A 
 
 x; 
 
 I- 
 
 A' 
 
 1
 
 THE 
 
 TREASURE HOUSE OF TALES 
 
 BY 
 
 GREAT AUTHORS 
 
 LEIGH HUNT
 
 Imp A. Salmon & Ai-doil.Pai'is.
 
 TALES 
 
 BY 
 
 LEIGH HUNT 
 
 NOW FIEST COLLECTED 
 
 JFITH A PREFATORY MEMOIR 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM KNIGHT, LL.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF JrORAI, PIIILOSOPHV IN THE UXIVERSITV OK ST. ANDREWf 
 
 ••• ,'. ■"• ■• » 
 
 
 
 ' ■» . . . 
 
 LONDON 
 WILLIAM PATERSON & CO. 
 
 1891
 
 • «- 
 
 • « ^ 
 
 
 .«, 
 
 !'. 
 
 '•C*' •«« *'*
 
 PREFATORY MEMOIR. 
 
 James Henry Leigh Hunt was born in October 
 1784 at tlie village of Soutligate, in the parish of 
 Edmonton, Middlesex. The neighbourhood of the 
 little village is full of associations to literary 
 Englishmen. At Edmonton, Marlowe — the father of 
 the British drama — was born. There Charles Lamb 
 lies buried, with Coleridge not far off; and Steele, 
 i^rbuthnot, Akenside, Keats, and Shelley, all lived, 
 at different times, at no great distance from it. 
 
 Hunt was of American extraction, his father 
 having been originally a lawyer in Philadelphia ; 
 and his mother was the daughter of a Philadelphia 
 merchant. Though destined for the clerical office, 
 his father began life in the practice of the law. As 
 a barrister, he took the side of the British Govern- 
 ment in its dispute with America, — both making 
 speeches, and writing pamphlets in its behalf, — 
 and, in consequence, he not only became unpopular, 
 but was exposed to violence. He was put in 
 prison, and only escaped by bribing the sentinel 
 in charge. Crossing the Atlantic with all speed,
 
 VI LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 he entered the profession for which he had 
 first been destined. As a clergyman he had a 
 somewhat chequered career, and attained to no great 
 distinction. Hunt's mother, Mary Shewell, was a 
 woman of great nobility, generosity, and firmness 
 of character. 
 
 There is little to record of his early years. In 
 his Autobiography — one of the most delightful ever 
 written — he tells us that, when a child, he was 
 taken by his father to the Houses of Parliament. 
 In the Commons he saw Mr. Pitt " sawing the air ; " 
 and when his supporters cried " Hear, hear," he 
 fancied they said " Dear, dear " in derision ! In 
 the House of Lords, where he expected to see 
 venerable conscript fathers, the members seemed 
 generally insignificant. He was sent to school at 
 Christ's Hospital, and he has given us a picture of 
 that somewhat famous seminary, drawn with ex- 
 treme vividness : " an old cloistered foundation, 
 where a boy may grow up, as I did, among six 
 hundred others, and know as little of the very 
 neighbourhood as the world does of him." He 
 refused to be a fag, and suffered some bullying in 
 consequence. He speaks, however, of the genial 
 comradeship of the boys, — no feeling of the 
 difference of social rank being then known, — the 
 dress, the lessons, the food, the daily routine, the 
 cruel flogging master, Bowyer, — of whom Coleridge 
 has also given us a picture, — all these are described 
 in graphic detail. The boys used to assemble for
 
 PREFATORY MEMOIR. Vll 
 
 cliurch service, with a steward watching them ; and 
 when the passage in Scripture about " the unjust 
 steward " came to be read, the whole school turned 
 their eyes with general consent towards the un- 
 fortunate official ! The books he greatly rejoiced 
 in were Tooke's Pantheon, Lempriere's Classical 
 Dictionary, and Spence's Poly metis. To the poets 
 he was specially devoted. He says, " I am grate- 
 ful to Christ's Hospital for having bred me up in 
 old cloisters, for its having made me acquainted 
 with the languages of Homer and Ovid, and for 
 its having secured to me on the whole a well-trained 
 and cheerful boyhood. It pressed no superstition 
 upon me. It did not hinder my growing mind 
 from making what excursions it pleased into the 
 wide and healthy regions of general literature." 
 
 He went through the several stages of the school, 
 and formed some very strong friendships. His 
 description of the delights of boy-friendsliip among 
 schoolfellows is wonderfully fine. A slight physical 
 defect, a stammer (for which the cruel master, 
 Bowyer, had once hit him), prevented him from 
 going on to the University. He tells us that at 
 the age of fifteen he was " first deputy Grecian, 
 and had the honour of iroincj out of the school in 
 the same rank, at tlie same age, and for the same 
 reason, as my friend Charles Lamb. The reason 
 was that I hesitated in my speech. It was under- 
 stood that a Grecian was bound to deliver a public 
 speech before he left school, and to go into the
 
 via LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 Church afterwards ; and, as I could do neither of 
 these things, a Grecian I could not be." 
 
 He left Christ's Hospital with keen regret, and 
 thereafter spent some time in " visiting his school 
 friends, hunting book-stalls, and writing verses." 
 These boyish verses his father collected and j^ub- 
 lished in the year 1802, under the title of Juvenilia, 
 Hunt afterwards saw that the booklet was all but 
 absolutely worthless, and that he had been wasting 
 liis powers in mere imitation for several years, while 
 he might have been studying Nature and the true 
 art of Poetry. Visiting some school friends, who 
 had gone to Oxford and Cambridge, he instinctively 
 caught the charm of these seats of learning, and 
 his subsequent descriptions of the Universities in 
 his Auiohiograpliy is noteworthy. 
 
 •' Were I to visit the Universities now, I should 
 explore every corner, and reverently fancy myself 
 in the presence of every great and good man that 
 has adorned them ; but the most important people 
 to young men are one another ; and I was content 
 with glancing at the haunts of Addison and 
 Wharton in Oxford, and at those of Gray, Spenser, 
 and Milton in Cambridge. Oxford, I found, liad 
 greatly the advantage of Cambridge in point of 
 country. You could understand well enough how 
 poets could wander about Iflley and W^oodstock ; 
 but when I visited Cambridge, the nakedness of 
 the land was too plainly visible under a sheet of 
 snow, through which gutters of ditches ran, like
 
 PREFATORY MEMOIR. IX 
 
 ink, by the side of leafless sallows, which resembled 
 huge pincushions stuck on posts. The town, 
 however, made amends ; and Cambridge has the 
 advantage of Oxford in a remarkable degree, as far 
 as regards eminent names. England's two greatest 
 philosophers. Bacon and Newton, and (according to 
 Tyrwhitt) three out of its four great poets, were 
 bred there, besides double the number of minor 
 celebrities. Oxford even did not always know ' the 
 good the gods provided.' It repudiated Locke ; 
 alienated Gibbon ; and had nothing but angry 
 sulleuness and hard expulsion to answer to the 
 inquiries which its very ordinances encouraged in 
 the sincere and loving spirit of Shelley. Yet they 
 are divine places, botli ; full of grace, and beauty, 
 and scholarship ; of reverend antiquity, and ever- 
 young nature and hope. Their faults, if of world- 
 liness in some, are those of time and of conscience 
 in more ; and, if the more pertinacious on those 
 accounts, will merge into a like conservative firm- 
 ness, when still nobler developments are in their 
 keeping. So at least I hope ; and so may the Fates 
 have ordained ; keeping their gowns among them 
 as a symbol that learning is, indeed, something 
 which ever learns ; and instructing them to teach 
 love, and charity, and inquiiy, "with the same ac- 
 complished authority as that with which they have 
 taught assent." — Autohiograi^hij, cd. 18 GO, chap. v. 
 pp. 110, 111. 
 
 His boyish peifurmancc (the Juvenilia) was —
 
 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 unfortunately for him — " successful everywhere, 
 particularly in the metropolis." Taken to see Dr. 
 Eaine, the Master of Charterhouse, the latter told 
 him to beware of authorship, adding " Sir, the 
 shelves are full." Hunt says, " It was not till I 
 came away that I thought of an answer which 
 would have annihilated him — ' Then, sir, we will 
 make another.' " His grandfather, still living in 
 America, urged him to come out to Philadelphia, 
 where " he would make a man of him." He 
 replied, " Men grow in England, as well as in 
 America." When he was only seventeen years of 
 age, he became engaged to Marianne Kent, who was 
 only thirteen; and the very strength of his devotion 
 to her led him to wish that she should carry on her 
 studies on lines approved of, or even dictated by 
 him. It was extremely foolish, and for a time the 
 engagement was broken off in consequence. 
 
 About this time he became a volunteer, the 
 possible invasion of Britain by Buonaparte giving, 
 as he said, " a knock at the door of all England." 
 At this time also, he got a situation as clerk in 
 the War Office ; but he admits that he was a bad 
 clerk, and, feeling the task uncongenial, he entered 
 definitely on the career of a pressman and publicist. 
 He was unmethodical, and liopelessly unpunctual. 
 He became so absorbed in the thincj he had on hand 
 — whether reading, conversation, or society — that he 
 took no note of the lapse of time. Then the very 
 simplest question in arithmetic was a puzzle to him.
 
 PREFATORY MEMOIR. XI 
 
 He was absolutely incapable of working out the figures 
 in a balance-sheet, and was as helpless in keeping 
 books as one who has no ear for music is puzzled 
 in listening to a symphony, or one who is colour- 
 blind in distinguishing the shades of the spectrum. 
 
 In the year 1805, his brother John set up a paper 
 called the News ; and Leigh Hunt went to live with 
 him, that he mi^ht write the theatrical criticism 
 for it. Some of these criticisms, on the leading 
 actors and actresses of the day, he afterwards re- 
 vised, and issued as an appendix to a volume of 
 Critical Essays on the Performers of the London 
 Theatres (1807). He now definitely realized that 
 his mission in life was to be that of a writer for 
 the public. He felt that he had not been so much 
 misdirected hitherto in the study of prose, as in 
 that of poetry. Addison's papers in the Spectator 
 became his standard, and in the Addisonian vein 
 he wrote a series of articles for another contem- 
 porary paper called the Traveller. He describes 
 himself at this time as a " glutton of books." 
 Goldsmith, Fielding, Smollett, and Voltaire were 
 amongst his favourite essayists and novelists. 
 Amongst historians he chiefly admired Herodotus, 
 Villani, Froissart, and Gibbon. Voltaire was, liow- 
 ever, the author who most of all impressed him, 
 and whom he cliielly admired I'or his liealthy 
 antagonisms to shams, liis Carlyle-like hatred of 
 all unveracities. His estimate of Voltaire is striking. 
 
 ■' It is a curious circumstance respecting the
 
 Xll LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 books of Voltaire — the greatest writer upon the 
 whole that Prance has produced, and undoubtedly 
 the greatest name in the eighteenth century — that 
 to this moment they are far less known in England 
 than talked of ; so much so, that, with the exception 
 of a few educated circles, chiefly of the upper class, 
 and exclusively among the men even in those, he 
 has not only been liardly read at all, even by such 
 as have talked of him with admiration, or loaded 
 him with reproach, but the portions of his writings 
 that have had the greatest effect on the world are 
 the least known among readers the most popularly 
 acquainted with him." — Autobiographj , chap. vii. 
 p. 142. Writing to a friend in 1805, he said of 
 Voltaire : " He is an author that perpetually delights 
 me, and has the felicitous art of uniting profound 
 philosophy with the most lively wit." 
 
 In 1808, while still a clerk in the War Office, 
 Leigh Hunt and his brother set up a new weekly paper 
 called the Examiner, of which they were to be joint 
 proprietors. In this he continued the same kind 
 of theatrical criticism as in the Ncics, but the main 
 object of the Examiner was to " assist in producing 
 reform in Parliament, liberality of opinion in 
 general, especially freedom from superstition, and 
 an infusion of literary taste into all subjects. It 
 began," Hunt adds, " by being of no party, but 
 Pteform gave it one." 
 
 The Examiner w\as a paper of high literary merit 
 and rare independence. " Zeal for the public good
 
 PREFATORY MEMOIR. XUl 
 
 was a family inlieritance," he says, " and this we 
 tliought ourselves bound to increase. As to myself, 
 what I thousrht of more than either, was the makino; 
 of verses. I did nothing for the greater part of the 
 week but write verses and read books. I then 
 made a rush at my editorial duties, took a world of 
 superfluous pains in the writing, sat up late at night, 
 and was a very trying person to compositors and 
 newsmen." The Uxamincr was an organ of Consti- 
 tutional Reform, was loyal to Church and State, and 
 was opposed alike to Buonapartism and to Repub- 
 licanism. While editing this paper Leigh Hunt 
 made many literary acquaintances, — Thomas Camp- 
 bell the poet, the two brothers James and Horace 
 Smith, authors of the Rejected Addresses, Theodore 
 Hook, Matthews the comedian, Fuseli the artist, 
 and William Godwin. The editor of the Examiner 
 could not fail to criticise the political characters of 
 the period with some keenness ; and, as might have 
 been expected at that time, prosecutions for libel 
 followed. Three of these, at the instance of the 
 Tory Government, failed ; tlie details it is needless 
 to record. A fourth was, as we shall see, more 
 serious. The way in which Hunt conducted the 
 Examiner, however, brought him invitations to write 
 for other papers. One reached him from 32 Fleet 
 Street in March 1809, asking him to write on the 
 state of the contemporary drama in the Quarterly 
 Reviciv, The letter is signed, " much your admirer 
 and friend, John jMurrav."
 
 XIV LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 In July 1809, Leigh Hunt was married to 
 Marianne Kent. They went to live at Beckenham. 
 
 In 1810, when the Examiner had been estab- 
 lished for between two and three years, Leigh Hunt 
 and his brother started a new magazine, called the 
 Befledor. Charles Lamb was perhaps the most 
 distinguished contributor to this magazine. Hunt 
 himself contributed the Feast of the Poets, a jeu 
 d'esprit suggested by Sir John Suckling's Session of 
 the Poets. " Apollo gives the poets a dinner, and 
 many verse-makers who have no claim to the title 
 present themselves, and are rejected." In these 
 verses Hunt dealt several severe blows at the Tories; 
 but it was not as Tories that he assailed them. We 
 find in the AutoMography the following significant 
 sentence : — 
 
 " Every party has a right side and a wrong. 
 The right side of Whiggism, or Eadicalism, is the 
 love of liberty, the love of justice, — the wish to see 
 fair play to all men, and the advancement of know- 
 ledge and competence. The wrong side is the wish 
 to pull down those above us, instead of the desire 
 of raising tliose who are below. The right side of 
 Toryism is the love of order and the disposition to 
 reverence and personal attachment ; the wrong side 
 is the love of power for power's sake, and the deter- 
 mination to maintain it in the teeth of all that is 
 reasonable and humane." — Chap. xii. p. 217, 218. 
 
 In his Feast of the Poets Hunt offended all the 
 literary parties of the time ; the eighteenth-century
 
 PREFATORY MEMOIR. XV 
 
 formalists, by his objecting to the monotony of 
 Pope's style, and those who sympathized with the 
 KenaissancOj by his laughing at Wordsworth, whose 
 verses he had never read. He tells us, however, 
 that, on becoming acquainted with Wordsworth, lie 
 was such an admirer that Byron accused him of 
 making him popular about town. Hunt shared the 
 fate of all honest and vigorous critics, viz. of offend- 
 ing almost every one in turn. The Bejiector con- 
 tained a severe article on His Eoyal Highness the 
 Prince Eegent, satirizing one of liis conventional 
 dinner-parties. This was of course much disliked, 
 but it was an article on the Prince in the Examiner 
 which brouoht Hunt into real trouble. The Eegent 
 had reversed the policy which he had advocated as 
 Prince of Wales. The article upon him was bitter 
 and contemptuous, but it was substantially true. 
 When the Prince's health had been proposed, and 
 Sheridan had flattered him to the zenith, the 
 company hissed. The Mor7iing Post at once pub- 
 lished an article of fulsome flattery, describing the 
 " Msecenas of the age " as an " Adonis in loveliness." 
 To this the Examiner replied, giving a cold and 
 clear comparison of the facts of the case with the 
 flattering fictions of after-dinner oratory. It led 
 to a prosecution by the Attorney-General, and to 
 a verdict against Hunt and his brother, with the 
 sentence of two years' imprisonment in separate 
 jails, and the fine of £1000. Henry (afterwards 
 Lord) Prou^ham conducted Hunt's defence. After
 
 XVI LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 tlie sentence, the lirothers were told that if they 
 would guarantee to abstain from all comments on the 
 Prince Eegent in future they would be pardoned ; 
 but they declined to do so, and went to their 
 respective prisons in February 1813. 
 
 Although there were things to be regretted, 
 and sentences to be condemned in the Examiner 
 article, to inflict so severe a punishment on a 
 man of letters such as Hunt was a grave political 
 blunder. It made him the hero of the hour, 
 doing him ultimately much more good than harm. 
 Hunt has himself told the story of his imprison- 
 ment in a graphic manner. His account of 
 the gaoler, and his conversations with him, of his 
 removal to more comfortable quarters within the 
 prison, of the visits of his wife, and of his friends, — 
 Charles Lamb and Thomas Moore, Lord Byron and 
 Lord Brougham, Hazlitt and Cowden Clarke, — of 
 the birth of his eldest girl in prison, of the books he 
 read, and others that he wrote, — all are recorded in 
 a most fascinating manner. The imprisonment had 
 an element of romance in it. He was left a good 
 deal to the freedom of his own will, and had many 
 things supplied to him to mitigate the severity of 
 his lot. The following is the account, from his own 
 lips, of his confinement in prison : — 
 
 " I papered the walls with a trellis of roses ; I 
 had the ceiling coloured with clouds and sky ; the 
 barred windows I screened with Venetian blinds ; 
 and when my bookcases were set up with their
 
 PREFATORY MEMOIR. XVii 
 
 busts, and flowers and a pianoforte made their 
 appearance, perhaps there was not a handsomer 
 room on that side the water. I took a pleasure, 
 when a stranger knocked at the door, to see him 
 come in and stare about him. The surprise on 
 issuing from the Borough, and passing through the 
 avenues of a gaol, was dramatic. Charles Lamb 
 declared there was no other such room, except in a 
 fairy tale. 
 
 "But I possessed another surprise; which was a 
 garden. There was a little yard outside the room, 
 railed off from another belonging to the neighbour- 
 ing ward. This yard I shut in with green palings, 
 adorned it with a trellis, bordered it with a thick 
 bed of earth from a nursery, and even contrived to 
 have a grass-plot. The earth I filled with flowers 
 and young trees. There was an apple-tree, from 
 which we managed to get a pudding the second 
 year. As to my flowers, they were allowed to be 
 perfect. Thomas Moore, who came to see me with 
 Lord Byron, told me he had seen no such heart's- 
 ease. I bought the Parnaso Italiano while in 
 prison, and used often to think of a passage in it, 
 while looking at this miniature piece of horti- 
 culture : — 
 
 ' Mio picciol orto, 
 A me sei vigua e campo e silvo e prato. ' — Baldi. 
 
 My little garden, 
 To me tliou'i't vineyard, field, and meadow, and wood. 
 
 " Here I wrote and read in line weather, some- 
 
 h
 
 XVin LEIGII HUNT. 
 
 times under an awning. In autumn my trellises 
 were hung with scarlet runners, which added to 
 the flowery investment. I used to shut my eyes in 
 my arm-chair, and affect to think myself hundreds 
 of miles off. 
 
 " But my triumph was in issuing forth of a morn- 
 ing. A wicket out of the garden led into the large 
 one belonging to the prison. The latter was only 
 for vegetables ; but it contained a cherry-tree, which 
 I saw twice in blossom. I parcelled out the ground 
 in my imagination into favourite districts. I made 
 a point of dressing myself as if for a long walk ; 
 and then, putting on my gloves, and taking my book 
 under my arm, stepped forth, requesting my wife 
 not to wait dinner if I was too late. My eldest 
 little boy, to whom Lamb addressed some charming 
 verses on the occasion, was my constant companion, 
 and we used to play all sorts of juvenile games 
 together. 
 
 • ••••••• 
 
 " AVlien I sat amidst my books, and saw the 
 imaginary sky overhead, and my paper roses about 
 me, I drank in the quiet at my ears, as if they 
 were thirsty." — Autobiogrcqiliy, cliap. xiv. p. 238. 
 
 From his Surrey gaol Hunt wrote some delightful 
 letters. He sent a list of Greek words to his boy 
 Thornton, who was at the seaside with his mother, 
 that he might begin the knowledge of tlie language 
 e:\rly, in a colloquial fashion. His description of 
 I he flowers in his garden — the Persian lilac, the
 
 PREFATORY MEMOIR. xix 
 
 rhododendron, the apple blossom, and all the lesser 
 flowers, is charming ; as well as his account of his 
 many visitors, amongst whom were Haydon and 
 James Mill. Writing in Angust 1846, Hunt said: 
 " Besides the fine, my imprisonment cost me several 
 hundred pounds, in monstrous douceurs to the gaoler, 
 for liberty to walk in the garden, for help towards 
 getting me rooms in the hospital, for fitting up of 
 said rooms, or rather converting them from dirty 
 wash-houses into comfortable apartments." 
 
 On the day on which he left prison, Keats wrote 
 the following sonnet: — 
 
 '' What though, for sliowing truth to flatter'd state, 
 
 Kind Hunt Avas shut in prison, yet has lie. 
 
 In his immortal spirit, been as free 
 As the sky-searching lark, and as ekte. 
 Minion of grandeur ! tliink you he did wait ? 
 
 Think you he nought but prison- walls did see, 
 
 Till, so unwilling, thou unturu'dst the key ? 
 Ah, no I far happier, nobler was his fate ! 
 In Spenser's halls he strayed, and bowers fair. 
 
 Culling enchanted flowers ; and he flew 
 "With daring Milton through the fields of air : 
 
 To regions of liis own his genius true 
 Took happy flights. Who shall his fame impair 
 
 When thou art dead, and all thy wretched crew ? " 
 
 He was set at liberty in February 1815, and went 
 at once to live in the Edgeware Eoad, because his 
 brother's house was in the neighbourhood. There 
 Byron and Wordsworth came to visit him. His 
 account of Wordsworth may be quoted, as it is full 
 of character, and casts as much liglit on the writer 
 as on the man hu writes about.
 
 XX LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 " Mr, Wordsworth had a dignified manner, with a 
 deep and roughish hut not unpleasing voice, and an 
 exalted mode of speaking. He had a habit of 
 keeping his left hand in the bosom of his waist- 
 coat ; and in this attitude, except when he turned 
 round to take one of the subjects of his criticism 
 from the shelves (for his contemporaries were there 
 also), he sat dealing forth his eloquent but hardly 
 catholic judgments. In his " father's house " 
 there were not " many mansions." He was as 
 sceptical on the merits of all kinds of poetry but 
 one, as Eichardson was on those of the novels 
 of Fielding. 
 
 " Under the study in which my visitor and I were 
 sitting was an archway, leading to a nursery- 
 ground ; a cart happened to go through it while I 
 was inquiring whether he would take any refresh- 
 ment, and he uttered, in so lofty a voice, the words, 
 ' Anything which is going forward,' that I felt 
 inclined to ask him whether he would take a piece 
 of the cart. Lamb would certainly have done it. 
 
 " I did not see this distinguished person again till 
 thirty years afterwards, when, I should venture to 
 say, his manner was greatly superior to what it was in 
 the former instance ; indeed, quite natural and noble, 
 with a cheerful air of animal as well as spiritual 
 confidence ; a gallant bearing, curiously reminding 
 me of the iJuke of Wellington, as 1 saw him walk- 
 ing some eighteen years ago by a lady's side, with
 
 PREFATORY MEMOIR. Xxi 
 
 no unbecoming oblivion of his time of iife. I 
 observed, also, that the poet no longer committed 
 himself in scornful criticisms, or, indeed, in any 
 criticisms whatever, at least as far as I know. 
 
 " But certainly I never beheld eyes that looked so 
 inspired or so supernatural. They were like fires 
 half - burning, half - smouldering, with a sort of 
 acrid fixture of regard, and seated at the farther 
 end of two caverns. One might imagine Ezekiel or 
 Isaiali to have had such eyes." — AutoUogmphy , chap. 
 XV. p. 248, 249. 
 
 After a visit to Shelley at Marlow, Hunt went 
 to live at Hampstead, in the spring of 1816; 
 and there he finished his most important poem, 
 and the work with which his genius is perhaps 
 most definitely associated. The Story of Rimini. It 
 was written in what he himself called his " first 
 manner " — not his best, he thought ; Imt here his 
 own judgment w\as as far astray as Milton's was in 
 deciding the relative merits of Paradise Lost and 
 Paradise Regained. The Story of Rimini had been 
 begun at Hastings, more than a year before his 
 imprisonment; but the great part of it bad been 
 written in prison. He afterwards thought it 
 unfortunate that he had selected the subject of 
 " Dante's famous episode," thus inviting a com- 
 parison or involuntary contrast with the prevailing 
 poet of Italy. His poem was published in 181G, 
 and was very soon afterwards republished in Boston
 
 XXll LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 and Philadelphia. In its conception and execution, 
 Hunt was inspired hy Boccaccio and Ariosto, as well 
 as by Dante, and, whatever its minor defects may 
 be, there can be little doubt that he helped to emanci- 
 pate the literature of his time from the trammels 
 of conventionality, almost as much as Wordsworth 
 had done in another direction. He had gone back 
 from the monotonous pomp and stilted artificiality 
 of Pope to the naturalness of Chaucer as recast by 
 Dryden. Dryden, in fact, was his chief master. 
 He says, " I could not rest till I had played on his 
 instrument." There may be much in The Story of 
 Rimini that is capricious, and even incongruous ; 
 but it excels in pathos, and has the free sweep of 
 successful narrative art. In some things he even 
 excelled Dryden, and in comparing himself with 
 his master, he justly said that he had "a more 
 southern insight into the beauties of colour." Those 
 who know The Story of Rimini will recall the pass- 
 age descriptive of a May morning at Eavenna : — 
 
 The sun is np, and 'tis a morn of May 
 
 Round old Ravenna's clear-shown towers and hay. 
 
 A morn, the loveliest which the year has seen, 
 
 Last of the spring, yet fresh with all its green ; 
 
 For a warm eve, and gentle rains at night. 
 
 Have left a sparkling welcome for the light, 
 
 And there's a crystal clearness all about ; 
 
 The leaves are sharp, the distant hills look out ; 
 
 A balmy briskness comes upon the breeze ; 
 
 The smoke goes dancing from the cottage trees ; 
 
 And when you listen, you may hear a coil 
 
 Of bubbling springs about the grassy soil ; 
 
 And all the scene, iu short — sky, earth, and sea. 
 
 Breathes like a bright-eyed face that laughs out openly.
 
 PREFATORY MEMOIR. Xxiii 
 
 'Tis naturo, full of spirits, waked and springing ; 
 
 The birds to the delicious time are singing, 
 
 Darting -nith freaks and snatches up and down. 
 
 Where the light woods go seaward from the town ; 
 
 While happy faces, striking through the green 
 
 Of leafy roads, at every turn are seen ; 
 
 And the far ships, lifting their sails of white 
 
 Like joyful hands, come up with scattery light, 
 
 Come gleaming up, true to the wished for day, 
 
 And chase the whistling brine, and swirl into the bay. 
 
 Already in the streets the stir grows loud 
 
 Of expectation and a bustling crowd. 
 
 With feet and voice the gathering hum contends, 
 
 The deep talk heaves, the ready laugh ascends ; 
 
 Callings, and clapping doors, and curs unite. 
 
 And shouts from mere exuberance of delight : 
 
 And armed bands, making important Avay, 
 
 Gallant and grave, the lords of holiday ; 
 
 And nodding neighbours, greeting as they run, 
 
 And pilgrims, chanting in the morning sun. 
 
 Charles Lamb's judgment on Rimini was most 
 cordial, and another friend described it as the work 
 of a mind " bearing between Byron, Wordsworth, 
 and Dryden, — catching from each, and winding 
 itself up into a whole of its own." 
 
 The Autobiorjraphy at this period contains many 
 interesting anecdotes of Shelley, Keats, Charles 
 Lamb, and Coleridge, and a great deal of suggestive 
 and incisive criticism of the merits of these poets. 
 Hunt was now one of that brilliant set of men of 
 letters in the metropolis who flourished during the 
 first quarter of the present century, and which in- 
 cluded, in addition to the poets just named, other 
 writers scarcely less distinguished, such as Procter, 
 Haydon, Hazlitt, Eeyuolds, Dilke, and Cowden 
 Clarke ; and we soon find bis influence telling even
 
 XXIV LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 on the literary work of some of them. Probably 
 of all his contemporaries, it was toward Shelley that 
 he was at this time chiefly drawn. In proportion 
 to the abuse of the orthodox writers of the hour 
 was the cordial defence and enliglitened criticism 
 of Prometheus Unbound in the pages of the Examiner. 
 Both men were dissenters from the traditions of the 
 majority, on some important subjects ; while both 
 were ardent lovers of liberty, and of the public good, 
 as against privilege and tyranny. About this time 
 Hunt started another weekly paper, called the 
 Indicator, which contained some admirable essays. 
 It was not w^ell supported, however, and had but a 
 short lease of life. 
 
 Very soon after his release from prison, however, 
 Leigh Hunt had to battle with accumulated adver- 
 sity. The sky became overcast with cloud on 
 every side, and his affairs were embarrassed. His 
 own health, and that of his wife, grew feeble, 
 while the circulation of the Examiner fell off. 
 A different policy from that which it advocated 
 was now dominant in Europe. Shelley, who was 
 living on the Continent, and who had often invited 
 Hunt to visit him there, renewed his request; and 
 a definite proposal was made by Shelley and Byron 
 together, that he should take up his residence in 
 Italy, in order that the three might advocate in 
 concert a line of liberal policy which could not be 
 so easily carried out in England. " Put your music 
 and your books on board a vessel," wrote Shelley,
 
 PREFATORY MEJrOIR. XXV 
 
 " and you will have no more trouble." Shelley's 
 account of the proposal, in his Letters from Italy, 
 shows that Byron was the originator of it. He 
 (Byron) had first offered it to Thomas Moore, but 
 the proposal fell through. He then wished the 
 triple arrangement with himself, Shelley, and Hunt. 
 Shelley very generously declined to share the profit 
 of any scheme in which Byron and Hunt had the 
 chief part, wishing only to be a link of connection 
 between them. In a characteristic letter to Shelley, 
 written from Hampstead in September 1821, Hunt 
 begins, " We are coming," and ends, " Italy, Italy, 
 Italy, w^here we hope soon to grasp the hands of 
 the best friends in the world." His account of the 
 voyage, setting out from the Thames on November 
 16, 1821, and only getting as far as Dartmouth 
 by the 22nd of December! starting again from Ply- 
 mouth in INTay 1822, and reaching Italy in June' 
 — a voyage not inaptly compared to that of Ulysses 
 — is very graphically told in the AiitoMograjjhy. 
 
 Nothing, however, in Hunt's career was more 
 injudicious, or more unfortunate, than his acceptance 
 of this proposal to leave England for Italy. To 
 work in literary co-partnership witli so fitful and 
 unpractical a man as Byron — the periodical they 
 were to edit together, and which was to be called 
 the Tjibcral, not yet having any existence — was the 
 most foolish thing he ever attempted, Avitli the pos- 
 sible exception of the subsequent publication of his 
 book on Lord Byron and liis Contemjjoraries. The
 
 XXVI LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 Hunts landed at Leghorn in July, and there they 
 ■were joined by Shelley — a most joyous meeting. 
 They went together to visit Byron at Monte Nero. 
 Shelley had already taken the Palazzo Villa Franca 
 on the Lung' Arno at Pisa for him ; and there the 
 friends all met. Thornton Hunt recalls to us 
 Shelley's reading aloud some passages from Plato 
 to his father, and his taking leave shortly after- 
 wards, in his yacht Don Juan, on the fatal voyage 
 to Lerici, to bring Mrs. Shelley over. The dread- 
 ful result of that voyage is known to every one. 
 Shelley's death was an appalling calamity to Hunt. 
 He wrote to Mary Shelley, " I belong to those 
 whom Shelley loves, and all that which it is 
 possible for me to do for them now and ever is 
 theirs. I will grieve with them, endure with them, 
 and, if it be necessary, work for them, while I have 
 life." 
 
 Shelley's death was also a death-blow to the 
 Liberal. Pour numbers appeared, and these con- 
 tained Shelley's translation of the May-Day Night 
 in Faust, and Byron's Vision of Judgment, with 
 others of his poems. More than half of the papers, 
 however, were written by Hunt, although he did not 
 reckon them among his best efforts. He thought 
 them even dull. The truth is, that he was far 
 from well during all of that year. In 1820 Byron 
 went from Italy to Greece, leaving Hunt at Genoa 
 to manage the Lihcral, and his own affairs, as best 
 he could. A radical incongruity of taste and tern-
 
 PREFATORY 31EM0IR. XXVil 
 
 perament already divided the two poets ; but it 
 deserves to be recorded that — although Hunt and 
 Byron separated — the former described the Vision 
 of Judgment as " the best satire since the days of 
 Pope. Churchill's satires compared with it are as 
 bludgeons compared with steel of Damascus." 
 
 Hunt stayed on in Italy for two years. He 
 subsequently found the climate suit him well, and 
 during his residence he translated Eadi's Bacco in 
 Toscana, and wrote a work, which he afterwards 
 published in England, viz. the Religion of the Heart. 
 He lived for the most part at Genoa, and his de- 
 scriptions of that city are delightful. The same is 
 true of what he says of Florence and other Tuscan 
 towns, as well as of Italy in general, e.g. : " You 
 learn for the first time in this climate what colours 
 really are. Xo wonder it produces iminters." . . . 
 '' Italy is a wonderful nation, always at the head 
 of the world in some respects, great or small, and 
 equally full of life." 
 
 He returned to England in 1825, and lived first 
 at Higligate. One reason for his return was a 
 family difference with his brother John, as to their 
 respective proprietary rights in the Examiner. The 
 difference was settled by arbitration, but the decision 
 having been in Leigh Hunt's favour, the brothers 
 became estranged ; and years afterwards, when 
 family feeling brought them together again, the 
 whole difference was seen, as is so often the case, 
 to have had no deeper root than a mutual mis-
 
 XXVlll LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 understanding. On his return, he says : " I took 
 possession of my old English scenery and my 
 favourite haunts, with a delight proportionate to 
 the difference of their beauty from beautiful Italy. 
 For a true lover of nature does not require the 
 contrast of good and bad in order to be delighted ; 
 he is better pleased with harmonious variety. He 
 is content to wander from beauty to beauty, not 
 losing his love for the one because he loves the 
 other. A variation in a fine theme of nmsic is 
 better than a good song after a bad one. It retains 
 none of the bitterness of fault-finding. ... In 
 England I was at home ; and in English scenery 
 I found my old friend, ' pastoral,' still more 
 pastoral." He soon resumed his old literary ac- 
 quaintanceships with Lamb, Campbell, and others ; 
 and made new ones. Mary Shelley wrote telling 
 him that, as her husband intended to leave him a 
 legacy of £2000, she had made a will leaving him 
 that amount. 
 
 Some lines he wrote about this time, which he 
 called " Gipsy June," record the delights which he 
 found in his native country in that month. Here 
 is an extract from them : — 
 
 Oh ! could I walk roimd the earth 
 With a heart to share my mirth, 
 "With a look to love me ever, 
 Thoughtful much, but sullen never, 
 I could be content to see 
 June and no variety. 
 Loitering here and living there, 
 AVith a book ami frugal fare.
 
 PREFATORY MEMOIR. XXIX 
 
 With a finer gipsy-time 
 And a cuckoo in the clime, 
 "Work at morn and mirth at noon, 
 And sleep beneath the sacred moon. 
 
 Hunt's book on Lord Byron is certainly a regret- 
 table performance. Although it is entirely just in 
 much of its criticism, he should have left tliat 
 criticism to others. He had been Byron's friend ; 
 and, with all his faults, Byron had been kind to him 
 in many ways. The attack provoked natural and 
 obvious rejoinders, under which its author winced. 
 
 Domestic sorrows crowded on Hunt at this time. 
 One of the most touchinGj letters he ever wrote was 
 in September 1827, after the death of one of his 
 boys. He said : " There is nothing worth contesting 
 here below, except who shall be kindest to one 
 another. There seems to be something in these 
 moments [of loss] by which life recommences 
 with the surviving, — I mean we seem to be begin- 
 ning, in a manner, the world again, with calmer 
 if with sadder thoughts ; and, wiping our eyes, and 
 readjusting the burden on our backs, to set out 
 anew on our roads, with a greater wish to help and 
 console one another." 
 
 During the next ten years Hunt's life in London 
 was a series of failures rather than a record of 
 successes. The Cliat of the Week was a semi- 
 literary, semi-artistic journal, which was suppressed 
 by the Stamp Otfice very soon after its appearance, 
 because it was publislied without a stamp, and yet 
 gave " news." Nothing could belter illustrate the
 
 XXX LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 iiHpracticality of Hunt's work. The Chat of the 
 Week was followed in 1831 by the Tatlcr. The 
 difficulty of combining literature with an epitome 
 and criticism of passing events is considerable ; and 
 it required qualities which Hunt did not possess. 
 The Tatlcr was followed by the London Journal, and 
 the Monthly Repository. 
 
 Each of these were literary meteors in the social 
 and political firmament. Vivid insight, sparkling 
 criticism, wide knowledge, and extensive sympathy, 
 were seen in all of them ; but Hunt seems to have 
 been incapable not only of managing business details 
 himself, but also of knowing how others could help 
 him. In the Tatlcr he had the assistance of Barry 
 Cornwall ; in the Bcpository that of Walter Savage 
 Landor ; but no amount of assistance from the most 
 gifted writers of the day could have kept those 
 magazines alive for any length of time. Hunt 
 had none of the tact and the give-and-take policy 
 which are essential in order to work with literary 
 assistants. The London Journal was started in 
 partnership with Charles Knight. It promised 
 well, but the labour devoted to it was greater than 
 the return. Hunt's want of a sense of the pro- 
 portion of things led him to spend time on details, 
 and in verifying them, out of all proportion to the 
 value of the result obtained. His original works, 
 however, were better than his serials, and they 
 were relatively more successful. Captain Sword 
 and Captain Pen (1839) — a poem in which he
 
 PREFATORY MEMOIR. XXXI 
 
 contrasts the achievements of war and of peace — 
 was excellent. In 1840 he edited a collection of 
 the plays of Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and 
 Farquhar; and in the same year published an 
 original drama which he called the Lcrjcnd of 
 Florence. This play was for a time admitted 
 to the stage, and was performed at Covent Garden 
 theatre with success. It was followed by his 
 comedy, Lovers Amazements. A narrative poem, the 
 Palfrey, appeared in 1842, when he became for the 
 first time a contributor to The Edinhurgh Eevieio. 
 
 In 1833 Hunt had gone to live in Upper 
 Clieyne Iiow, Chelsea, which was his residence for 
 seven years. There he wrote The Year of Honey- 
 moons, for the BidVs Court Magazine (1833). 
 His residence in Chelsea was marked by much 
 suffering and domestic embarrassment. He left it 
 in 1840, and removed to Kensington, where he 
 stayed eleven years. It was at Kensington that he 
 began to write for the Edinlurgh. He was not a 
 Iladical of the extreme democratic type. He disliked 
 the exclusiveness of the Tories, but he as cordially 
 disliked the loud utterances of the demagogue. 
 
 For more than a quarter of a century Leigh 
 Hunt had undergone a severe struggle with mis- 
 fortune and embarrassment. The annuity from 
 the Shelley family, received by him in 1844, and a 
 civil list pension, secured by Lord John Eussell 
 in 1847, — amounting together to £350 per annum, 
 — enabled him, however, to devote his remaining
 
 XXXU LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 years to literary works, which are quite as delightful 
 as auy of his earlier efforts. Sir Percy Shelley, the 
 son of his old friend, set aside for him £120 a year, 
 believing that in so doing he was carrying out his 
 father's wishes. Mary Shelley, in writing to Hunt 
 of her son's intentions in 1844, describes to us 
 " the accomplishment of 0]ie of the million generous 
 desires of Shelley's heart — a practical embodiment 
 of that poetry, which was lost to this world just as 
 it was becoming happily associated with its realities." 
 Hunt's literary work, while residing in Kensington, 
 was very versatile. The titles of his books will show 
 the fertility of his mind, and the variety of his 
 labour: — Ralph Eshcr (1844); Imagination ajicl 
 i^cmc?/ (1844) ; Wit and Humuur (184G); Stories 
 of the Italian Poets (1846); Men, Women, and 
 Books (1847) ; A Jar of Honey from 3Iount Hyhla 
 (1848); Tlie Toivii, its MemoraUe Characters and 
 Events (1848); A Book for a Corner (1849); the 
 AutoUocjraphy (1850); Talk Talk (1851); The Old 
 Court Sahurh (1855), descriptive of Kensington; 
 and his Stories in Verse, published in the same year. 
 These are memorials of twelve years' literary toil 
 and productiveness, almost rivalling the work of 
 Southey. Like Southey, he was a man of letters, 
 whose home was his library. The Autohiography is 
 an extremely interesting psychological study. It is 
 less a chronicle of events than a record of the 
 impressions and ideas which events made upon 
 him. Hunt's correspondence from Kensington,
 
 PREFATORY MEMOIR. XXXIU 
 
 as reproduced by his son Thornton, is very 
 
 interesting. 
 
 Of his daily manner of life, his son tells us that 
 
 he " habitually came down too late to breakfast, and 
 
 he was no sooner seated sidewise at the table than he 
 
 began to read. After breakfast he repaired to his 
 
 study, where he remained till he went out to take his 
 
 walk. He sometimes read at dinner, though not 
 
 always. At some periods of his life he would sleep 
 
 after dinner ; but usually he retired from the table 
 
 to read. He read at tea-time, and all the evening; 
 
 read or wrote " — not the most agreeable domestic 
 
 companion, one should say ! " He was rather tall, 
 
 as straight as an arrow, and looked slenderer than 
 
 he really was. His hair was black and shining, and 
 
 slightly inclined to wave ; his head was high, liis 
 
 forehead straight and white, his eyes black and 
 
 sparkling, his general complexion dark. There was 
 
 in his whole carriage and manner an extraordinary 
 
 degree of life. . . . Few men were more attractive 
 
 in society, whether in a large company or over the 
 
 fireside. His manners were peculiarly animated ; 
 
 his conversation, varied, ranging over a wide field of 
 
 subjects, was moved and called forth by the response 
 
 of his companion, be that companion philosopher or 
 
 student, sage or boy, man or woman ; and he was 
 
 equally ready for the most lively topics, or for the 
 
 frravest reflections. With such freedom of manners 
 
 he combined a courtesy that never failed, and a 
 
 considerateness that fascinated even strangers. . . . 
 
 c
 
 XXXIV LEIGH HUNT, 
 
 His seclusion arose from no dislike to society. 
 To his very latest clays he preferred to have com- 
 panions with him ; but it was necessary to be 
 surrounded by his books. He used to ascribe this 
 propensity to his two years' seclusion in prison. . . . 
 Perhaps the mastering trait in his character was a 
 conscientiousness, which was carried even to ex- 
 tremes. . . . No man ever lived who was more 
 prepared to make thorough work with the practice 
 of his own precepts ; and his precepts were always 
 noble in their spirit, charitable in their construc- 
 tion. ... To promote the happiness of his kind, to 
 minister to the more educated appreciation of order 
 and beauty, to open more widely the door of the 
 library, and more widely the window of the library 
 looking out upon Nature, — these were the purposes 
 that guided his studies, and animated his labour to 
 the very last." This is high praise, but, making 
 allowance for filial exaggeration, it is doubtless 
 not unmerited. Another sentence from his son 
 Thornton's preface to his father's correspondence 
 may be quoted : " It was stedfast fidelity to the 
 principle of hopeful industry in cultivating the best 
 influences of life that so specially endeared Leigh 
 Hunt even to those who never saw him personally." 
 
 There is little to record of the closing years of 
 his life. He died at Outlcy in 1859. 
 
 In his literary work, with many mannerisms 
 and some prolixity. Hunt is never dull, or 
 prosaic, or commonplace. Great fertility of mind,
 
 PREFATORY MEMOIR. XXXV 
 
 a genuine entluisiasm for literature, a liappy art in 
 prose criticism, the note of absolute sincerity in all 
 he wrote, and a certain delicacy, evejii a felicity of 
 style, — all these are characteristic of Leigh Hunt. 
 Admirable alike as a translator, a critic, an essayist, 
 and a poet, his criticism is perhaps superior to his 
 poetry. With the single exception of his book 
 on Byron, it may be said that a healthy note is 
 invariably struck by him, and that a serene aud 
 sympathetic spirit pervades his work from first to 
 last. It is the healthiness of his genius that gives, 
 to both his prose and his poetry, the sparkle which 
 they possess. I have already compared him with 
 Southey. As a man of letters — a writer of stories 
 in verse or prose — he was almost as industrious 
 as the laureate. Throudiout his whole life his 
 thoughts were quite as much with the dead as with 
 the living ; and he looked up with genuine reverence 
 to every great author to whom he owed a debt of 
 influence. Appreciative sympathy was the charac- 
 teristic feature of his mind and heart, and it is 
 visible in all his works. 
 
 WILLIAM KNIGHT.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I'AfiE 
 
 I. The Florentine Lovers, .... 1 
 
 II. The Beau Miser, and what Happened to him 
 
 AT Brighton, ..... 26 
 
 III. Jack Abbott's Breakfast, ... 37 
 
 IV. Galgano and Madonna Minoccia, . . 63 
 V. The Nurture ok Triptolemus, . . .72 
 
 VI. The Fair Kevenge, .... 80 
 
 VII. Vee-Vert ; or, the Parrot oi' the Ncns, . 87 
 
 VIII. The Adventures of Cephalus and Procris, . 10-1 
 
 IX. The Day of the Disasters of Carfington 
 
 Blundell, Esquire, ..... 118 
 
 X, The Shoemaker op Vetros, . . . .140 
 
 XI. Ronald of the Perfect Hand, . . . 1 IG 
 
 XII. The Daughter of Hippocrates, . . .158 
 
 XIII. GODIVA 166
 
 XXXVlll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XIV. The Italian Giul, . . . . .171 
 
 XV. The True Stoky of Vertumxus and Pomona, . 179 
 
 XVI. The Destruction of the Cenci Family, . . 191 
 
 XVII. PuLCi, 1205 
 
 XVIII. Farinetta and Farinonna ; or. How to make 
 Five Pleasures of One, and be in Five 
 Plages at Once, ..... 218 
 
 XIX. A Year of Honeymoons, .... 2-31 
 
 XX. A Tale for a Chimney Corner, . . . 312 
 
 XXI. Charles Brandon, and Mary Queen of France, 323 
 
 XXII. Gilbert ! Gilbert ! 327 
 
 XXIII. The Mountain of the Two Lovers, . . 330 
 
 XXIV. The Hamadryad, . . . . . 33i 
 XXV. A Novel Party, . . . . .337 
 
 XXVI. The Bull-Fight, 351 
 
 XXVII. The Marriage of Belphegor, . . . 360 
 
 XXVIII. The Generous Women, . , . .374
 
 TALES
 
 THE FLORENTIXE LOVERS. 
 
 At the time when Florence was divided into the two 
 fierce parties of Guelfs and Ghibelines, there was great 
 hostihty between two families of the name of Bardi and 
 Buondelmonte. It was seldom that love took place 
 between individuals of houses so divided; but when it 
 did, it Avas proportionately vehement, either because the 
 individuals themselves were vehement in all their passions, 
 or because love, falling upon two gentle hearts, made 
 them the more pity and love one another, to find them- 
 selves in so unnatural a situation. 
 
 Of this latter kind was an affection that took place 
 between a young lady of the family of Bardi, called 
 Dianora d'Amerigo, and a youth of the other family, 
 whose name was Ippolito. The girl Avas about fifteen, 
 and in the full flower of her beauty and sweetness. 
 Ippolito was about three years older, and looked two or 
 three more on account of a certain gravity and deep 
 regard in the upper part of his face. You might know 
 by his lips that he could love well, and by his eyes that 
 he could keep the secret. There was a likeness, as some- 
 times happens, between the two lovers, and perhaps 
 this was no mean help to their passion ; for as we find 
 painters often giving their own faces to their heroes, so 
 the more excusable vanity of lovers deliglits to find that 
 resemblance in one another, wdiich Plato said was only 
 the divorced half of the original human being rushing 
 into communion with the other
 
 2 LEIGH HUNT, 
 
 Be this as it may (aud lovers iu those times were not 
 ignorant of such speculations), it needed but one sight of 
 Dianora d'Amerigo to make Ippolito fall violently in 
 love with her. It was in church on a great holiday. In 
 the South the church has ever been the place where 
 people fall in love. It is there that the young of both 
 sexes oftenest find themselves in each other's company. 
 There the voluptuous that cannot fix their thoughts on 
 heaven find congenial objects, more earthly, to win their 
 attention ; and there the most innocent and devotional 
 spirits, voluptuous also without being aware of it, and 
 not knowing how to vent the grateful pleasure of their 
 hearts, discover their tendency to repose on beings that 
 can show themselves visibly sensible to their joy. The 
 paintings, the perfumes, the music, the Crucifix, the 
 mixture of pious aspiration and earthly ceremony, the 
 draperies, the white vestments of young and old, the 
 boys' voices, the giant candles, typical of the seraphic 
 ministrants about God's altar, the meeting of all ages and 
 all classes, the echoing of the aisles, the lights and 
 shades of the pillars and vaulted roofs, the very struggle 
 of daylight at the lofty windows, as if earth Avere at 
 once present and not present, — all have a tendency to 
 confuse the boundaries of this world and the next, and 
 to set the heart floating in that delicious mixture of 
 elevation and humility, which is ready to sympathize 
 with whatever can preserve to it something like its sen- 
 sations, and save it from the hardness and definite foil}' 
 of ordinary life. It was in a church that Boccaccio, not 
 merely the voluptuous Boccaccio, who is but half known 
 by the half-witted, but Boccaccio, the future painter of 
 the Falcon and the Pot of Basil, first saw the beautiful 
 face of his Fiammetta. In a church, Petrarch felt the 
 sweet shadow fall on him that darkened his life for 
 twenty years after. And the fond gratitude of the local 
 historian of a tale of true love, has left it on record, that
 
 THE FLORENTINE LOVERS. d 
 
 it was in the cliurcli of St. Giovanni at Florence, and 
 on tlie great day of Pardon, which falls on the 13th 
 of January, that Ippolito de' Buondelmonte became 
 enamoured of Dianora d'Amerigo. 
 
 When the people were about to leave church, Ippolito, 
 in turning to speak to an acquaintance, lost sight of his 
 unknown beauty. He made haste to plant himself at 
 the door, telling his companion that he should like to 
 see the ladies come out ; for he had not the courage to 
 say which lady. When he saw Dianora appear, he 
 changed colour, and saw nothing else. Yet though he 
 beheld, and beheld her distinctly, so as to carry away 
 every feature in his heart, it seemed to him afterwards 
 that he had seen her only as in a dream. She glided by 
 him like a thing of heaven, drawing her veil over her 
 head. As he had not had the courage to speak to her, 
 he had still less the courage to ask her name ; but he 
 Avas saved the trouble. 
 
 " God and St. John bless her beautiful face ! " cried a 
 beggar at the door; "she always gives double of any one 
 else." 
 
 "Curse her!" muttered IppoUto's acquaintance; "she 
 is one of the Bardi." 
 
 The ear of the lover heard both these exclamations, 
 and they made an indelible impression. Being a lover 
 of books and poetry, and intimate with the most liberal 
 of the two parties, such as Dante Alighieri (afterwards so 
 famous) and Guido Cavalcanti, Ippolito, though a warm 
 partizan himself, and implicated in a fierce encounter 
 that had lately taken place between some persons on 
 horseback, had been saved from the worst feelings at- 
 tendant on political hostility, and they now appeared to 
 him odious. He had no thought, it is true, of forgiving 
 one of the old Bardi, who had cut his father down from 
 his horse, but he would now have sentenced the whole 
 party to a milder banishment than before ; and to curse
 
 4 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 a female belonging to it, and that female Dianora ! — he 
 differed with the stupid fellow that had done it when- 
 ever they met afterwards. 
 
 It was a heavy reflection to Ippolito to think that he 
 could not see his mistress in her own house. She had a 
 father and mother living as well as himself, and was 
 surrounded with relations. It was a heavier still that he 
 knew not how to make her sensible of his passion ; and 
 the heaviest of all that, being so lovely, she would cer- 
 tainly be carried off by another husband. What was he 
 to do 1 He had no excuse for writing to her ; and as to 
 serenading her under her window, unless he meant to 
 call all the neighbonrs to witness his temerity, and lose 
 his life at once in that braAvling age, it was not to be 
 thought of. He Avas obliged to content himself with 
 watching, as well as he could, the windows of her abode, 
 following her about whenever he saw her leave it, and 
 with pardonable vanity trying to catch her attention by 
 some little action that should give her a good thought of 
 the stranger, such as anticipating her in giving alms to a 
 beggar. We must even record, that on one occasion he 
 contrived to stumble against a dog and tread on his toes, 
 in order that he might ostentatiously help the poor beast 
 out of the way. But his day of delight was church-day. 
 Not a fast, not a feast did he miss ; not a Sunday, nor a 
 saint's-day. 
 
 "The devotion of that young gentleman," said an old 
 widow lady, her aunt, who was in the habit of accompany- 
 ing Dianora, " is indeed edifying ; and yet he is a mighty 
 pretty youth, and might waste his time in sins and 
 vanities with the gayest of them." And the old widow 
 lady sighed, doubtless out of a tender pity for the gay. 
 Her recommendation of Ippolito to her niece's notice 
 would have been little applauded by her family ; but, to 
 say the truth, she was not responsible. His manoeuvres 
 and constant presence had already gained Dianora's atten-
 
 THE FLORENTINE LOVERS, 5 
 
 tion ; and, with all the unaffected instinct of an Italian, 
 she was not long in suspecting who it was tliat attracted 
 his devotions, and in wishing very heartily that they might 
 continue. She longed to learn who he was, but felt the 
 same want of courage as he himself had experienced. 
 
 "Did you observe," said the aunt, one day after leaving 
 church, " how the poor boy blushed, because he did not 
 catch my eye ? Truly, such modesty is very rare." 
 
 "Dear aunt," replied Dianora, witli a mixture of real 
 and affected archness, of pleasure and of gratitude, "I 
 thought you never wished me to notice the faces of 
 young men." 
 
 " i^ot of young men, niece," returned the aunt gravely ; 
 " not of persons of twenty-eight, or thirty, or so, nor indeed 
 of youths in general, however young; but then this 
 youth is very different ; and the most innocent of us may 
 look, once in a way or so, at so very modest and respect- 
 ful a young gentleman. I say respectful, because when 
 I gave him a slight courtesy of acknowledgment, or so, 
 for making way for me in the aisle, he bowed to me with 
 so solemn and thankful an air as if the favour had come 
 from me, which was extremely polite : and if he is very 
 handsome, poor boy! how can he help that? Saints 
 have been handsome in their days — ay, and young, or 
 their pictures are not at all like, which is impossible; 
 and I am sure St. Dominic himself, in the wax-work — 
 God forgive me I — hardly looks sweeter and humbler at 
 the INIadonna and Child, than he did at me and you, 
 as we went by," 
 
 " Dear aunt," rejoined Dianora, " I did not mean to 
 reproach you, I'm sure; but, sweet aunt, we do not know 
 him, you know ; and, you know " — 
 
 " Know ! " cried the old lady ; " I'm sure I know him as 
 well as if he were my own aunt's son, which might not 
 be impossible, though she is a little younger than myself ; 
 and if he were my own, I should not be ashamed."
 
 6 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 " And who, tlieu," inquired Dianora, scarcely articulat- 
 ing her words, — " who, then, is he 1 " 
 
 "Who?" said the aunt; "why, the most edifying 
 young gentleman in all Florence, that's who he is ; and 
 it does not signify what he is else, manifestly being a 
 gentleman as he is, and one of the noblest, I warrant ; 
 and I wish you may have no worse husband, child, when 
 you come to marry, though there is time enough to think 
 of that. Young ladies, now-a-days, are always for know- 
 ing who everybody is, who he is, and what he is, and 
 whether he is this person or that person, or is of the 
 Grand Prior's side, or the Archbishop's side, and what 
 not ; and all this before they will allow him to be even 
 handsome, which, I am sure, was not so in my youngest 
 days. It is all right and proper, if matrimony is con- 
 cerned, or if they are in danger of marrying below their 
 condition, or a profane person, or one that's hideous, or a 
 heretic ; but to admire an evident young saint, and one 
 that never misses church, Sunday or saint's-day, or any 
 day, for aught that I sec, is a thing that, if anything, 
 shows we may hope for the company of young saints 
 hereafter ; and if so very edifying a young gentleman is 
 also respectful to the ladies, was not the blessed St. 
 Francis himself of his opinion in that matter 1 And did 
 not the seraphical St. Teresa admire him the more for it? 
 And does not St. Paul, in his very epistles, send his best 
 respects to the Ladies Tryphoena and Tryphosa? And 
 was there ever woman in the New Testament (with 
 reverence be it spoken, if we may say women of such 
 blessed females) — was there ever woman, I say, in the New 
 Testament, not even excepting jNIadonna and Magdalen, 
 who had been possessed Avith seven devils (which is not 
 so many by half as some ladies I could mention), nor 
 Madonna, the other poor lady, whom the unforgiving 
 hypocrites wanted to stone " (and here the good old lady 
 wept, out of a mixture of devotion and gratitude), — "was
 
 THE FLOREKTINE LOVERS. 7 
 
 there one of all these Avomon, or any other, whom our 
 Blessed Lord Himself " (and here the tears came into the 
 gentle eyes of Dianora) "did not treat with all that 
 sweetness, and kindness, and tenderness, and brotherly 
 love, which, like all His other actions, and as the ser- 
 aphical Father Antonio said the other day in the pulpit, 
 proved Him to be not only from heaven, but the truest of 
 all nobles on earth, and a natural gentleman born 1 " 
 
 We know not how many more reasons the good old lady 
 would have given why all the feelings of poor Dianora's 
 heart, not excepting her very religion, which was truly 
 one of them, should induce her to encourage her affection 
 for Ippolito. By the end of this sentence they had 
 arrived at their home, and the poor youth returned to his. 
 We say " poor " of both lovers, for by this time they had 
 both become sufficiently enamoured to render their cheeks 
 the paler for discovering their respective families, which 
 Dianora had now done as well as Ippolito. 
 
 A circumstance on the Sunday following had nearly 
 discovered them, not only to one another, but to all the 
 world. Dianora had latterly never dared to steal a look 
 at Ippolito, for fear of seeing his eyes upon her; and 
 Ippolito, who was less certain of her regard for him than 
 herself, imagined that he had somehow offended her. A 
 few Sundays before she had sent him home bounding for 
 joy. There had been two places empty where he was 
 kneeling, one near him, and the other a little farther off. 
 The aunt and the niece, who came in after him, and 
 found themselves at the spot where he Avas, were per- 
 plexed which of the tAvo places to choose ; when it 
 seemed to Ippolito, that by a little movement of her arm, 
 Dianora decided for the one nearest him. He had also 
 another delight. The old lady, in the course of the 
 service, turned to her niece, and asked her Avhy she did 
 not sing as usual. Dianora boAved her head, and, in a 
 minute or tAvo afterAvarils, Ippolito heard the sA\'eetcst
 
 8 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 voice in the world, low indeed, almost to a whisper, hut 
 audible to him. He thought it trembled ; and he trembled 
 also. It seemed to thrill within his spirit, in the same 
 manner that the organ thrills through the body. No 
 such symptom of preference occurred afterwards. The 
 ladies did not come so near him, whatever pains he took 
 to occupy so much room before they came in, and then 
 make room when they appeared. However, he was self- 
 satisfied as well as ingenious enough in his reasonings on 
 the subject, not to lay much stress upon this behaviour, 
 till it lasted week after week, and till he never again 
 found Dianora looking even towards the quarter in which 
 he sat : for it is our duty to confess, that if the lovers 
 were two of the devoutest of the congregation, which is 
 certain, they were apt also, at intervals, to be the least 
 attentive ; and, furthermore, that they would each pre- 
 tend to look towards places at a little distance from the 
 desired object, in order that they might take in, with the 
 sidelong power of the eye, the presence and look of one 
 another. But for some time Dianora had ceased even to 
 do this ; and though Ippolito gazed on her the more 
 steadfastly, and saw that she was paler than before, he 
 began to persuade himself that it was not on his account. 
 At length, a sort of desperation urged him to get nearer 
 to her, if she would not condescend to come near himself ; 
 and, on the Sunday in question, scarcely knowing what 
 he did, or how he saw, felt, or breathed, he knelt right 
 down beside her. There was a pillar next him, which 
 luckily kept him somewhat in the shade ; and, for a 
 moment, he leaned his forehead against the cold marble, 
 which revived him. Dianora did not know he was by 
 her. She did not sing ; nor did the aunt ask her. She 
 kept one unaltered position, looking upon her mass-book, 
 and he thought she did this on purpose. Ippolito, who 
 had become Aveak with his late struggles of mind, felt 
 almost suffocated with his sensations. He was kneeling
 
 THE FLORENTINE LOVKltS. 9 
 
 side by side with her ; her idea, her presence, her very 
 drapery, which was all that he dared to feel himself in 
 contact with, the consciousness of kneeling with her in 
 the presence of Him whom tender hearts implore for pity 
 on their infirmities, all rendered him intensely sensible of 
 his situation. By a strong effort, he endeavoured to turn 
 his self-pity into a feeling entirely religious ; but when 
 he put his hands together, he felt the tears ready to gush 
 away so irrepressibly, that he did not dare it. At last 
 the aunt, who had, in fact, looked about for him, recognised 
 him with some surprise, and more pleasure. She had 
 begun to suspect his secret ; and though she knew who 
 he was, and that the two families were at variance, yet a 
 great deal of good-nature, a sympathy with pleasures of 
 which no woman had tasted more, and some considerable 
 disputes she had had lately with another old lady, her 
 kinswoman, on the subject of politics, determined her upon 
 at least giving the two lovers that sort of encouragement 
 which arises, not so much from any decided object we 
 have in view, as from a certain vague sense of benevo- 
 lence, mixed with a lurking wish to have our own Avay. 
 Accordingly, the well-meaning old widow lady, without 
 much consideration, and loud enough for Ippolito to hear, 
 whispered her niece to "let the gentleman next her read 
 in her book, as he seemed to have forgotten to bring his 
 own." Dianora, without lifting her eyes, and never 
 suspecting who it was, moved her book sideways, with a 
 courteous inclination of the head, for the gentleman to 
 take it. He did so. He held it with her. He could 
 not hinder his hand from shaking ; but Dianora's reflec- 
 tions were so occupied upon one whom she little thought 
 so near her, that she did not perceive it. At length tlie 
 book tottered so in his hand that she could not but 
 notice it. She turned to see if the gentleman Avas ill ; 
 and instantly looked back again. She felt that she her- 
 self was too weak to look at liini, and, whispering to her
 
 10 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 aunt, " I am very unwell," the ladies rose and made their 
 way out of the church. As soon as she felt the fresh air 
 she fainted, and was carried home ; and it happened, at 
 the same moment, that Ippolito, unable to keep his feel- 
 ings to himself, leaned upon the marble pillar at which 
 he was kneeling, and groaned aloud. He fancied she had 
 left him in disdain. Luckily for him, a circumstance of 
 this kind was not unknown in a place where penitents 
 would sometimes be overpowered by a sense of their 
 crimes ; and though Ippolito was recognised by some, 
 they concluded he had not been the innocent person they 
 supposed. They made up their minds in future that his 
 retired and. bookish habits, and his late evident suffering, 
 were alike the result of some dark offence ; and among 
 these persons, the acquaintance who had cursed Dianora 
 when he first beheld her, was glad to be one ; for, 
 without knowing his passion for her, much less her 
 return of it, which was more than the poor youth knew 
 himself, he envied him for his accomplishments and 
 popularity. 
 
 Ippolito dragged himself home, and after endeavouring 
 to move about for a day or two, and to get as far as 
 Dianora's abode — an attempt he gave up for fear of 
 being unable to come away again — was fairly obliged to 
 take to his bed. What a mixture of delight with 
 sorrow would he have felt, had he known that his 
 mistress was almost in as bad a state ! The poor aunt, 
 who soon discovered her niece's secret, now found herself 
 in a dreadful dilemma ; and the worst of it was that, 
 being on the female side of the love, and told by Dianora 
 that it would be the death of her if she disclosed it to 
 " Mm," or anybody connected Avith him, or, indeed, any- 
 body at all, she did not know what steps to take. How- 
 ever, as she believed that at least death might possibly 
 ensue if the dear young people were not assured of each 
 other's love, and certainly did not believe in any such
 
 THE FLORENTINE LOVERS. ] 1 
 
 mortality as Lur niece spoke of, she was about to make 
 her first election out of two or three measures which she 
 was resolved upon taking, Avhen, luckily for the salvation 
 of Dianora's feelings, she was siirprised by a visit from the 
 person whom of all persons in the world she wished to 
 see — Ippolito's mother. 
 
 The two ladies soon came to a mutual understanding, 
 and separated with comfort for their respective patients. 
 We need not wait to describe how a mother came to the 
 knowledge of her son's wishes, nor will it be necessary 
 to relate how delighted the two lovers wore to hear of one 
 another, and to be assured of each other's love. But 
 Ippolito's illness now put on a new aspect ; for the 
 certainty of his being welcome to Dianora, and the 
 easiness with which he saw his mother give way to his 
 inclinations, made him impatient for an interview. 
 Dianora was afraid of encountering him as usual in 
 public ; and he never ceased urging his mother, till she 
 consented to advise with Dianora's aunt upon Avhat was 
 to be done. Indeed, with the usual weakness of those 
 who take any steps, however likely to produce future 
 trouble, rather than continue a present uneasiness, she 
 herself thought it high time to do something for the poor 
 boy ; for the house began to remark on his strange 
 conduct. All his actions were either too quick or too 
 slow. At one time he would start up to perform the 
 most trivial office of politeness, as if he were going to 
 stop a conflagration ; at another, the whole world might 
 move before him without his noticing. He would noAV 
 leap on his horse as if the enemy Averc at the city gates ; 
 and next day, when going to mount it, stop on a sudden, 
 with the reins in his hands, and fall a-musing. "What 
 is the matter with the boy?" said his father, who was 
 impatient at seeing him so little his own master; "has he 
 stolen a box of jewels f for somebody had spread a report 
 that he gambled, and it was observetl that he never had
 
 1 2 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 any money in his pocket. The truth is, he gave it all 
 away to the objects of Dianora's bounty, particularly to 
 the man who blessed her at the chvirch door. One day, 
 his father, who loved a bitter joke, made a young lady, 
 who sat next him at dinner, lay her hand before him 
 instead of the plate ; and, upon being asked why he did 
 not eat, he was very near taking a piece of it for a 
 mouthful. " Oh, the gallant youth ! " cried the father ; 
 and Ippolito blushed up to the eyes, which was taken 
 as a proof that the irony w^as Avell founded. But 
 Ippolito thought of Dianora's hand, how it held the book 
 with him when he knelt by her side ; and, after a little 
 pause, he turned and took up that of the young lady, and 
 begged her pardon with the best grace in the world. 
 "He has the air of a prince," thought his father, "if he 
 would but behave himself like other young men." The 
 young lady thought he had the air of a lover ; and as 
 soon as the meal was over, his mother put on her 
 veil and went to seek a distant relation called Gossip 
 Veronica. 
 
 Gossip Veronica was in a singular position with regard 
 to the two families of Bardi and Buondelmonti. She 
 happened to be related at nearly eqvuxl distances to them 
 both ; and she hardly knew wliether to be prouder of the 
 double relationship, or more annoyed with the evil coun- 
 tenances they showed her, if she did not pay great 
 attention to one of them, and no attention to the other. 
 The pride remained uppermost, as it is apt to do ; and 
 she hazarded all consequences for the pleasure of inviting 
 now some of the young de' Bardi, and now some of the 
 young de' Buondelmonti ; hinting to them when they 
 went away, that it would be as well for them not to say 
 that they had heard anything of the other family's visiting 
 her. The young people were not sorry to keep the matter 
 as secret as possible, because their visits to Gossip Veronica 
 were always restrained, for a long time if anything of the
 
 THE FLORENTIXB LOVERS. 13 
 
 sort transpired ; and thus a spirit of concealment and 
 intrigue was sown in their young minds, which might 
 have turned out worse for Ippohto and Dianora, if their 
 hearts had not been so good. 
 
 But here was a situation for Gossip Veronica ! Dianora's 
 aunt had been with her for some days, hinting that some- 
 thing extraordinary, but, as she hoped, not unpleasant, 
 would be proposed to the good Gossip, which for her part 
 had her grave sanction ; and now came the very mother 
 of the young Buondelmonte to explain to her what this 
 intimation was, and to give her an opportunity of having 
 one of each family in her house at the same time ! There 
 was a great falling off in the beatitude when she under- 
 stood that Ippolito's presence was to be kept a secret from 
 all her visitors that day, except Dianora ; but she Avas 
 reconciled on receiving an intimation that in future the 
 two ladies would have no objection to her inviting 
 whom she pleased to her house, and upon receiving 
 a jewel from each of them as a pledge of their esteem. 
 As to keeping the main secret, it was necessary for all 
 parties. 
 
 Gossip Veronica, for a person in her rank of life, was 
 rich, and had a pleasant villa at jNIonticelli, about half a 
 mile from the city. Thither, on a holiday in September, 
 which Avas kept with great hilarity by the peasants, came 
 Dianora d'Amerigo de' Bardi, attended by her aunt. 
 Madonna Lucrezia, to see, as her mother observed, that 
 no " improper persons " were there; — and thither, before 
 daylight, let in by Signora Veronica herself, at the hazard 
 of her reputation and of the furious jealousy of a young 
 vine-dresser in the neighbourhood, who loved her good 
 things better than anything in the world except her 
 waiting - maid, came the young Ippolito Buondelmonte 
 de' Buondelmonti, looking, as she said, like the morning 
 star. 
 
 The morning star hugged and was hugged with great
 
 14 LBI3H HUNT. 
 
 good-will by the kind Gossip, and then twinkled with 
 impatience from a corner of her chamber window till he 
 saw Dianora. How his heart beat Avhen he beheld her 
 coming up through the avenue ! Veronica met her near 
 the garden gate, and pointed towards the window, as 
 they walked along. Ippolito fancied she spoke of him, 
 but did not know what to think of it, for Dianora did 
 not change countenance, nor do anything but smile good- 
 naturedly on her companion, and ask her apparently some 
 common question. The truth was, she had no suspicion 
 he was there ; though the Gossip, with much smirk- 
 ing and mystery, said she had a little present there for 
 her, and such as her lady-mother approved. Dianora, 
 whom, with all imaginable respect for her, the Gossip had 
 hitherto treated, from long habit, like a child, thought it 
 was some trifle or other, and forgot it next moment. 
 Every step which Ippolito heard on the staircase he 
 fancied was hers, till it passed the door, and never did 
 morning appear to him at once so delicious and so tire- 
 some. To be in the same house with her, what joy ! 
 But to be in the same house Avith her, and not to be able 
 to tell her his love directly, and ask her for hers, and 
 fold her into his very soul, what impatience and misery ! 
 Two or three times there was a knock of some one to be 
 let in ; but it was only the Gossip come to inform him 
 that he must be patient, and that she did not know when 
 Madonna Lucvezia would please to bring Dianora, but 
 most likely after dinner, when the visitors retired to 
 sleep a little. Of all impertinent things, dinner appeared 
 to him the most tiresome and unfit. He wondered how 
 any thinkiiig beings, who might take a cake or a cup of 
 wine by the way, and then proceed to love one another, 
 could sit round a great wooden table, patiently eating of 
 this and that nicety ; and, above all, how they could sit 
 still afterwards for a moment, and not do anything else 
 in preference, — stand on their heads, or toss the dishes
 
 THE FLORENTINE LOVEHS. 15 
 
 out of the window. Then the Festival ! God only knew 
 how happy the peasantry might choose to bo, and how 
 long they might detain Dianora with their com2:)liments, 
 dances, and songs. Doubtless, there must be many lovers 
 among them ; and how they could bear to go jigging 
 about in this gregarious manner, when they must all 
 wish to be w^alking two by two in the green lanes, was 
 to him inexplicable. However, Ippolito was very sincere 
 in his gratitude to Gossip Veronica, and even did his 
 best to behave handsomely to her cake and wine ; and 
 after dinner his virtue was rewarded. 
 
 After dinner, when the other visitors had separated 
 here and. there to sleep, Dianora, accompanied by her 
 aunt and A^eronica, found herself, to her great astonish- 
 ment, in the same room with Ippolito ; and, in a few 
 minutes after their introduction to each other, and after 
 one had looked this way, and the other that, and one 
 taken up a book and laid it down again, and both looked 
 out of the window, and each blushed, and either turned 
 pale, and the gentleman adjusted his collar, and the lady 
 her sleeve, and the elder ladies had whispered one 
 another in a corner, Dianora, less to her astonishment 
 than before, was left in the room with him alone. She 
 made a movement as if to follow them, but Ippolito said 
 something, she knew not Avhat, and she remained. She 
 Avent to the window, looking very serious and pale, aiid 
 not daring to glance towards him. He intended instantly 
 to go to her, and wondered what had become of his fierce 
 impatience ; but the very delay had now something 
 delicious in it. 
 
 At length he went up to her. She was still looking 
 out of the window, her eyes fixed upon the blue moun 
 tains in the distance, but conscious of nothing outside 
 the room. She had a light green and gold net on her 
 head, which enclosed her luxuriant hair without violence, 
 and pcemed as if it took it up that he might admire the
 
 16 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 white neck underneath. She felt his breath upon it; 
 and, beginning to expect that his lips would follow, 
 raised her hands to her head, as if the net required 
 adjusting. This movement, while it disconcerted him, 
 presented her waist in a point of view so impossible not 
 to touch, that, taking it gently in both his hands, he 
 pressed one at the same time upon her heart, and said, 
 " It will forgive me, even for doing this." He had 
 reason to say so, for he felt it beat against his fingers, 
 as if it leaped. Dianora, blushing and confused, though 
 feeling abundantly happy, made another movement with 
 her hands, as if to remove his own, but he only detained 
 them on either side. " Messer Ippolito," said Dianora, 
 in a tone as if to remonstrate, though suffering herself to 
 remain a prisoner, " I fear you must think me " — " JS'o, 
 no," interrupted Ippolito, "you can fear nothing that I 
 think, or that I do. It is I that have to fear your lovely 
 and fearful beauty, w'hich has been ever at the side of my 
 sick-bed, and, I thought, looked angrily upon me — upon 
 me alone of the whole world." " They told me you had 
 been ill," said Dianora, in a very gentle tone, "and my 
 aunt perhaps knew that I — thought that I — Have you 
 been very ilH" And, without tliiukiug, she drew her 
 left hand from under his, and placed it upon it. " Very," 
 answered Ippolito ; "do not I look so 1 " and, saying 
 this, he raised his other hand, and, venturing to put it 
 round to the left side of her little dimpled chin, turned 
 her face toAvards him. Dianora did not think he appeared 
 so ill, by a good deal, as he did in the church ; but there 
 was enough in his face, ill or well, to make her eyesight 
 swim as she looked at him ; and the next moment her 
 head was upon his shoulder, and his lips descended^ 
 welcome, upon hers. 
 
 There Avas a practice in those times, generated, like 
 other involuntary struggles against Avrong, by the ab- 
 surdities in authority, of reoorting to marriages, or rather,
 
 THE FLORENTINE LOVERS. 17 
 
 plightings of troth, made in secret, and in the eye of 
 Heaven. It was a custom liable to great abuse, as aU 
 secrecies are ; but the harm of it, as usual, fell chiefly on 
 the poor, or where the condition of the parties was 
 unequal. Where the families were powerful and on an 
 equality, the hazard of violating the engagement was, for 
 obvious reasons, very great, and seldom encountered; the 
 lovers either foregoing their claims on each other upon 
 better acquaintance, or adhering to their engagement the 
 closer for the same reason, or keeping it at the expense 
 of one or the other's repentance for fear of the con- 
 sequences. The troth of Ippolito and Dianora was 
 indeed a troth. They plighted it on their knees, before 
 a picture of the Virgin and Child, in Veronica's bed- 
 room, and over a mass -book which lay open upon a 
 chair. 
 
 The thoughtless old ladies, Donna Lucrezia and the 
 other (for old age is not always the most considerate 
 thing in the world, especially the old age of one's aunt 
 and gossips), had now returned into the room where they 
 left the two lovers ; but not before Dianora had consented 
 to receive her bridegroom in her own apartment at home, 
 that same night, by means of that other old good-natured 
 go-between, yclept a ladder of ropes. 
 
 Ippolito had noticed a ladder of ropes which was used 
 in his father's house for some domestic purposes. To say 
 the truth, it was an old servant, and had formerly been 
 much in request for the purpose to which it was now 
 about to be turned by the old gentleman himself. He 
 was indeed a person of a truly orthodox description, 
 having been much given to intrigue in his younger days, 
 being consigned over to avarice in his older, and exhibit- 
 ing great submission to everything established always. 
 Accordingly he was considered as a personage equally 
 respectable for his virtues as important from liis rank and 
 connections ; and if hundreds of ladders could have risen 
 
 B
 
 18 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 up in judgment against him, they would only have been 
 considered as what are called in England "wild oats;" — 
 wild ladders, which it was natural for every gentleman to 
 plant. 
 
 Ippolito's character, however, being more principled, 
 his privileges were not the same, and on every account 
 he was obliged to take great care. He waited with 
 impatience till midnight, and then, letting himself out of 
 his window, and taking the ropes under his cloak, made 
 the best of his way to a little dark lane which bordered 
 the house of the Bardi. One of the windows of Dianora's 
 chamber looked into the lane, the others into the garden. 
 The house stood in a remote part of the city. Ippolito 
 listened to the diminishing sound of the guitars and 
 revellers in the distance, and was proceeding to inform 
 Dianora of his arrival, by throwing up some pebbles, 
 when he heard a noise coming. It was some young men 
 taking a circuit of the more solitary streets, to purify 
 them, as they said, from sobriety. Ippolito slunk into 
 a corner. He was afraid, as the sound opened upon his 
 ears, that they would turn down the lane ; but the hubbub 
 passed on. He stepped forth from his corner, and again 
 retreated. Two young men, loiterers behind the rest, 
 disputed whether they should go down the lane. One, 
 who seemed intoxicated, swore he would serenade " the 
 little foe," as he called her, if it was only to vex the old 
 one, and "bring him out with his cursed long sword." 
 "And a lecture twice as long," said the other. "Ah, 
 there you have me," quoth the musician ; "his sword is — 
 a sword ; but his lecture's the devil : reaches the other 
 side of the river — never stops till it strikes one sleepy. 
 But I must serenade." "No, no," returned his friend; 
 " remember what the Grand Prior said, and don't let us 
 commit ourselves in a petty brawl. We'll have it out of 
 their hearts some day." Ippolito shuddered to hear 
 such words, even from one of his own party. " Don't
 
 THE FLORENTINE LOVERS. 19 
 
 tell me," said the pertinacious drunken man; "i re- 
 member what the Grand Prior said. He said, I must 
 serenade ; no, he didn't say I must serenade — but I say 
 it ; the Grand Prior said, says he, — I remember it as if it 
 was yesterday, — he said — Gentlemen, said he, there are 
 three good things in the world, love, music, and fighting ; 
 and then he said a cursed number of other things by no 
 means good ; and all to prove, philosophically, yoii rogue, 
 that love was good, and music was good, and fighting was 
 good, pbilosophically, and in a cursed number of para- 
 graphs. So I must serenade." "False logic, Vanni," 
 cried the other ; " so come along, or we shall have the 
 enemy upon us in a heap, for I hear another party coming, 
 and I am sure they are none of ours." " Good again," 
 said the musician, " love and fighting, my boy, and music ; 
 so I'll have my song before they come up." And the 
 fellow began roaring out one of the most indecent songs 
 he could think of, which made our lover ready to start 
 forth and dash the guitar in his face ; Init he repressed 
 himself. In a minute he heard the other party come up. 
 A clashing of swords ensued, and, to his great relief, the 
 drunkard and his companion were driven off. In a minute 
 or two all was silent. Ippolito gave the signal — it was 
 acknowledged ; the rope was fixed ; and the lover was 
 about to ascend, when he was startled with a strange 
 diminutive face, smiling at him over a light. His next 
 sensation was to smile at the state of his own nerves ; for 
 it was but a few minutes before, that he was regretting 
 he could not put out the lantern that stood burning under 
 a little image of the Virgin. He crossed himself, offered 
 up a prayer for the success of his true love, and again 
 proceeded to mount the ladder. Just as his hand reached 
 the window, he thought he heard other steps. He looked 
 down towards the street. Two figures evidently stood at 
 the corner of the lane. He would have concluded them 
 to be the two men returned, but for their profound
 
 20 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 silence. At last one of them said out loud, " I am certain 
 I saw a shadow of somebody by the lantern, and now you 
 find we have not come back for nothing. Who's there ? " 
 added he, coming at the same time down the lane with 
 his companion. Ippolito descended rapidly, intending to 
 hide his face as much as possible in his hood and escape 
 by dint of fighting, but his foot slipped in the ropes, and 
 he was at the same instant seized by the strangers. The 
 instinct of a lover, Avho above all things in the world 
 cared for his mistress's reputation, supplied our hero Avith 
 an artifice as quick as lightning. "They are all safe,'' 
 said he, affecting to tremble with a cowardly terror ; " I 
 have not touched one of them." " One of what 1 " said 
 the others; " what are all safeT' " The jewels," replied 
 Ippolito ; "let me go, for the love of God ! and it shall be 
 my last oflTence, as it was my first." " By all the saints 
 in the calendar," exclaimed the enemy, " a Buondelmonte ! 
 and no less a Buondelmonte than the worthy and very 
 magnificent Messer Ippolito Buondelmonte ! Messer Ippo- 
 lito, I kiss your hands. I am very much your humble 
 servant and thief-taker. By my faith, this will be fine 
 news for to-morrow." 
 
 To-morrow was indeed a heavy day to all the Buondel- 
 monti, and as merry a one to all the Bardi, except poor 
 Dianora. She knew not what had prevented Ippolito 
 from finishing his ascent up the ladder ; some interrup- 
 tion it must have been, but of what nature she could not 
 determine, nor why he had not resumed his endeavours. 
 It must have been nothing common. "Was he known? 
 "Was she known ? Was it all known ? And the poor 
 girl tormented herself with a thousand fears. Madonna 
 Lucrezia hastened to her the first thing in the morning 
 with a full, true, and particular account. Ippolito de' 
 Buondelmonti had been seized in coming down a rope 
 ladder from one of the front windows of the house, with 
 a great drawn sword in one hand and a box of jewels in
 
 THE FLORENTINE LOVERS. 21 
 
 the other. Dianora saw the whole truth in a moment, 
 and from excess of sorrow, gratitude, and love, fainted 
 away. IMadonna Lucrezia guessed the truth too, but 
 was almost afraid to confess it to her own mind, much 
 more to speak of it aloud ; and had not the news, and the 
 bustle, and her niece's fainting furnished her with some- 
 thing to do, she could have fainted herself very heartily, 
 out of pure consternation. Gossip Veronica was in a 
 worse condition when the news reached her ; and Ippo- 
 lito's mother, who guessed, but too truly, as well as the 
 others, was seized with an illness, which, joining to the 
 natural weakness of her constitution, threw her into a 
 stupor, and prevented her from attending to anything. 
 The next step of Madonna Lucrezia, after seeing Dianora 
 out of her fainting fit, and giving the household to under- 
 stand that the story of the robber had alarmed her, was 
 to go to Gossip Veronica and concert measures of conceal- 
 ment. The two women wept very sincerely for the poor 
 youth, and admired his heroism in saving his mistress's 
 honour ; but, with all their good-nature, they agreed that 
 he was quite in the right, and that it would be but just 
 to his magnanimity and to their poor dear Dianora to keep 
 the secret as closely. Madonna Lucrezia then returned 
 home, to be near Dianora, and help to baffle inquiry, 
 while Gossip Veronica kept close indoors, too ill to see 
 visitors, and alternately praying to the saint her namesake, 
 and taking reasonable draughts of Montepulciano. 
 
 In those days there were too many wild young men of 
 desperate fortunes to render Ippolito's confession impro- 
 bable. Besides, he had been observed of late to be always 
 without money ; reports of his being addicted to gambling 
 had arisen ; and his father was avaricious. Lastly, his 
 groaning in the church was remembered, under pretence 
 of pity ; and the magistrate (avIio was of the hostile party) 
 concluded, with much sorrow, that he must have more 
 sins to answer for than they knew of, which in so young
 
 23 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 a man was deplorable. The old gentleman had too much 
 reason to know that in elder people it Avould have been 
 nothing remarkable. 
 
 Ippolito, with, a grief of heart which only served to 
 confirm the bystanders in their sense of his guilt, waited 
 in expectation of his sentence. He thought it Avould be 
 banishment, and was casting in his mind how he could 
 hope some day or other to get a sight of his mistress, 
 when the word Death fell on him like a thunderbolt. 
 The origin of a sentence so severe was but too plain to 
 everybody ; but the Bardi were uppermost that day ; and 
 the city, exhausted by some late party excesses, had but 
 too much need of repose. Still, it was thought a dangerous 
 trial of the public pulse. The pity felt for the tender age 
 of Ippolito Avas increased by the anguish which he found 
 himself unable to repress. "Good God !" cried he, "must 
 I die so young 1 And must I never see — must I never 
 see the light again, and Florence, and my dear friends'?" 
 And he fell into almost abject entreaties to be spared ; for 
 he thought of Dianora. But the bystanders fancied that 
 he was merely afraid of death ; and, by the help of sug- 
 gestions from the Bardi partizans, their pity almost turned 
 into contempt. He prostrated himself at the magistrate's 
 feet ; he kissed his knees ; he disgusted his own father ; 
 till, finding everything against him, and smitten at once 
 with a sense of his cowardly appearance and the necessity 
 of keeping his mistress's honour inviolable, he declared 
 his readiness to die like a man, and at the same time 
 stood wringing his hands, and Aveeping like an infant. 
 He was sentenced to die next day. 
 
 The day came. The hour came. The Standard of 
 Justice was hoisted before the door of the tribunal, and 
 the trumpet blew through the city, announcing the death 
 of a criminal. 
 
 Ippolito issued forth from the prison, looking more like 
 a young martyr than a criminal. He was now perfectly
 
 THE FLORENTINE LOVERS. 23 
 
 quiet, and a sort of unnatural glow had risen into his 
 cheeks, the result of the enthusiasm and conscious self- 
 sacrifice into which he had Avorked himself during the 
 night. He had only prayed, as a last favour, that he 
 might be taken through the street in which the house of 
 the Bardi stood ; for he had lived, he said, as everybody 
 knew, in great hostility with that family, and he now felt 
 none any longer, and wished to bless the house as he 
 passed it. The magistrate, for more reasons than one, 
 had no objection; the old confessor, with tears in his 
 eyes, said that the dear boy would still be an honour to 
 his family, as surely as he would be a saint in heaven ; 
 and the procession moved on. The main feeling of the 
 crowd, as usual, was that of curiosity, but there were few, 
 indeed, in whom it was not mixed with pity ; and many 
 females found the sight so intolerable, that they were 
 seen coming away down the streets, weeping bitterly, and 
 unable to answer the questions of those they met. 
 
 The procession now began to pass the house of the 
 Bardi. Ippolito's face, for an instant, turned of a chalky 
 whiteness, and then resumed its colour. His lips 
 trembled, his eyes filled with tears; and, thinking his 
 mistress might possibly be at the window, taking a last 
 look of the lover that died for her, he bowed his head 
 gently, at the same time forcing a smile, which glittered 
 through his watery eyes. At that instant the trumpet 
 blew its dreary blast for the second time. Dianora had 
 already risen on her couch, listening, and asking what 
 noise it was that approached. Her aunt endeavoured to 
 quiet her with her excuses ; but this last noise aroused 
 her beyond control; and the good old lady, forgetting 
 herself in the condition of the two lovers, no longer 
 attempted to stop her. " Go," said she, " in God's name, 
 my child, and Heaven be with you." 
 
 Dianora, her hair streaming, her eye without a tear, 
 her cheek on fire, burst, to the astonishment of her
 
 24 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 kindred, into the room where they were all standing. 
 She tore them aside from one of the Avindows with a preter- 
 natural strength, and, stretching forth her head and hands, 
 like one inspired, cried out, " Stop ! stop ! it is my Ippo- 
 lito ! my husband ! " And, so saying, she actually made 
 a movement as if she would have stepped to him out of 
 the window; for everything but his image faded from 
 her eyes, A movement of confusion took place among 
 the multitude. Ippolito stood rapt, on the sudden, trem- 
 bling, weeping, and stretching his hands towards the 
 window, as if praying to his guardian angel The kins- 
 men would have prevented her from doing anything 
 further ; but, as if all the gentleness of her character was 
 gone, she broke from them with violence and contempt, 
 and, rushing downstairs into the street, exclaimed, in a 
 frantic manner, " People ! dear God ! countrymen ! I am 
 a Bardi ; he is a Buondelmonte ; he loved me ; and that 
 is the whole crime ! " and, at these last words, they were 
 locked in each other's arms. 
 
