[58] The Progress of Cant; designed and etched by one of the authors

of "Odes and Addresses to Great People;" and published by T.

Maclean, Haymarket, L. Relfe, Cornhill; and Dickenson, New

Bond-Street.

VII.--THE MONTHS

(1826)

_For the Every-Day Book_

Rummaging over the contents of an old stall at a half _book_, half _old

iron shop_, in an alley leading from Wardour-street to Soho-square

yesterday, I lit upon a ragged duodecimo, which had been the strange

delight of my infancy, and which I had lost sight of for more than forty

years:--the "QUEEN-LIKE CLOSET, or RICH CABINET:" written by Hannah

Woolly, and printed for R. C. & T. S. 1681; being an abstract of

receipts in cookery, confectionary, cosmetics, needlework, morality, and

all such branches of what were then considered as female

accomplishments. The price demanded was sixpence, which the owner (a

little squab duodecimo of a character himself) enforced with the

assurance that his "own mother should not have it for a farthing less."

On my demurring at this extraordinary assertion, the dirty little vendor

reinforced his assertion with a sort of oath, which seemed more than the

occasion demanded: "and now (said he) I have put my soul to it." Pressed

by so solemn an asseveration, I could no longer resist a demand which

seemed to set me, however unworthy, upon a level with his dearest

relations; and depositing a tester, I bore away the tattered prize in

triumph. I remembered a gorgeous description of the twelve months of the

year, which I thought would be a fine substitute for those poetical

descriptions of them which your _Every-Day Book_ had nearly exhausted

out of Spenser. This will be a treat, thought I, for friend HONE. To

memory they seemed no less fantastic and splendid than the other. But,

what are the mistakes of childhood!--on reviewing them, they turned out

to be only a set of common-place receipts for working the seasons,

months, heathen gods and goddesses, &c. in _samplars_! Yet as an

instance of the homely occupations of our great-grandmothers, they may

be amusing to some readers: "I have seen," says the notable Hannah

Woolly, "such Ridiculous things done in work, as it is an abomination to

any Artist to behold. As for Example: You may find in some Pieces,

_Abraham_ and _Sarah_, and many other Persons of Old time, Cloathed, as

they go now a-daies, and truly sometimes worse; for they most resemble

the Pictures on Ballads. Let all Ingenious Women have regard, that when

they work any Image, to represent it aright. First, let it be Drawn

well, and then observe the Directions which are given by Knowing Men. I

do assure you, I never durst work any Scripture-Story without informing

my self from the Ground of it: nor any other Story, or single Person,

without informing my self both of the Visage and Habit; As followeth.

"If you work _Jupiter, the Imperial feigned god_, He must have long

Black-Curled-hair, a Purple Garment trimmed with Gold, and sitting upon

a Golden Throne, with bright yellow Clouds about him."

The Twelve Months of the Year

_March:_

Is drawn in Tawny, with a fierce aspect, a Helmet upon his head, and

leaning on a Spade, and a Basket of Garden Seeds in his Left hand, and

in his Right hand the Sign of _Aries_; And Winged.

_April._

A Young Man in Green, with a Garland of Mirtle, and Hawthorn-Buds;

Winged; in one hand Primroses and Violets, in the other the Sign

_Taurus_.

_May._

With a sweet and lovely Countenance, clad in a Robe of White and Green,

embroidered with several Flowers, upon his Head a garland of all manner

of Roses; on the one hand a Nightingale, in the other a Lute. His Sign

must be _Gemini_.

_June._

In a Mantle of dark Grass-green, upon his Head a garland of Bents,

Kings-Cups, and Maiden-hair; in his Left hand an Angle, with a box of

Cantharides, in his Right, the Sign _Cancer_, and upon his arms a Basket

of seasonable Fruits.

_July._

In a Jacket of light Yellow, eating Cherries; with his Face and Bosom

Sun-burnt; on his Head a wreath of Centaury and wild Tyme; a Seith on

his shoulder, and a Bottle at his girdle: carrying the Sign _Leo_.

_August._

A Young Man of fierce and Cholerick aspect, in a Flame-coloured Garment;

upon his Head a garland of Wheat and Rye, upon his Arm a Basket of all

manner of ripe Fruits, at his Belt a Sickle. His Sign _Virgo_.

_September._

A merry and cheerful Countenance, in a Purple Robe, upon his Head a

Wreath of red and white Grapes, in his Left hand a handful of Oats,

withal carrying a Horn of Plenty, full of all manner of ripe-Fruits, in

his Right hand the Sign _Libra_.

_October._

In a Garment of Yellow and Carnation, upon his head a garland of

Oak-leaves with Akorns, in his Right hand the Sign _Scorpio_, in his

Left hand a Basket of Medlars, Services, and Chesnuts; and any other

Fruits then in Season.

_November._

In a Garment of Changeable Green and Black upon his Head, a garland of

Olives with the Fruit in his Left hand, Bunches of Parsnips and Turnips

in his Right. His Sign _Sagittarius_.

_December._

A horrid and fearful aspect, clad in Irish-Rags, or coarse Freez girt

unto him, upon his Head three or four Night-Caps, and over them a

Turkish Turbant; his Nose red, his Mouth and Beard clog'd with Isicles,

at his back a bundle of Holly, Ivy or Misletoe, holding in fur'd Mittens

the Sign of _Capricornus_.

_January._

Clad all in White, as the Earth looks with the Snow, blowing his Nails;

in his Left Arm a Billet, the Sign _Aquarius_ standing by his side.

_February._

Cloathed in a dark Skie-colour, carrying in his Right hand the Sign

_Pisces_.

The following receipt, "_To dress up a Chimney very fine for the Summer

time, as I have done many, and they have been liked very well_" may not

be unprofitable to the house-wives of this century.

"First, take a pack-thred, and fasten it even to the inner part of the

Chimney, so high as that you can see no higher as you walk up and down

the House; you must drive in several Nails to hold up all your work;

then get good store of old green Moss from Trees, and melt an equal

proportion of Bees-wax and Rosin together, and while it is hot, dip the

wrong ends of the Moss in it, and presently clap it upon your

pack-thred, and press it down hard with your hand; you must make hast,

else it will cool before you can fasten it, and then it will fall down;

do so all round where the pack-thred goes, and the next row you must

joyn to that so that it may seem all in one; thus do till you have

finished it down to the bottom: then take some other kind of Moss, of a

whitish-colour and stiff, and of several sorts or kinds, and place that

upon the other, here and there carelessly, and in some places put a good

deal, and some a little; then any kind of fine Snail-shells, in which

the Snails are dead, and little Toad stools, which are very old, and

look like Velvet, or _any other thing that is old and pretty_; place it

here and there as your fancy serves, and fasten all with Wax and Rosin.

Then for the Hearth of your Chimney, you may lay some Orpan-Sprigs in

order all over, and it will grow as it lies; and according to the

Season, get what flowers you can, and stick in as if they grew, and a

few sprigs of Sweet-Bryer: the Flowers you must renew every Week; but

the Moss will last all the Summer, till it will be time to make a fire;

and the Orpan will last near two Months. A Chimney thus done doth grace

a Room exceedingly."

One phrase in the above should particularly recommend it to such of your

female readers, as, in the nice language of the day, have done growing

some time: "little toad stools, &c. and any thing that is _old and

pretty_." Was ever antiquity so smoothed over? The culinary recipes have

nothing remarkable in them, besides the costliness of them. Every thing

(to the meanest meats) is sopped in claret, steeped in claret, basted

with claret, as if claret were as cheap as ditch water. I remember Bacon

recommends opening a turf or two in your garden-walks, and pouring into

each a bottle of claret, to recreate the sense of smelling, being no

less grateful than beneficial. We hope the chancellor of the exchequer

will attend to this in his next reduction of French wines, that we may

once more water our gardens with right Bordeaux. The medical recipes are

as whimsical as they are cruel. Our ancestors were not at all effeminate

on this head. Modern sentimentalists would shrink at a cock plucked and

bruised in a mortar alive, to make a cullis; or a live mole baked in an

oven (_be sure it be alive_) to make a powder for consumption.--But the

whimsicalest of all are the directions to servants--(for this little

book is a compendium of all duties,)--the footman is seriously

admonished not to stand lolling against his master's chair, while he

waits at table; for "to lean on a Chair when they wait, is a particular

favour shown to any superior Servant, as the Chief Gentleman, or the

Waiting Woman when she rises from the Table." Also he must not "hold the

Plates before his mouth to be defiled with his Breath, nor touch them on

the right (inner) side." Surely Swift must have seen this little

treatise.

C. L.

Hannah concludes with the following address, by which the self-estimate

which she formed of her usefulness, may be calculated:--

_Ladies_, I hope you're pleas'd, and so shall I,

If what I've Writ, you may be gainers by:

If not; it is your fault, it is not mine,

Your benefit in this I do design.

Much labour and much time it hath me cost,

Therefore I beg, let none of it be lost.

The Mony you shall pay for this my Book,

You'l not repent of, when in it you look.

No more at present to you I shall say,

But wish you all the happiness I may.

H. W.

VIII.--REMINISCENCE OF SIR JEFFERY DUNSTAN

(1826)

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book_

To your account of sir Jeffery Dunstan in columns 829-30 (where, by an

unfortunate Erratum the effigies of _two Sir Jefferys_ appear, when the

uppermost figure is clearly meant for sir Harry Dimsdale) you may add,

that the writer of this has frequently met him in his latter days, about

1790 or 1791, returning in an evening, after his long day's itinerancy,

to his domicile--a wretched shed in the most beggarly purlieu of Bethnal

Green, a little on this side the Mile-end Turnpike. The lower figure in

that leaf most correctly describes his then appearance, except that no

graphic art can convey an idea of the general squalor of it, and of his

bag (his constant concomitant) in particular. Whether it contained "old

wigs" at that time I know not, but it seemed a fitter repository for

bones snatched out of kennels, than for any part of a Gentleman's dress

even at second hand.

The Ex-member for Garrat was a melancholy instance of a great man whose

popularity is worn out. He still carried his sack, but it seemed a part

of his identity rather than an implement of his profession; a badge of

past grandeur; could any thing have divested him of _that_, he would

have shown a "poor forked animal" indeed. My life upon it, it contained

no curls at the time I speak of. The most decayed and spiritless

remnants of what was once a peruke would have scorned the filthy case;

would absolutely have "burst its cearments." No, it was empty, or

brought home bones, or a few cinders possibly. A strong odour of burnt

bones, I remember, blended with the scent of horse-flesh seething into

dog's meat, and only relieved a little by the breathings of a few brick

kilns, made up the atmosphere of the delicate suburban spot, which this

great man had chosen for the last scene of his earthly vanities. The cry

of "old wigs" had ceased with the possession of any such fripperies; his

sack might have contained not unaptly a little mould to scatter upon

that grave, to which he was now advancing; but it told of vacancy and

desolation. His quips were silent too, and his brain was empty as his

sack; he slank along, and seemed to decline popular observation. If a

few boys followed him, it seemed rather from habit, than any expectation

of fun.

Alas! how changed from _him_,

The life of humour, and the soul of whim,

Gallant and gay on Garrat's hustings proud.

But it is thus that the world rewards its favourites in decay. What

faults he had, I know not. I have heard something of a peccadillo or so.

But some little deviation from the precise line of rectitude, might have

been winked at in so tortuous and stigmatic a frame. Poor Sir Jeffery!

it were well if some M.P.'s in earnest had passed their parliamentary

existence with no more offences against integrity, than could be laid to

thy charge! A fair dismissal was thy due, not so unkind a degradation;

some little snug retreat, with a bit of green before thine eyes, and not

a burial alive in the fetid beggaries of Bethnal. Thou wouldst have

ended thy days in a manner more appropriate to thy pristine dignity,

installed in munificent mockery (as in mock honours you had lived)--a

Poor Knight of Windsor!

Every distinct place of public speaking demands an oratory peculiar to

itself. The forensic fails within the walls of St. Stephen. Sir Jeffery

was a living instance of this, for in the flower of his popularity an

attempt was made to bring him out upon the stage (at which of the winter

theatres I forget, but I well remember the anecdote) in the part of

_Doctor Last_. The announcement drew a crowded house; but

notwithstanding infinite tutoring--by Foote, or Garrick, I forget

which--when the curtain drew up, the heart of Sir Jeffery failed, and he

faultered on, and made nothing of his part, till the hisses of the house

at last in very kindness dismissed him from the boards. Great as his

parliamentary eloquence had shown itself; brilliantly as his off-hand

sallies had sparkled on a hustings; they here totally failed him.

Perhaps he had an aversion to borrowed wit; and, like my Lord

Foppington, disdained to entertain himself (or others) with the forced

products of another man's brain. Your man of quality is more diverted

with the natural sprouts of his own.

C. L.

IX--MRS. GILPIN RIDING TO EDMONTON

(1827)

Then Mrs. Gilpin sweetly said

Unto her children three,

"I'll clamber o'er this style so high,

And you climb after me."

