Glass V5Liiiu__ Book ^4W. (>• ! ^ ' (J THACKERAY'S WORKS.- Boston Edition. I. Vanity Fair, and Lovel the Widower. II. The Virginians. III. Pendennis. IV. The Newcomes. V. The Adventures of Philip, and Cath- erine. VI. Henry Esmond, Barry Lyndon, and Denis Duval. VII. Roundabout Papers, and The Four Georges. VIII. Burlesques, and^ Yellowplush Papers. IX. Paris and Eastern Sketches, and The Irish Sketch-Book. X. Christmas Books, and The Hoggarty Diamond. I J-SU-A R-N-LDS IN A DOMINO. Dk. G-LDSM-TH IN AN OlD ENGLISH DrESS.) THACKERAY'S COMPLETE WORKS ItUustratelf ROUNDABOUT PAPERS TO WHICH IS ADDED THE SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON CRITICAL REVIEWS THE FOUR GEORGES THE ENGLISH HUMORISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON ^ BY WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY ^ uCT ; • PHILADELPHIA J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 1887 A^^ CONTENTS. ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. Paob On a Lazy Idle Boy 3 On Two Children in Black 9 On Ribbons * 15 On some late Great Victories 26 Thorns in the Cushion 32 On Screens in Dining- Rooms 39 Tunbridge Toys 45 De Juventute 51 On a Joke I once heard from the late Thomas Hood .... 63 Round about the Christmas Tree 73 On a Chalk-Mark on the Door 80 On being Found Out 90 On a Hundred Years Hence 96 Small-Beer Chronicle 103 Ogres , 110 On Two Roundabout Papers which I intended to Write . . . 117 A Mississippi Bubble 126 On Letts's Diary 134 Notes of a Week's Holiday 142 Nil Nisi Bonum 161 On Half a Loaf — A Letter to Messrs. Broadway, Battery and Co., of New York, Bankers 168 The Notch on the Axe. — A Story a la Mode. Part L . . . 176 >> n »> j> >> 11* • * • ^"^ f> >» >» 91 >» III. ♦ . t X89 CONTENTS. Page De Finibus 197 On a Peal of Bells 205 On a Pear-Tree 213 Dessein's -'20 On some Carp at Sans Souci 230 Autour de mon Chapeau 236 On Alexandrines — A Letter to some Country Cousins .... 245 On a Medal of George the Fourth 252 " Strange to say, on Club Paper " 260 The Last Sketch 266 THE SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON. I. On the Disinterment of Napoleon at St. Helena .... 273 II. On the Voyage from St. Helena to Paris 284 III. On the Funeral Ceremony 295 CRITICAL REVIEWS. George Cruikshank 315 John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character 351 CONTENTS. THE FOUR GEORGES. Page George the First 3 George the Second 27 George the Third 48 George the Fourth 72 THE ENGLISH HUMORISTS. Swift 101 Congreve and Addison 134 Steele 166 Prior, Gay, and Pope . 199 Hogarth, Smollett, and Fielding 237 Sterne and Goldsmith 267 r-i SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON. Mr. Brown's Letters to his Nephew: — 301 On Tailoring — and Toilets in General 305 The Influence of Lovely Woman upon Society 309 Some more Words about the Ladies 313 On Friendship 318 Mr. Brown the Elder takes Mr. Brown the Younger to a Club 326 A Word about Balls in Season 338 vi CONTENTS. Paoe A Word about Dinners 344 On some oid Customs of the Dinner-Table 348 Great and Little Dinners 352 On Love, Marriage, Men, and Women 357 Out of Town 368 On a Lady in an Opera-Box 376 On the Pleasures of being a Fogy 381 Child's Parties 389 The Curate's Walk 397 A Dinner in the City 406 Waiting at the Station 417 A Night's Pleasure , 422 Going to see a Man Hanged 442 ILLUSTRATIONS. -♦- ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. pagh Sir J-gH-A R-N-LDS in a Domino, Dr. G-ldsm-th in an old English Dress 66 THE SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON. M. GuizoT DOMK DE8 InVALIDES , , . t iVl .JLHIKRSt • • J* s » c • • • • MURAT .,.,.,. N'tOL.S:ON'8 F'UNERAL FOUR GEORGES. George I.* The Duke and Duchess op Marlborough . James II George II William Pitt — Lord Chatham George III George IV. . • Caroline refused Admittance to Westminster Abbey Naval Battle * Frontispiece to Cambridge Edition. ILLUSTRATIONS. ENGLISH HUMORISTS. Page Milton ,.. King James at the Battle of the Boyne .... 173' Queen Anne 201" ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. KOU:^DABOUT PAPERS. ON A LAZY IDLE BOY. I HAD occasion to pass a week in the autumn in the little old town of Coire or Chur, in the Orisons, where lies buried that very ancient British king, saint, and martyr, Lucius,* who founded the Church of St. Peter, on Cornhill. Few people note the church now-a-days, and fewer ever heard of the saint. In. the cathedral at Chur, his statue appears sur- rounded by other sainted persons of his family. With tight red breeches, a Roman habit, a curly brown beard, and a neat little gilt crown and sceptre, he stands, a very comelj^ and cheerful image : and, from what I may call his peculiar position with regard to Cornhill, I beheld this figure of St. Lucius with more interest than I should have bestowed upon personages who, hierarchically, are, I dare say, his superiors. The pretty little city stands, so to speak, at the end of the world — of the world of to-day, the world of rapid motion, and rushing railways, and the commerce and intercourse of men. From the northern gate, the iron road stretches awa}" to Zurich, to Basle, to Paris, to home. From the old south- ern barriers, before which a little river rushes, and around which stretch the crumbling battlements of the ancient town, the road bears the slow diligence or lagging vetturino by the * Stow quotes the inscription, still extant, " from the table fast chained in St. Peter's Chur'^^. Cornhill; and says, "he was after some chronicle buried at London, and after some chronicle buried at Glowcester " — but, oh ! these incorrect chroniclers ! when Alban Butler, in the " Lives of the Saints," V. xii., and Murray's "Handbook," and the Sacristan at Chur, all «ay Lucius was killed there, and I saw his tomb with my own eyei ! 4 ' ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. shallow Rhine, through the awful gorges of the Via Mala, and presently over the Splugen to the shores of Como. I have seldom seen a place more quaint, prett}', calm, and pastoral, than this remote little Chur. What need have the inhabitants for walls and ramparts, except to build summer- houses, to trail vines, and hang clothes to dry on them? No enemies approach the great mouldering gates : only at morn and even the cows come lowing past them, the village maidens chatter merrily round the fountains, and babble like the ever- voluble stream that flows under the old walls. The schoolboys, with book and satchel, in smart uniforms, march up to the gymnasium, and return thence at their stated time. There is one coffee-house in the town, and I see one old gentleman goes to it. There are shops with no customers seeminglj', and the laz}^ tradesmen look out of their little windows at the single stranger sauntering by. There is a stall with baskets of queer little black grapes and apples, and a pretty brisk trade with half a dozen urchins standing round. But, beyond this, there is scarce any talk or movement in the street. There's nobody at the book-shop. " If you will have the goodness to come again in an hour," says the banker, with his mouthful of din- ner at one o'clock, "you can have the money." There is nobody at the hotel, save the good landlady, the kind waiters, the brisk young cook who ministers to you. Nobody is in the Protestant church — (oh! strange sight, the two confessions are here at peace !) — nobody in the Catholic church : until the sacristan, from his snug abode in the cathedral close, espies the traveller eying the monsters and pillars before the old shark-toothed arch of his cathedral, and comes out (with a view to remuneration possibly) and opens the gate, and shows you the venerable church, and the queer old relics in the sac- risty, and the ancient vestments (a black velvet cope, amongst other robes, as fresh as yesterday, and presented by that notorious "pervert," Henry of Navarre and France), and the statue of vSt. Lucius who built St. Peter's Church, on Cornhill. What a quiet, kind, quaint, pleasant, pretty old town! Has it been asleep these hundi'eds and hundreds of years, and is the brisk young Prince of the Sidereal Realms in his screaming car drawn by his snorting steel elephant coming to waken it? Time was when there must have been life and bustle and commerce here. Those vast, vcxierable walls were not made to keep out cows, but men-at-arms, led by fierce captains, who prowled about the gates, and robbed the trad- ers as they passed in and out with their bales, their goods, ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. ^ their pack-horses, and their wains. Is the place so dead that even the clergy of the different denominations can't quarrel? Why, seven or eight, or a dozen, or fifteen hun- dred years ago (they haven't the register at St. Peter's up to that remote period. I dare say it was burnt in the fire of London) — a dozen hundred years ago, when there was some life in the town, St. Lucius was stoned here on account of theo- logical differences, after founding our church in Cornhill. There was a sweet pretty river walk we used to take in the evening and mark the mountains round glooming with a deeper purple ; the shades creeping up the golden walls ; the river brawHng, the cattle calling, the maids and chatter- boxes round the fountains babbling and bawling ; and several times in the course of our sober walks we overtook a lazy slouching boy, or hobble-dehoy, with a rusty coat, and trousers not too long, and big feet trailing lazily one after the other, and large lazy hands dawdling from out the tight sleeves, and in the lazy hands a little book, which my lad held up to his face, and which I daro say so charmed and ravished him, that he was blind to the beautiful sights around him ; unmindful, I would venture to lay any wager, of the lessons he had to learn for to-morrow ; forgetful of mother, waiting supper, and father preparing a scolding ; — absorbed utterly and entirely in his book. What was it that so fascinated the young student, as he stood by the river shore? Not the Pons Asinorum. What book so delighted him, and blinded him to all the rest of the world, so that he did not care to see the apple- woman with her fruit, or (more tempting still to sons of Eve) the pretty girls with their apple cheeks, who laughed and prattled round the fountain ! What was the book ? Do you. suppose it was Livy, or the Greek grammar? No; it was a Novel that you were reading, you lazy, not very clean, good-for. nothing, sensible boy ! It was D'Artagnan locking up Gen- eral Monk in a box, or almost succeeding in keeping Charles the First's head on. It was the prisoner of the Chateau d'lf cutting himself out of the sack fifty feet under water (I men- tion the novels I Uke best myself— novels without love or talking, or any of that sort of nonsense, but containing plenty of fighting, escaping, robbery, and rescuing) —cutting himself out of the sack, and swimming to the island of Monte Cristo. O Dumas ! O thou brave, kind, gallant old Alexandre ! I hereby offer thee homage, and give thee thanks for many pleasant hours. I have read thee (being sick in bed) for thir- 6 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. teen hours of a bapp}' da}', and had the ladies of the house fighting for the volumes. Be assured that laz}' bo}' was read- ing Dumas (or I will go so far as to let the reader here pro- nounce the eulogium, or insert the name of his favorite author) ; and as for the anger, or it may be, the reverberations of his schoolmaster, or the remonstrances of his father, or the tender pleadings of his mother that he should not let the supper grow cold — I don't believe the scapegrace cared one fig. No ! Figs are sweet, but fictions are sweeter. Have 3'ou ever seen a score of white-bearded, white-robed warriors, or grave seniors of the city, seated at the gate of JaflTa or Beyrout, and listening to the story-teller reciting his marvels out of '' Antar" or the "Arabian Nights?" I was once present when a young gentleman at table put a tart away from him, and said to his neighbor, the Younger Son (with rather a fatuous air), " I never eat sweets." " Not eat sweets ! and do 3'ou know whj^?" says T. "Because I am past that kind of thing," sa^^s the young gentleman. "Because 3'ou are a glutton and a sot!" cries the Elder (and Juvenis winces a little). " All people who have natural, health}'' appetites, love sweets ; all children, all women, all Eastern people, whose tastes are not corrupted b}^ gluttony and strong drink." And a plateful of raspberries and cream disap- peared before the philosopher. You take the allegory? Novels are sweets. All people with healthy literary appetites love them — almost all women ; — a vast number of clever, hard-headed men. Why, one of the most learned phj^sicians in England said to me only yesterdaj^, " I have just read So-and-So for the second time" (naming one of Jones's exquisite fictions). Judges, bishops, chancellors, mathematicians, are notorious novel-readers ; as well as young boys and sweet girls, and their kind, tender mothers. Who has not read about Eldon, and how he cried over novels every night when he was not at whist? As for that laz}^ naughty boy at Chur, I doubt whether he will like novels when he is thirty years of age. He is taking too great a glut of them now. He is eating jell}^ until he will be sick. He will know most plots by the time he, is twenty, so that he will never be surprised ^clr^^n the Stranger turns out to be the rightful earl, — when the old"\vat?rjT)?;,u, throwing off his beggarl}^ gabardine, shows his stars and the collars of his various orders, and clasping Antonia to his bosom, proves him- self to be the prince, her long-lost father. He will recognize ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 7 the novelist's same characters, though they appear in red- heeled pumps and ailes-de-pigeon^ or the garb of the nineteenth century. He will get weary of sweets, as boys of private schools grow (or used to grow, for I have done growing some little time myself, and the practice may have ended too) — as private school-boys used to grow tired of the pudding before their mutton at dinner. And pray what is the moral of this apologue ? The moral I take to be this : the appetite for novels extending to the end of the world ; far away in the frozen deep, the sailors reading them to one another during the endless night ; — far away under the Syrian stars, the solemn sheikhs and elders hearkening to the poet as he recites his tales ; far away in the Indian camps, where the soldiers listen to 's tales, or 's, after the hot day's march ; far away in little Chur yonder, where the lazy boy pores over the fond volume, and drinks it in with all his e^^es ; — the demand being what we know it is, the merchant must supply it, as he will supply saddles and pale ale for Bom- bay or Calcutta. But as surely as the cadet drinks too much pale ale, it will dis- agree with him ; and so surely, dear youth, will too much novels cloy on thee. I wonder, do novel-writers themselves read manj^ novels? If you go into Gunter's, 3'ou don't see those charming young ladies (to whom I present my most respectful compliments) eating tarts and ices, but at the proper eventide they have good plain wholesome tea and bread-and-butter. Can anybody tell me does the author of the ' ' Tale of Two Cities" read novels? does the author of the " Tower of Lon- don " devour romances ? does the dashing ' ' Harry Lorrequer " delight in " Plain or Ringlets" or " Sponge's Sporting Tour?" Does the veteran, from whose flowing pen we had the books which delighted our young days, " Darnley," and " Richelieu," and "Delorme,"* relish the works of Alexandre the Great, and thrill over the "Three Musqueteers ? " Does the accom- plished author of the " Caxtons" read the other tales in Black- wood'^ (For example, that ghost-story printed last August, and which for my part, though I read it in the public reading- room at the ' ' Pavilion Hotel " at Folkestone, I protest fright- ened me so that I scarce dared look over my shoulder.) Does " Uncle Tom" admire " >^Jam Bede ; " and does the author of * By the way, what a strange fate is that which befell the veteran novelist! He was appointed her Majesty's Consul-General in Venice, the only city in Europe where the famous " Two Cavaliers " cannot by any possibility be seen riding together. 8 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. the "Vicar of Wrexhill" laugh over the "Warden" and the " The Three Clerks?" Dear 3"0uth of ingenuous countenance and ingenuous pudor ! I make no doubt that the eminent parties above named all partake of novels in moderation — eat jellies — but mainly nourish themselves upon wholesome roast and boiled. Here, dear youth aforesaid ! our Oomhill Magazine owners strive to provide thee with facts as well as fiction ; and though it does not become them to brag of their Ordinary, at least thej' invite thee to a table where thou shalt sit in good com- pan3^ That story of the " Fox" * was written b}^ one of the gallant seamen who sought for poor Franklin under the awful Arctic Night : that account of China t is told b}^ the man of all the empire most likely to know of what he speaks : those pages regarding Volunteers % come from an honored hand that has borne the sword in a hundred famous fields, and pointed the British guns in the greatest siege in the world. Shall we point out others? We are fellow-travellers, and shall make acquaintance as the voj^age proceeds. In the Atlantic steamers, on the first day out (and on high- and holy- days subsequently), the jellies set down on table are richly ornamented ; medioque in fonte leporum rise the American and British flags nobly emblazoned in tin. As the passengers re- mark this pleasing phenomenon, the Captain no doubt improves the occasion by expressing a hope, to his right and left, that the flag of Mr. Bull and his younger Brother may always float side by side in friendly emulation. Novels having been pre- viously compared to jellies — here are two (one perhaps not entirely saccharine, and flavored with an amari aliquid very distasteful to some palates) — two novels || under two flags, the one that ancient ensign which has hung before the well-known booth of ' ' Vanity Fair ; " the other that fresh and handsome standard which has lately been hoisted on ' ' Barchester Towers." Pray, sir, or madam, to which dish will you be helped? So have I seen my friends Captain Lang and Captain Corn- stock press their guests to partake of the fare on that memorable " First day out," when there is no man, I think, who sits down but asks a blessing on his voj^age, and the good ship dips over the bar, and bounds away into the blue water. * " The Search for Sir John Franklin. (From the Private Journal of an Officer of the ' Fox/) " t " The Chinese and the Outer Barbarians." By Sir John Bo wring. X " Our Volunteers." By Sir John Burgoyne. II "Lovel the Widower" and "Framley Parsonage." ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. ON TWO CHILDREN IN BLACK. Montaigne and " Howel's Letters" are my bedside books. If I wake at night, I have one or other of them to prattle me to sleep again. They talk about themselves for ever, and don't weary me. I like to hear them tell their old stories over and over again. I read them in the doz}^ hours, and onl}^ half re- member them. I am informed that both of them tell coarse stories. I don't heed them. It was the custom of their time, as it is of Highlanders and Hottentots to dispense with a part of dress which we all wear in cities. But people can't afford to be shocked either at Cape Town or at Inverness every time the}' meet an individual who wears his national airy raiment. I never knew the ' ' Arabian Nights " was an improper book until I happened once to read it in a "family edition." Well, qui s' excuse. . . . Who, pray, has accused me as 3'et? Here am I smothering dear good old Mrs. Grundy's objections, before she has opened her mouth. I love, I say, and scarcely ever tire of hearing, the artless prattle of those two dear old friends, the Perigourdin gentleman and the priggish little Clerk of King- Charles's Council. Their egotism in nowise disgusts me. I hope I shall alwa3'S like to hear men, in reason, talk about themselves. What subject does a man know better? If I stamp on a friend's corn, his outcrj' is genuine — he confounds my clumsiness in the accents of truth. He is speaking about himself and expressing his emotion of grief or pain in a manner perfectly authentic and veracious. I have a story of my own, of a wrong done to me by somebody, as far back as the year 1838 : whenever I think of it and have had a "couple of glasses of wine, I cannot help telling it. The toe is stamped upon ; the pain is just as keen as ever : I cry out, and perhaps utter im- precatory language. I told the story only last Wednesday at dinner : — " Mr. Roundabout," says a lady sitting by me, " how comes it that in your books there is a certain class (it may be of men, or it may be of women, but that is not the question in point) — how comes it, dear sir, there is a certain class of persons whom 3^ou always attack in 3'our writings, and savagely rush at, goad, ^oke, toss up in the air, kick, and trample on?" I couldn't help m3' self. I knew I ought not to do it. I told her the whole story, between the entrees and the roast. The wound 10 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. began to bleed again. The horrid pang was there, as keen and as fresh as ever. If I live half as long as Tithonus,* that crack across my heart can never be cured. There are wrongs and griefs that can't be mended. It is all very well of j^ou, ni}^ dear Mrs. Gr., to say that this spirit is unchristian, and that we ought to forgive and forget, and so forth. How can I forget at will ? How forgive ? I can forgive the occasional waiter who broke m}- beautiful old decanter at that ver}^ dinner, I am not going to do him any injmy. But all the powers on earth can't make that claret-jug whole. So, you see, I told the lady the inevitable story. I was ego- tistical. I was selfish, no doubt ; but I was natural, and was telling the truth. You sa}^ you are angry with a man for talk- ing about himself. It is because you yourself are selfish, that that other person's Self does not interest you. Be interested hy other people and with their affairs. Let them prattle and talk to you, as I do my dear old egotists just mentioned. When 3'ou have had enough of them, and sudden hazes come over your eyes, lay down the volume ; pop out the candle, and dormez Men. I should like to write a nightcap book — a book that you can muse over, that you can smile over, that you can yawn over — a book of which you can sa}', " Well, this man is so and so and so and so ; but he has a friendly heart (although some wiseacres have painted him as black as bogey), and you may trust what he says." I should like to touch you sometimes with a reminiscence that shall waken your sympathy, and make you say, lo anche have so thought, felt, smiled, suffered. Now, how is this to be done except by egotism ? Linea recta hrevissima. That right line " I" is the very shortest, simplest, straightforwardest means of communication between us, and stands for what it is worth and no more. Sometimes authors say, " The present writer has often remarked ; ". or " The under- signed has observed;" or " Mr. Roundabout presents his compliments to the gentle reader, and begs to state," &c. : but " I " is better and straighter than all these grimaces of modesty : and although these are Roundabout Papers, and may wander who knows whither, I shall ask leave to maintain the upright and simple perpendicular. When this bundle of egotisms is bound up together, as they may be one day, if no accident pre- vents this tongue from wagging, or this ink from running, they will bore you very likely ; so it would to read through "Howel's Letters" from beginning to end, or to eat up the * " Tithonus," by Tennyson, had appeared in the preceding (the 2nd) number of the Comhill Magazine, ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 11 whole of a ham ; but a slice on occasion may have a relish : a dip into the volume at random and so on for a page or two : and now and then a smile ; and presently a gape ; and the book drops out of your hand ; and so, hon soir, and pleasant dreams to you. I have frequentl}^ seen men at clubs asleep over their humble servant's works, and am alwaj's pleased. Even at a lecture I don't mind, if they don't snore. Only the other day when my friend A. said, "You've left off that Roundabout business, I see ; very glad you have," I joined in the general roar of laughter at the table. I don't care a fig whether Archi- lochus likes the papers or no. You don't like partridge, Ar- chilochus, or porridge, or what not? Try some other dish. I am not going to force mine down your throat, or quarrel with you if you refuse it. Once in America a clever and candid woman said to me, at the close of a dinner, during which I had been sitting beside her, " Mr. Roundabout, I was told I should not like 5^ou ; and I don't." " Well, ma'am," says I, in a tone of the most unfeigned simplicit}^ " I don't care." And we became good friends immediatel}-, and esteemed each other ever after. So, my dear Archilochus, if you come upon this paper, and say, " Fudge ! " and pass on to another, I for one shall not be in the least mortified. If 3'ou say, " What does he mean by calling this paper On Two Ohildren in Blacky when there's noth- ing about people in black at all, unless the ladies he met (and evidently bored) at dinner, were black women? What is all this egotistical pother ? A plague on his I's ! " My dear fellow, if 3^ou read " Montaigne's Essa3's," you must own that he might call almost any one by the name of any other, and that an essay on the Moon or an essay on Green Cheese would be as appro- priate a title as one of his on Coaches, on the Art of Discours- ing, or Experience, or what 3^ou will. Besides, if I have a subject (and I have) I claim to approach it in a roundabout manner. You remember Balzac's tale of the Peau de Chagrin^ and how ever}^ time the possessor used it for the accomplishment of some wish the fair}^ Peau shrank a little and the owner's life correspondingly shortened? I have such a desire to be well with m}' public that I am actually giving up my favorite stor3\ I am killing m3^ goose, I know I am. I can't tell my stor3' of the children in black after this ; after printing it, and sending it through the country. When the3^ are gone to the printer's these little things become public propert3\ I take their hands. I bless them. I say, " Good-by, my little dears." I am quite 12 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. sorry to part with them : but the fact is, I have told all my friends about them already, and don't dare to take them about with me any more. Now every word is true of this little anecdote, and I submit that there lies in it a most curious and exciting little m3^ster3\ I am like a man who gives you the last bottle of his '25 claret. It is the pride of his cellar ; he knows it, and he has a right to praise it. He takes up the bottle, fashioned so slenderly — takes it up tenderl}^ cants it with care, places it before his friends, declares how good it is, with honest pride, and wishes he had a hundred dozen bottles more of the same wine in his cellar. Si quid novisti^ &c., I shall be ver}^ glad to hear from you. I protest and vow I am giving you the best I have. ■ Well, who those little boys in black were, I shall never probabl}^ know to my dying day. They were very pretty little men, with pale faces, and large, melancholy eyes ; and they had beautiful little hands, and little boots, and the finest little shirts, and black paletots lined with the richest silk ; and they had picture-books in several languages, English, and French, and German, I remember. Two more aristocratic-looking little men I never set e3^es on. They were traveUing with a very handsome, pale lady in mourning, and a maid-servant dressed in black, too ; and on the lady's face there was the deepest grief. The little boys clambered and played about the carriage, and she sat watching. It was a railway-carriage from Frankfort to Heidelberg. I saw at once that she was the mother of those children, and going to part from them. Perhaps I have tried parting with m}' own, and not found the business very pleasant. Perhaps I recollect driving down (with a certain trunk and carpet-bag on the box) with my own mother to the end of the avenue, where we waited — only a few minutes — until the whirring wheels of that ' ' Defiance " coach were heard rolling towards us as cer- tain as death. Twang goes the horn ; up goes the trunk ; down come the steps. Bah ! I see the autumn evening : I liear the wheels now : I smart the cruel smart again : and, bo}' or man, have never been able to bear the sight of people part- ing from their children. I thought these little men might be going to school for the first time in their lives ; and mamma might be taking them to the doctor, and would leave them with man}^ fond charges, and little wistful secrets of love, bidding the elder to protect his 3'ounger brother, and the younger to be gentle, and to remem- ber to pray to God alwa3's for his mother, who would pray for ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 13 her boy too. Our party made friends with these young ones during the little journey ; but the poor lady was too sad to talk except to the bo3^s now and again, and sat in her corner, pale, and silentl}^ looking at them. The next daj^, we saw the lady and her maid driving in the direction of the railway-station, without the hoys. The parting had taken place, then. That night they would sleep among strangers. The little beds at home were vacant, and poor mother might go and look at them. Well, tears flow, and friends part, and mothers pray every night all over the world. I dare say we went to see Heidelberg Castle, and admired the vast shattered walls and quaint gables ; and the Neckar running its bright course through that charming scene of peace and beauty ; and ate our dinner, and drank our wine with relish. The poor mother would eat but little Abendessen that night ; and, as for the children — that first night at school — hard bed, hard words, strange boys bullying, and laughing, and jarring you with their hateful merriment — as for the first night at a strange school, we most of us remember what that is. And the first is not the worst, my boj^s, there's the rub. But each man has his share of troubles, and, I suppose, you must have j'^ours. From Heidelberg we went to Baden-Baden : and, I dare say, saw Madame de Schlangenbad and Madame de la Cruchecassee, and Count Punter, and honest Captain Blackball. And whom should we see in the evening, but our two little bo5^s, walking on each side of a fierce, yellow-faced, bearded man ! We wanted to renew our acquaintance with them, and they were coming forward quite pleased to greet us. But the father pulled back one of the little men by his paletot, gave a grim scowl, and walked away. I can see the children now looking rather frightened away from us and up into the father's face, or the cruel uncle's — which was he ? I think he was the father. So this was the end of them. Not school, as I at first had imag- ined. The mother was gone, who had given them the heaps of pretty books, and the pretty studs in the shirts, and the pretty silken clothes, and the tender — tender cares; and they were handed to this scowling practitioner of Trente et Quarante. Ah ! this is worse than school. Poor little men ! poor mother sittino- bv the vacant little beds ! We saw the children once or twice after, always in Scowler's company ; but we did not dare to give each other any marks of recognition. From Baden we went to Basle, and thence to Lucerne, and so over the 8t. Gothard into Italy. From Milan we went to 14 ' ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. Venice ; and now comes the singular part of my story. In Venice there is a little court of which I forget the name : but in it is an apothecarj^'s shop, whither I went to buy some remedj^for the bites of certain Stnimals which abound in Venice. Crawling animals, skipping animals, and humming, fl3'ing ani- mals ; all three will have at 3'ou at once ; and one night nearl}' drove me into a strait- waistcoat. Well, as I was coming out of the apothecary's with the bottle of spirits of hartshorn in my hand (it really does do the bites a great deal of good), whom should I light upon but one of my little Heidelberg-Baden bo}' s I I have said how handsomely they were dressed as long as they were with their mother.^ When I saw the boy at Venice, who perfectlj' recognized me, his only garb was a wretched 3'ellow cotton gown. His little feet, on which I had admired the little shin}' boots, were without shoe or stocking. He looked at me, ran to an old hag of a woman, who seized his hand ; and with her he disappeared down one of the thronged lanes of the city. From Venice we went to Trieste (the Vienna railwaj' at that time was onl}' opened as far as La3"bach, and the magnificent Semmering Pass was not quite completed). At a station be- tween La3'bach and Graetz, one of m}' companions alighted for refreshment, and came back to the carriage sa3'ing : — " There's that horrible man from Baden, with the two little bo3^s." Of course, we had talked about the appearance of the little bo3' at Venice, and his strange altered garb. M3^ com- panion said the3^ were pale, wretched-looking, and dressed quite shabbily. I got out at several stations, and looked at all the carriages. I could not see my little men. From that day to this T have never set eyes on them. That is all my story. Who were they ? What could they be ? How can you explain that mys- tery of the mother giving them up ; of the remarkable splendor and elegance of their appearance while under her care ; of their barefooted squalor in Venice, a month afterwards ; of their shabby habiliments at Lay bach? Had the father gambled away his money, and sold their clothes ? How came they to have passed out of the hands of a refined lad3' (as she evi- dentl3^ was, with whom I first saw them) into the charge of quite a common woman like her with whom I saw one of the boys at Venice ? Here is but one chapter of the stor}'. Can an}^ man write the next, or that preceding the strange one on ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 15 wMch I happened to light? Who knows? the mysterj^ may have some quite simple solution. I saw two children, attired like little princes, taken from their mother and consigned to other care ; and a fortnight afterwards, one of them barefooted and like a beggar. Who will read this riddle of The Two Children in Black ? ON RIBBONS. The uncle of the present Sir Louis N. Bonaparte, K.G-., &c., inaugurated his reign as Emperor over the neighboring nation by estabhshing an Order, to which all citizens of his country, military, naval, and civil — all men most distinguished in science, letters, arts, and commerce — were admitted. The emblem of the Order was but a piece of ribbon, more or less long or broad, with a toy at the end of it. The Bourbons had toys and ribbons of their own, blue, black, and all-colored ; and on their return to dominion such good old Tories would naturally have preferred to restore their good old orders of Saint Louis, Saint Esprit, and Saint Michel ; but France had taken the ribbon of the Legion of Honor so to her heart that no Bourbon sovereign dared to pluck it thence. In England, until very late days, we have been accustomed rather to pooh-pooh national Orders, to vote ribbons and crosses tinsel gewgaws, fooUsh foreign ornaments, and so forth. It is known\ow the Great Duke (the breast of whose own coat was plastered with some half-hundred decorations) was averse to the wearing of ribbons, medals, clasps, and the like, by his army. We have all of us read how uncommonly distinguished Lord Castlereagh looked at Vienna, where he was the only gentleman present without any decoration whatever. And the Great Duke's theory was, that clasps and ribbons, stars and garters, were good and proper ornaments for himself, for the chief officers of his distinguished army, and for gentlemen of high birth, who might naturally claim to wear a band of garter blue across their waistcoats ; but that for common people your plain coat, without stars and ribbons, was the most sensi- ble wear. And no doubt you and I are as happy, as free, as comforta- ble ; we can walk and dine as well; we can keep the winters cold out as well, without a star on our coats, as without a 16 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. feather in our hats. How often we have laughed at the absurd mania of the Americans for dubbing their senators, members of Congress, and States' representatives. Honorable. We have a right to call our Privy Councillors Right Honorable, our Lords' sons Honorable, and so forth ; but for a nation as numerous, well educated, strong, rich, civilized, free as our own, to dare to give its distinguished citizens titles of honor — monstrous assumption of low-bred arrogance and parvenu vanit}^ ! Our 1 titles are respectable, but theirs absurd. Mr. Jones, of Lon- don, a Chancellor's son, and a tailor's grandson, is justly Honorable, and entitled to be Lord Jones at his noble father's decease : but Mr. Brown, the senator from New York, is a silly upstart for tacking Honorable to his name, and our sturdy British good sense laughs at him. Who has not laughed (I have myself) at Honorable Nahum Dodge, Honorable Zeno Scudder, Honorable Hiram Boake, and the rest? A score of such queer names and titles I have smiled at in America. And, mutato nomine'^ I meet a born idiot, who is a peer and born legislator. This drivelUng noodle and his descendants through hfe are yowx natural superiors and mine — 3'our and my children's superiors. I read of an alderman kneeling and knighted at court : I see a gold-stick waddling backwards be- fore Majesty in a procession, and if we laugh, don't you suppose the Americans laugh too? Yes, stars, garters, orders, knighthoods, and the like, are foll}^ Yes, Bobus, citizen and soap-boiler, is a good man, and no one laughs at him or good Mrs. Bobus, as they have their dinner at one o'clock. But who will not jeer at Sir Thomas on a melting daj'^, and Lady Bobus, at Margate, eating shrimps in a donkey-chaise? Yes, knighthood is absurd : and chivalry an idiotic superstition : and Sir Walter Manny was a zany : and Nelson, with his flaming stars and cordons, splendent upon a day of battle, was a madman : and Murat, with his crosses and orders, at the head of his squadrons charging victorious, was only a crazy mountebank, who had been a tavern- waiter, and was puffed up with absurd vanit}^ about his dress and legs. And the men of the French line at Fonteno}^ who told Messieurs de la Garde to fire first, were smirking French dancing-masters ; and the Black Prince, waiting upon his YOjdl prisoner, was acting an inane masquerade : and Chivahy is naught ; and Honor is humbug ; and Gentlemanhood is an extinct foll}^ ; and Ambition is madness ; and desire of distinction is criminal vanity ; and glory is bosh ; and fair fame is idleness ; and nothing is true but two and two ; and the color of all the world ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 17 is drab ; and all men are equal ; and one man is as tall as another ; and one man is as good as another — and a great dale betther, as the Irish philosopher said. Is this so ? Titles and badges of honor are vanity ; and in the American Revolution you have his Excellenc}'' General Washington sending back, and with proper spirit sending back, a letter in which he is not addressed as Excellency and General. Titles are abolished ; and the American Republic swarms with men claiming and bearing them. You have the French soldier cheered and happy in his dying agony, and kissing with frantic joy the chief's hand who lays the little cross on the bleeding bosom. At home you have the Dukes and Earls jobbing and intriguing for the Garter ; the Military Knights grumbling at the Civil Knights of the Bath ; the little ribbon eager for the collar ; the soldiers and seamen from India and the Crimea marching in procession before the Queen, and receiving from her hands the cross bearing her royal name. And, remember, there are not only the cross wearers, but all the fathers and friends ; all the women who have prayed for their absent heroes ; Harry's wife, and Tom's mother, and Jack's daughter, and Frank's sweetheart, each of whom wears in her heart of hearts afterwards the badge which son, father, lover, has won by his merit ; each of whom is made happy and proud, and is bound to the country by that little bit of ribbon. I have heard, in a lecture about George the Third, that, at' his accession, the King had a mind to establish an order for literary men. It was to have been caUed the Order of Miners^a — I suppose with an Owl for a badge. The knights were to have worn a star of sixteen points, and a yellow ribbon ; and good old Samuel Johnson was talked of as President, or Grand Cross, or Grand Owl, of the society. Now about such an order as this there certainly may be doubts. Consider the claimants, the difficulty of settling their claims, the rows and squabbles amongst the candidates, and the subsequent decision of posterity ! Dr. Beattie would have ranked as first poet, and twenty years after the sublime Mr. Hayley would, no doubt, have claimed the Grand Cross. Mr. Gibbon would not have been eligible, on account of his dangerous freethinking opinions ; and her sex, as well as her republican sentiments, might have interfered with the knighthood of the immortal Mrs. C'atharine Macaulay. How Goldsmith would have paraded the ribbon at Madame Comely s's, or the Academy dinner ! How Peter Pindar would have railed at it ! Fiftj^ years later, the noble ^cott would have worn the Grand Cross and deserved it ; but 18 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. Gifford would have had it ; and BjTon, and Shelley, and Hazlitt, and Hunt would have been without it ; and had Keats been proposed as officer, how the Torj'^ prints would have yelled with rage and scorn ! Had the star of Minerva lasted to our present time — but I pause, not because the idea is dazzling, but too awful. Fancy the claimants, and the row about their precedence ! Which philosopher shall have the grand cordon ? — which the collar ? — which the little scrap no bigger than a buttercup? Of the historians — A, say, — and C, and F, and G, and S, and T, — which shall be Companion and which Grand Owl? Of the poets, who wears, or claims, the largest and brightest star? Of the novelists, there is A, and B and C D ; and E (star of first magnitude, newl}^ discovered), and F (a magazine of wit), and fair G, and H, and I, and brave old J, and charming K, and L, and M, and N, and O (fair twinklers), and I am puzzled between three P's — Peacock, Miss Par- doe, and Paul Pry — and Queechy, and R, and S, and T, mere et Jils, and very likely U, O gentle reader, for who has not written his novel now-a-days ? — who has not a claim to the star and straw-colored ribbon ? — and who shall have the biggest and largest ? Fanc}^ the struggle ! Fancy the squabble ! Fancy the distribution of prizes ! Who shall decide on them? Shall it be the sovereign? shall it be the Minister for the time being? and has Lord Palmerston made a deep study of novels ? In this matter the late Ministrj^,* to be sure, was better qualified ; but even then, gi'umblers who had not got their canary cordons, would have hinted at professional jealousies entering the Cabinet ; and^ the ribbons being awarded. Jack would have scowled at his because Dick had a broader one ; Ned been indignant because Bob's was as large : Tom would have thrust his into the drawer, and scorned to wear it at all. No — no : the so-called literary world was well rid of Minerva and her yellow ribbon. The great poets would have been indifferent, the little poets jealous, the funn}^ men furious, the philosophers satirical, the historians supercilious, and, finally, the jobs without end. Say, ingenuity and cleverness are to be rewarded by State tokens and prizes — and take for granted the Order of Minerva is estabhshed — who shall have it ? A great philosopher ? no doubt we cordially salute him G.C.M. A great historian? G.C.M. of course. A great engineer ? G.C.M. A great poet? received with ac- clamation G.C.M. A great painter? oh! certainly, G.C.M. * That of Lord Derby, in 1859, which included Mr. Disraeli and Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 19 If a great painter, why not a great novelist? Well, pass, great novelist, G.C.M. But if a poetic, a pictorial, a stor3'-telling or music-composing artist, why not a singing artist ? Why not a basso-profondo ? Why not a primo tenore ? And if a singer, why should not a ballet-dancer come bounding on the stage with his cordon, and cut capers to the music of a row of deco- rated fiddlers ? A chemist puts in his claim for having invented a new color ; an apothecary for a new pill ; the cook for a new sauce ; the tailor for a new cut of trousers. We have brought the star of Minerva down from the breast to the pantaloons. Stars and garters ! can we go any farther ; or shall we give the shoemaker the yellow ribbon of the order for his shoetie ? When I began this present Roundabout excursion, I think I had not quite made up my mind whether we would have an Order of all the Talents or not : perhaps I rather had a hanker- ing for a rich ribbon and gorgeous star, in which my family might like to see me at parties in my best waistcoat. But then the door opens, and there come in, and by the same right too. Sir Alexis Soyer ! Sir Alessandro Tamburini ! Sir Agostino Velluti ! Sir Antonio Paganini (violinist) ! Sir Sandy McGuffog (piper to the most noble the Marquis of Farintosh) ! Sir Alcide Flicflac (premier danseur of H. M. Theatre) ! Sir Harley Quin and Sir Joseph Grimaldi (from Covent Garden) ! They have all the yellow ribbon. They are all honorable, and clever, and distinguished artists. Let us elbow through the rooms, make a bow to the lady of the house, give a nod to Sir George Thrum, who is leading the orchestra, and go and get some champagne and seltzer-water from Sir Richard Gunter, who is presiding at the buffet. A national decoration might be well and good : a token awarded by the country to all its hene- merentihus : but most gentlemen with Minerva stars would, I think, be inclined to wear very wide breast-collars to their coats. Suppose yourself, brother penman, decorated with this ribbon, and looking in the glass, would you not laugh? Would not wife and daughters laugh at that canary-colored emblem ? But suppose a man, old or young, of figure ever so stout, thin, stumpy, homely, indulging in looking-glass reflections with that hideous ribbon and cross called V. C. on his coat, would he not be proud? and his family, would they not be prouder ? For your nobleman there is the famous old blue garter and star, and welcome. If I were a marquis — if I had thirt}^ — forty thousand a year (settle the sum, my dear Alnaschar, according to j^our liking) , I should consider myself entitled to my seat in Parlia;Bent and to my garter. The garter belongs to 20 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. the Ornamental Classes. Have you seen the new magnificent Pavo Spicifer at the Zoological Gardens, and do 3'ou grudge him his jewelled coronet and the azure splendor of his waistcoat ? I like my Lord Maj^or to have a gilt coach ; mj magnificent mon- arch to be surrounded by magnificent nobles : I huzzay respect- fully when they pass in procession. It is good for Mr. Briefless (50, Pump Court, fourth floor) that there should be a Lord Chancellor, with a gold robe and fifteen thousand a year. It is good for a poor curate that there should be splendid bishops at Fulham and Lambeth : their lordships were poor curates once, and have won, so to speak, their ribbon. Is a man who puts into a lottery to be sulkj^ because he does not win the twenty thousand pounds prize ? Am I to fall into a rage, and bully my family when I come home, after going to see Chatsworth or Wind- sor, because we have only tw^o little drawing-rooms ? Welcome to your garter, my lord, and shame upon him qui mal y pense! So I arrive in m}^ roundabout way near the point towards which I have been trotting ever since we set out. In a vo^^age to America, some nine years since, on the seventh or eighth day out from Liverpool, Captain L came to din- ner at eight bells as usual, talked a httle to the persons right and left of him, and helped the soup with his accustomed polite- ness. Then he went on deck, and was back in a minute, and operated on the fish, looking rather grave the while. Then he went on deck again ; and this time was absent, it ma}' be, three or five minutes, during which the fish disappeared, and the entrees arrived, and the roast beef. Saj'^ ten minutes passed — I can't tell after nine j^ears. Then L came down with a pleased *and happy coun- tenance this time, and began carving the sirloin: "We have seen the hght," he said. " Madam, may I help yoxx to a little gravy, or a little horse-radish ? " or what not ? I forget the name of the light ; nor does it matter. It was a point off" Newfoundland for which he was on the look-out, and so well did the " Canada" know where she was, that, between soup and beef, the captain had sighted the headland by which his course was lying. And so through storm and darkness, through fog and mid- night, the ship had pursued her steadj^ way over the pathless ocean and roaring seas, so surely that the officers who sailed her knew her place within a minute or two,. and guided us with a wonderful providence safe on our wa}^ Since the noble Cunard Compan}^ has run its ships, but one accident, and that through f.he error of a pilot, has happened on the line. ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 21 By this little incident (hourly of course repeated, and trivial to all sea-going people) I own I was immensely moved, and never can think of it but with a heart full of thanks and awe. We trust our lives to these seamen, and how nobty thej'^ fulfil their trust ! They are, under heaven, as a providence for us. Whilst we sleep, their untiring watchfulness keeps guard over us. All night through that bell sounds at its season, and tells how our sentinels defend us. It rang when the "Amazon" was on fire, and chimed its heroic signal of duty, and courage, and honor. Think of the dangers these seamen undergo for us : the hourly peril and watch ; the familiar storm ; the dread- ful iceberg ; the long winter nights when the decks are as glass, and the sailor has to chmb through icicles to bend the stiff sail on the yard ! Think of their courage and their kindnesses in cold, in tempest, in hunger, in wreck ! " The women and chil- dren to the boats," says the captain of the " Birkenhead," and, with the troops formed on the deck, and the crew obedient to the word of glorious command, the immortal ship goes down. Read the story of the " Sarah Sands : " — "SARAH SANDS. " The screw steamship ' Sarah Sands/ 1,330 registered tons, was char- tered by the East India Company in the autumn of 1858, for the convey- ance of troops to India. She was commanded by John Squire Castle. She took out a part of the 54th Regiment, upwards of 350 persons, besides the wives and children of some of the men, and the families of some of the officers. All went well till the 11th November, when the ship had reached lat. 14 S., long. 56 E., upwards of 400 miles from the Mau- ritius. " Between three and four p. m. on that day a very strong smell of fire was perceived arising from the after-deck, and upon going below into the hold. Captain Castle found it to be on fire, and immense volumes of smoke arising from it. Endeavors were made to reach the seat of the fire, but in ^ vain ; the smoke and heat were too much for the men. There was, how- ever, no confusion. Every order was obeyed with the same coolness and courage with which it was given. The engine was immediately stopped. All sail was taken in, and the ship brought to the wind, so as to drive the smoke and fire, which was in the after-part of the ship, astern. Others were, at the same time, getting fire-hoses fitted and passed to the scene of the fire. The fire, however, continued to increase, and attention was di- rected to the ammunition contained in the powder-magazines, which were situated one on each side the ship immediately above the fire. The star- board magazine was soon cleared. But by this time the whole of the after- part of the ship was so much enveloped in smoke that it was scarcely possible to stand, and great fears were entertained on account of the port magazine. Volunteers were called for, and came immediately, and, under the guidance of Lieutenant Hughes, attempted to clear tlie port magazine, which they succeeded in doing, with the exception, as was Supposed, of one or two barrels. It was most dangerous work. The men became over* 22 ROUNDABOUT TAPERS. powered with the smoke and heat, and fell; and several, while thus en gaged, were dragged up by ropes, senseless. " The flames soon burst up through the deck, and running rapidly along the various cabins, set the greater part on fire. " In the meantime Captain Castle took steps for lowering the boats. There was a heavy gale at the time, but they were launched without the least accident. The soldiers were mustered on deck ; — there was no rush to the boats ; and the men obeyed the word of command as if on parade. The men were informed that Captain Castle did not despair of saving the ship, but that they must be prepared to leave her if necessary. The women and children were lowered into the port lifeboat, under the charge of Mr. Very, third officer, who had orders to keep clear of the ship until recalled. " Captain Castle then commenced constructing rafts of spare spars. In a short time, tliree were put together, which would have been capable of saving a great number of those on board. Two were launched over- board, and safely moored alongside, and then a third was left across the deck forward, ready to be launched. " In the meantime the fire had made great progress. The whole of the cabins were one body of fire, and at about 8.30 p. m. flames burst through the upper deck, and shortly after the mizzen rigging caught fire. Fears were entertained of the ship paying off, in which case the flames would have been swept forwards by the wind; but fortunately the after-braces were burnt through, and the main-yard swung round, which kept the ship's head to wind. About nine p. m., a fearful explosion took place in the port magazine, arising, no doubt, from the one or two barrels of powder which it had been impossible to remove. By this time the ship was one body of flame, from the stern to the main rigging, and thinking it scarcely possible to save her. Captain Castle called Major Brett (then in command of the troops, for the Colonel was in one of the boats) forward, and, teUing him that he feared the ship was lost, requested him to endeavor to keep order amongst the troops till the last, but, at the same time, to use every exertion to check the fire. Providentially, the iron bulkhead in the after-part of the ship withstood the action of the flames, and here all efforts were con- centrated to keep it cool. " ' No person,' says the captain, ' can describe the manner in which the men worked to keep the fire back ; one party were below, keeping the bulkhead cool, and when several were dragged up senseless, fresh volun- teers took their places, who were, however, soon in the same state. At about ten p. m., the maintopsail-yard took fire. Mr. Welch, one quarter- master, and four or five soldiers, went aloft with wet blankets, and suc- ceeded in extinguishing -it, but not until the yard and mast were nearly burnt through. The work of fighting the fire below contmucd for hours, and about midnight it appeared that some impression was made ; and after that, the men drove it back, inch by inch, until daylight, when they had completely got it under. The ship was now in a frightful plight. The ^fter-part was Uterally burnt out — merely the shell remaining — the port quarter blown out by the explosion : fifteen feet of water in the hold. " The gale still prevailed, and the ship was rolling and pitching in a heavy sea, and taking in large quantities of water abaft : the tanks, too, were rolling from side to side in the hold. " As soon as the smoke was partially cleared away. Captain Castle got spare sails and blankets aft to stop the leak, passing two hawsers round the stern, and setting them up. The troops were employed baling and pumping. This continued during the whole morning. " In the cpurse of the day the ladies joined the ship. The boats were KOUXDABOUT PAPERS. 23 ordered alongside, but they found the sea too heavy to remain there. The gig had been abandoned during the night, and the crew, under Mr. Wood, fourth officer, had got into another of the boats. The troops were em- ployed the remainder of the day baling and pumping, and the crew secur- ing the stern. All hands were employed during the following night baling and pumping, the boats being moored alongside, where they received some damage. At daylight, on the 13th, the crew were employed hoisting the boats, the troops were working manfully baling and pumping. Latitude at noon, 13 deg. 12 min. south. At five p. m., the foresail and foretopsail were set, the rafts were cut away, and the ship bore for the Mauritius. On Thursday, the 19th, she sighted the Island of Rodrigues, and arrived at Mauritius on Monday the 23rd." The Nile and Trafalgar are not more glorious to our coun- try, are not greater victories than these won by our merchant- seamen. And if you look in the Captain's reports of an}^ maritime register, 3^ou will see similar acts recorded every day. I have such a volume for last year, now lying before me. In the second number, as I open it at hazard, Captain Roberts, master of the ship " Empire," from Shields to London, reports how on the 14th ult. (the 14th December, 1859), he, "being off Whitb}'^, discovered the ship to be on fire between the main hold and boilers : got the hose from the engine laid on, and succeeded in subduing the fire ; but only apparently ; for at seven the next morning, the ' Dudgeon ' bearing S.S.E. seven miles' distance, the fire again broke out, causing the ship to be enveloped in flames on both sides of midships : got the hose again into play and all hands to work with buckets to combat with the fire. Did not succeed in stopping it till four p.m., to effect which, were obliged to cut away the deck and top sides, -and throw overboard part of the cargo. The vessel was very much damaged and leaky : determined to make for the Hum- ber. Ship was run on shore, on the mud, near Grimsby har- bor, with five feet of water in her hold. The donkey-engine broke down. The water increased so fast as to put out the furnace fires and render the ship almost unmanageable. On the tide flowing, a tug towed the ship off the mud, and got her into Grimsby to repair." On the 2nd of November, Captain Strickland, of the "Pur- chase" brigantine, from Liverpool to Yarmouth, U. S., "en- countered heavy gales from W.N.W. to W.S.W., in lat. 43° N., long. 34° W., in which we lost jib, foretopmast, staysail, top- sail, and carried away the foretopmast stays, bobstays and bowsprit, headsails, cut- water and stern, also started the wood ends, which caused the vessel to leak. Put her before the wind and sea, and hove about twenty-five tons of cargo overboard to 24 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. lighten the ship forward. Slung myself in a bowline, and by means of thi'usting 2^-inch rope in the opening, contrived to stop a great portion of the leak. '''•December \^th. — The crew continuing night and day at the pumps, could not keep the ship free ; deemed it prudent for the benefit of those concerned to bear up for the nearest port. On arriving in lat. 48° 45' N., long. 23° W., observed a vessel with a signal of distress fl3ang. Made towards her, when she proved to be the barque ' Carleton,' water-logged. The captain and crew asked to be taken off. Hove to, and received them on board, consisting of thirteen men : and their ship was abandoned. We then proceeded on our course, the crew of the abandoned vessel assisting all they could to keep my ship afloat. We arrived at Cork harbor on the 27th ult." Captain Coulson, master of the brig " Othello," reports that his brig foundered off Portland, December 27 ; — encountering a strong gale, and shipping two heav}^ seas in succession, which hove the ship on her beam-ends. "Observing no chance of saving the ship, took to the long boat, and within ten minutes of leaving her saw the brig founder. We were picked up the same morning by the French ship ' Commerce de Paris,' Captain Tombarel." Here, in a single column of a newspaper, what sti'ange, touching pictures do we find of seamen's dangers, vicissitudes, gallantry, generosity ! The ship on fire — the captain in the gale slinging himself in a bowline to stop the leak — the French- man in the hour of danger coming to his British comrade's res- cue — the brigantine almost a wreck, working up to the barque with the signal of distress flying, and taking off her crew of thirteen men. "We then proceeded on our course, the crew of the abandoned vessel assisting all they could to keep my ship afloat.'' What noble, simple words ! What courage, devoted- ness, brotherly love ! Do they not cause the heart to beat, and the eyes to fill? This is what seamen do daily, and for one another. One lights occasionally upon different stories. It happened, not very long since, that the passengers by one of the great ocean steamers were wrecked, and, after undergoing the most severe hardships, were left, destitute and helpless, at a miserable coal- ing port. Amongst them were old men, ladies, and children. When the next steamer arrived, the passengers by that steamer took alarm at the haggard and miserable appearance of their unfortunate predecessors, and actually remonstrated with their own captain^ urging him not to take the poor creatures on board. ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 25 There was every excuse-, of course. The last-arrived steamer was already dangerously full : the cabins were crowded ; there were sick and deUcate people on board — sick and delicate peo- ple who had paid a large price to the company for room, food, comfort, already not too sufficient. If fourteen of us are in an omnibus, will we see three or four women outside and say, "Come in, because this is the last 'bus, and it rains?" Of course not : but think of that remonstrance, and of that Samar- itan master of the " Purchase " brigantine ! In the winter of '53, 1 went from Marseilles to Civita Vecchia, in one of the magnificent P. and O. ships, the " Valetta," the master of which subsequently did distinguished service in the Crimea. This was his first Mediterranean voyage, and he sailed his ship by the charts alone, going into each port as surely as any pilot. I remember walking the deck at night with this most skilful, gallant, well-bred, and well-educated gentleman, and the glow of eager enthusiasm with which he assented, when I asked him whether he did not think a ribbon or order would be welcome or useful in his service. Why is there not an Order of Britannia for British sea. men ? In the Merchant and the Royal Navy alike, occur almost daily instances and occasions for the display of science, skill, bravery, fortitude in trying circumstances, resource in danger. In the first number of the Cornhill Magazine^ a friend conti'ib- uted a most touching story of the M'Chntock expedition, in the dangers and dreadful glories of which he shared ; and the writer was a merchant captain. How many more are there (and, for the honor of England, may there be many like him !) — gallant, accomplished, high-spirited, enterprising masters of their noble profession ! Can our fountain of Honor not be brought to such men ? It plays upon captains and colonels in seemly profusion. It pours forth not illiberal rewards upon doctors and judges. It sprinkles mayors and aldermen. It bedews a painter now and again. It has spirited a baronetcy upon two, and bestowed •&. coronet upon one noble man of letters. Diplomatists take their Bath in it as of right ; and it flings out a profusion of glittering stars upon the nobility of the three kingdoms. Cannot Britan- nia find a ribbon for her sailors ? The Navy, royal or mercan- tile, is a Service. The command of a ship, or the conduct of her, implies danger, honor, science, skill, subordination, good faith. It may be a victory, such as that of the " Sarah Sands ; " it may be discovery, such as that of the " Fox ; " it may be heroic disaster, such as that of the " Birkenhead ; " and in such events merchant seamen, as well as royal seamen, take their share. 26 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. Wh}- is there not, then, an Order of Britannia? One daj^ a yonng officer of the " Euryahis "* ma}' win it ; and, having just read the memoirs of Lord Dundonald, I know who ought to have the first Grand Cross. ON SOME LATE GEEAT VICTORIES. On the 18th da}^ of April last I went to see a friend in a neigh- boring Crescent, and on the steps of the next house beheld a group something like that here depicted. A newsboj^ had stopped in his walk, and was reading aloud the journal which it was his dut}' to deliver ; a pretty orange-girl, with a heap of blazing fruit, rendered more brilliant by one of those great blue papers in which oranges are now artfully wrapped, leant over the railing and listened ; and opposite the nympham diseentem there was a capering and acute-eared young satirist of a crossing-sweeper, who had left his neighboring professional avocation and chance of profit, in order to listen to the tale of the little newsboy. That intelligent reader, with his hand following the line as he read it out to his audience, was saying : — " And — now — Tom — coming up smiling — after his fall — dee — delivered a rattling clinker upon the Benicia Boy's — potato-trap — but was met by a — punisher on the nose — which," &c. &c. ; or words to that effect. Bett}' at 52 let me in, while the bo}' was read- ing his lecture ; and, having been some twent}' minutes or so in the house and paid iwy visit, I took leave. The little lecturer was still at work on the 51 doorstep, and his audience had scarcely changed their position. Having read every word of the battle m)'self in the morning, I did not staj' to listen further ; but if the gentleman who expected his paper at the usual hour that da}' experienced delay and a little dis- appointment I shall not be surprised. I am not going to expatiate on the battle. I have read in the correspondent's letter of a Northern newspaper, that in the midst of the company assembled the reader's humble servant was present, and in a very polite societ}', too, of "poets, clergymen, men of letters, and members of both Houses of Parliament." If so, I must have walked to the station in my * Prince Alfred was serving on board the frigate " Euryalus " when thia was written ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 27 sleep, paid three guineas in a profound fit of mental abstraction, and returned to bed unconscious, for I certainl}^ woke there about the time when history relates that the fight was over. I do not know whose colors I wore — the Benician's, or those of the Irish champion ; nor remember where the fight took place, which, indeed, no somnambulist is bound to recollect. Ought Mr. Sayers to be honored for being brave, or punished for being naughty? B}^ the shade of Brutus the elder, I don't know. In George II. 's time, there was a turbulent navy lieutenant (Handsome Smith he was called — his picture is at Greenwich now, in brown velvet, and gold and scarlet ; his coat handsome, his waistcoat exceedingly handsome ; but his face b}^ no means the beaut}') — there was, I sa}', a turbulent 3'oung lieutenant who was broke on a complaint of the French ambassador, for obliging a French ship of war to lower her topsails to his ship at Spithead. But, by the King's orders, Tom was next day made Captain Smith. Well, if I were absolute king, I would send Tom Saj^ers to the mill for a month, and make him Sir Thomas on coming out of Clerkenwell. You are a naughty bo}^, Tom ! but then, you know, we ought to love our breth- ren, though ever so naught}^ We are moralists, and repri- mand 3'ou ; and 3'ou are hereb}' reprimanded accordingl}^ But in case England should ever have need of a few score thousand champions, who laugh at danger ; who cope with giants ; who, stricken to the ground, jump up and gayl}^ rally, and fall, and rise again, and strike, and die rather than 3'ield — in case the countr3' should need such men, and 3'Ou should know them, be pleased to send lists of the misguided persons to the principal police stations, where means ma3' some da3' be found to utilize their wretched powers, and give their deplorable energies a right direction. Suppose, Tom, that 3'Ou and 3'our friends are pitted against an immense invader — suppose 3^ou are bent on holding the ground, and dying there, if need be — suppose it is life, freedom, honor, home, 3'OU are fighting for, and there is a death-dealing sword or rifle in 3^our hand, with which 30U are going to resist some tremendous enem3^ who challenges your championship on 3'our native shore? Then, Sir Thomas, resist him to the death, and it is all right : kill him, and heaven bless 3'ou. Drive him into the sea, and there destroy, smash, and drown him ; and let us sing Laudamus. In these national cases, 3'Ou see, we override the indisputable first laws of morals. Loving your neighbor is very well, but suppose 3'Our neighbor comes over from Calais and Boulogne to rob you of your laws, 28 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. your liberties, your newspapers, j^our parliament (all of which some dear neighbors of ours have given up in the most self- den3dng manner) :. suppose any neighbor were to cross the water and propose this kind of thing to us ? Should we not be justified in humbly trying to pitch him into the water? If it were the King of Belgium himself we must do so. I mean that fighting, of course, is wrong ; but that there are occasions when, &c. — I suppose I mean that that one-handed fight of Sayers is one of the most spirit-stirring little stories ever told : and, with every love and respect for Morality — my spirit says to her, "Do, for goodness' sake, m}" dear madam, keep your true, and pure, and womanly, and gentle remarks for another day. Have the great kindness to stand a leetle aside, and just let us see one or two more rounds between the men. That little man with the one hand powerless on his breast facing yonder giant for hours, and felling him, too, every now and then ! It is the little ' Java ' and the ' Constitution ' over again," I think it is a most fortunate event for the brave Heenan, who has acted and written since the battle with a true warrior's courtes}^, and with a great deal of good logic too, that the battle was a drawn one. The advantage was all on Mr. Sayers's side. Sa}' a young lad of sixteen insults me in the street, and I try and thrash him, and do it. Well, I have thrashed a 3'oung lad. You great, big tyrant, couldn't you hit one of j^our own size ? But say the lad thrashes me ? In either case I walk awa}' dis- comfited : but in the latter, I am positivel}^ put to shame. Now, when the ropes were cut from that death-grip, and Sir Thomas released, the gentleman of Benicia was confessedly^ blind of one eye, and speedily aftei*wards was bhnd of both. Could Mr. Savers have held out for three minutes, for five minutes, for ten minutes more? He saj^s he could. So we say we could have held out, and did, and had beaten off the enem}' at Waterloo, even if the Prussians hadn't come up. The opinions differ prett}^ much according to the nature of the opinants. I say the Duke and Tom could have held out, that they meant to hold out, that they did hold out, and that there has been fistifying enough. That crowd which came in and stopped the fight ought to be considered like one of those divine clouds which the gods send in Homer ; " Apollo shrouds The godlike Trojan in a veil of clouds." It is the best way of getting the godlike Trojan out of the scrape, don't you see? The nodus is cut; Tom is out of ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 29 chancery ; the Benicia Boy not a bit the worse, nay, better than if he had beaten the little man. He has not the humiliation of conquest. He is greater, and will be loved more hereafter by the gentle sex. Suppose he had overcome the godlike Trojan? Suppose he had tied Tom's corpse to his cab-wheels, and driven to Farnham, smoking the pipe of triumph? Faugh ! the gi-eat hulking conqueror ! Why did jon not hold your hand from yonder hero? Ever3^body, I say, was relieved by that oppor- tune appearance of the British gods, protectors of native valor, who interfered, and "withdrew" their champion. Now, suppose six-feet-two conqueror, and five-feet-eight beaten ; would Sa3^ers have been a whit the less gallant and meritorious? If Sancho had been allowed realli/ to reign in Barataria, I make no doubt that, with his good sense and kind- ness of heart, he would have devised some means of rewarding the brave vanquished, as well as the brave victors in the Bara- tarian army, and' that a champion who had fought a good fight would have been a knight of King Don Sancho's orders, whatever the upshot of the combat had been. Suppose Wellington over- whelmed on the plateau of Mont St. John ; suppose Washington attacked and beaten at Valley Forge — and either supposition is quite easy — and what becomes of the heroes ? The}^ would have been as brave, honest, heroic, wise ; but their glor}^, where would it have been? Should we have had their portraits hang- ing in our chambers ? have been familiar with their histories ? have pondered over their letters, common lives, and daily saj^- ings ? There is not only merit, but luck which goes to making a hero out of a gentleman. Mind, please you, I am not saying that the hero is after all not so very heroic ; and have not the least desire to grudge him his merit because of his good fortune. Have you any idea whither this Roundabout Essay on some late great victories is tending ? Do you suppose that by those words I mean Trenton, Brandywine, Salamanca, Vittoria, and so forth ? By a great victor}^ I can't mean that affair at Farn- ham, for it was a drawn fight. Where, then, are the victories, pray, and when are we coming to them ? My good sir, you will perceive that in this Nicaean discourse I have only as j^et advanced as far as this — that a hero, whether he wins or loses, is a hero ; and that if a fellow will but be honest and courageous, and do his best, we are for pa}'- ing all honor to him. Furthermore, it has been asserted that Fortune has a good deal to do with the making of heroes ; and thus hinted for the consolation of those who don't happen to he 30 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. engaged in an}^ stupendous victories, that, had opportunity so served, the}^ might have been heroes too. If you are not, friend, it is not your fault, whilst I don't wish to detract from any gentleman's reputation who is. There. My worst enemy can't take objection to that. The point might have been put more briefl}^ perhaps ; but, if j^ou please, we will not argue that question. Well, then. The victories which I wish especially to com- memorate in this paper, are the six great, complete, prodigious, and undeniable victories, achieved by the corps which the editor of the Cornhill Magazine has the honor to command. When I seemed to speak disparagingly but now of generals, it was that chief I had in my I (if 3^ou will permit me the expression). I wished him not to be elated by too much prosperity ; I warned him against assuming heroic imperatorial airs, and cocking his laurels too jauntily over his ear. I was his conscience, and stood on the splash-board of his triumph-car, whispering, '"'• Hominem memento te^ As we rolled along the way, and passed the weathercocks on the temples, I saluted the S3^mbol of the goddess Fortune with a reverent awe. " We have done our little endeavor," I said, bowing my head, " and mortals can do no more. But we might have fought bravel}'^ and not won. We might have cast the coin, calUng, ' Plead,' and lo ! Tail might have come uppermost." O thou Ruler of Victories ! — thou Awarder of Fame ! — thou Giver of Crowns (and shil- lings) — if thou hast smiled upon us, shall we not be thankful? There is a Saturnine philosopher, standing at the door of his book-shop, who, I fancy, has a pooh-pooh expression as the triumph passes. (I can't see quite clearty for the laurels, which have fallen down over my nose.) One hand is reining in the two white elephants that draw the car ; I raise the other hand up to — to the laurels, and pass on, waving him a grace- ful recognition. Up the Hill of Ludgate — around the Pauline Square — by the side of Chepe — until it reaches our own Hill of Corn — the procession passes. The Imperator is bowing to the people ; the captains of the legions are riding round the car, their gallant minds struck by the thought, " Have we not fought as well as yonder fellow, swaggering in the chariot, and are we not as good as he?" Granted, with all my heart, m}' dear lads. When 3'our consulship arrives, may you be as fortunate. When these hands, now growing old, shall lay down sword and truncheon, may 3'ou mount the car, and ride to the temple of Jupiter. Be 3^ours the laurel then. Neque me ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 31 myrtus dedecet^ looking cosily down from the arbor where I sit under the arched vine. I fanc}^ the Imperator standing on the steps of the temple (erected by Titus) on the Mons Frumentarius, and addressing the citizens: " Quirites ! " he saj^s, "in our campaign of six months, we have been engaged six times, and in each action have taken near upon a hundred thousand prisoners. Go to ! What are other magazines compared to our magazine ? (Sound, trumpeter !) What banner is there like that of Cornhill ? You, philosopher yonder ! " (he shirks under his mantle.) " Do you know what it is to have a hundred and ten thousand readers ? A hundred thousand readers? a hundred thousand buyers!" (Cries of " No ! " — " Pooh ! " "Yes, upon my honor!" " Oh, come ! " and murmurs of applause and derision) — "I say more than a hundred thousand purchasers — and I believe as much as a million readers!" (Immense sensation.) "To these have we said an unktfid word ? We have enemies ; have we hit them an unkind blow ? Have we sought to pursue part}' aims, to forward private jobs, to advance selfish schemes? The only persons to whom wittingly we have given pain are some who have volunteered for our corps — and of these vol- unteers we have had thousands" (Murmurs and grumbles.) "What commander, citizens, could place all these men! — could make officers of all these men ? " (cries of ' ' No — no ! " and laughter) — " could say, ' I accept this recruit, though he is too short for our standard, because he is poor, and has a mother at home who wants bread ? ' could enroll this other, who is too weak to bear arms, because he says, ' Look, sir, I shall be stronger anon.' The leader of such an army as ours must select his men, not because the}^ are good and virtuous, but because the}^ are strong and capable. To these our ranks are ever open, and in addition to the warriors who surround me " — (the generals look proudly conscious) — "I tell 3"0u, citizens, that I am in treat}^ with other and most tremendous champions, who will march hy the side of our veterans to the achievement of fresh victories. Now, blow, trumpets ! Bang, ye gongs ! and drummers, drub the thundering skins ! Generals and chiefs, we go to sacrifice to the gods." Crowned with flowers, the captains enter the temple, the other Magazines walking modestly behind them. The people huzza ; and, in some instances, kneel and kiss the fringes of the robes of the warriors. The Philosopher puts up his shutters, and retires into his shop, deeply moved. In ancient times, Pliny (apud Smith) relates it was the custom of the Imperator 32 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. " to paint his whole bodj^ a bright red ; " and, also, on ascend- ing the Hill, to have some of the hostile chiefs led aside " to the adjoining prison, and put to death." We propose to dis- pense with both these ceremonies. THOENS m THE CUSHION. In the Essay with which this volume commences, the Oom- hill Magazine was likened to a sliip sailing forth on her voj^age, and the captain uttered a very sincere prayer for her prosperity. The dangers of storm and rock, the vast outlay upon ship and cargo, and the certain risk of the venture, gave the chief officer a feeUng of no small anxietjf ; for who could say from what quarter danger might arise, and how his owner's property might be imperilled? After a six months' voyage, we with very thankful hearts could acknowledge our good fortune : and, taking up the apologue in the Roundabout manner, we com- posed a triumphal procession in honor of the Magazine, and imagined the Imperator thereof riding in a sublime car to return thanks in the Temple of Victor3\ Cornhill is accustomed to grandeur and greatness, and has witnessed, every ninth of November, for I don't know how many centuries, a prodigious annual pageant, chariot, progress, and flourish of trumpetr}' ; and being so ver}^ near the Mansion House, I am sure the reader will understand how the idea of pageant and procession came naturall}' to m}^ mind. The imagination easily supplied a gold coach, eight cream-colored horses of your true Pegasus breed, huzzaing multitudes, running footmen, and clanking knights in armor, a chaplain and a sword-bearer with a muff on his head, scowling out of the coach-window, and a Lord Mayor all crimson, fur, gold chain, and white ribbons, solemnly occu- pying the place of state. A playful fancy could have carried the matter farther, could have depicted the feast in the Egyp- tian Hall, the Ministers, Chief Justices, and right reverend prelates taking their seats round about his lordship, the turtle and other delicious viands, and Mr. Toole behind the central throne, bawling out to the assembled guests and dignitaries : " My Lord So-and-so, my Lord What-d'ye-call-'im, my Lord Etcsetera, the Lord Mayor pledges 3'ou all in a loving-cup." Then the noble proceedings come to an end ; Lord Simper ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 33 proposes the ladies ; the company rises from table, and ad- journs to coffee and muffins. The carriages of the nobihty and guests roll back to the West. The Egyptian Hall, so bright just now, appears in a twilight glimmer, in which waiters are seen ransacking the dessert, and rescuing the spoons. His lordship and the Lady Mayoress go into their private apart- ments. The robes are doffed, the collar and white ribbons are removed. The Mayor becomes a man, and is pretty surely in a fluster about the speeches which he has just uttered ; remem- bering too well now, wretched creature, the principal points which he didn't make when he rose to speak. He goes to bed to headache, to care, to repentance, and, I dare saj^, to a dose of something which his body-physician has prescribed for him. And there are 'ever so many men in the city who fancy that man happy ! Now, suppose that all through that 9th of November his lordship has had a racking rheumatism, or a toothache, let us say, during all dinner-time — through which he has been obliged to grin and mumble his poor old speeches. Is he enviable ? Would you like to change with his lordship ? Sup- pose that bumper which his golden footman brings him, instead i'fackins of ypocras or canary, contains some abomination of senna? Away! Remove the golden goblet, insidious cup- bearer ! You now begin to perceive the gloomj^ moral which I am about to draw. Last month we sang the song of glorification, and rode in the chariot of triumph. It was all very well. It was right to huzza, and be thankful, and cry. Bravo, our side ! and besides, you know, there was the enjoyment of thinking how pleased Brown, and Jones, 'and Robinson (our dear friends) would be at this announcement of success. But now that the per- formance is over, my good sir, just step into my private room, and see that it is not all pleasure — this winning of suc- cesses. Cast your e3'^e over those newspapers, over those let- ters. See what the critics say of your harmless jokes, neat little trim sentences, and pet waggeries ! Why, you are no better than an idiot ; you are drivelling ; your powers have left you ; this always overrated writer is rapidly sink- ing to, &c. This is not pleasant ; but neither is this the point. It may be the critic is right, and the author wrong. It may be that the archbishop's sermon is not so fine as some of those discourses twenty years ago which used to delight the faithful in Granada. Or it may be (pleasing thought !) that the critic o 34 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. is a dullard, and does not understand what he is wi'iting about. Everybody who has been to an exhibition has heard visitors discoursing about the pictures before their faces. One sa3's. "This is very well;" another saj^s, "This is stuff and rub- bish;" another cries, "Bravo! this is a masterpiece:" and each has a right to his opinion. For example, one of the pic- tures I admired most at the Ilo3'al Academj^ is b}" a gentleman on whom I never, to my knowledge, set eyes. This picture is No. 346, "Moses," by Mr. S. Solomon. I thought it had a great intention, I thought it finely drawn and composed. It nobly represented, to my mind, the dark children of the Egyp- tian bondage, and suggested the touching story. M}^ news- paper says : " Two ludicrously ugly women, looking at a dingy baby, do not form a pleasing object ; " and so good-by, Mr. Solomon. Are not most of our babies served so in life? and doesn't Mr. Robinson consider Mr. Brown's cherub an ugl}', squalling little brat? So cheer up, Mr. S. S. It ma}' be the critic who discoursed on your baby is a bad judge of babies. When Pharaoh's kind daughter found the child, and cherished and loved it, and took it home, and found a nurse for it, too, I dare sa}' there were grim, brick-dust colored chamber- lains, or some of the tough, old, meagre, yellow princesses at court, who never had children themselves, who cried out, ' ' Faugh ! the honid little squalling wretch ! " and knew he would never come to good ; and said, " Didn't I tell you so?" when he assaulted the Egyptian. Never mind then, Mr. S. Solomon, I say, because a critic pooh-poohs your work of art — your Moses — your child — your foundling. Why, did not a wiseacre in Blackwood's Maga- zine lately fall foul of " Tom Jones?" O hypercritic ! So, to be sure, did good old Mr. Richardson, who could write novels himself — but you, and I, and Mr. Gibbon, my dear sir, agree in giving our respect, and wonder, and admiration, to the brave old master. In these last words I am supposing the respected reader to be endowed with a sense of humor, which he m^y or may not possess ; indeed, don't we know many an honest man who can no more comprehend a joke than he can turn a tune. But I take for granted, my dear sir, that you are brimming over with fan — 3'ou mayn't make jokes, but 3'ou could if you would — you know you could : and in 3'our quiet way you*^ enjo}^ them extremely. Now man}^ people neither make them, nor understand them when made, nor like them when understood, and are suspicious, testy, and angry with ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 35 jokers. Have you ever watched an elderly male or female — an elderly " party," so to speak, who begins to find out that some 3^oung wag of the company is "chaffing" him? Have 3'ou ever tried the sarcastic or Socratic method with a child? Little simple he or she, in the innocence of the simple heart, plays some silly freak, or makes some absurd remark, which you turn to ridicule. The little creature dimly perceives that you are making fun of him, writhes, blushes, grows uneasy, bursts into tears, — upon my word it is not fair to try the weapon of ridicule upon that innocent }'oung victim. The awful objurgatory practice he is accus- tomed to. Point out his fault, and lay bare the dire con- sequences thereof: expose it roundly, and give him a proper, solemn, moral whipping — but do not attempt to castigare ridendo. Do not laugh at him writhing, and cause all the other boys in the school to laugh. Remember your .own young days at school, my friend — the tinghng cheeks, burning ears, burst- ing heart, and passion of desperate tears, with which 3^ou looked up, after having performed some blunder, whilst the doctor held 3^ou to public scorn before the class, and cracked his great clumsy jokes upon you — helpless, and a prisoner ! Better the block itself, and the lictors, with their fasces of birch- twigs, than the maddening torture of those jokes ! Now with respect to jokes — and the present company of coiu'se excepted — many people, perhaps most people, are as infants. The3^ hare little sense of humor. They don't like jokes. Raillery in writing annoys and offends them. The coarseness apart, I think I have met ver3^, very few women who liked the banter of Swift and Fielding. Their simple, tender natures revolt at laughter. Is the sat3T alwa3'S a wicked brute at heart, and are the3^ rightl3^ shocked at his grin, his leer, his horns, hoofs, and ears? Fi donc^ le vilain monstre^ with his shrieks, and his capering crooked legs ! Let him go and get a pair of well-wadded black silk stockings, and pull them over those horrid shanks ; put a large gown and bands over beard and hide ; and pour a dozen of lavender-water into his lawn handkerchief, and cr3^, and never make a joke again. It shall all be highly-distilled poes3% and perfumed sentiment, and gushing eloquence ; and the foot shan't peep out, and a plague take it. Cover it up with the surplice. Out with 3^our cambric, dear ladies, and let us all whimper together. Now, then, hand on heart, we declare that it is not the fire of adverse critics which afflicts or frightens the editorial bosom. They may be right ; they ma3^ be rogues who have a personal 36 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. spite ; they may be dullards who kick and bray as their nature is to do, and prefer thistles to pineapples ; they may be con- scientious, acute, deeply learned, dehghtful judges, who see your joke in a moment, and the profound wisdom l^ing underneath. Wise or dull, laudatory or otherwise, we put their opinions aside. If they applaud, we are pleased : if they shake their quick pens, and fly off with a hiss, we resign their favors and put on all the fortitude we can muster. I would rather have the lowest man's good word than his bad one, to be sure ; but as for coaxing a compliment, or wheedling him into good-humor, or stopping his angry mouth with a good dinner, or accepting his contributions for a certain Magazine, for fear of his barking or snapping elsewhere — allons done ! These shall not be our acts. Bow-wow, Cerberus ! Here shall be no sop for thee, unless — unless Cerberus is an uncommonly good dog, when we shall bear no malice because he flew at us from our neighbor's gate. What, then, is the main grief you spoke of as annoying you — the toothache in the Lord Mayor's jaw, the thorn in the cushion of the editorial chair? It is there. Ah ! it stings me now as I write. It comes with almost everj'^ morning's post. At night I come home and take my letters up to bed (not daring to open them), and in the morning I find one, two, three thorns on my pillow. Three I extracted j^esterday ; two I found this morn- ing. They don't sting quite so sharph^ as they did ; but a skin is a skin, and thej^ bite, after all, most wickedly. It is all very fine to advertise on the Magazine, " Contributions are only to be sent to Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co., and not to the Editor's private residence." My dear sir, how little you know man- or woman-kind, if j'ou fancy they will take that sort of warning ! How am I to know, (though, to be sure, I begin to know now,) as I take the letters off the tray, which of those envelopes contains a real bona fide letter, and which a thorn ? One of the best invitations this year I mistook for a thorn-letter, and kept it without opening. This is what I call a thorn-letter : — " Camberwell, June 4. " Sir, — May I hope, may I entreat, that you will favor me by perusing the enclosed lines, and tliat they may be found worthy of insertion in the Corn- hill Magazine. We have known better days, sir. I have a sick and widowed mother to maintain, and little brothers and sisters who look to me. I do my utmost as a governess to support them. I toil at night when they are at rest, and my own hand and brain are alike tired. If I could add but a little to our means by my pen, many of my poor invalid's wants might be supplied, and I could procure for her comforts to which she is now a ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 37 stranger. Heaven knows it is not for want of will or for want of energy on my part, that she is now in ill-health, and our little household almost with- out bread. Do — do cast a kind glance over my poem, and if you can help us, the widow, the orphans will bless you ! I remain, sir, in anxious ex- pectancy, " Your faithful servant, " S. S. S." And enclosed is a little poem or two, and an envelope with its' pennj stamp — heaven help us ! — and the writer's name and address. Now 3^011 see what I mean by a thorn. Here is the case put with true female logic. " I am poor ; I am good ; I am ill ; I work hard ; I have a sick mother and hungry brothers and sisters dependent on me. You can help us if you will." And then I look at the paper, with the thousandth part of a faint hope that it may be suitable, and I find it won't do : and I knew it wouldn't do : and wh}' is this poor lady to appeal to my pity and bring her poor little ones kneeling to my bedside, and call- ing for bread which I can give them if I choose ? No day passes but that argument ad misericordiam is used. Day and night that sad voice is crying out for help. Thrice it appealed to me yesterday. Twice this morning it cried to me : and I have no doubt when I go to get m}^ hat, I shall find it with its piteous face and its pale famil}^ about it, waiting for me in the hall. One of the immense advantages which women have over our sex is, that the}' actually' like to read these letters. Like let- ters ? O mercy on us ! Before I was an editor I did not like the postman much ; — but now ! A very common way with these petitioners is to begin with a fine flummery about the merits and eminent genius of the person whom they are addressing. But this artifice, I state publicl}', is of no avail. When I see that kind of herb, I know the snake within it, and fling it away before it has time to sting. Awa}', reptile, to the waste-paper basket, and thence to the flames ! But of these disappointed people, some take their disap- pointment and meekly bear it. Some hate and hold you their enemy because you could not be their friend. Some, furious and envious, say: "Who is this man who refuses what I offer, and how dares he, the conceited coxcomb, to deny my merit?" Sometimes my letters contain not mere thorns, but bludgeons. How are two choice slips from that noble Irish oak, which has more than once supphed alpeens for this meek and unoflending skull : — 38 EOUNDABOUT PAPERS. "Theatre Royal, Donntbrook. " Sir, — I have just finished reading the first portion of your Tale, Lovd the Widower, and am much surprised at the unwarrantable strictures you pass therein on the corps de ballet. " I have been for more than ten years connected with the theatrical pro- fession, and I beg to assure you that the majority of the corps de ballet are virtuous, well-conducted girls, and, consequently, that snug cottages are not taken for them in the Regent's Park, " I also have to inform you tliat theatrical managers are in the habit of speaking good English, possibly better English than authors. " You either know nothing of the subject in question, or you assert a wilful falsehood. " I am happy to say that the characters of the corps de ballet, as also those of actors and actresses, are superior to the snarHngs of dyspeptic libellers, or the spiteful attacks and brutam fulmen of ephemeral authors. " I am, sir, your obedient servant, "A. B. C." The Editor of the Cornkill Magazine. "Theatre Rotal, Donnybrook. " Sir, — I have just read in the Cornhill Magazine for January, the first portion of a Tale written by you, and entitled Lovel the Widower. " In the production in question you employ all your malicious spite (and you have great capabilities that way) in trying to degrade the char- acter of the corps de ballet. When you imply that the majority of bal- let-girls have villas taken for them in the Regent's Park, / say you tell a de- liberate falsehood. *' Haveing been brought up to the stage from infancy, and though now an actress, haveing been seven years principal dancer at the opera, I am competent to speak on the subject. I am only surprised that so vile a libeller as yourself should be allowed to preside at the Dramatic Fund dinner on the 22nd instant. I think it would be much better if you were to reform your own life, instead of telling lies of those who are immeasur- ably your superiors. " Yours in supreme disgust, "A.D." The signatures of the respected writers are altered, and for the site of their Theatre Royal an adjacent place is named, which (as I may have been falsely informed) used to be famous for quarrels, thumps, and broken heads. But, I saj", is this an easy chair to sit on, when you are liable to have a pair of such shillelaghs flung at it? And, prithee, what was all the quarrel about ? In the little histor}' of ' ' Lovel the Widower " I de- scribed, and brought to condign punishment, a certain wretch of a ballet-dancer, who lived splendidly for a while on ill-gotten gains, had an accident, and lost her beauty, and died poor, deserted, ugh^, and every wa}' odious. In the same page, other little ballet-dancers are described, wearing homel}'^ clothing, doing their duty, and carrying their humble savings to the family at home. But nothing will content my dear corre- ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 39 spondents but to have me declare that the majority of ballet- dancers have villas in the Regent's Jgark, and to convict me of " deliberate falsehood." Suppose, for instance, I had chosen to introduce a red-haired washerwoman into a story? I might get an expostulatory letter saying, " Sir, in stating that the major- ity of washerwomen are red-haired, you are a liar! and you had best not speak of ladies who are immeasurably your su- periors." Or suppose I had ventured to describe an illiterate haberdasher? One of the craft might write to me, " Sir, in describing haberdashers as illiterate, you utter a wilful false- hood. Haberdashers use much better English than authors." It is a mistake, to be sure. I have never said what my corre- spondents say I say. There is the text under their noses, but what if they choose to read it their own way? " Hurroo, lads ! Here's for a fight. There's a bald head peeping out of the hut. There's a bald head ! It must be Tim Maione's." And whack ! come down both the bludgeons at once. Ah me ! we wound where we never intended to strike ; we create anger where we never meant harm ; and these thoughts are the thorns in our Cushion. Out of mere malignity'-, I sup- pose, there is no man who would like to make enemies. But here, in this editorial business, you can't do otherwise : and a queer, sad, strange, bitter thought it is, that must cross the mind of many a public man : " Do what I will, be innocent or spiteful, be generous or cruel, there are A and B, and C and D, who will hate me to the end of the chapter — to the chapter's end — to the Finis of the page — when hate, and envy, and fortune, and disappointment shall be over." ON SCEEENS IN DINING-EOOMS. A GRANDSON of the late Rev. Dr. Primrose (of Wakefield, vicar) wrote me a little note from his country living this morn- ing, and the kind fellow had the precaution to write "No thorn " upon the envelope, so that, ere I broke the seal, my mind might be relieved of any anxiety lest the letter should contain one of ^ose lurking stabs which are so painful to the present gentle writer. Your epigraph, my dear P., shows your 40 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. kind and artless nature ; but don't you see it is of no use ? People who are bent upon assassinating you in the manner men- tioned will write ' ' No thorn " upon their envelopes too ; and you open the ease, and presently out flies a poisoned stiletto, which springs into a man's bosom, and makes the wretch howl with anguish. When the bailiffs are after a man, they adopt all sorts of disguises, pop out on him from all conceivable corners, and tap his miserable shoulders. His wife is taken ill ; his sweetheart, who remarked his brilliant, too brilliant appearance at the Hyde Park review, will meet him at Cremorne, or where you will. The old friend who has owed him that money these five years will meet him at so-and-so and pay. By one bait or other the victim is hooked, netted, landed, and down goes the basket-lid. It is not your wife, your sweetheart, your friend who is going to pay you. It is Mr. Nab the bailiff. Tou know — you are caught. You are off in a cab to Chancery Lane. You know, I say ? Why should you know ? I make no man- ner of doubt you never were taken by a bailiff in your life. I never was. I have been in two or three debtors' prisons, but not on my own account. Goodness be praised ! I mean you can't escape your lot ; and Nab only stands here metaphori- cally as the watchful, certain, and untiring officer of Mr. Sheriff Fate. Wh}^ mj' dear Primrose, this morning along with your letter comes another, bearing the well-known super- scription of another old friend, which I open without the least suspicion, and what do I find? A few lines from my friend Johnson, it is true, but they are written on a page covered with feminine handwriting. " Dear Mr. Johnson," saj's the writer, ' ' I have just been perusing with delight a most charm- ing tale by the Archbishop of Cambray. It is called ' Telema- chus ; ' and I think it would be admirabl}^ suited to the Cornhill Magazine. As 3^ou know the Editor, will you have the gi'eat kindness, dear Mr. Johnson, to communicate with him person- ally (as that is much better than writing in a roundabout way to the Publishers, and waiting goodness knows how long for an answer), and state my readiness to translate this excellent and instructive stor3\ I do not wish to breathe a word against ' Lovel Parsonage,' ' Framley the Widower,' or any of the novels which have appeared in the Cornhill Magazine, but I am sure ' Telemachus ' is as good as new to English readers, and in point of interest and morsility far " &c. &c. &c.. There it is. I am stabbed through Johnsori. He has lent himself to this attack on me. He is weak about women. Other ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 41 strong men are. He submits to the common lot, poor fellow. In my reply I do not use a word of unkindness. I write him back gentl}^ that I fear " Telemachus " won't suit us. He can send the letter on to his fair correspondent. But however soft the answer, I question whether the wrath will be turned away. Will there not be a coolness between him and the lad}' ? and is it not possible that henceforth her fine ej-es will look with dark- ling glances upon the pretty orange cover of our Magazine ? Certain writers, they say, have a bad opinion of women. Now am I very whimsical in supposing that this disappointed candidate will be hurt at her rejection, and angry or cast down according to her nature? " Angr}^, indeed!" says Juno, gathering up her purple robes and royal raiment. " Sorry, in- deed ! " cries Minerva, lacing on her corselet again, and scowl- ing under her helmet. (I imagine the well-known Apple case has just been argued and decided.) "Hurt, forsooth! Do you suppose we care for the opinion of that hobnailed lout of a Paris? Do you suppose that I, the Goddess of Wisdom, can't make allowances for mortal ignorance, and am so base as to bear malice against a poor creature who knows no better? You little know the goddess nature when you dare to insinuate that our divine minds are actuated by motives so base. A love of justice influences us. We are above mean revenge. We are too magnanimous to be angiy at the award of such a judge in favor of such a creature." And rustling out their skirts, the ladies walk away together. This is all very well. You are bound to believe them. They are actuated by no hostility : not they. They bear no malice — of course not. But when the Trojan war occurs presentl}'^, which side will they take? Many brave souls will be sent to Hades. Hector will perish. Poor old Priam's bald numskull will be cracked, and Troy town will burn, because Paris prefers golden-haired Venus to ox- eyed Juno and gray-ej^ed Minerva. The last Essay of this Roundabout Series, describing the griefs and miseries of the editorial chair, was written, as the kind reader will acknowledge, in a mild and gentle, not in a warlike or satirical spirit. 1 showed how cudgels were applied ; but surely, the meek object of persecution hit no blows in re- turn. The beating did not hurt much, and the person assaulted could afford to keep his good-humor ; indeed, I admired that brave though illogical little actress, of the T. R. D-bl-n, for her fiery vindication of her profession's honor. I assure her I had no intention to tell 1 — s — well, let us say monosyllables — about my superiors : and I wish her nothing but well, and when 42 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. Macmahon (or shall it be Mulligan ?)iiioi cV Maude ascends his throne, I hope she may be appointed professor of English to the princesses of the roj^al house. Nwper — in former days — I too have militated ; sometimes, as I now think, unjustly ; but always, I vow, without personal rancor. Which of us has not idle words to recall, flippant jokes to regret? Have you never committed an imprudence? Have you never had a dispute, and found out that you were wrong? So much the worse for you. Woe be to the man qui croit toujours avoir raison. His anger is not a brief madness, but a permanent mania. His rage is not a fever-fit, but a black poison inflaming him, distort- ing his judgment, disturbing his rest, embittering his cup, gnaw- ing at his pleasures, causing him more cruel suff'ering than ever he can inflict on his enemy. la belle morale I As I write it, I think about one or two little affairs of my own. There is old Dr. Squaretoso (he certainly was very rude to me, and that's the fact) ; there is Madame Poraposa (and certainly her lady- ship's behavior was about as cool as cool could be) . Never mind, old Squaretoso : never mind, Madame Pomposa ! Here is a hand. Let us be friends as we once were, and have no more of this rancor. I had hardly sent that last Roundabout Paper to the printer (which, I submit, was written in a pacable and not unchristian frame of mind) , when Saturda}^ came, and with it, of course, my Saturday Review. I remember at New York coming down to breakfast at the hotel one morning, after a criticism had ap- peared in the New York Herald, in which an Irish writer had given me a dressing for a certain lecture on Swift. Ah ! my dear little enemy of the T. R. D., what were the cudgels in your little billet-doux compared to those noble New York shillelaghs ? All through the Union, the literar}' sons of Erin have marched alpeen-stoeli in hand, and in every city of the States they call each other and everj^body else the finest names. Having come to breakfast, then, in the public room, I sit down, and see — that the nine people opposite have all got New York Heralds in their hands. One dear little lady, whom I knew, and who sat opposite, gave a prett}^ blush, and popped her paper under the tablecloth. I told her I had had my whipping alread}^ in my own private room, and begged her to continue her reading. I ma}' have undergone agonies, you see, but every man who has been bred at an English public school comes awaj'^ from a private interview with Dr. Birch with a calm, even a smiUng face. And this is not impossible,, when you are prepared. You screw your courage up — j'ou go ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 43 through the business. You come back and take j^our seat on the form, showing not the least S3'mptom of uneasiness or of previous unpleasantries. But to be caught suddenl}'- up, and whipped in the bosom of 5^our family — to sit down to break- fast, and cast j'our innocent e3^e on a paper, and find, before 3'ou are aware, that the Saturday Monitor or Black Monday In- structor has hoisted 3^ou and is la3ing on — that is indeed a trial. Or perhaps the family has looked at the dreadful paper before- hand, and weakly tries to hide it. '' Where is the Instructor^ or the Monitor V^ sa3' 3^ou. "Where is that paper?" says mamma to one of the 3'oung ladies. Lucy hasn't it. Fanny hasn't seen it. Emily thinks that the governess has it. At last, out it is brought, that awful paper ! Papa is amazingly tickled with the article on Thomson ; thinks that show up of Johnson is very lively; and now — heaven be good to us ! — he has come to the critique on himself: — "Of all the rubbish which we have had from Mr. Tomkins, we do protest and vow that this last cartload is " &c. Ah, poor Tomkins ! — but most of all, ah ! poor Mrs. Tomkins, and poor Emily, and Fann3", and Luc3^, who have to sit b3' and see paterfamilias put to the torture ! Now, on this eventful Saturday, I did not cr3^, because it was not so much the Editor as the Publisher of the Cornhill Magazine who was brought out for a dressing ; and it is won- derful how gallantty one bears the misfortunes of one's friends. That a writer should be taken to task about his books, is fair, and he must abide the praise or the censure. But that a pub- lisher should be criticised for his dinners, and for the conver- sation which did not take place there, — is this tolerable press practice, legitimate joking, or honorable warfare? I have not the honor to know m3^ next-door neighbor, but I make no doubt that he receives his friends at dinner ; I see his wife and children pass constantly- ; I even know the carriages of some of the people who call upon him, and could tell their names. Now, suppose his servants were to tell mine what the doings are next door, who comes to dinner, what is eaten and said, and I were to publish an account of these transactions in a newspaper, I could assured^ get mone3^ for the report ; but ought I to write it, and what would 3"ou think of me for doing so ? And suppose, Mr. Saturday Reviewer — you censor morum^ 3^ou who pique yourself (and justly and honorably in the main) upon your character of gentleman, as well as of writer, suppose, not that you 3'ourself invent and indite absurd twaddle about gentlemen's private meetings and transactions, but pick this 44 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. wretched garbage out of a New York street, and hold it up for 3^our readers' amusement — don't you think, my friend, that you might have been better employed? Here, in my Saturday Re- view^ and in an American paper subsequently sent to me, I light, astonished, on an account of the dinners of my friend and publisher, which are described as " tremendously heav}'," of the conversation (which does not take place) , and of the guests as- sembled at the table. I am informed that the proprietor of the Gornhill^ and the host on these occasions, is " a ver}^ good man, but totally unread ; " and that on my asking him whether Dr. Johnson was dining behind the screen, he said, " God bless my soul, my dear sir, there's no person by the name of Johnson here, nor an}' one behind the screen," and that a roar of laughter cut him short. I am informed hy the same New York correspondent, that I have touched up a contributor's article ; that I once said to a literary gentleman, who was proudly pointing to an anonymous article as his writing, "AJi! I thought I recognized your hoof in it. " I am told by the same authorit}' that the Comhill Magazine " shows symptoms of being on the wane," and having sold nearly a hundred thousand copies, he (the correspondent) " should think forty thousand was now about the mark." Then the graceful writer passes on to the dinners, at which it appears the Editor of the Magazine " is the great gun, and comes out with all the geniality in his power." Now suppose this charming intelligence is untrue ? Suppose the publisher (to recall the words of my friend the Dublin actor of last month) is a gentleman to the full as well informed as those whom he invites to his table ? Suppose he never made the remark, beginning — "God bless my soul, my dear sir," &c., nor anything resembling it? Suppose nobody roared with laughing ? Suppose the Editor of the Gomhill Magazine never " touched up" one single hne of the contribution which bears " marks of his hand?" Suppose he never said to any literary gentleman, "I recognized your hoof* in any periodical what- ever? Suppose the 40,000 subscribers, which the writer to New York " considered to be about the mark," should be be- tween 90,000 and 100,000 (and as he will have figures, there the}' are) ? Suppose this back-door gossip should be utterly blundering and untrue, would an}^ one wonder? Ah ! if we had only enjoved the happiness to number this writer among the contributors to our Magazine, what a cheerfulness and easy con- fidence his presence would impart to our meetings ! He would find that " poor Mr. Smith" had heard that recondite anecdote ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 45 of Dr. Johnson behind the screen ; and as for ' ' the great gun of those banquets," with what geniahty should not I " come out " if I had an amiable companion close by me, dotting down my conversation for the New York Times ! Attack our books, Mr. Correspondent, and welcome. Thej'" are fair subjects for just censure or praise. But woe be to you, if 3^ou allow private rancors or animosities to influence you in the discharge of your public duty. In the little court where you are paid to sit as judge, as critic, j'ou owe it to your employers, to your conscience, to tiie honor of your calling, to deliver just sentences ; and you shall have to answer to heaven for your dealings, as surely as my Lord Chief Justice on the Bench. The dignity of letters, the honor of the literary calling, the slights put by haughty and unthinking people upon literary men, — don't we hear outcries upon these subjects raised daily? As dear Sam Johnson sits behind the screen, too proud to show his threadbare coat and patches among the more prosperous brethren of his trade, there is no want of dignity in him^ in that homely image of labor ill-re vrarded, genius as yet unrecognized, independence sturdy and uncomplaining. But Mr. Nameless, behind the publisher's screen uninvited, peering at the company and the meal, catching up scraps of the jokes, and noting down the guests' behavior and conversation, — what a figure his is ! Allons, Mr. Nameless ! Put up your note-book ; walk out of the hall ; and leave gentlemen alone who would be private, and wish you no harm. TUNBEIDGE TOYS. I WONDER whether those little silver pencil-cases with a movable almanac at the butt-end are still favorite implements with boys, and whether pedlers still hawk them about the country ? Are there pedlers and hawkers still, or are rustics and children grown too sharp to deal with them ? Those pencil- cases, as far as my memory serves me, were not of much use. The screw, upon which the movable almanac turned, was con- stantly getting loose. The 1 of the table would work from its moorings, under Tuesday or Wednesday, as the case might be, and you would find, on examination, that Th. or W. was the 46 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 23 J of the month (which was absurd on the face of the thing), and in a word j^our cherished pencil-case an utterly unreliable time-keeper. Nor was this a matter of wonder. Consider the position of a pencil-case in a bo3''s pocket. You had hard-bake in it ; marbles, kept in 3'our purse when the monej^ was all gone ; 3^our mother's purse, knitted so fondl}' and supplied with a little bit of gold, long since — prodigal little son ! — scattered amongst the swine — I mean amongst brand3'-balls, open tarts, three-cornered puffs, and similar abominations. You had a top and string ; a knife ; a piece of cobbler's wax ; two or three bullets ; a Little Warbler ; and I, for my part, remember, for a considerable period, a brass-barrelled pocket-pistol (which would fire beautifully, for with it I shot ofl[* a button from Butt Major's jacket) ; — with all these things, and ever so many more, clinking and rattling in your pockets, and yoMY hands, of course, keeping them in perpetual movement, how could you expect 3'our movable almanac not to be twisted out of its place now and again — yowv pencil-case to be bent — 3'Our liquorice water not to leak out of 3^our bottle over the cobbler's wax, your buirs-e3"es not to ram up the lock and barrel of 3^our pistol, and so forth. In the montli of June, thirt3'-seven 3'ears ago, I bought one of those pencil-cases from a bo3' whom I shall call Hawker, and who was in m3' form. Is he dead? Is he a millionnaire ? Is he a bankrupt now ? He was an immense screw at school, and I believe to this da3^ that the value of the thing for which I owed and eventually paid three-and-sixpence, was in realit3^ not one-and-nine. I certainl3^ enjoyed the case at first a good deal, and amused m3'self with twiddling round the movable calendar. But this pleasure wore off. The jewel, as I said, was not paid for, and Hawker, a large and violent bo3", was exceedingl3^ unpleasant as a creditor. His constant remark was, " When are 3'ou going to pay me that three-and-sixpence? What sneaks 3'our rela- tions must be ? The3' come to see 3^ou. You go out to them on Saturda3's and Sundays, and the3'^ never give 3'ou anything ! Don't tell 7ne^ you little humbug ! " and so forth. The truth is that m3'' relations were respectable ; but my parents w^ere mak- ing a tour in Scotland ; and my friends in London, whom I used to go and see, were most kind to me, certainl3% but some- how never tipped me. That term, of Ma3^ to August, 1823, passed in agonies then, in consequence of m3^ debt to Hawker. What was the pleasure of a calendar pencil-case in comparison with the doubt and torture of mind occasioned by the sense of ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 47 the debt, and the constant reproach of that fellow's scowlin^*- eyes and gloomy, coarse reminders? How was I to pay off such a debt out of sixpence a week ? ludicrous ! Why did not some one come to see me, and tip me? Ah! my dear sir, if you have any Httle friends at school, go and see them, and do the natural thing by them. You won't miss the sovereio-n. You don't know what a blessing it will be to them. Don't fancy the}^ are too old — try 'em. And they will remember you, and bless you in future days ; and their gratitude shall accompan}^ 3'our dreary after life ; and they shall meet you kindl}^ when thanks for kindness are scant. O mercj^ ! shall I ever forget that sovereign you gave me, Captain Bob? or the agonies of being in debt to Hawker? In that very term, a relation of mine was going to India. I actually was fetched from school in order to take leave of him. I am afraid I told Hawker of this circumstance. I own I speculated upon my friend's giving me a pound. A pound? Pooh! A relation going to India, and deeply affected at parting from his darling kinsman, might give five pounds to the dear fellow ! . . . There was Hawker when I came back — of course there he was. As he looked in m}^ scared face, his turned livid with rage. He muttered curses, terrible from the lips of so young a boy. My relation, about to cross the ocean to fill a lucrative appoint- ment, asked me with much interest about my progress at school, heard me construe a passage of Eutropius, the pleasing Latin work on which I was then engaged ; gave me a God bless you, and sent me back to school ; upon m}' word of honor, without so much as a half-crown ! It is all very well, my dear sir, to say that boys contract habits of expecting tips from their parents' friends, that they become avaricious, and so forth. Avaricious ! fudge ! Boys contract habits of tart and toffee eating, which they do not carry into after life. On the CQp- trary, I wish I did like 'em. What raptures of pleasure O^fte could have now for five shillings, if one could but pick it off the pastry-cook's tray ! No. If you have any little friends at school, out with 3^our half-crowns, my friend, and impart to those little ones the little fleeting joys of their age. WeU, then. At the beginning of August, 1823, Bartlemy- tide holidays came, and I was to go to my parents, who were at Tunbridge Wells. My place in the coach was taken by my tutor's servants — "Bolt-in-Tun," Fleet Street, seven o'clock in the morning, was the word. My Tutor, the Rev. Edward P , to whom I hereby present my best compliments, had a parting interview with me ; gave me my httle account for my 48 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. governor : the remaining part of the coach-hire ; five shillings for ni}' own expenses ; and some five-and-twent}' shillings on an old account which had been overpaid, and was to be restored, to my family. Away I ran and paid Hawker his three-and-six. Ouf ! what a weight it was off m}^ mind ! (He was a Norfolk boy, and used to go home from Mrs. Nelson's "Bell Inn," Aldgate — but that is not to the point.) The next morning, of course, we were an hour before the time. I and another boy shared a hackney-coach ; two-and-six : porter for putting luggage on coach, threepence. I had no more money of my own left. Rasherwell, my companion, went into the " Bolt-in-Tun " coffee- room, and had a good breakfast. I couldn't ; because, though I had five-and-twenty shillings of my parents' money, I had none of m}^ own, you see. I certainly intended to go without breakfast, and still re- member how strongl}^ I had that resolution in mj' mind. But there was that hour to wait. A beautiful August morning — I am verj'^ hungry. There is Rasherwell ' ' tucking " awaj^ in the coffee-room. I pace the street, as sadly almost as if I had been coming to school, not going thence. I turn into a court by mere chance — I vow it was by mere chance — and there I see a coffee-shop with a placard in the window, Coffee,, Two- •pence. Round of buttered toast,, Twopence. And here am I, hungry, penniless, with five-and-twenty shillings of my parents' mone}^ in my pocket. What would you have done ? You see I had had m}^ mone}^, and spent it in that pencil-case affair. The five-and-twenty shillings were a trust — b}' me to be handed over. But then would my parents wish their only child to be act- ually without breakfast? Having this money, and being so hungry, so very hungry, mightn't I take ever so little ? Mightn't I at home eat as much as I chose ? Well, I went into the coffee-shop, and spent fourpence. I remember the taste of the coffee and toast to this day — a pe- culiar, muddy, not-sweet-enough, most fragrant coflTee — a rich, rancid, yet not-buttered-enough, dehcious toast. The waiter had nothing. At any rate, fourpence I know was the sum I spent. And the hunger appeased, I got on the coach a guilty being. At the last stage, — what is its name? I have forgotten in seven-and-thirty years, — there is an inn with a little green and trees before it ; and by the trees there is an open carriage. It is our carriage. Yes, there are Prince and Blucher, the ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 49 horses ; and my parents in the carriage. Oh ! how I had been counting the days until this one came ! Oh ! how happy had I been to see them yesterday ! But there was that fourpence. All the journey down the toast had choked me, and the coffee poisoned me. I was in such a state of remorse about the fourpence, that I forgot the maternal joy and caresses, the tender paternal voice. I pull out the twenty-four shillings and eightpence with a trembling hand. "Here's your money," I gasp out, " which Mr. P owes you, all but fourpence. I owed three-and-sixpence to Hawker out of my money for a pencil-case, and I had none left, and I took fourpence of yours, and had some coffee at a shop." I suppose I must have been choking whilst uttering this confession. "My dear bo}^," says the governor, "why didn't 3'OU go and breakfast at the hotel ? " " He must be starved," saj^s my mother. I had confessed ; I had been a prodigal ; I had been taken back to my parents' arms again. It was not a very great crime as yet, or a very long career of prodigalit}^ ; but don't we know that a boy who takes a pin which is not his own, will take a thou- sand pounds when occasion serves, bring his parents' gray heads with sorrow to the grave, and carry his own to the gallows? Witness the career of Dick Idle, upon whom our friend Mr. Sala has been discoursing. Dick only began by playing pitch- and-toss on a tombstone : playing fair, for what we know : and even for that sin he was promptly caned by the beadle. The bamboo was ineffectual to cane that reprobate's bad courses out of him. From pitch- and-toss he proceeded to manslaughter if necessary : to highway robbery ; to Tyburn and the rope there. Ah ! heaven be thanked, my parents' heads are still above the grass, and mine still out of the noose. As I look up from my desk, I see Tunbridge Wells Common and the rocks, the strange familiar place which I remember forty years ago. Boys saunter over the green with stumps and cricket-bats. Other boys gallop by on the riding-master's hacks. I protest it is Cramp, Riding Master, as it used to be in the reign of George IV., and that Centaur Cramp must be at least a hundred years old. Yonder comes a footman with a bundle of novels from the library. Are they as good as our novels ? Oh ! how delightful they were ! Shades of Valancour, awful ghost of Manfroni, how I shudder at your appearance ! Sweet image of Thaddeus of Warsaw, how often has this al- 50 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. most infantile hand tried to depict you in a Polish cap and richl}' embroidered tights ! And as for Corinthian Tom in light blue pantaloons and Hessians, and Jerr}^ Hawthorn from the countr}^, can all the fashion, can all the splendor of real life which these e3"es have subsequentl}" beheld, can all the wit I have heard or read in later times, compare with your fashion, with 3'our brillianc}', with your delightful grace, and sparkling vivacious rattle? Who knows ? Thej^ may have kept those very books at the librar}^ still — at the well-remembered library on the Pantiles, where they sell that delightful, useful Tunbridge ware. I will go and see. I went my way to the Pantiles, the queer little old-world Pantiles, where, a hundred 3^ears since, so much good company came to take its pleasure. Is it possible, that in the past centur}' , gentlefolks of the first rank (as I read lately in a lecture on George II. in the Cornhill Magazine) assembled here and entertained each other with gaming, dancing, fiddling, and tea? There are fiddlers, harpers, and trumpeters perform- ing at this moment in a weak little old balcony, but where is the fine company? Where are the earls, duchesses, bishops, and magnificent embroidered gamesters? A half-dozen of children and their nurses are listening to the musicians ; an old lady or two in a poke bonnet passes, and for the rest, I see but an uninteresting population of native tradesmen. As for the librar}^, its window is full of pictures of burl}' theologians, and their works, sermons, apologues, and so forth. Can I go in and ask the 3'oung ladies at the counters for " Manfroni, or the One-Handed Monk," and "Life in London, or the Adventures of Corinthian Tom, Jeremiah Hawthorn, Esq., and their friend ' Bob Logic?" — absurd. I turn awa}^ abashed from the case- ment — from the Pantiles — no longer Pantiles, but Parade. I stroll over the Common and survey the beautiful purple hills around, twinkling with a thousand bright villas, which have sprung up over this charming ground since first I saw it. What an admirable scene of peace and plent}^ ! What a de- licious air breathes over the heath, blows the cloud shadows across it, and murmurs through the full-clad trees ! Can the world show a land fairer, richer, more cheerful? I see a por- tion of it when I look up from the window at which I write. But fair scene, green woods, bright terraces gleaming in sun- , shine, and purple clouds swollen with summer rain — nay, the ver}'' pages over which m}^ head bends — disappear from before my ej^es. Thej^ are looking backwards, back into fort}^ 3^ears off, into a dark room, into a little house hard by on the Com- ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 51 mon here, in the Bartlemj^-tide holidays. The parents have gone to town for two daj's : the house is all his own, his own and a grim old maid-servant's, and a little boy is seated at night in the lonely drawing-room, poring over " Manfroni, or the One-Handed Monk," so frightened that he scarcely dares to turn round. DE JUVENTUTE. Our last paper of this veracious and roundabout series re- lated to a period which can only be historical to a great number of readers of this Magazine. Four I saw at the station to-day with orange-covered books in their hands, who can but have known George IV. by books, and statues, and pictures. Elder- ly gentlemen were in their prime, old men in their middle age, when he reigned over us. His image remains on coins ; on a picture or two hanging here and there in a Club or old-fashioned dining-room ; on horseback, as at Trafalgar Square, for ex- ample, where I defy any monarch to look more uncomfortable. He turns up in sundry memoirs and histories which have been published of late daj^s ; in Mr. Massey's " History ;" in the ' ' Buckingham and Grenville Correspondence ; " and gentlemen who have accused a certain writer of disloyalty are referred to those volumes to see whether the picture drawn of George is overcharged. Charon has paddled him off; he has mingled with the crowded repubUc of the dead. His effigy smiles from a canvas or two. Breechless he bestrides his steed in Trafalgar Square. I brieve he still wears his robes at Madame Tussaud's (Madame herself having quitted Baker Street and life, and found him she modelled t'other side the St3^gian stream). On the head of a five-shilling piece we still occasionally come upon him, with St. George, the dragon-slayer, on the other side of the coin. Ah me ! did this George slay many dragons? Was he a brave, heroic champion, and rescuer of virgins ? Well ! well ! have you and I overcome all the dragons that assail us ? come alive and victorious out of all the caverns which we have entered in life, and succored, at risk of Ufe and limb, all poor distressed persons in whose naked hmbs the dragon Povert}^ is about to fasten his fangs, whom the dragon Crime is poisoning 52 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. with his horrible breath, and about to crunch up and devour? O m}^ royal liege ! O m}' gracious prince and wanior ! Tou a champion to fight that monster? Your feeble spear ever pierce that slimy paunch or plated back ? See how the flames come gurgling out of his red-hot brazen throat ! What a roar ! Nearer and nearer he trails, with eyes flaming like the lamps of a railroad engine. How he squeals, rushing out through the darkness of his tunnel ! Now he is near. Now he is here. And now — what? — lance, shield, knight, feathers, horse and all? O horror, horror! Next da}^, round the monster's cave, there lie a few bones more. You, who wish to keep yours in your skins, be thankful that 3'ou are not called upon to go out and fight dragons. Be grateful that they don't sallj^ out and swallow you. Keep a wise distance from their caves, lest you pay too dearly for approaching them. Remember that j^ears passed, and whole districts were ravaged, before the warrior came who was able to cope with the devouring monster. When that knight does make his appearance, with all mj heart let us go out and welcome him with our best songs, huzzas, and laurel wreaths, and eagerly recognize his valor and victor3\ But he comes onl}' seldom. Countless knights were slain before St. George won the battle. In the battle of life are we all going to try for the honors of championship ? If we can do our duty, if we can keep our place pretty honorablj^ through the combat, let us sa}^, Laus Deo I at the end of it, as the firing ceases, and the night falls over the field. The old were middle-aged, the elderty were in their prime, then, thirty years since, when yon royal George was still fight- ing the dragon. As for you, m}' pretty lass, with your sauc}^ hat and golden tresses tumbled in your net, and you, my spruce 3^oung gentleman in your mandarin's cap (the young folks at the country-place where I am staying are so attired), your parents were unknown to each other, and wore short frocks and short jackets, at the date of this five-shilling piece. Onl}- to-day I met a dog-cart crammed with children — children with moustaches and mandarin caps — children with saucy hats and hair-nets — children in short frocks and knickerbockers (surely the prettiest boy's dress that has appeared these hundred 3'ears) — children fi*om twenty years of age to six ; and father, with mother by his side, driving in front — and on father's counte- nance I saw that very laugh which I remember perfectly in the time when this crown-piece was coined — in Ms time, in King George's time, when we were school-boys seated on the same form. The smile was just as broad, as bright, as jolly, as I ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 53 remember it in the past — unforgotten, though not seen or thought of, for how many decades of years, and quite and in- stantly familiar, though so long out of sight. Any contemporary of that coin who takes it up and reads the inscription round the laurelled head, " Georgius IV. Bri- tanniarum Rex. Fid. Def. 1823," if he will but look steadily enough at the round, and utter the proper incantation, I dare say may conjure back his life there. Look well, my elderly friend, and tell me what you see? First, I see a Sultan, with hair, beautiful hair, and a crown of laurels round his head, and his name is Georgius Rex. Fid. Def. , and so on. Now the Sultan has disappeared ; and what is that I see ? A boy, — a boy in a jacket. He is at a desk ; he has gi'eat books before him, Latin and Greek books and dictionaries. Yes, but behind the great books, which he pretends to read, is a little one, with pictures, which he is really reading. It is — yes, I can read now — it is the " Heart of Mid Lothian," by the author of " Waverley " — or, no, it is " Life in London, or the Adventures of Corinthian Tom, Jeremiah Hawthorn, and their friend Bob Logic," by Pierce Egan ; and it has pictures — oh ! such funny pictures ! As he reads, there comes behind the boy, a man, a dervish, in a black gown, like a woman, and a black square cap, and he has a book in each hand , and he seizes the boy who is reading the picture-book, and lays his head upon one of his books, and smacks it with the other. The boy makes faces, and so that picture disappears. Now the boy has grown bigger. He has got on a black gown and cap, something like the dervish. He is at a table, with ever so many bottles on it, and fruit, and tobacco ; and other young dervishes come in. They seem as if they were singing. To them enters an old moollah, he takes down tlieir names, and orders them all to go to bed. What is this? a car- riage, with four beautiful horses all galloping— a man in red is blowing a trumpet. Many young men are on the carriage — one of them is driving the horses. Surely they won't drive into that? — ah! they have all disappeared. And now I see one of the young men alone. He is walking in a street — a dark street — presently a hght comes to a window. There is the shadow of a lady who passes. He stands there till the light goes out. Now he is in a room scribbling on a piece of paper, and kissing a miniature every now and then. They seem to be lines each pretty much of a length. I can read heart, smart, dart ; Mary, fairy ; Cupid, stupid ; true, you ; and never mind ^hat more. Bah ! it is bosh. Now see, he has got a gown on 54 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. ao"ain, and a wig of white hair on his head, and he is sitting with other dervishes in a great room full of them, and on a throne in the middle is an old Sultan in scarlet, sitting before a desk, and he wears a wig too — and the 3'oung man gets up and speaks to him. And now what is here ? He is in a room with ever so many children, and the miniature hanging up. Can it be a likeness of that woman who is sitting before that copper urn, with a silver vase in her hand, from which she is pourino- hot liquor into cups ? Was she ever a fairy ? She is as fat as °a hippopotamus now. He is sitting on a divan by the fire. He has a paper on his knees. Read the name of the paper. It is the Superfine Review. It inclines to think that Mr. Dickens is not a true gentleman, that Mr. Thackeray is not a true gentleman, and that when the one is pert and the other is arch, we, the gentlemen of the Superfine Review., think, and think rightly, that we have some cause to be in- dignant. The great cause why modern humor and modern sentimentalism repel us, is that they are unwarrantably familiar. Now, Mr. Sterne, the Superfine Reviewer thinks, " was a true sentimentalist, because he was above all things a true gentle- man." The flattering inference is obvious : let us be thankful for having an elegant moralist watching over us, and learn, if not too old, to imitate his high-bred politeness and catch his unobtrusive grace. If we are unwarrantably familiar, we know who is not. If we repel by pertness, we know who never does. If our language offends, we know whose is always modest. O pity ! The vision has disappeared off the silver, the images of youth and the past are vanishing awaj^ ! We who have lived before railways were made, belong to another world. In how many hours could the Prince of Wales drive from Brighton to London, with a light carriage built expressly, and relays of horses longing to gallop the next stage? Do you remember Sir Somebody, the coachman of the Age, who took our half- crown so affably ? It was only 3- esterday ; but what a gulf be- tween now and then ! TJien was the old world. Stage-coaches, more or less swift, riding-horses, pack-horses, highwaymen, knights in armor, Norman invaders, Roman legions, Druids, Ancient Britons painted blue, and so forth — all these belong to the old period. I will concede a halt in the midst of it, and allow that gunpowder and printing tended to modernize the world. But 3^our railroad starts the new era, and we of a cer- tain age belong to the new time and the old one. We are of the time of chivalry as well as the Black Prince or Sir Walter Manny. We are of the age of steam. We have stepped out ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 65 of the old world on to "Brunei's" vast deck, and across the waters ingens patet tellus. Towards what new continent are we wendmg? to what new laws, new manners, new politics, vast new expanses of liberties unknown as yet, or onl}- surmised? I used to know a man who had invented a flying-machine. " Sir," he would say, " give me but five hundred pounds, and I will make it. It is so simple of construction that I tremble daily lest some other person should light upon and patent my discovery." Perhaps faith was wanting ; perhaps the five hun- dred pounds. He is dead, and somebody else must make the flj^ing-machine. But that will onl}^ be a step forward on the journey already begun since we quitted the old world. There it lies on the other side of yonder embankments. You 3'oung folks have never seen it ; and Waterloo is to jo\x no more than Agincourt, and George IV. than Sardanapalus. We elderlj^ people have lived in that prserailroad world, which has passed into limbo and vanished from under us. I tell you it was firm under our feet once, and not long ago. They have raised those railroad embankments up, and shut oflf the old world that was behind them. Climb up that bank on which the irons are laid, and look to the other side — it is gone. There is no other side. Try and catch yesterday. Where is it? Here is a Times newspaper, dated Monday 26th, and this is Tuesda}^ 27th. Suppose you deny there was such a da}^ as yesterday? We who lived before railways, and survive out of the ancient world, are like Father Noah and his family out of the Ark. The children will gather round and say to us patriarchs, " Tell us, grandpapa, about the old world." And we shall mumble our old stories ; and we shall drop off one by one ; and there will be fewer and fewer of us, and these verj' old and feeble. There will be but ten prserailroadites left : then three — then two — then one — then ! If the hippopotamus had the least sensibility (of which I cannot trace any signs either in his hide or his face), I think he' would go down to the bottom of his tank, and never come up again. Does he not see that he be- longs to bygone ages, and that his great hulking barrel of a body is out of place in these times ? What has he in common with the brisk j'oung life surrounding him? In the watches of the night, when the keepers are asleep, when the birds are on one leg, when even the little armadillo is quiet, and the mon- keys have ceased their chatter, — he, I mean the hippopotamus, and the elephant, and the long-necked gkaflfe, perhaps may lay their heads together and have a colloquy about the great silent antediluAian world which they remember, where mighty mon- 56 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. sters floundered through the ooze, crocodiles basked on the banks, and dragons darted out of the caves and waters before men were made to slaj them. We who lived before railways are antediluvians — we must pass away. We are growing scarcer every da}- ; and old — old — very old relicts of the times when George was still fighting the Dragon. Not long since, a company of horse-riders paid a visit to our watering-place. We went to see '',hem, and I bethought me that 3'Oung Walter Juvenis, who was in the place, might like also to witness the performance. A pantomime is not alwa^^s amusing to persons who have attained a certain age ; but a bo}^ at a pantomime is always amused and amusing, and to see his pleasure is good for most h3"pochondriacs. We sent to Walter's mother, requesting that he might join us, and the kind lady replied that the bo}^ had already been at the morning performance of the equestrians, but was most eager to go in the evening likewise. And go he did ; and laughed at all Mr. Merr3^man's remarks, though he remembered them with remarkable accuracy, and insisted upon waiting to the very end of the fun, and was only induced to retire just before its conclusion by representations that the ladies of the party would be incommoded if they were to wait and undei^o the rush and trample of the crowd round about. When this fact was pointed out to him, he yielded at once, though with a heav}' heart, his eyes looking longinglj' towards the ring as we retreated out of the booth. We were scarcely clear of the place, when we heard "God save the Queen," played by the equestrian band, the signal that all was over. Our companion entertained us with scraps of the dialogue on our way home — precious crumbs of wit which he had bro ight away from that feast. He laughed over them again as we walked un'^ :r the stars. He has them now, and takes them out of the pocket of his memor}^, and crunches a bit, and relishes it with a senti- mental tenderness, too, for he is, no doubt, back at school by this time ; the holidaj's are over ; and Doctor Birch's young friends have reassembled. Queer jokes, which caused a thousand simple mouths to grin ! As the jaded Merryman uttered them to the old gentle- man with the whip, some of the old folks in the audience, I dare say, indulged in reflections of theii' own. There was one joke — I utterl}^ forget it — but it began with Merryman sa}''- ing what he had for dinner. He had mutton for dinner, at one o'clock, after which "he had to come to business," And then came the point. Walter Juvenis, Esq., Rev. Doctor Birch's, ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 57 Market Rodborough, if you read this, will you please send me a line, and let me know what was the joke Mr. Menyman made about having his dinner? Ton remember well enough. But do I want to know? Suppose a boy takes a favorite, long-cherished lump of cake out of his pocket, and offers you a bite? Merci! The fact is, I don't care much about knowing that joke of Mr. Merryman's. But whilst he was talking about his dinner, and his mutton, and his landlord, and his business, I felt a great interest about Mr. M. in private life — about his wife, lodgings, earnings, and general history, and I dare saj^ was forming a picture of those in my mind : — wife cooking the mutton : children wait- ing for it ; Merryman in his plain clothes, and so forth ; during which contemplation the joke was uttered and laughed at, and Mr. M., resuming his professional duties, was tumbling over head and heels. Do not suppose I am going, sicut est mos, to indulge in moralities about buffoons, paint, motle}^, and moun- tebanking. Nay, Prime Ministers rehearse their jokes ; Opposi- tion leaders prepare and polish them ; Tabernacle preachers must arrange them in their minds before they utter them. All I mean is, that I would like to know any one of these perform- ers thoroughly, and out of his uniform : that preacher, and why in his travels this and that point struck him ; wherein hes his power of pathos, humor, eloquence ; — that Minister of State, and what moves him, and how his private heart is work- ing ; — I would only say that, at a certain time of life certain things cease to interest : but about some things when we cease to care, what will be the use of life, sight, hearing? Poems are written, and we cease to admire. Lady Jones invites us, and we yawn ; sh^ ceases to invite us, and we are resigned. The -'Zst time I saw a ballet at the opera — oh ! it is many years ago — I fell asleep in the stalls, wagging my head in insane dreams, and I hope affording amusement to the com- pany, while the feet of five hundred nymphs were cutting flic- flacs on the stage at a few paces' distance. Ah, I remember a diflferent state of things ! Credite posteri. To see those nymphs — gracious powers, how beautiful they were! That leering, painted, shrivelled, thin-armed, thick-ankled old thing, cutting dreary capers, coming thumping down on her board out of time — that an opera-dancer? Pooh ! My dear Walter, the great difference between my time and yours, who will enter life some two or three years hence, is that, now, the dancing women and singing women are ludicrously old, out of time, and out of tune ; the paint is so visible, and the dinge and wrinkles of 58 KOUNDABOUT PAPERS. their wretched old cotton stockings, that I am surprised how an^'bod^^ can like to look at them. And as u)v laughing at me for falling asleep, I can't understand a man of sense domg otherwise. In m^ time, a la bonne heure. iii the reign of George IV., I give you. my honor, all the dancers at the opera were as beautiful as Houris. Even in William IV.'s time, when I think of Duvernaj' prancing in as the Bayadere, — I say it was a vision of loveliness such as mortal ej^es can't see now-a-daj'S. How well I remember the tune to which she used to appear! Kaled used to say to the Sultan, -^ My lord, a troop of those dancing and singing gurls called Bayaderes approaches," and, to the clash of cymbals, and the thumping of my heart, in she used to dance ! There has never been anything like it — never. There never will be — I laugh to scorn old people who tell me about your Noblet, your Mon- tessu, your Vestris, your Parisot — pshaw, the senile twad- dlers ! " And the impudence of the 3'oung men, with their music and their dancers of to-day ! I tell you the women are dreary old creatures. I tell you one air in an opera is just like another, and they send all rational creatures to sleep. Ah, Ronzi de Begnis, thou lovel}- one ! Ah, Caradori, thou smiling angel ! Ah, Malibran ! Nay, I will come to modern times, and ac- knowledge that Lablache was a very good singer thirty j'^ears ago (though Porto was the boy for me) : and then we had Ambrogetti, and Curioni, and Donzelli, a rising young singer. But what is most certain and lamentable is the decay of stage beauty since the days of George IV. Think of Sontag ! I remember her in Otello and the Donna del Lago in '28. I remember being behind the Scenes at the opera (where numbers of us young fellows of fashion used to go) , and seeing Sontag let her hair fall down over her shoulders previous to her murder by Donzelli. Young fellows have never seen beauty like that^ heard such a voice, seen such hair, such ej^es. Don't tell me ! A man who has been about town since the reign of George IV., ought he not to know better than you J^oung lads who have seen nothing? The deterioration of women is lamentable ; and the conceit of the 3'oung fellows more lamentable still, that they won't see this fact, but persist in thinking their time as good as ours. Bless me! when I was a lad, the stage was covered. with angels, who sang, acted, and danced. When I remember the Adelphi, and the actresses there : when I think of Miss Chester, and Miss Love, and Mrs. Serle at Sadler's Wells, and her forty glorious pupils — of the Opera and Noblet, and the exquisite ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 59 young Taglioui, and Pauline Leroux, and a host more ! One much-admired being of those daj's I confess I never cared for and that was the chief male dancer — a ver}" important person- age then, with a bare neck, bare arms, a tunic, and a hat and feathers, who used to divide the applause with the ladies, and who has now sunk down a trap-door for ever. And this frank admission ought to show that I am not 3'our mere twaddlino- laudator temporis acti — 3'our old fogy who can see no o-ood except in his own time. They say that claret is better now-a-days, and cookery much improved since the days of my monarch — of George IV. Pastry Cookery is certainly not so good. I have often eaten half a crown's worth (including, I trust, ginger-beer) at our school pastry-cook's, and that is a proof that the pastry must have been very good, for could I do as much now? I passed by the pastry-cook's shop lately, having occasion to visit my old school. It looked a very dingy old baker's ; misfortunes may have come over him — those penny tarts certainly' did not look so nice as I remember them : but he may have grown careless as he has grown old (I should judge him to be now about ninety-six years of age), and his hand may have lost its cunning. Not that we were not great epicures. I remember how we constantly grumbled at the quantitj^ of the food in our master's house — which on my conscience I believe was excellent and plentiful — and how we tried once or twice to eat him out of house and home. At the pastry-cook's we may have over-eaten ourselves (I have admitted half a crown's worth for 1113' own part, but I don't like to mention the real figure for fear of per- verting the present generation of bo3'S b3' m3' monstrous con- fession) — we may have eaten too much, I sa3\ We did ; but what then ? The school apothecary was sent for : a couple of small globules at night, a trifling preparation of senna in the morning, and we had not to go to school, so that the draught was an actual pleasure. For our amusements, besides the games in vogue, which were prett3^ much in old times as the3^ are now (except cricket, par exemple — and I wish the present 3'outh joy of their bowling, and suppose Armstrong and Whitworth will bowl at them with light field-pieces next) , there were novels — ah ! I trouble 3'ou to find such novels in the present da3' ! O Scottish Chiefs, di(^n't we weep over you ! O Mysteries of Udolpho, didn't I and Briggs Minor draw pictures out of 3^ou, as I have said? EflTorts, feeble indeed, but still giving pleasure to us and our friends. <*I say, old boy, draw us Vivaldi tortured in the 60 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. Inquisition," or, " Draw us Don Quixote and the windmills, you know," amateurs would sa}', to boys who had a love of drawing. " Peregrine Pickle" we liked, our fathers admiring it, and telling us (the sly old boys) it was capital fun ; but I think I was rather bewildered by it, though " Roderick Ran- dom " was and remains delightful. I don't remember having Sterne in the school library, no doubt because the works of that divine were not considered decent for young people. Ah ! not against thy genius, O father of Uncle Toby and Trim, would I say a word in disrespect. But I am thankful to live in times when men no longer have the temptation to write so as to call blushes on women's cheeks, and would shame to whisper wicked allusions to honest boys. Then, above all, we had Walter Scott, the kindly, the generous, the pure — the companion of what countless delightful hours ; the purveyor of how much happiness ; the friend whom we recall as the constant bene- factor of our youth ! How well I remember the type and the brownish paper of the old duodecimo " Tales of my Landlord ! *' 1 have never dared to read the "Pirate," and the "Bride of Lammermoor," or " Kenilworth," from that day to this, be- cause the finale is unhappy, and people die, and aie murdered at the end. But " Ivanhoe," and " Quentin Durward ! " Oh ! for a half-holiday, and a quiet corner, and one of those books again ! Those books, and perhaps those e3'es with which we read them ; and, it may be, the brains behind the eyes ! It may be the tart was good ; but how fresh the appetite was ! If the gods would give me the desire of my heart, I should be able to write a story which boys would relish for the next few dozen of centuries. The boy-critic loves the story : grown up, he loves the author who wrote the story. Hence the kindly tie is estab- lished between writer and reader, and lasts pretty nearly for life. I meet people now who don't care for Walter Scott, or the " Arabian Nights ; " I am sorry for them, unless they in their time have found their romancer — their charming Scheherazade. B}^ the way, Walter, when you are writing, tell me who is the favorite novelist in the fourth form now ? Have 3^ou got an}^- thing so good and kindty as dear Miss Edgeworth's Frank ? It used to belong to a fellow's sisters generally ; but though he pretended to despise it, and said, "Oh, stuff for girls!" he read it ; and I think there were one or two passages which would try my ej^es now, were I to meet with the little book. ■ As for Thomas and Jeremiah (it is only m}'^ witt}'^ waj^ of calling Tom and Jerry), I went to the British Museum the other da}^ on purpose to get it ; but somehow, if you will press ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 61 the question so closely, on reperusal, Torn and Jerrj^ is not so brilliant as I had supposed it to be. The pictures are just as fine as ever ; and I shook hands with broad-backed Jen^ Haw- thorn and Corinthian Tom with delight, after many years' absence. But the style of the writing, I own, was not pleasing to me ; I even thought it a little vulgar — well ! well ! other writers have been considered vulgar — and as a description of the sports and amusements of London in the ancient times, more curious than amusing. But the pictures ! — oh ! the pictures are noble still ! First, there is Jerry arriving from the country, in a green coat and leather gaiters, and being measured for a fashionable suit at Corinthian House, by Corinthian Tom's tailor. Then away for the career of pleasure and fashion. The park ! delicious ex- citement ! The theatre ! the saloon ! ! the green-room ! ! ! Rap- turous bliss — the opera itself ! and then perhaps to Temple Bar, to knock down a Charley there ! Tliere are Jerrj^ and Tom, with their tights and little cocked hats, coming from the opera — very much as gentlemen in waiting on royalty are habited now. There they are at Almack's itself, amidst a crowd of high-bred personages, with the Duke of Clarence himself look- ing at them dancing. Now, strange change, they are in Tom Cribb's parlor, where they don't seem to be a whit less at home than in fashion's gilded halls : and now they are at Newgate, seeing the irons knocked off the malefactors' legs previous to execution. What hardened ferocity in the countenance of the desperado in j^ellow breeches ! What compunction in the face of the gentleman in black (who, I suppose, has been forging), and who clasps his hands, and listens to the chaplain ! Now we haste away to merrier scenes : to Tattersall's (ah gracious powers ! what a funny fellow that actor was who performed Dicky Green in that scene at the play !) ; and now we are at a private part}^ at which Corinthian Tom is waltzing (and very gracefully, too, as you must confess,) with Corinthian Kate, whilst Bob Logic, the Oxonian, is playing on the piano ! " After," the text says, " the Oxonian had played several pieces of livel}^ music, he requested as a favor that Kate and his friend Tom would perform a waltz. Kate without any hesitation immediately stood up. Tom offered his hand to his fascinating partner, and the dance took place. The plate con- ve3^s a correct representation of the ' gay scene ' at that precise moment. The anxiet}^ of the Oxonian to witness the attitudes of the elegant pair had nearly put a stop to their movements. On 62 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. turning round from the pianoforte and presenting his comical mug^ Kate could scarcel}^ suppress a laugh." And no wonder ; just look at it now (as I have copied it to the best of m}' humble abilit}-) , and compare Master Logic's countenance and attitude with the splendid elegance of Tom ! * Now every London man is weary and blase. There is an enjo}-- ment of life in these young bucks of 1823 which contrasts strangely with our feelings of 1860. Here, for instance, is a specimen of their talk and walk. " 'If,' says Logic — ' if enjoy- ment is 3'our motto., you may make the most of an evening at Vauxhall, more than at any other place in the metropolis. It is all free and easy. Sta}^ as long as you like, and depart when you think proper.' — ' Your description is so flattering,' replied Jerry, ' that I do not care how soon the time arrives for us to start.' Logic proposed a ' bit of a strolV in order to get rid of an hour or two, which was immediate^ accepted by Tom and Jerry. A turn or two in Bond Street, a stroll through Picca- dilly, a look in at Tattersall's, a ramble through Pall Mall, and a strut on the Corinthian path, fully occupied the time of our heroes until the hour for dinner arrived, when a few glasses of Tom's rich wines soon put them on the qui vive. Vauxhall was then the object in view, and the Trio started, bent upon enjo3'ing the pleasures which this place so amplj' affords." How nobly those inverted commas, those italics, those capi- tal<«; bring out the writer's wit and relieve the e3'e ! The}' are as good as Jokes, though 3'ou mayn't quite perceive the point. Mark the varieties of lounge in which the young men indulge — now a stroll.) then a look in., then a ramble., and presently a strut. When George, Prince of Wales, was twenty, I have read in an old Magazine, " the Prince's lounge" was a peculiar manner of walking which the 3'Oung bucks imitated. At Wind- sor George III. had a cat's fath — a sl3^ early walk which the good old king took in the gray morning before his household was astir. What v\^as the Corinthian path here recorded? Does any antiquary know? And what were the rich wines which our friends took, and which enabled them to enjoy Vaux- hall? Vauxhall is gone, but the wines, which could occasion such a delightful perversion of the intellect as to enable it to enjo3' ample pleasures there, what were the}"? So the game of life proceeds, until Jerry Hawthorn, the rustic, is fairlj' knocked up b3' all this excitement and is forced to go home, and the last picture represents him getting into the coach at the '' White Horse Cellar," he being one of six inside j ♦ This refers to an illustrated edition of the work. ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 63 whilst his friends shake him b}^ the hand ; whilst the sailor mounts on the roof; whilst the Jews hang round with oranges, knives, and sealing-wax : whilst the guard is closing the door. Where are they now, those sealing-wax venders? where are the guards ? where are the jolly teams ? where are the coaches ? and where the youth that climbed inside and out of them ; that heard the merry horn which sounds no more ; that saw the sun rise over Stonehenge ; that rubbed away the bitter tears at night after parting as the coach sped on the journey to school and London ; that looked out with beating heart as the milestones flew by, for the welcome corner where began home and holi- days ? It is night now : and here is home. Gathered under the quiet roof elders and children lie alike at rest. In the midst of a great peace and calm, the stars look out from the heavens. The silence is peopled with the past ; sorrowful remorses for sins and short-comings — memories of passionate joys and griefs rise out of their graves, both now ahke cahn and sad. Eyes, as I shut mine, look at me, that have long ceased to shine. The town and the fair landscape sleep under the starlight, wreathed in the autumn mists. Twinkling among the houses a light keeps watch here and there, in what may be a sick cham- ber or two. The clock tolls sweetly in the silent air. Here is night and rest. An awful sense of thanks makes the heart swell, and the head bow, as I pass to my room through the sleeping house, and feel as though a hushed blessing were upon it. ON A JOKE I ONCE HEAED FEOM THE LATE ^ THOMAS HOOD. The good-natured reader who has perused some of these rambling papers has long since seen (if to see has been worth his trouble) that the writer belongs to the old-fashioned classes of this world, loves to remember very much more than to prophesy, and though he can't help being carried onward, and downward, perhaps, on the hill of life, the swift mile-tones marking their forties, fifties — how many tens or lustres shall we say? — he sits under Time, the white-wigged charioteer, with his back to the horses, and his face to the past, looking at the receding landscape and the hills fading into the gra^ 64 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. distance. Ah me ! those gray, distant hills were green once, and here, and covered with smiling people ! As we came up the hill there was diflicult}', and here and there a hard pull to be sure, but strength, and spirits, and all sorts of cheery incident and companionship on the road ; there were the tough struggles (bjT^ heaven's merciful will) overcome, the pauses, the faintings, the weakness, the lost way, perhaps, the bitter weather, the dreadful partings, the lonely night, the passionate grief — towards these I turn m}^ thoughts as I sit and think in m}^ hobb3-coach under Time, the silver-wigged charioteer. The young folks in the same carriage meanwhile are looking for- wards. Nothing escapes their keen e3'es — not a flower at the side of a cottage garden, nor a bunch of rosy-faced children at the gate : the landscape is all bright, the air brisk and jolly, the town 3^onder looks beautiful, and do you think they have learned to be difficult about the dishes at the inn ? Now, suppose Paterfamilias on his journe}^ with his wife and children in the sociable, and he passes an ordinary brick house on the road with an ordinar^^ little garden in the front, we will ssiy, and quite an ordinary knocker to the door, and as many sashed windows as you please, quite common and square, and tiles, windows, chimney-pots, quite like others ; or suppose, in driving over such and such a common, he sees an ordinary tree, and an ordinar}' donkey browsing under it, if you like — wife and daughter look at these objects without the slightest particle of curiosity or interest. What is a brass knocker to them but a lion's head, or what not? and a thorn-tree with pool beside it, but a pool in which a thorn and a jackass are reflected ? But 3^ou remember how once upon a time 3'our heart used to beat, as 3'ou beat on that brass knocker, and whose e3''es looked from the window above. You remember how by that thorn- tree and pool, where the geese were performing a prodigious everipg concert, there might be seen, at a certain hour, somebody in a certain cloak and bonnet, who happened to be coming from a village 3''onder, and whose image has flickered in that pool. In that pool, near the thorn? Yes, in that goose-pool, never mind how long ago, when there were reflected the images of the geese — and two geese more. Here, at least, an oldster may have the advantage of his young fellow-travellers, and so Putney Heath or the New Road may be invested with a halo of brightness invisible to them, because it only beams out of his own soul. I have been reading the " Memorials of Hood " b3' his chil- ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. (lo dren,* and wonder whether the book will have the same interest for others and for younger people, as for persons of my own age and calling. Books of travel to any country become inter- esting to us who have been there. Men revisit the old school, though hateful to them, with ever so much kindliness and senti- mental affection. There was the tree under which the bully licked you : here the ground where you had to fag out on holi- days, and so forth. In a word, my dear sir, You are the most interesting subject to j-ourself, of any that can occup}^ j^our worship's thoughts. I have no doubt, a Crimean soldier, read- ing a history of that siege, and how Jones and the gallant 99th were ordered to charge or what not, thinks, "Ah, yes, we of the 100th were placed so and so, I perfectly remember." So with this memorial of poor Hood, it may have, no doubt, a greater interest for me than for others, for I was fighting, so to speak, in a different part of the field, and engaged, a joung subaltern, in the Battle of Life, in which Hood fell, young still, and covered with glor3\ "The Bridge of Sighs" was his Corunna, his Heights of Abraham — sickly, weak, wounded, be fell in the full blaze and fame of that great victory. What manner of man was the genius who penned that famous song? What like was Wolfe, who climbed and conquered on those famous Heights of Abraham ? We all want to know de- tails regarding men who have achieved famous feats, whether of war, or wit, or eloquence, or endurance, or knowledge. His one or two happy and heroic actions take a man's name and memory out of a crowd of names and memories. Henceforth he stands eminent. We scan him : we want to know all about him; we walk round and examine him, are curious, perhaps, and think are we not as strong and tall and capable as yonder champion ; were we not bred as well, and could we not endure the winter's cold as well as he ? Or we look up with all our eves of admiration ; will find no fault in our hero : declare his beauty and proportions perfect ; his critics envious detractors, and so forth. Yesterday, before he performed his feat, he was nobody. Who cared about his birthplace, his parentage, or the color of his hair? To-day, by some single achievement, or by a series of great actions to which his genius accustoms us, he is famous, and antiquarians are busy finding out under what schoolmaster's ferule he was educated, where his grandmother was vaccinated, and so forth. If half a dozen washing-bills of Goldsmith's were to be found to-morrow, would they not inspire a general interest, and be printed in a hundred papers? I * Memorials of Thomas Hood. Moxon, 1860. 2 vols. 66 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. lighted upon Oliver, not very long since, in an old Town and Country Magazine, at the Pantheon masquerade "in an old English habit." Straightway my imagination ran out to meet him, to look at him, to follow him about. I forgot the names of scores of fine gentlemen of the past age, who were mentioned besides. We want to see this man who has amused and charmed us ; who has been our friend, and given us hours of pleasant companionship and kindly thought. I protest when I came, in the midst of those names of people of fashion, and beaux, and demireps, upon those names " Sir J. R-yn-lds^ in a domino ; Mr. Gr-d-ck and Dr. G-ldsm-th, in two old English dresses^'' I had, so to speak, my heart in my mouth. What, you here, my dear Sir Joshua? Ah, what an honor and privilege it is to see you! This is Mr. Goldsmith? And very much, sir, the ruff and the slashed doublet become you ! O Doctor ! what a pleasure I had and have in reading the Animated Nature. How did you learn the secret of writing the decasyllabic line, and whence that sweet wailing note of tenderness that accompanies your song? Was Beau Tibbs a real man, and will you do me the honor of allow- ing me to sit at your table at supper ? Don't you think you know how he would have talked ? Would you not have hked to hear him prattle over the champagne ? Now, Hood is passed away — passed off the earth as much as Goldsmith or Horace. The times in which he lived, and in which very many of us lived and were young, are changing or changed. I saw Hood once as a 3'oung man, at a dinner which seems almost as ghostly now as that masquerade at the Pantheon (1772), of which we were speaking anon. It was at a dinner of the Literary Fund, in that vast apartment which is hung round with the portraits of ver}^ large Royal Freemasons, now unsubstantial ghosts. There at the end of the room was Hood. Some publishers, I think, were our companions. I quite re- member his pale face ; he was thin and deaf, and very silent ; he scarcely opened his lips during the dinner, and he made one pun. Some gentleman missed his snuff-box, and Hood said, — (the Freemasons' Tavern was kept, you must remember, by Mr. Cuff in those da^^s, not b}^ its present proprietors). Well, the box being lost, and asked for, and Cuff (remember that name) being the name of the landlord, Hood opened his silent jaws and said ***** Shall I tell you what he said? It was not a \Q.vy good pun, which the great punster then made. Choose your favorite pun out of "Whims and Oddities," and fancy that was the joke which he contributed to the hilarity of our little table. ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 67 Where those asterisks are drawn on the page, yon must know, a pause occurred, during which I was engaged with "Hood's Own," having been referred to the book b}- this Hfe of the author which I have just been reading. I am not o-oino* to dissert on Hood's humor ; I am not a fair judge. Have I not said elsewhere that there are one or two wonderfully old gentlemen still alive who used to give me tips when I was a boy ? I can't be a fair critic about them. I always think of that sovereign, that rapture of raspberry-tarts, which made my young days happ}^ Those old sovereign-contributors may tell stories ever so old, and I shall laugh ; they may commit murder, and I shall beheve it was justifiable homicide. There is m}^ friend Baggs, who goes about abusing me, and of course oui dear mutual friends tell me. Abuse away, mon hon! You were so kind to me when I wanted kindness, that you ma}" take the change out of that gold now, and sa}' I am a cannibal and negro, if you will. Ha, Baggs ! Dost thou wince as thou readest this line? Does guilty conscience throbbing at thy breast tell thee of whom the fable is narrated ? Puff out thy wrath, and, when it has ceased to blow, my Baggs shall be to me as the Baggs of old — the generous, the gentle, the friendly. No, on second thoughts, I am determined I will not repeat that joke which I heard Hood make. He says he wrote these jokes with such ease that he sent manuscripts to the publishers faster than they could acknowledge the receipt thereof. I won't sa}" that they were all good jokes, or that to read a great book full of them is a work at present altogether jocular. Writing to a friend respecting some memoir of him which had been published. Hood says, "You will judge how well the author knows me, when he says my mind is rather serious than comic," At the time when he wrote these words, he evidently under- valued his own serious power, and thought that in punning and broad-grinning Xskj his chief strength. Is not there something touching in that simplicity and humility of faith ? "To make laugh is my calling," says he ; "I must jump, I must gi'in, I must tumble, I must turn language head over heels, and leap through grammar ; " and he goes to his work humbl}^ and courageously, and what he has to do that does he with all his might, through sickness, through sorrow, through exile, povert}', fever, depression — there he is, always ready to his work, and with a jewel of genius in his pocket ! Why, when he laid down his puns and pranks, put the motley off, and spoke out of his heart, all England and America listened with tears and wonder ! Other men have delusions of conceit, and fancy themselves 68 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. greater than they are, and that the world slights them. Have we not heard how Liston always thought he ought to play Hamlet? Here is a man with a power to touch the heart almost unequalled, and he passes days and 3'ears in writing, " Young Ben he was a nice 3'oung man," and so forth. To say truth, I have been reading in a book of "Hood's Own" until I am perfectly angr}^ "You great man, you good man, 3'ou true genius and poet," I cr}^ out, as I turn page after page. " Do, do, make no more of these jokes, but be 3'ourself, and take your station." When Hood was on his death-bed, Sir Robert Peel, who only knew of his illness, not of his imminent danger, wrote to him a noble and touching letter, announcing that a pension was conferred on him : " I am more than repaid," writes Peel, " by the personal satisfaction which I have had in doing that for which you return me warm and char- acteristic acknowledgments. " You perhaps think that you are known to one with such multifarious occupations as myself, merely by general reputation as an author ; but I assure you that there can be little, which you have written and acknowl- edged, which I have not read ; and that there are few who can appreciate and admire more than myself, the good sense and good feeling which have taught you to infuse so much fun and merriment into writings correcting folly and exposing absurdities, and yet never trespassing beyond those limits within which wit and facetiousness are not very often confined. You may write on with the consciousness of independence, as free and un- fettered, as if no communication had ever passed between us. I am not conferring a private obligation upon you, but am fulfilling the intentions of the legislature, whicli has placed at the disposal of the Crown a certain sum (miserable, indeed, in amount) to be applied to the recognition of public claims on the bounty of the Crown. If you will review the names of those whose claims have been admitted on account of their literary or scientific eminence, you will find an ample confirmation of the truth of my statement. " One return, indeed, I shall ask of you, — that you will give me the opportunity of making your personal acquaintance." And Hood, writing to a friend, enclosing a copy of Peel's letter, says, " Sir R. Peel came from Burleigh on Tuesday night, and went down to Brighton on Saturday. If he had written by post, I should not have have it till to-da3^ So he sent his ser- vant with the enclosed on Saturday night ; another mark of con- siderate attention." He is frightfully unwell, he continues : his wife sa3^s he looks quite green ; but ill as he is, poor fellow, ' ' his well is not dry. He has pumped out a sheet of Christmas fun, is drawing some cuts, and shall wiite a sheet more of his novel." ^ ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 69 Oh, sad, marvellous picture of courage, of honesty, of patient endurance, of duty struggling against pain ! How noble Peel's figure is standing by that sick-bed ! how generous his words how dignified and sincere his compassion ! And the poor djdng man, with a heart full of natural gratitude towards his noble benefactor, must turn to him and say — "If it be well to be remembered by a Minister, it is better still not to be forgotten by him in a ' hurly Burleigh ! ' " Can you laugh ? Is not the joke horribly pathetic from the poor dying lips? As dying Robin Hood must fire a last shot with his bow — as one reads of Catholics on their death-beds putting on a Capuchin dress to go out of the world — here is poor Hood at his last hour putting on his ghastly motley, and uttering one joke more. He dies, however, in dearest love and peace with his chil- dren, wife, friends ; to the former especially his whole life had been devoted, and every day showed his fidelity, simplicity, and affection. In going through the record of his most pure, modest, honorable life, and living along with him, you come to trust him thoroughly, and feel that here is a most loj^al, affec- tionate, and upright sojil, with whom you have been brought into communion. Can we say as much of the lives of all men of letters? Here is one at least without guile, without pre- tension, without scheming, of a pure life, to his family and little modest circle of friends tenderly devoted. And what a hard work, and what a slender reward ! In the little domestic details with which the book abounds, what a simple life is shown to us ! The most^ simple little pleasures and amusements delight and occupy him. You have revels on shrimns ; the good wife making the pie ; details about the maid, and criticisms on her conduct ; wonderful tricks played with the plum-pudding — all the pleasures centring round the little humble home. One of the first men of his time, he is appointed editoi- of a Magazine at a salary of 300^. per annum, signs himself exultingly "Ed. N. M. M.," and the family rejoice over the income as over a fortune. He goes to a Greenwich dinner — what a feast and a rejoicing afterwards ! — " Well, we drank ' the Boz ' with a delectable clatter, which drew from him a good warm-hearted speech. ... He looked very well, and had a younger brother along with him. . . . Then we had songs. Barham chanted a Robin Hood ballad, and Cruikshank sang a burlesque ballad of Lord H ; and somebody, unknown to me, gave a capital imitation of a French showman. Then we toasted Mrs. Boz, ana the Chairman, and Vice, and the Traditional Priest sang the ' Deep deep sea,' in his deep deep voice ; and then we drank to Procter, who wrote the said song ; also Sir J. Wilson's good health, and Cruikshank's, and Ainsworth's : and a Man- 70 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. Chester friend of the latter sang a Manchester ditty, so full of trading stuff, that it really seemed to have been not composed, but manufactured. Jer- dan, as Jerdanish as usual on such occasions — you know how paradoxi- cally he is quite at home in dining oat. As to myself, I had to make my second maiden speech, for Mr. Monckton Milnes proposed my health in terms my modesty might allow me to repeat to you, but my memory won't. However, I ascribed the toast to my notoriously bad health, and assured them that their wishes had already improved it — that I felt a brisker circulation — a more genial warmth about the heart, and explained that a certain trembling of my hand was not from palsy, or my old ague, but an inclination in my hand to sliake itself with every one present. Whereupon I had to go tlirough the friendly ceremony with as many of the company as were within reach, besides a few more who came express from the otlier end of the table. Ve7-y gratifying, wasn't it ? Though I cannot go quite so far as Jane, who wants me to have that hand chopped off, bottled, and preserved in spirits. She was sitting up for me, very anxiously, as usual when I go out, because I am so domestic and steady, and was down at the door before I could ring at the gate, to which Boz kin'dly sent me in his own carriage. Poor girl ! what would she do if she had a wild husband instead of a tame one 1 " And the poor anxious wife is sitting up, and fondles the hand which has been shaken by so man}- illustrious men ! The little feast dates back only eighteen 3^©ars, and yet somehow it seems as distant as a dinner at Mr. Thrale's, or a meeting at wni's. Poor littl6 gleam of sunshine ! very little good cheer enlivens that sad simple life. We have the triumph of the Magazine : then a new Magazine projected and produced : then illness and the last scene, and the kind Peel by the d3ing man's bedside speaking noble words of respect and sj^mpathj^, and soothing the last throbs of the tender honest heart. I like, I say, Hood's life even better than his books, and I wish, with all my heart, Monsieur et cher confrere^ the same could be said for both of us, when the inkstream of our life hath ceased to run. Yes : if I drop first, dear Baggs, I trust you may find reason to modify some of the unfavorable views of my character, which you are freely imparting to our mutual friends. What ought to be the literary man's point of honor now-a-days? Suppose, friendly reader, 3'ou are one of the craft, what legacy would you like to leave to your children? First of all (and by heaven's gracious help) you would pray and strive to give them such an endowment of love, as should last certainly for all their lives, and perhaps be transmitted to their children. You would (by the same aid and blessing) keep your honor pure, and transmit a name unstained to those who have a right to bear it. You would, — though this faculty of giving is one of the easiest of the literary man's qualities — ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 71 you would, nut of 3'our earnings, small or great, be able to help a poor brother in need, to dress his wounds, and, if it were but twopence, to give him succor. Is the money which the noble Macaulay gave to the poor lost to his family? God forbid. To the loving hearts of his kindred is it not rather the most precious part of their inheritance ? It was invested in love and righteous doing, and it bears interest in heaven. You will, if letters be your vocation, find saving harder than giving and spending. To save be 3^our endeavor, too, against the night's coming when no man may work ; when the arm is weary with the long day's labor; when the brain perhaps grows dark; when the old, who can labor no more, want warmth and rest, and the young ones call for supper. I copied the little galley-slave who is made to figure in the initial letter of this paper, from a quaint old silver spoon which ^e purchased in a curiosity-shop at the Hague.* It is one of the gift spoons so common in Holland, and which have multi- plied so astonishingly of late j^ears at our dealers' in old silver- ware. Along the stem of the spoon are written the words : *' Anno 1609, Bin ick aldus ghekledt gheghaen " — "In the j^ear 1609 I went thus clad." The good Dutchman was released from his Algerine captivity (I imagine his figure looks like that of a slave amongst the Moors), and in his thank-offering to some godchild at home, he thus piously records his escape. Was not poor Cervantes also a captive amongst the Moors? Did not Fielding, and Goldsmith, and Smollett, too, die at the chain as well as poor Hood ? Think of Fielding going on board his wretched ship in the Thames, with scarce a hand to bid him farewell ; of brave Tobias Smollett, and his life, how hard, and how poorly rewarded ; of Goldsmith, and the physician whis- pering,," Have 3^ou something on your mind?^' and the wild dying eyes answering, "Yes." Notice how Boswell speaks of Goldsmith, and the splendid contempt with which he regards him. Read Hawkins on Fielding, and the scorn with which Dandy Walpole and Bishop Hurd speak of him. Galley-slaves doomed to tug the oar and wear the chain, whilst my lords and dandies take their pleasure, and hear fine music and disport with fine ladies in the cabin ! * This refers to an illustrated edition of the work. 72 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. But stay. Was there any cause for this scorn ? Had some of these great men weaknesses which gave inferiors advantage over them? Men of letters cannot la}- their hands on their hearts, and say, " No, the fault was fortune's, and the indiffer- ent world's, not Goldsmith's nor Fielding's." There was no reason wh}' Oliver should always be thriftless ; wh}^ Fielding and Steele should sponge upon their friends ; why Sterne should make love to his neighbors' wives. Swift, for a long time, was as poor as any wag that ever laughed : but he owed no penny to his neighbors : Addison, when he wore his most threadbare coat, could hold his head up, and maintain his dignity : and, I dare vouch, neither of those gentlemen, when they were ever so poor, asked any man alive to pity their condition, and have a regard to the weaknesses incidental to the literary profession. Galle}'- slave, forsooth ! If you are sent to prison for some error for which the law awards that sort of laborious seclusion, so much the more shame for you. If 3^ou are chained to the oar a prisoner of war, like Cervantes, you have the pain, but not the shame, and the friendty compassion of luankind to reward 3^ou. Gallej^-slaves, indeed ! What man has not his oar to pull? There is that wonderful old stroke-oar in the Queen's gaUe}^ How many years has he pulled? Da}" and night, in rough water or smooth, with what invincible vigor and sur- prising ga3'ety he plies his arms. There is in the same Galere Capitaine^ that well-known, trim figure, the bow-oar ; how he tugs, and with what a will ! How both of them have been abused in their time ! Take the Lawyer's gallej', and that dauntless octogenarian in command ; when has he ever com- plained or repined about his slavery? There is the Priest's galley — black and lawn sails — do an}" mariners out of Thames work harder? When lawyer, and statesman, and divine, and writer are snug in bed, there is a ring at the poor Doctor's bell. Forth he must go, in rheumatism or snow ; a galley-slave bear^ ing his galley-pots to quench the flames of fever, to succor mothers and young children in their hour of peril, and, as gently and soothingly as may be, to carry the hopeless patient pver to the silent shore. And have we not just read of the actions of the Queen's galleys and their brave crews in the Chinese waters? Men not more worthy of human renown and honor to-day in their ^dctory, than last year in their glorious hour of disaster. So with stout hearts may we ply the oar, messmates all, till the voyage is over, and the Harbor of Rest is found. ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 73 BOUND ABOUT THE CHEISTMAS TREE. The kindly Christmas tree, from which I trust ever}^ gentle reader has pulled a bonbon or two, is 3^et all aflame whilst I am writing, and sparkles with the sweet fruits of its season. You young ladies, may you have plucked pretty giftlings from it ; and out of the cracker sugarplum which you have spHt with the captain or the sweet young curate may you have read one of those delicious conundrums which the confectioners introduce into the sweetmeats, and which apply to the cunning passion of love. Those riddles are to be read at your age, when I dare say they are amusing. As for Dolly, Merry, and Bell, who are standing at the tree, the}^ don't care about the love-riddle part, but understand the sweet-almond portion very well. They are four, five, six years old. Patience, little people ! A dozen merry Christmases more, and 3^ou will be reading those wonder- ful love-conundrums, too. As for us elderly folks, we watch the babies at their sport, and the 3^oung people pulling at the branches : and instead of finding bonbons or sweeties in the packets which we pluck off the boughs, we find enclosed Mr. Carnifex's review of the quarter's meat ; Mr. Sartor's compli- ments, and little statement for self and the young gentlemen ; and Madame de Sainte-Crinoline's respects to the young ladies, who encloses her account, and will send on Saturday, please ; or we stretch our hand out to the educational branch of the Christmas tree, and there find a livelj^ and amusing article from the Rev. Henry Holyshade, containing our dear Tommy's ex- ceedingly moderate account for the last term's school expenses. The tree yet sparkles, I sa}^ I am writing on the daj^ before Twelfth Day, if you must know ; but alread}^ ever so man}'^ of the fruits have been pulled, and the Christmas lights have gone out. Bobby Miseltow, who has been staying with us for a week (and who has been sleeping mj^steriously in the bath- room) , comes to say he is going away to spend the rest of the holidays with his grandmother — and I brush awa}' the manly tear of regret as I part with the dear child. "Well, Bob, good-by, since j^ou will go. Compliments to grandmamma. Thaiik her for the turkey. Here's — " {A slight pecuniary transection takes place at this juncture^ and Bob nods and winks^ and ptkts his hand in his waistcoat pocket.) '* You have had a pleasant week?" 74 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. Bob. — "Haven't I!" (A?id exit^ anxious to know the amount of the coin which has just changed hands. ^ He is gone, and as the dear boy vanishes through the door (behind which I see him perfectl3'), I too cast up a little ac- count of our past Christinas week. AVhen Bob's holidaj's are over, and the printer has sent me back this manuscript, I know Christmas will be an old story. All the fruit will be off the Christmas tree then ; the crackers will have cracked off ; the almonds will have been crunched ; and the sweet-bitter riddles will have been read ; the lights will have perished off the dark green boughs ; the toys growing on them will have been dis- tributed, fought for, cherished, neglected, broken. Ferdinand and Fidelia will each keep out of it (be still, my gushing heart !) the remembrance of a riddle read together, of a double-almond munched together, and the moiety of an exploded cracker. . . . The maids, I say, will have taken down all that holly stuff and nonsense about the clocks, lamps, and looking-glasses, the dear boys will be back at school, fondly thinking of the pantomime-fairies whom they have seen ; whose gaud}^ gossa- • mer wings are battered by this time ; and whose pink cotton (or silk is it?) lower extremities are all dingy and dusty. Yet but a few days. Bob, and flakes of paint will have cracked off the fairy flower-bowers, and the revolving temples of adaman- tine lustre will be as shabby as the cit}^ of Pekin. When 3'on read this, will Clown still be going on lolling his tongue out of his mouth, and saying, "How are j^ou to-morrow?" To- morrow, indeed ! He must be almost ashamed of himself (if that cheek is still capable of the blush of shame) for asking the absurd question. To-morrow, indeed ! To-morrow the diffu- gient snows will give place to Spring ; the snowdrops will Hft their heads ; Ladyday may be expected, and the pecuniar}^ duties peculiar to that feast ; in place of bonbons, trees will have an eruption of light green knobs ; the whitebait season will bloom ... as if one need go on describing these vernal phenomena, when Christmas is still here, though ending, and the subject of m}^ discourse ! We have all admired the illustrated papers, and noted how boisteroush^ joH}" ^^^3' become at Christmas time. What was- sail-bowls, robin-redbreasts, waits, snow landscapes, bursts of Christmas song ! And then to think that these festivities Jire 'pf epared months before — that these Christmas pieces are pro- phetic ! How kind of artists and poets to devise tUe festii^ities beforehand, and serve them pat at the proper tim& ! We ought to be grateful to them, as to the cook who gets up at nidnight / ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 75 and sets the pudding a-boiling, which is to feast us at six o'clock. I often think with gratitude of the famous Mr. Nelson Lee — the author of I don't know how many hundred glorious pantomimes — walking by the summer wave at Margate, or Brighton perhaps, revolving in his mind the idea of some new '•gorgeous spectacle of faer}', which the winter shall see complete. He is like cook at midnight (si parva licet) . -He watches and thinks. He pounds the sparlding sugar of benevolence, the plums of fanc}^ the sweetmeats of fun, the figs of — well, the figs of fairy fiction, let us sa}^, and pops the whole in the seeth- ing caldron of imagination, and at due season serves up the Pantomime. Very few men in the course of nature can expect to see all the pantomimes in one season, but I hope to the end of m}- hfe I shall never forego reading about them in that delicious sheet of The Times which appears on the morning after Boxing-day. Perhaps reading is even better than seeing. The best wa}^ I think, is to say you are ill, lie in bed, and have the paper for two hours, reading all the wa/down from Drurj^ Lane to the Britannia at Hoxton. Bob and I went to two pantomimes. One was at the Theatre of Fancy, and the other at the Fairy Opera, and I don't know which we liked the best. At the Fancy, we saw ' ' Harlequin Hamlet, or Daddy's Ghost and Nunk3^'s Pison," which is all very well — but, gen- tlemen, if you don't respect Shakspeare, to whom will you be civil? The palace and ramparts of Elsinore b3' moon and snowlight is one of Loutherbourg's finest efforts. The ban- queting hall of the palace is illuminated : the peaks and gables •glitter with the snow : the sentinels march blowing their fingers with the cold — the freezing of the nose of one of them is very neatty and dexterously arranged : the snow-storm rises : the winds howl awfully along the battlements : the waves come curling, leaping, foaming to shore. Hamlet's umbrella is whirled away in the storm. He and his two friends stamp on each other's toes to keep them warm. The storm-spirits rise in the air, and are whirled howling round the palace and the rocks. My ej^es ! what tiles and chimnej'-pots fly hurtling through the air ! As the storm reaches its height (here the wind instruments come in with prodigious eff'ect, and I compli- ment Ml Brumby and the violoncellos) — as the snow-storm rises, (quetk, queek, queek, go the fiddles, and then thrumpt}^ thrump con/^s a pizzicato movement in Bob Major, which sends a shivci into your ver}^ boot-soles,) the thunder-clouds deepen (bong, V)ng, bong, from the violoncellos). The forked 76 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. lightning quivers through the clouds in a zig-zag scream of vio- lins — and look, look, look ! as the frothing, roaring waves come rushing up the battlements, and over the reeling parapet, each hissing wave becomes a ghost, sends the gun-carriages rolling over the platform, and plunges howling into the water again. Hamlet's mother comes on to the battlements to look for her son. The storm whips her umbrella out of her hands, and she retires screaming in pattens. The cabs on the stand in the great market-place at Elsinore are seen to drive off, and several people are drowned. The gas-lamps along the street are wrenched from their founda- tions, and shoot through the troubled air. Whist, rush, hish ! how the rain roars and pours ! The darkness becomes awful, alwa3^s deepened by the power of the music — and see — in the midst of a rush, and whirl, and scream of spirits of air and wave — what is that ghastly figure moving hither ? It becomes bigger, bigger, as it advances down the platform — more ghastl}^, more horrible, enormous ! It is as tall as the whole stage. It seems to be advancing on the stalls and pit, and the whole house screams with terror, as the Ghost op the late Hamlet comes in, and begins to speak. Several people faint, and the light-fingered gentr}^ pick pockets furiously in the darkness. In the pitchy darkness, this awful figure throwing his eyes about, the gas in the boxes shuddering out of sight, and the wind-instruments bugling the most horrible wails, the boldest spectator must have felt frightened. But hark ! what is that silver shimmer of the fiddles ! Is it — can it be — the gray dawn peeping in the stormy east? The ghost's ejes look blankly towards it, and roll a ghastly agon}^ Quicker, quicker ply the violins of Phoebus Apollo. Redder, redder grow the orient clouds, Cockadoodledoo ! crows that gi-eat cock which has just come out on the roof of the palace. And now the round sun himself pops up from behind the waves of night. Where is the ghost ? He is gone ! Purple shadows of morn "slant o'er the snow}^ sward," the city wakes up in life and sunshine, and we confess we are ver}'^ much relieved at the dis- appearance of the ghost. We don't like those dark scenes in pantomimes. * After the usual business, that Ophelia should be tu^rned into Columbine was to be expected ; but I confess I ^as a little shocked when Hamlet's mother became Pantaloon, and was instantly knocked down by Clown Claudius. Gfimaldi is get- ting a Mttle old now, but for real humor therf are few clown* ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 77 like him. Mr. Shuter, as the grave-digger, was chaste and comic, as he always is, and the scene-painters surpassed them- selves. "Harlequin Conqueror and the Field of Hastings," at the other house, is very pleasant too. The irascible William is acted with great vigor by Snoxall, and the battle of Hastino-s is a good piece of burlesque. Some trifling liberties are taken with history, but what liberties will not the merry genius of pantomime permit himself? At the battle of Hastings, Wil- liam is on the point of being defeated by the Sussex volunteers, very elegantly led by the always pretty Miss Waddy (as Haco Sharpshooter), when a shot from the Normans kills Harold. The fairy Edith hereupon comes forward, and finds his body, which straightway leaps up a live harlequin, whilst the Con- queror makes an excellent clown, and the Archbishop of Bayeux a diverting pantaloon, &c. &c. &c. Perhaps these are not the pantomimes we really saw ; but one description will do as well as another. The plots, you see, are a little intricate and difficult to understand in pantomimes ; and I may have mixed up one with another. That I was at the theatre on Boxing- night is certain — but the pit was so full that I could onty see fairy legs glittering in the distance, as I stood at the door. And if I was badly off", I think there was a young gentleman behind me worse off still. I own that he has good reason (though others have not) to speak ill of me behind my back, and hereby beg his pardon. Likewise to the gentleman who picked up a party in Picca- dilly, who had slipped and fallen in the snow, and was there on his back, uttering energetic expressions ; that party begs to offer thanks, and compliments of the season. Bob's behavior on New Year's day, I can assure Dr. Holy- shade, was highly creditable to the boy. He had expressed a determination to partake of ever}' dish which was put on the table ; but after soup, fish, roast-beef, and roast-goose, he re- tired from active business until the pudding and mince-pies made their appearance, 'of which he partook liberally, but not too freely. And he greatly advanced in my good opinion by praising the punch, which was of my own manufacture, and which some gentlemen present (Mr. CM — g — n, amongst others) pronounced to be too weak. Too weak ! A bottle of rum, a bottle of Madeira, half a bottle of brandy, and two bot- tles and a half of water — can this mixture be said to be too weak for any mortal ? Our young friend amused the company during the evening by exhibiting a two-shilling magic-lantern, 78 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. which he had purchased, and likewise by singing " Sally, come up ! " a quaint, but rather monotonous melody, which I am told is sung by the poor negro on the banks of the broad Missis- sippi. What other enjo3-ments did we proffer for the child's amuse- ment during the Christmas week? A great philosopher was giving a lecture to young folks at the British Institution. But when this diversion was proposed to our 3'oung friend Bob, he said, "Lecture? No, thank 30U. Not as I knows on," and made sarcastic signals on his nose. Perhaps he^is of Dr. John- J| son's opinion about lectures : " Lectures, sir ! what man would go to hear that imperfectly at a lecture, which he can read at leisure in a book?" /never went, of my own choice, to a lec- ture ; that I can vow. As for sermons, they are different; I delight in them, and they cannot, of course, be too long. Well, we partook of 3'et other Christmas delights besides pantomime, pudding, and pie. One glorious, one delightful, one most unlucky and pleasant da3', we drove in a brougham, with a famous horse, which carried us more quickl3* and briskly than any of 3'our vulgar railwa3^s, over Battersea Bridge, on which the horse's hoofs rung as if it had been iron ; through suburban villages, plum-caked with snow ; under a leaden sk3^, in which the sun hung like a red-hot warming-pan ; b3" pond after pond, where not onl3^ men and bo3^s, but scores after scores of women and girls, were sliding, and roaring, and clap- ping their lean old sides with laughter, as the3^ tumbled down, and their hobnailed shoes flew up in the air ; the air frost3^ with a lilac haze, through which villas, and commons, and churches, and plantations glimmered. We drive up the hill. Bob and I ; we make the last two miles in eleven minutes ; we pass that poor, armless man who sits there in the cold, following 3'ou with his e3'es. I don't give anything, and Bob looks disappointed. We are set down neatl3^ at the gate, and a horse-holder opens the brougham door. I don't give an3^thing ; again disappointment on Bob's part. I pay a shilling apiece, and we enter into the glorious building, which is decorated for Christmas, and straight- way forgetfulness on Bob's part of everything but that magnifi- cent scene. The enormous edifice is all decorated for Bob and Christmas. The stalls, the columns, the fountains, courts, statues, splendors, are all crowned for Christmas. The de- Ucious negi'o is singing his Alabama choruses for Christmas and Bob. He has scarcely done, when, Tootarootatoo ! Mr. Punch is performing his surprising actions, and hanging the beadle. The stalls are decorated. The refreshment- tables are ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 79 piled with good things ; at many fountains " Mulled Claret" is written up in appetizing capitals. "Mulled Claret oh, jolly! How cold it is!" says Bob; I pass on. "It's only thi-ee o'clock," says Bob. "No, only three," I say, meekly. "We dine at seven," sighs Bob, " and it's so-o-o coo-old." I still would take no hints. No claret, no refreshment, no sand- wiches, no sausage-rolls for Bob. At last I am obliged to tell him all. Just before we left home, a little Christmas bill popped in at the door and emptied my purse at the threshold. I forgot all about the transaction, and had to borrow half a crown from John Coachman to pay for our entrance into the palace of delight. N^ow you see. Bob, why I could not treat you on that second of January when we drove to the palace together ; when the girls and boys were sliding on the ponds at Dulwich ; when the darkling river was full of floating ice, and the sun was like a warming-pan in the leaden sky. One more Christmas sight we had, of course ; and that sight I think I like as well as Bob himself at Christmas, and at all seasons. We went to a certain garden of delight, where, what- ever your ^ares are, I think you can manage to forget some of them, and muse, and be not unhappy ; to a garden beginning with a Z, which is as lively as Noah's ark ; where the fox has brought his brush, and the cock has brought his comb, and the elephant has brought his trunk, and the kangaroo has brought his bag, and the condor his old white wig and black satin hood. On this day it was so cold that the white bears winked their pink eyes, as the3^ plapped up and down b}" their pool, and seemed to say, " Aha, this weather reminds us of our dear home ! " " Cold I bah ! I have got such a warm coat," says brother Bruin, " I don't mind ; " and he laughs on his pole, and clucks down a bun. The squealing hysenas gnashed their teeth and laughed at us quite refreshingly at their window ; and, cold as it was, Tiger, Tiger, burning bright, glared at us red-hot through his bars, and snorted blasts of hell. The woolly camel leered at us quite kindly as he paced round his ring on his silent pads. We went to our favorite places. Our dear wambat came up, and had himself scratched very affably. Our fellow-creatures in the monkey-room held out their little black hands, and piteously asked us for Christmas alms. Those darling alUgators on their rock winked at us in the most friendly way. The solemn eagles sat alone, and scowled at us from their peaks ; whilst Uttle Tom Ratel tumbled over head and heels for us in his usual diverting manner. If I have cares in my mind, I come to the Zoo, and fancy they don't pass the gate. I recognize my friends, my 80 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. enemies, in countless cages. I entertained the eagle, the vul- ture, the old billy-goat, and the black-pated, crimson-necked, blear-eyed, baggy, hook-beaked old marabou stork yesterday at dinner ; and when Bob's aunt came to tea in the evening, and asked him what he had seen, he stepped up to her gravely, and said — "First I saw the wliite bear, then T saw the black, Then I saw the camel with a hump upon his back. CMLdren \ ^^^^^^ ^ ^^^ *^^^ camel with a hump upon liis back ! Then I saw the gray wolf, with mutton in his maw ; Then I saw the wambat waddle in the straw ; Then I saw the elephant with his waving trunk. Then I saw the monkeys — mercy, how unpleasantly they — smelt ! " There. No one can beat that piece of wit, can he. Bob? And so it is all over ; but we had a jolly time, whilst 3'ou were with us, hadn't we ? Present my respects to the doctor ; and I hope, ^7 boy, we may spend another merry Christmas next year. ON A CHALK-MAEK ON THE DOOR On the doorpost of the house of a friend of mine, a few inches above the lock, is a little chalk-mark which some sport- ive boy in passing has probably scratched on the pillar. The door-steps, the lock, handle, and so forth, are kept decently- enough ; but this chalk-mark, I suppose some three inches out of the housemaid's beat, has already- been on the door for more than a fortnight, and I wonder whether it will be there whilst this paper is being written, whilst it is at the printer's, and, in fine, until the month passes OA^er? I wonder whether the ser- vants in that house will read these remarks about the chalk- mark? That the CornhiU Magazine is taken in in that house I know. In fact I have seen it there. In fact I have read it there. In fact I have written it there. In a word, the house to which I allude is mine — the " editor's private residence," to which, in spite of prayers, entreaties, commands, and threats, authors, and ladies especially, will send their com- munications, although the}^ won't understand that the}' injure their own interests by so doing ; for how is a man who has his ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 81 own work to do, his own exquisite inventions to form and per- fect — Maria to rescue from the unprincipled Earl — the atro- cious General to confound in his own machinations — the an- gelic Dean to promote to a bishopric, and so forth — how is a man to do all this, under a hundred interruptions, and keep his nerves and temper in that just and equable state in which they ought to be when he comes to assume the critical office ? As you will send here, ladies, I must tell 3'ou 3'ou have a much worse chance than if you forward your valuable articles to Cornhill. Here your papers arrive, at dinner-time, we will say. Do j'^ou suppose that is a pleasant period, and that we are to criticise you between the ovum and malum ^ between the soup and the dessert? I have touched, I think, on this subject before. I saj^ again, if you want real justice shown you, don't send your papers to the private residence. At home, for instance, yesterda3% having given strict orders that I was to receive nobod}', "except on business," do 3^ou sup- pose a smiling 3^oung Scottish gentleman, who forced himself into m3' stud3^, and there announced himself as agent of a Cattle-food Compan3^, was received with pleasure? There, as I sat in m3^ arm-chair, suppose he had proposed to draw a couple of m3^ teeth, would I have been pleased? I could have throttled that agent. I dare say the whole of that da3^'s work will be found tinged with a ferocious misanthropy, occasioned b3' my clever young friend's intrusion. Cattle-food, indeed ! As if beans, oats, warm mashes, and a ball, are to be pushed down a man's throat just as he is meditating on the great social problem, or (for I think it was my epic I was going to touch up) just as he was about to soar to the height of the empyrean ! Having got my cattle-agent out of the door, I resume my consideration of that little mark on the doorpost, which is scored up as the text of the present little sermon ; and which I hope will relate, not to chalk, nor to any of its special uses or abuses (such as milk, neck-powder, and the like) , but to servants. Surel3" ours might remove that unseemly little mark. Suppose it were on m3^ coat, might I not request its removal ? I remember, when I was at school, a little careless boy, upon whose forehead an ink-mark remained, and was perfectly rec- ognizable for three weeks after its first appearance. May I take any notice of this chalk-stain on the forehead of my house? Whose business is it to wash that forehead? and ought I to fetch a brush and a little hot water, and wash it off myself? 6 S2 ROUNDABOUl: PAPERS. Yes. But that spot removed, wh}^ not come down at six, and wash the doorsteps? I dare sa}' the early rising and exercise would do me a great deal of good. The housemaid, in that case, might lie in bed a little later, and have her tea and the morning paper brought to her in bed : then, of course, Thomas would expect to be helped about the boots and knives ; cook about the saucepans, dishes, and what not ; the lad3''s- maid would want somebod}^ to take the curl-papers out of her hair, and get her bath read3^ You should have a set of ser- vants for the servants, and these under servants should have slaves to wait on them. The king commands the first lord in waiting to desire the second lord to intimate to the gentle- man usher to request the page of the ante-chamber to entreat the groom of the stairs to implore John to ask the captain of the buttons to desire the maid of the still-room to beg the housekeeper to give out a few more lumps of sugar, as his Majest}' has none for his coffee, which probabl}^ is getting cold during the negotiation. In our little Brentfords we are all kings, more or less. There are orders, gradations, hierar-jj chies, ever3^where. In j'our house and mine there are mys- teries unknown to us. I am not going in to the horrid old question of "followers." I don't mean cousins from the country, love-stricken policemen, or gentlemen in mufti from Knightsbridge Barracks ; but people who have an occult right on the premises ; the uncovenanted servants of the house ; gray women wlio are seen at evening with baskets flitting about area-railings ; ding}^ shawls which drop you furtive curtsies in your neighborhood ; demure little Jacks, who start up from behind boxes in the pantry. Those outsiders wear Thomas's crest and Hver}^, and call him ' ' Sir ; " those silent women address the female servants as " Mum," and curtsy before them, squaring their arms over their wretched lean aprons. Then, again, those servi servorum have dependants in the vast, silent, poverty-stricken world outside your comfortable kitchen fire, in the world of darkness, and hunger, and miserable cold, and dank, flagged cellars, and huddled straw, and rags, in which pale children are swarming. It may be your beer (which runs with great volubility) has a pipe or two which com- municates with those dark caverns where hopeless anguish pours the groan, and would scarce see light but for a scrap or two of candle which has been whipped awa}'- from 3'our worship's kitchen. Not man}?