B---- it was, I think, who suggested this subject, as well as the
defence of Guy Faux, which I urged him to execute. As, however, he
would undertake neither, I suppose I must do both--a task for which he
would have been much fitter, no less from the temerity than the
felicity of his pen--
"Never so sure our rapture to create
As when it touch'd the brink of all we hate."
Compared with him I shall, I fear, make but a commonplace piece of
business of it; but I should be loth the idea was entirely lost, and
besides I may avail myself of some hints of his in the progress of it.
I am sometimes, I suspect, a better reporter of the ideas of other
people than expounder of my own. I pursue the one too far into paradox
or mysticism; the others I am not bound to follow farther than I like,
or than seems fair and reasonable.
On the question being started, A---- said, "I suppose the two first
persons you would choose to see would be the two greatest names in
English literature, Sir Isaac Newton and Mr. Locke?" In this A----, as
usual, reckoned without his host. Every one burst out a laughing at
the expression of B----'s face, in which impatience was restrained by
courtesy. "Yes, the greatest names," he stammered out hastily, "but
they were not persons--not persons."--"Not persons?" said A----,
looking wise and foolish at the same time, afraid his triumph might be
premature. "That is," rejoined B----, "not characters, you know. By
Mr. Locke and Sir Isaac Newton, you mean the Essay on the Human
Understanding, and the _Principia_, which we have to this day. Beyond
their contents there is nothing personally interesting in the men. But
what we want to see any one _bodily_ for, is when there is something
peculiar, striking in the individuals, more than we can learn from
their writings, and yet are curious to know. I dare say Locke and
Newton were very like Kneller's portraits of them. But who could paint
Shakspeare?"--"Ay," retorted A----, "there it is; then I suppose you
would prefer seeing him and Milton instead?"--"No," said B----,
"neither. I have seen so much of Shakspeare on the stage and on
book-stalls, in frontispieces and on mantle-pieces, that I am quite
tired of the everlasting repetition: and as to Milton's face, the
impressions that have come down to us of it I do not like; it is too
starched and puritanical; and I should be afraid of losing some of the
manna of his poetry in the leaven of his countenance and the
precisian's band and gown."--"I shall guess no more," said A----. "Who
is it, then, you would like to see 'in his habit as he lived,' if you
had your choice of the whole range of English literature?" B---- then
named Sir Thomas Brown and Fulke Greville, the friend of Sir Philip
Sidney, as the two worthies whom he should feel the greatest pleasure
to encounter on the floor of his apartment in their nightgown and
slippers, and to exchange friendly greeting with them. At this A----
laughed outright, and conceived B---- was jesting with him; but as no
one followed his example, he thought there might be something in it,
and waited for an explanation in a state of whimsical suspense. B----
then (as well as I can remember a conversation that passed twenty
years ago--how time slips!) went on as follows: "The reason why I
pitch upon these two authors is, that their writings are riddles, and
they themselves the most mysterious of personages. They resemble the
soothsayers of old, who dealt in dark hints and doubtful oracles; and
I should like to ask them the meaning of what no mortal but
themselves, I should suppose, can fathom. There is Dr. Johnson, I have
no curiosity, no strange uncertainty about him: he and Boswell
together have pretty well let me into the secret of what passed
through his mind. He and other writers like him are sufficiently
explicit: my friends, whose repose I should be tempted to disturb,
(were it in my power) are implicit, inextricable, inscrutable.
'And call up him who left half-told
The story of Cambuscan bold.'
