might see the great iron figures strike upon the bell, to give notice
that it was a quarter of an hour past two. We waited some time that
I might see this sight, but just at the moment they were striking, I
happened to be looking at a toy-shop that was on the other side of
the way, and unluckily missed it. Papa said, "Never mind: we will go
into the toyshop, and I dare say we shall find something that will
console you for your disappointment." "Do," said mamma, "for I knew
miss Pearson, that keeps this shop, at Weymouth, when I was a little
girl, not much older than Emily. Take notice of her;--she is a very
intelligent old lady." Mamma made herself known to miss Pearson, and
shewed me to her, but I did not much mind what they said; no more did
papa;--for we were busy among the toys.
A large wax doll, a baby-house completely furnished, and several other
beautiful toys, were bought for me. I sat and looked at them with an
amazing deal of pleasure as we rode home--they quite filled up one
side of the coach.
The joy I discovered at possessing things I could call my own, and
the frequent repetition of the words, _My own, my own_, gave my mamma
some uneasiness. She justly feared that the cold treatment I had
experienced at my uncle's had made me selfish, and therefore she
invited a little girl to spend a few days with me, to see, as she has
since told me, if I should not be liable to fall into the same error
from which I had suffered so much at my uncle's.
As my mamma had feared, so the event proved; for I quickly adopted
my cousins' selfish ideas, and gave the young lady notice that they
were my own plaything's, and she must not amuse herself with them any
longer than I permitted her. Then presently I took occasion to begin
a little quarrel with her, and said, "I have got a mamma now, miss
Frederica, as well as you, and I will go and tell her, and she will
not let you play with my doll any longer than I please, because it
is my own doll." And I very well remember I imitated as nearly as I
could, the haughty tone in which my cousins used to speak to me.
"Oh, fie! Emily," said my mamma; "can you be the little girl, who used
to be so distressed because your cousins would not let you play with
their dolls? Do you not see you are doing the very same unkind thing
to your play-fellow, that they did to you?" Then I saw as plain as
could be what a naughty girl I was, and I promised not to do so any
more.
A lady was sitting with mamma, and mamma said, "I believe I must
pardon you this once, but I hope never to see such a thing again. This
lady is miss Frederica's mamma, and I am quite ashamed that she should
be witness to your inhospitality to her daughter, particularly as she
was so kind to come on purpose to invite you to a share in her _own_
private box at the theatre this evening. Her carriage is waiting at
the door to take us, but how can we accept of the invitation after
what has happened?" The lady begged it might all be forgotten; and
mamma consented that I should go, and she said, "But I hope, my dear
Emily, when you are sitting in the play-house, you will remember that
pleasures are far more delightful when they are shared among numbers.
If the whole theatre were your own, and you were sitting by yourself
to see the performance, how dull it would seem, to what you will find
it, with so many happy faces around us, all amused with the same
thing!" I hardly knew what my mamma meant, for I had never seen a
play; but when I got there, after the curtain drew up, I looked up
towards the galleries, and down into the pit, and into all the boxes,
and then I knew what a pretty sight it was to see a number of happy
faces. I was very well convinced, that it would not have been half so
cheerful if the theatre had been my own, to have sat there by myself.
From that time, whenever I felt inclined to be selfish, I used to
remember the theatre, where the mamma of the young lady I had been so
rude to, gave me a seat in her own box. There is nothing in the world
so charming as going to a play. All the way there I was as dull and as
silent as I used to be in ----shire, because I was so sorry mamma had
been displeased with me. Just as the coach stopped, miss Frederica
said, "Will you be friends with me, Emily?" and I replied, "Yes, if
you please, Frederica;" and we went hand in hand together into the
house. I did not speak any more till we entered the box, but after
that I was as lively as if nothing at all had happened.
I shall never forget how delighted I was at the first sight of the
house. My little friend and I were placed together in the front, while
our mammas retired to the back part of the box to chat by themselves,
for they had been so kind as to come very early that I might look
about me before the performance began.
Frederica had been very often at a play. She was very useful in
telling me what every thing was. She made me observe how the common
people were coming bustling down the benches in the galleries, as if
they were afraid they should lose their places. She told me what a
crowd these poor people had to go through, before they got into the
house. Then she shewed me how leisurely they all came into the pit,
and looked about them, before they took their seats. She gave me a
charming description of the king and queen at the play, and shewed me
where they sate, and told me how the princesses were drest. It was a
pretty sight to see the remainder of the candles lighted; and so it
was to see the musicians come up from under the stage. I admired the
music very much, and I asked if that was the play. Frederica laughed
at my ignorance, and then she told me, when the play began, the green
curtain would draw up to the sound of soft music, and I should hear a
lady dressed in black say,
"Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast:"
and those were the very first words the actress, whose name was
Almeria, spoke. When the curtain began to draw up, and I saw the
bottom of her black petticoat, and heard the soft music, what an
agitation I was in! But before that we had long to wait. Frederica
told me we should wait till all the dress boxes were full, and then
the lights would pop up under the orchestra; the second music would
play, and then the play would begin.
This play was the Mourning Bride. It was a very moving tragedy; and
after that when the curtain dropt, and I thought it was all over, I
saw the most diverting pantomime that ever was seen. I made a strange
blunder the next day, for I told papa that Almeria was married to
Harlequin at last; but I assure you I meant to say Columbine, for I
knew very well that Almeria was married to Alphonso; for she said she
was in the first scene. She thought he was dead, but she found him
again, just as I did my papa and mamma, when she least expected it.
VII
MARIA HOWE
(_By Charles Lamb_)
I was brought up in the country. From my infancy I was always a
weak and tender-spirited girl, subject to fears and depressions.
My parents, and particularly my mother, were of a very different
disposition. They were what is usually called gay: they loved
pleasure, and parties, and visiting; but as they found the turn of my
mind to be quite opposite, they gave themselves little trouble about
me, but upon such occasions generally left me to my choice, which was
much oftener to stay at home, and indulge myself in my solitude, than
to join in their rambling visits. I was always fond of being alone,
yet always in a manner afraid. There was a book-closet which led into
my mother's dressing-room. Here I was eternally fond of being shut
up by myself, to take down whatever volumes I pleased, and pore upon
them, no matter whether they were fit for my years or no, or whether I
understood them. Here, when the weather would not permit my going into
the dark walk, _my walk_, as it was called, in the garden; here when
my parents have been from home, I have stayed for hours together,
till the loneliness which pleased me so at first, has at length
become quite frightful, and I have rushed out of the closet into the
inhabited parts of the house, and sought refuge in the lap of some one
of the female servants, or of my aunt, who would say, seeing me look
pale, that Hannah [Maria] had been frightening herself with some of
those _nasty books_: so she used to call my favourite volumes, which I
would not have parted with, no not with one of the least of them, if I
had had the choice to be made a fine princess and to govern the world.
But my aunt was no reader. She used to excuse herself, and say, that
reading hurt her eyes. I have been naughty enough to think that this
was only an excuse, for I found that my aunt's weak eyes did not
prevent her from poring ten hours a day upon her prayer-book, or
her favourite Thomas à Kempis. But this was always her excuse for
not reading any of the books I recommended. My aunt was my father's
sister. She had never been married. My father was a good deal older
than my mother, and my aunt was ten years older than my father. As I
was often left at home with her, and as my serious disposition so well
agreed with hers, an intimacy grew up between the old lady and me, and
she would often say, that she only loved one person in the world, and
that was me. Not that she and my parents were on very bad terms; but
the old lady did not feel herself respected enough. The attention and
fondness which she shewed to me, conscious as I was that I was almost
the only being she felt any thing like fondness to, made me love her,
as it was natural; indeed I am ashamed to say that I fear I almost
loved her better than both my parents put together. But there was an
oddness, a silence about my aunt, which was never interrupted but by
her occasional expressions of love to me, that made me stand in fear
of her. An odd look from under her spectacles would sometimes scare me
away, when I had been peering up in her face to make her kiss me. Then
she had a way of muttering to herself, which, though it was good words
and religious words that she was mumbling, somehow I did not like. My
weak spirits, and the fears I was subject to, always made me afraid of
any personal singularity or oddness in any one. I am ashamed, ladies,
to lay open so many particulars of our family; but, indeed it is
necessary to the understanding of what I am going to tell you, of a
very great weakness, if not wickedness, which I was guilty of towards
my aunt. But I must return to my studies, and tell you what books I
found in the closet, and what reading I chiefly admired. There was a
great Book of Martyrs in which I used to read, or rather I used to
spell out meanings; for I was too ignorant to make out many words; but
there it was written all about those good men who chose to be burnt
alive, rather than forsake their religion, and become naughty papists.
Some words I could make out, some I could not; but I made out enough
to fill my little head with vanity, and I used to think I was so
courageous I could be burnt too, and I would put my hands upon the
flames which were pictured in the pretty pictures which the book had,
and feel them; but, you know, ladies, there is a great difference
between the flames in a picture, and real fire, and I am now ashamed
of the conceit which I had of my own courage, and think how poor a
martyr I should have made in those days. Then there was a book not
so big, but it had pictures in, it was called Culpepper's Herbal; it
was full of pictures of plants and herbs, but I did not much care for
that. Then there was Salmon's Modern History, out of which I picked
a good deal. It had pictures of Chinese gods, and the great hooded
serpent which ran strangely in my fancy. There were some law books
too, but the old English frighted me from reading them. But above all,
what I relished was Stackhouse's History of the Bible, where there
was the picture of the Ark and all the beasts getting into it. This
delighted me, because it puzzled me, and many an aching head have I
got with poring into it, and contriving how it might be built, with
such and such rooms, to hold all the world if there should be another
flood, and sometimes settling what pretty beasts should be saved,
and what should not, for I would have no ugly or deformed beast in
my pretty ark. But this was only a piece of folly and vanity, that
a little reflection might cure me of. Foolish girl that I was! to
suppose that any creature is really ugly, that has all its limbs
contrived with heavenly wisdom, and was doubtless formed to some
beautiful end, though a child cannot comprehend it.--Doubtless a frog
or a toad is not uglier in itself than a squirrel or a pretty green
lizard; but we want understanding to see it.
