4. IV.

Och hone! Heu! heu!

Don't provoke me to do it; Non me provocato,

For there's girls by the score Nam virginum sat, o!

That loves me, and more. Stant mihi amato ...

And you'd look very queer, Et stuperes planè,

If some morning you'd meet Si aliquo manè

My wedding all marching Me sponsum videres;

In pride down the street. Hoc quomodo ferres?

Throth you'd open your eyes, Quid diceres, si cum

And you'd die of surprise Triumpho per vicum,

To think 'twasn't you Maritus it ibi,

Was come to it. Non tibi!

And 'faith! Katty Naile Et pol! Catherinæ

And her cow, I go bail, Cui vacca, (tu, sine)

Would jump if I'd say, Si proferem hymen

"Katty Naile, name the day." Grande esset discrimen;

And though you're fair and fresh Tu quamvis, hìc aio

As the blossoms in May, Sis blandior Maio,

And she's short and dark Et hæc calet rariùs

Like a cowld winter's day, Quàm Januarius;

Yet, if _you_ don't repent Si non mutas brevi,

Before Easter,--when Lent Hanc mihi decrevi

Is over--I'll marry (Ut sic ultus forem)

For spite. Uxorem;

Och hone! and when I Tum posthâc diù

Die for you, Me spectrum

'Tis my ghost that you'll see Verebere tu ... eleleu!

every night!

FAMILY STORIES. No. IV.--THE SQUIRE'S STORY.

THE JACKDAW OF RHEIMS.

A GOLDEN LEGEND.

"Tunc miser Corvus adeo conscientiæ

stimulis compunctus fuit, et execratio

eum tantopere excarneficavit, ut exinde tabescere

inciperet, maciem contraheret, omnem cibum aversaretur,

nec ampliùs crocitaret: pennæ præterea ei defluebant,

et alis pendulis omnes facetias intermisit, et tam

macer apparuit ut omnes ejus miserescerent."

"Tunc abbas sacerdotibus mandavit ut

rursus furem absolverent; quo facto, Corvus, omnibus

mirantibus, propediem convaluit, et pristinam

santitatem recuperavit." _De Illust. Ord. Cisterc._

The Jackdaw sat on the Cardinal's chair!

Bishop, and abbot, and prior were there;

Many a monk, and many a friar,

Many a knight, and many a squire,

With a great many more of lesser degree,--

In sooth, a goodly company;

And they served the Lord Primate on bended knee.

Never, I ween,

Was a prouder seen,

Read of in books, or dreamt of in dreams,

Than the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Rheims!

In and out,

Through the motley rout,

That little Jackdaw kept hopping about;

Here and there,

Like a dog in a fair,

Over comfits and cates,

And dishes and plates,

Cowl and cope, and rochet and pall,

Mitre and crosier, he hopped upon all!

With a saucy air,

He perch'd on the chair

Where in state the great Lord Cardinal sat

In the great Lord Cardinal's great red hat;

And he peer'd in the face

Of his Lordship's Grace

With a satisfied look, as if he would say,

"We two are the greatest folks here to-day!"

And the priests, with awe,

As such freaks they saw,

Said, "The devil must be in that little Jackdaw!"

The feast was over, the board was clear'd,

The flawns and the custards had all disappear'd,

And six little singing-boys,--dear little souls

In nice clean faces and nice white stoles,

Came, in order due,

Two by two,

Marching that grand refectory through!

A nice little boy held a golden ewer,

Embossed, and filled with water as pure

As any that flows between Rheims and Namur,

Which a nice little boy stood ready to catch

In a fine golden hand-basin made to match.

Two nice little boys, rather more grown,

Carried lavender water and eau de Cologne;

And a nice little boy had a nice cake of soap,

Worthy of washing the hands of the Pope.

One little boy more

A napkin bore,

Of the best white diaper, fring'd with pink,

And a Cardinal's Hat mark'd in permanent ink.

The great Lord Cardinal turns at the sight

Of these nice little boys dress'd all in white:

From his finger he draws

His costly turquoise;

And, not thinking at all about little Jackdaws,

Deposits it straight

By the side of his plate,

While the nice little boys on his Eminence wait;

Till, when nobody's dreaming of any such thing,

That little Jackdaw hops off with the ring.

* * * * *

There's a cry and a shout,

And a deuce of a rout,

And nobody seems to know what they're about,

But the monks have their pockets all turn'd inside out;

The friars are kneeling,

And hunting, and feeling

The carpet, the floor, and the walls, and the ceiling.

The Cardinal drew

Off each plum-coloured shoe,

And left his red stockings expos'd to the view;

He peeps, and he feels

In the toes and the heels.

They turn up the dishes, they turn up the plates,

They take up the poker and poke out the grates,

They turn up the rugs,

They examine the mugs:--

But no! no such thing;

They can't find the ring;

And the abbot declared that, "when nobody twigg'd it,

Some rascal or other had popped in, and prigg'd it!"

The Cardinal rose with a dignified look,

He call'd for his candle, his bell, and his book!

In holy anger, and pious grief,

He solemnly cursed that rascally thief!

He curs'd him at board, he curs'd him in bed;

From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head;

He curs'd him in sleeping, that every night

He should dream of the devil, and wake in a fright;

He curs'd him in eating, he curs'd him in drinking,

He curs'd him in coughing, in sneezing, in winking;

He curs'd him in sitting, in standing, in lying,

He curs'd him in walking, in riding, in flying,

He curs'd him living, he curs'd him dying!

Never was heard such a terrible curse;

But, what gave rise

To no little surprise,

Nobody seem'd one penny the worse!

The day was gone,

The night came on,

The monks and the friars they search'd till dawn;

When the Sacristan saw,

On crumpled claw,

Come limping a poor little lame Jackdaw!

No longer gay,

As on yesterday;

His feathers all seem'd to be turn'd the wrong way;

His pinions droop'd, he could hardly stand,

His head was as bald as the palm of your hand;

His eye so dim,

So wasted each limb,

That heedless of grammar, they all cried, "That's him!--

That's the scamp that has done this scandalous thing!

That's the thief that has got my Lord Cardinal's ring!"

The poor little Jackdaw,

When the monks he saw,

Feebly gave vent to the ghost of a caw;

And turn'd his bald head, as much as to say,

"Pray, be so good as to walk this way!"

Slower and slower

He limp'd on before,

Till they came to the back of the belfry-door,

Where the first thing they saw,

'Midst the sticks and the straw,

Was the ring, in the nest of that little Jackdaw!

Then the great Lord Cardinal call'd for his book,

And off that terrible curse he took;

The mute expression

Serv'd in lieu of confession,

And, being thus coupled with full restitution,

The Jackdaw got plenary absolution.

When those words were heard,

That poor little bird

Was so changed in a moment, 'twas really absurd:

He grew sleek and fat;

In addition to that,

A fresh crop of feathers came thick as a mat!

His tail waggled more

Even than before;

But no longer it wagged with an impudent air,

No longer he perch'd on the Cardinal's chair.

He hopped now about

With a gait devout;

At Matins, at Vespers, he never was out;

And, so far from any more pilfering deeds,

He always seem'd telling the Confessor's beads.

If any one lied, or if any one swore,

Or slumber'd in pray'r time and happened to snore,

That good Jackdaw

Would give a great "caw,"

As much as to say, "Don't do so any more!"

While many remarked, as his manner they saw,

That they never had known such a pious Jackdaw!

He long lived the pride

Of that country side,

And at last in the odour of sanctity died;

When, as words were too faint

His merits to paint,

The conclave determined to make him a Saint;

And on newly-made Saints and Popes, as you know,

It's the custom at Rome new names to bestow,

So they canoniz'd him by the name of Jem Crow!

OUR SONG OF THE MONTH. No. VI.

June, 1837.

I.

Mother of summer roses!

Winter's ling'ring closes

Made us fear for thee:--

Many a hope was wailing,

Thinking thou wert sailing,

With thy smile,

To some false isle,

Upon our tribute sea!

II.

Mother of summer roses!

Nought on earth opposes

Our fond claim to thee!

Find'st thou welcome dearer?

Beauty or minstrels nearer?

In the arch

Of thy round march

Can gentler rest-place be?

III.

Mother of summer roses,

June! thy month discloses

All that is sweet and fair:

Birds and flower wreathing

Minstrel garlands, breathing

Song and bloom

In one perfume,

Reviving the faint air!

IV.

Mother of summer roses!

On thy breast reposes

The flush'd cheek of the year:

Break not his soft slumbers

With rude music-numbers:

Mingled gush

Of stream and thrush

Be all that may come near!

W.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.

It is an astounding but gratifying proof of the rapid march of

civilization, that periodical literature springs up and flourishes among

tribes and nations which, but twenty or thirty years ago, had hardly

advanced a few steps beyond barbarism. A Cherokee newspaper has for some

time been published, and in the Sandwich Islands a gazette has recently

been established; and a file of a paper called "the Indian Phoenix,"

published in the United States, under the superintendence of an Indian

editor, and addressed exclusively to his countrymen, has just fallen

under our notice. These are pleasing facts for the consideration of

every true philanthropist, and stable data on which the philosopher may

argue that the day is not far distant when the rays of knowledge shall

illumine every nation of the earth. Wherever a newspaper is established,

ignorance must diminish; for the newspaper is not only the effect, but

the cause of civilization,--not only the work itself, but the means by

which the work is performed. The Indian Phoenix is published in the

English language at Washington, and is from thence distributed among

these roving aborigines, not only in every part of the United States,

but throughout the vast territories of Mexico and Texas. The paper is

not only edited, but printed by Indians; and, whatever may be said of

the intellectual portions of it, the mechanical parts will certainly

bear comparison with the provincial journals of England, and are much

before the newspapers of several of the nations of Europe, those of

Germany and Portugal for instance, which are as wretched specimens of

typography as it is now possible to meet with.

For the amusement of our readers we shall proceed to make a few extracts

from these very curious journals. The principles which are advocated

therein will, no doubt, appear startling at first sight; but a little

reflection will show, that, although strange, they are not altogether

unfounded. These men have, by the strong arms of European civilization,

been driven from the wild forests inherited by their forefathers,

the woods they hunted in have been converted into corn-fields, and

the clear waters of the lonely rivers beside which they dwelt have

been contaminated by the refuse of smoky manufactories, and rendered

busy with the sails and paddle-wheels of enterprising commerce. The

civilization which thus came upon the land from afar has now reached

its original inhabitants; and the Indians, savages no more, have

begun to employ the arts of peace and the powerful weapons of opinion

to reconquer a portion of the broad lands of which they have been

despoiled. The struggles in Texas, and the unsettled state of Mexico,

have caused them to turn their eyes in that direction; and they have

been inspired by the hope that Mexico is to be the region in which

all the scattered tribes will be collected together to form one great

independent nation. It is not intended in this brief notice to speculate

upon the probability or improbability of such a scheme, or to say

whether or not these dispersed and dismembered clans, without leader or

bond of union, will ever be able to accomplish so gigantic a project.

It is sufficient to state that such is their object, in order that the

reader may understand the allusions in the extracts which we shall place

before him. The following will show the prose these Indians are capable

of writing (we shall come to their poetry by and by), and will also give

an idea of their political creed. In the leading article of the first

number, the editor says,

"Our creed may be met with in these words. We render unto the

self-esteemed civilized world the things which are the self-esteemed

civilized world's, and unto the long-oppressed, yet noble, elevated, and

dignified Indian the things which once belonged and shall again belong

to him."

These sentiments, and their open avowal, although they may not cause the

settler to tremble for the safety of his homestead, ought nevertheless

to make the statesman ponder well on the condition and aspirations of

this ill-used race. The editor continues:

"In the deep gloom of the future position of these countries we see

no evidence of a single periodical grasping with energetic vision

the coming time. Alone, therefore, do we step on the arena of public

opinion. With nerved heart and nerved hand shall we advance: the

curiosity of the many, the surprise of others, the encouragement of the

few, the denunciations of the National Gazette, or New York American,

or all who may follow in their fetid and nauseous trail, shall not turn

wide one of the barbed arrows which shall now and henceforth be launched

unsparingly at all who cross our path."--"We are not mad, most noble

Festus, but speak the words of truth and soberness."

