, freqjaently, or with kindlier emotion, than those of Spenser where he speaks of this spot : — There when they came, whereas those bricky towers, The which on Themmes brode aged back doth ride, Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers, There whylome wont the Templer knights to bide, Till they decayed through pride.^ Indeed, it is the most elegant spot in the metropolis. What a transition for a countryman visiting London for the first time — the passing from the crowded Strand or .Fleet Street, by unexpected avenues, into its magnificent ample squares, its classic green recesses! What a cheer- ful, liberal look hath that portion of it, which, from three sides, overlooks the greater garden; that goodly pile Of building strong, albeit of Paper hight,^ confronting, with massy contrast, the lighter, older, more fantastically-shrouded one, named of Harcourt, with the cheerful Crown-Office-Row (place of my kindly engendure), right opposite the stately stream, which washes the garden- foot with her yet scarcely trade-polluted waters, and seems but just weaned from her Twickenham Naiades! a man would give something to have been born in such places. What a collegiate aspect has that fine Elizabethan hall, where the fountain plays, which I have made to rise and fall, how many times ! to the astoundment of the young urchins, my contemporaries, who, not iDeing able to guess at its recondite machinery, were almost tempted to hail the wondrous work as magic ! What an antique air had the now almost effaced sun-dials, with their moral inscrip- tions, seeming coevals with that Time which they measured, and to take their revelations of its flight immediately from heaven, holding correspondence with the fountain of fight! How would the dark line steal imperceptibly on, watched by the eye of childhood, eager to detect its movement, ^ Spenser's Prothalamion, 8. 2 An improvised "quotation," referring to Paper Buildings, facing King's Bench Walk in the Temple. 96 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA never catched, nice as an evanescent cloud, or the first arrests of sleep ! Ah I yet doth beauty like a dial hand Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived ! * What a dead thing is a clock, with its ponderous em- bowelments of lead and brass, its pert or solemn dulness of communication, compared with the simple altar-like structure and silent heart-language of the old dial ! It stood as the garden god of Christian gardens. Why is it almost everywhere vanished? If its business-use be super- seded by more elaborate inventions, its moral uses, its beauty, might have pleaded for its continuance. It spoke of moderate labors, of pleasures not protracted after sun- set, of temperance, and good hours. It was the primitive clock, the horologe of the first world. Adam could scarce have missed it in Paradise. It was the measure appropriate for sweet plants and flowers to spring by, for the birds to apportion their silver warblings by, for flocks to pasture and be led to fold by. The shepherd " carved it out quaintly in the sun ; " ^ and, turning philosopher by the very occu- pation, provided it with mottoes more touching than tomb- stones. It was a pretty device of the gardener, recorded by Marvell, who, in the days of artificial gardening, made a dial out of herbs and flowers. I must quote his verses a little higher up, fgr they are full, as all his serious poetry was, of a witty delicacy. They will not come in awkwardly, I hope, in a talk of fountains and sun-dials. He is speaking of sweet garden scenes: — What wondrous life is this I lead ! Ripe apples drop about my head. The luscious clusters of the vine Upon my mouth do crush their wine. The nectarine, and curious peach, Into my hands themselves do reach. Stumbling on melons, as I pass, Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass. ^ Shakespeare's Sonnets, civ. 2 An adaptation from 3 Henry VI, ii. 5. 21-24 THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE 97 Meanwhile the mind from pleasure less Withdraws into its happiness. The mind, that ocean, where each kind Does straight its own resemblance find; Yet it creates, transcending these, Far other worlds and other seas ; Annihilating all that's made To a green thought in a green shade. Here at the fountain's sliding foot Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root, Casting the body's vest aside, My soul into the boughs does glide; There, like a bird, it sits and sings. Then whets and claps its silver wings. And, till prepared for longer flight. Waves in its plumes the various light. How well the skilful gardener drew, Of flowers and herbs, this dial new ! Where, from above, the milder sun Does through a fragrant zodiac run : And, as it works, the industrious bee Computes its time as well as we. How could such sweet and wholesome hours Be reckoned, but with herbs and flowers ? ^ The artificial fountains of the metropolis are, in like manner, fast vanishing. Most of them are dried up or bricked over. Yet, where one is left, as in that little green nook behind the South-Sea House, what a freshness it gives to the dreary pile ! Four little winged marble boys used to play their virgin fancies, spouting out ever fresh streams from their innocent-wanton lips, in the square of Lincoln's Inn, when I was no bigger than they were figured. They are gone, and the spring choked up. The fashion, they tell me, is gone by, and these things are es- teemed childish. Why not, then, gratify children, by letting them stand? Lawyers, I suppose, were children once. They are awakening images to them at least. Why must everything smack of man, and mannish? Is the world all grown up? Is childhood dead? Or is there not in the bosoms of the wisest and the best some of the ^ From a copy of verses entitled "The Garden." [Lamb's note.] 98 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA n child's heart left, to respond to its earUest enchantments? The figures were grotesque. Are the stiff-wigged Hving figures, that still flitter and chatter about that area, less Gothic in appearance ? or is the splutter of their hot rhetoric one half so refreshing and innocent as the little cool playful streams those exploded cherubs uttered? They have lately gothicized the entrance to the Inner Temple-hall, and the library front; to assimilate them, I suppose, to the body of the hall, which they do not at all resemble. What is become of the winged horse that stood over the former? a stately arms! and who has removed those frescoes of the Virtues, which Italianized the end of the Paper-buildings ? — my first hint of allegory ! They must account to me for these things, which I miss so greatly. The terrace is, indeed, left, which we used to call the parade; but the traces are passed away of the footsteps which made its pavement awful ! It is become common and profane. The old benchers had it almost sacred to themselves, in the forepart of the day at least. They might not be sided or jostled. Their air and dress asserted the parade. You left wide spaces betwixt you, when you passed them. We walk on even terms with their successors. The roguish eye of J 11, ever ready to be delivered of a jest, almost invites a stranger to vie a repartee with it. But what insolent familiar durst have mated Thomas Coventry? — whose person was a quadrate, his step massy and ele- phantine, his face square as the lion's, his gait peremptory and path-keeping, indivertible from his way as a moving column, the scarecrow of his inferiors, the browbeater of equals and superiors, who made a solitude of children wher- ever he came, for they fled his insufferable presence, as they would have shunned an Elisha bear.^ His growl was as thunder in their ears, whether he spake to them in mirth or in rebuke ; his invitatory notes being, indeed, of all, the most repulsive and horrid. Clouds of snuff, aggravating the natural terrors of his speech, broke from each majestic 1 Cf. 2 Kings ii. 23 £f. THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE 99 nostril, darkening the air. He took it, not by pinches, but a palmful at once, — diving for it under the mighty flaps of his old-fashioned waistcoat pocket; his waistcoat red and angry, his coat dark rappee, tinctured by dye original, and by adjuncts, with buttons of obsolete gold. And so he paced the terrace. By his side a milder form was sometimes to be seen; the pensive gentility of Samuel Salt. They were coevals, and had nothing but that and their benchership in com- mon. In politics Salt was a whig, and Coventry a staunch tory. Many a sarcastic growl did the latter cast out — for Coventry had a rough spinous humor — at the political confederates of his associate, which rebounded from the gentle bosom of the latter like cannon-balls from wool. You could not ruffle Samuel Salt. S. had the reputation of being a very clever man, and of excellent discernment in the chamber practice of the law. I suspect his knowledge did not amount to much. When a case of difficult disposition of money, testamentary or otherwise, came before him, he ordinarily handed it over, with a few instructions, to his man Lovel, who was a quick little fellow, and would despatch it out of hand by the light of natural understanding, of which he had an uncommon share. It was incredible what repute for talents S. enjoyed by the mere trick of gravity. He was a shy man; a child might pose him in a minute — indolent and procrastinating .to the last degree. Yet men would give him credit for vast application, in spite of himself. He was not to be trusted with himself with impunity. He never dressed for a dinner- party but he forgot his sword — they wore swords then — or some other necessary part of his equipage. Lovel had his eye upon him on all these occasions, and ordinarily gave him his cue. If there was anything which he could speak unseasonably, he was sure to do it. — He was to dine at a relative's of the unfortunate Miss Blandy on the day of her execution ; — and L., who had a wary foresight of his probable hallucinations, before he set out, schooled him, with great anxiety, not in any possible manner to allude to her story 100 THE ESSAYS OF ELI A that day. S. promised faithfully to observe the injunction. He had not been seated in the parlor, where the com- pany was expecting the dinner summons, four minutes, when, a pause in the conversation ensuing, he got up, looked out of window, and pulling down his ruffles — an ordinary motion with him — observed, ''it was a gloomy day," and added, ''Miss Blandy must be hanged by this time, I suppose." Instances of this sort were perpetual. Yet S. was thought by some of the greatest men of his time a fit person to be consulted, not alone in matters pertaining to the law, but in the ordinary niceties and embarrassments of conduct — from force of manner entirely. He never laughed. He had the same good fortune among the female world, — was a known toast with the ladies, and one or two are said to have died for love of him — I suppose, because he never trifled or talked gaflantry with, them, or paid them, indeed, hardly common attentions. He had a fine face and person, but wanted, methought, the spirit that should have shown them off with advantage to the women. His eye lacked lustre. — Not so, thought Susan P ; who, at the advanced age of sixty, was seen, in the cold evening time, unaccompanied, wetting the pavement of B d Row with tears that fell in drops which might be heard, because her friend had died that day — he, whom she had pursued with a hopeless passion for the last forty years — a passion which years could not extinguish or abate; nor the long-resolved, yet gently-enforced, puttings off of unrelenting bachelorhood, dissuade from its cherished purpose. Mild Susan P , thou hast now thy friend in heaven ! Thomas Coventry was a cadet of the noble family of that name. He passed his youth in contracted circumstances, which