Sky-Blue. The habit of talking sentiment, in which the Sky-Blue commonly
indulges, is in general sufficiently annoying; but in the person of Eva,
far be it from us to apply to it such an epithet. Eva is always in
heroics: she never speaks a sentence which is not fit to go into a
German romance. All this sits very well upon youth and beauty, but in
age and ugliness it is insufferable. Eva has a pretty pair of blue eyes,
a finely polished neck, an enchanting white arm, and a voice withal,
which is never heard but in a whisper, an aria, or a sigh. She has, in
short, such a talent at turning our brains, that our Secretary has not
inappositely styled her “Blue Ruin.”
OLD BOOTS.
“Whose conceit
Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich
To hear the wooden dialogue and sound
’Twixt his stretched footing and the scaffoldage.”
SHAKESPEARE.
Ι have got a pair of old boots.
I bought them at Exeter last summer, and they withstood all the malice
of Devonshire paviours in a most inconceivable style. The leather was of
a most editorial consistency, and the sole resembled a quarto. It was
in them that I revisited the desolate habitation of my infancy; it was
their heavy clanging sound which echoed through those deserted
apartments. It was in them, too, that I tottered upon the perilous
summit of the Ness; and it was in them that I got wet to the knees in
the disagreeable tempest which waited upon the Dawlish regatta. How many
pleasant moments, how many dear friends, do they recall to my
recollection! It was with their ponderous solidity that I astonished the
weak nerves of one, and trod upon the weak toes of another. Every inch
of them, old and _emeriti_ as they are, is pregnant with some
delightful, some amiable sensation. It was in them that I excogitated
the first number of the _Etonian_--they shall live to look upon the
last! I cannot say they were ever very elegant in shape or texture. Like
the genius of my friend Swinburne, they possessed more intrinsic
strength than outward polish. They served me well, however, and
travelled with me to town.
I happened to put them on one wet morning in April. Whatever form or
fashion they formerly boasted was altogether extinct; they were as
shapeless as an unlicked cub, and as dusky as a cloud on a November
morning. I beheld their fallen appearance with some dismay. “I shall be
stared at,” I said; “I had better take them off!” But I thought of their
former services, and resolved to keep them on.
They had brought their plated heels from the country, and they made a
confounded noise upon the pavement as I walked along. Ding, dong, they
went at every step, as if I carried a belfry swung at my toes. “This is
a disagreeable sort of accompaniment,” I said. “I had better dismiss the
musicians.” Just at that moment a young baronet passed me, attended by a
fine dog. The dog was in high spirits, and made rather too much noise
for the contemplative mood of his master. “Silence, Cæsar! Be quiet,
Cæsar!” No, it was all in vain, and Cæsar was kicked into the gutter.
“That was cruel!” I said, “to dismiss an old servant, because he was a
note too loud! I think I will keep my boots!”
I walked in the Park with Golightly. By the side of my stable footcase
his neat and dapper instep cut a peculiarly smart figure; it was a
Molossus _tête-à-tête_ with a Pyrrhic; an Etonian’s skiff moored
alongside of a coal-barge. Golightly’s meditations seemed to be of the
same cast; he once or twice turned his eyes to the ground, as I thought
with no very complacent aspect. “My friends grow ashamed of me,” I said
to myself; “I must part with my boots!” As I made up my mind to the
sacrifice, Lady Eglantine met us, with her husband. She was constantly
looking another way, nodding familiarly to the young men she met, and
endeavouring to convince the world how thoroughly she despised the lump
of earth which she was obliged to drag after her. “There is a woman,”
said Frederick, “who married Sir John for his money, and has not the
sense to appear contented with the bargain she has made. What can be
more silly than to look down thus upon a man of sterling worth, because
he happened to be born a hundred miles from the metropolis?” “What can
be more silly?” I repeated inwardly; “I will never look down on my boots
again!”