"When I look at that obscure but gorgeous prose-composition (the
_Urn-burial_) I seem to myself to look into a deep abyss, at the
bottom of which are hid pearls and rich treasure; or it is like a
stately labyrinth of doubt and withering speculation, and I would
invoke the spirit of the author to lead me through it. Besides, who
would not be curious to see the lineaments of a man who, having
himself been twice married, wished that mankind were propagated like
trees! As to Fulke Greville, he is like nothing but one of his own
'Prologues spoken by the ghost of an old king of Ormus,' a truly
formidable and inviting personage: his style is apocalyptical,
cabalistical, a knot worthy of such an apparition to untie; and for
the unravelling a passage or two, I would stand the brunt of an
encounter with so portentous a commentator!"--"I am afraid in that
case," said A----, "that if the mystery were once cleared up, the
merit might be lost;"--and turning to me, whispered a friendly
apprehension, that while B---- continued to admire these old crabbed
authors, he would never become a popular writer. Dr. Donne was
mentioned as a writer of the same period, with a very interesting
countenance, whose history was singular, and whose meaning was often
quite as _uncomeatable_, without a personal citation from the dead, as
that of any of his contemporaries. The volume was produced; and while
some one was expatiating on the exquisite simplicity and beauty of the
portrait prefixed to the old edition, A---- got hold of the poetry,
and exclaiming "What have we here?" read the following:--
"'Here lies a She-Sun and a He-Moon there,
She gives the best light to his sphere,
Or each is both and all, and so
They unto one another nothing owe.'"
There was no resisting this, till B----, seizing the volume, turned to
the beautiful "Lines to his Mistress," dissuading her from
accompanying him abroad, and read them with suffused features and a
faltering tongue.
"'By our first strange and fatal interview,
By all desires which thereof did ensue,
By our long starving hopes, by that remorse
Which my words' masculine persuasive force
Begot in thee, and by the memory
Of hurts, which spies and rivals threaten'd me,
I calmly beg. But by thy father's wrath,
By all pains which want and divorcement hath,
I conjure thee; and all the oaths which I
And thou have sworn to seal joint constancy
Here I unswear, and overswear them thus,
Thou shalt not love by ways so dangerous.
Temper, oh fair Love! love's impetuous rage,
Be my true mistress still, not my feign'd Page;
I'll go, and, by thy kind leave, leave behind
Thee, only worthy to nurse in my mind.
Thirst to come back; oh, if thou die before,
My soul from other lands to thee shall soar.
Thy (else Almighty) beauty cannot move
Rage from the seas, nor thy love teach them love,
Nor tame wild Boreas' harshness; thou hast read
How roughly he in pieces shivered
Fair Orithea, whom he swore he lov'd.
Fall ill or good, 'tis madness to have prov'd
Dangers unurg'd: Feed on this flattery,
That absent lovers one with th' other be.
Dissemble nothing, not a boy; nor change
Thy body's habit, nor mind; be not strange
To thyself only. All will spy in thy face
A blushing, womanly, discovering grace.
Richly cloth'd apes are called apes, and as soon
Eclips'd as bright we call the moon the moon.
Men of France, changeable cameleons,
Spittles of diseases, shops of fashions,
Love's fuellers, and the rightest company
Of players, which upon the world's stage be,
Will quickly know thee.... O stay here! for thee
England is only a worthy gallery,
To walk in expectation; till from thence
Our greatest King call thee to his presence.
When I am gone, dream me some happiness,
Nor let thy looks our long hid love confess,
Nor praise, nor dispraise me; nor bless, nor curse
Openly love's force, nor in bed fright thy nurse
With midnight startings, crying out, Oh, oh,
Nurse, oh, my love is slain, I saw him go,
O'er the white Alps alone; I saw him, I,
Assail'd, fight, taken, stabb'd, bleed, fall, and die.
Augur me better chance, except dread Jove
Think it enough for me to have had thy love.'"
