Vol. I.--24.
[Illustration: ~The old Water Carrier.~]
“Any New-River water here.”
This is another of the criers of a hundred years ago, and, it seems, he
cried “_New-River_ water.” The cry is scarce, though scarcely extinct,
in the environs of London.
I well remember the old prejudices of old-fashioned people in favour of
water brought to the door, and their sympathy with the complaints of the
water-bearer. “Fresh and fair new River-water! none of your pipe
sludge!” vociferated the water-bearer. “Ah dear!” cried his customers,
“Ah dear! Well, what’ll the world come to!--they wo’n’t let poor people
live at all by and by--here they’re breaking up the ground, and we shall
be all under water some day or other with their goings on--I’ll stick to
the carrier as long as he has a pail-full and I’ve a penny, and when we
haven’t we must all go to the workhouse together.” This was the talk and
the reasoning of many honest people within my recollection, who
preferred taxing themselves to the daily payment of a penny and
often twopence to the water-carrier, in preference to having
“Company’s-water” at eighteen shillings per annum. Persons of this order
of mind were neither political economists nor domestic economists: they
were, for the most part, simple and kind-hearted souls, who illustrated
the ancient saying, that “the destruction of the poor is their
poverty”--they have perished for “lack of knowledge.”
The _governing_ principle of Napoleon was, that “every thing must be
done for the people, and nothing by them:” the ruling practice of the
British people is to do every thing for themselves; and by the
maintenance of this good old custom they have preserved individual
freedom, and attained to national greatness. All our beneficial national
works have originated with ourselves--our roads, our bridges, our
canals, our water-companies, have all been constructed by our own
enterprise, and in the order of our wants.
* * * * *
~Garrick Plays.~
No. XXI.
[From Sir Richard Fanshaw’s Translation of “Querer Por Solo Querer”--“To
love for love’s sake”--a Romantic Drama, written in Spanish by Mendoza:
1649.]
_Felisbravo, Prince of Persia, from a Picture sent him of the brave
Amazonian Queen of Tartary, Zelidaura, becoming enamoured, sets out for
that realm; in his way thither disenchants a Queen of Araby; but first,
overcome by fatigue, falls asleep in the Enchanted Grove, where
Zelidaura herself coming by, steals the Picture from him. The passion of
the Romance arises from his remorse at being taken so negligent; and her
disdain that he should sleep, having the company of her Picture. She
here plays upon him, who does not yet know her, in the disguise of a
Rustic._
_Fel._ What a spanking Labradora!
_Zel._ You, the unkent Knight, God ye gud mora![210]
_Fel._ The time of day thou dost mistake.
_Zel._--and joy--
_Fel._--of what?
_Zel._ That I discover.
By a sure sign, you are awake.
_Fel._ Awake? the sign--
_Zel._ Your being a lover.
_Fel._ In love am I?
_Zel._--and very deep.
_Fel._ Deep in love! how is that seen?
_Zel._ Perfectly. You do not sleep.
_Fel._ Rustic Excellence, unscreen,
And discover that sweet face,
Which covers so much wit and grace.
_Zel._ You but dream so: sleep again,
And forget it.
_Fel._ Why, now, Saint?
_Zel._ Why, the Lady, that went in,[211]
Looks as if that she did paint.
_Fel._ What has that to do with sleeping?
She is indeed angelical.
_Zel._ _That_ picture now’s well worth your keeping.
For why? ’tis an original.
_Fel._ Is this Shepherdess a Witch?
Or saw the sleeping treason, which
I committed against Love
Erst, in the Enchanted Grove?
Me hast thou ever seen before?
_Zel._ Seen? aye, and know thee for a man
That will turn him, and sleep more
Than a dozen dunces can.
Thou ken’st little what sighs mean.
_Fel._ Unveil, by Jove, that face serene.
_Zel._ What, to make thee sleep again?
_Fel._ Still in riddles?
_Zel._ Now he sees:
This pinching wakes him by degrees.
_Fel._ Art thou a Nymph?
_Zel._ Of Parnass Green.
_Fel._ Sleep I indeed, or am I mad?
_Zel._ None serve thee but the Enchanted Queen?
