One tribute of married men I particularly admired at, who, instead of

horns, wore, engrafted on their forehead, a sort of hornbook. "This,"

quoth my guide, "is the greatest mystery in our country, and well worth

an explanation. You must know that all infidelity is not of the senses.

We have as well intellectual, as material, wittols. These, whom you see

decorated with the Order of the Book--are triflers, who encourage about

their wives' presence the society of your men of genius (their good

friends, as they call them)--literary disputants, who ten to one

out-talk the poor husband, and commit upon the understanding of the

woman a violence and estrangement in the end, little less painful than

the coarser sort of alienation. Whip me these knaves--[my conductor here

expressed himself with a becoming warmth]--whip me them, I say, who with

no excuse from the passions, in cold blood seduce the minds, rather than

the persons, of their friends' wives; who, for the tickling pleasure of

hearing themselves prate, dehonestate the intellects of married women,

dishonouring the husband in what should be his most sensible part. If I

must be ---- [here he used a plain word] let it be by some honest sinner

like myself, and not by one of these gad-flies, these debauchers of the

understanding, these flattery-buzzers." He was going on in this manner,

and I was getting insensibly pleased with my friend's manner (I had been

a little shy of him at first), when the dream suddenly left me,

vanishing--as Virgil speaks--through the gate of Horn.

ELIA.

THE ILLUSTRIOUS DEFUNCT[49]

(1825)

Nought but a blank remains, a dead void space,

A step of life that promised such a race.--DRYDEN.

Napoleon has now sent us back from the grave sufficient echoes of his

living renown: the twilight of posthumous fame has lingered long enough

over the spot where the sun of his glory set, and his name must at

length repose in the silence, if not in the darkness of night. In this

busy and evanescent scene, other spirits of the age are rapidly snatched

away, claiming our undivided sympathies and regrets, until in turn they

yield to some newer and more absorbing grief. Another name is now added

to the list of the mighty departed, a name whose influence upon the

hopes and fears, the fates and fortunes of our countrymen, has rivalled,

and perhaps eclipsed that of the defunct "child and champion of

Jacobinism," while it is associated with all the sanctions of legitimate

government, all the sacred authorities of social order and our most holy

religion. We speak of one, indeed, under whose warrant heavy and

incessant contributions were imposed upon our fellow-citizens, but who

exacted nothing without the signet and the sign manual of most devout

Chancellors of the Exchequer. Not to dally longer with the sympathies of

our readers, we think it right to premonish them that we are composing

an epicedium upon no less distinguished a personage than the Lottery,

whose last breath, after many penultimate puffs, has been sobbed forth

by sorrowing contractors, as if the world itself were about to be

converted into a blank. There is a fashion of eulogy, as well as of

vituperation; and though the Lottery stood for some time in the latter

predicament, we hesitate not to assert that "_multis ille bonis flebilis

occidit_." Never have we joined in the senseless clamour which condemned

the only tax whereto we became voluntary contributors, the only resource

which gave the stimulus without the danger or infatuation of gambling,

the only alembic which in these plodding days sublimised our

imaginations, and filled them with more delicious dreams than ever

flitted athwart the sensorium of Alnaschar.

[49] Since writing this article, we have been informed that the

object of our funeral-oration is not definitively dead, but only

moribund. So much the better; we shall have an opportunity of

granting the request made to Walter by one of the children in the

wood, and "kill him two times." The Abbé de Vertot having a siege to

write, and not receiving the materials in time, composed the whole

from his invention: shortly after its completion, the expected

documents arrived, when he threw them aside, exclaiming--"You are of

no use to me now; I have carried the town."

Never can the writer forget when, as a child, he was hoisted upon a

servant's shoulder in Guildhall, and looked down upon the installed and

solemn pomp of the then drawing Lottery. The two awful cabinets of iron,

upon whose massy and mysterious portals, the royal initials were

gorgeously emblazoned, as if after having deposited the unfulfilled

prophecies within, the King himself had turned the lock and still

retained the key in his pocket;--the blue-coat boy, with his naked arm,

first converting the invisible wheel, and then diving into the dark

recess for a ticket;--the grave and reverend faces of the commissioners

eyeing the announced number;--the scribes below calmly committing it to

their huge books;--the anxious countenances of the surrounding populace,

while the giant figures of Gog and Magog, like presiding deities, looked

down with a grim silence upon the whole proceeding,--constituted

altogether a scene, which combined with the sudden wealth supposed to be

lavished from those inscrutable wheels, was well calculated to impress

the imagination of a boy with reverence and amazement. Jupiter, seated

between the two fatal urns of good and evil, the blind Goddess with her

cornucopia, the Parcæ wielding the distaff, the thread of life, and the

abhorred shears, seemed but dim and shadowy abstractions of mythology,

when I had gazed upon an assemblage exercising, as I dreamt, a not less

eventful power, and all presented to me in palpable and living

operation. Reason and experience, ever at their old spiteful work of

catching and destroying the bubbles which youth delighted to follow,

have indeed dissipated much of this illusion, but my mind so far

retained the influence of that early impression, that I have ever since

continued to deposit my humble offerings at its shrine whenever the

ministers of the Lottery went forth with type and trumpet to announce

its periodical dispensations; and though nothing has been doled out to

me from its undiscerning coffers but blanks, or those more vexatious

tantalizers of the spirit, denominated small prizes, yet do I hold

myself largely indebted to this most generous diffuser of universal

happiness. Ingrates that we are! are we to be thankful for no benefits

that are not palpable to sense, to recognise no favours that are not of

marketable value, to acknowledge no wealth unless it can be counted with

the five fingers? If we admit the mind to be the sole depositary of

genuine joy, where is the bosom that has not been elevated into a

temporary elysium by the magic of the Lottery? Which of us has not

converted his ticket, or even his sixteenth share of one, into a

nest-egg of Hope, upon which he has sate brooding in the secret

roosting-places of his heart, and hatched it into a thousand fantastical

apparitions?

What a startling revelation of the passions if all the aspirations

engendered by the Lottery could be made manifest! Many an impecuniary

epicure has gloated over his locked-up warrant for future wealth, as a

means of realising the dream of his namesake in the Alchemist,--

"My meat shall all come in in Indian shells,

Dishes of agate set in gold, and studded

With emeralds, sapphires, hyacinths and rubies;

The tongues of carps, dormice, and camels' heels

Boil'd i' the spirit of Sol, and dissolved in pearl,

(Apicius' diet 'gainst the epilepsy;)

And I will eat these broths with spoons of amber,

Headed with diamant and carbuncle.----

My footboy shall eat pheasants, calvered salmons,

Knots, godwits, lampreys; I myself will have

The beards of barbels served:--instead of salads

Oil'd mushrooms, and the swelling unctuous paps

Of a fat pregnant sow, newly cut off,

Dress'd with an exquisite and poignant sauce,

For which I'll say unto my cook-'There's gold,

Go forth, and be a knight!'"

Many a doating lover has kissed the scrap of paper whose promissory

shower of gold was to give up to him his otherwise unattainable Danaë:

Nimrods have transformed the same narrow symbol into a saddle, by which

they have been enabled to bestride the backs of peerless hunters; while

nymphs have metamorphosed its Protean form into

"Rings, gaudes, conceits,

Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats,"

and all the braveries of dress, to say nothing of the obsequious

husband, the two-footman'd carriage, and the opera-box. By the simple

charm of this numbered and printed rag, gamesters have, for a time at

least, recovered their losses, spendthrifts have cleared off mortgages

from their estates, the imprisoned debtor has leapt over his lofty

boundary of circumscription and restraint, and revelled in all the joys

of liberty and fortune; the cottage-walls have swelled out into more

goodly proportion than those of Baucis and Philemon; poverty has tasted

the luxuries of competence, labour has lolled at ease in a perpetual

arm-chair of idleness, sickness has been bribed into banishment, life

has been invested with new charms, and death deprived of its former

terrors. Nor have the affections been less gratified than the wants,

appetites, and ambitions of mankind. By the conjurations of the same

potent spell, kindred have lavished anticipated benefits upon one

another, and charity upon all. Let it be termed a delusion; a fool's

paradise is better than the wise man's Tartarus: be it branded as an

Ignis fatuus, it was at least a benevolent one, which instead of

beguiling its followers into swamps, caverns, and pitfalls, allured them

on with all the blandishments of enchantment to a garden of Eden, an

ever-blooming elysium of delight. True, the pleasures it bestowed were

evanescent, but which of our joys are permanent? and who so

inexperienced as not to know that anticipation is always of higher

relish than reality, which strikes a balance both in our sufferings and

enjoyments. "The fear of ill exceeds the ill we fear," and fruition, in

the same proportion, invariably falls short of hope. "Men are but

children of a larger growth," who may amuse themselves for a long time

in gazing at the reflection of the moon in the water, but, if they jump

in to grasp it, they may grope for ever, and only get the farther from

their object. He is the wisest who keeps feeding upon the future, and

refrains as long as possible from undeceiving himself, by converting

his pleasant speculations into disagreeable certainties.

The true mental epicure always purchased his ticket early, and postponed

enquiry into its fate to the last possible moment, during the whole of

which intervening period he had an imaginary twenty thousand locked up

in his desk,--and was not this well worth all the money? Who would

scruple to give twenty pounds interest for even the ideal enjoyment of

as many thousands during two or three months? "_Crede quod habes, et

habes_," and the usufruct of such a capital is surely not dear at such a

price. Some years ago, a gentleman in passing along Cheapside saw the

figures 1069, of which number he was the sole proprietor, flaming on the

window of a lottery-office as a capital prize. Somewhat flurried by this

discovery, not less welcome than unexpected, he resolved to walk round

St. Paul's that he might consider in what way to communicate the happy

tidings to his wife and family; but upon repassing the shop, he observed

that the number was altered to 10,069, and upon enquiry, had the

mortification to learn that his ticket was a blank, and had only been

stuck up in the window by a mistake of the clerk. This effectually

calmed his agitation, but he always speaks of himself as having once

possessed twenty thousand pounds, and maintains that his ten minutes'

walk round St. Paul's was worth ten times the purchase-money of the

ticket. A prize thus obtained has moreover this special advantage;--it

is beyond the reach of fate, it cannot be squandered, bankruptcy cannot

lay siege to it, friends cannot pull it down, nor enemies blow it up; it

bears a charmed life, and none of woman born can break its integrity,

even by the dissipation of a single fraction. Show me the property in

these perilous times that is equally compact and impregnable. We can no

longer become enriched for a quarter of an hour; we can no longer

succeed in such splendid failures; all our chances of making such a miss

have vanished with the last of the Lotteries.

Life will now become a flat, prosaic routine of matter-of-fact, and

sleep itself, erst so prolific of numerical configurations and

mysterious stimulants to lottery adventure, will be disfurnished of its

figures and figments. People will cease to harp upon the one lucky

number suggested in a dream, and which forms the exception, while they

are scrupulously silent upon the ten thousand falsified dreams which

constitute the rule. Morpheus will stifle Cocker with a handful of

poppies, and our pillows will be no longer haunted by the book of

numbers.

And who, too, shall maintain the art and mystery of puffing in all its

pristine glory when the lottery professors shall have abandoned its

cultivation? They were the first, as they will assuredly be the last,

who fully developed the resources of that ingenious art; who cajoled and

decoyed the most suspicious and wary reader into a perusal of their

advertisements by devices of endless variety and cunning: who baited

their lurking schemes with midnight murders, ghost stories, crim-cons,

bon-mots, balloons, dreadful catastrophes, and every diversity of joy

and sorrow to catch newspaper-gudgeons. Ought not such talents to be

encouraged? Verily the abolitionists have much to answer for!

And now, having established the felicity of all those who gained

imaginary prizes, let us proceed to show that the equally numerous class

who were presented with real blanks, have not less reason to consider

themselves happy. Most of us have cause to be thankful for that which is

bestowed, but we have all, probably, reason to be still more grateful

for that which is withheld, and more especially for our being denied the

sudden possession of riches. In the Litany indeed, we call upon the Lord

to deliver us "in all time of our wealth;" but how few of us are sincere

in deprecating such a calamity! Massinger's Luke, and Ben Jonson's Sir

Epicure Mammon, and Pope's Sir Balaam, and our own daily observation,

might convince us that the devil "now tempts by making rich, not making

poor." We may read in the Guardian a circumstantial account of a man who

was utterly ruined by gaining a capital prize:--we may recollect what

Dr. Johnson said to Garrick, when the latter was making a display of his

wealth at Hampton Court,--"Ah, David! David! these are the things that

make a death-bed terrible;"--we may recall the Scripture declaration, as

to the difficulty a rich man finds in entering into the Kingdom of

Heaven, and combining all these denunciations against opulence, let us

heartily congratulate one another upon our lucky escape from the

calamity of a twenty or thirty thousand pound prize! The fox in the

fable, who accused the unattainable grapes of sourness, was more of a

philosopher than we are generally willing to allow. He was an adept in

that species of moral alchemy, which turns every thing to gold, and

converts disappointment itself into a ground of resignation and

content. Such we have shown to be the great lesson inculcated by the

Lottery when rightly contemplated; and if we might parody M. de

Chateaubriand's jingling expression,--"_le Roi est mort, vive le Roi_,"

we should be tempted to exclaim, "The Lottery is no more--long live the

Lottery!"