Some one then inquired of B---- if we could not see from the window
the Temple-walk in which Chaucer used to take his exercise; and on his
name being put to the vote, I was pleased to find that there was a
general sensation in his favour in all but A----, who said something
about the ruggedness of the metre, and even objected to the quaintness
of the orthography. I was vexed at this superficial gloss,
pertinaciously reducing everything to its own trite level, and asked
"if he did not think it would be worth while to scan the eye that had
first greeted the Muse in that dim twilight and early dawn of English
literature; to see the head, round which the visions of fancy must
have played like gleams of inspiration or a sudden glory; to watch
those lips that "lisped in numbers, for the numbers came"--as by a
miracle, or as if the dumb should speak? Nor was it alone that he had
been the first to tune his native tongue (however imperfectly to
modern ears); but he was himself a noble, manly character, standing
before his age and striving to advance it; a pleasant humourist
withal, who has not only handed down to us the living manners of his
time, but had, no doubt, store of curious and quaint devices, and
would make as hearty a companion as Mine Host of Tabard. His interview
with Petrarch is fraught with interest. Yet I would rather have seen
Chaucer in company with the author of the Decameron, and have heard
them exchange their best stories together, the Squire's Tale against
the Story of the Falcon, the Wife of Bath's Prologue against the
Adventures of Friar Albert. How fine to see the high mysterious brow
which learning then wore, relieved by the gay, familiar tone of men of
the world, and by the courtesies of genius. Surely, the thoughts and
feelings which passed through the minds of these great revivers of
learning, these Cadmuses who sowed the teeth of letters, must have
stamped an expression on their features, as different from the moderns
as their books, and well worth the perusal. Dante," I continued, "is
as interesting a person as his own Ugolino, one whose lineaments
curiosity would as eagerly devour in order to penetrate his spirit,
and the only one of the Italian poets I should care much to see. There
is a fine portrait of Ariosto by no less a hand than Titian's; light,
Moorish, spirited, but not answering our idea. The same artist's large
colossal profile of Peter Aretine is the only likeness of the kind
that has the effect of conversing with 'the mighty dead,' and this is
truly spectral, ghastly, necromantic." B---- put it to me if I should
like to see Spenser as well as Chaucer; and I answered without
hesitation, "No; for that his beauties were ideal, visionary, not
palpable or personal, and therefore connected with less curiosity
about the man. His poetry was the essence of romance, a very halo
round the bright orb of fancy; and the bringing in the individual
might dissolve the charm. No tones of voice could come up to the
mellifluous cadence of his verse; no form but of a winged angel could
vie with the airy shapes he has described. He was (to our
apprehensions) rather 'a creature of the element, that lived in the
rainbow and played in the plighted clouds,' than an ordinary mortal.
Or if he did appear, I should wish it to be as a mere vision, like one
of his own pageants, and that he should pass by unquestioned like a
dream or sound--
----'_That_ was Arion crown'd:
So went he playing on the wat'ry plain!'"
Captain C. muttered something about Columbus, and M. C. hinted at the
Wandering Jew; but the last was set aside as spurious, and the first
made over to the New World.
"I should like," said Miss D----, "to have seen Pope talking with
Patty Blount; and I _have_ seen Goldsmith." Every one turned round to
look at Miss D----, as if by so doing they too could get a sight of
Goldsmith.
"Where," asked a harsh croaking voice, "was Dr. Johnson in the years
1745-6? He did not write anything that we know of, nor is there any
account of him in Boswell during those two years. Was he in Scotland
with the Pretender? He seems to have passed through the scenes in the
Highlands in company with Boswell many years after 'with lack-lustre
eye,' yet as if they were familiar to him, or associated in his mind
with interests that he durst not explain. If so, it would be an
additional reason for my liking him; and I would give something to
have seen him seated in the tent with the youthful Majesty of Britain,
and penning the Proclamation to all true subjects and adherents of the
legitimate Government."
"I thought," said A----, turning short round upon B----, "that you of
the Lake School did not like Pope?"--"Not like Pope! My dear sir, you
must be under a mistake--I can read him over and over for ever!"--"Why
certainly, the 'Essay on Man' must be a masterpiece."--"It may be so,
but I seldom look into it."--"Oh! then it's his Satires you
admire?"--"No, not his Satires, but his friendly Epistles and his
compliments."--"Compliments! I did not know he ever made any."--"The
finest," said B----, "that were ever paid by the wit of man. Each of
them is worth an estate for life--nay, is an immortality. There is
that superb one to Lord Cornbury:
'Despise low joys, low gains;
Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains;
Be virtuous, and be happy for your pains.'