We continued our walk, and Golightly began his usual course of
strictures upon the place and the company. Hurried away by the constant
flow of jest and wildness with which he embellishes his sketches, I soon
forgot both the boots, which had been the theme of my reflections, and
the moral lessons which the subject had produced. There was an awkward
stone in the way! Oh my unfortunate heels! I broke down terribly, and
was very near bringing my companion after me. I rose, and went on in
great dudgeon. “This will never do,” I muttered; “this will never do! I
must positively cashier my boots!” I looked up: an interesting girl was
passing, leaning on the arm of a young man, whose face I thought I
recognized. She looked pale and feeble; and, when my friend bowed to her
with unusual attention, she seemed embarrassed by the civility. “That is
Anna Leith,” said Golightly; “she made an imprudent match with that
young man about a year ago, and her father has refused to see her ever
since. Poor girl! She is in a rapid decline, and the remedies of her
physicians have no effect upon a broken spirit. I would never cast off a
beloved object for a single false step!”
“I will keep my boots,” I exclaimed: “though they make a thousand!”
ON THE DIVINITIES OF THE ANCIENTS.
To a person inquiring into the manners and customs of ancient nations,
the religion which they professed and the gods which they worshipped
will always appear objects of the greatest curiosity. And this will not
be wondered at when we remember how intimately the religion of a State
must necessarily be connected with its civil policy. In former times,
when ignorance and superstition flourished side by side, the aid of a
divinity was required for the carrying into effect of the most frivolous
designs. No poem could succeed until the Muses were called upon in a
well-rounded hexameter, no war could prosper until Mars was propitiated
by a sufficiency of roast beef. The ancients appear to have had some
faint idea of the ubiquity of the Deity; but, not comprehending how such
a faculty had been vested in a single divinity, they formed to
themselves a set of superior powers, calculated to attend upon every
emergency, from Jupiter, the god of thunder, to Tussis, the god of
coughing. It is therefore evident that the consideration of the
religious ideas of the ancients must be inseparably united with the
study of the other parts of their history.
In the remarks which I am about to make upon this subject, I must
request that one or two preliminaries may be kept in mind. First, that
the characters of the constant supporters of the _Etonian_ may not be
implicated in the blunders of an occasional correspondent; and,
secondly, that I may not be understood as endeavouring to compose a
regular essay or treatise upon the topic which is before me. I have no
more the inclination than I have the ability to attempt such a task. The
observations which I shall have occasion to make will be merely the
unripe fruit of an hour of leisure; merely a few unconnected hints,
thrown out at random for your amusement, Mr. Editor, and that of my
fellow-citizens. If they are pleased with them, they will thank me, and
I am sufficiently repaid: if not--_n’importe_--they will at least give
me credit for good intentions.
The first point which I shall notice is the opinion which the ancients
entertained of the power and authority of their heavenly rulers. And as
the study of fallen religions is principally useful as it shows to us
the superiority of that religion which can never fall, let us first see
upon what footing Christianity stands in this respect. In my eyes, and
in the eyes of every one upon whom the light of revelation has dawned,
the mention of a God presupposes an idea of infinite, irresistible,
indisputable power. One cannot form the most remote conception of a
deity whose powers or existence should be in any way limited. One of the
distinguishing attributes of Christianity is that with its God nothing
is impossible. He is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent. Can we say the
same of the gods of the heathen--“the gods of wood and stone, the work
of men’s hands?”
Alas! alas! They raised ghosts, and they raised tempests; they scolded,
and they thundered; they drank nectar, and drove doves: but when
anything serious was to be done--when a battle was to be decided, or an
empire overthrown, they were frequently as powerless to slay or to save
as the sceptre which they wielded or the cloud which they bestrode. Let
us call before us some of the most formidable, and examine into their
pretensions to Olympus.
