ia^fe .'^iU W>A^ ^M^ivV% ^1 V'- ; • , - V;.^\' ^ V ;t^" 7^(?.'c;r-.r.T%r,-3r: :^% :^^ m?*« ■s9gSB». ^ ^V:\^^ THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES A y e"^ rv^ LITERARY FLORETS, POETIC AND PROSAIC, MISCELLANEOUSLY ENTWINED. BY THOMAS CROMWELL, PHIL. DR., F.S.A., Author oc *' Oliver CromweU and his Times ;" " The Druid, a Tragedy '* History of Colchester," &c. LONDON: J. CHAPMAN, 121, NEWGATE STREET. 1645. FR The lowly Florets of which a wreath is now com- posed, are the products of moments calling for no more important employment, that have oc- curred, during years past, at longer or shorter inten^als. In some instances a number of them have sprung up in a month ; in others, a twelve- month or more has gone by without producing a blossom. About one-thii'd of them have already, in some other manner, met the public gaze ; but the remainder for the first time blush to find themselves in print. Partial friends say they would not willingly let them die. — The Author hastens from his Introductory Apology. For, whether a Avork be of the humblest or highest pretensions, whether it be brief or voluminous, whether it be wholly unworthy of attention or filled with wisdom and philosophy, he considers it good sense to be as short as possible in One 1 teface. 70535-5 COIN^TENTS. PAGE Prologue 9 Scraps. Books produce Invention— The Happiest Man — Compromise — Self-deception — How Ro- mance Terminates — Hope born of Morning — Death of Hume— Novelty, &c 11 The Night Voyage ; not by Steam 17 Scraps. On the term " Gothic " — The Revered the best Loved — Agree to Differ, &c 19 To a Country Church, threatened with the Catas- trophe which actually overtook it through the means ignorantly adopted to prevent its Fall 22 The World is not so Bad as it is Believed to be 23 Scraps. How to know Human Nature — Mistrust — Toleration Intolerable, &c 29 Genius ; in what consist its real Advantages ? 30 Light 35 Church, Chapel, and Meeting-house 36 Scraps. The Heraldry of Heaven — The Poetical Text-book — True Benevolence not easily Im- peded, &c 38 Flowers. Conversation Society Paper 39 Scraps. The Truth of Moral Truth — Acquisition by Communication — How Great Men rise, &c 41 Lay of a Bereft One 44 Scraps. Truth and Goodness — Poetry should depict Influences — Essentials of a Drama 45 CONTENTS. PAGE Song. The Rose to Isabel 48 Scraps. Necessity for Loving — Amusement part of the All-wise Plan, &c 48 Lines suggested by the approach and passing of Soldiers 50 Scraps. Pleasure and Happiness — The Memory may be stored Unprofitably — Three requisites to Hap- piness o3 London, an Antiquarian Sketch 54 Scraps. Use of an Umbrella — "Wode" and "Felde" — Fools and Physicians, &c 62 Romance Corrected 63 Brevities about Education. Conversation Society Paper 71 Spirit of Ether's Song 74 Scraps. Life's highest Enjoyments — The Seriousness of Happiness — " Honesty the best Policy" — Cor- rection of a Youthful Lesson — The Best Pleasures the Cheapest 77 Is the Basis of the English Language properly de- scribed either as Saxon or Anglo-Saxon ? Con- versation Society Paper 78 Adolescence 82 Scraps. What Advice should be like — Instantaneous Conviction — Circulation — Individual Religion — Fearing and Refusing to Reason — Major and Minor, &c 84 The Horse and the Serpent : A Fable 86 Virtue and Nature 88 Scraps. The Three Objects of Religion — How to interest Others — Three Qualities of the Greatly CONTENTS. PAGE Good— The End of Poetry to Please, &c 89 Reform: Time, 1831 92 " Give us this Day our Daily Bread" : Time, 1841 96 Is Age Improving ? 1 00 Scraps. Light and Darkness— Single-heartedness —The Loving Heart— Reading, Observation, and Reflection • 1^2 Elegy: Think of Heaven 104 English Manors and Parishes 105 Scrap. The Heart and the Mind 106 Whig and Tory 107 Scrap. Temptation not in general Overpowering... 110 The Hours that have Passed 110 English History from the Conquest to the Tempo- rary Overthrow of the Monarchy in the Seven- teenth Century. Conversation Society Paper ... 112 Scraps. Feeling and Thinking— Justice — Speak and write Simply 120 The Village Sunday School 121 The Stream 123 Scraps. To the Time-waster — Theology and Reli- gion — The Power of a Governing Sentiment — We live to do Right in the Circumstances, &c. . 125 "Where I went to School" 127 Scrap. Benevolence Innate 130 Poor Malibran de Beriot ! 130 Scraps. Many Councillors not uniformly an Advan- tage — Truth may offend the more for its Reason- ableness — Church Articles of Morality wanted — Truth is strongest without the Magistrate — The Actual and the Ideal 132 CONTENTS. PAGE Written on leaving the Anniversary Meeting of a Religious Association with which the Author had not then fraternized, and with no member of which he was acquainted 134 A Visit to Stoke Newington 137 A Character under Two Phases : " Founded on Fact" 148 Certain Features of Modern Gothic Architecture 158 A Parallel of Coincidences and Contrasts between the Characters, Actions, and Fortunes of Crom- well, Protector of England, and Bonaparte, Emperor of France 163 Scraps. The Value of the World's Opinion — Seeming and Being 180 The "Natural Man"'s Thoughts 182 The " Spiritual Man" 's Reply 183 Scraps. Self Energy the Proper Existence — The Love of the " Lovely " 184 Perseverance, an Allegory. Conversation Society Paper 186 Scraps. Most Opinions Well-meaning — Disregard of Self 190 Religious Satisfaction 191 Finis 192 PROLOGUE. When sunset saw tlie school-day pastimes o'ei% As shadows, curt'ning all the landscape, fell ; And merry laugh and shout grew mute once more. Hushed by the call of academic bell ; Then, in most meditative mood profound, A youtliful poet, loitering unseen, At last by hallooing comrade would be found The poplar'd alleys musing lone between, Or rude lays murmuring low along the moonlight green. And still — though now the sweets of riu'al eve For me not often soothe the parting daj". But cares and toils descending years bereave Eitly alike of childhood's gleesome play And of matm^er pleasm-es flown for aye — Still have not flown the love, the power, of song, (Such humble poAver as in my lyre e'er lay) ; Averse finds me wandering her flowers among. And owning all the charms that to the Muse l^elong. 10 PROLOGUE. Sweet Poesy ! through life's yet futm-e way. However change be meant my path to prove. Continue thou my solace and my stay. Give holier zest to friendship and to love. And elevate my wishes earth above. If yet thy purer joys my footsteps flee, Through the AvorkFs base and tangled wilds to rove, O ! still my monitress, preserver, be. And by thy spells reclaim thy lowly votary, me. And as in very boyhood 'twas my pride By penning grave remark to gain the smile Of those by kindred or by love alhed, And thoughts, for youth o'er-pensive, learn to wile By deeming such the meed of all my toil ; So here, in prose, not few the words I've wove. Some sorrows with hght labom- to beguile. And hours, unprofitable else, improve. The more to win and keep such loved ones' well- prized love. LITERAPiY FLOPiETS, ETC. The writers who despise books may be original perhaps, but they may pass their lives without being original to any piu'pose of interest or utility. AVhereas, true talent vnR become original in the very act of engaging itself Avith the ideas of others ; nay, will often convert the dross of previous au- thors into the golden ore that shines forth to the world as its own peculiar creation. From a series of extravagant and weak Italian romances, Shaks- peare took the plots, the characters, and the major part of the incidents, of those cb'amatic works Avhich have exalted his name, as an original writer, above that of every otlier in the annals of lite- rature. As a nearly universal rule, he is the happiest man whom Providence most exempts from the dangers of self-direction, and, by giving him ampk> occupa- 15 2 l-J LITERARY FLORETS. tion, affords tlic least tune to be made miserable, llight occupation is, in its natui-e, enjoyment ; and there arc few wlio do not construct unliappiness for themselves in the proportion that their liovu's are unrestrictedly their own. The political business of life is compromise. In our intercourse Avitli mankind we should make comparatively few mistakes, did we but know Avhen and how to concede. The imperfection of our nature is the cause of this : it is because of the necessary admixture of error Avith all we have done, that it is essential we should yield in the proportion that we have erred, whenever the error is pointed out to us. Our intentions in the matter may, or may not, have been strictly correct ; that makes little difference, as, in either case, self- partiality may be equally read}^ to blind us. On the other hand, oiu* opponent, or corrector, may have erred, and Avith the like good intentions ; only he has not committed the same error. Each, then, in a matter that affects both, should yield what has been wrong; that is to say, should com- promise. For the want of timely concession it is that governments and institutions are overturned. Did the rulers and the people know when and how LITEUARY FLORETS. 13 mntually to concede, revolution would be stifled in the birth ; did tlie upholder, and the reformer, of things established, practise the same lesson, satisfaction would succeed to discontent, and safety to the danger of a fall. The degree of concession on cither side must be re°rulated bv the circum- stances ; but the principle is essential to preserva- tion and happiness. There is a Phantom walks beneath The p\u*e bright sky, and brighter sun : 'Tis arch as Satan, strong as death ; What myriads hath the Fiend undone ! In open day it stalks the earth. Besets each mortal from his birth, And holds a mirror to the \ieAv That never yet gave image true. Who has not proved that Phantom's prey ? Who walks not Self-Deceptiox's way? Nothing narrows the intellect like a career of folly. If you observe a man to be remarkably adroit in imposing upon the vanity of other men, conclude that his OAvn vanity is easily imposed upon. 14- LITICRAKY FLORETS. In the niceties of grammar, as in the minutiae of fashion and the punctilios of behaviour, it is some- times better to be inacciu-ate than singular. The spring of Romance is the love of nature in the heart ; and young romancers are, like nature, liberal and generous. Yet romanticising, in the end, congeals the homelier (Avhich are the best) affections, enervates the mind, and confirms the disposition in selfishness. I saw Joy bounding on the greensward bright. When flowers rose dew-dropt in the early light ; Pleasui'e her many-coloured scarf untwined. And gave its flutterings to the wakened wind ; And Youth! — scarce staid he then his vest to don. Scarce drew his gallant-feathered beaver on. Ere the wood-echo mocked him on his way. Shouting his welcome to the risen day ; And Beautj', as she walked the Avorld adorning, Told all young hearts that Hope avas born of Morning. To earn our enjoyments is the onl}^ certain way to enjoy them. We should live in nothing for ourselves; not even for the nurturing of oiu' own piety. LITERARY FLORETS. 15 Talent should never occupy itself in the con- templation of its abilities, but should rather study to look down upon them. By the first course it will infallibly deteriorate, instead of improving, its powers : by the last it will be continually rising superior to its former self. The manner of Hume's dying has been com- mented on as though it showed how Avell a man may do Avithout religion in his last moments ; whereas, perhaps, it really afforded only another example of the "riding passion strong in death." He tells us that the chief object of his life was the acquisition of literary fame. Possibly, uncon- sciously to himself, it was fame in the abstract that he pui'sued ; and cii'cumstances directed the pursuit chiefly in the road of literatm'e. There are points in his biography that seem to betray this : and it Avas perfectly consistent that he, who had so perseveringly sought the celebrity of living and writing like a philosopher, should aspire to the honour of dying like one. This motive, added to his constitutional equanimity, may sufficiently account for the calmness of his exit, leaving reli- gious considerations out of the question. Novelty is one main source of our pleasures 16 LITER A 11 Y FLORETS. in this Avorkl ; and, for that reason only, life would impart to youth the greatest share of felicity. The features of men and things, after a certain lapse of time, daily diminish in novelty; and Avould of themselves therefore continually engage us less, even were our perceptions and feelings not to lose their original force and vivacity. So that, sup- posing it possible we could retain all our faculties unimpaired through an eternity here, it seems reasonable to imagine that such an eternity would not conduce to oiu" happiness for more than a very short period. In this Ave have another argu- ment for the necessity of a future state in the counsels of an ali-beneficent Creator. The desire of NOVELTY alone would m^ake us tire of merely mortal existence, and languish for a different state of being. Whether the hereafter that is revealed to us will satisfy that desire (supposing it to con- tinue after death) by presenting a perpetual suc- cession of new enjoyments, or whether it will prevent it by the sense of the full fruition of hap- piness, cannot yet be known. But, in the mean time, we must admire that union of wisdom and goodness in the Almighty, which has rendered the chief spring of oiu' temporal felicity a stimulus also to those aspirations after a more perfect state, without which the dread of deprivation of life as LITERARY FLORETS. 17 it is mig'lit overpower every A^isli to enter heaven itself, ^Yllen heaven was to be gained only by the surrender of what we slioidd value more and more to the close of our mortal career^ did not this natural thirst for change gradually render us dis- satisfied with everything entirely earthly. True, this same natural thirst for change would generally prove less strong than the dread of death^ did not Religion take a part in the contest, and by its assistance render the Avish for some mode of being superior to mortality triumphant. THE \IGHT VOYAGE XOT EY STEAM. As outward bearing from the bay, AVe met the foaming tide ; And the watch-tower blazed, and the shrilly lay, That the night-breeze sang to the parting day, Freshened o'er ocean Avide ; How gaily then our merrv men Their gallant laboui's pKed ! Oiu' vessel's prow Now high, now low. And the white surge o'er her side. 18 LITERARY FLORETS, From the water^s verge the night-orb grew^ And a long, long radiance cast : And the air was lit, and each billow blue, As the beauteous light wcU-pleascd it knew, Right gladly sparkling passed. And welcome now, on moonlight bow. To me the sprayey blast. While the cordage rang. And the sea-boy sang, High-poised on the creaking mast. For fancy, kindling, gave the soul The dreamings that it craves : Like the billows' unbidden burst and roll, (Meet image of breast that o'erswells control. Nor bends, but breaks and braves,) Its thoughts, more Avide than ocean-tide. Mute as its deep-down graves. On, onward still, Roamed at wild will, And broke like the fragmentless waves. Sleep stilled the weltering waters' roar. To those whom sleep could please : And soon, too soon, our voyage o'er, Oiu" bounding bark we stayed to moor In the shadowy bay at peace. LITERARY FLORETS. 19 To the isle we left, thus lightly reft, I return not, alas ! with like ease : But the glimpse of an oar. Or a sail, or the shore, Sends my thoughts to the moon-lit seas. The use of the term " Gothic" has been often o])jected to, and its origin often discussed. Tlie former I am disposed to defend ; and on the latter I would hazard a hint that I do not remember to have seen elsewhere. INIight not the word have been originally applied by the Italians, their design being to express by it their contempt for the rude architectiu'al imitations of the classic styles made by the Goths, the conquerors of Italy? That is to say, might not Gothic Archi- tecture itself have originated in that country, wherein remains of the buildings which, confess- edly, it at first imitated, were unquestionably the most abundant ? The Italians were prejudiced in all things in favour of the antique : and for the same reason that the spirit of chivalry never attained the sway in Italy that it did in other Em-opean countries, the sublime architecture that characterized the chivalric middle age — that arclii- ture so elevated above its primitive rudeness — might continue to be considered barbarous by 20 LITERARY FLORETS. them. The term would thus be retained^ and, the Italians being long the arbiters of taste, Avould pass to the rest of Eiu'ope. And assuming that this style of architecture was first practised in Italy by the Goths, I can conceive of no epithet more expressive of its origin and distinctive character, althoiigh it may liaA^e been used in derision by its inventors, and however much it may have become a fashion in modern times to condemn it. To be really loved, we should cidtivate, by all our language and conduct, a certain rc\'erence in others towards us ; even in those between whom and ourselves familiarity has been longest estab- lished. At the same time we should take care to excite no apprehension, either by ill - natured exhibitions of wit, (if wehaA'e it,) or by displaying any species of power or superiority. Genuine attachment natui'ally allies itself with respectful deportment; and the most rooted dislike is the offspring of di'ead. To express all in a distich, True love to win, live so that men revere you ; To gain their hatred, live to make them fear you. People wliose opinions are opposed to those of other people, very commonly regard that circum- LITERARY FLORETS. 21 stance as a reason why they, like Jonah, " do well to be angry." But the feelhig of anger, in all such cases, is one of the worst proofs that could be given that they who feel it are in the right. On the con- trar}^, it is an evidence, so far as it goes, that they are in the wrong, because it looks as though they themselves were not quite certain of the correctness of their sentiments. For we are not apt to be angry Avith persons who deny positions which we feel to be perfectly incontrovertible ; we rather regard them with pity, — sometimes Avith what too nearly approaches contempt. But Avhen a half-suspicion (unrecognised, it may be, by om-selves) lurks Avithin us, that our positions Avould be found untenable if faii'ly fought for Avith our adversary ; or, at any rate, that we have not sufficiently con- sidered the arguments on both sides to be able to form a just estimate of their strength or Aveak- ness ; then we are too apt to resent the exhi- bition of reasonings, from any quarter, that Avould go to disturb our quiet enjoyment of notions aaIucIi Ave would rather continue quietly to enjoy. The true history of Language would be one of the best of guides to a history of mankind. 22 LITERARY FLORETS. TO A COUNTRY CHURCH^ Threatened with the catastrophe which actually overtook it throu^'h the means iguorantly adojited to prevent its tall. Thou Fane of God ! tliougli shadows dim Of evening now enfold thee^ And though thy spire yet points to Hni^ The morn may not behold thee. And shall I ne'er again retrace, In venerative musing, Thy aisles, and every well-known place. All sacred thoughts diffusing ? And shall thy marble moniunents Be sighed or wept o'er never ? And their high tale of past events Be silent hence for ever ? And shall the waving poplars now, Bereft of thee, be lonely ? And all the solemn yew-trees bow O'er heaps of ruins only ? Adieu ! adieu ! the village throng May grieve when thou art lying The choked-up churchyard path along to! The low breeze o'er thee sighinj LITERARY FLORETS. 23 Adieu ! adieu ! tlie rustics then May, all too late, be weeping, When thou, like thousands thou hast seen, AVilt in the dust be sleeping. Adieu ! and still again adieu ! Yet eve's soft shades enfold thee : Once more — again — thy form 1^11 view ; The morn may not behold thee. THE WORLD IS NOT SO BAD AS IT IS BELIEVED TO BE. I ventured this observation to my companion over an excellent breakfast in the travellers' room at the Crown Inn, Devizes. He was a veritable " traveller," arrived late the night before ; but I had been such by coui'tesy only, while making this inn my head-quarters for some preceding days, devoted to antiquarian researches in the neighbourhood. " No," said I, in answer to a remark which I thought too depreciatory of men in general, " the world, in 7ny opinion, is not so bad as it is believed to be." " The w^orld," replied my new acquaintance, " / think a very wicked world. It shows its wickedness by its suspicion. It trusts nobody : and why ? because it knows it is not Avorthy to be trusted. And so, as I expect 21 LITERAKY FLORETS. it will place no confidence in me, I place no con- fidence in it. ' Trust no man any further than you can see him •' that 's my maxim." I was provoked by this to relate a little " incident of travel/' which, occurring to myself not above a week before, had proved, to my own satisfaction at any rate, that the world will sometimes trust those whom it does not know. I had reached Salisbmy after dark, and all the shops were closed. Notwithstanding, I presumed to knock at a book- seller's opposite my inn, and beg to be allowed to pvu'chase a " guide" to Old Sarum and Stone- henge, as it was my wish to employ an hour or two in recruiting my knowledge (then wholly derived from reading) of those interesting anti- quities, the better to enjoy a personal inspection of them the next morning. The worthy tradesman was " out of the guide," but woidd with pleasm-e lend me a book — a portly volume, and with plates — which, he assured me, contained all the informa- tion I required. Surprised, I stated that I was only at the — (naming where the coach had set me down) — for a night, and should quit, in all proba- bility, soon after daybreak. " That," he said, " need make no difference ; you can leave it for me at the inn." Even my desire to make a pro- per compensation for the loan was not acceded to. LITERARY FLORETS. 25 on the delicate ground that, as the books did not " circulate," he, the ijookseller, was ignorant of the proper charge. As I told my story, methought the traveller's eyes opened wider ; and, when I had done, he was so rude as to give the lowest possible whistle. But, apologising," Til beheve you" he said, " though it's the strangest way of turning stock I ever heard of. Not very likely to make 50 per cent of his money. Well, people are not always awake. But / say still, ' trust no man any further than you can see him.' " Long before oiu' conversation liad proceeded thus far, we had, I should think, equally arrived at the o])inion that two persons coidd hardly be more unlike each other, in their whole turn of mind and pursuits, than were my companion and myself: he entirely devoted to business, and I the rather given to literature ; lie a keen man of the world, and I — an anti(piary. But, nevertheless, we got on sui'prisingly Avell together ; and our discoui'se, I am persuaded, gave a zest, mutually, to our breakfast. It appeared that we were going the same road ; though he only as far as Reading, and I, through that town, to Loudon. Having settled with " the house," therefore, we took up a position in front ect, were it in my power. IJiit it is possible that both may peruse this sketch. If so, and tliey have not forg-otten their several shai-cs in the incidents just narrated, they w'ill see that my recollection is peifect of their disinterested kindness. 30 LITERARY FLORETS. The love of excellence is always admirable, while that of excelling will often be contemptible. The first is virtue, the second only vanity. GENIUS. In what consist its real advantages? In the returns it will afford to cultivation. It is to the mental improver what a favourable soil is to the farmer, the source of production in proportion to the labour bestowed upon it. The richest land will not yield corn without tillage and seed- sowing : on the contrary, it will be possessed by weeds, whose number and luxuriance will be in exact correspondence with its native fertility. So, that native capability of mind which we call GENIUS will be productive alone of misery and vice above the ordinary gi'owth, unless it be sub- mitted to the steady culture of a sound judgment united with unremitting industry. Again, how do the products of almost the poorest soil, when assiduously cultivated, exceed those of the richest when neglected ! So, among mankind, he who has very humble natiu'al powers may, by exerting them to the utmost, outstrip him most favoured by nature, who trusts to nature alone to furnish him with the harvest of his LITERARY FLORETS. 