- years ago — I don't know whether before or since that white mark was drawn on the door — a lad}^ occu- pied the confidential place of housemaid in this ' ' private resi- ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 83 dence," who brought a good character, who seemed to have a cheerful temper, whom I used to hear clattering and bumping overhead or on the stairs long before dajUght — there, I say, was poor Camilla, scouring the plain, trundling and brushing^ and clattering with her pans and brooms, and humming at her work. Well, she had established a smuggling communication of beer over the area frontier. This neat-handed PhylUs used to pack up the nicest baskets of m}^ provender, and convey them to somebody outside — I believe, on my conscience, to some poor friend in distress. Camilla was consigned to her doom. She was sent back to her friends in the country ; and when she was gone we heard of many of her faults. She ex- pressed herself, when displeased, in language that I shall not repeat. As for the beer and meat, there was no mistake about them. But apres? Can I have the heart to be very angry with that poor jade for helping another poorer jade out of my larder? On your honor and conscience, when you were a boy, and the apples looked temptingly over Farmer Quarringdon's hedge, did you never — ? When there was a grand dinner at home, and you were shding, with Master Bacon, up and down the stairs, and the dishes came out, did you ever do such a thing as just to — ? Well, in many and many a re- spect servants are like children. They are under domination. They are subject to reproof, to ill temper, to petty exactions and stupid tyrannies not seldom. They scheme, conspire, fawn, and are hypocrites. "Little boys should not loll on chairs." "Little girls should be seen, and not heard;" and so forth. Have we not almost all learnt these expressions of old foozles : and uttered them ourselves when in the square- toed state? The Eton master, who was breaking a lance with our Paterfamilias of late, turned on Paterfamilias, saying. He knows not the nature and exquisite candor of well-bred Eng- lish boys. Exquisite fiddlestick's end, Mr. Master ! Do you mean for to go for to tell us that the relations between young gentlemen and their schoolmasters are entirely frank and cor- dial ; that the lad is familiar with the man who can have him flogged ; never shirks his exercise ; never gets other boys to do his verses ; never does other boys' verses ; never breaks bounds ; never tells fibs — I mean the fibs permitted by scho- lastic honor ? Did I know of a boy who pretended to such a character, I would forbid my scapegraces to keep company with him. Did I know a schoolmaster who pretended to believe in the existence of many hundred such boys in one school at one time, I would set that man down as a baby in knowledge 84 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. of the world. "Who was making that noise?" "I don^ know, sir." — And he knows it was the boy next him in school. " Who was climbing over that wall? " "I don't know, sir." — And it is in the speaker's own trousers, very likely, the glass bottle-tops have left their cruel scars. And so with servants. " Who ate up the three pigeons which went down in the pigeon- pie at breakfast this morning? " " O dear me ! sir, it was John, who went awa}^ last month ! " — or, ' ' I think it was Miss Mary's canary-bird, which got out of the cage, and is so fond of pig- eons, it never can have enough of them." Yes, it was the canar^'-bird ; and Eliza saw it ; and Eliza is read}^ to vow she did. These statements are not true ; but please don't call them lies. This is not lying ; this is voting with your party. You must back your own side. The servants' -hall stands by the servants' -hall against the dining-room. The schoolboys don't tell tales of each other. They agree not to choose to know who has made the noise, who has broken the window, who has eaten up the pigeons, who has picked all the plovers'-eggs out of the aspic, how it is that liqueur brand}' of Gledstane's is in such porous glass bottles — and so forth. Suppose Brutus had a foot- man, who came and told him that the butler drank the Cura9oa, which of these servants would you dismiss ? — the butler, per- haps, but the footman certainly. No. If your plate and glass are beautifull}- bright, j'our bell quickl}^ answered, and Thomas read}', neat, and good- humored, you are not to expect absolute truth from him. The very obsequiousness and perfection of his service prevents truth. He may be ever so unwell in mind or bod}^, and he must go through his service — hand the shining plate, replenish the spotless glass, la}^ the ghttering fork — never laugh when you yourself or 3'our guests joke — be profoundly attentive, and yet look utterly impassive — exchange a few hurried curses at the door with that unseen slave}' who ministers without, and with 3'ou be perfectly calm and polite. If you are ill, he will come twenty times in an hour to your bell ; or leave the girl of his heart — his mother, who is going to America — his dearest friend, who has come to say farewell — his lunch, and his glass of beer just freshly poured out — an}^ or all of these, if the door-bell rings, or the master calls out "Thomas" from the hall. Do you suppose 3"ou can expect absolute candor from a man whom 3'ou ma}' order to powder his hair? As between the Rev. Henry Holj'shade and his pupil, the idea of entire unreserve is utter bosh ; so the truth as between 3'OU and Jeaijies or Thomas, or Mary the housemaid, or Betty the cook, d 11 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 85 is relative, and not to be demanded on one side or the other. Why, respectful civility is itself a lie, which poor Jeames ofteii has to utter or perform to many a swaggering vulgarian, who should black Jeames's boots, did Jeames wear them and not shoes. There is your little Tom, just ten, ordering the great, large, quiet, orderly young man about — shrieking calls for hot water — bullying Jeames because the boots are not varnished enough, or ordering him to go- to the stables, and ask Jenkins why the deuce Tomkins hasn't brought his pony round or what }• ou will. There is mamma rapping the knuckles of Pincot the lady's-maid, and little Miss scolding Martha, who waits up five pair of stairs in the nursery. Little Miss, Tommy, papa, mamma, you all expect from Martha, from Pincot, from Jenkins, from Jeames, obsequious civility and willing service. My dear, ^ood people, you can't have truth too. Suppose you ask for y'our newspaper, and Jeames says, " Pm reading it, and jest beg not to be disturbed ; " or suppose you ask for a can of water, and he remarks, "You great, big, 'ulking fellar, ain't you big enough to bring it hup j^oursulf?" what would your feelings be ? Now, if you made similar proposals or requests bo Mr. Jones next door, this ig- the kind of answer Jones would ^ive you. You get truth habituallj' from equals onl}^ ; so my ^ood Mr. Holyshade, don't talk to me about the habitual candor 3f the young Etonian of high birth, or I have my own opinion 5f yowr candor or discernment when you do. No. Tom Bow- ling is the soul of honor and has been true to Black-eyed Syousan since the last time they parted at Wapping Old Stairs ; but do you suppose Tom is perfectly frank, familiar, and above- board in his conversation with Admiral Nelson, K.C.B. ? There ire secrets, prevarications, fibs, if you will, between Tom and :he Admiral — between your crew and their captain. I know [ hire a worthy, clean, agreeable, and conscientious male or female hj^pocrite, at so many guineas a year, to do so and so for me. Were he other than hj pocrite I would send him about lis business. Don't let mj' displeasure be too fierce with him 'or a fib or two on his own account. Some dozen years ago, loay famil}' being absent in a distant 3art of the country, and my business detaining me in London, i remained in my own house with three servants on board ivages. I used only to breakfast at home ; and future ages m\\ be interested to know that this meal used to consist, at ihat period, of tea, a penny roll, a pat of butter, and, perhaps, m egg. My weekly bill used invariably to be about fifty shil- ings; so that, as I never dined in the house, you see, my 86 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. breakfast, consisting of the delicacies before mentioned, cos about seven shillings and threepence per diem. I must, there-, fore, have consumed daily — A quarter of a pound of tea (say) A penny roll (say) One pound of butter (say) One pound of lump sugar A new-laid egg s. d. 1 3 1 1 3 1 2 9 Which is the only possible way I have for making out the sum.] Well, I fell ill while under this regimen, and had an illness which, but for a certain doctor, who was brought to me by aj certain kind friend I had in those da^'s, would, I think, have] prevented the possibilitj^ of my telling this interesting anecdote! now a dozen j^ears after. Don't be frightened, m}- dear madam ; it is not a horrid, sentimental account of a malady 3^ou are •coming to — onl}' a question of grocery. This illness, I saj', lasted some seventeen da3's, during whicli the servants were admirably attentive and kind ; and poor John, especiall}', was up at all hours, watching night after night — amiable, cheerful, untiring, respectful, the ver}^ best of Johns and nurses. Twice or thrice in the seventeen daj^s I may have had a glass of eau sucree — sa}' a dozen glasses of eau sucree — cer- tainh' not more. Well, this admirable, watchful, cheerful, tender, affectionate John brought me in a little bill for seven- teen pounds of sugar consumed during the illness — ' ' Often 'ad sugar and water ; alwa3's was a callin' for it," says John, wagging his head quite gravely. You are dead, 3'ears and 3'^ears ago, poor John — so patient, so friendl3', so kind, so cheerful to the invalid in the fever. But confess, now, wherever you are, that seventeen pounds of sugar to make six glasses of eau sucree was a little too strong, wasn't it, John? Ah, how frankl3^, how trustil3% how bravel3' he lied, poor John ! One evening, being at Brighton, in the convalescence, I remember John's step was unstead3^, his voice thick, his laugh queer — and having some quinine to give me, John brought the glass to me — not to m3' mouth, but struck me with it prett3' smartl3' in the e3'e, which was not the way in which Dr. Elliotson had intended his prescription should be taken. Turning that eye upon him, I ventured to hint that m3^ attendant had been drink- ing. Drinking ! I never was more humiliated at the thought of my own injustice than at John's reply. " Drinking ! Sulp me ! I have had only one pint of beer with my dinner at one o'clock ! " — and he retreats, holding on by a chair. These are ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 8? fibs, you see, appertaining to the situation. John is drunk. " Sulp him, he has only had an 'alf-pint of beer with his dinner six hours ago ; " and none of his fellow-servants will say other- wise. Polly is smuggled on board ship. Who tells the heu- tenant when he comes his rounds ? Boys are playing cards in the bedroom. The outlying fag announces master coming — out go candles — cards popped into bed — bo3^s sound asleep. Who had that light in the dormitory ? Law bless you ! the poor dear innocents are every one snoring. Every one snoring, and every snore is a lie told through the nose ! Suppose one of your boys or mine is engaged in that awful crime, are we going to break our hearts about it? Come, come. We pull a long face, waggle a grave head, and chuckle within our waistcoats. Between me and those fellow-creatures of mine who are sitting in the room below, how strange and wonderful is the partition ! We meet at every hour of the daylight, and are indebted to each other for a hundred offices of duty and comfort of life ; and we live together for 3^ears, and don't know each other. John's voice to me is quite different from John's voice when it addresses his mates below. If I met Hannah in the street with a bonnet on, I doubt whether I should know her. And all these good people with whom I may live for years and 3''ears, have cares, interests, dear friends and relatives, mayhap schemes, passions, longing hopes, tragedies of their own, from which a carpet and a few planks and beams utterly separate me. When we were at the seaside, and poor Ellen used to look so pale, and run after the postman's bell, and seize a letter in a great scrawling hand, and read it, and cry in a corner, how should we know that the poor little thing's heart was breaking? She fetched the water, and she smoothed the ribbons, and she laid out the dresses, and brought the early cup of tea in the morn- ing, just as if she had had no cares to keep her awake. Henry (who lived out of the house) was the servant of a friend of mine who lived in chambers. There was a dinner one day, and Harrj^ waited all through the dinner. The champagne was properl}^ iced, the dinner was excellently served ; every guest was attended to ; the dinner disappeared ; the dessert was set ; the claret was in perfect order, carefully decanted, and more ready. And then Henry said, " If j'^ou please, sir, may I go home ? " He had received word that his house was on fire ; and, having seen through his dinner, he wished to go and look after his children, and little sticks of furniture. Why, such a man's livery is a unilbrm of honor. The crest on his button is a badge of bravery. 88 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. Do you see — I imagine I do myself — in these little in- ! stances, a tinge of humor? Ellen's heart is breaking for hand- ; some Jeames of Buckley Square, whose great legs are kneeling, and who has given a lock of his precious powdered head, to some other than Ellen. Henry is preparing the sauce for his master's wild-ducks while the engines are squirting over his own little nest and brood. Lift these figures up but a story from the basement to the ground-floor, and the fun is gone. We may be en pleine tragedie. Ellen ma}' breathe her last sigh in blank verse, calling down blessings upon James the profligate who deserts her. Henr}^ is a hero, and epaulettes are on his shoulders. Atqui sciebat, &c., whatever tortures are in store for him, he will be at his post of duty. ^\ You concede, however, that there is a touch of humor in the two tragedies here mentioned. Why ? Is it that the idea of persons at service is somehow ludicrous ? Perhaps it is made more so in this country by the splendid appearance of the liv- eried domestics of great people. When you think that we dress in black ourselves, and put our fellow-creatures in green, pink, or canary-colored breeches ; that we order them to plaster their hair with flour, having brushed that nonsense out of our own heads fift}' j^ears ago ; that some of the most genteel and stately among us cause the men who drive their carriages to put on little Albino wigs, and sit behind great nosegays — I say I sup- pose it is this heaping of gold lace, gaudy colors, blooming plushes, on honest John Trot, which makes the man absurd in our eyes, who need be nothing but a simple reputable citizen and in-door laborer. Suppose, my dear su-, that you yourself were suddenly desired to put on a full dress, or even undress, domestic uniform with our friend Jones's crest repeated in varied combinations of button on your front and back? Sup- pose, madam, your son were told, that he could not get out except in lower garments of carnation or amber-colored plush — would 3^ou let him? . . . But as you justly say, this is not the question, and besides it is a question fraught with danger, sir ; and radicalism, sir ; and subversion of the very foundations of the social fabric, sir. . . . Well, John, we won't enter on 30ur great domestic question. Don't let us disport with Jeames's dangerous strength, and the edge-tools about his knife-board : but with Bettj^ and Susan who wield the playful mop, and set on the simmering kettle. Surely you have heard Mrs. Toddles talking to Mrs. Doddles about their mutual maids. Miss Susan must have a silk gown, and Miss Betty must wear flowers under her bonnet when she goes to church ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 89 if you please, and did 3^011 ever hear such impudence? The servant in many small establishments is a constant and endless theme of tdftk. What small wage, sleep, meal, what endless scouring, scolding, tramping on messages fall to that poor Susan's lot ; what indignation at the little kindly passino- word with the grocer's young man, the pot-boy, the chubby butcher ! Where such things will end, my dear Mrs. Toddles, I don't know. What wages they will want next, my dear Mrs. Dod- dles, &c. Here, dear ladies, is an advertisement which I cut out of The Times a few days since, expressl}^ for you : " A LADY is desirous of obtaining a SITUATION for a very respect- J:\_ able young woman as HEAD KITCHEN-MAID under a man-cook. She has lived four years under a very good cook and housekeeper. Can make ice, and is an excellent baker. She will only take a place in a very good family, where she can have the opportunity of improving herself, and, if possible, staying for two years. Apply by letter to," &c. &c. There, Mrs. Toddles, what do you think of that, and did 3'ou ever? Well, no, Mrs. Doddles. U^jon my word now, Mrs. T., I don't think I ever did. A respectable 3'oung woman — as head kitchen-maid — under a man-cook, will only take a place in a very good family, where she can improve, and stay two years. Just note up the conditions, Mrs. Toddles, mum, if you please, mum, and then let us see ; — 1. This young woman is to be head kitchen-maid, that is to say there is to be a chorus of kitchen-maids, of which Y. W. is to be chief. 2. She will only be situated under a man-cook. (A) Ought he to be a French cook ; and (B), if so, would the lady desire him to be a Protestant? 8. She will onty take a place in a very good family. How old ought the family to be, and what do you call good ? that is the question. How long after the Conquest will do? Would a banker's family do, or is a baronet's good enough? Best say what rank in the peerage would be sufficiently high. But the lady does not say whether she would like a High Church or a Low Church family. Ought there to be unmarried sons, and may they follow a profession ? and please saj- how many daughters ; and would the lady like them to be piusical? And how many company dinners a week? Not too many, for fear of fatiguing the upper kitchen- yu ROUND ABorr papers. maid ; but sufficient, so as to keep the upper kitchen maid's hand in. [N.B. — I think I can see a rather bewildered expression on the countenances (W Mesdames Doddles and Toddles as I am prattling on in this easy bantering way.] 4. The head kitchen-maid wishes to stay for two years, and improve herself under the man-cook, and having of course sucked the brains (as the phrase is) from under the chefs nightcap, then the head kitchen-maid wishes to go. And upon my word, Mrs. Toddles, mum, I will go and fetch the cab for her. The cab? Why not her ladyship's own carriage and pair, and the head coachman to drive away the head kitchen-maid ? You see she stipulates for everything — the time to come ; the time to stay ; the family she will be with ; and as soon -as she has improved herself enough, of course the upper kitchen-maid will step into the carriage and drive off. Well, upon my word and conscience, if things are coming to this pass, Mrs. Toddles and Mrs. Doddles, mum, I think I will go up stairs and get a basin and a sponge, and then down stairs and get some hot water ; and then I will go and scrub that chalk-mark off my own door with m}' own hands. It is wiped off, I declare ! After ever so many weeks ! Who has done it? It was just a little round-about mark, you know, and it was there for days and weeks, before I ever thought it would be the text of a Roundabout Paper. n-™ ON^ BEING FOUND OUT. At the close (let us say) of Queen Anne's reign, when I was a bo3^ at a private and preparatory school for 3'oung gentlemen, I remember the wiseacre of a master ordering us all, one night, to march into a little garden at the back of the house, and thence to proceed one b}- one into a tool or hen house, (I was but a tender little thing just put into short clothes, and can't exactl}^ sa}^ whether the house was for tools or hens,) and in that house to put our hands into a sack which stood on a bench, a candle burning beside it. I put my hand into the ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 91 -sack. My hand came out quite black. I went and joined the other boys in the schoolroom; and all their hands were black too. By reason of my tender age (and there are some critics who, I hope, will be satisfied by my acknowledging that I am a hundred and fifty-six next birthday) I could not understand what was the meaning of this night excursion — this candle, this tool-house, this bag of soot. I think we little boys were taken out of our sleep to be brought to the ordeal. We came, then, and showed our little hands to the master ; washed them or not — most probably, I should say, not — and so went be- wildered back to bed. Something had been stolen in the school that day ; and Mr. Wiseacre having read in a book of an ingenious method of finding out a thief by making him put his hand into a sack (which, if guilty, the rogue would shirk from doing), all we boys were subjected to the trial. Goodness knows what the lost object was, or who stole it. We all had black hands to show the master. And the thief, whoever he was, was not Found Out that time. I wonder if the rascal is alive — an elderly scoundrel he must be b}^ this time ; and a hoary old h3'pocrite, to whom an old schoolfellow presents his kindest regards — parenthetically remarking what a dreadful place that private school was ; cold, chilblains, bad dinners, not enough victuals, and caning awful ! — Are you alive still, I say, 3'ou nameless villain, who escaped discovery on that day of crime? I hope 3'ou have escaped often since, old sinner. Ah, what a luck}' thing it is, for j'ou and me, my man, that we are not found out in all our peccadil- loes ; and that our backs can slip awa}" from the master and the cane ! Just consider what hfe would be, if every rogue was found out, and flogged coram populo! What a butcher}', what an indecency, what an endless swishing of the rod ! Don't cry out about my misanthropy. My good friend Mealymouth, I will trouble you to tell me, do you go to church? When there, do you say, or do you not, that you are a miserable sinner? and saying so do you believe or disbelieve it? If you are a M. S., don't you deserve correction, and aren't you grateful if you are to be let oflf? I say again, what a blessed thing it is that we are not all found out ! Just picture to yourself everybody who does wrong being found out, and punished accordingly. Fancy all the boys in all the school being whipped ; and then the assistants, and then 92 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. the head master (Dr. Badford let us call him). Fancy the provost-marshal being tied up, having previously superintended the correction of the whole army. After the young gentlemen have had their turn for the faulty exercises, fancy Dr. Lincoln- sinn being taken up for certain faults in his Essay and Review. After the clergyman has cried his peccavi, suppose we hoist up a bishop, and give him a couple of dozen ! (I see my Lord Bishop of Double-Gloucester sitting in a very uneasy posture on his right reverend bench.) After we have cast off the bishop, what are we to say to the Minister who appointed him ? My Lord Cinqwarden, it is painful to have to use personal correc- tion to a boy of your age ; but really . . . Sistc tandem^ car- nifex! The butchery is too horrible. The hand drops pow- erless, appalled at the quantity of bii-ch which it must cut and brandish. I am glad we are not all found out, I say again ; and protest, my dear brethren, against our having our de- serts. To fancy all men found out and punished is bad enough ; but imagine all women found out in the distinguished social circle in which you and I have the honor to move. Is it not a merc}^ that a many of these fan- criminals remain unpunished and undiscovered ! There is Mrs. Longbow, who is for ever practising, and who shoots poisoned arrows, too ; when 3'ou meet her j^ou don't call her liar, and charge her with the wick- edness she has done and is doing. There is Mrs. Painter, who passes for a most respectable woman, and a model in society. There is no use in saying what 3^ou really know regarding her and her goings on. There is Diana Hunter — what a little haughty prude it is ; and yet we know stories about her which are not altogether edifying. I say it is best, for the sake of the good, that the bad should not all be found out. You don't want your children to know the history of that lady in the next box, who is so handsome, and whom they admire so. Ah me, what would life be if we were all found out, and punished for all our faults ? Jack Ketch would be in permanence ; and then who would hang Jack Ketch ? They talk of murderers being pretty certainly found out. Psha ! " I have heard an authorit3- awfully competent vow and declare that scores and hundreds of murders are committed, and nobody is the wiser. That terrible man mentioned one or two ways of committing murder, which he maintained were quite common, and were scarcely ever found out. A man, for instance, comes home to his wife, and . . . but I pause — I know that this Magazine has a very large circulation. Hun- ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 93 drecls and hundreds of thousands — why not say a million of people at once? — well, say a million, read it. And amono-st these countless readers, I might be teaching some monster how to make away with his wife without being found out, some fiend of a woman how to destroy her dear husband. I will 7iot then tell this easy and simple way of murder, as communicated to me by a most respectable party in the confidence of private intercourse. Suppose some gentle reader were to try this most simple and easy receipt — it seems to me almost infallible — and come to grief in consequence, and be found out and hanged ? Should I ever pardon myself for having been the means of doing injury to a single one of our esteemed subscribers ? The prescription whereof I speak — that is to say, whereof I don't speak — shall be buried in this bosom. No, I am a humane man. I am not one of your Bluebeards to go and say to my wife, "My dear ! I am going away for a few days to Brighton. Here are all the keys of the house. You may open every door and closet, except the one at the end o^ the oak-room opposite the fireplace, with the little bronze Shakespeare on the mantel-piece (or what not)." I don't say this to a woman — unless, to be sure, I want to get rid of her — because, after such a caution, I know she'll peep into the closet. I say nothing about the closet at all. I keep the key in my pocket, and a being whom I love, but who, as I know, has many weaknesses, out of harm's way. You toss up your head, dear angel, drub on the ground with your lovely little feet, on the table with your sweet rosy fingers, and cr}', "Oh, sneerer! You don't know the depth of woman's feeling, the lofty scorn of all deceit, the entire absence of mean curiosity in the sex, or never, never would you libel us so ! " Ah, Delia ! dear, dear Delia ! It is because I fancy I do know something about you (not all, mind — no, no ; no man knows that) — Ah, m}^ bride, my ringdove, my rose, my poppet — choose, in fact, whatever name j'ou like — bulbul of my grove, fountain of my desert, sunshine of my darkling life, and joy of my dungeoned existence, it is because I do know a little about you that I conclude to say nothing of that private closet, and keep my key in my pocket. You take awa}' that closet-key then, and the house-ke3\ You lock Delia in. You keep her out of harm's way and gadding, and so she never can be found out. And yet by little strange accidents and coincidents how we are being found out ever}' da}'. You remember that old stor}*- of the Abbe Kakatoes, who told the company at supper one night how the first confession he ever received was — from a 94 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. ^ murderer let us say. Presently enters to supper the Marquis cle Croquemitaine. '' Palsambleu, abbe!" says the brilliant marquis, taking a pinch of snuff, " are you here? Gentlemen and ladies ! I was the abbe's first penitent, and I made him a confession, which I promise you astonished him." To be sure how queerly things are found out ! Here is an instance. Only the other day I was writing in these Round- about Papers about a certain man, whom I facetiousl}^ called Baggs, and who had abused me to my friends, who of course told me. Shortly after that paper was published another friend — Sacks let us call him — scowls fiercely at me as I am sitting in perfect good-humor at the club, and passes on without speak- ing. A cut. A quarrel. Sacks thinks it is about him that I was writing : whereas, upon my honor and conscience, I never had him once in my mind, and was pointing my moral from quite another man. But don't you see, by this wrath of the guilty-conscienced Sacks, that he had been abusing me too? He has owned himself guilty, never having been accused. He has winced when nobod}' thought of hitting him. I did but put the cap out, and madl}^ butting and chafing, behold my friend rushes out to put his head into it ! Never mind. Sacks, you are found out ; but I bear j^ou no malice, my man. And yet to be found out, I know from m}^ own expeiience, must be painful and odious, and cruell}' mortifying to the inward vanity. Suppose I am a poltroon, let us say. With fierce moustache, loud talk, plentiful oaths, and an immense stick, I keep up nevertheless a character for courage. I swear fearfully at cabmen and women ; brandish m}' bludgeon, and perhaps knock down a little man or two with it : brag of the images which I break at the shooting-gallerj-, and pass amongst my friends for a whiskery fire-eater, afraid of neither man nor dragon. Ah me ! Suppose some brisk little chap steps up and gives me a caning in St. James's Street, with all the heads of m}^ friends looking out of all the club windows. My reputation is gone. I frighten no man more. M}^ nose is pulled by whipper-snappers, who jump up on a chair to reach it. I am found out. And in the days of my triumphs, when people were yet afraid of me, and were taken in by my swagger, I alwaj^s knew that I was a liij'-liver, and expected that I should be found out some day. That certaint}^ of being found out must haunt and depress many a bold braggadocio spirit. Let us say it is a clergyman, who can pump copious floods of tears out of his own e^-es and those of his audience. He thinks to himself, " I am but a poor tlOUNDABOUT PAPERS. 95 swindling, chattering rogue. My bills are unpaid. I have jilted several women whom I have promised to many. I don't know whether I believe what I preach, and 1 know I have stolen the ver}^ sermon over which I have been snivelling. Have they found me out?" says he, as his head drops down on the cushion. Then your waiter, poet, historian, noveUst, or what not? The Beacon says that ''Jones's work is one of the first order." The Lamp declares that " Jones's tragedy surpasses every work since the days of Him of Avon." The Comet asserts that " J's ' Life of Goody Twoshoes ' is a Kr^/xa k det, a noble and en- during monument to the fame of that admirable Englishwoman," and so forth. But then Jones knows that he has lent the critic of the Beacon five pounds ; that his pubhsher has a half-share in the Lamp ; and that the Comet comes repeatedly' to dine with him. It is all very well. Jones is immortal until he is found out ; and then down comes the extinguisher, and the immortal is dead and buried. The idea (^dies irce !) of discovery must haunt man}' a man, and make him uneasy, as the trumpets are puffing in his triumph. Brown, who has a higher place than he deserves, cowers before Smith, who has found him out. What is a chorus of critics shouting "Bravo?" — a public clapping hands and flinging garlands? Brown knows that Smith has found him out. Puff, trumpets ! Wave, banners ! Huzza, boys, for the immortal Brown! "This is all very well," B. thinks (bowing the while, smiling, lading his hand to his heart) ; "but there stands Smith at the window : he has measured me ; and some day the others will find me out too." It is a very curious sensation to sit by a man who has found 3'ou out, and who, as you know, has found you out ; or, vice versd, to sit with a man whom yoic have found out. His talent ? Bah ! His virtue? We know a little story or two about his virtue, and he knows we know it. We are thinking over friend Rob- inson's antecedents, as we grin, bow and talk ; and we are both humbugs together. Robinson a good fellow, is he ? You know how he behaved to Hicks ? A good-natured man, is he? Pray do you remember that little story of Mrs. Robinson's black eye? How men have to work, to talk, to smile, to go to bed, and try and sleep, with this dread of being found out on their con- sciences ! Bardolpli, who has robbed a church, and Nym, who has taken a purse, go to their usual haunts, and smoke their pipes with their companions. Mr. Detective Bullseye appears, and says, "Oh, Bardolph ! I want you about that there pyx business ! " Mr. Bardolph knocks the ashes out of his pipe, puts out his hands to the little steel cuffs, and walks awa,)' quite 96 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. meekly. He is found out. He must go. " Good-by, Doll Tearsheet ! Good-by, Mrs. Quickly, ma'am ! " The other gentlemen and ladies de la socute look on and exchange mute adieux with the departing friends. And an assured time will come when the other gentlemen and ladies will be found out too. What a wonderful and beautiful provision of nature it has been that, for the most part, our womankind are not endowed with the facult}' of finding us out ! They don't doubt, and probe, and weigh, and take 3'our measure. La}' down this paper, m}^ benevolent friend and reader, go into your drawing-room now, and utter a joke ever so old, and I wager sixpence the ladies there will all begin to laugh. Go to Brown's house, and tell Mrs. Brown and the 3'Oung ladies what you think of him, and see what a welcome 3'ou will get ! In like manner, let him come to 3'our house, and tell your good lady his candid opinion of 3^ou, and fanc3^ how she will receive him ! Would 3^ou have your wife and cliildren know 3"0u exactl3^ for what you are, and es- teem 3"ou precise^ at 3'our worth ? If so, my friend, you will live in a drear3' house, and 3'ou will have but a chill3' fireside. Do 3^ou suppose the people round it don't see 3^our homely face as under a glamour, and, as it were, with a halo of love round it ? You don't fanc3^ you are, as 3'ou seem to them ? No such thing, m3^ man. Put awa3^ that monstrous conceit, and be thankful that they have not found 3^ou out. ON A HUNDRED YEARS HENCE. Where have I just read of a game pla3^ed at a countr3'^ house ? The party assembles round a table with pens, ink, and paper. Some one narrates a tale containing more or less inci- dents and personages. Each person of the compan3^ then writes down, to the best of his memor3^ and abilit3^, the anecdote just narrated, and finally the papers are to be read out. I do not say I should like to play often at this game, which might pos- sibty be a tedious and length3' pastime, not b3' an3^ means so amusing as smoking a cigar in the conservator3' ; or even listen- ing to the 3'oung ladies pla3'ing their piano-pieces ; or to Hobbs and Nobbs lingering round the bottle and talking over the morning's run with the hounds ; but surel}' it is a moral and in- j\v>-uiTi>^ TiOTTT PAPERS. ^^ genious sport. The}^ sa}^ the variety of narratives is often very odd and amusing. The original story becomes so changed and distorted that at the end of all the statements you are puzzled to know where the truth is at all. As time is of small im- portance to the cheerful persons engaged in this sport, perhaps a good wa}^ of playing it would be to spread it over a couple of years. Let the people who played the game in '60 all meet and pla}^ it once more in '61, and each write his story over again. Then bring out your original and compare notes. Not only will the stories differ from each other, but the writers will prob- ably differ from themselves. In the course of the year the in- cidents will grow or will dwindle strangel3\ The least authentic of the statements will be so lively or so malicious, or so neatly put, that it will appear most like the truth. I like these tales and sportive exercises. I had begun a little print collection once. I had Addison in his nightgown in bed at Holland House, requesting 3'oung Lord Warwick to remark how a Christian should die. I had Cambronne clutching his cocked hat and uttering the immortal la Garde meurt et ne se rend pas. I had the " Vengeur" going down, and all the crew hurraying like madmen. I had Alfred toasting the muffin ; Curtius (Ha3'- don) jumping into the gulf; with extracts from Napoleon's bulletins, and a fine authentic portrait of Baron Munchausen. What man who has been before the public at all has not heard similar wonderful anecdotes regarding himself and his own history? In these humble essaykins I have taken leave to egotize. I cry out about the shoes which pinch me, and, as t fanc}^ more natural^ and pathetically than if m}' neighbor's corns were trodden under foot. I prattle about the dish which I love, the wine which I like, the talk I heard yesterday — about Brown's absurd airs — Jones's ridiculous elation when he thinks he has caught me in a blunder (a part of the fun, you see, is that Jones will read this, and will perfectly well know that I mean him, and that we shall meet and grin at each other with entire pohteness.) This is not the highest kind of speculation, I confess, but it is a gossip which amuses some folks. A brisk and honest small-beer will refresh those who do not care for the frothy outpourings of heavier taps. A two of clubs may be a good, handy little card sometimes, and able to tackle a king of diamonds, if it is a little trump. Some philosophers get their wisdom with deep thought and out of ponderous libraries ; I pick up my small crumbs of cogitation at a dinner-table ; or from Mrs. Mary and Miss Louisa, as they are prattling over their five-o'cloqk tea. ? \ 98 ROUNDABOUT^^ ''^^^^^^^^^^ « Well, yesterda}' at dinner Juciindus was good enough to tell me a story about myself, which he had heard from a lady of his acquaintance, to whom I send m}^ best compliments. The tale is this. At nine o'clock on the evening of the 31st of No- vember last, just before sunset, I was seen leaving No. 96, Abbe}' Road, St. John's Wood, leading two little children by the hand, one of them in a nankeen pelisse, and the other hav- ing a mole on the third finger of his left hand (she thinks it was the third finger, but is quite sure it was the left hand). Thence I walked with them to Charles Boroughbridge's, pork and sausage man, No. 29, Upper Theresa Road. Here, whilst I left the httle girl innocent!}' eating a polony in the front shop, I and Boroughbridge retired with the boy into the back parlor, where Mrs. Boroughbridge was playing cribbage. She jDut up the cards and boxes, took out a chopper and a napkin, and we cut the little boy's little throat (which he bore with great pluck and resolution) , and made him into sausage-meat by the aid of Purkis's excellent sausage-machine. The little girl at first could not understand her brother's absence, but, under the pre- tence of taking her to see Mr. Fechter in Hamlet^ I led her down to the New River at Sadler's Wells, where a bod}^ of a child in a nankeen pelisse was subsequently found, and has never been recognized to the present day. And this Mrs. Lynx can aver, because she saw the whole transaction with her own e3^es, as she told Mr. Jucundus. I have altered the little details of the anecdote somewhat. But this story is, I vow and declare, as true as Mrs L3'nx's. Gracious goodness ! how do hes begin ? What are the aver- ages of l^^ing? Is the same amount of lies told about every man, and do we pretty much all tell the same amount of lies? Is the average greater in Ireland than in Scotland, or vice versa — among women than among men ? Is this a lie I am telling now? If I am talking about 3'ou, the odds are, perhaps, that it is. I look back at some which have been told about me, and speculate on them with thanks and wonder. Dear friends have told them of me, have told them to me of mj'self. Have they not to and of j^ou, dear friend? A friend of mine was dining at a large dinner of clerg3'men, and a stor3^, as true as the sausage stor3" above given, was told regarding me, b3' one of those reverend divines, in whose frock sits some anile chatter- boxes, as an3' man who knows this world knows. The3' take the privilege of their gown. They cabal, and tattle, and hiss, and cackle comminations under their breath. I sa3' the old women of the other sex are not more talkative or more mischievous ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 99 than some of these. " Such a man ought not to be spoken to," says Gobemouche, narrating the stor}^ — and such a story! "And I am surprised he is admitted into society at all." Yes, dear Gobemouche, but the stor}^ wasn't true ; and 1 had no more done the wicked deed in question than I had run away with the Queen of Sheba. I have always longed to know what that storj^ was (or what collection of histories), which a lady had in her mind to whom a servant of mine applied for a place, when I was breaking up my establishment once and going abroad. Brown went with a very good character from us, which, indeed, she fully deserved after several years' faithful service. But when Mrs. Jones read the name of the person out of whose employment Brown came, " That is quite sufficient," saj-s Mrs. Jones. " You may go. I will never take a servant out of that house." Ah, Mrs. Jones, how I should like to know what that crime was, or what that series of villanies, which made you determine never to take a servant out of my house. Do you believe in the story of the little boy and the sausages? Have you swallowed that little minced infant ? Have you devoured that young Polonius ? Upon my word you have maw enough. We somehow greedily gobble down all stories in which the characters of our friends arc chopped up, and believe wrong of them without inquiry. In a late serial work written by this hand, I remember making some pathetic remarks about our propensity to believe ill of our neighbors — and I remember the remarks, not because they were valuable, or novel, or ingenious, but because, within three days after they had appeared in print, the moralist who wrote them, walking home with a friend, heard a story about another friend, which story he straightway believed, and which story was scarcel}' more true than that sausage fable which is here set down. mea culpa ^ mea maxima culpa ! But though the preacher trips, shall not the doctrine be good? Yea, brethren ! Here be the rods. Look 3^ou, here are the scourges. Choose me a nice long, swishing, buddy one, light and well-poised in the handle, thick and bushy at the tail. Pick me out a whip- cord thong with some dainty knots in it — and now — we all deserve it — whish, whish, whish ! Let us cut into each other all round. A favorite Uar and servant of mine was a man I once had to drive a brougham. He never came to my house, except for orders, and once when he helped to wait at dinner so clumsily that it was agreed we would dispense with his further efforts. The (job) brougham horse used to look dreadfully lean and 100 , ROUlsTDABOUT PAPERS. « tired, and the livery-stable keeper complained that we worked him too hard. Now, it turned out that there was a neighboring butcher's lady who liked to ride in a brougham ; and Tomkins lent her ours, drove her cheerfully to Richmond and Putney, and, I suppose, took out a payment in mutton-chops. . We gave this good Tomkins wine and medicine for his family when sick — we supplied him with little comforts and extras which need not now be remembered — and the grateful creature rewarded us b}^ informing some of our tradesmen whom he honored with his custom, "Mr. Roundabout? Lor' bless 3^ou ! I carry him up to bed drunk every night in the week." He, Tomkins, being a man of seven stone weight and five feet high ; whereas his employer was — but here modesty interferes, and I decline to enter into the avoirdupois question. Now, what was Tomkins's motive for the utterance and dis- semination of these lies? The}^ could further no conceivable end or interest of his own. Had the}^ been true stories, Tom- kins's master would still, and reasonably, have been more angry than at the fables. It was but suicidal slander on the part of Tomkins — must come to a discovery — must end in a punish- ment. The poor wretch had got his place under, as it turned out, a fictitious character. He might have stayed in it, for of course Tomkins had a wife and poor innocent children. He might have had bread, beer, bed, character, coats, coals. He might have nestled in our little island, comfortably sheltered from the storms of life ; but we were compelled to cast him out, and send him driving, lonely, perishing, tossing, starving, to sea — to drown. To drown? There be other modes of death whereby rogues die. Good-by, Tomkins. And so the night- cap is put on, and the bolt is drawn for poor T. Suppose we were to invite volunteers amongst our respected readers to send in little statements of the lies which they know have been told about themselves ; what a heap of correspond- ence, what an exaggeration of malignities, what a crackling bonfire of incendiar}' falsehoods, might we not gather together ! And a lie once set going, having the breath of life breathed into it by the father of Ij^ng, and ordered to run its diabolical little course, hves with a prodigious vitalit3^ You say, " Mag- na est Veritas et prcevaleUt.^' Psha ! Great lies are as great as great truths, and prevail constant^, and da}^ after day. Take an instance or two out of my own little budget. I sit near a gentleman at dinner, and the conversation turns upon a certain anonymous literarj^ performance which at the time is amusing the town. *'0h," says the gentleman, "everybody knows ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 101 who wrote that paper : it is Momus's." I was a young author at the time, perhaps proud of my bantUng : " I beg your par- don," I say, " it was written by your humble servant." " In- deed ! " was all that the man replied, and he shrugged his shoulders, turned his back, and talked to his other neio-hbor. I never heard sarcastic incredulity more finely conveyed than by that "indeed." "Impudent liar," the gentleman's face said, as clear as face could speak. Where was Magna Veritas, and how did she prevail then ? She lifted up her voice, she made her appeal, and she was kicked out of court. In New York I read a newspaper criticism one day (b}^ an exile from our shores who has taken up his abode in the Western Republic), com- menting upon a letter of mine which had appeared in a contem- porary volume, and wherein it was stated that the writer was a lad in such and such a year, and, in point of fact, I was, at the period spoken of, nineteen years of age. "Falsehood, Mr. Roundabout," says the noble critic : " You were then not a lad ; you were then six-and-twenty years of age." You see he knew better than papa and mamma and parish register. It was easier for him to think and say I lied, on a twopenny matter connected with my own affairs, than to imagine he was mistaken. Years ago, in a time when we were very mad wags, Arcturus and m}^- self met a gentleman from China who knew the language. We began to speak Chinese against him. We said we were born in China. We were two to one. We spoke the mandarin dialect with perfect fluency. We had the company with us ; as in the old, old days, the squeak of the real pig was voted not to be so natural as the squeak of the sham pig. O Arcturus, the sham pig squeaks in our streets now to the applause of multitudes, and the real porker grunts unheeded in his sty ! I once talked for some little time with an amiable lady : it was for the first time ; and I saw an expression of surprise on her kind face, which said as plainly as face could say, " Sir, do you know that up to this moment I have had a certain opinion of you, and that I begin to think I have been mistaken or misled?" I not only know that she had heard evil reports of me, but I know who told her — one of those acute fellows, my dear brethren, of whom we spoke in a previous sermon, who has found me out — found out actions which I never did, found out thoughts and sayings which I never spoke, and judged me accordingly. Ah, my lad! have I found you out? risum teneatis. Perhaps the person I am accusing is no more guilty than I. How comes it that the evil which men say spreads so widely 102 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. and lasts so long, whilst our good, kind words don't seem somehow to take root and bear blossom? Is it that in the ston}^ hearts of mankind these prett}^ flowers can't find a place to grow? Certain it is that scandal is good, brisk talli, whereas praise of one's neighbor is b3^ no means lively hearing. An acquaintance grilled, scored, devilled, and served with mus- tard and cayenne pepper, excites the appetite ; whereas a slice of cold friend with currant jelly is but a sickly, unrelishing meat. Now, such being the case, my dear worth}^ Mrs. Candor, in whom I know there are a hundred good and generous qualities : it being perfectly clear that the good things which we say of our neighbors don't fructify, but somehow perish in the ground where they are dropped, whilst the evil words are wafted by all the winds of scandal, take root in all soils, and flourish amazingly — seeing, I sa}^, that this conversation does not give us a fair chance, suppose we give up censoriousness altogether, and decline uttering our opinions about Brown, Jones, and Robinson (and Mesdames B., J., and R.) at all. We may be mistaken about every one of them, as, please goodness, those anecdote-mongers against whom I have uttered mj^ meek pro- test have been mistaken about me. We need not go to the extent of saying that Mrs. Manning was an amiable creature, much misunderstood ; and Jack Thurtell a gallant, unfortunate fellow, not near so black as he was painted ; but we will try and avoid personalities altogether in talk, won't we ? We will range the fields of science, dear madam, and communicate to each other the pleasing results of our studies. We will, if you please, examine the infinitesimal wonders of nature through the microscope. We will cultivate entomology. We will sit with our arms round each other's waists on the pons asinorum^ and see the stream of mathematics flow beneath. We will take refuge in cards, and play at " beggar my neighbor," not abuse my neighbor. We will go to the Zoological Gardens and talk freely about the gorilla and his kindred, but not talk about people who can talk in their turn. Suppose we praise the High Church? we offend the Low Church. The Broad Church? High and Low are both offended. What do you think of Lord Derby as a politician? And what is your opinion of Lord Palmers ton? If you please, will you play me those lovely variations of "In ni}' cottage neai- a wood? " It is a charming air (you know it in French, I suppose ? Ah! te dirai-je^ maman !) and was a favorite with poor Marie Antoinette. I saj^ " poor," because I have a right to speak with pity of a sovereign who ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 103 was renowned for so much beauty and so much misfortune. But as for giving any opinion on her conduct, saying that she was good or bad, or indifferent, goodness forbid ! We have agreed we will not be censorious. Let us have a game at cards — at ecarte, if you please. You deal. I ask for cards. I lead the deuce of clubs. . . . What ? there is no deuce ! Deuce take it ! What ? People will go on talking about their neighbors, and won't have their mouths stopped by cards, or ever so much microscopes aiid aquariums? Ah, my poor dear Mrs. Candor, I agree with yoiL. By the wa}^ did you ever see anything like Lady Godiva Trotter's dress last night? People will go on chatterino-, although we hold our tongues ; and, after all, my good soul, what will their scandal matter a hundred years hence ? SMALL-BEER CHRONICLE. Not long since, at a certain banquet, I had the good fortune to sit by Doctor Polymathesis, who knows everything, and who, about the time when the claret made its appearance, men- tioned that old dictum of the grumbling Oxford Don, that " All Claret loould be port if it could ! " Imbibing a bumper of one or the other not ungratefully, I thought to myself, " Here surely, Mr. Roundabout, is a good text for one of your reverence's sermons." Let us apply to the human race, dear brethren, what is here said of the vintages of Portugal and Gascony, and we shall have no difficulty in perceiving how man}' clarets aspire to be ports in their way ; how most men and women of our ac- quaintance, how we ourselves, are Aquitanians giving ourselves Lusitanian airs ; how we wish to have credit for being stronger, braver, more beautiful, more worth}^ than we really are. Nay, the beginning of this hypocrisy — a desire to excel, a desire to be hearty, fruity, generous, strength-imparting — is a virtuous and noble ambition ; and it is most difficult for a man in his own case, or his neighbor's, to say at what point this ambition transgresses the boundary of virtue, and becomes vanity, pretence, and self-seeking. You are a poor man, let us say, showing a bold face to adverse fortune, and wearing a confident aspect. Your purse is very narrow, but you owe no man a penny ; your means are scanty, but your wife's gown is 104 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. decent ; your old coat well brushed ; j^our children at a good school ; 3"ou grumble to no one ; ask favors of no one ; truckle to no neighbors on account of their superior rank, or (a worse, and a meaner, and a more common crime still) envy none for their better fortune. To all outward appearances 3'ou are as well to do as 3'our neighbors, who have thrice 3^011 r income. There ma}" be in this case some little mixture of pretension in your life and behavior. You certainly do put on a smihng face whilst fortune is pinching ^^ou. Your wife and girls, so smart and neat at evening parties, are cutting, patching, and cobbling all day to make both ends of life's haberdashery meet. You give a friend a bottle of wine on occasion, but are content yourself with a glass of whiskey- and- water. You avoid a cab, saying that of all things 3'ou like to walk home after dinner (which 3^«B know, my good friend, is a fib). I grant 3'ou that in this scheme of life there does enter ever so little h3-pocris3" ; that this claret is loaded, as it were ; but 3^our desire to portify 3"0urself is amiable, is pardonable, is perhaps honorable : and were there no other hypocrisies than 3"ours in the world we should be a set of worthy fellows ; and sermonlzers, moralizers, satirizers, would have to hold their tongues, and go to some other trade to get a living. But 3"ou know 3^ou will step over that boundary line of virtue and modest3", into the district where humbug and vauit3' begin, and there the moralizer catches you and makes an example of 3'ou. For instance, in a certain novel in another place my friend Mr. Talbot Tw3'sden is mentioned — a man whom you and I know to be a wretched ordinaire, but who persists in treating himself as if he was the finest '20 port. In our Britain there are hundreds of men like him ; for ever striving to swell beyond their natural size, to strain be3'ond their natural strength, to step be3"ond their natural stride. Search, search within 3"our own waistcoats, dear brethi'en — you know in your hearts, which of 3^our ordinaire qualities 3'ou would pass ofl^, and fain consider as first-rate port. And why not 3'ou 3"ourself, Mr. Preacher ? sa3"S the congregation. Dearl3'^ beloved, neither in or out of this pulpit do I profess to be bigger, or cleverer, or wiser, or better than an3" of you. A short while since, a certain Reviewer an- nounced that I gave myself great pretensions as a philosopher. I a philosopher ! I advance pretensions ! My dear Saturday friend. And 3"0U ? Don't 3"ou teach ever3i:hing to ever3^bod3' ? and punish the naught3^ boys if the3' don't learn as you bid them? You teach politics to Lord John and Mr. Gladstone. You teach poets how to write ; painters, how to paint ; gentle- ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 105 men, manners; and opera-dancers, how to pirouette. I was not a little amused of late b}^ an instance of the modest}^ of our Saturday friend, who, more Athenian than the Athenians, and kpropos of a Greek book by a Greek author, sat down and gravely showed the Greek gentleman how to write his own language. No, I do not, as far as I know, try to be port at all ; but offer in these presents, a sound genuine ordinaire, at 18s. per doz. let us sa}^, grown on my own hillside, and offered de bun cceur to those who will sit down under my tonnelle^ and have a half-hour's drink and gossip. It is none of your hot porto, my friend. I know there is much better and stronger liquor else- where. Some pronounce it sour : some say it is thin ; some that it has wofuUy lost its flavor. This may or may not be true. There are good and bad years ; years that surprise every, body ; 3^ears of which the produce is small and bad, or rich and plentiful. But if my tap is not genuine it is naught, and no man should give himself the trouble to drink it. I do not even sa}^ that I would be port if I could ; knowing that port (by which I would imply much stronger, deeper, richer, and more durable liquor than my vineyard can furnish) is not relished by all palates, or suitable to all heads. We will assume then, dear brother, that you and I are tolerably modest people ; and, ourselves being thus out of the question, proceed to show how pretentious our neighbors are, and how very many of them would be port if they could. Have you never seen a small man from college placed amongst great folk, and giving himself the airs of a man of fashion ? He goes back to his common room with fond remi- niscences of Ermine Castle or Strawberry Hall. He writes to the dear countess, to say that dear Lord Lollypop is getting on very well at St. Boniface, and that the accident which he met with in a scuffle with an inebriated bargeman onl}' showed his spirit and honor, and will not permanently^ disfigure his lord- ship's nose. He gets his clothes from dear Loll3'pop's London tailor, and wears a mauve or magenta tie when he rides out to see the hounds. A love of fashionable people is a weakness, I do not say of all, but of some tutors. Witness that Eton tutor t'other da}^, who intimated that in Cornhill we could not under- stand the perfect purity, delicacy, and refinement of those gen- teel families who sent their sons to Eton. O usher, mo7i ami! Old Sam Johnson, who, too, had been an iiehar in his early hfe, kept a little of that weakness always. Suppose Goldsmith had knocked him up at three in the morning and proposed a boat 106 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. to Greenwich, as Topham Beauclerc and his friend did, would he have said, " What, m}- bo}^ are you for a froUc? I'm with you ! " and gone and put on his clothes ? Rather he would Mi have pitched poor Goldsmith down stairs. He would have liked to be port if he could. Of course we wouldn't. Our opinion of the Portugal grape is known. It grows very high, and is very sour, and we don't go for that kind of grape at all. ' ' I was walking with Mr. Fox " — and sure this anecdote comes very pat after the grapes — " I was walking with Mr. w Fox in the Louvre," sa3's Benjamin West (apud some paper I have just been reading), " and I remarked how man}^ people turned round to look at me. This shows the respect of the French for the fine arts." This is a curious instance of a very small claret indeed, which imagined itself to be port of the strongest bod}^ There are not man}- instances of a faith so - deep, so simple, so satisfactory as this. I have met man}^ who would like to be port ; but with few of the Gascon sort, who absolutel}' believed they were port. George III. believed in West's port and thought Re^'nolds's overrated stuff. When I saw West's pictures at Philadelphia, I looked at them with astonishment and awe. Hide, blushing glory, hide your head under j^our old nightcap. O immortality ! is this the end of you? Did any of 3'ou, m}^ dear brethren, ever try and read " Blackmore's Poems," or the "Epics of Baour-Lormian," or the ' ' Henriade," or — what shall we say ? — PoUok's ' ' Course of Time ? " They were thought to be more lasting than brass b}^ some people, and where are they now? And our masterpieces of literature — our poets — that, if not immortal, at any rate, are to last their fift}', their hundred 3"ears — oh, sirs, don't you think a ver}^ small cellar will hold them ? Those poor people in brass, on pedestals, hectoring about Trafalgar Square and that neighborhood, don't 3'ou think man3' of them — apart even from the ridiculous execution — cut rather a ridiculous figure, and that we are too eager to set up our ordinaire heroism and talent for port? A Duke of Well- ington or two I will grant, though even of these idols a moder- ate suppty will be sufficient. Some 3'ears ago a famous and witt3^ French critic was in London, with whom I walked the streets. I am ashamed to sa3' that I informed him (being in hopes that he was about to write ^ome papers regarding the manners and customs of this countr3^) that all the statues he saw represented the Duke of Wellington. That on the arch opposite Apsley House? the Duke in a cloak, and 'cocked hat, on horseback. That behind Apsley House in an airy fig-leaf ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 107 costume? the Duke again. That in Cockspur Street? the Duke with a pigtail — and so on. I showed him an army of Dukes. There are many bronze heroes who after a few years look alread}^ as foolish, awkward, and out of place as a man, say at Shoolbred's or Swan and Edgar's. For example, those three Grenadiers in Pall Mall, who have been up only a few months, don't 3'ou pity those unhappy household troops, who have to stand frowning and looking fierce there ; and think the}^ would like to step down and go to barracks ? That they fought very bravely there is no doubt ; but so did the Russians fight very bravely ; and the French fight very bravely ; and so did Colo- nel Jones and the 99th, and Colonel Brown and the 100th ; and I say again that ordinaire should not give itself port airs, and that an honest ordinaire would blush to be found swaggering so. I am sure if j^ou could consult the Duke of York, who is impaled on his column between the two clubs, and ask his late Roj^al Highness whether he thought he ought to remain there, he would say no. A brave, worth}' man, not a braggart or boaster, to be put upon that heroic perch must be painful to him. Lord George Bentinck, I suppose, being in the midst of the family park in Cavendish Square, ma}^ conceive that he has a right to remain in his place. But look at William of Cum- berland, with his hat cocked over his eye, prancing behind Lord George on his Roman-nosed charger ; he, depend on it, would be for getting off his horse if he had the permission. He did not hesitate about trifles, as we know ; but he was a ver}^ truth-telling and honorable soldier : and as for heroic rank and statuesque dignity, I would wager a dozen of '20 port against a bottle of pure and sound Bordeaux, at 18s. per dozen (bottles included), that he never would think of claiming any such absurd distinction. They have got a statue of Thomas Moore at Dublin, I hear. Is he on horseback? Some men should have, say, a fifty years' lease of glory. After a while some gentlemen now in brass should go to the melting furnace, and reappear in some other gentleman's shape. Lately I saw that Melville column rising over Edinburgh ; come, good men and true, don't you feel a little awkward and uneasy when 3'ou walk under it? Who was this to stand in heroic places? and is yon the man whom Scotchmen most delight to honor? I must own deferentially that there is a tendency in North Britain to over- esteem its heroes. Scotch ale is very good and strong, but it is not stronger than all the other beer in the world, as some Scottish patriots would insist. When there has been a war, and stout old Sandy Sansculotte returns home from India or 108 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.- Crimea, what a bagpiping, shouting, hurraj'ing, and self-glori- fication takes place round about him ! You would fanc}', to hear McOrator after dinner, that the Scotch had fought all the battles, killed all the Russians, Indian rebels, or what not. In Cupar-Fife, there's a little inn called the " Battle of Waterloo," 'and what do you think the sign is ? (I sketch from memor}'', to be sure.)* " The Battle of Waterloo" is one broad Scotch- man la3'ing about him with a broadsword. Yes, 3^es, my dear Mac, 5'ou are wise, you are good, you are clever, you are hand- some, you are brave, you are rich, &c. ; but so is Jones over the border. Scotch salmon is good, but there are other good fish in the sea. I once heard a Scotchman lecture on poetrj^ in London. Of course the pieces he selected were chiefl}^ by Scottish authors, and Walter Scott was his favorite poet. I whispered to m}^ neighbor, who was a Scotchman (by the way, the audience were almost all Scotch, and the room was All- Mac's — I beg 3'our pardon, but I couldn't help it, I reaWy couldn't help it) — " The professor has said the best poet was a Scotchman : I wager that he will say the worst poet was a Scotchman, too." And sure enough that worst poet, when he made his appearance, was a Northern Briton. And as we are talking of bragging, and I am on m}^ travels, can I forget one mighty republic — one — two mighty republics, where people are notoriously fond of passing off their claret for port? I am very glad, for the sake of a kind friend, that there is a great and influential party in the United, and, I trust, in the Confederate States,! who believe that Catawba wine is bet- ter than the best Champagne. Opposite that famous old White House at Washington, whereof I shall ever have a grateful memory, they have set up an equestrian statue of General Jack- son, by a self-taught American artist of no inconsiderable genius and skill. At an evening-party a member of Congress seized me in a corner of the room, and asked me if I did not think this was the finest equestrian statue in the ivorld ? How was I to deal with this plain question, put to me in a corner? I was bound to reply, and accordingly said that I did not think it was the finest statue in the world. " Well, sir," says the Member of Congress, "but 3^ou must remember that Mr. M had never seen a statue when he made this ! " I suggested that to see other statues might do Mr. M no harm. Nor was any man more willing to own his defects, or more modest regarding his merits, than the sculptor himself, whom I met subsequently. * This refers to an illustrated edition of the work, t Written in July, 1861. II ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 100 But oh ! what a charming article there was in a Washington paper next day about the impertinence of criticism and offensi>'e tone of arrogance which Englishmen adopted towards men and works of genius in America ! " Who was this man, who " &c. &c. ? The Washington writer was angr}^ because I would not accept this American claret as the finest port- wine in the world. Ah me ! It is about blood and not wine that the quarrel now is, and who shall foretell its end? How much claret that would be port if it could is handed about in every society ! In the House of Commons what small- beer orators try to pass for strong ? Stay : have I a spite against any one ? It is a fact that the wife of the Member for Bungay has left off asking me and Mrs. Roundabout to her evening-parties. Now is the time to have a slap at him. I will say that he was always overrated, and that now he is lamentably falling off even from what he has been. I will back the Member for Stoke Poges against him ; and show that the dashing young Member for Ishngton is a far sounder man than either. Have I any little literary animosities ? Of course not. Men of letters never have. Otherwise, how I could serve out a competitor here, make a face over his works, and show that this W^ould-be port is ver}'' meagre ordinaire indeed ! Nonsense, man ! Wh}^ so squeamish ? Do they spare you I Now 3'Ou have the whip in j^our hand, won't you lay on? You used to be a pretty whip enough as a young man, and liked it too. Is there no enemy who would be the better for a little thonging? No. I have militated in former times, not without glory ; but I grow peaceable as I grow old. And if I have a literary enemj^, why, he will probabl}^ write a book ere long, and then it will be his turn, and my favorite review will be down upon him. My brethren, these sermons are professedly short ; for I liave that opinion of m}^ dear congregation, which leads me to think that were I to preach at great length they would yawn, stamp, make noises, and perhaps go straightway out of church ; and yet with this text I protest I could go on for hours. What multitudes of men, what multitudes of women, my dears, pass off their ordinaire for port, their small beer for strong! In literature, in politics, in the army, the navy, the church, at the bar, in the world, what an immense quantity of cheap liquor is made to do service for better sorts ! Ask Serjeant Roland his opinion of Oliver Q.C. " Ordinaire, my good fellow, ordinaire, with a port- wine label ! " Ask Oliver his opinion of Roland. " Never was a man so overrated by the world and by himself." 110 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. Ask Tweedledum ski his opinion of Tweedledeestein's perform- ance. " A quack, m}- tear sir! an ignoramus, I geef you m}^ vort ? He gombose an opera ! He is not fit to make dance a bear ! " Ask Paddington and Buckminster, those two " swells " of fashion, what the}' think of each other? They are notorious ordinaire. You and I remember when thfey passed for ver}' small wine, and now how high and mighty ihej have become. What do you sa}" to Tomkins's sermons ? Ordinaire, trying to go down as orthodox port, and very meagre ordinaire too ! To Hopkins's historical works ? — to Pumkins's poetry ? Ordinaire, ordinaire again — thin, feeble, overrated ; and so down the whole hst. And when we have done discussing our men friends, have we not all the women? Do these not advance absurd pre- tensions ? Do these never give themselves airs ? With feeble brains, don't thej' often set up to be esprits forts? Don't they pretend to be women of fashion, and cut their betters? Don't the}^ try and pass off their ordinarj'-looking girls as beauties of the first order? Every man in his circle knows women who give themselves airs, and to whom we can appl}- the port-wine simile. Come, my friends. Here is enough of ordinaire and port for to-day. My bottle has run out. Will anybody have an}' more? Let us go up stairs, and get a cup of tea from the ladies. OGRES. I DARE say the reader has remarked that the upright and in- dependent vowel, which stands in the vowel-list between E and O, has formed the subject of the main part of these essays. How does that vowel feel this morning? — fresh, good-humored, and lively? The Roundabout lines, which fall from this pen, are correspondingly brisk and cheerful. Has anything, on the contrary, disagreed with the vowel? Has its rest been dis- turbed, or was yesterday's dinner too good, or yesterday's wine not good enough? Under such circumstances, a darkling, mis- anthropic tinge, no doubt, is cast upon the paper. The jokes, if attempted, are elaborate and dreary. The bitter temper breaks out. That sneering manner is adopted, which you know, and which exhibits itself so especially when the writer is speak- ing about women. A moody carelessness comes over him. He ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. llj sees no good in anybody or thing : and treats gentlemen, ladies, history, and things in general, with a like gloomy flippancy! Agreed. When the vowel in question is in that mood, if you like airy gayety and tender gushing benevolence — if you want to be satisfied with yourself and the rest of j-our fellow-beings ; I recommend you, my dear creature, to go to some other shop in Cornhill, or turn to some other article. There are moods in the mind of the vowel of which we are speaking, when it is ill- conditioned and captious. Who always keeps good health, and good humor? Do not philosophers grumble? Are not sages sometimes out of temper? and do not angel-women go off in tantrums ? To-day my mood is dark. I scowl as I dip my pen in the inkstand. Here is the day come round — for everything here is done with the utmost regularity : — intellectual labor, sixteen hours ; meals, thirty-two minutes ; exercise, a hundred and forty-eight minutes ; conversation with the family, chiefly literary, and about the housekeeping, one hour and four minutes ; sleep, three hours and fifteen minutes (at the end of the month, when the Magazine is complete, I own I take eight minutes more) ; and the rest for the toilette and the world. Well, I say, the Roundabout Paper Day being come, and the subject long since settled in m}^ mind, an excellent subject — a most telling, livety, and popular subject — I go to breakfast determined to finish that meal in 9| minutes, as usual, and then retire to my desk and work, when — oh, provoking ! — here in the paper is the very subject treated, on which I was going to write ! Yester- day another paper which I saw treated it — and of course, as I need not tell you, spoiled it. Last Saturda}^, another paper had an article on the subject ; perhaps you may guess what it was — but I won't tell you. Onl}^ this is true, my favorite subject, which was about to make the best paper we have had for a long time : my bird, my game that I was going to shoot and serve up with such a delicate sauce, has been found by other sportsmen ; and pop, pop, pop, a half-dozen of guns have banged at it, mangled it, and brought it down. " And can't yoM take some other text? " say 3^ou. All this is might}^ well. But if you have set 3-our heart on a certain dish for dinner, be it cold boiled veal, or what 3'ou will, and they bring 3'ou turtle and venison, don't 3^ou feel disappointed? During your walk 3'OU have been making up your mind that that cold meat, with moderation and a pickle, will be a very suf- ficient dinner : you have accustomed your thoughts to it ; and here, in place of it, is a turkey, surrounded by coarse sausages, 112 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. or a reeking pigeon-pie or a fulsome roast-pig. I have known man}^ a good and kind man made furiously angry by such a contretemps. I have known him lose his temper, call his wife and servants names, and a whole household made miserable. If, then, as is notoriously the case, it is too dangerous to balk a man about his dinner, how much more about his article ? I came to my meal with an ogre-like appetite and gusto. Fee, faw, fum ! Wife, where is that tender little Princekin? Have 30U trussed him, and did 3''ou stuff him nicel}', and have 3'ou taken care to baste him and do him, not too brown, as I told you ? Quick ! I am hungry ! I begin to whet m}- knife, to roll my eyes about, and roar and clap my huge chest like a gorilla ; and then my poor Ogrina has to tell me that the little princes have all run away, whilst she was in the kitchen, making the paste to bake them in ! I pause in the description. I won't condescend to report the bad language, which you know must ensue, when an ogre, whose mind is ill regulated, and whose habits of self-indulgence are notorious, finds himself disap- pointed of his greed}" hopes. What treatment of his wife, what abuse and brutal behavior to his children, who, though ogril- lons, are children ! My dears, you ma}" fancy, and need not ask my delicate pen to describe, the language and behavior of a vulgar, coarse, greedy, large man with an immense mouth and teeth, which are too frequently employed in the gobbling and crunching of raw man's meat. And in this circuitous way you see I have reached my present subject, which is. Ogres. You fancy they are dead or only fictitious characters — mythical representatiA^es of strength, cruelty, stupidity, and lust for blood ? Though they had seven- leagued boots, you remember all sorts of little whipping-snap- ping Tom Thumbs used to elude and outrun them. They were so stupid that they gave into the most shallow ambuscades and artifices : witness that w"ell-known ogi*e, who, because Jack cut open the hasty-pudding, instantly ripped open his own stupid waistcoat and interior. They were cruel, brutal, disgusting, with their sharpened teeth, immense knives, and roaring voices ! but they always ended by being overcome by little Tom Thumb- kins, or some other smart little champion. Yes ; they were conquered in the end there is no doubt. They plunged headlong (and uttering the most frightful bad language) into some pit where Jack came with his smart couteau de chasse and whipped their brutal heads off. They would be going to devour maidens, ni ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 113 " But ever when it seemed Their need was at the sorest, A knight, in armor bright, Came riding through the forest.*' And down, after a combat, would go the brutal persecutor, with a lance through his midriff. Yes, I say, this is very true and well. But you remember that round the ogre's cave the gi'ound was covered, for hundreds and hundreds of yards, with the bones of the victims whom he had lured into the castle. Many knio-hts and maids came to him and perished under his knife and te*eth. Were dragons the same as ogres ? monsters dwelling in caverns, whence they rushed, attired in plate armor, wielding pikes and torches, and destroying stray passengers who passed by their lair? Monsters, brutes, rapacious tyrants, ruffians, as they were, doubtless they ended by being overcome. But, before they were destroyed, they did a deal of mischief. The bones round their caves were countless. They had sent many brave souls to Hades, before their own fled, howling out of their rascal carcasses, to the same place of gloom. There is no greater mistake than to suppose that fairies, champions, distressed damsels, and by consequence ogres, have ceased to exist. It may not be ogreahle to them (pardon the horrible pleasantry, but as I am writing in the solitude of my chamber, I am grinding my teeth — yelling, roaring, and curs- ing — brandishing my scissors and paper-cutter, and as it were, have become an ogre) . I say there is no greater mistake than to suppose that ogres have ceased to exist. We all know ogres. Their caverns are round us, and about us. There are the cas- tles of several ogres within a mile of the spot where I write. I think some of them suspect I am an ogre myself. I am not : but I know they are. I visit them. I don't mean to say that they take a cold roast prince out of the cupboard, and have a cannibal feast before me. But I see the bones lying about the roads to their houses, and in the areas and gardens. Polite- ness, of course, prevents me from making any remarks ; but I know them well enough. One of the ways to know 'em is to watch the scared looks of the ogres' wives and children. They lead an awful life. They are present at dreadful cruelties. In their excesses those ogres will stab about, and kill not only strangers who happen to call in and ask a night's lodging, but they will outrage, murder, and chop up their own kin. We all know ogres, I say, and liave been in their dens often. It is not necessary that ogres who ask you to dine should offer their guests the peculiar dish which they like. They cannot always 8 il4 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. get a Tom Thumb family. The}^ eat mutton and beef too ; and I dare say even go out to tea, and invite you to drink it. But I tell you there are numbers of them going about in the world. And now you have my word for it, and this Uttle hint, it is quite curious what an interest society may be made to have for you, by 3'our determining to find out the ogres you meet there. AVhat does the man mean? says Mrs. Downright, to whom a joke is a very grave thing. I mean, madam, that in the com- pany assembled in your genteel drawing-room, who bow here and there and smirk in white neck-cloths, you receive men who elbow through life successfully enough, but who are ogres in private : men wicked, false, rapacious, flattering ; cruel hectors at home, smiling courtiers abroad ; causing wives, children, servants, parents, to tremble before them, and smiling and bow- ing as they bid strangers welcome into their castles. I say, there are men who have crunched the bones of victim after vic- tim ; in whose closets lie skeletons picked frightfully clean. When these ogres come out into the world, you don't suppose they show their knives, and their great teeth? A neat simple white neck-cloth, a merry rather obsequious manner, a cadaver- ous look, perhaps, now and again, and a rather dreadful grin; but I know ogres very considerabl}- respected : and when you hint to such and such a man, " My dear sir, Mr. Sharpus, whom you appear to like, is, I assure 3^011, a most dreadful cannibal ; " the gentleman cries, " Oh, psha, nonsense! Dare say not so black as he is painted. Dare say not worse than his neighbors." We condone everything in this country ^private treason, false- hood, flatter}^, cruelt}^ at home, roguery, and double dealing. What ! Do you mean to say in 3'Our acquaintance you don't know ogres guilty of countless crimes of fraud and force, and that knowing them you don't shake hands with them ; dine with them at 3^our table ; and meet them at their own ? Depend upon it, in the time when there were real live ogres in real caverns or castles, gobbling up real knights and virgins, when they went into the world — the neighboring market-town, let us say, or earl's castle — though their nature and reputation were pretty well known, their notorious foibles were never alluded to. You would sa3s "What, Blundei'bore, my bo3M How do 3'oudo? How well and fresh you look ! What's the receipt 3'ou have for keeping so 3'oung and ros3' ? " And 3'our wife would softl3' ask after Mrs. Blunderbore and the dear children. Or it would be, " My dear Humguffin ! tr3^ that pork. It is home-bred, home- fed, and, I promise 3'ou, tender. Tell me if 3'ou think it is as good as yours ? John, a glass of Burgund3^ to Colonel Humguffin ! " ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 115 You don't suppose there would be any unpleasant allusions to disagreeable home-reports regarding HumgufRn's manner of furnishing his larder ? I sa}' we all of us know ogres. We shake hands and dine with ogres. And if inconvenient moralists tell us we are cowards for our pains, we turn round with atu quoque, or say that we don't meddle with other folk's affairs ; that peo- ple are much less black than they are painted, and so on. What ! Won't half the county go to Ogreham Castle ? Won't some of the clergy say grace at dinner? Won't the mothers bring their daughters to dance with the young Rawheads ? And if Lady Ogreham happens to die — I won't say to go the wa}- of all flesh, that is too revolting — I say if Ogreham is a widower, do you aver, on your conscience and honor, that mothers will not be found to offer their young girls to supply the lamented lady's place ? How stale this misanthrop}^ is ! Something must have disagreed with this cynic. Yes, my good woman. I dare say you would like to call another subject. Yes, mj* fine fellow ; ogre at home, supple as a dancing-master abroad, and shaking in thy pumps, and wearing a horrible grin of sham ga3'ety to conceal thy terror, lest I should point thee out : — thou art prosperous and honored, art thou? I say thou hast been a tyrant and a robber. Thou hast plundered the poor. Thou hast bullied the weak. Thou hast laid violent hands on the goods of the innocent and confiding. Thou hast made a prey of the meek and gentle who asked for thy protection. Thou hast been hard to thy kinsfolk, and cruel to thy family. Go, monster ! Ah, when shall little Jack come and drill daylight through thy wicked cannibal carcass? I see the ogre pass on, bowing right and left to the compan}- ; and he gives a dreadful sidelong glance of suspicion as he is talking to my lord bishop in the corner there. Ogres in our days need not be giants at all. In former times, and in children's books, where it is necessary to paint your moral in such large letters that there can be no mistake about it, ogres are made with that enormous mouth and ratelier which you know of, and with which they can swallow down a baby, almost without using that great knife which they always carry. They are too cunning now-a-days. They go about in society, slim, small, quietly dressed, and showing no especially great appetite. In my own young days there used to be play ogres — men who would devour a young fellow in one sitting, and leave him without a bit of flesh on his bones. They were quiet gentlemanlike-looking people. They got the young fellow into their cave. Champagne, pate-de-foie-gras, and numberless 116 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. • good things, were handed about ; and then, having eaten, the 3'oung man was devoured in his turn. I believe these card and dice ogres have died away almost as entirely as the hasty-pud- ding giants whom Tom Thumb overcame. Now, there are ogres in City courts who lure you into their dens. About our Cornish mines I am told there are man}^ most plausible ogres, who tempt 3'ou into their caverns and pick j^our bones there. In a certain newspaper there used to be latel}- a whole column of advertisements from ogres who would put on the most plausi- ble, nay, piteous appearance, in order to inveigle their victims. You would read, " A tradesman, established for seventy 3^ears in the City, and known, and much respected by Messrs. N. M. Rothschild and Baring Brothers, has pressing need for three pounds until next Saturda}^ He can give security for half a million, and fort}- thousand pounds will be given for the use of the loan," and so on; or, "An influential body of capitalists are about to establish a company, of which the business will be enormous and the profits proportionately prodigious. They will require a secretary, of good address and appearance, at a salar}' of two thousand per annum. He need not be able to write, but address and manners are absolutely necessary. As a mark of confidence in the compan}^, he will have to deposit," &c. ; or, "A young widow (of pleasing manners and appear- ance) who has a pressing necessit}' for four pounds ten for three weeks, offers her Erard's grand piano, valued at three hundred guineas ; a diamond cross of eight hundred pounds ; and board and lodging in her elegant villa near Banbury Cross, with the best references and societ}', in return for the loan." I suspect the. people are ogres. There are ogres and ogres. Pol3'phe- mus was a great, tall, one-eyed, notorious ogre, fetching his victims out of a hole, and gobbling them one after another. There could be no mistake about him. But so were the Sirens ogres — prett}' blue-e3'ed things, peeping at 3''0u coaxingl3^ from out of the water, and singing their melodious wheedles. And the bones round their caves were more numerous than the ribs, skulls, and thigh-bones round the cavern of hulking Pol3'pheme. To the castle-gates of some of these monsters up rides the dapper champion of the pen ; puflfe boldh' upon the horn which hangs by the chain ; enters the hall resolutel3^, and challenges the big t3Tant sulking within. We def)^ him to combat, the enormous roaring ruffian ! We give him a meeting on the green plain before his castle . Green ? No wonder it should be green : it is manured with human bones. After a few graceful wheels and cuiTets, we take our ground. We stoop over our saddle. ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 117 *Tis but to kiss the locket of our lady-love's hair. And now the vizor is up : the lance is in rest (Gillott's iron is the point for me). A touch of the spur in the gallant sides of Pegasus, and Ave gallop at the great brute. '' Cut of!' his ugl}' head, Flibberty gibbet, my squire ! " And who are these who pour out of the castle? the imprisoned maidens, the maltreated widows, the poor old hoar}^ grand- fathers, who have been locked up in the dungeons these scores and scores of years, writhing under the tyranny of that ruffian ! Ah ye knights of the i^en ! May honor be your shield, and truth tip your lances ! Be gentle to all gentle people. Be modest to women. Be tender to children. And as for the Ogre Humbug, out sword, and have at him. ON TWO EOUNDABOUT PAPEES WHICH I INTENDED TO WRITE.* We have all heard of a place paved with good intentions : — a place which I take to be a very dismal, useless, and unsatis- factory terminus for man}^ pleasant thoughts, kindl}- fancies, gentle wishes, meny little quips and pranks, harmless jokes which die as it were the moment of their birth. Poor little children of the brain ! He was a drear}^ theologian who hud- dled 3"OU under such a melanchoty cenotaph, and laid 3'ou in the vaults under the flagstones of Hades ! I trust that some of the best actions we have all of us committed in our lives have been committed in fanc}^ It is not all wickedness we are thinking, que diahle! Some of our thoughts are bad enough I grant 3'ou. Many a one you and I have had here below. Ah merc}^ what a monster ! what crooked horns ! what leering eyes ! what a flaming mouth ! what cloven feet, and what a hideous writh- ing tail ! Oh, let us fall down on our knees, repeat our most potent exorcisms, and overcome the brute. Spread 3- our black pinions, fly — fly to the dusky realms of Eblis, and bury th3'- self under the paving-stones of his hall, dark genie! But all thoughts are not so. No — no. There are the pure : there * The following paper was written in 1861, after the extraordinary affray between Major Murray and the money-lender in a house in Nor- thumberland Street, Strand, and subsequent to the appearance of M. Du Chaillu's book on Gorillas. 118 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. are the kind : there are the gentle. There are sweet unspoken thanks before a fair scene of nature : at a sun-setting below a glorious sea : or a moon and a host of stars shining over it : at a bunch of children playing in the street, or a group of flowers by the hedge-side, or a bird singing there. At a hundred mo- ments or occurrences of the day good thoughts pass through the mind, let us trust, which never are spoken ; prayers are made which never are said ; and Te Deura is sung without church, clerk, choristers, parson, or organ. Why, there's m}- enem}' : who got the place I wanted ; who maligned me to the woman I wanted to be well with ; who supplanted me in the good graces of my patron. I don't say anything about the mat- ter : but, my poor old enem}'^, in my secret mind I have move- ments of as tender charity towards you, 3'ou old scoundrel, as ever I had when we were bo3's together at school. You ruffian ! do you fancy I forget that we were fond of each other ? We are still. We share our toff}' ; go halves at the tuck-shop ; do each other's exercises ; prompt each other with the word in construing or repetition ; and tell the most frightful fibs to prevent each other from being found out. We meet each other in public. Ware a fight ! Get them into different parts of the room ! Our friends hustle round us. Capulet and Mon- tague are not more at odds than the houses of Roundabout and Wrightabout, let us say. It is, "My dear Mrs. Buffer, do kindly put yourself in the chair between those two men ! " Or, "My dear Wrightabout, will you take that charming Lady Blancmange down to supper? She adores 3^our poems, and gave five shillings for 3'our autograph at the fanc}'^ fair." In like manner the peacemakers gather round Roundabout on his part ; he is carried to a distant corner, and coaxed out of the wa3'^ of the enem3^ with whom he is at feud. When we meet in the Square at Verona, out flash rapiers, and we fall to. But in his private mind T3'balt owns that Mercutio has a rare wit, and Mercutio is sure that his adversar3' is a gallant gentleman. Look at the amphitheatre 3'onder. You do not suppose those gladiators who fought and perished, as hundreds of spectators in that grim Circus held thumbs down, and cried, " Kill, kill ! " — 3^ou do not suppose the combatants of necessit3" hated each other ? No more than the celebrated trained bands of literar}' sword -and-buckler men hate the ad- versaries whom the3" meet in the arena. The3" engage at the given signal ; feint and parr3^ ; slash, poke, rip each other open, dismember limbs, and hew ofl* noses : but in the way of business, and, I trust, with mutual private esteem. For in- HOUKDABOUT PAPERS. Il9 stance, I salute the warriors of the Superfine Company with the honors due among warriors. Here's at you, Spartacus, my lad A hit, I acknowledge. A palpable hit! Ha! how do you like that poke in the eye in return ? When the trumpets sino- truce, or the spectators are tired, we bow to the noble compau}-^ withdraw ; and get a cool glass of wine in our rendezvous des braves gladiateurs. By the way, I saw that amphitheatre of Verona under the strange Ught of a lurid echpse some years ago : and I have been there in spirit for these twenty lines past, under a vast gusty awning, now with twenty thousand fellow-citizens looking on from the benches, now in the circus itself, a grim gladiator with sword and net, or a meek mart^T — was I ? — brought out to be gobbled up by the lions ? or a huge, shaggy, tawny lion myself, on whom the dogs were going to be set? What a day 3f excitement I have had to be sure ! But I must get away from Verona, or who knows how much farther the Roundabout Pegasus may carry me ? We were saying, my Muse, before we dropped and perched )n earth for a couple of sentences, that our unsaid words were n some Umbo or other, as real as those we have uttered ; that ihe thoughts which have passed through our brains are as ictual as any to which our tongues and pens have given cur- •ency. For instance, besides what is here hinted at, I have Jiought ever so much more about Verona : about an early Christian church I saw there ; about a great dish of rice we lad at the inn ; about the bugs there ; about ever so man}'' nore details of that daj^'s journey from Milan to Venice ; about liake Garda, which la}^ on the wa}^ from Milan, and so forth. ' say what fine things we have thought of, haven't we, all of us? ^h, what a fine tragedy that was I thought of, and never wrote ! )n the day of the dinner of the Oj^stermongers' Companj^, what I noble speech I thought of in the cab, and broke down — I lon't mean the cab, but the speech. Ah, if j^ou could but read lome of the unwritten Roundabout Papers, how you would be imused ! Aha! m}^ friend, I catch j^ou saying, " Well, then, ^ wish this was unwritten with all m}^ heart." Ver}^ good. I )we 3-0U one. I do confess a hit, a palpable hit. One day in the past month, as I was reclining on the bench )f thought, witli that ocean The Times newspaper spread before ne, tlie ocean cast up on the shore at my feet two famous sub- ects for Roundabout Papers, and I picked up those waifs, and ireasured them away until I could polish them and bring them io market. That scheme is not to be carried out. I can't 120 HOUNDABOUt PAPERS. write about those subjects. And though I cannot write about them, I ma}^ surely tell what are the subjects I am going not to write about. The first was that Northumberland Street encounter, which all the papers have narrated. Have any novelists of our daj^s a scene and catastrophe more strange and terrible than this which occurs at noonda}' within a few ^'ards of the greatest thoroughfare in Europe? At the theatres they have a new name for their melodramatic pieces, and call them " Sensation Dramas." What a sensation Drama this is ! What have people been flocking to see at the Adelphi Theatre for the last hundred and fifty nights? A woman pitched overboard out of a boat, and a certain Miles taking a tremendous " header," and bringing her to shore? Bagatelle! What is this com- pared to the real life-drama, of which a midday representation takes place just opposite the Adelphi in Northumberland Street? The brave Dumas, the intrepid Ainsworth, the terrible Eugene Sue, the cold-shudder-inspiring " Woman in White," the as- tounding author of the " M^'steries of the Court of London," never invented anything more tremendous than this. It might have happened to you and me. We want to borrow a little mone3\ We are directed to an agent. We propose a pe- cuniary transaction at a short date. He goes into the next room, as we fanc}^, to get the bank-notes, and returns with *' two very prett}^, dehcate little ivorj'-handled pistols," and blows a portion of our heads oflT. After this, what is the use of being squeamish about the probabilities and possibilities in the writing of fiction ? Years ago I reirifember making merry over a play of Dumas, called Kean^ in which the "Coal-Hole Tavern " was represented on the Thames, with a fleet of pirate- ships moored alongside. Pirate-ships? Why not? What a cavern of terror was this in Northumberland Street, with its splendid furniture covered with dust, its empty bottles, in the midst of which sits a grim " agent," amusing himself by firing pistols, aiming at the unconscious mantel-piece, or at the heads of his customers ! After this, what is not possible? It is possible Hungerford Market is mined, and will explode some da}'. Mind how 3'ou go in for a penu}' ice unawares. " Pra}', step this way," says a quiet person at the door. You enter — into a back room : — a quiet room : rather a dark room. " Pray, take your place in a chair." And she goes to fetch the pennj' ice. Malheureiu ! The chair sinks down with 3'ou — sinks, and sinks, and sinks — a large wet flannel suddenU' envelopes your face and throt- ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 121 ties you. Need we say any more? After Northumberland Street, what is improbable? Surely there is no difficult}' in crediting Bluebeard. I withdraw my last month's opinions about ogres. Ogres? Why not? I protest I have seldom contem- plated anything more terribly ludicrous than this "agent" in the dingy splendor of his clen, surrounded by dusty ormolu and piles of empty bottles, firing pistols for his diversion at the mantel-piece until his clients come in ! Is pistol-practice so common in Northumberland Street, that it passes without notice hi the lodging-houses there ? We spake anon of good thoughts. About bad thoughts? Is there some Northumberland Street chamber in vour heart and mine, friend : close to the every-day street of life : visited by daily friends: visited by people on business; in which affairs are transacted ; jokes are uttered ; wine is drunk ; through which people come and go ; wives and children pass ; and in which murder sits unseen until the terrible moment when he rises up and kills? A farmer, say, has a gun over the mantel-piece in his room where he sits at his dail}' meals and rest: caressing his children, joking with his friends, smoking his pipe in his calm. One night the gun is taken down: the farmer goes out : and it^gis a murderer who comes back and puts the piece up and drinks by that fireside. Was he a mur- derer yesterda}' when he was tossing the baby on his knee, and when his hands were playing with his little girl's yellow hair? Yesterday there was no blood on them at all: they were shaken by honest men : have done many a kind act in their time ver}' likely. He. leans his head on one of them, the wife comes in with her anxious looks of welcome, the children are prattling as they did yesterday round the father's knee at the fire, and Cain is sitting by the embers, and Abel lies dead on the moor. Think of the gulf between now and yesterday. Oh, yesterday ! Oh, the days when those two loved each other and said their prayers side by side ! He goes to sleep, per- haps, and dreams that his brother is alive. Be true, O dream ! Let him live in dreams, and wake no more. Be undone, O crime, O crime ! But the sun rises : and the officers of con- science come : and yonder lies the body on the moor. I hap- pened to pass, and looked at the Northumberland Street house the other day. A few loiterers were gazing up at the dingy windows. A plain ordinary face of a house enough — and in a chamber in it one man suddenly rose up, pistol in hand, to slaughter another. HaA^e you ever killed any one in your thoughts? Has your heart compassed any man's death? In 122 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 1 your mind, have j^ou ever taken a brand from the altar, and slain your brother? How many plain ordinary faces of men do we look at, unknowing of murder behind those ej^es ? Luck}- for 3'ou and me, brother, that we have good thoughts unspoken. But the bad ones? I tell 3'ou that the sight of those blank windows in Northumberland Street — through which, as it were, m}' mind could picture the awful traged}' glimmering l^ehind — set me thinking, "Mr. Street-Preacher, here is a text for one of your pavement sermons. But it is too glum and serious. You eschew dark thoughts : and desire to be cheerful and merry in the main." And, such being the case, you see we must have no Roundabout Essay on this subject. Well, I had another arrow in my quiver. (So, 3'ou know, had William Tell a bolt for his son, the apple of his eye ; and a shaft for Gessler, in case Wilham came to any trouble with the first poor little target.) And this, I must tell you, was to have been a rare Roundabout performance — one of the very best that has ever appeared in this series. It was to have contained all the deep pathos of Addison ; the logical precision of Rabelais ; the childlike playfulness of Swift ; the manly stoicism of Sterne ; the metaphysical depth of Goldsmith ; the blushing modesty of Fielding ; the ||)igi'ammatic terseness of Walter Scott ; the uproarious humor of Sam Richardson ; and the gay simplicit}' of Sam Johnson ; — it was to have combined all these qualities, with some excellences of modern writers whom I could name : — but circumstances have occurred which have rendered this Roundabout Essay also impossible. I have not the least objection to tell 3'ou what was to have been the subject of that other admirable Roundabout Paper. Gracious powers ! the Dean of St. Patrick's never had a better theme. The paper was to have been on the Gorillas, to be sure. I was going to imagine myself to be a young surgeon- apprentice from Charleston, in South Carolina, who ran away to Cuba on account of unhappy family circumstances, with which nobody has the least concern ; who sailed thence to Africa in a large, roomy schooner with an extraordinary vacant space between decks. I was subject to dreadful ill treatment from the first mate of the ship, who, when I found she was a slaver, altogether de 4ined to put me on shore. I was chased — we were chased - l)y three British frigates and a seventy- four, which we enga ^ad and captured ; but were obliged to scuttle and sink, ns >ve could sell them in no African port: and I never sIimU forget the look of manly resignation, com- bined with considerable disgust, of the British Admiral as he ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 123 wafkecl the plank, after cutting off his pigtail, which he handed to me, and which I still have iu charge for his faniil3- ^^ Boston, Lincohishire, England. We made the port of Bpoopoo, at the confluence of the Bungo and Sgglolo rivers (which you may see in ISwammer- dahl's map) on the 31st April last year. Our passage had been so extraordinarily rapid, owing to the continued drunken- ness of the captain and chief officers, b}' which I was oblioed to work the ship and take her in command, that we reached Bpoopoo six weeks before we were expected, and five before the coffres from the interior and from the great slave depot at Zbabblo were expected. Their delay caused us not a little discomfort, because, though we had taken the four English ships, we knew that Sir Byam Martin's iron-cased squadron, with the " Warrior," the " Impregnable," the " Sanconiathon," and the " Berosus," were cruising in the neighborhood, and might prove too much for us. It not only became necessary to quit Bpoopoo before the arrival of the British fleet or the rainy season, but to get our people on board as soon as might be. While the chief mate, with a detachment of seamen, hurried forward to the Pgogo lake, where we expected a considerable part of our cargo, the second mate, with six men, four chiefs. King Fbumbo, an Obi man, and m3'self, went N.W. by W., towards King Mtoby's- town, where we knew man}' hundreds of our between-deck passengers were to be got together. We went down the Pdodo river, shooting snipes, ostriches, and rhinoceros in plenty, and I think a few elephants, until, by the advice of a guide, who I now believe was treacherous, we were induced to leave the Pdodo, and march N.E. by N.N. Here Lieutenant Larkins, who had persisted in drinking rum from morning to night, and thmshing me in his sober moments during the whole journey, died, and I have too good reason to know was eaten with much relish by the natives. At Mgoo, where there are barracoons and a depot for our cargo, we had no news of our expected freight ; accordingl}', as time pressed exceedingly, parties were despatched in advance towards the great Washaboo lake, bj^ which the caravans usualh'^ come towards the coast. Here we found no caravan, but onl^^ four negrof down with the ague, whom I treated, I am bound to say, u'^successfully, whilst we waited for our friends. We used to '^(ike watch and watch in front of the place, both to guard ourselves from attack, and get earl}^ news of the approaching caravan. At last, on the 23rd September, as I was in advance with 124 ROUNDi^BOUT PAPERS. I Charles Rogers, second mate, and two natives with bows and arrows, we were crossing a great plain skirted by a forest, when we saw emerging from a ravine what I took to be three ne- groes — a very tall one, one of a moderate size, and one quite little. Our native guide shrieked out some words in their language, of which Charles Rogers knew something. 1 thought it was the advance of the negroes whom we expected. " No ! " said Rogers (who swore dreadfull}' in conversation), "it is the Gorillas ! " And he fired both barrels of his gun, bringing down the little one first, and the female afterwards. The male, who was untouched, gave a howl that you might have heard a league off; advanced towards us as if he would attack us, and then turned and ran away with inconceivable celerit}' towards the wood. We went up towards the fallen brutes. The little one by the female appeared to be about two 3'ears old. It lay bleat- ing and moaning on the gTOund, stretching out its little hands, with movements and looks so strangely resembling human, that m}' heart sickened with pit}'. The female, who had been shot through both legs, could not move. She howled most hide- ously when I approached the little one. " We must be off," said Rogers, " or the whole Gorilla race may be down upon us." "The little one is onl}' shot in the leg," I said. " I'll bind the limb up, and we will carr^* the beast with us on board." The poor little wretch held up its leg to show it was wounded, and looked to me with appealing ej'es. It la}' quite still whilst I looked for and found the bullet, and, tearing off a piece of my shirt, bandaged up the wound. I was so occupied in this business, that I hardly heard Rogers cry "Run! run!" and when I looked up — When I looked up, with a roar the most horrible I ever heard — a roar ? ten thousand roars — a whirling arm}' of dark beings rushed by me. Rogers, who had bullied me so fright- fuU}' during the vo3'age, and who had encouraged m}' fatal passion for pla}-, so that I own I owed him 1,500 dollars, was overtaken, felled, brained, and torn into ten thousand pieces ; and I dare sa}' the same fate would have fallen on me, but that the little Gorilla, whose wound I had dressed, flung its arms round my neck (their Urms, 3'ou know, are much longer than ours). And when an immense gra}' Gorilla, with hardly any teeth, brandishing the trunk of a goll^'boshtree about sixteen | feet long, came up to me roaring, the little one squeaked out ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 125 something plaintive, which, of course, I could not understand ; on which suddenl}- the monster flung down his tree, squatted down on his huge hams by the side of the little patient, and began to bellow and weep. And now, do you see whom I had rescued ? I had rescued the young Prince of the Gorillas, who was out walking with his nurse and footman. The footman had run ofl^ to alann his master, and certainly I never saw a footman run quicker. The whole army of Gorillas rushed forward to rescue their prince, and punish his enemies. If the King Gorilla's emotion was great, fancy what the queen's must have been when she came up ! She arrived, on a litter, neatly enough made with wattled branches, on which she lay, with her youngest child, a prince of three weeks old. My little protege with the wounded leg, still persisted in hugging me with its arms (I think I mentioned that they are longer than those of men in general), and as the poor little brute was immensely heavy, and the Gorillas go at a prodigious pace, a litter was made for us likewise ; and my thirst much refreshed by a footman (the same domestic who had given the alarm) running hand over hand up a cocoanut-tree, tearing the rinds off, breaking the shell on his head, and handing me the fresh milk in its cup. M}- little patient partook of a little, stretching out its dear little unwounded foot, with which, or with its hand, a Gorilla can help itself indiscriminatel}'. Rela3's of large Gorillas relieved each other at the litters at intervals of twent}' minutes, as I calculated by my watch, one of Jones and Bates's, of Boston, Mass., though I have been unable to this day to ascertain how these animals calculate time with such surprising accurac}^ We slept for that night under — And now, you see, we arrive at reall}' the most interesting part of m}^ travels in the country which I intended to visit, viz. the manners and habits of the Gorillas chez eux. I give the heads of this narrative only, the full account being suppressed for a reason which shall presently be given. The heads, then, of the chapters, are briefly as follows : — The author's arrival in the Gorilla country. Its geographical position. Lodgings assigned to him up a gum-tree. Constant attachment of the little prince. His royal highnesses gratitude. Anecdotes of his wit, playfulness, and extraordinary precocity. Am offered a portion of poor Larkins for my supper^ but decline with horror. Footman britigs me a young crocodile : fishy but very pal- atable. Old crocodiles too tough: ditto rhinoceros. Visit the 126 ROWNDABOUT PAPERS. J queen mother — an enormous old Gorilla^ quite white. Prescribe for her majesty. Meeting of Gorillas at what appears a parliament amongst them : presided over by old Gorilla in cocoanut-fihre wig. Their sports. Their customs. A privileged class amongst them. Extraordinary likeness of Gorillas to people at home., both at Charleston, S. C, my native place; and London, England., which I have visited. Flat-nosed Gorillas and blue-nosed Gorillas; their hatred, and wars between them. In a part of the country (its geo- graphical position described) 1 see several negroes under Gorilla domination. Well treated by their masters. Frog-eating Gorillas across the Salt Lake. Bull-headed Gorillas — their mutual hostility . Green Island Gorillas. More quarrelsome than the Bull-heads, and howl much louder. 1 am called to attend one of the princesses. Evident partiality of H. R. H. for me. Jealousy and rage of large red-headed Gorilla. How shall I escape ? Ay, how indeed ? Do you wish to know ? Is your curiosity excited ? Well, I do know how I escaped. I could tell the most extraordinary adventures that happened to me. I could show 3^ou resemblances to people at home, that would make them blue with rage and you crack your sides with laughter And what is the reason I cannot write this paper, having all the facts before me? The reason is, that walking down vSt. James Street yesterday, I met a friend who says to me, " Roundabout my boy, have you seen your picture ? Here it is ! " And he pulls out a portrait, executed in photography, of your humble servant, as an immense and most unpleasant-featured baboon, with long hairy hands, and called by the waggish artist " A Literary Gorilla." O horror ! And now you see why I can't play off this joke myself, and moralize on the fable, as it has been narrated already de me. A MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. This group of dusky children of the captivity is copied out of a little sketch-book which I carried in many a roundabout journey, and will point a moral as well as any other sketch in the volume. Yonder drawing * was made in a country where there was such hospitality, friendship, kindness shown to the humble designer, that his eyes do not care to look out for faults, ~ * This refers to an illustrated edition of the work. ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 127 or his pen to note them. How they sang ; how they lauo-hed and grinned ; how they scraped, bowed, and complimented%oii and each other, those negroes of tlie cities of the Southern parts of the then United States ! My business kept me in the towns ; I was but in one negro-plantation village, and there were only women and little children, the men being out a-field. But there was plenty of cheerfulness in the huts, under the great trees I speak of what I saw — and amidst the dusky bondsmen of the cities. I witnessed a curious gayety ; heard amongst the black folk endless singing, shouting, and laughter ; and saw on holidays black gentlemen and ladies arrayed in such splendor and comfort as freeborn workmen in our towns seldom exhibit. What a grin and bow that dark gentleman performed, who was the porter at the colonel's, when he said, "You write 3^our name, mas'r, else I will forgot." I am not going into the slaver}^ question, T am not an advocate for "the institution," as I know, madam, by that angry toss of your head, you are about to declare me to be. For domestic purposes, m^- dear lady, it seemed to me about the dearest institution that can be devised. In a house in a Southern cit}' you will find fifteen negroes doing the work which John, the cook, the housemaid, and the help, do perfectly in your own comfortable London house. And these fifteen negroes are the pick of a familj' of some eight}^ or ninety. Twent}^ are too sick, or too old for work, let us say : tWent}' too clumsy : twenty are too young, and have to be nursed and watched by ten more.* And master has to maintain the immense crew to do the work of half a dozen willing hands. No, no ; let Mitchell, the exile from poor dear enslaved Ireland, wish for a gang of " fat niggers ; " I would as soon you should make me a present of a score of Bengal elephants, when I need but a single stout horse to pull my brougham. How hospitable they were, those Southern men ! In the North itself the welcome was not kinder, as I, who have eaten Northern and Southern salt, can testify. As for New Orleans, in spring-time, — just when the orchards were flushing over with peach-blossoms, and the sweet herbs came to flavor the juleps — it seemed to me the city of the world where you can eat and drink the most and suffer the least. At Bordeaux itself, claret is not better to drink than at New Orleans. It * This was an account given by a gentleman at Richmond of his estab. lishment. Six European servants would have kept liis house and stables well. " His farm," he said, " barely sufficed to maintain the negroes resid- ing on it." 128 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. was all good — believe an expert Robert — from the half-dollar Medoc of the public hotel table, to the private gentleman's choicest wine. Claret is, somehow, good in that gifted place at dinner, at supper, and at breakfast in the morning. It is good : it is superabundant — and there is nothing to pa3'. Find me speaking ill of such a country ! When I do, pone me pigris campis : smother me in a desert, or let Mississippi or Garonne drown me ! At that comfortable tavern on Pontchar- train we had a bouillabaisse than which a better was never eaten at Marseilles : and not the least headache in the morning, I give 3'ou ni}' word ; on the contrary, you only wake with a sweet refreshing thirst for claret and water. Thej^ saj^ there is fever there in the autumn : but not in the spring-time, when the peach-blossoms blush over the orchards, and the sweet herbs come to flavor the juleps. I was bound from New Orleans to Saint Louis ; and our walk was constantlj' on the Levee, whence we could see a hun- dred of those huge white Mississippi steamers at their moorings in the river: "Look," said my friend Lochlomond to me, as we stood one da}" on the quay — ' ' look at that post ! Look at that coffee-house behind it ! Sir, last j'ear a steamer blew up in the river yonder, just where you see those men pulling off in the boat. By that post where you are standing a mule was cut in two by a fragment of the burst machiner}', and a bit of the chimney-stove in that first-floor window of the coffee-house,^, killed a negro who was cleaning knives in the top-room ! " fl looked at the post, at the coffee-house window, at the steamer in which I was going to embark, at my friend, with a pleasing interest not divested of melanchol3^ Yesterda}^, it was the mule, thinks I, who was cut in two : it ma}^ be eras mihi. Wh}', in the same little sketch-book, there is a drawing of an Alabama river steamer which blew up on the ver^^ next vo^^age after that in which your humble servant was on board ! Had I but waited another week, I might have. . . . These incidents give a queer zest to the voyage down the life-stream in America. When our huge, tall, white, pasteboard castle of a steamer began to work up stream, every limb in her creaked, and gi'oaned, and quivered, so that 3"ou might fancv" she would burst right off. Would she hold together, or would she split into ten miUion of shivers ? O my home and children ! Would 3'our humble servant's bod3^ be cut in two across 3"onder chain on the Levee, or be precipitated into 3'onder flrst-floor, so as to damage the chest of a black man cleaning boots at the window ? The blacki man is safe for me, thank goodness. But 3"ou see the little] ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 129 accident might have happened. It has happened ; and if to a mule, why not to a more docile animal? On oar journey up the Mississippi, I give you my honor we were on fire three times, and burned our cook-room down. The deck at nio-ht; was a great firework — the chimney spouted myriads of stai-s, which fell blackening on our garments, sparkling on to the deck, or gleaming into the mighty stream through which we labored — the mighty 3"ellow stream with all its snags. How I kept up my courage through these dangers shall now be narrated. The excellent landlord of the "Saint Charles Hotel," when I was going away, begged me to accept two bottles of the very finest Cognac, with his compliments ; and I found them in my state-room with my luggage. Lochlomond came to see me off, and as he squeezed mj- hand at parting, "Roundabout," says he, "the wine mayn't be verj- good on board, so I have brought a dozen-case of the Medoc which you liked ; " and we grasped together the hands of friendship and farewell. Whose boat is this pulHng up to the ship? It is our friend Glenlivat, who gave us the dinner on Lake Pontchar- train. "Roundabout," says he, " we have tried to do what we could for you, my boy ; and it has been done de bon cceur " (I detect a kind tremulousness in the good fellow's voice as he speaks). '^Isa}' — hem! — the a — the wine isn't too good on board, so I've brought 3'ou a dozen of Medoc for 3'our voyage, you know. And God bless 3'ou ; and when I come to London in Ma3^ I shall come and see 3'ou. Hallo ! here's Johnson come to see 3'OU off,- too ! " As I am a miserable sinner, when Johnson grasped m3' hand, he said, "Mr. Roundabout, 3"0u can't be sure of the wine on board these steamers, so I thought I would bring 3'ou a little case of that light claret which 3'ou liked at m3' house." Et de trois ! No wonder I could face the Mississippi with so much courage supplied to me ! Where are 3'Ou, honest friends, who gave me of your kindness and your cheer? May I be consider- a])ly boiled, blown up, and snagged, if I speak hard words of 3'ou. May claret turn sour ere I do ! Mounting the stream it chanced that we had very few pas- sengers. How far is the famous cit3' of Memphis from New Orleans? I do not mean the Egyptian Memphis, but the American Memphis, from which to the American Cairo we slowly toiled up the river — to the American Cairo at the con- fluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. And at Cairo we parted company from the boat, and from some famous and gifted fellow-passengers who joined us at Memphis, and whoso 130 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. pictures we had seen in many cities of the South. I do not give the names of these remarkable people, unless, b}- some wondrous chance, in inventing a name I should hght upon that real one which some of them bore ;, but if 3^ou please I will say that our fellow-passengers whom we took in at Memphis wei;e no less personages than the Vermont Giant and the famous Bearded Lady of Kentucky and her son. Their pictures I had seen in many cities through which I travelled with my own little performance. I think the Vermont Giant was a trifle taller in his pictures than he was in life (being represented in the foimer as, at least, some two stories high) : but the lady's prodigious beard received no more than justice at the hands of the painter ; that portion of it which I saw being really most black, rich, and curly — I say the portion of beard, for this modest or prudent woman kept I don't know how much of the beard covered up with a red handkerchief, from which I suppose it only emerged when she went to bed, or when she exhibited it professionally. The Giant, I must think, was an overrated giant. I have known gentlemen, not in the profession, better made, and I should sa}^ taller, than the Vermont gentleman. A strange feeling I used to have at meals ; when, on looking round our little society, I saw the Giant, the Bearded Lad}^ of Kentuckj^ the little Bearded Boy of three years old, the Captain, (this I think ; but at this distance of time I would not like to make the statement on affidavit,) and the three other passengers, all with their knives in their mouths making play at the dinner — a strange feehng I say it was, and as though I was in a castle of ogres. But, after all, why so squeamish? A few scores of 3'ears back, the finest gentlemen and ladies of Europe did the like. Belinda ate with her knife ; and Saccharissa had onl}' that weapon, or a two-pronged fork, or a spoon, for her pease. Have you ever looked at Gilray's print of the Prince of Wales, a languid voluptuary, retiring after his meal, and noted the toothpick which he uses ? . . . You are right, madam; I own that the subject is revolting and terrible. I will not pursue it. Only — allow that a gentleman, in a shak}' steamboat, on a dangerous river, in a far-off countr}^, which caught fire three times during the voyage — (of course I mean the steamboat, not the country,) — seeing a giant, a voracious supercargo, a bearded lad}', and a little boy, not three 3'ears of age, with a chin already quite black and curly, all plying their victuals down their throats with their knives — allow, madam, that in such a compan}^ a man had a right to feel a little nervous. I don't know whether you have ever remarked the Indian jugglers ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 131 swallowing their knives, or seen, as I have, a whole table of people performing the same trick, but if 3^011 look at their eyes when they do it, I assure you there is a roll in them which is dreadful. Apart from this usage, which they practise in common with many thousand most estimable citizens, the Vermont gentle- man, and the Kentucky whiskered ladj^ — or did I say the re- verse? — whichever you like, my dear sir — were quite quiet, modest, unassuming people. She sat working with her needle, if I remember right. He, I suppose, slept in the great cabin, which was seventy feet long at the least, nor, I am bound to say,, did I hear in the night any snores or roar's, such as you would fancy ought to accompany the sleep of ogres. Nay, this giant had quite a small appetite, (unless, to be sure, he went forward and ate a sheep or two in private with his horrid knife — oh, the dreadful thought ! — but in public, I say, he had quite a delicate appetite,) and was also a tea-totaler. I don't remember to have heard the lady's voice, though I might, not unnaturally, have been curious to hear it. Was her voice a deep, rich, magnificent bass; or was it soft, fluty, and mild? I shall never know now. Even if she comes to this country, I shall never go and see her. I have seen her, and for nothing. You would have fancied that, as after all we were only some half-dozen on board, she might have dispensed with her red handkerchief, and talked, and eaten her dinner in comfort : but in covering her chin there was a kind of modesty. That beard was her profession : that beard brought the public to see her : out of her business she wished to put that beard aside as it were : as a barrister would wish to put off his wig. I know some who carry theirs into private life, and who mistake you and me for jury-boxes when they address us : but these are not your modest barristers, not \o\xv true gentlemen. Well, I own I respected the lady for the modesty with which, her public business over, she retired into private life. She respected her life, and her beard. That beard having done its day's work, she puts it away in her handkerchief; and becomes, as far as in her lies, a private ordinary person. All public men and women of good sense, I should think, have this modesty. When, for instance, in my small way, poor Mrs. Brown comes simpering up to me, with her album in one hand, a pen in the other, and savs, " Ho, ho, dear Mr. Roundabout, write us one of your amusing," &c. &c., my beard drops behind my hand- kerchief instantly. Why am I to wag my chin and grin for Mrs. Brown's good pleasure? My dear madam, I have been 132 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. J making faces all day. It is 1113' profession. I do my comic business with the greatest pains, seriousness, and trouble : and^l with it make, I hope, a not dishonest livelihood. If 3"ou ask Mons. Blondin to tea, you don't have a rope stretched from your garret window to the opposite side of the square, and request Monsieur to take his tea out on the centre of the rope ? I lay my hand on this waistcoat, and declare that not once in the course of our voyage together did I allow the Kentucky Giant to suppose I was speculating on his stature, or the Bearded Lady to surmise that I wished to peep under the handkerchief which muffled the lower part of her face. " And the more fool you," says some cynic. (Faugh, those cynics, I hate 'em !) Don't you know, sir, that a man of genius is pleased to have his genius recognized ; that a beauty likes to be admired ; that an a«tor Ukes to be applauded ; that stout old Wellington himself was pleased, and smiled when the people cheered him as he passed? Suppose- you had paid some respectful compliment to that lady? Suppose j'ou had asked that giant, if, for once, he would take anything at the liquor-bar? you might have learned a great deal of curious knowledge regarding giants and bearded ladies, about whom you evidently now know ver}^ little. There was that little boy of three yesirs old, with a fine beard alreadv, and his little legs and arms, as seen out of his little frock, covered with a dark down. What a queer little capering satyr ! He was quite good-natured, childish, rather solemn. He had a httle, Norval dress, I remember : the drollest little Norval. I have said the B. L.ihad another child. Now this was a little girl of some six years old, as fair and as smooth of skin, dear madam, as your own darling cherubs. She wandered about the great cabin quite melanchol3\ No one seemed to care for her. All the family affections were centred on Master Esau 3^onder. His little beard was beginning to be a little fortune alread3% whereas Miss Rosalba was of no good to the famil3'. No one would pa3' a cent to see her little fair face. No wonder the poor little maid was melanchol3^ As I looked at her, I seemed to walk more and more in a fair3^ tale, and more and more in a cavern of ogres. Was this a little fondling whom the3^ had picked up in some forest, where lie the picked bones of the queen, her tender mother, and the tough old defunct monarch, her father? No. Doubtless they were quite good-natured people, these. I don't believe they were unkind to the little girl without the moustaches. It ma3^ have been only m3^ fanc3^ that she repined because she had a cheek no more bearded than a rose's. ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 133 Would you wish your own daughter, madam, to have a smooth cheek, a modest air, and a gentle feminine behavior, or to be — I won't say a whiskered prodigy, like this Bearded Lady of Kentucky — but a masculine wonder, a virago, a female personage of more than female strength, courage, wisdom? Some authors, who shall be nameless, are, I know, accused of depicting the most feeble, brainless, namby-pamby heroines, for ever whimpering tears and prattling commonplaces. Tou would have the heroine of your novel so beautiful that she should charm the captain (or hero, whoever he may be) with her ap- pearance ; surprise and confound the bishop with her learning ; outride the squire and get the brush, and, when he fell from his horse, whip out a lancet and bleed him ; rescue from fever and death the poor cottager's family whom the doctor had given up ; make 21 at the butts with the rifle, when the poor captain only scored 18 ; give him twenty in fifty at billiards and beat him ; and draw tears from the professional Italian people by her exquisite performance (of voice and violoncello) in the evening; — I say, if a novelist would be popular with ladies — the great novel-readers of the world — this is the sort of heroine who would carry him through half a dozen editions. Suppose I had asked that Bearded Lady to sing ? Confess, now, miss, you would not have been displeased if I had told you that she had a voice like Lablache, only ever so much lower. My dear, you would like to be a heroine ? You would like to travel in triumphal caravans ; to see your effigy placarded on city walls ; to have your levees attended by admiring crowds, all crying out, ''Was there ever such a wonder of a woman ? " You would like admiration ? Consider the tax yon pay for it. You would be alone were you eminent. Were 3'ou so distinguished from your neighbors — I will not sa}'' b}" a beard and whiskers, that were odious — but by a great and remarkable intellectual superiorit}^ — would you, do you think, be anj^ the happier? Consider env3\ Consider solitude. Con- sider the jealous}^ and torture of mind which this Kentuck}^ lady must feel, suppose she should hear that there is, let us say, a Missouri prodigy, with a beard larger than hers ? Consider how she is separated" from her kind by the possession of that wonder of a beard ? When that beard grows gray, how lonely she will be, the poor old thing ! If it falls off, the public admiration falls off too ; and how she will miss it — the compliments of the trumpeters, the admiration of the crowd, the gilded progress of the car. I see an old woman alone in a decrepit old caravan, with cobwebs on the knocker, with a bhstered ensign flapping 134 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. idly over the door. Would you like to be that deserted person? Ah, Chloe ! To be good, to be simple, to be modest, to be loved, be thy lot. Be thankful thou art not taller, nor stronger, nor richer, nor wiser than the rest of the world ! ON LETTS'S DIARY. Mine !s one of your No. 12 diaries, three shillings cloth boards ; silk limp, gilt edges, three-and-six ; French morocco, tuck ditto, four-and-six. It has two pages, ruled with faint lines for memoranda, for everj' week, and a ruled account at the end, for the twelve months from Januar}" to December, where you may set down your incomings and your expenses. I hope yours, m}' respected reader, are large ; that there are many fine rouncl sums of figures on each side of the page : liberal on the expenditure side, greater still on the receipt. 1 hope, sir, you Mill be " a better man," as they say, in '62 than in this moribund '61, whose career of life is just coming to its terminus. A better man in purse? in body? in soul's health? Amen, good sir, in all. Who is there so good in mind, body or estate, but bettering won't still be good for him? O un- known Fate,' presiding over next year, if j-ou will give me better health, a better appetite, a better digestion, a better income, a better temper in '62 than you have bestowed in '61, I think your servant will be the better for the changes. For instance, I should be the better for a new coat. This one, I acknowledge, is very old. The family says so. My good friend, who amongst us would not be the better if he would give up some old habits? Yes, yes. You agree with me. You take the allegory? Alas ! at our time of life we don't like to give up those old habits, do we? It is ill to change. There is the good old loose, easy, slovenly bedgown, laziness, for example. What man of sense likes to fling it oflf and put on a tight ,^//mc?!? prim dress-coat that pinches him? There is the cozy wraprascal, self-indulgence — how easy it is ! How warm ! How it always seems to fit ! You can walk out in it ; you can go down to, dinner in it. You can say of such what TuUy sa3^s of his books : Pernoctat nobiscum, peregrinatur ^ rusticatur. It is a little slatternly — it is a good deal stained — it isn't be- coming — it smells of cigar-smoke ; but, allons done ! let the ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 135 world call me idle and sloven. I love my ease better than my neighbor's opinion. I live to please myself; not you, Mr. Dandy, with your supercilious airs. I am a philosopher. Per- haps I live in my tub, and don't make any other use of it — . We won't pursue further this unsavory metaphor; but, with regard to some of your old habits let us say — ^ 1. The habit of being censorious, and speaking ill of your neighbors. 2. The habit of getting into a passion with your man-ser- vant* your maid-servant, your daughter, wife, &c. S. The habit of indulging too much at table. 4. The habit of smoking in the dining-room after dinner. 5* The habit of spending insane sums of money in bric-a- brae, tall copies, binding, Elzevirs, &c. ; '20 Fort, outrageously fine horses, ostentatious entertainments, and what not.'' or, 6 The habit of screwing meanlv, when rich, and chuckhng overthe saving of half a crown, whilst you are poisoning your friends and family with bad wine. 7 The habit of going to sleep immediately after (Unner, instead of cheerfully entertaining Mrs. Jones and the lamily : or ' 8. Ladies ! The habit of running up bills with the milliners. and swindling paterfamilias on the house bills. 9. The habit of keeping him waiting for breakfast. 10. The habit of sneering at Mrs. Brown and the Miss Browns, because they are not quite du monde, or quite so gen- teel as Lady Smith. 11. The habit of keeping your wretched father up at balls till five o'clock in the morning, when he has to be at his office at eleven. , , , t • „ 12. The habit of fighting with each other, dear Louisa, Jane, Arabella, Amelia. ^ , ^ u 4.u,.^« 13. The habit of always ordering John Coachman, tliicc- quarters of an hour before you want him. , i . ^,. ^ Such habits, I say, sir or madam, if you have had to note in your diary of '61, I have not the slightest doubt you vuU enter in vour pocket-book of '62. There are hal)its Nos. 4 aud 7, for example. I am morally sure that some ot us ^.1 o g ve up those bad customs, though the women cry out and Irumble, and scold ever so justly. There are If -ts No. 9 and 13. I feel perfectly certain, my dear young lad os that you will continue to keip John Coachman waiting ; that ou will continue to give the most satisfactory reasons foi keep ng hi^ wS and as for (9), you will show that you once (on 136 ROUNDABOUT TAPERS. the 1st of April last, let us sa}-,) came to breakfast first, and that 3'ou are always first in consequence. Yes ; in our '62 diaries, I fear we ma}' all of us make some of the '61 entries. There is my friend Freehand, for instance. (Aha ! Master Freehand, how jou will laugh to find yourself here !) F. is in the habit of spending a little, ever so little, more than his income. He shows 3'ou how Mrs. Freehand works, and works (and indeed Jack Freehand, if you say she is an angel, j'ou don't say too much of her) ; how they toil, and how they mend, and patch, and pinch ; and how thej' canH live on their means. And I very much fear — na}^ I will bet him half a bottle of Gladstone 14s. per dozen claret — that the ac- count which is a little on the wrong side this year, will be a little on the wrong side in the next ensuing year of grace. A diary. Dies. Hodie. How queer to read are some of the entries in the journal ! Here are the records of dinners eaten, and gone the way of flesh. The lights burn blue some- how, and we sit before the ghosts of victuals. Hark at the dead jokes resurging ! Memor}' greets them with the ghost of a smile. Here are the lists of the individuals who have dined at 3'our own humble table. The agonies endured before and during those entertainments are renewed, and smart again. AVhat a failure that special grand dinner was ! How those dread- ful occasional waiters did break the old china ! What a dismal hash poor Mar}', the cook, made of the French dish which she would tvy out of FrancateUi! How angr}' Mrs. Pope was at not going down to dinner before Mrs. Bishop ! How Trimal- chio sneered at 3'our absurd attempt to give a feast ; and Har- pagon cried out at 3'our extravagance and ostentation ! How Lad3' Almack bullied the other ladies in the drawing-room (when no gentlemen were present) : never asked 3'ou back to dinner again : left her card b3' hci* footman : and took not the slightest notice of 3'Our wife and daughters at Lad3' Hustleby's assembly ! On the other hand, how easy, coz3^, merr3', com- fortable, those little dinners were ; got up at one or two days' notice ; when ever3'bod3' was contented ; the soup as clear as amber ; the wine as good as Trimalchio's own ; and the people kept their carriages waiting, and would not go away until mid- night ! Along with the catalogue of b3'gone pleasures, balls, ban- quets, and the like, which the pages record, comes a list of much more important occurrences, and remembrances of graver import. On two days of Dives's diar3^ are printed notices that *' Dividends are due at the Bank." Let us hope, dear sir, that ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 137 this announcement considerably interests j'ou ; in wliich case, probably, you have no need of the almanac-maker's printed reminder. If you look over poor Jack Reckless' s note- book, amongst his memoranda of racing odds given and taken, per- haps you may read: — " Nabbam's bill, due 29th September, 142/. 15*. 66/." Let us trust, as the day has passed, that the little transaction here noted has been satisfactorily terminated. If you are paterfamilias, and a worthy kind gentleman, no doubt you have marked down on your register, 17th December (say), "Boys come home." Ah, how carefully that blessed day is marked in their little calendars ! In my time it used to be, Wednesday, 13th November, " 5 weeks from the holidays;" Wednesday, 20th November, "4 weeks from the holidays;'' until sluggish time sped on, and we came to Wednesday 18th December. O rapture ! Do 3^ou remember pea-shooters ? I think we only had them on going home for holida3's from pnvate schools, — at public schools men are too dignified. And then came that glorious announcement, Wednesda}-, 27th, "Papa took us to the Pantomime ; " or if not papa, perhaps yow con- descended to go to the pit, under charge of the footman. That was near the end of the 3'ear — and mamma gave you a new pocket-book, perhaps, with a little coin, God bless iier, ifi the pocket. And that pocket-book was for next year, you know; and, in that pocket-book you had to write down that sad day, Wednesday, January 24th, eighteen hundred and never mind what, — when Dr. Birch's young friends were ex- pected to re-assemble. Ah me ! Every person who turns this page over has his own little diary, in paper or ruled in his memory tablets, and in which are set down the transactions of the now dying year. Boys and men, we have our calendar, mothers and maidens. For example, in your calendar pocket-book, my good Eliza, M^hat a sad, sad day that is — how fondly and bitterly remem- bered — when yowY boy went off to his regiment, to India, to danger, to battle perhaps. What a day was that last day at hom^e, when the tall brother sat yet amongst the family, the little ones round about him wondering at saddle-boxes, unitorms, sword-cases, gun-cases, and other wondrous apparatus of war and travel which poured in and filled the hall ; the new dress- ing-case for the beard not yet grown ; the great sword-case at which little brother Tom looks so admiringly ! What a dinner tliat was, that last dinner, when little and grown children as- sembled together, and all tried to be cheerful ! What a night was that last night, when the young ones were at roost tor the 138 ROUISIDABOUT PAPERS. last time together under the same roof, and the mother lay alone in her chamber counting the fatal hours as they tolled one after another, amidst her tears, her watching, her fond prayers. What a night that was, and j^et how quickly the melancholy dawn came ! Onl}^ too soon the sun rose over the houses. And now in a moment more the city seemed to wake. The house began to stir. The famih" gathers together for the last meal. For the last time in the midst of them the widow kneels amongst her kneeling children, and falters a praj'er in which she commits her dearest, her eldest born, to the care of the Father of all. O night, what tears you hide — what prayers j^ou hear ! And so the nights pass and the days succeed, until that one comes when tears and parting shall be no more. In 3' our diary, as in mine, there are da3"s marked with sad- ness, not for this year onl}', but for all. On a certain day — and the sun perhaps, shining ever so brightly — the house- mother comes down to her famil}' with a sad face, which scares the children round about in the midst of their laughter and prattle. The}' may have forgotten — but she has not — a day which came, twentj^ 3'ears ago it may be, and which she re- members only too well : the long night-watch ; the dreadful dawning and the rain beating at the pane ; the infant speech- less, but moaning in its little crib ; and then the awful calm, the awful smile on the sweet cherub face, when the cries have ceased, and the little suffering breast heaves no more. Then the children, as the}' see their mother's face, remember this was the da}' on which their little brother died. It was before they were born ; but she remembers it. And as they pray to- gether, it seems almost as if the spirit of the little lost one was hovering round the group. So they pass away : friends, kin- dred, the dearest-loved, grown people, aged, infants. As we go on the down-hill journey, the mile-stones are grave-stones, and on each more and more names are written ; unless haply *you live beyond man's common age, when friends have dropped off, and, tottering, and feeble, and unpitied, you reach the ter- minus alone. In this past year's diary is there any precious day noted on which you have made a new friend ? This is a piece of good fortune bestowed but grudgingly on the old. After a certain age a new friend is a wonder, like Sarah's child. Aged per- sons are seldom capable of bearing friendships. Do you re- member how warmly you loved Jack and Tom when you were at school ; what a passionate regard you had for Ned when you 1 PvOUXD ABOUT PAPERS. 139 were at college, and the immense letters yon wrote to each other? How often do 3'ou write, now that postage costs noth- ing ? There is the age of blossoms and sweet budding green : the age of generous summer ; the autumn when the laaxes drop ; and then winter, sliivering and bare. Quick, children, and sit at my feet : for they are cold, very cold : and it seems as if neither wine nor worsted will warm 'em. In this past year's diary is there any dismal day noted in which you have lost a friend? In mine there is. I do not mean by death. Those who are gone, 3'ou have. Those who departed loving you, love you still ; and you love them always. They are not really gone, those dear hearts and true ; they are only gone into the next room : and you will presently get up and follow them, and yonder door will close upon yow, and you will be no more seen. As I am in this cheerful mood, I will tell 3^ou a fine and touching story of a doctor which I heard latel3\ About two ^^ears since there was, in our or some other city, a famous doctor, into whose consulting-room crowds came daily, so that they might be healed. Now this doctor had a suspicion that there was something vitally wrong with himself, and he went to consult another famous physician at Dublin, or it may be at Edinburgh. And he of Edinburgh punched his comrade's sides ; and listened at his heart and lungs ; and felt his pulse, I suppose ; and looked at his tongue ; and when he had done, Doctor London said to Doctor Edinburgh, " Doctor, how long have I to live ? " And Doctor Edinburgh said to Doctor London, " Doctor, 3^011 ma3^ last a year." Then Doctor London came home, knowing that what Doctor Edinburgh said was true. And he made up his accounts, with man and heaven, I trust. And he visited his patients as usual. And he went about healing, and cheering, and soothing and doctoring ; and thousands of sick people were benefited by him. And he said not a word to his famil3' at home ; but lived amongst them cheerful and tender, and calm, and loving ; 'though he knew the night was at hand when he should see them and work no more. And it was winter time, and they came and told him that some man at a distance — very sick, but very rich — wanted him ; and. though Doctor London knew that he was himself at death's door, he went to the sick man ; for he knew the large fee would be good for his children after him. And he died ; and his family never knew until he was gone, that he had been long aware of the inevitable doom. This is a cheerful carol for Christmas, is it not? You see, 140 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. in regard to these Roundabout discourses, I never know whetlief they are to be merr}^ or dismal. My hobby has the bit in his mouth ; goes his own wa^^ ; and sometimes trots through a park, and sometimes paces by a cemeter3^ Two da3^s since came the printer's little emissarj', with a note sa3'ing, "We are waiting for the Roundabout Paper ! " A Roundabout Paper about what or whom? How stale it has become, that printed jollit}- about Christmas ! Carols, and wassail-bowls, and holly, and mistle- toe, and 3'ule-logs de comtnande ^ what heaps of these have we not had for 3'ears past ! Well, year after j^ear the season comes. Come frost, come thaw, come snow, come rain, 3'ear after 3Tar m3' neighbor the parson has to make his sermons. The3' are getting together the bonbons, iced cakes, Christmas trees at Fortnum and Mason's now. The genii of the theatres are com- posing the Christmas pantomime, which our 3'oung folks will see and note anon in their little diaries. And now, brethren, may I conclude this discourse with an extract out of that great diar3^, the newspaper? I read it but yesterday, and it has mingled with all m3' thoughts since then. Here are the two paragraphs, which appeared following each other : — " Mr. R., the Advocate-General of Calcutta, has been ap- pointed to the post of Legislative Member of the Council of the Governor-General." " Sir R. S., Agent to the Governor- General for Central India, died on the 29th of October, of bronchitis." These two men, whose different fates are recorded in two paragraphs and half a dozen lines of the same newspaper, were sisters' sons. In one of the stories b3' the present writer, a man is described tottering " up the steps of the ghaut," having just parted with his child, whom he is despatching to England from India. I wrote this, remembering in long, long distant days, such a ghaut, or river-stair, at Calcutta ; and a day when, down those steps, to a boat which was in waiting, came two children, whose mothers remained on the shore. One of those ladies was never to see her boy more ; and he, too, is just dead in India, " of bronchitis, on the 29th October." We were first-cousins ; had been little playmates and friends from the time of our birth ; and the first house in London to which I was taken, was that of our aunt, the mother of his Honor the Member of Council. His Honor was even then a gentleman of the long robe, being, in truth, a bab3' in arms. ^Ye Indian children were consigned to a school of which our deluded parents had heard a favorable report, but which was governed by a horrible little t3'rant, who II ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. ^ 111 made our young lives so miserable that I remember kneeling by my little bed of a night, and saying, " Pray God, I may di°am of my mother ! " Thence we went to a public school ; and my cousin to Addiscombe and to India. "For thirty-two years," the paper says, "Sir Richmond Shakespear faithfully and devotedly served the Govermnent of India, and during that period but once visited England, for a few months and on public duty. In his mihtary capacity he saw much service, was present in eight general engagements, and was badly wounded in the last. In 1840, when a yoimg lieutenant, he had the rare good fortune to be the means of rescuing fi'om almost hopeless slaver^^ in Khiva 41 G subjects of the Emperor of Russia ; and, but two years later, greatly con- tributed to the happ}^ recover}' of our own prisoners from a similar fate in Cabul. Throughout his career this officer was ever read}" and zealous for the public service, and freel}' risked life and liberty in the discharge of his duties. Lord Can- ning, to mark his high sense of Sir Richmond Shakespear's public services, had latety offered him the Chief Commissioner- ship of Mysore, which he had accepted, and was about to under- take, when death terminated his career." When he came to London the cousins and playfellows of early Indian da3's met once again, and shook hands. " Can I do anything for you ? " I remember the kind fellow asking. He was always asking that question : of all kinsmen ; of all widows and orphans ; of all the poor ; of 3'oung men who might need his purse or his service. I saw a young officer yesterday to whom the first words Sir Richmond Shakespear wrote on his arrival in India were, "Can I do anything for you?" His purse was at the command of all. His kind hand was always open. It was a gracious fate which sent him to rescue widows and captives. Where could they have had a champion more chivalrous, a protector more loving and tender? I write down his name in my little book, among those of others dearly loved, who, too, have been summoned hence. And so we meet and part ; we struggle and succeed ; or we fail and drop unknown on the way. As we leave the fond mother's knee, the rough trials of childhood and boyhood begin ; and then manhood is upon us, and the battle of life, with its chances, perils, wounds, defeats, distinctions. And Fort Wilham guns are saluting in one man's honor,* while the troops are filing the last volleys over the other's grave — over the grave of the bravo, the gentle, the faithful Christian soldier. * W. R. obiit March 22, 1862. 142 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, NOTES OF A WEEK'S HOLIDAt. Most of us tell old stories in our families. The wife and children laugh for the hundredth time at the joke. The old servants (though old servants are fewer ever}^ day) nod and smile a recognition at the well-known anecdote. ''Don't tell that story of Grouse in the gun-room," sa3's Diggory to Mr. Hardcastle in the play, '' or I must laugh." As we twad- dle, and grow old and forgetful, we may tell an old story ; or, out of mere benevolence^ and a wish to amuse a friend when conversation is flagging, disinter a Joe Miller now and then ; but the practice is not quite honest, and entails a certain neces- sity of hypocrisy' on story hearers and tellers. It is a sad thing, to think that a man with what you call a fund of anec- dote is a humbug, more or less amiable and pleasant. What right have I to tell 'my " Grouse in the gun-room" over and over in the presence of ni}' wife, mother, mother-in-law, sons, daughters, old footman or parlor-maid, conjBdential clerk, cu- rate, or what not? I smirk and go through the historj^ giving my admirable imitations of the characters introduced : I mimic Jones's grin, Hobbs's squint, Brown's stammer, Grad3-'s brogue, Sandj's Scotch accent, to the best of ni}' power : and the fam- ily part of my audience laughs good-humoredl}'. Perhaps the stranger, for whose amusement the performance is given, is amused by it and laughs too. But this practice continued is not moral. This self-indulgence on your part, ni}' dear Pater- familias, is weak, vain — not to say culpable. I can imagine many a worth}- man, who begins unguardedly to read this page, and comes to the present sentence, lying back in his chair, thinking of that story which he has told innocently for fifty 3-ears, and rather piteousl}- owning to himself, " ^Yell, well, it is wrong; I have no right to call on mj' poor wife to laugh, my daughters to affect to be amused, by that old, old jest of mine. And the}' would have gone on laughing, and they would have pretended to be amused, to their dying day, if this man had not flung his damper over our hilarity." ... I lay down the pen, and think, "Are there any old stories which I still tell myself in the bosom of my family? Have I any 'Grouse in my gun-room ? ' " If there are such, it is because my memory fails ; not because I want applause, and wantonly repeat my- self. You see, men with the so-called fund of anecdote will ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 143 not repeat the same story to the same individual ; but they do think that, on a new party, the repetition of a joke ever so old may be honorably tried. I meet men walking the London street, bearing the best reputation, men of anecdotal powers : I know such, who very likely will read this, and say, ''Hang the fellow, he means me! " And so I do. No — no man ought to tell an anecdote more than thrice, let us say, unless he is sure he is speaking only to give pleasure to his hearers — unless he feels that it is not a mere desire for praise which makes him open his jaws. And is it not with writers as with raconteurs ? Ought they not to have their ingenuous modesty? May authors tell old stories, and how many times over? When I come to look at a place which I have visited any time these twenty or thirty years, I recall not the place merely, but the sensations I had at first seeing it, and which are quite different to my feelings to-day. That first day at Calais ; the voices of the women crying out at night, as the vessel came alongside the pier ; the supper at Quillacq's and the flavor of the cutlets and wine ; the red-calico canopy under which I slept ; the tiled floor, and the fresh smell of the sheets ; the wonderful postilion in his jack-boots and pigtail ; — all return with perfect clearness to my mind, and I am seeing them, and not the objects which are actually under my e3'es. Here is Calais. Yonder is that com- missioner I have known this score of 3"ears. Here are the women screaming and bustling over the baggage ; the people at the passport-barrier who take your papers. My good people, I hardly see you. You no more interest me than a dozen orange- women in Covent-Garden, or a shop book-keeper in Ox- ford Street. But you make me think of a time when you were indeed wonderful to behold — when the little French soldiers wore white cockades in their shakos — when the diligence was forty hours going to Paris ; and the great-booted postilion, as' surveyed by youthful eyes from the coupe, with his jurons, his ends of rope for the harness, and his clubbed pigtail, was a wonderful being, and productive of endless amusement. You young folks don't remember the apple-girls who used to follow the diligence up the hill beyond Boulogne, and the delights of the jolly road ? In making continental journeys with young folks, an oldster may be very quiet, and, to outward appear- ance, melancholy ; but really he has gone back to tlic days of his youth, and he is seventeen or eighteen years of age (as the case may be) , and is amusing himself with all his might. He is noting the horses as they come squealing out of the post- 144 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. house 3'ard at midnight ; he is enjo^-ing the delicious meals at Beauvais and Amiens, and quaffing ad libitum the rich table- d'hote wine ; he is hail-fellow with the conductor, and alive to all the incidents of the road. A man can be alive in 1860 and 1830 at the same time, don't you see? Bodil}', I ma}^ be in 1860, inert, silent, torpid ; but in the spirit I am walking about in 1828. let us say; — in a blue dress-coat and brass buttons, a sweet figured silk waistcoat (which I button round a slim M-aist with perfect ease), looking at beautiful beings with gigot sleeves and tea-tray hats under the golden chestnuts of the Tuileries, or round the Place Vendome, where the drapeau hlanc is floating from the statueless column. Shall we go and dine at '' Bombarda's," near the " Hotel Breteuil," or at the " Cafe Virginie?" — Away ! "Bombarda's" and the " Hotel Breteuil" have been pulled down ever so long. The}^ knocked down the poor old Virginia Coffee-house last year. My spirit goes and dines there. My bod}', perhaps, is seated with ever so man}^ people in a railwa3^-carriage, and no wonder my compan- ions find me dull and silent. Have 3'ou read Mr. Dale Owen's " Footfalls on the Boundar}- of Another World?" — (My dear sir, it will make your hair stand quite refreshingly on end.) In that work you will read that when gentlemen's or ladies' spirits travel off a few score or thousand miles to visit a friend, their bodies lie quiet and in a torpid state in their beds or in their arm-chairs at home. So in this wa}^, I am absent. My soul whisks awa}' thirty 3'ears back into the past. I am look- ing out anxiousfy for a beard. I am getting past the age of loving B3'ron's poems, and pretend that I like Wordsworth and Shelle}^ much better. Nothing I eat or drink (in reason) dis- agrees with me ; and I know whom I think to be the most lovely creature in the world. Ah, dear maid (of that remote but well-remembered period), are yow a wife or widow now? — lare vou dead ? — are vou thin and withered and old ? — or are 3'ou grown much stouter, with a false front? and so forth. O Eliza, Eliza! — Sta}', was she Eliza? Well, I protest I have forgotten what your Christian name was. You know I onlj^ met you for two da3's, but 3^our sweet face is before me now, and the roses blooming on it are as fresh as in that time of Ma3\ Ah, dear Miss X , my timid j^outh and ingenuous mod- esty would never have allowed me, even in my private thoughts, to address 3'ou otherwise than b}' 3'our paternal name, but that (though I conceal it) I remember perfectl}' well, aiid that your dear and respected father was a brewer, ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 145 Carillon. — I was awakened this morning with the chime which Antwerp cathedral clock plays at half-hours. The tune has been haunting me ever since, as tunes will. You dress, eat, drink, walk and talk to yourself to then* tune : their inaudible jingle accompanies you all day : you read the sen- tences of the paper to their rhythm. I tried uncouthly to imitate the tune to the ladies of the family at breakfast, and they say it is "the shadow dance of Dinorah.'" It may be so. I dimly remember that my body was once present during the performance of that opera, whilst my eyes were closed, and my intellectual faculties dormant at the back of the box ; howbeit, I have learned that shadow dance from hearing it pealing up ever so high in the air, at night, morn, noon. How pleasant to lie awake and listen to the cheery peal ! whilst the old cit}^ is asleep at midnight, or waking up rosy at sunrise, or basking in noon, or swept b}' the scudding rain which drives in gusts over the broad places, and the great shining river ; or sparkling in snow which dresses up a hun- dred thousand masts, peaks, and towers ; or wrapped round with thunder-cloud canopies, before which the white gables shine whiter ; daj' and night the kind little carillon plays its fantastic melodies overhead. The bells go on ringing. Quot vivos vacant^ mortnos plangunt^ fulgara frangunt ; so on to the past and future tenses, and for how many nights, days, and years ! Whilst the French were pitching their fulgara into Chasse's citadel, the bells went on ringing quite cheerfully. Whilst the scaffolds were up and guarded by Alva's soldiery, and regiments of penitents, blue, black, and gray, poured out of churches and convents, droning their dirges, and marching to the place of the Hotel de Ville, where heretics and rebels were to meet their doom, the bells up yonder were chanting at their appointed half-hours and quarters, and rang the mauvais quart d'heure for many a poor soul. This bell can see as far away as the towers and d^'kes of Rotterdam. That one can calla greeting to St. Ursula's at Brussels, and toss a recog- nition to that one at the town-hall of Oudenarde, and remember how after a great struggle there a hundred and fifty years ago the whole plain was covered with the flying French cavalr}- — Burgundy, and Berri, and the Chevalier of St. George %ing like'the rest. " What is your clamor about Oudenarde ? " says another bell (Bob Major this one must be). " Be still, thou querulous old clapper ! /can see over to Hougoumont and St. John. And about forty-five years since, I rang all through one Sunday in June, when 'there was such a battle going on in th(j i ^4:6 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. corn-fields there, as none of 3'ou others ever heard tolled of. Yes, from morning service until after vespers, the French and English were all at it, ding-dong." And then calls of business intervening, the bells have to give up their private jangle, resume their professional duty, and sing their hourly chorus out of Dlnorah. What a prodigious distance those bells can be heard ! I was awakened this morning to their tune, I say. I have been hearing it constantly ever since. And this house whence I w^rite, Murray says, is two hundred and ten miles from Ant- werp. And it is a week off ; and there is the bell still jangling its shadow dance out of Dinorah. An audible shadow 3'ou understand, and an invisible sound, but quite distinct ; and a plague take the tune ! Under the Bells. — Who has not seen the church under the bells? Those lofty aisles, those twilight chapels, that cumbersome pulpit with its huge carvings, that wide gray pave- ment flecked with various light from the jewelled windows, those famous pictures between the voluminous columns over the altars, which twinkle with their ornaments, their votive little silver hearts, legs, limbs, their little guttering tapers, cups of sham roses, and what not? I saw two regiments of little scholars creeping in and fonning square, each in its appointed place, under the vast roof; and teachers presently- coming to them. A stream of light from the jewelled windows beams slanting down upon each little squad of children, and the tall background of the church retires into a grayer gloom. Patter- ing little feet of laggards arriving echo through the great nave. They trot in and join their regiments, gathered under the slant- ing sunbeams. What are the}^ learning? Is it truth? Those two gray ladies with their books in their hands in the midst of these little people haA^e no doubt of the truth of every word they have printed under their eyes. Look, through the win- dows jewelled all over with saints, the light comes streaming down from the sk}' , and heaven's own illuminations paint the book ! A sweet, touching picture indeed it is, that of the little chiklren assembled in this immense temple, which has endured for ages, and grave teachers bending over them. Yes, the pic- ture is very pretty of the children and their teachers, and their book — but the text? Is it the truth, the only truth, nothing but the truth? If I thought so, I would go and sit down on the form cum parvulis, and learn the precious lesson with all my heart. ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 147 Beadle. — But T submit, an obstacle to conversions is the intrusion and impertinence of that Swiss fellow with the baldric — the officer who answers to the beadle of the British Islands and is pacing about the church with an eve on the cono-reoation! Now the boast of Catholics is that their churches are open^to all ' but in certain places and churches there are exceptions. At Rome I have been into St. Peter's at all hours : the doors are always open, the lamps are always burning, the faithful are for ever kneehng at one shrine or the other. But at Antwerp not so. In the afternoon you can go to the church, and be civilly treated ; but you must pay a franc at the side gate. In the forenoon the doors are open, to be s«pp, and there is no one to levy an entrance fee. I was stand mg ever so still, lookino- through the great gates of the choir at the twinkling lights, and listening to the distant chants of the priests performing the service, when a sweet chorus from the organ-loft broke out behind me overhead, and I turned round. My friend the drum-major ecclesiastic was down upon me in a moment. " Do not turn your back to the altar during divine service," says he, in very intelligible English. I take the rebuke, and turn a soft right-about face, and listen awhile as the service continues. See it I cannot, nor the altar and its ministrants. We are separated from these by a great screen and closed gates of iron, through which the lamps glitter and the chant comes by gusts onty. Seeing a score of children trotting down a side aisle, I think I may follow them. I am tired of looking at that hideous old pulpit with its grotesque monsters and decorations. I sHp off to the side aisle ; but my friend the drum-major is instantly'' after me — almost I thought he was going to lay hands on me. "You mustn't go there," sa3^s he; " 3'ou mustn't disturb the service." I was moving as quietty as might be, and ten paces off there were twenty children kicking and clattering at their ease. I point them out to the Swiss. " They come to praj^" sa3's he. " You don't come to pra}^, 3''ou — " " When I come to pay," says I, " I am welcome," and with this withering sar- casm, I walk out of church in a huff. I don't envy the feelings of that beadle after receiving point blank such a stroke of wit. Leo Belgtcus. — Perhaps j^ou will say after this I am a prejudiced critic. I see the pictures in the cathedral fuming under the rudeness of that beadle, G'" at the lawful hours and prices, pestered by a swarm of shabby touters^ who come behind me chattering in bad English, and who would have me see tli'' sights through their mean, ai^eedy eyes. Better see Rubens any- 148 ROUNDABOUT PAPEES. where than in a church. At the Academ}', for example, wnere 30U may stud}' him at 30ur leisure. But at church ? — I would as soon ask Alexandre Dumas for a sermon. Either would paint you a martyrdom very fiercel}' and picturesquel}^ — writhing muscles, flaming coals, scowling captains and executioners, swarming gi'oups, and light, shade, color most dexterously brilliant or dark ; but in Rubens I am admiring the performer rather than the piece. With what astonishing rapidit}^ he travels over his canvas ; how telhngly the cool lights and warm shadows are made to contrast and relieve each other ; ^1 how that blazing, blows}- penitent in 3'ellow satin and glitter- ing hair carries down t|||^ stream of light across the picture ! M\ This is the wa}- to work, my bo3's, and earn a hundred florins a da3^ See ! I am as sure of my line as a skater of making his figure of eight ! and down with a sweep goes a brawn}^ arm or a flowing curl of draper}^ The figures arrange themselves as if by magic. The paint-pots are exhausted in furnishing brown shadows. The pupils look wondering on, as the master careers over the canvas. Isabel or Helena, wife No. 1 or No. 2, are sitting b}^ buxom, exuberant, read}- to be painted ; and the children are boxing in the corner, waiting till they are wanted to figure as cherubs in the picture. Grave burghers and gentlefolks come in on a visit. There are oysters and Rhenish alwa3's read}' on 3'onder table. Was there ever such a painter? He has been an ambassador, an actual Excellenc}^ and what better man could be chosen ? He speaks all the lan- guages. He earns a hundred florins a da3'. Prodigious ! Thirt3'-six thousand five hundred florins a 3'ear. Enormous ! He rides out to his castle with a score of gentlemen after him, like the Governor. That is his own portrait as St. George. You know he is an English knight? Those are his two wives as the two Maries. He chooses the handsomest wives. He rides the handsomest horses. He paints the handsomest pictures. He gets the handsomest prices for them. That slim 3'oung Van D3'ck, who was his pupil, has genius too, and is painting all the noble ladies in England, and turning tlie heads of some of them. And Jordaens — what a droll dog and clever fellow ! Have 3'ou seen his fat Silenus ? The master liimself could not paint better. And his altar-piece at St. Bavon's? Pie can paint 3'Ou anything, that Jordaens can — a drunken jollification of boors and doxies, or a mart3'r howling witli half his skin ofi". What a knowledge of anatom3' ! But there is nothing like the master — nothing. He can paint 3'Ou his thirt3'-six thousand five hundred florins' worth a 3^ear. Have 30U heard of what he ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 149 has done for the French Court? Prodigious ! I can't look at Rubens's pictures without fancying I sec that handsome fioure swaggering before tlie canvas. And Hans Hemmelinck at Bruges ? Have 3-ou never seen that dear old hospital of St. John, on passing the gate of which you enter into the liftecnth century ? I see the wounded soldier still lingering in the house and tended by the kind gray sisters. His little panel on its easel is placed at the light. He covers his board with the most wondrous, beautiful little figures, in robes as bright as rubies and amethysts. I think he must have a magic glass, in which he catches the reflection of little cherubs with many-colored wings, very little and bright. Angels, in long crisp robes of white, surrounded with halos of gold, come and flutter across the mirror, and he draws them. He hears mass every day. He fasts through Lent. No monk is more austere and holy than Hans. Which do you love best to behold, the lamb or the lion? the eagle rushing through the storm, and pouncing mayhap on carrion ; or the linnet warbling on the spray? By much the most delightful of the Christopher set of Rubens to my mind (and ego is introduced on these occasions, so that the opinion may pass only for my own, at the reader's humble service to be received or declined,) is the " Presentation in the Temple : " splendid in color, in sentiment sweet and tender, finely conveying the story. To be sure, all the others tell their tale unmistakably — witness that coarse "Salutation," that magnificent " Adoration of the Kings "(at the Museum), by the same strong downright hands; that wonderful "Com- munion of St. Francis," which, I think, gives the ke}' to the artist's faire better than any of his performances. I have passed hours before that picture in my time, trying and sometimes fancying I could understand b^' what masses and contrasts the artist arrived at his effect. In man^^ others of the pictures parts of his method are painfull}^ obvious, and j-ou see how grief and agon}^ are produced hy blue lips, and e3'es rolling blood shot with dabs of vermilion. There is something simple in the prac- tice. Contort the eyebrow sufficientl}', and place the e3'eball near it, — by a few lines 3'ou have anger or fierceness depicted. Give me a mouth with no special expression, and pop a dab of carmine at each extremity — and there are the lips smiling. This is art if 3' on will, but a veiy naive kind of art: and now 3"0U know the trick, don't 3'ou see how eas3^ it is? Tu QuoQUE. — Now you know the trick, suppose 3'OU take a canvas and see whether yow can do it? There are brushes, 150 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 1 11 palettes, and gallipots full of paint and varnish. Have 3-011 tried, mj dear sir — you who set up to be a connoisseur? Have you tried t I have — and many a day. And the end of the day's labor? O dismal conclusion ! Is this puerile niggling, this feeble scrawl, this impotent rubbish, all you can produce — you, who but now found Rubens commonplace and vulgar, and were pointing out the tricks of his mystery? Pardon, O great chief, magnificent master and poet ! You can do. We critics, who sneer and are wise, can but pry, and measure, and doubt, and carp. Look at the lion. Did 3-ou ever see such a gross, shaggy, i% mangy, roaring brute ? Look at him eating lumps of raw meat — positively bleeding, and raw and tough — till, faugh ! it turns one's stomach to see him — O the coarse wretch ! Yes, but he is a lion. Rubens has lifted his great hand, and the mark he has made has endured for two centuries, and we still continue wondering at him, and admiring him. What a strength in that arm ! What splendor of will hidden behind that tawny beard, and those honest e3'es ! Sharpen your pen, m3^ good critic, shoot a feather into him ; hit him, and make him wince. Yes, you may hit him fair, and make him bleed, too ; but, for all that, he is a li®n — a might3', conquering, generous, rampa- geous Leo Belgicus — monarch of his wood. And he is not dead yet, and I will not kick at him. Sir Antony. — In that "Pietk" of Van D3-ck, in the Mu- seum, have 3-0U ever looked at the yellow-robed angel, with the black scarf thrown over her wings and robe ? What a charm- ing figure of grief and beauty ! What a pretty compassion it inspires ! It soothes and pleases me like a sweet rhythmic chant. See how delicately the yellow robe contrasts with the blue sky behind, and the scarf binds the two ! If Rubens lacked grace. Van Dyok abounded in it. What a consummate ele- gance ! What a perfect cavalier ! ' No wonder the fine ladies in England admired Sir Antony. Look at — Here the clock strikes three, and the three gendarmes who keep the Musee cr3^ out, " Allans I Sortons ! 11 est trois heures ! Allez / Sortez ! " and the3^ skip out of the gallery as happ3' as bo3-s running from school. And we must go too, for though many stay behind — man3- Britons wdth Murray's Handbooks in their handsome hands — they have paid a franc for entrance-fee, 3'ou see ; and we knew^ nothing about the franc for entrance until those gendarmes with sheathed sabres had driven us out of this Paradise. But it was good to go and drive on the great qua3'^s, and ROUNDABOUT PAPKKS. 151 see the ships unlading, and b}' the citadel, and wonder how- abouts and whereabouts it w^as so strong. We expect a citadel to look like Gibraltar or Ehrenbreitstein at least. But in this one there is nothing to see but a flat plain and some ditches, and some trees, and mounds of uninteresting green. And then I remember how there was a boy at school, a little dump}- fellow of no personal appearance whatever, who couldn't be overcome except by a much bigger champion, and the immensest quan- tity of thrashing. A perfect citadel of a boy, with a General Chasse sitting in that bomb-proof casemate, his heart, letting blow after blow come thumping about his head, and never think- ing of giving in. And we go home, and we dine in the company of Britons, at the comfortable Hotel du Pare, and we have bought a novel apiece for a shilling, and ever}^ half-hour the sweet carillon plays the waltz from. Dinorah in the air. And we have been happy ; and it seems about a month since we left London j-es- terday ; and nobody knows where we are, and we defy care and the postman. Spoorweg. — Vast green flats, speckled by spotted cows, and bound by a gray frontier of windmills ; shining canals stretching through the green ; odors like those exhaled from the Thames in the dog-days, and a fine pervading smell of cheese ; little trim houses, with tall roofs, and great windows of many panes ; gazebos, or summer-houses, hanging over pea-green canals ; kind-looking, dumpling-faced farmers' women, with laced caps and golden frontlets and earrings ; about the houses and towns which we pass a great air of comfort and neatness ; a queer feehng of wonder that 3'ou can't understand what your fellow-passengers are saying, the tone of whose voices, and a certain comfortable dowdiness of dress, are so like our own ; — whilst we are remarking on these sights, sounds, smells, the little railway journey from Rotterdam to the Hague comes to an end. I speak to the railwa}- porters and hackney coachmen in English, and the}' reply in their own language, and it seems somehow as if we understood each otlier perfectly. The carriage drives to the handsome, comfortable, cheerful hotel. We sit down a score at the table ; and there is one foreigner and his wife, — I mean every other man and woman at dinner are Eng- lish. As we are close to the sea, and in the midst of endless canals, we have no fish. We are reminded of dear England by the nol)le prices whicli wo pay for wines. I confess I lost my temper yesterday at Rotterdam, where I had to pay a florin foi 152 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. a bottle of ale (the water not being drinkable, and country or Bavarian beer not being genteel enough for the hotel) ; — I con- fess, I sa}^, that my fine temper was ruffled, when the bottle of pale ale turned out to be a pint bottle ; and I meekly told the waiter that I had bought beer at Jerusalem at a less price. But then Rotterdam is eighteen hours from London, and the steamer with the passengers and beer comes up to the hotel windows ; whilst to Jerusalem thej' have to carr}' the ale on camels' backs from Be^TOut or Jaffa, and through hordes of marauding Arabs, who evidently don't care for pale ale^ though I am told it is not forbidden in the Koran. Mine woi Id have been very good, but I choked with rage whilst drinking it. A florin for a bottle, and that bottle having the words "imperial pint," in bold re- lief, on the surface ! It was too much. I intended not to say anything about it ; but I must speak. A florin a bottle, and that bottle a pint ! Oh, for shame ! for shame 1 I can't cork down my indignation ; I froth up with fury ; I am pale with wrath, and bitter with scorn. As we drove through the old. city at night, how it swarmed and hummed with life ! What a special clatter, crowd, and outcry there was in the Jewish quarter, where myriads of 3'oung ones were trotting about the fishj^ street ! Why don't they have lamps ? We passed by canals seeming so full that a pailful of water more would overflow the place. The laquais-de-place calls out the names of the buildings : the town-hall, the cathedral, the arsenal, the synagogue, the statue of Erasmus. Get along ! We know the statue of Erasmus well enough. We pass over drawbridges by canals where thousands of barges are at roost. At roost — at*^ rest ! Shall we have rest in those bedrooms, those ancient lofty bedrooms, in that inn where we have to pay a florin for a pint of pa— psha ! at the " New Bath Hotel" on the Boompjes? If this dreary edifice is the "New Bath," what must the Old Bath be like? As I feared to go to bed, I sat in the coffee-room as long as I might ; but three young men were imparting their private adventures to each other with such freedom and liveliness that I felt I ought not to listen to their artless prattle. As I put the light out, and felt the bedclothes and darkness overwhelm me, it was with an awful sense of terror — that sort of sensation which I should think going down in a diving-bell would give. Suppose the apparatus goes wrong, and they don't understand your signal to mount ? Suppose your matches miss fire when you wake ; when you want them, when you will have to rise in half an hour, and do battle with the horrid enemy who crawls on you in the darkness? I protest I II ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 153 never was more surprised than when I woke and beheld the light of dawn. Indian birds and strange trees were visible on the ancient gilt hangings of the loft}- chamber, and through the windows tlie Boompjes and the ships along the quay. AVe have all read of deserters being brought x^ut, and made to kneel, with their eyes bandaged, and hearing the word to " Fire" given! I declare I underwent all the terrors of execution that night, and wonder how I ever escaped unwounded. But if ever I go to the " Bath Hotel," Rotterdam, again, I am a Dutchman. A guilder for a bottle of pale ale, and that bottle a pint ! Ah ! for shame — for shame ! Mine Ease in Mine Inn. — Do you object to talk about inns ? It always seems to me to be very good talk. Walter Scott is full of inns. In " Don Quixote " and " Gil Bias " there is plent}^ of inn-talk. Sterne, Fielding, and Smollett constantly speak about them ; and, in their travels, the last two tot up the bill, and describe the dinner quite honestlj' ; whilst Mr. Sterne becomes sentimental over a cab, and weeps generous tears over a donkey. How I admire and wonder at the information in Murray's Handbooks — wonder how it is got, and admire the travellers who get it. For instance, you read : Amiens (please select your towns), 60,000 inhabitants. Hotels, &c. — ''Lion d'Or," good and clean. " Le Lion d' Argent," so so. " Le Lion Noir," bad, dirty, and dear. Now say, there are three travel- lers — three inn-inspectors, who are sent forth b}^ Mr. Murray on a great commission, and who stop at every inn in the world. The eldest goes to the " Lion d'Or " — capital house, good table- d'hote, excellent wine, moderate charges. The second commis- sioner tries the " Silver Lion" — tolerable house, bed, dinner, bill and so forth. But fanc}^ Commissioner No. 3 — the poor fag, doubtless, and boots of the party. He has to go to the " Lion Noir." He knows he is to have a bad dinner — he eats it uncomplainingly. He is to have bad wine. He swallows it, grinding his wretched teeth, and aware that he will be unwell in consequence. He knows he is to have a dirty bed, and what he is to expect there. He pops out the candle. He sinks into those dingy sheets. He dehvers over his body to the nightly tormentors, he pays an exorbitant bill, and he writes down, " Lion Noir, bad, dirty, dear." Next day the commis- sion sets out for Arras, we will say, and they begin again : "Le Cochon d'Or," " Le Cochon d' Argent," " Le Cochon Noir" — and that is poor Boots's inn, of course. What a life 154 HOUXDABOUT PAPERS. ^ that poor man must lead ! What horrors of dinners he has to go through ! What a hide he must have ! And j^et not im- pervious ; for unless he is bitten, how is he to be able to warn others ? No : on second thoughts, 3'ou will perceive that he ought to have a very delicate skin. The monsters ought to troop to him eagerlv, and bite him instantaneously and freel}', so that he ma}' be able to warn all future handbook buyers of their danger. I fanc}^ this man devoting himself to danger, to dirt, to bad dinners, to sour wine, to damp beds, to midnight agonies, to extortionate bills. I admire him, I thank him. Think of this champion, who devotes his body for us — this dauntless gladiator going to do battle alone in the darkness, with no other armor than a light helmet of cotton, and a hrica of calico. I pit}^ and honor him. Go, Spartacus ! Go, devoted man — to bleed, to groan, to suffer — and smile in silence as the wild beasts assail thee ! How did I come into this talk? I protest it was the word inn set me off — and here is one, the "Hotel de Belle Vue," at the Hague, as comfortable, as handsome, as cheerful as any I ever took mine ease in. And the Bavarian beer, m}- dear friend, how good and brisk and light it is ! Take another glass — it refreshes and does not stupefy — and then we will sally out, and see the town and the park and the pictures. The prettiest little brick cit}', the pleasantest little park to ride in, the neatest comfortable people walking about, the canals not unsweet, and busy and picturesque with old-world life. Rows upon rows of houses, built with the neatest little bricks, with windows fresh painted, and tall doors polished and carved to a nicety. What a pleasant spacious garden our inn has, all sparkling with autumn flowers and bedizened with statues ! At the end is a row of trees, and a summer-house, over the canal, where you might go and smoke a pipe with Mynheer Van Dunck, and quite cheerfully' catch the ague. Yesterda}', as we passed, tliey were making hay, and stacking it in a barge which was Ivino- bv the meadow, handv. Round about Ken- sington Palace there are houses, roofs, chimne3'S, and bricks like these. I feel that a Dutchman is a man and a brother. It is very funny to read the newspaper, one can understand it somehow. Sure it is the neatest, gayest little city — scores and hundreds of mansions looking like Che^'ue Walk, or the ladies' schools about Chiswick and Hackney. Le Gros Lot. — To a few luckv men the chance befalls of reaching fame at once, and (if it is of any profit morituro) re- ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 155 taining the admiration of the world. Did poor Oliver, when he was at Leyden yonder, ever think that he should paint a little picture which should secure him the applause and pity of all Europe for a century after? He and JSterne drew the' twenty thousand prize of fame. The latter had splendid iiistnhnents during his lifetime. The ladies pressed round him ; the wits admired him, the fashion hailed the successor of Rabelais. Goldsmith's little gem was hardly so valued until later days. Their works still form the wonder and deliglit of the lovers of English art; and the pictures of the Vicar and Uncle Toby are among the masterpieces of our English school. Here in the Hague Gallery is Paul Potter's pale, eager face, and yonder is the magnificent work by which the young fellow achieved his fame. How did you, so young, come to paint so well? What hidden power lay in that weakly lad that enabled him to achieve such a wonderful victory? Could little Mozart, when he was five years old, tell you how he came to play those wonderful sonatas ? Potter was gone out of the world before he was thirty, but left this prodigy (and I know not how many more speci- mens of his genius and skill) behind him. The details of this admirable picture are as curious as the effect is admirable and complete. The weather being unsettled, and clouds and sun- shine in the gust3' sky, we saw in our little tour numberless Paul Potters — the meadows streaked with sunshine and spotted with the cattle, the city twinkling in the distance, the thunder- clouds glooming overhead. Napoleon carried oft the picture (vide Murray) amongst the spoils of his bow and spear to decorate his triumph of the Louvre. If I were a conquering prince, I would have this picture certainly, and the Raphael "Madonna" from Dresden, and the Titian "Assumption" from Venice, and that matchless Rembrandt of the "Dissec- tion." The prostrate nations would howl with rage as my gendarmes took off the pictures, nicely packed, and addressed to " Mr. the Director of my Imperial Palace of the Louvre, at Paris. This side uppermost." The Austrians, Prussians, Saxons, Italians, &c., should be free to come and visit my capital, and bleat with tears before the pictures torn from their native cities. Their ambassadors would meekly remonstrate, and with faded grins make allusions to the feeling of despair occasioned by the absence of the beloved works of art. Bah ! I would offer them a pinch of snuff' out of my box as I walked along my gallery, with their Excellencies cringing after me. Zenobia was a line woman and a queen, but she had to walk in Aurelian's triumph. The procede was peu dellcat f En usez 156 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. vous, mon cher 7nonsieur ! (The marqiiis says the '' Macaba" is delicious.) What a splendor of color there is in that cloud ! Vrhat a richness, what a freedom of handUng, and what a marvellous precision ! I trod upon your Excellency's corn? — a thousand pardons. His Excellency grins and declares that he rather likes to have his corns trodden on. Were 3'ou over very angry with Soult — about that Murillo which we have bought? The veteran loved that picture because it saved the life of a fellow-creature — the fellow- creature who hid it, and whom the Duke intended to hang unless the picture was forth- commg. We gave several thousand pounds for it — how many thou- sand? About its merit is a question of taste which we will not here argue. If you choose to place Murillo in the first class of painters, founding his claim upon these Virgin altar-pieces, I am your humble servant. Tom Moore painted altar-pieces as well as Milton, and warbled Sacred Songs and Loves of the Angels after his fashion. I wonder did Watteau ever try historical subjects? And as for Greuze, 3^ou know that his heads will fetch 1,000/., 1,500/., 2,000/. —as much as a Sevres '' cabaret" of Rose du Barri. If cost price is to be your crite- rion of worth, Vv^hat shall we sa}' to that little receipt for 10/. for the cop3'right of " Paradise Lost," which used to hang in old Mr. Rogers's room? When living painters, as frequently hap- pens in our days, see their pictures sold at auctions for four or five times the sums which they originally received, are they enraged or elated? A hundred 3'ears ago the state of the picture-market was different : that dreary old Italian stock was much higher than at present ; Rembrandt himself, a close man, was known to be in difficulties. If ghosts are fond of money still, what a wrath his must be at the present value of his works ! The Hague Rembrandt is the gi-eatest and grandest of all his pieces to mj^ mind. Some of the heads are as sweetly and lightl}^ painted as Gainsborough ; the faces not ugly, but deli- cate and high-bred ; the exquisite gray tones are charming to mark and stud}- ; the heads not plastered, but painted with a free, liquid brush : the result, one of the great victories won by this consummate chief, and left for the wonder and delight of succeeding ages. The humblest volunteer in the ranks of art, who has sensed a campaign or two ever so ingloriously, has at least this good fortune of understanding, or fanc^^ng he is able to understand, how the battle has been fought, and how the engaged general ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 157 won it. This is the Rhinelaiider's most brilliant achievement victory along the whole Une. The " Night-watch " at Amster- dam is magnificent in parts, but on the side to the spectator's right, smoky and dim. The "Five Masters of the Drapers" is wonderful for depth, strength, brightness, massive power. What words are these to express a picture ! to describe a description ! I once saw a moon riding in the sky serenel}', attended by her sparkhng maids of honor, and a little lady said' with an air of great satisfaction, ^^ I mast sketch ■it.'" Ah, my dear lady, if with an H.B., a Bristol board, and a bit of india- rubber, you can sketch the starry firmament on high, and the moon in her glory, I make you my compliment ! I can't sketch *' The Five Drapers" with any ink or pen at present at com- mand — but can look with all my ej-es, and be thankful to have seen such a masterpiece. They say he was a moody, ill-conditioned man, the old ten- ant of the mill. What does he think of the " Vander Heist" which hangs ojJposite his ''Night-watch," and which is one of the great pictures of the world ? It is not painted b}- so great a man as Rembrandt ; but there it is — to see it is an event of your life. Having beheld it you have lived in the year 1648, and celebrated the treaty of Munster. You have shaken the hands of the Dutch Guardsmen, eaten from their platters, drunk their Rhenish, heard their jokes, as they wagged their jolly beards. The Amsterdam Catalogue discourses thus about it : — a model catalogue : it gives 3'ou the prices paid, the signatures of the painters, a succinct description of the work. " This masterpiece represents a banquet of the civic guard, which took place on the 18th June, 1648, in the great hall of the St. Joris Doele, on the Singel at Amsterdam, to celebrate the conclusion of the Peace at Munster. The thirtj'-five figures composing the picture are all portraits. " ' The Captain Witse ' is placed at the head of the table, and attracts our attention first. He is dressed in black velvet, his breast covered with a cuirass, on his head a broad-brimmed black hat with white plumes. He is comfortably seated on a chair of black oak, with a velvet cushion, and holds in his left hand, supported on his knee, a magnificent drinking-horn, sur- roimded by a St. George destroying the dragon, and ornamented with olive-leaves. The captain's features express cordiality and good-humor ; he is grasping the hand of ' Lieutenant Van Wavern' seated near him, in a habit of dark gray, with laoe and buttons of gold, lace-collar and wristbands, his feet crossed, with boots of yellow leather, with large tops, and gold spurs, 158 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. •^^ w^ ^^^ ' on his head a black hat and dark-brown pkimes. Behind him, at the centre of the picture, is the standard-bearer, ' Jacob Banning,' in an eas}' martial attitude, hat in hand, his right hand on his chair, his right leg on his left knee. He holds the flag of blue silk, in which the Virgin is embroidered, (such a silk ! such a flag ! such a piece of painting !) emblematic of thejl town of Amsterdam. The banner covers his shoulder, and he looks towards the spectator frankly and complacently. "The man behind him is probably one of the sergeants. His head is bare. He wears a cuirass, and 3'ellow gloves, gray stockings, and boots with large tops, and kneecaps of cloth. He has a napkin on his knees, and in his hand a piece of ham, a slice of bread, and a knife. The old man behind is probably ' William the Drummer.' He has his hat in his right hand, and in his left a gold-footed wineglass, filled with white wine. He wears a red scarf, and a black satin doublet, with little slashes of yellow silk. Behind the drummer, two matchlock- men are seated at the end of the table. One in a large black habit, a napkin on his knee, a hausse-col of iron, and a linen scarf and collar. He is eating with his knife. The other holds a long glass of white wine. Four musketeers, with different shaped hats, are behind these, one holding a glass, the three others with their guns on their shoulders. Other guests are placed between the personage who is giving the toast and the standard-bearer. One with his hat off", and his hand uplifted, is talking to another. The second is carving a fowl. A third holds a silver plate ; and another, in the background, a silver flagon, from which he fills a cup. The corner behind the cap- tain is filled by two seated personages, one of whom is peeling an orange. Two others are standing, armed with halberts, of whom one holds a plumed hat. Behind him are other three individuals, one of them holding a pewter pot, on which the name ' Poock,' the landlord of the ' Hotel Doele,' is engraved. At the back, a maid-servant is coming in with a pasty, crowned with a turkey. Most of the guests are Kstening to the captain. From an open window in the distance, the facades of two houses are seen, surmounted by stone figures of sheep." There, now you know all about it : now 3'ou can go home and paint just such another. If you do, do pray remember >tG paint the hands of the figures as they are here depicted ; they are as wonderful portraits as the faces. None of 3'oar slim Van D3'ck elegancies, which have done dut}^ at the cufl^s of so many doublets ; but each man with a hand for himself, as with a face for himself. I blushed for the coarseness of on© of the ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 159 chiefs ill this great company, that fellow behind " Williaji THE Drummer," splendidly attired, sitting full in the face of the public ; and holding- a pork-bone in his hand. Suppose the Saturday Review critic were to come suddenly' on this picture ? Ah ! what a shock it would give that noble nature ! Why is that knuckle of pork not painted out? at any rate, why is not a little fringe of lace painted round it? or a cut pink paper? or couldn't a smelhng-bottle be painted in instead, with a crest and a gold top, or a cambric pocket-handkerchief, in lieu of the horrid pig, with a pink coronet in the corner? or suppose you covered the man's hand (which is ver}" coarse and strono-), and gave him the decency of a kid glove ? But a piece of pork in a naked hand? O nerves and eau de Cologne, hide it, hide it ! In spite of this lamentable coarseness, my noble sergeant, give me th}^ hand as nature made it ! A great, and famous, and noble handiwork I have seen here. Not the greatest picture in the world — not a work of the highest genius — but a per- formance so great, various, and admirable, so shrewd of humor, so wise of observation, so honest and complete of expression, that to have seen it has been a delight, and to remember it will be a pleasure for days to come. Well done, Bartholomeus Vander Heist ! Brave, meritorious, victorious, happ}' Bartholo- mew, to whom it has been given to produce a masterpiece ! Ma}^ I take off mj' hat and pay a respectful compliment to Jan Steen, Esq. ? He is a glorious composer. His humor is as frank as Fielding's. Look at his own figure sitting in the window-sill yonder, and roaring with laughter ! What a twinkle in the ej^es ! what a mouth it is for a song, or a joke, or a noggin ! I think the composition in some of Jan's pictures amounts to the sublime, and look at them with the same delight and admiration which I have felt before works of the very highest style. This gallery is admirable — and the cit}' in which the gallery is, is jDcrhaps even more wonderful and curious to behold than the gallery. The first landing at Calais (or, I suppose, on any foreign shore) — the first sight of an Eastern city — the first view of Venice — and this of Amsterdam, are among the delightful shocks which I have had as a traveller. Amsterdam is as good as Venice, with a superadded humor and grotesqueness, which gives the sight-seer the most singular zest and pleasure. A run through Pekin I could hardly fanc}' to be more odd, strange, and yet familiar. This rush, and crowd, and prodigious vitality ; this immense swarm of life ; these busy waters, crowding barges, 160 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. ^ swinging drawbridges, piled ancient gables, spacious markets teeming with people ; that ever-wonderful Jews' quarter^ that dear old world of painting and the past, j^et alive, and throb- bing, and palpable — actual, and 3'et passing before you swiftly and strangel}^ as a dream ! Of the many journeys of this Roundabout life, that drive through Amsterdam is to be spe- cially and gratefulh^ remembered. You have never seen the palace of Amsterdam, m}- dear sir? Wh}', there's a marble hall in that palace that will frighten you as much as an}- hall in Vathek, or a nightmare. At one end of that old, cold, glassy, glittering, ghostly, marble hall there stands a throne, on which a white marble king ought to sit with his white legs gleaming down into the white marble below, and his white eyes looking at a great white marble Atlas, who bears on his icy shoulders a blue globe as big as the full moon. If he were not a genie, and enchanted, and with a strength altogether h3'peratlantean, he would drop the moon with a shriek on to the white marble floor, and it would splitter into perdition. And the palace would rock, and heave, and tumble ; and the waters would rise, rise, rise ; and the gables sink, sink, sink ; and the barges would rise up to the chimneys ; and the water-souchee fishes would flap over the Boorapjes, where the pigeons and storks used to perch ; and the Amster, and the Rotter, and the Saar, and the Op, and all the dams of Holland would burst, and the Zuyder Zee roll over the dykes ; and you would wake out of 3^our dream, and find 3'ourself sitting in 3^our arm-chair. Was it a dream? it seems like one. Have we been to Hol- land? have we heard the chimes at midnight at Antwerp? Were we realh' away for a week, or have I been sitting up in the room dozing, before this stale old desk? Here's the desk ; yes. But, if it has been a dream, how could I have learned to hum that tune out of Bhiorah? Ah, is it that tune, or myself that I am humming? If it was a dream, how comes this 3'ellow Notice des Tableaux du MusiiE d' Amsterdam avec facsimile DES MoNOGRAMMES befoTc me, and this signature of the gallant BARTHOLOMEUS VANDER HELST, FECIT Ao, 1648. Yes, indeed, it was a delightful little holiday ; it lasted a whole week. With the exception of that little pint of amari aliquid at Rotterdam, we were all ver3' happ3^ We might have gone on being happy for whoever knows how man3' da3'S more ? a week more, ten da3^s more : who knows how long that dear ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. HU teetotum happiness can be made to spin without tonpHnff over ? life But one of the party had desired letters to be sent postc restante, Amsterdam. The post-office is hard by that iwful palace where the Atlas is, and which we really saw. There was only one letter, you see. Only one chance of finding us. There it was. " The post has only this moment come in," says the smirking commissioner. And he hands over the paper, thinking he has done something clever. Before the letter had been opened, I could read Come back, as clearly as if it had been painted on the wall. It was all over. The spell was broken. The sprightly little holiday fairy that had frisked and gambolled so kindly beside us for eight days of sunshine — or rain which was as cheerful as sunshme — gave a parting piteous look, and whisked away and vanished. And yonder scuds the postman, and here is the old desk. NIL NISI BONUM. Almost the last words which Sir Walter spoke to Lockbart, his biographer, were, "Be a good man, my dear! "and with the last flicker of breath on his dying lips, he sighed a farewell to his family, and p;assed away blessing them. Two men, famous, admired, beloved, have just left us, the Goldsmith and the Gibbon of our time.* Ere a few weeks are over, man}^ a critic's pen will be at work, reviewing their lives, and passing judgment on their works. This is no review, or history, or criticism : onl}^ a word in testimon}^ of respect and regard from a man of letters, who owes to his own professional labor the honor of becoming acquainted with these two eminent literary men. One was the first ambassador whom the New World of Letters sent to the Old. He was born almost with the republic ; the pater patricB had laid his hand on the child's head. He bore Washington's name : he came amongst us bringing the kindest S3^mpath3^, the most artless, smiling good- will. His new countrj^ (which some people here might be disposed to regard rather superciliously) could send us, as he showed in his own person, a gentleman, who, though himself * Washington Irving died, November 28, 1859 ; Lord Macaulay died, December 28, 1859. 162 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. born in no ver}^ high sphere, was most finished, polished, easy, witty, quiet ; and, sociall}^, the equal of the most refined Euro- peans. If Irving's welcome in England was a kind one, was it not also gratefully remembered ? If he ate our salt, did he not ipSLj us with a thankful heart? Who can calculate the amount of friendliness and good feeling for our country which this writer's generous and untiring regard for us disseminated in his own? His books are read by millions* of his countrymen, whom he has taught to love England, and why to love her. It would have been eas}'^ to speak otherwise than he did : to inflame national rancors, which, at the time when he first be- came known as a public writer, war had just renewed : to cr}' down the old civilization at the expense of the new ; to point out our faults, arrogance, short-comings, and give the republic to infer how much she was the parent state's superior. There are writers enough in the United States, honest and otherwise, who preach that kind of doctrine. But the good Irving, the peaceful, the friendl}^ had no place for bitterness in his heart, and no scheme but kindness. Received in England with ex- traordinary tenderness and friendship (Scott, Southe}', Byron, a hundred others have borne witness to their liking for him), he was a messenger of good-will and peace between his country and ours. "See, friends! " he seems to say, "these English are not so wicked, rapacious, callous, proud, as 3'ou have been taught to believe them. I went amongst them a humble man ; won m}^ wa}^ by ni}' pen ; and, when known, found ever3' hand held out to me with kindliness and welcome. Scott is a great man, you acknowledge. Did not Scott's King of England give a gold medal to him, and another to me, your countryman, and a stranger ? " Tradition in the United States still fondly retains the history of the feasts and rejoicings which awaited Irving on his return to his native country from Europe. He had a national wel- come ; he stammered in his speeches, hid himself in confusion, and the people loved him all the better. He had worthilj- represented America in Europe. In that young community a man who brings home with him abundant European testimonials is still treated with respect (I have found American writers, of wide-world reputation, strangel}^ solicitous about the opinions of quite obscure British critics, and elated or depressed by their judgments) ; and Irving went home medalled by the King, diplomatized b}^ the University, crowned and honored and ad- * See his Life in the most remarkable Dictionart/ of Authors, published lately at Philadelphia, by IVIr. Allibone, ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 163 mired. He had not in any wa}^ intrigued for his honors, he iiad fairly won them ; and, in Irving's instance, as in others, the old country was glad and eager to pay them. In America the love and regard for Irving was a national sentiment. Party wars are perpetually raging there, and are carried on by the press with a rancor and fierceness against individuals which exceed British, almost Irish, virulence. It seemed to me, during a year's travel in the country, as if no one ever aimed a blow at Irving. All men held their hand from that harmless, friendly peacemaker. I had the good for- tune to see him at New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington,* and remarked how in everyplace he was honored and welcome. Every large city has its '' Irving House." The countiy takes pride in the fame of its men of letters. The gate of his own charming little domain on the beautiful Hudson River was for ever svvinging before visitors who came to him. He shut out no one.f I had seen man}- pictures of his house, and read descriptions of it, in both of which it was treated with a not unusual American exaggeration. It was but a pretty little cabin of a place ; the gentleman of the press who took notes of the place, whilst his kind old host was sleeping, might have visited the whole house in a couple of minutes. And how came it that this house was so small, when Mr. Irving's books were sold by hundreds of thousands, na}', mil- lions, when his profits were known to be large, and the habits of life of the good old bachelor were notoriously modest and simple? He had loved once in his life. The lady he loved died ; and he, whom all the world loved, never sought to re- place her. I can't say how much the thought of that fidelity has touched me. Does not the ver}^ cheerfulness of his after life add to the pathos of that untold story? To grieve always was not in his nature ; or, when he had his sorrow, to bring all * At Washington, Mr. Irving came to a lecture given by the writer, which Mr. Filmore and General Pierce, the President and President Elect, were also kind enough to attend together. " Two Kings of Brentford smelling at one rose," says Irving, looking up with his good-humored smile. t Mr. Irving described to me, with that humor and good-humor which he always kept, how, amongst otlier visitors, a member of the British press who had carried his distinguished pen to America (where he employed it in vilifying his own country) came to Sunnyside, introduced himself to Irving, partook of his wine and luncheon, and in two days described Mr. Irving, his house, his nieces, his meal, and his manner of dozing afterwards, in a New York paper. On another occasion, Irving said, laughing, " Two per- sons came to me, and one held me in conversation whilst the other mis- creant took my portrait ! " 164 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 1 II the world in to condole with him and bemoan it. Deep and quiet he lays the love of his heart, and buries it ; and grass and flowers grow over the scarred ground in due time. Irving had such a small house and such narrow rooms, be- cause there was a great number of people to occupy them. He could only afford to keep one old horse (which, lazy and aged as it was, managed once or twice to run awa}- with that careless old horseman). He could only afford to give plain sherry to that amiable British paragraph-monger from New York, Who _ saw the patriarch asleep over his modest, blameless cup, andSI fetched the public into his private chamber to look at him. Irving could only live very modestl}', because the wifeless, childless man had a number of children to whom he was as a father. He had as many as nine nieces, I am told — I saw two of these ladies at his house — with all of whom the dear old man had shared the produce of his labor and genius. '''' Be a good man^ my dear.'^ One can't but think of these last words of the veteran Chief of Letters, who had tasted and tested the value of worldly success, admiration, prosperit3\ Was Irving not good, and, of his works, was not his life the best part? In his family, gentle, generous, good-humored, affectionate, self-denying : in society, a delightful example of complete gentlemanhood ; quite unspoiled by prosperity ; never obsequious to the great (or, worse still, to the base and mean, as some public men are forced to be in his and other countries) ; eager to acknowledge ever}- contemporary's merit ; always kind and affable to the young members of his calling ; in his profes- sional bargains and mercantile deaUngs dehcately honest and grateful ; one of the most charming masters of our lighter lan- guage ; the constant friend to us and our nation ; to men of letters doubly dear, not for his wit and genius merely, but as an exemplar of goodness, probity, and pure life: — I don't know what sort of testimonial will be raised to him in his own countr}^, where generous and enthusiastic acknowledgment of American merit is never wanting : but Irving was in our ser- vice as well as theirs ; and as they have placed a stone at Greenwich yonder in memory of that gallant young Bellot, who shared the perils and fate of some of our Arctic seamen, I would like to hear of some memorial raised by English writers and friends of letters in affectionate remembrance of the dear and good Washington Irving. As for the other writer, whose departure many friends, some few most dearly-loved relatives, and multitudes of admiring readers deplore, our republic has already decreed his statue, ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 165 and he must have known that he had earned this posthumous honor. He is not a poet and man of letters merelj^ but citizen statesman, a great British worthy. Almost from the first moment when he appears, amongst bo3's, amongst college stu- dents, amongst men, he is marked, and takes rank as a great Englishman. All sorts of successes are easy to him : as a lad he goes down into the arena with othei-s, and wins all the prizes to which he has a mind. A place in the senate is straightway offered to the young man. He takes his seat there ; he speaks, when so minded, without party anger or intrigue, but not with- out party faith and a sort of heroic enthusiasm for his cause. Still he is poet and philosopher even more than orator. That he may have leisure and means to pursue his darling studies, he absents himself for a while, and accepts a richly-remunerative post in the East. As learned a man may live in a cottage or a college common-room ; but it always seemed to me that ample means and recognized rank were Macaulay's as of right. Years ago there was a wretched outcry raised because Mr. Macaulay dated a letter from Windsor Castle, where he was staying. Immortal gods ! Was this man not a lit guest for any palace in the world? or a fit companion for any man or woman in it? I dare say, after Austerlitz, the old K. K. court officials and footmen sneered at Napoleon for dating from Schonbrunn. But that miserable ' ' Windsor Castle " outcry is an echo out of fast- retreating old-world remembrances. The place of such a natural chief was amongst the first of the land ; and that country is best, according to our British notion at least, where the man of eminence has the best chance of investing his genius and intellect. If a company of giants were got together, very likely one or two of the mere six-feet-six people might be angr}- at the incon- testable superiorit}^ of the very tallest of the party ; and so I have heard some London wits, rather peevish at Macaulay's superiority, complain that he occupied too much of the talk, and so forth. Now that wonderful tongue is to speak no more, will not many a man grieve that he no longer has the chance to lis- ten ? To remember the talk is to wonder : to think not only of the treasures he had in his memory, but of the trifles he had stored there, and could produce with equal readiness. Almost on the last day I had the fortune to see him, a conversation happened suddenly to spring up about senior wi-anglers, and what they had done in after fife. To the almost terror of the persons present, Macaulay began with the senior wrangler of 1801-2-3-4, and so on, giving the name of each, and relating 166 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 1 his subsequent career and rise. Every man who has known him has liis stor^' regarding that astonishing memor}'. It may be tliat he was not ill pleased that you should recognize it ; but to those prodigious intellectual feats, which were so eas}' to him, who would grudge his tribute of homage? His talk was, in a word, admirable, and we admired it. Of the notices which have appeared regarding Lord Macaula}', up to the day when the present lines are written (the 9th of January), the reader should not deny himself the pleasure of looking especially at two. It is a good sign of the times when such articles as these (I mean the articles in The Times and Saturday Revieiv) appear in our public prints about our public men. They educate us, as it were, to admire rightlj'. An uninstructed person in a museum or at a concert may pass by without recognizing a picture or a passage of music, which the connoisseur by his side ma}- show him is a masterpiece of har- mony, or a wonder of artistic skill. After reading these papers you like and respect more the person you have admired so much ah'eady. And so with regard to Macaulay's style there may be faults of course — what critic can't point them out? But for the nonce we are not talking about faults : we want to say nil nisi buuam. Well — take at hazard any three pages of the '' Essays " or '-'- History ; " — and, glimmering below the stream of the narrative, as it were, you, an average reatler, see one, two, three, a half-score of allusions to other historic facts, characters, literature, poetry, with which you are acquainted. Why is this epithet used ? Whence is that simile drawn ? How does he manage, in two or three words, to paint an individual, or to indicate a landscape? Your neighbor, who has his read- ing, and his little stock of literature stov/ed away in his mind, shall detect more points, allusions, happy touches, indicating not only the prodigious memory and vast learning of this master, but the wonderful industry, the honest, humble previous toil of this gi'eat schokii'. Me reads twenty books to write a sentence ; he travels a hundred miles to make a line of description. Many Londoners — not all — have seen the British Museum Library. I speak a rceur ouvert., and pray the kindl}' reader to bear with me. I have seen all sorts of domes of Peters and Pauls, Sophia, Pantheon, — what not? — and have been struck by none of them so much as by that catholic dome in Blooms- bury, under which our million \olumes are housed. What peace, what love, what truth, what beauty, what happiness for all, what' generous kinduess for you and me, are here spread out! It seems to me one cannot sit down in that place without a ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 167 heart full of grateful reverence. I own to have said my o-race at the table, and to have thanked heaven for this my English birthright, freely to partake of these bouutitul books, and to speak the truth I tind there. Under the dome which held Macaulay's brain, and from which his solemn eyes looked out on the world but a fortnight since, what a vast, briUiant, and wonderful store of learning was ranged ! what strange lore would he not fetch for you at your bidding ! A volume of law, or history, a book of poetry- familiar or forgotten (except by himself who forgot nothing), a novel ever so old, and he had it at hand. I spoke to him once about " Clarissa." " Not read * Clarissa!