gave him early those parsimonious habits which in after life never forsook him; so that, with one windfall or another, about the time I knew him he was master of four or five hundred thousand pounds; nor did he look, or walk, worth a moidore less. He lived in a gloomy house opposite the pump in Serjeant's Inn, Fleet Street. J., the counsel, is doing self-imposed penance in it, for what reason I divine not, THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE 101 at this day. C. had an agreeable seat at North Cray, where he seldom spent above a day or two at a time in the summer ; but preferred, during the hot months, standing at his window in this damp, close, v/ell-like mansion, to watch, as he said, ''the maids drawing water all day long." I suspect he had his within-door reasons for the preference. Hie currus et arma fuere} He might think his treasures more safe. His house had the aspect of a strong box. C. was a close hunks — a hoarder rather than a miser — or, if a miser, none of the mad Elwes breed, who have brought discredit upon a char- acter which cannot exist without certain admirable points of steadiness and unity of purpose. One may hate a true miser, but cannot, I suspect, so easily despise him. By taking care of the pence, he is often enabled to part with the pounds, upon a scale that leaves us careless generous fellows halting at an immeasurable distance behind. C. gave away 30,000 L at once in his lifetime to a blind charity. His house- keeping was severely looked after, but he kept the table of a gentleman. He would know who came in and who went out of his house, but his kitchen chimney was never suffered to freeze. Salt was his opposite in this, as in all — never knew what he was worth in the world ; and having but a competency for his rank, which his indolent habits were little calculated to improve, might have suffered severely if he had not had hon- est people about him. Lovel took care of everything. He was at once his clerk, his good servant, his dresser, his friend, his "flapper," his guide, stop-watch, auditor, treasurer. He' did nothing without consulting Lovel, or failed in anything without expecting and fearing his admonishing. He put himself almost too much in his hands, had they not been the purest in the world. He resigned his title almost to respect as a master, if L. could ever have forgotten for a moment that he was a servant. I knew this Lovel. He was a man of an incorrigible and ^ A free adaptation from Vergil's Mneid, i. 16. Hie illius arma, Hie currus fuit, "Here she kept her arms and here her chariots"; said of Juno's especial care and protection of Carthage. 102 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA losing honesty. A good fellow withal, and "would strike." ^ In the cause of the oppressed he never considered inequali- ties, or calculated the number of his opponents. He once wrested a sword out of the hand of a man of quality that had drawn upon him, and pommelled him severely with the hilt of it. The swordsman had offered insult to a female — an occasion upon which no odds against him could have pre- vented the interference of Lovel. He would stand next day bareheaded to the same person, modestly to excuse his inter- ference — for L. never forgot rank, where something better was not concerned. L. was the liveliest little fellow breath- ing, had a face as gay as Garrick's, whom he was said greatly to resemble (I have a portrait of him which confirms it), pos- sessed a fine turn for humorous poetry — next to Swift and Prior — moulded heads in clay or plaster of Paris to admira- tion, by the dint of natural genius merely; turned cribbage boards, and such small cabinet toys, to perfection ; took a hand at quadrille or bowls with equal facility; made punch better than any man of his degree in England ; had the mer- riest quips and conceits; and was altogether as brimful of rogueries and inventions as you could desire. He was a brother of the angle, moreover, and just such a free, hearty, honest companion as Mr. Izaak Walton would have chosen to go a-fishing with. I saw him in his old age and the decay of his faculties, palsy-smitten, in the last sad stage of human weakness — "a remnant most forlorn of what he was," — yet even then his eye would light up upon the mention of his favorite Garrick. He was greatest, he would say, in Bayes — "was upon the stage nearly throughout the whole perform- ance, and as busy as a bee." At intervals, too, he would speak of his former life, and how he came up a little boy from Lincoln, to go to service, and how his mother cried at parting with him, and how he returned, after some few years' absence, in his smart new livery, to see her, and she blest herself at iCf. King Lear, v. 3. 284; — " He's a good fellow, I can tell you that He'll strike and quickly, too." THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE lOo the change, and could hardly be brought to believe that it was "her own bairn." And then, the excitement subsiding, he would weep, till I have wished that sad second-childhood might have a mother still to lay its head upon her lap. But the common mother of us all in no long time after received him gently into hers. With Coventry and with Salt, in their walks upon the ter- race, most commonly Peter Pierson would join, to make up a third. They did not walk linked arm-in-arm in those days — "as now our stout triumvirs sweep the streets," — but generally with both hands folded behind them for state, or with one at least behind, the other carrying a cane. P. was a benevolent, but not a prepossessing man. He had that in his face which you could not term unhappiness; it rather implied an incapacity of being happy. His cheeks were colorless, even to whiteness. His look was uninviting, re- sembling (but without his sourness) that of our great philan- thropist.^ I know that he did good acts, but I could never make out what he was. Contemporary with these, but sub- ordinate, was Daines Barrington — another oddity — he walked burly and square — in imitation, I think, of Coven- try — howbeit he attained not to the dignity of his prototype. Nevertheless, he did pretty well, upon the strength of being a tolerable antiquarian, and having a brother a bishop. When the account of his year's treasurership came to be audited, the following singular charge was unanimously disallowed by the bench: "Item, disbursed Mr. Allen, the gardener, twenty shilhngs for stuff to poison the sparrows, by my orders." Next to him was old Barton — a jolly negation, who took upon him the ordering of the bills of fare for the parlia- ment chamber, where the benchers dine — answering to the combination rooms at College — much to the easement of his less epicurean brethren. I know nothing more of him. — Then Read, and Twopenny — Read, good-humored and personable — Twopenny, good-humored, but thin, and ^ Conjectured to be either John Howard, the prison reformer, or Thomas Clarkson, the abolitionist. 104 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA felicitous in jests upon his own figure. If T. was thin, Wharry was attenuated and fleeting. Many must re- member him (for he was rather of later date) and his singular gait, which was performed by three steps and a jump regu- larly succeeding The steps were little efforts, like that of a child beginning to walk; the jump comparatively vig- orous, as a foot to an inch. Where he learned this figure, or what occasioned it, I could never discover. It was neither graceful in itself, nor seemed to answer the purpose any better than common walking. The extreme tenuity of his frame, I suspect, set him upon it. It was a trial of poising. Twopenny would often rally him upon his leanness, and hail him as Brother Lusty; but W. had no relish of a joke. His features were spiteful. I have heard that he would pinch his cat's ears extremely when anything had offended him. Jackson ' — the omniscient Jackson, he was called — was of this period. He had the reputation of possessing more multifarious knowledge than any man of his time. He was the Friar Bacon of the less literate portion of the Temple. I remember a pleasant passage of the cook applying to him, with much formality of apology, for instructions how to write down edge bone of beef in his bill of commons. He was supposed to know, if any man in the world "did. He decided the orthography to be — as I have given it — fortifying his authority with such anatomical reasons as dismissed the manciple (for the time) learned and happy. Some do spell it yet, perversely, aitch bone, from a fanciful resemblance between its shape and that of the aspirate so denominated. I had almost forgotten Mingay with the iron hand — but he was somewhat later. He had lost his right hand by some accident, and supplied it with a grappling- hook, which he wielded with a tolerable adroitness. I de- tected the substitute before I was old enough to reason whether it were artificial or not. I remember the astonish- ment it raised in me. He was a blustering, loud-talking person ; and I reconciled the phenomenon to my ideas as an emblem of power — somewhat like the horns in the fore- head of Michael Angelo's Moses. Baron Maseres, who walks THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE 105 (or did till very lately) in the costume of the reign of George the Second, closes my imperfect recollections of the old benchers of the Inner Temple. Fantastic forms, whither are ye fled? Or, if the like of you exist, why exist they no more for me? Ye inex- plicable, half-understood appearances, why comes in reason to tear away the preternatural mist, bright or gloomy, that enshrouded you? Why make ye so sorry a figure in my relation, who made up to me — to my childish eyes — the mythology of the Temple? In those days I saw Gods, as ^'old men covered with a mantle,'' ^ walking upon the earth. Let the dreams of classic idolatry perish, — extinct be the fairies and fairy trumpery of legendary fabling, — in the heart of childhood there will, for ever, spring up a well of innocent or wholesome superstition — the seeds of exaggeration will be busy there, and vital — from every-day forms educing the unknown and the uncommon. In that little Goshen there will be light, when the grown world flounders about in the darkness of sense and materiality. While childhood, and while dreams, reducing childhood, shall be left, imagina- tion shall not have spread her holy wings totally to fly the earth. P.S. — I have done injustice to the soft shade of Samuel Salt. See what it is to trust to imperfect memory, and the erring notices of childhood! Yet I protest I always thought that he had been a bachelor! This gentleman, R. N. informs me, married young, and losing his lady in childbed, within the first year of their union, fell into a deep melancholy, from the effects of which, probably, he never thoroughly recovered. In what a new light does this place his rejection (O call it by a gentler name !) of mild Susan P , unravelling into beauty certain peculiarities of this very shy and retiring character! Henceforth let no one receive the narratives of Elia for true records! They are, in truth, but shadows of fact — verisimilitudes, not verities — or sitting but upon the remote edges and outskirts of ^ 1 Samud xxviii. 14. 