31 ■wishes. See here, then, the source of comparative productiveness, of every description, dependent upon mental power and exertion. All, but idiots, have genius in some degree ; for all have some por- tion of native capability for mental improvement. But all do not equally cultivate the natiu'al soil ; and thus it is that the simple man, by the steady and persevering application of his mental modicum to one pursuit — that of wealth for example, the acquisition of which requires the lowest exertion of pure intellect — will obtain the object of his desires; while the man of parts, as he is called, trusting to those parts, and despising application, will fail to acquire, not wealth alone — for that has never been more than a secondary aim with him — but the success, or the fame, to which he has looked forward as his passport to wealth, and which he has felt too secure that his native abilit}'^ would procure for him. And thus the power to achieve any one purpose of the mind will, after all, resolve itself into another power, namely, that of application; this single proviso being made, that the application be directed by sound judgment. No industry of the agriculturist Avill rear a crop of a peculiar ki)id upon a soil whose nature is opposed to its pro- duction. And, in like manner, the industry of 32 LITERARY FLORETS. the mind, when applied to its own culture, should propose to itself the production of such fruits as are not inimical to its native disposition, nor opposed to the constitutional temperament. There is a soil, compounded of the mental and the bodily, in each of us ; and as it is in no two persons exactly alike, our pursuits should be as infinitely various. Led by considerations such as these, we should perhaps be in less danger either of mis- taking our genius, or of trusting to genius alone without the exertions of industry. But, in opposition to the doctrine here inculcated, it may be urged — look to those high and shining examples of genius, from which excellence in the liberal and professional arts has appeared to flow spontaneously, while men less favom^ed by natui'e; after the longest and most painful application, have toiled for much humbler success in vain. I reply that this appearance of spontaneous excellence has been appearance only; favoured by the common disposition among men to regard particular indi- viduals as prodigies, and by the willingness of those individuals themselves to be pointed at as beings so elevated by natiu'e above ordinaiy man- kind, as to be able to accomplish by a pure exercise of the will what others must use the most laborious exertions to attain. In the case of all such sup- LITERARY FLORETS. 33 posed prodigies, I take it for granted tliat, if they have arrived at distinguished excellence, labour, and great labour too, has been employed. I say not that the labour has been so great as woidd have been necessary to the production, from inferior minds, of results still more inferior : the soil of very extraordinary native fertility will, as com- pared with a poorer one, produce in a proportion exceeding that of the cidture devoted to it. But this is still very different to spontaneous produc- tion : and when a mind of this superior description is compared with itself as cultured in a greater or less degree, its attainments will still be seen to be in exact proportion to the exertions it has made for them. Neither would it be any contradiction to the argument to show that the most felicitous productions of genius have been elicited Avith the greatest ease ; for in that case all the labour has been previous, and the ease is but the common result of practice. The most delightful examples of the poet\s or painter's skill may have been dashed off, as it were, by a few strokes of the pen or the pencil : but how much poetry had been written, or painting executed, by the same hand, before it acquired the power to produce excellence with so little effort ! To support these remarks with but a single 34 LITERARY FLORETS illustration. The late Richard Brinslcy Sheridan, doubtless, received from nature a mind whose capabilities far exceeded the ordinary standard ; and in no man could a variety of excellences appear less the results of premeditation and study. Yet not the less in him was the power to achieve, the power of applying himself to a given object ; for his application was very frequently intense, though, as is so often the case with consiiicuous genius, seldom regular. It is well known that his chief skill lay in the art of oratory ; and yet his first speech in the House of Commons failed of producing any remarkable effect. What, then, must have been the labour afterwards exerted in self-improvement, which enabled him to become the most brilliant public speaker that Britain has had to boast ? His very convivial wit may have been so far studied, as the habit of seeking out felicitous contrasts and similitudes of thought implies study. And as to the ever-sparkling, and apparently ever-ready, wit of his di'amas, it has been seen, from papers left at his death, that it was nearly all (to use a common expression) pre- viously cut and dried; having been prepared, without any special purpose, at prior periods, in slips and bits, and merely applied to the scene in which we are now delighted with it as the author LITERARY FLORETS. 35 found it -would best fit. Could there he a hctter coutradictiou of the idea that innate ahility, a\ ith- out exertion, mav achieve excellence ? If, in any matter of business, you want the services of another person, go to the man already greatly occupied. The man of leism-e^ when applied to, has always too much to do. LIGHT. Wlicn morn is on the summer sea. To every wave's delight, O ! "beautiful exceedingly," And glorious, is Light. The clouds all gorgeous to behold. Earth, air, and sky all bright. And the wide waters rolling gold, — INIagiiificent is Light. ^Mien queenly Luna's milder beam Redeems the world from night. How fair and soft each thing doth seem Beneath her lovely Light. 36 LITERARY FLORETS. Silvering; each roof, and tower, and tree. Sleeping on meadows bright, Sacred to love and piety Art thou, thou sweet Moonlight ! Light rules mankind in Virtue's cause. And calls her charms to sight : Vain were Divine and Human Laws, Were there not Moral Light. High Faith, too, bids her praise be given ; Reason, her paeans right ; Since balm of earth, and hope of heaven. In blest Religion's Light. Devotion adds, to close the theme, As one too grand and bright, That He, who framed all being's scheme. Our God Himself, is Light. CHURCH, CHAPEL, AND MEETING-HOUSE. Time was when English Dissenters, universally, were content with the last-mentioned designation for their places of Avorship. But, I imagine, observ- ing that certain ])uildings, called chapch, exist(>d in connection with the Establishment in certain LITERARY FLORETS. 37 jiarishes, and that their meeting-houses resembled many of those huiklings in size ; and the less informed among them^ moreover, contracting the notion that chapel was a term to distinguish by size ecclesiastical structures of inferior dimensions from chui'ches ; they took to going to chapel — it sounded better, it looked more respectable — instead of to meeting. They shoidd have taken a higher step, however, if tliey took any; they should have gone at once to church, — I do not mean Kterallv, churchman as I Avas born and bred. I mean that they should have been aware of their perfect right to appropriate the term church, while that they had no right to appropriate the term chapel. The primary signification of church is an assembly, or congregation, of Christians; and one assembly, or congi'egation, of Cliristians has the pririlege equally with another of so styling, by a figm-e, the place in Avhich it meets. But chapel is derived from capella, "a little goat," and signifies a building which bears the same relation to some mother -church as a kid does to its dam. I should be happy in future, then, to hear of all bodies of Enghsli Christians, whether Roman Catholics, ]\Iembers of the Establishment, or Protestant Dissenters, going to church; with the single exception of such as worship in cliapds- o8 LITERARY FLORETS. of -ease, wlio alone ought to be allowed to go to chapel. Heaven, like earth, we learn, will have its ranks and orders. The striking difference will be, that to goodness there Avill be assigned more honour than to greatness. Or, in heaven, we might rather say, moral and mental worth will constitute the only greatness. Were it possible for divines to adopt the works of any particular Poet as a text-book, certainly no one of the tuneful tribe woidd aftbrd them such a field for apposite moral quotation as would Shakspeare. True benevolence is never hindered in its course by the obstacles it is sure to encounter from world- liness and selfishness. Like the brook, it gains impulsion and width from every impediment that occurs upon its way. Religion should be habitual to the mind, not its irregular excitement. Its raptures, then, may not run so high, but its peace will be settled and substantial. LITERARY FLORETS. 39 FLOWERS. Read at the house of Andrew Pritchard, Esq., M.E.T., to a Meeting of the Newington - Green Conversation Society. — Subject for the evenuig, " Botany."* There are flowers for all fancies, all feelings, all liom"s ; All the seasons in turn, as they fly, shed their flowers : From the loftiest mountain, and lowliest sod, They rise in their heauty and SAveets before God. Then, botanist, fortli ! thy delights are in store In the flelds and the woods, on the moss and tlie moor : Thou may'st cull them at will in the fresh morn- ing light, And bid science discourse on their wonders at night. * The memhers of the " Newington Green Conversation Society " meet, in a certain order, for their mutual improvement in science, literature, &c., at each others' houses. The inviting party names " the subject for the evening," and usually opens the Conver- sation upon it. After which, the other members, in succession, deliver their sentiments, either extem])oraneously, or by reading jiajiers. Several of the papers read on these occasions by the author of this volume, are included in its jiages. 40 LITEKAllY FLOKETS. Go, botanist, forth ! there are mysteries high 111 the blue-bell's small cup, and the daisy's meek eye: The gorgeous lil}^ of liright Palestine Not more speaks an Author and Maker Divine. Go, botanist, forth ! there are flowers every where, All thy skill to engage, and His goodness declare. Who spreads them before thee_, and gives thee a mind To the task of unfolding their structure incUned. For myself, I can play not the botanist's part, So I study instead tlie fair flowers of the heart; 111 the breasts of my neighbours I mark them as blown, And thus learn to keep happy and humble my own. And the heart may be seen to bloom sweetly each hour. If we seek not the weed where we might find the flower ; As devotedness, gratitude, piety prove. With all human kindness, and friendship, and love. The poets call lily and rose to compare With the tints on the check of the favourite fair; LITERARY FLORETS. 41 But that fine female heart yet more loveliness shows, Which is pure as the lily^ and warm as the rose. Flora boasts of her products whose scents w ill not die, Though the winds have long wafted their last li^ing sigh ; So the " works " of the Christian " good heart " yield perfume, "When the Christian himself lowly lies in the tomb. Nay, grew in the heart but one cheerful-eyed flower. For the circle of home, and companionship's bower, All the flowers on earth's carpet, I own, would not be So prized as that flower of good-humour by me. Then all praise though I give to the botanist's art. Be mine still to search out the flowers of the heart ; In the breasts of my neighbom's to greet them as blown. With the view to keep happy and humble my own. There is nothing so true to universal apprehen- sion as Moral Truth. A man may doubt if the Catholic religion be true, or the Protestant; he may doubt if the Bible be an inspired volume ; he D 42 LITERARY FLORETS. may doubt wlietlier all things exist in fact, or only in imagination ; lie may even doubt the being of a God, and — for such things have happened — his own being ; but he never doubts if it be wrong to steal, to murder, or to speak falsely. Both our mental and moral acquisitions increase by their communication to others : which gives an illustration of two truths, — that we are framed to carry out the law of love, and that the possessions which multiply in the imparting are naturally the most valuable. Believe that you have really learned something, when you have learned to bear with the misinfor- mation, the mistakes, and the prejudices of the Ignorant. It is beneath the philosophy of history to incul- cate that men, who rise from comparatively low to the highest stations, do so from any cause besides that of force of character, operated upon by force of circumstances. To suppose that the future dictator, king, emperor, or protector, shapes his condiict with a ^dew to reach the greatness he ultimately arrives at, were absurd in the case, probably, of the most ambitious individual that LITERARY FLORETS. 43 ever existed. At most, the aspii'er sees a few of the successive points of elevation that mark the height before him; and he is impelled upwards as much by the pressure of his fellows as by his own talents and desires. As "hero-worship" goes far to make the hero, and as, where sacerdotal power predominates, the people are ahvays as ready to constitute the priest their master as the priest is wishfid to see the people obedient, so political power is thrust upon a man of com- manding ability by a sort of instinct in the thrusters, especially in troubled or unsettled times. Such times are essential to the attainment of the most exalted posts, by those who originally occu- pied much lower ones, be their abihty ever so commanding : to tliis ride history will hardly present an exception. And so Cromwell Avould have been an eminent brewer, country gentleman, or parliament -man, under the reign of Elizabeth ; Napoleon only the first general of his age, had he led the armies of Louis Quatorze, the demi-god of the Fi'ench nation ; and Cesar, living in our days, woidd have conquered and Avritten as has done the Wellington of these times, adding to the splendours of the SAvay of George the Fom'th, and reposing on his laiu-els at the com'ts of King Wilham and Queen Victoria. d2 44 LITERARY FLORETS. LAY OF A BEREFT ONE. My happy love was blossoming Like buds in sunny weather, When the gentle, gracious Spring Brings love and flowers together. But, ah ! the cruel blight of fate. That killed my hopes so early. And reft me of my promised mate. My Janet, loved so dearly. My happy love was like the stream. On, ever on, meandering ; Basking in the bright day-beam. And reckless whither wandering. But, hurried to the troublous sea, Repents tV unthinking rover ; Its rippling joys, how fast they flee ! Its calm, how soon 'tis over ! My heart was blithe, ay, as the breeze That met my footsteps early. Startling from all the gay green trees In showers the dcAv-drops pearly. LITERARY FLORETS. 45 My path of life, as brightly strown, Lay glistening all before me ; But now I'm lone, all joy has flown, The sun is darkness o'er me. My happy lo^e shall bloom again, So whispers Hope, the dear one : Ah ! when ? — when she, no more my pain, 'Mongst angels shall appear one. For love shall never there be grief. Nor bliss be found so fleeting : Parting is death; but death is brief; Then comes an endless meeting. There are many kinds of Truth, which a man must practise Goodness to have any chance of arriving at. On the other hand, a pure heart, in its search for Beauty only, will frequently find Truth. Poetry should be employed less to describe actions, characters, and objects — for that Prose will do more literallv, and therefore better — than to paint the genuine influences of such actions, &c. upon a mind which it excites through the imagi- nation. The Poet should see all that he depicts 46 LITERAKY FLORETS. through the medium of an imagination so excited , and transfer the same medium of vision, if he would be successful, to his readers. Nor can natm-e or truth be thus violated, so long as the natural and true influences of things upon the poetic temperament are thrown off from the mind that first received them to the minds that thence become their recipients : and to effect this is the Poet's triumph. A DRAMA, surely, must be wanting in its essen- tials, if (to adopt the formula of theatrical rejectors) it " would not succeed in representation.^^ Yet we are perpetually hearing of tragedies " not cal- culated for the stage." Why do we not also hear of forensic orations not calculated for the bar, or of sermons not calculated for the pulpit ? The truth, it appears to me, is, that it is the almost universal modern error, in productions of this natiu^e, that they are poems rather than dramas. Tlie region of pure poetry, into which it seems the constant ambition of these performances to lift themselves, is not the legitimate region of the drama. The most beautiful poetic flowers may, it is true, be allowed their place in the di'amatic garden ; and even so mixed an assemblage as a common thea- LITERARY FLORETS. 47 trical audience will readily discern and appreciate their beauties, when they are neither palpably exotic nor too exuberantly produced. In the latter cases the di'amatist himself ine\itably ap- pears, rather than his dramatis personce ; an error the most oftensive of all, perhaps, in this species of writing. There is also an appropriate general tenor in every kind of composition, which, in the (bama, is not the purely poetical ; it is rather the colloquial, elevating itself into oratory, and occa- sionally into pui'e poetry, under the excitement of events or of passion. But the authors of the pro- ductions alluded to seem to be ever labouring to sustain a tone, in which all their characters might speak provided they were all poets, and always possessed poetic inspiration, but not otherwise. With regard to what are called " Dramatic Poems," due deference to the names even of Mason and Byron should not prevent the observation that, as dramas, they are confessedly imperfect by their title; and that, possessing each only a character or two containing the elements of dramatic power, (such as Caractacus and INIanfred,) their authors appear to have wanted either the industry or the art to complete a more extensive design, embracing H sufficient number of persons all of whom should be endowed with the dramatic requisites. 48 LITERARY FLORETS. SONG. THE ROSE TO ISABEL. Shield me, Isabella dear ! Shield me 'neatli thy kerchief's glow ; The wind blows bleak though June be near. And warmer were thy bosom's snow. Parted from my parent tree, All my leaflets drooping see. And I die, bright Isabel ! Be it, then, on breast whose swell Owns no thought but such as youth Twines with innocence and truth. Guess whose hand did pluck me, fair ! Shrinking in my early bloom j Kindly pluck — the ruder air Soon had wrought me harsher doom. May his thoughts in candour shine. As, sweet Isabel, do thine ! May his sighs be pure as mine ! So with beauty shall join truth. To realize the dreams of youth. We know not how to live without some other being to love. Everybody wants a second self; though a great many people are very imperfectly acquainted with the fact. LITERARY FLORETS. 49 The man who believes that God is ever present with him, not only becomes virtuous through veneration, but finds a companion and a friend {so to speak) in the Deity. When do we begin to love people ? \Mien tliey begin to let us look into their hearts — and their hearts are found to be worth looking into. Even the child may act properly in stri\ing to do great things ; but the matiu'est age generally commits itself in promising to perform them. In deliberating whether you will retui'n an injury, you double it to yourself, and sufier the evil you have thoughts of committing. Human Natiu-e mvist be amused, as well as instructed, ameliorated, dignified. We have facul- ties fonned expressly for amusement; and they, not less that the graver powers, should be duly called into exercise. He who makes the occupations of life wholly serious, must either forget that he can laugh, or be prepared to say that he has had a faculty bestowed upon him for which he has no use ; and, surely, this latter conclusion were a libel upon the wisdom with which we ai-e framed. 50 LITERARY FLORETS. ' LINES SUGGESTED BY THE APPROACH AND PASSING OF SOLDIERS. Hark ! hark ! 'twas the bugle-note, faint from afar ! And the clang of the trumpet, from squacli'ous advancing ! IIoAV proud is that louder strain, glowing with war ! And banners now wave, and gay plumes are seen dancing ! List ! the sprightly fife and drum Nearer still, and nearer come : Cymbals mingle clash and ring, Beating to the soldiers' tread ; Glancing swords their flashes fling Round each gallant horseman's head : — Now, oh ! now, what tides of story. Memory, kindhng, bids to roll ! Now what pages, bright with glory. Fill the thought, and fire the soul ! Soon have passed the tramping lines. Yet, to Fancy, all returns : Distant now the pageant shines. Yet she muses still, — ^then bm'ns. Hark ! tliat roar ! the rushing fight ! Battling armies are in sight ! LITERARY FLORETS. 51 See ! ^tis Britain's fire that glows ! See ! dark columns dare oppose ! Sons of Valour ! Britons ! on ! Hui-1 your ardour on tlie foe ! Eout their legions ! — joy ! 'tis done ! Sons of Britain ! mercy show. But cease, my flushed bosom^ these dreams of the battle ! What ! canst thou see joy in the war-tempest's rattle ? And canst thou exult in the red stream that flows With the blood of thy brethren, — or e'en of thy foes? Say, shouldst thou not rather, scarce keeping thy breath. Contemplate in tears the wild congress of death ? Say, shouldst thou not weep and lament for the cry Of the vanquished and wounded that groan and that die? Furl, furl the proud ensigns that float o'er the plain. Nor clot the green turf with the gore of the slain ; And sheathe the bright steel, with its far-flashing rays. For mine eye can no longer delight in the blaze. 5,2 LITERARY FLORETS. For now, alas ! sad rao.ans the breeze From the battle-field afar : And there, amid tli^ ensanguined slain, In heaps that press the trampled plain, I see, I see pale Horror stand Aghast, and mute, — then lift her hand, And dart with shuddering haste to seize The withered wreath of War ! And hark again ! the battle-breeze, whose swell Sighs from the field the warrior's woes to tell ! It tells that the sunbeams, so brilliant that played On the falchions and helms of the gay cavalcade, Of the banners and plumes that emblazoned the pride. Shone as bright on the arms of the thousands that died. It tells that those beams fell as clear on the day, When the warrior slept on his death -bed of clay : — And again sighs the breeze, as opprest with the groans Which the voice of the dying had mixed with its moans. Ah ! long by the hearth of the warrior's home. His children shall listen, and wish he were come. LITERARY FLORETS. 53 Perhaps that same night, when, by deatli's arms embraced. Her soldier hiy stiffened and cold on the waste. The wife, looking out on the deep -dark-blue sky, Blessed each glistening star, and mused, with a sigh, If it shone on his tent, while he wakefidly lay. Or in dreams thought of her and his home far away. Then, turning to join the blithe ring round the fire. She smiled with her children, and talked of their sire; Blamed his too daring arm, ('twixt her tears and her pride,) While in fancy each stripling son fought by his side; And with softer affection the daughter did burn. As she pictured the joys of her father's return. Fond maiden, ah ! no ; thy loved father no more The threshold shall tread of his own humljle door : Go, comfort thy mother ; for, desolate now, A poor lone one is she, as an orphan art thou. A future is yours which the conqueror should sec, When he reckons the cost of a " grand victory : " Poor victims ! farewell ! I'll jjursue not your story; You have wakened me wide from my vision of glory. To be pleased is one thing ; to be happy, an- other ; and there can be few who have not exj)e- 54 LITERARY FLORETS. rienced that mere pleasure frequently leads from happiness rather than to it. The Memory^ like a material store-house, will hold only to a certain extent ; it may he eidarged, indeed, and its stores increased, but not ad infini- tum : if occupied to any considerable degree by matters of one kind, it must be to the exclusion, more or less, of others. Hence we should endea- vour to assort our collections for the Memory; and, since it cannot contain everything, take care that it be filled only with what is really valu- able. Three great requisites to Happiness are the disposition to learn, the disposition to be employed, and the disposition to be pleased with small things. LONDON, AN ANTIQUARIAN SKETCH. London ! — the myriad of associations that arise at the mention of that word ! London ! the metropolis of the nations ! the emporium of the universe ! the world's store-house of wealth ! the centre of commerce, art, science, and philosophy ! the chief city of the first people upon earth ! " The seat where England, from her ancient reign, Doth rule the ocean as her owti domain ! " LITERARY FLORETS. '>0 Sucli — and how much more, to which I shouhl find it difficult even to allude — is London now. Wliat, if glancing over the last two thousand one hundred years past, and resting the mind's eye, after its passage over that mighty chasm of time, upon the period at which our far-famed city had possibly witnessed the flight of half a century from its foundation, — wliat^ if taking my stand upon one of the nearest of what are now termed the SmTey Hills, I endeavoiu* to survey imperial Lou- don as it existed then ? The hill, in these present times called that of Nunhead, shall be my station. The chief city of the martial and maritime Belgse, established in South Britain, is before me. Come, gentle mo- dern Londoner ! escaped from the daily din that surrounds thy domicile, beyond the turmoil that fills thy native streets, above the dun smoke and the yellow fogs that rest upon thy metropolitan air, — come, take with me thy stand. Look from this eminence as upon one of those miracles of illusive art in thine own day, a panorama; and behold the capital of Belgic Britain as it stood three hundred years before the Christian era, with the scenery adjacent. Come, I will act the cicerone at thy side, and explain the features of the antique scene. 