*" he cried out. "If you have once thoroughly entered on ' Clarissa ' and are infected by it, you can't leave it. When I was in India I passed one hot season at the hills, and there were the Governor-General, and the Secretary of Govern- ment, and the Commander-in-Chief, and their wives. I had * Clarissa ' with me : and, as soon as the}' began to read, the whole station was in a passion of excitement about Miss Har- lowe and her misfortunes, and her scoundrelly Lovelace ! The Governor's wife seized the book, and the Secretary waited for it, and the Chief Justice could not read it for tears ! " He acted the whole scene: he paced up and down the " Athenueum " library : I dare say he could have spoken pages of the book — of that book, and of what countless piles of others ! In this little paper let us keep to the text of nil nisi bonum. One paper I have read regarding Lord Macaula}- says '' he had no heart." Wh}-, a man's books may not always speak the truth, but they speak his mind in spite of himself: and it seems to me this man's heart is beating through every page he penned. He is always in a storm of revolt and indignation against wrong, craft, tyranny. How he cheers heroic resistance ; how he backs and applauds freedom struggling for its own ; how he hates scoundrels, ever so victorious and successful; how he recog- nizes genius, though selfish villains possess it ! The critic who says Macaulay had no heart, might say that Johnson had none : and two men more generous, and more loving, and more hat- ing, and more partial, and more noble, do not live in our history. Those who knew Lord Macaulay knew how admirably tender and generous,* and affectionate he was. It was not his business to bring his family before the theatre footlights, and call for bouquets from the' gallery as he wept over them. * Since the above was written, I have been informed tliat it has been found, on examining Lord Macaulay's papers, that lie was m tlie habit ol giving away more than a fourth jjurt of his annual income. 1(38 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. ^ If any young man of letters reads this little sermon — and to him, indeed, it is addressed — I would say to him, "Bear Scott's words in your mind, and ' he good^ my dear.' " Here are two literar}^ men gone to their account, and, laus Deo^ as far as we know, it is fair, and open, and clean. Here is no need of apologies for shortcomings, or explanations of vices which would have been virtues but for unavoidable &c. Here are two examples of men most differently gifted : each pursuing his calling ; each speaking his truth as God bade him ; each honest in his life ; just and irreproachable in his dealings ; dear to his friends ; honored b}' his countrj- ; beloved at his fireside. It has been the fortunate lot of both to give incalculable happiness and delight to the world, which thanks them in return with an immense kindliness, respect, affection. It ma}^ not be our chance, brother scribe, to be endowed with such merit, or re- warded with such fame. But the rewards of these men are rewards paid to our service. We ma}^ not win the b^ton or epaulettes j but God give us strength to guard the honor of the flag ! ON HALF A LOAF. A LETTER TO MESSRS. BROADWAY, BATTERY AND CO., OF NEW YORK, BANKERS. Is it all over ? May we lock up the case of instruments ? Have we signed our wills ; settled up our affairs ; pretended to talk and rattle quite cheerfull}^ to the women at dinner, so that they should not be alarmed ; sneaked away under some pretext, and looked at the children sleeping in their beds with their little unconscious thumbs in their mouths, and a flush on the soft-pillowed cheek ; made every arrangement with Colonel MacTurk, who acts as our second, and knows the other prin- cipal a great deal too well to think he will ever give in ; in- vented a monstrous figment about going to shoot pheasants with Mac in the morning, so as to soothe the anxious fears of the dear mistress of the house ; early as the hour appointed for the — the little affair — was, have we been awake hours and hours sooner ; risen before da3'light, with a faint hope, perhaps, that MacTurk might have come to some arrangement with the other side ; at seven o'clock (confound his punctu- ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 169 ality !) heard his cab- wheel at the door, and let him in lookino- perfectly trim, fresh, jolly, and well shaved ; driven off with him in the cold morning, after a very unsatisfactory breakfast of coffee and stale bread-and-butter (which choke, somehow in the swallowing) ; driven off to Wormwood Scrubs in the cold, muddy, misty, moonshiny morning ; stepped out of tlie cab, where Mac has bid the man to halt on a retired spot in the common; in one minute more, seen another cab arrive, from which descend two gentlemen, one of whom has a case like MacTurk's under his arm ; — looked round and round the solitude, and seen not one single sign of a policeman — no, no more than in a row in London ; — deprecated the horrible necessity which drives civilized men to the use of powder and bullet ; — taken ground as firmly as may be, and looked on whilst Mac is neatly loading his weapons ; and when all ready, and one looked for the decisive One, Two, Three — have we even heard Captain O'Toole (the second of the other principal) walk up, and say: " Colonel MacTurk, I am desired by my principal to declare at this eleventh — this twelfth hour, that he is willing to own that he sees he has been wrong in the dispute which has arisen between him and your friend ; that he apologizes for offensive expressions which he has used in tlie heat of the quarrel ; and regrets the course he has taken ? " If something like this has happened to 3'ou, however great your courage, you have been glad not to fight ; — however accurate your aim, you have been pleased not to fire. On the sixth day of January in this year sixt3'-two, wliat hundreds of thousands — I may saj', what millions of English- men, were in the position of the personage here sketched — Christian men, I hope, shocked at the dreadful necessit}^ of battle ; aware of the horrors which the conflict must produce, and yet feeling that the moment was come, and that there was no arbitrament left but that of steel and cannon ! My reader, perhaps, has been in America. If he has, he knows what good people are to be found there ; how polished, how gener- ous, how gentle, how courteous. But it is not the voices of these 3^ou hear in the roar of hate, defiance, foil}', falsehood, which comes to us across the Atlantic. You can't hear gentle voices ; ver}^ many who could speak are afraid. Men must go forward, or be crushed by the maddened crowd behind them. I suppose after the perpetration of that act of— what shall we call it? — of sudden war, which Wilkes did, and Everett ap- proved, most of us believed that battle was inevitable. Who has not read the American papers for six weeks past? Did 170 ROUl^ABOUT PAPERS. 3'ou ever think the United States Government would give up those Commissioners? I never did, for my part. It seems to me the United States Government have done the most courageous act of the war. Before that act was done, what an excitement prevailed in London ! In ever}" Club there was a parliament sitting in permanence : in every domestic gather- ing this subject was sure to form a main part of the talk. Of course I have seen man}^ people who have travelled in America, and heard them on this matter — friends of the South, friends of the North, friends of peace, and American stockholders in plent}'. — "They will never give up the men, sir," that was the opinion on all sides ; and, if they would not, we knew what was to happen. For weeks past this nightmare of war has been riding us. The City was alread}^ gloomy enough. When a great domestic grief and misfortune visits the chief person of the State, the heart of the people, too, is sad and awe-stricken. It might be this sorrow and trial were but presages of greater trials and sorrow to come. What if the sorrow of war is to be added to the other calamit}^? Such forebodings have formed the theme of manj' a man's talk, and darkened many a fireside. Then came the rapid orders for ships to arm and troops to depart. How man}' of us have had to sa}' farewell to friends whom dut}' called away with their regiments ; on whom we strove to look cheerfull}', as we shook their hands, it miglit be for the last time ; ancl whom our thoughts depicted, tread- ing the snows of th.e immense Canadian frontier, where their iqtrepid little band might have to face the assaults of other enemies than winter and rough weather ! I went to a play one night, and protest I hardlj- know what was the entertainment which passed before m}^ eyes. In the next stall was an Ameri- can gentleman, who knew me. " Good heavens, sir," I thought, *' is it decreed that you and I are to be authorized to murder each other next week ; that ray people shall be bombarding your cities, destroying your navies, making a hideous desolation of your coast ; that our peaceful frontier shall be subject to fire, rapine, and murder?" "They will never give up the men," said the Englishman. " Thej^ will never give up the men," said the American. And the Christmas piece which the actors were pla3'ing proceeded like a piece in a dream. 'J'o make the grand comic performance doubl}^ comic, ray neighbor presently informed me how ong of the best friends I had in America — the most hospitable, kindly, amiable of men, from whom I had twice received the warmest welcome and the most I! ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 171 delightful hospitality — was a prisoner in Fort Warren, on charges by which his Ufe perhaps might be risked. I tiiink that was the most dismal Christmas fun which these eyes ever looked on. Carry out that notion a little farther, and depict ten thou- sand, a hundred thousand homes in England saddened by the thought of the coming calamity, and oppressed by the pervad- ing gloom. My next-door neighbor perhaps has parted with her son. Now the ship in which he is, with a thousand brave com- rades, is ploughing through the stormy midnight ocean. Pres- enth' (under the flag we know of) the thin red line in which her boy forms a speck, is winding its wa}- through the vast Canadian snows. Another neighbor's bo}' is not gone, but is expecting orders to sail ; and some one else, besides the circle at home maybe, is in prayer and terror, thinking of the summons which calls the young sailor away. Bv firesides modest and splendid, all over the three kingdoms, that sorrow is keeping watch, and myriads of hearts beating with that thought, '* Will they give up the men ? " I don't know how, on the first day after the capture of the Southern Commissioners was announced, a rumor got abroad in London that the taking of the men was an act according to law, of which our nation could take no notice. It was said that the law authorities had so declared, and a very noble testi- mony to the loyally of Englishmen, I think, was shown by the instant submission of high-spirited gentlemen, most keenly feeling that the nation had been subject to a coarse outrage, who were silent when told that the law was with the aggressor. The rehef which presently came, when, after a pause of a day, we found that law was on our side, was indescribable. The nation might then take notice of this insult to its honor. Never were people more eager than ours when the}^ found they had a right to reparation. I have talked during the last week with many English holders of American securities, who, of course, have been aware of the threat held over them. ''England," says the Nsw York Herald^ " cannot afford to go to war with us, for six hundred millions' worth of American stock is owned by British subjects, which, in event of hostilities, would be confiscated; and we now call upon the Companies not to take it off their hands on any terms. Let its forfeiture be held over England as a weapon in terrorern. British subjects have V^o or three hun- dred millions of dollars invested in shipping and other property in the United States. All this property, together with the stocks, 172 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. would be seized, amounting to nine hundred millions of dollars.] Will England incur this tremendous loss for a mere abstrac- tion ? " Whether ' ' a mere abstraction " here means the abstraction! of the two Southern Commissioners from under our flag or the abstract idea of injured honor, which seems ridiculous to the^ Herald^ is it needless to ask. I have spoken with many men who have money invested in the States, but I declare I have not met one English gentleman whom the publication of this threat has influenced for a moment. Our people have nine hundred millions of dollars invested in the United States, have they ? And the Herald ' ' calls upon the Companies " not to take any of this debt ofl" our hands. Let us, on our side, entreat the English press to give this announcement ever}^ publicit}'. Let us do everj'thiug in our power to make this " call upon the _, Americans" well known in England. I hope English news-^l paper editors will print it, and print it again and again. It is not we who saj^ this of American citizens, but American citi- zens who say this of themselves. "Bull is odious. We can't bear Bull. He is haught}", arrogant, a braggart, and a blus- terer ; and we can't bear brag and bluster in our modest and decorous countr3\ We hate Bull, and if he quarrels with us^, on a point in which we are in the wrong, we have goods of his" in our custody, and we will rob him ! " Suppose your London banker saying to 3'ou, " Sir, I have always thought ^'our man- ners disgusting, and your arrogance insupportable. You dare to complain of my conduct because I have wrongfully impris- oned Jones. My answer to your vulgar interference is, that I confiscate your balance ! " What would be an English merchant's character after a few such transactions ? It is not improbable that the moralists of the Herald would call him a rascal. Wh}' have the United States been paying seven, eight, ten per cent for money for 3"ears past, when the same commodity can be got elsewhere at half that rate of interest? Wh}^ because though among the richest pro- ' prietors in the world, creditors were not sure of them. So the States have had to pa}' eightj- millions yearly for the use of money which would cost other borrowers but thirty. Add up this item of extra interest alone for a dozen 3^ears, and see what a prodigious penaltv the States have been pa3ing for re- pudiation here and there, for sharp practice, for doubtful credit. Suppose the peace is kept between us, the remembrance of this last threat alone will cost the States millions and millions more- If they must have mone3^, we must have a greater interest to ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 178 insure our jeopardized capital. Do American Companies want to borrow money — as want to borrow they will? Mr. Brown show the gentleman that extract from the New York Herald which declares that the United States will confiscate private property in the event of a war. As the country newspapers say, "Please, country papers, copy this paragraph." And, gentlemen in America, when the honor of your nation is called in question, please to remember that it is the American press which glories in announcing that you are prepared to be rogues. And when this war has drained uncounted hundreds of mil- lions more out of the United States exchequer, will they be richer or more inclined to pay debts, or less willing to evade them, or more popular with their creditors, or more likely to get money from men whom they deliberately announce that they will cheat ? I have not followed the Herald on the ^' stone-ship" question — that great naval victory appears to me not less horrible and wicked than suicidal. Block the harbors for ever ; destroy the inlets of the commerce of the world ; perish cities, — so that we may wreak an injury on them. It is the talk of madmen, but not the less wicked. The act injures the whole Republic : but it is perpetrated. It is to deal harm to ages hence ; but it is done. The Indians of old used to burn women and their unborn children. This stone-ship business is Indian warfare. And it is performed by men who tell us eveiy week that they are at the head of civilization, and that the Old World is de- crepit, and cruel, and barbarous as compared to theirs. The same politicians who throttle commerce at its neck, and threaten to confiscate trust-money, sa}' that when the war is over, and the South is subdued, then the turn of the old country will come, and a direful retribution shall be taken for our con- duct. This has been the cry all through the war. " We should have conquered the South," says an American paper which I read this very day, " but for England." Was there ever such puling heard from men who have an army of a milUon, and who turn and revile a people who have stood as aloof from their contest as we have from the war of Troy? Or is it an outcry made with malice prepense ? And is the song of the New York Times a variation of the Herald tune? — " The conduct of the British in folding their arms and taking no part in the fight, has been so base that it has caused the prolongation of the war, and occasioned a prodigious expense on our part. Therefore, as we have British property in our hands, we &c. &c." The lamb troubled the water dreadfully, and the wolf, in a righteous in- 174 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. dignation, "confiscated" him. Of course we have heard that at an undisturbed time Great Britain would never have dared to press its claim for redress. Did the United States wait until we were at peace with France before they went to war with us last? Did Mr. Seward yield the claim which he confesses to be just, until he himself was menaced with war? How long- were the Southern gentlemen kept in prison? What caused them to be set free ? and did the Cabinet of Washington see its error before or after the demand for redress ? * The captor was feasted at Boston, and the captives in prison hard by. If the wrong-doer was to be punished, it was Captain Wilkes who ought to have gone into limbo. At anj^ rate, as " the Cabinet of Washington could not give its approbation to the commander of the ' San Jacinto,' " wh}' were the men not sooner set free? To sit at the Tremont House, and hear the captain after dinner give hts opinion on international law, would have been better sport for the prisoners than the grim salle- a- manger at Fort Warren. I read in the commercial news brought by the " Teutonia," and published in London on the present 13th Januar}^ that the pork market was generally quiet on the 29th December last ; that lard, though with more activity, was heavy and decidedly lower ; and at Philadelphia, whiskey is steady and stocks firm. Stocks are firm : that is a comfort for the English holders, and the confiscating process recommended bj' the Herald is at least deferred. But presently comes an announcement which is not quite so cheering : — " The Saginaw Central Railway Company (let us call it) has postponed its Januar}^ dividend on account of the disturbed condition of public affairs." A la bonne heure. The bond- and share-holders of the Sagl- * "At tlie beginning of December the British fleet on the West Indian station mounted 850 guns, and comprised five liners, ten first-class frigates, and seventeen powerful corvettes. ... In little more than a month the fleet available for operations on the American shore had been mcA'e than doubled. Tlie reinforcements prepared at tlie various dockyards included two line-of-battle ships, twenty-nine magnificent frigates — such as the ' Shannon,' the ' Sutlej,' the'Euryalus,' the ' Orlando,' the ' Galatea ; ' eight corvettes armed like the frigates in part, with 100- and 40- pounder Arm- strong guns ; and tlie two tremendous iron-cased ships, the ' Warrior ' and tlie 'Black Prince;' and their smaller sisters the 'Resistance' and the ' Defence.' There was work to be done which might have delayed the commission of a few of these ships for some weeks longer ; but if the United States had chosen war instead of peace, the blockade of their coasts would have been supported by a steam fleet of more than sixty splendid ships, armed with 1,800 guns, many of them of the heaviest and most elective kind." — Saturday Review: Jan. 11. ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 175 naw must look for loss and depression in times of war. Thi^ is one of war's dreadful taxes and necessities ; and all sorts of innocent people must suffer by the misfortune. The corn was high at Waterloo when a hundred and fifty thousand men came and trampled it down on a Sabbath morning. There was no help for that calamity, and the Belgian farmers lost their crops for the year. Perhaps I am a farmer myself — an innocent colonus ; and instead of being able to get to church with my famil}^ have to see squadrons of French dragoons thundering upon my barley, and squares of English infantry forming and trampUng all over my oats. (By the way, in writing of "Panics," an ingenious writer in the Atlantic Magazine saj^s that the British panics at Waterloo were frequent and notori- ous.) Well, I am a Belgian peasant, and I see the British running away and the French cutting the fugitives down. What have I done that these men should be kicking down my peace- ful harvest for me, on which I counted to pay my rent, to feed my horses, my household, my children? It is hard. But it is the fortune of war. But suppose the battle over ; the French- man sa^'s, " You scoundrel ! why did you not take a part with me ? and why did you stand like a double-faced traitor looking on? I should have won the battle but for you. And I hereby confiscate the farm yo\x stand on, and you and your family may go to the workhouse." The New York press holds this argument over English peo- ple in terrorem. " We Americans maj^ be ever so wrong in the matter in dispute, but if you push us to a war, we will confiscate your English property." Ver}^ good. It is peace now. Con- fidence of course is restored between us. Our eighteen hun- dred peace commissioners have no occasion to open their mouths ; and the little question of confiscation is postponed. Messrs. Battery, Broadway and Co., of New York, have the kindness to sell my Saginaws for what they will fetch. I shall lose half my loaf very likely ; but for the sake of a quiet Hfe, let us give up a certain quantity of farinaceous food ; and half a loaf, you know, is better than no bread at all. 176 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. — A STORY A LA MODE. • Part I. *' Every one remembers in the Fourth Book of the immortal poem of 3'our Blind Bard, (to whose sightless oubs no doubt Glorious Shapes were apparent, and Visions Celestial,) how Adam discourses to Eve of the Bright Visitors who hovered round their Eden — * Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth, Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.* Ml " ' How often,' saj^s Father Adam, ' from the steep of echo- ing hill or thicket, have we heard celestial voices to the mid- night air, sole, or responsive to each other's notes, singing ! ' After the Act of Disobedience, when the erring pair from Eden took their solitary way, and went forth to toil and trouble on common earth — though the Glorious Ones no longer were visible, you cannot sa}' the}' were gone. It was not that the Bright Ones were absent, but that the dim e3^es of rebel man no longer could see them. In 3'our chamber hangs a picture of one whom 3'ou never knew, but whom 3'ou have long held in tender- est regard, and who was painted for 3'ou b3' a friend of mine, the Knight of Plympton. She communes with 3'ou. She smiles on 3'ou. When your spirits are low, her bright e3'es shine on 3'OU and cheer 3'ou. Her innocent sweet smile is a caress to you. She never fails to soothe 3'ou with her speechless prattle. You love her. She is alive with 3'OU. As 3'ou extinguish 3'our candle and turn to sleep, though 3^our e3'es see her not, is she not there still smiling? As 3'ou lie in the night awake, and think- ing of 3'our duties, and the morrow's inevitable toil oppressing the bus3^, wear3', wakeful brain as with a remorse, the crackling fire flashes up for a moment in the grate, and she is there, your little Beauteous Maiden, smiling with her sweet e3'es ! When moon is down, when fire is out, when curtains are drawn, when lids are closed, is she not there, the little Beautiful One, though invisible, present and smiling still? Friend, the Unseen Ones are round about us. Does it not seem as if the time were draw- ing near when it shall be given to men to behold them ? " ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 17T The print of which my friend spoke, and which, indeed, hangs in m^^ room, though he has never been there, is that charming little winter piece of Sir Joshua, representing the little Lad}^ Caroline Montague, afterwards Duchess of Buccleuch. She is represented as standing in the midst of a winter land- scape, wrapped in muff and cloak ; and she looks out of her picture with a smile so exquisite that a Herod could not see her without being charmed. " I beg your pardon, Mr. Pinto," I said to the person with whom I was conversing. (I wonder, by the way, that I was not surprised at his knowing how fond I am of this print.) " You spoke of the Knight of Plympton. Sir Joshua died, 1792 : and 3'ou say he was your dear friend?" As I spoke I chanced to look at Mr. Pinto ; and then it suddenly struck me: Gracious powers? Perhaps j'ou are a hundred jestrs old, now I think of it. You look more than a hundred. Yes, you may be a thousand years old for what I know. Your teeth are false. One eye is evidently false. Can I say that the other is not ? If a man's age may be calculated by the rings round his eyes, this man ma}' be as old as Methu- selah. He has no beard. He wears a large curl}- glossj- brown wig, and his e,yebrows are painted a deep olive-green. It was odd to hear this man, this walking mummy, talking sentiment, in these queer old chambers in Shepherd's Inn. Pinto passed a yellow bandanna handkerchief over his awful white teeth, and kept his glass eye steadily" fixed on me. " Sir Joshua's friend?" said he (you perceive, eluding my direct question). " Is not every one that knows his pictures Rey- nolds's friend ? Suppose I tell 3'ou that I have been in his paint- ing room scores of times, and that his sister The has made me tea, and his sister Toffy has made coffee for me? You will only say I am an old ombog." (Mr. Pinto, I remarked, spoke all languages with an accent equall}^ foreign.) " Suppose I tell 3'ou that I knew Mr. Sam Johnson, and did not like him? that I was at that very ball at Madame Cornells', which you have mentioned in one of your little — what do you call them ? — bah ! my memory begins to fail me — in one of your httle Whirligig Papers ? Suppose I tell you that Sir Joshua has been here, in this very room? " " Have you, then, had these apartments for — more — than — seventy j-ears?" I asked. " They look as if they had not been swept for that time — don't they? Hey? I did not say that I had them for seventy years, but that Sir Joshua has visited me here." 12 178 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. "When?" I asked, ejdng the man sternly, for I began think he was an impostor. He answered me with a glance still more stern : " Sir Joshua Reynolds was here this very morning, with Angelica Kaufmann and Mr. Oliver Goldschmidt. He is still very much attaghed to Angelica, who still does not care for him. Because he is dead (and I was in the fourth mourning coach at his funeral) is that an}' reason wh}' he should not come back to earth again ? My good sir, you are laughing at me. He has sat man}' a time on that ver}^ chair which you are occup3ing. There are several spirits in the room now, whom you cannot see. Excuse me." Here he turned round as if he was addressing somebody, and began rapidl}^ speaking a language unknown to me. "It is Arabic," he said ; " a bad patois I own. I learned it in Bar- bar}', when I was a prisoner amongst the Moors. In anno 1609, bin ick aldus ghekledt gheghaen. Ha ! you doubt me : look at me well. At least I am like — " Perhaps some of my readers remember a paper of which the figure of a man carrying a barrel formed the initial letter,* and which I copied from an old spoon now in my possession. As I looked at Mr. Pinto I do declare he looked so like the figure on that old piece of plate that I started and felt very uneasy. " Ha ! " said he, laughing through his false teeth (I declare they were false — I could see utterly toothless gums working up and down behind the pink coral), " you see I wore a beard den ; I am shafed now ; perhaps you tink I am a spoon. Ha, ha ! " And as he laughed he gave a cough which I thought would have coughed his teeth out, his glass eye out, his wig off, his very head off; but he stopped this convulsion by stumping across the room and seizing a little bottle of bright pink medicine, which, being opened, spread a singular acrid aromatic odor through the apartment ; and I thought I saw — but of this I cannot take an affirmation — a light green and violet flame flickering round the neck of the phial as he opened it. By the way, from the peculiar stumping noise which he made in crossing the bare- boarded apartment, I knew at once that my strange entertainer had a wooden leg. Over the dust which lay quite thick on the boards, you could see the mark of one foot very neat and pretty, and then a round O, which was naturally the impression made by the wooden stump. I own I had a queer thrill as I saw that mark, and felt a secret comfort that it was not cloven. ^In this desolate apartment in which Mr. Pinto had invited me to see him, there were three chairs, one bottomless, a little * This refers to an illustrated edition of the vrork. ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 179 table on which you might put a break fast- t,ra3^ and not a single other article of furniture. In the next room, the door of which was open, I could see a magnificent gilt dressing case, with some splendid diamond and ruby shirt-studs lying by it, and a chest of drawers, and a cupboard apparently full of clothes. Remembering him in Baden-Baden in great magnificence, I wondered at his present denuded state. ''You have a house elsewhere, Mr. Pinto?" I said. "Many," says he. "I have apartments in many cities. I lock dem up, and do not carry mosh logish." I then remembered that his apartment at Baden, where I first met hmi, was bare, and had no bed in it. "There is, then, a sleeping-room be3'ond?" " This is the sleeping- room." (He pronounces it dis. Can this, by the way, give anj- clue to the nationality of this singu- lar man ?) "If you sleep on these two old chairs you have a rickety couch ; if on the floor, a dust}' one." " Suppose I sleep up dere?" said this strange man, and he actual^ pointed up to the ceiling. I thought him mad, or what he himself called " an ombog." ''I know. You do not believe me ; for why should I deceive 3'ou ? I came but to propose a matter of business to you. I told 3'Ou I could give you the clue to the mystery of the Two Children in Black, whom you met at Baden, and 3'ou came to see me. If I told you you would not believe me. What for try and convinz you? Ha hey ? " And he shook his hand once, twice, thrice, at me, and glared at me out of his eye in a peculiar way. Of what happened now I protest I cannot give an accurate account. It seemed to me that there shot a flame from his eye into my brain, whilst behind his glass eye there was a green illumination as if a candle had been ht in it. It seemed to me that from his long fingers two quivering flames issued, sputter- ing, as it were, which penetrated me, and forced me back into one of the chairs — the broken one — out of which I had much difiicultvin scrambhng, when the strange glamour was ended. It seemed to me that, when I was so fixed, so transfixed m the broken chair, the man floated up to the ceiling, crossed his legs, folded his arms as if he was lying on a sofa, and grmned down at me. When I came to myself he was down from the ceiling, and, taking me out of the broken cane-bottomed chair, kindly enough — " Bah ! " said he, " it is the smell of my medi- cine. It often gives the vertigo. I thought you would have had a little fit. Come into the open air." And we went down 180 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. the steps, and into Shepherd's Inn, where the setting sun was^ just sliining on the statue of Shepherd ; the laundresses were; traipsing about ; the porters were leaning against the railings ; and the clerks were placing at marbles, to my inexpressible consolation. " You said j^ou were going to dine at the ' Gray's-inn Coffee- house,' " he said. I was. I often dine there. There is ex- cellent wine at the ' ' Gray's-inn Coffee-house ; " but I declare I NEVER SAID SO. I was uot astoiiishcd at his remark ; no more astonished than if I was in a dream. Perhaps I was in a dream. Is life a dream ? Are dreams facts ? Is sleeping being really awake? I don't know. I tell you I am puzzled. I have read *' The Woman in White," " The Strange Story " — not to men- tion that story ' ' Stranger than Fiction " in the CornhiU Maga- zine — that storj' for which three credible witnesses are read}'^ to vouch. I have had messages from the dead ; and not only from the dead, but from people who never existed at all. I own I am in a state of much bewilderment : but, .if j^ou please, will proceed with my simple, my artless stor}'. Well, then. We passed from Shepherd's Inn into Holborn, and looked for a while at Woodgate's bric-k-brac shop, which I never can pass without delaying at the windows — indeed, if I were going to be hung, I would beg the cart to stop, and let me have one look more at that delightful omnium gatherum. And passing Woodgate's, we come to Gale's little shop, " No. 47," which is also a favorite haunt of mine. Mr. Gale happened to be at his door, and as we exchanged salutations, " Mr. Pinto," I said, " will you like to see a real curiosit}' in this curiositj' shop? Step into Mr. Gale's little back room." In that little back parlor there are Chinese gongs ; there are old Saxe and Sevres plates ; there is Furstenberg, Carl Theodor, Worcester, Amstel, Nankin and other jimcrocker^^ And in the corner what do you think there is ? There is an actual GUILLOTINE. If you doubt me, go and see — Gale, High Holborn, No. 47. It is a slim instrument, much slighter than those which they make now; — some nine feet high, narrow, a pretty piece of upholstery enough. There is the hook over which the rope used to play which unloosened the dreadful axe above ; and look ! dropped into the orifice where the head used to go — there is the axe itself, all rustj-, with a great notch IN THE blade. As Pinto looked at it — Mr. Gale was not in the room, I recollect ; happening to have been just called out b}^ a customer ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 181 who offered him three pound fourteen and sixpence for a bhie Shepherd in pate tendre^ — Mr. Pinto gave a little start, and seemed crispe for a moment. Then he looked steadil}' towards one of those great porcelain stools which you see in gardens and — it seemed to me — I tell 3'ou I won't take m}- affidavit I ma}^ have been maddened bj^ the six glasses I took of that pink elixir — I may have been sleep-walking : perhaps am as I write now — I may have been under the influence of that as- tounding MEDIUM into whose hands I had fallen — but I vow I heard Pinto say, with rather a ghastly grin at the porcelain stool, " Nay, nefer shague your gory locks at me, Dou canst not say I did it." (He pronounced it, by the way, I dit it, by which I know that Pinto was a German.) I heard Pinto say those very words, and sitting on the porcelain stool I saw, dimly at first, then with an awful dis- tinctness — a ghost — an eidolon — a form — a headless man seated, with his head in his lap, which wore an expression of piteous surprise. At this minute, Mr. Gale entered from the front shop to show a customer some delf plates ; and he did not see — but we did — the figure rise up from the porcelain stool, shake its head, which it held in its hand, and which kept its eyes fixed sadly on us, and disappear behind the guillotine. " Come to the ' Graj^'s-inn Coffee-house,' " Pinto said, " and I will tell 3^ou how the notch came to the axe.^^ And we walked down Holborn at about thirty-seven minutes past six o'clock. If there is anything in the above statement which astonishes the reader, I promise him that in the next chapter of this httle story he will be astonished still more. Part II. *' You will excuse me," I said, to my companion, "for re- marking, that when 3"0U addressed the individual sitting on the porcelain stool, with his head in his lap, 3-our ordinarily benevo- lent features " — (this I confess was a bouncer, for between ourselves a more sinister and ill-looking rascal than Mons. P. I have seldom set ej^es on) — "3'our ordinarily handsome face wore an expression that was by no means pleasing. You 182 ROUNDABOUT TAPERS. H grinned at the individual just as you did at me when 3'ou went up to the cei — , pardon me, as I thought 3'ou did, when I fell down in a fit in your chambers ; " and I qualified m}' words in a great flutter and tremble ; I did not care to oflfend the man — I did not dare to offend the man. I thought once or twice of jumping into a cab, and flying ; of taking refuge in Day and Martin's Blacking Warehouse ; of speaking to a policeman, but not one would come. I was this man's slave. I followed him like his dog. I could not get away from him. So, you see, I went on meanl}^ conversing with him, and affecting a simpering confidence. I remember, when I was a little bo}' at school, go- ing up fawning and smiling in this wa3' to some great hulking bully of a sixth-form bo}'. So I said in a word, " Your ordi- narily handsome face wore a disagreeable expression," &c. *'It is ordinarily' very handsome," said he, with such a leer at a couple of passers-by, that one of them cried, " Oh, crike}'', here's a precious gu}' ! " and a child, in its nurse's arms, screamed itself into convulsions. "0^, oui^ che suis tres-choli gargon, Men peau^ cerdainement," continued Mr. Pinto ; " but you were right. That — that person vras not very well pleased when he saw me. There was no love lost between us, as 3'ou sa3' ; and the world never knew a more worthless miscreant. I hate him, vot/ez-vous? I hated him ahfe ; I hate him dead. I hate him man ; I kate him ghost : and he know it, and trem- ble before me. If I see him twenty tausend years hence — and why not? — I shall hate him still. You remarked how he was dressed ? " *'In black satin breeches and striped stockings; a white pique waistcoat, a gray coat, with large metal buttons, and his hair in powder. He must have worn a pigtail — only — " " Only it was cut off Ha, ha, ha ! " Mr. Pinto cried, 3'ell- ing a laugh, which I observed made the policeman stare very much. "Yes. It was cut off by the same blow which took off the scoundrel's head — ho, ho, ho ! " And he made a circle with his hook-nailed finger round his ow^n yellow neck, and grinned with a horiible triumph. "I promise you that fellow was surprised when he found his head in the pannier. Ha ! ha ! Do you ever cease to hate those whom you hate? " — fire flashed terrifically from his glass eye, as he spoke — "or to love dose whom you once loved. Oh, never, never!" And here his natural eye was bedewed with tears. "But here we are at the ' Gray's-inn Coffee-house.' James, what is the joint?" That very respectful and eflScient waiter brought in the bill ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. l83 of fare, and I, for my part, chose boiled leg of pork and pease- pudding, which my acquaintance said would do as well as 'anything else ; though I remarked he only trifled with the pease- pudding, and left all the pork on the plate. In fact, he scarcely ate anything. But he drank a prodigious quantity of wine ; and I must say that mj^ friend Mr. Hart's port-wine is so good that I myself took ^ well, I should think, I took three glasses. Yes, three, certainh\ He — I mean Mr. P. — the old rogue, was insatiable : for we had to call for a second bottle in no time. When that was gone, my companion wanted another. A little red mounted up to his j-ellow cheeks as he drank the wine, and he winked at it in a strange manner. " I remember," said he, musing, " when port-wine was scarcely drunk in this country' — though the Queen liked it, and so did Harley ; but Boling- broke didn't — he drank Florence and Champagne. Dr. Swift put water to his wine. 'Jonathan,' I once said to him — but bah ! autres temps, autres tnceurs. Another magnum, James." This was all very well. " My good sir," I said, " it may suit you to order bottles of '20 port, at a guinea a bottle ; but that kind of price does not suit me. I only happen to have thirty-four and sixpence in mj' pocket, of which I want a shil- ling for the waiter, and eighteenpence for my cab. You rich foreigners and swells msiy spend what you like" (I had him there : for mj' friend's dress was as shabby as an old-clothes- man's) ; " but a man with a family, Mr. What-d'you-call'im, cannot afford to spend seven or eight hundred a year on his dinner alone." "Bah!" he said. " Nunkey paj's for all, as you say. I will what you call stant the dinner, if 3'ou are so poor/'' and again he gave that disagreeable grin, and placed an odious crooked-nailed and by no means clean finger to his nose. But I was not so afraid of liim now, for we were in a public place ; and the three glasses of port- wine had, 3'ou see, given me courage. " What a pretty snuff-box ! " he remarked, as I handed him mine, which I am still old-fasiiioned enough to carr}'. It is a pretty okl gold box enough, but valuable to me especially as a relic of an old, old relative, whom I can just remember as a child, wiien she was very kind to me. " Yes ; a pretty box. I can remember when many ladies — most ladies, cariied a box — na}', two boxes — tahatilre, and bonbormiere. What lad}'' carries snuff-box now, hey? Suppose your astonishment if a lady in an assembly were to offer you 2i prise ? I can remember 184 ROtJKD ABOUT PAPERS. a lady with such a box as this, with a tour^ as we used to cat it then ; with paniers^ with a tortoise-shell cane, with the pret- tiest little high-heeled velvet shoes in the world ! — ah ! that was a time, that was a time ! Ah, Eliza, Eliza, I have thee now in my mind's eye ! At Bungay on the Wavene}^ did I not walk with thee, Eliza? Aha, did I not love thee? Did I not walk with thee then ? Do I not see thee still ? " This was passing strange. My ancestress — but there is no need to publish her revered name — did indeed live at Bun- gaj^ St. Marj^'s, where she lies buried. She used to walk with a tortoise-shell cane. She used to wear little black velvet shoes, with the prettiest high heels in the world. ' ' Did you — did you — know, then, my great gr-ndm-ther ? " I said. He pulled up his coat-sleeve — ''Is that her name?" he said. "Eliza " There, I declare, was the very name of the kind old creature written in red on his arm. " Tou knew her old," he said, divining my thoughts (with his strange knack) ; " /knew her 3'oung and lovely. I danced with her at the Bury ball. Did I not, dear, dear Miss ? " As I live, he here mentioned dear gr-nny's maiden name. Her maiden name was Her honored married name was " She married your great gr-ndf-th-r the year Poseidon won the Newmarket Plate," Mr. Pinto drj^ly remarked. Merciful powers ! I remember, over the old shagreen knife and spoon case on the sideboard in my gr-nny's parlor, a print by Stubbs of that very horse. My grandsire, in a red coat, and his fair hair flowing over his shoulders, was over the mantel-piece, and Poseidon won the Newmarket Cup in the year 1783! " Yes ; 3'ou are right. I danced a minuet with her at Bury that very night, before I lost my poor leg. And I quarrelled with 3'our grandf , ha ! " As he said " Ha ! " there came three quiet little taps on the table — it is the middle table in the " Gray's-inn CoflTee-house," under the bust of the late Duke of W-11-ngt-n. " I fired in the air," he continued ; " did I not? " (Tap, tap, tap.) " Your grandfather hit me in the leg. He married three months afterwards. ' Captain Brown,' I said, ' who could see Miss Sm-th without lo\ing her ? ' She is there ! She is there ! ** (Tap, tap, tap.) " Yes, my first love — " ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 185 But here there came tap, tap, which everybody knows means " No." " I forgot," he said, with a faint bhish stealing over his wan features, " she was not my first love. In Germ in my own country — there was a 3'ouug woman — " Tap, tap, tap. There was here quite a lively little treble knock ; and when the old man said, " But I loved thee better than all the world, Eliza," the affirmative signal was briskly repeated. And this I declare upon my honor. There was, I have said, a bottle of port- wine before us — I should say a decanter. That decanter was lifted up, and out of it into our respective glasses two bumpers of wine were poured. I appeal to Mr. Hart, the landlord— I appeal to James, the respectful and intelligent waiter, if this statement is not true ? And when we had finished that magnum, and I said — for I did not now in the least doubt of her presence — " Dear gr-nny, may we have another magnum? " the table distinctly rapped " No." "Now, my good sir," Mr. Pinto said, who really began to be affected by the wine, " you understand the interest I have taken in you . I loved Eliza " (of course I don't mention family names). " I knew you had that box which belonged to her — I will give 3'ou what you like for that box. Name your price at once, and I pay you on the spot." " Why, when we came out, you said 3'ou had not sixpence in your pocket." ' ' Bah ! give you anything you like — fifty — a hundred — a tausend pound." " Come, come," said I, " the gold of the box may be worth nine guineas, and the fagon we will put at six more." " One tausend guineas ! " he screeched. " One tausend and fifty pound, dere ! " and he sank back in his chair — no, by the way, on his bench, for he was sitting with his back to one of the partitions of the boxes, as I dare say James re- members. " Don't go on in this way," I continued, rather weakly, for I did not know whether I was in a dream. " If you offer me a thousand guineas for this box I must take it. Mustn't I, dear gr-nny ? " The table most distinctly said, "Yes;" and putting out his claws to seize the box, Mr. Pinto plunged his hooked nose into it, and eagerly inhaled some of my 47 with a dash of Hardman. "But stay, you old harpy!" I exclaimed, being now in a 186 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. sort of rage, and quite familiar with him. " Where is the mone}^ ? Where is the check ? " " James, a piece of note-paper and a receipt stamp ! " *' This is all mighty well, sir," I said, " but I don't know you ; I never saw you before. I will trouble you to hand me that box back again, or give me a check with some known signature." , "Whose? Ha, Ha, HA!" The room happened to be very dark. Indeed, all the waiters were gone to supper, and there were only two gentlemen snor- ing in their respective boxes. I saw a hand come quivering down from the ceiling — a very prettj^ hand, on which was a ring with a coronet, with a lion rampant gules for a crest. I saw that hand take a dip of ink and write across the paper. Mr. Pinto, then, taking a gray receipt-stamp out of his blue leather pocket-book, fastened it on to the paper by the usual process ; and the hand then wrote across the receipt-stamp, went across the table and shook hands with Pinto, and then, as if waving him an adieu, vanished in the direction of the ceiling. There was the paper before me, wet with the ink. There was the pen which the hand had used. Does anybody doubt me? / have that pen now. A cedar-stick of a not uncommon sort, and holding one of Gillott's pens. It is in my inkstand now, I tell you. Anybody may see it. The handwriting on the check, for such the document was, was the writing of a female. It ran thus : — " London, midnight, March 31, 1862. Pay the bearer one thousand and fifty pounds. Rachel Sidonia. To Messrs. Sidonia, Pozzosanto and Co., London." "Noblest and best of women!" said Pinto, kissing the sheet of paper with much reverence. " My good Mr. Round- about, I suppose you do not question that signature ? " Indeed, the house of Sidonia, Pozzosanto and Co., is known to be one of the richest in Europe, and as for the Countess Ra- chel, she was known to be the chief manager of that enormously wealthy establishment. There was only one little difficulty, the Countess Rachel died last October. I pointed out this circumstance, and tossed over the paper to Pinto with a sneer. " G'est a brendre ou a laisser^" he said with some heat. ' ' You literary men are all imbrudent ; but I did not tink you such a fool wie dis. Your box is not worth twent}" pound, and I offer you a tausend because I know you want money to pay dat rascal Tom's college bills." (This strange man actually knew that my scapegrace Tom has been a source of great ex- I ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 187 pense and anno3'ance to me.) "You see monej' costs me nothing, and jou refuse to take it! Once, twice; will you take this check in exchange for your trumpery snuff-box? " What could I do? My poor granny's legacy was valuable and dear to me, but after all a thousand guineas are not to be had every day. "Be it a bargain," said I. " Shall we have a glass of wine on it? " says Pinto ; and to this proposal I also unwillingly acceded, reminding him, by the way, that he had not yet told me the story of the headless man. " Your poor gr-ndm-ther was right just now, when she said she was not my first love. 'Twas one of those banale expres- sions " (here Mr. P. blushed once more) "which we use to women. We tell each she is our first passion. They reply with a similar illusory formula. No man is any woman's first love ; no woman any man's. We are in love hi our nurse's arms, and women coquette with their ej-es before their tongue can form a word. How could 3- our lovely relative love me ? I was far, far too old for her. I am older than I look. I am so old that you would not believe ray age were I to tell you. I have loved many and many a woman before your relative. It has not always been fortunate for them to love me. Ah, Sophronia ! Round the dreadful circus where you fell, and whence I was dragged corpse-like b}- the heels, there sat mul- titudes more savage than the lions which mangled j^our sweet form ! Ah, tenez ! when we marched to the terrible stake to- gether at Valladolid — the Protestant and the J — But awa}' with memory ! Boy ! it was happy for th}- grandam that she lov»d me not. " During that strange period," he went on, " when the teeming Time was great with the revolution that was speedily to be born, I was on a mission in Paris with my excellent, my mahgned friend Cagliostro. Mesmer was one of our band. I seemed to occupy but an obscure rank in it : though, as you know, in secret societies the humble man may be a chief and director — the ostensible leader but a puppet moved by unseen hands. Never mind who was chief, or who was second. Never mind my age. It boots not to tell it : why shall I expose my- self to your scornful incredulity — or reply to your questions in words that are familiar to you, but which yet you cannot un- derstand? Words are symbols of things which you know, or of things which you don't know. If 3'ou don't know them, to speak is idle." (Here I confess Mr. P. spoke for exactly thirty-eight minutes, about physics, metaphysics, language, the 188 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. origin and destiny of man, during which time I was rather bored, and, to relieve my ennui ^ drank a half glass or so of wine.) " Love, friend, is the fountain of 3'outh ! It may not happen to me once — once in an age : but when I love, then I am young. I loved when I was in Paris. Bathilde, Bathilde, I loved thee — ah, how fondl}' ! Wine, I sa}', more wine ! Love is ever 3'oung. I was a boy at the little feet of Bathilde de Bechamel — the fair, the fond, the fickle, ah, the false!" The strange old man's agony was here really terrific, and he showed himself much more agitated than he had been when speaking about m}^ gr-ndm-th-r. " I thought Blanche might love me. I could speak to her in the language of all countries, and tell her the lore of all ages. I could trace the nursery legends which she loved up to their Sanscrit source, and whisper to her the darkling mysteries of Egyptian Magi. I could chant for her the wild chorus that rang in the dishevelled Eleusinian revel : I could tell her and I would, the watchword never known but to one woman, the Saban Queen, which Hiram breathed in the abysmal ear of Solomon — You don't attend. Psha ! 3^ou have drunk too much wine ! " Perhaps I may as well own that I was not at- tending, for he had been canying on for about fifty-seven minutes ; and I don't like a man to have all the talk to him- self. " Blanche de Bechamel was wild, then, about this secret of Masonr3\ In early, early days I loved, I married a girl fair as Blanche, who, too, was tormented b}^ curiosity, who, too, would peep into my closet — into the only secret I guarded from her. A dreadful fate befell poor Fatima. An accident shortened her life. Poor thing ! she had a foolish sister who urged her on. I alwaj's told her to beware of Ann. She died. The}^ said her brothers killed me. A gross falsehood. Am I dead? If I were, could I pledge you in this wine?" *'Was your name," I asked, quite bewildered, " was 3^our name, pray, then, ever Blueb ?" " Hush ! the waiter will overhear you. Methought we were speaking of Blanche de Bechamel. I loved her, 3'oung man. My pearls, and diamonds, and treasure, xn.y wit, my wisdom, my passion, I flung them all into the child's lap. I was a fool. Was strong Samson not as weak as I? Was Solomon the Wise much better when Balkis wheedled him. I said to the king — But enough of that, I spake of Blanche de Bechamel. "Curiosity was the poor child's foible. I could see, as I talked to her, that her thoughts were elsewhere (as yours, my 1 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 189 friend, have been absent once or twice to-night). To know the secret of Masonry was the wretched child's mad desire. With a thousand wiles, smiles, caresses, she strove to coax it from me — from me — ha ! ha ! *' I had an apprentice — the son of a dear friend, who died b}^ m}^ side at Rossbach, when Soubise, with whose army I happened to be, suffered a dreadful defeat for neglecting my advice. The young Chevalier Goby de Mouchy was°glad enough to serve as my clerk, and help in some chemical exper- iments in which I was engaged with my friend Dr. Mesmer. Bathilde saw this young man. Since women were, has it not been their business to smile and deceive, to fondle and lure ? Away ! From the very first it has been so ! " And as my companion spoke, he looked as wicked as the serpent that coiled round the tree, and hissed a poisoned counsel to the first woman. "One evening I went, as was my wont, to see Blanche. She was radiant ; she was wild with spirits : a sauc}^ triumph blazed in her blue eyes. She talked, she rattled in her chiklish way. She uttered, in the course of her rhapsod}-, a hint — an intimation — so terrible that the truth flashed across me in a moment. Did I ask her? She would lie to me. But I know how to make falsehood impossible. Aad I ordered her to go to sleep." At this moment the clock (after its previous convulsions) sounded Twelve. And as the new Editor* of the Oornhill Magazine — and Ae, I promise 3' ou, won't stand any nonsense — will only allow seven pages, I am obliged to leave ofl" at the TERY MOST INTERESTING POINT OF THE StORY. Part III. *' Are you of our fraternity? I see j^ou are not. The secret which Mademoiselle de Bechamel confided to me in her mad triumph and wild hoyden spirits — she was but a child, poor thing, poor thing, scarce fifteen ; — but I love them young — a folly not unusual with the old ! " (Here Mr. Pinto thrust his knuckles into his hollow eyes ; and, I am sorry to say, so little regardful was he of personal cleanliness, that his tears made * Mr. Thackeray retired from the Editorship of the Cornhill Magazim in March, 1862. 190 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. streaks of white over his gnarled dark hands.) "Ah, at fif- teen, poor child, thy fate was terrible ! Go to ! It is not good to love me, friend. The}' prosper not who do. I divine you. You need not sa}^ what you are thinking — " In truth, I was thinking, if girls fall in love with this sallow hook-nosed, glass-eyed, wooden-legged, dirt}', hideous old man, with the sham teeth, the}' have a queer taste. That is what I was thinking. ' ' Jack Wilkes said the handsomest man in London had but half an hour's start of him. And witiK>ut vanity, I am scarce!}' uglier than Jack Wilkes. We were members of the same club at Medenham Abbey, Jack and I, and had many a merry night together. Well, sir, I — Mary of Scotland knew me but as a little hunchbacked music-master ; and yet, and yet, I think she was not indifferent to her David Riz — and she came to mis- fortune. They all do — they all do ! " "Sir, you are wandering from your point!" I said, with some severity. For, reall}', for this old humbug to hint that he had been the baboon who frightened the club at Medenham, that he had been in the Inquisition at Valladolid — that under the name of D. Riz,. as he called it, he had known the lovely Queen of Scots — was a little too much. " Sir," then 1 said, " you were speaking about a Miss de Bechamel. I really have not time to hear all your biography." " Faith, the good wine gets into my head." (I should think so, the old toper! Four bottles all but two glasses.) "To return to poor Blanche. As I sat laughing, joking with her, she let slip a word, a little word, which filled me with dismay. Some one had told her a part of the Secret — the secret which has been diA'ulged scarce thrice in three thousand years — the Secret of the Freemasons. Do you know what happens to those uninitiate who learn that secret? to those wretched men, the 'initiate who reveal it?" As Pinto spoke to me, he looked through and through me with his horrible piercing glance, so that I sat quite uneasily on my bench. He continued : ' ' Did I question her awake ? I knew she would lie to me. Poor child ! I loved her no less because I did not believe a word she said. I loved her blue eye, her golden hair, her delicious voice, that was true in song, though when she spoke, false as Eblis ! You are aware that I possess in rather a remarkable degree what we have agreed to call the mesmeric power. I set the unhappy girl to sleep. Then she was obliged to tell me all. It was as I had surmised. Goby de Mouchy, my wretched, "besotted, miserable secretary, ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 191 in his visits to the chateau of the Marquis de Bechamel, who was one of our society, had seen Blanche. I suppose it was because she had been warned that he was worthless, and poor, artful and a coward, she loved him. She wormed out of the besotted wretch the secrets of our Order. ' Did he tell you the NUMBER ONE? ' I askcd. " She said, ' Yes.' " ' Did he,' I further inquired, ' tell you the — ' " ' Oh, don't ask me, don't ask me ! ' she said, writhing on the sofa, where she lay in the presence of the Marquis de Bechamel, her most unhappy father. Poor Bechamel, poor Bechamel! How pale he looked as I spoke! 'Did he tell you,' I repeated with a dreadful calm, 'the number two?' She said, ' Yes.' " The poor old marquis rose up, and clasping his hands, fell on his knees before Count Cagl Bah ! I went by a different name then. Vat's in a name? Dat vich ve call a Rosicrucian by any other name vil smell as sveet. ' Mon- sieur,' he said, ' I am old — I am rich. 1 have five hundred thousand livres of rentes in Picardy. I have half as much in Artois. I have two hundred and eio^htv thousand on the Grand Livre. I am promised by my Sovereign a dukedom and his orders with a reversion to my heir. I am a Grandee of Spain of the First Class, and Duke of Volovento. Take my titles, my ready monej^, my life, m}^ honor, everj'thing I have in the world, but don't ask the third question.' " ' Godefroid de Bouillon, Comte de Bechamel, Grandee of Spain and Prince of Volovento, in our Assembly what was the oath you swore ? ' " The old man writhed as he remembered its terrific purport. "Though my heart was racked with agony, and I would have died, ay, cheerfully" (died, indeed, as if that were a pen- alty !) "to spare j^onder lovely child a pang, I said to her calmly, ' Blanche de Bechamel, did Goby de Mouchy tell you secret number three ? ' " She whispered a out that was quite faint, faint and small. But her poor father fell in convulsions at her feet. " She died suddenly that night. Did I not tell you those I love come to no good ? When General Bonaparte crossed the Saint Bernard, he saw in the convent an old monk with a white beard, wandering about the corridors, cheerful and rather stout, but mad — mad as a March hare. ' General,' I said to him, ' did you ever see that face before?' He had not. He had not mnigled much with the higher classes of our society 192 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. before the Revolution, /knew the poor old man well enough ; he was the last of a noble race, and I loved his child." " And did she die* by — ? " "Man! did I say so? Do I whisper the secrets of the Vehragericht? I say she died that night: and he — he, the ||| heartless, the villain, the betrayer, — j^ou saw him seated in yonder curiosity-shop, by yonder guillotine, with his scoun- drelly head in his lap. ' ' You saw how slight that instrument was ? It was one of the first which Guillotin made, and which he showed to private friends in a hangar in the Rue Picpus, where he lived. The invention created some little conversation amongst scientific men at the time, though I remember a machine in Edinburgh of a very similar construction, two hundred — well, many, many years ago — and at a breakfast which Guillotin gave he showed us the instrument, and much talk arose amongst us as to whether people suffered under it. ' ' And now I must tell yoxa what befell the traitor who had caused all this suffering. Did he know that the poor child's death was a sentence ? He felt a cowardly satisfaction that with her was gone the secret of his treason. Then he began to doubt. I had means to penetrate all his thoughts, as well as to know his acts. Then he became a slave to a horrible fear. He fled in abject terror to a convent. The}^ still existed in Paris ; and behind the walls of Jacobins the wretch thought himself secure. Poor fool ! I had but to set one of m}^ som- nambulists to sleep. Her spirit went forth and spied the shud- dering wretch in his cell. She described the street, the gate, the convent, the very dress which he wore, and which you saw to-day. "And now this is what happened. In his chamber in the Rue St. Honore, at Paris, sat a man alone — a man who has been maligned, a man who has been called a knave and char- latan, a man who has been persecuted even to the death, it is said, in Roman Inquisitions, forsooth, and elsewhere. Ha ! ha ! A man who has a mighty will. " And looking towards the Jacobins Convent (of which, from his chamber, he could see the spires and trees) , this man willed. And it was not yet dawn. And he willed ; and one who was l3ang in his cell in the convent of Jacobins, awake and shud- dering with terror for a crime which he had committed, fell asleep. " But though he was asleep his eyes were open. " And after tossing and writhing, and clinging to the pallet, ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 193 and saying, ' No, I will not go,' he rose up and donned his clothes — a gi-ay coat, a vest of white pique, black satin small- clothes, ribbed silk stockings, and a white stock with a steel buckle ; and he arranged his hair, and he tied his queue, all the while being in that strange somnolence which walks, which moves, which flies sometimes, which sees, which is indifferent to pain, which obeys. And he put on his hat, and he went forth from his cell ; and though the dawn was not yet, he trod the corridors as seeing them. And he passed into the cloister, and then into the garden where lie the ancient dead. And he came to the wicket, which Brother Jerome was opening just at the dawning. And the crowd was already waiting with their cans and bowls to receive the alms of the good brethren. " And he passed through the crowd and went on his way, and the few people then abroad who marked him, said, ' Tiens ! How very odd he looks ! He looks like a man walking in his sleep ! ' This was said by various persons : — "By milk- women, with their cans and carts, coming into the town. "By roysterers who had been drinking at the taverns of the Barrier, for it was Mid-Lent. "B}^ the sergeants of the watch, who eyed him sternly as he passed near their halberds. " But he passed on unmoved b}^ their halberds, " Unmoved by the cries of the roysterers, ' ' By the market-women coming with their milk and eggs. " He walked through the Rue St. Honore, I say : — " By the Rue Rambuteau, " By the Rue St. Antoine, " By the King's Chateau of the Bastille, " By the Faubourg St. Antoine. "And he came to No. 29 in the Rue Picpus — a house which then stood between a court and garden — "That is, there was a building of one story, with a great coach-door. " Then there was a court, around which were stables, coach- houses, offices. "Then there was a house — a two-storied house, with a perron in front. , " Behind the house was a garden — a garden of two hundred and fifty French feet in length. " And as one hundred feet of France equal one hundred and six feet of England, this garden, my friends, equalled exactly two hundred and sixty-five feet of British measure. 13 194 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. " In the centre of the garden was a fountain and a statue — or, to speak more correctly, two statues. One was recumbent, — a man. Over him, sabre in hand, stood a woman. " The man was Olofernes. The woman was Judith. From the head, from the trunk, the water gushed. It was the taste of the doctor : — was it not a droll of taste ? "At the end of the garden was the doctor's cabinet of study. My faith, a singular cabinet, and singular pictures ! — ' ' Decapitation of Charles Premier at Vitehall. " Decapitation of Montrose at Edimbourg. " Decapitation of Cinq Mars. When I tell you that he was a man of a taste, charming ! "Through this garden, by these statues, up these stairs, went the pale figure of him who, the porter said, knew the wa}' of the house. He did. Turning neither right nor left, he seemed to walk through the statues, the obstacles, the flower- beds, the stairs, the door, the tables, the chairs. ' ' In the corner of the room was that instrument, which Guillotin had just invented and perfected. One day he was to la}' his own head under his own axe. Peace be to his name ! With him I deal not ! " In a frame of mahogany, neatly worked, was a board with a half-circle in it, over which another board fitted* Above was a heavy axe, which fell — 3'ou know how. It was held up by a rope, and when this rope was untied, or cut, the steel fell. " To the story which I now have to relate, you ma}' give credence, or not, as you will. The sleeping man went up to that instrument. " He laid his head in it, asleep." "Asleep?" ' ' He then took a little penknife out of the pocket of his white dimity waistcoat. " He cut the rope asleep. " The axe descended on the head of the traitor and villain. The notch in it was made by the steel buckle of his stock, which was cut through. ' ' A strange legend has got abroad that after the deed was done, the figure rose, took the head from the basket, walked forth through the garden, and by the screaming porters at the gate, and went and laid itself down at the Morgue. But for this I will not vouch. Only of this be sure. ' There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy.' More and more the light peeps through the chinks. Soon, amidst music ravishing, the curtain will rise, • ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 195 and the glorious scene be displayed. Adieu ! Remember me. Ha ! 'tis dawn," Pinto said. And he was gone. I am ashamed to say that my first movement was to clutch the cheque whicli he had left with me, and which I was deter- mined to present the very moment the bank opened. I know the importance of these things, and that men change their mind sometimes. I sprang through the streets to the great banking house of Manasseh in Duke Street. It seemed to me as if I actually flew as I walked. As the clock struck ten I was at the counter and laid down m}^ cheque. The gentleman who received it, who was one of the Hebrew persuasion, as were the other two hundred clerks of the estab- lishment, having looked at the draft with terror in his coun- tenance, then looked at me, then called to himself two of his fellow-clerks, and queer it was to see all their aquiline beaks over the paper. " Come, come ! " said I, " don't keep me here all day. Hand me over the mone}', short, if you please ! " for I was, 3'ou see, a little alarmed, and so determined to assume ^ome extra bluster. ' ' Will 3' ou have the kindness to step into the parlor to the partners?" the clerk said, and I followed him. " What, again f " shrieked a bald-headed, red- whiskered gen- tleman, whom I knew to be Mr. Manasseh. " Mr. Salathiel, this is too bad ! Leave me with this gentleman, S." And the clerk disappeared. " Sir," he said, " I know how you came b}' this ; the Count de Pinto gave it you. It is too bad ! I honor my parents ; I honor thei?- parents ; I honor their bills ! But this one of grand- ma's is too bad — it is, upon my word, now ! She've been dead these five-and-thirty years. And this last four months she has left her burial-place and took to drawing on our 'ouse ! It's too bad, grandma ; it is too bad ! " and he appealed to me, and tears actually trickled down his nose. "Is it tiie Countess Sidonia's cheque or not?" I asked, haughtil}'. " But, I tell you, she's dead ! It's a shame ! — it's a shame ! — it is, grandmamma ! " and he cried, and wiped his great nose in his yellow pocket-handkerchief. ' ' Look year — will you take pounds instead of guineas ? She's dead, I tell you ! It's no go ! Take the pounds — one tausend pound ! — ten nice, neat, crisp hundred-pound notes, and go away vid you, do ! " " I will have my bond, sir, or nothing," I said ; and I put on an attitude of resolution which I confess surprised even myself. 196 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. " Wery veil," he shrieked, with man}^ oaths, "then you shall have noting — ha, ha, ha ! — noting but a policeman ! Mr. Abednego, call a policeman ! Take that, you humbug and im- postor ! " and here, with an abundance of frightful language which I dare not repeat, the wealth^^ banker abused and defied me. Au bout du compte^ what was I to do, if a banker did not choose to honor a cheque drawn by his dead grandmother ? I began to wish I had ni}^ snuff-box back. I began to think I was a fool for changing that little old-fashioned gold for this slip of strange paper. Meanwhile the banker had passed from his fit of anger to a paroxysm of despair. He seemed to be addressing some person invisible, but in the room: "Look here, ma'am, j'ou've really been coming it too strong. A hundred thousand in six months, and now a thousand more ! The 'ouse can't stand it ; it wonH stand it, I say ! What? Oh ! mercy, merc}^ ! " As he uttered these words, A HAND fluttered over the table in tha air ! It was a female hand : that which I had seen the night before. That female hand took a pen from the green baize table, dipped it in a silver inkstand, and wrote on a quarter of a sheet of foolscap on the blotting-book, "How about the diamond robbery? If you do not paj^ I will tell him where the}" are." What diamonds? what robbery? what was this myster}-? That will never be ascertained, for the wretched man's demeanor instantly changed. " Certainly, sir; — oh, certainly," he said, forcing a grin. "How will you have the monej^, sir? All right, Mr. Abednego. This way out." "I hope I shall often see 3'ou again," I said; on which I own poor Manasseh gave a dreadful grin, and shot back into his parlor. I ran home, clutching the ten delicious, crisp hundred pounds, and the dear little fift}^ which made up the account. I flew through the streets again. I got to my chambers. I bolted the outer doors. I sank back in m}^ great chair, and slept. . . . My first thing on waking was to feel for my money. Perdi- tion ! Where was I ? Ha ! — on the table before me was m^' grandmother's snuflf-box, and by its side one of those awful — those admirable — sensation novels, which I had been reading, and which are full of delicious wonder. But that the guillotine is still to be seen at Mr. Gale's, No. 47, High Holborn, I give ^^ou my honor. I suppose I was i m ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 197 dreaming about it. I don't know. Wliat is dreaming ? What is life? Why shouldn't I sleep on the ceiling? and am I sitting on it now, or on the floor? I am puzzled. But enout^h. If the fashion for sensation novels goes on, I tell you I will write one in fifty volumes. For the present, DIXI. But be- tween ourselves, this Pinto, who fought at the Colosseum, who was nearly being roasted by the Inquisition, and sang duets at Holyrood, I am rather sorry to lose him after three little bits of Roundabout Papers. Et vous ? DE FINIBUS. When Swift was in love with Stella, and despatching her a letter from London thrice a month by the Irish packet, j^ou may remember how he' would begin letter No. xxiii., we will sa3% on the very day when xxii. had been sent away, stealing out of the coffee-house or the assembly so as to be able to prattle with his dear; "never letting go her kind hand, as it were," as some commentator or other has said in speaking of the Dean and his amour. When Mr. Johnson, walking to Dodsley's, and touching the posts in Pall Mall as he walked, forgot to pat the head of one of them, he went back and im- posed his hands on it, — impelled I know not by what supersti- tion. I have this I hope not dangerous mania too. As soon as a piece of work is out of hand, and before going to sleep, I like to begin another ; it may be to write only half a dozen lines : but that is something towards Number the Next. The printer's boy has not yet reached Green Arbor Court with the copy. Those people who were ahve half an hour since, Pen- dennis, Chve Newcome, and (what do you call him? what was the name of the last hero? I remember now !) Philip Firmin, have hardly drunk their glass of wine, and the mammas have only this minute got the children's cloaks on, and have been bowed out of my premises — and here I come back to the study again : tamen usque recurro. How lonely it looks now all these people are gone ! My dear good friends, some folks are utterly tired of you, and say, "What a poverty of friends the man has ! He is always asking us to meet those Pendennises, New- comes, and so forth. Why does he not introduce us to some new characters ? Why is he not thrilling like Twostars, learned 198 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. and profound like Threestars, exquisitel}' humorous and hum^an like Fourstars? Wlw, finall}', is he not somebody else?" My good people, it is not only impossible to please 3'ou all, but it is absurd to try. The dish which one man devours, another dislikes. Is the dinner of* to-day not to j^our taste? Let us hope to-morrow's entertainment will be more agreeable. . . . I resume my original subject. What an odd, pleasant, humor- ous, melancholy feeling it is to sit in the study, alone and quiet, now all these people are gone who have been boarding and lodging -with me for twenty months ! They have interrupted my rest : they have plagued me at all sorts of minutes : they have thrust themselves upon me when I was ill, or wished to be idle, and I have growled out a " Be hanged to you, can't you leave me alone now?" Once or twice the}' have prevented my going out to dinner. Many and many a time they have pre- vented my coming home, because I knew they were there wait- ing in the study, and a plague take them ! and I have left home and famil}', and gone to dine at the Club, and told nobody where I went. They have bored me, those people. They have plagued me at all sorts of uncomfortable hours. They have made such a disturbance in my mind and house, that some- times I have hardl}' known what was going on in mj" family'', and scarcely have heard what m^' neighbor said to me. They are gone at last ; and you would expect me to be at ease ? Far from it. I should almost be glad if Woolcomb would walk in and talk to me ; or Twysden reappear, take his place in that chair opposite me, and begin one of his tremendous stories. Madmen, you know, see visions, hold conversations with, even draw the likeness of, people invisible to you and me. Is this making of people out of fanc}' madness? and are novel- writers at all entitled to strait-waistcoats? I often forget people's names in life ; and in my own stories contritel}' own that I make dreadful blunders regarding them ; but I declare, ni}' dear sir, with respect to the personages introduced into your humble servant's fables, I know the people utterly — I know the sound of their voices. A gentleman came in to see me the other day, who was so like the picture of Philip Firmin in Mr. Walker's charming drawings in the Cornhill Magazine^ that he was quite a curiositj' to me. The same e3'es, beard, shoulders, just as you have seen them from month to month. Well, he is not like the PhiUp Firmin in my mind. Asleep, asleep in the grave, lies the bold, the generous, the reckless, the tender-hearted creature whom I have made to pass through those adventures which have just been brought to an end. It ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 199 is years since I heard the laughter ringing, or saw the bright blue eyes. When I knew him both were young. I become young as I think of him. And this morning he was alive again in this room, ready to laugh, to fight, to weep. As I write, do you know, it is the gray of evening ; the house is quiet ; everybody is out ; the room is getting a little dark, and I look rather wistfully up from the paper with perhaps ever so little fancy that HE MAY COME IN.— No? No move- ment. No gray shade, growing more palpable, out of which at last look the well-known eyes. No, the printer came and took him away with the last page of the proofs. And with the printer's boy did the whole cortege of ghosts flit away, invisible? Ha! stay! what is this? Angels and ministers of grace! The door opens, and a dark form — enters, bearing a black — a black suit of clothes. It is John. He saj's it is time to dress for dinner. • ••••••• Every man who has had his German tutor, and has been coached through the famous ' ' Faust " of Goethe (thou wert my instructor, good old Weissenborn, and these eyes beheld the great master himself in dear little Weimar town !) has read those charming verses which are prefixed to the drama, in which the poet reverts to the time when his work was first composed, and recalls the friends now departed, who once listened to his song. The dear shadows rise up around him, he says ; he lives in the past again. It is to-da}^ which ap- pears vague and visionar}'. We humbler writers cannot create Fausts, or raise up monumental works that shall endure for all ages ; but our books are diaries, in which our own feelings must of necessity be set down. As we look to the page written last month, or. ten years ago, we remember the day and its events ; the child ill, mayhap, in the adjoining room, and the doubts and fears which racked the brain as it still pursued its ' work ; the dear old friend who read the commencement of the tale, and whose gentle hand shall be laid in ours no more. I own for ni}' part that, in reading pages which this hand penned formerly, I often lose sight of the text under my eyes. It is not the words I see ; but that past day ; that bygone page of life's history ; that tragedy, comedy it may be, which our little home company was enacting ; that merr3'-making which we shared ; that funeral which we followed ; that bitter, bitter grief which we buried. And, such being the state of my mind, I pray gentle readers to deal kindly with their humble servant's manifold short- 200 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. comings, blunders, and slips of memory. As sure as I read a page of m}^ own composition, I find a fault or two, half a dozen. Jones is called Brown. Brown, who is dead, is brought to life. Aghast, and months after the number was printed, I saw that I had called Philip Firmin, Clive Newcome. Now Clive Newcome is the hero of another stor}^ by the reader's most obedient writer. The two men are as different, in my mind's e3"e, as — as Lord Palmerston and Mr. Disraeli let us ssij. But there is that blunder at page 990, line 76, volume 84 of the Cornhill Magazine^ and it is past mending ; and I wish in m^^ life I had made no worse blunders or errors than that which is hereb^^ acknowledged. Another Finis written. Another mile-stone passed on this journey from birth to the next world ! Sure it is a subject for solemn cogitation. Shall we continue this story- telling busi- ness and be voluble to the end of our age? Will it not be presently time, O prattler, to hold 3'our tongue, and let younger people speak? I have a friend, a painter, who, like other persons who shall be nameless, is gi'owing old. He has never painted with such laborious finish as his works now show. This master is still the most humble and diligent of scholars. Of Art, his mistress, he is alwa3"s an eager, reverent pupil. In his calling, in yours, in mine, industrj' and humility will help and comfort us. A word with 3'ou. In a pretty large experience I have not found the men who write books superior in wit or learning to those who don't write at all. In regard of mere information, non- writers must often be superior to writers. You don't expect a lawyer in full practice to be con- versant with all kinds of literature ; he is too busy with his law ; and so a writer is commonly too busy with his own books to be able to bestow attention on the works of other people. After a day's work (in which I have been depicting, let us say, the agonies of Louisa on parting with the Captain, or the atrocious behavior of the wicked Marquis to Lady Emily) I march to the Club, proposing to improve my mind and keep myself "posted up," as the Americans phrase it, with the literature of the day. And what happens? Given, a walk after luncheon, a pleasing book, and a most comfortable arm- chair b3^ the fire, and you know the rest. A doze ensues. Pleasing book drops suddenty, is picked up once with an air of some confusion, is laid present^ softly in lap : head falls on comfortable arm-chair cushion : e3'es close : soft nasal music is heard. Am I telling Club secrets? Of afternoons, after lunch, I say, scores of sensible fogies have a doze. Perhaps ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 201 1 have fallen asleep over that very book to which " Finis" has just been written. '' And if the writer sleeps, what happens to the readers?" says Jones, coming down upon me with his lightning wit. What? You did sleep over it? And a very good thing too. These eyes have more than once seen a friend dozing over pages which this hand has written. There is a vignette somewhere in one of my books of a friend so cauo-ht napping with " Pendennis," or the " Newcomes," in his lap; and if a writer can give you a sweet soothing, harmless sleep, has he not done you a kindness ? So is the author who excites and interests you worthy of your thanks and benedictions. I am troubled with fever and ague, that seizes me at odd inter- vals and prostrates me for a dsiy. There is cold fit, for which, I am thankful to say, hot brandy-and-water is prescribed, and this induces hot fit, and so on. In one or two of these fits I have read novels with the most fearful contentment of mind. Once, on the Mississippi, it was my dearly beloved "Jacob Faithful:" once at Frankfort O. M., the delightful " Vingi Ans Apres " of Monsieur Dumas : once at Tunbridge Wells, the thrilling ' ' Woman in White : " and these books gave me amusement from morning till sunset. I remember those ague fits with a gi'eat deal of pleasure and gratitude. Think of a whole day in bed, and a good novel for a companion ! No cares : no remorse about idleness : no visitors : and the Wom«i in White or the Chevalier d'Artagnan to tell me stories from dawn to night! "Please, ma'am, my master's compliments, and can he have the third volume?" (This message was sent to an astonished friend and neighbor who lent me, volume by volume, the W. in W,) How do you like your novels? I like mine strong, "hot with," and no mistake: no love-making: no observations about society : little dialogue, except where the characters are bullying each other : plenty of fighting : and a villain in the cupboard, who is to suffer tortures just before Finis. I don't like your melancholy Finis. I never read the historj^ of a consumptive heroine twice. If I might give a short hint to an impartial writer (as the Examiner used to say in old days) , it would be to act, not a la mode le pays de Pole (I think that was the phraseology), but always to give quarter. In the story of Philip, just come to an end, I have the permis- sion of the author to state, that he was going to drown the two villains of the piece — a certain Doctor F and a certain Mr. T. H on board the " President," or some other tragic ship — but you see I relented. I pictured to myself Firmin's ghastly face" amid the crowd of shuddering people on that reel- 202 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. iDg deck in the lonely ocean, and thought, " Thou ghastly lying wretch, thou shalt not be drowned : thou shalt have a fever only ; a knowledge of thy danger ; and a chance — ever so small a chance — of repentance." I wonder whether he did repent when he found himself in the 3'ellow-fever, in Virginia ? The probability is, he fancied that his son had injured him very much, and forgave him on his death-bed. Do 3'ou imagine there is a great deal of genuine right-down remorse in the world? Don't people rather find excuses which make their minds easy ; endeavor to prove to themselves that they have been lamentably belied and misunderstood ; and try and for- give the persecutors who ivill present that bill when it is due ; and not bear malice against the cruel ruffian who takes them to the police-office for stealing the spoons ? Years ago I had a quarrel with a certain well-known person (I believed a state- ment regarding him which his friends imparted to me, and which turned out to be quite incorrect). To his dj'ing day that quarrel was never quite made up. I said to his brother, "Why is your brother's soul still dark against me? It is I who ought to be angry and unforgiving : for I was in the wrong." In the region which the}' now inhabit (for Finis has been set to the volumes of the lives of both here below), if they take any cognizance of our squabbles, and tittle-tattles, and gossips on earth here, I hope they admit that my little error was not of a nature unpardonable. If you have never committed a worse, m}'- good sir, surel}' the score against you will not be heav3\ Ha, dilectissimi fratres ! It is in regard of sins not found out that we may sa}^ or sing (in an undertone, in a most penitent and lugubrious minor key). Miserere nobis miseris peccatoribus. ^| Among the sins of commission which novel-writers not sel- - dom perpetrate, is the sin of grandiloquence, or tall-talking,jBi against which, for m.^ part, I will offer up a special libera me. This is the sin of schoolmasters, governesses, critics, sermoners, and instructors of young or old people. Na3'(for I am making a clean breast, and liberating my soul) , perhaps of all the novel- spinners now extant, the present speaker is the most addicted to preaching. Does he not stop perpetuall}' in his stor3' and begin to preach to 3'ou ? When he ought to be engaged with business, is he not for ever taking the Muse b3^ the sleeve, andjl plaguing her with some of his C3'nical sermons ? I cr3' peccavi loudly and heartil3'. I tell 3'ou I would like to be able to write a story which should show no egotism whatever — in which there should be no reflections, no cynicism, no vulgarit3^ (and ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 203 so forth), but an incident in ever}- other page, a villain, a battle, a m3'stery in every chapter. I should like to be able to feed a reader so spicily as to leave him hungering aud thirstino- for more at the end of every monthly meal. Alexandre Dumas describes himself, when inventino- the plan of a work, as Mng silent on his back for two whole days on the deck of a yacht in a Mediterranean port. At the end of the two days he arose and called for dinner. In those two days he had built his plot. He had moulded a mighty clay, to be cast presently in perennial brass. The chapters, the char- acters, the incidents, the combinations were all arranged in the artist's brain ere he set a pen to paper. My Pegasus won't fly, so as to let me surve}^ the field below me. He has no wings, he is blind of one eye certainly, he is restive, stubborn, slow ; crops a hedge when he ought to be galloping, or gallops when he ought to be quiet. He never will show off when I want him. Sometimes he goes at a pace which surprises me. Sometimes, when I most wish him to make the running, the brute turns restive, and I am obliged to let him take his own time. I wonder do other novel-writers experience this fatalism ? They must go a certain wa}^ in spite of themselves. I have been surprised at the observations made by some of my char- acters. It seems as if an occult Power was moving the pen. The personage does or says something, and I ask, how the dickens did he come to think of that? Every man has re- marked in dreams, the vast dramatic power which is some- times evinced ; I won't say the surprising power, for nothing does surprise you in dreams. But those strange characters you meet make instant observations of which you never can have thought previously. In like manner, the imagination foretells things. We spake anon of the inflated style of some writers. What also if there is an afflated style, — when a writer is like a Pythoness on her oracle tripod, and mighty words, words which he cannot help, come blowing, and bellow- ing, and whistling, and moaning through the speaking pipes of his bodily organ? I have told you it was a very queer shock to me the other day when, with a letter of introduction in his hand, the artist's (not my) Philip Firmin walked into this room, and sat down in the chair opposite. In the novel of " Pendennis," written ten years ago, there is an account of a certain Costigan, whom I had invented (as I suppose authors invent their personages out of scraps, heel-taps, odds and ends of characters). I was smoking in a tavern parlor one night — and this Costigan came into the room alive — the very man : — 204 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. \ the most remarkable resemblance of the printed sketches of the man, of the rude drawings in which I had depicted him. He had the same little coat, the same battered hat, cocked on one e3'e, the same twinkle in that e3'e. " Sir," said I, know- ing him to be an old friend whom I had met in unknown regions, "sir," I said, " maj^ I offer you a glass of brandy- and-water?" " Bedad, ye may^" says he, " and ril sing ye a song tu." Of course he spoke with an Irish brogue. Of course he had been in the ai-my. In ten minutes he pulled out an Arm}'^ Agent's account, whereon his name was written. A few months after we read of him in a police court. How had I i come to know him, to divine him? Nothing shall convince me that I have not seen that man in the world of spirits. In the world of spirits and water I know I did : but that is a mere quibble of words. I was not surprised when he spoke in an Irish brogue. I had had cognizance of him before somehow. Who has not felt that little shock which arises when a person, a place, some words in a book (there is always a collocation) present themselves to j'ou, and 3"ou know that 3'ou have before met the same person, words, scene, and so forth? The}' used to call the good Sir Walter the ' ' Wizard of the North." What if some writer should appear who can write so enchantingly that he shall be able to call into actual life the^j people whom he invents? What if Mignon, and Margaret, and Goetz von Berlichingen are alive now (though I don't saj' the}' are visible) , and Dugald Dalgett}- and Ivanhoe were to step in at that open window b}^ the little garden 3'onder? Suppose Uncas and our noble old Leather Stocking were to glide silent in? Suppose Athos, iPorthos, and Aramis should enter with a noiseless swagger, curling their moustaches? And dearest Amelia Booth, on Uncle Toby's arm ; and Tittlebat Titmouse, with his hair dyed green ; and all the Crummies compan}' of comedians, with the Gil Bias troop ; and Sir Roger de Coverle}' ; and the greatest of all crazy gentlemen, the Knight of La Mancha, with his blessed squire? I say to 3"0u, I look rather wistfully towards the window, musing upon these people. Were an}' of them to enter, I think I should not be very much frightened. Dear old friends, what pleasant hours I have had with them ! We do not see each other very often, but when we do, we are ever happ3' to meet. I had a capital half-hour with Jacob Faithful last night ; when the last sheet was cor- rected, when " Finis" had been written, and the printer's bo}', with the cop3', was safe in Green Arbor Court. So you are gone, little printer's boy, with the last scratches ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 205 and corrections on the proof, and a fine flourish by way of Finis at the story's end. The last corrections? I sa}^ those last corrections seem never to be finished. A plague upon the weeds ! Every day, when I walk in my own little literary garden-plot, I spy some, and should like to have a spud, and root them out. Those idle words, neighbor, are past remedy. That turning back to the old pages produces anything but elation of mind. Would you not pay a pretty fine to be able to cancel some of them ? Oh, the sad old pages, the dull old pages ! Oh, the cares, the ennui^ the squabbles, the repeti- tions, the old conversations over and over again ! But now and again a kind thought is recalled, and now and again a dear memory. Yet a few chapters more, and then the last : after which, behold Finis itself come to an end, and the Infinite begun. ON A PEAL OF BELLS. As some bells in a church hard b}^ are making a great holiday clanging in the summer afternoon, I am reminded somehow of a July da}^ a garden, and a great clanging of bells years and years ago, on the very day when George IV. was crowned. I remember a little bo}^ lying in that garden reading his first novel. It was called the " Scottish Chiefs." The little boy (who is now ancient and not little) read this book in the sum- mer-house of his great grandmamma. She was eighty 3^ears of age then. A most lovely and picturesque old lady, with a long tortoise-shell cane, with a little puflT, or tour^ of snow-white (or was it powdered?) hair under her cap, with the prettiest little black-velvet slippers and high heels you ever saw. She had a grandson, a lieutenant in the navy ; son of her son, a captain in the navy ; grandson of her husband, a captain in the navy. She lived for scores and scores of 3'ears in a dear httle old Hampshire town inhabited by the wives, widows, daughters of navy captains, admirals, lieutenants. Dear me ! Don't I re- member Mrs. Duval, widow of Admiral Duval ; and the Miss Dennets, at the Great House at the other end of the town. Ad- miral Dennet's daughters ; and the Miss Barrys, the late Cap- tain Barry's daughters ; and the good old Miss Maskews, Admiral Maskew's daughter ; and that dear Httle Miss Noi-val, and the kind Miss Bookers, one of whom married Captain, now 206 rou:n^dabout papers. Admiral Sir Henr}' Excellent, K.C.B. ? Far, far awa}' into the past I look and see the little town with its friendl}^ glimmer. That town was so like a novel of Miss Austen's that I wonder was she born and bred there? No, we should have known, and the good old ladies would have pronounced her to be a little idle thing, occupied with her silly books and neglecting her housekeeping. There were other towns in England, no doubt, where dwelt the widows and wives of other nav}' captains ; where the}^ tattled, loved each other, and quarrelled ; talked about Betty the maid, and her fine ribbons indeed ! took their dish of tea at six, played at quadrille every night till ten, when there was a little bit of supper, after which Bett}' came with the lanthorn ; and next da}' came, and next, and next, and so foilh, until a daj" arrived when the lanthorn was out, when Betty came no more ; all that little compan}' sank to rest under the dai- sies, whither some folks will presentl}' follow them. How did they live to be so old, those good people? Moi qui vous park, I perfectly recollect old Mr. Gilbert, who had been to sea with Captain Cook ; and Captain Cook, as 3'ou justl}^ observe, dear Miss, quoting out of 3'our " MangnalFs Questions," was mur- dered hj the natives of Owli3'hee, anno 1779. Ah! don't you remember his picture, standing on the seashore, in tights and gaiters, with a musket in hi& hand, pointing to his people not to fire from the boats, whilst a great tattooed savage is going to stab him in the back? Don't 3'ou remember those houris dancing before him and the other officers at the great Otaheite ball? Don't you know that Cook was at the sie^e of Quebec, with the glorious Wolfe, who fought under the Duke of Cum- berland, whose ro3'al father was a distinguished oflScer at Ram- illies, before he commanded in chief at Dettingen? Huzza! Give it them, m3' lads ! M3^ horse is down? Then I know I shall not run awa^'. Do the French run ? then I die content. Stop. Wo ! Quo me rapis ? M3^ Pegasus is galloping oflT, goodness knows where, like his Majest3''s charger at Det- tingen. How do these rich historical and personal reminiscences . come out of the subject at present in hand? What is that sub- ject, b3' the wa3^? My dear friend, if you look at the last essa}'- kin (though 3'ou may leave it alone, and I shall not be in the least surprised or offended), if you look at the last paper, where the writer imagines Athos and Porthos> Dalgett3' and Ivanhoe, Amelia and Sir Charles Grandison, Don Quixote and Sir Roger, walking in at the garden-window, 3'ou will at once perceive that Novels and their heroes and heroines are our present subject ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 207 ■of discourse, into which we will presen% plunge. Are you one :of us, dear sir, and do you love novel-reading? To be re- |minded of your first novel will surely be a pleasure to you. |Hush ! I never read quite to the end of my first, the " Scottish [Chiefs." I couldn't. I peeped in an alarmed furtive manner at some of the closing pages. Miss Porter, like a kind dear tender- learted creature, would not have Wallace's head chopped off" at [the end of Vol. V. She made him die in prison,* and if I re- [member right (protesting I have not read the book for forty-two (or three years), Robert Bruce made a speech to his soldiers, in (which he said, "And Bannockburn shall equal Cambusken- |neth."t But I repeat I could not read the end of the fifth volume [of that dear delightful book for crying. Good heavens ! It [was as sad, as sad as going back to school. The glorious Scott cycle of romances came to me some four [or five years afterwards ; and I think boj's of our j^ear were [specially fortunate in coming upon those delightful books at that special time when we could best enjo}^ them. Oh, that {sunshiny bench on half- holidays, with Claverhouse or Ivanhoe |for a companion ! I have remarked of very late days some little men in a great state of delectation over the romances of [Captain Mayne Reid, and Gustave Aimard's Prairie and Indian [Stories, and during occasional holida}^ visits, lurking off to bed [with the volume under their arms. But are those Indians and [warriors so terrible as our Indians and warriors were? (I sa}^ ire they? Young gentlemen, mind, I do not say they are not.) "►ut as an oldster I can be heartil}^ thankful for the novels of Jthe 1-10 Geo. IV., let us say, and so downward to a period not * I find, on reference to the novel, that Sir William died on the scaf- fold, not in prison. His last words were, " * My prayer is heard. Life's 2ord is cut by heaven. Helen ! Helen ! May heaven preserve my country, ind — ' He stopped. He fell. And with that mighty shock the scaffold shook to its foundations." t The remark of Bruce ( which I protest I liad not read for forty-two /^ears), I find to be as follows : — " When this was uttered by the English leralds, Bruce turned to Ruthven, with an heroic smile, ' Let him come, my )rave barons ! and he shall find that Bannockburn shall page with Cambus- kenneth ! ' " In the same amiable author's famous novel of " Thaddeus of Warsaw," there is more crying than in any novel I ever remember to have read. See, for example, the last page. ..." Incapable of speaking, Thad- deus led his wife back to her carriage. . . . His tears gushed out in spite of himself, and mingling with hers, poured those thanks, those assurances, of animated approbation through her heart, which made it even ache with excess of happiness." . . . And a sentence or two further. "Kos- ciusko did bless him, and embalmed the benediction with a shower of tears." 208 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. unremote. Let us see ; there is, first, our dear Scott. A¥hom do I love in the works of that dear old master ? Amo — The Baron of Bradwardine and Fergus. (Captain Waverley is certainl}' verj^ mild.) Amo Ivanhoe ; LOCKSLEY ; the Templar. Amo Quentin Durward, and especially Quentin's uncle, who brought the boar to bay. I forget the gentleman's name. I have never cared for the Master of Ravenswood, or fetched his hat out of the water since he dropped it there when I last met him (circa 1825). Amo Saladin and the Scotch knight in the "Talisman." The Sultan best. Amo Claverhouse. Amo Major Dalgetty. Delightful Major. To think of him is to desire to jump up, run to the book, and get the volume down from the shelf. About all those heroes of Scott, what a manl}^ bloom there is, and honorable modesty ! The}' are not at all heroic. They seem to blush somehow in their position of hero, and as it were to say, " Since it must be done, here goes ! " They are handsome, modest, upright, simple, coura- geous, not too clever. If I were a mother (which is absurd), I should like to be mother-in-law to several young men of the Walter-Scott-hero sort. Much as I like those most unassuming, manly, unpretending gentlemen, I have to own that I think the heroes of another writer, viz. : — Leather-stocking , Uncas, Hardheart, Tom Coffin, are quite the equals of Scotf s men ; perhaps Leather-stocking is better than any one in " Scott's lot." La Longiie Carabine is one of the great prize-men of fiction. He ranks with 3'our Uncle Tob}', Sir Roger de Coverle}^, Falstaff — heroic figures, all — American or British, and the artist has deserved well of his country who devised them. At school, in m}^ time, there was a public da}', when the boys' relatives, an examining bigwig or two from the universities, old schoolfellows, and so forth, came to the place. The boys were all paraded ; prizes were administered ; each lad being in a new suit of clothes — and magnificent dandies, I promise you, some of us were. Oh, the chubby cheeks, clean collars, glossy new raiment, beaming faces, glorious in youth — Jit tueri codum — bright with truth, and mirth, and honor ! To see a hundi'ed ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 209 bo3's marshalled in a chapel or old hall ; to hear their sweet fresh voices when they chant, and look in their bravo calm faces ; I say, does not the sight and sound of them smite 3'ou, somehow, with a pang of exquisite kindness ? . . . AVell. As about boys, so about Novelists. I fancy the bo3'^s of Parnassus School all paraded. I am a lower boy myself in that academy. I like our fellows to look well, upright, gentlemanlike. There is Master Fielding — he with the black eye. What a magnifi- cent build of a bo}' ! There is Master Scott, one of the heads of the school. Did you ever see the fellow more heart}- and manly? Yonder lean, shambling, cadaverous lad, who is alwa3^s borrowing mone}", telling lies, leering after the house- maids, is Master Laurence Sterne — a bishop's grandson, and himself intended for the Church ; for shame, 3'ou little repro- bate ! But what a genius the fellow has ! Let him have a sound flogging, and as soon as the young scamp is out of the whipping-room give him a gold medal. Such would be my practice if I were Doctor Birch, and master of the school. Let us drop this school metaphor, this birch and all pertain- ing thereto. Our subject, I beg leave to remind the reader's humble servant, is novel heroes and heroines. How do 3'ou like 3'our heroes, ladies? Gentlemen, what novel heroines do 3'OU prefer? When I set this essay going, I sent the above question to two of the most inveterate novel-readers of m3^ acquaintance. The gentleman refers me to Miss Austen ; the lady says Athos, Guy Livingston, and (pardon my rosy blushes) Colonel Esmond, and owns that in youth she was ver}^ much in love with Valancourt. "Yalancourt? and who was he?" cry the young people. Valancourt, my dears, was the hero of one of the most famous romances which ever was published in this countr3^ The beaut3' and elegance of Valancourt made your young grandmammas' gentle hearts to beat with respectful sympath3^ He and liis glory have passed away. Ah, woe is me that the glory of novels should ever decay ; that dust should gather round them on the shelves ; that the annual cheques from Messieurs the publishers should dwindle, dwindle ! Inquire at Mudie's, or the London Library, who asks for the " Mysteries of Udolpho " now ? Have not even the ' ' Mysteries of Paris " ceased to frighten? Alas, our novels are but for a season ; and I know characters whom a painful modesty forbids me to mention, who shall go to limbo along with " Valancourt" and " Doricourt" and " Thaddeus of Warsaw." A dear old sentimental friend, with whom I discoursed on 14 ^10 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. the subject of novels 3'esterday, said that her favorite hero was Lord Orville, in " Evelina," that novel which Dr. Johnson loved so. I took down the book from a dusty old cr3'pt at a club, where Mrs. Barbauld's noA'^elists repose : and this is the kind of thing, ladies and gentlemen, in which your ancestors found pleasure : — "And here, whilst I was looking for the books, I was fol- lowed b}^ Lord Orville. He shut the door after he came in, and, approaching me with a look of anxiety, said, ' Is this true, Miss Anville — are 3'ou going ? ' ' I believe so, m^^ lord,' said I, still looking for the books. So suddenly, so unexpectedly : must I lose you? ' " 'No great loss, mj- lord,' said I, endeavoring to speak cheerfully. " ' Is it possible,' said he, gravely, ' Miss Anville can doubt my sincerity ? ' " ' I can't imagine,' cried I, ' what Mrs. Selwyn has done with those books.' " ' Would to heaven,' continued he, ' I might flatter myself 3^ou would allow me to prove it ! ' " ' I must run up stairs,' cried I, greatly confused, ' and ask what she has clone with them.' " ' You are going then,' cried he, taking my hand, ' and you give me not the smallest hope of any return ! Will 3'ou not, m3" too lovel3' friend, will you not teach me, with fortitude like j^our own, to support 3^our absence?' " ' My lord,' cried I, endeavoring to disengage m3^ hand, ' pray let me go ! ' " ' I will,' cried he, to m3^ inexpressible confusion, dropping on one knee, ' if 3^ou wish me to leave 3'ou.' " ' Oh, m3" lord,' exclaimed I, ' rise, I beseech 3^ou ; rise. Surel3^ 3'our lordship is not so cruel as to mock me.' " ' Mock 3'ou ! ' repeated he earnestl3^, ' no, I revere 3"0u. I esteem and admire 3'ou above all human beings ! You are the friend to whom m3' soul is attached, as to its better half. You are the most amiable, the most perfect of women ; and 3^ou are dearer to me than language has the power of telling.' ' ' I attempt not to describe m^- sensations at that moment ; I scarce breathed ; I doubted if I existed ; the blood forsook my cheeks, and m3^ feet refused to sustain me. Lord Orville liastil3^ rising supported me to a chair upon which I sank almost lifeless. " I cannot write the scene that followed, though ever3" word is engraven on m3' heart ; but his protestations, his expressions, ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 211 were too flattering for repetition ; nor would he, in spite of my repeated efforts to leave him, suffer me to escape ; in short, my dear sir, I was not proof against his solicitations, and he drew from me the most sacred secret of my heart ! " * Other people may not much like this extract, madam, from 3'our favorite novel, but when you come to read it, you will like it. I suspect that when 3^ou read that book which 3^ou so love, you read it a deux. Did you not yourself pass a winter at Bath, when you were the belle of the assembly? Was there not a Lord Orville in your case too? As 3'ou think of him eleven lustres pass awa3\ You look at him with the bright e^-es of those days, and your hero stands before you, the brave, the accomplished, the simple, the true gentleman ; and he makes the most elegant of bows to one of the most beautiful young women the world ever saw ; and he leads you out to the cotillon, to the dear unforgotten music. Hark to the horns of Elfand, blowing, blowing ! Bonne vieiUe, you remember their melody, and 3'our heart-strings thrill with it still. Of 3 our heroic heroes, I think our friend Monseigneur Athos, Count de la Fere, is my favorite. I have read about him from sunrise to sunset with the utmost contentment of mind. He has passed through how many volumes? Forty? Fifty? I wish for m3' part there were a hundred more, and * Contrast this old perfumed, powdered D'Arblay conversation with the present modern talk. If the two young people wished to hide their emotions now-a-days, and express themselves in modest language, the story would run : — " Whilst I was looking for the books. Lord Orville came in. He looked uncommonly down in the mouth, as he said : ' Is this true, Miss Anville ; are you going to cut 1 ' " ' To absquatulate, Lord Orville,' said I, still pretending that I was looking for the books. " * You are very quick about it,' said he. " * Guess it's no great loss,' I remarked, as cheerfully as I could. " ' You don't think I'm chaffing ? ' said Orville, with much emotion. " * What has Mrs. Selwyn done with the books ? ' I went on. " ' What, going 'i ' said he, ' and going for good ? I wish I was such a good-plucked one as you. Miss Anville,' " &c. The conversation, you perceive, might be easily written down to this key ; and if the hero and heroine were modern, they would not be suffered to go through their dialogue on stilts, but would converse in the natural graceful way at present customary. By the way, what a strange custom that is in modern lady novelists to make the men bully the women ! In the time of Miss Porter and Madame D'Arblay, we have respect, profound bows and curtsies, graceful courtesy, from men to women. In the time of Miss Bronte, absolute rudeness. Is it true, mesdames, that you like rude- ness, and are pleased at being ill-used by men ? I could point to more than one lady novelist who so represents you. 212 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. would never tire of him rescuing prisoners, punishing ruflSans, and running scoundrels through the midriff with his most grace- ful rapier. Ah, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, jou. are a mag- nificent trio. I think I like d'Artagnan in his own memoirs best. I bought him j'ears and 3'ears ago, price fivepence, in a little parchment-covered Cologne-printed volume, at a stall in Gra3''s Inn Lane. Dumas glorifies him and makes a Marshal of him ; if I remember rightly, the original d'Artagnan was a needy adventurer, who died in exile ver3' earl}- in Louis XIV. *s reign. Did you ever read the "Chevalier d'Harmenthal ? " Did 3'ou ever read the " Tulipe Noire," as modest as a story by Miss Edgeworth? I think of the prodigal banquets to which this Lucullus of a man has invited me, with thanks and wonder. To what a series of splendid entertainments he has treated me ! Where does he find the mone}' for these prodigious feasts? They sa}' that all the works bearing Dumas's name are not writ- ten by him. "Well ? Does not the chief cook have aides under him? Did not Rubens's pupils paint on his canvases? Had not Lawrence assistants for his backgrounds? For m3'self, being also du metier, I confess I would often like to have a com- petent, respectable, and rapid clerk for the business part of m^- novels ; and on his arrival, at eleven o'clock, would sa}^ " Mr. Jones, if 3'ou please, the archbishop must die this morning in about five pages. Turn to article ' Drops3' ' (or what you will) in Enc3xlop8edia. Take care there are no medical blunders in his death. Group his daughters, physicians, and chaplains round him. In Wales's ' London,' letter B, third shelf, 3'ou will find an account of Lambeth, and some prints of the place. Color in with local coloring. The daughter will come down, and speak to her lover in his wherry at Lambeth Stairs," &c., &c. Jones (an intelligent young man) examines the medical, historical, topographical books necessar3^ ; his chief points out to him in Jeremy Ta3^1or (fol., London, m.dclv.) a few re- marks, such as might befit a dear old archbishop departing this life. When I come back to dress for dinner, the arch- bishop is dead on m3^ table in five pages ; medicine, topog- raph3^, theolog3', all right, and Jones has gone home to his family some hours. Sh' Christopher is the architect of St. Paul's. He has not laid the stones or carried up the mortar. There is a great deal of carpenter's and joiner's work in novels which surety a smart professional hand might supply. A smart professional hand ? I give 3'ou m3'^ word, there seem to me parts of novels — let us say the love-making, the "business," the vill^-jji m the cupboard, and so forth, which I should like to ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 213 order John Footman to take in hand, as I desire him to bring the coals and poKsh the boots. Ask me indeed to pop a robber under a bed, to hide a will which shall be forthcoming in due season, or at my time of life to write a namb3^-pamb3' love con- versation between Emil}' and Lord Arthur ! I feel ashamed of myself, and especially when my business obliges me to do the love-passages, I blush so, though quite alone in my study, that you would fancy I was going off in an apoplexy. Are authors affected by their own works? I don't know about other gentlemen, but if I make a joke myself I cry; if I write a pathetic scene I am laughing wildly all the time — at least Tomkins thinks so. You know I am such a cjaiic ! The editor of the Gornhill Magazine (no soft and yielding character like his predecessor, but a man of stern resolution) will only allow these harmless papers to run to a certain length. But for this veto I should gladly have prattled over half a sheet more, and have discoursed on mau}^ heroes and heroines of novels whom fond memory brings back to me. Of these books I have been a diligent student from those early days, which are recorded at the commencement of this little essay. Oh, dehght- ful novels, well remembered ! Oh, novels, sweet and delicious as the raspbeny open-tarts of budding boyhood ! Do I forget one night after praj^ers (when we under-boys were sent to bed) lingering at m}' cupboard to read one little half-page more of my dear Walter Scott — and down came the monitor's dictionary upon my head ! Rebecca, daughter of Isaac of York, I have loved thee faithfully for forty years ! Thou wert twenty years old (say) and I but twelve, when I knew thee. At sixt}^ odd, love, most of the ladies of thy Orient race have lost the bloom of youth, and bulged beyond the line of beauty ; but to me thou art ever young and fair, and I will do battle with any felon Templar who assails thy fair name. ON A PEAR-TREE. A GRACIOUS reader no doubt has remsllked that these humble sermons have for subjects some little event which happens at ^ the preacher's own gate, or which falls under his peculiar cog- nizance. Once, you may remember, we discoursed about a chalk-mark on the door. This morning Betsy, the housemaid, 214 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. comes with a frightened look, and saj-s, "Law, mum! there's three bricks taken out of the garden wall, and the branches broke, and all the pears taken off the pear-tree ! " Poor peace- ful suburban pear-tree ! Gaol-birds have hopped about thy branches, and robbed them of their smoky fruit. But those bricks removed ; that ladder evidentl}^ prepared, by which un- known marauders ma}^ enter and depart from m}" httle English- man's castle ; is not this a subject of thrilling interest, and may it not he continued in a future number ? — that is the terrible question. Suppose, having escaladed the outer wall, the mis- creants take a fancy to storm the castle ? Well — well ! we are armed ; we are numerous ; we are men of tremendous courage, who will defend our spoons with our lives ; and there are barracks close by (thank goodness!) whence, at the noise of our shouts and firing, at least a thousand ba3'onets will bristle to our rescue. What sound is yonder? A church bell. I might go myself, but how listen to the sermon ? I am thinking of those thieves who have made a ladder of my wall, and a pre}' of m}' pear-tree. Thej^ ma}^ be walking to church at this moment, neatl}" shaved, in clean linen, with ever}' outward appearance of virtue. If I went, I know I should be watching the congregation, and think- ing, " Is that one of the fellows who came over my wall? " If, after the reading of the eighth Commandment, a man sang out with particular energ}', " Incline our hearts to keep this law," I should think, " Aha, Master Basso, did 3'ou have pears for breakfast this morning? " Crime is walking round me, that is clear. Who is the perpetrator? . . . What a changed aspect the world has, since these last few lines were written ! I have been walking round about my premises, and in consultation with a gentleman in a single-breasted blue coat, with pewter buttons, and a tape ornament on the collar. He has looked at the holes in the wall, and the amputated tree. We have formed our plan of defence — perhaps of attack. Perhaps some da}^ 3^ou may read in the papers, " Daring Attempt at Burglary — Heroic Victory over the Villains," &c. &c. Rascals as yet unknown ! perhaps you, too, ma}' read these words, and may be induced to pause in your fatal intention. Take the advice of a sincere friend, and keep off. To find a man writhing in my man-trap, another mayhap impaled in my ditch, to pick off another from my tree (scoundrel ! as though he were a pear) will give me no pleasure; but such things may happen. Be warned in time, villains ! Or, if you must pursue your calling as cracksmen, have the goodness to try some other shutters. ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 215 Enough! subside into your darkness, children of night! Thieves I we seek not to have you hanged — j^ou are but as pegs whereon to hang others. I may have said before, that if I were going to be hanged m3^self, I think I should take an accurate note of my sensations, request to stop at some public-house on the road to Tyburn, and be provided with a private room and writing-materials, and give an account of my state of mind. Then, gee up, carter! I beg your reverence to continue jouy apposite, though not novel, remarks on my situation ; — and so we drive up to Tyburn turnpike, where an expectant crowd, the obliging sheriffs, and the dexterous and rapid Mr. Ketch are already in waiting. A number of laboring people are sauntering about our streets and taking their rest on this holiday — fellows who have no more stolen my pears than they have robbed the crown jewels out of the Tower — and I say I cannot help thinking in my own mind, "Are you the rascal who got over m}^ wall last night?" Is the suspicion haunting my mind written on my countenance? I trust not. What if one man after another were to come up to me and saj', " How dare you, sir, suspect me in your mind of stealing 3'our fruit? Go be hanged, you and your jargonels ! " You rascal thief! it is not merely three- halfp'orth of sooty fruit jou rob me of, it is my peace of mind — m}^ artless innocence and trust in my fellow -creatures, my childlike belief that everything they say is true. How can I hold out the hand of friendship in this condition, when my first impression is, " My good sir, I strongly suspect that you were up my pear-tree last night?" It is a dreadful state of mind. The core is black; the death-stricken fruit drops on the bough, and a great worm is within — fattening, and feasting, and wriggling! Who stole the pears? I say. Is it you, brother? Is it 3^ou, madam? Come ! are you ready to answer — respondere parati et cantare pares ? (O shame ! shame !) Will the villains ever be discovered and punished who stole my fruit? Some unlucky rascals who rob orchards are caught up the tree at once. Some rob through life with impunity. If I, for my part, were to try and get up the smallest tree, on the darkest night, in the most remote orchard, I wager any money I should he found out — be caught by the leg in a man-trap, or have Towler fastening on me." 1 always am found out ; have been ; shall be. It's my luck. Other men will carry off bush- els of fruit, and get away undetected, unsuspected ; whereas I know woe and punishment would fall upon me were I to lay my 216 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. hand on the smallest pippin. So be it. A man who has this precious self-knowledge will surety keep his hands from picking and stealing, and his feet upon the paths of virtue. I will assume, m}' benevolent friend and present reader, that 3'ou 3'ourself are virtuous, not from a fear of punishment, but from a sheer love of good : but as 3'ou and I walk through life, consider what hundreds of thousands of rascals we must have met, who have not been found out at all. In high places and low, in Clubs and on 'Change, at church or the balls and routs of the nobilitj" and gentrj^, how dreadful it is for benevolent beings like 3'ou and me to have to think these undiscovered though not unsuspected scoundrels are swarming ! What is the difference between 3'ou and a galle3^-slave ? Is 3'onder poor wretch at the hullis not a man and a brother too? Have 3'ou ever forged, my dear sir? Have you ever cheated 3^our neigh- bor? Have you ever ridden to Hounslow Heath and robbed the mail? Have 3'ou ever entered a first-class railway carriage, where an old gentleman sat alone in a sweet sleep, daintily murdered him, taken his pocket-book, and got out at the next station ? You know that this circumstance occurred in France a few months since. If we have travelled in France this autumn we ma3^ have met the ingenious gentleman who perpe- trated this daring and successful coup. We ma3" have found him a well-informed and agreeable man. I have been ac- quainted with two or three gentlemen who have been discovered after — after the performance of illegal actions. What? That agreeable rattling fellow we met was the celebrated Mr. John Sheppard? Was that amiable quiet gentleman in spectacles the well-known Mr. Fauntlero3^? In Hazlitt's admirable paper, •' Going to a Fight," he describes a dashing sporting fellow who was in the coach, and who was no less a man than the eminent destroyer of Mr. WiUiam Weare. Don't tell me that you would not like to have met (out of business) Captain Shep- pard, the Reverend Doctor Dodd, or others rendered famous by their actions and misfortunes, by their lives and their deaths. The3' are the subjects of ballads, the heroes of romance. A' friend of mine had the house in May Fair, out of which poor Doctor Dodd was taken handcuffed. There w'as the paved hall over which he stepped. That little room at the side was, no doubt, the stud3^ where he composed his elegant sermons. Two 3'ears since I had the good fortune to partake of some admir- able dinners in Tyburnia — magnificent dinners indeed ; but rendered doubly interesting from the fact that the house was that occupied b3^ the late Mr. Sadleir. One night the late Mr. ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. , 217 Sadleir took tea in that diniiig-room, and, to the surprise of his butler, went out, having put into his pocket his own cream-jug. The next morning, you know, he was found dead on Hamp- stead Heath, with the cream-jug tying by him, into which he had poured the poison by which he died. The idea of the ghost of the late gentleman flitting about the room gave a strange interest to the banquet. Can you fanc}' him taking his tea alone in the dining-room ? He empties that cream-jug and puts it in his pocket ; and then he opens yonder door, through which he is never to pass again. Now he crosses the hall : and hark ! the hall-door shuts upon him, and his steps die awa}'. They are gone into the night. They traverse the sleeping cit}^ They lead him into the fields, where the gray morning is beginning to glimmer. He pours something from a bottle into a little silver jug. It touches his lips, the tying lips. Do they quiver a prayer ere that awful draught is swallowed? When the sun rises they are dumb. I neither knew this unhappj' man, nor his countr3^man — Laertes let us call him — who is at present in exile, having been compelled to fly from remorseless creditors. Laertes fled to America, where he earned his bread by his pen. I own to having a kindly feeling towards this scapegrace, because, though an exile, he did not abuse the country whence he fled. I have heard that he went away taking no spoil with him, pen- niless almost ; and on his vo3^age he made acquaintance with a certain Jew ; and when he fell sick, at New York, this Jew befriended him, and gave him help and money out of his own store, which was but small. Now, after they had been awhile in the strange city, it happened that the poor Jew spent all his little mone}^ and he too fell ill, and was in great penurj^ And now it was Laertes who befriended that Ebrew Jew. He fee'd doctors ; he fed and tended the sick and hungry. Go to, Laertes ! I know thee not. It may be thou art justly exul patrice. But the Jew shall intercede for thee, thou not, let us trust, hope- less Christian sinner. Another exile to the same shore I knew: who did not? Julius Caesar hardly owed more money than Cucedicus : and, gracious powers ! Cucedicus, how did you manage to spend and owe so much ? All day he was at work for his chents ; at night he was occupied in the Public Council. He neither had wife nor children. The rewards which he received for his ora- tions were enough to maintain twenty rhetoricians. Night after night I have seen him eating his frugal meal, consisting but of a fish, a small portion of mutton, and a small measure 218 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. of Iberian or Trinacrian wine, largel}^ diluted with the sparkling waters of Rhenish Gaul. And this was all he had ; and this man earned and paid awa}^ talents upon talents ; and fled, owing who knows how many more ! Does a man earn fifteen thousand pounds a 3'ear, toiling b}' day, talking by night, hav- ing horrible unrest in his bed, ghastly terrors at waking, seeing an officer lurking at ever}'' corner, a sword of justice for ever hanging over his head — and have for his sole diversion a news- paper, a lonely mutton-chop, and a little sherry and seltzer- water ? In the G erman stories we read how men sell themselves to — a certain Personage, and that Personage cheats them. He gives them wealth ; 3'es, but the gold-pieces turn into worth- less leaves. He sets them before splendid banquets ; 3"es, but what an awful grin that black footman has who lifts up the dish-cover ; and don't j^ou smell a peculiar sulphurous odor in tlie dish ? Faugh ! take it away ; I can't eat. He promises them splendors and triumphs. The conqueror's car rolls glit- tering through the cit}', the multitude shout and huzza. Dri^^e on, coachman. Yes, but who is that hanging on behind the carriage? Is this the reward of eloquence, talents, industr}'? Is this the end of a life's labor? Don't you remember how, when the dragon was infesting the neighborhood of Bab3-lon, the citizens used to walk dismall}' out of evenings, and look at the vallej^s round about strewed with the bones of the victims whom the monster had devoured? O insatiate brute, and most disgusting, brazen, and seal}' reptile ! Let us be thankful, children, that it has not gobbled us up too. Quick. Let us turn away, and pray that we may be kept out of the reach of his horrible maw, jaw, claw ! When I first came up to London, as innocent as Monsieur Gil Bias, I also fell in with some pretty acquaintances, found my way into several caverns, and delivered my purse to more than one gallant gentleman of the road. One I remember especially — one who never eased me personall}' of a single maravedi — one than whom I never met a bandit more gallant, courteous, and amiable. Rob me? Rolando feasted me; treated me to his dinner and his wine ; kept a generous table for his friends, and I know was most liberal to many of them. How well I remember one of his speculations ! It was a great plan for smuggling tobacco. Revenue officers were to be bought off ; silent ships were to ply on Ihe Thames; cunning depots were to be established, and hnndreds of thousands of pounds to be made by the co///>. How his eyes kindled as he propounded the scheme to me ! How easy and certain it ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 219 seemed ! It might have succeeded, I can't sa}- : but the bold and merry, the hearty and kindly Rolando came to grief — a little matter of imitated signatures occasioned a Bank persecu- tion of Rolando the Brave. He walked about armed, and vowed he would never be taken alive : but taken he was ; tried, condemned, sentenced to perpetual banishment ; and I heard that for some time he was universall}' popular in the colony which had the honor to possess him. What a song he could sing ! 'Twas when the cup was sparkling before us, and heaven gave a portion of its blue, boys, blue, that I remember the song of Roland at the " Old Piazza Coffee-house." And now where is the "Old Piazza Coffee-house ? " Where is Thebes? where is Troy? where is the Colossus of Rhodes? Ah, Rolando, Rolando ! thou wert a gallant captain, a cheerj', a handsome, a merr3\ At me thou never presentedst pistol. Thou badest the bumper of Burgundy fill, fill for me, giving those who pre- ferred it champagne. GceJum non animum^ &c. Do 30U think he has reformed now that he has crossed the sea, and changed the air? I have my own opinion. Howbeit, Rolando, thou wert a most kind and hospitable bandit. And I love not to think of thee with a chain at th}' shin. Do you know how all these memories of unfortunate men have come upon me? When the}^ came to frighten me this morning by speaking of my robbed pears, my perforated garden wall, I was reading an article in the Saturday Review about Rupilius. I have sat near that young man at a public dinner, and beheld him in a gilded uniform. But 3'esterday he lived in splendor, had long hair, a flowing beard, a jewel at his neck, and a smart surtout. So attired, he stood but vesterdav in court ; and to-day he sits over a bowl of prison cocoa, with a shaved head, and in a felon's jerkin. That beard and head shaved, that gaudy deputy-lieutenant's coat excliano'ed for felon uniform, and your dailv bottle of champagne for prison cocoa, my poor Riipilhis, whnt a coinlbrt it must be to have the business i)i-oiioht to an end ! Champagne was the honorable gentleman's driiiU in the House of Commons dining-room, as I am informed. What uncommonly dry cham- pagne that must have been ! When we saw him outwardly happ3', how miserable he must have been ! when we thought him prosperous, how dismally poor ! AVhen the great Mr. Barker, at the public dinners, called out — " Gentlemen, cliargc your glasses, and please silence for the Honorable Member for Lambeth!" how that Honorable Member must have writhed inwardly ! One day, when there was a talk of a gentleman's 220 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. honor being questioned, Rupilius said, "If any man doubted mine, I would knock him down." But that speech was in the way of business. The Spartan boy, who stole the fox, smiled while the beast was gnawing him under his cloak : I promise you Rupilius had some sharp fangs gnashing under his. We have sat at the same feast, I sa}- : we have paid our contribu- tion to the same charity. Ah ! when I ask this day for my dailj' bread, I pray not to be led into temptation, and to be delivered from evil. DESSEIN'S. I ARRIVED b}' the night-mail packet from Dover. The pas- sage had been rough, and the usual consequences had ensued. I was disinclined to travel farther that night on my road to Paris, and knew the Calais hotel of old as one of the cleanest, one of the dearest, one of the most comfortable hotels on the continent of Europe. There is no town more French than Calais. That charming old "Hotel Dessein," with its court, its gardens, its lordly kitchen, its princel}' waiter — a gentle- man of the old school, who has welcomed the finest corapan}- in Europe — have long been known to me. I have read com- plaints in The Times^ more than once, I think, that the Dessein bills are dear. A bottle of soda-water certainly costs — well, never mind how much. I remember as a boj', at the " Ship " at Dover (imperante Carolo Decimo), when, m}^ place to Lon- don being paid, I had but 12s. left after a certain little Paris excursion (about which vay benighted parents never knew any- thing), ordering for dinner a whiting, a beefsteak, and a glass of negus, and the bill was, dinner 7s., glass of negus 2s., waiter 6c?., and onl}' half a crown left, as I was a sinner, for the guard and coachman on the way to London ! And I was a sinner. I had gone without leave. What a long, dreary, guilt}^ forty hours' journe}^ it was from Paris to Calais, I remember ! How did I come to think of this escapade, which occurred in the Easter vacation of the year 1830 ? I alwa5'S think of it when I am crossing to Calais. Guilt, sir, guilt remains stamped on the memory, and I feel easier in my mind now that it is liberated of this old peccadillo. I met m}^ college tutor only yesterday. We were travelling, and stopped at the same hotel. He had ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 221 the very next room to mine. After he had gone into his apart- ment, having shaken me quite kindl}^ by the hand, I felt in- cUned to knock at his door and say, " Doctor Bentley, I beg your pardon, but do you remember, when I was going down at the Easter vacation in 1830, you asked me where I was going to spend my vacation? And I said. With my friend Shngsby, in Huntingdonshire. Well, sir, I grieve to have to confess that I told 3^ou a fib. I had got 201. and was going for a lark to Paris, where my friend Edwards was sta3'ing." There, it is out. The Doctor will read it, for I did not wake him up after all to make my confession, but protest he shall have a copy of this Roundabout sent to him when he returns to his lodge. They gave me a bedroom there ; a ver}^ neat room on the first floor, looking into the pretty garden. The hotel must look pretty much as ft did a hundred j-ears ago when he visited it. I wonder whether he paid his bill ? Yes : his journey was just begun. He had borrowed or got the mone}^ somehow. Such a man would spend it liberally enough when he had it, give gen- erousl}^ — na}^ drop a tear over the fate of the poor fellow whom he relieved. I don't believe a word he says, but I never ac- cused him of stinginess about money. That is a fault of much more virtuous people than he. Mr. Laurence is ready enough with his purse when there are anj^body's guineas in it. Still when I went to bed in the room, in his room ; when I think how I admire, dislike, and have abused him, a certain dim feeling of apprehension filled my mind at the midnight hour. What if I should see his lean figure in the black-satin breeches, his sin- ister smile, his long thin finger pointing to me in the moonlight (for I am in bed, and have popped my candle out), and he should say, "You mistrust me, j'ou hate me, do you? And you, don't you know how Jack, Tom, and Harry, your brother authors, hate you ? " I grin and laugh in the moonlight, in the midnight, in the silence. " O you ghost in black-satin breeches and a wig! I like to be hated by some men," I say. "I know men whose lives are a scheme, whose laughter is a con- spiracy, whose smile means something else, whose hatred is a cloak, and I had rather these men should hate me than not." " My good sir," sa3'S he, with a ghastly grin on his lean face, *' you have your wish." '^ Apjesf" I say. "Please let me go to sleep. I shan't sleep any the worse because — " " Because there are insects in the bed, and they sting you?" (This is only by way of illustration, my good sir ; the animals don't bite me now. All the house at present seems to me ex- 222 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. cellentl}' clean.) " 'Tis absurd to affect this indifference. If you are thin-skinned, and the reptiles bite, they keep 3'^ou from sleep." ' ' There are some men who cr}' out at a flea-bite as loud as if they were torn b}- a vulture," I gi*owl. " Men of the genus irritahile^ Yny worthy good gentleman ! — and 3'ou are one." *' Yes, sir, I am of the profession, as you say ; and I dare say make a great shouting and cr3'ing at a small hurt." ' ' You are ashamed of that quality by which 3'ou earn your subsistence, and such reputation as 3'ou have? Your sensi- bilit3' is 3'our livelihood, m3^ worth3' friend. You feel a pang of pleasure or pain ? It is noted in 3^our memor3', and some day or other makes its appearance in 3'our manuscript. Wh3', in 3^our last Roundabout rubbish 3^ou mention reading 3'om' first novel on the da3' when King George IV. was crowned. I re- member him in his cradle at St. James's, a lovel3' little babe ; a gilt Chinese railing was before him, and I dropped the tear of sensibiUt3^ as I gazed on the sleeping cherub.'* " A tear — a fiddlestick, Mr. Sterne," I growled out, for of course I knew m3^ friend in the wig and satin breeches to be no other than the notorious, na3', celebrated Mr. Laurence Sterne. " Does not the sight of a beautiful infant charm and melt you, mon ami ? If not, I pity 3 ou. Yes, he was beautiful. I was in London the 3^ear he was born. I used to breakfast at the ' Mount Coffee-house.' I did not become the fashion until two years later, when m3' ' Tristram ' made his appearance, who has held his own for a hundred 3^ears. B3' the wa3^ mow bon monsieur^ how many authors of your present time will last tiU the next centur3' ? Do 3'OU think Brown will ? " I laughed with scorn as I lay in my bed (and so did the ghost give a ghastl3" snigger) . "Brown!" I roared. " One of the most over-rated men that ever put pen to paper ! " " What do you think of Jones?" I grew indignant with this old C3'nic. " As a reasonable ghost, come out of the other world, you don't mean," I said, " to ask me a serious opinion of Mr. Jones? His books ma3^ be very good reading for maid-servants and school-bo3's, but 3'ou don't ask me to read them? As a scholar 3'ourself 3^ou must know that — " " WeU, then, Robinson?" ** Robinson, I am told, has merit. I dare say ; I never hav« ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 223 been able to read his books, and can't, therefore, form an}' opinion about Mr. Robinson. At least j^ou will allow that I am not speaking in a prejudiced manner about him.'' "Ah! I see you men of letters have your cabals and jealousies, as we had in my time. Tliere was an Irish fellow bj' the name of Gouldsmith, who used to abuse me ; but he went into no genteel company — and faith ! it mattered little, his praise or abuse. I never was more surprised than when I heard that Mr. Irving, an American gentleman of parts and elegance, had wrote the fellow's life. To make a hero of that man, my dear sir, 'twas ridiculous ! You followed in the fashion, I hear, and chose to lay a wreath before this queer little idol. Preposterous ! A pretty writer, w^ho has turned some neat couplets. Bah ! I have no patience with Master Posterity, that has chosen to take up this fellow, and make a hero of him ! And there was another gentleman of my time, Mr. Thiefcatcher Fielding, forsooth ! a fellow with the strength, and the tastes, and the manners of a porter ! What madness has possessed 3^ou all to bow before that Calvert Butt of a man ? — a creature without elegance or sensibilit}' ! The dog had spirits, certainly. I remember m}^ Lord Bathurst praising them : but as for reading his books — 7na foi^ I would as lief go and dive for tripe in a cellar. The man's vulgarit}' stifles me. He wafts me whiffs of gin. Tobacco and onions are in his great coarse laugh, which choke me, pardi ; and I don't think much better of the other fellow — the Scots' gallipot pur- vej'or — Peregrine Clinker, Humphrey Random — how did the fellow call his rubbish ? Neither of these men had the bel air., the hon ton., the/e ne sgais quoy. Pah ! If I meet them in my walks by our Stygian river, I give them a wide berth, as that hybrid apothecary fellow would say. An ounce of civet, good apothecary ; horrible, horrible ! The mere thought of the coarseness of those men gives me the chair de poule. Mr. Fielding, especially, has no more sensibilit}^ than a butcher in Fleet Market. He takes his heroes out of ale-house kitchens, or worse places still. And this is the person whom Posterit}' has chosen to honor along with me — me! Faith, Monsieur Posterity, you have put me in pretty compan}^ and I see 3'ou are no wiser than we were in our time. Mr. Fielding, forsooth ! Mr. Tripe and Onions ! Mr. Cowheel and Gin ! Thank you for nothing, Monsieur Posterity ! " "And so," thought I, "even among these Stj'gians this env}'^ and quarrelsomeness (if you will permit me the word) survive? What a pitiful meanness ! To be sure, I can under- 224 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. stand this feeling to a certain extent ; a sense of justice will prompt it. In my own case, I often feel m3'self forced to protest against the absurd praises lavished on contemporaries. Yesterda}^, for instance, Lad}' Jones was good enough to praise one of my works. Tres Men. But in the very next minute she began, with quite as great enthusiasm, to praise Miss Hobson's last romance. M3' good creature, what is that woman's praise worth who absolutel}' admires the writings of Miss Hobson ? I offer a Mend a bottle of '44 claret, fit for a pontifical supper. ' This is capital wine,' saj^s he ; ' and now we have finished the bottle, will you give me a bottle of that ordinaire we drank the other da}'?' Very well, m}- good man. You are a good judge — of ordinaire, I dare say. Nothing so provokes my anger, and rouses my sense of justice, as to hear other men unde- servedty praised. In a word, if 3'ou wish to remain friends with me, don't praise anybod3^ You tell me that the Venus de' Medici is beautiful, or Jacob Omnium is tall. Que diable! Can't I judge for myself? Haven't I eyes and a foot-rule? I don't think the Venus is so handsome, since 3'ou press me. She is pretty, but she has no expression. Ana as for Mr. Omnium, I can see much taller men in a fair for twopence." "And so," I said, turning round to Mr. Sterne, " 3'ou are actuall}- jealous of Mr. Fielding? O you men of letters, you men of letters ! Is not the world (3'our world, I mean) big enough for all of you ? " I often travel in my sleep. I often of a night find myself walking in my night-gown about the gra3^ streets. It is awk- ward at first, but somehow nobody makes any remark. I glide along over the ground with my naked feet. The mud does not wet them. The"passers-by do not tread on them. I am wafted over the ground, down the stairs, thi'ough the doors. This sort of travelling, dear friends, I am sui'e you have all of you indulged. Well, on the night in question (and, if you wish to know the precise date, it was the 31st of September last), after having some little conversation with Mr. Sterne in our bedroom, I must have got up, though I protest I don't know how, and come down stairs with him into the coffee-room of the " Hotel Dessein," where the moon was shining, and a cold supper was laid out. I forget what we had — " vol-au-vent d'oeufs de Phenix — agneau aux pistaches a la Barmecide," — what mat- ters what we had ? " As regards supper this is certain, the less 3^ou have of it the better." ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 225 That is what one of the guests remarked, — a shabby old man, in a wig, and such a dirt}-, ragged, disreputable dressing- gown that I should have been quite surprised at him, only one never is surprised in dr under certain circumstances. " I can't eat 'em now," said the greasy man (with his false old teeth, I wonder he could eat anything). "I remember Alvanle}^ eating three suppers once at Carlton House — one night de petite comite." " Petit comite, sir," said Mr. Sterne. " Dammy, sir, let me tell my own story my own way. I say, one night at Carlton House, playing at blind hooke}^ with York, Wales, Tom Raikes, Prince Boothby, and Dutch Sam the boxer, Alvanle}^ ate three suppers, and won three and twenty hundred pounds in ponies. Never saw a fellow with such an appetite, except Wales in his good time. But he de- stro3^ed the finest digestion a man ever had with maraschino, by tJove — always at it." " Try mine," said Mr. Sterne. "What a doosid queer box," says Mr. Brummell. " I had it from a Capuchin friar in this town. The box is but a horn one ; but to the nose of sensibility Araby's perfume is not more delicate." "I call it doosid stale old rappee," says Mr. Brummell — (as for me I declare I could not smell anything at all in either of the boxes.) " Old boy in smock-frock, take a pinch? " The old boy in the smock-frock, as Mr. Brummell called him, was a very old man, with long white beard, wearing, not a smock-frock, but a shirt ; and he had actually nothing else save a rope round his neck, which hung behind his chair in the queerest way. "Fair sir," he said, turning to Mr. Brummell, " when the Prince of Wales and his father laid siege to our town — " "What nonsense are you talking, old cock?" says Mr. Brummell ; " Wales was never here. His late Majestj^ George IV. passed through on his way to Hanover. M}^ good man, you don't seem to know what's up at all. What is he talkin' about the siege of Calais ? I lived here fifteen 3^ears ! Ought to know. What's his old name ? " " I am Master Eustace of Saint Peter's," said the old gen- tleman in the shirt. " When my Lord King Edward laid siege to this cit}^ — " " Laid siege to Jericho ! " cries Mr. Brummell. " The old man is cracked — cracked, sir ! " u — Laid siege to this city," continued the old man, " I and 15 226 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. five more promised Messire Gautier de Maun}' that we would give ourselves up as ransom for the place. And we came before our Lord King Edward, attired as 3^ou see, and the fair queen begged our lives out of her gramerc}^" "Queen, nonsense! 3'ou mean the Princess of Wales — pretty woman, petit nez retrousse^ grew monstrous stout ! " suggested Mr. Brummell, whose reading was evidently not extensive. " Sir Sidney Smith was a fine fellow, great talker, hook nose, so has Lord Cochrane, so has Lord Wellington. She was very sweet on Sir Sidney." ' ' Your acquaintance with the history of Calais does not seem to be considerable," said Mr. Sterne to Mr. Brummell, with a shrug. ' ' Don't it, bishop ? — for I conclude 3'OU are a bishop by your wig. I know Calais as well as any man. I lived here for 3'ears before I took that confounded consulate at Caen. Lived in this hotel, then at Leleux's. People used to stop here. Good fellows used to ask for poor George Brummell ; Plertford did, so did the Duchess of Devonshire. Not know Calais indeed ! That is a good joke. Had many a good dinner here : sorr}^ I ever left it." " My Lord King Edward," chirped the queer old gentleman in the shirt, " colonized the place with his English, after we had yielded it up to him. I have heard tell they kept it for nigh three hundred 3'ears, till m3' Lord de Guise took it from a fair Queen, Mar3' of blessed memor3', a hoi}' woman. Eh, but Sire Gautier of Maun3' was a good knight, a valiant cap- tain, gentle and courteous withal ! Do 3'ou remember his ran- soming the ? " " What is the old fellow twaddlin' about?" cries Brummell. ' ' He is talking about some knight ? — I never spoke to a knight, and ver3' seldom to a baronet. Firkins, m3' butterman, was a knight — a knight and alderman. Wales knighted him once on going into the Cit3'." " I am not surprised that the gentleman should not under- stand Messire Eustace of St. Peter's," said the ghostl3' indi- vidual addressed as Mr. Sterne. " Your reading doubtless has not been ver3' extensive ? " " Damm3', sir, speak for 3'ourself! " cries Mr. Brummell, testil3'. "I never professed to be a reading man, but I was as good as my neighbors. Wales wasn't a reading man ; York wasn't a reading man ; Clarence wasn't a reading man ; Sussex was, but he wasn't a man in societ3^ I remember reading 3'our ' Sentimental Journej',' old bo}^ : read it to the Duchess at ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 227 Beauvoir, I recollect, and she cried over it. Doosid clever an\using book, and does you great credit. Bin*on wrote doosid clever books, too ; so did Monk Lewis. George Spencer was an elegant poet, and my dear Duchess of Devonshire, if she had not been a grande dame, would have beat 'em all, by George. Wales couldn't write : he could sing, but he couldn't spell." " Ah, you know the great world? so did T in my time, Mr. Brummell. I have had the visiting tickets of half the nobilit}' at my lodgings in Bond Street. But thej' left me there no more cared for than last year's calendar," sighed Mr. Sterne. "I wonder who is the mode in London now? One of our late arrivals, my Lord Macaulay, has prodigious merit and learning, and, faith, his histories are more amusing than any novels, my own included." "Don't know, I'm sure^ not in my line. Pick this bone of chicken," says Mr. Brummell, trifling with a skeleton bird before him. "I remember in this city of Calais worse fare than yon bird," said old Mr. Eustace of Saint Peter's. "Marry, sirs, when my Lord King Edward laid siege to us, lucky was he who could get a slice of horse for his breakfast, and a rat was sold at the price of a hare." " Hare is coarse food, never tasted rat," remarked the Beau. " Table-d'hote poor fare enough for a man like me, who has been accustomed to the best of cookery. But rat — stifle me ! I couldn't swallow that : never could bear hardship at all." " We had to bear enough when my Lord of England pressed us. 'Twas pitiful to see the faces of our women as the siege went on, and hear the little ones asking for dinner." ' ' Always a bore, children. At dessert, they are bad enough, but at dinner they're the deuce and all," remarked Mr. Brum- mell. Messire Eustace of St. Peter's did not seem to pay much attention to the Beau's remarks, but continued his own train of thought as~old men will do. "I hear," said he, "that there has actually been no war between us of France and you men of England for wellnigh fifty year. Ours has ever been a nation of warriors. And besides her regular found men-at-arms, 'tis said the English of the pres- ent time have more than a hundred thousand of archers with weapons that will carry for half a mile. And a multitude have come amongst us of late from a great Western country, never so much as heard of in my time — valiant men and great drawers 228 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. of the long bow, and they say they have ships in armor that no shot can penetrate. Is it so? Wonderful; wonderful! The best armor, gossips, is a stout heart." " And if ever manl}' heart beat under shirt-frill, thine is that heart. Sir Eustace ! " cried Mr. Sterne, enthusiastically. " We, of France, were never accused of lack of courage, sir, in so far as I know," said Messire Eustace. " We have shown as much in a thousand wars with j^ou English by sea and land ; and sometimes we conquered, and sometimes, as is the fortune of war, we were discomfited. And notably in a great sea-fight which befell off" Ushant on the first of June — Our Amiral, Messire Villaret de Joyeuse, on board his galleon named the ' Vengeur,' being sore pressed by an English bombard, rather than yield the crew of his ship to mercy, determined to go down with all on board of her: and to the cry of Vive la Re- pub— or, I would say, of Notre Dame a la Rescousse, he and his crew all sank to an immortal grave — " " Sir," said I, looking with amazement at the old gentleman, " surel}^ surel}^, there is some mistake in your statement. Permit me to observe that the action of the first of June took place five hundred 3^ears after j^our time, and — " "Perhaps I am confusing my dates," said the old gentle- man, with a faint blush. " You sa}' I am mixing up the trans- actions of my time on earth with the storj^ of my successors? It may be so. We take no count of a few centuries more or less in our dwelUng by the darkUng Stygian river. Of late, there came amongst us a good knight, Messire de Cambronne, who fought against you English in the countr}^ of Flanders, being captain of the guard of my Lord the King of France, in a famous battle where 3^ou English would have been utterly routed but for the succor of the Prussian heathen. This Mes- sire de Cambronne, when bidden to yield b}^ you of England, answered this, ' The guard dies but never surrenders ; ' and fought a long time afterwards, as became a good knight. In our wars with 3'ou of England it may have pleased the Fates to give you the greater success, but on our side, also, there has been no lack of brave deeds performed by brave men." " King Edward may have been the victor, sir, as being the strongest, but you are the hero of the siege of Calais ! " cried Mr. Sterne. "Your story is sacred, and 3^our name has been blessed for five hundred years. Wherever men speak of patriot- ism and sacrifice, Eustace of Saint Pierre shall be beloved and remembered. I prostrate myself before the bare feet which stood before King Edward; What collar of chivalry is to be ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 229 compared to that glorious order which you wear? Think, sir, how out of the m^^riad milUoiis of our race, you, and some few more, stand forth as exemplars of duty and honor. Fortunati nimium ! " "Sir," said the old gentleman, "I did but my duty at a painful moment ; and 'tis matter of wonder to me that men talk still, and glorify such a trifling matter. By our Lad^^'s grace, in the fair kingdom of France, there are scores of thousands of men, gentle and simple, who would do as I did. Does not every sentinel at his post, does not every archer in the front of battle, brave it, and die where his captain bids him? Who am I that I should be chosen out of ail France to be an example of fortitude? I braved no tortures, though these I trust I would have endured with a good heart. I was subject to threats only. Who was the Roman knight of whom the Latin clerk Horatius teUs?" " A Latin clerk ? Faith, I forget my Latin," says Mr. Brum- mell. " Ask the parson, here." " Messire Regulus, I remember, was his name. Taken prisoner by the Saracens, he gave his knightly word, and was permitted to go seek a ransom among his own people. Being unable to raise the sum that was a fitting ransom for such a knight, he returned to Afric, and cheerfully submitted to the tortures which the Paynims inflicted. And 'tis said he took leave of his friends as gayly as though he were going to a vil- lage kermes, or riding to his garden house in the suburb of the city." " Great, good, glorious man ! " cried Mr. Sterne, very much moved. "Let me embrace that gallant hand, and bedew it with my tears ! As long as honor lasts thy name shall be re- membered. See this dew-drop twinkUng on my cheek ! 'Tis the sparkling tribute that Sensibility pays to Valor. Though in my life and practice I may turn from Virtue, believe me, I never have ceased to honor her ! Ah, Virtue ! Ah, Sensibility ! Oh — " Here Mr. Sterne was interrupted by a monk of the Order of St. Francis, who stepped into the room, and begged us all to take a pinch of his famous old rappee. I suppose the snuff was very pungent, for, with a great start, I woke up ; and now perceived that I must have been dreaming altogether. ' ' Des- sein's " of now-a-days is not the " Dessein's " which Mr. Sterne, and Mr. Brummell, and I recollect in the good old times. The town of Calais has bought the old hotel, and "Dessein" has gone over to " Quillacq's." And I was there yesterday. And 230 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. I remember old diligences, and old postilions in pigtails and jack- boots, who wero once as alive as 1 am, and whose cracking whips 1 have heard in tlie midnight man}' and many a time. Now, wliere are tiiey? Behold they have been ferried over Styx, and have passed away into limbo. J wonder what time does my boat go? Ah ! Here comes the waiter bringing me my little bill. ON SOME CARP AT SANS SOUCI. We have lately made the acqnaintancc of an old lady of ninety, who has p:issed the last twenty -five 3*ears of her old life in ^a great metropolitan establishment, the workhonse, namely, of the parish of Saint Lazarus. Sta}' — twent3'-three or four years aao, she came out once, and thought to earn a little money by hop-picking ; but being overworked, and having to lie out at night, she got a palsy which has incapacitated her from all further labor, and has caused her poor old limbs to shake ever since. An illustratio'.i of that dismal ])roverb which tells us how poverty mikes us acquainted with strange bed-fellows, this poor old shaking body has lo lay herself down every night in lier workhouse bed by the side of some other old woman with whom sh3 may or ma\' not agree. She herself can't be a very pleasant bid-fellow, poor thing I with her shaking old limbs and cold feet. She lies awake a deal of the night, to be sure, not thinking of happy old times, for hers never were happy; but sleepless with aches, and agues, and rheum itism of old age. '•The gentleman gave me brandy-and-water," she said, her old voicj shaking with rapture at the thought. 1 never had a great love for Queen Charlotte, but I like her better now from what this old lady told me. The Qieen, who loved snuff herself, has left a legac}' of snuff to certain poorhonses ; and, in her watchful nights, this old woman takes a pinch of Queen Char- lotte's snuff, '" and it do comfort me, sii-, t'lat it do ! " Puive- vis exigai mnnus. Here is a forlorn aged creature, shaking with palsy, with no soul among the great struggling multitude of mankind to (tare for her. not quite trampled out of life, but past and forgotten in the rush, made a little happy, and soothed in her hours of unrest by this penn}^ legacy. Let me think as ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 231 I write. (The next month's sermon, thank goodness ! is safe to press.) This discourse will appear at the season when I have read that wassail-bowls make their appearance ; at the season of pantomime, turkey and sausages, plum-puddings, jolhfications for schoolbo3^s ; Christmas bills, and reminiscences more or less sad and sweet for elders. If we oldsters are not merry, we shall be having a semblance of merriment. We shall see the young folks laughing round the holly-bush. We shall pass the bottle round cosily as we sit by the fire. That old thing will have a sort of festival too. Beef, beer, and pudding will be served to her for that daj' also. Christmas falls on a Thursday. Friday is the workhouse da}' for coming out. Mary, remember that old Goody Twoshoes has her in- vitation for Friday, 26th December ! Ninet}- is she, jjoor old soul? Ah! what a bonny face to catch under a mistletoe I *' Yes, ninet}'-, sir," she says, "' and m}- mother was a hundred, and my grandmother was a hundred and two." Herself ninet}-, her mother a hundred, her grandmother a hundred and two? What a queer calculation ! Ninety ! "Very good, granny : you were born, than, in 1772. Your mother, we will sa3% was twenty-seven whan you were born, and was born therefore in 1745. Your grandmother was thirty when her daughter was born, and was born therefore in 1715. We will begin with the present granny first. My good old creature, j^ou can't of course remimbar, bat that little gentle- man for whom your mother was laundress in tiie Temple was the ingenious Mr. Goldsmith, author of a " History of Eng- land," the " Vicar of Wakefield," and many diverting pieces. You were brought almost an infant to his chambei-s in Brick Court, and he gave you some sugar-candy, for the doctor was alwa3'S good to children. That gentleman who wellnigh smoth- ered 3^ou b}' sitting down on 3'ou as 3'ou lay in a chair asleep was the learned Mr. S. Johnson, whose history of '' Rasselas " 3^ou have never read, m3^ poor soul ; and whose tiaged v of "Irene" I don't believe an3^ man in these kingdoms ever perused. That tips3^ Scotch gentleman who used to come to the chambers sometimes, and at whom everybody langlied, wrote a more amusing book than an3' of the scholai's. 3onr Mr. Burke and your Mr. Johnson, and 3-our Doctor Goldsmith. Your father often took him home in a chair to his lodgings : and has done as much for Parson Sterne in Bond Street, the famous wit. Of course, m3^ good creature, vou remember the Gordon Riots, and cr3'ing No Popery before Mr. Langdale's house, 232 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. the Popish distiller's, and that bonn}' fire of my Lord Mans- field's books in Bloomsbury Square? Bless us, what a heap of illuminations 3^ou have seen ! For the glorious victory over the Americans at Breed's Hill ; for the peace in 1814, and the beautiful Chinese bridge in St. James's Park ; for the corona- tion of his Majesty, whom 3^ou recollect as Prince of Wales, Good}', don't you ? Yes ; and 3^ou went in a procession of laundresses to pa}' 3'our respects to his good lad}', the injured Queen of England, at Brandenburg House ; and 3'ou remember 3' our mother told 3'ou how she was taken to see the Scotch lords executed at the Tower. And as for your gi^andmother, she was born five 3'ears after the battle of Malplaquet, she was ; where her poor father was killed, fighting like a bold Briton for the Queen. With the help of a " Wade's Chronolog}"," I can make out ever so queer a histor3^ for 3'ou, m3^ poor old bod3', and a pedigree as authentic as man3^ in the peerage-books. Peerage-books and pedigrees ? What does she know about them? Battles and victories, treasons, kings, and beheadings, literar3' gentlemen, and the like, what have the3' ever been to her? Grann3^, did 3'ou ever hear of General Wolfe? Your mother may have seen him embark, and 3'our father ma3' have carried a musket under him. Your grandmother may have cried huzza for Marlborough ; but what is the Prince Duke to you, and did 3'ou ever so much as hear tell of his name? How many hundred or thousand of 3^ears had that toad lived who was in the coal at the defunct Exhibition ? — and 3'et he was not a bit better informed than toads seven or eight hundred 3'ears 3'ounger. "Don't talk to me 3'our nonsense about Exhibitions, and Prince Dukes, and toads in coals, or coals in toads, or what is it? " sa3's grann3'. " I know there was a good Queen Charlotte, for she left me snuff" ; and it comforts me of a night when I lie awake." To me there is something very touching in the notion of that little pinch of comfort doled out to grann3', and gratefully inhaled b3' her in the darkness. Don't 3'ou remember what tra- ditions there used to be of chests of plate, bulses of diamonds, laces of inestimable value, sent out of the countr3' privatel3' by the old Queen, to enrich certain relations in M-ckl-nb-rg Str-l-tz ? Not all the treasure went. Non omnis moritur. A poor old palsied thing at midnight is made happy sometimes as she lifts her shaking old hand to her nose. Gliding; noiselesslv amono: the beds where lie the poor creatures huddled in their cheerless dormitor}^, I fanc3' an old ghost with a snufl*-box that does not ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 233 creak. "There, Goody, take of m}- rappee. You will not sneeze, and I shall not sa}^ ' God bless 3'ou.' But you will think kindl}' of old Queen Charlotte, won't 3'ou? Ah ! I had a man}^ troubles, a many troubles. I was a prisoner almost so much as you are. I had to eat boiled mutton ever}^ day : entre nous, I abominated it. But I never complained. I swallowed it. I made the best of a hard life. We have all our burdens to bear. But hark ! I hear the cock-crow, and snuff the morn- ing air." And with this the ro3'al ghost vanishes up the chim- ney — if there be a chimne}^ in that dismal harem, where poor old Twoshoes and her companions pass their nights — their dreary nights, their restless nights, their cold long nights, shared in what glum companionship, illumined by what a feeble taper ! "Did I understand 3'OU, my good Twoshoes, to say that 3'our mother was seven-and-twent3^ years old when you were born, and that she married your esteemed father when she her- self was twenty-five? 1745, then, was the date of your dear mother's birth. I dare say her father was absent in the Low Countries, with his Ro3'al Highness the Duke of Cumberland, under whom he had the honor of carrying a halberd at the famous engagement of Fontenoy — or if not there, he may have been at Preston Pans, under General Sir John Cope, when the wild Highlanders broke through all the laws of discipline and the English lines ; and, being on the spot, did he see the famous ghost which didn't appear to Colonel Gardiner of the Dragoons ? My good creature, is it possible 3^ou don't remember that Doc- tor Swift, Sir Robert Walpole (my Lord Orford, as you justl3^ say), old Sarah Marlborough, and little Mr. Pope, of Twitnam, died in the year of your birth? What a wretched memory you have ! What? haven't the3' a library, and the commonest books of reference at the old convent of Saint Lazarus, where you dwell?" "Convent of Saint Lazarus, Prince AVilliam, Dr. Swift, Atossa, and Mr. Pope, of Twitnam ! What is the gentleman talking about?" says old Goody, with a "Ho! ho!" and a laugh like an old parrot — 3^ou know they live to be as old as Methuselah, parrots do, and a parrot of a hundred is compar- atively 3'oung (ho! ho! ho!). Yes, and likewise carps live to an immense old age. Some which Frederick the Great fed at Sans Souci are there now, with great humps of blue mould ok their old backs ; and they could tell all sorts of queer stories, if they chose to speak — but they are very silent, carps are — of their nature peu communicatives. Oh ! what has been thy 234 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. long life, old Goody, but a dole of bread and water and a perch on a cage ; a drearj^ swim round and round a Lethe of a pond ? What are Rossbach or Jena to those mouldj' ones, and do they know it is a gi*andchild of England who brings bread to feed them ? No ! Those Sans Souci carps may live to be a thousand 3^ears old and have nothing to tell but that one day is like another ; and the histor3' of friend Good}' Twoshoes has not much more variet}' than theirs. Hard labor, hard fare, hard bed, numbing cold all night, and gnawing hunger most da^'s. That is her lot. Is it lawful in my prayers to say, ''Thank heaven, I am not as one of these?" If I were eighty, would I like to feel the hunger always gnawing, gnawing? to have to get up and make a bow when Mr. Bumble the beadle entered the common room? to have to listen to Miss Prim, who came to give me her ideas of the next world ? If I were eighty, I own I should not like to have to sleep with auv^ther gentleman of my own age, gouty, a bad sleeper, kicking in his old dreams, and snoring ; to march down m3'vale of years at word of command, accommodating m}' tottering old steps to those of the other prisoners in m}' ding}*, hopeless old gang ; to hold out a trem- bling hand for a sicky pittance of gruel, and sa}-, " Thank 3'ou, ma'am," to Miss Prim, when she has done reading her sermon. John ! when Good}' Twoshoes comes next Friday, I desire she may not be disturbed by theological controversies. You have a very fair voice, and I heard you and the maids singing a hymn very sweetly the other night, and was thankful that our humble household should be in such harmony. Poor old Two- shoes is so old and toothless and quak}-, that she can't sing a bit ; but don't be giving yourself airs over her, because she can't sing and you can. Make her comfortable at our kitchen hearth. Set that old kettle to sing by our hob. Warm her old stomach with nut-brown ale and a toast laid in the fire. Be kind to the poor old school-girl of ninety, who has had leave to come out for a day of Christmas holiday. Shall there be many more Christmases for thee ? Think of the ninety she has seen already ; the four-score and ten cold, cheerless, nipping New Years ! If you were in her place, would you like to have a remem- brance of better early days, when you were young, and happy, and loving, perhaps ; or would you prefer to have no past on which your mind could rest? About the year 1788, Goody, were your cheeks rosy, and your eyes bright, and did some 3'oung fellow in powder and a pigtail look in them ? We may grow old, but to us some stories never are old. On a sudden ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 235 they rise up, not dead, but living — not forgotten, but freshly remembered. The eyes gleam on us as they used to do. The dear voice thrills in our hearts. The rapture of the meeting, the terrible, terrible parting, again and again the tragedy is acted over. Yesterda}^, in the street, I saw a pair of eyes so like two which used to brighten at m}^ coming once, that the whole past came back as I walked lonel}^, in the rush of the Strand, and I was 3'oung again in the midst of jo3'S and sor- rows, alike sweet and sad, alike sacred and fondly remembered. If I tell a tale out of school, will an}- harm come to my old school-girl? Once, a lady gave her a half-sovereign, which was a source of great pain and anxiety to Goody Twoshoes. She sewed it away in her old stays somewhere, thinking here at least was a safe investment — ( vestis — a vest — an investment, — pardon me, thou poor old thing, but I cannot help the pleas- antrj'). And what do 3'ou think:' Another pensionuaire of the establishment cut the coin out of Goody's stays — an old woman who wettt upon two crutches/ Faugh, the old witch! What! Violence amongst these toothless, tottering, trembling, feeble ones? Robbery amongst the penniless? Dogs coming and snatching Lazarus's crumbs out of his lap? Ah, how indignant Goody was as she told the story I To that pond at Potsdam where the carps live for hundreds of hundreds of years, with hunches of blue mould on their back, I dare say the little Prince and Princess of Preussen-Britannien come sometimes with crumbs and cakes to feed the mouldy ones. Those eyes may have goggled from beneath the weeds at Napoleon's jack-boots : they have seen Frederick's lean shanks reflected in their pool ; and perhaps Monsieur de Voltaire has fed them — and now, for a crumb of biscuit they will fight, push, hustle, rob, squabble, gobble, relapsing into their tranquillity when the ignoble strug- gle is over. Sans souci, indeed ! It is mighty well writing '' Sans souci" over the gate; but where is the gate through which Care has not slipped ? She perches on the shoulders or' the sentry in the sentry-box : she whispers the porter sleeping in his arm-chair : she glides up the staircase, and lies down between the king and queen in their bed-royal : this ver}^ night I dare say she will perch upon poor old Goody Twoshoes's meagre bolster, and whisper, " Will the gentleman and those ladies ask me again ? No, no ; they will forget poor old Twoshoes." Goody ! For shame of yourself ! Do not be cynical. Do not mistrust your fellow-creatures. What? Has the Christmas morning dawned upon thee ninet}^ times? For four-score and ten years has it been thy lot to totter on this earth, hungry 236 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. and obscure? Peace and good- will to thee, let us sa}^ at this Christmas season. Come, drink, eat, rest awhile at our hearth, thou poor old pilgrim ! And of the bread which God's bounty gives us, I pray, brother reader, we may not forget to set aside a part for those noble and silent poor, from whose innocent hands war has torn the means of labor. Enough ! As I hope for beef at Christmas, I vow a note shall be sent to Saint Laza- rus Union House, in which Mr. Roundabout requests the honor of Mrs. Twoshoes's company on Friday, 26th December. AUTOUR DE MON CHAPEAU. Never have I seen a more noble tragic face. In the centre of the forehead there was a great furrow of care, towards which the brows rose piteousl}^ What a deep solemn grief in the eyes ! They looked blankly at the object before them, but through it, as it were, and into the grief beyond. In moments of pain, have you not looked at some indifferent object so? It mingles dumb!}' with j^our grief, and remains afterwards con- nected with it in your mind. It ma}^ be some indifferent thing — a book which 3'ou were reading at the time when you re- ceived her farewell letter (how well you remember the paragraph afterwards — the shape of the words, and their position on the page) ; the words you were writing when your mother came in, and said it was all over — she was married — Emily married — to that insignificant httle rival at whom you have laughed a hundred times in her company. Well, well ; my friend and reader, whoe'er }'0u be — old man or young, wife or maiden — you have had your grief-pang. B03', j^ou have lain awake the first night at school, and thought of home. Worse still, man, you have parted from the dear ones with bursting heart : and, lonely boj^, recall the bolstering an unfeeling comrade gave j'ou ; and, lonely man, just torn from 3'our children — their little tokens of affection yet in your pocket — pacing the deck at even- ing in the midst of the roaring ocean, 3'ou can remember how you were told that supper was read}^ and how j^ou went down to the cabin and had brandy-and-water and biscuit. You re- member the taste of them. Yes ; for ever. You took them whilst you and your Grief were sitting together, and 3'our Grief clutched 3'ou round the soul. Serpent, how you have writhed ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 237 round me, and bitten me. Remorse, Remembrance, &c., come in the night season, and I feel 3'ou gnawing, gnawing ! . . . I tell 3"Ou that man's face was like Laocoon's (which, b}- the way, I alwa3^s think over-rated. The real head is at Brussels, at the Duke Daremberg's, not at Rome). That man ! What man ? That man of whom I said that his magnificent countenance exhibited the noblest tragic woe. He was not of European blood. He was handsome, but not of European beautj^ His face white — not of a Northern white- ness ; his e3^es protruding somewhat, and rolling in their grief. Those eyes had seen the Orient sun, and his beak was the eagle's. His lips were full. The beard, curling round them, was unkempt and tawny. The locks were of a deep, deep cop- pery red. The hands, swart and powerful, accustomed to the rough grasp of the wares in which he dealt, seemed unused to the flimsy artifices of the bath. He came from the Wilderness, and its sands were on his robe, his cheek, his tattered sandal, and the hardy foot it covered. And his grief — whence came his sorrow? I will tell 3'ou. He bore it in his hand. He had evidently just concluded the compact by which it became his. His business was that of a purchaser of domestic raiment. At earl3' dawn — na3', at what hour when the cit3^ is alive — do we not all hear the nasal cr3^ of " Clo?" In Paris, Habits Galons^ Marchand cf habits^ is the twanging signal with which the wandering merchant makes his presence known. It was in Paris I saw this man. Where else have I not seen him ? In the Roman Ghetto — at the Gate of David, in his fathers' once imperial cit3\ The man I mean was an itinerant vender and purchaser of wardrobes — what 3"oa call an . . . Enough ! You know his name. On his left shoulder hung his bag ; and he held in that hand a white hat, which I am sure he had just purchased, and which was the cause of the grief which smote his noble features. Of course I cannot particularize the sum, but he had given too much for that hat. He felt he might have got the thing for less mone3\ It was not the amount, I am sure ; it was the principle involved. He had given fourpence (let us say) for that which threepence would have purchased. He had been done : and a manl3' shame was upon him, that he, whose energy, acute- ness, experience, point of honor, should have made him the vic- tor in any mercantile duel in which he should engage, had been overcome by a porter's wife, who very likel3' sold him the old hat, or by a student who was tired of it. I can understand his grief. Do I seem to be speaking of it in a disrespectful or flippant way ? 238 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. Then you mistake me. He had been outwitted. He had desired, coaxed, schemed, haggled, got what lie wanted, and now found he had paid too much for his bargain. You don't suppose I would ask YOU to laugh at that man's grief? It is 3'ou, clumsy C3'nic, who are disposed to sneer, whilst it may be tears of genuine S3'mpathy are trickling down this nose of mine. What do 3'ou mean b3^ laughing ? If 3'ou saw a wounded soldier on the field of battle, would 3'Ou laugh? If 3'ou saw a ewe robbed of her lamb, would 3-ou laugh, you brute? It is 3'ou who are the C3'nic, and have no feeling : and you sneer because that grief is unintelhgible to 3'ou which touches m3' finer sensibiht3\ The Old-Clothes'-Man had been defeated in one of the dail3^ battles of his most interesting, chequered, adventurous life. Have 3'Ou ever figured to 3'ourself what such a life must be? The pursuit and conquest of twopence must be the most eager and fascinating of occupations. We might all engage in that business if we would. Do not whist-players, for example, toil, and think, and lose their temper over sixpenn3' points ? The3' bring study, natural genius, long forethought, memory, and careful historical experience to bear upon their favorite labor. Don't tell me that it is the sixpenny points, and five shillings the rub, which keeps them for hours over their painted jDaste- board. It is the desire to conquer. Hours pass b3'. Night glooms. Dawn, it may be, rises unheeded ; and they sit call- ing for fresh cards at the " Portland," or the " Union," while waning candles splutter in the sockets, and languid waiters snooze in the ante-room. Sol rises. Jones has lost four pounds : Brown has won two ; Robinson lurks away to his famil3^ house and (mayhap indignant) Mrs. R. Hours of even- ing, night, morning, have passed away whilst they have been waging this sixpenny- battle. What is the loss of four pounds to Jones, the gain of two to Brown? B. is, perhaps, so rich that two pounds more or less are as naught to him ; J. is so hopelessl3^ involved that to win four pounds cannot benefit his creditors, or alter his condition ; but they play for that stake : the3' put forward their best energies : the3' ruff, finesse (what are the technical words, and how do I know?) It is but a six- penny- game if you like ; but they want to win it. So as re- gards m3' friend 3'onder with the hat. He stakes his mone3' : he wishes to win the game, not the hat merely. I am not prepared to sa3' that he is not inspired by a noble ambition. Caesar wished to be first in a vi]la2:e. If first of a hundred yokels, wh3^ not first of two? And m3' friend the old-clothes - ROUNDABOUT PAPEKS. 239 man wishes to win his game, as well as to turn his little six- pence. Suppose in the game of life — and it is but a twopenny game after all — you are equally eager of winning. Shall you be ashamed of your ambition, or glory in it? There are games, too, which are becoming to particular periods of life. I remem- ber in the days of our youth, when my friend Arthur Bowler was an eminent cricketer. Slim, swift, strong, well-built he presented a goodly appearance on the ground in his flannel uniform. Militdsti non sine gloria^ Bowler my bo}* ! Hush! We tell no tales. Mum is the word. Yonder comes Charley his son. Now Charley his son has taken the field and is famous among the eleven of his school. Bowler senior, with his ca- pacious waistcoat, &c. , waddling after a ball, would present an absurd object, whereas it does the ej^es good to see Bowler junior scouring the plain — a young exemplar of joyful health, vigor, activity. The old boy wisely contents himself with amusements more becoming his age and waist ; takes his sober ride ; visits his farm soberly — busies himself aboul his pigs, his ploughing, his peaches, or what not ! Very small routinier amusements interest him; and (thank goodness!) nature pro- vides very kindly for kindly-disposed fogies. We relish those things which we scorned in our lusty youth, I see the young folks of an evening kindhng and glowing over their delicious novels. I look up and watch the eager ej^e flashing down the page, being, for m}^ part, perfectly contented with m^- twaddhng old volume of " Howel's Letters," or the Gentleman s Magazine. I am actually arrived at such a calm frame of mind that I like batter-pudding. I never should have believed it possible ; but it is so. Yet a little while, and I may relish water-gruel. It will be the age of mon lait de poide et mon honnet de nuit. And then — the cotton extinguisher is pulled over the old noddle, and the little flame of life is popped out. Don't 3^ou know elderly people who make learned notes in Army Lists, Peerages, and the like ? This is the batter-pudding, water-gruel of old age. The worn-out old digestion does not care for stronger food. Formerly it could swallow twelve-hours' tough reading, and digest an encyclopaedia. If I had children to educate, I would, at ten or twelve years of age, have a professor, or professoress, of whist for them, and cause them to be well grounded in that great and useful game. You cannot learn it well when you are old, any more than you can learn dancing or bilhards. In our house at home we youngsters did not play whist because we were dear obedient 240 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. children, and the elders said plajing at cards was " a waste of time." A waste of time, mj' good people ! Allans! What do elderly home-keeping people do of a night after dinner ? Darby gets his newspaper ; m3^ dear Joan her Missionary Magazine or her volume of Cumming's Sermons — and don't you know what ensues ? Over the arm of Darb^^'s arm-chair the paper flutters to the ground unheeded, and he performs the trumpet obligato que vous savez on his old pose. My dear old Joan's head nods over her sermon (awakening though the doctrine may be). Ding, ding, ding : can that be ten o'clock ? It is time to send the servants to bed, m}' dear — and to bed master and mistress go too. But they have not wasted their time playing at cards. Oh, no ! I belong to a Club where there is whist of a night; and not a little amusing is it to hear Brown speak of Thomp- son's play, and vice versa. But there is one man — Greatorex let us call him — who is the acknowledged captain and primus of all the whist-players. "We all secretly admire him. I, for my part, watch him in private life, hearken to what he says, note what he orders for dinner, and have that feeling of awe for him that I used to have as a boy for the cock of the school. Not play at whist? " Quelle triste vieillesse vous vous preparez I " were the words of the great and good Bishop of Autun. I can't. It is too late now. Too late ! too late ! Ah ! humiliating con- fession ! That jo}' might have been clutched, but the life-stream has swept us by it — the swift life-stream rushing to the nearing sea. Too late ! too late ! Twent3'stone my bo}^ ! when 3'ou read in the papers " Valse a deux temps," and all the fashion- able dances taught to adults b}^ "Miss Lightfoots," don't 3'OU feel that 3'OU would like to go in and learn ? Ah, it is too late ! You have passed the choreas^ Master Twent3'stone, and the young people are dancing without 3'ou. I don't believe much of what m3" Lord B3^ron the poet sa3's -, but when he wrote, "So for a good old gentlemanl3" vice, I think I shall put up with avarice," I think his lordship meant what he wrote, and if he practised what he preached, shall not quarrel with him. As an occupation in declining 3-ears, I de- clare I think saving is useful, amusing, and not unbecoming. It must be a perpetual amusement. It is a game that can be pla3'ed b3^ da3', b3" night, at home and abroad, and at which 3-ou must win in the long run. I am tired and want a cab. The fare to m3^ house, sa3^, is two shillings. The cabman will naturally want half a crown. I pull out m3' book. I show him the distance is exactl3' three miles and fifteen hundred and ninet3^ yards. I oflfer him my card — m3' winning card. As ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 241 he retires with the two shillings, blaspheming inwardly, every curse is a compliment to my skill. I have played him and beat him ; and a sixpence is m^' spoil and just reward. This is a game, by the way, which women play far more cleverly than we do. But what an interest it imparts to life ! During the whole drive home I know I shall have mj^ game at the journey's end ; am sure of my hand, and shall beat my adversary. Or I can pla3" in another way. I won't have a cab at all, I will wait for the omnibus : I will be one of the damp fourteen in that steam- ing vehicle. I will wait about in the rain for an hour, and 'bus after 'bus shall pass, but I will not be beat. I ivill have a place, and get it at length, with my boots wet through, and an umbrella dripping between m}^ legs. I have a rheumatism, a cold, a sore throat, a sulky evening, — a doctor's bill to-morrow perhaps? Yes, but I have won my game, and am gainer of a shilling on this rubber. If you play this game all through life it is wonderful what daily interest it has, and amusing occupation. For instance, m}^ wife goes to sleep after dinner over her volume of sermons. As soon as the dear soul is sound asleep, I advance softl}^ and puff out her candle. Her pure dreams will be all the happier without that light ; and, say she sleeps an hour, there is a penny gained. As for clothes, parbleu I there is not much money to be saved in clothes, for the fact is, as a man advances in life — as he becomes an Ancient Briton (mark the pleasantr}") — he goes without clothes. When my tailor proposes something in the way of a change of raiment, I laugh in his face. My blue coat and brass buttons will last these ten years. It is seed}^? What then ? I don't want to charm anybod}^ in particular. You sa}^ that m}' clothes are shabby ? What do I care ? When I wished to look well in somebody's eyes, the matter may have been different. But now, when I receive my bill of 10/. (let us say) at the year's end, and contrast it with old tailors' reckonings, I feel that I have played the game with master tailor, and beat him ; and my old clothes are a token of the victory. I do not like to give servants board-wages, though they are cheaper than household bills : but I know they save out of board-wages, and so beat me. This shows that it is not the money but the game which interests me. So about wine. I have it good and dear. I will trouble you to tell me where to get it good and cheap. You may as well give me the address of a shop where I can buy meat for fourpence a pound, or sov- ereigns for fifteen shilhngs apiece. At the game of auctions, 16 242 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. docks, shy wine-merchants, depend on it there is no winning ; and I would as soon think of bujing jewellery at an auction in Fleet Street as of purchasing wine from one of your dreadful needy wine-agents such as infest every man's door. Grudge myself good wine ? As soon grudge my horse corn. Merci ! that would be a very losing game indeed, and 3'our humble ser- vant has no relish for such. But in the very pursuit of saving there must be a hundred harmless delights and pleasures which we who are careless necessarily forego. What do you know about the natural history of 3'our household? Upon your honor and conscience, do 3'ou know the price of a pound of butter? Can 3'ou say what sugar costs, and how much 3'our famil3' consumes and ought to consume ? How much lard do 3'ou use in 3'our house ? As I think on these subjects I own I hang down the head of shame. I suppose for a moment that 3'ou, who are reading this, are a middle-aged gentleman, and paterfamilias. Can 3'OU answer the above questions ? You know, sir, you cannot. Now turn round, lay down the book, and suddenly ask Mrs. Jones and 3'our daughters if they can answer? They cannot. They look at one another. They pretend they can answer. They can tell 3'ou the plot and principal characters of the last novel. Some of them know something about histor3', geologv', and so forth. But of the natural histor3' of home — Mchts, and for shame on }"0U all ! Honnis soyez 1 For shame on 3'OU ? for shame on us ! In the earl3' morning I hear a sort of call or jodel under my window : and know 'tis the matutinal milkman leaving his can at m3^ gate. O household gods ! have I lived all these 3'ears and don't know the price or the quantit3" of the milk which is delivered in that can? Why don't I know? As I live, if I live till to-morrow morning, as soon as I hear the call of Lactantius, I will dash out upon him. How many cows ? How much milk, on an average, all the 3'ear round? What rent? What cost of food and dair3^ servants? What loss of animals, and average cost of purchase? If I interested m3'self properl3' about my pint (or hogshead, whatever it be) of milk, all this knowledge would ensue ; all this additional interest in life. What is this talk of m3' friend, Mr. Lewes, about objects at the seaside, and so forth ? * Objects at the seaside ? Objects at the area-bell : objects before m3^ nose : objects which the butcher brings me in his tray : which the cook dresses and puts down before me, and over which I say grace ! My daily life is surrounded with * " Seaside Studies." By G. H. Lewes. ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 243 objects which ought to interest me. The pudding I eat (or refuse, that is neither here nor there ; and, between ourselves, what I have said about batter-pudding may be taken cum grano — we are not come to that yet, except for the sake of argument or illustration) — the pudding, I say, on mj' plate, the eggs that made it, the fire that cooked it, the tablecloth on which it is laid, and so forth — are each and all of these objects a knowl- edge of which I may acquire — a knowledge of the cost and production of which I might advantageously learn? To the man who does know these things, I say the interest of life is prodigiousl}^ increased. The milkman becomes a study to him ; the baker a being he curiously and tenderly examines. Go, Lewes, and clap a hideous sea- anemone into a glass : I will put a cabman under mine, and make a vivisection of a butcher. Lares, Penates, and gentle household gods, teach me to S3^mpathize with all that comes within m}' doors ! Give me an interest in the butcher's book. Let me look forward to the ensuing number of the grocer's account with eagerness. It seems ungrateful to my kitchen- chimnej^ not to know the cost of sweeping it ; and I trust that many a man who reads this, and muses on it, will feel, like the writer, ashamed of himself, and hang down his head humbly. Now, if to this household game you could add a little money interest, the amusement would be increased far beyond the mere money value, as a game at cards for sixpence is better than a rubber for nothing. If 3'ou can interest 3'ourself about sixpence, all life is invested with a new excitement. From sunrise to sleeping you can alwa3's be playing that game — with butcher, baker, coal-merchant, cabman, omnibus man — nay, diamond merchant and stockbroker. You can bargain for a guinea over the price of a diamond necklace, or for a six- teenth per cent in a transaction at the Stock Exchange. We all know men who have this facult3' who are not ungenerous with their money. They give it on great occasions. They are more able to help than 3"ou and I who spend ours, and sa3^ to poor Prodigal who comes to us out at elbow, " M3' dear fellow, 1 should have been delighted : but I have alreacfy anticipated my quarter, and am going to ask 8crewb3^ if he can do any- thing for me." In this delightful, wholesome, ever-novel twopenn3- game, there is a danger of excess, as there is in ever3' other pastime or occupation of life. If 3^ou grow too eager for your twopence, the acquisition or the loss of it ma3^ affect 3'our peace of mind, and peace of mind is better than an3" amount of twopences. 244 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. M3^ friend, the old-clothes'-man, whose agonies over the hat have led to this rambhng disquisition, has, I ver}' much fear, b}' a too eager pursuit of small profits, disturbed the equanimity of a mind that ought to be eas}^ and happy. ' ' Had I stood out," he thinks, " I might have had the hat for threepence,'" and he doubts whether, having given fourpence for it, he will ever get back his money. M3' good Shadrach, if you go through life passionatel}' deploring the irrevocable, and allow 3'ester- day's transactions to embitter the cheerfulness of to-day and to-morrow — as lief walk down to the Seine, souse in, hats, body, clothes-bag and all, and put an end to 3^our sorrow and sordid cares. Before and since Mr. Franklin wrote his pretty apologue of the Whistle have we not all made bargains of which we repented, and coveted and acquired objects for which we have paid too dearl^^ ! Who has not purchased his hat in some market or other? There is General M'Clellan's cocked hat for example : I dare say he was eager enough to wear it, and he has learned that it is bv no means cheerful wear. There were the militar}^ beavers of Messeigneurs of Orleans : * the}' wore them gallantl}* in the face of battle ; but I suspect the^^ were glad enough to pitch them into the James River and come home in mufti. Ah, mes amis! a chacun son schakot! I was looking at a bishop the other day, and thinking, "My right reverend lord, that broad-brim and rosette must bind your great broad forehead very tightl}-, and give 3^011 man}' a headache. A good eas3' wideawake were better for 3^011', and I would like to see that honest face with a cutt3'-pipe in the middle of it." There is m}' Lord Ma3-or. M3^ once dear lord, my kind friend, when 3^om' two 3'ears' reign was over, did not 3'ou jump for jo\'^ and fling 3'our chapeau-bras out of window : and hasn't that hat cost 3^ou a i^rettj- bit of mone3'? There, in a splendid travelling chariot, in the sweetest bonnet, all trimmed with orange- blossoms and Chantilty lace, sits my Lad3^ Rosa, with old Lord Snowden b}' her side. Ah, Rosa ! what a price have 3^ou paid for that hat which 3^ou wear ; and is 3'our lad3'ship's coronet not pm'chased too dear ! Enough of hats. Sir, or Madam, I take off mine, and salute you with profound respect. * Two cadets of the House of Orleans who served as Volunteers under General M'Clellan in his campaign against Richmond. ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 245 ON ALEXANDRINES.* A LETTER TO SOME COUNTRY COUSINS. Dear Cousins, — Be pleased to receive herewith a packet of May all's photographs and copies of Illustrated News^ Illus- trated Times.) London Revieiv^ Queen., and Observer., each con- taining an account of the notable festivities of the past week. If, besides these remembrances of home, you have a mind to read a letter from an old friend, behold here it is. When I was at school, having left my parents in India, a good-natured captain or colonel would come sometimes and see us Indian boys, and talk to us about papa and mamma, and give us coins of the realm, and write to our parents, and say, " I drove over yesterday and saw Tommy at Dr. Birch's. I took him to the ' George,' and gave him a dinner. His appetite is fine. Pie states that he is reading ' Cornelius Nepos,' with which he is much interested. His masters report," &c. And though Dr. Birch wrote by the same mail a longer, fuller, and official state- ment, I have no doubt the distant parents preferred the friend's letter, with its artless, possibly ungrammatical, account of their little darling. I have seen the young heir of Britain. These e3'es have beheld him and his bride, on Saturday in Pall Mall, and on Tuesday in the nave of St. George's Chapel at Windsor, when the young Princess Alexandra of Denmark passed by with her blooming procession of bridesmaids ; and half an hour later, when the Princess of Wales came forth from the chapel, her husband by her side robed in the purple mantle of the famous Order which his forefather established here five hundred years ago. We were to see her yet once again, when her open car- riage passed out of the Castle gate to the station of the near railwa}^ which was to convey her to Southampton. Since womanldnd existed, has any woman ever had such a greeting? At ten hours' distance, there is a citj' far more mag- nificent than oui's. With every respect for Kensington turn- pike, I own that the Arc de I'Etoile at Paris is a much finer * This paper, it is almost needless to say, was written just after th© marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales in March, 1863. 