The following little bit of Scriptural exposition will, no doubt, cause

a smile even on the grave faces of the learned doctors who are versed in

Biblical knowledge. The Indians, stigmatized by the civilized nations

of the earth for the cruel practice of scalping their fallen enemies,

bring forward the authority of our sacred book in their justification.

Even David, the man after God's own heart, and one of the finest poets

the world ever produced, went out on the war-path like a Mohican or a

Cherokee, and bore away the scalps of his enemies! The editor hints

that this alone would warrant the assertion which has been so often put

forth, that America was peopled by the lost ten tribes of Israel. He

says,

"We invite the attention--we throw down the gauntlet of defiance to all

and every civilized Christian in Europe or America to gainsay or dispute

the correctness or validity of the inferences and facts stated below.

The Scriptures say,

"'And Michal, Saul's daughter, loved David; and they told Saul, and the

thing pleased him.

"'And Saul said, I will give him her that she may be a snare to him, and

that the hand of the Philistines may be against him.

"'And Saul said, Thus shall ye say to David: the king desireth not any

dowry, but a hundred foreskins of the Philistines, to be avenged on the

king's enemies. But Saul thought to make David fall by the hand of the

Philistines.

"'Wherefore David arose, he and his men, and slew of the Philistines two

hundred men, and David brought their foreskins, and they gave them in

full toll to the king, that he might be the king's son-in-law.'

"We see from this," (continues the editor of the Phoenix,) "that

David, who was a great Jewish warrior, went out on the war-path not

from any motive of war, or to revenge the death of his fallen comrades;

but for what? Why, to get a marriage portion to lay before the king

of the Jewish nation. And what was this marriage portion? Lo! it was

one hundred _scalps_ of the Philistines. * * * * * At the conclusion

we are told that Michal, Saul's daughter, loved him. Why? _Because he

was a great warrior, who had taken many scalps, and, moreover, David

behaved himself wisely, that is, cunning, in taking of scalps from the

Philistines, so that his name was much set by._ As the Jews were in the

time of Saul and David, so are the Indian tribes of the West and of

North America. They go out on the war-path, they return with scalps; and

the daughters of the tribe sing, as in the days of David, 'The warrior

Dutch hath slain his tens, but the warrior Smith hath slain his fifties

in the villages of the Tarwargans.'"

The following is a specimen of the poetry,--one of the war-songs of

these regenerated Indians. We cannot say it is quite equal to the prose,

but it is certainly more curious.

"Indian chiefs, arise!

The glorious hour's gone forth,

And in the world's eyes

Display who gave you birth!

Indian chiefs, let us go

In arms to Mexico;

Till the Spanish blood shall flow

In a river at our feet.

Then, manfully despising

The pale faces' yoke,

Let your tribes see you rising

Till your chains is broke!"

Fastidious readers may object both to the vigour and the grammar of the

above; but we have still richer specimens in store for them. The song

continues:

"As rose the tribes of _Judah_

In days long past and gone,

I'll lead you to as _good a_

Land to be your own.

Cherokee! in slumbers

Why lethargic wilt thou lie?

Arise, and bring thy numbers

Us to ally.

Arouse! Oh, then, awake thee!

And hasten to my standard;

For I will ne'er forsake thee,

But ever lead the vanguard!

Come on, the brave Oneida,

Seneca, Delaware,

The promised land divide a-

-Mong you when you're there."

The rhymes of "Judah" and "good a" and "standard" and "vanguard," are

tolerably original; but they are beaten hollow by that of the last

verse, "Oneida" and "divide a-"!--"-Mong you when you're there," is a

sequel which has much more truth than elegance in it. "-Mong you (_when

you're there_?)" we would suggest as a new and improved reading of the

passage. The following is in a much more elevated style; there is a

rough vigour about it which many of our own namby-pamby poetasters would

do well to imitate. The rhymes are also more felicitous, and the measure

and grammar less objectionable.

"The mountain sheep are sweeter,

But the valley sheep are fatter;

We therefore deemed it meeter

To carry off the latter.

We planned an expedition:

We met a host, and quelled it;

We took a strong position,

And killed the men who held it!"

The above stanza is unique. Every line tells; and there is a raciness, a

tartness about it, if we may so express it, which is quite delightful.

"_The valley sheep are fatter;_

_We therefore deemed it meeter_

_To carry off the latter._"

Many ballads have been written about Rob Roy, who also had a sneaking

inclination for the "fat sheep" of other people: but the daring

simplicity of these lines has never been surpassed. The song continues:

"On Norte's richest valley,

There herds of kine were browsing;

We made a nightly sally

To furnish our carousing.

Fierce soldiers rushed to meet us,

We met them, and o'erthrew them;

They struggled hard to beat us,

But we conquered them, and slew them!

As we drove our prize at leisure,

Santa Anna marched to catch us;

His rage surpassed all measure,

Because he could not match us.

He fled to his hall pillars;

But, ere our force we led off,

Some sacked his house and cellars,

While others cut his head off."

Poetry has always been allowed some licence, and we suppose we must pass

over the assertion in the last line, by merely observing by the way that

Santa Anna is, in vulgar phrase, still "alive and kicking." The song

ends thus:

"We then, in strife bewildering,

Spilt blood enough to swim in;

We orphaned many children, (_childering_)

And widowed many women.

The eagles and the ravens

We glutted with the foemen;

Their heroes and their cravens,

Their lancers and their bowmen.

As for Santa Anna, their blood-red chief,

His head was borne before us;

His wine and beasts supplied our feasts,

And his overthrow our chorus."

The foregoing extracts are all in a warlike strain. We will now give a

few specimens of the softer lyrics in which these _scalpers_ indulge.

The Irish melodies of Moore are, it appears, not unknown even amongst

them; and that they are admired, the following imitation, or rather

parody, of one of the most beautiful of them will sufficiently show.

"There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet

As that Mexican vale in whose bosom "lakes" meet.

Oh! the last ray of feeling and life must depart,

Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart!

Yet it was not that nature had shed o'er the scene

Her purest of crystal, and brightest of green;

'Twas not the soft magic of streamlet or hill:

Oh, no, it was something more heart-touching still!

'Twas remembrance of all,--Montezuma--his throne--

The power and the glory of Aztek all gone!

Like the leaves of the forest in autumn are strewn,

Were the splendour and hope of that race overthrown.

But the day-star is rising unclouded and bright,

That shall clear and illumine long ages of night,

And restore to that valley the Indian race,

And leave of their white lords no longer a trace.

Sweet "Mexican valley," how calm shall we rest

In thy bosom of shade, when thy sons are all blest!

When 'neath the fig-tree and the vine of each man

They shall sing to the praise of the Almighty one!

When the storm of the war, and its bloodshed, shall cease,

And our hearts, like her lakes, be mingled in peace!"

Interspersed through the papers are various imitations of our poets,

especially of Scott, Byron, and Mrs. Hemans. As an apology for the

plagiarisms, the editor places over the poet's corner the following

motto:

"To the living poets we beg to say,

that it not being fair for them to monopolize

the best words in the language we write in, to say

nothing of the ideas, we take free liberty with them

when need is. We will make them amends two years hence

when they come to see us in the valleys of Mexico.

To the illustrious dead we shall fully explain our

reasons when we may chance to meet them in the 'great

elsewhere.'"

The next specimen is an imitation of Ossian, a bard whose poetry must

necessarily possess many charms for them.

"Come, all ye warriors! come with your chief--come! The song rises

like the sun in my soul! I feel the joys of other times. The Cherokee

was on the land of Arkansas. The strange warriors of the prairie were

rich in horses. We said in our souls, why not give the Tarwargans of

their abundance? Six of our warriors were found on the great prairie,

advancing like the moon among clouds, concealed from the view. Days

had passed when they approached the wigwams of the Tarwargans. A

narrow plain spreads beneath, covered with grass and aged trees. The

blue course of a stream is there. The horses were secured. Their feet

were slowly advancing towards the wigwams. Not without eyes were the

Tarwargans. The warriors had not been invisible. High hopes of prairie

horses and the scalps of the enemy fill their souls. A blast came upon

them. The sound of rifles was heard in the air. Three of the warriors

fell! The tomahawk descended, and they were left in their shame without

scalps. Two warriors fled together. SMOKE (a warrior) fled not: he

rushed for safety, and laid himself low with his rifle among the briers.

Shouts of triumph are heard. The Tarwargans return. The slain are

dragged to the dancing-ground--oh, grief! oh, revenge! Did you not know

the heart of _Smoke_? Placed in the ground are three stakes; tied are

the scalpless dead! Upright they sit. Oh, grief! the derision of the

Tarwargans! 'Cunning warriors are ye, oh, Cherokees! but your scalps are

at our feet.'"

The following, which the editor assures us is a literal translation

from an old song highly popular among the aboriginal tribes of Mexico,

is interesting. The poetry of the original is so sublime that the

translator, in despair of equalling it in rhyme, has given it us in

plain prose.

"Mexitli Tetzauhteotl (the Terrible God) o-ah! o-ah! o-ah! The son of

the woman of Tula. The green plume is on his head, the wing of the eagle

is on his leg; his forehead is blue, like the firmament. He carries a

spear and buckler, and with the fir-tree of Colhuacan he crushes the

mountains! O-ah! o-ah! o-ah! Mexitli Tetzauhteotl!"

* * * * *

"Mexitli Tetzauhteotl! o-ah! o-ah! o-ah! my father ate the heart of

Xochimilco! Where was Painalton, the god of the swift foot, when the

Miztecas ran to the mountains? 'Fast, warrior, fast!' said Painalton,

the brother of Mexitli. His foot-print is on the snows of Istaccihuatl,

and on the tops of the mountains of Orizaba. Toktepec, and Chinantla,

and Matlalzinco were strong warriors, but they shook under his feet

as the hills shake when the king of hell groans in the caverns. So my

father killed the men of the south, the men of the east, and the men of

the west, and Mexitli shook the fir-tree with joy, and Painalton danced

by night among the stars! O-ah! o-ah! Mexitli Tetzauhteotl!"

* * * * *

"Mexitli Tetzauhteotl! o-ah! o-ah! Where is the end of Mexico? It begins

in Huehuetapallan in the north, and who knows the end of Huehuetapallan?

In the south it sees the land of crocodiles and vultures,--the bog and

the rock where man cannot live. The sea washes it on the east, the

sea washes it on the west, and that is the end: who has looked to the

end of the waters? Mexico is the land of blossoms,--the land of the

tiger-flower, and the cactus-bud that opens at night like a star,--the

land of the dahlia, that ghosts come to snuff at. It is a land dear to

Mexitli! O-ah! o-ah! Mexitli Tetzauhteotl!

* * * * *

"Mexitli Tetzauhteotl! o-ah! o-ah! o-ah! Who were the enemies of Mexico?

Their heads are in the wall of the house of skulls, and the little child

strikes them as he goes by with a twig. Once Mexico was a bog of reeds,

and Mexitli slept on a couch of bulrushes. Our god now sits on a world

of gold, and the world is Mexico. Will any one fight me? I am a Mexican.

Mexitli is the god of the brave. Our city is fair on the island, and

Mexitli sleeps with us. When he calls me in the morning, I grasp the

quiver,--the quiver and the axe,--and I am not afraid. When he winds

his horn from the woods, I know that he is my father, and that he will

look at me while I fight. Sound the horn of battle; I see the spear of a

foe. Mexitli Tetzauhteotl, we are the men of Mexico! O-ah! o-ah! Mexitli

Tetzauhteotl!

With this extract we shall conclude our notice of this very curious

subject, promising, however, to return to it at a future period.

EPITAPH.

When London, of a rogue bereft,

Saw Tompkins, the _distiller_, die;

It seems some twenty pounds he left,

To pay a poet for a lie.

Thus wrote the bard, who, lacking gold,

Was yet to tell a fib unwilling:

"This stone need not _his_ worth disclose,

Who half his life was good _in-stilling_."