UNITARIAN PROTESTS

IN A LETTER TO A FRIEND OF THAT PERSUASION NEWLY MARRIED

(1825)

Dear M----, Though none of your acquaintance can with greater sincerity

congratulate you upon this happy conjuncture than myself, one of the

oldest of them, it was with pain I found you, after the ceremony,

depositing in the vestry-room what is called a Protest. I thought you

superior to this little sophistry. What, after submitting to the service

of the Church of England--after consenting to receive a boon from her,

in the person of your amiable consort--was it consistent with sense, or

common good manners, to turn round upon her, and flatly taunt her with

false worship? This language is a little of the strongest in your books

and from your pulpits, though there it may well enough be excused from

religious zeal and the native warmth of nonconformity. But at the

altar--the Church of England altar--adopting her forms and complying

with her requisitions to the letter--to be consistent, together with the

practice, I fear, you must drop the language of dissent. You are no

longer sturdy Non Cons; you are there Occasional Conformists. You submit

to accept the privileges communicated by a form of words, exceptionable,

and perhaps justly, in your view; but, so submitting, you have no right

to quarrel with the ritual which you have just condescended to owe an

obligation to. They do not force you into their churches. You come

voluntarily, knowing the terms. You marry in the name of the Trinity.

There is no evading this by pretending that you take the formula with

your own interpretation, (and so long as you can do this, where is the

necessity of Protesting?): for the meaning of a vow is to be settled by

the sense of the imposer, not by any forced construction of the taker:

else might all vows, and oaths too, be eluded with impunity. You marry

then essentially as Trinitarians; and the altar no sooner satisfied

than, hey presto, with the celerity of a juggler, you shift habits, and

proceed pure Unitarians again in the vestry. You cheat the Church out of

a wife, and go home smiling in your sleeves that you have so cunningly

despoiled the Egyptians. In plain English, the Church has married you in

the name of so and so, assuming that you took the words in her sense,

but you outwitted her; you assented to them in your sense only, and took

from her what, upon a right understanding, she would have declined to

give you.

This is the fair construction to be put upon all Unitarian marriages as

at present contracted; and as long as you Unitarians could salve your

consciences with the equivoque, I do not see why the Established Church

should have troubled herself at all about the matter. But the Protesters

necessarily see further. They have some glimmerings of the deception;

they apprehend a flaw somewhere; they would fain be honest, and yet they

must marry notwithstanding; for honesty's sake, they are fain to

dishonestate themselves a little. Let me try the very words of your own

Protest, to see what confessions we can pick out of them.

"As Unitarians therefore we (you and your newly espoused bride) most

solemnly protest against the service (which yourselves have just

demanded) because we are thereby called upon, not only tacitly to

acquiesce, but to profess a belief in a doctrine which is a dogma, as we

believe, totally unfounded." But do you profess that belief during the

ceremony; or are you only called upon for the profession but do not make

it? If the latter, then you fall in with the rest of your more

consistent brethren, who waive the Protest; if the former, then, I fear,

your Protest cannot save you.

Hard and grievous it is, that in any case an institution so broad and

general as the union of man and wife should be so cramped and straitened

by the hands of an imposing hierarchy, that to plight troth to a lovely

woman a man must be necessitated to compromise his truth and faith to

Heaven; but so it must be, so long as you chuse to marry by the forms

of the Church over which that hierarchy presides.

Therefore, say you, we Protest. O poor and much fallen word Protest! It

was not so that the first heroic reformers protested. They departed out

of Babylon once for good and all; they came not back for an occasional

contact with her altars; a dallying, and then a protesting against

dalliance; they stood not shuffling in the porch, with a Popish foot

within, and its lame Lutheran fellow without, halting betwixt. These

were the true Protestants. You are--Protesters.

Besides the inconsistency of this proceeding, I must think it a piece of

impertinence--unseasonable at least, and out of place, to obtrude these

papers upon the officiating clergyman--to offer to a public functionary

an instrument which by the tenor of his function he is not obliged to

accept, but, rather, he is called upon to reject. Is it done in his

clerical capacity? he has no power of redressing the grievance. It is to

take the benefit of his ministry and then insult him. If in his capacity

of fellow Christian only, what are your scruples to him, so long as you

yourselves are able to get over them, and do get over them by the very

fact of coming to require his services? The thing you call a Protest

might with just as good a reason be presented to the churchwarden for

the time being, to the parish clerk, or the pew opener.

The Parliament alone can redress your grievance, if any. Yet I see not

how with any grace your people can petition for relief, so long as, by

the very fact of your coming to Church to be married, they do _bonâ

fide_ and strictly relieve themselves. The Upper House, in particular,

is not unused to these same things called Protests, among themselves.

But how would this honorable body stare to find a noble Lord conceding a

measure, and in the next breath, by a solemn Protest disowning it. A

Protest there is a reason given for non-compliance, not a subterfuge for

an equivocal occasional compliance. It was reasonable in the primitive

Christians to avert from their persons, by whatever lawful means, the

compulsory eating of meats which had been offered unto idols. I dare say

the Roman Prefects and Exarchats had plenty of petitioning in their

days. But what would a Festus, or Agrippa, have replied to a petition to

that effect, presented to him by some evasive Laodicean, with the very

meat between his teeth, which he had been chewing voluntarily rather

than abide the penalty? Relief for tender consciences means nothing,

where the conscience has previously relieved itself; that is, has

complied with the injunctions which it seeks preposterously to be rid

of. Relief for conscience there is properly none, but what by better

information makes an act appear innocent and lawful, with which the

previous conscience was not satisfied to comply. All else is but relief

from penalties, from scandal incurred by a complying practice, where the

conscience itself is not fully satisfied.

But, say you, we have hard measure; the Quakers are indulged with the

liberty denied to us. They have [? are]; and dearly they have earned it.

You have come in (as a sect at least) in the cool of the evening; at the

eleventh hour. The Quaker character was hardened in the fires of

persecution in the seventeenth century; not quite to the stake and

faggot, but little short of that; they grew up and thrived against

noisome prisons, cruel beatings, whippings, stockings. They have since

endured a century or two of scoffs, contempts; they have been a

bye-word, and a nay-word; they have stood unmoved: and the consequence

of long conscientious resistance on one part is invariably, in the end,

remission on the other. The legislature, that denied you the tolerance,

which I do not know that at that time you even asked, gave them the

liberty which, without granting, they would have assumed. No penalties

could have driven them into the Churches. This is the consequence of

entire measures. Had the early Quakers consented to take oaths, leaving

a Protest with the clerk of the court against them in the same breath

with which they had taken them, do you in your conscience think that

they would have been indulged at this day in their exclusive privilege

of Affirming? Let your people go on for a century or so, marrying in

your own fashion, and I will warrant them before the end of it the

legislature will be willing to concede to them more than they at present

demand.

Either the institution of marriage depends not for its validity upon

hypocritical compliances with the ritual of an alien Church; and then I

do not see why you cannot marry among yourselves, as the Quakers,

without their indulgence, would have been doing to this day; or it does

depend upon such ritual compliance, and then in your Protests you offend

against a divine ordinance. I have read in the Essex-street Liturgy a

form for the celebration of marriage. Why is this become a dead letter?

O! it has never been legalised; that is to say, in the law's eye it is

no marriage. But do you take upon you to say, in the view of the gospel

it would be none? Would your own people at least look upon a couple so

paired, to be none? But the case of dowries, alimonies, inheritances,

&c. which depend for their validity upon the ceremonial of the Church by

law established--are these nothing? That our children are not legally

_Filii Nullius_--is this nothing? I answer, nothing; to the preservation

of a good conscience, nothing; to a consistent Christianity, less than

nothing. Sad worldly thorns they are indeed, and stumbling blocks, well

worthy to be set out of the way by a legislature calling itself

Christian; but not likely to be removed in a hurry by any shrewd

legislators, who perceive that the petitioning complainants have not so

much as bruised a shin in the resistance; but, prudently declining the

briars and the prickles, nestle quietly down in the smooth two-sided

velvet of a Protesting Occasional Conformity.--I am, dear sir,

With much respect, yours, &c.

ELIA.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MR. MUNDEN

_In a letter to the Editor_

(1825)

Hark'ee, Mr. Editor. A word in your ear. They tell me you are going to

put me in print--in print, Sir. To publish my life. What is my life to

you, Sir? What is it to you whether I ever lived at all? My life is a

very good life, Sir. I am insured at the Pelican, Sir. I am threescore

years and six--six; mark me, Sir: but I can play Polonius, which, I

believe, few of your corre--correspondents can do, Sir. I suspect

tricks, Sir: I smell a rat; I do, I do. You would cog the die upon us;

you would, you would, Sir. But I will forestall you, Sir. You would be

deriving me from William the Conqueror, with a murrain to you. It is no

such thing, Sir. The town shall know better, Sir. They begin to smoke

your flams, Sir. Mr. Liston may be born where he pleases, Sir; but I

will not be born at Lup--Lupton Magna, for any body's pleasure, Sir. My

son and I have looked over the great map of Kent together, and we can

find no such place as you would palm upon us, Sir; palm upon us, I say.

Neither Magna nor Parva, as my son says, and he knows Latin, Sir; Latin.

If you write my life true, Sir, you must set down, that I, Joseph

Munden, comedian, came into the world upon Allhallows' day, Anno Domini,

1759--1759; no sooner nor later, Sir: and I saw the first light--the

first light, remember, Sir, at Stoke Pogis--Stoke Pogis, comitatu Bucks,

and not at Lup--Lup[ton] Magna, which I believe to be no better than

moonshine--moonshine; do you mark me, Sir? I wonder you can put such

flim flams upon us, Sir; I do, I do. It does not become you, Sir; I say

it--I say it. And my father was an honest tradesman, Sir: he dealt in

malt and hops, Sir, and was a Corporation man, Sir, and of the Church of

England, Sir, and no Presbyterian; nor Ana--Anabaptist, Sir, however you

may be disposed to make honest people believe to the contrary, Sir. Your

bams are found out, Sir. The town will be your stale puts no longer,

Sir; and you must not send us jolly fellows, Sir--we that are comedians,

Sir,--you must not send us into groves and Char--Charnwoods, a moping,

Sir. Neither Charns, nor charnel houses, Sir. It is not our

constitutions, Sir. I tell it you--I tell it you. I was a droll dog from

my cradle. I came into the world tittering, and the midwife tittered,

and the gossips spilt their caudle with tittering. And when I was

brought to the font, the parson could not christen me for tittering. So

I was never more than half baptized. And when I was little Joey, I made

'em all titter; there was not a melancholy face to be seen in Pogis.

Pure nature, Sir. I was born a comedian. Old Screwup, the undertaker,

could tell you, Sir, if he were living. Why, I was obliged to be locked

up every time there was to be a funeral at Pogis. I was--I was, Sir. I

used to _grimace_, at the mutes, as he called it, and put 'em out with

my mops and my mows, till they couldn't stand at a door for me. And when

I was locked up, with nothing but a cat in my company, I followed my

bent with trying to make her laugh, and sometimes she would, and

sometimes she would not. And my schoolmaster could make nothing of me:

I had only to thrust my tongue in my cheek--in my cheek, Sir--and the

rod dropped from his finger: and so my education was limited, Sir. And I

grew up a young fellow, and it was thought convenient to enter me upon

some course of life that should make me serious; but it wouldn't do,

Sir. And I was articled to a drysalter. My father gave forty pounds

premium with me, Sir. I can show the indent--dent--dentures, Sir. But I

was born to be a comedian, Sir: so I ran away, and listed with the

players, Sir; and I topt my parts at Amersham and Gerrard's Cross, and

played my own father to his face, in his own town of Pogis, in the part

of Gripe, when I was not full seventeen years of age, and he did not

know me again, but he knew me afterwards; and then he laughed, and I

laughed, and, what is better, the drysalter laughed, and gave me up my

articles for the joke's sake: so that I came into court afterwards with

clean hands--with clean hands--do you see, Sir?

[Here the manuscript becomes illegible for two or three sheets onwards,

which we presume to be occasioned by the absence of Mr. Munden, jun. who

clearly transcribed it for the press thus far. The rest (with the

exception of the concluding paragraph, which seemingly is resumed in the

first hand writing) appears to contain a confused account of some

lawsuit, in which the elder Munden was engaged; with a circumstantial

history of the proceedings on a case of Breach of Promise of Marriage,

made to or by (we cannot pick out which) Jemima Munden, spinster,

probably the comedian's cousin, for it does not appear he had any

sister; with a few dates, rather better preserved, of this great actor's

engagements--as "Cheltenham (spelt Cheltnam) 1776;" "Bath, 1779;"

"London, 1789;" together with stage anecdotes of Messrs. Edwin, Wilson,

Lee Lewis, &c. over which we have strained our eyes to no purpose, in

the hope of presenting something amusing to the public. Towards the end

the manuscript brightens up a little, as we have said, and concludes in

the following manner.]

----stood before them for six and thirty years, [we suspect that Mr.

Munden is here speaking of his final leave-taking of the stage] and to

be dismissed at last. But I was heart-whole, heart-whole to the last,

Sir. What though a few drops did course themselves down the old

veteran's cheeks; who could help it, Sir? I was a giant that night,

Sir; and could have played fifty parts, each as arduous as Dozy. My

faculties were never better, Sir. But I was to be laid upon the shelf.

It did not suit the public to laugh with their old servant any longer,

Sir. [Here some moisture has blotted a sentence or two.] But I can play

Polonius still, Sir; I can, I can.

Your servant, Sir,

JOSEPH MUNDEN.

THE "LEPUS" PAPERS

(1825)

I.--MANY FRIENDS

Unfortunate is the lot of that man, who can look round about the wide

world, and exclaim with truth, _I have no friend_! Do you know any such

lonely sufferer? For mercy sake send him to me. I can afford him plenty.