56 LITERARY FLORETS. Observe, there are two leading objects in this view — FOREST and avater. Nay, smile not already in absolute incredulity : remember, two thousand one hundred years are to elapse ere thou wilt live in actual reality to smile from this fair spot ; and beheve that changes mightier than these may take place in that long period. The water, form- ing a vast lake, ripples to the very foot of the verdant slope on which we stand, and extends l^ence, eastward and westward, farther than the eye can reach ; while in rear, and on either side, the grassy or the copse-croAvned hill, the dark wood, and the brown heathy waste, enclose us, and swell onward to the boundaries of the ^dsion's range. Yon hill,* neither to the extreme left nor directly facing us, but between both, is an islet, all clothed with forest-trees, herons their solitary occupants, and the sole owners of the soil.f Yes, it is girdled with those waves, that, weltering thence around the height on which we stand, and other adjacent elevations, are sheeted * That of which Camberwell Grove forms one of the modern ascents. t These birds, it is well known, have a marked predilection for such sites as tliat described ; and, in all probability, frequented this spot during many anterior ages. — Query if the name of Heme Hill, which forms part of the same eminence, were thence derived 7 LITERARY FLORETS. 57 also over the self-same spot on which, some ages henceforward, shall arise a causeway,* purposed to aid the traveller's communication with these southern uplands. In front, at the distance of some four miles across the lake, commences its opposite or northern shore; whose whole sweep, from right to left, and from the water's edge to the very summits of the sister-hills t that line the horizon in the same direction, is "black with shade," being a single misjlitv and continuous forest. Thou art not so dull, having accompanied the description thus far, as now to ask for " Father Thames," unknowing that the lake before thee takes the primal course of that majestic river; yes, even that in which it shall flow until the Romans of a yet distant age have upraised those ponde- rous banks on either side of the mid-channel, betAveen wliich its waters will from that day roll and return. But note well that it is high-v.ater with us favoured spectators of this scene ; for, at the retreat of the tide, the entire holloAv between these hills and the future south bank of tlic stream must be a vast marsh, or swamp, parts or which will possibly continue such long after the embankments shall have been completed : nay, I will be so rash as to predict that this m;a>,a * Brixton Causeway. t Higligate aud Ilamp»tead. 58 LITERARY FLORETS. will not be effectually reclaimed, and made habi- table for man throughout, even till about the middle of the far, far distant eighteenth century. I pardon thy next query, gentle friend ; for that is, doubtless, " Where is the city promised to be displaj^ed, — the capital of the Britannic Belgse T' Verily, it may somewhat strain thine op- tics to discern it : yet dost thou not see, beneath an exceedingly diminutive portion of the umbrageous mass that lines yon northern shore, a collection of what at first-sight may appear like yellow ant- hills, l)ut which on attentive inspection may be perceived to be in reality so many circular huts, whose walls we will conjecture from the distance to be of rough timbers, made comfortably tight in the interstices with clay, and roofed with reeds into elegantly tapering cones? And note, from apertures most cui'iously contrived at top, the wreaths of smoke that, rising against the dark foliage in the rear, picture to the envying imagination the culi- nary employments of the inhabitants around their centrically-placed hearths within ! Yes, Londoner, there is the seat and city of thy primogenitors : and, observe, it is popidous, for it contains some hundreds of yon artfully-finished and substantial houses : nay, it is already a place of commercial importance, for there is a fleet lying before it. LITERARY FLORETS. 59 " A fleet !" Why art tliou surprised ? The Belgse were merchants of repute in their day ; and made several voyages in the course of a twelvemonth, along the entire stream of the Thames from their city downwards, and thence southward along the coast of the island, and thence southward still, until they reached the country of their fathers, Bel- gic Gaul. Dost thou not perceive their numerous ships, their mighty merchant-naAT^ ? — what ! not yet ? Behold those dark spots, ranged in lines upon the bosom of the stream. They are the British fleet, riding gloriously at anchor. But clear thy vision, and thou mayest with little diffi- culty see a mast rising from each vessel, with a sail attached to it. That sail, I will inform thee, is composed of the skins of beasts, ingeniously sewed together with leathern thongs ; the tackle, too, is of leather ; and the vessels themselves, unincumbered with a deck, and many of them capacious enough to carry twenty men with ease, are of a strong rib-work, cased with lighter tim- bers, and lined, for fuU security against the in- sinuating waters, with the thickest hides. Such, attentive friend, was the London, with all its civic and trading accompaniments, of the Belgic Britons. Let me now transport thy imagination from the scene, to a recent view from E 2 60 LITERARY FLORETS. the spot we have hitherto in fancy occupied : yes, let us behold London, from Nun-head Hill, in the year 1840. It is a glorious view ! and the reality was indeed glorious when I witnessed it, tinted as it was with the light of " morning^s prime," and Nature, in all her freshness, adding her associations to the imposing dignity in Avhich the first of cities rose before me. Nearly the entire outline of the grandest of Protestant churches majestically pre- sented itself in front; the solemn cupola, Avith its cross burning in the sun-light, sublimely swelling into the bright blue sky. Far to the left, the sister-towers of Westminster rose over their own awe-inspiring pile ; and far beyond, the eye pursuing the same route, the suburbs of the mighty city, pierced by innumerous spires, were outstretched, till they united with the blue uplands in the distance. A broader, yet more congregated sweep of roofs and towers, filled all the space betA\ixt the giant two of the metro- politan fanes ; and the old twin-hills, rich even in the remnants of their forest honours, heaved their high crests into the expanse of sky above them. Now, to the right, mass after mass of fabrics, piled in an infinity of forms, stretched on, com- uiiuj?icd with the host of spires ; then " London's LITERARY FLORETS. 61 Column" rose ; and next, the " Towers of Julius;" until at length, beyond a wood of masts, the domes of Greenwich gave to this long, long spread of human haunts a noble close. The bright broad stream of the majestic Thames was here first visible, rolling its course along the reach that faces the grand front of the structure so justly the seaman's pride ; then, doubling the bold headland, lying like a braid of light along the meadows that led the eye over a pictui'e of repose to the blues of the far horizon. In the Avhole scope of valley betwixt this proud metropolis and the elevation from which I \iewed it, where now was a token of the ancient empire of the lake ? where of the morass, Avith its oft-intermingled tufts of sedge and reeds, the habitations of the lonely water-fowl, whose shrill cries alone gave note that the wide waste was tenanted by things of life ? These, all, like the forest-glooms of yon- der shore, had vanished; and in their place a suburb, itself a city in extent, stretched to witliin a brief mile of the spot I gazed from ; while all the rest was garden, pasture, seats smiling from their beauteous grounds, and new white towers to Anglo-Grecian temples, that rose on every side in styles intended to be imitative of the Athenian fanes of old. LITERARY FLORETS. Sucli were the contrasts I contemplated, as created by the lapse of more than Uvice ten cen- turies over the scene from the Hill of Nun-head. My pleasure in the contemplation would have been complete indeed, had it been possible to conjure up an Ancient Briton, and enjoy the inexpressible astonishment that would have pos- sessed him at the prospect he beheld beside me. A friend quaintly remarked that he never left home without an umbrella, because it kept the clouds up. Methought his fancy might be im- proved into the reflection how greatly preparation against misfortunes serves to break their fall. To the extent that truth comes within the range of a man's mental sight, it is incumbent upon him to see and act agreeably to it. But for his not perceiving, and therefore not acting upon, such truth as does not come within that range, he is no more responsible than he is for not seeing what his bodily eye cannot discern in a natural prospect. A proof that Trees grew so thickly in England, before its language was fully formed, as to be perfect incumbrances to the land — just as they once did in almost every part of North America, LITERARY FLORETS. 63 and indeed almost everywliere — may be traced in Home Tooke's derivation of the word feld, wliicli, lie says, originally, and properly, meant ground tlie timber of wliicli had been felled. The deriva- tion is supported by old deeds, wherein the terms " wode " and "felde " frequently occur as the opposites of each other ; and, in the midland counties, " ivoodland " and "feldon " are stUl sometimes used to denote woody spots and cleared ones. People are said to be either fools or physicians at forty. And is he less a fool, who, at that age, has not settled his religious principles ? Has he acquired the knowledge of what will best secure his health during the small remainder of his exist- ence here, and attained to no news of the best preparative for enjopng the life that is to be here- after ? Verily, in more than one sense people may be fools or physicians at forty. ROMANCE CORRECTED. Scene. — Before a Hermit's Cave, at Sunrise. Hermit and Ernest. Ernest. Hail ! reverend father, and mv valued friend ! Hail ! hail ! to thee, and to this morning's shine ! 64 LITERARY FLORETS. — What ! is't not glorious, old man ? View yon fount Of day up-starting from behind the hills. The eastern hills, all goldenly betipped VYith the fast-rising light, the while the clouds. Ranged round th' effulgent burst expectantly, ileceive the crimson glory in their depths. And part, and glow, and smile ! View too the vale ! There curls the mist, like gossamer, from the stream That winds among the willow-banks : around. The cottages appear to blink and nod Amid the moving haze : and, mark ! the spire Has caught the sun-light on its yellow vane. — Now, now it spreads, th-e happy day-beam ! now Rocks, woods, and dales to distant dales extending. And further mountain-tops, and the fair blue Of heaven commingling with them, all, see ! all Live in the lustrous flood as if new-born ! — O, father ! Hermit. The hermit is not young. Ernest. Yet need he not (forgive me a light word) Stand poising hands and chin there on his staff. And send his dim and slowly-searching eyes After my finger's point, as though the world. Created thus anew, were not that world LITERARY FLORETS. 65 In which his ■wisdom dwells, but something far Too poor, too loT7, and despicable for A hermit's serious gaze. Hermit. Thus vouth would fire 1 The frozen blood of age, or, failing, scoff ] At the fixed cuiTcnt that no more may flow. Ernest. Nay, pardon me in aught if I've offended. Hermit. The world one day will change for thee, my son. As it has changed for me. Looked back upon, 'Twill seem a false, fair di'eam. Ernest. What ! nature false ! ] Is it not true that yon sun walks in briditness. And tints the earth with joy ? Hermit. It is most true. False only is the errant gaze of youth. Drinking in all such sun-light ^iews of earth. And fancying just so bright the moral world Of man, where all (though much be dark, or lit At best by ti'uthless rays) seems still to shine j In heaven's own light and loveliness 66 LITERARY FLORETS. ' Ernest. Good sir ! Nature, and nature only, do I contemplate. Hermit. Go to, sir. When saw you young Arnulph ? Ernest. My friend ! — but yesterniglit. Nay, we could live No day, and meet not. Sir, my second self He is, and still so nobly generous ! So more than brotherly in love to me ! So true, too ! so incapable of art ! So all unable to deceive ! He said. As you remind me, father, mentioning him. He would here meet me — on this hillock^s brow- To see the sun rise. Now I marvel much That he should fail me. Hermit. So ! he can deceive, At least in such a trifling matter as A dear friend's disappointment ; while, perchance, His is the morn's luxurious doze, or else He wakes to better-valued purposes. Ernest. You are censorious, father. Hermit. Change my mood. Tell me how goes your suit at court. LITERARY FLORETS. 67 Ernest. Bravely. Arnulph, as lie assures me, has bestowed To good advantage that poor moiety Of my paternal fortune, which, thus used, "Will soon return to me quintupled : then. As captain in our Prince's guard, how blest Shall I from that time be with my good Arnulph, TVlio, for our friendship's sake, content will be As my lieutenant. Hermit. You will rise apace. So young, so lately entered, to command In such brief time a troop ! Ernest. Acknowledge, tlien^ The value of a friend, of such a friend. Hermit. On your promotion — yes — Ernest. It is assured. Hermit. And for your tenderer suit ? Ernest. By Arnulph's aid. That, too, is greatly forwarded. He vows Himself to life-long singleness, yet lends 68 LITERARY FLORETS. His warmest sympathies, and all his powers Of gentle rhetoric, to promote my cause With the di^dne Ulrica. Hermit. Stay ; who comes ? Ernest. O, 'tis not Arnnlph ! 'Tis a friend once mine, Who was so cold in his regards — so tame — Though, as I think, right honest — Hermit. Soft ! he 's here. [Enter Waldheim.] Ernest. The day's fair blessings on you, Waldheim ! Waldheim. Ernest ! Well met, although my news be sad. Ernest. Indeed ! What is the cause ? Waldheim. Say, have you not to Arnulph Advanced a sum, not small, for certain favoui-s By him, for you, to be obtained at court ? Ernest. Where all are friends I bliisli not to avow it. LITERARY FLORETS. 69 Waldheim. Last evening, on the public walk, joxw friend Boasted how Avell the liberal hand of Ernest Had sped him in a suit to our good Prince, Its scope being that himself should be lieutenant. You captain, in the guard. The Prince, he said. Had, in a manner, granted what he asked ; But could not, howsoe'er he urged them, view Your merits worthy of the captaincy ; That he wordd force upon himself! You start : Yes, he was Captain Arnulph, and you — nothing. Ernest. Do I hear ? Waldheim. You have not heard the worst ; At least I fear me not. Upon my route Hither, I met a gorgeous wedding-train : — 'Twas that of Arnulph and Ukica. Ernest. Death ! Distraction ! Hermit. O thou world ! Ernest. Where shall I hide ^.Ir irrief, mv burning shame ? 70 LITERARY FLORETS. Hermit, Bury tliem both. My son, within my humble cave, until You can look forth upon lifers chequered scenes With vision unromantically true. Why did I check your fervours at the dawn ? Not that we sin in tasting matin sweets, Admiring matin glories, but that tints. So beauteous and so bright, in Nature's face. Should but be pondered as the fleeting bloom. The passing roseate freshness, of that Spring The world wears once, and briefly, to us all. When young warm hearts would force our mother earth Unnaturally to wear an evergreen Deserted not by sunlight nor by flowers. Or paint men always as to youth they smile. Thus, thus comes their reward. O, never draw Life's ills in heavier shower upon your head, By spreading for yourself a fancied feast Of joys and blessings to be served alone By friendship's pure, uninterested ^hand. Be reasonable ; you are no such friend. Be wise ; self-labour best secures success. Be pious ; contemplate the dawn, not of a day, but heaven. LITERARY FLORETS. 71 BREVITIES ABOUT EDUCATION. Read at the house of Samuel Preston, Esq., to a Meeting of the Newington Green Conversation Society. — Subject for the even- ing, " Education." A System of Education, to be rational both in its mode and ends, must be based upon sound principles ; and its object, in a general sense, considered that of conveying knowledge, to a desired extent, in neither more nor less time than is necessary to its proper acquirement. For, teaching is a science in itself; and the period of instruction may be too brief, or too protracted, according to the nature of the thing taught, the probability of its future usefidness to the pupil, and the pupiFs own capacity to receive and powers of memory to retain it. The teacher's first care should be to estimate the capabilities of his pupil ; his next, to employ them to the best advantage. No system can be at once uniform in its modes of operation and apphcable in all cases : but there are rides which may obtain universally ; and such, it is possible, are the following. The gi'and medium of instruction should be direct oral communication from the master to the scholar; the master teaching, not satisfj-ing him- self with giving a book, and bidding his pupil 72 LITERARY FLORETS. learn. Tlierefore, to the utmost practicable ex- tent, instruction should be conversational; expe- rience having shown that never does the young mind receive impressions so readily, nor retain them so indelibly, as when conversation is em- ployed to convey them. The memory should be impressed with ideas rather than with words ; for, words, unless fixed by association with ideas, are acquired only to be forgotten. But general principles, data, axioms, and facts, become the treasury of the memory, rationally cultivated. Neither should the memory be often tasked, unless to make it the present receptacle, and future seat, of conclusions obtained through the exercise of the judgment. No species of knowledge should be attempted to be inculcated without reference, so far as prac- ticable, to every other dii-ectly or collaterally connected with it. With such views, the idioms and general structure of one language would be illustrated and enforced by references to corre- sponding or opposed idioms, &c., in another ; the connection between the English and the ancient tongues manifested by frequent etymological de- diictions; and the principles of grammar shown to be universal in their application. At the same time, the attention directed to the study of LITERARY FLORETS. 73 languages would be adequate rather tlian exclu- sive, or than in undue proportion to the impor- tance that ought to be attached to ^ital learning : for languages themselves are not learning, but only vehicles to the attainment of certain branches of it. The more prominent facts and details, the knowledge of which constitutes what is called general information ; the rudiments of the great circle of the sciences; the leading principles of art ; the elements of natural and moral philoso- phy ; and the fundamental truths of religion, would all, upon the system recommended, be embraced. With instructions so comprehensive and so varied, pleasiu'C would ever be found associated : and it is the non-association of interesting employ- ment for the youthful faculties with the customary routine of vouthful studv — the almost total ab- sence of agreeable mental occupation from the common course of scholastic labour — that renders the hours devoted to education so generally irksome to young persons. Yet should not the old pains- taking methods of acquiring knowledge be lowered into sources of mere juvenile amusement ; contri- vances to effect which have, in modern times, been far too frequent : it ought to be industry and application themselves that the teacher strives F 74 LITERARY FLORETS. to render pleasing; and the pleasure should be made to consist in conquering difficulties, not in finding ways to elude them. In truth there is no " royal road" to the acqui- sition of any species of knowledge, really useful, and capable of being permanently retained. Let the preceptor of our times, then, while he avails himself of the lights that have emanated from recent inventors of systems, discard nothing, the value of which has been proved, in long-established modes. He will thus himself mature a system, applicable to the varieties of age, capacity, and circumstance ; blending the excellencies of past, and open to the improvements of future ones; a system alike unshackled by prejudices in favour of antiquity and custom on the one hand, and unaccompanied by the extravagance of pretension but too common among modern professors of education on the other. SPIRIT or ether's song. At that soft hour when day and night. Sunshine and dews, are blending. In robe of rainbow colours dight. To earth see me descending. LITERARY FLORETS. 75 Than the viewless winds more free, Sprite of upper air am I ; O'er and round the world do fly Spirits none but envy me. I have hpnns from Ether. List ! This is one ^dld lay ; And one at morn wdth music kissed The orient mountains gi'ey, And bade the clouds about their heads Rise fr'om their peaked and snowy beds. And float, on au's of minstrelsy, Beauteous with blue and rosy hght, A gorgeous train for Ether's Sprite To meet the King of Day. And with another hvmn I'm come : List to my loftier lay ! It tells, when space sublime I roam. How I may mark a glorious dome. High o'er a depth men caU the tomb. And bright Avith changeless day. No sprite of air doth venture there. Nor ^dsit it I may ; But I am told its walls of gold Were built for sons of clav. f2 76 LITERARY FLORETS. Men ! mortal men ! ^tis yours to rise To mansions paved with starry skies. With sapphire portals, opening wide. Whence issues still a lustrous tide No sun did e'er display. Sprites of air do envy you. Nay, the Sprite of Ether too. When His ^hests you obey. Whose word shall pierce the solemn gloom Of that profound men call the tomb. And make your bliss beneath that dome One everlasting aye. The song is o'er ; I come no more Of things so high to tell : But, mortals, mark! there's joy in store For those who read me well. And when again your day and night. Sunshine and dews, are blending. Look for my robe of rainbow-light. From earth as I'm ascending. For, than viewless winds more free. Sprite of upper air am I ; O'er and round the world do fly Spirits none but envy me. LITERARY FLORETS. 11 Lifers highest enjoyments consist in a constant devotion to worthy objects, with a consciousness of continual progress toAvards the accomplishment of them. Mortal happiness is in the main a serious thing, because the great majority of its relations are with a "work-day world/' a world encircled with an atmosphere of duty, in which alone men find it possible long to sustain themselves. " Honesty is the best policy." Yes, for, a man's ovm ends only considered, upon trading principles, the balance of profit and loss simply regarded, he may be safely pronounced a fool who overreaches his neighbour, or who allows his neighboiu* to overreach himself; and as Aveak as immoral a calculator, if, when his choice lies between suftering and dishonesty, he does not choose the lesser evil, suffering. Conscientious suffering never was, nor will be, for it is not capable of being, proper unhappiness; and, for that reason, the steps that lead to it never can be unwise, never can be truly impolitic. In mv youth I was tausrht, and believed, that men, in their natural moral state, were incapable 78 LITERARY FLORETS. of a single worthy impulse, tliought, or action. Now, I have fallen into a strange habit of sui'- prise, when I do not find myself able to recognise unbought kindliness and goodness in the little acts which spring from the hearts of those I happen to encounter ; and even when (I might almost say) I do not lie down at night with a somewhat better opinion of my fellow - mortals than I rose with in the morning. The truest satisfactions of our existence are those which we may all easily procure for om-- selves. Yet how often are the every-day pleasures of life despised, and suffered to escape without conferring their proper enjoyment, simply because they consist in things which may be obtained for little or nothing ! IS THE BASIS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROPERLY DESCRIBED EITHER AS SAXON OR ANGLO-SAXON? Read at the house of J. T. Hart, Esq., to a Meeting of the Newington - Green Conversation Society. — Subject for the evening, " Language." In humility I should answer the above question Avith a negative ; believing, as I do, that there exists a nearly universal mistake upon the sub- ject. To give my reasons for dissenting from the LITERARY FLORETS. 