 The populace now broke through all restraint. They 
 stopped the procession ; they bore Ippolito back again to 
 the seat of the magistracy, carrying Dianora with him ; 
 they described in a peremptory manner the mistake ; they 
 sent for the heads of the two houses ; they made them 
 swear a treaty of peace, amity, and unity ; and, in half an 
 hour after the lover had been on the road to his death, he 
 set out upon it again, the acknowledged bridegroom of the 
 beautiful creature by his side. 
 
 Never was such a sudden revulsion of feeling given to 
 a whole city. The women Avbo had retreated in anguish 
 came back the gayest of the gay. Everybody plucked fdl 
 the myrtles they could find, to put into the hands of 
 those who made the former procession, and who now 
 formed a singular one for a bridal; but all the young 
 women fell in with their white veils ; and, instead of the 
 funeral dirge, a song of thanksgiving was chanted. The
 
 THE FLORENTINE LOVERS. 25 
 
 very excess of their sensations enabled tlie two lovers to 
 hold up. Ippolito's cheeks, which seemed to have fallen 
 away in one night, appeared to have plumped out again 
 faster; and if he was now pale instead of high-coloured, 
 the paleness of Dianora had given way to radiant blushes 
 which made up for it. He looked, as he ought, — like the 
 person saved ; she, like the angelic saviour. 
 
 Thus the two lovers passed on, as if in a dream tumul- 
 tuous but delightful. Neither of them looked on the 
 other ; they gazed hither and thither on the crowd, as if 
 in answer to the blessings that poured upon them ; but 
 their hands were locked fast ; and they went like one soul 
 in a divided body.
 
 II. 
 
 THE BEAU MISER, AND WHAT HAPPENED 
 TO HIM AT BRIGHTON. 
 
 There was a man of the name of Kennedy, who was well 
 known to the people of fashion in our childhood, but with 
 whose origin, pretensions, or way of living, nobody was 
 acquainted. That he was rich was certain, for he wore 
 the most precious stones on his fingers, and was known to 
 keep a great deal of money at a banker's. He was evi- 
 dently very fond of the upper circles, and for some time 
 was admitted into their parties. He was now and then at 
 the opera ; of tener at routs and balls ; and always went to 
 Court, when he could get there. 
 
 We have heard him described. He was a very spare 
 man, not much above thirty, of the middle height, with 
 eyes a little shut and lowering, a small nose, and a very 
 long chin. But he dressed extremely well ; had a soft- 
 ness of manners amounting to the timid ; and paid exceed- 
 ing homage to every person and thing of any fashionable 
 repute. 
 
 All this, for some time, procured him a good reception ; 
 but at last people began to wonder that, though he got 
 invitations from everybody, he gave none himself. It was 
 not even known that he ever made a present, or had a 
 person home with him even to a luncheon or a cup of tea. 
 Twice he gave a great dinner, at which it Avas owned there 
 was a profusion of everything ; but, though it was not at 
 a tavern, it was not at his own place of abode ; and the 
 people of the house knew nothing about him. 
 
 2«
 
 THE BEAU MISER. 27 
 
 All this gave rise to a suspicion that he was a miser ; and 
 people soon contrived to have pretty strong proofs of it. 
 In vain the least bashful of his acquaintances admired the 
 beauty of his numerous rings; in vain others applied to 
 him for loans of money, some by way of trial, and others 
 from necessity ; in vain his movements were watched by 
 the more idle and gossiping ; in vain hints were thrown 
 out and questions asked, and his very footsteps pursued. 
 His rings Avere all keepsakes ; he always had no money 
 just then ; he referred for his lodgings to a hotel where 
 he occasionally put up, perhaps for that very purpose ; and 
 a curious fellow, who endeavoured to follow him home 
 one night, was led such an enormous round through street 
 after street, and even suburb after suburb, that he gave up 
 the point with an oath. 
 
 After this his acquaintance grew more and more shy of 
 him. They gradually left off inviting him to their houses, 
 some from mercenary disappointment, some from a more 
 generous disgust, others because the rest did so ; and at 
 last, just after a singular adventure which happened to him 
 at Brighton, he totally disappeared. 
 
 Everybody took him for a madman on that occasion. 
 He had not been at the place above a day or two, and was 
 seen during that time walking about the beach very 
 thoughtfully, with an air of sorrow, owing, it was conjec- 
 tured, to his having put himself to the expense of travel- 
 ling without obtaining his expected repayment, for nobody 
 invited him. But be this as it may, ho was seen, one 
 morning, running in the most violent manner across the 
 Steyne, and crying out " Eire ! " His face was as pale as 
 death ; he seemed every now and then, in the midst of 
 his haste, to be twitched and writhed u}) with a sort of 
 convulsion ; and his hat having blown off by the wind, 
 no wonder he was thought seized Avith a frenzy. Yet when 
 he arrived at his lodging, there was no fire, nor even a 
 symptom of it.
 
 28 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 The suspicion of his being out of his wits was rendered 
 still stronger by a. rumour which took place the same day ; 
 for the servants of the family which he used to visit most, 
 and in which he was paying his addresses to a young lady, 
 declared that not many minutes after the uproar about the 
 fire, he came to their master's house, through the by-ways, 
 with a coalheaver's hat on. And the assertion was con- 
 lirmed by some tradesmen who had seen him pass, and by 
 some boys who had followed him with shouts and nick- 
 names. 
 
 The mystery supplied the world with talk for more than 
 a week, when at length it was explained through the family 
 we have just mentioned. Kennedy, it seems, was really 
 a miser, and had inherited the estates of a third or fourth 
 cousin, Avhose name he took. He had had little or no 
 acquaintance with his kinsman before he found himself 
 his heir. His father was a petty overseer somewhere or 
 other at a distance from London ; and the cousin whose 
 estates he succeeded to, was the son of a general officer in 
 the East India Service. The cousin had had a son whom 
 he sent abroad to follow his gt-andfather's profession ; but, 
 receiving the news of his death a little before his own, 
 he sickened the faster, and, being in a state of great weak- 
 ness and despondency, left his estates to his next heir, 
 without having much heart to inquire Avhat sort of person 
 he was. The fortunate young overseer quitted his shop 
 immediately, and, coming up to town, had occasion to wait 
 on a young lady, to whom his cousin's son had been 
 attached. It was to give her a lock of her lover's hair, and 
 a gold watch which his father sent her with it in token of 
 his own regard for her. A little note accompanied them, 
 which she showed one day with the tears in her eyes, 
 though she Avas then happy enough : — 
 
 " I leave you no money, my dear child. I am dying, and 
 you are wealthy enough, and money is not the thing
 
 THE BEAU MISER. 29' 
 
 wanted by either of us. Just before I received the news 
 of my poor boy's death, he sent me this lock of his hair 
 for you, to show you how glossy and healthy. . . . Excuse 
 me, my love ; the tears blot out what I was going to write ; 
 and so they ought. But I know well enough that the kind- 
 hearted, generous girl who was worthy of him, will think I 
 pay her a greater compliment in leaving her only Avhat 
 belonged to her Charles, than if I had sent her all the 
 money which he ever possessed. The next heir, I am told, 
 is a good young man, and he is poor, with a number of 
 poor relations. The watch was Charles's when a boy. My 
 father gave it me, and I to him, and he used to say that 
 he would — God in heaven bless you, my poor, sweet 
 girl ! prays your old Charles Kennedy." 
 
 The consequence of the new heir's visiting Miss Cameron 
 was his falling in love with her — if such a miser as he 
 turned out to be could be said to fall in love. But thoush 
 she could not help pitying him at first, as she afterwards 
 said, it was only on account of his strange habits, which 
 she soon detected, and which, she saw, would make him 
 ridiculous and unhappy wherever he went. He soon tired 
 and disgusted her. After a very unequivocal repulse one 
 day, which seemed to make him prodigiously thoughtful 
 and unhappy, he came in the evening, with a mixture of 
 cold triumph and uneasiness in his aspect, at which Miss 
 Cameron said she could hardly forbear laughing, even from 
 a feeling of bitterness. She saw that he expected to make 
 an impression on her of some sort ; and so he did, for, 
 taking an opportunity of speaking to her alone, he drew 
 out of his waistcoat pocket, with much anxiety, the first 
 present his wealth had ever made her, a fine diamond pin 
 — a very fine one, she confessed it was. It was clear that 
 he thought this irresistible ; and nothing could exceed his 
 surprise when she refused him peremptorily once more 
 and the pin with him. She owned that her sense of the
 
 30 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 ridiculous so far surmounted her other feelings as to give 
 her a passing inclination to accept the diamond, as she 
 knew very well that he had reckoned on its returning to 
 him hy marriage. But her contempt recovered itself; 
 and her disgust and scorn were completed by his mention- 
 ing the words " Mrs. Kennedy," which brought so noble 
 and lamented a contrast before her, and visited her so 
 fiercely with a sense of what she had lost, that she quitted 
 the room with a sort of breathless and passionate murmur. 
 
 This was but the day before the adventure of the fire. 
 She was almost inclined on the latter occasion to think 
 him mad, as others did, especially when he once more 
 appeared before her, shuffling in a ludicrous manner, with 
 something in his hand which he wished to conceal, and 
 which she found afterwards was the hat. He would not 
 have ventured to appear before her again ; but the truth 
 was, that her father, who was but an ordinary sort of 
 monied man, and not very delicate, did not interfere as he 
 ought to prevent her being thus persecuted. But not only 
 was the mystery explained to her next day ; it was the 
 most important one of both their lives. 
 
 On the morning when Kennedy Avas frightened by the 
 fire, he was standing very thoughtfully by the Ship Inn, 
 near the sea-side, when he was suddenly clapped by some- 
 body on the shoulder. He turned round with a start, and 
 saw a face Avhich he knew well enough. It was that of a 
 gentleman who, riding once, when a youth, by the place 
 where he lived, had saved him from drowning in a little 
 piece of water. Some mischievous companions had hustled 
 him into it, not knowing how far their malicious joke 
 might have gone. When he was pulled out, and had 
 recovered from his first fright, he thanked the young 
 gentleman in as warm a way as he could express ; and, 
 taking fourpence-halfpenny out of a little leathern bag, 
 offered it him as a proof of his gratitude ; the young- 
 gentleman declining it with a good-natured smile, thinking
 
 THE BEAU MISER. 31 
 
 the offer to be the effect of mere simpHcity ; but the lads 
 who were looking on, and who had helped to get him out 
 when told of the danger, burst out into taunting reproaches 
 of the fellow's meanness, and informed his preserver that 
 he had at least three shillings in the other fob of his 
 leathern bag, besides silver pennies. So saying, they 
 wrenched it out of his hands, in spite of his crying and 
 roaring ; and one of them, opening it, shook out, together 
 with the water, five shillings in sixpences, and the silver 
 pennies to boot. The young gentleman laughed and 
 blushed at the same instant, and, not knowing well what 
 to do, for he longed to give the young miser a lesson, and 
 yet thought it would be unjust to share the money 
 between the lads, who had nearly drowned him, said to 
 him, " I am not the only one to whom you are indebted for 
 being saved, for it was the screams of those little girls there 
 which brought me to you, and so, you know," continued he, 
 with a laugh, which the others joined, " they ought to be 
 rewarded as well as myself. Don't you think so 1 " " Yes, 
 sir," mumbled the young hunks, half frightened, and half 
 sulky. The young gentleman then divided all the silver 
 but a shilling among the little girls, who dropped him a 
 hundred curtseys; and, giving the fourpence-half penny 
 to the boy who had been most forward in helping, and 
 least noisy in accusing, rode off amidst the shouts of the 
 rest. 
 
 It was the first time the two had met since. "I 
 believe," said the stranger with a sort of smile, "I have 
 had the honour of meeting you before 1 " 
 
 "The same, sir," answered the other, "at your service. 
 I believe, sir — I think — I am sure " — 
 
 " Yes, sir," returned the stranger, " it was I who played 
 you that trick with your bag of sixpences." 
 
 "Oh, dear sir," rejoined the other, half ashamed at the 
 recollection, and admiring the fashionable air of his pre- 
 server, " I am sure I had no reason to complain. Ueen
 
 32 miOH nuN'j'. 
 
 abroad, sir, I presume, by a certain bro^\ilrlesfe of com- 
 plexion, not at all unbecoming 1 " 
 
 "Yes, sir," said the gentleman, smiling more and more ; 
 "I hope you have been as lucky at home as some of us 
 who go abroad 1 " 
 
 " Why, yes, sir ; I have a pretty fortune, thank Heaven, 
 though at present — ^just now " — 
 
 "Oh, my dear sir," interrupted the stranger, with a 
 peculiar sort of look, in which animal spirits and a sense 
 of the ridiculous seemed predominant, "I can wait — 
 I can wait." 
 
 "Can wait, sivV 
 
 "Yes, sir; I know what you mean : you have a sort 
 of liberal yearning, which incites you to make me an 
 acknowledgment for the little piece of service I was en- 
 abled to render you. But I am not poor, sir ; and, indeed, 
 should decline such a thing from any biit a man of 
 fortune, and upon any other score than that of relieving 
 his own feelings ; so that I can very easily wait, you 
 know, for an opportunity more convenient to you, when 
 I shall certainly not hesitate to accept a trifle or so, — a 
 brilliant — or a diamond seal, — or any little thing of that 
 sort." 
 
 " Bless me, sir ! you are very good. But you see, sir, 
 you — you — see — I am very sorry, sir, but no doubt — 
 in the fashionable circles — but at present I have an 
 engagement." 
 
 " Ah, sir," said the stranger, with a careless air, and 
 giving him a thump on the shoulder which made him 
 jump, " pray do not let me interrupt you. I only hope 
 you are not lodging in — in — what's the name of the 
 street 1 " 
 
 « North Street ?— I tried the Steyne, but "— 
 
 "Ah! mrth Street." 
 
 "Why so, sir, prayT' asked the other, with an air of 
 increasing fidget and alarm, and looking about him.
 
 THE BEAU MISER. 33 
 
 "Why, sir, an accident has just happened there." 
 
 "An accident! Oh, my dear sir, you know those sort 
 of things cannot be helped." 
 
 "JSTo, sir; but it's a very awkward sort of accident, 
 and the lodger, I understand, is from home," 
 
 "How, sir,— what lodger — what accident 1 What is it 
 you mean, dear sir ? " 
 
 " Why, look there, my good friend, look there !— there 
 they are removing them— removing the goods ; a fire has 
 broken out." 
 
 Kennedy seemed petrified. There was a great crowd 
 in the street to which the stranger pointed, occasioned by 
 a scuifie with a puppet-show man. The boys were shout- 
 ing, and the little moveable Punch-theatre tumbled about 
 in the top of the fray, looking in the distance like a piece 
 of bedstead, or some other sort of goods. 
 
 " There they are," continued the stranger ; " now they 
 take away the bedstead — now they bring the engines — 
 now they are conveying out something else. The smoke— 
 don't you see the smoke 1 " 
 
 "0 Lord ! I do, I do ! " exclaimed the miser, who saw 
 nothing but his own imagination, and his boxes of 
 brilliants carried off. lie turned deadly pale, then red, 
 then pale again, and, seeming to summon up a convulsive 
 strength, sprang oflf with all his might, and rushed across 
 the Steyne like a madman. 
 
 When he arrived at his lodgings he found the street 
 empty, and the house quite cool, and, being anxious to 
 make the best and quickest of his story with his mistress 
 and her father, went there as instantly as possible ; but 
 first, in a great hurry, he borrowed a hat of his land- 
 lord, who, half in haste also, and half in joke, gave 
 him one of his coal - meter's, which he unconsciously 
 put on. 
 
 Scarcely had ho astonished the young lady, and set his 
 foot again out of doors, than he encountered the stranger
 
 34 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 who played him the joke. His first impulse was to be 
 very angry, but he wanted courage to complain, and, 
 recollecting his first adventure with his preserver, would 
 have passed by under j^retence of not seeing him. He 
 was stopped, however, by the elbow. 
 
 "My dear sir," exclaimed the stranger, with his old 
 smile, " I rejoice to find that all was safe. Pj'ay," 
 continued he, changing his aspect, and looking grave and 
 earnest, " you know the various families at Brighton ; I 
 have found just now that there is one here that will save 
 me a journey to London — the name is Cameron — can 
 you tell me where they live ? There is a person of the 
 name of Kennedy also, who, I iinderstand, is here too ; 
 but that doesn't signify at present ; pray tell me if you 
 know where the Camerons are 1 " 
 
 "There, there, sir," answered the other, almost fright- 
 ened out of his wits, and anxious to get away ; — " there, 
 two or three doors off." 
 
 The stranger dropped his arm in an instant, and in an 
 instant knocked at the door. With almost as much 
 speed poor Kennedy returned to his lodging. We know 
 not what he was thinking about, but he surprised the 
 landlord with his exceeding hurry to be gone ; and gone 
 he would have been much sooner than he was, if it had 
 not been for a dispute about a bill, which he was in the 
 midst of contesting when a footman came from the 
 Camerons requesting his presence immediately upon 
 important business. 
 
 The poor miser's mortifications were not to cease by 
 the way. The footman, upon being admitted to him, 
 turned out to be the same person who was riding as a 
 footboy behind the young gentleman when the latter 
 came up to help him out of the water. 
 
 "Good God, sir!" says the man, who had something 
 of his master's look about him; "I beg your pardon, but are 
 you the Mr. Kennedy who has got my master's fortune?"
 
 THE BEAU MISER. 35 
 
 The other had been agitated ah-eady; but the whole 
 truth seemed to come upon him as fast as if it would 
 squeeze the breath out of his body, and, muttering a few 
 indistinct words, he motioned to the footman that he 
 would go with him. He then looked about in a be- 
 wildered manner for his hat, and, taking np the coal- 
 heaver's, which, in spite of some other feelings, made the 
 footman turn aside to hold his own to his mouth, he 
 dropped it down again, and, turning as pale as a sheet, 
 fell back into a chair. 
 
 The footman, after administering a glass of water, 
 called up the landlord, and begging him, in a respectful 
 manner, to take care of the gentleman, to whom he would 
 fetch his master, hastened back to inform the latter, who, 
 comparing the accounts of his old acquaintance with the 
 Camerons', has already guessed the secret, to the great 
 wondering of all parties. 
 
 You have, doubtless, been guessing with him ; and it 
 is easy to fancy the remainder. There had been a false 
 return of the young soldier's death in accounts from the 
 army in India. He had been taken prisoner, and when 
 he obtained his liberty, learnt, Avith great grief and 
 surprise, that his father had died under the impression 
 that he was dead also, and had left his property to un- 
 known heirs. The property would have been a very 
 secondary thing, in his mind, for its own sake, and he 
 was aware he could regain it, but his father's death 
 afflicted him much, particularly under all the circum- 
 stances ; and he felt so much anguish at the thought of 
 what Miss Cameron must suffer, to Avhom he had plighted 
 his faith but two years before, that it was with difficulty 
 he held up against grief, and hurry, and a burning climate, 
 so as not to fall into an illness ; the very fear of which, 
 /md the delay that it would cause, was almost enough to 
 produce it, — not to mention that it was possible his 
 mistress, believing him dead, might too quickly enter into
 
 36 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 engagements with another, though he did not suppose it 
 very likely. But we need not dwell upon these matters. 
 He found his mistress the same as ever; shed sweet- 
 hitter tears with her for his father, his own supposed 
 loss, and her grieving constancy ; and, regaining his 
 fortune, settled an income upon the poor miser ; which 
 the latter, remomhering the adventure of the drowning, 
 could hardly believe possible.
 
 IIJ. 
 
 JACK ABBOTS BREAKFAST. 
 
 Animal Spirits — A Dominie Sam[ison Drawn from the Life — Many 
 Things Fall Out between the (Breakfast) Cup and the Lip— A 
 Magistrate Drawn from the Life — Is Breakfast ever to he 
 Taken, or is it not ? — The Question Answered. 
 
 " What a breakfast I shall eat ! " thought Jack Abbott, as 
 he turned into IMiddle Temple Lane, towards the chambers 
 of his old friend and tutor Goodall. "How I shall swill 
 the tea ! how cram down the rolls (especially the inside 
 bits) ! how apologise for ' one cup more ! ' But Goodall 
 is an excellent old fellow — he won't mind. To be sure, 
 I'm rather late. The rolls, I'm afraid, will be cold, or 
 double-baked ; but anything Avill be delicious. If I met 
 a baker, I could eat his basket." 
 
 Jack Abbott was a good-hearted, careless fellow, who had 
 walked that morning from Hendon, to breakfast Avith his 
 old friend by appointment, and afterwards consult his late 
 father's lawyer. He Avas the son of a clergyman more 
 dignified by rank than by solemnity of manners, but an 
 excellent person too, who had some remorse in leaving a 
 family of sons with little provision, but comforted himself 
 with reflecting that he had gifted them with good consti- 
 tutions and cheerful natures, and that they would " find 
 their legs somehow," as indeed they all did ; for very good 
 legs they were, whether to dance away care with, or make 
 love with, or walk seven miles to breakfast with, as Jack 
 had done that morning j and so they all got on accord- 
 ingly, and clubbed up a comfortable maintenance for the 
 
 298888
 
 38 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 prebendary's widow, who, sanguine and loving as her 
 husband, ahnost wept out of a fondness of delight when- 
 ever she thought either of their legs or their affection. 
 As to Jack himself, he was the youngest, and at present 
 the least successful, of the brotherhood, having just 
 entered upon a small tutorship in no very rich family ; 
 but his spirits were the greatest in the family (which is 
 saying much), and if he was destined never to prosper so 
 much as any of them in the ordinary sense, he had. a 
 relish of every little pleasure that presented itself, and a 
 genius for neutralizing the disagreeable, which at least 
 equalized his fate with theirs. 
 
 Well, Jack Abbott has arrived at the door of his friend's 
 room. He knocks ; and it is opened by Goodall himself, 
 a thin, grizzled personage, in an old greatcoat instead of a 
 gown, with lanthorn jaws, shaggy eyebrows, and a most 
 bland and benevolent expression of countenance. Like 
 many who inhabit Inns of Court, he was not a lawyer. 
 He had been a tutor all his life ; and as he led only a 
 book-existence, he retained the great blessing of it — a 
 belief in the best things which he believed when young. 
 The natural sweetness of his disposition had even gifted 
 him with a politeness of manners which many a better- 
 bred man might have envied; and though he was a 
 scholar more literal than profound, and, in truth, had not 
 much sounded the depths of anything but his tea-caddy, 
 yet an irrepressible respect for him accompanied the 
 smiling of his friends ; and mere worldly men made no 
 grosser mistake than in supposing they had a right to 
 scorn him with their uneasy satisfactions and misbelieving 
 success. In a word, he was a sort of better-bred Dominie 
 Sampson— a Goldsmith, with the genius taken out of him, 
 but the goodness left — an angel of the dusty heaven of 
 bookstalls and the British Museum. 
 
 Unfortunately for the hero of our story, this angel of 
 sixty-five, unshaved, and with stockings down at heel,
 
 JACK Abbott's bubakfast. 39 
 
 had a memory which could not recollect what had been 
 told him six hours before, much less six days. Accord- 
 ingly, he had finished his breakfast, and given his cat the 
 remaining drop of milk, long before his (in every sense of 
 the word) late pupil presented himself within his threshold. 
 Furthermore, besides bemg a lanthorn-jawed cheruli, he 
 was very short-sighted, and his ears were none of the 
 quickest; so in answer to Jack's "Well — eh — how d'ye 
 do, my dear sir 1 — I'm afraid I'm very late," he stood 
 holding the door open with one hand, shading his winking 
 eyes with the other, in order to concentrate their powers 
 of investigation, and, in the blandest tones of unawareness, 
 saying,— 
 
 " Ah, dear me — I'm very — I beg pardon — I really — 
 pray who is it I have the pleasure of speaking to ? " 
 
 " "What ! don't you recollect me, my dear sir % Jack 
 Abbott. I met you, you know, and was to come and" — • 
 
 " Oh ! Mr. Abbott, is it 1 What— ah— Mr. James 
 Abbott, no doubt — or Robert. My dear Mr. Abbott, to 
 think I should not see you ! " 
 
 " Yes, my dear sir ; and you don't see now that it is 
 Jack, and not James 1 Jack, your last pupil, who 
 plagued you so in the Terence." 
 
 " Not at all, sir, not at all ; no Abbott ever plagued 
 me ; — far too good and kind people, sir. Come in, pray ; 
 come in and sit down, and let's hear all about the good 
 lady your mother, and how you all get on, Mr. James." 
 
 " Jack, my dear sir, Jack ; but it doesn't signify. An 
 Abbot is an Abbot, you know ; that is, if he is but fat 
 enough." 
 
 Goodall {very gravely, not seeing the joke). " Surely 
 you are quite fat enough, my dear sir, and in excellent 
 health. And how is the good lady your mother '1 " 
 
 " Capitally well, sir {looldng at the hreaJcfast-table). 
 I'm quite rejoiced to see that the breakfast-cloth is not 
 removed ; for I'm horribly late, and fear I must have put
 
 40 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 you out; but don't you take any trouble, my good sir. 
 The kettle, I see, is still singing on the hob. I'll cut 
 myself a piece of bread and butter immediately ; and 
 you'll let me scramble beside you as I used to do, and 
 look at a book, and talk with my mouth full." 
 
 Goodall. " Ay, ay ; what ! you have come to break- 
 fast, have you, my kind boy 1, That is very good of you, 
 very good indeed. Let me see — let me see — my laundress 
 has never been here this morning, but you won't mind 
 my serving you myself — I have everything at hand." 
 
 Abbott (apart, and sighing, with a smile). *' He has 
 forgotten all about the invitation ! Thank ye, my dear 
 sir, thank ye. I would apologise, only I know you 
 wouldn't like it ; and, to say the truth, I'm very hungry 
 — hungry as a hunter — I've come all the way from 
 Hendon." 
 
 " Bless me ! have you indeed ? and from Wendover 
 too 1 Why, that is a very long way, isn't it 1 " 
 " Hendon, sir, not Wendover — Hendon." 
 " Oh, Endor — ah — dear me (smiling), I didn't know 
 there was an Endor in England. I hope there is — he ! he ! 
 — no witch there, Mr. Abbott ; unless she be some very 
 charming young lady with a fortune." 
 
 "Nay, sir, I think you can go nowhere in England and 
 not meet with charming young ladies." 
 
 " Very true, sir, very true. England — what does the 
 poet say 1 something about * manly hearts to guard the 
 fair.' You have no sisters, I think, Mr. Abbott 1 " 
 " JS"o ; but plenty of female cousins." 
 "Ah! very charming young ladies, I've no doubt, sir. 
 Well, sir, there's your cup and saucer, and here's some 
 fresh tea, and " — 
 
 " I beg pardon," interrupted Jack, who, in a fury of 
 hunger and thirst, was pouring out what tea he could find 
 in the pot, and anxiously looking for the bread ; " I can 
 do very well with this — at any rate to begin with."
 
 JACK Abbott's breakfast. 41 
 
 " Just so, sir," balmily returned Goodall. " Well, sir, 
 but I am sorry to see — eh, I really fear— certainly the cat 
 — eh — what are we to do for milk 1 I'm afraid I anust 
 make you wait till I step out for some ; for this laundress, 
 when once she " — 
 
 " Don't stir, I beg you ! " ejaculated our hero ; " don't 
 think of it, my dear sir. I can do very well without 
 milk — I can indeed — I often do without milk." 
 
 This was said out of an intensity of a sense to the 
 contrary ; but Jack was anxious to make the old gentle- 
 man easy. 
 
 " Well," quoth Goodall, "I have met with such instances, 
 to be sure; and very lucky it is, Mr. — a — John — James, 
 I should say — that you do not care for milk ; though 
 I confess, for my part, I cannot do without it. But, 
 bless me ! heyday ! well, if the sugar-l)asin, dear me ! is 
 not empty. Bless my soul ! I'll go instantly — it is but as 
 far as Fleet Street — and my hat, I think, must be under 
 those pamphlets." 
 
 "Don't think of such a thing, pray, dear sir!" cried 
 Jack, half leaping from his chair, and tenderly laying his 
 hand on his arm. " You may think it odd ; but sugar, I 
 can assure you, is a thing I don't at all care for. Do you 
 know, my dear Mr. Goodall, I have often had serious 
 thoughts of leaving off sugar, owing to the slave trade 1 " 
 
 " Why that, indeed "— 
 
 " Yes, sir ; and probably I should have done it, had not 
 so many excellent men, yourself among them, thought fit 
 to continue the practice, no doubt after the greatest re- 
 flection. Howevei', what with these jjerhaps foolish 
 doubts, and the indifference of my palate to sweets, sugar 
 is a mere drug to me, sir — a mere drug." 
 
 "Well, but"— 
 
 " i^ay, dear sir, you will distress me if you say another 
 word upon the matter — you will indeed; see how I 
 drink." (And here Jack made as if he took a hasty
 
 42 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 gulp of his milkless and sugarless water.) " The bread, 
 my dear sir — the bread is all I require ; just that piece 
 which you Avere going to take up. You remember how I 
 used to stuff bread, and fill the book I was reading -with 
 crumbs ? I dare say the old Euripides is bulging out with 
 them now." 
 
 " Well, sir — ah — em — ah — well, indeed, you're very 
 good, and, I'm sure, very temperate ; but, dear me ! — well, 
 this laundress of mine — I must certainly get rid of her 
 thieving — rheumatism, 1 should say ; but butter ! I vow I 
 do not "— 
 
 " Butter ! " interrupted our hero, in a tone of the 
 greatest scorn. " Why, I haven't eaten hutter I don't 
 know when. Kot a step, sir, not a step. And now, let 
 me tell you, I must make haste, for I've got to lunch with 
 my lawyer, and he'll expect me to eat something ; and in 
 fact I'm so anxious, and feel so hurried, that now I have 
 eaten a good piece of my hunk, I must be off, my good 
 sir — I must, indeed." 
 
 To say the truth, Jack's hunk was a good three days 
 old, if an hour ; and so harcl,^ that even his hunger and 
 fine teeth could not iind it in the hearts of them to relish 
 it with the cold slop ; so he had made up his mind to 
 seek the nearest coffee-house as fast as possible, and there 
 have the heartiest and most luxurious breakfast that could 
 make amends for his disappointment. After reconciling 
 the old gentleman, however, to his departure, he sat a 
 little longer, out of decency and respect, listening, with a 
 benevolence equal to his appetite, to the perusal of a long 
 passage in Cowley, which Goodall had been reading when 
 he arrived, and the recitation of which was prolonged by 
 
 ^People of regular, comfortable lives, breakfasts, and conveniences, 
 must be cautious how they take pictures like these for caricatures. 
 The very letter of the adventure above described, with the excejition 
 of a few words, has actually happened. And so, with the same 
 difference, has that of the sheep and hackney-coach, narrated in the 
 Disasters of Carjington Blundell.
 
 JACK ABBOTT'S BREAKFAST. 43 
 
 the inflictor ^vit]l admiring repetitions, and bland luxiiria- 
 tions of comment. 
 
 " What an excellent good fellow he is ! " thought Jack; 
 "and what a very unshaved face he has, and neglectful 
 washerwoman ! " 
 
 At length he found it the more easy to get away, inas- 
 much as Goodall said he was himself in the habit of sfoinq 
 out about that time to a coffee-house to look at the papers, 
 before he went the round of his pupils ; but he had to 
 shave first, and would not detain Mr. Abbott, if he mud 
 
 go. 
 
 Being once more out of doors, our hero rushes back 
 like a tiger into Fleet Street, and plunges into the first 
 coffee-house in sight. 
 
 " Waiter ! " 
 
 "Yessir." 
 
 " Breakfast immediately. Tea, black and green, and 
 all that." 
 
 " Yessir. Eggs and toast, sir 1 '' 
 
 " By all means." 
 
 " Yessir. Any ham, sir 1 " 
 
 "Just so, and instantly.'' 
 
 ''Yessir. Cold fowl, sir ?" 
 
 "Precisely; and no delay." 
 
 " Yessir. Anchovy, perhaps, sir 1 " 
 
 "By all — eh? — no, I don't care for anchovy — but 
 pray bring what you like ; and abo\'e all, make hasten 
 my good fellow — no delay — I'm as hungry as the devil." 
 
 " Yessir — coming directly, sir." (" Good chap, and great 
 fool," said the waiter to himself.) " Like the newspaper, 
 sirT' 
 
 " Thankye. JSTow, for heaven's sake " — 
 
 " Fess^V —immediately, sir — everything ready, sir." 
 
 " Everything ready ! " thought Jack. " Cheering sound ! 
 Beautiful place a coffee-house ! Fine English place — 
 everything so snug and at hand — so comfortable — so
 
 44 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 easy — have what you like, and without fuss. What a 
 breakfast I shall eat ! And the paper too — hum, hum 
 {reading) — Horrid Murder — Mysterious Affair — Express 
 from Paris — Assassination — intense. Bless me ! what 
 horrible tilings — how very comfortable ! What toast 
 I— Waiter!" 
 
 Waiter, from a distance — " Ycssir — coming, sir." 
 
 In a few minutes everything is served up — the toast 
 hot and rich — eggs plump — ham huge, etc. 
 
 "You've another slice of toast getting ready," said Jack. 
 
 " Yessir." 
 
 "Let the third, if you please, be thicker; and the 
 fourth." 
 
 " Glorious moment ! " inwardly ejaculated our hero. 
 He had doubled the paper conveniently, so as to read the 
 "Express from Paris" in perfect comfort; and, before he 
 yioured out his tea, he was in the act of putting his hand 
 to one of the inner pieces of toast, when — awful visi- 
 tation ! — whom should he see passing the window, with 
 the evident design of turning into the coffee-house, but 
 his too-carelessly and swiftly-shaved friend Goodall. He 
 was coming, of course, to read the papers. Yes, such 
 was his horrible inconvenient practice, as Jack had too 
 lately heard him say ; and this, of all coffee-houses in the 
 world, was the one he must needs go to. 
 
 What Avas to be done 1 Jack Abbott, Avho was not at 
 all a man of manoeuvres, much less gifted with that sort 
 of impudence which can risk hurting another's feelings, 
 thought there was nothing left for him but to bolt ; and 
 accordingly, after hiding his face with the newspaper 
 till Goodall had taken up another, he did so as if a 
 bailiff was after him, brushing past the waiter who had 
 brought it him, and who had just seen another j^crson 
 out. The waiter, to his astonishment, sees him plunge 
 into another coffee-house over the way ; then hastens 
 back to see if anything be missing ; and, finding all safe,
 
 JACK Abbott's breakfast. 45 
 
 concludes he must have run over to speak to some friend, 
 perhaps upon some business suddenly called to mind, 
 especially as he seemed "such a hasty gentleman." 
 
 Meanwhile, Jack, twice exasperated with hunger, but 
 congratulating himself that he had neither been seen by 
 Goodall, nor tasted a breakfast unpaid for, has ordered 
 precisely such another breakfast, and has got the same 
 newspaper, and seated himself as nearly as possible in the 
 very same sort of place. 
 
 ^' Noiv," thought he, "I am beyond the reach of chance. 
 No such ridiculous hazard as this can find me here. 
 Goodall cannot read the papers in two coffee-houses. By 
 Jove ! was there ever a man so hungry as I ami What 
 a breakfast I sJiall eat ! " 
 
 Enter breakfast served up as before — toast hot and 
 rich — eggs plump — ham huge, etc. Homer himself, Avho 
 was equally fond of a repetition and a good meal, would 
 have liked to re-describe it. " Glorious moment ! " Jack 
 has got the middle bit of toast in his fingers, precisely as 
 before, when, happening to cast his eye at the door, he 
 sees the waiter of the former coffee-house pop his head in, 
 look him full in the face, and as suddenly withdraw it. 
 Back goes the toast on the plate ; up springs poor Abbott 
 to the door, and, hardly taking time to observe that his 
 visitant is not in sight, rushes forth for the second time, 
 and makes out as fast as he can for a third coffee-house. 
 
 "Am I never to breakfast 'J " thought he. "iSTay, 
 breakfast I will. People can't go into three coffee-houses 
 on purpose to go out again. But suppose the dog should 
 have seen me ! Not likely, or I should have seen him 
 again. He may nave gone and told the people ; but I've 
 hardly got out of the second coffee-house before I've found 
 a third. Bless this confounded Fleet Street ! Most con- 
 venient place for diving in and out coflee-houses ! Dr. 
 Johnson's street — 'High tide of human existence' — 
 ready breakfasts. What a breakfast I will eat ! "
 
 4G LEIGH HUNT 
 
 Jack Abbott, after some delay, owing to the fulness of 
 the room, is seated as before — the waiter has yessir'd to 
 their mutual content — the toast is done — Homeric repe- 
 tition — eggs plump, ham huge, etc. 
 
 "By Hercules, who Avas the greatest twist of antiquity, 
 what a breakfast I will, shall, must, and have now certainly 
 got to eat ! I could not have stood it any longer. Now, 
 noiv, NOW, is the moment of moments." 
 
 Jack Abbott has put his hand to the toast. 
 
 Unluckily, there were three pair of eyes which had 
 been observing him all the while from over the curtain of 
 the landlord's little parlour; to wit, the waiter's of the 
 first tavern, the waiter's of the second, and the landlord's 
 of the third. The two waiters had got in time to the 
 door of tavern the second, to watch his entrance into 
 tavern the third; and both communicating the singular 
 fact to the landlord of the same, the latter resolved upon 
 a certain mode of action, which was now to develop 
 itself. 
 
 "Well," said the first waiter, "I've seen strange chaps 
 in my time in cofl'ee-houses ; but this going about, 
 ordering breakfasts which a man doesn't cat, beats every- 
 thing ! and lie hasn't taken a spoon or anything as I see. 
 He doesn't seem to be looking about him, you see; he 
 reads the paper as quiet as an old gentleman." 
 
 " Just for all the world as ho did in our house," said 
 the second waiter ; " and he's very pleasant and easy-like 
 in his ways." 
 
 " Pleasant and easy ! " cried the landlord, whose general 
 scepticism was sharpened by gout and a late loss of 
 spoons. " Yes, yes ; I've seen plenty of your pleasant 
 and easy fellows — palavering rascals, who come, hail- 
 fellow-well-met, with a bit of truth mayhap in their 
 mouths, just to sweeten a parcel of lies and swindling. 
 'Twas only last Friday I lost a matter of fifty shillings' 
 worth of plate by such a chap ; and I vowed I'd nab the
 
 JACK ABBOTT'S BREAKFAST. 47 
 
 next. Only let him eat one mouthful, just to give a 
 right o' search, and see how I'll pounce on him." 
 
 But Jack didn't eat one mouthful ! No ; not even 
 though he was uninterrupted, and really had now a fair 
 field before him, and Avas in the very agonies of hunger. 
 It so happened that he had hardly taken up the piece of 
 toast above mentioned, when, with a voluntary (as it 
 seemed) and strange look of misgiving, lie laid it down 
 again 1 
 
 " I'm blessed if he's touched it, after all ! " said waiter 
 the first. " Well, this beats everything ! See how he 
 looks about him ! He's feeling in his pockets, though." 
 
 "Ah, look at that!" says the landlord. 'He's a 
 precious rascal, depend on't. I shouldn't wonder if he 
 Avhisked something out of the next box; but we'll nab 
 him. Let ns go to the door." 
 
 Mr. Abbott — Jack seems too light an appellation for 
 one under his circumstances — looked exceedingly dis- 
 tressed. He gazed at the toast with a manifest sigh; 
 then glanced cautiously around him ; then again felt his 
 pockets. At length he positively showed symptoms of 
 quitting his seat. It was clear he did not intend eating 
 a bit of this breakfast, any more than of the two others. 
 
 " I'll be hanged if he ain't going to bolt again ! " said 
 the waiter. 
 
 " Nab him ! " said the landlord. 
 
 The unhappy, and, as he thought, secret Abbott makes 
 a desperate movement to the door, and is received in the 
 arms of this triple alliance. 
 
 " Search his pocktts ! " cried the landlord. 
 
 " Three breakfasts, and ne'er a one of 'em eaten ! " cried 
 first waiter. 
 
 " Breakfasts afore he collects his spoons ! " cried second. 
 
 Our hero's pockets were searched almost before he 
 was aware, and nothing found but a book in an un- 
 known language and a pocket-handkerchief. He en-
 
 48 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 conraged the search, however, as soon as his astonishment 
 allowed him to be sensible of it, with an air of bewildered 
 resignation. 
 
 "He's a Frenchman," said first waiter. 
 
 " He hasn't a penny in his pockets," said second. 
 
 " What a villain ! " said the landlord. 
 
 " You're under a mistake — you are, upon my soul ! " 
 cried poor Jack. " I grant it's odd ; but " — 
 
 " Bother and stuff ! " said the landlord ; " where did 
 you put my spoons last Friday *? " 
 
 "Spoons !" echoed Jack; "why, I haven't eaten even 
 a bit of your breakfast." 
 
 By this time all the people in the coffee-room had 
 crowded into the passage, and a plentiful mob was 
 gathering at the door. 
 
 "Here's a chap has had three breakfasts this morning," 
 exclaimed the landlord, " and eat ne'er a one." 
 
 "Three breakfasts!" cried a broad, dry-looking gentle- 
 man in spectacles, with a deposition-taking sort of face ; 
 "how could he possibly do that? and why did you serve 
 hiinr' 
 
 " Three breakfasts in three different houses, I tell you," 
 said the landlord ; " he's been to my house, and to this 
 man's house, and to this man's ; and we've searched him, 
 and he hasn't a penny in his pocket." 
 
 " That's it ! " exclaimed Jack, who had in vain tried to 
 be heard ; " that's the very reason." 
 
 "AVhat's the very reason 1" said the gentleman in 
 spectacles. 
 
 " Why, I was shocked to find just now that I had left 
 my purse at home, in the hurry of coming out, and " — 
 
 " Oh ! oil ! " cried the laughing audience : " here's the 
 
 o 
 
 policeman ; he'll settle him." 
 
 " But how does that explain the two other breakfasts % '' 
 returned the gentleman. 
 
 " Not at all," said Jack.
 
 JACK ABBOTT S BREAKFAST. 49 
 
 " Impudent rascal ! " said the landlord. Here the police- 
 man is receiving a by-explanation, while Jack is raising 
 his voice to proceed. 
 
 " I mean," said he, " that that doesn't explain it ; but I 
 can explain it." 
 
 "Well, how, my fine fellow?" said the gentleman, 
 hushing the angry landlord, who had meanwhile given 
 our hero in charge. 
 
 "Don't lay hands on me, any of you ! " cried our hero ; 
 "I'll go quietly anywhere, if you let me alone; but first 
 let me explain." 
 
 " Hear him, hear him ! " cried the spectators ; " and 
 watch your pockets." 
 
 Here Jack, reasonably thinking that nothing would 
 help him out if the truth did not, but not aware that the 
 truth does not always have its just efi"ect, especially when 
 of an extraordinary description, gave a rapid but reverent 
 statement of the character of his friend in the neighbour- 
 hood, whose breakfast had been so inefficient ; then an 
 account (all which excited laughter and derision) of his 
 going into the first coffee-house, and seeing his friend 
 come in (which, nevertheless, had a great eifect on the 
 first waiter, who knew the old gentleman), and so on of 
 his subsequent proceedings, — a development Avhich suc- 
 ceeded in pacifying both the waiters, who had, in fact, 
 lost nothing; so, coming to an understanding with one 
 another, they slipped away, much to the anger and 
 astonishment of the landlord. This personage, whose 
 whole man, since he left off his active life, had become 
 affected with drams and tit-bits, and whose irritability 
 was aggravated by the late loss of his spoons, persisted in 
 giving poor unbreakfasted Jack in charge, especially when 
 he found that he would not send for a character to the 
 friend he had been speaking of, and that he had no other 
 in town but a lawyer, who lived at the end of it. And so 
 off goes our hero to the police-office. 
 
 D
 
 50 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 " You, perhaps, any more than my irritable friend here, 
 don't know the sort of literary old gentleman I have been 
 speaking of," said Jack to the policeman, as they were 
 moving along. 
 
 "Can't say I do, sir," said the policeman, a highly 
 respectable individual of his class, clean as a pink, and 
 dull as a pikestaff. 
 
 "No, nor no one else," said the landlord. "Who's a 
 man as can't be sent for ^ He's neither here nor there," 
 
 " That's true enough," observed Jack ; " he's in Eome or 
 Greece by this time, at some pupil's house ; but, Avherever 
 he is, I can't send to him. AVith what face could I do it, 
 even if possible, in the midst of all this fuss about a 
 breakfast 1 " 
 
 " Fuss about white broth, you mean 1 " said the land- 
 lord ; " my Friday spoons are prettily melted by this 
 time ; but Mr. Kingsley will fetch all that out." 
 
 "Then he will be an alchemist cunninger than Eay- 
 niond Lully," said our hero. "But what is your charge, 
 pray, after all ? " 
 
 "False pretences, sir," said the policeman. 
 
 " False pretences ! " 
 
 " Yes, sir. You conies, you see, into the gentleman's 
 house under the pretence of eating breakfast, and has 
 none; and that's false pretences." 
 
 " That is, supposing I intendetl them to be false." 
 
 "Yes, sir. In course I don't mean to say as — I only 
 says what the gentleman says. Fvery man by law is 
 held innocent till he's found guilty." 
 
 "You are a very civil, reasonable man," said our warm- 
 hearted hero, grateful at this unlooked-for admittance of 
 something possible in his favour; "I respect you. I have 
 no money, nor even a spoon to beg your acceptance of ; 
 but pray take this book. It's of no use to me; I've 
 another copy." 
 
 " Mayn't take anytlmig in ihe execution of my office,"
 
 JACK ABBOTTS BUEAKFAST. 51 
 
 said the ]uan, giving a glance at the landlord, as if he 
 might have done otherwise had he been out of the way. 
 " Thanlc'ee all the same, sir ; but ain't allowed to have no 
 targiwarsation." 
 
 " Yet your duties are but scantily paid, I believe," said 
 Jack. " However, you've a capital breakfast, no doubt, 
 before you set out 1 " 
 
 " Xot by tlie rcg'lations, sir," said the policeman. 
 
 "But you have by seven or eight o'clock?" said Jack, 
 smiling at his joke. 
 
 " Oh, yes, tight enough, as to that," answered the 
 policeman, smiling; for the subject of eating rouses the 
 wits of everybody. 
 
 " Hot toast, eggs, and all that, I suppose 1 " said Jack, 
 heaving a sigli betwixt mirth and calamity. 
 
 " Can't say I take eggs," returned the other; "but I 
 takes a bit o' cold meat, and a good lot o' bread and 
 butter." And here he looked radiant with the remini- 
 scence, 
 
 "Lots of bread and butter," thought Jack; "what 
 bliss ! I'll have bread and butter Avhen I breakfast, not 
 toast — it's more hearty — and, besides, you get it sooner : 
 bread is sooner spread than toasted — thick, thick — I hear 
 the knife plastering the edge of the crust before it cuts. 
 Agony of expectation ! When shall I breakfast 1 " 
 
 " The office ! " cried the landlord, hurrying forward ; 
 and in two minutes our hero found himself in a crowded 
 room, in which presided the all-knowing and all-settling 
 Mr. Kingsley. This gentleman, who died not long after 
 policemen came up, v/as the last lingering magistrate of 
 the old school. He was a shortish, stout man, in powder, 
 with a huge vinous face, a hasty expression of countenance, 
 Roman nose, and large lively black eyes ; and he always 
 kept his hat on, partly for the most dignified reason in 
 the world, because he represented tlie sovereign magis 
 tracy, and partly for the most undignified, to wit, a cold
 
 52 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 in the head ; for to this visitation he had a perpetual 
 tendency, owing to the wine he took over-night, and the 
 draughts of air which beset him every morning in the 
 police-office. Irritahility Avas his weak side, like the 
 landlord's ; but then, agreeably to the inconsistency in 
 that case made and provided, he was very intolerant of 
 the weakness in others. To sum up his character, he was 
 very loyal to his king ; had a great reverence for all the 
 bygone statesmen of his youth, especially such as were 
 orators and lords ; indeed, had no little tendency to sup- 
 pose all rich men respectable, and to let them escape too 
 easily if brought before him, but was severe in proportion 
 with what are called "decent" men and tradesmen; and 
 very kind to the poor ; and if he loved anything better 
 than his dignity, it was a good bottle of port and an ode 
 of Horace. He had not the wit of a Fielding or Dubois ; 
 but he had a spice of their scholarship, and while taking 
 his wine, would nibble you the beginnings of half the 
 odes of his favourite poet, as other men do a cake or 
 biscuit. 
 
 To our hero's dismay, a considerable delay took place 
 before the landlord's charge could be heard. Time flew, 
 hunger pressed, breakfast drew further off, and the son of 
 the jovial prebendary learned what it was to feel the 
 pangs of the want of a penny, for he could not buy even 
 a roll. "Immortal Goldsmith!" thought he; "poor 
 Savage ! amazing Chatterton ! pathetic Otway ! fine old 
 lay-bishop Johnson ! venerable, surly man ! is it possible 
 that you ever felt this ■? felt it to-morrow too, and next 
 day, and next day ! Ill does it become me then. Jack 
 Abbott, to be impatient ; and yet, table-cloth ! thick 
 slices ! tea ! when shall I breakfast '? " 
 
 The case at length was brought on, and the testimony 
 of the absent witnesses admitted by our hero with a non- 
 chalance which disgusted the magistrate, and began to 
 rouse his bile. What irritated him the more was that
 
 JACK Abbott's breakfast, 53 
 
 he saw there would be no proving anything, unless the 
 criminal (whom for the very innocence of his looks he 
 took for an impudent offender) should somehow or other 
 commit himself ; which he thought not very likely. In 
 fact, as nothing had been eaten, and nothing found on the 
 person, there was no real charge ; and Mr. Kingsley had 
 a very particular secret reason, as we shall see presently, 
 why he could not help feeling that there was one point 
 strongly in the defendant's favour. But this only served 
 to irritate him the more. 
 
 " Well, now, you sir — Mr. What's-your-name," quoth 
 he, in a huffing manner, and staring from under his hat ; 
 " what is your wonderful explanation of this very extra- 
 ordinary habit of taking three breakfasts — eh, sir'? You 
 seem mighty cool upon it." 
 
 " Sir," answered our hero, whose good-nature gifted 
 him with a certain kind of address, " it is out of no dis- 
 respect to yourself that I am cool. You may well be 
 surprised at the circumstances under which I find myself; 
 but in addressing a gentleman and a man of understanding, 
 and giving him a plain statement of the facts, I have no 
 doubt he will discover a veracity in it Avhich escapes eyes 
 less discerning." 
 
 Here the landlord, who instinctively saw the cflPect 
 which this exordium would have upon Kingsley, could not 
 help muttering the word "palaver," loud enough to be heard. 
 
 " Silence ! " exclaimed the magistrate. " Keep your 
 vulgar words to yourself, sir. And hark'ee, sir, take your 
 hat oif, sir ! How dare you come into this office witli your 
 hat on 1 " 
 
 " Sir, I have a very bad cold, and I thought that iu a 
 public office " — 
 
 " Sir," returned Kingsley, who Avas doubly offended at 
 this excuse about the cold, " think us none of your 
 thoughts, sir. Public office ! rublic-houso, I suppose 
 you mean. Nobody wears his hat iu tliis office but
 
 e 
 
 54 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 myself, and I only do it as the representative of a 
 greater power. Hat, indeed ! I suppose some day or 
 other we shall all have the privilege of my Lord Kinsale, 
 and wear our hats in the royal presence." 
 
 Jack gave his account of the whole matter, which, 
 from a certain ignorance it exhibited of the ways of the 
 town, did appear a little romantic to his interrogator ; 
 but the latter, besides knowing our hero's lawyer, was 
 not unacquainted with the character of Goodall, " who," 
 said he, " is known to everybody." 
 
 " Probably, sir," observed the landlord ; " but for that 
 reason may not this person have heard of him, and so pre- 
 tend to be his acquaintance ? He calls himself Abbott, 
 but that is not the name in the French book he's got 
 about him." 
 
 "Let me see the book," cried Kingsley. "French 
 book ! It is a Latin book, and a very good book too, 
 and an Elzevir. ' E libris Caroli Gibson, 1743.' A 
 pretty age for the person before us truly — a very hale, 
 hearty young gentleman, some ninety years old, or there- 
 abouts." (Here a laugh all over the office, which, 
 togetlier with the sight of the Horace, put Kingsley into 
 the greatest good-humour.) " You are thinking, I guess, 
 Mr. — a — Abbott, of the ' Odi profamim vulgus,' I take 
 it; and wishing you could add, ^ et arceo.'"^ 
 
 " Why, to tell you the truth," answered Jack, " I can- 
 not deny a wish to that effect ; but my main thought, for 
 these five hours past, has been rather of the ' Nunc est 
 bihendum,' ^ only substituting teacups for goblets." 
 
 "Yery good, sir, very good; and doubtless you admire 
 the ' Persicos odi,' and the ' Qitid drdicalum,' and that 
 beautiful ode, the ' Vides id altd "? " ^ 
 
 " I do, indeed," said Jack; "and I trust that one of 
 
 1 " I liate the profane vulgnr,— and drive tliem awny." 
 
 2 "Now for drinking." 
 
 ■' Various beginniu"s of other odes.
 
 JACK Abbott's breakfast. 5.^ 
 
 your favourites, like mine, is the ' Integer vitse sceJerisgue 
 Xjurus ' 1 " 
 
 " ' JVon eget Mauri jaciilis, neque arcu,' 
 
 (added Kingsley, unable to avoid going on with the 
 quotation), 
 
 "'Nee venenatis gravida sagiuis, 
 Fusee, pharetrd.' 
 
 There's something very charming in that ' Fusee, pharetrd,'' 
 — so short and pithy, and elegant ; and then the pleasant, 
 social familiarity of Fmce." 
 
 "Just so," said Jack ; "j^ou hit the true relish of it to 
 a nicety ! " 
 
 " Fussy fair-eattr ! " muttered the landlord. " A great 
 deal more fuss than fair eating. My time's lost — that's 
 certain." 
 
 Kingsley could not resist a few more returns to his 
 favourite pages ; hut suddenly recollecting himself, he 
 looked grand and a little turbulent, and said, — 
 
 " Well, Mr. — a — Landlord — What's - your - name, — - 
 what's the charge here, after alH for, on my conscience, 
 I cannot see any ; and, for my part, I thoroughly believe 
 the gentleman ; and I'll give you another reason for it, 
 besides knowing this Mr. Goodall. It may not be 
 thought very dignified in me to own it, but dignity must 
 give way to justice — ' Fiat justitia, mat coehun' — and to 
 say the truth I, I myself, Mr. Landlord — whatever you 
 may think of the confession — came from home this 
 morning without remembering my purse." 
 
 In short, the upshot was, that the worthy magistrate, 
 seeing Bidds' impatience at this confession, and warming 
 the more towards his Horatian friend, not only proceeded 
 to throw the greatest ridicule on the charge, but gave 
 Jack a note to the nearest tavern-keeper, desiring him to 
 furnish the gentleman with a breakfast at his expense, 
 and stating the reason why. He then proclaimed aloud,
 
 56 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 as he was directing it, what he had done; and added, 
 that he should be very happy to see so intelh'gent and 
 very innocent a young gentleman, whenever he chose to 
 call upon him. 
 
 With abundance of acknowledgments, and in raptures 
 at the now certain approach of the bread and butter, 
 Jack made his way out of the office, and proceeded for 
 the tavern. 
 
 " At last I have thee ! " cried he internally, " most 
 fugacious of meals — what a repast I will make of it ! 
 What a breakfast I shall have ! Never will a breakfast 
 have been so intensified.''^ 
 
 Jack Abbott, with the note in his hand, arrived at the 
 tavern, went up the steps, hurried through the passage. 
 Every inch of the way was full of hope and bliss. He 
 sees the bar in an angle round the corner, and is hasten- 
 ing into it with the magical document, when, lo ! whom 
 should his eyes light on but the plaintiftj Bidds himself, 
 detailing his version of the story to the new landlord, 
 and evidently poisoning his mind with every syllable. 
 
 Our modest, albeit not timid, hero, raging with hunger 
 as he was, could not stand this. A man of more confident 
 face might not unreasonably have presented his note, and 
 stood the brunt of the uncomfortableness ; but Jack 
 Abbott, with all his apparent thoughtlessness, had one of 
 those natures which feel for the improprieties of others, 
 even when they themselves have no sense of them ; and 
 he had not the heart to outface the vindictiveness of 
 Bidds. To say the truth, Bidds, who was a dull fellow, 
 had some reason to be suspicious ; and Jack felt this too, 
 and, retreating accordingly, made haste to take the long 
 step to his lawyer's. 
 
 "Now, the lawyer," quoth he, soliloquizing, "I have 
 never seen ; but he was an intimate friend of my father's ; 
 so intimate, that I can surely take a household liberty 
 with him, and fairly accept his breakfast, if he offers it.
 
 JACK Abbott's breakfast. 57 
 
 as of course he -will ; and I shall plainly tell him that I 
 prefer breakfast to lunch ; in short, that I have made up 
 my mind to have it, even if I wait till dinner-time, or tea- 
 time; and he'll laugh, and we shall be jolly, and so I 
 shall get my breakfast at last. Exquisite moment ! 
 What a breakfast I shall have ! " 
 
 The lawyer, Mr. Pallinson, occupied a good large house, 
 with the marks of plenty on it. Jack hailed the sight of 
 the fire blazing in the kitchen. "Delicious spot!" 
 thought he ; " kettle, pantry, and all that — comfortable ; 
 maid-servant too; hope she has milk left, and will cut 
 the bread and butter. A home too — good family house. 
 Sure of being comfortable there. Taverns not exactly 
 what I took 'em for — not hospitable — not fiducial — don't 
 trust; don't know an honest man when they see him. 
 What slices ! " 
 
 But a little baulk presented itself. Jack unfortunately 
 rang at the ofiice-heW instead of the house, and found 
 himself among a parcel of clerks. Mr. Pallinson was out 
 — not expected at home till evening — had gone to West- 
 minster on special business — and at such times always 
 dined at the Mendip Coffee-house. Jack, in desperation, 
 fairly stated his case. JSTo result but " Strange, indeed, 
 sir," from one of the clerks, and a general look-up from 
 their desks on the part of the others. Not a syllable of 
 " Won't you stop, sir ? " or " The servant can easily give 
 you breakfast ; " or any of those fond succedaneums for 
 the master's presence, which our hero's simplicity had 
 fancied. Furthermore, no Mrs. Pallinson existed, to 
 whom he might have applied ; and he had not the face 
 to ask for any minor goddess of the household. Blush- 
 ing, and stammering a " Good-morning," he again found 
 himself in the wide world of pavement and houses. He 
 had got, however, his lawyer's direction at the cofTee- 
 house, and thither accordingly he betook himself, retracing 
 great part of his melanclioly steps.
 
 58 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 Had our hero, instead of having passed his time at 
 college and in the country, been at all used to living in 
 London, he would have set himself down comfortably at 
 once in this or any other coffee-house ; ordered what lie 
 pleased, and despatched a messenger in the meanwhile to 
 anybody he wanted. 'Eut, under all the circumstances, 
 he was resolved, for fear of encountering further dis- 
 appointment, to endure whatsoever pangs remained to 
 him for the rest of the time, and wait till he saw his 
 solicitor come in to dinner. In vain the waiters rave 
 him all encouragement — " Knew Mr. Pallinson well " — 
 " a most excellent gentleman " — had " recommended 
 many gentlemen to their house." — "Would you like 
 anything, sir, before he comes?" — "Like to look at 
 the paper?" And the paper Avas laid, huge and crisp, 
 before him. 
 
 " Ah ! " thought Jack, with a sigh, " I know that 
 sound — no, I'll certainly wait. Five o'clock isn't far off, 
 and then I'm certain. What a breakfast I shall now 
 have, when it does come. I'll wait, if I die first, so as 
 to have it in perfect comfort." 
 
 At length five o'clock strikes, and almost at the same 
 moment enters Mr. Pallinson. He was a brisk, good- 
 humoured man, who had the happy art of throwing off 
 business with the occasion for it ; and he acknowledged 
 our hero's claims at once, in a jovial voice, "from his 
 likeness to his excellent friend, the prebendary." 
 
 " Don't say a word more, my dear sir — not a word ; 
 your eyes and face tell all. Here, John, plates for two. 
 You'll dine, of course, witli your father's old friend? or 
 would you like a private room ? " 
 
 Jack's heart felt itself at home at once Avith this 
 cordiality He said he was very thankful for the ofier 
 of the private room, especially for a reason which he 
 would explain presently. Having entered it, he opened 
 into the history of his morning ; and by laughing himself,
 
 JACK Abbott's breakfast. 59 
 
 warranted Pallinson in the bursts of laughter which lie 
 would have had the greatest difficulty to restrain. But 
 the good and merry lawyer, who understood both a joke 
 and a comfort to the depth, entered heartily into Jack's 
 whim of still having his breakfast, and it Avas accordingly 
 brought up — not, however, without a guarded explanation 
 on the part of the Westminster Hall man, who had a 
 professional dislike to seeing anybody committed in the 
 eyes of the ignorant ; so he told the Avaiter that " his 
 friend here had got up so late, and kept such fashionable 
 hours, he must needs breakfast while himself was dining," 
 The waiter bowed with great respect ; " And so," says the 
 shrewd attorney, " no harm's done ; and now, my dear 
 Mr. Abbott, peg away." 
 
 Jack needed not this injunction to lay his hand upon 
 the prey. The bread and butter was now actually before 
 him ; not so thick, indeed, as he had pictured to himself, 
 but there it was, real, right-earnest bread and butter ; and, 
 since the waiter had turned his back, three slices could be 
 rolled into one, and half of the coy aggregation clapped 
 into the mouth at once. The lum.p vvas accordingly made, 
 the fingers whisked it up, and the mouth was ready 
 opened to swallow, when the waiter again throws open 
 the door — 
 
 " Mr. Goodall, sir." 
 
 " Breakfast is abolished with me," thought Jack ; 
 " there's no such thing. Henceforward I shall not 
 attempt it." 
 
 The prebendary, the lawyer, and Goodall were all wlU 
 known to each other; but this is not what had brought 
 him hither. The waiter at his coffeediouse, where he 
 went to read the papers, and where Jack had had his first 
 mischance, had returned home before the old gentleman 
 had finished his morning's journal, and told him what, to 
 his dusty apprehension, appeared the most confused and 
 unaccountable story in the world, of ^Mr. Abbott having
 
 60 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 ordered three breakfasts and been taken to jail. In his 
 benevolent uneasiness, he could hardly get through his 
 day's work, which, unfortunately, called him so far as 
 Hackney ; but as soon as it was over, he hastened in a 
 coach to Pallinson's, and coming there just after Jack had 
 gone, had followed him, in less uneasiness of mind, to the 
 tavern. 
 
 " Well, sir — eh, sir ? — why, my dear Mr. Abbott — 
 John — James, I should say — why, what a dance you have 
 led me to find you out ! and very glad I am, I'm sure, sir, 
 to find you so comfortably situated, with our good friend 
 here, after the story which that foolish, half-witted fellow, 
 William, told me at the coffee-house. Well, sir — eh — 
 and now — I beg pardon — but pray what is it, and can I 
 do anything for you 1 I suppose not — eh — ah ? for here's 
 our excellent friend, Mr, Pallinson — he does everything 
 of that sort — bailiff and house — yes, sir, and no doubt it's 
 all right — only, if I am wanted, you'll say so ; and so, sir 
 — eh — ah — well — but don't let me interrupt your tea, 
 I beg." 
 
 " Luckiest of innocent fancies ! " thought our hero, 
 relieved from a load of misgiving. "He thinks I'm 
 at tea ! " 
 
 Jack plunged again at the bread and butter, and at last 
 actually realized it in his mouth. His calamities were 
 over ! He was in the act of breakfasting ! 
 
 "I'm afraid, too," said Goodall, — "eh, my dear sir'? — 
 that the very sparing breakfast you took at my chambers 
 — eh — ah — my, my dear Mr. John — must have con- 
 tributed not a little to — to — yes, sir. Well, but pray 
 now what was the trouble you had, of which that foolish 
 fellow told me such flams 1 I'm afraid — yes, indeed — 
 I've had great fears sometimes that he ventures to tell 
 me stories — things untrue, sir." 
 
 " God bless him and you, both of you," thought Abbott. 
 " You're a delicious fellow. — Why, my dear, good sir,"
 
 JACK Abbott's breakfast. 61 
 
 continued he, always eating, and at the same time racking 
 his brains for an invention, — " I beg your pardon — I'm 
 eating a little too fast " — 
 
 Here he made signs of uneasiness in the throat. 
 
 " The fact is," said Pallinson, coming to the rescue 
 (for he knew that the whole business would fade from 
 Goodall's mind next day, or be remembered so dimly that 
 the waiter would hear no more of it), " the fact is, Mr. 
 Abbott met me in Temple Lane, where I had been 
 summoned on business so early that I had not break- 
 fasted ; and he said he would order breakfast for me at 
 your coffee-house ; and I not coming, he came out to look 
 for me, and found me discussing a matter at another 
 tavern door, with a policeman, who had been sent for to 
 take up a swindler ; and hence, my good sir, all this stuft; 
 about the jail and the two breakfasts, for there were only 
 two ; but you know how stories accumulate.-" 
 
 "Very deplorably, indeed, sir," said Goodall ; "it 
 always was so, and — eh — ah — yes, sir — I fear always 
 will be." 
 
 " I beg pardon," interrupted Jack, " but may I trouble 
 you for that loaf % These slices are very thin, and I'm so 
 ravenously hungry, that " — 
 
 " Glorious moment ! " The inward ejaculation was at 
 last a true one. The sturdy slices beautifully made their 
 appearance from under the sharp, robust-going, and butter- 
 plastering knife of Jack Abbott. Even the hot toast was 
 called for — Goodall having "vowed" he'd take his tea 
 also, since they were all three met. The eggs were also 
 contrived, and plump went the spoon upon their tops in 
 the egg-cup. The huge ham fuithermore was not want- 
 ing. And then the well-filled and thrice-fdled breakfast- 
 cup ; — excellent was its strong and well-milked tea, 
 between black and green, " with an eye of tawny in it;" 
 something with a body, although most liquidly refreshing. 
 Jack doubled his thick slices; he took huge bites; he
 
 62 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 swilled Ills tea, as lie had sworn in thought he wovdd ] 
 and he had the eggs on one side of him, and the ham on 
 the other, and his friends before him, and was as happy 
 as a prince escaped into a foreign land (for no prince in 
 possession knows such moments as these) ; and when he 
 had at length finished, talking and laughing all the while, 
 or hearing talk and laugh, he pushed the breakfast-cup 
 aside, and said to himself, 
 
 " I've had it ! — breakfast hath been mine ! — And 
 now, my dear ]\[r. Pallinson, I'll take a glass of your 
 port."
 
 IV. 
 GALGANO AND MADONNA MINOCCIA, 
 
 In the city of Sienna in Italy, famous for its sweet voices 
 and pleasant air, lived a sprightly and accomplished young 
 man of the name of Galgano, who had long loved in vain 
 the wife of one Signor Stricca. He knew nothing of the 
 husband, except that he was what we call a respectable 
 man, and something or other in his mind prevented him 
 from making his acquaintance ; but he contrived to meet 
 the lady wherever he could at other men's houses, and to 
 let her know the extent of his admiration. He wore her 
 colours at tournaments. He played and suug to the 
 mandolin under her window when her husband was away. 
 He was always of her opinion in company, partly because 
 he was in love, and partly because their dispositions were 
 so alike that he really thought as she did. One evening, 
 as a party sat out on a large wide balcony full of orange 
 trees, listening to music that was going on inside of the 
 house. Madonna Minoccia (such was the lady's name) 
 dropped a small jewel in one of the trees ; and as he was 
 helping her to find it, her sweet stooping face and spicy- 
 smelling hair appeared so lovely among the polished and 
 graceful leaves, that he could not but steal a kiss upon 
 one of her eyelids, adding, in a low and earnest voice, 
 "Forgive me, for I could not help it." 
 
 Whether the sincere and respectful manner in which 
 these words were uttered had any influence upon the lady's 
 mind, we cannot say ; but neither on this, nor on future 
 occasions when he sent her presents and letters, did she
 
 64 LEIGH HUKT. 
 
 return any answer, kind or unkind ; nor did she show 
 him a different countenance whenever they met. She 
 only dropped her eyes a little more than usual when he 
 spoke to her; but wliether, again, this was owing to a 
 wish to avoid looking at him, or to some little feeling of 
 self-love, perhaps unknown to herself, and produced by 
 the recollection of that irrepressible movement on his 
 part, is not to be ascertained. Some ladies will say that 
 she ought to have made a complaint to her husband, or 
 spoken to the people whom he visited, or looked the man 
 into the dust at once ; and doubtless this would have 
 settled the matter on all sides. But Madonna Minoccia 
 was of so kind a disposition that she could not easily 
 find it in her heart to complain of anybody, much less of 
 a man who found such irresistible gentleness in her eye- 
 lids. Besides, whatever may be thought of her vanity in 
 this score, she was really so good, and innocent, and 
 modest, that we know not how much it would have taken 
 to convince her fully of any one's being really in love 
 with her, or admiring her more than other ladies for 
 qualities which she thought so many of them must have 
 in common. In short, Madonna, though innocent, was 
 not ignorant that gallantry was very common in Sienna. 
 Her husband, who was a very honest, sincere-hearted man, 
 had told her that all unmarried young men had their 
 vagaries, and, as for that matter, many very grave-look- 
 ing married people too; and she thought that if a husband 
 whom she loved, and whose word she could rely on, 
 set her an example nevertheless of conjugal fidelity, she 
 could not do better than do her duty quietly and without 
 ostentation, and think of these odd proceedings both as 
 good-naturedly and rarely as possible. 
 
 Unfortunately for Galgano, this kind of temper was the 
 worst thing in the world to make him leave off his love. 
 He had habitually got a common notion of gallantry from 
 the light in which it was generally regarded ; but his
 
 GALGANO AND MADONNA MINOCCIA. 65 
 
 instinct was better. The subtlety of love made him dis- 
 cover what was passing in Minoccia's mind ; and as he 
 had the elements of true modesty in him as well as her- 
 self, and would want much to be convinced that a woman 
 really loved him, whatever might be his affection for her, 
 or rather in proportion to the sincerity of it, he thought 
 that she only treated him as she would any other young 
 man who had paid her unwelcome attention. But then 
 to see how kind she still was, — to observe no change in 
 her, for all his unwelcomeness, but only such as might be 
 construed into a gentle request to him to forbear, — in 
 short, to meet with a woman who neither showed a 
 disposition to gallantry, nor resentment against the 
 manifestation of it, nor a coldness that might be con- 
 strued into natural indifference, all this made him so 
 much in love, that he thought his very being failed him, 
 and wanted replenishing, if he was a day without seeing 
 her. He took a lodging opposite Signer Stricca's house ; 
 and in order to indulge himself in looking at her without 
 being discovered, filled the window of his room with 
 orange trees. At times, when everything was still, and 
 the windows were open in the warm summer-time, he 
 heard her voice speaking to the servants. "It is the 
 same kind voice," said he, " always." At other times he 
 sat watching her through his orange trees as she read a 
 book or worked at her embroidery ; and if she left off, 
 and happened to look at them (which he often moved 
 about with a noise for that purpose), it seemed as if her 
 face was coming again among the leaves. Then he thought 
 it would never come, and that he should never touch it 
 more ; and he felt sick with impatience, and said to him- 
 self, " This is the way these virtuous people are kind, is it 1 " 
 It chanced that Signor Stricca took a house at a little 
 distance from Sienna, where his wife, who was fond of a 
 garden, from that time forth always resided. Galgano — 
 who was like a bird with a string tied to his leg — be sure,
 
 66 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 flew after tliem. He found a room in a cottage just 
 pitched like his former one. The orange trees were 
 removed, and he recommenced his enamoured task, fully 
 resolved, besides, to get intimate with Signor Stricca, and 
 try what importunity could do in the country. 
 
 "I think," said Madonna Minoccia to her maid-servant, 
 looking out of the window, " I can never turn my eyes 
 anywhere but I see beautiful orange trees." 
 
 "Ah!" sighed Galgano, "the turning of those eyes! 
 They ought always to light upon what is beautiful." 
 
 " I could swear," said Madonna, " if my husband would 
 let me, that those were the very same oranges which 
 belonged to our invisible neighbour at Sienna, only he 
 must be too old a bachelor to change his quarters." And 
 she began to sing a canzonet that was all over the country : — 
 
 "Arancie, belle arancie, 
 Pienotte come guancie " — 
 
 Here she suddenly stopped, and said, " I am very giddy 
 to-day, to sing such lawless little rhymes ; but the skies are 
 so blue, and the leaves so green, they make me chant like a 
 bird. I can see my husband now with a bird's eye. There 
 he is, Lisetta, coming through the olive trees. Go and get me 
 my veil, and I'll walk and meet him like a fair unknown." 
 
 "The invisible neighbour!" thought Galgano; — "is 
 this coquetry now, or is it sheer innocence and vivacity ! 
 And the song of the oranges ! I'll try, however ; I'll look 
 at her above the leaves." 
 
 Now the reader must be informed that Galgano himself 
 was the author of this canzonet, both words and music, 
 and was generally known as such. Whether Minoccia 
 knew it we cannot determine ; but Galgano thought that 
 she could hardly have quite forgotten the adventure of the 
 orange tree, especially as the song was calculated to call 
 it to mind. The whole of the words amounted to this : — 
 
 O oranges, sweet oranges, 
 Pluinpy cheeks that peep in trees,
 
 GALGANO AND MADONNA MINOCCIA. 67 
 
 The crabbed'st churl in all the south 
 
 "Would hardly let a thirsty mouth 
 
 Ciaze at ye, and long to taste, 
 
 Nor grant one golden kiss at last. 
 La, la, la — la sol fa mi — 
 My lady looked through the orange tree 
 
 Yet cheeks there are, yet cheeks there are, 
 
 Sweeter— O good God, how far ! — 
 
 That make a thirst like very death 
 
 Down to the heart through lijis and breath ; 
 
 And if we asked a taste of those, 
 
 The kindest owners would turn foes. 
 O la, la — la sol fa mi — 
 My lady's gone from the orange ti-ee. 
 
 Galgano, full of this modest complaint against husbands, 
 and of Minoccia's knowledge of it, suddenly raised his 
 head over the orange pots, and made a very bold yet 
 courteous bow full in Madonna's astonished face. For 
 it was astonished ; — there Avas, unfortunately, no doubt 
 of that. She resumed herself, however, with the best 
 grace she could, and staying just long enough to drop one 
 of her kindest though gravest curtseys, walked slowly 
 from the window. After that he never saw her there 
 a^ain. 
 
 Galgano tried all the points of view about the house, 
 but could only catch an occasional glimpse of her through 
 the garden trees. He could not even meet with Signor 
 Stricca, to whom he meant, under some plausible pretext, 
 to introduce himself. At length, however, a favourable 
 opportunity occurred. His dog, in scouring hither and 
 thither, had darted into the front gate of the house, and 
 seemed resolved not to be hunted out till ho had made 
 the full circiiit of the grounds. 
 
 "My master, sir," said one of the servants, "bade me 
 ask you if you would choose to walk in and call the dog 
 out yourself 1 " 
 
 " I thank you," answered Galgano, who seemed to feel 
 that he could not go in precisely because he had the best
 
 68 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 opportunity in the world ; " I will whistle him to me 
 over those palings there." He did so, and the dog 
 presently appeared, followed by Signor Stricca and his 
 household. The animal, in leaping to his master over the 
 palings, hurt his leg ; but nothing could induce Galgano 
 to enter the house, 
 
 "Minoccia, my love," cried the host, "why do you not 
 come up and entreat Signor Galgano to favour our home 
 with his presence 1 " 
 
 The lady was approaching, when Galgano, lapping up 
 the wounded dog in his cloak, hurried off, protesting that 
 he had the rascalliest business in life to attend to, and 
 that he would take the very earliest opportunity of 
 repaying himself for his loss. 
 
 "There now," said Stricca to a little, coxcombical-look- 
 ing fellow who was on a holiday visit to him ; " there is 
 one of the most accomplished gentlemen in all Italy, and 
 yet he does not disdain to wrap up his bleeding dog in 
 his silken coat. That," continued he to his wife, "is 
 Signor Galgano, one of the finest wits in Sienna, and 
 what is better, one of the most generous of men. But 
 you must have seen him before." 
 
 "Yes," replied Madonna; "but I knew nothing of 
 his generosity." 
 
 Her husband, like one generous man speaking of 
 another, related twenty different instances in which 
 Galgano had manifested his friendship and liberality in 
 the most delicate manner; so that Minoccia, at last, 
 almost began to feel the kiss in the orange tree stronger 
 upon her eyelids than she did when it was stolen. 
 
 Galgano soon made his appearance in Signor Stricca's 
 house, and could not but perceive that the lady suffered 
 herself to look kinder at him than when he bowed to her 
 out of the cottage window. Ho was beginning to con- 
 gratulate himself, after the fashion of the young gallants 
 among whom he had been brought up ; but what per-
 
 GALGANO AND BIADONXA MINOCCIA. 69 
 
 plexed liim was the extremely affectionate attention she 
 paid her husband, and his perplexity was not diminished 
 by the very great kindness shown him by the husband 
 himself. Indeed, the kindness of both seemed to go 
 hand in hand ; so that our hero, having never yet been 
 taught that a lady to whom a stranger had shown attention 
 could do anything but favour him entirely, or laugh at or 
 insult him, was more than ever bewildered between his 
 respect for the husband and increasing passion for the 
 wife. 
 
 Galgano, though not in so many words, pressed his 
 suit in a manner that grew warmer every day. Minoccia 
 seemed more and more distressed at it, and yet her kind- 
 ness appeared to increase in proportion. At length, one 
 afternoon, as they sat together in a summer-house, Galgano, 
 seeing her stoop her face into an orange tree, Avas so over- 
 come with the recollection of the first meeting of their 
 faces, that he repeated the kiss, changing it, however, from 
 the eyelids to the lips ; and it struck him that she did 
 not withdraw as quickly as before, nor look by any 
 means so calm and indifferent. He accordingly took her 
 hand, in order to kiss it with a passionate gratitude, when 
 she laid her other hand upon his, and, looking at liim 
 with a sort of appealing tenderness in the face, said, — 
 
 " Signor Galgano, I respect you for numberless generous 
 things I have heard of you ; and knowing as I do how 
 little what is called gallantry is thought of, I cannot deny 
 but that your present attentions to me and apparent 
 wishes do not hinder me from letting my respect run into 
 a kinder feeling towards you. Perhaps, so sweet to us is 
 flattery from those we regard, they have even more effect 
 upon me than I ought to allow. ]^ut, sir, there are 
 always persons, whether they act justly or unjustly them- 
 selves, who do think a great deal of this gallantry, and 
 who, if the case applied to themselves, would be rendered 
 very uncomfortable ; and, Signor Galgano, I have one of
 
 70 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 the very best husbands in the world ; and if I show any 
 weakness towards another unbecoming a grateful wife, I 
 do beseech you, sir, — and I pay you one of the greatest 
 and most affectionate compliments under heaven, — that 
 rather than do or risk anything the knowledge of which 
 should pain him, you will help me with all the united 
 strength of your generosity against my very self ; other- 
 Avise " (here she fell into a blushing passion of tears), " it 
 may be a hard struggle for me to call to mind what I ought 
 respecting the happiness of others, while you are saying 
 to me things that make me frightfully absorbed in the 
 moment before me." 
 
 We leave the reader to guess liow Galgano's attention 
 to the appealing part of this speech was divided and hurt 
 by the tenderness it avowed, and the opportunity it 
 seemed to offer him. He passionately kissed the hand 
 of the gentle Minoccia, and she did not hinder him, only 
 she looked another way, drying up her tears ; and he 
 thought the turn of her head and neck never looked so 
 lovely. 
 
 "And if it Avere possible," asked he, "that the 
 opinions of good and generous men could be changed 
 on this subject (not that it would become me to seek to 
 change those of the man I allude to) — but if it were 
 possible, and no bar were in the way of a small share of 
 Minoccia's kindness, might I indeed then hope that she 
 would not withdraw it ? " 
 
 "Is it fair. Signer Galgano," said Minoccia, in a low 
 but kind voice, "to ask me such a question, after the 
 words that have found their way out of my lips ? " 
 
 " And who, then, was the kindest of men or Avomen, — 
 next to yourself, dearest Minoccia, — that told you so many 
 handsome and over-coloured things of your AvorshiiDper ? " 
 
 "My husband himself," ansAvered she; "he has long 
 had a regard for j'our character, and at last he taught me 
 to share it."
 
 GALGANO AND MADONNA 5I1N0CCIA. 71 
 
 "Did he so ! " exclaimed Galgona; " then, by heavens " 
 — He broke off a moment, and resumed in a quieter 
 tone : — " You, Madame Minoccia, who have a loving 
 and affectionate heart, and who confess that you have 
 been moved to some regard for me by qualities which you 
 know only by report, will guess what pangs that spirit 
 must go through which has been made dizzy by looking 
 upon your qualities day after day, and yet must tear 
 itself from a happiness in which it would plunge head- 
 long. But, by the great and good God, which created 
 all this beauty around us, and you the most beautiful of 
 all beautiful things in the midst of it, I do love the 
 generosity, and the sincerity, and the harmony that keeps 
 them beautiful, so much more than my own will, that 
 although I think the happiness might be greater, it 
 shall never be said that Galgauo made it less ; and that 
 he made it less, too, because the generosity trusted him, 
 and the kind sincerity leaned on him for support. One 
 embrace, or I shall die." And Galgano not only gave, 
 but received, an embrace almost as warm as what he gave; 
 and Minoccia kissed his eyelids, and then, putting her 
 hand over them, and pressing them as if not to let him 
 see, suddenly took it oflF, and disappeared. 
 
 "We know not how Signor Stricca received the account 
 of this interview at the time, for Madame INIinoccia 
 certainly related it to him ; but it is in the records of 
 Sienna, that years afterwards, Avhile she was yet alive, 
 her husband became bound for Signor Galgano in a large 
 sum of money, as security, for an office which the latter 
 held in the State; and ib appears by the dates in the 
 papers, that they were close neighbours as well as 
 friends.^ 
 
 1 This story (with tlic usual difference of di tail) is from the Italian 
 novelists, and lias been told in Painter's " I'alace of Pleasure," one 
 of the storehoxises of our great dramatic writers.
 
 THE NURTURE OF TRIPTOLEM US. 
 
 Triptolbmus was the son of Celeus, king of Attica, "by 
 his wife Polymnia. During his youth he felt such an 
 ardour for knowledge, and such a desire to impart it to 
 his fellow-creatures, that having but a slight frame for so 
 vigorous a soul to inhabit, and meeting as usual with a 
 great deal of jealousy and envy from those who were 
 interested in being thought wiser, he fell into a wasting 
 illness. His flesh left his bones ; his thin hands trembled 
 when he touched the harp ; his fine warm eyes looked 
 staringly out of their sockets, like stars that had slipped 
 out of their places in heaven. 
 
 At this period an extraordinary and awful sensation 
 struck, one night, through all the streets of Eleusis. It 
 Avas felt both by those who slept and those who were 
 awake. The former dreamt great dreams ; the latter, 
 especially the revellers and hypocrites who were pursuing 
 their profane orgies, looked at one another, and thought 
 of Triptolemus. As to Triptolemus himself, he shook in 
 his bed with exceeding agitation j but it was with a 
 pleasure that overcame him like pain. He knew not 
 how to account for it ; but he begged his father to go out, 
 and meet whatever was coming. He felt that some extra- 
 ordinary good was approaching, both for himself and his 
 fellow-creatures ; but revenge was never further from his 
 thouo-hts. What was he to revenge ? Mistake and 
 unhappiness? He was too wise, too kind, and too 
 suffering. "Alas!" thought he, " an unknown joy shakes 
 
 72
 
 THE NURTURE OF TRIPTOLEMUS. 73 
 
 me like a palpable sorrow ; and their minds are but as 
 weak as my body. They cannot bear a touch they are 
 not accustomed to." 
 
 The king, his wife, and his daughters were out, 
 trembling, though not so much as Triptolemus, nor with 
 the same feeling. There was a great light in the air, 
 which moved gradually towards them, and seemed to be 
 struck upwards from something in the street. Presently 
 two gigantic torches appeared round the corner; and 
 underneath them, sitting in a car, and looking earnestly 
 about, sat a mighty female, of more than ordinary size 
 and beauty. Her large black eyes, with their gigantic 
 brows bent over them, and surmounted with a white fore- 
 head and a profusion of hair, looked here and there with 
 an intentness and a depth of yearning indescribable. 
 " Chaire, Demeter ! " exclaimed the king in a loud voice. 
 " Hail, creative mother ! " He raised the cry common at 
 festivals when they imagined a deity manifesting him- 
 self ; and the priests poured out of their dwellings with 
 vestment and with incense, which they held trembling 
 aloft, turning down their pale faces from the gaze of the 
 passing goddess. 
 
 It was Ceres looking for her lost daughter Proserpina. 
 The eye of the deity seemed to have a greater severity in 
 its earnestness as she passed by the priests ; but at sight 
 of a chorus of youths and damsels, who dared to lift up 
 their eyes as well as voices, she gave such a beautiful 
 smile as none but gods in sorrow can give ; and, embold- 
 ened with this, the king and his family prayed her to 
 accept their hospitality. 
 
 She did so. A temple in the king's palace was her 
 chamber, where she lay on the golden bed usually 
 assigned to her image. The most precious fruits and 
 perfumes burnt constantly at the door; and at first no 
 hymns were sung but those of homage and condolence. 
 But these the goddess commanded to be changed for
 
 74 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 happier songs ; and word was also given to the city that 
 it should remit its fears and its cares, and show all the 
 happiness of which it was capable before she arrived. 
 " For," said she, " the voice of happiness arising from 
 earth is a god's best incense. A deity lives better on the 
 pleasure of what it has created, than in a return of a part 
 of its gifts." 
 
 Such were the maxims which Ceres delighted to utter 
 during her abode at Eleusis, and which afterwards formed 
 the essence of her renowned mysteries at that place. But 
 the bigots, who afterwards adopted and injured them, 
 heard them with dismay ; for they were similar to what 
 young Triptolemus had uttered in the aspirations of his 
 virtue. The rest of the inhabitants gave themselves up 
 to the joy from Avhich the divinity would only extract 
 consolation. They danced, they wedded, they loved; 
 they praised her in hymns as cheerful as her natural 
 temper; they did great and glorious things for one 
 another: never was Attica so full of true joy and hero- 
 ism : the young men sought every den and fearful place 
 m the territory, to see if Proserpina was there ; and the 
 damsels vied who should give them most kisses for their 
 reward. " Oh, dearest and divinest mother ! " sang the 
 Eleusinians, as they surrounded the king's palace at 
 night with their evening hymn, — " Oh, greatest and best 
 goddess, wdio, not above sorrow thyself, art yet above all 
 Avish to inflict it, we know by this thou art indeed divine ! 
 Would that we might restore thee thy beloved daughter, 
 thy daughter Proserpina, the dark, the beautiful, the 
 mother-loving, whom some god, less generous than thy- 
 self, would keep for his own jealous doating ! Would 
 we might see her in thine arms ! We Avould willingly 
 die for the sight — would willingly die Avith the only 
 pleasure which thou has left w^anting to us." 
 
 The goddess would weep at these twilight hymns, con- 
 soling herself for the absence of Proserpina by thinking
 
 THE NURTURE OF TUIPTOLE.MUS. iO 
 
 how many daughters she had made happy. Triptolcmus 
 shed weaker tears at them iii his secret bed, but they 
 were happier ones than before. " I shall die," thought 
 he, " merely from the bitter-sweet joy of seeing the growth 
 of a hapj)iness which I must never taste ; but the days I 
 longed for have arrived. Would that my father would 
 only speak to the goddess, that my passage to the grave 
 might be a little easier ! " 
 
 The father doubted whether he should speak to the 
 goddess. He loved his son Avarmly, though he did not 
 well understand him ; and the mother, in spite of all the 
 goddess's kindness, was afraid lest in telling her of a child 
 whom they were about to lose, they should remind her 
 too forcibly of her own. Yet the mother, in an agony of 
 alarm one day at a fainting fit of her son's, was the first to 
 resolve to speak to her ; and the king and she, with pale 
 and agitated faces, went and prostrated themselves at her 
 feet. 
 
 ""VNHiat is this, kind hosts?" said Ceres; "have ye, 
 too, lost a daughter 1 " 
 
 *' No ; but we .shall lose a son," answered the parents, 
 "but for the help of Heaven." 
 
