TALES 
 
 EMS AND ESSAYS 
 
 BY 
 
 ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD 
 
 Biographical &Mtf) 
 By GRACE A. OLIVER 
 
 BOSTON 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS 
 
 1884 
 
37 T3 
 
 Copyright, 1884, 
 By Roberts Brothers. 
 
 University Press: 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Memoir of Mrs. Barbauld. By Grace A. 
 Oliver vii 
 
 The Hill of Science: A Vision ..... i 
 
 Against Inconsistency in Our Expectations 6 
 
 To-morrow 15 
 
 Riddle l$ 
 
 On Education 16 
 
 On Prejudice 27 
 
 The Baby-House 39 
 
 Dialogue in the Shades ........ 40 
 
 Knowledge and Her Daughter : A Fable . 49 
 
 Washing-Day 50 
 
 True Magicians 53 
 
 A Lecture on the Use of Words .... 61 
 
 The Caterpillar 64 
 
 Earth 6s 
 
 On the Uses of History 68 
 
 Fashion : A Vision 93 
 
 Description of Two Sisters 100 
 
 Pic-nic 102 
 
 Written on a Marble 105 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 Letter from Grimalkin to Selima . . . . 105 
 
 Allegory on Sleep 109 
 
 A Hymn 112 
 
 On Friendship 114 
 
 Confidence and Modesty: A Fable . . . 119 
 
 On Expense 121 
 
 The Wasp and Bee: A Fable 127 
 
 The Young Mouse: A Fable 128 
 
 Alfred: A Drama 129 
 
 Canute's Reproof to his Courtiers . . . 135 
 
 The Masque of Nature 137 
 
 Things by their Right Names 139 
 
 The Goose and Horse : A Fable 140 
 
 On Manufactures 141 
 
 The Flying Fish 152 
 
 A Lesson in the Art of Distinguishing . 153 
 
 The Phenix and Dove 161 
 
 The Manufacture of Paper 162 
 
 The Four Sisters 166 
 
 The Pine and the Olive : A Fable .... 170 
 
 On Riddles 172 
 
 Hymns in Prose 176 
 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 Anna L^titia (Aikin) Barbauld was born at the 
 little village ot Kibworth-Harcourt, Leicestershire, 
 England, in 1743. This admirable and gifted woman, 
 whose name has long been dear to those who, as child- 
 ren, have read her " Hymns in Prose," with the " Early 
 Lessons," in short words, and then passed to her 
 essays and fables for the young, will be gratefully re- 
 membered by many who have passed into middle life. 
 To an earlier generation of readers this name was as 
 well known as that of any writer in the language. 
 Then came a time when the literature for children 
 assumed a different aspect, and floods of trivial, light, 
 and sometimes very inferior books were prepared for 
 the young. 
 
 Amidst the thousands of such books put before the 
 public in the last fifty years, how few survive even the 
 first decade, and how rarely one finds a story — a book 
 — worthy of preservation or purchase. Some are unob- 
 jectionable in their tone, but many more are positively 
 hurtful in their influence. We have stories for little 
 children which are exciting, — inciting them to mischief, 
 or rousing their minds to fear and dangers which they 
 
VU1 MEMOIR. 
 
 ought not to experience until years have brought dis- 
 cretion and strength of character. Then, for boys and 
 girls of larger growth, the tales of thrilling adventure 
 which are constantly appearing, give them a distaste 
 for quiet pleasures, home life, and domestic virtues. 
 A buffalo hunt, an escape from Indians, or frightful sea 
 tales furnish the ordinary food for growing boys, while 
 many books for girls fill their minds too soon with a 
 desire for society and gaiety. Notable exceptions to 
 this class of literature are to be found, and should be 
 named if space allowed. 
 
 The peculiar mission of Mrs. Barbauld as a teacher, 
 writer, and inspirer of the young may be briefly ex- 
 pressed by a view of the work she did in reforming 
 literature for the children of England. 
 
 When the darkness of the middle ages became illu- 
 minated by the dawn of a new era, and the influences 
 of Eastern literature were gradually felt, after the re- 
 turning Crusaders introduced a glimpse of Oriental 
 warmth and vivifying power among the nations of 
 Western Europe, the renaissance of popular learning 
 progressed rapidly and with a wonderful result. 
 
 The imagination of the East acted like a magic 
 power upon the dead literature of the Western world. 
 It can only be compared to the softening influence of 
 spring rains upon the ice-bound fields left by winter's 
 frost. 
 
