"Come like shadows--so depart."
B---- it was, I think, who suggested this subject, as well as the defence
of Guy Faux, which I urged him to execute. As, however, he would undertake
neither, I suppose I must do both--a task for which he would have been
much fitter, no less from the temerity than the felicity of his pen--
"Never so sure our rapture to create
As when it touch'd the brink of all we hate."
Compared with him, I shall, I fear, make but a common-place piece of
business of it; but I should be loth the idea was entirely lost, and
besides I may avail myself of some hints of his in the progress of it. I
am sometimes, I suspect, a better reporter of the ideas of other people
than expounder of my own. I pursue the one too far into paradox or
mysticism; the others I am not bound to follow farther than I like, or
than seems fair and reasonable.
On the question being started, A---- said, "I suppose the two first
persons you would choose to see would be the two greatest names in English
literature, Sir Isaac Newton and Mr. Locke?" In this A----, as usual,
reckoned without his host. Every one burst out a laughing at the
expression of B----'s face, in which impatience was restrained by
courtesy. "Yes, the greatest names," he stammered out hastily, "but they
were not persons--not persons."--"Not persons?" said A----, looking wise
and foolish at the same time, afraid his triumph might be premature. "That
is," rejoined B----, "not characters, you know. By Mr. Locke and Sir Isaac
Newton, you mean the Essay on the Human Understanding, and the
_Principia_, which we have to this day. Beyond their contents there is
nothing personally interesting in the men. But what we want to see any one
_bodily_ for, is when there is something peculiar, striking in the
individuals, more than we can learn from their writings, and yet are
curious to know. I dare say Locke and Newton were very like Kneller's
portraits of them. But who could paint Shakspeare?"--"Ay," retorted A----,
"there it is; then I suppose you would prefer seeing him and Milton
instead?"--"No," said B----, "neither. I have seen so much of Shakspeare
on the stage and on book-stalls, in frontispieces and on mantlepieces,
that I am quite tired of the everlasting repetition: and as to Milton's
face, the impressions that have come down to us of it I do not like; it is
too starched and puritanical; and I should be afraid of losing some of the
manna of his poetry in the leaven of his countenance and the precisian's
band and gown."--"I shall guess no more," said A----. "Who is it, then,
you would like to see 'in his habit as he lived,' if you had your choice
of the whole range of English literature?" B---- then named Sir Thomas
Brown and Fulke Greville, the friend of Sir Philip Sidney, as the two
worthies whom he should feel the greatest pleasure to encounter on the
floor of his apartment in their night-gown and slippers, and to exchange
friendly greeting with them. At this A---- laughed outright, and conceived
B---- was jesting with him; but as no one followed his example, he thought
there might be something in it, and waited for an explanation in a state
of whimsical suspense. B---- then (as well as I can remember a
conversation that passed twenty years ago;--how time slips!) went on as
follows. "The reason why I pitch upon these two authors is, that their
writings are riddles, and they themselves the most mysterious of
personages. They resemble the soothsayers of old, who dealt in dark hints
and doubtful oracles; and I should like to ask them the meaning of what no
mortal but themselves, I should suppose, can fathom. There is Dr. Johnson,
I have no curiosity, no strange uncertainty about him: he and Boswell
together have pretty well let me into the secret of what passed through
his mind. He and other writers like him are sufficiently explicit: my
friends, whose repose I should be tempted to disturb, (were it in my
power) are implicit, inextricable, inscrutable.
"And call up him who left half-told
The story of Cambuscan bold."
"When I look at that obscure but gorgeous prose-composition (the
_Urn-burial_) I seem to myself to look into a deep abyss, at the bottom of
which are hid pearls and rich treasure; or it is like a stately labyrinth
of doubt and withering speculation, and I would invoke the spirit of the
author to lead me through it. Besides, who would not be curious to see the
lineaments of a man who, having himself been twice married, wished that
mankind were propagated like trees! As to Fulke Greville, he is like
nothing but one of his own 'Prologues spoken by the ghost of an old king
of Ormus,' a truly formidable and inviting personage: his style is
apocalyptical, cabalistical, a knot worthy of such an apparition to untie;
and for the unravelling a passage or two, I would stand the brunt of an
encounter with so portentous a commentator!"--"I am afraid in that case,"
said A----, "that if the mystery were once cleared up, the merit might be
lost;"--and turning to me, whispered a friendly apprehension, that while
B---- continued to admire these old crabbed authors, he would never become
a popular writer. Dr. Donne was mentioned as a writer of the same period,
with a very interesting countenance, whose history was singular, and whose
meaning was often quite as _uncomeatable_, without a personal citation
from the dead, as that of any of his contemporaries. The volume was
produced; and while some one was expatiating on the exquisite simplicity
and beauty of the portrait prefixed to the old edition, A---- got hold of
the poetry, and exclaiming, "What have we here?" read the following:--
"Here lies a She-Sun and a He-Moon there,
She gives the best light to his sphere,
Or each is both and all, and so
They unto one another nothing owe."