 "A son!" replied Ceres; "why did you not tell me your 
 son was living'? I had heard of him, and wished to sec 
 him ; but never finding him among ye, I guessed that he 
 was no more, and I would not trouble you with such a 
 memory. But why did ye fear mine, when I could do 
 good 1 Did your son fear it 1 " 
 
 "No, indeed," said the parents; "he urged us to tell 
 thee." 
 
 " He is the being I took him for," returned the goddess ; 
 " lead me to where he lies." 
 
 They came to his chamber, and found him kneeling 
 upon the bed, his face and joined hands bending towards 
 the door. He had felt the approach of the deity; and 
 though he shook in every limb, it Avas a transport beyond
 
 76 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 fear that made liim rise ; it was love and gratitude. The 
 goddess saw it, and bent on him a look that put com- 
 posure in his shattered nerves. 
 
 " What wantest thou," said she, " straggler with great 
 thoughts 1 " 
 
 " iSTothiug," answered Triptolemus, " if thou thinkest 
 it good, but a shorter and easier death." 
 
 " ^Yhat 1 Before thy task is done 1 " 
 
 " Fate," he replied, " seems to tell me that I was not 
 fitted for my task, and it is more than done since thou 
 art here. I pray thee, let me die, that I may not see 
 every one around me weeping in the midst of joy at my 
 disease, and yet not have strength enough left in my 
 hands to wipe away their tears." 
 
 *' Not so, my child," said the goddess, and her grand, 
 harmonious voice had tears in it as she spoke, — " not so, 
 Triptolemus ; for my task is thy task, and even gods 
 work with instruments. Thou hast not gone through all 
 thy trials yet; but thou shalt have a better covering 
 to bear them, — yet still by degrees. Gradual sorrow, 
 gradual joy." 
 
 So saying, she put her hand to his heart, and pressed 
 it ; and the agitation of his spirit was further allayed, 
 though he returned to his reclining posture for weakness. 
 From that time the bed of Triptolemus was removed into 
 the temple, and Ceres herself became his second mother. 
 But nobody knew hoAV she nourished him. It was said 
 that she summoned milk into her bosom, and nourished 
 him at her immortal heart, as though he had been newly 
 born in heaven. But he did not grow taller in stature, as 
 men expected. His health was restored ; his joints were 
 knit again, and stronger than ever ; but he continued the 
 same small though graceful youth ; only the sicklier 
 particles which he had received from his parents with- 
 drew their wasting influence. 
 
 At last, however, his very figure began to grow and
 
 THE NURTURE OF TRIPTOLEMUS. 77 
 
 expand. Up to this moment he had only been an inter- 
 esting mortal, in whom the stoiitest and best made of his 
 father's subjects recognised something mentally superior. 
 Now he began to look in person, as well as in mind, a 
 demigod. The curiosity of the parents was roused at this 
 appearance; and it was heightened by the report of a 
 domestic, who said that in passing the door of the temple 
 one night she heard a sound as of a mighty fire. But 
 their parental feelings were also excited by the behaviour 
 of Triptolemus, who, while he seemed to rise with double 
 cheerfulness in the morning, always began to look melan- 
 choly towards nightfall. For some hours before he retired 
 to rest he grew silent, and looked more and more thought- 
 ful ; though nothing could be kinder in his manners to 
 everybody, and the hour no sooner approached for his 
 retiring than he went instantly and even cheerfully. 
 
 His parents resolved to watch. They knew not what 
 they were about, or they would have abstained, for Ceres 
 was every night at her enchantments to render their son 
 immortal in being as well as fame, and interruption 
 would be fatal. At midnight they listened at the temple 
 door. 
 
 The first thing they heard was the roaring noise of fire, 
 as had been reported. It was deep and fierce. They 
 were about to retire for fear, but curiosity and parental 
 feeling prevailed. They listened again; but for some 
 time they heard nothing but the fire. At last a voice, 
 resembling their child's, gave a deep groan. 
 
 " It was a strong trial, my son," said another, in which 
 they recognised the melancholy sweetness of the goddess. 
 
 " The grandeur and exceeding novelty of these visions," 
 said the fainter voice, " press upon me, as though they 
 would bear down my brain." 
 
 "But they do not," returned the deity, "and they 
 have not. I will summon the next." 
 
 " Nay, not yet," rejoined the mortal ; " yet be it as
 
 78 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 thoii wilt. 1 know what thou tellest me, great and kind 
 mother." 
 
 "Thou dost know," said the goddess, "and thou know- 
 est m the very heart of thy knowledge, which is in the 
 sympathy of it and the love. Thou seest that difference 
 is not difference, and yet is so ; that the same is not the 
 same, and yet must he ; that what is, is hut what we see, 
 and as we see it ; and yet that which we see, is. Thou 
 shalt prove it finally ; and this is the last trial hut one. 
 Vision, come forth." 
 
 A noise here took place, as of the entrance of some- 
 thing exceeding hurried and agonized, hut which remained 
 fixed with equal stillness. A hrief pause took place, at 
 the end of -which the listeners heard their son speak, hut 
 in a voice of exceeding toil and loathing, and as if he 
 turned away his head. " It is," said he, gasping for 
 breath, " utmost deformity." 
 
 " Only to thine habitual eyes, and when alone," said 
 the goddess, in a soothing and earnest manner; — "look 
 again ! " 
 
 " Oh, my heart !" said the same voice, gasping as with 
 transport ; " they are perfect beauty and humanity." 
 
 "They are only two of the same," said the goddess, 
 " each going out of itself. Deformity to the eyes of habit 
 is nothing but analysis ; in essence it is nothing but one- 
 ness, if such a thing there be. The touch and the result 
 is everything. See what a goddess knows, and see, 
 nevertheless, wdiat she feels, — in this only greater than 
 mortals, that she lives for ever to do good. Kow comes 
 the last and greatest trial : now shalt thou see the real 
 worlds as they are ; now shalt thou behold them lapsing 
 in reflected splendour about the blackness of space ; now 
 shalt thou dip thine ears into the mighty ocean of their 
 harmonics, and be able to be touched Avith the concen- 
 trated love of the universe. Eoar heavier, fire ; endure, 
 endure, thou immortalizing frame ! "
 
 THE NURTURE OF TRIPTOLEMUS. / \) 
 
 " Yes, now, now," said the other voice in a siiperhuman 
 tone, which the listeners knew not whether to think joy 
 or anguish ; but their minds were so much more full of 
 the latter that they ojiened a place from which the 
 priestess used to speak at the lintel, and looked in. The 
 mother beheld her son stretched, with a face of bright 
 agony, upon burning coals. She shrieked, and pitch 
 darkness fell upon the temple and all about it. 
 
 "A little while," said the mournful voice of the god- 
 dess, " and heaven had had another life. Fear ! what 
 dost thou not do? Oh, my all but divine boy," con- 
 tinued she, " now plunged again into physical darkness, 
 thou canst not do good so long as thou wouldst have 
 done, but thou shalt have a life almost as long as the 
 ■commonest sons of men, and a thousand times more use- 
 ful and glorious ! Thou must change away the rest of 
 thy particles, as others do ; and in the process of time 
 they may meet again iinder some nature worthy of thee, 
 and give thee another chance for yearning into immor- 
 tality ; but at present the pain is done ; the pleasure 
 must not arrive." 
 
 The fright they had undergone slew the weak parents. 
 Triptolemus, strong in body, cheerful to all in show, 
 cheerful to himself in many things, retained, neverthe- 
 less, a certain melancholy from his recollections ; but it 
 did not hinder him from sowing joy wherever he went. 
 It incited him but the more to do so. The success of 
 others stood him instead of his own. Ceres gave him the 
 first seeds of the corn that makes bread, and sent him in 
 her chariot round the world to teach men how to use it. 
 " I am not immortal myself," said he, " but let the good 
 I do be so, and I shall yet die happy."
 
 VI. 
 THE FAIR REVENGE. 
 
 The elements of this story are to be found in the old 
 poem called "Albion's England." 
 
 Aganippns, king of Argos, dying without heirs male, 
 bequeathed his throne to his only daughter, the beautiful 
 and beloved Daphles. This female succession was dis- 
 pleasing to a nobleman who held large possessions on the 
 frontiers; and he came for the first time towards the 
 court, not to pay his respects to the new queen, but to 
 give her battle. Doracles (for that was his name) was 
 not much known by the people. He had distinguished 
 himself for as jealous an independence as a subject could 
 well assume ; and though he had been of use in repelling 
 invasion during the latter years of the king, had never 
 made his appearance to receive his master's thanks 
 personally. A correspondence, however, was understood 
 to have gone on between him and several noblemen about 
 the court; and there were those who, in spite of his 
 inattention to popularity, suspected that it would go hard 
 with the young queen when the two armies came face to 
 face. 
 
 But neither these subtle statesmen, nor the ambitious 
 young soldier Doracles, were aware of the effects to be 
 produced by a strong personal attachment. The young 
 queen, amiable as she was beautiful, had involuntarily 
 baffled his expectations from her courtiers, by exciting 
 in the minds of some a real disinterested regard, while 
 others nourished a hope of sharing her throne instead. At 
 
 8U
 
 THE FAIR REVENGE. 81 
 
 least, they speculated wpon becomiBg each the favourite 
 minister ; and held it a better thing to reign under that 
 title and a charming mistress, than be the servants of a 
 master, wilful and domineering. By the people she was 
 adored; and when she came riding out of her palace, 
 on the morning of the fight, with an unaccustomed spear 
 standing up in its rest by her side, her diademed hair 
 flowing a little off into the wind, her face paler than 
 usual, but still tinted with its roses, and a look in which 
 confidence in the love of her subjects, and tenderness for 
 the wounds they were going to encounter, seemed to 
 contend for the expression, — the shout which they sent 
 up would have told a stouter heart than a traitor's that 
 the royal charmer was secure. 
 
 The queen, during the conflict, remained in a tent 
 upon an eminence, to which the younger leaders vied 
 who shoidd best spur up their smoking horses, to bring 
 her good news from time to time. The battle was short 
 and bloody. Doracles soon found that he had miscalcu- 
 lated his point, and all his skill and resolution could not 
 set the error to rights. It was allowed that if either 
 courage or military talent could entitle him to the throne, 
 he would have had a right to it ; but the popularity of 
 Daphles supplied her cause with all the ardour which a 
 lax state of subjection on the part of the more powerful 
 nobles might have denied it. When her troops charged, 
 or made any other voluntary movement, they put all their 
 hearts into their blows ; and when they were compelled 
 to await the enemy, they stood as inflexible as walls of 
 iron. It was like hammering upon metal statuary; or 
 staking their fated horses upon spears riveted in stone. 
 Doracles was taken prisoner. The queen, re-issuing from 
 her tent, crowned with laurel, came riding down the 
 eminence, and remained at the foot with her generals, 
 while the prisoners were taken by. Her pale face kept 
 us royal a countenance of composed pity as she could 
 
 p
 
 82 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 manage wliile the commoner rebels jiassed along, aching 
 with their wounded arms fastened behind, and shaking 
 back their bloody and blinding locks for Avant of a hand 
 to i^art them. But the blood mounted to her cheeks 
 when the proud and handsome Doracles, whom she now 
 saw for the first time, blushed deeply as he cast a glance 
 at his female conqueror, and then stepped haughtily along, 
 handling his gilded chains as if they were an indifferent 
 ornament. "I have conquered him," thought she: "it 
 is a heavy blow to so proud a head ; and as he looks not 
 unamiable, it might be politic as well as courteous and 
 kind in me to turn his submission into a more willing one." 
 Alas ! pity was helping admiration to a kinder set of offices 
 than the generous hearted queen suspected. The captive 
 went to his prison, a conqueror after all; for Daphles 
 loved him. 
 
 The second night, after having exhibited in her man- 
 ners a strange mixture of joy and seriousness, and signi- 
 fied to her counsellors her intentions of setting the 
 prisoner free, she released him with her own hands. 
 Many a step did she hesitate as she went down the 
 stairs ; and when she came to the door, she shed a full, 
 but soft, and as it seemed to her a wilful and refreshing 
 flood of tears, humbling herself for her approaching task. 
 "When she had entered, she blushed deeply, and then, 
 turning as pale, stood for a minute silent and without 
 motion. She then said, "Thy queen, Doracles, has come 
 to show thee how kindly she can treat a great and 
 gallant subject, who did not know her ; " and with these 
 words, and almost before she was aware, the prisoner 
 was released and preparing to go. He appeared sur- 
 prised, but not off his guard, nor in any temper to be 
 over-grateful. 
 
 " Name," said he, "0 queen ! tlie conditions on which 
 I depart, and they will be faithfully kept." 
 
 Daphles moved her lips, but they spoke not. She
 
 THE FAIR REVENGE. 83 
 
 waved her head and hand with a deadly smile, as if 
 freeing him from all conditions ; and he Avas turning to 
 go, when she fell senseless on the floor. The haughty 
 Avarrior raised her with more impatience than good-will. 
 He could guess at love in a woman ; but he had but a 
 mean opinion both of it and her sex ; and the deac'ly 
 struggle in the heart of Daphles did not help him to 
 distinguish the romantic passion, which had induced her 
 to put all her past and virgin notions of love into his 
 person, from the commonest liking that might flatter his 
 soldierly vanity. 
 
 The queen, on awaking from her swoon, found herself 
 compelled, in very justice to the intensity of a true 
 passion, to explain how pity had brought it upon her. 
 
 "I might ask it," said she, "Doracles, in return;" and 
 here she resumed something of her queen-like dignity; 
 " but I feel that my modesty will be sufiiciently saved by 
 the name of your wife ; and a substantial throne, with a 
 return that shall nothing perplex or interfere with thee, 
 I do now accordingly off"er thee, not as the condition of 
 thy freedom, but as a diversion of men's eyes and 
 thoughts from what they will think ill in me, if they 
 find me rejected." And in getting out that hard word, 
 her voice faltered a little and her eyes filled with tears. 
 
 Doracles, with the best grace his lately defeated spirit 
 could assume, spoke in Avilling terms of accepting her 
 ofier. They left the prison ; and his full pardon having 
 been proclaimed, the courtiers, with feasts and entertain- 
 ments, vied who should seem best to approve their 
 mistress' choice ; for so they were quick to understand 
 it. The late captive, who was really as graceful and 
 accomplished as a proud spirit would let him be, received 
 and returned all their attention in princely sort; and 
 Daphles was beginning to hope that he might turn a 
 glad eye upon her some day, when news was brought her 
 that he had gone from court, nobody knew whither.
 
 84 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 The next intelligence was too certain. He had passed 
 the frontiers, and was leaguing with her enemies for 
 another struggle. 
 
 From that day gladness, though not kindness, went 
 out of the face of Daphles. She Avrote him a letter, 
 without a word of reproach in it, enough to bring hack 
 the remotest heart that had the least spark of sympathy; 
 but he only answered it in a sj)irit which showed that he 
 regarded the deepest love but as a wanton trifle. That 
 letter touched her kind wits. She had had a paper 
 drawn up leaving him her throne in case she should die ; 
 but some of her ministers, availing themselves of her 
 enfeebled spirit, had summoned a meeting of the nobles, 
 at which she was to preside in the dress she wore on the 
 day of victory, the sight of Avhich, it was thought, with 
 the arguments they meant to use, would prevail upon the 
 assembly to urge her to a revocation of the bequest. Her 
 women dressed her while she was almost unconscious of 
 what they were doing, for she had now begun to fade 
 quickly, body as well as mind. They put on her the 
 white garments edged with silver waves, in remembrance 
 of the stream of Inachus, the founder of the Argive 
 monarchy ; the spear was brought out, to be stuck by 
 the side of the throne instead of the sceptre ; and their 
 hands prepared to put the same laurel on her head which 
 bound its healthy white temples when she sat on horse- 
 back and saw the prisoner go by. But at sight of its 
 twisted and withered green she took it in her hand, and 
 looking about her m her chair with an air of momentary 
 recollection, began picking it and letting the leaves fall 
 upon the floor. She went on thus, leaf after leaf, look- 
 ing vacantly downwards ; and when she had stripped 
 the circle half round she leaned her cheek against the 
 side of her sick-chair, and, shutting her eyes quietly, 
 so died. 
 
 The envoys from Argos went to the court of Calydon,
 
 THE FAIR REVENGE. 85 
 
 where Doracles then was, and, bringing him the diadem 
 npon a black cushion, informed him at once of the death 
 of the queen and her nomination of him to the throne. 
 He showed little more than a ceremonious gravity at the 
 former news, but could ill contain his joy at the latter, 
 and set off instantly to take possession. Among the 
 other nobles who feasted him was one who, having been 
 the particular companion of the late king, had become 
 like a second father to his unhappy daughter. The new 
 prince, observing the melancholy which he scarcely 
 affected to repress, and seeing him look occasionally up at 
 a picture which had a veil over it, asked him what the 
 picture was that seemed to disturb him so, and why it 
 was veiled. 
 
 "If it be the portrait of the late king," said Doracles, 
 " pray think me worthy of doing honour to it, for he was 
 a noble prince. Unveil it, pray. I insist npon it. 
 What 1 Am I not worthy to look upon my predecessors, 
 Phorbas 1 " 
 
 At these words he frowned impatiently. Phorbas, with 
 a trembling hand, but not for Avant of courage, withdrew 
 the black covering, and the portrait of Daphles, in all her 
 youth and beauty, flashed upon the eyes of Doracles. It 
 was not a melancholy face. It was drawn before mis- 
 fortune had touched it, and sparkled with a blooming 
 beauty in which animal spirits and good-nature contended 
 for predominance. Doracles paused and seemed struck. 
 
 "Tlie possessor of that face," said he inquiringly, 
 "could never have been so sorrowful as I have heard?" 
 
 "Pardon me, sir," answered Phorbas; "I was as 
 another father to her, and knew all." 
 
 "It cannot be," returned the prince. 
 
 Tlie old man begged his other guests to withdraw a 
 while, and then told Doracles how many fond and 
 despairing things the queen had said of him, both before 
 her wits began to fail and after.
 
 86 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 "Her wits to faill" murmured the king. "I have 
 known what it is to feel almost a mad impatience of the 
 will, but I knew not that these — gentle creatures, women, 
 could so feel for such a trifle." 
 
 Phorhas brought out the laurel-crown and told him how 
 it was that the half of it became bare. The impatient 
 blood of Doracles mounted, but not in anger, to his face, 
 and, breaking up the party, he requested that the picture 
 might be removed to his own chamber, promising to 
 return it. 
 
 A whole year, however, did he keep it ; and as he had 
 no foreign enemies to occupy his time, nor was disposed 
 to enter into the common sports of peace, it was under- 
 stood that he spent the greatest part of his time, when he 
 was not in council, in the room where the picture hung. 
 In truth, the image of the once smiling Daphles haunted 
 liini wherever he went ; and to ease himself of the 
 yearning of wishing her alive again and seeing her face, 
 he was in the habit of being with it as much as possible. 
 His self-will turned upon him even in that gentle shape. 
 Millions of times did he wish back the loving author of 
 his fortunes, whom he had treated with so clownish an 
 ingratitude ; and millions of times did the sense of the 
 impotence of his wish run up in red hurry to his cheeks, 
 and help to pull them into gaunt melancholy. But this 
 is not a repaying sorrow to dwell upon. He was one day, 
 after being in vain expected at council, found lying 
 madly on the floor of the room, dead. He had torn the 
 portrait from the wall. His dagger was in his heart ; 
 and his cheek lay upon that blooming and smiling face, 
 which, had it been living, would never have looked so at 
 being revenged.
 
 VII. 
 VEB-VERT;^ OB THE PARROT OF THE NUNS. 
 
 (from the frexch of gresset.) 
 " What words have passed thy lips ? "—Milton. 
 
 INTRODUCTIOX. 
 
 This story is the subject of one of the most agreeable 
 poems in the French language, and has the additional 
 piquancy of having been written by the author when he 
 was a Jesuit. The delicate moral which is insinuated 
 against the waste of time in nunneries, and the perversion 
 of good and useful feeling into trifling channels, promised 
 to have an effect (and most likely had) which startled 
 some feeble minds. Our author did not remain a Jesuit 
 long, but he was allowed to retire from his order without 
 scandal. He was a man of so much integrity, as weU as 
 wit, that his brethren regretted his loss as much as the 
 world was pleased with the acquisition. 
 
 After having undergone the admiration of the circles 
 in Paris, Gresset married, and lived in retirement. He 
 died in 1777, beloved by everybody but the critics. 
 Critics were not the good-natured people in those times 
 which they have lately become ; and they worried him, 
 as a matter of course, because he was original. He was 
 intimate with Jean Jacques Rousseau. The self-torment- 
 ing and somewhat aifected philosopher came to see him 
 1 Sometimes written Vert-Vert (Green-sieen). 
 
 87
 
 88 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 in his retreat; and being interrogated respecting his 
 misfortunes, said to him, "You have made a parrot 
 speak ; but you will find it a harder task with a bear." 
 
 Gresset wrote other poems and a comedy, which are 
 admired; but the Parrot is the feather in his cap. It 
 was an addition to the stock of originality, and has 
 greater right perhaps than the Lutrin to challenge a 
 comparison with the Rape of the Lock. This is spoken 
 with deference to better French scholars ; but there is at 
 least more of Pope's delicacy and invention in the Ver- 
 Vert than in the L^itrin; and it does not depend so 
 much as the latter upon a mimicry of the classics. It 
 is less made up of what preceded it. 
 
 I am afraid this is but a bad preface to a prose trans- 
 lation. I would willingly have done it in verse, but after 
 wistfidly looking at a page or two with which I indulged 
 myself, I renounced the temptation. Readers not bitten 
 with the love of verse will hardly conceive how much 
 philosophy was requisite to do this ; but they may guess, 
 if they have a turn for good eating and give up dining 
 with an epicure. 
 
 I must mention, that a subject of this nature is of 
 necessity more piquant in a Catholic country than a 
 Protestant. But the loss of poor Ver-Vert's purity of 
 speech comes home to all Christendom ; and it is hard 
 if the tender imaginations of the fair sex do not 
 sympathize everywhere both with parrot and with nuns. 
 "When the poem appeared in Prance, it touched the fibres 
 of the whole polite world, male and female. A minister 
 of state made the author a present of a cofi"ee-service in 
 porcelain, on which was painted, in the most delicate 
 colours, the whole history of the "immortal bird." If I 
 had the leisure and the means of Mr. Rogers, nothing 
 should hinder me from trying to outdo (in one respect) 
 the delicacy of his publications, in versifying a subject 
 so worthy of velluni and morocco. The paper should be
 
 VER-VERT ; OR, THE PARROT OF THE NUNS. 89 
 
 as soft as the novice's lips, the register as rose-coloured ; 
 every canto should have vignettes from the hand of 
 Stothard ; and the binding should he green and gold, the 
 colours of the hero. 
 
 Alas ! and must all this end in a prose abstract, and 
 an anti-climax ! "Weep all ye little Loves and Graces, ye 
 
 "Veneres Cnpidinesqiie ! 
 Et quantum est hominum venustiomm." 
 
 But first enable us, for our good-will, to relate the story, 
 albeit we cannot do it justice.^ 
 
 1 There are two English iioetical versions of the Ver- Vert : one 
 by Dr. Geddes, which I have never seen ; the other by John 
 Gilbert Cooper, author of the Song to Winifreda, The latter is 
 written on the false principle of naturalizing French versification ; 
 and it is not immodest in a prose translator to say that it failed 
 altogether. The following is a sample of the commencement : — 
 
 " At Nevers, but few years ago, 
 
 Among the nuns o' the Visitation, 
 There dwelt a Parrot, though a beau, 
 
 For sense of wondrous reputation; 
 Whose virtues and genteel address. 
 
 Whose figure and whose noble soul. 
 Would have secured him from distress. 
 
 Could wit and beauty fate control. 
 Ver-Vert (for so the nuns agreed 
 
 To call this noble personage]. 
 The hopes of an illustrious bieed, 
 
 To India owed his parentage."
 
 90 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Character and Manners of Ver-Yert — His Popularity in the Con- 
 vent, and the Life he led with the Nuns — Toilets and Looking- 
 glasses not unknown among those Ladies — Four Canary-birds 
 and two Cats die of Rage and Jealousy. 
 
 At Nevers, in the Convent of the Visitation, lived, not 
 long ago, a famous parrot. His talents and good temper, 
 nay, the virtues he possessed, besides his more earthly 
 graces, would have rendered his whole life as happy as a 
 portion of it, if happiness had been made for hearts like 
 his. 
 
 Ver-Yert (for such was his name) was brought early 
 from his native country ; and while yet in his tender 
 years, and ignorant of everything, was shut up in this 
 convent for his good. He was a handsome creature, 
 brilliant, spruce, and full of spirits, with all the candour 
 and amiableness natural to his time of life ; innocent 
 withal as could be : in short, a bird worthy of such a 
 blessed cage. His very prattle showed him born for a 
 convent. 
 
 When we say that nuns undertake to look after a 
 thing, we say all. No need to enter into the delicacy of 
 their attentions. JS'obody could rival the aflfection which 
 was borne our hero by every mother in the convent, 
 except the confessor; and even with respect to him, a 
 sincere MS. has left it on record, that in more than one 
 heart the bird had the advantage of the holy Father. 
 He partook, at any rate, of all the pretty sops and 
 syrups with which the dear Father in God (thanks to 
 the kindness of the sweet nuns) consoled his reverend 
 stomach. N'uns have leisure : they have also loving 
 hearts. Ver-Vert was a legitimate object of attachment, 
 and he became the soul of the place. All the house 
 loved him, except a few old nuns whom time and the
 
 VBR-VERT ; OR, THE PARROT OF THE NUNS. 91 
 
 toothache rendered jealous surveyors of the young ones. 
 Not having arrived at years of discretion, too much 
 judgment was not expected of him. He said and did 
 what he pleased, and everything was found charming. 
 He lightened the labours of the good sisters by his 
 engaging ways, — pulling their veils, and pecking their 
 stomachers. K'o party could be pleasant if he was not 
 there to shine and to sidle about; to flutter and to 
 whistle, and play the nightingale. Sport he did, that is 
 certain ; and yet he had all the modesty, all the prudent 
 daring and submission in the midst of his pretensions 
 which became a novice, even in sporting. Twenty 
 tongues were incessantly asking him questions, and he 
 answered with propriety to every one. It was thus, of 
 old, that Caesar dictated to four persons at once in four 
 different styles. 
 
 Our favourite had the whole range of the house. He 
 preferred dining in the refectory, where he ate as he 
 pleased. In the intervals of the table, being of an in- 
 defatigable stomach, he amused his palate with pocket- 
 loads of sweetmeats which the nuns always carried about 
 for him. Delicate attentions, ingenious and preventing 
 cares, were bom, they say, among the nuns of the 
 Visitation. The happy Ver-Vert had reason to think so. 
 Ho had a better place of it than a parrot at court. He 
 lay, lapped-up, as it were, in the very glove of con- 
 tentment. 
 
 At bed-time he repaired to whatever cell he chose ; and 
 happy, too happy was the blessed sister whose retreat at 
 the return of nightfall it pleased him to honour with his 
 presence. He seldom lodged with the old ones. The 
 novices, with their simple beds, were more to his taste ; 
 which, you must observe, had always a peculiar turn for 
 propriety. Ver-Vert used to take his station on the 
 agnus-box,i and remain there till the star of Venus rose 
 ' A box containing a religious figure of a Lamb.
 
 92 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 in the morning. He had then the pleasure of witnessing 
 the toilet of the fresh little nun ; for, between ourselves 
 (and I say it in a whisper), nuns have toilets. I have 
 read somewhere, that they even like good ones. Plain 
 veils require to be put on properly, as well as lace and 
 diamonds. Furthermore, they have their fashions and 
 modes. There is an art, a gusto in these things, in- 
 separable from their natures. Sackcloth itself may sit 
 well. Huckaback may have an air. The swarm of the 
 little loves who meddle in all directions, and who know 
 how to whisk through the grates of convents, take a 
 pleasure in giving a profane turn to a bandeau, a piquancy 
 to a nun's tucker. In short, before one goes to the 
 parlour, it is as well to give a glance or two at the looking- 
 glass. But let that rest. I say all in confidence. So 
 now to return to our hero. 
 
 In this blissful state of indolence Ver-Vert passed his 
 time without a care, — without a moment of ennui, — lord, 
 undisputed, of all hearts. For him sister Agatha forgot 
 her sparrows ; for him, or because of him, four canary- 
 birds died out of rage and spite ; for him a couple of 
 tom-cats, once in favour, took to their cushions, and never 
 afterwards held vip their heads. 
 
 Who could have foreboded, in the course of a life so 
 charming, that the morals of our hero were taken care of, 
 only to be ruined ! that a day should arise, a day full of 
 guilt and astonishment, when Ver-Vert, the idol of so 
 many hearts, should be nothing but an object of pity and 
 horror ! 
 
 Let us husband our tears as long as possible, for come 
 they must : sad fruit of the over-tender care of our dear 
 little sisters !
 
 VEU-VERT ; OB, THE PARROT OF THE NUXS. 93 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 Furtber Details respecting the Piety and Accomplishments of our 
 Hero— Sister Melanie in the Habit of Exhibiting them — A Visit 
 from him is requested by the Nuns of the Visitation at Nantes 
 — Consternation in the Convent — The Visit conceded — Agonies 
 at his Departure. 
 
 You may guess that, in a school like this, a bird of our 
 liero's parts of speech could want nothing to complete his 
 education. Like a nun, he never ceased talking, except 
 at meals ; but at the same time, he always spoke like a 
 book. His style was pickled and preserved in the very 
 sauce and sugar of good behaviour. He was none of 
 your flashy parrots, puffed up with airs of fashion and 
 learned only in vanities, Ver-Vert was a devout fowl : a 
 beautiful soul, led by the hand of innocence. He had no 
 notion of evil; never uttered an improper word; but 
 then, to be even with those who knew how to talk, he was 
 deep in canticles, Oremuses, and mystical colloquies. His 
 Pax vohiscum was edifying. His Hail, sister ! was not to 
 be lightly thought of. He knew even a Meditation or so, 
 and some of the delicatest touches out of Marie Alacoque.^ 
 Doubtless he had every help to edification. There were 
 many learned sisters in the convent Avho knew by heart 
 all the Christmas carols, ancient and modern. Formed 
 under their auspices, our parrot soon equalled his in- 
 structors. He acquired even their very tone, giving it all 
 their pious lengthiness, the holy sighs, and languishing 
 cadences of the singing of the dear sisters, groaning little 
 doves. 
 
 The renown of merit like this was not to be confined 
 
 to a cloister. In all Kevers, from morning till night, 
 
 nothing was talked of but the darling scenes exhibited by 
 
 the parrot of the blessed nuns. People came as far as 
 
 ' A famous devotee.
 
 94 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 from Moulins to see him. Ver-Vert never budged out of 
 the parlour. Sister Melanie, in her best stomacher, held 
 him, and made the spectators remark his tints, his 
 beauties, his infantine sweetness. The bird sat at the 
 receipt of victory. And yet even these attractions were 
 forgotten when he spoke. Polished, rounded, brimful of 
 the pious gentilities which the younger aspirants had 
 taught him, our illustrious parrot commenced his recita- 
 tion. Every instant a new charm developed itself ; and 
 what was remarkable, nobody fell asleep. His hearers 
 listened ; they hummed, they applauded. He, never- 
 theless, trained to perfection, and convinced of the 
 nothingness of glory, always withdrew into the recesses of 
 his heart, and triumphed with modesty. Closing his 
 beak, and dropping into a low tone of voice, he bowed 
 himself with sanctity, and so left his world edified. He 
 uttered nothing under a gentility or a dulcitude ; that is 
 to say, with the exception of a few words of scandal or 
 so, Avhich crept from the convent-grate into the parlour. 
 
 Thus lived, in this delectable nest, like a master, a 
 saint, and a true sage as he was. Father Ver-Vert, dear 
 to more than one Hebe ; fat as a monk, and not less 
 reverend ; handsome as a sweetheart ; knowing as an 
 abbe ; always loved, and always worthy to be loved ; 
 polished, perfumed, cockered up, the very pink of per- 
 fection : happy, in short, if he had never travelled. 
 
 But now comes the time of miserable memory, the 
 critical minute in which his glory is to be eclipsed. 
 guilt ! shame ! cruel recollection ! Fatal journey, 
 why must we see thy calamities beforehand 1 AJas ! a 
 great name is a perilous thing. Your retired lot is by 
 much the safest. Let this example, my friends, show 
 you, that too many talents, and too flattering a success, 
 often bring in their train the ruin of one's virtue. 
 
 The renown of thy brilliant achievements, Ver-Vert, 
 spread itself abroad on every side, even as far as Nantes.
 
 VER-VERT ; OR, THE PARROT OF THE NUXS. 95 
 
 There, as everybody knows, is another meek fold of the 
 reverend Mothers of the Visitation, — Ladies, who, as else- 
 where in this country of ours, are by no means the last to 
 know everything. To hear of our parrot was to desire to 
 see him ; and desire, at all times and in everybody, is a 
 devouring flame. Judge what it must be in a nun. 
 
 Behold, then, at one blow, twenty heads turned for a 
 parrot. The ladies of Nantes wrote to JSTevers^ to beg 
 that this bewitching bird might be allowed to come down 
 to the Loire, and pay them a visit. The letter is sent 
 oflfj but when, ah, when wiU come the answer? In 
 something less than a fortnight. What an age ! Letter 
 upon letter is despatched, entreaty on entreaty. There is 
 no more sleep in the house. Sister Cecilie will die of it. 
 
 At length the epistle arrives at Nevers. Tremendous 
 event ! A chapter is held upon it. Dismay follows the 
 consultation. "What! lose Ver-Vert! heavens! 
 What are we to do in these desolate holes and corners 
 without the darling bird ! Better to die at once ! " Thus 
 spoke one of the younger sisters, whose heart, tired of 
 having nothing to do, still lay open to a little innocent 
 pleasure. To say the truth, it was no great matter to 
 wish to keep a parrot, in a place where no other bird was 
 to be had. Nevertheless, the older nuns determined upon 
 letting the charmer go— for a fortnight. Their prudent 
 heads didn't choose to embroil themselves with their 
 sisters of Xantes. 
 
 This bill, on the part of their ladyships, produced great 
 disorder in the commons. What a sacrifice! Is it in 
 human nature to consent to it? "Is it true?" quoth 
 sister Seraphine : — " What ! live, and Ver-Yert away ! " 
 In another quarter of the room, thrice did the vestry- 
 nun turn pale ; four times did she sigh ; she wept, she 
 groaned, she fainted, she lost her voice. The whole place 
 is in mourning. I know not what prophetic finger traced 
 tlie journey in black colours ; but the dreams of the night
 
 96 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 redoubled the horrors of the day. In vain. The fatal 
 moment arrives ; everything is ready ; courage must be 
 summoned to bid adieu. 'Not a sister but groaned like a 
 turtle ; so long was the widowhood she anticipated. How 
 many kisses did not Ver-Vert receive on going out ! 
 They retain him ; they bathe him with tears ; his attrac- 
 tions redouble at every step. N'evertheless, he is at 
 length outside the walls. He is gone ; and out of the 
 monastery, with him, ilics love ! 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Lameutable State of Manners in the Boat wliicli Carries our Hero 
 down the Loire — He becomes Corrupted — His Biting the Nun 
 that came to Meet him — Ecstasy of the other Nuns on hearing 
 of his Arrival. 
 
 The same vagabond of a boat which contained the sacred 
 bird, contained also a couple of giggling damsels, three 
 dragoons, a wet-nurse, a monk, and two gargons : pretty 
 society for a young thing just out of a monastery ! 
 
 Ver-Vert thought himself in another world. It was no 
 longer texts and orisons with which he Avas treated, but 
 words which he never heard before, and those words none 
 of the most Christian. The dragoons, a race not eminent 
 for devotion, spoke no language but that of the ale-house. 
 All their hymns to beguile the road were in honour of 
 Bacchus ; all their movable feasts consisted only in those 
 of the ordinary. The gargons and the three new graces 
 kept up a concert in the taste of the allies. The boatmen 
 cursed and swore, and made horrible rhymes ; taking care, 
 by a masculine articulation, that not a syllable should lose 
 its vigour. Ver-Vert, melancholy and frightened, sat 
 dumb in a corner. He knew not what to say or think.
 
 ver-vert; or, the parrot of the nuns. 97 
 
 111 tlie course of the voyage, the company resolved to 
 " fetch out " our hero. The task fell ou Brother Lubin 
 the monk, who, in a tone very unlike his profession, put 
 some questions to the handsome forlorn. The benign bird 
 answered in his best manner. He sighed with a formality 
 the most finished, and said, in a pedantic tone, " Hail, 
 Sister ! " At this " Hail," you may judge whether the 
 hearers shouted with laughter. Every tongue fell on poor 
 Father Parrot. 
 
 Our novice bethought within him that he must have 
 spoken amiss. He began to consider, that if he would be 
 well with the fair portion of the company he must adopt 
 the style of their friends. Being naturally of a daring 
 soul, and having been hitherto well fumed with incense, 
 his modesty was not proof against so much contempt. 
 Ver-Vert lost his patience; and in losing his patience, 
 alas ! poor fellow, he lost his innocence. He even began, 
 inwardly, to mutter ungracious curses against the good 
 sisters, his instructors, for not having taught him the true 
 refinements of the French language, its nerve and its 
 delicacy. He accordingly set himself to learn them with 
 all his might ; not speaking much, it is true, but not the 
 less inwardly studying for all that. In two days (such is 
 the progress of evil in young minds) he forgot all that had 
 been taught him, and in less than three was as off-hand a 
 swearer as any in the boat. He swore worse than an old 
 devil at the bottom of a holy Avater-box. It has been 
 said, that nobody becomes abandoned at once. Ver-Yert 
 scorned the saying. He had a comtempt for any more 
 novitiates. He became a blackguard in the twinkling of 
 an eye. In short, on one of the boatmen exclaiming, 
 " Go to the devil," Ver-Yert echoed the wretch ! The 
 company applauded, and he swore again. Nay, he sv/ore 
 other oaths. A new vanity seized him, and, degrading 
 his generous organ, he now felt no other ambition but 
 that of pleasing the wicked. 
 
 G
 
 98 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 During these melancholy scenes, what were you about, 
 chaste nuns of the convent of Nevers 1 Doubtless you 
 were putting up vows for the safe return of the vilest of 
 ingrates, a vagabond unworthy of your anxiety, who holds 
 his former loves in contempt. Anxious affection is in 
 your hearts, melancholy in your dwelling. Cease your 
 prayers, dear deluded ones ; dry up your tears. Ver-Vert 
 is no longer worthy of you ; he is a raf, an apostate, a 
 common swearer. The winds and the water-nymphs have 
 spoilt the fruit of your labours. Genius he may be still ; 
 but what is genius without virtue 1 
 
 Meanwhile, the boat was approaching the town of 
 Nantes, where the new sisters of the Visitation expected 
 it with impatience. The days and nights had never been 
 so long. During all their torments, however, they had 
 the image of the coming angel before them, — the polished 
 soul, the bird of noble breeding, the tender, sincere, and 
 edifying voice — behaviour, sentiments, — distinguished 
 merit — oh grief ! what is it all to come to 1 
 
 The boat arrives ; the passengers disembark. A lay-sister 
 of the turning-box ^ was waiting in the dock, where she 
 had been over and over again at stated time, ever since 
 the letters were despatched. Her looks, darting over the 
 water, seemed to hasten the vessel that conveyed our hero. 
 The rascal guessed her business at first sight. Her prudish 
 eyes, letting a look out at the corner, her great coif, white 
 gloves, dying voice, and little pendent cross, were not to 
 be mistaken. Ver-Vert ruffled his feathers with distrust. 
 There is reason to believe that he gave her internally to 
 the devil. He was now all for the army, and could not 
 bear the thought of new ceremonies and litanies. How- 
 ever, my gentleman was obliged to submit. The lay-sister 
 carried him off in spite of his vociferations. They say he 
 bit her in going : some say in the neck, others on the arm. 
 I believe it is not well known where he bit her ; but the 
 ^ A box at the convent gate, by which things are received.
 
 VER-VERT ; OR, THE PARROT OF THE NUNS. 99 
 
 circumstance is of no consequence. Off he went. The 
 devotee was soon within the convent, and the visitor's 
 arrival was announced. 
 
 Here's a noise ! At the first sound of the news, the 
 hell was set ringing. The nuns Avere at prayers, but up 
 they all jump. They shriek, they clap their hands, they 
 fly. " 'Tis he ! He is in the great parlour ! " The great 
 parlour is filled in a twinkling. Even the old nuns, 
 marching in order, forget the weight of their years. The 
 whole house was grown young again. It is said to have 
 been on this occasion that Mother Angelica ran for the 
 first time. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Admiration of tlie Parrot's new Friends converted into Astonishment 
 and Horror — Ver-Vert keeps no Measures with his shocking 
 Acquirements— the Nuns fly from him in Terror, and determine 
 upon instantly sending him back, not, however, witiiout Pity 
 — His Return, and Astonishment of his old Friends— He is 
 sentenced to Solitary Confinement, which restores his Virtue — 
 Transport of the Nuns, who kill him with Kindness. 
 
 At length the blessed spectacle bursts upon the good 
 sisters. They cannot satiate their eyes with admiring ; 
 and in trutli, the rascal was not the less handsome for 
 being less virtuous. His military look and petit-maitrc 
 airs gave him even a new charm. All mouths burst out 
 in his praise ; all at once. He, however, does not deign 
 to utter one pious word, but stands rolling his eyes like a 
 young Carmelite. Grief the first. There was a scandal 
 in this air of effrontery. In the second place, when the 
 Prioress, with an august air, and like an inward-hearted 
 creature as she was, wished to interchange a few senti-
 
 100 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 ments with the bird, the first words my gentleman uttered, 
 — the only answer he condescended to give, and that, too, 
 with an air of nonchalance, or rather contempt, and like 
 an unfeeling villain, Avas, "What a pack of fools these 
 nuns are ! " 
 
 History says he learned these words on the road. 
 
 At this dShiit, Sister Augustin, with an air of the 
 greatest sweetness, hoping to make their visitor cautious, 
 said to him, "For shame, my dear brother." The dear 
 brother, not to be corrected, rhymed her a word or two, 
 too audacious to be repeated. 
 
 "Holy Jesus!" exclaimed the sister ; " he is a sorcerer, 
 my dear mother ! Just Heaven ! what a wretch ! Is this 
 the divine parrot ! " 
 
 Ver-Vert, like a reprobate at the gallows, made no 
 other answer than by setting up a dance, and singing, 
 "Here we go, up ! up ! up ! " which, to improve, he com- 
 menced with an " Oh, d — mme." 
 
 The nuns would have stopped his mouth ; but he was 
 not to be hindered. He gave a buffoon imitation of the 
 prattle of the young sisters ; and then shutting his beak, 
 and dropping into a palsied imbecility, mimicked the 
 nasal drawl of his old enemies, the antiques ! 
 
 But it was still worse when, tired and worn out with 
 the stale sentences of his reprovers, Ver-Vert foamed and 
 raged like a corsair, thundering out all the terrible words 
 he had learned aboard the vessel. Heavens ! how he 
 swore, and what things he said ! His dissolute voice 
 knew no bounds. The lower regions themselves appeared 
 to open before them. Words not to be thought of danced 
 upon his beak. The young sisters thought he was talking 
 Hebrew. 
 
 Oh ! — blood and 'ounds ! Whew ! D — mn ! Here's 
 a h-11 of a storm ! " 
 
 At these tremendous utterances all the place trembled 
 with horror. The nuns, without more ado, fled a thousand
 
 vbr-vbrt; or, the parrot of the nuns. 101 
 
 Avays, making as many signs of the cross. They thought 
 it was the end of the world. Poor Mother Cicely, falling 
 on her nose, was the ruin of her last tooth. 
 
 "Eternal Father!" exclaimed Sister Vivian, ojicning 
 with difficulty a sepulchral voice ; " Lord have mercy on 
 us ! Who has sent us this antichrist 1 Sweet Saviour ! 
 What a conscience can it be which swears in this manner, 
 like one of the damned? Is this the famous wit, the 
 sage Ver-Vert, Avho is so beloved and extolled? For 
 Heaven's sake, let him depart from among us without 
 more ado." 
 
 " God of love ! " cried Sister Ursula, taking up the 
 lamentation ; " what horrors ! Is this the Avay they 
 talk among our sisters at ISTevers? This their perverse 
 language ! Tliis the manner in which they form youth ! 
 What a heretic ! divine wisdom, let us get rid of him, 
 or we shall all go to the wicked place together ! " 
 
 In short, Ver-Vert is fairly put in his cage, and sent 
 on his travels back again. They pronounce him detest- 
 able, abominable, a condemned criminal, convicted of 
 having endeavoured to pollute the virtue of the holy 
 sisters. All the convent sign his decree of banishment ; 
 but they shed tears in doing it. It was impossible not to 
 pity a reprobate in the flower of his age, Avho was un- 
 fortunate enough to hide such a depraved heart under an 
 exterior so beautiful. For his part, Ver-Vert desired 
 nothing better than to be off. He was carried back to 
 the river-side in a box, and did not bite the lay-sister 
 
 again. 
 
 TJut what was the despair, when he returned home, and 
 would fain have given his old instmctors a like serenade ! 
 Nine venerable sisters, their eyes in tears, their senses 
 confused Avith horror, their veils two deep, condemned 
 him in full conclave. The younger ones, who might have 
 spoken for him, were not allowed to be present. One or 
 two were for sending him back to the vessel ; but the
 
 102 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 majority resolved upon keeping and chastising him. 
 He was sentenced to two months' abstinence, three of 
 imprisonment, and four of silence. 'No garden, no toilet, 
 no bed-room, no little cakes. Nov was this all. The 
 sisters chose for his jailer the very Alecto of the convent, 
 a hideoiis old fury, a veiled ape, an octogenary skeleton, 
 a spectacle made on purpose for the eye of a penitent. 
 
 In spite of the cares of this inflexible Argus, some 
 amiable nuns would often come with their sympathy to 
 relieve the horrors of the bird's imprisonment. Sister 
 Rosalie, more than once, brought him almonds before 
 breakfast. But what are almonds in a room cut off from 
 the rest of the world ! What are sweetmeats in captivity 
 but bitter herbs 1 
 
 Covered with shame and instructed by misfortune, or 
 weary of the eternal old hag his companion, our hero at 
 last found himself contrite. He forgot the dragoons and 
 the monk, and, once more in unison with the holy sisters 
 both in matter and manner, became more devout than a 
 canon. When they were sure of his conversion, the 
 divan reassembled, and agreed to shorten the term of his 
 penitence. Judge if the day of his deliverance was a day 
 of joy ! All his future moments, consecrated to gratitude, 
 were to be spun by the hands of love and security. 
 faithless pleasure ! vain expectation of mortal delight ! 
 All the dormitories were dressed with flowers. Exquisite 
 cofi"ee, songs, lively exercise, an amiable tumult of pleasure, 
 a plenary indulgence of liberty, — all breathed of love and 
 delight ; nothing announced the coming adversity. But, 
 indiscreet liberality ! fatal overflowingness of the 
 hearts of nuns ! Passing too quickly from abstinence to 
 abundance, from the hard bosom of misfortune to whole 
 seas of sweetness, saturated with sugar and set on fire 
 with liqueurs, Ver-Vert fell one day on a box of sweet- 
 meats, and lay on his death-bed. His roses were all 
 changed to cypress. In vain the sisters endeavoured to
 
 VER-VERT; OR, THE PARROT OF THE NUNS. 103 
 
 recall his fleeting spirit. The sweet excess had hastened 
 his destiny, and the fortunate victim of love expired 
 in the bosom of pleasure. His last words were much 
 admired, but history has not recorded them. Venus 
 herself, closing his eyelids, took him with her into the 
 little Elysium described by the lover of Corinna, where 
 Ver-Vert assumed his station among the heroes of the 
 parrot race, close to the one that was the subject of the 
 poet's elegy.^ 
 
 To describe how his death was lamented is impossible. 
 The present history was taken from one of the circulars 
 composed by the nuns on the occasion. His portrait was 
 painted after nature. More than one hand gave him a 
 new life in colours and embroidery ; and Grief, taking up 
 the stitches in her turn, drew his effigies in the midst of 
 a border of tears of white silk. All the funeral honours 
 were paid him which Helicon is accustomed to pay to 
 illustrious birds. His mausoleum was built at the foot 
 of a myrtle ; and on a piece of porphyry environed with 
 flowers, the tender Artemisias placed the following 
 epitaph, inscribed in letters of gold : 
 
 " O ye who come to tattle in this wood, 
 Unknown to us, the graver sisterhood, 
 Hold for one moment (if ye can) your tongues, 
 Ye novices, and hear how fortune wrongs. 
 Hush : or, if hushing be too hard a task. 
 Hear but one little si^eech; 'tis all we ask — 
 One word will pierce ye with a thousand darts; — 
 Here lies Ver-Vert, and with him lie all hearts." 
 
 They say, nevertheless, that the shade of the bird is 
 not in the tomb. The immortal parrot, according to 
 good authority, survives in the nuns themselves ; and is 
 destined, through all ages, to transfer, from sister to 
 sister, his soul and his tattle. 
 
 1 See Ovid, Liber Amonan, book ii. Elegy 6.
 
 viir. 
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF CEPHALUS AND 
 PROCRIS. 
 
 Cephalus, the son of Deioneas, king of Tliessaly, married 
 Procris, daughter of Pandion, king of Athens. They 
 hound each other by a vow never to love anyone eLse. 
 Cephalus, who was fond of hunting, suifered the wood- 
 nymphs to be charming to no purpose ; and Procris, 
 waiting his return every day from the chace, scarcely 
 had a civil answer for the most agreeable of the wood- 
 gods. 
 
 Their security in each other's exclusive attachment was 
 increased, if possible, by a passion which was conceived 
 for Cephalus by Aurora, the Goddess of Morning. To 
 think that the beaming eyes and rosy blushes of so 
 charming a deity were upon him every morning to no 
 purpose, was a high exaltation to the proud confidence 
 which each reposed in the other. Procris, wliom the 
 very particular vow which they had entered into had 
 begun to render a little too apt to be jealous, concluded 
 that if he could deny a goddess, she need have no fear 
 of the nymphs. All that disturbed her was lest Aurora 
 should grow angry. Cephalus, on the other hand, what- 
 ever airs he might occasionally give himself on the 
 strength of his fidelity, held it to be utterly impossible 
 that his wife should for a moment forget the rejecter of 
 a divinity. 
 
 Aurora, however, was not angry. She was too much 
 
 104
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF CEPHALUS AND PROCRIS. 105 
 
 in love. Ceplialus began to feel a softer i^ride when he 
 found that she still loved him secretly, and that she did 
 all in her power to gratify him. The dawns in Thessaly 
 had never been known to be so fine. Eosy little clouds, 
 floating in yellow light, were sure to usher in the day, 
 whatever it might turn out at noon. He had but to wish 
 for more air, and it came streaming upon his face. Did 
 he want light in a gloomy depth of the forest 1 Beams 
 thrilled through the twisted thickets, and made the 
 hunters start to see their faces so plainly. Some said 
 that a divine countenance was to be seen at these times, 
 passing on the other side of the trees and looking through. 
 It is certain that when Cephalus had lain down towards 
 noon to rest himself in a solitary place, he would see, as 
 he woke, a nymph suddenly departing from the spot, 
 Avhose hair shook out a kind of sunshine. Pie knew that 
 this was Aurora, and could not help being touched by so 
 delicate an affection. 
 
 By degrees, Cephalus began to think that Procris might 
 spare a little of so great a love ; and as these wicked 
 thoughts stole upon him, he found Aurora steal nearer. 
 She came closer to him as he pretended to sleep, and 
 loitered more in going away. At length they conversed 
 again ; and the argument which was uppermost in both 
 their minds soon got more and more explicit. We are 
 bound to believe that a goddess could reason more 
 divinely on the subject ; but it must not be concealed, 
 that the argument wliich made the greatest impression 
 on Cephalus was one which has since been much in 
 fashion, though Ave cannot say a great deal for it. All 
 defences of love should proceed upon the kindest grounds, 
 or on none. The moment it refers to anything like 
 retaliation, or even to a justice which hazards such 
 feelings, it is trenching on the monstrous territory of 
 hate. Be this, however, as it may, Aurora one morning 
 did certainly condescend to iinisli a conversation with
 
 106 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 saying, that she wovild not look to have her love returned 
 unless Procris should first be found unfaithful. 
 
 The husband, in whose mind this suggestion seemed to 
 awaken all his exclusive tenderness for his wife, readily 
 accepted the alternative. But how was Procris to be 
 tried ? Aurora soon found an expedient. She changed 
 the appearance of Cephalus to that of a young Phoenician 
 merchant ; filled his pockets with gold and jewels ; hung 
 the rarest gems from Ormus and the Eed Sea in his 
 turban; and seating him in a Sidonian car, drawn by 
 white fawns, with a peacock standing beside him on the 
 edge, sent him to offer all these bribes to Procris for her 
 love. Cephalus turned a little pale at sight of the fawns; 
 but his colour and even his gaiety returned in a minute ; 
 and taking a respectful farewell of the goddess, he shook 
 the reins, and set off down the grassy valley that led to 
 his home. 
 
 The fawns, with a yearning yet easy swiftness, wound 
 along down the sides of the hill. Their snowy figures 
 flashed in and out of the trees ; the peacock's tail trailed 
 along the air; the jewels sparkled in the stranger's 
 turban. Procris, looking out of the window for her 
 husband, wondered what illustrious unknown was coming. 
 He is evidently coming towards her abode. It is the 
 only one in the valley. He arrives, and making a 
 respectful obeisance, alights and enters. He makes no 
 request for admittance, but yet no fault is to be found 
 with his easy gravity. He says, indeed, that he could not 
 but come in, whether he would or no, for the fame of 
 Procris' beauty and sweetness had reached him in 
 Phoenicia ; and as his father's great riches allowed him 
 to travel at his leisure, he had brought a few trifles, — 
 not as a return for the few hours' hospitality which he 
 should presume upon, — by no means, — but solely as he 
 had not wit or attraction enough of his own to leave any 
 other memorial of his visit and homage. All this was
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF CEPHALUS AND I'BOCRIS. 107 
 
 somewhat too elaborate for the people in those days ; but 
 Cephalus, in his confidence, had become a little over- 
 ingenious ; and when he had done speaking, and had 
 presented his sj)lendid credentials, Procris thought that 
 the accomplished stranger undervalued himself. A little 
 obstacle presented itself. On giving her the peacock, the 
 handsome stranger stooped his face with an air of con- 
 fident but respectful pleasure and -was about to kiss her. 
 " How is this '? " said Procris. 
 
 "We always do so in Phoenicia," said he, "when 
 presents are received ; " and without more ado he kissed 
 her in a sort of formal and cabalistic manner, first on 
 one cheek, then on the other, and lastly on the forehead. 
 Procris submitted, purely because she did not know how 
 to object to a Phoenician custom. But on his presenting 
 a casket of gold, she demurred. He seemed to take no 
 notice of this, but stooped as before and kissed her, not 
 only on the cheeks and forehead, but on the lips. Procris 
 blushed, and looked displeased. " "We always do so in 
 Phoenicia," said he, in a tone as if all offence must be 
 done away by that explanation. Another casket succeeded, 
 full of jewels, and much more precious than the last. 
 Procris wondered whether any additional ceremony was 
 to take place in return, and was about to decline the 
 third present in some alarm, when the stranger, Avith as 
 brief an indifference of voice as his gallantry could 
 assume, observed, that all that was to be done for the 
 third gift was to have the kiss returned, — slightly, it Avas 
 true, but still returned : — it was always the way in 
 Phoenicia. And he had scarcely spoken the words when 
 he stooped as before and kissed her. Procris would 
 sincerely have rejected to return the salute ; but, as she 
 said afterwards, she really had not time to consider. 
 Besides, she persuaded herself that she felt relieved at 
 thinking the casket was to be the last present ; and so, 
 giving a short glance at the window, the kiss was
 
 108 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 returned. A very odd, and not comfortable expression, 
 passed over the face of the stranger, but very quickly. 
 The only reason that Procris could conceive why he 
 should look so, was that the salute might have been too 
 slight. 
 
 "He is very generous, I own," thought she; "but these 
 Phoenicians are strange people." 
 
 The stranger had now a totally different air. It was 
 that of an excessive gaiety, in which respect was never- 
 theless strongly mingled, 
 
 " Having honoured me so far with your acquaintance," 
 said he, "nothing remains but to close our Phoenician 
 ceremonies of introduction with this trifle from the Red 
 Sea." So saying, he took a most magnificent ruby from 
 the front of his turban, and hitched it on the collar of 
 her vest. " The hook," said he, " is of Phoenician crystal." 
 
 Procris's ears fairly tingled with the word Plioenician. 
 She was bewildered ; the ceremonies were indeed about 
 to close, and this word somewhat relieved her ; but she 
 was going to demur in a more peremptory manner, when 
 he said that all that was to be done on this final occasion 
 was just to embrace him — slightly — in a sisterly way. 
 
 " It is not always done," said he : " the Tyre people, 
 for instance, do not do it ; but the Sidonians do ; and, 
 generally speaking, it is the closing custom in Phoenici " — 
 and the final syllable was lost in a new kiss, against 
 which she found it out of her power to remonstrate. In 
 giving her at the same time a brief but affectionate 
 embrace, he contrived to bring her arms about himself. 
 He then bowed in the most respectful and grateful 
 manner imaginable, and handed her to a seat. 
 
 Procris, with whom the ice had been thus broken, and 
 who already thought herself half faithless to the strictness 
 of her vow, scarcely knew whether to feel angry at the 
 warmth, or piqued at the ceremonious indiflerence of the 
 stranger. A sense, however, of gratified pride, and of his
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF CEPHALUS AND PROCRIS. 109 
 
 extraordinary generosity, was the uppermost feeling in 
 lier mind, and tins led her to be piqued rather than 
 angry. Luckily, she bethought herself of offering him 
 the hospitality of the house, which helped to divert her 
 confusion. The milk and fruit were brought out ; and 
 he tasted them, more, it seemed, out of politeness than 
 for want of refreshment. Procris cast her ej'es first up 
 the hil], and thou at the fawns. Siie wondered whether 
 the fawns and car would follow the other presents ; but 
 upon the whole concluded tliey Avould not, unless the 
 traveller meant to stop, which was impossible ; at least 
 in that house. She made up her mind, therefore, to be 
 very angry in case he should offer the fawns ; when he 
 interrupted any further reflections. 
 
 " Those fawns," said he, " came into my possession in 
 a remarkable manner. They are fatal." 
 
 " Fatal ! " echoed Procris. 
 
 " Not in a bad sense," returned the stranger smiling ; 
 " I am destined to present them to some fair one (I know 
 not who she is), who shall honour me with the privileges 
 of a husband, and Avho is to be fairer than the goddess 
 that gave them me." 
 
 "A strange, impossible condition," said Procris; "but 
 who, pray, Avas the goddess 1 " 
 
 " Aurora." 
 
 The beautiful wife of Cephalus smiled victoriously at 
 the mention of that name. Slic had already triumphed 
 over the divinity, and thought that this new test of 
 superiority was scarcely necessary. The Phoenician, upon 
 seeing her turn her countenance, added significantly, " I 
 saw her just now, and must confess that it will take 
 something very extraordinary to surpass her; but I do 
 ribt conceive it actually impossible." 
 
 Procris longed to tell him of Aurora's unsuccessful 
 passion for Cephalus. She asked how long it was since 
 he had seen the goddess.
 
 110 LEIGH HUNT, 
 
 " I saw her but now," said the stranger ; " she was 
 conversing in the forest here." 
 
 " Do you know with whom 1 " asked Procris. 
 
 " Oh, yes ; it was your husband ; and this reminds me 
 that he told me to beg of you not to be alarmed, but he 
 should not return till night-fall." 
 
 "Not till night-fain " half murmured and half inquired 
 the fair conqueror of Aurora. 
 
 N'ow this was wrong in Cephalus. He was led into 
 the mention of his interview with Aurora by its being 
 actually the case ; but he need not have gone so far with 
 the lesson she had taught him. We blush to say that it 
 succeeded but too well. There is no necessity to pursue 
 the detail further. Towards night-fall Procris gave 
 anxious looks up the hill, and hoped (which was kind 
 of her) that her husband might receive great pleasure 
 from the present she intended to make him of the 
 fawns. 
 
 " I think he is coming down the hill," said she. 
 
 " No," said the stranger. 
 
 " How can you tell," returned Procris, " with your face 
 turned from the window 1 " 
 
 "Look at me," replied he, " and you will know." 
 
 Procris turned quickly, and looked him in the face. 
 It was Cephalus himself. Astonishment, fear, shame, 
 and a sense of the triumphant artifice of the goddess fell 
 upon her at once. She uttered a loud shriek, and, tear- 
 ing her vest from her husband's grasp, darted off into the 
 woods 
 
 Cephalus, in his chariot of fawns, sought her a hundred 
 ways in vain. He was at once angry and sorry, and 
 Aurora found that her artifice had been of no use. She 
 hoped, however, that time and the absence of his wife 
 would mollify him ; and, in the meanwhile, seeing how 
 sullenly he turned aside whenever she ventured to become 
 manifest, she tried to humble him a little. His skill
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF CEPHALUS AND PROCRIS. Ill 
 
 became less super-eminent in the chace. Other dogs ran 
 faster than his, and other lances took truer aim. The 
 gloom of the forest was still enlightened for him, because 
 she did not wish to let him know how she Avas trying 
 him ; but the name of Cephakis suffered in its reputation. 
 People began to say that Phalerus was as good as he. 
 
 He was sitting at home one evening in a melancholy 
 manner, after an imsuccessful day's sport, when a beauti- 
 ful female with a dog appeared at the door, and begged 
 permission to rest herself. The faintness of her voice 
 interested our suffering huntsman. He brought her in 
 with great kindness, set refreshments before her, and 
 could not help gazing with admiration on her lovely face, 
 which, covered with blushes, looked with a particularly 
 melancholy expression on the fruits and the bowls of 
 cream. He thought he distressed her, and began playing 
 in a negligent manner with the dog. The animal, at a 
 slight snap of his fingers, darted up on his legs like 
 lightning, and stood panting and looking eagerly towards 
 the door. Cephalus had tlie finest dogs in Thessaly, yet 
 he doubted whether tliis was not finer than any of them. 
 He looked at the female, and now saw that she was 
 buskined up like a nymph of the chace. 
 
 *' The truth flashes upon me," thought he ; " this is a 
 fugitive nymph of Diana. Her buskins and her blushes 
 tell her wliole story." 
 
 The fair stranger seemed first oppressed, and then 
 relieved by his gaze. 
 
 "You guess," said she, "but too well, I fear, what has 
 put me upon your kind hospitality. P)ut the other sex, 
 especially where they are of the best natures, will be too 
 kind to betray me. I have indeed fled from the company 
 of Diana, having been first left myself by a rivcr-gixl 
 who " — She blushed, and was silent. 
 
 "And this dog?" inquired Cephalus, after reassuring 
 lier.
 
 112 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 " It was iny favourite dog in the chace," said she ; 
 " now my faithful companion in flight. Poor Leilaps ! " 
 And the dog, forgetting his vivacity in an instant, came 
 and lay at his mistress' feet as if he Avould have wound 
 about them. They were very beautiful feet. 
 
 "The river-god doubtless admired them," thought 
 Cephalus. Uut there was a something in her face more 
 touching tliau all the shapeliness in the world. It was a 
 mixture of the pensive and the pleasurable, which seemed 
 to say that if she had no cause for trouble she would 
 have been all tender vivacity. 
 
 " And whither are you going, fairest?" asked Cephalus. 
 
 " To Cyprus." 
 
 "To the temple of Venus T' 
 
 " To the temple of Venus," replied the beautiful 
 stranger, dropping her words and face as she spoke. " I 
 have made a new vow, which — a new vow " — And, 
 blushing more deeply, she was again silent. 
 
 "Which she shall be able to keep better than the 
 last," thought Cephalus. 
 
 She sat in a simple posture, — her back gently bonding, 
 her knees together, her rosy face and languid eyes looking 
 down sideways between her dark heavy curls. She 
 moved the fingers of her right hand towards the dog, as 
 if snapping them ; but it was done faintly, and evidently 
 only to do something. Cephalus thought she had a look 
 of Procris, and he did not pity her the less for that. 
 
 " But what are you to do Avith this dog ? " 
 
 This, it seemed, was a very perplexing question. It 
 was a long time before Cephalus could gpt an answer; 
 but he was so kind and importunate, and really, with all 
 his love of hunting, appeared to be so much more 
 interested in the nymph than her companion, that at 
 lensith he did obtain a sort of understanding on the 
 subject. It was necessary to make a renouncement of 
 something highly valued by the professor, before a new
 
 ' THE ADYENTUEES OP CEPHALUS AND PROCRIS. 113 
 
 devotee could enter on the service of Venus, The 
 renouncement was to be made to one of the other sex ; 
 and Cephalus, partly out of curiosity, partly out of 
 vanity, partly out of self-interest, and not a little out of 
 an interest of a better sort, contrived to discover that it 
 Avould be made, with no prodigious unwillingness, to 
 himself. 
 
 *' Leilaps," said he. The dog started towards him as 
 if he knew his future master. The lady gave a gentle 
 laugh, and seemed much happier. The supper, that 
 evening, was upon a much easier footing than the 
 luncheon. The next morning, on waking, Cephalus 
 saw the face of Procris hanging over bim. He would 
 have been more astonished had he not remembered 
 his own transformation ; but he was nevertheless quite 
 enough so. Procris shook her head at him archly, then 
 kissed him kindly, then burst into tears, then declared 
 herself happy and forgiving as well as forgiven, and 
 neither of them ever passed a happier day in their 
 lives. 
 
 Procris' account of herself was partly true. Our in- 
 formant 1 does not account for a proceeding which certainly 
 requires some explanation; but she had reaUy gone to 
 the haunts of Diana, whose reception of her, though a 
 huntress, was what might have been expected. She 
 begged her, in very explicit terms, to withdraw. Procris, 
 however, though she could obtain no sympathy purely 
 on her own account, contrived to waken an interest in 
 the bosom of the divine virgin by telling her of the trick 
 played by Cephalus and Aurora. This she thought 
 abominable. She therefore wrought a counter-change in 
 the appearance of Procris ; and giving her a hound out 
 of her own pack, sent her to practice artifice for artifice. 
 She regretted afterwards the having consented to inter- 
 fere at all in such matters ; but the impulse had engaged 
 
 1 Hyginus Fabulnrum Liber. Cap. 189. 
 U
 
 114 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 her to commit herself, and she was too proud and stately 
 to recall what she had done. Procris told all to her 
 hushand ; and the goddess was little aware how they 
 enjoyed the kind result of her anger at the expense of 
 her dignity. 
 
 It is on record that our married couple were never so 
 fond of each other, or so contented, as now. Procris, in 
 the gratitude of her joy, was not disposed even to quarrel 
 with Aurora, whom her hushand no doubt saw occasion- 
 ally. But it is not known whether he was kinder to her 
 than before. Procris was inclined to think not, as he 
 said nothing about it ; so certain she had become of his 
 confidence. As to Cephalus, the praises of his wife by 
 his fellow-huntsmen gave him great pleasure, now that 
 he was sure of her loving him unrestrictedly. 
 
 "What a pity that such a happy state of things was not 
 to last ! But Procris had early been taught jealousy. 
 She had even identified it with a virtue ; and by degrees, 
 as little fits of ill-temper were exchanged, and she began 
 to think less kindly of herself, she began to be uneasy 
 about others. Unfortunately for this return of her com- 
 plaint, a little anxious busybody, whom she had been 
 accustomed to treat with contemptuous indifference, 
 perhaps to show it too much, came and said to her one 
 day, that as she knew she should not be mortifying her 
 with such pretty matters, she might tell her, as a piece 
 of news, that Cephalus was passionately and notoriously 
 in love with a beautiful nymph of the name of Aura. 
 
 ** Aurora, you mean," said Procris scornfully. 
 
 "No, no," said the little snappish voice, " Aura, Aura ; 
 I know it well enough; all Athens knows it, or else I 
 should not have repeated it. I am no tale-bearer ; but 1 
 hate to see a man pretending to be what he is not." 
 
 " Cephalus pretends nothing," said Procris. 
 
 " Oh, of course," said the gossip ; *' and mighty useful 
 it is to him, no doubt, to be so wanting in pretence.
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF CEPHALUS AND PROCRIS. 115 
 
 But my maxim is : Be decent enough, at least, to appear 
 virtuous." 
 
 "Yes," thought Procris; "and your whole life would 
 be an exemplification of it, if you could hold your 
 tongue." But the blow was struck. She despised the 
 scandal, while she became its victim. 
 
 Procris, who was on a visit with Cephalus to her father, 
 had heard of a spot in which he reposed himself every 
 day after the chace. Here, it was added, the lady as. 
 regularly met him. He was even so impatient for her 
 sight, that if she delayed a minute beyond the usual time 
 he called upon her aloud in the fondest manner. " Come, 
 come, sweet Aura," said he, "and cool this glow in my 
 bosom." 
 
 1^0 w his delight in the new spot, and the invocation 
 also, were both very true ; only the informant forgot to 
 mention, and Procris to remember, that although Aura 
 was the name of a female, it also signified the fresh air. 
 
 One day Cephalus went as usual into his favourite 
 haunt to enjoy its freshness, verdure, and seclusion. 
 The place has been very prettily described by Ovid : 
 
 "Est prope purpureos coUes florentis Hymetti 
 Fons sacer, et viridi cespite mollis humus. 
 Sjlva nemus non alta facit ; tegit arbutus lierbam ; 
 
 Ros maris, et lauri, nigi-aque myrtus olent. 
 Nee densae foliis buxi, fragilesque myricas, 
 Nee tenues cytisi, cultaque pinus abest. 
 Lenibus impulsse Zephyris, auraque salubri, 
 Tot generum frondes, herbaque summa tremunt." 
 
 Art. Amat. Lib. III. v. 687. 
 
 Close by the flowery purple hill 
 
 Hymettus, may be found 
 A sacred fountain, and a plot 
 
 Of green and lovely ground. 
 
 'Tis in a copse. The strawberry 
 Grows blushing through tlie grasi ; 
 
 And myrtle, rosemary, and hay 
 Quite perfume all the place.
 
 116 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 Nor is the tamarisk wanting there; 
 
 Nor clumps of leafy box ; 
 Nor slender ctisus ; nor yet 
 
 The pine with its proud locks. 
 
 Touched by the zephyrs and sweet airs, 
 
 Which there in bahn assemble, 
 This little world of leaves and all 
 
 The tops of the grass tremble. 
 
 Ceplialus lay upon a slope of the velvet ground, his 
 hands behind his head, and his face towards the balmy 
 heaven. He little thought that Procris was near. She 
 was lurking close to him behind some box-trees. She 
 listened. There was not a sound but that of the fountain, 
 the noise of Avhose splashes was softened by the trees 
 that half-encircled it. She listened again, thinking she 
 heard her husband speak. It was only the fervid bees, 
 buzzing along from Hyniettus, and murmuring as if dis- 
 dainfully in her ear. A variety of feelings agitate her. 
 Now she is sorry that she came, and would have given 
 anything to be back again. 'Now she longs to know who 
 her rival is. ISTow she is sorry again, and feels that her 
 conduct is unworthy, let her husband's be what it may. 
 Now she reassures herself, and thinks that he should 
 have at least been ingenuous. Jealousy and curiosity 
 prevail, and she still looks and listens. The air seems 
 more than usually quiet, and the bees worry her with 
 their officious humming. Cephalus leaps up, and plays 
 idly with his javeHn, Still nothing is said. Nobody 
 appears. She expects the lady every minute to issue 
 from the trees, and thinks how she shall confound her. 
 But no one comes. At last her husband, speaks. She 
 parts the box-trees a little more, to listen the keener. 
 
 " Come, gentle Aura," cried he, as if in a tone of 
 reproach ; " come, and breathe refreshment upon me : 
 thou scarcely stirrest the poplars to-day." Procris leaped 
 up in an ecstasy of delight and. remorse, and began tear- 
 ing back the boughs to go to her husband. He starts up.
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF CEPHALUS AXD PROCPTS. 117 
 
 lie thinks it a deer hampered in the thicket, and raises 
 his javelin to dart it. Forbear, forbear, miserable man : 
 it is thy more miserable wife ! Alas ! the javelin is 
 thro-wn, and the wife pierced. Upon coming up to 
 secure his prey, he finds, with a dumb despair, that it 
 is Procris dying. She does not reproach him; she re- 
 proaches only herself. "Forgive me," said she, "dear 
 Cephalus," pressing her cheek against his ; " I was made 
 wise in vain once, and I am now wise again too late. 
 Forgive my poor jealous heart, and bless me. It weeps 
 blood for its folly." And as she spoke, she sobbed aloud; 
 and the penitent tears gushed away, as if to emulate the 
 gushing of her heart. Cephalus, bewildered and agonized, 
 uttered what kind and remorseful words his lips could 
 frame, pressing her all the while gently to his heart. He 
 saw that the wound was mortal, and it was quickly so. 
 Her eyes faded away while looking at him ; but opening 
 her lips, she still made a yearning movement of them 
 towards his. It reminded him of paying that affectionate 
 office to the departing spirit, and, stooping with a face 
 washed in tears, he put his mouth upon hers, and 
 received at once her last kiss and breath.
 
 IX. 
 
 THE DAY OF THE DISASTERS OF 
 CARFINGTON BLUNDELL, ESQUIRE. 
 
 Description of a Penurious Independent Gentleman, Fond of 
 Invitations and the Great — He takes his Way to a " Dining- 
 out " — His Calamities on the Road — And on his Return. 
 
 Carfington Blundell, Esquire, aged six-and-thirty, but 
 apparently a dozen years older, was a spare, well-dressed, 
 sickly-looking, dry sort of leisurely individual, of respect- 
 able birth, very small income, and no abilities. He was 
 the younger son of the younger son of a younger brother ; 
 and, not being able to marry a fortune (which once, they 
 say, nearly made him die for love), and steering clear, with 
 a provoking philosophy, of the corkscrew curls and pretty 
 staircase perplexities of the young ladies of lodging-houses, 
 contrived to live in London upon the rent of half a dozen 
 cottages in Berkshire. 
 
 Having, in fact, no imagination, Carfington Blundell, 
 Esquire, had no sympathies, except with the wants and 
 wishes of that interesting personage, Carfington Blundell, 
 Esquire, — of whom he always bore about with him as lively 
 an image in his brain as it was possible for it to possess, 
 and with whom, when other people were of the least con- 
 sequence to his inclinations, he was astonished that the 
 whole world did not hasten to sympathize. On every 
 other occasion the only thing which he had to do with his 
 fellow-creatures, all and every of them, was, he thought, 
 
 to leave them alone, — an excellent principle as far as con- 
 ns
 
 THE DAY OF THE DISASTERS OF C. BLUNDELL, ESQ. 119 
 
 cerns their own wish to be so left, but not quite so much 
 so in the reverse instances ; such, for example, as when 
 they have fallen into ditches, or want to be paid their 
 bills, or have a turn for delicate attentions, or under any- 
 other circumstances which induce people to suppose that 
 you might as well do to them as you would be done by. 
 Mr. Blundell, it is true, was a regular payer of his bills ; 
 and though, agreeably to that absorption of himself in the 
 one interesting idea above mentioned, he was not famous 
 for paying delicate attentions, except when he took a 
 fancy to having them paid to himself, yet, provided the 
 morning was not very cold or muddy, and he had a stick 
 with him for the individual to lay hold of, and could 
 reckon upon using it without soiling his shoes or straining 
 his muscles, the probability is that he might have helped 
 a man out of a ditch. As people, however, are not in the 
 habit of falling into ditches, especially about Kegent 
 Street, and as it was not easy to conjecture in what other 
 instances ]\Ir. Blundell might have deemed it fitting to 
 evince a sense of the existence of anything but his own 
 coat and waistcoat, muffins, mutton cutlet, and bed, certain 
 it is that the sympathies of others were anything but 
 lively towards himself ; and they would have been less so 
 if the only other intense idea which he had in his head — 
 to wit, that of his birth and connections (which he pretty 
 freely overrated) — had not instinctively led him to hit 
 upon the precise class of acquaintances to whom his 
 insipidity could have been welcome. 
 
 These acquaintances, with whom he dined frequently 
 (and breakfasted too), were rich men of a grade a good 
 deal lower than himself ; and to such of these as had not 
 " unexpectedly left town " ho gave a sort of a quiet, par- 
 ticular, just-enough kind of a lodging-house dinner once a 
 year, the shoeblack in gloves assisting the deputy under- 
 waiter from the tavern. The friends out of town he paid 
 with regrets at their "lamented absence ; " and the whole
 
 120 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 of them he would have thought amply recompensed, even 
 without his giving in to this fond notion of the necessity 
 of a dinner on his part, hy the fact of his eating their 
 good things and talking of his fifth cousin, the Marquis, — 
 a personage, by the way, who never heard of him. He 
 did, indeed, once contrive to pick up the Marquis' glove at 
 the opera, and to intimate at the same time that his name 
 was Blundell ; upon which the noble lord, staring some- 
 what, but good-humouredly smiling withal, said, " Much 
 obliged to you, Mr. Bungle." As to his positive insipidity 
 over the hock and pine-apples of his friends, Mr. Blundell 
 never dreamt of such a thing ; and if he happened to sit 
 next to any wit, or other lion of the day, who seemed of 
 consequence enough to compete with the merits of his 
 presence, he thought it amply set off by his taste in having 
 had such ancestors, and, indeed, in simply being that 
 identical Mr. Blundell, who, in having no merits at all, 
 was gifted by the kind providence of nature with a 
 proportionate sense of his enjoying a superabundance of 
 them. 
 
 To complete the idea of him in the reader's mind, his 
 manners were gentlemanly, except that they betrayed 
 now and then too nice a sense of his habilaments. His 
 hat he always held in the best way adapted to keep it in 
 shape; and a footman, coming once too softly into a room 
 where he was waiting during a call, detected him in the 
 act of dusting his boots with an extra-coloured hand- 
 kerchief, which he always carried about with him for that 
 purpose. He calculated that, with allowance for changes 
 in the weather, it saved him a good four months' coach- 
 hire. 
 
 Such was the acomplished individual who, in the month 
 of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight 
 hundred and twenty-seven, and in a " fashionable dress 
 of the first water " (as Sir Phelim called it), issued fortli 
 from his lodgings near St. James', draAving the air through
 
 THE DAY OF THE DISASTERS OF C. BLUXDELL, ESQ. 121 
 
 his teeth with an elegant indifference, coughing slightly 
 at intervals out of emotion, and, to say the truth, as 
 happy as coat and hat, hunger, a dinner-party, and a 
 fine day could make him. Had the weather heen in the 
 smallest degree rainy, or the mansion for which he was 
 hound at any distance, the spectators were to understand 
 that he would have come in his own carriage, or at least 
 that he intended to call a coach ; but as the day was so 
 very fine, and he kept looking at every door that he passed, 
 as though each were the one he was about to knock at, the 
 conclusion to be dra"\vn was that, having but a little way 
 to go, and possessing a high taste for superiority to appear- 
 ances, it was his pleasure to go on foot. Vulgar wealth 
 might be always making out its case. Dukes and he could 
 afford to dispense with pretension. 
 
 The day was beautiful, the sky blue, the air a zephyr, 
 the ground in that perfect state for walking (a day or two 
 before dust), when there is a sort of dry moisture in the 
 earth, and people in the country prefer the road to the 
 path. The house at which our hero was going to dine was 
 midway between the "West End and the north-east ; and 
 he had just got half-way, and was in a very quiet street, 
 when, in the " measureless content " of his anticipations, 
 he thought he would indulge his eyesight with one or two 
 of those personal ornaments, the presence of which, on 
 leaving the house, he always ascertained with sundry 
 pattings of his waistcoat and coat pockets. Having, there- 
 fore, again assured himself that he had duly got his two 
 pocket-handkerchiefs, his ring, his shirt-pin, his snuiF-box, 
 his watch, and his purse under his watch, he first took off 
 a glove that he might behold the ring ; and then, with the 
 ungloved hand, he took out the snuflf-box, in order that he 
 might as delicately contemplate the snuff-box. 
 
 Now, the snuflf-box was an ancient but costly snufi'-box, 
 once the possession of his grandmother, who had it from 
 her uncle, whose arms, flaming in or and gules, were upon
 
 122 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 the lid ; and inside the lid was a most ingeniously-contrived 
 portrait of the uncle's lady, in a shepherdess' hat and 
 powdered toupee, looking, or to be supposed to be looking, 
 into an actual bit of looking-glass. 
 
 Carfington Blundell, Esquire, in a transport of ease, 
 hope, and ancestral elegance, and with that expression of 
 countenance, the insipidity of which, is bound to be in 
 proportion to the inward rapture, took a pinch out of this 
 hereditary amenity, and was in the act of giving a glance 
 at his grand-aunt before he closed the lid, when a strange, 
 respectably-dressed person, who seemed to be going some- 
 where in a great hurry, suddenly dashed against him, and, 
 uttering the words, " With pleasure," dipped his fingers 
 into the box, and sent it, as Carfington thought, half-way 
 across the street. 
 
 Intense was the indignation, but at the same time 
 highly considerate the movement of Mr. Blundell, who, 
 seeing the "impertinent beast" turn a corner, and hearing 
 the sound of empty metal dancing over the street, naturally 
 judged it better to secure the box than derange his pro- 
 priety further by an idle pursuit. Contenting himself, 
 therefore, with sending an ejaculation after the vagabond 
 to the purpose just quoted, and fixing his eye upon the 
 afi"ecting movable, now stationary, he delicately stepped 
 off the pavement towards it, with inward congratulation 
 upon its not being muddy, when imagine his dismay and 
 petrifaction on lifting up, not the identical box, but one of 
 the commonest order ! To be brief, it was of pcAvter ; and 
 upon the lid of it, with after-dinner fork, Avas scratched a 
 question which, in the immediate state of Mr. Blundell's 
 sensations, almost appeared to have a supernatural meaning, 
 to wit, " How's yoiir mother^ " 
 
 Had it been possible for a man of the delicacy of Mr. 
 Blundell's life and proportions to give chase to a thief, or 
 had he felt it of the least use to raise a hue-and-cry in a 
 gentlemanly tone of" voice, — or, indeed, in any voice not
 
 THE DAY OF THE DISASTERS OF C, BLUNDELL, ESQ. 123 
 
 incompatible with his character, — doubtless he would have 
 done so with inconceivable swiftness ; but, as it was, he 
 stood as if thunderstruck ; and in an instant there were a 
 dozen persons about him, all saying, "What is itl" 
 "Which?" "WhoT' 
 
 Mr. Blundell, in his first emotions, hardly knew " what 
 it was " himself ; the " which " did not puzzle him quite 
 so much, as often as he looked upon the snuff-box ; but the 
 " who " he was totally at a loss to conjecture, and so were 
 his condolers. 
 
 " What — was it that chap as run agin you," said one, 
 "jist as I was coming in at t'other end of the street? 
 Lord love you ! you might as well run arter last year. 
 He's a mile off by this time." 
 
 "If the gentleman '11 give me a shilling," said the boy, 
 ^^ I'll run arter him." 
 
 " Get out, you young dog ! " said the first speaker, " d'ye 
 think the gentleman's a fool 1 " 
 
 " It is a circumstance," said Mr. Blundell, grateful for 
 this question, and attempting a breathless smile, " which 
 — might have — surprised — anybody." 
 
 "Whatso?-^of a man was it?" emphatically inquired 
 a judicious-looking person, jerking his face into Mr. 
 Blundell's, and then bending his ear close to his, as though 
 he were deaf. 
 
 "I — declare," said Mr. Blundell, "that lean — hardly 
 say, the thing was so very unexpected; but — from the 
 glimpse I had of him, I should — really say — he looked 
 like a gentleman " (here Mr. Blundell lifted up his eye- 
 brows), — " not indeed o, perfect gentleman." 
 
 "I daresay not, sir," returned the judicious -looking 
 person. 
 
 "What is all this % " inquired a loud individual, elbowing 
 his way through. 
 
 " A gentleman has been robbed," said the boy, " by 
 another gentleman."
 
 124 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 " Another gentleman ? '' 
 
 " Yes ; not a perfect gentleman, he says, but highly 
 respectable." 
 
 Here, to the equal surprise and grief of the sufferer, the 
 crowd laughed and began joking with one another. ISTone 
 but the judicious-looking deaf individual seemed to keep 
 his countenance. 
 
 "Well," quoth the loud man, "here's a policeman 
 coming at the end of the street ; the gentleman had better 
 apply to him." 
 
 "Yes, sir," said the deaf friend, "that's your resource, 
 and God bless you with it ! " So saying, he grasped Mr. 
 Blundell's hand with a familiarity more sympathizing than 
 respectful, and, treading at the same time upon his toes in 
 the most horrible manner, begged his pardon, and went 
 away. 
 
 Mr. Blundell stooped down, partly to rub his toes, and 
 partly to hide his confusion, and the policeman came up. 
 The matter was explained to the policeman, all the while 
 he was hearing the sufferer, by a dozen voices, and the 
 question was put, " What sort of a man was it 1, " 
 
 " Here is a gentleman," said Mr. Blundell, " who saw 
 him." 
 
 The policeman looked about for the witness, but nobody 
 answered ; and it was discovered that all the first speakers 
 had vanished — loud man, boy, and all. 
 
 "Have you lost anything else, sir'?" inquired the 
 policeman. 
 
 " Bless me ! " said Mr. Blundell, turning very red, and 
 feeling his pockets; "I really — positively I do fear — 
 that "— 
 
 "You can remember, sir, what you had with you when 
 you came out 1 " 
 
 " One handkerchief," continued Mr. Blundell, "has cer- 
 tainly gone ; and " — 
 
 " Your watch is safe," returned the policeman, " for it
 
 THE DAY OP THE DISASTERS OF C. BLUXDELL, ESQ. 125 
 
 is hanging out of your waistcoat. Very lucky you fastened 
 it. Have you got your purse, sir 1 " 
 
 "The purse was under the watch," breathed jNIr. 
 Blundell ; " therefore I have no doubt that — but I regret 
 to say — that I do not — feel my ring." 
 
 A laugh, and cries of " Too bad ! " 
 
 " A man shook your hand, sir," said the policeman ; " did 
 you not feel it then 1 " 
 
 "I did not, indeed," replied Mr. BlundeU ; "I felt 
 nothing but the severity of the squeeze." 
 
 "And you had a brooch, I perceive." 
 
 The brooch was gone too. 
 
 "Why don't you run arter him," cried a very little boy 
 in an extremely high and loud voice, which set the crowd 
 in a roar. 
 
 The policeman, as speedily as he could, dispersed the 
 crowd, and accompanied Mr. Blundell part of his way; 
 whither the latter knew not, for he walked along as if he 
 had taken too much wine. Indeed, he already doubted 
 whether he should proceed to recruit himself at his friend's 
 table, or avoid the shame of telling his story and return 
 home. The policeman helped to allay his confusion a 
 little by condolence, by promises of search, and accounts 
 of daring robberies practised upon the most knowing ; and 
 our hero, in the gratitude of his heart, would have given 
 him his card ; but he now found that his pocket-book was 
 gone ! His companion rubbed his face to conceal a smile, 
 and received with great respect an oral communication of 
 the address. Mr. Blundell, to show that his spirit as a 
 gentleman was not subdued, told him there was half-a- 
 crown for him on his calling. 
 
 Alone, and meditative, and astonished, and, as it were, 
 half undone, Mr. BlundeU continued his journey towards 
 the dinner, having made up his mind that, as his watch- 
 chain was still api^arent, and had the watch attached to 
 it, and as the disorder of his nerves, if not quite got rid
 
 126 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 of, miglit easily be referred to delicacy of health, he would 
 refresh his spirits with some of that excellent port which 
 always made him feel twice the man he was. 
 
 Nor was this judicious conclusion prevented, but rather 
 irritated and enforced, by one of those sudden showers 
 which in this fickle climate are apt to come pouring down 
 in the midst of the finest Aveather, especially upon the 
 heels of April. This, to be sure, was a tremendous one; 
 though, by diverting our hero's chagrin, and putting him 
 upon his mettle, it only made him gather up his deter- 
 mination, and look extremely counteractive and frowning. 
 Would to heaven his nerves had been as braced-up as his 
 face ! The gutters were suddenly a torrent ; the pavement 
 a dancing wash ; the wind a whirlwind ; the women all 
 turned into distressed Venuses de' Medici. Everybody got 
 up in doorways, or called a coach. 
 
 Unfortunately no coach was to be had. The hacks went 
 by insolently, taking no notice. Mr. Blundell's determina- 
 tion was put to a nonplus. The very door-ways in the street 
 where he was, being of that modern, shiminng, inhospitable 
 penny-saving, done-by-contract order, so unlike the good 
 old projecting ones with pediments and ample thresholds, 
 denied security even to his thin and shrinking person. 
 His pumps were speedily as wet through as if they had 
 been made of paper ; and what rendered this ruin of his 
 hopes the more provoking was, that the sunshine sud- 
 denly burst forth again as powerful as the rain which 
 had interrupted it. A coach, however, he now thought, 
 would be forthcoming ; and it would, at least, take him 
 home again ; while the rain, and " the previous inability 
 to get one," would furnish a good excuse for returning. 
 