[_Here I must remind you, my dear miss Howe, that one of the young
ladies smiled, and two or three were seen to titter, at this part of
your narration, and you seemed, I thought, a little too angry for
a girl of your sense and reading; but you will remember, my dear,
that young heads are not always able to bear strange and unusual
assertions; and if some elder person possibly, or some book which
you have found, had not put it into your head, you would hardly have
discovered by your own reflection, that a frog or a toad was equal in
real loveliness to a frisking squirrel, or a pretty green lizard, as
you called it; not remembering that at this very time you gave the
lizard the name of pretty, and left it out to the frog--so liable we
all are to prejudices. But you went on with your story._]
These fancies, ladies, were not so very foolish or naughty perhaps,
but they may be forgiven in a child of six years old; but what I am
going to tell I shall be ashamed of, and repent, I hope, as long as
I live. It will teach me not to form rash judgements. Besides the
picture of the Ark, and many others which I have forgot, Stackhouse
contained one picture which made more impression upon my childish
understanding than all the rest. It was the picture of the raising
up of Samuel, which I used to call the Witch of Endor picture. I was
always very fond of picking up stories about witches. There was a book
called Glanvil on Witches, which used to lie about in this closet; it
was thumbed about, and shewed it had been much read in former times.
This was my treasure. Here I used to pick out the strangest stories.
My not being able to read them very well probably made them appear
more strange and out of the way to me. But I could collect enough to
understand that witches were old women who gave themselves up to do
mischief;--how, by the help of spirits as bad as themselves, they
lamed cattle, and made the corn not grow; and how they made images of
wax to stand for people that had done them any injury, or they thought
had done them injury; and how they burnt the images before a slow
fire, and stuck pins in them; and the persons which these waxen images
represented, however far distant, felt all the pains and torments in
good earnest, which were inflicted in show upon these images: and such
a horror I had of these wicked witches, that though I am now better
instructed, and look upon all these stories as mere idle tales, and
invented to fill people's heads with nonsense, yet I cannot recall to
mind the horrors which I then felt, without shuddering and feeling
something of the old fit return.
[_Here, my dear miss Howe, you may remember, that miss M----, the
youngest of our party, shewing some more curiosity than usual, I
winked upon you to hasten to your story, lest the terrors which you
were describing should make too much impression upon a young head, and
you kindly understood my sign, and said less upon the subject of your
fears, than I fancy you first intended._]
This foolish book of witch stories had no pictures in it, but I made
up for them out of my own fancy, and out of the great picture of the
raising up of Samuel in Stackhouse. I was not old enough to understand
the difference there was between these silly improbable tales which
imputed such powers to poor old women, who are the most helpless
things in the creation, and the narrative in the Bible, which does not
say, that the witch or pretended witch, raised up the dead body of
Samuel by her own power, but as it clearly appears, he was permitted
by the divine will to appear, to confound the presumption of Saul; and
that the witch herself was really as much frightened and confounded
at the miracle as Saul himself, not expecting a real appearance; but
probably having prepared some juggling, slight-of-hand tricks and
sham appearance, to deceive the eyes of Saul: whereas she, nor any
one living, had ever the power to raise the dead to life, but only
He who made them from the first. These reasons I might have read in
Stackhouse itself, if I had been old enough, and have read them in
that very book since I was older, but at that time I looked at little
beyond the picture.
These stories of witches so terrified me, that my sleeps were broken,
and in my dreams I always had a fancy of a witch being in the room
with me. I know now that it was only nervousness; but though I can
laugh at it now as well as you, ladies, if you knew what I suffered,
you would be thankful that you have had sensible people about you to
instruct you and teach you better. I was let grow up wild like an ill
weed, and thrived accordingly. One night that I had been terrified in
my sleep with my imaginations, I got out of bed, and crept softly to
the adjoining room. My room was next to where my aunt usually sat when
she was alone. Into her room I crept for relief from my fears. The
old lady was not yet retired to rest, but was sitting with her eyes
half open, half closed; her spectacles tottering upon her nose; her
head nodding over her prayer-book; her lips mumbling the words as she
read them, or half read them, in her dozing posture; her grotesque
appearance; her old-fashioned dress, resembling what I had seen in
that fatal picture in Stackhouse; all this, with the dead time of
night, as it seemed to me, (for I had gone through my first sleep,)
all joined to produce a wicked fancy in me, that the form which I had
beheld was not my aunt but some witch. Her mumbling of her prayers
confirmed me in this shocking idea. I had read in Glanvil of those
wicked creatures reading their prayers _backwards_, and I thought
that this was the operation which her lips were at this time employed
about. Instead of flying to her friendly lap for that protection which
I had so often experienced when I have been weak and timid, I shrunk
back terrified and bewildered to my bed, where I lay in broken sleeps
and miserable fancies, till the morning, which I had so much reason to
wish for, came. My fancies a little wore away with the light, but an
impression was fixed, which could not for a long time be done away.
In the day-time, when my father and mother were about the house, when
I saw them familiarly speak to my aunt, my fears all vanished; and
when the good creature has taken me upon her knees, and shewn me any
kindness more than ordinary, at such times I have melted into tears,
and longed to tell her what naughty foolish fancies I had had of her.
But when night returned, that figure which I had seen recurred;--the
posture, the half-closed eyes, the mumbling and muttering which I
had heard, a confusion was in my head, _who_ it was I had seen that
night:--it was my aunt, and it was not my aunt:--it was that good
creature who loved me above all the world, engaged at her good task
of devotions--perhaps praying for some good to me. Again, it was a
witch,--a creature hateful to God and man, reading backwards the good
prayers; who would perhaps destroy me. In these conflicts of mind I
passed several weeks, till, by a revolution in my fate, I was removed
to the house of a female relation of my mother's, in a distant part
of the county, who had come on a visit to our house, and observing my
lonely ways, and apprehensive of the ill effect of my mode of living
upon my health, begged leave to take me home to her house to reside
for a short time. I went, with some reluctance at leaving my closet,
my dark walk, and even my aunt, who had been such a source of both
love and terror to me. But I went, and soon found the good effects of
a change of scene. Instead of melancholy closets, and lonely avenues
of trees, I saw lightsome rooms and cheerful faces; I had companions
of my own age; no books were allowed me but what were rational or
sprightly; that gave me mirth, or gave me instruction. I soon learned
to laugh at witch stories; and when I returned after three or four
months absence to our own house, my good aunt appeared to me in the
same light in which I had viewed her from my infancy, before that
foolish fancy possessed me, or rather, I should say, more kind, more
fond, more loving than before. It is impossible to say how much good
that lady, the kind relation of my mother's that I spoke of, did to me
by changing the scene. Quite a new turn of ideas was given to me. I
became sociable and companionable: my parents soon discovered a change
in me, and I have found a similar alteration in them. They have been
plainly more fond of me since that change, as from that time I learned
to conform myself more to their way of living. I have never since had
that aversion to company, and going out with them, which used to make
them regard me with less fondness than they would have wished to shew.
I impute almost all that I had to complain of in their neglect, to my
having been a little unsociable, uncompanionable mortal. I lived in
this manner for a year or two, passing my time between our house, and
the lady's who so kindly took me in hand, till by her advice, I was
sent to this school; where I have told to you, ladies, what, for fear
of ridicule, I never ventured to tell any person besides, the story of
my foolish and naughty fancy.
VIII
CHARLOTTE WILMOT
(_By Mary Lamb_)
Until I was eleven years of age, my life was one continued series of
indulgence and delight. My father was a merchant, and supposed to be
in very opulent circumstances, at least I thought so, for at a very
early age I perceived that we lived in a more expensive way than any
of my father's friends did. It was not the pride of birth, of which,
miss Withers, you once imagined you might justly boast, but the mere
display of wealth that I was early taught to set an undue value on.
My parents spared no cost for masters to instruct me; I had a French
governess, and also a woman servant whose sole business it was to
attend on me. My play-room was crowded with toys, and my dress was
the admiration of all my youthful visitors, to whom I gave balls and
entertainments as often as I pleased. I looked down on all my young
companions as my inferiors; but I chiefly assumed airs of superiority
over Maria Hartley, whose father was a clerk in my father's
counting-house, and therefore I concluded she would regard the
fine show I made with more envy and admiration than any other of
my companions. In the days of my humiliation, which I too soon
experienced, I was thrown on the bounty of her father for support.
To be a dependent on the charity of her family, seemed the heaviest
evil that could have befallen me; for I remembered how often I had
displayed my finery and my expensive ornaments, on purpose to enjoy
the triumph of my superior advantages; and with shame I now speak it,
I have often glanced at her plain linen frock, when I shewed her my
beautiful ball-dresses. Nay, I once gave her a hint, which she so well
understood that she burst into tears, that I could not invite her to
some of my parties, because her mamma once sent her on my birthday in
a coloured frock. I cannot now think of my want of feeling without
excessive pain; but one day I saw her highly amused with some curious
toys, and on her expressing the pleasure the sight of them gave her,
I said "Yes, they are very well for those who are not accustomed to
these things; but for my part, I have so many, I am tired of them, and
I am quite delighted to pass an hour in the empty closet your mamma
allows you to receive your visitors in, because there is nothing there
to interrupt the conversation."
Once, as I have said, Maria was betrayed into tears: now that I
insulted her by calling her own small apartment an empty closet, she
turned quick upon me, but not in anger, saying, "O, my dear miss
Wilmot, how very sorry I am--" here she stopped; and though I knew
not the meaning of her words, I felt it as a reproof. I hung down my
head abashed; yet, perceiving that she was all that day more kind and
obliging than ever, and being conscious of not having merited this
kindness, I thought she was mean-spirited, and therefore I consoled
myself with having discovered this fault in her, for I thought my
arrogance was full as excusable as her meanness.
In a few days I knew my error; I learned why Maria had been so kind,
and why she had said she was sorry. It was for me, proud disdainful
girl that I was, that she was sorry; she knew, though I did not, that
my father was on the brink of ruin; and it came to pass, as she had
feared it would, that in a few days my play-room was as empty as
Maria's closet, and all my grandeur was at an end.