I think what dull conceits ye have had
Of the bird Phœnix, which no eye
E’er saw; an odoriferous Lye:
How of her beauty’s spells she’s told;
That by her spirit thou art haunted;
And, having slept away the old,
With this new Mistress worse enchanted.
_Fel._ I affect not, Shepherdess,
Myself in such fine terms to express;
Sufficeth me an humble strain:
Too little happy to be vain.--
Unveil!
_Zel._ Sir Gallant, not so fast.
_Fel._ See thee I will.
_Zel._ See me you shall:
But touch not fruit you must not taste.
(_She takes off her veil._)
What says it, now the leaf doth fall?
_Fel._ It says, ’tis worthy to comprize
The kernel of so rare a wit:
Nor, that it grows in Paradise;
But Paradise doth grow in it.
The tall and slender trunk no less divine,
Tho’ in a lowly Shepherdesses rine.
(_He begins to know her._)
This should be that so famous Queen
For unquell’d valour and disdain.--
In these Enchanted Woods is seen
Nothing but illusions vain.
_Zel._ What stares the man at?
_Fel._ I compare
A Picture--I once mine did call--
With the divine Original.
_Zel._ Fall’n again asleep you are:
We poor human Shepherd Lasses
Nor are pictured, nor use glasses.
Who skip their rank, themselves and betters wrong:
To our Dames, god bless ’em, such quaint things belong.
Here a tiny brook alone,
Which fringed with borrow’d flowers (he has
Gold and silver enough on his own)
Is heaven’s proper looking-glass,
Copies us: and its reflections,
Shewing natural perfections,
Free from soothing, free from error.
Are our pencil, are our mirror.
_Fel._ Art thou a Shepherdess?
_Zel._--and bore
On a mountain, called THERE.
_Fel._ Wear’st thou ever heretofore
Lady’s clothes?
_Zel._ I Lady’s gear?--
Yes--what a treacherous poll have I!--
In a Country Comedy
I once enacted a main part;
Still I have it half by heart:
The famous History it was
Of an Arabian--let me see--
No, of a Queen of Tartary,
Who all her sex did far surpass
In beauty, wit, and chivalry:
Who with invincible disdain
Would fool, when she was in the vein,
Princes with all their wits about ’em;
But, an they slept, to death she’d flout ’em.
And, by the mass, with such a mien
My Majesty did play the Queen;
Our Curate had my Picture made,
In the same robes in which I play’d.
To my taste this is fine, elegant, Queen-like raillery; a second part of
Love’s Labours Lost, to which title this extraordinary Play has still
better pretensions than even Shakspeare’s: for after leading three pair
of Royal Lovers thro’ endless mazes of doubts, difficulties; oppositions
of dead fathers’ wills; a labyrinth of losings and findings; jealousies;
enchantments; conflicts with giants, and single-handed against armies;
to the exact state in which all the Lovers might with the greatest
propriety indulge their reciprocal wishes--when, the deuce is in it, you
think, but they must all be married now--suddenly the three Ladies turn
upon their Lovers; and, as an exemplification of the moral of the Play,
“Loving for loving’s sake,” and a hyper-platonic, truly Spanish proof of
their affections--demand that the Lovers shall consent to their
mistresses’ taking upon them the vow of a single life; to which the
Gallants with becoming refinement can do less than consent.--The fact is
that it was a Court Play, in which the Characters; males, giants, and
all; were played by females, and those of the highest order of
Grandeeship. No nobleman might be permitted amongst them; and it was
against the forms, that a great Court Lady of Spain should consent to
such an unrefined motion, as that of wedlock, though but in a play.
Appended to the Drama, the length of which may be judged from its having
taken nine days in the representation, and me three hours in the reading
of it--hours well wasted--is a poetical account of a fire, which broke
out in the Theatre on one of the nights of its acting, when the whole
Dramatis Personæ were nearly burnt, because the common people out of
“base fear,” and the Nobles out of “pure respect,” could not think of
laying hands upon such “great Donnas;” till the young King, breaking the
etiquette, by snatching up his Queen, and bearing her through the
flames upon his back, the Grandees, (dilatory Æneases), followed his
example, and each saved one (Anchises-fashion), till the whole Courtly
Company of Comedians were got off in tolerable safety.--Imagine three or
four stout London Firemen on such an occasion, standing off in mere
respect!