R. J.

A GEOGRAPHICAL EPIGRAM.

"Oh, dear! such a climate 'tis death to be in--

I surely shall die in the 'Bights of Benin'!"

"All look for your death, and the more shall we rue it,

Since the _sups_, not the 'Bights,' will, alas! bring you to it."

R. J.

DARBY THE SWIFT; OR,

THE LONGEST WAY ROUND IS THE SHORTEST WAY HOME.

"He who runs may read."

CHAPTER 1.

"A century or two ago, there was a class of dependents or hangers-on

to the great families in Ireland, denominated 'running-footmen,' who

may truly be looked upon as originals in their singular, laborious,

and sometimes even dangerous calling. Though ostensibly mere

letter-carriers, or light-parcel bearers, across the difficult parts of

the country, as yet inaccessible to carriages, or even quadrupeds, (or

rendered passable by that style of road-making which the _Colossus of

Roads_, Macadam, pretended was _his_ discovery,) the running-footmen had

occasionally charges of more serious import. They were often suspected

of being the agents by whom political measures of local warfare were

transmitted from baronial sovereigns to their distant clanships or

allies,--of being walking, or rather running, telegraphs (for their

speed was prodigious) of some plot of treason against the rights of

the invader, and often cruelly and unjustly sacrificed to his fury,

when intercepted on their secret but seldom hostile missions. They

carried their notions of honour on the point of their trust, whatever

it might be, to a romantic scrupulosity. No matter whether it was a

love-letter or a challenge, a purse or a process, a curse or a blessing,

the faithful runner never revealed it to any one but the person for

whom it was intended. Though journeying by the most difficult passes,

and undergoing the most severe privations, those extraordinary fellows

seldom failed in their undertakings. This may be partially accounted for

by the reverence they were held in by their own people; for as the lower

Irish still continue to believe in the strange notion of their Oriental

ancestors, that the souls of 'innocents' (in plainer English, 'fools,')

are in heaven, and that their 'muddy vesture of decay' on earth is

entitled to superstitious respect, these motleys, in either their real

or assumed garb of folly, were treated with a kind of familiar or

affectionate reverence wherever they went amongst their own countrymen.

On the other hand, the paths of their treading, when they went out upon

distant journeys, were so little known to the hostile strangers, that

they ran but little chance of receiving injury at their hands, or even

meeting with them. Such were the running-footmen of other days; but

they are gone,--their _race_ is ended,--and those who pride themselves

upon their descent from the stock seem to have retained but few of the

qualifications of their ancestors. Everything romantic and happy in

Ireland seems to be dwindling away. No longer do we hear the pleasant

announcements of 'Blind Connal the harper, sir,' and 'Miss Biddy

Maquillian the fiddler, my lady,' and 'Dermot O'Dowd the piper, boys,'

and ----"

I had just read so far in some work or other which I had carelessly

taken up for a peep after dinner one day, when a loud knock at the door

of my apartment made me close the book, and say "Come in!" The door

slowly opened; but, as nobody entered, I demanded "Who's there?"

"It's me, masther; Darby, yir honor."--"What do you want?" inquired

I.--"Nothing, sir," said he, "but I've got a letther for ye,

sir."--"From whom?" said I.--"Faix, I don't know, sir," replied he

archly; "for I haven't read it yit; but here it is."--"Why don't you

come in and give it to me?" demanded I.--"I'm afraid, sir," said he,

"that my brogues would dirty the carpet, and set all the girls in the

kitchen a-laughing at me for comin' into the drawin'-room; and sure a

purtier room a man need never wish to come into."--"Oh! very well,"

said I, rising; "you shall have your way, Darby."--"Am I to wait for an

answer, sir?" said he, giving me the letter.--"No," replied I; "I'll

ring if it be necessary."--"Thank yir honor," said Darby, and turned

to descend the stairs with the furtive caution of a cat when stealing

upon its prey, lest he should make his brogues audible. A loud crash,

succeeded by a louder laugh, through which I distinctly heard, "_Merry

bad look to yiz all!_" convinced me that Darby's coming up stairs with

the letter was a contrivance of the other servants to play some trick

upon him, which their merriment seemed to show had succeeded; but into

which as I did not care to inquire, I sate down, opened my letter, and

began to read. I had not proceeded far before I found it related to

business of the most serious consequence, and required that I should

write _instanter_ to a friend, who was on a visit at Bally----, (nearly

forty miles distant across the country,) and have an answer by immediate

return of post. There was no time to be lost; so I wrote my letter as

speedily as possible, folded, sealed, and directed it, then rang the

bell with unusual impatience. It was promptly answered; but this time

there was no knock at the door before it opened, for it was Eileen,

my usual attendant, that presented herself, with a face whose natural

health, cheerfulness, and rustic beauty were considerably heightened by

the flush of recent merriment.

"What have you been doing with Darby, Eileen?" said I.--"_Oh,

widdy-eelish!_" (her constant ejaculation) said she laughing, "nothing

at all, sir; only he said he wanted to see the drawin'-room, so we sent

him up with the letter, and he slipped his foot as he came down, sir;

that's all."--"You know I don't like those tricks, Eileen," said I, with

all the severity I could muster against her smothered laughter.--"No,

sir; I know, sir; but when an _omadhaun_ like that--"--"Silence!" said

I. "I want to send a letter by the post: what o'clock is it?"--"Half an

hour too late, sir," said Eileen, resuming her gravity; "and there'll be

no post to-morrow."--"No post to-morrow!" echoed I.--"No sir; tomorrow's

Saturday, you know."--"Confusion!" said I, "it will be so indeed.

What's to be done?"--"I don't know, sir," replied Eileen despondingly;

"how far is it?"--"Oh! nearly forty miles across the country," cried

I; "and I want an answer immediately."--"Can't Darby _run_ across

with it?" said Eileen.--"_Run_ across with it!" cried I; "is the girl

out of her senses? Run across forty miles, as if it were nothing more

than a hop-step-and-jump!"--"He'll do it in that same, sir," said

Eileen seriously, "if ye'll only tell him what it is."--"_Who_'ll

do it?" cried I impatiently.--"Why, Darby, sir," said she; "Darby

in the kitchen, that's known all the country round for Darby the

Swift."--"What!" cried I, "that fellow that brought me the letter

just now? Impossible!"--"There's nothing impossible to God, sir, you

know,--glory be to his name!" said Eileen, "and so the _crathur_ has the

gift of it: he'll do it, I warrant ye." I looked up in Eileen's face,

and saw there was something beyond common opinion pleading for Darby;

so, waiving all farther parley, I desired her to go down stairs and send

him to me instantly. Eileen curtsied, and, retiring, shut the door; but

immediately opened it again, saying "You don't want him the night, sir,

do ye? for," added she with a loud laugh, "I think he has broken his

shin-bone."--"Send him to me immediately," said I peremptorily; upon

which Eileen, exclaiming "_Oh, widdy-eelish!_" made her exit.

Now it was evident from her last words that Eileen, in conjunction

with others, had done some injury to poor Darby in their gambols; but

as he is just coming up stairs, and will make a long pause before he

presumes to knock at the door a second time, allow me, gentle reader,

_ad interim_, to present you with a portrait of my servant, or follower,

"DARBY RYAN," nick-named "_The Swift_."

Darby Ryan was about thirty years of age, middle-sized, not over stout,

and tolerably well made. His hair, both in texture and tint, resembled

the _raddled_ back of a fawn-coloured goat, and waved in shaggy

luxuriance everywhere save on his forehead, in the middle of which

it timidly descended in a close-cropped peak, till it nearly united

itself with two enormous dark-coloured eyebrows. His eyes were small,

and the blackest I have ever seen; with a gleam of fire occasionally,

that lent them more archness than ferocity. Some thought he squinted,

and said that, though under _one_ master's direction, his _two pupils_

went contrary ways; but I believe this was all slander, and only set

forth by jealous people, who themselves, it is said, are rather queer

in their optics. A _fracas_ in a hurling-match had left his nose little

more than a one-arched bridge, by which, if you please, we will pass

along to his mouth, where, if I had the time, I could find ample _room_

for _rum_ination, &c. But Darby has knocked at my door, and I am forced

to say "Come in!"--"Did yir honor want me, sir? or is it only the

_caileen_'s fun, and the rest of them, in the kitchen?" said Darby,

opening the door, but remaining outside as before. "Come in," said I

encouragingly, "and take a seat for a moment; I'll tell you what I want

with you." The girl's fears for the carpet were quite right; for Darby,

making a bow to me on his entrance, scraped about a pound of mud off his

brogues, which would have discomfited him quite if I had not proceeded

with "Do you know the road to Bally----? Can you find your way to it

safely, Darby?"

"Can a duck swim, yir honor?" said Darby, emboldened by degrees.

"Oh! very well, I understand you," said I. "Now, mark me: I want you

to take this letter to a friend of mine, who is on a visit with the

clergyman there, and bring me an answer as speedily as possible. Are you

so quick-footed as they say?"

"Quick-_futted_!" said Darby, seating himself on the very corner of the

nearest chair; "where there's a will there's a way, as the sayin' is:

but I was never counted slow anyhows but oncet, and that was when I made

the clock stop of its own accord on a Patrick's Day, and sure, when we

broke up our party, we found it was two days afterwards."

"Well, take care and be more sparing of your time for the present," said

I, anxious to despatch him.

"You may rely on it, sir," said he; "I'll spare _nather_ time nor

trouble in the doin' of it, although it is letter-carryin'."

"Letter-carrying!" said I; "and pray what is there disgraceful in the

calling?"

"Oh! nothing at all disgraceful in the _calling_, sir," said Darby,

"as yir honor says, but quite the reverse, if the letters are not paid

aforehand."

"You would not surely appropriate the postage to yourself?" said I,

looking severely, though I did not exactly comprehend him.

"Is it me, sir?--_Pop_eriate the king's pocket money in that way, poor

ould gentleman! I'm not in parliament yet, nor ever had a fine situation

under government, like yir honor."

"Be not impertinent, sir," said I sharply; "I'd have you know and keep

your distance." Darby rose immediately from the chair, of which about

this time he had occupied nearly one half, saying,

"Any distance you like for a short time, sir; for it's myself would

grieve to part you for ever. What's the word of command, sir, and I'm

off?--Right or left, north or south, Darby Ryan's yir man 'gainst wind

or tide, as was said of one of my posteriors----"

"Your ancestors you mean," said I smiling.

"My _aunt's sisters_, yir honor! Faith and he wasn't one of her

_sisters_, nor one of my _four_ fathers either,--for he was

neither my godfather, nor my own father, nor my grandfather,

nor my great-grandfather; but, as I said afore, one of my

pos--pos--pos--_terity_, (I have the word now, divil take it!) that was

christened RYAN THE RACER, for bein' runnin' futtman ages ago to the

first quality in the country."