79 common opinion, I must theorise upon tlie abori- ginal population of England ; and, for a starting- point for my theory, take a large geographical leap — from Britain to Central Asia. The two great stems of population, whose branches gradually stretched themselves over Europe, the Celtic and the Scythian, took root in Central Asia. That branch from the Celtic stem which first peopled the British Islands, and arrived here probably about a thousand years before the Christian era, had its origin in a com- paratively southern part of the continent that first saw man; and was inferior, both in mind and body, to the branch from the Scythian stem, of comparatively northern Asiatic location, which came later, but, wherever it spread, outgrew and superseded the Celtic. Tribes, which had sprung from both these branches, together occupied the country now called England when Cesar invaded it ; but, even by that time, the major part of the Celts would appear to have retired before the Scythians into Wales, the Highlands of Scotland, and Ireland, wherein their descendants are the chief occupants to this day. The Scythian tribes, being offshoots from those settled in Belgium (the modern Flanders) were called Belgce, and in England were the Btlgic Britons. They formed 80 LITERARY FLORETS. tlie stai)le of tlie population of the English part of the Ishmd throughont the Roman period of its history; whence their language came to he the common language of South Britain, heing wholly different from that of the Celts, the prior inhabitants. And that language, the language of the Belgic Britons, is the staple of our living English. True, the Saxons conquered England ; but they were too few in number to do more than govern the country, and give their name to it : from them, as their leaders were the Angles of Germany, it was called Angle - land, and has become England. So far from their language lording it over the countiy they had subdued, however, their own ere long was lost in the Belgic British, which in truth, like their own, was one of the dialects of the Scythian. Just as the Scythian Franks, when they conquered the Gauls, became the governing power, and gave their name to the country which from Gaul became France, but lost their own language, which was swallowed up in the Romanised Celtic spoken by the Gauls ; this always happening in the like circumstances, the large majority giving their language to the small minorit}^, even though the latter shoiild be masters. What is become of the Danish, imported into England by the Danes when they LITERARY FLORETS. 81 subjugated it? what of the Latin, infused at an earlier period by the Romans? what of the Norman- French, brought over at a later by the Normans ? They have each of them, been swallowed up by the language of the mass of the people : and so it must have been witli the Saxon. The adventurers who bore that name arrived here at most by a few thousands at a time, and at first garrisoned the country rather than owned it. The Britons they subdued, it is true, came from them to be called Saxons, by the Celts of Wales, Ireland, and High- land Scotland ; and very naturally, since the Saxons Avere the rulers of the countr}^, and of a kindred race with those whom they ruled over. In like manner the Gauls became commonly designated as Franks, or Frenchmen, though, up to the present moment, they are Gauls in blood for the most part, and nearly wholly such in language. As regards ourselves, correctness in this matter is the more important, since, in order to account for the supposed substitution of the Saxon tongue for the British, historians have gravely imagined that the Saxons exterminated the immensely superior number of the Belgic Britons whom they found here. The entire necessity for so preposterous a notion is olniatcd by the theory that the Saxons were only a later arrival from the same Scythian 8.2 LITERARY FLORETS. stock as that from wliicli had sprung the Belgic Britons, and that they therefore readily amalga- mated with, and acquired the language of, the latter. Had it been otherwise, the English of our day would be as Germanic as it ought to be if we had derived it from the Saxons ; but, being radi- cally Belgic -British instead, it only bears the proper affinity to the German of a congeneric tongue. ADOLESCENCE. High thoughts were Julian's when his brow began To wear the loftier mien that stamps the man ; Changed thoughts as high. Time was, a Milton's lays. For strength or majesty, won not his praise : Nay, he could slight The Book, in mercy given. Whose words, life-beaming, light the way to heaven. The glory round it Julian could not see, Nor mark its grand, sublime simplicity ; No import vast, unspeakable, appeared. The hallowed tome if e'er he read or heard ; From grateful reverence rose no trembling prayer. Nor seemed his own eternal interests there. Bright as the orient dawning of the day, Fair as the life new given by the ray LITERARY FLORETS. 83 That bursts the curtains of chaotic night As at His word who said " Let there be light/' While hills, fields, flowers in glistening vesture rise. To greet the efiulgence streaming from the skies ; So bright, so fair, to Julian's altered eye. From manhood's dawn when youth's weak shadows By Truth dispelled — as mists from morning roll — By Truth, the day-star of the awakened soul — The Sacred Scriptures beam; and gems divine, Rayless before, dart light from every line. What holy exultation lifts the youth, Whose opening manhood's marshalled on by Truth ! Her rays all sanctify while they inflame ; Her inspirations thrill the mortal frame ; And to high musing's heaven-regarding eyes Impart, through tears, celestial ecstasies. By Truth upborne, in thought how Julian soars. Beyond bright ether, to the empp^eal shores ; Regions of worlds enraptured roams among, And joins the angels' throne-surrounding song ! Truth bids him see those worlds around him roll. And see their greater, loftier — in his soul ! Truth points the path to Him that soul who made. Within whose light all suns revolve in shade ! 8i LITERARY FLORETS. Earth binds the spirit then — its wish denies — Or, as the lark when highest pants to rise. At once 'twould climb its destined, kindred skies. Advice should fall upon the ear as snow descends to the ground — softly — that it may sink into the heart. Truth is rightly said to be the daughter of Time : yet she sometimes starts up before the mind in such convincing brightness, that instantly the mind and truth are one ; and the union is felt to be as sacred as the marriages, God-made, which are indissoluble by man for ever. Friends ! possess, and never part With the happy, social heart. Which, or poor or rich its state, All its joys must circulate. Self may other pleasures prize, W'hen were selfish pleasures wise ? Joys that circle please when past. Only joys that circle last. As a general rule, every man's oum religion (if he be sincerely religious) is the best for him, because it is his experience of the efficacy of certain LITERARY FLORETS. 85 tenets^ feelings, and practices to allay the thirst for trut natiu'e. for truth and goodness that lies in his own moral To be afraid to reason, is to endue the mind with voluntary chains ; and to refuse to reason, is to make an open profession of bigotry. The most certain way to obtain a minor object, is to endeavour after a major. This applies equally to success in life, and to the class of aims called political. If a man only strive to be able to live, he will rarely be able to live comfortably ; if he seek a bare competence, he will probably acquire something just beneath it j if he devote himself to the acquisition of wealth, in most cases he will realize no more than a competence. So, in the political arena, men are commonly startled by the demand of some large concession, before they will make a small one ; thev will meet vou half wav, or advance some lesser distance, if vou ask them to come entirely over to vour side, when, if you had not asked them so much, they would never have moved a step towards you. There are few things by which Ave might learn more, if we chose it, than our own mistakes. 86 LITERARY FLORKTS. THE HORSE AND THE SERPENT. A FABLE. In those vast, verdant, Western plains, Where Spring in green perpetual reigns ; Those plains from Andes that descend, And lengths on countless lengths extend; A Horse had left the grazing herd. To wander lonely o'er the sward. Unconscious that each joy must flee From solitary liberty. His fellows roam by hundreds still O'er grassy slope and heathy hill. While vainly he would pleasure find In vagrant foot and steps unkind. Anon the sky 's with clouds o'ercast. In threatening gusts arrives the blast. He snuffs the gale, and starts, and stands : Just then, unwreathing all its bands Of hideous coil, a Serpent grew From out its sedgy nest to view. And, raising all its horrors, stood. With tongue of fire, and eyes of blood. Terror the Horse at once subdues ; Flight and escape he cannot choose. LITERARY FLORETS. 87 The foe 's too near : — a moment gone. The dreadful snake has fastened on His j utting chest : the poison reigns That instant in his throbbing veins ; AVhile, glorying in his horrid feat, The Serpent skulks to his retreat. Backing with pain, the Horse retires ; Darts to the stream to slake his fires ; In vain, the cooling waters give No healing power to bid him live ; Then rushes where his fellows throng, Writhes the astonished herd among, And dies, this counsel on his tongue : " My comrades, see me dearly earn The wisdom you with ease may learn. Danger ^s provoked when brethren roam From peace and felloAvship at home : Your hoofs innumerous far had scared The subtle beast with sting prepared : Remember, then, your strength must be In friendship and in unity ; And vainly they for pleasure rove. Who break the bonds of social love." 88 LITERARY FLORETS. VIRTUE AND NATURE. Virtue is nature regulated, not crushed. Tlic utmost virtue, with the least violence to nature, constitutes the perfection of human cha- racter. Violence to natui'e is itself a temptation to vice ; or, as it might be expressed, vice is generated by the attempt to do violence to nature. Natui^e, duly controlled by reason — reason here including the religious principle, which is the rational faculty at its moral elevation — it were maligning the Author of nature to call vicious. But then, nature herself, in her purely natural state, is rarely to be seen. For, by the commission and repetition of evil, a factitious nature is more or less produced in all of us, the promptings of which are far too generally sinful. Besides, the purest promptings of nature may, and frequently do, lead to sin ; either through oiir indulging them at times, or under circumstances, which make the indulgence improper, or through our indulging them too far, when the indulgence, properly con- trolled, would have been innocent. Nature, however, even in her factitious state, may l)e no worse a guide, and perhaps a better, LITERARY FLORETS. 89 than superstition, led to combat with her by the heats of enthusiasm. Christianity, in her purity, is man's ever safe director ; and she reiterates, " Virtue is nature regulated, not crushed." The objects of all ReHgionists who deserve the name, may be comprised under three heads ; — Goodness, Happiness, and Heaven. A man, to interest others, must sink self. In whatever way he addresses himself to his felloAV- men — by the tongue or the pen, in the senate or at the bar, by the pulpit or the press — he must seem conscious of his own existence but as it min- isters to the conducting of his thoughts to them. This, it need hardly be said, is not the only requisite for obtaining attention; but too many appear insensible that it is a requisite without which every other will be comparatively in- effective. Three qualities have seemed of spontaneous growth in most — perhaps all — greatly good men ; G 90 LITERARY FLORETS. II child's simplicity, and a woman's love, and a lion's lieart. " The End of Poetry is to Please." That is to say, its proper object is not didactically to com- municate knowledge or make better, but to awaken to enjojonent that ethereal somewhat within us, whose pleasure is an improvement of the moral nature, and an increased fitness for entering upon the future state of being. Poetry, by the tone it imparts to our ethereal portion, elevates it more effectually than the best instruction of the direct kind — and instruction always becomes prosaic in becoming direct — into this fitness : thus showing, not that Poetry should aim at teaching, or making itself instructive, but that the highest kinds ^of instruction will be, in their spirit, and in their mode of operation upon om* spirits, poetry. In truth, could man keep himself in the purely poetic frame, crime would be powerless to tempt him, and instruction how to avoid crime would be needless. Clogged as he is with mortality, he cannot long sustain himself in that frame. Re- ligion's feelings and aspirations — the love of the Deity, of universal nature, and of his kind — the holy sense of truth, of beauty, and of an Omni- present Power — these, which are pure poetry in LITERARY FLORETS. 91 their essence, desert him, and he sins. To restore the exalted feelings and aspirings, the all-per- vading love, the thrilling sense, is the work of Poetry : and thus it would seem that, instead of being condemned as uninstructive, or limited to the object of instruction, Poetry should be viewed as the creator of that noble pleasure, which achieves, far more ably than dii-ect instruction, instruction's ultimate purposes. 'V\Tien our" cup of affliction is full, we are generally humble ; when it is only half fiUed, we are rather apt to be irritable. The Duke of Wellington's mind, when that great man (in so many respects) was greatest, and he was at the height of political power, appeared to resemble that of a first-rate chess- player. He coidd direct automata to perfection; he coidd conquer other automata, though dii'ected by minds of an order almost as high as his own ; but he could not take into account the conse- quences of his " men," or those of liis enemy, becoming intellectual, and operated upon as intel- lectual beings, and not machines, by some great extraneous causes. g2 92 LITERARY FLORETS. REFORM. Time, 1831. In the low vale of life unmarked to lie. To live un-noted, and unknown to die ; Fair lettered ease, not wealth, nor power, to find. Or but the wealth of thought, the power of mind; To deem my country blest, its rulers sage. Reckless of party's, hating faction's rage ; From "free," from "merry" England ne'er to roam, But walk in cheerful pride my island home ; These the sole blessings I have sought to claim. These only, though I bear a Cromwell's name. What, then, or whence, my untuned soul, the cause, Th' unwonted inroad on thy rest, that draws, In little bookish, less poetic times. From the reluctant Muse unwilling rhymes ? The cause ? A word. From city, and from plain, From inland depths, and shores along the main, From cot, from mansion, from the field, the hives Where rural labour chains or commerce drives The toil-worn peasant or pale artisan. That WORD rings round, and peals from man to irian. LITERARY FLORETS. 93 It scales the hills, and it descends the mine ; It shakes the senate with portentous sign ; It startles justice on his ermined seat ; Scares the lone student in his still retreat ; It comes with power upon the monarch's ear ; Dares each oppressor to refuse to hear ; Tears the red laurels from the o'erhonoru^ed sword ; It lives, breathes, burns for all, that mighty word. And who, that knows what Britain was, and is, But hails the heart-burst of a cry like this ? God ! is it Britain, where the poor man grows In poverty till life's long labour close ? Where sullen sadness clouds each rustic's face, As with that shade long set on Erin's race. Long on the Indian in his father -land. Who moves by sufferance of the stranger's hand ? God ! is it Britain, where the pauper's dole Withers the peasant's pride, and shames his soul ? Where industry's o'erwrought and bursting brow Gains the bare leave to live and labour now ? To live ! to perish, rather, in the strife 'Twixt want and woe and the desire of life ? Or is it Britain, in whose cities pent. Swarms ask of swarms who, haply, may invent Some source of daily toil for daily bread. Some means to assuage the craving to be fed, 94 LITERARY FLORETS. And vainly ask of answering groans and siglis, \Miile famine stalks to stifle sorrow's cries, Or crush tlie innumerous forms that misery wears. Though mute, and only eloquent by tears? Paint I the picture truly? Ye, who dare Gainsay its truth, blind, or embruted, hear ! Go where the Pestilence* has seized his prey. And found for you the haunts of misery ; Go to the rural scene, and, by the glare Of nightly burnings, f read your lesson there. Yes, learn, insensate ones ! if learn ye can. How he, the once proud, poor, " free Englishman,"' Has lost all pride of country, shame at crime. Because endurance' self has had its time. Yes, he has tm-ned at last, the trodden worm. And all the heart that 's left him shouts Reform ! It comes ! prepare your honours for the word ! E-EFORM must come, a nation vnll be heard. Sweet now the visions on my soul that steal. Though time must realise what they reveal. While Faith, enduring, waits. The word shall win; But, for its fruits, the battle must begin * The cholera. t The incendiary fires then prevailing over the country. LITERARY FLORETS. 95 From that first triumph. O'er the patriot soiil Wearily vet the tedious vears may roll Of strife with ills fast rooted. Great Reform Must bear her conquests high above the storm Of faction's rage, and old wrong's wicked will, And ancient hates re-congregating still. And pause nor quail not ; for, by faith, I see Blessings in store for her strong arm of \dctorv. I see dear peace fill all the smiling plain ; I see the city rife with joy again ; The peasant-pair contented with their lot. Their work, their gains, their garden, and their cot : I mark their solace as soft evenings come, The meal, the children, and the happy home. I see no rancorous politics pervade. For MTath and hurt, the toiling sons of trade ; No wranglings with the ministers of peace. For tenths subtracted from the land's increase ; The poor man's " staff of life," his staple cheer. Not legislatively created dear ; Nor laws enacted for the sportsman's sake. That first the poacher, then the felon make. I view no chm-chman on the awful seat. Where justice comes with rude offence to meet ; Nor hear a sentence from those lips to-day. That should to-morrow with the offender pray. 9G LITERARY FLORETS. I see not sects their rival banners claim. But truth triumphant in one Christian name. I see respect for worth, not caste, prevail ; "Exclusive" pride, "exclusive" fashion fail; All, all things pmified, and none destroyed ; A paradise created, not a void. Last, but not least, I see the monarch free From a stern, oligarchic tyranny. And hear him swell the common shout of liberty. " GIVE us THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD." Time, 1841. " Give me bread !" was a child's low wailing cry. As I passed the door of a poor man by, And paused — to think if a child's could be That cry which proclaimed so much misery. " Give us bread ! give us bread !" then came in a burst. Instead of the one voice I heard at first. " We have had no food since yesterday morn. And the light of to-day is almost gone. Since yesterday morn we have not been fed : Father, — mother, — give us bread !" LITERARY FLORETS. 97 I waited the answer. There came none, Save a bitter sob, and a stifled groan. In that groan, I coidd tell, the father spoke The pang of a heart that was nearly broke ; And the mother's sob seemed a grief to hold. That could not be told, that could not be told. "Father in Heaven ! our babes are unfed : Give us this day our daily bread V Listen, ye great ones ! listen in time. For that is now England's " Corn-law Rh}Tne." England — the wealthy ! the powerful ! the fi'ee ! The pride of the earth ! the queen of the sea ! — Has her myriads wanting provision, because Of her men who will give her pro^asion-laws. The poor man says, " I have no com. Nor bread, but with hunger am wan and worn. I have no corn, for I have no lands ; I have only my hard and honest hands, [sea. Wanting work for the corn that would come o'er the And give bread to my wife, my children, and me. Redeeming us aR from this perishing state. If on food men would only not legislate. The merchant right gladly his profit would make, ISIight his ships fetch the corn, and my handi- work take ; 98 LITERARY FLORETS. Mv work and mv wao;cs need never stand still. With the world for the mart of our commerce and skill ; In plenty the corn would come over the sea — There 'd be plenty of bread for wife, children, and me — And farewell we might sing to this perishing state. If on food men would only not legislate." But there are who cry " Ours is the corn, For om^s the land ; and we were born Our ' order' by wealth and by law to maintain. And so over England preserve our reign. The Queen is great, but her greater see In the Corn-law Aristocracy : Want work, want bread, to the end of time, Ere eat of the corn of another clime ; Change your state as 'twill, we will keep our state. And on food, in your spite, we will legislate." And I'll bow to these men, if they ever saw Their laws in the volume of God's Holy Law : But I read not therein that a people must live On the harvests their country alone will give ; That any should hunger it is not said. Because their own land grows not their bread ; LITERARY FLORETS. 99 But tliat God made the nations alike of " one blood/' In tlie fields and the town, and over the flood, That each man to all men on earth should be brother, i And each love, and care for, and cherish the other. O God ! bend thine eye on our food-depri\cd poor; Dear Jesus ! re-enter dark poverty's door. In thy lowliness walking our Avorld once more. Thou, whom the Highest commissioned to save From selfishness not less than sin and the grave. Give hearts to our great men ; give ivisdom, to see The pit they are digging for every degree. O ! tell them no laws will long govern a land, But such as on mercy and equity stand. O ! tell them that they will themselves crown the pile They are heaping of anarchy, ruin, and spoil. O ! tell them thy Prayer was made for man, And not for a class, which in humbleness ran, " Our Father ! we ask from thine hand daily bread :" So praying, we pray that mankind may be fed. [The foregoing Poem (if it deserve that name) was first printed, " for general circulation," soon after the accession to the 100 LITERARY FLORETS. Premiership of England of its present occupant; when a copy was by the Author " respectfully presented to Sir Robert Peel, in the hope and belief that he will do all that his friends have ousted his predecessors in office for attempl'nuj." The Premier has achieved so much towards the fulfilment of this " hope" and " belief," that the Author now humbly hopes and believes he will ere long perform the rest. Slightly altered from the original, the lines appeared as above at the Anti-Corn-Law League Bazaar held in Covent Garden Theatre in the Spring of 1845.] IS AGE IMPROVING .'' Yes, often. See how many men grow better of themselves, and in the ordinary coui'se of things, in one important respect — namely, that they grow less selfish — as they advance towards the close of existence ! For instance, he who in youth thought of little besides self-gratification, and in whom selfishness was confirmed by the unrestrained passions of adolescence and maturity, shall, when the " certain age" of life has passed, begin to show the reign of the milder virtues, by a greatly in- creased regard for the feelings of those with whom he comes in contact, by a daily widening sympathy with pain and distress, by a continually enlarging benevolence, by a delight in furthering the sports and pleasures of childhood, by a satisfaction even in the enjoyments of the brute creation, and an LITERARY FLORETS. 101 unwillingness to injure them or abridge their terra of existence, and, finally, by an universal harmony of mind, at peace with itself, and enjo\4ng the contemplation of the whole world of animate and inanimate creation. And all this shall take place while the man attains to the knowledge of no particular creed, makes no religious profession, is insensible of the advantages of prayer, and in ffict is not religious at all in the popular sense of the word. Now, bearing in mind that preparedness for future happiness is set forth in Scriptui'e as mainly consisting in the heart's being " rooted and grounded" in " charity " or " love," who shall say that we have not in such a change some proof of a natural transition in poor humanity, from the tempers and dispositions most accordant with selfish enjo^Tiient in this world, to those wiser, hoUer, and really more delightfid tastes and pro- pensities, which most tend to make us ready for a better ? Doubtless, indeed, we may impede or wholly prevent this transition by a determined and obstinate persistence in e\'il courses, regardless of our experience of their bitter consequences, and equally regardless of those tendencies to ameliora- tion in our own natm-e, which, would we but allow them so to do, might matui'c us by their holy influences for heaven, as the gentle rain and 10.2 LITERARY FLORETS. warm sunshine mature tlie fruits of the earth for our terrestrial garners. Life is light, and death is darkness ; hut the light may conceal objects as well as the darkness. The sun makes manifest the forms and colours of earth, the face of man, and the aspects of the trees, the flowers, and the grass ; but he hides from our view myriads of suns and worlds, which the dark- ness comes to vmveil. So the extinction of this life's light by the night of the grave, may open up a view of glories which the beams that serve for mortality's uses prevent from appearing. Singleheartedness is often a wiser director than acute intellect; and good-nature will not unfre- quently supply good-sense. The loving heart can hardly fail to find com- panionship in somebody or something, and thus escape the most crushing of mortal feelings, that of complete solitariness. The heart that has love left in it can rarely be quite alone. Reading, Observation, and Reflection are essential, though in different degrees, to Taste and Genius, to the Critic and the Writer. The two LITERARY FLORETS. 