 But no coach was to be had so speedily, and meantime 
 his feet were wet, and there was danger of cold. " As I 
 am wet," thought Mr. Blundell, sighing, " a little motion, 
 at all events, is best. It would be better, considering I 
 am so, not to stop at all, nor perhaps get into a coach ;
 
 THE DAY OF THE DISASTEKS OF C. BLUNDBLL, ESQ. 127 
 
 but tlien how am I to get home in these shoes and this 
 highly evening-dress 1 I shall be a sight. I shall have 
 those cursed little boys after me. Perhaps I shall again 
 be hustled." 
 
 Bewildered with contending emotions of shame, grief, 
 disappointment, anger, nay hunger, and the sympathy 
 between his present pumps and departed elegancies, our 
 hero picked his way as delicately as he could along the 
 curb-stones, and, turning a corner, had the pleasure of 
 seeing a hackney-coach slowly moving in the distance, 
 and the man holding forth his whip to the pedestrians, 
 evidently disengaged. The back of it, to be sure, was 
 towards him, and the street long and narrow, and very 
 muddy. But no matter. An object's an object ; a little 
 more mud could not signify ; our light-footed sufferer 
 began running. 
 
 Now runners unfortunately are not always prepared for 
 corners, especially when their anxiety has an object right 
 before it, and the haste is in proportion. Mr. Blundell, 
 almost before he was aware of it, found himself in the 
 middle of a flock of sheep. There was a hackney-coach 
 also in the way ; the dog was yelping, and leaping hither 
 and thither ; and the drover, in a very loud state of 
 mind, hooting, whistling, swearing, and tossing up his 
 arms. 
 
 Mr. Blundell, it is certain, could not have got into a 
 position less congenial to his self-possession, or more 
 calculated to commit his graces in the eyes of the unpro- 
 pitiated. And the sheep, instead of sympathizing Avith 
 him, as in their own distress they might (poetically) be 
 supposed to do, positively seemed in the league to distress 
 his stockings, and not at all to consider even his higher 
 garment. They ran against him ; they bolted at him ; 
 they leaped at him ; or if they seemed to avoid him, it 
 was only to brush him with muddier sides, and to let in 
 upon his weakened forces the friohtful earnestness of the
 
 128 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 dog, and the inconsiderate, if not somewhat suspicious, 
 circumanibiences of the coachman's whip. 
 
 Mr. Blundell suddenly disappeared. 
 
 He fell down, and the sheep began jumping over him ! 
 The spectators, I am sorry to say, were in an ecstasy. 
 
 You know, observant reader, the way in which sheep 
 carr}'- themselves on abrupt and saltatory occasions ; how 
 they follow one another with a sort of spurious and 
 involuntary energy ; what a pretended air of determination 
 they have ; how they really have it, as far as example 
 induces and fear propels them ; with wliat a heavy kind 
 of lightness they take the leap ; how brittle in the legs, 
 lumpish in the body, and insignificant in the face ; how 
 they seem to quiver with apprehension, while they are 
 bold in act ; and with what a provoking and massy 
 springiness they brush by you, if you happen to be in the 
 way, as though they wouldn't avoid the terrors of your 
 presence, if possible, or, rather, as if they would avoid it 
 w^ith all their hearts, but insulted you out of a desperation 
 of inability. Baas intermix their pensive objections with 
 the hurry, and a sound of feet as of water. Then, ever 
 and anon, come the fiercer leap, the conglomerating cir- 
 cuits, the dorsal visitations, the yelps and tongue-lollings 
 of the dog, lean and earnest minister of compulsion ; and 
 loud, and dominant over all, exult the no less yelping 
 orders of the drover, — indefinite, it is true, but expressive, 
 — rustical cogencies of oo and ou, the intelligible jargon of 
 the Corydon or Thyrsis of Chalk-Ditch, who cometh, final 
 and humane, with a bit of candle in his hat, a spike at the 
 end of his stick, and a hoarseness full of pastoral catarrh 
 and juniper. 
 
 Thrice (as the poets say) did Carfington Blundell, 
 Esquire, raise his unhappy head out of the inelie, hatless 
 and mudded ; thrice did the spectators shout ; and thrice 
 did he sink back from the shout and the sheep, in 
 calamitous acquiescence.
 
 THE DAY OF THE DISASTERS OF C. BLUXDELL, ESQ. 129 
 
 " Lie stil], you fool ! " said the hackney - coachman, 
 " and they'll jump easy." 
 
 " JuiiP EASY ! " Heavens ! how strange are the vicissi- 
 tudes of human affairs. To think of jMr. Blundell only 
 but yesterday, or this evening rather, — nay, not an hour 
 ago, — his day fine, his hopes immense, his whole life 
 lapped-up, as it were, in cotton and lavender, his success 
 elegant, his evening about to be spent in a room full 
 of admirers ; and now, his very prosperity is to consist in 
 lying still in the mud, and letting sheep jump over 
 him ! 
 
 Then to be called a "fool":— "Lie still, you fool!" 
 
 Mr. Blundell could not stand it any longer (as the 
 Irishman said) ; so he rose up just in time to secure a 
 kick from the last sheep, and emerged amidst a roar of 
 congratulation. 
 
 He got as quickly as possible into a shop, Avhich luckily 
 communicated with a back street; and, as things gene- 
 rally mend when they reach their worst (such at least 
 was the consolatory reflection Avhich our hero's excess of 
 suffering was glad to seize hold of), a hackney-coach was 
 standing close to him, empty and disengaged. It had just 
 let a gentleman down next door. 
 
 Our hero breathed a great breath, returned his hand- 
 kerchief into his pocket (which had been made a sop of 
 to no purpose), and uttering the word ^'■accident," and 
 giving rapid orders where to drive to, was hastening to 
 hide himself from fate and the little boys within the 
 vehicle, when, to his intense amazement, the coachman 
 stopped him. 
 
 " Hullo ! " quoth the Jerveian mystery ; " what are you 
 arterl" 
 
 " Going to get in," said Blundell. 
 
 "I'm bless'd if you do," said the coachman. 
 
 "How, fellow! Kot get inf' cried Mr. Blundell, 
 irritated that so mean an obstacle should present itself to 
 
 I
 
 130 LEIGH HUNT, 
 
 liis great wants. " What's your coacli for, sir, if it isn't 
 to accommodate gentlemen ; to accommodate anyhody, I 
 may say ? " 
 
 Now it happened that the coachman, "besides having 
 had his eye caught by another fare, was a very irritahle 
 coachman, given to repenting or being out of temper all 
 day for the drinking he solaced himself with overnight j 
 and he didn't choose to be called " fellow," especially by 
 an individual with a sort of dancing-master appearance, 
 with his hat jammed in, his silk stockings untimely, and 
 his whole very equivocal man all over mud. So jerking 
 him aside with his elbow, and then turning about, with 
 the steps behind him, and facing the unhappy Blundell, 
 he thus, with a terrible slowness of articulation, bespoke 
 him, the countenances of both getting redder as he 
 spoke : 
 
 "And do you think now, Master 'Fellow,' or Fiddler, 
 or Mudlark, — or •\vhatsomever else you call yourself, — 
 that I'm going to have the new seats and lining o' my 
 coach dirtied, so as not to be fit to be seen, by such a 
 TRUMPERY BEAST as you are ? " 
 
 "It is for light sorrows to speak," saith the philo- 
 sopher; "great ones are struck dumb." Mr. Blundell 
 was struck dumb ; dumber than ever he had conceived it 
 possible for a gentleman to be struck. It is little to say 
 that he felt as if heaven and earth had come together. 
 There was no heaven and earth ; nothing but space and 
 silence. Mr. Blundell's world was annihilated. 
 
 Alas ! it was restored to him by a shout from the 
 "cursed little boys." Mr. Blundell mechanically turned 
 away, and began retracing his steps homeward, half 
 conscious, and all a spectacle ; the little boys following 
 and preceding him, just leaving a hollow space for his 
 advances, and looking back, as they jogged, in his face. 
 He turned into a shop and begged to be allowed to wait 
 a little in the back parlour. He was humanely accommo-
 
 THE DAT OF THE DISASTERS OF C. BLUNDELL, ESQ. 131 
 
 dated with soap and water, and a cloth ; and partly but 
 of shame at returning through the gazes of the shopmen, 
 he stayed there long enough to get rid of his tormentors. 
 No great-coat, however, was to be had ; no shoes that 
 fitted ; no stockings ; and though he was no longer in his 
 worst and wettest condition, he could not gather up 
 courage enough to send for another coach. In the very 
 idea of a coachman he beheld something that upturned 
 all his previous existence : a visitation — a Gorgon — a 
 hypochondria. " Don't talk to me like a death's-head," said 
 Falstaff to Doll Tearsheet, when she reminded him of 
 his age. Mr. Blundell would have said, "Don't talk to 
 me like a hackney - coachman." The death's - head and 
 cross-bones were superseded in his imagination by an old 
 hat, wisp of hay, and arms akimbo. 
 
 Our hero had washed his hands and face, had set his 
 beaver to rights, had effaced (as he thought) the worst 
 part of his stains, and succeeded in exchanging his boot 
 pocket-handkerchief for a cleaner one ; with which, alter- 
 nately concealing his face as if he had had a toothache, 
 or holding it carelessly before his habiliments, he was 
 fain, now that the day Avas declining, to see if he could 
 not pick his way home again, not quite intolerably. It 
 was a delicate emergency; but experience having some- 
 what rallied his forces, and gifted him with that sudden 
 world of reflection which is produced by adversity, he 
 bethought himself, not only that he must yield, like all 
 other great men, to necessity, but that he was a personage 
 fitted for nice and ultimate contrivances. He was of 
 opinion, that although the passengers, if they chose to 
 look at him, could not but be aware that he had sustained 
 a mischance common to the meanest, yet, in consideration 
 of his air and manners, perhaps they would not choose to 
 look at him very much; or if they did, their surprise 
 would be divided between pity for his mit^hap and 
 admiration of his superiority to it
 
 132 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 Certainly the passengers who met him did look a good 
 deal. He could not bnt see it, though he saw as little as 
 he could help. How those who came behind him looked 
 it would have been a needless cruelty to himself to 
 ascertain ; so he never turned his head. K'o little boys 
 thought it worth their while to follow his steps, which 
 was a great comfort ; though whenever any observers of 
 that class met him, strange and most disrespectful Avere 
 their grins and ejaculations. "Here's a Guy!" was the 
 most innocent of their salutes. A drunken sailor startled 
 him with asking how the land lay about "Tower Ditch"? 
 And an old Irishwoman, in explanation of his appearance 
 to the wondering eyes of her companions, defined him to 
 be one that was so fond of "crame o' the valley" that he 
 must needs be " roulling in it." 
 
 Had "cabs" been then, Mr. Blundell would un- 
 questionably have made compromise with his horror of 
 charioteers, and on the strength of the mitigated deface- 
 ments of his presence have risked a summons to the whip. 
 As it was, he averted his look from every hackney-coach, 
 and congratulated himself as he began nearing home — 
 home, sweet even to the most insipid of the Blundclls, 
 and never so sweet as now, though the first thoughts of 
 returning to it had been accompanied with agonies of 
 mortification. " In a few minutes," thought he, " I shall 
 be see7i no more for the day (oh ! strange felicity for a 
 dandy !) ; in a few minutes I shall be in other clothes, 
 other shoes, and another train of feelings — not the 
 happiest of men, perhaps, retrospectively, but how blest 
 in the instant and by comparison ! In a few minutes all 
 will be silence, security, dryness. I shall be in my arm- 
 chair, in my slippers — shall have a fire ; and I will have 
 a mutton-cutlet, hot — and refresh myself with a bottle of 
 wine my friend Mimpin sent me." 
 
 Alas ! what are the hopes of man, even when he con- 
 cludes that things must alter for the better, seeing that
 
 THE DAY OF THE DISASTERS OF C. BLUNDELL, ESQ. 133 
 
 they are at their worst 1 How is he to be quite sure, 
 even after he has been under sheep in a gutter, that 
 things have been at their worst 1 — that his cup of 
 calamity, full as it seemed, is not to be succeeded by, or 
 Avonderfully expanded into, a still larger cup, with a 
 remaining draught of bitterness, amazing, not to have 
 been thought of, making the sick throat shudder, and the 
 heart convulse 1 
 
 Scarcely had the sweet images of the mutton-cutlet and 
 wine risen in prospect upon the tired soul of our hero^ 
 than he approached the corner of the street round which 
 he was to turn into his own ; and scarcely had he ex- 
 perienced that inward transport, that chuckle of the 
 heart with which tired homesters are in the habit of 
 turning those corners, — in short, scarcely had his entire 
 person manifested itself round the corner, and his eyes 
 lifted themselves up to behold the side of the blessed 
 threshold, than he heard, or rather was saluted and 
 drowned with a roar of voices the most huge, the most 
 unexpected, the most terrific, the most weighty, the most 
 world-like, the most grave yet merry, the most intensely 
 stupefying, that it would have been possible for Sancho 
 himself to conceive, after all his experience Avith Don 
 Qiiixote. 
 
 It now struck Mr. Blundell that, with a half-conscious, 
 half-unconscious eye, he had seen people running towards 
 the point which he had just attained, and others looking 
 out of tlieir windows ; but as they did not look at him 
 and everyone passed him without attention, how was he 
 to dream of what was going forward ; much more, that it 
 had any relation to himself? Frightful discovery ! which 
 he was destined speedily to make, though nut on the 
 instant. 
 
 The crowd (for almost the whole street was one dense 
 population) seemed in an agony of delight. They roared, 
 they shrieked, they screamed, they writhed, they bent
 
 134 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 themselves double, they threw about their arms, they 
 seemed as if they would have gone into fits. Mr. 
 Blundell's bewilderment was so complete that he walked 
 soberly along, steadied by the very amazement; and as 
 he advanced, they at once, as in a dream, appeared to 
 him both to make way for him, and to advance towards 
 him ; to make way in the particular, but advance in the 
 mass ; to admit him with respect, and overwhelm him 
 with familiarity. 
 
 "In the name of heaven ! " thought he, " what can it all 
 he ? It is impossible the crowd can have any connection 
 with me in the first instance. I could not have brought 
 them here ; and my appearance, though vm pleasant, and 
 perhaps somewhat ludicrous, cannot account for such a 
 perfect mass and conspiracy of astonishment. What is 
 it?" 
 
 And all the way he advanced did Mr. Blundell's eyes, 
 and manner, and whole person exhibit a sort of visible 
 echo to this internal question of his — What is it? 
 
 The house was about three-quarters of the way up the 
 street, which was not a long one; and it stood on the 
 same side on which our unfortunate pedestrian had turned. 
 
 As he approached the denser part of the crowd, words 
 began to develop themselves to his ear — " Well, this 
 beats all ! " " Well, of all the sights ! " " Why, it's 
 the man himself, the very man, poor devil ! " " Look at 
 his face ! " " What the devil can he have been at % " 
 "Look at the pianoforte man — he's coming up !" 
 
 Blundell mechanically pursued his path, mystified to 
 the last depths of astonishment, and scarcely seeing what 
 he saw. Go forward he felt that he must ; to turn back 
 was not only useless, but he experienced the very 
 fascination of terror and necessity. He would have 
 proceeded to his lodgings had Death himself stood in 
 the doorway. Meantime up comes this aforesaid mystery, 
 the pianoforte man.
 
 THE DAY OF THE DISASTERS OF C. BLUNDELL, ESQ. 135 
 
 " Here's a pretty business you've been getting us into," 
 said the amazing stranger. 
 
 " Wliat business?" ejaculated Mr. Elundell. 
 
 "What business? Wliy, all this here d — d business 
 — all this blackguard crowd — and my master's ruined 
 pianoforte. A pretty jobation I shall get; and I should 
 like to know what for, and who's to pay me ? " 
 
 " In the name of God ! " said our hero, " what is 
 it?" 
 
 " Why, don't you see what it is ? — a lioax, and be 
 d — d to it. It's a mercy I wasn't dashed to pieces when 
 these rascals tipped over the pianoforte ; and there 
 it lies, with three of its legs smashed and a corner 
 split. I should like to know what I'm to have for the 
 trouble ? " 
 
 "And I," said the upholsterer's man. 
 
 "And I," said the glass man. 
 
 " And this here coffin," said the undertaker. 
 
 There had been a hoax sure enough ; and a tremendous 
 hoax it was. A plentiful space before the door was 
 strewed with hay, boxes, and baskets. There stood the 
 coffin, upright, like a mummy ; and here lay the piano- 
 forte, a dumb and shattered discord. 
 
 Mr. Blundell had now arrived at his door, but did 
 not even think of going in; that is to say, not in- 
 stantly. He mechanically stopped, as if to say or do 
 something : for something was plainly expected of him ; 
 but what it was he knew not, except that he mechani- 
 cally put his hand towards his purse, and as mechanically 
 withdrew it. 
 
 The crowd all the while seemed to concentrate their 
 forces towards him — all laughing, murmuring, staring 
 — all eager, and pressing on one another; yet leaving 
 a clear way for the gentleman, his tradesmen, and his 
 goods. 
 
 What was to be done 1
 
 136 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 Mr. Blundell drew a sigh from the bottom of his 
 heart, as though it were liis last sigh or his last six- 
 pence; yet he drew forth no sixpence. Extremes met, 
 as usual. The consummation of distress produced calm- 
 ness and reflection. 
 
 " You must plainly perceive, gentlemen," said our hero, 
 " that it could be no fault of mine." 
 
 "I don't know that," said the pianoforte man. The 
 crowd laughed at the man's rage, and at once cheered 
 him on, and provoked him against themselves. He 
 seemed as if he did not know which he should run at 
 first, — his involuntary customer or " the cursed little 
 boys." 
 
 " Zounds, sir ! " said the man, " you oughtnH to have 
 been hoaxed." 
 
 " Oh ! oh ! " said the parliamentary crowd. 
 
 "I mean," continued he, "that none but some d — d 
 disagreeable chap, or infernal fool, is ever treated in this 
 here manner." 
 
 " Oh ! oh ! " reiterated the bystanders. " Come, that's 
 better than the last." 
 
 " Which is the biggest fool 1 " exclaimed a boy, in that 
 altitude of voice which is the most sovereign of provoca- 
 tions to grown ears. 
 
 The man ran at the boy, first making a gesture to our 
 hero, as much as to say, "I'll be with you again presently." 
 The crowd hustled the man back ; — the undertaker had 
 seized the opportunity of repeating that he "hoped his 
 honour would consider his trouble ; " — the glass man and 
 the upholsterer were on each side of him ; — and suddenly 
 the heavy shout recommenced, for a ncAV victim had 
 turned the corner, — a stranger to what was taking place, 
 — a man with some sort of milliner's or florist's box. 
 The crowd doted on his face. First, he turned the 
 corner with the usual look of indifferent hurry ; then he 
 began to have an inquiring expression, but without the
 
 THE DAY OF THE DISASTERS OF C. BLUNDELL, ESQ. 137 
 
 least intimation that the catastrophe applied to himself ; 
 then the stare became wider, and a little doubtful ; and 
 then he stopped short, as if to reconnoitre — at which the 
 laugh was prodigious. But the new comer was wise ; for 
 he asked what was the matter of the first person he 
 came up with ; and learning how the case stood, had 
 energy enough to compound with one more hearty laugh, 
 in preference to a series of mortifications. He fairly 
 turned back, pursued by a roar ; and oh ! how he loved 
 the corner, as he went round it ! Every hair at the 
 back of his head had seemed to tingle with conscious- 
 ness and annoyance. He felt as if he saw with his 
 shoulder-blades; — as if he was face to face at the back 
 of his hat. 
 
 At length the misery and perplexity of Mr. Elundell 
 reached a climax so insurmountable, that he would have 
 taken out his second and (as he thought) remaining 
 pocket-handkerchief, if even that consolation had been 
 left him ; for the tears came into his eyes. But it was 
 gone ! The handkerchief, however, itself, did not 
 distress him, Nothing could touch him further. He 
 wiped his eyes with the ends of the fingers of his gloves, 
 and stood mute, — a peri:)lexity to the perplexed, — a pity 
 even to the " little boys." 
 
 Now tears are very critical things, and must be 
 cautiously shed, especially in critical ages. In a private 
 Avay, provided you have locked the door, and lost three 
 children, you may be supposed to shed a few without 
 detriment to your dignity ; and in the heroical ages, the 
 magnitude and candour of passion permitted tears openly, 
 the feelings then being supposed to be equally strong in 
 all respects, and a man to have as much right to weep as 
 a woman. But how lucky was it for poor Blundell that 
 no brother dandy saw him ! His tormentors did not 
 know whether to pity or despise him. The pianoforte 
 man, with an oath, was going to move off; but, on
 
 138 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 looking again at his broken instrument, remained and 
 ^^rged compensation. The others expressed their sorrow, 
 but repeated, that they hoped his honour "would con- 
 sider them ; and they repeated it the more, because 
 his tears raised expectations of the money which he 
 would be weak enough to disburse. 
 
 Alas ! they did not know that the dislike of disburse- 
 ment, and the total absence of all sympathy with others 
 in our weeping hero (in this, as in other respects, very 
 different from the tear-shedding Achilles), was the cause of 
 all which they and he were at this moment enduring ; for 
 it was the inability to bring out his money which kept 
 Mr. Blundell lingering outside his lodging, when he 
 might have taken his claimants into it ; and it was the 
 jovial irascibility of an acquaintance of his, which, in 
 disgust at his evasion of dinner-givings, and his repeatedly 
 shirking his part of the score at some entertainments at 
 which he pretended to consider himself a guest, had 
 brought this astounding calamity to his door. 
 
 Happily for these " last infirmities " of a mind which 
 certainly could not be called "noble," there are hearts so 
 full of natural sympathy that the very greatest proofs of 
 the want of it Avill but produce, in certain extremities, a 
 pity which takes the want itself for a claim and a mis- 
 fortune ; and this sympathy now descended to Mr. 
 Blundell's aid, like another goddess from heaven, in a 
 shape not unworthy of it, — to wit, that of the pretty 
 daughter of his landlord, a little buxom thing, less hand- 
 some than good-natured, and with a heart that might 
 have served to cut up into cordial bosoms for half 9 
 dozen fine ladies. She had once nursed our hero in 
 sickness, and to say the truth, had not been disinclined 
 to fall in love with him, and be made "a lady," half out 
 of pure pity at his fever, had he given her the slightest 
 encouragement ; but she might as well have hoped to 
 find a heart in an empty coat. However, a thoroughly
 
 THE DAY OF THE DISASTERS OF C. BLUNDELL, ESQ. 139 
 
 good nature never entirely loses a sort of gratitude to 
 the object that has called forth so sweet a feeling as 
 that of love, even though it turn out unworthy, or the 
 affections (as in our heroine's case) be transferred else- 
 where; and accordingly, in sudden bonnet and shawl, 
 and with a face blushing partly from shame and partly 
 from anger at the crowd, forth came the vision of pretty, 
 plump little Miss Widgeon (Mrs. Burrowes "as is to 
 be"), and tapping Mr. Elundell on the shoulder, and 
 begging the " other gentlemen " to walk in, said, in a 
 voice not to be resisted, " Hadn't you better settle this 
 matter in-doors, Mr. Blundell 1 I daresay it can be done 
 very easily. 
 
 Blundell has gone in, dear reader; the other gentlemen 
 have gone in ; the crowd are slowly dislodging ; Miss 
 Widgeon, aided partly by the generosity of her nature, 
 partly by the science of lodging-house economy, and 
 partly by the sense and manhood of Mr. William 
 Burrowes, then present, a strapping young citizen from 
 Tower Hill, takes upon herself that ascendency of the 
 moment over Mr. Blundell due to a superior nature, and 
 settles the very illegitimate claims of the goods-and- 
 chattel bringers to the satisfaction of all parties, yea, 
 even of Mr. Blundell himself. The balm of the im- 
 mediate relief was irresistible, even though he saw a few 
 of his shillings departing. 
 
 What he felt next morning, when he woke, this 
 history saith not ; for we like to leave off, according to 
 the Italian recommendation, with a bocca doke, a sweet 
 mouth ; and with whose mouth, even though it was not 
 always grammatical, can the imagination be left in better 
 company than with that of the sweet-hearted and generous 
 little Polly Widgeon 1
 
 X. 
 
 THE SHOEMAKER OF VETROS. 
 
 A PORTUGUESE TRADITION. 
 
 In the times of the old kings of Portugal, Don John, a 
 natural son of the reigning prince, was governor of the 
 town of Veyros, in the province of Alentejo. The town 
 was situate (perhaps is tlicre still) upon a mountain, at 
 the foot of which runs a river; and at a little distance 
 there was a ford over it, under another eminence. The 
 bed of the river thereabouts was so high as to form a 
 shallow sandy place ; and in that clear spot of water the 
 maidens of Veyros, both of high rank and humble, used 
 to wash their clothes. 
 
 It happened one day that Don John, riding out with a 
 company, came to the spot at the time the young women 
 were so employed ; and being, says our author, "a young 
 and lusty gallant," he fell to jesting with his followers 
 upon the bare legs of the busy girls, who had tucked up 
 their clothes, as usual, to their work. He passed along the 
 river ; and all his company had not yet gone by, when a 
 lass in a red petticoat, while tucking it up, showed her 
 legs somewhat high, and clapping her hand on her right 
 calf, said, loud enough to be heard by the riders, " Here's 
 a white leg, girls, for the Master of Avis.^ 
 
 These words, spoken probably out of a little lively 
 bravado, upon the strength of the governor's having gone 
 by, were repeated to him when he got home, together 
 
 1 An order of knighthood of which Don John was master. 
 
 140
 
 THE SHOEMAKER OF VEYROS. 141 
 
 with the action that accompanied them : upon which the 
 young lord felt the eloquence of the speech so deeply 
 that he contrived to have the fair speaker brouglit to him 
 in private; and the consequence was, that our lively natural 
 son and his sprightly challenger had another natural son. 
 
 Ines (for that was the girl's name) was the daughter of 
 a shoemaker in Veyros, a man of very good account, and 
 wealthy. Hearing how his daughter had been sent for to 
 the young governor's house, and that it was her own light 
 behaviour that subjected her to what he was assured she 
 willingly consented to, he took it so to heart, that at her 
 return home she was driven by him from the house, with 
 every species of contumely and spurning. After this he 
 never saw her more. And to prove to the world and to 
 himself that his severity was a matter of principle, and 
 not a mere indulgence of his own passions, he never 
 afterwards lay in a bed, nor ate at a table, nor changed 
 his linen, nor cut his hair, nails, or beard ; which latter 
 grew to such a length, reaching below his knees, that the 
 people used to call him Earbadc n, or old Beardy. 
 
 In the meantime his grandson, called Don Alphonso, 
 not only grew to be a man, but was created Duke of 
 Braganza, his father, Don John, having been elected to 
 the crown of Portugal ; which he wore after such noble 
 fashion, to the great good of his country, as to be sur- 
 named the Memorable. Now, the town of Veyros stood 
 in the middle of seven or eight others, all belonsinw to 
 the young Duke, from Avhose palace at Villa Viciosa it 
 was but four leagues distant. He therefore had good 
 intelligence of the shoemaker his grandfather ; and being 
 of a humane and truly generous spirit, the accounts he 
 received of the old man's way of life made him extremely 
 desirous of paying him a visit. He accordingly went 
 with a retinue to Veyros ; and meeting Barbadon in the 
 streets, he alighted from his horse, bareheaded, and in the 
 presence of that stately company and the people, asked
 
 142 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 the old man liis blessing. The shoemaker, astonished at 
 this sudden spectacle, and at the strange contrast -which 
 it furnished to his humble rank, stared in a bewildered 
 manner upon the unknoAvn personage who thus knelt to 
 him in the public way, and said, " Sir, do you mock me 1 " 
 
 "!N"o," answered the Duke; "may God so help me, as 
 I do not : but in earnest I crave I may kiss your hand 
 and receive your blessing, for I am your grandson, and 
 son to Ines your daughter, conceived by the king, my 
 lord and father." 
 
 !N'o sooner had the shoemaker heard these words than 
 he clapped his hand before his eyes, and said, " God bless 
 me from ever beholding the son of so wicked a daughter as 
 mine was ! And yet, forasmuch as you are not guilty of 
 her offence, hold ; take my hand and my blessing, in the 
 name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
 Ghost." So saying, he laid one of his old hands upon 
 the young man's head, blessing him ; but neither the 
 Duke nor liis followers could persuade him to take the 
 other away from his eyes ; neither would he talk with 
 him a Avord more. In this spirit, shortly after, he died ; 
 and just before his death he directed a tomb to be made 
 for him, on which were sculptured the tools belonging to 
 his trade, with this epitaph : 
 
 *' This sepulchre BarbaJon caused to be made 
 (Being of VejTos, a shoemaker by his trade), 
 For himself and the rest of his race, 
 Excepting his daughter Ines in any case," 
 
 The author says that he has " heard it reported by the 
 aucientest persons that the fourth Duke of Braganza, 
 Don James, son to Donna Isabel, sister to the King Don 
 Emanuel, caused that tomb to be defaced, being the 
 sepulchre of his fourth grandfather." ^ 
 
 1 It appears by this that the Don John of the tradition is John the 
 First, who was elected king of Portugal, and became famous for his 
 great qualities ; and that his sou by the alleged shoemaker's daughter 
 was his successor, Alphonao the Fifth.
 
 THE SHOEMAKER OF VEYROS. 143 
 
 As for the daugliter, the conclusion of whose story 
 comes lagging in like a penitent, " she continued," says 
 the writer, " after she M^as delivered of that son, a very 
 chaste and virtuous Avomau ; and the king made her 
 commandress of Santos, a most honourable place, and 
 very plentiful; to the which none but princesses were 
 admitted, living, as it were, abbesses and princesses of a 
 monastery built without the walls of Lisbon, called 
 Santos, that is Saints, founded by reason of some martyrs 
 that were martyred there. And the religious women of 
 that place have liberty to marry with the Icnights of their 
 order, before they enter into that holy profession." 
 
 The rest of our author's remarks are in too curious a 
 spirit to be omitted. "In this monastery," he says, "the 
 same Donna Ines died, leaving behind her a glorious 
 reputation for her virtue and holiness. Observe, gentle 
 reader, the constancy that this Portuguese, a shoemaker, 
 continued in, loathing to behold the honourable estate of 
 his grandchild, nor w^ould any more acknowledge his 
 daughter, having been a lewd woman, for purchasing 
 advancement with dishonour. This considered, you will 
 not wonder at the Count Julian, that plagued Spain, and 
 executed the king Eoderigo for forcing his daughter La 
 Cava. The example of this shoemaker is especially 
 worthy the noting, and deeply to be considered; for, 
 besides that it makes good our assertion, it teaches the 
 higher not to disdain the lower, as long as they be 
 virtuous and lovers of honour. It may be that this old 
 man, for his integrity, rising from a virtuous zeal, merited 
 that a daughter coming by descent from his grandchild, 
 should be made Queen of Castile, and the mother of great 
 Isabel, grandmother to the Emperor Charles the Fifth, 
 and Ferdinando." 
 
 Alas ! a pretty posterity our shoemaker had in Philip 
 the Second and his successors, — a race more suitable to 
 his severity against his child, than his blessing upon his
 
 144 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 grandchild. Old Barbadon was a fine fellow too, after his 
 fashion. We do not know how he reconciled his unfor- 
 giving conduct with his Christianity ; hut he had enough 
 precedents on that point. "What we admire in him is 
 his showing that he acted out of principle, and did not 
 mistake passion for it. His crepidarian sculptures indeed 
 are not so well ; but a little vanity may be allowed to 
 mingle with and soften such edge-tools of self-denial as 
 he chose to handle. His treatment of his daughter was 
 ignorant, and in wiser times would have been brutal, 
 especially when it is considered how much the conduct 
 of children is modified by education and other circum- 
 stances ; but then a brutal man would not have accom- 
 panied it with such voluntary suffering of his own. 
 Neither did Barbadon leave his daughter to take her 
 chance in the wide world, thinking of the evils she might 
 be enduring, only to give a greater zest of fancied pity 
 to the contentedness of his cruelty. He knew she Avas 
 well taken care of; and if she was not to have the enjoy- 
 ment of his society, he was determined that it should be 
 a very uncomfortable one to himself. He knew that she 
 lay on a princely bed, while he would have none at all. 
 He knew that she was served upon gold and silver, Avhilo 
 he renounced his old chestnut table, — the table at which 
 he iised to sit. He knew, while he sat looking at his old 
 beard and the wilful sordidness of his hands, that her 
 locks and her fair limbs were objects of worship to the 
 gallant and the great. And so he set off his destitu- 
 tions against her over -possession, and took out the 
 punishment he gave her in revenge upon himself. This 
 was the instinct of a man who loved a principle, but 
 hated nobody, — of a man who, in a wiser time, would 
 have felt the wisdom of kindness. Thus his blessing 
 upon his grandchild becomes consistent with his cruelty 
 to his child ; and his living stock was a fine one in spite 
 of him. His daughter showed a sense of the woimd she
 
 TUB SHOEMAKER OF VEYROS. 145 
 
 had given such a father, by relinquishing the sympathies 
 she loved, because they had hurt him ; and her son, 
 worthy of such a grandfather and such a daughter, and 
 refined into a gracefulness of knowledge by education, 
 thought it no mean thing or vulgar to kneel to the grey- 
 headed artisan in the street, and beg the blessing of his 
 honest hand. 
 
 K
 
 XI. 
 
 RONALD OF THE PERFECT HAND. 
 
 [The following tale is founded on a Scottish tradition. 
 It was intended to be written in verse ; which will 
 account for its present appearance.] 
 
 The stern old shepherd of the air 
 The spirit of the whistling hair, 
 The wind, has risen drearily 
 In the Northern evening sea. 
 And is piping long and loud 
 To many a heavy upcoming cloud, — 
 Upcoming heavy in many a row. 
 Like the unwieldy droves below 
 Of seals, and horses of the sea. 
 That gather up as drearily, 
 And watch with solemn-visaged eyes 
 Those mightier movers in the skies. 
 
 'Tis evening quick ; — 'tis night : — the rain 
 Is sowing wide the fruitless main. 
 Thick, thick; — no sight remains the while 
 From the farthest Orkney isle, 
 No sight to sea-horse, or to seer, 
 But of a little pallid sail. 
 That seems as if 'twould struggle near, 
 And then as if its pinion pale 
 Gave up the battle to the gale. 
 Four chiefs there are of si)ecial note, 
 Labouring in that earnesl^ boat ; 
 Four Orkney chiefs, that yesterdaj' 
 Coming in their pride away 
 From there smote Norwegian king, 
 Led their war-boats triumphing 
 Straight along the golden line 
 Made by morning's eye divine. 
 146
 
 ROXALD OF THE PERFECT HAND. 147 
 
 Stately came they, one by one, 
 
 Every sail beneath the sun. 
 
 As if he their admiral were 
 
 Looking down from the lofty air, 
 
 Stately, stately through the gold,— 
 
 But before that day was done, 
 
 Lo, his eye grew vexed and cold ; 
 
 And every boat, except that one, 
 
 A tempest trampled in its roar ; 
 
 And every man, except those four, 
 
 Was drenched, and driving far from home, 
 
 Dead and swift, through the Northern foam 
 
 Four are they, who wearily 
 Have drunk of toil two days at sea ; 
 Duth Maruno, steady and dark, 
 Cormar, Soul of the Winged Bark; 
 And bright Clan Alpin, who could leap 
 Like a torrent from steep to steep ; 
 And he, the greatest of that great band, 
 Konald of the Perfect Hand. 
 
 Dumbly strain they for the shore, 
 Foot to board, and grasp on oar. 
 The billows, panting in the wind. 
 Seem instinct with ghastly mind, 
 And cUmb like crowding savages 
 At the boat that dares their seas. 
 Dumbly strain they, through and through. 
 Dumbly, and half blindly too. 
 Drenched, and buffeted, and bending 
 Up and down without an ending. 
 Like ghostly things that could not cease 
 To row among those savages. 
 
 Ronald of the Perfect Hand 
 Has rowed the most of all that band ; 
 And now he's resting for a space 
 At the helm, and turns his face 
 Round and round on every side 
 To see what cannot bo descried, 
 Shore, nor sky, nor light, nor even 
 Hope, whoso feet are last in heaven. 
 Ronald thought him of the roar 
 Of tho fight the day before. 
 And of the young Norwegi.an prince 
 Whom in all the worryings
 
 1 48 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 And hot vexations of the fray, 
 
 He had sent with life away, 
 
 Because he told him of a bride 
 
 That if she lost him, would have died ; 
 
 And Ronald then, in bitter case, 
 
 Thought of his own sweet lady's face, 
 
 Which upon this very night 
 
 Should have blushed with bridal lights, 
 
 And of her downward eyelids meek, 
 
 And of her voice, just heard to speak. 
 
 As at the altar, hand in hand. 
 
 On ceasing of the organ grand, 
 
 'Twould have bound her, for weal or woe, 
 
 With delicious answers low : 
 
 And more he thought of, grave and sweet, 
 
 That made the thin tears start, and meet 
 
 The wetting of the insolent wave ; 
 
 And Ronald, who though all so brave. 
 
 Had often that hard day before 
 
 Wished himself well housed on shore. 
 
 Felt a sharp impatient start 
 
 Of home -sick wilfulness at heart, 
 
 And steering with still firmer hand, 
 
 As if the boat could feel command, 
 
 Thrilled with a fierce and forward motion. 
 
 As though 'twould shoot it through the ocean. 
 
 "Some spirit," exclaimed Duth Maruno, "must pursue 
 us, and stubbornly urge the boat out of its way, or we 
 must have arrived by this time at Inistore." ^ Eonald 
 took him at his word, and turning hastily round, thought 
 he saw an armed figure behind the stern. His anger rose 
 with his despair; and with all his strength he dashed 
 his arm at the moveless and airy shape. At that instant 
 a fierce blast of wind half turned the boat round. The 
 chieftains called out to Ronald to set his whole heart at 
 the rudder; but the wind beat back their voices, like 
 young birds into the nest, and no answer followed it. 
 The boat seemed less and less manageable, and at last to 
 be totally left to themselves. In the intervals of the 
 wind they again called out to Eonald, but still received 
 1 The old name for the Orkneys.
 
 RONALD OF THE PERFECT HAND, 149 
 
 no answer. One of tliem crept forward, and felt for him 
 through the blinding wet and darkness. His place was 
 void. "It was a ghost," said they, "which came to 
 fetch him to the spirits of his fathers. Ronald of the 
 Perfect Hand is gone, and we shall follow him as we did 
 in the fight. Hark ! The wind is louder and louder : it 
 is louder and many-voiced. Is it his voice which has 
 roused up the others ? Is he calling upon us, as he did 
 in the battle, when his followers shouted after his call 1 " 
 
 It was the rocks of an isle beyond Inistore which 
 made that multitudinous roaring of the wind. The 
 chieftains found that they were not destined to perish 
 in the mid-ocean ; but it was fortunate for them that the 
 wind did not set in directly upon the island, or they would 
 have been dashed to pieces upon the rocks. With great 
 difficulty they stemmed their way obliquely ; and at 
 length Avere thrown violently to shore, bruised, wounded, 
 and half inanimate. They remained on this desolate 
 island two days, during the first of which the storm sub- 
 sided. On the third, they were taken away by a boat of 
 seal-hunters. 
 
 The chiefs, on their arrival at home, related how 
 Ronald of the Perfect Hand had been summoned away 
 by a loud-voiced spirit, and disappeared. Great was the 
 mourning in Inistore for the Perfect Hand : for the Hand 
 that with equal skill could throw the javelin and traverse 
 the harp ; could build the sudden hut of the hunter ; and 
 bind up the glad locks of the maiden tired in the dance. 
 Therefore was he called the Perfect Hand ; and therefore 
 with great mourning was he mourned ; yet with none 
 half as great as by his love, his betrothed bride Moilena : 
 by her of the Beautiful Voice ; who had latterly begun 
 to be called the Perfect Voice, because she Avas t(i be 
 matched with him of the Perfect Hand. Perfect Hand 
 and Perfect Voice were they called ; but the Hand was 
 now gone, and the Voice sang brokenly for tears.
 
 150 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 A dreary winter was it, though a victorious, to the 
 people of luistore. Their swords had conquered in 
 Lochlin ; hut most of the hands that wielded them had 
 never come back. Their warm pressure was felt no 
 more. The last which they had given their friends was 
 now to serve them all their lives. *' Never, with all my 
 yearning," said Moilena, "shall I look upon his again, as 
 I have looked upon it a hundred times, when nobody 
 suspected. Never." And she turned from the sight of 
 the destructive ocean, which seemed as interminable as 
 her thoughts. 
 
 But winter had now passed away. The tears of the 
 sky at least were dried up. The sun looked out kindly 
 again ; and the spring had scarcely reappeared, when 
 Inistore had a proud and gladder day, from the arrival of 
 the young Prince of Lochlin with his bride. It was 
 a bitter one to Moilena, for the prince came to thank 
 Ronald for sparing his life in the war, and had brought 
 his lady to thank him too. They thanked Moilena instead; 
 and, proud in tlie midst of her unhappiness of being the 
 representative of the Perfect Hand, she lavished hundreds 
 of smiles upon them from her pale face. But she wept in 
 secret. She could not bear this new addition to the store 
 of noble and kind memories respecting her Eonald. He 
 had spared the bridegroom for his bride. He had hoped 
 to come back to his own. She looked over to the north, 
 and thought that her home was as much there as in Inistore. 
 
 Meantime, Ronald was not drowned. A Scandinavian 
 boat, bound for an island called the Island of the Circle, 
 had picked him up. The crew, which consisted chiefly of 
 priests, were going thither to propitiate the deities, on 
 account of the late defeat of their countrymen. They 
 recognised the victorious chieftain, who, on coming to his 
 senses, freely confessed who he was. Instantly they raised 
 a chorus, which rose sternly through the tempest. " We 
 carry, said they, " an acceptable present to the gods.
 
 RONALD OF THE PERFECT HAND. l.*)! 
 
 Odin, stay thy hand from the slaughter of the obscure. 
 Thor, put down the mallet with which thou beatest, like 
 red hail, on the skulls of thine enemies. Ye other feasters 
 in Valhalla, set down the skulls full of mead, and pledge 
 a health out of a new and noble one to the King of Gods 
 and men, that the twilight of heaven may come late. 
 We bring an acceptable present ; we bring Eonald of the 
 Perfect Hand." Thus they sang in the boat, labouring all 
 the while wdth the winds and waves, but surer now than 
 ever of reaching the shore. And they did so by the first 
 light of the morning. "When they came to the circle of 
 sacred stones, from which the island took its name, they 
 placed their late conqueror by the largest, and kindled a 
 fire in the middle. The warm smoke rose thickly against 
 the cold white morning. " Let me be offered up to your 
 gods," said Eonald, " Hke a man, by the sword, and not, 
 like food, by the fire." " We know all," answered the 
 priests ; " be thou silent." " Treat not him," said Eonald, 
 " who spared your prince, unworthily. If he must be 
 sacrified, let him die as your prince would have died, by 
 this hand." Still they answered nothing but, "We know 
 all ; be thou silent." Eonald could not help witnessing 
 these preparations for a new and unexpected death with 
 an emotion of terror, but disdain and despair were upper- 
 most. Once, and but once, his cheek turned deadly pale 
 in thinking of Moilena. He shifted his posture resolutely, 
 and thought of the spirits of the dead, whom he was 
 about to joiiL The priests then encircled the fire and the 
 stone at which he stood with another devoting song ] and 
 Eonald looked earnestly at the ruddy flames, which gave 
 to his body, as in mockery, a kindly warmth. The priests, 
 however, did not lay hands on him. They respected the 
 sparer of their prince so far as not to touch him them- 
 selves ; they left him to be despatched by the supernatural 
 beings, whom they confidently expected to come down for 
 that purpose as soon as they had retired.
 
 152 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 Ronald, Avhose faith was of another description, saw 
 their departure with joy ; but it was damped the next 
 minute. What was he to do in winter - time on an 
 island, inhabited, only by the fowls and other creatures of 
 the Northern Sea, and never touched at bnt for a purpose 
 hostile to his hopes 1 For he now recollected that this 
 was the island he had so often heard of, as the chief seat 
 of the Scandinavian religion, whose traditions had so 
 influenced countries of a different faith that it was believed 
 in Scotland, as well as the Continent, that no human 
 being could live there many hours. Spirits, it was thought, 
 appeared in terrible superhuman shapes, like the bloody 
 idols which the priests worshipped, and carried the 
 stranger off. 
 
 The warrior of Inistore had soon too much reason to 
 know the extent of this belief. He Avas not without fear 
 himself, but disdained to yield to any circumstances 
 without a struggle. He refreshed himself with some suow- 
 Avater, and, after climbing the highest part of the island 
 to look for a boat in vain (nothing was to be seen but the 
 waves tumbling on all sides after the storm), he set about 
 preparing a habitation. He saw at a little distance, on a 
 slope, the mouth of a rocky cave. This he destined for 
 his shelter at night ; and, looking round for a defence for 
 the door, as he knew not whether bears might not be 
 among the inhabitants, he cast his eyes upon the thinnest 
 of the stones which stood upright about the fire. The 
 heart of the warrior, though of a different faith, misgave 
 him as he thought of approjDriating this mystical stone, 
 carved full of strange figures ; but half in courage, and 
 half in the despair of fear, he suddenly twisted it from its 
 place. No one appeared. The fire altered not. The 
 noise of the fowl and other creatures was no louder on 
 the shore. Ronald smiled at his fears, and knew the 
 undiminished vigour of the Perfect Hand. 
 
 He found the cavern already fitted for shelter, doubt-
 
 RONALD OF THE PERFECT HAND, 153 
 
 less by the Scandinavian priests. He had bitter reason to 
 know how well it sheltered him ; for day after day he 
 hoped in vain that some boat from Inistore would venture 
 upon the island. He beheld sails at a distance, but they 
 never came. He piled stone upon stone, joined old pieces 
 of boats together, and made flags of the seaweed, but all 
 in vain. The vessels, he thought, came nearer, but none 
 so near as to be of use ; and a new and sickly kind cf 
 impatience cut across the stout heart of Eonald, and set it 
 beating. He knew not whether it was with the cold or 
 with misery, but his frame Avould shake for an hour 
 together when he lay down on his dried weeds and 
 feathers to rest. He remembered the happy sleeps that 
 used to follow upon toil ; and he looked with double 
 activity for the eggs and shell-fish on which he sustained 
 himself, and smote double the number of seals, half in the 
 very exercise of his anger ; and then he would fall dead 
 asleep with fatigue. 
 
 In this way he bore up against the violences of the 
 winter season, which had now past. The sun looked out 
 with a melancholy smile upon the moss and the poor grass, 
 chequered here and there with flowers almost as poor. 
 There was the buttercup, struggling from a dirty white 
 into a yellow ; and a faint-coloured poppy, neither the 
 good nor the ill of which was then known ; and here and 
 there by the thorny underwood a shrinking violet. The 
 lark alone seemed cheerful, and startled the ear of the 
 desolate chieftain with its climbing triumph in the air. 
 Eonald looked up. His fancy had been made wild and 
 wilful by strange habits and sickened blood ; and he 
 thought impatiently, that if he were up there like the 
 lark he misht see his friends and his love in Inistore. 
 
 Being naturally, however, of a gentle as well as courage- 
 ous disposition, the Perfect Hand found the advantage as 
 well as the necessity of turning his violent impulses into 
 noble matter for patience. He had heard of the dreadful
 
 1 54 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 bodily sufferings which the Scandinavian heroes under- 
 went from their enemies with triumphant songs. lie 
 knew that no such sufferings, which were fugitive, could 
 equal the agonies of a daily martyrdom of mind ; and he 
 cultivated a certain humane pride of patience, in order to 
 bear them. 
 
 His only hope of being delivered from the island now 
 depended on the Scandinavian priests ; but it was a 
 moot point whether they would respect him for sur- 
 viving, or kill him on that very account, out of a mixture 
 of personal and superstitious resentment. He thought 
 his death the more likely ; but this, at least, was a 
 termination to the dreary prospect of a solitude for life ; 
 and partly out of that hope, and partly from a courageous 
 patience, he cultivated as many pleasant thoughts and 
 objects about him as he could. He adorned his cavern 
 with shells and feathers ; he made himself a cap and 
 cloak of the latter, and boots and a vest of seal-skin, 
 girding it about with the glossy sea-weed; he cleared 
 away a circle before the cavern, planted it with the best 
 grass, and heaped about it the mossiest stones : he strung 
 some bones of fish with sinews, and fitting a shell beneath 
 it, the Perfect Hand drew forth the first gentle music 
 that had been heard in that wild island. He touched it 
 one day in the midst of a flock of seals, who were bask- 
 ing in the sun ; they turned their heads towards the 
 sound ; he thought he saw in their mild faces a human 
 expression; and from that day forth no seal was ever 
 slain by the Perfect Hand. He spared even the huge 
 and cloudy-visaged walrusses, in whose societies he be- 
 held a dull resemblance to the gentler afl'ections ; and his 
 new intimacy with these possessors of the place was 
 completed by one of the former animals, who having 
 been rescued by him from a contest with a larger one, 
 followed him about, as well as its half-formed and dragging 
 legs would allow, with the officious attachment of a dog.
 
 RONALD OF THE PERFECT HAND. 155 
 
 But the summer was gone, and no one had appeared. 
 The new thoughts and deeper insight into things, which 
 solitude and sorrowful necessity had produced, together 
 with a diminution of his activity, had not tended to 
 strengthen him against the approach of winter; and 
 autumn came upon him like the melancholy twilight of 
 the year. He had now no hope of seeing even the 
 finishers of his existence hefore the spring. The rising 
 Avinds among the rocks, and the noise of the whales 
 blowing up their spouts of water, till the caverns thun- 
 dered with their echoes, seemed to be like heralds of the 
 stern season which was to close him in against approach. 
 He had tried one day to move the stone at the mouth of 
 his habitation a little farther in, and found his strength 
 fail him. He laid himself half reclining on the ground, 
 full of such melancholy thoughts as half bewildered him. 
 Things, by turns, appeared a fierce dream, and a fiercer 
 reality. He was leaning and looking on the ground, 
 and idly twisting his long hair, when his eyes fell upon 
 the hand that held it. It was livid and emaciated. He 
 opened and shut it, opened and shut it again, turned it 
 round, and looked at its ribbed thinness and laid-open 
 machinery ; many thoughts came upon him, some which 
 he understood not, and some which he recognised but too 
 well ; and a turbid violence seemed rising at his heart, 
 when the seal, his companion, drew nigh, and began 
 licking that weak memorial of the Perfect Hand. A 
 shower of self-pitying tears fell upon the seal's face and 
 the hand together. 
 
 On a sudden he heard a voice. It was a deep and 
 loud one, and distinctly called out "Eonald!" He 
 looked up, gasping with wonder. Three times it called 
 out, as if with peremptory command, and three times the 
 rocks and caverns echoed the word with a dim sullenness. 
 
 Recollecting himself, he would have risen and answered ; 
 but the sudden change of sensations had done what
 
 156 LEIGH HUNT, 
 
 all his sufferings had not been ahlc to do, and he 
 found himself unable either to rise or to speak. The 
 voice called again and again ; but it was now more 
 distant, and Ronald's heart sickened as he heard it 
 retreating. His strength seemed to fail him in propor- 
 tion as it became necessary. Suddenly the voice came 
 back again. It advances. Other voices are heard, all 
 advancing. In a short time, figures come hastily down 
 the slope by the side of his cavern, looking over into the 
 area before it as they descend. They enter. They are 
 before him and about him. Some of them, in a Scandi- 
 navian habit, prostrate themselves at his feet, and address 
 him in an unknown language. But these are sent away 
 by another, who remains Avith none but two youths. 
 Ronald has risen a little, and leans his back against the 
 rock. One of the youths puts his arm between his neck 
 and the rock, and half kneels beside him, turning his face 
 away and Aveeping. "I am no god, nor a favourite of 
 gods, as these people supposed me," said Ronald, looking 
 up at the chief who was speaking to the other youth : 
 "if thou wilt despatch me then, do so. I only pray thee 
 to let the death be fit for a warrior, such as I once was." 
 ■ The chief appeared agitated. " Speak not ill of the gods, 
 Ronald," said he, "although thou wert blindly brought 
 up. A Avarrior like thee must be a favourite of heaven. 
 I come to prove it to thee. Dost thou not knoAv me 1 I 
 come to give thee life for life." Ronald looked more 
 stedfastly. It Avas the Scandinavian prince whom he 
 had spared, because of his bride, in battle. He smiled, 
 and lifted \\p his hand to him, Avhich Avas intercepted and 
 kissed by the youth who held his arm round his neck. 
 " Who are these fair youths 1 " said Ronald, half turning 
 his head to look in his supporter's face. "This is the 
 bride I spoke of," ansAvered the prince, " Avho insisted on 
 sharing this voyage Avith me, and put on this dress to be 
 the bolder in it." " And who is the other 1 " The of hey,
 
 RONALD OF THE PERFECT HAND. 157 
 
 with dried eyes, looked smiling into his, and intercepted 
 the answer also. "Who," said the sweetest voice in the 
 world, "can it be, but one?" With a quick and almost 
 fierce tone, Eonald cried out aloud, " I know the voice ; " 
 and he would have fallen flat on the earth, if they had 
 not all three supported him. 
 
 It was a mild return to Inistore, Eonald gathering 
 strength all the way, at the eyes and voice of Moilena, 
 and the hands of all three. Their discovery of him was 
 easily explained. The crews of the vessels, who had 
 been afraid to come nearer, had repeatedly seen a figure 
 on the island making signs. The Scandinavian priests 
 related how they had left Ronald there ; but insisted that 
 no human being could live upon it, and that some god 
 wished to manifest himself to his faithful worshippers. 
 The heart of Moilena was quick to guess the truth. The 
 prince proposed to accompany the priests. His bride, and 
 the destined bride of his saviour went with him, and 
 returned as you heard ; and from that day forth many 
 were the songs in Inistore upon the fortunes of the 
 Perfect Hand and the kindness of the Perfect Yoice, 
 Nor were those forgotten who forgot not others,
 
 XTT. 
 THE DAUGHTER OF HIPPOCBATES. 
 
 In the time of the Norman reign in Sicily, a vessel 
 bound from that island for Smyrna was driven by a 
 westerly wind npon the island of Cos. The crew did 
 not know where they were, though they had often visited 
 the island j for the trading towns lay in other quarters, 
 and they saw nothing before them but woods and 
 solitudes. They found, however, a comfortable harbour ; 
 and the wind having fallen in the night, they went on 
 shore next morning for water. The country proved as 
 solitary as they thought it ; which was the more extra- 
 ordinary, inasmuch as it was very luxuriant, full of wild 
 figs and grapes, with a high uneven ground, and stocked 
 with goats and other animals, who fled whenever they 
 appeared. The bees were remarkably numerous, so that 
 the wild honey, fruits, and delicious water, especially one 
 spring which fell into a beautiful marble bason, made 
 them more and more wonder at every step that they 
 could see no human inhabitants. 
 
 Thus idling about and wondering, stretching them- 
 selves now and then among the wild thyme and grass, 
 and now getting up to look at some specially fertile 
 place which another called them to see, and which they 
 thought might be turned to fine trading purpose, they 
 came upon a mound covered with trees, which looked 
 into a flat wide lawn of rank grass, with a house at 
 the end of it. They crept nearer towards the house 
 along the mound, still continuing among the trees, for 
 
 158
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF HIPPOCRATES. 159 
 
 fear they were trespassing at last upon somebody's 
 property. It had a large garden wall at the back, as 
 much covered with ivy as if it had been built of it. 
 Fruit-trees looked over the wall with an unpruned 
 thickness ; and neither at the back nor front of the 
 house were there any signs of humanity. It was an 
 ancient marble building, where glass was not to be 
 expected in the windows ; but it was much dilapidated, 
 and the grass grew up over the steps. They listened 
 again and again ; but nothing was to be heard like a 
 sound of men; nor scarcely of anything else. There 
 was an intense noon-day silence. Only the hares made 
 a rustling noise as they ran about the long hiding grass. 
 The house looked like the tomb of human nature amidst 
 the vitality of earth. 
 
 " Did you see 1 " said one of the crew, turning pale, and 
 hastening to go. 
 
 " See what 1 " said the others. 
 
 " What looked out of window." 
 
 They all turned their faces towards the house, but saw 
 nothing. Upon this they laughed at their companion, 
 who persisted, however, with great earnestness, and with 
 great reluctance at stopping, to say that he saw a strange 
 hideous kind of face look out of window. 
 
 '•Let us go, sir," said he, to the captain; — "for I tell 
 ye what : I know this place now : and you. Signer 
 Gualtier," continued he, turning to a young man, " you 
 may now follow that adventure I have often heard you 
 wish to be engaged in." 
 
 The crew turned pale, and Gualtier among them. 
 
 " Yes," added the man, " we are fallen upon the 
 enchanted part of the island of Cos, where the daughter 
 of— Hush ! Look there ! " 
 
 They turned their faces again, and beheld the head of 
 a large serpent looking out of window. Its eyes were 
 direct upon them ; and stretching out of window, it lifted
 
 160 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 back its head, with little sharp jerks like a fowl, and so 
 stood keenly gazing. 
 
 The terrified sailors would have begun to depart 
 quicklier than they did, had not fear itself made them 
 move slowly. Their legs seemed melting from under 
 them. 
 
 Gualtier tried to rally his voice. "They say," said 
 he, " it is a gentle creature. The hares that feed right 
 in front of the house are a proof of it : — let us all 
 stay." 
 
 The others shook their heads, and spoke in whispers, 
 still continuing to descend the mound as well as they 
 could. 
 
 "There is something unnatural in that very thing," 
 said the captain : " but we will wait for you in the 
 vessel, if you stay. We will, by St. Ermo." 
 
 The captain had not supposed that Gualtier would 
 stay an instant; but seeing him linger more than the 
 rest, he added the oath in question, and in the mean- 
 time was hastening with the others to get away as fast 
 as possible. 
 
 The truth is, Gualtier was, in one respect, more 
 frightened than any one of them. His legs were more 
 rooted to the spot. But the same force of imagination 
 that helped to detain him, enabled him to muster up 
 a courage beyond those Avho found their wills more 
 powerful ; and in the midst of his terror he could not 
 help thinking what a fine adventure this would be to 
 tell in Salerno, even if he did but conceal himself a 
 little, and stay a few minutes longer than the rest. 
 The thought, however, had hardly come upon him, when 
 it was succeeded by a fear still more lively, and he was 
 preparing to follow the others with all the expedition he 
 could contrive, when a fierce rustling took place in the 
 trees behind him, and in an instant the serpent's head 
 was at his feet. Gualtier's brain, as well as heart, seemed
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF HIPrOCRATES. 161 
 
 to sicken, as lie tliought tlie monstrous object scented 
 him lilce a bear ; but despair coming in aid of a courage 
 naturally fanciful and cliivalrous, be bent his eyes more 
 stcadil}^, and found the huge jaws and fangs not only 
 abstaining from hurting him, but crouching and fawning 
 at his feet like a spaniel. At the same time, he called 
 to mind the old legend respecting the creature, and, 
 corroborated as he now saw it, he ejaculated with good 
 firmness, " In the name of God and His saints, what art 
 thoul" 
 
 " Hast thou not heard of me 1 " answered the serpent, 
 in a voice whose singular human slenderness made it seem 
 the more horrible. 
 
 "I guess who thou art," answered Gualtier: "the 
 fearful thing in the island of Cos." 
 
 " I am that loathly thing," replied the serpent ; " once 
 not so." 
 
 And Gualtier thought that its voice trembled sorrow- 
 fully. 
 
 The monster told Gualtier that Avhat was said of her 
 was true : that she had been a serpent hundreds of years, 
 feeling old age and renewing her youth at the end of 
 each century ; that it was a curse of Diana's which had 
 changed her, and that she was never to resume a human 
 form till somebody was found kind and bold enough to 
 kiss her on the mouth. As she spoke this word, she 
 raised her crest, and sparkled so with her fiery green 
 eyes, dilating at the same time the corners of her jaws, 
 that the young man thrilled through his very scalp. 
 
 He stepped back with a look of the utmost horror and 
 loathing. The creature gave a sharp groan inwardly, and, 
 after rolling her neck franticly on the ground, withdrew 
 a little back likewise, and seemed to be looking another 
 way. 
 
 Gualtier heard two or three little sounds as of a 
 person weeping piteously, yet trying to subdue its voice ; 
 
 li
 
 162 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 and, looking with breathless curiosity, he saw the side of 
 the loathly creature's face bathed in tears. 
 
 " "Why speakest thou, lady," said he, " if lady thou art, 
 of the curse of the false goddess Diana, who never was, 
 or only a devil ? I cannot kiss thee ! " and he shuddered 
 Avith a horrible shudder as he spoke ; " but I will bless 
 thee in the name of the true God, and even mark thee 
 with His cross." 
 
 The serpent shook her head mournfully, still keeping 
 it turned round. She then faced him again, hanging 
 her head in a dreary and desponding manner. 
 
 " Thou knowest not," said she, " what I know. Diana 
 both was, and never was ; and there are many other 
 things on earth which are, and yet are not. Thou canst 
 not comprehend it, even though thou art kind. But the 
 heavens alter not, neither the sun, nor the strength of 
 nature ; and if thou wert kinder, I should be as I once 
 was, happy and human. Suffice it, that nothing can 
 change me but what I said." 
 
 " Why wert thou changed, thou fearful and mysterious 
 thing 1 " said Gualtier. 
 
 *' Because I denied Diana, as thou dost," answered the 
 serpent ; " and it was pronounced an awful crime in me, 
 though it is none in thee ; and I was to be made a thing 
 loathsome in men's eyes. Let me not catch thine eye, 
 I beseech thee ; but go thy way, and be safe ; for I feel 
 a cruel thought coming on me, which will shake my 
 innermost soul, though it shall not harm thee. But I 
 could make thee suffer for the pleasure of seeing thine 
 anguish, even as some tyrants do ; and is not that 
 dreadful?" And the monster ojjeuly shed tears, and 
 sobbed. 
 
 There was something in this mixture of avowed cruelty 
 and weeping contradiction to it, which made Gualtier 
 remain in spite of himself. But fear was still uppermost 
 in liis mind, wlion he looked upon the moutli that was to
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF HIPPOCRATES. 1G3 
 
 bo kissed ; and he held fast round a tree with one hand, 
 and his sword as fast in the other, v/atching the move- 
 ments of her neck as he conversed. 
 
 " How did thy father, the sage Hippocrates," asked lie, 
 "suffer thee to come to this?" 
 
 " My father," replied she, " sage and good as he was, 
 was but a Greek mortal; and the great virgin was a 
 worshipped goddess. I pray thee go." 
 
 She uttered the last word in a tone of loud anguish ; 
 but the very horror of it made Gualtier hesitate, and he 
 said, — 
 
 "How can I know that it is not thy destiny to deceive 
 the merciful into this horrible kiss, that then, and then 
 only, thou may'st devour them?" 
 
 But the serpent rose higher at this, and, looking around 
 loftily, said in a mild and majestic tone of voice : 
 
 " ye green and happy woods, breathing like sleep ! 
 safe and quiet population of these leafy places, 
 dying brief deaths ! sea ! earth ! heavens, never 
 uttering syllable to man! Is there no way to make 
 better known the meaning of your gentle silence, of 
 your long basking pleasures and brief jiains ? And must 
 the want of what is beautiful and kind from others 
 ever remain different from what is beautiful and kind 
 in itself 1 And must form obscure essence 1 And 
 human confidence in good from within never be bolder 
 than suspicion of evil from without? O ye large- 
 looking and grand benignities of creation, is it that we 
 are atoms in a dream ; or that your largeness and 
 benignity are in those only who see them, and that it 
 is for us to hang over ye till we wake you into a 
 voice with our kisses? I yearn to be made beautiful 
 by one kind action, and beauty itself will not believe 
 me!" 
 
 Gualtier, though not a foolish youth, understood little 
 or nothing of this m3'stic apostrophe ; but something or
 
 164 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 other made him hear in mind, and really incline to 
 believe that it was a transformed woman speaking to 
 him ; and he was making a violent internal effort to 
 conquer his repugnance to the kiss, when some hares, 
 starting from him as they passed, ran and cowered 
 hehind the folds of tlie monster : and she stooped her 
 head and licked them. 
 
 "By Christ!" exclaimed he, "whom the wormy grave 
 gathered into its arms, to save us from our corruptions, I 
 will do this thing ; so may He have mercy on my soul, 
 whether I live or die ; for the very hares take refuge in 
 her shadow." 
 
 And, shuddering and shutting his eyes, he put his 
 mouth out for her to meet ; and he seemed to feel, in 
 his blindness, that dreadful mouth approaching ; and he 
 made the sign of the cross, and he murmured internally 
 the name of Him who cast seven devils out of Mary 
 Magdalen, that afterwards anointed His feet ; and in the 
 midst of his courageous agony he felt a small mouth fast 
 and warm upon his, and a hand about his neck, and 
 another on his left hand ; and opening his eyes, he 
 dropped them upon two of the sweetest that ever looked 
 into the eye of man. Eut the hares fled, for they had 
 loved the serpent, and knew not the beautiful human 
 being. 
 
 Great was the fame of Gualtier, not only throughout 
 all the Grecian islands, but on both continents, and most 
 of all in Sicily, where every one of his countrymen 
 thought he had had a hand in the enterprise, for being 
 born on the same soil. The captain and his crew never 
 came again, for, alas ! they had gone off without waiting, 
 as they promised. But Tancred, prince of Salerno, came 
 himself with a knightly traiii to see Gualtier, who lived 
 with his lady in the same place, all her past sufferings 
 appearing as nothing to her before even a month of love, 
 and even sorrowful habit having endeared it to her.
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF HIPPOCRATES. 165 
 
 Tailored, and his knights, and learned clerk?, came in a 
 noble ship, every oar having a painted scutcheon over 
 the rowlock; and Gualtier and his lady feasted them 
 nobly, and drank to them amidst music in cups of 
 Hippocras, — that knightly liquor afterwards so renowned, 
 which she retained the secret of making from her sage 
 father, whose name it bore. And when king Tancred, 
 with a gentle gravity in the midst of his mirth, expressed 
 a hope that the beautiful lady no longer worshipped 
 Diana, Gualtier said, "No, indeed, sir;" and she looked 
 in Gualtier's face, as she sat next him, with the sweetest 
 look in the world, as Avho should say, "Ijj'o, indeed: — I 
 worship thee and thy kind heart."
 
 XIII. 
 GODIVA. 
 
 This is the lady who, under the title of Countess of 
 Coventry, used to make such a figure in our childhood 
 upon some old pocket-pieces of that city. We hope she 
 is in request there still ; otherwise the inhabitants deserve 
 to be sent from Coventry. That city was famous in 
 saintly legends for the visit of the eleven thousand 
 virgins, — an " incredible number," quoth Selden. But 
 the eleven thousand virgins have vanished with their 
 credibility, and a noble-hearted woman of flesh and blood 
 is Coventry's true immortality. 
 
 The story of Godiva is not a fiction, as many suppose 
 it. At least it is to be found in Matthew of Westminster, 
 and is not of a nature to have been a mere invention. 
 Her name, and that of her husband, Leofric, are men- 
 tioned in an old charter recorded by another early historian. 
 That the story is omitted by Hume and others argues 
 little against it ; for the latter are accustomed to confound 
 the most interesting anecdotes of times and manners with 
 something below the dignity of history (a very absurd 
 mistake) ; and Hume, of whose philosophy better things 
 might have been expected, is notoriously less philosophical 
 in his history than in any other of his works. A certain 
 coldness of temperament, not unmixed with aristocratical 
 pride, or at least with a great aversion from everything 
 like vulgar credulity, rendered his scepticism so extreme 
 that it became a sort of superstition in turn, and blinded 
 him to the claims of every species of enthusiasm, civil as 
 
 166
 
 GODIVA. 167 
 
 well as religious. Milton, with his poetical eyesight, saw 
 better, "U'hen he meditated the history of his native 
 country. We do not remember whether he relates the pre- 
 sent story ; but we remember well, that at the beginning 
 of his fragment on that subject, he says he shall relate 
 doubtful stories as well as authentic ones, for the benefit 
 of those, if no others, who will know how to make use of 
 them, namely, the poets.^ We have faith, however, in 
 the story ourselves. It has innate evidence enough for 
 us, to give full weight to that of the old annalist. 
 Imagination can invent a good deal ; affection more : but 
 affection can sometimes do things, such as the tenderest 
 imagination is not in the habit of inventing ; and this 
 piece of noble-heartedness we believe to have been one of 
 them. 
 
 Leofric, Earl of Leicester, was the lord of a large 
 feudal territory in the middle of England, of which 
 Coventry formed a part. He lived in the time of Edward 
 the Confessor ; and was so eminently a feudal lord that 
 the hereditary greatness of his dominion appears to have 
 been singular even at that time, and to have lasted Avith 
 an uninterrupted succession from Ethelbald to the Con- 
 quest, — a period of more than three hundred years. He 
 was a great and useful opponent of the famous Earl 
 Goodwin. 
 
 Whether it was owing to Leofric or not does not 
 appear, but Coventry was subject to a very oppressive 
 tollage, by which it would seem that the feudal despot 
 enjoyed the greater part of the profit of all marketable 
 commodities. The progress of knowledge has shown us 
 how abominable, and even how unhappy for all parties, 
 is an injustice of this description ; yet it gives one an 
 
 1 When Dr. Johnson, among his other impatient accusations of our 
 great republican, charged liim with telling unwarrantable stories in 
 his history, he must have overlooked this announcement ; and yet, 
 if we recollect, it is but in the second page of the fragment. So 
 liasty, and blind, and liable to be put to shame, is prejudice.
 
 168 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 extraordinary idea of a mind in those times, to see it 
 capable of piercing through the clouds of custom, of 
 ignorance, and even of self-interest, and petitioning the 
 petty tyrant to forego such a privilege. This mind was 
 Godiva's. The other sex, always more slow to admit 
 reason through the medium of feeling, were then occupied 
 to the full in their warlike habits. It was reserved for 
 a woman to anticipate ages of liberal opinion, and to 
 surpass them in the daring virtue of setting a principle 
 above a custom, 
 
 Godiva entreated her lord to give up his fancied right ; 
 but in vain. At last, wishing to put an end to her 
 importunities, he told her, either in a spirit of bitter 
 jesting, or with a playful raillery that could not be bitter 
 with so sweet an earnestness, that he would give up his 
 tax provided she rode through the city of Coventry, 
 naked. She took him at his word. One may imagine 
 the astonishment of a fierce unlettered chieftain, not un- 
 tinged with chivalry, at hearing a woman, and that too 
 of the greatest delicacy and rank, maintaining seriously 
 her intention of acting in a manner contrary to all that 
 was supposed fitting for her sex, and at the same time 
 forcing upon him a sense of the very beauty of her 
 conduct by its principled excess. It is probable that, as 
 he could not prevail upon her to give up her design, he 
 had sworn some religious oath when he made his promise; 
 but be this as it may, he took every possible precaution 
 to secure her modesty from hurt. The people of Coventry 
 were ordered to keep within doors, to close up all their 
 windows and outlets, and not to give a glance into 
 the streets upon pain of death. The day came ; and 
 Coventry, it may be imagined, was silent as death. The 
 lady went out at the palace door, was set on horseback, 
 and at the same time divested of her wrapping garment, 
 as if she had been going intq a bath ; then taking the 
 fillet from her head, she let down her long and lovely
 
 GODIVA. 169 
 
 tresses, which poured around her body like a veil; and 
 so, ■with only her white legs remaining conspicuous, took 
 her gentle way through the streets.^ 
 
 What scene can be more touching to the imagination — 
 beauty, modesty, feminine softness, a daring sympathy ; 
 an extravagance producing, by the nobleness of its object 
 and the strange gentleness of its means, the grave and 
 profound effect of the most reverend custom. We may 
 suppose the scene taking place in the warm noon : the 
 doors all shut, the windows closed ; the Earl and his 
 court serious and wondering ; the other inhabitants, 
 many of them gushing with grateful tears, and all 
 reverently listening to hear the footsteps of the horse ; 
 and lastly, the lady herself, with a downcast but not a 
 shamefaced eye, looking towards the earth through her 
 flowing locks, and riding through the dumb and deserted 
 streets, like .an angelic spirit. 
 
 It was an honourable superstition in that part of the 
 country, that a man who ventured to look at the fair 
 saviour of his native town was said to have been struck 
 blind. But the vulgar use to which this superstition 
 has been turned by some writers of late times is not so 
 honourable. The whole story is as unvulgar and as 
 sweetly serious as can be conceived. 
 
 Drayton has not made so much of this subject as 
 might have been expected ; yet what he says is said well 
 and earnestly : 
 
 "Coventry at length 
 From licr small mean regard, recovered state and strength ; 
 By Leofric her lord, yet in base bondage held, 
 The people from her marts by toUage were expelled ; 
 
 ^ "Nuda," says Matthew of Westminster, "equum ascendens, 
 crincs capitis et tricas dissolvens, corpus suum totum, prseter crura 
 ciindidissima, inde velavit." See Sclden's Notes to the Polyolhion 
 of Drayton, song 13. It is Selden from whom we learn that 
 Leofric was Earl of Leiccstci-, and the otlier particulars of liiin 
 mentioned above. The Earl was buried at Coventry, liis countess 
 most probably in the same tomb.
 
 170 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 "Whose duchess which desired this tribute to release, 
 Their freedom often begged. The duke, to make her cease, 
 Told her, that if she would his loss so far enforce, 
 His will was, she should ride staik naked upon a horse 
 By daylight through the street : which certainly he thought 
 In her heroic breast so deeply would have wrought, 
 That in her former suit she would have left to deal. 
 But that most princely dame, as one devoured loith zeal, 
 Went on, and by that mean the city clearly freed."
 
 XIV. 
 THE ITALIAN GIRL. 
 
 The sun was shining beautifully one summer evening, as 
 
 if he bade sparkling farewell to a world which he had 
 
 made happy. It seemed also by his looks as if he 
 
 promised to make his appearance again to-morrow ; but 
 
 there was at times a deep breathing western wind, and 
 
 dark purple clouds came up here and there like gorgeous 
 
 waiters at a funeral. The children in a village not far 
 
 from the metropolis were playing, however, on the green, 
 
 content with the brightness of the moment, when they 
 
 saw a female approaching, who gathered them about her 
 
 by the singularity of her dress. It was not a very 
 
 remarkable dress; but any difference from the usual 
 
 apparel of their countrywomen appeared so to them ; and 
 
 crying out, " A French girl ! a French girl ! " they ran up 
 
 to her, and stood looking and talking. 
 
 The stranger seated herself upon a bench that was 
 
 fixed between two elms, and for a moment leaned her 
 
 head against one of them, as if faint with walking ; but 
 
 she raised it speedily, and smiled with complacency on 
 
 the rude urchins. She had a boddice and petticoat on of 
 
 different colours, and a handkerchief tied neatly about 
 
 her head with the point behind. On her hands were 
 
 gloves without fingers; and she wore about her neck a 
 
 guitar, upon the strings of which one of her hands rested. 
 
 The children thought her very handsome. Anybody 
 
 else would also have thought her very ill ; but they saw 
 
 nothing before them but a good-natured looking foreigner 
 
 in
 
 1 / 1 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 and a guitar, and they asked her to play. " Oil die hei 
 ragazzi ! " said she, in a soft and almost inaudible voice ; 
 — "C^e visi lieti / " ^ and she began to play. She tried to 
 sing, too ; but her voice failed her, and she shook her 
 head smilingly, saying, " Stanca ! Stanca ! " - " Sing — 
 do sing," said the children ; and, nodding her head, she 
 was trying to do so, when a set of boys came up and 
 joined in the request. " No, no," said one of the elder 
 boys; "she is not Avell. You are ill, a'nt you, miss?" 
 added he, laying his hand upon hers as if to hinder it. 
 He drew out the last word somewhat doubtfully, for her 
 appearance perplexed him ; he scarcely knew whether to 
 take her for a strolling musician or a lady strayed from a 
 sick-bed. "Grazie!" said she, understanding his look: 
 " troppo stanca / troppo ! " ^ 
 
 By this time the usher came up, and addressed her in 
 French ; but she only understood a word here and there. 
 He then spoke Latin ; and she repeated one or two of his 
 words, as if they were familiar to her. 
 
 " She is an Italian," said he, looking round with a 
 good-natured importance; "for the Italian is but a bastard 
 of the Latin." The children looked with the more wonder, 
 thinking he was speaking of the fair musician. 
 
 '■'• Non duhito,'" continued the usher, ^'quin tu leditas 
 poetam ilium celeberrimum, Tassonein ; * Taxum, I should 
 say properly, but the departure from the Italian name is 
 considerable." The stranger did not understand a word. 
 
 " I speak of Tasso," said the usher, — " of Tasso." 
 
 " Tasso ! Tasso/" repeated the fair minstrel, — "oh — 
 conosco — il Tas-so ; " ^ and she hung Avith an accent of 
 beautiful languor upon the first syllable. 
 
 "Yes," returned the worthy scholar ; "doubtless your 
 
 ^ Oh, what fine boys ! "What hapjiy faces ! 
 
 2 Weary ! weary ! 
 
 3 Thanks : too weary ! too weary ! 
 
 * Doubtless you read that celebrated poet Tasso. 
 5 Oh — I know — Tasso.
 
 THE ITALIAN GIRL, 173 
 
 accent may be better. Then, of course, you know those 
 classical lines : 
 
 " Intanto Erminia infra ronihros^ piant?/ 
 D'antica selva dal cavallo — what is it 1 " 
 
 The stranger repeated the words in a tone of fondness, 
 like those of an old friend : 
 
 " Intanto Erminia infra i'ombrose piante 
 D'antica selva dal cavallo e scorta ; 
 Ne piu governo il fren la man tremaute, 
 E mezza quasi par, tra viva e morta."^ 
 
 Our usher's common-place book had supplied him witli 
 a fortunate passage, for it was a favourite one of her 
 countrywomen. It also singularly applied to her situa- 
 tion. There was a sort of exquisite mixture of clearness 
 in her utterance of these verses, which gave some of the 
 children a better idea of French than they had had ; for 
 they could not get it out of their heads tliat she must be 
 a French girl. " Italian-French, perhaps," said one of 
 them ; but her voice trembled as she went on, like the 
 hand she spoke of. 
 
 " I have heard my poor cousin Montague sing those 
 very lines," said the boy who prevented her from playing. 
 
 " Montague 1" repeated the stranger very plainly, but 
 turning paler and fainter. Slie put one of her hands in 
 turn upon the boy's affectionately, and pointed towards 
 tlie spot Avhere the church was. 
 
 " Yes, yes," cried the boy ; " why, she knew my 
 cousin. She must have known him in Florence." 
 
 " I told you," said the usher, " she was an Italian." 
 
 " Help her to my aunt's," continued the youth ; " she'll 
 understand her. — Lean upon me, miss ; " and he repeated 
 tlie last word without his former hesitation. 
 
 ^ Meantime in the old wood, the palfrey bore 
 Erminia deeiier into shade and shade ; 
 Ilor trembling hands could hold him in no more, 
 And she appeared betwixt alive and dead.
 
 174 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 Only a few boys followed lier to the door, the rest 
 having been awed away by the usher. As soon as the 
 stranger entered the house and saw an elderly lady who 
 received her kindly, she exclaimed, " La Signora Madre," 
 and fell in a swoon at her feet. 
 
 She was taken to bed, and attended with the utmost 
 care by her hostess, who would not suffer her to talk till 
 she had had a sleep. She merely heard enough to find 
 out that the stranger had known her son in Italy ; and 
 she was thrown into a painful state of suspicion by the 
 poor girl's eyes, which followed her about the room till 
 the lady fairly came up and closed them. 
 
 " Obedient ! obedient ! " said the patient, — " obedient 
 in every thing : only the Signora will let me kiss her 
 hand ; " and taking it with her own trembling one, she 
 laid her cheek upon it, and it stayed there till she had 
 dropt asleep for weariness. 
 
 " Silken rest 
 Tie all thy cares up ! " 
 
 thought her kind watcher, who was doubly tlirown upon 
 a recollection of that beautiful passage in Beaumont and 
 i'letcher by the suspicion she had of the cause of the 
 girl's visit. " And yet," thought she, " turning her eyes 
 Avith a thin tear in them towards the church spire, "he 
 was an excellent boy, — the boy of my heart." 
 
 When the stranger woke, the secret was explained ; 
 and if the mind of her hostess was relieved, it was only 
 the more touched with pity, and indeed moved with 
 respect and admiration. The dying girl (for she evidently 
 was dying, and happy at the thought of it) was the niece 
 of a humble tradesman in Florence, at whose house young 
 Montague, who was a gentleman of small fortune, had 
 lodged and fallen sick during his travels. She was a 
 lively, good-natured girl, whom he used to hear coquetting 
 and playing the guitar with her neighbours; and it was
 
 THE ITALIAN GIRL. 175 
 
 greatly on this account that her considerate and hushing 
 gravity struck him whenever she entered his room. One 
 day he heard no more coquetting, nor even the guitar. 
 He asked the reason, when she came to give him some 
 drink; and she said she had heard him mention some 
 noise that disturbed him. 
 
 "But you do not call your voice and your music a 
 noise," said he, " do you, Rosaura ? I hope not, for I 
 had expected it would give me strength to got rid of this 
 fever and reach home." 
 
 Rosaura turned pale, and let the patient into a secret ; 
 hut what surprised and delighted him was, that she 
 played her guitar nearly as often as before, and sang too, 
 only less sprightly airs. 
 
 "You get better and better, Signor," said she, "every 
 day, and your mother will see you and be happy. I hope 
 you will tell her what a good doctor you had." 
 
 " The best in the world," cried he ; and as he sat up in 
 bed, he put his arm round her waist, and kissed her. 
 
 " Pardon me, Signora," said the poor girl to her hostess ; 
 " but I felt that arm round my waist for a week after : 
 aye, almost as much as if it had been there." 
 
 " And Charles felt that you did," thought his mother ; 
 " for he never told me the story." 
 
 "He begged my pardon," continued she, "as I was 
 hastening out of the room, and hoped I should not 
 construe his warmth into impertinence. And to hear 
 him talk so to me, who used to fear what he might think 
 of myself ; it made me stand in the passage, and lean my 
 head against the wall, and weep such bitter, and yet such 
 sweet tears ! But he did not hear them. No, madame, 
 he did not know, indeed, how much I — how much I " — 
 
 " Loved him, child," interrupted Mrs. Montague ; " yuu 
 have a right to say so, and I Avish he had been alive Ui 
 say as much to you himself." 
 
 "Oh, good God !" said the dying girl, her tears flowing
 
 176 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 away, " this is too great a happiness for me, to hear his 
 own mother talking so." And again clic lays her weak 
 head upon the lady's hand. 
 
 The latter would have persuaded her to sleep again ; 
 hut she said she could not for joy: "for I'll tell you, 
 madam," continued she, — " I do not believe you will think 
 it foolish, for something very grave at my heart tells me it 
 is not so ; — but I have had a long thought" (and her voice 
 and look grew more exalted as she spoke), " which has 
 supported me through much toil and many disagreeable 
 things to this country and this place ; and I will tell you 
 what it is, and how it came into my mind. I received 
 this letter from your son." 
 
 Here she drew out a paper which, though carefully 
 wrapped up in several others, was much worn at the 
 sides. It was dated from the village, and ran thus : 
 
 " ' This comes from the Englishman whom Rosaura 
 nursed so kindly at Florence. She will be sorry to hear 
 that her kindness was in vain, for he is dying ; and he 
 sometimes fears that her sorrow will be greater than he 
 could wish it to be. But marry one of your kind country- 
 men, my good girl ; for all must love Eosaura who know 
 her. If it shall be my lot ever to meet her in heaven, I 
 will thank her as a blessed tongue only can.' 
 
 " As soon I read this letter, madam," continues 
 Rosaura, " and what he said about heaven, it flashed into 
 my head, that though I did not deserve him on earth, I 
 might, perhaps, by trying and patience, deserve to be 
 joined with him in heaven, where there is no distinction 
 of persons. My uncle was pleased to see me become a 
 religious pilgrim ; but he knew as little of the world as 
 I, and I found that I could earn my way to England 
 better, and quite as religiously, by playing my guitar, 
 which was also more independent ; and I had often 
 heard your son talk of independence and freedom, and 
 commend me for doing what he was pleased to call so
 
 THE ITALIAN GIRL. 177 
 
 much kindness to others. So I played my guitar from 
 Florence all the way to England, and all that I earned 
 by it I gave away to the poor, keeping enough to procure 
 me lodging. I lived on bread and water, and used to 
 weep happy tears over it, because I looked up to heaven 
 and thought he might see me. I have sometimes, though 
 not often, met with small insults ; but if ever they 
 threatened to grow greater, I begged the people to desist 
 in the kindest way I could, even smiling and saying I 
 Avould please them if I had the heart ; which might be 
 wrong, but it seemed as if deep thoughts told me to say 
 so; and they used to look astonished, and left off; which 
 made mo the more hope that St. Philip and the Holy 
 Virgin did not think ill of my endeavours. So playing, 
 and giving alms in this manner, I arrived in the neighbour- 
 hood of your beloved village, where I fell sick for a while, 
 and was very kindly treated in an out-house ; though the 
 people, I thought, seemed to look strange and afraid on 
 this crucifix — (though your son never did), — though ho 
 taught me to tliink kindly of everybody, and hope the 
 best, and leave everything, except our own endeavours, 
 to heaven. I fell sick, madam, because I found for 
 certain that the Signor Montague was dead, albeit I had 
 no hope that he was alive." 
 
 She stopped awhile for breath, for she was growing 
 weaker and weaker, and her hostess would fain have had 
 her keep silence; but she pressed her hand as well as 
 she might, and prayed with such a patient panting of 
 voice to be allowed to go on, that she was. She smiled 
 thankfully, and resumed : 
 
 " So when — so when I got my strength a little again, 
 I walked on and came to the beloved village, and I saw 
 the beautiful white church-spire in the trees ; and then 
 I knew where his body slept, and I thought some kind 
 person would help me to die, with my face looking 
 towards the church, as it now docs ; and death is upon 
 
 M
 
 178 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 me even now ; but lift me a little higher on the pillows, 
 dear lady, that I may see the green ground of the hill." 
 
 She was raised up as she wished, and, after looking 
 awhile with a placid feebleness at the hill, said, in a very 
 low voice, " Say one prayer for me, dear lady ; and if it 
 be not too proud in me, call me in it your daughter." 
 
 The mother of her beloved summoned up a grave and 
 earnest voice, as well as she might, and knelt, and said : 
 " Heavenly Father of us all, who, in the midst of Thy 
 manifold and merciful bounties, bringest us into strong 
 passes of anguish, which nevertheless Thou enablest us to 
 go through, look down, we beseech Thee, upon this Thy 
 young and innocent servant, the daughter — that might 
 have been — of my heart, and enable her spirit to pass 
 through the struggling bonds of mortality, and be gathered 
 into Thy rest with those we love. Do, dear and great 
 God, of Thy infinite mercy, for we are poor weak creatures, 
 both young and old " — here her voice melted away into a 
 breathing tearfulness ; and, after remaining on her knees 
 a moment longer, she rose and looked upon the bed, and 
 saw that the weary smiling one was no more.
 
 XV. 
 
 THE TRUE STORY OF VERTUMNUS AND 
 POMONA. 
 
 Weak and iininitated are they who talk of things modem 
 as opposed to the idea of antiquity ; wlio fancy that the 
 Assyrian monarchy must have preceded tea-drinking; 
 and that no Sims or Gregson walked in a round hat and 
 trousers before the times of Inachus. Plato has informed 
 us (and therefore everybody ought to know), that at stated 
 periods of time everything which has taken place on 
 earth is acted over again. There have been a thousand 
 or a million reigns, for instance, of Charles the Second, 
 and there will be an infinite number more : the tooth- 
 ache we had in the year 1811 is making ready for us 
 some thousands of years hence ; again shall people be 
 wise and in love, as surely as the May - blossoms re- 
 appear ; and again will Alexander make a fool of himself 
 at Babylon, and Bonaparte in Eussia. 
 
 Among the heaps of modern stories which are ac- 
 counted ancient, and which have been deprived of their 
 true appearance by the alteration of colouring and costume, 
 there is none more decidedly belonging to modern times 
 than that of Vertumnus and Pomona. Vertumnus was, 
 and will be, a young fellow, remarkable for his accom- 
 plishments, in the several successive reigns of Charles the 
 Second; and, I find, practised his story over in the 
 autumn of the year 1680. He was the younger brother 
 of a respectable family in Herefordshire ; and, from his 
 genius at turning himself to a variety of shapes, came to 
 
 179
 
 o 
 
 180 LEIGU HUNT. 
 
 be called, in after - ages, by his classical name. In like 
 manner, Pomona, the heroine of the story, being the god- 
 dess of those parts, and singiilarly fond of their scenery 
 and productions, the Latin poets, in after-ages, transformed 
 her adventures according to their fashion, making her a 
 goddess of mythology, and giving her a name after her 
 beloved fruits. Her real name was Miss Appleton. I 
 shall therefore waive that matter once for all, and, retain- 
 ing only the appellation which poetry has rendered so 
 pleasant, proceed with the true story. 
 