My father had what is called an execution in the house; every thing
was seized that we possessed. Our splendid furniture, and even our
wearing apparel, all my beautiful ball-dresses, my trinkets, and, my
toys, were taken away by my father's merciless creditors. The week in
which this happened was such a scene of hurry, confusion and misery,
that I will not attempt to describe it.
At the end of a week I found that my father and mother had gone out
very early in the morning. Mr. Hartley took me home to his own house,
and I expected to find them there; but, oh, what anguish did I feel,
when I heard him tell Mrs. Hartley they had quitted England, and that
he had brought me home to live with them! In tears and sullen silence
I passed the first day of my entrance into this despised house. Maria
was from home. All the day I sate in a corner of the room, grieving
for the departure of my parents; and if for a moment I forgot that
sorrow, I tormented myself with imagining the many ways which Maria
might invent, to make me feel in return the slights and airs of
superiority which I had given myself over her. Her mother began
the prelude to what I expected, for I heard her freely censure the
imprudence of my parents. She spoke in whispers; yet, though I could
not hear every word, I made out the tenor of her discourse. She was
very anxious, lest her husband should be involved in the ruin of our
house. He was the chief clerk in my father's counting-house; towards
evening he came in and quieted her fears, by the welcome news that he
had obtained a more lucrative situation than the one he had lost.
At eight in the evening Mrs. Hartley said to me, "Miss Wilmot, it is
time for you to be in bed, my dear;" and ordered the servant to shew
me up stairs, adding, that she supposed she must assist me to undress,
but that when Maria came home, she must teach me to wait on myself.
The apartment in which I was to sleep was at the top of the house.
The walls were white-washed, and the roof was sloping. There was only
one window in the room, a small casement, through which the bright
moon shone, and it seemed to me the most melancholy sight I had ever
beheld. In broken and disturbed slumbers I passed the night. When
I awoke in the morning, she whom I most dreaded to see, Maria, who
I supposed had envied my former state, and who I now felt certain
would exult over my present mortifying reverse of fortune, stood by
my bedside. She awakened me from a dream, in which I thought she was
ordering me to fetch her something; and on my refusal, she said I must
obey her, for I was now her servant. Far differently from what my
dreams had pictured, did Maria address me! She said, in the gentlest
tone imaginable, "My dear miss Wilmot, my mother begs you will come
down to breakfast. Will you give me leave to dress you?" My proud
heart would not suffer me to speak, and I began to attempt to put on
my clothes; but never having been used to do any thing for myself, I
was unable to perform it, and was obliged to accept of the assistance
of Maria. She dressed me, washed my face, and combed my hair; and as
she did these services for me, she said in the most respectful manner,
"Is this the way you like to wear this, miss Wilmot?" or, "Is this
the way you like this done?" and curtsied, as she gave me every fresh
article to put on. The slights I expected to receive from Maria, would
not have distressed me more, than the delicacy of her behaviour did. I
hung down my head with shame and anguish.
In a few days Mrs. Hartley ordered her daughter to instruct me in such
useful works and employments as Maria knew. Of every thing which she
called useful I was most ignorant. My accomplishments I found were
held in small estimation here, by all indeed except Maria. She taught
me nothing without the kindest apologies for being obliged to teach
me, who, she said, was so excellent in all elegant arts, and was for
ever thanking me for the pleasure she had formerly received, from
my skill in music and pretty fancy works. The distress I was in,
made these complimentary speeches not flatteries, but sweet drops
of comfort to my degraded heart, almost broken with misfortune and
remorse.
I remained at Mr. Hartley's but two months, for at the end of that
time my father inherited a considerable property by the death of a
distant relation, which has enabled him to settle his affairs. He
established himself again as a merchant; but as he wished to retrench
his expences, and begin the world again on a plan of strict economy,
he sent me to this school to finish my education.
IX
SUSAN YATES
(_By Charles Lamb_)
I was born and brought up, in a house in which my parents had all
their lives resided, which stood in the midst of that lonely tract of
land called the Lincolnshire fens. Few families besides our own lived
near the spot, both because it was reckoned an unwholesome air, and
because its distance from any town or market made it an inconvenient
situation. My father was in no very affluent circumstances, and it
was a sad necessity which he was put to, of having to go many miles
to fetch any thing he wanted from the nearest village, which was full
seven miles distant, through a sad miry way that at all times made it
heavy walking, and after rain was almost impassable. But he had no
horse or carriage of his own.
The church which belonged to the parish in which our house was
situated, stood in this village; and its distance being, as I said
before, seven miles from our house, made it quite an impossible thing
for my mother or me to think of going to it. Sometimes indeed, on a
fine dry Sunday, my father would rise early, and take a walk to the
village, just to see how _goodness thrived_, as he used to say, but
he would generally return tired, and the worse for his walk. It is
scarcely possible to explain to any one who has not lived in the fens,
what difficult and dangerous walking it is. A mile is as good as four,
I have heard my father say, in those parts. My mother, who in the
early part of her life had lived in a more civilised spot, and had
been used to constant churchgoing, would often lament her situation.
It was from her I early imbibed a great curiosity and anxiety to see
that thing, which I had heard her call a church, and so often lament
that she could never go to. I had seen houses of various structures,
and had seen in pictures the shapes of ships and boats, and palaces
and temples, but never rightly any thing that could be called a
church, or that could satisfy me about its form. Sometimes I thought
it must be like our house, and sometimes I fancied it must be more
like the house of our neighbour, Mr. Sutton, which was bigger and
handsomer than ours. Sometimes I thought it was a great hollow cave,
such as I have heard my father say the first inhabitants of the earth
dwelt in. Then I thought it was like a waggon, or a cart, and that it
must be something moveable. The shape of it ran in my mind strangely,
and one day I ventured to ask my mother, what was that foolish thing
that she was always longing to go to, and which she called a church.
Was it any thing to eat or drink, or was it only like a great huge
play-thing, to be seen and stared at?--I was not quite five years of
age when I made this inquiry.
This question, so oddly put, made my mother smile; but in a little
time she put on a more grave look, and informed me, that a church
was nothing that I had supposed it, but it was a great building, far
greater than any house which I had seen, where men, and women, and
children, came together, twice a day, on Sundays, to hear the Bible
read, and make good resolutions for the week to come. She told me,
that the fine music which we sometimes heard in the air, came from
the bells of St. Mary's church, and that we never heard it but when
the wind was in a particular point. This raised my wonder more than
all the rest; for I had somehow conceived that the noise which I
heard, was occasioned by birds up in the air, or that it was made
by the angels, whom (so ignorant I was till that time) I had always
considered to be a sort of birds: for before this time I was totally
ignorant of any thing like religion, it being a principle of my
father, that young heads should not be told too many things at once,
for fear they should get confused ideas, and no clear notions of any
thing. We had always indeed so far observed Sundays, that no work was
done upon that day, and upon that day I wore my best muslin frock,
and was not allowed to sing, or to be noisy; but I never understood
why that day should differ from any other. We had no public
meetings:--indeed the few straggling houses which were near us, would
have furnished but a slender congregation; and the loneliness of the
place we lived in, instead of making us more sociable, and drawing
us closer together, as my mother used to say it ought to have done,
seemed to have the effect of making us more distant and averse to
society than other people. One or two good neighbours indeed we had,
but not in numbers to give me an idea of church attendance.
But now my mother thought it high time to give me some clearer
instruction in the main points of religion, and my father came readily
into her plan. I was now permitted to sit up half an hour later on a
Sunday evening, that I might hear a portion of Scripture read, which
had always been their custom, though by reason of my tender age, and
my father's opinion on the impropriety of children being taught too
young, I had never till now been an auditor. I was taught my prayers,
and those things which you, ladies, I doubt not, had the benefit of
being instructed in at a much earlier age.
The clearer my notions on these points became, they only made me
more passionately long for the privilege of joining in that social
service, from which it seemed that we alone, of all the inhabitants
of the land, were debarred; and when the wind was in that point which
favoured the sound of the distant bells of St. Mary's to be heard
over the great moor which skirted our house, I have stood out in the
air to catch the sounds which I almost devoured; and the tears have
come in my eyes, when sometimes they seemed to speak to me almost
in articulate sounds, to _come to church_, and because of the great
moor which was between me and them I could not come; and the too
tender apprehensions of these things have filled me with a religious
melancholy. With thoughts like these I entered into my seventh year.
And now the time was come, when the great moor was no longer to
separate me from the object of my wishes and of my curiosity. My
father having some money left him by the will of a deceased relation,
we ventured to set up a sort of a carriage--no very superb one, I
assure you, ladies; but in that part of the world it was looked upon
with some envy by our poorer neighbours. The first party of pleasure
which my father proposed to take in it, was to the village where I had
so often wished to go, and my mother and I were to accompany him; for
it was very fit, my father observed, that little Susan should go to
church, and learn how to behave herself, for we might some time or
other have occasion to live in London, and not always be confined to
that out of the way spot.
It was on a Sunday morning that we set out, my little heart beating
with almost breathless expectation. The day was fine, and the roads
as good as they ever are in those parts. I was so happy and so proud.
I was lost in dreams of what I was going to see. At length the tall
steeple of St. Mary's church came in view. It was pointed out to me by
my father, as the place from which that music had come which I have
heard over the moor, and had fancied to be angels singing. I was wound
up to the highest pitch of delight at having visibly presented to me
the spot from which had proceeded that unknown friendly music; and
when it began to peal, just as we approached the village, it seemed to
speak. _Susan is come_, as plainly as it used to invite me _to come_,
when I heard it over the moor. I pass over our alighting at the house
of a relation, and all that passed till I went with my father and
mother to church.
St. Mary's church is a great church for such a small village as it
stands in. My father said it was a cathedral, and that it had once
belonged to a monastery, but the monks were all gone. Over the door
there was stone work, representing saints and bishops, and here and
there, along the sides of the church, there were figures of men's
heads, made in a strange grotesque way: I have since seen the same
sort of figures in the round tower of the Temple church in London. My
father said they were very improper ornaments for such a place, and
so I now think them; but it seems the people who built these great
churches in old times, gave themselves more liberties than they do
now; and I remember that when I first saw them, and before my father
had made this observation, though they were so ugly and out of shape,
and some of them seemed to be grinning and distorting their features
with pain or with laughter, yet being placed upon a church, to which
I had come with such serious thoughts, I could not help thinking
they had some serious meaning; and I looked at them with wonder, but
without any temptation to laugh. I somehow fancied they were the
representation of wicked people set up as a warning.