103 first, and so mucli of the latter as implies adequate comparison, may suffice for the constitution of Taste ; but Genius must, above all things, reflect, and, by reflection, so entirely make its own, and convert to its purposes, all that Reading and Observation have supplied it with, as to be qualified (as it then will be) to create Avhat Taste can only appreciate. Reflection is the true talisman of Genius, by whose touch it converts everything into gold. That it is of infinitely more importance in forming that creative faculty which is the soul of composition than either Reading or Observation, must appear from the example of the greatest genius, considered merely as such, that perhaps the world ever saw, — Shakspeare. His reading, certainly, was not ex- tensive; and his observation, neither enriched by travel, nor domesticated with any but the middling and lower classes of society, was necessarily con- fined in its range. And yet how wonderfully did the reflective power imbue his imagination with the very forms and colours of reality, whercAvith to depict mind.s, manners, and circumstances asso- ciated with every period and relation of life ! And what but an unceasing habit of condensed and vigorous REFLECTION could have made him capable of at once so generalizing his views of the motives 104 LITERARY FLORETS. to men's actions, and so varying the conduct flow- ing from tliem^ that while the king and the clown proceed upon principles correctly drawn from their common nature, the actions of each are in strictness appropriate only to him who performs them ? ELEGY. Go, meet with whispering eve, when she is vernal, And day, long lingering, to his rest is driven ; Watch while come forth the holy stars eternal. And think of heaven. Stay till the crescent moon is fair suspended Over the hills that look so soft at even : To worship her sweet rising men have wended ; Think thou of heaven. Go when morn wakes, and melody is breaking From every bird whom God has music given ; Go, aid the song, thy couch in health forsakiiig. And think of heaven. Go to the forest, whose rich canopy Of glorious boughs through centuries has thriven ; Tread all the solemn paths right reverently, And think of heaven. LITERARY FLORETS. 105 Go to old ocean, when his wavelets only Kissingly come to land, by bright airs di'iven ; Peace fill thy heart, his shores while walking lonely, Thinking of heaven. Go to the city's pride, the lofty dome. Nobler than which to God was never given ; Deem all its anthems angels' hymns of home. The future heaven. And at the noon of night, when mystery Weaves darkness to be felt, bv no rav riven, ]\Iay darkness' self bring losing thoughts to thee Of light and heaven ! ENGLISH MANORS AND PARISHES. Manors, originally, were so many specific tracts of land, each ha^ing its peculiar lord. By those lords, principally, were our first churches erected ; each lord, in his own district, pro\'iding a place of worship for his tenants and dependants : and henqe it happened that parishes and manors were primarily commensurate with each other, and that the former was the term used to express the ecclesiastical, the latter the territorial precinct. But the extent of manors rendering it difficult, in manv cases, for all the tenants to resort to one H 106 LITERARY FLORETS. place of worship, the lord was induced to erect a second ; and thus his tenants, though remaining one territorial body, became divided into two ecclesiastical or parochial ones : in other words, what was stiU one manor became two parishes. Again, whenever a- sub-infeudation (or alienation of a part of a manor, with its services) took place, one manor arose out of another, and thenceforth was distinct from it : and thus it would occur, when no second parish had been formed, that there were two manors in one parish. Further, when manors were of extreme size, each of its sub-infeudated parts might be of such magnitude as to require two or more churches : whence it came to pass that there were several parishes, sometimes, in each separate portion of a district, which in the first instance was, taken altogether, but one manor and parish. The RIGHT-HEARTED morc frequently stumble upon truth than any other description of men. Still, the MIND must be informed, or all our arrivals at truth will be mere stumblings upon it. But would that the heart had made equal pro- gress with the MIND ! — for even the mind will often best expand, and become most capable both of discovering the truths of science and of applying LITERARY FLORETS. 107 tbem to sound uses, through the very means by which the heart grows better. And had the appeals to the heart, made by the Great Teacher of mankind, been responded to in the way that universal human nature is capable of responding to them, (or universal human nature would not have been so addressed,) then might the " march of intellect" in the first century of the Christian era have sufficed to extinguish all the barbaric illiberalities of feeling and conduct — all the hatreds engendered by political differences — all the appro- priations of cvai. pri^ileges and distinctions on reKgious grounds — that are yet fostered by so many Christians, as they call themselves, in the nineteenth. WHIG and TORY. Names are given to religious sects and political parties, in almost every instance, by their oppo- nents, and only silently acquiesced in, after some considerable lapse of time, by the sects and parties themselves ; never, in truth, until the first mean- ing of the names is well nigh forgotten. " This year," (1680,) says Hume, "is remarkable for being the epoch of the Avell-known epithets of Whig and Tory ; by which, and sometimes without H 2 108 LITERARY FLORETS, any material difference, this island has been so long divided. The court party reproached their antagonists with their affinity to the fanatical conventiclers in Scotland, who were known by the name of Whigs. The country party found a resemblance between the courtiers and the Popish banditti in Ireland, to whom the appellation of Tory was affixed. And after this manner these foolish terms of reproach came into public and general use ; and even at present seem not nearer their end than when they were first invented." The year 1845 would appear to have brought us nearer to the " end " of these terms than the historian anticipated. The Tories have become " Conservatives •" and as to the Whigs, it might be almost asked " Where are they ? " Very fcAv, of either party, have a recollection of the origin of their distinctive name, and numbers of both are found amusing themselves with disquisitions on that subject ; — just as, in the year 1945, we may imagine, people will be hazarding all sorts of conjectures about the origin of the term Radical. Bailey, in his very curious and still valuable Dictionary, has the following: — "Whig (Saxon), whey, butter -milk, or very small beer : also a name nist applied to those in Scotland who kept their meetings in the fields, their common food being LITERAKY FLORETS. 109 sour milk." He does not, in like manner, begin at tlie beginning with Tory ; but merely tells us that it was '^ first used by the Protestants in Ireland,^' to signify " common robbers and mur- derers" of the opposite faction. It is clear that neither term is very complimentary to them upon . whom theii' adversaries contrived to fasten it : so that each party, if disposed to make the name of its opponents a vehicle of attack, might find it apt for the pui'pose. Thus might not our existing "Con- servatives" discover men and measures amongst the Wliigs to stigmatize as "very small beer"? And might not the Whigs retort that the Tories are at this very time "robbers" bv wholesale, since they are actually using Whig ideas, inven- tions, plans, propositions, and theories, precisely as if they were their own lawful property ? But so runs the story of England's political institu- tions in all modern times. They have been mainly formed through the ^^^ligs' projecting, introdu- cing, and bringing them to a certain degree of consistency and shape ; and the Tories' opposing, defeating, adopting, and ultimately taking their stand upon them. The Whigs conceive what is proper to be done ; they are ever first in the field : but they accomplish little, because they have to conflict with all their opponents' horror of in nova- 110 LITERARY FLORETS. tion. The Tories appropriate the conceptions of the Whigs, when the minds of men (their own inckided) have become a little used to them. Thus the Tories, by their conduct, are always confessing that the Whigs were right formerly ; though the Whigs, unfortunately for themselves, can never get the Tories to allow that they are right at the time being. Temptation, upon some extraordinary occasions, may arrive with the almost resistless force of the torrent or the whirlwind ; and for the man to Avhom it thus comes, due allowance, we cannot doubt, will be made should he fall before it. But, in the ordinary course of things, and until vice has acquired power through habit, the restraints of virtue are hardly more difficult to be borne than those of good manners. THE HOURS THAT HAVE PASSEU. On the hours that have passed, or in friendship or love. Can we, then, feel delighted to dwell ? Hand in hand with the shades of those lost hours to rove. Though each thought of them sighs like a knell ? LITERARY FLORETS. Ill Yes, sweet is the sorrow that comes with its thrill To give back the gay glance, and the tongue's magic sound ; And dear to the heart pensiAC IMemory still. While she pierces its core she has balm for the wound. Fond jNIemory ! yes, let the spirit expressed In the dance of our life's buoyant Spring, Laugh its wont with light Glee in his holiday vest. And all youth's reminiscences bring. I'll recall young love's smile, and I'll sing the old song Of the friend that 's now silent and gone ; For in Fancy's car still I roll lightly along. And Hope, on her cloud-seat, 's my own. Return, then, ye shadows of joys that have been ! Return, as in vision, ye hours ! Ye 're welcome to me as May sylphids in green, Retui'ning with sunshine and flowers. For sweet is the sorrow that comes with its thrill To give back the gay glance, and the tongue's magic sound ; And dear to the heart pensive IMemory still, "VMiile she pierces its core she has balm for the wound. 112 LITERARY FLORETS. ENGLISH HISTORY FROM THE CONQUEST TO THE TEMPORARY OVERTHROW OF THE MONARCHY IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. Read at the house of George Bracher, Esq., to a Meeting of the Newington-Green Conversation Society, — Subject for the even- ing, " History." The Civil War in England in the seventeenth century is frequently spoken of as if it were a mere accident of its times — a king and a people quarrelling, and coming to blows, because, as it happened, they could not settle their diflFerences in any other manner. It may be of some service, then, to take a bird's-eye view of English history from the Conquest to the commencement of that war, since it may help to disabuse us of notions of this kind, as untrue as they are unphilosophical. England, like all the other monarchical states of Europe, owes monarchy itself to those feudal institutions, of which, from their nature, it formed a part : and monarchy is a form of government so simple and so natural, so fitted to the frame to which society, in its rudest or most polished state, can most readily and with the greatest advantage adjust itself, that it is not to be wondered at that its idea impressed itself upon the minds of men in the earliest times, or that it has prevailed LITERARY FLORETS. 113 nearly universally down to tlie present era. But a monarchy may be a despotism, or a government almost by the people themselves ; and it is in the nature of things that there should exist a per- petual struggle as to which of these two it shall prove, wherever it is instituted. To prevent injurious effects from that struggle, it is only necessary to infuse into every order in the state the principle of counterpoise ; so that each shall maintain its balance, and outweigh neither any other nor all the rest. If the monarch obtain a greatly preponderating weight, the government becomes a tjTanny ; if the nobles, an oligarchy ; if the people, personally, or by their represen- tatives, a democracy. The last-mentioned took place during the reign of Charles I., by the operation of causes which we will endeavour to trace. William the Conqueror, by carrying feudal institutions in this country to the height of which they were perhaps capable, attached a degree of consequence to his crown, possessed by that of no other European prince : he made the monarchy a despotism; but, happily, he became despotic over the nobles equally with the people, while other European sovereigns were content to reign by little other than the sufferance of numerous 114 LITERAKY FLOllKTS. scarcely inferior sovereigns, their chief nobility. The consequence was that while, in Europe at large, the various contests that took place between the kings and their nobles ended only in more effectually securing the power of the party that obtained the mastery, without procuring " the acknowledgment of one popular right or the removal of one popular grievance," in England the nobles and people were not long in perceiving that they had a common cause, and must labour for common advantages : whence it followed that the successors of the Conqueror, in every moment of weakness, saw the necessity of conciliating not the baronial alone, but the popular affections ; and, accordingly, when Henry I, rescinded several of William's severer statutes, and, among others, that enjoining the seclusion of every subject within his own abode at the melancholy sound of the curfew, he ordained that such mitigations of the feudal law as he granted to the barons should be extended bv them to their vassals. This first blow at the feudal system, aimed by the monarch on the throne, was ably seconded by his successor, in the revival of that ancient Saxon institution trial by jury. The weak, though tyrannical John was compelled to make still larger con- cessions in Magna Cfiarta : and the long conti- LITERARY FLORETS. 115 nuecl troubles of the government under Henry III. became tlie source of tlie present English constitution. The lineaments of a legislatm'e, one of whose component parts should be formed on the principle of popular representation, were then drawn ; and what was feebly commenced by Henrv, was lirmlv established bv his highly gifted successor, the first Edward. By him, so justly named the English Justinian, the Commons' house of Parliament was first legalised, and ren- dered efficient to the double purpose of granting supplies to the crown and petitioning for the redress of grievances ; and thoiigh its powers were as yet confined to those pro\dnces, its simple legal establishment, resting, as it did, upon the acknowledged importance of the people, was of necessity a step to the increase of its authority in proportion to the ine^dtable increase of that importance, and very shortly it was formally decreed that the imposition of taxes, of every kind, should be in future only by and with the joint consent of the Lords and Commons in Par- liament assembled. The constitution then rapidly approached the perfection of which it was capable, as appljdng to the limited wants of a nation whose moral culti^■ation was of a low order, and who, con- 116 LITERARY FLORETS. sequently, acquired as mucli liberty, perhaps, through these changes, as they could well manage or enjoy. Under the sway of the second Edward the right of petitioning, the dawn of that of legislating in their own persons, was more fully ascertained by the practice of the Commons ; and, under Edward III., they not only declared that they would acknowledge no laws to which their assent had not been formally obtained, but they commenced the exercise of that important priAdlege, the pri^dlege of impeaching royal minis- ters. Henry IV. beheld them insisting upon the wisest conditions of their recognising his authority, and even withholding their subsidies until answers to their petitions had been gi'anted. From that time, the commencement of every reign was generally made the occasion of pro- curing for the Commons some additions to their eminence in the state, and some accessions to the general liberty of the people. And yet, strange as it may appear, freedom retrograded after the tranquil settlement of Henry VII. at the close of the long rivalry between the houses of York and Lancaster. How this occurred must be attempted to be explained. Civil commotions, if of no long continuance, may be favourable to the march of liberty, by LITERARY FLORETS. 117 exciting those healthy collisions of ideas on political subjects by Avhicli its spiiit is most effectually generated. But when intestine con- flicts are protracted, the opposite rancours of men's minds, arriving at their pitch, at last pro- duce such universally distressful consequences, that the very name of opposition to the authority in the arms of -nhich the State has idtimately settled becomes hateful to be contemplated, and the power thus finally gaining the ascendant may, for a time, govern at will, provided it secure the general repose. Such was the state of England throughout the reigns of Henry YII. and YIII., Edward VL, Mary, and Elizabeth; though, dinging the three last mentioned, a secret foe to single unchecked rule or misrule (for it was either ac- cording to the personal disposition and talents of the ruling power) was growing in the breasts of the people. Its name was mental illumination ; and it had a threefold parentage — the Reformation, Printing, and Commerce. By the united agency of these, all, to use a familiar expression, became agog throughout the nation. Elizabeth perceived, though she did not fully comprehend, the universal stir ; but she had the sagacity to give it a direc- tion; and its fiaiits, beneath her sway, were emulation in the pursuit of learning, ardour in 118 LITERARY FLORETS. commercial enterprises, and chivalrous devotecl- ness to her service and to that of the country. The accession of a new family to the throne, in the person of James, seems first to have diverted the general mind to political subjects, and espe- cially to endeavours to settle the just boundaries of kingly prerogative. But all opinions formed on such subjects were purely speculative until James, by descending into the popular arena, and combating the doctrines newly broached by royal sophisms and literary pedantry, rendered their operation practical. He stoutly contended that the authority of kings was not of a natiu-e to be discussed or questioned; that the liberties for which the people argued, and perceived that they had somehow lost, had been mere emanations of the sovereign grace of his predecessors, and might be regranted and recalled at pleasure; that his own right (of course) was divine, and the birth- right and inheritance contended for by the people — unlimited subjection to his will. Such dogmas were instantaneously rejected by nearly all Mdio heard them ; and a sentiment of irreverence, not unmingled with contempt, for the monarch who had thus weakly' betrayed both his vanity and his arbitrary principles, became widely prevalent. Under a combination of circumstances so ill- LITERARY FLORETS. 119 boding to any monarch but one of the strongest mind and the most liberal character, did Charles I. enter upon the exercise of the sovereign authority. He was no man for his times. On the contrary, prejudices in favour of that piece of royal child- ishness, divine right, were in him more hereditary than his crown ; and he had no sympathy with, for he could not understand, the just requirements of the people. After having been many times assembled and dismissed by him in the most ca- pricious manner, the Commons at length looked round on the nation, and on each other, Avith the heartfelt assurance of an undefined but irrepressi- ble expansion of power and will in the bosoms of all. In one auspicious moment they became con- scious of their whole strength. They saw that they united zeal and capacity sufficient for the working out the restoration of theii' liberties by their own efforts : they no longer required the intervention of a band of nobles, to shield them from the rays of majesty, when approaching its sanctuary, and requiring its compliance with their just demands : they were convinced that changes of the most important nature had taken place, in the constitution, in the great body of the people, in themselves; and they determined that what had been wrong in those changes should be made 120 LITERARY FLORETS. right. In achieving this they went much too far, and committed many errors both of passion and judgment. They made a martyr of a king, who was worthy only of deposition and reduction to private life. They set up a democracy — for a time almost an anarchy — when they should have aimed only at re-establishing a monarchy of coun- terpoises. The result was the forfeiture of all for which they had contended. The universal desire again became for repose — for repose at any rate, though again accompanied by despotism. With despotism it came; and both continued until, wisdom growing with years, a monarchy of coun- terpoises was at length firmly founded on the forced abdication of James II., and has flourished, with little alteration, since that period. It is far easier to convert through the affections than the judgment. You can rarely make people think they are wrong against their feelings, but you may often make them feel they are wrong against their thoughts. The human mind seems framed to anticipate every idea of justice, on the loftiest scale as the lowest. We admire, but we do not wonder at, the perfect justice of God ; it appears to us only as his UTEKAIIY FLORETS. 121 natural attribute. We should expect to find justice in beings of a different order to our own, (having moral powers,) with whose existence we were for the first time acquainted; as we expect it from aU men to ourselves, and feel that all men expect it of us. The general flow of our diction — even of our written diction — should be as easy as that of the river which winds along in graceful gentleness. Ornaments, like the foam of a wave, may occa- sionally lighten up the surface ; but the common current should be marked only by simphcity. THE VILLAGE SUNDAY SCHOOL. Where on yon hallowed roof the morning ray. The sabbath morning, shines serenely gay ; And the slant lustre, on each silent aisle. Streams through the windows of the sacred pile ; Soft stillness, conscious of her blest abode, Sleeps sweetly tranquil : — 'tis the House of God. But hark ! I heard a gentle murmur there ! Perchance some aged worshipper at prayer ? Some feeble saint whose trembling matins rise To where e'en now he lifts his wishful eyes, — The bright perpetual sabbath of the skies ? I 122 LITERARY FLORETS. And yet, no summons from th' inviting boll The breeze has borne in undulating swell ; As yet no footsteps press the well-trod way. To fill God^s temple on his sacred day ; Then whose those accents soft of seeming prayer ? What means that hum, that gentle mm^mur there ? Stranger ! if right I read thine asking eye. As, wandering this reverend grave-yard by. Thou stopp'st awhile the tombs to meditate, (The speaking tombs that tell the common fate,) ^Tis thus its mute expression doth inquii'e. Then, Stranger ! listen : 'tis no hoary sire. Within those walls, whose accents come and fail. As flit the whispers of the passing gale ; It is not age that rears that holy song. But the mixed sound of many a childish tongue. The small sweet voices of an infant throng. Enter the hallowed house of humble mien : Perchance thou, 'It gain a lesson from the scene. Duly attentive are the little band : Mute is the tongue, and still the restless hand ; Peace reigns o'er all, while mild instructions sway Each listening gi'oup ; — they listen, and obey : LITERARY FLORETS.' 123 And as th' allotted task, tlie hymn, the prayer, Their artless tones in change alternate bear, The simple accents angels might approve, And smile upon them with angelic love. Read they the sacred tome ? The silvered brow Of age shall ponder wisdom tanght it nmo. The future cotter oft, at day's decline. Exploring each remembered text and line, Shall bless his sabbath learning, and shall say The sabbath-teacher lit his heavenward way. His children too (it was not Ms when young To hear the Bible fi'om ^father's tongiie) Shall round him stand, the while he sagely gives That very comment which he now receives ; And their' s he '11 make his childhood's golden rule. To seek instruction at the Sunday School. THE STREAM, In every quiet British scene of which it forms a part, is the object that peculiarly arrests the attention. It is the most beautiful object in itself; the thing most cle;irly a benefit and a delight to all about it, and whose absence ther would be most cause to regret ; the prime source of the vaUey^s interest as of its attractions. You are irresistibly led to muse and moralise upon its I 2 124 LITERARY FLORETS. rise^ from the liill-side probably not far distant ; upon the coui'se it will take when it leaves the vale l)chind it ; — perhaps you resolve to see some- thing of both. And then, first, you trace its channel upwards to w^here, on some gentle slope, it breaks from a patch of glistening moss, and begins at a hand^s breadth, and with an infant's strength, to ripple on its journey; or, if you are travelling the "Welsh Principality, or Scottish Highlands, to where it springs a tiny cataract from the face of some rocky height, and leaps and sparkles on from fall to fall till it finds a pebl)ly bed in the dell below, along which, con- cealed as it is by overgrowing brushwood, you rather hear than observe its progress. To view its parting from the valley, you climb some eleva^ tion near the latter's opening upon the cham- paign ; and theace can you note your hquid friend lying windingly for miles along the meadows, like a riband of silver upon the grass, until, losing it in the distance, you know that there it must have become a river, that will grow in breadth, in beauty, and in usefulness, till its existence is absorbed, not lost, in the all-receiving sea with which it is destined to unite itself. And is not the good man's course depictured by it ? At Urst Jds power, like the little stream's, is infau- LITERARY FLORETS. 