Come down, then, Jupiter, from the little pedestal on which I have
placed your plaster effigy! Come down, father of men and gods,
counsel-giving, wide-thundering, cloud-compelling! Come down, thou who
overthrowest the Titans and abusest thy wife; thou who art so fond of
the voice of prayer and the smoke of hecatombs; thou who hast so many
epithets and so many sons; thou who governest Olympus and meritest
Bridewell! Where are thy frowns and thy nods? thy muscles and thy
sinews? thy darts and thy decrees? Where are the looks which appal--the
blows which destroy? Where is the unbroken chain--the insatiable
vulture? Where are the Cyclopes who forge the lightning, and the poets
who forge the Cyclopes? Alas! Jupiter, amidst all thy terrors, in heaven
or on Ida, in feasting or in wrath, in poetry or in prose, thou wert a
quack, Jupiter, a most contemptible quack; so utterly destitute of
everything that could ensure respect; so miserably deficient in
everything that could inspire fear; such a pitiful compound of
ignorance and knowledge, of strength and imbecility, of vanity and
vice--that if the days of thy sovereignty could return again--if thou
couldst again be fed upon sacrifice and flattery, I swear by thine own
beard I would as soon be an Irus as a Jupiter.
The truth is that the religion of the ancients, as far as it can be
collected from their writings, partook in no small degree of
predestination. Yet it is enveloped in so much obscurity, that it is
very difficult for us--nay, it might have been very difficult for
them--to define where the supremacy of fate should stop and the
authority of the gods commence. We find some unfortunate divinity
perpetually endeavouring to overthrow some State which is destined to
stand, or to destroy some hero who is destined to live; although the
said divinity has an innate perception that his struggles in either
instance must eventually be fruitless. I know that these ideas may be
said to be founded solely on the marvellous fictions of the poets; but,
let me ask, would Diomedes have ever inflicted a wound upon Mars, if
Homer had seen in Mars a formidable being? or would Juno have ever
strutted and stormed through the Æneid, if Virgil had cared a sixpence
for her displeasure? When I see these liberties taken with the gods in
writing, I feel convinced that equal liberties will be taken with them
in life; when I find an immortal and an invincible being knocked on the
head or run through the belly at the mercy of a terrestrial wit, I
naturally conclude that in the country where such a phenomenon takes
place few persons will boggle at a perjury from the apprehension of a
thunder-bolt. But this is not all. There seems to have existed an idea
that a time was approaching when the great offspring of Saturn would be
hurled down from the seat he occupied, and subjected to an ignominious
destiny, if not to utter annihilation. This is one of the most singular
and unaccountable points in their system of faith. Without going into
discussions, to which I am unequal, upon the origin and import of this
notion, I must express my surprise at the blindness of those who dressed
up a figure loaded with all these debilities as their supreme power, and
installed him in the seat of universal dominion.
As I have been making allusions to the introduction of the gods in the
battles of the Epics, I shall proceed to say a few words upon the
subject. The worthy gentry of Olympus, resembling men in their vices,
their passions, their liability to pain, and their delight in carnage,
made a very tolerable figure in a fair stand-up fight. Their characters
could suffer very little from their making use of brazen arms, riding in
wooden chariots, and wrestling with antagonists of mere flesh and blood.
Mars, to be sure, would have done better if he had refrained from
howling; and Juno would not have lost in dignity if she had been a
little more cautious in boxing the ears of Diana. But, upon the whole,
these people are very good matter for the poet; and I would as lief meet
them in an hexameter as in a temple.
But it is a very different thing when the person of the only true God is
to be introduced in a poem. A pigmy in poetry may trifle with the
thunders of Jupiter; but a Hercules should beware how he handles the
terrors of Jehovah. A rhymer may talk what nonsense he pleases of a
mythology which consists of fiction and tinsel; but he should be afraid
to touch upon a theme in which there is truth, and eternity, and power.
It is for this reason that I can never read without disgust those
passages of Tasso in which the divine agency is degraded to the level of
the machinery of the poem.
When, however, the description falls into the hands of one who is able
to do justice to it, see how the glories of the heathen mythology sink
before the effulgence of the living God. Search the most celebrated
descriptions of heathen writers; and where, in the brightest moments of
inspiration, will you find a passage that can for a moment be compared
with that of the Psalmist?