By this time I began to perceive that, however quick Darby's heels might

be, they had a formidable rival in his tongue; so I endeavoured to check

_it_ at once by saying, "I have no time now to attend to any stories

about your ancestry or relations; I merely wish to know can you take

this letter to its direction, and speedily bring me an answer to it: in

a word, can you set our immediately, and travel all night?"--"All night,

yir honor! is it all night that's in yir mind?" said Darby, evidently

hurt at my inquiry: "Gog's blud!" he continued half apart, "I was never

taken for a turkey afore."--"A turkey!" said I, quite at a loss to

understand him.--"Yes, yir honor," said Darby, "a turkey--the very worst

_baste_ on the road for a long stretch (barrin' his neck) that ever

was christened! Did yir honor ever hear of the wager 'tween the goose

and him?"--"Never," said I sullenly.--"Then I'm glad of it, masther,"

said Darby rejoicingly, "for it gives me the pleasure of tellin' it

to yir honor. You see, sir, that oncet upon a time there was an ould

cock-turkey----"--"Cock and a bull!" said I, losing all patience; "go

down stairs! I don't want you at all."--"No sir; I know you don't,

sir," said Darby with most provoking perseverance; "but I thought ye'd

like to hear how an ould gander sarved the bull-turkey, big as he

was."--"Well, then," said I in despair, "go on."--"Thank ye, sir," said

Darby, and then continued, while I from time to time anxiously looked

at my watch, stirred the fire, or fidgeted myself in twenty different

ways, in the hope of interrupting him; but all to no purpose. "Then you

see, sir, oncet upon a time an ould cock-turkey lived in the barony of

Brawny, or, let me see, was it in Inchebofin, or Tubbercleer?--faix!

an' it's myself forgets that same at the present writin',--but Jim

Gurn--you know Jim Gurn, yir honor, Jim Gurn the nailor that lives hard

by,--him that fought his black and tan t'other day 'gainst Tim Fagan's

silver-hackle,--oh! Jim is the boy that'll tell ye the _ins_ and _outs_

of it any day yir honor wud pay him a visit, 'caze Jim's in the way of

it. Well, as I was relatin', the turkey was a parson's bird, and as

proud as Lucifer, bein' used to the best of livin'; while the gander was

only a poor _commoner_, for he was a _Roman_, and _oblidged_ to live

upon what he could get by the road-side. These two fowls, yir honor,

never could agree any how,--never could put up their horses together on

any blessed pint,--till one day a big row happened betwune them, when

the gander challenged the turkey to a steeple-chase across the country,

day and dark, for twenty-four hours. Well, to my surprise,--tho' I

wasn't there at the time, but Jim Gurn was, who gave me the whole

history,--to my surprise, the turkey didn't say _no_ to it, but was

quite agreeable all of a suddent; so away they started from Jim Gurn's

dunghill one Sunday after mass, for the gander wouldn't stir a step

afore prayers. Well, to be sure, to give the divil his due, the turkey

took the lead in fine style, and was soon clane out of sight; but the

gander kept movin' on, no ways downhearted, after him. About night-fall

it was his business to pass through an ould archway acrass the road;

and as he was stoopin' his head to get under it,--for yir honor knows a

gander will stoop his head under a doorway if it was only as high as the

moon,--who should he see comfortably sated in an ivy bush but the turkey

himself, tucked in for the night. The gander, winkin' to himself, says,

'Is it there ye are, honey?'--but he kept never mindin' him for all

that, but only walked bouldly on to his journey's end, where he arrived

safe and sound next day, afore the turkey was out of his first sleep:

'caze why, ye see, sir, a goose or a gander will travel all night; but

in respect of a turkey, once the day falls in, divil another inch of

ground he'll put his futt to, barrin' it's to roost in a tree or the

rafters of a cow-house! Oh! maybe the parson's bird wasn't ashamed of

himself! Jim Gurn says he never held his head up afterward, tho' to be

sure he hadn't long to fret, for Christmas was nigh at hand, and he had

to stand sentry by the kitchen fire one day without his body-clothes

'till he could bear it no longer; so they _dished_ him _intirely_.

_Them_ that _ett_ him said he was as tough as leather, no doubt from the

grief: but, divil's cure to him! what bisness had he to be so proud of

himself, the spalpeen!"

Darby _at length_ came to a pause. I paused also for a minute to

understand the application of his anecdote; but it was evident: he

wished to impress me by his parable that he was fitted for the task I

had allotted him; so I inquired what money he would want on the road.

"Maybe yir honor wouldn't think half-a-crown too much? said he

diffidently.

"Half-a-crown!" exclaimed I, amazed at the modesty of his demand: "here

are ten shillings; and, if you be quick in your errand, I will give you

something extra on your return."

"Musha, an' long life to yir honor!" said Darby, scraping the carpet

again; "may the grass never grow on the pathway to yir dwellin', nor a

baste or Christian ever die belongin' t' ye, barrin' it's for the use of

the kitchen!"

"Well, now prepare for the road," said I impatiently, "and be off at

once."

"An' that I will, sir, in the twinklin' of a bedstead; only, you see,

I've just got to run up to Tim Fallon the barber's to take the stubble

off of my chin. Tim--(you know Tim Fallon, yir honor.)--Tim won't keep

me long, anyhow, for it's late in the day, and his tongue must be dry

by this; but if ye wud hear him of a mornin, oh! it's a _trate_, for

Tim was once a play-acthur afore he grew a barber, an' by that same a

good barber he is. Did he ever _lather_ yir honor?"--I made no reply.

"After that," continued Darby, "I'll just step home and put on my Sunday

clothes, and then won't I be as fresh as a two-year ould to do yir

honor's biddin'!"

"Well, well, lose no time," said I impatiently.

"Sorrow a minute," said Darby: "I'll be there and back agin in the shoot

of a wishin' star. Maybe yir honor knows what a wishin' star is?"--I

shook my head. "Well, then," continued Darby, "yir honor, no doubt, has

been out o'doors of a fine starlight night?"--I nodded assent. "Well

then, agin, I'll tell ye what a wishin' star is. Did ye ever sit yir

heart upon havin' of anything sir?" "Yes," said I morosely.--"Might I

be so bould as to ax in regard to what, sir?" inquired Darby.--"Why,

in regard, as you call it, to the letter I have given you just now,"

replied I; "I wish to have it delivered as quickly as possible."

"Oh! that bein' the case, sir," said Darby somewhat disconcerted, "I'm

off at once."--"At once be it, then," said I, opening the door for

him.--"I've only, then, to give the letther, sir," said he lingeringly,

"to the gentleman at the clargy's? But ye didn't tell me whether it

was the priest or the parson he's stoppin' with."--"The parson," said

I, with all the patience I could command.--"Oh, very well, sir. God

take care of ye till I come back!" So saying, he shut the door after

him; but, before I could seat myself in my chair, he opened it again,

inquiring "If he left his hat in the drawin'-room?" The only answer

I made was by taking up the _caubeen_, which lay on the carpet, and

flinging it in his face, out of all patience. "Thank yir honor," said

Darby, and retired again, as I hoped, to proceed on his journey,

But, alas! I was mistaken. Five minutes had scarcely elapsed when he

presented himself once more, with a request that I might allow him to

take _Squib_, my pointer dog, with him as a companion. "The road's so

drary," said he, "by one's self, you know, yir honour."--"Well, take

him, in God's name," said I, hastily shutting the door after him, and

glad to be rid of him at any concession.

I again resumed my seat, and opened the volume I had been reading; but

I had not got through more than twenty or thirty pages of marvellous

matter, when I thought I heard Darby's voice in the yard. On going to

the window, I found that it was indeed _he_, and "_as spruce as a Scotch

fir_," to use one of his own expressions.

"Not gone yet!" exclaimed I, furiously throwing up the sash. But it

was of no use, for he replied with the most perfect coolness, "Oh,

yes, sir, I _was_ gone half an hour ago; only, you see, I've come back

for the _clieve_ that's to carry _Squib_ to the place where he'll

find divarsion in runnin' about in the pleasure-grounds hard by Squire

Markhim's inclosure; 'twould kill the baste (God pard'n me for callin'

him so, for he's more like a Christian,) to walk him so far: and maybe

I'll not bring ye home a brace or two of birds that he'll point at

without seein', and a _blue peter_ or so, if yir honor wud only just

give me a charge or two of powder and shot."

"Do you wish to get into the hands of the police?" said I.

"Ah! then, is it the Peelers," said Darby contemptuously, "that yir

honor manes? Divil a one o' them will be out of his _flay_-park by

the time I'm crossing the _Callas_ with Squib and Pat Fagan's ould

carbine, that he'll lend me out o' the bog-hole, where he keeps it from

the rust and the guagers: and sure, while we're oilin' it with a bit

of goose-grace, that it mayn't burst intirely the first goin' off, I

can have a bit of gossip with the ould woman in the chimly corner over

the _greeshah_, and find out everything about the gintleman in the

neighb'rhood that I'm takin' the letther to; for poor Katty Fagan, ever

since she lost the brindled heifer, and young Jemmeen her grandson, that

they cut out for a priest, and another calf that she won at a weddin'

raffle, all in the typhus s_a_son,--you recollect the typhus, yir honor?"

"Oh, curse you and the typhus together!" said I.--"Well, an' it's myself

that never could spake a good word for it either, masther, bad look to

't!" said Darby: "but, be that as it may, ever since that time Katty

knows more of every other body's bisness nor her own; so I'll lose

nothin' by callin' to ax her how she is at laste, thov' it is a mile or

two out o' my way."

By this time, reader, you may conclude my power of endurance was pretty

nigh exhausted; so, raking down a pair of pistols that hung over the

fire-place, I said, "The only powder and shot, my good fellow, that I

can spare you at present, are contained in these two barrels; you are

welcome to them, and shall have them on the spot, if you do not depart

immediately!"--"Ah! then it's myself that wud _depart_ imm_a_diately,

sure enough, sir," said Darby, "if yir honor wud only pull the trigger;

but keep yir hands off o' them, masther avick, for, charge or no charge,

they might go aff and spile my beauty for ever: the divil, they say,

can fire an empty charge as well as a full one!"--"Well, then," said I,

"take your choice: _go off_ this moment, or one of these shall!"--"Oh,

then, sure that's no choice at all, at all, sir," replied Darby; "so I

suppose I must go my ways. Well, then, wid ye be wid ye, for I can't

always be wid ye. Is there anything else I can do for ye, sir, on the

road?"--"Nothing," said I: "begone!"--"Thank ye, sir," said he, and

retired.

"Thank Heaven!" said I, "the fellow has at last set out on his

journey." So I again turned to the marvellous volume, and was about

halfway through the pedestrian exploits of Collier and his sister,

who, to use the words of the writer, "thought nothing of putting a pot

of _pink-eyes_ down to boil, and _stepping_ to the next market-town

(about nine miles distant) for a halfpenny-worth of salt (returning,

too, again) before the white horses were on the praties," when

Eileen presented herself in such a convulsion of laughter that it

was some moments before she could reply to my question of "What's

the matter?" At length, terminating with a long-drawn sigh, and her

usual "_widdy-eelish_," she replied, "Nothing's the matter, sir;

only--only--" (laughing again) "only Darby, sir."--"Darby!" exclaimed

I, "what of _him_?"--"He wants to know, sir," said she, "if you will

allow him to take a _horse_ with him."--"A _horse_!" exclaimed I; "devil

take the fellow! what does he mean?"--"Why, I mane, to be sure," said

Darby from the bottom of the stairs, at the same time at the top of

his voice, "a _horse_ from the young ash-plants in the ould garden.

I'll cut the crookedest I can find, though a straight one would do me

betther."--"What is it he wants?" said I, turning to Eileen, who was

in a perfect _kink_ of laughter.--"Oh! widdy-eelish," replied she, "I

suppose the crather means a pole to help him over the bogs."--"Let me

talk to the rascal myself," said I, going to the door in a deuce of a

rage.

"Yir sarvant, sir," said Darby, taking his hat off and making a scrape

that cost _him_ his equilibrium, and _me_ my gravity, for I could not

but sympathise with Eileen's outrageous laughter. "Is it possible that

you are here yet?" inquired I, endeavouring to be as severe as possible.

"Oh, never fear, sir, but I'll be off presently," said he: "my walk's

waitin' for me on the road; I'll overtake it imm_a_diately."

"I'm sorry that you have undertaken it at all," said I in a tone of

unusual displeasure.

"Undertaken, sir! undertake--undertaker!" said Darby rather indignantly;

"I never was an undertaker but oncet, and that was at my ould father's

funeral, when I was one of the nine bearers. That was a beautiful sight,

to be sure," said he, kindling into rapture as he proceeded; "Ah! that

was the beautiful sight, agrah! I seen many a lord's berrin', but none

to come up to that. Oh! it would do any one's heart good to see us

walkin' in _possession_ to the Abbey,--it was so d_a_cent, and all of a

piece, like a magpie, white and black from beginnin' to end! Oh! it was

a beautiful sight, anyhow," added he with a deep sigh.

"Did you, then, rejoice in your father's death?" said I harshly.