125 tine to do good and to distribute blessings. But, be early life to him a smooth or an impeded channel, be its source lowly or eminent, be his after progi-ess conspicuous or hidden, do obstacles lie thickly in his track or is the cui'rent of his actions gentle and scarce obstructed, he presses onward to do good, and to reach that coast whereat his career must necessarily terminate. And, while he proceeds, his utility expands as his way lengthens ; as his contact with earth dimi- nishes, the more does his bosom reflect of heaven : till, with the noble calm of the broad river, willingly commingling its waters with the mighty sea, he enters the ocean of eternity in blest con- fidence that, though mingling with, he will not be lost even in its infinite extension. In all that God efifects we may see, and should admire to see, how eminently He achieves, not utility simply, but the greatest amount of utility in the smallest amount of time. Trifler away of time ! observe how time is economised by liim who has eternity at His disposal. A correct theology may be expected to be the property of but few ; but nobody need be without a religious heart. 120 LITEllAllY FLORETS. There is a proper moral tendency in the love of the beautiful ; hut as the same love is also a softener of the cliaracter, it needs the strength of principle to convert it into virtue. Even lawless pleasure wears its roses ; but tliey are roses which retain no fragrance when their beauty has once passed. Never does the mind so well exhibit its genuine strength — never does it shine in such playful superiority or pure beauty — never does it so well perform its part in the duties of ordinary life — never is it so witty with the wise, so affectionate with the loving, or so childlike with the child — • as when it is pervaded by some master-sentiment far loftier than the affairs with which it is imme- diately occupied. The sentiment may be religion, or it may be love ; it may be a noble ambition, or some exalting sorrow : whatever it be, it makes the mind unaffectedly powerful, by at once exciting and elevating its capacities, and delivering it from every temptation to employ them for the purposes of display. It is both right and wrong, according to cir- cumstances, to be and to do almost everything LITERARY FLORETS. 127 that we can be or do. Thus, there are circum- stances in which to take life is a dutv, and circum- stances in which it is an act of the blackest turpi- tude; there are circumstances in which to refuse death were a disgrace, and circumstances in which to die were the deepest cowardice. What a proof is here that the unceasing moral government of himself according to circumstances is the end for which man lives, and in adaptation to which every tiling around him is constituted ! "where I WENT TO SCHOOL." A PENCILLING NEAR A VILLAGE IN ESSEX. Scenes of my fair and pleasant youth, Smiling ye lie before me : Nature is beauty still, and truth, And does those scenes restore me. As when I roved a schoolboy light, And there saw each year springing, The fields look gay, the meadows bright. The wild-birds all are singing. 128 LITERARY FLORETS. I've gained the mill-hiU's airy brow, My eye o'er all is ranging : Ah ! right well shall I witness now Whatever old Time's been changing. Thanks, Time, for tliis ! my thanks, old friend ! I'll deem some thought has stayed thee That hither I might one day wend. And, noting change, upbraid thee. Yon grey square toAver as tranquil stands. And graveyard's poplar'd border. As when our youthful train linked hands To march to church in order. The vicarage front I mark ; and there. The tall trees intervening. The school-house rears its gable fair. With many a school-day meaning. Of village inns I make out two ; The third, that red-brick mansion Hides, as it still was wont to do. Behind its proud expansion. I trace the houses round the green. So neat, and trim, and pretty ; The pompous brewer's too is seen. Who wealthier was than witty. LITERARY FLORETS. 129 The blacksmith's shop; the wheelwright's yard; And ev'n the low-eaved cottage, Where dwelt the dame, on ninety hard. Who cakes sold in her dotage. So faithfully each boyish sight Is here renewed before me ; While, busy on the breezy height. The old mill whistles o'er me. O ! had no greater change been wrought Upon each thought and feeling Of one, alas ! too fancy-fraught, While Time was on him stealing. How much that he has idly loved Had tempted, charmed him never ! How many an hour had been improved. That now has flown for ever ! But, praise where due ! the Source of Good, From whom comes every blessing. Has more than this fair scene renewed, Wliile Time has been progressing. From Him the word, the power, of Truth (So faith assures) are given, To bring back all the heart of youth. With opening views of heaven. 130 LITERARY FLORETS. I believe the benevolent affections to be innate, in a greater or less degree, in every man; and believing that, I seem to understand why man- kind have agreed to mark discourtesy and unkind- ness by a term, not showing how natural those ill qualities are to us but the contrary, for the term is inhuman ; and why they designate the engaging charities that sweeten existence by a word that shows how natural they are to our com- mon race, for that word is humanity. POOR MALIBRAN DE BEBIOT ! In her case, if in any. Genius might ask for a merciful consideration of its admitted faidts. Vice must not be called \artue ; criminality, forced upon our observation and gloried in, cannot be too warmly reprehended. But the errors of those martyrs to high art, whose existence almost, from the nature of the pursuits for which they live, becomes imagination, and all whose passions and susceptibilities are strengthened while they are exalted thereby to an extent the plodders of the world form not the most distant conception of — such errors mav often be most fitlv Avept over bv the fellow-mortals, scarce one of whom might have done better in the same circumstances, LITERARY FLORETS. 131 while the great majority, there can be little ques- tion, would have done worse. Poor Malibran de Beriot ! Her judgment, if formed at all, was formed by nothing but her years of early suffer- ing ; her moral qualities were put to any school but that likely to improve them; from infancy she was made to live but for the cultivation of one constitutional power, and the one faculty of imagination that could inform and elevate it; and she sprang at length into a thing of such glorious excellence in the art that was her being, that song in her was mind, and feehng, and eloquence, and poetry, in a degree that carried her hearers to a higher sphere than that from Avhich she seemed herself to be so lifted as to leave humanity behind her. If hers was not the greatness of moral power, it was that next best thing, the etherealis- ing alike of the animal and the intellectual in our composition until they become nearly abstract beauty, and nobility, and light, and grandeur. And, in no small proportion too, she was a moral being ; and of course her moral acts, wherever it was possible, would correspond in force with tlie strength of her feelings. They did so, or she might have been yet with us. For, lest she shoidd be suspected of wilful falsehood to her engage- ments, she appeared, and was all herself, in public 133 LITERARY FLORETS. when the power of her last illness was upon her ; and she obeyed an encore (after imploring gestui'es to her audience that were misunderstood) though she felt, and said, to those immediately aroimd her, that the obedience would be death, because — because a young female friend, who sang with her, and who had caught much of her own inspiration in so singing, woidd thereby gain another oppor- tunity of establishing herself in public favour ! She who, on many previous occasions, had been led, by enthusiasm for excellence in her vocation, to rush from extreme languor and suflering off the stage to be a being superior to mortal weak- ness upon it, sang once more, under the support of feelings yet loftier than that enthusiasm ; sang once more, as though a seraph had descended to make men cognizant of heavenly music; — with even more, perhaps, of rapt power and sweetness than she had ever in her life exhibited ; — and she sang not afterwards ! Surely, there was enough of moral greatness in those energies of dying genius, to win forgetfulness of far greater errors than sullied her brief term of existence, and to mingle love and admiration with our fears for Malibran de Beriot. In a multitude of counsellors there is not always LITERARY FLORETS. 133 wisdom. As many meeting flames commingle^ and form a burst of dangerous blaze whicli neither singly coidd have ai-rived at, so do many meeting thoughts^ by mutually heating each other, grow sometimes into a very conflagi'ation of wild errors and destructive fantasies. It is idle to suppose that we can induce others to adopt any views of oiu's by the mere power of their rationality. The more reasonable people^s notions, the more oftensive are they to as many as are determined not to entertain them. In the attempt to convince a man against his will you may make him hate truth the more, but not disbelieve it the less. Ecclesiastical establishments, when they impose creeds and confessions — as thev almost uniformly do — make opinion to be of more consequence than practice. And, accordingly, wliile nearly every chm'ch has had its articles of faith, hardly one — if one — has put forth its articles of moj'ahty. Truth, not enforced by authority, will generally prove an overmatch for falsehood. But let the arm of civil power attempt to coerce men into 131. LITERARY FLORETS. truth, and falsehood, callinc' man's natural liberty to its aid, will often be the conqueror. . That man is false to his own possible excellence, who does not constantly set before him an ideal which far exceeds the stature of his actual attain- ments. Written on leaving the Anniversary Meeting of a Religions Asso- ciation with which the Author had not then fraternised, and with no memher of which he was acquainted. A stranger, and a nameless one, was there ; One who could marvel not if only he, Of all the crowd, did seem to all imknown. He said " 'Tis good that I am here although. Amid this throng of generous hearts, and minds Fraught with intelligent fire, — amid these smiles Making fair faces fairer, — amid all This festal joy, and greetings gay, and hands Extended to meet hands, — I am alone.'* High was the flow of soul, as good the cause ; The words were words of wisdom and of love ; The mind and the affections, ear and eye, Had all their festival. Religion there Sat as sat Jesus at the marria2:e feast, Joy giving and not gloom. The zest was pure. LITERARY FLORETS. 135 And generous, and lioly. All were free To hear and to think truths. Each one spake As prompted by no ism, but as taught Through sitting at the feet of him who told That God is Love, is Spirit, and is One. The charity that sees how men of each And every creed may live as sons to God, And brothers to each other, though it holds That faith the dearest which it feels the best. Was not awanting. And, the cup to fill Of gratulation and of Christian joy. Brethren were there from Transatlantic homes, ^"^Tio, had their mission been to shcAv how well America puts on the mind and heart All Jesus-like when she behoves no more Than Jesus came to teach, coidd not have sped On their high errand better. One sad thought Was with the stranger. All the absent hearts, "WTiom he was bound or to revere or love. In heart were vet more absent : thev were such As would condemn — in love, but still condemn — In their religion^s name, this festival. And yet perchance a joy was his, more deep. More solemn, if it could not be more sweet Than the bright bliss of union in joy. 13G LITERARY FLORETS. That there he stood as unobserved by eye, As free to think his thoughts of love for all The human race, for nature, and for truth, As if the lofty roof of that large hall Had been a forest canopy, and all The animate forms around him forest sons, And forest JElowcrs of beauty. ^Twas a joy As dear, as quiet too, as the green glade Itself had given, to hear the eloquent sounds That God made himian bear their tribute to The Truth of God as by his Son declared, The while eyes smiled, and cheeks looked glad, and hands By hearts were stirred to acclamation. Sounds And sights were those, more musical and fair Than all that grace the woodland, and more blest To him that voiceless stood and all unknown. Although, both in Politics and Theology, there must ever be a right side and a wrong, it would appear that j there is generally as much honest intention on the wrong side as on the right. Which may arise from the circumstances, that few have the ability to reach abstract right and wrong upon such subjects ; and that those who have, possess it through peculiarity of mental constitu- tion rather than peculiar integrity of purpose. LITEllARY FLORETS. 137 A VISIT TO STOKE-NEWINGTON. The village of Stoke-Newington is one of the pleasantest of those which surround the " Great Metropolis," and has accompaniments which place it among the most interesting. Its High Street, it is true, as approached by the Kingsland Road from London, presents only the featm*es of an ordinarv countrv town ; but there are things worth looking at immediately adjacent. Stamford Hill rises smartly from its termination country-ward, crowned by villas of the wealthy citizens ; and at the foot of the hill lie the beautiful grounds of Abney-Park Cemetery, so nobly adorned by the fine old trees that stood there when the spot was actually the park of Sir Thomas Abney. Church Street, (there are those who remember it Church Lane,) leading off at right angles from the High Street, passes the front of Sir Thomas's noble mansion ; which, though not antique enough to wear the Elizabethan look, has all the solid, handsome, and withal picturesque air of that middle style by which the Elizabethan descended into the modern domestic. Having a large fore- court, or garden, it stands sufficiently back to be K 138 LITERARY FLORETS. well seen by the passenger.* Cliurcli Street con- tains several other good, substantial, mansion-like residences, more or less detached from the houses of comparatively recent construction, and plainly telling that they were erected when Stoke-New- ington was a more rui'al village than at present. As it is, you have only to pass through these residences into their large, well-stocked gardens in rear, to taste pure country air, and become surrounded by all the glowing charms of English horticulture. Indeed, nearly all the gardens of the upper class of Newingtonians are remarkable for their size, as well as for being cultivated into productive beauty. Many of them stretch into pleasure-grounds — the paddock, the meadow, or the almost park ; in which their owners, with proper pride in so much rnrality, make their own hay, and feed the cows which supply their families with genuine milk and home-made butter. Church Street ends, appropriately, with the village church on one side, and the rectory-house immediately opposite. Two structures are not often to be met with, in better harmony with each other and with the character of a quiet village scene. And this was still more noticeable before * Since this was written, Sii' Thomas Abney's " noble mansion" has been demolished — sold foi- the value in cash of its materials ! LITERARY FLORETS. 139 the church was restored and eidargcd, in the year 1829^ by Mr. Barry; thougb. the alterations effected by that gentleman are evidences of liis usual taste and judgment, being eminently con- servative of the original style. The rectory is an antique, u'regular, wooden building, with a low- browed, sunken porch, entered by a wicket. Within the porch are benches, designed probably for the accommodation of waiters upon the par- son^s charity, or spii-itual consolations, in the olden time. Approaching the sacred edifice, we are informed, by a date over the principal entrance, that the south aisle, containing that entrance, was built in 1563, or during the reign of Elizabeth ; but the tower, and chief parts of the building, however altered, must be considerably older. A tomb within, adjoining the pulpit, has kneeling figures in high relief of a man, his wife, and their daughter, with the words — " Obiit 29° Decembris ano dni 1580." It also exhibits, in a series of compartments, Latin and English inscriptions by which we are apprised that the whole is a memorial of Thomas Sutton, Esq., founder of the Charter- House, and Elizabeth his wife. The last inscrip- tion runs thus — " Several prelates and other persons, educated at Charter-House School, the foundation of Thomas Sutton, Esq., by their k2 140 LITERARY FLORETS. respectful contributions caused this Tomb to be repaired, a.d. 1808/' A mural tablet against the east end of one of the aisles^ to " Ann Frohock/' who died in 1764, has an inscription in quite another style, recording that this lady was " the best of Wife's and of Woman." In the church- yard is a much more interesting table-tomb, the superscription of which, though it begins to want the labours of some "Old Mortality," reminds us that we are on classic ground at Stoke- Newington, the remains ^vithin being those of John Aikin, M.D., whose many useful works gave him a respectable place amongst the literary men of the last age. Dr. Aikin, and his sister, the celebrated Mrs. Barbauld, were for many years inhabitants of Stoke - Newington. The venerable lady lived opposite to her brother (in Church Street) in a house now a grocer's : and she, too, reposes in this tomb, though there is no notification of the fact upon it. Continuing our walk in the line of Church Street, we are accompanied ere long, on our right, by the gently flomng stream of the New River, Avhich here ornaments the fine park -like grounds attached to a handsome seat, that of the late William Crawshay, Esq. This gentleman was fin iron-master, and died in 1834, possessed, as LITERARY FLORETS. 141 the newspapers said at the time^ of " almost measureless wealth." As winding as it is gentle, the river, a little farther on, crosses under the road, to become no mean addition to the beauty of the trim, gardens of a number of houses, none of which have the pretension of Mr. Crawshay's, but which ai'e all good, and some of them some- thing more. Altogether, this is one of the finest spots about the tillage, the Crawshay estate alone forming a beautiful object, and the intersecting disposition of the river, gardens, and residences having a very pleasing effect. This district ends at a cross-road, called the " Green Lanes :" and the Green Lanes also terminating the village, we return to the church, as to a point whence to seek what else may be note-worthy. Let us look for that true Old-Enghsh adjunct to the rui'al chiu'ch, yclept " the chm'ch path." Here it lies, and of the old comfortable, and, as we presume, legal width, bending towards the church-yard from two opposite directions. If we take the northward bend, we shall shortly find ourselves in a colonnade of antique trees, called, from a tradition of unknown origin, " Queen Elizabeth's Walk." Emerging from them, the " path" takes its way among some of the best 143 LITERARY FLORETS. Middlesex verdure (and there is none better) to an elevated site known as Woodbury Down, whereon the New River Company have cut two reservoirs, fed by their own river, either of which might be reckoned no contemptible lake. They are truly noble sheets of water ; and their inspec- tion will give a characteristic idea of the immense works, in other localities north of the " Head,^' which have been carried into effect by this rich and beneficial company. The " church path^^ southward seems to have been specially intended to conduct to worship the steps of the residents at an almost distinct village, about half a mile distant, called Newing- ton- Green. It led from the Green through the pleasantest fields until within these twenty years, when the building furor began to trench upon its precincts, and has actually now crossed it by a road, styled the "Albion Road," and forming the carriage approach to Church Street. The road is really a pretty road ; it winds pleasingly along, and it has good houses by its sides. But still it is a road, and it cuts up the old " church path," and it has spoilt all the quiet of the fields, and brought London nearer to Stoke-Newington by fifty miles than ever it was before. LITERARY FLORETS. 143 Making tlie best of Avhat every ruralist pedes- trian must deem a bad change, we pursue our way by the sober old " path" till we are brought to the very Green. How calm it looks ! how gentle, and how peaceful ! — and a little dull. Can we be, as the mile-stone on one side of the central enclo- sure informs us, only two miles from the great Babel, even now roaring forth its million sounds — London? Why, there is many a village-green two hundred miles from the metropolis that is all alive in comparison with it. Those high old Jiouses in the shade of the west side,* from over and between which and the trees in their front the descending sun sends yellow streams upon the grass, seem nodding to their evening repose ; and the windows of their opposite neighboui's twinkle like sleepy eyes in the light, as if about to follow their example. Facing where we stand, some equally dreamy -looking buildings peer at us from the south through the poplar row ])efore them ; and here, on the north, whence we are making oiu' survey, there is nothing that looks wider awake. By our side, however, is the Pres- * These, though four in number, bear every appearance of having once constituted only a single mansion. One of tliein has the date 1658 (the year of the death of the Protector Cromwell) formed in the brickwork of its front, on the capital of the pilaster which occupied the centre of the original facade. 144 LITERARY FLORETS. byterian CA«/)e/ : * for. Stoke -Newington, be it remarked, is an old stroiigliold of the Dissenters, and the place where Defoe was educated, and with which some of the most eminent divines {7tot of the Establishment) have been by various ties con- nected. The building is a square one, of sombre style, between one and two centimes old, but bearing the marks of recent repairs on a rather extensive scale. Built, probably, for the accom- modation of a nonconformist neighbourhood, chiefly residing on the Green, when nonconfor- mity was more rife and churches more rare than at present, the change of times has not so sub- tracted from the zeal of the existing congre- gation as to prevent their "repairing and beau- tifying^' it very decorously, and in some respects even handsomely. The series of its ministering clergy includes the names of Dr. Price, Dr. Towers, Dr. Amory, Hugh Worthington, and Rochemont Barbauld, husband of the literary lady who lies in the churchyard. And here, though not in the churchyard, is an inscription in honour of that lady; and another, comme- morative of Dr. Price. They are each on chaste * A misnomer, as is shown in the remarks headed " Church, Chapel, and Meeting-house," page 36. But we can hardly help calling things by the wrong names which other people persist in giving to them. LITERARY FLORETS. 