106 THE ESSAYS OF ELI A history. He is no such honest chronicler as R. N., and would have done better perhaps to have consulted that gentleman before he sent these incondite reminiscences to press. But the worthy sub-treasurer — who respects his old and his new masters — would but have been puzzled at the indecorous liberties of Elia. The good man wots not, peradventure, of the licence which Magazines have arrived at in this plain-speaking age, or hardly dreams of their ex- istence beyond the Gentleman's — his furthest monthly excursions in this nature having been long confined to the holy ground of honest Urban's obituary. May it be long before his own name shall help to swell those columns of unenvied flattery ! — Meantime, ye New Benchers of the Inner Temple, cherish him kindly, for he is himself the kindliest of human creatures. Should infirmities overtake him — he is yet in green and vigorous senility — make allowances for them, remembering that ''ye yourselves are old." ^ So may the Winged Horse, your ancient badge and cognizance, still flourish! so may future Hookers and Seldens illustrate your church and chambers ! so may the sparrows, in default of more melodious quiristers, unpoisoned hop about your walks ! so may the fresh-colored and cleanly nursery-maid, who, by leave, airs her playful charge in your stately gardens, drop her prettiest blushing courtesy as ye pass, reductive of juvenescent emotion ! so may the younkers of this generation eye you, pacing your stately terrace, with the same superstitious veneration with which the child Elia gazed on the Old Worthies that solemnized the parade before ye! GRACE BEFORE MEAT The custom of saying grace at meals had, probably, its origin in the early times of the world, and the hunter-state of man, when dinners were precarious things, and a full ^ An adaptation fronx KiTig Lear, ii. 4. 193-195. I GRACE BEFORE MEAT 107 meal was something more than a common blessing! when a belly-full was a windfall, and looked like a special providence. In the shouts and triumphal songs with which, after a season of sharp abstinence, a lucky booty of deer's or goat's flesh would naturally be ushered home, existed, perhaps, the germ of the modern grace. It is not other- wise easy to be understood, why the blessing of food — the act of eating — should have had a particular expression of thanksgiving annexed to it, distinct from that implied and silent gratitude with which we are expected to enter upon the enjoyment of the many other various gifts and good things of existence. I own that I am disposed to say grace upon twenty other occasions in the course of the day besides my dinner. I want a form for setting out upon a pleasant walk, for a moonlight ramble, for a friendly meeting, or a solved problem. Why have we none for books, those spiritual repasts — a grace before Milton — a grace before Shakespeare — a devotional exercise proper to be said before reading the Fairy Queen? — but, the received ritual having prescribed these forms to the solitary ceremony of manducation, I shall confine my observations to the experience which I have had of the grace, properly so called; commending my new scheme for extension to a niche in the grand philosophical, poetical, and perchance in part heretical, liturgy, now com- piling by my friend Homo Humanus,^ for the use of a cer- tain snug congregation of Utopian Rabelsesian Christians, no matter where assembled. The form, then, of the benediction before eating has its beauty at a poor man's table, or at the simple and unpro- vocative repast of children. It is here that the grace be- comes exceedingly graceful. The indigent man, who hardly knows whether he shall have a meal the next day or not, sits down to his fare with a present sense of the blessing, 1 "Human man/' is a literal translation, but it means mankind in general. Mr. Lucas suggests that the expression is a "glance at the abbey of Theleme founded by Gargantua for persons of sweet reasonableness." See Rabelais in the Index. 108 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA which can be but feebly acted by the rich, into whose minds the conception of wanting a dinner could never, but by some extreme theory, have entered. The proper end of food — the animal sustenance — is barely contemplated by them. The poor man's bread is his daily bread, literally his bread for the day. Their courses are perennial. Again, the plainest diet seems the fittest to be preceded by the grace. That which is least stimulative to appetite, leaves the mind most free for foreign considerations. A man may feel thankful, heartily thankful, over a dish of plain mutton with turnips, and have leisure to reflect upon the ordinance and institution of eating; when he shall con- fess a perturbation of mind, inconsistent with the purposes of the grace, at the presence of venison or turtle. When I have sate (a rarus hospes ^) at rich men's tables, with the savory soup and messes steaming up the nostrils, and moistening the lips of the guests with desire and a distracted choice, I have felt the introduction of that ceremony to be unseasonable. With the ravenous orgasm upon you, it seems impertinent to interpose a religious sentiment. It is a confusion of purpose to mutter out praises from a mouth that waters. The heats of epicurism put out the gentle flame of devotion. The incense which rises round is pagan, and the belly-god intercepts it for his own. The very excess of the provision beyond the needs, takes away all sense of proportion between the end and means. The giver is veiled by his gifts. You are startled at the injustice of returning thanks — for what? — for having too much, while so many starve. It is to praise the Gods amiss. ^ I have observed this awkwardness felt, scarce consciously perhaps, by the good man who says the grace. I have seen it in clergymen and others — a sort of shame — a sense of the co-presence of circumstances which unhallow the bless- ing. After a devotional tone put on for a few seconds, how rapidly the speaker will fall into his common voice, helping himself or his neighbor, as if to get rid of some * An uncommon guest. 2 Milton's Comus, 175-177. See explanatory note, p. 242. I GRACE BEFORE MEAT 109 uneasy sensation of hypocrisy. Not that the good man was a hypocrite, or was not most conscientious in the discharge of the duty; but he felt in his inmost mind the incom- patibihty of the scene and the viands before him with the exercise of a calm and rational gratitude. I hear somebody exclaim, — Would you have Christians sit down at table, like hogs to their troughs, without re- membering the Giver? — no — I would have them sit down as Christians, remembering the Giver, and less like hogs. Or, if their appetites must run riot, and they must pamper themselves with dehcacies for which east and west are ran- sacked, I would have them postpone their benediction to a fitter season, when appetite is laid; when the still small voice can be heard, and the reason of the grace returns — with temperate diet and restricted dishes. Gluttony and surfeiting are no proper occasions for thanksgiving. When Jeshurun waxed fat,^ we read that he kicked. Virgil knew the harpy-nature better, when he put into the mouth of Celffino anything but a blessing. We may be gratefully sensible of the deliciousness of some kinds of food beyond others, though that is a meaner and inferior gratitude : but the proper object of the grace is sustenance, not rehshes; daily bread, not delicacies; the means of life, and not the means of pampering the carcass. With what frame or composure, I wonder, can a city chaplain pronounce his benediction at some great Hall feast, when he knows that his last concluding pious word — and that, in all probability, the sacred name which he preaches — is but the signal for so many impatient harpies to commence their foul orgies, with as little sense of true thankfulness (which is temperance) as those Vergilian fowl I It is well if the good man himself does not feel his devotions a little clouded, those foggy sensu- ous steams minghng with and polluting the pure altar sacrifice. The severest satire upon full tables and surfeits is the » Jeshurun, the righteous, was the symbolical name of Israel. ■Deuteronomy xxxii. 15. 110 THE ESSAYS OF ELI A banquet which Satan, in the "Paradise Regained," provides for a temptation in the wilderness : — A table richly spread in regal mode, With dishes piled, and meats of noblest sort And savor ; beasts of chase, or fowl of game, In pastry built, or from the spit, or boiled, Gris-amber-steamed ; all fish from sea or shore, Freshet or purling brook, for which was drained Pontus, and Lucrine bay, and Afric coast.^ The Tempter, I warrant you, thought these cates would go down without the recommendatory preface of a bene- diction. They are like to be short graces where the devil plays the host. I am afraid the poet wants his usual de- corum in this place. Was he thinking of the old Roman luxury, or of a gaudy day at Cambridge ? This was a tempta- tion fitter for a Heliogabalus. The whole banquet is too civic and culinary, and the accompaniments altoget^ier a profanation of that deep, abstracted, holy scene. The mighty artillery of sauces, which the cook-fiend conjures up, is out of proportion to the simple wants and plain hunger of the guest. He that disturbed him in his dreams, from his dreams might have been taught better. To the temperate fantasies of the famished Son of God, what sort of feasts presented themselves ? — He dreamed indeed, As appetite is wont to dream. Of meats and drinks, nature's refreshment sweet.^ But what meats ? — Him thought he by the brook of Cherith stood, And saw the ravens with their horny beaks Food to Elijah bringing even and morn; Though ravenous, taught to abstain from what they brought. He saw the prophet also how he fled Into the desert, and how there he slept Under a juniper; then how awaked He found his supper on the coals prepared, And by the angel was bid rise and eat, ^ Paradise Regained, ii. 340-347. The passage describes the deli- cacies set before Christ by Satan. 2 Paradise Regained, ii. 264-278. GRACE BEFORE MEAT 111 And ate the second time after repose, The strength whereof sufficed him forty days: Sometimes, that with Elijah he partook, Or as a guest with Daniel at his pulse. Nothing in Milton is finelier fancied than these temperate dreams of the divine Hungerer. To which of these two visionary banquets, think you, would the introduction of what is called the grace have been the most fitting and pertinent ? Theoretically I am no enemy to graces; but practically I own that (before meat especially) they seem to involve something awkward and unseasonable. Our appetites, of one or another kind, are excellent spurs to our reason, which might otherwise but feebly set about the great ends of pre- serving and continuing the species. They are fit blessings to be contemplated at a distance with a becoming gratitude ; but the moment of appetite (the judicious reader will appre- hend me) is, perhaps, the least fit season for that exercise. The Quakers, who go about their business, of every description, with more calmness than we, have more title to the use of these benedictory prefaces. I have always admired their silent grace, and the more because I have observed their applications to the meat and drink following to be less pas- sionate and sensual than ours. They are neither gluttons nor wine-bibbers as a people. They eat, as a horse bolts his chopped hay, with indifference, calmness, and cleanly cir- cumstances. They neither grease nor slop themselves. When I see a citizen in his bib and tucker, I cannot imagine it a surplice. I am no Quaker at my food. I confess I am not indif- ferent to the kinds of it. Those unctuous morsels of deer's flesh were not made to be received with dispassionate ser- vices. I hate a man who swallows it, affecting not to know what he is eating. I suspect his taste in higher matters. I shrink instinctively from one who professes to like minced veal. There is a physiognomical character in the tastes for food. C holds that a man cannot have a pure mind who refuses apple-dumplings. I am not certain but he is 112 THE ESSAYS OF ELI A right. With the decay of my first innocence, I confess a less and less relish daily for those innocuous cates. The whole vegetable tribe have lost their gust with me. Only I stick to asparagus, which still seems to inspire gentle thoughts. I am impatient and querulous under culinary disappoint- ments, as to come home at the dinner