"Why, not exactly rejoice in his death," replied Darby, wiping away a

tear from his already suffused eye, "for he was a kind ould body to them

he liked, though he didn't sp_a_ke to me good or bad for three years

afore he died: but never mind; maybe I wasn't hearty at his wake!"

"At his wake!" said I, with a look of disgust.

"Yes, yir honor!" replied he after a pause of surprise,--"at his wake,

to be sure; and where can a body be so alive to fun of all sorts as at

a well-conducted dead body's wake? Isn't there smokin', and drinkin',

and story-tellin', and now and then a bit of dancin' in the other room

with the young ones, to shake off the grief, eh? And didn't I get seven

goold guineas from 'Turney Gubbins, that was one of his exec_u_tors, and

the ould mare that used to take him from town to town when he took to

_fair_ bisness, and the bracket hen that lays yir honor's eggs now, that

was the mother of all the p_a_ceable fightin' cocks in the county; and,

moreover, his white waistcoat and breeches when he was in the Yeomen,

that Ned Fallon the tailor says he'll die any day for me into a second

mournin'?"

"And what did you with the seven guineas?" said I: "did you turn them to

any account?"

"Oh, the Lord bless yir honor!" said Darby sheepishly; "it's very hard

to know what to do with a large sum of money now-a-days: it's dangerous

keepin' by you, you know, sir; so _I put it out to interest_!"

"And pray what security did you get?" said I, suspecting something, from

the fellow's roguish leer.

"Security, sir?" said Darby; "they tould me it was _collatheral_, I

think, yir honor; _collatheral_ was the word."

"_Collateral_!" said I, somewhat surprised at his knowledge of the term.

"Yes, sir," replied he, scratching his head with one hand, and thrusting

the other into his breeches pocket, "_I laid it out in_ HOUSES. But, for

all that, half an hour afore I die I'll have as much money as'll do me

all the days o' my life!"

I could not but smile at the fellow's satirical humour upon his own

folly; and, as it was the first time I had ever admitted him to such

familiar converse, I patiently listened while he continued to tell me

how he "ran through his fortune" in less than three weeks; hoping,

however, that he would soon make an end of his recital, and set out with

my letter, for the day now began to decline.

"You see, yir honor, this was the way it happened," said Darby.

"_Nawthin'_ would save me but I should give a TAY-PARTY at the Three

Blacks one evenin' after a hurlin'-match--Did yir honor ever hurl a bit?

Oh! then sure it's the finest divarsion that any one cud sit his mind

upon, barrin' it doesn't ind in a row, as mostly for the best part it

does. But never mind that,--it's fine fun, anyhow; though by it I _did_

get this _clink_ on the nose, that made me lave off snuff-takin' ever

since as a dirty habit! Oh! a hurlin'-match is a grate sight, and many a

good clergy I've seen strip to the work. There was Father M'Gauvran--yir

honor has heard of Father M'Gauvran, that got a son an' heir for Pat Mac

Gavany, by givin' his wife an ould _surplus_ that he had by him for some

time? Oh! it would raise the cockles of yir heart to see how he _wud_

whip a ball along. He was a _grate_ hurler, anyhow; _he_ was the boy at

the _bawke_!"

Conceiving that Darby would not terminate before midnight (if he ever

would at all), I interrupted him, saying, "When you return, I shall

be very happy to hear the particulars of your TAY-PARTY, but for the

present I must decline the narrative. Set out, if you mean to go: when

you come back, I will listen vary attentively to the whole recital."

"Oh, then I suppose I'm tiring yir honor! But stop a bit,--I'll be here

in the turn of a snipe;" saying which, he disappeared. I had not been

long left to my own reflections before he came up stairs, and, without

any of his previous knocks and delays, he entered my room hurriedly,

and, throwing down a small book on the table before me, said, "There,

sir; I hope _that_ will amuse you while I am away: it's an account of my

_tay-party_, by _Lame_ Kelly the poet, that wudn't get drunk that night

_acause_ he sed he wud write it afore his next sleep. Read it, masther,"

said Darby; "and never mind the jokes upon me."--"Go your ways," said

I.--"I've only _one_ way to go, sir," said Darby.--"Well, then," said

I, "in God's name take _that_."--"In God's name be it, then," replied

Darby, and ultimately left me.

SHAKSPEARE PAPERS.--No. II.

JAQUES.

"As he passed through the fields,

and saw the animals around him,--'Ye,' said he,

'are happy, and need not envy me that walk thus among

you burthened with myself; nor do I, ye gentle beings,

envy your felicity, for it is not the felicity of man.

I have many distresses from which ye are free; I fear

pain when I do not feel it; I sometimes shrink at evils

recollected, and sometimes start at evils anticipated.

Surely the equity of Providence has balanced peculiar

sufferings with peculiar enjoyments.'

"With observations like these the prince

amused himself as he returned, uttering them with a

plaintive voice, yet with a look that discovered him

to feel some complacence in his own perspicacity, and

to receive some solace of the miseries of life from

consciousness of the delicacy with which he felt, and

the eloquence with which he bewailed them."--RASSELAS,

chap. ii.

This remark of Dr. Johnson on the consolation derived by his hero from

the eloquence with which he gave vent to his complaints is perfectly

just, but just only in such cases as those of Rasselas. The misery that

can be expressed in flowing periods cannot be of more importance than

that experienced by the Abyssinian prince enclosed in the Happy Valley.

His greatest calamity was no more than that he could not leave a place

in which all the luxuries of life were at his command. But, as old

Chremes says in the Heautontimorumenos,

"Miserum? quem minus credere 'st?

Quid reliqui 'st, quin habeat, quæ quidem in homine dicuntur bona?

Parentes, patriam incolumem, amicos, genu', cognatos, divitias:

Atque hæc perinde sunt ut illius animus qui ea possidet;

Qui uti scit, ei bona; illi, qui non utitur rectè, mala."[97]

On which, as

"Plain truth, dear Bentley, needs no arts of speech,"

I cannot do better than transcribe the commentary of Hickie, or some

other grave expositor from whose pages he has transferred it to his own.

"'Tis certain that the real enjoyment arising from external advantages

depends wholly upon the situation of the mind of him who possesses them;

for if he chance to labour under any secret anguish, this destroys all

relish; or, if he know not how to use them for valuable purposes, they

are so far from being of any service to him, that they often turn to

real misfortunes." It is of no consequence that this profound reflection

is nothing to the purpose in the place where it appears, because Chremes

is not talking of any secret anguish, but of the use or abuse made of

advantages according to the disposition of the individual to whom they

have been accorded; and the anguish of Clinia was by no means secret.

He feared the perpetual displeasure of his father, and knew not whether

absence might not have diminished or alienated the affections of the

lady on whose account he had abandoned home and country; but the general

proposition of the sentence cannot be denied. A "fatal remembrance"--to

borrow a phrase from one of the most beautiful of Moore's melodies--may

render a life, apparently abounding in prosperity, wretched and unhappy,

as the vitiation of a single humour of the eye casts a sickly and

unnatural hue over the gladsome meadow, or turns to a lurid light the

brilliancy of the sunniest skies.

Rasselas and Jaques have no secret anguish to torment them, no real

cares to disturb the even current of their tempers. To get rid of the

prince first:--His sorrow is no more than that of the starling in the

Sentimental Journey. He cannot get out. He is discontented, because he

has not the patience of Wordsworth's nuns, who fret not in their narrow

cells; or of Wordsworth's muse, which murmurs not at being cribbed and

confined to a sonnet. He wants the philosophy of that most admirable of

all jail-ditties,--and will not reflect that

"Every island is a prison,

Close surrounded by the sea;

Kings and princes, for that reason,

Prisoners are as well as we."

And as his calamity is, after all, very tolerable,--as many a sore heart

or a wearied mind, buffeting about amid the billows and breakers of the

external world, would feel but too happy to exchange conditions with him

in his safe haven of rest,--it is no wonder that the weaving of sonorous

sentences of easily soothed sorrow should be the extent of the mental

afflictions of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia.

Who or what Jaques was before he makes his appearance in the forest,

Shakspeare does not inform us,--any farther than that he had been a

_roué_ of considerable note, as the Duke tells him, when he proposes to

"Cleanse the foul body of the infected world,

If they will patiently receive my medicine.

_Duke._ Fie on thee! I can tell what thou wouldst do.

_Jaques._ What, for a counter, would I do but good?

_Duke._ Most mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin;

For thou thyself hast been a libertine

As sensual as the brutish sting itself;

And all the embossed sores and headed evils

That thou with licence of free foot hast caught,

Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world."

This, and that he was one of the three or four loving lords who put

themselves into voluntary exile with the old Duke, leaving their lands

and revenues to enrich the new one, who therefore gave them good leave

to wander, is all we know about him, until he is formally announced to

us as the melancholy Jaques. The very announcement is a tolerable proof

that he is not soul-stricken in any material degree. When Rosalind tells

him that he is considered to be a melancholy fellow, he is hard put to

it to describe in what his melancholy consists. "I have," he says,

"Neither the scholar's melancholy, which

Is emulation; nor the musician's, which is

Fantastical; nor the courtier's which is proud;

Nor the soldier's,

Which is ambitious; nor the lawyer's, which

Is politic; nor the lady's, which is nice;

Nor the lover's, which is all these: but it is

A melancholy of mine own, compounded

Of many simples, extracted from many objects,

And indeed

The sundry contemplation of my travels,

In which my often rumination wraps me

In a most humorous sadness."[98]

He is nothing more than an idle gentleman given to musing, and making

invectives against the affairs of the world, which are more remarkable

for the poetry of their style and expression than the pungency of their

satire. His famous description of the seven ages of man is that of a

man who has seen but little to complain of in his career through life.

The sorrows of his infant are of the slightest kind, and he notes that

it is taken care of in a nurse's lap. The griefs of his schoolboy are

confined to the necessity of going to school; and he, too, has had an

anxious hand to attend to him. His shining morning face reflects the

superintendence of one--probably a mother--interested in his welfare.

The lover is tortured by no piercing pangs of love, his woes evaporating

themselves musically in a ballad of his own composition, written not to

his mistress, but fantastically addressed to her eyebrow. The soldier

appears in all the pride and the swelling hopes of his spirit-stirring

trade,

"Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth."

The fair round belly of the justice lined with good capon lets us know

how he has passed his life. He is full of ease, magisterial authority,

and squirely dignity. The lean and slippered pantaloon, and the dotard

sunk into second childishness, have suffered only the common lot of

humanity, without any of the calamities that embitter the unavoidable

malady of old age.[99] All the characters in Jaques's sketch are well

taken care of. The infant is nursed; the boy educated; the youth

tormented with no greater cares than the necessity of hunting after

rhymes to please the ear of a lady, whose love sits so lightly upon him

as to set him upon nothing more serious than such a self-amusing task;

the man in prime of life is engaged in gallant deeds, brave in action,

anxious for character, and ambitious of fame; the man in declining years

has won the due honours of his rank, he enjoys the luxuries of the

table and dispenses the terrors of the bench; the man of age still more

advanced is well to do in the world. If his shank be shrunk, it is not

without hose and slipper,--if his eyes be dim, they are spectacled,--if

his years have made him lean, they have gathered for him wherewithal to

fatten the pouch by his side. And when this strange eventful history is

closed by the penalties paid by men who live too long, Jaques does not

tell us that the helpless being,

"Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything,"

is left unprotected in his helplessness.

Such pictures of life do not proceed from a man very heavy at heart. Nor

can it be without design that they are introduced into this especial

place. The moment before, the famished Orlando has burst in upon the

sylvan meal of the Duke, brandishing a naked sword, demanding with

furious threat food for himself and his helpless companion,

"Oppressed with two weak evils, age and hunger."

The Duke, struck with his earnest appeal, cannot refrain from comparing

the real suffering which he witnesses in Orlando with that which is

endured by himself and his "co-mates, and partners in exile." Addressing

Jaques, he says,

"Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy.