1 15 marble tablets ; and the language of neither is of the " Ann Froliock " order, being- as follows : — On Mrs. Barbauld's Monument, from the pen of her eldest nephew, Arthur Aikin, Esq., late Secretary to the Society of Ai-ts, Adel- phi ; the tablet contributed by her nephew and adopted son, Charles Rochemont Aikin, Esq., of Bloomsbury Square, surgeon. IN MEMORY OF ANNA L^TITIA BARBAULD, DAUGHTER OF JOHN AIKIN, D.D. AND WIFE OF THE REV. ROCHEMONT BARBAULD. FORMKRLY THE RESPECTED MINISTER OF THIS CONGREGATION'. SHE WAS BORN AT KIBWORTH, IN LEICESTERSHIRE, 20tH JUNE, 1743, and died at stoke-newington, 9th march, 1825. endowed by the giver of all good with wit, genius, poetic talent, and a vigorous understanding, she employed those high gifts in promoting the cause of humanity, peace, and justice, of civil and religious liberty, of pure, ardent, and affectionate devotion. let the young, nurtured by her writings in the pure spirit of christian morality ; let those of mature years, capable of appreciating the acuteness, the brilliant fancy, and sound reasoning of her literary compositions ; let the surviving few who shared her delightful and instructive conversation, bear witness that this monument records no exaggerated praise. ]40 LITERARY FLORETS. Oil Dr. Price's Monument, from the pen of the present Minister. TO THE MEMORY OF RICHARD PRICE, D.D., F.R.S., TWENTY- SIX YEARS MINISTER OF THIS CHAPEL; HORN AT TYNTON, GLAMORGANSHIRE, FEBRUARY 23rD. 1723; DIED AT HACKNEY, MIDDLESEX, APRIL 19TH, 1791. THEOLOGIAN, PHILOSOPHER, MATHEMATICIAN ; FRIEND TO FREEDOM AS TO VIRTUE ; BROTHER OF MAN ; LOVER OF TRUTH AS OF GOD ; HIS EMINENT TALENTS WERE MATCHED BY HIS INTEGRITY, SIMPLICITY, AND GOODNESS OF HEART ; HIS MORAL DIGNITY BY HIS PROFOUND HUMILITY. FP:W have been more useful in their GENERATION, OR MORE VALUED BY THE WISE AND GOOD ; NONE MORE PURE AND DISINTERESTED. HONOURED BE HIS NAME ! IMITATED HIS EXAMPLE*. The pew is pointed out in wliicli Mrs. Barbaiild sat on Sundays during the time that her husband officiated here, and (for some years after his de- cease) until her own death. And that the memory of Dr. Price is hehl in due honour where when living he was so celebrated, sufficiently appears from the inscription transferred to these pages. Samuel Rogers, Esq., banker, and author of that sweet and elegant poem " The Pleasures of Memory," is the surviving trustee of this place of LITERARY FLORETS. 147 worsliip^ and descended from a family for a series of years intimately connected with it. He was born in the stuccoed house (much older than from its exterior it -vrould appear to be) at the south-west corner of the Green. The founders of this Chapel, could they rise from their tombs, would probably be startled at the innovations made upon the severe style within as without of the original builcHng, — by the tablets just spoken of, by an organ, &c. &c. W"e say nothing of changes in doctrine, though they might regard them as still more important. So works Time, in these as in all other things. His works are food for thought. And the loftier the interests involved by the revolutions he eflFects, the greater the demand for "sieAving them with the eve of Christian charity. The evening is closing in, as, emerging from the Chapel, Ave stand between the two antique elms that centinel its front : the Green lies in almost solemn shade : we have seen all that is usuallv regarded as worth seeing at Stoke-Newington : and we return to London by the now nearest road, namely, that through the town of Isling- ton. 148 LTTERARY FLORETS. A CHARACTER UNDER TWO PHASES : " Founded on Fact." I. Edwin a Minor. A heavenly morn on Edwin smiled : The dews were fresh, the air was mild ; And, as the ardent Edwin roved, Arose the thoughts that most he loved : Thoughts the young bosom pure as his Must ever love, — a source of bliss Drawn from the earth, the breeze, the sky. When, ruddy from the orient, fly The day-star's heralds, all unfurled Their banners to relume a world. O ! his seems many a feeling high ; There's in his gait an ecstasy : And dreams of virtue and of worth, Mingling with all, in air or earth. Touched by the sunbeams' heightening glow. Build a bright heaven for mind below. See ! on that high ridge is his stand : O'er hundred plains he holds a hand ! While, far and wide, his looks pursue The landscape to its verge of blue. LITERARY FLORETS. 149 And, mark ! o'erwrouglit with rapture now. Uprises to liis lip a vow : It is that ne'er shall human sin To him seem fair such world within ! He spurns the thought of care, or stealth, Or coveting or grasping wealth ; So Adsioned does he long survey Each thing re-h\dng in the ray. Beneath the huge hill's brink, and far Sweeping its base, a sylvan bar. On which few day -beams yet could fall, The sombrer view was wild woods all : A billowy foreground, darkly green. Of leafy tops that wild wood scene ; Though, o'er those giant tops so stern, The roving eye did pleased discern The outstretched champaign, bathed in light. With meadows, streams, and corn-fields bright And there the hamlet's early smoke. Just curling from its chimneys, broke ; And there the noble's mansion stood. In park extending many a rood ; And there the hut, for peasant reared, Pown in some little dell appeared ; 150 LITERARY FLORETS. And distant towns lay wrapt in liaze, And hills beyond them opened ways To catch the blue line of the sea Skirting the long coast gloriously. Hard by, within a dewy vale. Where the dark woods did not prevail, Anear an umbered pathway's side, That clomb the upland's steepy pride. On verdant fare the lone ox feeding. Nor another object heeding, Stooped his gentle, quiet head. Undisturbed his stilly tread ; Save when some careless woodland boy. Bent little on the day's employ. Slackened his step that path along. To chaunt aloud his cottage song, And oft the idly gathered blade . (Laughing the while in childhood's glee) Flung to the light airs o'er his head. An image of simplicity. But, lo ! in that same vale, where stood. Fair sheltered by the neighbouring wood, A village, with its church so low The humble spire scarce topped the glow LITERARY FLORETS. 151 Tlie slant light of the morning flung The cottage attic panes among. Ah ! Edwin, yet, well pleased could see That village of his infancy ; Recall the peace of mind, and joy. Each dawning brought him when a boy ; And trace each scene of childhood there With heart unwrung by crime or care. Thought gaily he how many a tree Of that dark wood he\l climbed, to see The glittering vane upon the spire. Mantled as now in matin fire. Than his own wind-rocked bough no higher. Thought he how days had bv him run, All brilliant as their golden sun : The forenoons school-deprived of play, But oft an after hohdav. When, tired of frolic as of book, Retreating to a shady nook. On a sloping bank reposing. Sleep his eyelids gently closing. He dreamed, perchance, of mother dear, Or father Avhom he loved in fear. Of childish joy or childish tear. Light slumbering till some winged hum Of gnat or bee would, waking, come, To send him, ere the sunset, home. 152 LlTEllAllY FLORETS. 2. Edwin a Robber — and Suicide. ^Tis loveliest night : and that soft beam. In towns that sheds poetic stream On tiled roof and tui'ret stone. More sweetly, tranquilly, now shone On the low village, and the trees, And silvered spire Avith vane that flees In quick pale flashes from the breeze^ By Edwin at the hour of prime Beheld in happier bygone time. How lave the woods, and sleep, in light ! Even their nodding glooms to-night Seem all too fair to harbour ill ; And yet, from wild wood path, who climbs the dark side of the hill ? His wary track is lowly wound Beneath the ridge's moon-tipt round. His footsteps courting shade : He pauses — starts — looks down the dell ; Hark ! — it was but a sheep-cote bell, That tinkling miu^mur made. He gains the height, but deems too nigh The loveliness of Luna's eye ; Descending to the travelled road, A hedge-row covert won, and then no further strode. LITERARY FLORETS. ]5.'3 Who Edwin knew in earlier day, And marked while on life's morning way, Perchance had wondered when a youth, Wliose brow was clear as brow of truth ; Whose lightest mood seemed ever holy ; Who often wooed lone melancholy : A^Tiose mild warm look would still express Thought, and, not seldom, tenderness ; Whose ardent accents, too, did seem As stolen from heated poet's dream ; — Ay, such, perchance, had wondered when. Issuing from woodland path and glen, That selfsame youth, so changed, was seen. Desperate of hand and fierce of mien. His Hfe disporting on the cast Of the Road's venturous game at last. Little 'twould boot the boy to scan. To see if hopes so marred in man Were genuine promise of the flower That withered ere the ripening hour ; Little 'twould boot, unless some eye. Young as was Edwin's erst, should spy Some small resemblance in the page To what may mark his own green age. And learn — if he will deign to learn — That feelings, proudly prompt to spurn 154 LITERARY FLORETS. Vice, and high virtue laud and love, Have, haply, yet a time to prove. When, fairer far than they have painted. Bland vice shall smile, — nay, pure and sainted As virtue^s very self, appear, And virtue's borroAved vesture wear ; — Till every passion racks with every war, A.nd faint and fainter gleams each once-thought guiding star. But, questionless, dark years were gone, Laden with follies every one. With follies into sins that grew. And all sin's monster-madness knew, Ere Edwin's heart a change coiild bear So foul from what was once so fair ? Ah ! true ; his parents long had grieved ; They knew not now if Edwin lived : A distant city — virtue's grave To myriads more as Edwin brave In virtue's cause, as Edwin good With o'er -romantic rectitude — Had taught him many a crime to prove. Though his first fault had been but love. And Edwin's love was pure and high, As ever looked like piety. LITERARY FLORETS. 155 And say the blame, the after doom, Were hers whose scorn gave Edwin's gloom ; The doom for powers distorted, turned From right /or right that only bui-ned; For that wild vacancy of thought Her gay repulse in Edwin wrought ; — That vacancy whose deadly chill Opens the breast to good or ill. To aught will rouse, and warm, and fill ; — There were a fearful reckoning here JSIight teach the cold coquette to fear. Love-scorned, he pride's poor flag unfurled 'Mid that vain crowd men call the world : Pleasure, ere long, he leagued with pride ; Then \ice came quickly to their side : A fair one^ — passing fair was she. Though one light thoughts and vanity Had made what woman loathes to be — Enchained him ; and around him throng Men such as he must writhe among. And yet consorts with ; till, to choose. The power has flown, and to refuse. — He squanders with profusion ^dle ; Supports, by plunder and by spoil. * * * * Wliat foot so slow is on the road ? — The robber's ^dsage lit and glovred. 156 LITERARY FLORETS. Like tiger couching in liis lair. His keen eyes roll in redder glare ; And far into the dark he j)eers. As if he'd see the sound he hears. Then furious bounds he to the pathj Half felt, half feigned, his ready wrath. Whose are the footsteps now so near ? — The father's he has loved in fear ! He knows not that : the pistol's raised Against an old man, all amazed, Who yet resists the stern command. And braves the ruffian's strong armed hand. The ruffian storms — takes dreadful aim — Now shield him. Heaven ! from murder's shame ! A father's murder ! — ah ! 'tis done ! Yet no, there comes a saving one : — A mother's arm is on her son ! Surprised, perplexed, not knowing why, Base Edwin's hand stops shudderingly ; And a chill feeling on the three Makes dread their sudden company. A sable cloud had veiled the moon. Though riding at her highest noon ; Then 'twas no look of hers did reach So to the very heart of each ; And yet, upon the old man's neck The grasp, though fixed, is still ; the check LITERARY FLORETS. 157 Of that frail, trembling, female hand Stays the fell tube ; — and thus they stand. The black cloud parting from the moon, A flood of lustre next, full soon, To Edwin's soul sent scorching flame. For instant recognition came. The mother fell, with piercing shriek ; Words the poor father none could speak ; But rooted, stiff", he stared and stood, With quivering lip and curdling blood. While Edwin — ah ! the death-tube still Was in his hand, was at his will : To heaven he reared his anguished brow. To heaven — but not with holy vow ; For, ere the thought had time to flee. The trigger touched, he ceased to be. Proud sacrifice to proud remorse. No hallowed mound may deck his corse ; But rustic to the traveller tell The cross-road where he lies — and fell. 158 LITERARY FLORETS. CERTAIN FEATURES OF MODERN GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. I cannot but regard with sentiments which, doubtless^ many living architects woukl pronounce " flat heresie." I do not allude to the numerous barbarisms " in the building line " so well exposed by Mr. A. Welby Pugin in his " True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture/^ but to others which he has not exposed ; and, while on the subject, I will take leave to say that certain of this writer's own "true principles" are, as principles, incorrect. For an instance of a bar- barism and an affectation in one, which has escaped reprehension from Mr. P., albeit so well deserving of it, I quote the grotesque heads for corbels, reproduced, after the antique, in a large number of our new Gothic churches. Tliese heads have countenances distorted in every pos- sible manner, and can excite in the beholder none but ludicrous associations. Upon any " principle " can it be proper to ornament stone- work, devoted to a sacred object, in such a style The original emplojTuent of figures of this kind in Christian ecclesiastical structures, has been traced to the design of ridiculing the vices of the monks of the old times ; the churches in which they appear having been built, it is supposed, by V LITERARY FLORETS. 159 paLtons under the influence of the secular clergy, who were at feud with them of the monasteries, and who adopted this plan of bringing the latter into contempt. If the theory be a just one, and the figm*es in question did not wholly grow out of the gross taste of bygone ages, (Avhich I the rather suspect,) the practice, formerly, had a meaning : but now, as we have no vicious monks to ridicule, and as "ornaments" of this descrip- tion must be offensive to piety and pure-minded- ness, it would be as well, . methinks, to abstain from the imitation of them. To urge that the}'' constitute an essential feature of ancient eccle- siastical architecture, were a weak confounding of an accidental accessory with an essential ; and though there should be no valid objection to representations of the human head for corbels, need we contend that it must be wrong in churches to make them serious instead of laugh- able ? In his ^' Principles " Mr. Pugin is occasionally quite carried away by his amiably enthusiastic attachment to the description of architecture which he tells us, in so many words, is as perfect as the faith on which it is founded. I instance his views of buttresses in ecclesiastical structures, and of chimneys in domestic. No improvement 160 LITERARY FLORETS. of its first simple form, no elaborate elegance iii its decoration, can, to my mind, entirely relieve the buttress of its primitive rudeness of shape and clumsiness of conception. From first to last^ when least adorned or most, it is but a prop to the wall or roof of the building in which it is employed; and, however useful for strength, is not to be praised for beauty until, having been taught to " fly," it loses its first character of the prop in that of the arch in which it merges. Surely the " pi-inciple " is not now to be gain- said, that art best exhibits itself in hiding art ; and we can hardly err in applying that "prin- ciple" to the art oi propping a building. And, even in Mr. Pugin's spite. Sir Christopher Wren should be regarded as a greater artist in conceal- ing by exterior screens the supports which he found necessary to the walls of St. Paul's cathe- dral, than any Gothic architect ever was in dis- playing the buttresses which he discovered to be essential to the stability of his erections. The truth, I opine, is, that the Classic style in which St. Paul's is built admits of greater external beauty than the Gothic, while that nothing can excel the interiors of the latter for their aerial lightness mingled with sublimity. In domestic arch itectui'e Mr. Pugin defends LITERARY FLORETS. 161 that "very characteristic feature of the old col- legiate buildings, the positiou of the chimneys, whicK are made to project from the front ivalls of the buildings"! It is "very characteristic" of INIr. P., that one of his reasons for approving such a practice is that " the stacks of chimneys, so placed, " act as buttresses to the wall." Indeed they do ; and, to exhibit the full beauty of such "buttresses," let Mr. Pugin erect in these days a college, or square, or street, with all the chimneys " so placed." By such an arrangement, question- less, " the internal space usually occupied by chimney-stacks " would, as he argues, be "gained to the apartments:" and yet, I fear me, every occupant of such college, square, or street would look upon Mr. Pugin as exceedingly Gothic in his architectui'al fantasies. To do Mr. Pugin justice, he does not conceive of "all the irregularities in ancient^ architectiu-e" as " piu-posely designed ;" whereas many modern Goths (architects) seem to think they cannot execute a building in the old English style unless they, of set purpose, make it irregular. The "ins and outs," the "ups and downs," (to use Mr. P.'s own words) contrived by these gen- tlemen, when they give us a design for a church, a castellated mansion, or only an Elizabethan 162 LITERARY FLORETS. cottaji^e, are wonderful. They do not see that the irreguhu'ity which sometimes makes an old build- ing picturesque, is no beauty in the al)stract, but rather the reverse ; since umformity, not carried to excess, is, notwithstanding all that has been said to the contrary, one of the truest elements, in architecture, of the beautiful. They are un- aware that irregularity, for its own sake, is even more absurd than uniformity for its own sake, Avhile it is very considerably uglier. They forget that the old cathedrals and castles are vastly irregular, indeed, but chiefly because they were built piecemeal ; and that uniformity, instead of irregularity, may be generally seen to prevail over so much of them as was erected at one period. They forget that the single cathedral we possess which was built nearly at once — that of Salisbury — is regular beyond every other. For myself, I believe that a Gothic cathecbal as large as St. Paul's, executed by one master of his art, would possess as much uniformity as that superb building ; while that, though it could not rival it in external grace, it would internally be both more grand and beautiful. LITERARY FLORETS, 16.^ A PARALLEL OF COINCIDENCES AND CONTRASTS Behveen the Characters, Actions, and Fortunes of Cromwell, Protector of England, and Bonaparte, Emperor of France. COINCIDENCES. Bonaparte. Cromwell. Bonaparte was de- Cromwell was born scended from an ancient under very similar cir- and noble family, some- cumstances. what reduced in tlie persons of liis imme- diate progenitors. Bonaparte married Cromwell married^ early, and was as much rather earlier, a most attached as it was in estimable and valuable his nature to be to liis woman, whom he ten- Avife, (Josephine,) not- derly loved ; and was withstanding his sepa- "advised by his wife," paration from her upon agreeably to his own political motives ; con- words, in many of his suiting her on some most important affairs, momentous occasions, and recei\dng fi'om her advice which it had been well for him if he had 164 LITERARY FLORETS. Bonaparte. followed, together with many proofs of strong attachment. Bonaparte rose to distinction for military- talent chiefly by surpri- sals of his enemies, and by sudden and unex- pected strategic evolu- tions. Bonaparte's most de- cided military charac- teristics were impetuo- sity in the charge, and rapidity of advance against, or in pursuit of, an enemy. Bonaparte's genius Cromwell. Cromwell the same. Cromwell's the same. Cromwell was espe- was scarcely less con- cially remarked for the spicuous in his victories, same qualities, than in his creation of troops, — in the quick- ness with which he dis- ciplined his levies, ani- mated them to irresisti- ble courage, and attached LITERAKY FLOKETS. 1G5 Bonaparte. them enthusiastically to himself. Disgusted "v\dth the state of things in France, Bonaparte, at one pe- riod, seriously intended to transport himself to a distant and compara- tively barbarous country (Turkey.) Bonaparte's first step to sovereign authority was his dissolution, at the head of an armed force, of the Council of Five Hundred. Bonaparte, for a con- siderable period previ- ously to his becoming Emperor, possessedmore than regal power, under a title really translata- ble only into that of Dictator. Bonaparte's was a military usiu'patiou ; his Cromwell. Under the influence of a similar dissatisfac- tion, Cromwell had once actually embarked on board a vessel destined to sail from England to North America. Cromwell's, his disso- lution, similarly sup- ported, of the Long Parliament. Cromwell possessed equal sway, and, with- out the title of king, exercised exactly similar functions. Cromwell's situation and conduct the same 166 LITERARY FLORETS. Bonaparte. Cromwell. conduct of the govern- in each respect, raent was, almost neces- sarily therefore, essen- tially military. Established on the Cromwell did much throne, Bonaparte did for England in the same much to correct and respects; and his spirit improve the institutions of toleration was the and internal economy more praiseworthy, as of the country he go- his triumph over his verned: he was, besides, competitors Avas, in a distinguished by his great degree, that also wisely tolerant princi- of his peculiar religious pies in the article of sect, religion. Bonaparte was super- Cromwell, less conspi- stitious,having his lucky cuously, the same, and unlucky days, &c. CONTRASTS. Bonaparte was a fo- Cromwell was a native, reigneramongthe people and indisputably the who permitted him to first native in that age, become their despot. of the country he sub- jugated. Bonaparte, by flatter- B\it no arts of flat- LITERARY FLORETS. 107 Bonaparte. ing the national vanity of the French, and as- sisted by their national frivolity, Avithout much difficulty became iheir Emperor who had ex- pended milHons of the lives of their country- men, and destroyed a more than equal num- ber of the other inha- bitants of Eui'oi^e, in defence of Republica- nism. Bonaparte's afi'ections, his love to his first wife alone perhaps excepted, all centred in himself; the nicest of his impar- tial observers was hardly ever able to discover a smile of pleasure on his countenanance at wit- nessing the happiness of others, and scarcely Ci'omivell. tery, no appeals to pri- vate interest or pubHc spirit, nor even the clearest demonstrations of his intentions to- wards the public good, could induce the sturdv Enghsh repubHcans to confer on Cromwell his wished-f or title of King. Cromwell preserved to the last, in his do- mestic and private hours, the heart's kindliest charities; and (says one of his contemporaries, whose testimony is sup ported by many corro- borative facts,) " he was naturally compassionate towards objects in dis- 1G8 LITERARY FLORETS. Bondparte. tlie trace of a disposition to derive satisfaction from the prattle or the artless blandishments of childhood : while, as to all the sorrows and distresses of men — as to all that mass of misery his ambition heaped upon the face of Europe — he was " a man with- out a tear." Bonaparte tolerated all religions; but mainly from contempt for all, and because it was evi- dently his best and safest policy. Bonaparte, for the above reasons, professed all religions ; but his real god was Destiny, and his permanent faith Cromwell, tresse, even to an effe- minate measiu'e — he did exceed in tendernesse towards sufferers." Cromwell's toleration was at once the result of his sagacity, of his value for his own reli- gious principles, and of his sincere disinclina- tion to wound the con- sciences of others. -Cromwell, with all his ambition, and too frequent public hyjx)- crisy, was sincerely reli- gious as to his private LITERARY FLORETS. 169 Bonaparte. Cromwell. that of any country and domestic feelings, which should adopt him sentiments^ and con- fer its ruler. duct. Bonaparte, through- Cromwell eminently out his career, wanted possessed them both. two essentials to the character of a truly great man, — foresight and moderation. Bonaparte, from his Cromwell, till the age boyhood passionately of forty-three, had no addicted to the profes- thoughts of embarking sion of arms, was long in the military profes- considered a soldier sion ; yet he never, in without compeer in our the field any more than times ; but lived to find in the cabinet^ met his his conquerors. equal. Bonaparte's victories Cromwell's triumphs were almost uniformly were over armies of his achieved with forces very own countrymen ; over superior, either numeri- men equal, and^ at the cally, or in national en- commencement of his thusiasm, martial zeal, career, superior, in most or discipline — and very ofthese respects, to those frequently in all these whom he himself corn- points — to those of his manded. enemies. m 170 LITERARY FLORETS. Bonaparte. Bonaparte allowed the most licentious conduct in his army, towards the inhabitants of the coun- tries through which he passed, as a component part of his military system. Bonaparte, prodigal of blood, never regarded the lives of his soldiers. To him they were (in his own language) " ma- teriel'^ ''food for pow- der;" and if, in the case of his raw recruits, any considered them une- qual to Avithstand the fire of the enemy, his consolation was that " they would serve to ex- haust it." Bonaparte's whole tac- tics in his campaigns might almost have been comprehended in a word, Cromwell. How opposite was the system of Cromwell in this respect, will be seen by a very slight atten- tion to his history. Cromwell was, some- times, too prodigal of blood — but it was that of his enemies. His care never unnecessarily to expose his own men, is e\duced in the very small proportion of loss his victories usually cost him, on some occasions not amounting to the hundredth part of that suffered by the army he had opposed. Cromwell was an un- equalled tactician in his movements, whether for- ward or (as, in mihtary LITERARY FLORETS. 