He shall have them good, cheap. I have enough and to spare. Truly

society is the balm of human life. But you may take a surfeit from

sweetest odours administered to satiety. Hear my case, dear VARIORUM,

and pity me. I am an elderly gentleman--not old--a sort of

middle-aged-gentleman-and-a-half--with a tolerable larder, cellar, &c.;

and a most unfortunately easy temper for the callous front of

impertinence to try conclusions on. My day times are entirely engrossed

by the business of a public office, where I am any thing but alone from

nine till five. I have forty fellow-clerks about me during those hours;

and, though the human face be divine, I protest that so many human faces

seen every day do very much diminish the homage I am willing to pay to

that divinity. It fares with these divine resemblances as with a

Polytheism. Multiply the object and you infallibly enfeeble the

adoration. "What a piece of work is Man! how excellent in faculty," &c.

But a great many men together--a hot huddle of rational

creatures--Hamlet himself would have lowered his contemplation a peg or

two in my situation. _Tædet me harum quotidianarum formarum._ I go home

every day to my late dinner, absolutely famished and face-sick. I am

sometimes fortunate enough to go off unaccompanied. The relief is

restorative like sleep; but far oftener, alas! some one of my fellows,

who lives _my way_ (as they call it) does me the sociality of walking

with me. He sees me to the door; and now I figure to myself a snug

fire-side--comfortable meal--a respiration from the burthen of

society--and the blessedness of a single knife and fork. I sit down to

my solitary mutton, happy as Adam when a bachelor. I have not swallowed

a mouthful, before a startling ring announces the visit of a _friend_.

O! for an everlasting muffle upon that appalling instrument of torture!

A knock makes me nervous; but a ring is a positive fillip to all the

sour passions of my nature:--and yet such is my effeminacy of

temperament, I neither tie up the one nor dumbfound the other. But these

accursed friends, or fiends, that torture me thus! They come in with a

full consciousness of their being unwelcome--with a sort of grin of

triumph over your weakness. My soul sickens within when they enter. I

can scarcely articulate a "how d'ye." My digestive powers fail. I have

enough to do to maintain them in any healthiness when alone. Eating is a

solitary function; you may drink in company. Accordingly the bottle soon

succeeds; and such is my infirmity, that the reluctance soon subsides

before it. The visitor becomes agreeable. I find a great deal that is

good in him; wonder I should have felt such aversion on his first

entrance; we get chatty, conversible; insensibly comes midnight; and I

am dismissed to the cold bed of celibacy (the only place, alas! where I

am suffered to be alone) with the reflection that another day has gone

over my head without the possibility of enjoying my own free thoughts in

solitude even for a solitary moment. O for a Lodge in some vast

wilderness! the den of those Seven Sleepers (conditionally the other six

were away)--a _Crusoe_ solitude!

What most disturbs me is, that my chief annoyers are mostly young men.

Young men, let them think as they please, are no company _singly_ for a

gentleman of my years. They do mighty well in a mixed society, and where

there are females to take them off, as it were. But to have the load of

one of them to one's own self for successive hours conversation is

unendurable.

There was my old friend Captain Beacham--he died some six years since,

bequeathing to my friendship three stout young men, his sons, and seven

girls, the tallest in the land. Pleasant, excellent young women they

were, and for their sakes I did, and could endure much. But they were

too tall. I am superstitious in that respect, and think that to a just

friendship, something like proportion in stature as well as mind is

desirable. Now I am five feet and a trifle more. Each of these young

women rose to six, and one exceeded by two inches. The brothers are

proportionably taller. I have sometimes taken the altitude of this

friendship; and on a modest computation I may be said to have known at

one time a whole furlong of Beachams. But the young women are married

off, and dispersed among the provinces. The brothers are left. Nothing

is more distasteful than these relics and parings of past

friendships--unmeaning records of agreeable hours flown. There are three

of them. If they hunted in triples, or even couples, it were something;

but by a refinement of persecution, they contrive to come singly; and so

spread themselves out into three evenings molestation in a week. Nothing

is so distasteful as the sight of their long legs, couched for

continuance upon my fender. They have been mates of Indiamen; and one of

them in particular has a story of a shark swallowing a boy in the bay of

Calcutta. I wish the shark had swallowed _him_. Nothing can be more

useless than their conversation to me, unless it is mine to them. We

have no ideas (save of eating and drinking) in common. The shark story

has been told till it cannot elicit a spark of attention; but it goes on

just as usual. When I try to introduce a point of literature, or common

life, the mates gape at me. When I fill a glass, they fill one too. Here

is sympathy. And for this poor correspondency of having a gift of

swallowing and retaining liquor in common with my fellow-creatures, I am

to be tied up to an ungenial intimacy, abhorrent from every sentiment,

and every sympathy besides. But I cannot break the bond. They are sons

of my old friend.

LEPUS

II.--READERS AGAINST THE GRAIN

No one can pass through the streets, alleys, and blindest thoroughfares

of this Metropolis, without surprise at the number of shops opened

everywhere for the sale of cheap publications--not blasphemy and

sedition--nor altogether flimsy periodicals, though the latter abound to

a surfeit--but I mean fair re-prints of good old books. Fielding,

Smollett, the Poets, Historians, are daily becoming accessible to the

purses of poor people. I cannot behold this result from the enlargement

of the reading public without congratulations to my country. But as

every blessing has its wrong side, it is with aversion I behold

springing up with this phenomenon a race of _Readers against the grain_.

Young men who thirty years ago would have been play-goers,

punch-drinkers, cricketers, &c. with one accord are now--Readers!--a

change in some respects, perhaps, salutary; but I liked the old way

best. Then people read because they liked reading. He must have been

indigent indeed, and, as times went then, probably unable to enjoy a

book, who from one little circulating library or another (those

slandered benefactions to the public) could not pick out an odd volume

to satisfy the intervals of the workshop and the desk. Then if a man

told you that he "loved reading mightily, but had no books," you might

be sure that in the first assertion at least he was mistaken. Neither

had he, perhaps, the materials that should enliven a punch-bowl in his

own cellar; but if the rogue loved his liquor, he would quickly find out

where the arrack, the lemons, and the sugar dwelt--he would speedily

find out the circulating shop for them. I will illustrate this from my

own observation. It may detract a little from the gentility of your

columns when I tell your Readers that I am--what I hinted at in my

last--a Bank Clerk. Three and thirty years ago, when I took my first

station at the desk, out of as many fellows in office one or two there

were that had read a little. One could give a pretty good account of the

_Spectator_. A second knew _Tom Jones_. A third recommended

_Telemachus_. One went so far as to quote _Hudibras_, and was looked on

as a phenomenon. But the far greater number neither cared for books, nor

affected to care. They were, as I said, in their leisure hours,

cricketers, punch-drinkers, play-goers, and the rest. Times are altered

now. We are all readers; our young men are split up into so many

book-clubs, knots of literati; we criticise; we read the _Quarterly_ and

_Edinburgh_, I assure you; and instead of the old, honest, unpretending

illiterature so becoming to our profession--we read and _judge_ of

every thing. I have something to do in these book-clubs, and know the

trick and mystery of it. Every new publication that is likely to make a

noise, must be had at any rate. By some they are devoured with avidity.

These would have been readers in the old time I speak of. The only loss

is, that for the good old reading of Addison or Fielding's days is

substituted that never-ending flow of thin novelties which are kept up

like a ball, leaving no possible time for better things, and threatening

in the issue to bury or sweep away from the earth the memory of their

nobler predecessors. We read to say that we have read. No reading can

keep pace with the writing of this age, but we pant and toil after it as

fast as we can. I smile to see an honest lad, who ought to be at

trap-ball, laboring up hill against this giant load, taking his toil for

a pleasure, and with that utter incapacity for reading which _betrays

itself by a certain silent movement of the lips when the reader reads to

himself_, undertaking the infinite contents of fugitive poetry, or

travels, what not--to see them with their snail pace undertaking so vast

a journey as might make faint a giant's speed; keeping a volume, which a

real reader would get through in an hour, three, four, five, six days,

and returning it with the last leaf but one folded down. These are your

readers against the grain, who yet _must_ read or be thought nothing

of--who, crawling through a book with tortoise-pace, go creeping to the

next Review to learn what they shall say of it. Upon my soul, I pity the

honest fellows mightily. The self-denials of virtue are nothing to the

patience of these self tormentors. If I hate one day before another, it

is the accursed first day of the month, when a load of periodicals is

ushered in and distributed to feed the reluctant monster. How it gapes

and takes in its prescribed diet, as little savoury as that which Daniel

ministered to that Apocryphal dragon, and not more wholesome! Is there

no stopping the eternal wheels of the Press for a half century or two,

till the nation recover its senses? Must we _magazine_ it and _review_

[it] at this sickening rate for ever? Shall we never again read to be

_amused_? but to judge, to criticise, to talk about it and about it?

Farewel, old honest delight taken in books not quite contemporary,

before this plague-token of modern endless novelties broke out upon

us--farewel to reading for its own sake!

Rather than follow in the train of this insatiable monster of modern

reading, I would forswear my spectacles, play at put, mend pens, kill

fleas, stand on one leg, shell peas, or do whatsoever ignoble diversion

you shall put me to. Alas! I am hurried on in the vortex. I die of new

books, or the everlasting talk about them. I faint of Longman's. I

sicken of the Constables. Blackwood and Cadell have me by the throat.

I will go and relieve myself with a page of honest John Bunyan, or Tom

Brown. Tom anybody will do, so long as they are not of this whiffling

century.

Your Old-fashioned Correspondent,

LEPUS.

III.--MORTIFICATIONS OF AN AUTHOR

If you have a son or daughter inclinable to the folly of Authorship,

pray warn them by my example of the mortifications which are the

constant attendants upon it. I do not advert to the trite instances of

unfair and malignant reviewing, though that is not nothing--but to the

mortifications they may expect from their friends and common

acquaintance. I have been a dabler this way, and cannot resist flinging

out my thoughts occasionally in periodical publications. I was the chief

support of the * * * * * * * * * Magazine while it lasted, under the

signature of OLINDO. All my friends guessed, or rather knew, who OLINDO

was; but I never knew one who did not take a pleasure in affecting to be

ignorant of it. One would ask me, whether I had read that clever article

in the * * * * * * * * * Magazine of this month (and here I began to

prick up my ears) signed "ZEKIEL HOMESPUN."--(Then my ears would flap

down again.)--Another would praise the verses of "X. Y. Z.;" a third

stood up for the "Gipsy Stranger;" a long rambling tale in prose, with

all the lengthiness, and none of the fine-heartedness and gush of soul

of A----n C----m to recommend it. But never in a single instance was

Olindo ever hinted at. I have sifted, I have pumped them (as the vulgar

phrase is) till my heart ached, to extort a pittance of acknowledgment.

I have descended to arts below any animal but _an Author_, who is

veritably the meanest of Heaven's creatures, and my vanity has returned

upon myself ungratified, to choke me. When I could bear their silence

no longer and have ventured to ask them how they liked "such a Paper;" a

cold, "O! was that yours?" is the utmost I ever obtained from them. A

fellow sits at my desk this morning, spelling _The New Times_ over from

head to tail, and I know that he will purposely skip over this article,

because he suspects me to be LEPUS. So confident am I of this, and of

his deliberate purpose to torment me, that I have a great mind to give

you his character--knowing that he will not read it--but I forbear him

at present. They have two ways of doing it. "The * * * * * * * * *

Magazine is very sprightly this month, Anticlericus has some good hits,

the Old Baker is capital," and so forth. Or the same Magazine is

"unusually dull this month," especially when Olindo happens to have an

article better or longer than usual. I publish a book now and then. In

the very nick of its novelty, the honey moon, as it were--when with

pride I have placed my bantling on my own shelves in company with its

betters, a friend will drop in, and ask me if I have anything new; then,

carefully eluding mine, he will take down _The Angel of the World_, or

_Barry Cornwall_, and beg me to lend it him. "He is particularly careful

of new books." But he never borrows _me_. To one Lady I lent a little

Novel of mine, a thing of about two hours' reading at most, and she

returned it after five weeks' keeping, with an apology that she had "so

small time for reading." I found it doubled down at the last leaf but

one--just at the crisis of what I conceived to be a very affecting

catastrophe. O if you _write_, dear Reader, keep the secret inviolable

from your most familiar friends. Do not let your own father, brother, or

your uncle, know it: not even your wife. I know a Lady who prides

herself upon "not reading any of her husband's publications," though she

swallows all the trash she can pick up besides; and yet her husband in

the world's eye is a very respectable author, and has written some

Novels in particular that are in high estimation. Write--and all your

friends will hate you--all will suspect you. Are you happy in drawing a

character? Shew it not for yours. Not one of your acquaintance but will

surmise that you meant him or her--no matter how discordant from their

own. Let it be diametrically different, their fancy will extract from it

some lines of a likeness. I lost a friend--a most valuable one, by

shewing him a whimsical draught of a miser. He himself is remarkable for

generosity, even to carelessness in money matters; but there was an

expression in it, out of Juvenal, about an attic--a place where pigeons

are fed; and my friend kept pigeons. All the waters in the Danube cannot

wash it out of his pate to this day, but that in my miser I was making

reflections upon _him_. To conclude, no creature is so craving after

applause, and so starved and famished for it, as an author: none so

pitiful, and so little pitied. He sets himself up _prima facie_ as

something different from his brethren, and they never forgive him. 'Tis

the fable of the little birds hooting at the bird of Pallas.

LEPUS.