hour, for instance, expecting some savory mess, and to find one quite tasteless and sapidless. Butter ill melted — that commonest of kitchen failures — puts me beside my tenor. — The author of the Rambler used to make inarticulate animal noises over a favorite food. Was this the music quite proper to be preceded by the grace? or would the pious man have done better to postpone his devotions to a season when the blessing might be contemplated with less perturbation? I quarrel with no man's tastes, nor would set my thin face against those excellent things, in their way, jollity and feasting. But as these exercises, however laudable, have little in them of grace or gracefulness, a man should be sure, before he ventures so to grace them, that while he is pretending his devotions otherwhere, he is not secretly kissing his hand to some great fish — his Dagon — with a special consecration of no ark but the fat tureen before him. Graces are the sweet preluding strains to the banquets of angels and children; to the roots and severer repasts of the Chartreuse ; to the slender, but not slenderly acknowledged, refection of the poor and humble man : but at the heaped-up boards of the pam- pered and the luxurious they become of dissonant mood, less timed and tuned to the occasion, methinks, than the noise of those better befitting organs would be, which children hear tales of, at Hog's Norton. We sit too long at our meals, or are too curious in the study of them, or too disordered in our application to them, or engross too great a portion of those good things (which should be common) to our share, to be able with any grace to say grace. To be thankful for what we grasp exceeding our proportion, is to add hypocrisy to injustice. A lurking sense of this truth is what makes the performance of this duty so cold and spiritless a service at most' tables. In houses where the grace is as indispensable GRACE BEFORE MEAT 113 as the napkin, who has not seen that never-settled question arise, as to who shall say it; while the good man of the house and the visitor clergyman, or some other guest belike of next authority from years or gravity, shall be bandying about the office between them as a matter of compliment, each of them not unwilling to shift the awkward burthen of an equivocal duty from his own shoulders? I once drank tea in company with two Methodist divines of different persuasions, whom it was my fortune to intro- duce to each other for the first time that evening. Before the first cup was handed round, one of these reverend gentle- men put it to the other, with all due solemnity, whether he chose to say anything. It seems it is the custom with some sectaries to put up a short prayer before this meal also. His reverend brother did not at first quite apprehend him, but upon an explanation, with little less importance he made answer that it was not a custom known in his church: in which courteous evasion the other acquiescing for good manners' sake, or in compliance with a weak brother, the supplementary or tea grace was waived altogether. With what spirit might not Lucian have painted two priests, of his religion, playing into each other's hands the compliment of performing or omitting a sacrifice, — the hungry God meantime, doubtful of his incense, with expectant nostrils hovering over the two flamens, and (as between two stools) going away in the end without his supper. A short form upon these occasions is felt to want reverence ; a long one, I am afraid, cannot escape the charge of im- pertinence. I do not quite approve of the epigrammatic conciseness with which that equivocal wag (but my pleasant school-fellow) C. V. L., when importuned for a grace, used to inquire, first slyly leering down the table, "Is there no clergyman here?" — significantly adding, "Thank G — ." Nor do I think our old form at school quite pertinent, where we were used to preface our bald bread-and-cheese-suppers with a preamble, connecting with that humble blessing a recognition of benefits the most awful and overwhelming to the imagination which religion has to offer. Non tunc 114 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA illis erat locus} I remember we were put to it to reconcile the phrase ''good creatures," upon which the blessing rested, with the fare set before us, wilfully understanding that ex- pression in a low and animal sense, — till some one recalled a legend, which told how, in the golden days of Christ's, the young Hospitallers were wont to have smoking joints of roast meat upon their nightly boards, till some pious bene- factor, commiserating the decencies, rather than the palates, of the children, commuted our flesh for garments, and gave us — horresco referens ^ — trousers instead of mutton. DREAM-CHILDREN: A REVERIE Children love to listen to stories about their elders, when they were children; to stretch their imagination to the conception of a traditionary great-uncle, or grandame, whom they never saw. It was in this spirit that my little ones crept about me the other evening to hear about their great-grandmother Field, who lived in a great house in Nor- folk (a hundred times bigger than that in which they and papa lived) which had been the scene — so at least it was generally believed in that part of the country — of the tragic incidents which they had lately become familiar with from the ballad of the Children in the Wood. Certain it is that the whole story of the children and their cruel uncle was to be seen fairly carved out in wood upon the chimney-piece of the great hall, the whole story down to the Robin Red- breasts; till a foolish rich person pulled it down to set up a marble one of modern invention in its stead, with no story upon it. Here Alice put out one of her dear mother's looks, too tender to be called upbraiding. Then I went on to say, how religious and how good their great-grandmother Field was, how beloved and respected by everybody, though ^ An imperfect recollection from Horace's Ars Poetica, 19, Sednunc non erat his locus : But that was not the occasion for such things^ 2 I shudder at the recollection. Vergil's jEneid, ii. 204. dream-children: a reverie 115 she was not indeed the mistress of this great house, but had only the charge of it (and yet in some respects she might be said to be the mistress of it too) committed to her by the owner, who preferred hving in a newer and more fashionable mansion which he had purchased somewhere in the adjoin- ing county ; but still she lived in it in a manner as if it had been her own, and kept up the dignity of the great house in a sort while she lived, which afterwards came to decay, and was nearly pulled down, and all its old ornaments stripped and carried away to the owner's other house, where they were set up, and looked as awkward as if some one were to carry away the old tombs they had seen lately at the Abbey, and stick them up in Lady C.'s tawdry gilt drawing-room. Here John smiled, as much as to say, ''that would be foolish indeed." And then I told how, when she came to die, her funeral was attended by a concourse of all the poor, and some of the gentry too, of the neighborhood for many miles round, to show their respect for her memory, because she had been such a good and religious woman; so good indeed that she knew all the Psaltery by heart, ay, and a great part of the Testament besides. Here little Alice spread her hands. Then I told what a tall, upright, graceful person their great-grandmother Field once was; and how in her youth she was esteemed the best dancer — here Alice's little right foot played an involuntary movement, till, upon my looking grave, it desisted — the best dancer, I was saying, in the county, till a cruel disease, called a cancer, came, and bowed her down with pain ; but it could never bend her good spirits, or make them stoop, but they were still upright, because she was so good and religious. Then I told how she was used to sleep by herself in a lone chamber of the great lone house; and how she believed that an apparition of two infants was to be seen at midnight gliding up and down the great staircase near where she slept, but she said '' those innocents would do her no harm ; " and how frightened I used to be, though in those days I had my maid to sleep with me, because I was never half so good or religious as she — and yet I never saw the infants. Here John expanded 116 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA all his eyebrows and tried to look courageous. Then I told how good she was to all her grandchildren, having us to the great house in the holidays, where I in particular used to spend many hours by myself, in gazing upon the old busts of the twelve Caesars, that had been Emperors of Rome, till the old marble heads would seem to live again, or I to be turned into marble with them.; how I never could be tired with roaming about that huge mansion, with its vast empty rooms, with their worn-out hangings, fluttering tapestry, and carved oaken panels, with the gilding almost rubbed out — sometimes in the spacious old-fashioned gardens, which I had almost to myself, unless when now and then a solitary gardening man would cross me — and how the nectarines and peaches hung upon the walls, without my ever offering to pluck them, because they were forbidden fruit, unless now and then, — and because I had more pleasure in strolling about among the old melancholy-look- ing yew-trees, or the firs, and picking up the red berries, and the fir-apples, which were good for nothing but to look at — or in lying about upon the fresh grass with all the fine garden smells around me — or basking in the orangery, till I could almost fancy myself ripening too along with the oranges and the limes in that grateful warmth — or in watch- ing the dace that darted to and fro in the fish-pond, at the bottom of the garden, with here and there a great sulky pike hanging midway down the water in silent state, as if it mocked at their impertinent friskings, — I had more pleasure in these busy-idle diversions than in all the sweet flavors of peaches, nectarines, oranges, and such-like common baits of children. Here John slyly deposited back upon the plate a bunch of grapes, which, not unobserved by Alice, he had meditated dividing with her, and both seemed will- ing to relinquish them for the present as irrelevant. Then, in somewhat a more heightened tone, I told how, though their great-grandmother Field loved all her grandchildren, yet in an especial manner she might be said to love their uncle, John L , because he was so handsome and spirited a youth, and a king to the rest of us ; and, instead of moping dream-children: a reverie 117 about in solitary corners, like some of us, he would mount the most mettlesome horse he could get, when but an imp no bigger than themselves, and make it carry him half over the county in a morning, and join the hunters when there were any out — and yet he loved the old great house and gardens too, but had too much spirit to be always pent up within their boundaries — and how their uncle grew up to man's estate as brave as he was handsome, to the admiration of everybody, but of their great-grandmother Field most es- pecially; and how he used to carry me upon his back when I was a lame-footed boy — for he was a good bit older than me — many a mile when I could not walk for pain ; — and how in after life he became lame-footed too, and I did not always (I fear) make allowances enough for him when he was impatient and in pain, nor remember sufficiently how considerate he had been to me when I was lame-footed ; and how when he died, though he had not been dead an hour, it seemed as if he had died a great while ago, such a distance there is betwixt life and death; and how I bore his death as I thought pretty well at first, but afterwards it haunted and haunted me; and though I did not cry or take it to heart as some do, and as I think he would have