 Pomona was a beauty like her name, all fruit and 
 bloom. She was a ruddy brunette, luxuriant without 
 grossness; and had a spring in her step, like apples 
 dancing on a bough. It was no poetical figure to say of 
 her, that her lips were cherries and her cheeks a peach. 
 Her locks, in clusters about her face, trembled heavily as 
 she walked. The coloiir cnlled Pomona-green was named 
 after her favourite dress. Sometimes in her clothes she 
 imitated one kind of fruit and sometimes another, philo- 
 sophizing in a pretty poetical manner on the common 
 nature of things, and saying there was more in the smiles 
 of her lovers than they suspected. Her dress now re- 
 sembled a burst of white blossoms, and now of red ; but 
 her favourite one was green, both coat and boddice, from 
 which her beautiful face looked forth like a bud. To see 
 her tending her trees in her orchard (for she would work 
 herself, and sing all the while like a milk-maid) — to see 
 her, I say, tending the fruit-trees, never caring for letting 
 her boddice slip a little off her shoulders, and turning 
 away now and then to look up at a bird, when her lips 
 would glance in the sunshine like cherries bedewed, — 
 such a sight, you may imagine, was not to be had every- 
 where. The young clowns would get up on the trees for 
 a glimpse of her, over the garden-wall; and swear she 
 was like an angel in Paradise. 
 
 Everybody was in love with her. The squire was in
 
 VERTUMNUS AND POMONA. 181 
 
 love with her; the attorney was in love; the parson was 
 particularly in love. The peasantry in their smock-frocks, 
 old and young, were all in love. You never saw such a 
 loving place in your life; yet somehow or other the 
 women were not jealous, nor fared the worse. The people 
 only seemed to have grown the kinder. Their hearts 
 overflowed to all about them. Such toasts at the great 
 house ! The squire's name was Payne, which afterwards 
 came to be called Pan. Pan, Payne (Paynim), Pagan, a 
 villager. The race was so numerous that country gentle- 
 men obtained the name of Paynim in general, as distin- 
 guished from the nobility ; a circumstance which has not 
 escaped the learning of Milton : 
 
 "Both Paynim and the Peers." 
 
 Silenus was Cy or Cymon Lenox, the host of the " Tun," 
 a fat merry old fellow, renowned in the song as old Sir 
 Cymon the King. He was in love too. All the Satyrs, 
 or rude wits of the neighbourhood, and all the Fauns, or 
 softer-spoken fellows, — none of them escaped. There 
 was also a Quaker gentleman — I forget his name — who 
 made himself conspicuous. Pomona confessed to herself 
 that he had merit; but it was so unaccompanied with 
 anything of the ornamental or intellectual, that she could 
 not put up with him. Indeed, though she was of a loving 
 nature, and had every other reason to wish herself settled 
 (for she was an heiress and an orphan), she could not find 
 it in her heart to respond to any of the rude multitude 
 around her ; which at last occasioned such impatience in 
 them, and uneasiness to herself, that she was fain to keep 
 close at home, and avoid the lanes and country assemblies, 
 for fear of being carried otf. It was then that the clowns 
 used to mount the trees outside her garden-wall to get a 
 sight of her. 
 
 Pomona wrote to a cousin she had in town, of the name 
 of Cerintha :
 
 182 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 "Oh, my dear Cerintha, what am I to do ! I could 
 laugh while I say it, though tlic tears positively come 
 into my eyes; but it is a sad thing to be an heiress 
 with ten thousand a-year, and one's guardian just dead. 
 Nobody will let me alone. And the worst of it is, that 
 while the rich animals that pester me disgust one with 
 talking about their rent-rolls, the younger brothers force 
 me to be suspicious of their views upon mine. I could 
 throw all my money into the Wye for vexation. God 
 knows I do not care twopence for it. Oh, Cerintha ! I 
 wish you were unmarried, and could change yourself into 
 a man, and come and deliver me; for you are disinter- 
 ested and sincere, and that is all I require. At all events, 
 I will run for it, and be with you before winter ; for here 
 I cannot stay. Your friend the Quaker has just rode by. 
 He says, ' verily,' that I am cold ! I say verily he is no 
 wiser than his horse ; and that I could pitch him after 
 my money." 
 
 Cerintha sympathized heartily with her cousin, but she 
 was perplexed to know what to do. There were plenty 
 of wits and young fellows of her acquaintance, both rich 
 and poor ; but only one w'hom she thought fit for her 
 charming cousin, and he was a younger brother, as poor 
 as a rat. Besides, he was not only liable to suspicion on 
 that account, but full of delicacies of his own, and the 
 last man in the world to hazard a generous woman's dis- 
 like. This was no other than our friend Vertumnus. 
 His real name was Vernon. He lived about five miles 
 from Pomona, and was almost the only young fellow of 
 any vivacity who had not been curious enough to get a 
 sight of her. He had got a notion that she was proud. 
 " She may be handsome," thought he ; " but a handsome 
 proud face is but a handsome ugly one to my thinking, 
 and I'll not venture my poverty to her ill -humour." 
 Cerintha had half made up her mind to undeceive him 
 through the medium of his sister, who was an acquaint-
 
 VERTUMNUS AND POMONA. 183 
 
 ance of hers ; but an accident did it for her. Vertumnus 
 was riding one day with some friends, who had been 
 rejected, when, passing by Pomona's orchard, he saw one 
 of her clownish admirers up in the trees, peeping at her 
 over the wall. The gaping, unsophisticated admiration of 
 the lad made them stop. 
 
 " Devil take me," said one of our hero's companions, 
 "if they are not at it still. Why, you booby, did you 
 never see a proud woman before, that you stand gaping 
 there, as if your soul had gone out of ye 1 " 
 
 " Proud," said the lad, looking down : — " a wouldn't say 
 nay to a fly, if gentlefolks wouldn't teaze 'un so." 
 
 "Come," said our hero, "I'll take this opportunity, 
 and see for myself." 
 
 He was up in the tree in an instant, and almost as 
 speedily exclaimed, " God ! What a face ! " 
 
 " He has it, by the lord ! " cried the others laughing : 
 — "fairly struck through the ribs, by Jove. Look, if 
 booby and he arn't sworn friends on the thought of it." 
 
 It looked very like it certainly. Our hero had scarcely 
 gazed at her, when, without turning away his eyes, he 
 clapped his hand upon that of the peasant with a hearty 
 shake, and said, "You're right, my friend. If there is 
 pride in that face, truth itself is a lie. What a face ! 
 What eyes ! What a figure ! " 
 
 Pomona was observing her old gardener fill a basket. 
 From time to time he looked up at her, smiling and talk- 
 ing. She was eating a plum ; and as she said something 
 that made them laugh, her rosy mouth sparkled with all 
 its pearls in the sun. 
 
 " Pride ! " thought Vertumnus ; " there's no more pride 
 in that charming mouth than there is folly enough to 
 relish my fine companions here. 
 
 Our hero returned home more thoughtful than he came, 
 replying but at intervals to the raillery of those with him, 
 and then giving them pretty savage cuts. He was mure
 
 184 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 out of liumonr with liis poverty than he had ever felt, and 
 not at all satisfied with the accomplishments which might 
 have emboldened him to forget it. However, in spite of 
 his delicacies, he felt it would he impossible not to hazard 
 rejection like the rest. He only made up his mind to set 
 about paying his addresses in a different manner, though 
 how it was to be done he could not very well see. His 
 first impulse was to go to her, and state the plain case at 
 once ; to say how charming she was, and how poor her 
 lover, and that nevertheless he did not care twopence for 
 her riches, if she would but believe him. The only delight 
 of riches would be to share them with her. " But then," 
 said he, " how is she to take my word for that 1" 
 
 On arriving at home he found his sister prepared to tell 
 him what he had found out for himself — that Pomona 
 was not proud. Unfortunately she added that the beauti- 
 ful heiress had acquired a horror of younger brothers. 
 "Ay," thought he, "there it is. I shall not get her, pre- 
 cisely because I have at once the greatest need of her 
 money and the greatest contempt for it. Alas, not yet so ! 
 I have not contempt for anything that belongs to her, 
 even her money. How heartily could I accept it from her, 
 if she knew me, and if she is as generous as I take her to 
 be ! How delightful woidd it be to plant, to build, to 
 indulge a thousand expenses in her company ! those 
 rascals of rich men, without sense or taste, that are now 
 going about spending their money as they please, and 
 buying my jewels and my cabinets, that I ought to be 
 making her presents of. I could tear my hair to think 
 of it. 
 
 It happened, luckily or unluckily for our hero, that he 
 was the best amateur actor that had ever appeared. 
 Betterton could not perform Hamlet better, nor Lacy a friar. 
 
 He disguised himself, and contrived to get hired in his 
 lady's household as a footman. It was a difficult matter, 
 all the other servants having been there since she was a
 
 VERTUMXCS AND POMONA. 185 
 
 child, and just grown old enough to escape the passion 
 common to all "who saw her. They loved her like a 
 daughter of their own, and were indignant at the trouble 
 her lovers gave her. Vertumnus, however, made out his 
 case so well that they admitted him. For a time all went 
 on smoothly. Yes ; for three or four weeks he performed 
 admirably, confining himself to the real footman. Nothing 
 could exceed the air of indifferent zeal with which he 
 waited at table. He was respectful, he was attentive, 
 even officious ; but still as to a footman's mistress, not as 
 to a lover's. He looked in her face as if he did not wish 
 to kiss her; said "Yes, ma'am," and "No, ma'am," like 
 any other servant ; and consented, not without many pangs 
 to his vanity, to wear proper footman's clothes — namely, 
 such as did not fit him. He even contrived, by a violent 
 effort, to suppress all appearance of emotion, Avhen he 
 doubled up the steps of her chariot, after seeing the finest 
 foot and ankle in the world. In his haste to subdue this 
 emotion, he was one day nigh betraying himself. He 
 forgot his part so far as to clap the door too with more 
 vehemence than usual. His mistress started, and gave a 
 cry. He thought he had shut her hand in, and, opening 
 the door again with more vehemence, and as pale as death, 
 exclaimed, " God of Heaven ! What have I done to 
 her ! " 
 
 "Nothing, James," said his mistress smiling; "only 
 another time you need not be in quite such a hurry." 
 She was surprised at the turn of his words, and at a cer- 
 tain air which she observed for the first time ; but the 
 same experience which might have enabled her to detect 
 him, led her, by a reasonable vanity, to think that love 
 had exalted her footman's manners. This made her 
 observe him with some interest afterwards, and notice how 
 good looking he was, and that his shape was better than 
 his clothes ; but he continued to act his part so well that 
 she suspected nothing further. She only resolved, if he
 
 186 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 gave any more evidences of being in love, to despatch him 
 after his betters. 
 
 By degrees our hero's nature became too much for his 
 art. He behaved so well among his fellow-servants that 
 they all took a liking to him. Now, when we please 
 others, and they show it, we wish to please them more ; 
 and it turned out that James could play on the viol di 
 gamha. He played so well that his mistress must needs 
 inquire " what musician they had in the house." " James, 
 madam." — A week or two after, somebody was reading a 
 play, and making them all die with laughter. — " Who is 
 that reading so well there, and making you all a parcel of 
 madcaps "J" — "It's only James, madam." — "I have a pro- 
 digious footman ! " thought Pomona. 
 
 Another day my lady's maid came up all in tears 
 to do something for her mistress, and could scarcely 
 speak. 
 
 " What's the matter, Lucy 1 " 
 
 " Oh, James, madam ! " 
 
 Her lady blushed a little, and was going to be angry. 
 
 " I hope he has not been uncivil 1 " 
 
 " Oh, no, ma'am ; only I could not bear his being turned 
 out o' doors ! " 
 
 *' Turned out of doors ! " 
 
 " Yes, ma'am ; and their being so cruel as to singe his 
 white head." 
 
 " Singe his white head ! Surely the girl's head is 
 turned. What is it, poor soul ? " 
 
 " Oh, nothing, ma'am. Only the old king in the play, 
 as your ladyship knows. They turn him out o' doors, and 
 singe his white head ; and Mr. James did it so natural 
 like, that he has made us all of a drown of tears. 'Tother 
 day he called me his Ophelia, and was so angry with me, 
 I could have died." 
 
 " This man is no footman," said the lady. She sent for 
 him upstairs, and the butler with him.
 
 EETUMNUS AND POMONA. 187 
 
 " Pray, sir, may I beg the favour of knowing who you 
 aroT' 
 
 The abruptness of this question totally confounded our 
 hero. 
 
 " For God's sake, madam, do not think it worth your 
 while to be angry with me, and I will tell you all." 
 
 " Worth my while, sir ! I know not what you mean 
 by its being worth my while," cried our heroine, who 
 really felt more angry than she v/ished to be ; " but when 
 an impostor comes into the house, it is natural to wish to 
 be on one's guard against him." 
 
 " Impostor, madam ! " said he, reddening in his turn, 
 and rising with an air of dignity. " It is true," he added, 
 in a humbler tone, " I am not exactly what I seem to be ; 
 but I am a younger brother of a good family, and " — 
 
 " A younger brother ! " exclaimed Pomona, turning 
 away with a look of despair. 
 
 " Oh, those d — d words ! " thought Vertumnus ; " they 
 have undone me. I must go ; and yet it is hard." 
 
 "I go, madam," said he in a hurry. "Believe me in 
 only this, that I shall give you no unbecoming disturb- 
 ance ; and I must vindicate myself so far as to say that I 
 did not come into this house for what you suppose." 
 Then giving her a look of inexpressible tenderness and 
 respect, and retiring as he said it, with a low bow, he 
 added, " May neither imposture nor unhappincss ever 
 come near you." 
 
 Pomona could not help thinking of the strange footman 
 she had had. " He did not come into the house for what 
 I supposed." She did not know whether to be pleased or 
 not at this phrase. What did he mean by it 1 What did 
 he think she supposed ? Upon the whole, she found her 
 mind occupied with the man a little too much, and 
 proceeded to busy herself with her orchard. 
 
 There was now more caution observed in admitting new 
 servants into the house ; yet a new gardener's assistant
 
 188 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 came, who behaved like a reasoiuihle man for two months. 
 He then passionately exclaimed one morning, as Pomona 
 was rewarding him for some roses, "I cannot bear it ! " 
 — and turned out to be our hero, who was obliged to 
 decamp. My lady became more cautious than over, and 
 would speak to all the new servants herself. One day a 
 very remarkable thing occurred. A whole side of the 
 greenhouse was smashed to pieces. The glazier was sent 
 for, not without suspicion of being the perpetrator ; and 
 the man's Avay of behaving strengthened it, for he stood 
 looking about him, and handling the glass to no purpose. 
 His assistant did all the work, and yet somehow did not 
 seem to get on with it. The truth was, the fellow was 
 innocent, and yet not so, for he had brought our hero with 
 him as his journeyman. Pomona, watching narrowly, 
 discovered the secret, but, for reasons best known to her- 
 self, pretended otherwise, and the men were to come again 
 next day. 
 
 That same evening my lady's maid's cousin's husband's 
 aunt came to see her, — a free, jolly, maternal old dame, 
 who took the liberty of kissing the mistress of the house, 
 and thanking her for all favours, Pomona had never 
 received such a long kiss. " Excuse," cried the house- 
 wife, " an old body who has had daughters and grand- 
 daughters, ay, and three husbands to boot, God rest their 
 souls ! but dinner always makes me bold — old and bold, 
 as we say in Gloucestershire — old and bold ; and her 
 ladyship's sweet face is like an angel's in heaven." All 
 this was said in a voice at once loud and trembling, as if 
 the natural jollity of the old lady was counteracted by her 
 years. 
 
 Pomona felt a little confused at this liberty of speech ; 
 but her good nature was always uppermost, and she 
 respected the privileges of age. So, with a blushing 
 face, not well knowing what to say, she mentioned some- 
 thing about the old lady's three husbands, and said she
 
 VERTUMNUS AND POMOXA. ' 189 
 
 hardly knew whether to pity her most fur losing so many 
 friends, or to congratulate the gentlemen on so cheerful 
 a companion. The old lady's breath seemed to he taken 
 away by the elegance of this compliment, for she stood 
 looking and saying not a word. At last she made signs 
 of being a little deaf, and Betty repeated as well as she 
 could what her mistress had said. " She is an angel, for 
 certain," cried the gossip, and kissed her again. Then 
 perceiving that Pomona was prepared to avoid a repetition 
 of this freedom, she said, "But lord! Avhy doesn't her 
 sweet ladyship marry herself, and make somebody's life a 
 heaven upon earth 1 They tell me she's frightened at the 
 cavaliers and the money-hunters, and all that ; but God-a- 
 mercy, must there be no honest man that's poor; and 
 mayn't the dear sweet soul be the jewel of some one's 
 eye, because she has money in her pocket 1 " 
 
 Pomona, who had entertained some such reflections as 
 these herself, hardly knew what to answer; but she 
 laughed, and made some pretty speech. 
 
 " Ay, ay," resumed the old woman. " Well, there's 
 no knowing." (Here she heaved a great sigh.) "And so 
 my lady is mighty curious in plants and apples, they tell 
 me, and quite a gardener, lord love her ! and rears me 
 cart-loads of peaches. Why, her face is a peach, or I 
 should like to know what is. But it didn't come of itself 
 neither. No, no; for that matter, there were peaches 
 before it ; and Eve didn't live alone, I warrant me, or we 
 should have had no peaches now, for all her gardening. 
 Well, well, my sweet young lady, don't blush and be 
 angry, for I am but a poor, foolish, old body, yon know, 
 old enough to be your grandmother; but I can't help 
 thinking it a pity, that's the truth on't. Oh, dear ! Well, 
 gentlefolks will have their fegarics, but it was very 
 different in my time, you know ; and, lord ! now to 
 speak the plain scripter truth : What would the world 
 come to, and where would her sweet ladyship be herself,
 
 190 LEIGH HUNT 
 
 I should like to know, if her own mother, that's now an 
 angel in heaven, had refused to keep company with her 
 ladyship's father, because she brought him a good estate, 
 and made him the happiest man on God's yearth 1 " 
 
 The real love that existed between Pomona's father 
 and mother being thus brought to her recollection, touched 
 our heroine's feelings ; and looking at the old dame, with 
 tears in her eyes, she begged her to stay and take some 
 tea, and she would see her again before she went away. 
 "Ay, and that I Avill, and a thousand thanks into the 
 bargain from one who has been a mother herself, and 
 can't help crying to see my lady in tears. I could kiss 
 'em off if I warn't afraid of being troublesome ; and so 
 God bless her, and I'll make bold to make her my curtsey 
 again before I go." 
 
 The old body seemed really affected, and left the room 
 with more quietness than Pomona had looked for, Betty 
 meanwhile showing an eagerness to get her away which 
 was a little remarkable. In less than half an hour there 
 was a knock at the parlour door, and Pomona saying, 
 "Come in," the door was held again by somebody for a 
 few seconds, during which there was a loud and apparently 
 angry whisper of voices. Our heroine, not without agita- 
 tion, heard the words, " No, no ! " and " Yes," repeated 
 with vehemence, and then, "I tell you I must and will; 
 she will forgive you, be assured, and me too, for she'll 
 never see me again." And at these words the door was 
 opened by a gallant-looking young man, who closed it 
 behind him, and advancing with a low bow, spoke as 
 follows : 
 
 " If you are alarmed, madam, Avhich I confess you 
 reasonably may be at this intrusion, I beseech you to be 
 perfectly certain that you will never be so alarmed again, 
 nor indeed ever again set eyes on me, if it so please you. 
 You see before you, madam, that unfortunate younger 
 brother (for I will not omit even that title to your sus-
 
 VERTUMNUS AND POMONA. 101 
 
 picion), \Tho, seized with an invincible passion as he one 
 day beheld you from your garden wall, has since run the 
 chance of your displeasure by coming into the house 
 under a variety of pretences, and, inasnnich as he has 
 violated the truth, has deserved it. But one truth he has 
 not violated, which is, that never man entertained a 
 passion sincerer; and God is my witness, madam, how 
 foreign to my heart is that accursed love of money (I beg 
 your pardon, but I confess it agitates me in my turn to 
 speak of it) which other people's advances and your own 
 modesty have naturally induced you to suspect in every 
 person situated as I am. Forgive me, madam, for every 
 alarm I have caused yon, this last one above all. I 
 could not deny to my love and my repentance the 
 mingled bliss and torture of this moment ; but as I am 
 really and passionately a lover of truth as well as of 
 yourself, this is the last trouble I shall give you, unless 
 you are pleased to admit what I confess I have very little 
 hopes of, which is, a respectful pressure of my suit in 
 future. Pardon me even these words, if they displease 
 you. You have nothing to do but to bid me — leave you ; 
 and when he quits this apartment, Harry Vernon troubles 
 you no more." 
 
 A silence ensued for the space of a few seconds. The 
 gentleman was very pale ; so was the lady. At length 
 she said, in a very under tone, " This surprise, sir — I 
 was not insensible — I mean, I perceived — sure, sir, it is 
 not Mr. Vernon, the brother of my cousin's friend, to 
 whom I am speaking 1 " 
 
 " The same, madam." 
 
 ** And why not at once, sir — I mean — that is to say — 
 Forgive me, sir, if circumstances conspire to agitate me a 
 little, and to throw me in doubt what I ought to say. 
 I wish to say what is becoming, and to retain your 
 respect ; " and the lady trembled as she said it. 
 
 " My respect, madam, was never prnfoundcr than it is
 
 192 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 at this moment, even though I dare begin to hcpe that 
 you will not think it disrespectful on my part to adore 
 yon. If I might but hope, that months or years of 
 service " — 
 
 " Be seated, sir, I beg ; I am very forgetful. I am an 
 orphan, Mr. Vernon, and you must make allowances as a 
 gentleman " (here her voice became a little louder) " for 
 anything in which I may seem to forget either what is 
 due to you or to myself." 
 
 The gentleman had not taken a chair ; but at the end of 
 this speech he approached the lady, and led her to her 
 own seat with an air full of reverence. 
 
 "Ah, madam," said he, "if you could but fancy you 
 had known me these five years, you would, at least give 
 me credit for enough truth, and I hope enough tenderness 
 and respectfulness of heart (for they all go together), to bo 
 certain of the feelings I entertain towards your sex in 
 general ; much more towards one whose nature strikes me 
 with such a gravity of admiration at this moment, that 
 praise even falters on my tongue. Could' I dare hope 
 that you meant to say anything more kind to me than a 
 common expression of good wishes, I would dare to say, 
 that the sweet truth of your nature not only warrants 
 your doing so, but makes it a part of its humanity." 
 
 " Will you tell me, Mr. Vernon, what induced 
 you to say so decidedly to my servant (for I heard 
 it at the door) that you were sure I should never see 
 you again." 
 
 " Yes, madam, I will ; and nevertheless I feel all the force 
 of your inquiry. It was the last little instinctive stratagem 
 that love iuduced mo to play, even when I was going to 
 put on the whole force of my character and my love of 
 truth ! for I did indeed believe that you would discard 
 me, though I was not so sure of it as I pretended." 
 
 "There, sir," said Pomona, colouring in all the beauty 
 of joy and love, " there is my hand. I give it to the
 
 VERTUMXUS AND POMONA. 193 
 
 lover of truth ; but truth no less forces me to ackuow- 
 ledge, that my heart had not been unshaken by some 
 former occurrences." 
 
 " Charming and adorable creature ! " cried our hero, 
 after he had recovered from the kiss which he gave her. 
 But here we leave them to themselves. Our heroine con- 
 fessed, that from what she now knew of her feelings, she 
 must have been inclined to look with compassion on him 
 before ; but added, that she never could have been sure 
 she loved him, much less had the courage to teU him so, 
 till she had known him in his own candid shape. 
 
 And this, and no other, is the true story of Ycrtumnus 
 and Pomona. 
 
 N
 
 XVL 
 THE DESTRUCTION OF THE GEN CI FAMILY. 
 
 FROM A MANUSCRIPT COPIED BY AN ITALIAN GENTLEMAN 
 FROM A LIBRARY AT ROME. 
 
 Francesco Cenci -was the only son of a Eoman lord, who 
 had been treasurer to Pope Phis the Fifth, and who left 
 him a clear annual income of a hundred and sixty thou- 
 sand scudi.^ Besides this, our miserable inheritor of 
 wealth and impunity married a rich woman. After the 
 death of this lady, he took for his second wife Lucrezia 
 Petroni, of a noble family in the same city. By the 
 former he had seven children. By the latter none. 
 
 Francesco hated these children. It is a dreadful thing 
 to say so in so many words ; but the cause is easily seen 
 through. He led a life of the most odious profligacy, and 
 was as full of sullenness as vice. His children were 
 intelligent; their father's example disgusted them; and 
 he saw, and could not bear this contrast. The account 
 of his ill-treatment of them begins with his refusing his 
 sons enough to live decently upon, while pursuing their 
 studies at Salamanca. They Avere obliged to return to 
 their miserable home ; and here he treated them so much 
 worse, denying them even common food and clothing, 
 that they applied in despair to the Pope, who made him 
 allow them a separate provision, with which they retired 
 
 1 We know not the precise value of this coin, which does not 
 appear among the current money of Italy ; nor can we refer to books 
 for it at this moment. But there were scudi of gold ; and Cenci's 
 fortune was accounted enormous. 
 
 194
 
 THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CEXCI FAMILY. 195 
 
 to another dwelling. Previously to this period, Cenci 
 had been convicted of a crime twice over, and been 
 suffered to compound for it with the Pope in two 
 several sums of a hundred thousand scudi, nearly two- 
 thirds of his annual income. His third mortal crime now 
 took place, and the sons by this time were so embittered 
 by the constant wretchedness and infamy in which he 
 kept his family, that they entreated the Sovereign Pontiff 
 to put an end to his life and villainies at once. The 
 Pope, says the narrative, was inclined to give him the 
 death he merited, but not at the request of his own 
 offspring, and for the third time he allowed him to make 
 his usual composition of a hundred thousand scudi. 
 
 The wretched man now hated his children worse than 
 ever, as he had some better reason to do. But not con- 
 tent with cursing his sons, he visited his two daughters 
 with blows, and otherwise so trampled upon their feelings, 
 that, not being able to bear his treatment longer, the elder 
 one applied to the Pope, begging him either to marry her 
 according to his discretion, or to put her in a nunnery. 
 The Pope took pity on the unhappy girl, and married her 
 to a gentleman of rank named Carlo Gabrielli, making 
 the father at the same time give her a suitable dowry. 
 
 This event so gnawed into Cenci's mind, that, fearing 
 his other daughter Beatrice Avould follow her sister's 
 example when she grew old enough, he cast in his 
 diabolical thoughts how he miglit prevent it most 
 assuredly, short of taking away her life. 
 
 About this period the terrible old man received news 
 of the death of two of his sons, Rocco and Cristofero, 
 who by some means or other both came to violent ends. 
 He welcomed it with delight, saying that nothing could 
 make him happier but to hear the same thing of all his 
 children ; and that whenever the last should die, he 
 would keep open houpe to all comers for joy. To show
 
 19G LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 his hatred the more openly, he would not give the least 
 pittance towards interring them. 
 
 Beatrice was now beyond despair. She collected her 
 thoughts, and sent off a letter to the Pope, which was 
 excellently written. Let us stop here a moment, to speak 
 more particularly of the extraordinary girl. " Beatrice," 
 says the close of the Narrative, " was of a make rather 
 large than small. Her complexion was fair. She had 
 two dimples in her cheeks, which added to the beauty of 
 her countenance, especially when she smiled, and gave it 
 a grace that enchanted all who saw her. Her hair was 
 like threads of gold ; and because it was very long, she 
 used to fasten it up ; but when she let it flow loosely, the 
 wavy splendour of it was astonishing. She had blue 
 eyes, very pleasing, of a sprightliness mixed with dignity ; 
 and, in addition to all these graces, her conversation, as 
 well as all that she did, had a spirit in it, and a sparkling 
 polish {un brio signorile) which made every one in love 
 with her. She was then under twenty years of age." 
 
 The letter to the Pope had no effect; but it is sup- 
 posed that it never could have been laid before his 
 Holiness. The reader may be allowed, imder all the 
 circumstances, to suspect otherwise. Cenci was still rich 
 and powerful; and there is no knowing how many 
 thousands of scudi he may have had to pay now. 
 
 What renders the conduct of the Pope the more 
 suspicious, is that the criminal somehow or other got 
 intclligenco of the application. It made him more 
 furious than ever ; and, besides locking up his daughter, 
 he incarcerated in the same manner, and apparently in 
 the same room, his wife her mother-in-law, who had 
 already drunk largely of the family cup of bitterness. 
 Finding every avenue of relief shut against them, and 
 taught by the old man himself, as well as their own awful 
 thoughts, to forego the ties of relationship, they finally 
 resolved upon despatching him.
 
 THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CENCI FAMILY. 197 
 
 There was a visitor in the Cenci Palace, a young 
 prelate of the name of Guerra, who was " a young man 
 of an agreeable presence, well-bred, and one that easily 
 accommodated himself to any proposal, good or bad." 
 He was well acquainted Avith the wickedness of Cenci, 
 who hated him for the attentions he paid his family ; so 
 that he used to come there at such times only as he knew 
 the old man had gone out. How he gained admittance 
 to the wife and daughter in the present instance does not 
 appear ; but he did ; and finding their miseries augmented 
 at every visit, his interest in their wretched state increased 
 in proportion. He was not without a love for Beatrice ; 
 but it does not appear that she returned it. Be this as 
 it may, having gathered their intentions about the old 
 man from some words which Beatrice let fall, he not only 
 approved them, but declared his willingness to co-operate 
 in the catastrophe. The design was then communicated 
 to Giacomo, one of her brothers, who instantly fell in with 
 it. He had felt his father's ill-treatment still more than 
 the rest of his sons, having a wife and children whom 
 the stipend assigned him by the Pope was insufficient to 
 support. 
 
 Cenci had taken for the summer residence of himself 
 and his family a castle called the Rock of Petrella. The 
 first plan of the conspirators was to hire a banditti to 
 surprise and kill him in his way thither. The banditti 
 were hired accordingly, but the notice of Cenci's coming 
 was given them too late, and he got into the castle. 
 Neither did they lurk in the thicket about the place to 
 any purpose ; for being now seventy years of age (and 
 probably aware of the state of the neighbourhood, no 
 unusual thing in those times), he never stirred out of 
 doors. It was therefore determined to put him to death 
 in the castle. For this purpose, they hired two of his 
 vassals, named Marzio and Olimpio, who either had or 
 thought they had cause of ofl'cnce with him. The
 
 198 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 reward oflTered for the deed Avas a thousand sciidi, one- 
 third to be paid beforehand by Monsignor Gucrra, and 
 the remainder by the ladies when all was over. The 
 assassins were introduced into the liock on the 8th of 
 September 1598; "but as it happened to be the day of 
 the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, Signora Lucrezia, 
 restrained by her veneration for that solemn anniversary, 
 put off the execution, with the consent of her daughter-in- 
 law, till the day following." On the evening of that day, 
 an opiate was put into Cpnci's drink. He went to bed, 
 and fell into a profound sleep ; and at midnight, Beatrice 
 herself took the assassins into his chamber. Having told 
 them what to do, she retired into an ante-room where her 
 mother was waiting. In a little while the assassins 
 returned, and said that their compassion had overcome 
 them, and that they could not conquer their repugnance 
 to kill in cold blood a miserable old man who was sleeping. 
 Beatrice heard them with scorn and indignation. "If 
 you are afraid," said she, " to put to death a man in his 
 sleep, I myself will kill my father ; but your own lives 
 shall not have long to run." The men, intimidated at 
 this, returned to the chamber. In a little time they came 
 back. The deed was done. The assassins received the 
 rest of their reward ; and to Marzio (for what reason does 
 not appear ; probably because he had been the least back- 
 ward) Beatrice gave a mantle laced with gold. The body 
 was thrown over a terrace into the garden, so that it 
 might seem to have fallen by accident, while the old man 
 was moving about in the night-time. 
 
 The women next day affected great sorrow. A sump- 
 tuous burial was given to the deceased ; and the family, 
 after a little stay, returned to Rome, where they are 
 described as living in tranquillity for some time. In the 
 meanwhile, the youngest son of Cenci died, so that there 
 remained but two, Giacomo and Bernardo. 
 
 The Court of Naples, however, whose interference at
 
 THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CENCI FAMILY. 199 
 
 this point of time is not accounted for, unless the 
 banditti, who were from that kingdom, had let the secret 
 transpire, sent a commissioner to make inquiries into the 
 nature of Cenci's death. The usual petty circumstances 
 of suspicion came out, and were laid before the Court of 
 Rome ; yet the latter took no further steps for several 
 moutlis. Guerra, who was afraid that the assassins might 
 turn evidence, hired others to get them out of the way ; 
 but Marzio escaped. He got imprisoned, however, at 
 Naples J and, having made an ample confession, was sent 
 to Rome. Here he was confronted with the Cenci, who 
 denied all that he said, particularly Beatrice. Her extra- 
 ordinary firmness and presence of mind is described as so 
 astonishing the man, that he retracted everything he had 
 deposed at ^NTaples ; and, rather than confess, chose to 
 expire under the torment. 
 
 The law being now perplexed how to proceed, the 
 Cenci were transferred to the Castle, where they lived 
 uninterruptedly for several months. Unluckily, one of the 
 bravoes who had killed Olimpio was taken up, and con- 
 fessed that he had been employed by Monsignor Guerra. 
 Timely notice, by some means or other, was given to the 
 bishop, and he escaped. He had difficulty in doing so, 
 because he was a remarkable -looking man, with a fair 
 face and hair, and the officers were on the alert ; but 
 he contrived it. He changed clothes with a coal-man, 
 smutted his face and shaved his head, and, driving two 
 asses before him, with an onion and a piece of bread in 
 his hand, passed out of the city under their very eyes. 
 He encountered with equal good luck the officers who 
 were on the look-out in the neighbourhood ; and got safe 
 into another country. 
 
 The flight of the prelate, however, together with the 
 confassion of Olimpio's murderer, brought the hand of the 
 law heavily upon the Cenci. They were now put to the 
 torture. The courage of the men was prostrated at once.
 
 SCO LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 " Signora Liicrezia, a woman of fifty years of age and 
 large in person, not being able to resist the Torment of 
 the Cord — [Here the Original is wanting] — But not one 
 single criminating word," continues the document, "either 
 by fair means or foul, by threats or by tortures, could be 
 got out of the lips of Beatrice. Her vivacity and 
 eloquence confounded even the judges." One of them, 
 Signor Ulisse Morcatti, represented the matter to the 
 Pope, who suspected him of having been overcome by 
 the sufferer's beauty, and appointed another in his rooni. 
 The new judge ordered a fresh torture to be applied, 
 called the Torture of the Hair ; and when she was tied 
 up ready for it, the rest of the family were brought in 
 and entreated her to confess. At first she refused. 
 " You would all die then," said she, " and extinguish our 
 honour and our house 1 This ought not to be ; but since 
 it pleases yon, so be it." She then turned to the officers 
 to let her loose, and asked for copies of the several 
 examinations; adding, "What I should confess, I will 
 confess : — what I should approve, I will approve : — what 
 I should deny, I will deny." After this fashion she stood 
 convicted, though she did not confess. 
 
 The affair rested here again in a very extraordinary 
 manner. Probably some money matters were under the 
 consideration of his Holiness,— deep questions as to the 
 difference of fines and confiscations. Tlie parties were 
 separated from each other for five months. They were 
 then allowed to meet one day at dinner; and then again 
 tliey were divided. At length, the Holy Father, after 
 having seen them all confronted, and examined the con- 
 fession, sentenced them to be drawn at the cart's tail and 
 beheaded. 
 
 Great interest was made, by princes and cardinals, for 
 allowing the criminals a legal defence. The Pope, who 
 had shown himself hostile from the first, answered these 
 requests with severity, and asked, " what defence Cenci
 
 THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CEXCI FAMILY. 201 
 
 had, "when he Wcas so barharously numlcrcd iu his sleep." 
 At last he yielded the point, and gave them five-and- 
 twenty days to look about them. The most eminent 
 advocates in Rome prepared the defence, and appeared 
 before him at the proper time with their respective 
 papers. The first that spoke was impatiently interrupted 
 by his Holiness, Avho said he was astonished to find in 
 Rome children so barbarous as to kill their father, 
 and advocates so bold as to defend such a villainy. At 
 these words all the council were struck dumb, with the 
 excejition of the advocate Tarrinacci, Avho replied, " Holy 
 Father, we are not here at your feet to defend the 
 brutality of the deed itself, but to save the lives of such 
 as may be innocent nevertheless, if your Holiness will 
 listen to us." The Pope, upon this, listened patiently for 
 four hours. Tarrinacci's defence proceeded upon the only 
 possible ground, and appears to have contained a strength 
 and eloquence worthy of his spirit. He balanced the 
 wrongs of father and children against each other. The 
 sons were made out to be the least concerned, and the 
 weight of murder thrown purposely upon Beatrice, Avho 
 had been so atrociously and unspeakably outraged. The 
 Pope sat up all the foUoAving night with one of the 
 cardinals, considering the defence point by point ; and 
 the upshot was, that he gave the criminals a hope of 
 escaping death, and ordered that they should again be at 
 comparative liberty. 
 
 Unfortunately for this new and unexpected turn in their 
 affairs, a nobleman of the name of Paolo Santa Crocc 
 assassinated, at this point of time, his own mother, for 
 not bequeathing him her inheritance. This renewed the 
 Pope's bitterness against those who had set an example of 
 parricide; antl what increased it, was the flight of Santa 
 Crocc, who eluded the hands of justice. He sent for the 
 governor of the city, and ordered the Cenci to be publicly 
 executed forthwith. jNIany of the nobility hastened to
 
 202 LEIGH nUNT. 
 
 his different palaces to implore at least a private death for 
 the ladies ; but he woiild not consent. They could only 
 obtain the pardon of Bernardo, whom the IMS. calls " the 
 innocent Bernardo," and whose treatment both past and 
 to come is thus rendered inexplicable. 
 
 The sentence was executed next day, Saturday, the 
 11th of May 1599, on the bridge of St. Angelo. Beatrice, 
 on receiving news of the sentence, felt, for the first time, 
 her young heart fail her ; and burst into bitter and wild 
 lamentations on the necessity of dying. " Oh, God ! " 
 she cried out, " how is it possible to die so suddenly ! " 
 Her mother-in-law, whose greater age and perhaps less 
 hope of escaping death, had softened more into patience, 
 comforted her in the most affectionate manner, and got 
 her quietly into the chapel. Beatrice soon recovered her- 
 self, and behaved with a gentle firmness jjroportionate to 
 the wildness of her first grief. She made a will, in 
 Avhich she left fifteen thousand scudi to the Confraternity 
 of the Sacred Stigmas (the Wounds of Christ), and the 
 whole of her dowry to portion fifty female orphans in 
 marriage. Lucrezia left a Avill in the same spirit. They 
 then recited psalms, litanies, and other prayers ; and at 
 eight o'clock confessed themselves, heard mass, and 
 received the sacrament. The funeral procession called 
 for them on its way, having already taken up the two 
 brothers, to the younger of whom the Pope's pardon was 
 announced, informing him at the same time that he must 
 witness the executions. Beatrice and Lucrezia were 
 habited like nuns. On their way to the scaffold a strik- 
 ing thing was observed. Lucrezia's handkerchief was 
 continually applied to wipe away her tears ; Beatrice's 
 only to dry up the moisture on her forehead. 
 
 When the procession arrived at the scaffold, and the 
 criminals withdrew for a while to a chapel, the poor young 
 Bernardo, condemned to see his nearest relations executed 
 before his very eyes, fell into an agony and fainting fit,
 
 THE DESTRUCTION OF THK CENCI FAMILY. 203 
 
 and was recovered only to be placed opposite the block. 
 The first who mounted the scaffold was Lncrezia. In 
 preparing for death the drapery was discomposed about 
 her bosom, which, though she was fifty years of age, was 
 still beautiful. She blushed and cast down her eyes, but 
 raised them again in prayer; and then adjusting herself 
 to the block, was in the act of repeating the words, in the 
 51st Psalm, "According to the multitude of Thy tender 
 mercies," when her head was struck off. While the 
 block was being prepared for Beatrice, a place on which 
 some of the spectators stood broke down, to their great 
 hurt. Beatrice, hearing the noise, asked if her motlier 
 had died well, and being told she had, knelt down before 
 a crucifix, and said, " Thanks without end be to Thee, 
 most merciful Eedeemer, for having given in the good 
 death of my mother a sure proof of Thy pity towards me." 
 Then, rising on her feet, "all courage and devotion," she 
 walked towards the scaffold, putting up prayers as slie 
 went with such a fervour of spirit, that all who heard her 
 melted into tears. Having ascended the scaffold, she 
 accommodated her head to the block, and looking up once 
 more towards heaven, prayed thus: — "0 most affec- 
 tionate Jesus, who, abandoning Thy divinity, didst become 
 human ; and didst will, in Thy love, to pui-ge from its 
 mortal blot even this my sinful soul with Thy precious 
 blood ; ah, grant, I pray Thee, that that which I am now 
 about to shed may suffice before Thy merciful tribunal to 
 do away my great misdeeds, and to save me from some 
 part of the punishment which is justly my due." Having 
 said thus, she laid down her head again on the block and 
 began the 130th Psalm — "Out of the depths have I cried 
 unto thee, Lord. Lord, hear my voice : let Thine 
 ears " — At these words her head was severed from her 
 body. The latter underwent such a violent convulsion, 
 that one of the legs is said to have almost leaped up. At 
 sight of his sister's death, Bernardo swooned away again,
 
 204 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 and did not recover his senses for a quarter of an licur. 
 It was now the turn of the last sufferer, Giacomo. He 
 first gave a steadfast look at Bernardo, and then said 
 aloud, that, if he went into a state of bliss instead of 
 punishment, he would pray for the welfare of the Pope, 
 who had remitted the tormenting part of his just sentence 
 and saved his brother's life ; and that the only affliction 
 he had in his last moments was, that his brother was 
 compelled to look upon a scene so dreadful ; " but," added 
 he, "as it has so pleased thee, my God, Thy will be 
 done." He then knelt down, and was killed with a blow 
 of a leaded club. The executions being over, Bernardo 
 was taken back to prison, where he fell into a long and 
 violent fever. He was kept there four months, " when, 
 at the request of the Venerable Arch-Confraternity of the 
 Most Holy Crucifix of St. Marcello, he obtained the 
 favour of being set at liberty, after paying to the Hospital 
 of the Most Holy Trinity of the Pilgrims the sum of 
 25,000 scudi." He lived to have a son, named Cristofero; 
 but we know not how long the family stock survived. 
 
 Thus ended this dreadful tragedy of mistakes; in 
 which the most privileged were made fiends, the most 
 virtuous murderers, and the customs that undertook to 
 punish them were the cause of all.
 
 XVIL 
 PULCI. 
 
 We present our readers with a prose abridgment of the beginning of 
 the Morgante Maggiore of Pulci, the father of Italian romance. "We 
 would rather have given it them in verse ; but a prose specimen of 
 this author is a less unjust one than it would be of any of his suc- 
 ctssors ; because, though a real poet, ho is not so eminent as a 
 versifier, and deals less in poetical abstractions. He has less of the 
 oracular or voiceful part of his art, conversing almost exclusively with 
 the social feelings in their most familiar language. 
 
 Luigi Pulci, the younger of three literary brothers, was born on 
 the 15th of December (3rd, O.S.), 1431. His family was noble, and 
 probably gave their name to the district of Monte Pulciano, famous 
 for the superemiuence of its wine. It was a fit soil for him to grow 
 in. He had an enviable lot, with nothing to interrupt his vivacity ; 
 passing his life in the shades of ease and retirement, and " warbling 
 his native wood-notes wild," without fear of hawks from above or 
 lurking reptiles from below. Among his principal friends were 
 Politian, Lorenzo de Medici, and the hitter's mother, Lucrezia 
 Toruabuona. He speaks affectionately of her memoi-y at the close 
 of his work. At Lorenzo's table he was a cons'ant guest ; and at tliis 
 table, where it is possible that the future Pope, Leo the Tenth, was 
 liresent as a little boy, he is said to have read, as he produced it, that 
 remarkable poem, which tlie old Italian critics were not agreed 
 whether to think pious or profane.' 
 
 The reader, at this time of day, will be inclined to think it the 
 latter ; nor will the reputation of Leo himself, who is said to have 
 made use of the word Fable on a very remarkable occasion, be against 
 their verdict. Undoubtedly, there was much scepticism in tho^e 
 days, as there always must be wliere there is gi-eat vivacity of mind, 
 with great demaiuls upon its credulity. But we must take care how 
 we pronounce upon the real spirit of manners unlike our own, when 
 
 1 Leo was born in 1475, forty-four years after the birth of Pulci ; so 
 that supposing the latter to have arrived at anything like length of 
 days, he may have had the young Father of the Faithful for an 
 auditor. 
 
 205
 
 206 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 we consider tlie extraordinary mixture of reverence and familiarity 
 witli wliich the most bigoted periods of Catholicism have been 
 accustomed to treat the objects of their faith. Tlicy elbow them, till 
 they treat them like their earthly kindred, expecting most from 
 them, and behaving worst by them. Popish sailors have scourged 
 the idols whom they have prayed to the miniate before for a fair wind, 
 Tlie most laughable exposure of the tricks of Roman Catholics in our 
 own language is by old Hey wood the Epigrammatist, who died abroad 
 "in consequence of his devotion to the Roman Catholic cause." — 
 "The bigotry of any age," says Mr. Hazlitt, "is by no menus a test 
 of its piety, or even sincerity. Men seemed to make themselves 
 amends for the enormity of their faith by levity of feeling as well as 
 by laxity of principle ; and in the indifference or ridicule with which 
 they treated the wilful absurdities and extravagances to which they 
 hoodwinked their understandings, almost resembled children playing 
 at blind-man's buff, who grope their way in the dark, and make 
 blunders on purpose to laugh at their own idleness and folly." — 
 Lectures on the Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, p. 192. It may be 
 added, that they are sometimes like children playing and laughing at 
 ghosts in daylight, but afraid of them at niglit-time. There have not 
 been wanting readers to take all Pulci's levity in good religious part. 
 This does not seem possible ; but it is possible that he may have had 
 a certain conventional faith in religion, or even regarded it as a senti- 
 ment and a general truth, while the goodness of his disposition led 
 him to be ironical upon particular dogmas. We must judge him in 
 charity, giving him the benefit of our doubts. 
 
 The specimen now laid before the reader is perhaps as good a one, 
 for prose, as could have been selected. The characteristics of our 
 poet are wildness of fancy, pithiness of humour, sprightliness of 
 transition, and tenderness of heart. All these, if the reader has any 
 congeniality of spirit, he may find successively in the outset about 
 the giants, the complaint made of them by the Abbot, the incipient 
 adventures of Morgante in liis new character, and the fai-ewell, and 
 family recognition of the Abbot and Orlando. The passages about 
 the falling of manna, and the eternal punishment of those who are 
 dear to us, furnish the earliest instance of that penetration into 
 absurdity, and the unconscious matter-of-course air of speaking of it 
 which constitute the humorous part of the style of Voltaire. The 
 character of Margutte, who makes his appearance in Canto xviii., and 
 carries this style to its height, is no less remarkable as an anticiiiation 
 of the most impudent portraits of professed worldliness, and seems to 
 warrant the suspicions entertained respecting the grosser sceptics of 
 that age, while it shows the light in which they were regarded by the 
 more refined. In Margutte's panegyrics upon what he liked, apjiear 
 to be the seeds of Berni and his followers. One of the best things to 
 be said of the serious character? of Pulci, and where he has the 
 advantage of Ariosto himself, is that you know them with more
 
 ruLCi. 207 
 
 distinctncfs, and become more persorially intcrebtcJ in Ihcm as 
 people like yourself; whereas, in Ariosto, witli all his humanity, the 
 knights are too much of mere knights, — warlike animals. Their flesh 
 and blood is too much encrusted by their armour. Even Kubbi, tlie 
 quaint and formal editor of the Parnaso Italiano, with all his 
 courtesies towards established things, says in distinguishing the 
 effect of three great poets of Italy, that "You will adore Ariosto, 
 you will admire Tasso, but you will love Pulci." The alliteration 
 suits our critic's vivacity better : — "In fine, tu adorerai I'Ai-iosto, tu 
 ammirerai il Tasso. ma tu amerai il Pulci." 
 
 PROSE TRANSLATION OF THE BEGINNING OF THE 
 " MORQANTE MAGGIORE." 
 
 Twelve Paladins [saith the poet] had the Emperor 
 Charlemagne in his court j and the most wise and famous 
 of them was Orlando. It is of him I am about to speak, 
 and of his friend Morgante, and of Gan the Traitor, who 
 beguiled him to his death in Eoncesvalles, where he 
 sounded his horn so mightily after the Dolorous Eout. 
 
 It was Easter, and Charles had all his court with him 
 in Paris, making high feast and triumph. There was 
 Orlando, the first among them, and Ogier the Dane, and 
 Astolfo the Englishman, and Ansuigi; and there came 
 Angiotiu of Bayonne, and Uliviero, and the gentle Ber- 
 linghieri ; and there was also Avolio, and Avino, and 
 Otho of ISTormandy, and Eichard, and the wise Namo, 
 and the aged Salamon, and Walter from Monlione, and 
 Baldwin, who was the son of the wretched Gan. The 
 son of Pepin was too happy, and oftentimes fairly 
 groaned for joy at seeing all his Paladins together. 
 
 But Fortune stands watching in secret, to baffle our 
 designs. While Charles was thus hugging himself Avith 
 delight, Orlando governed everything at court, and this 
 made Gan burst with envy, so that he began one day 
 talking with Charles after the following inanner : — "Are 
 we always to have Orlando for our master? I have 
 thought of speaking to you about it a thousand times.
 
 208 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 Orlando has a great deal too iiiuch presumption. Here 
 are we, Counts, Dukes, and Kings, at your service, but 
 not at his ; and we have resolved not to be governed by 
 a boy. You began in Aspramont to give him to under- 
 stand how valiant he was, and that he did great things 
 at that fountain ; whereas if it had not been for the good 
 Gerard, I know very well where the victory would have 
 been. The truth is, he has an eye upon the crown. 
 This, Charles, is the worthy who has deserved so 
 much ! All your generals are afflicted at it. As for nie, 
 I shall repass those mountains over which I came to 
 you with seventy-two Counts. Do you take him for a 
 JNIars ? " 
 
 Orlando happened to hear these words as he sat apart, 
 and it displeased him with Gan that he should speak so, 
 but much more that Charles should believe him. He 
 would have killed Gan, if Uliviero had not prevented him, 
 and taken his sword Durlindana out of his hand ; nay, he 
 could have almost killed Charlemagne himself; but at 
 last he went away from Paris by himself, raging with 
 scorn and grief. He borrowed as he went, of Ermellina 
 the wife of Ogier, the Dane's sword Cortana, and his 
 horse Rondel, and proceeded on his way to Brava. His 
 wife, Alda the Fair, hastened to embrace him ; but while 
 she was saying, " Welcome, my Orlando," he was going 
 to strike her with his sword, for his head was bewildered, 
 and he took her for Gancllone. The Fair Alda marvelled 
 greatly, but Orlando recollected himself, and she took 
 hold of the bridle, and he leaped from his horse, and 
 told her all that had passed, and rested himself v/ith her 
 for some days. 
 
 He then took his leave, being still carried away by his 
 disdain, and resolved to pass over into Pagan-land ; and 
 as he rode, he thought every step of the way of the 
 traitor Gan ; and so, riding on wherever the road took 
 him, ho reached the confines between the Christian
 
 puixi. 209 
 
 countries and the Pagan, and came upon an abLey 
 situate in a dark place in a desert. 
 
 ^o\v, above the abbey was a great mountain, inhabited 
 I:>y three fierce giants, one of whom was named Passa- 
 iuonte, another Alabastro, and the third Morgante ; and 
 these giants used to disturb the abbey by throwing things 
 down upon it from the mountain with slings, so that the 
 poor little monks could not go out to fetch wood or water. 
 Orlando knocked, but nobody would open till the Abbot 
 was spoken to. At last the Abbot came himself, and, 
 opening the door, bade him welcome. The good man 
 told him the reason of the delay, and said that since 
 the arrival of the giants, they had been so perplexed 
 that they did not know what to do. " Our ancient 
 fathers in the desert," quoth he, " were rewarded accord- 
 ing to their holiness. It is not to be supposed that they 
 lived only upon locusts ; doubtless it also rained manna 
 upon them from heaven ; but here one is regaled with 
 stones, which the giants rain upon us from the mountain. 
 These are our nice bits and relishes. The fiercest of the 
 giants, Morgante, plucks up pines and other great trees 
 by the roots, and casts them on us." While they were 
 talking thus in the cemetery, there came a stone, which 
 seemed as if it would break Rondel's back. " For God's 
 sake, cavalier," said the Abbot, " come in, for the manna 
 is falling." 
 
 "My dear Abbot," answered Orlando, "this fellow, 
 methinks, does not wish to let my horse feed ; he wants 
 to cure him of being restive. The stone seems as if it 
 came from a good arm." 
 
 " Yes," replied the holy father, " I did not deceive you. 
 I think, some day or other, they will cast the mountain 
 upon us." 
 
 Orlando quieted his horse Rondel, and then sat down 
 to a meal : after which he said, " Abbot, I must go and 
 return the present that has been made to my horse." 
 
 o
 
 210 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 The Abbot, with great tenderness, endeavoured to 
 dissuade him, but in vain ; upon wliich he crossed him 
 on the forehead and said, " Go, then, and the blessing of 
 God be with you." 
 
 Orlando scaled the mountain, and came where Passa- 
 monte was, who, seeing him alone, measured liim with 
 his eyes, and asked him if he would stay with him for a 
 page, promising to make him comfortable. 
 
 " Stupid Saracen," said Orlando, " I come to you, 
 according to the Avill of God, to be your death, and not 
 your foot-boy. You have displeased His servants here, 
 and are no longer to be endured, dog that you are." 
 
 Kon jiuo pill compoitarti, can mastino. 
 
 The giant, finding himself thus insulted, ran in a fury 
 to arm him, and, returning to Orlando, slung at him a 
 large stone, which struck him on the head with such 
 force, as not onl}'' made his helmet ring again, but felled 
 him to the earth. Passamonte thought he was dead. 
 "What," said he, retiring to disarm himself, "could have 
 brought that paltry fellow here ? " 
 
 But Christ never forsakes His followers. While the 
 giant went to disarm himself, Orlando recovered, and 
 cried aloud, "Giant, where are you going? Do you 
 think that you have killed me"? Turn back, for unless 
 you have wings, you shall not escape me, dog of a rene- 
 gade." The giant greatly marvelled, turned back, and 
 stooping to pick up a stone, Orlando, who had Cortana 
 ■ naked in his hand, cleft his skull ; and, cursijig Mahomet, 
 the giant tumbled, dying and blaspheming, to the ground. 
 Blaspheming fell the sour-hearted and cruel wretch ; but 
 Orlando, in the meanwhile, thanked the Father and the 
 Word. 
 
 The Paladin went on, seeking for Alabastro, the second 
 giant ; who, when he saw him, endeavoured to pluck wp 
 a great piece of stony earth by the roots. " Ho, ho ! "
 
 PULCI. 2 1 1 
 
 cried Orlando ; " what, you think to throAV a stone, do 
 you?" Then Alabastro took his sling, and flung at him 
 so large a fragment as obliged Orlando to defend himself, 
 for if it had struck him he would no more have needed a 
 surgeon ; but, collecting his strength, he thrust his sword 
 into the giant's breast, and the loggerhead fell dead. 
 
 Morgante, the third giant, had a palace made of earth, 
 and boughs, and shingles, in which he shut himself uj) at 
 night. Orlando knocked, and disturbed the giant from his 
 sleep, who came staring to the door like a madman, for he 
 had had a bewildering dream. " Who knocks there?" 
 
 "You will know too soon," answered Orlando : " I am 
 come to make you do penance for your sins, like your 
 brothers. Divine Providence has sent me to avenge the 
 wrongs of the monks upon the whole set of you ; and I 
 have to tell you that Passamonte and Alabastro are 
 already as cold as a couple of pilasters," 
 
 " Noble knight," said Morgante, " do me no ill ; but if 
 you are a Christian, tell me in courtesy who you are." 
 
 "I will satisfy you of my faith," replied Orlando : "I 
 adore Christ ; and, if you please, you may adore Him 
 also." 
 
 " I have had a strange vision," replied Morgante, with 
 a low voice; "I was assailed by a dreadful serpent, and 
 called upon Mahomet in vain ; then I called upon your 
 God, who was crucified, and He succoured me, and I was 
 delivered from the serpent ; so I am disposed to become 
 a Christian." 
 
 " If you keep in this mind," returned Orlando, " you 
 shall worship the true God, and come with me and be my 
 companion, and I will love you with perfect love. Your 
 idols are false and vain ; the true God is the God of the 
 Christians. Deny the unjust and villainous worship of 
 your Mahomet, and be baptized in the name of my God, 
 who alone is worthy." 
 
 " I am content," said Morgante.
 
 212 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 Then Orlando embraced him, and said, " I will lead 
 you to the abbey." 
 
 " Let us go quickly," replied Morgante, for he Avas 
 impatient to make his peace with the monks. 
 
 Orlando rejoiced, saying, " My good brother, and 
 devout Avithal, you must ask pardon of the Abbot, for 
 God has enlightened you, and accepted you, and He would 
 have you practise liumility." 
 
 " Yes," said Morgante, " thanks to you, your God shall 
 henceforth be my God. Tell me your name, and after- 
 wards dispose of me as you will ; " and he told him that 
 he was Orlando. 
 
 " Blessed Jesus be thanked," said the giant, " for I have 
 always heard you called a perfect knight : and, as I said, 
 I will follow you all my life through." And so convers- 
 ing they went together towards the abbey, and by the 
 way Orlando talked with Morgante of the dead giants, 
 and sought to console him, saying they had done the 
 monks a thousand injuries, and our Scripture says the 
 good shall b.e rewarded and the evil punished, and we 
 must submit to the will of God. " The doctors of our 
 Church," continued he, " are all agreed that if those who 
 are glorified in heaven were to feel pity for their miserable 
 kindred who lie in such horrible confusion in hell, their 
 beatitude would come to nothing ; and this, you see, 
 would plainly be unjust on the part of God. But such is 
 the firmness of their faith, that what appears good to Him 
 appears good to them. Do Avhat He may, they hold it to 
 be done well, and that it is impossible for Him to err ; so 
 that if their fathers and mothers are suffering everlasting 
 punishment, it does not disturb them an atom. This is 
 the custom, I assure you, in the choirs above." 
 
 " A. word to the wise," said Morgante ; " you shall see 
 if I grieve for my brethren, and whether or no 1 submit 
 to the will of God and behave myself like an angel. So 
 dust to dust ; and now let us enjoy ourselves. I Avill cut
 
 puLcr. 213 
 
 off their hands, all four of them, and take them to these 
 holy monks, that they may be sure they are dead, and 
 not fear to go out alone into the desert. They will then 
 be sure also that the Lord has purified me, and taken me 
 out of darkness, and assured to me the kingdom of 
 heaven." So saying, the giant cut off the hands of his 
 brethren, and left their bodies to the beasts and birds. 
 
 They went to the abbey, where the Abbot was expect- 
 ing Orlando in great anxiety; but the monks, not knowing 
 what had happened, ran to the Abbot in great haste and 
 alarm, saying, " Will you suffer this giant to come in 1 " 
 And when the Abbot saw the giant he changed counte- 
 nance. 
 
 Orlando, perceiving him thus disturbed, made haste 
 and said, " Abbot, peace be with you ! The giant is a 
 Christian ; he believes in Christ, and has renounced his 
 false prophet ]\Iahomet." And Morgante showing the 
 hands in proof of his faith, the Abbot thanked heaven 
 with great contentment of mind. 
 
 The Abbot did much honour to Morgante, comparing 
 him with St. Paul; and they rested there many days. 
 One day, wandering over the abbey, they entered a room 
 where the Abbot kept a quantity of armour ; and IMor- 
 gante saw a bow which pleased him, and ho fastened it 
 on. 
 
 Now, there was in the place a great scarcity of water, 
 and Orlando said, like his good brother, " Morgante, I 
 wish you would fetch us some water." 
 
 " Command me as you please," said he ; and placing a 
 great tub upon his shoulders, ho went towards a spring at 
 which he had been accustomed to drink at the foot of the 
 mountain. Having reached the spring, ho suddenly 
 heard a great noise in the forest. He took an arrow 
 from the quiver, placing it in tho bow, and raising his 
 head saw a great herd of swine rushing towards tho 
 spring where he stood. Morgante shot one of them clean
 
 214 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 througli the head, and laid him sprawling. Another, as 
 if in revenge, ran towards the giant, without giving him 
 time to nse another arrow ; so he lent him a cuff on the 
 head, which broke the bone, and killed him also ; which 
 stroke the rest seeing, fled in haste through the valley. 
 Morgante then placed the tub full of water upon one 
 shoulder, and the two porkers on the other, and returned 
 to the abbey, which was at some distance, without spill- 
 ing a drop. 
 
 The monks were delighted to see the fresh water, but 
 still more to see the pork ; for there is no animal to 
 whom food comes amiss. They let their breviaries, 
 therefore, go to sleep awhile, and fell heartily to work, so 
 that the cats and dogs had reason to lament the polish of 
 the bones. 
 
 "Now, why do we stay here, doing nothing 1" said 
 Orlando one day to Morgante ; and he shook hands with 
 the Abbot, and told him he must take his leave. " I 
 must go," said ho, " and make up for lost time. I ought 
 to have gone long ago, my good father ; but I cannot tell 
 3'ou what I feel within me, at the content I have enjoyed 
 here in your company. I shall bear in mind and in heart 
 with mo for ever, the Abbot, the abbey, and this desert, 
 so great is the love they have raised in me in so short a 
 time. The great God who reigns above must thank you 
 for me, in His own abode. Bestow on us your benedic- 
 tion, and do not forget us in your prayers." 
 
 When the Abbot heard the Count Orlando talk thus, 
 his heart melted within him for tenderness, and he said : 
 " Knight, if wo have failed in any courtesy due to your 
 prowess and great gentleness {and, indeed, what we have 
 done has been but little), pray put it to the account of 
 our ignorance, and of the place which we inhabit. "VYe 
 are but poor men of the cloister, better able to regale you 
 with masses, and orisons, and paternosters, than with 
 dinners and suppers. You have so taken this heart of
 
 ruLci, 215 
 
 mine by the many noble qualities I have seen in yon, 
 that I shall be with you still wherever you go ; and, on 
 the other hand, you will always be present here with me. 
 This seems a contradiction ; but you are wise, and will 
 take my meaning discreetly. You have saved the very 
 life and spirit within us ; for so much perturbation had 
 those giants cast about our place, that the way to the 
 Lord among us was blocked up. May He who sent you 
 into these woods reward your justice and piety, by which 
 we are delivered from our trouble ; thanks be to Him 
 and to you. We shall all be disconsolate at your 
 departure. "We shall grieve that we cannot detain you 
 among us for months and years ; but you do not wear 
 these weeds ; you bear arms and armour ; and you may 
 possibly merit as well, in carrying those, as in wearing 
 this cap. You read your Bible, and your virtue has been 
 the means of showing the giant the way to heaven. Go 
 in peace, and prosper, whoever you may be. I do not 
 ask your name ; but if ever I am asked who it was that 
 came among us, I shall say that it was an angel from God. 
 If there is any armour, or anything that you would have, 
 go into the room where it is and take it." 
 
 "If you have any armour that would suit my com- 
 panion," replied Orlando, " that I will accept with 
 pleasure."' 
 
 " Come and see," said the Abbot ; and they went into 
 a room that was full of old armour. Morgaxite examined 
 everything, but could find nothing large enough, except a 
 rusty breastplate, which fitted him marvellously. It had 
 l^elonged to an enormous giant, who was killed there of 
 old, by Milo of Angrante. There was a painting on the 
 wall which told the whole story : how the giant had laid 
 cruel and long siege to the abbey ; and how he had been 
 overthrown at last by the great Milo. Orlando seeing 
 this, said within himself : " Oh God ! unto whom all 
 things are known, how came Milo here, who destroyed
 
 216 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 this giant 1" And reading certain inscriptions which 
 Avere there, he could no longer keep a firm countenance, 
 but the tears ran down his cheeks. 
 
 When the Abbot saw Orlando weep, and his brow 
 redden, and the light of his eyes become childlike, for 
 sweetness, he asked him the reason ; but finding him 
 still doubly affected, he said, " I do not know whether 
 you are overpowered by admiration of what is painted in 
 this chamber. You must know that I am of high descent, 
 though not through lawful wedlock. I believe I may 
 say, I am nephew or sister's son to no less a man than 
 that Rinaldo, who was so great a Paladin in the Avorld, 
 though my own father was not of a lawful mother. 
 Ansuigi was his name ; my own, out in the world, was 
 Chiaramonte, and this INlilo was my father's brother. 
 Ah, gentle baron, for blessed Jesus' sake, tell me what 
 name is yours ! " 
 
 Orlando, all glowing with affection and bathed in tears, 
 replied, " My dear Abbot and kinsman, he before you is 
 your Orlando." Upon this, they ran for tenderness into 
 each other's arms, weeping on both sides with a sovereign 
 affection which was too high to be expressed. The 
 Abbot was so overjoyed, that he seemed as if he would 
 never have done embracing Orlando. " By what fortune," 
 said the knight, " do I find you in this obscure place ? 
 Tell me, my dear father, how was it you became a monk, 
 and did not follow arms, like myself and the rest of usV 
 
 " It is the will of God," replied the Abbot, hastening 
 to give his feelings utterance. " Many and divers are the 
 paths He points out for us, by which to arrive at His 
 city : some walk it with the sword, some with the 
 pastoral staff. !N"ature makes the inclination different, 
 and therefore there are different ways for us to take; 
 enough if we all arrive safely at one and the same place, 
 the last as well as the first. "We are all pilgrims through 
 many kingdoms. We all wish to go to Rome, Orlando ;
 
 ruLci. 217 
 
 but wo go picking out our journey through different 
 roads. Such is the trouble in body and soul brought 
 upon us by that sin of the old apple. Day and night am 
 I here ■with my book in hand ; day and night do you ride 
 about, holding your sword, and sweating oft both in sun 
 and shadow, and all to get round at last to the home from 
 which we departed — I say all out of anxiety and hope, to 
 get back unto our home of old." And the giant hearing 
 them talk of these things, shed tears also.
 
 XVIII. 
 FARINETTA AND FAUINONNA; 
 
 OR now TO MAKE FIVE PLEASURES OF ONE, AND BE IN 
 FIVE PLACES AT ONCE. 
 
 A FAIRY TALE. 
 
 There were once two sisters, who lived near a forest 
 haunted by Fairies. They were both young, handsome, 
 and lively ; only it was said that Farinetta was the more 
 liked the more you knew her, while Farinonna seemed to 
 get tired of one friend after another like a toy. If you 
 went to see them, Farinetta would keep the same face 
 towards you all day, and try all she could to make you 
 happy. Farinonna would do as much for a time, and be 
 exceedingly i^leasant ; but if anything crossed or tired her, 
 she would exclaim, with a half pettish look, " Well, I've 
 had quite enough of this, haven't youl" It was a look 
 as much as to say, " If you haven't, you're a great fool ; 
 and whether you have or not, I shall do something else." 
 Every one, accordingly, had their Buts for Farinonna. 
 They would say, " Farinonna is a handsome girl, but — 
 Yes, Farinonna is a very handsome girl, but " — People 
 had also their Buts for Farinetta ; but then it was only 
 such people as had too many Buts of their own. 
 
 This difference in the tempers of the two girls was 
 mainly attributed to Farinetta's acquaintance with the 
 inhabitants of the forest. She was the more thoughtful 
 of the two ; and this led her to make herself mistress of 
 
 21S
 
 FARIXETTA AND FARI.VONXA. 219 
 
 the Fairy language, which was the only passport necessary 
 to a complete intimacy with the speakers. Farinonna, 
 who had walked in the forest, yet never seen any Fairies, 
 did not believe in them ; and she used to la;;gh at her 
 sister for thinking that the language taught her to see 
 more in what she read and observed than herself. " Do 
 you think," said she, " that such fine writers as Homer, 
 and Tasso, and Shakespeare, want any other key to their 
 language than their own 1 Do I not know a sword when 
 I see it, or a horse, or a man, or a dance 1 Is it necessary 
 for me, when a gentleman is introduced to my acquaint- 
 ance, to keep saying out loud the meaning of the word 
 gentleman in Fairian, — gentleman, gentleman, gentleman, 
 — like a great gawky school-girl at her lesson, — in order 
 to have a proper sense of what he is *? Or is it requisite 
 that I "— 
 
 " No, sister," said Farinetta, laughing ; " the power to 
 translate a word into Fairian only gives you a very vivid 
 sense indeed of the beauties of the original." 
 
 " Oh — my compliments pray to the very vivid sense, 
 which appears to me — begging your pardon, sister — very 
 like mighty fine nonsense. So, instead of saying gentle- 
 man out loud to the gentleman, I am to keep saying to 
 my very vivid sense Generomildeasibol ! — What is the 
 horrid long word 1 — Generomildeasiboldunsel — oh, it's no 
 use. I can't see, for my part, why it is not quite as good 
 to say gentleman at once, and not plague one's head about 
 the matter. Every one knows a gentleman at sight, 
 without any of your vivid senses. Do you think I want 
 any language but my mother's to tell mo the meaning of 
 the words ' As I'm a gentleman ' ; or to help me to a 
 passage in Shakespeare or Milton ? " 
 
 " "Why now, sister," said Farinetta, " there was a 
 passage the other day which was quoted from Hesiod, and 
 wliich you said was unintelligible." 
 
 "Well, I know," replied the other; "it is unintelligible;
 
 220 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 and would remain so were it translated into all the 
 languages in Europe." 
 
 "No," said Farinetta ; '"if you could speak Fairian, 
 you would see it has a meaning, and one of the finest in 
 the world." 
 
 "Now there, sister," returned Farinonna, colouring, 
 " you really make me angry. It doesn't follow that 
 l)ecaiise a man's name is Hesiod, he could not say a silly 
 thing. Wise men say silly things sometimes, and so 
 might he, for all he was a heardy old Greek. I'm sure 
 he did a foolish thing when he let his brother cheat him 
 of half his estate ; and I cannot see that he proved his 
 wits a bit better by adding that he was contented, because, 
 forsooth, ' the half was greater than the whole.' Tlie half 
 greater than the whole ! Is half this fan greater than the 
 whole'? Or half this peach? Or half the lawn there? 
 Or half the dinner, my dear'? which will be up in a 
 quarter of an hour, and I'm prodigiously hungry." 
 
 " Yes," said Farinetta, laughing as good-naturedly as 
 before, " half a dinner is greater than the whole, on many 
 occasions. I tell you what now " (for she saw her sister 
 getting more impatient) ; — " you know the flowers which 
 the Fairy gave me." 
 
 "Yes, I do. Chuck half of them away, and see 
 whether the rest will be doubled." 
 
 " No, sister, that is not the way of doubling in Fairy- 
 land. But since you admired them so yesterday, I 
 intended one half for you, and there they are in the 
 window." 
 
 "Well, that's a good, kind, generous sister as ever 
 lived ; but hey ! presto ! why don't the others double." 
 
 "They do," said Farinetta. " I feel a double perfume 
 from them : I see a double red in the roses, and a double 
 fairness in the lilies. And, what is more, I shall see 
 your flowers when they have gone out of the room." 
 
 " Oh," returned Farinonna, " I forgot the knowledge of
 
 FARIXETTA AND FARIXOXKA. 221 
 
 Fairian was to double one's eyesight as well as one's 
 knowledge. I suppose it doubles one's presence too 1 " 
 
 "Why, it might as well, sister," said Farinetta, "while 
 it's about it; and it does accordingly." 
 
 " Sister, sister," reiterated the other, with a reddening 
 gravity, and forgetting her flowers in her impatience ; 
 " 30U know I love you ; for the truth is, you are very 
 generous, and, when you don't take these freaks into your 
 head, very sensible. But the more I love you, the more 
 angry you make me at seeing you let yourself be so 
 imposed upon by this nonsense about Fairies. Do you 
 think one's common senses are to be deceived'? Why, 
 upon this principle of a double presence, you ought your- 
 self to be able to be in five or six places at once, enjoying 
 yourself. " 
 
 " ^fy dear sister," said Farinetta, with a pleasant 
 earnestness, " give me a kiss, and don't spoil your beauti- 
 ful mouth. You see that new gown of mine, worked all 
 over with curious imagery. I say nothing to you but 
 what I Avill prove, — this very evening, if you please ; — 
 but if I do certain things, and then put on that fancy 
 dress, I can be in five or six places at once, and enjoy 
 myself in all. I will give away, for instance, half the 
 peaches off my best tree, send them in portions to five or 
 six of your friends and mine, and go the same day and 
 enjoy them with every one." 
 
 Farinonna wept outright at this assertion, partly with 
 impatience, partly at her sister's being so extravagant, and 
 partly from a lurking notion how silly and uninformed 
 she must be herself, if all this were true. After a variety 
 of Pshaws ! Nonsenses ! and Now Positivelys ! the upshot 
 was, that she agreed to let her sister make the experi- 
 ment, and to write letters to the receivers of the fruit 
 all round, in order to see what they would say in answer. 
 "But then," said she, recollecting herself, " supposing tliis 
 impossibility of yours to be possible, we shall not liavc
 
 222 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 half the peaches we should have had to eat for the next 
 fortnight : that will he very foolish." 
 
 ' " Well, but, dear Nonna, for the sake of the experiment, 
 you know." 
 
 " Well, well, for the sake of the experiment." So half 
 laughing, and half blushing at being so ridiculous, Fari- 
 nonna helped her sister to put the peaches in green leaves 
 and baskets, and send them off Avith their several letters. 
 Fariuetta then put on her fancy dress, and, saying, — 
 
 *' Failles, Fairies, wise and dear, 
 Send me there and keep me here," 
 
 sat down very quietly at the Avindow, to the equal amuse- 
 ment of herself and her sister ; of the latter for seeing her 
 still remain Avliere she was, and of the former for seeing 
 the amusement of the latter. 
 
 Farinetta, though the more thoughtful of the two, had 
 as much or more animal spirit occasionally ; and she 
 entertained herself excessively in the course of the even- 
 ing with her sister's extreme watchfulness over her. The 
 latter, knowing the other's love of truth, and seeing her 
 at once so confident and so merry, began to have a con- 
 fused and almost fearful notion that there was more in 
 the busijiess than she fancied. " Perhaps," thought she, 
 as the dusk of the evening gathered in, and she recollected 
 the ghost stories of her childhood, "these Fairies are evil 
 spirits who have put a phantom here in my sister's shape;" 
 and, creeping towards her with as much courage as she could 
 muster, she put forth her trembling hand and touched 
 her. Farinetta guessed what she was thinking about, 
 and burst into a fit of laughter. This set the other oft 
 too, and they both laughed till the room rang again, the 
 one at her sister's fears, and the other at her own. 
 
 Farinonna, all that evening, walked about with hei 
 sister, sat with her, talked with her, i)layed music with 
 licr, sung wiih her, laughed with her, nay, was silent and
 
 t'ARIXETTA AXD FARINONNA. 223 
 
 looked grave with her; and at last wcut to bed Avith her. 
 She would not suffer her out of her sight. " 'Tis plain 
 flesh and blood, you goose," said Farinetta, seeing the 
 other look Avistfully at her hand, which she jerked against 
 her cheek as she spoke. 
 
 " So is this, for that matter," said Farinonna, and was 
 peevishlj' lifting her own to give her sister a little harder 
 smack, wlien it suddenly smote herself on the cheek. 
 
 " My dear sister ! " exclaimed the other gravely, and at 
 the same time embracing her, — "Thank you for that. 
 You Avere angry with yourself for intending me a little 
 bit of a twinge, and so resolved to let it recoil on your 
 own cheek. I hail the omen." 
 
 "Hail the omen?" cried her sister, half in alarm, and 
 lialf angry : " I did feel a little as you say, but I assure 
 you I know not by Avhat odd sort of palsy or convulsion I 
 gave myself a blow." 
 
 " Enough ! " returned Farinetta, embracing her still 
 more warmly ; " I see how it is : the Fairies have begun 
 with you : you will know and love them soon." So say- 
 ing, she blessed her and went to sleep. Enough ! thought 
 Farinonna, rubbing her cheek ; but she kept silent, and 
 shortly after dropped asleep too. 
 
 The next morning the answers to the letters were 
 brought to Farinonna all at once. She snatched them 
 from the servant's hand, exclaiming, " Now then ! " 
 
 "A good ijhrase," said Farinetta, "that same Now 
 then : — you will believe in another presently, — Here, 
 there." 
 
 It was true enough. The first letter ran as follows : — 
 
 -o' 
 
 Dear Farinonna, — What do you mean by asking 
 whether your sister was with us yesterday 1 To be sure 
 she was. She joined us during the desert, in her beauti- 
 ful fancy dress, and was the merriest among the party. 
 Didn't she tell you ?— Yours, L. Y. '
 
 224 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 Letter tlie second : — 
 
 Dear Farinonna, — What has come to you^ Your 
 sister told us at the desert yesterday that she had just 
 parted with you. Her fancy dress and her peaches were 
 the admiration of us all. You would have thought wo 
 should devour one as we did the other. 1 am learning 
 Fairian. — Yours, B. li. 
 
 The third letter was from a fine lady : — 
 
 My Dear Creature, — Was ever such a whimsical 
 heing as thou 1 Why, thou dear giddy thing, one would 
 think that you had not seen your sister for ages, just as 
 we have not seen you. It's a week now, I declare, since 
 Monday. I die to see you. Don't you die to have a 
 fancy dress like your sister's ? I do. I quite die. I die 
 to learn Fairian on purpose : only it's so hard, they tell 
 me. Lord ! here is a quantity of Dies : Well, you must 
 have another, for, do you know, Laily Di said she blushed 
 for me yesterday ; upon which that witty thing Lady Bab 
 said, loud enough for her to hear, "■ And the paint for her 
 Ladyship." Wasn't that good now 1 Quite charming. 
 If Lady Bab were but good-looking, she would be quite 
 charming. Excuse faults and all that, — Yours ever, my 
 love, G. F. 
 
 The fourth was from Lady Bab : — 
 
 Pretty One, — " Divinest " was with us yesterday, 
 looking, I really must say, like her name, in her fancy 
 dress, I only think it a little too crowded with imagery 
 to look quite reasonable. How came you not to knoAv 1 
 I thought I heard her say she had just seen you, but that 
 doll Lady l^i and that stupid pretender Mrs. F. were 
 gabbling away at the time. Brilliante will tell you, she 
 says, that I sported one of my best things yesterday; but, 
 entre nous, it was not very haj^py, I think ; at least, not 
 so happy as many foolish things I said the day before.
 
 FARIXETTA AND FAniNONXA. 225 
 
 But " I'm tired," as you say. They are all threatening to 
 learn Fairian, so I must get it up in mere self-defence. 
 Ts not this hard upon one who has taken the trouble to 
 know all the genteel languages already, and who is, dear 
 Pretty-Protty, your obedient, humble servant, B. Q. 
 
 "An affected, ill-natured thing !" said Farinonna. "I 
 wonder what she always takes the liberty of calling me 
 Pretty-Protty for? I think I see her odious puckered 
 mouth granting it. What next? Oh, here's poor Trady." 
 
 Dear Madam, — Received yours of to-day. Saw your 
 sister, as hope you did afterwards ; for she had the finest 
 fancy dress on I ever saw, much better than Miss Jones's, 
 and Miss Jones's was the finest ever seen. Excuse run- 
 ning hand, not having time to write text. Should like 
 to know, if you have time to write, why you ask about 
 Miss Farinetta, as she said she saw you ; but suppose she 
 was mistaken. Excuse haste. Also, blots ; and the way 
 of writing the letter r, which Miss Jones says is best. — I 
 have the honour to be, dear madam, your very obedient 
 and humble servant, A. T. 
 
 P.S. — Miss Jones lives next door. 
 
 " What a pack of nonsense about Miss Jones ! " said 
 Farinonna; "I've no patience with such stupid worship 
 of nobody. Ah, here's dear Toady's hand." 
 
 DiviNEST, — Other Divinest was with us yesterday, 
 sharing her peaches with us, and looking reaUy celestial 
 in her fancy dress. She reminded me so of you, that I 
 quite longed to see you. Why didn't you come 1 And 
 why, pray, do you write to know about your sister, after 
 having just seen her ? That is what we all want to know; 
 but you know it is no new matter to want to know every- 
 thing which you do, however whimsical and witty. 
 Adieu, Divinest ! Pray learn Fairian, and get the dear, 
 delightful creatures in the wood to get you an Imngina- 
 
 p
 
 226 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 tion, — for so, you must know, we call Farinetta's dress on 
 account of its imagery. All the world is beginning to 
 believe in 'em. We don't quite understand about it. 
 The mixture of such odd things as language and know- 
 ledge, being here and being there, etc., confuses one ; but 
 I've no doubt it's true, because they say so. However, I 
 shall never learn Fairian myself, that's certain ; because 
 you know I'm such a lazy creature. And eiitre nous, ma 
 ielle, I've another reason, which is, that I am quite happy 
 and contented as long as I can see such places as Green 
 Bower, and the fairer than fairies that live in it. Adieu, 
 adieu ! Parting is such sweet sorrow, etc. Mille graces 
 for your kind present of the box. — Believe me to be your 
 ever obliged and affectionate friend, with esteem, 
 
 E. T. 
 
 P.S. — I shall come to spend a day or two next week at 
 Green Bower -, but don't get anything particular, there's a 
 love. 
 
 Farinonna was now as impatient in her wish to enjoy 
 the privileges of her sister, as she had been in doubting 
 and contradicting her. She had heard the latter say, 
 that the first and greatest step towards obtaining them, 
 was a good hearty will; and that instances had been 
 known in which it superseded all the other means, and 
 gifted the wisher with the power of speaking Fairian at 
 once. She, therefore, borrowed her sister's manuscript 
 grammar, and, blushing, asked her to lend her the gown 
 too. Farinetta guessed what she was going to do; but 
 said nothing. She only kissed her very kindly, and gave 
 them her. Farinonna hurried up into her room, locked 
 the door, threw the grammar on the floor, slipped on the 
 gown, and cried out as fast as she could, " I want to be in 
 five places at once." However, she did not find herself 
 anywhere else. " I want, I say," cried she, stamping her 
 foot angrily, "to be in five places at once." Not a step
 
 FARINETTA AXD FARINONNA. 227 
 
 did she budge. Enraged at her disappointment, she began 
 to tear off the gown ; when lo ! for every rent which she 
 made in it, she hit herself a great thump in the face. 
 She wept bitter tears for fear and vexation. She did not 
 dare to exclaim that it was shameful to treat a person so; 
 but she thought it, and wished she could smack the 
 Fairies' faces all round. Suddenly she recollected that 
 her sister called that involuntary self-punishment a good 
 omen ; and this recollection brought to mind another, 
 namely, that one of the first steps towards favour with 
 the Fairies, Avas to do something not entirely for yourself, 
 but for somebody else too. " I will give away half my 
 box of sweetmeats," cried she, clapping her hands. She 
 put half of them accordingly into another box, thrust the 
 lid to, threw up the window, and called out to a little 
 boy who was going by, "Hallo, there, little boy ! " The 
 child looked up, and gaped. " There's a box of sweet- 
 meats for you, little boy." The boy looked at the box, as 
 if doubtfully, and then looking up at the young lady, 
 gaped again. "Don't stand gaping there, you ninny," 
 said Farinonna ; " take up the box, and go and eat the 
 sweetmeats directly. I'll come and eat 'em with you 
 presently. There, go : — make haste ; — make haste, I 
 say." 
 
 " AVhere, ma'am ? " asked the boy, after taking up the 
 box. 
 
 "Anywhere, you dolt," said Farinonna, slamming down 
 
 the window. "Now then," cried she, "I shall do it. 
 
 Oh, I forgot the charm before : — I shall do it certainly 
 
 now ; " and she half-said and half-sung, in the requisite 
 
 manner — 
 
 "Fairies, fiiiries", wise and dear, 
 Send me tliero and keep me here." 
 
 Not a jot did they send her anywhere. Farinonna was 
 bewildered. "The sweetmeats perhaps," said she, "were 
 not valuable enough. I'll give away half — what? let's
 
 228 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 see — anything valuable — oh, my shelf of books ; I'll give 
 away half my shelf of books." 
 
 She rang the bell violently, and the old deaf house- 
 keeper appeared : " Lord bless us ! " said the good old 
 dame ; " "^vhy, what's the matter Avith my young lady ; I 
 heard the bell ring, and I should never forget the sound 
 of that bell, ma'am, if I Avas to live a hundred." 
 
 "Ay, ay," said Farinonna. "Well, never mind what 
 you shall never forget; but here — take these valuable 
 books, Judith, and keep 'em, and read 'em, and — there, go." 
 
 Judith, not hearing a word, bent her ear to understand 
 the orders. 
 
 " Take these valuable books," bawled Farinonna, " and 
 keep 'em, and read 'em, and go." 
 
 She uttered the last word so fiercely, that the good old 
 gossip started, with another " Lord bless us ! " muttering 
 after her, " Keep 'em, and read 'em, and go ! Why, 
 Lord, miss, how am I to read 'em ? " 
 
 "They cost I don't know how much," answered 
 Farinonna. 
 
 " But how am I to understand 'em 1 " returned Judith. 
 
 " They are bound in morocco," bawled the lady. 
 
 '* But I tell you, dear Miss Nonna, I can't read ; and 
 what's more, I can't hear anybody read ; and what's more, 
 I"— 
 
 "Then give 'em somebody who can," interrupted the 
 sister. 
 
 "Give 'em!" cried Judith, doubting her ears; "give 
 'em who ! " 
 
 " Any one," shouted Farinonna; " and tell 'em I'll come 
 and read 'em with 'em directly." 
 
 " Eead 'em with 'em," repeated the housekeeper. 
 " Why, you would not read 'em with the cook, or the 
 hostler, or the footman, or the scullion, would you, miss?" 
 
 "Mark me, Judith," said Farinonna, suppressing her 
 anger : " Take these books to my sister, and tell her " — •
 
 FARINETTA AND FARINONNA. 229 
 
 " Mister who 1 " asked the deaf woman, 
 
 " My sister," re-echoed the young lady ; "and tell her 
 that she must read 'em directly, because I want to stop 
 here and read 'em there ; and now go : — You can go, can't 
 you, if you can't do anything else 1 " 
 
 "Oh, yes," returned the dame proudly, "I can go. 
 Blessed be heaven, I can go fast enough, considering I'm 
 seventy-eight ; but I tell you what. Miss Nonna, if you 
 take infirm old people by the shoulders in this manner, 
 and make 'em go faster than Heaven wills, you'll not live 
 to be old yourself ; and now I'm in the mind, I teU you 
 Avhat, Miss Farinonna ; and I'll tell you nothing but what 
 all the house says ; and that is, I don't know what you 
 mean by these mad pranks, but you are not a bit like 
 your sister, for all you're almost as handsome ; and I 
 don't love you half so well as I did, Heaven forgive your 
 mother's old nurse for saying so ! " (and she shed tears) 
 " for all I dandled you in these arms ; for one of your 
 kindest things (when you do 'em) an't the value of any- 
 thing that Miss Netta does, she does everything so 
 sweetly and good-natured. You trample upon us, as a 
 body may say, even when you help us to get up ; but 
 kind's kind, I say ; and a man may ride from here to 
 Land's End, and be no horseman : — yes, no horseman, 
 Miss Nonna ; and, I grieve to say it, but you're no horse- 
 man." 
 
 Farinonna, who had a turn for the ludicrous, and who 
 Avas not naturally bad-hearted (who is?), could neither 
 help smiling at, nor pitying, her old nurse, as she went 
 out of the room lamenting over and over again, that so 
 sweet a creature to look at was no horseman. The 
 honest, involuntary ebullition had an effect on her, which 
 even her sister's sweetness would have failed in, and 
 which certainly no grave advice Avould have produced. 
 She sat down with a feeling of shame and regret ; and 
 after a while exclaimed gently, " I see I must be patient.
 
 230 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 and learn Fairian regularly, or I shall never be like my 
 dear sister." Now, the latter, who had been alarmed by 
 old Judith, and just come in, turned her sister's head 
 round affectionately with her two hands, and said, " Ah, 
 my dear Nonna, you will be a greater favourite with the 
 Fairies than I, if you keep in this mind ; for I was less 
 strong than you, and was made patient earlier, and you 
 will have had more to conquer," So saying, she kissed 
 the tears out of her eyes. Farinonna took her sister's 
 hand, and kissed it ; and looking up, she saw a group of 
 beautiful creatures in the room, Avho stood like friends 
 about her sister, and smiled upon herself; and one of 
 them said, in the most enchanting manner in the world, 
 " To be able to see us, is to be able to hope everything."
 