246 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. entrance to an imperial capital. In our black, orderless, zigzag streets, we can show nothing to compare with the magnificent array of the Rue de Rivoli, that enormous regiment of stone stretching for five miles and presenting arms before the Tuile- ries. Think of the late Fleet Prison and Waithman's Obelisk, and of the Place de la Concorde and the Luxor Stone ! ' ' The finest site in Europe," as Trafalgar Square has been called by some obstinate British optimist, is disfigured by trophies, foun- tains, columns, and statues so puerile, disorderly, and hideous that a lover of the arts must hang the head of shame as he passes, to see our dear old queen city arraying herself so ab- surdly ; but when all is said and done, we can show one or two of the greatest sights in the world. I doubt if any Roman fes- tival was as vast or striking as the Derby day, or if any Im- perial triumph could show such a prodigious muster of faithful people as our 3'oung Princess saw on Saturday, when the na- tion turned out to greet her. The calculators are squabbling about the numbers of hundreds of thousands, of millions, who came forth to see her and bid her welcome. Imagine beacons flaming, rockets blazing, yards manned, ships and forts salut- ing with their thunder, every steamer and vessel, ever}^ town and village from Ramsgate to Gravesend, swarming with happy gratulation ; young girls with flowers, scattering roses before her ; staid citizens and aldermen pushing and squeezing and panting to make the speech, and bow the knee, and bid her welcome ! Who is this who is honored with such a prodigious triumph, and received with a welcome so astonishing? A \^ear ago we had never heard of her. I think about her pedigree and famil}^ not a few of us are in the dark still, and I own, for my part, to be much puzzled b}^ the allusions of newspaper genealogists and bards and skalds to Vikings, Berserker-s, and so forth. But it would be interesting to know how manv hun- dreds of thousands of photographs of the fair bright face have by this time made it beloved and familiar in British homes. Think of all the quiet countr}' nooks from Land's End to Caith- ness, where kind e3'es have glanced at it. The farmer brings it home from market ; the curate from his visit to the Cathedral town ; the rustic folk peer at it in the little village shop-win- dow ; the squire's children gaze on it round the drawing-room table : every e3-e that beholds it looks tenderl}' on its bright beauty and sweet artless grace, and young and old pray God bless her. We have an elderly friend, (a certain Goodj' Two- shoes,) who inhabits, with many other old ladies, the Union ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 247 House of the parish of St. Lazarus in Soho. One of your cousins from this house went to see her, and found Goody and her companion crones all in a flutter of excitement about the marriage. The whitewashed walls of their bleak dormitory were ornamented with prints out of the illustrated journals, and hung with festoons 'and true-lovers' knots of tape and colored paper ; and the old bodies had had a good dinner, and the old tongues were chirping and clacking awa}^, all eager, interested, sympathizing ; and one very elderl}' and rheumatic Good}^ who is obliged to keep her bed, (and has, I trust, an exaggerated idea of the cares attending on royalty,) said, " Pore thing, pore thing ! I pity her." Yes, even in that dim place there was a little brightness and a quavering huzza, a contribution of a mite subscribed by those dozen poor old widows to the treasure of loyalty with which the nation endows the Prince's bride. Three hundred years ago, when our dread Sovereign Lady Elizabeth came to take possession of her realm and capital city, Holingshed, if you please (whose pleasing history of course 3'^ou carr}^ about with you) , relates in his fourth volume folio, that — "At hir entring the citie, she was of the people received maruellous intierlie, as appeared by the assemblies, praiers, welcommings, cries, and all other signes which argued a woon- derfull earnest loue : " and at various halting-places on the roj'al progress children habited like angels appeared out of allegoric edifices and spoke verses to her — " "Welcome, O Queen, as much as heart can think, Welcome agahi, as much as tongue can tell, "Welcome to joyous tongues and hearts that will not shrink. God thee preserve, we pray, and wish thee ever well ! " Our new Princess, you may be sure, has also had her Alex- andrines, and many minstrels have gone before her singing her praises. Mr. Tupper, who begins in ver}^ great force and strength, and who proposes to give her no less than eight hun- dred thousand welcomes in the first twenty lines of his ode, is not satisfied with this most liberal amount of acclamation, but proposes at the end of his poem a still more magnificent sub- scrii)tion. Thus we begin, " A hundred thousand welcomes, a liun(h'('d tlioiisand welcomes." (In my copy the figures are in the u-oll-known Arabic numerals, but let u« have the numbers literally accurate :) — 248 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. ' ' A hundred thousand welcomes ! A himdred thousand welcomes ! And a hundred thousand more ! happy heart of England, Shout aloud and sing, land, As no land sang before ; And let the pgeaus soar And ring from shore to shore, A hundred thousand welcomes, And a hundred thousand more ; And let the cannons roar The joy-stunned city o'er. And let the steeples chime it A hmidred thousand welcomes And a hundred thousand more ; And let the people rhyme it From neighbor's door to door. From every man's heart's core, A hundred thousand welcomes And a hundred thousand more." This contribution, in twenty not long lines, of 900,000 (say nine hundred thousand) welcomes is handsome indeed ; and shows that when our bard is inchned to be liberal, he does not look to the cost. But what is a sum of 900,000 to his further proposal ? — " O let all these declare it, Let miles of shouting swear it, In all the years of yore, Unparalleled before ! And thou, most welcome Wand'rer Across the Northern Water, Our England's Alexandra, Our dear adopted daughter — Lay to thine heart, conned o'er and o'er, In future years remembered well. The magic fervor of this spell That shakes the land from shore to shore, And makes all hearts and eyes brim o'er ; Our hvmdred thousand welcomes, Our fifty million welcomes. And a himdred million more ! '' Here we have, besides the most liberal previous subscrip- tion, a further call on the public for no less than one hundred and fift}'^ million one hundred thousand welcomes for her Royal High- ness. How much is this per head for all of us in the three king- doms? Not above five welcomes apiece, and I am sure many of us have given more than five hurrahs to the fair 3'oung Princess. Each man sings according to his voice, and gives in propor- tion to his means. The guns at Sheerness "from their ada- mantine lips" (which had spoken, in quarrelsome old times a very different language,) roared a hundred thundering wel- comes to the fair Dane. The maidens of England strewed roses before her feet at Gravesend when she landed. Mr. Tupper, with the million and odd welcomes, may be compared to the thundering fleet ; Mr. Chorley's song, to the flowerets scattered on her Royal Highness's happy and carpeted path : — " Blessings on that fair face ! Safe on the shore Of her home-dwelling place, Stranger no more. Love, from her household shrine, Keep sorrow far ! May for her hawthorn twine, June bring sweet eglantine, Autumn, the golden vine, Dear Northern Star ! " ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 249 Hawthorn for May, eglantine for June, and in autumn a little tass of the golden vine for our Northern Star. I am sure no one will grudge the Princess these simple enjoyments, and of the produce of the last-named pleasing plant, I wonder how many bumpers were drunk to her health on the happy da}- of her bridal? As for the Laureate's verses, I would respectfully liken his Highness to a giant showing a beacon torch on " a windy headland." His flaring torch is a pine-tree, to be sure, which nobody can wield but himself. He waves it : and four times in the midnight he shouts mightily, " Alexandra! " and the Pontic pine is whirled into the ocean and Pinceladus goes home. AYhose muse, whose cornemuse, sounds with such plaintive sweetness from Arthur's Seat, while Edinburgh and Mussel- burgh he rapt in delight, and the mermaids come flapping up to Leith shore to hear the exquisite music? Sweeter piper Edina knows not than Aytoun, the Bard of the Cavaliers, who has given in his frank adhesion to the reigning dynasty. When a most beautiful, celebrated and unfortunate princess whose memory the Professor loves — when Marj^, wife of Francis the Second, King of France, and by her own right proclaimed Queen of Scotland and England (poor soul!), entered Paris with her* 3'oung bridegroom, good Peter Ronsard wrote of her — " Toi qui as veu Texcellence de celle Qui rend le ciel de I'Escosse envieux, Dy hardiment, contentez a^ous raes yeux, Vous ne verrez jamais chose plus belle." * '"• Vous ne verrez Jamais chose plus belle " Here is an Alexan- drine written three hundred 3'ears ago, as simple as hon Jour. Professor Aytoun is more ornate. After elegantly compli- menting the spring, and a description of her Roj'al Highness's well-known ancestors the " Berserkers," he bursts forth — " The Rose of Denmark comes, the Royal Bride ! loveliest Rose ! our paragon and pride — » Choice of the Prince whom England holds so dear — What homage shall we pay To one who has no peer ? What can the bard or wildered minstrel say More than the peasant who on bended knee Breathes from his heart an earnest prayer for thee? * Quoted in Mignet's " Life of Mary." 250 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. Words are not fair, if that they would express Is fairer still ; so lovers in dismay Stand all abashed before that loveliness They worsiiip most, but find no words to pray. Too sweet for incense ! (braro!) Take our loves instead — Most freely, truly, and devoutly given ; Our prayer for blessings on that gentle head, For earthly happiness and rest in Heaven ! May never sorrow dim those dove-like eyes, But peace as pure as reigned in Paradise, Calm and untainted on creation's eve, Attend thee still ! May holy angels," &c. This is all very well, m}^ dear countr}' cousins. But will 3^ou say "Amen" to this prayer? I won't. Assuredly our fair Princess will shed man}- tears out of the " dovelike e^'es," or the heart will be little worth. Is she to know no parting, no care, no anxious longing, no tender watches by the sick, to deplore no friends and kindred, and feel no grief? Heaven forbid ! When a bard or wildered minstrel writes so, best accept his own confession, that he is losing his head. On the day of her entrance into London who looked more bright and happy than the Princess? On the day of the marriage, the fair face wore its marks of care already', and looked out quite grave, and frightened almost, under the wreaths and lace and orange-flowers. Would you have had her feel no tremor? A maiden on the bridegroom's threshold, a Princess led up to the steps of a throne? I think her pallor and doubt became her as well as her smiles. That, I can tell 3'ou, was our vote who sat in X compartment, let us say, in the nave of St. George's Chapel at AVindsor, and saw a part of one of the brightest ceremonies ever ])erformed there. My dear cousin Mary, you have an account of the dresses ; and I promise you there were princesses besides the bride whom it did the ej'es good to behold. Around the bride sailed a bevy of young creatures so fair, wliite, and graceful that I thought of those fairy-tale beauties who are sometimes prin- cesses, and sometimes white swans. The Royal Princesses and the Royal Knights of the Garter swept by in prodigious robes and trains of |)urple velvet, thirty shillings a yard, my dear, not of course inchiding the lining, which, I have no doubt, was of the i-ichest satin, or that costly '"•miniver" which we used to read abont in poor Jerrold's writings. Tiie young princes were habited in kilts; and by the side of the Princess Ro3*al trotted such a little wee solemn Highlander! He is the young heir and chief of the famous clan of Brandenburg. His ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 251 eyrie is amongst the Eagles, and I pray no barm may bsfall the dear little chieftain. The heralds in their tabards \vere inarvellons to behold, and a nod from Rouge Croix gave me the keenest gratification. I tried to catch Garter's eye, but either I couldn't or he wouldn't. In his robes, he is like one of the 'Three Kings in old missal illuminations. Goldstick in waiting is even more splendid. With his gold rod and robes and trappings of many colors, he looks like a royal enchanter, and as if he had raised up all this scene of glamour by a wave of his glittering wand. The silver trumpeters wear such quaint caps, as those I have humbly tried to depict on the playful heads of children. Behind the trump- eters came a drum-bearer, on whose back a gold-laced drummer drubbed his march. When the silver clarions had blown, and under a clear chorus of white-robed children chanting round the organ, the noble procession passed into the chapel, and was hidden from our sight for a while, there was silence, or from the inner chapel ever so faint a hum. Then hymns arose, and in the lull we knew that prayers were being said, and the sacred rite performed which joined Albert Edward to Alexandra his wife. I am sure hearty prayers were offered outside the gate as well as within for that princely young pair, and for their Mother and Queen. The peace, the freedom, the happiness, the order which her rule guarantees, are part of my birthright as an Englishman, and 1 bless God for my share. Where else shall I find such liberty of action, thought, speech, or laws which protect me so well? Her part of her compact with her people, w'hat sovereign ever better performed? If ours sits apart from the festivities of the day, it is because she suffers from a arrief so recent that the loval heart (cannot master it as yet, and remains treu und fist to a beloved memor}'. A part of the music which celebrates the day's service was composed by the husband who is gone to the place wheie the just and pure of life meet the reward i)romise(l by the Father of all of us to good and faithful servants who have well done here below. As this one gives in his account, surely we may remember how the Prince was the friend of all peaceful arts and learning; how he was true and fast idwavs to dutv, liomc, honor; how, through a life of complicated trials, he was sagacious, lighteous, active and self-denying. And as we trace in the young faces of his many children the father's features and likeness, what Euglishmati will not pray that they may have inherited also 252 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. some of the great qualities which won for the Prince Consort the love and respect of our countr}' ? The papers tell us how, on the night of the marriage of the Prince of Wales, all over England and Scotland illuminations were made, the poor and children were feasted, and in village and city thousands of kindly schemes were devised to mark the national happiness and sj'mpathy. " The bonfire on Copt- point at Folkestone was seen in France," the Telegraph says, ^'more clearty than even the French marine lights could be seen at Folkestone." Long ma}- the fire continue to burn ! There are European coasts (and inland places) where the liberty light has been extinguished, or is so low that 3'ou can't see to read by it — there are great Atlantic shores where it flickers and smokes verj^ gloomily. Let us be thankful to the honest guardians of ours, and for the kind sky under which it burns bright and steady. ON A MEDAL OF GEOEGE THE FOUETH. Before me lies a coin bearing the image and superscription of King George IV., and of the nominal value of two-and-six- pence. But an official friend at a neighboring turnpike saj^s the piece is hopelessty bad ; and a chemist tested it, returning a like unfavorable opinion. A cabman, who had brought me from a Club, left it with the Club porter, appealing to the gent who gave it a pore cabbj", at ever so much o'clock of a rainy night, which he hoped he would give him another. I have taken that cabman at his word. He has been provided with a sound coin. The bad piece is on the table before me, and shall have a hole drilled through it, as soon as this essa}' is written, b}^ a lo3^al subject who does not desire to deface the Sovereign's image, but to protest against the rascal who has tjiken his name in vain. Fid. Def. indeed ! Is this what 3'ou call defending the faith? You dare to forge 3^our Sovereign's name, and pass 3'our scoundrel pewter as his silver? I wonder who 3'OU are, wretch and most consummate trickster? This forger3' is so complete that even now I am deceived b3' it — I can't see the difference between the base and sterling metal. Perhaps this piece is a little lighter ; — I don't know. A little softer : — is it ? I have not bitten it, not being a connoisseur in the tasting of ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 253 pewter or silver. I take the word of three honest men, though it goes against me : and though I have given two-and-sixpence worth of honest consideration for the counter, I shall not attempt to implicate anybody else in my misfortune, or transfer my ill- luck to a deluded neighbor. I say the imitation is so curiously successful, the stamping, milling of the edges, lettering, and so forth, are so neat, that even now, when my eyes are open, I cannot see the cheat. How did those experts, the cabman, and pikeman, and trades- man, come to find it out? How do they happen to be more familiar with pewter and silver than I am? You see, I put out of the question another point which I might argue without fear of defeat, namely, the cabman's statement that 1 gave him this bad piece of money. Suppose ever}' cabman who took me a shilling fare were to drive awa}' and return presently with a bad coin and an assertion that I had given it to him ! This would be absurd and mischievous ; an encouragement of vice amongst men who alread}- are subject to temptations. Being homo^ I think if I were a cabman myself, I might sometimes stretch a furlong or two in my calculation of distance. But don't come ticlce^ my man, and tell me I have given you a bad half-crown. No, no I I have paid once like a gentleman, and once is enough. For instance, during the Exhibition time I was stopped b^^ an old country-woman in black, with a huge umbrella, who, bursting into tears, said to me, " Master, be this the way to Harlow, in Essex?" "This the way to Harlow? This is the way to Exeter, my good ladj', and 30U will arrive there if 3'ou walk about 170 miles in j'our present direction," I answered cour- teously, replying to the old creature. Then she fell a-sobbing as though her old heart would break. She had a daughter a-dying at Harlow. She had walked alread}^ " vifty dree mile that day." Tears stopped the rest of her discourse, so artless, genuine, and abundant that — I own the truth — I gave her, in I believe genuine silver, a piece of the exact size of that coin which forms the subject of this essay. Well. About a month since, near to the very spot where I had met my old woman, I was accosted b}' a person in black, a person in a large draggled cap, a person with a huge umbrella, who was beginning, " I sa}', Master, can you tell me if this be the way to Har " but here she stopped. Her eyes goggled wildly. She started from me, as Macbeth turned from Macduff. She would not engage with me. It was my old friond of Harlow, in Essex. I dare say she has informecl many other people of her daughter's illness, and her anxiety to be put upon the right way to Harlow. Not 254 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. long since a very gentleman-like man, Major Delamere let us call him (I like the title of Major very much), requested to see me, named a dead gentleman who he said had been our mutual friend, and on the strength of this mutual acquaintance, begged me to cash his cheque for five pounds ! It is these things, m}' dear sir, which serve to make a man c\'nical. I do conscientiously believe that had I cashed the Major's cheque there would have been a difficulty about pa}-- nicnt on the part of the respected bankers on whom he drew. On 30ur honor and conscience, do you think that old widow who was w^alking from Tunbridge Wells to Harlow had a daugh- ter ill, and was an honest woman at all? The daughter couldn't always, you see, be being ill, and her mother on her way to her dear child through H3'de Park. In the same wa}' some habitual sneerers may be inclined to hint that the cabman's story was an invention — or at any rate, choose to ride off (so to speak) on the doubt. No. M^- opinion, I ow^n, is unfavorable as regards the widow from Tunbridge Wells, and Major Delamere ; but, believing the cabman was honest, I am glad to think he w^as not injured b}' the reader's most humble servant. What a queer, exciting life this rogue's march must be : this attempt of the bad half-crowns to get into circulation ! Had my distinguished friend the Major knocked at man3' doors that morning, before operating on mine? The sport must be some- thing akin to the pleasure of tiger or elephant hunting. What ingenuitj" the sportsman must have in tracing his prey — what daring and caution in coming upon him ! What coolness in facing the angry animal (for, after all, a man on whom you draw a cheque a bout portcmt will be angry). What a delicious thrill of triumph, if you can bring him down ! If I have money at the banker's and draw for a portion of it over the counter, that is mere prose — any dolt can do that. But, having no balance, say I drive up in a cab, present a cheque at Coutts's, and, receiving the amount, drive off? What a glorious morn- ing's sport that has been ! How superior in excitement to the common transactions of ever^'-day life ! .... I must tell a story ; it is against myself, I know, but it will out, and perhaps my mind will be the easier. More than twenty years ago, in an island remarkable for its verdure, I met four or five times one of the most agreeable companions with whom I have passed a night. I heard that evil times had come upon this gentleman ; and, overtaking him in a road near m}' own house one evening, I asked him to come home to dinner. In two days, he was at my door again. At ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 255 breakfast- time was this second* appearance. He was in a cab (of course he was in a cab, they alwa3's are, these unfortunate, these courageous men). To den}^ myself was absurd. My friend could see me over the parlor blinds, surrounded by my family, and cheerfullj' partaking of the morning meal. Miolit he have a word with me? and can you imagine its purport? By the most provoking delay, his uncle the admiral not being able to come to town till Friday' — would I cash him a cheque? I need not sa}^ it would be paid on Saturdaj^ without fail. I tell 3'ou that man went awa}^ with money in his pocket, and I regret to add that his gallant relative has not come to town yet! Laying down the pen, and sinking back in my chair, here, perhaps, I fall info a five minutes' reverie, and think of one, two, three, half a dozen cases in which I have been content to accept that sham promissor}' coin in return for sterling mone}- advanced. Not a reader, whatever his age, but could tell a like story. I vow and believe there are men of fifty, who will dine well to- day, who have not paid their school debts yet, and who have not taken up their long-protested promises to pay. Tom, Dick, Harry, my boys, I owe you no grudge, and rather relish that wince with which 3'ou will read these meek lines and saj^ " He means me." Poor Jack in Hades ! Do you remember a certain pecuniary transaction, and a little sum of money 3'Ou borrowed "until the meeting of Parliament?" Parliament met often in 3'our lifetime : Parliament has met since : but I think I should scarce be more surprised if your ghost glided into the room now, and laid down the amount of our little account, than I should have been if you had paid me in 3'our lifetime with the actual acceptances of the Bank of England. You asked to borrow, but you never intended to \y^\. I would as soon have believed that a promissory note of Sir John Falstaff (accepted by Messrs. Bai'dolph and Nym, and pa3able in Aldgate,) would be as sure to find payment, as that note of the departed — na3', lamented — Jack Thiif'tless. He who borrows, meaning to pay, is quite a different person from the individual here described. Many — most, I hope — took Jack's promise for what it was worth — and quite well knew that when he said, " Lend me," he meant " Give me" twent3' pounds. "Give me change for this half-crown," said Jack ; " I know it's a pewter piece ; " and you ga\'e him the change in honest silver, and pocketed the counterfeit gravely. What a queer consciousness that must be which accompanies such a man in his sleeping, in his waking, in his walk through 256 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. life, b}' his fireside with his children round him! " For what we are going to receive," &c. — he sa3's grace before his dinner. " My dears ! Shall I help you to some mutton? I robbed the butcher of the meat. I don't intend to pay him. Johnson my bo3% a glass of champagne? Very good, isn't it? Not too sweet. Forty-six. I get it from So-and-so, whom I intend to cheat." As eagles go forth and bring home to their eaglets the lamb or the pavid kid, I sa}^ there are men who live and victual their nests by plunder. We all know highwa}' robbers in white neck-cloths, domestic bandits, marauders, passers of bad coin. What was 3'onder cheque which Major Delamere proposed I should cash but a piece of bad mone}' ? What was Jack Thrift- less's promise to pa}' ? Having got his boot}', I fanc}' Jack or the Major returning home, and wife and children gathering round about him. Poor wife and chiklren ! The}- respect papa ver}" likely. They don't know he is false coin. Maj'be the wife has a dreadful inkling of the truth, and, sickening, tries to hide it from the dauo^hters and sons. Mavbe she is an accom- plice : herself a brazen forger^^ If Turpin and Jack Sheppard were married, ver}- likel}' Mesdames Sheppard and Turpin did not know, at first, what their husbands' real profession was, and fancied, when the men left home in the morning, the}^ onlj' went Siwa,y to follow some regular and honorable business. Then a suspicion of the truth ma}' have come : then a dreadful revelation ; and presently we have the guilt}^ pair robbing to- gether, or passing forged money each on his own account. You know Doctor Dodd ? I wonder whether his wife knows that he is a forger, and scoundrel? Has she had any of the plunder, think 3'ou, and were the darling cliildren's new dresses bought with it? The Doctor's sermon last Sunday was certainl}' charm- ing, and we all cried. Ah, m}' poor Dodd ! Whilst he is preaching most beautifully, pocket-handkerchief in hand, he is peering over the pulpit cushions, looking out piteously for Messrs. Peachum and Lockit from the police-oflfice. B>' Doctor Dodd 3'ou understand I would typify the rogue of respectable exterior, not committed to gaol 3'et, but not undiscovered. We all know one or two such. This ver}^ sermon perhaps will be read by some, or more likely — for, depend upon it, 3'our solemn h3'pocritic scoundrels don't care much for light literature — more likel3^ I say, this discourse will be read % some of their wives, who think, "Ah merc3- ! does that horrible C3'nical wretch know how my poor husband blacked my eye, or ab- stracted mamma's silver teapot, or forced me to write So-and- so's name on that piece of stamped paper, or what not ? " My ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 257 good creature, I am not angry with you. If 3:our husband has broken your nose, you will vow that he had authority over your person, and a right to demohsh any part of it : if he has conveyed away your mamma's teapot, you will say that she gave it to him at your marriage, and it was very ugly, and what not? if he takes yom aunt's watch, and you love him, you will carry it ere long to the pawnbroker's, and perjure yourself oh, how you will perjure 3^ourself — in the witness-box ! I know this is a degrading view of woman's noble nature, her exalted mission, and so forth, and so forth. I know yoxx will say this is bad morality. Is it? Do you, or do 3'ou not, expect youi womankind to stick by you for better or for worse ? Say I have committed a forgery, and the officers come in search of me, is my wife, Mrs. Dodd, to show them into the dining-room and say, "Pray step in, gentlemen! My husband has just come home from church. That bill with my Lord Chesterfield's ac- ceptance, I am bound to own, was never written by his lord- ship, and the signature is in the doctor's handwriting? " I say, would any man of sense or honor, or fine feeling, praise his wife for telling the truth under such circumstances? Suppose she made a fine grimace, and said, " Most painful as my position is, most deeply as I feel for my William, yet truth must prevail, and I deeply lament to state that the beloved partner of my life did commit the flagitious act with which he is charged, and is at this present moment located in the two-pair back, up the chim- ney, whither it is my duty to lead you." Wh}^, even Dodd him- self, who was one of the greatest humbugs who ever lived, would not have had the face to say that he approved of his wife telling the truth in such a case. Would yoxx have had Flora Mac- donald beckon the oflScers, saying, "This way, gentlemen! You will find the young chevalier asleep in that cavern." Or don't you prefer her to be splendide mendax^ and read}^ at all risks to save him? If ever I lead a rebellion, and my women betray me, ma}^ I be hanged but I will not forgive them : and if ever I steal a teapot, and my women don't stand up for me, pass the article under their shawls, whisk down the street with it, outbluster the policeman, and utter an}^ amount of fibs before Mr. Beak, those beings are not what I take them to be, and — for a fortune — I won't give them so much as a bad half- crown. Is conscious guilt a source of unmixed pain to the bosom which harbors it? Has not 3'our criminal, on the contrary, an excitement, an enjo3'ment within quite unknown to you and me who never did anything wrong in our lives ? The housebreaker 17 258 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. must snatch a fearful J03' as he walks unchallenged by the po- liceman with his sack full of spoons and tankards. Do not cracksmen, when assembled together, entertain themselves with stories of glorious old burglaries which they or b3'gone heroea have committed ? But that ni}' age is mature and my habits formed, I should really just like to try a little criminaht}'. Fancy passing a forged bill to your banker ; calling on a friend and sweeping his sideboard of plate, his hall of umbrellas and coats ; and then going home to dress for dinner, say — and to meet a bishop, a judge, and a police magistrate or so, and talk more morally than any man at table ! How I should chuckle (as my host's spoons clinked softl3' in my pocket) whilst I was uttering some noble speech about virtue, dut^', charit}' ! I wonder do we meet garroters in society'? In an average tea-party, now, how manv returned convicts are there? Does John Footman, when he asks permission to go and spend the evening with some friends, pass his time in thuggee ; wayla>' and strangle an old gentleman, or two ; let himself into your house, with the house- key of course, and appear as usual with the shaving-water when you ring your bell in the morning? The very possibility of such a suspicion invests John with a new and romantic in- terest in mv mind. Behind the grave pohteness of his coun- tenance I tr}' and read the lurking treason. Full of this pleas- ing subject, I have been talking thief-stories with a neighbor. The neighbor tells me how some friends of hers used to keep a jewel-box under a bed in their room ; and, going into the room, thev thouo'ht they heard a noise under the bed. Thev had the courage to look. The cook was under the bed — under the bed with the jewel-box. Of course she said she had come for pur- poses connected with her business ; but this was absurd. A cook under a bed is not there for i)rofessional purposes. A re- lation of mine had a box containing diamonds under her bed, which diamonds she told me were to be mine. Mine ! One day, at dinner-time, between the entrees and the roast, a cab drove away from m}' relative's house containing the box wherein lay the diamonds. John laid the dessert, brought the coffee, waited all the eveningr — and oh, how friohtened he was when he came to learn that his mistress's box had been conveyed out of her own room, and it contained diamonds — '' Law bless us, did it now?" I wonder whether John's subsequent career has been prosperous? Perhaps the gentlemen from Bow Street were all in the wrong when they agreed in susp3cting John as the author of the robbery. His noble nature was hurt at the sus- picion. You conceive he would not like to remain in a family ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 259 where they were mean enough to suspect him of stealing a jewel-box out of a bedroom — and tlie injured man and my rela- tives soon parted. But, inclining (with my usual cynicism) to think that he did steal the valuables, think of his life for the month or two whilst he still remains hi the service ! He shows the officers over the house, agrees with them that the coup must have been made hy persons familiar with it ; gives them every ' assistance ; pities his master and mistress with a manly com- passion ; points out what a cruel misfortune it is to himself as an honest man, with his livnig to get and his family to provide for, that this suspicion should tall on hira. Finally he takes leave of his place,* with a deep, though natural melancholy that ever he had accepted it. What's a thousand pounds to gentle- folks ! A loss, certainly, but they will live as well without the diamonds as with them. But to John his Hhhonor was worth more than diamonds, his Hhonor was. Whohever is to give him back his character? Who is to prevent hany one from say- ing, '' Ho yes. This is the footman which was in the family where the diamonds was stole ? " &c. I wonder has John prospered in life subsequently? If he is innocent he does not interest me in the least. The interest of the case lies in John's behavior supposing him to be guilty. Imagine the smiling face, the daily service, the orderly per- formance of duty, whilst within John is suffering pangs lest discovery should overtake him. Every bell of the door which he is obliged to open maj' bring a police officer. The accom- plices may peach. What an exciting life John's must have been for a while. And now, years and years after, when pur- suit has long ceased, and detection is impossible, does he ever revert to the little transaction? Is it possible those diamonds cost a thousand pounds? What a rogue the fence must have been who only gave him so and so ! And I pleasingly picture to myself an old ex-footman and an ancient receiver of stolen goods meeting and talking over this matter, which dates from times so early that her present Majest^-'s lair image could only just have begun to be coined or forged. I choose to take John at the time when his little peccadillo is suspected, perhaps, but when there is no specific charge of robber^' against him. He is not 3'et convicted : he is not even on his trial; how then can we venture to say he is guilt}^? Now^ think what scores of men and women walk the world in a like predicament ; and wjiat false coin passes current ! Pinch- beck strives to pass off his histor}* as sound coin. Pie knows it is only base metal, washed over with a thin varnish of learning. 260 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. Polupliloisbos puts his sermons in circulation : sounding brass, lacquered over with white metal, and marked with the stamp and image of piet}'. What say you to Drawcansir's reputation as a militarj' commander ? to Tibbs's pretensions to be a fine gentleman? to Sapphira's claims as a poetess, or Rodoessa's as a beauty? His braver}^, his pietj^, high birth, genius, beauty — each of these deceivers would palm his falsehood on us, and have us accept his forgeries as sterling coin. And we talk here, please to observe, of weaknesses rather than crimes. Some of us have more serious things to hide than a yellow cheek behind a raddle of rouge, or a white poll under a wig of jetty curls. You know, neighbor, there are not only false teeth in this world, but false tongues : and some make up a bust and an appearance of strength with padding, cotton, and what not? while another kind of artist tries to take 3'ou in by wearing un- der his waistcoat, and perpetuall}- thumping, an immense sham heart. Dear sir, may yours and mine be found, at the right time, of the proper size and in the right place. And what has this to do with half-crowns, good or bad? Ah, friend ! ma}' our coin, battered, and clipped, and defaced though it be, be proved to be Sterling Silver on the day of the Great Assay ! "STKANGE TO SAY, ON CLUB PAPER" Before the Duke of York's column, and between the " Athenaeum " and " United Service " Clubs, I have seen more than once, on the esplanade, a preacher holding forth to a little congregation of badauds and street-boys, whom he entertains with a discourse on the crimes of a rapacious aristocracy, or warns of the imminent peril of their own souls. Sometimes this orator is made to " move on " by brutal policemen. Some- times, on a Sunday, he points to a white head or two visible in the windows of the Clubs to the right and left of him, and vol- unteers a statement that those quiet and elderly Sabbath- breakers will verv soon be called from this world to another, where their lot will by no means be so comfortable as that which the reprobates enjoy here, in their arm-chairs by theh* snug fires. At the end of last month, had I been a Pall Mall preacher, I would have liked to send a whip round to all the Clubs in St. ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 261 James's, and convoke the few members remaining in London to hear a discourse suh Dio on a text from the Observer newspaper. I would have taken post under the statue of Fame, sa}', where she stands distributing wreaths to the three Crimean Guards- men. (The crossing-sweeper does not obstruct tlie path, and I suppose is away at his villa on Sunda3's.) And, when the con- gregation was prett;>' quiet, I would have begun : — In the O^^errer of the 27th September, 1863, in the fifth page and the fourth column, it is thus written : — " The codicil appended to the will of the late Lord Clj'de, executed at Chatham, and bearing the signature of Clyde, F. M., is written, strange to say, on a sheet of paper bearing the '• AthencBum Club' mark." What the codicil is, my dear brethren, it is not our business to inquire. It conveys a benefaction to a faithful and attached friend of the good Field-Marshal. The gift may be a lakh of rupees, or it may be a house and its contents — furniture, plate, and wine-cellar. M}^ friends, I know the wine-merchant, and, for the sake of the legatee, hope heartilj- that the stock is large. Am I wrong, dear brethren, in supposing that 3'ou expect a preacher to say a seasonable word on death here? If you don't, I fear you are but little familiar with the habits of preachers, and are but lax hearers of sermons. We might contrast the vault where the warrior's remains lie shrouded and coffined, with that in which his worldly provision of wine is stowed awa}^ Spain and Portugal and France — all the lands which supplied his store — as hardy and obedient subaltern, as resolute captain, as colonel daring but prudent — he has visited the fields of all. In India and China he marches alwa3's uncon- quered ; or at the head of his dauntless Highland brigade he treads the Crimean snow ; or he rides from conquest to con- quest in India once more ; succoring his countrj-men in the hour of their utmost need ; smiting down the scared mutiny, and trampling out the embers of rebellion ; at the head of an heroic arm}-, a consummate chief. And now his glorious old sword is sheathed, and his honors are won ; and he has bought him a house, and stored it with modest cheer for his friends (the good old man put water in his own wine, and a glass or two sufficed him) — behold the end comes, and his legatee inherits these modest possessions b}^ virtue of a codicil to his lordship's will, written, ^^ strange to sag, upon a sheet of paper, bearing the ''Athenceum Club ' mark." It is to this part of the text, my brethren, that I propose to 262 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. address mj'self particularly, and if the remarks I make are offensive to anv of you, yon know the doors of our meetino;- house are open, and yon can walk out when yon will. Ai'ound ns are niagnincent halls and palaces frequented by such a mul- titude of men as not even the Roman Foi'um assembled together. Yonder are the Martium Mud the Palladium. Next to tlie Pal- ladium is the elegant Viatorinm, which Barry gracefully stole from Rome. By its side is the massive Relbrmatorium : and ipe!le (irdcnfc which had been prepai'ed at Toulon for its reception. At this moment, tlie vessels fired a last salute witii all their artillery, and the frigate took in her flags, keeping up only her flag at the stern and the royal standard at the maintopgallant-mast. On Sunday, the 18th, at eight in the morning, the ' Belle Poule' quitted St. Helena with her precious deposit on board. " During the whole time that the mission remained at James Town, the best understanding never ceased to exist between the population of the island and the French. The Prince de Joinville and his companions met in all quarters and at all times with the "I'eatest o'oorl-will and the warmest testimonials of f-ympathy. The authorities and the inhabitants must have 2S-i ^HE SECOND FUXERAL felt, 110 doubt, great regret at seeing taken away from their island tho coffin that had rendered it so celebrated ; but thev repressed their feelings with a courtes}' that does honor to tlie frankness of their character." II. ON THE VOYAGE FROM ST. HELENA TO PAPJS. On the 18th October the French frigate quitted the island with its precious burden on board. His Royal Highness the Captain acknowledged cordially the kindness and attention which he and his crew had received from the Enoflish authorities and the inhabitants of the Island of St. Helena ; na}', promised a pension to an old soldier who had been for many years the guardian of the imperial tomb, and went so far as to take into consideration the petition of a certain lodging-house iceeper, who prayed for a compensation for the loss which the removal of the P^mperor's body would occasion to her. And although it was not to be expected that the great French nation should forego its natural desire of recovering the remains of a hero so dear to it for the sake of the individual in- terest of the landlady in question, it must have been satisfactory to her to find that the peculiarit}- of her position was so deli- cately appreciated by the august Prince who commanded the expedition, and carried away with him anlmce dimidinm siice — the half of the genteel independence which she derived from the situation of her hotel. In a word, pohteness and friendship could not be carried farther. The Prince's realm and the landlady's were bound tooether by the closest ties of amitv. M. Thiers was Minister of France, the great patron of the English alliance. At London M. Guizot was the worthy representative of the French good- will towards the British people ; and the remark frequently made by our orators at public dinners, that " France and England, while united, might defy the world," was con- sidered as likely to hold good for many years to come, — the union that is. As for defying the world, that was neilher here nor there ; nor did English politicians ever dream of doing any such thing, except perhaps at the tenth glass of port at " Free- mason's Tavern." / ■ '1 1 . \X4^N V M. Thiers. OF NAPOLEON. 285 Little, however, did Mrs. Corbett, the St. Helena land- lady, little did his Royal Highness Prince Ferdinand Philip Marie de Joinville know what was going on in Europe all this time (when I say in Europe, I mean in Turkey, Syria, and Egypt) ; how clouds, in fact, were gathering upon wliat you call the political horizon ; and how tempests were rising that were to blow to pieces our Anglo-Gallic temple of friendship. Oh, but it is sad to think that a single wicked old Turk should be the means of setting our two Christian na,tions by the ears ! Yes, my love, this disreputable old man had been for some time past the object of the disinterested attention of the great soveieigns of Europe. The Elmperor Nicolas (a moral char- acter, though following the Greek superstition, and adored for his mildness and benevolence of disposition), the Emperor Ferdinand, the King of Prussia, and our own gi-acious Queen, had taken such just offence at his conduct and disobedioice towards a young and interesting sovereign, whose authority he Ifad disregarded, whose fleet he had kidnapped, whose fair prov- inces he had pounced upon, that the^^ determined to come to the aid of Abdul Medjid the First, Emperor of the Turks, and bring his rebellious vassal to reason. In this project the French nation was invited to join ; but the}- refused the invitation, say- ing, that it was necessaiy for the maintenance of the balance of power in Europe that his Highness Mehemet Ali should keep possession of what by hook or by crook he had gotten, and that they would have no hand in injuring him. But why continue this argument, which you have read in the newspapers for man}^ months past? You, ray dear, must know as well as I, that the balance of power in Europe could not possibly* be maintained in any such way ; and though, to be sure, for the last fifteen years, the progress of the old robber has not made much difference to us in the neighborhood of Russell Square, and the battle of Nezib did not in the least affect our taxes, our homes, our in- stitutions, or the price of butcher's meat, yet there is no know- ing what might have happened had Mehemet Ali been allowed to remain quietly as he was : and the balance of power in P^ii- rope might have been — the deuce knows where. Here, then, in a nutshell, 3'ou have the whole matter in dis- pute. While I^^Irs. Corbett and the Prince de Joinville were innocenth- interchanging compliments at vSt. Helena, — bang ! bang ! Commodore Napier was pouring broadsides into Tyre and Sidon ; our gallant navy was storming breaches and rout- ing armies ; Colonel Hodges had seized upon the green standard of Ibrahim Pacha; and the poivder-inagazinc of St. John of 236 THE SECOND FUNERAL Acre was blown up sky-high, with eighteen hundred Egyptian soldiers in company- witli it. The French said that ror Anf/hu's had achieved all these successes, and no doubt believed that the poor fellows at Acre were bribed to a man. It must have been particularl3' unpleasant to a high-minded nation like the French — at the very moment when the Egyp- tian affair and the balance of Europe had been settled in this abrupt wa}' — to find out all of a sudden that the Pasha of Egypt was their dearest friend and ally. The}' had suffered in the person of their friend ; and thougli, seeing that the dispute was ended, and the territor}' out of his hand, the}- could not hope to get it back for him, or to aid him in any substantial way, yet Monsieur Thiers determined, just as a mark of polite- ness to" the Pasha, to fight all P^urope for maltreating him, — all Europe, England included. He was bent on war, and an immense majority of the nation went with him. He called for a million of soldiers, and would have had them too, had not the King been against the project and delayed the completion of it at least for a time. Of these great European disputes Captain Joinville received a notification while he was at sea on board his fri2;ate : as we find b}' the official account which has been published of his mission. " Some daj-s after quitting St. Helena," sa3's that docu- ment, " the expedition fell in with a ship coming from Europe, and v/as thus made acquainted with the warlike rumors then afloat, by which a collision with the English marine was ren- dered possible. The Prince de Joinville immediatelj' assembled the officers of the ' Belle Poule,' to deliberate on an event so unexpected and important. " The council of war having expressed its opinion that it was necessary at all events to prepare for an energetic defence, preparations were made to place in battery all the guns that the frigate could brins; to bear ao^ainst the enemv. The provisional cabins that had been fitted up in the battery were demolished, the partitions removed, and, with all the elegant furniture of the cabins, flnns; into the sea. The Prince de Joinville was the first ' to execute himself,' and the frigate soon found itself armed with six or eight more guns. '' That part of the ship where these cabins had previously bepn, went by the name of Lacedcemon ; everything luxurious bemsr banished to make wav for what was useful. '' Indeed, all persons who were on board agree in sayuig that Monseigneur the Prince de Joinville most worthily* acquitted OF NAPOLEON. 287 himself of the great and honorable mission which had been con- fided to him. All affirm not onW that the commandant of the expedition did everything at St. Helena which as a French- man he was bound to do in order that the remains of the Em- peror should receive all the honors due to them, but moreover that he accomplished his mission w^ith all the measured solem- nity, all the pious and severe dignity, that the son of the Emperor 'ximself would have shown upon a like occasion. The commandant had also comprehended that the remains of the Emperor must never fall into the hands of the stranger, and being himself decided rather to sink his ship than to give up his precious deposit, he had inspired every one about him with the same energetic resolution that he had himself taken ' agai}ist an extreme eveniuality .^ " Monseioneur, my dear, is reallv one of the finest vouno- fel- lows it is possible to see. A tall, broad-chested, slim-waisted, brown-faced, dark-eyed 3'oung prince, with a great beard (and other martial (jualities no doubt) beyond his years. As he strode into the Chapel of the Invalides on Tuesday at the head of his men, he made no small impression, I can tell you, upon the ladies assembled to witness the ceremonv. Nor are the crew of the " Belle Poule" less agreeable to look at than their commander. A more clean, smart, active, well-limbed set of lads never "did dance" upon the deck of the famed " Belle Poule '' in the days of her memorable combat with the " Saucy Arethusa." " These five hundred sailors," says a French news- paper, speaking of them in the proper French way, " sword in hand, in the severe costume of board-ship (la shrrc teniie du bord), seemed proud of the mission that the>- had just accom- plished. Their blue jackets, their red cravats, the turned-down collars of blue shirts edged with white, nbore all tiieir resolute appearance and martial air, gave a favorable specimen of the present ntate of our marine — a marine of which so much might be crrpeeted and from which so little has been required." — Le Commerce : IGth December. There the^' were, sure enough ; a cutlass upon one hip, a pistol on the other — a gallant set of young men indeed. I doubt, to be sure, whether the severe tenue dn, bord requires that the seaman should be always furnished with those ferocious weapons, which in sundry maritime manoeuvres, such as going to sleep in your hammock for instance, or twinkling a binnacle, or lulling a marlinspike, or keelhauling a maintopgallant (all naval operations, my dear, which any seafaring novelist will ex- plain to you) — I doubt, I say, whether these weapcus are always 288 THE SECOND FUNERAL worn Iw sailors, and have heard that they are commonly and very sensibly t«o, locked up until they are wanted. Take another example : suppose artillerymen were incessantly com- pelled to walk about with a pyramid of twenty-four pound shot in one pocket, a lighted fuse and a few barrels of gunpowder in the other — these objects would, as 3'ou may imagine, greatly inconvenience the artilleryman in his peaceful state. The newspaper writer is therefore most likely mistaken in saying that the seamen were in the severe tenue du bord^ or by " bord" meaning '' abordage'' — which operation the}' were not, in a hai'mless cliurch, hung round with velvet and wax-candles, and lilled with ladies, surely* called upon to perform. Nor in- deed can it be reasonably supposed that the picked men of the crack frigate of the French navy are a "good specimen" of the rest of the French marine, any more than a cuirassed colossus at the gate of the Horse Guards can be considered a fair sample of the British soldier of the line. The sword and pistol, how- ever, had no doubt their effect — the former was in its sheath, the latter not loaded, and I hear that the French ladies are quite in raptures with these charming loirps-de-mer . Let the warlike accoutrements then pass. It was necessary, perhaps, to strike the Parisians with awe, and therefore the crew was armed in this fierce fashion : but why should the cap- tain beo'in to swasher as v/ell as his men? and whv did the Prince de Joinville lug out sword and pistol so early? or whj', if he thought fit to make preparations, should the official jour- nals brag of them afterwards as proofs of his extraordinary courage ? Here is the case. The English Government makes him a present of the bones of Napoleon : English workmen work for nine hours without ceasing, and dig the coffin out of the ground : the Enolish Commissioner hands over the kev of the box to the French representative. Monsieur Chabot : English horses carry the funeral car down to the sea-shore, accompanied by the Eng- lish Governor, who has actually left his bed to walk in the pro- cession and to do the French nation honor. After receiving and acknow'ledging these politenesses, the French captain takes his charge on board, and the first thing we afterwards hear of him is the determination " qti'il a su /aire P'lsser " into all his crew, to sink rather than yield up the body of the Emperor aiix mcmis' de Vetranger — into the hands of the foreigner. My dear Monseigneur, is not t\\\s par ti-op fort'? Suppose "the foreigner" had wanted the coffin, could he not have kept it? Why show this uncalled-for valor, this extraor- OF NAPOLEON. 289 dinaiy alacrity at sinking? Sink or blow yourself up as much as you please, but your Royal Highness must see that the gen- teel thing wonkl have been to wait until you were asked to do so, before you offended good-natured, honest people, who heaven help them ! — have never shown themselves at all mur- derously inclined towards you. A man knocks up his cabins forsooth, throws his tables and chairs overboard, runs cruns into the portholes, and calls le qaartier da bord oh exlstaient ces thambres^ Lacedcemon. Lacediemon ! There is a province, O ]'rince, in your royal father's dominions, a fruitful parent of heroes in its time, which would have given a much better nick- name to your quarlier da bord: you should have called it Oascony. " Sooner than strike we'll all ex-pi-er On board of the Beli-e Pou-le." Such fanfaronading is very well on the part of Tom Dibdin, but a person of your Royal Highness's ''pious and severe dignity " should have been above it. If you entertained an idea that war was imminent, would it not have been far better to have made your preparations in quiet, and when you found the war rumor blow^n over, to have said nothing about what you intended to do? Fie upon such cheap Laceda^monianism ! There is no poltroon in the world but can brag about what he would have done : however, to do 3'our Ro3'al Highness's nation justice, thev brag and fight too. This narrative, my dear Miss Smith, as 3'ou will have re- marked, is not a simple tale merely, but is accompanied by many moral and pithy remarks which form its chief value, in the writer's eyes at least, and the above account of the sham Lacedaemon on board the "Belle Poule" has a double-barrelled morality, as I conceive. Besides justly reprehending the French propensity towards braggadocio, it proves verj- stronglj' a point on which 1 am the only statesman in Europe who has strongly insisted. In the " Paris Sketch Book" it was stated that the French hate us. The}' hate us, m}^ dear, profoundly and des- perately, and there never was such a hollow humbug in the world as the French alliance. Men get a character for patriot- ism in P'rance merely by hating England. Directly they go into strong opposition (where, you know, people are always more patriotic than on the ministerial side), they appeal to the people, and have their hold on the people by hating Eng'hHid in common with them. Why? It is a long story, and the hatred may be accounted for b}' man}- reasons both political and social. 19 290 THE SECOND FUNERAL Any time these eight hundred j-ears this ill-will has been going on, and has been transmitted on the French side from father to son. On the French side, not on ours : we have had no, or few, defeats to coniplain of, no invasions to make us angiT ; but you see that to discuss such a period of time would demand a considerable number of pages, and for the present we will avoid the examination of the question. But they hate us, that is the long and short of it; and you see how this hatred has exploded just now, not upon a serious cause of difference, but upon an argument: for what is the Fasha of Egypt to us or them but a mere abstract opinion? For tlie same reason the Little-endians in LilHput abhorred the Big-endians ; and I beg you to remark how his Royal Highness Prince Ferdinand Mary, upon hearing that this argument was in the course of debate between us, straightway flnng his fur- niture overboard and expressed a preference for sinking his ship I'ather than yielding it to the etranger. Nothing came of tiiis wish of his, to be sure ; but tlie intention is everything. Unlucky circumstances denied him the power, but he had the will. Well, beyond tliis disappointment, the Prince de Joinville had nothing to complain of during the voyage, which termi- nated happily by the arrival of the '•'• Belle Poule " at Cherbourg, on the 30th of November, at five o'clock in the morning. A telegrai)h made the glad news known at Paris, where the Min- ister of the Interior, Tanneguy-Duchatel (you will read the name. Madam, in the old Anglo-French wars), had alread}' made ^'immense preparations" for receiving the bod}' of Na- poleon. The entry was fixed for the loth of December. On the 8th of December at Cherbourg the body was trans- ferred from the ''Belle Poule" frigate to the " Normandie " steamer. On which occasion the mayor of Cherbourg deposited, in the name of his tOAvn, a gold iain-el branch upon the cotfin — which was saluted by the forts and dykes of the j^lace with one THOUSAND GUNS ! There was a treat for the inhabitants. There was on board the steamer a splendid receptacle for the coffin : ''a temple with twelve pillars and a dome to cover it from the wet and moisture, surrounded with velvet hangings and silver fringes. At the head was a gold cross, at the foot a gold lamp : other lamps were kept constantly burning within, and vases of burning incense were hung around. An altar, huno- with velvet and silver, was at the mizzen-mast of the vessel, and four silcer eagles at each corner of the altar ^ It was a compliment at once to Napoleon and — excuse me for OF NAPOLEON. 291 saying so, but so the facts are — to Napoleon and to God Almi"htv. Three steamers, the " Normandie," the " Velocc," and the "• Courrier," Ibnned the expedition from Cherbourg to Havre, at wliich place they arrived on the eveni.ng of the Oth of De- cember, and where the ^'Veloce" was replaced by the Seine steamer, liaving in tow one of the state-coasters, which was to fire the salute at the moment when the body was transferred into one of the vessels belonging to the Seine. The expedition passed Havre the same night, and came to anchor at Val de la Haje on the Seine, three leagues below Rouen. Here the next morning (10th), it was met by the flotilla of steamboats of the Upper Seine, consisting of the three ''Do- rades," the three '^Etoiles," the '' Elbeuvien," the " Pari- sien," the " Parisienne," and the " Zampa." The Prince de Joinville, and the persons of the expedition, embarked imme- diately in the flotilla, which arrived the same day at Rouen. At Rouen salutes were fired, the National Guard on both sides of the river paid military honors to the body ; and over the middle of the suspension-bridge a magnificent cenotapli was erected, decorated with flags, fasces, violet hangings, and the imperial arms. Before the cenotaph the expedition stopped, and the absolution was given by the archbishop and the clergy. After a couple of hours' stay, the expedition proceeded to Pout de I'Arche. On the 11th it reached Vernon, on the 12th Mantes, on the 13th Maisons-sur-Seine. '' Pivery where," says the oflScial account from which the above particulars are borrowed, *'the authorities, the National Guard, and the people flocked to the passage of the flotilla, desirous to render the honors due to his o-lorv, which is the glory of France. In seeing its hero return, the nation seemed to have found its Palladium again, — the sainted relics of victory." At length, on the 14th, the coffin was transferred from the " Dorade " steamer on board the imperial vessel arrived from Paris. In the evening, the imperial vessel arrived at Courbe- voie, which was the last stage of the journey. Here it was that M. Guizot went to examine the vessel, and was ver}' nearly flung into the Seine, as report goes, by the patriots assembled there. It is now lying on the river, near the Invalides, amidst the drifting ice, whither the people of Paris are flocking out to see it. The vessel is of a very elegant antique form, and I can give 292 THE SECOND FUNERAL 3'0ii on the Thames no better idea of it than by requesting j'ou to fancy an immense wherry, of which the stern lias been cut straight off, and on which a temple on steps has been elevated. At the figure-head is an immense gold eagle, and at the stern is a little terrace, filled with evergreens and a profusion of banners. Upon pedestals along the sides of the vessel are tri- pods in which incense was burned, and underneath them arc garlands of flowers called here "immortals." Four eagles sur- mount the temple, and a great scroll or garland, held in their beaks, surrounds it. It is hung with velvet and gold ; four gold caryatides support the entry of it ; and in the midst, upon a large platform hung with velvet, and bearing the imperial arms, stood the coffin. A steamboat, carrying two hundred musicians playing funereal marches and militarv symphonies, preceded this magnificent vessel to Courbevoie, where a fu- nereal temple was erected, and " a statue of Notre Dame de Grace, before which the seamen of the 'Belle Poule' inclined themselves, in order to thank her for having granted them a noble and glorious voyage." Early on the morning of the 15th December, amidst clouds of incense, and thunder of cannon, and innumerable shouts of people, the coffin was transferred from the barge, and carried b}' the seamen of the "Belle Poule" to the Imperial Car. And now having conducted our hero almost to the gates of Paris, I must tell you what preparations were made in the capi- tal to receive him. Ten days before the arrival of the body, as you walked across the Deputies' Bridge, or over the P3splanade of the In- valides, you saw on the bridge eight, on the esplanade thirt3-- two, mysterious boxes erected, wherein a couple of score of sculptors were at work night and day. In the middle of the Invalid Avenue, there used to stand, on a kind of shabby fountain or pump, a bust of Lafayette, crowned with some dirty Avreaths of '' immortals," and looking down at the little streamlet which occasionally dribbled below him. The spot of ground was now^ clear, and Lafayette and the pump had been consigned to some cellar, to make way for the mighty procession that was to pass over the place of their habitation. Strange coincidence ! If I had been Mr. Victor Hugo, m}- dear, or a poet of any note, I would, in a few hours, have made an impromptu concerning that Lafayette-crowned pump, and compared its lot now to the fortune of its patron sorao OF NAPOLEON. 293 fift}* 3'ears back. From him then issued, as from his fountain now, a feeble dribble of pure words ; then, as now, some faint circles of disciples were willing to admire him. Certainly in the midst of the war and storm without, this pure fount of elo- quence went dribbling, driobling on, till of a sudden the revolu- tionary workmen knocked down statue and fountain, and the gorgeous imperial cavalcade trampled over the spot where they stood. As for the Champs Elysees, there was no end to the prepa- tions ; the first day you saw a couple of hundred scattbldings erected at intervals between the handsome gilded gas-lamps that at present ornament that avenue ; next day, all these scaifoldings were filled with brick and mortar. Presently, over the bricks and mortar rose pediments of statues, legs of urns, legs of goddesses, legs and bodies of goddesses, legs, bodies, and busts of goddesses. Finally, on the 13th December, goddesses complete. On the 14th they were painted marble- color; and the basements of wood and canvas on which they stood were made to resemble the same costly material. The funereal urns were ready to receive the frankincense and pre- cious odors which were to burn in them. A vast number of white columns stretched down the avenue, each bearing a bronze buckler on which was written, in gold letters, one of the victories of the Emperor, and each decorated with enoi'mous imperial flags. On these columns golden eagles were placed ; and the newspapers did not fail to remark the ingenious posi- tion in which the royal birds had been set : for while those on the riicht-hand side of the way had their heads turned toivnrds the procession, as if to watch its coming, those on the left were looking exactly the other way, as if to regard its progress. Do not fancy J ani joking : this point was gravely and emphatically urged in many newspapers ; and I do believe no mortal French- man ever thought it anything but sublime. Do not inten-upt me, sweet Miss Smith. I feel that you are angry. I can see from here the pouting of your lips, and know what you are going to say. You are going to say, " I will read no more of tliis Mr.Titmarsh ; there is no subject, how- ever solemn, but he treats it with flippant irreverence, and no character, however great, at wh(?m he does not sneer." Ah, my dear ! you are young now and enthusiastic ; and your Titmarsh'is old, very okb sad, and gray-headed. I have seen a poor mother buy a lialfpenny wreath at the gate of Montmarti'c buryin^-ground,"and go with it to her little child's grave, and hano- it"there over the little humble stone ; and if ever you saw me 294 THE SECOXD FUNERAL scorn the mean offering of the poor shabby creature, I will give you leave to be as angry as you will. The3' sny that on the passage of Napoleon's coiiisi down the Seine, old sohliers and country people walked miles from tiieir villages just to catch a sight of the boat which carried his body and to kueel down on the shore and pray for him. God forbid that we should quarrel with such prayers and sorrow, or question their sincei'ity. Somethiug great and good must have been in this man, some- thing loving and kindly, that has kept his name so cherished in the popular memory, and gained him such lasting reverence and afiection. But, Madam, one may respect the dead without feeling awe- stricken lit tlie plumes of the hearse ; and I see no reasou whv one should sympathize with the train of mutes and undertakers, however deep may be their mourning. Look, I pray you, at the manner in which I he Frencjh nation has performed Napo- leon's funeral. Time out of mind, nations have raised, in memory of their heroes, august muusoleums, grand [)yrumids, splendid statues of gold or marble, sacrilicing whatever they had that was most costly and rare, or that was most beautiful ill art, as tokens of their res[}ect and love for the dead person. What a fine example of this sort of sacrifice is that (recorded in a book of which Simplicity is the great characteristic) of the poor woman who brought her pot of precrious ointment — her all, and hiid it at the i'eet of the Object whieh, upon earth, she most loved and respected. '-Economists and calculators" there were even in those days who quarrelled with the manner in which the poor woman lavished so much ''capital;" but you will I'emember how nobly and generously the sacrifice was ap- [)recinted, and how the economists were put to shame. With regard to the funeral ceremony that has just been per- formed here, it is said that a fai'uous public personage and statesman. JNIonsieur Tiiiers indeed, spoke with the bitterest indignation of the genei'al style of the preparations, and of their mean and tawdry character. He would have had a pomp as magiiificent, he said, as that of Rome at the triumph of Aurelian : he would have decorated the bridges and avemies through which the procession w-as to pass, with the costliest marbles and tiie finest works o»l* art, and have had them to re- main there for ever as monuments of the ^reat funeral. The economists and calculators might here interpose with a great deal of reason ; for, indeed, there was no reason why a nation should impoverish itself to do honor to the memory of an individual for whom, after all, it can feel but a qualified OF NAPOLEON. 295 enthusiasm : but it snrel}' might have employed the large sum voted lor the purpose more wisely- and generously, and recorded its respect for ^sapoleon b}' some worthy and lasting memorial, rather than have erected yonder thousand vain heaps of tinsel, paint, and plaster, that are already cracking and crumbling in the frost, at three days old. Scarcely one of the statues, indeed, deserves to last a month : some are odious distortions and caricatures, which never should have been allowed to stand for a moment. On llie very day of the fete, the wind was shaking the canvas pedestals, and the flimsy wood-work had begun to gape and give way. At a little distance, to be sure, you could not see the cracks ; and pedestals and statues looLrd like marble. At some distance, you could not tell but that the wreaths and eagles were gold embroidery, and not gilt paper — the great tricolor liags dama.sk, and not Btrioed calico. One would think that these sham splendors betokened sham respect^ if one had not known that the name of ^'apoleon is held in real reverence, and observed somewhat of the character of the nation. Keal feelings they have, but they distort them by exaggeration ; real courage, which they render ludicrous by intolerable braggadocio; and I think the above official account of the Prince de Joinville's proceedings, of the manner in which the Emperor's remains have been treated in their voyage to the capital, and of the preparations made to receive him in it, will give my dear Miss Smith some means of understanding the social and moral condition of this worthy people of France. III. ON THE FUNERAL CEREMONY. Shall I tell you, my dear, that when Fran9ois woke me at Sir Lancelot. What a day would it have been ftn* those three could they have lived until now, and seen their hero retnrnin"" ! Where's Nev? His wife sitslookins: out from iM. Flahaut's window yonder, buttlie bravest of the brave i3 not with her. Murat too is absent: honest Joachim doves the Emperor at heart, and repents that he was not at Water- loo : who iinows but that at the sii>ht of the handsome swords- man those stubborn English "'- canaille" would have given way. A king. Sire, is, yon know, the greatest of slaves — State affairs of consequence — his Majesty the King of Naples is detained no doubt. When we last saw the King, however, and his Highness the Prince of Elchingen, they looked to have as good health as ever they had in their lives, and we heard each of them calmly calling out " FireT' as they have done in number- less battles before. Is it possible? can the Emperor forget? We don't like to brca!v it to him, but has he forgotten all about the farm at Piz30, an;l the garden of the Observatory? Yes, truly: there h? lies on his golden shield, never stu'Jing, never so much as lii'ting his eyelids, or opening his lips any wider. rcm'J'i^i van'ttainm! Here is oiu' Sovereign in all his glory, and they lired a thousand guns at Cherbourg and never woke him ! However, we are advancing matters by several hours, and you must give just as much credence as you please to the sub- 300 THE SECOND FUNERAL joined remarks concerning the Procession, seeing that 3'our hnm- ble servant could not possibly be present at it, being bound lor the church elsewhere. Programmes, however, hnve been published of the affair, and your vivid fancy will not fail to give life to them, and the whole mngnilicent train will pass before you. Fancy then, that the guns are fired at Neuilly : the body landed at daybreak from the funereal barge, and transferred to the car ; and fanc\' the car, a huge Juggernaut of a machine, rolling on four wheels of an antique shape, which supported a basement adorned with golden eagles, banners, laurels, and velvet hangings. Above the hangings stand twelve golden statues with raised arms supporting a huge shield, on which the coffin la}'. On the coffin was the imperial crown, covered with violet velvet crape, and the whole vast machine was drawn by horses in superb housings, led by valets in the imperial livery. Fancy at the head of the procession first of all — Tlie Gendarmerie of tlie Seine, with their trumpets and Colonel. The Miuiicipal Guard (horse), with their trumpets, standard, and Colonel. ^ Two squadrons of the 7th Lancers, with Colonel, standard, and music. The Commandant of Paris and his Staff. A battalion of Infantry of the Line, with their flag, sappers, drums, music, and Colonel. The Municipal Guard (foot), with flag, drums, and Colonel. The Sapper-pumpers, with ditto. Tlien picture to yourself more squadrons of Lancers and Cuiras- sfers. The General of the ])ivision and his Staff ; all officers of all arms employed at Paris, and unattached ; the Military School of Saint Cyr. the Polytechnic School, the School of the Etat- Major ; and the Professors and Staff of each. Go on imagining more battalions of Infantry, of Artillery, companies of Engi- neers, squadrons of Cuirassiers, ditto of tlie Cavalr}^ of the Na- tional Guard, and the first and second legions of ditto. Fancy a carriage, containing the Chaplain of the St. Helena expe- dition, tlie only clerical gentleman that formc^d a part of the procession. Fancy you hear the funereal music, and then figure in your mind's eye — Thk Empekot^'s Ciiaroer, that is. Napoleon's own saddle and bridle (when First Consul) upon a white horse. The saddle (wliich lias been kept ever since in the Garde Meuble of the Crown) is of amaranth velvet, embroidered in gold : the holsters and housings are of the same rich material. On them you re- mark the attributes of War, Commerce, Science, and Art. The bits end stirrups aie silver-gilt chased. Over the stirrups, two OF NAPOLEON. 301 eagles were placed at the time of the empire. The horse was covered with a violet crape embroidered with golden bees. After this came more Soldiers, General Officers, Sub-Officers, Mar- shals, and what was said to be the prettiest siglit almost of tlie whole, the banners of the eighty-six Departments of France. These are due to tlie invention of M. Tliiers. and were to have been accompanied by federates from each ])epartmcnt. But the government very wisely mistrusted this and some other projects of Monsieur Thiers ; and as for a federation, my dear, it has been tried. Next comes — His Royal Highness, the Prince de Joinville. The 500 sailors of the " Belle Poule " marciiing in double file on each side of THE CAR. [Hush ! the enormous crowd thrills as it passes, and only some few voices cry Vive I'Em/iereiir! Shining golden in the frosty sun — with hundreds of thousands of eyes upon it, from houses and liousetops, from balconies, black, purple, and tricolor, from tops of leafless trees, from beliind long lines of glittering bayonets under schakos and bear-skin caps, from behind the Line and the National Guard again, pushing, struggling, heaving, panting, eager, the heads of an enormous multitude stretching out to meet and follow it, amid?^ long avenues of columns and statues gleaming white, of standards rainbow-colored, of golden eagles, of pale fu- nereal urns, of discharging odors amidst huge volumes of pitch-black smoke, CHE GREAT IMPERIAL CHARIOT ROLLS MAJESTICALLY ON. The cords of the pall are held by two Marshals, an Admiral and General Bertrand; who are followed by — The Prefects of the Seine and Police, &c. The Mayors of Paris. &c. The Members of the Old Guard, &c. A Squadron of Light Dragoons, &c. Lieutenant-General Schneider, «S:c. More cavalry, more infantry, more artillery, more everybody ; and as the procession passes, the Line and the National Guard form- ing line on each side of the road fall in and follow it, until it arrives at the Church of the Invalides, where the >st honors are to be paid to it] Among the company assembled under the dome of that edi- fice, the casual observer would not perhaps have remarked a gentleman of the name of Michael Angelo Titmarsh, who never- theless was there. But as, my dear Miss Smith, the descrip- tions in this letter, from the words in page 298. line '10 — tlie party moved — u\y to the words paid to it, on this page, have purely emanated fi-om your obedient servant's fancy, and not from "his personal observation (for no being on earth, except a r» 02 THE SECOXD FUNERAL newspaper reporter, can be in two places at once), permit rae now to communicate to von what little circumstances tell under ray own paiticular view on the day of the loth of December. As we came out, the air and the buildings round about were tinged with purple, and the clear shaq) half-moon before-men- tioned was still in the sky, where it seemed to be lingering as if it would catch a peep of the connnenccment of the famous pro- cession. The Arc de Trioraphe was shining in a keen frosty sunshine, and looking as clean and rosy as if it had just made its toilette. The canvas or pasteboard image of Napoleon, of which onlv the "ilded legs had been erected the ni^•ht previous, was now visible, bod}', head, crown, sceptre and all, and made an imposing show. Long gilt banners were flaunting about, with the imperial cipher and eagle, and the names of the bat- tle i and ^■icto^ies glittering in gold. The long avenues of the Chiim^js Elysies h id b^en covered with sand for the con- venience of the great procession that was to tramp across it that day. Hundreds of people were marching to and fro, laughing, chattering, singing, gesticulating as happy French- men do. There is no pleasanter sight than a French crowd on the alert for a festival, and nothing more catching than their good humor. As for the notion which has been put forward by some of the opposition newspapers that the populace were on this occasion unusually solemn or sentimental, it would be pay- ing a bad compliment to the natural gayetyofthe nation, tosa}' that it was, on the morning at least of the 15th of December, affected in any such absurd wa}'. Itinerant merchnnts were bhouling out lustily their connnodities of segars aujl brandy, and the weather was so bitter cold, that they could not fail to find plenty of customers. Carpenters and workmen were still niakinii,' a liu2:e banking' and clattering* nmong the sheds which were built for the accommodation of the visitors. Some of these sheds were hung with black, such as one sees before churches, in funerals ; some were rol)ed in violet, in compliment to thej Emperor whose mourning the}* put on. Most of them had tine' tricolor hangings with appropriate inscriptions to the glorj- of the French arms. All along the Champs Elysees were nrns of plaster-of-Paris destined to coPitain funeral incense and flames ; columns deco- rated with huge flags of blue, I'ed, and white, embroidered with shining crowns, eagles, and N's in gilt paper, and statues of plaster rei)resenLing Nymphs, Triumphs, Victories, or other female personages, painted in oil so as to represent marble. Real marble could have had no better etfect, and the appear- Napoleon's Funeral. p OF NAPOLEON. S03 ance of the whole was lively and picturesque in the extreme. On each pillar was a buckler, of the color of l.>rouze, bearing the name and date of a battle in gilt letters : you had to walk°through a mile-long avenue of these glorious reminiscences, telling of spots where, in the great imperial days, throats had been vfcto- liously cut. As we passed down the avenue, several troops of soldiers met us : the garde-muacipale a cheval^ in brass helmets and shining jack-boots, noble-looking men, large, on large horses, the pick of the old army, as I have heard, a^id armed for the special occupation of peace-keeping : not the most glorious, but the best part of the soldier's duty, as I fancy. Then came a regiment of Carabineers, one of Infantry — little, alert, brown- faced, good-humored men, their band at their head playing sounding marches. These were followed by a regiment or detachment of the Municipals on foot — two or three inches taller than the men of the Line, and conspicuous for their neat- ness and discipline. By-and-by came a squadron or so of dragoons of the National Guards : they are covered with straps, buckles, aguillettes, and cartouche-boxes, and make under their triL'olor cock's-plumes a show sufllciently wai"like. The point which chiefly struck me on beholding these militaj'y men of the National Guard and the Line, was the admirable manner in which they bore a cold that seemed to me as sharp as the weather in the Russian retreat, through which cold the troops werft trotting without trembling and in the utmost cheerfulness and good-humor. An aide-de-camp galloped past in white pantaloons. By heavens ! it made me shudder to look at him. With this profound reflection, we turned away to the right tow^ards the hanging-bridge (where we met a detachment of young men of the Ecole de I'P^tat Major, flne-looking lads, but sadly disfigured by the wearing of stays or belts, that make the waists of the French dandies of a most absurd tenuity), and speedily passed into the avenue of statues leading up to the Invalides. All tliese were statues of warriors from Ney to Charlemagne, modelled in clay for the nonce, and placed here to meet the corpse of the greatest warrior of all. Passing these, we had to walk to a little door at the back of the Invalides, wlicre was a crowd of persons plunged in the deepest mourning, and pushing for places in the chapel within. The chapel is spacious and of no great architectural preten- sions, but was on this occasion gorgeously decorated in honor of the great person to whose body it was about to give shelter. |j We had arrived at nine : the ceremony was not to begin, 304 THE SECOXD FUNERAL thev said, till two : we bad five hoars before us to see all that from our places could be seen. We saw that the roof, up to the first Hues of architecture, was huno; with violet ; bevond this with bhxcl^. We sr^w N's, eagles, bees, laurel wreatlis, and other such imperial emblems, adorning every nook and corner of the edifice. Between the arches, on each side of the aisle, were painted trophies, on which were written the names of some of Napoleon's Generals and of their principal deeds of arms — and not thcnr deeds of arras alone, ■pardi^ but their coats of arms too. O stars and gartei's ! but this is too much. AVhat was Nc^y's paternal coat, prithee, or honest Junot's quarterings, or the venerable escutcheon of King Joachim's father, the innkeeper? You and I, dear Miss Smith, know the exact value of heral- dic bearings. We know that though the greatest pleasure of all is to acl like a gentleman, it is a pleasure, nay a merit, to he one — to come of an old stock, to have an honorable pedigree, to be able to say that centuries back our fathers had gentle blood, and to us transmitted the same. There is a good in gen- tility : the man wiio questions it is envious, or a coarse dullard not able to perceive the dilference between high breediug and low. One has in the same wa}' heard a man brag that he did not know the dilference between wines, not he — give him a good glass of port, and he would pitch all your claret to the deuce. My love, men often brag about their own dulness in this way. In the matter of gentlemen, democrats cry, ''Psha! Give us one of Nature's gentlemen, and hang your aristocrats." And so indeed Nature does make so//?e gentlemen — a few here and there. But Art makes most. Good birth, that is, good hand- some well-formed lathers and mothers, nice cleanly nurser^'- maids, good meals, good physicians, good education, few cares, pleasant easy habits of life, and luxuries not too gi-eat or ener- vating, but onl^- refining — a course of these going on for a few generations are the best gentleman-makers in the world, and beat. Nature hollow. If, respected jMadam, j'ou say that there is something hciter than gentility in this wicked world, and that honesty and personal wealth are more valuable than all the politeness and higli-breeding that ever wore red-heeled pumps, knights' spurs, or Hobv's boots, Titmarsh for one is never goinii: to sav \ou nay. If you even go so far as to say that the very existence of this super-genteel society among us, from the slavish respect that we pay to it, from the dastardly manner in which we OF NAPOLEON. ' 305 attempt to imitate its airs and ape its vices, goes far to destroy honesty of intercourse, to make us meanly ashamed of our natu- ral alfections and honest, harmless usages, and so does a great deal more harm than it is possible it can do good by its example — perhaps, Madam, you speak with some sort of reason. Po- tato myself, I can't help seeing that the tulip yonder has the best place in the garden, and the most sunshine, and the most water, and the best tendhig — and not liking him over well. But I can't help acknowledging that Nature has given him a much finer dress than ever I can hope to have, and of this, at least, must give him the benefit. Or say, we are so many cocks and hens, my dear (sans arriere pensee)^ with our crops pretty full, our plumes pretty sleek, decent picking here and there in the straw-yard, and tolerable snua; roostins; in the barn : vonder on the terrace, in the sun, walks Peacock, stretching his proud neck, squealing every now and then in the most pert fashionable voice and flaunting his great supercilious dandified tail. Don't let us be too angry, my dear, with the useless, haught}', insolent creature, because he despises us. Sometlniuj is there about Peacock that we don't possess. Strain your neck ever so, you can't make it as long or as blue as his — cock your tail as much as you please, and it will never be half so fine to look at. But the most ab- surd, disgusting, contemptible sight in the world would you and I be, leaving the barn-door for my ladj-'s flower-gai'den, for- saking our natural sturd}' walk for the peacock's genteel rickety stride, and adopting the squeak of his voice in the place of our gallant lusty cock-a-doodle-dooing. Do you take the allegory? I love to speak in such, and the above types have been presented to my mind while sitting opposite a gimcrack coat-of-arms and coronet that are painted in the Invalides Church, and assigned to one of the Emperor's Generals. Ventrehleu! Madam, what need have they of coats-of-arms and coronets, and wretched imitations of old exploded aristo- cratic oewoaws that thoy had fluno- out of the country — with the heads of the owners in them sometimes, for indeed they were not particular — a score of 3'ears before ? What business, forsooth, had they to be meddling with gentility and aping its ways, who had courage, merit, daring, genius sometimes, and a pride of their own to support, if proud they were inclined to be? A clever young man (who was not of high family himself, but had been bred up genteelly at Eton and the university) — young Mr. Georoe Cannino-,' at the commencement of the French Revolu- iiO r) 06 THE SECOND FUNERAL tion, sneered at " Roland the Just, with ri])bons in his shoes," and the dandies, who then wore buckles, voted the sarcasm monstrous kilhng. It was a joke, m^' dear, worth}' of a lackey, or of a siih' smart parvenu, not knowing the society into which bis hick had cast him (God help him ! in later years, they taught him what they were!), and fancying in his silly intoxication that simplicit}' was ludicrous and fashion respectable. See, now, fifty years are gone, and where are shoebuckles? Ex- tinct, defunct, kicked into the irrevocable past ot!' the toes of all P^urope ! How fatal to the parvenu, throughout history, has been this respect for shoebuckles. Where, for instance, would the Empij'e of Napoleon have been, if Ney and Lannes had never sported such a thing as a coat-of-arms, and had only written their simple names on their shields, after the fashion of Desaix's scutcheon yonder? — the bold Republican who led the crowning charge at Marengo, and sent the best blood of the Holy Roman Empire to the right-al)out, before the wretched misbegotten imperial heraldr}' was born, that was to prove so disastrous to the father of it. It has always been so. The}' won't amalgamate. A country must be governed by the one principle or the other. But give, in a republic, an aristocracy ever so little chance, and it works and plots and sneaks and bullies and sneers itself into place, and you find democracy out of doors. Is it good that the aristocracy shoukl so triumph? — that is a question that you may settle according to your own notions and taste ; and permit me to say, I do not care twopence how you settle it. Large books have been written upon the subject in a variety of languages, and coming to a variety of conclusions. Great statesmen are thei'e in our country, from Lord I^ondonderry down to Mr. Vincent, each in his degree maintaining his differ- ent opinion. But here, in the matter of Napoleon, is a simple fact: he founded a great, glorious, strong, potent republic, able to cope with the best aristocracies in the world, and perhaps to beat them all ; he converts his republic into a monarchy, and surrounds his monarchy with what he calls aristocratic insti- tutions ; and you know w'hat becomes of him. The [)eople estranged, the aristocracy faithless (when did they ever pardon one who was not of themselves?) — the imi)erial fabric tumbles to the ground. If it teaches nothing else, my dear, it teaches one a great point of policy — namely, to stick by one's party. While these thoughts (and sundry others relative to the hor- rible cold of the place, the intense dulness of dela}', the stu- pidity of leaving a warm bed and a breakfast in order to witness OF xapolp:o^. 307 a procession that is much better performed at a theatre) while these thoughts were passing in the mind, the church began to Mil apace, and you saw that the hour of the ceremonj' was drawino; near. Jnipn'nds, came men with lighted staves, and set fire to at least ten thousand wax-candles that were hanging in brilliant chandehers in various parts of the chapel. Curtains were dropped over the upper windows as these illuminations were effected, and the church was left only to the funereal light of the spermaceti. To the right was the dome, round the cavity of which sparkling lamps were set, that designed the shape of it brilliantly against the darkness. In the midst, and where the altar used to stand, rose the catafalque. And why not? Who is God here but Napoleon ? and in him the sceptics hfive already ceased to believe ; but the people does still somewhat. He and Louis XIV. divide the worship of the place between them. As for the catafalque, the best that I can say for it is that it is really a noble and imposing-looking edifice, with tall jjillars supporting a grand dome, with innumerable escutcheons, stand- ards, and allusions militarv and funereal. A ereat ea^le of course tops the whole : tripods burning spirits of wine stand round this kind of dead man's throne, and as we saw it (by peering over the heads of our neighbors in the front rank), it looked, in the niidst of the black concave, and under the efiect of half a thousand flashing cross-lights, properly grand and tall. The effect of the whole chapel, however (to speak the jargon of the painting-room), was spoiled by being cut up: there were too many objects for tiie eye to rest upon : the ten thousand wax-candles, for instance, in their numberless twinkling chan- deliers, the raw tranchant colors of the new banners, wreaths, bees, N's, and other emblems dotting the place all over, and incessantly puzzling, or rather bofheriiig the behoklcr. High overhead, in a sort of mist, with the glare of their original colors worn down by dust and time, hung long rows of dim ghostly-looking standards, captured in old days from the enemy. They were, I thought, the best and most solemn part of the show. To suppose that the people were bound to be solemn during the ceremony is to exact from them something quite needless and unnatural. The very fact of a squeeze dissipates all solem- nity. One great crowd is always, as I imagine, prett3' much like another. In the course of the last few 3ears 1 have seen three : that attendino- the coronation of our present sovereign, 308 THE SECOND FUNERAL that wliich went to see Conrvoisier hanged, and this which witnessed the Napoleon ceremon}'. The people so assembled for hours together are jocular rather than solemn, seeking to pass away the wear}^ time with tlie best amusements that will olfer. There was,, to be sure, in all the scenes above alluded to, just one moment — one particular moment — when the uni- versal people feels a shock and is for that second serious. But except for that second of time, I declare I saw no seriousness here beyond that of ennui. The church began to fill with personages of all ranks and conditions. P'irst, opposite our seats came a company of fat grenadiers of the National Guard, who presently, at the word of command, put theii muskets down against benches and wainscots, until the arrival of the procession. For seven hours these men formed the object of the most anxious solicitude of all the ladies and gentle- men seated on our benches : they began to stamp their feet, for the cold was atrocious, and we were frozen where we sat. Some of them fell to blowing their fingers ; one executed a kind of dance, such as one sees often here in cold weather — - the individual jumps repeatedly upon one leg, and kicks out the other violenth', meanwhile his hands are flapping across his chest. Some fellows opened their cartouche-boxes, aud from them drew eatables of various kinds. You can't think how anxious we were to know the qualities of the same. " Tiens, ce gros qui mange une cuisse de volaille ! " — "11 a du jambon, celui-la." "I should like some, too," growls an Englishman, "for I hadn't a morsel of breakfast," and so on. This is the way, ni}' dear, that we see Napoleon buried. Did you ever see a chicken escape from clown in a panto- mime, and hop over into the pit, or amongst the fiddlers? and have you not seen the shrieks of enthusiastic laughter that the wondrous incident occasions? We had our chicken, of course : there never was a public crowd without one. A poor unhappy woman in a greasy plaid cloak, with a battered rose-colored plush bonnet, was seen talving her place among the stalls allotted to the srandees. " Vovez done I'Ano-laise." said every- body, and it was too true. You could swear that the wretch was an En2:lishw"oman : a bonnet w-as never made or w^orn so in any other countrv. Half an hour's deliohtful amusement did this lady oive us all. She was whisked from seat to seat by the huissiers, and at every change of place woke a peal of laughter. 1 was glad, however, at the end of the day to see the old pink bonnet over a very comfortable seat, which some- body had not claimed and she had kept. OF N-APOLEON. 309 Are not these remarkable incidents? The next wonder we saw was the arrival of a set of tottering old Invalids, wiio took their i)laces nnder us with drawn sabres Tlien came a superb drum-inajor, a handsome smiling good-humored giant of a man, his breeches astonishingly embroidered with silver lace. Him a dozen little drummer-bo^'S followed — '' the little darlings ! " all the ladies cried out in a breath : the^' were indeed prett}' little lellows, and came and stood close under us : the huo-e drum-major smiled over his little red-capped flock, and for man}' hours in the most perfect contentment twiddled his mous- taches and pla\'ed with the tassels of his cane. ♦ Now the compau}- began to arrive thicker and thicker. A whole cove}' of ConseiUers-cr Etat came in, in blue coats, em- broidered with blue silk, then came a crowd of lawyers in toques and caps, among whom were sundry venerable Judges in scarlet, purple velvet, and ermine — a kind of Bajazet cos- • turne. Look there! there is the Turkish Ambassador in his red cap, turning his solemn brown face about and looking pre- ternaturall>' wise. Tiie Deputies walk in in a bod}'. Guizot is not there : he passed by just now in full ministerial costume. Presently little Thiers saunters back : what a clear, broad sharp-eyed face the fellow^ has, with his gray hair cut down so demure ! A servant passes, pushing through the crowd a shabby wheel-chair. It has just brought old Mongey the Gov- ernor of the Invalids, the honest old man who defended Paris so stoutly in 1814. He has been very ill, and is worn down almost by infirmities : but in his illness he was perpetually asking, " Doctor, shall I live till the 15th? Give me till then, and I die contented." One can't help believing that the old man's wish is honest, however one may doubt the piety of another illustrious Marshal, who once carried a candle before Charles X. in a procession, and has been this morning to Neuilly to kneel and pray at the foot of Napoleon's coffin. He might have said his prayers at home, to be sure ; but don't let us ask too much : that kind of reserve is not a Frenchman's chai'acteristic. Bang — bang ! At about half-past two a dull sound of can- nonading was heard without the church, and signals took place between the Commandant of the Invalids, of the National Guards, and the big drum-major. Looking to these troops (the fat Nationals were shuffling into line again) the two Com- mandants uttered, as nearly as I could catch them, the follow- ing words — " Hakrum Hu3ip!" 310 THE SECOND FUNERAL s' At once all the National bayonets were on the present, and the sabres of the old Invalids np. The big drum-major looked round at the children, who be^an verv slowlv and solemnly on their drums, Rub-dub-dub — rub-dub-dub — (count two be- tween each) — rub-dub-dub, and a great procession of priests came down from the altar. First, there was a tall handsome cross-bearer, bearing a long gold cross, of which the front was turned towards liis grace the Archbishop. Then came a double row of about sixteen in- cense-boys, dressed in white sui-plices : the first boy, about six 3-ears old, the last with whiskers and of the height of a man. Then followed a regiment of priests in black tipj^ets and white gowns : they had black hoods, like the moon when she is at her third quarter, wherewith those who were bald (many wei-e, and fat too) covered themselves. All the reverend men held their heads meeklj' down, and affected to be reading in their breviaries. After the Priests came some Bishops of the neighboring districts, in purple, with crosses sparkling on their episcopal bosoms. Then came, after more priests, a set of men whom I have never seen before — a kind of ghosth' heralds, young and handsome men, some of them in stiff tabards of black and sil- ver, their eyes to the ground, their hands placed at right angles with their chests. Then came two gentlemen l)ea]'ing remarkable tall candle- sticks, with candles of corresponding size. One was burning brightly, but the wind (that chartei'ed libertiue) had blown out the other, which nevertheless ke[)t its i)lace in the procession — I wondered to myself whether the reverend gentlemau who car- ried the extino-uished candle, felt disiiusted, humiHated, morli- fied — perfectly conscious that the eyes of many thousands of people were bent upon that bit of refractory- wax. "We all of us looked at it with intense interest. Another cross-bearer, behind whom came a gentleman carrj*- ing an instrument like a bedroom candlestick. His Grandeur MonseigneurAffre, Archbishop of Paris : he was in black and white, his eyes were cast to the earth, his hands were together at right angles from his chest : on his hands were black gloves, and on the black gloves spaikled the sacred episcoi)al — what do I say? — archiei)iscopal ring. On his head was the mitre. It is unlike the godly coronet that figures upon the coach-'panels of our own Ixight Reverend Bench. The Archbishop's mitre may be about a yard high ; w OF NAPOLEON. 311 formed within probably of consecrated pasteboard, it is without covered by a sort of watered silk of white and silver. On the two [)eaks at the top of the mitre are two very little spangled tassels, that frisk and twinkle about in a very agreeable manner. Monseigneur stood opposite to us for some time, when I had the opportunity to note the above remarkable phenomena. He stood opposite rue for some time, keeping his eyes steadily on the ground, his hands before him, a small clerical train follow- ing after. Why didn't they move? There was the National Guard keeping on presenting arms, the little drummers going on rub-dub-dub — rub-dub-dub — in the same steady, slow way, and the Procession never moved an inch. There was evidently, to use an elegant phrase, a hitch somewhere. \^Enter a fat priest who bustles up to the drum-major.'^ Fat priest — '' Taisez-vous." Little drummer — Rub-dub-dub — rub-dub-dub — rub-dub-dub, &c. Drum-major — '' Qu'est-ce done? " i^at priest — " Taisez-vous, dis-je ; ce n'est pas le corps. II n'arrivera pas — pour une heure." The little drums were instantly hushed, the procession turned to the right-about, and walked back to the altar again, the blown-out candle that had been on the near side of us before was now on the off side, the National Guards set down their muskets and began at their sandwiches again. AVe had to ^wait an hour and a half at least before the great procession irrived. The guns without went on booming all the while at intervals, and as we heard each, the audience gave a kind )f "-ahahah!" such as you hear when the rockets go up at "^auxhall. At last the real Procession came. Tiien the drums began to beat as formerly, the Nationals to jet under arms, the clergymen were sent for and went, and jresently — yes, there was the tall cross-bearer at the head of the procession, and they came back! They chanted something in a weak, snuffling, lugubrious manner, to the melancholy bray of a serpent. Crash ! however, Mr. Habeneck and the fiddlers in the organ- loft pealed out a wild shrill march, which stopped the reverend gentleinen, and in the midst of this music — And of a irreat trampling of feet and clattering, And of a^ great crowd of Generals and Officers la fine clothes. 112 THE SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON. With the Pruice de Joiiiville marching quicldy at the head of the procession, And while ever3'bod3''s heart was thumping as hard as possible, Napoleon's coffin passed. It was done in an instant. A box covered with a great red cross — a dingy-looking crown lying on the top of it — Seamen on one side and Invalids on the other — the}' had passed in an instant and were np the aisle. A faint snuffling sound, as before, was heard from the offi- ciating priests, but we knew of nothing more. It is said that old Louis PhiHppe was standing at the catafalque, whither the Prince de Joinville advanced and said, " Sire, I bring you the body of the Emperor Napoleon." Louis Philippe answered, "I receive it in the name of P'rance." Beitrand put on the body the most glorious victori- ous sword that ever has been forged since the apt descendants of the first murderer learned how to hammer steel ; and the coffin was placed in the temple prepared for it. The six hundred singers and the fiddlers now commenced the playing and singing of a piece of music ; and a part of the crew of the ""Belle Poule " skipped into the places that had been kept for them under us, and listened to the music, chew- ing tobacco. While the actors and fiddlers were going on, most of the spirits-of-wine lamps on altars went out. When we arrived in the open air we passed through the' court of the Invalids, where thousands of people had been assembled, but where the benches were now quite bare. Then we came on to the terrace before the place : the old soldiers w^ere firing off the great guns, which made a dreadful stunning noise, and frightened some of us. who did not care to pass before tlie cannon and be knocked down even by the wadding. The guns were fired in honor of the King, who was going home b}^ a back door. All the foity thousand people who covered the great stands l)efore the Hotel had gone away too. ,Tiie Imperial Barge had been dragged up the river, and was lying lonely along the Qua}', examined b}' some few shivering people on the shore. It was five o'clock when we reached home : the stars were shining keenly out of the frosty sk}', and Francois told me that dinner was jnst ready. In this manner, my dear Miss Smith, the great Napoleou was buried. Farewell. "'-^ CEITICAL REVIEWS. CRITICAL REVIEWS. GEORGE CRUIKSHANK.* Accusations of ingratitude, and just accusations no doubt, are made against every inhabitant of tliis wicked world, and the fact is, that a man who is ceaselessly engaged in its trouble and turmoil, borne hither and thither upon the fierce waves of the crowd, bustling, shifting, struggling to keep himself some- what above water — fighting for reputation, or more likely for bread, and ceaselessly occupied to-day with plans for appeasing the eternal appetite of inevitable hunger to-morrow — a man in such straits has hardl}' time to think of anything but himself, and, as in a sinking ship, must make his own rush for the boats, and fight, struggle, and trample for safety. In the midst of such a combat as this, the "ingenious arts, which prevent the ferocity of the manners, and act upon them as an emollient" (as the philosophic bard remarks in the Latin Grammar) are likely to be jostled to death, and then forgotten. The world will allow no such compromises between it and that which does not belong to it — no two gods must we serve ; but (as one has seen in some old portraits) the horrible glazed eyes of Necessity are always fixed upon you ; fly away as 3'ou will, black Care sits behind you, and with his ceaseless gloomy croaking drowns the voice of all more cheeiful companions. Happy he whose fortune has placed him where there is calm and plenty, and who ^as the wisdom not to give up his quiet in quest of visionary gain. Here is, no doiibt, the reason why a man, after the period of his boyhood, or first youth, makes so few friends. Want and ambition (new acquaintances which are introduced to him along with his beard) thrust away all other society from him. * Keprinted from the Westminster Revieiv for June, 1840. (No 66.) 316 CRITICAL REVIEWS. Some old friends remain, it is true, but these are become as a habit — a part of 3"our selfishness ; and, for new ones, they are selfish as you are. Neither member of the new partnership has the capital of affection and kindlj^ feeling, or can even afford the time that is requisite for the establishment of the new firm. Damp and chill the shades of the prison-house begin to close round us, and that "vision splendid" which has accompanied our steps in our journey dail}' farther from the east, fades away and dies into the light of common da}'. And what a common da}- ! what a foggy, dull, shivering apology for light is this kind of muddy twilight through which we are about to tramp and flounder for the rest of our existence, wandering farther and farther from the beauty and freshness and from the kindly gushing springs of clear gladness that made all around us green in our youth ! One wanders and gropes in a slough of stock-jobbing, one sinks or rises in a storm of politics, and in either case it is as good to fall as to rise — to mount a bubble on the crest of the wave, as to sink a stone to the bottom. The reader who has seen the name aflEixed to the head of this article scarcely- expected to be entertained with a declama- tion upon ingratitude, 3'outh, and the vanit}' of human pursuits, which ma}' seem at first sight to have little to do with the sub- ject in hand. But (although we reserve the privilege of dis- coursing upon whatever subject shall suit us, and by no means admit the public has any right to ask in our sentences for any meaning, or any connection whatever) it happens that, in this particular instance, there is an undoubted connection. ' In Susan's case, as recorded by Wordsworth, what connection had the corner of Wood Street with a mountain ascending, a vision of trees, and a nest by the Dove? Why should the song of a thrush cause bright volumes of vapor to glide through Lothbury, and a river to flow on through the vale of Cheapside ? As she stood at that corner of W^ood Street, a mop and a pail in her hand most likely, she heard the bird singing, and straight- way began pining and yearning for the days of her youth, for- getting the proper business of the pail and mop. Even so we are moved by the sight of some of Mr.«/Ci-uikshank's works — the " Busen fiihlt siclijugendlich erschiittert," the " schwankende Gestalten " of youth flit before one again, — Cruikshank's thrush begins to pipe and carol, as in the days of boyhood ; hence misty moralities, reflections, and sad and pleasant remembrances arise. He is the friend of the young especially. Have we not read all the story-books that his wonderful pencil has illusti-ated ? n CRITICAL REVIEWS. 317 Did we not forego tarts, in order to bii}' his " Breaking-up," or his " Fashionable Monstrosities" of the 3'ear eighteen hundred and something? Have we not before us, at this very moment, a print, — one of the admirable " Illustrations of Phrenology" — which entire work was purchased by a joint-stock company of bo3's, each drawing lots afterwards for the separate prints, and taking his choice in rotation? The writer of this, too, had the honor of drawing the first lot, and seized innnediately upon " Philoprogenitiveness " — a marvellous print (our cop}- is not at all improved b}' being colored, which operation we performed on it ourselves) — a marvellous print, indeed, — full of inge- nuity and fine jovial humor. A father, possessor of an enor- mous nose and family, is surrounded b}" the latter, who are, some of them, embracing the former. The composition writhes and twists about like the Kermes of Rubens. No less than seven little men and women in nightcaps, in frocks, in bibs, in breeches, are clambering about the head, knees, and arms of the man with the nose ; their noses;, too, are preternaturall}^ developed — the twins in the cradle have noses of the most considerable kind. The second daughter, who is watching them ; the j^oungest but two, who sits squalling in a certain wicker chair ; the eldest son, who is yawning ; the eldest daughter, who is preparing with the gravj' of two mutton-chops a savory dish of Yorkshire pudding for eighteen persons ; the 3'ouths who are examining her operations (one a literary gentle- man, in a remarkably neat nightcap and pinafore, who has just had his finger in the pudding) ; the genius who is at work on the slate, and the two honest lads who are hugging the good- humored washerwoman, their mother, — all, all, save this worth}' woman, have noses of the largest size. Not handsome certainly are they, and yet everjbod}^ must be charmed with the picture. It is full of grotesque beaut}'. The artist has at the back of his own skull, we are certain, a huge bump of philo- l^rogenitiveness. He loves children in his heart ; every one of those he has drawn is perfectl}' happ}-, and jovial, and affec- tionate, and innocent as possible. He makes them with large noses, but he loves them, and 3'ou always find something kind in the midst of his humor, and the ugliness redeemed b}' a SI3' touch of beaut3'. The smiling mother reconciles one with all the hideous family : the3' have all something of the mother in them — something kind, and generous, and tender. Knight's, in Sweeting's Alley ; Fairburn's, in a court off Ludgate Hill; Hone's, in Fleet Street — bright, enchanted palaces, which George Cruikshank used to people with grin- 318 CRITICAL REVIEWS. ning, fantastical imps, and meny, harmless sprites, — where are the}'? Fairburn's shop knows him no more ; not only has Knight disappeared from Sweeting's Allej", but, as we are given to understand, Sweeting's Alley has disappeared from the face of the globe. Slop, the atrocious Castlereagh, the sainted Caroline (in a tight pelisse, with feathers in her head), the ''Dandy of sixtj',' who used to glance at us from Hone's friendly whidows — where are the}'? Mr. Cruikshank ma}' have drawn a thousand better things since the days when these were ; but they are to us a thousand times more pleasing than anything else he has done. How we used to believe in them ! to stray miles out of the way on holidays, in order to ponder for an hour before that delightful window in Sweeting's Alley ! in walks through Fleet Street, to vanish abruptly down Fair- burn's passage, anc] there make one at his " charming gratis " exhibition. There used to be a crowd round the window in those days, of grinning, good-natured mechanics, who spelt the songs, and spoke them out for the benefit of the company, and who received the points of humor with a general sympa- thizing roar. Where are these people now ? You never hear any laughing at HB. ; his pictures are a great deal too genteel for that — polite points of wit, which strike one as exceedingly clever and pretty, and cause one to smile in a quiet, gentleman- like kind of way. There must be no smiling with Cruikshank. A man who does not laugh outright is a dullard, and has no heart ; even the old dandy of sixty must have laughed at his own wondrous grotesque image, as they say Louis Philippe did, who saw all the caricatures that were made of himself. And there are some of Cruikshank's desiarns which have the blessed facultv of creating laughter as often as you see them. As Diggory says in the play, who is bidden by his master not to laugh while waiting at table — " Don't tell the story of Grouse in the Gun- room, master, or I can't help laughing." Repeat that history ever so often, and at the proper moment, honest Diggory is sure to explode. Every man, no doubt, who loves Cruikshank has his "Grouse in the Gun-room." There is a fellow in the "Points of Humor" who is offering to eat up a certain little general, that has made us happy any time these sixteen years : his huge mouth is a perpetual well of laughter — buckets full of fun can be drawn from it. We have formed no such friend- ships as that boyish one of the man with the mouth. But though, in our eyes, Mr. Cruikshank reached his apogee some eighteen years since, it must not be imagined that such is really CRITICAL REVIEWS. 319 the case. Eighteen sets of children have since then learned to love and admire him, and ma}' many more of their successors be brought up in the same delightful faith. It is not the artist who fails, but the men who grow cold — the men, from whom the illusions (why illusions ? realities) of youth disappear one by one ; who have no leisure to be happ}', no blessed holidays, but onl}' fresh cares at Midsummer and Christmas, being the inevitable seasons which bring us bills instead of pleasures. Tom, who comes bounding home from school, has the doctor's account in his trunk, and his father goes to sleep at the panto- mime to which he takes him. Pater infelix^ 3'ou too have laughed at clown, and the magic wand of spangled harlequin ; what delightful enchantment did it wave around you, in the golden days "when George the Third was king!" But our clown lies in his grave ; and our harlequin, Ellar, prince of how many enchanted islands, was he not at Bow Street the other day,* in his dirt}', tattered, faded motle}^ — seized as a law-breaker, for acting at a penny theatre, after having well- nigh starved in the streets, where nobody would listen to his old guitar ? No one gave a shilling to bless him : not one of us who owe him so much. We know not if Mr. Cruikshank will be very well pleased at finding his name in such company as that of Clown and Harle- quin ; but he, like them, is certainly the children's friend. His drawings abound in feeling for these Kttle ones, and hideous as in the course of his duty he is from time to time compelled to design them, he never sketches one without a certain pity for it, and imparting to the figure a certain grotesque grace. In happy schoolboys he revels ; plum-pudding and hoHdays his needle has engraved over and over again ; there is a design in one of the comic almanacs of some young gentlemen who are employed in administering to a schoolfellow the correction of the pump, which is as graceful and elegant as a drawing of Stothard. Dull books about children George Cruikshank makes bright with ilhis- trations — there is one published by the ingenious and opulent Mr. Tegg. It is entitled "Mirth and Morality," the mirth being, for the most part, on the side of the designer — the morality, unexceptionable certainly, the author's capital. Here are then, to these moralities, a smiling train of mirths supplied by George Cruikshank. See yonder little fellows butterfly-hunt- ing across a common ! Such a light, brisk, airy, gentleman-like drawing was never made upon such a theme. Who, cries the author — * This was written in 1840. 320 CRITICAL REVIEWS. " Who lias not chased the butterfly, And crushed its slender legs and wings, And heaved a moralizing sigh : Alas ! how frail are human things ! " A ver}^ unexceptionable morality' truly ; but it would have puz- zled another than George Cruikshank to make mirth out of it as he has done. Away, surely not on the wino-s of these verses, Cruikshank's imagination begins to soar ; and he makes us three darling little men on a green common, backed bj' old farm- houses, somewhere about May. A great mixture of blue and clouds in the air, a strong fresh breeze stirring, Tom's jacket flapping in the same, in order to bring down the insect queen or king of spring that is fluttering above him, — he renders all this with a few strokes on a little block of wood not two inches square, upon w^hich one ma}' gaze for hours, so merry and life- like a scene does it present. IVhat a charming creative power is this, what a privilege — to be a god, and create little worlds upon paper, and wdiole generations of smiling, jovial men, women, and children half inch high, whose portraits are car- ried abroad, and have the facult}' of making us monsters of six feet curious and happy in our turn. Now, who would imagine that an artist could make an3-thing of such a subject as this ? The writer begins by stating, — " I love to go back to the days of my youth, And to reckon my joys to the letter. And to count o'er the friends that I have in the world, Aif, and those who are gone to a better." This brings him to the consideration of his uncle. " Of all the men I have ever known," says he, "my uncle united the greatest degree of cheerfulness with the sobriety of manhood. Though a man w4ien I was a bo}^ he w^as yet one of the most agreeable companions I ever possessed. ... He embarked for America, and nearly twenty years passed hj before he came back again ; . . . but oh, how altered ! — he was in every sense of the word an old man, his body and mind w^ere enfeebled, and second childishness had come upon him. How often have I bent over him, vainly endeavoring to recall to his memory the scenes w^e had shared together : and how frequently', with an aching heart, have I gazed on his vacant and lustreless e3'e, while he has amused himself in clapping his hands and singing with a quavering voice a verse of a psalm." Alas ! such are the consequences of long residences in America, and of old age even in uncles ! Well, the point of this morality is, that CRITICAL REVIEWS. 321 the uncle one da}' in the morning of Hfe vowed that he would catch his two nephews and tie them together, ay, and actuallj- did so, for all the efforts the rogues made to run awa}' from him ; but he was so fatigued that he declared he never would make the attempt again, whereupon the nephew remarks, — "-Often since then, when engaged in enterprises be3'ond my strength, have I called to mind the determination of my uncle." Does it not seem impossible to make a picture out of this? And yet George Cruikshank has produced a charming design, in which the uncles and nephews are so prettil}' portraj-ed that one is reconciled to their existence, with all their moralities. Man}^ more of the mirths in this little book are excellent, es- pecially a great figure of a parson entering church on horseback, — an enormous parson truh', calm, unconscious, unwield}'. As Zeuxis had a bevy of virgins in order to make his famous picture — his express virgin — a clerical host must have passed under Cruikshank' s eyes before he sketched this little, enormous parson of parsons. Being on the subject of children's books, how shall we enough praise the delightful German nurser3'-tales, and Cruikshank's illustrations of them ? We coupled his name with pantomime awhile since, and sure never pantomimes were more charming than these. Of all the artists that ever drew, from Michael Angelo upwards and downwards, Cruikshank was the man to illustrate these tales, and give them just the proper admixture of the grotesque, the wonderful, and the graceful. May all Mother Bunch's collection be similarly indebted to him ; may " Jack the Giant Killer," maj^ " Tom Thumb," may " Puss in Boots," be one da}^ revivified b}' his pencil. Is not Whitting- ton sitting 3'et on Highgate Hill, and poor Cinderella (in that sweetest of all fairy stories) still pining in lier lonel}- chiranc}'- nook ? A man who has a true affection for these delightful com- panions of his 3'outh is bound to be grateful to them if he can, and we pra}- Mr. Cruikshank to remember them. It is foil}' to say that this or that kind of humor is too good for the pubhc, that onh' a chosen few can relish it. The best humor that we know of has been as eagerly received by the public as by the most delicate connoisseur. There is hardly a man in England who can read but will laugh at Falstalf and the humor of Joseph Andrews ; and honest Mr. Pickwick's story can be felt and loved by any person above the age of six. Some ma}^ have a keener enjoyment of it than others, but all the world can be merry over it, and is always read}- to welcome it. The best criterion of good humor is success, and what a 21 322 CRITICAL REVIEWS. share of this has Mr. Cruikshank had ! how many millions of mortals has he made happy ! We have heard ver}- profound persons talk philosophically of the marvellous and mysterious manner in which he has suited himself to the time — fait vibrer la jibre populaire (as Napoleon boasted of himself), supplied a peculiar want felt at a peculiar period, the simple secret of which is, as we take it, that he, living amongst the public, has with them a general wide-hearted sympath}', that he laughs at what they laugh at, that he has a kindly spirit of enjoyment, with not a morsel of mj'sticism in his composition ; that he pities and loves the poor, and jokes at the follies of the great, and that he addresses all in a perfectlj' sincere and manl}' waj'. To be greatl}' successful as a professional humorist, as in an}- other calling, a man must be quite honest, and show that his heart is in his work. A bad preacher will get admiration and a hearing with this point in his favor, where a man of three times his acquirements will onh' find indifference and coldness. Is any man more remarkable' than our artist for telling the truth after his own manner ? Hogarth's honestj' of purpose was as conspicuous in an earlier time, and we fancy that Gilray would have been far more successful and more powerful but for that unhapp}^ bribe, which turned the whole course of his humor into an unnatural channel. Cruikshank would not for any bribe say what he did not think, or lend his aid to sneer down anything meritorious, or to praise any thing or person that deserved censure. When he levelled his wit against the Regent, and did his very prettiest for the Princess, he most certainly be- lieved, along with the great body of the people whom he repre- sents, that the Princess was the most spotless, pure-mannered darling of a Princess that ever married a heartless debauchee of a Prince Royal. Did not millions believe with him, and noble and learned lords take their oaths to her Royal High- ness's innocence? Cruikshank would not stand by and see a woman ill-used, and so struck in for her rescue, he and the people belaboring with all their might the party who were making the attack, and determining, from pure sympathy and indi2:nation, that the woman must be innocent because her hus- band treated her so foully. To be sure we have never heard so much from Mr. Cruik- shank's own lips, but any man who will examine these odd drawings, which first made him famous, will see what an honest heart}' hatred the champion of woman has for all who abuse her, and will admire the energy with which he flings his wood- blocks at all who side against her. Canning, Castlereagh, CRITICAL REVIEWS. 323 • Bexley, Sidmouth, he is at them, one and all ; and as for the Prince, up to what a whipping-post of ridicule did he tie that unfortunate old man ! And do not let squeamish Tories or}' out about dislo3'alty ; if the crown does wrong, the crown must be corrected by the nation, out of respect, of course, for the crown. In those da3s, and by those people who so bitterly attacked the son, no word was ever breathed against the father, simpl}' because he was a good husband, and a sober, thrifty, pious, orderly man. This attack upon the Prince Regent we believe to have been Mr. Cruikshank's onl}' effort as a part3' politician. Some early manifestoes against Napoleon we find, it is true, done in the regular John Bull style, with the Gilray model for the little upstart Corsican : but as soon as the Emperor had yielded to stern fortune our artist's heart relented (as Beranger's did on the other side of the water), and many of our readers will doubtless recollect a fine drawing of " Louis XVIII. trjing on Napoleon's boots," which did not certainl}^ fit the gouty son of Saint Louis. Such satirical hits as these, however, must not be considered as political, or as an} thing more than the expres- sion of the artist's national British idea of Frenchmen. It must be confessed that for that great nation Mr. Cruik- shank entertains a considerable contempt. • Let the reader examine the "Life in Paris," or the five hundred designs in which Frenchmen are introduced, and he will find them almost invariabl}' thin, with ludicrous spindle-shanks, pigtails, out- stretched hands, shrugging shoulders, and queer hair and mustachios. He has the British idea of a Frenchman ; and if he does not believe that the inhabitants of France are for the most part dancing-masters and barbers, 3'et takes care to depict such in preference, and would not speak too well of them. It is curious how these traditions endure. In France, at the present moment, the Englishman on the stage is the caricatured Englishman at the time of the war, with a shock red head, a long white coat, and invariable gaiters. Those who wish to study this subject should peruse Monsieur Paul de Kock's histories of "Lord Boulingrog" and " Lady Crockmi- love." On the other hand, the old emigre has taken his station amongst us, and we doubt if a good British gallery would understand that such and such a character was a Frenchman unless he appeared in the ancient traditional costume. A curious book, called " Life in Paris," published in 1822, contains a number of the artist's plates in the aquatint style ; and though we believe he had never been in that capital, the 324 CRITICAL REVIEWS. designs have a great deal of life in them, and pass muster very- well. A villanous race of shoulder-shrugging mortals are his Frenchmen indeed. And the heroes of the tale, a certain Mr. Dick Wildfire, Squire Jenkins, and Captain O'Shuffleton, are made to show the true British superiority on every occasion when Britons and French are brought together. This book was one among the many that the designer's genius has caused to be popular; the plates are not carefully executed, but, being colored, have a pleasant, lively look. The same style was adopted in the once famous book called "Tom and Jerry, or Life in London," which must have a word of notice here, for, although by no means Mr. Cruikshank's best work, his reputa- tion was extraordinarily raised b}' it. Tom and Jerry were as popular twenty years since as Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller now are ; and often have we wished, while reading the biog- raphies of the latter celebrated personages, that they had been described as well by Mr. Cruikshank's pencil as by Mr. Dickens's pen. As for Tom and Jerry, to show the mutabiht}^ of human affairs and the evanescent nature of reputation, we have been to the British Museum and no less than five circulating libraries in quest of the book, and '^ Life in London," alas, is not to be found at an}' on^ of them. We can only, therefore, speak of the work fi'om recollection, but have still a very clear remem- brance of the leather gaiters of Jerry Hawthorn, the green spectacles of Logic, and the hooked nose of Corinthian Tom. They were the schoolboy's delight ; and in the days when the work appeared we firmly believed the three heroes above named to be types of the most elegant, fashionable young fellows the town afforded, and thought their occupations and amusements were those of all high-bred English gentlemen. Tom knocking down the watchman at Temple Bar ; Tom and Jerry dancing at Almack's ; or flirting in the saloon at the theatre ; at the uight- houses, after the play ; at Tom Cribb's, exiamining the silver cup then in the possession of that champion ; at the chambers of Bob Logic, who, seated at a cabinet piano, plays a waltz to which Corinthian Tom and Kate are dancing ; ambling gallantly in Rotten Row ; or examining the poor fellow at Newgate who was having his chains knocked off before hanging: all these scenes remain indelibly engraved upon the mind, and so far we are independent of all the circulating hbraries in London. As to the literary contents of the book, the}' have passed sheer away. It was, most likely, not particularly refined ; nay, the chances are that it was absolutely vulgar. But it must CRITICAL REVIEWS. 325 have had some merit of its own, that is clear ; it must have given striking descriptions of life in some part or other of London, for all London read it, and went to see it in its dra- matic shape. The artist, it is said, wished to close the career of the three heroes by bringing them all to ruin, but the writer, or publishers,' would not allow any such melancholy subjects to dash the merriment of the public, and we believe Tom, Jerrj^, and Logic, were married off at the end of the tale, as if they had been the most moral personages in the world. There is some goodness in this pit}', which authors and the public are disposed to show towards certain agreeable, disreputable char- acters of romance. Who would mar the prospects of honest Roderick Random, or Charles Surface, or Tom Jones? only a ver}' stern moralist indeed. And in regard of Jerry Hawthorn and that hero without a surname, Corinthian Tom, Mr. Cruik- shank, we make little doubt, was glad in his heart that he was not allowed to have his own way. Soon after the " Tom and Jerry " and the " Life in Paris," Mr. Cruikshank produced a much more elaborate set of prints, in a work which was called " Points of Humor." These " Points " were selected from various comic works, and did not, we believe, extend beyond a couple of numbers, containing about a score of copper-plates. The collector of humorous designs cannot fail to have them in his portfolio, for they con- tain some of the very best efforts of Mr. Cruikshank' s, genius, and though not quite so highly labored as some of his later productions, are none the worse, in our opinion, for their com- parative want of finish. All the effects are perfectl}" given, and the expression is as good as it could be in the most delicate engraving upon steel. The artist's style, too, was then com- pletely formed ; and, for our parts, we should saj^ that we preferred his manner of 1825 to any other which he has adopted since. The first picture, which is called " The Point of Honor," illustrates the old story of the officer who, on being accused of cowardice for refusing to fight a duel, came among his brother oflScers and flung a lighted grenade down upon the floor, before which his comrades fled ignominiousl3\ This design is capital, and the outward rush of heroes, walking, tramphng, twisting, * ticuflaing at the door, is in the best style of the grotesque. You eee but the back of most of these gentlemen ; into which, nevertheless, the artist has managed to throw an expression of ludicrous agony that one could scarcely have expected to find in such a part of the human figure. The next plate is not less good. It represents a couple who, having been found one night 326 CRITICAL REVIEWS. tipsy, and lying in the same gutter, were, by a charitable though misguided gentleman, supposed to be man and wife, and i)ut coHifortablv to bed to2:ether. The mornina; came ; I'ancv the surprise of this interesting pair when they awoke and discovered their situation. Fane.y the maimer, too, in which Cruikshank his depicted them, to which words cannot do justice. It is niedlGss to state that tiiis fortuitous and temporary union was followed by one more lasting and sentimental, and that these two worth\- persons were married, and lived happily ever after. We should like to go through every one of these prints. There is the joih* miller, who, returning home at night, calls upon his wife to get him a su[)per, and falls to upon rashers of bacon and ale. How he gormandizes, that jolly miller ! rasher after rasher, how they pass awav frizzling and smoking from the gridiron down that immense grinning gulf of a mouth. Poor wife ! how she pines and frets, at that untimely hour of midnight to be obliged to fty, fry, fry perpetually, and minister to the monster's appetite. And yonder in the clock : what agonized face is that we see? By heavens, it is the squire of the parish. What business has he there ? Let us not ask. Suffice it to say, that he has, in the hurry of the moment, left up stairs his br ; his — psha ! a part of his dress, in short, with a num- ber of bank-notes in the pockets. Look in the next page, and 3'ou will see the ferocious, bacon-devouring ruffian of a miller is actually causing this garment to be carried through the village and cried b}' the town-crier. And we blush to be obliged to sa}^ that the demoralized miller never offered to return the bank- notes, although he was so might}^ scrupulous in endeavoring to find an owner for the corduro}^ portfolio in which he had found them. Passing from this painful subject, we come, we regret to state, to a series of prints representing personages not a whit more moral. Burns's famous "Jolly Beggars" have all had their portraits drawn b}^ Cruikshank. There is the lovel}" "hempen widow," quite as interesting and romantic as the famous Mrs. Sheppard, who has at the lamented demise of her husband adopted the very same consolation. " My curse upon them every one, They've hanged my braw John Highlandman ; • • • • • And now a widow I must mourn Departed joys that ne'er return ; No comfort but a hearty can When I think on John Highlandman." ' Hi CRITICAL REVIEWS. 327 Sweet " raucle carlin," she has none of the sentimentality of the English highwayman's lady ; but being wooed by a tinker and " A pigmy scraper wi' his fiddle Wha iis'd to trystes and fairs to driddle," prefers the practical to the merely musical man. The tinker sings with a noble candor, worthy of a fellow of his strength of bod}' and station in life — "My bonnie lass, I work in brass, A tinker is my station ; I've travell'd round all Cliristian ground In this my occupation. I've ta'en the gold, I've been enroll'd In many a noble squadron ; But vain they seareh'd when off I march'd To go an' clout tlie caudron." It was his ruhng passion. What was military glor}- to him, forsooth? He had the greatest contempt for iL and loved freedom and his copper kettle a thousand times better — a kind of hardware Diogenes. Of tiddling he has no better opinion. The picture represents the "sturdy caird" taking "poor gut-scraper" by the beard, — drawing his "• roosty ra- pier," and swearing to " speet him like a pliver " unless he * would relinquish the bonnie lassie for ever — " Wi' ghastly ee, poor tweedle-dee Upon his hunkers bended. An' pray'd for grace wi' ruefu' face, An' so the quarrel ended." Hark how the tinker apostrophizes the violinist, stating to the widow at the same time the advantages which she might ex- pect from an alliance with himself : — "Despise that shrimp, that withered imp, Wi' a' his noise and caperin' ; And take a share w'ith those that bear The budget and the apron ! "And by that stowp, my faith an* houpe, An' by that dear Kilbaigie ! If e'er ye want, or meet wi' scant, May I ne'er weet my craigie." Cruikshank's caird is a noble creature ; his face and figure show him to be full}^ capable of doing and saying all that is above written of him. 328 CRITICAL REVIEWS. In the second part, the old tale of "The Three Hunch- backed Fiddlers " is illustrated with equal felicit}^ The famous classical dinners and duel in "Peregrine Pickle" are also ex- cellent in their wa}" ; and the connoisseur of prints and etchings maj" see in the latter plate, and in another in this volume, how great the artist's mechanical skill is as an etcher. The distant view of the cit}- in the duel, and of a market-place in "The Quack Doctor," are delightful specimens of the artist's skill in depicting buildings and backgrounds. They are touched with a grace, truth, and dexterit}' of workmanship that leave nothing to desire. We have before mentioned the man with the mouth, which appears in this number emblematical of gout and indigestion, in which the artist has shown all the fanc}' of Callot. Little demons, with long saws for noses, are making dreadful incisions into the toes of the unhapp}' sufferer ; some are bringing pans of hot coals to keep the wounded member warm ; a huge, solemn nightmare sits on the invalid's chest, staring solemnlj^ into his e3'es ; a monster, with a pair of drum- sticks, is banging a devil's tattoo on his forehead ; and a pair of imps are nailing great tenpenny nails into his hands to make his happiness complete. The late Mr. Clark's excellent work, "Three Courses and a Dessert," was published at a time when the rage for comic stories was not so great as it since has been, and Messrs. Clark and Cruikshank onlj' sold their hundreds where Messrs. Dick- ens and Phiz dispose of their thousands. But if our recom- mendation can in an}' way influence the reader, we would enjoin him to have a copy of the "Three Courses," that con- tains some of the best designs of our artist, and some of the most amusing tales in our language. The invention of the pictures, for which Mr. Clark takes credit to himself, says a great deal for his wit and fanc3\ Can we, for instance, praise too highly the man who invented that wonderful 03'ster? Examine him well ; his beard, his pearl, his little round stomach, and his sweet smile. Onl}' oysters know how to smile in this wa}' ; cool, gentle, waggish, and yet inexpressibly innocent and winning. Dando himself must have allowed such an artless native to go free, and consigned him to the glassy, cool, ti'anslucent wave again. In writing upon such subjects as these with which we have been furnished, it can hardly be expected that we should follow any fixed plan and order — we must therefore take such advantage as we ma}^ and seize upon our subject when and wherever we can lay hold of him. CRITICAL REVIEWS. 329 For Jews, sailors, Irishmen, Hessian boots, little boys, bea- dles, policemen, tall life-guardsmen, charity children, pumps, dustmen, very short pantaloons, dandies in spectacles, and ladies with aquiline noses, remarkably taper waists, and won- derfully long ringlets, Mr. Cruikshank has a special predilec- tion. The tribe of Israelites he has studied with amazino- gusto ; witness the Jew in Mr. Ainsworth's "Jack Sheppard," and the immortal Fagin of '' Oliver Twist." Whereabouts lies the comic vis in these persons and things? Why should a beadle be comic, and his opposite a charity boy ? Wh}- should a tall life-guardsman have something in him essentiallj' absurd? Why are short breeches more ridiculous than long? What is there particular!}' jocose about a pump, and wherefore does a long nose always proA^oke the beholder to laughter? These points ma}^ be metaphysicall}' elucidated by those who list. It is probable that Mr. Cruikshank could not give an accurate definition of that which is ridiculous in these objects, but his instinct has told him that fun lurks in them, and cold must be the heart that can pass b}' the pantaloons of his charit}' boA's, the Hessian boots of his dandies, and the fan-tail hats of his dustmen, without respectful wonder. He has made a complete little gallerj- of dustmen. There is, in the first place, the professional dustman, who, having in the enthusiastic exercise of his delightful trade, laid hands upon property not strictly his own, is pursued, we presume, by the right owner, from whom he flies as fast as his crooked shanks will carry him. What a curious picture it is — the horrid rickety houses in some ding}' suburb of London, the grinning cobbler, the smothered butcher, the ver}' trees which are covered with dust — it is fine to look at the different expressions of the two interesting fugitives. The fierj' charioteer who belabors the poor donke}' has still a glance for his brother on foot, on whom punishment is about to descend. And not a little curious is it to think of the creative power of the man who has an-anged this little tale of low life. How logically it is conducted, how cleverly each one of the accessories is made to contribute to the effect of the whole. What a deal of thought and humor has the artist expended on this little block of wood ; a large picture might have been painted out of the very same materials, which Mr. Cruikshank, out of his wondrous fund of merriment and observation, can afford to throw aAva}' upon a drawing not two inches long. From the practical dustmen we pass to those purel}' poetical. There are three of them who rise iA 330 CRITICAL REVIEWS. on clouds of their own raising, the very genii of the sack and shovel. Is there no one to write a sonnet to these ? — and 3'et a whole poem was written about Peter Bell the wagoner, a char- acter b}' no means so poetic. And lastly, we have the dustman in love : the honest fellow having seen a young beauty stepping out of a gin-shop on a Sundaj' morning, is pressing eagerly- his suit. Gin has furnished many subjects to Mr. Crulkshank, who labors in his own sound and hearty way to teach his countiy- men the dangers of that drink. In the ""Sketch-Book" is a plate upon the subject, remarkable for fancy and beauty of design; it is called the "Gin Juggernaut," and represents a hideous moving palace, with a recking still at the roof and vast gin-barrels for wlieels, under which unhappy millions arc crushed to death. An immense black cloud of desolation covers over the country through which the gin monster "lias passed, dimly looming through the darkness whereof you see an agreeable prospect of gibbets with men dangling, burnt houses, &c. The vast cloud comes sweeping on in the wake of this horrible bodN-crusher ; and you see, by way of contrast, a distant, smiling, sunshiu}' tract of old P>nglish countr_y, where gin as yet is not known. The allegory is as good, as earnest, and as fanciful as one of John Bunyan's, and we have often fancred there was a similarity between the men. The reader will examine the work called '" My Sketch-Book " with not a little amusement, and mav gather from it, as we fancy, a good deal of information regarding the character of the individual man, George Cruikshank : what points strike his eye as a painter ; what move his anger or admiration as a moralist ; what classes he seems most especially disposed to observe, and wliat to ridicule. There are quacks of all kinds, to whom he has a mortal hatred ; quack dandies, who assume under his pencil, perhaps in liis eye, the most grotesque appearance pos- sible — their hats grow larger, their legs infinitely more crooked and lean ; the tassels of their canes swell out to a most pre- posterous size ; the tails of their coats dwindle awaN', and finish where coat-tails generally begin^ Let us la}' a wager that Cruikshank, a man of the people if ever there w^as one, heartil}^ hates and despises these supercilious, swaggering young gentle- men ; and his contempt is not a whit the less laudable because there may be tant soit peu. of prejudice in it. It is right and wholesome to scorn dandies, as Nelson said it was to hate Frenchmen ; iu which sentiment (as we have before said) CRITICAL REVIEWS. 331 George Cruiksliank iincloubtedly shares. In the " Sunday in London."* Monsieur the Clief is instrueting a kitchen-maid how to compound some rascally Frcncli kicksliaw or the other — a pretty scoundrel truly ! with what an air he wears that nightcap of his, and shrugs his lank shoulders, and chatters, and ogles, and grius : they are all the same, these mounseers ; there are other two fellows — utorblea! one is putting his dirty fingers into the saucepan ; there are frogs cooking in it, no doubt ; and just over some other dish of abomination, another dirty rascal is taking snulf ! Never mind, the sauce won't bG hurt by a lew ingredients more or less. Three such fellows as these are not worth one Englishman, that's clear. There is one in the very midst of them, the great burly fellow with the beef: he could beat all three in five minutes. We cannot be certain that such was the process going on in Mr. Cruikshank's mind when he made the design ; but some feelings of the sort were no doubt entertained b}' him. Against dand}- footmen he is particularly severe. He bates idlers, pretenders, boasters, and punishes these fellows as best he may. Who does not recollect the famous picture, " What is Taxes, Thomas?" What is taxes indeed; well ma}' that vast, over-fed, lounging flunky ask the question of his associate Thomas : and 3'et not well, for all that Thomas says in repl}' is, "/ donH know." " O beati plushicolce^'" what a charming * The following lines — ^ever fresh — by the author of "Headlong Hall," pubhshed years ago in the Globe and Traveller, are an excellent comment on several of the cuts from the " Sunday in London : " — I. " The poor man's sius are glaring ; In the face of ghostly warning He is caught in tlie fact Of an overt act, Buying greens on Sunday morning. II. " The rich man's sins are hidden In the pomp of wealth and station, And escape the sight Of the children of light, Who are wise in their generation. III. " The rich man has a kitchen, And cooks to dress his dinner ; The poor who would roast. To the baker's must post, And thus becomes a sinner. IV. •'The rich man's painted windows Hide the concerts of the quality ; The poor can but share A crack'd fiddle in the air. Which offends all sound morality. v. "The rich man has a cellar, And a ready butler by him ; The poor must steer For his pint of beer [him. Where the saint can't choose but spy VI. *' The rich man is invisible In the crowd of his gay society ; But the poor man's delight Is a sore in the sight And a stench in the nose of piety." 832 CRITICAL REVIEWS. state of ignorance is yours ! In the ' ' Sketch-Book " manj footmen make their appearance : one is a huge fat Hercules of a Portman Square porter, who cahuh' surve3's another poor fellow, a porter likewise, but out of liver}-, w^ho comes stagger- ing forward with a box that Hercules might lift with his little finger. Will Hercules do so? not he. The giant can cany nothing heavier than a cocked-hat note on a silver tra^', and his labors are to walk from his sentrj'-box to the door, and from the door back to his sentrj-box, and to read the Sunda}' paper, and to poke the hall fire twice or thrice, and to make five meals a day. Such a fellow does Cruikshank hate and scorn worse even than a Frenchman. The man's master, too, comes in for no small share of our artist's wrath. There is a company of them at church, who humbl}' designate themselves ' ' miserable sinners ! " Miserable sinners indeed ! Oh, what floods of tnrtle-soup, what tons of turbot and lobster-sauce must have been sacrificed to make those sinners properl}- miserable. My lad}^ with the ermine tippet and draggling feather, can we not see that she lives in Portland Place, and is the wife of an East India Director? She has been to the Opera over-night (indeed her husband, on her right, with his fat hand dangling over the pew-door, is at this minute thinking of Mademoiselle Leocadie, whom he saw behind the scenes) — she has been at the Opera over-night, which with a trifle of supper afterwards — a white-and-brown soup, a lobster-salad, some woodcocks, and a little champagne — sent her to bed quite comfortable. At half-past eight her maid brings her chocolate in bed, at ten she has fresh eggs and muflQns, with, perhaps, a half-hundred of prawns for breakfast, and so can get over the day and the sermon till lunch-time pretty well. What an odor of musk and bergamot exhales from the pew ! — how it is wadded, and stuffed, and spangled over with brass nails ! what hassocks are there for those who are not too fat to kneel ! what a flustering and flapping of gilt prayer-books ; and what a pious whirring of bible leaves one hears all over the church, as the doctor blandly gives out the text ! To be miserable at this rate you must, at the very least, have four thousand a year : and many persons are there so enamored of grief and sin, that they would wilhngly take the risk of the misery to have a life-interest in the consols that accompau}^ it, quite careless about consequences, and sceptical as to the notion that a day is at hand when you must fulfil your share of the bargain. Our artist loves to joke at a soldier ; in whose livery there CRITICAL REVIEWS. 3oo appears to him to be something ahnost as ridiculous as in the uniform of the gentleman of the shoulder-knot. Tall life- guardsmen and fierce grenadiers figure in many of his designs, and almost alwa^'S in a ridiculous yvay. Here again we have the honest popular English feeling which jeers at pomp or pre- tension of all kinds, and is especially jealous of all display- of military authorit}'. "Raw Recruit," "ditto dressed," ditto '' served up," as we see them in the " Sketch-Book," are so man}' satires upon the arm}" : Hodge with his ribbons flaunting in his hat, or with red coat and musket, drilled stiff and pom- pous, or at last, minus leg and arm, tottering about on crutches, does not fill our English artist with the enthusiasm that follows the soldier in every other part of Europe. Jeanjean, the con- script in France, is laughed at to be sure, but then it is because he is a bad soldier : when he comes to have a huge pair of mustachios and the croix-d^honneur to hriller on his poitrine cica- trisee, Jeanjean becomes a member of a class that is more re- spected than any other in the French nation. The veteran soldier inspires our people with no such awe — we hold that democratic weapon the fist in much more honor than the sabre and bayonet, and laugh at a man tricked out in scarlet and pipe-clay. That regiment of heroes is " marching to divine service," to the tune of the "British Grenadiers." There they march in state, and a pretty contempt our artist shows for all their gim- cracks and trumpery. He has drawn a perfectly English scene — the little blackguard boys are playing pranks round about the men, and shouting, " Heads up, soldier," "Eyes right, lobster," as little British urchins will do. Did one ever hear the like sentiments expressed in France? Shade of Napoleon, we insult 3'ou by asking the question. In England, however, see how different the case is : and designedl}^ or undesignedly, the artist has opened to us a piece of his mind. In the crowd the only person who admires the soldiers is the poor idiot, whose pocket a rogue is picking. There is another picture, in which the sentiment is much the same, only, as in the former drawing we see Englishmen laughing at the troops of the line, here are Irishmen giggling at the militia. We have said that our artist has a great love for the droll- eries of the Green Island. Would any one doubt what was the country of the merry fellows depicted in his group of Paddies ? " Place me amid O'Rourkes, O'Tooles, The ragged royal race of Tara ; Or place me where Dick Martin rules The pathless wilds of Connemara." 334 CRITICAL REVIEWS. We know not if Mr. Cruikshank has ever had an}' such good hick as to see the Irish in Ireland itself, but he certainly has obtained a knowledo'e of their looks, as if the country had been all his life familiar to him. Could Mr. O'Connell himself desire an3'thing more national than the scene of a drunken row, or could Father Mathew haye a better text to preach upon ? There is not a broken nose in the room that is not thoroughly Irish. We have then a couple of compositions treated in a graver manner, as characteristic too as the other. We call attention to the comical look of poor Teague, who has been pursued and beaten b}' the witch's stick, in order to point out also the sin- gular neatness of the workmanship, and the pretty, fanciful little glimpse of landscape that the artist has introduced in the background. Mr. Cruikshank has a line e3'e for such homely landscapes, and renders them with great delicac}^ and taste. Old villages, farm-3'ards, groups of stacks, queer chimneys, churches, gable-ended cottages, Elizabethan mansion-houses, and other old English scenes, he depicts with evident enthu- siasm. Famous books in their day were Cruikshank's "John Gilpin" and " Epping Hunt ; " for though our artist does not draw horses ver}' scientificalh', — to use a phrase of the atelier, — he feels them ver^^ keenly ; and his queer animals, after one is used to them, answer quite as well as better. Neither is he very happy in trees, and such rustical produce ; or, rather, we should sa}-, he is ver}' original, his trees being decidedly of his own make and composition, not imitated from any master. But what then? Can a man be supposed to imitate e^'^ery- thing? We know what the noblest study of mankind is, and to this Mr. Cruikshank has confined himself. That postilion with the people in the broken-down chaise roaring after him is as deaf as the post by which he passes. Suppose all the accesso- ries were awa}', could not one swear that the man was stone-deaf, be^^ond the reach of trumpet ? What is the peculiar character in a deaf man's phj^siognomy ? — can an}' person define it satisfac- torily in words ? — not in pages ; and Mr. Cruikshank has ex- pressed it on a piece of paper not so big as the tenth part of your thumb-nail. The horses of John Gilpin are much more of the equestrian order ; and as here the artist has only his favorite suburban buildings to draw, not a word is to be said against his design. The inn and old buildings are charmingly designed, and nothing can be more prettily or playfully touched. CRITICAL REVIEWS. S35 *' At Edmonton Ids loving wife From the balcony spied Her tender husband, wond'ring much To see how he did ride. " ' Stop, stop, John Gilpin ! Here's the house 1 * They all at once did cry ; * The dinner waits, and wo are tired — ' Said Gilpin — ' So am I ! ' *' Six gentlemen upon the road Thus seeing Gilpin fly, With post-boy scamp 'ring in the rear, They raised the hue and cry : — " ' Stop thief ! stop thief ! — a highwayman t ' Not one of them was mute ; And all and each that passed that way Did join in the pursuit. " And now the turnpike gates again Flew open in short space ; The toll-men thinking, as before, That Gilpin rode a race." The rush, and shouting, and clatter are excellentl}^ depicted by the artist ; and we, who have been scoffing at his manner of designing animals, must here make a special exception in favor of the hens and chickens ; each has a different action, and is curiousl}?^ natural. Happ3^ are children of all ages who have such a ballad and such pictures as this in store for them ! It is a comfort to think that woodcuts never wear out, and that the book still may be had for a shilling, for those who can command that sum of mone}^ In the " Epping Hunt," which we owe to the facetious pen of Mr. Hood, our artist has not been so successful. There is here too much horsemanship and not enough incident for him ; but the portrait of Roundings the huntsman is an excellent sketch, and a ceuple of the designs contain great humor. The first represents the Cockney hero, who, " like a bird, was singing out while sitting on a tree." And in the second the natural order is reversed. The stag having taken heart, is hunting the huntsman, and the Cheap- side Nimrod is most ignominiously running away. The Easter Hunt, we are told, is no more ; and as the Qnar- terly Revieiv recommends the British public to purchase Mr. CatUn's pictures, as they form the only record of an interesting race now rapidly passing away, in like manner we should ex- 336 CRITICAL REVIEWS. hort all our friends to purchase Mr. Cruikshank's designs of another interesting race, that is run already and for the last time. Besides these, we must mention, in the line of our duty, the notable tragedies of "Tom Thumb" and " Bombastes Furioso," both of which have appeared with many illustrations by Mr. Cruikshank. The "brave army" of Bombastes ex- hibits a terrific display of brutal force, which must shock the sensibiUties of an P^nffllsh radical. And we can well under- stand the caution of the general, who bids this soldatesque effrenee to begone, and not to kick up a row. Such a troop of lawless ruffians let loose upon a populous city would play sad havoc in it ; and we fanc}- the massacres of Birmingham renewed, or at least of Badajoz, which, though not quite so dreadful, if we ma}- believe his Grace the Duke of Wellington, as the former scenes of slaughter, were never- theless severe enough : but we must not venture upon any ill- timed pleasantries in presence of the disturbed King Arthur and the awful ghost of Gaffer Thumb. We are thus carried at once into the supernatural, and here we find Cruikshank reigning supreme. He has invented in his time a little comic pandemonium, peopled with the most droll, good-natured fiends possible. We have before us Chamisso's " Peter Schlemihl," with Cruikshank's designs translated into German, and gaining nothing b}' the change. The "Kinder und Hans-Maerchen " of Grimm are likewise ornamented with a frontispiece copied from that one which appeared to the amus- ing version of the English work. The books on Phrenology and Time have been imitated by the same nation ; and even in France, whither reputation travels slower than to an}' counby except China, we have seen copies of the works of George Cruikshank. He in return has complimented the French b}' illustrating a couple of Lives of Napoleon, and the " Life in Paris" before mentioned. He has also made designs for Victor, Hugo's "Hans of Iceland." Strange, wild etchings were those, on a strange, mad subject ; not s(5 good in o«ir notion as the designs for the German books, the peculiar humor of which latter seemed to suit the artist exactly. There is a mixture of the awful and the ridiculous in these, which perpetually excites and keeps awake the reader's attention ; the German writer and the English artist seem to have an entire faith in their sub- ject. The reader, no doubt, remembers the awful passage in " Peter Schlemihl," where the little gentleman purchases the CRITICAL REVIEWS. 337 shadow of that hero — " Have the kindness, noble sir, to ex- amine and try this bag." " He put his hand into his pocket, and drew thence a tolerabl}' large bag of Cordovan leather, to which a couple of thongs were fixed. I took it from him, and immediate!}' counted out ten gold pieces, and ten more,' and ten more, and still other ten, whereupon I held out m}' hand to him. Done, said I, it is a bargain ; you shall have my shadow for your bag. The bargain was concluded ; he knelt down before me, and I saw him with a wonderful neat- ness take my shadow from head to foot, lightly lift it up from the grass, roll and fold it up neatly, and at "last pocket it. He then rose up, bowed to me once more, and walked awa}^ again, disappearing behind the rose bushes. I don't know, but I thought I heard him laughing a little. I, how- ever, kept fast hold of the bag. Everything around me was bright in the sun, and as yet I gave no thought to what I had done." This marvellous event, narrated by Peter vAth such a faith- ful, circumstantial detail, is painted b}^ Cruikshank in the most wonderful poetic way, with that happj^ mixture of the real and supernatural that makes the narrative so curious, and like truth. The sun is shining with the utmost briUiancy in a great quiet park or garden ; there is a palace in the background, and a statue basking in the sun quite lonely and melanchoty ; there is a sun-dial, on which is a deep shadow, and in the front stands Peter Schlemihl, bag in hand : the old gentleman is down on his knees to him, and has just lifted off the ground the shadow of one leg ; he is going to fold it back neatl}'', as one does the tails of a coat, and will skow it, without any creases or crumples, along with the other black garments that lie in that immense pocket of his. Cruikshank has designed all this as if he had a ver}'^ serious belief in the story ; \k\ laughs, to be sure, but one fancies that he is a little frightened in his heart, in spite of all his fun and joking. The German tales we have mentioned before. " The Prince riding on the Fox," "Hans in Luck," "The Fiddler and his Goose," " Heads off," are all drawings which, albeit not before us now, nor seen for ten years, remain indehbly fixed on the memor3\ Heisst da etwa Rumpelstilzchen ? " There sits the Queen on her throne, surrounded by grinning beef-eaters, and little Rumpelstiltskin stamps his foot through the floor in the excess of his tremendous despair. In one of these German tales, if we remember rightly, there is an account of a little orphan who is carried away by a pitying fairy for a term of i:2 338 CRITICAL REVIEWS. seven 3^ears, and passing that period of sweet apprenticeship among the imps and sprites of fair3'-land. Has our artist been among the same com pan}", and brought back their por- traits in his sketch-book? He is the onh^ designer fair3'-land has had. Callot's imps, for all their strangeness, are only of the earth earthy. Fuseli's fairies belong to the infernal regions the}^ are monstrous, lurid, and hideously' melanchol}'. Mr. Cruikshank alone has had a true insight into the character of the " little people." The}' are something like men and women, and 3'et not flesh and blood ; the}* are laughing and mischiev- ous, but wh3' we know not. Mr. Cruikshank, however, has had some dream or the other, or else a natural m3'sterious in- stinct (as the Seherinn of Prevorst had for beholding ghosts), or else some preternatural fair3' revelation, which has made him acquainted with the looks and wa3's of the fantastical subjects of Oberon and Titania. We have, unfortunatel3', do fair3' portraits ; but, on the other hand, can descend lower than fair3'-land, and have seen some fine specimens of devils. One has alread3' been raised, and the reader has seen him tempting a fat Dutch burgomaster, in an ancient gloom3' market-place, such as George Cruikshank can draw as well as Mr. Prout, Mr. Nash, or an3^ man living. There is our friend once more ; our friend the burgomaster, in a highl3^ excited state, and running as hard as his great legs will cany him, with our mutual enem3" at his tail. AVhat are' the bets ; will that long-legged bondholder of a devil come up with the honest Dutchman ? It serves him right : wh3" did he put his name to stamped paper? And 3"et we should not wonder if ^ some luck3' chance should turn up in the burgomaster's favor, and his infernal creditor lose his labor ; for one so proverbiall3' cunning as 3'onder tall individual with the saucer e3'es, it must be confessed that he has been ver3' often outwitted. There is, for instance, the case of " The Gentleman in Black," which has been illustrated b3' our artist. A 3'oung French gentleman, by name M. Desonge, who, having expended his patrimon3' in a variet3' of taverns and gaming-houses, was one da3' pondering upon the exhausted state of his finances, and utterl3' at a loss to think how he should provide means for future support, exclaimed, ver3' naturally, "What the devil shall I do?" He had no sooner spoken than a Gentleman in Black made his appearance, whose authentic portrait Mr. Cruikshank has had the honor to paint. This gentleman pro- duced a black-edged book out of a black bag, some black-edged CRITICAL REVIEWS. 339 papers tied up with black crape, and sitting down familiarl}' opposite M. Desonge, began conversing with him on the state of his affairs. It is needless to state what was the result of the interview. M. Desonge was induced b^^ the gentleman to sign his name to one of the black-edged papers, and found himself at the close of the conversation to be possessed of an unlimited command of capital. This arrangement completed, the Grentleman in Black posted (in an extraordinarily rapid manner) from Paris to London, there found a young English merchant in exactly the same situation in which M. Desonge had been, and con- cluded a bargain with the Briton of exactly the same nature. The book goes on to relate liow these 3'oung men spent the mone}^ so miraculous!}' handed over to them, and how both, when the period drew near that was to witness the performance of their part of the bargain, grew melanchol}', wretched, nay, so absolutely dishonorable as to seek for ever}' means of break- ing through their agreement. The Englishman living in a countr}^ where the lawyers are more astute than an}- other law- 3'ers in the world, took the advice of a Mr. Bagsb}', of L3^on's Inn ; whose naiile, as we cannot find it in the " Law List," we presume to be fictitious. Who could it be that was a match for the devil? Lord very likely ; we shall not give his name, but let ever}^ reader of this Review fill up the blank according to his own fancy, and on comparing it with the cop}' purchased by his neighbors, he will find that fifteen out of twenty have written down the same honored name. Well, the Gentleman in Black was anxious for the fulfilment of his bond. The parties met at Mr. Bagsby's chambers to consult, the Black Gentleman foolishly thinking that he could act as his own counsel, and fearing no attorney alive. But mark the superiority of British law, and see how the black petti- fogger was defeated. Mr. Bagsby simply stated that he would take the case into Chancery, and his antagonist, utterly humiliated and defeated, refused to move a step farther in the matter. And now the French gentleman, M. Desonge, hearing of his friend's escape, became anxious to be free from his own rash engagements. He employed the same counsel who had been successful in the former instance, but the Gentleman in Black was a great deal wiser by this time, and whether M. Desonge escaped, or whether he is now in that extensive place which is paved with good intentions, we shall not say. Those who are anxious to know had better purchase the book wherein all these 340 CRITICAL REVIEWS. interesting matters are duly set down. There is one more diabolical picture in our budget, engraved by Mr. Thompson, the same dexterous artist who has rendered the former diaUeries so well. We may mention Mr. Thompson's name as among the first of the engravers to whom Cruikshank's designs have been en- trusted ; and next to him (if we ma}' be allowed to make such arbitrar}' distinctions) we ma}' place Mr. Williams ; and the reader is not possibly aware of the immense difficulties to be overcome in the rendering of these little sketches, which, traced b}" the designer in a few hours, require weeks' labor from the en- graver. Mr. Cruikshank has not been educated in the regular schools of drawing (very luckil}' for him, as we think), and con- sequentl}' has had to make a manner for himself, which is quite unlike that of an}' other draftsman. There is nothing in the least mechanical about it ; to produce his particular effects he uses his own particular lines, whi h are queer, free, fantastical, and must be followed in all their infinite twists and vagaries by , the careful tool of the engraver. Those three lovely lieads, for instance, imagined out of the rinds of lemons, are worth exam- ining, not so much for the jovial humor and w6nderful variety of feature exhibited in these darling countenances as for the en- graver's part of the work. See the infinite delicate cross-lines and hatchings which he is obliged to render ; let him go, not a hair's breadth, but the hundredth part of a hair's breadth, be- yond the given line, and the feeling of it is ruined. He receives these little dots and specks, and fantastical quirks of the pencil, and cuts away witi] a little knife round each, not too much nor too little. Antonio's pound of flesh did not puzzle the Jew so much ; and so well does the engraver succeed at last, that we never remember to have met with a single artist who did not vow that the wood-cutter had utterly ruined his design. Of Messrs. Thompson and Williams we have spoken as the first engravers in point of rank ; however, the regulations of professional precedence are certainly very difficult, and the rest of their brethren we shall not endeavor to class. Why should the artists who executed the cuts of the admirable "Three Courses " yield the pas to any one ? There, for instance, is an engraving by Mr. Landells, nearly as good in our opinion as the very best woodcut that ever was made after Cruikshank, and curiously happy in rendering the artist's pecuhar manner : this cut does not come from the face- tious publications which we have consulted ; but is a contribu- tion by Mr. Cruikshank to an elaborate and splendid botanical CRITICAL REVIEWS. 341 work upon the Orcliiclacefe of Mexico, by Mr. Bateman. Mr. Bateman despatched some extremel}' choice roots of this vahi- able plant to a friend in P^ngland, who, on the arrival of the case, consigned it to his gardener to unpack. A great deal of anxiet}' with regard to the contents was manifested by all con- cerned, but on the hd of the box being removed, there issued from it three or four fine specimens of the enormous Blatta beelle that had been preying upon the plants during the vo3^a<>-e ; against these the gardeners, the grooms, the porters, and the porters' children, issued forth in arms, and this scene the artist has immortalized. We have spoken of the admirable wa}^ in which Mr. Cruik- shank has depicted Irish character and Cockney character ; English country character is quite as faithfully delineated in the person of the stout porteress and her children, and of the " Chawbacon " with the shovel, on whose face is written " Zum- merzetsheer." Chawbacon appears in another plate, or else ChaAvbacon's brother. He has come up to Lunnan, and is look- ing about him at raaces. How distinct are these rustics from those whom we have just been examining ! They hang about the purlieus of the metrop- lolis : Brook Green, Epsom, Greenwich, Ascot, Goodwood, are [their haunts. The}^ visit London professionall}' once a 3^ear, and that is at the time of Bartholomew fair. How one may speculate upon the different degrees of rascalit}', as exhibited in each face of the thimblerigging trio, and form little histories for ^these worthies, charming Nev/gate romances, such as have been of late the fashion ! Is any man so bhnd that he cannot see the exact face that is writhing under the thimblerigged hero's hat ? Like Timanthes of old, our artist expresses great passions with- out the aid of the human countenance. There is another speci- men — a street row of inebriated bottles. Is there any need of having a face after this? " Come on!" says Claret-bottle, a dashing, genteel fellow, with his hat on one ear — " Come on ! has an}' man a mind to tap me?" Claret-bottle is a little screwed (as one ma}' see b}' his legs), but full of ga3'et)' and courage ; not so that stout, apoplectic Bottle-of-rum, who has staggered against the wall, and has his hand upon his liver : the fellow hurts himself with smoking, that is clear, and is as sick as sick can be. See, Port is making awa}' from the storm, and Double X is as fiat as ditch-water. Against these, awful in their white robes, the sober watchmen come. Our artist then can cover up faces, and 3'et show them quite clearl}', as in the thimblerig group ; or he can do without faces 342 CRITICAL REVIEWS. altogether ; or he can, at a pinch, provide a countenance for a gentleman out of any given object — a beautiful Irish physiog- noin3^ being moulded upon a keg of whiske}' ; and a jolh' Enghsh countenance frothing out of a pot of ale (the spirit of brave Tob}' Philpot come back to reanimate his cla}) ; while in a fungus may be recognized the pln'siognoni}^ of a mushroom peer. Finally, if he is at a loss, he can make a living head, bod}^ and legs out of steel or tortoise-shell, as in the case of the vivacious pair of spectacles that are jockeying the nose of Cadd3^ Cuddle. Of late years Mr. Cruikshank has busied himself very much with steel engraving, and the consequences of that luck}' inven- tion have been, that his plates are now sold by thousands, where the}^ could onl}- be produced b}' hundreds before. He has made man}^ a bookseller's and author's fortune (we trust that in so doing he ma}^ not have neglected his own). Twelve admirable plates, furnished 3'earl3' to that facetious little publica- tion, the Comic Almanac^ have gained for it a sale, as we hear, of nearW twenty thousand copies. The idea of the work was novel ; there was, in the first number especiallv, a great deal of comic power, and Cruikshank's designs were so admirable that the Almanac at once became a vast favorite with the public, and has so remained ever since. Besides the twelve plates, this almanac contains a prophetic woodcut, accompan3ing an awful Blarne3'hum Astrologicum that appears in this and other almanacs. There is one that hints in pretty clear terms that with the Reform of Municipal Corporations the ruin of the great Lord Mayor of London is at hand. His lordship is meekly going to dine at an eightpenny ordinar3', — his giants in pawn, his men in armor dwindled to " one poor knight," his carriage to be sold, his stalwart alder- men vanished, his sheriffs, alas! and alas ! in gaol ! Another design shows that Rigdum, if a true, is also a moral and in- structive prophet. John Bull is asleep, or rather in a vision ; the cunning demon. Speculation, blowing a thousand bright bubbles about him. Meanwhile the rooks are busy at his fob, a knave has cut a cruel hole in his pocket, a rattlesnake has coiled safe round his feet, and will in a trice swallow Bull, chair, mone3' and all ; the rats are at his corn-bags (as if, poor devil, he had corn to spare) ; his faithful dog is bolting his leg- of-mutton — nay, a thief has gotten hold of his ver3^ candle, and there, b3^ way of moral, is his ale-pot, which looks and winks in his face, and seems to say, O Bull, all this is froth, and a cruel satirical picture of a certain rustic who had a goose that laid CRITICAL REVIEWS. 843 certain golden eggs, which goose the rustic slew in expectation of finding all the eggs at once. This is goose and sage too, to borrow the pun of ' ' learned Doctor Gill ; " but we shrewdly suspect that Mr. Cruikshank is becoming a little conservative in his notions. We love these pictures so that it is hard to part us, and we still fondl}' endeavor to hold on, but this wild word, farewell, must be spoken b}- the best friends at last, and so good-by, brave woodcuts : we feel quite a sadness in coming to the last of our collection. In the earlier numbers of the Comic Almanac all the manners and customs of Londoners that would afford food for fun were noted down ; and if during the last two 3'ears the mysterious personage who, under the title of " Rigdum Funnidos," com- piles this ephemeris, has been compelled to resort to romantic tales, we must suppose that he did so because the great me- tropolis was exhausted, and it was necessary to discover new worlds in the cloud-land of fancy. The character of Mr. Stubbs, who made his appearance in the Almanac for 1839, had, we think, great merit, although his adventures were somewhat of too tragi- cal a description to provoke pure laughter. We should be glad to devote a few pages to the " Illustra- tions of Time," the " Scraps and Sketches," and the " Illustra- tions of Phrenology," which are among the most famous of our artist's publications ; but it is ver}' difficult to find new terms of praise, as find them one must, when reviewing Mr. Cruikshank's publications, and more difficult still (as the reader of this notice will no doubt have perceived for himself long since) to translate his design into words, and go to the printer's box for a descrip- tion of all that fun and humor which the artist can produce by a few skilful turns of his needle. A famous article upon the " Il- lustrations of Time " appeared some dozen years since in Black- wood's Mar/azine^ of which the conductors have alwa3'S been great admirers of our artist, as became men of honor and genius. To these grand qualities do not let it be supposed that we are laying claim, but, thank heaven, Cruikshank's humor is so good and benevolent that any man must love it, and on this score we may speak as well as another. Then there are the "Greenwich Hospital " designs, which must not be passed over. " Greenwich Hospital " is a hearty, good-natured book, in the Tom Dibdin school, treating of the virtues of British tars, in approved nautical language. They nuuil Frenchmen and S[)aniards, they go out in brigs and take frigates, thev relieve women in distress, and are yard-arm and 344 CRITICAL REVIEWS. yard-arming, athwart-hawsiug, marlinspiking, binnacling, and helm's-a-leeing, as honest seamen invariabl}^ do, in novels, on the stage, and doubtless on board ship. This we cannot take npon us to say, but the artist, like a true Enghshman, as he is, loves dearl}' these brave guardians of Old England, and chron- icles their rare or fanciful exploits with the greatest good-will. Let an}^ one look at the noble head of Nelson in the ' ' Family Librar3'," and thej^ will, we are sure, think with us that the designer must have felt and loved what he drew. There are to this abridgment of Southe3''s admirable book man^^ more cuts after Cruikshank ; and about a dozen pieces by the same hand will be found in a work equall}' popular, Lockhart's excellent '' Life of Napoleon." Among these the retreat from Moscow is very fine ; the Mamlouks most vigorous, furious, and barbarous, as thev should be. At the end of these three volumes Mr. Cruikshank's contributions to the '' Family Library " seem sud- denly to have ceased. We are not at all disposed to undervalue the works and genius of Mr. Dickens, and we are sure that he would admit as readily as any man th& wonderful assistance that he has derived from the artist who has given us the portraits of his ideal per- sonages, and made them familiar to all the world. Once seen, these figures remain impressed on the memor}', which other- wise would have had no hold upon them, and the heroes and heroines of Boz become personal acquaintances with each of us. Oh, that Hogarth could have illustrated Fielding in the same way ! and fixed . down on paper those grand figures of Parson Adams, and Squire Allworthy, and the great Jonathan Wild. With regard to the modern romance of " Jack Sheppard," in which the latter personage makes a second appearance, it . seems to us that Mr. Cruikshank really created the tale, and that Mr. Ainsworth, as it were, onl}- put words to it. Let any reader of the novel think over it for a while, now that it is some months since he has perused and laid it down — let him think, and tell us what he remembers of the tale? George Cruik- shank's pictures — always George Cruikshank's pictures. The storm in the Thames, for instance : all the author's la;bored description of that event has passed clean awa}^ — we have only before the mind's eye the fine plates of Cruikshank : the poor wretch cowering under the bridge arch, as the waves come rushing in, and the boats are whirling away in the drift of the great swollen black waters. And let anj^ man look at that second plate of the murder on the Thames, and he must acknowledge how much more brilliant the artist's description is CRITICAL REVIEWS. 345 than the writer's, and what a real genius for the terrible as well as for the ridiculous the former has ; how awful is the gloom of the old bridge, a few lights glimmering from the houses here and there, but not so as to be reflected on the water at all, which is too turbid and raging : a great heav}^ rack of clouds goes sweeping over the bridge, and men with flaring torches, the murderers, are borne away with the stream. The author requires man}^ pages to describe the fury of the storm, which Mr. Cruikshank has represented in one. First, he has to prepare you with the something inexpressibly melan- choly in sailing on a dark night upon the Thames : " the ripple of the water," ''the darkling current," "the indistinctively seen craft," " the solemn shadows" and other phenomena visi- ble on rivers at night are detailed (with not unskilful rhetoric) in order to bring the reader into a proper frame of mind for the deeper gloom and horror which is to ensue. Then follow pages of description. "As Rowland sprang to the helm, and gave the signal for pursuit, a war like a volley of ordnance was heard aloft, and the wind again burst its bondage. A moment be- fore the surface of the stream was as black as ink. It was now whitening, hissing, and seething, like an enormous caldron. The blast once more swept over the agitated river, whirled off the sheets of foam, scattered them far and wide in rain-drops, and left the raging torrent blacker than before. Destruction ever3'where marked the course of the gale. Steeples toppled and towers reeled beneath its fur3\ All was darkness, horror, confusion, ruin. Men fled from their tottering habitations and returned to them, scared by greater danger. The end of the world seemed at hand. . . . The hurricane had now reached its climax. The blast shrieked, as if exulting in its wrathful mission. Stunning and continuous, the din seemed almost to take awa}^ the power of hearing. He who had faced the gale would have been instantly stijled^'' &c. &c. See with what a tremendous war of words (and good loud words too ; Mr. Ainsworth's description is a good and spirited one) the author is obliged to pour in upon the reader before he can effect his purpose upon the latter, and inspire him with a proper terror. The painter does it at a glance, and old Wood's dilemma in the midst of that tremendous storm, with the httle infant at his bosom, is remembered afterwards, not from the words, but from the visible image of them that the artist has left us. It would not, perhaps, be out of place to glance through the whole of the " Jack Sheppard" plates, which are among the 346 CRITICAL REVIEWS. most finished and the most successful of Mr. Cruikshank's per- formances, and say a word or two concerning them. Let us begin with finding fault with No. 1, " Mr. Wood offers to adopt little Jack Sheppard." A jDOor print, on a poor subject ; the figure of the woman not as carefully designed as it might be, and the expression of the eyes (not an uncommon fault with our artist) much caricatured. The print is cut up, to use the artist's phrase, b}^ the number of accessories which the engraver has thought proper, after the author's elaborate description, elaborately to reproduce. The plate of "Wild discovering Darrell in the loft" is admirable — ghastl3^ terrible, and the treatment of it extraordinaril}^ skilful, minute, and bold. The intricacies of the tile- work, and the mysterious twinkling of light among the beams, are excellently' felt and rendered ; and one sees here, as in the two next plates of the storm and mur- der, what a fine eye the artist has, what a skilful hand, and what a S3'mpath3" for the wild and dreadful. As a mere imita- tion of nature, the clouds and the bridge in the murder picture may be examined bj- painters who make far higher pretensions tlian Mr. Cruikshank. In point of workmanship the}^ are equally good, the manner quite unaffected, the effect produced without any violent contrast, the whole scene evidently well and philosophically arranged in the artist's brain, before he began to put it upon copper. The famous drawing of "Jack carving the name on the beam," which has been transferred to half the play-bills in town, is overloaded with accessories, as the first plate ; but they are ' much better arranged than in the last-named engraving, and do not injure the effect of the principal figure. Remark, too, the conscientiousness of the artist, and that shrewd pervading idea of form which is one of his principal characteristics. Jack is surrounded by all sorts of implements of his profession ; he stands on a regular carpenter's table: away in the shadow under it lie shavings and a couple of carpenter's hampers. ^The glue-pot, the mallet, the chisel-handle, the planes, the ;saws, the hone with its cover, and the other paraphernalia are all represented with extraordinar}^ accuracy and forethought. The man's mind has retained the exact drawing of all these minute objects (unconsciously perhaps to himself) , but we can see with what keen eyes he must go through the world, and what a fund of facts (as such a knowledge of the shape of ob- jects is in his profession) this keen student of nature has stored away in his brain. In the next plate, where Jack is escaping from his mistress, the figure of that lady, one of the deepest of f CRITICAL REVIEWS. 347 the /3a$vKo\7roi, strikes us as disagreeable and unrefined ; that of Winifred is, on tlie contrar}^ very pretty and graceful; and Jack's puzzled, slinking look must not be forgotten. All the accessories are good, and the apartment has a snug, cosy air ; which is not remarkable, except that it shows how faithfully the designer has performed his work, and how curiously he has entered into all the particulars of tlie subject. Master Thames Darrell, the handsome 3'oung man of the book, is, in Mr. Cruikshank's portraits of him, no favorite of ours. The lad seems to wish to make up for the natural msio-- niiicance of his face by frowning on all occasions most porten- tously. This figure, borrowed from the compositor's \ ^^ desk, will give a notion of what we mean. Wild's face ^i • is too violent for the great man of history (if we may I call Fielding history) , but this is in consonance with the rant- ing, frowning, braggadocio character that Mr. Ainsworth has given him. The ' ' Interior of Willesden Church " is excellent as a com- position, and a piece of artistical workmanship ; the groups are well arranged ; and the figure of Mrs. Sheppard looking round alarmed, as her son is robbing the dandy Kneebone, is charm- ing, simple, and unaffected. Not so "Mrs. Sheppard ill in bed," whose face is screwed up to an expression vastly too tragic. The little glimpse of the church seen through the open door of the room is ver}^ beautiful and poetical : it is in such small hints that an artist especiall}- excels ; they are the morals which he loves to append to his stories, and are always appro- priate and welcome. The boozing ken is not to our liking ; Mrs. Sheppard is there with her horrified eyebrows again. Why this exaggeration — is it necessary for the public ? We think not, or if they require such excitement, let our artist, like a true painter as he is, teach them better things.* The "Escape from Willesden Cage" is excellent; the " Burglar}^ in Wood's house " has not less merit ; "Mrs. Shep- * A gentleman (whose wit is so celebrated that one should be very cautious in repeating his stories) gave the writer a good illustration of the philosophy of exaggeration. Mr. was once behind the scenes at the Opera when the scene-shifters were preparing for the ballet. Flora was to sleep under a bush, whereon were growing a number of roses, and amidst which was fluttering a gay covey of butterflies. In size the roses exceeded the most expansive sunflowers, and the butterflies were as large as cocked hats ; — the scene-shifter explained to Mr. , who asked the reason why everything was so magnified, that the galleries could never see the objects unless they were enormously exaggerated. How many of our writers and designers work for the galleries '( 348 CRITICAL REVIEWS. pard in Bedlam," a ghastly picture indeed, is finely conceived, but not, as we fancy, so carefully executed ; it would be better for a little more careful drawing in the female figure. ' '■ Jack sitting for his picture *' is a very pleasing group, and savors of the manner of Hogarth, who is introduced in the company. The *-' Murder of Trenchard " must be noticed too as remarkable for the effect and terrible vigor which tlie artist has given to the scene. The ''-Willesden Churchyard" has great merit too, but the gems of the book are the little vignettes illustrating the escape from Newgate. Here, too, much ana- tomical care of drawing is not required ; the figures are so small that the outline and attitude need only to be indicated, and the designer has produced a series of figures quite remark- able for reality and poetry too. There are no less than ten of Jack*s feats so described by Mr. Cruikshank. (Let us say a word here in praise of the excellent manner in which the author has carried us through the adventure.) Here is Jack clattering up the chimney, now peering into the lonely red room, now opening "the door between the red room and the chapel." What a wild, fierce, scared look he has, the young ruffian, as cautiousl}' he steps in, holding light his bar of iron. You can see by his face how his heart is beating ! If any one were there ! but no ! And this is a very fine characteristic of the prints, the extreme loneliness of them all. Not a soul is there to disturb him — woe to him who should — and Jack drives in the chapel gate, and shatters down the passage door, and there you have him on the leads. Up he goes ! it is but a spring of a few feet from the blanket, and he is gone — abiit^ evasit, erupit! Mr. Wild must catch him again if he can. We must not forget to mention "Oliver Twist," and Mr. Cruikshank's famous designs to that work.* The sausage scene at Fagin's, Nancy seizing the bo}^ ; that capital piece of humor, Mr. Bumble's courtship, which is even better in Cruik- shank's version than in Boz's exquisite account of the interview ; Sykes's farewell to the dog ; and the Jew, — the dreadful Jew — that Cruikshank drew ! What a fine touching picture of mel- ancholy desolation is that of Sykes and the dog ! The poor cur is not too well drawn, the landscape is stiff and formal ; but in this case the faults, if faults the}' be, of execution rather add to than diminish the effect of the picture : it has a strange, wild, drear}^ broken-hearted look ; we fancy we see the landscape as it must have appeared to Sykes, when ghastly and with blood- * Or his new work, " The Tower of London," which promises even to surpass Mr. Cruikshank's former productions. CRITICAL REVIEWS. 349 shot e^-es he looked at it. As for the Jew in the dungeon, let us say nothing of it — what can we say to describe it? What a fine homely poet is the man who can produce this little world of mirth or woe for us ! Does he elaborate his effects by slow process of thought, or do they come to him by instinct? Does the painter ever arrange in his brain an image so complete, that he afterwards can copy it exactly on the canvas, or does the hand work in spite of him ? A great deal of this random work of course every artist has done in his time ; many men produce effects of which they never dreamed, and strike off excellences, haphazard, which gain for them reputation; but a fine quaUty in Mr. Cruikshank, the quality of his success, as we have said before, is the extraordi- uar}^ earnestness and good faith with which he executes all he attempts — the ludicrous, the polite, the low, the terrible. In the second of these he often, in our fanc}^ fails, his figures lack- ing elegance and descending to caricature ; but there is some- thing fine in this too : it is good that he should fail, that he should have these honest naive notions reorardins: tlie heau monde^ the characteristics of which a namby-pamby tea-party painter could hit off far better than he. He is a great deal too downright and manly to appreciate the flimsy delicacies of small societ}^ — you cannot expect a lion to roar you like an}' sucking dove, or frisk about a drawing-room like a lad3''s little spaniel. If then, in the course of his life and business, he has been occasionally obliged to imitate the ways of such small animals, he has done so, let us say it at once, clumsil}', and like as a lion should. Many artists, we hear, hold his works rather cheap ; they prate about bad drawing, want of scientific knowl- edge : — they would have something vastly more neat, regular, anatomical. Not one of the whole band most likely but can paint an Academy figure better than himself; nay, or a portrait of an alderman's lady and family of children. But look down the list of the painters and tell us who are they ? How many among these men are poets (makers), possessing the faculty to create, the greatest among the gifts with which Providence has endowed the mind of man ? Say how many there are, count up what they have done, and see what in the course of some nine-and-tweuty years has been done by this indefatigable man. What amazing energetic fecundity do we find in him ! As a boy he began to fight for bread, has been hungry (twice a day we trust) ever since, and has been obliged to sell his wit for his bread week by week. And his wit. sterling gold as it is, will 350 CRITICAL REVIEWS. find no such purchasers as the fashionable painter's thin pinch- beck, who can live comfortably for six weeks, when paid for and pahiting a portrait, and fancies his mind prodigiously occu- pied all the while. There was an artist in Paris, an artist hair- dresser, who used to be fatigued and take restoratives after inventing a new coiffure. By no such gentle operation of head- dressing has Cruikshank lived : time was (we are told so ii* print) when for a picture with thirt}^ heads in it he was paid three guineas — a poor week's pittance truly, and a dire week's labor. AVe make no doubt that the same labor would at present bring him twent}^ times the sum ; but whether it be ill paid or well, what labor has Mr. Cruikshank's been ! Week by week, for thirty years, to produce something new ; some smiling off- spring of painful labor, quite independent and distinct from its ten thousand jovial brethren ; in what hours of sorrow and ill- health to be told by the world, " Make us laugh or 3'ou starve — Give us fresh fun ; we have eaten up the old and are hungr3^" And all this has he been obhged to do — to wring laughter day by day, sometimes, perhaps, out of want, often certainly from ill-health or depression — to keep the fire of his brain perpetu- ally alight : for the greedy public will give it no leisure to cool. This he has done and done well. He has told a thousand truths in as many strange and fascinating waj-s ; he has given a thou- sand new and pleasant thoughts to millions of people ; he has never used his wit dishonestly ; he has never, in all the exuber- ance of his frolicsome humor, caused a single painful or guilty blush : how little do we think of the extraordinary power of this man, and how ungrateful we are to him ! Here, as we are come round to the charge of ingratitude, the starting-post from which we set out, perhaps we had better con- clude. The reader will perhaps wonder at the high-flown tone in which we speak of the services and merits of an individual, whom he considers a humble scraper on steel, that is wonder- fulh' popular alread}^ But none of us remember all the benefits we owe him ; they have come one by one, one driving out the memor3' of the other : it is onlj' when we come to examine them all together, as the writer has done, who has a pile of books on the table before him — a heap of personal kindnesses from George Cruikshank (not presents, if you please, for we bought, borrowed, or stole every one of them) — that we feel what we owe him. Look at one of Mr. Cruikshank's works, and we pronounce him an excellent humorist. Look at all : his reputa- tion is increased by a kind of geometrical progression ; as a CRITICAL REVIEWS. 351 whole diamond is a hundred times more vakiable than the hundred splinters into which it might be broken would be. A fine rough English diamond is this about which we have been writing. JOHN LEECH'S PICTURES OF LIFE AND CHARACTER* "We, who can recall the consulship of Plancus, and quite respectable, old-fogyfied times, remember amongst other amuse- ments which we had as children the pictures at which we were permitted to look. There was Bo3'deirs Shakspeare, blacl^ and ghastly galler}^ of murky Opies, glum Northcotes, straddling Fuselis ! there were Lear, Oberon, Hamlet, with starting muscles, rolling eyeballs, and long pointing quivering fingers ; there was little Prince Arthur (Northcote) crying, in white satin, and bidding good Hubert not put out his eyes; there was Hubert cr3'ing ; there was little Rutland being run througii the poor little body by bloody Clittbrd ; there was Cardinal Beaufort (Reynolds) gnashing his teeth, and grinning and howling demoniacally on his death-bed (a picture frightful to the present day) ; there was Lady Hamilton (Romney) waving a torch, and dancing before a black background, — a melan- choly museum indeed. Smirke's delightful "Seven Ages" onl}' fitfully relieved its general gloom. We did not like to inspect it unless the elders were present, and plenty of lights and company' were in the room. Cheerful relatives used to treat us to Miss Linwood's. Let the children of the present generation thank their stars that tragedy is put out of their way. Miss Linwood's was worsted- work. Your grandmother or grandaunts took you there, and said the pictures were admirable. You saw "the Woodman" in worsted, with his axe and dog, trampling through the snow ; the snow bitter cold to look at, the woodman's pipe wonderful : a gloomy piece, that made you shudder. There were large dingy pictures of woollen martyrs, and scowling warriors with limbs strongly knitted ; there was especially, at the endi ®f a black passage, a den of lions, that would frighten any 'boy not born in Africa, or Exeter 'Change, and accustomed to them. * Reprinted from the Quarterly Review, No. 191, Dec. 1854, by permis- sion of Mr. John Murray. 352 CRITICAL REVIEWS. Another exhibition used to be West's Gallery, where the pleasing figures of Lazarus in his grave-clothes, and Death on the pale horse, used to impress us children. The tombs of Westminster Abbej'^, the vaults at St. Paul's, the men in armor at the Tower, frowning ferociously out of their helmets, and wielding their dreadful swords ; that superhuman Queen Eliza- beth at the end of the room, a livid sovereign with glass e3'es, a ruff, and a dirty satin petticoat, riding a horse covered with steel : who does not remember these sights in London in the consulship of Plancus ? and the wax-work in Fleet Street, not like that of Madame Tussaud's, whose chamber of death is gay and brilliant ; but a nice old gloomy wax- work, full of murderers ; and as a chief attraction, the Dead Babj^ and the Princess Charlotte lying in state ? Our storj'-books had no pictures in them for the most part. Frank (dear old Frank !) had none ; nor the '' Parent's Assist- ant;" nor the '^ Evenings at Home;" nor our copy of the *' Ami des Enfans : " there were a few just at the end of the Spelling-Book ; besides the allegory at the beginning, of Edu- cation leading up Youth to the temple of Industr}^, where Dr. Dilworth and Professor Walkinghame stood with crowns of laurel. There were, we say, just a few pictures at the end of the Spelling-Book, little oval gray woodcuts of Bewick's, mostly of the Wolf and the Lamb, the Dog and the Shadow, and Brown, Jones, and Robinson with long ringlets and little tights ; but for pictures, so to speak, what had we? The rough old wood- blocks in the old harlequin-backed fairy-books had served hundreds of years ; before our Plancus, in the time of Priscus Plancus — in Queen Anne's time, who knows ? We were flogged at school ; we were fifty boj^s in our boarding-house, and had to wash in a leaden trough, under a cistern, with lumps of fat yellow soap floating about in the ice and water. Are our sons ever flogged? Have the}^ not dressing-rooms, hair-oil, hip-baths, and Baden towels? And what picture-books the young villains have ! What have these children done that they should be so much happier than we were ? We had the "Arabian Nights" and Walter Scott, to be sure. Smirke's illustrations to the former are very fine. We di(^{iot know how good they were then ; but we doubt whether we did not prefer the little old '^ Miniature Library Nights" with frontispieces by Uwins ; for these books the pictures don't count. Every boy of imagination does his own pictures to Scott and the " Arabian Nights" best. Of funny pictures there were none especially intended for us CRITICAL REVIEWS. 353 children. There was Rowlandson's "Doctor S3^ntax": Doc- tor Syntax in a fuzz-wig, on a horse with legs like sausages, riding races, making love, frolicking with ros}^ exuberant dam- sels. Those pictures were very funny, and that aquatinting ■ and the gay-colored plates very pleasant to witness ; but if we could not read the poem in those days, could we digest it in this? Nevertheless, apart from the text which we could not master, we remember Doctor Syntax pleasantly, like those cheerful painted hieroglyphics in the Nineveh Court at Syden- ham. What matter for the arrow-head, illegible stuff? give us the placid grinning kings, twanging their jolly bows over their rident horses, wounding tiiose good-humored enemies, who tumble gayl}^ off the towers, or drown, smiHng, in the dimpling waters, amidst the anerithmon gelasma of the fish. After Doctor Syntax, the apparition of Corinthian Tom, Jerry Hawthorn, and the facetious Bob Logic must be recorded — a wondrous history indeed theirs was! When the future student of our manners comes to look over the pictures and the writing of these queer volumes, what will he think of our so- ciety, customs, and language in the consulship of Plancus? " Corinthian," it appears, was the phrase applied to men of fashion and ton in Plancus's time : they were the brilliant prede- cessors of the " swell" of the present period — brilliant, but somewhat barbarous, it must be confessed. The Corinthians were in the habit of drinking a great deal too mucli in Tom Cribb's parlor: they used to go and see "Ufe" in the gin- shops; of nights, walking home (as well as they could), they used to knock down " Charleys," poor harmless old watchmen with lanterns, guardians of the streets of Rome, Planco Con- sule. They perpetrated a vast deal of boxing ; they put on the "mufflers" in Jackson's rooms; they "sported their prads" in the Ring in the Park ; they attended cock-fights, and were enlightened patrons of dogs and destroyers of rats. Besides these sports, the delassemens of gentlemen mixing with the peo- ple, our patricians, of course, occasionally enjoyed the society of their own class. What a wonderful picture that used to be of Corinthian Tom dancing with Corinthian Kate at Almack's ! AVhat a prodigious dress Kate wore! With what graceful abandon the pair flung their arms about as they swept through the mazy quadrille, with all the noblemen standing round in their stars and uniforms ! You may still, doubtless, see the pictures at the British Museum, or find the volumes in the > corner of some old country-house library. Yon are led to suppose that the English anstocracy of 1820 did dance and 354 CRITICAL REVIEWS. caper in that wa}', and box and drink at Tom Cribb's, and knock down watchmen ; and the chikh'en of to-da}^, turning to their eklers, may say " Grandmamma, did 3'ou wear such a dress as that, when you danced at Ahnack's ? There was very httle of it, grandmamma. Did grandpapa kill man}^ watchmen when he was a young man, and frequent thieves' gin- shops, cock-fights, and the ring, before you married him ? Did he use to talk the extraordinary' slang and jargon which is printed in this book? He is very much changed. He seems a gentlemanly old bo}^ enough now." In the above-named consulate, when we had grandfathers alive, there would be in the old gentleman's library in the countr}^ two or three old mottled portfolios, or great swollen scrap-books of blue paper, full of the comic prints of grand- papa's time, ere Plancus ever had the fasces borne before him. Tliese prints were signed Gilraj^ Bunbur^', Rowlandson, Wood- ward, and some actuallj^ George Cruikshank — for George is a \'eteran now, and he took the etching needle in hand as a child. He caricatured "Bone}'," borrowing not a little from (jilray in his first puerile efforts. He drew Louis XVIII. trj'ing on Bone3''s boots. Before the century was actually in its teens we believe that George Cruikshank was amusing the public. In those great colored prints in our grandfathers' portfolios in the library, and in some other apartments of the house, where the caricatures used to be pasted in those days, we found things quite beyond our comprehension. Bone}^ was represented as a fierce dwarf, with goggle e3'es, a huge laced hat and tricolored plume, a crooked sabre, reeking with blood : a little demon revelling in lust, murder, massacre. John Bull was shown kicking him a good deal : indeed he was prodigiousl}' kicked all through that series of pictures ; by Sidney Smith and our brave allies the gallant Turks ; by the excellent and patriotic Spaniards ; by the amiable and indig- nant Russians, — all nations had boots at the service of poor JMaster Bone}^ How Pitt used to dety him ! How good old George, Kingof Brobdingnag, laughed at GuUiver-Boney, sailing about in his tank to make sport for their Majesties ! This little fiend, this beggar's brat, cowardly, murderous, and atheistic as he was (we remember, in those old portfolios, pictures rep- resenting Bone}'^ and his family in rags, gnawing raw bones in a Corsican hut ; Boney murdering the sick at Jaffa ; Boney with a hookah and a large turban, having adopted the Turkish religion, &c.) — this Corsican monster, nevertheless, had some CRITICAL REVIEWS. o r - OOi) devoted friends in England, according to the Gilraj chronicle — a set. of villains who loved atheism, tyranny, plunder, and wickedness in general, like their French friend. In the pictures these men were ail represented as dwarfs, like their ally. The miscreants got into power at one time, and, if we remember right, were called the Broad-backed Administration. One with shaggy eyebrows and a bristly beard, the hirsute ringleader of the rascals, was, it appears, called Charles James' Fox • another miscreant, with a blotched countenance, was a certain Sheridan ; other imps were hight Erskine, Norfolk (Jockey of), Moira, Henry Petty. As in our childish innocence we used to look at these demons, now sprawling and tipsy in their cups ; now scaling heaven, from which the angelic Pitt hurled them down ; now cursing the light (their atrocious ringleader Fox was represented with hairy cloven feet, and a tail and horns) ; now kissing Boney's boot, but inevitably discomfited by Pitt and the other good angels : we hated these vicious wretches, as good children should ; we were on thejside of Virtue and Pitt and Grandpapa. But if our sisters wanted to look at the portfolios, the good old grandfather used to hesi- tate. There were some prints among them ver}^ odd indeed ; some that girls could not understand ; some that boys, indeed, had best not see. We swiftly turn over those prohibited pages. How many of them there were in the wild, coarse, reckless, ribald, generous book of old English humor! How savage the satire was — how fierce the assault — what garbage hurled at opponents — what foul blows were hit — what language of Billingsgate flung ! Fancy a partj^ in a coun- try-house now looking over Woodward's facetiae or some of the Gilray comicalities, or the slatternly Saturnalia of Rowland- son ! Whilst we live we must laugh, and have folks to make us laugh. We cannot afford to lose Satyr with his pipe and dances and gambols. But we have washed, combed, clothed, and taught the rogue good manners : or rather, let us say, he has learned them himself; for he is of nature soft and kindly, and he has put aside his mad pranks and tipsy habits ; and, frolicsome always, has become gentle and harmless, smitten into shame l)y the pure presence of our women and the sweet confiding smiles of our children. Among the veterans, the old pictorial satirists, we have mentioned the famous name of one humorous desisrner who is still alive and at work. Did we not see, b}^ his own hand, his own portrait of his own famous face, and whiskers, in the Illustrated London News the other day? There was a print in that paper of an assemblage of Teetotal- 356 CRITICAL REVIEWS. ers in " Sadler's Wells Theatre," and we straightway recog- nized the old Roman hand — the old Roman's of the time of Plancus — George Cruikshank's. There were the old bonnets and droll faces and shoes, and short trousers, and figures of 1820 sure enough. And there was George (who has taken to the water-doctrine, as all the world knows) handing some teetotal cresses over a plank to the table where the pledge was being administered. How often has George drawn that pic- ture of Cruikshank ! Where haven't we seen it ? How fine it was, facing the effigy of Mr. Ainsworth in Ainsworth's Maga- zine when George illustrated that periodical ! How grand and severe he stands in that design in G. C.'s "Omnibus," where he represents himself tonged like St. Dunstan, and tweaking a wretch of a pubhsher by the nose ! The collectors of George's etchings — oh the charming etchings ! — oh the dear old " Ger- man Popular Tales ! " — the capital " Points of Humor" — the delightful '• Phrenolog3^" and " Scrap-books," of tlie good time, our time — Plancus's in fact ! — the collectors of the Georgian etchings, we say, have at least a hundred pictures of the artist. Why, we remember him in his favorite Hessian boots in " Tom and Jerry " itself ; and in woodcuts as far back as the Queen's trial. He has rather deserted satire and comedj' of late years, having turned his attention to the serious, and warlike, and sublime. Having confessed our age and prejudices, we prefer the comic and fanciful to the historic, romantic, and at present didactic George. May respect, and length of daj's, and com- fortable repose attend the brave, honest, kindh', pure-minded artist, humorist, moralist ! It was he first who brouoht Ens:- lish pictorial humor and children acquainted. Our 3'oung peo- ple and their fathers and mothers owe him man}^ a pleasant hour and harmless laugh. Is there no wa}' in which the coun- try- could acknowledge the long services and brave career of such a friend and benefactor? Since George's time humor has been converted. Comus and his wicked satyrs and leering fauns have disappeared, and fled into the lowest haunts ; and Comus's lad^^ (if she had a taste for humor, which ma^^ be doubted) might take up our funnj' picture-books without the slightest precautionar}^ squeam- ishness. What can be purer than the charming fancies of Richard Doyle? In all Mr. Punch's huge galleries can't we walk as safel}^ as through Miss Pinkerton's schoolrooms? And as we look at Mr. Punch's pictures, at the Illustrated Nevjs pictures, at all the pictures in the book-shop windows at this Christmas season, as oldsters, we feel a certain pang of envy CRITICAL REVIEWS. ''•'iT oo against the j^oungsters — they are too well off. Wh}- hadn't we picture-books? Why were we flogged so? A plague on the lictors and their rods in the time of Plancus ! And now, after this rambling preface, we are arrived at the subject in hand — Mr. John Leech and his " Pictures of Life and Character," in the collection of Mr. Punch, This book is better than plum-cake at Christmas. It is an enduring plum-cake, which you may eat and which you ma}^ slice and deliver to your friends ; and to which, having cut it, you may come again and welcome, from j^ear's end to year's end. In the frontispiece 3'ou see Mr. Punch examining the pictures in his gallery — a portl3', well-dressed, middle-aged, respectable gentleman, in a white neck-clotli, and a polite evening costume — smiling in a very bland and agreeable manner upon one of his pleasant drawings, taken out of one of his handsome portfolios. Mr. Punch has verj'^ good reason to smile at the work and be satis- fied with tlie artist. Mr, Leech, his chief contributor, and some kindred humorists, with pencil and pen have served Mr. Punch admirably. Time was, if we remember Mr, P,'s history- right!}', that he did not wear silk stockings nor well-made clothes (the little dorsal irregularitj'in his figure is almost an ornament now, so excellent a tailor has he) . He was of humble beginnings. It is said he kept a ragged little booth, which he put up at corners of streets ; associated with beadles, policemen, his own ugly wife (whom he treated most scandalously), and persons in a low station of life ; earning a precarious li^•elihood by the crack- ing of wild jokes, the singing of ribald songs, and halfpence extorted from passers-by. He is the Satyric genius we s}X)ke of anon : he cracks his jokes still, for satire must live ; but he is 'combed, washed, neatly clothed, and perfectlj^ presentable. He goes into the verj^ best compan}' ; he keeps a stud at Mel- ton ; he has a moor in Scotland ; he rides in the Park ; has his stall at the Opera ; is constantl}' dining out at clubs and in pri- vate societ}' ; and goes every night in the season to balls and parties, where j^ou see the most beautiful w^omen possible. He is welcomed amongst his new friends the great ; though, like the good old English gentleman of the song, he does not forget the small. He pats the heads of street boys and girls ; relishes the jokes of Jack the costermonger and Bob the dustman ; good-naturedly spies out Molly the cook flirting with iwliceman X, or Mary the nursemaid as she listens to the fascinating guardsman. He used rather to laugh at guardsmen, ''plun- gers," and other military men ; and was until latter days very contemptuous in his behavior towards Frenchmen. He has 358 CRITICAL REVIEWS. a natural antipathy to pomp, and swagger, and fierce de- meanor. But now that the guardsmen are gone to war, and the dandies of ' ' The Rag " — dandies no more — are battling like heroes at Balaklava and Inkermann * by the side of their heroic alhes, Mr. Punch's laughter is changed to heart}" respect and enthusiasm. It is not against courage and honor he wars : but this great moralist — must it be owned? — has some popu- lar British prejudices, and these led him in peace time to laugh at soldiers and Frenchmen. If those hulking footmen who accompanied the carriages to the opening of Parliament the other da}', would form a plush brigade, wear only gunpowder in their hair, and strike with their great canes on the enemy, Mr. Punch would leave off laughing at Jeames, who meanwhile remains among us, to all outward appearance regardless of satire, and calmly consuming his five meals per diem. Against law3^ers, beadles, bishops and clergy, and authorities, Mr. Punch is still rather bitter. At the time of the Papal aggres- sion he was prodigiously angry ; and one of the chief misfor- tunes which happened to him at that period was that, through the violent opinions which he expressed regarding the Roman Catholic hierarchy, he lost the invaluable services, the graceful i:)encil, the harmless wit, the charming fancy of Mr. Do3'le. Another member of Mr. Punch's cabinet, the biographer of Jeames, the author of the " Snob Papers," resigned his func- tions on account of Mr. Punch's assaults upon the present Emperor of the French nation, whose anger Jeames thought it was uupatriotic to arouse. Mr. Punch parted with these con- tributors : he filled their places with others as good. The boj'S at the railroad stations cried Punch just as cheeril}-, and sold just as man}-^ numbers, after these events as before. There is no blinking the fact that in Mr. Punch's cabinet John Leech is the right-hand man. Fanc}" a number of Punch without Leech's pictures ! What would 3'ou give for it? The learned gentlemen who write the w^ork must feel that, without him, it were as well left alone. Look at the rivals whom the popularit}' of Punch has brought into the field ; the direct imi- tators of Mr. Leech's manner — the artists with a manner of their own — how inferior their pencils are to his in humor, in depicting the public manners, in arresting, amusing the na- tion. The truth, the strength, the fvQQ vigor, the kind humor, the John Bull pluck and spirit of that hand are approached by no competitor. With what dexteritj^ he draws a horse, a woman, a child ! He feels them all, so to speak, like a man. * This was written in 1854. CRITICAL REVIEWS. 359 What plump young beauties those are with which Mr. Punch's chief contributor supplies the old gentleman's pictorial harem ! What famous thews and sinews Mr. Punch's horses have, and how Briggs, on the back of them, scampers across countr}' ! You see youth, strength, enjoyment, manhness in those draw- ings, and in none more so, to our thinking, than in the hundred pictures of children which this artist loves to design. Like a brave, hearty, good-natured Briton, he becomes quite soft and tender with the little creatures, pats gently their little golden heads, and watches with unfailing pleasure their ways, their sports, their jokes, laughter, caresses. Enfans terribles come home from Eton ; young Miss practising her first flirta- tion ; poor little ragged Polly making dirt-pies in the gutter, or staggermg under the weight of Jacky, her nursechild, who is as big as herself — all these little ones, patrician and plebeian, meet with kindness from this kind heart, and are watched with curious nicety by this amiable observer. We remember, in one of those ancient Gilray portfolios, a print which used to cause a sort of terror in us youthful spec- tators, and in which the Prince of Wales (his Ro3'al Highness was a Foxite then) was represented as sitting alone in a mag- nificent hall after a voluptuous meal, and using a great steel fork in the guise of a toothpick. Fancy the first young gentle- man living employing such a weapon in such a waj^ ! The most elegant Prince of Europe engaged with a two-pronged iron fork — the heir of Britannia with a bldent ! The man of genius who drew that picture saw little of the society which he satirized and amused. Gilra^^ watched public characters as the}" walked by the shop in St. James's Street, or passed through the lobby of the House of Commons. His studio was a garret, or little better ; his place of amusement a tavern-parlor, where his club held its nightly sittings over their pipes and sanded floor. You could not have society represented by men to whom it was not familiar. When Gavarni came to England a few jears since — one of the wittiest of men, one of the most brilliant and dexterous of draughtsmen — he pubhshed a book of " Les Anglais," and his Anglais were all Frenchmen. The e3'e, so keen and so long practised to observe Parisian life, could not perceive English character. A social painter must be of the world which he depicts, and native to the manners which he portrays. . Now, an}' one who looks over Mr. Leech's portfolio must see that the social pictures which he gives us are authentic. What comfortable little drawin2:-rooms and dining-rooms, what 360 CRITICAL REVIEWS. snug libraries we enter ; what fine young-gentlemanly wags they are, those beautiful little dandies who wake up gout}^ old grand- papa to ring the bell ; who decline aunt's pudding and custards, sa3-ing that they will reserve themselves for an anchovy toast with the claret ; who talk together in ball-room doors, where Fred whispers Charley — pointing to a dear little partner seven years old — '•''My dear Charley, she has ver^' much gone off; 3'OU should have seen that girl last season ! " Look well at everything appertaining to the economy of the famous Mr. Briggs : how snug, quiet, appropriate all the appointments are ! What a comfortable, neat, clean, middle-class house Briggs's is (in the Bays water suburb of London, we should guess from the sketches of the surrounding scener}") ! What a good stable he has, with a loose box for those celebrated hunters which he rides ! How pleasant, clean, and warm his breakfast- table looks ! What a trim little maid brings in the top-boots which horrify Mrs. B ! What a snug dressing-room he has, complete in all its appointments, and in which he appears tr3'ing on the delightful hunting-cap which Mrs. Briggs flings into the fire ! How cosy all the Briggs party seem in their dining-room : Briggs reading a Treatise on Dog-breaking by a lamp ; Mamma and Grannie with their respective needleworks ; the children clustering round a great book of prints — a great book of prints such as this before us, which, at this season, must make thousands of children happ}' by as many firesides ! The inner life of all these people is represented : Leech draws them as naturally as Teniers depicts Dutch boors, or Morland pigs and stables. It is 3'our house and mine : we are looking at ever3^- body's famil3' circle. Our bo3's coming from school give them- selves such airs, the young scapegraces ! our girls, going to parties, are so tricked out by fond mammas — a social history of London in the middle of the nineteenth century'. As such, future students — luck3^ the3^ to have a book so pleasant — will regard these pages : even the mutations of fashion the3' may follow here if they be so inclined. Mr. Leech has as fine an eye for tailory and millinery as for horse-flesh. How they change those cloaks and bonnets. How we have to pay milli- ners' bills from 3^ear to 3'ear ! Where are those prodigious chatelaines of 1850 which no lad3^ could be without? W^here those charming waistcoats, those *' stunning " waistcoats, which our 3'oung girls used to wear a few brief seasons back, and which cause 'Gus, in the sweet little sketch of "La Mode,'* to ask Ellen for her tailor's address. 'Gus is a 3'oung warrior by this time, very likely facing the enem3'^ at Inkermann ; and CRITICAL REVIEWS. 