IV.--TOM PRY

My friend TOM PRY is a kind, warm-hearted fellow, with no one failing in

the world but an excess of the passion of _Curiosity_. He knows every

body's name, face, and domestic affairs. He scents out a match three

months before the parties themselves are quite agreed about it. Like the

man in the play, _homo est_ and no human interest escapes him. I have

sometime wondered how he gets all his information. Mere inquisitiveness

would not do his business. Certainly the bodily make has much to do with

the character. The auricular organs in my friend Tom do not lie flapping

against his head as with common mortals, but they perk up like those of

a hare at form. The lowest sound cannot elude him. Every parlour and

drawing-room is to him a whispering gallery. His own name, pronounced in

the utmost compression of susurration, they say, he catches at a quarter

furlong interval. I suspect sometimes that the faculty of hearing with

him is analogous to the scent in some animals. He seems hung round with

ears, like the pagan emblem of Fame, and to imbibe sounds at every pore.

You cannot take a walk of business or pleasure, but you are taxed with

it by him next morning, with some shrewd guess at the purpose of it. You

dread him as you would an inquisitor, or the ubiquitarian power of the

old Secret Tribunal. He is the bird of the air, who sees the matter. He

has lodgings at a corner house, which looks out four ways; and though

you go a round about way to evade his investigation, you are somehow

seen notwithstanding. He sees at multiplied angles. He is a sort of

second memory to all his friends, an excellent refresher to a dull or

obvious conscience; for he can repeat to you at any given time all that

ever you have done in your life. He should have been a death-bed

confessor. His appetite for information is omnivorous. To get at the

_name_ only of a stranger whom he passes in the street, he counts a

God-send; what further he can pick up is a luxury. His friends joke with

him about his innocent propensity, but the bent of nature is too deeply

burned in to be removed with such forks. _Usque recurrit_. I myself in

particular had been rallying him pretty sharply one day upon the foible,

and it seemed to impress him a little. He asked no more questions that

morning. But walking with him in St. James's Park in the evening, we met

an old Gentleman unknown to him, who bowed to me. I could see that Tom

kept his passion within with great struggles. Silence was observed for

ten minutes, and I was congratulating myself on my friend's mastery over

this inordinate appetite of knowing every thing, when we had not past

the Queen's gate a pace or two, but the fire burnt within him, and he

said, as if with indifference, "By the way, who was that friend of yours

who bowed to you just now?" He has a place in the Post-office, which I

think he chose for the pleasure of reading superscriptions. He is too

honorable a man, I am sure, to get clandestinely at the contents of a

letter not addressed to him, but the outside he cannot resist. It

tickles him. He plays about the flame, as it were; contents himself with

a superficial caress, when he can get at nothing more substantial. He

has a handsome seal, which he keeps to proffer to such of his friends as

have not one in readiness, when they would fold up an epistle; nay, he

will seal it for you, and pays himself by discovering the direction. As

I have no directionary secrets, I generally humour him with pretending

to have left my seal at home (though I carry a rich gold one, which was

my grandfather's, always about me), to gratify his harmless inclination.

He is the cleverest of sealing a letter of any man I ever knew, and

turns out the cleanest impressions. It is a neat but slow operation with

him--he has so much more time to drink in the direction. With all this

curiosity, he is the finest tempered fellow in the world. You may banter

him from morning to night, but never ruffle his temper. We sometimes

raise reports to mislead him, as that such a one is going to be married

next month, &c.; but he has an instinct, as I called it before, which

prevents his yielding to the imposition. He distinguishes _at hearing_

between giddy rumour and steady report. He listens with dignity, and his

prying is without credulity.

LEPUS.

V.--TOM PRY'S WIFE

You say you were diverted with my description of the "Curious Man." Tom

is in some respects an amusing character enough, but then it is by no

means uncommon. But what power of words can paint Tom's wife? My pencil

faulters while I attempt it. But I am ambitious that the portraits

should hang side by side: they may set off one another. Tom's passion

for knowledge in the _pursuit_ is intense and restless, but when

satisfied it sits down and seeks no further. He must know all about

every thing, but his desires terminate in mere science. Now as far as

the _pure mathematics_, as they are called, transcend the _practical_,

so far does Tom's curiosity, to my mind, in elegance and

disinterestedness, soar above the craving, gnawing, _mercenary_ (if I

may so call it) inquisitiveness of his wife.

Mrs. Priscilla Pry must not only know all about your private concerns,

but be as deeply concerned herself for them: she will pluck at the very

heart of your mystery. She must anatomise and skin you, absolutely lay

your feelings bare. Her passions are reducible to two, but those are

stronger in her than in any human creature--_pity_ and _envy_. I will

try to illustrate it. She has intimacy with two families--the Grimstones

and the Gubbins's. The former are sadly pinched to live, the latter are

in splendid circumstances: the former tenant an obscure third floor in

Devereux Court, the latter occupy a stately mansion in May-fair. I have

accompanied her to both these domiciles. She will burst into the

incommodious lodging of poor Grimstone and his wife at some unseasonable

hour, when they are at their meagre dinner, with a "Bless me! what a

dark passage you have! I could hardly find my way up stairs! Isn't there

a drain somewhere? Well, I like to see you at your _little_ bit of

mutton!" But her treat is to catch them at a meal of solitary potatoes.

Then does her sympathy burgeon, and bud out into a thousand flowers of

rhetorical pity and wonder; and it is trumpeted out afterwards to all

her acquaintance, that the poor Grimstones were "making a dinner

without flesh yesterday." The word _poor_ is her favorite; the word (on

my conscience) is endeared to her beyond any monosyllable in the

language. Poverty, in the tone of her compassion, is somehow doubled; it

is emphatically what a dramatist, with some licence, has called _poor

poverty_. It is stark-naked _indigence_, and never in her mind connected

with any mitigating circumstances of self-respect and independence in

the owner, which give to poverty a dignity. It is an object of pure

pity, and nothing else. This is her first way. Change we the scene to

May-fair and the Gubbins's. Suppose it a morning call:--

"Bless me!--(for she equally blesses herself against want and

abundance)--what a style you _do_ live in! what elegant curtains! You

must have a great income to afford all these things. I wonder you can

ever visit such poor folks as we!"--with more to the same purpose, which

I must cut short, not to be tedious. She pumps all her friends to know

the exact income of all her friends. Such a one must have a great

salary. Do you think he has as much as eight hundred a year--seven

hundred and fifty perhaps? A wag once told her I had fourteen

hundred--(Heaven knows we Bank Clerks, though with no reason to

complain, in few cases realise that luxury)--and the fury of her wonder,

till I undeceived her, nearly worked her spirits to a fever. Now Pry is

equally glad to get at his friends' circumstances; but his curiosity is

disinterested, as I said, and passionless. No emotions are consequent

upon the satisfaction of it. He is a philosopher who loves knowledge for

its own sake; she is not content with a _lumen siccum_ (dry knowledge,

says Bacon, is best); the success of her researches is nothing, but as

it feeds the two main springs between which her soul is kept in

perpetual conflict--Pity, and Envy.

LEPUS.

VI.--A CHARACTER

A desk at the Bank of England is _prima facie_ not the point in the

world that seems best adapted for an insight into the characters of men;

yet something may be gleaned from the barrenest soil. There is EGOMET,

for instance. By the way, how pleasant it is to string up one's

acquaintance thus, in the grumbler's corner of some newspaper, and for

them to know nothing at all about it; nay, for them to read their own

characters and suspect nothing of the matter. Blessings on the writer

who first made use of Roman names. It is only calling Tomkins--Caius;

and Jenkins--Titus; or whipping Hopkins upon the back of Scævola, and

you have the pleasure of executing sentence with no pain to the

offender. This hanging in effigy is delightful; it evaporates the spleen

without souring the blood, and is altogether the most gentlemanly piece

of Jack-Ketchery imaginable.

EGOMET, then, has been my desk-fellow for thirty years. He is a

remarkable species of selfishness. I do not mean that he is attentive to

his own gain; I acquit him of that common-place manifestation of the

foible. I shoot no such small deer. But his sin is a total absorption of

mind in things relating to himself--_his_ house--_his_ horse--_his_

stable--_his_ gardener, &c. Nothing that concerns himself can he imagine

to be indifferent to you.--He does my sympathy too much honour. The

worst is, he takes no sort of interest whatever in _your_ horse, house,

stable, gardener, &c. If you begin a discourse about your own household

economy and small matters, he treats it with the most mortifying

indifference. He has discarded all pronouns for the first-personal. His

inattention, or rather aversion, to hear, is no more than what is a

proper return to a self-important babbler of his own little concerns;

but then, if he will not give, why should he expect to receive, a

hearing? "There is no reciprocity in this."

There is an egotism of vanity; but his is not that species either. He is

not vain of any talent, or indeed properly of any thing he possesses;

but his doings and sayings, his little pieces of good or ill luck, the

sickness of his maid, the health of his pony, the question whether he

shall ride or walk home to-day to Clapham, the shape of his hat or make

of his boot; his poultry, and how many eggs they lay daily--are the

never-*ending topics of his talk. _Your_ goose might lay golden eggs

without exciting in him a single curiosity to hear about it.

He is alike throughout; his large desk, which abuts on mine--_nimium

vicini_, alas! is a vast lumber chest composed of every scrap of most

insignificant paper, even to dinner invitation cards, every fragment

that has been addressed to him, or in any way has concerned himself. My

elbow aches with being perpetually in the way of his sudden jerking it

up, which he does incessantly to hunt for some worthless scrap of the

least possible self-reference; this he does without notice, and without

ceremony. I should like to make a bonfire of the ungainful mass--but I

should not like it either; with it would fall down at once all the

structure of his pride--his fane of Diana, his treasure, his calling,

the business he came into the world to do.

I said before, he is not avaricious--not egotistical in the vain sense

of the word either; herefore the term selfishness, or egotism, is

improperly applied to his distemper; it is the sin of self-fullness.

Neither is himself, properly speaking, an object of his contemplation at

all; it is the things, which belong or refer to himself. His

conversation is one entire soliloquy; or it may be said to resemble

Robinson Crusoe's self-colloquies in his island: you are the parrot

sitting by. Begin a story, however modest, of your own concerns

(something of real interest perhaps), and the little fellow contracts

and curls up into his little self immediately, and, with shut ears, sits

unmoved, self-centred, as remote from your joys or sorrows as a Pagod or

a Lucretian Jupiter.

LEPUS.

REFLECTIONS IN THE PILLORY

(1825)

[About the year 18--, one R----d, a respectable London merchant (since

dead), stood in the pillory for some alleged fraud upon the Revenue.

Among his papers were found the following "Reflections," which we have

obtained by favour of our friend Elia, who knew him well, and had heard

him describe the train of his feelings upon that trying occasion almost

in the words of the MS. Elia speaks of him as a man (with the exception

of the peccadillo aforesaid) of singular integrity in all his private

dealings, possessing great suavity of manner, with a certain turn for

humour. As our object is to present human nature under every possible

circumstance, we do not think that we shall sully our pages by inserting

it.--_Editor_.]

_Scene, opposite the Royal Exchange_

_Time, Twelve to One, Noon_

Ketch, my good fellow, you have a neat hand. Prithee, adjust this new

collar to my neck, gingerly. I am not used to these wooden cravats.

There, softly, softly. That seems the exact point between ornament and

strangulation. A thought looser on this side. Now it will do. And have a

care in turning me, that I present my aspect due vertically. I now face

the orient. In a quarter of an hour I shift southward--do you mind?--and

so on till I face the east again, travelling with the sun. No

half-points, I beseech you; N.N. by W. or any such elaborate niceties.

They become the shipman's card, but not this mystery. Now leave me a

little to my own reflections.

Bless us, what a company is assembled in honour of me! How grand I stand

here! I never felt so sensibly before the effect of solitude in a crowd.

I muse in solemn silence upon that vast miscellaneous rabble in the pit

there. From my private box I contemplate with mingled pity and wonder

the gaping curiosity of those underlings. There are my Whitechapel

supporters. Rosemary Lane has emptied herself of the very flower of her

citizens to grace my show. Duke's place sits desolate. What is there in

my face, that strangers should come so far from the east to gaze upon

it? [_Here an egg narrowly misses him._] That offering was well meant,

but not so cleanly executed. By the tricklings, it should not be either

myrrh or frankincence. Spare your presents, my friends; I am no-ways

mercenary. I desire no missive tokens of your approbation. I am past

those valentines. Bestow these coffins of untimely chickens upon mouths

that water for them. Comfort your addle spouses with them at home, and

stop the mouths of your brawling brats with such Olla Podridas; they

have need of them. [_A brick is let fly._] Discase not, I pray you, nor

dismantle your rent and ragged tenements, to furnish me with

architectural decorations, which I can excuse. This fragment might have

stopped a flaw against snow comes. [_A coal flies._] Cinders are dear,

gentlemen. This nubbling might have helped the pot boil, when your dirty

cuttings from the shambles at three ha'-pence a pound shall stand at a

cold simmer. Now, south about, Ketch. I would enjoy australian

popularity.

What my friends from over the water! Old benchers--flies of a

day--ephemeral Romans--welcome! Doth the sight of me draw souls from

limbo? Can it dispeople purgatory--ha!

What am I, or what was my father's house, that I should thus be set up a

spectacle to gentlemen and others? Why are all faces, like Persians at

the sun-rise, bent singly on mine alone? It was wont to be esteemed an

ordinary visnomy, a quotidian merely. Doubtless, these assembled myriads

discern some traits of nobleness, gentility, breeding, which hitherto

have escaped the common observation--some intimations, as it were, of

wisdom, valour, piety, and so forth. My sight dazzles; and, if I am not

deceived by the too familiar pressure of this strange neckcloth that

envelopes it, my countenance gives out lambent glories. For some painter

now to take me in the lucky point of expression!--the posture so

convenient--the head never shifting, but standing quiescent in a sort of

natural frame. But these artizans require a westerly aspect. Ketch, turn

me.