But having climb'd unto the top,

She could no further go,

But sate, to every passer by

A spectacle and show.

Who said "Your spouse and you this day

Both show your horsemanship,

And if you stay till he comes back,

Your horse will need no whip."

[Illustration]

The sketch, here engraved, (probably from the poet's friend Romney,) was

found with the above three stanzas in the hand-writing of Cowper, among

the papers of the late Mrs. Unwin. It is to be regretted that no more

was found of this little _Episode_, as it evidently was intended to be,

to the "Diverting History of Johnny Gilpin." It is to be supposed that

Mrs. Gilpin, in the interval between dinner and tea, finding the time to

hang upon her hands, during her husband's involuntary excursion, rambled

out with the children into the fields at the back of the Bell, (as what

could be more natural?) and at one of those high aukward styles, for

which Edmonton is so proverbially famed, the embarrassment represented,

so mortifying to a substantial City Madam, might have happened; a

predicament, which leaves her in a state, which is the very Antipodes to

that of her too loco-motive husband; in fact she rides a restive

horse.--Now I talk of Edmonton styles, I must speak a little about those

of Enfield, its next neighbour, which are so ingeniously

contrived--every rising bar to the top becoming more protuberant than

the one under it--that it is impossible for any Christian climber to get

over, without bruising his (or her) shins as many times as there are

bars. These inhospitable invitations to a flayed skin, are planted so

thickly too, and are so troublesomely importunate at every little

paddock here, that this, with more propriety than Thebes of old, might

be entitled Hecatompolis: the Town of the Hundred Gates, or _styles_.

A SOJOURNER AT ENFIELD.

July 16, 1827.

X.--THE DEFEAT OF TIME;

OR, A TALE OF THE FAIRIES

(1827)

Titania, and her moonlight Elves, were assembled under the canopy of a

huge oak, that served to shelter them from the moon's radiance, which,

being now at her full noon, shot forth intolerable rays--intolerable, I

mean, to the subtil texture of their little shadowy bodies--but

dispensing an agreeable coolness to us grosser mortals. An air of

discomfort sate upon the Queen, and upon her Courtiers. Their tiny

friskings and gambols were forgot; and even Robin Goodfellow, for the

first time in his little airy life, looked grave. For the Queen had had

melancholy forebodings of late, founded upon an ancient Prophecy, laid

up in the records of Fairy Land, that the date of Fairy existence

should be _then_ extinct, when men should cease to believe in them. And

she knew how that the race of the Nymphs, which were her predecessors,

and had been the Guardians of the sacred floods, and of the silver

fountains, and of the consecrated hills and woods, had utterly

disappeared before the chilling touch of man's incredulity; and she

sighed bitterly at the approaching fate of herself and of her subjects,

which was dependent upon so fickle a lease, as the capricious and ever

mutable faith of man. When, as if to realise her fears, a melancholy

shape came gliding in, and _that_ was--TIME, who with his intolerable

scythe mows down Kings and Kingdoms; at whose dread approach the Fays

huddled together, as a flock of timorous sheep, and the most courageous

among them crept into acorn cups, not enduring the sight of that

ancientest of Monarchs. Titania's first impulse was to wish the presence

of her false Lord, King Oberon, who was far away, in the pursuit of a

strange Beauty, a Fay of Indian Land--that with his good lance and

sword, like a faithful knight and husband, he might defend her against

TIME. But she soon checked that thought as vain, for what could the

prowess of the mighty Oberon himself, albeit the stoutest Champion in

Fairy Land, have availed against so huge a Giant, whose bald top touched

the skies. So in the mildest tone she besought the Spectre, that in his

mercy he would overlook, and pass by, her small subjects, as too

diminutive and powerless to add any worthy trophy to his renown. As she

besought him to employ his resistless strength against the ambitious

Children of Men, and to lay waste their aspiring works, to tumble down

their towers and turrets, and the Babels of their pride, fit objects of

his devouring Scythe, but to spare her and her harmless race, who had no

existence beyond a dream; frail objects of a creed; that lived but in

the faith of the believer. And with her little arms, as well as she

could, she grasped the stern knees of TIME, and waxing speechless with

fear, she beckoned to her chief attendants, and Maids of Honour, to come

forth from their hiding places, and to plead the Plea of the Fairies.

And one of those small delicate creatures came forth at her bidding,

clad all in white like a Chorister, and in a low melodious tone, not

louder than the hum of a pretty bee--when it seems to be demurring

whether it shall settle upon this sweet flower or that, before it

settles--set forth her humble Petition. "We Fairies," she said, "are the

most inoffensive race that live, and least deserving to perish. It is

we that have the care of all sweet melodies, that no discords may offend

the Sun, who is the great Soul of Music. We rouse the lark at morn; and

the pretty Echos, which respond to all the twittering quire, are of our

making. Wherefore, great King of Years, as ever you have loved the music

which is raining from a morning cloud, sent from the messenger of day,

the Lark, as he mounts to Heaven's gate, beyond the ken of mortals; or

if ever you have listened with a charmed ear to the Night Bird, that

in the flowery spring,

Amidst the leaves set, makes the thickets ring

Of her sour sorrows, sweeten'd with her song:

spare our tender tribes; and we will muffle up the sheep-bell for thee,

that thy pleasure take no interruption, whenever thou shall listen unto

Philomel."

And TIME answered, that "he had heard that song too long; and he was

even wearied with that ancient strain, that recorded the wrongs of

Tereus. But if she would know in what music TIME delighted, it was, when

sleep and darkness lay upon crowded cities, to hark to the midnight

chime, which is tolling from a hundred clocks, like the last knell over

the soul of a dead world; or to the crush of the fall of some age-worn

edifice, which is as the voice of himself when he disparteth kingdoms."

A second female Fay took up the Plea, and said, "We be the handmaids of

the Spring, and tend upon the birth of all sweet buds; and the pastoral

cowslips are our friends, and the pansies; and the violets, like nuns;

and the quaking hare-bell is in our wardship; and the Hyacinth, once a

fair youth, and dear to Phœbus."

Then TIME made answer, in his wrath striking the harmless ground with

his hurtful scythe, that "they must not think that he was one that cared

for flowers, except to see them wither, and to take her beauty from the

rose."

And a third Fairy took up the Plea, and said, "We are kindly Things; and

it is we that sit at evening, and shake rich odours from sweet bowers

upon discoursing lovers, that seem to each other to be their own sighs;

and we keep off the bat, and the owl, from their privacy, and the

ill-boding whistler; and we flit in sweet dreams across the brains of

infancy, and conjure up a smile upon its soft lips to beguile the

careful mother, while its little soul is fled for a brief minute or two

to sport with our youngest Fairies."

Then SATURN (which is TIME) made answer, that "they should not think

that he delighted in tender Babes, that had devoured his own, till

foolish Rhea cheated him with a Stone, which he swallowed, thinking it

to be the infant Jupiter." And thereat in token he disclosed to view his

enormous tooth, in which appeared monstrous dints, left by that

unnatural meal; and his great throat, that seemed capable of devouring

up the earth and all its inhabitants at one meal. "And for Lovers," he

continued, "my delight is, with a hurrying hand to snatch them away from

their love-meetings by stealth at nights, and to ravish away hours from

them like minutes whilst they are together, and in absence to stand like

a motionless statue, or their leaden Planet of mishap (whence I had my

name), till I make their minutes seem ages."

Next stood up a male fairy, clad all in green, like a forester, or one

of Robin Hood's mates, and doffing his tiny cap, said, "We are small

foresters, that live in woods, training the young boughs in graceful

intricacies, with blue snatches of the sky between; we frame all shady

roofs and arches rude; and sometimes, when we are plying our tender

hatches, men say, that the tapping wood-pecker is nigh: and it is we

that scoop the hollow cell of the squirrel; and carve quaint letters

upon the rinds of trees, which in sylvan solitudes sweetly recall to the

mind of the heat-oppressed swain, ere he lies down to slumber, the name

of his Fair One, Dainty Aminta, Gentle Rosalind, or Chastest Laura, as

it may happen."

SATURN, nothing moved with this courteous address, bade him be gone, or

"if he would be a woodman, to go forth, and fell oak for the Fairies'

coffins, which would forthwith be wanting. For himself, he took no

delight in haunting the woods, till their golden plumage (the yellow

leaves) were beginning to fall, and leave the brown black limbs bare,

like Nature in her skeleton dress."

Then stood up one of those gentle Fairies, that are good to Man, and

blushed red as any rose, while he told a modest story of one of his own

good deeds. "It chanced upon a time," he said, "that while we were

looking cowslips in the meads, while yet the dew was hanging on the

buds, like beads, we found a babe left in its swathing clothes--a

little sorrowful deserted Thing; begot of Love, but begetting no love

in others; guiltless of shame, but doomed to shame for its parents'

offence in bringing it by indirect courses into the world. It was pity

to see the abandoned little orphan, left to the world's care by an

unnatural mother, how the cold dew kept wetting its childish coats; and

its little hair, how it was bedabbled, that was like gossamer. Its

pouting mouth, unknowing how to speak, lay half opened like a rose-lipt

shell, and its cheek was softer than any peach, upon which the tears,

for very roundness, could not long dwell, but fell off, in clearness

like pearls, some on the grass, and some on his little hand, and some

haply wandered to the little dimpled well under his mouth, which Love

himself seemed to have planned out, but less for tears than for

smilings. Pity it was, too, to see how the burning sun scorched its

helpless limbs, for it lay without shade, or shelter, or mother's

breast, for foul weather or fair. So having compassion on its sad

plight, my fellows and I turned ourselves into grasshoppers, and swarmed

about the babe, making such shrill cries, as that pretty little chirping

creature makes in its mirth, till with our noise we attracted the

attention of a passing rustic, a tender-hearted hind, who wondering at

our small but loud concert, strayed aside curiously, and found the babe,

where it lay on the remote grass, and taking it up, lapt it in his

russet coat, and bore it to his cottage, where his wife kindly nurtured

it, till it grew up a goodly personage. How this Babe prospered

afterwards, let proud London tell. This was that famous Sir Thomas

Gresham, who was the chiefest of her Merchants, the richest, the wisest.

Witness his many goodly vessels on the Thames, freighted with costly

merchandise, jewels from Ind, and pearls for courtly dames, and silks of

Samarcand. And witness more than all, that stately Bourse (or Exchange)

which he caused to be built, a mart for merchants from East and West,

whose graceful summit still bears, in token of the Fairies' favours, his

chosen crest, the Grasshopper. And, like the Grasshopper, may it please

you, great King, to suffer us also to live, partakers of the green

earth!"

The Fairy had scarce ended his Plea, when a shrill cry, not unlike the

Grasshopper's, was heard. Poor Puck--or Robin Goodfellow, as he is

sometimes called--had recovered a little from his first fright, and in

one of his mad freaks had perched upon the beard of old TIME, which was

flowing, ample, and majestic, and was amusing himself with plucking at a

hair, which was indeed so massy, that it seemed to him that he was

removing some huge beam of timber rather than a hair; which TIME by some

ill chance perceiving, snatched up the Impish Mischief with his great

hand, and asked "What it was?"

"Alas!" quoth Puck, "A little random Elf am I, born in one of Nature's

sports, a very weed, created for the simple sweet enjoyment of myself,

but for no other purpose, worth, or need, that ever I could learn. 'Tis

I, that bob the Angler's idle cork, till the patient man is ready to

breathe a curse. I steal the morsel from the Gossip's fork, or stop the

sneezing Chanter in mid Psalm; and when an infant has been born with

hard or homely features, mothers say, that I changed the child at nurse;

but to fulfil any graver purpose I have not wit enough, and hardly the

will. I am a pinch of lively dust to frisk upon the wind, a tear would

make a puddle of me, and so I tickle myself with the lightest straw, and

shun all griefs that might make me stagnant. This is my small

philosophy."

Then TIME, dropping him on the ground, as a thing too inconsiderable for

his vengeance, grasped fast his mighty Scythe; and now not Puck alone,

but the whole State of Fairies had gone to inevitable wreck and

destruction, had not a timely Apparition interposed, at whose boldness

TIME was astounded, for he came not with the habit, or the forces, of a

Deity, who alone might cope with TIME, but as a simple Mortal, clad as

you might see a Forester, that hunts after wild coneys by the cold

moonshine; or a Stalker of stray deer, stealthy and bold. But by the

golden lustre in his eye, and the passionate wanness in his cheek, and

by the fair and ample space of his forehood [forehead], which seemed a

palace framed for the habitation of all glorious thoughts, he knew that

this was his great Rival, who had power given him to rescue whatsoever

victims Time should clutch, and to cause them to live for ever in his

immortal verse. And muttering the name of SHAKSPEARE, TIME spread his

Roc-like wings, and fled the controuling presence. And the liberated

Court of the Fairies, with Titania at their head, flocked around the

gentle Ghost, giving him thanks, nodding to him, and doing him

curtesies, who had crowned them henceforth with a permanent existence,

to live in the minds of men, while verse shall have power to charm, or

Midsummer moons shall brighten.