There was no resisting this, till B----, seizing the volume, turned to the
beautiful "Lines to his Mistress," dissuading her from accompanying him
abroad, and read them with suffused features and a faltering tongue.
"By our first strange and fatal interview,
By all desires which thereof did ensue,
By our long starving hopes, by that remorse
Which my words' masculine persuasive force
Begot in thee, and by the memory
Of hurts, which spies and rivals threaten'd me,
I calmly beg. But by thy father's wrath,
By all pains which want and divorcement hath,
I conjure thee; and all the oaths which I
And thou have sworn to seal joint constancy
Here I unswear, and overswear them thus.
Thou shalt not love by ways so dangerous.
Temper, oh fair Love! love's impetuous rage,
Be my true mistress still, not my feign'd Page;
I'll go, and, by thy kind leave, leave behind
Thee! only worthy to nurse it in my mind.
Thirst to come back; oh, if thou die before.
My soul from other lands to thee shall soar.
Thy (else Almighty) beauty cannot move
Rage from the seas, nor thy love teach them love,
Nor tame wild Boreas' harshness; thou hast read
How roughly he in pieces shivered
Fair Orithea, whom he swore he lov'd.
Fall ill or good, 'tis madness to have prov'd
Dangers unurg'd: Feed on this flattery,
That absent lovers one with th' other be.
Dissemble nothing, not a boy; nor change
Thy body's habit, nor mind; be not strange
To thyself only. All will spy in thy face
A blushing, womanly, discovering grace.
Richly cloth'd apes are called apes, and as soon
Eclips'd as bright we call the moon the moon.
Men of France, changeable cameleons.
Spittles of diseases, shops of fashions,
Love's fuellers, and the rightest company
Of players, which upon the world's stage be,
Will quickly know thee.... O stay here! for thee
England is only a worthy gallery,
To walk in expectation; till from thence
Our greatest King call thee to his presence.
When I am gone, dream me some happiness,
Nor let thy looks our long hid love confess,
Nor praise, nor dispraise me; nor bless, nor curse
Openly love's force, nor in bed fright thy nurse
With midnight startings, crying out, Oh, oh,
Nurse, oh, my love is slain, I saw him go
O'er the white Alps alone; I saw him, I,
Assail'd, fight, taken, stabb'd, bleed, fall, and die,
Augur me better chance, except dread Jove
Think it enough for me to have had thy love."
Some one then inquired of B---- if we could not see from the window the
Temple-walk in which Chaucer used to take his exercise; and on his name
being put to the vote, I was pleased to find that there was a general
sensation in his favour in all but A----, who said something about the
ruggedness of the metre, and even objected to the quaintness of the
orthography. I was vexed at this superficial gloss, pertinaciously
reducing every thing to its own trite level, and asked "if he did not
think it would be worth while to scan the eye that had first greeted the
Muse in that dim twilight and early dawn of English literature; to see the
head, round which the visions of fancy must have played like gleams of
inspiration or a sudden glory; to watch those lips that "lisped in
numbers, for the numbers came"--as by a miracle, or as if the dumb should
speak? Nor was it alone that he had been the first to tune his native
tongue (however imperfectly to modern ears); but he was himself a noble,
manly character, standing before his age and striving to advance it; a
pleasant humourist withal, who has not only handed down to us the living
manners of his time, but had, no doubt, store of curious and quaint
devices, and would make as hearty a companion as Mine Host of Tabard. His
interview with Petrarch is fraught with interest. Yet I would rather have
seen Chaucer in company with the author of the Decameron, and have heard
them exchange their best stories together,--the Squire's Tale against the
Story of the Falcon, the Wife of Bath's Prologue against the Adventures of
Friar Albert. How fine to see the high mysterious brow which learning then
wore, relieved by the gay, familiar tone of men of the world, and by the
courtesies of genius. Surely, the thoughts and feelings which passed
through the minds of these great revivers of learning, these Cadmuses who
sowed the teeth of letters, must have stamped an expression on their
features, as different from the moderns as their books, and well worth the
perusal. Dante," I continued, "is as interesting a person as his own
Ugolino, one whose lineaments curiosity would as eagerly devour in order
to penetrate his spirit, and the only one of the Italian poets I should