3G1 pretty Ellen, and that love of a sister of hers, are married and happ}^ let us hope, superintending one of those delightful nursery scenes which our artist depicts with such tender humor. Fortunate artist, indeed ! You see he must have been bred at a good public school ; that he has ridden many a good horse in his day ; paid, no doubt, out of his own purse for the origi- nals of some of those lovely caps and bonnets ; and watched paternally the ways, smiles, frolics, and slumbers of his favor- ite little people. As you look at the drawings, secrets come out of them, — private jokes, as it were, imparted to you by the author for your special delectation. How remarkably, for instance, has Mr. Leech observed the hair-dressers of the present age ! Look at '•' Mr. Tongs," whom that hideous old bald woman, who ties on her bonnet at the glass, informs that "she has used the whole bottle of Balm of California, but her hair comes off yet." You can see the bear's-grease not only on Tongs's head but on his hands, which he is clapping clammily together. Remark him who is telling his client "there is cholera in the hair ; " and that luck}^ rogue whom the young lady bids to cut off " a long thick piece " — for somebod}^ doubtless. All these men are different, and delightfully natural and absurd. AVhy should hair-dressing be an absurd profession? The amateur will remark what an excellent part hands play in Mr. Leech's pieces : his admirable actors use them with per- fect naturalness. Look at Betty, putting the urn down;, at cook, laying her hands on the kitchen table, whilst her police- man grumbles at the cold meat. They are cook's and house- maid's hands without mistake, and not without a certain beaut}' too. The bald old lady, who is tying her bonnet at Tongs's, has hands which you see are trembhng. Watch the fingers of the two old harridans who are talking scandal : for what long years past they have pointed out holes in their neighbors' dresses and mud on their flounces. " Here's a go! I've lost my diamond ring." As the dustman utters this pathetic cry, and looks at his hand, you burst out laughing. These are among the little points of humor. One could indicate hun- dreds of such as one turns over the pleasant pages. There is a little snob or gent, whom we all of us know, who wears Uttle tufts on his little chin, outrageous pins and panta- loons, smokes cigars on tobacconists' counters, sucks his cane in the streets, struts about with Mrs. Snob and the baby (Mrs. S. an immense woman, whom Snob nevertheless bullies), who is a favorite abomination of Leech, and pursued by that savage 3G2 CHITICAL REVIEWS. humorist into a thousand of his haunts. There he is, choosing waistcoats at the tailor's — such waistcoats ! Yonder he is giving a shilUng to the sweeper who calls him "Capting;" now he is offering a paletot to a huge giant who is going out in the rain. They don't know their own pictures, very likely- ; if they did, they would haA^e a meeting, and thirty or forty of them would be deputed to thrash Mr. Leech. One feels a pity for the poor little bucks. In a minute or two, when we close this discourse and walk the streets, we shall see a dozen such. Ere we shut the desk up, just one word to point out to the unwar}^ specially' to note the backgrounds of landscapes in Leech's drawings — homely drawings of moor and wood, and seashore and London street — the scenes of his little dramas. Thej^ are as excellently true to nature as the actors themselves ; our respect for the genius and humor which invented both in- creases as we look and look again at the designs. May we have more of them ; more pleasant Christmas volumes, over which we and our children can laugh together. Can we hav« too much of truth, and fun, and beauty, and kindness? THE END. THE FOUR GEORGES: SKETCHES OF MANNEES, MOEALS, COUET AND TOWN LIFE. GEORGE THE FIRST. A VERY few years since, I knew familiarly a lady, who had been asked in marriage by Horace Walpole, who had been patted on the head b}^ George I. This lady had knocked at Dr. Johnson's door ; had been intimate with Fox, the beautiful Georgina of Devonshire, and that brilliant Whig society of the reign of George III. ; had known the Duchess of Queens- berry, the patroness of Gay and Prior, the admired young beauty of the court of Queen Anne. I often thought as I took my kind old friend's hand, how with it I held on to the old society of wits and men of the world. I could travel back for seven score years of time — have glimpses of Brummell, Selwyn, Chesterfield, and the men of pleasure ; of Walpole and Conwa}' ; of Johnson, Reynolds, Goldsmith ; of North, Chatham, New- castle ; of the fair maids of honor of George II.'s court ; of the German retainers of George I.'s : where Addison was secretary of state ; where Dick Steele held a place ; whither the great Marlborough came with his fier}^ spouse ; when Pope, and Swift, and Bolingbroke yet lived and wrote. Of a societ}'^ so vast, busy, brilliant, it is impossible in four brief chapters to give a complete notion ; but we may peep here and there into that b3'gone world of the Georges, see what they and their courts were like ; glance at the people round about them ; look at past manners, fashions, pleasures, and contrast them with our own. I have to say thus much by way of preface, because the subject of these lectures has been misunderstood, and I have been taken to task for not having given grave historical treatises, which it never was my intention to attempt. Not about battles, about politics, about statesmen and measures of state, did I ever think to lecture you : but to sketch the manners and life of 4 THE FOUR GEORGES. the old world ; to amuse for a few hours with'talk about the old society ; and, with the result of maii}^ a day's and night's pleas- ant reading, to try and while awaj' a few winter evenings for my hearers. Among the German princes who sat under Luther at Wit- tenberg, was Duke Ernest of Celle, whose younger son, William of Liineburg, was the progenitor of the illustrious Hanoverian house at present reigning in Great Britain. Duke William held his court at Celle, a little town of ten thousand people that lies on the railwa}' line between Hamburg and Hanover, in the midst of great plains of sand, upon the river AUer. When Duke William had it, it was a very humble wood-built place, with a great brick church, which he sedulously frequented, and in which he and others of his house lie buried. He was a very religious lord, and was called William the Pious b}^ his small circle of subjects, over whom he ruled till fate deprived him both of sight and reason. Sometimes, in his latter days, the good Duke had glimpses of mental light, when he would bid his musicians pla}^ the psalm-tunes which he loved. One thinks of a descendant of his, two hundred years afterwards, blind, old, and lost of wits, singing Handelin Windsor Tower. William the Pious had fifteen children, eight daughters and seven sons, who, as the property left among them was small, drew lots to determine which one of them should marry, and continue the stout race of the Guelphs. The lot fell on Duke George, the sixth brother. The others remained single, or contracted left-handed marriages after the princely fashion of those days. It is a queer picture — that of the old Prince d3'ing in his little wood-built capital, and his seven sons tossing up which should inherit and transmit the crown of Brentford. Duke George, the lucky prizeman, made the tour of Europe, during which he visited the court of Queen Elizabeth ; and in the 3^ear 1617, came back and settled at Zell, with a wife out of Darmstadt. His remaining brothers all kept their house at Zell, for economj^'s sake. And presently, in due course, they all died — all the honest Dukes ; Ernest, and Christian, and Augustus, and Magnus, and George, and John — and they are buried in the brick church of Brentford yonder, b}^ the sandy banks of the Aller. Dr. Vehse gives a pleasant glimpse of the way of life of our Dukes in Zell. " When the trumpeter on the tower has blown," Duke Christian orders — viz. at nine o'clock in the morning, and four in the evening — every one must be present at meals, GEORGE I. GEORGE THE FIRST. 5 and those who are not must go without. None of the servants, unless it be a knave who has been ordered to ride out, shall eat or drink in the kitchen or cellar ; or, without special leave, fodder his horses at the Prince's cost. When the meal is served in the court-room, a page shall go round and bid every one be quiet and orderl}', forbidding all cursing, swearing, and rudeness ; all throwing about of bread, bones, or roast, or pocketing of the same. Every morning, at seven, the squires shall have their morning soup, along with which, and dinner, they shall be served with their under-drink — every morning, except Friday morning, when there was sermon, and no drink. Every evening the\' shall have their beer, and at night their sleep-drink. The butler is especially warned not to allow noble or simple to go into the cellar : wine shall onl^' be served at the Prince's or councillors' table ; and every Monday, the honest old Duke Christian ordains the accounts shall be ready, and the expenses in the kitchen, the wine and beer cellar, the bake- house and stable, made out. Duke George, the marr3ing Duke, did not stop at home to partake of the beer and wine, and the sermons. He went about fighting wherever there was profit to be had. He served as general in the arm}^ of the circle of Lower Saxony, the Protestant arm}- ; then he went over to the Emperor, and fought in his armies in German}^ and Italy ; and when Gus- tavus Adolphus appeared in Germany, George took service as a Swedish general, and seized the Abbe}' of Hildesheim, as his share of the plunder. Here, in the 3'ear 1641, Duke George died, leaving four sons behind him, from the 3'oungest of whom descend our royal Geoi'ges. Under these children of Duke George, the old God-fearing, simple wa3's of Zell appear to have gone out of mode. The second brother was constanth' visiting Venice, and leading a J0II3', wicked life there. It was the most jovial of all places at the end of the seventeenth centur3^ ; and mihtary men, after a campaign, rushed thither, as the warriors of the Allies rushed to Paris in 1814, to gamble, and rejoice, and partake of all sorts of godless delights. This Prince, then, loving Venice and its pleasures, brought Italian singers and dancers back with him to quiet old Zell ; and, worse still, demeaned himself by marrying a French lady of birth quite inferior to his own — Eleanor d'Olbreuse, from whom our Queen is descended. Eleanor had a pretty daughter, M'ho inherited a great fortune, which inflamed her cousin, George Louis of Hanover, with a 6 THE FOUR GEORGES. desire to many her ; and so, with her beautj^ and her riches, she came to a sad end. It is too long to tell how the four sons of Duke George divided his territories amongst them, and how, finalh^, they came into possession of the son of the 3'oungest of the four. In this generation the Protestant faith was ver}' near!}' extin- guished in the famil}^ : and then where should we in England have gone for a king? The third brother also took deUght in Italy, where the priests converted him and his Protestant chaplain too. Mass was said in Hanover once more ; and Italian soprani piped their Latin rh} mes in place of the hj'mns which William the Pious and Dr. Luther sang. Louis XIV. gave this and other converts a splendid pension. Crowds of Frenchmen and brilliant French fashions came into his court. It is incalculable how much that royal bigwig cost Germany. Every prince imitated the French King, and had his Versailles, his Wilhelmshohe or Ludwigslust ; his court and its splendors ; his gardens laid out with statues ; his fountains, and water- works, and Tritons ; his actors, and dancers, and singers, and fiddlers ; his harem, with its inhabitants : his diamonds and duchies for these latter ; his enormous festivities, his gaming- tables, tournaments, masquerades, and banquets lasting a week long, for which the people paid with their mone}^ when the poor wretches had it ; with their bodies and ver}' blood when they had none ; being sold in thousands bj^ theif lords and masters, who ga3ly dealt in soldiers, staked a regiment upon the red at the gambling-table ; swapped a battalion against a dancing-girl's diamond necklace ; and, as it were, pocketed their people. As one views Europe, through contemporar}' books of travel in the earl}^ part of the last century, the landscape is awful — wretched wastes, beggarly and plundered ; half-burned cottages and trembling peasants gathering piteous harvests ; gangs of such tramping along with ba3'onets behind them, and corporals with canes and cats-of-nine-tails to flog them to barracks. By these passes my lord's gilt carriage floundering through the ruts, as he swears at the postilions, and toils on to the Residenz. Hard by, but away from the noise and brawling of the citizens and bu3^ers, is Wilhelmslust or Ludwigsruhe, or Monbijou, or Versailles — it scared}^ matters which, — near to the city, shut out bj'^ woods from the beggared country, the enormous, hide- ous, gilded, monstrous marble place, where the Prince is, and the Court, and the trim gardens, and huge fountains, and the forest where the ragged peasants are beating the game in (it is GEORGE THE FIRST. 7 death to them to touch a feather) ; and the jolly hunt sweeps by with its uniform of crimson and gold ; and the Prince gallops ahead puffing his royal horn ; and his lords and mistresses ride after him ; and the stag is pulled down ; and the grand hunts- man gives the knife in the midst of a chorus of bugles ; and 'tis time the Court go home to dinner ; and our noble traveller, it may be the Baron of PoUnitz, or the Count de Konigsmarck, or the excellent Chevalier de Seingalt, sees the procession gleam- ing through the trim avenues of the wood, and hastens to the inn, and sends his noble name to the marshal of the Court. Then our nobleman arrays himself in green and gold, or pink and silver, in the richest Paris mode, and is introduced by the chamberlain, and makes his bow to the jolly Prince, and the gracious Princess ; and is presented to the chief lords and ladies, and then comes supper and a bank at Faro, where he loses or wins a thousand pieces by daylight. If it is a German court, you ma}^ add not a little drunkenness to this picture of high life ; but German, or French, or Spanish, if you can see out of 3"Our palace-windows beyond the trim-cut forest vistas, misery is lying outside ; hunger is stalking about the bare villages, listlessl}^ following precarious husbandrj^ ; ploughing stony fields with starved cattle ; or fearfully taking in scanty harvests. Augustus is fat and joll}' on his throne ; he can knock down an ox, and eat one almost ; his mistress, Aurora von Konigsmarck, is the loveliest, the wittiest creature ; his diamonds are the biggest and most brilliant in the world, and his feasts as splendid as those of Versailles. As for Louis the Great, he is more than mortal. Lift up your glances re- spectfull}^ and mark him eying Madame de Fontanges or Madame de Montespan from under his sublime periwig, as he passes through the great gallery where Villars and Vendome, and Berwick, and Bossuet, and Massillon are waiting. Can Court be more splendid ; nobles and knights more gallant and superb; ladies more lovely? A grander monarch, or a more miserable starved wretch than the peasant his subject, you can- not look on. Let us bear both the ne ^ypes in mind, if we wish to estimate the old society properly. Remember the glory and the chivalry? Yes! Remember the grace and beauty, tlie splendor and lofty politeness ; the gallant courtesy of Fontenoy, where the French line bids the gentleman of the English guard to fire first ; the noble constancy of the old King and Villars his general, who fits out the last army with the last crown-piece from the treasury, and goes to meet the enemy and die or conquer for France at Denain. But round all that royal splendor lies a 8 THE FOUR GEORGES. nation enslaved and ruined : there are people robbed of their rights — communities laid waste — faith, justice, commerce trampled upon, and wellnigh destr03'ed — nay, in the very cen- tre of roj^alty itself, what horrible stains and meanness, crime and shame ! It is but to a sill}^ harlot that some of the noblest gentlemen, and some of the proudest women in the world, are bowing down ; it is the price of a miserable province that the King ties in diamonds round his mistress's white neck. In the first half of the last century, I say, this is going on all Europe over. Saxon}^ is a waste as well as Picardy or Artois ; and Versailles is onh^ larger and not worse than Herrenhausen. It was the first Elector of Hanover who made the fortunate match which bestowed the race of Hanoverian Sovereigns upon us Britons. Nine 3'ears after Cliarles Stuart lost his head, his niece Sophia, one of many children of another luckless de- throned sovereign, the Elector Palatine, married Ernest Augus- tus of Brunswick, and brought the reversion to the crown of the three kingdoms in her scant}' trousseau. One of the handsomest, the most cheerful, sensible, shrewd, accomplished of women, was Sophia, daughter of poor Fred- erick, the winter king of Bohemia. The other daughters of lovely, unhapp3^ Elizabeth Stuart went off into the Catholic Church ; this one, luckily for her family, remained, I cannot say faithful to the Reformed Religion, but at least she adopted no other. An agent of the French King's, Gourville, a convert himself, strove to bring her and her husband to a sense of the truth ; and tells us that he one da}' asked Madame the Duchess of Hanover, of what religion her daughter was, then a pretty girl of thirteen years old. The duchess replied that the princess was of no religion as yet. They were waiting to know of what religion her husband would be, Protestant or Catholic, before instructing her ! And the Duke of Hanover having heard all Gourville's proposal, said that a change would be advantageous to his house, but that he himself was too old to change. This shrewd woman had such keen eyes that she knew how to shut them upon occasion, and was blind to many faults which it appeared that her husband the Bishop of Osnaburg and Duke of Hanover committed. He loved to take his pleasure like other sovereigns — was a merry prince, fond of dinner and the bottle ; liked to go to Italy, as his brothers had done before him ; and we read how he jovially sold 6,700 of his Hanoverians to the seigniory of Venice. They went bravely off to the Morea, under command of Ernest's son. Prince Max, and only 1,400 of them evei came home again. The German princes sold a good GEORGE THE FIRST. 9 deal of this kind of stock. You ma^' remember how George III.'s Government piircliased Hessians, and the use we made of them during the War of Independence. The ducats Duke Ernest got for his sokliers he spent in a series of the most brilliant entertainments. Nevertheless, the jovial Prince was economical, and kept a stead}' eye upon his own interests. He achieved the electoral dignit}- for himself: he married his eldest son George to his beautiful cousin of Zell ; and sending his sons out in command of armies to fight — now on this side, now on that — he lived on, taking his pleasure, and scheming his schemes, a merr}', wise prince enough, not, I fear, a moral prince, of which kind we shall have but very few specimens in the course of these lectures. Ernest Augustus had seven children in all, some of whom were scapegraces, and rebelled against the parental system of primogeniture and non-division of property which the Elector ordained. " Gustchen," the Electress writes about her second son : — " Poor Gus is thrust out, and his fatlier will give him no more keep. I laugh in the day, and cry all night about it ; for I am a fool with my children." Three of the six died fight- ing against Turks, Tartars, Frenchmen. One of them conspired, revolted, fled to Rome, leaving an agent behind him, whose head was taken off. The daughter, of whose earl}' education we have made mention, was married to the Elector of Brandenburg, and so her religion settled finall}^ on the Protestant side. A niece of the Electress Sophia — who had been made to change her religion, and marry the Duke of Orleans, brother of the French King ; a woman whose honest heart was always with her friends and dear old Deutschland, though her fat little body was confined at Paris, or Marly, or Versailles — has left us, in her enormous correspondence (part of which has been printed in German and French), recollections of the Electress, and of George her son. EKzabeth Charlotte was at Osnaburg when George was born (1660). She narrowly escaped a whipping for being in the way on that auspicious da3\ She seems not to have liked little George, nor George grown up ; and represents him as odiously hard, cold, and silent. Silent he may have been: not a jolly prince like his father before him, but a pru- dent, quiet, selfish potentate, going his own way, managing his own affairs, and understanding his own interests remarkably well. In his father's lifetime, and at the head of the Hanover forces of 8,000 or 10,000 men, George served the Emperor, on the Danube against Turks, at the siege of Vienna, in Italy, and 10 THE FOUR GEORGES. on the Rhine. When he succeeded to the Electorate, he han- dled its affairs with great prudence and dexterity. He was very much liked by his people of Hanover. He did not show his feelings much, but he cried heartily on leaving them ; as they used for joy when he came back. He showed an uncommon prudence and coolness of behavior when he came into his king- dom ; exhibiting no elation ; reasonabl}^ doubtful whether he should not be turned out some day ; looking upon himself only as a lodger, and making the most of his brief tenure of St. James's and Hampton Court ; plundering, it is true, somewhat, and dividing amongst his German followers ; but what could be expected of a sovereign who at home could sell his subjects at so man}'^ ducats per head, and make no scruple in so disposing of them? I fancy a considerable shrewdness, prudence, and even moderation in his wa3's. The German Protestant was a cheaper, and better, and kinder king than the Catholic Stuart in whose chair he sat, and so far loyal to England, that he let England govern herself. Having these lectures in view, I made it my business to visit that ugly cradle in which our Georges were nursed. The old town of Hanover must look still pretty much as in the time when George Louis left it. The gardens and pavilions of Her- renhausen are scarce changed since the day when the stout old Electress Sophia fell down in her last walk there, preceding but by a few weeks to the tomb James II. 's daughter, whose death made wa}' for the Brunswick Stuarts in England. The first two royal Georges, and their father, Ernest Augus- tus, had quite royal notions regarding marriage; and Louis XIV. and Charles II. scarce distinguished themselves more at Versailles or St. James's, than these German sultans in their little city on the banks of the Leine. You may see at Herren- hausen the very rustic theatre in which the Platens danced and performed masques, and sang before the Elector and his sons. There are the very fauns and dryads of stone still glimmering through the branches, still grinning and piping their ditties of no tone, as in the days when painted nymphs hung garlands round them ; appeared under their leafy arcades with gilt crooks, guiding rams with gilt horns; descended from "ma- chines " in the guise of Diana or Minerva ; and delivered im- mense allegorical compliments to the princes returned home from the campaign. That was a curious state of morals and politick in Europe ; a queer consequence of the triumph of the monarchical prin- ciple. Feudalism was beaten down. The nobility, in its GEORGE THE FIRST. 11 quarrels with the crown, had pretty well succumbed, and the monarch was all in all. He became almost divine : the proud- est and most ancient gentry of the land did menial service for him. Who should carry Louis XIV. 's candle when he went to bed? what prince of the blood should hold the king's shirt when his Most Christian Majesty changed that garment? — the French memoirs of the seventeenth century are full of such details and squabbles. The tradition is not yet extinct in Europe. Any of you who were present, as myriads were, at that splendid pageant, the opening of our Crystal Palace in London, must have seen two noble lords, great oflScers of the household, with ancient pedigrees, with embroidered coats, and stars on their breasts and wands in their hands, walking back- wards for near the space of a mile, while the royal procession made its progress. Shall we wonder — shall we be angry — shall we laugh at these old-world ceremonies ? View them as 5 ou will, according to your mood ; and with scorn or with respect, or with anger and sorrow, as your temper leads you. Up goes Gesler's hat upon the pole. Salute that symbol of sovereignty with heartfelt awe ; or with a sulky shrug of acqui- escence, or with a grinning obeisance ; or with a stout rebellious No — clap your own beaver down on your pate, and refuse to doflf it to that spangled velvet and flaunting feather. I make no comment upon the spectators' behavior ; all I say is, that Gesler's cap is still up in the market-place of Europe, and not a few folks are still kneeling to it. Put clumsy, high Dutch statues in place of the marbles of Versailles : fancy Herrenhausen waterworks in place of those of Marly : spread the tables with Schweinskopf, Specksuppe, Leberkuchen, and the like delicacies, in place of the French cui- sine ; and fancy Frau vqn Kielmansegge dancing with Count Kammerjunker Quirini, or singing French songs with the most awful German accent : imagine a coarse Versailles, and we have a Hanover before us. "I am now got into the region of beauty," writes Mary Wortley, from Hanover in 1716; "all the women have literall}^ rosy cheeks, snowy foreheads and necks, jet e^'ebrows, to which may generally be added coal- black hair. These perfections never leave them to the day of their death, and have a very fine effect by candlelight ; but I could wish they were handsome with a little variety. They resemble one another as Mrs. Salmon's Court of Great Britain, and are in as much danger of melting away by too nearly ap- proaching the fire." The sly Mary Wortley saw this painted seragHo of the first George at Hanover, the 3'ear after his ,-.*« 12 THE FOUR GEORGES. accession to the British throne. There were great doings and feasts there. Here Lady Mary saw George II. too. "I can tell you, without flatterj^ or partiality," she says, " that our young prince has all the accomplishments that it is possible to have at his age, with an air of sprightliness and understanding, and a something so very engaging in his behavior that needs not the acl vantage of his rank to appear charming." I find elsewhere similar paneg} rics upon Frederick Prince of Wales, George II. 's son; and upon George III., of course, and upon George IV. in an eminent degree. It was the rule to be dazzled by princes, and people's eyes winked quite honestly at that ro^'al radiance. The Electoral Court of Hanover was numerous — pretty well paid, as times went ; above all, paid with a regularity which few other European courts could boast of. Perhaps 3'ou will be amused to know how the Electoral Court was comi- posed. There were the princes of the house in the first class ; in the second, the single field-marshal of the army (the con- tingent was 18,000, Pollnitz says, and the Elector had other 14,000 troops in his pa}'). Then follow, in due order, the authorities civil and military, the working privy councillors, the generals of cavalry and infantry', in the third class ; the high chamberlain, high marshals of the court, high masters of the horse, the major-generals of cavalr^^ and infantrj^, in the fourth class ; down to the majors, the hoQunkers or pages, the secre- taries or assessors, of the tenth class, of whom all were noble. We find the master of the horse had 1,090 thalers of pay ; the high chamberlain, 2,000 — a thaler being about three shil- lings of our mone3^ There were two chamberlains, and one for the Princess ; five gentlemen of the chamber, and five gentlemen ushers ; eleven pages and personages to educate these 3'oung noblemen — such as a governor, a preceptor, a fecht-meister, or fencing master, and a dancing ditto, this latter with a handsome salar}^ of 400 thalers. There were three body and court physicians, with 800 and 500 thalers ; a court barber, 600 thalers ; a court organist ; two musikanten ; four French fiddlers ; twelve trumpeters, and a bugler ; so that there was plentj^ of music, profane and pious, in Hanover. There were ten chamber waiters, and twenty-four lackeys in liver}' ; a maitre-d'hotel, and attendants of the kitchen ; a French cook ; a bod}^ cook ; ten cooks ; six cooks' assistants ; two Braten masters, or masters of the roast — (one fancies enormous spits turning slowly, and the honest masters of the roast beladling the dripping) ; a pastry-baker ; a pie-baker ; and finallv, three GEORGE THE FIRST. 13 scullions, at the modest remuneration of eleven tlialers. In the sugar-chamber there were four pastry-cooks (for the ladies, no doubt) ; seven officers in the wine and beer cellars ; four bread-bakers ; and five men in the plate-room. There were 600 horses in the Serene stables — no less than twenty teams of princel}^ carriage horses, eight to a team ; sixteen coachmen ; fourteen postilions ; nineteen ostlers ; thirteen helps, besides smiths, carriage-masters, horse-doctors, and other attendants of the stable. The female attendants were not so numerous : I grieve to find but a dozen or fourteen of them about the Electoral premises, and only two washerwomen for all the Court. These functionaries had not so much to do as in tlie present age. I own to finding a pleasure in these small-beer chronicles. I like to people the old world, with its everj'-day figures and inhabitants — not so much with heroes fighthig immense battles and inspiring repulsed battalions to engage ; or statesmen locked up in darkling cabinets and meditating ponderous laws or dire conspiracies — as with people occupied with their every-day work or pleasure : my lord and lad}' hunt- ing in the forest, or dancing in the Court, or bowing to their Serene Highnesses as they pass in to dinner ; John Cook and his procession bringing the meal from the kitchen ; the joll}' butlers bearing in the flagons from the cellar ; the stout coachman driving the ponderous gilt wagon, with eight cream-colored horses in housings of scarlet velvet and morocco leather ; a postilion on the lea'ders, and a pair or a half-dozen of running footmen scudding along by the side of the vehicle, with coni- cal caps, long silver-headed maces, which the}^ poised as they ran, and splendid jackets laced all over with silver and gokl. I fancy the citizens' wives and their daughters looking out from the balconies ; and the burghers over their beer and muram, rising up, cap in hand, as the cavalcade passes through the town with torch-bearers, trumpeters blowing their lust}' cheeks out, and squadrons of jack-booted lifeguardsmen, girt with shining cuirasses, and bestriding thundering chargers, escort- ing his Highness's coach from Hanover to Herrenhausen ; or halting, mayhap, at Madame Platen's country-house of Mon- plaisir, which lies half-way between the summer-palace and the Residenz. In the good old times of which I am treating, whilst com mon men were driven off by herds, and sold to fight the Em peror's enemies on the Danube, or to bayonet King Louis's troops of common men on the Rhine, noblemen passed from court to court, seeking service with one prince or the other. 14 THE FOUR GEORGES. and naturally taking command of the ignoble vulgar of soldiery which battled and died almost without hope of promotion. Noble adventurers travelled from court to court in search of employment ; not merel}^ noble males, but noble females too ; and if these latter were beauties, and obtained the favorable notice of princes, they stopped in the courts, became the favor- ites of their Serene or Royal Highnesses ; and received great sums of money and splendid diamonds ; and were promoted to be duchesses, marchionesses, and the like ; and did not fall much in public esteem for the manners in which the}^ won their advancement. In this way Mdlle. de Querouailles, a beautiful French lady, came to London on a special mission of Louis XIV., and was adopted by our grateful country and sovereign, and figured as Duchess of Portsmouth. In this way the beauti- ful Aurora of Konigsmarck travelling about found favor in the ej'es of Augustus of Saxony, and became the mother of Marshal Saxe, who gave us a beating at Fontenoy ; and in this manner the lovely sisters Elizabeth and Melusina of Meissenbach (who had actually been driven out of Paris, whither they had travelled on a like errand, by the wise jealousy of the female favorite there in possession) journe3'ed to Hanover, and became favor- ites of the serene house there reigning. That beautiful Aurora von Konigsmarck and her brother are wonderful as t3'pes of bj-gone manners, and strange illustrations of the morals of old daj^s. The Konigsmarcks were descended from an ancient noble family of Brandenburg, a branch of which passed into Sweden, where it enriched itself and pro- duced several mighty men of valor. The founder of the race was Hans Christof, a famous war- rior and plunderer of the Thirty Years' war. One of Hans's sons, Otto, appeared as ambassador at the court of Louis XIV., and had to make a Swedish speech at his receptiop before the Most Christian King. Otto was a famous dandy and warrior, but he forgot the speech, and what do you think he did? Far from being disconcerted, he recited a portion of the Swedish Catechism to his Most Christian Majesty and his court, not one of whom understood his lingo with the exception of his own suite, who had to keep their gravit}' as best they might. Otto's nephew, Aurora's elder brother, Carl Johann of Konigsmarck, a favorite of Charles 11. , a beaut}^, a dandy, a warrior, a rascal of more than ordinary mark, escaped, but deserved being hanged in England, for the murder of Tom Thynne of Longleat. He had a little brother in London with li'iMi at Vi\^ 111)'! — as G"reat a beautv, as s:i'eat a dandv. as GEORGE THE F[RST. 15 great a villain as his elder. This lad, Philip of Konigsmarek, also was implicated in the affair ; and perhaps it is a pity he ever brought his prett}' neck out of it. He went over to Han- over, and was soon appointed colonel of a regiment of H. E. Highness's dragoons. In earl}^ life he had been page in the court of Celle ; and it was said that he and the pretty Princess Sophia Dorothea, who by this time was married to her cousin George the Electoral Prince, had been in love with each other as children. Their loves were now to be renewed, not inno- centl3', and to come to a fearful end. A biograpliy of the wife of George I., b^^ Dr. Doran, has lately appeared, and I confess I am astounded at the verdict which that writer has delivered, and at his acquittal of this most unfortunate lady. That she had a cold selfish libertine of a husband no one can doubt ; but that the bad husband had a bad wife is equally clear. She was married to her cousin for money or convenience, as all princesses were married. She was most beautiful, livelj', wdtt}", accomplished : his brutalit}- outraged her : his silence and coldness chilled lier : his cruelt}" insulted her. No wonder she did not love him. How could love be a part of the compact in such a marriage as that? With this unlucky heart to dispose of, the poor creature be- stowed it on Philip of Konigsmarek, than whom a greater scamp does not walk the histor3' of the seventeenth century. A hundi'ed and eighty j^ears after the fellow was thrust into his unknown grave, a Swedish professor lights upon a box of let- ters in the University Library at Upsala, written b}' Philip and Dorothea to each other, and telling their miserable story. The bewitching Konigsmarek had conquered two female hearts in Hanover. Besides the Electoral Prince's lovely young wife Sophia Dorothea, Philip had inspired a passion in a hideous old court lady, the Countess of Platen. The Princess seems to have pursued him with the fidelity of many years. Heaps of letters followed him on his campaigns, and were answered by the daring adventurer. The Princess wanted to fly with him ; to quit her odious husband at an}' rate. vShe besought her parents to receive her back ; had a notion of taking refuge in France and going over to the CathoHc religion ; had abso- lutely packed her jewels for flight, and very likely arranged its details with her lover, in that last long night's interview, after which Philip of Konigsmarek was seen no more. Konio;smarck, inflamed with drink — there is scarcely any vice of which, according to his own showing, this gentleman was not a practitioner — had boasted at a supper at Dresden 16 THE FOUR GEORGES. of his intimac}^ with the two Hanoverian ladies, not only with the Princess, but with another lady powerful in Hanover. The Countess Platen, the old favorite of the Elector, hated the 3"oung Electoral Princess. The young lady had a lively wit, and constantly made fun of the old one. The Princess's jokes were conveyed to the old Platen just as our idle words are carried about at this present da}^ : and so they both hated each other. The characters in the traged}', of which the curtain was now about to fall, are about as dark a set as eye ever rested on. There is the jolly Prince, shrewd, selfish, scheming, loving his cups and his ease (I think his good-humor makes the tragedy but darker) ; his Princess, who speaks little but observes all ; his old painted Jezebel of a mistress ; his son, the Electoral Prince, shi-ewd too, quiet, selfish, not ill-humored, and gener- all}' silent, except when goaded into fury by the intolerable tongue of his lovely wife ; there is poor Sophia Dorothea, with her coquetry and her wrongs, and her passionate attachment to her scamp of a lover, and her wild imprudences, and her mad artifices, and her insane fidelitj', and her furious jealousy regarding her husband (though she loathed and cheated him), and her prodigious falsehoods ; and the confidante, of course, into whose hands the letters are slipped ; and there is Lothario, finall3% than whom, as I have said, one can't imagine a more handsome, wicked, worthless reprobate. How that perverse fidelity of passion pursues the villain ! How madly true the woman is, and how astoundingly she lies ! She has bewitched two or three persons who have taken her up, and they won't believe in her wrong. Like Mary of Scot- land, she finds adherents ready to conspire for her even in his- tory, and people who have to deal with her are charmed, and fascinated, and bedevilled. How devotedly Miss Strickland has stood by Mary's innocence ! Are there not scores of ladies in this audience who persist in it too? Innocent ! I i-emember as a boy how a great part}' persisted in declaring Caroline of Bruns-wick was a martyred angel. vSo was Helen of Greece innocent. She never ran awa}' with Paris, the dangei'ous young Trojan. Menelaus, her husband, ill-used her; and there never was any siege of Troy at all. So was Bluebeard's wife inno- cent. She never peeped into the closet where the other wives were with their heads off. She never dropped the key, or stained it with blood ; and her brothers were quite right in finishing Bluebeard, the cowardly brute ! Yes, Caroline of Brimswick was innocent ; and Madame Laffarge never poi- GEORGE THE FIRST. 17 eoned her husband ; and Marj- of Scotland never blew up hers ; and poor Sophia Dorothea was never unfaithful ; and Eve never took the apple — it was a cowardh* fabrication of the serpent's. George Louis has been held up to execration as a murder- ous Bluebeard, whereas the Electoral Prince had no share in the transaction in which Philip of Konigsmarck was scuffled out of this mortal scene. The Prince was absent when the catastrophe came. The Princess had had a hundred warnings ; mild hints from her husband's parents ; grim remonstrances from himself — but took no more heed of this advice than such besotted poor wretches do. On the night of Sunda3% the 1st of July, 1694, Konigsmarck paid a long visit to the Princess, and left her to get ready for flight. Her husband was away at Berlin ; her carriages and horses were prepared and readj' for the elopement. Meanwhile, the spies of Countess Platen had brought the news to their mistress. She went to Ernest Augustus, and procured from the Elector an order for the arrest of the Swede. On the way by w^hich he was to come, four guards were commissioned to take him. He strove to cut his way through the four men, and wounded more than one of them. They fell upon him; cut him down; and, as he was lying wounded on the ground, the Countess, his enemy, whom he had betrayed and insulted, came out and beheld him pros- trate. He cursed her with his dying lips, and the furious woman stamped upon his mouth with her heel. He was de- spatched presently ; his body burnt the next day ; and all traces of the man disappeared. The guards who killed him were enjoined silence under severe penalties. The Princess was reported to be ill in her apartments, from which she was taken in October of the same 3'ear, being then eight-and-twenty years old, and consigned to the castle of Ahlden, where she remained a prisoner for no less than thirtj'-two years. A separation had been pronounced previously between her and her husband. She was called henceforth the '^Princess of Ahlden," and her silent husband no more uttered her name. Four years after the Konigsmarck catastrophe, Ernest Au- gustus, the first Elector of Hanover, died, and George Louis, his son, reigned in his stead. Sixteen years he reigned in Hanover, after which he became, as we. know. King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faitli. The wicked old Countess Platen died in the year 1706. She had lost her sight, but nevertheless the legend says that she con- 2 18 THE FOUR GEORGES. stantly saw Konigsmarck's ghost by her wicked old bed. And so there was an end of* her. In the year 1700, the little Duke of Gloucester, the last of poor Queen Anne's children, died, and the folks of Hanover straightway became of prodigious importance in England. The Electress Sophia was declared the next in succession to the EngHsh throne. George Louis was created Duke of Cambridge ; grand deputations were sent over from our country to Deutsch- land ; but Queen Anne, whose weak heart hankered after her relatives at St. Germains, never could be got to allow her cousin, the Elector Duke of Cambridge, to come and pay his respects to her Majesty, and take his seat in her House of Peers. Had the Queen lasted a month longer ; had the English Tories been as bold and resolute as they were clever and crafty ; had the Prince whom the nation loved and pitied been equal to his fortune, George Louis had never talked German in St. James's Chapel Royal. When the crown did come to George Louis he was in no hurry about putting it on. He waited at home for a while ; took an affecting farewell of his dear Hanover and Hericnhausen ; and set out in the most leisurely manner to ascend " the throne of his ancestors," as he called it in his first speech to Parha- ment. He brought with him a compact body of Germans, whose society he loved, and whom he kept round the royal per- son. He had his faithful German chamberlains ; his German secretaries ; his negroes, captives of his bow and spear in Turkish wars ; his two ugly, elderly German favorites, Mes- dames of Kielmansegge and Schulenberg, whom he created re- spectively Countess of Darlington and Duchess of Kendal. The Duchess was tall, and lean of stature, and hence was irrever- ently nicknamed the Maypole. The Countess was a large-sized noblewoman, and this elevated personage was denominated the Elephant. Both of these ladies loved Hanover and its delights ; clung round the linden-trees of the great Herrenhausen avenue, and at first would not quit the place. Schulenberg, in fact, could not come on account of her debts ; but finding the May- pole would not come, the Elephant packed up her trunk and slipped out of Hanover, unwieldy as she was. On this the Maypole straightway put herself in motion, and followed her beloved George Louis,^ One seems to be speaking of Captain Macheath, and Polly, and Lucy. The king we had selected ; the courtiers who came in his train ; the English nobles who came to welcome him, and on many of whom the shrewd old cynic turned his back — I protest it is a wonderful satirical THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF MAELBOROUGH. GEORGE THE FIRST. 19 picture. I am a citizen waiting at Greenwich pier, sa}^ and crjdng hurrah for King George ; and yet I can scarce)}' keep my countenance, and help laughing at the enormous absurdity of this advent ! Here we are, all on our knees. Here is the ArchMshop of Canterbury prostrating himself to the head of his church, with Kielmansegge and Schulenberg with their ruddled cheeks grinning behind the defender of the faith. Here is my Lord Duke of Marlborough kneeling too, the greatest warrior of all times ; he who betrayed King William — betrayed King James II. — betrayed Queen Anne — betra3'ed England to the French, the Elector to the Pretender, the Pretender to the Elector ; and here are my Lords Oxford and Bolingbroke, the latter of whom has just tripped up the heels of the former ; and if a month's more time had been allowed him, would have had King James at Westminster. The great Whig gentlemen made their bows and congees with proper decorum and cere- mony ; but yonder keen old schemer knows the value of their loyalty. " Loyalty," he must think, " as applied to me — it is absurd ! There are fift}^ nearer heirs to the throne than I am. I am but an accident, and 3'ou fine Whig gentlemen take me for your own sake, not for mine. You Tories hate me ; you arch- bishop, smirking on your knees, and prating about Heaven, you know I don't care a fig for 3'our Thirty-nine Articles, and can't understand a word of 3'our stupid sermons. You, m3' Lords Bo- lingbroke and Oxford — 3'bu know you were conspiring against me a month ago; and 3'ou, my Lord Duke of Marlborough — 3-ou would sell me or any man else, if you found 3'our advantage in it. Come, m3' good Melusina, come, m3' honest Sophia, let us go into m3^ private room, and have some ovsters and some Rhine wine, and some pipes afterwards : let us make the best of our situation ; let us take what we can get, and leave these bawling, brawling, lying English to shout, and fight, and cheat, in their own wa3^ ! " If Swift had not been committed to the statesmen of the losing side, what a fine satirical picture we might have had of that general sauve qui pent amongst the Tor3' party ! How mum the Tories became; how the House of Lords and House of Commons chopped round ; and how decorously the majorities welcomed King George ! Bolingbroke, making his last speech in the House of Lords, pointed out the shame of the peerage, where several lords con- curred to condemn in one general vote all that they had ap- proved in former parliaments hy many particular resolutions. 20 THE FOUR GEORGES. And so their conduct was shameful. St. John had the best of the argument, but the worst of the vote. Bad times were come for him. He talked philosophy, and professed innocence. He courted retirement, and was ready to meet persecution ; but, hearing that honest Mat Prior, who had been recalled from Paris, was about to peach regarding the past transactions, the philosopher bolted, and took that magnificent head of his out of the ugly reach of the axe. Oxford, the lazy- and good-humored, had more courage, and awaited the storm at home. He and Mat Prior both had lodgings in the Tower, and both brought their heads safe out of that dangerous menagerie. When Atter- bury was carried off to the same den a few years afterwards, and it was asked, what next should be done with him? " Done with him? Fling him to the lions," Cadogan said, Marl- borough's heutenant. But the British lion of those days did not care much for drinking the blood of peaceful peers and poets, or crunching the bones of bishops. Only four men were executed in London for the rebellion of 1715 ; and twenty- two in Lancashire. Above a thousand taken in arms, submitted to the King's mercy, and petitioned to be transported to his Majes- t3^'s colonies in America. I have heard that their descendants took the loyalist side in the disputes which arose sixty years after. It is pleasant to find that a friend of ours, worthy Dick Steele, was for letting off the rebels with their lives. As one thinks of what might have been, how amusing the speculation is ! We know how the doomed Scottish gentlemen came out at Lord Mal-'s summons, mounted the white cockade, that has been a flower of sad poetry ever since, and rallied round the ill-omened Stuart standard at Braemar. Mar, with 8,000 men, and but 1,500 opposed to him, might have driven the enemy over the Tweed, and taken possession of the whole of Scotland ; but that the Pretender's Duke did not venture to move when the day was his own. Edinburgh Castle might have been in King James's hands ; but that the men who were to escalade it stayed to drink his health at the tavern, and ar- rived two hours too late at the rendezvous under the castle wall. There was sympathy enough in the town — the projected attack seems to have been known there — Lord Mahon quotes Sinclair's account of a gentleman not concerned, who told Sin- clair, that he was in a'house that -evening where eighteen of them were drinking, as the facetious landlady said, " powder- ing their hair," for the attack on the castle. Suppose they had not stopped to powder their hair? Edinburgh Castle, and town, and all Scotland were King James's. The north of JAMKS TI. GEORGE THE FIRST. 21 England rises, and marches over Baruet Heath upon London. Wyndham is up in Somersetshire ; Packington in Worcester- shire ; and Vivian in Cornwall. The Elector of Hanover, and his hideous mistresses, pack up the plate, and perhaps the crown jewels in London, and are off via Harwich and Helvoet- slu^'s, for dear old Deutschland. The King — God save him ! — lands at Dover, with tumultuous applause ; shouting multi- tudes, roaring cannon, the Duke of Mai'lborough weeping tears of jo}', and all the bishops kneeling in the mud. In a few 3'ears, mass is said in St. Paul's ; matins and vespers are sung in York Minster ; and Dr. Swift is turned out of his stall and deanery house at St. Patrick's, to give place to Father Domi- nic, from Salamanca. All these changes were possible then, and once thirt}' j'^ears afterwards — all this we might have had, but for the pulveris exigui jactu^ that little toss of powder for the hair which the Scotch conspirators stopped to take at the tavern. You understand the distinction I would draw between his- tory — of which I do not aspire to be an expounder — and manners and life such as these sketches would describe. The rebellion breaks out in the north ; its story is before j'ou in a hundred volumes, in none more fairl}^ than in the excellent narrative of Lord Mahon. The clans are up in Scotland ; Der- wentwater, Nithsdale and Forster are in arms in Northumber- land — these are matters of history, for which you are referred to the due chroniclers. The Guards are set to watch the streets, and prevent the people w^earing white roses. I read presently of a couple of soldiers almost flogged to death for wearing oakboughs in their hats on the 29 th of May — another badge of the beloved Stuarts. It is with these we have to do, rather than the marches and battles of the armies to which the poor fellows belonged — with statesmen, and how they looked, and how they Uved, rather than with measures of State, which belong to history alone. For example, at the close of the old Queen's reign, it is known the Duke of Marlborough left the kingdom — after what menaces, after what prayers, lies, bribes offered, taken, refused, accepted; after what dark doubling and tacking, let history, if she can or dare, say. The Queen dead ; who so eager to return as my lord duke ? AVho shouts God save the King ! so lustily as the great conqueror of Blen- heim and Malplaquet? (By the way, he will send over some more money for the Pretender yet, on the sly.) AVho lays his hand on his blue ribbon, and lifts his eyes more gracefully to heaven than this hero ? He makes a quasi-triumphal entrance 22 THE FOUR GEORGES. into London, by Temple Bar, in his enormous gilt coach — and the enormous gilt coach breaks down somewhere b}- Chancer}' Lane, and his highness is obliged to get another. There it i« we have him. We are with the mob in the crowd, not with the great folks in the procession. We are not the Historic Muse, but her ladyship's attendant, tale-bearer — valet-de-chambre — for whom no man is a hero ; and, as 3'onder one steps from his carriage to the next handy conve^'ance, we take the number of the hack ; we look all over at his stars, ribbons, embroidery ; we think within ourselves, O you unfathomable schemer ! O you warrior invincible ! O you beautiful smiUng Judas ! What master would you not kiss or betra}' ! What trai- tor's head, blackening on the spikes on 3onder gate, ever hatched a tithe of the treason which has worked under 3'our periwig? We have brought our Georges to London cit}', and if we would behold its aspect, may sote it in Hogarth's \\\e\y perspec- tive of Cheapside, or read of it in a hundred contemporar}^ books which paint the manners of that age. Our dear old Spectator looks smiling upon the streets, with their innumerable signs, and describes them with his charming humor. " Our streets are filled with Blue Boars, Black Swans, and Red Lions, not to mention Flying Pigs and Hogs in Armor, with other creatures more extraordinary' than an}' in the deserts of Africa." A few of these quaint old figures still remain in Lon- don town. You may still see there, and over its okl hostel in Ludgate Hill, the "Belle Sauvage " to whom the Spectator so pleasant!}' alhides in that paper ; and who was, probabl}', no other than the sweet American Pocahontas, who rescued from death the daring Captain Smith. There is the " Lion's Plead," down whose jaws the Spectntor''s own letters were passed ; and over a great banker's in Fleet Street, tlie effigy of the wallet, which the founder of the firm bore when he came into London a countr}' bp}'. People this street, so ornamented, with crowds of swinging chairmen, with servants bawling to clear the way, with Mr. Dean in his cassock, his lackey marching before him ; or Mrs. Dinah in her sack, tripping to chapel, her footboy carrying her ladyship's great prayer-book; with itinerant tradesmen, singing their hundred cries (I remem- ber fort}' years ago, as boy in London city, a score of cheery, familiar cries that are silent now). Fancy the beaux thronging to the chocolate-houses, tapping their snuff'-boxes as they issue thence, their periwigs appearing over the red curtains. Fancy Saccharissa, beckoning and smiling from the upper windows, GEORGE THE FIRST. 23 and a crowd of soldiers brawling and bustling at the door — gentlemen of the Life Guards, clad in scarlet, with blue facings, and laced with gold at the seams ; gentlemen of the Horse Grenadiers, in their caps of sky-blue cloth, with the garter embroidered on the front in gold and silver ; men of the Halberdiers, in their long red coats, as bluff Hai-ry left them, with their ruff and velvet flat caps. Perhaps the King's Majesty himself is going to St. James's as we pass. If he is going to Parliament, he is in his coach-and-eight, surrounded by his guards and the high officers of his crown. Otherwise his Majest}' only uses a chair, with six footmen walking before, and six yeomen of the guard at the sides of the sedan. The officers in waiting follow the King in coaches. It must be rather slow work. Our Spectator and Tatler are full of delightful glimpses of the town life of those da3's. In the company of that charming guide, we may go to the opera, the comed}-, the puppet-show, the auction, even the cockpit : we can take boat at Temple Stairs, and accompan}^ Sir Roger de Coverlej^ and Mr. Spec- tator to Spring Garden — it will be called Vauxhall a few 3'ears hence, when Hogarth will paint for it. Would you not like to step back into the past, and be introduced to Mr. Addison? — not the Right Honorable Joseph Addison, Esq., George I.'s Secretary of State, but to the delightful painter of contemporarj^ manners ; the man who, when in good-humor himself, was the pleasantest companion in all England. I should like to go into Lockit's with him, and drink a bowl along with Sir R. Steele (who has just been knighted by King George, and who does not happen to have an}' money to pay his share of the reckoning). I should not care to follow Mr. Addison to his secretar3''s office in Whitehall. There w^e get into politics. Our business is pleasure, and the town, and the coffee-house, and the theatre, and the Mall. Delightful Spec- tator ! kind friend of leisure hours ! happy companion ! true Christian gentleman ! How much greater, better, 3'ou are than the King Mr. Secretary kneels to ! You can have foreign testimon}^ about old-world London, if 3^ou like ; and m}' before-quoted friend, Charles Louis, Baron de Pollnitz, will conduct us to it. "A man of sense," says he, "or a fine gentleman, is never at a loss for company in London, and this is the way the latter passes his time. He rises late, puts on a frock, and, leaving his sword at home, takes his cane, and goes where he pleases. Tiie park is com- monly the place where he walks, because 'tis the Exchange for 24 THE FOUR GEORGES. men of qualit3\ 'Tis the same thing as the Tuileries s^ Paris, only the park has a certain beaut}' of simplicit}- which cannot be described. The grand walk is called the Mall ; is full of people at ever}^ hour of the da}', but especially at morning and evening, when their Majesties often walk with the royal family, who are attended only by a half-dozen yeomen of the guard, and permit all persons to walk at the same time with them. The ladies and gentlemen always appear in rich dresses, for the English, who, twenty years ago, did not wear gold lace but in their army, are now embroidered and bedaubed as much as the French. I speak of persons of quality ; for the citizen still contents himself with a suit of fine cloth, a good hat and wig, and fine linen. Everybody is w^ell clothed here, and even the beggars don't make so ragged an appearance as they do else- where." After our friend, the man of quality, has had his morn- ing or undress walk in the Mall, he goes home to dress, and then saunters to some coffee-house or chocolate-house frequented by the persons he would see. " For 'tis a rule with tiie Eng- lish to go once a day at least to houses of this sort, where they talk of business and news, read the papers, and often look at one another without opening their lips. And 'tis very well they are so mute : for were they all as talkative as people of other nations, the coffee-houses would be intolerable, and there would be no hearing what one man said where they are so many. The chocolate-house in St. James's Street, where I go every morn- ing to pass away the time, is always so full that a man can scarce turn about in it." Delightful as London city was. King George I. Hked to be out of it as much as ever, he could ; and when there, passed all his time with his Germans. It was with them as with Blucher, 100 years afterwards, when the bold old Reiter looked down from St. Paul's, and sighed out, ''Was fur Plunder!" The German women plundered ; the German secretaries plundered ; the German cooks and intendants plundered ; even Mustapha and Mahomet, the German negroes, had a share of the booty. Take what you can get, was the old monarch's maxim. He was not a lofty monarch, certainly : he was not a patron of the fine arts : but he was not a hypocrite, he was not revengeful, he w\as not extravagant. Though a despot in Hanover, he was a moderate ruler, in England. His aim was to leave it to itself as much as possible, and to live out of it as much as he could. His heart was in Hanover. When taken ill on his last journey, as he was passing through Holland, he thrust his livid head out GEORGE THE FIRST. 25' of the coach-window, and gasped out, " Osnaburg, Osnaburg ! " He was more than fifty 3'ears of age when he came amongst us ; we took him because we wanted him, because he served our turn ; we laughed at his uncouth German ways, and sneered at him. He took our loyalty for what it was worth ; laid hands on what money he could ; kept us assuredly from Pop^ery and wooden shoes. I, for one, would have been on his side in those days. Cynical, and selfish, as he was, he was better than a king out of St. Germains with the French King's orders in his pocket, and a swarm of Jesuits in his train. The Fates are supposed to interest themselves about royal personages ; and so this one had omens and prophecies specially regarding him. He was said to be much disturbed at a prophecy that he should die very soon after his wife ; and sure enough, pallid Death, having seized upon the luckless Princess in her castle of Ahlden, presently pounced upon H. M. King George I., in his travelling chariot, on the Hanover road. What postiKon can outride that pale horseman? It is said, George promised one of his left-handed widows to come to her after death, if leave were granted to him to revisit the glimpses of the moon ; and soon after his demise, a great raven actually flying or hop- ping in at the Duchess of Kendal's window at Twickenham, she chose to imagine the king's spirit inhabited these plumes, and took special care of her sable visitor. Affecting metempsycho- sis — funereal royal bird ! How pathetic is the idea of the Duchess weeping over it ! When this chastd addition to our English aristocracy died, all her jewels, her plate, her plunder went over to her relations in Hanover. I wonder whether her heirs took the bird, and whether it is still flapping its wings over Herrenhausen? The days are over in England of that strange rehgion of king-worship, when priests flattered princes in the Temple of God ; when servility was held to be ennobUng duty ; when beauty and youth tried eagerly for royal favor ; and woman's shame was held to be no dishonor. Mended morals and mended manners in courts and people, are among the priceless conse- quences of the freedom which George I. came to rescjie and secure. He kept his compact with his English subjects ; and if he escaped no more than other men and monarchs from the vices of his age, at least we may thank him for preserving and transmitting the liberties of ours. In our free air, royal and humble homes have alike been purified ; and Truth, the birth- right of high and low among us, which quite fearlessly judges 26 THE FOUR GEORGES. our greatest personages, can onl}' speak of them now in words of respect and regard. There are stains in the portrait of the first George, and traits in it which none of us need admire ; but, among tlie nobler features, are justice, courage, moderation — and these we may recognize ere we turn the picture to the wall. GEOKGE U. GEORGE THE SECOND. On the afternoon of the 14th of June, 1727, two horsemen might have been perceived galloping along the road from Chel- sea to Richmond. The foremost, cased in the jackboots of the period, was a broad-faced, jolly-looking, and ver}' corpulent cavalier ; but, by the manner in which he urged his horse, you might see that he was a bold as well as a skilful rider. Indeed, no man loved sport better ; and in the hunting-fields of Norfolk, no squire rode more boldly after the fox, or cheered Ringwood and Swecttips more lustil3^ than he who now thundered over the Richmond road. He speedily reached Richmond Lodge, and asked to see the owner of the mansion. The mistress of the house and her ladies, to whom our friend was admitted, said he could not be introduced to the master, however pressing the business might be. The master was asleep after his dinner ; he always slept after his dinner : and woe be to the person who interrupted him! Nevertheless, our stout friend of the jackboots put the affrighted ladies aside, opened the forbidden door of the bed- room, wherein upon the bed lay a little gentleman ; and here the eager messenger knelt down in his jackboots. He on the bed started up, and with many oaths and a strong German accent asked who was there, and who dared to disturb him? " I am Sir Robert Walpole," said the messenger. The awak- ened sleeper hated Sir Robert Walpole. " I have the honor to announce to your Majest}' that your royal father, King George I., died at Osnaburg, on Saturday last, the 10th inst." '•'• Dat is one big lie!'' roared out his sacred Majesty King George II. : but Sir Robert Walpole stated the fact, and from 28 THE FOUR GEORGES. that cla}' until three-ancl-thirtj- j^ears after, George, the second of the name, ruled over England. How the King made away with his father's will under the astonished nose of the Archbishop of Canterbury ; how he was a choleric little sovereign ; how he shook his fist in the face of his father's courtiers ; how he kii-ked his coat and wig about in- liis rages, and called everyboch' thief, liar, rascal, with whom he ditfered : vou will read in all the historv books ; and how he speedily and shrewdh' reconciled himself with the bold minister, whom he had hated during his father's life, and by whom he w'as served during fifteen 3ears of his own with admirable pru- dence, fidelit}', and success. But for Sir Robert Walpole, we should have had the Pretender back again. But for his obstinate love of peace, we should have had wars, which the nation was not strong enough nor united enough to endure. But for his resolute counsels and good-humored resistance, we might have had German despots attem[)ting a Hanoverian regimen over us : we should have had revolt, commotion, want, and tyrannous misrule, in place of a quarter of a century of peace, freedom, and material prosperity-, such as the country never enjoyed, until that corrupter of parliaments, that dissolute tipsy cynic, that courageous lover of peace and liberty, that great citizen, patriot, and statesman governed it. In religion he was little better than a heathen ; cracked ribald jokes at bigwigs and bishops, and laughed at High Church and Low. In private life the old pagan revelled in the lowest pleasures : he passed his Sundays tippling at Richmond ; and his holydays bawling after dogs, or boozing at Houghton with boors over beef and punch. He cared for letters no more than his master did : he judged human nature so meanly that one is ashamed to have to own that lie was right, and that men could be corrupted b}' means so base. But, with his hireling House of Commons, he defended liberty for us ; with his incredulity he kept Church-craft down. There were parsons at Oxford as double-dealing and dangerous as any priests out of Rome, and he routed them both. He gave Englishmen no conquests, but he gave them peace, and ease, and freedom ; the three per cents nearly at par ; and wheat at five and six and twenty shillings a quarter. It was lucky for us that our first Georges were not more high-minded men ; especially fortunate that they loved Hanover so much as to leave England to have her own wa}'. Our chief troubles began when we got a king who gloried in the name of Briton, and, being born in the country, proposed to rule it. He was no more fit to govern England than his grandfather and GEORGE THE SECOND. 29 great-grandfather, who did not tr}'. It was righting itself dur- ing their occupation. The dangerous, noble old spirit of cava- lier lo3^alty was d} ing out ; the statel}- old English High Church was empt3'ing itself: the questions dropping which, on one side and the other; — the side of loyalty, prerogative, church, and king ; — the side of right, truth, civil and religious freedom, — had set generations of brave men in arms. By the time when George III. came to the throne, the combat between loyalty and libert^^ was come to an end ; and Charles Edward, old, tipsy, and childless, was dying in Ital}'. Those who are curious about European Court historj- of the last age know the memoirs of the Margravine of Bayreuth, and what a Court was that of Berlin, where George II. 's cousins ruled sovereign, Frederick the Great's father knocked down his sons, daughters, officers of state ; he kidnapped big men all Europe over to make grenadiers of: his feasts, his parades, his wine-parties, his tobacco-parties, are all described. Jonathan Wikl the Great in language, pleasures, and behavior, is scarcely more delicate than this German sovereign. Louis XV., his life, and reign, and doings, are told in a thousand French memoirs. Our George 11. , at least, was not a worse king than his neigh- bors. He claimed and took the royal exemption from doing rio'ht which sovereio'ns assumed. A dull little man of low tastes he appears to us in England ; yet HervcN^ tells us that this choleric prince was a great sentimentahst, and that his letters — of which he wrote prodigious quantities — were quite dangerous in their powers of fascination. He kept his senti- mentalities for his Germans and his queen. With ns English, he never chose to be familiar. He has been accused of avarice, 3'et he did not give much mone3% and did not leave much behind him. He did not love the fine arts, but he did not pretend to love them. He was no more a hypocrite about religion than his father. He judged men by a low standard ; 3'et, with such men as were near him, was he wrong in judging as he did? He readih^ detected lying and flatter3', and liars and flatterers were perforce his companions. Had he been more of a dupe he might have been more amiable. A dismal experience made him cynical. No boon was it to him to be clear-sighted, and see only selfishness and flattery round about him. What could Walpole tell him about his Lords and Conmions, but that they were all venal? Did not his clergy, his courtiers, bring him the same stor3'? Dealing with men and women in his rude, scepti- cal way, he came to doubt about honor, male and female, about patriotism, about religion. "He is wild, but he fights like a 30 THE FOUR GEORGES. man," George I., the taciturn, said of his son and successor. Courage George II. certainly- had. The Electoral Prince, at the head of his father's contingent, had approved himself a good and brave soldier under Eugene and Marlborough. At Gude- narde he speciall}' distinguished himself. At Malplaquet the other claimant to the English throne won but little honor. There was always a question about James's courage. Neither then in Flanders, nor afterwards in his own ancient kingdom of Scotland, did the luckless Pretender show much resolution. But dapper little George had a famous tough spirit of his own, and fought like a Trojan. He called out his brother of Prussia, with sword and pistol; and I wish, for the interest of roman- cers in general, that that famous duel could have taken place. The two sovereigns hated each other with all their might ; their seconds were appointed ; the place of meeting was settled ; and the duel was only prevented b\^ strong representations made to the two, of the European laughter which would have been caused by such a transaction. Whenever we hear of dapper George at war, it is certain that he demeaned himself like a little man of valor. At Dettingen his horse ran away with him, and with difficulty was stopped from carrying him into the enemy's lines. The King, dismounting from the fier}^ quadruped, said bravely, '' Now I know I shall not run away ; " and placed himself at the head of the foot, drew his sword, brandishing it at the whole of the French army, and calling out to his own men to come on, in bad F^nglish, but with the most famous pluck and spirit. In '45, when the Pre- tender was at Derby, and many people began to look pale, the King never lost his courage — not he. " Pooh ! don't talk to me that stuff!" he said, like a gallant little prince as he was? and never for one moment allowed his equanimity, or his busi- ness, or his pleasures, or his travels, to be disturbed. Gn public festivals he alwa3's appeared in the hat and coat lie wore on the famous day of Gudenarde ; and the people laughed, but kindly, at the odd old garment, for bravery never goes out of fashion. In private life the Prince showed himself a worthy descend- ant of his father. In this respect, so much has been said about the first George's manners, that we need not enter into a de- scription of the son's German harem. In 1705 he married a princess remarkable for beaut}', for cleverness, for learning, for good temper — one of the tru^est and fondest wives ever prince was blessed with, and who loved him and was faithful to him, and he, in his coarse fashion, loved her to the last. It must GEORGE THE SECOND. 31 be told to the honor of Caroline of Anspach, that, at the time when German princes thought no more of changing their re- ligion than you of altering your cap, she refused to give up Protestantism for the other creed, although an archduke, after- wards to be an emperor, was offered to her for a bridegroom. Her Protestant relations in Berlin were angry at her rebellious spirit ; it was they who tried to convert her (it is droll to think that Frederick the Great, who had no religion at all, was known for a long time in England as the Protestant hero) , and these good Protestants set upon Carohne a certain Father Urban, a ver}' skilful Jesuit, and famous winner of souls. But she routed the Jesuit ; and she refused Charles VI. ; and she mar- ried the little P^lectoral Prince of Hanover, whom she tended with love, and with ever3' manner of saciifice, with artful kind- ness, with tender flattery, with entire self-devotion, thencefor- ward until her life's end. When Gfeorge I. made his first visit to Hanover, his son was appointed regent during the royal absence. But this honor was never again conferred on the Prince of Wales ; he and his father fell out presently. On the occasion of the christen- ing of his second son, a royal row took place, and the Prince, shaking his fist in the Duke of Newcastle's face, called him a rogue, and provoked his august father. He and his wife were turned out of St. James's, and their princely children taken from them, by order of the royal head of the family. Father and mother wept piteously at parting from their little ones. The young ones sent some cherries, with their love, to papa and mamma ; the parents watered the fruit with tears. They had no tears thirty-five years afterwards, when Prince Frederick died — their eldest son, their heir, their enemy. The King called his daughter-in-law '' cette diahlesse madame la princesse." The frequenters of the latter's court were forbid- den to appear at the King's : their Royal Highnesses going to Bath, we read how the courtiers followed them thither, and paid that homage in Somersetshire which was forbidden in London. That phrase of " cette diahlesse madame la princesse^'' explains one cause of the wrath of her royal papa. She was a very clever woman : she had a keen sense of humor : she had a dreadful tongue : she turned into ridicule the antiquated sultan and his hideous harem. She wrote savage letters about him home to members of her family. So, driven out from the royal presence, the Prince and Princess set up for themselves in Leicester Fields, "where," says Walpole, "the most promis- ing of the young gentlemen of the next party, and the prettiest 32 TPIE FOUR GEORGBS. and liveliest of the 3'oiing ladies, formed the new court." Be- sides Leicester House, they had their lodge at Richmond, fre- quented by some of the pleasantest compan}' of those dajs. There were the Herveys, and Chesterfield, and little Mr. Pope from Twickenham, and with him, sometimes, the savage Dean of St. Patrick's, and quite a bevyof 3'oung ladies, whose pretty faces smile on us out of history. Tliere was Lepell, famous in ballad song ; and the saucv, charming Mary Bellenden, who would have none of the Prince of Wales's fine compliments, who folded her arms across her breast, and bade H.R.H. keep off; and knocked his purse of guineas into his face, and told him she was tired of seeing him count them. He was not an august monarch, this Augustus. Walpole tells how, one night at the royal card-table, the playful princesses pulled a chair awaj- from under Lady Deloraine, who, in revenge, j)ulled the King's from under hii'n, so that his Majest}' fell on the carpet. In whatever posture one sees this ro^yal Geoi'ge, he is ludicrous somehow ; even at Dettingen, where he fought so bravely, his figure is absurd — calling out in his broken English, and lunging with his rapier, like a fencing-master. In contemporary caricatures, George's son, " the Hero of CuUoden," is also made an object of considerable fun, as witness the preceding picture * of him defeated b3' the French (1757) at Hastenbeck. I refrain to quote from Walpole regarding George — for those charming volumes are in the hands of all who love the gossip of the last centur}'. Nothing can be more cheery than Horace's letters. Fiddles sing all through them : wax-lights, fine dresses, fine jokes, fine plate, fine equipages, glitter and sparkle there : never was such a brilliant, jigging, smirking Vanity Fair as that through wMch he leads us. Hervey, the next great author- it}', is a darker spirit. About him there is something frightful : a few years since his heirs opened the lid of the Ick worth box ; it was as if a Pompeii was opened to us — the last century dug up, with its temples and its games,' its chariots, its public places — lupanaria. Wandering through that city of the dead, that dreadfully selfish time, through those godless intrigues and feasts, through those crowds, pushing and eager, and strug- gling — rouged, and lying, and fawning — I have wanted some one to be friends with. I have said to friends conversant with that histor}', " Show me some good person about that Court; find me, among those selfish courtiers, those dissolute, gay people, some one being that I can love and regard." There is that strutting little sultan George II. ; there is that hunch- * This refers to an illustrated edition of the work. GEORGE THE SECOND. 33 backed, beetle-browed Lord Chesterfield ; there is John Hervey, with his deadl}' smile, and ghasth', painted face — I hate them. There is Hoadl}', cringing from one bishopric to another : yon- der comes little Mr. Pope, from Twickenham, with his friend, the Irish dean, in his new cassock, bowing too, bnt with rage flashing from under his bushy e3^ebrows, and scorn and hate quivering in his smile. Can you be fond of these? Of Pope I might: at least I might love his genius, his wit, his greatness, his sensibihty — with a certain conviction that at some fancied slight, some sneer which he imagined, he would turn upon me anckstab me. Can you trust the Queen? She is not of our order : their very position makes kings and queens lonel}'. One inscrutable attachment that inscrutable woman has. To that she is faithful, through all trial, neglect, pain, and time. Save her husband, she reall}' cares for no created being. She is good enough to her children, and even fond enough of them : but she would chop them all up into little pieces to please him. In her intercourse with all around her, she was perfectly kind, gracious, and natural : but friends may die, daughters may depart, she will be as perfectly kind and gracious to the next set. If the king wants her, she will smile upon him, be she ever so sad ; and walk with him, be she ever so weary ; and laugh at his brutal jokes, be she in ever so much pain of body or heart. Caroline's devotion to her husband is a prodigy to read of. What charm had the little man ? What was there in those wonderful letters of thirty pages long, which he wrote to her when he was absent, and to his mistresses at Hanover, when he was in London with his wife? Why did Caroline, the most lovel}' and accomplished princess of German}-, take a little red-faced staring princeling for a husband, and refuse an emperor? Wh^^ to her last hour, did she love him so ? She killed herself because she loved him so. She had the gout, and would plunge her feet in cold water in order to walk with him. With the film of death over her ej^es, writhing in intolerable pain, she 3'et had a livid smile and a gentle word for her master. You have read the wonderful history of that death-bed ? How she bade him marry again, and the reply the old King blubbered out, " Non, non : j'aurai des maitresses." There never was such a ghastly farce. I watch the astonishing scene — I stand by that awful bedside, wonder- ing at the waj's in which God has ordained the lives, loves, rewards, successes, passions, actions, ends of his creatures — and can't but laugh in the presence of death, and with the sad- dest heart. In that often-quoted passage from Lord Herve}', in which the Queen's death-bed is described, the grotesque hor- 3 34 THE FOUR GEORGES. ror of the details surpasses all satire : the dreadful humor of the scene is more terrible than Swift's blackest pages, or Field- ing's fiercest iron}^ The man who wrote the stor}^ had some- thing diabolical about him : the terrible verses which Pope wrote respecting Herve}-, in one of his own moods of almost fiendish malignit}-, I fear are true. I am frightened as I look back into the past, and fancy I behold that ghastly, beautiful face; as I think of the Queen writhing on her death-bed, and crying out, " Pray ! — pray ! " — of the ro^'al old sinner by her side, who kisses her dead lips with frantic grief, and leaves her to sin more ; — of the bev}' of courtly clergymen, and*the archbishop, whose prayers she rejects, and who are obliged for propriety's sake to shuffle off the anxious inquiries of the public, and vow that her Majesty quitted this life " in a heavenly frame of mind." What a life! — to what ends devoted! What a vanity of vanities ! It is a theme for another pulpit than the lecturer's. For a pulpit? — I think the part which pulpits play in the deaths of kings is the most ghastl}' of all the ceremonial : the lying eulogies, the blinking of disagreeable truths, the sick- ening flatteries, the simulated grief, the falsehood and syco- phancies — all littered in the name of Heaven in our State churches : these monstrous threnodies have been sung from time immemorial over kings and queens, good, bad, wicked, licen- tious. The State parson must bring out his commonplaces ; his apparatus of rhetorical black-hangings. Dead king or live king, the clergyman must flatter him — announce his piet}' whilst Jiving, and when dead, perform the obsequies of " our most religious and gracious king." 1 read that Lady Yarmouth (my most religious and gracious King's favorite) sold a bishopric to a clergyman for 5,000/. (She betted him 5,000/. that he would not be made a bishop, and he lost, and paid her.) Was he the only prelate of his time led up by such hands for consecration ? As I peep into George II. 's St. James's, I see crowds of cassocks rustling up the back stairs of the ladies of the Court ; stealthy clergy slipping purses into their laps ; that godless old King yawning under his canopy in his Chapel Royal, as the chaplain before him is discoursing. Discoursing about what? — about righteousness and judgment? Whilst the chaplain is preaching, the King is chattering in Ger- man almost as loud as the preacher ; so loud that the clergyman — it may be one Dr. Young, he who wrote " Night Thoughts," and discoursed on the splendors of the stars, the glories of heaven, and utter vanities of this world — actually" burst out crying in his pulpit because the defender of the faith and dis- GEORGE THE SECOND. 35 penser of bishoprics would not listen to him ! No wonder that the clergy were corrupt and indifferent amidst this indifference and corruption. No wonder that sceptics multiplied and morals degenerated, so far as the^^ depended on the influence of such a king. No wonder that Whitfield cried out in the wilderness, that Wesley quitted the«4nsulted temple to pray on the iiill-side. I look with reverence on those men at that time. Which is the sublimer spectacle — the good John Wesle}', surrounded by his congregation of miners at the pit's mouth, or the Queen's chap- lains mumbling through their morning office in their ante-room, under the picture of the great Venus, with the door opened into the adjoining chamber, where the Queen is dressing, talking scandal to Lord Hervey, or uttering sneers at Lady Suffolk, who is kneeling with the basin at her mistress's side? I say I am scared as I look round at this society' — at this king, at these courtiers, at these politicians, at these bishops — at this flaunting vice and levity. Whereabouts in this Court is the honest man ? Where is the pure person one ma}' like ? The air stifles one with its sickl}' perfumes. There are some old-world follies and some absurd ceremonials about our Court of the present da}', which I laugh at, but as an Englishman, contrasting it with the past, shall I not acknowledge the change of to-day ? As the mistress of St. James's passes me now, I salute the sovereign, wise, moderate, exemplary of life ; the good mother ; the good wife ; the accomplished lady ; the enlightened friend of art ; the tender s}mpathizer in her people's glories and sorrows. Of all the Court of George and Caroline, I find no one but Lady Suffolk with whorar it seems pleasant and kindly to hold converse. Even the misogynist Croker, who edited her letters, loves her, and has that regard for her with which her sweet graciousness seems to have inspired almost all men and some women who came near her. I have noted many little traits which go to prove the charms of her character (it is not merely because she is charming, but because she is character- istic, that I allude to her). She writes delightfully sober letters. Addressing Mr. Gay at Tunbridge (he was, you know, a poet penniless and in disgrace), she says: "The place you are in has strangely filled your head with physicians and cures ; but, take my word for it, many a fine lady has gone there to drink the waters without being sick ; and many a man has complained of the loss of his heart, who had it in his own possession. I de- sire you will keep yours ; for I shall not be very fond of a friend without one, and I have a great mind you should be in the number of mine.'" 36 THE FOUR GEORGES. When Lord Peterborough was seventy 3'ears old, that indom itable 3^outh addressed some flaming love, or rather gallantry, letters to Mrs. Howard — curious reUcs they are of the roman- tic manner of wooing sometimes in use in those days. It is not passion ; it is not love ; it is gallantry : a mixture of earnest and acting ; high-flown compUments, profound bows, vows, sighs and ogles, in the manner of the Clelie romances, and Mil- lamont and Doricourt in the comed3^ There was a vast elabo- ration of ceremonies and etiquette, of raptures — a regulated form for kneeling and wooing which has quite passed out of our downright manners. Henrietta Howard accepted the noble old earl's philandering ; answered the queer love letters with due acknowledgment ; made a profound curtsy to Peterborough's profound bow ; and got John Gay to help her in the composition of her letters in reply to her old knight. He wrote her chaim- ing verses, in which there was truth as well as grace. " O won- derful creature ! " he writes : — " O wonderful creature, a woman of reason ! Never grave out of pride, never gay out of season ! When so easy to guess who this angel should be, Who would think Mrs. Howard ne'er dreamt it was she ? " The great Mr. Pope also celebrated her in lines not less pleas- ant, and painted a portrait of what must certainly have been a delightful lady : — " I know a thing that's most uncommon — Envy, be silent and attend ! r— I know a reasonable woman. Handsome, yet witty, and a friend : "Not warp'd by passion, aw'd by rumor, Not grave through pride, or gay through folly : An equal mixture of good-humor And exquisite soft melancholy. "Has she no faults, then (Envy says), sir 1 Yes, she has one, I must aver — When all the world conspires to praise her, The woman's deaf, and does not hear ! " Even the women concurred in praising and loving her. The Duchess of Queensberry bears testimony to her amiable quali- ties, and writes to her: "I tell 3'ou so and so, because you love children, and to have children love you." The beautiful, jolly Mary Bellenden, represented by contemporaries as "the most perfect creature ever known," writes very pleasantly to GEORGE THE SECON©. S7 her "dear Howard," her "dear Swiss," from the countr}', whither Mary had retired after her marriage, and when she gave up being a maid of lionor. " How do 3^011 do, Mrs. How- ard?" Mar}^ breaks out. "How do you do, Mrs. Howard? that is all I have to sa3^ This afternoon I am taken with a fit of v/riting ; but as to matter, I have nothing better to entertain you, than news of my farm. I therefore give you the following list of the stock of eatables that I am fatting for m}- private tooth. It is well known to the whole county of Kent, that I have four fat calves, two fat hogs, fit for killing, twelve prom- ising black pigs, two 3'oung chickens, three fine geese, with thirteen eggs under each (several being duck-eggs, else the others do not come to maturity) ; all this, with rabbits, and pigeons, and carp in plenty, beef and mutton at reasonable rates. Now, Howard, if you have a mind to stick a knife into anything I have named, sa}' so ! " A jolly set must they have been, those maids of honor. Pope introduces us to a whole bevy of them, in a pleasant letter. " I went," he says, " by water to Hampton Court, and met the Prince, with all his ladies, on horseback, coming from hunting. Mrs. Bellenden and Mrs. Lepell took me into protec- tion, contrary to the laws against harboring Papists, and gave me a dinner, with something I liked better, an opportunity of conversation with Mrs. Howard. We all agreed that the life of a maid of honor was of all things the most miserable, and wished that all women who envied it had a specimen of it. To eat Westphalia ham of a morning, ride over hedges and ditches on borrowed hacks, come home in the heat of the day with a* fever, and (what is worse a hundred times) with a red mark on the forehead from an uneasy hat — all this may qualify them to make excellent wives for hunters. As soon as they wipe off the heat of the day, they must simper an hour and catch cold in the Princess's apartment ; from thence to dinner wdth what appetite they may ; and after that till midnight, w^ork, walk, or think which way they please. No lone house in Wales, with a mountain and rookery, is more contemplative than this Court. Miss Lepell walked with me three or four hours by moonhght, and we met no creature of any quality but the King, who gave audience to the vice-chamberlain all alone under the garden wall." I fancy it was a merrier England, that of our ancestors, than the island which we inhabit. People high and low amused themselves ver}^ much more. I have calculated the manner in which statesmen and persons of condition passed their time — 38 THE FOUR GEORGES. and what with drinking, and dining, and snpping, and cards, wonder how the}' got through their business at all. They played all sorts of games, which, with the exception of cricket and tennis, have quite gone out of our manners now. In the old prints of St. James's Park, .you still see the marks along the walk, to note the balls when the Court played at Mall. Fancy Birdcage Walk now so laid out. and Lord John and Lord Palmerston knocking balls up and down the avenue ! Most of those jolly sports belong to the past, and the good old games of England are only to be found in old novels, in old ballads, or the columns of dingy old newspapers, which say how a main of cocks is to be fought at Winchester between the Winchester men and the Hampton men ; or how the Corn- wall men and the Devon men are going to hold a great wrest- ling-match at Totnes, and so on. A hundred and twenty years ago there were not only country towns in England, but people who inhabited them. We were very much more gregarious ; we were amused by very simple pleasures. Every town had its fair, every village its wake. The old poets have sung a hundred jolly ditties about great cudgel-playings, famous grinning through horse-collars, great maypole meetings, and morris-dances. The girls used to run races clad in very light attire ; and the kind gentry and good parsons thought no shame in looking on. Dancing bears went about the country with i)ipc and tabor. Certain well-known tunes were sung all over the land for hundreds of years, and high and low rejoiced in that simple music. Gentlemen who •wished to entertain their female friends constantly sent for a band. When Beau Fielding, a might}' fine gentleman, was courting the lady whom he married, he treated her and her companion at his lodgings to a supper from the tavern, and after supper they sent out for a fiddler — three of them. Fanc}' the three, in a great wainscoted room, in Covent Garden or Soho, lighted bj' two or three candles in silver sconces, some grapes and a bottle of Florence wine on the table, and the honest fiddler playing old tunes in quaint old minor kej's, as the Beau takes out one lady after the other, and solemnly dances with her ! The ver}' great folks, young noblemen, with their governors, and the like, went abroad and made the great tour ; the home satirists jeered at the Frenchified and Italian waj-s which they brought back ; but the gi-eater number of people never left the countr3^ The joUj' squire often had never been twenty miles from home. Those who did go went to the baths, to Harrogate, GEORGE THE SECOND. 39 or Scarborough, or Bath, or Epsom. Old letters are full of these places of pleasure. Ga^^ writes to us about the fiddlers at Tunbridge ; of the ladies haviug merry little private balls amongst themselves ; and the gentlemen entertaining them by turns with tea and music. One of the younsf beauties whom he met did not care for tea : " We have a young lady here," he says, ''that is very particular in her desires. I have known some young ladies, who, if ever they prayed, would ask for some equipage or title, a husband or matadores : but this lad}^ who is but seventeen, and has 30,000/. to her fortune, places all her wishes on a pot of good ale. When her friends, for the sake of her shape and complexion, would dissuade her from it, she answers, with the truest sincerity'', that b}' the loss of shape and complexion she could only lose a husband, whereas ale is her passion." Every country town had its assembly-room — mouldy old tenements, which we ma}' still see in deserted inn-yards, in decayed provincial cities, out of which the great wen of London has sucked all the life. York, at assize times, and through- out the winter, harbored a large society of northern gentry. Shrewsbury was celebrated for its festivities. At Newmarket, I read of " a vast deal of good company, besides rogues and blacklegs ; " at Norwich, of two assemblies, with a prodigious crowd in the hall, the rooms, and the gallery. In Cheshire (it is a maid of honor of Queen Caroline who wa'ites, and who is longing to be back at Hampton Court, and the fun there) I peep into a country-house, and see a very merry party: " We meet in the work-room before nine, eat, and break a joke or two till twelve, then we repair to our own chambers and make ourselves readj', for it cannot be called dressing. At noon the great bell fetches us into a parlor, adorned with all sorts of fine arms, poisoned darts, several pair of old boots and shoes worn by men of might, with the stirrups of King Charles I., taken from him at Edgehill," — and there they have their dinner, after which comes dancing and supper. As for Bath, all histor}' went and bathed and drank there. George II. and his Queen, Prince Frederick and his court, scarce a character one can mention of the earl}^ last century, but was seen in that famous Pump Room where Beau Nash presided, and his picture hung between the busts of Newton and Pope : " This picture, placed these busts between, Gives satire all its strength : Wisrlom and Wit are little seen. But Folly at full length." 40 THE FOUR GEORGES. I should like to have seen the Folly. It was a splendid, embroidered, beruffled, snuff-boxed, red-heeled, impertinent Folly, and knew how to make itself respected. I should like to have seen that noble old madcap Peterborough in his boots (he actually had the audacity to walk about Bath in boots !), with his blue ribbon and stars, and a cabbage under each arm, and a chicken in his hand, which he had been cheapening for his dinner. Chesterfield came there many a time and gambled for hundreds, and grinned through his gout. Marj^ Wortley was there, 3'Oung and beautiful ; and Mary Wortley, old, hideous, and snuffy. Miss Chudleigh came there, slipping away from one husband, and on the look-out for another. Walpole passed man3' a day there ; sickl}', supercilious, absurdly dandified, and affected ; with a brilliant wit, a delightful sensi- bility ; and for his friends, a most tender, generous, and faith- ful heart. And if 3'ou and I had been alive then, and strolling down Milsom Street — hush ! we should have taken our hats off, as an awful, long, lean, gaunt figure, swathed in flannels, passed b}' in its chair, and a livid face looked out from the window — great fierce ejes staring from under a bushy, pow- dered wig, a terrible frown, a terrible Roman nose — and we whisper to one another, ' ' There he is ! There's the great commoner ! There is Mr. Pitt ! " As we walk away, the abbe}' bells are set a-ringing ; and we meet our testy friend Toby Smollett, on the arm of James Quin the actor, who tells us that tlie bells ring for Mr. Bullock, an eminent cowkeeper from Tottenham, who has just arrived to drink the waters ; and Toby shakes his cane at the door of Colonel Ringworm — the Creole gentleman's lodgings next his own — where tlie colonel's two negroes are practising on the French horn. When we try to recall social England, we must fancy it playing at cards for many hours every day. The custom is weilnigh gone out among us now, but fifty years ago was gen- eral, fifty years before that almost universal in the country. "Gaming has become so much the fashion," writes Seymour, the author of the " Court Gamester," " that he who in company should be ignorant of the games in vogue, would be reckoned low-bred, and hardly fit for conversation." There were cards everywhere. It was considered ill-bred to read in company. " Books were not fit articles for drawing-rooms," old ladies used to say. People were jealous, as it were, and angry with them. You will find in Hervey that George II. was always furious at the sight of books ; and his Queen, who loved reading, had to practise it in secret in her closet. But cards were the resource WILLIAM PITT — LORD CHATHAM. GEORGE THE SECOND. 41 of all the world. EveiT night, for hours, kings and queens of England sat down and handled their majesties of spades and diamonds. In European Courts, 1 believe the practice still remains, not for gambling, but for pastime. Our ancestors generallj' adopted it. " Books ! prithee don't talk to me about books," said old Sarah Marlborough. ''The only books I know are men and cards." " Dear old Sir Roger de Coverle}' sent all his tenants a string of hogs' puddings and a pack of cards at Christmas," says the Spectator^ wishing to depict a kind landlord. One of the good old lady writers in whose letters I have been dipping cries out, " Sure cards have kept us women from a great deal of scandal ! " Wise old Johnson regretted that he had not learnt to play. "It is very useful in life," he sa3's ; "it generates kindness, and consolidates societ}'." David Hume never went to bed without his whist. We have Walpole, in one of his letters, in a transport of gratitude for the cards. " I shall build an altar to Pam," sa3's he, in his pleasant dandified way, " for the escape of ni}' charming Duchess of Graf- ton." The Duchess had been playing cards at Rome, when she ought to have been at a cardinal's concert, where the floor fell in, and all the monsignors were precipitated into the cellar. Even the Nonconformist clergy looked not unkindlj^ on the prac- tice. " I do not think," says one of them, " that honest Martin Luther committed sin b}^ placing at backgammon for an hour or two after dinner, in order b}' unbending his mind to promote digestion." As for the High Church parsons, they all played, bishops and all. On Twelfth-da}^ the Court used to play in state. "This being Twelfth-day, his Majesty, the Prince of Wales, and the Knights Companions of the Garter, Thistle, and Bath, appeared in the collars of their respective orders. Their Majesties, the Prince of Wales, and three eldest Prin- cesses, went to the Chapel Ro3'al, preceded b}^ the heralds. The Duke of Manchester carried the sword of State. The King and Prince made offering at the altar of gold, frankin- cense, and m3'rrh, according to the annual custom. At night their Majesties pla3'ed at hazard with the nobilit}', for the bene- fit of the groom-porter ; and it was said the king won 600 guineas ; the queen, 360 ; the Princess Amelia, twent3^ ; Prin- cess Caroline, ten ; the Duke of Grafton and the Earl of Port- more, several thousands." Let us glance at the same chronicle, which is of the 3'ear 1731, and see how others of our forefathers were engaged. "Cork, 15th January. This day, one Tim Croneen was, for the murder and robbery of Mr. St. Leger and his wife, 42 THE FOUR GEORGES. sentenced to be hanged two minutes, then his head to be- cut off, and his body divided in four quarters, to be placed in four cross-wa3's. He was servant to Mr. St. Leger, and com- mitted the murder with the privity of the servant-maid, who was sentenced to be burned ; also of the gardener, whom he knocked on the head, to deprive him of his share of the booty." '' January 3. — A postboy was shot by an Irish gentleman on the road near Stone, in Staflfbrdshire, who died in two days, for which the gentleman was imprisoned." *' A poor man was found hanging in a gentleman's stables at Bungay, in Norfolk, b}' a person who cut him down, and run- ning for assistance, left his penknife behind him. The poor man recovering, cut his throat with the knife ; and a river being nigh, jumped into it ; but company coming, he was dragged out alive, and was like to remain so." " The Honorable Thomas Finch, brother to the Earl of Nottingham, is appointed ambassador at tlie Hague, in the room of the Earl of Chesterfield, who is on his return home." "William Cowper, Esq., and the Rev. Mr. John Cowper, chaplain in ordinary to her Majesty, and rector of Great Berk- hampstead, in the county of Hertford, are appointed clerks of the commissioners of bankruptcy." " Charles Creagh, Esq., and Macnamara, Esq., between whom an old a'rudo'c of three vears had subsisted, which had occasioned their being bound over about fifty times for breaking the peace, meeting in company with Mr. Eyres, of Galloway, the}' discharged their pistols, and all three were killed on the spot — to the great joy of their peaceful neighbors, say the Irish papers." "Wheat is 26s. to 285., and barley 20s. to 22s. a quarter; three per cents, 92 ; best loaf sugar, 9|c?. ; Bohea, 12s. to 14s. ; Pekoe, 18s. ; and Hyson, 35s. per pound." " At Exon was celebrated with great magnificence the birth- day of the son of Sir W. Courtney, Bart., at which more than 1,000 persons were present. A bullock was roasted whole ; a butt of wine and several tuns of beer and cider were given to the populace. At the same time Sir William delivered to his son, then of age, Powdrara Castle, and a great estate." " Charles worth and Cox, two solicitors, convicted of forgery, stood on the pillor}^ at the Royal Exchange. The first was severely handled by the populace, but the other was very much favored, and protected by six or seven fellows who got on the pillor}' to protect him from the insults of the mob." GEORGE THE SECOND. 43 '' A boy killed by falling upon iron spikes, from a lamp- post, which he climbed to see Mother Needham stand in the pillory." '' Mar\' Lynn was burnt to ashes at the stake, for being con- cerned in the murder of her mistress." " Alexander Russell, the foot soldier, who was capitally con- victed for a street robbery in January sessions, was reprieved for transportation ; but having an estate fallen to him, obtained a free pardon." '' The Lord John Russell married to the Lady Diana Spen- cer, at Marlborough House. He has a fortune of 30,000/. down, and is to have 100,000/. at the death of the Duchess Dowager of Marlborough, his grandmother." '•• March 1 being the anniversary of the Queen's birthda}', w^hen her Majest}' entered the forty-ninth 3'ear of her age, there was a splendid appearance of nobility at St. James's. Her Majesty was magnificently dressed, and wore a flowered muslin head-edging, as did also her Ro^-al Highness. The Lord Portmore was said to have had the richest dress, though an Italian Count had twentj^-four diamonds instead of buttons." New clothes on the birthday were the fashion for all loyal people. Swfft mentions the custom several times. Walpole is constantly' speaking of it ; laughing at the practice, but hav- ing the very finest clothes from Paris, nevertheless. If the King and Queen were unpopular, there were very few new clothes at the drawing-room. In a paper in the True Patriot^ No. 3, written to attack the Pretender, the Scotch, French, and Popery, Fielding supposes the Scotch and the Pretender in pos- session of London, and himself about to be hanged for loyalty, when, just as the rope is round his neck, he says : " M3' little girl entered my bedchamber, and put an end to my dream by pulling open my eyes, and telling me that the tailor had just brought home my clothes for his Majesty's birthday." In his " Temple Beau," the beau is dunned " for a birthday suit of velvet, 40/." Be sure that Mr. Harry Fielding was dunned too. The public daj^s, no doubt, were splendid, but the private Court life must have been awfully wearisome. "I will not trouble 3'Ou," writes Hervey to Lad}' Sandon, " with au}^ account of our occupations at Hampton Court. No mill-horse ever went in a more constant track, or a more unchanging circle ; so that, b}" the assistance of an almanac for the day of the week, and a watch for the hour of the day, you maj* inform U THE FOUR GEORGES. 3'ourself full}*, without an}- other intelligence but 3'our memory, of ever}' transaction within the verge of the Court. Walking, chaises, levees, and audiences fill the morning. At night the King plays at commerce and backgammon, and the Queen at quadrille, where poor Lady Charlotte runs her usual nightly gauntlet, the Queen pulling her hood, and the Princess Royal rapping her knuckles. The Duke of Grafton takes his nightlj- opiate of lottery, and sleeps as usual between the Princesses Amelia and Caroline. Lord Grantham strolls from one room to another (as Dryden sa3's), like some discontented ghost that oft appears, and is forbid to speak : and stirs himself about as people stir a fire, not with any design, but in hopes to make it burn brisker. At last the King gets up ; the pool finishes ; and ever^'bod}' has their dismission. Their Majesties retire to Lady Charlotte and m}' Lord Lifford ; my Lord Grantham, to Lady Frances and Mr. Clark : some to supper, some to bed ; and thus the evening and the morning make the da}'." The Kinoj's fondness for Hanover occasioned all sorts of rough jokes among his English subjects, to whom sauer-haut and sausages have ever been ridiculous objects. When our pres- ent Prince Consort came among us, the people bawled out songs in the streets indicative of the absurdity of Germany in gen- eral. The sausage-shops produced enormous sausages which we might suppose were the daily food and delight of German princes. I remember the caricatures at the marriage of Prince Leopold with the Princess Charlotte. The bridegroom was drawn in rags. George III.'s wife was called by the people a beggarly German duchess ; the British idea being that all princes were beggarly except British princes. King George paid us back. He thought there were no manners out of Ger- many "^arah Marlborough once coming to visit the Princess, whilst her Royal Highness was whipping one of the roaring royal children, "Ah!" says George, who was standing by, " you have no good manners in England, because you are not properly brought up when you are young." He insisted that no English cooks could roast, no English coachman could drive : he actually questioned the superiority of our nobihty, our horses, and our roast-beef! Whilst he was away from his beloved Hanover, eveiything remained there exactly as in the Prince's presence. There were 800 horses in the stables, there was all the apparatus of chamberlains, court-marshals, and equerries; and court assem- blies were held every Saturday, where all the nobihty of Hano- ver assembled at what I can't but think a fine and touching GEORGE THE SECOND. 45 ceremon3\ A large arm-chair was placed in the assembly- room, and on it the King's portrait. The nobility advanced, and made a bow , to the arm-chair, and to the image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up ; and spoke under their voices before the august picture, just as they would have done had the King Churfiirst been present himself. He was always going back to Hanover. In the year 1729, he went for two whole years, during which Caroline reigned for him .in England, and he was not in the least missed by his British subjects. He went again in '35 and '36 ; and between the years 1740 and 1755 was no less than eight times on the Continent, which amusement he was obliged to give up at the outbreak of the Seven Years' war. Here eyery day's amuse- ment was the same. " Our life is as uniform as that of a monastery," writes a courtier whom Vehse quotes. " Every morning at eleven, and every evening at six, we drive in the heat to Herrenhausen, through an enormous linden avenue ; and twice a day cover our coats and coaches with dust. In the Kincr's societv there never is the least change. At table, and at cards, he sees alwajs the same faces, and at the end of the game retires into his chamber. Twice a week there is a French theatre ; the other days there is plaj^ in the gallery. In this wa}', were the King alwaj'S to stop in Hanover, one could make a ten years' calendar of his proceedings ; and settle beforehand what his time of business, meals, and pleasure would be." The old pagan kept his promise to his dying wife. Lad}^ Yarmouth was now in full favor, and treated with profound respect by the Hanover societ}', though it appears rather neg- lected in England when she came among us. In 1740, a couple of tlie King's daughters went to see him at Hanover ; Anna, the Princess of Orange (about whom, and whose husband and marriage-day, Walpole and Hervey have left us the most ludi- crous descriptions), and Maria of Hesse Cassel, with their resi^ective lords. This made the Hanover court very brilliant. In honor of his high guests, the King gave several /e^es; among others a magnificent masked ball, in the green theatre at Her- renhausen — the garden theatre, with linden and box for screen, and grass for a carpet, where the Platens had danced to George and his father the late sultan. The stage and a great part of the garden were illuminated with colored lamps. Almost the whole court appeared in white dominoes, "like," says the de- scriber of the scene, "like spirits in the Elysian fields. At night, supper was served in the gallery with three great tables, 46 THE FOUR GEORGES. and the King was very merry. After supper dancing was resumed, and I did not get home till five o'clock bj' full day- light to Hanover. Some davs afterwards we had, in the opera- house at Hanover, a great assembly. The King appeared in a Turkish dress ; his turban was ornamented with a magnificent agraffe of diamonds ; the Lady Yarmouth was dressed as a sultana ; nobody was more beautiful than the Princess of Hesse." So, while poor Caroline was resting in her coffin, dapper little George, with his red face and his white eyebrows and goggle-e\'es, at sixty 3'ears of age, is dancing a pretty dance with Madame Walmoden, and capering about dressed up like a Turk ! For twenty years more, that little old Bajazet went on in this Turkish fashion, until the fit came which choked the old man, when he ordered the side of his coflSn to be taken out, as well as that of poor Caroline's who had preceded him, so that his sinful old bones and ashes might mingle with those of the faithful creature. O strutting turke3'-cock of Herren- hausen ! O naughty little Mahomet? in what Turkish paradise are 3'ou now, and where be 3'our painted houris? So Countess Yarmouth appeared as a sultana, and his Majesty- in a Turkish dress wore an agraffe of diamonds, and was ver}^ merr^^ was he ? Friends I he was 3'our fathers' King as well as mine — let us drop a respectful tear over his grave. He said of his wife that he never knew a woman who was worthy to buckle her shoe : he would sit alone weeping before her portrait, and when he had dried his e3'es, he would go off to his Walmoden and talk of her. On the 25th da3' of October, 17G0, he being then in the seventy-seventh 3'ear of his age, and the thirty-fourth of his reign, his page went to take him his royal chocolate, and behold ! the most religious and gracious King was lying dead on the floor. They went and fetched Walmo- den ; but Walmoden could not wake him. The sacred Majesty was but a lifeless corpse. The King was dead ; God save the King ! But, of course, poets and clergymen decorously be- wailed the late one. Here are some artless verses, in which an English divine deplored the famous departed hero, and over which 30U may cry or you may laugh, exactly as 3'our humor suits : — " While at his feet expiring Faction lay, No contest left but wlio should best obey ; Saw in his offspring all himself renewed ; The same fair path of glory still pursued ; Saw to young George Augusta's care impart Whate'er could raise and humanize the heart ; GEORGE THE SECOND. 47 Blend all his grandsire's virtues with his own, And form their mingled radiance for the throne — No farther blessing- could on earth be given — The next degree of happiness was — heaven ! " If he had been good, if he had been jttst, if he had been pure in life, and wise in cotincil, could the poet have said much more? It was a parson who came and wept over this grave, with Wal- moden sitting on it, and claimed heaven for the poor old man slumbering' below. Here was one who had neither dignity, learning, morals, nor wit — who tainted a great society by a bad example ; who in youth, manhood, okl age, was gross, low, and sensual; and Mr. Porteus, afterwards my Lord Bishop Porteus, says the earth was not good enough for him, and that his only place was heaven ! Bravo, Mr. Porteus ! The divine wlio wept these tears over George the Second's memory wore George the Third's lawn. I don't know whether people still admire his poetry or his sermons. GEORGE THE THIRD. We have to olance over sixtv vears in as manv minutes. To read the mere cataloone of characters who fioured durinsc that long period, would occupy our allotted time, and w^e should have all text and no sermon. Enoland has to undei'oo the revolt of the American colonies ; to submit to defeat and sepa- ration ; to shake under the volcano of the Frencli Revolution ; to grapple ' and fight for the life with her gigantic enemy Napoleon ; to gasp and rally after that tremendous struggle. The old society, "vvith its courtly s[)lendors, has to pass away ; generations of statesmen to rise and disappear; Pitt to follow Ci)atliam to the tomb ; the memory of Rodney and Wolfe to be superseded by Nelson's and Wellington's glory ; the old poets who unite us to Queen Anne's time to sink into their graves ; Johnson to die, and Scott and Byron to arise ; Garrick to delioht the world with his dazzlino- dramatic i>enius, and Kean to leap on the stage and take possession of the astonished theatre. Steam has to be invented ; kiniijs to be beiieaded. banished, deposed, restored. Napoleon to be but an episode, and Georo'e Til. is to be alive throuoli all these varied changes, to accompany hig peoi)le through all these revolutions of thought, government, society ; to survive out of the old world into ours. AVhen I first saw England, she was in mourning for the young Piincess Charlotte, the hope of the enii)ire. I came from India as a child, and our ship touched at an island on the way home, where my black servant took me a long walk over rocks and hills until we reached a garden, where we saw a man walking. " That is he," said the black man : '' that is Bonaparte ! He eats three sheep every day, and all the little GEOKGE III. GEORGE THE THIRD. 49 children lie can lay hands on ! " There were people in the British dominions besides that poor Caleatfa scr\ing-man, -vrith an equal horror of the Corsican ogre. "With the same childish attendant, I remember peepino- through the colonnade at Carlton House, and seeing the abode of the great Prince Regent. I can see yet the Guards pacing before the gates of the phice. The place ! AVhat place? The palace exists no more than the palace of Nebuchadnezzar. It is but a name now. AVhcre l)e the sentries who used to salute as the Royal chariots drove in and out? The chariots, with the kings inside, have driven to the realms of Pluto ; the tall Guards have marched into darkacss, and the echoes of their drums are rolling in Hades. Where the palace once stood, a hundred little children are paddling up and down the steps to St. James's Park. A score of grave gentlemen are taking their tea at the " Athenteum Club;" as many grisly warriors are garrisoning the '' United Service Club " opposite"! Pall Mall is the great social Exchange of London now — the mart of news, of politics, of scandal, of rumor — the English forum, so to speak, where men discuss the last despatch from the Crimea, the last speech of Lord Derby, the next move of Lord John. And, now and then, to a few antiquarians whose thoughts are with the past rather than with the present, it is a memorial of o4d times and old people, and Pall jNIall is our Palmyra. Look ! About this spot Tom of Ten Thousand was killed by Konigs- marck's sjang. In that great red house Gainsborough lived, and CuUoden Cumberland, George IIL's r.ncle. Yonder is Sarah Marlborough's palace, just as it stood when that terma- gant occupied it At 25, Walter Scott used to live ; at the iiouse, now No. 70,* and occupied by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Eoreign Parts, resided JMrs. Eleanor Gwynn. comedian. How often has Queen Caroline's chair issued from under yonder arch ! All the men of the Georges have passed up and down the street. It has seen Walpole's chariot and Chatham's sedan; and Fox, Gibbon, Sheridan, on their way to Brookes's ; and stately William Pitt stalking on the arm of Dundas ; and Hanger and Tom Sheridan reeling" out of Raggett's; and Byron limping into Wattier's ; and Swift striding out of Bury Street; and Mr. Addison and Dick Steele, both perhaps a little the better for liquor ; and the Prince of Wales and tlie Duke of York clattering over the pavement ; and Johnson counting the i)osts along the streets, after dawdling before Dodsley's window ; and Horry Walpolc * 1850. 4 50 THE FOUR GEORGES. hobbling into his carriage, with a gimcrack just bought at Christie's ; and George Selwj-n sauntering into White's. In the pubHshecl letters to George JSelwyn we get a mass of correspondence b}* no means so briUiant and witt>' as Walpole's, or so bitter and bright as Hervey's, but as interesting, and even more descriptive of the time, because tlie letters are the work of man}' hands. You hear more voices speaking, as it were, and more natural than Horace's dandified treble, and Sporus's malignant whisper. As one reads the Selwyn letters — as one looks at Reynolds's noble pictures illustrative of those magnifi- cent times and voluptuous people — one almost hears the voice of the dead past ; the laughter and the chorus ; the toast called over the brimming cups ; the shout at the racecourse or the gaming-table ; the merry joke frankl}' spoken to the laughing fine lady. How fine those ladies were, those ladies who heard and spoke such coarse jokes ; how grand those gentlemen ! I fancy that peculiar product of the past, the fine gentleman, has almost vanished off.' the face of the earth, and is disappear- ing like the beaver or the Red Indian. AVe can't have fine gentlemen any more, because we can't have the society in which the}' lived. The people will not obey : the pai-asites will not be as obsequious as formerly : children do not go down on their knees to beg their parents' blessing : chaplains do not sa}' grace and retire before the pudding: servants do not say ^'yonr honor" and "your worship" at every moment: tradesmen do not stand hat in hand as the gentleman i)asses : authors do not wait for hours in gentlemen's ante-rooms with a fulsome dedi- cation, for which they hope to get five guineas from his lordship. In the days when there were fine gentlemen, Mr. JSecretar}^ Pitt's under-secretaries did not dare to sit down before him ; but Mr. Pitt, in his turn, went down on his gouty knees to George II. ; and when George III. spoke a few kind words to him. Lord Chatham burst into tears of ]-everential joy and gratitude ; so awful was the idea of the monarch, and so great the distinctions of rank. Fancy Lord John Russell or Lord Palmerston on their knees whilst the Sovereign was reading a despatch, or beginning to cry because Prince Albert said some- thing civil ! At the accession of George III., the patricians were yet at the heioht of their oood fortune. Societv recognized their superiority, which they themselves pretty calmly took for granted. They inherited not only titles and estates, and seats in the House of Peers, but seats in the House of Commons. There were a multitude of Government places, and not merely GEORGE THE THIRD. 51 these, but bribes of actual 500/. notes, which members of the House took not much shame in receiving. Fox went into Farhament at 20 : Pitt when just of age : his father when not mucli older. It was the good time for Patricians. Small blame to them if they took and enjoyed, and over-enjo3ed, the prizes of politics, the pleasures of social life. In these letters to Selwyn, we are made acquainted with a whole societ}' of these defunct fine gentlemen : and can watch with a curious interest a life which the novel-writers of that time, I think, have scarce touched upon. To Smollett, to Field- ing- even, a lord was a lord : a gorgeous being with a blue ribbon, a coroneted chair, and an immense star on his bosom, to whom commoners paid reverence. Richardson, a man of humbler birth than either of the above two, owned that he was ignorant regarding the manners of the aristocracy, and be- sought Mrs. Donnellan, a lady who had lived in the great world, to examine a volume of Sir Charles Grandison, and point out any errors which she might see in this particular. Mrs. Donnellan found so many faults, that Richardson changed color ; shut up the book ; and muttered that it were best to throw it in the fire. Here, in Selwyn, we have the real original men and women of fashion of the early time of George III. We can follow them to the new club at Almack's : we can travel over Europe with them ; we can accompany them not onl}' to the public places, but to their country-houses and private society-. Here is a whole compan\' of them ; wits and prodigals ; some persevering in their bad ways : some repent- ant, but relapsing ; beautiful ladies, parasites, humble chap- lains, led captains. Those fair creatures whom we love in Reynolds's portraits, and who still look out on us from his canvases with their sweet calm faces and gracious smiles — those fine gentlemen who did us the honor to govern us ; who inherited their boroughs ; took their ease in their patent places ; and slipped Lord North's bribes so elegantly under their ruffles — we make acquaintance with a hundred of these line folks, hear their talk and laughter, read of their loves, quarrels, intrigues, debts, duels, divorces ; can fancy them aHve if we read the book lono- enouoii. We can attend at Duke Ilamil- ton's wedding, and behold him marry his bride with the curtain- ring :, we can peep into her poor sister's death-bed : we can see Charles Fox cursing over the cards, or March bawling out the odds at Newmarket: we can imagine Bui'goyne tripping off from St. James's Street to conquer the Americans, and slink- ing back into the club somewhat crestfallen after his beating ; 54 THE FOUR GEORGES. somer than her ladyship, that the parterre cried out that this was the real English angel, whereupon Lady Coventry quitted Paris in a huff'. The poor thing died presently of consumption, accelerated, it was said, by the red and white i»int with which she plastered those luckless charms of hers. (We must represent to ©urselves all fashionable female Europe, at that time, as plas- tered with white, and raddled with red.) She left two daugh- ters behind her, whom George Selwyn loved (he was curiously fond of little children), and wlio are described very drolly and pathetically in these letters, in their little nursery, where pas- sionate little Lady Fanny, if she had not good cards, flung hers into Lady Mary's face ; and where they sat conspiring how they should receive a new mother-in-law whom their papa presently brought home. They got on very welPwith their mother-in-law, who was very kind to them ; and the}" grew up, and they were married, and they were both divorced afterwards — poor little souls ! Poor painted mother, poor society, ghastly in its pleas- ures, its loves, its revelries I As for my lord commissioner, we can afford to speak about him ; l)ecause, though he was a wild and w^eak commissioner at one time, though he hurt his estate, though he gambled and lost ten thousand pound's at a sitting — " five times more," says the unlucky gentleman, '' than I ever lost before ; " though he swore he never would touch a card again ; and yet, strange to say, went back to the table and lost still more : yet he repented of his errors, sobered down, and became a worthy peer and a good country gentleman, and returned to the good wife and the good children whom he had always lo^'ed w^ith the best part of his heart. He had married at one-and-twenty. He found himself, in the midst of a dissolute society, at the head of a great fortune. Forced into luxury, and obliged to be a great lord and a great idler, he yielded to some tem|)tations, and paid for them a l)itter penalty of manh' remorse ; from some others he fled wisely, and ended by conquering them nobly. But he always had the good wife and children in his mind, and they saved him. *'I am very glad you did not come to me the morning I left London," he writes to G. Selwyn, as he is embarking for America. " I can only say, I never knew till that moment of parting, what grief was." There is no parting now*, where they are. The faithful wife, the kind, generous gentleman, have left a noble race be- hind them : an inheritor of his name and titles, who is beloved as widely as he is known ; a man most kind, accomplished, gentle, friendly, and pure ; and female descendants occrupying high stations and embellishing great names ; some renowned GEORGE THE THIRD. 53 for beaut}', and all for spotless lives, and pious matronly virtues. Another of Sclvvyn's correspondents is the Earl of March, afterwards Duke of Queensberry, whose life lasted into this century ; and who certainly as earl or duke, young man or gra}'- beard, was not an ornament to any possible societj-. The legends about" old Q. arc awful. In Selwyn, in Wraxall, and contemporay chronicles, the observer of human nature may follow him, drinking, gambling, intriguing to the end of his career ; when the wrinkled, palsied, toothless old Don Juan died, as wicked and unrepentant as he had been at the hottest season of youth and passion. There is a house in Piccadilly, where they used to show a certain low window at which old Q. sat to his very last days, ogling through his senile glasses the women as they passed b}'. There must have been a great deal of good about this lazy, sleepy George Selwyn, which, no doubt, is set to his present credit. " Your friendship," writps Carlisle to him, 'Ms so dif- ferent from anything I have ever met with or seen in the world, that when I recollect the extraordinary i)roofs of your kindness, it seems to me like a dream." ''I have lost my oldest friend and acquaintance, G. Selwyn," writes Walpolc to Miss Berry: "■ I really loved him, not only for his infinite wit, but for a thousand good qualities." I am glad for my part that such a lover of cakes and ale should have had a thousand "ood qualities — that he should have been friendly, generous, warm- Jiearted, trustworthy. '• I rise at six," writes Carlisle to him, from Spa (a great resort of fashionable people in our ancestors' days), " pla}' at cricket till dinner, and dance in the evening, till I can scarcely crawl to bed at eleven. There is a life for you ! You get up at nine ; play with Raton your dog till twelve, in your dressing-gown ; then (?reep down to ' White's ; ' are five hours at table ; sleep till siipper-time ; and then make two wretches carry you in a sedan-chair, with three pints of claret in you, three miles for a shilling." Occasionally, instead of sleeping at ''Whites," George w^ent down and snoozed in the House of Conmions by the ride of Lord North. He repre- sented Gloucester for many \-ears, and had a borough of his own, Ludgershall, for which, when he was too lazy to contest Gloucester, he sat himself. "I have given directions for the election of Lud2:ershall to be of Lord Melbourne and my- self," he wa-ites to the Premier, whose friend he was, and who was himself as sleepy, as witty, and as good-natured as George. 54 THE FOUR GEORGES. somer than her ladyship, that the parterre cried out that this was the real English angel, whereupon Lady Coventry quitted Paris in a huff". The poor thing died presently of consumption, accelerated, it was said, by the red and white i:wint witli which she plastered tliose luckless charms of hers. (We must represent to ourselves all fashionable female Europe, at that time, as plas- tered with white, and raddled with red.) She left two daugh- ters behind her, whom George Selwyn loved (he was curiously fond of little children), and who are described very drolly and pathetically in these letters, in their little nursery, where pas- sionate little Lady Fanny, if she had not good cards, flung hers into Lady Mary's face ; and where they sat conspiring how they should receive a new mother-in-law whom their pai)a presently brought home. They got on very welPwith their mother-in-law, who was very kind to them ; and the}' grew up, and the}' were married, and they were both divorced afterwards — poor little souls [ Poor painted mother, poor society, ghastly' in its pleas- ures, its loves, its revelries ! As for my lord commissioner, we can afford to speak about him ; l)ecause, though he was a wild and weak commissioner at one time, though he hurt his estate, though he gambled and lost ten thousand [)ound's at a sitting — " five times more," says the nnlucky gentleman, '' than I ever lost before ; " though he sw^ore he never would touch a card again ; and yet, strange to say, went back to the table and lost still more : yet he repented of his errors, sobered down, and became a worthy peer and a good country gentleman, and returned to the good wife and the good children whom he had always loved with the best part of his heart. He had married at one-and-twenty. He found himself, in the midst of a dissolute society, at the head of a great fortune. Forced into luxurv, and oblio-ed to be a oreat lord and a o'reat idler, he jielded to some temi)tations, and paid for them a bitter penalty of manh' remorse ; from some others he fled wisely, and ended by conquering them nobly. But he always had the good wife and children in his mind, and they saved him. *'! am very glad you did not come to me the morning I left London," be writes to G. Selwyn, as he is embarking for America. " I can only say, I never knew till that moment of parting, what grief was." There is no parting now, where they are. The faithful wife, the kind, generous gentleman, have left a noble race be- hind them : an inheritor of his name and titles, who is beloved as widely as he is known; a man most kind, accomplished, gentle, friendly, and pure ; and female descendants occupying high stations and embellishing great names ; some renowned GEORGE THE THIRD. 53 for beaut}', and all for spotless lives, and pious matronly virtues. Another of Sehvyn's correspondents is the Earl of March, afterwards Duke of Queensberry, whose life lasted into this century ; and who certainly as earl or dnke, young man or gra}'- beaid, was not an ornament to any possible societj'. The legends about" old Q. are awful. In Selwyn, in Wraxall, and contemporay chronicles, the observer of human nature may follow him, drinking, gambling, intriguing to the end of his career ; when the wrinkled, palsied, toothless old Don Juan died, as wicked and unrepentant as he had been at the hottest season of youth and passion. There is a house in Piccadilly, where they used to show a certain low window at which old Q. sat to his very last days, ogling through his senile glasses the women as they passed b}'. There must have been a great deal of good about this lazy, sleepy George Selwyn, which, no doubt, is set to his present credit. '' Your friendship," writps Carlisle to him, '' is so dif- ferent from anything 1 have ever met w'ith or seen in the world, that when I recollect the extraordinary proofs of 3our kindness, it seems to me like a dream." '"I have lost my oldest friend and acquaintance, G. Selwyn," writes Walpole to Miss Berry : '' I really loved him, not only for his infinite wit, but for a thousand good qualities." I am glad for my part that such a lover of cakes and ale should have had a thousand «ood qualities — that he should have been friendly, generous, warm- liearted, trustworthy. '' I rise at six," writes Carlisle to him, from Spa (a great resort of fiishionable peo[)le in our ancestors' days), '' pla\- at cricket till dinner, and dance in the eveniug, till I can scarcely crawl to bed at eleven. There is a life for you ! You get up at nine ; play with Raton your dog till twelve, in vour dressing-gown ; then c'reep down to ' White's ; ' are five hours at table ; sleep till supper-time ; and then make two w^retches carry you in a sedan-chair, with three pints of claret in von, three miles for a shillins:." Occasionallv, instead of sleeping at ''Whites," George went down and snoozed in the House of Connnons by the ri'de of Lord North. He repre- sented Gloucester for many Acars, and had a borough of his own, Ludgershall, for which, when he was too lazy to contest Gloucester, he sat himself. "I have given directions for the election of Ludo'crshall to be of Lord Melbourne and mv- self," he Avrites to the Premier, whose friend he was, and who was himself as sleepy, as witty, and as good-natured as George. 55 THE FOUR GEORGES. If, in looking at tlie lives of princes, courtiers, men of rank and fashion, we must perforce depict them as idle, profligate, and criminal, we must make allowances for the rich men's fail- ings, and recollect that we, too, w^re vciy likely indolent and voluptuous, had we no motive for work, a mortal's natural taste for pleasure, and the daily temptation of a large income. "What could a great peer, with a great castle and park, and a great fortune, do but be splendid and idle? In these letters of Lord Carlisle's from which I have been quoting, there is many a just complaint made by the kind-hearted young nobleman of the state which he is obliged to keep ; the magnificence in which he must live ; the idleness to which his position as a peer of England bound him. Better for him had he been a lawyer at his desk, or a clerk in his office ; — a thousand times better chance for happiness, education, employment, security from temptation. A few years since the profession of arms was the only one which our nobles could follow. The church, the bar, medicine, literature, the arts, .commerce, were below them. It is to the middle class we must look for the safety of England : the working educated men, away from Lord North's bribery in the senate ; the good clergy not corrupted into parasites by hopes of i)referment ; the tradesmen risnig into manly opulence ; the painters pursuing their gentle calling: the men of letters in their quiet studies ; these are the men whom we love and like to read of in the last age. How small the grandees and the men of pleasure look beside them ! how contemptible the story of the Geoi'ge III. court squabbles are beside the recorded talk of dear old Johnson ! What is the grandest entertainment at Windsor, compared to a night at the club over its modest cups, with Perc}' and Langton, and Goldsmith, and poor Bozzy at the table? I declare 1 think, of all the polite men of that age, Joshua Reynolds was the finest gentleman. And they were good, as well as witty and wise, those a O H H Kl W to Hi GEOllGE THE FOURTH. 89 flattery, and foil}'? When George III. was pressed b}- the Catholic question and the India Bill, he said he would retire to Hanover rather than jield upon either point ; and he would have done what he said. But, before yielding, he was deter- mined to fight his Ministers and Parliament ; and he did, and he beat them. The time came when George IV. was pressed too upon the Catholic claims ; the cautious Peel had slipped over to that side ; the grim old Wellington had joined it ; and Peel tells us in his '' Memoirs," what was the conduct of the king. He at first refused to submit ; whereupon Peel and the Duke offered their resignations, which their gracious master accepted. He did these two gentlemen the honor, Peel says, to kiss them both when the}^ went away. (Fancy old Arthur's grim countenance and eagle beak as the monarch kisses it!) When they were gone he sent after them, surrendered, and wrote to them a letter begging them to remain in oflfice, and allowing them to have their wa}^ Then his Majesty had a meeting with Eldon, which is related at curious length in the latter's "Memoirs." He told F^ldon what was not true about his interview with the new Catholic converts ; utterly misled the old ex-Chancellor ; cried, whimpered, fell on his neck, and kissed him too. We know old Eldon's own tears were pumped ver}^ freely. Did these two fountains gush together? I can't fancy a behavior more unmanly, imbecile, pitiable. This a defender of the faith ! This a chief in the crisis of a great na- tion ! This an inheritor of the couras-e of the Georoes ! Many of my hearers no doubt have journeyed to the pretty old town of Brunswick, in company with that most worthy, prudent, and polite gentleman, the Earl of Malmesburj^ and fetched away Princess Caroline for her longing husband, the Prince of Wales. Old Queen Charlotte would have had her eldest son marry a niece of her own, that famous Louisa of Strelitz, afterwards Queen of Prussia, and who shares with Marie Antoinette in the last age the sad pre-eminence of beauty and misfortune. But George III. had a niece at Brunswick ; she was a richer princess than her Serene Highness of Strelitz : — m fine, the Princess Caroline was selected to marry the heir to the English throne. We follow m}^ Lord Malmesbury in quest of her ; we are introduced to her illustrious father and royal mother ; we witness the balls and fetes of the old court ; we are presented to the Princess herself, with her fair hair, her blue e3'es, and her impertinent shoulders —j- a livelj', bouncing, romping Princess, who takes the advice of her courtlj' English mentor most generously and kindly. We can be present at her 90 THE FOUR GEORGES. very toilette, if we like ; regarding whicli, and for very good reasons, ttie British courtier implores her to be particular. What a strange court ! What a queer privacy of morals and manners do we look into ! Shall we regard it as preachers and moralists, and cry Woe, against the open vice and selfishness and coiTuption ; or look at it as we do at the king in the pantomime, with his pantomime wife and pantomime courtiers, whose big heads he knocks together, whom he pokes with his pantomime sceptre, whom he orders to prison under the guard of his pan- tomime beef-eaters, as he sits down to dine on his pantomime pudding ? It is grave ; it is sad ; it is theme most curious for moral and political speculation ; it is monstrous, grotesque, laughable, with its prodigious littlenesses, etiquettes, ceremo- nials, sham moralities ; it is as serious as a sermon, and as absurd and outrageous as Punch's puppet-show. Malmesbur}^ tells us of the private life of the Duke, Prin- cess Caroline's father, who was to die, like his warlike son, in arms against the French ; presents us to his courtiers, his fa- vorite ; his Duchess, George III.'s sister, a grim old Princess, who took the British envoy aside, and told him wicked old sto- ries of wicked old dead people and times ; who came to England afterwards when her nephew was regent, and lived in a shabb}'' furnished lodging, old and dingy, and deserted, and grotesque, but somehow rojal. And we go with him to the Duke to de- mand the Princess's hand in form, and we hear the Brunswick guns fire their adieux of salute, as H.R.H. the Princess of Wales departs in the frost and snow ; and we visit the domains of the Prince Bishop of Osnaburg — the Duke of York of our earl}^ time ; and we dodge about from the French revolutionists, whose ragged legions are pouring over Holland and German}', and gayly trampling down the old world to the tune of fa ira ; and we take shipping at Slade, and we land at Greenwich, where the Princess's ladies and the Prince's ladies are in wait- ing to receive her Royal Highness. What a history follows ! Arrived in London, the bride- groom hastened eagerl}^ to receive his bride. When she was first presented to him, Lord Malmesbur}' says she very properly attempted to kneel. He raised her gracefully enough, em- braced her, and turning round to me, said, — " Harris, I am not well ; pray get me a glass of brandy." I said, " Sir, had you not better have a glass of water? " Upon which, much out of humor, he said, with an oath, *' No ; I will go to the Queen." What could be expected from a wedding which bad such a GEORGE THE FOURTH. 91 beo'inning — from such a bridegroom and such a bride ? I am not going to carry you through the scandal of that story, or follow th'e poor princess through all her vagaries ; her balls and her dances, her travels to Jerusalem and Naples, her jigs, and her junketings, and her tears. As I read her trial in his- tory, I vote she is not guilty. I don't say it is an impartial verdict ; but as one reads her story the heart bleeds for the kindly, generous, outraged creature. If wrong there be, let it lie at his door w^io wickedly thrust her from it. Spite of her foUies, the great hearty people of England loved, and protected, and pitied her. " God bless you ! we will bring your husband back to you," said a mechanic one day, as she told Lady Char- lotte Bury with tears streaming down her cheeks. They could not bring that husband back ; they could not cleanse that selfish heart. Was hers the only one he had wounded? Steeped in selfishness, impotent for faithful attachment and manly enduring love, — had it not survived remorse, was it not accustomed to desertion ? Malmesbury gives us the beginning of the marriage story ; — how the Prince reeled into chapel to be married ; how he hiccupped out his vows of fidelity — you know how he kept them ; how he pursued the woman wiiom he had married ; to what a state he brought her ; with what blows he struck her ; with what malignity he pursued her ; wiiat his treatment of his daughter was ; and what his own life. He the first gentleman of Europe ! There is no stronger satire on the proud English society of that day, than that they admired George. No, thank God, we can tell of better gentlemen ; and whilst our eyes turn away, shocked, from this monstrous image of pride, vanity, weakness, they may see in that England over which the last George pretended to reign, some who merit indeed the title of gentlemen, some who make our hearts beat when we hear their names, and whose memory we fondly salute when that of yonder imperial manikin is tumbled into oblivion. I will take men of my own profession of letters. I will take Walter Scott? who loved the King, and who was his sword and buckler, and championed him like that brave Highlander ui his own story, who fights round his craven chief. What a good gentleman! What a friendly soul, what a generous hand, what an amiable hfe was that of the noble Sir Walter ! I will take another man of letters, whose Ufe I admire even more,— an English worthy, doing his duty for fifty noble years ot labor, day by day storing up learning, day by day working for scant wages, most charitable out of his small means, bravely 92 THE FOUR GEORGP:S. faithful to the calling which he had chosen, refusing to turn from his path for popular praise or princes' favor ; — I mean Robert jSouthey. We have left his old political landmarks miles and miles behind ; we protest against his dogmatism ; naj, we begin to forget it and his politics : but I hope his life will not be forgotten, for it is sublime in its simplicit}^ its energy, its honor, its affection. In the combat between Time and Thalaba, I suspect the former destroyer has conquered. Ke- hama's curse frightens \Qvy few readers now ; but Southey's private letters are worth piles of epics, and are sure to last among us, as long as kind hearts like to sympathize with good- ness and purity, and love and upright life. " If 3'our feelings are like mine," he writes to his wife, " I will not go to Lisbon without you, or I will stay at home, and not part from you. For though not unhapp}' when away, still without you I am not happy. For 3'our sake as well as my own and little Edith's, I will not consent to any separation ; the growth of a year's love between her and me, if it please God she should live, is a thing too delightful in itself, and too valuable in its consequences, to be given up for an}' light inconvenience on your part or mine. ... On these things we will talk at leisure; only, dear, dear Edith, ive must not part! ^' This was a poor literary gentleman. The First Gentleman in Europe had a wife and daughter too. Did he love them so? Was he faithful to them? Did he sacrifice ease for them, or show them the sacred examples of religion and honor? Heaven gave the Great English Prodigal no such good fortune. Peel proposed to make a baronet of Southe}- ; and to this advance- ment the King agreed. The poet nobl}' rejected the offered promotion. '^I have," he wrote, "a pension of 200/. a year, conferred upon me by the good offices of my old friend C. Wynn, and I have the laureateship. The salary of the latter was immediately appropriated, as far as it went, to a life insurance for 3,000/., which, with an earlier insurance, is the sole provision I have made for my family. All beyond must be derived from my own industrv. Writins: for a livelihood, a livelihood is all that I have gained ; for, having also something better in view, and never, tlierefore, having courted popularity, nor written for the mere sake of gain, it has not been possible for me to la};^ hy any- thing. Last 3"ear, for the first time in my life, I was provided with a year's expenditure beforehand. This exposition may show how unbecoming and unwise it would be to accept the NAVAL BATTLE. GEORGE THE FOURTH. 93 rank which, so greatly to ni}' honor, you have solicited for me." How noble his poverty is, compared to the wealth of his master ! His acceptance even of a pension was made the object of his opponents' satire : but think of the merit and modesty of this State pensioner ; and that other enormous drawer of public mone}', who receives 100,000/. a year, and comes to Parliament with a request for 650,000/. more ! Another true knight of those days was Cuthbert Colling- wood ; and I think, since heaven made gentlemen, there is no record of a better one than that. Of brighter -deeds, I grant you, we may read performed b}' others ; but where of a nobler, kinder, more beautiful life of dut}', of a gentler, truer heart? Beyond dazzle of success and blaze of genius, I fancy shining a hundred and a hundred times higher, the sublime purity of Collingwood's gentle glor}'. His heroism stirs British hearts when we recall it. His love, and goodness, and piety make one thrill with happ}" emotion. As one reads of him and his great comrade going into the victory with which their names are immortally connected, how the old English word comes up, and that old English feeling of what I should like to call Christian hone ' What gentlemen they were, what great hearts they had 1 " We can, my dear Coll," writes Nelson to him, '' have no little jealousies ; we have only one great object in view, — that of meeting the enem}', and getting a glorious peace for our countr}'." At Trafalgar, when the " Royal Sov- ereign" was pressing alone into the midst of the combined fleets. Lord Nelson said to Captain Blackwood: "See how that noble fellow, CoUingwood, takes his ship into action ! How I envy him ! " The very same throb and impulse of heroic generosit}^ was beating in Collingwood's honest bosom. As he led into the fight, he said : ' ' What would Nelson give to be here ! " After the action of the 1st of June, he writes: — "We cruised for a few days, like disappointed people looking for what they could not find, until the morning of little Sarah's birthday^ between eight and nine o'clock, when the French fleet, of twentv-five sail of the line, was discovered to wind- ward. We chased them, and they bore down within about five miles of us. The night was spent in watching and prepa- ration for the succeeding day ; and many a blessing did I send forth to my Sarah, lest I should never bless her more. At dawn, we made our approach on the enemy, then drew up, dressed our ranks, and it was about eight when the admiral 94 THE FOUR GEORGES. made the signal for each ship to engage her opponent, and brino- her to close action ; and then down we went under a crowd of sail, and in a manner that would have animated the coldest heart, and struck terror into the most intrepid enemy. The ship we were to engage was two ahead of the French admiral, so we had to go through his fire and that of two ships next to him, and received all their broadsides two or three times before we fired a gun. It was then near ten o'clock. I observed to the admiral, that about that time our wives were going to church, but that I thought the peal we should ring about the Frenchman's ear would outdo their parish bells." There are no words to tell what the heart feels in reading the simple phrases of such a hero. Here is victor}' and cour- age, but love sublimer and superior. Here is a Christian soldier spending the night before battle in watching and pre- paring for the succeeding da}^ thinking of his dearest home, and sending man}^ blessings forth to his Sarah, '' lest he should never bless her more." Who would not sa}- Amen to his supplications ? It was a benediction to his countr}' — the prayer of that intrepid loving heart. We have spoken of a good soldier and good men of letters as specimens of English gentlemen of the age just past : may we not also — mau}^ of my elder hearers, I am sure, have read, and fondh' remember his delightful story — speak of a good divine, and mention Reginald Heber as one of the best of English gentlemen? The charming poet, the happy pos- sessor of all sorts of gifts and accomplishments, birth, wit, fame, high character, competence — he was the beloved parish priest in his own home of Hoderel, "counselling his people in their troubles, advising them in their difficulties, comforting them in distress, kneeling often at their sick-l>eds at the haz- ard of his own life ; exhorting, encouraging where there was need ; where there was strife the peace-maker ; where there was want the free giver." When the Indian bishopric was offered to him he refused at first; but after communing with himself (and committing his case to the quarter whither such pious men are wont to carry their doubts), he withdrew his refusal, and prepared himself for his mission and to leave his beloved parish. " Little children, love one another, and forgive one another," were the last sacred words he said to his weeping people. He parted with them, knowing, perhaps, he should see them no more. Like those other good men of whom we haA^e just spoken, love and duty were his life's aim. Happy he, happy they who were so GEORGE THE FOURTH. 95 gloriously faithful to both ! He writes to his wife those charm- ing lines on his journe}^ : — " If thou, my love, wert by my side, my babies at my knee, How gladly would our pinnace glide o'er Gunga's mimic sea! " I miss thee at the dawning gray, when, on our deck reclined. In careless ease ray limbs I lay and woo the cooler wind. " I miss thee when by Gunga's stream my twilight steps I guide ; But most beneath the lamp's pale beam I miss thee by my side. " I spread my books, my pencil try, the lingering noon to cheer ; But miss thy kind approving eye, thy meek attentive ear. " But when of morn and eve the star beholds me on my knee, I feel, though thou art distant far, thy prayers ascend for me. " Then on ! then on ! where duty leads my course be onward still, — O'er broad Hindostan's sultry meads, o'er bleak Almorah's lull. " That course nor Delhi's kingly gates, nor wild Malwah detain. For sweet the bliss us both awaits by yonder western main. "Thy towers, Bombay, gleam bright, they say, across the dark blue sea: But ne'er were hearts so blithe and gay as there shall meet in thee ! " Is it not Collingwood and Sarah, and Southey and Edith? His affection is part of his life. What were life without it? Without love, I can fancy no gentleman. How touching is a remark Heber makes in his "Travels through India," that on inquiring of the natives at a town, which of the governors of India stood highest in the opinion of the people, he found that, though Lord Wellesley and Warren Hastings were honored as the two greatest men who had ever ruled this part of the world, the people spoke with chief affec- tion of Judge Cleaveland, who had died, aged twent3'-nine, in 1784. The people have built a monument over him, and still hold a religious feast in his memory. So does his own country still tend with a heart's regard the memory of the gentle Heber. And Cleaveland died in 1784, and is still loved by the heathen, is he? Wh3% that 3'ear 1784 was remarkable in the life of our friend the First Gentleman of Europe. Do 3'ou not know that he was twenty-one in that year, and opened Carlton House with a grand ball to the nobility and gentr}^ and doubt- less wore that lovel}' pink coat which we have described. I was eager to read about the ball, and looked to the old magazines for information. The entertainment took place on the 10th F^ebruar3^ In the Earopean Magazi7ie of March, 1784, I came straightway upon it : — 96 THE FOUR GEORGES. "The alterations at Carlton House being finished, we lay before our readers a description of tlie state apartments as the}' appeared on the 10th instant, when H.R.H. gave a grand ball to the principal nobility and gentrj' The entrance to the state room fills the mind with an inexpressible idea of greatness and splendor. " The state chair is of a gold frame, covered with crimson damask ; on each corner of the feet is a lion's head, expressive of fortitude and strength ; the feet of the chair have serpents twining round them, to denote wisdom. Facing the throne, appears the helmet of Minerva ; and over the windows, glory is represented by Saint George with a superb gloria. "But the saloon ma}^ be styled the chef d'ceuvre^ and in every ornament discovers great invention. It is hung with a figured lemon satin. The window-curtains, sofas, and chairs are of the same color. The ceiling is ornamented with em- blematical paintings, representing the Graces and Muses, together with Jupiter, Mercur}', Apollo, and Paris. Two ormolu chandeliers are placed here. It is impossible by expression to do juytice to the extraordinary workmanship, as well as design, of the ornaments. They each consist of a palm, branching out in five directions for the reception of lights. A beautiful figure of a rural nj^mph is represented entwining the stems of the tree with wreaths of flowers. In the centre of the room is a rich chandelier. To see this apartment dans son plus beau jour^ it should be viewed in the glass over the chimney-piece. The range of apartments from the saloon to the ball-room, when the doors are open, formed one of the grandest spectacles that ever was beheld." In the Gentleman! s Magazine^ for the same month and year — March, 1784 — is an account of another festival, in which another great gentleman of English extraction is represented as takijig a principal share : — "According to order, H.E., the Commander-in-Chief was admitted to a public audience of Congress ; and, being seated, the President, after a pause, informed him that the United States assembled were ready to receive his communications. Whereupon he arose, and spoke as follows : — " 'Mr. President, — The great events on which m}?^ resigna- tion depended having at length taken place, I present m3'self before Congress to surrender into their hands the ti'ust com- mitted to me, and to claim the indulgence of retiring from the service of my country-. " ' Happy in the confirmation of our independence and sov- GEORGE THE FOURTH. 97 ereignt3% I resign the appointment I accepted with diffidence ; which, however, was superseded by a confidence in the rectitude of our cause, the support of the supreme power of the nation, and the patronage of Heaven. I close this last act of my official life, by commending the interests of our dearest coun- try to the protection of Almighty God, and those who have the superintendence of them to His hoi}* keeping. Having finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of action ; and, bidding an affectionate farewell to this august bod}^ under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my commission and take my leave of the employments of mj' public life.' To w^hich the President replied : — " ' Sir, having defended the standai'd of liberty in the New World, ha\'ing taught a lesson useful to those who inflict and those who feel oppi'ossion, you retire with the blessings of 3'our fellow-citizens ; though the glory of your virtues will not termi- nate with your militar}' command, but will descend to remotest ages.' " Which was the most splendid spectacle ever witnessed ; — the opening feast of Prince George in London, or the resigna- tion of Washington? Which is the noble character for after ages to admire ; — 3'on fribble dancing in lace and spangles, or yonder hero who sheathes his sword after a life of spotless honor, a purit}" unrepi\)ached, a courage indomitable, and a consummate victor}' ? AYhich of these is the true gentleman ? What is it to be a gentleman ? Is it to have lofty aims, to lead a pure life, to keep your honor virgin ; to have the esteem of 3'our fellow-citizens, and the love of your fireside ; to bear good fortune meekly ; to suffer evil with constancy' ; and through evil or good to maintain truth always? Show me the happy man whose life exhibits these qualities, and him we will salute as gentleman, whatever his rank ma}' be ; show me the prince who possesses them, and he ma}^ be sure of our love and lo3'alty. The heart of Britain still beats kindly for George III., — not because he was wise and just, but because he was pure in life, honest in intent, and because according to his lights he worshipped hea^'en. I think we acknowledge in the inheritrix of his sceptre, a wiser rule, and a life as honorable and pure ; and I am sure the future painter of our manners will pay a willing allegiance to that good life, and be loyal to the memory of that unsullied virtue. THE ENGLISH HUIOEISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. SWIFT. In treating of the English humorists of the past age, it is of the men and of their lives, rather than of their books, that I ask permission to speak to you ; and in doing so, you are aware that I cannot hope to entertain you with a merelj' humor- ous or facetious story. Harlequin without his mask is known to present a ver\^ sober countenance, and was himself, the story goes, the melanchol}' patient whom the Doctor advised to go and see Harlequin * — a man full of cares and perplexities like the rest of us, whose Self must always be serious to hhn, under whatever mask or disguise or uniform he presents it to the public. And as all of you here must needs be grave when 3'ou think of 3'our own past and present, you will not look to find, in the histories of those whose lives and feelinirs I am 2oin«: to tr}' and describe to 3'ou, a stor}^ that is otherwise than seri- ous, and often very sad. If Humor only meant laughter, you would scarcely feel more interest about humorous writers tlian about the private life of poor Harlequin just mentioned, who possesses in common with these the power of making you laugh. But the men regarding whose lives and stories your kind presence here shows that you have curiositv and svmpathy, appeal to a great number of our other faculties, besides our mere sense of ridicule. The humorous writer professes to awaken and direct 30ur love, your pit3', 3'our kindness — 3'Our scorn for untruth, pretension, imposture — your tenderness for the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the unhapp3'. To the best of his means and ability he comments on all the ordinar3' actions and passions of life almost. He takes upon himself to be the week-da3' preacher, so to speak. Accordingly, as he fiiKls, * The anecdote is frequently told of our performer Kicu. 102 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. and speaks, and feels the truth best, we regard him, esteem him — sometimes love him. And, as his business is to mark other people's lives and peculiarities, we moralize upon his life when he is gone — and Aesterdax's preacher becomes the text for to-day's sermon. Of English parents, and of a good English family of clergy- men,* Swift was born in Dublin in 1GG7, seven months after tlie death of his father, who liad come to practise there as a lawyer. The boy went to school at Kihvenny, and afterwards to Trinity College, Dublin, where he got a degree with diffi- cult}', and was wild, and witt^', and poor. In 1G88, by the recommendation of his mother. Swift was received into tlie family of Sir William Temple, who had known Mrs. Swift in Ireland. He left his patron in 1694, and the next year took orders in Dublin. But he threw up the small Irish preferment wliich he got and returned to Temple, in whose family he re- mained until Sir William's death in 1G99. His hopes of ad- vancement in England failing. Swift returned to Ireland, and took the living of Laracor. Hither he invited Hester Johnson, f Temple's natural daughter, with whom he had contracted a tender friendship, while they were both dependants of Temple's. And with an occasional visit to England, Swift now passed nine years at home. In 1709 he came to England and, with a brief visit to Ire- land, during which he took possession of his deanerj' of St. * He was from a j-ounger branch of the Swifts of Yorkshire. His grandfather, the Rev. Thomas Swift, vicar of Goodricli, in Herefordshire, suffered for his loyalty in Charles l.'s time. That gentleman married Elizabeth Dryden, a member of the family of the poet. Sir AValter Scott gives, with his characteristic minuteness in such points, the exact relation- sliip between these famous men. Swift was '* the son of Dryden's second cousin." Swift, too, was the enemy of Dryden's reputation. "Witness the " Battle of tlie Books : " — " The difference was greatest among the horse," says he of the moderns, " wliere every private trooper pretended to the command, from Tasso and Milton to Dryden and Withers.'' And in " Poetry, a Rhapsody," he advises the poetaster to — " Read all the Prefaces of Dr3'^den, For these our critics much confide in, Though merely writ, at first for filling, To raise the volume's price a shilling." " Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet," was the phrase of Dryden to his kinsman, which remained alive in a memory tenacious of such matters. t " Miss Hetty " she was called in the family — where her face, and her dress, and Sir William's treatment of her, all made the real fact about her birth plain enough. Sir William left her a thousand pounds. SWIFT. 103 Patrick, he now passed five years in England, taking the most distino-uished part in the political transactions which terminated with the death of Queen Anne. After her death, his party diso-raced, and his hopes of ambition over, Swift returned to Dublin, where he remained twelve years. In this time he wrote the famous " Drapier's Letters" and "Gulliver's Travels." He married Hester Johnson, Stella, and buried Esther Van- homrioh, Vanessa, who had followed him to Ireland from Lon- don, where she had contracted a violent passion for him. In 1726 and 1727 Swift was in England, which he quitted for the last time on hearing of his wife's illness. Stella died in Jan- uary, 1728, and Swift not until 1745, having passed the last five of the seventy-eight years of his life with an impaired in- tellect and keepers to watch him.* You know, of course, that Swift has had many biographers ; his Hfe has been told by the kindest and most good-natured of men, Scott, who admires but can't bring himself to love him ; and by stout old Johnson, t who, forced to admit him into the company of poets, receives the famous Irishman, and takes off * Sometimes, during his mental affliction, he continued walking about the house for many consecutive hours ; sometimes he remained in a kind of torpor. At times, he would seem to struggle to bring into distinct con- sciousness, and shape into expression, the intellect that lay smothering under gloomy obstruction in him. A pier-glass falling by accident, nearly fell on him. He said he wished it had ! He once repeated slowly several times, " I am what I am." The last thing he wrote was an epigram on the building of a magazine for arms and stores, which was pointed out to him as he went abroad during his mental disease : — " Behold a proof of Irish sense : Here Irish wit is seen : When nothing's left that's worth defence, They build a magazine ! " t Besides these famous books of Scott's and Johnson's, there is a copi- ous "Life" by Thomas Sheridan (Dr. Johnson's "Sherry"), father of Richard Brinsley, and son of that good-natured, clever Irish Dr. Thomas Sheridan Swift's intimate, who lost his chaplaincy by so unluckily choo.s- ing for a text on the King's birthday, "Sufficient for tlie day is the evil thereof ' " Not to mention less important works, there is also the Ke- marks on the Life and Writings of Dr. Jonathan Swift," by that polite and dignified writer, the Earl of Orrery. His lordship is said to have striven for literary renown, chiefly that he might make up for the slight passed on him by his father, who left his library away from hira. It is to be feared that the ink he used to wash out that stain only made it look bigger. He had, however, known Swift, and corresponded with people who knew him. His work (which appeared in 1751) provoked a good deal of con- troversy, calling out, among other brochures, the interesting ' Observation* on Lord Orrery '3 Remarks," &c., of Dr. Delany. 104 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. his hat to him with a bow of surly recognition, scans him from head to foot, and passes over to the other side of the street. Dr. Wilde of Dublin,* who has written a most interesting vol- ume on the closing 3'ears of Swift's life, calls Johnson "the most malignant of his biographers : " it is not easy for an Eng- lish critic to please Irishmen — perhaps to try and please them. And 3'et Johnson truly admires Swift : Johnson does not quar- rel with Swift's change of poHtics, or doubt his sincerity of religion : about the famous Stella and Vanessa controversy the Doctor does not bear very hardly on Swift. But he could not give the Dean that honest hand of his ; the stout old man puts it into his breast, and moves off from him.f AVould we have liked to live with him? That is a question which in dealing with these people's works, and thinking of their lives and peculiarities, every reader of biographies must put to himself. Would you have liked to be a friend of the great Dean? I should like to have been Shakspeare's shoe- black — just to have lived in his house, just to have worshipped him — to have run on his errands, and seen that sweet serene face. I should Uke, as a young man, to have lived on Field- ing's staircase in the Temple, and after helping him up to bed perhaps, and opening his door with his latch-key, to have shaken hands with him in the morning, and heard him talk and crack jokes over his breakfast and his mug of small beer. Who would not give something to pass a night at the club with Johnson, and Goldsmith, and James Boswell, Esq., of Auchin- leck? The charm of Addison's companionship and convei'sa- tion has passed to us by fond tradition — but Swift? If you had been his inferior in parts (and that, with a great respect for all persons present, I fear is only very likely) , his equal in * Dr. Wilde's book was written on the occasion of the remains of Swift and Stella being brought to the light of day — a thing which happened in 1885, when certain works going on in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, afforded an opportunity of their being examined. One hears with surprise of these skulls " going the rounds " of houses, and being made the objects of dilettante curiosity. The larynx of Swift was actually carried off! Phrenologists had a low opinion of his intellect from the observations they took. Dr. Wilde traces the symptoms of ill health in Swift, as detailed in his writings from time to time. He observes, likewise, that the skull gave evidence of " diseased action " of the brain during life — such as would be produced by an increasing tendency to " cerebral congestion." t " He [Dr. Johnson] seemed to me to have an unaccountable prejudice against Swift; for I once took the liberty to ask him if Swift had person- ally offended him, and he told me he had not." — Boswell's Tour to TUt Hebrides. SWIFT. 105 mere social station, he would have bullied, scorned, and insulted you ; if, undeterred b}- his great reputation, you had met him like a man, he would have quailed before you,* and not had the pluck to reply, and gone home, and 3'ears after written a foul epigram about j^ou — watched for 3'ou in a sewer, and come out to assail you with a coward's blqw and a dirt}' bludgeon. If you had been a lord with a blue ribbon, who flattered his vanity, or could help his ambition, he would have been the most deUglitful company in the world. He would have been so manly, so sarcastic, so bright, odd, and original, that 3'ou might think he had no object in view but the mdulgence of his humor, and that he was the most reckless, simple creature in the world. How he would have torn 3'our enemies to pieces for you ! and made fun of the Opposition ! His servilit}^ was so boisterous that it looked like independence ; f he would have done your errands, but with the air of patronizing 3'ou, and after fighting your battles, masked, in the street or the press, would have kept on his hat before j'our wife and daughters in * Few men, to be sure, dared this experiment, but yet their success was encouraging. One gentleman made a point of asking the Dean whether his uncle Godwin had not given him liis education. Swift, who hated that subject cordially, and, indeed, cared little for his kindred, said, sternly, " Yes ; he gave me the education of a dog." " Then, sir," cried the other, striking his fist on the table, "you have not the gratitude of a dog ! " Other occasions there were when a bold face gave the Dean pause, even after his Irish almost-royal position was established. But he brought him- self into greater danger on a certain occasion, and the amusing circum- stances may be once more repeated here. He had unsparingly lashed the notable Dublin lawyer, Mr. Serjeant Bettesworth — " Thus at the bar, the booby Bettesworth, Though lialf a crown o'er-pays his sweat's worth, Who knows in law nor text nor margent, Calls Singleton his brother-serjeant ! " The Serjeant, it is said, swore to have his life. He presented himself at the deanery. The Dean asked his name. " Sir, I am Serjeant Bett-es- worth." " In lohat rerjimmt, prai/? " asked Swift. A guard of volunteers formed themselves to defend the Dean at this time. t " But, my Hamilton, I will never hide the freedom of my sentiments from you. I am much inclined to believe that the temper of my friend Swift might occasion his English friends to wish him happily and properly promoted at a distance. His spirit, for I would give it the softest name, was ever untractable. The motions of his genius were often irregular. He assumed more the air of a patron than of a friend. He affected rather to dictate than advise." — Okreky. 106 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. the drawing-room, content to take that sort of pa}* for his tre- mendous services as a bravo.* He sa3's as much himself in one of his letters to Boling- broke : — " All m}" endeavors to distinguish myself were only for want of a great title and fortune, that I might be used like a lord b}^ those who have an opinion of my parts ; whether right or wrong is no great matter. And so the reputation of wit and great learning does the office of a blue ribbon or a coach and six." f Could there be a greater candor? It is an outlaw who sa3-s, ' ' These are m}^ brains ; with these I'll win titles and compete with fortune. These are m}' bullets ; these I'll turn into gold ; '* and he hears the sound of coaches and six, takes the road like Macheath, and makes societ}' stand and deliver. The}' are all on their knees before him. Down go m}- lord bishop's apron, and his Grace's blue ribbon, and my lad^-'s brocade petticoat in the mud. He eases the one of a living, the other of a pat- ent place, the third of a little snug post about the Court, and gives them over to followers of his own. The great prize has not come yet. The coach with the mitre and crosier in it, which he intends to have for his share, has been delayed on the *".... An anecdote, which, though only told by Mrs. Pilkinton, is well attested, bears, that the last time he was in London he went to dine with the Earl of Burlington, who was but newly married. The Earl, it is supposed, being willing to have a little diversion, did not introduce him to his lady nor mention his name. After dinner said the Dean, * Lady Bur- lington, I hear you can sing ; sing me a song.' The lady looked on this unceremonious manner of asking a favor with distaste, and positively re- fused. He said, ' She should sing, or he would make her. Why, madam, I suppose you take nie for one of your poor English hedge-parsons ; sing wlien I bid you' As the Earl did nothing but laugh at this freedom, the lady was so vexed that she burst into tears and retired. His first compli- ment to her when he saw her again was, 'Pray, madani, are you as proud and ill natured now as when I saw you last < ' To which she answered with great good-humor, 'No, Mr. Dean; I'll sing for you if you please.' From which time he conceived a great esteem for her." — Scott's Life. " . . . . He had not the least tincture of vanity in his conversation. He was, perhaps, as he said himself, too proud to be vain. When he was po- lite, it was in a manner entirely his own. In his friendships he was constant and undisguised. He was the same in his enmities." — Orreky. t " I make no figure but at court, where I affect to turn from a lord to the meanest of my acquaintances." — Journal to Stella. " I am plagued with bad authors, verse and prose, who send me their books and poems, the vilest I ever saw ; but I have given their names to my man, never to let them see me." — Journal to Stella. The following curious paragraph illustrates the life of a courtier : — " Did I ever tell you that the Lord Treasurer hears ill with the left ear, just as I do ' .... I dare not tell him that I am so, for fear he should think that J countojeited to make my court ! " — Journal to Stella. SWIFT. 107 wa}' from St. James's ; and he waits and waits until nightfall, when his runners come and tell him that the coach has taken a different road, and escaped him. So he fires his pistols into the air with a curse, and rides away into his own country.* * The war of pamphlets was carried on fiercely on one side and the other: and the Whig attacks made the Ministry Swift served very sore. Bolingbroke laid hold of several of the Opposition pamphleteers, and be- wails their " factitiousness " in the following letter ; — Bolingbroke to the Earl of Strafford. Whitehall, July 23rd, 1712. " It is a melancholy consideration that the laws of our country are too weak to punish effectually those factitious scribblers, who presume to blacken the brightest characters, and to give even scurrilous language to those who are in the first degrees of honor. This, my lord, among others, is a symptom of the decayed condition of our Government, and serves to show how fatally we mistake licentiousness for liberty. All I could do was to take up Hart, the printer, to send him to Newgate, and to bind him over upon bail to be prosecuted ; this I have done ; and if I can arrive at legal proof against the author, Ridpath, he shall have the same treatment." Swift was not behind his illustrious friend in this virtuous indignation. In the history of the four last years of the Queen, the Dean speaks in the most edifying manner of the licentiousness of the press and the abusive language of the other party : — "It must be acknowledged that the bad practices of printers have been such as to deserve the severest animadversion from the public The adverse party, full of rage and leisure since their fall, and unanimous in their cause, employta set of writers by subscription, who are well versed in all the topics of defamation, and have a style and genius levelled to the generality of their readers However, the mischiefs of the press were too exorbitant to be cured by such a remedy as a tax upon small papers, and a bill for a much more effectual regulation of it was brought into the House of Commons, but so late in the session that there was no time to pass it, for there always appeared an unwillingness to cramp overmuch the liberty of the press." But to a clause in the proposed bill, that the names of authors should be set to every printed book, pamphlet or paper, his Reverence objects altogether ; for, says he, " besides the objection to this clause from the practice of pious men, who, in publishing excellent writings for the service of religion, have chosen, out of an /nimble Christian spirit, to conceal their 7ianies, it is certain that all persons of true genius or knowledge have an invincible modesty and suspicion of themselves upon first sending their thoughts into the world." This " invincible modesty " was no doubt the sole reason which induced the Dean to keep the secret of the " Drapier's Letters " and a hundred humble Christian works of which he was the author. As for the Op- position, the Doctor was for dealing severely with them : he writes to Stella ; 108 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. " Swift's seems to me to be as good a name to point a moral or adorn a tale of ambition, as an}- hero's that ever hved and failed. But we must remember that the moralit}^ was lax — that other gentlemen besides himself took the road in his day — that public societj^ was in a strange disordered condition, and the State was ravaged bv other condottieri. The Boyne was being fought and won, and lost — the bells rung in Wil- liam's victor}-, in the very same tone with which they would have pealed for James's. Men were loose upon politics, and had to shift for themselves. The}-, as well as old beliefs and institutions, had lost their moorings and gone adrift in the storm. As in the South Sea Bubble, almost everj-body gam- bled ; as in the Railwa}" mania — not many centuries ago — almost ever}- one took his unlucky share : a man of that time, of the vast talents and ambition of Swift, could scarce do other- wise than grasp at his prize, and make his spring at his oppor- tunity. His bitterness, his scorn, his rage, his subsequent misanthropy, are ascribed by some panegyrists to a deliberate conviction of mankind's unwortliiness, and a desire to amend them by castigating. His youth was bitter, as that of a great genius bound down by ignoble ties, and powerless in a mean dependence ; his age was bitter,* like that of a great genius that had fought the battle and nearly won it, and lost it, and thought of it afterwards writhing in a lonely exile. A man may attribute to the gods, if he likes, what is caused by his own Journal. Letter XIX. " London, March 25th, 1710-11. " . . . . We have let Guiscard be buried at last, after showing him pickled in a trougli this fortniglit for twopence a piece ; and the fellow that showed would point to his body and say, ' See, gentlemen, this is the wound that was given him by his Grace the Duke of Ormond ; ' and, ' Tliis is the wound,' &c. ; and then the show was over, and another set of rabble came in. 'Tis hard that our laws would not suffer us to hang his body in chains, because he was not tried; and in the eye of the law every man is innocent till then " Journal. Letter XXVII. " London, July 25th, 1711. " I was this afternoon with Mr. Secretary at his office, and helped to hinder a man of his pardon, who is condemned for a rape. The Under Secretary was willing to save him ; but I told the Secretary he could not pardon him without a favorable report from the Judge ; besides, he was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue, and deserved hanging for something else, and so he shall swing." * It was his constant practice to keep his birthday as a day of mourning. SWIFT. 109 fury, or disappointment, or self-will. What public man — what statesman projecting a coup — what king determined on an in- vasion of his neighbor — what satirist meditating an onslaught on society or an individual, can't give a pretext for his move ? There was a French general the other day who proposed to march into this country and put it to sack and pillage, in re- venge for humanity outraged by our conduct at Copenha^j-en : there is always some excuse for men of the aggressive turn. The3^ are of their nature warlike, predatory, eager for fight, plunder, dominion.* As fierce a beak and talon as ever struck — as strong a wino- as ever beat, belonged to Swift. I am glad, for one, that fate wrested the prey out of his claws, and cut his wings and chained him. One can gaze, and not without awe and pity, at the lonely eagle chained behind the bars. That Swift was born at No. 7 Hoey's Court, Dublin, on the 30th November, 1667, is a certain fact, of which nobody will deny the sister island the honor and glory ; but, it seems to me, he was no more an Irishman than a man born of English parents at Calcutta is a Hindoo. f Goldsmith was an Irishman, * " These devils of Grub Street rogues, that write the Fitting Post and Medley in one paper, will not be quiet. They are always mauling Lord Treasurer, Lord Bolingbroke, and me. We have the dog under prosecu- tion, but Bolingbroke is not active enough ; but I hope to swinge him. He is a S(,'otch rogue, one Ridpath. They get out upon bail, and write on. We take them again, and get fresh bail; so it goes round." — Journal to Stella. t Swift was by no means inclined to forget such considerations ; ahd his English birth makes its mark, strikingly enough, every now and then in his writings. Thus in a letter to Pope (Scott's Swift, vol. xix. p. 97), he says : — * " " We have had your volume of letters Some of those who highly value you, and a few who knew you personally, are grieved to find you make no distinction between the English gentry of this kingdom, and the savage old Irish (wlio are only the vulgar, and some gentlemen M'ho live in the Irish parts of the kingdom) ; but tlie English colonies, who are three parts in four, are mucli more civilized tlian many counties in Eng- land, and speak better English, and are much better bred." And again, in the fourth Drapier's Letter, we have the following : — " A short paper, printed at Bristol, and reprinted here, reports Mr. Wood to say ' tliat he wonders at the impudence and insolence of the Irish in refusing his coin.' When, by the way, it is the true English people of Ireland who refuse it, although we take it for granted that the Irish will do so too whenever they are asked." — Scott's Swift, vol. vi, p. 453. He goes further, in a good-humored satirical paper, " On Barbarous Denominations in Ireland," where (after abusing, as he was wont, the Scotch cadence, as well as expression,) he advances to the "Irish brogue," and speaking of the " censure " which it brings down, says : — 110 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. and always an Irishman : Steele was an Irishman, and always an Irishman : Swift's heart was English and in England, his habits English, his logic eminentl}^ English ; his statement is elaboratel}' simple ; he shuns tropes and metaphors, and uses his ideas and words with a wise thrift and econom\\ as he used his money : with which he could be generous and splendid upon great occasions, but which he husbanded when there was no need to spend it. He never indulges in needless extrava- gance of rhetoric, lavish epithets, profuse imagery. He lays his opinion before 3'Ou with a grave simplicity and a perfect neat- ness.* Dreading ridicule too, as a man of his humor — above all an Englishman of his humor — certainly would, he is afraid to use the poetical power which he reall}^ possessed ; one often fancies in reading him that he dares not be eloquent when he might ; that he does not speak above his voice, as it were, and the tone of societ}'. His initiation into politics, his knowledge of business, his knowledge of polite life, his acquaintance with literature even, which he could not have pursued ver3'' sedulously during that reckless career at Dublin, Swift got under the roof of Sir Wil- liam Temple. He was fond of telling in after life what quan- tities of books he devoured there, and how King William taught him to cut asparagus in the Dutch fashion. It was at Shene and at Moor Park, with a salary of twenty pounds and a dinner at the upper servants' table, that this great and lonely Swift " And what is yet worse, it is too well known that the bad consequence of this opinion affects those among us who are not the least liable to such reproaches farther than the misfortune of being born in Ireland, although of English parents, and w#iose education has been chiefly in that kingdom." — Scott's Sivift, vol. vii. p. 149. But, indeed, if we are to make nnijth'mrj of Race at all, we must call that man an Englishman whose father comes from an old Yorkshire family, and his mother from an old Leicestershire one ! * " The style of his conversation was very much of a piece with that of his writings, concise and clear and strong. Being one day at a Sheriff's feast, who amongst other toasts called out to him, ' Mr. Dean, The Trade of Ireland ! ' he answered quick : ' Sir, I drink no memories !'.... " Happening to be in company with a petulant young man who prided himself on saying pert things . . . and who cried out — ' You must know, Mr. Dean, that I set up for a wit 1 ' * Do you so ? ' says the Dean. * Take my advice, and sit down again ! ' " At another time, being in company, where a lady whisking her long train [long trains were then in fashion] swept down a fine fiddle and broke it ; Swift cried out — ' Mantua vse miserae nimium vicina Cremonae ! ' " — Dr. Delany : Observations upon Lord Orrery's " Remarks, ^c. on Swijl." Loudon, 1754. SWIFT. Ill passed a ten years' apprenticeship — wore a cassock that was only not a livery — bent down a knee as proud as Lucifer's to supplicate my lady's good graces, or run on his honor's errands.* It was here, as he was writing at Temple's table, or following his patron's walk, that he saw and heard the men who had governed the great world — measured himself with them, looking up from his silent corner, gauged their brains, weighed their wits, turned them, and tried them; and marked them. Ah ! what platitudes he must have heard ! what feeble jokes ! what pompous commonplaces ! what small men the}' must have seemed under those enormous periwigs, to the swarthy, un- couth, silent Irish secretary. I wonder whether it ever struck Temple, that that Irishman was his master? I suppose that dismal conviction did not present itself under the ambrosial wig, or Temple could never have lived with Swift. Swift sickened, rebelled, left the service — ate humble pie, and came back again ; and so for ten years went on, gathering learning, swal- lowing scorn, and submitting with a stealthy rage to his fortune. Temple's st3de is the perfection of practised and eas}' good breeding. If he does not penetrate very deeply into a sub- ject, he professes a ver}' gentlemanl}' acqui\intance with it ; if he makes rather a parade of Latin, it was the custom of his day, as it was the custom for a gentleman to envelop his head in a periwig and his hands in lace ruffles. If he wears buckles and square-toed shoes, he steps in them with a consummate grace, and you never hear their creak, or find them treading upon any lady's train or any rival's heels in the Court crowd. When that grows too hot or too agitated for him., he politel}^ leaves it. He retires to his retreat of Shene or Moor Park ; and lets the King's party and the Prince of Orange's party battle it out among themselves. He re- veres the Sovereign (and no man perhaps ever testified to his loyalty by so elegant a bow) ; he admires the Prince of Orange ; but there is one person whose ease and comfort he loves more than all the princes in Christendom, and that val- uable member of society is himself Gulielmus Temple, Baro- nettus. One sees him in his retreat ; between his study-chair and his tulip-beds, t clipping his apricots and pruning his es- * " Don't you remember how I used to be in pain when Sir WiUiam Temple would look cold and out of humor for three or four days, and I used to suspect a hundred reasons ? I have plucked up my spirits smce then, faith : he spoiled a fine gentleman." — Journal to Stella. t " . . . The Epicureans were more intelligible in their notion, and for- tunate in their expression, when they placed a man's happiness in the 112 ENGLISH humorist;^, says, — the statesman, the ambassador no more; but the phi- losopher, the Epicurean, the fine gentleman and courtier at St. James's as at Shene ; where in place of kings and fair ladies, he pays his court to the Ciceronian majesty ; or walks a minuet with the Epic Muse ; or dallies by the south wall with the ruddy n3'mph of gardens. Temple seems to have received and exacted a prodigious deal of veneration from his household, and to have been coaxed, and warmed, and cuddled by the people round about him, as delicately as any of the plants which he loved. ^Yhen he fell ill in 1693, the household was aghast at his indisposition : mild Dorothea his wife, the best companion of the best of men — " Mild Dorothea, peaceful, wise, and great, Trembling beheld the doubtful hand of fate." As for Dorinda — his sister — " Those who would grief describe, might come and trace Its watery footsteps in Dorinda's face. tranquillity of his mind and indolence of body ; for while we are composed of both, I doubt both must have a share in the good or ill we feel. As men of several languages say the same things in very different words, so in several ages, countri*es, constitutions of laws and religion, the same thing seems to be meant by very different expressions : what is called by the Stoics apathy, or dispassion ; by the sceptics, indisturbance ; by the Moli- nists, quietism ; by common men, peace of conscience, — seems all to mean but great tranquillity of mind. . . . For this reason Epicurus passed his life wholly in his garden ; there lie studied, there he exercised, there he taught his philosophy ; and, indeed, no other sort of abode seems to con- tribute so much to l)0th the tranquillity of mind and indolence of body, which he made his chief ends. The sweetness of the air, the pleasantness of smell, the verdure of plants, the cleanness and lightness of food, the exercise of working or walking ; but, above all, the exemption from cares and solicitude, seem equally to favor and improve both contemplation and health, the enjoyment of sense and imagination, and thereby the quiet and ease both of the body and mind. . . , Where Paradise was, has been much debated, and little agreed ; but what sort of place is meant by it may perhaps easier be conjectured. It seems to have been a Persian word, since Xenophon and other Greek authors mention it as what was much in use and delight among the kings of those eastern countries. Strabo de- scribing Jericho : 'Ibi est palmetum, cui immixtas sunt etiam aliae stirpes hortenses, locus ferax palmis abundans, spatio stadiorum centum, totus ii'riguus : ibi est Regis Balsami paradisus.' " — Essatj on Gardens. In the same famous essay Temple speaks of a fi'iend, whose conduct and prudence he characteristically admires : " .... I thought it very prudent in a gentleman of ray friends in Staffordshire, who is a great lover of his garden, to pretend no higher, though his soil be good enough, than to the perfection of plums ; and in these (by bestowing south walls upon them) he has very well succeeded, which he could never have done in attempts upon peaches and grapes ; and a good plum is certainly better than an ill peach." SWIFT. 113 To see her weep, joy every face forsook, And grief flung sables on eacli menial look. The humble tribe mourned for the quickening soul, That furnished spirit and motion through the whole." Isn't that line in which grief is described as putting the menials into a mourning liver}', a fine image? One of the me- nials wrote it, who did not like that Temple liver}- nor those twent}' pound wages. Cannot one fancy the uncouth 3'oung servitor, with downcast e^^es, books and papers in hand, fol- lowing at his honor's heels in the garden walk ; or taking his lienor's orders as he stands b}' the great chair, where !Sir Wil- liam has the gout, and his feet all blistered with moxa ? AVhen Sir William has the gout or scolds it must be hard work at the second table ; * the Irish secretary owned as much afterwards ; and when he came to dinner, how he must have lashed and growled and torn the household with his gibes and scorn ! * Swift's Thoughts on Hanging. {Directions to Servants.) " To grow old in the office of a footman is the highest of all indignities; therefore, when you find years coming on without hopes of a place at court, a command in tlie army, a succession to the stewardship, an employ- ment in the revenue (which two last you cannot obtain without reading and writing), or running away with your master's niece or daughter, I directly advise you to go upon the road, which is the only post of honor ]eft you : there you will meet many of your old comrades, and live a short life and a nxerry one, and make a figure at your exit, wherein I will give you some instructions. " The last advice I give you relates to your behavior when you are going to be hanged : which, either for robbing your master, for house- breaking, or going upon the highway, or in a drunken qnarrel by killing the first man you meet, may very probably be your lot, and is owing to one of these three qualities : either a love of good-fellowship, a generosity of mind, or too much vivacity of spirits. Your good behavior on tliis article will concern your whole community : deny the fact with iill ."solemnity of imprecations : a hundred of j^our brethren, if they can be admitted, will attend about the bar, and be read.y upon demand to give you a charncter before the Court ; let nothing prevail on you to confess, but tlie promise of a pardon for discovering your comrades : but I suppose all this to be in vain ; for if you escape now, your fate will be the same anotlier day. Get a speech to be written by the best author of Newgate : some of your kind wenches will provide you with a hoUand sliirt and white cap, crowned with a crimson or black ribbon : take leave cheerfully of all your friends in Newgate: mount the cart with courage; fall on yonr knees; lift up your eyes ; hold a book in your hands, although you cannot read a word ; deny the fact at the gallows ! kiss and forgive the hangman, and so fare- well ; you sliall be buried in pomp at the charge of the fraternity: the surgeon shall not touch a limb of you ; and your fame shall continue until a successor of equal renown succeeds in your place. 8 ,.>• • • 114 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. What would the steward say about the pride of them Irish schollards — and this one had got no great credit even at his Irish college, if the truth were known — and what a contempt his Excellencj^'s own gentleman must have had for Parson Teague from Dublin. (The valets and chaplains were alwa3's at war. It is hard to say which Swift thought the more con- temptible.) And what must have been the sadness, the sad- ness and terror, of the housekeeper's little daughter with the curling black ringlets and the sweet smiling face, when the sec- retary who teaches her to read and write, and whom she loves and reverences above all things — above mother, above mild Dorothea, above that tremendous Sir William in his square- toes and periwig, — when Mr. Swift comes down from his mas- ter with rage in his heart, and has not a kind word even for little Hester Johnson ? Perhaps for the Irish secretary, his Excellenc^^'s condescen- sion was even more cruel than bis frowns. Sir William would perpetuall}' quote Latin and the ancient classics apropos of his gardens and his Dutch statues and j^lcftes-bandes, and talk about Epicurus and Diogenes Laertius, Julius Csesar, Semiramis, and the gardens of the Ilesperides, Maecenas, Strabo describing Jericho, and the Ass3'rian kings. Ajjropos of beans, he w^ould mention Pythagoras's precept to abstain from beans, and that this precept probabh' meant that wise men should abstain from public affairs. ^ is a placid Epicurean ; he is a Pythagorean philosopher; he i'S, a wise man — that is the deduction. Does not Swift think so? One can imagine the downcast eyes hfted up for a moment, and the flash of scorn which the}' emit. Swift's e^-es were as azure as the heavens ; Pope says nobly (as everything Pope said and thought of his friend was good and noble), " His e^-es are as azure as the heavens, and have a charming archness in them." And one person in that house- hold, that pompous, stately, kindly Moor Park, saw heaven nowhere else. But the Temple amenities and solemnities did not agree with Swift. He was half-killed with a surfeit of Shene pippins ; and in a garden-seat which he devised for himself at Moor Park, and where he devoured greedil}^ the stock of books within his reach, he caught a vertigo and deafness which pun- ished and tormented him throuoh life. He could not bear the place or the servitude. Even in that poem of courtly condo- lence, from which we have quoted a few lines of mock melan- choly, he breaks out of the funereal procession with a mad shriek, as it were, and rushes awa}^ crying his own grief, curs- SWIFT. 115 ing his own fate, foreboding madness, and forsaken by fortune, and even hope. I don't know anything more melanchoty than the letter to Temple, in which, after having broke from his bondage, the poor wretch crouches piteouslj- towards his cage again, and deprecates his master's anger. He asks for testimonials for orders. "The particulars required of me are what relate to morals and learning ; and the reasons of quitting your honor's family — that is, whether the last was occasioned by any ill action. They are left entirely to 3^our honor's mere}', thougli in the first I think I cannot reproach myself for anything fur- ther than for injirmities. This is all I dare at present beg from your honor, under circumstances of life not worth 3'our regard : what is left me to wish (next to the health and prosperitj^ of your honor and family) is that Heaven would one da}' allow me the opportunit}' of leaving my acknowledgments at your feet. I beg my most humble dut}' and service be presented to my ladies, your honor's lady and sister." — Can prostration fall deeper ? could a slave bow lower ? * Twenty years afterwards Bishop Kennet describing the same man, saj's, "Dr. Swift came into the coffee-house and had * " He continued in Sir William Temple's house till the death of that great man." — Anecdotes ofihe FWmilt/ of Swift, by the Dean. " It has since pleased God to take this great and good person to him self." — Preface to Temple's Works. Op all public occasions, Swift speaks of Sir William in the same tone. But the reader will better understand how acutely he remembered the indignities he suffered in his household, from the subjoined extracts from the Journal to Stella : — " I called at Mr. Secretary the other day, to see what the d ailed him on Sunday : I made him a very proper speech ; told him I observed he was much out of temper, that I did not expect he would tell me the cause, but would be glad to see he was in better ; and one thing I warned him of — never to appear cold to me, for I would not be treated like a schoolboy; that I had felt too much of that in my life already " (meanim/ Sir William Temple), &c. &c. — Journal to Stella. " I am thinking what a veneration we used to have for Sir William Temple because he might have been Secretary of State at fifty ; and here is a young fellow hardly thirty in that employment." — Ibid. '■ The Secretary is as easy with me as Mr. Addison was. I have often thought what a splutter Sir William Temple makes about being Secretary of State." — Ibid. " Lord Treasurer has had an ugly fit of the rheumatism, but is now quite well. I was playing at one-andthirty with him and his family the other night. He gave us all twelvepence apiece to begin with; it put me in mind of Sir William Temple." — Ibid. " I thought I saw Jack Temple [nephew to Sir William] and his wife pass by me to-day in their coach : but I took no notice of them. I am glad I have wholly shaken off that family."— :*S'. to S. Sept. 1710. 116 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. a bow from eveiybod}' but me. When I came to tlie ante- chamber [at Court] to wait before prayers, Dr. Swift was the principal man of talk and business. He was soliciting the Earl of Arran to speak to his brother, the Duke of Ormond, to get a place for a clergyman. He was promising Mr. Tho- rold to undertake with my Lord Treasurer, that he should obtain a salary of 200/. per annum as member of the English Church at Rotterdam. He stopped F. Gwynne, Esq., going in to the Queen with the red bag, and told him aloud, he had something to say to him from my Lord Treasurer. He took out his gold watch, and telling the time of day, complained that it wa-s very late. A gentleman said he was too fast. '• How can I help it,' sa3's the Doctor, ' if the courtiers give me a watch that won't go right ? ' Then he instructed a young nobleman, that the best poet in England was Mr. Pope (a Pa- pist), who had begun a translation of Homer into English, for which he would have them all subscribe : ' For,' sa3's he, 'he shall not begin to print till I have a thousand guineas for him.'* Lord Treasurer, after leaving the Queen, came through the room beckoning Dr. Swift to follow him, — both went off just before prayers." There's a little malice in the Bishop's "just before prayers." This picture of the great Dean seems a true one, and is harsh, though not altogether unpleasant. He was doing good, and to deserving men too, in the midst of these intrigues and triumphs. His journals and a thousand anecdotes of him relate his kind acts and rough manners. His hand was constantly stretched out to relieve an honest man — he was cautious about his money, but ready. — If you were in a strait would you like such a benefactor? I think I would rather have had a po- tato and a friendly word from Goldsmith than have been be- holden to the Dean for a guinea and a dinner. t He insulted * " Swift must be allowed," says Dr. Johnson, " for a time, to have dictated the political opinions of the English nation." A conversation on the Dean's pamphlets excited one of the Doctor's liveliest sallies. " One, in particular, praised his 'Conduct of the Allies.' — Johnson ; ' Sir, his ' Conduct of the Allies ' is a performance of very little ability. . . . Why, sir, Tom Davies might have written the ' Conduct of the Allies ! ' " — Boswell's Life of Johnson. t " Whenever he fell into the company of any person for the first time, it was his custom to try their tempers and disposition by some abrupt ques- tion that boi-e the appearance of rudeness. If this were Avell taken, and answered with good humor, he afterwards made amends by his civilities. But if he saw any marks of resentment, from alarmed pride, vanity, or conceit, he dropped all further intercourse with the party. This will be illustrated by an anecdote of that sort related by Mrs. Pilkington. After SWIFT. . 117 a man as be served him, made women cry, guests look foolish, bullied unlucky friends, and flung his benefactions into poor men's faces. No; the Dean was no Irishman — no Irishman ever gave but with a kind word and a kind heart. It is told, as if it were to Swift's credit, that the Dean of St. Patrick's performed his famil}^ devotions ever}" morning regularly, but with such secrecy that the guests in his house were never in the least aware of the ceremonj-. There was no need surel}" why a church dignitarj^ should assemble his family- privily in a crypt, and as if he was afraid of heathen perse- cution. But I think the world was right, and the bishops who advised Queen Anne, when they counselled her not to appoint the author of the "Tale of a Tub" to a bishopric, gave per- fectly good advice. The man who wrote the arguments and illustrations in that wild book, could not but be aware what must be the sequel of the propositions which he laid down. The boon companion of Pope and Bolingbroke, who chose these as the friends of his life, and the recipients of his confidence and affection, must have heard many an argument, and joined in many a conversation over Pope's port, or St. John's bur- gundy, which would not bear to be repeated at other men's boards. I know of few things more conclusive as to the sincerity of Swift's religion than his advice to poor John Gay to turn cler- gj'man, and look out for a seat on the Bench. Gay, the author of the " Beggar's Opera" — Ga}^, the wildest of the wits about town — it was this man that Jonathan Swift advised to take ^orders — to invest in a cassock and bands — just as he advised him to husband his shillings and put his thousand pounds out supper, the Dean having decanted a bottle of wine, poured what remained into a glass, and seeing it was muddy, presented it to Mr. Pilkington to drink it. ' For,' said he, ' I always keep some poor parson to drink the foul wine for me.' Mr. Pilkington, entering into his humor, thanked him. and told him ' he did not know the difference, but was glad to get a glass at any rate.' ' Why, then,' said the Dean, 'you shan't, for I'll drink it myself. Why, take you, you are wiser than a paltry curate whom I asked to dine with me a few days ago; for upon my making the same speech to him, he said he did not understand such usage, and so walked off without his dinner. By the same token, I told the gentleman who recom- mended him to me that the fellow was a blockhead, and I had do>ic witli him.' " — Sheridan's Life of Swijl. 118 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. at interest.* The Queen, and the bishops, and the world, were right in mistrusting tlie rehgion of that man. I am not here, of course, to speak of any man's religious views, except in so far as the}- influence his literary character, his life, his humor. The most notorious sinners of all those fellow-mortals whom it is our business to discuss — Harry Field- * From the Archbishop of Cashell. " Cashell, May 31st, 1735. "Dear Sir, — I have been so unfortunate in all my contests of late, that I am resolved to have no more, especially where I am likely to be overmatched ; and as I have some reason to hope what is past will be for- gotten, I confess I did endeavor in my last to put the best color I could think of upon a very bad cause. My friends judge right of my idleness ; but, in reality, it has hitherto proceeded from a hurry and confusion, arising from a thousand unlucky unforeseen accidents rather than mere sloth. I have but one troublesome affair now upon my hands, which; by the help of the prime serjeant, I hope soon to get rid of; and then you shall see me a true Irish bishop. Sir James Ware has made a very useful collection of the memorable actions of my predecessors. He tells me, they were born in such a town of England or Ireland ; were consecrated, such a year ; and if not translated, were buried in the Cathedral church, either on the north or south side. Whence I conclude, that a good bishop has nothing more to do than to eat, drink, grow fat, rich, and die ; which laudable example I propose for the remainder of my life to follow ; for to tell you the truth, I have for these four or five years past metwith so much treachery, baseness, and ingratitude among mankind, that I can hardly think it incumbent on any man to endeavor to do good to so per- verse a generation. "I am truly concerned at the account you give me of your health. Without doubt a southern ramble will prove the best remedy you can take to recover your flesh ; and I do not know, except in one stage, where you can choose a road so suited to your circumstances, as from Dublin hither. You have to Kilkenny a turnpike and good inns, at every ten or twelve miles' end. From Kilkenny hither is twenty long miles, bad road, and no inns at all: but I have an expedient for you. At the foot of a very high hill, just midway, there lives in a neat thatched cabin, a parson, who is not poor ; his wife is allowed to be the best little woman in the world. Her chickens are the fattest, and her ale tlie best in all the country. Besides, the parson has a little cellar of his own, of which he keeps the ke}', where lie always has a hogshead of the best wine that can be got, in bottles well corked, upon their side ; and he cleans, and pulls out the cork better, I tliink, than Robin. Here I design to meet you with a coach; if you be tired, you shall stay all night ; if not, after dinner, we will set out about four, and be at Cashell by nine ; and by going througli fields and by-ways, which the parson will show us, we shall escape all the rocky and stony roads that lie between this place and that, which are certainly very bad. I hope you will be so kind as to let me know a post or two before you set out, the very day you will be at Kilkenny, that I may have all things pre- pared for you. It may be, if you ask him, Cope will come : he will do nothing for me. Therefore, depending upon your positive promise, I shall add no more arguments to persuade you, and am, with the greatest truth, your most faithful and obedient servant, " Theo. Cashell." SWIFT. 119 (ng and Dick Steele, were especially loud, and I believe really fervent, in their expressions of belief; they belabored free- thinkers, and stoned imaginar}^ atheists on all sorts of occa- sions, going out of their wa}' to bawl their own creed, and persecute their neighbor's, and if the}' sinned and stumbled, as they constantl}- did with debt, with drink, with all sorts of bad behavior, they got upon their knees and cried " Peccavi " with a most sonorous orthodox3\ Yes ; poor Harr}- Fielding and poor Dick Steele were trust}' and undoubting Church of England men ; the}' abhorred Popery, Atheism, and wooden shoes, and idolatries in general ; and hiccupped Church and State with fervor. But Swift? His mind had had a different schooling, and possessed a very different logical power. He was not bred flp in a tipsy guard-room, and did not learn to reason in a Co vent Garden tavern. He could conduct an argument from beginning to end. He could see forward with a fatal clearness. In his old age, looking at the " Tale of a Tub," when he said, " Good God, what a genius I had when I wrote that book ! " I think he was admiring not the genius, but the consequences to which the genius had brought him — a vast genius, a magnificent genius, a genius wonderfully bright, and dazzling, and strong, — to seize, to know, to see, to flash upon falsehood and scorch it into perdition, to penetrate into the hidden motives, and ex- pose the black thoughts of men, — an awful, an evil spirit. Ah man ! you, educated in Epicurean Temple's library, you whose friends were Pope and St. John — what made you to swear to fatal vows, and bind .yourself to a life-long hypocrisy before the Heaven which you adored with such real wonder, humility, and reverence ? For Swift was a reverent, was a pious spirit — for Swift could love and could pray. Through the storms and tempests of his furious mind, the stars of religion and love break out in the blue, shining serenely, though hidden by the driving clouds and the maddened hurricane of his life. It is my belief that he suffered frightfully from the conscious- ness of his own scepticism, and that he had bent his pride so far down as to put his apostasy out to hire.* The paper left behind him, called " Thoughts on Religion," is merely a set of excuses for not professing disbelief. He says of his sermons * "Mr. Swift lived with him [Sir William Temple] some time, but resolving to settle himself in some way of living, was inclined to take orders. However, although his fortune was very small, he had a scruple of entering into the Church merely for support." — Anecdotes of the Family of Swift, by the Dean. 1 20 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. that he preached pamphlets : they have scarce a Christian charac- teristic ; the}^ might be preached from the steps of a synagogue, or the floor of a mosque, or the box of a coffee-house ahiiost. There is little or no cant — he is too great and too proud for that ; and, in so far as the badness of his sermons goes, he is honest. But having put that cassock on, it poisoned him : he was strangled in his bands. He goes through life, tearing, like a man possessed with a devil. Like Abudah in the Arabian story, he is always looking out for the Fur}', and knows that the night will come and the inevitable hag with it. What a night, my God, it was ! what a lonely rage and long agon}- — what a vulture that tore the heart of that giant ! * It is awful to think of the great sufferings of this great man. Through life he always ^ems alone, somehow. Goethe was so. I can't fanc}- Shaks- peare otherwise. The giants must live apart. The kings have no company. But this man suffered so ; and deserved so to suffer. One hardl}- reads an3'where of such a pain. The " saeva indignatio " of which he spoke as lacerating his heart, and which he dares to inscribe on his tombstone — as if the wretch who la}' under that stone waiting God's judgment had a right to be angrv — breaks out from him in a thousand pages of his writing, and tears and rends him. Against men in office, he having been overthrown : against men in England, he having lost his chance of preferment there, the furious exile neyer fails to rage and curse. Is it fair to call the famous '' I) rapier's Letters" patriotism! The}' are masterpieces of dreadful humor and invective: they are reasoned logicall}- enough too, but the proposition is as monstrous and fabulous as the Lilliputian island. It is not that the grievance is so great, but there is his enemy — the assault is wonderful for its activity and terrible rage. It is Samson, with a bone in his hand, rush- ing on his enemies and felhng them : one admires not the cause so much as the strength, the anger, the fury of the champion. As is the case with madmen, certain subjects provoke him, and awaken his fits of wrath. Marriage is one of these ; in a hun- dred passages in his writings he rages against it ; rages against children ; an object of constant satire, even more contemptible in his eyes than a lord's chaplain, is a poor curate with a large family. The idea of this lucldess paternity never fails to bring * " Dr. Swift had a natural severity of face, which even his smiles could scarce soften, or his utmost gayety render placid and serene ; but when that sternness of visage was increased by rage, it is scarce possible to imagine looks or features that carried in them more terror and au9 t^rity." — Okkery. SWIFT. 121 down from him gibes and foul language. Could Dick Steele, or Goldsmith, or Fielding, in his most reckless moment of satire, have written anything like the Dean's famous "modest pro- posal" for eating children? Not one of these but melts at the thoughts of childhood, fondles and caresses it. Mr. Dean has no such softness, and enters the nurserj- with the tread and gayet}^ of an ogre.