171 Bonaparte. Cromwell. — "Forward!" — hiscal- affairs, must sometimes culations in whether his be both politic and ne- troops could be made cessary) retrograde : and to advance, for a given he never obtained an ad- time, faster than the vantage by a concerted enemy's fire could de- sacrifice, stroy them. If he had an army on which, when in actual conflict, he could depend for thus advancing, and if the time required for ex- hausting his opponents thereby had not been miscalculated, the loss in lives of an enemy inferior in numbers, or their loss of energy if inferior in that quality, secured him the yio, tory.* * Bonaparte well illustrated this system in his last great strug- gle at Waterloo, where it was defeated by the simple constancy of British soldiers : for, that noblest of military virtues enabling them to stand their ground longer than he had conceived it possible for them to sustain the repetition of his attacks, the " en avant " m2 172 LITEEARY FLORETS. Bonaparte. Bonaparte, after at length nearly gi'^'ing himself up to a plan of warfare thus standing unconnected and alone, almost lost conception of the way to provide for, or of the method to con- duct, a retreat conse- quent ujion a disastrous engagement. Bonaparte suffered de- feat after defeat, when the revolutionary" fer- vours that had at first animated, and so often renewed, his armies, were extinct in them ; — when his numbers were only equal, and sometimes Avhen they were still su- perior, to those of his spirits of his men were exhausted, and with them his system itself. The British line had then only to advance, in order to obtain a victory, which the an-ival of the Prussians, it is true, alone enabled it to consummate. Cromwell. Cromweirs forecast was ever conspicuous : yet his proAdsion for, and conduct of, "retreats consequent upon disas- trous engagements" are unknown ; he never had occasion to give an exam- ple of them. Cromwell never was beaten. LITERARY FLORETS. 17-3 Bonaparte. enemies ; — or when his enemies, upon an equal- ity with the troops he led in every other res- pect, were superior to them in bodily strength or mental constancy. Bonaparte's warKke talents were confined to the conduct of an army : neither in his own per- son, nor by judgment in selecting his naval commanders, could he prevent the complete ex- tinguishment of the no- ble marine which, until his reign, was one grand source of power and prosperity to France. CromwelL Cromwell's genius was bounded by no particu- lar sphere : he conquered all who met him in the field, and, by his wisely- chosen admirals, over- came the Nelson* of his naval foes; restored to England the sovereignty of the seas that had been usurped by him ; and conferred upon the navy of his country a strength and lustre which, until his days, it never pos- sessed. * Van Tromp, who was successively defeated, and at last slain, by the English under the virtual sway of Cromwell — being soon after his dissolution of the Long Parliament. 174 LITERARY FLORETS. Bonaparte. Bonaparte, to his one great object latterly in ■sdew, the niin of the warlike greatness and the trade of England, (both of which, notwith- standing, during the con- tinuance of his power, never ceased to augment) entirely sacrificed the internal repose, and the " ships, colonies, and commerce," of France. To excuse Bonaparte^s territorial ambition, which congregated the vengeance of Europe upon his head, it has been urged that, haAdng mounted the throne as Cromwell. Cromwell did effec- tually humble the Avar- like greatness, and did well nigh ruin the trade of his countiy^s then most powerful commer- cial rival, Holland ; and yet, in the language of one on some occasions the most virulent of his slanderers, he made " trade to prosper, and, in a word, gentle peace to flourish, all over Eng- land." Cromwell also procured for us one of the most valuable of our colonial acquisitions, — Jamaica. Cromwell rose by his army, and his govern- ment was, in some re- spects, more military than even Bonaparte^s ; yet he obliged a body of soldiers more tm'bulent, LITERARY FLORETS. 175 Bonaparte. a military conqueror, and his being essentially a military government, he was obJiyed to employ the army, which was so conscious of his obliga- tions to it, abroad, to prevent the worse con- sequences of allowing its tui'bulent and im- ruly spirits to ferment through inactivity at home. By every other Euro- pean power, Bonaparte was feared and detested. Bonaparte^s court and cabinet Avere equally without principle, mo- rals, and religion. In the former all was athe- istical or lasci\ious; in the councils of the latter there appeared no per- ceptions of common jus- tice, no sense of the Cromwell. more conscious of their importance to their ge- neral and their country, and more disposed to take part in ciAil affaii's, than ever were Bona- parte's, to mingle innox- iously, and in all the calm of peaceful habits, with the general mass of his subjects. By every other Em'o- pean power, Cromwell was/ea?'ef/ and respected. Cromwell, on the con- trary, was in this respect truly an " Unparalleled iMonarch," tliat with him it was " impossible to become a coui'tier with- out religion,^' between the reality and the mere profession of Avhich he was one of the nicest of 176 LITERARY FLORETS. Bonaparte. being or the providence of a God. Under tlie influence of such exam- ples, a state of societ}^, which no luxurious re- velling in elegance and (plundered) art could reclaim from the just epithet (morally survey- ed) of barbarous, pre- vailed through and de- graded France. To sum up the cha- Cromwell. judges ; and that " who- soever looked to get pre- ferment at his court, religion must be brought with him, instead of mo- ney, for a place." Hon- esty and justice were the bases both of his foreign and domestic policy ; and while the gra\dty of his palace was "seasoned on occasion with pomp, state, and pleasantry," its unvarjdng air was that of "sobriety and decency/^ and, through- out England, "whether by really subtracting the fuel of luxury, or through fear of the an- cient laws now revived and put in execution, men^s manners, also, seemed to be reformed to the better." Cromwell was, bevond LITERARY FLORETS. 177 Bonaparte. Cromwell. racter of Bonaparte. He dispute^ tlie first genius had farmore genius than of his age; and he "was judgment : so little of at the same time pos- the latter was there in sessed of the soundest his composition, that, in judgment. His pur- the great majority of his poses not only existed operations, (latterly, at in wonderful variety, but least,) he seemed unequal each also was wonder- to any combination of fully multiform. He purposes. Plans, ad in- could pursue all at the finitum, it is true, were same moment — each afloat in his mind ; but either in "nhole or in he rarely appeared to part — adapt, modify, or possess the power, at alter either — Avhen any any single time, to do Avere momentarily de- otherwise than devote feated,Ayaspreparedwith, his whole soid and or could possess himself strength, even at the of, the requisites to their risk of destruction by a ultimate success — and failure, to the prosecu- he incurred loss or dis- tiou of but one. Now, grace by the inordinate to form a purpose is a pursuit of none. His mere effort of volition, — reign consisted in an good or bad, foolish or immense concatenation wise : but, at one and of purposes : it gave evi- the same time^ to com- dcnce of the most exalted 178 LITERARY FLORETS. Bonaparte. Cromwell. bine and pursue a variety genius in his plans, and of pui'poses, and those of the profoundest judg- purposes all great or ment in the mode of prudent, and all pursued their accomplishment, onlyto that point whence It was brilliant, solid, retreat, in case of failure, honourable, and useful; is practicable, — these are and promoted (so far as the proofs of consum- the unallayed passions mate judgment. Doubt- of the nation would per- less, however, Bona- mit) all that could really parte's most astonishing dignify himself, his coun- successes were the fruits try, and human-kind, of this very weakness (as it eventually proved to be) in his character ; for, led, or rather mis- led, by the brilHancy of an idea, he coukl af- • ford, upon his system, to further it with the whole force of his undi- vided intellect, which certainly was not small, and with all his physi- cal resources. To give the sum of the fortunes of Bonaparte LITERARY FLORETS. 179 and Cromwell. France and England, in tlieir greatest of revolutions, were each as a suddenly- opened and widely-destructive volcano, tlie erup- tive elements of wliich were, in the first, a com- paratively small portion of the true spiint of liberty, compounded with much disposition to licentiousness, anarchy, impiety, and false philo- sophy; and, in the latter, the ennobhng fires, long smothered, of desire for civil and rehgious freedom. These highly but oppositely gifted men each ascended, by the path of military renown, to the summit of the heading mass in the neigh- bourhood of which he was thrown; and each escaped the devastating streams which, rushing from the crater of a nation's wrath, surrounded him on his Avay. The eruptions ceasing, Bona- parte is seen daringly, and for a time firmly, standing on the most elevated peak of the Gallic mount, and that most glowing with the unnatural flare remaining even after the subsidence of its fires. There he beckons to him the eagles of old Eome ; and, from the same heathen empire, whose power and extent he would have France emulate, calls Fate to wait upon his nod. He is obeyed : — but, at length, his eagles cower in the dust ; Fate refuses longer to be, commanded by him; the unreal brightness of the pinnacle he treads for 180 LITERARY FLORETS. ever fades ; and lie is hurled from it into an abyss, M^liose gloomy depth corresponds with the height to which he rose. But Cromwell, on the apex of his burning island-hill, quenches its destructive flames, restores its verdure, and builds a throne on which he sits serene, and in the light of his own gi'eatness; thence (too vainly) despatches messengers of love, peace, mercy, equity, to heal the heats remaining at the core of the so recently distracted land : — there, while, by Avielding with one hand Britain^s peculiar thunders, he awes the nations, he, with the other, extends to them the Christian dove; and at length, after years of pros- perous and enlightened sway, makes his death- seat the throne he had erected. In conclusion, it need be scarcely said that Cromwell was, almost beyond comparison, a greater and more estimable character than Bonaparte. Mankind do, sooner or later, make a " good report" of things worthy to be so reported of. The world is long, sometimes, in estimating merit rightly, but is pretty sure, in the end, to accord its approbation to the deserving. Too often, it is true, the wreaths that ought to have encircled the brows of living men, the eminent of their race LITERARY FLORETS. 181 for mental and virtuous attainments, have been twined only for their monumental effigies; but, once placed on them, they have preserved an imperishable freshness. Milton's bays grow greener with the touch of time. Newton's name shines like the stars Avith which, while he was upon earth, he held immortal converse. Nature spoke by Shakspeare when he lived, and mankind have since taken care that she shall speak by him for ever. Whence Ave may fairly infer that the world's ultimate judgment is, in most things, correct, and should be regarded by every man of sense accordingly. Leigh Hunt gives an excellent rule in the words " good must seem good as well as be.'' It is a rule, too, which applies to the ''seeming'' of polite- ness equally with that of moral worth. Neglect of the forms of covu'tesy, while the soul within is courteous, is the same in nature, though not so pernicious in the effects, as neglect of the appear- ances of Aii-tue by truly -virtuous persons. In both cases, the reality may lose much through the non-mauifestatiou of the resemblance. Reputa- tion has been often sacrificed to a slight contempt of public opinion ; and the heart Avhich is good, and therefore courteous, to its core, may look 182 LITERARY FLORETS. both bad and ungracious tlirougli failing to put on some mere conventionality of behaviour. THE " NATURAL MAn" 's THOUGHTS. I am : was born : must die : and tlien — ay, then — Either be nothing, or I know not what. Mv storv, so soon told, is that of millions That were, and are, and will be. Let me think. This is my sum of knowledge of myself : What know I of this walk, home, prison, tomb, The A^sible world around me ? ^Tis a sphere (So tell my fellows who have traced its round. Or learned its wonders) that, to nought attached, Rolls on, self-pendent, through a measureless void. And lo ! in brightness travelling, yon lord Of light who makes the day. When mystic night. Solemn, and sweetly sad, to meditation Calls in the powers of thought, I mark an orb Less lustrous, but how beauteous ! tip the gloom Of those stern trees that guard the sleeping hills. Then sail aloft, all helmless, and alone. Alone ! ^tis not so. See the orbs on orbs. That gleam or glitter through the depths of blue. Sending their rays from distances too vast For eye to trace, or mind to contemplate ; And all as greeting, with a smile of love. LITERARY FLORETS. 183 One Avho woidcl know and love them; wlio would ask (Since they look eldest of tlie things that are) When life has passed if he shall see them still, Or see things yet more bright, and lovelier, or Sleep, sleep for ever in dark nothingness. Is there aught answers to that question ? speaks One of those intelligent-seeming stars ? Replies yon soft moon that looks pitying down ? Responds a thing within the cope of sky ? No ; silence' self, methiuks, has turned a star. And rules the rest, and signs them to be dimib. O, then, my kindred earth ! speak thou to me. O, speak, ye solemn hills ! ye reverend trees, jSTow thrilled with holy light ! ye plains, ye streams. That lie in lustre and in beauty ! speak. Or ye, my fellow breathing men ! or ye. That of my human form were once, but are not. For Death has told you all ! speak from the sod. Or from your paths of au', or from youi" bliss. Or even from your torments, speak to me. I sicken for the truth : the truth reveal. THE " SPIRITUAL MAN"^S REPLY. Thy answer 's from the Cross, the Cross alone. On Calvary see " the Way, the Truth, the Life " Suspended, to di'aw all men to himself : 181- LITERARY FLORETS. The Way to Heaven, the Truth of God, the Life Eternal, — ^these are there, and may be thine. The Gospel Record tells thee all, and lights Thy path on this dull earth more than a sun. Read ; and the lesson learn that thou wert born To live well here, and then for ever live : That every grave will render up its dead : That judgment shall proclaim the righteous blest Time without end : that suns and stars may come To chaos, darkness, or nonentity. But an immortal life is given thee. Which it is thine to make immortal bliss. Look, then, to Jesus. So thou wilt have peace. Calm thoughts, bright hopes, and faith's secure repose Upon the promise of its Father-God. Self-Energy is the true life of a man. To think by other men's thoughts, is no true living thinking ; to believe by other men's belief, is no true living faith. The mind must, by its own independent exertions, seek, and, so far as its native powers will enable it, arrive at, the modes and causes of the truth of those propositions it receives as truths, or, substantially, it will think and believe nothing. Substantially, neither will the propositions exist for it, nor it for them. They LITERARY FLORETS. 185 will be nonentities^ and it will only di-eam of under- standing them. The Apostle Paul commends to Christian medi- tation " whatsoever things are lovely." And we may see the philosophy of this — St. Paul was a great philosopher — if we notice how the pure love of the " lovely " operates in very infancy. The colours of a flower, the shine of an ornament, open a chikFs heart while they light up its smile, and make it more susceptible than before of moral impressions. And, through life, the love of the " lovely," for its own pure sake, has a humanizing tendency, is akin to moral feeling; as every man may perceive, who is just to the voice in his bosom when a fine natural prospect is Ijefore him. How out of harmony looks wickedness with a "lovely" scene of earth, as it lies in the calm sunshine ! How contrasts the blackness of sin with the bright-blue arch of heaven, when not a cloud obstructs its seeming survey of what man is doing beneath its beauty ! How doubly foul seems a foul deed, if witnessed by a host of glo- rious stars, and by the soft moon, whose meek, soul - penetrating light might charm the very murderer from his purpose ! And so it is with the productions of art, when genius (the creator next N 186 LITERARY FLORETS. to God) is allied with her. And so it is with the lofty works of mind, whether they be words that will live and breathe while the world rolls, or achievements in science that make men mii^acles to their fellows. They all are " lovely ; " and the sense of their loveliness is an enemy to sin. PERSEVERANCE, AN ALLEGORY. Read at the house of Mrs. Simons, to a Meeting of the New- ington-Green Conversation Society. — Subject for the evening, " Perseverance." Perseverance was the child of Industry and Faith. The exertions of Industry were required even in Eden, " to dress it and to keep it ;" but they were light labours, and their own reward. It was not till " the world was all before" Industry, that he sought a helpmate, to cheer his toils, and indicate their futiu-e recompence. He found one when he found Faith ; and their daughter was Perseverance. From that time Faith has re - invigorated Industry under his self-imposed tasks, or has pointed out worthier ones, and Perseverance has enabled him to complete both. Industry first became a Shepherd. But he made little of it tiU Faith told him there were other, and, as it might prove, richer pastures for his flocks^ beyond LITERARY FLORETS. 187 the passes of the mountains at whose feet he had hitherto fed them ; and Perseverance, leading the way, conducted him to sunnier vales, and along the banks of brighter waters, by the aids of which he soon quadrupled his stock. But he tired of the pastoral life, and would be a Hunter. In this new occupation small was his success, till Faith whispered what would be the residts of patient watchfulness for, and untiring pui'suit of, his prey, with courage to attack, or stratagem to ensnare it ; in all which Perseverance was more than his right hand. He next grew agricul- Tt/RAL : and, though he had energy enough, it was ridiculous to see the mere scratches he drew upon the soil, wherein to sow his seed, till Faith said to him "Dig deep; the increase of the ground lies low." He sighed over the thought, tni Perseverance handled his spade, and, soon after, guided his plough; when his furrows brought forth their hundred-fold. Com- merce now engaged his attention. He began to exchange his cattle and his corn for the other products of the country he inhabited. But he dreamed not that there were other countries, over the broad waters that skirted the lands he culti- vated, with which also he might traffic, till Faith one day addressed him thus : " As surely as these N 2 188 LITERARY FLORETS. waves Avasli the shore on which we stand, they wash different and distant shores, occupied by as different nations. Pass the waters ; trade with those nations ; and the wealth of the world will flow into your coffers," At which words, Industry hardly knew whether to be more pleased or astounded. When Faith again remarked, " As surely as wood is lighter than water, and as the wind wafts whatever will float upon the liquid element, so surely might you convey your stores upon the bosom of that element to strange lands, and bring back whatever their inhabitants have stored up in them." He hesitated; nay, he trembled. When Perseverance, fired bv Faith's ideas, first launched a tree ; then made of many trees a raft ; and finally became a ship-builder, having step by step mastered all difficulties through learning the mysteries of the oar, the sail, and the rudder. Then, taking the helm, she steered, while Faith laid down the course by the sun and stars ; and Industry acquired riches, never before calculated or heard of, as a Mer- chant. And so — to drop the allegory — it has ever been in the world's history. By such means Industry has had success in all things. Its first steps were ever founded on belief in greater goofls than it possessed, and its progress has been LITERARY FLORETS. 189 proportioned to its constancy in tlie labour neces- sary to obtain them. Nothing great has been achieved without Industry ; but neither has Industry achieved anything great without Faith and Perseverance. Faith told the first circum- navigator that, since the world was round, if he sailed on from a given point he must ultimately come back to it again; and Perseverance, catch- ing at the hint, led him the circuit of the globe, with only a few planks between him and the depths of the oceans. Faith points all exertion to some object, and Perseverance brings it within grasp. Milton believed himself capable of poetic strains which, if men once heard, they "would not willingly let die;" and, though he became old, and blind, and poor. Perseverance drew them from his brain, to elevate mankind for ever. Newton believed in the possibility of his reading one day the true laws of the heavenly bodies; and by Perseverance he revealed those laws, and established them by demonstration. All the acquisitions of talent and genius, of science and art, of manufactures and trade, of research and learning, — of religion itself, — must be made in the same manner. In all of them Faith must give an object to Industry, and Perseverance must supply the mode of accomplishing it. The smallest amount of useful knowledge, — of any- 190 LITERARY FLORETS. thing useful, — is obtainable in no other way ; and the due pursuit of it Avill secure the greatest. Faith in the real, thovigh it may be hidden, worth of human nature, will alone stimulate Christian Industry properly to toil for its regeneration ; and Perseverance alone will render that toil triumphant. May Industry, Faith, and Perse- verance unite in that noblest of toils for the noblest of objects, until Christian truth and Christian practice prevail over the earth as the waters cover the place of the sea ! Although, both in Politics and Theology, there must ever be a right side and a wrong, it would appear that there is generally as much honest intention on the wrong side as on the right. Which may arise from the circumstances, that few have the ability to reach abstract right and wrong upon such subjects ; and that those who have, possess it through peculiarity of mental constitu- tion rather than peculiar integrity of purpose. Disregard of self, to a large extent, and in a vast variety of circumstances, is positively requi- site to human happiness. The whole genius of Christianity, as it concerns the good of man in connection Avith his fellow men, lies in this truth. Worldl}^ policy (as mistaken as it is worldly) may LITERARY FLORETS. 191 dictate, " Look to thyself; let all tliy paius be to serve thyself; and, above all things, accumulate, accumulate." Christianity cries, " Look to others ; lay thyself out to serve others; and, above all things, communicate, communicate." And, strange as it may sound to the mere worldling, the happy man is he who follows Christianity. Man Kves for man, and not himself, when he lives for the objects really most calculated to advance his own refinement, virtue, and felicity. According to our several circumstances, and the progress of events, it may be our time, oiu' talents, our money, the labour of our hands, or the simple sympathies of ovir hearts, that avc are called upon to surrender up, in such and such degrees, to others' welfare. But however this be, Ave must be self-devoting, if as Christians we would be consistent, and if we would take to ourselves the true dignity and joy of our himianity. RELIGIOUS SATISFACTION. There is light round my head since I learned The truths which the Perfect One taught : There is peace in my heart since I earned The treasure which cannot be boug-ht. *■&' All nature makes music for me ; 'Tis sunshine wherever I rove ; 192 LITERARY FLORETS. I could love er'ry form that I see ; I could wish my whole being were love. Life has sorrows and cares^ but I seek That they soften, not shatter, my breast ; T\Tiile faith wins her Adctory meek. And hope points the haven of rest. Life has joys — modest raptures — below. If its aim but be constancy's crown ; Though mortality's griefs it must know, Till each mortal scene's over and gone. Earth's pilgrims may not be too blest. Or they cease ever upward to move ; But, following of all paths the best, Jesus beckons them to him above. Jf rom heeding not each hour of time to spend fi n fear of Thee who every hour dost lend, N ow save me, God ! for thy sweet mercy's sake ; C mproving every occupation make ; § hield me from sin ; and home to heaven me take. LONDON : FISHER, SON, AND CO., PRINTERS. SUBSCRIBERS' NAMES. Aspland, Rev. R. B., M.A., Dukinfield Balmer, John, St. John Street Road Bateman, Joseph, LL.D., East India Road Bishop, Rev. Francis, Exeter Bowring, John, LL. D., M. 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