care much to see. There is a fine portrait of Ariosto by no less a hand
than Titian's; light, Moorish, spirited, but not answering our idea. The
same artist's large colossal profile of Peter Aretine is the only
likeness of the kind that has the effect of conversing with 'the mighty
dead,' and this is truly spectral, ghastly, necromantic." B---- put it to
me if I should like to see Spenser as well as Chaucer; and I answered
without hesitation, "No; for that his beauties were ideal, visionary, not
palpable or personal, and therefore connected with less curiosity about
the man. His poetry was the essence of romance, a very halo round the
bright orb of fancy; and the bringing in the individual might dissolve the
charm. No tones of voice could come up to the mellifluous cadence of his
verse; no form but of a winged angel could vie with the airy shapes he has
described. He was (to our apprehensions) rather a "creature of the
element, that lived in the rainbow and played in the plighted clouds,"
than an ordinary mortal. Or if he did appear, I should wish it to be as a
mere vision, like one of his own pageants, and that he should pass by
unquestioned like a dream or sound--
----"_That_ was Arion crown'd:
So went he playing on the wat'ry plain!"
Captain C. muttered something about Columbus, and M. C. hinted at the
Wandering Jew; but the last was set aside as spurious, and the first made
over to the New World.
"I should like," said Miss D----, "to have seen Pope talking with Patty
Blount; and I _have_ seen Goldsmith." Every one turned round to look at
Miss D----, as if by so doing they too could get a sight of Goldsmith.
"Where," asked a harsh croaking voice, "was Dr. Johnson in the years
1745-6? He did not write anything that we know of, nor is there any
account of him in Boswell during those two years. Was he in Scotland with
the Pretender? He seems to have passed through the scenes in the Highlands
in company with Boswell many years after 'with lack-lustre eye,' yet as if
they were familiar to him, or associated in his mind with interests that
he durst not explain. If so, it would be an additional reason for my
liking him; and I would give something to have seen him seated in the tent
with the youthful Majesty of Britain, and penning the Proclamation to all
true subjects and adherents of the legitimate Government."
"I thought," said A----, turning short round upon B----, "that you of the
Lake School did not like Pope?"--"Not like Pope! My dear sir, you must be
under a mistake--I can read him over and over for ever!"--"Why certainly,
the Essay on Man must be allowed to be a master-piece."--"It may be so,
but I seldom look into it."--"Oh! then it's his Satires you admire?"--"No,
not his Satires, but his friendly Epistles and his
compliments."--"Compliments! I did not know he ever made any."--"The
finest," said B----, "that were ever paid by the wit of man. Each of them
is worth an estate for life--nay, is an immortality. There is that superb
one to Lord Cornbury:
"Despise low joys, low gains:
Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains;
Be virtuous, and be happy for your pains.
"Was there ever more artful insinuation of idolatrous praise? And then
that noble apotheosis of his friend Lord Mansfield (however little
deserved), when, speaking of the House of Lords, he adds--
"Conspicuous scene! another yet is nigh,
(More silent far) where kings and poets lie;
Where Murray (long enough his Country's pride)
Shall be no more than Tully or than Hyde!
"And with what a fine turn of indignant flattery he addresses Lord
Bolingbroke--
"Why rail they then, if but one wreath of mine,
Oh! all-accomplish'd St. John, deck thy shrine?
"Or turn," continued B----, with a slight hectic on his cheek and his eye
glistening, "to his list of early friends:
"But why then publish? Granville the polite,
And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write;
Well-natured Garth inflamed with early praise,
And Congreve loved and Swift endured my lays:
The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read,
Ev'n mitred Rochester would nod the head;
And St. John's self (great Dryden's friend before)
Received with open arms one poet more.
Happy my studies, if by these approved!
Happier their author, if by these beloved!
From these the world will judge of men and books,
Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks."
Here his voice totally failed him, and throwing down the book, he said,
"Do you think I would not wish to have been friends with such a man as
this?"