* "I have been assured," says he in the "Modest Proposal," "by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young health}- child, well nursed, is, at a j'ear old, a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled ; and I make no doubt it will equall}" serve in a ragout." And taking up this pretty joke, as his way is, he argues it with perfect gravity and logic. He turns and twists this subject in a score of different waj's : he hashes it ; and he serves it up cold ; and he garnishes it; and relishes it alwa3's. He describes the little animal as " dropped from its dam," advising that the mother should let it suck plentifull}' in the last month, so as to render it plump and fat for a good table! "A child," says his Reverence, " will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends ; and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reason- able dish," and so on ; and, the subject being so delightful that he can't leave it, he proceeds to recommend, in place of venison for squires' tables, " the bodies of young lads and maidens not exceeding fourteen or under twelve." Amiable humorist ! laugh- ing castigator of morals ! There was a process well known and practised in the Dean's gay days : when a lout entered the coffee-house, the wags proceeded to what they called " roasting " him. This is roasting a subject with a vengeance. The Dean had a native oenius for it. As the " Almanach des Gourmands " says, On nait rotisseur. And it was not merely b}' the sarcastic method that Swift exposed the unreasonableness of loving and having children. In Gulliver, the folly of love and marriage is urged by graver arguments and advice. In the famous Lilliputian kingdom, Swift speaks with approval of the practice of instantly remov- ing children from their parents and educating them by the State ; and amongst his favorite horses, a pair of foals are * "London, April 10th, 1713. " Lady Masham's eldest boy is very ill : I doubt he will not live ; and she stays at Kensington to nurse him, which vexes us all. She is so exces- sively fond, it makes me mad. She should never leave the Queen, but leave everything, to stick to what is so much the interest of the public as well as her own " — Journal. 122 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. stated to be the very utmost a well-regulated equine couple would permit themselves. In fact, our great satirist was of opinion that conjugal love was unadvisable, and illustrated the theory bj- his own practice and example — God help him — which made him about the most wretched being in God's world.* The grave and logical conduct of an absurd proposition, as exemplified in the cannibal proposal just mentioned, is our author's constant method through all his works of humor. Given a countrv of people six inches or sixty feet high, and by the mere process of the logic, a thousand wonderful absurdities are evolved, at so man}' stages of the calculation. Turning to the first minister who waited behind him with a white stafl!" near as tall as the mainmast of the '' Ro3'al Sovereign," the King of Brobdingnag observes how contemptible a thing human gran- deur is, as represented by such a contemptible little creature as Gulliver. "The Emperor of Lilliput's features are strong and masculine" (what a surprising humor there is in this description !) — " The Emperor's features," Gulliver says, " are strong and masculine, with an Austrian lip, an arched nose, his complexion olive, his countenance erect, his body and limbs well proportioned, and his deportment majestic. He is taller by the breadth of my nail than any of his court, which alone is enough to strike an awe into beholders." What a surprising humor there is in these descriptions ! How noble the satire is here ! how just and honest ! How per- fect the image ! Mr. Macaulay has quoted the charming lines of the poet, where the king of the pigmies is measured by the same standard. We have all read in Milton of the spear that was like " the mast of some tall admiral," but these images are surel}' likely to come to the comic poet originalh\ The subject is before him. He is turning it in a thousand ways. He is full of it. The figure suggests itself naturall}' to him, and comes out of his subject, as in that wonderful passage, when Gulliver's box having been dropped b}' the eagle into the sea, and Gulli- ver having been received into the ship's cabin, he calls upon the crew to bring the box into the cabin, and put it on the table, the cabin being only a quarter the size of the box. It is the veracity of the blunder which is so admirable. Had a man come from such a country as Brobdingnag he would have blundered so. But the best stroke of humor, if there be a best in that * " My health is somewhat mended, but at best I have an ill head and an aching heart." — In Maij, 1719. SWIFT. 123 abounding book, is that where GulUver, in the unpronounceable countr}', describes his parting from his master tlie horse.* " I * Perhaps the most melancholy satire m the whole of the dreadful book, is the description of the very old people in the " Voyage to Laputa." At Lugnag, Gulliver hears of some persons who never die, called the Struldbrugs, and expressing a wish to become acquainted with men who must have so much learning and experience, his coUoquist describes the Struldbrug's to him. " He said : They commonly acted like mortals, till about thirty years old, after which, by degrees, they grew melancholy and dejected, increas- ing in both till they came to fourscore. This he learned from their own confession : for otherwise there not being above two or three of that species born in an age, they were too few to form a general observation by. When they came to fourscore years, which is reckoned the extremity of living in this country, they had not only all the follies and infirmities of other old men, but many more, which arose from the dreadful prospect of never dying. They were not only opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative, but incapable of friendship, and dead to all natural affection, wliich never descended below their grandchildren Envy and impotent desires are tlieir prevailing passions. But those objects against which their envy seems principally directed, are the vices of the younger sort and the deaths of the old. By reflecting on the former, they find themselves cut off from all possibility of pleasure ; and whenever they see a funeral, they lament, and repine that others are gone to a harbor of rest, to which they themselves never can hope to arrive. They have no remembrance of anything but what they learned and observed in their youth and middle age, and even that is very imperfect. And for the truth or particulars of sCny fact, it is safer to depend on common tradition than upon their best recollections. The least miserable among them 'appear to be those who turn to dotage, and entirely lose their memories ; these meet with more pity and assistance, because they want many bad qualities which abound in others. " If a Struldbrug happen to marry one of his own kind, the marriage is dissolved of course, by the courtesy of the kingdom, as soon as the younger of the two comes to be fourscore. For the law thinks it a reasonable indulgence that those who are condemned, without any fault of their own, to a perpetual continuance in the world, should not have their misery doubled by the load of a wife. " As soon as they have completed the term of eighty years, they are looked on as dead in law ; their heirs immediately succeed to their estates, only a small pittance is reserved for their support ; and the poor ones are maintained at the public charge. After that period, they are held incapa- ble of any employment of trust or profit, they cannot purchase lands or take leases, neither are they allowed to ])e witnesses in any cause, either civil or criminal, not even for the decision of meers and bounds. " At ninety they lose their teeth and hair ; they have at that age no distinction of taste, but eat and drink whatever they can get without relish or appetite. The diseases they were subject to still continue without in- creasing or diminishing. In talking, they forget the common appellation of things, and the names of persons, even of those who are their nearest friends and relations. For the same reason, they can never anmse them- selves with reading, because their memory will not serve to carry them from the beginning of a sentence to the end; and by this defect they 124 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. took," he says, " a second leave of m}- master, but as I was going to prostrate m3'self to kiss his hoof, he did me the honor to raise it gentl}^ to m}^ mouth. I am not ignorant how much I have been censured for mentioning this last particular. De- tractors are pleased to think it improbable that so illustrious a person should descend to give so great a mark of distinction to a creature so inferior as I. Neither have I forgotten how apt some travellers are to boast of extraordinary- favors thej^ have received. But if these censurers were better acquainted with the noble and courteous disposition of the Houjhnhnms they would soon change their opinion." The surprise here, the audacit}' of circumstantial evidence, the astounding gravity of the speaker, who is not ignorant how much he has been censured, the nature of the favor conferred, and the respectful exultation at the receipt of it, are surel}- complete ; it is truth topsy-turv}-, entirely logical and absurd. As for the humor and conduct of this famous fable, I sup- pose there is no person who reads but must admire ; as for the are deprived of the only entertainment whereof they might otherwise be capable. "The language of this country being always upon the flux, the Struld- brngs of one age do not understand those of another; neither are they able, after two hunthvd years, to hold any conversation (further than by a few general woj-ils) with their neighbors, the mortals; and thus they lie under the disailvantage of living like foreigners in their own country. "This was tlie account given me of the Struldbrugs, as near as I can remember. I afterwards saw five or six of different ages, t!ie youngest not above two hundred years ohl, who were brought to me at several times by some of my friends ; but although they were told 'that I was a great traveller, and had seen all the world,' they had not the least curiosity to ask me a question ; only desired I would give them slumskudask, or a token of remembrance, which is a modest way of begging, to avoid the law, that strictly forbids it, because they are provided for by the public, altiiough indeed with a very scanty allowance. "They are despised and liated by all sorts of people ; when one of them is born, it is reckoned ominous, and their birth is recorded very particu- larly ; so that you may know their age by consulting the register, which, however, has not been kept above a thousand years past, or at least has been destroyed by time or public disturbances. But the usual way of computing how old they are, is by asking them what kings or great persons they can remember, and then consulting history ; for infallibly the last prince irt their mind did not begin his reign after they were fourscore years old. "They were the most mortifying sight I ever beheld, and the women more horrible than the men ; besides the usual deformities in extreme old age, they acquired an additional gliastliness, in proportion to their number of years, which is not to be described ; and among half a dozen, I soon distinguished which was the eldest, although there was not above a century or two between them. " — Gulliver's Travels. SWIFT. 125 moral, I think it horrible, shameful, unmanly, blasphemous ; and giant and great as this Dean is, I sa}' we should hoot him. Some of tliis audience ma3n't have read the last part of Gulliver, and to such I would recall the advice of the venerable Mr. Punch to persons about to many, and say "Don't." When Gulliver first lands among the Yahoos, the naked howhno- wretches clamber up trees and assault him, and he describes himself as '' almost stifled with the filth which fell abput him." The reader of the fourth part of " GulUver's Travels" is like the hero himself in this instance. It is Yahoo language : a monster gibbering shrieks, and gnashing imprecations against mankind — tearing down all shreds of modesty, past all sense of manliness and shame ; filthy in word, filthy in thought, furious, raging, obscene. And dreadful it is to think that Swift knew the tendency of his creed — the fatal rocks towards which his logic desperate)}' drifted. That last part of Gulliver is only a consequence of what has gone before ; and the worthlessness of all mankind, the pettiness, cruelty, pride, imbecilitv, the general vanit^y, the foolish pretension, the mock greatness, the pompous dulness, the mean aims, the base successes — all these were present to him ; it was with the din of these curses of the world, blasphe- mies against heaven, shrieking in his ears, that he began to write his dreadful allegor}^ — of which the meaning is that man is utterl}- wicked, desperate, and imbecile, and his passions are so monstrous, and his boasted powers so mean, that he is and deserves to be the slave of brutes, and ignorance is better than his vaunted reason. What had this man done? what secret re- morse was rankling at his heart? what fever was boiling in him, that he should see all the world bloodshot? We view the world with our own eyes, each of us ; and we make from within us the world we see. A weary heart gets no gladness out of sunshine ; a selfish man is sceptical about friendship, as a man with no ear doesn't care for music. A frightful self- consciousness it must have been, which looked on mankind so darkl}' through those keen e3'es of Swift. A remarkable story is told by Scott, of Delan}', who inter- rupted Archbishop King and Swift in a conversation which left the prelate in tears, and from which Swift rushed away with marks of strong terror and agitation in his countenance, upon which the Archbishop said to Delan}^, " You have just met the most unhapp3^ man on earth ; but on the subject of his wretch- edness you must never ask a question." The most unhappy man on earth ; — Miserrimus — what a 126 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. character of him ! And at this time all the great wits of Eng- land had been at his feet. All Ireland had shouted after him, and worshipped him as a liberator, a savior, the greatest Irish patriot and citizen. Dean Drapier Bickerstaff Gulliver — the most famous statesmen, and the greatest poets of his daj^, had applauded him, and done him homage ; and at this time, writing over to Bolingbroke from Ireland, he sa3's, " It is time for me t^ have done with the world, and so I would if I could get into a better before I was called into the best, and not die here in a rage^ like a poisoned rat in a hole.^^ We have spoken about the men, and Swift's behavior to them ; and now it behoves us not to forget that there are cer- tain other persons in the creation who had rather intimate relations with the great Dean.* Two women whom he loved and injured are known by every reader of books so familiarl}- that if we had seen them, or if thej' had been relatives of our own, we scarcely could have known them better. Who hasn't in his mind an image of Stella? Who does not love her? Fair and tender creature : pure and affectionate heart ! Boots it to 3'ou, now that 3'ou have been at rest for a hundred and twenty- years, not divided in death from the cold heart which caused yours, whilst it beat, such faithful pangs of love and grief — boots it to 3'Ou now, that the whole world loves and deplores 3'Ou? Scarce an3^ man, I believe, ever thought of that grave, that did not cast a flower of pit3' on it, and write over it a sweet epitaph. Gentle lad3', so lovel3', so loving, so unhapp3'' ! you have had countless champions ; millions of manl3' hearts * The name of Varina lias been thrown into the shade by those of the famous Stella and Vanessa ; but she had a story of her own to tell about the blue eyes of young Jonathan. One may say that the book of Swift's Life opens at places kept by these blighted flowers ! Varina must have a paragraph. She was a Miss Jane Waryng, sister to a college chum of his. In 1696, when Swift was nineteen years old, we find him writing a love-letter to her, beginning, " Impatience is the most inseparable quality of a lover." But absence made a great difference in his feelings ; so, four years after- « wards, the tone is changed. He writes again, a very curious letter, offering to marry her, and putting the offer in such a way that nobody could possibly accept it. After dwelling on his poverty, &c. he says, conditionally, "I shall be blessed to have you in my arms, without regarding whether your person be beautiful, or your fortune large. Cleanliness in the first, and compe- tency in the second, is all I ask for ! " The editors do not tell us what became of Varina in life. One would be glad to know that she met with some worthy partner, and lived long enough to see her little boys laughing over Lilliput, without any arriere pensie of a sad character about the great Dean ! SWIFT. 127 mourning for you. From generation to generation we take up the fond tradition of your beaut}^ ; we watch and follow your tragedy, your bright morning love and purity, your constancy^ 3'our grief, 3'our sweet martyrdom. We know 3'our legend by heart. You are one of the saints of English story. And if Stella's love and innocence are charming to contem- plate, I will say that in spite of ill-usage, in spite of drawbacks, in spite of m3'sterious separation and union, of hope dela3'ed and sickened heart — in the teeth of Vanessa, and that little episodical aberration which plunged Swift into such woful pit- falls and quagmires of amorous perplexit3' — in spite of the verdicts of most women, 1 believe, w^ho, as far as m3' experi- ence and conversation go, generalh' take Vanessa's part in the controvers3^ — in spite of the tears which Swift caused Stella to shed, and the rocks and barriers which fate and temper inter- posed, and which prevented the pure course of that true love from running smoothlv — the brightest part of Swift's story, the pure star in that dark and tempestuous life of Swift's, is his love for Hester Johnson. It lias been m3^ business, profession- all3' of course, to go through a deal of sentimental reading in m3' time, and to acquaint m3'self with love-making, as it has been described in various languages, and at various ages of the world ; and I know of nothing more manl3', more tender, more exquisitel3' touching, than some of these brief notes, written in what Swift calls " his little language" in his journal to Stella.* He writes to her niolit and mornino- often. He never sends awa^' a letter to her but he begins a new one on the same da3\ He can't bear tcf let go her kind little hand, as it were. He knows that she is thinking of him, and longing for him far away in Dublin 3'onder. He takes her letters from under his pillow and talks to them, familiarl3', paternall3', with fond epithets and prett3' caresses — as he would to the sweet and artless creature who loved him. " Sta3'," he writes one morning — it is the 14th of * A sentimental Champollion might find a good deal of matter for his art, in expounding the symbols of tlie " Little Language." Usually, Stella is " M.D.," but sometimes her companion, Mrs. Dingley, is included in it. Swift is •' Presto ; " also P.D.F.R. We have " Good-night, M.D. ; Night, M.D. ; Little, M.D. ; Stellakins ; Pretty Stella ; Dear, roguish, impudent, pretty M.D." Every now and then he breaks into rhyme, as — " I wish you both a merry new year, Roast-beef, minced-pies, and good strong beer, And me a share of your good cheer. That I was there, as you were here. And you are a little saucy dear." 128 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. December, 1710 — " Sta}*, I will answer some of your letter this morning in bed. Let me see. Come and appear, little letter ! Here I am, says he, and what sa}- 3011 to Stella this morning fresh and fasting? And can Stella read this writing without hurting her dear ej'es? " he goes on, after more kind i)rattle and fond whispering. The dear eyes shine clearly upon him then — the good angel of his life is with him and blessing him. Ah, it was a hard fate that wrunoj from them so many tears, and stabbed pitilessly that pure and tender bosom. A hard fate : but would she have changed it? I have heard a woman sa}^ that she would have taken Swift's cruelt}^ to have had his tenderness. He had a sort of worship for her whilst he wounded her. He speaks of her after she is gone ; of her wit, of lier kindness, of her grace, of her beauty, with a simple love and reverence that are indescribabh' touching ; in contemplation of her goodness his hard heart melts into pathos ; his cold rhyme kindles and glows into poetr}' , and he falls down on his knees, so to speak, before the angel whose life he had embittered, confesses his own wretchedness and unworthihess, and adores her with cries of remorse and love : — " When on my sickly couch I lay, Impatient both of night and day, And groaning in unmanly strains, Called every power to ease my pains, Then Stella ran to my relief. With cheerful face and inward grief. And though by heaven's severe decree She suffers hourly more than me, No cruel master could require From slaves employed for daily hire. What Stella, by her friendship warmed, With vigor and delight performed. Now, with a soft and silent tread, Unheard she moves about my "bed : My sinking spirits now supplies With cordials in her hands arid eyes. Best pattern of true friends ! beware ; • You pay too dearly for your care If, while your tenderness secures My life, it must endanger yours : For such a fool was never found Who pulled a palace to the ground, Only to have the ruins made Materials for a house decayed." One little triumph Stella had in her life — one dear little piece of injustice was performed in her favor, for which I con- fess, for my part, I can't help thanking fate auvl the Dean. SWIFT. 129 9 That other person was sacrificed to her — that — that 3*oung woman, who lived five doors from Dr. Swift's lodgings in Bury Street, and who flattered him, and made love to him in such an outrageous manner — Vanessa was thrown over. Swift did not keep Stella's letters to him in repl}- to those he wrote to her.* He kept Bolingbroke's, and Pope's, and Harley's, and Peterborough's: but Stella, "very carefull}'," the Lives sa}', kept Swift's. Of course : that is the way of the world : and so we cannot tell what her st3'le was, or of what sort were the little letters which the Doctor placed there at night, and bade to appear from under his pillow of a morning. But in Letter IV. of that famous collection he describes his lodo-ino- in Bury Street, where he has the first-floor, a dining-room and bedchamber, at eight shillings a week ; and in Letter VI. ho * The following passages are from a paper begun by Swift on the evens ing of the day of her death, Jan. 28, 1727-8 ; — " She was sickly from lier c;luldhood, until about the ago of fifteen; but then she grew into perfect health, and was looked upon as one of the most beautiful, graceful, and agreeable young women in London — only a little too fat. Her hair was blacker than a raven, and every feature of her face in perfection. " . . . . Properly speaking " — he goes on, with a calmness which, under the circumstances, is terrible — "she has been dying six months! .... " Never was any of her sex born with better gifts of the mind, or who more improved them l)y reading and conversation All of us who had the happiness of her friendship agreed unanimously, that in an afternoon's or evening's conversation she never failed before we parted of delivering the best thing that was said in the company. Some of us have written down .-several of her sayings, or what the French call bons mots, wherein she excelled beyond belief." The specimens on record, however, in the Dean's paper, called " Bons Mots de Stella," scarcely bear out this last part of the panegyric. But the following prove her wit : — " A gentleman who had been very silly and pert in her company, at last began to grieve at remembering the loss of a child lately dead. A bishop sitting by comforted him — that he should be easy, because ' the child was gone to heaven.' ' No, my lord,' said she ; ' that is it which most grieves him, because he is sure never to see his child there.' " When she was extremely ill, her phj'sician said, * Madam, you are near the bottom of the hill, but we will endeavor to get you up again.' She answered, ' Doctor, I fear I shall be out of breath before I get up to the top.' " A very dirty clergyman of her acquaintance, who affected smartness and repartees, was asked by some of the company how his nails came to be so dirty. He was at a loss , but she solved the difficulty by saying, ' The Doctor's nails grew dirty by scratching himself.' "A Quaker apothecary sent her a vial, corked; it had a broad brim, and a label of paper about its neck. * What is that? ' — said she — 'my apothecary's son ! ' The ridiculous resemblance, and the suddenness of the question, set us all Si-\?i\\gh\ng." — Sivift's Works, Scott's Ed. vol. ix. 295-d 130 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. % sa3^s " he has visited a lady just come to town," whose name somehow is not mentioned ; and in Letter VIII. he enters a quer}^ of Stella's — " What do you mean ' that boards near me, that I dine with now and then?' What the deuce ! You know whom I liave dined with ever}'^ da}' since I left 3'ou, better than I do." Of course she does. Of course Swift has not the slightest idea of what she means. But in a few letters more it turns out that the Doctor has been to dine " gravel}'" with a Mrs. Vanhomrigh : then that he has been to " his neighbor : " then that he has been unwell, and means to dine for the whole week with his neighbor ! Stella was quite right in hei* previsions. She saw from the very first hint, what was going to happen ; and scented Vanessa in the air.* The rival is at the Dean's feet. The pupil and teacher are reading together, and drink- ing tea together, and going to prayers together, and learning Latin together, and conjugating amo, amas, amavi together. The Httle language is over for poor Stella. By the rule of grammar and the course of conjugation, doesn't amavi come after amo and amas ? The loves of Cadenus and Vanessa t .you may peruse in Cadenus's own poem on the subject, and in poor Vanessa's vehement expostulator}' verses and letters to him ; she adores him, implores him, admires him, thinks him something god- like, and onl}' pra3's to be admitted to lie at his feet.]: As the}- * " I am so hot and lazy after ray morning's walk, that I loitered at Mrs. Vanhomrigh's, where my best gown and periwig was, and out of mere list- lessness dine there, very often; so I did to-day." — Journal to Stella. Mrs. Vanhomrigh, " Vanessa's " mother, was the widow of a Dutcli merchant who held lucrative appointments in King William's time. The family settled in London in 1709, and had a house in Bury Street, St. James's — a street made notable by such residents as Swift and Steele ; and, in our own time, Moore and Crabbe. t "Vanessa was excessively vain. The character given of her by Cadenus is fine painting, but in general fictitious. She was fond of dress ; impatient to be admired ; very romantic in her turn of mind ; superior, in her own opinion, to all her sex ; full of pertness, gayety, and pride ; not without some agreeable accomplishments, but far from being either beauti- ful or genteel ; . . , . happy in tlie thoughts of being reported Swift's con- cubine, but still aiming and intending to be his wife." — Lord Orrerv. t "You bid me be easy, and you would see me as often as you could. You had better have said, as often as you can get the better of your in- clinations so much ; or as often as you remember there was such a one in the world. If you continue to treat me as you do, you will not be made uneasy by me long. It is impossible to describe what I have suffered since I saw you last : 1 am sure I could have borne the rack much better than those killing, killing words of yours. Sometimes I have resolved to die without seeing you more ; but those resolves, to your misfortune, did not last long ; for tliere is something in human nature that prompts one so to SWIFT. 131 are bringing him home from church, those divine feet of Dr. Swift's are found pretty often in Vanessa's parlor. He likes to be admired and adored. He finds Miss Vanhomrigh to be a woman of great taste and spirit, and beauty and wit, and a fortune too. He sees her every day ; he does not tell Stella about the business : until the impetuous Vanessa becomes too fond of him, until the Doctor is quite frightened by the 30ung woman's ardor, and confounded by her warmth. He wanted to marry neither of them — that I beheve was the truth ; but if he had not married Stella, Vanessa would have had him in spite of himself. When he went back to Ireland, his Ariadne, not content to remain in her isle, pursued the fugitive Dean. In vain he protested, he vowed, he soothed, and bullied ; the news of the Dean's marriage with Stella at last came to her, and it killed her — she died of that passion.* find relief in this world I must give way to it, and beg you would see me, and speak kindly to me ; for I am sure you'd not condemn any one to suffer what I have done, could you but know it. The reason I write to you is, because I cannot tell it to you, should I see you ; for when I begin to complain, then you are angry, and there is something in your looks so awful that it strikes me dumb. Oh ! that you may have but so much re- gard for me left that this complaint may touch your soul with pity. I say as little as ever I can ; did you but know what I thought, I am sure it would move you to forgive me ; and believe I cannot help telling you this and live." — Vanessa. (M. 1714.) * " If we consider Swift's behavior, so far only as it relates to women, we shall find that he looked upon them rather as busts than as whole figures." — Orrery. " You would have smiled to have found his house a constant seraglio of very virtuous women, who attended him from morning till night." — Orrery. A correspondent of Sir Walter Scott's furnished him with the materials on which to found the following interesting passage about Vanessa — after she had retired to cherish her passion in retreat : — " Marley Abbey, near Celbridge, where Miss Vanhomrigh resided, is built much in the form of a real cloister, especially in its external appearance. An aged man (upwards of ninety, by his own account) showed the grounds to my correspondent. He was the son of Mrs. Vanhomrigh's gardener, and \ised to work with his father in the garden when a boy. He remembered the unfortunate Vanessa well ; and his account of her corresponded with the usual description of her person, especially as to her embonpoint. He said she went seldom abroad, and saw little company : her constant amuse- ment was reading, or walking in the garden. . . . She avoided company, and was always melancholy, save when Dean Swift was there, and then she seemed happy. The garden was to an uncommon degree crowded with laurels. The old man said that when Miss Vanhomrigh expected the Dean she always planted with her own hand a laurel or two against his arrival. He showed her favorite seat, still called ' Vanessa's bower.' Three or foiur trees and some laurels indicate the spot There were two seats and a rude table within the bower, the opening of which commanded a view of 132 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. And when she died, and Stella heard that Swift had written beautifully regarding her, "That doesn't surprise me," said Mrs. Stella, " for we all know the Dean could write beautifully about a broomstick." A woman — a true woman ! Would 3'ou have had one of them forgive the other ? In a note in his biography-, Scott says that his friend Dr. Tuke, of Dublin, has a lock of Stella's hair, enclosed in a paper by Swift, on which are written, in the Dean's hand, the words : " Only a woma/is hair." An instance, sa^'S Scott, of the Dean's desire to veil his feelings under the mask of C3nical indifference. See the various notions of critics ! Do those w^ords indicate indifference or an attempt to hide feeling ? Did you ever hear or read four words more pathetic ? Only a woman's hair : only love, only fidelity, only purity, innocence, beauty ; onh^ the the Liffey In this sequestered spot, according to the old gardener's account, the Dean and Vanessa used often to sit,*Avith books and writing- materials on the table before them." — Scott's Swijl, vol. i. pp. 246-7. " . . . . But Miss Vanhomrigh, irritated at the situation in which she found herself, determined on bringing to a crisis those expectations of a union with the object of her affections — to the hope of which she had clung amid every vicissitude of his conduct towards her. The most prob- able bar was his undefined connection with Mrs. Johnson, which, as it must have been perfectly known to her, had, doubtless, long excited her secret jealousy, although only a single hint to that purpose is to be found in their correspondence, and that so early as 1713, when she writes to him — then in Ireland — ' If you are very happy, it is ill-natured of you not to tell me so, except 'tis what is inconsistent wdhviine.' Her silence and patience under this state of uncertainty for no less than eight years, must liave been partly owing to her awe for Swift, and partly, perhaps, to the weak state of her rival's health, which, from year to year, seemed to announce speedy dissolu- tion. At length, however, Vanessa's impatience prevailed, and she ven- tured on the decisive step of writing to Mrs. Johnson herself, requesting to know the nature of that connection. Stella, in reply, informed her of her marriage with the Dean ; and full of the highest resentment against Swift for having given another female such a right in him as Miss Vanhomrigh's inquiries implied, she sent to him her rival's letter of interrogation, and, without seeing him, or awaiting his reply, retired to the house of Mr. Ford, near Dublin. Every reader knows the consequence. Swift, in one of those paroxysms of fury to wliich he was liable, both from temj)er and disease, rode instantly to Marley Abbey. As he entered the apartment, the stern- ness of his countenance, which was peculiarly formed to express the fiercer passions, struck the unfortunate Vanessa with such terror that she could scarce ask whether he would not sit down. He answered by flinging a letter on the table, and, instantly leaving the house, mounted his horse, and re- turned to Dublin. When Vanessa opened tlie packet, she only found her own letter to Stella. It was her death-warrant. She sunk at once under the disappointment of the delayed yet cherished hopes which had so long sickened her heart, and beneath the unrestrained wrath of him for whose sake she had indulged them. How long she survived this last interview is uncertain, but the time does not seem to have exceeded a few weeks." -— Scott. SWIFT. 133 tenderest heart in the world stricken and wounded, and passed awa}^ now out of reach of pangs of hope deferred, love insulted, and pitiless desertion : — only that lock of hair left ; and mem- or}^ and remorse, for the guilty, lonely wretch, shuddering over the grave of his victim. And 3'et to have had so much love, he must have given some. Treasures of wit and wisdom, and tenderness, too, must that man have had locked up in the caverns of his gloomy heart, and shown fitfully to one or two whom he took in there. But it was not good to visit that place. People did not remain there long, and suffered for having been there.* He shrank away from all affections sooner or later. Stella and Vanessa both died near him, and away from him. He had not heart enough to see them die. He broke from his fastest friend, Sheridan ; he slunk away from his fondest admirer, Pope. His laugh jars on one's ears after sevenscore 3'ears. He was always alone — alone and gnashing in the darkness, except when Stella's sweet smile came and shone upon him. When that went, silence and utter night closed over him. An immense genius : an awful downfall and ruin. So great a man he seems to me, that think- ing of him is like thinking of an empire faUing. We have other great names to mention — none I think, however, so great or so gioom3^ * " M. Swift est Rabelais dans son bon sens, et vivant en bonne com- pagnie. II n'a pas, a la verite, la gaite du premier, mais il a toute la finesse, la raison, le choix, le bon gout qui manquent a notre cure de Meudon. Ses vers sont d'un gout singulier, et presque inimitable ; la bonne plaisanterie est son partage en vers et en prose ; mais pour le bien entendre il faut faire un petit voyage dans son pays." — Voltaire : Lettres sur les Analais. Let. 22. CONGEEVE AND ADDISON. A GREAT number of years ago, before the passing of the Reform Bill, there existed at Cambridge a certain debating- club, called the " Union ;" and I remember that there was a tradition amongst the undergraduates who frequented that re- nowned school of orator}', that the great leaders of the Opposi- tion and Government had their eyes upon the University De- bating-Club, and that if a man distinguished himself there he ran some chance of being returned to Parliament as a great nobleman's nominee. So Jones of John's, or Thomson of Trinit}', would rise in their might, and draping themselves in their gowns, rally round the monarch}', or hurl defiance at priests and kings, with the majest}' of Pitt or the fire of Mirabeau, fancying all the while that the great nobleman's emissary was listening to the debate from the back benches, where he was sitting with the family seat in his pocket. In-, deed, the legend said that one or two young Cambridge men, orators of the " Union," were actuall}' caught up thence, and carried down to Cornwall or old Sarum, and so into Parliament. And man}' a young fellow deserted the jogtrot University cur- riculum, to hang on in the dust behind the fervid wheels of the parliamentary chariot. Where, I have often wondered, were the sons of Peers and Members of Parliament in Anne's and George's time? Were they all in the army, or hunting in the* country, or boxing the watch? How was it that the young gentlemen from the Uni- versity got such a prodigious number of places ? A lad com- posed a neat copy of verses at Christcliurch or Trinity, in which the death of a great personage was bemoaned, the French king assailed, the Dutch or Prince Eugene complimented, or CONGREVE AND ADDISON. 135 the reverse ; and the party in power was presentl}^ to provide for the young poet ; and a commissionership, or a post in the Stamps, or the secretar3'ship of an Embass}', or a clerkship in the Treasury, came into the bard's possession. A wonderful fruit-bearing rod was that of Busb3''s. What have men of letters got in our time? Think, not onlj' of Swift, a king fit to rule in an}^ time or empire — but Addison, Steele, Prior, Tickell, Congreve, John Gay, John Dennis, and many others, who got public employment, and pretty little pickings out of the public purse.* The wits of whose names we sliall treat in this lecture and two following, all (save one) touched the King's coin, and had, at some period of their lives, a happy quarter- day coming round for them. They all began at school or college in the regular way, pro- ducing panegyrics upon public characters, what were called odes upon public events, battles, sieges, court marriages and deaths, in which the gods of Ol^^mpus and the tragic muse were fatigued with invocations, according to the fashion of the time in France and in England. " Aid us, Mars, Bacchus, Apollo," cried Addison, or Congreve, singing of William or Marlborough. '' Accowez^ chastes nymphes du Permesse^^^ says Boileau, cele- brating the Grand Monarch. '•'-Des sons que ma lyre enfante marquez en bien la cadence, et vous vents, fnites silence! je vais parler de Louis ! " Schoolboj's' themes and foundation exer- cises are the onty relics left now of this scholastic fashion. The Ol3an]^ians are left quite undisturbed in their mountain. What * The following is a conspectus of them : — Addison. — Commissioner of Appeals; Under Secretary of State; Secre- tary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland ; Keeper of the Rec- ords in Ireland ; Lord of Trade ; and one of the Principal Secretaries of State, successively. Steele. — Commissioner of the Stamp Office; Surveyor of the Royal Stables at Hampton Court ; and Governor of the Royal Com- pany of Comedians ; Commissioner of "Forfeited Estates in Scotland." Prior. — Secretary to the Embassy at the Hague ; Gentleman of the Bed- chamber to King William ; Secretary to the Embassy in France: Under Secretary of State; Ambassador to France. Tickell. — Under Secretary of State ; Secretary to the Lords Justices of Ireland. Congreve. — Commissioner for licensing Hackney Coaches ; Commissioner for Wine Licenses ; place in the Pipe OflSce ; post in the Custom House ; Secretary of Jamaica. Gay. — Secretary to the Earl of Clarendon (when Ambassador to Han- over. ) John Dennis. — A place in the Custom House. "En Angleterre . . . . les lettres sont plus en honneur qu'ici.''— Vol- taire : Letires sur les Anglais. Let. 20. 136 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. ~ man of note, what contributor to the poetry of a country news paper, would now think of writing a congratulatory ode on the birth of the heir to a dukedom, or the marriage of a nobleman ? In the past century the j^oung gentlemen of the Universities all exercised themselves at these queer compositions ; and some got fame, and some gained patrons and places for life, and many more took nothing by these efforts of what they were pleased to call their muses. William Congreve's * Pindaric Odes are still to be found in "Johnson's Poets," that now unfrequented poets'-corner, in which ^o many forgotten bigwigs have a niche ; but though he was also voted to be one of the greatest tragic poets of an}- day, it was Congreve's wit and humor which first recommended him to courtlj^ fortune. And it is recorded that his first pla}^ the " Old Bachelor," brought our author to the notice of that great patron of English muses, Charles Montague Lord Halifax — who, being desirous to place so eminent a wit in a state of ease and tranquillit}', instantly made him one of the Commissioners for licensing hackne3^-coaches, bestowed on him soon after a place in the Pipe Office, and likewise a post in the Custom House of the value of 600/. A commissionership of hackne3"-coaches — a post in the Custom House — a place in the Pipe Office, and all for writing a comedy ! Doesn't it sound like a fable, that place in the Pipe Office? t " Ah, I'heureux temps que celui de ces fables ! " Men of letters there still be : but I doubt whether any Pipe Offices are left. The public has smoked them long ago. Words, like men, pass current for a while with the public, * He was the son of Colonel William Congreve, and grandson of Rich, ard Congreve, Esq., of Congreve and Stretton in Staffordshire — a very- ancient family. t "Pipe. — Pipa, in law, is a roll in the Exchequer, called also the ijreat roll. ■ * " Pipe Office is an office in which a person called the Cleric of the Pipe makes out leases of Crown lands, by warrant from the Lord Treasurer, or Commissioners of the Treasury, or Chancellor of the Exchequer. " Clerk of the Pipe makes up all accounts of sheriffs, &c." — Rees : Cylcopced. Art. Pipe. " Pipe Office. — Spelman thinks so called, because the papers were kept in a large pipe or cask. " ' These be at last brought into that office of Her Majesty's Exchequer, which we, by a metaphor, do call the pipe .... because the whole receipt is finally conveyed into it by means of divers small pipes or quills.' — Bacon: The Office of Alienations." [We are indebted to Richardson's Dictionary for this fragment of erudi- tion. But a modern man of letters can know little on these points — by experience.] CONGREVE AND ADDISON. 137 and being known everywhere abroad, at length take their places in society ; so even the most secluded and refined ladies here present will have heard the phrase from their sons or brothers at school, and will permit me to call William Congreve, Es- quire, the most eminent literary "swell" of his age. In m}^ copy of "Johnson's Lives" Congreve's wig is the tallest, and put on with the jauntiest air of all the laurelled worthies. " I am the great Mr. Congreve," he seems to sa}^ looking out from his voluminous curls. People called him the great Mr. Congreve.* From the beginning of his career until the end"" everybody' admired him. Having got his education in Ireland, at the same school and college with Swift, he came to live in the Middle Temple, London, where he luckily bestowed no attention to the law ; but splendidl}" frequented the coffee- houses and theatres, and appeared in the side-box, the tavern, the Piazza, and the Mall, brilliant, beautiful, and victorious from the first. Ever3'bod3' acknowledged the 3'oung chieftain. The great Mr. Dryden f declared that he was equal to Shaks- * "It has been observed that no change of Ministers affected him in the least ; nor was lie ever removed from any post that was given to him, except to a better. His place in the Custom House, and his office of Sec- retary in Jamaica, are said to have brought him in upwards of twelve hundred a year." — Biog. Brit., J.r^' Congreve. t Dryden addressed his " twelfth epistle " to " My dear friend, Mr. Congreve," on his compdy called the " Double Dealer," in which he says : — "Great Jonson did by strength of judgment please ; Yet doubling Fletcher's force, he wants his ease. In differing talents both adorned their age : One for the study, t'other for the stage. But both to Congreve justly shall submit, One match'd in judgment, both o'ermatched in wit. In him all beauties of this age we see," &c. &c. The "Double Dealer," however, was not so palpable a hit as the "Old Bachelor," but, at first, met with opposition. The critics having fallen foul of it, our " Swell " applied the scourge to that presumptuous body, in the "Epistle Dedicatory " to the " Right Honorable Charles Montague." " I was conscious," said he, " where a true critic might have put me upon my defence. I was prepared for the attack, .... but I have not heard anything said sufficient to provoke an answer." He goes on — " But there is one thing at which I am more concerned than all the false criticisms that are made upon me ; and that is, some of the ladies are offended. I am heartily sorry for it ; for I declare, I would rather dis- oblige all the critics in the world than one of the fair sex. They are con- cerned that I have represented some women vicious and affected. How can I help it ? It is the business of a comic poet to paint the vices and foiiieg cf human kind I should be very glad of an opportunity ta 138 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. peare, and bequeathed to him his own undisputed poetical crown, and writes of him: " Mr. Congreve has done me the favor to review the ' jEneis,' and compare my version with the original. I shall never be ashamed to own that this ex- cellent ^'oung man has showed me manv faults which I have endeavored to correct." The "excellent young man" was but three or four and twent}" when the great Dr3xlen thus spoke of him : the greatest literary chief in England, the veteran field-marshal of letters, himself the marked man of all Europe, and the centre of a school of wits, who dail3" gathered round his chair and tobacco- pipe at Will's. Pope dedicated his "Iliad" to him; * Swift, Addison, Steele, all acknowledge Congreve's rank, and lavish compliments upon him . Voltaire went to wait upon him as on one of the Representatives of Literature ; and the man who scarce praises any other living person — who flung abuse at Pope, and Swift, and Steele, and Addison — the Grub Street Timon, old John Dennis, t was hat in hand to Mr. Congreve ; and said that when he retired from the stage, Comedj^ went with him. Nor was he less victorious elsewhere. He was admired in the drawing-rooms as well as the coffee-houses ; as much be- loved in the side-box as on the stage. He loved, and conquered, and jilted the beautiful Bracegirdle,| the heroine of all his plays, the favorite of all the town of her da}' ; and the Duchess of make my compliments to those ladies who are offended. But they can no more expect it in a comedy, than to be tickled by a surgeon ivhen he is letting their blood." * " Instead of endeavoring to raise a vain monument to myself, let me leave behind me a memorial of my friendship with one of the most valu- able men as well as finest writers of my age and country — one who has tried, and knows by his own experience, how hard an undertaking it is to do justice to Homer — and one who, I am sure, seriously rejoices with me at the period of my labors. To him, therefore, having brought this long work to a conclusion, I desire to dedicate it, and to have the honor and satisfaction of placing together in this manner the names of Mr. Congreve and of — A. Pope." — Postscript to Translation of the Iliad of Homer. Mar. 25, 1720. t " When asked why he listened to the praises of Dennis, he said he had much rather be flattered than abused. Swift had a particular friend- ship for our author, and generously took him under his protection in his high authoritative manner." — Thos. Davies : Dramatic Miscellanies. X " Congreve was very intimate for years with Mrs. Bracegirdle, and lived in the same street, his house very near hers, until his acquaintance with the young Duchess of Marlborough. He then quitted that house. The Duchess showed me a diamond necklace (which Lady Di. used after- wards to wear) that cost seven thousand pounds, and was purchased with the money Congreve left her. How much better would it have been to have given it to poor Mrs. Bracegirdle." — Dr. Young. Spence's Anerdotps. COXGREVE AND ADDISON. 139 Marlborough, Marlborough's daughter, had such an admiration of him, that when he died she had an ivor}' figure made to imi- tate him,* and a large wax doll with gouty feet to be dressed just as the great Congreve's gout}' feet were dressed in his great lifetime. lie saved some mone}- b}' his Pipe Office, and his Custom House office, and his Hackne}- Coach office, and nobly left it, not to Bracegirdle, who wanted it,t but to the Duchess of Marlborough, who didn't. | How can I introduce to you that merr^^ and shameless Comic Muse who won him such a reputation ? Nell Gwj'nn's servant fought the other footman for having called his mistress a bad name ; and in like manner, and with prett^^ like epithets, Jerem}' Collier attacked that godless, reckless Jezebel, the English comedy of his time, and called her what Nell Gwynn's man's fellow-servants called Nell Gw3^nn's man's mistress. The ser- vants of the theatre, Dryden, Congreve,§ and others, defended 4 * " A glass was put in the hand of the statue, which was supposed to bow to her Grace and to nod in approbation of what she spoke to it." — Thos. Davies : Dramatic Miscellanies. t The sum Congreve left Mrs. Bracegirdle was 200/., as is said in the " Dramatic Miscellanies " of Tom Davies ; where are some particulars about this charming actress and beautiful woman. » She had a " lively aspect," says Tom, on the authority of Gibber, and " such a glow of health and cheerfulness in her countenance, as inspired everybody with desire." " Scarce an audience saw her that were not half of them her lovers." Congreve and Rowe courted her in the persons of their lovers. " In Tamerlane, Rowe courted her Selima, in the person of Axalla . . . ; Con- greve insinuated his addresses in his Valentine to her Angelica, in ' Love for Love;' in his Osmyn to her Almena, in the 'Mourning Bride; 'and, lastly, in his Mirabel to her Millamant, in the ' AVay of the World.' Mirabel, the fine gentleman of tlie play, is, I believe, not very distant from the real character of Congreve." — Dramatic MisceUanies, vol. iii. 1784. She retired from the stage when Mrs. Oldfield began to be the public favorite. She died in 1748, in the eighty-fifth year of her age. t Johnson calls his legacy the " accumulation of attentive parsimony, which," he continues, "though to her (the Duchess) superfluous and useless, might have given great assistance to the ancient family from which he descended, at that time, by the imprudence of his relation, reduced to difficulties and distress." — Lives of the Poets. § He replied to Collier, in the pamphlet called " Amendments of Mr. Collier's False and Imperfect Citations," &c. A specimen or two are sub- joined : — " The greater part of these examples which he has produced are only demonstrations of his own impurity : they only savor of his utterance, and were sweet enough till tainted by his breath. •* Where the expression is unblamable in its own pure and genuine signification, he enters into it, himself, like tlie evil spirit; he possesses the innocent phrase, and makes it bellow forth liis own blasphemies. " If I do not return him civilities in calling him names, it is because I 140 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. themselves with the same success, and for the same cause which set Nell's lacke3^ fighting. She was a disreputable, daring, laughing, painted French baggage, that Comic Muse. She came over from the Continent with Charles (who chose many more of his female friends there) at the Restoration — a wild, dishevelled Lais, with e3^es bright with wit and wine — a saucy court- favorite that sat at the King's knees, and laughed in his face, and when she showed her bold cheeks at her chariot- window, had some of the noblest and most famous people of the land bowing round her wheel. She was kind and popular enough, that daring Corned}', that audacious poor Nell : she was ga}^ and generous, kind, frank, as such people can afford to be : and the men who lived with her and laughed with her, took her pay and drank her wine, turned out when the Puritans hooted her, to fight and defend her. But the jade was indefensible, and it is prett}^ certain her servants knew it. There is life and death going on in everj'thing : truth and lies alwa3^s at battle. Pleasure is alwa3's warring against self- restraint. Doubt is alwaj's crying Psha ! and sneering. A man in life, a humorist, in writing about life, s^ays over to one principle or the other, and laughs with the reverence for right and tlie love of truth in his heart, or laughs at these from the other side. Didn't I tell you that dancing was a serious busine«s to Harlequin ? I have read two or three of Congreve's plays over before speaking of him ; and my feelings were rather like those, which I dare sa}^, most of us here have had, at Pompeii, look- ing at Sallust's house, and the relics of an orgy : a dried wine- jar or two, a charred supper-table, the breast of a dancing-girl * pressed against the ashes, the laughing skull of a jester : a per- fect stillness round about, as the cicerone twangs his moral, and the blue sky shines calmly over the ruin. The Congreve Muse is dead, and her song choked in Time's ashes. We gaze at the skeleton, and wonder at the life which once revelled in its mad veins. We take the skull up, and muse over the frolic and daring, the wit, scorn, passion, hope, desire, with which that empty bowl once fermented. We think of the glances that allured, the tears that melted, of the bright eyes that shone in am not very well versed in his nomenclatures. ... I will only call him Mr. Collier, and that I will call him as often as I think he shall deserve it. " The corruption of a rotten divine is the generation of a sour critic." " Congreve," says Dr. Johnson, '' a very young man, elated with suc- cess, and impatient of censure, assumed an air of confidence and security. . . . The dispute was protracted through ten years ; but at last Comedy grew more modest, and Collier lived to see the reward of his labors in the reformation of the theatre." — Life of Congreve. - CONGREVE AKD ADDISON. 141 those vacant sockets ; and of lips whispering love, and cheeks dimpling with smiles, that once covered 3'on ghastly 3^ellow framework. They used to call those teeth pearls once. See ! there's the cup she drank from, the gold chain she wore on her neck, the vase which held the rouge for her cheeks, her looking- glass, and the harp she used to dance to. Instead of a feast we find a gravestone, and in place of a mistress, a few bones ! Reading in these plays now, is like shutting your ears and looking at people dancing. What does it mean? the measures, the grimaces, the bowing, shuffling and retreating, the cavalier seul advancing upon those ladies — those ladies and men twirl- ing round at the end in a mad galop, after whi(;h everj'bod}' bows and the quaint rite is celebrated. Without the music we can't understand that comic dance of the last centurv — its strange gravity and ga3'ety, its decorum or its indecorum. It has a jargon of its own quite unlike life ; a sort of moral of its own quite unlike life too. I'm afraid it's a Heathen myster}^ symbolizing a Pagan doctrine ; protesting — as the Pompeians very likely were, assembled at their theatre and laughing at their games ; as Sallust and his friends, and their mistresses protested, crowned with flowers, with cups in their hands — against the new, hard, ascetic pleasure-hating doctrine whose gaunt disciples, lately' passed over from the Asian shores of the Mediterranean, were for breaking the fair images of Venus and flinging the altars of Bacchus down. I fancy poor Congreve's theatre is a temple of Pagan de- lights, and m3'steries not permitted except among heathens. I fear the theatre carries down that ancient tradition and worship, as masons have carried their secret signs and rites from temple to temple. When the libertine hero carries off" the beautj^ in the play, and the dotard is laughed to scorn for having the young wife ; in tlie ballad, when the poet bids his mistress to gather roses while she may, and warns her that old Time is still a-flying: in the ballet, when honest Corydon courts Phiflis under the treillage of the pasteboard cottage, and leers at her over the head of grandpapa in red stockings, who is oppor- tunely asleep ; and when seduced by the invitations of the rosy youth she comes forward to the footlights, and they perform on each other's tiptoes that pas which 3'ou all know, and which is only interrupted by old grandpapa awaking from his doze at the pasteboard chalet (whither he returns to take another nap in case the 3^oung people get an encore) : when Harlequin, splendid in youth, stiength, and agility, arrayed in gold and a thousand colors, springs over the heads of countless perils, 142 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. leaps down the throat of bewildered giants, and, dauntless and splendid, dances danger down : when Mr. Punch, that godless old rebel, breaks ever}' law and laughs at it with odious triumph, outwits his law^'er, bullies the beadle, knocks his wife about the head, and hangs the hangman — don't 3'ou see in the corned}', in the song, in the dance, in the ragged little Punch's puppet- show — the Pagan protest? Doesn't it seem as if Life puts in its plea and sings its comment? Look how the lovers walk and hold each other's hands and whisper ! Sings the chorus — " There is nothing like love, there is nothing like 3'outh, there is nothing like beauty of your spring-time. Look ! how old age tries to meddle with merry sport ! Beat him with his own crutch, the wrinkled old dotard ! There is nothing like 3'outh, there is nothing like beauty, there is nothing like strength. Strength and valor win beaut}" and 3"outh. Be brave and con- quer. Be 3'oung and happ3'. Enjo3% enjo3', enjoy ! Would 3'ou know the Segreto per esserfeNce? Here it is, in a smiling mistress, and a cup of Falernian." As the boy tosses the cup and sings his song — hark ! what is that chant coming nearer and nearer ? What is that dirge which will disturb us ? The lights of the festival burn dim — the cheeks turn pale — the voice quavers — and the cup drops on the floor. Who's there ? Death and Fate are at the gate, and the3' ivill come in. Congreve's comic feast flares with lights, and round the table, emptying their flaming bowls of drink, and exchanging the wildest jests and ribaldr3^, sit men and w^omen, waited on b3' rascall3' valets and attendants as dissolute as their mis- tresses — perhaps the ver3'^ worst company in the world. There doesn't seem to be a pretence of morals. At the head of the table sits Mirabel or Belmour (dressed in the French fashion and waited on b3' English imitators of Scapin and Frontin). Their calling is to be irresistible, and to conquer ever3' where. Like the heroes of the chivalry stor3", whose long-winded loves and combats the3" were sending out of fashion, the3' are alwa3'S splendid and triumphant — overcome all dangers, vanquish all enemies, and win the beauty at the end. Fathers, husbands, usurers are the foes these champions contend with. The3' are merciless in old age, invariabl3', and an old man pla3"s the part in the dramas which the wicked enchanter or the great blun- dering giant performs in the chivalry tales, who threatens and grumbles and resists — a huge stupid obstacle alwa3"s overcome 133^ the knight. It is an old man with a money-box : Sir Belmour his son or nephew spends his money and laughs at him. It is an old man with a young wife whom he locks up : Sir Mirabel CONGEEVE AND ADDISON. 143 robs him of his wife, trips up his gouty old heels and leaves the old hunks. The old fool, what business has he to hoard his money, or to lock up blushing eighteen? Money is for 3'outh, love is for 3'outh, awa}^ with the old people. When Millamant is sixt}^ having of course divorced the first Lady Millamant, and married his friend Doricourt's granddaughter out of the nursery — it will be his turn ; and 3'oung Belmour will make a fool of him. All this pretty morality 3^ou have in the comedies of William Congreve, Esq. They are full of wit. Such manners as he observes, he observes with great humor ; but ah ! it's a weary feast, that banquet of wit where no love is. It palls very soon ; sad indigestions follow it and lonety blank headaches in the morning. I can't pretend to quote scenes from the splendid Congreve'a pla3'S * — which are undeniabl3^ bright, witt3", and daring — any * The scene of Valentine's pretended madness in " Love for Love " is a iplendid specimen of Congreve's daring manner : — " Scandal. — And have you given your master a hint of their plot upon him? " Jeremy. — Yes, sir ; he says he'll favor it, and mistake her for Angelica. " Scandal. — It may make us sport. ** Foresight. — Mercy on us ! " Valentine. — Husht — interrupt me not — I'll whisper predictions to thee, and thou shalt prophesie ; — I am truth, and can teach thy tongue a, new trick, — I have told thee what's past — now I'll tell what's to come : — Dost thou know what will happen to-morrow ? Answer me not — for I will tell thee. To-morrow knaves will thrive thro' craft, and fools thro' fortune ; and honesty will go as it did, frost-nipt in a summer suit. Ask me questions concerning to-morrow. " Scandal. — Ask him, Mr. Foresight. *' Foi'esight. — Pray what will be done at Court ? " Valentine. — Scandal will tell you ; — I am truth, I never come there. " Foresight. — In the city ? " Valentine. — Oh, prayers will be said in empty churches at the usual hours. Yet you will see such zealous faces behind counters as if religion were to be sold in every shop. Oh, things will go methodically in the city, the clocks will strike twelve at noon, and the horn'd herd buzz in the Ex- change at two. Husbands and wives will drive distinct trades, and care and pleasure separately occupy the family. Coffee-houses will be full of smoke and stratagem. And the cropt 'prentice that sweeps his mas- ter's shop in the morning, may, ten to one, dirty his sheets before night. But there are two things, that you will see very strange ; which are, wan- ton wives with their legs at liberty, and tame cuckolds with chains about their necks. But hold, I must examine you before I go further ; you look suspiciously. Are you a husband ? " Foresight. — I am married. " Valentine. — Poor creature ! Is your wife of Covent-garden Parish f *' Foresight. — No ; St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. " Valentine. — Alas, poor man ! his eyes are sunk, and his hands shriv- elled ; his legs dwindled, and his back bow'd. Pray, pray for a metamor- 144 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. more than I could ask you to hear the dialogue of a witty bargeman and a brilliant fishwoman exchanging compliments phosis — change thy shape, and shake off age ; get thee Medea's kettle and be boiled anew ; come forth with lab'ring callous hands, and chine of steel, and Atlas' shoulders. Let Taliacotius trim the calves of twenty chair- men, and make thee pedestals to stand erect upon, and look matrimony in the face. Ha, ha, ha ! That a man should have a stomach to a wedding- supper, when the pidgeons ought rather to be laid to his feet ! Ha, ha, ha ! " Foresight. — His frenzy is very high now, M?: Scandal. "Scandal. — I believe it is a spring-tide. "Foresight. — Very likely — truly; you understand these matters. Mr. Scandal, I shall be very glad to confer with you about these things he has uttered. His sayings are very mysterious and hieroglyphical. " Valentine. — Oh ! why would Angelica be absent from my eyes so long "* " Jeremy. — She's here, Sir. " Mrs. Foresight. — Now, Sister ! " Mrs. Frail. — Lord ! what must I say ? " Scandal. — Humor him. Madam, by all means. " Valentine. — Where is she ? Oh ! I see her : she comes like Riches, Health, and Liberty at once, to a despairing, starving, and abandoned wretch. Oli — welcome, welcome ! " Mrs. Frail. — How d'ye, Sir 1 Can I serve you 1 " Valentine. — Hark'ee — I have a secret to tell you. Endymion and the moon shall meet us on Mount Latmos, and we'll be married in the dead of night. But say not a word. Hymen shall put his torch into a dark Ian- thorn, that it may be secret ; and Juno shall give her peacock poppy- water, that he may fold his ogling tail ; and Argus's hundred eyes be shut — ha ! Nobody shall know, but Jeremy. " Mrs. Frail. — No, no ; we'll keep it secret ; it shall be done presently. " Valentine. — The sooner the better. Jeremy, come hither — closer — that none may overhear us. Jeremy, I can tell you news : Angelica is turned nun, and I am turning friar, and yet we'll marry one another in spite of the Pope. Get me a cowl and beads, that I may play my part ; for she'll meet me two hours hence in black and white, and a long veil to cover the pro- ject, and we won't see one another's faces till we have done something to be ashamed of, and then we'll blush once for all. . . . Enter Tattle. " Tattle.— Do you know me, Valentine? " Valentine. — You ! — who are you ? No, I hope not " Tattle. — I am Jack Tattle, your friend. " Valentine. — My friend ! What to do ? I am no married man, an(3 jthou canst not lye with my wife ; I am very poor, and thou canst not bor- row money of me. Then, what employment have I for a friend ? " Tattle. — Hah ! A good open speaker, and not to be trusted with a secret. " Angelica. — Do you know me, Valentine ? " Valentine. — Oh, very well. " Angelica. — Who am 11 • ♦' Valentine. — You're a woman, one to whom Heaven gave beauty when it grafted roses on a brier. You are the reflection of Heaven in a pond ; and he that leaps at you is sunk. You are all white— a sheet of spotless paper — when you first are born ; but you are to be scrawled and blotted CONGREVE AND ADDISON. 145 s»,t Billingsgate ; but some of his verses — they were amongst tlie most famous lyrics of the time, and pronounced equal to by every goose's quill. I know you ; for I loved a woman, and loved her so long that I found out a strange thing: I found out what a woman was good for. " Tattle. — Ay ! pr'ythee, what's that ? " Valentine. — Why, to keep a secret. " Tattle. — Lord ! " Valentine. — Oh, exceeding good to keep a secret; for, though she should tell, yet she is not to be believed. " Tattle. — Hah ! Good again, faith. " Valentine — I would have musick. Sing me the song that I like." — CoNGREVE : Love for Love. There is a Mrs. Nicklebt/, of the year 1700, in Congreve's Comedy of "" The Double Dealer," in whose character the author introduces some won- derful traits of roguish satire. She is practised on by the gallants of the play, and no more knows how to resist them than any of the ladies above quoted could resist Congreve. "Lady Plyant. — Oh ! reflect upon the horror of your conduct ! Offer- ing to pervert me" [the joke is that the gentleman is pressing the lady for her daughter's hand, not for her own] — "perverting me from the road of virtue, in which I have trod thus long, and never made one trip — not one faux pas. Oh, consider it: what would you have to answer for, if you should provoke me to frailty ! Alas ! humanity is feeble, heaven knows ! Very feeble, and unable to support itself. " Mellefont. — Where am I '* Is it day ? and am I awake ? Madam — " Lady Plyant. — O Lord, ask me the question ! I'll swear I'll deny it — therefore don't ask rae ; nay, you shan't ask me, I swear I'll deny it. O Gemini, you have brought all the blood into my face ; I warrant I am as red as a turkey-cock. O fie, cousin Mellefont ! " Mellefont. — Nay, Madam, hear me ; I mean — " Lad>/ Plyant. — Hear you 1 No, no ; I'll deny you first, and hear you afterwards. For one does not know how one's mind may change upon hearing — hearing is one of the senses, and all the senses are fallible. I won't trust my honor, I assure you; my honor is infallible and uncomat- able. "Mellefont. — For heaven's sake,JMadara — " Lady Plyant. — Oh, name it no more. Bless me, how can you talk of heaven, and have so much wickedness in your heart ? May be, you don't think it a sin. They say some of you gentlemen don't think it a sin ; but still, my honor, if it were no sin — But then, to marry my daughter for the convenience of frequent opportunities — I'll never consent to that: as sure as can be, I'll break the match. "Mellefont. — Death and amazement! Madam, upon my knees — " Lady Plyant. — Nay, nay, rise up ! come, you shall see my good-na- ture. I know love is powerful, and nobody can help his passion. 'Tis not your fault; nor I swear, it is not mine. How can I help it, if I have charms ? And how can you help it, if you are made a captive 1 I swear it is pity it should be a fault ; but, my honor. Well, but your honor, too — but the sin ! Well, but the necessity. O Lord, here's somebody coming. I dare not stay. Well, you must consider of your crime ; and strive as much as can be against it — strive, be sure; but don't be roelancholick — don't 10 146 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. Horace by his contemporaries — may give an idea of his power, of his grace, of his daring manner, his magnificence in com- pliment, and his polished sarcasm. He writes as if he was so accustomed to conquer, that he has a poor opinion of his victims. Nothing's new except their faces, saj-s he; "every woman is the same." He says this in his first comedy, which he wrote languidly* in illness, when he was an "excellent 3'oung man." Richelieu at eighty could have hardly said a more excellent thing. When he advances to make one of his conquests, it is with a splendid gallantry, in full uniform and with the fiddles play- ing, like Grammont's French dandies attacking the breach of Lerida. " Cease, cease to ask her name," he writes of a 3'oung lady at the Wells at Tunbridge, whom he salutes with a magnificent compliment — " Cease, cease to ask her name, The crowned Muse's noblest theme, Whose glory by immortal fame Shall only sounded be. But if you long to know, Then look round yonder dazzling row •; Who most does like an angel show. You may be sure 'tis she." Here are lines about another beauty, who perhaps was not so well pleased at the poet's manner of celebrating her — " When Lesbia first I saw, so heavenly fair, With eyes so bright and with that awful air, I thought my heart which durst so high aspire As bold as his who snatched celestial fire. " But soon as e'er the beauteous idiot spoke. Forth from her coral lips such folly broke : Like balm the trickling nonsense heal'd my wound, And what her eyes enthralled, her tongue unbound." despair; but never think that I'll grant you anything. O Lord, no ; but be sure you lay aside all thoughts of the marriage, for though I know you don't love Cynthia, only as a blind to your passion for me — yet it will make me jealous. O Lord, what did I say ? Jealous! No, no, I can't be jealous ; for I must not love you. Therefore, don't hope ; but don't de- spair neither. Oh, they're coming; I must fly." — The Double Dealer' : Act 2, sc. V. page 156. * " There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done everything by chance. The ' Old Bachelor ' was written for amusement in the languor of convalescence. Yet it is apparently composed with great elaborateness of dialogue and incessant ambition of wit." — Johnson : Lives of the Poets. CONGREVE AND ADDISON. 147 Amoret is a cleverer woman than the lovely Lesbia, but the poet does not seem to respect one much more than the other ; and described both with exquisite satirical humor — " Fair Amoret is gone astray : Pursue and seek her every lover. I'll tell the signs by which you may The wandering shepherdess discover. ''^Coquet and coy at once her air, Both studied, though both seem neglected-; Careless she is with artful care, Affecting to seem unaffected. " With skill her eyes dart every glance, Yet change so soon you'd ne'er suspect them ; For she'd persuade they wound by chance, Though certain aim and art direct them. " She likes herself, yet others hates For that which in herself she prizes ; And, while she laughs at them, forgets She is the thing that she despises." What could Amoret have done to bring down such shafts of ridicule upon her ? Could she have resisted the irresistible Mr. Congreve? Could anj-bod}'? Could Sabina, when she woke and heard such a bard singing under her window? " See," he writes — " See ! see, she wakes — Sabina wakes ! And now the sun begins to rise 1 Less glorious is the morn, that breaks From his bright beams, than her fair eyes. With light united, day they give ; But different fates ere night fulfil : How many by his warmth will live ! How many will her coldness kill ! " Are you melted ? Don't you think him a divine man ? If not touched by the brilliant Sabina, hear the devout Selinda : — "Pious Selinda goes to prayers. If I but ask the favor ; And yet the tender fool's in tears, When she believes I'll leave her : Would I were free from this restraint. Or else had hopes to win her : Would she could make of me a saint, Or I of her a sinner ! " What a conquering air there is about these! What an irresistible Mr. Congreve it is ! Sinner ! of course he will be a 148 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. sinner, the delightful rascal ! Win her ! of course he will win her, the victorious rogue ! He knows he will : he must — with such a grace, with such a fashion, with such a splendid em- broidered suit. You see him with red-heeled shoes deliciously turned out, passing a fair jewelled hand through his dishevelled periwig, and delivering a kiUing ogle along with his scented billet. And Sabina ? What a comparison that is between the nymph and ^, the sun ! The sun gives Sabina the /?«s, and does not venture to rise before her ladj'ship : the morn's bright beams are less glorious than her fair eyes: but before night ever3^bod3" will be frozen by her glances : everybody but one lucky rogue who shall be nameless. Louis Quatorze in all his glory is hardlj' more splendid than our Phoebus Apollo of the Mall and Spring Gardens.* When Voltaire came to visit the great Congreve, the latter rather affected to despise his literary reputation, and in this perhaps the great Congreve was not far wrong. t A touch of Steele's tenderness is worth all his finery ; a flash of Swift's lightning, a beam of Addison's pure sunshine, and his tawdry pla3^house taper is invisible. But the ladies loved him, and he was undoubtedly a pretty fellow. J * " Among those by whom it (' Will's ') was frequented, Southerne and Congreve were principally distinguished by Dryden's friendship. . . . But Congreve seems to have gained yet farther than Southerne upon Dryden's friendship. He was introduced to him by his first play, the celebrated ' Old Bachelor ' being put into the poet's hands to be revised. Dryden, after making a few alterations to fit it for the stage, returned it to the author with the high and just commendation, that it was the best first play he had ever seen." — Scott's Dryden, vol. i. p. 370. t It was in Surrey Street, Strand (where he afterwards died), that Voltaire visited him, in the decline of his life. The anecdote relating to his saying that he wished " to be visited on no other footing than as a gentleman who led a life of plainness and sim- plicity," is common to all writers on the subject of Congreve, and appears in the English version of Voltaire's " Letters concerning the English Nation," published in London, 1733, as also in Goldsmith's " Memoir of Voltaire." But it is worthy of remark, that it does not appear in the text of the same Letters in the edition of Voltaire's " CEuvres Completes " in the " Pantheon Litteraire." Vol. v. of his works. (Paris, 1837.) "Celui de tous les Anglais qui a porte le plus loin la gloire du theatre comique est feu M. Congreve. II n'a fait que peu de pieces, mais toutes sont excellentes dans leur genre. . . . Vous y voyez partout le langage des honnetes gens avec des actions de fripon ; ce qui prouve qu'il connaissait bien son monde, et qu'il vivait dans ce qu'on appelle la bonne compagnie." — Voltaire : Lettres sur les Anglais. Let. 19. J On the death of Queen Mary he publislied a Pastoral — " The Mourning Muse of Alexis." Alexis and Menalcas sing alternately in the orthodox way. The Queen is called Pastora. CONGREVE AND ADDISON. 149 We have seen in Swift a humorous philosopher, whose truth frightens one, and whose laughter makes one melancholy. We " I mourn Pastora dead, let Albion mourn, And sable clouds her chalky cliffs adorn/' says Alexis. Among other phenomena, we learn that — " With their sharp nails themselves the Satyrs wound, And tug their shaggy beards, and bite with grief the ground " — (a degree of sensibility not always found in the Satyrs of that period)i ... It continues — " Lord of these woods and wide extended plains, Stretch'd on the ground and close to earth his face, Scalding with tears the already faded grass. • • • • • To dust must all that Heavenly beauty come 1 And must Pastora moulder in the tomb 1 Ah Death ! more fierce and unrelenting far Than wildest wolves or savage tigers are ; With lambs and sheep their hvmgers are appeased. But ravenous Death the shepherdess has seized." This statement that a wolf eats but a sheep, whilst Death eats a shepherdess — that figure of the " Great Shepherd " lying speechless on his stomach, in a state of despair which neither winds nor floods nor air can exhibit — are to be remembered in poetry surely : and this style was admired in its time by the admirers of the great Congreve ! In the " Tears of Amaryllis for Amyntas " (the young Lord Blandford, the great Duke of Marlborough's only son), Amaryllis represents Sarah Duchess ! The tigers and wolves, nature and motion, rivers and echoes, come into work here again. At the sight of her grief — " Tigers and wolves their wonted rage forego, And dumb distress and new compassion show. Nature herself attentive silence kept. And motion seemed suspended while she wept ! " And Pope dedicated the " Iliad " to the author of these lines — and Dryden wrote to him in his great hand : "Time, place, and action may with pains be wrought, But Genius must be born and never can be taught. This is your portion, this your native store ; Heaven, that but once was prodigal before. To Shakspeare gave as much she could not give him more. Maintain your Post : that's all the fame you need, For 'tis impossible you should proceed ; Already I am worn witli cares and age. And just abandoning th' ungrateful stage : Un profitably kept at Heaven's expence, I live a Rent-charge upon Providence : But you, whom every Muse and Grace adorn. Whom I foresee to better fortune born. 150 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. have had in Congreve a humorous observer of another school, to whom the world seems to have no moral at all, and whose ghastl}' doctrine seems to be that we should eat, drink, and be merry when we can, and go to the deuce (if there be a deuce) when the time comes. We come now to a humor that flows from quite a different heart and spirit — a wit that makes us laugh, and leaves us good and happj'^ ; to one of the kindest benefactors that societj' has ever had 'y and I believe 3'ou have .divined already that I am about to mention Addison's honored name. From reading over his writings, and the biographies which we have of him, amongst which the famous article in the Ediiihurgh Review * may be cited as a magnificent statue of the great writer and moralist of the last age, raised by the love and the marvel- lous skill and genius of one of the most illustrious artists of our own ; looking at that calm, fair face, and clear countenance — those chiselled features pure and cold, I can't but fancy that this great man — in this respect, like him of whom we spoke in Be kind to my remains, and oh ! defend Against ^our Judgment your departed Friend ! Let not the insulting Foe my Fame pursue ; But shade those Lawrels wliich descend to You : And take for Tribute what these Lines express ; You merit more, nor could my Love do less." This is a very different manner of welcome to that of our own day. In Shadwell, Higgons, Congreve, and the comic authors of their time, when gentlemen meet they fall into each other's arms, with "Jack, Jack, I must buss thee;" or, "Fore George, Harry, I must kiss thee, lad." And in a similar manner the poets saluted their brethren. Literary gentlemen do not kiss now ; I wonder if they love each other better ? Steele calls Congreve " Great Sir " and " Great Author ; " says " Well- dressed barbarians knew his awful name," and addresses him as if he were a prince ; and speaks of " Pastora " as one of the most famous tragic com- positions. * " To Addison himself we are bound by a sentiment as much like affection as any sentiment can be which is inspired by one who has been sleeping a hundred and twenty years in Westminster Abbey. . . . After full inquiry and impartial reflection we have long been convinced that he de- served as much love and esteem as can justly be claimed by any of our infirm and erring race." — Macaulat. " Many who praise virtue do no more thgin praise it. Yet it is reason- able to believe that Addison's profession and practice were at no great variance ; since, amidst that storm of faction in which most of his life was passed, though his station made him conspicuous, and his activity made him formidable, the character given him by his friends was never contra- dicted by his enemies. Of those with whom interest or opinion united him, he had not only the esteem but the kindness ; and of others, whom the violence of opposition drove against him, though he might lose the love, he retained the reverence." — Johnson. MILTON, CONGREVE AND ADDISON. 151 the last lecture — was also one of the lonely ones of the world. Such men have ver}' few equals, and they don't herd with those. It is in the nature of such lords of intellect to be solitary — they are in the world but not of it ; and our minor struggles, brawls, successes, pass under them. Kind, just, serene, impartial, his fortitude not tried bej'ond easy endurance, his affections not much used, for his books were his family, and his society was in public ; admirably wiser, wittier, calmer, and more instructed than almost every man with whom he met, how could Addison suffer, desire, admire, feel much ? I may expect a child to admire me for being taller or writing more cleverly than she ; but how can I ask my supe- rior to say that I am a wonder when he knows better than I ? In Addison's da3's j'^ou could scarcely show him a literary per- formance, a sermon or a poem, or a piece of literary criticism, but he felt he could do better. His justice must have made him indifferent. He didn't praise, because he measured his compeers by a higher standard than common people have.* How was he who was so tall to look up to any but the loftiest genius ? He must have stooped to put himself on a level with most men. By that profusion of graciousness and smiles with which Goethe or Scott, for instance, greeted almost every liter- ar}^ beginner, every small literary adventurer who came to his court and went away channed from the great king's audience, and cuddling to his heart the compliment which his literary majesty had paid him — each of the two good-natured poten- tates of letters brought their star and ribbon into discredit. Everybody had his majestj-'s orders. Everybody had his majesty's cheap portrait, on a box surrounded with diamonds worth twopence apiece. A very great and just and wise man ought not to praise indiscriminately, but giv^e his idea of the truth. Addison praises the ingenious Mr. Pinkethman : Ad- dison praises the ingenious Mr. Doggett, the actor, whose benefit is coming off that night : Addison praises Don Saltero : Addison praises Milton with all his heart, bends his knee and frankly paj's homage to that imperial genius. f But between * " Addison was perfect good company with intimates, and had some- thing more charming in his conversation than I ever knew in any other man ; but with any mixture of strangers, and sometimes only with one, lie seemed to preserve his dignity much, with a stiff sort of silence." — Pope. Spencers Anecdotes. t " Milton's chief talent, and indeed his distinguishing excellence, lies in the sublimity of his thoughts. There are others of the moderns, who rival him in every other part of poetry ; but in the greatness of his senti- ments he triumphs over all the poets, both modern and ancient. Homer onlj 152 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. those degrees of his men his praise is ver}? scanty. I don't think the great Mr. Addison liked 3'oung Mr. Pope, the Papist, much ; I don't tliink he abused him. But when Mr. Addison's men abused Mr. Pope, I don't think Addison took his pipe out of his mouth to contradict them.* Addison's father was a clergjman of good repute in Wilt- shire, aud rose in the church. f His famous son never lost his clerical training and scholastic gravit}', and was called " a par- son in a tye-wig " J in London afterwards at a time when tye- wigs were onlj' worn by the lait3^, and the fathers of theology did not think it decent to appear except in a full bottom. Having been at school at Salisbur}^, and the Charterhouse, in 1687, when he was fifteen 3'ears old, he went to Queen's Col- lege, Oxford, where he speedil}'' began to distinguish himself b}' the making of Latin verses. The beautiful and fanciful excepted. It is impossible for the imagination of man to distend itself with greater ideas than those wliich he has laid together in his first, second, and sixth books." — Spectator, No. 279. " If I were to name a poet that is a perfect master in all these arts of working on the imagination, I think Milton may pass for one." — Ibid. No. 417. These famous papers appeared in each Saturday's Spectator, from Jan- uary 19th to May 3rd, 1712. Beside his services to Milton, we may place tliose he did to Sacred Music. * " Addison was very kind to rae at first, but my bitter enemy after- wards." — Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. " ' Leave him as soon as you can,' said Addison to me, speaking of l*ope ; ' he will certainly play you some devilish trick else : he has an ap- petite to satire.'" — Lady Wortley Montagu. Spence's Anecdotes. t Lancelot Addison, his fatlier, was the son of another Lancelot Addi- son, a clergyman in Westmoreland. He became Dean of Lichfield and Archdeacon of Coventry. f " The remark of Mandeville, who, when he had passed an evening in his company, declared that he was ' a parson in a tye-wig,' can detract little from his character. He was always reserved to strangers, and was not incited to unconmion freedom by a character like that of Mandeville." — Johnson : Lives of the Poets. " Old Jacob Tonson did not like Mr. Addison : he had a quarrel with liim, and, after his quitting the secretaryship, used frequently to say of him — ' One day or other you'll see that man a bishop — I'm sure he looks that way; and indeed I ever thought him a priest in his heart.'" — Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. " Mr. Addison stayed above a year at Blois. He would rise as early as between two and three in the height of summer, and lie abed till between eleven and twelve in the depth of winter. He was untalkative whilst here, and often thoughtful : sometimes so lost in thought, that I have come into his room and stayed five minutes there before he lias known anything of it. He had his masters generally at supper with him; kept very little company beside ; and had no amour that I know of ; and I think I should have known it if he had had any." — Abbe Philippeaux of Blois. »S/w/cc's Anecdotes. CONGREVE AND ADDISON. 153 poem of " The Pigmies and the Cranes," is still read b}' lovers of that sort of exercise ; and verses are extant in honor of King William, by which it appears that it was the loyal youth's custom to toast that sovereign in bumpers of purple Lyseus : many more works are in the Collection, including one on the Peace of Ryswick, in 1697, which was so good that Montague got him a pension of 300/. a year, on which Addison set out on his travels. During his ten years at Oxford, Addison had deeply imbued himself with the Latin poetical literature, and had these poets at his fingers' ends when he travelled in Italy.* His patron went out of office, and his pension was unpaid : and hearing that this great scholar, now eminent and known to the literati of Europe (the great Boileau,t upon perusal of Mr. Addison's elegant hexameters, was first made aware that England was not alto- gether a barbarous nation) — hearing that the celebrated Mr. Addison, of Oxford, proposed to travel as governor to a young gentleman on the grand tour, the great Duke of Somerset pro- posed to Mr. Addison to accompanj' his son. Lord Hartford. Mr. Addison was delighted to be of use to his Grace, and his lordship his Grace's son, and expressed himself ready to set forth. His Grace the Duke of Somerset now announced to one of the most famous scholars of Oxford and Europe that it was his gracious intention to allow my Lord Hartford's tutor one hun- dred guineas per annum. Mr. Addison wrote back that his services were his Grace's, but he by no means found his ac- count in the recompense for them. The negotiation was broken ofJL. They parted with a profusion of congees on one side and the other. Addison remained abroad for some time, living in the best society of Europe. How could he do otherwise? He must have been one of the finest gentlemen the world ever saw : at all moments of life serene and courteous, cheerful and calm. J * " His knowledge of the Latin poets, from Lucretius and Catullus down to Claudian and Prudentius, was singularly exact and profound." — Ma- CAULAY. t " Our country owes it to liim, that the famous Monsieur Boileau first conceived an opinion of the English genius for poetry, by perusing tlie present he made him of the 'Musae Anglicanae.' " — Tickell: Preface to Addison's Works. J "It was my fate to be much with the wits ; my father was acquainted with all of them. Addison was the best company in the world. I never knew anybody that had so much wit as Congreve."-^LADY Woktley Montagu. Spence's Anecdotes. 154 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. He could scarcely ever have had a degrading thought. He might have omitted a virtue or two, or many, but could not have had many faults committed for which he need blush or turn pale. When warmed into confidence, his conversation appears to have been so delightful that the greatest wits sat rapt and charmed to listen to him. No man bore poverty and narrow fortune with a more lofty cheerfulness. His letters to his friends at this period of his life, when he had lost his Gov- ernment pension and given up his college chances, are full of courage and a ga}^ confidence and philosoph}' : and they are none the worse in my eyes, and I hope not in those of his last and greatest biographer (though Mr. Macaula}^ is bound to own and lament a certain weakness for wine, which the great and good Joseph Addison notoriously^ possessed, in common with countless gentlemen of his time) , because some of the letters are written when his honest hand was shaking a little in the morning after libations to purple L^^seus over-night. He was fond of drinking the healths of his friends : he writes to Wyche,* of Hamburg, gratefully remembering Wyche's "hoc." " I have been drinking your health to-day with Sir Richard Shirley," he writes to Bathurst. " I have latel}^ had the honor * Mr. Addison to Mr. Wyche. "Dear Sir, — My hand at present begins to grow steady enough for a letter, so the properest use I can put it to is to thank y« honest gentle- man that set it a shaking. I have had this morning a desperate design in my head to attack you in verse, which I should certainly have done could I have found out a rhyme to rummer. But though you have escaped for y« present, you are not yet out of danger, if I can a little recover my talent at crambo. I am sure, in whatever way I write to you, it will be im- possible for me to express y« deep sense I have of y« many favors you have lately shown me. I shall only tell you that Hambourg has been the pleasantest stage I have met with in my travails. If any of my friends wonder at me for living so long in that place, I dare say it will be thought a very good excuse when I tell him Mr. Wyche was there. As your com- pany made our stay at Hambourg agreeable, your wine has given us all y* satisfaction that we have found in our journey through Westphalia. If drinking your health will do you any good, you may expect to be as long- lived as Methuselah, or, to use a more familiar instance, as y^ oldest hoc in y^ cellar. I hope ye two pair of legs that was left a swelling behind us are by this time come to their shapes again. I can't forbear troubling you with my hearty respects to y^ owners of them, and desiring you to believe me always, • "Dear Sir, " Yours,'* &c. " To Mr. Wtche, His Majesty's Resident at Hambourg, " May, 1703." From, the Life of Addison, by Miss Aikin. Vol. i. p. 147. CONGREVE AND ADDISON". 155 to meet m}^ Lord Effingham at Amsterdam, where we have drunk Mr. Wood's health a hundred times in excellent cham- pagne," he writes again. Swift* describes him over his cups, when Joseph jielded to a temptation which Jonathan resisted. Joseph was of a cold nature, and needed perhaps the fire of wine to warm his blood. If he was a parson,, he wore a tj'e- wig, recollect. A better and more Christian man scarcely ever breathed than Joseph Addison. If he had not that little weak- ness for wine — why, we could scarcely have found a fault with him, and could not have liked him as we do.f At thirty-three j^ears of age, this most distinguished wit, scholar, and gentleman was without a profession and an in- come. His book of "Travels" had failed: hi& "Dialogues on Medals " had no particular success : his Latin verses, even though reported the best since Virgil, or Statins at any rate, had not brought him a Government place, and Addison was living up three shabby pair of stairs in the Ha3^market (in a poverty over which old Samuel Johnson rather chuckles), when in these shabby rooms an emissary from Government and For- * It is pleasing to remember that the relation between Swift and Ad- dison was, on the whole, satisfactory from first to last. The value of Swift's testimony, when nothing personal inflamed his vision or warped his judg- ment, can be doubted by nobody. " Sept. 10, 1710. — I sat till ten in the evening with Addison and Steele. " 11. — Mr. Addison and I dined together at his lodgings, and I sat with him part of this evening. " 18. — To-day I dined with Mr. Stratford at Mr. Addison's retirement near Chelsea I will get what good offices I can from Mr. Addison. ** 27. — To-day all our company dined at Will Frankland's, with Steele and Addison, too. " 29. — I dined with Mr. Addison," &c. — Journal to Stella. Addison inscribed a presentation copy of his Travels " To Dr. Jona- than Swift, the most agreeable companion, the truest friend, and the great- est genius of his age." — (Scott. From the information of Mr. Theophi- lus Swift.) " Mr. Addison, who goes over first secretary, is a most excellent person ; and being my most intimate friend, I shall use all my credit to set him right in his notions of persons and things." — Letters. " I examine my heart, and can find no other reason why I write to you now, besides that great love and esteem I have always had for you. I have nothing to ask you either for my friend or for myself." — Swift to Addi- son (1717). Scott's .Sjw/?. Vol. xix. p. 274. Political differences only dulled for a while their friendly communica- tions. Time renewed them : and Tickell enjoyed Swift's friendship as a legacy from the man with whose memory his is so honorably connected. t "Addison usually studied all the morning; then met his party at Button's ; dined there, and stayed five or six hours, and sometimes far into the night. I was of the company for about a year, but found it too much for me : it hurt my health, and so I quitted it." — Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. 156 EXGLISII HUMORISTS. tune came and found him.* A poem was wanted about the Duke of Marlborough's victorj'^ of Blenheim. Would Mr. Addison write one? Mr. Boyle, afterwards Lord Carleton, took back the repl}^ to the Lord Treasurer Godolphin, that Mr. Addison would. When the poem had reached a certain stage, it was carried to Godolphin ; and the last lines which he read were these : — " But, O my Muse ! what numbers wilt thou find To sing the furious troops in battle join'd ? Metliinks I hear the drum's tumultuous sound The victor's shouts and dying groans confound ; The dreadful burst of cannon rend the skies, And all the thunder of the battle rise. 'Twas then great Marlborough's mighty soul was proved, That, in the shock of charging hosts unmoved, Amidst confusion, horror, and despair. Examined all the dreadful scenes of war : In peaceful tliought the field of death surveyed, To fainting squadrons sent the timely aid. Inspired repulsed battalions to engage. And taught the doubtful battle where to rage. So when an angel, by divine command. With rising tempests shakes a guilty land (Such as of late o'er pale Britannia passed), Calm and serene -he drives the furious blast ; And, pleased the Almighty's orders to perform, Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm." Addison left off at a good moment. That simile was pro- nounced to be of the greatest ever produced in poetr3\ That angel, that good angel, flew off with Mr. Addison, and landed him in the place of Commissioner of Appeals — vice Mr. Locke providentially promoted. In the following 3'ear Mr. Addison went to Hanover with Lord Halifax, and the year after was made Under Secretary of State. O angel visits ! 3'ou come " few and far between " to literar}' gentlemen's lodgings ! Your wings seldom quiver at second-floor windows now ! You laugh? You think it is in the power of few writers now-a-days to call up such an angel? Well, perhaps not; but permit us to comfort ourselves by pointing out that there are in the poem of the "Campaign" some as bad lines as heart can desire : and to hint that Mr. Addison did vejy wiselj' in not going further with my Lord Godolphin than that * " When he returned to England (in 1702), with a meanness of appear- ance which gave testimony of the difficulties to which he had been reduced, he found his old patrons out of power, and was, therefore, for a time, at full leisure for the cultivation of his mind." — Johnson : Lives of the Poets. CONGREVE AND ADDISON. 157 angelical simile. Do allow me, just for a little harmless mis- chief, to read you some of the lines which follow. Here is the interview between the Duke and the King of the Romans after the battle : — "Austria's young monarch, whose imperial sway Sceptres and tlu'ones are destuied to obey, Whose boasted ancestry so high extends That in the Pagan Gods liis lineage ends, Comes from afar, in gratitude to own The great supporter of his father's throne. What tides of glory to his bosom ran Clasped in tli' embraces of the godlike man ! How were his eyes with pleasing wonder fixt. To see such fire with so much sweetness mixt ! Such easy greatness, such a graceful port, So turned and finished for the camp or court ! " How many fourth-form boys at Mr. Addison's school of Charterhouse could write as well as that now? The "Cam- paign " Ims blunders, triumphant as it was ; and weak points like all campaigns.* In the year 1713 "Cato" came out. Swift has left a de- scription of the first night of the performance. All the laurels of Europe were scarcely sufficient for the author of this pro- digious poem.f Laudations of Whig and Tory chiefs, popular * " Mr. Addison wrote very fluently ; but he was sometimes very slow and scrupulous in correcting. He would show his verses to several friends ; and would alter almost everything that any of them liinted at as wrong. He seemed to be too difl[ident of himself ; and too much concerned about his character as a poet ; or (as he worded it) too solicitous for that kind of praise which, God knows, is but a very little matter after all!" — Pope. S pence's Anecdotes. t " As to poetical affairs," says Pope, in 1713, " I am content at present to be a bare looker-on Cato was not so much the wonder of Rome in his days, as he is of Britain in ours ; and though all the foolish industry possible has been used to make it thought a party play, yet what the author once said of another may the most properly in the world be applied to him on this occasion : " ' Envy itself is dumb — in wonder lost ; And factions strive who shall applaud him most.' " The numerous and violent claps of the Wliig party on the one side of the theatre were echoed back by the Tories on the other ; while the author sweated behind the scenes with concern to find their applause proceeding more from the hand than the head I believe you have heard that, after all the applauses of the opposite faction, my Lord Bolingbroke sent for Booth, who played Cato, into the box, and presented him with fifty guineas in acknowledgment (as he expressed it) for defending the cause of liberty so well against a perpetual^ dictator." — Pope's Letters to Sir W. Trumbull. 158 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. ovations, complimentary garlands from literar}'' men, transla- tions in all languages, delight and homage from all — save from John Dennis in a minorit}'^ of one. Mr. Addison was called the "great Mr. Addison" aftei* this. The Coifee-house Senate saluted him Divus : it was heresy to question that decree. Meanwhile he was writing political papers and advancing in the political profession. He went Secretary to Ireland. He was appointed Secretary of State in 1717. And letters of his are extant, bearing date some year or two before, and written to 3^oung Lord "Warwick, in which he addresses him as " my dearest lord," and asks affectionate^ about his studies, and writes ver}^ prettilj^ about nightingales and birds'-nests, which he has found at Fulham for his lordship. Those nightingales were intended to warble in the ear of Lord Warwick's mamma. Addison married her ladyship in 1716 ; and died at Holland House three 3'ears after that splendid but dismal union.* " Cato " ran for tliirty-five nights without interruption. Pope wrote the Prologue, and Garth the Epilogue. It is worth noticing how many things in " Cato " keep their ground as habitual quotations, e.g. : — " . . . big with the fate Of Cato and of Rome." " 'Tis not in mortals to command success, But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it." " Blesses his stars, and thinks it luxury." ** I think the Romans call it Stoicism." " My voice is still for war." " When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, The post of honor is a private station." Not to mention — " The woman who deliberates is lost." And the eternal — " Plato, thou reasonest well," which avenges, perhaps, on the public their neglect of the play ! * " The lady was persuaded to marry him on terms much like those on which a Turkish princess is espoused — to whom the Sultan is reported to pronounce, ' Daughter, I give thee this man for thy slave.' The marriage, if uncontradicted report can be credited, made no addition to his happiness ; it neither foUnd them, nor made them, equal Rowe's ballad of ' The Despairing Shepherd ' is said to have been written, either before or after marriage, upon this memorable pair." — Dr. Johnson. " I received the news of Mr. Addison's being declared Secretary of State with the less surprise, in that I knew that post was almost offered to him before. At that time he declined it, and I really believe that he would CONGREVE AND ADDISON. 159 But it is not for his reputation as the great author of ^' Cato" and the "Campaign," or for his merits as Secretary of State, or for his rank and high distinction as mj^ Lady War- wick's husband, or for his eminence as an Examiner of pohti- cal questions on the Whig side, or a Guardian of British Hberties, that we admire Joseph Addison. It is as a Tatler of small talk and a Spectator of mankind, that we cherish and love him, and owe as much pleasure to him as to any human beino- that ever wrote. He came in that artificial age, and began to speak with his noble, natural voice. He came, the gentle satirist, who hit no unfair blow ; the kind judge who castigated only in smihng. While Swift went about, hanging and ruthless — a literary Jeffreys — in Addison's kind court only minor cases were tried : only peccadilloes and small sins aoainst society : only a dangerous hbertinism in tuckers and hoops ; * or a nuisance in the abuse of beaux canes and snuff- have done well to have declined it now. Such a post as that, and such a wife as the Countess, do not seem to be, in prudence, eligible for a man that is asthmatic, and we may see the day when he will be heartily glad to resign them both." — Lady Wortley Montagu to Pope : Wurks, Lord WharncUffe's edit., vol. ii. p. 111. The issue of this marriage was a daughter, Charlotte Addison, who inherited, on her mother's death, the estate of Bilton, near Rugby, which her father had purchased. She was of weak intellect, and died, unmarried, at an advanced age. . Rowe appears to have been faithful to Addison durmg his courtship, for his Collection contains " Stanzas to Lady Warwick, on Mr. Addison's going to Ireland," in which her ladyship is called " Chloe," and Joseph Addison " Lycidas ; " besides the ballad mentioned by the Doctor, and which is entitled " Colin's Complaint." But not even the interest attached to the name of Addison could induce the reader to peruse this composi- tion, though one stanza may serve as a specimen : — " What though I have skill to complain — Though the Muses my temples have crowned ; What though, when they hear my soft strain, The virgins sit weeping around. " Ah, Colin ! thy hopes are in vain ; Thy pipe and thy laurel resign ; Thy false one inclines to a swain Whose music is sweeter than thine." * One of the most humorous of these is the paper on Hoops, which, the Spectator tells us, particularly pleased his friend Sir Roger : " Mr. Spectator, — You have diverted the town almost a whole month at the expense of the country ; it is now high time that you should give the country their revenge. Since your withdrawing from this place, the fair sex are run into great extravagances. Their petticoats, which 160 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. boxes . It ma}' be a lad}^ is tried for breaking the peace of our sovereign lady Queen Anne, and ogling too dangerously from the side-box ; or a Templar for beating the watch, or breaking Priscian's head : or a citizen's wife for caring too much for the puppet-show, and too little for her husband and children : every one of the little sinners brought before him is amusing, and he dismisses each with the pleasantest penalties and the most charming words of admonition. Addison wrote his papers as gayly as if he was going out for a holiday. When Steele's '' Tatler" first began his prattle, Addison, then in Ireland, caught at his friend's notion, poured in paper after paper, and contributed the stores of his mind, the sweet fruits of his reading, the delightful gleanings of his daily observation, with a wonderful profusion, and as it seemed an almost endless fecundity. He was six-and-thirty 3'ears old : full and ripe. He had not worked crop after crop from his brain, manuring hastilj', subsoihng indifferentlj', cutting and began to heave and swell before you left us, are now blown up into a most enormous concave, and rise every day more and more; in sliort, sir, since our women know themselves to be out of the eye of the Spectator, tliey will be kept within no compass. You praised them a little too soon, for the modesty of their head-dresses ; for as the humor of a sick person is often driven out of one limb into another, their superfluity of ornaments, instead of being entirely banished, seems only fallen from their heads upon their lower parts. What they have lost in height they make up in breadth, and, contrary to all rules of architecture, widen the foundations at the same time that they shorten the superstructure. " The women give out, in defence of these wide bottoms, that they are airy and very proper for the season ; but this I look upon to be only a pre- tence and a piece of art, for it is well known we have not had a more moderate summer these many years, so that it is certain the heat they copa- plain of cannot be in the weather ; besides, I would fain ask these tender- constitutioned ladies, why they should require more cooling than their mothers before them 1 " I find several speculative persons are of opinion that our sex has of late years been very saucy, and that the hoop-petticoat is made use of to keep us at a distance. It is most certain that a woman's honor cannot be better entrenched than after this manner, in circle within circle, amidst such a variety of outworks of lines and circumvallation. A female who is thus invested in whalebone is sufficiently secured against the approaches of an ill-bred fellow, who might as well think of Sir George Etheridge's way of making love in a tub as in the midst of so many hoops. " Among these various conjectures, there are men of superstitious tempers who look upon the hoop-petticoat as a kind of prodigy. Some will have it that it portends the downfall of t!ie French king, and observe, that the farthingale appeared in England a little before the ruin of the Spanish monarchy. Others are of opinion that it foretells battle and bloodshed, and Vielieve it of the same prognostication as the tail of a blazing star. For my part, I am apt to think it is a sign that multitudes are coming into the world rather than going out of it," &c. &c. — Spectator No. 127. CONGREVE AND ADDISOX. ICl sowing and cutting again, like other luckless cultivators of letters. He had not done much as 3'et ; a few Latin poems — graceful prolusions ; a polite book of travels ; a dissertation on medals, not very deep ; four acts of a tragedy, a great classical exercise ; and the " Campaign," a large prize poem that won an enormous prize. But with his friend's discover}^ of the " Tatler," Addison's calling was found, and the most delightful talker in the world began to speak. He- does not go very deep : let gentlemen of a profound genius, critics accustomed to the plunge of the bathos, console themselves by thinking that he couldn't go ver}^ deep. There are no traces of suffering in his writing. He was so good, so honest, so healthy, so cheerfully selfish, if I must use the word. There is no deep sentiment. I doubt, until after his marriage, perhaps, whether he ever lost his night's rest or his day's tranquillity about any woman in his life ; * whereas poor Dick Steele had capacit}^ enough to melt, and to languish, and to sigh, and to cry his honest old eyes out, for a dozen. His writings do not show insight into or reverence for the love of women, which I take to be, one the consequence of the other. He walks about the world watching their prett}' humors , fashions, follies, flirtations, rivalries ; and noting them v/ith the most charming archness. He sees them • in public, in the theatre, or the assembly, or the puppet-show ; or at the toyshop higgling for gloves and lace ; or at the auction, battling together over a blue porcelain dragon, or a darling monster in Japan ; or at church, eying the width of their rivals' hoops, or the breadth of their laces, as they sweep down the aisles. Or he looks out of his window at the "Garter" in St. James's Street, at Ardelia's coach, as she blazes to the drawing-room with her coronet and six footmen ; and remembering that her father was a Turkey merchant in the city, calculates how many sponges went to purchase her ear- ring, and how many drums of figs to build her coach-box ; or he demurely watches behind a tree in Spring Garden as Sac- charissa (whom he knows under her mask) trips out of her. chair to the alley where Sir Fopling is waiting. He sees only the public life of women. Addison was one of the most reso- lute club-men of his day. He passed many hours daily in those haunts. Besides drinking — which, alas ! is past praying for — — 3'OU must know it, he owned, too, ladies, that he indulged in that odious practice of smoking. Poor fellow ! He was a * " Mr. Addison has not had one epithalamium that I can hear of, and must even be reduced, Hke a poorer and a better poet, Spenser, to make hig own." — Pope's Letters. n 162 ENGLISH HUMOKISTS. man's man, remember. The onl}^ woman he did know, he didn't write about. I take it there would not have been much humor in that story. He likes to go and sit in the smoking-room at the " Grecian," or the "Devil;" to pace 'Change and the Mall* — to mingle * " I have observed that a reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure till he knows whether the writer of it be a black or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor ; with other particulars of a like nature, that conduce very much to the right understanding of an au- thor. To gratify this curiosity, which is so natural to a reader, I design this paper and my next as prefatory discourses to my following writings ; and shall give some account in them of the persons that are engaged in this work. As the chief trouble of compiling, digesting, and correcting will fall to my share, I must do myself the justice to open the work with my own history There runs a story in the family, that when my mother was gone with child of me about three months, she dreamt that she was brought to bed of a judge. Whether this might proceed from a lawsuit which was then depending in the family, or my father's being a justice of the peace, I cannot determine ; for I am not so vain as to think it presaged any dignity that I should arrive at in my future life, though that was the interpretation which the neighborhood put upon it. The gravi- ty of my behavior at my very first appearance in the worlds and all the time that I sucked, seemed to favor my mother's dream ; for, as she has often told me, I threw away my rattle before I was two months old, and would not make use of my coral till they had taken away the bells from it. "As for the rest of my infancy, there being nothing in it remarkable, I shall pass it over in silence. I find that during my nonage I had the reputation of a very sullen youth, but was always the favorite of my schoolmaster, who used to say that my parts were solid and would ivear well, I had not been long at the university before I distinguished myself by a most profound silence ; for during the space of eight years, excepting in the public exercises of the college, I scarce uttered the quantity of an hundred words ; and, indeed, I do not remember that I ever spoke three sentences together in my whole life " I have passed my latter years in this city, where I am frequently seen in most public places, though there are not more than half a dozen of my select friends that know me There is no place of general resort wherein I do not often make my appearance ; sometimes I am seen thrust- ing my head into a round of politicians at * Will's,' and listening with great attention to the narratives that are made in these little circular audiences. Sometimes I smoke a pipe at 'Child's,' and whilst I seem attentive to noth- ing but the Postman, overhear the conversation of every table in the room. I appear on Tuesday night at ' St. James's Coffee-house ; ' and sometimes join the little committee of politics in the inner room, as one who comes to hear and improve. My face is likewise very well known at the ' Grecian,* the ' Cocoa-tree,' and in the theatres both of Drury Lane and the Hay- market. I have been taken for a merchant upon the Exchange for above these two years ; and sometimes pass for a Jew in the assembly of stock- jobbers at ' Jonathan's.' In short, wherever I see a cluster of people, I mix with them, though I never open my lips but in my own club. " Thus I live in the world rather as a ' Spectator ' of mankind than as one of the species ; by which means I have made myself a speculative ■tatesman, soldier, merchant and artisan, without ever meddling in any CONGREVE AND ADDISON. 1G3 in that great club of the world — sitting alone in it somehow : having good-will and kindness for every single man and woman in it — having need of some habit and custom binding him to some few ; never doing any man a wrong (unless it be a wrong to hint a little doubt about a man's parts, and to damn him with faint praise) ; and so he looks on the world and inlays with the ceaseless humors of all of us — laughs the kindest laugh — points our neighbor's foible or eccentricit}^ out to us with the most good-natured, smiling confidence ; and then, turning over his shoulder, whispers our foibles to our neighbor. What would Sir Roger de Coverley be without his follies and his charming little brain-cracks ? * If the good knight did not call out to the people sleeping in church, and say ''Amen" with such a delightful pomposity : if he did not make a speech in the assize-court apropos de bottes, and merely to show his dignity to Mr. Spectator : t if he did not mistake Madam Doll •Tearsheet for a lady of quality in Temple Garden ; if he wei-e wiser than he is : if he had not his humor to salt his life, and were but a mere English gentleman and game-preserver — of wh^t worth were he to us ? We love him for his vanities as much as his virtues. What is ridiculous is delightful in him ; practical part in life. I am very well versed in the theory of a husband or a father, and can discern the errors in the economy, business, and diver- sions of others, better than those who are engaged in them — as standers- by discover blots which are apt to escape those who are in the game. . . . In short, I have acted in all the parts of my life, as a looker-on, which is the character I intend to preserve in this paper." — Spectator, No. 1. * " So effectually, indeed, did he retort on vice the mockery which had recently been directed against virtue, that, since his time, the open viola- tion of decency has always been considered, amongst us, the sure mark of a fool." — Macaulay. t " The Court was sat before Sir Roger came ; but, notwithstanding all the justices had taken their places upon the bench, tiiey made room for the old knight at the head of them ; who for his reputation in the country took occasion to whisper in the judge's ear that he teas glad his lordship had met with so wuch good weather in his circuit. I was listening to tlie proceedings of the Court with much attention, and infinitely pleased^ with that great appearance and solemnity which so properly accompanies such a public administration of our laws ; v/hen, after about an hour's sitting, I observed, to my great surprise, in the midst of a trial, that my friend Sir Roger was getting up to speak. I was in some pain for liim, till I found he had ac- quitted himself of two or three sentences, with a look of much business and great intrepidity. " Upon his first rising, the Court was hushed, and a general whisper ran among the country people that Sir Roger was up. The speech he made was so little to the purpose, that I shall not trouble my readers with an account of it, and I believe was not so much designed by the knight him- eelf to inform the Court as to give him a figure in my eyes, and to keep up his credit in the country." Spectator, No. 122. 164 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. we are so fond of him because we laugh at him so. And out of that laughter, and out of that sweet weakness, and out of those harmless eccentricities and follies, and out of that touched brain, and out of that honest manhood and simplicity — we get a result of happiness, goodness, tenderness, pit}^ piet}' ; such as, if my audience will think their reading and hearing over, doctors and divines but seldom have the fortune to in- spire. And why not? Is the glory of Heaven to be sung only by gentlemen in black coats ? Must the truth be onl}' expounded in gown and surplice, and out of those two vestments can nobody preach it? Commend me to this dear preacher without orders — this parson in the t3'e-wig. When this man looks from the world, whose weaknesses he describes so benevolently, up to the Heaven which shines over us all, I can hardh' fancy a human face lighted up with a more serene rapture : a human intellect thrilling with a purer love and adoration than Joseph Addison's. Listen to him : from 3'our childhood you have known the verses : but who can hear their sacred music with- out love and awe ? — ft " Soon as the evening shades prevail, The moon takes up the wondrous tale. And nightly to the listening earth Repeats the story of her birth ; Whilst all the stars tliat round her bum, And all the planets in their turn, Confirm the tidings as they roll, And spread the trutli from pole to pole. What though, in solemn silence, all Move round the dark terrestrial ball ; What though no real voice nor sound Amid their radiant orbs be found ; In reason's ear they all rejoice. And utter forth a glorious voice, For ever singing as they shine, The hand that made us is divine." It seems to me those verses shine like the stars. Thej^ shine out of a great deep calm. When he turns to Heaven a Sabbath comes over that man's mind : and his face lights up from it with a glory of thanks and prayer. His sense of religion stirs through his whole being. In the fields, in the town : looking at the birds in the trees : at the children in the streets : in the mornino; or in the moonlioht : over his books iji his own room : in a happy party at a country merry-making or a town assembly, good-will and peace to God's creatures, and love and awe of Him who made them, fill his pure heart and CONGREVE AND ADDISON. 165 shine from his kind face. If Swift's life was the most wretched, I think Addison's was one of the most enviable. A life pros- perous and beautiful — a calm death — an immense fame and affection afterwards for his happy and spotless name.* * "Garth sent to Addison (of whom he had a very high opinion) on his death-bed, to ask hiin whether the Christian religion was true." — Dr. Young. Spence's Anecdotes. " I liave always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. Tlie latter I consider as an act, the former as an habit of the mind. Mirth is short and tran- sient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent. Those are often raised into the greatest transports of rau'th who are subject to the greatest depression of n)elancholy : on the contrary, cheerfulness, though it does not give the mind such an exquisite gladness, prevents us from falling into any depths of sorrow. Mirth is like a flash of lightning that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment ; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of day- light in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.'' — Addison : Spectator, No. 381. STEELE. What do we look for in studying the history of a past age ? Is it to learn the political transactions and characters of the leading public men? is it to make ourselves acquainted with the life and being of the time ? If we set out with the former grave purpose, where is the truth, and who believes that he has it entire? What character of Avhat great man is known to you? You can but make guesses as to character more or less happ3\ In common life don't you often judge and misjudge a man's whole conduct, setting out from a wrong impression ? The tone of a voice, a word said in joke, or a trifle in behavior — the cut of his hair or the tie of his neck-cloth ma}' disfigure him in 3'our eyes, or poison your good opinion ; or at the end of years of intimacy it may be your closest friend says something, reveals something which had previouslj^ been a secret, which alters all your vievvs about him, and shows that he has been acting on quite a differ- ent motive to that which 3'ou fancied 30U knew. And if it is so with those 3'ou know, how much more with those 3'ou don't know? Sa3^, for example, that I want to understand the char- acter of the Duke of Marlborough. I read Swift's histor3^ of the times in which he took a part ; the shrewdest of observers and initiated, one would think, into the politics of the age — he hints to me that Marlborough was a coward, and even of doubt- ful military capacit3' : he speaks of Walpole as a contemptible boor, and scarcel3' mentions, except to flout it, the great intrigue of the Queen's latter days, which was to have ended in bring- ing back the Pretender. Again, I read Marlborough's life by a copious archdeacon, who has the command of immense papers, of sonorous language, of what is called the best information ; and I get little or no insight into this secret motive which, I STEELE. 167 believe, influenced the whole of Marlborough's career, which caused his turnings and windings, his opportune fidelity and treason, stopped his army almost at Paris gate, and landed him finall}'^ on the Hanoverian side — the winning side : I get, I say, no truth, or only a portion of it, in the narrative of either writer, and believe that Coxe's portrait, or Swift's por- trait, is quite unlike the real Churchill. I take this as a single instance, prepared to be as sceptical about any other, and say to the Muse of History, " O venerable daughter of Mnemosyne, I doubt ever}" single statement you ever made since your lad}'- ship was a Muse ! For all your grave airs and high pretensions, 3'ou are not a whit more trustworthy than some of 3'our lighter sisters on whom j'^our partisans look down. You bid me listen to a general's oration to his soldiers : Nonsense ! He no more made it than Turpin made his dying speech at Newgate. You pronounce a panegyric of a hero : I doubt it, and say you flatter outrageously. You utter the condemnation of a loose character : I doubt it, and think you are prejudiced and take the side of the Dons. You oflTer me an autobiography : I doubt all auto- biographies I ever read ; except those, perhaps, of Mr. Robin- son Crusoe, Mariner, and writers of his class. These have no object in setting themselves right with the public or their own consciences ; these have no motive for concealment or half- truths ; these call for no more confidence than I can cheerfully give, and do not force me to tax m}^ credulity or to fortify it by evidence. I take up a volume of Dr. Smollett, or a volume of the Spectator^ and say the fiction carries a greater amount of truth in solution than the volume which purports to be all true. Out of the fictitious book I get the expression of the life of the time ; of the manners, of the movement, the dress, the pleasures, the laughter, the ridicules of society — the old times live again, and I travel in the old country of England. Can the heaviest historian do more for me ? " As we read in these delightful volumes of the Tatler and Spectator the past age returns, the England of our ancestors is revivified. The Maypole rises in the Strand again in London ; the churches are thronged with daily worshippers ; the beaux are gathering in the coffee-houses ; the gentry are going to the Drawing-room ; the ladies are thronging to the to3-shops ; the chairmen are jostling in the streets ; the footmen are running with links before the chariots, or fighting round the theatre doors. In the country I see the 3^oung Squire riding to Eton with his servants behind him, and Will Wimble, the friend of the family, to see him safe. To make that journey from* the 168 ENGLISH HmiORFSTS. Squire's and back, Will is a week on horseback. The coach takes five days between London and Bath. The judges and the bar ride the circuit. If my lad}^ comes to town in her post- chariot, her people carry pistols to fire a salute on Captain Macheath if he should appear, and her couriers ride ahead to prepare apartments for her at the great caravanserais on the road ; Boniface receives her under the creaking sign of the "Bell" or the "Ram," and he and his chamberlains bow her up the great stair to the state-apartments, whilst her carriage rumbles into the court-,yard, where the " Exeter Fly" is housed that performs the journey in eight days, God willing, having achieved its daily flight of twenty miles, and landed its pas- sengers for supper and sleep. The curate is taking his pipe in the kitchen, where the Captain's man — having hung up his master's half pike — is at his bacon and eggs, bragging of Ramillies and Malplaquet to the town's-folk, who have their club in the chimney-corner. The Captain is ogling the cham- bermaid in the wooden galler}-, or bribing her to know who is the pretty 3'oung mistress that has come in the coach. The pack-horses are in the great stable, and the drivers and ostlers carousing in the tap. And in Mrs. Landlady's bar, over a glass of strong waters, sits a gentleman of militar}' appearance, who travels with pistols, as all the rest of the world does, and has a rattling gray mare in the stables which will be saddled and away with its owner half an hour before the "Fly" set» out on its last day's flight. And some five miles on the road, as the " Exeter Fly" comes jingling and creaking onwards, it will suddenly be brought to a halt b}^ a gentleman on a gray mare, with a black vizard on his face, who thrusts a long pistol into the coach window, and bids the company to hand out their purses It must have been no small pleasure even to sit in the great kitchen in those da3's, and see the tide of human- kind pass by. We arrive at places now, but we travel no more. Addison talks jocularly of a diff'erence of manner and costume being quite perceivable at Staines, where there passed a 3'oung fellow " with a very tolerable periwig," though, to be sure, his hat was out of fashion, and had a Ramillies cock. I would have liked to travel in those da3's (being of that class of travel- lers who are proverbialh' pretty eas3" coram latronibas) and have seen m3" friend with the gra3^ mare and the black vizard. Alas ! there always came a day in the life of that warrior when it was the fashion to accompany him as he passed — without his black mask, and with a nosegay in his hand, accompanied b3' hal- berdiers and attended by the sheriff, — in a carriage without STEELE. 169 springs, and a clerg3'man jolting beside him, to a spot close by Cumberland Gate and the Marble Arch, where a stone still records that here Tyburn turnpike stood. What a change in a centurj' ; in a few 3'ears I Within a few 3"ards.of that gate the fields began : the fields of his exploits, behind the hedges of which he lurked and robbed. A great and wealthy city has grown over those meadows. Were a man brought to die there now, the windows would be closed and the inhabitants keep their houses in sickening horror. A hundred years back, peo- ple crowded to see that last act of a highwayman's life, and make jokes on it. Swift laughed at him, grimh^ advising him to provide a Holland shirt and white cap crowned with a crim- son or black ribbon for his exit, to mount the cart cheerfully — shake hands with the hangman, and so — farewell. Gay wrote the most delightful ballads, and made merry over the same hero. Contrast these with the writings of our present humorists ! Compare those morals and ours — those manners and ours ! We can't tell — 3'ou would not bear to be told the whole truth regarding those men and manners. You could no more suffer in a British drawing-room, under the reign of Queen Victoria, a fine gentleman or fine lad}' of Queen Anne's time, or hear what they heard and said, than 3'ou would receive an ancient Briton. It is as one reads about savages, that one contemplates the wild ways, the barbarous feasts, the terrific pastimes, of the men of pleasure of that age. We have our fine gentlemen, and our " fast men ; " permit me to give j'ou an idea of one particularly fast nobleman of Queen Anne's da3's, whose biograph}' has been preserved to us by the law reporters. In 1691, when Steele was a boy at school, my Lord Mohun was tried by his peers for the murder of William Mountford, comedian. In "Howell's State Trials," the reader will find not onty an edifying account of this exceedingly fast nobleman, but of the times and manners of those days. My lord's friend, a Captain Hill, smitten with the charms of the beautiful Mrs. Bracegirdle, and anxious to marry her at all hazards, deter- mined to carry her off, and for this purpose hired a hackne3'- coach with six horses, and a half-dozen of soldiers, to aid him in the storm. The coach with a pair of horses (the four leaders being in waiting elsewhere) took its station opposite my Lord Craven's house in Drury Lane, b3' which door Mrs. Bracegirdle was to pass on her wa3' from the theatre. As she passed in compan3' of her mamma and a friend, Mr. Page, the 170 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. Captain seized her by the hand, the soldiers hustled Mr. Page and attacked him sword in hand, and Captain Hill and his noble friend endeavored to force Madam Bracegirdle into the coach. Mr. Page called for help : the population of Drury Lane rose : it was impossible to effect the capture ; and bidding the soldiers go about their business, and the coach to drive off, Hill let go of his pre^^ sulkih', and waited for other opportuni- ties of revenge. The man of whom he was most jealous was Will Mountford, the comedian ; Will removed, he thought Mrs. Bracegirdle might be his : and accordingly the Captain and his lordship la}- that night in wait for Will, and as he was coming out of a house in Norfolk Street, while Mohun engaged him in talk, Hill, in the words of the Attorne3'-General, made a pass and ran him clean through the bod}'. Sixty-one of m}' lord's peers finding him not guilt}'' of mur- der, while but fourteen found him guilty, this very fast noble- man was discharged : and made his appearance seven years after in another trial for murder — when he, my Lord Warwick, and three gentlemen of the military profession, were concerned in the fight which ended in the death of Captain Coote. This jolly company were drinking together at " Lockit's " in Charing Cross, when angry words arose between Captain Coote and Captain French ; whom my Lord Mohun and my Lord the Earl of Warwick * and Holland endeavored to pacify. My Lord Warwick was a dear friend of Captain Coote, lent him a hundred pounds to buy his commission in the Guards ; once when the captain was arrested for 13/. by his tailor, my lord lent him five guineas, often paid his reckoning for him, and showed him other offices of friendship. On this evening the disputants, French and Coote, being separated whilst they were upstairs, unluckily stopped to drink ale again at the bar of * The husband of the Lady Warwick who married Addison, and the father of the young Earl, who was brought to his step-father's bed to see " how a Christian could die." He was amongst the wildest of the nobility of that day ; and in the curious collection of Chap-Books at the British Museum, I have seen more than one anecdote of the freaks of the gay lord. He was popular in London, as such daring spirits have been in our time. The anecdotists speak very kindly of his practical jokes. Mohun was scarcely out of prison for his second homicide, when he went on Lord Macclesfield's embassy to the Elector of Hanover, when Queen Anne sent the garter to H. E. Highness. The chronicler of the expedition speaks of his lordship as an amiable young man, who had been in iDad company, but was quite repentant and reformed. He and Macartney afterwards mur- dered the Duke of Hamilton between them, in which act Lord Mohun died. This amiable baron's name was Charles, and not Henry, as a recent noT' elist has christened him. STEELE. 171 *' Lockit's." The row began afresh — Coote hinged at French over the bar, and at last all six called' for chairs, and went to Leicester Fields, where they fell to. Their lordships engaged on the side of Captain Coote. M}^ Lord of Warwick was severely wounded in the hand, Mr. French also was stabbed, but honest Captain Coote got a couple of wounds — one es- pecially, "a wound in the left side just under the short ribs, and piercing through the diaphragma," which did for Captain Coote. Hence the trials of my Lords Warwick and Mohun : hence the assemblage of peers, the report of the transaction, in which these defunct fast men still live for the observation of the curious. My Lord of Warwick is brought to the bar by the Deputy Governor of the Tower of London, having the axe carried before him by the gentleman gaoler, who stood with it at the bar at the right hand of the prisoner, turning the edge from him ; the prisoner, at his approach, making three bows, one to his Grace the Lord High Steward, the other to the peers on each hand ; and his Grace and the peers return the salute. And besides these great personages, augu«t in periwigs, and nodding to the right and left, a host of the small come up out of the past and pass before us — the 30113^^ captains brawling in the tavern, and laughing and cursing over their cups — the drawer that serves, the bar-girl that waits, the bailiff on the prowl, the chairmen trudging through the black lampless streets, and smoking their pipes by the railings, whilst swords are clashing in the garden within. " Help there ! a gentleman is hurt ! " The chairmen put up their pipes, and help the gen- tleman over the railings, and carry him, ghastly and bleeding, to the Bagnio in Long Acre, where they knock up the surgeon — a pretty tall gentleman : but that wound under the short ribs has done for him. Surgeon, lords, captains, bailiffs, chair- men, and gentleman gaoler with your axe, where be 3'ou now? The gentleman axeman's head is off his own shoulders ; the lords and judges can wag theirs no longer ; the bailiff's writs have ceased to run ; the honest chairmen's pipes are put out, and with their brawny calves they have walked away into Hades -^ all as irrecoverably done for as Will Mountford or Captain Coote. The subject of our night's lecture saw all these people — rode in Captain Coote's company of the Guards very probably — wrote and sighed for Bracegirdle, went home tipsy in many a chair, after many a bottle, in many a tavern — fled from many a bailiff. In 1709, when the publication of the Tatler began, our great-great-grandfathers must have seized upon that new and 172 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. delightful paper with much such eagerness as lovers of light literature in a later day exhibited when the Waverle}^ novels appeared, upon which the public vushed, forsaking that feeble entertainment of which the Miss Porters, the Anne of Swan- seas, and worthy Mrs. Radclitf'e herself, with her dreary castles and exploded old ghosts, had had prett\' much the monopol}''. I have looked over man^^ of the comic books with which our ancestors amused themselves, from the novels of Swift's coad- jutrix, Mrs. Mauley, the delectable author of the "New Atlan- tis," to the facetious productions of Tom Durfey, and Tom Brown, and Ned Ward, writer of the " London Spy" and sev- e]-al other volumes of ribakhy. The slang of the taverns and ordinaries, the wit of the Bagnios, form the strongest part of the ftiri'ago of which these libels are composed. In the excel- lent newspaper collection at the British Museum, 3'ou may see, besides, the Craftsmen and Postboy specimens, and queer specimens the}^ are, of the higher literature of Queen Anne's time. Here is an abstract from a notable journal bearing date, Wednesday, October 13th, 1708, and entitled " The British Apollo ; or, curious amusements for the ingenious, hy a society of gentlemen.'' The British Apollo invited and professed to answer questions upon all subjects of wit, moralitv, science, and even religion ; and two out of its four pages are filled with queries and replies much like some of the oracular penn}^ prints of the present time. One of the first querists, referring to the passage that a bishop should be the husband of one wife, argues that polygamy is justifiable in the laitj'. The society of gentlemen conducting the British Apollo are posed by this casuist, and promise to ffive him an answer. Celinda then wishes to know from " the gentlemen," concerning the souls of the dead, whether they shall have the satisfaction to know those whom they most val- ued in this transitor}^ life. The gentlemen of the Apollo give but cold comfort to poor Celinda. The}' are inclined to think not : for, sa}^ the}', since every inhabitant of those regions will be infinitely dearer than here are our nearest relatives — what have we to do with a partial friendship in that happy place? Poor Celinda ! it may have been a child or a lover whom she had lost, and was pining after, when the oracle of British Apollo gave her this dismal answer. She has solved the question for herself by this time, and knows quite as well as the society of gentlemen. From theology we come to physics, and Q. asks, " Why does hot water freeze sooner than cold?" Apollo replies, Q W &> H H w W > H H t-^ W o >^ w o STEELE. 173 " Hot water cannot be said to freeze sooner than cold ; but water once heated and cold, may be subject to freeze by the evaporation of the spirituous parts of the water, which renders it less able to withstand the power of frosty weather." The next query is rather a delicate one. "You, Mr. Apollo, who are said to be the God of wisdom, pra}^ give us the reason why kissing is so much in fashion : what benefit one receives by it, and who was the inventor, and you will oblige Corinna." To this queer demand the lips of Phoebus, smiling, answer : ' ' Pretty innocent Corinna ! Apollo owns that he was a little surprised by your kissing question, particularly at that part of it where 3'ou desire to know the benefit you receive by it. Ah ! madam, had you a lover, you would not come to Apollo for a solution ; since there is no dispute but the kisses of mutual lovers give infinite satisfaction. As to its invention, 'tis certain nature was its author, and it began with the first courtship." After a column more of questions, follow nearly two pages of poems, signed by Philander, Armenia, and the like, and chiefly on the tender passion ; and the paper wound up with a letter from Leghorn, an account of the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene before Lille, and proposals for publishing- two sheets on the present state of ^Ethiopia, by Mr. Hill : all of which is printed for the authors by J. Ma3'o, at the Printing Press against Water Lane in Fleet Street. What a change it must have been — how Apollo's oracles must have been struck dumb, when the Tatler appeared, and scholars, gentlemen, men of the world, men of genius, began to speak ! Shortly before the Boyne was fought, and young Swift had begun to make acquaintance with Enghsh court manners and English servitude, in Sir William Temple's family, another Irish youth was brous-ht to learn his humanities at the old school of Charterhouse, near Smithfield ; to which foundation he had been appointed by James Duke of Ormond, a governor of the House, and a patron of the lad's family. The boy was an orphan, and described, twenty years after, with a sweet pathos and simplicity, some of the earliest recollections of a life which was destined to be chequered by a strange variety of good and evil fortune. I am afraid no good report could be given by his masters and ushers of that thick-set, square-faced, black-eyed, soft- hearted little Irish boy. He was very idle. He was whipped deservedly a great number of times. Though he had very good parts of his own, he got other boys to do his lessons for him, 174 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. and onh' took just as much trouble as should enable him to scuffle through his exercises, and b}^ good fortune escape the flogging- block. One hundred and fifty years after, I have myself inspected, but only as an amateur, that instrument of righteous torture still existing, and in occasional use, in a se- cluded private apartment of the old Charterhouse School ; and have no doubt it is the ver}' counterpart, if not the ancient and interesting machine itself, at which poor Dick Steele submitted himself to the tormentors. Besides being very kind, laz}', and good-natured, this boy went invariably' into debt with the tart-woman ; ran out of bounds, and entered into pecuniar3% or rather promissor}', en- gagements with the neighboring lollipop-venders and piemen — exhibited an earl}- fondness and capacity for drinking mum and sack, and borrowed from all his comrades who had money to lend. I have no sort of authorit}' for the statements here made of Steele's earl}^ hfe ; but if the child is father of the man, the father of young Steele of Merton, who left Oxford without taking a degree, and entered the Life Guards — the father of Captain Steele of Lucas's Fusiliers, who got his company through the patronage of m}' Lord Cutts — the father of Mr. Steele the Commissioner of Stamps, the editor of the Gazette, the Tatler, and Spectator^ the expelled Member of Parliament, and the author of the " Tender Husband" and the " Conscious Lovers ; " if man and bo}' resembled each other, Dick Steele the schoolboy must have been one of the most generous, good-for- nothing, amiable little creatures that ever conjugated the verb tupto, I beat, tuptomai, I am whipped, in any school in Great Britain. Almost Q\Qxy gentleman who does me the honor to hear me will remember that the ver}' greatest character which he has seen in the course of his life, and the person to whom he has looked up with the greatest wonder and reverence, was the head boy at his school. The schoolmaster himself hardly inspires such an awe. The head boy construes as well as the school- master himself. When he begins to speak the hall is hushed, and every little bo^^ listens. He writes off copies of Latin verses as melodiousl}" as Virgil. He is good-natured, and, his own masterpieces achieved, pours out other copies of verses for other boys with an astonishing ease and fluencj' ; the idle ones only trembling lest they should be discovered on giving in their exer- cises, and whipped because their poems were too good. I have seen great men in my time, but never such a great one as that bead boy of my childhood : we all thought he must be Prime STEELE. 17d Minister, and I was disappointed on meeting him in after life to find he was no more than six feet high. Dick Steele, the Charterhouse gownboy, contracted such an admiration in the years of his childhood, and retained it faith- fully through his life. Through the school and through the world, whithersoever his strange fortune led this erring, wa}- ward, affectionate creature, Joseph Addison was always his head bov. Addison wrote his exercises. Addison did his best themes. He ran on Addison's messages : fagged for him and blacked his shoes : to be in Joe's company- was Dick's greatest pleasure ; and he took a sermon or a caning from his monitor with the most boundless reverence, acquiescence, and affec- tion.* Steele found Addison a stately college Don at Oxford, and himself did not make much figure at this place. He wrote a comedy, which, by the advice of a friend, the humble fellow burned there ; and some verses, which I dare saj' are as sublime as other gentlemen's composition at that age ; but being smitten with a sudden love for military glory, he threw up the cap and gown for the saddle and Ijridle, and rode privately in the Horse Guards, in the Duke of Ormond's troop — the second — and probabh', with the rest of the gentlemen of his troop, "all mounted on black horses with white feathers in their hats, and scarlet coats richly laced," marched by King William, in H^xle Park, in November, 1699, and a great show of the nobilit}-, be- sides twenty thousand people, and above a thousand coaches. " The Guards had just got their new clothes," the London Post said: " the}^ are extraordinary grand, and thought to be the finest body of horse in the world." But Steele could hardly have seen any actual service. He who wrote about himself, his mother, his wife, his loves, his debts, his friends, and the wine he drank, would have told us of his battles if he had seen anv. His old patron, Ormond, probabh' got him his cornetcy in the Guards, from which he was promoted to be a captain in Lu- cas's Fusiliers, getting his compan}- through the patronage of Lord Cutts, whose secretar}- he was, and to whom he dedicated his work called the "Christian Hero." As for Dick, whilst * " Steele had the greatest veneration for Addison, and used to show it, in all companies, in a particular manner. Addison, now and then, used to play a little upon liim ; but he always took it well." — Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. " Sir Richard Steele was the best-natured creature in the work! : even in his worst state of health, he seemed to desire nothing but to please and be pleased." — Dr. Young. Spence's Anecdotes. 176 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. writing this ardent devotional work, he was deep in debt, in drink, and in all the follies of the town ; it is related that all the officers of Lucas's, and the gentlemen of the Guards, laughed at Dick.* And in truth a theologian in liquor is not a * The gayety of his dramatic tone may be seen in this little scene be- tween two brilliant sisters, from his comedy " Tlie Funeral, or Grief a la Mode." Dick wrote this, lie said, from " a necessity of enlivening his char- acter," which, it seemed, the " Christian Hero " had a tendency to make too decorous, grave, and respectable in the eyes of readers of that pious piece. {Scene draws and discovers Lady Charlotte, reading at a table, — Lady Harriet, playing at a glass, to and fro, and viewing her§elj'.] " L. Ha. — Nay, good sister, you may as well talk to me [looking at her- self as she speaks] as sit staring at a book which I know you can't attend. — Good Dr. Lucas may have writ there what he pleases, but there's no putting Francis, Lord Hardy, now Earl of Brumpton, out of your head, or making him absent from your eyes. Do but look on me, now, and deny it if you can. " L. Ch. — You are the maddest girl [smiling]. " L. Ha. — Look ye, I knew j'ou could not say it and forbear laughing [looking over Charlotte]. — Oh ! I see his name as plain as you do — F-r-a-n, Fran, — c-i-s, cis, Francis, 'tis in every line of the book. " L. Ch. [rising]. — It's in vain, I see, to mind anything in such imper- tinent company — but granting 'twere us you say, as to my Lord Hardy — 'tis more excusable to admire another than oneself. " L. Ha. — No, I think not, — yes, I grant you, than really to be vain of one's person, but I don't admire myself — Pish! I don't believe my eyes to have that softness. [Looking in the glass] They a'n't so piei'cing : no, 'tis only stuff, the men will be talking. — Some people are such admirers of teeth — Lord, what signifies teeth! [Showing her teeth.] A very black- amoor has as white a set of teeth as I. — No, sister, I don't admire myself, but I've a spirit of contradiction in me : I don't know I'm in love with my- self, only to rival the men. " L. Ch. — A}', but Mr. Campley will gain ground ev'n of that rival of his, your dear self. " L. Ha. — Oh, what have I done to you, that you should name that insolent intruder ? A confident, opionative fop. No, indeed, if I am, as a poetical lover of mine sighed and sung of both sexes. The public envy and the public care, I shan't be so easily catched — I thank him — I want but to be sure I should heartily torment him by banishing him, and then consider whether he should depart this life or not. " L. Ch. — Indeed, sister, to be serious with you, this vanity in your humor does not at all become you. " L. Ha. — Vanity ! All the matter is, we gay people are more sincere than you wise folks : all your life's an art. — Speak your soul. — Look you there. — [ Hauling her to the glass.] Are you not struck with a secret pleas- ure when you view that bloom in your look, that harmony in your shape, that promptitude in your mein? " L. Ch. — Well, simpleton, if lam at first po simple as to be a little taken with myself, I know it a fault, and take pains to correct it. II STEELE. 177 respectable object, and a hermit, though he may be out at el- bows, must not be in debt to the tailor. Steele sa3's of himself that he was alwaj's sinning and repenting. He beat his breast and cried most piteously when he did repent : but as soon as crying had made him thirsty, he fell to sinning again. In that charming paper in the Taller^ in which he records his father's death, his mother's griefs, his own most solemn and tender emotions, he says he is interrupted by the arrival of a hamper of wine, " the same as is to be sold at Garraway's, next week ; " upon the receipt of which he sends for three friends, and they fall to instantly, " drinking two bottles apiece, with great benefit to themselves, and not separating till two o'clock in the morn- ing." His life was so. Jack the drawer was always interrupting it, bringing him a bottle from the "Rose," or inviting him over to a bout there with Sir Plume and Mr. Diver ; and Dick wiped his eyes, which were whimpering over his papers, took down his laced hat, put on his sword and wig, kissed his wife and children, told them a lie about pressing business, and went off to the " Rose " to the jolly fellows. While Mr. Addison was abroad, and after he came home in rather a dismal way to wait upon Providence in his shabby lodging in the Haymarket, young Captain Steele was cutting a much smarter figure than that of his classical friend of Cliar- terhouse Cloister and Maudlin Walk. Could not some painter give an interview between the gallant captain of Lucas's, with his hat cocked, and his lace, and his face too, a trifle tarnished with drink, and that poet, that philosopher, pale, proud, and poor, his friend and monitor of school-days, of all days? How Dick must have bragged about his chances and his hopes, and the fine company he kept, and the charms of the reigning toasts and popular actresses, and the number of bottles that he and my lord and some other pretty fellows had cracked " L. Ha. — Pshaw ! Pshaw ! Talk this musty tale to old Mrs. Far- dingale, 'tis too soon for me to think at that rate. '< L. Ch. — They that think it too soon to understand themselves will very soon find it too late —But tell me honestly, don't you like Campley ? " L. Ha. — The fellow is not to be abhorred, if the forward thing did not think of getting me so easily. — Oh, I hate a heart I can't break when I please. — What makes the value of dear china, but that 'tis so brittle 7^ — were it not for that, you might as well have stone mugs in your closet." — The Funeral., Oct. 2nd. " We knew the obligations the stage had to his writings [Steele's] ; there being scarcely a comedian of merit in our whole company whom his Tat- lers had not made better by his recommendation of them." — Gibber. 12 178 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. over-night at the "Devil," or the "Garter!" Cannot one fancy Joseph Addison's calm smile and cold gra}' ej'es following Dick for an instant, as he struts down the Mall, to dine with the Guard at St. James's, before he turns with his sober pace and threadbare suit, to walk back to his lodgings up the two pair of stairs? Steele's name was down for promotion, Dick always said himself, in the glorious, pious, and immortal Wil- liam's last table-book. Jonathan Swift's name had been writ- ten there b}^ the same hand too. Our worthy friend, the author of the "Christian Hero," continued to make no small figure about town b}' the use of his wits.* He was appointed Gazetteer: he wrote, in 1703, "The Tender Husband," his second play, in which there is some delightful farcical writing, and of which he fondl}' owned in after-life, and when Addison was no more, that there were "many applauded strokes" from Addison's beloved hand.j Is it not a pleasant partnership to remember? Can't one fanc}' Steele full of spirits and youth, leaving his gay compan}' to go to Addison's lodging, where his friend sits in the shabb}' sitting- room, quite serene, and cheerful, and poor? In 1704, Steele came on the town with another comed}^, and behold it was so moral and religious, as poor Dick insisted, — so dull the town thous^ht, — that the " Lvins Lover ". was damned. Addison's hour of success now came, and he was able to help our friend the " Christian Hero" in such a way, that, if there had been any chance of keeping that poor tipsy cham- pion upon his legs, his fortune was safe, and his competence as- sured. Steele procured the place of Commissioner of Stamps : he wrote so richl^^ so gracefully often, so kindlj^ alwaj's, with * " There is not now in his sight that excellent man, whom Heaven made his friend and superior, to be at a certain place in pain for what he should say or do. I will go on in his further encouragement. The best woman that ever man had cannot now lament and pine at his neglect of himself." — Steele [of himself] : The Theatre. No. 12, Feb. 1719-20. t " The Funeral " supplies an admirable stroke of humor, — one which Sydney Smith has used as an illustration of the faculty in his Lectures. The undertaker is talking to his emploi/e's about their duty. Sable. — " Ha, you ! — A little more upon the dismal [formvifj their countenances] ; this fellow has a good mortal look, — place him near the corpse : that wainscot-face must he o' top of the stairs ; that fellow's almost in a fright (that looks as if he were full of some strange misery) at the end of the hall. So — But I'll fix you all myself. Let's have no laughing now on any provocation. Look yonder, — that hale, well-looking puppy ! You ungrateful scoundrel, did not I pity you, take you out of a great man's service, and show you the pleasure of receiving wages ^ Did not I give you ten, then fifteen, and twenty shillings a week to be sorrowful ? — and the mor« I give you I think the gladder you are I " STEELE. 179 such a pleasant wit and easy frankness, with such a gush of good spirits and good humor, that his early papers ma^' be compared to Addison's own, and are to be read, by a male reader at least, with quite^an equal pleasure.* * " From my own Apartment, Nov. 16. " There are several persons who have many pleasures and entertain- ments in their possession, which tliey do not enjoy ; it is, therefore, a kind and good office to acquaint them with their own happiness, and turn their attention to such instances of their good fortune as they are apt to over- look. Persons in the married state often want such a monitor ; and pine away their days by looking upon tlie same condition in anguish and mur- muring, which carries with it, in the opinion of others, a complication of all the pleasures of life, and a retreat from its inquietudes. " I am led into this thought by a visit I made lo an old friend who was formerly my schoolfellow. He came to town last week, with his family, for the winter; and yesterday morning sent me word his wife expected me to dmner. I am, as it were, at home at that house, and every member of it knows me for their well-wisher. I cannot, indeed, express the pleasure it is to be met by the children with so much joy as I am when I go thither. The boys and girls strive who shall come first, when they think it is I that am knocking at the door ; and that child which loses the race to me runs back again to tell the father it is Mr. Bickerstaff. This day I was led in by a pretty girl that we all thought must have forgot me ; for the family has been out of town these two years. Ker knowing me again was a mighty subject with us, and took up our discourse at the first entrance ; after which, they began to rally me upon a thousand little stories they heard in the country, about my marriage to one of my neighbors' daugh- ters ; upon which, the gentleman, my friend, said, ' Nay ; if Mr. Bickerstaff marries a child of any of his old companions, 1 hope mine shall have the preference: there is Mrs. Mary is now sixteen, and would make him as fine a widow as the best of them. But I know him too well ; he is so enam- ored with the very memory of those who flourished in our youth, that lie will not so much as look upon the modern beauties. I remember, old gentleman, how often you went home in a day to refresh your countenance and dress when Teraminta reigned in your heart. As we came up in the coach, I repeated to my wife some of your verses on her.' With such reflections on little passages which happened long ago, we passed our time during a cheerful and elegant meal. After dhmer his lady left the room, as did also the children. As soon as we were alone, he took me by the hand : ' Well, my good friend,' says he. * I am heartily glad to see thee ; I was afraid you would never have seen all the company that dined with you to-day again. Do not you think the good woman of the house a little altered since you followed her from the playhouse to find out who she was for me ? ' I perceived a tear fall down his cheek as he spoke, which moved me not a little. But, to turn the discourse, I said, ' She is not, in- deed, that creature she was when she returned me the letter I carried from you, and told me, "She hoped, as I was a gentleman,! would be employed no more to trouble her, who had never offended me ; but would be so much the gentleman's friend as to dissuade him from a pursuit which he could never succeed in." You may remember I thought her in earnest, and you were forced to employ your cousin Will, who made his sister get acquainted with her for you. You cannot expect her to be forever fifteen.' ' Fifteen ! ' replied my good friend. 'Ah! you little understand — you, that have 180 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. After the Tatler in 1711, the famous Spectator made its ap- pearance, and this was followed, at various intervals, b}' many lived a bachelor — how great, how exquisite a pleasure there is in being really beloved ! It is impossible that the most beauteous face in nature should raise in me such pleasing ideas as when I look upon that excellent woman. That fading in her countenance is chiefly caused by her watching with me in my fever. This was followed by a fit of sickness, which had like to have carried me off last winter. I tell you, sincerely, I have so many obligations to her tliat I cannot, with any sort of moderation, think of her present state of health. But, as to what you say of fifteen, site gives me every day pleasure beyond what I ever knew in the possession of her beauty when I was in the vigor of youth. Every moment of her hfe brings me fresh instances of her complacency to my inclinations, and her prudence in regard to my fortune. Her face is to me much more beautiful than when I first saw it ; there is no decay in any feature which I cannot trace from the very instant it was occasioned by some anxious concern for my welfare and interests. Thus, at the same time, methinks, the love I conceived towards her for what she was, is heightened by my gratitude for what she is. The love of a wife is as much above the idle passion com- monly called by that name, as the loud laughter of buffoons is inferior to the elegant mirth of gentlemen. Oh! she is an inestimable jewel ! In her examination of her household affairs, she shows a certain fearfulness to find a fault, which makes her servants obey her like children ; and the meanest we have has an ingenuous shame for an offence not always to be seen in children in other families. I speak freely to you, my old friend; ever since her sickness, things that gave me the quickest' joy before turn now to a certain anxiety. As the children play. in the next room, I know the poor things by their steps, and am considering what they must do should they lose their mother in their tender years. The pleasure I used to take in telling my boy stories of battles, and asking my girl questions about tlie disposal ol her baby, and the gossiping of it, is turned into inward reflection and melancholy.' " He would have gone on in this tender way, when the good lady en- tered, and, with an inexpressible sweetness in her countenance, told us ' she had been searching her closet for something very good to treat such an old friend as I was.' Her husband's eyes sparkled with pleasure at the cheerfulness of her countenance ; and 1 saw all his fears vanish in an in- stant. The lady observing something in our looks which showed we had been more serious than ordinary, and seeing her husband receive her with great concern under a forced cheerfulness, immediately guessed at what we had been talking of; and applying herself to me, said, with a smile, * Mr. Bickerstaff, do not believe a word of what he tells you ; I shall still live to have you for my second, as I have often promised you, unless he takes more care of himself than he has done since his coming to town. You must know he tells me, that he finds London is a much more healthy place than the country ; for he sees several of his old acquaintances and school fellows are here — young fellows loith fair, full-bottomed perhvigs. I could scarce keep him this morning from going out open-breasted.' My friend, who ' is always extremely delighted with her agreeable humor, made her sit down with us. She did it with that easiness which is peculiar to women of sense ; and to keep up the good humor she had brought in with her, turned her raillery upon me. * Mr. Bickerstaff, you remember you followed me one night from the playhouse ; suppose you should carry me thither to-morrow night, and lead me in the front box.' This put us into a long STEELE. 181 periodicals under the same editor — the Guardian — i\iQ Eng- lishman — the Lover ^ whose love was rather insipid — the Reader^ of whom the public saw no more after his second ap- pearance — the Theatre^ under the pseudon3'm of Sir John Ed- gar, which Steele wrote while Governor of the Ro3'al Company of Comedians, to which post, and to that of Surve^'or of the Roj'al Stables at Hampton Court, and to the Commission of the Peace for Middlesex, and to the honor of knighthood, Steele had been preferred soon after the accession of George I. ; whose cause honest Dick had nobl}' fought, through dis- grace, and danger, against the most formidable enemies, against traitors and bullies, against Bolingbroke and Swift in the last reign. With the arrival of the King, that splendid field of discourse about the beauties who were the mothers to the present, and shined in the boxes twenty years ago. I told her, ' 1 was glad she liad transferred so many of her charms, and I did not question but her eldest daughter was within half a year of being a toast.' " We were pleasing ourselves with this fantastical preferment of the young lady, when, on a sudden, we were alarmed witli the noise of a drum, and immediately entered my little godson to give me a point of war. His mother, between laughing and chiding, would have him put out of the room: but I would not part with him so. I found, upon conversation with liim, though he was a little noisy in his mirth, that the child had excellent parts, and was a great master of all the learning on the other side of eight years old. I perceived him a very great historian in ' ^sop's Fables ; ' but he frankly declared to me his mind, ' that he did not dehght in that learn- ing, because he did not believe they were true ; ' for which reason I found lie had very much turned his studies, for about a twelvemonth past, into the lives of Don Bellianis of Greece, Guy of Warwick, ' the Seven Cham- pions,' and other historians of that age. I could not but observe the satis- faction the father took in the forwardness of his son, and that these diversions might turn to some profit. I found the boy had made remarks which might be of service to him during the course of his whole life. He would tell you the mismanagement of John Hickerthrift, find fault with the passionate temper in Bevis of Southampton, and loved St. George for being the champion of England ; and by this means had his thoughts in- sensibly moulded into the notions of discretion, virtue, and honor. I was extolling his accomplishments, when his mother told me ' that tlic little girl who led me in this morning was, in her way, a better scholar than he. Betty,' said she, ' deals ciiiefly in fairies and sprights ; and sometimes in a winter night will terrify the maids with her accounts, until they are afraid to go up to bed.' " I sat with them until it was very late, sometimes in merry, sometimes in serious discourse, with this particular pleasure, which gives the only true relish to all conversation, a sense that every one of us liked each other. I went home, considering the different conditions of a married life and that of a bachelor; and I must confess it struck me with a secret concern, to reflect, that whenever I go off I shall leave no traces behind me. In this pensive mood I return to my family ; that is to say, to my maid, my dog, my cat, who only can be the better or worse for what happens to me." — Tht TatUr, Ifi2 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. conspirac}^ broke up ; and a golden opportunity came to Dick Steele, whose hand, alas, was too careless to gripe it. Steele married twice ; and outlived his places, his schemes, his wife, his income, his health, and almost ever3'thing but his kind heart. That ceased to trouble him in 1729, when he died, worn out and almost forgotten b}" his contemporaries, in Wales, where he had the remnant of a propert3\ Posterity has been kinder to this amiable creature ; all women especiall}" are bound to be grateful to Steele, as he was the first of our writers who reall}' seemed to admire and respect them. Congreve the Great, who alludes to the low estimation in which women were held in Elizabeth's time, as a reason why the women of Shakspeare make so small a figure in the poet's dialogues, though he can himself pa}' splendid compliments to women, 3'et looks on them as mere instruments of gallantry, and destined, like the most consummate fortifications, to fall, after a certain time, before the arts and braver}* of the besieger, man. There is a letter of Swift's, entitled " Advice to a very Young Married Lad}'," which shows the Dean's opinion of the female society of his day, and that if he despised man he utterly scorned women too. No lady of our time could be treated by any man, were he ever so much a wit or Dean, in such a tone of insolent patronage and vulgar protection. In this perform- ance, Swift hardly takes pains to hide his opinion that a woman is a fool : tells her to read books, as if reading was a novel accomplishment; and informs her that ''not one gentleman's daughter in a thousand has been brought to read or understand her own natural tongue." Addison laughs at women equally ; but, with the gentleness and politeness of his nature, smiles at them and watches them, as if they were harmless, half-witted, amusing, pretty creatures, only made to be men's playthings. It was Steele who first began to j^ay a manly homage to their goodness and understanding, as well as to their tenderness and beauty.* In his comedies, the heroes do not rant and rave * "As to the pursuits after affection and esteem, the fair sex are happy in tliis particular, that with them the one is much more nearly related to the other than in men. The love of a woman is inseparable from some esteem of her ; and as she is naturally the object of affection, the woman who has your esteem has also some degree of your love. A man that dotes on a woman for her beauty, will whisper his friend, ' That creature has a great deal of wit when you are well acquainted witli her.' And if you examine the bottom of your esteem for a woman, you will find you have a greater opinion of her beauty than anybody else. As to us men, I design to pass most of my time with the facetious Harry Bickerstaff ; but William Bickerstaff, the most prudent man of our family, shall be my executor." — Tatler, No. 200. STEELE. 183 aoout the di-sane beauties of Gloriana or Statira, as the char- acters were made to do in the chivahy romances and tlie high- flown dramas just going out of vogue ; but Steele admires women's virtue, acknowledges their sense, and adores their purity and beauty, with an ardor and strength which should win the good-will of all women to their heartj^ and respectful champion. It is this ardor, this respect, this manhness, which makes his comedies so pleasant and their heroes such fine gen- tlemen. He paid the finest compliment to a woman that per- haps ever was offered. Of one woman, whom Congreve had also admired and celebrated, Steele says, that " to have loved her was a liberal education." " How often," he says, dedi- cating a volume to his wife, " how often has your tenderness removed pain from my sick head, how often anguish from my aflaicted heart ! If there are such beings as guardian angels, they are thus employed. I cannot believe one of them to be more good in inclination, or more charming in form than m}^ wife." His breast seems to warm and his eyes to kindle when he meets with a good and beautiful woman, and it is with his heart as well as with his hat that he salutes her. About chil- dren, and all that relates to home, he is not less tender, and more than once speaks in apology of what he calls his softness. He would have been nothing without that delightful weakness. It is that which gives his works their worth and his style its charm. It, like his life, is full of faults and careless blunders ; and redeemed, like that, by his sweet and compassionate nature. We possess of poor Steele's wild and chequered life some of the most curious memoranda that ever were left of a man's biography.* Most men's letters, from Cicero down to Walpole, * The Correspondence of Steele p.assed after his death into the posses- sion of his daughter Elizabeth, by his second wife, Miss Scurlock, of Car- marthenshire. She married the Hon. John, afterwards third Lord Trevor. At her death, part of the letters passed to Mr. Thomas, a grandson of a natural daughter of Steele's ; and part to Lady Trevor's next of kin, Mr. Scurlock. They were published by the learned Nichols — from whose later edition of them, in 1809, our specimens are quoted. Here we have him, in his courtship — which was not a very long one : — " To Mrs. Scurlock. " Aug. 30, 1707. " Madam, — I beg pardon that my paper is not finer, but I am forced to write from a coffee-house, where I am attending about business. There is a dirty crowd of busy faces all around me, talking of money ; while all my ambition, all my wealth, is love! Love which animates my heart, •weetens my humor, enlarges my soul, and affects every action of m^ life. 184 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. or down to the great men of our own time, if 3'ou will, are doc- tored compositions, and written with an eye suspicious towards It is to my lovely charmer I owe, that many noble ideas are continually affixed to my words and actions ; it is the natural effect of that generous passion to create in the admirer some similitude of the object admired. Thus, my dear, am I every day to improve from so sweet a companion. Look up, my fair one, to that Heaven which made thee such ; and join with me to implore its influence on our tender innocent hours, and beseech the Author of love to bless the rites He has ordained — and mingle with our happiness a just sense of our transient condition, and a resignation to His will, which only can regulate our minds to a steady endeavor to please Him and each other. " I am for ever your faithful servant, " Rich. Steele." Some few hours afterwards, apparently, Mistress Scurlock received tha next one — obviously written later in the day : — " Saturday night (Aug. 30, 1707). " Dear, Lovely Mrs. Scdrlock, — I have been in very good com- pany, where your health, under the character of the woman I loved best, has been often drunk ; so that I may say that I am dead drunk for j-our sake; which is more than / die for you. Rich. Steele." "To Mrs. Scurlock. •' Sept. 1, 1707. "Madam, — It is the hardest thing in the world to be in love, and yet attend business. As for me, all who speak to me find me out, and I must lock myself up, or other people will do it for me. '•'A gentleman asked me this morning, ' What news from Lisbon ? ' and I answered, ' She is exquisitely handsome.' Another desired to know ' when I had last been at Hampton Court 1 ' I replied, ' It will be on Tues- day come se'nnight.' Pr'ythee allow me at least to kiss your hand before that day, that my mind may be in some composure. Love ! * A thousand torments dwell about thee, Yet who could live, to live without thee ? ' " Methinks I could write a volume to you ; but all the language on earth would fail in saying how much, and with what disinterested passion, " I am ever yours, "Rich. Steele." Two days after this, he is found expounding his circumstances and prospects to the young lady's mamma. He dates from " Lord Sunder- land's office, Whitehall ; " and states his clear income at 1,025/. per annum. "I promise myself," says he, "the pleasure of an industrious and virtuous life, in studying to do things agreeable to you." They were married, according to the most probable conjectures, about the 7th Sept. There are traces of a tiff about the middle of the next month ; she being prudish and fidgety, as he was impassioned and reckless. General progress, however, may be seen from the following notes. The " house in Bury Street, St. James's," was now taken. " To Mrs. Steele. " Oct. 16, 1707. " Dearest Being on Earth, — Pardon me if you do not see me till eleven o'clock, having met a school-fellow from India, by \vhom I am to be STEELE. 185 posterity. That dedication of Steele's to his wife is an artifi- cial performance, possibly ; at least, it is written with that informed on things this night which expressly concern your obedient hus- band, Rich. Steele." " To Mrs. Steele. " Eight o'clock, Fountain Tavern, Oct. 22, 1707. " Mt Dear, — I beg of you not to be uneasy ; for I have done a great deal of business to-day very successfully, and wait an hour or two about my Gazette." " Dec. 22, 1707. " My dear, dear Wife, — I write to let you know I do not come home to dinner, being obliged to attend some business abroad, of which I shall give you an account (when I see you in the evening), as becomes your dutiful and obedient husband." " Devil Tavern, Temple Bar, Jan. 3, 1707-8. "Dear Prue, — I have partly succeeded in my business to-day, and inclose two guineas as earnest of more. Dear Prue, I cannot come home to dinner. I languish for your welfare, and will never be a moment care- less more. Your faithful husband," &c. "Jan. 14, 1707-8. " Dear Wife, — Mr. Edgecombe, Ned Ask, and Mr, Lumley have desired me to sit an hour with them at the 'George,' in Pall Mall, for which I desire your patience till twelve o'clock, and that you will go to bed," &c. " Gray's Inn. Feb. 3, 1708. " Dear Prue, — If the man who has my shoemaker's bill calls, let him be answered tliat I shall call on him as I come home. I stay here in order to get Jonson to discount a bill for me, and shall dine with him for that end. He is expected at home every minute. "Your most humble, obedient servant," &c. " Tennis-court, Coffee-house, May 5, 1708. " Dear Wife, — I hope I have done this day what will be pleasing to you ; in the meantime shall lie this night at a baker's, one Leg, over against the 'Devil Tavern,' at Charing Cross. I shall be able to confront the fools who wish me uneasy, and shall have the satisfaction to see thee cheerful and at ease. " If the printer's boy be at home, send him hither ; and let Mrs. Todd send by the boy my night-gown, slippers, and clean linen. You shall hear from me early in the morning," &c. Dozens of similar letters follow, with occasional guineas, little parcels of tea, or walnuts, &c. In 1709 the Taller made its appearance. The fol- lowing curious note dates April 7th, 1710 : — "I inclose to you [' Dear Prue '] a receipt for the saucepan and spoon, and a note of 23/. of Lewis's, which will make up the 50/. I promised for your ensuing occasion. " I know no happiness in this life in any degree comparable to the 186 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. degree of artifice which an orator uses in arranging a statement for the House, or a poet emplo3's in preparing a sentiment in verse or for the stage. But there are some 400 letters of Dick Steele's to his wife, which that thrift}' woman preserved accu- ratel}-, and which could have been written but for her and her alone. They contain details of the business, pleasures, quarrels, reconciliations of the pair ; they have all the genuineness of conversations ; the}' are as artless as a child's prattle, and as confidential as a curtain-lecture. Some are written from the printing-office, where he is waiting for the proof-sheets of his Gazette, or his Tatler ; some are written from the tavern, whence he promises to come to his wife " within a pint of wine," and where he has given a rendezvous to a friend, or a money-lender : some are composed in a high state of vinous excitement, when his head is flustered with burgundy, and his heart abounds with amorous warmth for his darlins; Prue : some are under the influence of the dismal headache and repentance next morning : some, alas, are from the lock-up house, where the lawyers have impounded him, and where he is waiting for bail. You trace many years of the poor fellow's career in these letters. In September, 1707, from which day she began to save the letter.5, he married the beautiful Mistress Scurlock. You have his passionate protestations to the lady ; his respectful proposals to her mamma ; his private prayer to Heaven when the union so ardently desired was completed ; his fond professions of contrition and promises of amendment, when, immediately after his marriage there began to be just cause for the one and need for the other. Captain Steele took a house for his lady upon their marriage, " the third door from Germain Street, left hand of Berry Street," and the next year he presented his wife with a country-house at Hampton. It appears she had a chariot and pair, and some- times four horses : he himself enjoyed a little horse for his own riding. He paid, or promised to pay, his barber fifty pounds a year, and always went abroad in a laced coat and a large black buckled periwig, that must have cost somebody fifty pleasure I have in yowT person and society. I only beg of you to add to your other charms a tearfulness to see a man that loves you in pain and un- easiness, to make me as happy as it is possible to be in this life. Rising a little in a morning, -and being disposed to a cheerfulness .... would not be amiss." In another, he is found excusing his coming home, being " invited to supper to Mr. Boyle's." " Dear Prue," he says on this occasion, " do not send after me, for I shall be ridiculous." STEELE. 187 guineas. He was rather a well-to-do gentleman, Captain Steele, with the proceeds of his estates in Barbadoes (left to him by his first wife), his income as a writer of the Gazette^ and his office of gentleman waiter to his Ro3'al Highness Prince George. His second wife brought him a fortune too. But it is melanchol}' to relate, that with these houses and chariots and horses and income, the Captain was constantly in want of money, for which his beloved bride w^as asking as constantly. In the course of a few pages we begin to find the shoemaker calling for money, and some directions from the Captain, who has not thirty pounds to spare. He sends his wife, " the beau- tifuUest object in the world," as he calls her, and evidentl}' in reply to applications of her own, which have gone the wa}^ of all waste paper, and lighted Dick's pipes, which were smoked a hundred and forty years ago — he sends his wife now a guinea, then a half-guinea, then a couple of guineas, then half a pound of tea ; and again no monc}' and no tea at all, but a promise that his darling Prue shall have some in a day or two : or a request, perhaps, that she will send over his night-gown and sliaving-plate to the temporary lodging where the nomadic Captain is lying, hidden from the bailiff's. Oh ! that a Chris- tian hero and late Captain in Lucas's should be afraid of a dirty sheriffs officer ! That the pink and pride of chivalry should turn pale before a writ ! It stands to record in poor Dick's own handwriting — the queer collection is preserved at the British Museum to this present day — that the rent of the nup- tial house in Jerm3'n Street, sacred to unutterable tenderness and Prue, and three doors from Bury Street, was not paid until after the landlord had put in an execution on Captain Steele's furniture. Addison sold the house and furniture at Hampton, and, after deducting the sum in which his incorrigible friend was indebted to him, handed over the residue of the proceeds of the sale to poor Dick, who wasn't in the least angry at Addison's summary proceeding, and I dare say was very glad of any sale or execution, the result of which was to give him a little ready money. Having a small house in Jerm3'n Street for which he couldn't pay, and a countrj^-house at Hampton on which he had borrowed money, nothing must content Captain Dick but the taking, in 1712, a much finer, larger, and grander house, in Bloomsbur}^ Square ; where his unhappy landlord got no better satisfaction than his friend in St. James's, and where it is recorded that Dick, giving a grand entertainment, had a half-dozen queer-looking fellows in liver}^ to wait upon his noble guests, and confessed that his servants were bailiff's to a man. 188 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. "I fared like a, distressed prince,"' the kindh' prodigal writes, generously complimenting Addison for his assistance in the Taller, — ''I fared like a distressed prince, who calls in a powerful neighbor to his aid. 1 was undone l\y m^' auxiliary ; wlien I had once called him in, I could not subsist without dependence on him." Poor, needy Prince of Bloomsbury ! think of him in his [jalace, with his allies from Chancer}- Lane ominously "uardino" him. All sorts of stories are told indicative of his recklessness and ills ""ood humor. One narrated by Dr. Hoadlv is exceed- ingly characteristic ; it shows the life of the time : and our poor frientl very weak, but very kind both in and out of his cups. "■ My lather," says Dr. John Hoadh', the Bishop's son, " when Bishop of Bangor, was, by invitation, present at one of the Whig meetings, held at the ' Trumpet,' in Shire Lane, wlien Sir Richard, in liis zeal, rather exposed himself, having the double duty of the day upon him, as well to celebrate the im- mortal memory of King AVilliam, it being the 4th November, as to drink liis friend Addison up to conversation pitch, whose phlegmatic constitution was hardly warmed for society by tliKt time. Steele was not fit for it. Two remarkable circum- stances happened. John Sly, the hatter of facetious memory, was in the house; and John, pretty mellow, took it into his head to come into the company on his knees, with a tankard of ale in his hand to drink off to the immortal memory^ and to return in the same manner. Steele, sitting next my father, whispered him — Do laur/Ji. It is humanity to laugh. Sir Rich- ard, in the evening, being too much in the same condition, was put into a chair, and sent home. Nothing would serve him but being carried to the Bishop of Bangor's, late as it was. However, the chairmen carried him liome, and got him up stairs, when his great complaisance would wait on them down stairs, which he did, and then was got quieth' to bed." * There is another amusing story which, I believe, that re- nowned collector, Mr. Joseph Miller, or his successors, have incorporated into their work. Sir Richard Steele, at a time wdien he was much occupied with theatrical affairs, built him- self a pretty private theatre, and, before it was opened to his friends and guests, was anxious to try whether the hall was well adapted for hearing. Accordingly he placed himself in the * Of liis famous Bishop, Steele wrote, — " yirtue with so much ease on Bangor sits, All faults he pardons, though he none commit*." STEELE. 189 most remote part of the gallery, and begged the carpenter who had built the house to speak up from the stage. Tlie man at first said that he was unaccustomed to public speaking, and did not know what to sa}' to his honor ; but the good-natured knight called out to him to sa^- whatever was uppermost ; and, after a moment, the carpenter began, in a voice perfectly audible: ''Sir Richard Steele!" he said, "for three months past me and mv men has been a working in this tlieatre, and we've never seen the color of 3-our honor's mone^- : we will be ver}' mucli obliged if you'll pay it directly, for until you do we won't drive in another nail." Sir Richard said that liis friend's elocution was perfect, but that he didn't like his subject much. The great charm of Steele's writing is its naturalness. He wrote so quickly and carelessly, that he was Ibrced to make the reader his confidant, and had not the time to deceive him. He had a small share of book-learning, but a vast acquaintance with the world. He had known men and taverns. He had lived with gownsmen, with troopers, with gentlemen ushers of the Court, with men and women of fashion ; with authors and wits, with the inmates of the spunging-houses, and with the frequenters of all the clubs and coffee-houses in the town. He was liked in all compan}' because he liked it ; and you like to see his enjoyment as you like to see the glee of a boxful of children at the pantomime. He was not of those lonely ones of the earth whose greatness obliged them to be solitary ; on the contrary, he admired, I think, more than any man who ever wrote ; and full of heart}' applause and sj-mpatln', wins upon 3'ou b}' calling you to share his delight and good humor. His laugh rings through the whole house. He must have been invaluable at a tragedy, and have cried as much as the most tender young lady in the boxes. He has a relish for beauty and goodness wherever he meets it. He admired Shakspeare afl^ectionately, and more than an^- man of his time ; and, ac- cording to his generous expansive nature, called upon all his company to like what he liked himself. He did not damn with faint praise : he was in the world and of it ; and his enjoyment of life presents the strangest contrast to Swift's savage indigna- tion and Addison's lonely serenity.* Permit me to read to you * Here we have some of his later letters : — " To Lady Steele. " Hampton Court, March 16, 1716-17. " Dear Prue, — If you have written anything to me which I should have received last night, I beg your pardon that I cannot answer till the 190 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. a passage from each writer, curiously indicative of his peculiar humor : the subject is the same, and the mood the very gravest. We have said that upon all the actions of man, the most trifling and the most solemn, the humorist takes upon himself to com- ment. All readers of our old masters know the terrible lines of Swift, in which he hints at his philosophy and describes the end of mankind : — * next post .... Your son at the present writing is mighty well employed in tumbling on the floor of the room and sweeping the sand with a feather. He grows a most delightful child, and very full of play and spirit. He is also a very great scholar : he can read his primer ; and I have brought down my Virgil. He makes most shrewd remarks about the pictures. We are very intimate friends and playfellows. He begins to be very ragged; and I hope I shall be pardoned if I equip him with new clothes and frocks, or what Mrs. Evans and I shall think for his service." " To Lady Steele. [Undated.] ** You tell me you want a little flattery from me. I assure you I know- no one who deserves so much commendation as yourself, and to whom say- ing the best things would be so little like flattery. The thing speaks for itself, considering you as a very handsome woman that loves retirement — one who does not want wit, and yet is extremely sincere ; and so I could go through all the vices which attend the good qualities of other people, of which you are exempt. But, indeed, though you have every perfection, you have an extravagant fault, which almost frustrates the good in you to me ; and that is, that you do not love to dress, to appear, to shine out, even at my request, and to make me proud of you, or rather to indulge the pride I have that you are mine " Your most affectionate, obsequious husband, " Richard Steele. "A quarter of Molly's schooling is paid. The children are perfectly well." " To Lady Steele. " March 26, 1717. " My dearest Prue, — I have received yours, wherein you give me the sensible affliction of telling me enow of the continual pain in your head. .... When I lay in your place, and on your pillow, I assure you I fell into tears last night, to think that my charming little insolent might be then awake and in pain ; and took it to be a sin to go to sleep. " For this tender passion towards you, I must be contented that your Prueship will condescend to call yourself my well-wisher " At the time when the above later letters were written, Lady Steele was in Wales, looking after her estate there. Steele, about this time, was much occupied with a project for conveying fish alive, by which, as he con- stantly assures his wife, he firmly believed he should make his fortune. It did not succeed, however. Lady Steele died in December of the succeeding year. She lies buried in Westminster Abbey. * Lord Chesterfield sends these verses to Voltaire in a characteristic letter. STEELE. 191 ** Amazed, confused, its fate unknown, The world stood trembling at Jove's throne ; While each pale sinner hung his head, Jove, nodding, shook the heavens and said : ' Offending race of human kind, By nature, reason, learning, blind ; You who through frailty stepped aside, And you who never err'd through pride ; You who in different sects were shamm'd, And come to see each other damn'd ; (So some folk told you, but they knew No more of Jove's designs than you ;) The world's mad business now is o'er. And I resent your freaks no more ; / to such blockheads set my wit, I damn such fools — go, go, you're bit ! ' " • Addison, speaking on the veiy same theme, but with how different a voice, saj'S, in his famous paper on Westminster Abbey {Spectator^ No. 26) : — " For my own part, though I am always serious, I do not know what it is to be melancholy, and can therefore take a view of nature in her deep and solemn scenes with the same pleasure as in her most gaj^ and delightful ones. When I look upon the tombs of the great, ever}' emotion of env}^ dies within me ; when I read the epitaphs of the beau- tiful, every inordinate desire goes out ; when I meet with the grief of parents on a tombstone, my heart melts with compas- sion ; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I con- sider the vanit}' of grieving for those we must quickly follow.'* (I have owned that I do not think Addison's heart melted very much, or that he indulged ver}- inordinately in the " vanit}' of grieving.") " When," he goes on, " when I see kings lying by those who deposed them : when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the hoi}" men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, — I reflect with sorrow and astonish- ment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of man- kind. And, when I read the several dates on the tombs of some that died j^esterday and some 600 years ago, I consider that Oreat Day when we shall all of us be coutemporaries, and make our appearance together." Our third humorist comes to speak upon the same subject. You will have observed in the previous extracts the character- istic humor of each writer — the subject and the contrast — the fact of Death, and the play of individual thought, by which each comments on it, and now hear the third writer — death, sorrow, and the grave being for the moment also his theme. "The first sense of sorrow I ever knew," Steele says in the 192 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. Tatler^ " was upon the death of my father, at which time I was not quite five 3-ears of age : but was rather amazed at what all the house meant, than possessed of a real understanding whj* nobodj' would play with us. I remember I went into the room where his hocly la}- , and m}^ mother sat weeping alone b}' it. I had my battledore in my hand, and fell a beating the coffin, and calling papa ; for, I know not how, I had some idea that he was locked up there. My mother caught me in her arms, and, transported beyond all patience of the silent grief she was before in, she almost smothered me in her embraces, and told me in a flood of tears, ' Papa could not hear me, and would pla}' with me no more : for they were going to put him under ground, whence he would never come to us again.' She was a very beautiful woman, of a noble spirit, and there was a dignit}' in her grief amidst all the wildness of her trans- port, which methought struck me with an instinct of sorrow that, before I was sensible what it was to grieve, seized my very soul, and has made pit}' the weakness of m^- heart ever since." Can there be three more characteristic moods of minds and men? " Fools, do 3'ou know anything of this m3'ster3'?" sa3's Swift, stamping on a grave, and carr3ing his scorn for man- kind actuall3' beyond it. "Miserable, purblind wretches, how dare 3'ou to pretend to comprehend the Inscrutable, and how can 3'our dim e3'es pierce the unfathomable depths of 3'onder boundless heaven?" Addison, in a much kinder language and gentler voice, utters much the same sentiment : and speaks of the rivahy of wits, and the contests of hoi}' men, with the same sceptic placidity. "Look what a little vain dust we are," he sa3^s, smiling over the tombstones ; and catching, as is his wont, quite a divine effulgence as he looks heavenward, he speaks, in words of inspiration almost, of " the Great Da3'', when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance to- gether." The third, whose theme is death, too, and who will speak his word of moral as Heaven teaches him, leads 3'ou up to his father's coffin, and shows you his beautiful mother weeping, and himself an unconscious little boy wondering at her side. His own natural tears flow as he takes 3'our hand and confid- ingl3^ asks 3^our sympath3^ " See how good and innocent and beautiful women are," he sa3's ; " how tender little children! Let us love these and one another, brother — God knows- we have need of love and pardon." So it is each man looks with STEELE. 193 /lis own ej-es, speaks with his own voice, and pra3's his own I)ra3'er. When Steele asks 3*our s.ympathy for the actors in that charming scene of Love and Grief and Death, who can refuse it? One yields to it as to the frank advance of a child, or to the appeal of a woman. A man is seldom more manl}^ than when he is what vou call unmanned — the source of his emo- tion is championship, pity, and courage ; the instinctive desire to cherish those who are innocent and unhapp}', and defend those who are tender and weak. If Steele is not our friend he is nothing:. He is bv no means the most brilliant of wits nor the deepest of thinkers : but he is our friend ; we love him, as cliildren love their love with an A, because he is amiable. Who likes a man best because he is the cleverest or the wisest of mankind ; or a woman because she is the most virtuous, or talks French, or pla3's the piano better than the rest of her sex? I own to liking Dick Steele the man, and Dick Steele the author, much better than much better men and much better authors. The misfortune regarding Steele is, that most part of the company here present must take his amiabilit3' upon hearsa3^, and certainly can't make his intimate acquaintance. Not that Steele was worse than his time ; on the contraiy, a far better, truer, and higher-hearted man than most who lived in it. But things were done in that societ3', and names were named, which would make you shudder now. What would be the sensation of a polite 3'outh of the present day, if at a ball he saw the 3-oung object of his affections taking a box out of her pocket and a pinch of snuff ; or if at dinner, 1)3^ the charmer's side, she de- liberately put her knife into her mouth? If she cut her mother's throat with it, mamma would scarcel3" be more shocked. I allude to these peculiarities of b3'gone times as an excuse for m3' favorite, Steele, who was not worse, and often much more delicate than his neio'hbors. There exists a curious document descriptive of the manners of the last age, which describes most minutely the amusements and occupations of persons of fashion in London at the time of which we are speaking ; the time of Swift, and Addison, and Steele. When Lord Sparkish, Tom Neverout, and Colonel Alwit, the immortal personages of Swift's polite conversation, came to breakfast with 1113^ Lad3' Smart, at eleven o'clock in the morning, 1113' Lord Smart was absent at the levee. His .lord- ship was at home to dinner at three o'clock to receive his 13 194 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. guests ; and we may sit down to this meal, like the Barmecide's, and see thejTops of the last century before us. Seven of them sat down at dinner, and were joined by a countr}' baronet who told them they kept court hours. These persons of fashion began their dinner with a sirloin of beef, fish, a shoulder of veal, and a tongue. My Lady Smart carved the sirloin, mj^ Lad}^ Answerall helped the fish, and the gallant Colonel cut the shoulder of veal. All made a considerable inroad on the sirloin and the shoulder of veal with the exception of Sir John, who had no appetite, having already partaken of a beefsteak and two mugs of ale, besides a tankard of March beer as soon as he got out of bed. The}' drank claret, which the master of the house said should alwa3's be drunk after fish ; and my Lord Smart particularly recommended some excellent cider to my Lord Sparkish, which occasioned some brilliant remarks from that nobleman. When the host called for wine, he nodded to one or other of his guests, and said, " Tom Neverout, ray ser- vice to 3'ou.'* After the first course came almond-pudding, fritters, which the Colonel took with his hands out of the dish, in order to help the brilliant Miss Notable ; chickens, black puddings, and soup ; and Lady Smart, the elegant mistress of the mansion, finding a skewer in a dish, placed it in her plate with directions that it should be carried down to the cook and dressed for the cook's own dinner. Wine and small beer were drunk during this second course ; and when the Colonel called for beer, he called the butler Friend, and asked whether the beer was good. Various jocular remarks passed from the gentlefolks to the ser- vants ; at breakfast several persons had a word and a joke for Mrs. Bett}', m}' lad3''s maid, who warmed the cream and had charge of the canister (the tea cost thirt}' shillings a pound in those days). When m}^ Lad\' Sparkish sent her footman out to ni}' Lad}'^ Match to come at six o'clock and pla}' at quadrille, her ladj'ship warned the man to follow his nose, and if he fell by the wa}' not to stay to get up again. And when the gentle- man asked the hall-porter if his lady was at home, that func- tionary replied, with manl}- waggishness, " She was at home just now, but she's not gone out yet." After the puddings, sweet and black, the fritters and soup, oame the third course, of which the chief dish was a hot venison past}"-, which was j^ut before Lord Smart, and carved b}^ that nobleman. Besides the pasty, there was a hare, a rabbit, some pigeons, partridges, a goose, and a ham. Beer and wine were freely imbibed during this course, the gentlemen always pledg- STEELE. 195 ing somebody with every glass which they drank ; and by this time the conversation between Tom Neverout and Miss Notable had grown so brisk and livel}^ that the Derbyshire baronet be- gan to think the 3'oung gentlewoman was Tom's sweetheart ; on which Miss remarked, that she loved Tom " like pie." After the goose, some of the gentlemen took a dram of brand}', "which was ver}' good for the wholesomes," Sir John said; and now having had a tolerably substantial dinner, honest Lord Smart bade the butler bring up the great tankard full of October to Sir John. The great tankard was passed from hand to hand and mouth to mouth, but when pressed b}^ the noble host upon the gallant Tom Neverout, he said, '* No, faith, my lord ; I like 3'our wine, and won't put a churl upon a gentle- man. Your honor's claret is good enough for me." And so, the dinner over, the host said, " Hang saving, bring us up a ha'porth of cheese." The cloth was now taken awa}', and a bottle of burgundy was set down, of which the ladies were invited to partake be- fore they went to their tea. When the}^ withdrew, the gentlemen promised to join them in an hour : fresh bottles were brought ; the "dead men," meaning the empty bottles, removed; and " D'you hear, John? bring clean glasses," my Lord Smart said. On which the gallant Colonel Alwit said, " I'll keep m}^ glass ; for wine is the best liquor to wash glasses in." After an hour the gentlemen joined the ladies, and then they all sat and played quadrille until three o'clock in the morning, when the chairs and the flambeaux came, and this noble com- pany went to bed. Such were manners six or seven score years ago. I draw no inference from this queer picture — let all moralists here present deduce their own. Fancy the moral condition of that society in which a lady of fashion joked with a footman, and carved a sirloin, and provided besides a great shoulder of veal, a goose, hare, rabbit, chickens, partridges, black puddings, and a ham for a dinner for eight Christians. What — what could have been the condition of that polite world in which people openly ate goose after almond-pudding, and took their soup in the middle of dinner? Fancy a Colonel in the Guards putting his hand into a dish of heignets dJahricot^ and helping his neigh- bor, a 3'oung lad}^ du monde I Fanc}' a noble lord calling out to the sei'vants, before the ladies at his table, " Hang expense, bring us a ha'porth of cheese ! " Such were the ladies of Saint James's — such were the frequenters of ' ' White's Chocolate- House," when Swift used to visit it, and Steele described it as 196 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. the centre of pleasure, gallantry, and entertainment, a hundred and forty years ago ! Dennis, who ran amuck at the literary society of his day, falls foul of poor Steele, and thus depicts him: — '' Sir John Edgar, of the count}" of in Ireland, is of a middle stature, broad shoulders, thick legs, a shape like the picture of some- bod}' over a farmer's chimne}' — a short chin, a short nose, a short forehead, a broad flat face, and a dusky countenance. Yet with such a face and such a shape, he discovered at sixty that he took himself for a beauty, and appeared to be more mor- tified at being told that he was ugly, than he was by an}" reflec- tion made upon his honor or understanding. " He is a gentleman born, witness himself, of very honorable family ; certainly of a very ancient one, for his ancestors flour- ished in Tipperary long before the English ever set foot in Ireland. He has testimony of this more authentic than the Herald's Office, or any human testimony. For God has marked him more abundantly than he did Cain, and stamped his native country on his face, his understanding, his writings, his actions, his passions, and, above all, his vanity. The Hibernian brogue is still upon all these, though long habit and length of days have worn it ofl" his tonojue." * 'O' * Steele replied to Dennis in an " Answer to a Whimsical Pamphlet, called the Character of Sir John Edgar." What Steele had to say against the cross-grained old Critic discovers a great deal of humor : — " Thou never didst let the sun into thy garret, for fear he should bring a bailiff along with him " Your years are about sixty-five, an ugly, vinegar face, tliat if you had any command you would be obeyed out of fear, from your ill-nature pic- tured there ; not from any other motive. Your height is about some five feet five inches. You see I can give your exact measure as well as if I had taken your dimension with a good cudgel, which I promise you to do as soon as ever I have the good fortune to meet you j " Your doughty paunch stands before you like a firkin of butter, and .your duck legs seem to be cast for carrying burdens. ' " Thy works are libels upon others, and satires upon thyself; and while •' tliey bark at men of sense, call him knave and fool that wrote them. Thou hast a great antipathy to thy own species; and hatest the sight of a fool but in tliy glass." Steele had been kind to Dennis, and once got arrested on account of a pecuniary service which he did him. When John heard of the fact — *' S'death! " cries John ; " why did not he keep out of the way as I did ? " The " Answer " concludes by mentioning that Cibber had offered Ten Pounds for the discovery of the authorship of Dennis's pamphlet; on which, says Steele, — "I am only sorry he has offered so much, because the tiventieth part would have over-valued his whole carcass. But I know the fellow that he keeps to give answers to his creditors will betray him ; for he gave me his word to bring officers on the top of the house that STEELE. 197 Although this portrait is the work of a man who was neither the friend of Steele nor of any other man alive, yet there is a ch'eadful resemblance to the original in the savage and exag- gerated traits of the caricature, and ever3'body who knows him must recognize Dick Steele. Dick set about almost all the undertakings of his life with inadequate means, and, as he took and furnished a house with the most generous intentions towards his friends, the most tender gallantry towards his wife, and with this only drawback, that he had not wherewithal to pay the rent when quarter-day came, — so, in his life he proposed to himself the most magnificent schemes of virtue, forbearance, public and private good, and the advancement of his own and the national religion ; but when he had to pay for these articles — so difficult to purchase and so costly to maintain — poor Dick's monev was not forthcomino^ : and when Virtue called with her little bill, Dick made a shuffling excuse that he could not see her that morning, having a headache from being tipsy over-night ; or when stern Duty rapped at the door with his account, Dick was absent and not ready to pay. He was shirking at the tavern ; or had some particular business (of somebodj^'s else) at the ordinary : or he was in hiding, or worse than in hiding, in the lock-up house. What a situation for a man ! — for a philanthropist — for a lover of right and truth — for a magnificent designer and schemer ! Not to dare to look in the face the Religion which he adored and which he had offended : to have to shirk down back lanes and alleys, so as to avoid the friend whom he loved and who had trusted him ; to have the house which he had intended for his wife, whom he loved passionately, and for her ladyship's company which he wished to entertain splendidl}^ in the possession of a bailiff's man ; with a crowd of little creditors, — grocers, butchers, and small-coal men — fingering round the door with their bills and jeering at him. Alas ! for poor Dick Steele ! For nobod}' else, of course. There is no man or woman in our time who makes fine projects and gives them up from idleness or want of means. When Duty calls upon ms, we no doubt are always at home and ready to pay that grim tax-gatherer. When we are stricken should make a hole through the ceiling of his garret, and so bring him to the punishment he deserves. Some people thinlc this expedient out of the way, and that he would make his escape upon hearing the least noise. I say so too; but it takes hira up half an hour every night to fortify himself with his old hair trunk, two or three joint-stools, and" some other lumber, which he ties together with cords so fast that it takes him up the same time in the morning to release himself." 198 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. with remorse and promise reform, we keep our promise, and are never angry, or idle, or extravagant any more. There are no chambers in our hearts, destined for family friends and affections, and now occupied b}^ some Sin's emissary and bailiff in possession. There are no little sins, shabby peccadilloes, importunate remembrances, or disappointed holders of our promises to reform, hovering at our steps, or knocking at our door ! Of course not. We are living in the nineteenth century ; and poor Dick Steele stumbled and got up again, and got into jail and out again, and sinned and repented, and loved and suffered, and lived and died, scores of years ago. Peace be with him ! Let us think gently of one who was so gentle : let us speak kindly of one whose own breast exuberated with human kindness. PRIOE, GAY, AND POPE. Matthew Prior was one of those famous and lucky wits of the auspicious reign of Queen Anne, whose name it be- hoves us not to pass over. Mat was a world-philosopher of no small genius, good nature and acumen.