“The earth trembled and quaked; the very foundations of the hills shook,
and were removed, because He was wrath. There went a smoke out in His
presence, and a consuming fire out of His mouth, so that coals were
kindled at it. He bowed the heavens also and came down, and it was dark
under His feet. He rode upon the cherubims and did fly: He came flying
upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his secret place; His
pavilion round about Him with dark water, and thick clouds to cover Him.
At the brightness of his presence His clouds removed; hailstones and
coals of fire. The Lord also thundered out of heaven, and the Highest
gave His thunder; hailstones and coals of fire. He sent out His arrows
and scattered them; He cast forth lightnings and destroyed them. The
springs of waters were seen, and the foundations of the round world were
discovered, at Thy chiding, Ο Lord, at the blasting of the breath of Thy
displeasure.”
When I look at the famous nod of Jupiter--
Ἧ, καὶ κυανέησιν ἐπ’ ὀφρύσι νεῦσε Κρονίων,
Ἀμβρόσιαι δ’ ἄρα χαῖται ἐπεῥῤώσαντο ἄνακτος
Κρατὸς ἀπ’ ἀθανάτοιο· μέγαν δ’ ἐλέλιξεν Ὄλυμπον--
I have before me a distinct image of a handsome terrible-looking man,
sitting on a throne, and shaking his head; but when I read the passage
which I have quoted above, I find no clear image represented; I feel
only a dark and undefinable sensation of awe--a consciousness of the
presence of the Deity, visible, yet clothed with darkness as with a
veil.
Look now at the terrible magnificence with which Ezekiel has
overshadowed the Almighty. After a gorgeous description of the attendant
ministers, he says--
“And there was a voice from the firmament that was over their heads,
when they stood and had let down their wings. And above the firmament
that was over their heads, was the likeness of a throne, as the
appearance of a sapphire stone, and upon the likeness of the throne was
the likeness as the appearance of a man upon it. And I saw as the colour
of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the
appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his
loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had
brightness round about. As the appearance of the bow that is in the
cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round
about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord.
And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that
spake.”
My quotations are running to a great length; nevertheless I cannot
refrain from transcribing the splendid description of the Messiah, in
which our own Milton has united the above two passages:--
Forth rushed with whirlwind sound
The chariot of Paternal Deity,
Flashing thick flames, wheel within wheel withdrawn
Itself instinct with spirit, but convoyed
By four cherubick shapes; four faces each
Had wondrous; as with stars their bodies all
And wings were set with eyes, with eyes the wheels
Of beryl, and careering fires between;
Over their heads a crystal firmament,
Whereon a sapphire throne inlaid with pure
Amber, and colours of the showery arch.
He in celestial panoply all armed
Of radiant Urim, work divinely wrought,
Ascended; at his right hand Victory
Sate eagle-winged; beside him hung his bow
And quiver, with three-bolted thunder stored;
And from about him fierce effusion rolled
Of smoke and bickering flame, and sparkles dire.
Attended with ten thousand thousand saints
He onward came; far off his coming shone;
And twenty thousand (I their number heard)
Chariots of God, half on each hand were seen.
He on the wings of cherub rode sublime,
On the crystalline sky in sapphire throned.
After having transcribed three such passages as these, I am in no mind
to return at present to the dirt and filth of Pagan superstition, and I
shall hasten to a conclusion.
I have been digressing from my original proposition, until at last I
have left the Divinities of the Ancients, and set to work at proving
that Homer and Virgil are far inferior to David, Ezekiel, and Milton,
which after all is a very easy task, and not very new. I intended to
have made this a very learned paper, to have talked much of Egypt, a
little of M. Belzoni, and several other matters which I have not time to
enumerate. Here, however, is the fruit of my labours; I am too lazy, or
too busy, to alter, or add, or erase; in thus rambling through five or
six pages, instead of labouring through fifty, my time has been
expended, I am sure, more pleasantly to myself, and I hope as agreeably
to my readers.
REMINISCENCES OF MY YOUTH.
“Admonitu locorum.”--CICERO.