"What say you to Dryden?"--"He rather made a show of himself, and courted
popularity in that lowest temple of Fame, a coffee-house, so as in some
measure to vulgarize one's idea of him. Pope, on the contrary, reached the
very _beau ideal_ of what a poet's life should be; and his fame while
living seemed to be an emanation from that which was to circle his name
after death. He was so far enviable (and one would feel proud to have
witnessed the rare spectacle in him) that he was almost the only poet and
man of genius who met with his reward on this side of the tomb, who
realized in friends, fortune, the esteem of the world, the most sanguine
hopes of a youthful ambition, and who found that sort of patronage from
the great during his lifetime which they would be thought anxious to
bestow upon him after his death. Read Gay's verses to him on his supposed
return from Greece, after his translation of Homer was finished, and say
if you would not gladly join the bright procession that welcomed him home,
or see it once more land at Whitehall-stairs."--"Still," said Miss D----,
"I would rather have seen him talking with Patty Blount, or riding by in a
coronet-coach with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu!"
E----, who was deep in a game of piquet at the other end of the room,
whispered to M. C. to ask if Junius would not be a fit person to invoke
from the dead. "Yes," said B----, "provided he would agree to lay aside
his mask."
We were now at a stand for a short time, when Fielding was mentioned as a
candidate: only one, however, seconded the proposition. "Richardson?"--"By
all means, but only to look at him through the glass-door of his
back-shop, hard at work upon one of his novels (the most extraordinary
contrast that ever was presented between an author and his works), but not
to let him come behind his counter lest he should want you to turn
customer, nor to go upstairs with him, lest he should offer to read the
first manuscript of Sir Charles Grandison, which was originally written in
eight and twenty volumes octavo, or get out the letters of his female
correspondents, to prove that Joseph Andrews was low."
There was but one statesman in the whole of English history that any one
expressed the least desire to see--Oliver Cromwell, with his fine, frank,
rough, pimply face, and wily policy; and one enthusiast, John Bunyan, the
immortal author of the Pilgrim's Progress. It seemed that if he came into
the room, dreams would follow him, and that each person would nod under
his golden cloud, "nigh-sphered in Heaven," a canopy as strange and
stately as any in Homer.
Of all persons near our own time, Garrick's name was received with the
greatest enthusiasm, who was proposed by J. F----. He presently superseded
both Hogarth and Handel, who had been talked of, but then it was on
condition that he should act in tragedy and comedy, in the play and the
farce, Lear and Wildair and Abel Drugger. What a _sight for sore eyes_
that would be! Who would not part with a year's income at least, almost
with a year of his natural life, to be present at it? Besides, as he could
not act alone, and recitations are unsatisfactory things, what a troop he
must bring with him--the silver-tongued Barry, and Quin, and Shuter and
Weston, and Mrs. Clive and Mrs. Pritchard, of whom I have heard my father
speak as so great a favourite when he was young! This would indeed be a
revival of the dead, the restoring of art; and so much the more desirable,
as such is the lurking scepticism mingled with our overstrained admiration
of past excellence, that though we have the speeches of Burke, the
portraits of Reynolds, the writings of Goldsmith, and the conversation of
Johnson, to show what people could do at that period, and to confirm the
universal testimony to the merits of Garrick; yet, as it was before our
time, we have our misgivings, as if he was probably after all little
better than a Bartlemy-fair actor, dressed out to play Macbeth in a
scarlet coat and laced cocked-hat. For one, I should like to have seen and
heard with my own eyes and ears. Certainly, by all accounts, if any one
was ever moved by the true histrionic _aestus_, it was Garrick. When he
followed the Ghost in Hamlet, he did not drop the sword as most actors do
behind the scenes, but kept the point raised the whole way round, so fully
was he possessed with the idea, or so anxious not to lose sight of his
part for a moment. Once at a splendid dinner-party at Lord -----'s, they
suddenly missed Garrick, and could not imagine what was become of him,
till they were drawn to the window by the convulsive screams and peals of
laughter of a young negro-boy, who was rolling on the ground in an ecstasy
of delight to see Garrick mimicking a turkey-cock in the court-yard, with
his coat-tail stuck out behind, and in a seeming flutter of feathered
rage and pride. Of our party only two persons present had seen the British
Roscius; and they seemed as willing as the rest to renew their
acquaintance with their old favourite.