Something of St. James's air in these my new friends. How my prospects

shift, and brighten! Now if Sir Thomas Lawrence be any where in that

group, his fortune is made for ever. I think I see some one taking out a

crayon. I will compose my whole face to a smile, which yet shall not so

predominate, but that gravity and gaiety shall contend as it were--you

understand me? I will work up my thoughts to some mild rapture--a gentle

enthusiasmus--which the artist may transfer in a manner warm to the

canvass. I will inwardly apostrophize my tabernacle.

Delectable mansion, hail! House, not made of every wood! Lodging, that

pays no rent; airy and commodious; which, owing no window tax, art yet

all casement, out of which men have such pleasure in peering and

overlooking, that they will sometimes stand an hour together to enjoy

thy prospects! Cell, recluse from the vulgar! Quiet retirement from the

great Babel, yet affording sufficient glimpses into it! Pulpit, that

instructs without note or sermon-book, into which the preacher is

inducted without tenth or first fruit! Throne, unshared and single, that

disdainest a Brentford competitor! Honour without co-rival! Or hearest

thou rather, magnificent theatre in which the spectator comes to see and

to be seen? From thy giddy heights I look down upon the common herd,

who stand with eyes upturned as if a winged messenger hovered over them;

and mouths open, as if they expected manna. I feel, I feel, the true

Episcopal yearnings. Behold in me, my flock, your true overseer! What

though I cannot lay hands, because my own are laid, yet I can mutter

benedictions. True _otium cum dignitate_! Proud Pisgah eminence!

Pinnacle sublime! O Pillory, 'tis thee I sing! Thou younger brother to

the gallows, without his rough and Esau palms; that with ineffable

contempt surveyest beneath thee the grovelling stocks, which claims

presumptuously to be of thy great race. Let that low wood know, that

thou art far higher born! Let that domicile for groundling rogues and

base earth-kissing varlets envy thy preferment, not seldom fated to be

the wanton baiting-house, the temporary retreat, of poet and of patriot.

Shades of Bastwick and of Prynne hover over thee--Defoe is there, and

more greatly daring Shebbeare--from their (little more elevated)

stations they look down with recognitions. Ketch, turn me.

I now veer to the north. Open your widest gates, thou proud Exchange of

London, that I may look in as proudly! Gresham's wonder, hail! I stand

upon a level with all your kings. They, and I, from equal heights, with

equal superciliousness, o'er-look the plodding, money-hunting tribe

below; who, busied in their sordid speculations, scarce elevate their

eyes to notice your ancient, or my recent, grandeur. The second Charles

smiles on me from three pedestals?[50] He closed the Exchequer: I

cheated the Excise. Equal our darings, equal be our lot.

[50] A statue of Charles II. by the elder Cibber, adorns the front

of the Exchange. He stands also on high, in the train of his crowned

ancestors, in his proper order, _within_ that building. But the

merchants of London, in a superfœtation of loyalty, have, within a

few years, caused to be erected another effigy of him on the ground

in the centre of the interior. We do not hear that a fourth is in

contemplation.--_Editor_.

Are those the quarters? 'tis their fatal chime. That the ever-winged

hours would but stand still! but I must descend, descend from this dream

of greatness. Stay, stay, a little while, importunate hour hand! A

moment or two, and I shall walk on foot with the undistinguished many.

The clock speaks one. I return to common life. Ketch, let me out.

THE LAST PEACH

(1825)

I am the miserablest man living. Give me counsel, dear Editor. I was

bred up in the strictest principles of honesty, and have passed my life

in punctual adherence to them. Integrity might be said to be ingrained

in our family. Yet I live in constant fear of one day coming to the

gallows.

Till the latter end of last autumn I never experienced these feelings of

self-mistrust which ever since have embittered my existence. From the

apprehension of that unfortunate man whose story began to make so great

an impression upon the public about that time, I date my horrors. I

never can get it out of my head that I shall some time or other commit a

forgery, or do some equally vile thing. To make matters worse I am in a

banking-house. I sit surrounded with a cluster of bank-notes. These were

formerly no more to me than meat to a butcher's dog. They are now as

toads and aspics. I feel all day like one situated amidst gins and

pit-falls. Sovereigns, which I once took such pleasure in counting out,

and scraping up with my little thin tin shovel (at which I was the most

expert in the banking-house), now scald my hands. When I go to sign my

name I set down that of another person, or write my own in a counterfeit

character. I am beset with temptations without motive. I want no more

wealth than I possess. A more contented being than myself, as to money

matters, exists not. What should I fear?

When a child I was once let loose, by favour of a Nobleman's gardener,

into his Lordship's magnificent fruit garden, with free leave to pull

the currants and the gooseberries; only I was interdicted from touching

the wall fruit. Indeed, at that season (it was the end of Autumn) there

was little left. Only on the South wall (can I forget the hot feel of

the brickwork?) lingered the one last peach. Now peaches are a fruit I

always had, and still have, an almost utter aversion to. There is

something to my palate singularly harsh and repulsive in the flavour of

them. I know not by what demon of contradiction inspired, but I was

haunted by an irresistible desire to pluck it. Tear myself as often as I

would from the spot, I found myself still recurring to it, till,

maddening with desire (desire I cannot call it), with wilfulness

rather--without appetite--against appetite, I may call it--in an evil

hour I reached out my hand, and plucked it. Some few rain drops just

then fell; the sky (from a bright day) became overcast; and I was a type

of our first parents, after the eating of that fatal fruit. I felt

myself naked and ashamed; stripped of my virtue, spiritless. The downy

fruit, whose sight rather than savour had tempted me, dropt from my

hand, never to be tasted. All the commentators in the world cannot

persuade me but that the Hebrew word in the second chapter of Genesis,

translated apple, should be rendered peach. Only this way can I

reconcile that mysterious story.

Just such a child at thirty am I among the cash and valuables, longing

to pluck, without an idea of enjoyment further. I cannot reason myself

out of these fears: I dare not laugh at them. I was tenderly and

lovingly brought up. What then? Who that in life's entrance had seen the

babe F----, from the lap stretching out his little fond mouth to catch

the maternal kiss, could have predicted, or as much as imagined, that

life's very different exit? The sight of my own fingers torments me;

they seem so admirably constructed for ---- pilfering. Then that jugular

vein, which I have in common----; in an emphatic sense may I say with

David, I am "fearfully made." All my mirth is poisoned by these unhappy

suggestions. If, to dissipate reflection, I hum a tune, it changes to

the "Lamentations of a Sinner." My very dreams are tainted. I awake with

a shocking feeling of my hand in some pocket.

Advise with me, dear Editor, on this painful heart-malady. Tell me, do

you feel any thing allied to it in yourself? do you never feel an

itching, as it were--a _dactylomania_--or am I alone? You have my honest

confession. My next may appear from Bow-street.

SUSPENSURUS.

"ODES AND ADDRESSES TO GREAT PEOPLE"

(1825)

The Odes and Addresses are Thirteen in number. The metre is happily

varied from the familiar epistolary verse to the Eton College stanza,

and loftier parodies of Gray, &c. Among the Great People addressed

are--Graham the Aeronaut, Mr. McAdam, Mrs. Fry, Martin of Galway, R. W.

Elliston, Esq., &c. &c. from which the reader may gather that the

Addresses are not mere unqualified or fulsome dedications. They have, in

fact, a fund of fun. They remind us of Peter Pindar, and sometimes of

Colman; they have almost as much humour, and they have rather more wit.

A too great aim at brilliancy is their excess. We do not think that in

any work there can be too much brilliancy _of the same kind_. We are not

of opinion with those critics who condemn Cowley for excess of wit. We

could have borne with a double portion of it, and have never cried

"Hold." What we allude to is a mixture of _incompatible_ kinds; the

perpetual recurrence of _puns_ in these little effusions of humour; puns

uncalled for, and perfectly gratuitous, a sort of make-weight; puns,

which, if _missed_, leave the sense and the drollery full and perfect

without them. You may read any one of the addresses, and not catch a

quibble in it, and it shall be just as good, nay better; for the

addition of said quibble only serves to puzzle with an unnecessary

double meaning. A pun is good when it can rely on its single self; but,

called in as an accessory, it weakens--unless it _makes_ the humour, it

_enfeebles_ it. All this critical prosing is not quite a fair

introduction to the pleasant specimen we subjoin, from the pleasantest

_morceau_ in the volume, which we throw upon the taste of our

pantomime-going readers, with a hearty confidence in their sympathies.

The subject is no less a one than their and our Joe--the immortal

Grimaldi.

Joseph! they say thou'st left the stage.

To toddle down the hill of life,

And taste the flannell'd ease of age,

Apart from pantomimic strife--

* * * * *

Ah, where is now thy rolling head!

Thy winking, reeling, _drunken_ eyes,

(As old Catullus would have said,)

Thy oven-mouth, that swallow'd pies--

Enormous hunger--monstrous drowth!--

Thy pockets greedy as thy mouth!

Ah, where thy ears, so often cuff'd!--

Thy funny, flapping, filching hands!--

Thy partridge body, always stuff'd

With waifs, and strays, and contrabands!--

Thy _foot_--like Berkeley's _Foote_--for why?

'Twas often made to _wipe an eye_! =X=

Ah, where thy legs--that witty pair!

For "great wits jump"--and so did they!

Lord! how they leap'd in lamp-light air!

Caper'd--and bounc'd--and strode away!--

That years should tame the legs--alack!

I've seen spring thro' an Almanack!

But bounds will have their bound =X=--the shocks

Of Time will cramp the nimblest toes:

And those that frisk'd in silken clocks

May look to limp in fleecy hose--

* * * * *

And gout, that owns no odds between

The toe of Czar and toe of Clown,

Will visit--but I did not mean

To moralize, though I am grown

Thus sad.--Thy going seem'd to beat

A muffled drum for Fun's retreat!

* * * * *

Oh, how will thy departure cloud

The lamp-light of the little breast!

The Christmas child will grieve aloud

To miss his broadest friend and best,--

* * * * *

For who like thee could ever stride!

Some dozen paces to the mile!--

The motley, medley _coach_ provide--

Or like Joe Frankenstein compile

The _vegetable man_ complete!--

A proper _Covent Garden_ feat!

Or, who like thee could ever drink,

Or eat,--swill, swallow--bolt--and choke!

Nod, weep, and hiccup--sneeze and wink?--

Thy very yawn was quite a joke!

Tho' Joseph, Junior, acts not ill,

"There's no Fool like the old Fool" still!

All that is descriptive here is excellent. It seems to us next in merit

to some of Cibber's dramatic comic portraitures, Joe, the absolute Joe,

lives again in every line. We have just set our mark X against two puns

to exemplify our foregoing remarks. The first of them is a positive stop

to the current of our joyous feelings. What possible analogy, or

contrast even, can there be between a comic gesture of Grimaldi, and the

serious misfortunes of the lady, except in verbal sound purely? The

sound is good, because the humour lies in the pun, and moreover has

reference to Milton's

----at one bound

High over leaps all bounds.

A pun is a humble companion to wit, but disdains to be a train-bearer

merely. But these poems are rich in fancies, which, in truth, needed not

such aid.

THE RELIGION OF ACTORS

(1826)

The world has hitherto so little troubled its head with the points of

doctrine held by a community, which contributes in other ways so largely

to its amusement, that, before the late mischance of a celebrated tragic

actor, it scarce condescended to look into the practice of any

individual player, much less to inquire into the hidden and abscondite

springs of his actions. Indeed it is with some violence to the

imagination that we conceive of an actor as belonging to the relations

of private life, so closely do we identify these persons in our mind

with the characters which they assume upon the stage. How oddly does it

sound, when we are told that the late Miss Pope, for instance--that is

to say, in our notion of her, _Mrs. Candour_--was a good daughter, an

affectionate sister, and exemplary in all the parts of domestic life!

With still greater difficulty can we carry our notions to church, and

conceive of Liston, kneeling upon a hassock; or Munden uttering a pious

ejaculation, "making mouths at the invisible event." But the times are

fast improving; and, if the process of sanctity begun under the happy

auspices of the present licenser go on to its completion, it will be as

necessary for a comedian to give an account of his faith, as of his

conduct. Fawcett must study the five points; and Dicky Suett, if he were

alive, would have to rub up his catechism. Already the effects of it

begin to appear. A celebrated performer has thought fit to oblige the

world with a confession of his faith; or, BR----'S RELIGIO DRAMATICI.