This wide and universal theatre

Presents more woful pageants than the scene

Wherein we play in."[100]

But the spectacle and the comment upon it lightly touch Jaques, and

he starts off at once into a witty and poetic comparison of the real

drama of the world with the mimic drama of the stage, in which, with

the sight of well-nurtured youth driven to the savage desperation of

periling his own life, and assailing that of others,--and of weakly

old age lying down in the feeble but equally resolved desperation of

dying by the wayside, driven to this extremity by sore fatigue and

hunger,--he diverts himself and his audience, whether in the forest or

theatre, on the stage or in the closet, with graphic descriptions of

human life; not one of them, proceeding as they do from the lips of the

_melancholy_ Jaques, presenting a single point on which true melancholy

can dwell. Mourning over what cannot be avoided must be in its essence

common-place: and nothing has been added to the lamentations over the

ills brought by the flight of years since Moses, the man of God,[101]

declared the concluding period of protracted life to be a period of

labour and sorrow;--since Solomon, or whoever else writes under the

name of the Preacher, in a passage which, whether it is inspired or

not, is a passage of exquisite beauty, warned us to provide in youth,

"while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt

say, I have no pleasure in them; while the sun, or the light, or the

moon, or the stars be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the

rain: in the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the

strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they

are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, and the

doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding

is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the

daughters of music shall be brought low; also when they shall be

afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the

almond-tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burthen,

and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the

mourners go about the streets: or ever the silver cord be loosed, or

the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain,

or the wheel broken at the cistern;"--or, to make a shorter quotation,

since Homer summed up all these ills by applying to old age the epithet

of [Greek: lygros],--a word which cannot be translated, but the force

of which must be felt. Abate these unavoidable misfortunes, and the

catalogue of Jaques is that of happy conditions. In his visions there

is no trace of the child doomed to wretchedness before its very birth;

no hint that such a thing could occur as its being made an object of

calculation, one part medical, three parts financial, to the starveling

surgeon, whether by the floating of the lungs, or other test equally

fallacious and fee-producing, the miserable mother may be convicted of

doing that which, before she had attempted, all that is her soul of

woman must have been torn from its uttermost roots, when in an agony of

shame and dread the child that was to have made her forget her labour

was committed to the cesspool. No hint that the days of infancy should

be devoted to the damnation of a factory, or to the tender mercies of a

parish beadle. No hint that philosophy should come forward armed with

the panoply offensive and defensive of logic and eloquence, to prove

that the inversion of all natural relations was just and wise,--that the

toil of childhood was due to the support of manhood,--that those hours,

the very labours of which even the etymologists give to recreation,

should be devoted to those wretched drudgeries which seem to split

the heart of all but those who derive from them blood-stained money,

or blood-bedabbled applause. Jaques sees not Greensmith squeezing his

children by the throat until they die. He hears not the supplication of

the hapless boy begging his still more hapless father for a moment's

respite, ere the fatal handkerchief is twisted round his throat by the

hand of him to whom he owed his being. Jaques thinks not of the baby

deserted on the step of the inhospitable door, of the shame of the

mother, of the disgrace of the parents, of the misery of the forsaken

infant. His boy is at school, his soldier in the breach, his elder on

the justice-seat. Are these the woes of life? Is there no neglected

creature left to himself or to the worse nurture of others, whose trade

it is to corrupt,--who will teach him what was taught to swaggering Jack

Chance, found on Newgate steps, and educated at the venerable seminary

of St. Giles's Pound, where

"They taught him to drink, and to thieve, and fight,

And everything else but to read and write."

Is there no stripling short of commons, but abundant in the supply

of the strap or the cudgel?--no man fighting through the world in

fortuneless struggles, and occupied by cares or oppressed by wants more

stringent than those of love?--or in love itself does the current of

that bitter passion never run less smooth than when sonnets to a lady's

eyebrow are the prime objects of solicitude?--or may not even he who

began with such sonneteering have found something more serious and sad,

something more heart-throbbing and soul-rending, in the progress of his

passion? Is the soldier melancholy in the storm and whirlwind of war?

Is the gallant confronting of the cannon a matter to be complained of?

The dolorous flight, the trampled battalion, the broken squadron, the

lost battle, the lingering wound, the ill-furnished hospital, the unfed

blockade, hunger and thirst, and pain, and fatigue, and mutilation, and

cold, and rout, and scorn, and slight,--services neglected, unworthy

claims preferred, life wasted, or honour tarnished,--are all passed by!

In peaceful life we have no deeper misfortune placed before us than that

it is not unusual that a justice of peace may be prosy in remark and

trite in illustration. Are there no other evils to assail us through the

agony of life? And when the conclusion comes, how far less tragic is the

portraiture of mental imbecility, if considered as a state of misery

than as one of comparative happiness, as escaping a still worse lot!

Crabbe is sadder far than Jaques, when, after his appalling description

of the inmates of a workhouse,--(what would Crabbe have written

_now_?)--he winds up by showing to us amid its victims two persons as

being

"_happier_ far than they,

The moping idiot, and the madman gay."

If what he here sums up as the result of his life's observations on

mankind be all that calls forth the melancholy of the witty and eloquent

speaker, he had not much to complain of. Mr. Shandy lamenting in sweetly

modulated periods, because his son has been christened Tristram instead

of Trismegistus, is as much an object of condolence. Jaques has just

seen the aspect of famine, and heard the words of despair; the Duke

has pointed out to him the consideration that more woful and practical

calamities exist than even the exile of princes and the downfall of

lords; and he breaks off into a light strain of satire, fit only for

jesting comedy. Trim might have rebuked him as he rebuked the prostrate

Mr. Shandy, by reminding him that there are other things to make us

melancholy in the world: and nobody knew it better, or could say it

better, than he in whose brain was minted the hysteric passion of Lear

choked by his button,--the farewell of victorious Othello to all the

pomp, pride, and circumstance of glorious war,--the tears of Richard

over the submission of roan Barbary to Bolingbroke,--the demand of Romeo

that the Mantuan druggist should supply him with such soon-speeding gear

that will rid him of hated life

"As violently as hasty powder fired

Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb,"--

the desolation of Antony,--the mourning of Henry over sire slain by

son, and son by sire,--or the despair of Macbeth. I say nothing of the

griefs of Constance, or Isabel, or Desdemona, or Juliet, or Ophelia,

because in the sketches of Jaques he passes by all allusion to women; a

fact which of itself is sufficient to prove that his melancholy was but

in play,--was nothing more than what Arthur remembered when he was in

France, where

"Young gentlemen would be as sad as night,

Only for wantonness."

Shakespeare well knew that there is no true pathetic, nothing that can

permanently lacerate the heart, and embitter the speech, unless a woman

be concerned. It is the legacy left us by Eve. The tenor of man's woe,

says Milton, with a most ungallant and grisly pun, is still from _wo_-man

to begin; and he who will give himself a few moments to reflect will

find that the stern trigamist is right. On this, however, I shall not

dilate. I may perhaps have something to say, as we go on, of the ladies

of Shakspeare. For the present purpose, it is enough to remark with

Trim, that there are many real griefs to make a man lie down and cry,

without troubling ourselves with those which are put forward by the

poetic mourner in the forest of Arden.

Different indeed is the sight set before the eyes of Adam in the great

poem just referred to, when he is told to look upon the miseries

which the fall of man has entailed upon his descendants. Far other

than the scenes that flit across this melancholy man by profession

are those evoked by Michael in the visionary lazar-house. It would be

ill-befitting, indeed, that the merry note of the sweet bird warbling

freely in the glade should be marred by discordant sounds of woe,

cataloguing the dreary list of disease,

"All maladies

Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms

Of heartsick agony, all feverous kinds,

Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs,

Intestine stone and ulcer, colic pangs,

Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy,

Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence,

Dropsies, and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums;"

while, amid the dire tossing and deep groans of the sufferers,

"----Despair

Tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch;

And over them triumphant Death his dart

Shook, but delayed to strike."

And equally ill-befitting would be any serious allusion to those

passions and feelings which in their violence or their anguish

render the human bosom a lazar-house filled with maladies of the

mind as racking and as wasting as those of the body, and call forth

a supplication for the releasing blow of Death as the final hope,

with an earnestness as desperate, and cry as loud as ever arose from

the tenement, sad, noisome, and dark, which holds the joint-racked

victims of physical disease. Such themes should not sadden the festive

banquet in the forest. The Duke and his co-mates and partners in exile,

reconciled to their present mode of life, ["I would not change it," says

Amiens, speaking, we may suppose, the sentiments of all,] and successful

in having plucked the precious jewel, content, from the head of ugly and

venomous Adversity, are ready to bestow their woodland fare upon real

suffering, but in no mood to listen to the heart-rending descriptions of

sorrows graver than those which form a theme for the discourses which

Jaques in mimic melancholy contributes to their amusement.

Shakspeare designed him to be a maker of fine sentences,--a dresser

forth in sweet language of the ordinary common-places or the

common-place mishaps of mankind, and he takes care to show us that

he did not intend him for anything beside. With what admirable art

he is confronted with Touchstone. He enters merrily laughing at the

pointless philosophising of the fool in the forest. His lungs crow like

chanticleer when he hears him moralizing over his dial, and making the

deep discovery that ten o'clock has succeeded nine, and will be followed

by eleven. When Touchstone himself appears, we do not find in his own

discourse any touches of such deep contemplation. He is shrewd, sharp,

worldly, witty, keen, gibing, observant. It is plain that he has been

mocking Jaques; and, as is usual, the mocked thinks himself the mocker.

If one has moralized the spectacle of a wounded deer into a thousand

similes, comparing his weeping into the stream to the conduct of

worldlings in giving in their testaments the sum of more to that which

had too much,--his abandonment, to the parting of the flux of companions

from misery,--the sweeping by of the careless herd full of the pasture,

to the desertion of the poor and broken bankrupt by the fat and greasy

citizens,--and so forth; if such have been the common-places of Jaques,

are they not fitly matched by the common-places of Touchstone upon his

watch? It is as high a stretch of fancy that brings the reflection how

"----from hour to hour we ripe and ripe,

And then from hour to hour we rot and rot,

And thereby hangs a tale,"

which is scoffed at by Jaques, as that which dictates his own

moralizings on the death of the deer. The motley fool is as wise as the

melancholy lord whom he is parodying. The shepherd Corin, who replies

to the courtly quizzing of Touchstone by such apophthegms as that "it

is the property of rain to wet, and of fire to burn," is unconsciously

performing the same part to the clown, as _he_ had been designedly

performing to Jaques. Witty nonsense is answered by dull nonsense, as

the emptiness of poetry had been answered by the emptiness of prose.

There was nothing sincere in the lamentation over the wounded stag. It

was only used as a peg on which to hang fine concepts. Had Falstaff

seen the deer, his imagination would have called up visions of haunches

and pasties, preluding an everlasting series of cups of sack among the

revel riot of boon companions, and he would have instantly ordered

its throat to be cut. If it had fallen in the way of Friar Lawrence,

the mild-hearted man of herbs would have endeavoured to extract the

arrow, heal the wound, and let the hart ungalled go free. Neither would

have thought the hairy fool a subject for reflections, which neither

relieved the wants of man nor the pains of beast. Jaques complains of

the injustice and cruelty of killing deer, but unscrupulously sits down

to dine upon venison, and sorrows over the sufferings of the native

burghers of the forest city, without doing anything further than amusing

himself with rhetorical flourishes drawn from the contemplation of the

pain which he witnesses with professional coolness and unconcern.

It is evident, in short, that the happiest days of his life are those

which he is spending in the forest. His raking days are over, and he is

tired of city dissipation. He has shaken hands with the world, finding,

with Cowley, that "he and it would never agree." To use an expression

somewhat vulgar, he has had his fun for his money; and he thinks the

bargain so fair and conclusive on both sides, that he has no notion of

opening another. His mind is relieved of a thousand anxieties which

beset him in the court, and he breathes freely in the forest. The iron

has not entered into his soul; nothing has occurred to chase sleep from

his eyelids; and his fantastic reflections are, as he himself takes

care to tell us, but general observations on the ordinary and outward

manners and feelings of mankind,--a species of taxing which

"----like a wild-goose flies,

Unclaim'd of any man."