"Was there ever more artful insinuation of idolatrous praise? And then
that noble apotheosis of his friend Lord Mansfield (however little
deserved), when, speaking of the House of Lords, he adds--
'Conspicuous scene! another yet is nigh,
(More silent far) where kings and poets lie;
Where Murray (long enough his country's pride)
Shall be no more than Tully or than Hyde!'
"And with what a fine turn of indignant flattery he addresses Lord
Bolingbroke--
'Why rail they then, if but one wreath of mine,
Oh! all accomplish'd St. John, deck thy shrine?'
"Or turn," continued B----, with a slight hectic on his cheek and his
eye glistening, "to his list of early friends:
'But why then publish? Granville the polite,
And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write;
Well-natured Garth inflamed with early praise,
And Congreve loved and Swift endured my lays:
The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read,
Ev'n mitred Rochester would nod the head;
And St. John's self (great Dryden's friend before)
Received with open arms one poet more.
Happy my studies, if by these approved!
Happier their author, if by these beloved!
From these the world will judge of men and books,
Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks.'"
Here his voice totally failed him, and throwing down the book, he
said, "Do you think I would not wish to have been friends with such a
man as this?"
"What say you to Dryden?"--"He rather made a show of himself, and
courted popularity in that lowest temple of Fame, a coffee-house, so
as in some measure to vulgarize one's idea of him. Pope, on the
contrary, reached the very _beau ideal_ of what a poet's life should
be; and his fame while living seemed to be an emanation from that
which was to circle his name after death. He was so far enviable (and
one would feel proud to have witnessed the rare spectacle in him) that
he was almost the only poet and man of genius who met with his reward
on this side of the tomb, who realized in friends, fortune, the esteem
of the world, the most sanguine hopes of a youthful ambition, and who
found that sort of patronage from the great during his lifetime which
they would be thought anxious to bestow upon him after his death. Read
Gay's verses to him on his supposed return from Greece, after his
translation of Homer was finished, and say if you would not gladly
join the bright procession that welcomed him home, or see it once more
land at Whitehall-stairs."--"Still," said Miss D----, "I would rather
have seen him talking with Patty Blount, or riding by in a
coronet-coach with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu!"
E----, who was deep in a game of piquet at the other end of the room,
whispered to M. C. to ask if Junius would not be a fit person to
invoke from the dead. "Yes," said B----, "provided he would agree to
lay aside his mask."
We were now at a stand for a short time, when Fielding was mentioned
as a candidate: only one, however, seconded the proposition.
"Richardson?"--"By all means, but only to look at him through the
glass-door of his back-shop, hard at work upon one of his novels (the
most extraordinary contrast that ever was presented between an author
and his works), but not to let him come behind his counter lest he
should want you to turn customer, nor to go upstairs with him, lest he
should offer to read the first manuscript of Sir Charles Grandison,
which was originally written in eight and twenty volumes octavo, or
get out the letters of his female correspondents, to prove that Joseph
Andrews was low."
There was but one statesman in the whole of English history that any
one expressed the least desire to see--Oliver Cromwell, with his fine,
frank, rough, pimply face, and wily policy;--and one enthusiast, John
Bunyan, the immortal author of the Pilgrim's Progress. It seemed that
if he came into the room, dreams would follow him, and that each
person would nod under his golden cloud, "nigh-sphered in Heaven," a
canopy as strange and stately as any in Homer.
Of all persons near our own time, Garrick's name was received with the
greatest enthusiasm, who was proposed by J. F----. He presently
superseded both Hogarth and Handel, who had been talked of, but then
it was on condition that he should act in tragedy and comedy, in the
play and the farce, Lear and Wildair and Abel Drugger. What a _sight
for sore eyes_ that would be! Who would not part with a year's income
at least, almost with a year of his natural life, to be present at it?