* * * * *

What particular endearments passed between the Fairies and their Poet,

passes my pencil to delineate; but if you are curious to be informed, I

must refer you, gentle reader, to the "Plea of the [Midsummer] Fairies,"

a most agreeable Poem, lately put forth by my friend, Thomas Hood: of

the first half of which the above is nothing but a meagre, and a harsh,

prose-abstract. Farewell.

ELIA.

_The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo._

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

(1827)

Charles Lamb born in the Inner Temple 10 Feb. 1775 educated in Christ's

Hospital afterwards a clerk in the Accountants office East India House

pensioned off from that service 1825 after 33 years service, is now a

Gentleman at large, can remember few specialities in his life worth

noting except that he once caught a swallow flying (_teste suâ manu_);

below the middle stature, cast of face slightly Jewish, with no Judaic

tinge in his complexional religion; stammers abominably and is therefore

more apt to discharge his occasional conversation in a quaint aphorism

or a poor quibble than in set and edifying speeches; has consequently

been libelled as a person always aiming at wit, which, as he told a dull

fellow that charged him with it, is at least as good as aiming at

dulness; a small eater but not drinker; confesses a partiality for the

production of the juniper berry, was a fierce smoker of Tobacco, but may

be resembled to a volcano burnt out, emitting only now and then a casual

puff. Has been guilty of obtruding upon the Public a Tale in Prose,

called Rosamund Gray, a Dramatic Sketch named John Woodvil, a Farewell

Ode to Tobacco, with sundry other Poems and light prose matter,

collected in Two slight crown Octavos and pompously christened his

Works, tho' in fact they were his Recreations and his true works may be

found on the shelves of Leadenhall Street, filling some hundred Folios.

He is also the true Elia whose Essays are extant in a little volume

published a year or two since; and rather better known from that name

without a meaning, than from anything he has done or can hope to do in

his own. He also was the first to draw the Public attention to the old

English Dramatists in a work called "Specimens of English Dramatic

Writers who lived about the time of Shakspeare," published about 15

years since. In short all his merits and demerits to set forth would

take to the end of Mr. Upcott's book and then not be told truly. He

died[59] 18---- much lamented.

Witness his hand, CHARLES LAMB.

10th Apr 1827.

[59] To any Body--Please to fill up these blanks.

SHAKSPEARE'S IMPROVERS

(1828)

_To the Editor of The Spectator_

Sir,--Partaking in your indignation at the sickly stuff interpolated by

Tate in the genuine play of _King Lear_, I beg to lay before you certain

kindred enormities that you may be less aware of, which that co-dilutor

of Sternhold and Hopkins,[60] with his compeers, were suffered--nay,

encouraged--by an English public of a century and a half ago, to

perpetrate upon the dramas of Shakspeare. I speak from imperfect

recollection of one of these _new versions_ which I have seen, namely,

_Coriolanus_--by the same hand which touched up _King Lear_; in which

he, the said Nahum, not deeming his author's catastrophe enough

striking, makes _Aufidius_ (if my memory fail me not) violate the

person of the wife, and mangle the body of the little son, of his Roman

rival! Shadwell, another improver, in _his_ version of _Timon of

Athens_, a copy of which (167-7/8) is lying before me, omits the

character of _Flavius_, the kind-hearted Steward--that fine exception to

the air of general perfidy in the play, which would else be too

oppressive to reader or spectator; and substitutes for it a _kind

female_, who is supposed to be attached to _Timon_ to the last: thus

making the moral of the piece to consist in showing--not the hollowness

of friendships conciliated by a mere undistinguishing prodigality,

but--the superiority of woman's love to the friendships of men.

_Evandra_ too has a rival in the affections of the noble Athenian. So

impossible did these blockheads imagine it to be, to interest the

feelings of an audience without an _intrigue_, that the misanthrope

_Timon_ must whine, and the daughterly _Cordelia_ must whimper, their

love affections, before they could hope to touch the gentle hearts in

the boxes! Had one of these gentry taken in hand to improve the fine

Scriptural story of Joseph and his Brethren, we should have had a love

passion introduced, to make the mere _fraternal interest_ of the piece

go down--an episode of the amours of Reuben, or Issachar, with the fair

Mizraim of Egypt.--Thus _Evandra_ closes the eyes of Shadwell's dying

_Timon_; who, it seems, has poisoned himself.

[60] New Version of the Singing Psalms, by Nahum Tate, and Nicholas

Brady.

_Evan._ Oh my dear Lord! why do you stoop and bend

Like flowers o'ercharged with dew, whose yielding stalks

Cannot support them?

_Timon._ So now my weary pilgrimage on earth

Is almost finish'd! Now, my best Evandra,

I charge thee by our loves, our mutual loves,

Live, and live happy after me; and if

A thought of Timon comes into thy mind,

And brings a tear from thee--

(_What then? why then_)

--let some diversion

Banish it.--

And so, after some more drivel of the same stamp, the noble _Timon_

dies. And was not this a dainty dish to set before an audience of the

Duke's Theatre in the year 167-7/8? Yet Betterton then acted _Timon_,

and his wife _Evandra_.

I now come to the London acting edition of _Macbeth_ of the same date,

1678 (played, if I remember, by the same players, at the same house);

from which I made a few rough extracts, when I visited the British

Museum for the sake of selecting from the "Garrick Plays." As I can

scarcely expect to be believed upon my own word, as to what our

ancestors at that time were willing to accept for Shakspeare, I refer

the reader to that collection to verify my report. Who the improver was

in this instance, we are left to guess, for the title-page leaves us to

conjecture. Possibly the players, each one separately, contributed his

new reading, which was silently adopted. Flesh and blood could not at

this time of day submit to a thorough perusal of the thing; but, from a

glance or two of casual inspection, I am enabled to lay before the

reader a few flowers. In one of the lyric parts, _Hecate_ is made to

say--

----on a corner of the moon

A drop my _spectacles_ have found.

I'll catch it.

_Hecate_, the solemn president of classic enchantments, thence adopted

into the romantic--the tri-form Hecate--wearing spectacles to assist old

sight!--(No. 4 or No. 5, as the opticians class them, is not said)--one

may as well fancy Cerberus in a bran new collar, or the "dreaded name of

Demogorgon" in jack-boots. Among the "ingredients of the caldron," is

enumerated, not a tiger's, but--what reader?--

----a _Dutchman's_ chawdron!

We were about that time engaged in a war with Holland.--Again, _Macduff_

being about to journey across the heath--the "blasted heath"--answers

his lady, who courteously demands of him, "Are you a-foot?"--

Knowing the way to be both short and easy,

And that the _chariot_ did attend me here,

I have adventured----

From which we may infer, that the Thane of Fife lived as a nobleman

ought to do, and--kept a carriage. Again, the same nobleman, on the

morning after _Duncan's_ murder, says:--"Rising this morning early, I

went to look out of my window. I could scarce see further than my

breath." And indeed the original author informs us, that it had been a

"rough night;" so that the improver does not wander far from his text.

The exquisite familiarity of this prose patch was doubtlessly intended

by the improver to break the tiresome monotony of Shakspeare's blank

verse. In conclusion, _Lady Macbeth_ is brought in _repentant_, and

counselling her husband to give up the crown for conscience

sake!--_Item_, she sees a ghost, which is all the time invisible to him.

Such was the _Macbeth_ which Betterton acted, and a contemporary

audience took on trust for Shakspeare's.

C. L.

SATURDAY NIGHT

(1829)

There is a Saturday Night--I speak not to the admirers of

Burns--erotically or theologically considered; HIS of the "Cotter's" may

be a very charming picture, granting it to be but half true. Nor speak I

now of the Saturday Night at Sea, which Dibdin hath dressed up with a

gusto more poignant to the mere nautical palate of un-Calvanized South

Britons. Nor that it is marketing night with the pretty tripping

Servant-maids all over London, who, with judicious and economic eye,

select the white and well-blown fillet, that the blue-aproned contunder

of the calf can safely recommend as "prime veal," and which they are to

be sure not to over-brown on the morrow. Nor speak I of the hard-handed

Artisan, who on this night receives the pittance which is to furnish the

neat Sabbatical dinner--not always reserved with Judaical rigor for that

laudable purpose, but broken in upon, perchance, by inviting pot of ale,

satisfactory to the present orifice. These are alleviatory,

care-consoling. But the Hebdomadal Finale which I contemplate hath

neither comfort nor alleviation in it; I pronounce it, from memory,

altogether punitive, and to be abhorred. It is--Saturday Night to the

School-boy!

Cleanliness, saith some sage man, is next to Godliness. It may be; but

how it came to sit so very near, is the marvel. Methinks some of the

more human virtues might have put in for a place before it.

Justice--Humanity--Temperance--are positive qualities; the courtesies

and little civil offices of life, had I been Master of the Ceremonies to

that Court, should have sate above the salt in preference to a mere

negation. I confess there is something wonderfully refreshing, in warm

countries, in the act of ablution. Those Mahometan washings--how cool to

the imagination! but in all these superstitions, the action itself, if

not the duty, is voluntary. But to be washed perforce; to have a

detestable flannel rag soaked in hot water, and redolent of the very

coarsest coarse soap, ingrained with hard beads for torment, thrust into

your mouth, eyes, nostrils--positively Burking you, under pretence of

cleansing--substituting soap for dirt, the worst dirt of the two--making

your poor red eyes smart all night, that they might look out brighter on

the Sabbath morn, for their clearness was the effect of pain more than

cleanliness.--Could this be true religion?

The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. I am always disposed to add,

so are those of Grandmothers. _Mine_--the Print has made her look rather

too young--had never-failing pretexts of tormenting children for their

good. I was a chit then; and I well remember when a fly had got into a

corner of my eye, and I was complaining of it to her, the old Lady

deliberately pounded two ounces or more of the finest loaf sugar that

could be got, and making me hold open the eye as wide as I could--all

innocent of her purpose--she blew from delicate white paper, with a full

breath, the whole saccharine contents into the part afflicted, saying,

"There, now the fly is out." 'Twas most true--a legion of blue-bottles,

with the prince of flies at their head, must have dislodged with the

torrent and deluge of tears which followed. I kept my own counsel, and

my fly in my eye when I had got one, in future, without troubling her

dulcet applications for the remedy. Then her medicine-case was a perfect

magazine of tortures for infants. She seemed to have no notion of the

comparatively tender drenches which young internals require--her potions

were any thing but milk for babes. Then her sewing up of a cut

finger--pricking a whitloe before it was ripe, because she could not see

well,--with the aggravation of the pitying tone she did it in.

But of all her nostrums--rest her soul--nothing came up to the Saturday

Night's flannel--that rude fragment of a Witney blanket--Wales spins

none so coarse--thrust into the corners of a weak child's eye with soap

that might have absterged an Ethiop, whitened the hands of Duncan's

She-murderer, and scowered away Original Sin itself. A faint image of

my penance you see in the Print--but the Artist has sunk the

flannel--the Age, I suppose, is too nice to bear it: and he has faintly

shadowed the expostulatory suspension of the razor-strap in the hand of

my Grandfather, when my pains and clamours had waxed intolerable. Peace

to the Shades of them both! and if their well-meaning souls had need of

cleansing when they quitted earth, may the process of it have been

milder than that of my old Purgatorial Saturday Night's path to the

Sabbatical rest of the morrow!

NEPOS.

ESTIMATE OF DE FOE'S SECONDARY NOVELS

(1829)

It has happened not seldom that one work of some author has so

transcendantly surpassed in execution the rest of his compositions, that

the world has agreed to pass a sentence of dismissal upon the latter,

and to consign them to total neglect and oblivion. It has done wisely in

this, not to suffer the contemplation of excellencies of a lower

standard to abate, or stand in the way of the pleasure it has agreed to

receive from the master-piece.

Again it has happened, that from no inferior merit of execution in the

rest, but from superior good fortune in the choice of its subject, some

single work shall have been suffered to eclipse, and cast into shade the

deserts of its less fortunate brethren. This has been done with more or

less injustice in the case of the popular allegory of Bunyan, in which

the beautiful and scriptural image of a pilgrim or wayfarer (we are all

such upon earth), addressing itself intelligibly and feelingly to the

bosoms of all, has silenced, and made almost to be forgotten, the more

awful and scarcely less tender beauties of the "Holy War made by Shaddai

upon Diabolus," of the same author; a romance less happy in its subject,

but surely well worthy of a secondary immortality. But in no instance

has this excluding partiality been exerted with more unfairness than

against what may be termed the secondary novels or romances of De Foe.