Above all, in having abandoned station, and wealth, and country, to join

the faithful few who have in evil report clung manfully to their prince,

he knows that he has played a noble and an honourable part; and they

to whose lot it may have fallen to experience the happiness of having

done a generous, disinterested, or self-denying action,--or sacrificed

temporary interests to undying principle,--or shown to the world

without, that what are thought to be its great advantages can be flung

aside, or laid aside, when they come in collision with the feelings and

passions of the world within,--will be perfectly sure that Jaques, reft

of land, and banished from court, felt himself exalted in his own eyes,

and therefore easy of mind, whether he was mourning in melodious blank

verse, or weaving jocular parodies on the canzonets of the good-humoured

Amiens.

He was happy "under the greenwood tree." Addison I believe it is who

says, that all mankind have an instinctive love of country and woodland

scenery, and he traces it to a sort of dim recollection imprinted upon

us of our original haunt, the garden of Eden. It is at all events

certain, that, from the days when the cedars of Lebanon supplied images

to the great poets of Jerusalem, to that in which the tall tree haunted

Wordsworth "as a passion," the forest has caught a strong hold of the

poetic mind. It is with reluctance that I refrain from quoting; but the

passages of surpassing beauty which crowd upon me from all times and

languages are too numerous. I know not which to exclude, and I have

not room for all; let me then take a bit of prose from one who never

indulged in poetry, and I think I shall make it a case in point. In a

little book called "Statistical Sketches of Upper Canada, for the use of

Emigrants, by a Backwoodsman," now lying before me, the author, after

describing the field-sports in Canada with a precision and a _goût_

to be derived only from practice and zeal, concludes a chapter, most

appropriately introduced by a motto from the Lady of the Lake,

"'Tis merry, 'tis merry in good greenwood,

When the mavis and merle are singing,

When the deer sweep by, and the hounds are in cry,

And the hunter's horn is ringing,"

by saying,

"It is only since writing the above that I fell in with the first volume

of Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald; and I cannot describe the

pleasure I received from reading his vivid, spirited, and accurate

description of the feelings he experienced on first taking on him the

life of a hunter. At an earlier period of life than Lord Edward had

then attained, I made my debut in the forest, and first assumed the

blanket-cloak and the rifle, the moccasin and the snowshoe; and the

ecstatic feeling of Arab-like independence, and the utter contempt for

the advantage and restrictions of civilization, which he describes, I

then felt in its fullest power. And even now, when my way off life,

like Macbeth's, is falling 'into the sere, the yellow leaf,' and

when a tropical climate, privation, disease, and thankless toil are

combining with advancing years to unstring a frame the strength of

which once set hunger, cold, and fatigue at defiance, and to undermine a

constitution that once appeared iron-bound, still I cannot lie down by

a fire in the woods without the elevating feeling which I experienced

formerly returning, though in a diminished degree. This must be human

nature;--for it is an undoubted fact, that no man who associates with

and follows the pursuits of the Indian, for any length of time, ever

voluntarily returns to civilized society.

"What a companion in the woods Lord Edward must have been! and how

shocking to think that, with talents which would have made him at once

the idol and the ornament of his profession, and affections which must

have rendered him an object of adoration in all the relations of private

life,--with honour, with courage, with generosity, with every unit

that can at once ennoble and endear,--he should never have been taught

that there is a higher principle of action than the mere impulse of

the passions,--that he should never have learned, before plunging his

country into blood and disorder, to have weighed the means he possessed

with the end he proposed, or the problematical good with the certain

evil!--that he should have had Tom Paine for a tutor in religion and

politics, and Tom Moore for a biographer, to hold up as a pattern,

instead of warning, the errors and misfortunes of a being so noble,--to

subserve the revolutionary purposes of a faction, who, like Samson, are

pulling down a fabric which will bury both them and their enemies under

it."

Never mind the aberrations of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the religion or

the politics of Tom Paine, or the biography of Tom Moore. On all these

matters I may hold my own opinions, but they are not wanted now; but

have we not here the feelings of Jaques? Here are the gloomy expressions

of general sorrow over climate, privation, disease, thankless toil,

advancing years, unstrung frame. But here also we have ecstatic

emotions of Arab-like independence, generous reflections upon political

adversaries, and high-minded adherence to the views and principles which

in his honour and conscience he believed to be in all circumstances

inflexibly right, coming from the heart of a forest. The Backwoodsman is

Dunlop; and is he, in spite of this sad-sounding passage, melancholy?

Not he, in good sooth. The very next page to that which I have quoted is

a description of the pleasant mode of travelling in Canada, before the

march of improvement had made it comfortable and convenient.[102]

"But your march of improvement is a sore destroyer of the romantic

and picturesque. A gentleman about to take such a journey now-a-days,

orders his servant to pack his portmanteau, and put it on board the

John Molson, or any of his family; and at the stated hour he marches

on board, the bell rings, the engine is put in motion, and away you go

smoking, and splashing, and walloping along, at the rate of ten knots

an hour, in the ugliest species of craft that ever disfigured a marine

landscape."

Jaques was just as woe-begone as the Tyger, and no more. I remember when

he--Dunlop I mean, not Jaques--used to laugh at the phrenologists of

Edinburgh for saying, after a careful admeasurement, that his skull in

all points was exactly that of Shakspeare,--I suppose he will be equally

inclined to laugh when he finds who is the double an old companion has

selected for him. But no matter. His melancholy passes away not more

rapidly than that of Jaques; and I venture to say that the latter, if he

were existing in flesh and blood, would have no scruple in joining the

doctor this moment over the bowl of punch which I am sure he is brewing,

has brewed, or is about to brew, on the banks of Huron or Ontario.

Whether he would or not, he departs from the stage with the grace and

easy elegance of a gentleman in heart and manners. He joins his old

antagonist the usurping Duke in his fallen fortunes; he had spurned

him in his prosperity: his restored friend he bequeaths to his former

honour, deserved by his patience and his virtue,--he compliments Oliver

on his restoration to his land, and love, and great allies,--wishes

Silvius joy of his long-sought and well-earned marriage,--cracks

upon Touchstone one of those good-humoured jests to which men of the

world on the eve of marriage must laughingly submit,--and makes his

bow. Same sage critics have discovered as a great geographical fault

in Shakspeare, that he introduces the tropical lion and serpent into

Arden, which, it appears, they have ascertained to lie in some temperate

zone. I wish them joy of their sagacity. Monsters more wonderful are

to be found in that forest; for never yet, since water ran and tall

tree bloomed, were there gathered together such a company as those who

compose the _dramatis personæ_ of "As You Like It." All the prodigies

spawned by Africa, "_leonum arida nutrix_," might well have teemed in

a forest, wherever situate, that was inhabited by such creatures as

Rosalind, Touchstone, and Jaques.

* * * * *

* * As to the question which opened these Papers,--why, I must

* leave it to the jury. Is the jesting, revelling, rioting

Falstaff, broken of fortunes, luckless in life, sunk in habits,

buffeting with the discreditable part of the world, or the

melancholy, mourning, complaining Jaques, honourable of conduct,

high in moral position, fearless of the future, and lying in the

forest away from trouble,--which of them, I say, feels more the

load of care? I think Shakspeare well knew, and depicted them

accordingly. But I must leave it to my readers, _si qui sunt_.

W. M.

[97] It may be thus attempted in something like the metre of the

original, which the learned know by the sounding name of

Tetrameter Iambic Acatalectic:

"Does Clinia talk of misery? Believe his idle tale who can?

What hinders it that he should have whate'er is counted good for

man,--

His father's home, his native land, with wealth, and friends, and

kith and kin?

But all these blessings will be prized according to the mind

within:

Well used, the owner finds them good; if badly used, he deems them

ill.

_Cl._ Nay, but his sire was always stern, and even now I fear him

still," &c.

[98] This is printed as prose, but assuredly it is blank verse.

The alteration of a syllable or two, which in the corrupt state of

the text of these plays is the slightest of all possible critical

licenses, would make it run perfectly smooth. At all events, in the

second line, "emulation" should be "emulative," to make it agree

with the other clauses of the sentence. The courtier's melancholy is

not _pride_, nor the soldier's _ambition_, &c. The adjective is used

throughout,--_fantastical_, _proud_, _ambitious_, _politic_, _nice_.

[99] "Senectus ipsa est morbus."--Ter. Phorm. iv. i. 9.

[100] Query _on_? "Where_in_ we play _in_" is tautological. "Wherein we

play _on_," _i.e._ "continue to play."

[101] Psalm xc. "A prayer of Moses, the man of God," v. 10.

[102] Formerly, that is to say, previous to the peace of 1815, a journey

between Quebec and Sandwich was an undertaking considerably more tedious

and troublesome than the voyage from London to Quebec. In the first

place, the commissariat of the expedition had to be cared for; and to

that end every gentleman who was liable to travel had, as a part of his

appointments, a provision basket, which held generally a cold round of

beef, tin plates and drinking-cups, tea, sugar, biscuits, and about a

gallon of brandy. These, with your wardrobe and a camp-bed, were stowed

away in a batteau, or flat-bottomed boat; and off you set with a crew

of seven stout, light-hearted, jolly, lively Canadians, who sung their

boat-songs all the time they could spare from smoking their pipe. You

were accompanied by a fleet of similar boats, called a brigade, the

crews of which assisted each other up the rapids, and at night put into

some creek, bay, or uninhabited island, where fires were lighted, tents

made of the sails, and the song, the laugh, and the shout were heard,

with little intermission, all the night through; and if you had the

felicity to have among the party a fifer or a fiddler, the dance was

sometimes kept up all night,--for, if a Frenchman has a fiddle, sleep

ceases to be a necessary of life with him. This mode of travelling

was far from being unpleasant, for there was something of romance and

adventure in it; and the scenes you witnessed, both by night and day,

were picturesque in the highest degree. But it was tedious; for you

were in great luck if you arrived at your journey's end in a month; and

if the weather were boisterous, or the wind a-head, you might be an

indefinite time longer.

FAMILY STORIES.--No. V.--

HON. MR. SUCKLE-THUMBKIN'S STORY.

THE EXECUTION.

A SPORTING ANECDOTE.

My Lord Tomnoddy got up one day;

It was half after two,

He had nothing to do,

So his lordship rang for his cabriolet.

Tiger Tim

Was clean of limb,

His boots were polished, his jacket was trim;

With a very smart tie in his smart cravat,

And a smart cockade on the top of his hat;

Tallest of boys, or shortest of men,

He stood in his stockings just four foot ten;

And he ask'd, as he held the door on the swing,

"Pray, did your lordship please to ring?"

My Lord Tomnoddy he raised his head,

And thus to Tiger Tim he said,

"Malibran's dead,

Duvernay's fled,

Taglioni has not yet arriv'd in her stead;

Tiger Tim, come tell me true,

What may a nobleman find to do?"

Tim look'd up, and Tim look'd down,

He paus'd, and he put on a thoughtful frown,

And he held up his hat, and peep'd in the crown,

He bit his lip, and he scratch'd his head,

He let go the handle, and thus he said,

As the door, releas'd, behind him bang'd,

"An't please you, my lord, there's a man to be hang'd!"

My Lord Tomnoddy jump'd up at the news,

"Run to M'Fuze,

And Lieutenant Tregooze,

And run to Sir Carnaby Jenks, of the Blues.

Rope-dancers a score

I've seen before--

Madame Sacchi, Antonio, and Master Blackmore;

But to see a man swing

At the end of a string,

With his neck in a noose, will be quite a new thing!"

My Lord Tomnoddy stept into his cab--

Dark rifle green, with a lining of drab;

Through street, and through square,

His high-trotting mare,

Like one of Ducrow's, goes pawing the air.

Adown Piccadilly and Waterloo Place

Went the high-trotting mare at a deuce of a pace;

She produc'd some alarm,

But did no great harm,

Save fright'ning a nurse with a child on her arm,

Spattering with clay

Two urchins at play,

Knocking down--very much to the sweeper's dismay--

An old woman who wouldn't get out of the way,

And upsetting a stall

Near Exeter Hall,

Which made all the pious Church-Mission folks squall.