Besides, as he could not act alone, and recitations are unsatisfactory
things, what a troop he must bring with him--the silver-tongued Barry,
and Quin, and Shuter and Weston, and Mrs. Clive and Mrs. Pritchard, of
whom I have heard my father speak as so great a favourite when he was
young! This would indeed be a revival of the dead, the restoring of
art; and so much the more desirable, as such is the lurking scepticism
mingled with our overstrained admiration of past excellence, that
though we have the speeches of Burke, the portraits of Reynolds, the
writings of Goldsmith, and the conversation of Johnson, to show what
people could do at that period, and to confirm the universal testimony
to the merits of Garrick; yet, as it was before our time, we have our
misgivings, as if he was probably after all little better than a
Bartlemy-fair actor, dressed out to play Macbeth in a scarlet coat and
laced cocked-hat. For one, I should like to have seen and heard with
my own eyes and ears. Certainly, by all accounts, if any one was ever
moved by the true histrionic _aestus_, it was Garrick. When he followed
the Ghost in Hamlet, he did not drop the sword, as most actors do
behind the scenes, but kept the point raised the whole way round, so
fully was he possessed with the idea, or so anxious not to lose sight
of his part for a moment. Once at a splendid dinner-party at Lord
----'s, they suddenly missed Garrick, and could not imagine what was
become of him, till they were drawn to the window by the convulsive
screams and peals of laughter of a young negro boy, who was rolling on
the ground in an ecstasy of delight to see Garrick mimicing a
turkey-cock in the court-yard, with his coat-tail stuck out behind,
and in a seeming flutter of feathered rage and pride. Of our party
only two persons present had seen the British Roscius; and they seemed
as willing as the rest to renew their acquaintance with their old
favourite.
We were interrupted in the hey-day and mid-career of this fanciful
speculation, by a grumbler in a corner, who declared it was a shame to
make all this rout about a mere player and farce-writer, to the
neglect and exclusion of the fine old dramatists, the contemporaries
and rivals of Shakspeare. B---- said he had anticipated this objection
when he had named the author of Mustapha and Alaham; and out of
caprice insisted upon keeping him to represent the set, in preference
to the wild hair-brained enthusiast Kit Marlowe; to the sexton of St.
Ann's, Webster, with his melancholy yew-trees and death's-heads; to
Decker, who was but a garrulous proser; to the voluminous Heywood; and
even to Beaumont and Fletcher, whom we might offend by complimenting
the wrong author on their joint productions. Lord Brook, on the
contrary, stood quite by himself, or in Cowley's words, was "a vast
species alone." Some one hinted at the circumstance of his being a
lord, which rather startled B----, but he said a _ghost_ would perhaps
dispense with strict etiquette, on being regularly addressed by his
title. Ben Jonson divided our suffrages pretty equally. Some were
afraid he would begin to traduce Shakspeare, who was not present to
defend himself. "If he grows disagreeable," it was whispered aloud,
"there is G---- can match him." At length, his romantic visit to
Drummond of Hawthornden was mentioned, and turned the scale in his
favour.
B---- inquired if there was any one that was hanged that I would
choose to mention? And I answered, Eugene Aram.[32] The name of the
"Admirable Crichton" was suddenly started as a splendid example of
_waste_ talents, so different from the generality of his countrymen.
This choice was mightily approved by a North-Briton present, who
declared himself descended from that prodigy of learning and
accomplishment, and said he had family-plate in his possession as
vouchers for the fact, with the initials A. C.--_Admirable Crichton!_
H---- laughed or rather roared as heartily at this as I should think
he has done for many years.
[Footnote 32: See Newgate Calendar for 1758.]