While all ages and descriptions of people hang delighted over the

"Adventures of Robinson Crusoe," and shall continue to do so we trust

while the world lasts, how few comparatively will bear to be told, that

there exist other fictitious narratives by the same writer--four of them

at least of no inferior interest, except what results from a less

felicitous choice of situation. Roxana--Singleton--Moll

Flanders--Colonel Jack--are all genuine offspring of the same father.

They bear the veritable impress of De Foe. An unpractised midwife that

would not swear to the nose, lip, forehead, and eye, of every one of

them! They are in their way as full of incident, and some of them every

bit as romantic; only they want the uninhabited Island, and the charm

that has bewitched the world, of the striking solitary situation.

But are there no solitudes out of the cave and the desert? or cannot the

heart in the midst of crowds feel frightfully alone? Singleton, on the

world of waters, prowling about with pirates less merciful than the

creatures of any howling wilderness; is he not alone, with the faces of

men about him, but without a guide that can conduct him through the

mists of educational and habitual ignorance; or a fellow-heart that can

interpret to him the new-born yearnings and aspirations of unpractised

penitence? Or when the boy Colonel Jack, in the loneliness of the heart

(the worst solitude), goes to hide his ill-purchased treasure in the

hollow tree by night, and miraculously loses, and miraculously finds it

again--whom hath he there to sympathise with him? or of what sort are

his associates?

The narrative manner of De Foe has a naturalness about it, beyond that

of any other novel or romance writer. His fictions have all the air of

true stories. It is impossible to believe, while you are reading them,

that a real person is not narrating to you every where nothing but what

really happened to himself. To this, the extreme _homeliness_ of their

style mainly contributes. We use the word in its best and heartiest

sense--that which comes _home_ to the reader. The narrators everywhere

are chosen from low life, or have had their origin in it; therefore they

tell their own tales, (Mr. Coleridge has anticipated us in this remark,)

as persons in their degree are observed to do, with infinite repetition,

and an overacted exactness, lest the hearer should not have minded, or

have forgotten, some things that had been told before. Hence the

emphatic sentences marked in the good old (but deserted) Italic type;

and hence, too, the frequent interposition of the reminding old

colloquial parenthesis, "I say"--"mind"--and the like, when the

story-teller repeats what, to a practised reader, might appear to have

been sufficiently insisted upon before: which made an ingenious critic

observe, that his works, in this kind, were excellent reading for the

kitchen. And, in truth, the heroes and heroines of De Foe, can never

again hope to be popular with a much higher class of readers, than that

of the servant-maid or the sailor. Crusoe keeps its rank only by tough

prescription; Singleton, the pirate--Colonel Jack, the thief--Moll

Flanders, both thief and harlot--Roxana, harlot and something

worse--would be startling ingredients in the bill of fare of modern

literary delicacies. But, then, what pirates, what thieves, and what

harlots is _the thief_, _the harlot_, and _the pirate_ of De Foe? We

would not hesitate to say, that in no other book of fiction, where the

lives of such characters are described, is guilt and delinquency made

less seductive, or the suffering made more closely to follow the

commission, or the penitence more earnest or more bleeding, or the

intervening flashes of religious visitation, upon the rude and

uninstructed soul, more meltingly and fearfully painted. They, in this,

come near to the tenderness of Bunyan; while the livelier pictures and

incidents in them, as in Hogarth or in Fielding, tend to diminish that

"fastidiousness to the concerns and pursuits of common life, which an

unrestrained passion for the ideal and the sentimental is in danger of

producing."

CLARENCE SONGS

(1830)

_To the Editor of The Spectator_

Sir,--You have a question in your paper, what songs, and whether any of

any value, were written upon Prince WILLIAM, our present Sovereign. Can

it have escaped you, that the very popular song and tune of "Sweet lass

of Richmond Hill" had reference to a supposed partiality of that Prince

for a lass of Richmond? I have heard who she was, but now forget. I

think it was a damsel of quality. I remember, when I was a schoolboy at

Christ's Hospital, about eight-and-forty years since, having had my

hearing stunned with the burthen (which alone I retain) of some ballad

in praise and augury of the Princely Midshipman:--

"He's royal, he's noble, he's chosen by _me_,[61]

Britain's Isle to protect, and reign Lord of the Sea!"

and my old ears yet ring with it.

[61] It is Neptune who predicts this.

Allusions to the same personage were at that time rife in innumerable

ballads, under the notion of a _sweet William_; but the ballads are

obliterated. The song of "Sweet William Taylor, walking with his lady

gay"--from the identity of names, I suppose--usually followed the

Neptunian song. The late TOM SHERIDAN bears away the credit of this. But

was it possible he could have been the author of it in 1782 or 1783?

Perhaps he made it his own by communicating a deeper tinge of vulgarity

to it, exchanging "William" for "Billy." I think the rogue snugged it in

as his own, hoping it was a forgotten ditty.

C. L.

CLARENCE SONGS.--No. II

Sir,--A friend has just reminded me of a ballad made on occasion of some

shipboard scrape into which our Royal Midshipman had fallen; in which,

with a _romantic licence_, the rank of the young sailor is supposed to

have been unknown, and a corporal infliction about to have been put into

execution. This is all he can recover of it. He was

----"order'd to undress, Sir!

But very soon they did espy

The star upon his breast, Sir:

And on their knees they soon did fall,

And all for mercy soon did call."

The burden was "Long live Duke William," or something to that effect. So

you see, his Majesty has enjoyed his laureats by anticipation.

C. L.

I know the town swarmed with these Clarence songs in the heyday of his

young popularity. Where are they?

RECOLLECTIONS OF A LATE ROYAL ACADEMICIAN

(1831)

What Apelles was to the _Grecian Alexander_, the same to the _Russian_

was the late G---- D----. None but Apelles might attempt the lineaments

of the world's conqueror; none but our Academician could have done

justice to the lines of the Czar, and his Courtiers. There they hang,

the labour of ten plodding years, in an endless gallery, erected for the

nonce, in the heart of Imperial Petersburgh--eternal monuments of

barbarian taste submitting to half-civilized cunning--four hundred

fierce Half-Lengths, all male, and all military; like the pit in a

French theatre, or the characters in Timon as it was last acted, with

never a woman among them. Chaste sitters to Vandyke, models of grace and

womanhood; and thou Dame Venetia Digby, fairest among thy fair compeers

at Windsor, hide your pure pale cheeks, and cool English beauties,

before this suffocating horde of Scythian riflers, this male chaos! Your

cold oaken frames shall wane before the gorgeous buildings,

With Tartar faces thronged, and horrent uniforms.

One emperor contended for the monopoly of the _ancient_; two were

competitors at once for the pencil of the _modern Apelles_. The Russian

carried it against the Haytian by a single length. And if fate, as it

was at one time nearly arranged, had wafted D. to the shores of

Hayti--with the same complacency in his art, with which he persisted in

daubing in, day after day, his frozen Muscovites, he would have sate

down for life to smutch in upon canvass the faces of blubber-lipped

sultanas, or the whole male retinue of the dingy court of Christophe.

For in truth a choice of subjects was the least of D.'s care. A Goddess

from Cnidus, or from the Caffre coast, was equal to him; Lot, or Lot's

wife; the charming widow H., or her late husband.

My acquaintance with D. was in the outset of his art, when the graving

tools, rather than the pencil, administered to his humble wants. Those

implements, as is well known, are not the most favourable to the

cultivation of that virtue, which is esteemed next to godliness. He

might "wash his hands in innocency," and so metaphorically "approach an

altar;" but his material puds were any thing but fit to be carried to

church. By an ingrained economy in soap--if it was not for pictorial

effect rather--he would wash (on Sundays) the inner oval, or portrait,

as it may be termed, of his countenance, leaving the unwashed temples to

form a natural black frame round a picture, in which a dead white was

the predominant colour. This, with the addition of green spectacles,

made necessary by the impairment, which his graving labours by day and

night (for he was ordinarily at them for sixteen hours out of the

twenty-four) had brought upon his visual faculties, gave him a singular

appearance, when he took the air abroad; in so much, that I have seen a

crowd of young men and boys following him along Oxford-street with

admiration, not without shouts; even as the Youth of Rome, we read in

Vasari, followed the steps of Raphael with acclamations for his genius,

and for his beauty, when he proceeded from his work-shop to chat with

Cardinals and Popes at the Vatican.

The family of D. were not at this time in affluent circumstances. His

father, a clever artist, had outlived the style of art, in which he

excelled most of his contemporaries. He, with the father of the

celebrated Morland, worked for the shop of Carrington and Bowles, which

exists still for the poorer sort of caricatures, on the North side of

St. Paul's Church Yard. They did clever things in colours. At an inn in

Reading a screen is still preserved, full of their labours; but the

separate portions of either artist are now undistinguishable. I remember

a Mother teaching her Child to read (B. Barton has a copy of it); a

Laundress washing; a young Quaker, a beautiful subject. But the flower

of their forgotten productions hangs still at a public house on the left

hand, as thou arrivest, Reader, from the now Highgate archway, at the

foot of the descent where Crouch End begins, on thy road to green

Hornsey. Turn in, and look at it, for the sight is well worth a cup of

excusatory cyder. In the parlour to the right you will find it--an

antiquated subject--a Damsel sitting at her breakfast table in a gown of

the flowered chintz of our grandmothers, with a tea-service before her

of the _same pattern_. The effect is most delicate. Why have these

harmonies--these _agrémens_--no place in the works of modern art?

With such niceties in his calling D. did not much trouble his head, but,

after an ineffectual experiment to reconcile his eye-sight with his

occupation, boldly quitted it, and dashed into the beaten road of

common-place portraiture in oil. The Hopners, and the Lawrences, were

his Vandykes, and his Velasquezes; and if he could make any thing like

them, he insured himself immortality. With such guides he struggled on

through laborious nights and days, till he reached the eminence he aimed

at--of mediocrity. Having gained that summit, he sate down contented. If

the features were but cognoscible, no matter whether the flesh resembled

flesh, or oilskin. For the thousand tints--the grains--which in life

diversify the nose, the chin, the cheek--which a Reynolds can but

coarsely counterfeit--he cared nothing at all about them. He left such

scrupulosities to opticians and anatomists. If the features were but

there, the character of course could not be far off. A lucky hit which

he made in painting the _dress_ of a very dressy lady--Mrs. W--e--,

whose handsome countenance also, and tall elegance of shape, were too

palpable entirely to escape under any masque of oil, with which even D.

could overlay them--brought to him at once, an influx of sitters, which

almost rivalled the importunate calls upon Sir Thomas. A portrait, he

_did_ soon after, of the Princess Charlotte, clenched his fame. He

proceeded Academician. At that memorable conjuncture of time it pleased

the Allied Sovereigns to visit England.

I called upon D. to congratulate him upon a crisis so doubly eventful.

His pleasant housekeeper seemed embarrassed; owned that her master was

alone. But could he be spoken with? With some importunity I prevailed

upon her to usher me up into his painting-room. It was in Newman-street.

At his easel stood D., with an immense spread of canvas before him, and

by his side a--live Goose. I enquired into this extraordinary

combination. Under the rose he informed me, that he had undertaken to

paint a transparency for Vauxhall, against an expected visit of the

Allied Sovereigns to that place. I smiled at an engagement so

derogatory to his new-born honours; but a contempt of small gains was

never one of D.'s foibles. My eyes beheld crude forms of warriors,

kings, rising under his brush upon this interminable stretch of cloth.

The Wolga, the Don, and the Nieper, were there, or their representative

River Gods; and Father Thames clubbed urns with the Vistula. Glory with

her dazzling Eagle was not absent, nor Fame, nor Victory. The shade of

Rubens might have evoked the mighty allegories. But what was the Goose?

He was evidently _sitting_ for a something.

D. at last informed me, that having fixed upon a group of rivers, he

could not introduce the Royal Thames without his _swans_. That he had

enquired the price of a live swan, and it being more than he was

prepared to give for it, he had bargained with the poulterer for the

_next thing to it_; adding significantly, that it would do to roast,

after it had served its turn to paint swans by. _Reader, this is a true

story._

So entirely devoid of imagination, or any feeling for his high art, was

this _Painter_, that for the few historical pictures he attempted, any

sitter might sit for any character. He took once for a subject _The

Infant Hercules_. Did he chuse for a model some robust antique? No. He

did not even pilfer from Sir Joshua, who was nearer to his own size. But

from a _show_ he hired to sit to him a child in years indeed, (though no

Infant,) but in fact a precocious _Man_, or human portent, that was

disgustingly exhibiting at that period; a thing to be strangled. From

this he formed _his_ Infant Hercules. In a scriptural flight he next

attempted a Sampson in the lap of Dalilah. A Dalilah of some sort was

procureable for love or money, but who should stand for the Jewish

Hercules? He hired a tolerably stout porter, with a thickish head of

hair, curling in yellowish locks, but lithe--much like a wig. And these

were the robust strengths of Sampson.