When we got into the church, the service was not begun, and my father
kindly took me round, to shew me the monuments and every thing else
remarkable. I remember seeing one of a venerable figure, which my
father said had been a judge. The figure was kneeling, as if it was
alive, before a sort of desk, with a book, I suppose the Bible, lying
on it. I somehow fancied the figure had a sort of life in it, it
seemed so natural, or that the dead judge that it was done for, said
his prayers at it still. This was a silly notion, but I was very
young, and had passed my little life in a remote place, where I had
never seen any thing nor knew any thing; and the awe which I felt at
first being in a church, took from me all power but that of wondering.
I did not reason about any thing, I was too young. Now I understand
why monuments are put up for the dead, and why the figures which
are upon them, are described as doing the actions which they did in
their life-times, and that they are a sort of pictures set up for our
instruction. But all was new and surprising to me on that day; the
long windows with little panes, the pillars, the pews made of oak, the
little hassocks for the people to kneel on, the form of the pulpit
with the sounding-board over it, gracefully carved in flower work. To
you, who have lived all your lives in populous places, and have been
taken to church from the earliest time you can remember, my admiration
of these things must appear strangely ignorant. But I was a lonely
young creature, that had been brought up in remote places, where there
was neither church nor churchgoing inhabitants. I have since lived in
great towns, and seen the ways of churches and of worship, and I am
old enough now to distinguish between what is essential in religion,
and what is merely formal or ornamental.
When my father had done pointing out to me the things most worthy of
notice about the church, the service was almost ready to begin; the
parishioners had most of them entered, and taken their seats; and we
were shewn into a pew where my mother was already seated. Soon after
the clergyman entered, and the organ began to play what is called
the voluntary. I had never seen so many people assembled before. At
first I thought that all eyes were upon me, and that because I was
a stranger. I was terribly ashamed and confused at first; but my
mother helped me to find out the places in the Prayer-book, and
being busy about that, took off some of my painful apprehensions. I
was no stranger to the order of the service, having often read in a
Prayer-book at home; but my thoughts being confused, it puzzled me a
little to find out the responses and other things, which I thought I
knew so well; but I went through it tolerably well. One thing which
has often troubled me since, is, that I am afraid I was too full of
myself, and of thinking how happy I was, and what a privilege it was
for one that was so young, to join in the service with so many grown
people, so that I did not attend enough to the instruction which I
might have received. I remember, I foolishly applied every thing that
was said to myself, so as it could mean nobody but myself, I was so
full of my own thoughts. All that assembly of people, seemed to me as
if they were come together only to shew me the way of a church. Not
but I received some very affecting impressions from some things which
I heard that day; but the standing up and the sitting down of the
people; the organ; the singing;--the way of all these things took up
more of my attention than was proper; or I thought it did. I believe
I behaved better and was more serious when I went a second time, and
a third time; for now we went as a regular thing every Sunday, and
continued to do so, till, by a still further change for the better in
my father's circumstances, we removed to London. Oh! it was a happy
day for me my first going to St. Mary's church: before that day I used
to feel like a little outcast in the wilderness, like one that did
not belong to the world of Christian people. I have never felt like a
little outcast since. But I never can hear the sweet noise of bells,
that I don't think of the angels singing, and what poor but pretty
thoughts I had of angels in my uninstructed solitude.
X
ARABELLA HARDY
(_By Charles Lamb_)
I was born in the East Indies. I lost my father and mother young. At
the age of five my relations thought it proper that I should be sent
to England for my education. I was to be entrusted to the care of a
young woman who had a character for great humanity and discretion; but
just as I had taken leave of my friends, and we were about to take our
passage, the young woman was taken suddenly ill, and could not go on
board. In this unpleasant emergency, no one knew how to act. The ship
was at the very point of sailing, and it was the last ship which was
to sail that season. At last the captain, who was known to my friends,
prevailed upon my relation who had come with us to see us embark,
to leave the young woman on shore, and to let me embark separately.
There was no possibility of getting any other female attendant for me,
in the short time allotted for our preparation; and the opportunity
of going by that ship was thought too valuable to be lost. No other
ladies happened to be going; so I was consigned to the care of the
captain and his crew,--rough and unaccustomed attendants for a young
creature, delicately brought up as I had been; but indeed they did
their best to make me not feel the difference. The unpolished sailors
were my nursery-maids and my waiting-women. Every thing was done by
the captain and the men, to accommodate me, and make me easy. I had
a little room made out of the cabin, which was to be considered as
my room, and nobody might enter into it. The first mate had a great
character for bravery, and all sailor-like accomplishments; but with
all this he had a gentleness of manners, and a pale feminine cast of
face, from ill health and a weakly constitution, which subjected him
to some little ridicule from the officers, and caused him to be named
Betsy. He did not much like the appellation, but he submitted to it
the better, as he knew that those who gave him a woman's name, well
knew that he had a man's heart, and that in the face of danger he
would go as far as any man. To this young man, whose real name was
Charles Atkinson, by a lucky thought of the captain, the care of me
was especially entrusted. Betsy was proud of his charge, and, to do
him justice, acquitted himself with great diligence and adroitness
through the whole of the voyage. From the beginning I had somehow
looked upon Betsy as a woman, hearing him so spoken of, and this
reconciled me in some measure to the want of a maid, which I had been
used to. But I was a manageable girl at all times, and gave nobody
much trouble.
I have not knowledge enough to give an account of my voyage, or to
remember the names of the seas we passed through, or the lands which
we touched upon, in our course. The chief thing I can remember, for I
do not remember the events of the voyage in any order, was Atkinson
taking me up on deck, to see the great whales playing about in the
sea. There was one great whale came bounding up out of the sea, and
then he would dive into it again, and then would come up at a distance
where nobody expected him, and another whale was following after him.
Atkinson said they were at play, and that that lesser whale loved that
bigger whale, and kept it company all through the wide seas: but I
thought it strange play, and a frightful kind of love; for I every
minute expected they would come up to our ship and toss it. But
Atkinson said a whale was a gentle creature, and it was a sort of
sea-elephant, and that the most powerful creatures in nature are
always the least hurtful. And he told me how men went out to take
these whales, and stuck long, pointed darts into them; and how the sea
was discoloured with the blood of these poor whales for many miles
distance: and I admired at the courage of the men, but I was sorry
for the inoffensive whale. Many other pretty sights he used to shew
me, when he was not on watch, or doing some duty for the ship. No one
was more attentive to his duty than he; but at such times as he had
leisure, he would shew me all pretty sea sights:--the dolphins and
porpoises that came before a storm, and all the colours which the sea
changed to; how sometimes it was a deep blue, and then a deep green,
and sometimes it would seem all on fire: all these various appearances
he would shew me, and attempt to explain the reason of them to me,
as well as my young capacity would admit of. There was a lion and a
tiger on board, going to England as a present to the king, and it
was a great diversion to Atkinson and me, after I had got rid of my
first terrors, to see the ways of these beasts in their dens, and how
venturous the sailors were in putting their hands through the grates,
and patting their rough coats. Some of the men had monkeys, which ran
loose about, and the sport was for the men to lose them, and find them
again. The monkeys would run up the shrouds, and pass from rope to
rope, with ten times greater alacrity than the most experienced sailor
could follow them; and sometimes they would hide themselves in the
most unthought-of places, and when they were found, they would grin,
and make mouths as if they had sense. Atkinson described to me the
ways of these little animals in their native woods, for he had seen
them. Oh, how many ways he thought of to amuse me in that long voyage!
Sometimes he would describe to me the odd shapes and varieties of
fishes that were in the sea, and tell me tales of the sea-monsters
that lay hid at the bottom, and were seldom seen by men; and what a
glorious sight it would be, if our eyes could be sharpened to behold
all the inhabitants of the sea at once, swimming in the great deeps,
as plain as we see the gold and silver fish in a bowl of glass. With
such notions he enlarged my infant capacity to take in many things.
When in foul weather I have been terrified at the motion of the
vessel, as it rocked backwards and forwards, he would still my fears,
and tell me that I used to be rocked so once in a cradle, and that
the sea was God's bed, and the ship our cradle, and we were as safe
in that greater motion, as when we felt that lesser one in our little
wooden sleeping-places. When the wind was up, and sang through the
sails, and disturbed me with its violent clamours, he would call it
music, and bid me hark to the sea-organ, and with that name he quieted
my tender apprehensions. When I have looked around with a mournful
face at seeing all _men_ about me, he would enter into my thoughts,
and tell me pretty stories of his mother and his sisters, and a female
cousin that he loved better than his sisters, whom he called Jenny,
and say that when we got to England I should go and see them, and how
fond Jenny would be of his little daughter, as he called me; and with
these images of women and females which he raised in my fancy, he
quieted me for a time. One time, and never but once, he told me that
Jenny had promised to be his wife if ever he came to England, but that
he had his doubts whether he should live to get home, for he was very
sickly. This made me cry bitterly.
That I dwell so long upon the attentions of this Atkinson, is only
because his death, which happened just before we got to England,
affected me so much, that he alone of all the ship's crew has
engrossed my mind ever since; though indeed the captain and all
were singularly kind to me, and strove to make up for my uneasy and
unnatural situation. The boatswain would pipe for my diversion, and
the sailor-boy would climb the dangerous mast for my sport. The rough
foremastman would never willingly appear before me, till he had combed
his long black hair smooth and sleek, not to terrify me. The officers
got up a sort of play for my amusement, and Atkinson, or, as they
called him, Betsy, acted the heroine of the piece. All ways that could
be contrived, were thought upon, to reconcile me to my lot. I was the
universal favourite;--I do not know how deservedly; but I suppose it
was because I was alone, and there was no female in the ship besides
me. Had I come over with female relations or attendants, I should have
excited no particular curiosity; I should have required no uncommon
attentions. I was one little woman among a crew of men; and I believe
the homage which I have read that men universally pay to women, was in
this case directed to me, in the absence of all other woman-kind. I do
not know how that might be, but I was a little princess among them,
and I was not six years old.