* He loved, he * Gay calls him — " Dear Prior .... beloved by every muse." — Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece. Swift and Prior were very intimate, and he is frequently mentioned in the "Journal to Stella." "Mr. Prior," says Swift, "walks to make him- self fat, and I to keep myself down We of ten walk round the park together." In Swift's works there is a curious tract called " Remarks on the Characters of the Court of Queen Anne " [Scott's edition, vol. xii.] The " Remarks " are not by the Dean ; but at the end of each is an addition in italics from his hand, and these are always characteristic. Thus, to the Duke of Marlborough, he adds, " Detestably covetous," &c. Prior is thus noticed — " Matthew Prior, Esq., Commissioner of Trade. " On the Queen's accession to the throne, he was continued in his office ; is very well at court with the ministry, and is an entire creature of my Lord Jersey's, whom he supports by his advice ; is one of the l)est poets in England, but very facetious in conversation. A thin, hollow-looked man, turned of forty years old. This is near the truth." " Yet counting as far as to fifty his years. His virtues and vices were as other men's are. High hopes he conceived and he smothered great fears, In a life party-colored — half pleasure, half care. " Not to business a drudge, nor to faction a slave, He strove to make interest and freedom agree ; In public employments industrious and grave, And alone with his friends, Lord, how merry was he! ^00 EK'GLISH HUMORISTS. drank, he sang. He describes himself, in one of his Ijrics, ''in a little Dutch chaise on a Saturday night ; on his left hand, his Horace, and a friend on his right, " going out of town from the Hague to pass that evening, and the ensuing Sunda}', boozing at a Spielhaus with his companions, perhaps bobbing for perch in a Dutch canal, and noting down, in a strain and with a grace not unworthy of his Epicurean master the charms of his idleness, his retreat," and his Batavian Chloe. A vint- ner's son in Whitehall, and a distinguished pupil of Busby of the Rod, Prior attracted some notice b}^ writing verses at St. John's College, Cambridge, and, coming up to town, aided Montague * in an attack on the noble old English lion John Dry- den ; in ridicule of whose work, " The Hind and the Panther," he brought out that remarkable and famous burlesque, "The Town and Country Mouse.'* Aren't you all acquainted with it ? HaA^e 3'ou not all got it by heart ? What ! have you never heard of it? See what fame is made of! The wonderful part of the satire was, that, as a natural consequence of "The Town and Countrv Mouse," Matthew Prior was made Secre- tary of Embassy at the Hague ! I believe it is dancing, rather than singing, which distinguishes the 3'oung English diploma- tists of the present da}' ; and have seen them in various parts perform that part of their dut}'^ verj^ finel}'. In Prior's time it appears a different accomplishment led to preferment. Could 3'ou write a cop}' of Alcaics? that was the question. Could you turn out a neat epigram or two? Coukl 3'ou compose "The Town and Country Mouse ? " It is manifest that, by the possession of this facult}', the most difficult treaties, the laws of foreign nations, and the interests of our own, are easih' understood. Prior rose in the diplomatic service, and said good things that proved his sense and his spirit. When the apartments at Versailles were shown to him, with the vic- tories of Louis XIV. painted on the walls, and Prior was asked whether the palace of the King of England had any " Now in equipage stately, now humble on foot, Both fortunes he tried, but to neither would trust ; And whirled in the round as the wheel turned about, He found riches had wings, and knew man was but dust." Prior's Poems. \For my own monument.\ * " They joined to produce a parody, entitled ' The Town and Country Mouse,' part of which Mr. Bayes is supposed to gratify his old friends, Smart and Jolmson, by repeating to them. The piece is therefore founded upon the twice-told jest of the ' Rehearsal.' . . . There is nothing new or original in the idea. ... In this piece. Prior, though the younger man, seems to have had by far the largest share." — Scott's Lh-yden, vol. i. p. 330. QUEEN ANNE. PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 201 such clecoiations, "The monuments of mj' master's actions," Mat said, of William whom he cordially revered, "are to be seen ever3'where except in his own house." Bravo, Mat ! Prior rose to be full ambassador at Paris,* where he somehow was cheated out of his ambassadorial plate ; and in an heroic poem, addressed bj- him to her late lamented Majest}', Queen Anne, Mat makes some magnificent allusions to these dishes and spoons, of which Fate had deprived him. All that he wants, he sa3-s, is her Majest3^'s picture ; without that he can't be happ3\ " Thee, gracious Anne, thee present I adore : Thee, Queen of Peace, if Time and Fate have power Higher to raise the glories of thy reign. In words sublimer and a nobler strain May future bards the mighty theme rehearse. Here, Stator Jove, and Phoebus, king of verse, The votive tablet I suspend." With that word the poem stops abruptl3^ The votive tablet is suspended for ever, like Mahomet's coffin. News came that the Queen was dead. Stator Jove, and Phoebus, king of verse, were left there, hovering to this da3', over the votive tablet. The picture was never got, an 3' more than the spoons and dishes : the inspiration ceased, the verses were not wanted — the am- bassador wasn't wanted. Poor Mat was recalled from his em- bass3% suffered disgrace along with his patrons, lived under a sort of cloud ever after, and disappeared in Essex. When de- prived of all his pensions and emoluments, the heart)'' and gen- erous Oxford pensioned him. The)' pla3'ed for gallant stakes — the bold men of those da3's — and lived and gave splendidly. Johnson quotes from Spence a legend, that Prior, after spend- ing an evening with Harley, St. John, Pope, and Swift, would go off and smoke a pipe with a couple of friends of his, a soldier * " He was to have been in the same commission with the Duke of Shrewsbury, but that that nobleman," says Johnson, " refused to be asso- ciated with one so meanly born. Prior therefore continued to act without a title till the Duke's return next year to England, and then he assumed the style and dignity of ambassador." He had been thinking of slights of this sort when he wrote his Epi- taph : — "Nobles and heralds, by your leave, Here lies what once was Matthew Prior, The son of Adam and of Eve ; Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher ? " But, in this case, the old prejudice got the better of the old joke. 202 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. and bis wife, in Long Acre. Those who have not read his late Excellency's poems should be warned that the}^ smack not a little of the conversation of his Long Acre friends. Johnson speaks slightingly of his l3Tics ; but with duo deference to the great Samuel, Prior's seem to me amongst the easiest, the rich- est, the most charmingly humorous of English lyrical poems.* Horace is always in his mind ; and his song, and his philosophy, his good sense, his happy easy turns and melody, his loves and his Epicureanism bear a great resemblance to that most delight- ful and accompUshed master. In reading his works, one is struck with their modern air, as well as by their happy similarity to the songs of the charming owner of the Sabine farm. In his verses addressed to Halifax, he says, writing of that end- less theme to poets, the vanity of human wishes — " So whilst in fevered dreams we sink, ^ And waking, taste what we desire, The real draught but feeds the fire. The dream is better than the drink. " Our hopes like towering falcons aim At objects in an airy height : To stand aloof and view the flight, Is all the pleasure of the game." ♦ His epigrams have the genuine sparkle. "The Remedy worse than the Disease. " I sent for Radcliff ; was so ill, That other doctors gave me over : He felt my pulse, prescribed his pill, And I was likely to recover. "But when the wit began to wheeze, And wine had warmed the politician, Cured yesterday of my disease. I died last night of my physician." " Yes, every poet is a fool ; By demonstration Ned can show it ; Happy could Ned's inverted rule Prove every fool to be a poet." ** On his death-bed poor Lubin lies, His spouse is in despair ; With frequent sobs and mutual cries, They both express their care. " * A different cause,' says Parson Sly, ' The same effect may give ; Poor Lubin fears that he shall die, His wife that he may live.' " PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 203 Would iiot 3'oii fanc}- that a poet of our own da3^s was sing- ing? and in the verses of Chloe weeping and reproaching hira for his inconstanc}', where he says — " The God of us versemen, you know, child, the Sun, How, after his journeys, he sets up his rest. If at morning o'er earth 'tis his fancy to run. At night he declines on his Tlietis's breast. " So, when I am wearied with wandering all day, To thee, my delight, in the evening 1 come : No matter what beauties I saw in my way ; They were but my visits, but thou art my home ! " Then finish, dear Chloe, this pastoral war, And let us like Horace and Lydia agree : For thou art a girl as much brighter than her As he was a poet sublimer than rae." If Prior read Horace, did not Thomas Moore study Prior? Love and pleasure find singers in all daj^s. Roses are alwaj's blowing and fading — to-da}' as in that pretty time when Prior sang of them, and of Chloe lamenting their decay — " She sighed, she smiled, and to the flowers Pointing, the lovely moralist said : See, friend, in some few fleeting hours, , See yonder what a change is made ! " Ah me ! the blooming pride of May And that of Beauty are but one : At morn both flourish, bright and gay, Both fade at evening, pale and gone. " At dawn poor Stella danced and sung. The amorous youth around her bowed : At night her fatal knell was rung; I saw, and kissed her in her shroud. " Such as she is who died to-day. Such I, alas, may be to-morrow : Go, Damon, bid thy Muse display The justice of thy Chloe's sorrow." Damon's knell was rung in 1721. May his turf lie lightly on him ! Deus sit propitms Jniic potatori^ as Walter de Mapes sang.* Perhaps Samuel Johnson, who spoke slightingly' of * "Prior to Sir Thomas Hanmer. " Aug. 4, 1709. " Dear Sir, — Friendship may live, I grant you, without being fed and cherished by correspondence ; but with that additional benefit I am of opinion it will look more cheerful and thrive better : for in this case, as 204 ENGLISH HUMpRISTS. Prior's verses, enjo3^ed them more than he was wilUng to own. The old moralist had studied them as well as Mr. Thomas in love, though a man is sure of his own constancy, yet his happiness depends a good deal upon the sentiments of another, and wl)ile you and Chloe are alive, 'tis not enough that I love you both, except I am sure you botli love me again ; and as one of her scrawls fortifies my mind more against affliction than all Epictetus, with Simplicius's comments into the bargain, so your single letter gave me more real pleasure than all the works of Plato I must return my answer to vour very kind question con- cerning my health. The Bath waters have done a good deal towards the recovery of it, and the great specific. Cape cahallum, will, I think, confirm it. Upon this head I must tell you that my mare Bettj^ grows blind, and may one day, by breaking my neck, perfect my cure : if at liixham fair any pretty nagg that is between thirteen and fourteen hands presented him- self, and you would be pleased to purchase him for me, one of your ser- vants might ride him to Euston, and I might receive him there. This, sir, is just as such a thing happens. If you hear, too, of a Welch widow, with a good jointure, that has her goings and is not very skittish, pray, be pleased to cast your eye on her for me too. You see, sir, the great trust I repose in your skill and honor, when I dare put two such commissions in your hand. . . . " — The Hanmer Correspondence, p. 120. " From Mr. Prior. Paris, 1st -12th May, 1714. " Mt dear Lord and Friend, — Matthew never had so great occa- jsion to write a word to Henry as now : it is noised here that I am soon to return. The question that I wish I could answer to the many that ask, and to our friend Colbert de Torcy (to wliom I made your compliments in the manner you commanded) is, wliat is done for me; and to what I am recalled ? It may look like a bagatelle, wiiat is to become of a philosopher like me ? but it is not such : wliat is to become of a person who had the honor to be chosen, and sent hither as intrusted, in the midst of a war, with what the Queen designed should make the peace ; returning with the Lord Bolingbroke, one of the greatest men in England, and one of the finest heads in Europe (as they say here, if true or not, n'mporte) ; having been left by him in the greatest character (that of Her Majesty's Plenipoten- tiary), exercising that power conjointly with the Duke of Shrewsbury, and solely after his departure; having here received more distinguished honor than any Minister, except an Ambassador, ever did, and some which were never given to any but who had that character ; having had all the success that could be expected; having (God be thanked!) spared no pains, at a time when at home the peace is voted safe and honorable — at a time when the Earl of Oxford is Lord Treasurer and Lord Bolingbroke First Secretary of State? This unfortunate person, I say, neglected, forgot, unnamed to anything that may speak the Queen satisfied with Jiis services, or his friends concerned as to his fortune. '* Mr. de Torcy put me quite out of countenance, the other day, by a pity that wounded me deeper than ever did the cruelty of the late Lord Godolphin. He said he would write to Robin and Harry about me. God forbid, my lord, that I should need any foreign intercession, or owe the least to any Frenchman living, besides the decency of behavior and the returns of common civility : some say I am to go to Baden, others that I am to be added to the Commissioners for settling the commerce. In all PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 205 Moore, and defended them, and showed that he remembered them very well too, on an occasion when their morality was called in question by that noted puritan, James Boswell, Esq., of Auchinleck.* In the great society of the wits, John Gay deserves to be a favorite, and to have a good place. f In his set all were fond cases I am ready, but in the meantime, dicaliquid detrihus capellis. Neither of these two are, I presume, honors or rewards, neither of them (let me say to my dear Lord Bolingbroke, and let him not be angry with me,) are what Drift may aspire to, and what Mr. Whitworth, who was his fellow-clerk, has or may possess. I am far from desiring to lessen the great merit of the gentleman I named, for I heartily esteem and love him ; but in this trade of ours, my lord, in which you are the general, as in that of the soldiery, tliere is a certain right acquired by time and long service. You would do anything for your Queen's service, but you would not be contented to de- scend, and be degraded to a charge, no way proportioned to that of Secretary of State, any more than Mr. Ross, though he would charge a party with a halbard in his hand, would be content all his life after to be Serjeant. Was my Lord Dartmouth, from Secretary, returned again to be Commissioner of Trade, or from Secretary of War, would Frank Gwyn think himself kindly used to be returned again to be Commissioner 1 In short, my lord, you Iiave put me above myself, and if I am to return to myself, I shall return to something very discontented and uneasy. I am sure, my lord, you will make the best use you can of this hint for my good. If I am to have anything, it will certainly be for Her Majesty's service, and the credit of my friends in the Ministry, that it be done before I am recalled from home, lest the world may think either that I have merited to be disgraced, or that ye dare not stand by me. If nothing is to be done, fiat voluntas Dei. I have writ to Lord Treasurer upon this subject, and having implored your kind intercession, I promise you it is the last remonstrance of this kind that I will ever make. Adieu, my lord ; all honor, health, and pleasure to you. Yours ever. Matt." "P.S. — Lady Jersey is just gone from me. We drank your healths together in usquebaugh after our tea : we are the greatest friends alive. Once more adieu. There is no such thing as the ' Book of Travels ' you mentioned ; if there be, let friend Tilson send us more particular account of them, for neither I nor Jacob Tonson can find them. Pray send Barton back to me, I hope with some comfortable tidings." — BoUngbroke's Letters. * " I asked whether Prior's poems were to be printed entire ; Johnson said they were. I mentioned Lord Hales's censure of Prior in his preface to a collection of sacred poems, by various hands, published by him at Edinburgh a great many years ago, where he mentions ' these impure tales, which will be the eternal opprobrium of their ingenious author.' John- son : ' Sir, Lord Hales has forgot. There is nothing in Prior that will excite to lewdness. If Lord Hales thinks there is, he must be more com- bustible than other people.' I instanced the tale of ' Paulo Purganti and his wife.' Johnson : ' Sir, there is nothing there but that his wife wanted to be kissed, when poor Paulo was out of pocket. No, sir, Prior is a lady's book. No lady is ashamed to have it standing in her library.'" — Bos- well's Life of Johnson. t Gay was of an old Devonshire family, but his pecuniary prospects not being great, was placed in his youth in the house of a silk-mercer in 206 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. of him. His success offended nobody. He missed a. fortune once or twice. He was talked of for court favor, and hoped to win it ; but the court favor jilted him. Craggs gave him some South Sea Stock ; and at one time Gay had ver}' nearh' made his fortune. But Fortune shook her swift wings and jilted him too : and so his friends, instead of being angry with him, and jealous of him, were kind and fond of honest Ga}'. In the portraits of the literary worthies of the early part of the last centur}^, Gay's face is the pleasantest perhaps of all. It ap- pears adorned with neither periwig nor nightcap (the full dress and negligee of learning, without which the painters of those days scarcely ever portrayed wits), and he laughs at you over his shoulder with an honest boyish glee — an artless sweet humor. He was so kind, so gentle, so jocular, so delightfully brisk at times, so dismally woe-begone at others, such a natural good creature that the Giants loved him. The great Swift was gentle and sportive with him,* as the enormous Brobdingnag maids of honor were with little Gulliver. He could frisk and fondle round Pope,t and sport, and bark, and caper, without London. He was born in 1688 — Pope's year, and in 1712 the Duchess of Monmouth made him her secretary. Next year he published his " Rural Sports," which he dedicated to Pope, and so made an acquaintance, whicli became a memorable friendship. " Gay," says Pope, " was quite a natural man, — wholly without art or design, and spoke just what he thought and as he thought it. He dangled for twenty years about a court, and at last was offered to be made usher to the young princesses. Secretary Craggs made Gay a present of stock in the South Sea year ; and he was once worth 20,000/., but lost it all again. He got about 400/. by the first ' Beggar's Opera,' and 1,100/. or 1,200/. by the second. He was negligent and a bad manager. Latterly, the Duke of Queensbury took his money into his keeping, and let him only have what was necessary out of it, and, as he lived with them, he could not have occasion for much. He died worth upwards of 3,000/." — Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. * " Mr. Gay is, in all regards, as honest and sincere a man as ever I knew." — Swift, To Ladti Betty Germaine, Jan. 1733. t " Of manners gentle, of affections mild ; In wit a man ; simplicity, a child ; With native humor temp'ring virtuous rage, Forra'd to delight at once and lash the age ; Above temptation in a low estate, And uncorrupted e'en among the great : A safe companion, and an easy friend, Unblamed through life, lamented in thy end. These are thy honors ; not that here thy bust Is mixed with heroes, or with kings thy dust ; But that the worthy and the good shall say, Striking their pensive bosoms, ' Here lies Gay.' " Pope's Epitaph on Gay. PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 207 offending the most thin-skinned of poets and men ; and when he was jilted in that little court affair of which we have spoken, his warm-hearted patrons the Duke and Duchess of Queens- beny* (the "Kittys beautiful and 3'oung," of Prior,) pleaded " A hare who, in a civil way, Complied with everything, like Gay." Fables, " The Hare and many Friends." * " I can give you no account of Gay," says Pope, curiously, " since he was raffled for, and won back by his Duchess." — Works, Baecoe's Ed., vol. ix. p. 392. Here is the letter Pope wrote to him when the death of Queen Anne brought back Lord Clarendon from Hanover, and lost him the Secretary- ship of that nobleman, of which he had had but a short tenure. Gay's court prospects were never happy from this time. — His dedica- tion of the " Shepherd's Week " to Bolingbroke, Swift used to call the " original sin" which had hurt him with the house of Hanover: — " Sept. 23, 1714. " Dear Mr. Gay, — Welcome to your native soil ! welcome to your friends ! thrice welcome to me ! whether returned in glory, blest with court interest, the love and familiarity of the great, and filled with agree- able hopes ; or melancholy with dejection, contemplative of the changes of fortune, and doubtful for the future ; whether returned a triumphant Whig or a desponding Tory, equally all hail ! equally beloved and welcome to me ! If happy, I am to partake in your elevation ; if unhappy, you have still a warm corner in my heart, and a retreat at Binfield in the worst of times at your service. If you are a Tory, or thought so by any man, I know it can proceed from nothing but your gratitude to a few people who endeavored to serve you, and whose politics were never your concern. If you are a Whig, as I rather hope, and as I think your principles and mine (as brother poets) had ever a bias to the side of liberty, I know you will be an honest man and an inoffensive one. Upon the whole, I know you are incapable of being so much of either party as to be good for nothing. Therefore, once more, whatever you are or in whatever state you are, all hail ! " One or two of your own friends complained they had heard nothing from you since the Queen's death; I told them no man living loved Mr. Gay better than I, yet I had not once written to him in all his voyage. This I thought a convincing proof how truly one may be a friend to another with- out telling him so every month. But they had reasons, too, themselves to allege in your excuse, as men who really value one another will never want such as make their friends and themselves easy. The late universal concern in public affairs threw us all into a hurry of spirits : even I, who am more a philosopher than to expect anything from any reign, was borne away with the current, and full of the expectation of the successor. During your journeys, I knew not whither to aim a letter after you ; that was a sort of shooting flying : add to this the demand Homer had upon me, to write fifty verses a day, besides learned notes, all which are at a conclusion for this year. Rejoice with me, O my friend ! that my labor is over ; come and make merry with me in much feasting. We will feed among the lilies (by the lilies I mean the ladies). Are not the Rosalindas of Britain as charming astho Blousalindas of the Hague ? or have the two groat Pastoral poets of 208 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. his cause with indignation, and quitted the com-t in a huff, carrying off with them into their retirement their kind gentle protege. With these kind lordly folks, a real Duke and Duchess, as delightful as those who harbored Don Quixote, and loved that dear old Sancho, Gay lived, and w^as lapped in cotton, and had his plate of chicken, and his saucer of cream, and frisked, and barked, and wheezed, and grew fat, and so ended.* He became ver}" melancholy and laz}^ sadl}^ plethoric, and onl}^ occasionall}^ diverting in his latter da3-s. But ever}- bod}' loved him, and the remembrance of his prett}^ little tricks ; and the raging old Dean of St. Patrick's, chafing in his banish- ment, was afraid to open the letter which Pope wrote him, announcing the sad news of the death of Gay.-f our nation renounced love at the same time ? for Philips, immortal Philips, hath deserted, yea, and in a rustic manner kicked his Rosalind. Dr. Parnell and I have been inseparable ever since you went. We are now at the Batli, where (if you are not, as I heartily hope, better engaged) your coming would be the greatest pleasure to us in the world. Talk not of expenses : Homer shall support his children. I beg a line from you, directed to the Post-house in Bath. Poor Parnell is in an ill state of healtn. " Pardon me if I add a word of advice in the poetical way. Write something on the King, or Prince, or Princess. On whatsoever foot you may be with the court, this can do no harm. I shall never know wliere to end, and am confounded in the many things I have to say to you, though they all amount but to this, that I am, entirely, as ever, " Your," «S;c. Gay took the advice " in the poetical way," and published " An Epistle to a Lady, occasioned by the arrival of her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales." But though this brought him access to court, and the attendance of the Prince and Princess at his farce of the " What d'ye call it ? " it did not bring him a place. On the accession of George II., he was offered the situation of Gentleman Usher to the Princess Louisa (her Highness being then two years old) ; but " by this offer," says Johnson, "he thought him- self insulted." * " Gay was a great eater. — As the French philosopher used to prove his existence by Cog i lo, eryo sum, the greatest proof of Gay's existence is, Edit, enjo est." — Congreve, in a letter to Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. t Swift endorsed the letter — "On my dear friend Mr. Gay's death; received Dec. 15, but not read till the 20th, by an impulse foreboding some misfortune." "It was by Swift's interest that Gay was made known to Lord Boling- broke, and obtained his patronage." — Scott's Swift, vol. 1. p. 156. Pope wrote on the occasion of Gay's death, to Swift, thus : — 1" Dec. 5, 1732.J " . . . . One of the nearest and longest ties I have ever had is broken all on a sudden by the unexpected death of poor Mr. Gay. An inflamma- tory fever hurried him out of this life in three days He asked of you a few hours before when in acute torment by the inflammation in his bowels PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 209 Swift's letters to him are beautiful ; and having no purpose but kindness in writing to him, no part}" aim to advocate, or slight or anger to w^reak, every word the Dean saj's to his favorite is natural, trustworth}", and kindl}". His admiration for Gay's parts and honest}^, and his laughter at his weaknesses, were alike just and genuine. He paints his character in won* derful pleasant traits of jocular satire. " I writ lately to Mr. Pope," Swift says, writing to G a}' : " I wish you had a little villakin in his neighborhood ; but 3'ou are j^et too volatile, and any lady with a coach and six horses would carry you to Japan." " If 3"0ur ramble," says Swift, in another letter, '' was on horse- back, I am glad of it, on account of your health ; but I know 3^our arts of patching up a journe}^ between stage-coaches and friends' coaches — for you are as arrant a cockne}' as any hosier in Cheapside. I have often had it in my head to put it into yours, that you ought to have some great work in scheme, which ma}' take up seven 3'ears to finish, besides two or three under-ones that ma}' add another thousand pounds to your stock, and then I shall be in less pain about you. I know you can find dinners, but you love twelvepenny coaches too well, without considering that the interest of a whole thousand pounds brings you but half a crown a day." And then Swift goes oflT from Gay to pay some grand compliments to her Grace the Duchess of Queensberry, in whose sunshine Mr. Gay was basking, and in whose radiance the Dean would have liked to warm himself too. But we have Gay here before us, in these letters — lazy, kindly, uncommonly idle ; rather slovenly, I'm afraid ; for ever eating and saying good things ; a little round French abbe of a man, sleek, soft-handed, and soft-hearted. Our object in these lectures is rather to describe the men than their works ; or to deal with the latter onl}' in as far as they seem to illustrate the character of their writers. Mr. Gay's "Fables," which were written to benefit that amiable Prince, the Duke of Cumberland, the warrior of Dettingen and Culloden, I have not, I own, been able to peruse since a period of very early youth ; and it must be confessed that they did not efl[ect much benefit upon the illustrious young Prince, whose manners they were intended to mollify, and whose natural and breast His sisters, we suppose, will be his heirs, who are two widows Good God ! how often are we to die before we go quite ofE this stage 1 In every friend we lose a part of ourselves, and the best part. God keep those we have left ! few are worth praying for, and one's self the least of all." U 210 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. ferocity our gentle-hearted Satirist perhaps proposed to restrain. But the six pastorals called the " Shepherd's Week," and the burlesque poem of "Trivia," an}^ man fond of laz}^ literature will find delightful at the present da}", and must read from beginning to end with pleasure. They are to poetry what charming little Dresden china figures are to sculpture : graceful, minikin, fantastic ; with a certain beaut}' always accompanying them. The pretty little personages of the pastoral, with gold clocks to their stockings, and fresh satin ribbons to their crooks and waistcoats and bodices, dance their loves to a minuet-tune played on a bird-organ, approach the charmer, or rush from the false one daintily on their red-heeled tiptoes, and die of despair or rapture, with the most pathetic little giins and ogles ; or repose, simpering at each other, under an arbor of pea- green crockery ; or piping to pretty flocks that have just been washed with the best Naples in a stream of Bergamot. Gay's gay plan seems to me far pleasanter than that of Philhps — his rival and Pope's — a serious and dreary idyllic cockney ; not that Gay's "Bumkinets" and "Hobnelias" are a whit more natural than the would-be serious characters of the other pos- ture-master ; but the quality of this true humorist was to laugh and make laugh, though always with a secret kindness and ten- derness, to perform the drollest little antics and capers, but always with a certain grace, and to sweet music — as you may have seen a Savoyard boy abroad, with a hurdy-gurdy and a monkey, turning over head and heels, or clattering and pirouettin in a pair of wooden shoes, yet always with a look of love and ap peal in his bright eyes, and a smile that asks and wins affection and protection. Happy they who have that sweet gift of nature ! It was this which made the great folks and court ladies free and friendly with John Gay — which made Pope and Arbuthnot love him — which melted the savage heart of Swift when he thought of him — and drove away, for a moment or two, the dark frenzies which obscured the lonely tyrant's brain, as he heard Gay's voice with its simple melody and artless ringing laughter. What used to be said about Rubini, gu'il avail des larmes dans la voix, may be said of Gay,* and of one other humorist of whom we shall have to speak. In almost every ballad of * " Gay, like Goldsmith, had a musical talent. ' He could play on the flute/ says Malone, * and was, therefore, enabled to adapt so happily some of the airs in the " Beggar's Opera." ' " — Notes to Spence. PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 211 his, however slight,* in the "Beggar's Operant and in its wearisome continuation (where the verses are to the full as * " 'Twas when the seas were roaring With hollow blasts of wind, A damsel lay deploring All on a rock reclined. Wide o'er the foaming billows She cast a wistful look ; Her head was crown'd with willows That trembled o'er the brook. U t Twelve months are gone and over, And nine long tedious days ; Why didst thou, venturous lover — Why didst thou trust the seas 1 Cease, cease, thou cruel Ocean, And let my lover rest ; Ah ! what's thy troubled motion To that within my breast ? " * The merchant, robb'd of pleasure. Sees tempests in despair ; But what's the loss of treasure To losing of my dear 1 Should you some coast be laid on. Where gold and diamonds grow, You'd find a richer maiden, But none that loves you so. €t < How can they say that Nature Has nothing made in vain ; Why, then, beneath the water Should hideous rocks remain 1 No eyes the rocks discover That lurk beneath the deep, To wreck the wandering lover, And leave the maid to weep ?' "All melancholy lying, Thus wailed she for her dear;' Repay'd each blast with sighing. Each billow with a tear ; When o'er the white wave stooping. His floating corpse she spy'd; Then like a lily drooping, She bow'd her head, and died." A Ballad from the " What d'ye call it f " ^nJJi^^' ^'"^M ^^^,^^^" Observing once to Mr. Gay, what an odd pretty sort of thing a Newgate Pastoral might make. Gay was inclined to try at such a thmg for some tmie, but afterwards thought it would be better to 212 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. prett}" as in the first piece, however), there is a peculiar, hinted, pathetic sweetness and melody. It charms and jnelts you. It's indefinable, but it exists ; and is the property of John Ga3^'s and Oliver Goldsmith's best verse, as fragrance is of a violet, or freshness of a rose. Let me read a piece from one of his letters, which is so, famous that most people here are no doubt familiar with it, butJ. so delightful that it is always pleasant to hear : — | » " I have just passed part of this summer at an old romantic seat of my Lord Harcourt's which he lent me. It overlooks a common field, where, under the shade of a haycock, sat two lovers — as constant as ever were found in romance — beneath a spreading beech. The name of the one (let it sound as it will) was John He wet ; of the other Sarah Drew. John was a well-set man, about five and twenty ; Sarah a brown woman of eighteen. John had for several months borne the labor of the day in the same field with Sarah ; when she milked, it was his morning and evening charge to bring the cows to her pail. Their love was the talk, but not the scandal, of the whole neighborhood, for all they aimed at was the blameless possession of each other in marriage. It was but this very morning that he had obtained her parents' consent, and it was but till the next week that tliey were to wait to be happy. Perhaps this very day, in the intervals of their work, they were talking of their wedding-clothes ; and John was now matching several kinds of poppies and field-flowers to her complexion, to make her a present of knots for the day. While they were thus employed (it was on the last of July), a terrible storm of thunder and lightning arose, that drove the laborers to what shelter the trees or hedges afforded. Sarah, frightened and out of breath, sunk on a haycock; and John (who never separated from her), sat by her side, having raked two or three heaps together, to secure her. Immediately there was heard so loud a crack, as i^ heaven had burst assunder. The laborers, all solicitous for each other's safety, called to one another : those that were nearest our lovers, hearing no answer, stepped to the place where they lay : they first saw a little smoke, and after, this faithful pair — John, with one arm about his Sarah's neck, and the other held over her face, as if to screen her from the lightning. write a comedy on the same plan. This was what gave rise to the 'Beg- gar's Opera.' He began on it, and when he first mentioned it to Swift, the Doctor did not much like the project. As he carried it on, he showed what he wrote to both of us ; and we now and then gave a correction, or a word or two of advice ; but it was wholly of his own writing. When it was done, neither of us thought it would succeed. We showed it to Congreve, who, after reading it over, said, ' It would either take greatly, or be damned confoundedly,' We were all at the first night of it, in great uncertainty of the event, till we were very much encouraged by overhearing the Duke of Argyle, who sat in the next box to us, say, ' It will do — it must do ! — I see it in the eyes of them ! ' This was a good while before the first act M'as over, and so gave us ease soon ; for the Duke [besides his own good taste] has a more particular knack than any one now living in discovering the taste of the public. He was quite right in this as usual ; the good nature of the audience appeared stronger and stronger every act, and ended in a clamor of a^jplause." — Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 213 They were struck dead, and already grown stiff and cold in this tender posture. There was no mark or discoloring on their bodies — only that Sarah's eyebrow was a little singed, and a small spot between her breasts. They were buried the next day in one grave." And the proof that this description is delightful and beauti- ful is, that the great Mr. Pope admired it so much that he thought proper to steal it an^ to send it off to a certain lady and wit, with whom he pretended to be in love in those da3's — my Lord Duke of Kingston's daughter, and married to Mr. Wortley Montagu, then his Majesty's Ambassador at Con- stantinople. We are now come to the greatest name on our list — the highest among the poets, the highest among the Enghsh wits and humorists with whom we have to rank him. If the author of the " Dunciad" be not a humorist, if the poet of the " Rape of the Lock " be not a wit, who deserves to be called so ? Be- sides that brilliant genius and immense fame, for both of which we should respect him, men of letters should admire him as being the greatest literary artist that England has seen. He polished, he refined, he thought; he took thoughts from other works to adorn and complete his own ; borrowing an idea or a cadence from another poet as he would a figure or a simile from a flower, or a river, stream, or any object which struck him in his walk, or contemplation of Nature. He began to imitate at an early age ; * and taught himself to write b}^ cop3ing printed * " Waller, Spenser, and Dryden were Mr. Pope's great favorites, in the order they are named, in his first reading, till he was about twelve years old." — Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. "Mr. Pope's father (who was an honest merchant, and dealt in Hol- lands, wholesale) was no poet, but he used to set him to make English verses when very young. He was pretty difficult in being pleased; and used often to send him back to new turn them. 'These are not good rhimes;' for that was my husband's word for verses." — Pope's Mother. Spence. " I wrote things, I'm ashamed to say how soon. Part of an Epic Poem when about twelve. The scene of it lay at Rhodes and some of the neigh- boring islands ; and the poem opened under water with a description of the Court of Neptune." — Pope. Ibid. " His perpetual application (after he set to. study of himself) reduced him in four years' time to so bad a state of health, that, after trying physi- cians for a good while in vain, he resolved to give way to his distemper ; and sat down calmly in a full expectation of death in a short time. Under this thought, he wrote letters to take a last farewell of some of his more par- ticular friends, and, among the rest, one to the Abbe Southcote. The Abbe was extremely concerned, both for his very ill state of health and the resolu- tion he said he had taken. He thought there might yet be hope, and went immediately to Dr. Radcliffe, with whom he was well acquainted, told him Mr. Pope's case, got full directions from him, and carried them down to 214 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. books. Then he passed into the hands of the priests, and from his first clerical master, who came to him when he was eight j-ears old, he went to a school at Twyford, and another school at Hyde Park, at which places he unlearned all that he had got from his first instructor. At twelve years old, he went with his father into Windsor Forest, and there learned for a few months under a fourth priest. ' ' And this was all the teaching I ever had," he said, " and God knows it extended a ver}" little way." When he had done with his priests he took to reading by himself, for which he had a very great eagerness and enthu- siasm, especially for poetry. He learned versification from Dryden, he said. In his youthful poem of " Alcander," he imitated ever^^ poet, Cowlej^ Milton, Spenser, Statins, Homer, Virgil. In a few 3'ears he had dipped into a great number of the Enghsh, French, Italian, Latin, and Greek poets. "This I did," he says, " without any design, except to amuse mj^self ; and got the languages b}' hunting after the stories in the several poets I read, rather than read the books to get the lan- guages. I followed everywhere as my fancy led me, and was like a bo}^ gathering flowers in the fields and woods, just as they fell in his wa3^ These five or six years I looked upon as the happiest in my life." Is not here a beautiful holida}' picture ? The forest and the fairy stor3'-book — the bo}' spell- ing Ariosto or Virgil under the trees, battling with the Cid for the love of Chimene, or dreaming of Armida's garden — peace and sunshine round about — the kindest love and tenderness waiting for him at his quiet home j-onder — and Genius throb- bing in his 3'oung heart, and whispering to him, " You shall be great ; 3'ou shall be famous ; you too shall love and sing ; 3'ou will sing her so nobly that some kind heart shall forget 3^ou are weak and ill-formed. Ever3^ poet had a love. Fate must give one to you too," — and day b3' da3^ he walks the forest, ver3^ likely looking out for that charmer. "They were the hap- piest days of his life," he says, when he was .only dreaming of his fame : when he had gained that mistress she was no consoler. That charmer made her appearance, it would seem, about the 3^ear 1705, when Pope was seventeen. Letters of his are extant, addressed to a certain Lady M , whom the youth courted, and to whom he expressed his ardor in language, to Pope in Windsor Forest. The chief thing the Doctor ordered him was to apply less, and to ride every day. The following his advice soon restored him to his health." — Pope. Spence. PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 215 say no worse of it, that is entirely pert, odious, and affected. He imitated love-compositions as he had been imitating love- poems just before — it was a sham mistress he courted, and a sham passion, expressed as became it. These unluck}- letters found their vva}' into print years afterwards, and were sold to the congenial Mr. Curll. If an}' of my hearers, as 1 hope they may, should take a fanc}' to look at Pope's correspondence, let them pass over that first part of it ; over, perhaps, almost all Pope's letters to women ; in which there is a tone of not pleas- ant gallantry, and, amidst a profusion of compliments and politenesses, a something which makes one distrust the little pert, prurient bard. There is very little indeed to say about his loves, and that little not edifying. He wrote flames and rap- tures and elaborate verse and prose for Lady Mary Wortley Montagu ; but that passion probably came to a climax in an impertinence and was extinguished b}^ a box on the ear, or some such rebuff, and he began on a sudden to hate her with a fervor mu(5h more genuine than that of his love had been. It was a feeble, pun}' grimace of love, and paltering with passion. After Mr. Pope had sent off one of his fine compositions to Lady Mar}', he made a second draft from the rough copy, and favored some other friend with it. He was so charmed with the letter of Gay's that I have just quoted, that he had copied that and amended it, and sent it to Lad}' Mary as his own. A gentleman who writes letters a deux fins^ and after having poured out his heart to the beloved, serves up the same dish rechauffe ^ a friend, is not very much in earnest about his loves, however much he may be in his piques and vanities when his impertinence gets its due. But, save that unlucky part of the " Pope Correspondence," I do not know, in the range of our literature, volumes more delightful.* You live in them in the finest company in the * " Mr. Pope to the Kev. Mr. Broom, Pulham, Norfolk. "Aug. 29th, 1730. "Dear Sir, — I intended to write to you on this melancholy subject, the death of Mr. Fenton, before yours came, but stayed to have in- formed myself and you of the circumstances of it. All I hear is, that he felt a gradual decay, though so early in life, and was declining for five or six months. It was not, as I apprehended, the gout in his stomach, but, I believe, rather a complication first of gross humors, as he was naturally corpulent, not discharging themselves, as he used no sort of exercise. No man better bore the approaches of his dissolution (as I am told), or with less ostentation yielded up his being. The great modesty which you know was natural to him, and the great contempt he had for all sorts of vanity and parade, never appeared more than in his last moments : he had a con- 216 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. world. A little stately, perhaps ; a little apprete and conscious that they are speaking to whole generations who are listening ; scious satisfaction (no doubt) in acting right, in feeling himself honest, true, and unpretending to more than his own. So he died as he lived, with that secret, yet sufficient contentment. " As to any papers left behind him, I dare say they can be but few ; for this reason, he never wrote out of vanity, or tliought much of the ap- plause of men. I know an instance when he did his utmost to conceal his own merit that way ; and if we join to this his natural love of ease, I fancy we must expect little of this sort: at least, I have heard of none, except some few further remarks on Waller (which his cautious integrity made hira leave an order to be given to ]Vlr. Tonson), and perhaps, though it is many years since I saw it, a translation of the first book of ' Oppian.' He liad begun a tragedy of ' Dion,' but made small progress in it. " As to his other affairs, he died poor but honest, leaving no debts or legacies, except of a few pounds to Mr. Trumbull and my lady, in token of respect, gratefulness, and mutual esteem. " 1 shall with pleasure take upon me to draw this amiable, quiet, deserving, unpretending, Christian, and philosophical character in his epitaph. There truth may be spoken in a few words ; as for flourish, and oratory, and poetry, I leave them to younger and more lively writers, such as love writing for writing's sake, and would rather show their own fine parts than report the valuable ones of any other man. So the elegy I renounce. " I condole with you from my heart on the loss of so worthy a man, and a friend to us both. .... " Adieu ; let us love his memory and profit by his example. Am very sincerely, dear sir, " Your affectionate and real servant." "To THE Eakl of Burlington. ^ " August, 1714. " My Lord — If your mare could speak she would give you an account of what extraordinary company she had on the road, which, since she cannot do, I will. -, ,. , i • ^ t t^it t- " It was the enterprising Mr. Lintot, the redoubtable rival of Mr Ton- son, who, mounted on a stone-horse, overtook me in Wmdsor Forest. He said he heard I designed for Oxford, the seat of the Muses, and would, as my bookseller, by all means accompany me thither. . .. 4. .- " I asked him where he got his horse ? He answered he got it of his publisher ; ' for that rogue, my printer,' said he, ' disappointed me. I hoped to put him in good humor by a treat at the tavern of a brown fricassee of rabbits, which cost ten shillings, with two quarts of wine besides my con- versation. I thought mvself cock-sure of his horse, which he readily prom- ised me, but said that Mr. Tonson had just such another design ot gomg to Cambridge, expecting there the copy of a new kind of Horace from Dr. — — ; and if Mr. Tonson went, he was pre-engaged to attend him, being to have the printing of the said copy. So, in short, I borrowed this stone-horse ot my publisher, which he had of Mr. Oldmixon for a debt. He lent me, too, the pretty boy you see after me. He was a smutty dog yesterday and cost me more than two hours to wash the ink off his face ; but the devil is a fair-conditioned de\il, and very forward in his catechism. If you have any more bags lie shall carry them.' PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 217 but in the tone of their voices — pitched, as no doubt the}^ are, be3'ond the mere conversation key — in the expression of their (( I thought Mr. Lintot's civility not to be neglected, so gave the boy a small bag containing three shirts and an Elzevir Virgil, and, mounting in an instant, proceeded on the road, with ray man before, my courteous stationer beside, and the aforesaid devil behind. " Mr. Lintot began in this manner : ' Now, damn them ! What if they should put it into the newspaper how you and I went together to Oxford ? What would I care 1 If I should go down into Sussex they would say I was gone to the Speaker ; but what of that 1 If my son were but big enough to go on with the business, by G — d, I would keep as good company as old Jacob.' " Hereupon, I inquired of his son. ' The lad ' says he, ' has fine parts, but is somewhat sickly, much as you are. I spare for nothing in his edu- cation at Westminster. Pray, don't you think Westminster to be the best school in England 1 Most of the late Ministry came out of it ; so did many of this Ministry. I hope the boy will make his fortune.' " ' Don't you design to let him pass a year at Oxford 1 ' ' To what purpose ? ' said he. ' The Universities do but make pedants, and I intend to breed him a man of business.' " As Mr. Lintot was talking I observed he sat uneasy on his saddle, for which I expressed some solicitude. ' Nothing,' says he. ' I can bear it well enough ; but, since we have the day before us, methinks it would be very pleasant for you to rest awhile under the woods.' When we were alighted, ' See, here, what a mighty pretty Horace I have in my pocket ? What, if you amused yourself in turning an ode till we mount again 1 Lord ! if you pleased, what a clever miscellany might you make at leisure hours'? ' ' Perhaps I may,' said I, ' if we ride on : the motion is an aid to my fancy ; a round trot very much awakens my spirits ; then jog on apace, and I'll think as hard as I can.' " Silence ensued for a full hour ; after which Mr, Lintot lugged the reins, stopped short, and broke out, ' Well, sir, how far have you gone 1 ' I answered, seven miles. ' Z — ds, sir,' said Lintot, ' I thought you had done seven stanzas. Oldsworth, in a ramble round Wimbledon Hill, would trans- late a whole ode in half this time. I'll say that for Oldsworth [though I lost by his Timothy's], he translates an ode of Horace the quickest of any man in England. I remember Dr. King would write verses in a tavern, three hours after he could not speak : and there is Sir Richard, in that rumbling old chariot of his, between Fleet Ditch and St. Giles's Pound, shall make you half a Job.' " ' Pray, Mr. Lintot,' said I, ' now you talk of translators, what is your method of managing them 'i ' ' Sir,' repMed he, ' these are the saddest pack of rogues in the world : in a hungry fit, they'll swear they understand all the languages in the universe. I have known one of them take down a Greek book upon my counter and cry, "Ah, this is Hebrew, and must read it from the latter end." By G — d, I can never be sure in these fellows, for I neither understand Greek, Latin, French, nor Italian myself. But this is my way : I agree with them for ten shillings per sheet, with a proviso that I will have their doings corrected with whom I please ; so, by one or the other they are led at last to the true sense of an author ; my judgment giving the negative to all my translators.' ' Then how are you sure these correctors may not impose upon you 1 ' ' Why, I get any civil gentleman (especially any Scotchman) that comes into my shop, to read the original 218 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. thoughts, their various views and natures, there is something generous, and cheering, and ennobling. You are in the society to me in English ; by tliis I know whether my first translator be deficient, and whether my corrector merits his money or not. " ' I'll tell you what happened to me last month. I bargained with S for a new version of " Lucretius," to publish against Tonson's, agree- ing to pay the author so many shillings at his producing so many lines. He made a great progress in a very short time, and I gave it to the cor- rector to compare with the Latin ; but he went directly to Creech's trans- lation, and found it the same, word for word, all but the first page. Now, what d'ye think I did '? I arrested the translator for a cheat ; nay, and I stopped the corrector's pay, too, upon the proof that he had made use of Creech instead of the original.' " ' Pray tell me next how you deal with the critics ? ' ' Sir,' said he, 'nothing more easy. I can silence the most formidable of them : the rich ones for a sheet apiece of the blotted manuscript, which cost me nothing; they'll go about with it to their acquaintance, and pretend they had it from the author, who submitted it to their correction : this has given some of them such an air, that in time they come to be consulted with and dedi- cated to as the tip-top critics of the town. — As for the poor critics, I'll give you one instance of my management, by which you may guess the rest : A lean man, that looked like a very good scholar, came to me t'other day ; he turned over your Homer, shook his head, shrugged up his shoul- ders, and pish'd at every line of it. " One would wonder," says he, " at the strange presumption of some men; Homer is no such easy task as every stripling, every versifier " — he was going on when my wife called to dinner. "Sir," said I, "will you please to eat a piece of beef with me? " " Mr. Lintot," said he, " I am very sorry you should be at the expense of this great book : I am really concerned on j'our account." " Sir, I am much obliged to you : if you can dine upon a piece of beef, together with a slice of pudding — ? " " Mr. Lintot, I do not say but Mr. Pope, if he would condescend to advise with men of learning — " " Sir, the pudding is upon the table, if you please to go in." My critic complies ; he comes to a taste of your poetry, and tells me in the same breath that the book is commendable, and the pudding excellent. " ' Now, sir,' continued Mr. Lintot, ' in return for the frankness I have shown, pray tell me, is it the opinion of your friends at court that my Lord Lansdowne will be brought to the bar or not 1 ' I told him I heard he would not, and I hoped it, my lord being one I had particular obligations^ to. That may be,' replied Mr. Lintot; 'but by G — if he is not, I shall* lose the printing of a very good trial.' " These, my lord, are a few traits with which you discern the genius of Mr. Lintot, which I have chosen for the subject of a letter. I dropped him as soon as I got to Oxford, and paid a visit to my Lord Carleton, at Middleton "I am," &c. « "Dr. Svtift to Mr. Pope. " Sept. 29, 1725. " I am now returning to the noble scene of Dublin — into the grand monde — for fear of burying my parts; to signalize myself among curates and vicars, and correct all corruptions crept in relating to the weight of bread-and-butter through those dominions where I govern. I have em- PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 219 of men who have filled the greatest parts in the world's story — you are with St. John the statesman ; Peterborough the con- ployed my time (besides ditching) in finishing, correcting, amending, and transcribing my 'Travels' [Gulliver's], in four parts complete, newly aug- mented, and intended for the press when the world shall deserve them, or rather, when a printer shall be found brave enough to venture his ears. I like the scheme of our meeting after distresses and dispersions ; but the chief end I propose to myself in all my labors is to vex the world rather than divert it ; and if I could compass that design without hurting my own person or fortune, I would be the most indefatigable writer you have ever seen, without reading. I am exceedingly pleased that you have done with translations ; Lord Treasurer Oxford often lamented that a rascally world should lay you under a necessity of misemploying your genius for so long a time ; Ijut since you will now be so much better employed, when you think of the world, give it one lash the more at my request. I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities ; and all my love is towards individuals — for instance, I hate the tribe of lawyers, but I love Coun- cillor Such-a-one and Judge Such-a-one: it is so with physicians (I'will not speak of my own trade), soldiers, English, Scotch, French, and the rest. But principally I hate and detest that animal called man — although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth. " .... I have got materials towards a treatise proving the falsity of that definition animal rationale, and to show it should be only rationis capax. .... The matter is so clear that it will admit of no dispute — nay, I will hold a hundred pounds that you and I agree in the point " Mr. Lewis sent me an account of Dr. Arbuthnot's illness, which is a very sensible affliction to me, who, by living so long out of the world, have lost that hardness of heart contracted by years and general conversation. I am daily losing friends, and neither seeking nor getting others. Oh! if the Tvorld had but a dozen of Arbuthnots in it, I would burn my ' Travels ! ' " ''Mr. Pope to Dr. Swift. " October 15, 1725. " I am wonderfully pleased with the suddenness of your kind answer. It makes me hope you are coming towards us, and that you incline more and more to your old friends Here is one [Lord Bolingbroke], who was once a powerful planet, but has now (after long experience of all that comes of shining) learned to be content with returning to his first point without the thought or ambition of shining at all. Here is another [Edward, Earl of Oxford], who thinks one of the greatest glories of his father was to have distinguished and loved you, and who loves you hereditarily. Here is Arbuthnot, recovered from*^ the jaws of death, and more pleased with the hope of seeing you again than of reviewing a world, every part of which he has long despised but what is made up of a few men like your- self " Our friend Gay is used as the friends of Tories are by Whigs — and gen- erally by Tories too. Because he had humor, he was supposed to have dealt with Dr. Swift, in like manner as when any one had learning formerly, he was thought to have dealt with the devil. . *. . . " Lord Bolingbroke had not the least harm by his fall ; I wish he had received no more by his other fall. But Lord Bolingbroke is the most im- proved mind since you saw him that ever was improved without shifting 220 ENGLISH IIU^NIORISTS. qneror ; Swift, the greatest wit of all times ; Ga}^ the kindliest laugher — it is a privilege to sit in that compan3\ Delightful and generous banquet ! with a little faith and a little fane}- any one of us here may enjo}' it, and conjure up those great figures out of the past, and listen to their wit and wisdom. Mind that there is always a certain cachet about great men — they may be as mean on many points as you or I, but they carry their great air — they speak of common life more largely and generousl}^ than common men do — they regard the world with a manlier countenance, and see its real features more fairly than the timid shufflers who only dare to look up at life through blinkers, or to have an opinion when there is a crowd to back it. He who reads these noble records of a past age, salutes and reverences the great spirits who adorn it. You may go home now and talk with St. John ; you may take a volume from your library and listen to Swift and Pope. Might I give counsel to an}' 3'oung hearer, I would say to him, Try to frequent the company of your betters. In books and life that is the most wholesome society ; learn to admire rightl}' ; the great pleasure of life is that. Note what the great men admired ; they aclmired great things : narrow spirits admire basely, and worship meanl}'. I know nothing in any story more gallant and cheering than the love and friendship which this company of famous men bore towards one another. There never has been a society of men more friendl3% as there never was one more illustrious. Who dares quarrel with Mr. Pope, great and famous himself, for liking the society of men great and ftxmous? and for liking them for the qualities which made them so? A mere prett}' fellow from "White's " could not have written the " Patriot King," and would very likely have despised little Mr. Pope, the decrepit Papist, whom the great St. John held to be one of the best and greatest of men : a mere noble- man of the court could no more have won Barcelona, than he into a new body, or being paullo minus ah angelis. I have often imagined to myself, that if ever all of us meet again, after so many varieties and changes, after so much of the old world and of the old man in each of us has been altered, that scarce a single thought of the one, any more than a single atom of the other, remains just the same; I have fancied, I say, that we should meet like the righteous in the millennium, quite in peace, divested of all our former passions, smiling at our past follies, and content to enjoy the kingdom of the just in tranquillity. • ••«•••••• " I designed to have left the following page for Dr. Arbuthnot to fill, but he is so touched with the period in yours to me, concerning him, that he intends to answer it by a whole letter. ... " PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 221 could have written Peterborough's letters to Pope,* which are as witty as Congreve : a mere Irish Dean could not have written " Gulliver ; " and all these men loved Pope, and Pope loved all these men. To name his friends is to name the best men of his time. Addison had a senate ; Pope reverenced his equals. He spoke of Swift with respect and admiration alwa3'S. Plis admiration for Bolingbroke was so great, that when some one said of his friend, "There is something in that great man which looks as if he was placed here by mistake," "Yes," Pope answered, "and when the comet appeared to us a month or two ago, I had sometimes an imagination that it might possiblj- be come to carry him home, as a coach comes to one's door for visitors." So these great spirits spoke of one another. Show me six of the dullest middle-aged gentlemen that ever dawdled round a club table, so faithful and so friendly. We have said before that the chief wits of this time, with the exception of Congreve, were what we should now call men's men. They spent many hours of the four-and-twenty, a fourth * Of the Earl of Peterborough, Walpole says : — " He was one of those men of careless wit and negligent grace, who scatter a thousand hon-mots and idle verses, which we painful compilers gather and hoard, till the authors stare to find themselves authors. Sucli was this lord, of an ad- vantageous figure and enterprising spirit; as gallant as Amadis and as brave ; but a little more expeditious in his journeys : for he is said to have seen more kings and more postilions than any man in Europe He was a man, as his friends said, who would neither live nor die like any other mortal." "From the Earl of Peterborough to Pope. "You must receive my letters with a "just impartiality, and give grains of allowance for a gloomy or rainy day ; I sink grievously with the weather-glass, and am quite spiritless when oppressed with the thoughts of a birthday or a return. " Dutiful affection was bringing me to town ; but undutiful laziness, and being much out of order, keep me in the country : however, if alive, I must make my appearance at the birthday " You seem to think it vexatious that I shall allow you but one woman at a time either to praise or love. If I dispute with you upon this point, I doubt every jury will give a verdict against me. So, sir, with a Mahom- etan indulgence, I allow you pluralities, the favorite privilege of our church. " I find you don't mend upon correction ; again I tell you you must not think of women in a reasonable way ; you know we always make goddesses of those we adore upon earth ; and do not all the good men tell us we must lay aside reason in what relates to the Deity '? ". . . . I should have been glad of anything of Swift's. Pray, when you write to him next, tell him I expect him with impatience, in a place as odd and as much out of the way as himself. Yours." Peterborough married Mrs. Anastasia Robinson, the celebrated singer. 222 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. part of each dsLj nearly, in clubs and coffee-houses, where they dined, drank, and smoked. Wit and news went by word of mouth; a journal of 1710 contained the very smallest portion of one or the other. The chiefs spoke, the faithful habitues sat round ; strangers came to wonder and listen. Old Dryden had his headquarters at " Will's," in Russell Street, at the coi'ner of Bow Street : at which place Pope saw him when he was twelve 3'ears old. The company used to assemble on the first floor — what was called the dining-room floor in those daj's — and sat at various tables smoking their pipes. It is recorded that the beaux of the day thought it a great honor to be allowed to take a pinch out of Dryden's snuff-box. When Addison began to reign, he with a certain craftj^ propriet}" — a policy let us call it — which belonged to his nature, set np his court, and appointed the officers of his roj'al house. His palace was " Button's," opposite " Will's."* A quiet opposition, a silent assertion of empire, distinguished this great man. Addison's ministers were Budgell, Tickell, Phillips, Care}' ; his master of the horse, honest Dick Steele, who was what Dnroc was to Napoleon, or Hard}' to Nelson ; the man who peiformed his master's bidding, and would have cheerfull}' died in his quarrel. Addison lived with these people for seven or eight hours every day. The male society passed over their punch-bowls and tobacco-pipes^ about as much time as ladies of that age spent over Spadiile and Manille. For a brief space, upon coming up to town. Pope formed part of King Joseph's court, and was his rather too eager and obsequious humble servant.! Dick Steele, the editor of the * " Button had been a servant in the Countess of Warwick's family, who, under the patronage of Addison, kept a coffee-house on the south side of Russell Street, about two doors from Covent Garden. Here it was that the wits of that time used to assemble. It is said that when Addison had suffered any vexation from the Countess, he withdrew the company from Button's house. " From the coffee-house he went again to a tavern, where he often sat late and drank too much wine." — Dr. Johnson. Will's coffee-house was on the west side of Bow Street, and " corner of Russell Street." See " Handbook of London." t " My acquaintance with Mr. Addison commenced in 1712 : I liked him then as well as I liked any man, and was very fond of his conversa- tion. It was very soon after that Mr. Addison advised me 'not to be con- tent with the applause of half the nation.' He ^^ed to talk much and often to me, of moderation in parties : and used to blame his dear friend Steele for being too much of a party man. He encouraged me in my design of translating the 'Iliad,' which was begun that year, and finished in 1718." — Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. " Addison had Budgell, and I think Phillips, in the house with him. — PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 223 Tatler^ Mr. Addison's man, and his own man too — a person of no little figure in the world of letters, patronized the young poet, and set him a task or two. Young Mr. Pope did the tasks ver}'^ quickl}^ and smartl}^ (he had been at the feet, quite as a bo}', of Wycherley's * decrepit reputation, and propped up for a year that doting old wit) : he was anxious to be well with the men of letters, to get a footing and a recognition. He thought it an honor to be admitted into their company' ; to have the confidence of Mr. Addison's friend. Captain Steele. His eminent parts obtained for him the honor of heralding Addison's Gay they would call one of my Aleves. — They were angry Vvith me for keep- ing so much with Dr. Swift and some of the late Ministry." — Popk. Spence's Anecdotes. * "To Mr. Blount. " Jan. 21, 1715-16. " I know of nothing that will be so interesting to you at present as some circumstances of the last act of that eminent comic poet and our friend, Wycherley. He has often told me, and I doubt not he did all his acquaintance, tliat he would marry as soon as his life was despaired of. Accordingly a few days before his death, he underwent the ceremony, and joined together those two sacraments which wise men say we should be the last to receive ; for, if you observe, matrimony is placed after extreme unc- tion in our catechism, as a kind of hint of the order of time in which they are to be taken. The old man then lay down, satisfied in the consciousness of having, by this one act, obliged a woman who (he was told) had merit, and shown an heroic resentment of the ill-usage of his next heir. Some hun- dred pounds which he had with the lady discharged his debts ; a jointure of 500/. a year made her a recompense ; and the nephew was left to com- fort himself as well as he could with the miserable remains of a mortgaged estate. I saw our friend twice after this was done — less peevish in his sickness than he used to be in his health ; neither much afraid of dying, nor (which in him had been more likely) much ashamed of marrying. The evening before he expired, he called his young wife to the bedside, and earnestly entreated her not to deny him one request — the last he should make. Upon her assurances of consenting to it, he told her: ' My dear, it is only this — that you will never marry an old man again.' I cannot help remarking that sickness, which often destroys both wit and wisdom, yet seldom has power to remove that talent which we call humor. Mr. Wych- erley showed his even in his last compliment ; though I think his request a little hard, for why should he bar her from doubling her jointure on the same easy terms 1 " So trivial as these circumstances are, I should not be displeased myself to know such trifles when they concern or characterize any eminent person. The wisest and wittiest of men are seldom wiser or wittier than others in these sober moments ; at least, our friend ended much in the same charac- ter he had lived in ; and Horace's rule for play may as well be applied to him as a playwright : — " * Servetur ad imum Qualis ab incepto processerit et sibi constet.' " I am," &c. 224 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. triumph of " Cato " with his admirable prologue, and heading the victorious procession as it were. Not content with this act of homage and admiration, he wanted to distinguish himself by assaulting Addison's enemies, and attacked John Dennis with a prose lampoon, which highl}^ offended his loftj^ patron. Mi*. Steele was instructed to write to Mr. Dennis, and inform him that Mr. Pope's pamphlet against him was written quite without Mr. Addison's approval.* Indeed, " The Narrative of Dr. Robert Norris on the Phrenz}^ of J. D." is a vulgar and mean satire, and such a blow as the magnificent Addison could never desire to see an}' partisan of his strike in an}^ literarj^ quarrel. Pope was closely allied with Swift when he wrote this pamphlet. It is so dirty that it has been printed in Swift's works, too. It bears the foul marks of the master hand. Swift admired and enjo3'ed with all his heart the prodigious genius of the 3'oung Papist lad out of Windsor Forest, who had never seen a uni- versit}' in his life, and came and conquered the Dons and the doctors with his wit. He applauded, and loved him, too, and protected him, and taught him mischief. I wish Addison could have loved him better. The best satire that ever has been penned would never have been written then ; and one of the best char- acters the world ever knew would have been without a flaw. But he who had so few equals could not bear one, and Pope was more than that. When Pope, tr3ing for himself, and soaring on his immortal young wings, found that his, too, was a genius, which no pinion of that age could follow, he rose and left Ad- dison's compan}^, settling on his own eminence, and singing his own song. It was not possible that Pope should remain a retainer of Mr. Addison ; nor likely that after escaping from his vassalage and assuming an independent crown, the sovereign whose allegiance he quitted should view him amicably. t They did not do wrong to mislike each other. The}^ but followed the * " Addison, who was no stranger to the world, probably saw the self- ishness of Pope's friendship ; and resolving that he should have the conse- quences of his ofRciousness to himself, informed Dennis by Steele that he was sorry for the insult." — Johnson : Life of Addison. t " While I was heated with what I heard, I wrote a letter to Mr. Addi- son, to let him know ' that I was not unacquainted with tliis behavior of his ; that if I was to speak of him severely in return for it, it should not be in such a dirty way ; that I should rather tell him himself fairly of his faults, and allow his good qualities ; and that it should be something in the following manner.' I then subjoined the first sketch of what has smce been called my satire on Addison. He used me very civilly ever after; and never did me any injustice, that I know of, from that time to his deatl), wliich was about tlu'ee years after." — Popk. Spence's Anecdotes. rRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 225 impulse of nature, and the consequence of position. When Bernadotte became heir to a throne, the Prince Royal of Sweden was natural]}' Napoleon's eneni}'. " There are many passions and tempers of mankind," says Mr. Addison in the Spectator^ speaking a couple of years before their little differences between him and Mr. Pope took place, " which naturally' dispose us to depress and vilify the merit of one rising in the esteem of man- kind. All those who made their entrance into the world with the same advantages, and were once looked on as his equals, are apt to think the fame of his merits a reflection on their own deserts. Those who were once his equals envy and defame him, because the}^ now see him the superior ; and those who were once his superiors, because the}' look upon him as their equal." Did Mr. Addison, justl}' perhaps thinking that, as 3'oung Mr. Pope had not had the benefit of a university educa- tion he couldn't know Greek, therefore he couldn't translate Homer, encourage his young friend Mr. Tickell, of Queen's, to translate that poet, and aid him with his own known scholarship and skill? * It was natural that Mr. Addison should doubt of the learning of an amateur Grecian, should have a high opinion of Mr. Tickell, of Queen's, and should help that ingenious 3'oung man. It was natural, on the other hand, that Mr. Pope and Mr. Pope's friends should believe that this counter-translation, suddenl}^ advertised and so long written, though Tickell's college friends had never heard of it — though, when Pope first wrote to Addison regarding his scheme, Mr. Addison knew nothing of the similar project of Tickell, of Queen's — it was natural that Mr. Pope and his friends, having interests, passions, and prejudices of their own, should believe that Tickell's translation was but an act of opposition against Pope, and that the}' should call Mr. Tickell's emulation Mr. Addison's envy — if envy it were. "And were there one whose fires True genius kmdles and fair fame inspires, Blest with each talent and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live with ease ; Should such a man, too fond to rule alone. Bear like the Turk no brotlier near the throne ; View liim with scornful yet witli jealous eyes. And hate, for arts that caused himself to rise ; * " That Tickell should have been guilty of a villany seems to us highly improbable ; that Addison should have been guilty of a villany seems to us highly improbable; but that these two men sliould have conspired to- getlier to commit a villany, seems, to us, improbable in a tenfold degree." — Macaulay. 15 226 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and liesitate dislike ; Alike reserved to blame as to commend, A timorous foe and a suspicious friend ; Dreading even fools, by flatterers besieged, And so obliging that he ne'er obliged : Like Cato give his little senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause ; While wits and templars every sentence raise, And wonder with a foolish face of j)raise ; Wlio but must laugh if such a man there be. Who would not weej) if Atticus were he? " *'I sent the verses to Mr. Addison," said Pope, "and he used me very civill}^ ever after." No wonder he did. It was shame very likely more than fear that silenced him. Johnson recounts an interview between Pope and Addison after their quarrel, in which Pope was angr}', and Addison tried to be contemptuous and calm. Such a weapon as Pope's must have pierced an}' scorn. It flashes for ever, and quivers in Addison's memor}^ His great figure looks out on us from the past — stainless but for that — pale, calm, and beautiful: it bleeds from that black wound. He should be drawn, like St. Sebas- tian, with that arrow in his side. As he sent to Ga}' and asked his pardon, as he bade his stepson come and see his death, be sure he had forgiven Pope, when he made ready to show how a Christian could die. Pope then formed part of the Addisonian court for a short time, and describes himself in his letters as sitting with that coterie until two o'clock in the morning over punch and bur- gundy amidst the fumes of tobacco. To use an expression of the present day, the "pace " of those viveurs of the former age was awful. Peterborough lived into the ver}^ jaws of death ; Godol- phin labored all day and gambled at night ; Bolingbroke,* writ- * "Lord Bolingbroke to the Three Yahoos of Twickenham. " July 23, 1726. "Jonathan, Alexander, John, most excellent Triumvirs of Par- nassus, — Though you are probably very indifferent where I am, or what I am doing, yet I resolve to believe the contrary. I persuade myself that you have sent at least fifteen times within this fortnight to Dawley Farm, and that you are extremely mortified at my long silence. To relieve you, therefore, from this great anxiety of mind, I can do no less than write a few lines to you; and I please myself beforehand with the vast pleasure which this epistle must needs give you. That I ma}' add to this pleasure, and give further proofs of my beneficent temper, I will likewise inform PRIOR. GAY, AND POPE. 227 ing to Swift, from Dawley, in his retirement, dating bis letter at six o'clock in the morning, and rising, as he sa3's, refreshed, serene, and calm, calls to mind the time of his London life ; when about that hour he used to be going to bed, surfeited with pleasure, and jaded with business ; his head often full of schemes, and his heart as often full of anxiety. It w^as too hard, too coarse a life for the sensitive, sickly Pope. He was the only wit of the day, a friend writes to me, who wasn't fat.*" Swift was fat ; Addison was fat ; Steele was fat ; Gay and Thomson were preposterously fat — all that fuddling and punch-drinking, that club and coffee-house boozing, shortened the lives and enlarged the waistcoats of the men of that age. Pope withdrew in a great measure from this boisterous London compan}', and being put into an independence by the gallant exertions of Swift t and his private friends, and by the enthu- siastic national admiration which justly rewarded his great achievement of the *' Iliad," purchased that famous villa of Twickenham which his song and life celebrated ; duteously bringing his old parent to live and die there, entertaining his friends there, and making occasional visits to London in his Jittle chariot, in which Atterbury compared him to '' Homer in a nutshell." ''Mr. Drj'den was not a genteel man," Pope quaintly said to Spence, speaking of the manner and habits of the famous old patriarch of " Will's." With regard to Pope's own manners, we have the best contemporary authority that they were singu- larl}^ refined and polished. With his extraordinary sensibility, with his known tastes, with his delicate frame, with his power and dread of ridicule. Pope could have been no other than what we call a highl^^-bred person. | His closest friends, with the exception of Swift, were among the delights and ornaments you, that I shall he in your neighborhood again, by the end of next week : by which time I hope that Jonathan's imagination of business will be suc- ceeded by some imagination more becoming a professor of that divine sci- ence, la bagatelle. Adieu. Jonathan, Alexander, John, mirtli be with you ! " * Prior must be excepted from this observation. " He was lank and lean." t Swift exerted himself very much in promoting the " Iliad" subscrip- tion ; and also introduced Pope to Harley and Bolingbroke. — Pope realized by the " Iliad " upwards of 5,000/., which he laid out partly in annuities, and partly in the purchase of his famous villa. Johnson remarks that " it would be hard to find a man so well entitled to notice by his wit, that ever delighted so much in talking of his money." J "His (Pope's) voice in common conversation was so naturally musi- cal, that I remember honest Tom Southerne used always to call him ' the little nightingale.' " — Orrery. 228 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. of the polished society of their age. Garth,* the accomplished and benevolent, whom Steele has described so charming!}', of whom Codrington said that his character was '-all beauty," and whom Pope himself called the best of Christians without knowing it ; Arbuthnot,! one of the wisest, w'ittiest, most * Garth, whom Dryden calls " generous as his Muse," was a Yorkshire- man. He graduated at Cambridge, and was made M.D. in 1601. He soon distinguished himself in his profession, by his poem of the " Dispensary," and in society, and pronounced Dryden's funeral oration. He was a strict Whig, a notable member of the " Kit-Cat," and a friendly, convivial, able man. He was knighted by George 1., with the Duke of Marlborough's sword. He died in 1718. t " Arbutlmot was the son of an Episcopal clergyman in Scotland, and belAiged to an ancient and distinguished Scotch family. He was educated at Aberdeen; and, coming up to London — according to a Scotch practice often enough alluded to — to make his fortune — first made himself known by 'An Examination of Dr. Woodward's Account of the Deluge.' He became physician successively to Prince George of Denmark and to Queen Anne. He is usually allowed to have been the most learned, as well as one of the most witty and humorous members of the Scriblerus Club. The opinion entertained of him by the humorists of the day is abundantly evidenced in their correspondence. When he found himself in his last illness, he wrote thus, from his retreat at Hampstead, to Swift : — " ' Hampstead, Oct. 4, 1734. " * My Dear and Worthy Friend, — You have no reason to put me among the rest of your forgetful friends, for I wrote two long letters to you, to which I never received one word of answer. The first was about your health ; the last I sent a great while ago, by one De la Mar. I can assure you with great truth that none of your friends or acquaintance has a more warm heart towards you than myself. I am going out of this troublesome world, and you, among the rest of my friends, shall have my last prayers and good wishes. "*....! came out to this place so reduced by a dropsy and an asthma, thatl could neither sleep, breathe, eat, nor move. I most earnestly desired and begged of God that he would take me. Contrary to my expectation, upon venturing to ride (which I had forborne for some years), I recovered my strength to a pretty considerable degree, slept, and had my stomach again What I did, I can assure you was not for life, but ease ; for I am at present in the case of a man that was almost in harbor, and then blown back to sea — who has a reasonable hope of going to a good place, and an absolute certainty of leaving a very bad one. ISIot that I have any particular disgust at the world; for I have as great comfort in my own family and from the kindness of my friends as any man ; but the world, in the main, displeases me, and I have too true a presentiment of calamities that are to befall my country. However, if I should have the happiness to see you before I die, you will find that I enjoy the comforts of life with my usual cheerfulness. I cannot imagine why you are frightened from a journey to England : the reasons you assign are not sufficient — the jour- ney I am sure would do you good. In general, I recommend riding, of which I have always had a good opinion, and can now confirm it from my own experience. " ' My family give you their love and service. The great loss I sus- PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 229 accomplished, gentlest of mankind ; Bolingbroke, the Alcibi- ades of his age ; the generous Oxford ; the magnificent, tlie witt}^ the famous, and' chivalrous Peterborough : these were the fast and faithful friends of Pope, the most brilliant compan}'- of friends, let us repeat, that the world has ever seen. The favorite recreation of his leisure hours was the societ}' of painters, whose art he practised. In his correspondence are letters between him and Jervas, whose pupil he loved to be — Richardson, a celebrated artist of his time, and who painted for him a portrait of his old mother, and for whose picture he asked and thanked Richardson in one of the most delightful letters that ever was penned,* — and the wonderful Kneller, who tained in one of them gave me my first shock, and the trouble I have with tlie rest to bring them to a right temper to bear the loss of a father who loves them, and whom they love, is really a most sensible affliction to me. I am afraid, my dear friend, we shall never see one another more in this world. I shall, to the last moment, preserve my love and esteem for you, being well assured you will never leave the paths of virtue and honor ; for all that is in tliis world is not worth the least deviation from the way. It will be great pleasure to me to hear from you sometimes; for none are with more sincerity tlian I am, my dear friend, your most faithful friend and humble servant.' " " Arbuthnot," Johnson says, " was a man of great comprehension, skil- ful in his profession, versed in the sciences, acquainted with ancient litera- ture, and able to animate his mass of knowledge by a bright and active imagination; a scholar with great brilliance of wit; a wit who, in the crowd of life, retained and discovered a noble ardor of religious zeal." Dugald Stewart has testified to Arbuthnot's ability in a department of which he was particularly qualified to judge : "Let me add, that, in the list of philosophical reformers, the authors of ' Martinus Scriblerus ' ought not to be overlooked. Their happy ridicule of the" scholastic logic and metaphysics is universally known ; but few are aware of the acuteness and sagacity displayed in their allusions to some of the most vulnerable passages in Locke's ' Essay.' In this part of the work it is commonly understood that Arbuthnot had the principal share." — See Preliminary Dissertation to Encyclopcedia Britannica, note to p. 242, and also note b. b. b., p. 285. * " To Mr. Richardson. " Twickenham, June 10, 1733. " As I know you and I mutually desire to see one another, I hope that this day our wishes would have met, and brought you hither. And this for the very reason, which possibly might hinder you coming, that my poor mother is dead. I thank God, her death was as easy as her life was inno- cent ; and as it cost her not a groan, or even a sigh, there is yet upon her countenance such an expression of tranquillity, nay, almost of pleasure, that it is even amiable to behold it. It would afford the finest image of a saint expired that ever painting drew ; and it would be the greatest obliga- tion which even that obliging art could ever bestow on a friend, if you could come and sketch it for me. I am sure, if tliere be no very prevalent obstacle, you vrill leave any common business to do this , and I hope to see 230 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. bragged more, spelt worse, and painted better than any artist of liis day.* It is affecting to note, through Pope's Correspondence, the marked way in which his friends, the greatest, the most famous, and wittiest men of the time — generals and statesmen, philoso- l)hers and divines — all have a kind word and a kind thought ibr the good simple old mother, whom Pope tended so affection- atel}'. Those men would have scarceh- valued her, but that the}' knew how much he loved her, and that the}^ pleased him b}' thinking of her. If his earl}' letters to women are affected and insincere, whenever he speaks about this one, it is with a childish tenderness and an almost sacred simplicit}'. In 1713, when ,young Mr. Pope had, by a series of the most astonishing victories and dazzling achievements, seized the crown of poetry, and the town was in an uproar of admiration, or hostility, for the 3'oung chief; when Pope was issuing his famous decrees for the translation of the '"' Iliad ; " when Dennis and the lower critics were hooting and assailing him ; when Addison and the gentlemen of his court were sneering with sickening hearts at the prodigious triumphs of the young conqueror ; when Pope, in a fever of victor}', and genius, and hope, and anger, was struggling through the crowd of shouting friends and furious detractors to his temple of Fame, his old mother writes from the country, " My deare," says she — " My deare, there's Mr. Blount, of Maple Durom, dead the same day that Mr. Ingle- field died. Your sister is well ; but your brother is sick. My service to Mrs. Blount, and all that ask of me. I hope to hear from you, and that you are well, which is my daily prayer ; and this with my blessing." The triumph marches by, and the car of the young conqueror, the hero of a hundred brilliant victories : the fond mother sits in the quiet cottage at home and says, " I send you my daily prayers, and I bless you, my deare." In our estimate of Pope's character, let us always take into you this evening, as late as you will, or to-morrow morning as early, before this winter flower is faded. I will defer her interment till to-morrow night. I know you love me, or I could not have written this — I could not (at this time) have written at all. Adieu! May you die as happily ! " Yours," &c. * " Mr. Pope was with Sir Godfrey Kneller one day, when his nephew, a Guinea trader, came in. 'Nephew,' said Sir Godfrey, 'you liave the lionor of seeing the two greatest men in the world.' — 'I don't know how great you maybe,' said the Guinea man, 'but I don't like your looks : I have often bought a man much better than both of you together, all muscles and bones, for ten guineas.' " — Dr. ^yARBURTON. Spence's Anecdotes. PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 231 account that constant tenderness and fidelit}' of affection which pervaded and sanctified his life, and never forget that maternal benediction.* It accompanied him alwa3's : his life seems purified by those artless and heartfelt prayers. And he seems to have received and deserved the fond attachment of the other members of his family. It is not a little touching to read in Spence of the enthusiastic admiration with which his half-sister regarded him, and the simple anecdote by which she illustrates her love. '' I think no man was ever so little fond of money." Mrs. Rackett says about her brother, " I think my brother when he was young read more books than any man in the world ; " and she falls to telling stories of his school-days, and the manner in which his master at Twyford ill-used him. "I don't think my brother knew what fear was," she continues ; and the accounts of Pope's friends bear out this character for courage. When he had exasperated the dunces, and threats of violence and personal assault were brought to him, the dauntless little champion never for one instant allowed fear to disturb him, or condescended to take any guard in his dail}' walks, except occasionally his faithful dog to bear him com- pany. " I had rather die at once," said the gallant little cripple, "' than live in fear of those rascals." As for his death, it was what the noble Arbuthnot asked and enjoyed for himself — a euthanasia — a beautiful end. A perfect benevolence, affection, serenit}', hallowed the departure of that high soul. Even in the ver}' hallucinations of his brain, and weaknesses of his delirium, there was something almost sacred. Spence describes him in his last days, looking up and with a rapt gaze as if something had suddenly passed before him. *'He said to me, 'What's that?' pointing into the air with a very steady regard, and then looked down and said, with a smile of the greatest softness, ' 'Twas a vision ! '" He laughed scarcely ever, but his companions describe his countenance as often illuminated b}' a peculiar sweet smile. •'When," said Spence, t the kind anecdotist whom Johnson * Swift's mention of him as one *' whose filial piety excels Whatever Grecian story tells," is well known. And a sneer of Walpole's may be put to a better use than he ever intended it for, apropos of this subject. — He charitably sneers, in one of his letters, at Spence's " fondling an old mother — in imitation of Pope ! " t Joseph Spence was the son of a clergyman, near Winchester. He was a short time at Eton, and afterwards became a Fellow of New College, 232 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. despised — "When I was telling Lord Bolingbroke that Mr. Pope, on ever}^ catching and recovery of his mind, was alwa3's sa3'ing something kindly of his present or absent friends ; and that this was so surprising, as it seemed to me as if humanit}^ had outlasted understanding, Lord Bolingbroke said, ' It has so,' and then added, ' I never in my life knew a man who had so tender a heart for his particular friends, or a more general friendship for mankind. I have known him these thirty years, and value mj^self more for that man's love than — ' Here," Spence sa3's, " St. John sunk his head, and lost his voice in tears." The sob which finishes the epitaph is finer than words. It is the cloak thrown over the father's face in the famous Greek picture, which hides the grief and heightens it. In Johnson's "Life of Pope" you will find described, with rather a malicious minuteness, some of the personal habits and infirmities of the great little Pope. His bodj^ was crooked, he was so short that it was necessar}'' to raise his chair in order to place him on a level with other people at table.* He was sewed up in a buckram suit every morning and required a nurse like a child. His contemporaries reviled these misfortunes with a strange acrimon}^ and made his poor deformed person the butt for many a bolt of heav}'^ wit. The facetious Mr. Dennis, in speaking of him, sa3's, " If 3'ou take the first letter of Mr. Alexander Pope's Christian name, and the first and last letters of his surname, 3'ou have A. P. E." Pope catalogues, at the end of the Dunciad, with a rueful precision, other prett3^ names, besides Ape, which Dennis called him. That great critic pro- nounced Mr. Pope was a little ass, a fool, a coward, a Papist, and therefore a hater of Scripture, and so forth. It must be remembered that the pillory was a flourishing and popular in- stitution in those days. Authors stood in it in the body some- times : and dragged their enemies thither morall3', hooted them Oxford, a clergyman, ana professor of poetry. He was a friend of Thorn* son's *whose reputation he aided. He publislied an " Essay on the Odys- sey " in 1726, which introduced him to Pope. Everybody liked him. His " Anecdotes " were placed, while still in MS., at the service of Johnson and also of Malone. They were published by Mr. Singer in 1820. * He speaks of Arbuthnot's having helped him through " that long dis- ease, my life." But not only was he so feeble as is implied in his use of the "buckram," but " it now appears," says Mr. Peter Cunningham, " from his unpublished letters, that, like Lord Hervey, he had recourse to ass's milk for the preservation of his health." It is to his lordship's use of that simple beverage that lie alludes when he says — *' Let Sporus tremble ! — A. What, that thing of silk, Sporus, that mere white-curd of ass's milk 1 " PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 233 with foul abuse, and assailed them with garbage of the gutter. Poor Pope's figure was an easy one for those clumsy carica- turists to draw. An}' stupid hand could draw a hunchback, and write Pope underneath. They did. A libel was published against Pope, with such a frontispiece. This kind of rude jest- ing was an evidence not only of an ill nature, but a dull one. When a child makes a pun, or a lout breaks out into a laugh, it is some very obvious combination of words, or discrepanc}^ of objects, which provokes the infantine satirist, or tickles the boorish wag ; and many of Pope's revilers laughed, not so much because they were wicked, as because they knew no better. Without the utmost sensibilit}'. Pope could not have been the poet he was ; and through his life, however much he pro- tested that he disregarded their abuse, the coarse ridicule of his opponents stung and tore him. One of Gibber's pamphlets coming into Pope's hands, whilst Richardson the painter was with him. Pope turned round and said, "These things are my diversions ; " and Richardson, sitting by whilst Pope perused the libel, said he saw his features "writhing with anguish." How little human nature changes ! Can't one see that little figure? Can't one fancy one is reading Plorace? Can't one fancy one is speaking of to-day ? The tastes and sensibilities of Pope, which led him to culti- vate the societ}^ of persons of fine manners, or wit, or taste, or beaut}^, caused him to shrink equall}' from that shabb}'^ and boisterous crew which formed the rank and file of literature in his time : and he was as unjust to these men as they to him. The delicate little creature sickened at habits and company which were quite tolerable to robuster men : and in the famous feud between Pope and the Dunces, and without attributing an}^ peculiar wrong to either, one can quite understand how the two parties should so hate each other. As I fancy, it was a sort of necessity that when Pope's triumph passed, Mr. Addi- son and his men should look rather contemptuousl}^ down*on it from their balcon}'' ; so it was natural for Dennis and Tibbald, and Welsted and Cibber, and the worn and hungr}^ pressmen in the crowd below, to howl at him and assail him. And Pope was more savage to Grub Street than Grub Street was to Pope. The thong with which he lashed them was dreadful ; he fired upon that howling crew such shafts of flame and poison, he slew and wounded so fiercel}', that in reading the " Dunciad" and the prose lampoons of Pope, one feels disposed to side against the ruthless little tyrant, at least to pity those wretched 234 / ENGLISH HUMORISTS. folks upon whom he was so unmerciful. It was Pope, and Swift to aid him, who estabUshed among us the Grub Street tradition. He revels in base descriptions of poor men's want ; he gloats over poor Dennis's garret, and flannel-nightcap, and red stockings ; he gives instructions how to find Curll's authors, the historian at the tallow-chandler's under the blind arch in Pett}^ France, the two translators in bed together, the poet in the cock-loft in Budge Row, whose landlady keeps the ladder. It was Pope, I fear, who contributed, more than any man who ever lived, to depreciate the literary calling. It was not an unprosperous one before that timcj as we have seen ; at least there were great prizes in the profession which had made Addi- son a Minister, and Prior an Ambassador, and Steele a Com- missioner, and Swift all but a Bishop. The profession of letters was ruined b}^ that libel of the " Dunciad." If authors were wretched and poor before, if some of them lived in hay- lofts, of which their landladies kept the ladders, at least nobody came to disturb them in their straw ; if three of them had but one coat between them, the two remained invisible in the gar- ret, the third, at any rate, appeared decently at the coffee- house and paid his twopence like a gentleman. It was Pope that dragged into light all this poverty and meanness, and held up those wretched shifts and rags to public ridicule. It was Pope that has made generations of the reading world (delighted with the mischief, as who would not be that reads it?) believe that author and wretch, author and rags, author and dirt, author and drink, gin, cow-heel, tripe, poverty, duns, bailiffs, squall- ing children and clamorous landladies, were always associated together. The condition of authorship began to fall from the days of the " Dunciad : " and I believe in my heart that much of that obloquy which has since pursued our calling was occa- sioned by Pope's libels and wicked wit. P^verybody read those. Everybody was famiUarized with the idea of the poor devil, the author.' The manner is so captivating that young authors practise it, and begin their career with satire. It is so easy to write, and so pleasant to read ! to fire a shot that makes a giant wince, perhaps ; and fancy one's self his con- queror. It is easy to shoot — but not as Pope did. The shafts of his satire rise sublimely: no poet's verse ever mounted higher than that wonderful flight with which the " Dunciad " concludes : — * * "He (Johnson) repeated to us, in liis forcible melodious manner, the concluding lines of the ' Dunciad.' " — Boswell. PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 235 " She comes, she comes ! the sable throne behold Of Night primeval and of Chaos old ; Before her, Fancy's gilded clouds decay, And all its varying rainbows die away ; Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires, The meteor drops, and in a flash expires. As, one by one, at dread Medea's strain The sick'ning stars fade off the ethereal plain ; As Argus' eyes, by Hermes' wand oppress'd, Closed, one by one, to everlasting rest ; — Thus, at her felt approach and secret might, Art after Art goes out, and all is night. See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled. Mountains of casuistry heaped o'er her head ; Philosophy, that leaned on Heaven before. Shrinks to her second cause and is no more. Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires, And, unawares. Morality expires. Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine, Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine. Lo ! thy dread empire. Chaos, is restored. Light dies before thy uncreating word ; Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall, And universal darkness buries all." * In these astonishing lines Pope reaches, I think, to the very greatest height which his subhme art has attained, and shows himself the equal of all poets of all times. It is the brightest ardor, the loftiest assertion of truth, the most generous wisdom, illustrated by the noblest poetic figure, and spoken in words the aptest, grandest, and most harmonious. It is heroic courage speaking: a splendid declaration of righteous wrath and war. It is the gage flung down, and the silver trumpet ringing de- fiance to falsehood and tyranny, deceit, dulness, superstition. It is Truth, the champion, shining and intrepid, and fronting the great world-tyrant with armies of slaves at his back. It is a wonderful and victorious single combat in that great battle, which has alwa3's been waging since society began. In speaking of a work of consummate art one does not try to show what it actually is, for that were vain ; but what it is like, and what are the sensations produced m the mind of him who views it. And in considering Pope's admirable career, I am forced into similitudes drawn from other courage and great- ness, and into comparing him with those who achieved triumphs * " Mr. Langton informed me that he once related to Johnson (on the authority of Spence), that Pope himself admired these lines so much that when he repeated them his voice faltered. ' And well it might, sir,' said Johnson, * for they are noble lines.' " — J. Boswell, junior. 236 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. in actual war. I think of the works of young Pope as I do of the actions of young Bonaparte or 3'oung Nelson. In their common life 3'ou will find frailties and meannesses, as great as the vices and follies of the meanest men. But in the presence of the great occasion, the great soul flashes out, and conquers transcendent. In thinking of the splendor of Pope's young vic- tories, of his merit, unequalled as his renown, I hail and salute the achieving genius, and do homage to the pen of a hero. HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING. I SUPPOSE, as long as novels last and authors aim at interest- ing their public, there must alwaj^s^ be in the story a virtuous and gallant hero, a wicked monster his opposite, and a pretty girl who finds a champion ; bravery and virtue conquer beauty ; and vice, after seeming to triumph through a certain number of pages, is sure to be discomfited in the last volume, when justice overtakes him and honest folks come by their own. There never was perhaps a greatl}' popular story but this simple plot was carried through it : mere satiric wit is addressed to a class of readers and thinkers quite diflTerent to those simple souls who laugh and weep over the novel. I fancy very few ladies indeed, for instance, could be brought to like " Gulliver" heartih', and (putting the coarseness and difference of manners out of the question) to relish the wonderful satire of " Jonathan Wild." In that strange apologue, the author takes for a hero the greatest rascal, coward, traitor, t^'i'ant, hypocrite, that his wit and experience, both large in this matter, could enable him to devise or depict ; he accompanies this villain through all the actions of his life, with a grinning deference and a wonderful mock respect : and doesn't leave him, till he is dangling at the gallows, when the satirist makes him a low bow and wishes the scoundrel good da}'. It was not by satire of this sort, or bj^ scorn and contempt, that Hogarth achieved his vast popular! t}' and acquired his repu- tation.* His art is quite simple,! he speaks popular parables to * Coleridge speaks of the "beautiful female faces" in Hogarth's pic- tures, " in whom," he says, " the satirist never extinguished that love of beauty which belonged to him as a poet." — The Friend. t "I was pleased with the reply of a gentleman, who, being asked which book he esteemed most in his library, answered ' Shakspeare : ' 238 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. interest simple hearts, and to inspire them with pleasure or pitj^ or warning and terror. Not one of his tales but is as easj- as ' ' Goody Twoshoes ; " it is the moral of Tommy was a naught}' boy and the master flogged him, and Jack}^ was a good bo}' and had plum-cake, which pervades the whole works of the being asked which he esteemed next best, replied ' Hogarth.' His graphic representations are indeed books: they have the teeming, fruitful, sug- gestive meaning of words. Other pictures we look at — his prints we read " The quantity of thought which Hogarth crowds into every picture would almost un vulgarize every subject which he might choose " I say not that all the ridiculous subjects of Hogarth have necessarily something in them to make us like them ; some are indifferent to us, some in their nature repulsive, and only made interesting by the wonderful skill and truth to nature in the painter; but I contend that there is in most of them that sprinkling of the better nature, which, like holy water, chases away and disperses the contagion of the bad. They have this in them, besides, that they bring us acquainted with the every-day human face, — they give us skill to detect those gradations of sense and virtue (which escape the careless or fastidious observer) in the circumstances of the world about us ; and prevent that disgust at common life, that tcedium quotidia- nar urn fur mar urn, which an unrestricted passion for ideal forms and beauties is in danger of producing. In this, as in many other things, they ai*e analogous to the best novels of Smollett and Fielding." — Charles Lamb. " It has been observed that Hogarth's pictures are exceedingly unlike any other representations of the same kind of subjects — that they form a class, and have a character, peculiar to themselves. It may be worth while to consider in what this general distinction consists. " In the first place, they are, in the strictest sense, hislorlcal pictures ; and if what Fielding says be true, that his novel of ' Tom Jones ' ought to be regarded as an epic prose-poem, because it contained a regular develop- ment of fable, manners, character, and passion, the compositions of Ho- garth will, in like manner, be found to have a higher claim to the title of epic pictures than many which have of late arrogated that denomination to themselves. When we say that Hogarth treated his subject historically, we mean that his works represent the manners and humors of mankind in action, and their characters by varied expression. Everything in his pic- tures has life and motion in it. Not only does the business of the scene never stand still, but every feature and muscle is put into full play ; the exact feeling of the moment is brought out, and carried to its utmost height, and then instantly seized and stamped on the canvas for ever. The expres- sion is always taken en passant, in a state of progress or change, and, as it were, at the salient point His figures are not like the background on which they are painted : even the pictures on the wall have a peculiar look of their own. Again, with the rapidity, variety, and scope of history, Hogarth's heads have all the reality and correctness of portraits. He gives the extremes of character and expression, but he gives them with perfect truth and accuracy. This is, in fact, what distinguishes his compositions from all others of the same kind, that tliey are equally remote from carica- ture, and fi'om mere still life His faces go to the very verge of cari- cature, and yet never {we believe in any single instance) go beyond it." — Hazlitt. HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING. 289 homely and famous English moraUst. And if the moral is written in rather too large letters after the fable, we must re- member how simple the scholars and schoolmaster both were, and like neither the less because the}^ are so artless and honest. ''It was a maxim of Dr. Harrison's," Fielding saj's, in "Amelia," — speaking of the benevolent divine and philoso- pher who represents the good principle in that novel — ' ' that no man can descend below himself, in doing an}^ act which may contribute to protect an innocent person, or to bring a rogue to the gallows." The moralists of that age had no compunction, 3'ou see ; they had not begun to be sceptical about the theor}^ of punishment, and thought that the hanging of a thief was a spec- tacle for edification. Masters sent their apprentices, fathers took their children, to see Jack Sheppard or Jonathan Wild hanged, and it was as undoubting subscribers to this moral law, that Fielding wrote and Hogarth painted. Except in one in- stance, where, in the mad-house scene in the " Rake's Progress," the girl whom he has ruined is represented as still tending and weeping over him in his insanity, a glimpse of pit}" for his rogues never seems to enter honest Hogarth's mind. There's not the slightest doubt in the breast of the J0II3' Draco. The famous set of pictures called " Marriage a la Mode," and which are now exhibited in the National Gallery in Lon- don, contains the most important and highly wrought of the Hoo'arth comedies. The care and method with which the moral grounds of these pictures are laid is as remarkable as the wit and skill of the observing and dexterous artist. He has to describe the negotiations for a marriage pending between the daughter of a rich citizen Alderman and j^oung Lord Vis- count Squanderfield, the dissipated son of a gouty old Earl. Pride and pomposity appear in every accessory surrounding the Earl. He sits in gold lace and velvet — as how should such an Earl wear anything but velvet and gold lace ? His coronet is ever}" where : on his footstool, on which reposes one gouty toe turned out ; on the sconces and looking-glasses ; on the dogs ; on his lordship's very crutches ; on his great chair of state and the great baldaquin behind him; under which he sits pointing majesticalty to his pedigree, which shows that his race is sprung from the loins of William the Conqueror, and confronting the old Alderman from the Cit}", who has mounted his sword for the occasion, and wears his Alderman's chain, and has brought a bag full of mone}^, mortgage-deeds, and thousand-pound notes, for the arrangement of the transaction pending between them. Whilst the steward (a Methodist — 240 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. therefore a hj'pocrite and cheat : for Hogarth scorned a Papist and a Dissenter,) is negotiating between the old couple, their children sit together, united but apart. M}^ lord is admiring his countenance in the glass, while his bride is twiddling her marriage ring on her pocket-handkerchief, and Ustening with rueful countenance to Counsellor Silvertongue, who has been drawing the settlements. The girl is prett}', but the painter, with a curious watchfulness, has taken care to give her a like- ness to her father ; as in the young Viscount's face 3'ou see a resemblance to the Earl, his noble sire. The sense of the cor- onet pervades the picture, as it is supposed to do the mind of its wearer. The pictures round the room are slj^ hints indi- cating the situation of the parties about to marry. A mart3T is led to the fire ; Andromeda is offered to sacrifice ; Judith is going to sla}^ Holofernes. There is the ancestor of the house (in the picture it is the Earl himself as a j^oung man) , with a comet over his head, indicating that the career of the famil}^ is to be brilliant and brief. In the second picture, the old lord must be dead, for Madam has now the Countess's coronet over her bed and toilet-glass, and sits listening to that dangerous Counsellor SilvertongTie, whose portrait now actually hangs up in her room, whilst the counsellor takes his ease on the sofa by her side, evidently the familiar of the house, and the confidant of the mistress. My lord takes his pleasure else- where than at home, whither he returns jaded and tipsy from the " Rose," to find his wife yawning in her drawing-room, her whist-part}^ over, and the daylight streaming in ; or he amuses himself with the verj^ worst compan}^ abroad, whilst his wife sits at home hstening to foreign singei^s, or wastes her money at auctions, or, worse still, seeks amusement at masquerades. The dismal end is known. M}^ lord draws upon the counsellor, who kills him, and is apprehended whilst endeavoring to es- cape. My lady goes back perforce to the Alderman in the City, and faints upon reading Counsellor Silvertongue's dying speech at Tyburn, where the counsellor has been executed for sending his lordship out of the world. Moral: — Don't listen to evil silver-tono-ued counsellors : don't marrv a man for his rank, or a woman for her mone}' : don't frequent fooUsh auc- tions and masquerade balls unknown to your husband : don't have wicked companions abroad and neglect your wife, other- wise 3'ou will be run through the body, and ruin will ensue, and disgrace, and Tyburn. The people are all naught}', and Boge}^ carries them all off. In the " Rake's Progress," a loose life is ended by a similar sad catastrophe. It is the spendthrift HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING. 241 coming into possession of the wealtli of the paternal miser ; the prodigal surrounded b}^ flatterers, and wasting his substance on the very worst company ; the baiUffs, the gambling-house, and Bedlam for an end. In the famous story of " Industr}^ and Idleness," the moral is pointed in a manner similarly clear. Fair-haired Frank Goodchild smiles at his work, whilst naughty Tom Idle snores over his loom. Frank reads the edifying bal- lads of " Wliittington " and the " London 'Prentice," whilst that reprobate Tom Idle prefers "Moll Flanders," and drinks hugely of beer. Frank goes to church of a Sunday, and war- bles hymns from the gallery ; while Tom lies on a tombstone outside playing at " halfpennj'-under-the-hat " with street black- guards, and is deservedly caned by the beadle. Frank is made overseer of the business, whilst Tom is sent to sea. Frank is taken into partnership and marries his master's daughter, sends out broken victuals to the poor, and listens in his nightcap and gown, with the lovel}'^ Mrs. Goodchild b}'^ his side, to the nuptial music of the City bands and the marrowbones and cleavers ; whilst idle Tom, returned from sea, shudders in a garret lest the officers are coming to take him for picking pock- ets. The Worshipful Francis Goodchild, Esq., becomes Sheriff of London, and partakes of the most splendid dinners which mone}^ can purchase or Alderman devour ; whilst poor Tom is taken up in a night-cellar, with that one-ej'ed and disreputable accomplice who first taught him to plaj' chuck-farthing on a Sunday. What happens next? Tom is brought up before the justice of his country, in the person of Mr. Alderman Good- child, who weeps as he recognizes his old brother 'prentice, as Tom's one-eyed friend peaches on him, and the clerk makTes out the poor rogue's ticket for Newgate. Then the end comes. Tom goes to Tyburn in a cart with a coffin in it ; whilst the Right Honorable Francis Goodchild, Lord Mayor of London, proceeds to his Mansion House, in his gilt coach with four footmen and a sword-bearer, whilst the Companies of Loudon march in the august procession, whilst the trainbands of the City fire their pieces and get drunk in his honor; and — O crowning delight and glory of all — whilst his INIajesty the King looks out from his ro^al balcony, with his ribbon on his breast, and his Queen and his star by his side, at the corner house of St. Paul's Churchyard. How the times have changed ! The new Post Office now not disadvantageously occupies that spot where the scaffolding is in the picture, where the tips}' trainband-man is lurching against the post, with hi3 wig over one eye, and the 'prentice- 13 242 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. boy is trying to kiss the pretty girl in the gallery. Passed away 'prentice-boy and prett3^ girl ! Passed away tipsy train- band-man with wig and bandolier ! On the spot where Tom Idle (for whom I have an unaffected pit}^) made his exit from this wicked world, and where you see the hangman smoking his pipe as he reclines on the gibbet and views the hills of Har- row or Hampstead be3'ond, a splendid marble arch, a vast and modern city — clean, airj-, painted drab, populous with nursery- maids and children, the abode of wealth and comfort — the elegant, the prosperous, the polite Tyburnia rises, the most respectable district in the habitable globe ! In that last plate of the London Apprentices, in which the apotheosis of the Right Honorable Francis Goodchild is drawn, a ragged fellow is represented in the corner of the simple, kindly piece, offering for sale a broadside, purporting to con- tain an account of the appearance of the ghost of Tom Idle, executed at Tyburn. Could Tom's ghost have made its appear- ance in 1847, and not in 1747, what changes would have been remarked by that astonished escaped criminal ! Over that road which the hangman used to travel constantly, and the Oxford stage twice a week, go ten thousand carriages ever}' day ; over yonder road, by which DickTurpin fled to Windsor, and Squire Western journe3'ed into town, when he came to take up his quarters at the " Hercules Pillars " on the outskirts of London, what a rush of civilization and order flows now ! What armies of gentlemen with umbrellas march to banks, and chambers, and counting-houses ! What regiments of nurserj' -maids and prett}" infantry ; what peaceful processions of policemen, what light broughams and what gay carriages, what swarms of busy apprentices and artificers, riding on omnibus-roofs, pass dail^^ and hourly ! Tom Idle's times are quite changed : many of the institutions gone into disuse which were admired in his day. There's more pit}' and kindness and a better chance for poor Tom's successors now than at that simpler period when Field- ing hanged him and Hogarth drew him. To the student of history, these admirable work's must be invaluable, as the}' give us the most complete and truthful pic- ture of the manners, and even the thoughts, of the past century. We look, and see pass before us the England of a hundred years ago — the peer in his drawing-room, the lady of fashion in her apartment, foreign singers surrounding her, and the chamber filled with gewgaws in the mode of that day ; the church, with its quaint florid architecture and singing congregation ; the parson with his great wig, and the beadle with his cane : all HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING. 243 these are represented before us, and we are sure of the truth of the portrait. We see how the Lord Ma3'or dines in state ; how the prodigal drinks and sports at the bagnio ; how the poor girl beats hemp in Bridewell ; how the thief divides his booty and drinks his punch at the night-cellar, and how he finishes his career at the gibbet. We may depend upon the perfect accu- racy of these strange and varied portraits of the bygone genera- tion : we see one of Walpole's Members of Parliament chaired after his election, and the lieges celebrating the event, and drinking confusion to the Pretender : we see the grenadiers and trainbands of the City marching out to meet the enemy ; and have before us, with sword and firelock, and white Hanoverian horse embroidered on the cap, the very figures of the men who , ran away with Johnny Cope, and who conquered at Culloden. * The Yorkshire wagon rolls into the inn-yard ; the countrj' par- son, in his jack-boots and his bands and short cassock, comes trotting into town, and we fancy it is Parson Adams, with his sermons in his pocket. The Salisbury fly sets forth from the old " Angel " — you see the passengers entering the great heavy vehicle, up the wooden steps, their hats tied down with handker- chiefs over their faces, and under their arms, sword, hanger, and case-bottle ; the landlady — apoplectic with the liquors in her own bar —is tugging at the bell ; the hunchbacked postilion — he may have ridden the leaders to Humphrey Clinker — is beg- ging a gratuity ; the miser is grumbling at the bill ; Jack of the " Centurion " lies on the top of the clumsy vehicle, with a soldier by his side — it may be Smollett's Jack Hatchway — it has a likeness to Lismahago. You see the suburban fair and the strolling company of actors ; the pretty milkmaid singing under the windows of the enraged French musician : it is such a girl as Steele charmingly described in the Guardian^ a few years before this date, singing, under Mr. Ironside's window in Shire Lane, her pleasant carol of a Ma3' morning. You see noblemen and blacklegs bawling and betting in the Cockpit : you see Garrick as he was arrayed in " King Richard ; " Macheath and Polly in the dresses which they wore when they charmed our ancestors, and when noblemen in blue ribbons sat on the stage and listened to their delightful music. You see the ragged French soldiery, in their white coats and cockades, at Calais Gate : they are of the regiment, very likely, which friend Rod- erick Random joined before he was rescued by his preserver Monsieur de Strap, with whom he fought on the famous daj^ of Dettingen. You see the judges on the bench ; the audience laughing in the pit ; the student in the Oxford theatre ; the 244 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. citizen on his country walk ; 3'ou see Broughton the boxer, Sarah Malcolm the murderess, Simon Lovat the traitor, John Wilkes the demagogue, leering at 3'ou with that squint which has become historical, and that face which, ugly as it was, he said he could make as captivating to woman as the countenance of the handsomest beau in town. All these sights and people are with 3^ou. After looking in the "Rake's Progress" at Hogarth's picture of St. James's Palace Gate, you may people the street, but little altered within these hundred years, with the gilded carriages and thronging chairmen that bore the courtiers your ancestors to Queen Caroline's drawing-room more than a hundred years ago. What manner of man * was he who executed these portraits * Hogarth (whose family name was Hogart) was the grandson of a Westmoreland yeoman. His father came to London, and was an author and schoolmaster. William was born in 1698 (according to the most probable conjecture) in the Parish of St. Martin, Ludgate. He was early apprenticed to an engraver of arms on plate. The following touches are from his " Anecdotes of himself." (Edition of 1833.) " As I had naturally a good eye, and a fondness for drawing, shows of all sorts gave me uncommon pleasure when an infant ; and mimicry, com- mon to all cliildren, was remarkable in me. An early access to a neighbor- ing painter drew my attention from play ; and I Avas, at every possible opportunity, employed in making drawings. I picked up an acquaintance of the same turn, and soon learnt to draw the alphabet with great correct- ness. My exercises, when at school, were more remarkable for the orna- ments which adorned them, than for the exercise itself. In the former, I soon found that blockheads with better memories could much surpass me ; but for the latter I was particularly distinguished " I thought it still more unlikel}' that by pursuing the common method, and copying old drawings, I could ever attain the power of making new designs, which was my first and greatest ambition. I therefore endeavored to habituate myself to the exercise of a sort of technical memory ; and by repeating in my own mind the parts of which objects were composed, I could by degrees combine and put them down with my pencil. Thus, with all the drawbacks which resulted from the circumstances I have mentioned, I had one material advantage over my competitors, viz. the early habit I thus acquired of retaining in my mind's eye, without coldly copying it on the spot, whatever I intended to imitate. " The instant I became master of ray own time, I determined to qualify myself for engraving on copper. In this I readily got employment ; and frontispieces to books, such as prints to ' Hudibras,' in twelves, &c., soon brought me into the way. But the tribe of booksellers remained as my father had left them .... which put me upon publishing on my own account. But here again I had to encounter a monopoly of printsellers, equally mean and destructive to the ingenious ; for the first plate I pub- lished, called 'The Taste of the Town,' in which the reigning follies were lashed, had no sooner begun to take a run, than I found copies of it in the print-shops, vending at half-price, while the original prints were returned to me again, and I was thus obliged to sell the plate for whatever these pirates pleased to give me, as there was no place of sale but at their shops. Owing HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING. 24^ ■^- so various, so faithful, and so admirable ? In the National Collection of Pictures most of us have seen the best and most to this, and other circumstances, by engraving, until I was nearly thirty, I could do little more than maintain myself ; but even then, I was a punctual paymaster. " I then married, and — " [But William is going too fast here. He made "a stolen union," on March 23, 1729, with Jane, daughter of Sir James Thornhill, serjeant- painter. For some time Sir James kept his heart and his purse-strings close, but " soon after became both reconciled and generous to the young couple." — Hogarth's Works, by Nichols and Steevens, vol. i. p. 44.] " — commenced painter of small Conversation Pieces, from twelve to fifteen inches high. This, being a novelty, succeeded for a few years." [About this time Hogarth had summer lodgings at South Lambeth, and did all kinds of work, " embellishing" the " Spring Gardens " at " Vauxhall," "and the like. In 1731, he published a satirical plate against Pope, founded on the well-known imputation against him of his having satirized the Duke of Chandos, under the name of Timon, in his poem on " Taste." The plate represented a view of Burlington House, with Pope whitewashing it, and bespattering the Duke of Chandos's coach. Pope made no retort, and has never mentioned Hogarth.] " Before I had done anything of much consequence in this walk, I en- tertained some hopes of succeeding in what the puffers in books call TJie Great Style of History Painting ; so that without having had a stroke of this grand business before, I quitted small portraits and familiar conversations, and with a smile at my own temerity, commenced history-painter, and on a great staircase at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, painted two Scripture stories, the ' Pool of Bethesda ' and the ' Good Samaritan,' with figures seven feet high But as religion, the great promoter of this style in other countries, rejected it in England, I was unwilling to sink into a portrait manufacturer ; and still ambitious of being singular, dropped all expectations of advantage from that source, and returned to the pursuit of my former dealings with the public at large. " As to portrait-painting, the chief branch of the art by which a painter can procure himself a tolerable livelihood, and the only one by which a lover of money can get a fortune, a man of very moderate talents may have great success in it, as the artifice and address of a mercer is infinitely more useful than the abilities of a painter. By the manner in which the present race of Professors in England conduct it, that also becomes still life." • ••••••• " By this inundation of folly and puff " [he has been speaking of the suc- cess of Vanloo, who came over here in 1737), " I must confess I was much dis- gusted, and determined to try if by any means I could stem the torrent, and, by opposing, end it. I laughed at the pretensions of these quacks in coloring, ridiculed their productions as feeble and contemptible, and as- serted that it required neither taste nor talents to excel their most popular performances. This interference excited much enmity, because, as my opponents told me, my studies were in another way. ' You talk,' added they, * with ineffable contempt of portrait-painting ; if it is so easy a task, why do not you convince the world, by painting a portrait yourself 1 ' Provoked at this language, I, one day at the Academy in St. Martin's Lane, put the following question : ' Supposing any man, at this time, were to paint a portrait as well as Vandyke, would it be seen or acknowledged, 240 Ejj^gltsh humorists. carefnll}' finished series of his comic paintings, and the portrait of his own honest face, of which the bright blue eyes shine out and could the artist enjoy the benefit or acquire the reputation due to his performance 1 ' " They asked me in reply, If I could paint one as well ? and I frankly answered, I believed I could " Of the mighty talents said to be requisite for portrait-painting I had not the most exalted opinion." Let us now hear him on the question of the Academy : — " To pester the three great estates of the empire, about twenty or thirty students drawing after a man or a horse, appears, as must be acknowl- edged, foolish enough : but the real motive is, that a few bustling characters, who have access to people of rank, think they can thus get a superiority over their brethren, be appointed to places, and have salaries, as in France, for telling a lad when a leg or an arm is too long or too short " France, ever aping the magnificence of other nations, has in its turn assumed a foppish kind of splendor sufficient to dazzle the eyes of the neighboring states, and draw vast sums of money from this country " To return to our Royal Academy : I am told that one of their leading objects will be, sending young men abroad to study the antique statues, for such kind of studies may sometimes improve an exalted genius, but they will not create it; and whatever has been the cause, this same trav- elling to Italy has, in several instances that I have seen, 'reduced the stu- dent from nature, and led him to paint marble figures, in which he has availed himself of the great works of antiquity, as a coward does when he puts on the armor of an Alexander ; for, with similar pretensions and simi- lar vanity, the painter supposes he shall be adored as a second Raphael Urbino." We must now hear him on his " Sigismunda : " — " As the most violent and virulent abuse thrown on ' Sigismunda ' was from a set of miscreants, wdth whom I am proud of having been ever at war — I mean the expounders of the mysteries of. old pictures — I have been sometimes told they were beneath my notice. This is true of them individually; but as they have access to people of rank, who seem as happy in being cheated as these merchants are in cheating them, tliey have a power of doing much mischief to a modern artist. However mean the vender of poisons, the mineral is destructive: — to me its operation was troublesome enougli. Ill nature spreads so fast that now was the time for every little dog in the profession to bark ! " Next comes a characteristic account of his controversy with Wilkes and Churchill. " The stagnation rendered it necessary that I should do some timed thing, to recover my lost time, and stop a gap in my income. This drew forth my print of ' The Times,' a subject which tended to the restoration of peace and unanimity, and put the opposers of these humane objects in a light which gave great offence to those who were trying to foment dis- affection in the minds of the populace. One of the most notorious of them, till now my friend and flatterer, attacked me in the North Briton, in so in- famous and malign a style, that he himself, when pushed even by his best friends, was driven to so poor an excuse as to say he was drunk when he wrote it " This renowned patriot's portrait, drawn like as I could as to features, and marked with some indications of his mind, fully answered my pur- pose. The ridiculous was apparent to every eye! A Brutus! A savior HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING. 247 from the canvas and give j'ou an idea of that keen and brave look with which William Hogarth regarded the world. No man was ever less of a hero ; you see him before you, and can fancy what he was — a jovial, honest London citizen, stout and sturdy ; a hearty, plain-spoken man,* loving his laugh, his friend, his glass, his roast-beef of Old England, and having a proper bourgeois scorn for French frogs, for mounseers, and wooden shoes in general, for foreign fiddlers, foreign singers, and, above all, for foreign painters, whom he held in the most amusing contempt. It must have been great fun to hear him rage against Cor- reggio and the Carracci ; to watch him thump the table and snap his fingers, and say, " Flistorical painters be hanged: here's the man that will paint against any of them for a hundred pounds. Correggio's ' Sigismunda ! ' Look at Bill Hogarth's ' Sigismunda ; ' look at my altar-piece at St. Mary Redcliffe, of his country with such an aspect — was so arrant a farce, that though it gave rise to much laughter in the lookers-on, galled both him and his ad- herents to the bone " Churchill, Vllkes's toad-echo, put the North Briton into verse, in an Epistle to Hogarth ; but as the abuse was precisely the same, except a little poetical heightening, which goes for nothing, it made no impression. .... However, having an old plate by me, with some parts ready, such as the background and a dog, I began to consider how I could turn so much work laid aside to some account, and so patched up a print of Master Churchill in the character of a Bear. The pleasure and pecuniary advan- tage which I derived from these two engravings, together with occasionally riding on horseback, restored me to as much health as can be expected at my time of life." * " It happened in the early part of Hogarth's life, that a nobleman who was uncommonly ugly and deformed came to sit to him for his picture. It was executed with a skill that did honor to the artist's abilities ; but the likeness was rigidly observed, without even the necessary attention to com- pliment or flattery. The peer, disgusted at this counterpart of himself, never once thought of paying for a reflection that would only disgust him with his deformities. Some time was suffered to elapse before the artist applied for his money ; but afterwards many applications were made by him (who had then no need of a banker) for payment, without success. The painter, however, at last hit upon an expedient It was couched in the following card : — " * Mr, Hogarth's dutiful respects to Lord . Finding that he does not mean to have the picture which was drawn for him, is informed again of Mr. Hogarth's necessity for the money. If, therefore, his Lordship does not send for it in three days it will be disposed of, with the addition of a tail, and some other little appendages, to Mr. Hare, the famous wild-beast man : Mr. Hogarth having given that gentleman a conditional promise of it, for an exhibition-picture, on his Lordship's refusal.' "This intimation had the desired effect." — Worhs^hy Nichols and Steevens, vol. i. p. 25. 248 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. Bristol ; look at my ' Paul before Felix,' and see whether I'm not as good as the best of them." * Posterity' has not quite confirmed honest Hogarth's opinion about his talents for the sublime. Although Swift could not see the difference between tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum, pos- terity has not shared the Dean's contempt for Handel ; the world has discovered a difference between tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum, and given a hearty applause and admiration to Hogarth, too, but not exactly as a painter of scriptural sub- jects, or as a rival of Correggio. It does not take away from one's liking for the man, or from the moral of his story, or the humor of it — from one's admiration for the prodigious merit of his performances, to remember that he persisted to the last in believing that the world was in a conspiracy against him with respect to his talents as an historical painter, and that a set of miscreants, as he called them, were employed to run his genius down. They say it was ListOn's firm belief that he was a great and neglected tragic actor ; the}^ say that ever}^ one of us be- lieves in his heart, or would like to have others believe, that he is something which he is not. One of the most notorious of the " miscreants," Hogarth says, was Wilkes, who assailed him in the North Briton ; the other was Churchill, who put the North Briton attack into heroic verse, and published his " Epistle to Hogarth." Hogarth replied hy that caricature of Wilkes, in which the patriot still figures before us, with his Satanic grin and squint, and by a caricature of Churchill, in which he is represented as a bear with a staff, on which, lie the first, lie the second — lie the tenth, are engraved in unmistakable letters. There is very little mistake about honest Hogarth's satire : if * " Garrick himself was not more ductile to flattery. A word in favor of * Sigismunda ' might have commanded a proof-print or forced an original print out of our artist's hands " " The following authenticated story of our artist (furnished by the late Mr. Belchior, F.R.S., a. surgeon of eminence) will also serve to show how much more easy it is to detect ill-placed or hyperbolical adulation respect- ing others, than when applied to ourselves. Hogarth, being at dinner with the great Cheselden and some other company, was told that Mr. John Freke, surgeon of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, a few evenings before at Dick's Coffee-House, had asserted that Greene was as eminent in composition as Handel. ' That fellow Freke,' replied Hogarth, ' is always shooting his bolt absurdly, one way or another. Handel is a giant in music ; Greene only a Hght Florimel kind of a composer.-* ' Ay,' says our artist's informant, 'but at the same time Mr. Freke declared you 'were as good a portrait- painter as Vandyke.' ' There he was right,' adds Hogarth, ' and so, by G — , I am, give me my time and let me choose my subject.' " — Works^ by Nichols and Steevens, vol i. pp. 236, 337. HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING'. 249 he has to paint a man with his throat cut, he draws him with his head almost off ; and he tried to do the same for his enemies in this Uttle controversy'. " Having an old plate b}^ me," sa3's he, "with some parts read}^, such as the background and a dog, I began to consider how I could turn so much work laid aside to some account, and so patched up a print of Master Churchill, in the character of a bear ; the pleasure and pecun- iary advantage which I derived from these two engravings, together with occasionalh^ riding on horseback, restored me to as much health as I can expect at my time of life." And so he concludes his queer little book of Anecdotes : " I have gone through the circumstances of a life which till lately- passed prett}^ much to my own satisfaction, and I hope in no respect injurious to any other man. This I may safely assert, that I have done m}- best to make those about me tolerably happy, and m}" greatest enemy cannot say I ever did an inten- tional injur}'. What may follow, God knows." A queer account still exists of a holida}' jaunt taken hy Hogarth and four friends of his, who set out, like the redoubted Mr. Pickwick and his companions, but just a hundred years before those heroes ; and made an excursion to Gravesend, Rochester, Sheerness, and adjacent places.* One of the gen- tlemen noted down the proceedings of the journej', for which Hogarth and a brother artist made drawings. The book is chiefly curious at this moment from showing the citizen life of those days, and the rough J0II3' style of merriment, not of the five companions merel}', but of thousands of jolly fellows of their time. Hogarth and his friends, quitting the "Bedford Arms," Covent Garden, with a song, took water to Billings- gate, exchanging compliments with the bargemen as the}^ went down the river. At Billingsgate, Hogarth made a " caraca- tura" of a facetious porter, called the Duke of Puddledock, who agreeably entertained the part}^ with the humors of the place. Hence they took a Gravesend boat for themselves ; had straw to lie upon, and a tilt over their heads, they say, and went down the river at night, sleeping and singing jolly choruses. They arrived at Gravesend at six, when they washed their faces and hands, and had their wigs powdered. Then they sallied forth for Rochester on foot, and drank by the way three pots of ale. At one o'clock they went to dinner with excellent * He made this excursion in 1732, his companions being John Thorn- hill (son of Sir James). Scott, the landscape-painter, Tothall, and For- rett. 250 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. port, and a quantitj^ more beer,~ and afterwards Hogarth and Scott played at hopscotch m the town hail. It would appear that the}' slept most of them in one room, and the chronicler of the party describes them all as waiving at seven o'clock, and telling each other their dreams. You have rough sketches by Hogarth of the incidents of this holiday excursion. The sturdy little painter is seen sprawling over a plank to a boat at Graves- end ; the whole compan}^ are represented in one design, in a fisherman's room, where they had all passed the night. One gentleman in a nightcap is shaving himself ; another is being shaved by the fisherman ; a third, wdth a handkerchief over his bald pate, is taking his breakfast ; and Hogarth is sketching the whole scene. They describe at night how they returned to their quarters, drank to their friends, as usual, emptied several cans of good flip, all singing merril3^ It is a jolly partj^ of tradesmen engaged at high jink-^ These were the manners and pleasures of Hogarth, of hiF.^ ...e very likely, of men not very refined, but honest and merry. It is a brave London citizen, with John Bull habits, prejudices, and pleasures.* Of Smollett's associates and manner of life the author of * " Dr. Johnson made four lines once, on the death of poor Hogarth, which were equally true and pleasing ; I know not why Garrick's were pre- ferred to them : — " ' The hand of him here torpid lies, , That drew th' essential forms of grace ; Here, closed in death, th' attentive eyes, That saw the manners in the face.' " Mr. Hogarth, among the variety of kindnesses shown to me when I was too young to have a proper sense of them, was used to be very earnest that I should obtain the acquaintance, and if possible the friendship, of Dr. Johnson ; whose conversation was, to the talk of other men, like Ti- tian's painting compared to Hudson's, he said : ' but don't you tell people now that I say so,' continued he ; ' for the connoisseurs and I are at war, you know ; and because I hate them, they think I hate Titian — and let them!' .... Of Dr Johnson, when my father and he were talking about him one day, ' That man,' says Hogarth, * is not contented with believing the Bible ; but he fairly resolves, I think, to believe nothing but the Bible. Johnson,' added he, 'though so wise a fellow, is more like King David than King Solomon, for he says in his haste All men are liars."' — Mrs. Piozzi. " Hogarth died on the 26th of October, 1764. The day before his death, he was removed from his villa at Chiswick to Leicester Fields, " in a very weak condition, yet remarkably cheerful." He had just received an agreeable letter from Franklin. He lies buried at Chiswick. HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING. 251 the admirable ' ' Humphrey Clinker " has given us an interesting account, in that most amusing of novels. * u To Sir Watkin Phillips, Bart., of Jesus College, OXON. -o ^o Tn mv last I mentioned ray having spent an even- " Dear ^"^^"J/' ^J" J'Uo 1^^^ be jealous and afraid of one ing with a society of a"*^°^^' J^^'^.f ,,"!:rised to hear me say I was disap- anot4ier. My micle was not at all ^rZy be Very entertaining and in- pointed in their conversation. , ^l^xceeSly dull in common discourse. Luctive upon paper ' f,^;^^ who shine mos in private company are but I have observed, that those who shine mosi y t- .^ secondary stars in the constellation of genu. A ^'^^^^ ':^ . ^^^^^.^ „,ore easily maiia^ed and soo^^^^^^^^^ ,1 ,,, J together ^heie is very seiiom J ^ ^^^ ^^^1^^^ generally distin- "^s^^J^ some o^dr^'orlxtravagance. ,Eor this reason I fancy fl^t an assembly^of grubs --^.^^^J^tnt "Consulted my friend Dick " My curiosity bemg excited by this hint iconsu ^ > g^^^^ Ivy, who undertook to ^f^^ V^^^^U fou a^d I have longknow^ last. He carried me ^ di^ wi^^ ^^^^^ ^7 l,e town ; and every Sunday his by his w gs. He lives ^^ Jf^^,^™_ quill, whom he treats with house iL op., to all unfortunate brotesot the q^^^^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ beef, pudding, ^nd potatoes port P^^^^^^^^^^ X^^^^^^^^ «^ ^^' ^^^'P^' He has fixed upon the ^^^^^^^/^^f could not^^^^^^^^ it on any other, for rea- tality, because some ^f Y':,f ^\'\;as c^^iUy receiVed in a plain, yet decent sons that I need not ^^P^^"^; , ^^^.X Tnto a very pleasant garden, kept in habitation, which opened backwards into a very P | ^ ^^^1^^^.. excellent order; and, ^"^^^f ' ^/^^J^^^^^^ ,fho is one of thofe few writers ship either m the house or tli.e 1^"^^%^' ^^^''^ J° ^.^hout patronage, and t°»mprn/made ample amends for Ms want of^.^ ^^^^^ at :^:r:^^ ^^'^^^^^^^-ts. s^^:ftLrwtrfp|Lf^^^^^^ iti lYs ^el^a ; ™VZ"£ SiSS^aJ: -ent ^s weakness or defect of "7"- 1 hSl eves by a pLye , wUl whom he had ~"P"l'dfn^l' drtak™! H> rd wtreTlaTed s^oJking, and made use of quarrelled m his dnnk. -^ ™ ™ "" , , v ij^jj up w th a broken leg, crutches, because, once m his life, n^ had heen^ia v ^^^^^^^^ ,^^^, though no man could leap over a s'lck vvith ™je "S 7 ^ sitting contracted such an antipathy to *e where : he lived with the grand Man's societ3' of those da3's ; he was courted b3^ peers and men of wealth and fashion. As he had a paternal allowance from his father. General Fielding, which, to use Henr3''s own phrase, an3' man might pa3' who would ; as he liked good wine, good clothes, and good company, which are all expensive articles to purchase, Hany Fielding began to run into debt, and borrow money in that easy manner in which Captain Booth borrows mone3^ in the novel ; was in nowise particular in accepting a few pieces from the purses of his rich friends, and bore down upon more than one of them, as Walpole tells us onl3' too truly, for a dinner or a guinea. To supply himself with the latter, he began to write theatrical pieces, having alread3^, no doubt, a considerable acquaintance amongst the Old fields and Bracegirdles behind the scenes. He laughed at these pieces and scorned them. When the audience upon one occasion began to hiss a scene which he was too lazy to correct, and regarding which, when Garrick remonstrated with him, he said that the public was too stupid to find out the badness of his work : when the audience began to hiss. Fielding said, with characteristic coolness — " The3' have found it out, have they?" He did not prepare his novels in this wa3', and with a very different care and interest laid the foundations and built up the edifices of his future fame. Time and shower have ver3^ little damaged those. The fashion and ornaments are, perhaps, of the architecture of that age ; but the buildings remain strong and loft3^, and of admira- ble proportions — masterpieces of genius and monuments of workmanlike skill. I cannot oflf'er or hope to make a hero of Harry Fielding. Why hide his faults ? Why conceal his weaknesses in a cloud of periphrases ? Why not show him,. like him as he is, not robed in a marble toga, and draped and polished in an heroic attitude, but with inked ruflfles, and claret-stains on his tar- nished laced coat, and on his manly face the marks of good- HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AKD FIELDING. 259 fellowship, of illness, of kindness, of care, and wine. Stained as 3'ou see him, and worn b}^ care and dissipation, that man re- tains some of the most precious and splendid human qualities and endowments. He has an admirable natural love of truth, the keenest instinctive antipathy to hypocrisy, the happiest satirical gift of laughing it to scorn. His wit is wonderfully wise and detective ; it flashes upon a rogue and lightens up a rascal like a policeman's lantern. He is one of the manliest and kindliest of human beings : in the midst of all his imperfections, he respects female innocence and infantine tenderness, as you would suppose such a great-hearted, courageous soul would re- spect and care for them. He could not be so brave, generous, truth-telling as he is, were he not infinitely merciful, pitiful, and tender. He will give any man his purse — he can't help kind- ness and profusion. He may have low tastes, but not a mean mind; he, admires with all his heart good and virtuous men, stoops to no flattery, bears no rancor, disdains all disloyal arts, does his public duty uprightly, is fondly loved by his family, and dies at his work.* If that theory be — and I have no doubt it is — the right and safe one, that human nature is always pleased with the spectacle ofinnocence rescued by fidelit}-, purit}^ and courage ; I suppose that of the heroes of Fielding's three novels, we should like honest Joseph Andrews the best, and Captain Booth the second, and Tom Jones the third. f Joseph Andrews, though he wears Lady Booby's cast-off livery, is, I think, to the full as polite as Tom Jones in his fustian-suit, or Captain Booth in regimentals. He has, like those heroes, large calves, broad shoulders, a high courage, and a handsome face. The accounts of Joseph's bravery and good qualities ; his voice, too musical to halloo to the dogs ; his braver}^ in riding races for the gentlemen of the county, and his constanc}" in refusing bribes <«nd temptation, have some- thing affecting in their naivete and freshness, and prepossess * He sailed for Lisbon, from Gravesend, on Sunday morning, June 30th, 1754 ; and began " The Journal of a Voyage " during the passage. He died at Lisbon, in the beginning of October of the same year. He lies buried there, in the English Protestant churchyard, near the Estrella Church, with this inscription over him : — "henricus fielding. luget britannia gremio non datum fovere natdm." t Fielding himself is said by Dr. Warton to have preferred " Joseph Andrews " to his other writings. 260 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. one in favor of that handsome young hero. The rustic bloom of Fann}^ and the dehghtful simplicity of Parson Adams are described with a friendliness which wins the reader of their story ; we part from them with more regret than from Booth and Jones. Fielding, no doubt, began to write this novel in ridicule of " Pamela," for which work one can understand the heart}^ con- tempt and antipath}^ which such an athletic and boisterous genius as Fielding's must have entertained. He couldn't do otherwise than laugh at the punj' cockney bookseller, pouring out endless volumes of sentimental twaddle, and hold liim up to scorn as a mollcoddle and a milksop. His genius had been nursed on sack-posset, and not on dishes of tea. His muse had sung the loudest in tavern choruses, had seen the daylight streaming in over thousands of emptied bowls, and reeled home to chambers on the shoulders of the watchman. Richardson's goddess was attended by old maids and dowagers, and fed on muffins and bohea. "Milksop!" roars Harry Fielding, clattering at the timid shop-shutters. " Wretch f Monster! Mohock!" shrieks the sentimental author of "Pamela;" * and all the ladies of his court cackle out an affrighted chorus. Fielding proposes to write a book in ridicule of the author, whom he disliked and utterly scorned and laughed at ; but he is himself of so generous, jovial, and kindly a turn that he be- gins to like the characters which he invents, can't help making them manly and pleasant as well as ridiculous, and before he has done with them all, loves them heartily every one. Richardson's sickening antipathy for Harry Fielding is quite as natural as the other's laughter and contempt at the senti- mentalist. I have not learned that these likings and dislikings have ceased in the present day : and every author must lay his account not only to misrepresentation, but to honest enmity among critics, and to being j^ted and abused for good as well as for bad reasons. Richardson disliked Fielding's works quite honestly : Walpole quite honestly spoke of them as vulgar and stupid. Their squeamish stomachs sickened at the rough fare * "Richardson," says worthy Mrs. Barbauld, in her Memoir of him, prefixed to his Correspondence, "was exceedingly hurt at this ('Joseph Andrews '), the more so as they had been on good terms, and he was very intimate with Fielding's two sisters. He never appears cordially to have forgiven it (perhaps it was not in human nature he should), and he always speaks in his letters with a great deal of asperity of ' Tom Jones,' more indeed than was quite graceful in a rival author. No doubt he himself thought his indignation was solelv excited bv the loose morality of the work and of its author, but he could tolerate Gibber." HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING. 261 and the rough guests assembled at Fielding's jolly revel. In- deed the cloth might have been cleaner : and the dinner and the company were scarce such as suited a dandy. The kind and wise old Johnson would not sit down with him.* But a greater scholar than Johnson could afford to admire that astonishing genius of Harry Fielding : and we all know the lofty panegyric which Gibbon wrote of him, and which remains a towering monu- ment to the great novelist's memory. ' ' Our hnmortal Fielding," Gibbon writes, " was of the younger branch of the Earls of Den- bio-h, who drew their origin iTom the Counts of Hapsburgh. The successors of Charles V. may disdain their brethren of Eng- land : but the romance of ' Tom Jones,' that exquisite picture of humor and manners, will outlive the palace of the P^scurial and the Imperial Eagle of Austria." There can be no gainsaying the sentence of this great judge. To have your name mentioned by Gibbon, is like having it written on the dome of St. Peter's. Pilgrims from all the world admire and behold it. As a picture of manners, the novel of "Tom Jones" is indeed exquisite: as a work of construction quite a wonder: the by-play of wisdom ; the power of observation ; the multi- plied felicitous turns and thoughts ; the varied character of the great Comic Epic : keep the reader in a perpetual admiration and curiosity.t But c^gainst Mr. Thomas Jones himself we have a right to put in a protest, and quarrel with the esteem the author evidently has for that character. Charles Lamb * It must always be borne in mind, that besides that the Doctor couldn't be expected to like Fieldmg's wild life (to say nothmg of the fact that they were of opposite sides in politics), Richardson was one of his earliest and kindest friends. Yet Jolinson too (as Boswell tells us) read Ameha through without stopping. . , .^, t "Manners change from generation to generation and with manners morals appear to change -actually change with some, but appear to change with all but the abandoned. A young man of the present_day who should act as Tom Jones is supposed to act at Upton, with Lady Bellaston &c. would not be a Tom Jones ; and a Tom Jones of the present day without perhaps being in the ground a better man, would have perished rather than submit to be kept by a harridan of fortune. Therefore, his novel is and in- deed pretends to be, no example of conduct. But, notwithstandmg all this, I do loathe the cant which can recommend ' Pamela and Clarissa Harlowe as strictly moral, although they poison the imagination of the young with continued doses of tinct. b/f.tce, while Tom Jones is prolnbited as loose. 1 do not speak of young women ; but a young man whose heart or feelings can be injured, or even his passions excited by this novel, is already thoroughly corrupt. There is a cheerful, sunshiny, breezy spirit, that prevails every- where, strongly contrasted with the close, hot, day-dreamy continuity ot Richardson." — Golbripge. Literary Remains, vol. ii- p. 374, 262 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. saj's finel3^ of Jones, that a single hearty laugh from him " clears the air" — but then it is in a certain state of the atmosphere. It might clear the air when such personages as Blifil or Jjady Bellaston poison it. But I fear very much that (except until the very last scene of the story) , when Mr. Jones enters Sophia's drawing-room, the pure air there is rather tainted with the 3'Oung gentleman's tobacco-pipe and punch. I can't say that I think Mr. Jones a virtuous character ; I can't say but that I think Fielding's evident liking and admiration for Mr. Jones shows that the great humorist's moral sense was blunted bj'- his life, and that here, in Art and Ethics, there is a great error. If it is right to have a hero whom we may admire, let us at least take care that he is admirable : if, as is the plan of some authors (a plan decidedl}' against their interests, be it said), it is propounded that there exists in life no such being, and there- fore that in novels, the picture of life, there should appear no such character ; then Mr. Thomas Jones becomes an admissible person, and we examine his defects and good qualities, as we do those of Parson Thwackum, or Miss Seagrim. But a hero with a flawed reputation ; a hero spunging for a guinea ; a hero who can't pay his landlady, and is obliged to let his honor out to hire, is absurd, and his claim to heroic rank untenable. I protest against Mr. Thomas Jones holding such rank at all. I protest even against his being considered a more than ordi- nary 3'oung fellow, rudd3'-cheeked, broad-shouldered, and fond of wine and pleasure. He would not rob a church, but that is all ; and a prett3' long argument ma3^ be debated, as to which of these old types, the spendthrift, the h3^pocrite, Jones and Blifil, Charles and Joseph Surface, — is the worst member of society and the most, deserving of censure. The prodigal Cap- tain Booth is a better man than his predecessor Mr. Jones, in so far as he thinks much more humbl3' of himself than Jones did : goes down on his knees, and owns his weaknesses, and cries out, " Not for m3^ sake, but for the sake of my pure and sweet and beautiful wife Amelia, I pra3' 3'ou, O critical reader, to forgive me." That stern moralist regards him from the bench (the judge's practice out of court is not here the question), and says, " Captain Booth, it is perfectly true that your life has been disreputable, and that on man3^ occasions 3^ou have shown 3^ourself to be no better than a scamp — 3'ou have been tippling at the tavern, when the kindest and sweetest lad3' i^ the world has cooked your little supper of boiled mutton and awaited you all the night ; 3'ou have spoilt the little dish of boiled mutton thereby, and caused pangs and pains to AmeUa's HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING. 263 tender heart.* You have got into debt without the means of paj'ing it. You have gambled the money with which 3-ou ought to have paid your rent. You have spent in drink or in worse amusements the sums which your poor wife has raised upon her little home treasures, her own ornaments, and the toys of her children. But, 3'ou rascal ! you own humbl}^ that you are no better than you should be ; you never for one moment pretend that you are anything but a miserable weak- minded rogue. You do in 3^our heart adore that angelic woman, your wife, and for her sake, sirrah, you shall have your dis- charge. Lucky for j^ou and for others like you, that in spite of your failings and imperfections, pure hearts pity and love 3'ou. For 3'Our wife's sake you are permitted to go hence with- out a remand ; and I beg 3^ou, by the wa3^, to carry to that angelical lad3" the expression of the cordial respect and admi- ration of this court." Amelia pleads for her husband. Will Booth : Amelia pleads for her reckless kindlv old father, Harry Fielding. To have invented that character, is not onl3' a triumph of art, but it is a good action. They say it was in his own home that Fielding knew her and loved her : and from his own wife that he drew the most charming character in English * " Nor was she (Lady Mary Wortley Montagu) a stranger to that be- loved first wife, whose picture he drew in his * Amelia,' when, as slie said, even the glowing language he knew how to employ, did not do more than justice to the amiable qualities of the original, or to her beauty, although this had suffered a little from the accident related in the novel — a frightful overturn, which destroyed the gristle of her nose. He loved her passion- ately, and she returned his affection " His biographers seem to have been shy of disclosing that, after the death of this charming woman, he married her maid. And yet the act was not so discreditable to his character as it may sound. The maid had few personal charms, but was an excellent creature, devotedly attached to her mistress, and almost broken-hearted for her loss. In the first agonies of his own grief, which approached to frenzy, he found no relief but from weeping along with her ; nor solace when a degree calmer, but in talking to her of the angel they mutually regretted. This made her his habitual confidential associate, and in process of time he began to think he could not give liis children a tenderer mother, or secure for himself a more faithful house- keeper and nurse. At least, this was what he told his friends ; and it is certain that her conduct as his wife confirmed it, and fully justified his good opinion." — Letters and Works of Lady Mary Woriley Montagu. Edited by Lord Wharncliffe. Lntroductory Anecdotes, vol. \. pp. 80, 81. Fielding's first wife was Miss Craddock, a young lady from Salisbury, with a fortune of 1,500/., whom he married in 1736, About the same time he succeeded, himself, to an estate of 200/. per annum, and on the joint amount he lived for some time as a splendid country gentleman in Dorset- shire. Three years brought him to the end of his fortune; when he re- turned to London, and became a student of law. 264 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. fiction. Fiction! why fiction? why not history? I know Amelia just as well as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. I be- lieve in Colonel Bath almost as much as in Colonel Gardiner or the Duke of Cumberland. I admire the author of " Amelia," and thank the kind master who introduced me to that sweet and delightful companion and friend. "Amelia" perhaps is not a better story than "Tom Jones," but it has the better ethics ; the prodigal repents at least, before forgiveness, — whereas that odious broad-backed Mr. Jones carries off his beauty with scarce an interval of remorse for his manifold errors and shortcomings ; and is not half punished enough before the great prize of fortune and love falls to his share. I am angry with Jones. Too much of the plum-cake and rewards of life fall to that boisterous, swaggering young scapegrace. Sophia actually surrenders without a proper sense of decorum ; the fond, foolish, palpitating little creature! — "Indeed, Mr. Jones," she says, — "it rests with you to appoint the da3^" I suppose Sophia is drawn from life as well as Amelia ; and many a young fellow, no better than Mr. Thomas Jones, has carried by a coup de main the heart of many a kind gu'l who was a great deal too good for him. What a wonderful art ! What an admirable gift of nature was it b}^ which the author of these tales was endowed, and which enabled him to fix our interest, to waken our sympathy, to seize upon our credulity, so that we believe in his people — speculate gravely upon their faults or their excellences, prefer this one or that, deplore Jones's fondness for drink and play, Booth's fondness for play and drink, and the unfortunate posi- tion of the wives of both gentlemen — love and admire those ladies with all our hearts, and talk about them as faithfully as if we had breakfasted with them this morning in their actual drawing-rooms, or should meet them this afternoon in the Park ! What a genius ! what a vigor ! what a bright-eyed intelligence and observation ! what a wholesome hatred for meanness and knavery ! what a vast sympathy ! what a cheer- fulness ! what a manly relish of life ! what a love of human kind ! what a poet is here ! — watching, meditating, brooding, creating ! What multitudes of truths has that man left behind him ! What generations he 'has taught to laugh wisel}' and fairly ! What scholars he has formed and accustomed to the exercise of thoughtful humor and the manly play of wit ! What a courasje he had ! What a dauntless and constant cheerfulness of intellect, that burned bright and steady through all the storms of his life, and never deserted its last wreck ! It \% HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING. 265 wonderful to think of the pains and miser}- which the man suffered ; the pressure of want, illness, remorse which he en- dured ; and that the writer was neither malignant nor melan- choly, his view of truth never warped, and his generous human kindness never smTcndered.* * " In the" Gentleman's Magazine for 1786, an anecdote is related of Harry Fielding, "in whom," says the correspondent, "good-nature and philanthropy in their extreme degree were known to be the prominent features." It seems that " some parochial taxes " for his house in Beau- fort Buildings had long been demanded by the collector. " At last, Harry went off to Johnson, and obtained by a process of literary mortgage the needful sum. He was returning with it, when he met an old college chum whom he had not seen for many years. He asked tlie chum to dinner with him at a neighboring tavern ; and learning that he was in difficulties, emp- •tied the contents of his pocket into his. On returning home he was in- formed that the collector had been twice for the money. ' Friendship has called for the money and had it,' said Fielding ; ' let the collector call again.' " It is elsewhere told of him, that being in company with the Earl of Denbigh, his kinsman, and the convei'sation turning upon their relation- ship, the Earl asked him how it was that he spelled his name " Fielding," and not " Feilding," like the head of the house ? "I cannot tell, my lord," said he, " except it be that my branch of the family were the first that knew how to spell." In 1748, he was made Justice of the Peace for Westminster and Middle- sex, an office then paid by fees, and ver}'^ laborious, without being particu- larly reputable. It may be seen from his own words, in the Introduction to the " Voyage," what kind of work devolved upon him, and in what a state he was, during these last years ; and still more clearly, how he com- ported himself through all. "Whilst I was preparing for my journey, and when I was almost fatigued to death with several long examinations, relating to five different murders, all committed within the space of a week, by different gangs of street-robbers, I received a message from his Grace the Duke of Newcastle, by Mr. Carrington.the King's messenger, to attend his Grace the next morning in Lincoln's Inn Fields, upon some business of importance : but I excused myself from complying with the message, as, besides being lame, I was very ill with the great fatigues I had lately undergone, added to my distemper. "His -Grace, however, sent Mr. Carrington the very next morning, with another summons ; with which, though in the utmost distress, I immedi- ately complied ; but the Duke happening, unfortunately for me, to be then particularly engaged, after I had waited some time, sent a gentleman to discourse with me on the best plan which could be invented for these murders and robberies, which were every day committed in the streets ; upon which I promised to transmit nfy opinion in writing to his Grace, who, as the gentleman informed me, intended to lay it before the Privy Council. " Though this visit cost me a severe cold, I, notwithstanding, set myself down to work, and in about four days sent the Duke as regular a plan as I could form, with all the reasons and arguments I could bring to support it, dravwi out on several sheets of paper ; and soon received a mes- sage from the Duke, by Mr. Carrington, acquainting me that my plan 266 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. In the quarrel mentioned before, which happened on Field- ing's last voyage to Lisbon, and when the stout captain of the ship fell down on his knees and asked the sick man's pardon — "I did not suffer," Fielding says, in his hearty, manl}- way, his e3'es lighting up as it were with their old fire — " I did not suffer a brave man and an old man to regiain a moment in that posture, but immediately forgave him." Indeed, I think, with his noble spirit and unconquerable generosit}-. Fielding reminds one of those brave men of whom one reads in stories of English shipwrecks and disasters — of the officer on the African shore, when disease has destroj'ed the crew, and he himself is seized by fever, who throws the lead with a death-stricken hand, takes the soundings, carries the ship out of the river or off the dangerous coast, and dies in the manly endeavor — of thq wounded captain, when the vessel founders, who never loses his heart, who eyes the danger steadily, and has a cheer}^ word for all, until the inevitable fate overwhelms him, and the gal- lant ship goes down. Such a brave and- gentle heart, such an intrepid and courageous spirit, I love to recognize in the manly, the English Harrj' Fielding. was highly approved of, and that all the terras of it would be complied with. " The principal and most material of these terms was the immediately depositing 600/. in my Iiands ; at which small charge I undertook to de- molish the then reigning gangs, and to put the civil policy into such order, that no such gangs should ever be able for the future to form themselves into bodies, or at least to remain any time formidable to the public. " I had delayed my Bath journey for some time, contrary to the re- peated advice of my physical acquaintances and the ardent desire of my warmest friends, though my distemper was now turned to a deep jaundice; in which case the Bath waters are generally reputed to be almost infal- lible. But I had the most eager desire to demolish this gang of villains and cut-tliroats " After some weeks the money was paid at the Treasury, and within a few days after 200/. of it had come into my hands, the whole gang of cut- throats was entirely dispersed " Further on, he says — " I will confess that my private affairs at the beginning of the winter had but a gloomy aspect ; for I had not plundered the public or the poor of those sums which men, who are always ready to plunder both as much as they can, have been pleased to suspect me of taking; on the contrary, by composing, instead of inflaming, the quarrels of porters and beggars (which I blush when I say hath not been universally practised), and by refusing to take a shilling from a man who most undoubtedly would not have had another left, I had reduced an income of about 600/. a year of the dirtiest money upon earth, to little more than 300/., a considerable portion of which remained with my clerk." STEENE AND GOLDSMITH. Roger Sterne, Sterne's father, was the second son of a numerous race, descendants of Richard Sterne, Archbishop of York, in the reign of James II. ; and children of Simon Sterne and Mary Jaques, his wife, heiress of Elvington, near York.* Roger was a lieutenant in Handyside's regiment, and engaged in Flanders in Queen Anne's wars. He married the daughter of a noted sutler — " N. B., he was in debt to him," his son writes, pursuing the paternal biography — and marched through the world with this companion ; she following the regiment and bringing man}^ children to poor Roger Sterne. The captain was an irascible but kind and simple little man, Sterne says, and informs us that his sire was run through the body at Gib- raltar, by a brother officer, in a duel which arose out of a dis- pute about a goose. Roger never entirelj^ recovered from the effects of this rencontre, but died presently at Jamaica, whither he had followed the drum. Laurence, his second child, was born at Clonmel, in Ireland, in 1713, and travelled, for the first ten 3- ears of his life, on his father's march, from barrack to transport, from Ireland to England, t One relative of his mother's took her and her family under * He came of a Suffolk family — one of whom settled in Nottingham- shire. The famous " starling " was actually the family crest. t "It was in this parish (of Animo, in Wicklow), during our stay, tliat I had that wonderful escape in falling through a mill-race, whilst the mill was going, and of being taken up unhurt; the story is incredible, but known for truth in all that part of Ireland, where hundreds of the common people flocked to see me." — Sterne. 268 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. shelter for ten months at Mullingar : another collateral descend- ant of the Archbishop's lioused them for a 3'ear at his castle near Carrickfergiis. Lany Sterne was put to school at Halifax in England, finall}' was adopted b}' his kinsman of Elvington, and parted company with his father, the Captain, who marched on his path of life till he met the fatal goose, which closed his career. The most picturesque and delightful parts of Laurence Sterne's writings, we owe to his recollections of the military life. Trim's montero cap, and Le Fevre's sword, and dear Uncle Toby's roquelaure, are doubtless reminiscences of the bo}^, who had lived with the followers of William and Marl- borough, and had beat time with his little feet to the fifes of Ramillies in Dublin barrack-yard, or played with the torn flags and halberds of Malplaquet on the parade-ground at Clonmel. Laurence remained at Halifax school till he was eighteen years old. His wit and cleverness appear to have acquired the respect of his master here ; for when the usher whipped Lau- rence for writing his name on the newl}' whitewashed school- room ceiling, the pedagogue in chief rebuked the understrapper, and said that the name should never be effaced, for Sterne was a boy of genius, and would come to preferment. His cousin, the Squire of Elvington, sent Sterne to Jesus College, Cambridge, where he remained five 3'ears, and taking orders, got, through his uncle's interest, the living of Sutton and the prebendary of York. Through his wife's connections, he got the living of Stillington. He married her in 1741 ; hav- ing ardently courted the young ladj^ for some years previously. It was not until the 3'oung lady fancied herself dying, that she made^ Sterne acquainted with the extent of her liking for him. One evening when he was sitting with her, with an almost broken heart to see her so ill (the Rev. Mr. Sterne's heart was a good deal broken in the course of his life), she said— '• M}^ dear Laurey, I never can be yours, for I verily believe I have not long to live ; but I have left 3^ou every shilling of my for- tune : " a generositj- which overpowered Sterne. She recov- ered : and so they were married, and grew heartilv tired of each other before many years were over. " Xescio quid est materia cum me," Sterne writes to one of his friends (in dog- Latin, and very sad dog-Latin too); " sed sum fatigatus et aegrotus de mea uxore plus quam unquam : " which means, I am sorry to say, " I don't know what is the matter with me; but I am more tired and sick of my wife than ever." * * " My wife returns to Toulouse, and proposes to pass the summer at Bigna^res. I, on the contrary, go and visit my wife, the church, in York- STERNE AND GOLDSMITH. 269 This to be sure was five-and-twenty j^ears after Laurey had been overcome byi'^er generosity and she by Laurey's love. Then he wrote to hor of the delights of marriage, saying, " We will be as merry and as innocent as our first parents in Para- dise, before the arch-fiend entered that indescribable scene. The kindest affections will have room to expand in our retire- ment : let the human tempest and hurricane rage at a distance, the desolation is beyond the horizon of peace. My L. has seen a polyanthus blow in December? — Some friendly wall has sheltered it from the biting wind. No planetarj' influence shall reach us, but that which presides and cherishes the sweetest flowers. The gloomy family of care and distrust shall be ban- ished from our dwelling, guarded by thy kind and tutelar deity. We will sing our choral songs of gratitude and rejoice to the end of our pilgrimage. Adieu, my L. Return to one who languishes for thy society ! — As I take up my pen, my poor pulse quickens, my pale face glows, and tears are trickling down on my paper as I trace the word L." And it is about this woman, with whom he finds no fault but that she bores him, that our philanthropist writes, " Sum fatigatus et segrotus " — Sum mortaliter in amove with somebody else ! That fine flower of love, that poljanthus over which Sterne snivelled so many tears, could not last for a quarter of a century ! Or rather it could not be expected that a gentleman with such a fountain at command should keep it to arroser one homely old lad}' , when a score of 3"ounger and prettier people might be refreshed from the same gushing source.* It was in shire. We all live the longer, at least the happier, for having things our own way; this is my conjugal maxim. I own 'tis not the best of maxims, but I maintain 'tis not the worst." — Sterne's Letters : 20th January, 1764. * In a collection of " Seven Letters by Sterne and his Friends " (printed for private circulation in 1844), is a letter of M. ToUot, who was in France with Sterne and his family in 1764. Here is a paragraph : — "Nous arrivames le lendemain a Montpellier, ou nous trouvames notre ami Mr. Sterne, sa femme, sa fille, Mr. Huet, et quelques autres Anglaises. J'eus, je vous I'avoue, beaucoup de plai^ir en revoyant le bon et agreable Tristram II avait ete' assez longtemps k Toulouse, ou il se serait amuse sans sa femme, qui le poursuivit partout, et qui voulait etre de tout. Ces dispositions dans cette bonne dame lui out fait passer d'assez mauvais momens ; il supporte tous ces desagremens avec une patience d'ange." About four months after tliis very characteristic letter, Sterne wrote to the same gentleman to whom Tollot had written ; and from his letter we may extract a companion paragraph : — " . . . . AH which being premised, I have been for eight weeks srnitten with the tenderest passion that ever tender wight underwent. I wish, dear cousin, thou could'st conceive (perhaps thou canst without my 270 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. December, 1767, that the Rev. Laurence Sterne, the famous Shandean, the charming Yorick, the delight of the fashionable world, the delicious divine, for whose sermons the whole polite world was subscribing,* the occupier of Rabelais's eas}' chair, onl3^ fresh stuffed and more elegant than when in possession of the cynical old curate of Meudon,t — the more than rival of wishing it) how dehciously I cantered away with it the first month, two up, two down, always upon my handles, along the streets from my hotel to hers, at first once — then twice, then three times a day, till at length I was with- in an ace of setting up my hobby-horse in her stable for good and all. I might as well, considering liow the enemies of the Lord have blasphemed thereupon. The last three weeks we were every hour upon the doleful ditty of parting ; and thou may'st conceive, dear cousin, how it altered my gait and air : for T went and came like any louden'd carl, and did nothing hui jouer des sentimeiis with her from sun-rising even to the setting of the same ; and now she is gone to the south of France ; and to finish the come'die, I fell ill, and broke a vessel in my lungs, and half bled to death. Voila mon histoire ! " Whether husband or wife had most of the "patience d'ange " may be un- certain ; but there can be no doubt which needed it most ! * " ' Tristram Shandy ' is still a greater object of admiration, the man as well as the book : one is invited to dinner, where he dines, a fortnight before. As to the volumes yet published, there is much good fun in them and humor sometimes hit and sometimes missed. Have you read his ' Sermons,' with his own comick figure, from a painting by Reynolds, at the head of them ? They are in the style I think most proper for the pulpit, and show a strong imagination and a sensible heart ; but you see him often tottering on the verge of laughter, and ready to throw his periwig in the face of the audience." — Gray's Letters: June 22nd, 1760. " It having been observed that there was little liospitality in London — Johnson : ' Nay, sir, any man who has a name, or who has the power of pleas- ing, will be very generally invited in London. The man, Sterne, I have been told, has had engagements for three months.' Goldsmith : ' And a very dull fellow.' Johnston : ' Why, no, sir.'" — Boswell's Life of Johnson. " Her [Miss Monckton's] vivacity enchanted the sage, and they used to talk together with all imaginable ease. A singular instance happened one evening, when she insisted that some of Sterne's writings were very pathetic. Johnson bluntly denied it. ' I am sure,' said she, ' they have affected me.' 'Why,' said Johnson, smiling, and rolling himself about — ' that is, because, dearest, you're a dunce.' When she some time after- wards mentioned this to him, he said with equal truth and politeness, * Madam, if I had thought so, I certainly should not have said it.' " — Ibid. t A passage or two from Sterne's " Sermons " may not be without in- terest here. Is not the following, levelled against the cruelties of the Church of Rome, stamped with the autograph of the author of the " Senti- mental Journey ? " — " To be convinced of this, go with me for a moment into the prisons of the Inquisition — behold religion with mercy and justice chained down under her feet, — there, sitting ghastly upon a black tribunal, propped up with racks, and instruments of torment. — Hark ! — what a piteous groan ! — See the melancholy wretch who uttered it, just brought forth to undergo the STERNE AND GOLDSMITH. 271 the Dean of St. Patrick's, wrote the above-quoted respectable letter to his friend in London : and it was in April of the same 3'ear that he was pouring out his fond heart to Mrs. Elizabeth Draper, wife of " Daniel Draper, Esq., Councillor of Bomba}', and, in 1775, chief of the factory of Surat — a gentleman very much respected in that quarter of the globe." " I got th}^ letter last night, Eliza," Sterne writes, " on m}^ return from Lord Bathurst's, where 1 dined " — (the letter has this merit in it, that it contains a pleasant reminiscence of bet- ter men than Sterne, and introduces us to a portrait of a kind old gentleman) — "I got th}^ letter last night, Eliza, on my return from Lord Bathurst's ; and where I was heard — as I talked of thee an hour within intermission — with so much pleasure and attention, that the good old Lord toasted your anguish of a mock-trial, and endure the utmost pain that a studied system of religious cruelty has been able to invent. Behold this helpless victim de- livered up to his tormentors. His body so wasted with sorrow and long confine- ment, youll see every nerve and muscle as it suffers. — Observe the last movement of that horrid engine. — What convulsions it has thrown him into ! Con- sider the nature of the posture in which he now lies stretched. — What exquisite torture he endures by it. — 'Tis all nature can bear. — Good God ! see how it keeps his weary soul hanging upon his trembling lips, willing to take its leave, but not suffered to depart. Behold the unhappy wretch led back to his cell, — dragg'd out of it again to meet the flames — and the insults in his last agonies, which this principle — this principle, that there can be religion without morality — has prepared for him." — Sermon 27th. The next extract is preached on a text to be found in Judges xix. vv. 1, 2, 3, concerning a " certain Levite : " — " Such a one the Levite wanted to share his solitude and fill up that uncomfortable blank in the heart in such a situation : for, notwithstanding all we meet with in books, in man}' of which, no doubt, there are a good many handsome things said upon the sweets of retirement, &c yet still ' it IS not good for man to be alone :' nor can all which the cold-hearted pedant stuns our ears with upon the subject, ever give one answer of satis- faction to the mind ; in the midst of the loudest vauntings of philosophy, nature will have her yearnings for society and friendship ; — a good heart wants some object to be kind to — and the best parts of our blood, and the purest of our spirits, suffer most under the destitution. " Let the torpid monk seek Heaven comfortless and alone. God speed him ! For my own part, I fear I should never so find the way : let me be wise and religious, but let me be Man ; wherever thy Providence places me, or whatever be the road I take to Thee, give me some companion in my journey, be it only to remark to, ' How our shadows lengthen as our sun goes down ; ' — to whom I may say, ' How fresh is the face of Nature ! how sweet the flowers of the field! how delicious are these fruits!'" — Sermon ISth. The first of these passages gives us another drawing of the famous *' Captive." The second shows that the same reflection was suggested to the Rev. Laurence by a text in Judges as hy the fille-de-chambre. Sterne's Sermons were published as those of " Mr. Yorick." 272 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. health three different times ; and now be is in his 85th ^'ear^ says he hopes to hve long enough to be introduced as a friend to my fair Indian disciple, and to see her eclipse all other Na- bobesses as much in wealth as she does already in exterior and, what is far better " (for Sterne is nothing without his moralit}^),- "in interior merit. This nobleman is an old friend of mine. You know he was always the protector of men of wit and genius, and has had those of the last century, Addison, Steele, Pope, Swift, Prior, &c., always at his table. The manner in which his notice began of me was as singular as it was polite. He came up to me one day as I was at the Princess of Wales's court, and said, ' I want to know you, Mr. Sterne, but it is fit you also should know who it is that wishes this pleasure. You have heard of an old Lord Bathurst, of whom your Popes and Swifts have sung and spoken so much? I have lived my life with geniuses of that cast ; but have survived them ; and, despairing ever to find their equals, it is some years since I have shut up my books and closed m}- accounts ; but you have kindled a desire in me of opening them once more before I die : which I now do : so go home and dine with me.' This noble- man, I say, is a prodigy, for he has all the wit and promptness of a man of thirty ; a disposition to be pleased, and a power to please others, beyond whatever I knew : added to which a man of learning, courtesy, and feeling. " He heard me talk of thee, Eliza, with uncommon satisfac- tion — for there was onl}' a third person, and of sensibility^ with us : and a most sentimental afternoon till nine o'clock have we passed ! * But thou, Eliza, wert the star that conducted and enlivened the discourse ! And when I talked not of thee, still didst thou fill my mind, and warm every thought I uttered, for * " I am glad that you are in love : 'twill cure you at least of the spleen, which has a bad effect on both man and woman. I myself must ever have some Dulcinea in my head; it harmonizes the soul ; and in tliese cases I first endeavor to make the lady believe so, or rather, I begin first to make myself believe that I am in love ; but I carry on my affairs quite in the French way, sentimentally : ' Uamour,' say they, ' n'est rien sans sen- timent.' Now, notwithstanding they make such a pother about the word, they have no precise idea annexed to it. And so much for that same sub- ject called love." — Sterne's Letters : May 23, 1765. " P.S. — My ' Sentimental Journey ' will please Mrs. J and my Lydia " [his daughter, afterwards Mrs. Medalle] — "I can answer for those two. It is a subject which works well, and suits the frame of mind I have been in for some time past. I told you my design in it was to teach us to love the world and our f elloAv-creatures better than we do — so it runs most upon those gentler passions and affections wliicli aid so much to it.'* — Letters [^1767]. STERNE AND GOLDSMITH. 273 I am not ashamed to acknowledge I greatly miss thee. Best of all good girls ! — the sufferings I have sustained all night in consequence of thine, Eliza, are be3^ond the power of words. , . . . And so thou hast fixed th}' Bramin's portrait over th}'' writing-desk, and will consult it in all doubts and difficulties? — grateful and good girl ! Yorick smiles contentedly over all thou dost : his picture does not do justice to his own com- l)lacency. I am glad your shipmates are friendly beings " , (Eliza was at Deal, going back to the Councillor at Bombay, and indeed it was high" time she should be off). " You could least dispense with what is contrary to 3'our own nature, which is soft and gentle, P^hza ; it would civilize savages — though pit}^ were it thou should'st be tainted with the office. Write to me, my child, th}" delicious letters. Let them speak the easy carelessness of a heart that opens itself an^'how, ever3'how. Such, Eliza, I write to thee ! " (The artless rogue, of course he did!) ''And so I should ever love thee, most artlessl}-, most affectionately-, if Providence permitted thy residence in the same section of the globe : for I am all that honor and affec- tion can make me ' Thy Bramin.' " The Bramin continues addressing Mrs. Draper, until the departure of the " Earl of Chatham" Indiaman from Deal, on the 2nd of April, 1767. He is amiably anxious about the fresh paint for Eliza's cabin ; he is uncommonly solicitous about her companions on board : " I fear the best of your shipmates are only genteel by comparison with the contrasted crew with which thou beholdest them. So was — 3'ou know who — from the same fallacy which was put upon your judgment when — but I will not mortify 3^ou ! " '' You know who" was, of course, Daniel Draper, Esq., of Bombay — a gentleman very much respected in that quarter of the globe, and about whose probable health our worthy Bramin writes with delightful candor : — " I honor 3'ou, Eliza, for keeping secret some things which, if explained, had been a panegyric on yourself. There is a dignity in venerable affliction which will not allow it to appeal to the world for pity or redress. Well have you supported that character, my amiable, my philosophic friend ! And, indeed, I begin to think you have as many virtues as my Uncle Toby's widow. Talking of widows — pray, Eliza, if ever 3;ou are such, do not think of giving yourself to some wealth3^ Nabob, because I design to marry you myself. My wife cannot hve long, and I know not the woman I should like so well for her substitute as \-ourself. 'Tis true I am ninetv-five in constitution, and you 18 274 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. but twenty-five ; but what I want in j^outh, I will make up in wit and good-humor. Not Swift so loved his Stella, Scarron his Maintenon, or Waller his Saccharissa. Tell me, in answer to this, that 3^ou approve and honor the proposal." Approve and honor the proposal ! The coward was writing gay letters to his friends this while, with sneering allusions to this poor foolish Bramine. Her ship was not out of the Downs, and the charming Sterne was at the " Mount Coffee-house,'* with a sheet of gilt-edged paper before him, offering that precious treasure his heart to Lady P-^ — , asking whether it gave her pleasure to see him unhappy ? whether it added to her triumph that her eyes and lips had turned a man into a fool? — quoting the Lord's Pra3'er, with a horrible baseness of blasphemy, as a proof that he had desired not to be led into temptation, and swearing himself the most tender and sincere fool in the world. It was from his home at Coxwould that he wrote the Latin letter, which, I suppose, he was ashamed to put into English. I find in m}^ copy of the Letters, that there is a note of I can't call it admiration, at Letter 112, which seems to announce that there was a No. 3 to whom the wretched worn- out old scamp was paying his addresses ; * and the 3'ear after, having come back to his lodgings in Bond Street, with his *' Sentimental Journey" to launch upon the town, eager as ever for praise and pleasure — as vain, as wicked, as witty, * "To Mrs. H . "Coxwould, Nov. 15, 1767. " Now be a good dear woman, my H , and execute those commissions well, and when I see you I will give you a kiss — there's for you! But I have something else for you wliich I am fabricating at a great rate, and that is my ' Sentimental Journey,' which shall make you cry as much as it has affected me, or I will give up the business of sentimental writing " I am yours, &c. &c., " T. Shandy." ''To THE Earl of " Coxwould, Nov. 28, 1767. " My Lord, — *Tis with the greatest pleasure I take my pen to thank your lordship for your letter of inquiry about Yorick : he was worn out, both his spirits and body, with the ' Sentimental Journey.' 'Tis true, then, an author must feel himself, or his reader will not ; but I have torn my whole frame into pieces by my feelings: I believe the brain stands as much in need of recruiting as the body. Therefore I shall set out for town the twentieth of next month, after having recruited myself a week at York. I might indeed solace myself with my wife (who is come from France) ; but, in fact, I have long been a sentimental being, whatever your lordship may think to the contrary." STERNE AND GOLDSMITH. 275 as false as he had ever been — death at length seized the feeble wretch, and, on the 18th of March, 1768, that " bale of cadav- erous goods,** as he calls his bod3% was consigned to Pluto.* In his last letter there is one sign of grace — the real affection with which he entreats a friend to be a guardian to his daughter Lj'dia. All his letters to her are artless, kind, affectionate, and not sentimental ; as a hundred pages in his writings are beautiful, and full, not of surprising humor merely, but of genuine love and kindness. A perilous trade, indeed, is that of a man who has to bring his tears and laughter, his recollec- tions, his personal griefs and J03^s, his private thoughts and feelings to market, to write them on paper, and sell them for money. Does he exaggerate his grief, so as to get his reader's pit}^ for a false sensibility? feign indignation, so as to establish a character for virtue? elaborate repartees, so that he raa3^pass for a wit? steal from other authors^ and put down the theft to the credit side of his own reputation for ingenuity and learning ? feign originality? affect benevolence or misanthropy? appeal to the gallery gods with claptraps and vulgar baits to catch applause V How much of the paint and emphasis is necessary for the fair busmess of the stage, and how much of the rant and rouge is put on for the vanity of the actor. His audience trusts him : can he trust himself? How much was deliberate calculation and imposture — how much was false sensibilit}' — and how much true feeling? Where did the lie begin, and did he know where? * " In February, 1768, Laurence Sterne, his frame exhausted by long debiUtating illness,*expired at his lodgings in Bond Street, London. There was something in the manner of his death singularly resembling the par- ticulars detailed by Mrs. Quickly as attending that of Falstaff, the compeef of Yorick for infinite jest, however unlike in other particulars. As he lay on his bed totally exhausted, he complained that his feet were cold, and requested the female attendant to chafe them. She did so, and it seemed to relieve him. He complained that the cold came up higher; and whilst the assistant was in the act of chafing his ankles and legs, he expired with- out a groan. It was also remarkable that his death took place much in the manner which he himself had wished ; and that the last offices were rendered him, not in his own house, or by the hand of kindred affection, but in an inn, and by strangers. " We . are well acquainted with Sterne's features and personal appear- ance, to which he himself frequently alludes. He was tall and thin, with a hectic and consumptive appearance." — Sir Walter Scott. " It is known that Sterne died in hired lodgings, and I have been told that his attendants robbed him even of his gold sleeve-buttons while he was expiring." — Dr. Ferriar. "He died at No. 41 (now a cheesemonger's) on the west side of Old Bond Street." — Handbook of' London. 276 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. and where did the truth end in the art and scheme of this man of genius, tliis actor, this quack? Some time since, I was in the compau}^ of a French actor, wlio began after dinner, and at his own request, to sing French songs of the sort called des chansons grivoises^ and which he performed admirably-, and to the dissatisfaction of most persons present. Having finished, these, he commenced a sentimental ballad — it was so charm- ingl}' sung, that it touched all persons present, and especiallj' the singer himself, whose voice trembled, whose e3^es filled with emotion, and who was snivelling and weeping quite genuine tears by the time his own ditty was over. I suppose Sterne had this artistical sensibiiit}' ; he used to blubber perpetuall}' in his stud}', and finding his tears infectious, and that they brought him a great popular! t}', he exercised the lucrative gift of weep- ing : he utilized it, and cried on ever}^ occasion. I own that I don't value or respect much the cheap dribble of those fountains. He fatigues me with his perpetual disquiet and his uneasj^ ap- peals to my risible or sentimental faculties. He is alwa3's look- ing in my face, watching his effect, uncertain whether I think him an impostor or not ; posture-making, coaxing, and im- ploring me. " See what sensibilit}" I have — own now that I'm very clever — do cr^' now, you can't resist this." The humor of Swift and Rabelais, whom he pretended to succeed, poured from them as naturall}^ as song does from a bird ; thej' lose no manly dignit}' with it, but laugh their heart}* great laugh out of their broad chests as nature bade them. But this man — who can make you laugh, who can make 3'ou cry too — never lets his reader alone, or will permit his audience repose ; when 3'ou are quiet, he fancies he must rouse 3'ou, and turns over head and heels, or sidles up and whispers a nast}^ stor3'. The man is a great jester, not a great humorist. He goes to work systematically and of cold blood ; paints his face, puts on his ruflT and motley clothes, and la3's down his carpet and tumbles on it. For instance, take the " Sentimental Journe3'," and see in the writer the deliberate propensit}' to make points and seek applause. He gets to " Dessein's Hotel," he wants a carriage to travel to Paris, he goes to the inn-3'ard, and begins what the actors call " business" at once. There is that little car- riage (the desohligeante) . "Four months had elapsed since it had finished its career of Europe in the corner of Monsieur Dessein's coach-3^ard, and having sallied out thence but a vamped-up business at first, though it had been twice taken to pieces on Mount Sennis. it had not profited much hy its STERNE AND GOLDSMITH. 277 adventures, but by none so little as the standing so many months unpitied in the corner of Monsieur Dessein's coach- yard. Much, indeed, was not to be said for it — but some- thing might — and when a few words will rescue miser}^ out of her distress, I hate the man who can be a churl of them." Le tour est fait ! Paillasse has tumbled ! Paillasse has jumped over the desohligeante^ cleared it, hood and all, and bows to the noble company. Does an3'body believe that this is a real Sentiment? that this luxury of generosity, this gallant rescue of Misery — out of an old cab, is genuine feeling? It is as genuine as the virtuous oratory of Joseph Surface when he begins, " The man who," &c. &c., and wishes to pass off for a saint with his credulous good-humored dupes. Our friend purchases the carriage : after turning that noto- rious old monk to good account, and effecting (like a soft and good-natured Paillasse as he was, and ver}' free with his money when he had it,) an exchange of snuff-boxes with the old Franciscan, jogs out of Calais ; sets down in immense figures on the credit side of his account the sous he gives away to the Montreuil beggars ; and at Nampont, gets out of the chaise and whimpers over that famous dead donkey, for which any sentimentalist may cr}'' who will. It is agreeably and skil- fully done — that dead jackass: like M. de Soubise's cook on the campaign, Sterne dresses it, and serves it up quite tender and with a very piquante sauce. But tears and fine feelings, and a white pocket-handkerchief, and a funeral sermon, and horses and feathers, and a procession of mutes, and a hearse with a dead donkey inside ! Psha, mountebank ! I'll not give thee one penny more for that trick, donke}" and all! This donke}' had appeared once before with signal effect. In 1765, three years before the publication of the '' Sentimen- tal Journey," the seventh and eight volumes of "Tristram Shandy" were given to the world, and the famous Lyons donkey makes his entr}^ in those volumes (pp. 315, 316) : — ■ "'Twas by a poor ass, with a couple of large panniers at his back, who had just turned in to collect eleemosynary turnip-tops and cabbage-leaves, and stood dubious, with his two forefeet at the inside of the threshold, and with his two hinder feet towards the street, as not knowing very well whether he was to go in or no. " Now 'tis an animal (be in what hurry I may) I cannot bear to strike : there is a patient endurance of suffering wrote 278 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. so unaffectedly in his looks and carriage which pleads so mightil}- for him, that it always disarms me, and to that degree that I do not like to speak unkindly to him : on the contrary, meet him where I will, whether in town or country, in cart or under panniers, whether in liberty or bondage, I have ever something civil to say to him on my part ; and, as one word begets another (if he has as little to do as . I) , I generally fall into conversation with him ; and surely never is my imagina- tion so busy as in framing responses from the etchings of his countenance ; and where those carr}^ me not deep enough, in flying from my own heart into his, and seeing what is natural for an ass to think — as well as a man upon the occasion. In truth, it is the only creature of all the classes of beings below me with whom I can do this. . . . With an ass I can commune forever. "'Come, Honesty,' said I, seeing it was impracticable to pass betwixt him and the gate, ' art thou for coming in or going out ? ' " The ass twisted his head round to look up the street. " ' Well ! ' replied I, ' we'll wait a minute for thy driver.* "He turned his head thoughtful about, and looked wist- fuU}'' the opposite way. " ' I understand thee perfectly,' answered I : ' if thou tak- est a wrong step in this affair, he will cudgel thee to death. Well ! a minute is but a minute ; and if it saves a fellow- creature a drubbing, it shall not be set down as ill spent.' " He was eating the stem of an artichoke as this discourse went on, and, in the little peevish contentions between hunger and unsavoriness, had dropped it out of his mouth, half a dozen times, and had picked it up again. ' God help thee, Jack ! ' said I, ' thou hast a bitter breakfast on't — and many a bitter day's labor, and many a bitter blow, I fear, for its wages ! 'Tis all, all bitterness to thee — whatever life is to others ! And now th}" mouth if one knew the truth of it, is as bitter, I dare say, as soot ' (for he had cast aside the stem) , * and thou hast not a friend perhaps in all this world that ■will give thee a macaroon.' In saying this, I pulled out a paper of 'em, which I had just bought, and gave him one ; — and, at this moment that I am telling it, my heart smites me that there was more of pleasantr}- in the conceit of seeing how an ass would eat a macaroon, than of benevolence in giving him one, which presided in the act. "When the ass had eaten his macaroon, I pressed him to come in. The poor beast was heavy loaded — his legs seemed STERNE AND GOLDSMITH. 279 to tremble under him — he hung rather backwards, and, as I palled at his halter, it broke in m}^ hand. He looked up pen- sive in m}' face : ' Don't thrash me with it : but if you will 3'ou may.' ' If I do,' said I, ' I'll be d ." A critic who refuses to see in this charming description wit, humor, pathos, a kind nature speaking, and a real sentiment, must be hard indeed to move and to please. A page or two farther we come to a description not less beautiful — a land- scape and figures, delicioush^ painted b}^ one who had the keenest enjo3niient and the most tremulous sensibiUty : — " 'Twas in the road between Nismes and Lunel, where is the best Muscatto wine in all France : the sun was set, they had done their work : the nymphs had tied up their hair afresh, and the swains were preparing for a carousal. My mule made a dead point. ' 'Tis the pipe and tambourine,' said I — 'I never will argue a point with one of 3'our family as long as I live ; ' SK) leaping off his back, and kicking off one boot into this ditch and t'other into that, ' I'll take a dance,' said I, ' so sta}' you here.' "A sunburnt daughter of labor rose up from the group to meet me as I advanced towards them ; her hair, which was of a dark chestnut approaching to a black, was tied up in a knot, all but a single tress. '''We want a cavalier,' said she, holding out both her hands, as if to offer them. ' And a cavalier j^ou shall have,* said I, taking hold of both of them. ' We conld not have done without you,' said she, letting go one hand, with self- taught politeness, and leading me up with the other. "A lame 3'outh, whom Apollo had recompensed with a pipe, and to which he had added a tambourine of his own accord, ran sweetly over the prelude, as he sat upon the bank. ' Tie me up this tress instantl}",' said Nannette, putting a piece of string into my hand. It taught me to forget I was a stran- ger. The whole knot fell down — we had been seven years acquainted. The 3'outh struck the note upon the tambourine, his pipe followed, and off we bounded. ' ' The sister of the youth — who had stolen her voice from heaven — sang alternately with her brother. 'Twas a Gascoigne roundelay : ' Viva la-Joia, Jidon la tristessa.' The n3'mphs joined in unison, and their swains an octave below them. " Viva la joia was in Nannette's lips, vivalajoia in her eyes. A transient spark of amity shot across the space be- twixt us. She looked amiable. Wh}^ could I not live and end my days thus? 'Just Disposer of our joys and sorrows!* 280 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. cried I, ' whj' could not a man sit down in the lap of content here, and dance, and sing, and say his prayers, and go to heaven with this nut-brown maid ? ' Capriciously did she bend her head on one side, and dance up insidious. ' Then 'tis time to dance off,' quoth I." And with this pretty dance and chorus, the volume artfully concludes. Even here one can't give the whole description. There is not a page in Sterne's writing but has something that were better away, a latent corruption — a hint as of an impure presence.* Some of that drear}' double entendre ma}^ be attributed to freer times and manners than ours, but not all. The foul Satyr's e3^es leer out of the leaves constantly : the last words the famous author wrote were bad and wicked — the last lines the poor stricken wretch penned were for pit}^ and pardon. I think of these past writers and of one who lives amongst us now, and am grateful for the innocent laughter and the sweet and un- sullied page which the author of '• David Copperfield" gives to my children. * " "With regard to Sterne, and the charge of licentiousness which presses so seriously upon his character as a writer, I would remark that there is a sort of knowingness, the wit of which depends, 1st, on the modesty it gives pain to ; or, 2ndly, on the innocence and innocent igno- rance over which it triumphs ; or, 3rdly, on a certain oscillation in the in- dividual's own mind between the remaining good and the encroaching evil of his nature — a sort of dallying with the devil — a fluxionary art of combining courage and cowardice, as when a man snuffs a candle with his fingers for the first time, or better still, perhaps, like that trembling daring with which a child touches a hot tea-urn, because it has been forbidden ; so that the mind has its own white and black angel; the same or similar amusement as may be supposed to take place between an old debauchee and a prude — the feeling resentment on the one hand, from a prudential anxiety to preserve appearances and have a character ; and, on the other, an inward sympathy with the enemy. We have only to suppose society innocent, and then nine-tenths of this sort of wit would be like a stone that falls in snow, making no sound, because exciting no resistance ; the re- mainder rests on its being an offence against the good manners of human nature itself. " This source, unworthy as it is, may doubtless be combined with Avit, drollery, fancy, and even humor ; and we have only to regret the misal- liance ; but that the latter are quite distinct from the former, may be made evident by abstracting in our imagination the morality of the characters of Mr. Shandy, my Uncle Toby, and Trim, which are all antagonists to this spurious sort of wit, from the rest of ' Tristram Shandy,' and by supposing, instead of them, the presence of two or three callous debauchees. The re- sult will be pure disgust. Sterne cannot be too severely censured for thus using the best dispositions of our nature as the panders and condiments for the basest." — Coleridge : Literartj Remains, vol. i. pp. 141, 1-12. STERNE AND GOLDSMITH. 