We were interrupted in the hey-day and mid-career of this fanciful
speculation, by a grumbler in a corner, who declared it was a shame to
make all this rout about a mere player and farce-writer, to the neglect
and exclusion of the fine old dramatists, the contemporaries and rivals of
Shakspeare. B---- said he had anticipated this objection when he had named
the author of Mustapha and Alaham; and out of caprice insisted upon
keeping him to represent the set, in preference to the wild hair-brained
enthusiast Kit Marlowe; to the sexton of St. Ann's, Webster, with his
melancholy yew-trees and death's-heads; to Deckar, who was but a garrulous
proser; to the voluminous Heywood; and even to Beaumont and Fletcher, whom
we might offend by complimenting the wrong author on their joint
productions. Lord Brook, on the contrary, stood quite by himself, or in
Cowley's words, was "a vast species alone." Some one hinted at the
circumstance of his being a lord, which rather startled B----, but he said
a _ghost_ would perhaps dispense with strict etiquette, on being regularly
addressed by his title. Ben Jonson divided our suffrages pretty equally.
Some were afraid he would begin to traduce Shakspeare, who was not present
to defend himself. "If he grows disagreeable," it was whispered aloud,
"there is G---- can match him." At length his romantic visit to Drummond
of Hawthornden was mentioned, and turned the scale in his favour.
B---- inquired if there was any one that was hanged that I would choose to
mention? And I answered, Eugene Aram.[146] The name of the "Admirable
Crichton" was suddenly started as a splendid example of _waste_ talents,
so different from the generality of his countrymen. This choice was
mightily approved by a North-Briton present, who declared himself
descended from that prodigy of learning and accomplishment, and said he
had family-plate in his possession as vouchers for the fact, with the
initials A. C.--_Admirable Crichton_! H---- laughed or rather roared as
heartily at this as I should think he has done for many years.
The last-named Mitre-courtier[147] then wished to know whether there were
any metaphysicians to whom one might be tempted to apply the wizard spell?
I replied, there were only six in modern times deserving the name--Hobbes,
Berkeley, Butler, Hartley, Hume, Leibnitz; and perhaps Jonathan Edwards, a
Massachusetts man.[148] As to the French, who talked fluently of having
_created_ this science, there was not a tittle in any of their writings,
that was not to be found literally in the authors I had mentioned. [Horne
Tooke, who might have a claim to come in under the head of Grammar, was
still living.] None of these names seemed to excite much interest, and I
did not plead for the re-appearance of those who might be thought best
fitted by the abstracted nature of their studies for their present
spiritual and disembodied state, and who, even while on this living
stage, were nearly divested of common flesh and blood. As A---- with an
uneasy fidgetty face was about to put some question about Mr. Locke and
Dugald Stewart, he was prevented by M. C., who observed, "If J---- was
here, he would undoubtedly be for having up those profound and redoubted
scholiasts, Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus." I said; this might be fair
enough in him who had read or fancied he had read the original works, but
I did not see how we could have any right to call up these authors to give
an account of themselves in person, till we had looked into their
writings.
By this time it should seem that some rumour of our whimsical deliberation
had got wind, and had disturbed the _irritable genus_ in their shadowy
abodes, for we received messages from several candidates that we had just
been thinking of. Gray declined our invitation, though he had not yet been
asked: Gay offered to come and bring in his hand the Duchess of Bolton,
the original Polly: Steele and Addison left their cards as Captain Sentry
and Sir Roger de Coverley: Swift came in and sat down without speaking a
word, and quitted the room as abruptly: Otway and Chatterton were seen
lingering on the opposite side of the Styx, but could not muster enough
between them to pay Charon his fare: Thomson fell asleep in the boat, and
was rowed back again--and Burns sent a low fellow, one John Barleycorn, an
old companion of his who had conducted him to the other world, to say that
he had during his lifetime been drawn out of his retirement as a show,
only to be made an exciseman of, and that he would rather remain where he
was. He desired, however, to shake hands by his representative--the hand,
thus held out, was in a burning fever, and shook prodigiously.