I remember the first draw-back which happened to my comfort, was
Atkinson's not appearing during the whole of one day. The captain
tried to reconcile me to it, by saying that Mr. Atkinson was confined
to his cabin;--that he was not quite well, but a day or two would
restore him. I begged to be taken in to see him, but this was not
granted. A day, and then another came, and another, and no Atkinson
was visible, and I saw apparent solicitude in the faces of all the
officers, who nevertheless strove to put on their best countenances
before me, and to be more than usually kind to me. At length, by the
desire of Atkinson himself, as I have since learned, I was permitted
to go into his cabin and see him. He was sitting up, apparently in a
state of great exhaustion, but his face lighted up when he saw me, and
he kissed me, and told me that he was going a great voyage, far longer
than that which we had passed together, and he should never come back;
and though I was so young, I understood well enough that he meant this
of his death, and I cried sadly; but he comforted me and told me, that
I must be his little executrix, and perform his last will, and bear
his last words to his mother and his sister, and to his cousin Jenny,
whom I should see in a short time; and he gave me his blessing, as
a father would bless his child, and he sent a last kiss by me to all
his female relations, and he made me promise that I would go and see
them when I got to England, and soon after this he died; but I was
in another part of the ship when he died, and I was not told it till
we got to shore, which was a few days after; but they kept telling me
that he was better and better, and that I should soon see him, but
that it disturbed him to talk with any one. Oh, what a grief it was,
when I learned that I had lost my old ship-mate, that had made an
irksome situation so bearable by his kind assiduities; and to think
that he was gone, and I could never repay him for his kindness!
When I had been a year and a half in England, the captain, who
had made another voyage to India and back, thinking that time had
alleviated a little the sorrow of Atkinson's relations, prevailed upon
my friends who had the care of me in England, to let him introduce me
to Atkinson's mother and sister. Jenny was no more; she had died in
the interval, and I never saw her. Grief for his death had brought on
a consumption, of which she lingered about a twelvemonth, and then
expired. But in the mother and the sisters of this excellent young
man, I have found the most valuable friends which I possess on this
side the great ocean. They received me from the captain as the little
_protégée_ of Atkinson, and from them I have learned passages of his
former life, and this in particular, that the illness of which he died
was brought on by a wound of which he never quite recovered, which he
got in the desperate attempt, when he was quite a boy, to defend his
captain against a superior force of the enemy which had boarded him,
and which, by his premature valour inspiriting the men, they finally
succeeded in repulsing. This was that Atkinson, who, from his
pale and feminine appearance, was called Betsy. This was he whose
womanly care of me got him the name of a woman, who, with more than
female attention, condescended to play the hand-maid to a little
unaccompanied orphan, that fortune had cast upon the care of a rough
sea captain, and his rougher crew.
THE KING AND QUEEN OF HEARTS
[Illustration]
Showing how notably
the Queen made her tarts,
and how scurvily
the Knave stole them away,
with other particulars belonging thereunto
Printed for Thomas Hodgkins Hanway Street November 18 1805.
[Illustration: _The Queen of Hearts_]
High on a Throne of state is seen
She whom all Hearts own for their Queen.
Three Pages are in waiting by;
He with the umbrella is her Spy,
To spy out rogueries in the dark,
And smell a rat as you shall mark.
[Illustration: _She made some Tarts_]
The Queen here by the King's commands,
Who does not like Cook's dirty hands,
Makes the court-pastry all herself.
Pambo the knave, that roguish elf,
Watches each sugary sweet ingredient,
And slily thinks of an expedient.
[Illustration: _All on a Summer's day_]
Now first of May does summer bring,
How bright and fine is every thing!
After their dam the chickens run,
The green leaves glitter in the sun,
While youths and maids in merry dance
Round rustic maypoles do advance.
[Illustration: _The Knave of Hearts_]
When Kings and Queens ariding go,
Great Lords ride with them for a show
With grooms & courtiers, a great store;
Some ride behind, & some before.
Pambo the first of these does pass,
And for more state rides on an Ass.
[Illustration: _He stole those Tarts_]
Thieves! Thieves! holla, you knavish Jack,
Cannot the good Queen turn her back,
But you must be so nimble hasty
To come and steal away her pastry
You think you're safe, there's one fees all,
And understands, though he's but small
[Illustration: _And took them quite away_]
How like a thievish Jack he looks!
I wish for my part all the cooks
Would come and baste him with a ladle
As long as ever they were able,
To keep his fingers ends from itching
After sweet things in the Queen's kitchen.
[Illustration: _The King of Hearts_]
Behold the King of Hearts how gruff
The monarch stands, how square, how bluff!
When our eighth Harry rul'd this land,
Just like this King did Harry stand;
And just so amorous, sweet, and willing,
As this Queen stands, stood Anna Bullen.
[Illustration: _Call'd for those Tarts_]
The meat removed and dinner done,
The knives are wip'd and cheese put on.
The King aloud for Tarts does bawl,
Tarts, tarts, resound through all the Hall.
Pambo with tears denies the Fact,
But Mungo saw him in the act.
[Illustration: _And beat the Knave full sore_]
Behold the due reward of sin,
See what a plight rogue Pambo's in.
The King lays on his blows so stout,
The Tarts for fear come tumbling out
O King! be merciful as just,
You'll beat poor Pambo into dust
[Illustration: _The Knave of Hearts_]
How like he looks to a dog that begs
In abject sort upon two legs!
Good Mr. Knave, give me my due,
I like a tart as well as you,
But I would starve on good roast Beef,
Ere I would look so like a thief.
[Illustration: _Brought back those Tarts_]
The Knave brings back the tarts he stole.
The Queen swears, that is not the whole.
What should poor Pambo do? hard prest
Owns he has eaten up the rest.
The King takes back, as lawful debt,
Not all, but all that he can get.
[Illustration: _And vow'd he'd steal no more_]
Lo! Pambo prostrate on the floor
Vows he will be a thief no more.
O King your heart no longer harden,
You've got the tarts, give him his pardon.
The best time to forgive a sinner
Is always after a good dinner.
[Illustration]
"How say you Sir? tis all a joke--
Great Kings love tarts like other folk!"
If for a truth you'll not receive it,
Pray, view the picture, and believe it.
Sly Pambo too has got a share,
And eats it snug behind the chair.
[Illustration]
Their Majesties so well have fed,
The tarts have got up in their head.
"Or may be 'twas the wine!"--hush, gipsey!
Great Kings & Queens indeed get tipsey!
Now, Pambo, is the time for you:
Beat little Tell-Tale black & blue.
POETRY FOR CHILDREN
(_1808-1809. Text of 1809_)
ENVY
This rose-tree is not made to bear
The violet blue, nor lily fair,
Nor the sweet mignionet:
And if this tree were discontent,
Or wish'd to change its natural bent,
It all in vain would fret.
And should it fret, you would suppose
It ne'er had seen its own red rose,
Nor after gentle shower
Had ever smell'd it rose's scent,
Or it could ne'er be discontent
With its own pretty flower.
Like such a blind and senseless tree
As I've imagin'd this to be,
All envious persons are:
With care and culture all may find
Some pretty flower in their own mind,
Some talent that is rare.
THE REAPER'S CHILD
If you go to the field where the Reapers now bind
The sheaves of ripe corn, there a fine little lass,
Only three months of age, by the hedge-row you'll find,
Left alone by its mother upon the low grass.
While the mother is reaping, the infant is sleeping;
Not the basket that holds the provision is less
By the hard-working Reaper, than this little sleeper,
Regarded, till hunger does on the babe press.
Then it opens its eyes, and it utters loud cries,
Which its hard-working mother afar off will hear;
She comes at its calling, she quiets its squalling,
And feeds it, and leaves it again without fear.
When you were as young as this field-nursed daughter,
You were fed in the house, and brought up on the knee;
So tenderly watched, thy fond mother thought her
Whole time well bestow'd in nursing of thee.
THE RIDE
Lately an Equipage I overtook,
And help'd to lift it o'er a narrow brook.
No horse it had except one boy, who drew
His sister out in it the fields to view.
O happy town-bred girl, in fine chaise going
For the first time to see the green grass growing.
This was the end and purport of the ride
I learn'd, as walking slowly by their side
I heard their conversation. Often she--
"Brother, is this the country that I see?"
The bricks were smoking, and the ground was broke,
There were no signs of verdure when she spoke.
He, as the well-inform'd delight in chiding
The ignorant, these questions still deriding,
To his good judgment modestly she yields;
Till, brick-kilns past, they reach'd the open fields.
Then as with rapt'rous wonder round she gazes
On the green grass, the butter-cups, and daisies,
"This is the country sure enough," she cries;
"Is't not a charming place?" The boy replies,
"We'll go no further." "No," says she, "no need;
No finer place than this can be indeed."
I left them gathering flow'rs, the happiest pair
That ever London sent to breathe the fine fresh air,
THE BUTTERFLY
SISTER
Do, my dearest brother John,
Let that Butterfly alone.
BROTHER
What harm now do I do?
You're always making such a noise--
SISTER
O fie, John; none but naughty boys
Say such rude words as you.
BROTHER
Because you're always speaking sharp:
On the same thing you always harp.
A bird one may not catch,
Nor find a nest, nor angle neither,
Nor from the peacock pluck a feather,
But you are on the watch
To moralise and lecture still.
SISTER
And ever lecture, John, I will,
When such sad things I hear.
But talk not now of what is past;
The moments fly away too fast,
Though endlessly they seem to last
To that poor soul in fear.
BROTHER
Well, soon (I say) I'll let it loose;
But, sister, you talk like a goose,
There's no soul in a fly.
SISTER
It has a form and fibres fine,
Were temper'd by the hand divine
Who dwells beyond the sky.
Look, brother, you have hurt its wing--
And plainly by its fluttering
You see it's in distress,
Gay painted Coxcomb, spangled Beau,
A Butterfly is call'd you know,
That's always in full dress:
The finest gentleman of all
Insects he is--he gave a Ball,
You know the Poet wrote.