This gentleman, in his laudable attempt to shift from his person the

obloquy of Judaism, with the forwardness of a new convert, in trying to

prove too much, has, in the opinion of many, proved too little. A simple

declaration of his Christianity was sufficient; but, strange to say, his

apology has not a word about it. We are left to gather it from some

expressions which imply that he is a Protestant; but we did not wish to

inquire into the niceties of his orthodoxy. To his friends of the _old

persuasion_ the distinction was impertinent; for what cares Rabbi Ben

Kimchi for the differences which have split our novelty? To the great

body of Christians that hold the Pope's supremacy--that is to say, to

the major part of the Christian world--his religion will appear as much

to seek as ever. But perhaps he conceived that all Christians are

Protestants, as children and the common people call all that are not

animals, Christians. The mistake was not very considerable in so young a

proselyte; or he might think the general (as logicians speak) involved

in the particular. All Protestants are Christians; but I am a

Protestant; _ergo_, &c. as if a marmoset, contending to be a man,

overleaping that term as too generic and vulgar, should at once roundly

proclaim himself to be a gentleman. The argument would be, as we say,

_ex abundanti_. From whichever cause this _excessus in terminis_

proceeded, we can do no less than congratulate the general state of

Christendom upon the accession of so extraordinary a convert. Who was

the happy instrument of the conversion, we are yet to learn: it comes

nearest to the attempt of the late pious Doctor Watts to christianize

the Psalms of the Old Testament. Something of the old Hebrew raciness is

lost in the transfusion; but much of its asperity is softened and pared

down in the adaptation. The appearance of so singular a treatise at this

conjuncture has set us upon an inquiry into the present state of

religion upon the stage generally. By the favour of the churchwardens of

Saint Martin's in the Fields, and Saint Paul's Covent-Garden, who have

very readily, and with great kindness, assisted our pursuit, we are

enabled to lay before the public the following particulars.--Strictly

speaking, neither of the two great bodies is collectively a religious

institution. We had expected to have found a chaplain among them, as at

Saint Stephen's, and other court establishments; and were the more

surprised at the omission, as the last [? late] Mr. Bengough, at the one

house, and Mr. Powell at the other, from a gravity of speech and

demeanour, and the habit of wearing black at their first appearances in

the beginning of _fifth_, or the conclusion of _fourth acts_, so

eminently pointed out their qualifications for such office. These

corporations then being not properly congregational, we must seek the

solution of our question in the tastes, attainments, accidental

breeding, and education of the individual members of them. As we were

prepared to expect, a majority at both houses adhere to the religion of

the church established, only that at one of them a pretty strong leaven

of Catholicism is suspected: which, considering the notorious education

of the manager at a foreign seminary, is not so much to be wondered at.

Some have gone so far as to report that Mr. T----y, in particular,

belongs to an order lately restored on the Continent. We can contradict

this: that gentleman is a member of the Kirk of Scotland; and his name

is to be found, much to his honour, in the list of Seceders from the

congregation of Mr. Fletcher. While the generality, as we have said, are

content to jog on in the safe trammels of national orthodoxy, symptoms

of a sectarian spirit have broken out in quarters where we should least

have looked for it. Some of the ladies at both houses are deep in

controverted points. Miss F----e, we are credibly informed, is a _sub_,

and Madame V---- a _supra_-lapsarian.

Mr. Pope is the last of the exploded sect of the Ranters. Mr. Sinclair

has joined the Shakers. Mr. Grimaldi, Senior, after being long a Jumper,

has lately fallen into some whimsical theories respecting the Fall of

Man; which he understands, not of an allegorical, but a _real tumble_,

by which the whole body of humanity became, as it were, lame to the

performance of good works. Pride he will have to be--nothing but a

stiff-neck; irresolution--the nerves shaken; an inclination to sinister

paths--crookedness of the joints; spiritual deadness--a paralysis; want

of charity--a contraction in the fingers; despising of government--a

broken head; the plaister--a sermon; the lint to bind it up--the text;

the probers--the preachers; a pair of crutches--the old and new law; a

bandage--religious obligation: a fanciful mode of illustration derived

from the accidents and habits of his past calling _spiritualised_,

rather than from any accurate acquaintance with the Hebrew text, in

which report speaks him but a raw scholar.--Mr. Elliston, from all that

we can learn, has his religion yet to choose; though some think him a

Mu[g]gletonian.

A POPULAR FALLACY

(1826)

_That a deformed person is a lord_.--After a careful perusal of the most

approved works that treat of nobility, and of its origin, in these

realms in particular, we are left very much in the dark as to the

original patent, in which this branch of it is recognised. Neither

Camden in his "Etymologie and Original of Barons," nor Dugdale in his

"Baronage of England," nor Selden (a more exact and laborious enquirer

than either) in his "Titles of Honour," afford[s] a glimpse of

satisfaction upon the subject. There is an heraldic term, indeed, which

seems to imply gentility, and the right to coat armour, (but nothing

further) in persons thus qualified. But the _sinister bend_ is more

probably interpreted, by the best writers on this science, of some

irregularity of birth, than of bodily conformation. Nobility is either

hereditary, or by creation, commonly called patent. Of the former kind,

the title in question cannot be, seeing that the notion of it is limited

to a personal distinction, which does not necessarily follow in the

blood. Honours of this nature, as Mr. Anstey very well observes, descend

moreover in a _right line_. It must be by patent then, if any thing. But

who can show it? How comes it to be dormant? Under what king's reign is

it pretended? Among the grounds of nobility cited by the learned Mr.

Ashmole, after "Services in the Field or in the Council Chamber," he

judiciously sets down "Honours conferred by the sovereign out of mere

benevolence, or as favouring one subject rather than another, for some

likeness or conformity observed (or but supposed) in him to the royal

nature;" and instances the graces showered upon Charles Brandon, who "in

his goodly person being thought not a little to favour the port and

bearing of the king's own majesty, was by that sovereign, King Henry the

Eighth, for some or one of these respects, highly promoted and

preferred." Here, if any where, we thought we had discovered a clue to

our researches. But after a painful investigation of the rolls and

records under the reign of Richard the Third, or Richard Crouchback, as

he is more usually designated in the chronicles, from a traditionary

stoop, or gibbosity in that part,--we do not find that that monarch

conferred any such lordships, as are here pretended, upon any subject,

or subjects, on a simple plea of "conformity" in that respect to the

"royal nature." The posture of affairs in those tumultuous times,

preceding the battle of Bosworth, possibly left him at no leisure to

attend to such niceties. Further than his reign we have not extended our

enquiries; the kings of England who preceded, or followed him, being

generally described by historians to have been of straight and clean

limbs, the "natural derivative (says Daniel[51]) of high blood, if not

its primitive recommendation to such ennoblement, as denoting strength

and martial prowess--the qualities set most by in that fighting age."

Another motive, which inclines us to scruple the validity of this claim,

is the remarkable fact, that none of the persons, in whom the right is

supposed to be vested, do ever insist upon it themselves. There is no

instance of any of them "sueing his patent," as the law-books call it;

much less of his having actually stepped up into his proper seat, as, so

qualified, we might expect that some of them would have had the spirit

to do, in the House of Lords. On the contrary, it seems to be a

distinction thrust upon them. "Their title of Lord (says one of their

own body, speaking of the common people) I never much valued, and now I

entirely despise: and yet they will force it upon me as an honour which

they have a right to bestow, and which I have none to refuse."[52] Upon

a dispassionate review of the subject, we are disposed to believe that

there is no right to the peerage incident to mere bodily configuration;

that the title in dispute is merely honorary, and depending upon the

breath of the common people; which in these realms is so far from the

power of conferring nobility, that the ablest constitutionalists have

agreed in nothing more unanimously, than in the maxim that the King is

the sole fountain of honour.

[51] History of England, "Temporibus Edwardi Primi et sequentibus."

[52] Hay on Deformity.

REMINISCENCES OF JUKE JUDKINS, ESQ., OF BIRMINGHAM

(1826)

I am the only son of a considerable brazier in Birmingham, who dying in

1803, left me successor to the business, with no other incumbrance than

a sort of rent-charge, which I am enjoined to pay out of it,

ninety-three pounds sterling _per annum_ to his widow, my mother; and

which the improving state of the concern, I bless God, has hitherto

enabled me to discharge with punctuality. (I say, I am enjoined to pay

the said sum, but not strictly obligated; that is to say, as the will is

worded, I believe the law would relieve me from the payment of it; but

the wishes of a dying parent should in some sort have the effect of

law.) So that though the annual profits of my business, on an average of

the last three or four years, would appear to an indifferent observer,

who should inspect my shop-books, to amount to the sum of one thousand

three hundred and three pounds, odd shillings, the real proceeds in that

time have fallen short of that sum to the amount of the aforesaid

payment of ninety-three pounds sterling annually.

I was always my father's favourite. He took a delight to the very last

in recounting the little sagacious tricks, and innocent artifices, of my

childhood. One manifestation thereof I never heard him repeat without

tears of joy trickling down his cheeks. It seems that when I quitted the

parental roof (August 27th, 1788,) being then six years and not quite a

month old, to proceed to the Free School at Warwick, where my father was

a sort of trustee, my mother--as mothers are usually provident on these

occasions--had stuffed the pockets of the coach, which was to convey me

and six more children of my own growth, that were going to be entered

along with me at the same seminary, with a prodigious quantity of

gingerbread, which I remember my father said was more than was needed;

and so indeed it was, for if I had been to eat it all myself, it would

have got stale and mouldy before it had been half spent. The

consideration whereof set me upon my contrivances how I might secure to

myself as much of the gingerbread as would keep good for the next two or

three days, and yet none of the rest in a manner be wasted. I had a

little pair of pocket compasses which I usually carried about me for the

purpose of making draughts and measurements, at which I was always very

ingenious, of the various engines and mechanical inventions, in which

such a town as Birmingham abounded. By the means of these, and a small

penknife, which my father had given me, I cut out the one half of the

cake, calculating that the remainder would reasonably serve my turn, and

subdividing it into many little slices, which were curious to see for

the neatness and niceness of their proportion, I sold it out in so many

pennyworths to my young companions, as served us all the way to Warwick,

which is a distance of some twenty miles from this town; and very merry,

I assure you, we made ourselves with it, feasting all the way. By this

honest stratagem I put double the prime cost of the gingerbread into my

purse, and secured as much as I thought would keep good and moist for my

next two or three days eating. When I told this to my parents on their

first visit to me at Warwick, my father (good man) patted me on the

cheek, and stroked my head, and seemed as if he could never make enough

of me; but my mother unaccountably burst into tears, and said "it was a

very niggardly action," or some such expression, and that "she would

rather it would please God to take me,"--meaning, God help me, that I

should die--"than that she should live to see me grow up a _mean

man_"--which shows the difference of parent from parent, and how some

mothers are more harsh and intolerant to their children than some

fathers; when we might expect quite the contrary. My father, however,

loaded me with presents from that time, which made me the envy of my

schoolfellows. As I felt this growing disposition in them, I naturally

sought to avert it by all the means in my power; and from that time I

used to eat my little packages of fruit, and other nice things, in a

corner so privately, that I was never found out. Once, I remember, I had

a huge apple sent me, of that sort which they call _cats' heads_. I

concealed this all day under my pillow; and at night, but not before I

had ascertained that my bedfellow was sound asleep, which I did by

pinching him rather smartly two or three times, which he seemed to

perceive no more than a dead person, though once or twice he made a

motion as if he would turn, which frightened me--I say, when I had made

all sure, I fell to work upon my apple; and though it was as big as an

ordinary man's two fists, I made shift to get through it before it was

time to get up; and a more delicious feast I never made,--thinking all

night what a good parent I had (I mean my father) to send me so many

nice things, when the poor lad that lay by me had no parent or friend in

the world to send him any thing nice; and thinking of his desolate

condition, I munched and munched as silently as I could, that I might

not set him a longing if he overheard me: and yet for all this

considerateness, and attention to other people's feelings, I was never

much a favourite with my school-fellows, which I have often wondered at,

seeing that I never defrauded any one of them of the value of a

halfpenny, or told stories of them to their master, as some little lying

boys would do, but was ready to do any of them all the services in my

power, that were consistent with my own well doing. I think nobody can

be expected to go further than that. But I am detaining my reader too

long in the recording of my juvenile days. It is time that I should go

forward to a season when it became natural that I should have some

thoughts of marrying, and, as they say, settling in the world.

Nevertheless my reflections on what I may call the boyish period of my

life may have their use to some readers. It is pleasant to trace the man

in the boy; to observe shoots of generosity in those young years, and to

watch the progress of liberal sentiments, and what I may call a genteel

way of thinking, which is discernible in some children at a very early

age, and usually lays the foundation of all that is praiseworthy in the

manly character afterwards.

With the warmest inclinations towards that way of life, and a serious

conviction of its superior advantages over a single one, it has been the

strange infelicity of my lot, never to have entered into the respectable

estate of matrimony. Yet I was once very near it. I courted a young

woman in my twenty-seventh year--for so early I began to feel symptoms

of the tender passion! She was well to do in the world, as they call it;

but yet not such a fortune as, all things considered, perhaps I might

have pretended to. It was not my own choice altogether; but my mother

very strongly pressed me to it. She was always putting it to me, that "I

had comings in sufficient, that I need not stand upon a portion." Though

the young woman, to do her justice, had considerable expectations, which

yet did not quite come up to my mark, as I told you before. She had this

saying always in her mouth, that "I had money enough, that it was time I

enlarged my housekeeping, and to show a spirit befitting my

circumstances." In short, what with her importunities, and my own

desires _in part_ co-operating--for, as I said, I was not yet quite

twenty-seven--a time when the youthful feelings may be pardoned, if they

show a little impetuosity--I resolved, I say, upon all these

considerations, to set about the business of courting in right earnest.

I was a young man then; and having a spice of romance in my character

(as the reader has doubtless observed long ago), such as that sex is apt

to be taken with, I had reason in no long time to think my addresses

were any thing but disagreeable.