The last-named Mitre-courtier[33] then wished to know whether there
were any metaphysicians to whom one might be tempted to apply the
wizard spell? I replied, there were only six in modern times deserving
the name--Hobbes, Berkeley, Butler, Hartley, Hume, Leibnitz; and
perhaps Jonathan Edwards, a Massachusets man.[34] As to the French,
who talked fluently of having _created_ this science, there was not a
title in any of their writings, that was not to be found literally in
the authors I had mentioned. [Horne Tooke, who might have a claim to
come in under the head of Grammar, was still living.] None of these
names seemed to excite much interest, and I did not plead for the
reappearance of those who might be thought best fitted by the
abstracted nature of their studies for their present spiritual and
disembodied state, and who, even while on this living stage, were
nearly divested of common flesh and blood. As A---- with an uneasy
fidgetty face was about to put some question about Mr. Locke and
Dugald Stewart, he was prevented by M. C. who observed, "If J---- was
here, he would undoubtedly be for having up those profound and
redoubted scholiasts, Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus." I said this
might be fair enough in him who had read or fancied he had read the
original works, but I did not see how we could have any right to call
up these authors to give an account of themselves in person, till we
had looked into their writings.
[Footnote 33: B---- at this time occupied chambers in Mitre court,
Fleet Street.]
[Footnote 34: Lord Bacon is not included in this list, nor do I know
where he should come in. It is not easy to make room for him and his
reputation together. This great and celebrated man in some of his
works recommends it to pour a bottle of claret into the ground of a
morning, and to stand over it, inhaling the perfumes. So he sometimes
enriched the dry and barren soil of speculation with the fine aromatic
spirit of his genius. His "Essays" and his "Advancement of Learning"
are works of vast depth and scope of observation. The last, though it
contains no positive discoveries, is a noble chart of human intellect,
and a guide to all future inquirers.]
By this time it should seem that some rumour of our whimsical
deliberation had got wind, and had disturbed the _irritabile genus_ in
their shadowy abodes, for we received messages from several candidates
that we had just been thinking of. Gray declined our invitation,
though he had not yet been asked: Gay offered to come and bring in his
hand the Duchess of Bolton, the original Polly: Steele and Addison
left their cards as Captain Sentry and Sir Roger de Coverley: Swift
came in and sat down without speaking a word, and quitted the room as
abruptly: Otway and Chatterton were seen lingering on the opposite
side of the Styx, but could not muster enough between them to pay
Charon his fare: Thomson fell asleep in the boat, and was rowed back
again--and Burns sent a low fellow, one John Barleycorn, an old
companion of his who had conducted him to the other world, to say that
he had during his lifetime been drawn out of his retirement as a show,
only to be made an exciseman of, and that he would rather remain where
he was. He desired, however, to shake hands by his representative--the
hand, thus held out, was in a burning fever, and shook prodigiously.
The room was hung round with several portraits of eminent painters.
While we were debating whether we should demand speech with these
masters of mute eloquence, whose features were so familiar to us, it
seemed that all at once they glided from their frames, and seated
themselves at some little distance from us. There was Leonardo with
his majestic beard and watchful eye, having a bust of Archimedes
before him; next him was Raphael's graceful head turned round to the
Fornarina; and on his other side was Lucretia Borgia, with calm,
golden locks; Michael Angelo had placed the model of St. Peter's on
the table before him; Corregio had an angel at his side; Titian was
seated with his Mistress between himself and Giorgioni; Guido was
accompanied by his own Aurora, who took a dice-box from him; Claude
held a mirror in his hand; Rubens patted a beautiful panther (led in
by a satyr) on the head; Vandyke appeared as his own Paris, and
Rembrandt was hid under furs, gold chains and jewels, which Sir Joshua
eyed closely, holding his hand so as to shade his forehead. Not a word
was spoken; and as we rose to do them homage, they still presented the
same surface to the view. Not being _bona-fide_ representations of
living people, we got rid of the splendid apparitions by signs and
dumb show. As soon as they had melted into thin air, there was a loud
noise at the outer door, and we found it was Giotto, Cimabue, and
Ghirlandaio, who had been raised from the dead by their earnest desire
to see their illustrious successors--
"Whose names on earth
In Fame's eternal records live for aye!"
Finding them gone, they had no ambition to be seen after them, and
mournfully withdrew. "Egad!" said B----, "those are the very fellows I
should like to have had some talk with, to know how they could see to
paint when all was dark around them?"