The room was hung round with several portraits of eminent painters. While
we were debating whether we should demand speech with these masters of
mute eloquence, whose features were so familiar to us, it seemed that all
at once they glided from their frames, and seated themselves at some
little distance from us. There was Leonardo with his majestic beard and
watchful eye, having a bust of Archimedes before him; next him was
Raphael's graceful head turned round to the Fornarina; and on his other
side was Lucretia Borgia, with calm, golden locks; Michael Angelo had
placed the model of St. Peter's on the table before him; Correggio had an
angel at his side; Titian was seated with his Mistress between himself and
Giorgioni; Guido was accompanied by his own Aurora, who took a dice-box
from him; Claude held a mirror in his hand; Rubens patted a beautiful
panther (led in by a satyr) on the head; Vandyke appeared as his own
Paris, and Rembrandt was hid under furs, gold chains and jewels, which Sir
Joshua eyed closely, holding his hand so as to shade his forehead. Not a
word was spoken; and as we rose to do them homage, they still presented
the same surface to the view. Not being _bona-fide_ representations of
living people, we got rid of the splendid apparitions by signs and dumb
show. As soon as they had melted into thin air, there was a loud noise at
the outer door, and we found it was Giotto, Cimabue, and Ghirlandaio, who
had been raised from the dead by their earnest desire to see their
illustrious successors--
"Whose names on earth
In Fame's eternal records live for aye!"
Finding them gone, they had no ambition to be seen after them, and
mournfully withdrew. "Egad!" said B----, "those are the very fellows I
should like to have had some talk with, to know how they could see to
paint when all was dark around them?"
"But shall we have nothing to say," interrogated G. J----, "to the Legend
of Good Women?"--"Name, name, Mr. J----," cried H---- in a boisterous tone
of friendly exultation, "name as many as you please, without reserve or
fear of molestation!" J---- was perplexed between so many amiable
recollections, that the name of the lady of his choice expired in a
pensive whiff of his pipe; and B---- impatiently declared for the Duchess
of Newcastle. Mrs. Hutchinson was no sooner mentioned, than she carried
the day from the Duchess. We were the less solicitous on this subject of
filling up the posthumous lists of Good Women, as there was already one in
the room as good, as sensible, and in all respects as exemplary, as the
best of them could be for their lives! "I should like vastly to have seen
Ninon de l'Enclos," said that incomparable person; and this immediately
put us in mind that we had neglected to pay honour due to our friends on
the other side of the Channel: Voltaire, the patriarch of levity, and
Rousseau, the father of sentiment, Montaigne and Rabelais (great in wisdom
and in wit), Moliere and that illustrious group that are collected round
him (in the print of that subject) to hear him read his comedy of the
Tartuffe at the house of Ninon; Racine, La Fontaine, Rochefoucault, St.
Evremont, etc.
"There is one person," said a shrill, querulous voice, "I would rather see
than all these--Don Quixote!"
"Come, come!" said H----; "I thought we should have no heroes, real or
fabulous. What say you, Mr. B----? Are you for eking out your shadowy list
with such names as Alexander, Julius Caesar, Tamerlane, or Ghengis
Khan?"--"Excuse me," said B----, "on the subject of characters in active
life, plotters and disturbers of the world, I have a crotchet of my own,
which I beg leave to reserve."--"No, no! come, out with your
worthies!"--"What do you think of Guy Faux and Judas Iscariot?" H----
turned an eye upon him like a wild Indian, but cordial and full of
smothered glee. "Your most exquisite reason!" was echoed on all sides; and
A---- thought that B---- had now fairly entangled himself. "Why, I cannot
but think," retorted he of the wistful countenance, "that Guy Faux, that
poor fluttering annual scare-crow of straw and rags, is an ill-used
gentleman. I would give something to see him sitting pale and emaciated,
surrounded by his matches and his barrels of gunpowder, and expecting the
moment that was to transport him to Paradise for his heroic self-devotion;
but if I say any more, there is that fellow G---- will make something of
it.--And as to Judas Iscariot, my reason is different. I would fain see
the face of him, who, having dipped his hand in the same dish with the Son
of Man, could afterwards betray him. I have no conception of such a thing;
nor have I ever seen any picture (not even Leonardo's very fine one) that
gave me the least idea of it."--"You have said enough, Mr. B----, to
justify your choice."
"Oh! ever right, Menenius,--ever right!"
"There is only one other person I can ever think of after this," continued
H----; but without mentioning a name that once put on a semblance of
mortality. "If Shakspeare was to come into the room, we should all rise up
to meet him; but if that person was to come into it, we should all fall
down and try to kiss the hem of his garment!"
As a lady present seemed now to get uneasy at the turn the conversation
had taken, we rose up to go. The morning broke with that dim, dubious
light by which Giotto, Cimabue, and Ghirlandaio must have seen to paint
their earliest works; and we parted to meet again and renew similar
topics at night, the next night, and the night after that, till that night
overspread Europe which saw no dawn. The same event, in truth, broke up
our little Congress that broke up the great one. But that was to meet
again: our deliberations have never been resumed.