Certainly the happiest part of a young man's life is the time when he is

going a courting. All the generous impulses are then awake, and he feels

a double existence in participating his hopes and wishes with another

being. Return yet again for a brief moment, ye visionary

views--transient enchantments! ye moonlight rambles with Cleora in the

Silent Walk at Vauxhall--(N.B. about a mile from Birmingham, and

resembling the gardens of that name near London, only that the price of

admission is lower)--when the nightingale has suspended her notes in

June to listen to our loving discourses, while the moon was overhead

(for we generally used to take our tea at Cleora's mother's before we

set out, not so much to save expenses, as to avoid the publicity of a

repast in the gardens, coming in much about the time of half-price, as

they call it)--ye soft intercommunions of soul, when exchanging mutual

vows we prattled of coming felicities! The loving disputes we have had

under those trees, when this house (planning our future settlement) was

rejected, because though cheap it was dull; and the other house was

given up, because though agreeably situated it was too high-rented--one

was too much in the heart of the town, another was too far from

business. These minutiæ will seem impertinent to the aged and the

prudent. I write them only to the young. Young lovers, and passionate as

being young (such were Cleora and I then) alone can understand me. After

some weeks wasted, as I may now call it, in this sort of amorous

colloquy, we at length fixed upon the house in the High-street, No. 203,

just vacated by the death of Mr. Hutton of this town, for our future

residence. I had till that time lived in lodgings (only renting a shop

for business) to be near to my mother; near I say, not in the same house

with her, for that would have been to introduce confusion into our

housekeepings, which it was desirable to keep separate. O, the loving

wrangles, the endearing differences, I had with Cleora, before we could

quite make up our minds to the house that was to receive us--I

pretending for argument sake that the rent was too high, and she

insisting that the taxes were moderate in proportion; and love at last

reconciling us in the same choice. I think at that time, moderately

speaking, she might have had any thing out of me for asking. I do not,

nor shall ever regret that my character at that time was marked with a

tinge of prodigality. Age comes fast enough upon us, and in its good

time will prune away all that is inconvenient in these excesses. Perhaps

it is right that it should do so. Matters, as I said, were ripening to a

conclusion between us, only the house was yet not absolutely taken--some

necessary arrangements, which the ardour of my youthful impetuosity

could hardly brook at that time (love and youth will be

precipitate)--some preliminary arrangements, I say, with the landlord

respecting fixtures--very necessary things to be considered in a young

man about to settle in the world, though not very accordant with the

impatient state of my then passions--some obstacles about the valuation

of the fixtures, had hitherto precluded (and I shall always think

providentially) my final closes with his offer, when one of those

accidents, which, unimportant in themselves, often arise to give a turn

to the most serious intentions of our life, intervened, and put an end

at once to my projects of wiving and of housekeeping. I was never much

given to theatrical entertainments; that is, at no time of my life was I

ever what they call a regular play-goer; but on some occasion of a

benefit-night, which was expected to be very productive, and indeed

turned out so, Cleora expressing a desire to be present, I could do no

less than offer, as I did very willingly, to 'squire her and her mother

to the pit. At that time it was not customary in our town for

tradesfolk, except some of the very topping ones, to sit as they now do

in the boxes. At the time appointed I waited upon the ladies, who had

brought with them a young man, a distant relation, whom it seems they

had invited to be of the party. This a little disconcerted me, as I had

about me barely silver enough to pay for our three selves at the door,

and did not at first know that their relation had proposed paying for

himself. However, to do the young man justice, he not only paid for

himself, but for the old lady besides, leaving me only to pay for two,

as it were. In our passage to the theatre, the notice of Cleora was

attracted to some orange wenches that stood about the doors vending

their commodities. She was leaning on my arm, and I could feel her every

now and then giving me a nudge, as it is called, which I afterwards

discovered were hints that I should buy some oranges. It seems it is a

custom at Birmingham, and perhaps in other places, when a gentleman

treats ladies to the play,--especially when a full night is expected,

and that the house will be inconveniently warm, to provide them with

this kind of fruit, oranges being esteemed for their cooling property.

But how could I guess at that, never having treated ladies to a play

before, and being, as I said, quite a novice at these kind of

entertainments? At last she spoke plain out, and begged that I would buy

some of "those oranges," pointing to a particular barrow. But when I

came to examine the fruit, I did not think that the quality of it was

answerable to the price. In this way I handled several baskets of them,

but something in them all displeased me. Some had thin rinds, and some

were plainly over ripe, which is as great a fault as not being ripe

enough, and I could not (what they call) make a bargain. While I stood

haggling with the women, secretly determining to put off my purchase

till I should get within the theatre, where I expected we should have

better choice, the young man, the cousin, who it seems had left us

without my missing him, came running to us with his pockets stuffed out

with oranges, inside and out, as they say. It seems, not liking the look

of the barrow fruit, any more than myself, he had slipped away to an

eminent fruiterer's about three doors distant, which I never had the

sense to think of, and had laid out a matter of two shillings in some of

the best St. Michael's, I think, I ever tasted. What a little hinge, as

I said before, the most important affairs in life may turn upon! The

mere inadvertence to the fact that there was an eminent fruiterer's

within three doors of us, though we had just passed it without the

thought once occurring to me, which he had taken advantage of, lost me

the affections of my Cleora. From that time she visibly cooled towards

me, and her partiality was as visibly transferred to this cousin. I was

long unable to account for this change in her behaviour, when one day

accidentally discoursing of oranges to my mother alone, she let drop a

sort of reproach to me, as if I had offended Cleora by my _nearness_, as

she called it, that evening. Even now, when Cleora has been wedded some

years to that same officious relation, as I may call him, I can hardly

be persuaded that such a trifle could have been the motive to her

inconstancy; for could she suppose that I would sacrifice my dearest

hopes in her to the paltry sum of two shillings, when I was going to

treat her to the play, and her mother too (an expense of more than four

times that amount), if the young man had not interfered to pay for the

latter, as I mentioned? But the caprices of the sex are past finding

out; and I begin to think my mother was in the right; for doubtless

women know women better than we can pretend to know them.

ELIA.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO HONE'S _EVERY-DAY BOOK_ AND _TABLE BOOK_

(1825-1827)

I.--REMARKABLE CORRESPONDENT

(1825)

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book_

Sir,--I am the youngest of Three hundred and sixty-six brethren--there

are no fewer of us--who have the honour, in the words of the good old

Song, to call the Sun our Dad. You have done the rest of our family the

favour of bestowing an especial compliment upon each member of it

individually--I mean, as far as you have gone; for it will take you some

time before you can make your bow all round--and I have no reason to

think that it is your intention to neglect any of us but poor Me. Some

you have hung round with flowers; others you have made fine with

martyrs' palms and saintly garlands. The most insignificant of us you

have sent away pleased with some fitting apologue, or pertinent story.

What have I done, that you dismiss me without mark or attribute? What

though I make my public appearance seldomer than the rest of my

brethren? I thought that angels' visits had been accounted the more

precious for their very rarity. Reserve was always looked upon as

dignified. I am seen but once, for four times that my brethren obtrude

themselves; making their presence cheap and contemptible, in comparison

with the state which I keep.

Am I not a Day (when I do come) to all purposes as much as any of them.

Decompose me, anatomise me; you will find that I am constituted like the

rest. Divide me into twenty-four, and you shall find that I cut up into

as many goodly hours (or main limbs) as the rest. I too have my arteries

and pulses, which are the minutes and the seconds.

It is hard to be dis-familied thus, like Cinderella in her rags and

ashes, while her sisters flaunted it about in cherry-coloured ribbons

and favors. My brethren forsooth are to be dubbed; one, _Saint_ Day;

another, _Pope_ Day; a third, _Bishop_ Day; the least of them is

_Squire_ Day, or _Mr._ Day, while I am--plain Day. Our house, Sir, is a

very ancient one, and the least of us is too proud to put up with an

indignity. What though I am but a younger brother in some sense--for the

youngest of my brethren is by some thousand years my senior--yet I bid

fair to inherit as long as any of them, while I have the Calendar to

show; which, you must understand, is our Title Deeds.

Not content with slurring me over with a bare and naked acknowledgement

of my occasional visitation in prose, you have done your best to deprive

me of my verse-honours. In column 310 of your Book, you quote an antique

scroll, leaving out the last couplet, as if on purpose to affront me.

"Thirty days hath September"--so you transcribe very faithfully for four

lines, and most invidiously suppress the exceptive clause:--

Except in Leap Year, that's the time

When February's days hath twenty and--

I need not set down the rhyme which should follow; I dare say you know

it very well, though you were pleased to leave it out. These indignities

demand reparation. While you have time, it will be well for you to make

the _amende honorable_. Ransack your stores, learned Sir, I pray of you,

for some attribute, biographical, anecdotical, or floral, to invest me

with. Did nobody die, or nobody flourish--was nobody born--upon any of

my periodical visits to this globe? does the world stand still as often

as I vouchsafe to appear? Am I a blank in the Almanac? alms for

oblivion? If you do not find a flower at least to grace me with (a

Forget Me Not would cheer me in my present obscurity), I shall prove the

worst Day to you you ever saw in your life; and your Work, instead of

the Title it now vaunts, must be content (every fourth year at least) to

go by the lame appellation of

The Every-Day--but--one--Book.

Yours, as you treat me,

TWENTY NINTH OF FEBRUARY.

II.--CAPTAIN STARKEY

(1825)

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book_

DEAR SIR,

I read your account of this unfortunate Being, and his forlorn piece of

self-history, with that smile of half-interest which the Annals of

Insignificance excite, till I came to where he says "I was bound

apprentice to Mr. William Bird, an eminent writer and Teacher of

languages and Mathematics," &c.--when I started as one does on the

recognition of an old acquaintance in a supposed stranger. This then was

that Starkey of whom I have heard my Sister relate so many pleasant

anecdotes; and whom, never having seen, I yet seem almost to remember.

For nearly fifty years she had lost all sight of him--and behold the

gentle Usher of her youth, grown into an aged Beggar, dubbed with an

opprobrious title, to which he had no pretensions; an object, and a May

game! To what base purposes may we not return! What may not have been

the meek creature's sufferings--what his wanderings--before he finally

settled down in the comparative comfort of an old Hospitaller of the

Almonry of Newcastle? And is poor Starkey dead?----

I was a scholar of that "eminent writer" that he speaks of; but Starkey

had quitted the school about a year before I came to it. Still the odour

of his merits had left a fragrancy upon the recollection of the elder

pupils. The school-room stands where it did, looking into a discoloured

dingy garden in the passage leading from Fetter Lane into Bartlett's

Buildings. It is still a School, though the main prop, alas! has fallen

so ingloriously; and bears a Latin inscription over the entrance in the

Lane, which was unknown in our humbler times. Heaven knows what

"languages" were taught in it then; I am sure that neither my Sister nor

myself brought any out of it, but a little of our native English. By

"mathematics," reader, must be understood "cyphering." It was in fact a

humble day-school, at which reading and writing were taught to us boys

in the morning, and the same slender erudition was communicated to the

girls, our sisters, &c. in the evening. Now Starkey presided, under

Bird, over both establishments. In my time, Mr. Cook, now or lately a

respectable Singer and Performer at Drury-lane Theatre, and Nephew to

Mr. Bird, had succeeded to him. I well remember Bird. He was a squat,

corpulent, middle-sized man, with something of the gentleman about him,

and that peculiar mild tone--especially while he was inflicting

punishment--which is so much more terrible to children, than the

angriest looks and gestures. Whippings were not frequent; but when they

took place, the correction was performed in a private room adjoining,

whence we could only hear the plaints, but saw nothing. This heightened

the decorum and the solemnity. But the ordinary public chastisement was

the bastinado, a stroke or two on the palm with that almost obsolete

weapon now--the ferule. A ferule was a sort of flat ruler, widened at

the inflicting end into a shape resembling a pear,--but nothing like so

sweet--with a delectable hole in the middle, to raise blisters, like a

cupping-glass. I have an intense recollection of that disused instrument

of torture--and the malignancy, in proportion to the apparent mildness,

with which its strokes were applied. The idea of a rod is accompanied

with something ludicrous; but by no process can I look back upon this

blister-raiser with any thing but unmingled horror.--To make him look

more formidable--if a pedagogue had need of these heightenings--Bird

wore one of those flowered Indian gowns, formerly in use with

schoolmasters; the strange figures upon which we used to interpret into

hieroglyphics of pain and suffering. But boyish fears apart--Bird I

believe was in the main a humane and judicious master.

O, how I remember our legs wedged in to those uncomfortable sloping

desks, where we sat elbowing each other--and the injunctions to attain a

free hand, unattainable in that position; the first copy I wrote after,

with its moral lesson "Art improves Nature;" the still earlier pothooks

and the hangers some traces of which I fear may yet be apparent in this

manuscript; the truant looks side-long to the garden, which seemed a

mockery of our imprisonment; the prize for best spelling, which had

almost turned my head, and which to this day I cannot reflect upon

without a vanity, which I ought to be ashamed of--our little leaden

inkstands, not separately subsisting, but sunk into the desks; the

bright, punctually-washed morning fingers, darkening gradually with

another and another ink-spot: what a world of little associated

circumstances, pains and pleasures mingling their quotas of pleasure,

arise at the reading of those few simple words--"Mr. William Bird, an

eminent Writer and Teacher of languages and mathematics in Fetter Lane,

Holborn!"