I once was a witness to a _family scene_ in his painting closet, which I

had entered rather abruptly, and but for his encouragement, should as

hastily have retreated. He stood with displeased looks eyeing a female

relative--whom I had known under happier auspices--that was kneeling at

his feet with a baby in her arms, with her eyes uplifted and suppliant.

Though I could have previously sworn to the virtue of Miss ----, yet

casual slips have been known. There are such things as families

disgraced, where least you would have expected it. The child _might_ be

----; I had heard of no wedding--I was the last person to pry into

family secrets--when D. relieved my uneasy cogitations by explaining,

that the innocent, good-humoured creature before me (such as she ever

was, and is now that she is married) with a baby borrowed from the

public house, was acting Andromache to _his_ Ulysses, for the purpose of

transferring upon canvas a tender situation from the Troades of Seneca.

On a subsequent occasion I knocked at D.'s door. I had chanced to have

been in a dreamy humour previously. I am not one that often poetises,

but I had been musing--coxcombically enough in the heart of

Newman-street, Oxford Road--upon Pindus, and the Aonian Maids. The Lover

of Daphne was in my mind--when, answering to my summons, the door

opened, and there stood before me, laurel-crowned, the God himself,

unshorn Apollo. I was beginning to mutter apologies to the Celestial

Presence--when on the thumb of the right hand of the Delian (his left

held the harp) I spied a pallet, such as painters carry, which

immediately reconciled me to the whimsical transformation of my old

acquaintance--with his own face, certainly any other than

Grecianesque--into a temporary image of the oracle-giver of Delphos. To

have impersonated the Ithacan was little; he had been just sitting for a

God.--It would be no incurious enquiry to ascertain what the _minimum_

of the faculty of imagination, ever supposed essential to painters along

with poets, is, that, in these days of complaints of want of patronage

towards the fine arts, suffices to dub a man a R----l A----n.

Not only had D. no imagination to guide him in the treatment of such

subjects, but he had no relish for high art in the productions of the

great masters. He turned away from them as from something foreign and

irrelative to him, and his calling. He knew he had neither part nor

portion in them. Cozen him into the Stafford or the Angerstein Gallery,

he involuntarily turned away from the Baths of Diana--the Four Ages of

Guercino--the Lazarus of Piombo--to some petty piece of _modern art_

that had been inconsistently thrust into the collection through favour.

On that he would dwell and pore, blind as the dead to the delicacies

that surrounded him. There he might learn something. There he might

pilfer a little. There was no grappling with Titian, or Angelo.

The narrowness of his domestic habits to the very last, was the

consequence of his hard bringing up, and unexpected emergence into

opulence. While rolling up to the ears in Russian rubles, a penny was

still in his eyes the same important thing, which it had with some

reason seemed to be, when a few shillings were his daily earnings. When

he visited England a short time before his death, he reminded an artist

of a commission, which he had executed for him in Russia, the package of

which was "still unpaid." At this time he was not unreasonably supposed

to have realized a sum little short of half a million sterling. What

became of it was never known; what gulf, or what Arctic _vorago_, sucked

it in, his acquaintance in those parts have better means of guessing,

than his countrymen. It is certain that few of the latter were any thing

the better for it.

It was before he expatriated himself, but subsequently to his

acquisition of pictorial honours in this country, that he brought home

two of his brother Academicians to dine with him. He had given no orders

extraordinary to his housekeeper. He trusted, as he always did, to her

providing. She was a shrewd lass, and knew, as we say, a bit of her

master's mind.

It had happened that on the day before, D. passing near Clare Market by

one of those open shambles, where tripe and cow-heel are exposed for

sale, his eye was arrested by the sight of some tempting flesh _rolled

up_. It is a part of the intestines of some animal, which my olfactory

sensibilities never permitted me to stay long enough to enquire the name

of. D. marked the curious involutions of the unacquainted luxury; the

harmony of its colours--a _sable vert_--pleased his eye; and, warmed

with the prospect of a new flavour, for a few farthings he bore it off

in triumph to his housekeeper. It so happened that his day's dinner was

provided, so the cooking of the novelty was for that time necessarily

suspended.

Next day came. The hour of dinner approached. His visitors, with no very

romantic anticipations, expected a plain meal at least; they were

prepared for no new dainties; when, to the astonishment of them, and

almost of D. himself, the purchase of the preceding day was served up

piping hot--the cook declaring, that she did not know well what it was,

for "her master always marketed." His guests were not so happy in their

ignorance. They kept dogs.

I will do D. the justice to say, that on such occasions he took what

happened in the best humour possible. He had no _false modesty_--though

I have generally observed, that persons, who are quite deficient in that

_mauvais[e] honte_, are seldom over-troubled with the quality itself, of

which it is the counterfeit.

By what arts, with _his_ pretensions, D. contrived to wriggle himself

into a seat in the Academy, I am not acquainted enough with the

intrigues of that body (more involved than those of an Italian conclave)

to pronounce. It is certain, that neither for love to him, nor out of

any respect to his talents, did they elect him. Individually he was

obnoxious to them all. I have heard that, in his passion for attaining

this object, he went so far as to go down upon his knees to some of the

members, whom he thought least favourable, and beg their suffrage with

many tears.

But _death_, which extends the measure of a man's stature to appearance;

and _wealth_, which men worship in life and death, which makes giants of

punies, and embalms insignificance; called around the exequies of this

pigmy Painter the rank, the riches, the fashion of the world. By

Academic hands his pall was borne; by the carriages of nobles of the

land, and of ambassadors from foreign powers, his bier was followed; and

St. Paul's (O worthy casket for the shrine of such a Zeuxis) now

holds--ALL THAT WAS MORTAL OF G. D.

THE LATIN POEMS OF VINCENT BOURNE

(1831)

A complete translation of these poems is a desideratum in our

literature. Cowper has done _one_ at least, out of the four which he has

given us, with a felicity almost unapproachable. Few of our readers can

be ignorant of the delightful lines beginning with:--

"There is bird, which by its coat----"

A recent writer has lately added nine more to the number; we wish he

would proceed with the remainder, for of all modern Latinity, that of

Vincent Bourne is the most to our taste. He is "so Latin," and yet "so

English" all the while. In diction worthy of the Augustan age, he

presents us with no images that are not familiar to his countrymen. His

topics are even closelier drawn; they are not so properly English, as

_Londonish_. From the streets, and from the alleys, of his beloved

metropolis he culled his objects, which he has invested with an

Hogarthian richness of colouring. No town picture by that artist can go

beyond his BALLAD-SINGERS; Gay's TRIVIA alone, in verse, comes up to the

life and humour of it.

Quæ septem vicos conterminat una columna,

Consistunt nymphæ Sirenum ex agmine binæ;

Stramineum capiti tegimen, collumque per omne

Ingentes electri orbes: utrique pependit

Crustato vestis cœno, limoque rigescens

Crure usque a medio calcem defluxit ad imum.

Exiguam secum pendentem ex ubere natam

Altera; venales dextrâ tulit altera chartas.

His vix dispositis, pueri innuptæque puellæ

Accurrunt: sutor primus, cui lorea vitta

Impediit crines, humili, quæ proxima stabat,

Proruit è cellâ, chartas, si forte placerent,

Empturus; namque ille etiam se carmine multo

Oblectat, longos solus quo rite labores

Diminuit, fallitque hybernæ tædia noctis.

Collecti murmur sensim increbrescere vulgi

Auditi, et excurrit nudis ancilla lacertis.

Incudem follesque et opus fabrile relinquens,

Se densæ immiscet plebi niger ora Pyracmon.

It juxta, depressum ingens cui mantica tergum

Incurvat, tardo passu; simul ille coronam

Aspectat vulgi, spe carminis arrigit aures;

Statque moræ patiens, humeris nec pondera sentit.

Sic ubi Tartareum Regem Rhodopeïus Orpheus

Threiciis studuit fidibus mulcere, laboris

Immemor, Æolides stupuit modulamina plectri,

Nec sensit funesti onera incumbentia saxi.

Sæbe interventus rhedæ crepitantis, ab illo

Vicorum, ant illo, stipantem hinc inde catervam

Dividit; at rursus coëunt, ubi transiit illa,

Ut coëunt rursus, puppis quas dividit, undæ.

Canticulæ interea narraverat argumentum

Altera Sirenum, infidi perjuria nautæ,

Deceptamque dolo nympham; tum flebile carmen

Flebilibus movit numeris, quos altera versu

Alterno excepit: patulis stant rictibus omnes:

Dextram ille acclinat, lævam ille attentius aurem,

Promissum carmen captare paratus hiatu.

Longa referre mora est, animum quâ vicerit arte

Virgineum juvenis. Jam poscunt undique chartas

Protensæ emptorum dextræ, quas illa vel illa

Distribuit, cantatque simul: neque ferreus iste

Est usquam auditor, dulcis cui lene camæna

Non adhibet tormentum, et furtivum elicit assem.

Stat medios inter baculoque innititur Irus;

Nec tamen hic loculo parcit, sed prodigus æris

Emptor adest, solvit pretium, carmenque requirit.

Fors juxta adstabat vetula iracundior æquo;

Quæ loculo ex imo invitum, longumque latentem

Depromens vix tandem obolum, Cedo, fœmina, chartam,

Inquit; ut æternum monumentum in pariete figam,

Cum laribus mansurum ipsis, quam credula nymphis

Pectora sint; fraudis quam plena, et perfida nautis.

* * * * *

Where seven fair Streets to one tall Column[62] draw,

Two Nymphs have ta'en their stand, in hats of straw;

Their yellower necks huge beads of amber grace,

And by their trade they're of the Sirens' race.

With cloak loose-pinn'd on each, that has been red,

But long with dust and dirt discoloured

Belies its hue; in mud behind, before,

From heel to middle leg becrusted o'er.

One a small infant at the breast does bear;

And one in her right hand her tuneful ware,

Which she would vend. Their station scarce is taken,

When youths and maids flock round. His stall forsaken,

Forth comes a Son of Crispin, leathern-capt,

Prepared to buy a ballad, if one apt

To move his fancy offers. Crispin's sons

Have, from uncounted time, with ale and buns

Cherish'd the gift of _Song_, which sorrow quells;

And, working single in their low-rooft cells,

Oft at the tedium of a winter's night

With anthems warbled in the Muses' spight.

Who now hath caught the alarm? The Servant Maid

Hath heard a buzz at distance; and, afraid

To miss a note, with elbows red comes out.

Leaving his forge to cool, Pyracmon stout

Thrusts in his unwash'd visage. _He_ stands by,

Who the hard trade of Porterage does ply

With stooping shoulders. What cares he? he sees

The assembled ring, nor heeds his tottering knees,

But pricks his ears up with the hopes of song.

So, while the Bard of Rhodope his wrong

Bewail'd to Proserpine on Thracian strings,

The tasks of gloomy Orcus lost their stings,

And stone-vext Sysiphus forgets his load.

Hither and thither from the sevenfold road

Some cart or wagon crosses, which divides

The close-wedged audience; but, as when the tides

To ploughing ships give way, the ship being past,

They re-unite, so these unite as fast.

The older Songstress hitherto has spent

Her elocution in the argument

Of their great Song in prose; to wit, the woes

Which Maiden true to faithless Sailor owes--

Ah "_Wandering He!_"--which now in loftier verse

Pathetic they alternately rehearse.

All gaping wait the event. This Critic opes

His right ear to the strain. The other hopes

To catch it better with his left. Long trade

It were to tell, how the deluded Maid

A victim fell. And now right greedily

All hands are stretching forth the songs to buy,

That are so tragical; which She, and She,

Deals out, and _sings the while_; nor can there be

A breast so obdurate here, that will hold back

His contribution from the gentle rack

Of Music's pleasing torture. Irus' self,

The staff-propt Beggar, his thin-gotten pelf

Brings out from pouch, where squalid farthings rest,

And boldly claims his ballad with the rest.

An old Dame only lingers. To her purse

The penny sticks. At length, with harmless curse,

"Give me," she cries--"I'll paste it on my wall,

While the wall lasts, to show what ills befal

Fond hearts, seduced from Innocency's way;

How Maidens fall, and Mariners betray."

[62] Seven Dials.

In the same style of familiar painting, and replete with the same

images of town life, picturesque as it was comparatively in the

days of Gay, and of Hogarth, are the various Poematia--to the

"Bellman"--"Billinsgate"--the "Law Courts"--the "Licensed

Victualler"--the "Quack"--the "Quaker's Meeting" _cum multis aliis_--of

this most classical of Cockney Poets. In a different strain is the

following piece of tenderness:--

IN STATUAM SEPULCHRALEM INFANTIS DORMIENTIS

Infans venuste, qui sacros dulces agens

In hoc sopores marmore,

Placidissimâ quiete compôstus jaces,

Et inscius culpæ et metûs,

Somno fruaris, docta quem dedit manus

Sculptoris; et somno simul,

Quem nescit artifex vel Ars effingere

Fruaris Innocentiæ.