Let's fancy this the very same,
And then you'll own you've been to blame
To spoil his silken coat.
BROTHER
Your dancing, spangled, powder'd Beau,
Look, through the air I've let him go:
And now we're friends again.
As sure as he is in the air,
From this time, Ann, I will take care,
And try to be humane.
THE PEACH
Mamma gave us a single Peach,
She shar'd it among seven;
Now you may think that unto each
But a small piece was given.
Yet though each share was very small,
We own'd when it was eaten,
Being so little for us all
Did its fine flavour heighten.
The tear was in our parent's eye,
It seem'd quite out of season;
When we ask'd wherefore she did cry,
She thus explain'd the reason.
"The cause, my children, I may say,
Was joy, and not dejection;
The Peach, which made you all so gay,
Gave rise to this reflection:
"It's many a mother's lot to share,
Seven hungry children viewing,
A morsel of the coarsest fare,
As I this Peach was doing."
CHUSING A NAME
I have got a new-born sister;
I was nigh the first that kiss'd her.
When the nursing woman brought her
To Papa, his infant daughter,
How Papa's dear eyes did glisten!--
She will shortly be to christen:
And Papa has made the offer,
I shall have the naming of her.
Now I wonder what would please her,
Charlotte, Julia, or Louisa.
Ann and Mary, they're too common;
Joan's too formal for a woman;
Jane's a prettier name beside;
But we had a Jane that died.
They would say, if 'twas Rebecca,
That she was a little Quaker,
Edith's pretty, but that looks
Better in old English books;
Ellen's left off long ago;
Blanche is out of fashion now.
None that I have nam'd as yet
Are so good as Margaret.
Emily is neat and fine.
What do you think of Caroline?
How I'm puzzled and perplext
What to chuse or think of next!
I am in a little fever.
Lest the name that I shall give her
Should disgrace her or defame her
I will leave Papa to name her.
CRUMBS TO THE BIRDS
A bird appears a thoughtless thing,
He's ever living on the wing,
And keeps up such a carolling,
That little else to do but sing
A man would guess had he.
No doubt he has his little cares,
And very hard he often fares,
The which so patiently he bears,
That, list'ning to those cheerful airs,
Who knows but he may be
In want of his next meal of seeds?
I think for _that_ his sweet song pleads.
If so, his pretty art succeeds.
I'll scatter there among the weeds
All the small crumbs I see.
THE ROOK AND THE SPARROWS
A little boy with crumbs of bread
Many a hungry sparrow fed.
It was a child of little sense,
Who this kind bounty did dispense;
For suddenly it was withdrawn,
And all the birds were left forlorn,
In a hard time of frost and snow,
Not knowing where for food to go.
He would no longer give them bread,
Because he had observ'd (he said)
That sometimes to the window came
A great blackbird, a rook by name,
And took away a small bird's share.
So foolish Henry did not care
What became of the great rook,
That from the little sparrows took,
Now and then, as 'twere by stealth,
A part of their abundant wealth;
Nor ever more would feed his sparrows.
_Thus ignorance a kind heart narrows._
I wish I had been there; I would
Have told the child, rooks live by food
In the same way that sparrows do.
I also would have told him too,
Birds act by instinct, and ne'er can
Attain the rectitude of man.
Nay that even, when distress
Does on poor human nature press,
We need not be too strict in seeing
The failings of a fellow being.
DISCONTENT AND QUARRELLING
JANE
Miss Lydia every day is drest
Better than I am in my best
White cambric-muslin frock.
I wish I had one made of clear
Work'd lawn, or leno very dear.--
And then my heart is broke
Almost to think how cheap my doll
Was bought, when hers cost--yes, cost full
A pound, it did, my brother;
Nor has she had it weeks quite five,
Yet, 'tis as true as I'm alive,
She's soon to have another.
ROBERT
O mother, hear my sister Jane,
How foolishly she does complain,
And teaze herself for nought.
But 'tis the way of all her sex,
Thus foolishly themselves to vex.
Envy's a female fault.
JANE
O brother Robert, say not so;
It is not very long ago,
Ah! brother, you've forgot,
When speaking of a boy you knew,
Remember how you said that you
Envied his happy lot.
ROBERT
Let's see, what were the words I spoke?
Why, may be I was half in joke--
May be I just might say--
Besides that was not half so bad;
For Jane, I only said he had
More time than I to play.
JANE
O _may be, may be_, very well:
And may be, brother, I don't tell
Tales to mamma like you.
MOTHER
O cease your wrangling, cease, my dears;
You would not wake a mother's fears
Thus, if you better knew.
REPENTANCE AND RECONCILIATION
JANE
Mamma is displeased and looks very grave,
And I own, brother, I was to blame
Just now when I told her I wanted to have,
Like Miss Lydia, a very fine _name_.
'Twas foolish, for, Robert, Jane sounds very well,
When mamma says, "I love my good Jane."
I've been lately so naughty, I hardly can tell
If she ever will say so again.
ROBERT
We are each of us foolish, and each of us young,
And often in fault and to blame.
Jane, yesterday I was too free with my tongue,
I acknowledge it now to my shame.
For a speech in my good mother's hearing I made,
Which reflected upon her whole sex;
And now like you, Jenny, I am much afraid
That this might my dear mother vex.
JANE
But yet, brother Robert, 'twas not quite so bad
As that naughty reflection of mine,
When I grumbled because Liddy Bellenger had
Dolls and dresses expensive and fine.
For then 'twas of her, her own self, I complain'd;
Since mamma does provide all I have.
MOTHER
Your repentance, my children, I see is unfeign'd,
You are now my good Robert, and now my good Jane;
And if you never will be naughty again,
Your fond mother will never look grave.
NEATNESS IN APPAREL
In your garb and outward clothing
A reserved plainness use;
By their neatness more distinguish'd
Than the brightness of their hues.
All the colours in the rainbow
Serve to spread the peacock's train;
Half the lustre of his feathers
Would turn twenty coxcombs vain.
Yet the swan that swims in rivers,
Pleases the judicious sight;
Who, of brighter colours heedless,
Trusts alone to simple white.
Yet all other hues, compared
With his whiteness, show amiss;
And the peacock's coat of colours
Like a fool's coat looks by his.
THE NEW-BORN INFANT
Whether beneath sweet beds of roses,
As foolish little Ann supposes,
The spirit of a babe reposes
Before it to the body come;
Or, as philosophy more wise
Thinks, it descendeth from the skies,--
We know the babe's now in the room.
And that is all which is quite clear,
Ev'n to philosophy, my dear.
The God that made us can alone
Reveal from whence a spirit's brought
Into young life, to light, and thought;
And this the wisest man must own.
We'll now talk of the babe's surprise,
When first he opens his new eyes,
And first receives delicious food.
Before the age of six or seven,
To mortal children is not given
Much reason; or I think he would
(And very naturally) wonder
What happy star he was born under,
That he should be the only care
Of the dear sweet-food-giving lady,
Who fondly calls him her own baby,
Her darling hope, her infant heir.
MOTES IN THE SUN-BEAMS
The motes up and down in the sun
Ever restlessly moving we see;
Whereas the great mountains stand still,
Unless terrible earthquakes there be.
If these atoms that move up and down
Were as useful as restless they are,
Than a mountain I rather would be
A mote in the sun-beam so fair.
THE BOY AND SNAKE
Henry was every morning fed
With a full mess of milk and bread.
One day the boy his breakfast took,
And eat it by a purling brook
Which through his mother's orchard ran.
From that time ever when he can
Escape his mother's eye, he there
Takes his food in th' open air.
Finding the child delight to eat
Abroad, and make the grass his seat,
His mother lets him have his way.
With free leave Henry every day
Thither repairs, until she heard
Him talking of a fine _grey bird_.
This pretty bird, he said, indeed,
Came every day with him to feed,
And it lov'd him, and lov'd his milk,
And it was smooth and soft like silk.
His mother thought she'd go and see
What sort of bird this same might be.
So the next morn she follows Harry,
And carefully she sees him carry
Through the long grass his heap'd-up mess.
What was her terror and distress,
When she saw the infant take
His bread and milk close to a snake!
Upon the grass he spreads his feast,
And sits down by his frightful guest,
Who had waited for the treat;
And now they both begin to eat.
Fond mother! shriek not, O beware
The least small noise, O have a care--
The least small noise that may be made,
The wily snake will be afraid--
If he hear the lightest sound,
He will inflict th' envenom'd wound.
She speaks not, moves not, scarce does breathe,
As she stands the trees beneath;
No sound she utters; and she soon
Sees the child lift up its spoon,
And tap the snake upon the head,
Fearless of harm; and then he said,
As speaking to familiar mate,
"Keep on your own side, do, Grey Pate:"
The snake then to the other side,
As one rebuked, seems to glide;
And now again advancing nigh,
Again she hears the infant cry,
Tapping the snake, "Keep further, do;
Mind, Grey Pate, what I say to you."
The danger's o'er--she sees the boy
(O what a change from fear to joy!)
Rise and bid the snake "good-bye;"
Says he, "Our breakfast's done, and I
Will come again to-morrow day:"
Then, lightly tripping, ran away.
THE FIRST TOOTH
SISTER
Through the house what busy joy,
Just because the infant boy
Has a tiny tooth to show.
I have got a double row,
All as white, and all as small;
Yet no one cares for mine at all.
He can say but half a word,
Yet that single sound's preferr'd
To all the words that I can say
In the longest summer day.
He cannot walk, yet if he put
With mimic motion out his foot,
As if he thought, he were advancing,
It's prized more than my best dancing.
BROTHER
Sister, I know, you jesting are,
Yet O! of jealousy beware.
If the smallest seed should be
In your mind of jealousy,
It will spring, and it will shoot,
Till it bear the baneful fruit.
I remember you, my dear,
Young as is this infant here.
There was not a tooth of those
Your pretty even ivory rows,
But as anxiously was watched,
Till it burst its shell new hatched,
As if it a Phoenix were,
Or some other wonder rare.