 XIX. 
 A YEAR OF HONEYMOONS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " A YEAR of hojieymoons ! We never heard of such 
 a thing ! impossible ! incredible ! "We have heard of 
 'eleven thousand virgins.' That may be; but a yeav 
 of HONEYMOONS ! ! Why, the word 'honey-moon' (month 
 of honey) was expressly invented to illustrate the impossi- 
 bility of the existence of anything honeyed heyond the 
 month. It is as much as to say that the first month of a 
 marriage is honeyed, and the first only ; and everybody 
 knows it. Talk of a year of honeymoons ! You might 
 as well speak of a year of Twelfth Xights or of Christmas 
 Days ! of cakes and mistletoe all the year round ! " 
 
 My dear readers, I am aware of the rarity, both real 
 and supposed, of such a year as the one I speak of. I 
 know how the months run — after the common fashion. 
 Let me see. They may be reckoned perhaps as follows : — 
 First (as the little children say " A by itself A "), there 
 is the honeymoon by itself honeymoon, with not a day 
 beyond it. Then comes a month which may be desig- 
 nated the sugar-moon — something less sweet than honey, 
 but still not without its dulcitude. Then comes, they tell 
 me, the treacle-moon — somewhat cloying. Then the 
 raspherry-vinegar-moon — a mixture of sweet and sour; 
 and then, according to circumstances, the vinegar or the 
 water-gruel-moon — the sour or the insipid ; after which, 
 vinegar or water-gruel, or a mixture of both, occasionally 
 
 231
 
 23^ LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 sweetened and made sickly, prevails to the end of the 
 chapter. 
 
 Seeing then, ladies and gentlemen, that I may proceed, 
 I shall do so without further preface, and inform you that 
 I was married two years ago, all but a month — to wit, on 
 the first of January, and that I have had therefore nearly 
 two years of honeymoons, instead of one. 
 
 Headers — Come, that is going too far. 
 
 Writer — It is a fact, upon my honour. 
 
 Headers — We shall never believe it, unless you tell ua 
 something very extraordinary indeed. Who are you, sir 1 
 and what are your pretensions ? Are they superhuman ? 
 My good young gentleman, you are either a horrible fibber, 
 or horribly afraid of your wife, and must say just what 
 she pleases. We knew a pleasant fellow, Avho understood 
 your sort of husband well. He had a favourite phrase in 
 his mouth, of 'Tom must say so." A wife would call upon 
 her husband to bear testimony to her conduct in such and 
 such a matter, and the husband would do it ; upon which 
 our friend would turn to him, in his knowing way, and 
 say, ''Ah/ you must say so." He would find fault with 
 a lady's tea, upon which she would say to her husband, 
 "That isn't fair, is it, my love, for I always make excel- 
 lent tea, don't 11" " You do, my love." " Ah ! " quoth 
 uiy friend, ''you must say so." Another lady, going to the 
 opera with a cousin, would say to her husband, " Well, 
 my dear, I am sorry you are engaged elsewhere, and can- 
 not go with us." " Oh, ho can go well enough, if you 
 like it," quoth our friend. " How monstrous ! " quoth the 
 lady ; " it is not so, is it, my love 1" or " I am sure you 
 know how delighted I should be to have you with us." 
 "I am sure of it, my love," quoth the husband. "Ah!" 
 said our pleasant friend, "you may say so." 
 
 Writer — Very pleasant, indeed, where the parties did 
 not deserve it ! Very horrible, where they did. It does 
 not affect Harriet and me.
 
 A YEAR OF HONEYMOONS. 233 
 
 Readers — Ah ! you must say so. 
 
 Writer (laughing) — I am glad to see we are all in such 
 good humour. I shall therefore proceed to convince you. 
 Truth will easily be known from falsehood. You Avill 
 perceive that it is quite impossible I should invent all the 
 pleasant days I am going to describe, and the enjoyment 
 I have had of them. At least, the invention would have 
 such a counterpart in people's feelings that it would prove 
 their possibility, and show that the enjoyment is not 
 peculiar to myself. 
 
 Readers — Proceed, sir. "We have great faith in you for 
 our parts, for we all think we deserve to be happy, depend 
 upon it, and most people would be so, if circumstances had 
 been as favourable to them as to yourself and us. 
 
 Writer — Charmingly said ! and many thanks. To pro- 
 ceed then. You will probably expect me to give a 
 description of my bride's beauty, but this I shall avoid, 
 partly because I do not wish to excite differences of 
 opinion about tall and short, fair and brown, black eyes, 
 blue eyes, and grey eyes, and partly because beauty has 
 little to do with the matter. Harriet's face is the most 
 beautiful to me in the creation, because I love it most 
 and have seen it look the most loving, yet I have heard 
 others describe it as being only "very agreeable." Suffice 
 it to say, that it is agreeable enough to attract the kind 
 and respectful look of strangers ; in short, that it is a true 
 woman's. Her shape, without entering into particulars, 
 may be designated as of the same character. A gardener 
 very well described it to me, as she was stepping about 
 his parterres, choosing some flowers. " Sir," said he, '• it 
 is plumpness upon a stalk of lightness." Her laugh is 
 such a quintessence of pleasure and goodwill, that a 
 gentleman, overhearing it one day on an inn staircase, as 
 I was standing in a room below, said, " God bless that 
 laugh ! it makes me know the face without having seen it." 
 
 " Do you take it to be fair or brown, sir?" said T, smiling.
 
 234 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 " I know nothing of that," returned he; "but I'll bo 
 sworn it is a face you have reason to love, sir, if you know 
 the lady." 
 
 Harriet came in as he was uttering these words, and I 
 said to her, " Here is a gentleman, my love, who has been 
 panegyrizing your face, though he says he never saw it." 
 
 " Perhaps," observed Harriet, with a passing inclination 
 of her head, and a smile between archness and modesty, 
 "that is the reason." 
 
 "I can only say, madam," returned the gentleman, with 
 a bow full of thanks, very serious, " that I really am sur- 
 prised at the sort of face I had pictured to myself, and the 
 wonderful exactness with which the fancy has been borne 
 out." 
 
 This likeness between an abstract idea in the stranger's 
 mind, and the realization of it in my charmer's face, gave 
 me a high opinion both of his intelligence and his habitual 
 good feeling, and I was not deceived, for, though I am not 
 in the habit of mc^king sudden intimacies, yet truth and 
 right feeling are mighty ; and from this little incident 
 sprang a friendship which makes me seem as if I had 
 known Jack Sutton these twenty years ; — but more of him 
 by and by. 
 
 A History of Courtships would be a curious book — I 
 mean a selection of real specimens of the way in which 
 married people first became acquainted with each other, 
 and how the wooer thrived and the lady consented. What 
 a number of things should we be made aware of — that we 
 guess already ! And yet what interesting surprises there 
 would be for us ! What a courtship of conveniences ! 
 what passions of estates ! what headlong youthful creduli- 
 ties ; what maturer artifices ; what folly ! what knavery ! 
 what virtue/ What disinterested generosity should we 
 not sometimes find under the most worldly appearances ! 
 — what worldliness under the most generous ! What a 
 nauseous heap of coldness and commonplace ! What
 
 A YEAR OF HONEYMOONS. 235 
 
 frightful disgusts ! What prospective ill-treatment ! What 
 selfish imprudence ! What prudence most horrible ! What 
 awful unfitness ! What enchanting truth, good-hcarted- 
 ness, and love ! How should we not feel for the youth or 
 the maiden about to be sacrificed to the worst passions in 
 a mask ! How not laugh, and yet feel pity, for the poor 
 fool who takes the most ridiculous airs for a bewitching 
 elegance, and the wretched imposition upon him for a 
 delightful compliment ! How not be ready to cry out 
 in a horror of warning, when we see a good and sensible 
 heart, in a moment of weakness or vanity, ahout to ally 
 itself to some dull wretch of wealth or family, whose want 
 of all grace, perhaps of all goodness, will pollute even the 
 pity it shall afterwards take upon its misfortune, in the 
 doubt whether it had a right to mistake so far ! 
 
 But I shall be moralizing on people's misfortunes, 
 instead of recording my own luck. For, be it observed, I 
 attribute my good fortune to nothing but itself. I can see 
 where other people are deceived and taken in, but well do 
 I know that I might have been taken in myself. I have 
 too good an opinion of the sex in general to be secure 
 against a mistake in the particular. The truth is, I have 
 been in love three times before, but circumstances hin- 
 dered the inclination from coming to anything. In one 
 instance, I trust, there was no great demerit on either 
 side ; in the two others, I would fain intimate, in as polite 
 and modest a manner as possible, that I think I had an 
 escape. I make these allusions with the less scruple, 
 because I write under a feigned name, and nobody will 
 know who I am. I am at once anonymous and tender — 
 the very Junius of a soft secret. 
 
 But why do I talk of escapes 1 Was not everything an 
 escape that procured me the bliss of my present con- 
 nection 1 Could anybody but Harriet have made me so 
 entirely happy, whatever happiness they might have 
 bestowed upon others'? Could any one else have Ijeen
 
 236 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 SO considerate to what is defective in me, as well as 
 suitable to what is better ! You may call this the language 
 of a lover, but I care not. I am a lover ; and what does 
 that prove but that my case is made out, and that Harriet 
 has a husband who is in love with her in the twenty-third 
 month of his marriage ? I have acknowledged to you, 
 dear, kind, listening, and trusting readers (whose attention 
 does honour to your hearts), that good luck has had the 
 main hand in constructing this marriage. I must add, 
 that circumstances were every way lucky for me, and that 
 the extreme resemblance of our fortunes, in many par- 
 ticulars, was no mean part of it. We both thought very 
 much alike, were both orphans, both disposed to the same 
 kind of life, and our incomes were pretty nearly of a size 
 — mine, by good luck, was somewhat the larger; and 
 Harriet's aunt, with whom she lived, was a good soul, with 
 a moderate ambition, and heartily content to put an end 
 to her anxieties for her niece's welfare by consigning her 
 to the care of a man she thought honest. 
 
 Readers — This was, indeed, a combination of circum- 
 stances, and takes off a little of the edge of our astonish- 
 ment. But still the two years of honeymoons ! One is 
 prodigious ; but two ! ! 
 
 Writer — You will be pleased to recollect I have only 
 undertaken to describe one ; but it is much to have got 
 you to allow that. I will tell you the secret, however, 
 at once. It consisted, first, in our being the sole addi- 
 tional advantage to one another, in our change of life ; 
 and, secondly, in our mixing up the pleasures of one 
 another's society with such as were independent of 
 vanity and fashion, and grounded in what is eternal. 
 
 You will have partly seen what I mean by the first 
 part of the secret, in what I have said about the equality 
 of our incomes. This made ns look for no change in 
 our mode of living, except what love bestowed upon us ; 
 and we began our intimacy, from the first moment of it,
 
 A YEAR OF nOXEYMOONS. L'37 
 
 in the spirit of this feeling. We did not think about 
 it, but we acted upon it instinctively ; and good fortune 
 assisted us. My courtship was one of the quietest in the 
 world. Harriet lived with her aunt, and I used to spend 
 every evening with both of them, reading and playing 
 music, or sometimes we went to the play, and in the 
 morning we visited exhibitions, or rode and took walks 
 out of town. I saw very little of her alone ; and, in 
 truth, though I desired it passionately, I loved her so, 
 that I did very well without it. I cannot describe the 
 transport, the internal feeling of haste and buoyancy, the 
 onentem proetrepidantem, with which I used to hurry off 
 to Wimpole Street after dinner ; or the amazing mixture 
 of rapture and tranquillity with which, on advancing to 
 the parlour door towards me (for she always did that 
 when she heard my knock), she held out both her hands, 
 and looked happiness into my eyes ; or the perfect 
 sympathy with which we used to fall to our books and 
 music after tea, or talk of her flowers, or recollect our 
 walks ; or, lastly, the mere bliss of being in her presence, 
 and sitting next her. Never did she quit or enter the 
 room but, if I did not follow her with my eyes, I did 
 with my heart. I had a great regard for her aunt 
 (heaven rest her kind soul !), but when the old lady 
 and T were left alone, the room appeared like an empty 
 well. 
 
 We had no expensive establishments to talk of. 
 There was no trousseau. I had no title to give her 
 (I own sometimes I wished I had) ; I had no box of 
 diamonds. I once regretted to her that I had no 
 diamonds. Never shall I forget her look and manner 
 tome. We happened to be alone. "Diajnonds/" said 
 she, looking at me with such beauty in her face, such 
 love and satisfaction, such an indescribable mixture of 
 liveliness, tenderness, and bewitching pleasure ! She 
 was going to add something, \mt the words faltered on
 
 238 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 her lips. It was as if she had kissed, nie, and could not 
 speak for love. 
 
 From this kind of life I bore her oft to a house a 
 little nearer the country. There was no change in our 
 ordinary habits. The very neighbourhood was the same. 
 Her aunt was more with us than at home. And we 
 made no ostentation of our marriage. We did not 
 proclaim what a wonderful thing it was for two persons 
 who loved one another, to come together; nor set the 
 neighbours and the country-people staring and making 
 themselves of our party, with the flare of our white 
 ribbons. People might think as they pleased. Thought 
 is free, and I did not wish to repress it. But with the 
 leave of those who insist in this manner upon calling 
 aloud for it, they are incompetent to the intensity of 
 their pleasures, or even to the imagination of them. 
 It is not as if all the world were made up of people 
 with good taste and real sympathy, or presented a very 
 golden age of ostlers and landladies. Too many wit- 
 nesses to the marriage are summoned, and people taught 
 to suspect that the happiness can neither be very 
 delicate, which encourages so many people to inquire 
 into it, nor very abundant, which must needs piece itself 
 out with ostentation. 
 
 Thus my bride (so to speak) received nothing from me 
 in marriage but myself, — no title, no riches, no glare ; 
 nothing opposed to our present or future happiness ; 
 and I from her received only herself, — the greatest, it 
 is true, of all treasures : but I mean we had nothing in 
 our fortunes calculated to divert ourselves artificially 
 from one another, or to compete the mastery with us in 
 our hearts : nor, on the other hand, were we forced upon 
 the sole idea of each other for happiness, without its 
 being secured by the endless resources of intellectual 
 pleasures, and the love of nature. 
 
 But, above all, we knew, and did justice to what was
 
 A TEAR OF HONEYMOONS. 239 
 
 good in one another, and we had good tempers. I 
 have the advantage of my wife, in being able to argue 
 better, and to give reasons for what I think; but, on 
 the other hand, as I frequently tell her, with an amazed 
 kind of delight, she seems to me to have an instinctive 
 perception of truth and right, quicker than anybody I 
 know, and not standing in need of reasoning. She can- 
 not describe it so well, nor say so many words about it, 
 but there is nobody whose opinion I would sooner ask 
 in a matter of importance than hers, even if she were 
 not the woman I love. She feels Avhat is best to be 
 done, before she has time to think it. It is a kind of 
 intuition, which I have observed in other sweet natures, 
 particularly among females, and seems to result from 
 some perfection of organization, both physical as well 
 as moral — something that has no contradiction in it, and 
 furnishes no wrong bias. They go direct to the matter 
 like the sunbeams. They make peace and happiness, as 
 the bees make honey. 
 
 Female Readers (aside) — Upon my word, a very know- 
 ing young gentleman, and one who understands us. Ah ! 
 if Mr. Jones did but understand as well ! 
 
 Ah ! if Mr. Smith did but understand • 
 
 Ah ! if Mr. Tomkins ! 
 
 Ah ! if Mr. Jeflfs ! 
 
 Male Readers — Well, sir, all this is very pretty, but 
 you have yet to give us your proofs. We hope they 
 may be real ones, and convince us that you are not 
 likely to find yourself deceived. You are of the faction, 
 we perceive, of the Addisons, Sir Eichard Steelcs, and 
 others, who believed in a certain heau ideal of humanity, 
 particularly among the ladies. 
 
 Writer — The faction! Congreve, I think, was not 
 much of their faction, to judge by his plays; and yet, in 
 one of the few instances where he is known to have 
 spoken seriously on the subject in his own person, he
 
 240 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 has said one of tlie loveliest tilings about a woman ever 
 uttered by man. I used hardly to believe it possible 
 that the author of the Way of the World and the Double 
 Dealer could have said it, but a perusal of his affectionate 
 dedication of Dryden's plays to the Earl of JTewcastle 
 convinced me that he really could utter fine sentiments. 
 The saying I allude to is this, and it is a volume of gold. 
 T would apply it to Harriet : 
 
 " To love her is a liberal education." 
 
 Male Headers — Well, sir, we will allow it to be very 
 prettily said, and that there are ladies, no doubt, who 
 would make very pretty schoolmistresses. But the proof, 
 the proof is the thing. You have yet got to describe us 
 your T/ear of honeymoons ! The whole twelve months 
 is before you, and you really propose to fill it up ! All 
 with honey ! 
 
 Writer — It is not I that shall fill it up ; it is love, 
 nature, and the love of books. Our honey is still made 
 after the fashion of the bees. It comes from a thousand 
 floAvers, 
 
 JANUARY. 
 
 I have informed the reader that I was married in 
 Scotland, on the first of January, one thousand eight 
 nundred and thirty-one (I love to write the words at 
 full length). Harriet and her aunt had been on a visit 
 there to some relations, and I joined them, and brought 
 my charmer away. The indifferent formality of the 
 ceremony, and the presence of total strangers, enabled 
 me to go through the task with proper self-possession ; 
 nor, indeed, should I have been deficient in that respect 
 anywhere, for something of the like reasons. But, on 
 coming away to the carriage, I seemed to forget every- 
 thing but my happiness ; nor was Harriet, whose words
 
 A YEAR OF HONEYMOONS. 24 1 
 
 were almost inaudible, aud who, with her hand trembling 
 in mine, relied on me for self-possession enough for both 
 of us, in a more collected state. All that I remember is, 
 that I was delightfully acquiescent with everytliing. I 
 mechanically paid everybody treble what was expected, 
 and believe I should have given my hat away, had any 
 one chosen to ask me for it. Somebody saying it was 
 fine weather, I replied, "By all means;" and Harriet, 
 receiving a knock and an apology from a great girl, who 
 came running into the doorway as we were leaving it, 
 said, " I am much obliged to you." 
 
 These mishaps were maliciously told us by our good 
 aunt, when she came to town. She had not overlooked 
 the smallest particular connected with the day, down to 
 the very shoes of the officiator's daughter ; and indeed 
 astonished me by the extent of her information. She 
 was an excellent soul, but, having so much knowledge, 
 and wanting a little more, she did not always know 
 what to do with the knowledge she had. She had 
 harangued me so long that morning upon affairs of love 
 and marriage, and the difference of Scotch and English 
 customs, that, happening to speak of novels, I was 
 tempted to object to the formality of Sir Walter Scott's 
 heroines, and said I should have felt it an absolute 
 indelicacy to marry them. This she could not com- 
 prehend; and, notwithstanding what I had been just 
 before observing, she exclaimed, not without some look 
 of alarm, " Dear me ! Then I suppose, Mr. Dalton, you 
 could not at all have put up with such people as Sophia 
 Western, or Miss Darnel, or Amelia, or Mrs. Coventry's 
 ladies, much less any in Mrs. Bage's or Madame 
 Riccoloni's novels 'J " I saw it would lead us into an 
 awkward discussion to undeceive her, so I parried the 
 question. She would not, however, let the subject 
 drop, but plagued poor Harriet with it for near an hour, 
 and I never saw my charmer's sincerity or address put 
 
 Q
 
 242 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 SO liard to the test, or come off with more delightful 
 colours. 
 
 I did not feel in a real world, till I got into the 
 post-chaise, and was fairly on the road home with my 
 bride. Everything else seemed a dream and au im- 
 pertinence. 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 (Here a thousand reflections are left out.) 
 
 I shall not say what pictures we drew of our present 
 and future felicity, and our past secret feelings towards 
 each other. Our spirits required a poise, and we resorted 
 to poetry and the landscape. Poetry was prose com- 
 pared with our feelings. Harriet was versed in all the 
 romance of the road, and we lived in succession with the 
 borderers, and hermits, and Eobin Hood, and the Babes 
 and Eobin Eed-breast, and Milton's Arcades, for every 
 fresh county, or quarter of the compass, brought its 
 story with it. I daresay we lived in this sort of company 
 each day for an hour. 
 
 In the evening, when w^e thought it was a little after 
 dark, we found ourselves arrived at a seven o'clock dinner, 
 and our first stage for the night. Our house of reception 
 was one of these delightful solid old inns which are made 
 out of ancient private houses, with thick walls, warm 
 oak wainscots, huge old screens, noble mantelpieces, fine 
 ample staircases, and a mixture of large and little rooms, 
 with seats in the windows, and a great tree here and there 
 to look upon. There was a glorious fire on the hearth, 
 and a carpet like a double one to one's feet. A brief and 
 elegant dinner was quickly displaced by tea, with little 
 cups, that looked as old as the time of Lady Suffolk. 
 Mistress Millet, aunt's own woman, and Tom Hand, my 
 valet, an hereditary secret-keeper, piqued themselves upon 
 saying nothing about a wedding-day ; and after tea arose 
 a good handsome tempest out of doors, just enough to put
 
 A YEAR OF HONEYMOONS. 243 
 
 an end to all noise but its own, and only noisy enough to 
 make winter music at intervals, and to seem as if it bound 
 the fine old stout house closer together and all that it 
 contained. 
 
 {Here a thousand pages are omitted.) 
 
 The poets are understood to know more about love 
 than other people, and very fine things they have said 
 about it, but I am not aware of any one of them who has 
 done justice to a bridal. Indeed, it is not to be expected 
 they should. The Avoiid is not honest enough to hear 
 them, or perhaps a little spice of the " ineffable," or the 
 " dicere nefas " is necessary to our human conceptions of 
 happiness. The angel in Milton, 
 
 "With a smile that glowM 
 Celestial rosy red, love's proper hue," 
 
 [)arried the inquiries of Adam himself, in his state of 
 innocence, relative to love-making in heaven. Take all 
 the passages, however, from the poets who have touched 
 upon the subject, whether professed amatory poets, or 
 epical, or philosophical, or in whatever spirit of gaiety 
 or sentiment they wrote,- — Homer, Theocritus, Catullus, 
 Ariosto, Boiardo, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Beaumont 
 and Fletcher, Thomson, Burns, Eamsay, Shelley, Keats, 
 and a hundred others, — and the imagination may arrive at 
 some faint glimpse of a remote notion of the borders of 
 the felicity of an espousal. Some afford a hint of the 
 vivacity, others of the gravity, others of the pride, the 
 dignity, the religion. For no happy feeling, of whatso- 
 ever sort, grave or gay, is missed in a genuine love. I 
 once heard a red- faced fellow in a tavern (Lord S.) compare 
 a kiss with a bottle of wine, and laugh it to scorn in com- 
 parison. "What is the touching of a lip," quoth lie, "to 
 the real, solid, masculine, manifest satisfaction of a bottle
 
 244 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 of good port 1 " and having said this with an air of logical 
 triumph, he tossed off another glass, and then stamped 
 the foot of it on the table, and smacked his lips with a 
 " Hah !" as if he had settled the matter for over. A man 
 of gallantry might with equal good argument have reversed 
 the question, and smacked the lips of the barmaid. But 
 the truth is, his lordship should first have taken out of 
 the bottle of port almost all that gives value to it — genuine- 
 ness, sociality, its effects on the spirits, etc. A man of 
 pleasure of this sort is not competent to his own appella- 
 tion. AU the lips he has known have been lips, and 
 nothing else — at least, to him. There was no love in 
 them, and consequently little in the kiss. Now, a lip 
 that has love in it has heart and soul, and a certain 
 portion of grace and imagination ; and a true lover, in 
 kissing the lip, kisses all these qualities. A fellow like 
 this stupid lord talks of a peach without flavour in it, or 
 without sense to perceive the flavour, and then says, 
 " What is a peach 1 " 
 
 Allow me to say that the greatest of our old poets, 
 probably out of a sense of their inability to say enough, 
 have overlaid their bridal narrations with too much 
 " pomp and circumstance." Spenser's famous " Epi- 
 thalamium," full of beauties, is too loud and splendid, and 
 calls for too many witnesses, like our white ribbons and 
 public marriages. There are too many "angels" at his 
 altar, and too much clergyman ; and he sets the bells 
 ringing too ostentatiously. He makes even the church- 
 organ " roar " (which is a fine daring word, too, and with 
 great truth in it) ; but he is so full of his triumph that, 
 upon the principle of extremes meeting, the very excess of 
 his worship and humbleness becomes a part of it. We 
 may say to him, as Villanor, in the tragedy of "Bren- 
 noralt," says to one who is describing the charms of a 
 young beauty with pertmacious minuteness: "Tyrant! 
 tyrant ! tyrant ! " He invests his bride with all sorts of
 
 A YEAR OF HONEYMOONS. 245 
 
 beauty, and glory, and superiority, purely that he may 
 sacrifice her the more victoriously to his will. It is a 
 fine poem, and by no means to be "curtailed," as Dr. 
 Aikin would have had it ; but there is more of the pride 
 than of the felicity of a wedding in it; and I will 
 venture to add, without using the word in a bad sense, 
 more of sensuality than affection. The virtue he most 
 insists upon in his bride is her modesty, which he pampers 
 like an epicure. The angelical hierarchy and his earthly 
 happiness are brought too much together ; yet with how 
 much beauty ! The following picture is a mixture of 
 Rubens and Raphael : — 
 
 ■■ Behold, -whiles she before the altar stands, 
 
 Hearing the holy priest that to her speaks, 
 And blesseth her ivith his two happy liands, 
 
 How the red roses flush up in her cheeks, 
 And the pure snow, with goodly vermill sta}ne 
 
 Like crimson dyde in grayne : 
 That even the angels, which continually 
 
 About the sacred altar doe remaine, 
 Forget their service, and about her fly, 
 Oft peeping in her face, that seems more fayre, 
 The more they on it stare. 
 
 "But her sad eyes, still fastened on the ground, 
 
 Are governed with goodly modesty, 
 That suffers not one look to glance awry. 
 
 Which may let in a little thought unsound. 
 "Wliy blush ye, love, to give to me your hand, 
 
 The pledge of all our band ! 
 Sing, ye sweet angels, alleluya sing. 
 That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring." 
 
 The evening star rises with all its beauty in the 
 following lines : — 
 
 'O 
 
 " Ah ! when will this long weary day have end. 
 And lende me leave to come unto my love ! 
 
 How slowly do tlie hours theyr numbers spend 
 How slowly does sad Time his feathers move! 
 
 Haste thee, O fayrest planet, to thy home 
 Witliin the westerne fome
 
 246 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 Thy tyred steedes long since have need of restc. 
 
 Long though it be, at last I see it gloom e ; 
 And the bright evening star with golden creaste 
 
 Appear e out of the west. 
 
 "Fayre childe of beauty! glorious lampe of love! 
 
 That all the host of heaven in rankes doost lead, 
 And guidest lovers through the night's sad dread, 
 
 How cheerfully thou lookest from above, 
 And seemst to laugh atwcen thy twinkling light. 
 
 As joying in the sight 
 Of these glad many, which for joy do sing. 
 That all the woods them answer, and their echo ring." 
 
 I must give another passage, exquisitely Spenserian. 
 It is a quintessence of him : — 
 
 " Now day is deon, and night is nighing fast, 
 Now bring the bryde into the brydall bower ; 
 
 The night is come, now soon her disaray, 
 And in her bed her lay ; 
 
 Lay her in lilies .and in violets. 
 
 And silken curtains over her display, 
 
 And oJourd sheets, and arras coverlets. 
 
 Behold how goodly my fair love does ly, 
 
 I n, proud humility J 
 
 Like unto Maia, when as Jove her took 
 la Tempe, lying on the floicery grass, 
 ^Twixt sleepe and ivake, after she weary teas. 
 
 With bathing in the Acidalian brooke." 
 
 Having ventured to qualify my praises in this matter, 
 of a poet wliom I reverence, I will grow still bolder, and 
 hazard an oly'ection to the bridal in Paradise Lost. This 
 also has too much angelic circumstance about it ; and we 
 can never fairly rid ourselves of the important event 
 hanging upon the fate of the married couple. They are 
 crushed between the weight of heaven and earth. Milton 
 writes about love and beauty like a proper poet; but, 
 with reverence be it spoken, something of the Puritan is 
 superadded, something too much of the "head matri- 
 monial," the lord and master. The "schoolmaster" had 
 begun to walk " abroad " in his time, and Adam is a little
 
 A YEAR OF HOXEYMOOXS. 247 
 
 too much of one. There is a bit of the celestial pedagogue 
 in him. I am afraid Milton talked somewhat too much 
 in the same style to his first wife, who ran away from 
 him. There is a time for all things. It has been thought 
 strange that Apollo, the god of poetry, was the most un- 
 successful wooer in Olympus ; but if he always talked as 
 he did to Daphne, about his knowledge and his physic, it 
 is no wonder. 
 
 Inventum medicina est, ojjiferque per orbem 
 Dicor," etc. 
 
 ^Metamorpk. lib. i. 
 
 "What pleasant poet is it who, writing on this passage, 
 says : — 
 
 "As he spoke the ■word physic, she darted outright ; 
 At the dreadful woid physic, she hastened her flight." 
 
 I fear that Sir John Suckling's honest "Ballad on a 
 Wedding" was thought more to the purpose by the gravest 
 ladies of that time, though the change of manners will 
 not allow a quoter to make much use of it in this. 
 
 "Her finger was so small, the ring 
 Would not stay on, which they did bring — 
 
 It was too wide a peck ; 
 And, to say truth (for out it must), 
 It look'd like the great collar (just) 
 
 About our young colt's neck. 
 
 "Iler feet beneath her petticoat, 
 Like little mice stole in and out, 
 
 As if they feared the light. 
 But oh ! she dances such a way ! 
 No sun upon an Easter day 
 
 Is half so fine a sight. 
 
 • •...•• 
 
 "iler lips were red, and one was thin, 
 Compared with that was next her chin, 
 Some bee had stung it newly.' 
 
 "We are not to think the possessor of this lip could not 
 talk as fine sense, or listen to it, as any woman in the
 
 248 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 land, or be as truly loving and affectionate. Nay, we 
 may suppose it the more. One good quality is apt to 
 imply another. Harriet had just such a lip, with a little 
 chin under it, and a dimple, and may I never think of a 
 bee again when I look at it, if I ever heard more sensible 
 things uttered by any female in town. Certainly I never 
 heard half so many affecting ones, or playful. Her mouth 
 is so expressive, that I know by the least movement of 
 it what sort of thing she is going to say, even if I do not 
 see her eyes. If I see those at the same time, and they look 
 at me, she is apt to forget what she was going to say. 
 
 I will finish these quotations with a homely, I should 
 rather call it a domestic, copy of verses, written by an 
 amiable man (Dr. Cotton the physician), which are 
 excellent of their kind, and sufficiently suggestive to a 
 good, handsome imagination ; nor will I apologize, to the 
 Ugliest circles, for the cat or the tea-kettle. I could 
 mention "Squares" and "Places," in which it would be 
 necessary to excuse these appendages of a fireside fifty 
 years back ; but firesides of true refinement do what 
 they please in these matters. I have drunk tea as early 
 
 as seven o'clock, with Lady L , made out of a kettle 
 
 on the very fire before us, when, if I had gone a little 
 farther eastward, and said I liked such a thing, I should 
 have been asked if I had come out of Wapping. 
 
 "The hearth was clean, the fire was clear, 
 The kettle on for tea ; 
 Palemon in his elbow chair, 
 As blest as man could be. 
 
 ' ■ Clarinda, who his heart possest, 
 And was his new-made bride, 
 With head reclined upon his breast, 
 Sat toying by his side. 
 
 "Stretched at his feet, in happy state, 
 A fav'rite dog was laid, 
 By whom a little sportive cat 
 In wanton humour play'd.
 
 A YEAR OF noXEYMOONS. 249 
 
 Clavinda's hand he gently press'd ; 
 
 She stole an amorous kiss, 
 And, blushing, modestly confess'J 
 
 The fulness of her bliss. 
 
 ' Palemon, with a heart elate, 
 Pray'd to almighty Jove, 
 That it might ever be his fate 
 Just so to live and love. 
 
 "Be this eternity, he cried, 
 And let no more be given ; 
 Continue thus my loved fireside, 
 I ask no other heaven." 
 
 I should grudge these quotations about other people's 
 happiness, even on such a subject, if I had not enjoyed 
 them a thousand times with Harriet. I have told the 
 reader that one of the great secrets of our happiness is 
 the enjoyment of many tilings in common, poetry, music, 
 painting, riding, and -walking, etc. Each of us felt that 
 the other's presence and love Avere sufficient for happi- 
 ness, but each had a diffidence as to the power of making 
 it so, and was Avilling to aid the attractiveness of love 
 with whatever else is lovable. Even Angelica and 
 Medoro in Ariosto, who are a personification of young 
 love and its absorptions, wandered forth into the woods, 
 and invested themselves with the charms of nature. 
 
 "Se stava a I'ombra, o se del tetto usciva, 
 Avea di e notte il bel giovine allato : 
 
 l\Iattina e sera, or questa or quella riva 
 Cercando andava, o qualche verde prato. 
 
 Nel mezzo giorno un antro li compriva, etc. 
 
 ' ' In doors and out of doors, by night, by day, 
 She had the charmer by her side for ever : 
 
 Morning and evening they would stroll away, 
 Now by some field, or little tufted river, 
 
 They chose a cave in middle of tlie day." 
 
 Our landscapes in January arc not like those of a 
 southern summer. But nature never fails those who do
 
 250 LEIGH nuxT. 
 
 not fail her ; and my bride and I no sooner got home, 
 than we continued our daily exercise. Our house, being 
 near the Eegent's Park, commands both town and country. 
 If it was fine, we enjoyed the clear frost, and the warm 
 looks of the farm-houses with their haystacks ; and we 
 noticed the birds, and the trees (always beautiful, even 
 with the leaves off), and the red holly-berries. If the 
 weather barely allowed a walk or a ride, we made a 
 merry boast of our courage ; and I delighted to see 
 Harriet wrapped up in her furs, or even returning home 
 with her lovely curls dabbled with wet. Oh, ye common- 
 place, effeminate, inactive voluptuaries ! How little do 
 ye know what you are about ; or what a sharpness and 
 swiftness of delight exercise puts into the blood ! Besides, 
 I had her arm in mine all the way ; she was a part of 
 me ; and she occasionally pressed my arm to her side, 
 with a stolen look such as only true love can give. If 
 on horseback, I had the pleasure of taking care of her, 
 for she is not a bold rider ; only she says that when she 
 is on horseback with me, she seems to be "included in 
 my security." In fact she looks so, and dances away 
 on the saddle as confidently as the best. The motion 
 sometimes forces her to raise her voice in speaking, in 
 order that I may hear her; and, among the innumerable 
 charms which affection helps us to discern in those we 
 love, I have noticed what a peculiar beauty there is at 
 such times in the elevation of a voice naturally soft and 
 low. The sound comes dancing to my ears across the 
 road, as the sight of her does to my eyes. I have 
 observed that people on the footpath sometimes give a 
 smiling look of admiration, and seem to think how happy 
 we are. The poet truly says of one of his heroines — 
 
 '"ller voice was ever soft, gentle, and low, 
 An excellent thing in woman.'' 
 
 But, with regard to the lowness, he should have added, 
 " except occasionally on horseback."
 
 A YEAR OF nONEYMOOXS. 251 
 
 As we said little at first of our return to London, our 
 friends left ns almost entirely together for several weeks ; 
 and partly out of dislike of proclaiming ourselves we 
 scarcely went into town. Our time passed much in the 
 following manner. "VVe had not yet chalked out any 
 system : Harriet had her music, and books, and work to 
 attend to, and I my books and writing ; for not being of 
 any profession, and having found the inconveniences of 
 it, I had long been getting together materials for a 
 volume of criticism tipon such subjects as had pleased 
 me at the University. The feelings already alluded to 
 had made each of us resolve, in a half- conscious way, to 
 prosecute our respective occupations without intermission; 
 but somehow they came to nothing. We were always 
 going to begin; and did, in fact, do so; we began, and 
 re-began : but, I know not how it was, the time fled, and 
 we found ourselves together again, almost as soon as we 
 parted. After breakfast, having seen to the household 
 arrangements for the day, we looked at the garden and 
 greenhouse to see how the crocuses, lilacs, lilies of the 
 valley, roses, hyacinths, arbutus, hollies, and pyracantha, 
 went on ; and this took us more time than we expected. 
 Harriet then touched her pianoforte, or drew, or took up 
 a book, or worked, and I went to my study ; but one of 
 us had some question to ask, or some little notice of the 
 weather, or a book to recommend ; and this, besides the 
 time it took in going backwards and forwards, led to 
 other questions which required discussion ; and so the hour 
 came for going out, and then I was obliged to put up my 
 papers, because health was the first thing to be attended 
 to ; and so we went out ; and then came dinner ; and 
 after dinner we did not profess to work ; and then came 
 tea ; and then a book, one page of which sometimes took 
 us lip a wonderful time ; and tlien came a duet ; and so 
 the days went round and round, and it required an effort 
 of reflection to recollect that all the world was not made
 
 252 LEIGH HUNT 
 
 up of idleness, and happiness, and being grateful for 
 it. 
 
 Christmas and Twelfth Xight we absolutely forgot. 
 Harriet's maid reminded her of the latter, and we sent 
 out, and got a huge cake, just as the shops were about to 
 close ; for we love old holidays : so w^e gave it to the 
 servants to make merry with, first having cut off a good 
 lump, over which we were as merry as they, tliough there 
 were but two of us. 
 
 I laughed at the notion of our being king and queen by 
 ourselves, without having a court ; but my charmer said 
 she would be no queen, she Avould be Viola, in the play 
 of " Twelfth Night," and I should be the duke. " Oh ho ! " 
 (luoth I insolently ; " a pretty Viola you for * concealing ' 
 your love, and having a 'green and yellow melancholy.'" 
 
 "No," said she, "it shall be the play with a new 
 reading, all happy and only pretending to concealment, 
 in order to be more candid ; " and then, shaking her curls 
 at me, vpith the greatest mixture conceivable of archness 
 and tenderness, she repeated, — 
 
 " Jly father had a daughter loved a man, 
 As it might be, were I a woman, 
 I should your lordship." 
 
 Next day the servants were very grateful, and said so 
 many things about our " thinking of them," that Harriet 
 blushed. Dear soul ! she amply deserved their praise ; 
 for one of the great reasons why I love her is, that she 
 thinks of others as well as of herself, thus paying me 
 the highest of all compliments — that of individual pre- 
 ference, in the midst of an unbounded sympathy. 
 
 FEBRUAEY. 
 
 It was fine to see how my charmer and I triumphed 
 over the bad weather of February. We treated it with a
 
 A YEAR OF HONEYMOONS. 253 
 
 pleasant sj^itc. AVe had our revenge of it. The worse 
 it was out of doors, the better we made it within. 
 Ours was truly the "sunshine of the breast," none the 
 worse for a good fire, great thick curtains, huge cushioned 
 sofas, books, music, pictures, and good health. When I 
 looked throucrh the window and found the whole scene 
 before us a mass of rain, mistiness, chillness, and mud, 
 I would turn to Harriet, with her warm heart in her 
 warm dress, and think of the blessed climate I had 
 within doors. Some such dialogue woidd then ensue as 
 the following : — 
 
 " It is impossible to go out to-day, Harriet," 
 " Impossible, Charles." 
 
 "Impossible even to take the carriage — the horses 
 would sufier." 
 
 "And the coachman." 
 
 " He would. We'll take our walk then in-doors, 
 shan't we 'i " 
 
 " That will be just the thing." 
 
 " People might oftener walk in-doors if they chose. 
 It is very healthy; it is exercise, you know." 
 " Yes ; and so convenient, Charles." 
 This word " convenient," the reader must know, is a 
 piece of insolence in Harriet. She means that I can 
 walk in-doors with my arm round her waist, which I 
 have sometimes complained I cannot do abroad. So I 
 punish her for it. 
 
 Our walk is only through a suite of three rooms, but 
 two of them are long ; all are hung with paintings, and 
 part of the delight of our promenade is to enjoy the 
 paintings as we go, and live in their scenery. By this 
 means we take excursions into Italy and Arcadia, and 
 call upon some divine friends, Avho have eyes and 
 expressions of countenance equalled only by one of their 
 visitors, and to whom we have been introduced by 
 Giorgione, Guido, and others. I am not rich enough
 
 254 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 to possess more than two or three originals of the great 
 masters, but we have many excellent copies, some of 
 them by the masters themselves when they were young ; 
 and with these, and the landscapes around them, we are 
 as intimate as if they were old friends, and Italy was 
 next door. Our paintings are windows, through which 
 we look upon a bluer climate, or rooms with their 
 partition walls thrown down, and bringing us in com- 
 pany with some of the noblest and most beautiful of 
 their inmates. The only fault, as far as concerns our 
 walk, is that we sometimes stop too long, and that 
 some sweet speech or natural remark of Harriet's makes 
 me forget every prospect before me, but that of her true, 
 sweet face. 
 
 Then, of an evening, during this dreary month, we 
 used to read the most beautiful descriptions of summer 
 time and rural enjoyment in the poets, not because w^e 
 needed them, for we needed nothing, but partly out of 
 a pretence that w^e did so, partly because so intoxicating 
 a love as ours was too good to drink every moment, and 
 partly from a feeling already mentioned, of a pleasant, 
 wilful spite to the bad Aveather. Sometimes it was I 
 that read, sometimes Harriet, but, merry as she is, the 
 dear creature's voice would falter too often in some of 
 the passages. There is a famous one in Thomson, in 
 which she could not get further than the word " beings." 
 
 "But happy they ! the happiest of their kind ! 
 Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate 
 Their hearts, their fortunes, and their heings blend. 
 'Tis not the coarser lie of human laws, 
 Unnatural oft, and foreign to the mind. 
 That binds their peace ; but harmony itielf, 
 Attuning all their passions into love ; 
 Where friendship full exerts her softest power; 
 Perfect esteem enliven'd by desire 
 Ineffable, and sympathy of soul ; 
 
 Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will, 
 "With boundless confidence."
 
 A YEAR OF HONEYMOONS. 255 
 
 We persevered, however, in going out when the 
 weather allowed us no real excuse. I thought, besides 
 the reasons before mentioned, that a certain manly 
 respect for the exercise was proper on my side, and that 
 Harriet would think the better of me for it; and, for 
 her part, she had a similar instinct for the preservation 
 of health and its graces. Out, therefore, we went, as in 
 January, — often when we met not a single out-of-cloor(^r 
 besides, at least none equally bent upon exercise for its 
 own sake. We spared the servants and horses when we 
 did not spare ourselves. In the milder days of February 
 there are some glimpses of spring, which we did not 
 fail to notice. We hailed the "pale primrose" in sun- 
 shine almost as pale. We agreed that it was a pity the 
 Lamium jjurjjuerum in the hedges Lad no better English 
 name than the "dead nettle," and that it was foolish to 
 give pretty things disagreeable appellations; — a word 
 with no meaning but one may be as uncouth of sound 
 as it pleases, provided it belong to something pleasant ; 
 but why associate melancholy ideas with agreeable objects? 
 We felt grateful for the warmth of the crocus in the 
 cottage gardens, and loved the new daisies, and vindi- 
 cated the claim of the elder-tree to a more general 
 admiration. The sight of the first buds on the trees 
 was a treasure to us. We saw the whole spring and 
 summer in them. Harriet made such a panegyric on 
 the hue of the crocus, when she first saw it, that we 
 fell into some very pretty, poetical, pictorial, classical, 
 romantic talk upon Hymen and the ancient poets, and 
 his saffron or crocus-coloured vest ; and I will venture 
 to say there was not a bit of pedantry in our discourse, 
 though I quoted Latin and Greek. Love and learning 
 go well together, provided there is as much love in the 
 learning, as learning in the love. My charmer, as 1 
 conversed about Hymen and the crocuses, and gradually 
 got into other loving quotations full of tenderness and
 
 256 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 domestic pleasure, felt the tiutli of tliis maxim so 
 strongly, that she resolved to become acquainted with 
 Loth languages, and read their most beautiful poems 
 under my direction, in order, as she prettily said, that 
 there might be " no heart in a meaning, into which she 
 could not thoroughly enter with me." But Ave agreed 
 to say nothing about the new accomplishment, unless 
 questioned on the subject, or to very select people, who 
 could give her credit for remaining as much a woman as 
 ever, and wearing as unaffected stockings ! So we are 
 very particular on this point, and I must hereby give 
 notice that this part of my present writing is a kind of 
 stage-icJiisjjer, to be heard by none but such as have a 
 right to hear it ; people who have too much merit of 
 their own to be jealous of a little addition to the stock 
 of others, and who can distinguish the graces from the 
 airs of scholarship. Harriet v/as already a good Italian 
 as well as French scholar, of the lighter sort ; and if her 
 stockings are now somewhat blue, I can assure the 
 reader it is the tenderest and handsomest blue in the 
 world, — the sweetest violet colour in Theocritus. The 
 greatest iunoramus of a man need not be afraid of her 
 company, for she is too good-natured to mortify any one 
 knowingly, and her accomplishments she keeps for those 
 who like them. She is of opinion with myself, that 
 women who are unpleasant in consequence of a little 
 unusual scholarshij), would be as unpleasant, perhaps 
 more so, without it, and that it is as bad a symptom to 
 grow less agreeable, from an acquaintance with the 
 beauties of the ancient poets, as it would be for a young 
 face to look the less attractive for being adorned with 
 the roses and vine-leaves of which they speak. 
 
 Behold us, then, on one of the worst days in February, 
 varying our usual occupations with a sudden heap of 
 Excerj)ta and Delectuses ; and Harriet, half in jest, half 
 in earnest, with a pretty mixture of confidence and mis-
 
 A YEAR OF HONEYMOONS 257 
 
 giving, and a breath in her voice saying, '' A7)io, I love," 
 and " Vocative, o." We soon, however, exchanged that 
 plan for Jacotot and other maturer systems. We talked 
 of Eloisa and jNIadame Dacier, and other ladies who 
 united learning with love ; and, I must confess, got on 
 very slowly. It is but of late that my friend reckons 
 herself able to encounter a reasonable Idyll or Anacreontic, 
 with a dictionary by her side, and she can manage a bit 
 of Anacreon better than Horace ; for after a little trial 
 of Latin, we resolved upon making our serious commence- 
 ment with Greek, which, we are convinced, is the more 
 loving, as well as the wealthier language. The Latin, 
 however, has pretty pickings, as, for example, the follow- 
 ing, which I made haste, among others, to lay before my 
 pupil for her opinion — 
 
 " At Acme leviter caput reflectens, 
 
 Et dulcis pueri ebrois ocellos 
 
 Illo purpureo ore siiaviata, 
 
 Sic, inquit, mea vita, Septimille, — 
 
 Huic lino domino usque serviamus, 
 
 Ut multo milii major acriorque 
 
 Ignis mollibus ardet in medullis. 
 
 Hoc ut dixit, Amor sini&tram ut ante, 
 Dextram sternuit approbationem. " 
 
 It is part of a bridal picture in Catullus. There is a 
 beautiful version of it by Cowley, but, as I cannot 
 remember all his lines, I must piece them out with 
 inferior ones — 
 
 "But she her purple mouth with joy" — 
 
 (Tlie ancient purple is to be taken for the quint- 
 essence of the modern red.) 
 
 " But she her purple mouth with joy 
 Stretching to the dtlicious boy, 
 Kissed his reeling, hovering eyes. 
 And 'Oh, my love, my life!' replies, 
 ' So may our constant service bo 
 To this divinest deity, 
 B
 
 258 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 As with a transport doubly true 
 
 He thrills your Aclime's being through.' 
 
 She said ; and Love, on tip-toe near her, 
 Clapped his little hands to hear her." 
 
 My charmer took a dislike to Ovid for his "artifice," 
 and "want of heart." Her dear honest nature had not 
 yet enabled her to suspect that there could be a sort of 
 professional sincerity in a writer, apart from a more 
 native impulse, and that Ovid, like so many good-natured 
 men after him, often wrote verses for the mere sake of 
 enjoying his reputation, and meant nothing but to be a 
 poet and wear laurel. I merrily completed her disgust 
 at the time, by quoting the beginning of Dryden's 
 translation of one of his elegies, addressed to a maiTied 
 lady— 
 
 *' Your husband will be with us at the treat ; 
 May that be the last supper he shall eat." 
 
 The plain-spoken, malignant force of this second line 
 forced her to laugh out of pure astonishment and indigna- 
 tion. 
 
 I remember the circumstances particularly well, because, 
 in a minute or two, after a thoughtful silence, she rose 
 up to lead me into one of our promenades up and down 
 the room ; and in something which she said, introduced 
 the mention of the word "husband," in the tone of 
 especial tenderness, as if to relieve it from the insult 
 put upon it by the two court poets, Ovid and his trans- 
 lator. And it was just after she had uttered this, that, 
 in casting my eyes out of the window, I saw something 
 which induced me to break gently away from her with 
 pretended gravity, and say, "Are you aware, madam, 
 that this affection of ours is very unbecoming, and that 
 we have no longer a right to be happy." 
 
 She looked a little startled in spite of her conscious- 
 ness of its being some jest, and said, " How so pray, — if 
 you please, Mr. Dalton ? "
 
 A YEAR OF HONEYMOONS. 259 
 
 " Madam," quoth I, " it is at this precise time of 
 day, five weeks ago, by a certain ceremony in Scotland, 
 that I was made the happiest man on earth, and here is 
 your aunt's carriage at the gate, bringing her to tell us 
 that our honeymoon is over by full seven days, and 
 therefore it is becoming in us to receive visits, and be 
 proper married people, and not pretend to be happier 
 than our neighbours." 
 
 "Was it, Charles'?" cried she; "then I will say of 
 that day, in the words of the sonnet we were reading 
 last night, — 
 
 " Benedetto sia il gioino, e '1 mese, e I'anno, 
 E la stagione, e '1 tempo, e Tora" — 
 
 nay, I must say in plain English, May God for ever 
 bless the day, and you, and both of us, and all the 
 world ! " 
 
 It is thus that, in some of her most affectionate 
 moments, the gratitude which she feels to heaven for 
 the pleasure of loving breaks out into a blessing on all 
 the creation, 
 
 I took her overflowing heart to mine, which she had 
 filled with a flattery so delicious ; and she had scarcely 
 recovered from her transport when her aunt came in, 
 dressed in the height of punctilious visitation, and after 
 vainly essaying to pay some formal compliment, threw 
 her arms about her neck with " My dear, dear Harriet," 
 and burst into a mingled passion of gaiety and tears. 
 Had she been less amiable, Ave should have had a great 
 deal of these tears, for she felt the loss of her niece's 
 company, and was prone enough by nature to indulge 
 herself in the luxury of self-pity. Eut an excellent 
 breeding, of the old school, had taught her, on these 
 occasions, to see fair play between what was due to 
 herself and to others, and she quickly fell into the old 
 track, and was as much at home as if she had been in
 
 260 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 her own house. Still there was a slowness of under- 
 standing about her, that did not enable her to see into 
 the nicety of matters quite as well as the generality of 
 her kindred, and Harriet was accustomed at times to 
 manifest a little confusion in her society, as she did at 
 this moment, which made her aunt observe, " Well, 
 child, you do not think me in a hurry, I hope. It is 
 now a good five weeks since dear Mr. Dalton took you 
 away, and you know you are now ranked among old 
 married people, and need not object to seeing all the 
 world." 
 
 " Dearest aunt, I am sure I am most heartily glad to see 
 you, and I am sure that you know it." 
 
 "Do I not V (with a kiss of great tenderness) ; " and it 
 is a blessing to me, I am sure, to think you are so well 
 matched, for she is a very good girl, is she not, Mr. 
 Dalton % and very well behaved, and quite after your own 
 heart, and will make a most exemplary " — " mother," she 
 ■was going to say ; but Harriet playfully clapped her 
 hand upon her mouth, and said, " You will make me 
 blush, dear aunt, if you praise me so much." 
 
 Blush she did, indeed, already, enough to make her 
 aunt stare. The truth is, that neither the word " mother," 
 nor any other connected Avith it, had yet been mentioned 
 between us. We had seemed, somehow, too blithe in our 
 very tenderness, to think of it with reverence enough, 
 and had instinctively waited in silence for the proper 
 time. 
 
 Yet from these and other evidences of what may be 
 called seasojiahleness of nature, which prompted Harriet 
 to speak or be silent according as the occasion warranted, 
 I discovered that Mrs. "W. had set her down for " a very 
 good girl and affectionate, but cold ; " and it seems that I 
 partook largely of the same suspicion, and that the dis- 
 course about the heroines of novels, mentioned in my 
 last, had completed it. The good lady was full of con-
 
 A YEAR OF HONEYMOONS. 261 
 
 ventional decorums, and would have been sliocked at 
 what she thought the least real impropriety ; but between 
 friends, especially females, she was apt to be a little freer 
 of her thoughts than occasion demanded; and if this 
 communieativenes was not responded to, she set down her 
 own coldness, which enabled her to talk so, to the account 
 of the more genial persons who kept their thoughts for 
 those to whom they belonged. 
 
 As our good kinswoman broke np the regularity of our 
 Ute-a-Ute life, and took us abroad, and brought us our 
 visitors, I will take the opportunity of observing that 
 Harriet manifested an exquisite propriety of feeling in 
 her new state before strangers, and in company. Not 
 because she studied it, but because the habits of behaviour 
 partly occasioned in her by the very inferiority of her 
 aunt's understanding, and partly by the moral grace of 
 her OAvn happy, harmonious nature, made her do so 
 Avithout effort. Nothing could be more touching to me 
 than her conduct to myself before others. And 1 hope I 
 deserved it, by doing my best to show how well it was 
 understood by me. She neither fell into the idle and 
 perilous mistake of treating me with affected indifference 
 or superiority, and allowing herself to use undervaluing 
 language about men and marriage ; nor was she at all 
 formal or prudish ; neither did she proclaim her triumph 
 or her self-will, and make others participators in the 
 interior of her feelings by turning privacy into publicity, 
 and thus spoiling and rendering equivocal the lovingness 
 of fond looks. She paid me the compliment of dividing 
 attention to me with others, secure that neither she nor I 
 should doubt the reality of tlie preference ; and when her 
 attention Avas more immediately directed to myself, so 
 perfectly beautiful and womanly was the respect with- 
 out the ostentation of it, the sweet gravity in general, and 
 the cordial and happy, yet somehow unparticular delight 
 when I said anything which pleased the company, that
 
 262 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 her very abstinence from any more special manifestation 
 of lier love became the counter^mrt of her reverse of it at 
 other times ; and my heart was often melting within me 
 (as the rogue knew) when people were least suspecting 
 anything of the matter. The only way in which her 
 feelings would sometimes escape her, so as to hazard the 
 discovery of a nice observer, was in the depression of her 
 voice towards the close of her speeches, if she had to say 
 much to me ; and I do not deny that, now and then, if 
 there was no possible chance of detection, she would 
 contrive to lay her hand upon mine in passing, or 
 whisper something that would rather have surprised 
 Mrs. W. 
 
 Thus did Harriet behave to me in the second, third, 
 fourth, and fifth months of our union, and thus does she 
 behave to me now, in the thirteenth. And thus, there- 
 fore, grew our year of honeymoons, which I undertake 
 to say were better and better, if possible, as the year 
 advanced; for, the more I knew of her heart, the more 
 reason I had to love it ; or, rather, the more it answered 
 the expectations I had formed of it as a lover. 
 
 But I am obliged to break off here, much against my 
 will, for I was going to take her to the theatre, to hear 
 some music, 
 
 MAECH. 
 
 If the rains of February did not keep my bride and 
 myself in-doors, still less were we kept in by the glad 
 Avinds of March, which dried up for us the winter 
 moisture, and prepared our paths through the green 
 meadows and our walks by "hedgerow elras." We had 
 no objection to a little of that "blowing about," which in 
 robust geniality tossed the arms of the trees, and set the 
 new flowers dancing. Harriet felt a difiiculty sometimes 
 in retaining her look of self-possession, without colouring.
 
 A YEAR OF HONEYMOONS. 263 
 
 when the wind set violently against her as a stranger 
 passed, drawing somewhat too beautiful an outline of her 
 figure j but it is part of the sweetness of her nature never 
 to be provoked by things inanimate, or where there is no 
 intention of offending her, and the next minute she would 
 half laugh, half talk away her blushes, the wind, as if in 
 gaiety, beating back the words into her mouth, like doves 
 into their nest. 
 
 We cared nothing for those east winds of which 
 sedentary people talk, except when the air was very 
 cutting indeed ; and then for luxury's sake we had a 
 favourite walk against a long sunny garden wall, over 
 which looked the scarlet - flowering maple, and the 
 blossoms of what is called the laurel — a name profanely 
 usurped by that glossy and handsome species of prunus ; 
 and in the tree inside the garden we heard the rooks in 
 motion, building their nests. This wall (which is a 
 resort of ours still on the like occasion ; indeed I might 
 write the account of all our months in the present tense 
 as well as the past, and in reading how we passed our time 
 tlien, you may pretty well guess how we pass it now) 
 belongs to a large square garden on a hill, the east side 
 of which is finely peppered when the wind sets in that 
 way, and now and then we would go round the other 
 three sides, purely to get a good sharp blow, and enjoy 
 with double delight the sense of quiet and warmth on 
 the sunny western side. Here there is a country road, a 
 good deal lower than the path, from which it is separated 
 by a rail as well as bank, and on the other side of the 
 road are some more garden- walls with their gates, and an 
 outhouse or two, with a little belfry or pigeon-house, 
 frequented by doves. It is pleasing to see how full of 
 beauty are the earliest smiles of spring, and how well 
 oven the leafless trees and the outhouses look in the 
 fine weather, merely because the sun shines upon them. 
 Indeed we have noticed the same effect in the middle
 
 264 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 of winter, especially if the twigs of the trees he of a 
 reddish hue. A jjoplar in a suburb garden will show it. 
 It is not spring alone which, in the beautiful language of 
 the poet, 
 
 " Kindles the birclien spray." 
 
 — Shelley's Fragment from Goethe. 
 
 We have seen this bit of country road, with its railed 
 path, its wall, its pigeon-houses, and its winter trees, 
 present a combination of natural and artificial elegance, 
 which would agreeably surprise many an eye that little 
 dreams of it, for want of a hint from those who have 
 been more fortunately instructed. And be it observed, 
 that outhouses and pigeon-houses may be handsomely 
 built, and in line architectural taste. (This reminds us 
 that we must look at Mr. Loudon's book upon Cottage 
 Architecture, and see what he has to say on that 
 matter.) There is a coach-house, or some building of 
 that kind, in a lane leading from the north-western side 
 of Hampstead Heath to a place called the Potteries (a 
 favourite spot of ours), which, though nothing but a 
 simple brick building with a blind face to the road, is a 
 real pleasure to the eye, and beats all to nothing the 
 mansion to which it belongs. 
 
 A dry-looking Reader with a red face — And so part of 
 your "Year of Honeymoons," Mr. Dalton, is passed in 
 looking at pigeon-houses and garden walls ! 
 
 Author — It is. We lose none of the pleasures that art 
 or nature has made us acquainted with, and the mutual 
 enjoyment of which serve to endear and enrich us to one 
 another. I told you so in my introduction. Hence it is 
 that we enjoy every moment of our existence ; and by 
 this means {aside), if you had known it, you might have 
 attained to better things in life than that doubting face 
 of yours, and that after-dinner complexion. 
 
 Part of Harriet's pleasure in our March walks consisted 
 in her detecting the early violet, for which she would let
 
 A YEAR OF riONEYMOOXS. 265 
 
 go my arm now and then as we passed a sunny bank, and 
 by degrees get me a good handful. She carried a phial 
 of water in her reticule, and thus preserved them. One 
 day she came down to dinner with a profusion of them 
 for a crown to her head, and with a sauciness peculiar to 
 herself, very cliarming for a certain air of deference 
 which, she contrives to mix with, it, thrust head and all 
 into my face to let me see "how sweet they were." 
 " Sweet indeed ! " cried I, detaining her clieeks in my 
 hand, and kissing the beautiful back of her neck. What- 
 ever ornament she puts on she only makes me think the 
 more of herself — herself the ornament of the ornament. 
 She repays the grace she receives from it with a double 
 return, moral and intellectual. There is the wish to please, 
 and the exquisite knowledge how to please. I noticed on 
 this occasion, as on a thousand others, how very beautiful 
 is the flowing line of the throat and neck to the shoulder, 
 especially when bending in this manner, with that gentle 
 acquiescent look natural to a woman, and showing to 
 perfection the contrast of its white colour, and its firm- 
 ness, with the meek, floating locks. Milton seems to 
 imply, though he does not expressly mention it, in the 
 passage where he describes Eve sitting and leaning 
 towards Adam " in meek surrender." And Akenside 
 notices a neighbouring beauty — the only poet, I believe, 
 who has — 
 
 " Hither, gentle maid, 
 Incline thy polish'd forehead : let thy eyes 
 Effuse tlie mihlness of their azure dawu ;■ 
 And may the fanning breezes waft aside 
 Thy radiant locks ; disclosing, as it bijnds 
 With airy softness from the marble neck, 
 The check fair-bloomiug, and the rosy lips." 
 
 — Pleasures of Imagination. 
 
 " Effuse the mildness of their azure dawn" 
 
 is a beautiful line. I have sometimes looked at a grace 
 of this sort in a woman, — I mean a beautifully-turned
 
 266 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 throat and bend of the neck, — and wondered how she coukl 
 have a face not entirely answering to it in sweetness of 
 expression. But she would have had it, if education 
 and pre-existent circumstances would have let her. Con- 
 tradiction of appearance in offspring implies contradiction 
 in progenitors of their fortunes. 
 
 There are moments when the very earliest indications 
 of spring in March have something in them almost 
 superior to the bursts of beauty in April and May. We 
 poetical pedestrians are grateful to the first peepings of 
 the buds, in proportion to their long absence. This is 
 particularly the case on a fine quiet day, when the winds 
 are silent, and the sun strikes warm upon one's cheek 
 or shoulder ; and when in some pretty secluded spot, 
 abundant in evergreens, and not without indications of 
 the new shrubs, you hear the thrush for the first time, 
 or the cooing of doves, or catch the miniature dinning 
 of the gnats. If the bee comes in with his richer 
 murmur, and plunges into some panting blossom, the 
 charm is complete. It is a boast of ours that we are 
 the first of all our acquaintances who hear the bee and 
 the cuckoo. We may add, all the other vernal and 
 summer voices ; for there is nobody else, to our know- 
 ledge, who makes it a point to enjoy all the luxuries of 
 nature, great and small, throughout the whole of the 
 year. Harriet or myself, as it happens, will suddenly 
 stop during our walks, and with finger up, and a happy 
 face, bid the other listen. It is the first sound of the 
 thrush, or the nightingale, or the cuckoo, the lark, or 
 the bee ; or it is the dove aforesaid, or the gnats. None 
 of the music of nature is lost upon us ; nor a picture. 
 We reckon even the departing fieldfare a sight worth 
 hailing. And happy is the one who first points it out ; 
 only it is sometimes " inconvenient," as my companion 
 says ; for there is such a charming mixture of luxury 
 and innocence in her countenance when listening on
 
 A YEAR OF HONETMOOXS. 267 
 
 these occasions, such absorption in the sound, and yet 
 such inclusion of me in the absorption, — with a pressed 
 arm and a little closer creeping to my side, — that I long 
 to thank her with a kiss. ]K"ow lips are apt to look 
 most beautiful in leafy and sequestered spots ; but from 
 the very love you bear them, which is mixed Avith an 
 inconvenient thing called "respect," and a jealousy lest 
 they should be lightly thought of by others, you cannot 
 always reckon upon the safety of the salutation in con- 
 sequence of the thickness of the leaves about you. The 
 thicker they are, the more safely they may include some 
 prying neighbour. Your Scotch heath is the place for 
 salutation oitt of doors — the CowdenJcnowes, or the Bush 
 dboon Traquair ; where there is just enough foliage or 
 floweriness to screen you from the idea of publicity, 
 while your eye has the range of the country round about, 
 so that you are sure of nobody's being near. Vide 
 Burns, Allan Eamsay, Allan Cunningham, and all the 
 tribe of Scotch poets, who love a heath as surely as 
 Horace says other poets do a wood. But I shall be 
 anticipating my own seasons of heath and hayfield. 
 
 The first sight of human occupation in the fields is 
 very pleasant after its long absence ; such as the plough- 
 man with his team, and the sower stalking with his basket. 
 The unweaned lambs would be more so, but for a bitter 
 thought which it requires further thinking to reconcile, 
 and the meditation is painful, and to youth not very 
 easy. Fortunately at that time of life it makes no great 
 impression. But as long as it lasts it is unpleasant, the 
 more so from being mixed up with the tenderest feelings 
 and the most common -place wants. Maternity, and 
 innocence, and helplessness, and the permission of pain 
 and sufi'ering, and the homely intrusion of the thoughts 
 of one's dinner, make up a strange and provoking per- 
 plexity of ideas. The imagination of young and gentle 
 womanhood sees but the most affecting of these images,
 
 2G8 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 and the shadow of evil for a moment passes over her 
 sunshine. 
 
 "A tear beiews my Deli-t's eye 
 To think yon playful kid must di3," 
 
 says the poet, in an artificial but not untouching strain. 
 I have already said that the thoughts of motherhood had 
 never yet been expressed between my bride and myself ; 
 nor were they now ; but one day, as we passed a field in 
 which, to use the finer language of another poet (Dyer), 
 there was many a new-born lamb who 
 
 " Tottering with weakness by his mother's side, 
 Feels the fresh world about him, and each thorn, 
 Hillock, or furrow, trips his feeble feet," 
 
 Harriet looked suddenly another way, and I knew by her 
 silence tliere were tears in her eyes. I did not say any- 
 thing ; but in the evening, without laying any particular 
 stress upon it, I read her, among others, the following 
 passage from a greater poet, who had just made his 
 appearance in print. Never, surely, were pain and evil 
 more sweetly reconciled to good, or briefness of suffering 
 to the predominance of pleasure : — 
 
 "The ox 
 Feeds in the herb, and sleeps, or fills 
 The horned valleys all about, 
 And hollows of the fringed hills, 
 In summer heats, with placid lows, 
 Unfearing, till his own blood flows 
 About his hoof. And in the flocks. 
 The lamb rejoiceth in the year, 
 And raoetli freely with his fure, 
 And answers to his mother's calls 
 From flower'd farrows. In a time 
 Of which he wots not, run short pains 
 Through his warm heart ; and then, from whence 
 He knows not, on his light there falls 
 A shadow ; and his native slope 
 Where he was wont to leap and clinub, 
 Floats from his sick and filmed eyes, 
 And sometliing in the darkness draws 
 His forehead earthward, and he dies." 
 
 — Poems of Alfred Tennyson.
 
 A YEAR OF HOXEYMOOXS. 269 
 
 When I had finished this lovely passnge, Harriet, who 
 had been loud and profuse in her expressions of delight 
 at the others, said simply at this, in a low voice, "How 
 very sweet ! " and stooping down on my hand, kissed it. 
 It was to thank me for all the thoughts which she knew 
 had passed between us on the subject, though we had 
 not spoken, and for the relief I had afforded her by 
 means of the poet. She is exquisite at this kind of 
 womanly gallantry, if I may so call it, Avithout degrading 
 the feeling by the word. She never would allow from 
 the first (indeed I never contested the point with her), 
 that all the manifestation of courtesy, and deference, 
 and gratitude should be on the man's side ; and she says 
 there are moments of exceeding fulness of heart, under- 
 stood on both sides, when it is a grace in a woman to 
 be foremost in manifesting her feelings. I know that, 
 from a person of her exquisite taste, it is a very exquisite 
 compliment. 
 
 Taste is the perception of what is appropriate, and the 
 relish consequent upon the perception. By some persons 
 it is acquired or greatly improved ; with others it seems 
 to be born, like the common properties of health and a 
 good palate. Certainly tlierc are many who study to 
 obtain it without much success ; while others, without 
 studying at all, say, do, and think the best things by a 
 certain harmonious perfection of their nature. In Harriet 
 it is a mixture of instinct and consciousness. The shape- 
 liness of her soul naturally inclines her to move in a 
 right direction, and the cultivation of her thoughts makes 
 her aware of it without vanity. She would be called 
 romantic, but only by those who do not see far enough 
 into the interior of good sense, and who are not aware 
 how much reasonable pleasure is to be extracted out of 
 a thousand things that never enter their heads for want 
 of a little fancy. I reckon therefore that she passes her 
 days quite as much in a round of good sense as of elecant
 
 270 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 enjoyment, the one indeed being the soul of the other. 
 Knowing how I vahie the first evidence of sj^ring, and 
 how I hail the very name of March, harsh and rude as 
 it is, because the winter months are gone, and it is the 
 " piping time " of the coming flowers, she covered our 
 first breakfast-table in the month with a profusion of 
 hyacinths and narcissus, intermingled with roses, tulips, 
 and violets, and surmounted with the beautiful pink 
 blossoms of the mezereon, and some branches of maple. 
 We hail the first new leaves of the year with quite as 
 much, nay, more joy than the flowers, because flowers we 
 have all the year round, but green leaves we have not. 
 There is also a very vital look in them, with their tender, 
 expanding folds, and the redness of many of them next 
 the bough. The young crinkled leaves of the currant 
 and gooseberry bushes are like miniature fans put forth 
 by invisible fairies. 
 
 It was beautiful to see my charmer, with her own 
 rosy smile and "hyacinthine locks," sitting looking at 
 me through the foliage of this flowery table, like the soul 
 of my domestic paradise ; for we allow of no " curl-papers " 
 at breakfast, nor of a cap. She knows I cannot see too 
 much of her face and its ornaments in their natural state ; 
 and therefore she withholds them from me as little as 
 possible. We have always some flowers on our table of 
 a morning, and the monthly roses all the year round. 
 Harriet says that people do not think well enough of 
 the Chinese, considering that they found out tea for us, 
 and that they are also, after their small fashion, a poetical, 
 flowery people ; and she looks upon the "Chinese rose" 
 as belonging to the teacup, and likes to see them together. 
 I am reminded of this Chinese turn of sentiment by a 
 quotation she made on this morning of the first of March, 
 when I was expressing my thanks for the manner in 
 which she had set out the table. I observed that it was 
 a picture of herself—" all freshness, and grace, and pro-
 
 A TEAR OF HONEYMOON'S. 271 
 
 mise, and present joy." "Nay," said she, "it is an 
 emblem of my fate ; — you remember the passage we 
 noticed among others in the Chinese novel : only I have 
 had the light without the previous darkness." 
 
 The passage she alluded to is striking for the excessive 
 piece of brightness and colour with which it terminates, 
 and which is rendered so by this " previous darkness." 
 It is a prose version of a Chinese bit of poetry in the 
 novel of Ju-Mao-U — 
 
 'These disasters were not the mistakes of fate; 
 These croas-piirposes were the result of misuuderstamling. 
 "Who would have foreseen, that from so many mistakes and 
 
 disappointments 
 Would result, in the end, a fate brilliant as flowers?" 
 
 We have flowers on our dinner as well as breakfast- 
 table ; for as nature is always profuse of her beauties, we 
 see no reason why we should not always acknowledge 
 her beneficence, and have some of them about us. If 
 this is not reason enough, we have the great authority of 
 Lord Bacon on our side, of whose dinner-table the same 
 custom is recorded. A late noble poet said he " could 
 not bear to see a woman eat." It was the infirmity of 
 his ultra-sensual turn of mind, and the debasing habit of 
 satire. The former inclined him to see everything grossly, 
 and the latter to subject " the greater to the less." A 
 true lover of a woman, when at table with her, does not 
 think of her eating. He only thinks (if he thinks of the 
 matter at all) of her health and good humour, and of the 
 grace with which she goes through even so common a 
 thing. They both think just as much of it as it is worth, 
 and no more. I confess I hate to see a Avoman giveii to 
 eating. That is coming round to his lordship's inversion 
 of the matter, and forgetting every kind of feminine grace 
 and propriety in the indulgence of a gross will. If a 
 lover thinks of eating or drinking at all when his mis- 
 tress is before him, it ought to be either in the spirit of
 
 272 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 Fielding's Amelia, when she set one of her little suppers 
 before her husband, and delighted to see him cheerful 
 over it, or in that of the Greek poet so well rendered by 
 the English — 
 
 " Drink to me only with thine eye?, 
 And I will pledge with mine, 
 Or leave a kiss %vitliin the cup, 
 And I'll not ask for ^vine." 
 
 Eeal love, instead of degrading either a great pleasure 
 or a small, can take the most commonplace of enjoy- 
 ments, and convert it into a ground of refined sympathy. 
 
 When my wife and I found the morning fine enough 
 to allow of taking a long walk, and spending a good 
 many hours in the country, we were not fond of con- 
 cluding our day with town amusements, such as going to 
 the play or the opera. At any rate, we did not like to 
 look forward to such a termination of it, though we had 
 no system to the contrary. 
 
 We let our feelings guide us, modified by circumstances, 
 and by the wishes of our friends. But the enjoyment of 
 rural scenery, its tranquillity and silence, begets a wish 
 to continue that sort of life ; and as we were in the habit 
 of staying at home of an evening, we seldom found our- 
 selves going out, after spending a morning in the country. 
 From the quiet and lovingness of the fields, we returned 
 to the quiet and lovingness of our book and fireside. It 
 was different if we rode. There is something of com- 
 parative noise and bustle and the town in horses and 
 equipages. It seemed natural enough that the carriage 
 which wafted us through doubtful or bleak weather of a 
 morning, should take us to the opera after dinner. When 
 I knew that we were going out in this way, I sometimes 
 made a whole town day of it ; and if Harriet had nothing 
 to do with drapers and milliners (for though she likes to 
 dress well, she is not fond of shopping), I took her to my 
 bookseller's or the music-shop, or some exhibition. The
 
 A YEAR OF HONEYMOONS. 273 
 
 exhibitions, however, we preferred in fine weather, when 
 the days were at their clearest, and no fire was wanted. 
 But great was our pleasure at taking home in the carriage 
 some new book of poetry (like the one just mentioned), 
 or some old poetry in a new edition, or some exquisite 
 print or etching, or new air, which had delighted us at 
 the opera; and yet half of our enjoyment of it was 
 pretence. "We felt ourselves so sufficient to one another, 
 and were at heart so much inclined to do without any- 
 thing but our own company, that, had we given ourselves 
 up to impulse, we should have done nothing but walk 
 and talk together, or sat like a pair of lovers at a stolen 
 interview. But from a lucky instinct already explained, 
 each of us, without running into a strain of systematic 
 reflection on the subject, doubted the ability to confer 
 that entire happiness, which neither doubted to receive ; 
 and thus we availed ourselves of all those collateral helps 
 to good-will, those little external diversions, and objects 
 of intellectual sympathy, which at once suspended the 
 intensity of our feelings, and kept us more surely to- 
 gether. To this day the neighbourhood of her cheek to 
 mine, while we are reading the same book, makes me 
 long to touch it ; and when I catch a little of her breath 
 upon me, as she half turns to say something, I seem to 
 feel, with all the freshness of a first sensation, " the 
 fragrance of her heart." 
 
 To divert the passionate state of my emotions, I would 
 sometimes endeavour to reflect metaphysically on the 
 nature of love ; and it was in one of these meditations I 
 discovered in what the highest state of it exists, which 
 I am convinced is gratitude for pleasure given hij intel- 
 lectual, moral, and personal grace, and an extreme 
 desire to give pleasure in return for it. The love is 
 perfect in proportion to the perfection of these three 
 graces in the object, or to the imagination of them in the 
 lover's mind, or to the abstract and candid appreciation 
 
 s
 
 274 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 of tliem in the mind of the person beloved, so as to show 
 that the nature merits to be as externally as it is intrin- 
 sically graceful. Disinterestedness of tvisli is not to be 
 expected in a lover, because it is among the conditions of 
 our being (and a very delightful and useful one it is, and 
 looks like something angelical), that the bestowal of 
 happiness, and consequently the very idea of its bestowal, 
 is unavoidably connected with that of receiving it. But 
 the lover is reasonably to be called disinterested, in pro- 
 portion as he can act disinterestedly where the happi- 
 ness of the beloved object is concerned ; and doubtless 
 that love is the truest, which can so act in the highest 
 degree, and which can receive the greatest amount of 
 consolation from the knowledge of the beloved person's 
 happiness, apart from its own contribution to it. It is 
 not everybody, I fear, that is capable of real love at all, 
 in however small a degree. Some portion of generosity 
 and imagination is necessary to it ; and there are people, 
 whose ignorance or bad habits, or a nature derived from 
 unfit or unloving parents, have rendered them so destitute 
 of both that they know nothing of love but the animal 
 passion, and not even that with any admixture of grace. 
 The rest is as unintelligible to them, as Paradise at 
 present is to us ; and, by the way, it would be amusing 
 to know what sort of idea of Paradise theirs can be, 
 supposing them to believe in it, for this degradation 
 even of the animal passion does not allow them to 
 include that in their sense of dignities ; and they know 
 so little of affection, except to make a tool of it, and 
 exact it from others, that they must be equally at a loss 
 in the more spiritual part of the conjecture. We may be 
 allowed to guess a little. On the other hand, the capa- 
 bilities of being in love are of various sorts, and of almost 
 every degree of amount; and while nothing tends to 
 exalt and perfect it so much as an admission of its 
 identity with the wish to see another happy, all the
 
 A YEAB OF HONEYMOONS. 275 
 
 perplexities and inconsistencies of it are to be accounted 
 for and guarded against, in lionourable and estimable 
 natures, in proportion to tlie doubt they conceive of 
 tlieir own sufficiency for anotlier's happiness, and the 
 generosity of that doubt ; that is to say, in proportion to 
 its freedom from that impatience, which sets the will up 
 above moral grace, and ends in caring for nothing, so 
 that it produces a strong sense of itself and its desires ; 
 in other words, in proportion to its love of love, and not 
 its love of power. For it is easy to desire the best 
 things, but far less easy to deserve them ; and if the 
 desire is put stubbornly forward, and the deserve not half 
 so much cared to be made out, the end will be, that in 
 proportion as the best things are wished for, they will be 
 lost ; and this is the way in which will is for ever 
 defeating itself. Pitiable is the state of those whose 
 wilfulness obscures the real portion of love which they 
 feel; especially as the love, though great enough to 
 torment them, is seldom sufficient to work out their cm-e, 
 by leaving the reason strong enough to compare notes 
 with it, and come to the most loving conclusion. When 
 it does, there is no nature worthier of cultivation, or 
 more likely to stamp a lasting affection ; for, in the 
 present imperfection of humanity, the very habit of pity 
 for imperfection in others helps to render a generous 
 nature capable of being satisfied with the love, out of a 
 sense of its own imperfections, provided the affection really 
 succeeds in getting rid of what does not belong to it. 
 
 I will add one word more, iir all delicacy, to this 
 digression upon love ; and that is (agreeably to what has 
 been hinted before), that as the animal part of it is not 
 to be set up as the only or more desirable portion, so 
 neither is it to be unfeelingly or hypocritically debased 
 into what it is not ; for all impulses are good and graceful, 
 provided they be reasonable and in good taste ; and it is an 
 impertinence and even a grossncss in love, if there be not
 
 276 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 a lively sense iu it of all its faculties, equally remote from 
 an tuigenial coldness and an unaffectionate self- revolvement. 
 The opera season in the spring of 1831 was not a good 
 one. We missed Pasta and others ; and the rest of the 
 theatres were in no good (;ondition. But we are so fond 
 of music, and are so Avilling to find ourselves sitting- 
 together in the midst of any collection of human beings, 
 assembled for a common pleasure, that we went even to 
 the oratorios ; not the most lively of entertainments. 
 We had the pleasure of seeing others pleased, and more 
 think themselves pleased, and of hearing some of the 
 divine strains of Handel and Winter, — divine whether 
 the subject be sacred or profane ; for all sweet music is 
 like the sonnd of the tongues of Paradise. It seems like 
 a heavenly language which we hear without knowing the 
 words, and as if it must have a meaning far beyond the 
 words which are sometimes given to it- Love, pleasure, 
 pity, speak to us in it beyond all question, and in their 
 loveliest manner, and yet we know not by what secret. 
 It is upon this princij)le that we understand what Mozart 
 meant when he professed to have an indifference or con- 
 tempt for " words," and did not care how poor they were. 
 He knew that it must be very Avonderful poetry indeed, 
 which should not be beaten, and M/^ra-expressed, by 
 the mere notes of his music. No words are required to 
 give the most enchanting and even the most definite 
 effect (as far as particular emotion is concerned) to parts 
 of the instrumental compositions of that great master, — 
 to some of the overtures of Handel and Gluck, or the 
 delicate inventions of Haydn. These beautiful echoes of 
 our most indescribable feelings, my bride and I enjoyed 
 with a pleasure as indescribable, sitting side by side, 
 conscious of the enjoyment around us, and fancying a 
 quintessence of it concentrated in our persons. And it 
 was the same at the opera when Italian passion was 
 pouring forth its triumph, with an intensity in every
 
 A YEAR OF HONEYMOONS. 2 t t 
 
 breatli ; or when the music seemed to wake up and to 
 warrant the ostentatious fervour of the dance, and the 
 castanets sounded like the very thrill of its bones. 
 And then our carriage wafted iis to a blissful home. 
 
 D 
 
 APEIL. 
 
 What does the reader think that Harriet had the face 
 to do to me on the first of April, the moment I sat down 
 to breakfast ? 
 
 Header — First of April — I see it. 
 
 Ah, but Jioio? She had too much taste to make a 
 fool of her husband in a really ridiculous manner ; she 
 respected both him and herself too much, and yet she 
 would forego none of the privileges of playfulness. She 
 even contrived to pay herself a compliment out of an 
 exquisite instinct of converting a pretended joke upon me 
 into a congratulation — a loss of dignity into a gain. 
 
 What, therefore, does my lady as soon as she has taken 
 her chair, but get up with a little hurried air of affected 
 gravity, go to a chiffonier, open and shut it so as to make 
 me hear the sound, and then, coming behind me, Avith a 
 tap on the shoulder, asked me what I thought of this 
 " new honey she had bought me 1 " 
 
 I turned round, and received a laugh and a kiss, with 
 the inquiry if I knew what I was on the first of April ? 
 
 "The wisest man in England," quoth I, "as sure as I 
 am the happiest. Nay, Harriet, this, I must say, is a 
 complete failure ; I never knew you make a failure before, 
 but when you begin, I suppose you must do everything com- 
 pletely. You propose to make me a fool, and you bring me 
 the very bond and seal of my charter to the title of wise." 
 
 I waive the pretty compliments we proceeded to bandy 
 with one another, and also the divers instances in which 
 I had my April-day revenge. Our discourse fell upon bees, 
 and then upon April, and then on the bees again ; and we
 
 278 LEIGH HUNT, 
 
 never had a breakfast more full of mirth and poetry. 
 Harriet said that people did not do enough honour to the 
 works of the bees in thanking them for their honey only ; 
 for they gave them tapers for their love-letters, and lights 
 to read them by. And hereupon she became poetical 
 upon the subject of wax, describing its beauty and purity, 
 and saying that it was the " fit second manufacture of 
 such fairy creatures. It is proper," continued she, " that 
 the beings who make honey should make wax ; it is the 
 only kind of insipidity they could condescend to, and is 
 turned into twenty elegant things. There is the seal as 
 well as the taper. To think that I should forget that / 
 And the bee himself often furnishes a device for the seal. 
 Come now, Charles, I will prove your words, and make 
 you a complete case out of this. I meet you with some 
 fine honey in my walks, and send you a pot of it with a 
 note. The note, of course, is on the subject of honey, 
 and therefore of the bees. I seal it with a substance 
 made by the bees ; the taper that helps to make the seal 
 is of a substance made by the bees ; and the seal is 
 stamped with a bee's likeness. No ; my case is not com- 
 plete after all, for the pen ought to have been connected 
 with bees, and the paper." 
 
 " It is complete, Harriet," said I, " though not in the 
 way you designed it. It is a specimen of that complete 
 sincerity, and desire for truth in small matters as well as 
 great, which is one of the things for which I love you, 
 and which makes you sweeter than all the sweets you can 
 describe. But not having seen so much of France and 
 Italy as I have, there is one application of this waxen 
 elegance of yours which has not made so strong an 
 impression upon you, though you have witnessed it in 
 Catholic chapels. You see to Avhat I allude — the use of 
 it on Catholic altars, where those huge waxen pillars (for 
 such they are rather than candles), lighted with the beauti- 
 ful mystery of fire, and flaming away in a world of devotion
 
 A TEAR OF HONEYMOONS. 279 
 
 and music and sublime paintings, are imderstood to 
 typify the seraphical ministrants before the divine tlirone, 
 burning with love. You remember the Italian poem on 
 bees, out of which we read some pages one day last June, 
 in the little hayfield near the pines. The Catholic poet, 
 be sure, has not forgotten this and similar uses of wax by 
 his fellow-worshippers, though he mentions it in a way to 
 startle a Protestant's ear, describing the tapers as things 
 made in honour of ' God's image ' — 
 
 ' Odorate cere 
 Per onorar I'immagine di Dio.'" 
 
 — EuceUai, 
 
 " Ah ! " said Harriet, " I remember one word in par- 
 ticular that struck me in that poem, and your saying how 
 modern it was, and how impossible for a pagan to have 
 written it ; it was angelette. I remember the whole line. 
 He calls the bees 
 
 'Vagho angelette de le crbose rive.'" 
 
 " Say it again," quoth I. 
 
 She repeated it in one of her pretty, saucy styles, 
 between self-derision and display ; and I pelted a rose at 
 her lips across the table because she spoke the Italian 
 so well. If one cannot reward people for charming us, 
 one must punish them. There is no alternative. The 
 feelings must be vented somehow. 
 
 The imagination sometimes has involuntary caprices of 
 association, not unfounded in truth. April, compared 
 with March, always appears to me a female contrasted 
 with one of the rougher sex ; and compared with May, 
 she is a female dressed in white and green, instead of 
 white, green, and rose-colour. Her fingers also seem as 
 cold as they are delicate, and she is slender compared 
 with the buxomness of her sister. In other words, she 
 is a personification of her slender stock of grocn, her 
 blossoms, her chillness, her lilies of the valley, and her
 
 280 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 white clouds and rains. She has colours, it is true, in her 
 garden — the jonquil, the stock, the glowing peony, and 
 many others ; and there is the rose always. But a lover 
 of nature is accustomed, in his first thoughts of a new 
 season, to paint to himself its appearance in general ; its 
 skies, fields, and woods, before its gardens. I confess I 
 think I ought to admit blue and yellow among my April 
 colours, on account not merely of the skies, but of the 
 charming profusion of primroses and wild hyacinths to be 
 f oimd in the woods. But these do not appear on the face 
 of things ; they are in the woods, and you must go there 
 to find them. A mock-heroic poet would call them 
 " April's under-petticoat." 
 
 What an exquisite carpet these and the other wild 
 flowers of the season make, in a wood at all worthy of the 
 name, with a good mossy ground ! Harriet and I, who 
 are not rich enough to have large grounds of our own, are 
 acquainted with all the sylvan places within twenty miles 
 of London ; and in the particular April we went several 
 days in succession to a spot called Combe Wood, near 
 Wimbledon, which was the nearest for our purpose, and 
 there enjoyed the blue and yellow tapestry to our eyes' 
 content, and ate divers pretty little dinners at an inn in 
 the neighbourhood. I shall beg the reader's company to 
 one of these dinners by and by, in the course of the 
 summer, as I take them to be highly sensible things, and 
 deserving imitation ; but at present I must content myself 
 with saying that they are the reverse of everything pre- 
 tending and public, and can be adapted to the cheapest 
 capacities, provided there be no real spirit of stinginess in 
 the parties. The fortunes of the Daltons are just good 
 enough to afford them a few handsome luxuries, and 
 therefore we order certain of them at the inn, quite as 
 much to gratify the people of the house as ourselves. 
 But I am surer of nothing upon earth than I am of this, 
 that I could have a room to myself in one of these inns,
 
 A YEAR OF HONEYMOONS. 281 
 
 and cat a chop and a potato with Harriet, and be as 
 happy, and make the waiter as satisfied with me to boot, 
 as if I had come in a carriage and four. The reader shall 
 have my secret when time serves. In returning from one 
 of these excursions, we saw for the first time the swallow 
 darting about with that incredible velocity of his, that 
 apparent weight of swiftness (for there seems as much 
 weight in his plumage as speed in his circuit), which 
 gives the look of him, as he passes, such a remarkable 
 union of substance and evanescence. The idea of a knife 
 is not more cutting than that of his wings. Spenser must 
 have taken from him his feeling of the "sharp-winged 
 shears," which he gives to one of his angels, A tropical- 
 blooded friend of ours, who does not stop to explain his 
 phrases, or to suit them to the colder consideration of our 
 northern criticism, calls the swallow "a pair of scissors 
 grown fat." 
 