281 " Jete sur cette boule, Laid, chetif et souffrant ; Etouffe dans la foule, Faute d'etre assez grand : " Une plainte touchante De ma bouehe sortit. Le bon Dieu me dit : Chante, Chante, pauvre petit ! " Clianter, ou je ra'abuse. Est ma tache ici bas. Toux ceux qu'ainsi j'amuse, Ne m'aimeront-ils pas ? " In those charming lines of Beranger, one may fancy de- scribed the career, the sufferings, the genius, the gentle nature of Goldsmith, and the esteem in which we hold him. Who, of the millions whom he has amused, doesn't love him? To be the most beloved of English writers, what a title that is for a man ! * A wild 3'outh, wayward, but full of tenderness and affection, quits the country village where his boyhood has been passed in happy musing, in idle shelter, in fond longing to see the great world out of doors, and achieve name and fortune ; and after years of dire struggle, and neglect and poverty, his heart turning back as fondly to his native place as it had longed eagerly for change when sheltered there, he writes a book and a poem, full of the recollections and feelings of home : he paints the friends and scenes of his 3'outh, and peoples Auburn and Wakefield with remembrances of Lissoy. Wander he must, but he carries away a home-relic with him, and dies with it on his breast. His nature is truant ; in repose it longs for change : as on the journey it looks back for friends and quiet. He passes to-day in building an air-castle for to-mor- row, or in writing yesterday's elegy ; and he would fly away this hour, but that a cage and necessity keep him. What is the charm of his verse, of his st3de, and humor? His sweet * " He was a friend to virtue, and in liis most playful pages never for- gets what is due to it. A gentleness, delicacy, and purity of feeling distin- guishes whatever he wrote, and bears a correspondence to the generosity of a disposition which knew no bounds but his last guinea " The admirable ease and grace of the narrative, as well as the pleasing truth with which the principal characters are designed, make the ' Vicar of Wakefield ' one of the most delicious morsels of fictitious composition on which the human mind was ever employed. " .... We read the ' Vicar of Wakefield ' in youth and in age — we return to it again and again, and bless the memory of an author wlio con- trives so well to reconcile us to human nature." — Sir Walter Scott. 282 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. regrets, his delicate compassion, his soft smile, his tremuteus S3'mpath3', the weakness which he owns ? Your love for him is half pity. You come hot and tired from the da3''s battle, 'and this sweet minstrel sino;s to vou. Who could harm the kind vagrant harper? Whom did he ever hurt? He carries no weapon, save the harp on which he plays to you ; and with which he delights great and humble, young and old, the cap- tains in the tents, or the soldiers round the fire, or the women and children in the villages, at whose porches he stops and sings his simple songs of love and beauty. With that sweet story of the ' ' Vicar of Wakefield " * he has found entry into * " Now Herder came," says Goethe in his Autobiography, relating his first acquaintance with Goldsmith's masterpiece, " and together with his great knowledge brought many other aids, and the later publications be- sides. Among these he announced to us the * Vicar of Wakefield ' as an excellent work, with the German translation of which he would make us acquainted by reading it aloud to us himself " A Protestant country clergyman is perhaps the most beautiful subject for a modern idyl ; he appears like Melchizedeck, as priest and king in one person. To the most innocent situation which can be imagined on earth, to that of a husbandman, he is, for the most part, united by similarity of occupation as well as by equality in family relationships ; he is a father, a master of a family, an agriculturist, and thus perfectly a member of the community. On this pure, beautiful earthly foundation rests his higher calling; to him is it given to guide men through life, to take care of their spiritual education, to bless them at all the leading epochs of their exist- ence, to instruct, to strengthen, to console them, and if consolation is not sufficient for the present, to call up and guarantee the hope of a happier future. Imagine such a man with pure human sentiments, strong enough not to deviate from them under any circumstances, and by this already elevated above the multitude of whom one cannot expect purity and firm- ness ; give him the learning necessary for his office, as well as a cheerful, equable activity, which is even passionate, as it neglects no moment to do good — and you will have him well endowed. But at the same time add the necessary limitation, so that he must not only pause in a small circle, but may also, perchance, pass over to a smaller ; grant him good-nature, placability, resolution, and everything else praiseworthy that springs from a decided character, and over all this a cheerful spirit of compliance, and a smiHng toleration of his own failings and those of others, — then you will have put together pretty well the image of our excellent Wakefield. " The delineation of this character on his course of life through joys and sorrows, the ever-increasing interest of the story, by the combination of the entirely natural with the strange and the singular, make this novel one of the best which has ever been written ; besides this, it has the great advantage that it is quite moral, nay, in a pure sense. Christian — repre- sents the reward of a good-will and perseverance in the right, strengthens an unconditional confidence in God, and attests the final triumph of good over evil ; and all this without a trace of cant or pedantry. The author was preserved from both of these by an elocution of mind that shows itself throughout in the form of irony, by which this little work must appear to us as wise as it is amiable. The author, Dr. Goldsmith, has, without ques- STERNE AND GOLDSMITH. 283 evei^' castle and ever^^ hamlet in Europe. Not one of us, how- ever bus}^ or hard, but once or twice in our Hves has passed an evening with him, and undergone the charm of his delightful music. Goldsmith's father was no doubt the good Doctor Primrose, whom we all of us know.* Swift was 3'et alive, when the little Oliver was born at Pallas, or Pallasmore, in the county of Longford, in Ireland. In 1730, two years after the child's birth, Charles Goldsmith removed his family to Lissoy, in the county Westmeath, that sweet ''Auburn" which every person tion, a great insight into the moral world, into its strength and its infirmities ; but at tlie same time he can thankfully acknowledge that he is an English- man, and reckon highly the advantages which his country and his nation afford him. The family, with the delineation of which he occupies him- self, stands upon one of the last steps of citizen comfort, and yet comes in contact with the highest ; its narrow circle, which becomes still more con- tracted, touches upon the great world through the natural and civil course of things ; this little skiff floats on the agitated waves of English life, and in weal or woe it has to expect injury or help from the vast fleet which sails around it. " I may suppose that my readers know this work, and have it in mem- ory ; whoever hears it named for the first time here, as well as he vvho is induced to read it again, will thank me." — Goethe : Truth and Poetry ; from mi/ own Life. (English Translation, vol. i. pp. 878, 379.) " He seems from infancy to have been compounded of two natures, one bright, the otlier blundering; or to have had fairy gifts laid in his cradle by the ' good people ' who haunted his birthplace, the old goblin mansion on the banks of the Inny. " He carries with him the wayward elfin spirit, if we may so term it, throughout his career. His fairy gifts are of no avail at school, academy, or college : they unfit him for close study and practical science, and render him heedless of everything that does not address itself to his poetical imagination and genial and festive feelings ; they dispose him to break away from restraint, to stroll about hedges, green lanes, and haunted streams, to revel with jovial companions, or to rove the country like a gipsy in quest of odd adventures " Though his circumstances often compelled him to associate with the poor, they never could betray him into companionship with the depraved. His ^relish for humor, and for the study of character, as we have before observed, brought him often into convivial company of a vulgar kind ; but he discriminated between their vulgarity and their amusing qualities, or rather wrought from the whole store familiar features of life which form the staple of his most popular writings." — Washington Irving. * " The family of Goldsmith, Goldsmyth, or, as it was occasionally written, Gouldsmith, is of considerable standing in Ireland, and seems always to have held a respectable station in society. Its origin is English, supposed to be derived from that which was long settled at Crayford in Kent." — Prior's Life of Goldsmith. Oliver's father, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather were clergymen ; and two of them married clergymen's daughters. 284 EXGLTSH HUMORISTS. who hears me has seen in fanc}^ Here the kind parson * brought up his eight children ; and loving all the world, as his son sa3's, fancied all the world loved him. He had a crowd of poor dependants besides those hungry children. He kept an open table ; round which sat flatterers and poor friends, who laughed at the honest rector's man}' jokes, and ate the produce of his seventy acres of farm. Those who have seen an Irish house in the present day can fancy that one of Lisso}'. The old beggar still has his allotted corner by the kitchen turf; the maimed old soldier still gets his potatoes and buttermilk ; the poor cottier still asks his honor's charitj'-, and pra3's God bless his reverence for the sixpence : the ragged pensioner still takes his place b}' right and sufferance. There's still a crowd in the kitchen, and a crowd round the parlor-table, profusion, confusion, kindness, povert}'. If an Irishman comes to London to make his fortune, he has a half-dozen of Irish dependants who take a percentage of his earnings. The good Charles Gold- smith I left but little provision for his Imngrj^ race when death * " At church, with meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorn 'd the venerable place ; Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway, And fools who came to scoff remain'd to pray. The service past, around the pious man, With steady zeal each honest rustic ran ; E'en children follow'd with endearing wile, And pluck'd his gown to share the good man's smile. His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest, Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distrest; To them his lieart, his love, his griefs were given, But all his serious thoughts had rest in Heaven. As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm. Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head." The Deserted Village. t "In May this year (1768), he lost his brother, the Rev. Henry Goldsmith, for whom he had been unable to obtain preferment in the church " .... To the curacy of Kilkenny West, the moderate stipend of which, forty pounds a year, is sufficiently celebrated by his brother's lines. It has been stated that Mr. Goldsmith added a school, which, after having been held at more than one place in the vicinity, was finally fixed at Lissoy. Here his talents and industry gave it celebrity, and under his care the sons of many of the neighboring gentry received their education. A fever breaking out among the boys about 1765, they dispersed for a time, but re- assembling at Athlone, he continued his scholastic labors there until the time of his death, which happened, like that of his brother, about the forty- STERNE AND GOLDSMITH. 285 summoned him : and one of his daughters being engaged to a Squire of rather superior dignit}', Charles Goldsmith impover- ished the rest of his famil}^ to provide the girl with a dowr3\ The small-pox, which scourged all Europe at that time, and ravaged the roses off the cheeks of half the world, fell foul of poor little Oliver's face, when the child was eight 3'ears old, and left him scarred and disfigured for his life. An old woman in his father's village taught him his letters, and pronounced him a dunce : Paddy B^-rne, the hedge-schoolmaster, took him in hand ; and from Paddy Byrne, he was transmitted to a clergyman at Elphin. When a child was sent to school in those days, the classic phrase was that he was placed under Mr. So-and-so's ferule. Poor little ancestors ! It is hard to think how ruthlessly you were birched ; and how much of need- less whipping and tears our small forefathers had to undergo ! A relative — kind uncle Contarine, took the main charge of little Noll ; who went through his school-da3's righteously doing as little work as he could : robbing orchards, playing at ball, and making his pocket-money fly about whenever fortune sent it to him. Everybody knows the story of that famous "Mis- take of a Night," when the young schoolboy, provided with a guinea and a nag, rode up to the "best house" in Ardagh, called for the landlord's compan}^ over a bottle of wine at sup- per, and for a hot cake for breakfast in the morning ; and found, when he asked for the bill, that the best house was Squire Featherstone's, and not the inn for which he mistook it. Who does not know every stor}^ about Goldsmith? That is a delightful and fantastic picture of the child dancing and caper- ing about in the kitchen at home, when the old fiddler gibed at him for his ugliness, and called him ^sop ; and little Noll made his repartee of " Heralds*iDroclaim aloud this saying — See ^sop dancing and his nionkej^ playing." One can fancj^ a queer pitiful look of humor and ajDpeal upon that little scarred face — the funny little dancing figure, the funn}' little brogue. In his life, and his writings, which are the honest expression of it, he is constant^ bewailing that homel}'^ face and person ; anon, he surveys them in the glass ruefully ; and presently as- fifth year of his age. He was a man of an excellent heart and an amiable disposition." — Prior's Goldsmith. " Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, My heart, untravell'd, fondly turns to thee : Still to my brother tm*ns witli ceaseless pain, And drags at each remove a lengthening chain." The Traveller. 286 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. sumes the most comical dignitj^ He likes'to deck out his little person in splendor und fine colors. He presented himself to be examined for ordination in a pair of scarlet breeches, and said honestly that he did not like to go into the church, because he was fond of colored clothes. When he tried to practise as a doctor, he got by hook or bj' crook a black velvet suit, and looked as big and grand as he could, and kept his hat over a patch on the old coat : in better days he bloomed out in plum- color, in blue silk, and in new velvet. For some of those splendors the heirs and assignees of Mr. Filb}', the tailor, have never been paid to this day : perhaps the kind tailor and his creditor have met and settled the Httle account in Hades.* They showed until lately a window at Trinity College, Dub- lin, on which the name of O. Goldsmith was engraved with a diamond. Whose diamond was it? Not the young sizar's, who made but a poor figure in that place of learning. He was idle, penniless, and fond of pleasure : j he learned his way early to the pawnbroker's shop. He wrote ballads, they say, for the street-singers, who paid him a crown for a poem : and his pleasure was to steal out at night and hear his verses sung. He was chastised by his tutor for giving a dance in his rooms, and took the box on the ear so much to heart, that he packed up his all, pawned his books and little property, and disap- peared from college and famil3^ He said he intended to go to America, but when his money was spent, the young prodigal came home ruefull}', and the good folks there killed their calf — it was but a lean one — and welcomed him back. After college, he hung about his mother's hou^e, and lived for some years the life of a buckeen — passed a month with this relation and that, a 3^ear with one patron, a great deal of time at the public-house. | Tji red of this life, it was resolved that he should go to London, and stud}" at the Temple ; but he * " When Goldsmith died, half the unpaid bill he owed to Mr. William Filby (amounting in all to 79Z.) was for clothes supplied to this nephew Hodson." — Forster's Goldsmith, p. 520. As this nephew Hodson ended his days (see the same page) "a prosper- ous Irish gentleman," it is not unreasonable to wish that he had cleared off Mr. niby's bill. t " Poor fellow ! He hardly knew an ass from a mule, nor a turkey from a goose, but when he saw it on the table." — Cumberland's Memoiro. X " These youthful follies, like the fermentation of liquors, often dis- turb the mind only in order to its future refinement : a life spent in phleg- matic apathy resembles tho^ic liquors which never ferment, and are consequently always muddy." — Goldsmith : Memoir of VoUalre. " He [Johnson] said * Goldsmith was a plant that flowered late. There appeared nothing remarkable about him when he was young.' " — Boswell. STERNE AND GOLDSMITH. 287 o-ot no farther on the road to London and the woolsack than bubUn, where he gambled away the fifty pounds given to him for his outfit, and whence he returned to the indefatigable for- giveness of home. Then he determined to be a doctor, and uncle Contarine helped him to a couple of years at Edinburgh. Then from Edinburgh he felt that he ought to hear the famous professors of Ley den and Paris, and wrote most amusing pom- pous letters to his uncle about the great Farheim, Du Petit, and Duhamel du Monceau, whose lectures he proposed to fol- low. If uncle Contarine believed those letters — if Oliver's mother believed that story which the youth related of his going to Cork, with the purpose of embarking for America, of his having paid his passage-money, and having sent his kit ou board ; of the anonymous captain sailing away with Oliver's valuable luggage, in a nameless ship, never to return ; if uncle Contarine and the mother at Ballymahon believed his stories, they must have been a very simple pair ; as it was a very sim- ple rogue indeed who cheated them. When the lad, after fail- ing in his clerical examination, after failing in his plan for studying the law, took leave of these projects and of his parents, and set out for Edinburgh, he saw mother, and uncle, and lazy Ballymahon, and green native turf, and sparkling river for the last time. He was never to look on old Ireland more, and only in fancy revisit her. " But me not destined such delights to share, My prime of life in wandering spent and care. Impelled, with steps unceasing, to pursue Some fleeting good that mocks me with the view ; That like the circle bounding earth and skies Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies : My fortune leads to traverse realms alone, And find no spot of all the world my own," I spoke in a former lecture of that high courage which en- abled Fielding, in spite of disease, remorse, and poverty, always to retain a cheerful spirit and to keep his manly benev- olence and love of truth intact, as if these treasures had been confided to him for the public benefit, and he was accountable to posterity for their honorable employ; and a constancy equally happy and admirable I think was shown by Goldsmith, Vv'hose sweet and friendly nature bloomed kindly always in the midst of a life's storm, and rain, and bitter weather.* The * " An * inspired idiot,' Goldsmith, hangs strangely about him [John- son] Yet, on the wliole, there is no evil in the ' gooseberry -fool,' but rather much good ; of a finer, if of a weaker sort than Johnson's ; and all 288 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. poor fellow was never so friendless but he could befriend some one ; never so pinched and wretched but he could give of his crust, and speak his word of compassion. If he had but his flute left, he could give that, and make the children happy in the drearj^ London court. He could give the coals in that queer coal-scuttle we read of to his poor neighbor : he could give away his blankets in college to the poor widow, and warm himself as he best might in the feathers : he could pawn his coat to save his landlord from gaol : when he was a school- usher he spent his earnings in treats for the bo3'S, and the good-natured schoolmaster's wife said justl}' that she ought to keep Mr. Goldsmith's mone}^ as well as the young gentlemen's. When he met his pupils in later life, nothing would satisfj^ the Doctor but he must treat them still. " Have you seen the print of me after Sir Joshua Reynolds?" he asked one of his old pupils. " Not seen it? not bought it? Sure, Jack, if your picture had been pubUshed, I'd not have been without it half an hour." His purse and his heart were everybody's, and his friends' as much as his own. When he was at the height of his reputation, and the Earl of Northumberland, going as Lord Lieutenant to Ireland, asked if he could be of anv ser- vice to Dr. Goldsmith, Goldsmith recommended his brother, and not himself, to the great man. " My patrons," he gal- lantly said, "are the booksellers, and I want no others."* Hard patrons they were, and hard work he did ; but he did not tlie more genuine that he himself could never become conscious of it, — though unhappily never cease attemptini^ to become so : the author of the genuine * Vicar of Wakefield/ nill he will he, must needs fly towards such a mass of genuine manhood." — Carlyle's Essays (2nd ed.), vol. iv. p. 9L * " At present, the few poets of England no longer depend on the great for subsistence ; they have now no other patrons but the public, and the pubhc, collectively considered, is a good and a generous master. It is indeed too frequently mistaken as to the merits of every candidate for favor; but to make amends, it is never mistaken long. A performance indeed may be forced for a time into reputation, but, destitute of real merit, it soon sinks ; time, the touchstone of what is truly valuable, will soon discover the fraud, and an author should never arrogate to himself any share of success till his works have been read at least ten years with satisfaction. " A man of letters at present, whose works are valuable, is perfectly sensible of their value. Every polite member of the community, by buying what he writes, contributes to reward him. The ridicule, therefore, of living in a garret might have been wit in the last age, but continues such no longer, because no longer true. A writer of real merit now may easily be rich, if his heart be set only on fortune : and for those who have no merit, it is but fit that such should remain in merited obscurity." — Gold- smith : Citizen of the World, Let. 84. STERNE AND GOLDSMITH. 289 complain much : if in his earh' writings some bitter words es- caped him, some allusions to neglect and povert}', he withdrew these expressions when his works were republished, and better da^'s seemed to open for him ; and he did not care to complain that printer or publisher had overlooked his merit, or left him poor. The Court face was turned from honest Oliver, the Court patronized Beattie ; the fashion did not shine on him — fashion adored Sterne.* Fashion pronounced Kelly to be the great writer of comed}^ of his da^^ A little — not ill-humor, but plaintiveness — a little betra3'al of wounded pride which he showed render him not the less amiable. The author of the " Vicar of Wakefield " had a right to protest when Newbery kept back the MS. for two 3'ears ; had a right to be a little peevish with Sterne ; a little angry when Colman's actors de- clined their parts in his delightful corned}", when the manager refused to have a scene painted for it, and pronounced its damnation before hearing. He had not the great public with him ; but he had the noble Johnson, and the admirable Rey- nolds, and the great Gibbon, and the great Burke, and the great Fox — friends and admirers illustrious indeed, as famous as those who, fifty years before, sat round Pope's table. Nobody knows, and I dare sa}" Goldsmith's buoj^ant temper kept no account of all the pains which he endured during the earty period of his literarj^ career. Should any man of letters in our day have to bear up against such, heaven grant he may come out of the period of misfortune with such a pure kind * Goldsmith attacked Sterne obviously enough, censuring his indecency, and slighting his wit, and ridiculing his manner, in the 63rd letter in the "Citizenof the World." " As in common conversation," says he, " the best way to make tlie audience laugh is by first laughing yourself ; so in writing, the properest manner is to show an attempt at humor, which will pass upon most for humor in reahty. To effect this, readers must be treated with the most perfect familiarity ; in one page the author is to make them a low bow, and in the next to pull them by the nose ; he must talk in riddles, and then send them to bed in order to dream for the solution," &c. Sterne's humorous viot on the subject of the gravest part of the charges, then, as now, made against him, may perhaps be quoted here, from the excellent, the respectable Sir Walter Scott : — " Soon after ' Tristram' had appeared, Sterne asked a Yorkshire lady of fortune and condition, whether she had read his book. ' I have not, Mr. Sterne,' was the answer ; ' and to be plain with you, I am informed it is not proper for female perusal.' ' My dear good lady,' replied the autlior, ' do not be gulled by such stories ; the book is like your young heir there ' (pointing to a child of three years old, who was rolling on the carpet in his white tunic) : ' he shows at times a good deal that is usually concealed, but it is all in perfect innocence.' " 19 290 ENGLISH HUMORISTS, heart as that which Goldsmith obstinately bore in his breast. The insults to which he had to submit are shocking to read of — slander, contumely, vulgar satire, brutal malignity pervert- ing his commonest motives and actions ; he had his share of these, and one's anger is roused at reading of them, as it is at seeing a woman insulted or a child assaulted, at the notion that a creature so very gentle and weak, and full of love, should have had to suffer so. And he had worse than insult to un- dergo — to own to fault and deprecate the anger of ruffians. There is a letter of his extant to one Griffiths, a bookseller, in which poor Goldsmith is forced to confess that certain books sent by GriflSths are in the hands of a friend from whom Gold- smith had been forced to borrow money. " He was wild, sir," Johnson said, speaking of Goldsmith to Boswell, with his great, wise benevolence and noble mercifulness of heart — "Dr. Goldsmith was wild, sir ; but he is so no more." Ah ! if we pity the good and weak man who suffers undeservedl}', let us deal very gentl}^ with him from whom miser}^ extorts not only tears, but shame ; let us think humbly and charitabl}^ of the human nature that suffers so sadl}'- and falls so low. Whose turn may it be to-morrow? What weak heart, confident before trial, may not succumb under temptation invincible? Cover the good man who has been vanquished — cover his face and pass on. For the last half-dozen 3'ears of his life Goldsmith was far removed from the pressure of an}^ ignoble necessit}^ : and in the receipt, indeed, of a pretty large income from the booksellers his patrons. Had he lived but a few 3'ears more, his public fame would have been as great as his private reputation, and he might have enjoyed alive a part of that esteem which his country' has ever since paid to the vivid and versatile genius who has touched on almost every subject of literature, and touched nothing that he did not adorn. Except in rare in- stances, a man is known in our profession, and esteemed as a skilful workman, years before the luckv hit which trebles his usual gains, and stamps him a popular author. In the strength of his age, and the dawn of his reputation, having for backers and friends the most illustrious literarj^ men of his time,* fame * " Goldsmith told us that he was now busy in writing a Natural His- tory ; and that he might have full leisure for it, he had taken lodgings at a farmer's house, near to the six-mile stone in the Edgware Road, and had carried down his books in two returned post-chaises. He said he believed the farmer's family thought him an odd character, similar to that in which the Spectator appeared to his landlady and her children ; he was 2'he Gen- STERNE AND GOLDSMITH. 291 and prosperit}^ might have been in store for Goldsmith, had fate so willed it ; and, at fort3'-six, had not sudden disease carried him off. I say prosperity rather than competence, for it is probable that no sum could have put order into his affairs or sufficed for his irreclaimable habits of dissipation. It must be remembered that he owed 2,000/. when he died. "Was ever poet," Johnson asked, "so trusted before?" As has been the case with many another good fellow of his nation, his life was tracked and his substance wasted by crowds of hungry beggars and lazy dependants. If the}^ came at a lucky time (and be sure they knew his affairs better than he did himself, and watched his pay-day) , he gave them of his money : if they begged on empt^'-purse days he gave them his promissor}' bills : or he treated them to a tavern where he had credit ; or he obliged them with an order upon honest Mr. Filby for coats, for which he paid as long as he could earn, and until the shears of Filby were to cut for him no more. Staggering under a load of debt and labor, tracked by bailiffs and reproachful creditors, running from a hundred poor dependants, whose appealing looks were perhaps the hardest of all pains for him to bear, de- vising fevered plans for the morrow, new histories, new come- dies, all sorts of new literar}' schemes, flying from all these into seclusion, and out of seclusion into pleasure — at last, at five- and-forty, death seized hun and closed his career.* I have been man}' a time in the chambers in the Temple which were his, and passed up the staircase, which Johnson, and Burke, and Reynolds trod to see their friend, their poet, their kind Goldsmith — the stair on which the poor women sat weeping bitterty when the}' heard that the greatest and most generous of all men was dead within the black oak door.f Ah, it was a tieman. Mr. Mickle, the translator of the ' Lusiad/ and I, went to visit him at this place a few day afterwards. He was not at home ; but having a curiosity to see his apartment, we went in, and found curious scraps of descriptions of animals scrawled upon tlic wall with a blacklead pencil." — BOSWELL. * " When Goldsmith was dying, Dr. Turton said to him, * Your pulse is in greater disorder than it should be, from the degree of fever which you have; is your mind at ease? ' Goldsmith answered it was not/' — Dr. Johnson {in Boswell). " Chambers, you find, is gone far, and poor Goldsmith is gone much further. He died of a fever, exasperated, as I believe, by the fear of dis- tress. He had raised money and squandered it, by every artifice of ac- quisition and folly of expense. But let not his failings be remembered ; he was a very great man," — Dr. Johnson to Boswell, July bth, 1774. t " When Burke was told [of Goldsmith's death] he burst into tears. Reynolds was in his painting-room when the messenger went to him ; but 292 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. different lot from that for which the poor fellow sighed, when he wrote with heart yearning for home those most charming of all fond verses, in which he fancies he revisits Auburn — " Here, as I take my solitary rounds, Amidst thy tangling walks and ruined grounds, And, many a year elapsed, return to view Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew, Remembrance wakes, w ith all her busy train,^ Swells at ray breast, and turns the past to pain. *' In all my wanderings round this world of care, In all my griefs — and God has given my share — I still had hopes my latest hours to crown, Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down ; To husband out life's taper at the close, And keep the flame from wasting by repose ; I still had hopes — for pride attends us still — Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill, Around my fire an evening group to draw. And tell of all I felt and all I saw ; And, as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue. Pants to the place from whence at first he flew — I still had hopes — my long vexations past, Here to return, and die at home at last. " O blest retirement, friend to life's decline! Retreats from care that never must be mine — How blest is he who crowns, in shades like these, A youth of labor with an age of ease ; Who quits a world where strong temptations try, And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly ! For him no wretches born to work and weep Explore the mine or tempt the dangerous deep ; No surly porter stands in guilty state To spurn imploring famine from the gate : But on he moves to meet his latter end, Angels around befriending virtue's friend ; Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay. Whilst resignation gently slopes the way ; And all his prospects brightening to the last, His heaven commences ere the world be past." at once he laid his pencil aside, which in times of great family distress he liad not been known to do, left his painting-room, and did not re-enter ic that day " The staircase of Brick Court is said to have been filled with mourners, the reverse of domestic ; women witliout a home, without domesticity of any kind, with no friend but him they had come to weep for ; outcasts of that great, solitary, wicked city, to whom he had never f orgotton to be kind and charitable. And he had domestic mourners, too. His coffin was re- opened at the request of Miss Horneck and her sister (such was the regard lie was known to have for them !) that a lock might be cut from his hair. It was in Mrs. Gwyn's possession when she died, after nearly seventy years." — Forster's Goldsmith. STERNE AND GOLDSMITH. 293 In these verses, I need not sa}^ with what melod}^, with what touching truth, with what exquisite beauty of comparison — as indeed in hundreds more pages of the writings of this honest soul — the wliole character of the man is told — his humble confession of faults and weakness ; his pleasant little vanity, and desire that his village should admire him ; his simple scheme of good in which ever3'body was to be happy — no beg- gar was to be refused his dinner — nobod^^ in fact was to work much, and he to be the harmless chief of the Utopia, and the monarch of the Irish Yvetot. He would have told again, and without fear of their failing, those famous jokes * which had hung * " Goldsmith's incessant desire of being conspicuous in company was tlie occasion of his sometimes appearing to sucli disadvantage, as one siiould hardly have supposed possible in a man of liis genius. When Ids literary reputation had risen deservedly high, and his society was much courted, he became very jealous of the extraordinary attention which was everywhere paid to Jolinson. One evening, in a circle of wits, he found fault with me for talking of Johnson as entitled to the honor of unquestionable superior- ity. ' Sir,' said he, 'you are for making a monarchy of what should be a republic' " He was still more mortified, when, talking in a company with fluent vivacity, and, as he flattered himself, to the admiration of all present, a German who sat next him, and perceived Johnson rolling himself as if about to speak, suddenly stopped him, saying, ' Stay, stay — Toctor Shon- son is going to zay zomething.' This was no doubt very provoking, espe^ cially to one so irritable as Goldsmith, who frequently mentioned it with strong expressions of indignation. " It may also be observed that Goldsmith was sometimes content to be treated with an easy familiarity, but upon occasions would be consequential and important. An instance of this occurred in a small particular. John- son had a way of contracting the names of his friends, as Beauclerk, Beau ; Boswell, Bozzy I remember one day, when Tom Davies was tell- ing that Dr. Johnson said — ' We are all in labor for a name to Goldtj's play,' Goldsmith seemed displeased that such a liberty should be taken with his name, and said, ' I have often desired him not to call me Goldif.' " This is one of several of Boswell's depreciatory mentions of Goldsmith -v which may well irritate biographers and admirers — and also those who take that more kindly and more profound view of Boswell's own character, which was opened up by Mr. Carljde's famous article on his book. No wonder that Mr. Irving calls Boswell " an incarnation of toadyism." And the worst of it is, that Johnson himself has suffered from this habit of the Laird of Auchinleck's. People are apt to forget under what Boswellian stimulus the great Doctor uttered many hasty things : — things no more in- dicative of the nature of the depths of his character than the phosphoric gleaming of the sea, when struck at night, is indicative of radical corrup- tion of nature ! In truth, it is clear enough on the whole that both Johnson and Goldsmith appreciated each other, and that they mutually knew it. They were — as it were, tripped up and flung against each other, occasion- ally, by the blundering and silly gambolling of people in company. Something must be allowed for Boswell's " rivalry for Johnson's good graces " with Oliver (as Sir Walter Scott has remarked), for OUver was in- 294 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. fire in London ; he would have talked of his great friends of the Club — of my Lord Clare and my Lord Bishop, mj'' Lord Nugent — sure he knew them intimately, and was hand and glove with some of the best men in town — and he would have spoken of Johnson and of Burke, and of Sir Joshua who had painted him — and he would have told wonderful sly stories of Ranelagh and the Pantheon, and the masquerades at Madame Cornelis' ; and he would have toasted, with a sigh, the Jessaniy Bride — the lovely Mar}- Horneck. The figure of that charming 3'oung lady forms one of the prettiest recollections of Goldsmith's life. She and her beau- tiful sister, who married Bunbur}", the graceful and humorous amateur artist of those days^ when Gilray had but just begun to try his powers, were among the kindest and dearest of Gold- smith's man}' friends, cheered and pitied him, travelled abroad with him, made him welcome at their home, and gave him many a pleasant holida}'. He bought his finest clothes to figure at; their country-house at Barton — he wrote them droll verses. The}' loved him, laughed at him, pla3'ed him tricks and made him happy. He asked for a loan from Garrick, and Garrick kindly supplied him, to enable him to go to Barton : but there were to be no more holidays, and only one brief struggle more for poor Goldsmith. A lock of his hair was taken from the coflfin and given to the Jessamy Bride. She lived quite into our time. Hazlitt saw her an old ladv, but beautiful still, in Northcote's painting-room, who told the eager critic how proud she always was that Goldsmith had admired her. The younger Colman has left a touching reminiscence of him. Vol. i. 63, 64. " I was only five ye&Ys old," he sa3's, " when Goldsmith took me on his knee one evening whilst he was drinking coffee with my father, and began to pla}' with me, which amiable act I returned, with the ingratitude of a peevish brat, b}^ giving him a very smart slap on the face : it must have been a tingler, for it left the marks of m}' spiteful paw on his cheek. This infantile outrage was followed by summar}^ justice, and I was locked up by m}^ indignant father in an adjoining room to timate with the Doctor before his biographer was, — and, as we all remem- ber, marched off with him to " take tea with Mrs. WilUams " befoi'e Bos- well liad advanced to that honorable degree of intimacy. But, in truth, Boswell — though he perhaps showed more talent in his delineation of the Doctor than is generally ascribed to him — had not faculty to take a fair view of tivo great men at a time. Besides, as Mr. Forsier justly remarks, " he was impatient of Goldsmith from the first hour of their acquaintance." — Life and Adventures, p. 292. STERNE AND GOLDSMITH. 295 undergo colitar}' imprisonnient in the dark. Here I began to howl and scream most abominably-, which was no bad step towards my liberation, since those who were not inclined to pit}- me might be likely to set me free for the purpose of abating a nuisance. "At length a generous friend appeared to extricate me from jeopard}', and that generous friend was no other than the man I had so wantonly molested by assault and battery — it was the tender-hearted Doctor himself, with a lighted candle in his hand, and a smile upon his countenance, which was still partially red from the effects of my petulance. I sulked and sobbed as he fondled and soothed, till I began to brighten. Goldsmith seized the propitious moment of returning good- humor, when he put down the candle and began to conjure. He placed three hats, which happened to be in the room, and a shilling under each. The shillings he told me were England, France, and Spain. ' Hey Presto cockalorum ! ' cried the Doc- tor, and lo, on uncovering the shillings, which had been dis- persed each beneath a separate hat, they were all found congi-egated under one. I was no politician at five years old, and therefore might not have wondered at the sudden revolu- tion which brought England, France, and Spain all under one crown ; but, as also I was no conjurer, it amazed me beyond measure From that time, whenever the Doctor came to visit my father, ' I plucked his gown to share the good, man's smile ; ' a game at romps constantly ensued, and we were alwa3'S cordial friends and merry playfellow^s. Our unequal compan- ionship varied somewhat as to sports as I grew older ; but it did not last long : mj^ senior playmate died in his forty-fifth year, when I had attained m}^ eleventh. .... In all the numerous accounts of his virtues and foibles, his genius and absurdities, his knowledge of nature and ignorance of the world, his ' compassion for another's woe ' was alwajs predominant ; and my trivial stor}- of his humoring a froward child weighs but as a feather in the recorded scale of his benevolence." Think of him reckless, thriftless, vain if you like — but merciful, gentle, generous, full of love and pit}'. He passes out of our life, and goes to render his account beyond it. Think of the poor pensioners weeping at his grave ; think of the noble spirits that admired and deplored him ; think of the righteous pen that wrote his epitaph — and of the wonderful and unanimous res})onse of affection with which the world has paid back the love he gave it. His humor delighting us still : his song fresh and beautiful as when first he charmed with it ; 296 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. his words in all our mouths : his very weaknesses beloved and familiar — his benevolent spirit seems still to smile upon us : to do gentle kindnesses : to succor with sweet charity : to soothe, caress, and forgive: to plead with the fortunate for the unhappy and the poor. His name is the last in the list of those men of humor who have formed the themes of the discourses which you have heard so kindl}'. Long before I had ever hoped for such an audience, or dreamed of the possibility of the good fortune which has brought me so many friends, I was at issue with some of my literary breth- ren upon a point — which they held from tradition I think rather than experience — that our profession was neglected in this country ; and that men of letters were ill-received and held in slight esteem. It would hardly be grateful of me now to alter ni}^ old opinion that we do meet with good-will and kindness, with generous helping hands in the time of our necessity, with cordial and friendly recognition. What claim had any one of these of whom I have been speaking, but genius ? What return of gratitude, fame, affection, did it not bring to all? W^hat punishment befell those who were unfortunate among them, but that which follows reckless habits and careless lives? For these faults a wit must suffer like the dullest prodigal that ever ran in debt. He must pa}^ the tailor if he wears the coat ; his children must go in rags if he spends his money at the tav- ern ; he can't come to London and be made Lord Chancellor if he stops on the road and gambles awa}^ his last shilling at Dublin. And he must pay the social penalty of these follies too, and expect that the world will shun the man of bad habits, that women will avoid the man of loose life, that prudent folks will close their doors as a precaution, and before a demand should be made on their pockets by the need}' prodigal. With what difficult}" had any one of these men to contend, save that eternal and mechanical one of want of means and lack of capi- tal, and of which thousands of young lawyers, young doctors, young soldiers and sailors, of inventors, manufacturers, shop- keepers, have to complain? Hearts as brave and resolute as ever beat in the breast of any wit or poet, sicken and break daily in the vain endeavor and unavailing struggle against life's difficulty. Don't we see daily ruined inventors, gray-haired midshipmen, balked heroes, blighted curates, barristers pining a hungry life out in chambers, the attorneys never mounting to their gaiTets, whilst scores of them are rapping at the door of the STERNE AND GOLDSMITH. 297 successful quack below ? If these suffer, who is the author, that he should be exempt ? Let us bear our ills with the same con- stancj' with which others endure them, accept our manly part in life, hold our own, and ask no more. I can conceive of no kings or laws causing or curing Goldsmith's improvidence, or Fielding's fatal love of pleasure, or Dick Steele's mania for running races with the constable. You never can outrun that sure-footed officer — not by any swiftness or bj^ dodges devised by any genius, however great ; and he carries off the Tatler to the spunging-house, or taps the Citizen of the World on the shoulder as he would any other mortal. Does society look down on a man because he is an author? I suppose if people want a buffoon the}^ tolerate him onl3^ in so far as he is amusing ; it can hardly be expected that they should respect him as an equal. Is there to be a guard of honor provided for the author of the last new novel or poem ? how long is he to reign, and keep other potentates out of pos- session? He retires, grumbles, and prints a lamentation that literature is despised. If Captain A. is left out of Lady B.'s parties he does not state that the arm}' is despised : if Lord C. no longer asks Counsellor D. to dinner, Counsellor D. does not announce that the bar is insulted. He is not fair to society if he enters it with this suspicion hankering about him ; if he is doubtful about his reception, how hold up his head honestl}', and look franklj- in the face that world about which he is full of suspicion? Is he place-hunting, and thinking in his mind that he ought to be made an Ambassador, like Prior, or a Secretary of State, like Addison? his pretence of equality falls to the ground at once : he is scheming for a patron, not shaking the hand of a friend, when he meets the world. Treat such a man as he deserves ; laugh at his buffoonery, and give him a dinner and a hon jour ; laugh at his self-sufficiency and absurd assumptions of superiorit}', and his equally ludicrous airs of martyrdom : laugh at his flattery and his scheming, and buy it, if it's worth the having. Let the wag have his dinner and the hireling his pay if 3'ou want him, and make a profound bow to the grand homme incompris^ and the boisterous mart3T, and show him the door. The great world, the great aggregate experience, has its good sense as it has its good humor. It detects a pretender, as it trusts a loyal heart. It is kind in the main : how should it be otherwise than kind, when it is so wise and clear-headed? To any literary man who saj'S, "It despises m}^ profession," I say, with all my might — no, no, no. It ma}' pass over your individual case — how many a brave 298 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. fellow has failed in the race, and perished unknown in the struggle ! — but it treats you as you merit in the main. If 3'ou serve it, it is not unthankful ; if 3^ou please, it is pleased ; if 3'our cringe to it, it detects 3'Ou, and scorns 3'ou if you are mean ; it returns 3^our cheerfulness with its good humor ; it deals not ungenerously with 3'our weaknesses ; it recognizes most kindl3^ your merits ; it gives you a fair place and fair pla3\ To any one of those men of whom we have spoken was it in the main ungrateful? A king might refuse Goldsmith a pension, as a publisher might keep his masterpiece and the delight of all the world in his desk for two years ; but it was mistake, and not ill-will. Noble and illustrious names of Swift, and Pope, and Addison ! dear and honored memories of Gold- smith and Fielding ! kind friends, teachers, benefactors ! who shall say that our country, which continues to bring you such an unceasing tribute of applause, admiration, love, sympathy, does not do honor to the literary calling in the honor which it bestows upon you ! SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON. SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON. MR. BROWN'S LETTERS TO HIS NEPHEW. It is with the greatest satistaction, my dear Robert, that I have you as a neighbor, within a couple of miles of me, and that I have seen you established comfortably in your chambers in Fig-tree Court. The situation is not cheerful, it is true ; and to clamber up three pairs of black creaking stairs is an exercise not pleasant to a man who never cared for ascending mountains. Nor did the performance of the young barrister who lives under you — and, it appears, plays prett}' constantly' upon the French horn — give me any great pleasure as I sat and partook of luncheon in your rooms. Your female attend- ant or laundress, too, struck me from her personal appearance to be a lad}^ addicted to the use of ardent spirits ; and the smell of tobacco, which you sa}^ some old college friends of yours had partaken on the night previous, was, I must say, not pleasant in the chambers, and 1 even thought might be remarked as lin- gering in your own morning-coat. However, I am an old fellow. The use of cigars has come in since my time (and, I must own, is adopted by man}' people of the first fashion), and tliese and other inconveniences are surmounted more gayly by .young fellows like yourself than b}' oldsters of my standing. It pleased me, however, to see the picture of the old house at home over the mantel-piece. Your college prize-books make a ver}^ good show in your bookcases ; and I was glad to remark in the looking-glass the cards of both our excellent county Members. The rooms, altogether, have a reputable appear- ance ; and I hope, my dear fellow, that the Society of the Inner Temple will have a punctual tenant. As you have now completed 3'our academical studies, and 302 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS are about to commence your career in London, I propose, mj' dear Nephew, to give 3"Ou a few hints for 3'our guidance ; which, although 3'ou have an undoubted genius of 3'our own, 3'et come from a person who has had considerable personal experience, and, I have no doubt, would be useful to 3'ou if 3'ou did not disregard them, as, indeed, 3'OU will most proba- bl3' do. With 3'our law studies it is not m3' duty to meddle. I have seen 3^ou established, one of six pupils, in Mr. Tapeworm's cham- bers in Pump Court, seated on a high-legged stool on a foggv da3', with 3'our back to a blazing fire. At 3'our father's desire, I have paid a hundred guineas to that eminent special pleader, for the advantages which I have no doubt you will enjo3', while seated on the high-legged stool in his back room, and rest contented with 3^our mother's prediction that you will be Lord Chief Justice some day. Ma3' 3-ou prosper, m3^ dear fellow ! is all I desire. B3^ the wa3', I should like to know what was the meaning of a pot of porter w^hicli entered into your cham- bers as I issued from them at one o'clock, and trust that it was not your thirst which was to be quenched with such a beverage at such an hour. It is not, then, with regard to 3^our duties as a law-student that I have a desire to lecture you, but in respect of vour pleas- ures, amusements, acquaintances, and general conduct and bear- ing as a 3'oung man of the world. I will rush into the subject at once, and exemplif3' m3' moral- it3'' in 3'Our own person. Why, sir, for instance, do you wear that tuft to 3^our chin, and those sham turquoise buttons to 3^our waistcoat ! A chin-tuft is a cheap enjoyment certainl3', and the twiddling it about, as I see you do constantl3', so as to show 3^our lower teeth, a harmless amusement to fill up 3'our vacuous hours. And as for waistcoat-buttons, 3'ou will say, "Do not all the young men wear them, and what can I do but buy artificial turquoise, as I cannot afford to bu3'' real stones ? " I take 3"ou up at once and show 3'ou wh3^ 3'ou ought to shave off 3^our tip and give up the factitious jeweller3^ M3' dear Bob, in spite of us and all the Republicans in the world, there are ranks and degrees in life and society, and distinctions to be maintained b3^ each man according to his rank and degree. You have no more right, as I take it, to sport an imperial on your chin than I have to wear a shovel-hat with a rosette. I hold a tuft to a man's chin to be the centre of a S3'stem, so to speak, which ought all to correspond and be harmonious — m LONDON. 303 the whole tune of a man's life ought to be played in that key. Look, for instance, at Lord Hugo Fitzsurse seated in the private box at the Lj'ceum, b}^ the side of that beautiful crea- ture with the black eyes and the magnificent point-lace, who 3'ou fancied was ogling you through her enormous spy-glasses. Lord Hugo has a tuft to his chin, certainly, his countenance grins with a perfect vacuitj^ behind it, and his whiskers curl crispl}' round one of the handsomest and stupidest coun- tenances in the world. But just reckon up in 3'^our own mind what it costs him to keep up that simple ornament on his chin. Look at ever}'- article of that amiable and most gentleman-hke — though, I own, foolish — young man's dress, and see how absurd it is of you to attempt to imitate him. Look at his hands (I have the 3'oung nobleman perfectl}' before my mind's e3'e now) ; the little hands are dangling over the cusliion of the box gloved as tightl3' and delicate I3' as a ladv's. His wristbands are fas- tened up towards his elbows with jeweller3'. Gems and rubies meander down his pink shirt-front and waistcoat. He wears a watch with an apparatus of gimcracks at his waistcoat- pocket. He sits in a splendid side-box, or he simpers out of the windows at "White's," or you see him grinning out of a cab b3^ the Serpentine — a lovely and costl3' picture, sur- rounded b3' a costty frame. Whereas you and I, m3^ good Bob, if we want to see a play, do not disdain an order from our friend the newspaper Editor, or to take a seat in the pit. Your watch is 3^our father's old hunt- ing-watch. When we go in the Park we go on foot, or at best get a horse up after Easter, and just show in Rotten Row. We shall never look out of "White's" bow- window. The amount of Lord Hugo's tailor's bill would support 3'^ou and 3^our 3^ounger brother. His valet has as good an allowance as 3'ou, besides his perquisites of old clothes. You cannot afford to wear a dandv lord's cast-off old clothes, neither to imitate those which he wears. There is nothing disagreeable to me in the notion of a dand3^ an3^ more than there is in the idea of a peacock, or a camelopard, or a prodigious gaudy tulip, or an astonishing^ bright brocade. There are all sorts of animals, plants, and stuffs in Nature, from peacocks to tom-tits, and from cloth-of-gold to cordur03^, whereof the variety is assuredly intended b3' Nature, and certainl3^ adds to the zest of life. Therefore, I do not sa3' that Lord Hugo is a useless being, or bestow the least contempt upon him. 304 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS Nay, it is right gratifj^ing and natural that he should be, and be as he is — handsome and graceful, splendid and perfumed, beautiful — whiskered and emptj^-headed, a sumptuous dandy and man of fashion — and what you young men have denomi- nated "A Swell." But a cheap Swell, my dear Robert (and that little chin ornament as well as certain other indications which I have remarked in 3'our simple nature, lead me to insist upon this matter rather strongl}' with you) , is by no means a pleasing object for our observation, although he is presented to us so frequenth'. Tr}^ my boy, and curb an}' little propensit}" which 3'ou may have to dresses that are too splendid for 3'our station. You do not want light kid-gloves and wristbands up to 3'our elbows, cop3'ing out Mr. Tapeworm's Pleas and Declarations ; 3'ou will only blot them with law3'ers' ink over 3'our desk, and they will impede 3'Our writing : whereas Lord Hugo may decorate his hands in an3'^ wa3^ he likes, because he has little else to do with them but to drive cabs, or applaud dancing- girls' pirouettes, or to handle a knife and fork or a toothpick as becomes the position in life which he fills in so distinguished a manner. To be sure since the da3's of friend ^sop. Jack- daws have been held up to ridicule for wearing the plumes of birds to whom Nature has affixed more gaudy tails ; but as Folly is constantly reproducing itself, so must Satire, and our honest Mr. Punch has but to repeat to the men of our genera- tion the lessons taught by the good-natured Hunchback his predecessor. Shave off your tuft, then, my boy, and send it to the girl of your heart as a token, if 3^ou like : and I pray 3'ou abolish the jewellery, towards which I clearl3' see 3'ou have a propensit3'. As you have a plain dinner at home, served comfortabh' on a clean table-cloth, and not a grand service of half a dozen entrees., such as we get at our county Member's (and an uncommonl3^ good dinner it is too), so let 3'our dress be perfectl}- neat, polite, and cleanl3^ without an3^ attempts at splendor. Mag- nificence is the decency of the rich — but it cannot be purchased with half a guinea a day, which, when the rent of your chambers is paid, I take to be pretty nearly the amount of your worship's income. This point, I thought, was rather well illustrated the other da3^ in an otherwise sill3^ and sentimental book which I looked over at the Club, called the " Foggart3' Diamond" (or some such vulgar name). Somebod}' gives the hero, who is a j)oor fellow, a diamond pin : he is obliged to bu3' a new stock to set off the diamond, then a new waistcoat, to correspond IN LONDON. 305 with the Gtock, then a new coat, because the old one is too shabby for the rest of his attire ; — finally, the poor devil is ruinecl by the diamond ornament, which he is forced to sell, as I would recommend you to sell your waistcoat studs, were they worth anything. But as 3'ou hsLxe a good figure and a gentlemanlike deport- ment, and as every 3'oung man likes to be well attired, and ought, for the sake of his own advantage and progress in life, to show himself to the best advantage, I shall take an early opportunity of addressing you on the subject of tailors and clothes, which at least merit a letter to themselves. ON TAILORING — AND TOILETS IN GENERAL. Our ancestors, mj^ dear Bob, have transmitted to you (as well as every member of our famih^) considerable charms of person and figure, of which fact, although you are of course perfectl}' aware, 3'et, and equalh" of course, you have no objec- tion to be reminded ; and with these facial and corporeal en- dowments, a few words respecting dress and tailoring may not be out of place : for nothing is trivial in life, and everything to the philosopher has a meaning. As in the old joke about a pudding which has two sides, namety an inside and an outside, so a coat or a hat has its inside as well as its outside ; I mean, that there is in a man's exterior appearance the consequence of his inward ways of thought, and a gentleman who dresses too grandly, or too absurdly, or too shabbily, has some oddity, or insanity, or meanness in his mind, whicli develops itself some- how outwardly in the fashion of his garments. No man has a right to despise his dress in this world. There is no use in flinging any honest chance whatever away. For instance, although a woman cannot be expected to know the particulars of a gentleman's dress, any more than we to be acquainted with the precise nomenclature or proper cut of the various articles which those dear creatures wear, yet to what lad}' in a society of strangers do we feel ourselves most naturally inclined to address ourselves ? — to her or those whose appear- ance pleases us ; not to the gaudy, over-dressed Dowager or Miss — nor to her whose clothes, though handsome, are put on in a slatternly manner, but to the person who looks neat, and trim, and elegant, and in whose person we fancy we see ex- 20 306 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS bibited indications of a natural taste, order, and proprietj*. If Miss Smith in a rumpled gown offends our eyesight, though we hear she is a 3'oung lady of great genius and considerable fortune, while Miss Jones in her trim and simple attire attracts our admiration ; so must women, on their side, be attracted or repelled by the appearance of gentlemen into whose company they fall. If 3'ou are a tiger in appearance, you ma}' naturalh" expect to frighten a delicate and timid female ; if 3'ou are a sloven, to offend her : and as to be well with women, consti- tutes one of the chiefest happinesses of life, the object of my worth}' Bob's special attention will naturally be, to neglect no precautions to win their favor. Yes : a good face, a good address, a good dress, are each so man}' points in the game of life, of which ever}' man of sense will avail himself. They help many a man more in his com- merce with society than learning or genius. It is hard often to bring the former into a drawing-room : it is often too lum- bering and unwieldy for any den but its own. And as a King Charles's spaniel can snooze before the fire, or frisk over the ottoman-cushions and on to the ladies' laps, when a Royal elephant would find a considerable difficulty in walking up the stairs, and subsequently in finding a seat ; so a good manner and appearance will introduce you into many a house, where you might knock in vain for admission, with all the learning of Porson in your trunk. It is not learning, it is not virtue, about which people inquire in society. It is manners. It no more profits me that my neighbor at table can construe Sanscrit and say the " Encyclo- paedia " by heart, than that he should possess half a million in the Bank (unless, indeed, he gives dinners ; when, for reasons obvious, one's estimation of him, or one's desire to please him, takes its rise in diflferent sources), or that the lady *7hom I hand down to dinner should be as virtuous as Cornelia or the late Mrs. Hannah More. What is wanted for the nonce is, that folks should be as agreeable as possible in conversation and demeanor ; so that good humor may be said to be one of the very best articles of dress one can wear in society ; the which to see exhibited in Lady X.'s honest face, let us say, is more pleasant to behold in a room than the glitter of Lady Z.'s best diamonds. And yet, in point of virtue, the latter is, no doubt, a perfect dragon. But virtue is a home quality : man- ners are the coat it wears when it goes abroad. Thus, then, my beloved Bob, I would have your dining-out suit handsome, neat, well-made, fitting you naturally and easily, m LONDON. 307 and 3'et with a certain air of holida}- about it, which should mark its destination. It is not because they thought their appearance was much iraproA^ed b}' the ornament, that the ancient philosophers and topers decorated their old pates with flowers (no wreath, I know, would make some people's mugs beautiful ; and I confess, for my part, I would as lief we.ar a horse-collar or a cotton nightcap in society as a coronet of pol3'anthuses or a garland of hjacinths) : — it is not because a philosopher cares about dress that he wears it ; but he wears his best as a sign of a feast, as a bush is the sign of an inn. You ought to mark a festival as a red-letter day, and you put on your broad and spotless white waistcoat, your finest linen, your shiniest boots, as much as to sa}', "It is a feast; here I am, clean, smart, ready with a good appetite, determined to enjoy." You would not enjoy a feast if you came to it unshorn, in a draggle-tailed dressing-gown. You ought to be well dressed, and suitable to it. A ver}^ odd and wise man whom I once knew, and who had not (as far as one could outwardly judge) the least vanity about his personal appearance, used, I remem- ber, to make a point of wearing in large Assemblies a most splendid gold or crimson waistcoat. He seemed to consider himself in the light of a walking bouquet of flowers, or a mov- able chandelier. His waistcoat was a piece of furniture to decorate the rooms : as for any personal pride he took in the adornment, he had none : for the matter of that, he would have taken the garment oflf, and lent it to a waiter — but this Philoso- pher's maxim was, that dress should be handsome upon hand- some occasions — and I hope you will exhibit 3'our own taste upon such. You don't suppose that people who entertain 3'ou so hospitably have four-and-twent3" lights in the dining-room, and still and dr3^ champagne ever3' da3'? — or that m3' friend, Mrs. Perkins, puts her drawing-room door under her bed ever3' night, when there is no ball ? A young fellow must dress him- self, as the host and hostess dress themselves, in an extra manner for extra nights. Enjoy, my bo3^ in honest3^ and manliness, the goods of this life. I would no more have 3'ou refuse to take 3'our glass of wine, or to admire (alwa3's in honesty) a prett3^ girl, than dislike the smell of a rose, or turn away 3'our e3'es from a landscape. '-'• Neque tu choreas sperne^ puer^"" as the dear old Heathen sa3'S : and, in order to dance, 3'ou must have proper pumps willing to spring and whirl lightl3', and a clean pair of gloves, with which 3'ou can take your part- ner's pretty little hand. 308 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS As for particularizing your dress, that were a task quite ab- surd and impertinent, considering that you are to wear it, and not I, and remembering the variations of fashion. When I was presented to H. R. H. the Prince Regent, in the uniform of the Hammersmith Hussars, viz. a yellow jacket, pink pantaloons, and silver lace, green morocco boots, and a light blue pelisse lined with ermine, the august Prince himself, the model of grace and elegance in his time, wore a coat of which the waist-buttons were placed between his royal shoulder-blades, and which, if worn by a man now, would cause the bo3S to hoot him in Pall Mall, and be a uniform for Bedlam. If buttons continue their present downward progress, a man's waist may fall down to his heels next year, or work upwards to the nape of his neck after another revolution : who knows ? Be it yours decently to conform to the custom, and leave 3^our buttons in the hands of a good tailor, who will place them wherever fashion ordains. A few general rules, however, may be gently hinted to a young fellow who has perhaps a propensity to fall into certain errors. Eschew violent sporting-dresses, such as one sees but too often in the parks and public pl-aces on the backs of misguided young men. There is no objection to an ostler wearing a par- ticular costume, but it is a pity that a gentleman should imitate it. I have seen in like manner young fellows at Cowes attired like the pictures we have of smugglers, buccaneers, and mari- ners, in Adelphi melodramas. I would Uke my Bob to remem- ber, that his business in life is neither to handle a cunycomb nor a marlin-spike, and to fashion his habit accordingly. If 3'our hair or clothes do not smell of tobacco, as the}'' sometimes, it must be confessed, do, you will not be less popu- lar among ladies. And as no man is worth a fig, or can have real benevolence of character, or observe mankind properly, who does not like the society of modest and well-bred women, respect their prejudices in this matter, and if 3'ou must smoke, smoke in an old coat, and away from the ladies. AA'oid dressing-gowns ; which argue dawdling, an unshorn chin, a lax toilet, and a general lazy and indolent habit at home. Begin 3'our da}" with a clean conscience in every wa3'. Clean- liness is honest3'.* A man who shows but a clean face and hands is a rogue and hvpocrite in societ3', and takes credit for * Note to the beloved Reader. — This hint, dear Sir, is of course not in- tended to apply personally to yon, who are scrupulously neat in your per- son ; but when you look around you and see how many people neglect the use of that admirable cosmetic, cold water, you will see that a few words in its praise may be spoken with advantage. IN LONDON. 309 a virtue which he does not possess. And of all the advances towards civilization which our nation has made, and of most of which Mr. Macaulay treats so eloquently in his lately published History, as in his lecture to the Glasgow Students the other da}', there is none which ought to give a philanthropist more pleasure than to remark the great and increasing demand for bath-tubs at the ironmongers' : Zinc-Institutions, of which our ancestors had a lamentable ignorance. And I hope that these institutions will be universal in our country before long, and that every decent man in England will be a Companion of the Most Honorable order of the Bath. THE INFLUENCE OF LOVELY WOMAN UPON SOCIETY. Constantly, my dear Bob, I have told 3'ou how refining is the influence of women upon society, and how profound our respect ought to be for them. Living in chambers as you do, my dear Nephew, and not of course liable to be amused b}' the constant society of an old uncle, who moreover might be deucedl}' bored with your own conversation — I beseech and implore 3^ou to make a point of being intimate with one or two families where j^ou can see kind and well-bred English ladies. I have seen women of all nations in the world, but I never saw the equals of Enghsh women (meaning of course to include our cousins the MacWhirters of Glasgow, and the O'Tooles of Cork) : and I pray sincerely, my boy, that you may always have a woman for a friend. Try, then, and make j^ourself the hienvenu in some house where accomplished and amiable ladies are. Pass as much of 3^our time as you can with them. Lose no opportunit}' of mak- ing yourself agreeable to them : run their errands ; send them flowers and elegant little tokens ; show a wilHngness to be pleased bj^ their attentions, and to aid their little charming schemes of shopping or dancing, or this, or that. I say to you, make yourself a lady's man as much as ever you can. It is better for ^o\x to pass an evening once or twice a week in a lady's drawing-room, even though the conversation is rather slow and you know the girls' songs b}- heart, than in a club, tavern, or smoking-room, or a pit of a theatre. All amusements of youth, to which virtuous women are not ad- 310 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS mitted, are, rel}' on it, deleterious in their nature. All men who avoid female society, have dull perceptions and are stupid, or have gross tastes and revolt against what is pure. Your Clubswaggerers who are sucking the butts of billiard cues all night call female society insipid. Sir, poetr}' is insipid to a 3okel ; beaut}^ has no charms for a blind man : music does not please an unfortunate brute who does not know one tune from another — and, as a true epicure is hardl}' ever tired of water- so uch}' and brown bread and butter, I protest I can sit for a whole night talking to a well-regulated kindl}' wom.an about her girl coming out, or her boy at Eton, and like the evening's entertainment. One of the great benefits a 3'oung man may derive from women's society is, that he is bound to be respectful to them. The habit is of great good to j'our moral man, depend on it. Our education makes of us the most eminentl}^ selfish men in the world. We fight for ourselves, we push for ourselves ; we cut the best slices out of the joint at club-dinners for ourselves ; we yawn for ourselves and light our pipes, and say we won't go out : we prefer ourselves and our ease — and the greatest good that comes to a man from woman's societ}' is, that he has to think of somebod}' besides himself — somebod}' to whom he is bound to be constantlj' attentive and respectful. Certainl}' I don't want m}' dear Bob to associate with those of the other sex whom he doesn't and can't respect : that is worse than billiards : worse than tavern brandv-and-water : worse than smoking selfishness at home. But I vow I would rather see jo\x turning over the leaves of Miss Fiddlecombe's music-book all night, than at billiards, or smoking, or brandj'-and-water, or all three. Remember, if a house is pleasant, and you like to remain in it, that to be well with the women of the house is the great, the vital point. If it is a good house, don't turn up your nose because 3'ou are onlj- asked to come in the evening while others are invited to dine. Recollect the debts of dinners which a hospitable familj^ has to pay ; who are you that 3'ou should alwa3's be expecting to nestle under the mahogany ? Agreeable acquaintances are made just as well in the drawing-room as in the dining-room. Go to tea brisk and good-humored. Be determined to be pleased. Talk to a dowager, take a hand at whist. If 3'Ou are musical, and know a song, sing it like a man. Never sulk about dancing, but ofi* with 3'Ou. You will find 3'our acquaintance enlarge. Mothers, pleased with your good-humor, will probablj' ask you to Pocklington Square, to a IN LONDON. 311 little party. You will get on — you will form yourself a circle. You may marrj^ a rich girl, or, at any rate, get the chance of seeing a number of the kind and the pretty. Many young men, who are more remarkable for their impu- dence and selfishness than their good sense, are fond of boast- fully announcing that they decline going to evening-parties at all, unless, indeed, such entertainments commence with a good dinner, and a quantity of claret. I never saw my beautiful-minded friend, Mrs. Y. Z., many times out of temper, but can quite pardon her indignation when young Fred Noodle, to whom the Y. Z.'s have been very kind, and who has appeared scores of times at their elegant table in Up — r B-k-r Street, announced in an unlucky moment of flip- pancy, that he did not intend to go to evening-parties any more. What induced Fred Noodle to utter this bravado I know not ; whether it was that he has been puffed up by attentions from several Aldermen's families with whom he has of late become acquainted, and among whom he gives himself the airs of a prodigious "swell;" but having made this speech one Sunday after Church, when he condescended to call in B-k-r Street, and show off his new gloves and waistcoat, and talked in a sufficiently dandified air about the opera (the wretched creature fancies that an eight-and-sixpenny pit ticket gives him the privileges of a man of fashion) — Noodle made his bow to the ladies, and strutted off to show his new vellow kids else- where. "Matilda, my love, bring the Address Book," Mrs. Y. Z. said to her lovely eldest daughter as soon as Noodle was gone, and the banging hall-door had closed upon the absurd youth. That graceful and obedient girl rose, went to the back drawing- room, on a table in which apartment the volume lay, and brought the book to her mamma. Mrs. Y. Z. turned to the letter N ; and under that initial discovered the name of the young fellow who had just gone out. Noodle, F., 250, Jermyn Street, St. James's. She took a pen from the table before her, and with it deliberately crossed the name of Mr. Noodle out of her book. Matilda looked at Eliza, who stood by in silent awe. The sweet eldest girl, who has a kind feeling towards every soul alive, then looked towards her mother with expostulating e5^es, and said, "Oh, mamma!" Dear, dear Eliza ! I love all pitiful hearts like thine. But Mrs. Y. Z. was in no mood to be merciful, and gave way to a natural indignation and feeling of outraged justice. 312 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS " What business has that young man to tell me," she ex- claimed, " that he declines going to evening-parties, when he knows that after Easter w^e have one or two? Has he not met with constant hospitalit}' here since Mr. Y. Z. brought him home from the Club ? Has he such beaux yeux ? or, has he so much wit? or, is he a man of so much note, that his companj' at a dinner-table becomes indispensable ? He is nobody ; he is not handsome ; he is not clever ; he never opens his mouth except to drink 3'our Papa's claret ; and he declines evening-parties forsooth ! — Mind, children, he is never invited into this house again." When Y. Z. now meets young Noodle at the Club, that kind, but feeble-minded old gentleman covers up his face with the newspaper, so as not to be seen b}^ Noodle ; or' sidles away with his face to the bookcases, and lurks off b}^ the door. The other da}', the}' met on the steps, when the wretched Noodle, driven aux abois, actually had the meanness to ask how Mrs. Y. Z. was? The Colonel (for such he is, and of the Bombay service, too) said, — " My wife? Oh ! — hum ! — I'm sorry to say Mrs. Y. Z. has been very poorly indeed, lately, very poorly ; and confined to her room. God bless my soul ! I've an ap- pointment at the India House, and it's past two o'clock" — and he fled. I had the malicious satisfaction of describing to Noodle the most sumptuous dinner which Y. Z. had given the day before, at which there was a Lord present, a Foreign Minister with his Orders, two Generals with Stars, and every luxury of the season ; but at the end of our conversation, seeing the effect it had upon the poor youth, and how miserably he was cast down, I told him the truth, viz., that the above story was a hoax, and that if he wanted to get into Mrs. Y. Z.'s good graces again, his best plan was to go to Lady Flack's party, where I knew the Miss Y. Z.'s would be, and dance with them all night. Yes, my dear Bob, you boys must pay with your persons, however lazy you may be — however much inclined to smoke at the Club, or to lie there and read the last delicious new novel ; or averse to going home to a dreadful black set of chambers, where there is no fire ; and at ten o'clock at night creeping shuddering into your ball suit, in order to go forth to an evening-party. The dressing, the clean gloves, and cab-hire are nuisances, I grant you. The idea of a party itself is a bore, but you must go. When you are at the party, it is not so stupid ; there is always something pleasant for the eye and attention of an IN LONDON. 313 observant man. There is a bustling Dowager wheedling and manoeuvring to get proper partners for her girls ; there is a pretty girl enjoying herself with all her heart, and in all the pride of her beauty, than which I know no more charming object ; — there is poor Miss Meggot, lonelj^ up against the wall, whom nobod}^ asks to dance, and with whom it is j^our bounden duty to waltz. There is always something to see or do, when jou are there ; and to evening-parties, I say, 30U must go. Perhaps I speak with the ease of an old fellow who is out of the business, and beholds you from afar off. M3' dear boj^, the}'^ don't want us at evening-parties. A stout, bald-headed man dancing, is a melanchol}^ object to himself in the looking- glass opposite, and there are duties and pleasures of all ages. Once, heaven help us, and only once, upon m}- honor, and I say so as a gentleman, some boj's seized upon me and carried me to the Casino, where, forthwith, they found acquaintances and partners, and went whirling away in the double-timed waltz 0t is an abominable dance to me — I am an old fog}^) along with hundreds more. I caught sight of a face in the crowd — the most blank, melancholy', and dreary- old visage it was — my own face in the glass — there was no use in mj^ being there. Canities adest morosa — no, not morosa — but, in fine, I had no business in the place, and so came away. I saw enough of that Casino, however, to show to me that — but my paper is full, and on the subject of women I have more things to say, which might fill many hundred more pages. SOME MORE WORDS ABOUT THE LADIES. Suffer me to continue, my dear Bob, our remarks about women, and their influence over you 3'oung fellows — an influ- ence so vast, for good or for evil. I have, as 3^ou prett}' well know, an immense sum of money in the Three per Cents, the possession of which does not, I think, decrease your respect for m}- character, and of which, at m}^ demise, you will possibly have 3'our share. But if I ever hear of you as a Casino haunter, as a frequenter of Races and Greenwich Fairs, and such amusements, in questionable com- pany, I give 3"ou m3^ honor J^ou shall benefit b3' no legacy of mine, and I will divide the portion that was, and is, I hope, to be yours, amongst 3'our sisters. 314 SKETCHES AKD TRAVELS Think, sir, of what the}^ are, and of your mother at home, spotless and pious, loving and pure, and shape 3'our own course so as to be worth}* of them. AYould you do anj'thing to give them pain? Would you say an3*thing that should bring a blush to their fair cheeks, or shock their gentle natures? At the Royal Academy Exhibition last year, when that great stupid, dandified donke}^ Captain Grigg, in company with the other vulgar oaf, Mr. Gowker, ventured to stare, in rather an inso- lent manner, at 3'^our pretty little sister Fanny, who had come blushing from Miss Pinkerton's Academ}', I saw how your honest face flushed up with indignation, as 3'ou caught a sight of the hideous grins and ogles of those two ruffians in varnished boots; and your e3*es 'flashed out at them glances of defiance and warning so savage and terrible, that the discomfited wretches turned wisel3* upon their heels, and did not care to face such a resolute young champion as Bob Brown. What is it that makes all your lilood tingle, and fills all your heart with a vague and fierce desire to thrash somebod3', when the idea of the poss^ bihty of an insult to that fair creature enters your mind ? You can't bear to think that injury should be done to a being so sacred, so innocent, and so defenceless. You would do battle with a Goliath in her cause. Your sword would leap from its scabbard (that is, if 3^ou gentlemen from Pump Court wore swords and scabbards at the present period of time,) to avenge or defend her. Respect all beaut3% all innocence, my dear Bob ; defend all defencelessness in your sister, as in the sisters of other men. We have all heard the story of the Gentleman of the last centur3*, who, when a crowd of 3'oung bucks and bloods in the Crush-room of the Opera were laughing and elbowing an old lad3' there — an old lady, loneh^ ugl3', and unprotected — went up to her respectfull3* and ofljered her his arm, took her down to his own carriage which was in waiting, and walked home himself in the rain, — and twent3^ 3^ears afterwards had ten thousand a year left him b3^ this very old lad3*, as a reward for that one act of politeness. We have all heard that stor3^ ; nor do I think it is probable that you will have ten thousand a year left to 3'ou for being polite to a woman : but I sa3', be polite, at an3^ rate. Be respectful to ever}* woman. A manl}^ and generous heart can be no otherwise ; as a man would be gentle with a child, or take oflT his hat in a church. I would have 3*ou apply this principle universally towards women — from the finest lady of vour acquaintance down to the laundress who sets 3*our Chambers in order. It ma}- safely be IN LONDON. 315 asserted that the persons who joke with servants or barmaids at lodgings are not men of a high intellectual or moral capacit3\ To chuck a still-room maid under the chin, or to send off Molly the cook grinning, are not, to say the least of them, dignified acts in an}' gentleman. The butcher-boy who brings the leg- of-mutton to Moll}^ may converse with her over the area-rail- ings ; or the youthful grocer ma}^ exchange a few jocular remarks with Betty at the door as he hands in to her the tea and sugar ; but not you. We must live according to our degree. I hint this to you, sir, b}^ the way, and because the other night, as I was standing on the drawing-room landing-place, taking leave of our friends Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax, after a very agreeable dinner, I heard a giggling in the hall, where you were putting on your coat, and where that uncommonly good-looking parlor- maid was opening the door. And here, whilst on this subject, and whilst Mrs. Betty is helping j^ou on with j^our coat, I would say, respecting 3'our commerce with friends' servants and 3^our own, be thankful to them, and they will be grateful to you in return, depend upon it. Let the young fellow who lives in lodgings respect the poor little maid who does the wondrous work of the house, and not send her on too many errands, or ply his bell needlessly : if you visit any of 3^our comrades in such circumstances, be 3'ou, too, respectful and kind in 3'our tone to the poor little Abigail. If 3'ou frequent houses, as I hope you will, where are man3' goocl fellows and amiable ladies who cannot afford to have their doors opened or their tables attended b3" men, pray be particularl3' courteous (though b3^ no means so marked in 3^our attentions as on the occasion of the dinner at Mr. Fairfax's to which I have just alluded) to the women-servants. Thank them when they serve you. Give them a half-crown now and then — na3^, as often as 3'our means will permit. Those small gratuities make but a small sum in 3^our 3'ear's expenses, and it may be said that the practice of giving them never impoverished a man 3^et : and, on the other hand, the3' give a deal of innocent happiness to a ver3^ worth3^ active, kind set of folks. But let us hasten from the hall-door to the drawing-room, where Fortune has cast 3^our lot in life : I want to explain to 3"0u wh3^ I am so anxious that 3'ou should devote 3'ourself to that amiable lad3^ who sits in it. Sir, I do not mean to tell 3'ou that there are no women in the world vulgar and ill-humored, rancorous and narrow-minded, mean schemers, son-in-law hunt- ers, slaves of fashion, h3^pocrites ; but I do respect, admire, and almost worship good women ; and I think there is a very 316 SKETCHES A^^D TRAVELS fair number of such to be found in this world, and I have no doubt, in every educated Englishman's circle of society, whether he finds that circle in palaces in Belgravia and Maj' Fair, in snug little suburban villas, in ancient comfortable old Blooms- bur}^, or in back parlors behind the shop. It has been my fortune to meet with excellent English ladies in ever}^ one of these places — wives graceful and affectionate, matrons tender and good, daughters liapp}^ and pure-minded, and I urge the society of such on you, because I defy you to think evil in their compan}^ Walk into the drawing-room of Lad}^ Z., that great lady : look at her charming face, and hear her voice. You know that she can't but be good, w-ith such a face and such a voice. She is one of those fortunate beings on whom it has pleased heaven to bestow all sorts of its most precious gifts and richest worldh' favors. With what grace she receives you; with what a frank kindness and natural sweetness and dignity ! Her looks, her motions, her words, her thoughts, all seem to be beautiful and harmonious quite. See her with her children, what woman can be more simple and loving? After 3'ou have talked to her for a while, you ver}' likely find that she is ten times as well read as 3'ou are : she has a hundred accomplish- ments which she is not in the least anxious to show ofl', and makes no more account of them than of her diamonds, or of the splendor round about her — to all of w^hich she is born, and has a happy, admirable claim of nature and possession — admirable and happy for her and for us too ; for is it not a happiness for us to admire her? Does anybody grudge her excellence to that paraoon ? Sir, we may be thankful to be admitted to contem- plate'^such consummate goodness and beauty : and as in looking at a fine landscape or a fine work of art, every generous heart must be delighted and improved, and ought to feel grateful afterwards, so one may feel charmed and thankful for having the opportunity of knowing an almost perfect woman. Madam, if the gout and the custom of the world permitted, I would kneel down and kiss the hem of your ladyship's robe. To see your gracious face is a comfort — to see you walk to your carriage is a holiday. Drive her faithfully, O thou silver-wigged coach- man ! drive to all sorts of splendors and honors and royal festivals. And for us, let us be glad that we should have the privilege to admire her. Now, transport yourself in spirit, my good Bob, into another drawino-room. Tliere sits an old lady of more than fourscore years, serene and kind, and as beautiful in her age now as in her youth, when History toasted her. What has she not seen, m LONDON. 317 and what is she not read}- to tell ? All the fame and wit, all the rank and beaut}', of more than half a centur}', have passed through those rooms where you have the honor of making your best bow. She is as simple now as if she had never had any flatter}^ to dazzle her : she is never tired of being pleased and being kind. Can that have been anything but a good life which, after more than eighty years of it are spent, is so calm ? Could she look to the end of it so cheerfully, if its long course had not been pure? Respect her, I say, for being so happy, now that she is old. We do not know what goodness and charity, what affections, what trials, may have gone to make that charming sweetness of temper, and complete that perfect manner. But if we do not admire and reverence such an old age as that, and get good from contemplating it, what are we to respect and admire ? Or shall we walk through the shop (while N. is recommend- ing a tall copy to an amateur, or folding up a twopenn}- worth of letter-paper, and bowing to a poor customer in a jacket and apron with just as much respectful gravity as he would show while waiting upon a Duke,) and see Mrs. N. playing with the child in the back parlor until N. shall come in to tea? The}' drink tea at five o'clock ; and are actually as well bred as those gentlefolks who dine three hours later. Or will 30U please to step into Mrs. J.'s lodgings, who is waiting, and at work, until her husband comes home from Chambers? She blushes and puts the work awa}' on hearing the knock, but when she sees who the visitor is, she takes it with a smile from behind the sofa cushion, and behold, it is one of J.'s waistcoats, on which she is sewing buttons. She might have been a Countess blazing in diamonds, had Fate so willed it, and the higher her station the more she would have adorned it. But she looks as charming while plying her needle as the great lad}^ in the palace whose equal she is, — in beaut}^, in goodness, in high-bred grace and simplicit}"' ; at least, I can't fanc}^ h^r better, or any Peeress being more than her peer. And it is with this sort of people, mj- dear Bob, that I recom- mend you to consort, if you can be so luckv as to meet with their societ}^ — nor do I think you are ver}' likely to find manj' such at the Casino ; or in the dancing-booths of Greenwich Fair on this present Easter Monday. 318 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS ON FRIENDSHIP. Choice of friends, my dear Robert, is a point upon which every man about town should be instructed, as he should be careful. And as example, the}' sa}^, is sometimes better than precept, and at the risk even of appearing somewhat ludicrous in your eyes, I will narrate to 3''ou an adventure which happened to m3"self, which is at once ridiculous and melancholy (at least to me), and which will show you how a man, not imprudent or incautious of his own nature, ma}^ be made to suffer by the imprudent selection of a friend. Attend then, my dear Bob, to "the History of Rasselas, Prince of Ab^'ssinia." Sir, in the year 1810, I was a joll}^ young Bachelor, as j'ou are now (indeed, it was three 3'ears before I married 3'our poor dear Aunt) ; I had a place in the Tape and Sealing- Wax Office ; I had Chambers in Pump Court, au troisihne, and led a not uncomfortable life there. I was a free and gay 3'oung fellow in those da3's, (however much, sir, 3'ou ma3' doubt the assertion, and think that I am changed,) and not so particular in m3' choice of friends as subsequent experience has led me to be. There lived in the set of Chambers opposite to mine, a Suffolk gentleman, of good famil3', whom I shall call Mr. Bludyer. Our bo3's or clerks first made acquaintance, and did each other mutual kind offices : borrowing for their respective masters' benefit, neither of whom was too richh^ provided with the world's goods, coals, blacking-brushes, crocker3^-ware, and the like ; and our forks and spoons, if either of us had an en- tertainment in Chambers. As I learned presently that Mr. Bludyer had been educated at Oxford, and heard that his elder brother was a gentleman of good estate and reputation in his county, I could have no 'objection to make his acquaintance, and accepted finally his invitation to meet a large game-pie which he had brought with him from the country, and I recol- lect I lent my own silver teapot, which figured handsomely on the occasion. It is the same one which I presented to 3'ou, when 3^ou took possession of 3^our present apartments. Mr. Blud3"er was a sporting man : it was the custom in those da3's with many gentlemen to dress as much like coachmen as possible : in top-boots, huge white coats with capes, Belcher neckerchiefs, and the like adornments ; and at the tables of bachelors of the ver3^ first fashion, 3'ou would meet with prize- m LONDON. 319 fighters and jockeys, and hear a great deal about the prize-ring, the cock-pit, and the odds. I remember m}^ Lord Tilbur}' was present at this breakfast, (who afterwards lamentabl}^ broke his neck in a steeple-chase, b}' which the noble family became ex- tinct,) and for some time I confounded his lordship with Dutch Sam, who w^as also of the part}', and, indeed, not unlike the noble Viscount in dress and manner. My acquaintance with Mr. Bludyer ripened into a sort of friendship. He was perfectly good-natured, and not ill-bred ; and his jovial spirits and roaring stories amused a man who, though always of a peaceful turn, had no dislike to cheerful companions. We used to dine together at coffee-houses, for Clubs were scarcel}" invented in those days, except for the aris- tocracy ; and, in fine, were very intimate. Bludyer, a brave and athletic man, would often give a loose to his spirits of an evening, and mill a Charle}' or two, as the phrase then was. The .young bloods of those days thought it was no harm to spend a night in the watch-house, and I assure you it has accommo- dated a deal of good company. Autres temps, autres mceurs. In our own days, m}^ good Bob, a station-house bench is not the bed for a gentleman. I was at this time (and deservedly so, for I had been very kind to her, and ni}' elder brother, j^our father, neglected her considerably) the favorite nephew of your grand-aunt, vny aunt, Mrs. General MacWhirter, who was left a very handsome for- tune by the General, and to whom I do not scruple to confess I paid every attention to which her age, her sex, and her large income entitled her. I used to take sweetmeats to her poodle. I went and drank tea with her night after night. I accompa- nied her Sunday after Sunday to hear the Rev. Rowland Hill, at the Rotunda Chapel, over Blackfriars Bridge, and I used to read many of the tracts which she hberallj' supplied me — in fact, do ever^'thing to comfort and console a ladj' of peculiar opinions and habits who had a large jointure. Your father used to say I was a sneak, but he was then a boisterous 3'oung squire ; and, perhaps, we were not particularly good friends. Well, sir, my dear aunt, Mrs. General MacWhirter, made me her chief confidant. - 1 regulated "her money matters for her, and acted with her bankers and lawyers ; and as she alwa3's spoke of your father as a reprobate, I had every reason to sup- pose I should inherit the propert}-, the main part of which passed to another branch of the Browns. I do not grudge it, Bob : I do not gi'udge it. Your family is large ; and I have enough from my poor dear departed wife. 320 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS Now it so happened that, in June, 1811, — I recollect the comet was blazing furiously at the time, and Mrs. MacWhirter was of opinion that the world was at air end — Mr. Bludj'er, who was having his chambers in Pump Court painted, asked permission to occup}^ mine, where he wished to give a lunch to some people whom he was desirous to entertain. Thinking no harm, of course I said 3'es ; and I went to my desk at the Tape and Sealing- Wax Office at my usual hour, giving instructions to my boy to make Mr. Bludyer's friends com- fortable. As ill-luck would have it, on that accursed Friday, Mrs. MacWhirter, who had never been up my staircase before in her life (for your dear grand-aunt was large in person, and the apoplexy which carried her off soon after menaced her always), having some very particular business with her solicitors in Middle Temple Lane, and being anxious to consult me about a mortgage, actually mounted my stairs, and opened the door on which she saw written the name of Mr. Thomas Brown. She was a peculiar woman, I have said, attached to glaring colors in her dress, and from her long residence in India, seldom without a set of costly Birds of Paradise in her bonnet, and a splendid Cashmere shawl. Fancy her astonishment then, on entering my apartments at three o'clock in the afternoon, to be assailed in the first place b}' a strong smell of tobacco-smoke which pervaded the passage, and by a wild and ferocious bull-dog which flew at her on entering my sitting-room. This bull-dog, sir, doubtless attracted by the brilliant colors of her costume, seized upon her, and pinned her down, scream- ina: so that her voice drowned that of Bludver himself, who was sitting on the table bellowing, " A Southerly Wind and a Cloudy Sky proclaim a Hunting Moiming^' — or some such ribald trash : and the brutal owner of the dog, (who was no other than the famous Mulatto boxer, Norroy, called the "Black Prince" in the odious language of the Fancy, and who was inebriated doubtless at the moment,) encouraged his dog in the assault upon this defenceless lad}^ and laughed at the agonies which she endured. Mr. Bludyer, the black man, and one or two more, were ar- ranging a fight on Moulsej^ Hurst, when my poor aunt made her appearance among these vulgar wretches. Although it was but three o'clock, they had sent to a neighboring tavern for gin- and- water, and the glasses sparkled on the board, — to use a verse from a Bacchanalian song which I well remember Mr. m LOKDOJ^. 321 Blud3'er used to 3'ell forth — when I m3^self arrived from my office at m}' usual hour, half-past three. The black fellow and 3 oung Captain Cavendish of the Guards were the smokers ; and it appears that at first all the gentlemen screamed with laughter ; some of them called m3' aunt an " old girl ; " and it was not until she had nearl3' fainted that the filth3^ Mulatto called the dog off from the flounce of her yellow gown of which he had hold. When this poor victim of vulgarity asked with a scream — Where was her nephew? new roars of laughter broke out from the coarse gin-drinkers. "It's the old woman whom he goes to meeting with," cried out Bludyer. "Come awa3', bo3^s ! " And he led his brutalized crew out of m3^ chambers into his own, where they finished, no doubt, their arrangements about the fight. Sir, when I came home at my usual hour of half-past three, I found Mrs. MacWhirter in hysterics upon m3' sofa — the pipes were l3ing about — the tin dish-covers — the cold kid- ne3"s — the tavern cruet-stands, and wretched remnants of the orgy were in disorder on the table-cloth, stained with beer. Seeing her fainting, I wildl3^ bade m3' boy to open the window, and seizing a glass of water which was on the table, I pre- sented it to her lips. — It was gin-and- water which I proflTered to that poor lad3\ She started up with a scream, which terrified me as I upset the glass : and with empurpled features, and a voice quivering and choking with anger, she vowed she would never forgive me. In vain I pleaded that I was ignorant of the whole of these disgraceful transactions. I went down on m3' knees to her, and begged her to be pacified ; I called my boy, and bade him bear witness to my innocence : the impudent young fiend burst out laughing in my face, and I kicked him down stairs as soon as she was gone : for go she did directly to her carriage, which was in waiting in Middle Temple Lane, and to which I followed her with tears in my eyes, amidst a crowd of jeering barristers' boys and Temple porters. But she pulled up the window in m\^ face, and would no more come back to me than Eurydice would to Orpheus. If I grow pathetic over this stor3^, my dear Bob, have I not reason? Your great-aunt left thirty thousand pounds to your famil3', and the remainder to the missionaries, and it is a curi- ous proof of the inconsistency of women, that she, a serious person, said on her death-bed that she would have left her money to me, if I had called out Mr. Bludyer, who insulted 2X 322 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS her, and with whom I certainl}' would have exchanged shots, had I thought that Mrs. MacWhirter would have encouraged any such murder. My wishes, dear Bob, are moderate. Your aunt left me a handsome competenc}^ — and, I repeat, I do not grudge my brother George the money. Nor is it probable that such a calamity can happen again to any one of our family — that would be too great misfortune. But I tell 3'ou the tale, because at least it shows jon how important good company is, and that a young man about town should beware of his friends as well as of his enemies. The other day I saw you walking by the Serpentine with young Lord Foozle, of the Windsor Heavies, who nodded to all sorts of suspicious broughams on the ride, while j'ou looked about (3'ou know you did, you young rascal) for acquaint- ances — as much as to sa}- — " See ! here am I, Bob Brown, of Pump Court, walking with a lord." My dear Bob, I own that to walk with a lord, and to be seen with him, is a pleasant thing. Every man of the middle class likes to know persons of rank. If he sa3's he don't — don't believe him. And I would certainly wish that you should associate with 3'our superiors rather than 3'our inferiors. There is no more dangerous or stupef3ing position for a man in life than to be a cock of small society. It prevents his ideas from growing : it renders him intolerabl3^ conceited. A twopenny halfpenn3' Caesar, a Brummagem dand3", a coterie philosopher or wit, is prett3^ sure to be an ass ; and, in fine, I set it down as a maxim that it is good for a man to live where he can meet his betters, intellectual and social. But if 3'ou fanc3" that getting into Lord Foozle's set will do you good or advance 3^our prospects in life, m3' dear Bob, 3'ou are wofulty mistaken. The Windsor Heavies are a most gentleman-like, well-made, and useful set of men. The con- versation of such of them as I have had the good fortune to meet, has not certainly inspired me with a respect for their intellectual qualities, nor is their life commonly of that kind which rigid ascetics would pronounce blameless. Some of the young men amongst them talk to the broughams, frequent the private boxes, dance at the Casinos; few read — man3^ talk about horseflesh and the odds after dinner, or relax with a little lansquenet or a little billiards at Pratt's. JNfy boy, it is not with the eye of a moralist that 3'our ven- erable old uncle examines these youths, but rather of a nat- IN LONDON. 323 ural philosopher, who inspects them as he would any other phenomenon, or queer bird, or odd fish, or fine flower. These fellows are like the flowers, and neither toil nor spin, but are decked out in magnificent apparel : and for some wise and useful purpose no doubt. It is good that there should be honest, handsome, hard-living, hard-riding, stupid young Windsor Heavies — as that there should be polite young gentlemen in the Temple, or any other variety of our genus. And it is good that you should go from time to time to the Heavies' mess, if they ask you ; and know that worth}' set of gentlemen. But beware, O Bob, how you live with them. Remember that 3'our lot in life is to toil, and spin too — and calculate how much time it takes a Heavy or a man of that condition to do nothing. Sa}^, he dines at eight o'clock, and spends seven hours after dinner in pleas- ure. Well, if he goes to bed at three in the morning — that precious 3'outh must have nine hours' sleep, which bring him to twelve o'clock next da}^, when he will have a head- ache probabl}', so that he can hardly be expected to dress, rally, have devilled chicken and pale ale, and get out before three. Friendship — the Club — the visits which he is com- pelled to pa}^ occupy him till five or six, and what time is there le^ for exercise and a ride in the Park, and for a second toilet preparatorj' to dinner, &c. ? — He goes on his routine of pleasure, this young Heavy, as you in 3'ours of duty — one man in London is pretty nearly as bus}^ as another. The company of young " Swells," then, if you will permit me the word, is not for you. You must consider that you should not spend more than a certain sum for 3?^our dinner — the}^ need not. You wear a black coat, and they a shining cuirass and monstrous epaulets. Yours is the useful part in life and theirs the splendid — though whv speak further on this subject? Since the da3's of the Frog and the Bull, a desire to cope with Bulls has been known to be fatal to Frogs. And to know 3'oung noblemen, and brilliant and notorious town bucks and leaders of fashion, has this great disadvan- tage — that if 3'ou talk about them or are seen with them much, you oflfend all your friends of middle life. It makes men angr}' to see their acquaintances better off than thej" them- selves are. If you live much with great people, others will be sure to say that j'ou are a sneak. I have known Jack Jolliff, whose fun and spirits made him adored by the dandies (for thej'^ are just such folks as'3'ou and I, only with not quite such good brains, and perhaps better manners — simple folks who 324 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS want to be amused) — I have known Jack Jolliff, I sa}', offend a whole roomful of men by telling us that he had been dining with a Duke. We hadn't been to dine with a Duke. We were not courted b}' grandees — and we disliked the man who was, and said he was a parasite, because men of fashion courted him. I don't know an}- means by which men hurt themselves more in the estimation of their equals than this of talking of great folks. A man ma}' mean no harm b3Mt — he speaks of the grandees with whom he lives, as you and I do of Jack and Tom who give us dinners. But his old acquaintances do not forgive him his superiority, and set the Tufthunted down as the Tufthunter. I remember laughing at the jocular complaint made b}' one of this sort, a friend, whom I shall call Main. After Mam published his " Travels in the Lib3'an Desert " four 3'ears ago, he became a literary lion, and roared in many of the metro- politan salons. He is a good-natured fellow, never in the least puffed up by his literary success ; and alwa3's said that it would not last. His greatest leonine qualit}', however, is his appetite ; and to behold him engaged on a Club joint, or to see him make away with pounds of turbot, and plate after plate of entrees, roasts, and sweets, is indeed a remarkable sight, and refresh- ing to those who like to watch animals feeding. But since Main has gone out of, and other authors have come into, fash- ion — the poor fellow comically grumbles. "That 3'ear of lionization has ruined me. The people who used to ask me before, don't ask me any more. The}^ are afraid to invite me to Bloomsbury, because they fanc}' I am accustomed to Ma}^ Fair, and May Fair has long since taken up with a new roarer — so that I am quite alone ! " And thus he dines at the Club almost ever}^ day at his own charges now, and attacks the joint. I do not en ^ the man who comes after him to the haunch of mutton. If Fate, then, my dear Bob, should bring you in con- tact with a lord or two, eat their dinners, enjoy their com- pan3% but be mum about them when you go awa}-. And though it is a hard and cruel thing to say, I would urge you, my dear Bob, specially to be aware of taking pleas- ant fellows for your frieaids. Choose a good disagreeable friend, if you be wise — a surly, steady, economical, rigid fellow. All jolly fellows, all delights of Club smoking-rooms and billiard-rooms, all fellows who sing a capital song, and the like, are sure to be poor. As they are free with their own money, so will they be with yours ; and their verv gen- IN LONDON. 325 rrosit}' and goodness of disposition will prevent them from having the means of paying you back. They lend their money to some other jolly fellows. They accommodate each other by putting their jolly names to the backs of J0II3' bills. Gen- tlemen in Cursitor Street are on the look-out for them. Their tradesmen ask for them, and find them not. Ah ! Bob, it's hard times with a gentleman, when he has to walk round a street for fear of meeting a creditor there, and for a man of courage, when he can't look a tailor in the face. Eschew jolly fellows then, m}' bo}', as the most dangerous and costty of company ; and apropos of bills — if I ever hear of your putting your name to stamped paper — I will disown 3^ou, and cut 3'ou off with a protested shilhng. I know man}' men who say (whereby I have m}^ private opinion of their own probit}) that all poor people are dis- honest : this is a hard word, though more generally true than some folks suppose — but I fear that all people much in debt are not honest. * A man who has to wheedle a tradesman is not going through a very honorable business in life — a man with a bill becoming due to-morrow morning, and putting a good face on it in the Club, is perforce a hypocrite whilst he is talking to 3'oii — a man who has to do an}' meanness about money I fear me is so nearl}' like a rogue, that it's not much use calculating where the difference lies. Let us be very gentle with our neighbors' failings ; and forgive our friends their debts, as we hope ourselves to be forgiven. But the best thing of all to do with your debts is to pay them. Make none ; and don't live with people who do. Why, if I dine with a man who is notoriousl}' living be3^ond his means, I am a hypocrite cer- tainly myself, and I fear a bit of a rogue too. I trj^ to make my host beheve that I believe him an honest fellow. I look his sham splendor in the face without saying, " You are an im- postor." — Alas, Robert, I have partaken of feasts where it seemed to me that the plate, the viands, the wine, the servants, and butlers, were all sham, like Cinderella's coach and foot- men, and would turn into rats and mice, and an old shoe or a cabbage- stalk, as soon as we were out of the house and th© clock struck twelve. 326 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS MR. BROWN THE ELDER TAKES MR. BROWN THE YOUNGER TO A CLUB. Presuming that m}^ clear Bobb}- would scareel}^ consider himself to be an accomplished man about town, until he had obtained an entrance into a respectable Club, I am liapp}' to inform you that you are this day elected a Member of the *' PoWanthus," having been proposed by my friend, Lord Viscount Colchicum, and seconded b}' your affectionate uncle. I have settled with Mr. vStiff, the worth}^ Secretary, the pre- liminary pecuniar}'^ arrangements regarding the entrance fee and the first annual subscription — the ensuing paj'ments I shall leave to my worth}^ nephew. You were elected, sir, with but two black balls ; and every other man who was put up for ballot had four,' with the excep- tion of Tom Harico, who had more black beans than white. Do not, however, be puffed up by this victory, and fancy yourself more popular than other men. Indeed I don't mind telling you (but, of course, T do not wish it to go any further,) that Captain Sl3'boots and I, having suspicions of the Meeting, popped a couple of adverse balls into the other candidates' boxes ; so that, at least, you should, in case of mishap, not be unaccompanied in ill fortune. Now, then, that 3'ou are a member of the " Polj^anthus," I trust 3'ou will comport yourself with propriety in the place : and permit me to offer you a few hints with regard to 3'our bearing. We are not so stiff at the " Polvanthus " as at some clubs I could name — and a good deal of decent intimac}' takes place amongst us. — Do not therefore enter the Club, as I have seen men do at the "Chokers" (of which I am also a member), with 3'our e3'es scowling under 3'our hat at 3'Our neighbor, and with an expression of countenance which seems to sa3', " Hang 3'Our impudence, sir. How dare 3'ou stare at me?" Banish that absurd dignit3^ and swagger, which do not at all become 3^our 3'outhful countenance, m3' dear Bob, and let us walk up the steps and into the place. See, old Noseworth3' is in the bow-window reading the paper — he is always in the bow- window reading the paper. We pass by the worth3' porter, and alert pages — a fifteen- hundredth part of each of whom is henceforth 3'our paid-for prop- IN LONDON. 327 erty — and 3'ou see he takes down jour name as Mr. R. Brown, Junior, and will know 3'ou and be civil to 3^011 until death — Ha, there is Jawkins, as usual ; he has nailed poor Styles up against a pillar, and is telling him what the opinion of the Cit3' is about George Hudson, Esq., and when Sir Robert will take the gov- ernment. How d'3'OiT do, Jawkins? — Satisfactor3^ news from India? Gilbert to be made Baron Gilbert of Goojerat? In- deed, I don't introduce 3'ou to Jawkins, my poor Bob ; he will do that for himself, and 3'ou will have quite enough of him before many da3's are over. Those three gentlemen sitting on the sofa are from our beloved sister island ; they come here ever3^ day, and wait for the Honorable Member for Ballinafad, who is at present in the writing-room. I have remarked, in London, however, that ever3^ Irish gen- tleman is accompanied b3' other Irish gentlemen, who wait for him as here, or at the corner of the street. These are waiting until the Honorable Member for Ballinafad can get them three places, in the Excise, in the Customs, and a little thing in the Post Office, no doubt. One of them sends home a tremendous account of parties and politics here, which appears in the Bal- linafad Banner. He knows everything. He has just been closeted with Peel, and can vouch for it that Clarendon has been sent for. He knows who wrote the famous pamphlet, " Ways and Means for Ireland," — all the secrets of the present Cabinet, the designs of Sir James Graham. How Lord John can live under those articles which he writes in the Banner is a miracle to me ! I hope he will get that little thing in the Post Office soon. This is the newspaper-room — enter the Porter with the evening papers — what a rush the men make for them ! Do 30U want to see one? Here is the Standard — nice article about the "Starling Club" — very pleasant, candid, gentleman-like notice — Club composed of clergymen, atheists, authors, and artists. Their chief conversation is blasphem3^ : they have statues of Socrates and Mahomet on the centre-piece of the dinner-table, take every opportunit3^ of being disrespectful to Moses, and a dignified clergyman always proposes the Glorious, Pious, and Immortal Memory of Confucius. Grace is said backwards, and the Catechism treated with the most irreverent ribakhy by the comic authors and the general company. — Are these men to be allowed to meet, and their horrid orgies to continue? Have you had enough? — Let us go into the other rooms. 328 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS What a calm and pleasant seclusion the libraiy presents after the bawl and bustle of the newspaper-room ! There is never any- body here. English gentlemen get up such a prodigious quantity of knowledge in their earl}^ life, that they leave off reading soon after they begin to shave, or never look at anything but a news- paper. How pleasant this room is, — isn't it? with its sober draperies, and long calm lines of peaceful volumes — nothing to interrupt the quiet — onl}' the melody of Horner's nose as he lies asleep upon one of the sofas. What is he reading? Hah ! '' Pendennis," No. VII. — hum, let us pass on. Have you read " David Copperfield," b}^ the way? How beautiful it is — how charmingly fresh and simple ! In those admirable touches of tender humor — and I should call humor, Bob, a mixture of love and wit — who can equal this great genius? There are little words and phrases in his books which are like personal benefits to the reader. What a place it is to hold in the affec- tions of men ! What an awful responsibility hanging over a writer ! What man holding such a place, and knowing that his words go forth to vast congregations of mankind, — to grown folks — to their children, and perhaps to their children's chil- dren, — but must think of his calling with a solemn and humble heart ! May love and truth guide such a man always ! It is an awful praj^er ; may heaven further its fulfilment. And then, Bob, let the Record revile him — See, here's Horner waking up — How do 3'ou do, Horner? This neighbormg room, which is almost as quiet as the librar}", is the card-room, 3'ou see. There are always three or four devotees assembled in it ; and the lamps are scarcely ever out in this Temple of Trumps. I admire, as I see them, m}" dear Bobby, grave and silent at these little green tables, not moved outwardly b}' grief or pleasure at losing or winning, but calmly pursuing their game (as that pursuit is called, which is in fact the most elaborate science and study) at noonda3^, entirel}^ absorbed, and philo- sophicall}^ indifferent to the bustle and turmoil of the enormous working world without. Disraeli may make his best speech ; the Hungarians ma}- march into Vienna ; the Protectionists come in ; Louis Philippe be restored ; or the Thames set on fire ; and Colonel Pam and Mr. Trumpington will never leave their table, so engaging is their occupation at it. The turning up of an ace is of more interest to them than all the affairs of all the world besides — and so they will go on until Death sum- mons them, and their last trump is played. It is curious to think that a century ago almost all gentle- IN LONDON. 329 men, soldiers, statesmen, men of science, and divines, passed hours at play eveiy day ; as our grandmothers did hkewise. The poor old kings and queens must feel the desertion now, and deplore the present small number of their worshippers, as compared to the myriads of faithful subjects who served them in past times. I do not say that other folks' pursuits are much more or less futile ; but fancy a life such as that of the Colonel — eight or nine hours of sleep, eight of trumps, and the rest for business, reading, exercise, and domestic dut}- or affection (to be sure he's most likely a bachelor, so that the latter offices do not oc- cupy him much) — fancy such a life, and at its conclusion at the age of seventy-five, the worthy gentleman being able to say, I have spent twenty-five years of my existence turning up trumps. With Trumpington matters are different. Whist is a pro- fession with him, just as much as Law is yours. He makes the deepest study of it — he makes ever}' sacrifice to his pursuit : he may be fond of wine and compan}-, but he eschews both, to keep his head cool and play his rubber. He is a man of good parts, and was once well read, as you see by his conversation when he is away from the table, but he gives up reading for play — and knows that to play well a man must pla}^ every day. He makes three or four hundred a year by his Whist, and well he may — with his brains, and half his industry, he could make a larger income at an}' other profession. In a game with these two gentlemen, the one who has been actually seated at that card-table for a term as long as your whole life, the other who is known as a consummate practitioner, do you think it is hkely you will come off a winner ? The state of your fortune is your look-out, not theirs. They are there at their posts — like knights ready to meet all comers. If j-ou choose to engage them, sit down. They will, with the most perfect probity, calmness, and elegance of manner, win and win of you until they have won every shiUing of a fortune, when they will make you a bow, and wish you good morning. You may go and drown yourself afterwards — it is not their business. Their business is to be present in that room, and to play cards with 3'ou or anybod3\ When you are done with — Bon jour. My dear Colonel, let me introduce you to a new member, my nephew, Mr. Robert Brown. The other two men at the table are the Honorable G. Wind- gall and Mr. Chanter : perhaps you have not heard that the one made rather a queer settlement at the last Derby ; and the 330 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS other has just issued from one of her Majest3^'s establishments in St. George's Fields. Either of these gentlemen is perfectly affable, good-natured, and eas}^ of access — and will cut 3'ou for half-crowns if you like, or pla3^ 3'ou at an}' game on the cards. The}'' descend from their broughams or from horseback at the Club door with the most splendid air, and the}- feast upon the best dishes and wines in the place. But do you think it advisable to pla}' cards with them? Which know the games best — 3'ou or the}' ? Which are most likely — we will not say to play foul — but to take certain little advantages in the game which their consummate experience teaches them — you or they? Finally, is it a matter of perfect certainty, if you won, that they would pay you? Let us leave these gentlemen, my dear Bob, and go through the rest of the house. From the librar}- we proceed to the carved and gilded draw- ing-room of the Club, the damask hangings of which are em- broidered with our lovely emblem, the Polyanthus, and which is fitted with a perfectly unintelligible splendor. Sardanapalus, if he had pawned one of his kingdoms, could not have had such mirrors as one of those in which I see my dear Bob admiring the tie of his cravat with such complacenc}', and I am sure I cannot comprehend why Smith and Brown should have their persons reflected in such vast sheets of quicksilver ; or why, if we have a mind to a sixpenny cup of tea and muffins, when we come in with muddy boots from a dirty walk, those refresh- ments should be served to us as we occupy a sofa much more splendid, and far better stuffed, than any Louis Quatorze ever sat upon. I want a sofa, as I want a friend, upon which I can repose familiarly. If you can't have intimate terms and free- dom with one and the other, they are of no good. A full-dress Club is an absurdity — and no man ought to come into this room except in a uniform or court suit. I daren't put my feet on yonder sofa for fear of sullying the damask, or, worse still, for fear that Hicks the Committee-man should pass, and spy out my sacrilegious boots on the cushion. We pass through these double-doors, and enter rooms of a very different character. By the faint and sickly odor pervading this apartment, by the opened windows, by the circular stains upon the marble tables, which indicate the presence of brandies-and-waters long passed into the world of spirits, my dear Bob will have no diffi- IN LONDON. 331 culty in recognizing the smoking-room, where I dare sa}' he will pass a good deal of his valuable time henceforth. If I could recommend a sure wa}' of advancement and profit to a 3'oung man about town, it would be, after he has come awa}' from a friend's house and dinner, where he has to a surety had more than enough of claret and good things, when he ought to be going to bed at midnight, so that he might rise fresh and early for his morning's work, to stop, nevertheless, for a couple of hours at the Club, and smoke in this room and tipple weak brandj'-and- w ater . B3' a perseverance in this S3'stem, 3'ou ma3' get a number of advantages. B3^ sitting up till three of a summer morning, 3^ou have the advantage of seeing the sun rise, and as 3^ou walk home to Pump Court, can mark the quiet of the streets in the ros3^ glimmer of the dawn. You can easil3^ spend in that smoking-room, (as for the billiard-room adjacent, how much more can't 3'ou get rid of there,) and without an3^ inconvenience or extravagance whatever, enough mone3' to keep 3'Ou a horse. Three or four cigars when 3'ou are in the Club, 3'our case filled when 3^ou are going awa3', a couple of glasses of ver3' weak cognac and cold water, will cost 3'ou sixty pounds a 3'ear, as sure as 3'our name is Bob Brown. And as for the smoking and tippling, plus billiards, the3' ma3^ be made to cost an3'- thing. And then 3'ou have the advantage of hearing such delightful and instructive conversation in a Club smoking-room, between the hours of twelve and three ! Men who frequent that place at that hour are commonly men of studious habits and philo- sophical and reflective minds, to whose opinions it is pleasant and profitable to listen. They are full of anecdotes, which are always moral and well chosen ; their talk is never free, or on light subjects. I have one or two old smoking-room pillars in my eye now, who would be perfect models for an3^ 3'Oung gentle- man entering life, and to w^hom a father could not do better than intrust the education of his son. To drop the satirical vein, my dear Bob, I am compelled as a man to say my opinion, that the best thing 3'Ou can do with regard to that smoking-room is to keep out of it ; or at any rate never to be seen in the place after midnight. The3^ are very pleasant and frank, those jolly fellows, those loose fishes, those fast 3'oung men — but the race in life is not to such fast 3'oung men as these — and 3'OU who want to win must get up earl3' of a morning, m3' boy. You and an old college-chum or two may sit together over jouv cigar-boxes in one another's chambers, 332 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS and talk till all hours, and do yourselves good probably. Talk- ing among jou is a wholesome exercitation ; humor comes in an eas}' flow ; it doesn't preclude grave argument and manl}' inter- change of thought — I own myself, when I was younger, to have smoked many a pipe w4th advantage in the company* of Doctor Parr. Honest men, with pipes or cigars in their mouths, have great ph3'Sical advantages in conversation. You ma}' stop talking if 3'ou like — but the breaks of silence never seem dis- agreeable, being filled up by the puffing of the smoke — hence there is no awkwardness in resuming the conversation — no straining for effect — sentiments are delivered in a grave easy manner — the cigar harmonizes the societ}', and soothes at once the speaker and the subject whereon he converses. I have no doubt that it is from the habit of smoking that Turks and American Indians are such monstrous well-bred men. The pipe draws wisdom from the lips of the philosopher, and shuts up the mouth of the foolish : it generates a style of conversa- tion, contemplative, thoughtful, benevolent, and unaflTected : in fact, dear Bob, I must out with it — I am an old smoker. At home I have done it up the chimne}' rather than not do it (the which I own is a crime). I vow and believe that the cigar has been one of the greatest creature-comforts of my life — a kind companion, a gentle stimulant, an amiable anodyne, a cementer of friendship. May I die if I abuse that kindl}^ weed which has given me so much pleasure ! Since I have been a member of that Club, what numbers of men have occupied this room and departed from it, like so many smoked-out cigars, leaving nothing behind but a little disregarded ashes ! Bob, m}" boy, they drop off in the course of twenty years, our boon companions, and J0II3' fellow bottle- crackers. — I mind me of many a good fellow who has talked and laughed here, and whose pipe is put out for ever. Men, I remember as dashing youngsters but the other day, have passed into the state of old fogies : they have sons, sir, of almost our age, when first we joined the " Polyanthus." Grass grows over others in all parts of the world. Where is poor Ned? Where is poor Fred ? Dead rhymes with Ned and Fred too — their place knows them not — their names one 3'ear appeared at the end of the Club list, under the dismal cates^ory of ''Mem- bers Deceased," in which you and I shall rank some day. Do you keep that subject steadily in your mind? I do not see wh3^ one shouldn't meditate upon Death in Pall Mall as well as in a howling wilderness. There is enough to remind one of it at every corner. There is a strange face looking out of Jack's old IN LONDON. 333 lodgings in Jerm3'n Street, — somebod}^ else has got the Club chair which Tom used to occupy. He doesn't dine here and grumble as he used formerly. He has been sent for, and has not come back again — one day Fate will send for us, and we shall not return — and the people will come down to the Club as usual, saying, " Well, and so poor old Brown is gone." — In- deed, a smoking-room on a morning is not a cheerful spot. Our room has a series of tenants of quite distinct characters. After an early and sober dinner below, certain habitues of the " Polyanthus" mount up to this apartment for their coffee and cigar, and talk as gravety as Sachems at a Palaver. Trade and travel, politics and geography, are their discourse — they are in bed long before their successors the jolly fellows begin their night hfe, and the talk of the one set is as different to the con- versation of the other, as any talk can be. After the grave old Sachems, come other frequenters of the room ; a squad of sporting men very likely — very solemn and silent personages these — who give the odds, and talk about the Cup in a darkling undertone. Then you shall have three or four barristers with high voices, seldom able to sit long without talking of their profession, or mentioning something about Westminster Hall. About eleven, men in white neck-cloths drop in from dinner-parties, and show their lacquered boots and shirt-studs with a little complacency — and at midnight, after the theatres, the 3'oung rakes and viveurs come swaggering in, and call loudly for gin-twist. But as for a Club smoking-room after midnight, I vow again that you are better out of it : that j'ou will waste money and your precious hours and health there ; and you may frequent this ' ' Polyanthus " room for a year, and not carry away from the place one single idea or story that can do you the least good in life. How much you shall take away of another sort, I do not here set down ; but I have before my mind's eye the image of old Silenus, with purple face and chalk-stone fingers, telling his foul old garrison legends over his gin-and-water. He is in the smoking-room every night ; and I feel that no one can get benefit from the societ}^ of that old man. What society he has he gets from this place. He sits for hours in a corner of the sofa, and makes up his parties here. He will ask you after a little time, seeing that you are a gentle- man and have a good address, and will give you an exceedingly good dinner. I went once, years ago, to a banquet of his — and found all the men at his table were Polyanthuses : so that 334 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS it was a house dinner in Square, with Mrs. Silenus at the head of the table. After dinner she retired and was no more seen, and Silenus amused himself by making poor Mr. Tippleton drunk. He came to the Chib the next da}', he amused himself bj^ describing the arts b}' which he had practised upon the eas}' brains of poor Mr. Tippleton — (as if that poor fellow wanted anj' arts or persuasion to induce him to intoxicate himself), and told all the smoking-room how he had given a dinner, how many bottles of wine had been emptied, and how many Tippleton had drunk for his share. '" 1 kept my eye on Tip, sir," the horrid old fellow said — *'! took care to make him mix his liquors well, and before eleven o'clock I finished him, and had him as drunk as a lord, sir ! " Will you like to have that gentleman for a friend ? He has elected himself our smoking-room king at the "Polyanthus," and midnight monarch. As he talks, in comes poor Tippleton -^ a kind soul — a gen- tleman — a man of reading and parts — who has friends at home very likeh', and had once a career before him — and what is he now ? His e3^es are vacant ; he reels into a sofa corner, and sits in maudlin silence, and hiccups everj' now and then. Old Silenus winks knowingly round at the whole smoking- room : most of the men sneer — some pity — some ver^^ young cubs laugh and jeer at him. Tippleton's drunk. From the Library and Smoking-room regions let us descend to the lower floor. Here j'ou behold the Coffee-room, where the neat little tables are alreadj' laid out, awaiting the influx of diners. A great advance in civilization w^as made, and the honesty as well as economy of young men of the middle classes im- mensely promoted, when the ancient tavern system was over- thrown, and those houses of meeting instituted where a man, without sacrificing his dignit}-, could dine for a couple of shil- lings. I remember in the daj's of my youth when a very mod- erate dinner at a reputable cofl^ee-house cost a man half a guinea : when 3'OU were obliged to order a pint of wine for the good of the house ; when the waiter got a shilling for his at- tendance ; and when 3'oung gentlemen were no richer than they are now, and had to pa}' thrice as much as they at present need to disburse for the maintenance of their station. Then men (who had not the half-guinea at command) used to dive into dark streets in the vicinage of Soho or Covent Gar- den, and get a meagre meal at shilling taverns — or Tom, the clerk, issued out from your Chambers in Pump Court and m LONDON. 335 brought back your dinner between two plates from a neighbor- ing ham-and-beef shop. Either repast was strictly honorable, and one can find no earthl}' fault with a poor gentleman for eating a poor meal. But that solitar^^ meal in Chambers was indeed a dismal refection. I think with anything but regret of those lonely feasts of beef and cabbage ; and how there was no resource for the long evenings but those books, over which you had been poring all da}', or the tavern with its deuced ex- penses, oi- the theatre with its vicious attractions. A 3'oung bachelor's life was a clums}' piece of wretchedness then — mis- managed and ill-economized — just as 3'our Temple Chambers or College rooms now are, which are quite behind the age in the decent conveniences which every modern tenement possesses. And that dining for a shilling and strutting about Pall Mall afterwards was, after all, an hj'pocris}'. At the time when the ^^Trois Freres Proi^engaux" aJt Paris had two entrances, one into the place of the Palais Ro3'al, and one into the street be- hind, where the sixteen-sous dinner-houses are, I have seen bucks with profuse toothpicks walk out of these latter houses of entertainment, pass up the '■'-Trois Freres'' stairs, and descend from the other door into the Palais Ro3'al, so that the people walking there might fanc3^ these poor fellows had been dining regardless of expense. No ; what 3'ou call putting a good face upon poverty, that is, hiding it under a grin, or concealing its rags under a makeshift, is always rather a base stratagem. Your Beaux Tibbs and twopenn3' dandies can never be respect- able altogether ; and if a man is poor, I say he ought to seem poor ; and that both he and Society are in the wrong, if either sees an3' cause of shame in povcrt3\ That is why we ought to be thankful for Clubs. Here is no skulking to get a cheap dinner ; no ordering of expensive liquors and dishes for the good of the house, or cowering sen- sitiveness as to the opinion of the waiter. We advance in sim- plicity and honesty as we advance in civiHzation, and it is my belief that we become better bred and less artificial, and tell more truth every da3'. This, you see, is the Club Coffee-room — it is three o'clock ; young Wideawake is just finishing his breakfast (with whom I have nothing to do at present, but to say parenthetically, that if you ivill sit up till five o'clock in the morning. Bob my ^oy^ you may look out to have a headache and a breakfast at three in the afternoon). Wideawake is at breakfast — Golds- worthy is ordering his dinner — while Mr. Nudgit, whom you see yonder, is making his lunch. In those two gentlemen is 336 SKETCHES Al^D TRAVELS the moral and exemplification of the previous little remarks which I have been making. You must know, sir, that at the " Polyanthus," in common TV'itli most Clubs, gentlemen* are allowed to enjoj', gratis, in the Coffee-room, bread, beer, sauces, and pickles. After four o'clock, if 30U order jour dinner, you have to pay sixpence for what is called the table — the clean cloth, the vegetables, cheese, and so forth : before that hour you may have lunch, when there is no table charge. Now, Goklswortli}- is a gentleman and a man of genius, who has courage and simplicit}* enough to be poor — not like some fellows whom one meets, and who make a, fanfuronnade of poverty, and draping themselves in their rags, seem to cry, '' See how virtuous I am, — how honest Diogenes is ! " but he is a ver}' poor man, wiiose education and talents are of the best, and who in so far claims to rank with the verj' best people in the w^orld. In his place in Parliament, when he takes off his hat (which is both old and well brushed), the Speaker's eye is prett}' sure to meet his, and the House listens to him with the respect which is due to so much honesty and talent. He is the equal of an}- man, however lofty or wealthy. His social position is rather improved by his poverty, and the world, which is a manly and generous world in its impulses, however it may be in its practice, contemplates with a sincere regard and admiration Mi*. Goldsworthv's manner of bearins: his lack of fortune. He is o^oinsr to dine for a shillino;: he will have two mutton-chops (and the mutton-cho[) is a thing unknown in domestic life and in the palaces of epiciu'es, where you may get cutlets dressed with all sorts of French sauces, but not the admirable mutton-chop), and with a due allowance of the Club bread and beer, he will make a perfectly wholesome, and sufficient, and excellent meal : and go down to the House and fire into Ministers this verv nioht. Now, I say, this man dining for a shilling is a pleasant spectacle to behold. I respect Mr. Goldsworthy with all my heart, without shaiing those ultra-conservative political opin- ions which we all know he entertains, and from which no in- terest, temi)tation, or hope of place will cause him to swerve ; and you see he is waited upon with as much respect here as old Sileniis, though he order the most sumptuous banquet the cook can devise, or bully the w.aiters ever so. But ah. Bob ! what can we say of the conduct of that poor little Mr. Nudgit? He has a bedcliamber in some court un- known in the neighborhood of the '^ Polyanthus." He makes IN LONDON. 337 a breakfast with the Chib brend and 1)eer ; he hinches off the same sii[)plies — and being of an Ei)icui'ean taste, look what lie does — he is actuall}' pouring a cruet of anchovy sauce over his bread to give it a flavor; and I liave seen the unconscion- abU^. little gorniand sidle off to the pickle-jars when he thought nobody was observing, and po[) a walnut or half a dozen of l)ickled onions into his mouth, and swallow them with a hideous furtive relish. He disappears at dinner-time, and returns at half-past seven or eight o'clock, and wanders round the tables wdien the men are at their dessert and generous over their wine. He has a number of little stories about the fashionable world to tell, and is not unentertaining. When you dine here, sometimes give Nudoit a i>;lass or two out of vour decanter, Bob, mv bov, and comfort his poor old soul. He w^as a gentleman once and had mone^•, as he will be sure to tell vou. He is mean and feel)le, but not unkind — a poor little parasite not to be un- l)itied. Mr. Nudgit, allow me to introduce you to a new mem- ber, my nephew, Mr. Robert Brown. At this moment, old Silenus swaggers in, bearing his great waistcoat before him, and walking up to the desk where the coffee-room clerk sits and wiiere the bills of fare are displayed. As he passes, he has to undergo the fire of Mr. Goldswoithy's eves, which dart out at him two flashes of the most killino- scorn. He has passed by the battery without sinking, and lays himself alongside the desk. Nudgit watches him, and will presently go uj) smirking humbly to join him. " Hunt," he says, " I want a table, my table, you know, at seven — dinner for ei2,ht — Loi'd Hobanob dines with me — send the butler — What's in the bill of fare? Let's have clear souj) and tuitle — I've sent it in from the city — dressed fish and turbot," and with a swollen trembling hand he writes down a pompous bill of fare. As I said, Nudgit comes up simpering, with a newspaper in his hand. ''Hullo, Nudg!" says Mr. Silenus, "how's the beer? Pickles good to-day ? " Nudgit smiles in a gentle deprecatory manner. " Smell out a good dinner, hey, Nudg?" says Dives. " If an_y man knows how to give one, you do," answ^ers the poor beggar. " I wasn't a bad hand at ordering a dinner mvself, once; what's the fish in the list to-dav?" and with a weak smile he casts his eye over the bill of fare. *'Lord Hobvinob dines with me, and he knows what a 22 338 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS good dinner is, I can tell you," sa3-s Mr. Silenus, "so does Cramle}^" "Both well-known epicures," says Nudgit. "I'm goinoj to criye Hobanob a return dinner to his at the ' Rhododendrum.' He bet me that Batifol, the chef at the ' Rhododendrum,' did better than our man can. Hob's dinner was last Wednesda}", and I don't say it wasn't a good one ; or that taking Grosbois b}' surprise, is giving him quita fair play -^ but we'll see, Nudgit. 7 know what Grosbois can do." " I should think 3'ou did, indeed, Silenus," sa3's the other. "I see 3^our mouth's watering. I'd ask you, onl^- I know you're engaged. You're alwa3's engaged, Nudgit — not to-da3^? "Well then, 3'ou ma3' come ; and I sa3', Mr. Nudgit, we'll have a wet evening, sir, mind 3'ou that." Mr. Bowls, the butler, here coming in, Mr. Silenus falls into conversation with him about wines and icing. I am glad poor Nudgit has got his dinner. He will go and walk in the Park to get up an appetite. And now, Mr. Bob, having shown 3'ou over your new house, I too will bid 3'ou for the present farewell. A WORD ABOUT BALLS IN SEASON. When m3^ good friend, Mr. Punch., some time since, asked me to compile a series of conversations for young men in the dancing world, so that thev' might be agreeable to their part- ners, and advance their own success in life, I consented with a willing heart to my venerable friend's request, for I desire nothing better than to promote the amusement and happiness of all young people ; and nothing, I thought, would be easier than to touch off a few light, airy, graceful little sets of phrases, which 3'oung fellows might adopt or expand, according to their own ingenuity and leisure. Well, sir, I imagined myself, just for an instant, to be 3'oung again, and that I had a neat waist instead of that bow-window with which Time and Nature have ornamented the castle of m3^ body, and brown locks instead of a bald pate (there was a time, sir, when my hair was not considered the worst part of me, and I recollect when I was a young man in the Militia, and when pigtails finally went out 112 our corps, who it was that longed to IN LONDON. 339 have my queue — it was found in her desk at her death, and my poor dear wife was alwaj^s jealous of her,) — I just chose, I saj', to fancy m3'self a .young man, and that I would go up in imagi- nation and ask a girl to dance with me. So I chose Maria — a man might go farther and fare worse than choose Maria, Mr. Bob. "My dear Miss E.," says I, "may I have the honor of dancing the next set with ^'ou ? " "The next whaiV sa3'S Miss E., smiling, and turning to Mrs. E., as if to ask what a set meant. "I forgot," says I ; " the next quadrille, I would say." " It is rather slow dancing quadrilles," says Miss E. ; " but if I must, I must." " Well, then, a waltz, will that do? I know nothing prettier than a waltz pla3'ed not too quick." " What ! " saj^s she, " do 3'ou want a horrid old three-timed waltz, like that which the little figures dance upon the barrel- organs? You sill3^ old creature: 3^ou are good-natured, but 3'OU are in your dotage. All these dances are passed awa3'. You might as well ask me to wear a gown with a waist up to my shoulders, like that in which mamma was married ; or a hoop and high heels, like grandmamma in the picture ; or to dance a gavotte or a minuet. Things are changed, old gentle- man — the fashions of 3'our time arc gone, and — and the bucks of 3^our time will go too, Mr. Brown. If I want to dance, here is Captain Whiskerfield, who is ready ; or 3'Oung Studdington, who is a delightful partner. He brings a little animation into our balls ; and when he is not in societ3% dances every night at Vauxhall and the Casino." I pictured to myself Maria giving some such repl3^ to m3' equall3' imaginative demand — for of course I never made the request, an3' more than she did the answer — and in fact, dear Bob, after turning over the matter of ball-room conversations in m3^ mind, and sitting with pen and ink before me for a couple of hours, I found that I had nothing at all to sa3'' on the subject, and have no more risfht to teach a vouth what he is to sav in the present day to his partner, than I should have had in my own bo3"hood to instruct m3' own grandmother in the art of sucking eggs. We should pa3' as much reverence to 3'outh as we should to age ; there are points in which 3'ou 3'oung folks are altogether our superiors : and I can't help constantly cr3^ing out to persons of m3^ own 3'ears, when busied about their 3'oung people — leave them alone ; don't be alwa3^s meddling with their affairs, which they can manage for themselves ; don't be alwa3's 340 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS insisting upon managing their boats, and putting 3-our oars in the water with theirs. So I have the modesty to think that Mr. Punch and I were a couple of conceited old fogies, in devising the above plan of composing conversation for the benefit of youth, and that young folk can manage to talk of what interests them, without inny prompting on our part. To say the truth, I have haidly been to a ball these three 3'ears. I s^w the head of the stair at H. E.'s the T Ambassador in Br ne Square, the other night, but retired without even getting a sight of, or making my bow to Her Excellency ; thinking wisel}' that man hit de poule et mon bonnet de nult much better became me at that hour of midniglit than the draught in a crowded passage, and the sight of ever so man}' beauties. But though I don't go myself to these assemblies, I have intelligence amongst people who go : and hear from the girls and their mammas what the}' do, and how they enjoy themselves. I must own that some of the new arrangements please me very much, as being natural and simple, and, in so far, superior to the old mode. In mv time, for instance, a ball-room used to be more than half-filled with old male and female fogies, whose persons took up a great deal of valuable room, who did not in the least orna- ment the walls against which the}' stood, and who would have been much better at home in bed. In a great country-house, where you have a hall fireplace in which an ox might be roasted conveniently, the presence of a few score more or less of stout old folks can make no difference ; there is room for them at the card-tables, and round the supper-board, and the sight of their honest red faces and white waistcoats lining the w^all cheers and illuminates the Assembly Room. But it is a very different case when you have a small house in May Fair, or in the pleasant district of Pimlico and Tyburn ; and accordingly I am happy to hear that the custom is rapidly spreading of asking none but dancing people to balls. It was only this morning that I was arguing the point with our cousin Mrs. Crowder, who was greatly irate because her daughter Fanny had received an invitation to go with her aunt Mrs. Timmins, to Lady Tutbury's ball, whereas poor Mrs. Crowder had been told that she could on no account get a card. Now Blanche Crowder is a very laro-e woman naturallv, and with the present fashion of flounces in dress, this balloon of a creature would occupy the best part of a little back drawing- room ; whereas Rosa Timmins is a little bit of a thing, who IN LONDON. 341 takes up no space at all, and furnishes the side of ^ room as prettily as a bank of flowers could. I tried to convince our cousin upon this point, this embonpoint^ I ma}* sa}', and of course being- too polite to make remarks personal to Mrs. Crovvder, I playfully directed them elsewhere. " Dear Blanche," said I, " don't you see how greatly Ladj^ Tutbury would have to extend her premises if all the relatives of all her dancers were to be invited? She has already flung out a marquee over the leads, and actuall}' included the cistern — what can she do more ! If all the girls were to have chap- erons, where could the elders sit? Tutbur3' himself will not be present. He is a large and roomy man, like your humble servant, and Lady Tut has sent him off to Greenwich, or the ' Star and Garter ' for the night, where, I have no doubt, he and some other stout fellows will make themselves comfortable. At a ball amongst persons of moderate means and large acquaintance in London, room is much more precious than almost anybody's companv, except that of the beauties and the dancers. Look at Loi'd Trampleton, that enormous hulking monster, (who nevertheless dances beautifully, as all big men do,) when he takes out his favorite partner. Miss Wirledge, to polk, his arm, as he whisks her round and round, forms radii of a circle of very considerable diameter. He almost wants a room to himself. Young men and women now, when they dance, dance really ; it is no lazy sauntering, as of old, but downright hard work — after which they want air and re- freshment. How can the}" get the one, when the rooms are filled with elderly folks ; or the other, when we are squeezing round the supper-tables, and drinking up all the available champagne and seltzer- water? No, no; the present plan, which I hear is becoming general, is admirable for London. Let there be half a dozen of goocl, active, bright-eyed chaperons and duennas, little women, who are more active, and keep a better look-out than your languishing voluptuous beauties" (I said this cast- ing at the same time a look of peculiar tenderness towards Blanche Crowder) ; "let them keep watch and see that all is rioht — that the youni? men don't dance too often with the same girl, or disappear on to the balcony, and that soi't of thing ; let them have good large roomy familj' coaches to carry the young women home to their mammas. In a word, at a ball, let there be for the future no admittance except upon busi- ness. In all the affairs of London life, that is the rule, depend upon it." *' And pray who told you, Mr. Brown, that I didn't wish 342 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS to dance mj'self?" says Blanche, surveying her great person in the looking-glass (which could scarcely- contain it) and floun- cing out of the room ; and I actuallj' believe that the uncon- scionable creature, at her age and size, is still thinking that she is a fairy, and that the 3'oung fellows would like to dance round the room with her. Ah, Bob ! I remember that grotesque woman a slim and graceful girl. I remember others tender and beautiful, whose bright eyes glitter, and whose sweet voices whisper no more. So they pass awa}^ — 3'outh and beaut}', love and innocence, pass awa}' and perish. I think of one now whom I remember the fairest and the gayest, the kindest and the purest ; her laughter was music — I can hear it still, though it will never echo any more. Far away the silent tomb closes over her. Other roses than those of our prime grow up and bloom, and have their day. Honest j^outh, generous 3'outh, may yours be as pure and as fair ! I did not think, when I began to write it, that the last sen- tence would have finished so ; but life is not altogether jocular, Mr. Bob, and one comes upon serious thoughts suddenly as upon a funeral in the street. Let us go back to the business we are upon, namely, balls, whereof it, perhaps, has struck 3'ou that 3'our uncle has ver3' little to sa3\ I saw one announced in the morning fashionable print to- da3', with a fine list of some of the greatest folks in London, and had previousl3' heard from various quarters how eager man3' persons were to attend it, and how splendid an entertain- ment it was to be. And so the morning paper announced that Mrs. Hornby Madox threw open her house in So-and-so Street, and was assisted in receiving her guests b3' Lad3' Fugleman. Now this is a sort of entertainment and ^arrangement than which I confess I can conceive nothing more queer, though I be- lieve it is by no means uncommon in English societ3^ Mrs. Hornb3' Madox comes into her fortune of ten thousand a 3-ear — wishes to be presented in the London world, having lived in the country previously — spares no expense to make her house and festival as handsome as ma3' be, and gets Lad3^ Fugleman to ask the compan3' for her — not the honest Hornb3'S, not the famil3' Madoxes, not the jolly old squires and friends and rela- tives of her family, and from her county ; but the London dandies and the London societ3' : whose names 3'ou see chroni- cled at ever}' party, and who, being Lady Fugleman's friends, are invited by her ladyship to Mrs. Hornb3''s house. What a strange notion of society does this give — of friend- IN LONDON. 343 ship, of fashion, of what people will do to be in the fashion ! Poor Mrs. Hornby comes into her fortune, and says to her old friends and famil}^, " Mj^ good people, I am going to cut every one of you. You were very well as long as we were in the countr}', where 1 might have ray natural likings and affections. But henceforth I am going to let Lady Fugleman choose m}' friends for me. I know nothing about you any more. I have no objection to you, but if 3'Ou want to know me you must ask Lad}^ Fugleman : if she says yes, I shall be delighted ; if no, Bon jour.''' This strange business goes on daily in London. Honest people do it, and think not the least harm. The proudest and noblest do not think the}' demean themselves by crowding to Mrs. Goldcalf s parties, and strike quite openly a union between her wealth and their titles, to determine as soon as the former ceases. There is not the least hypocrisy about this at any rate — the terms of the bargain are quite understood on every hand. But oh, Bob ! see what an awful thing it is to confess, and would not even hypocrisy be better than this daring cynicism, this open heartlessness — Godlessness I had almost called it ? Do you mean to sa}', jo\x great folks, that your object in society is not love, is not friendship, is not family union and affection — is not truth and kindness; — is not generous sym- pathy and union of Christian (pardon me the word, but I can indicate m}' meaning by no other) — of Christian men and women, parents and children, — but that you assemble and meet together, not caring or trjing to care for one another, — without a pretext of good-will — with a daring selfishness openly avowed?- I am sure I wish Mrs. Goldcalf or the other lady no harm, and have never spoken to, or set eyes on either of them, and I do not mean to say, Mr. Robert, that you and I are a whit better than they are, and doubt whether the}" have made the calculation for themselves of the consequences of what the}' are doing. But as sure as two and two make four, a person giving up of his own accord his natural friends and relatives, for the sake of the fashion, seems to me to sa}', I acknowledge myself to be heartless ; I turn my back on my friends, I disown my relatives, and I dishonor my father and mother. 344 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS A WORD ABOUT DINNERS. English Societ}', my beloved Bob, has this eminent advan- tage over all other — that is, if there be any society left in the wretched distracted old European continent — that it is above all others a dinner-giving society. A people like the Germans, that dines habitually, and with what vast appetite 1 need not say, at one o'clock in the afternoon — like the Italians, that spends its evenings in opera-boxes — like the French, that amuses itself of niglits with eau sucree and intrigue — cannot, believe me, understand Society rightly. I love and admire my nation for its good sense, its manUness, its friendliness, its morality in the main — and these, 1 take it, are all expressed in that noble institution T the dinner. The dinner is the happy end of the Briton's day. We work harder than the other nations of the earth. We do more, we live more in our time, than Frenchmen or Germans. Every great man amongst us likes his dinner, and takes to it kindly. 1 could mention the most august names of poets, statesmen, philosophers, historians, judges, and divines, who are great at the dinner-table as in the field, the closet, the senate, or the bench. Gibbon mentions that he wrote the first two volumes of his history whilst a placeman in London, lodging in St. James's, going to the House of Commons, to the Club, and to dinner every dav. The man flourishes under that generous and robust regimen ; the healthy energies of societ}* are kept up by it ; our friendly intercourse is maintained ; our intellect ripens with the good cheer, and throws off surprising crops, like the fields about Edinburgh, under the influence of that admii'able liquid, Claret. The best wines are sent to this country therefore ; for no other deserves them as ours does. 1 am a diner-out, and live in London. I protest, as I look back at the men and dinners 1 have seen in the last week, my mind is filled with manly respect and pleasure. How good the}^ have been ! how admirable the entertainments ! how worthy the men ! Let me, without divulging names, and with a cordial gi*ati- tude, mention a few of those whom 1 have met and who have all done their dutv. Sir, I have sat at table with a great, a world-renowned ^ m LONDOK. 345 statesman. I watched him during the progress of the banquet — 1 am at Hberty to say that he enjoyed it iil^e a man. On another day, it was a celebrated literary character. It was beautiful to see him at his dinner : cordial and generous, jovial and kindl}', the great author enjoyed himself as the great statesman — may he long give us good books and good dinners ! Yet another day, and 1 sat opposite to a Right Reverend Bishop. My Lord, I was pleased to see good thing after good thing disappear before you ; and think no man ever better be- came that rounded episcopal apron. How amiable he was! how kind ! He put water into his wine. Let us respect the moderation of the Church. And then the men learned in the law : how the}' dine ! what hospitalit}', what splendor, what comfort, what wine ! As we walked away very gently in the moonlight, onl}^ three days since, from the 's, a friend of my 3outh and myself, we coukl hardl.v speak for gratitude : '' Dear sir," we breathed fer- vently, " ask us soon again." One never has too much at those perfect banquets — no hideous headaches ensue, or horrid reso- lutions about adopting Revalenta Arabica for the future — but contentment with all the world, light slumbering, joyful waking to grapple with the morrow's work. Ah, dear Bob, those law- yers have great merits. There is a dear old judge at whose" familv table if I could see vou seated, my desire in life would be pretty nearly fulfilled. If you make yourself agreeal)le there, 3'ou will be in a fair wa}' to get on in the world. But you are a youtii still. Youths go to balls : men go to dinners. Doctors, again, notoriousl}" eat well ; when my excellent friend Sangrado takes a bumper, and saying, with a shrug and a twinkle of his eye, '' Video meliora prohnque, deter iora seqiior^'" tosses ott' the wine, I alwa3's ask the butler for a glass of that bottle. The inferior clergy, likewise, dine very much and well. I don't know when I ha\'e been better entertained, as tar as creature comfoj'ts go, than by men of very Low Church princi- ples ; and one of tlie ver}' best repasts that ever I saw in ni}'' life was at Darlington, given by a Quaker. Some of the best wine in London is given to his friends by a poet of my acquaintance. All artists are notoriously fond of dinners, and invite you, but not so profusely. Newspaper- editors delight in dinners on Saturdays, and give them, thanks to the present position of Literature, very often and good. Dear Bob, I have seen the mahoganies of many men. Every evening between seven and eight o'clock, I like to 346 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS look at the men dressed for dinner, perambulating the western districts of our cit3\ I like to see the smile on their counte- nances lighted up with an indescribable self-importance and good-humor ; the askance glances which the}' cast at the little street-boys and foot-passengers who eye their shin}' boots ; the daint}^ manner in which they trip over the pavement on those boots, eschewing the mud-pools and dirt}^ crossings ; the re- freshing whiteness of their linen ; the coaxing twiddle which the}' give to the ties of their white chokers — the caress of a fond parent to an innocent child. I like walking myself. Those who go in cabs or broughams, I haA^e remarked, ha^e not the same radiant expression which the pedestrian exhibits. A man in his own brougham has anxieties about the stepping of his horse, or the squaring of the groom's elbows, or a doubt whether Jones's turn-out is not better ; or whether something is not wrong in*the springs ; or whether he shall have the brougham out if the night is rainy. They always look tragical behind the glasses. A cab diner-out has commonly some cares, lest his sense of justice should be injured by the overcharge of the driver (these fellows are not uncommonly exorbitant in their demands upon gentlemen whom they set down at good houses) ; lest the smell of tobacco left by the last occupants of the vehicle (five medical students, let us say, who have chartered the vehicle, and smoked cheroots from the London University to the play-house in the Haymarket) should infest the clothes of Tom Lavender who is going to Lady Rosemary's ; lest straws should stick unobserved to the glutinous lustre of his boots — his shiny ones, and he should appear in Dives's drawing-room like a poet with a tenui avend, or like Mad Tom in the play. I hope, my dear Bob, if a straw should ever enter a drawing-room in the wake of your boot, you will not be much disturbed in mind. Hark ye, in confi- dence ; I have seen * in a hack-cab. There is no harm in employing one. There is no harm in anything natural, any more. I cannot help here parenthetically relating a story which occurred in my own youth, in the year 1815, at the time when I first made my own entree into society (for everything must have a beginning. Bob ; and though we have been gentlemen long before the Conqueror, and have always consorted with gentlemen, yet we had not always attained that haute volee of fashion which has distinguished some of us subsequently) ; 1 * Mr. Brown's MS. here contains a name of such prodigious dignity out of the ** P — r-ge," that we really do not dare to print it. IN LONDON. 347 recollect, I say, in 1815, when the Marquis of Sweetbread was good enough to ask me and the late Mr. Ruffles to dinner, to meet Prince Schwartzenberg and the Hetman PlatofF. Ruffles was a man a good deal about town in those days, and certainl}' in very good societ\'. I was myself a young one, and thought Ruffles was rather inclined to patronize me: which I did not like. "I would have you to know, Mr. Ruffles," thought I, " that, after all, a gentleman can but be a gentleman ; that though we Browns have no handles to our names, we are quite as well-bred as some folks who possess those ornaments " — and in fine I deter- mined to give him a lesson. So when he called for me in the hackney-coach at m}^ lodgings in Swallow Street, and we had driven under the porte-cochere of Sweetbread House, where two tall and powdered domestics in the uniform of the Sweet- breads, viz. a spinach-colored coat, with waistcoat and the rest of delicate yellow or melted-butter color, opened the doors of the hall — what do 3"ou think, sir, I did? In the presence of these gentlemen, who were holding on at the door, I oflTered to toss up with Ruffles, heads or tails, who should pay for the coach ; and then purposely had a dispute with the poor Jarvey about the fare. Ruffles's face of agon}' during this transaction I shall never forget. Sir, it was like the Laocoon. Drops of perspiration trembled on his pallid brow, and he flung towards me looks of imploring terror that would have melted an ogre. A better fellow than Ruffles never lived — he is dead long since, and I don't mind owning to this harmless little deceit. A person of some note — a favorite Snob of mine — I am told, when he goes to dinner, adopts what he considers a happy artifice, and sends his cab away at the corner of the street ; so that the gentleman in livery may not behold its number, or that the lord with whom he dines, and about whom he is always talking, may not be supposed to know that Mr. Smith came in a hack- cab. A man who is troubled with a shame like this. Bob, is un- worthy of an}^ dinner at all. Such' a man must needs be a sneak and a humbug, anxious about the effect which he is to produce : uneasy in his mind : a donkey in a lion's skin : a small pretender — distracted by doubts and frantic terrors of what is to come next. Such a man can be no more at ease in his chair at dinner than a man is in the fauteuil at the dentist's (unless indeed he go to the admirable Mr. Gilbert in Sufl[blk Street, who is dragged into this essay for the benefit of man- kind alone, and who, I vow, removes a grinder with so little o 4:3 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS pnin, that all the world should be made aware of him) — a fel low, I say, ashamed of the oi'iguial from which he sprung, of the cab in which he drives, awkward, therefore affected and unnatural, can never ho[)e or deserve to succeed in society. The great comfort of tlie society of great folks is, that they do not trouble themselves about your twopenny little person, as smaller persons do, but take you for what you are — a man kindly and good-natured, or witty and sarcastic, or learned and eloquent, or a good vftcontenr, or a very handsome man, (and in '15 some of the Browns were — but I am speaking of 11 ve- and-thirty N'.ears ago,) or an excellent gorniiuid and judge of wines — or what not. Nobody sets you so quickly at your ease as a fine oentleman. I have seen more noise made about a knight's ladv than about the Duchess of Fitzbattleaxe herself: and Lady Mountararat, whose fauiil}' dates from the Deluge, enters and leaves a room, with her daughters, the lovely Ladies Eve and Lilith D'Arc, with much less pretension and in much simpler capotes and what-do-you-call-'ems, than Lady de Mogyns or Mrs. Shindy, who quit an assembly in a whirlwind as it were, •widi trumpets and alarums like a stage king and queen. But my pen can ru.i no further, for ray paper is out, and it is time to dress for dinner. ON SOME OLD CUSTOMS OF THE DINNER-TABLE. Of all the sciences which have made a progress in late years, I think, dear Bob (to return to the subject from which I parted with so much pleasure last week), that the art of dinner-giving has made the most delightful and rapid advances. Sir, I main- tain, even now with a matured age and appetite, that the dinners of this present day are better than those we had in our youth, and I can't but be thankful at least once in every day for this decided improvement in our civilization. Those who remember the usages of five-and-twenty years back will be ready, I am sure, to acknowledge this progress. I was turning over at the Club yesterday a queer little l)ook written at that period, which, I believe, had some authority at the" time, and which records some of those customs which obtained, if not in good London society, at least in some companies, and parts of our islands. Sir, many of these practices seem as antiquated now as the usages described in the accounts of Homeric feasts, IX LONDON. 349 or Qneen Elizabeth's banquets and breakfasts. Let ns be happy to think thev are o'one. The book in question is called "The Maxims of Sir Morgan O'Doherty," a queer baronet, who appears to liave lived in the first quarter of the century, and whose opinions the antiquarian may examine, not without profit — a strange barbarian indeed it is, and one wonders that such customs should ever have been prevalent in our countr}-. Fancy such opinions as these having ever been holden by any set of men among us. Maxim 2. — ''It is laid down in fashionable life that \'ou must drink Champagi|g after white cheeses, watei* after red Ale is to be avoided, in case a wet night is to be expected, as should cheese also." Maxim 4. — ''A fine singer, after dinner, is to be avoided, for he is a great bore, and stops the wine One of the best rules (to put him down) is to applaud him most vocifer- ously as soon as he has sung the first verse, as if all was over, and say to the "entleman farthest from vou at table that you admire the conclusion of this song very much." Maxim 25. — " Yon meet people occasionally who tell you it is bad taste to give Champagne at dinner — Port and Teneriffe being such superior drinking," &c. &c. I am copying out of a book printed three months since, describing w'ays prevalent when you were born. Can it be possible, I sa}*, that England was ever in such a state ? Was it ever a maxim in "fashionable life" that you were to drink cham[)agne after white cheeses? What was that maxim in ftishionable lile about drinkino- and about cheese? The maxim in fashionable lite is to drink what vou will. It is too simple now to trouble itself about wine or about cheese. Ale again is to be avoided, this strange Dohert^' says, if you expect a wet night — and in another place he says •' the English drink a pint of porter at a draugiit." — What English? gracious powers ! Are we a nation of coalheavers ? Do we ever have a wet night? Do we ever meet people occasionally wdio say that to give Champagne at dinner is bad taste, and that Port and Teneritfe are such superior drinking? Fancy Teneriffe, my dear boy — I say fancy a man asking you to drink Tenerifie at dinner; the mind shudders at it — he might as wtU invite 3'ou to swallow the Peak. And then consider the maxim about the fine singer who is to be avoided. AViiat ! was there a time in most people's mem- or}', when folks at dessert began to sing? I have heard such a thing at a tenants' dinner in the country ; but the idea of a 350 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS fellow beginning to perform a song at a dinner-party in London fills m}^ mind with terror and amazement ; and I picture to my- self any table which I frequent, in May Fair, in Bloomsbury, in Belgravia, or where you will, and the pain which would seize upon the host and the company if some wretch were to com- mence a song. We have passed that savage period of life. We do not want to hear songs from guests, we have the songs done for us ; as we don't want our ladies to go down into the kitchen and cook the dinner any more. The cook can do it better and cheaper. We do not desire feats of musical or culinary skill — but simple, quiet, easy, unpretending conversation. In like manner, there was a practice once usual, and which still lingers here and there, of making complimentary speeches after dinner ; that custom is happil}' almost entirelj" discontin • ued. Gentlemen do not meet to compliment each other pro- fusel}', or to make fine phrases. Simplicit}' gains upon us daily. Let us be thankful that the florid style is disappearing. I once shared a bottle of sherry with a commercial traveller at Margate who gave a toast or a sentiment as he filled ever}' glass. He would not take his wine without this queer cere- mony before it. I recollect one of his sentiments, which was as follows : " Year is to 'er that doubles our joj's, and divides our sorrows — I give you woman, sir," — and we both emptied our glasses. These lumbering ceremonials are passing out of our manners, and were found only to obstruct our free in- tercourse. People can like each other just as much without orations, and be just as merrj- without being forced to drink against their will. And yet there are certain customs to which one clings still ; for instance, the practice of drinking wine with your neighbor, though wisel}' not so frequently indulged in as of old, 3'et still obtains, and I trust will never be abolished. For though, in the old time, when Mr. and Mrs. Fog}' had sixteen friends to dinner, it became an unsupportable corvee for Mr. F. to ask sixteen persons to drink wine, and a painful task for Mrs. Fogy to be called upon to bow to ten gentlemen, who desired to have the honor to drink her health, yet, employed in moderation, that ancient custom of challenging your friends to drink is a kindly and hearty old usage, and productive of many most beneficial results. I have known a man of a modest and reserved turn, (just like your old uncle, dear Bob, as no doubt you were going to remark,) when asked to drink by the host, suddenly lighten IN LONDON. 351 up, toss off his glass, get confidence, and begin to talk right and left. He wanted but the spur to set him going. It is supplied b}' the butler at the back of his chair. It sometimes happens, again, that a host's conversational powers are not brilliant. I own that I could point out a few such whom I have the honor to name among my friends — gen- tlemen, in fact, who wisel}^ hold their tongues because they have nothing to say which is worth the hearing or the telling, and properly confine themselves to the carving of the mutton and the ordering of the wines. Such men, manifestly, should always be allowed, nay encouraged, to ask their guests to take wine. In putting that question, they show their good-will, and cannot possiblj' betra}' their mental deficiency. For example, let us suppose Jones, who has been perfectly silent all dinner- time, oppressed, doubtless, by that awful Lady Tiara, who sits swelling on his right hand, suddenly rallies, singles me out, and with a loud cheering voice cries, " Brown my boy, a glass of wine." I reply, "With pleasure, m}' dear Jones." He re- sponds as quick as thought, " Shall it be hock or champagne, Brown?" I mention the wine w^hich I prefer. He calls to the butler, and sa3^s, " Some champagne or hock " (as the case may be, for I don't choose to commit myself), — " some cham- pagne or hock to Mr. Brown;" and finally he says, "Good health ! " in a pleasant tone. Thus you see, Jones, though not a conversationist, has had the opportunity of making no les^ than lour observations, which, if not brilliant or witt}', are yet manl}^, sensible, and agreeable. And I defy any man in the metropolis, be he the most accomplished, the most learned, the wisest, or the most eloquent, to say more than Jones upon a similar occasion. If you have had a difference with a man, and are "desirous to make it up, how pleasant it is to take wine with him. Noth- ing is said but that simple phrase which has just been uttered b}' m}' friend Jones ; and j^et it means a great deal. The cup is a sj^mbol of reconciliation. The other party drinks up your good-will as you accept his token of returning friendship — and thus the liquor is hallowed which Jones has paid for : and I like to think that the grape which grew by Rhine or Rhone was born and ripened under the sun there, so as to be the means of bring- ing two good fellows together. I once heard the head ph}'- sician of a Hydropathic establishment on the sunn}^ banks of the first-named river, give the health of His Majesty the King of Prussia, and, calling upon the campany to receive that august toast with a " donnerndes Lebehoch," toss off a bumper 352 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS of sparkling water. It did not seem to me a genuine enthusi- asm. No, no, let us have toast and wine, not toast and water. It was not in vain that grapes grew on the hills of Father Rhine. One seldom asks ladies now to take wine, — except when, in a conlidential whisper to the charming creature whom you have brought down to dinner, you humbl}- ask permission to pledge her, and she delicately touches her glass, with a fas- cinating smile, in reply to your glance, — a smile, you rogue, which goes to your heart. I say, one does not ask ladies any more to take wine : and I think, this custom being abijlishcd, the contrary practice should be introduced, and that the ladies should ask the gentlemen. I know one who did, vne gmude dame de par le moude^ as honest Biautoine phrases it, and fi'om whom I deserved no such kindness ; but, sir, the effect of that graceful act of hospitality was such, that she made a grateful slave for ever of one who was an admiring rebel previoush', who would do anything to show his gratitude, and ^^ho now knows no greater delight than when he receives a card which bears her respected name.* A dinner of men is well now and again, but few well-regu- lated minds relish a dinner without women. There are some wretches w^ho, I believe, still meet together for the sake of what is called "the spread," who dine each other round and round, and have horrid delights in turtle, early pease, and other culi- nary luxuries — but I pity the condition as I avuid the banquets of those men. The only substitute for ladies at dinners, or consolation for want of them, is — smoking. Cigars, introduced with the coffee, do, if anything can, make us forget the absence of the other sex. But what a substitute is that for her who doubles our joys, and divides our griefs ! for woman ! as mj' friend the Traveller said. f GREAT AND LITTLE DINNERS. It has been said, dear Bob, that I have seen the mahoganies of many men, and it is with no small feeling of pride and grati- tude that I am enabled to declare also, that I hardly remember in my life to have had a bad dinner. Would to heaven that all mortal men could say likewise I Indeed, and in the presence of * Upon my word, Mr. Brown, this is too broad a hint. — Punch. IK LONDON. 353 so mncli want and misery as pass under our ken dail}', it is with a feelinji" of something like shame and humiliation that 1 make the avowal ; but I have robbed no man of his meal that I kn(jw of, and am here speaking ol' very humble as well as very grand l^nquets, the which 1 maintain are, when there is a sufficiency, almost always good. Yes, all dinners are good, from a shilling upwards. The plate of boiled beef which Mary, the neat-handed waitress, in-ings or used to bring you in the Old Bailey — 1 say used, for, ah me ! I speak of years long [)ast, when the cheeks of Mar}' were as blooming as the carrots which she brought up with the beef, and she may be a granchnother^by this time, or a pallid ghost, far ont of the regions of beef; — from the shilling dinner of beef and carrots to the grandest banquet of the season — everything is good. There are no degrees in eating. 1 mean that mutton is as good as venison — beefsteak, if you are hini- ^yy, as good as turtle — l)ottled ale, if you like it, to the full as good as cham[)agne ; — there is no delicacy in the world which Monsieur Francatelli or Monsieur So^er can produce, which I believe to be better than toasted cheese. I have seen a dozen / of epicures at a grand table forsake every P'^rench and Italian delicacy for boiled leg of pork and pease-pudding. You can but be hungry, and eat and be happy. What is the moral I would deduce from this truth, if truth it be? I would have a great deal more hospitality practised than is common among us — more hospitality and less show. Propei'ly considered, the quality of dinner is twice blest; it blesses him that gives, and him that takes : a dinner with friendliness is the best of all friendly meetings — a pompous entertainment where no love is, the least satisfactory. Why, then, do Ave of the middle classes persist in giving entertainments so costly, and beyond our means? This will be read by many mortals, who are aware that they live on leg of mutton themselves, or worse than this, have what are called meat teas, than wiiich I cannot conceive a more odious custom ; that ordinarily they are very sober in their way of life ; that they like in reality that leg of mutton better tlian the condi- ments of that doubtful French artist who comes from the pastry- cook's, and presides over the mysterious stewpans in the kitchen ; why, then, on their company dinners, should they flare up in the magnificent manner in which they universally do? Kvervbodv has the same dinner in London, and the same soup, saddle of mutton, boiled fowls and tongue, enirees, cham- pagne, and so forth. I own myself to being no better ijor 23 354 SKETCHES AKD TRAVELS worse than m}^ neighbors in this respect, and rush off to the confectioners' for sweets, &c. ; hire sham butlers and attend- ants ; have a fellow going round the table with still and dry champagne, as if I knew his name, and it was m}^ custom to drink those wines ever}^ da}'^ of m}^ life. I am as bad as m^ neighbors: but wh}' are we so bad, I ask? — why are we not more reasonable? If we receive very great men or ladies at our houses, I will la}' a wager that they will select mutton and gooseberrj' tart for their dinner : forsaking the entrees which the men in white Berlin gloves are handing round in the Birmingham plated dishes. Asking lords and ladies, who have great establish- ments of their own, to French dinners and delicacies, is like inviting a grocer to a meal of figs, or a pastry-cook to a banquet of raspberry tarts. They have had enough of them. And great folks, if the}^ like you, take no count of j^our feasts, and grand preparations, and can but eat mutton like men. One cannot have sumptuar}' laws now-a-daj^s, or restrict the gastronomical more than an}' other trade : but I wish a check could be put upon our dinner extravagances b}' some means, and am confident that the pleasures of life would greatl}^ be increased b}' moderation. A man might give two dinners for one, according to the present pattern. Half 3'our mone}' is swallowed up in a dessert, which nobod}' wants in the least, and which I always grudge to see arriving at the end of plent}'. Services of culinar}- kickshaws swallow up mone}', and give no- bod}' pleasure , except the pastry-cook , whom they enrich . Every- body entertains as if he had three or four thousand a year. Some one with a voice potential should cry out against this overwhelming luxury. What is mere decency in a very wealthy man is absurdity — nay, wickedness in a poor one : a frog by nature, I am an insane, silly creature, to attempt to swell my- self to the size of the ox, my neighbor. Oh, that I could establish in the middle classes of London an Anti-entree and Anti-Dessert movement! I would go down to posterity not ill- deserving of my country in such a case, and might be ranked among the social benefactors. Let us have a meeting at WiUis's Rooms, Ladies and Gentlemen, for the purpose, and get a few philanthropists, philosophers, and bishops, or so, to speak ! As people, in former days, refused to take sugar, let us get up a society which shall decline to eat dessert and made dishes.* * Mr. Brown here enumerates three entries, which he confesses he can- not resist, and likewise preserved cherries at dessert : but the principle i» good, though the man is weaJt. IN LONDOIT. 355 In this wa\', I sa}', every man who now gives a dinner might give two ; and take in a host of poor friends and relatives, who are now exchided from his hospitaUty. For dinners are given mostly in the middle classes by way of revenge ; and Mr. and Mrs. Thompson ask Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, because the latter have asked them. A man at this rate who gives four dinners of twenty persons in the course of the season, each dinner cost- ing him something very near upon thirty pounds, receives in return, we will sa}', forty dinners from the friends whom he has himself invited. That is, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson pa}- a hundred and twent}' pounds, as do all their friends, for forty-four din- ners of which the}' partake. So that they may calculate that ever}' time they dine with their respective friends, they pay about twenty-eight shillings per tete. What a sum this is, dear Johnson, for you and me to spend upon our waistcoats ! What does poor Mrs. Johnson care for all these garish splendors, who has had her dinner at two with her dear children in the nursery ? Our custom is not hospitality or pleasure, but to be able to cut c^fT a certain number of acquaintance from the dining list. One of these dinners of twenty, again, is scarcely ever pleasant as far as regards society. You may chance to get near a pleasant neighbor and neighboress, when your corner of the table is possibly comfortable. But there can be no general conversation. Twenty people cannot engage together in talk. You would want a speaking-trumpet to communicate from your place by the lady of the house (for I wish to give my respected reader the place of honor) to the lady at the opposite corner at the right of the host. If you have a joke or a mot to make, you cannot utter it before such a crowd. A joke is nothing which can only get a laugh out of a third part of the company. The most eminent wags of my acquaintance are dumb in these great parties ; and your raconteur or story-teller, if he is prudent, will invariably hold his tongue. For what can be more odious than to be compelled to tell a story at the top of your voice, to be called on to repeat it for the benefit of a distant person who has only heard a part of the anecdote ? There are stories of mine which would fail utterly, were they narrated in any but an undertone ; others in which I laugh, am overcome by emo- tion, and so forth — what I call my intimes stories. Now it is impossible to do justice to these except in the midst of a general hush, and in a small circle ; so that I am commonly silent. And as no anecdote is positively new in a party of twenty, the chances are so much against you that somebody should have heard the story before, in which case you are done. 356 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS In these large assemblies, a wit, then, is of no use, and does not liave a eliance : a raconteur does not get a fair hearing, and both of these real ornaments of a dinner-table are thus utterly thrown away. 1 have seen Jack Jolliffe, who can keep a table of eight or ten persons in a roar of laughter for four hours, remain utterly mute in a great entertainment, smothered by the numbers and the dowager on each side of him: and Tom Yarnold,' the most eminent of conversationists, sit through a dinner as dumb as the footman behind him. Thej* do not care to joke, unless there is a sympathizing society, and prefer to be silent rather than throw their good things awaj'. What I would recommend, then, with all my power, is, that dinners should be more simple, more frequent, and should con- tain fewer persons. Ten is the utmost number that a man of moderate means should ever invite to his table ; althouoh in a great house, managed l)y a great establishment, the case ma3' be dirterent. A man and woman may look as if the}* were glad to see ten people : but in a great dinner the}' abdicate their position as host and hostess, — are mere creatures in the hands of the sham butlers, sham footmen, and tall confectioners' emis- saries wlio crowd the room, — and are guests at their own table, where the}* are helped last, and of which they occupy the top and bottom. I have marked many a lady watching with timid glances the large artificial major-domo^ who officiates fpr that nigiit only, and thought to myself, " Ah, my dear madam, how much liappier migiit we all be if there were but half the splendor, half the made dishes, and half the company' as- sembled." If any dinner-giving person who reads this shall be induced by my representations to pause in his present career, to cut off some of the luxuries of his table, and instead of giving one enormous feast to twenty persons to have three simple dinners for ten, my dear Nephew will not have been addressed in vain. Everybody will be bettered ; and while the guests will be better pleased, and more numerous, the host will actually be left with money in his pocket. IN LONDON. S57 ON LOVE, MARRIAGE, MEN, AND WOMEN. I. BoR Brown is in love, then, and undergoing the common lot! And so, rav dear lad, von are this moment enduring the delights and tortures, the jealous}' and waketlihiess, the long- ing and raptures, the frantic despair and elation, attendant upon the passion of love. In the year 1812 (it was before I contracted my alliance with your poor dear Aunt, who never caused ro.e any of the disquietudes above enumerated,) I my- self went through some of those miseries and pleasures which you now, O my Nephew, are enduring. I pity and sympathize with you. I am an old cock now, with a feeble strut and a faltering crow. But I was .young once : and remember the time very well. Since that time, amavi amantes : if I see two young people happy, I like it, as I like to see children enjoying a pantomime. I have been the confidant of numbers of honest fellows, and the secret watcher of scores of little pretty in- trigues in life. Miss Y., 1 know why you go so eagerly to balls now, and Mr. Z., what has set 3'ou off dancing at 3'our mature age. Do you fancy, Mrs. Al[)ha, that I believe you walk every day at half-past eleven by the Serpentine for noth- ing, and that I don't see young O'Mega in Rotten Row ? . . . And so, m}' poor Bob, you are shot. If you lose the object of your desires, the loss won't kill you ; vou mav set that down as a certaintv. If you win, it is possible that you will be disappointed ; that point also is to be considered. But hit or miss, good luck or bad — I should be sorrv, my honest Bob, that thou didst not underi2:o the maladv. Ever}' man ought to be in love a few times in his life, and to haVe a smart attack of the fevei*. You are the better for it when it is over: the better for your misfortune if vou endure it with a manlv heart ; how much the better for success if you win it and a good wife into the bargain ! Ah! Bob — there is a stone in the burying-ground at Funchal which I often and often think of — many hopes and passions lie beneath it, along with the fair- est and gentlest creature in the world — it's not Mrs. Brown that lies there. After life's fitful fever, she sleeps in Marylebone burying-grojmd, poor dear soul ! Emily Blenkinsop m/(/ht have been Mrs. Brown, but — but let us change the subject. Of course you will take advice, my dear Bob, about your 3a8 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS flame. All men and women do. It is notorious that the}^ lis- ten to the opinions of all their friends, and never follow their own counsel. Well, tell us about this girl. What are her quahfications, expectations, belongings, station in life, and so forth? About beauty I do not argue. I take it for granted. A man sees beaut}-, or that which he likes, with e3'es entirely his own. I don't say that plain women get husbands as readily as the pretty girls — but so man}' handsome girls are unmarried, and so man}' of the other sort wedded, that there is no possi- bility of establishing a rule, or of setting up a standard. Poor dear Mrs. Brown was a far finer woman than Emily Blenkin- sop, and yet I loved Emily's little finger more than the whole hand which your Aunt Martha gave me — I see the plainest women exercising the greatest fascinations over men, — in fine, a man falls in love with a w^oman because it is fate, be- cause she is a woman ; Bob, too, is a man, and endowed with a heart and a beard. Is she a clever woman ? I do not mean to disparage you, my good fellow, but you are not a man that is likely to set the Thames on fire ; and I should rather like to see you fall to the lot of a clever woman. A set has been made against clever women in all times. Take all Shakspeare's heroines — they all seem to me pretty much the same — affectionate, motherly, tender, that sort of thing. Take Scott's ladies, and other writers' — each man seems to draw from one model — an ex- quisite slave is what we. want for the most part; a humble, flattering, smiling, child-loving, tea-making, pianoforte-play- ing being, who laughs at our jokes, however old they may be, coaxes and wheedles us in our humors, and fondly lies to us through life. I never could get your poor Aunt into this sys- tem, though I confess 1 should have been a happier man had she tried it. There are many more clever women in the world than men think for. Our habit is to despise them ; we believe they do not think because they do not contradict us ; and are weak be- cause they do not struggle and rise up against us. A man only begins to know women as he gi'ows old ; and for my part my opinion of their cleverness rises every day. When I say I know women, I mean I know that I don't know them. Every single woman I ever knew is a puzzle to me, as I have no doubt she is to herself. Say they are not clever? Their hypocrisy is a perpetual marvel to me, and a constant exercise of cleverness of the finest sort. You see ^ m LONDON. 359 demure-looking woman perfect in all her duties, constant in house-bills and shirt-buttons, obedient to her lord, and anxious to please him in all things ; silent when you and he talk poli- tics, or literature, or balderdash together, and if referred to, sajing, with a smile of perfect humilitj', "Oh, women are not judges upon such and such matters ; we leave learning and poli- tics to men." " Yes, poor Polly," says Jones, patting the back of Mrs. J.'s head good-naturedl}^ " attend to the house, my .dear; that's the best thing you can do, and leave the rest to us." Benighted idiot ! She has long ago taken j'our measure and 3'our friends' ; she knows 3'our weaknesses, and ministers to them in a thousand artful wa3's. She knows 3'our obstinate points, and marches round them with the most curious art and patience, as you will see an ant on a journe3' turn round an obstacle. Every woman manages her husband : ever3^ person who manages another is a h3^pocrite. Her smiles, her submis- sion, her good-humor, for all which we value her, — what are they but admirable duplicit3^? We expect falseness from her, and order and educate her to be dishonest. Should he upbraid, I'll own that he prevail ; say that he frown, I'll answer with a smile ; — what are these but lies, that we exact from our slaves ? — lies, the dexterous performance of which we announce to be the female virtues : brutal Turks that we are ! I do not sa3' that Mrs. Brown ever obe3'ed me — on the contrar3^ : but I should have liked it, for I am a Turk like my neighbor. I will instance 3^our mother now. When my brother comes in to dinner after a bad da3' 's sport, or after looking over the bills of some of 3^ou bo3's, he naturall3' begins to be surly with 3^our poor dear mother, and to growl at the mutton. What does she do ? She may be hurt, but she doesn't show it. She proceeds to coax, to smile, to turn the conversation, to stroke down Bruin, and get him in a good-humor. She sets him on his old stories, and she and all the girls — poor dear little Sapphiras ! — set off laughing ; there is that story about the Goose walking into church, which your father tells and 3'our mother and sisters laugh at, until I protest I am so ashamed that I hardly know where to look. On he goes with that story time after time : and 3'Our poor mother sits there and knows that I know she is a humbug, and laughs on ; and teaches all the girls to laugh too. Had that dear creature been born to wear a nose-ring and bangles instead of a muff and bonnet ; and had she a brown skin in the place of that fair one with which nature has endowed her, she would have done Suttee, after 3'Our brown Brahmin father had died, and thought women very irreligious too, who refused to roast themselves for their 360 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS masters and lords. I do not mean to sa}' that the late Mrs. Brown would have gone through the proeess of incremation for me — far from it: b\' a timely removal she was spared from the grief whicli her widowhood would have doubtless caused her, and I acquiesce in the decrees of Fate in this instance, and have not the least desire to have preceded her. I hope the ladies will not take my remarks in ill part. If I die for it, I must own that I don't think they have fair pla}'. In the bargain we make with them I don't think they get their rigiits. And as a laborer notoriousl}- does more by the piece than he does by the day, and a free man works harder than a slave, so I doubt whether we get the most out of our women bj' enslaving them as we do by law and custom. There are some folks who would limit the range of women's duties to little more than a kitchen range — others who like tliem to administer to our delectation in a ball-room, and permit them to display dimpled shoulders and flowing ringlets — ^^just as you have one horse for a mill, and another for the Park. But in whatever way we like them, it is for our use somehow that we have women brought up ; to work for us, or to shine for us, or to dance for us, or what not ? It would not have been thought shame of our fathers fifty years ago, that they could not make a custard or a pie, but our mothers would have been rebuked had they been ignorant on these matters. Why should not you and I be asiiamed now because we cannot make our own shoes, or cut out our own breeches? We know better: we can get cobblers and tailors to do that — and it was we who made the laws for women, who, we are in the habit of saying, are not so clever as we are. My dear Nephew, as I grow old and consider these things, I know which are the stronger, men or women ; but which are the cleverer, I doubt. II. Loxcr years ago, indeed it was at the Peace of Amiens, when with several other young bucks I was making the grand tour, I recollect how sweet we all of us were upon the lovely Duchess of Montepulclano at Naples, who, to be sure, was not niggardly of her smiles in return. There came a man amongst us, how- ever, from London, a very handsome young fellow, with such an air of fascin.ating melancholy in his looks, that he cut out all the other suitors of the Duchess in the course of a week, and would have mairied her very likely, but that war was declared while this youth was still hankering about his Princess, and he was sent off to Verdun, whence he did not emerge for twelve IX LONDON. 361 3*ears, and until he was as fat as a porpoise, and the Dnchess was long since married to General Count Raff, one of the Em- peror's heroes. 1 mention poor Tibbits to show the curious difference of manner whicii exists among us ; and which, though not visible to foreigners, is instantly understood by English people. Brave, clever, tall, slim, dark, and sentimental-looking, he passed muster in a foreign saloon, and, as I must own to you. cut us fellows out: whereas we English knew^ instantly that the man was not well bred, bj* a thousand little signs not to be understood by the foreigner. In his early youth, for instance, he had been cruelly de[)rived of his Ws by his parents, and though he tried to replace them in after life, they were no more natural than a glass eye, but stared at you as it were in a ghastly manner out of the conversation, and pained nou by their horrid intrusions. Not acquainted with these refinements of our language, for- eigners did not understand what Tibbits's eriors were, and d(Hibtless thought it was from env}- that we conspired to slight the poor fellow. I mention Mr. Tibbits, because he was handsome, clever, honest, and brave, and in almost all respects our superior; and 3'et labored under disadvantages of manner which unfitted him for certain societ}-. It is not Tibbits the man, it is not Tibbits the citizen, of whom I would wish to speak lightly ; his moials, his reading, his courage, his generosity, his talents are un- doubted — it is the social Tibbits of whom I speak : and as I do not 2:0 to balls, because I do not dance, or to meeting's of the Political Economy Club, or other learned associations, be- cause taste and education have not fitted me for the pursuits for which other persons are adapted, so Tibbits's sphere is not in drawing-rooms, where the /?, and other points of etiquette, are rigorously maintained. I say thus much because one or two people have taken some remarks of mine in ill part, and hinted that I am a Tory in dis- guise : and an ai'istocrat that should be hung up to a lamp-post. Not so, dear Bob ; — there is nothing like the truth, about whomsoever it ma}* be. I mean no more disrespect towards any fellow-man by saying that he is not what is called in Society well bred, than by stating that he is not tall or short, or that he cannot dance, or that he does not know Hebrew-, or whatever the case may be. I mean that if a man works with a pickaxe or shovel all day, his hands will be iiarder tlian those of a lady of fashion, and that his opinion about Madame Sontag's singing, or the last new novel, will not probably be of much value. And 362 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS. though I own my conviction that there are some animals which frisk advantageously' in ladies' drawing-rooms, whilst others pull stoutly at the plough, I do not most certainl}' mean to re- flect upon a horse for not being a lap-dog, or see that he has any cause to be ashamed that he is other than a horse. And, in a word, as you are what is called a gentleman your- self, I hope that Mrs. Bob Brown, whoever she ma}' be, is not onl}' by nature, but b}^ education, a gentlewoman. No man ought ever to be called upon to blush for his wife. I see good men rush into marriage with ladies of whom thej' are afterwards ashamed ; and in the same manner charming women linked to partners, whose vulgarit}' they try to screen. Poor Mrs. Boti- bol, what a constant h3'pocris3' 3'our life is, and how 3'ou insist upon informing ever3'bod3' that Botibol is the best of men ! Poor Jack Jinkins ! what a female is that 3'Ou brought back from Baofnio-ofe Wells to introduce to London societv ! a hand- some, tawdr3', flaunting, watering-place belle ; a boarding-house beauty : tremendous in brazen ornaments and cheap finer3\ If3'ou marr3^, dear Bob, I hope Mrs. Robert B. will be a lady not ver3' much above or below 3'our own station. I would sooner that 3'ou should promote 3'our wife than thai she should advance 3'ou. And though every man can point 3'Ou out instances where his friends have been married to ladies of superior rank, who have accepted their new position with per- fect grace, and made their husbands entirel3' happ3' ; as there are examples of maid-servants decorating coronets, and sempstresses presiding worthil3' over Baronial Halls ; 3'et I hope Mrs. Robert Brown will not come out of a palace or a kitchen : but out of a house something like yours, out of a famil3^ something like 3^ours, with a snug jointure something like that modest portion which I dare say 3'ou will inherit. I remember when Arthur Rowdy (who I need not tell 3'ou belongs to the firm of Stumpy, Rowdy & Co., of Lombard Street, Bankers,) married Lady Cleopatra ; what a grand match it was thought by the Rowdy family : and how old Mrs. Rowdy in Portman Square was elated at the idea of her son's new con- nection. Her daughters were to go to all the parties in London ; and her house was to be filled with the very greatest of great folks. We heard of nothing but dear Lad3^ Stonehenge from morning till night ; and the old frequenters of the house were perfectl3^ pestered with stories of dear Lady Zenobia and dear Lad3^ Corneha, and of the dear Marquis, whose masterly trans- lation of Cornelius Nepos had placed him among the most learned of our nobility IN LONDON. 363 When Rowdy went to live in May Fair, what a wretched house it was into which he introduced such of his friends as were thought worth}" of presentation to his new societj^ ! The rooms were filled with young dandies of the Stonehenge con- nection — beardless bucks from Downing Street, gay young sprigs of the Guards — their sisters and mothers, their kith and kin. The}' overdrew their accounts at Rowdy's Bank, and laughed at him in his drawing-room ; they made their bets and talked their dandy talk over his claret, at which the poor fel- low sat quite silent. Lady Stoneheijge invaded his nursery, appointed and cashiered his governess and children's maids ; established her apothecary in permanence over him : quarrelled with old Mrs. Rowdy, so that the poor old body was only al- lowed to see her grandchildren by stealth, and have secret interviews with them in the garden of Berkeley Square ; made Rowdy take villas at Tunbridge, which she filled with her own family ; massacred her daughter's visitiug-book, in the which Lady Cleopatra, a good-natured woman, at first admitted some of her husband's relatives and acquaintance ; and carried him abroad upon excursions, in which all he had to do was to settle the bills with the courier. And she went so far as to order him to change his side of the House and his politics, and adopt those of Lord Stonehenge, which were of the age of the Druids, his lordship's ancestors ; but here the honest British merchant made a stand and conquered his mother-in-law, who would have smothered him the other day for voting for Rothschild. If it were not for the Counting House in the morning and the House of Commons at night, what would become of Rowdy? They say he smokes there, and drinks when he smokes. He has been known to go to Vauxhall, and has even been seen, with a comforter over his nose, listening to Sam Hall at the Cider Cellars. All this misery and misfortune came to the poor fellow for marr}'fng out of his degree. The clerks at Lombard Street laugh when Lord Mistletoe steps out of his cab and walks into the bank-parlor ; and Rowdy's private account invariably tells tales of the visit of his young scape- grace of a brother-in-law. m. Let us now, beloved and ingenuous youth, take the other side of the question, and discourse a little while upon the state of that man who takes unto himself a wife inferior to him in 364 SKETCHES AXD TRAVELS deoree. I have before me in nij' acquaintance many most piiTable instances of incUviduals who have made this fatal mistake. Although old fellows are as likel}' to be made fools as 3'oung in love matters, and Dan Cupid has no respect for the most venerable age, yet I remark that it is generally the young men •who marry vulgar wives. They are on a reading tour for the Long Vacation, they are quai'tered at Ballinafad, they see Miss Smith or Miss O'Shaughnessy every day. healthy, lively, J0II3' girls with red cheeks, bright eyes, and high spirits — they come away at the end of the vacation, or when the regiment changes its quarters, engaged men, family rows ensue, mothers cry out, papas grumble, Miss pines and loses her health at Bayraouth or Ballinafad — consent is got at last, Jones takes his degree, Jenkins gets his company ; Miss Smith and Miss O'Shaugh- nessy become Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Jenkins. For the first year it is all very well. Mrs. Jones is a great bouncing handsome creature, lavishly fond of her adored Jones, and caring for no other company but his. Thev have a cot- tage at Bayswater. He w'alks her out every evening. He sits and reads the last new novel to her whilst she works slippers for him, or makes some little tiny caps, and — dear Julia, dear Edward ! — thev are all in all to one another. Old Mrs. Smith of course comes up from Swansea at the time when the little caps arc put into requisition, and takes possession of the cottage at Bayswater. Mrs. Jones Senior calls upon Mrs. Edward Jones's mamma, and, of course, is desirous to do evervthino- that is civil to the familv of Edward's wife. Mrs. Jones finds in the mother-in-law of her Edward a large woman with a cotton umbrella, who dines in the middle of the day, and has her beer, and who calls Mrs. Jones Mum. What a state they are in in Pocklington Sc|«iare about this woman ! How can they be civil to her? AVhom can they ask to meet her? How the girls, Edward's sisters, go on about her! Fanny sa3-s she ought to be shown to the housekeeper's room when she calls ; Mary proposes that Mrs. Shay, the washer- woman, should be invited on the day when Mrs. Smith comes to dinner; and Emma (who was Edward's favorite sister, and who considers herself jilted by his marriage with Julia,) i^oints out the most dreadful thing of all, that lilrs. Smith and Julia are exactlv alike, and that in a few vears Mrs. Edward Jones vriil be the very image of that great enormous unwieldy horrid old woman. IX LONDON. 365 Closeted with her daughter, of whom and of her baby she lias taken possession, Mrs. Smith gives her opinion about the Joneses : — Tlie3' may be very good, but the}' are too tine ladies for her ; and the}' evidently think she is not good enough for them: they arc sad worldly people, and have never sat under a good minister, that is clear : the}- talked French before her on the dav sh3 called in Pocklin"ton Gardens, '•'• and thouoh they were laughing at me, I'm sure I can pardon them," Mrs. Smith says. Edward and Julia have a little altercation about the manner in which his family has treated Mi"s. Smith, and Julia, bursting into tears as she clasps her child to her bosom, says, " My child, my child, will you be taught to be ashamed of your mother ! " Edward Hings out of the room in a rage. It is true that Mrs. Smith is not (it to associate with his family, and that her manners are not like theirs ; that Julia's eldest brother, who is a serious tanner at Cardifl', is not a pleasant companion after dinner: and that it is not agreeable to be called '"Ned" and ''Old Cove" by her younger brother, who is an attorney's clerk in Gray's Inn, and favors Ned by asking him to lend him a " Sov.," and by coming to dinner on Sundays. It is time that the appearance of that youth at the hrst little party the Edward Joneses gave after their marriage, when Natty dis- gracefully inebriated himself, caused no little scandal amongst his friends, and much wrath on the part of old Jones, who said, " That little scaini) call my daughters by their Christian names ! — a little beggar that is not fit to sit down in my hall. ]f ever he dares to call at my house I'll tell Jobbins to tling a pail of Avater over him." And it is true that Natty called many times in Pocklington Squai'e, and complained to Edward that he, Nat, could neither see his Mar nor the Gurls, and that the old gent cut up uncommon stilf. So you see Edward Jones has had his way, and got a hand- some wife, but at what expense? He and his family are sepa- rated. His vvife brought him nothing but good looks. Her stock of brains is small. She is not easy in the new society into which she has been brought, and sits quite mum both at the grand jiarties which the old Joneses give in Pocklington Square, and at the snug little entertainments which poor Ed- ward Jones tries on his own part. The women of the Jones's set tr}- her in every way, and can get no good fi'om her : Jones's male friends, who are civilized beings, talk to her, and receive only monosyllables in reply. His house is a stupid one; his acquaintances drop otl"; he lias uo circle at all at last, except, 366 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS to be sure, that increasing famil}^ circle which brings up old Mrs. Smith from Swansea every year. What is the lot of a man at the end of a dozen 3'ears who has a wife like this ? She is handsome no longer, and she never had any other merit. He can't read novels to her all through his life, while she is working slippers — it is absurd. He can't be philandering in Kensington Gardens with a lady who does not walk out now except with two nursemaids and the twins in a go-cart. He is a 3'oung man still, when she is an old woman. Love is a might}' fine thing, dear Bob, but it is not the life of a man. There are a thousand other things for him to think of besides the red Ups of Lucy, or the bright eyes of Eliza. There is business, there is friendship, there is societ}^, there are taxes, there is ambition, and the manlv desire to exercise the talents which are given us by heaven, and reap the prize of our desert. There are other books in a man's librar}' besides Ovid ; and after dawdling ever so long at a woman's knee, one day he gets up and is free. We have all been there : we have all had the fever: the strongest and the smallest, from Samson, Hercules, Rinaldo, downwards ; but it burns out, and you get well. Ladies who read this, and who know what a love I have for the whole sex, will not, I hope, cr}' out at the above observa- tions, or be angr}' because I state that the ardor of love declines after a certain period. M3' dear Mrs. Hopkins, 3'ou would not have Hopkins to carr}' on the same absurd behavior which he exhibited when he was courting 3'ou? or in place of going to bed and to sleep comfortabh', sitting up half the night to write to 3^ou bad verses ? You would not have him racked with jealous^' if 3'ou danced or spoke with any one else