done if I had died, yet I missed him all day long, and knew not till then how much I had loved him. I missed his kindness, and I missed his crossness, and wished him to be alive again, to be quarrelling with him (for we quarrelled sometimes), rather than not have him again, and was as uneasy without him, as he, their poor uncle, must have been when the doctor took off his limb. — Here the children fell a-crying, and asked if their little mourning which they had on was not for uncle John, and they looked up, and prayed me not to go on about their uncle, but to tell them some stories about their pretty dead mother. Then I told how for seven long years, in hope sometimes, sometimes in despair, yet persisting ever, I courted the fair Alice W n; and, as much as children could understand, I explained to them what coyness, and difficulty, and denial meant in maidens — when suddenly turning to Alice, the soul of the first Alice looked out at her 118 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA eyes with such a reaUty of re-presentment, that I became in doubt which of them stood there before me, or whose that bright hair was ; and while I stood gazing, both the children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding, and still reced- ing, till nothing at last but two mournful features were seen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangely impressed upon me the effects of speech: "We are not of Alice, nor of thee, nor are we children at all. The children of Alice call Bartrum father. We are nothing; less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence, and a name" — and im- mediately awaking, I found myself quietly seated in my bachelor arm-chair, where I had fallen asleep, with the faith- ful Bridget unchanged by my side — but John L. (or James Elia) was gone for ever. DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS IN A LETTER TO B. F., ESQ., AT SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES My dear F. — When I think how welcome the sight of a letter from the world where you were born must be to you in that strange one to which you have been transplanted, I feel some compunctious visitings at my long silence. But, indeed, it is no easy effort to set about a correspondence at our distance. The weary world of waters between us op- presses the imagination. It is difficult to conceive how a scrawl of mine should ever stretch across it. It is a sort of presumption to expect that one's thoughts should live so far. It is like writing for posterity ; and reminds me of one of Mrs. Rowe's superscriptions, "Alcander to Strephon, in the Shades." Cowley's Post-AngeP is no more than would ^ Cowley's Hymn to Light : — "Let a post-angel start with thee And thou the goal of earth shall reach as soon as he " DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS 119 be expedient in such an intercourse. One drops a packet at Lombard Street, and in twenty-four hours a friend in Cum- berland gets it as fresh as if it came in ice. It is only like whispering through a long trumpet. But suppose a tube let down from the moon, with yourself at one end and the man at the other; it would be some balk to the spirit of conversation, if you knew that the dialogue exchanged with that interesting theosophist would take two or three revo- lutions of a higher luminary in its passage. Yet, for aught I know, you may be some parasangs nigher that primitive idea — Plato's man — than we in England here have the honor to reckon ourselves. Epistolary matter usually compriseth three topics; news, sentiment, and puns. In the latter, I include all non-serious subjects; or subjects serious in themselves, but treated after my fashion, non-seriously. — And first, for news. In them the most desirable circumstance, I suppose, is that they shall be true. But what security can I have that what I now send you for truth shall not, before you get it, unaccountably turn into a lie? For instance, our mutual friend P. is at this present writing — my Now — in good health, and enjoys a fair share of worldly reputation. You are glad to hear it. This is natural and friendly. But at4his present reading — your Now — he may possibly be in the Bench, or going to be hanged, which in reason ought to abate something of your transport (i.e., at hearing he was well, etc.), or at least considerably to modify it. I am going to the play this evening, to have a laugh with Munden. You have no theatre, I think you told me, in your land of d d reali- ties. You naturally lick your lips, and envy me my felicity. Think but a moment, and you will correct the hateful emo- tion. Why, it is Sunday morning with you, and 1823. This confusion of tenses, this grand solecism of two presents, is in a degree common to all postage. But if I sent you word to Bath or the Devises, that I was expecting the aforesaid treat this evening, though at the moment you received the intelli- gence my full feast of fun would be over, yet there would be for a day or two after, as you would well know, a smack, a 120 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA relish left upon my mental palate, which would give rational encouragement for you to foster a portion, at least, of the disagreeable passion, which it was in part my intention to produce. But ten months hence, your envy or your sym- pathy would be as useless as a passion spent upon the dead. Not only does truth, in these long intervals, un-essence her- self, but (what is harder) one cannot venture a crude fiction, for the fear that it may ripen into a truth upon the voyage. What a wild improbable banter I put upon you, some three years since, of Will Weatherall having married a ser- vant-maid ! I remember gravely consulting you how we were to receive her — for Will's wife was in no case to be rejected; and your no less serious replication in the matter; how tenderly you advised an abstemious introduction of literary topics before the lady, with a caution not to be too forward in bringing on the carpet matters more within the sphere of her intelligence; your deliberate judgment, or rather wise suspension of sentence, how far jacks, and spits, and mops, could with propriety be introduced as subjects; whether the conscious avoiding of all such matters in discourse would not have a worse look than the taking of them casually in our way ; in what manner we should carry ourselves to our maid Becky, Mrs. Willifi,m Weatherall being by ; whether we should show more delicacy, and a truer sense of respect for Will's wife, by treating Becky with our customary chid- ing before her, or by an unusual deferential civility paid to Becky, as to a person of great worth, but thrown by the caprice of fate into a humble station. There were difficul- ties, I remember, on both sides, which you did me the favor to state with the precision of a lawyer, united to the tender- ness of a friend. I laughed in my sleeve at your solemn pleadings, when lo ! while I was valuing myself upon this flam put upon you in New South Wales, the devil in Eng- land, jealous possibly of any lie-children not his own, or working after my copy, has actually instigated our friend (not three days since) to the commission of a matrimony, which I had only conjured up for your diversion. William Weatherall has married Mrs. Cotterel's maid. But to take DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS 121 it in its truest sense, you will see, my dear F., that news from me must become history to you ; which I neither profess to write, nor indeed care much for reading. No person, under a diviner, can, with any prospect of veracity, conduct a cor- respondence at such an arm's length. Two prophets, indeed, might thus interchange intelligence with effect; the epoch of the writer (Habakkuk) falling in with the true present time of the receiver (Daniel) ; but then we are no prophets. Then as to sentiment. It fares little better with that. This kind of dish, above all, requires to be served up hot, or sent off in water-plates, that your friend may have it almost as warm as yourself." If it have time to cool, it is the most tasteless of all cold meats. I have often smiled at a conceit of the late Lord C. It seems that travelling somewhere about Geneva, he came to some pretty green spot, or nook, where a willow, or something, hung so fan- tastically and invitingly over a stream — was it ? — or a rock ? — no matter — but the stillness and the repose, after a weary journey, 'tis likely, in a languid moment of his Lordship's hot, restless life, so took his fancy that he could imagine no place so proper, in the event of his death, to lay his bones in. This was all very natural and excusable as a sentiment, and shows his character in a very pleasing light. But when from a passing sentiment it came to be an' act ; and when, by a positive testamentary disposal, his remains were actually carried all that way from England; who was there, some desperate sentimentalists excepted, that did not ask the question. Why could not his Lordship have found a spot as solitary, a nook as romantic, a tree as green and pendent, with a stream as emblematic to his purpose, in Surrey, in Dorset, or in Devon? Conceive the sentiment boarded up, freighted, entered at the Custom House (startling the tide-waiters with the novelty), hoisted into a ship. Conceive it pawed about 'and handled between the rude jests of tarpaulin ruffians — a thing of its delicate texture — the salt bilge wetting it till it became as vapid as a damaged lustring. Suppose it in material danger (mariners have some superstition about sentiments) of being tossed 122 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA over in a fresh gale to some propitiatory shark (spirit of Saint Gothard, save us from a quietus so foreign to the deviser's purpose !) but it has happily evaded a fishy con- summation. Trace it then to its lucky landing — at Lyons shall we say? — I have not the map before me — jostled upon four men's shoulders — baiting at this town — stopping to refresh at t'other village — waiting a passport here, a license there; the sanction of the magistracy in this dis- trict, the concurrence of the ecclesiastics in that canton; till at length it arrives at its destination, tired out and jaded, from a brisk sentiment, into a feature of silly pride or tawdry senseless affectation. How few spntiments, my dear F., I am afraid we can set down, in the sailor's phrase, as quite seaworthy. Lastly, as to the agreeable levities, which, though con- temptible in bulk, are the twinkling corpuscula which should irradiate a right friendly epistle — your puns and small jests are, I apprehend, extremely circumscribed in their sphere of action. They are so far from a capacity of being packed up and sent beyond sea, they will scarce endure to be transported by hand from this room to the next. Their vigor is as the instant of their birth. Their nutriment for their brief existence is the intellectual atmosphere of the bystanders : or this last is the fine slime of Nilus — the melior lutus ^ — whose maternal recipiency is as necessary as the sol pater ^ to their equivocal generation. A pun hath a hearty kind of present ear-kissing smack with it ; you can no more transmit it in its pristine flavor than you can send a kiss. — Have you not tried in some instances to palm off a yesterday's pun upon a gentleman, and has it answered? Not but it was new to his hearing, but it did not seem to come new from you. It did not hitch in. It was like pick- ing up at a village ale-house a two days' old newspaper. You have not seen it before, but you resent the stale thing ^ Finer clay. From Juvenal, Satire xiv. 34, 2 The Sun Father, Titan. The allusion in the sentence is to the old popular belief that animals were generated by the action of the sun on the mud left by the inundations of the Nile. DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS 123 as an affront. This sort