"But shall we have nothing to say," interrogated G. J----, "to the
Legend of Good Women?"--"Name, name, Mr. J----," cried H---- in a
boisterous tone of friendly exultation, "name as many as you please,
without reserve or fear of molestation!" J---- was perplexed between
so many amiable recollections, that the name of the lady of his choice
expired in a pensive whiff of his pipe; and B---- impatiently declared
for the Duchess of Newcastle. Mrs. Hutchinson was no sooner mentioned,
than she carried the day from the Duchess. We were the less solicitous
on this subject of filling up the posthumous lists of Good Women, as
there was already one in the room as good, as sensible, and in all
respects as exemplary, as the best of them could be for their lives!
"I should like vastly to have seen Ninon de l'Enclos," said that
incomparable person; and this immediately put us in mind that we had
neglected to pay honour due to our friends on the other side of the
Channel: Voltaire, the patriarch of levity, and Rousseau, the father
of sentiment, Montaigne and Rabelais (great in wisdom and in wit),
Moliere and that illustrious group that are collected round him (in
the print of that subject to hear him read his comedy of the Tartuffe
at the house of Ninon; Racine, La Fontaine, Rochefoucault, St.
Evremont, etc.).
"There is one person," said a shrill, querulous voice, "I would rather
see than all these--Don Quixote!"
"Come, come!" said H----; "I thought we should have no heroes, real or
fabulous. What say you, Mr. B----? Are you for eking out your shadowy
list with such names as Alexander, Julius Caesar, Tamerlane, or Ghengis
Khan?"--"Excuse me," said B----, "on the subject of characters in
active life, plotters and disturbers of the world, I have a crotchet
of my own, which I beg leave to reserve."--"No, no! come, out with
your worthies!"--"What do you think of Guy Faux and Judas Iscariot?"
H---- turned an eye upon him like a wild Indian, but cordial and full
of smothered glee. "Your most exquisite reason!" was echoed on all
sides; and A---- thought that B---- had now fairly entangled himself.
"Why, I cannot but think," retorted he of the wistful countenance,
"that Guy Faux, that poor fluttering annual scare-crow of straw and
rags, is an ill-used gentleman. I would give something to see him
sitting pale and emaciated, surrounded by his matches and his barrels
of gunpowder, and expecting the moment that was to transport him to
Paradise for his heroic self-devotion; but if I say any more, there is
that fellow G---- will make something of it. And as to Judas Iscariot,
my reason is different. I would fain see the face of him, who, having
dipped his hand in the same dish with the Son of Man, could afterwards
betray him. I have no conception of such a thing; nor have I ever seen
any picture (not even Leonardo's very fine one) that gave me the least
idea of it."--"You have said enough, Mr. B----, to justify your
choice."
"Oh! ever right, Menenius,--ever right!"
"There is only one other person I can ever think of after this,"
continued H----; but without mentioning a name that once put on a
semblance of mortality. "If Shakspeare was to come into the room, we
should all rise up to meet him; but if that person was to come into
it, we should all fall down and try to kiss the hem of his garment!"
As a lady present seemed now to get uneasy at the turn the
conversation had taken, we rose up to go.[35] The morning broke with
that dim, dubious light by which Giotto, Cimabue, and Ghirlandaio must
have seen to paint their earliest works; and we parted to meet again
and renew similar topics at night, the next night, and the night after
that, till that night overspread Europe which saw no dawn. The same
event, in truth, broke up our little Congress that broke up the great
one. But that was to meet again: our deliberations have never been
resumed.
[Footnote 35: There are few things more contemptible than the
conversation of mere _men of the town_. It is made up of the
technicalities and cant of all professions, without the spirit or
knowledge of any. It is flashy and vapid, or is like the rinsings of
different liquors at a night-cellar instead of a bottle of fine old
port. It is without body or clearness, and a heap of affectation. In
fact, I am very much of the opinion of that old Scotch gentleman who
owned that "he preferred the dullest book he had ever read to the most
brilliant conversation it had ever fallen to his lot to hear!"]
_Hazlitt._