So when you began to walk--
So when you began to talk--
As now, the same encomiums past.
'Tis not fitting this should last
Longer than our infant days;
A child is fed with milk and praise.
TO A RIVER IN WHICH A CHILD WAS DROWNED
(_Text of 1818_)
Smiling river, smiling river,
On thy bosom sun-beams play;
Though they're fleeting and retreating,
Thou hast more deceit than they.
In thy channel, in thy channel,
Choak'd with ooze and grav'lly stones,
Deep immersed and unhearsed,
Lies young Edward's corse: his bones
Ever whitening, ever whitening,
As thy waves against them dash;
What thy torrent, in the current,
Swallow'd, now it helps to wash.
As if senseless, as if senseless
Things had feeling in this case;
What so blindly, and unkindly,
It destroy'd, it now does grace.
THE FIRST OF APRIL
"Tell me what is the reason you hang down your head;
From your blushes I plainly discern,
You have done something wrong. Ere you go up to bed,
I desire that the truth I may learn."
"O mamma, I have long'd to confess all the day
What an ill-natured thing I have done;
I persuaded myself it was only in play,
But such play I in future will shun.
"The least of the ladies that live at the school,
Her whose eyes are so pretty and blue,
Ah! would you believe it? an April fool
I have made her, and call'd her so too.
"Yet the words almost choak'd me; and, as I spoke low,
I have hopes that she might them not hear.
I had wrapt up some rubbish in paper, and so,
The instant the school-girls drew near,
"I presented it with a fine bow to the child,
And much her acceptance I press'd;
When she took it, and thank'd me, and gratefully smil'd,
I never felt half so distress'd.
"No doubt she concluded some sweetmeats were there,
For the paper was white and quite clean,
And folded up neatly, as if with great care.
O what a rude boy I have been!
"Ever since I've been thinking how vex'd she will be,
Ever since I've done nothing but grieve.
If a thousand young ladies a walking I see,
I will never another deceive."
CLEANLINESS
Come my little Robert near--
Fie! what filthy hands are here--
Who that e'er could understand
The rare structure of a hand,
With its branching fingers fine,
Work itself of hands divine,
Strong, yet delicately knit,
For ten thousand uses fit,
Overlaid with so clear skin
You may see the blood within,
And the curious palm, disposed
In such lines, some have supposed
You may read the fortunes there
By the figures that appear--
Who this hand would chuse to cover
With a crust of dirt all over,
Till it look'd in hue and shape
Like the fore-foot of an Ape?
Man or boy that works or plays
In the fields or the highways
May, without offence or hurt,
From the soil contract a dirt,
Which the next clear spring or river
Washes out and out for ever--
But to cherish stains impure,
Soil deliberate to endure,
On the skin to fix a stain
Till it works into the grain,
Argues a degenerate mind,
Sordid, slothful, ill inclin'd,
Wanting in that self-respect
Which does virtue best protect.
All-endearing Cleanliness,
Virtue next to Godliness,
Easiest, cheapest, needful'st duty,
To the body health and beauty,
Who that's human would refuse it,
When a little water does it?
THE LAME BROTHER
My parents sleep both in one grave;
My only friend's a brother.
The dearest things upon the earth
We are to one another.
A fine stout boy I knew him once,
With active form and limb;
Whene'er he leap'd, or jump'd, or ran,
O I was proud of him!
He leap'd too far, he got a hurt,
He now does limping go.--
When I think on his active days,
My heart is full of woe.
He leans on me, when we to school
Do every morning walk;
I cheer him on his weary way,
He loves to hear my talk:
The theme of which is mostly this,
What things he once could do.
He listens pleas'd--then sadly says,
"Sister, I lean on you."
Then I reply, "Indeed you're not
Scarce any weight at all.--
And let us now still younger years
To memory recall.
"Led by your little elder hand,
I learn'd to walk alone;
Careful you us'd to be of me,
My little brother John.
"How often, when my young feet tir'd,
You've carried me a mile!--
And still together we can sit,
And rest a little while.
"For our kind master never minds,
If we're the very last;
He bids us never tire ourselves
With walking on too fast."
GOING INTO BREECHES
Joy to Philip, he this day
Has his long coats cast away,
And (the childish season gone)
Puts the manly breeches on.
Officer on gay parade,
Red-coat in his first cockade,
Bridegroom in his wedding trim,
Birthday beau surpassing him,
Never did with conscious gait
Strut about in half the state,
Or the pride (yet free from sin)
Of my little MANIKIN:
Never was there pride, or bliss,
Half so rational as his.
Sashes, frocks, to those that need 'em--
Philip's limbs have got their freedom--
He can run, or he can ride,
And do twenty things beside,
Which his petticoats forbad:
Is he not a happy lad?
Now he's under other banners,
He must leave his former manners;
Bid adieu to female games,
And forget their very names,
Puss in Corners, Hide and Seek,
Sports for girls and punies weak!
Baste the Bear he now may play at,
Leap-frog, Foot-ball, sport away at,
Show his skill and strength at Cricket,
Mark his distance, pitch his wicket,
Run about in winter's snow
Till his cheeks and fingers glow,
Climb a tree, or scale a wall,
Without any fear to fall.
If he get a hurt or bruise,
To complain he must refuse,
Though the anguish and the smart
Go unto his little heart,
He must have his courage ready,
Keep his voice and visage steady,
Brace his eye-balls stiff as drum,
That a tear may never come,
And his grief must only speak
From the colour in his cheek.
This and more he must endure,
Hero he in miniature!
This and more must now be done
Now the breeches are put on.
NURSING
O hush, my little baby brother;
Sleep, my love, upon my knee.
What though, dear child, we've lost our mother;
That can never trouble thee.
You are but ten weeks old to-morrow;
What can you know of our loss?
The house is full enough of sorrow.
Little baby, don't be cross.
Peace, cry not so, my dearest love;
Hush, my baby-bird, lie still.--
He's quiet now, he does not move,
Fast asleep is little Will.
My only solace, only joy,
Since the sad day I lost my mother,
Is nursing her own Willy boy,
My little orphan brother.
THE TEXT
One Sunday eve a grave old man,
Who had not been at church, did say,
"Eliza, tell me, if you can,
What text our Doctor took to-day?"
She hung her head, she blush'd for shame,
One single word she did not know,
Nor verse nor chapter she could name,
Her silent blushes told him so.
Again said he, "My little maid,
What in the sermon did you hear;
Come tell me that, for that may aid
Me to find out the text, my dear."
A tear stole down each blushing cheek,
She wish'd she better had attended;
She sobbing said, when she could speak,
She heard not till 'twas almost ended.
"Ah! little heedless one, why what
Could you be thinking on? 'tis clear
Some foolish fancies must have got
Possession of your head, my dear.
"What thoughts were they, Eliza, tell,
Nor seek from me the truth to smother."--
"O I remember very well,
I whisper'd something to my brother.
"I said, 'Be friends with me, dear Will;'
We quarrell'd, Sir, at the church door,--
Though he cried, 'Hush, don't speak, be still,'
Yet I repeated these words o'er
"Sev'n or eight times, I have no doubt.
But here comes William, and if he
The good things he has heard about
Forgets too, Sir, the fault's in me."
"No, Sir," said William, "though perplext
And much disturbed by my sister,
I in this matter of the text,
I thank my memory, can assist her.
"I have, and pride myself on having,
A more retentive head than she."--
Then gracefully his right hand waving,
He with no little vanity
Recited gospel, chapter, verse--
I should be loth to spoil in metre
All the good words he did rehearse,
As spoken by our Lord to Peter.
But surely never words from heaven
Of peace and love more full descended;
That we should seventy times seven
Forgive our brother that offended.
In every point of view he plac'd it,
As he the Doctor's self had been,
With emphasis and action grac'd it:
But from his self-conceit 'twas seen
Who had brought home the words, and who had
A little on the meaning thought;
Eliza now the old man knew had
Learn'd that which William never caught.
Without impeaching William's merit,
His head but served him for the letter,
Hers miss'd the words, but kept the spirit;
Her memory to her heart was debtor.
THE END OF MAY
"Our Governess is not in school,
So we may talk a bit;
Sit down upon this little stool,
Come, little Mary, sit:
"And, my dear play-mate, tell me why
In dismal black you're drest?
Why does the tear stand in your eye?
With sobs why heaves your breast?
"When we're in grief, it gives relief
Our sorrows to impart;
When you've told why, my dear, you cry,
'Twill ease your little heart."
"O, it is trouble very bad
Which causes me to weep;
All last night long we were so sad,
Not one of us could sleep.
"Beyond the seas my father went,
'Twas very long ago;
And he last week a letter sent
(I told you so, you know)
"That he was safe in Portsmouth bay,
And we should see him soon,
Either the latter end of May,
Or by the first of June.
"The end of May was yesterday,
We all expected him;
And in our best clothes we were drest,
Susan, and I, and Jim.
"O how my poor dear mother smil'd,
And clapt her hands for joy;
She said to me, 'Come here, my child,
And Susan, and my boy.
"'Come all, and let us think,' said she,
'What we can do to please
Your father, for to-day will he
Come home from off the seas.
"'That you have won, my dear young son,
A prize at school, we'll tell,
Because you can, my little man,
In writing all excel;
"'And you have made a poem, nearly
All of your own invention:
Will not your father love you dearly,
When this to him I mention?
"'Your sister Mary, she can say
Your poetry by heart;
And to repeat your verses may
Be little Mary's part,
"'Susan, for you, I'll say you do
Your needlework with care,
And stitch so true the wristbands new,
Dear father's soon to wear!'
"'O hark!' said James; 'I hear one speak;
'Tis like a seaman's voice.'--
Our mother gave a joyful shriek;
How did we all rejoice!
"'My husband's come!' 'My father's here!
But O, alas, it was not so;
It was not as we said:
A stranger seaman did appear,
On his rough cheek there stood a tear,
For he brought to us a tale of woe,
Our father dear was dead."
FEIGNED COURAGE
Horatio, of ideal courage vain,
Was flourishing in air his father's cane,
And, as the fumes of valour swell'd his pate,
Now thought himself _this_ Hero, and now _that_:
"And now," he cried, "I will Achilles be;
My sword I brandish; see, the Trojans flee.