Poor Starkey, when young, had that peculiar stamp of old-fashionedness

in his face, which makes it impossible for a beholder to predicate any

particular age in the object. You can scarce make a guess between

seventeen and seven and thirty. This antique cast always seems to

promise ill-luck and penury. Yet it seems, he was not always the abject

thing he came to. My Sister, who well remembers him, can hardly forgive

Mr. Thomas Ranson for making an etching so unlike her idea of him, when

he was a youthful teacher at Mr. Bird's school. Old age and poverty--a

life-long poverty she thinks, could at no time have so effaced the marks

of native gentility, which were once so visible in a face, otherwise

strikingly ugly, thin, and care-worn. From her recollections of him, she

thinks that he would have wanted bread, before he would have begged or

borrowed a halfpenny. If any of the girls (she says) who were my

school-fellows should be reading, through their aged spectacles, tidings

from the dead of their youthful friend Starkey, they will feel a pang,

as I do, at ever having teased his gentle spirit. They were big girls,

it seems, too old to attend his instructions with the silence necessary;

and however old age, and a long state of beggary, seem to have reduced

his writing faculties to a state of imbecility, in those days, his

language occasionally rose to the bold and figurative, for when he was

in despair to stop their chattering, his ordinary phrase was, "Ladies,

if you will not hold your peace, not all the powers in heaven can make

you." Once he was missing for a day or two; he had run away. A little

old unhappy-looking man brought him back--it was his father--and he did

no business in the school that day, but sate moping in a corner, with

his hands before his face; and the girls, his tormentors, in pity for

his case, for the rest of that day forbore to annoy him. I had been

there but a few months (adds she) when Starkey, who was the chief

instructor of us girls, communicated to us as a profound secret, that

the tragedy of "Cato" was shortly to be acted by the elder boys, and

that we were to be invited to the representation. That Starkey lent a

helping hand in fashioning the actors, she remembers; and but for his

unfortunate person, he might have had some distinguished part in the

scene to enact; as it was, he had the arduous task of prompter assigned

to him, and his feeble voice was heard clear and distinct, repeating the

text during the whole performance. She describes her recollection of the

cast of characters even now with a relish. Martia, by the handsome Edgar

Hickman, who afterwards went to Africa, and of whom she never afterwards

heard tidings,--Lucia, by Master Walker, whose sister was her particular

friend; Cato, by John Hunter, a masterly declaimer, but a plain boy, and

shorter by the head than his two sons in the scene, &c. In conclusion,

Starkey appears to have been one of those mild spirits, which, not

originally deficient in understanding, are crushed by penury into

dejection and feebleness. He might have proved a useful adjunct, if not

an ornament to Society, if Fortune had taken him into a very little

fostering, but wanting that, he became a Captain--a by-word--and lived,

and died, a broken bulrush.

C. L.

III.--TWELFTH OF AUGUST

(1825)

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book_

THE HUMBLE PETITION OF AN UNFORTUNATE DAY

Sir,

I am a wronged _Day_. I appeal to you as the general patron of the

family of the _Days_. The candour with which you attended to the

expostulations of a poor relative of ours--a sort of cousin thrice

removed[53]--encourages me to hope that you will listen to the complaint

of a _Day_ of rather more consequence. I am the _Day_, Sir, upon which

it pleased the course of nature that your gracious Sovereign should be

born. As such, before his Accession, I was always observed and honoured.

But since that happy event, in which naturally none had a greater

interest than myself, a flaw has been discovered in my title. My lustre

has been eclipsed, and--to use the words of one of your own poets,--

I fade into the light of common _day_.

[53] Twenty-ninth _day_ of February [see page 349].

It seems, that about that time, an Impostor crept into Court, who has

the effrontery to usurp my honours, and to style herself the

_King's-birth-Day_, upon some shallow pretence that, being _St.

George's-Day_, she must needs be _King-George's-Day_ also.

_All-Saints-Day_ we have heard of, and _All-Souls-Day_ we are willing to

admit; but does it follow that this foolish _Twenty-third of April_ must

be _All-George's-Day_, and enjoy a monopoly of the whole name from

George of Cappadocia to George of Leyden, and from George-a-Green down

to George Dyer?

It looks a little oddly that I was discarded not long after the

dismission of a set of men and measures, with whom I have nothing in

common. I hope no whisperer has insinuated into the ears of Royalty, as

if I were any thing Whiggishly inclined, when, in my heart, I abhor all

these kind of Revolutions, by which I am sure to be the greatest

sufferer.

I wonder my shameless Rival can have the face to let the Tower and Park

Guns proclaim so many big thundering fibs as they do, upon her

Anniversary--making your Sovereign too to be older than he is, by an

hundred and odd _days_, which is no great compliment one would think.

Consider if this precedent for ante-dating of Births should become

general, what confusion it must make in Parish Registers; what crowds of

young heirs we should have coming of age before they are one-and-twenty,

with numberless similar grievances. If these chops and changes are

suffered, we shall have _Lord-Mayor's-Day_ eating her custard

unauthentically in May, and _Guy Faux_ preposterously blazing twice over

in the Dog-_days_.

I humbly submit, that it is not within the prerogatives of Royalty

itself, to be born twice over. We have read of the supposititious births

of Princes, but where are the evidences of this first Birth? why are not

the nurses in attendance, the midwife, &c. produced?--the silly story

has not so much as a Warming Pan to support it.

My legal advisers, to comfort me, tell me that I have the right on my

side; that I am the true Birth-_Day_, and the other _Day_ is only kept.

But what consolation is this to me, as long as this naughty-_kept

creature_ keeps me out of my dues and privileges?

Pray take my unfortunate case into your consideration, and see that I am

restored to my lawful Rejoicings, Firings, Bon-Firings, Illuminations,

&c.

And your Petitioner shall ever pray,

_Twelfth Day of August_.

IV.--THE ASS

(1825)

_For Hone's Every-Day Book_

Mr. Collier, in his "Poetical Decameron" (Third Conversation) notices a

Tract, printed in 1595, with the author's initials only, A. B., entitled

"The Noblenesse of the Asse: a work rare, learned, and excellent." He

has selected the following pretty passage from it. "He (the Ass)

refuseth no burthen, he goes whither he is sent without any

contradiction. He lifts not his foote against any one; he bytes not; he

is no fugitive, nor malicious affected. He doth all things in good sort,

and to his liking that hath cause to employ him. If strokes be given

him, he cares not for them; and, as our modern poet singeth,

'Thou wouldst (perhaps) he should become thy foe,

And to that end dost beat him many times;

He cares not for himselfe, much lesse thy blow.'"[54]

[54] Who this modern poet was, says Mr. C., is a secret worth

discovering.--The wood-cut on the title of the Pamphlet is--an Ass

with a wreath of laurel round his neck.

Certainly Nature, foreseeing the cruel usage which this useful servant

to man should receive at man's hand, did prudently in furnishing him

with a tegument impervious to ordinary stripes. The malice of a child,

or a weak hand, can make feeble impressions on him. His back offers no

mark to a puny foeman. To a common whip or switch his hide presents an

absolute insensibility. You might as well pretend to scourge a

school-boy with a tough pair of leather breeches on. His jerkin is well

fortified. And therefore the Costermongers "between the years 1790 and

1800" did more politicly than piously in lifting up a part of his upper

garment. I well remember that beastly and bloody custom. I have often

longed to see one of those refiners in discipline himself at the cart's

tail, with just such a convenient spot laid bare to the tender mercies

of the whipster. But since Nature has resumed her rights, it is to be

hoped, that this patient creature does not suffer to extremities; and

that to the savages who still belabour his poor carcase with their blows

(considering the sort of anvil they are laid upon) he might in some

sort, if he could speak, exclaim with the philosopher, "Lay on: you beat

but upon the case of Anaxarchus."

Contemplating this natural safeguard, this fortified exterior, it is

with pain I view the sleek, foppish, combed and curried, person of this

animal, as he is transmuted and disnaturalized at Watering Places, &c.

where they affect to make a palfrey of him. Fie on all such

sophistications!--It will never do, Master Groom. Something of his

honest shaggy exterior will still peep up in spite of you--his good,

rough, native, pineapple coating. You cannot "refine a scorpion into a

fish, though you rince it and scour it with ever so cleanly

cookery."[55]

[55] Milton: _from memory_.

The modern poet, quoted by A. B., proceeds to celebrate a virtue, for

which no one to this day had been aware that the Ass was remarkable.

One other gift this beast hath as his owne,

Wherewith the rest could not be furnished;

On man himselfe the same was not bestowne,

To wit--on him is ne'er engendered

The hatefull vermine that doth teare the skin

And to the bode [body] doth make his passage in.

And truly when one thinks on the suit of impenetrable armour with which

Nature (like Vulcan to another Achilles) has provided him, these subtle

enemies to _our_ repose, would have shown some dexterity in getting into

_his_ quarters. As the bogs of Ireland by tradition expel toads and

reptiles, he may well defy these small deer in his fastnesses. It seems

the latter had not arrived at the exquisite policy adopted by the human

vermin "between 1790 and 1800."

But the most singular and delightful gift of the Ass, according to the

writer of this pamphlet, is his _voice_; the "goodly, sweet, and

continual brayings" of which, "whereof they forme a melodious and

proportionable kinde of musicke," seem to have affected him with no

ordinary pleasure. "Nor thinke I," he adds, "that any of our immoderne

musitians can deny, but that their song is full of exceeding pleasure to

be heard; because therein is to be discerned both concord, discord,

singing in the meane, the beginning to sing in large compasse, then

following on to rise and fall, the halfe note, whole note, musicke of

five voices, firme singing by four voices, three together or one voice

and a halfe. Then their variable contrarieties amongst them, when one

delivers forth a long tenor, or a short, the pausing for time, breathing

in measure, breaking the minim or very least moment of time. Last of all

to heare the musicke of five or six voices chaunged to so many of Asses,

is amongst them to heare a song of world without end."

There is no accounting for ears; or for that laudable enthusiasm with

which an Author is tempted to invest a favourite subject with the most

incompatible perfections. I should otherwise, for my own taste, have

been inclined rather to have given a place to these extraordinary

musicians at that banquet of nothing-less-than-sweet-sounds, imagined by

old Jeremy Collier (Essays, 1698; Part. 2.--On Music.) where, after

describing the inspirating effects of martial music in a battle, he

hazards an ingenious conjecture, whether a sort of _Anti-music_ might

not be invented, which should have quite the contrary effect of "sinking

the spirits, shaking the nerves, curdling the blood, and inspiring

despair, and cowardice and consternation." "Tis probable" he says, "the

roaring of lions, the warbling of cats and screech-owls, together with a

mixture of the howling of dogs, judiciously imitated and compounded,

might go a great way in this invention." The dose, we confess, is pretty

potent, and skilfully enough prepared. But what shall we say to the Ass

of Silenus (quoted by TIMS), who, if we may trust to classic lore, by

his own proper sounds, without thanks to cat or screech-owl, dismaid and

put to rout a whole army of giants? Here was _Anti-music_ with a

vengeance; a whole _Pan-Dis-Harmonicon_ in a single lungs of leather!

But I keep you trifling too long on this Asinine subject. I have already

past the _Pons Asinorum_, and will desist, remembering the old pedantic

pun of Jem Boyer, my schoolmaster:--

Ass _in præsenti_ seldom makes a WISE MAN _in futuro_.

C. L.

V.--IN RE SQUIRRELS

(1825)

_For the Every-Day Book_

What is gone with the Cages with the climbing Squirrel and bells to

them, which were formerly the indispensable appendage to the outside of

a Tinman's shop, and were in fact the only Live Signs? One, we believe,

still hangs out on Holborn; but they are fast vanishing with the good

old modes of our ancestors. They seem to have been superseded by that

still more ingenious refinement of modern humanity--the Tread-mill; in

which _human_ Squirrels still perform a similar round of ceaseless,

improgressive clambering; which must be nuts to them.

We almost doubt the fact of the teeth of this creature being so purely

orange-coloured, as Mr. Urban's correspondent gives out. One of our old

poets--and they were pretty sharp observers of nature--describes them as

brown. But perhaps the naturalist referred to meant "of the colour of

the Maltese orange,"[56] which is rather more obfuscated than your fruit

of Seville, or Saint Michael's; and may help to reconcile the

difference. We cannot speak from observation, but we remember at school

getting our fingers into the orangery of one of these little gentry (not

having a due caution of the traps set there), and the result proved

sourer than lemons. The Author of the Task somewhere speaks of their

anger as being "insignificantly fierce," but we found the demonstration

of it on this occasion quite as significant as we desired; and have not

been disposed since to look any of these "gift horses" in the mouth.

Maiden aunts keep these "small deer" as they do parrots, to bite

people's fingers, on purpose to give them good advice "not to venture so

near the cage another time." As for their "six quavers divided into

three quavers and a dotted crotchet," I suppose, they may go into Jeremy

Bentham's next budget of Fallacies, along with the "melodious and

proportionable kinde of musicke," recorded in your last number of

another highly gifted animal [see page 358].

C. L.

[56] Fletcher in the "Faithful Shepherdess."--The Satyr offers to

Clorin,

--grapes whose lusty blood

Is the learned Poet's good,

Sweeter yet did never crown

The head of Bacchus; nuts more brown

Than the _squirrels' teeth_ that crack them.----

VI.--AN APPEARANCE OF THE SEASON

(1826)

Apology will scarcely be required for introducing a character, who at

this season of the year comes forth in renovated honours, and may aptly

be termed one of its _ever-blues_--not a peculiar of either Farringdons,

nor him of Cripplegate, or St. Giles in the Fields, or of any ward or

precinct within the bills: not this or that "good man"--but the

_universal parish beadle_. "How Christmas and consolatory he looks! how

redolent of good cheer is he! He is a cornucopia--an abundance. What

pudding sleeves!--what a collar, red, and like a beef steak, is his! He

is a walking refreshment! He looks like a whole parish, full,

important--but untaxed. The children of charity gaze at him with a

modest smile. The straggling boys look on him with confidence. They do

not pocket their marbles. They do not fly from their familiar gutter.

This is a red letter day; and the cane is reserved for to-morrow."

For the pleasant verbal description we are indebted to an agreeable

writer in the "London Magazine;"[57] his corporal lineaments are

"borrowed" (with permission) from a new caricature,[58] if it may be

given so low a name, wherein this figure stands out, the very gem and

jewel, in a grouping of characters of all sorts and denominations

assembled with "infinite fancy" and "fun," to illustrate the designer's

views of the age. It is a graphic satire of character rather than

caricatura; mostly of class-characters, not persons; wherein the

ridicule bears heavily, but is broad and comprehensive enough to shift

from one neighbour to another.

[57] For Dec., 1822.