* * * * *

Beautiful Infant, who dost keep

Thy posture here, and sleep'st a marble sleep,

May the repose unbroken be,

Which the fine Artist's hand hath lent to thee!

While thou enjoy'st along with it

That which no Art or Craft could ever hit,

Or counterfeit to moral sense,

The Heav'n-infused sleep of Innocence.

We have selected these two versions from a little volume lately

published by Mr. Lamb, to which he has strangely given the misnomer of

"Album Verses."

ALBUM VERSES! why, in the whole collection there are not twenty pages

out of one hundred and fifty (and cast the acrostics in, to swell the

amount) that have the smallest title to come under this denomination.

There is a Tragic Drama, filling up more than a third of the book. The

rest is composed of--Translations from V. Bourne, nine in number--just

so many Verses, and no more, expressly written for Albums--and the rest

might have been written any where. But Mr. L. will be wiser another

time, than to stand Godfather to his own poetry. A sensible Publisher is

always the best names-man on these occasions.

But if to write in Albums be a sin, Lord help

Wordsworth--Coleridge--Southey--Sir Walter himself--who have not been

always able to resist the solicitations of the fair owners of these

modern nuisances. Southey has owned to some score, and Mr. L.'s offences

in this kind, we have said, do not exceed the number of the Muses. This

may be said even of them, that they are not vague verses--to the Moon,

or to the Nightingale--that will fit any place--but strictly appropriate

to the person that they were intended to gratify; or to the species of

chronicle which they were destined to be recorded in. The Verses to a

"Clergyman's Lady"--to the "Wife of a learned Serjeant"--to a "Young

Quaker"--could have appeared only in an Album, and only in that

particular person's Album they were composed for.

We are no friend to Albums. We early set our face against them in a

short copy of verses, which we publish only for our own justification.

To the question:--

WHAT IS AN ALBUM?

'Tis a Book kept by modern young Ladies for show,

Of which their plain Grandmothers nothing did know;

A Medley of Scraps, half verse, and half prose,

And some things not very like either, God knows;

Where wise folk and simple alike do combine,

And you write _your_ nonsense, that I may write _mine_.

Throw in a fine Landscape, to make it complete--

A Flower-piece--a Foreground--all tinted so neat,

As Nature herself, could she see it, would strike

With envy to think that she ne'er did the like.

Next forget not to stuff it with Autographs plenty,

All writ in a style so genteel, and so dainty,

They no more resemble folk's ord'nary writing,

Than lines, penn'd with pains, do extemp'ral enditing;

Or our every day countenance (pardon the stricture)

The faces we make when we sit for our picture.

Thus you have, dearest--, an Album complete--

We forget the rest--but seriously we deprecate with all our powers the

unfeminine practice of this novel species of importunity. We have known

Young Ladies--ay, and of those who have been modest and retiring enough

upon other occasions--in quest of these delicacies, to besiege, and

storm by violence, the closets and privatest retirements of a literary

man, to whom they have had an imperfect, or, perhaps, no introduction at

all. But the disease has gone forth. Like the daughters of the

horseleech in the Proverbs, the requisition of every female now is,

_Contribute, Contribute_. "From the Land's End to the Farthest Thule the

cry has gone out, and who shall resist it? Assuming then, that Album

Verses _will_ be written, where was the harm, if Mr. L. first taught us

how they might be best, and most characteristically written?"

Amid the vague, dreamy, wordy, _matterless_ Poetry of this empty age,

the verses of such a writer as Bourne (who was a Latin _Prior_) are

invaluable. They fix upon _something_; they ally themselves to common

life and objects; their good nature is a Catholicon, sanative of

coxcombry, of heartlessness, and of fastidiousness. _Vale, Lepidissimum

Caput._ [63]

[63] Of this writer we only know, that he was an usher some seventy

years since at Westminster School; and that Dr. Johnson (who knew

him) speaks of him always affectionately as "poor Vinny Bourne."

THE DEATH OF MUNDEN

(1832)

_To the Editor of The Athenæum_

Dear Sir,--Your communication to me of the death of Munden made me weep.

Now, Sir, I am not of the melting mood. But, in these serious times, the

loss of half the world's fun is no trivial deprivation. It was my loss

(or _gain_ shall I call it?) in the early time of my play-going, to have

missed all Munden's acting. There was only he, and Lewis at Covent

Garden, while Drury Lane was exuberant with Parsons, Dodd, &c., such a

comic company as, I suppose, the stage never showed. Thence, in the

evening of my life, I had Munden all to myself, more mellowed, richer

perhaps than ever. I cannot say what his change of faces produced in me.

It was not acting. He was not one of my "old actors." It might be [he

was] better. His power was extravagant. I saw him one evening in three

drunken characters. Three Farces were played. One part was _Dosey_--I

forget the rest:--but they were so discriminated, that a stranger might

have seen them all, and not have dreamed that he was seeing the same

actor. I am jealous for the actors who pleased my youth. He was not a

Parsons or a Dodd, but he was more wonderful. He seemed as if he could

_do_ anything. He was not an actor, but something _better_, if you

please. Shall I instance _Old Foresight_, in "Love for Love," in which

Parsons was at once the old man, the astrologer, &c. Munden dropped the

old man, the doater--which makes the character--but he substituted for

it a moon-struck character, a perfect abstraction from this earth, that

looked as if he had newly come down from the planets. Now, _that_ is not

what I call _acting_. It might be better. He was imaginative; he could

impress upon an audience an _idea_--the low one perhaps of a leg of

mutton and turnips; but such was the grandeur and singleness of his

expressions, that that single expression would convey to all his

auditory a notion of all the pleasures they had all received from all

the legs of mutton _and turnips_ they had ever eaten in their lives.

Now, this is not _acting_, nor do I set down Munden amongst my old

actors. He was only a wonderful man, exerting his vivid impressions

through the agency of the stage. In one only thing did I see him

_act_--that is, support a character; it was in a wretched farce, called

"Johnny Gilpin," for Dowton's benefit, in which he did a cockney; the

thing ran but one night; but when I say that Liston's _Lubin Log_ was

nothing to it, I say little; it was transcendant. And here, let me say

of actors--_envious_ actors--that of _Munden_, Liston was used to speak,

almost with the enthusiasm due to the dead, in terms of such allowed

superiority to every actor on the stage, and this at a time when Munden

was gone by in the world's estimation, that it convinced me that

_artists_ (in which term I include poets, painters, &c.), are not so

envious as the world think. I have little time, and therefore enclose a

criticism on Munden's _Old Dosey_ and his general acting, by a

gentleman, who attends less to these things than formerly, but whose

criticism I think masterly.

C. LAMB.

THOUGHTS ON PRESENTS OF GAME, &c.

(1833)

"We love to have our friend in the country sitting thus at our

table _by proxy_; to apprehend his presence (though a hundred miles

may be between us) by a turkey, whose goodly aspect reflects to us

his 'plump corpusculum;' to taste him in grouse or woodcock; to

feel him gliding down in the toast peculiar to the latter; to

concorporate him in a slice of Canterbury brawn. This is indeed to

have him within ourselves; to know him intimately; such

participation is methinks _unitive_, as the old theologians phrase

it."--LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA.

Elia presents his acknowledgments to his "Correspondent unknown," for a

basket of prodigiously fine game. He takes for granted that so amiable a

character must be a reader of the _Athenæum_. Else he had meditated a

notice in _The Times_. Now if this friend had consulted the Delphic

oracle for a present suited to the palate of Elia, he could not have hit

upon a morsel so acceptable. The birds he is barely thankful for;

pheasants are poor _fowls_ disguised in fine feathers. But a hare

roasted hard and brown--with gravy and melted butter!--old Mr.

Chambers, the sensible clergyman in Warwickshire, whose son's

acquaintance has made many hours happy in the life of Elia, used to

allow a pound of Epping to every hare. Perhaps that was over-doing it.

But, in spite of the note of Philomel, who, like some fine poets, that

think no scorn to adopt plagiarisms from a humble brother, reiterates

every spring her cuckoo cry of "Jug, Jug, Jug," Elia pronounces that a

hare, to be truly palated, must be roasted. Jugging sophisticates her.

In _our_ way it eats so "crips," as Mrs. Minikin says. Time was, when

Elia was not arrived at his taste, that he preferred to all luxuries a

roasted Pig. But he disclaims all such green-sickness appetites in

future, though he hath to acknowledge the receipt of many a delicacy in

that kind from correspondents--good, but mistaken men--in consequence of

their erroneous supposition, that he had carried up into mature life the

prepossessions of childhood. From the worthy Vicar of Enfield he

acknowledges a tithe contribution of extraordinary sapor. The ancients

must have loved hares. Else why adopt the word _lepores_ (obviously from

_lepus_) but for some subtle analogy between the delicate flavour of the

latter, and the finer relishes of wit in what we most poorly translate

_pleasantries_. The fine madnesses of the poet are the very decoction of

his diet. Thence is he hare-brained. Harum-scarum is a libellous

unfounded phrase of modern usage. 'Tis true the hare is the most

circumspect of animals, sleeping with her eye open. Her ears, ever

erect, keep them in that wholesome exercise, which conduces them to form

the very tit-bit of the admirers of this noble animal. Noble will I call

her, in spite of her detractors, who from occasional demonstrations of

the principle of self-preservation (common to all animals) infer in her

a defect of heroism. Half a hundred horsemen with thrice the number of

dogs, scour the country in pursuit of puss across three countries; and

because the well-flavoured beast, weighing the odds, is willing to evade

the hue and cry, with her delicate ears shrinking perchance from

discord--comes the grave Naturalist, Linnæus perchance or Buffon, and

gravely sets down the Hare as a--timid animal. Why, Achilles or Bully

Dawson, would have declined the preposterous combat.

In fact, how light of digestion we feel after a hare! How tender its

processes after swallowing! What chyle it promotes! How etherial! as if

its living celerity were a type of its nimble coursing through the

animal juices. The notice might be longer. It is intended less as a

Natural History of the Hare, than a cursory thanks to the country "good

Unknown." The hare has many friends, but none sincerer than

ELIA.

TABLE-TALK BY THE LATE ELIA

(1833 and 1834)

The greatest pleasure I know, is to do a good action by stealth, and to

have it found out by accident.

'Tis unpleasant to meet a beggar. It is painful to deny him; and, if you

relieve him, it is so much out of your pocket.

Men marry for fortune, and sometimes to please their fancy; but, much

oftener than is suspected, they consider what the world will say of it;

how such a woman in their friends' eyes will look at the head of a

table. Hence, we see so many insipid beauties made wives of, that could

not have struck the particular fancy of any man, that had any fancy at

all. These I call _furniture wives_; as men buy _furniture pictures_,

because they suit this or that niche in their dining parlours.

Your universally cried-up beauties are the very last choice which a man

of taste would make. What pleases all, cannot have that individual

charm, which makes this or that countenance engaging to you, and to you

only perhaps, you know not why. What gained the fair Gunnings titled

husbands, who, after all, turned out very sorry wives? Popular repute.

It is a sore trial when a daughter shall marry against her father's

approbation. A little hard-heartedness, and aversion to a reconcilement,

is almost pardonable. After all, Will Dockwray's way is perhaps the

wisest. His best-loved daughter made a most imprudent match; in fact,

eloped with the last man in the world that her father would have wished

her to marry. All the world said that he would never speak to her

again. For months she durst not write to him, much less come near him.

But, in a casual rencounter, he met her in the streets of Ware;--Ware,

that will long remember the mild virtues of William Dockwray, Esq. What

said the parent to his disobedient child, whose knees faltered under her

at the sight of him? "Ha! Sukey, is it you?" with that benevolent

aspect, with which he paced the streets of Ware, venerated as an angel,

"come and dine with us on Sunday;" then turning away, and again turning

back, as if he had forgotten something, he added, "and Sukey, do you

hear, bring your husband with you." This was all the reproof she ever

heard from him. Need it be added, that the match turned out better for

Susan than the world expected?

"We read the Paradise Lost as a task," says Dr. Johnson. Nay, rather as

a celestial recreation, of which the dullard mind is not at all hours

alike recipient. "Nobody ever wished it longer;"--nor the moon rounder,

he might have added. Why, 'tis the perfectness and completeness of it,

which makes us imagine that not a line could be added to it, or

diminished from it, with advantage. Would we have a cubit added to the

stature of the Medicean Venus? Do we wish her taller?

_Lear._ Who are you?

Mine eyes are not o' the best: I'll tell you straight

... Are you not Kent?

_Kent._ The same;

Your servant Kent. Where is your servant Caius?

_Lear._ He's a good fellow, I can tell you that;

He'll strike, and quickly too: he's dead and rotten.

_Kent._ No, my good Lord; I am the very man----

_Lear._ I'll see that straight----

_Kent._ That from your first of difference and decay,

Have follow'd your sad steps.