 The learning of Europe — the literature of the an- 
 cients — was almost entirely confined to the monas- 
 teries and palaces of the dignitaries of the Roman 
 
MEMOIR. IX 
 
 Church. That great power held all the important 
 offices in Church and State, and science and literature 
 crouched helpless in the chains imposed upon them by 
 the religious autocrats. Justice should be done to the 
 Church of Rome, for, while it held the power in its 
 own hands, it did take the charge of the bodies and 
 souls of its people ; but monks and nuns were unfitted 
 by their life and vocation to carry the beneficent work 
 of teacher and writer beyond their own narrow horizon. 
 To the East, therefore, we owe that flood of warm light 
 and life which came with resistless force, sweeping away 
 the old fancies and conventionalities, and preparing the 
 way for the thinker, the student, the poet, and the artist 
 of modern times. Works of imagination held the field 
 and supplied the need of generations of young readers, 
 till the immense revulsion of opinion and feeling which 
 preceded the French Revolution. The encyclopedists 
 in France, with the new views put before the world 
 by a race of educators, among whom may be named 
 Rousseau, De Genlis, the Edgeworths, Mrs. Barbauld, 
 Pestalozzi, Jacotot, Froebel, and Diesterweg, completely 
 altered the old style of writing for children, and revolu- 
 tionized the process of instruction all over the world. 
 
 Mrs. Barbauld may be justly ranked among the bright 
 and shining names of the great leaders in this educa- 
 tional movement. She was descended from a stock 
 of teachers, married a clergyman in charge of an acad- 
 emy, in the management of which she assisted for 
 years, and her practical knowledge was of great value 
 to a large number of scholars, and by her writings she 
 
X MEMOIR. 
 
 drew an immense circle of little minds within the range 
 of her powerful influence. 
 
 While many who love the name of Barbauld asso- 
 ciate it with the exquisite hymns still sung in our 
 churches, and others rank her among the essayists 
 of our language, for her clear impartial thought and 
 elegant style, it is as a writer of admirable works for 
 the young that she will be long remembered. The 
 names of Barbauld, Ann and Jane Taylor, and Maria 
 Edgeworth will bring back many recollections to older 
 readers, and their works may still be read with pleasure 
 and advantage by our children. 
 
 With genius and powers of mind uncommon in her 
 sex, cultivation of the highest order, womanly charms 
 and accomplishments which fitted her for the most bril- 
 liant society and the highest walks of literature, what 
 Dr. Johnson said of Dr. Watts' character and writings 
 is not less true of Mrs. Barbauld, — that she " conde- 
 scended to lay aside the scholar, the philosopher, and 
 the wit, and write little poems of devotion and systems 
 of instruction adapted to their wants and capacities, 
 from the dawn of reason through its gradations of ad- 
 vance in the morning of life." 
 
 Mrs. Barbauld was descended on her father's side 
 from a Scotch family, her father, John Aikin, D. D., 
 being the son of a Scotchman who was settled in Lon- 
 don as a shopkeeper. Mr. Aikin was originally intended 
 by his father for a business life, but after some time 
 spent in a city counting-room, his health was so seri- 
 ously affected by the confinement to a desk, that he 
 
MEMOIR. XI 
 
 was sent into the country. Dr. Doddridge, who was 
 well known in devotional literature, had succeeded Dr. 
 Jennings in his academy at Kibworth-Harcourt, was 
 his teacher, and influenced by him he sought and 
 obtained his father's permission to engage in the 
 ministry. 
 
 After becoming Dr. Doddridge's assistant in his 
 academy at Northampton, he married Jane Jennings, 
 the daughter of the Rev. Mr. Jennings, and, again ob- 
 liged by ill-health to give up his occupation, he resigned 
 all hope of the ministry which he had entered, and 
 giving up his congregation at Leicester, he opened a 
 school of his own at Kibworth. Mr. Aikin was an 
 accomplished scholar and a worthy man. It was said 
 of him by one capable of judging, " Every path of 
 polite literature had been traversed by him, and trav- 
 ersed with success. He understood the French and 
 Hebrew languages to perfection, and had an intimacy 
 with the best authors of Greece and Rome superior to 
 what I have ever known in any dissenting minister 
 from my own experience." 
 
 On her maternal side Miss Aikin was descended 
 from an ancient and respectable family of some impor- 
 tance in Bedfordshire. Her grandmother was Anne 
 Laetitia, one of the daughters of Sir Francis Wingate, 
 of Harlington Grange, Bedfordshire, by his wife Lady 
 Anne, daughter of Sir Arthur Anglesey, First Earl of 
 Anglesey, and Lord Privy Seal under Charles II. One 
 of the family held the exalted office of " Master of the 
 Bears," to Queen Elizabeth. Miss Aikin says : — 
 
xn MEMOIR. 
 
 "Sir Francis, in his elaborate letter of declaration to 
 the Lady Anne, still preserved, I think, values his estate 
 at ^iooo per annum, and promises to keep a coach and 
 six. The Earl, her father, gave her several thousand 
 pounds. Bishop Burnet writes of this noble lord, that 
 he had sold himself so often that at length no party 
 thought him worth buying. He seems indeed to have 
 feathered his nest pretty well, but was certainly an able 
 man. We may take comfort, roguery is not hereditary, 
 folly often is. 
 