of merchandise above all requires a quick return. A pun, and its recognitory laugh, must be co-instantaneous. The one is the brisk lightning, the other the fierce thunder. A moment's interval, and the link is snapped. A pun is reflected from a friend's face as from a mirror. Who would consult his sweet visnomy, if the polished surface were two or three minutes (not to speak of twelve months, my dear F.) in giving back its copy? I cannot image to myself whereabout you are. When I try to fix it, Peter Wilkins's island comes across me. Some- times you seem to be in the Hades of Thieves. I see Dioge- nes prying among you with his perpetual fruitless lantern. What must you be willing by this time to give for the sight of an honest man! You must almost have forgotten how we look. And tell me what your Sydneyites do? are they th . . V . ng all day long ? Merciful heaven ! what property can stand against such a depredation ! The kangaroos — '■ your Aborigines — do they keep their primitive simplicity un-Europe-tainted, with those little short fore-puds, looking like a lesson framed by nature to the pickpocket ! Marry, for diving into fobs they are rather lamely provided a 'priori; but if the hue and cry were once up, they would show as fair a pair of hind-shifters as the expertest loco-motor in the colony. We hear the most improbable tales at this distance. Pray, is it true that the young Spartans among you are born with six fingers, which spoils their scanning ? — It must look very odd; but use reconciles. For their scansion, it is less to be regretted; for if they take it into their heads to be poets, it is odds but they turn out, the greater part of them, vile plagiarists. Is there much difference to see to between the son of a th . . f and the grandson ? or where does the taint stop ? Do you bleach in three or in four gen- erations? I have many questions to put, but ten Delphic voyages can be made in a shorter time than it will take to satisfy my scruples. Do you grow your own hemp ? — What is your staple trade, — exclusive of the national pro- fession, I mean? Your locksmiths, I take it, are some of your great capitalists. 124 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA I am insensibly chatting to you as familiarly as when we used to exchange good-morrows out of our old con- tiguous windows, in pump-famed Hare Court in the Temple. Why did you ever leave that quiet corner ? — Why did I ? — with its complement of four poor elms, from whose smoke- dyed barks, the theme of jesting ruralists, I picked my first ladybirds! My heart is as dry as that spring sometimes proves in a thirsty August, when I revert to the space that is between us ; a length of passage enough to render obsolete the phrases of our English letters before they can reach you. But while I talk, I think you hear me, — thoughts dallying with vain surmise — Aye me ! while thee the seas and sounding shores Hold far away.^ . Come back, before I am grown into a very old man, so as you shall hardly know me. Come, before Bridget walks on crutches. Girls whom you left children have become sage matrons while you are tarrying there. The blooming Miss W r (you remember Sally W r) called upon us yesterday, an aged crone. Folks whom you knew die off every year. Formerly, I thought that death was wearing out, — I stood ramparted about with so many healthy friends. The departure of J. W., two springs back, corrected my delusion. Since then the old divorcer has been busy. If you do not make haste to return, there will be little left to greet you, of me, or mine. THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS I LIKE to meet a sweep — understand me — not a grown sweeper — old chimney-sweepers are by no means attrac- tive — but one of those tender novices, blooming through their first nigritude, the maternal washings not quite effaced from the cheek — such as come forth with the dawn, or 1 Cf. Milton's Lycidas, 153-155. THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS 125 somewhat earlier, with their httle professional notes sound- ing like the peep-peep of a young sparrow; or liker to the matin lark should I pronounce them, in their aerial ascents not seldom anticipating the sunrise ? I have a kindly yearning towards these dim specks — poor blots — innocent blacknesses — I reverence these young Africans of our own growth — these almost clergy imps, who sport their cloth without assumption; and from their little pulpits (the tops of chim- neys), in the nipping air of a December morning, preach a lesson of patience to mankind. When a child, what a mysterious pleasure it was to wit- ness their operation ! to see a chit no bigger than one's- self enter, one knew not by what process, into what seemed the fauces Averni ^ — to pursue him in imagination, as he went sounding on through so many dark stifling caverns, horrid shades ! to shudder with the idea that "now, surely, he must be lost for ever!" — to revive at hearing his feeble shout of discovered daylight — and then (O fulness of delight !) running out of doors, to come just in time to see the sable phenomenon emerge in safety, the brandished weapon of his art victorious like some flag waved over a conquered citadel ! I seem to remember having been told, that a bad sweep was once left in a stack with his brush, to indicate which way the wind blew. It was an awful spec- tacle, certainly; not much unlike the old stage direction in Macbeth, where the "Apparition of child crowned, with a tree in his hand, rises." ^ Reader, if thou meetest one of these small gentry in thy early rambles, it is good to give him a penny, — it is better to give him two-pence. If it be starving weather, and to the proper troubles of his hard occupation, a pair of kibed heels (no unusual accompaniment) be superadded, the demand on thy humanity will surely rise to a tester. There is a composition, the ground-work of which I have understood to be the sweet wood yclept sassafras. This » The jaws of hell, Mneid, vi. 201. 2 Macbeth, iv. 1. 126 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA wood boiled down to a kind of tea, and tempered with an infusion of milk and sugar, hath to some tastes a delicacy beyond the China luxury. I know not how thy palate may relish it; for myself, with every deference to the judicious Mr. Read, who hath time out of mind kept open a shop (the only one he avers in London) for the vending of this ''wholesome and pleasant beverage," on the south side of Fleet Street, as thou approachest Bridge Street — the only Salopian house — I have never yet adventured to dip my own particular lip in a basin of his commended ingredients — a cautious premonition to the olfactories constantly whispering to me, that my stomach must infallibly, with all due courtesy, decline it. Yet I have seen palates, otherwise not uninstructed in dietetical elegancies, sup it up with avidity. I know not by what particular conformation of the organ it happens, but I have always found that this composition is surprisingly gratifying to the palate of a young chimney- sweeper — whether the oily particles (sassafras is slightly oleaginous) do attenuate and soften the fuliginous con- cretions, which are sometimes found (in dissections) to adhere to the roof of the mouth in these unfledged practi- tioners; or whether Nature, sensible that she had mingled too much of bitter wood in the lot of these raw victims, caused to grow out of the earth her sassafras for a sweet lenitive — but so it is, that no possible taste or odor to the senses of a young chimney-sweeper can convey a delicate excitement comparable to this mixture. Being penniless, they will yet hang their black heads over the ascending steam, to gratify one sense if possible, seemingly no less pleased than those domestic animals — cats — when they purr over a new-found sprig of valerian. There is something more in these sympathies than philosophy can inculcate. Now albeit Mr. Read boasteth, not without reason, that his is the only Salopian house; yet be it known to thee. Reader — if thou art one who keepest what are called good hours, thou art haply ignorant of the fact — he hath a race of industrious imitators, who from stalls, and under open THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS 127 sky, dispense the same savory mess to humbler customers, at that dead time of the dawn, when (as extremes meet) the rake, reehng home from his midnight cups, and the hard- handed artizan leaving his bed to resume the premature labors of the day, jostle, not unfrequently to the manifest disconcerting of the former, for the honors of the pavement. It is the time when, in summer, between the expired and the not yet relumined kitchen-fires, the kennels of our fair metropolis give forth their least satisfactory odors. The rake, who wisheth to dissipate his o'ernight vapors in more grateful coffee, curses the ungenial fume, as he passeth ; but the artizan stops to taste, and blesses the fragrant breakfast. This is saloop — the precocious herb-woman's darling — the delight of the early gardener, who transports his smok- ing cabbages by break of day from Hammersmith to Covent Garden's famed piazzas — the delight, and oh ! I fear, too often the envy, of the unpennied sweep. Hini shouldst thou haply encounter, with his dim visage pendent over the grate- ful steam, regale him with a sumptuous basin (it will cost thee but three halfpennies) and a slice of delicate bread and butter (an added halfpenny) — so may thy cuhnary fires, eased of the o'ercharged secretions from thy worse-placed hospitalities, curl up a lighter volume to the welkin — so may the descending soot never taint thy costly well-ingredi- enced soups — nor the odious cry, quick-reaching from street to street, of the fired chimney, invite the rattling engines from ten adjacent parishes, to disturb for a casual scintilla- tion thy peace and pocket ! I am by nature extremely susceptible of street affronts; the jeers and taunts of the populace; the low-bred triumph they display over the casual trip, or splashed stocking, of a gentleman. Yet can I endure the jocularity of a young sweep with something more than forgiveness. — In the last winter but one, pacing along Cheapside with my accustomed precipitation when I walk westward, a treacherous slide brought me upon my back in an instant. I scrambled up with pain and shame enough — yet outwardly trying to face it down, as if nothing had happened — when the roguish 128 THE ESSAYS OF ELI A grin of one of these young wits encountered me. There he stood, pointing me out with his dusky finger to the mob, and to a poor woman (I suppose his' mother) in particular, till the tears for the exquisiteness of the fun (so he thought it) worked themselves out at the corners of his poor red eyes, red from many a previous weeping, and soot-inflamed, yet twin- kling through all with such a joy, snatched out of desolation, that Hogarth but Hogarth has got him already (how could he miss him?) in the March to Finchley, grinning at the pieman — there he stood, as he stands in the picture, irremovable, as if the jest was to last for ever — with such a maximum of glee, and minimum of mischief, in his mirth — for the grin of a genuine sweep hath absolutely no malice in it — that I could have been content, if the honor of a gen- tleman might endure it, to have remained his butt and his mockery till midnight. I am by theory obdurate to the seductiveness of what are called a fine set of teeth. Every pair of rosy lips (the ladies must pardon me) is a casket presumably holding such jewels; but, methinks, they should take leave to "air" them as frugally as possible. The fine lady, or fine gentle- man, who show me their teeth, show me bones. Yet must I confess, that from the mouth of a true sweep a display (even to ostentation) of those white and shiny ossifications, strikes me as an agreeable anomaly in manners, and an allowable piece of foppery. It is, as when A sable cloud Turns forth her silver lining on the night.