But eastward afar,

Through Temple Bar,

My Lord Tomnoddy directs his car;

Never heeding their squalls,

Or their calls, or their bawls,

He passes by Waithman's Emporium for shawls,

And, merely just catching a glimpse of St. Paul's,

Turns down the Old Bailey,

Where, in front of the jail, he

Pulls up at the door of the gin-shop, and gaily

Cries, "What must I fork out to-night, my trump,

For the whole first floor of the Magpie and Stump?"

* * * * *

The clock strikes Twelve--it is dark midnight--

Yet the Magpie and Stump is one blaze of light.

The parties are met;

The tables are set;

There is "punch," "cold _without_," "hot _with_," "heavy wet,"

Ale-glasses and jugs,

And rummers and mugs,

And sand on the floor, without carpets or rugs,

Cold fowl and cigars,

Pickled onions in jars,

Welsh rabbits, and kidneys--rare work for the jaws!--

And very large lobsters, with very large claws;

And there is M'Fuze,

And Lieutenant Tregooze,

And there is Sir Carnaby Jenks of the Blues,

All come to see a man "die in his shoes!"

The clock strikes One!

Supper is done,

And Sir Carnaby Jenks is full of his fun,

Singing "Jolly companions every one!"

My Lord Tomnoddy

Is drinking gin-toddy,

And laughing at ev'ry thing, and ev'ry body.

The clock strikes Two!--and the clock strikes Three!

--"Who so merry, so merry as we?"

Save Captain M'Fuze,

Who is taking a snooze,

While Sir Carnaby Jenks is busy at work,

Blacking his nose with a piece of burnt cork.

The clock strikes Four!

Round the debtors' door

Are gather'd a couple of thousand or more;

As many await

At the press-yard gate,

Till slowly its folding doors open, and straight

The mob divides, and between their ranks

A waggon comes loaded with posts and with planks.

The clock strikes Five!

The sheriffs arrive,

And the crowd is so great that the street seems alive;

But Sir Carnaby Jenks

Blinks, and winks,

A candle burns down in the socket, and stinks.

Lieutenant Tregooze

Is dreaming of Jews,

And acceptances all the bill-brokers refuse;

My Lord Tomnoddy

Has drunk all his toddy,

And just as the dawn is beginning to peep,

The whole of the party are fast asleep.

Sweetly, oh! sweetly, the morning breaks,

With roseate streaks,

Like the first faint blush on a maiden's cheeks;

Seem'd as that mild and clear blue sky

Smil'd upon all things far and nigh,

All--save the wretch condemn'd to die!

Alack! that ever so fair a Sun

As that which its course has now begun,

Should rise on such scene of misery!

Should gild with rays so light and free

That dismal, dark-frowning Gallows tree!

And hark!--a sound comes big with fate,

The clock from St. Sepulchre's tower strikes--Eight!--

List to that low funereal bell:

It is tolling, alas! a living man's knell!

And see!--from forth that opening door

They come--He steps that threshold o'er

Who never shall tread upon threshold more.

--God! 'tis a fearsome thing to see

That pale wan man's mute agony,

The glare of that wild despairing eye,

Now bent on the crowd, now turn'd to the sky,

As though 'twere scanning, in doubt and in fear,

The path of the Spirit's unknown career;

Those pinion'd arms, those hands that ne'er

Shall be lifted again,--not ev'n in prayer;

That heaving chest!---- Enough--'tis done!

The bolt has fallen!--the Spirit is gone--

For weal or for woe is known to but One!

Oh! 'twas a fearsome sight! Ah me!

A deed to shudder at,--not to see.

Again that clock!--'tis time, 'tis time!

The hour is past:--with its earliest chime

The cord is sever'd, the lifeless clay

By "dungeon villains" is borne away:

Nine!--'twas the last concluding stroke!

And then--my Lord Tomnoddy awoke!

And Tregooze and Sir Carnaby Jenks arose,

And Captain M'Fuze, with the black on his nose;

And they stared at each other, as much as to say

"Hollo! Hollo!

Here's a Rum Go!

Why, Captain!--my Lord!--Here's the Devil to pay!

The fellow's been cut down and taken away!

What's to be done?

We've miss'd all the fun!

Why, they'll laugh at, and quiz us all over the town,

We are all of us done so uncommonly brown!"

What _was_ to be done?--'twas perfectly plain

That they could not well hang the man over again:--

What _was_ to be done?--The man was dead!--

Nought _could_ be done--nought could be said;

So--my Lord Tomnoddy went home to bed!

EPIGRAM.

'Tis strange, amid the many trades

By which men gather riches,

That ridicule should most attach

To those who make our breeches!

But so it is; yet, as they sew,

Rich is the harvest made:

Then call not theirs, unseemly wags!

A _so-so_ sort of trade.

R. J.

[Illustration: The Romance of a Day]

THE ROMANCE OF A DAY.

A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF AN ADVENTURER.

WITH AN ILLUSTRATION BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK.

When things are at the worst, they are sure to mend, says the old adage;

and the hero of the following narrative is a case in point. Dick Diddler

was a distant connexion, by the mother's side, of the famous Jeremy,

immortalized by Kenny. He was a shrewd, reckless adventurer, gifted

with an elastic conscience that would stretch like Indian-rubber, and a

genius for raising the wind unsurpassed by Æolus himself. At the period

to which this tale refers, he had dissipated at the minor West-end

hells, and elsewhere, the last farthing of a pittance which he inherited

from his father; and was considerably in arrears with his landlady, a

waspish gentlewoman who rented what she complacently termed "an airy

house" in the windiest quarter of Camden Town. This was embarrassing;

but Dick was not one to despair. He had high animal spirits, knowledge

of the world, imperturbable self-possession, good exterior, plausible

address, and a modesty which he felt persuaded would never stand in the

way of his advancement.

Thousands of London adventurers, it has been observed, rise in the

morning without knowing how they shall provide a meal for the day. Our

hero was just now in this predicament, for he had not even the means

of procuring a breakfast. Something, however, must be done, and that

immediately, so he applied himself to a cracked bell which stood on

his ill-conditioned table; and, while waiting his landlady's answer to

the tintinnabulary summons, occupied himself by casting a scrutinizing

glance at his outer Adam. Alas! there was little here to gratify the eye

of taste and gentility! His coat was in that peculiar state denominated

"seedy," his linen was as yellow as a sea-sick cockney, and his trousers

evinced tokens of an antiquity better qualified to inspire reverence

than admiration.

Just as he had completed his survey, his landlady entered the room,

accompanied by her first-born,--a hopeful youth, with a fine expanse of

mouth calculated seriously to perplex a quartern loaf. Dick perused her

features attentively, and thought he had never before seen her look so

ugly. But this of course: Venus herself would look a fright, if she came

to dun for money.

"Ah, poppet, is that you?" exclaimed Dick, affectionately patting the

urchin's head, by way of an agreeable commencement to the conversation;

"Why, how the dear boy grows! Blessings on his pretty face: he's the

very image of his Ma!"

"Come, come, Mr. Diddler," replied Mrs. Dibbs, "that language won't

do no longer. You've been blessing little Tom twice a day ever since

you got into my books, but I'm not going to take out my account in

blessings. Blessings won't pay my milk-score, so I must have my

money,--and this very day too, for I've got a bill to make up to-morrow."

"Have patience, my good lady, and all will be right."

"Ay, so you've said for the last month; but saying's one thing, and

doing's another."

"Very good."

"But it ain't very good; it's very bad."

"Well, well, no matter, Mrs. D----"

"No matter! But I say it is a great matter,--a matter of ten pounds

fifteen shillings, to say nothing of them oysters what you did me out on

last night."

"Exactly so; and you shall have it all this very day, for it so happens

that I'm going into the City to receive payment of a debt that has been

owing me since November last. And this reminds me that I have not yet

breakfasted; so pray send up--now don't apologise, for you could not

possibly have known that I had an appointment in Fenchurch-street at ten

o'clock."

"Breakfast!" exclaimed Mrs. Dibbs with a disdainful toss of her head;

"no, no; not a mouthful shall you have till I get my money: I'm quite

sick of your promises."

"Nay, but my dear Mrs. D----"

"It's no use argufying the pint; what I've said, I'll stand to. Come,

Tom--drat the boy! why don't you come?" and so saying, the choleric

dame, catching fast hold of her son by the pinafore, flounced out of the

room, banging the door after her with the emphasis of a hurricane.

Dick remained a few minutes behind, in the hope that breakfast might yet

be forthcoming: but finding that there was not the slightest prospect of

his landlady's relenting, he, in the true spirit of an indignant Briton,

consigned her "eyes" to perdition; and, having thus expectorated his

wrath, began to furbish up his faded apparel. He tucked in his saffron

shirt-collar; buttoned up his coat to the chin, refreshing the white

seams with the "Patent Reviver;" smoothed round his silk hat, which

luckily was in good preservation; and then rushed out of the house with

the desperate determination of breakfasting at some one's expense. There

is nothing like the gastric juice to stimulate a man's ingenuity. It is

the secret of half the poetic inspiration in our literature.

Chance--or perhaps that ruling destiny which, do what we will, still

sways all our actions--led Dick's steps in the direction of the

Hampstead Road. It was a bright, cool, summer morning; the housemaids

were at work with their brooms outside the cottages; the milkman was

going his rounds with his "sky-blue;" and the shiny porter-pots yet hung

upon the garden rails. As our hero moved onward, keeping his mouth close

shut, lest the lively wind might act too excitingly on his unfurnished

epigastrum, his attentive optics chanced to fall on a cottage, in the

front parlour of which, the window being open, he beheld a sight that

roused all the shark or alderman within him,--to wit, a breakfast set

forth in a style that might have created an appetite "under the ribs of

death." Dick stopped: the case was desperate; but his self-possession

was equal to the emergency. "A Mr. Smith lives here," said he, running

his eye hastily over the premises: "the bower, and the wooden god, those

trees so neatly clipped, and that commonplace-looking terrier sleeping

at the gate, with his nose poked through the rails, all betoken the

habits and fancies of a Smith. Good! I will favour the gentleman with a

call;" and with these words Dick gave a vehement pull at the garden-bell.

"Is Mr. Smith at home?" he inquired with an air of easy assurance that

produced an instant effect on the girl who answered the bell.

"No, sir."

"Upon my life, that's very awkward; particularly so as he requested me

to be----"

"Oh! I suppose, then, you're the gentleman that was expected here to

breakfast this morning?"

"The very same, my dear."

"Well," continued the girl, unlocking the gate, "master desired me to

say that you were to walk in, and not wait for him, for he had to go

into Tottenham-court Road on business, and should not be back for an

hour."

Dick took the hint, walked in, and in an instant was hard at work.

How he punished the invigorating coffee! What havoc he wrought among

the eggs and French rolls! Never was seen such voracity since the days

of the ventripotent Heliogabalus. His expedition was on a par with his

prowess, for Mr. Smith's guest being momentarily expected, he felt that

he had not a moment to lose. Accordingly, after doing prompt, impartial

justice to every article on table, he coolly rang the bell, and, without

noticing the muttered "My stars!" of the servant as she glanced at the

wreck before her, he desired her to tell Mr. Smith that, as he had a

visit to pay in the neighbourhood, he could not wait longer for him,

but would call again in the course of the day; and then, putting on

his hat with an air, he quitted the cottage on the best possible terms

with himself and all the world. There is nothing like good eating and

drinking to bring out the humanities.

Having no professional duties to attend to, Dick strolled on to

Hampstead Heath, where he seated himself on a bench that commands an

extensive view towards the west and north. Here he continued musing

upwards of an hour, in that buoyant mood which a good breakfast never

fails to call forth. It was early yet to trouble himself about dinner or

his landlady's bill; and Dick was not the man to recognise a grievance

till it stared him in the face, when, if he could not give it the cut

direct, he would boldly confront and grapple with it: so he occupied

himself with whistling one of Macheath's songs in the Beggar's Opera.