It is the seventh day of my revisiting! The burst of almost painful
affection which came over me as I first trod upon the scene of brighter
hours, and the glow of heart and brow, which seemed like a resuscitation
of feelings and passions that have long lain dormant in
forgetfulness--these have gradually died away; but there has succeeded,
dearest spot, a mellowed fondness for you, which, were I to live an
eternity with you, would remain through that eternity imperishable. I
now am delighted to muse upon the sweetness of those recollections,
whose overpowering throb I at first could hardly endure; and love to
call up before me those imaginings, which at first rushed upon me with
the overwhelming force of a cataract. I look around me! A spirit seems
to be sitting on every house-top, lingering in every grove; incidents in
themselves the most humble, objects in themselves the most mean--like
insects preserved in amber--derive nobility and beauty from the colours
which memory has thrown around them!
There are associations in the names and the aspects of places which it
is impossible for us to restrain or subdue. Who shall gaze upon the
Capitol, and not think upon the Cæsars? Who shall roam round Stonehenge,
and not shudder at the knife of the Druids? Who shall be a sojourner in
Eastcheap, and not enjoy sweet visions of Shakespeare? My native
village! Less celebrated are the worthies whose images you recall to my
imagination, but they are recalled in colours as constant and as vivid.
How can I look upon your sports, without thinking of those who were my
companions when I joined in them? How can I listen to the voice of your
merriment, without thinking of those from whom in other days it sprung?
Before me is the tavern! The lapse of years has hardly bored an
additional excavation in its dusky window-curtain, or borrowed a single
shade from the boards of its faded sign. But its inmates have vanished;
their laughter is no longer heard in their place; and the red-brick wall
of the Ship stands before me like the cemetery of their mirth, their
wit, and their good-humour. In my youth I was wild--blame me you that
have never been so--and I loved to mingle in this scene of rustic
joviality, to listen to the remarks of untutored simplicity, to envy
those who had grown grey untainted by the corruptions of “this great
Babel,” and to feel how truly it was said,
Where ignorance is bliss,
’Tis folly to be wise.
Many years ago I looked upon these boyish pursuits with an eye very
different from that which is now cast back towards them. Many years ago,
I thought nothing disgraceful which was not incompatible with innocence
in myself and charity towards my fellow-creatures. What would you have?
I have grown more prudent, and I am not so happy.
The great room of this humble building was the curia of the village. In
it the patriarchs of the place held their nightly sittings, and
discussed ale and politics with unremitting assiduity. There was no
inebriety, no tumult, no ill-mannered brutality in their sessions;
everything was conducted with the greatest order and tranquillity; the
old men assembled with all the gravity, with all the earnestness,
perhaps with much of the wisdom, of great statesmen. Alas! ye profane
ones, ye smile. Ye look with contempt upon my rustic curia and my
weather-beaten statesmen. And what are the great ones of this earth?
Shall not the beings of a more exalted sphere contemplate with equal
scorn the wranglings of more honoured senates? You turn with disgust
from the eloquence of a Huggins or a Muggins! Look ye then to the
oratory of a Cicero, to the patriotism of a Brutus, or, if you will, to
the commanding energies of a Pitt and a Fox! Years roll on, and--what
are they?
However, call it a curia, or a club, or what ye will, custom had
established in this mansion a meeting of all the wise heads and all the
choice spirits of the hamlet. At first the members of it were very
independent of all party considerations, and each was too conscious of
his own individual merits to become a hanger-on of any more important
potentate. Whatever subject was tabled, whether it were the Holy
Alliance or the Holy Church--the taste of the new tap or the conduct of
the new member--every one said what he thought, and had no idea of
bowing to the opinion of his neighbour. In process of time, however,
this laudable spirit of liberty and equality began, as in other places,
to decline. Some of the members became idle and complaisant, others
waxed mighty and overbearing; until at last the Parliament of---- became
subservient to the will and wishes of a single ruler, and Jeremiah
Snaggs took his place in my memorandum-book as the first Dictator.