_Lear._ You are welcome hither ...

_Albany._ He knows not what he says; and vain it is

That we present us to him.

_Edgar._ Look up, my Lord.

_Kent._ Vex not his ghost. O, let him pass! He hates him much.

That would upon the rack of this rough world

Stretch him out longer.

So ends 'King Lear,' the most stupendous of the Shakspearian dramas; and

Kent, the noblest feature of the conceptions of his divine mind. This

is the magnanimity of authorship, when a writer, having a topic

presented to him, fruitful of beauties for common minds, waives his

privilege, and trusts to the judicious few for understanding the reason

of his abstinence. What a pudder would a common dramatist have raised

here of a reconciliation scene, a perfect recognition, between the

assumed Caius and his master!--to the suffusing of many fair eyes, and

the moistening of cambric handkerchiefs. The old dying king partially

catching at the truth, and immediately lapsing into obliviousness, with

the high-minded carelessness of the other to have his services

appreciated, as one that

----served not for gain,

Or follow'd out of form,

are among the most judicious, not to say heart-touching, strokes in

Shakspeare.

Allied to this magnanimity it is, where the pith and point of an

argument, the amplification of which might compromise the modesty of the

speaker, is delivered briefly, and, as it were, _parenthetically_; as in

those few but pregnant words, in which the man in the old 'Nut-brown

Maid' rather intimates than reveals his unsuspected high birth to the

woman:--

Now understand, to Westmorland,

_Which is my heritage_,

I will you bring, and with a ring,

By way of marriage,

I will you take, and Lady make.

Turn we to the version of it, ten times diluted, of dear Mat. Prior--in

his own way unequalled, and a poet now-a-days too much neglected--"In

me," quoth Henry, addressing the astounded Emma--with a flourish and an

attitude, as we may conceive:--

In me behold the potent Edgar's heir,

Illustrious Earl! him terrible in war,

Let Loire confess.

And with a deal of skimble-skamble stuff, as Hotspur would term it,

more, presents the Lady with a full and true enumeration of his Papa's

rent-roll in the fat soil by Deva.

But of all parentheses, (not to quit the topic too suddenly,) commend me

to that most significant one, at the commencement of the old popular

ballad of Fair Rosamund:--

When good King Henry ruled this land,

The second of that name,

Now mark--

(Besides the Queen) he dearly loved

A fair and comely dame.

There is great virtue in this _besides_.

* * * * *

Amidst the complaints of the wide spread of infidelity among us, it is

consolatory that a sect is sprung up in the heart of the metropolis, and

is daily on the increase, of teachers of that healing doctrine, which

Pope upheld, and against which Voltaire directed his envenomed wit. We

mean those practical preachers of optimism, or the belief that _Whatever

is is best_--the Cads of Omnibuses; who, from their little back

pulpits--not once in three or four hours, as those proclaimers of "God

and his prophet" in Mussulman countries; but every minute, at the entry

or exit of a brief passenger, are heard, in an almost prophetic tone, to

exclaim--(Wisdom crying out, as it were, in the streets,)--ALL'S RIGHT.

* * * * *

Advice is not so commonly thrown away as is imagined. We seek it in

difficulties. But, in common speech, we are apt to confound with it

_admonition_; as when a friend reminds one that drink is prejudicial to

the health, &c. We do not care to be told of that which we know better

than the good man that admonishes. M---- sent to his friend L----, who

is no water-drinker, a twopenny tract 'Against the Use of Fermented

Liquors.' L---- acknowledged the obligation, as far as to _twopence_.

Penotier's advice was the safest after all:

"I advised him----"

But I must tell you. The dear, good-meaning, no-thinking creature, had

been dumb-founding a company of us with a detail of inextricable

difficulties, in which the circumstances of an acquaintance of his were

involved. No clue of light offered itself. He grew more and more misty

as he proceeded. We pitied his friend, and thought,

God help the man so wrapt in error's endless maze:

when, suddenly brightening up his placid countenance, like one that had

found out a riddle, and looked to have the solution admired, "At last,"

said he, "I advised him----"

Here he paused, and here we were again interminably thrown back. By no

possible guess could any of us aim at the drift of the meaning he was

about to be delivered of. "I advised him," he repeated, "to have some

_advice_ upon the subject." A general approbation followed; and it was

unanimously agreed, that, under all the circumstances of the case, no

sounder or more judicious counsel could have been given.

A laxity pervades the popular use of words. Parson W---- is not quite so

continent as Diana, yet prettily dissembleth his frailty. Is Parson

W---- therefore a _hypocrite_? I think _not_. Where the concealment of a

vice is less pernicious than the bare-faced publication of it would be,

no additional delinquency is incurred in the secrecy. Parson W---- is

simply an immoral clergyman. But if Parson W---- were to be for ever

haranguing on the opposite virtue,--choosing for his perpetual text, in

preference to all other pulpit topics, the remarkable resistance

recorded in the 39th of Exodus--dwelling, moreover, and dilating upon

it--then Parson W---- might be reasonably suspected of hypocrisy. But

Parson W---- rarely diverteth into such line of argument, or toucheth it

briefly. His ordinary topics are fetched from "obedience to the powers

that are"--"submission to the civil magistrate in all commands that are

not absolutely unlawful;" on which he can delight to expatiate with

equal fervour and sincerity. Again, to _despise_ a person is properly to

_look down_ upon him with none, or the least possible emotion. But when

Clementina, who has lately lost her lover, with bosom heaving, eyes

flashing, and her whole frame in agitation, pronounces, with a peculiar

emphasis, that she "_despises_ the fellow," depend upon it that he is

not quite so despicable in her eyes as she would have us imagine.--One

more instance:--If we must naturalize that portentous phrase, _a

truism_, it were well that we limited the use of it. Every commonplace

or trite observation is not a truism. For example: A good name helps a

man on in the world. This is nothing but a simple truth, however

hackneyed. It has a distinct subject and predicate. But when the thing

predicated is involved in the term of the subject, and so necessarily

involved that by no possible conception they can be separated, then it

becomes a truism, as to say, A good name is a proof of a man's

estimation in the world. We seem to be saying something when we say

nothing. I was describing to F---- some knavish tricks of a mutual

friend of ours. "If he did so and so," was the reply, "he cannot be an

honest man." Here was a genuine truism--truth upon truth--inference and

proposition identical; or rather a dictionary definition usurping the

place of an inference.

* * * * *

The vices of some men are magnificent. Compare the amours of Henry the

Eighth and Charles the Second. The Stuart had mistresses--the Tudor

_kept_ wives.

We are ashamed at sight of a monkey--somehow as we are shy of poor

relations.

C---- imagined a Caledonian compartment in Hades, where there should be

fire without sulphur.

Absurd images are sometimes irresistible. I will mention two. An

elephant in a coach-office gravely coming to have his trunk booked;--a

mermaid over a fish-kettle cooking her own tail.

It is the praise of Shakspeare, with reference to the play-writers, his

contemporaries, that he has so few revolting characters. Yet he has one

that is singularly mean and disagreeable--the King in Hamlet. Neither

has he characters of insignificance, unless the phantom that stalks over

the stage as Julius Cæsar, in the play of that name, may be accounted

one. Neither has he envious characters, excepting the short part of Don

John, in Much Ado about Nothing. Neither has he unentertaining

characters, if we except Parolles, and the little that there is of the

Clown, in All's Well that Ends Well.

It would settle the dispute, as to whether Shakspeare intended Othello

for a jealous character, to consider how differently we are affected

towards him, and for Leontes in the Winter's Tale. Leontes _is_ that

character. Othello's fault was simply credulity.

Is it possible that Shakspeare should never have read Homer, in

Chapman's version at least? If he had read it, could he mean to

_travesty_ it in the parts of those big boobies, Ajax and Achilles?

Ulysses, Nestor, and Agamemnon, are true to their parts in the Iliad:

they are gentlemen at least. Thersites, though unamusing, is fairly

deducible from it. Troilus and Cressida are a fine graft upon it. But

those two big bulks----

It is a desideratum in works that treat _de re culinariâ_, that we have

no rationale of sauces, or theory of mixed flavours; as to show why

cabbage is reprehensible with roast beef, laudable with bacon; why the

haunch of mutton seeks the alliance of currant jelly, the shoulder

civilly declineth it; why loin of veal (a pretty problem), being itself

unctuous, seeketh the adventitious lubricity of melted butter; and why

the same part in pork, not more oleaginous, abhorreth from it; why the

French bean sympathizes with the flesh of deer; why salt fish points to

parsnip, brawn makes a dead set at mustard; why cats prefer valerian to

hearts-ease, old ladies _vice versâ_--though this is rather travelling

out of the road of the dietetics, and may be thought a question more

curious than relevant;--why salmon (a strong sapor _per se_,) fortifieth

its condition with the mighty lobster sauce, whose embraces are fatal to

the delicater relish of the turbot; why oysters in death rise up against

the contamination of brown sugar, while they are posthumously amorous of

vinegar; why the sour mango and the sweet jam [? yam] by turns court,

and are accepted by, the compliable mutton hash--she not yet decidedly

declaring for either. We are as yet but in the empirical stage of

cookery. We feed ignorantly, and want to be able to give a reason of the

relish that is in us; so that if Nature should furnish us with a new

meat, or be prodigally pleased to restore the phœnix, upon a _given_

flavour, we might be able to pronounce instantly, on philosophical

principles, what the sauce to it should be--what the curious adjuncts.

THE DEATH OF COLERIDGE

IN THE ALBUM OF MR. KEYMER

(1834)

When I heard of the death of Coleridge, it was without grief. It seemed

to me that he long had been on the confines of the next world,--that he

had a hunger for eternity. I grieved then that I could not grieve. But

since, I feel how great a part he was of me. His great and dear spirit

haunts me. I cannot think a thought, I cannot make a criticism on men or

books, without an ineffectual turning and reference to him. He was the

proof and touchstone of all my cogitations. He was a Grecian (or in the

first form) at Christ's Hospital, where I was deputy Grecian; and the

same subordination and deference to him I have preserved through a

life-long acquaintance. Great in his writings, he was greatest in his

conversation. In him was disproved that old maxim, that we should allow

every one his share of talk. He would talk from morn to dewy eve, nor

cease till far midnight, yet who ever would interrupt him,--who would

obstruct that continuous flow of converse, fetched from Helicon or Zion?

He had the tact of making the unintelligible seem plain. Many who read

the abstruser parts of his "Friend" would complain that his works did

not answer to his spoken wisdom. They were identical. But he had a tone

in oral delivery, which seemed to convey sense to those who were

otherwise imperfect recipients. He was my fifty years old friend without

a dissension. Never saw I his likeness, nor probably the world can see

again. I seem to love the house he died at more passionately than when

he lived. I love the faithful Gilmans more than while they exercised

their virtues towards him living. What was his mansion is consecrated to

me a chapel.

CHS. LAMB.

EDMONTON, _November 21, 1834_.

CUPID'S REVENGE

(_Date unknown_)

Leontius, Duke of Lycia, who in times past had borne the character of a

wise and just governor, and was endeared to all ranks of his subjects,

in his latter days fell into a sort of dotage, which manifested itself

in an extravagant fondness for his daughter Hidaspes. This young maiden,

with the Prince Leucippus, her brother, were the only remembrances left

to him of a deceased and beloved consort. For _her_ nothing was thought

too precious. Existence was of no value to him but as it afforded

opportunities of gratifying her wishes. To be instrumental in relieving

her from the least little pain, or grief, he would have lavished his

treasures to the giving away of the one half of his dukedom.

All this deference on the part of the parent had yet no power upon the

mind of the daughter to move her at any time to solicit any unbecoming

suit, or to disturb the even tenor of her thoughts. The humility and

dutifulness of her carriage seemed to keep pace with his apparent

willingness to release her from the obligations of either. She might

have satisfied her wildest humors and caprices; but in truth no such

troublesome guests found harbor in the bosom of the quiet and unaspiring

maiden.

Thus far the prudence of the Princess served to counteract any ill

effects which this ungovernable partiality in a parent was calculated to

produce in a less virtuous nature than Hidaspes's; and this foible of

the duke's, so long as no evil resulted from it, was passed over by the

courtiers as a piece of harmless frenzy.

But upon a solemn day--a sad one as it proved for Lycia--when the

returning anniversary of the Princess's birth was kept with

extraordinary rejoicings, the infatuated father set no bounds to his

folly, but would have his subjects to do homage to her for that day, as

to their natural sovereign; as if he, indeed, had been dead, and she, to

the exclusion of the male succession, was become the rightful ruler of

Lycia. He saluted her by the style of Duchess; and with a terrible oath,

in the presence of his nobles, he confirmed to her the grant of all

things whatsoever that she should demand on that day, and for the six

next following; and if she should ask any thing the execution of which

must be deferred until after his death, he pronounced a dreadful curse

upon his son and successor, if he failed to see to the performance of

it.