Now I'll be Hector, when his angry blade
A lane through heaps of slaughter'd Grecians made!
And now by deeds still braver I'll evince,
I am no less than Edward the Black Prince.--
Give way, ye coward French:--" as thus he spoke,
And aim'd in fancy a sufficient stroke
To fix the fate of Cressy or Poictiers;
(The Muse relates the Hero's fate with tears)
He struck his milk-white hand against a nail,
Sees his own blood, and feels his courage fail.
Ah! where is now that boasted valour flown,
That in the tented field so late was shown!
Achilles weeps, Great Hector hangs the head,
And the Black Prince goes whimpering to bed.
THE BROKEN DOLL
An infant is a selfish sprite;
But what of that? the sweet delight
Which from participation springs,
Is quite unknown to these young things.
We elder children then will smile
At our dear little John awhile,
And bear with him, until he see
There is a sweet felicity
In pleasing more than only one
Dear little craving selfish John.
He laughs, and thinks it a fine joke,
That he our new wax doll has broke.
Anger will never teach him better;
We will the spirit and the letter
Of courtesy to him display,
By taking in a friendly way
These baby frolics, till he learn
True sport from mischief to discern.
Reproof a parent's province is;
A sister's discipline is this,
By studied kindness to effect
A little brother's young respect.
What is a doll? a fragile toy.
What is its loss? if the dear boy,
Who half perceives he's done amiss,
Retain impression of the kiss
That follow'd instant on his cheek;
If the kind loving words we speak
Of "Never mind it," "We forgive,"
If these in his short memory live
Only perchance for half a day--
Who minds a doll--if that should lay
The first impression in his mind
That sisters are to brothers kind?
For thus the broken doll may prove
Foundation to fraternal love.
THE DUTY OF A BROTHER
Why on your sister do you look,
Octavius, with an eye of scorn,
As scarce her presence you could brook?--
Under one roof you both were born.
Why, when she gently proffers speech,
Do you ungently turn your head?
Since the same sire gave life to each;
With the same milk ye both were fed.
Such treatment to a female, though
A perfect stranger she might be,
From you would most unmanly show;
In you to her 'tis worse to see.
When any ill-bred boys offend her,
Showing their manhood by their sneers,
It is your business to defend her
'Gainst their united taunts and jeers.
And not to join the illiberal crew
In their contempt of female merit;
What's bad enough in them, from you
Is want of goodness, want of spirit.
What if your rougher out-door sports
Her less robustious spirits daunt;
And if she join not the resorts,
Where you and your wild playmates haunt:
Her milder province is at home;
When your diversions have an end,
When over-toil'd from play you come,
You'll find in her an in-doors friend.
Leave not your sister to another;
As long as both of you reside
In the same house, who but her brother
Should point her books, her studies guide?
If Nature, who allots our cup,
Than her has made you stronger, wiser;
It is that you, as you grow up,
Should be her champion, her adviser.
It is the law that Hand intends,
Which fram'd diversity of sex;
The man the woman still defends,
The manly boy the girl protects.
WASPS IN A GARDEN
The wall-trees are laden with fruit;
The grape, and the plum, and the pear,
The peach, and the nect'rine, to suit
Ev'ry taste in abundance, are there.
Yet all are not welcome to taste
These kind bounties of nature; for one
From her open-spread table must haste,
To make room for a more favour'd son:
As that wasp will soon sadly perceive,
Who has feasted awhile on a plum;
And, his thirst thinking now to relieve,
For a sweet liquid draught he is come.
He peeps in the narrow-mouth'd glass,
Which depends from a branch of the tree;
He ventures to creep down,--alas!
To be drown'd in that delicate sea.
"Ah say," my dear friend, "is it right,
These glass bottles are hung upon trees:
'Midst a scene of inviting delight,
Should we find such mementoes as these?"
"From such sights," said my friend, "we may draw
A lesson, for look at that bee;
Compar'd with the wasp which you saw,
He will teach us what we ought to be.
"He in safety industriously plies
His sweet honest work all the day,
Then home with his earnings he flies;
Nor in thieving his time wastes away."--
"O hush, nor with _fables_ deceive,"
I replied; "which, though pretty, can ne'er
Make me cease for that insect to grieve,
Who in agony still does appear.
"If a _simile_ ever you need,
You are welcome to make a wasp do;
But you ne'er should mix fiction indeed
With things that are serious and true."
WHAT IS FANCY?
SISTER
I am to write three lines, and you
Three others that will rhyme.
There--now I've done my task.
BROTHER
Three stupid lines as e'er I knew.
When you've the pen next time,
Some Question of me ask.
SISTER
Then tell me, brother, and pray mind,
Brother, you tell me true:
What sort of thing is _fancy_?
BROTHER
By all that I can ever find,
'Tis something that is very new,
And what no dunces _can see_.
SISTER
That is not half the way to tell
What _fancy_ is about;
So pray now tell me more.
BROTHER
Sister, I think 'twere quite as well
That you should find it out;
So think the matter o'er.
SISTER
It's what comes in our heads when we
Play at "Let's make believe,"
And when we play at "Guessing."
BROTHER
And I have heard it said to be
A talent often makes us grieve,
And sometimes proves a blessing.
ANGER
Anger in its time and place
May assume a kind of grace.
It must have some reason in it,
And not last beyond a minute.
If to further lengths it go,
It does into malice grow.
'Tis the difference that we see
'Twixt the Serpent and the Bee.
If the latter you provoke,
It inflicts a hasty stroke,
Puts you to some little pain,
But it _never stings again_.
Close in tufted bush or brake
Lurks the poison-swelled snake,
Nursing up his cherish'd wrath.
In the purlieus of his path,
In the cold, or in the warm,
Mean him good, or mean him harm,
Whensoever fate may bring you,
The vile snake will _always sting you_.
BLINDNESS
In a stage-coach, where late I chanc'd to be,
A little quiet girl my notice caught;
I saw she look'd at nothing by the way,
Her mind seem'd busy on some childish thought.
I with an old man's courtesy address'd
The child, and call'd her pretty dark-eyed maid
And bid her turn those pretty eyes and see
The wide extended prospect. "Sir," she said,
"I cannot see the prospect, I am blind."
Never did tongue of child utter a sound
So mournful, as her words fell on my ear.
Her mother then related how she found
Her child was sightless. On a fine bright day
She saw her lay her needlework aside,
And, as on such occasions mothers will,
For leaving off her work began to chide.
"I'll do it when 'tis day-light, if you please;
I cannot work, Mamma, now it is night."
The sun shone bright upon her when she spoke,
And yet her eyes receiv'd no ray of light.
THE MIMIC HARLEQUIN
"I'll _make believe_, and fancy something strange:
I will suppose I have the power to change
And make all things unlike to what they were,
To jump through windows and fly through the air,
And quite confound all places and all times,
Like Harlequins we see in Pantomimes.
These thread-papers my wooden sword must be,
Nothing more like one I at present see.
And now all round this drawing-room I'll range
And every thing I look at I will change.
Here's Mopsa, our old cat, shall be a bird;
To a Poll Parrot she is now transferr'd.
Here's Mamma's work-bag, now I will engage
To whisk this little bag into a cage;
And now, my pretty Parrot, get you in it,
Another change I'll shew you in a minute."
"O fie, you naughty child, what have you done?
There never was so mischievous a son.
You've put the cat among my work, and torn
A fine lac'd cap that I but once have worn."
WRITTEN IN THE FIRST LEAF OF A CHILD'S MEMORANDUM-BOOK
My neat and pretty book, when I thy small lines see,
They seem for any use to be unfit for me.
My writing, all misshaped, uneven as my mind,
Within this narrow space can hardly be confin'd.
Yet I will strive to make my hand less aukward look;
I would not willingly disgrace thee, my neat book!
The finest pens I'll use, and wond'rous pains I'll take,
And I these perfect lines my monitors will make.
And every day I will set down in order due,
How that day wasted is; and should there be a few
At the year's end that shew more goodly to the sight,
If haply here I find some days not wasted quite,
If a small portion of them I have pass'd aright,
Then shall I think the year not wholly was misspent,
And that my Diary has been by some good Angel sent.
MEMORY
"For gold could Memory be bought,
What treasures would she not be worth!
If from afar she could be brought,
I'd travel for her through the earth!"
This exclamation once was made
By one who had obtain'd the name
Of young forgetful Adelaide:
And while she spoke, lo! Memory came.
If Memory indeed it were,
Or such it only feign'd to be--
A female figure came to her,
Who said, "My name is Memory:
"Gold purchases in me no share,
Nor do I dwell in distant land;
Study, and thought, and watchful care,
In every place may me command.
"I am not lightly to be won;
A visit only now I make:
And much must by yourself be done,
Ere me you for an inmate take.
"The only substitute for me
Was ever found, is call'd a pen:
The frequent use of that will be
The way to make me come again."
THE REPROOF
Mamma heard me with scorn and pride
A wretched beggar boy deride.
"Do you not know," said I, "how mean
It is to be thus begging seen?
If for a week I were not fed,
I'm sure I would not beg my bread."
And then away she saw me stalk
With a most self-important walk.
But meeting her upon the stairs,
All these my consequential airs
Were chang'd to an entreating look.
"Give me," said I, "the Pocket Book,
Mamma, you promis'd I should have."
The Pocket Book to me she gave;
After reproof and counsel sage,
She bade me write in the first page
This naughty action all in rhyme;
No food to have until the time,
In writing fair and neatly worded,
The unfeeling fact I had recorded.
Slow I compose, and slow I write;
And now I feel keen hunger bite.
My mother's pardon I entreat,
And beg she'll give me food to eat.
Dry bread would be received with joy
By her repentant Beggar Boy.
THE TWO BEES
But a few words could William say,
And those few could not speak plain.
Yet thought he was a man one day;
Never saw I a boy so vain.
From what could vanity proceed
In such a little lisping lad?
Or was it vanity indeed?
Or was he only very glad?
For he without his maid may go
To the heath with elder boys,
And pluck ripe berries where they grow:
Well may William then rejoice.