^ It is like some remnant of gentry not quite extinct ; a badge of better days ; a hint of nobility : — and, doubtless, under the obscuring darkness and double night of their forlorn disguisement, oftentimes lurketh good blood, and gentle conditions, derived from lost ancestry, and a lapsed pedi- gree. The premature apprenticements of these tender victims give but too much encouragement, I fear, to clandes- tine and almost infantile abductions; the seeds of civility * Comus, i. 223. THE PRAISE OP CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS 129 and true courtesy, so often discernible in these young grafts (not otherwise to be accounted for) plainly hint at some forced adoptions; many noble Rachels mourning for their children, even in our days, countenance the fact; the tales of fairy spiriting may shadow a lamentable verity, and the recovery of the young Montagu be but a solitary instance of good fortune out of many irreparable and hopeless defiliations. In one of the state-beds at Arundel Castle, a few years gince — under a ducal canopy — (that seat of the Howards is an object of curiosity to visitors, chiefly for its beds, in which the late duke was especially a connoisseur) — encircled with curtains of delicatest crimson, with starry coronets inwoven — folded between a pair of sheets whiter and softer than the lap where Venus lulled Ascanius — was discovered by chance, after all methods of search had failed, at noon-day, fast asleep, a lost chimney-sweeper. The little creature, having somehow confounded his passage among the intricacies of those lordly chimneys, by some un- known aperture had alighted upon this magnificent chamber ; and, tired with his tedious explorations, was unable to resist the delicious invitement to repose, which he there saw ex- hibited; so, creeping between the sheets very quietly, laid his black head upon the pillow, and slept like a young Howard. Such is the account given to the visitors at the Castle. — But I cannot help seeming to perceive a confirmation of what I have just hinted at in this story. A high instinct was at work in the case, or I am mistaken. Is it probable that a poor child of that description, with whatever weariness he might be visited, would have ventured, under such a penalty as he would be taught to expect, to uncover the sheets of a duke's bed, and deliberately to lay himself down between them, when the rug, or the carpet, presented an obvious couch, still far above his pretensions — is this probable, I would ask, if the great power of nature, which I contend for, had not been manifested within him, prompting to the ad- venture? Doubtless this young nobleman (for such my mind misgives me that he must be) was allured by some 130 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA memory, not amounting to full consciousness, of his condition in infancy, when he was used to be lapped by his mother, or his nurse, in just such sheets as he there found, into which he was now but creeping back as into his proper incunabula,^ and resting-place. — By no other theory than by this senti- ment of a pre-existent state (as I may call it), can I explain a deed so venturous, and, indeed, upon any other system, so indecorous, in this tender, but unseasonable, sleeper. My pleasant friend Jem White was so impressed with a belief of metamorphoses like this frequently taking place, that in some sort to reverse the wrongs of fortune in these poor changelings, he instituted an annual feast of chimney- sweepers, at which it was his pleasure to officiate as host and waiter. It was a solemn supper held in Smithfield, upon the yearly return of the fair of St. Bartholomew. Cards were issued a week before to the master-sweeps in and about the metropolis, confining the invitation to their younger fry. Now and then an elderly stripling would get in among us, and be good-naturedly winked at ; but our main body were infantry. One unfortunate wight, indeed, who, relying upon his dusky suit, had intruded himself into our party, but by tokens was providentially discovered in time to be no chimney- sweeper (all is not soot which looks so), was quoited out of the presence with universal indignation, as not having on the wedding garment; but in general the greatest harmony prevailed. The place chosen was a convenient spot among the pens, at the north side of the fair, not so far distant as to be impervious to the agreeable hubbub of that vanity, but remote enough not to be obvious to the interruption of every gaping spectator in it. The guests assembled about seven. In those little temporary parlors three tables were spread with napery, not so fine as substantial, and at every board a comely hostess presided with her pan of hissing sausages. The nostrils of the young rogues dilated at the savor. James White, as head waiter, had charge of the first table; and myself, with our trusty companion Bigod, ^ Literally, a birthplace ; here used in the sense of swaddling clothes. THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS 131 ordinarily ministered to the other two. There was clamber- ing and jostUng, you may be sure, who should get at the first table, for Rochester in his maddest days could not have done the humors of the scene with more spirit than my friend. After some general expression of thanks for the honor the company had done him, his inaugural ceremony was to clasp the greasy waist of old dame Ursula (the fattest of the three), that stood frying and fretting, half-blessing, half-cursing *Hhe gentleman," and imprint upon her chaste lips a tender salute, whereat the universal host would set up a shout that tore the concave, while hundreds of grinning teeth startled the night with their brightness. it was a pleasure to see the sable younkers lick in the unctuous meat, with his more unctuous sayings — how he would fit the tit-bits to the puny mouths, reserving the lengthier links for the seniors — how he would intercept a morsel even in the jaws of some young desperado, declaring it "must to the pan again to be browned, for it was not fit for a gentleman's eating " — how he would recommend this slice of white bread, or that piece of kissing-crust, to a tender juvenile, advising them all to have a care of cracking their teeth, which were their best patrimony, — how genteelly he would deal about the small ale, as if it were wine, naming the brewer, and protesting, if it were not good, he should lose their custom ; with a special recommendation to wipe the lip before drinking. Then we had our toasts — "the King," — "the Cloth," — which, whether they understood or not, was equally diverting and flattering ; and for a crowning sentiment, which never failed, "May the Brush supersede the Laurel!" All these, and fifty other fancies, which were rather felt than comprehended by his guests, would he utter, standing upon tables, and prefacing every sentiment with a "Gentlemen, give me leave to propose so and so," which was a prodigious comfort to those young orphans ; every now and then stuffing into his mouth (for it did not do to be squeamish on these occasions) indiscriminate pieces of those reeking sausages, which pleased them mightily, and was the savoriest part, you may believe, of the entertainment. 132 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA Golden lads and lasses must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust — * James White is extinct, and with him these suppers have long ceased. He carried away with him half the fun of the world when he died — of my world at least. His old clients look for him among the pens; and, missing him, re- proach the altered feast of St. Bartholomew, and the glory of Smithfield departed for ever. A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. was obliging enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal, just as they do in Abyssinia to this day. This period is not obscurely hinted at by their great Confucius in the second chapter of his Mundane Muta- tions, where he designates a kind of golden age by the term Cho-fang, literally the Cooks' Holiday. The manuscript goes on to say, that the art of roasting, or rather broiling (which I take to be the elder brother) was accidentally discovered in the manner following. The swine-herd, Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods one morning, as his manner was, to collect mast for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who being fond of playing with fire, as younkers of his age commonly are, let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage (a sorry antediluvian make-shift of a building, you may think it), what was of much more importance, a fine litter of new-far- rowed pigs, no less than nine in number, perished. China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all over the East, from the remotest periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in the utmost consternation, as you may think, not so much for the sake 1 Cymbeline, iv. 2. 262-263. A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG 133 of the tenement, which his father and he could easily build up again with a few dry branches, and the labor of an hour or two, at any time, as for the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking what he should say to his father, and wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odor assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent which he had before experienced. What could it proceed from ? — not from the burnt cottage — he had smelt that smell before — indeed, this was by no means the first accident of the kind which had occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young firebrand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether lip. He knew not what to think. He next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burnt his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the world's life indeed, for before him no man had known it) he tasted — crackling ! Again he felt and fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him so much now, still he licked his fingers from a sort of habit. The truth at length broke into his slow understanding, that it was the pig that smelt so, and the pig that tasted so delicious ; and sur- rendering himself up to the new-born pleasure, he fell to tear- ing up whole handfuls of the scorched skin with the flesh next it, and was cramming it down his throat in his beastly fashion, when his sire entered amid the smoking rafters, armed with retributory cudgel, and finding how affairs stood, began to rain blows upon the young rogue's shoulders, as thick as hail-stones, which Bo-bo heeded not any more than if they had been flies. The tickling pleasure, which he experienced in his lower regions, had rendered him quite callous to any inconveniences he might feel in those remote quarters. His father might lay on, but he could not beat him from his pig, till he had fairly made an end of it, when, becoming a little more sensible of his situation, something like the following dialogue ensued. 134 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA "You graceless whelp, what have you got there devour- ing? Is it not enough that you have burnt me down three houses with your dog's tricks, and be hanged to you ! but you must be eating fire, and I know not what — what have you got there, I say?" "0 father, the pig, the pig! do come and taste how nice the burnt pig eats." The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his son, and he cursed himself that ever he should beget a son that should eat burnt pig. Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since morning, soon raked out another pig, and fairly rending it asunder, thrust the lesser half by main force into the fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out, "Eat, eat, eat the burnt pig, father, only taste — O Lord!" — with such-like barbarous ejacu- lations, cramming all the while as if he would choke. Ho-ti trembled every joint while he grasped the abom- inable thing, wavering whether he should not put his son to death for an unnatural young monster, when the crack- ling scorching his fingers, as it had done his son's, and apply- ing the same remedy to them, he in his turn tasted some of its flavor, which, make what sour mouths he would for a pretence, proved not altogether displeasing to him. In con- clusion (for the manuscript here is a little tedious), both father and son fairly sat down to the mess, and never left off till they had despatched all that remained of the litter. Bo-bo was strictly enjoined not to let the secret escape, for the neighbors would certainly have stoned them for a couple of abominable wretches, who could think of im- proving upon the good meat which God had sent them. Nevertheless, strange stories got about. It was observed that Ho-ti 's cottage was burnt down now more frequently than ever. Nothing but fires from this time forward. Some would break out in broad day, others in the night-time. As often as the sow farrowed, so sure was the house of Ho-ti to be in a blaze; and Ho-ti himself, which was the more remarkable, instead of chastising his son, seemed to grow more indulgent to him than ever. At length they were A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG 135 watched, the terrible mystery discovered, and father and son summoned to take their trial at Pekin, then an incon- siderable assize town. Evidence was given, the obnoxious food itself produced in court, and verdict about to be pro- nounced, when the foreman of the jury begged that some of the burnt pig, of which the culprits stood accused, might be handed into the box. He handled it, and they all handled it; and burning their fingers, as Bo-bo and his father had done before them, and nature prompting to each of them the same remedy, against the face of all the facts, and the clearest charge which judge had ever given, — to the surprise of the whole court, townsfolk, strangers, reporters, and all present — without leaving the box, or any manner of con- sultation whatever, they brought in a simultaneous verdict of Not Guilty. The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the mani- fest iniquity of the decision; and when the court was dis- missed, went privily and bought up all the pigs that could be had for love or money. In a few days his lordship's town-house was observed to be on fire. The thing took wing, and now there was nothing to be seen but fires in every direction. Fuel and pigs grew enormously dear all over the district. The insurance offices one and all shut up shop. People built slighter and slighter every day, until it was feared that the very science of architecture would in no long time be lost to the world. Thus this custom of firing houses continued, till in process of time, says my manuscript, a sage arose, like our Locke, who made a discovery that the flesh of swine, or indeed of any other animal, might be cooked (burnt, as they called it) without the necessity of consuming a whole house to dress it. Then first began the rude form of a grid- iron. Roasting by the string or spit came in a century or two later, I forget in whose dynasty. By such slow degrees, concludes the manuscript, do the most useful, and seemingly the most obvious, arts make their way among mankind Without placing too implicit faith in the account above given, it must be agreed that if a worthy pretext for so dangerous an experiment as setting houses on fire (especially 136 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA in these days) could be assigned in favor of any culinary object, that pretext and excuse might be found in roast pig. Of all the delicacies in the whole mundus edibilis,^ I will maintain it to be the most delicate — princeps obsoniorum} 1 speak not of your grown porkers — things between pig and pork — those hobbledehoys — but a young and tender suckling — under a moon old — guiltless as yet of the sty — with no original speck of the amor immunditioe,^ the heredi- tary failing of the first parent, yet manifest — his voice as yet not broken, but something between a childish treble and a grumble — the mild forerunner or prceludium ^ of a grunt. He must he roasted. I am not ignorant that our ancestors ate them seethed, or boiled — but what a sacrifice of the exterior tegument ! There is no flavor comparable, I will contend, to that of the crisp, tawny, well- watched, not over-roasted, crack- ling, as it is well called — the very teeth are invited to their share of the pleasure at this banquet in overcoming the coy, brittle resistance — with the adhesive oleaginous — O call it not fat ! but an indefinable sweetness growing up to it — the tender blossoming of fat — fat cropped in the bud — taken in the shoot — in the first innocence — the cream and quintessence of the child-pig's yet pure food — ■ the lean, no lean, but a kind of animal manna — or, rather, fat and lean (if it must be so) so blended and running into each other, that both together make but one ambrosian result or common substance. Behold him while he is "doing" — it seemeth rather a refreshing warmth, than a scorching heat, that he is so passive to. How equably he twirleth round the string ! Now he is just done. To see the extreme sensibility of that tender age ! he hath wept out his pretty eyes — radi- ant jellies — shooting stars. — ^ Mundus edihilis means a world of eatables; princeps obsoniorum, the chief of tidbits. 2 Love of dirt. "An allusion to the original sin in the porcine Adam and Eve." Lucas. ^ Prelude. A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG 137 See him in the dish, his second cradle, how meek he heth ! — wouldst thou have had this innocent grow up to the gross- ness and indocihty which too often accompany maturer swinehood? Ten to one he would have proved a glutton, a sloven, an obstinate, disagreeable animal — wallowing in all manner of filthy conversation — from these sins he is happily snatched away — Ere sin could blight or sorrow fade, Death came with timely care — ^ his memory is odoriferous — no clown curseth, while his stomach half rejecteth, the rank bacon — no coalheaver bolteth him in reeking sausages — he hath a fair sepulchre in the grateful stomach of the judicious epicure — and for such a tomb might be content to die. He is the best of sapors. Pine-apple is great. She is indeed almost too transcendent — a delight, if not sinful, yet so like to sinning, that really a tender-conscienced person would do well to pause — too ravishing for mortal taste, she woundeth and excoriateth the lips that approach her — like lovers' kisses, she biteth — she is a pleasure bordering on pain from the fierceness and insanity of her relish — but she stoppeth at the palate — she meddleth not with the appetite — and the coarsest hunger might barter her consistently for a mutton-chop. Pig — let me speak his praise — is no less provocative of the appetite than he is satisfactory to the criticalness of the censorious palate. The strong man may batten on him, and the weakling refuseth not his mild juices. Unlike to mankind's mixed characters, a bundle of virtues and vices, inexplicably intertwisted, and not to be un- ravelled without hazard, he is — good throughout. No part of him is better or worse than another. He helpeth, as far as his little means extend, all around. He is the least envious of banquets. He is all neighbors' fare. I am one of those who freely and ungrudgingly impart a share of the good things of this life which fall to their ^ Coleridge's Epitaph on an Infant. 138 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA lot (few as mine are in this kind) to a friend. I protest I take as great an interest in my friend's pleasures, his relishes, and proper satisfactions, as in mine own. "Pres- ents,'' I often say, "endear Absents." Hares, pheasants, partridges, snipes, barn-door chickens (those "tame villatic fowl"),^ capons, plovers, brawn, barrels of oysters, I dispense as freely as I receive them. I love to taste them, as it were, upon the tongue of my friend. But a stop must be put somewhere. One would not, like Lear, "give every- thing." I make my stand upon pig. Methinks it is an in- gratitude to the Giver of all good flavors, to extra-domicili- ate, or send out of the house, slightingly (under pretext of friendship, or I know not what) a blessing so particularly adapted, predestined, I may say, to my individual palate. — It argues an insensibility. I remember a touch of conscience in this kind at school. My good old aunt,^ who never parted from me at the end of a holiday without stuffing a sweetmeat, or some nice thing, into my pocket, had dismissed me one evening with a smoking plum-cake, fresh from the oven. In my way to school (it was over London Bridge) a grey-headed old beggar saluted me (I have no doubt, at this time of day, that he was a counterfeit). I had no pence to console him with, and in the vanity of self-denial, and the very coxcombry of charity, school-boy like, I made him a present of — the whole cake ! I walked on a little, buoyed up, as one is on such occasions, with a sweet soothing of self-satisfaction; but, before I had got to the end of the bridge, my better feelings returned, and I burst into tears, thinking how un- grateful I had been to my good aunt, to go* and give her good gift away to a stranger that I had never seen before, and who might be a bad man for aught I knew; and then I thought of the pleasure my aunt would be taking in think- ing that I — I myself, and not another — would eat her nice cake — and what should I say to her the next time I saw her — how naughty I was to part with her pretty ^ Milton's Samson Agonistes, 1695. 2 Aunt Hetty. A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG 139 present ! — and the odor of that spicy cake came back upon my recollection, and the pleasure and the curiosity I had taken in seeing her make it, and her joy when she sent it to the oven, and how disappointed she would feel that I had never had a bit of it in my mouth at last — and I blamed my impertinent spirit of alms-giving, and out-of-place hypocrisy of goodness ; and above all I wished never to see the face again of that insidious, good-for-nothing, old grey impostor. Our ancestors were nice in their method of sacrificing these tender victims. We read of pigs whipt to death with something of a shock, as we hear of any other obsolete custom. The age of discipline is gone by, or it would be curious to inquire (in a philosophical light merely) what effect this process might have towards intenerating and dulcifying a substance naturally so mild and dulcet as the flesh of young pigs. It looks like refining a violet. Yet we should be cautious, while we condemn the inhumanity, how we censure the wisdom of the practice. It might impart a. gusto — I remember an hypothesis, argued upon by the young students, when I was at St. Omer's, and maintained with much learning and pleasantry on both sides, "Whether, supposing that the flavor of a pig who obtained his death by whipping (per flagellationem extremam ^) superadded a pleasure upon the palate of a man more intense than any possible suffering we can conceive in the animal, is man justified in using that method of putting the animal to death ? " I forget the decision. His sauce should be considered. Decidedly, a few bread crumbs, done up with his liver and brains, and a dash of mild sage. But banish, dear Mrs. Cook, I beseech you, the whole onion tribe. Barbecue your whole hogs to your palate, steep them in shalots, stuff them out with planta- tions of the rank and guilty garlic ; you cannot poison them, or make them stronger than they are — but consider, he is a weakling — a flower. ^ By whipping to the extreme, i.e. to death. Q H Hi W m h3 o p I— I