Thus encouraged, the Princess stepped forth with a modest boldness, and,

as if assured of no denial, spake as follows:

But before we acquaint you with the purport of her speech, we must

premise, that in the land of Lycia, which was at that time pagan, above

all their other gods the inhabitants did in an especial manner adore the

deity who was supposed to have influence in the disposing of people's

affections in _love_. Him, by the name of God Cupid, they feigned to be

a _beautiful boy_, and _winged_, as indeed, between young persons these

frantic passions are usually least under constraint; while the wings

might signify the haste with which these ill-judged attachments are

commonly dissolved, and do indeed go away as lightly as they come,

flying away in an instant to light upon some newer fancy. They painted

him _blindfolded_, because these silly affections of lovers make them

blind to the defects of the beloved object, which every one is

quick-sighted enough to discover but themselves; or because love is for

the most part led blindly, rather than directed by the open eye of the

judgment, in the hasty choice of a mate. Yet, with that inconsistency of

attributes with which the heathen people commonly over-complimented

their deities, this blind love, this Cupid, they figured with a bow and

arrows; and, being sightless, they yet feigned him to be a notable

archer and an unerring marksman. No heart was supposed to be proof

against the point of his inevitable dart. By such incredible fictions

did these poor pagans make a shift to excuse their vanities, and to give

a sanction to their irregular affections, under the notion that love was

irresistible; whereas, in a well-regulated mind, these amorous conceits

either find no place at all, or, having gained a footing, are easily

stifled in the beginning by a wise and manly resolution.

This frenzy in the people had long been a source of disquiet to the

discreet Princess, and many were the conferences she had held with the

virtuous Prince, her brother, as to the best mode of taking off the

minds of the Lycians from this vain superstition. An occasion, furnished

by the blind grant of the old Duke, their father, seemed now to present

itself.

The courtiers, then, being assembled to hear the demand which the

Princess should make, began to conjecture, each one according to the

bent of his own disposition, what the thing would be that she should ask

for. One said, "Now surely she will ask to have the disposal of the

revenues of some wealthy province, to lay them out--as was the manner of

Eastern princesses--in costly dresses and jewels becoming a lady of so

great expectancies." Another thought that she would seek an extension of

power, as women naturally love rule and dominion. But the most part were

in hope that she was about to beg the hand of some neighbor prince in

marriage, who, by the wealth and contiguity of his dominions, might add

strength and safety to the realm of Lycia. But in none of these things

was the expectation of these crafty and worldly-minded courtiers

gratified. For Hidaspes, first making lowly obeisance to her father, and

thanking him on bended knees for so great grace conferred upon

her--according to a plan preconcerted with Leucippus--made suit as

follows:

"Your loving care of me, O princely father, by which in my tenderest age

you made up to me for the loss of a mother at those years when I was

scarcely able to comprehend the misfortune, and your bounties to me ever

since, have left me nothing to ask for myself, as wanting and desiring

nothing. But for the people whom you govern I beg and desire a boon. It

is known to all nations that the men of Lycia are noted for a vain and

fruitless superstition--the more hateful as it bears a show of true

religion, but is indeed nothing more than a self-pleasing and bold

wantonness. Many ages before this, when every man had taken to himself a

trade, as hating idleness far worse than death, some one that gave

himself to sloth and wine, finding himself by his neighbours rebuked for

his unprofitable life, framed to himself a God whom he pretended to obey

in his dishonesty; and, for a name, he called him Cupid. This God of

merely man's creating--as the nature of man is ever credulous of any

vice which takes part with his dissolute conditions--quickly found

followers enough. They multiplied in every age, especially among your

Lycians, who to this day remain adorers of this drowsy Deity, who

certainly was first invented in drink, as sloth and luxury are commonly

the first movers in these idle love-passions. This _winged Boy_--for so

they fancy him--has his sacrifices, his loose Images set up in the land

through all the villages--nay, your own sacred palace is not exempt from

them--to the scandal of sound devotion and dishonour of the true

Deities, which are only they who give good gifts to man--as Ceres, who

gives us corn; the planter of the olive, Pallas; Neptune, who directs

the track of ships over the great ocean, and binds distant lands

together in friendly commerce; the inventor of medicine and music,

Apollo; and the cloud-compelling Thunderer of Olympus. Whereas the gifts

of this idle Deity--if, indeed, he have a being at all out of the brain

of his frantic worshipers, usually prove destructive and pernicious. My

suit, then, is, that this unseemly Idol throughout the land be plucked

down and cast into the fire; and that the adoring of the same may be

prohibited on pain of death to any of your subjects henceforth found so

offending."

Leontius, startled at this unexpected demand from the Princess, with

tears besought her to ask some wiser thing, and not to bring down upon

herself and him the indignation of so great a God.

"There is no such God as you dream of," said then Leucippus, boldly, who

had hitherto forborne to second the petition of the Princess; "but a

vain opinion of him has filled the land with love and wantonness. Every

young man and maiden that feel the least desire to one another, dare in

no case to suppress it, for they think it to be Cupid's motion, and that

he is a God!"

Thus pressed by the solicitations of both his children, and fearing the

oath which he had taken, in an evil hour the misgiving father consented;

and a proclamation was sent throughout all the provinces for the putting

down of the Idol, and the suppression of the established Cupid-worship.

Notable, you may be sure, was the stir made in all places among the

priests, and among the artificers in gold, in silver, or in marble; who

made a gainful trade, either in serving at the altar or in the

manufacture of the images no longer to be tolerated. The cry was

clamorous as _that_ at Ephesus, when a kindred Idol was in danger; for

"great had been Cupid of the Lycians." Nevertheless the power of the

Duke, backed by the power of his more popular children, prevailed; and

the destruction of every vestige of the old religion was but as the work

of one day throughout the country.

And now, as the Pagan chronicles of Lycia inform us, the displeasure of

Cupid went out--the displeasure of a great God--flying through all the

dukedom, and sowing evils. But upon the first movers of the profanation

his angry hand lay heaviest, and there was imposed upon them a strange

misery, that all might know that Cupid's revenge was mighty. With his

arrows hotter than plagues, or than his own anger, did he fiercely right

himself; nor could the prayers of a few concealed worshipers, nor the

smoke arising from an altar here and there which had escaped the general

overthrow, avert his wrath, or make him cease from vengeance, until he

had made of the once flourishing country of Lycia a most wretched land.

He sent no famines--he let loose no cruel wild beasts among

them--inflictions, with one or other of which the rest of the Olympian

deities are fabled to have visited the nations under their

displeasure--but took a nearer course of his own, and his invisible

arrows went to the _moral heart_ of Lycia, infecting and filling court

and country with desires of unlawful marriages, unheard-of and monstrous

affections, prodigious and misbecoming unions.

The symptoms were first visible in the changed bosom of Hidaspes. This

exemplary maiden--whose cold modesty, almost to a failing, had

discouraged the addresses of so many princely suitors that had sought

her hand in marriage--by the venom of this inward pestilence came on a

sudden to cast eyes of affection upon a mean and deformed creature,

Zoilus by name, who was a dwarf, and lived about the palace, the common

jest of the courtiers. In her besotted eyes he was grown a goodly

gentleman. And to her maidens, when any of them reproached him with the

defect of his shape in her hearing, she would reply that, "to them,

indeed, he might appear defective, and unlike a man, as, indeed, no man

was like unto him, for in form and complexion he was beyond painting. He

is like," she said, "to nothing that we have seen; yet he doth resemble

Apollo, as I have fancied him, when, rising in the east, he bestirs

himself, and shakes day-light from his hair." And, overcome with a

passion which was heavier than she could bear, she confessed herself a

wretched creature, and implored forgiveness of God Cupid, whom she had

provoked, and, if possible, that he would grant it to her, that she

might enjoy her love. Nay, she would court this piece of deformity to

his face; and when the wretch, supposing it to be done in mockery, has

said that he could wish himself more ill-shaped than he was, so it could

contribute to make her Grace merry, she would reply, "Oh, think not that

I jest! unless it be a jest not to esteem my life in comparison with

thine--to hang a thousand kisses in an hour upon those lips--unless it

be a jest to vow that I am willing to become your wife, and to take

obedience upon me." And by his "own white hand," taking it in hers--so

strong was the delusion--she besought him to swear to marry her.

The term had not yet expired of the seven days within which the doting

Duke had sworn to fulfil her will, when, in pursuance of this frenzy,

she presented herself before her father, leading in the dwarf by the

hand, and, in the face of all the courtiers, solemnly demanding his hand

in marriage. And when the apish creature made show of blushing at the

unmerited honour, she, to comfort him, bade him not to be ashamed, for

"in her eyes he was worth a kingdom."

And now, too late, did the fond father repent him of his dotage. But

when by no importunity he could prevail upon her to desist from her

suit, for his oath's sake he must needs consent to the marriage. But the

ceremony was no sooner, to the derision of all present, performed, than,

with the just feelings of an outraged parent, he commanded the head of

the presumptuous bridegroom to be stricken off, and committed the

distracted princess close prisoner to her chamber, where, after many

deadly swoonings, with intermingled outcries upon the cruelty of her

father, she, in no long time after, died, making ineffectual appeals, to

the last, to the mercy of the offended Power--the Power that had laid

its heavy hand upon her, to the bereavement of her good judgment first,

and, finally, to the extinction of a life that might have proved a

blessing to Lycia.

Leontius had scarcely time to be sensible of her danger before a fresh

cause for mourning overtook him. His son Leucippus, who had hitherto

been a pattern of strict life and modesty, was stricken with a second

arrow from the Deity, offended for his overturned altars, in which the

prince had been a chief instrument. The God caused his heart to fall

away, and his crazed fancy to be smitten with the excelling beauty of a

wicked widow, by name Bacha. This woman, in the first days of her

mourning for her husband, by her dissembling tears and affected coyness

had drawn Leucippus so cunningly into her snares, that, before she would

grant him a return of love, she extorted from the easy-hearted prince a

contract of marriage, to be fulfilled in the event of his father's

death. This guilty intercourse, which they covered with the name of

marriage, was not carried with such secrecy but that a rumor of it ran

about the palace; and by some officious courtier was brought to the ears

of the old Duke, who, to satisfy himself of the truth, came hastily to

the house of Bacha, where he found his son courting. Taking the Prince

to task roundly, he sternly asked who that creature was that had

bewitched him out of his honor thus. Then Bacha, pretending ignorance of

the Duke's person, haughtily demanded of Leucippus what saucy old man

that was, that without leave had burst into the house of an afflicted

widow to hinder her paying her tears (as she pretended) to the dead.

Then the Duke declaring himself, and threatening her for having

corrupted his son, giving her the reproachful terms of witch and

sorceress, Leucippus mildly answered that he "did her wrong." The bad

woman, imagining that the Prince for very fear would not betray their

secret, now conceived a project of monstrous wickedness, which was no

less than to insnare the father with the same arts which had subdued the

son; that she might no longer be a concealed wife, nor a princess only

under cover, but by a union with the old man become at once the true and

acknowledged Duchess of Lycia. In a posture of humility she confessed

her ignorance of the Duke's quality, but, now she knew it, she besought

his pardon for her wild speeches, which proceeded, she said, from a

distempered head, which the loss of her dear husband had affected. He

might command her life, she told him, which was now of small value to

her. The tears which had accompanied her words, and her mourning weeds

(which, for a blind to the world, she had not yet cast off) heightening

her beauty, gave a credence to her protestations of her innocence. But

the duke continuing to assail her with reproaches, with a matchless

confidence, assuming the air of injured virtue, in a somewhat lofty tone

she replied, that, though he were her sovereign, to whom in any lawful

cause she was bound to submit, yet, if he sought to take away her honor,

she stood up to defy him. _That_, she said, was a jewel dearer than any

he could give her, which so long as she should keep she should esteem

herself richer than all the Princes of the earth that were without it.

If the Prince, his son, knew any thing to her dishonor, let him tell it.

And here she challenged Leucippus before his father to speak the worst

of her. If he would, however, sacrifice a woman's character to please an

unjust humor of the Duke's, she saw no remedy, she said, now _he_ was

dead (meaning her late husband) that with his life would have defended

her reputation.

Thus appealed to, Leucippus, who had stood a while astonished at her

confident falsehoods, though ignorant of the full drift of them,

considering that not the reputation only, but probably the life of a

woman whom he had so loved, and who had made such sacrifices to him of

love and beauty, depended upon his absolute concealment of their

contract, framed his mouth to a compassionate untruth, and with solemn

asseverations confirmed to his father her assurances of her innocence.

He denied not that with rich gifts he had assailed her virtue, but had

found her relentless to his solicitations; that gold nor greatness had

any power over her. Nay, so far he went on to give force to the

protestations of this artful woman, that he confessed to having offered

marriage to her, which she, who scorned to listen to any second wedlock,

had rejected.