 But a more wonderful bird comes in April than the 
 swallow — the nightingale. How difi'erent from the other ! 
 He all so public, so restless, and so given up to his 
 body ; this all so hidden, so stationary, so full of soul ! 
 We hear him to singular advantage where we live. I 
 verily believe that ours is the last house, near the 
 metropolis, to the garden of which he comes. It is an 
 old practice of mine, taught me by my father, Avho was a 
 studious cultivator of what he called "nature's medicine," 
 to open one of my chamber windows with the dawn of 
 light, and so let in upon my last slumbers the virgin 
 breath of the morning, Never shall I forget the first time 
 I heard the nightingale in company with the dear creature 
 who is the delight of my life. The tears come into my 
 eyes to think of it. Is this from effeminacy % from weak- 
 ness 1 Oh, God, no ! It is from that secret sense we 
 feel in us of the power of man to perceive and appreciate 
 the wonderfi;! beauty of the universe, mingled with an 
 unconscious regret of our mortality — of the weakness and
 
 282 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 sliortuess of our being, compared with the strength of 
 our affections. But far was a tear from my eyes at the 
 time. The fulness of the sweet burthen of beauty was on 
 us, without the weight. Harriet heard the nightingale 
 first. " Hark ! " said she. The sound was not to be mis- 
 taken. It was one of those passages of his song, not the 
 finest, but still exquisite and peculiar, in which he chucks 
 out a series of his duller notes, as if for the pleasure of 
 showing how rich he is in the common coin of his art, as 
 well as in the more precious. I rose and opened the 
 window. The most divine of all sounds rewarded us — 
 that low, long-drawn, internal, liquid line of a note, the 
 deepest and sweetest ever heard, for which it seems as if 
 the bird resorted to the innermost core of his soul, and 
 meditated as he drew it along, over I know not what celes- 
 tial darkness of delight. It is the meeting with the extreme 
 of pleasure — with the gratitude which melancholy only can 
 express. The sound mingled with our waking dreams, and 
 heaven and earth seemed to enfold us in their blessing. 
 
 Mr. Coleridge, in one of those sallies of his genius, in 
 which he has so often startled and instructed one's 
 commonplaces, informed the world some time ago that it 
 was wrong to designate the nightingale by the title 
 "melancholy," there being "in nature nothing melan- 
 choly ; " and the song of the bird being full of quick, 
 hurried, and lively notes, anything but sorrowful ; in 
 short, he concluded, we ought to say, not the melancholy, 
 but the " merry nightingale." 
 
 I regret that I have not his beautiful lines by me to quote. 
 
 The critics, at Mr. Coleridge's direction, inquired into 
 this matter, and pronounced him in the right ; and it is 
 now the fashion to say, that the talk of the melancholy 
 of the nightingale is an error, and that he is a very gay, 
 laughing, merry fellow, who happens to be out of doors 
 at night like other merry fellows, and is not a whit more 
 given to pensiveness.
 
 A YEAR OF HONEYMOONS. 283 
 
 Nevertheless, Avith submission, I think that the new 
 notion is wrong, and that the nightingale of INIilton, 
 
 "Most musical, most melancholy," 
 
 is still the real nightingale, and that the old opinion will 
 prevail. Not that the bird is sorrowful, as the ancient 
 legend supposed, though many of his notes, especially- 
 considering the pauses between them, which give them 
 an air of reflection, can never be considered as expressing 
 pleasure by means of gaiety, much less mirth. There is 
 no levity in the nightingale. We know not what com- 
 plication of feelings may be mixed up in the mystery of 
 his song ; but we take it for granted, and allow that, upon 
 the whole, it expresses a very great degree of pleasure. 
 I srant that to the full. But the truth is, that this 
 pleasure, being not only mixed up with an extreme of 
 gravity, as I have just been showing, but bringing with 
 it an idea of loneliness, and coming at night-time, when 
 the condition of the whole universe disposes us to medita- 
 tion, the very pleasure, by the contrast, forces us more 
 strongly upon the greater idea of the two ; and hence the 
 eflfect of the nightingale's song has been justly pronounced 
 to be melancholy. It may be allowed to Mr. Coleridge, 
 that in some very energetic and comprehensive and final 
 sense of the assertion, there is "nothing melancholy in 
 nature," although to our limited faculties there may seem 
 to be enough of it to contend with, as the world goes ; but 
 upon the same principle, melancholy itself is not melan- 
 choly, and so we come round again to the natural opinion. 
 Shakespeare has made one of his characters in " The Mer- 
 chant of Venice " account partly for the reason why music, 
 generally speaking, produces a serious impression — 
 
 "I'm never merry" (says Jessica to Lorenzo) "when I hear sweet 
 music. 
 The reason is" (says her lover), "your spirits arc attentive. 
 For do but note a wild and wanton herd, 
 Or race of youthful and unliandled colts,
 
 284 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud, 
 
 Which is the hot condition of their blood : — 
 
 If they but hear perchance a trnrapet sound, 
 
 Or an air of music catch their ears, 
 
 You shall perceive them make a mutual stand, 
 
 Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze 
 
 By the sweet power of music." 
 
 And such, no doubt, is partly the case with all creatures 
 capable of attending to musical sounds. But Avith the 
 human being the consciousness is mixed up with a thou- 
 sand unconscious feelings to the efifect already mentioned. 
 There falls upon them a shadow of the great mystery of 
 the universe. If a party of glee-singers were to become 
 aware of a nightingale singing near them at one o'clock 
 in the morning, and upon a pause in his song were to 
 strike up a jovial catch by way of answer, they would be 
 thought in bad taste, and a parcel of simpletons. The 
 feeling, in any real lover of music, would be serious — 
 voluptuous, if you please, and enchanting, but still full 
 of the gravity of voluptuousness — serious from its very 
 pleasure. 
 
 MAY AND JUNE. 
 
 The May morning of 1833 broke beautifully, before we 
 cast a look out of window to see whether it was beautiful 
 or not. " 'Tis May," said Harriet, looking as she were 
 the goddess of it. The month was in her eyes. I did 
 not say to her, with the poet, — 
 
 "Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see 
 The dew bespangling herb and tree ; 
 Each flower has wept, and bowed towards the east. 
 Above an hour since ; yet you not drcst." 
 
 Harriet is a very reasonable getter-up ; and as goddesses 
 as well as mortals have bedrooms, and my charmer was 
 now representative of the goddess Maia, or month of May, 
 it struck us that May does not leave her chamber quite 
 so soon as people fancy ; but that she ought to make her
 
 A YEAR OF HOXETMOOXS. 285 
 
 appearance about nine o'clock, full-grown and blooming, 
 after having collected all her poetry about her, and drest 
 her loveliness at the glass of divinest thoughts. Harriet's 
 toilet, therefore, took a long time on May morning, purely 
 to do honour to the month; and when at last she de- 
 scended, you might really have taken her for a personifica- 
 tion of the month, she looked so exuberant of sweetness. 
 
 On coming down myself to the breakfast-table (for she 
 always sees it in proper condition before I make my 
 appearance), I found it covered with a profusion of May- 
 blossom, daisies, roses, and cowslips, together with boughs 
 of fruit trees and sweet-brier. Pinks came afterwards, 
 and morning after morning we had a succession of 
 novelties, the scabious, the scarlet lychnis, Solomon's seal 
 (an exquisite nest of white bells lurking in green leaves), 
 the sweet pea (that delicate, winged thought of red and 
 white), the orchis, the lily of the valley, and the mari- 
 gold. Our May-day, in point of weather, did not turn 
 out so fine a one as we deserved to have ; and old May- 
 day (the 12th of the month), which we keep when the 
 other disappoints us, was not much better. What 
 signified 1 We kept them both, and all the days between 
 them, partly out of doors, and more in; and we hoped 
 for better days, and we had some, and enjoyed them to 
 the full. Harriet was ever my best part of the month, 
 whether it Avas poor weather or fine. The dull days were 
 bright with her, and the bright ones thrice beaming. 
 
 There is a commonplace on the subject of nature and 
 its aspect as modified by love and poetry, which takes 
 itself for a mighty profundity, and yet is one than which 
 nothing can be more shallow. The poets are laughed at 
 for saying that nature mourns, and the flowers hang 
 iheir heads for the death or absence of a mistress, and 
 that vice versd she laughs and sparkles, and the rose 
 blooms again for the lady's return. 
 
 Dr. Johnson (whom I beg leave to say 1 thiidc as
 
 286 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 highly of over a diniier-tahle or a criticism on Pope, as I 
 am obliged to differ with when he comes to speak of still 
 greater men) thinks he has the laugh against Milton, 
 when he ridicules him for talking of fauns and satyrs in 
 his elegy on a friend. And a French wit has written an 
 amusing banter on these sympathies between inanimate 
 nature and the poets, in which he turns their delicate 
 sentiments into flaring matter-of-fact, and makes the 
 woods literally nod and the mountains groan at the 
 request of some lamenting gentleman, the flowers at the 
 same time bending their heads as he goes by, and the 
 rivers murmuring the name of his fair one. This is very 
 good ; and is deserved by had poets, or those who affect 
 a sympathy with nature which they do not feel, and who 
 therefore cannot be supposed to see external objects in a 
 sadder or gayer light at one time than another. But the 
 most extreme fictions of good poetry are but subtle aspects 
 of truth ; nay, of truths felt by everybody, though not 
 in the same definite manner. A man who has lost his 
 mistress says, " I have no comfort now ; my days are 
 dull ; I take nothing of the pleasure I used to do in the 
 most beautiful objects ; mirth, flowers, sunshine, are 
 insipid to me ; nay, melancholy ; for they oidy remind 
 me of her loss ; everything is black and gloomy." This 
 is the ordinary language of a real affliction, and this 
 contains all that the poet tells us in other words. The 
 flowers " remind him of her loss : " what is this but 
 making them take a part in the grief, and absolutely 
 assisting in bringing her image before him^ " Everything 
 is black and gloomy : " what is this but saying that the 
 roses have lost their colour ; that nature puts on a 
 funeral dress ; and that all beauty has departed with his 
 mistress, and left nothing but tears and mourning ? And 
 so it has. To liis eyes such is the fact. We have no 
 yiroof of the existence of anything but in our perception 
 of it ; and if to our perception it exists in a melancholy
 
 A YEAR OF HONEYMOOKS. 287 
 
 maimer, it is melancholy. So in Milton's talk about the 
 fauns and satyrs which he laments that he should no more 
 see in company with the friend whom he mourns under 
 the name of Lycidas. Fauns and satyrs abound in the 
 books which Milton and his friend delighted to read ; 
 their imaginations were full of them, and of the poetry 
 to which they belonged ; and therefore, in talking about 
 fauns and satyrs in his elegy, and lamenting that he and 
 his friend should no more play their " pastoral reed " 
 together, he talked about real subjects of deprivation ; 
 just as much as if a musician should lament that he and 
 his friend could no more play the flute together, or a 
 huntsman that the fox Avould be no longer hunted in his 
 company. I am sure, if I had the misery of losing my 
 bride (which I could not bear to think of, if she were not 
 as young and healthy as she is), the most beautiful objects 
 in the creation would seem to me the most melancholy. 
 I should scarcely be able to look at them ; and Avhen I did, 
 they would drip with the tears through which I beheld them. 
 Therefore I say, and say again, that with Harriet 
 beside me, the darkest day is bright, and the brightest 
 thrice beaming — 
 
 " What pleased at first, tor her now pleases more, 
 She most ; and in her look beems all delight." 
 
 — Paradise Lost. 
 
 Shakespeare, in one of his sonnets, says that the very 
 birds grow dumb when his mistress is away ; that is to 
 say, he hears them no more than an absent man does ; or 
 if he does hear them, he tells us that their songs have 
 grown dull. And doubtless he literally felt them to be 
 so. They sang to him, not of present pleasure, but of 
 absence and loss — 
 
 " For summer and his pleasures wait ou thee ; 
 And thou away, the very birds are mute ; 
 Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer. 
 That leaves lonk pale, dreading the winter's near
 
 288 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 They who do not see the literal truths contained in 
 these fancies of love and poetry, only proclaim that they 
 are unacquainted with the refinements of either, 
 
 A pleasant banter is so different a thing from this cold, 
 critical objection, that it often arises, not from any want 
 of faith in the thing which is supposed to be made 
 ridiculous by it, but the reverse. It may either be re- 
 sentment of its abuse, for very love of it, or a liberty 
 taken Avith the object of its love for the same reason. 
 The Italian poets are equally famous for their faith in 
 romance and their jokes upon it. The author of Don 
 Quixote had himself the soul of a knight-errant, and 
 wrote heaps of romantic stories in as grave and childlike 
 a tone of belief as can be. It has been thought no 
 detriment to the fame of Homer to suppose him the 
 author of the Battle of the Frogs and Mice. I re- 
 member, when I was travelling in Italy, I was awakened 
 one morning at a place near Florence by a sound of 
 guitars and singing. It was May morning. The air 
 played on the guitars was simple, graceful, and fervid ; 
 as old, perhaps, as the time of Lorenzo de Medici ; and 
 there was a joke mixed up with the graver enjoyment, 
 which consisted in hailing everybody by name as he 
 made his appearance out of doors or at a wdndow, and 
 attributing the coming beauties of the season to him ! 
 
 Had Harriet and I not been able to make our own 
 May-time within doors, it would have been provoking to 
 see how we were kept at home, day after day, by the 
 rain. There was a succession of drenching weather (I 
 think) for ten days, during which the water ran down 
 the windows at such, a rate, that it seemed as if poor 
 May was crying her heart out. But we laughed, and 
 vowed to have a double portion of pleasure when the 
 sun came ; and come it did, so stoutly, for several days 
 together, that the roads and fields grew dry as in summer- 
 time, and there was such au exuberant burst of green
 
 A YEAR OF HONEYMOONS. 289 
 
 and white in the hedges, and of flowers in the grass, that 
 it seemed as if we had been held back by the rain, 
 purely that we might enjoy the season to double advan- 
 tage. In the south of Europe T have seen broad-leaved 
 myrtle growing wild, and the hedgebanks covered with 
 cyclamen and tulips ; but never have I seen a lovelier, 
 fresher, or more vernal sight than is exhibited by a full, 
 sunny, luxuriant May-day in England, when the bushes 
 are thick with blossom, and the fields with daisies and 
 buttercups, and the lower meadows with cowslips, and 
 the hedgebanks glitter with the blue speedwell and the 
 white anemone, and the butterflies are seen, and the bees 
 heard, and the cattle stand, heavy and placid, in midst 
 of the juicy grass. I do not say much in these papers 
 about gardens. Everybody knows something about them ; 
 but it is astonishing how many people, who are fond of 
 reading about the beauties of the country in books, and 
 Avho could really double the pleasure of their existence 
 if they would but consent to realize what they read of, 
 suffer the most beautiful seasons of the year to pass by 
 without enjoyment. For magnificent, astounding views, 
 you must go to Alps and glaciers ; for sierras and chest- 
 nut woods to Spain ; for vines and olives to Italy ; for 
 picturesque rivers to Germany ; for enormous waters and 
 trees to America; for Elysian scenes on a large scale 
 (mixed with wild beasts) to Africa; for icebergs and 
 northern lights (a sight worth a peril) to northern seas ; 
 for pretty homesteads, occasionally knocked on the head 
 by an avalanche, to Switzerland : but for homesteads 
 equally pretty and more safe ; for scenes of perfect rural 
 beauty between homeliness ajid elegance; for fields 
 " shut in," sylvan lanes, bosky and flowery meadows, tree- 
 clumps with cottage smoke, and gentle intermixtures of 
 vale and upland, commend us to green, olil, grassy, village- 
 dotted England, with its verdure all the year tlirou"-h, 
 and its fair faces of red and white. Would to licaven
 
 290 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 they were a little less sulky ! But the Reformers must 
 see to that. " Maids and Milk " is, or was, according to 
 Drayton, the motto of the county of Suffolk — 
 
 "As Essex hath of old been named 'Calves and stiles,' 
 Fair Suffolk 'Maids and Milk,' and Norfolk 'Many wiles,' 
 So Cambridge hath been called ' HoLl nets, and let us win,' 
 And Huntingdon, 'With stilts we'll stalk through thick and 
 thin,' " etc. — Polyolhion, Song 23. 
 
 It seems, to my fancy, to have been the motto of all 
 England in old times during the month of May. At all 
 events, the milkmaid's garland was the prettiest of the 
 May-day shows. It has long gone out, and left us nothing 
 but the chimney-sweepers ! melancholy emblem of our 
 fireside cares ! I am not more convinced, however, of 
 anything on this side certainty than I am of the re- 
 vival of the best things in our old holidays when England 
 has done paying for her game at soldiers, and mirth re- 
 vives upon a new ground of wisdom. Then will come 
 back the milkmaids, announcing the vernal overflow of 
 their store ; and Robin Hood will be had in double esti- 
 mation ; and the chimney-sweepers will vanish with the 
 poor stage-coach horses before some triumphant piece of 
 machinery ; and the plough will be at strange w^ork in 
 the fields ; and all will enjoy them. Do we think that 
 nature made such beautiful things for people to know 
 that they are beautiful, and yet do nothing but sigh at 
 the thoughts Is that the poor jest, of which we sup- 
 pose her guilty ? Depend upon it, there is not a pleasure 
 within the possibility of being hoped for by the human 
 race, which they are not destined to realize. 
 
 But I am philosophizing and thinking of others, for- 
 getful of my own exemption from the necessity. Such 
 are these impertinent times, which force even the rich 
 and the young to reflect, and will not allow a gentleman 
 to be happy with his bride without remembering that 
 other people would like to be happy too. Dear Reformers,
 
 A TEAR OF HONEYMOONS. 291 
 
 " tliGre is a time for fill things," and positively I will 
 think no more about yon during these my "Honeymoons." 
 Surely if a man has a right to forget you, it is when — 
 hark ! 
 
 The cuckoo ! 
 
 I heard it just this moment ; for I am writing of one 
 month of May during another, and scribbling a piece of 
 this article in a little rustic inn half an hour before 
 dinner, while Harriet is talking with the hostess, and 
 charming her by dandling her infant. I know by her 
 leaving off speaking that she hears the cuckoo as well as 
 I do, and that she is thinking I am thinking so. She 
 would have come to tell me of it, but the fact is we 
 heard it before; and this reminds me that I forgot to 
 mention the cuckoo in my article on April. We heard 
 it often enough then, and I wonder how it could have 
 escaped me. I suppose the reason was, that I got talk- 
 ing about the nightingale, who is a very absorbing 
 personage. 
 
 The cuckoo is an odd bird, with strange privileges of 
 grafting his children upon other people's nests. I sup- 
 pose he has a licence from nature for it, in order to 
 enable him to play his part better as a hiding songster 
 and pleasant rambling mystery. It has fallen, however, 
 to the lot of Harriet and myself to know him not only 
 as a " wandering voice," but to see him many times as 
 plainly as a pigeon, and in the very act of singing, — nay, 
 singing as he flies. I confess it does not injure the 
 pleasure which I take in his seclusion. !N"or does Harriet 
 wish him to have been less visible. We have enough 
 imagination to afford to see him ; the invisibility may be 
 necessary for the many ; to us who have such endless 
 faith in nature, it is otherwise. We never find a limit 
 to our perceptions of beauty. 
 
 There is an old belief that it is fortunate for lovers to 
 hear the nightingale before the cuckoo. Judge, if we
 
 292 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 who are so loving and so believing, choose to give up this 
 notion ; and how pleased we have been these two seasons 
 in succession to have fortunate ears. Milton speaks of 
 this once popular notion in one of his sonnets, and entreats 
 the nightingale to favour him accordingly. Spenser, who 
 loves to make traditions of his own, provided they be 
 accordant with nature, and who contradicts even the 
 old mythologies whenever it suits him, not only vindi- 
 cates the right of the cuckoo to a good name, calling 
 him 
 
 "The merry cuckoo, messenger of spring," 
 
 but says that he is the herald of lovers, and summons 
 them to wait upon their king, whom he fancies coming 
 out of the woods, crowned with flowers, and opening the 
 choirs of the birds. 
 
 Chaucer gives in to the old notion, upon which he has 
 written a whole poem, called "The Cuckoo and the 
 Nightingale." But nature is stronger than her greatest 
 favourites ; and, in spite of Chaucer and Milton, the old 
 notion has gone out, and the cuckoo is considered pleasant. 
 Chaucer's feeling with regard to the month of May is, as 
 usual, beautifully expressed in this composition, in the 
 course of which he indulges himself in one of his beloved 
 pictures of daisied grass and bushes in blossom. (I drop 
 the old spelling. The rhythm is of the dancing order, 
 measured by the cadence.) 
 
 "Then I thought anon, as it was day, 
 I would go somewhere to assuy 
 If that I might a nightingale hear, 
 For yet had I none heard of all that year, 
 And it was then the third night of Way. 
 
 "And anon as I the day spied, 
 No longer would I in bed abide, 
 ]5ut unto a wood that was fast by 
 I went forth alone, boldly, 
 And held the way down by a brooke side.
 
 A YEAR OF HONEYMOONS. 293 
 
 '"Till I came to a land of ivhite and green. 
 So fuir one had I never in been ; 
 Tlie ground was green ypowder'd with daisies, 
 And the flowers anl the groves like high, 
 All green and ivhite; ivas nothing else seen." 
 
 By " tlie flowers and the groves like high" he means 
 that the flowers were the May-blossoms, and therefore as 
 high as the bushes on which they grew. 
 
 If anybody wishes to enjoy the May-bush in perfection, 
 he should go to Richmond Park, on the side sloping down 
 to Ham Common, Avhere there is a hill as thick with them 
 as an orchard with apple-blossom. Harriet has christened 
 it May-Bush Hill; and therefore I beg that this name 
 may be respected and brought into use by all who value a 
 pretty mouth and taste for nature. 
 
 June. — I cannot help thinking there is much expression 
 in the sound of the word June, — perhaps from association 
 of ideas, but something on its own account too. It is 
 deeper and closer and warmer than that of May ; more 
 spicy and pungent. It is brown and red, compared with 
 red and white ; the deep rose and the marigold compared 
 with the May-blossom. May has a silver sound. She is 
 played, too, as it were, on a guitar of ivory, and with a 
 fair hand. June's music is golden, deeper in the wire. 
 It is noontide, the under-current of the brooks, the tune 
 of bees. But something like this has been said elsewhere 
 in verse, and I hate repetitions. If twenty pictures of 
 spring and summer are painted, it is fit that they should 
 all be different, though all in accord. 
 
 When June is fine, it is a very fine month indeed — 
 perhaps the finest in the year. Spring is not quite 
 gone ; there are some trees to fill up yet ; and yet summer 
 is confirmed, while we have the greater part of it before 
 us. The skies are blue \ the clouds small, sailing, and of 
 silver ; the fields thick and dry — you may lie in them ; 
 the hedges full uf wild ruses • the gardens rich with gold
 
 294 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 and red, roses, marigolds, walltlowers, nasturtiums, and red 
 lilies ; and the trees are still fresh, yet beginning to 
 brown. By degrees the leaves get browner, the daisies 
 begin to be lost in the superabundance of buttercups, the 
 elder trees in the hedgerows are rich with blossom, and 
 shearing-time is come. We see nothing of it within 
 the limits of our excursions. In the course of a year or 
 two we mean to take a summer tour through the finest 
 parts of England, and see every beauty we can think of. 
 Meanwhile, thinking must content us, as sight is not to be 
 had. What we can witness for ourselves we do ; what 
 we cannot we enjoy in the green fields and Elysian pictures 
 of the poets — 
 
 "Softly mixt 
 
 With every murmur of the smiling wave, 
 
 And every warble of the feather'd choir ; 
 
 Music of Paradise ; which still is heard, 
 
 When the heart listens." 
 
 — Dyer's Fleece. 
 
 This is beautifully said ; and then the poet speaks of the 
 paradisiacal scenes which are within the power of almost 
 every one to enjoy who can walk, and the idle regrets 
 they utter at not having enjoyed them ! 
 
 "Yet we abandon these Elysian walks 
 Tneii idly for the lost delight repine." 
 
 Get up, for God's sake, ladies and gentlemen, and 
 believe that the creation does not consist only of the 
 " West End," nor even of your parks. How many of us 
 have no parks, nor even gardens, and yet sigh over the 
 recollection of a common field-walk in our youth, as if it 
 were not to he had still ! 
 
 I speak against my interest ; for, the fact is, the less you 
 take my advice, the quieter the fields will look, and 
 Harriet and I have them more to ourselves. At present 
 we meet a pale-faced student now and then with a book, 
 and a few lovers ; but not enough to make ns cease 
 wondering at the want of imagination and animal spirits
 
 A YEAR OF HOXEYMOOXS. 295 
 
 which keep so many people at home. It does not become 
 us to say anything against marriage ; but the reader may 
 recollect a couple of prints in the shop windows, — popular, 
 I am sorry to say, — the one representing a gentleman 
 helping a lady over a stile, and called " Courtship" the 
 other the lady getting over by herself, and the gentleman 
 walking on before her, and this is " Marriage." I confess 
 we have witnessed both these spectacles, and wondered 
 what the latter did in the fields at all. I suppose they 
 were going " the shortest way " somewhere. The lovers 
 you may always know by a certain conscious look as you 
 pass them — the lady sometimes affecting to appear non- 
 chalant, the gentleman smiling but ceasing to speak, and 
 turning away his face, which has just been earnestly 
 fixed on hers as she looked down. Sometimes the lady 
 is more candid, and cannot get rid of an expression of 
 pleasure, somewhat bashful. For our parts, we endeavour 
 to think that some of these lovers are married, but pique 
 ourselves upon perplexing them with regard to what they 
 think of us. Were they to catch us at a stile, they would 
 feel no doubt on the subject, for they would find me (if I 
 did not see them) lifting my charmer over as if she did 
 not possess the use of her limbs. I sometimes beg her 
 pardon for it, for she is as light and active as she is 
 plump ; but it is not always that married ladies must be 
 permitted to jump, and at other times I cannot resist the 
 opportunity of giving her the thanks of a clasp for the 
 sweetness she is ever evincing. When we meet others, 
 however, I neutralize my countenance in a wonderful 
 manner, between seriousness and happiness, complacency 
 and respect; and Harriet's, unless speaking to me, is 
 always in the state so exquisitely touched by our restorer 
 of the drama — 
 
 "A gentleness that smiles without a smile." 
 
 —The Wife. 
 
 A very delicate observer (such as this poet, for instance)
 
 296 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 would, I think, detect us, but I defy common eyes. 
 They take us, I suspect, for a highly reputable brother 
 and sister; affectionate, nay, cdifyingly so, thus to walk 
 out with one another, which is not a very brother and 
 sister-like thing ; but they do not conclude us to be lovers 
 — we do not blush or simper enough, or affect enough 
 indifference. 
 
 I do not know a more entire piece of rural enjoyment, 
 an hour uniting greater complacency with delight, or that 
 quiet sense which one ought to have of the quiet and 
 gentleness of the country, combined with a greater portion 
 of inward transport, than in taking a walk, towards an 
 evening in June, through a series of fields full of clover 
 and buttercups, with hedgerow elms and wild roses, the 
 path leading from stile to stile, the bee buzzing, and the 
 cuckoo heard at intervals, Avhile the scenery, as it shifts, 
 presents now a cottage, and now a farm, now a group of 
 cattle with their white and coloured bodies, and now the 
 tower of an old village church above the trees. To 
 complete the thing, the stiles should be good liberal 
 stiles, fit to make a seat of, in order to receive the air in 
 your face, or read a passage out of some favourite author ; 
 and there should be a brook with a bit of plank over it, 
 and a corner of bushes; and children should be seen 
 occasionally, gathering the wild-flowers. Here you scent 
 a beanfield, such as threw Thomson into a fit of rapture — 
 
 "Arabia cannot boast 
 A fuller gale of joy, than liberal, thence 
 Breathes through the sense, and takes the ravished soul." 
 
 The feeling of abstract or moral delight, received 
 through the medium of the scent of flowers, and other 
 impressions on the sense, is an interesting phenomenon, 
 and terminates, like all conscious impressions pursued to 
 their utmost, in leading from the material into the 
 spiritual. Our very grossest perceptions would fail us
 
 A YEAR OF HONEYMOONS. 297 
 
 without that intellectual mystery, the brain. Milton 
 speaks of an odour arising from fields and flowers — 
 
 "Able to drive 
 All sadness but despair.' 
 
 And there you hear the scythes of the mowers. In the 
 next field you catch glimpses of their white shirts through 
 the russet elm trees ; in the next you come upon them ; 
 and at due distance, and provided it be not a very 
 frequented field, you seat yourself with your companion 
 against one of the haycocks, perhaps under an oak tree, 
 which shades you from the sun, while the western air 
 comes breathing upon you. Haymakers are not uncivil 
 if they see you are respectable, and mean no harm to 
 their labours. For my part, who can afford it, I cannot 
 pass their careworn faces, especially in these happy-look, 
 ing spots, without giving them something for drink ; 
 which brings upon my head and Harriet's lovely counte- 
 nance a world of poetical Irish blessings. But this is no 
 precedent for those whose pockets are in less easy con- 
 dition. Civility itself is money ; — the common coin of 
 justice. 
 
 A seat of this kind sets one upon visions of happy 
 times and golden ages, and of what the world miglit come 
 to under wiser management. My friend and I, however 
 (I delight, amidst the variety of appellations which I 
 have for her, to call Harriet " my friend "), do not spoil 
 the pleasure of such a moment by too much regret on 
 this point. We hope the best, and resolve to do what 
 we can to aid it ; and then we reward the virtue of our 
 good, resolutions by present enjoyment. AYe chat, we 
 laugh, we fancy ourselves birds and butterflies ; we take 
 out some delicate little volume, and read a bit, perhaps 
 on something Ave know as familiarly as our names ; but 
 we read it because of the spot and the occasion, and 
 because we do know it. "We literally make a companion
 
 29S LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 of our author, and turn to him to ask what he thinks of 
 the fine weather and the country ; though we know very 
 well what he will say. There are passages in Spenser, 
 and Milton, and Theocritus, and Ovid, and Ariosto, in 
 Palmerm of England, the Arcadia, and twenty other 
 books, which I have read over hundreds of times in this 
 way, though I know them as intimately as the pictures 
 that hang in my sitting-room. They are the pictures 
 that hang in a reader's walk. 
 
 What a thing is a book, — that a man should have 
 written it hundreds of years ago, perhaps in Italy or in 
 Greece, and that by means of it we should have his 
 immortal company with us on the grass in an English 
 hay field in June, doubling the delights of the landscape, 
 and increasing those even of love itself ! 
 
 *o 
 
 JULY. 
 
 July is a dumb, dreaming, hot, lazy, luxurious, delight- 
 ful month for those who can do as they please, and who 
 are pleased with what they do. The birds are silent ; we 
 have no more cuckoo, no more nightingale ; nature is 
 basking in repose 3 the cattle stand in the water ; shade 
 is loved, and rest after dinner. We understand, in July, 
 what the Spaniard means by his siesta. A book and a 
 sofa in the afternoon, near a tree-shaded window, with a 
 prospect of another room, seen through folding-doors, in 
 which the hot sun comes peeping between Yenetian 
 blinds, is pleasant to one's supineness. The sensible 
 thing is to lie on your back, gently pillowed 'twixt head 
 and shoulders, the head resting on the end of the sofa, 
 and to read — listening at intervals to the sound of the 
 foliage, or to the passing visit of the bee. The thing, 
 more sensible, is to have a companion who loves your 
 book and yourself, and who reads with you, provided
 
 A YEAR OF HONEYMOONS. 299 
 
 you can let her read, I must not come, liowever, to my 
 afternoon before my morning; though July, being lazy, 
 makes us think of it first. July and August are after- 
 noon and evening months; May and June are morning 
 months ; September and October are day months ; the 
 rest are night months, for firesides, unless we except 
 April, and that is as you can get it. You may experience 
 all the seasons in it, and must catch the sunshine as you 
 can, betwixt the showers. 
 
 July, however, though a lazy month, is not lazy from 
 weakness. If nature reposes, it is the repose of affluent 
 power and sovereign beauty. The gardens are in purple, 
 and golden, and white splendour (with the lily) ; the 
 trees in thickest exuberance ; the sky at its bluest ; the 
 clouds full, snowy, and mountainous. The genial armies 
 of the rain are collecting against the time when the hot 
 sun shall be too potent. The grandest, and at the same 
 time the loveliest of the wild-flowers, the convolvulus, is 
 lording it in the hedges. In the garden, the nasturtium 
 seems a flower born of fire. There is an exquisite flavour 
 of something burning in its taste. The daughter of 
 Linnaeus found out that sparks are emitted from the 
 nasturtium in warm evenings. It was a piece of observa- 
 tion fit for the daughter of the great botanist, and has 
 associated her memory M'ith one of the most agreeable 
 secrets of nature. Female discoveries ought to be in the 
 region of the beautiful and the sprightly. No disparage- 
 ment to Miss Martineau, who unites poetical and philo- 
 sophical feeling to a degree hitherto displayed by none 
 of her sex ; and whose sphere of the useful, being founded 
 on sympathy, contains in it all the elements of enjoy- 
 ment. I mention this, because it has been strangely 
 supposed of me, Charles Dalton, husband of Harriet D. 
 that I have thrown divers stones, yclept paragraphs, at 
 the head of my wife's namesake ; which I should as soon 
 think of duing as being angry with the summer sky.
 
 300 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 " Do vou like Harriet 1 " said a learned lord to me the 
 other day, no less remarkable for the vivacity of his 
 good-nature than his wit. He was speaking of Miss 
 M., whom I have not the pleasure of knowing. The 
 question startled me ; for, besides the identity of the 
 Christian name, it is manifestly impossible not to like 
 "Harriet." Harriet is all womankind. A female name, 
 thus put in question, ad Iwminem, stands for the whole 
 sex. I knew not which I liked better at the moment, 
 the lady or the interrogator. 
 
 Harriet, by the way, is a very sprightly name. It is 
 the female of Harry, and is identified, in my imagination, 
 with I know not Avhat of the power of being lively and 
 saucy, Avithout committing the sweetness of Avomanhood. 
 I have told my bride so a hundred times, and it is 
 astonishing what a talent she has at corroboration. I 
 believe if you were to put the same case to her twenty 
 times an hoar, she would meet you with twenty new 
 illustrations of it. It is perfectly amazing to me, how 
 these extremely gentle and quiet women, who present 
 the same mild, unruffled, unaffected manners from morn- 
 ing to night, and who seem (as the phrase is) as if 
 "butter would not melt in their mouths," can open upon 
 you a world of feeling and fancy inexhaustible, and 
 which would seem to have been secreted in a marvellous 
 nianner from everybody but myself. But I shall get 
 into a discussion. I suspected, -however, from the first 
 time I saw her, that Harriet had a great deal of vivacity 
 lurking under that soft eye of hers. It is an eye that 
 looks into you, not at you ; or rather, which has an 
 inward look in itself, so that if it looks at you. at all, 
 you take the depth from which it speculates for a 
 proportionate insight into the depth of your own feel- 
 ings. And this insight she has when she chooses. 
 Her very glance conveys the strongest impression of the 
 idea passing in her mind, accompanied by an equally
 
 A YEAR OF HONEYMOONS. 301 
 
 strong recognition of what is passing in yonrs. It was 
 thus that I knew she returned my love, before a word of 
 it was said on either side. She had been remarking the 
 day before to her aunt, in answer to a sort of apology 
 which the latter had made for giving a more peremptory 
 opinion than usual upon some doubtful matter in which 
 her niece was concerned, that she knew nothincr more 
 desirable than to be delivered from a painful state of 
 hesitation by a kind friend, and that she always desired 
 it "in proportion as she loved." "I wish she would 
 desire it of me," thought I ; " this would be true female 
 love, looking for the help of man." Xext day an 
 application for charity was made to her, which she 
 wished to accede to, but was not quite sure of her right. 
 Her aunt and I were both present, but she instinctively 
 looked first at me, with the dear question in her eyes, 
 and then blushed like scarlet, and turned to the old 
 lady. Conohbi allor (to make a grand quotation from 
 an exquisite sonnet of Petrarch) — 
 
 "Conobbi allor si come in Paradise 
 Vede I'un I'altro." 
 
 I knew her then, as spirits in Paradise 
 See one another. 
 
 We sometimes got up early of a morning in July, 
 going to bed proportionately soon at night, and laughing 
 to think how some of our fashionable acquaintances 
 would suppose they had the laugh on their side, for 
 our reasonable and happy life. Sometimes we took the 
 carriage, and, leaving it Avith the servants, walked into 
 some thick lane of trees, or little wood, seeing what 
 flowers were left us, and listening to the silence, which 
 was swept at intervals by the gentle morning wind. 
 We then returned to breakfast, went to our tasks, met 
 at an early dinner, had the dessert laid in another room, 
 and, retiring there, passed a delicious afternoon. Harriet 
 was now in that condition which the eye of every
 
 302 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 gallant man respects, and the soul of love encircles with 
 its tenderest protection, I have a theory, — no, not a 
 theory, it is a conviction, founded upon all that I ever 
 read, thought, or saw upon the subject, — that the character 
 of the human offspring is modified at a period much 
 earlier than the earliest of its observers are apt to 
 suppose, and that it is delightful to see the future 
 mother passing her time in security, and Avith a double 
 portion, if possible, of sense and cheerfulness. A 
 suspicion, partly to this effect, has, in fact, always 
 existed, but not often to very sensible purpose. An 
 expectation of good sense from the lady has been raised 
 at the precise time that she most needs it, and ladies, 
 not very sensible in general, have availed themselves of 
 the privilege to be more than usuallj'' absurd. Hence, 
 because the frames of children are affected by sudden 
 impressions on the part of the mother (a fact not to 
 be doubted) have risen all sorts of fantastic wants 
 and pretences, with their pleasing accompaniments of 
 hysterics, faintings, rages, remonstrances, and additions 
 to tradesmen's Ijills; and hence (for the minds of children 
 are affected as well as their bodies, though the apparently 
 obvious deduction is never thought of) the children come 
 into the world squalling and to squall, and the foolish 
 parents who helped to make them what they are hasten 
 to make them worse by scolding or indulgence, till they 
 wonder what perverse brats they have engendered. 
 
 Fortunately for me, and for the little creature that has 
 just been crowing at me with a voice of sugar, and a 
 face full of dimples, Harriet understood the philosophy 
 of this matter at a glance, and estimating the perils of 
 her condition at their proper amount, and no more, and 
 feeling herself joyfully secure from them as far as her 
 own temper and mine were concerned, her goodness and 
 taste were never more evinced than at this period. 
 Never did I know her more delightful. She volunteered
 
 A YEAR OF HONEYMOONS. 303 
 
 no dangers, nor imagined any, where there was no 
 ground for them. She renounced horseback, and was 
 cautious enough not to walk the street without a veil, 
 or with, eyes unprepared, lest she should encounter any 
 of those frightfully pitiable objects which luckily are 
 not so common in England as in some other parts of 
 Europe. For the rest, she was as gay as a lark, and 
 tender as gratitude, had no fancies, because she had no 
 wilfulness or folly, and walked (to the last) in the garden 
 as if she had been an Amazon. Yes, one fancy she had, 
 but she was doubtful whether she should indulge it, 
 purely because it was a fancy. She had read accounts 
 of the supposed origin of the beauty of the ancient 
 Greeks, and of imaginations afiPected by paintings and 
 sculpture, and she asked me whether I should think the 
 wish whimsical, or whether she ought to wish me to 
 hasten the purchase of a couple of statues I had talked 
 of — the celestial Vem:s and the Apollo of the Vatican. 
 I said I rejoiced in seizing the opportunity to get them, 
 for that I had delayed it for no other reason than 
 because we had been ruralizing so much of late that I 
 had almost forgotten the town. They were procured 
 the next day, and installed in the two farthest corners 
 of our principal sitting-room, where they looked beauty 
 and tranquillity at us from morn till night, and disposed 
 my charmer's mind to repose on her idealism made 
 visible. She said she had no fear of unpleasant 
 thoughts, but was willing to render pleasant ones more 
 than usually distinct to her imagination. "And these 
 beautiful strangers," said I, smiling, "will not displace 
 me in your thoughts 1" "Displace you!" cried she, 
 rising from the chair in which she was sitting near me, 
 as I reclined on the sofa, and coming towards me with 
 an air of gay revenge, then added, in a lower tone, and 
 with exquisite tenderness, and gently pressing herself 
 against my heart, " How could they?"
 
 304 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 Bat I ought to have an audience made on purpose, and 
 safe from the chance of unworthy listeners, before I could 
 indulge my pride with recording more of these speeches. 
 To others 1 leave it to imagine the evenings we passed ; 
 — how attentive without exaction, — how reposing on cer- 
 tainty, — how full of past, present, and future — making 
 my July as well as my January a true honeymoon, if ever 
 there was sweetness in truth and love. 
 
 AUGUST. 
 
 The month of August, owing to the heat of the weather, 
 and the interesting circumstances mentioned in my last, 
 passed much in the same manner with us as that of July. 
 But we oftener went out in the carriage, because Harriet 
 could walk less. IS'ot that she did not walk as often as 
 she could ; for she was religious upon that point, and 
 proposed to gift her offspring with the peripatetic prin- 
 ciple before it was born. But the weather was so hot 
 that, in order to keep up our country pleasures at any 
 distance, we were fain to be carried ; she out of necessity, 
 and I because I chose to be as near her as possible. I 
 do not much like riding at any time by the side of a 
 carriage, and talking with a lady inside of it, when I can 
 sit with her, — she straining her voice, and the horseman 
 bobbing up and down, and losing it in the sound of 
 gravelly roads, and the whisking of the wind ; and Harriet's 
 " situation " (to use one of the numberless unmeaning, 
 yet understood words, by which gossips express delicate 
 circumstances) attracted my arm around her with fresh 
 force every day, — the more so, as, though she depended 
 as much as possible on herself, and made no fuss about 
 it, she could not conceal the comfort it gave her, and the 
 gratitude that sighed for every felicity as I drew her 
 within it. It may be an odd word to use, but many a
 
 A YEAR OF HOXEYMOOXS. ' 305 
 
 man will sigh from a very different feeling at hearing it, 
 when I say, that one of the most excellent reasons which 
 I have for loving Harriet consists in her being one of 
 the unfussiest of women. She never exacts, nor fidgets, 
 nor maunders, nor is ill-timed, nor makes mountains of 
 mole-hills, nor insists upon attention to herself by any of 
 those numerous petty and restless manoeuvres, by which 
 inferior understandings think to make themselves of con- 
 sequence, while they betray their want of right to it. 
 The result is, as in all cases where people unaffectedly 
 disclaim attention, that one gives it her in double por- 
 tion, and is grateful that she thinks it worth acceptance. 
 Good heaven ! what straws become precious between those 
 who know how to love ! and what caskets of jewels one 
 could pitch into the river when they are only the go- 
 betweens of a mistake ! I do not pretend that I, Charles 
 Dalton, however justly I lay claim to the title of the 
 most "bridal" of men, have not, in my time, "loved," 
 yea, and been "made love to" by divers fair persons, 
 before (to speak Hibernically), I knew what love was ! 
 And doubtless there are many honest people who know 
 not what love is all their lives, and would have taken it 
 for very good love. You read of such in the works of 
 the Duke of Buckingham and the Count de Buffon. ^STor 
 do I mean to disparage it after its fashion. The very 
 best love, I confess, would be puzzled to know how to do 
 without it, yet I will venture to say, to those who have 
 heart and understanding enough to allow of its being 
 said to them, that the least touch of the cheek, loved by 
 that best love, is a greater pleasure even to the senses 
 than all which Madame du Barri brouglit to the hero of 
 the Pare aux Cerfs. The delight of holding the very tips 
 of Harriet's fingers, as I lead her to the carriage, is greater 
 to me, with all my town experience (such as it is), than 
 if I had the run of the Grand Turk's seraglio. And 
 there are very lovable persons there, nevertheless, I daie- 
 
 u
 
 306 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 say, and such as might give him a sensation, if he knew 
 how to be less of a sensualist and more of a voluptuary. 
 I use the term "advisedly," as the discreet say; for, be- 
 tween the "knowing reader" and myself, these poor 
 people, — your Grand Turks, and your " men of pleasure 
 about town," are ignorant of the very trade they profess, 
 and never make Cupid laugh so heartily as when they 
 think they know him best, taking him for ^ sorry little 
 devil, who ought to be whipped ! But I fear I have said 
 this before ! 
 
 I took Harriet in August to see some glorious harvests 
 on the borders of Middlesex, Hertfordshire, and there- 
 abouts, including the famous Perivale, recarded by Dray- 
 ton, and eminent among " exalted valleys," for having 
 produced the bread that was set on Queen Elizabeth's 
 table. They say there is a family living there in the 
 rank of yeomen who have cultivated the same spot of 
 ground ever since the time of Edward the Confessor ! 
 What a respectable family must that be (if it is not the 
 dullest in the world) ; and what sturdy principles of dura- 
 tion and conduct must be in it ! It is the next thing 
 to a man's living for ever. I have heard of such families 
 in Kent and Sussex, but never before on this side of 
 London ; though I have been told of one not half so far 
 from town, who have kept their carriage for twenty years, 
 and never seen the metropolis ! This seems incredible ; 
 though there is no saying what freaks people may take 
 into their heads, or how far the conduct of one obstinate 
 misanthropical or even amiable but morbid person may 
 affect a generation of jog-trot old coach-horses and good- 
 natured aunts. Ought I to be ashamed to say, that I 
 could live twenty years with Harriet without going to 
 London, — content to receive my books by the coach, and 
 to wander with her in the same old woods, and be snug by 
 the same fu-eside 1 This may be thought a bridal fancy ; 
 but I am sure I could. I know it from what I used to
 
 A YEAR OF HONEYMOONS. 307 
 
 feel when a cliikl, — a time of life at -which novelty is 
 loved for its own sake. I had two favourite houses 
 which I visited for a series of years, and I knew not 
 what it was to desire a third. I could have passed to 
 and fro betwixt the gardens of the one and the picture- 
 galleries of the other for ever, desiring only what I did 
 desire, namely, somebody to love, as Ariosto's lover did, 
 in a picture which hung up in one of the parlours, of 
 Angelica and Medoro. And this somebody I have found. 
 Why need I then wander ? It is true, chance has thrown 
 me on the borders of the metropolis, and I am fortunate 
 enough, so situated, to like both town and country ; but 
 the former is not necessary to me. Love only is necessary, 
 with imagination and a green tree. My world is so large 
 with imagination, and so rich with love, that it is more 
 easy to me to contract than to extend it. I can find, as 
 the Jew of Malta saw in his gem, 
 
 " Infinite riches in a little room ; " 
 
 but take away one or two things that are in it, and the 
 richest and busiest streets in London would become a 
 poverty-stricken solitude. I should take a lodging (if I 
 could get no better) near some bit of a tree, perhaps half 
 dead with smoke, and sit in a churchyard ; but it would 
 be a visible bit of nature, and remind me of something 
 larger than all the cities of the earth. Or I would stick 
 up a few flowers in my window, and take refuge with 
 those. Something to love, or to represent what we love, 
 is the thing, or any thing that any way resembles its 
 beauty, its grace, or its good-nature. 
 
 Harriet was now the more willing to exchanire her 
 walks for the carriage, inasmuch as her " situation " 
 made her less easy at being stared at. When Catherine 
 the Second of liussia grew corpulent, she set a fashion, 
 or took upon herself the exclusive privilege (I do not 
 mention which) of wearing a long loose gown, of such a
 
 308 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 make as to conceal tlic deformity of her sliape, without 
 hurtiug what was left of the grace and dignity of her 
 movement. I wish ]\Irs. Dalton were an empress for a 
 day or two, so that she might set a fashion Avhich should 
 do justice to shapes of a certain kind, — not deformed, 
 God knows,— but such as women do not willingly sub- 
 ject to the chance of being looked upon by common eyes. 
 She has invented such a one, and would look charming 
 in it ; but she would not wear it, even before acquaint- 
 ances, lest she should be thought eccentric. So hard it 
 is for society to add a little bit to their reasonableness. 
 It is of a rich, heavy, deep-coloured texture, hanging 
 directly from the bosom to the ground, after the fashion 
 of the fair autocrat, and Avould form at once an under- 
 stood veil and a majestic ornament. But the ladies of 
 Almack's do not set such fashions, and therefore their 
 husbands must have them indecently stared at. I know 
 not by what unrefined instinct it is, but I have seen men 
 in theatres and other places, and indeed in rooms, fix 
 their eyes, with so strange and apparently so stupid an 
 absorption, upon women in this condition, that I have 
 been astonished how anybody in the rank of a gentleman 
 could be guilty of so manifest an outrage, and have been 
 ready to get up and chuck a glass of wine in his face. 
 The imagination of these starers must be wondrously 
 matter-of-fact, and require a world of proof to set them 
 going. When ladies are 
 
 " As ladies wisli to be who love their lords," 
 
 I suppose these gentlemen take the spectacle for the only 
 proof positive that there has been any love in the case. 
 Thej'' are sure of nobody else. Existence, for aught they 
 know, may be the dullest thing jjossible from here to 
 China, with all the rest of the world ; but here, they 
 think, " be proofs." They require ocular demonstration 
 that the earth is to continue peopled ; and, of course, are
 
 A YEAR OF HONEYMOONS. 309 
 
 in like doubt upon all other desirable points. They 
 question whether there is any laughter going forward in 
 France itself, unless they occasionally meet with some 
 native of that country ready to split. 
 
 " My soul, turn from them ; " and let us acknowledge 
 that the above line of the poet's is a very pretty one, 
 albeit repeated quotation has done it a mischief. Poets 
 have said less on this subject than might have been 
 expected, probably because they doubted whether they 
 should find " fit audience." Shakespeare has touched it 
 — scarcely, I think, with his usual delicacy — in a passage 
 in the " Midsummer Night's Dream " (act ii. scene 2). 
 Spenser has an exquisite line about it, calculated to 
 make every mother love him — 
 
 " The loving mother, that nine months did beare, 
 In the dear closet of her painful side. 
 Her tender babe," etc. 
 
 I cannot venture to say anything to the same purpose 
 after this. The perfection of humanity is in it — the 
 tenderest, thoughtful mixture of pain and pleasure. 
 
 When we got among the rich lanes and cornfields of 
 Perivale, I told Harriet that she looked like the goddess 
 of the month, and that if she had had her proposed 
 gown on, I could have led her forth like the splendid 
 personification of its Plenty in the " Faerie Queene " — 
 
 "The sixth was August, being rich arrayed, 
 In garments all of gold, doune to the ground, 
 Yet rode he not, but led a lovely maid 
 Forth by the lily hand, the which was crown'd 
 With ears of corn, and full her hand was found." 
 
 After laughing, with a pretty saucy blush, at a double 
 mistake I had made in this quotation, and giving 
 praise to this and other beautiful passages in her wonted 
 style, such as crying out, " Now — how very beautiful 
 that is!" "Now— how lovely!" "Now, Charles, if 
 you repeat any more such, I will do you a mischief.
 
 310 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 because, as you say, I do not know how to vent 
 my satisfaction." Harriet began to raise a hundred 
 ludicrous images of our playing the part of August and 
 Plenty, and astonishing the rustics and little children in 
 the lanes, — I looking gravely at her sideways, leading 
 her by the " lily hand," and she looking as gravely right 
 .forward, not at all heeding the little children ; and then 
 she fell into a strain of grateful tenderness towards nature, 
 and me, and mirth, and tenderness, and everything. By 
 this time Ave had got back into the carriage, — the happi- 
 ness she felt made her more and more serious ; till at 
 length, as it led her by degrees into the indulgence of 
 every affectionate thought, and the tenderest conscious- 
 ness of her hopes, it produced the softest shower of tears 
 I ever beheld, part of which, as she leant her forehead 
 against mine, fell from her downcast, but willing eyes, 
 like drops of consecration. 
 
 A honeymoon only the first month ! as well might it 
 be said that the bees make honey but one month in the 
 year ; or that the moonlight is not as sweet in summer 
 as in spring. I may repeat here a saying I met with the 
 other day, out of good-natured Boccaccio : " Bocca baciata 
 no perde ventura anzi rinuova, come fa la luna : " 
 
 How can lips by kissing lose ? 
 Like the moon, the mouth renews. 
 
 Here is a series of honeymoons described by the author 
 of the " Decameron," without his knowing it ; but I grant 
 that it is true love only which is gifted with the power 
 of renovation. 
 
 Apropos of the word Honeymoon : I happen to have 
 just been reading in two different anonymous authors, 
 both very clever ones, and both, I understand, ladies, that 
 the metaphor took its rise from a custom among our 
 Saxon ancestors, of drinking wine made from honey 
 during the first wedded month. How could these ladies 
 do such injustice to the poetry and the sweet thoughts
 
 A YEAR OF H0NEYM00X8. 311 
 
 that are in them. At least they might have added a 
 protest as to its non-importance ; for what signifies a 
 Gothic accident like that, granting it even to have 
 happened. Honey is thought to be the sweetest food 
 in the world, and marriage is thought to be at once the 
 sweetest and briefest bliss that is entered upon. There 
 is a month, it is calculated, of riglit good marriage, and 
 that month is, of course, a month of honey. The word 
 honey has been used to express the sweetest of sweets 
 all over the world, and in all ages. ." Sweeter than honey 
 and the honeycomb," says a reverend authority. " By 
 the honey - sweet ! " exclaimed an ancient of Mount 
 Hybla, swearing by Goddess Proserpina. " Honeyed 
 eyes," quoth the Latin poet — meUitos ocuJos ; not that 
 the lover drank hydromel in their honour, and so made 
 them sweet by authority, but because he drank honey 
 out of their own sweetness, and grew intoxicated with 
 love.
 
 XX. 
 
 A TALE FOR A CHIMNEY CORNER. 
 
 A MAN who does not contribute his quota of grim story 
 now-a-days, seems hardly to be free of the republic of 
 letters. He is bound to wear a death's head as part of 
 his insignia. If he does not frighten everybody, he is 
 nobody. If he does not shock the ladies, what can be 
 expected of him 1 
 
 We confess we think very cheaply of these stories in 
 general. A story, merely horrible or even awful, which 
 contains no sentiment elevating to the human heart and 
 its hopes, is a mere appeal to the least judicious, least 
 healthy, and least masculine of our passions — fear. 
 They whose attention can be gravely arrested by it, are 
 in a fit state to receive any absurdity with respect; and 
 this is the reason why less talents are required to enforce 
 it, than in any other species of composition. With this 
 opinion of such things, we may he allowed to say, that 
 we would undertake to write a dozen horrible stories in a 
 day, all of which should make the common worshippers 
 of power, who were not in the very healthiest condition, 
 turn pale. We would tell of Haunting Old Women, and 
 Knocking Ghosts, and Solitary Lean Hands, and Empusas 
 on One Leg, and Ladies growing Longer and Longer, and 
 Horrid Eyes meeting us through Keyholes, and Plaintive 
 Heads, and Shrieking Statues, and shocking Anomalies 
 of Shape, and Things which when seen drove people mad ; 
 and Indigestion knows what besides. Eut who Avould 
 measure talents with a leg of veal or a German sausage '? 
 
 312
 
 A TALE FOR A CHIMNEY CORNER. 313 
 
 Mere grimness is as easy as grinning ; but it requires 
 something to put a handsome face on a story. Narratives 
 become of suspicious merit in proportion as they lean to 
 Newgate-like offences, particularly of blood and wounds. 
 A child has a reasonable respect for a Raw-head-and- 
 bloody-bones, because all images whatsoever of pain and 
 terror are new and fearful to his inexperienced age ; but 
 sufferings merely physical (unless sublimated like those of 
 Philoctetes) are commonplaces to a grown man. Images, 
 to become awful to him, must be removed from the gross- 
 ness of the shambles. A death's head was a respectable 
 thing in the hands of a poring monk, or of a nun com- 
 pelled to avoid the idea of life and society, or of a hermit 
 already buried in the desert. Holbein's Dance of Death, 
 in which every grinning skeleton leads along a man of 
 rank, from the Pope to the gentleman, is a good Memento 
 Mori ; but there the skeletons have an air of the ludicrous 
 and satirical. If we were threatened with them in a 
 grave way, as spectres, we should have a right to ask how 
 they could walk about without muscles. Thus many of 
 the tales written by such authors as the late ^fr. Lewis, 
 who wanted sentiment to give him the heart of truth, are 
 quite puerile. When his spectral nuns go about bleeding, 
 we think they ought in decency to have applied to some 
 ghost of a surgeon. Ilis little Grey INfen, who sit munch- 
 ing hearts, are of a piece with fellows that eat cats for a 
 wager. 
 
 Stories that give mental pain to no purpose, or to very 
 little purpose compared with the unpleasant ideas they 
 excite of human nature, are as gross mistakes, in their 
 way, as these, and twenty times as pernicious ; for the 
 latter become ludicrous to grown i)eople. They originate 
 also in the same extremes, of callousness, or of morbid 
 want of excitement, as the others. But more of these 
 hereafter. Our business at present is with things ghastly 
 and ghostly.
 
 314 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 A ghost story, to be a good one, should, unite, as much 
 as possible, objects such as they are in life with a preter- 
 natural spirit. And to be a perfect one, — at least, to add 
 to the other utility of excitement a moral utility, — they 
 should imply some great sentiment, — something that 
 comes out of the next world to remind us of our duties 
 in this ; or something that helps to carry on the idea of 
 our humanity into after-life, even when we least think we 
 shall take it with us. When "the buried majesty of 
 Denmark " revisits earth to speak to his son Hamlet, he 
 comes armed, as he used to be, in his complete steel. His 
 visor is raised ; and the same fine face is there ; only, in 
 spite of his punishing errand and his own sufferings, Avith 
 
 "A countenance more in sorrow than in anger." 
 
 When Donne the poet, in his thoughtful eagerness to 
 reconcile life and death, had a figure of himself painted 
 in a shroud, and laid by his bedside in a coffin, he did a 
 higher thing than the monks and hermits with their 
 skulls. It was taking his humanity with him into the 
 other world, not affecting to lower the sense of it by 
 regarding it piecemeal or in the framework. Burns, in 
 his " Tarn O'Shanter," shows the dead in their coffins after 
 the same fashion. He does not lay bare to us their 
 skeletons or refuse, things with which we can connect no 
 sympathy or spiritual wonder. They still are flesh and 
 body to retain the one ; yet so look and behave, incon- 
 sistent in their very consistency, as to excite the other. 
 
 " Coffins stood round like open presses, 
 Which showed the dead in their last dresses : 
 And by some devilish cantrip sleight, 
 Each, in his caiild hand, held a light." 
 
 Reanimation is perhaps the most ghastly of all ghastly 
 things, uniting as it does an appearance of natural inter- 
 diction from the next world, with a supernatural experi- 
 ence of it. Our human consciousness is jarred out of its
 
 A TALE FOR A CHIMNEY CORNER. 315 
 
 self-possession. The extremes of habit and newness, of 
 commonplace and astonishment, meet suddenly, without 
 the kindly introduction of death and change ; and the 
 stranger appals us in proportion. When the account 
 appeared the other day in the newspapers of the 
 galvanized dead body, whose features as well as limbs 
 underwent such contortions, that it seemed as if it were 
 about to rise up, one almost expected to hear, for the 
 first time, news of the other world. Perhaps the most 
 appalling figure in Spenser is that of jVIaleger (" Faerie 
 Queene," b. ii. c. 11) : — 
 
 " Upon a tygre swift and fierce he rode, 
 That as the winde ran underneath his lode, 
 Whiles his long legs nigh raught unto the ground : 
 Full large he was of limbe, and shoulders brode, 
 But of such subtile substance and unsound, 
 That like a ghost he seemed, whose grave-clothes were unbound." 
 
 Mr. Coleridge, in that voyage of his to the brink of all 
 unutterable things, the " Ancient Mariner " (which works 
 out, however, a fine sentiment), does not set mere ghosts or 
 hobgoblins to man the ship again, when its crew are dead ; 
 but reanimates, for awhile, the crew themselves. There 
 is a striking fiction of this sort in Sale's Notes upon the 
 Koran. Solomon dies during the building of the temple, 
 but his body remains leaning on a staff and overlooking 
 the workmen, as if it were alive ; till a worm gnawing 
 through the prop, he falls down. — The contrast of the 
 appearance of humanity with something mortal or super- 
 natural, is always the more terrible in proportion as it is 
 complete. In the pictures of the temptations of saints 
 and hermits, where the holy person is surrounded, teased, 
 and enticed, with devils and fantastic shapes, the most 
 shocking phantasm is that of the beautiful woman. To 
 return also to the poem above-mentioned. The most 
 appalling personage in Mr. Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner" 
 is the Spectre-woman, who is called Life-in-Death. He
 
 316 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 renders the most hideous abstraction more terrible than 
 it could otherwise have been, by embodying it in its own 
 reverse. "Death" not only "lives" in it, but the "un- 
 utterable" becomes uttered. To see such an unearthly 
 passage end in such earthliness, seems to turn common- 
 place itself into a sort of spectral doubt. The Mariner, 
 after describing the horrible calm, and the rotting sea in 
 which the ship was stuck, is speaking of a strange sail 
 wliich he descried in the distance : — 
 
 " The western wave was all a-flame, 
 The day was well nigh done ! 
 Almost tipon the western wave 
 Rested the broad bright sun ; 
 When that strange ship drove suddenly 
 Betwixt us and the sun. 
 
 " And straight the sun was flecked with bars, 
 (Heaven's Mother send us grace!) 
 As if through a dungeon-grate he peer'd, 
 "With broad and burning face. 
 
 " Alas ! (thought T, and my heart beat loud) 
 How fast she neers and neers ! 
 Are those her sails that glance in the sun 
 Like restless gossameres? 
 
 " Are those her ribs, through which the sun 
 Did peer as through a grate ? 
 And is that Woman all her crew? 
 Is that a death? and are there two? 
 Is Death that Woman's mate? 
 
 " Her lips were red, her looks were free, 
 Her locks were yellow as gold, 
 Her skin was as white as lex^rosy, 
 The Night-Mare Life-in-Death was she, 
 Who thicks man's blood with cold." 
 
 But we must come to Mr. Coleridge's story with our 
 subtlest imaginations upon us. ISTow let us put our 
 knees a little nearer the fire, and tell a homelier one about
 
 A TALE FOR A CHIMNEY CORNER. 317 
 
 Life in Death. The groundwork of it is in Sandys' 
 Commentary upon Ovid, and quoted from Sabinus.^ 
 
 A gentleman of Bavaria, of a noble family, was so 
 afflicted at the death of his wife, that, unable to bear the 
 company of any other person, he gave himself up to a 
 solitary way of living. This was the more remarkable 
 in him, as he had been a man of jovial habits, fond of his 
 wine and visitors, and impatient of having his numerous 
 indulgences contradicted. But in the same temper, 
 perhaps, might be found the cause of his sorrow; for 
 though he would be impatient with his wife, as with 
 others, yet his love for her was one of the gentlest Avills 
 he had; and the sweet and unaffected face which she 
 always turned upon his anger, might have been a thing 
 more easy for him to trespass upon, while living, than to 
 forget when dead and gone. His very anger towards her, 
 compared with that towards others, was a relief to him. 
 It Avas rather a wish to refresh himself in the balmy feel- 
 ing of her patience, than to make her unhappy herself, or 
 to punish her, as some would have done, for that virtuous 
 contrast to his own vice. 
 
 But whether he bethought himself, after her death, 
 that this was a very selfish mode of loving ; or whether, 
 as some thought, he had wearied out her life with habits 
 so contrary to her own ; or whether, as others reported, 
 he had put it to a fatal risk by some lordly piece of self- 
 will, in consequence of which she had caught a fever on 
 the cold river during a night of festivity ; he surprised 
 even those who thought that he loved her by the extreme 
 bitterness of his grief. The very mention of festivity, 
 though he was patient for the first day or two, afterwards 
 threw him into a passion of rage ; but by degrees even 
 his rage followed his other old habits. He was gentle, 
 
 *o^ 
 
 1 The Saxon I.ntiti imet, we presume, professor of belles-lettres at 
 Frankfort. We know nothinji of him, except from a bio^jrapLical 
 dictionary.
 
 318 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 but ever silent. He eat and drank but sufficient to keep 
 liim alive ; and used to sj^end the greater part of the day 
 in the spot where his wife was buried. 
 
 He was going there one evening, in a very melancholy 
 manner, with his eyes turned towards the earth, and had 
 just entered the rails of the burial-ground, when he was 
 accosted by the mild voice of somebody coming to meet 
 him. "It is a blessed evening, sir," said the voice. The 
 gentleman looked up. Nobody but himself was allowed 
 to be in the place at that hour, and yet he saw with 
 astonishment a young chorister approaching him. He 
 was going to express some wonder, when, he said, the 
 modest though assured look of the boy, and the extreme 
 beauty of his countenance, which glowed in the setting 
 sun before him, made an irresistible addition to the 
 singular sweetness of his voice ; and he asked him with 
 an involuntary calmness, and a gesture of respect, not 
 what he did there, but what he wished. " Only to wish 
 you all good things," answered the stranger, Avho had now 
 come up, " and to give you this letter." The gentleman 
 took the letter, and saw upon it, with a beating yet 
 scarcely bewildered heart, the handwriting of his wife. He 
 raised his eyes again to speak to the boy, but he was gone. 
 He cast them far and near round the place, but there were 
 no traces of a passenger. He then opened the letter, and 
 by the divine light of the setting sun, read these words : — 
 
 "To my dear husband, who sorrows for his wife — 
 
 " Otto, my husband, the soul you regret so is returned. 
 You will know the truth of this, and be prepared with 
 calmness to see it, by the divineness of the messenger who 
 has passed you. You will find me sitting in the public 
 walk, praying for you, praying that you may never more 
 give way to those gusts of passion and those curses 
 against others, which divided us. 
 
 " This, with a warm hand, from the living Bertha."
 
 A TALE FOE A CHIMNEY CORNEB. 319 
 
 Otto (for such, it seems, was the gentleman's name) 
 went instantly, calmly, quickly, yet with a sort of be- 
 numbed being, to the public walk. He felt, but Avith 
 only a half-consciousness, as if he glided without a body, 
 but all his spirit was awake, eager, intensely conscious. 
 It seemed to him as if there had been but two things in 
 the world — Life and Death ; and that Death was dead. 
 All else appeared to have been a dream. He had awaked 
 from a waking state, and found himself all eye, and spirit, 
 and locomotion. He said to himself, once, as he went : 
 "This is not a dream. I will ask my great ancestors 
 to-morrow to my new bridal feast, for they are alive." 
 Otto had been calm at first, but something of old and 
 triumphant feelings seemed again to come over him. 
 Was he again too proud and confident 1 Did his earthly 
 humours prevail again, when he thought them least upon 
 him 1 We shall see. 
 
 The Bavarian arrived at the public walk. It was full 
 of people with their wives and children, enjoying the 
 beauty of the evening. Something like common fear 
 came over him as he went in and out among them, 
 looking at the benches on each side. It happened that 
 there was only one person, a lady, sitting upon them. 
 She had her veil down, and his being underwent a fierce 
 but short convulsion as he went near her. Something 
 had a little battled the calmer inspiration of the ang(d 
 that had accosted him, for fear prevailed at the instant, 
 and Otto passed on. He returned before he had reached 
 the end of the walk, and approached the lady again. She 
 was still sitting in the same quiet posture, only he 
 thought she looked at him. Again he passed her. On 
 his second return, a grave and sweet courage came upon 
 him, and in an under but firm tone of inquiry, he said, 
 " Bertha 1 " — " I thouglit you had forgotten me," said that 
 well-known and mellow voice, which he had seemed as 
 far from ever hearing again as earth is from heaven. He
 
 320 LEIGH HUNT, 
 
 took her hand, which grasped his in turn ; and they 
 walked homo in silence together, the arm, which was 
 wound within his, giving warmth for warmth. 
 
 The neighbours seemed to have a miraculous want of 
 wonder at the lady's reappearance. Something was said 
 about a mock funeral, and her having withdrawn from 
 his company for awhile ; but visitors came as before, 
 and his wife returned to her household affairs. It was 
 only remarked that she always looked pale and pensive. 
 But she was more kind to all, even thaix before : and her 
 pensivencss seemed ratlier the result of some great internal 
 thought, than of unhappiness. 
 
 For a year or two the Bavarian retained the better 
 temper which he acquired. His fortunes flourished 
 beyond his earliest ambition ; the most amiable as well 
 as noble persons of the district were frequent visitors ; 
 and people said that to be at Otto's house must be the 
 next thing to being in heaven. But by degrees his self- 
 will returned with his prosperity. He never vented 
 impatience on his wife, but he again began to show that 
 the disquietude it gave her to see it vented on others 
 was a secondary thing, in his mind, to the indulgence of 
 it. Whether it was that his grief for her loss had been 
 rather remorse than affection, and so he held himself 
 secure if he treated her well, or Avhether he was at all 
 times rather proud of her than fond, or whatever was the 
 cause which again set his antipathies above his sympa- 
 thies, certain it was that his old habits returned upon 
 him ; not so often, indeed, but with greater violence and 
 pride when they did. These were the only times at 
 which his wife •was observed to show any ordinary 
 symptoms of uneasiness. 
 
 At length, one day, some strong rebuff which he had 
 received from an alienated neighbour threw him into such 
 a transport of rage that he gave way to the most bitter 
 im.precations, crying with a loud voice, "This treatment
 
 A TALE FOR A CHIMNEY CORNER. 321 
 
 to me too ! To me ! To me, who if the world knew 
 Jill " — At these words, his wife, who had in vain laid 
 her hand npon his, and looked him with dreary earnest- 
 ness in the face, suddenly glided from the room. He and 
 two or three who were present were struck with a dumb 
 horror. They said she did not walk out, nor vanish 
 suddenly, but glided as one who could dispense with the 
 use of feet. After a moment's pause, the others proposed 
 to him to follow her. He made a movement of despair, 
 but they went. There was a short passage which turned 
 to the right into her favourite room. They knocked at 
 the door twice or three times, and received no answer. 
 At last one of them gently opened it, and, looking in, 
 they saw her, as they thought, standing before a fire, 
 which was the only light in the room. Yet she stood so 
 far from it as rather to be in the middle of the room ; 
 only the face was towards the fire, and she seemed looking 
 iipon it. They addressed her, but received no answer. 
 They stepped gently towards her, and still received none. 
 The figure stood dumb and unmoved. At last, one of 
 them went round in front, and instantly fell on the floor. 
 The figure was without body. A hollow hood was left 
 instead of a face. The clothes were standing upright by 
 themselves. 
 
 That room was blocked up for ever, for the clothes, if it 
 might be so, to moulder away. It was called the Eoom of 
 the Lady's Figure. The house after the gentleman's 
 death was long uninhabited, and at length burnt by the 
 peasants in an insurrection. As for himself, he died 
 about nine months after, a gentle and childlike penitent. 
 He had never stirred from the house since, and nobody 
 would venture to go near him but a man who had the 
 reputation of being a reprobate. It Avas from this man 
 that the particulars of the story came first. He would 
 distribute the gentleman's alms in great abundance to any 
 strange poor who would accept them, for most of the 
 
 X
 
 322 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 neidibours held them in horror. Ho tried all he could to 
 get the parents among them to let some of their little 
 children, or a single one of them, go to see his employer. 
 They said he even asked it one day with tears in his 
 eyes. But they shuddered to think of it ; and the matter 
 was not mended when this profane person, in a fit of 
 impatience, said one day that he Avould have a child of 
 his own on purpose. His employer, however, died in a 
 day or two. They did not believe a word he told them 
 of all the Bavarian's gentleness, looking upon the latter as 
 a sort of ogre, and upon his agent as little better, though 
 a good-natured-looking, earnest kind of person. It was 
 said many years after, that this man had been a friend 
 of the Bavarian's when young, and had been deserted 
 by him. And the young believed it, whatever the old 
 might do.
 
 XXI. 
 
 CHABLES BRANDON, AND MARY QUEEN 
 OF FRANCE. 
 
 The fortune of Charles Brandon was remarkable. He 
 was an honest man, yet tlie favourite of a despot. He 
 was brave, handsome, accomplished, possessed even 
 delicacy of sentiment ; yet he retained the despot's 
 favour to the last. He even had the perilous honour 
 of being beloved by his master's sister, without having 
 the least claim to it by birth; and yet instead of its 
 destroying them both, he was allowed to be her 
 husband. 
 
 Charles Brandon was the son of Sir William Brandon, 
 whose skull was cleaved at Bosworth by Richard the 
 Third, while bearing the standard of the Dvtke of 
 Richmond. Richard dashed at the standard, and appears 
 to have been thrown from his horse by Sir William, 
 whose strength and courage, however, could not save him 
 from the angry desperation of the king. 
 
 " But Time, whose wheelcs with various motion runne, 
 Repayes this service fully to his sonne, 
 Who marries Richmond's daughter, born betwcene 
 Two royal parents, and endowed a queene." 
 
 — Sir John Beaumont's Bosworth Field. 
 
 The father's fate must have had its effect in securing the 
 fortunes of the son. Young Brandon grew up with 
 
 323
 
 324 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 Henvy the Seventh's children, and was the playmate of 
 his future king and bride. Tlie prince, as he increased 
 in years, seems to have carried the idea of Brandon with 
 him like that of a second self; and the princess, whose 
 affection was not hindered from becoming personal by 
 anything sisterly, nor on the other hand allowed to waste 
 itself in too equal a familiarity, may have felt a double 
 impulse given to it by the improbability of her ever being 
 suffered to become his wife. Eoyal females in most 
 countries have certainly none of the advantages of their 
 rank, whatever the males may have. Mary was destined 
 to taste the usual bitterness of their lot ; but she was 
 repaid. At the conclusion of the war with France, she 
 was married to the old king Louis the Twelfth, who 
 witnessed from a couch the exploits of her future husband 
 at the tournaments. The doings of Charles Brandon 
 that time were long remembered. The love between him 
 and the young queen was suspected by the French court ; 
 and he had just seen her enter Paris in the midst of a 
 gorgeous procession, like Aurora come to marry Tithonus. 
 Brandon dealt his chivalry about him accordingly with 
 such irresistible vigour, that the Dauphin, in a fit of 
 jealousy, secretly introduced into the contest a huge 
 German, who was thought to be of a strength incompar- 
 able. But Brandon grappled with him, and with seeming 
 disdain and detection so pummelled him about the head 
 with the hilt of his sword, that the blood burst through 
 the vizor. Imagine the feelings of the queen, when he 
 came and made her an offering of the German's shield. 
 Drayton, in his " Heroical Epistles," we know not on what 
 authority, tells us, that one occasion during the combats, 
 perhaps this particular one, she could not help crying out, 
 "Hurt not my sweet Charles," or words to that effect. 
 He then pleasantly represents her as doing away suspicion 
 by falling to commendations of the Dauphin, and affect- 
 ing not to know who the conquering knight was ; — an
 
 CHABLES BRANDON. 325 
 
 ignorance not very probable ; but the knights sometimes 
 disguised themselves purposely. 
 
 The old king did not long survive his festivities. He 
 died in less than three months, on the first day of the 
 year 1515 ; and Brandon, who had been created Duke of 
 Suffolk the year before, reappeared at the French court, 
 with letters of condolence, and more persuasive looks. 
 The royal widow was young, beautiful, and rich; and. it 
 was likely that her hand would be sought by many 
 princely lovers ; but she was now resolved to reward 
 herself for her sacrifice, and in less than two months she 
 privately married her first love. The queen, says a 
 homely but not mean poet ("Warner, in his " Albion's 
 England "), thought that to cast too many doubts 
 
 " Were oft to erre no lesse 
 
 Than to be rash : and thus no doubt 
 
 The gentle queene did guesse, 
 That seeing this or that, at first 
 
 Or last, had likelyliood, 
 A man so much a manly man 
 
 Were dastardly withstood. 
 Then kisses revelled on their lips, 
 
 To either's equal good. " 
 
 Henry showed great anger at first, real ur pretended; 
 but he had not then been pampered into unbearable self- 
 will by a long reign of tyranny. He forgave his sister 
 and friend ; and they were publicly wedded at Greenwich 
 on the 13th of May. 
 
 It was during the festivities on this occasion (at least 
 we believe so, for we have not the chivalrous Lord 
 Herbert's life of Henry the Eighth by us, whicli is most 
 probably the authority for the story ; and being a good 
 thing, it is omitted, as usual, by the historians) that 
 Charles Brandon gave a proof of the fineness of his 
 nature, equally just towards himself, and conciliating 
 towards the jealous. He appeared, at a tournament, on a 
 saddle-cloth, made half of frieze and half of cloth of gold,
 
 326 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 and witL a motto on each half. One of the mottos ran 
 
 thus : — 
 
 " Cloth of frize, be not too bold, ^^ 
 
 Though thou art match d with cloth of gold. 
 
 The other :— 
 
 " Cloth of gold, do not despise, ^^ 
 
 Though thou art matched with cloth of fiizc. 
 
 It is this beautiful piece of sentiment which puts a 
 heart into his history, and makes it Avorthy remembernig.
 
 XXII. 
 GILBERT! GILBERT! 
 
 The sole idea r^enerally conveyed to us by historians of 
 Ttiomas a Becket is that of a haughty priest, who tried 
 to elevate the religious power above the civil. But in 
 looking more narrowly into the accounts of him, it 
 appears that for a considerable part of his Hfe he was a 
 merry layman, was a great falconer, feaster, and patron, 
 as well as man of business ; and he Avore all characters 
 with such unaffected pleasantness, that he was called the 
 Delight of the Western World. 
 
 On a sudden, to everybody's surprise, his friend the king 
 (Henry the Second) from chancellor made him archbishop ; 
 and with equal suddenness, though retaining his affability, 
 the new head of the English Church put off all his 
 worldly graces and pleasures (save and except a rich gown 
 over his sackcloth), and, in the midst of a gay court, 
 became the most mortified of ascetics. Instead of hunt- 
 ing and hawking, he paced a solitary cloister ; instead of 
 his wine, he drank fennel-water; and in lieu of soft 
 clothing, he indulged his back in stripes. 
 
 This phenomenon has divided the opinions of the 
 moral critics. Some insist that Becket was religiously 
 in earnest, and think the change natural to a man of 
 the world, whose heart had been struck with reflection. 
 Others see in his conduct nothing but ambition. We 
 suspect that three parts of the truth are with the latter ; 
 and that Becket, suddenly enabled to dispute a kind of 
 
 327
 
 328 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 sovereignty with his prince and friend, gave way to the 
 new temptation, just as he had done to his falconry 
 and fine living. But the complete alteration of his way 
 of life — the enthusiasm which enabled him to set up so 
 different a greatness against his former one — shows .that 
 his character partook at least of as much sincerity as 
 would enable him to delude himself in good taste. In 
 proportion as his very egotism was concerned, it was 
 likely that such a man would exalt the gravity and im- 
 portance of his new calling. He had flourished at an 
 earthly court; he now wished to be as great a man in 
 the eyes of another; and Avorldly power, which was at 
 once to be enjoyed and despised by virtue of his 
 office, had a zest given to its possession, of which 
 the incredulousness of mere insincerity could know 
 nothing. 
 
 Thomas a Becket may have inherited a romantic turn 
 of mind from his mother, whose story is a singular one. 
 Ilis father, Gilbert Becket, a flourishing citizen, had been 
 in his youth a soldier in the crusades ; and being taken 
 prisoner, became slave to an Emir, or Saracen prince. 
 By degrees he obtained the confidence of his master, 
 and was admitted to his company, where he met a 
 personage who became more attached to him. This was 
 the Emir's daughter. Whether by her means or not does 
 not appear, but after some time he contrived to escape. 
 The lady with her loving heart folloAved him. She knew, 
 they say, but two words of his language, — London and 
 Gilbert; and by repeating the former she obtained a 
 passage in a vessel, arrived in England, and found her 
 trusting way to the metropolis. She then took to her 
 other talisman, and went from street to street pronounc- 
 ing " Gilbert ! " A crowd collected about her wherever 
 she went, asking of course a thousand questions, and to 
 all she had but one answer— Gilbert ! Gilbert !— She 
 found her faith in it sufficient. Chance, or her deter-
 
 QILBEHT ! GILBERT ! 329 
 
 mination to go through every street, brought her at last 
 to the one, in which he who had won her heart in slavery 
 was living in good condition. The crowd drew the 
 family to the window ; his servant recognised her ; and 
 Gilbert Becket took to his arms and his bridal bed his 
 far-come princess, with her solitary fond word.
 
 XXIIT. 
 THE MOUNTAIN OF THE TWO LOVERS. 
 
 We forget in what book it was, many years ago, that we 
 read tlie story of a lover who was to win his mistress by 
 carrying her to the top of a mountain, and how he did 
 win her, and how they ended their days on the same 
 spot. 
 
 We think the scene was in Switzerland ; but the 
 mountain, though high enough to tax his stout heart to 
 the uttermost, must have been among the lowest. Let 
 us fancy it a good lofty hill in the summer-time. It 
 was, at any rate, so high, that the father of the lady, a 
 proud noble, thought it impossible for a young man so 
 burdened to scale it. For this reason alone, in scorn, 
 he bade him do it, and his daughter should be his. 
 
 The peasantry assembled in the valley to witness so 
 extraordinary a sight. They measured the mountain 
 with their eyes ; they communed with one another, and 
 shook their heads ; but all admired the young man ; and 
 some of his fellows, looking at their mistresses, thought 
 they could do as much. The father was on horseback, 
 apart and sullen, repenting that he had subjected his 
 daughter even to the show of such a hazard ; but he 
 thought it would teach his inferiors a lesson. The young 
 man (the son of a small land-proprietor, Avho had some 
 pretensions to wealth, though none to nobility) stood, 
 respectful-looking, but confident, rejoicing in his heart 
 that he should win his mistress, though at the cost of a 
 noble pain, which he could hardly think of as a pain, 
 
 330
 
 THE MOUNTAIN OF THE TWO LOVERS. 331 
 
 considering who it was that he was to carry. If he 
 died for it, he should at least have had her in his arms, 
 and have looked her in the face. To clasp her person in 
 that manner was a pleasure which he contemplated with 
 such transport as is known only to real lovers ; for none 
 others know how respect heightens the joy of dispensing 
 with formality, and how the dispensing with the for- 
 mality ennobles and makes grateful the respect. 
 
 The lady stood by the side of her father, pale, desirous, 
 and dreading. She thought her lover would succeed, 
 but only because she thought him in every respect the 
 noblest of his sex, and that nothing was too much for his 
 strength and valour. Great fears came over her never- 
 theless. She knew not what might happen, in the 
 chances common to all. She felt the bitterness of being 
 herself the burden to him and the task ; and dared 
 neither to look at her father nor the mountain. She 
 fixed her eyes, now on the crowd (which nevertheless 
 she beheld not) and now on her hand and her fingers' 
 ends, which she doubled up towards her with a pretty 
 pretence, — the only deception she had ever used. Once 
 or twice a daughter or a mother slipped out of the crowd, 
 and coming up to her, notwithstanding their fears of the 
 lord baron, kissed that hand which she knew not what 
 to do with. 
 
 The father said, "Now, sir, to put an end to this mum- 
 mery ; " and the lover, turning pale for the first time, 
 took up the lady. 
 
 The spectators rejoice to see the manner in which he 
 moves off, slow but secure, and as if encouraging his 
 mistress. They mount the hill; they proceed well; he 
 halts an instant before he gets midway, and seems re- 
 fusing something ; then ascends at a quicker rate ; and 
 now, being at the midway point, shifts the lady from one 
 side to the other. The spectators give a great shout. 
 The baron, with an air of indifference, bites the tip of
 
 332 LEIGH HUXT. 
 
 his gauntlet, and then casts on them an eye of rebuke. 
 At the shout the lover resumes his way. Slow but not 
 feeble is his step, yet it gets slower. He stops again, 
 and they think they see the lady kiss him on the fore- 
 head. The "women begin to tremble, but the men say 
 he will be victorious. He resumes again ; he is half-way 
 between the middle and the top ; he rushes, he stops, he 
 staggers ; but he does not fall. Another shout from the 
 men, and he resumes once more ; two-thirds of the 
 remaining part of the way are conquered. They are 
 certain the lady kisses him on the forehead and on the 
 eyes. The women burst into tears, and the stoutest men 
 look pale. He ascends slowlier than ever, but seeming 
 to be more sure. He halts, but it is only to plant his 
 foot to go on again ; and thus he picks his way, planting 
 his foot at every step, and then gaining ground with an 
 effort. The lady lifts up her arms, as if to lighten him. 
 See : he is almost at the top ; he stops, he struggles, he 
 moves sideways, taking very little steps, and bringing 
 one foot every time close to the other. Now — he is all 
 but on the top ; he halts again ; he is fixed ; he staggers. 
 A groan goes through the multitude. Suddenly, he turns 
 fall front towards the top ; it is luckily almost a level j 
 he staggers, but it is forward : — -Yes : — every limb in 
 the multitude makes a movement as if it would assist 
 him : — see at last : he is on the top ; and down he falls 
 flat with his burden. An enormous shout ! He has 
 Avon : he has won. Now he has a right to caress hL= 
 mistress, and she is caressing him, for neither of them 
 gets up. If he has fainted, it is with joy, and it is in 
 her arms. 
 
 The baron put spurs to his horse, the crowd following 
 him. Half-way he is obliged to dismount ; they ascend 
 the rest of the hill together, the crowd silent and happy, 
 the baron ready to burst with shame and impatience. 
 They reach the top. The lovers are face to face on the
 
 THE MOUNTAIN OF THE TWO LOVERS. 333 
 
 groimd, the lady claspiug him witli both arms, his lying 
 on each side. 
 
 "Traitor!" exclaimed the baron, " thou hast practised 
 this feat before, on purpose to deceive me. Arise ! " 
 
 "You cannot expect it, sir," said a worthy man, who 
 was rich enough to speak his mind ; " Samson himself 
 might take his rest after such a deed ! " 
 
 " Part them ! " said the baron, 
 
 Several persons went up, not to part them, but to 
 congratulate and keep them together. These people look 
 close ; they kneel down ; they bend an ear ; they bury 
 their faces upon them. "God forbid they should ever 
 be parted more," said a venerable man ; " they never can 
 be." He turned his old face streaming with tears, and 
 looked up at the baron : — " Sir, they are dead 1 "
 
 XXIY. 
 
 THE HAMADRYAD} 
 
 An Assyrian, of the name of Rhaecus, observing a line 
 old oak-tree ready to fall with age, ordered it to be 
 propped up. He was continuing his way through the 
 solitary skirts of the place, when a female of more 
 than human beauty appeared before him, Avith gladness 
 in her eyes. " RhaBcus," said she, " I am the Nymph of 
 the tree which you have saved from perishing. My life 
 is, of course, implicated in its own. But for you, my 
 existence must have terminated ; but for you, the sap 
 would have ceased to flow through its boughs, and the 
 godlike essence I received from it to animate these veins. 
 No more should I have felt the wind in my hair, the sun 
 upon my cheeks, or the balmy rain upon my body. Now 
 I shall feel them many years to come. Many years also 
 will your fellow-creatures sit under my shade, and hear 
 the benignity of my whispers, and repay me with their 
 honey and their thanks. Ask what I can give you, 
 Rhaecus, and you shall have it." 
 
 The young man, who had done a graceful action, but 
 had not thought of its containing so many kindly things, 
 received the praises of the Nymph with a due mixture 
 of surprise and homage. He did not want courage, how- 
 ever, and emboldened by her tone and manner, and still 
 more by a beauty which had all the buxom bloom of 
 humanity in it, with a preternatural gracefulness besides, 
 
 1 See the Scholiast upon Apollonius Rhodiu?, or the Mythology of 
 Natalis Comes. 
 
 334
 
 THE HAMADRYAD. 335 
 
 he requested that she would receive liim as a lover. 
 There was a look in her face at this request answering 
 to modesty, but something still finer; having no guilt, 
 she seemed to have none of the common infirmities either 
 of shame or impudence. In fine, she consented to reward 
 Rhsecus as he wished ; and said she would send a bee to 
 inform him of the hour of their meeting. 
 
 "Who now was so delighted as Ehsecus^ for he was a great 
 admirer of the fair sex, and not a little proud of their 
 admiring him in return ; and no human beauty, whom he 
 had known, could compare with the Hamadryad. It 
 must Le owned, at the same time, that his taste for love 
 and beauty was not of quite so exalted a description as he 
 took it for. If he was fond of the fair sex, he Avas pretty 
 nearly as fond of dice, and feasting, and any other excite- 
 ment which came in his way ; and unluckily, he was 
 throwing the dice that very noon when the bee came to 
 summon him. 
 
 Ehaecus was at an interesting part of the game — so 
 much so, that he did not at first recognise the object of 
 the bee's humming. " Confound this bee," said he, " it 
 seems plaguily fond of me." He brushed it away two or 
 three times, but the busy messenger returned, and only 
 hummed the louder. At last he bethought him of the 
 Nymph ; but his impatience seemed to increase with his 
 pride, and he gave the poor insect such a brush, as sent 
 him away crippled in both his thighs. 
 
 The bee returned to his mistress as well as he could, 
 and shortly after was followed by his joyous assailant, 
 who came triumphing in the success of his dice and his 
 gallantry. " I am here," said the Hamadryad. Rhsecus 
 looked among the trees, but could see nobody. "I am 
 here," said a grave sweet voice, "right before you." 
 Rheecus saw nothing. "Alas!" said she, "Rhoecus, you 
 cannot see me, nor will you see me more. I had thought 
 better of your disccrinnent and your kindness ; but you
 
 336 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 were l)nt gifted with a momentary sight of me. You 
 will see nothing in future but common things, and those 
 sadly. You are struck blind to everything else. The 
 hand that could strike my bee with a lingering death, 
 and prefer the embracing of the dice-box to that of 
 affectionate beauty, is not worthy of love and the green 
 trees." 
 
 The wind sighed off to a distance, and Elieecus felt 
 that he was alone.
 
 XXV. 
 
 A NOVEL PARTY. 
 
 — " Hie ingentem comitum affluxisse novorum 
 Inveiiio admirans numerura." — Viegil. 
 
 O the pleasure that attends 
 Such flowings in of novel friends ! 
 
 Spiritual Creations more Real than Corporeal — A party composed 
 of the Heroes and Heroines of Novels — Mr. Moses Primrose, 
 ■\vlio lias resolved not to be cheated, is delighted with some 
 information given him by Mr. Peregrine Pickle — Conversa- 
 tion of the Author with the celebrated Pamela — Arrivals of 
 the rest of the Company — The Party found to consist of 
 four Smaller Parties — Cliaracters of them — Character of Mr. 
 Abraham Adams — Pamela's Distress at her Brother's want 
 of Breeding — Settlement together of Lovelace and Clarissa 
 — Desmond's Waverley asks after the Antiquary's Waverley 
 — His Surprise at the Coincidence of the Adventure on 
 the Seashore — Misunderstanding between Mrs. Slipslop and 
 Mrs. Clinker — The Ladies criticized while putting on their 
 Cloaks. 
 
 "When people speak of the creations of poets and 
 novelists, they are accustomed to think that they are 
 only using a form of speech. We fancy that nothing- 
 can be created which is not visible ; — that a being must 
 be as palpable as Dick or Thomas, before we can take 
 him for granted ; and that nobody really exists, Avho will 
 not die like the rest of us, and be forgotten. But, as we 
 have no other certainty of the existence of the grossest 
 bodies than by their power to resist or act upon us, — as 
 all which Hipkins has to show for his entity is his power 
 
 Y
 
 338 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 to consume a barrel of oysters, and tlie only proof which 
 Tomkins can bring of Jiis not being a figment is his 
 capacity of receiving a punch in the stomach, — I beg 
 leave to ask the candid reader, how he can prove to me 
 that all the heroes and heroines that have made him 
 hope, fear, admire, hate, love, shed tears, and laugh till 
 his sides were ready to burst, in novels and poems, are 
 not in possession of as perfect credentials of their exist- 
 ence as the fattest of lis 1 Common physical palpability 
 is only a proof of mortality. The particles that crowd 
 and club together to form such obvious compounds as 
 Thomson and Jackson, and to be able to resist death for a 
 little while, are fretted away by a law of their very resist- 
 ance ; but the immortal people in Pope and Fielding, the 
 deathless generations in Chaucer, in Shakespeare, in Gold- 
 smith, in Sterne, and Le Sage, and Cervantes, — acquaint- 
 ances and friends who remain for ever the same, whom 
 we meet at a thousand turns, and know as well as we do 
 our own kindred, though we never set gross corporeal eyes 
 on them, — w^hat is the amount of the actual effective 
 existence of millions of Jacksons and Tomkinses compared 
 Avith theirs 1 Are we as intimate, I wish to know, with 
 our aunt, as we are with Miss Western 1 Could we not 
 speak to the character of Tom Jones in any court in 
 Christendom? Are not scores of clergymen continually 
 passing away in this transitory world, gone and for- 
 gotten, while Parson Adams remains as stout and hearty 
 as ever 1 
 
 But why need I waste -my time in asking questions ? 
 I have lately had the pleasure of seeing a whole party of 
 these immortal acquaintances of ours assembled at once. 
 It was on the 15th of February in the present year. I 
 was sitting by my fireside, and, being in the humour to 
 have more company than I could procure, I put on my 
 Wishing-cap, and found myself in a new little world that 
 hovers about England, like the Flying Island of Gulliver.
 
 A NOVEL PARTY. 339. 
 
 The place immediately above me resembled a common 
 drawing-room at the West End of the town, and a pretty 
 large evening party were already assembled, Availing for 
 more arrivals. A stranger would have taken them for 
 masqueraders. Some of the gentlemen wore tonpees, 
 others only powder, others their own plain head of hair. 
 Some had swords by their sides, others none. Here were 
 beaux in the modern coat and waistcoat, or habiliments 
 little different. There stood coats stuck out with buck- 
 ram, and legs with stockings above the knees. The 
 appearance of the ladies presented an equal variety. 
 Some wore hoops, others plain petticoats. The heads of 
 many were built up with prodigious edifices of hair and 
 ribbon ; others had their curls flowing down their necks ; 
 some were in common shoos, others in a kind of slippered 
 stilts. In short, not to keep the reader any longer upon 
 trifles, the company consisted of the immortal though 
 familiar creatures I speak of, the heroes and heroines of 
 the wonderful persons who have lived among us, called 
 Novelists. 
 
 Judge of my delight when I found myself among a set 
 of old acquaintances, whom I had never expected to see 
 in this manner. Conceive how I felt, when I discovered 
 that the gentleman and lady I was sitting next to were 
 Captain and Mrs. Booth ; and that another couple on my 
 left, very brilliant and decorous, were no less people than 
 Sir Charles and my Lady Grandison ! In the centre 
 were Mr. and Mrs. Eoderick Random ; Lieutenant Thomas 
 Bowling, of the Royal Navy ; Mr. Morgan, a Welsh 
 gentleman; Mr. and Mrs. Peregrine Pickle; Mr, Fathom, 
 a Methodist — (a very ill-looking fellow) — Sir George 
 Paradyne, and Mr. Hermsprong; Mr. Desmond, with his 
 friend Waverley (a relation of the more famous Waver- 
 ley) ; a young gentleman Avhose Christian name was 
 Henry — (I forget the other, but Mr. Cumberland knows), 
 and Mr., formerly Serjeant, Atkinson, with his wife, who
 
 340 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 both sat next to Captain and Mrs. Booth. There were 
 also some lords whose names I cannot immediately call 
 to mind ; a lady of rank, who had once been a Beggar- 
 girl ; and other persons too numerous to mention. In a 
 corner, very modest and pleasing, sat Lady Harold, better 
 known as Miss Louisa Mildmay, with her husband. Sir 
 Robert. From the mixed nature of the company, a 
 spectator might have concluded that these immortal 
 ladies and gentlemen were free from the ordinary passions 
 of created beings ; but I soon observed that it was other- 
 wise. I found that some of the persons already assembled 
 had arrived at this plebeian hour out of an ostentation of 
 humility; and that the others, who came later, were 
 influenced by the usual variety of causes. 
 
 The next arrival — (conceive how my heart expanded at 
 the sight) — consisted of the Rev. Dr. Primrose, Vicar of 
 Wakefield, with his family, and the Miss Flamboroughs ; 
 the latter red and staring with delight. The Doctor 
 apologized for not being sooner ; but Mrs. Primrose said 
 she was sure the gentlefolks would excuse him, knowing 
 that people accustomed to good society were never in a 
 flurry on such occasions. Her husband would have made 
 some remark on this, but seeing that she was prepared to 
 appeal to her son, " the Squire," who flattered and made 
 her his butt, and that Sir "William Thornhill and both 
 the young married ladies would be in pain, he forebore. 
 The Vicar made haste to pay his respects to Sir Charles 
 and Lady Grandison, who treated him with great distinc- 
 tion. Sir Charles taking him by the hand, and calling 
 him his " good and worthy friend." I observed that Mr. 
 Moses Primrose had acquired something of a collected 
 and cautious look, as if determined never to be cheated 
 again. He happened to seat himself next to Peregrine 
 Pickle, who informed him, to his equal surprise and 
 delight, that Captain Booth had written a refutation of 
 Materialism. He added, that the Captain did not choose
 
 A NOVEL PARTY. 341 
 
 at jDresent to be openly talked of as the author, though 
 he did not mind being complimented upon it in an 
 obscure and ingenious way. I noticed, after this, that a 
 game of cross purposes was going on between Booth and 
 Moses, which often forced a blush from the Captain's 
 lady. It was with much curiosity I recognised the 
 defect in the latter's nose. I did not find it at all in the 
 way when I looked at her lips. It appeared to me even 
 to excite a kind of pity, by no means injurious to the 
 most physical admiration; but I did not say this to Lady 
 Grandison, who asked my opinion on the subject. Booth 
 was a fine strapping fellow, though he had not much in 
 his face. When jNIr. and Mrs. Booby (the famous 
 Pamela) afterwards came in, he attracted so much atten- 
 tion from the latter, that upon her asking me, with a sort 
 of pitying smile, what I thought of him, I ventured to 
 say, in a pun, that I looked upon him as a very good 
 " Booth for the Fair " ; upon which, to my astonishment, 
 she blushed as red as scarlet, and told me that her dear 
 Mr. B. did not approve of such speeches. My pun was 
 a mere pun, and meant little ; certainly nothing to the 
 disadvantage of the sentimental part of the sex, for whom 
 I thought him by no means a finished companion. But 
 there is no knowing these precise people. 
 
 But I anticipate the order of the arrivals. The 
 Primroses were followed by Sir Launcelot Greaves and 
 his lady, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Jones, Mr. and Miss 
 Western, and my Lady Bellaston. Then came Miss 
 Monimia (I forget her name), who married out of the 
 old Manor House ; then Mr. and Mrs. Humphrey Clinker 
 (I believe I should rather say Bramble), with old Matthew 
 himself, and Mrs. Lismahago ; and then a whole world of 
 Aunt Selbys, and Grandmamma Selbys, and ]\Iiss Howes, 
 and Mr. Harlowes, though I observed neither Clarissa 
 nor Lovelace. I made some in(|uiries about them after- 
 wards, which the reader shall hear.
 
 342 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 Enter Mr. John Buncle, escorting five ladies, wlioni he 
 had been taking to an evening lecture. Tom Gollogher 
 was behind them, very merry. 
 
 Then came my Lord and Lady Orville (Evelina), Mr. 
 and Mrs. Delville (Cecilia), Camilla (1 forget her sur- 
 name), with a large party of Mandleberts, Clarendels, 
 Arlberys, Orkbornes, Marglands, and Dabsters, not omit- 
 ting the eternal Mrs. Mitten. Mrs. Booby and husband 
 came last, accompanied by my Lady Booby, Mr. Joseph 
 Andrews and bride, and the Kev. Mr. Adams, for whom 
 Mrs. B. made a sort of apology, by informing us that 
 there was no necessity to make any, — Mr. Adams being 
 an honour to the cloth. Fanny seated herself by Sophia 
 Western (that was), with whom I found she was inti- 
 mate; and a lovelier pair of blooming, unafiected crea- 
 tures, whose good-nature stood them instead of wit, I 
 never beheld. But I must discuss the beauties of the 
 ladies by and by. 
 
 An excuse was sent by Mr. Tristram Shandy for his 
 Uncle Tobias, saying that they were confined at home, 
 and unfit for company, which made me very sorry, for I 
 would rather have seen the divine old invalid than any 
 man in the room, not excepting Parson Adams. I 
 suspect he knew nothing of the invitation. Corporal 
 Trim brought the letter ; a very honest, pathetic fellow, 
 who dropped a tear. He also gave a kiss, as he went 
 out, to one of the maid-servants. The Eev. Mr. Yorick, 
 friend of the Shandy family, sent his servant La Fleur to 
 wait on us ; a brisk, active youth, who naturalized him 
 self among us by adoring the ladies all round. The poor 
 lad manifested his admiration by various grimaces, that 
 forced the Miss Flaniboroughs to stuff their handkerchiefs 
 in their mouths. Our other attendants were Strap, Tom 
 Pipes, Partridge, and two or three more, some of them in 
 livery, and others not, as became their respective ranks. 
 The refreshments were under the care of Mrs. Slipslop ;
 
 A NOVEL PARTY. 343 
 
 but underwent, as they came up, a jealous revision from 
 Mrs. Lismahago and Mrs. Humphrey Clinker, who, 
 luckily for her, differed considerably with one another, 
 or none would have been worth eating. 
 
 I have omitted to observe that the meeting was of the 
 same nature with assemblies in country towns, where all 
 the inhabitants, of any importance, are in the habit of 
 coming together for the public advantage, and being 
 amiable and censorious. There the Sir Charles Grandi- 
 son of the place meets the Tom Jones and the Mrs. 
 Humphrey Clinker. There the Lady Bellaston inter- 
 changes courtesies and contempt with the Miss Marglands; 
 and all the Dubsters, in their new yellow glove?, Avith all 
 the Delvilles. 
 
 Having thus taken care of our probabilities (or veri- 
 similitude, as the critics call it), to which, in our highest 
 flights, we are much attached, we proceed with our 
 narrative. 
 
 We forgot to mention that Mrs. Honour, the famous 
 waiting - maid of Sophia Western, was not present. 
 Nothing could induce her to figure as a servant, where 
 that " infected upstart," as she called her, Mrs. Humphrey 
 Clinker, fidgeted about as a gentlewoman. 
 
 The conversation soon became very entertaining, parti- 
 cularly in the hands of the Grandisons and Harlowes, 
 who, though we could perceive they were not so admired 
 by the rest of the company as by one another, interested 
 us in spite of ourselves by the longest and yet most 
 curious gossip in the world. Sir Charles did not talk so 
 much as the others ; indeed he seemed to be a little 
 baffled and thrust off the pinnacle of his superiority in 
 this very mixed society ; but he was thought a prodigious 
 fine gentleman by the gravest of us, and was really a 
 good-natured one. His female friends, who were eternally 
 repeating and deprecating their own praises, were pro- 
 nounced by Hermsprong, as well as Peregrine Pickle, to
 
 344 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 be the greatest coxcombs under the sun. The latter 
 said something about Pamela and Covent Garden which 
 we do not choose to repeat. The consciousness of doing 
 their duty, however, mixed as it might be with these 
 vain mistakes, gave a certain tranquillity of character to 
 the faces of some of this party, which Peregrine, and 
 some others about him, might have envied. At the same 
 time, we must do the justice to Peregrine to say, that 
 although (to speak plainly) he had not a little of the 
 blackguard in him, he displayed some generous qualities. 
 We cannot say much for his wit and talents, which are 
 so extolled by the historian ; nor even for those of his 
 friend, Koderick Random, though he carries some good 
 qualities still further. Roderick's conversation had the 
 vice of coarseness, to the great delight of Squire Western, 
 who said he had more spirit than Tom himself. Tom 
 did not care for a little freedom, but the sort of conversa- 
 tion to which Roderick and his friends were inclined 
 disgusted him, and, before women, astonished him. He 
 did not, therefore, very well fall in with this society, 
 though his wit and views of things were, upon the 
 whole, pretty much on a par with theirs. In person and 
 manners he beat them hollow, Sophia nevertheless took 
 very kindly to Emily Gauntlett and ISTarcissa, two ladies 
 rather insipid. 
 
 We observed that the company might be divided into 
 four different sorts. One was Sir Charles Grandison's 
 and party ; another, the Pickles and Joneses ; a third, 
 the Lord Orvilles, Evelinas, and Cecilias, with the young 
 lady from the old Manor House ; and a fourth, the 
 Hermsprongs, Desmonds, and others, including a gentle- 
 man we have forgotten to mention, j\Ir. Hugh Trevor. 
 In this last were some persons whose names we ought 
 to have remembered, for an account of whom we must 
 refer to Mrs. Iiichbald. The first of these parties were 
 for carrying all the established conventional virtues to a
 
 A NOVEL PARTY. 345 
 
 high pitch of dignity ; so much so as to he thinking too 
 much of the dignity, while they fancied they were 
 absorhed in the virtue. They were very clever and 
 amusing, and we verily believe could have given an 
 interest to a history of every grain of sand on the sea- 
 shore ; but their garrulity and vanity, united, rendered 
 other conversation a refreshment. The second were a 
 parcel of wild, but not ill-natured young fellows, all very 
 ready to fall in with Avhat the others thought and 
 recommended, and to forget it the next moment, 
 especially as their teachers laid themselves open to 
 ridicule. It must be added, that their very inferiority 
 in some respects gave them a more general taste of 
 humanity, particularly Tom Jones, who was as pleasant, 
 unaffected a fellow, and upon the whole perhaps as 
 virtuous, in his way, as could be expected of a sprightly 
 blood educated in the ordinary ftishion. The Camillas 
 and Evelinas were extremely entertaining, and told us a 
 number of stories that made us die with laughter. 
 Their fault consisted in talking too much about lords 
 and pa"v\Tibrokers. Miss Monimia, too, from the old 
 Manor House, ridiculed vulgarity a little too much to 
 be polite. The most puzzling people in the room were 
 the Desmonds and Hugh Trevors, who had come up 
 since a late revolution in our sphere. They got into a 
 controversy with the Grandisons, and reduced them 
 sadly to their precedents and authorities. The conclu- 
 sion of the company seemed to be, that if the world 
 were to be made different from what it is, the change 
 would be effected rather by the philosophies of these 
 gentlemen than the seraphics of the other party ; but 
 the general opinion was, that it would be altered by 
 neither, and that in the meantime, " variety was charm- 
 ing;" a sentiment which the Vicar of Wakefield took 
 care to explain to his wife. 
 
 But how are we forgetting ourselves ! "VVe have left
 
 346 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 out, in our divisions, a fifth set, the most delightful of all, 
 one of whom is a whole body of humanity i]i himself — to 
 wit, Mr. Abraham Adams, and all whom he loves. "We 
 omit his title of Keverend ; not because he is not so, but 
 because titles are things exclusive, and our old friend 
 belongs to the whole world. Bear witness, spirit of every- 
 thing that is true, that, with the exception of one or two 
 persons, only to be produced in these latter times, we love 
 such a man as Abraham Adams better than all the 
 characters in all the histories of the world, orthodox or 
 not orthodox. We hold him to be only inferior to a 
 Shakespeare ; and only then, because the latter joins the 
 height of wisdom intellectual to his wisdom cordial. He 
 should have been Shakespeare's chaplain, and played at 
 bowls with him. "What a sound heart — and a fist to stand 
 by it ! This is better than Sir Charles's fencing, without 
 which his polite person — virtue included — would often 
 have been in an awkward way. "What disinterestedness ! 
 What feeling ! What real modesty ! What a harmless 
 spice of vanity — Nature's kind gift — the comfort we all 
 treasure more or less about us, to keep ourselves in heart 
 with ourselves ! In fine, what a regret of his ^schylus ! 
 and a delicious forgetting that he could not see to read if 
 he had had it ! Angels should be painted with periwigs, 
 to look like him. AVe confess we prefer Fanny to Joseph 
 Andrews, which will be pardoned us ; but the lad is a 
 good lad, and if poor Molly at the inn has forgiven him 
 (which she ought to do, all things considered), we will 
 forgive him ourselves, on the score of my Lady Booby. 
 It is more than my Lady has done, though she takes a 
 pride in patronizing the "innocent creatures," as she calls 
 them. We are afraid, from what we saw this evening, 
 that poor Joseph is not as well as he would be with his 
 sister Pamela. When the refreshments came in, we 
 observed her blush at his handing a plate of sandwiches 
 to Mr. Adams. She called him to her in a whisper ;
 
 A NOVEL PARTY. 3 t7 
 
 and asked him whether he had forgotten that there was 
 a footman in the room 1 
 
 The arrival of the refreshments divided our company 
 into a variety of small ones. The ladies got more together ; 
 and the wines and jellies diffused a benevolent spirit 
 among us all. We forgot our controversies, and were 
 earnest only in the putting of cakes. John Buncle, how- 
 ever, stood talking and eating at a great rate Avith one of 
 the philosophers. Somebody asked after Lovelace and 
 Clarissa ; for the reader need not be told tliat it is only in 
 a fictitious sense that these personages are said to have 
 died. They cannot die, being immortal. It seems that 
 Lovelace and Clarissa live in a neighbouring quarter, 
 called Eomance, a very grave place, where few of the 
 company visited. "VVe were surprised to hear that they 
 lived in the same house ; that Lovelace had found out 
 he had a liking for virtue in her own shape as well as 
 Clarissa's, and that Clarissa thought she might as well 
 forget herself so far as to encourage the man not to make 
 a rascal and a madman of himself. This, at least, is the 
 way that Tom Gollogher put it, for Tom undertook to be 
 profound on the subject, and very much startled us by 
 his observations. He made an application of a line in 
 Milton, about Adam and Eve, which the more serious 
 among us thought profane, and which, indeed, we are 
 afraid of repeating ; but Tom's good nature was so evident, 
 as well as his wish to make the best of a bad case, that 
 we chose to lay the more equivocal part of his logic to the 
 account of his " wild way " ; and, for all that we sav/ to 
 the contrary, he was a greater favourite with the ladies 
 than ever. Desmond's friend, Waverley, asked us after 
 his celebrated namesake. We told him ho was going on 
 very well, and was very like his relation — a compliment 
 which Mr. Waverley acknowledged by a bow. We 
 related to him the seaside adventure of Waverley's friend, 
 the Antiquary; at wliich the other exclaimed, "Good
 
 348 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 God ! how like an adventure which happened to a friend 
 of our acquaintance ! only see what coincidences will take 
 place ! " He asked us if the Antiquary had never noticed 
 the resemblance, and was surprised to hear that he had 
 not. " I should not wonder at it," said he, " if the 
 incident had been well known ; but these Antiquaries, 
 the best of them, have strange grudging humours ; and I 
 will tell him of it," added he, " when I see him." Mr. 
 Waverley anticipated with great delight the society of 
 his namesake, with his numerous friends, though he did 
 not seem to expect much from the female part of 
 them. 
 
 Before we broke up, tragical doings were likely to have 
 occurred between the housekeeper and Mrs. Humphrey 
 Clinker. Mrs. Slipslop sent up a message apologizing for 
 some of the jellies. She expressed a fear — which was cor- 
 rectly delivered by an impudent young rogue of a messenger 
 — that the superjiueiicy of the sugar would take away the 
 tastality of the jellies, and render them quite inoxious." 
 (If the reader thinks this account overcharged, we have 
 to inform him that he will fall into the error of the 
 audience about the pig.) Mrs. Humphrey was indignant 
 at this " infected nonsense," as she called it ; and she was 
 fidgeting out of the room to scold the rhetorician when 
 her husband called her back, telling her that it was 
 beneath the dignity of a rational soul like hers to fret 
 itself with such matters. Winifred's blood began to rise 
 at the first part of this observation ; but the words, "like 
 hers," induced her to sit down, and content herself with 
 an answer to the message. Peregrine Pickle, who was 
 sorry to see affairs end so quietly, persuaded her, however, 
 to put her message in writing ; and Mrs. Slipslop would 
 have inevitably been roused and brought up-stairs, had not 
 Sir Charles condescended to interfere. The answer was 
 as follows : —
 
 a novel party. 349 
 
 " Mrs. Slibberslop, 
 
 " Hit Blng beneath the diggingit of a rasher 
 and sole to cnmfabberate with sich parsons, I Desire that 
 you wil send up sum goallies Fit for a cristum and a 
 gentile -wommun to Heat. We are awl astonied Att 
 yure niggling gents. The geallys ar Shamful." 
 
 Peregrine begged her to add a word of advice respecting 
 the "pompous apology," upon which she concluded 
 thus : — 
 
 "A nuther tim doant Send up sich pumpers and Polly 
 jeers and stuf ; and so no moar at present from 
 
 " Yure wel wisker, 
 
 " "Winifred Clinker." 
 
 When the ladies had put on their cloaks, and were 
 waiting for their carriages, we could not but remark how 
 well Sophia Western — (we like to call her by her good old 
 name) — looked in any dress and position. She was all 
 ease and good-nature, and had a charming shape. Lady 
 Grandison was a regular beauty, but did not become a 
 cloak. She was best in full dress. Pamela was a little, 
 soft-looking thing, who seemed "as if butter would not 
 melt in her mouth." But she had something in the 
 corner of her eye which told you that you had better take 
 care how you behaved yourself. She would look aD 
 round her at every man in the room, and hardly one of 
 them be the wiser. Pamela was not so splendidly dressed 
 as her friend. Lady Grandison ; but h'er clothes were as 
 costly. The Miss Howes, Lady G.'s, and others of that 
 class, were loud, bright-eyed, raw-boned people, who 
 tossed on their cloaks Avithout assistance, or commanded 
 your help with a sarcasm. Camilla, Cecilia, and Evelina 
 were all very handsome and agreeable. We prefer, from 
 what we recollect of them, Camilla and Evelina ; but 
 they say Cecilia is the most interesting. Louisa Mildmay
 
 350 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 might have been taken for a pale beauty ; but her pale- 
 ness was not natural to her, and she was resuming her 
 colour. Her figure was luxuriant ; and her eyes, we 
 thought, had a depth in them beyond those of any 
 person's in the room. We did not see much in Narcissa 
 and Emily Gauntlett, but they were both good, jolly 
 damsels enough. Of Amelia we have spoken already. 
 Wc have a recollection that Hermsprong's wife (a Miss 
 Championet) was a pleasant girl, but somehow she had 
 got out of our sight. The daughters of the Vicar of 
 Wakefield were fine girls, especially Sophia, for whom, 
 being of her lover, Sir William's, age, we felt a particular 
 tendernesa
 
 XXVI. 
 
 THE BULL-FIGHT. 
 
 Everybody has heard of the bull-fights in Spain. The 
 noble animal is brought into an arena to make sport, as 
 Samson was among the Philistines. And truly he pre- 
 sents himself to one's imagination as a creature equally 
 superior with Samson to his tormentors ; for the sport 
 which he is brought in to furnish is that of being mur- 
 dered. The poor beast is actuated by a perverse will, 
 and by a brutality which is deliberate. He does but 
 obey to the last the just feelings of his nature. He 
 Avould not be forced to revenge himself if he could help 
 it. He would fain return to the sweet meadow and the 
 fresh air, but his tyrants will not let him. He is 
 stung with arrows, goaded and pierced with javelins, 
 hewn at with swords, beset with all the devilries of 
 horror and astonishment that can exasperate him into 
 madness ; and the tormentors themselves feel he is in 
 the right, if he can but give bloody deaths to his bloody 
 assassins. The worst of it is, that some of these assassins, 
 who are carried away by custom, are persons who are 
 othervvise among the best in the kingdom. They err 
 from that very love of sympathy, and of the admiration 
 of their fellows, which should have been employed to 
 teach them better. 
 
 The excuse for this diabolical pastime is, that it keeps 
 up old Spanish qualities to their height, and prevents 
 the nation from becoming effeminate. To what pur- 
 
 351
 
 352 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 pose? And in how many instances? Are not the 
 Spanish nobility the most degenerate in Europe'? Has 
 not its court, for three generations, been a scandal and a 
 burlesque 1 And would any other nation in Christendom 
 consent to be made the puppets of such superiors'? 
 What could Spain have done against France without 
 England '? What have all its bull-fights, and all its other 
 barbarities, done for it, to save it from the shame of 
 being the feeblest and most superstitious of European 
 communities, and having no voice in the affairs of the 
 world 1 
 
 Poor foolish Matadore ! Poor idle, illiterate, unre- 
 flecting caballero ! — that is to say, " horseman ! " which, 
 by the noble power or privilege of riding of horse (a 
 thing that any groom can do in any decent country), 
 came to mean " gentleman," as distinguished from that 
 of " centaur," can you risk your life for nothing better 
 than this'? Must you stake Avife, children, mistress, 
 father, and mother, friends, fortune, love, and all which 
 all of them may bring you, at no higher price than the 
 power of baving it said you are a better man than the 
 butcher'? Is there no sacred cause of country to fight 
 for 1 no tyrants to oppose 1 no doctrine worth martyrdom % 
 — that you must needs, at the hazard of death and agony, 
 set the only \vits or the best qualities you possess on out- 
 doing the greatest fools and ruffians in your city % And 
 can you wonder that your country has no cause which 
 it can stand to without help or to any purpose ? that your 
 tyrants are cruel and laugh at you ■? and that your very 
 wives and mistresses (for the most part) think there is 
 nothing better in the world than a flaring show and a 
 brutal sensation '? 
 
 Bull-fights are going on now, and bull-fights were going 
 on in the wretched time of King Charles the Second, of 
 the House of Austria, whose very aspect seemed ominous 
 of the disasters about to befall his country ; for his face
 
 THE BULL-FIGHT. 353 
 
 was very long, his lip very thick, his mouth very wide, 
 his nose very hooked, and he had no calves to his legs, and 
 no brains in his skull. His clemency consisted in letting 
 assassins go, because passion Avas uncontrollable ; and his 
 wit in sending old lords to stand in the rain, because 
 they intimated that it would be their death. However, 
 he was a good-natured man, as times went, especially for 
 a king of Spain ; and it is not of public disasters that 
 we are to speak, but of the misery that befell two lovers 
 in his day, in consequence of these detestable bull-fights. 
 
 Don Alphonso de Melos, a young gentleman of some 
 five-and-twenty years of age, was the son of one of those 
 Titulados of Castile, more proud than rich, of whom it 
 was maliciously said, that " before they were made lords, 
 they didn't dine ; and after they were made lords, they 
 didn't sup." He was, however, a very good sort of man, 
 not too poor to give his sons good educations ; and of his 
 second son, Alphonso, the richest grandee might have 
 been proud ; for a better or pleasanter youth, or one of 
 greater good sense, conventionalisms apart, had never 
 ventured his life in a bull-fight, which he had done half 
 a dozen times. He was, moreover, a very pretty singer ; 
 and it was even said, that he not only composed the 
 music for his serenades, but that he wrote verses for 
 them equal to those of Garcilaso. So, at least, thought 
 the young lady to whom they were sent, and who used 
 to devour them with her eyes, till her very breath failed 
 her, and she could not speak for delight. 
 
 Poor, loving Lucinda ! We call her poor, though she 
 was at that minute one of the richest as well as happiest 
 maidens in Madrid ; and we speak of her as a young 
 lady, for such she was in breeding and manners, and as 
 such the very grandees treated her, as far as they could, 
 though she was only the daughter of a famous jeweller, 
 
 z
 
 354 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 wlio had supplied half the great people with carkanets 
 and rings. Her father was dead ; her mother too ; she 
 was under the care of guardians ; but Alphonso de Melos 
 had loved her more than a 3'ear ; had loved her with a 
 real love, even though he wanted her money ; would, in 
 fact, have thrown her money to the dogs, rather than 
 have ceased to love her ; such a treasure he had found m 
 the very fact of his passion. Their marriage was to 
 take place within the month ; and, as the lady was so 
 rich, and tlie lover, however noble otherwise, was only 
 of the lowest or least privileged order of nobility (a 
 class who had the misfortune of not being able to wear 
 their hats in the king's presence, unless his majesty 
 expressly desired it), the loftiest grandees, who would 
 have been too happy to marry the lovely heiress, had 
 her father been anything but a merchant, thought that 
 the match was not only pardonable in the young gentle- 
 nian, but in a sort of way noticeable, and even in some 
 measure to be smilingly winked at and encouraged : nay, 
 perhaps, envied ; especially as the future husband was 
 generous, and had a turn for making presents, and fo: 
 sitting at the head of a festive table. Suddenly, tlicre- 
 fore, ajipeared some of the finest emeralds and sapphires 
 in the world upon the fingers of counts and marquises, 
 Avhose jewels had hitherto been of doubtful value ; and no 
 little sensation was made on the gravest and most dignified 
 of the old nobility, by a certain grandee, remarkable for 
 his sense of the proprieties, who had discovered " serious 
 reasons for thinking" that the supposed jeweller's ofi"- 
 spriug was a natural daughter of a late j)rince of the 
 blood. 
 
 Be this as it may, Don Alphonso presented himself 
 one morning as usual before his mistress, and after an 
 interchange of transports, such as may be imagined between 
 two such lovers, about to be joined for ever, informed her 
 tliat one only thing more was now remaining to be done,
 
 THE BULL-FIGHT. 355 
 
 and tlicn — in the course of three mornings — they would 
 be livino; in the same house. 
 
 " And what is that?" said Lucinda, the tears rushing 
 into her eyes for excess of adoring happiness. 
 
 " Only the bull-fight," said the lover, affecting as much 
 indifference as he could affect in anything when speaking 
 ■with his eyes on hers.' But he could not sjDeak it in 
 quite the tone he ■wished. 
 
 "The bull-fight!" scarcely ejaculated his mistress, 
 turning pale. " Oh, Alphouso 1 you have fought and 
 conquered in a dozen ; and you will not quit me, noAV 
 that we can be so often together 1 Besides " — And 
 here her breath began already to fail her. 
 
 But Alphonso showed her, or tried to show her, how 
 he must inevitably attend the bull-fight. " Honour de- 
 manded it ; custom ; everything that was expected of 
 him ; " his mistress herself, who would " otherwise 
 despise him." 
 
 His mistress fainted away. She fell, a death-like 
 burden, into his arms. 
 
 When she came to herself, she wept, entreated, im- 
 plored, tried even with pathetic gaiety to rally and be 
 pleasant ; then again wept ; then argued, and for the 
 first time in her life was a logician, pressing his hand, 
 and saying with a sudden force of conviction, "But 
 hear me ; " then begged again ; then kissed him like a 
 bride ; reposed on him like a wife ; did everything that 
 was becoming and beautiful, and said everything but an 
 angry word ; nay, would have dared perhaps to say even 
 that, had she thought of it ; but she was not of an angry 
 kind, or of any kind but the loving, and how was the 
 thought to enter her head? Entire love is a worship, 
 and cannot be angry. 
 
 The heart of the lover openly and fondly sympathized 
 with that of his poor mistress ; and, secretly, it felt more 
 even than it showed. Not that Don Alphonso feared for
 
 356 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 consequences, though he had not been without pangs and 
 thoughts of possibilities, even in regard to those ; for, to 
 say nothing of the danger of the sport in ordinary, the 
 chief reason of his being unpersuadable in the present 
 instance was a report that the animals to be encountered 
 were of more than ordinary ferocity ; so that the caballeros 
 wlio were expected to be foremost in the lists in general 
 now felt themselves to be particularly called on to make 
 their appearance, at the hazard of an alternative too 
 dreadful for the greatest valour to risk. 
 
 The final argument which he used with his mistress 
 was the very excess of that love, and the very position 
 in which it stood at that bridal moment, to which he 
 in vain appealed. He showed how it had ever and 
 irremediably been the custom to estimate the fighter's 
 love by the measure of his courage ; the more " ap- 
 parent" the risk (for he pretended to laugh at any real 
 danger), the greater the evidence of passion and the 
 honour done to the lady ; and so, after many more 
 words and tears, the honour Avas to be done accordingly, 
 grievously against her will, and custom triumphed. 
 Custom ! That " little thing," as the people called it to 
 the philosopher. "That great and terrible thing," as the 
 philosopher justly thought it. To show how secure he 
 was, and how secure still it would render him, he made 
 her promise to be there; and she required little asking; 
 for a thought came into her head, which made her pray 
 with secret and sudden earnestness to the Virgin ; and 
 the same thought enabled her to give him final looks, not 
 only of resigned lovingness, but of a sort of cheered com- 
 posure ; for, now that she saw there was no remedy, she 
 would not make the worst of his resolve, and so they 
 parted. How differently from when they met ! and how 
 dreadfully to be again brought together ! 
 
 The day has arrived ; the great square has been duly
 
 THE BULL FIGHT. 357 
 
 set out ; the sand, to receive the blood, is spread over it ; 
 the barricadoes and balconies (the boxes) are all right; 
 the king and his nobles are there ; Don Alphonso and his 
 Lucinda are there also ; he in his place in the square, on 
 horseback, with his attendants behind hira, and the door 
 out of which the bull is to come in front ; she where he 
 will behold her before long, though not in the box to 
 which he has been raising his eyes. All the gentlemen 
 who are to fight the bulls, each in his turn, and who, like 
 Alphonso, are dressed in black, with plumes of white 
 feathers on their heads, and scarfs of different colours 
 round the body, have ridden round the lists a quarter of 
 an hour ago ; they salute the ladies of their acquaintance ; 
 and all is still and waiting. The whole scene is gorgeous 
 with tapestries and gold and jewels. It is a theatre 
 in which pomp and pleasure are sitting in a thousand 
 human shapes to behold a cruel spectacle. 
 
 The trumpets sound ; crashes of other music succeed ; 
 the door of the stable opens, and the noble creature, the 
 bull, makes his appearance, standing still a wliile, and 
 looking as it were with a confused composure before him. 
 Sometimes when the animal first comes forth, it rushes 
 after the horseman who has opened the door, and who 
 has rushed away from the mood in which it has shown 
 itself. But the bull on this occasion was one that, from 
 the very perfection of his strength, awaiteil provoking. 
 He soon has it. Light, agile footmen, who are there on 
 purpose, vex him witli dirts and arrows, garnished with 
 })aper set on fire. He begins by pursuing them hither 
 and thither, they escaping by all the arts of cloaks and 
 hats throAvn on the ground, and deceiving figures of 
 pasteboard. Soon he is irritated extremely ; he stoops 
 his sullen head to toss ; he raises it, with his eyes on fire, 
 to kick and trample ; lie bellows ; he rages ; he grows 
 mad. His breath gathers like a thick mist about his 
 head. He gallops, amidst cries of men and women,
 
 358 LEIGH HUNT, 
 
 frantically around the square, like a racer, following and 
 followed by his tormentors ; he tears the horses with his 
 horns ; he disembowels them ; he tosses the howling dogs 
 that are let loose on him ; he leaps and shivers in the 
 air like a very stag or goat. His huge body is nothing to 
 him in the rage and might of his agony. 
 
 For Alphonso, who had purposely got in his way to 
 shorten his Lucinda's misery (knowing her surely to be 
 there, though he has never seen her), has gashed the bull 
 across the eyes with his sword, and pierced him twice 
 with the javelins furnished him by his attendants. Half 
 blinded with the blood, and yet rushing at him, it should 
 seem, with sure and final aim of his dreadful head, the 
 creature is just upon him, when a blow from a negro who 
 is helping one of the pages, turns him distractedly in that 
 new direction, and he strikes down, not the negro, but 
 the youthful, and, in truth, wholly frightened and helpless 
 page. The page in falling loses his cap, from which 
 there flows a profusion of woman's hair, and Alphonso 
 knows it in the instant. He leaps off his horse, and would 
 have shiieked with horror; but for something which 
 seemed to wrench and twist round his very being, and 
 in a sort of stifled and almost meek voice, he could 
 only sobbingly articulate the word, " Lucinda ! " But 
 in an instant he rose out of that self pity into frenzy ; 
 he hacked wildly at the bull, which was now spurning 
 as wildly round ; and though the assembly rose, crying 
 out, and the king bade the brute be despatched, which 
 was done by a thrust in the spine by those who knew 
 the trick (ah ! why did they not do it before ■? ), the 
 poor youth had fallen, not far from his Lucinda, gored 
 alike with herself to death. 
 
 As recovery was pronounced hopeless, and the deaths 
 of the lovers close at hand, they were both carried into 
 the nearest house, and laid, as the nature of the place 
 required, on the same bed. And, indeed, as it turned
 
 THE BULL-FIGHT. 339 
 
 out, notliing could be more fitting. Great and sorrowful 
 was the throng in the room ; some of the greatest nobles 
 were there, and a sorrowing message was brought from 
 the king. Had the lovers been princes, their poor insen- 
 sible faces could not have been watched with greater pity 
 and respect. 
 
 At length they opened their eyes, one after the other, 
 to wonder — to suffer — to discover each other where they 
 lay — and to weep from abundanca of wretchedness, and 
 from the difficulty of speaking. They attempted to make 
 a movement towards each other, but could not even raise 
 an arm. Lucinda tried to speak, but could only sigh and 
 attempt to smile. Don Alphonso said at last, half sobbing, 
 looking with his languid eyes on her kind and patient 
 face — " She does not reproach me, even now." 
 
 They both wept afresh at this, but his mistress looked 
 at him with such unutterable love and fondness, making, 
 at the same time, some little inefi"ectual movement of her 
 hand, that the good old Duke de Linares said, "She 
 wishes to put her arm over him ; and he too — see — 
 his arm over her." Tenderly, and with the softest 
 caution, were their arms put accordingly; and then, in 
 spite of their anguish, the good Duke said, "Marry 
 them yet ; " and the priest opened his book, and well as 
 he could speak for sympathy, or they seem to answer 
 to his words, he married them ; and thus — in a few 
 moments, from excess of mingled agony and joy, with 
 their arms on one another, and smiling as they shut their 
 eyes — their spirits passed away from them, and they died.
 
 XXVII. 
 THE MARRIAGE OF BELPJTEGOU. 
 
 " There he arriving round about doth flie, 
 And takes survey with busie curious eye : 
 Now this, now that, he tasteth tenderly." 
 
 —Spenser. 
 
 [This is "the renowned tale of Belfagor," as Mr. Dunlop justly 
 calls it. It came originally from a Latin manuscript, and has been 
 told by Giovanni Brevio, an Italian novelist, by the famous 
 Machiavelli, by Straparola, La Fontaine, and the old English 
 dramatists. It is repeated here, with the usual differences prac- 
 tised on these occasions. We thought of introducing it witli 
 Ariosto's preface to a superfluous story in the "Orlando:" 
 
 " Ladies, and you who hold the ladies dear, 
 For God's sake take no notice of this story : " 
 
 but a moment's reflection told us, that our fair readers need not 
 be hurt with a satire, which, in order to see fair play between the 
 two sexes, we have traced to its proper causes in both. We expect, 
 on the contrary, that amiable women of all classes, and really good 
 wives iti particular, will show a just partiality for it.] 
 
 As Pluto was taking his rounds one clay in the infernal 
 regions, to see that all was right and miserable, ho 
 thought he observed a parcel of fellows, in a particu- 
 larly hot corner, giggling and making merry. Upon 
 looking more narrowly, his astonishment was confirmed : 
 the rogues had discovered his presence, and changed the 
 expression of their countenances to a most doleful and 
 hypocritical sorrow. 
 
 Pluto sent for his chief overseers. 
 
 300
 
 THE JIARRJAGE OF BELPHEGOR. 361 
 
 " Gentlemen," said he, " liere is a very extraordinary 
 case," and related what he had seen. 
 
 The overseers looked at each other in confusion, for in 
 fact they had noticed some snch phenomenon themselves, 
 but had scarcely dared to think of it. They did not 
 know what comfort might happen, if enjoyment was 
 to be found even in Tartarus. 
 
 As the case, however, was not to be compromised, it 
 was agreed, after much consultation, to examine the 
 offenders apart. The examination took place after the 
 ordinary forms of law ; but nothing appeared to account 
 for their behaviour. They protested, upon oath, that 
 they had no secret about them for escaping pain. They 
 were put to various torments described in Dante, and 
 gave proofs of what they said : only the familiars 
 observed, that in the midst of all their sufferings, there 
 certainly was an irrepressible something about the mouth 
 which looked like self-congratulation. 
 
 A chief counsellor was now directed to compare the 
 examinations, and see if by narrow inspection he could 
 make anything out of them. He did so, for the space 
 of three days and nights, and reported that he could 
 discover nothing. The prisoners had offended on earth 
 like other men, — loved a good deal too much, doubted 
 the triple nature of Diana, thought hell unfair, etc. : 
 " but," said the lawj'cr, " I can find nothing wliich at 
 all explains the enormity in question, unless it is " (and 
 here he put on the facetious smile, usual on such occa- 
 sions), "unless it is, my lords, that they have all been 
 married." 
 
 The court laughed at this sally ; l)ut one of Minos's 
 under-clerks begged leave, Avith great deference, to offer 
 liimself to their lordships' attention, having a few words 
 to say, which nothing but the urgency of the question 
 could have compelled him to intrude upon their con- 
 sideration. He saitl that the learned gentlemen had
 
 362 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 laughed, and that learned gentlemen might laugh ; but 
 that, with great submission, it was no laughing matter. 
 The learned gentleman modestly supposed that he had 
 uttered nothing but a commonplace joke ; and he would 
 concede (if he might use the expression) to that learned 
 gentleman's modesty, that the joke was commonplace ; 
 nay, emphatically so. "But," continued he, "let me 
 ask your lordships, with all becoming humility, how 
 such a very ungallant and unconjugal jest came to be 
 commonplace ; and whether in the discovery of that 
 secret, we might not discover the more important secret 
 now before us." 
 
 This address made a considerable sensation. The 
 counsel, who had inspected the examinations, was the 
 only one on whom it seemed to make no impression. 
 He rejected, with a dignified impatience, the compli- 
 ments paid to his modesty, and yet was proceeding to 
 throw out some other sarcasms in a style equally con- 
 descending, when Minos, who liad fallen into a study, said 
 he had a proposition to make, which would settle the 
 matter beyond all doubt or equivocation. It was this, 
 that some ingenious devil should be selected and sent on 
 earth, with injunctions to enter into the state of matri- 
 mony, and in due time come back and report the 
 consequences. Rhadamanthus suggested that the task 
 should be assigned to one of the criminals, both on 
 account of his previous knowledge, and as the best 
 punishment that could be awarded to his offence. But 
 the suggestion was overruled. The criminal, it was 
 argued, however loth he might be to undergo the return 
 to his wife, would not dare, even under all the circum- 
 stances, to affect a disinclination, conscious that the rest 
 of the offenders would insist upon his becoming a sacrifice 
 to the general welfare, and that he had the certainty of 
 coming back to his old quarters. To keep such offenders 
 upon earth always was impossible, or humanity must
 
 THE MARRIAGE OF BELPIIEGOR. 363 
 
 change its nature, and Pluto would lose subjects. 
 Besides, marriage might be altered, and so make a 
 heaven upon eartli, and then the very damned would 
 become blest; which was a thing too profane to be 
 thought of. 
 
 Unfortunately, a new dilemma now occurred; for the 
 story having got about, no devil was found hardy enough 
 to undertake the adventure. ISTo, no, said they ; we 
 have a bad life enough of it here ; and it has long been 
 a good diabolical maxim, to let ill alone. Promises of 
 as many enjoyments as possible were lavished in vain ; 
 wine, riches, rank, beauty, influence, knowledge, and 
 ices every day. Some started at the ices, but, on re- 
 flection, they agreed with the rest. The prisoners, they 
 said, had had experience of all these, and yet they 
 preferred the hell under the earth to their hell upon it. 
 As a last temptation they were promised a considerablo 
 amendment of their condition upon returning, and at 
 this they again hesitated, till Pluto unluckily ofi"ered to 
 ratify the promise by his royal word : upon which they 
 immediately shook their heads, and declined pursuing 
 the question any further. 
 
 At length a very daring, ambitious devil, of the name 
 of Belphegor, said he would go. The whole infernal 
 public Avere astonished ; but they agreed that if it were 
 possible for any devil to do such a thing, Bo][)liegor was 
 he. It was thought that he had a private commission 
 from Proserpine, and that Pluto was not sorry to wink 
 at the cause of his departure. He was a sprightly devil, 
 who could play on the serpent, and wrote verses with a 
 great deal of fire : accomplishments, which got him 
 occasional admittance to Pluto's table. He Avould make 
 experiments upon the flames about him, and was sus- 
 pected of holding an heretical opinion upon the possibility 
 of getting used to anything. 
 
 The credit of his orthodoxy was not strengthened by
 
 364 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 liis actually setting out. Pluto conferred on him the 
 shape, in which a devil of his agreeable turn of mind 
 would have appeared had he been a man. It was 
 something betwixt the jovial and melancholy, — very 
 amiable. He looked like one of the most agreeable 
 gentlemen of the time. The public waited with some 
 impatience for his appearance out of Proserpine's apart- 
 ments, whither he had gone to kiss hands on leaving 
 Piindsemonium. At last my gentleman comes forth. 
 The spectators set up a shout, like that of a myriad of 
 coal-heavers. Belphegor takes off his hat, with an air 
 as if he had been used to it all his life ; and it is 
 observed universally, that if Belphegor is not happy 
 in wedlock, there must be something worse than the 
 devil in it. 
 
 It Avas settled, in order to do everything fairly, first, 
 that if our hero lit upon a wife more than usually wifely, 
 she should die Avith reasonable celerity, and leave him 
 another chance ; secondly, that he should not return to 
 hell without orders, upon pain of some rare punishment ; 
 and thirdly, that he should emerge in England, as the 
 place where marriage was held in the gravest repute. 
 Accordingly, he made his appearance in the British 
 metropolis, as a young gentleman of fortune ; and soon 
 found that an alliance with him Avould be regarded in a 
 very estimable point of view. 
 
 After admiring the beauty of the women, which he 
 thought nevertheless a little too cold-looking (a fancy at 
 once odd and pardonable in a devil), the thing that most 
 astonished him in this exemplary and very married 
 nation, was to find, that the sarcasm of Pluto's counsel 
 was as common here as elsewhere, — that nothing was of 
 such ordinary occurrence as the ridicule of wedlock, 
 sometimes bitter, sometimes merry, often between both. 
 A grave and seemingly approving ear was leant in public 
 when it was praised ; — a panegyric on it in a sentimental
 
 THE MAURIAGE OF BELFHEGOR. 365 
 
 comedy met with applause ; but the applause was douljle 
 when another comedy abused it. Husbands and wives 
 joked each other upon their bonds, with the air of people 
 who break the force of a satirical truism by meeting it. 
 In the shops were pictures of Before Marriage and Aitcv 
 Marriage, the former exhibiting a lover helping his 
 mistress over a stile, the latter the same gentleman 
 walking on, and leaving the lady to get over by herself. 
 Belphegor overheard a knot of persons one day disputing 
 whether this was a caricature; but they all agreed that the 
 spirit of it was like enough. " Generally like," said one, 
 " eb, Jack 1 " Jack seemed to be the melancholy Avag of 
 the party, and said, that the present company always 
 excepted, he thought, for a general resemblance, it was 
 particularly like. 
 
 These symptoms were not at all encouraging to our 
 hero ; so that having been told to do what others did, 
 he availed himself of tbe letter of his instructions some- 
 what beyond the spirit of their intention, and amused 
 himself as much as possible in the character of a bachelor. 
 He dressed, dined, lounged in the coffee-houses, went to 
 the theatres, visited in tbe most respectable circles, and 
 was understood to be well acquainted with a description 
 of ladies, whom nevertheless it was not proper to mention. 
 It was even supposed probable that he had furnished his 
 quantum of maid-servants and others to that class of 
 persons, and scattered a considerable portion of misery 
 about town, Avithout at all diminishing his receptibility 
 among the said circles ; a phenomenon, which in so grave 
 and reputable a nation he would have placed to the 
 account of an error of charity, had he not observed, as 
 we have just hinted, that if the most serious ladies 
 shoAved no contempt for himself, they evinced a good 
 deal for the class whom he was thought likely to have 
 increased. He also saw that they would expect very 
 different conduct from him, should one of them honour
 
 3GG LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 him with her hand ; and that if he might like the worst, 
 and deceive the very best of the sex now, it would go 
 hard with him should he then desire to evince a grateful 
 sense of the most admirahle of women. 
 
 Captain Lovell however (fur he liad purchased a com 
 pany under this name) had received a due portion of 
 man's nature with his shape ; and he was induced to 
 hasten the period of matrimony, partly by an express 
 from Pluto, and partly by his falling in love with a 
 young lady of reasonable beauty and accomplishments, 
 who appeared to him as likely as anybody "to render 
 the married state happy," — a phrase indeed which was 
 often in the mouths of her parents. 
 
 The captain married, and for three or four months 
 was the happiest devil existing. He met with occasional 
 instances of petulance and self-will; but these, he thought, 
 were pardonable in one who made him so happy in the 
 main : and he was resolved not to be the first to create 
 a rupture. If the lady could not bear him out of her 
 sight, it only proved the excess of her fondness ; and if 
 she began by degrees to bear it better, he was convinced 
 that she did it solely for his comfort, by the sweetness 
 with which she received the new dresses and trinkets he 
 bestowed upon her to make amends. 
 
 You must know that Captain Lovell, being a devil (as 
 the ladies occasionally startled his ear by calling him), 
 had acquired by dint of suffering what humanity often 
 attains to by the same means. He hated monopoly, and 
 loved to see fair-play both in the distribution of pains 
 and pleasures. The first thing that gave him a seriously 
 uneasy sensation about his wife, was to see so gentle a 
 creature capable of scolding her servants. He remon- 
 strated, and was scolded himself. The next night he 
 stayed out longer than usual, and was welcomed home 
 with a long lecture, which perfectly stunned him. The 
 words he could chiefly distinguish, all but one, were,
 
 THE MARRIAGE OF BELPHEGOR. 367 
 
 creatures — honest wife — is this usage 1 — tender heart — ■ 
 plagues of servants — other women (witli great stress on 
 other — my husband (with still greater stress on my) — 
 duty — decency — lawful — usual fate — defy anybody — 
 religion — and chastity. The one word in particular was 
 virtue, which she used in common for the last-mentioned 
 quality. He afterwards found that whenever she charged 
 him with any vice, or was guilty of any herself, she had 
 a special taste for repeating the same synonym. If he 
 looked with fondness on any lady with a frank, good- 
 humoured face, his wife was sure to doubt the lady's 
 *' virtue," and to remind him of her own. If she 
 exhibited any petty selfishness in eating and drinking, 
 or laying out money, or exacting too anuch of others, 
 and suspected that he observed it, she sighed at the 
 fate which denied the least privilege or consolation to 
 " virtue." If she was a little insincere Avith him, or 
 pettish Avith others, and he reproved her for it (for he 
 began now to reprove, on his own side), she delighted to 
 tell him, Avith a very malignant aspect, that such petty 
 fault Avould not be found Avith anybody but a person of 
 " virtue." If she Avas in the mood to be fond Avith 
 him, and he had not quite got over her last peroration, 
 she wept and said that love was no longer considered 
 a duty ; no longer a holy tie ; no longer the rcAvard of 
 "virtue." 
 
 He Avas one day so provoked by her harping 
 upon this favourite Avord, that he turned on his heel, 
 and exclaimed, Avith great gusto of utterance, " Damn 
 virtue ! " The lady sat doAvn, pale, smiling, and satisfied. 
 "Well!" she exclaimed; "if" — The captain did not 
 stay to hear the rest. He kncAV Avhat that Well 
 portended, too Avell. 
 
 Captain Lovell fell into conversation Avith his brother 
 officers on the subject of this Aartue. He had laid as 
 much stress on it as any man, particularly as ho had led
 
 368 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 a very gay life, and thought it very difficult to keep. 
 But he now began to suspect, that the difficulty was no 
 such great matter, if ladies made up for it with all these 
 privileged vices; — that if it were, it put on a very 
 unpleasant aspect, so managed ; — and that at all events, 
 the system deserved inquiry, which made so many 
 virtuous men and women disagreeable as Avell as re- 
 spectable, so many vicious women pleasant and despised, 
 and such numbers of both descriptions extremely miser- 
 able. He started the question at the mess, but the 
 officers, though incorrigible profligates, were equally 
 inexorable in their theories of virtue. If their wives 
 and mistresses, they said, were not faithful, they could 
 shoot them through the head. 
 
 " But," said Lovell, " suppose they become disagree- 
 able." 
 
 "Oh, damn it," said the colonel, "there are plenty of 
 agreeable women, for that matter ; " upon which they all 
 laughed, and toasted a favourite demirep. 
 
 "But," returned Lovell, "is that fair in usi Is it 
 fair in us to make our wives disagreeable with our 
 theories, to insist that they shall remain so for our 
 credit forsooth, and then to leave them for those whom 
 we teach them to despise 1 " 
 
 The mess all stared at him, as widely as the port in 
 their eyes would permit. 
 
 "Oh, pray go home, and instruct yours, Tom," said 
 the colonel ; " you are much too profligate for us. — My 
 compliments, hoAvever. And I say " — (hallooing after 
 him) — "remember, — in the event of a reformation, — I'm 
 your man." 
 
 Lovell went home, much more ruffled than became a 
 demon of his vivacity; but his earthly nature clogged 
 him, and he began to Avish himself heartily rid of it. 
 He sat down opposite his wife, and though he had a 
 grudge against Milton for what he called his trucklings
 
 THE MARRIAGE OF BELPIIEGOR. 369 
 
 about Pandsemonium, could not lielp repeating aft^'i 
 him, — 
 
 " O shame to men ! Devil with devil damned 
 Finn concord hold, men only disagree." 
 
 The lady did not at all relish this apostrophe ; but she 
 had been unexpectedly softened by his coming home so 
 soon ; and asking him to read a little to her out of that 
 " truly divine poet," she went to the book-case and took 
 down a volume of him, intending (we must own) that he 
 should shame himself with reading the conjugal loves of 
 Adam and Eve. Unluckily, she happened to hit upon 
 one of his prose instead of poetical works; and what 
 was more unlucky, the captain, opening it at random, 
 hit upon a passage in his Doctrine and Discipline of 
 Divorce, where, in spite of his divinity, he says that 
 personal infidelity in a woman is not so good a ground 
 for separation as ill temper and other vices of antipathy, 
 because she may still remain a very pleasing and even 
 affectionate woman in the main, whereas the other vices 
 totally cut up the happiness of a wedded life. — After 
 sitting dumb with astonishment at hearing such a quota- 
 tion from Milton (which the captain maliciously showed 
 her, to convince her eyes), the lady ended a long and 
 vehement dispute by charging him with wishing to 
 corrupt her virtue, in order to furnish excuses for him- 
 self. There had been little peace before. There was 
 now an uninterrupted cannonade of hard words. The 
 gentleman was " the most wonderful, the most amazing, 
 the very meanest of mankind for deliberately wishing to 
 pander to his own dishonour : — she was astonished at 
 him — she was overwhelmed ; she — in short, for the first 
 time in her life, she wanted words." On the other hand, 
 the lady was "the most provoking of women for eternally 
 beginning the question, to indulge her own silly mistakes, 
 cursed ill -humours, spleen, vanity, envy, hatred, and 
 malice, and all uncharitableness." 
 
 2 A
 
 370 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 The captain, not having been used to this sort of 
 torture in the other world, had much the worst of it. 
 His wife could talk, though she said nothing. She also 
 piqued herself more than ever upon her " virtue," 
 whereas he had nothing to hoast on that score. By 
 degrees he neglected his affairs, and grew melancholy 
 and slovenly. His creditors came upon him, but the 
 lady would not go out of the house, because she said 
 he did it on purpose to get rid of her. At length he 
 sold his commission and absconded. 
 
 Our hero looked hard at every person he met in black, 
 hoping that he brought him the summons to return 
 to hell ; but he was disappointed. He was therefore 
 obliged to content himself with hiding from his credi- 
 tors ; for, though he had lived so long in the infernal 
 regions, he could not bear the idea of bailifl's and lock-up 
 houses. One day, being hot pressed with the pursuit, 
 he made known the earthly part of his history to a 
 countryman. The peasant, in spite of his deaf wife's 
 objections, who saw she knew but half the secret, con- 
 cealed him faithfully, and the captain, in return, under- 
 took to make his fortune. 
 
 The rustic laughed at this. " Nay, nay, Muster 
 Lovell," said he, "there's no making a zilk purse of 
 zow's ear. I judge I beez better able to make fortunes 
 nor you ; and God He knows, I'm as poor as Job ; and 
 for that matter," added he, winking towards his wife, 
 " as patient too ; eh, captain 1 " 
 
 Belphegor (for so we shall again call him) did not 
 much relish this sally, for obvious reasons ; not to 
 mention that his natural pride, as a devil, began to 
 return upon him from a comparison with mortals. How- 
 ever he adhered to his promise. He therefore disclosed 
 his real quality to the terrified countryman, whom he 
 had much ado to encourage. A good deal of ale, and 
 some toasts given to the church (which made the man
 
 THE MARRIAGE OF BELPHEGOR. 371 
 
 tliink him too good-natured a devil, considering the 
 tithes), succeeded in reassuring him. Oul' liero under- 
 took to go to the continent, and possess a German 
 prince, whom the farmer was to follow and cure. The 
 latter gave out, that in consequence of some experi- 
 ments with dogs, he had found a marvellous remedy for 
 disorders connected with phrensy; and as a previous 
 step, Belphegor pitched himself into a censorious old lady 
 in the village, who began talking of the farmer with 
 such extraordinary fondness, that it was thought better 
 to send for him in his new capacity. He came accord- 
 ingly, and wrought a cure which was reckoned the more 
 surprising, inasmuch as the old lady, from that day 
 forward, became extremely charitable in her discourse. 
 On the day of the cure, Belphegor crossed sea, and 
 pitched himself into the German j^rince. His JMajesty 
 was taken with a very odd fancy. He was a huge, fat 
 man, very profligate ; and yet fell into long discourses 
 on his exceeding thinness and integrity. Xothing 
 relieved him so much as making him presents of shoes 
 and gloves too small for him, measuring waists to see 
 which was the larger, and making bold to say, that, if 
 anything, he was somewhat too slender and amiable for 
 a man. He had already been seized with a notion, 
 that his wife (a sort of harum - scarum, but excellent- 
 hearted person) was not as genteel and virtuous as him- 
 self; and for this Belphegor had a pique against him, 
 both on account of the mistake, and of the man's 
 making it so ridiculous. He accordingly entered him 
 in all his triumph, and rendered his behaviour so ex- 
 ceedingly fantastic and absurd, that his very courtiers 
 were ready to die with laughter. 
 
 The rustic doctor, as he anticipated, was sent for. 
 His fame had spread rapidly by means of the news- 
 papers ; and his second cure, being upon a prince's 
 understanding, of course outdid in reputation his first.
 
 372 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 His method electrified tlie physicians. He merely 
 approached the royal ear, whispered something in it 
 which nobody heard, and the evil spirit departed. His 
 words were these : " Captain, I am come : remember 
 your promise." — "I do," answered the spirit; "and to 
 make you still richer, I shall go and possess the Czar 
 of Muscovy, who undertakes to be a moral fop, and is 
 my aversion." 
 
 " Good," said the peasant, who was growing rich with 
 prosperity ; " but have a care, my dear captain, that you 
 don't tell 'un any o' your theories, as you calls 'em, or 
 you'll never get at 'un." 
 
 Now the reader must know that our hero, besides the 
 pride above-mentioned, had a vice in him more befitting 
 in practice, if not in theory, a good orthodox Christian, 
 which was revenge. Besides, his temper had been em- 
 bittered by his earthly sojourn. He therefore con- 
 descended to be piqued with the farmer's airs of 
 superiority ; he was also annoyed by the sight of a 
 happiness which he could not taste, and he determined 
 upon ruining the poor dolt. The Czar of Muscovy 
 doated at such an extravagant rate, that the famous 
 English doctor was sent for with all speed. He came, 
 dressed in the extremity of the medical fashion, humming 
 and hawing with great pomposity. Belphegor chuckled 
 at the sight. The farmer whispered as usual ; but what 
 was his astonishment when the Czar read him a grave 
 lecture on his presumption *? He entreated his dear 
 captain, his excellent Mr. Lovell, his kind good master, etc. 
 etc., all to no purpose. Belphegor would not move, and 
 the Czar went on, making, both himself and the mock- 
 doctor ridiculous. The poor peasant, whom despair 
 rendered ingenious, remembered hearing from the village 
 pulpit that the devil could not abide the presence of a 
 clergyman. He requested that four priests might be 
 sent for. They were, and mass performed to boot, after
 
 THE MARRIAGE OF BELrHEGOR. 373 
 
 the fashion of the Greek church ; but Belphegor was 
 inexorable. He even made the Czar fall a-laughing, to 
 his Majesty's own exceeding horror. 
 
 The farmer was now giving himself up for lost, when 
 a buffoon came bursting through the crowd, mimicking 
 tlie poor doctor's manner so irresistibly, that the assembled 
 thousands could not refrain from bursting into shouts of 
 laughter and approbation. 
 
 " What the devil's thatr' said Jiclphegor. 
 
 "Oh, my dear captain," answered the peasant, "there 
 is your wife coming in search of you." 
 
 At these words, Belphegor, without waiting even to 
 kick the Czar and the doctor, leaped out of the royal 
 person, and in the teeth of his instructions to the contrary, 
 made the best of his way to hell.
 
 XXVIII. 
 THE GENEROUS WOMEN. 
 
 '■ There he arriving round about doth file, 
 And takes survey with busie curious eye : 
 Now this, now that, he tasteth tenderly." 
 
 —Spenser. 
 
 [ riie giound-work of the following story is from the old French 
 and Italian novelists, and has been turned to good account in his 
 "Albion's Enghind" by William Warner. Nothing can exceed the 
 general cast of nature in his homely account. One of his touches 
 of jiaintiug is extremely bonutiful : — 
 
 " He took her iu his arms, as yet 
 So coyish to be kist. 
 As maids that know themselves beloved, 
 And yieldingly resist."] 
 
 A GENTLEMAN of Toui's, of tliG iiamc of De Lorme, liad 
 a Avife whom ho had courted with extreme ardour, and 
 Avhom he still loved as his chosen companion. She had 
 perceived, however, for some time past, that his gallantry 
 towards her was more constrained than it used to be, and 
 this surprised the lady. In truth, it might Avell do so, 
 fur she was still young and handsome, her accomplish- 
 ments were many, and if anything, the love on her own 
 side Avas greater than over. 
 
 It must ho confessed at the same time, that she had 
 not been aware of tliis last circumstance, till her husband's 
 lovo had appeared to decline ; it must be added, that she 
 had for some time been accustomed to regard his tender- 
 
 374
 
 THE GENEROUS WOMEN". 375 
 
 ness as a matter of convse ; and it must Le further 
 acknowledged, tliat M. De Lornio had given grounds for 
 this persuasion, both in the excess of his first ardour, and 
 in his happy and delicate imitation of it when it began 
 to cool. Our heroine, in short, forgot that there was such 
 a thing as imagination in love, or the necessity of being 
 meritorious in the person beloved. 
 
 Still Madame De Lorme was far from being destitute 
 of merit. She had even more virtue than she was aware 
 of, but too secure in the conventional forms of it, and in 
 her own good opinion, her husband's altered behaviour 
 began to turn her surprise into resentment. She insinu- 
 ated his fickleness, and nobody likes insinuations. What 
 is more, he did not deserve them. She took to bein^ 
 prouder, when she was too proud already. She wept at 
 intervals, with the air of an ill-used person ; and this 
 contrasted but ill with the pride. At last, she men- 
 tioned her " virtue," and this, as our readers know, is 
 the devil. 
 
 M. De Lorme had informed his wife that she might 
 not be, perhaps, quite so perfect or amiable as she 
 supposed ; but this she regarded as a resentful speech, 
 and her own resentment was heightened accordingly. 
 She looked about her, to consider what could have 
 induced him to spend less time with her, or to enjoy less 
 the time that he did spend. Ho did not game ; he did 
 not drink; he was not fond of hunting; there was no lady 
 with whom she could compare herself ; and yet, from 
 some instinct or other, she thought it must be a lady 
 who had beguiled him ; not so handsome or virtuous, 
 she thought, as myself; but neither virtue, nor even 
 beauty, can fix the men in these degenerate days. If 
 Madame De Lorme had called her own virtue in question, 
 she might have been nearer the mark : but she thought 
 of everyone's faults instead of her own. 
 
 These jealous impiiries helped to produce the catas-
 
 376 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 troplie she dreaded. M. De Lorme, though full of natural 
 sentiment, was not aware that the customs and exactions 
 of his own sex had helped to spoil both women and men, 
 and, tired with canvassing a subject which he almost, 
 knew as ill how to handle as his lady, he was left open 
 to the first impressions he should receive from a hand- 
 some and good-tempered female. At that time Henry 
 the Fourth was upon the throne. The example of the 
 monarch had not tended to make the gallantry of his 
 loving subjects more scrupulous. His virtues, at the 
 same time, helped to divest it of hypocrisy, without 
 letting it run into impudence. At least, this was the 
 effect at a distance from him, where his example fell 
 upon a soil worthy of him. What it was in the old 
 and corrupt hot - bed of the court, it is not our busi- 
 ness to inquire. The country lasses were certainly 
 very amiable at that period; and M. De Lorme found 
 them so. 
 
 There was a lively good-humoured girl on a farm 
 which he had about eight miles from Tours, whose 
 reputation was none of the austerest, but who was so 
 kind to the old, and so choice of her kisses to the 
 young, that she enchanted the whole neighbourhood. 
 She supported an old uncle and aunt with her industry, 
 would help anybody, when she had done her work, in 
 field or dairy, and then led off the evening dance under 
 the elms with a mixture of grace and good nature, 
 which nobody would have dared to treat with disrespect, 
 had he been inclined. You might hear her, early in 
 the morning, singing 
 
 " IMignonne, allons voir si la rose," 
 
 with the spirit and sweetness of a lark. She made it a 
 sort of chivalrous thing to obtain a kiss of her ; always 
 gave the best to the kindest and most courageous ; was 
 strangely coy to the lacqueys and other wise men of the
 
 THE GENEROUS WOMEN. 377 
 
 world, wlio sometimes instructed the neiglibourhood ; but 
 said that if Monsieur the Poet Ronsard ever came into 
 those parts, she was afraid she sliould kiss him before he 
 thought of it. In short, Fanchon had a born genius for 
 the amiable ; and by proper cultivation among the wits 
 of those times, would have become a wit herself, and 
 much less agreeable. 
 
 M. De Lorme visited his farm one day after a long 
 absence, and was riding very thoughtfully into the 
 hamlet, when he saw one of the prettiest figures in the 
 M'orld before him, walking the same way with a milk- 
 jug on its head, and singing under the lime trees. His 
 horse happened to give a snort, and Fanchon, turning 
 round (for it was she), dropped a curtsey, and then 
 continued her way silently. 
 
 "She looks too much in earnest," thought ]\I. De 
 Lorme, " to have seen me before she stopped singing. — 
 You seem very happy, child," said he aloud, looking at 
 her as he rode by her side. 
 
 "Oh yes, sir," said the girl, with an impulse she 
 seemed to repress. She then dropped a more respectful 
 curtsey, and began to loiter behind him. He loitered in 
 his turn. 
 
 "Are you all so happy, my dear?" asked the gentle- 
 man, Avho would have said a prettier thing, had her 
 countenance struck him less. 
 
 "Yes, sir," replied she, — "I think so — most of us." 
 
 " And what is it, pray, that makes most of us so 
 happy?" rejoined the horseman, repeating her words, 
 for the sake of the air of sincerity with which she 
 spoke them. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, sir," answered the fair peasant, 
 " but I am sure you must know." 
 
 She said this with much more gravity than archness; 
 yet M. De Lorme somehow or otlier coloured. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir," she repeated, apparently dis-
 
 378 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 covering that she ought to say more ; " hut I recollect. 
 Monsieur's face, and my aunt says he makes everybod}' 
 happy as well as his tenants." 
 
 Not exactly everybody, thought M. De Lorme, nor 
 myself neither. But the answer enlivened him. 
 
 " If I make everybody so happy, my fair one," said 
 he, "I think it is their business to make me so, is it 
 not 1 " 
 
 Fanchon perceived that he was talking gallantly : she 
 had also heard that he was not so happy at home as he 
 used to be ; and what with her superiority to the common 
 gallantry which there might be in this speech, her 
 sympathy nevertheless with the sentiment of it, and her 
 cordial respect for the Seigneur, she was confused in her 
 turn. 
 
 She said, " Yes truly, sir,'' with a gravity which made 
 him smile. 
 
 " I will not distress you, my love," said M. De Lorme, 
 "but you have a fine face of your own, and I would beg 
 one kiss of it, if it would not alter it." 
 
 At these words he leaned from his horse ; Fanchon let 
 her face move towards him, with the sweetest and gravest 
 want of prudery in the world ; she gave him even her 
 lips instead of her cheek ; and a better-hearted kiss on 
 both sides had not been taken under a milk-jug, with the 
 lime trees over it, for many a day. 
 
 As soon as our gentleman got to his farm, he made 
 inquiries respecting the fair peasant, 
 
 "Oh, sir," said the steward, smiling, "that is Made- 
 moiselle Fanchon. She must be coi^rted, I can tell you, 
 as much as if she Avere a fine lady." 
 
 M. De Lorme, accustomed to the more sophisticated 
 loves of Paris, was astonished to find, in the person of 
 a country-girl, such union, as he called it, of the modest 
 and the liberal. Mobesty, where it was to be found, Avas 
 generally in the possession of wives, and by no means
 
 THE GENEROUS WOMEN. 379 
 
 liberal in anything. Liberality, on the other hand, was 
 exclusively in the possession of the mistresses, and by no 
 means modest. 
 
 M. De Lorme was told, among other anecdotes of 
 Fanchon, that she was a great ballad-singer and early 
 riser. The next morning he found himself up very 
 early, singing as he arranged the feather in his hat. He 
 walked down the green lane, in love Avith everything he 
 saw, and came to the residence of Fanchon's uncle and 
 aunt. It was one of the thickest and most sylvan nests 
 on the banks of the Loire, One Avindow alone Avas seen 
 looking out of the trees. The rest of the cottage seemed 
 almost built" up with green. The birds in the boughs over- 
 head made a morning concert of the fullest and most spark- 
 ling description, but M. de Lorme did not hear Fanchon. 
 
 " She is not up," said he to himself; " the jade is so 
 pleasant, she gets a character given her for anything. 
 Perhaps some dream has detained her : — if it Avere only 
 noAv about a Avell-lookiug gentleman o]i horseback." 
 
 M. De Lorme, as he thought this, had got into the 
 inner part of the little homestead, and there he saw 
 Fanchon, not singing, not doing anything, but standing 
 Avith her back towards him and her hand upon a churu- 
 ing-stick, thinking. 
 
 "Her very boddice," thought he, "is Avorth all the 
 dresses at court." 
 
 A pang came over him as he remembered his Avife 
 playing the milk-maid once in this very neighbourhood, 
 and he asked himself Avhether they might not still be 
 happy and constant; bi>t he had been disappointed so 
 often, that her image began to look rather like a sour 
 interference Avith his comfort, than a kindly appeal to 
 his affection ; and stepping softly ouAvards, lie Avas about 
 to tap Fanchon on the shoulder, Avhen a feeling more 
 respectful Avithheld him, and he contented himself Avith 
 bidding her good morning.
 
 380 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 Our dairy-maid, colouring, turned quickly round, and 
 returned his salutation, adding somewhat abruptly, but 
 evidently "without design, "I hope raadame is well." 
 
 She followed it up instantly with as cordial a welcome 
 as her inferiority of condition would allow her to give, 
 and suffered herself to be more familiar than she might 
 otherwise have been, out of a feeling that her thoughts 
 on this occasion ought not to have spoken out loud. 
 She had an instinct against pedantry of all sorts, and 
 hated to seem interfering and didactic. Not that she 
 knew a word about such words as didactic, which puzzled 
 her sometimes in her friend Eonsard ; but, as we have 
 before observed, Fanchon was a charmer by nature, and 
 the early necessity of feeling and Avorking for others had 
 preserved her character, and bred thoughts in her deeper 
 tlian she was aware of. If she ever wished to give pain, 
 it was only when some proud or malignant pain had 
 been given. Her propensity both to give and receive 
 pleasure Avas so great, that she often said, if she married, 
 she would love her husband, provided he would let her, 
 better than anybody on earth, would be his best com- 
 panion, would die for him, would starve for him, would 
 be torn to pieces for him, if necessary ; but that husbands 
 nnist have a care, for though not of their opinion in 
 thinking it proper to scold others for what one did one's 
 self, she would not undertake to say that she should not 
 feel a little bit grateful to those Avho had the same 
 charming qualities as the man of her heart. 
 
 It Avas the face, accustomed to be animated Avith these 
 thoughts, that Avas now turned npon the kind lord of the 
 manor. The kiss under the limes Avas repeated and 
 repeated again. M. De Lorrae at once flattered and 
 relieved her by saying, that all the accovmts he heard of 
 her Avere much to his taste ; and Fanchon thought, that 
 setting aside this, he deserved a kiss for every good thing 
 he had done to the neighbourhood, AAdiich, to say the
 
 THE GENEROUS WOMEN. 381 
 
 truth, would liavc made a very considerable series. The 
 upshot was, that the steward above mentioned, having 
 been very petulant at finding his master come to the 
 farm, and not a little sarcastic upon "■ Mademoiselle 
 Fanchon," was removed to another estate, and the uncle 
 and aunt put in care of La Grange. 
 
 The steward, finding his master never came down, had 
 usurped a good part of the house ; but M. De Lorme 
 insisted that his new housekeepers should share it with, 
 him ; and if Fanchon's apartment was at a different 
 corner from his, it behts the truth of our history to 
 say, that the passage to it was not difficult, provided 
 she chose to let it lie open, especially as the good 
 people, after lecturing their niece a little sharply, as 
 they would sometimes do, upon the over-vivacity of her 
 abstract opinions, always slept very soundly. 
 
 Fanchon fairly blushed now and tlien when they 
 talked to her, and the lower they bowed and curtsied 
 before M. De Lorme, she blushed the more ; but as his 
 respect for herself increased, his quiet indifference towards 
 them seemed to do so likewise ; and after the tribute 
 of a flood of tears to the many unliappy hours in 
 which, she had formerly struggled against her ill-opinion 
 of those for whom she laboured, she agreed with him 
 that such meanness ought not to distress her. 
 
 The steward, when removing his goods from La 
 Grange, had taken care to lay his hands upon every 
 item he could, so that M. De Lorme found his residence 
 very barely provided. Fanchon, however, would not 
 suffer him to furnish it as he wished. The goods for 
 the housekeeper's side were of the plainest kind ; and 
 he could not persuade her, when she admitted him to 
 a visit, that he had acquired a foolish love for certain 
 kinds of tapestry and other bed - chamber ornaments. 
 She even insisted (for she would get into strange sub- 
 jects of conversation, such as mistresses, of all others.
 
 382 LEIGH HUNT 
 
 are supposed to avoid) that he only slept the pleasanter 
 for it, when he was at home ; and what is more, she 
 thought as much ; and would be froward with him, if 
 lie did not sleep there often. 
 
 " How much virtue," thought he, " in my wife is 
 obscured, and turned into vice, by the single fault of 
 intolerance ; and how very like the virtue my wife 
 wants, does vice — I believe they call it — look in this 
 village girl ! " 
 
 One day Fanchon received him with a particularly 
 sparkling face. 
 
 " Well," said she, "my dear M. De Lorme, they say 
 that the ladies are fond of you ; and fond they must be, 
 to do things for you in secret." 
 
 " How now, real one 1 " said M. De Lorme, for so he 
 delighted to call her. 
 
 " A cart," she resumed, " came this morning with a 
 heap of good things for you, and the man knew nothing 
 of the person that sent them, except that a lady gave him 
 the order, and paid for it." 
 
 " What sort of a lady 1 " 
 
 " Oh, now," cried Fanchon, " see the vain gratitude 
 in his eyes ! We must find her out for him ! A lady 
 in a veil." 
 
 M. De Lorme went up-stairs, and found the bedroom 
 hung with a new piece of his favourite tapestry. It 
 consisted of stories from the Provencal poets. There 
 were also pictures of Joan of Arc, and of Agnes Sorel ; 
 a couple of noble arm-chairs hung with crimson velvet ; 
 and a toilet, carved in silver with shepherds and shep- 
 herdesses, and containing everything that a country 
 beauty could desire, of combs, bodkins, and laces. 
 
 "And it is not for me only," said M. De Lorme, 
 doubly delighted and perplexed. 
 
 " I shall die till you can thank her for both of us," 
 said Fanchon : " I mean," added she, lowering her voice,
 
 THE GENEROUS WOMEN. 383 
 
 " till you can add my grateful respects, if you think she 
 will like it." And the tears stood in her eyes. 
 
 M. De Lorme, whose popularity among the Parisian 
 ladies, and his acquaintance with their manners both had 
 and good, rendered his vanity more than pardonable, 
 considering the life he led betwixt Tours and La Grange, 
 thought his fair farmer was growing jealous ; but the 
 way in which she exhibited this new passion was so 
 amiable, that he kissed the tears from her eyes with 
 great affection, and said there was not a lady in the 
 land Avith whom Fanchon need be afraid of standing 
 face to face. 
 
 The truth is, that during his absence, Fanchon, who 
 never looked upon herself as destined to be his chief 
 companion, and had heard much of the former qualities 
 of his wife, was wondering whether ho stopped longer 
 than usual on account of a termination of their cold- 
 ness, when a lady in a veil (the same, she had no 
 doubt, who afterwards sent the goods) came unex- 
 pectedly into her sitting-room, and after accepting a 
 chair, and holding a silence unaccountably long, asked 
 her somewhat haughtily whether she was the steward's 
 niece. 
 
 Fanchon, though a little abashed, contrived to answer 
 with her usual mixture of sweetness and respectfidness 
 that she was. 
 
 The answer was followed, after a less silence, with 
 another abrupt remark, though in a less haughty tone. 
 
 " If this is your sitting-room," said the lady, " it is very 
 plainly furnished for so — handsome a possessor." 
 
 The tone of the concluding words was not at all 
 sarcastic ; yet Fanchon coloured. In fact, she guessed 
 who was before her, or she might have thought proper 
 to show a greater self-possession. 
 
 "!Not plainer, madame," she replied, "than I trust is 
 becoming."
 
 381 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 The stranger seemed to doubt the sincerity of these 
 words, for she added in a less gentle manner — 
 
 " M. De Lorme (M. De Lorme, mademoiselle, is an old 
 friend, and I happen to be just now particularly interested 
 in his comfort), M. De Lorme is happier, I am told, in 
 this place than he is at home 1 " 
 
 Now this was a little too hard of Madame De Lorme, 
 for she, of course, it was. She had heard a great deal 
 of Fanchon to her credit, and what she heard was 
 corroborated, as far as it could be, by what she now 
 saw; but whether she judged her insincere in her last 
 answer, or whether that very corroboration gave her a 
 passing wound that irritated her, we cannot say. 
 
 Fanchon, thus pushed home, did not think of attack- 
 ing in turn ; but she forgot for a moment that there 
 was anybody to be defended but herself, and said with 
 an air of great simplicity, betwixt enthusiasm and ex- 
 culpation, that M. De Lorme was so kind and forgiving, 
 and did so much to make others happy, that everybody 
 must wish him to be happy, wherever he was. 
 
 "And you contribute, of course," said the stranger, "all 
 you can to make him so." 
 
 She said this with the more pointedness, inasmuch as 
 she Avas struck with the truth of the observation, and 
 angry with herself for feeling the very anger. 
 
 Fanchon turned very red, then pale, then blushed out 
 in all the natural beauty of her truth and good-hearted- 
 ness, and said, — 
 
 " Without meaning to inquire, madame, what right 
 you have to question me in this way, but supposing it 
 to be the best and oldest right in the world, perhaps 
 you will pardon me for hoping, that a friend of M. De 
 Lorme will not be offended with me, when I say, that 
 neither my wishes nor my endeavours for M. De Lorme's 
 happiness have been confined to the neighbourhood in 
 which I now have the honour of seeing you."
 
 THE GRNEROUS WOMEN. 385 
 
 The lady appeared greatly agitated at this. It was 
 evident, through her veil, that the tears were pouring 
 down her cheeks. 
 
 " You seem ill, madame," said Fanchon, in an altered 
 tone full of na'ivet6 and humility. "May I do any- 
 thing for you." 
 
 She stood aloof, ready to approach, or to run any- 
 where. 
 
 The stranger rose, went towards her herself, and 
 pressed her hand in the most affectionate manner. 
 
 "You cannot do more for me," said she, "than you 
 have done. Only keep this visit a secret from M. De 
 Lorme. I know it will pain you to do so, if he makes 
 many inquiries ; but it will be a kindness to all parties, 
 and that seems to be your motto." She paused here a 
 little, and resumed. "I told you truly when I said 1 
 was an old friend of M. De Lorme ; and I will prove 
 to you that I have that right in common with yourself 
 by sending you a few things to adorn the apartment he 
 likes best with." 
 
 Fanchon made no scruples, as she might have done 
 had she been less generous. She felt what was due to 
 a generous woman. She kissed the stranger's hand, 
 who lifted her veil a little, and kissed her on the 
 mouth. 
 
 " You are a charming creature," said the lady, " that 
 is certain. We shall be friends, though you never see 
 
 me again. 
 
 " Ah, madame," said Fanchon, " if wc are friends, it 
 is hard if you will not see me again. I could walk bare- 
 foot and alone to meet you, Avhcrever you pleased." 
 
 The lady put her finger on her lips, as if to remind 
 her of the secret, and departed. It was about a week or 
 two from this visit that the tapestry came, and M. De 
 Lorme after it. 
 
 Madame De Lorme, by dint of suilering and reflection, 
 
 2 B
 
 386 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 and what helped her reflection not a little, the accounts 
 that she heard of Fanchon, — not omitting an increasing 
 though dispassionate delicacy of attention on the part 
 of her husband, — was determined to encourage some 
 very romantic resolutions she had formed, by going and 
 judging for herself of the fair rustic. She anticipated, 
 we must own, that her resolutions might possibly be 
 somewhat dashed by what she saw ; but how was she 
 first angered, then softened, and then confirmed in them 
 all, by what she actually beheld ! A long darkness 
 seemed melted from her eyes. 
 
 The reader sees to what the tapestry led. But it 
 was weeks, and even months first. Fanchon thought 
 of putting the new furniture into M. De Lorme's own 
 bed - chamber ; but at sight of the toilet, she saw for 
 which room it was intended, and she acted accordingly. 
 As for M. De Lorme, whether it was owing to his being 
 such a favourite with the ladies, or to the habitual 
 notion of marriage which had grown ujDon him, we 
 must leave the ladies to determine ; but his wife was 
 certainly the last Avoman whom he thought of as the 
 unknown lady. Perhaps he would not have guessed 
 the truth as soon as he did, had he not been helped 
 by the guesses of Fanchon; and they had both to 
 ascertain the matter, after all. What staggered him 
 was, that on his first return home after the receipt of 
 the tapestry, Madame De Lorme certainly appeared 
 more reserved than usual, though he must confess that 
 afterwards, there was a something in her conduct, — a 
 patience, as it were, — a sort of — he might say — winning 
 sweetness and dignity ; — he did not quite know how to 
 finish his description, especially as it appears to have 
 baffled his behaviour, Avhich was a thing on which he 
 piqued himself. The upshot of the conversation was, 
 that he set out for To«rs that very day, and surprised 
 the lady with an unexpected visit.
 
 THE GENEROUS WOMEN. 387 
 
 It was twilight; but madame was still poring over a 
 desk, -writing. She loft off at his entrance, and said 
 with a tone of equal kindness and sincerity, " Dear 
 M. De Lornie, is it youl Had yon forgotten anything 
 when you last went away." 
 
 '* Yes, Manon," said he. 
 
 It was the first time for many months that he had 
 called her Manon. She turned pale, and trembled. 
 
 "I forgot," continued he, "that one of the kindest of 
 wives was treating me with all sorts of gentleness and 
 good-humour, and that I was one of the most insensible 
 of men." 
 
 "IsTot so, — Alain," returned she, hesitating before she 
 uttered the Christian name ; " mv forgetfulness beran 
 before yours." 
 
 " May I ask what you are writing here 1 " said M. De 
 Lorme, taking up the paper as he spoke, and endea- 
 vouring to break the confusion by resorting to common- 
 places. 
 
 Madame De Lorme turned paler. A fine lady at 
 Paris, whether " virtuous " or not, would have sworn 
 that madame had been about to have her "revenge," 
 and that the manuscript was a billet-doux. It was the 
 commencement of some verses on her husband's birth- 
 day, hoping that others would make him as happy as 
 he and they deserved, though it was not in her own 
 power. She was in his arms the next minute. AVliat 
 a long and dreary mistake vanished at the heaven of 
 that caress ! 
 
 "But Fanchon?" the reader may say. This is the 
 very thing Madame De Lorme said about half an hour 
 after that embrace. Fanchon, it was agreed, who had 
 helped to make so much happiness, was never to be 
 made unhappy, was never to be treated but as a friend 
 and companion, Avas never to be spoken to, or spoken 
 of, or spoken about, but as a delightful and noble-
 
 388 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 hearted creature, whom everybody should make as happy 
 as possible. We will not say how often M. De Lorme 
 was at the farm afterwards, especially when Fanchon 
 was married ; but it is certain that he was not only 
 there sometimes, but that Fanchon was as often at 
 Tours ; and Madame Dc Lorme and she have been seen 
 laughing with all their might, on a summer's day, to 
 the great scandal of an old maiden lady, who thought 
 they were laughing at her, which they certainly were 
 not. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 MOUniSOX AND aiBB, PRINTTRS, EDINCDRCH.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 MAR 2 1 1951 
 JWI8 t 
 
 Form L-fl 
 
 ]0m -3, '30(7752)
 
 FR 
 
 4810 
 
 A2 
 
 Himt- 
 Tfiifis^ 
 
 1891 
 cop. 2 
 
 
 — ^^f '■ ■ 
 
 
 7 fj^v 1 5 m% 
 
 
 ^(\G 2 3 1950 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 000 367 784 6 
 
 PR 
 4810 
 
 A2 
 
 1891 
 
 cop. 2
 
 f