 "Grand were the preparations made at poor Harlington 
 for the reception of the bride. The hall, and state bed- 
 chamber over it, were fitted up on the occasion. The 
 chamber was hung with tapestry, 'disfiguring and repre- 
 senting' the judgment of Paris, and other classical stories ; 
 the bed was of crimson damask, richly adorned with 
 fringe and gilding ; there was a handsome Japan cabinet, 
 heavy arm chairs, and toilet ornaments to match, and a 
 dressing-room within ; splendors which excited my youth- 
 ful awe and veneration, decayed and faded as they were, — 
 but as for Lady Anne, tradition says that she sat her 
 down and cried, when she saw to how poor a place she 
 had been brought as her future home. Her husband 
 looks in his portrait very good natured, but heavy enough; 
 the Lady Anne — let us hope she was of a sweeter tem- 
 per than she looks in hers. She was a stiff Presbyterian, 
 her husband a jolly Episcopalian, who said, somewhat 
 bitterly, that when he was gone she would certainly turn 
 his great hall into a conventicle. Perhaps this thought 
 had set an edge on his zeal, when, in the character of a 
 Justice of the Quorum, he committed John Bunyan to 
 Bedford gaol for unlicensed preaching, — the only mem- 
 orable action of his life, as far as I am aware. 
 
MEMOIR. xin 
 
 "But that an old family mansion must absolutely have a 
 ghost, — in fact, it would be almost as disgraceful to the race 
 to be without one as to want a coat of arms, — I would 
 not be so undutiful to my great-great grandmother as to 
 tell the tale ; but it is a matter of necessity, so here it is. 
 The lady Anne had a friend who, unknown to her husband, 
 had made up a purse, the contents of which she destined 
 to be shared among her children by a former marriage. 
 On her deathbed she entrusted to her this deposit. Lady 
 Anne, I dare not say with what thoughts, she being then 
 a widow, and hard pressed enough, delayed to deliver over 
 the money. One night, she was startled by a mysterious 
 rustling in a certain long, dark, crooked passage into 
 which her chamber opened ; the rustling — yes, she could 
 not be mistaken — of a silk gown, the very gown of her 
 departed friend. It passed on to a certain narrow door, 
 at which something seemed to enter, and the rustling 
 ceased. Her ladyship paid the money next day, and 
 nothing was ever heard or seen more ; but some people 
 had an odd feeling as they passed that door, leading only 
 to the china-closet, within my memory. 
 
 " A more favorable trait of Lady Anne has been pre- 
 served. She possessed two beautiful miniatures, evidently 
 a pair ; one represented her brother, Lord Altham, the 
 other a lady, so lovely in feature, and still more in ex- 
 pression, one was never weary of gazing upon it. Lady 
 Anne was accustomed often to take it out of her cabinet 
 and weep tenderly over it ; so far her daughters could 
 attest from their own knowledge, but she would never 
 inform them whom it represented, or what had been her 
 story. Lord Altham, worthy to shine amongst the court- 
 iers of Charles II., had three wives living at the same 
 time ; the first of these deceived and unhappy ladies was 
 
xiv MEMOIR. 
 
 probably his sister's friend; yes, it must have been her 
 wrongs over which she shed these frequent tears ; and 
 shame at her brother's treachery and wickedness doubt- 
 less tied her tongue. 
 
 "Sir Francis died in middle age, leaving his lady with 
 three sons, and six ill-portioned daughters. Some few 
 notices have reached me of all the six sisters. Mr. Moore, 
 the husband of the eldest, was a clergyman, very poor, 
 very honest, and the simplest of the simple. He would 
 sometimes borrow a trifle of his mother-in-law, giving her 
 an acknowledgment in these, cautious terms, ' I promise 
 to pay, if I am able.' ' My dear ' he once cried out to his 
 wife, ' a great rude girl came and robbed our apple-tree 
 while I was in the garden.' 'And did you let her?' 
 'How could I help it?' Neither could he help his sons' 
 going to ruin. Another sister married a Dr. Hay, a Scotch 
 physician. 
 
 " The sons all possessed the estate in succession. . . . 
 By way of retaliation, I suppose, for his persecution of 
 Bunyan, two of the daughters of Sir Francis married dis- 
 senting ministers, — not in his lifetime, however. One was 
 Mrs. Norris, the other was Anna Letitia, my great grand- 
 mother. One died single, aunt Rachel, of whom all I 
 know is that she had the honor to have Rachel, lady 
 Russell, for her godmother, — the families being in some 
 way related." 
 
 Mrs. Barbauld's mother "was presented at court by a 
 lady of the Annesley connection, no small distinction in 
 those days. She was sprightly, not without personal 
 charms, and had a natural talent for singing. The result 
 of the whole was, that her honored tutor 1 was moved to 
 indite an elaborate epistle, still preserved, in which he 
 
 1 Dr. Doddridge. 
 
MEMOIR. xv 
 
 labored to convince her that it was actually possible for 
 a grave divine of thirty years to experience the passion of 
 love for a little gentlewoman of fifteen. The converse of 
 the problem he seems to have taken for granted ; not so 
 the young lady, who steadfastly refused to become the 
 Eloise of such an Abelard." 
 
 Dr. Aikin was more successful in his suit, and mar- 
 ried the charming young Miss Jennings. 
 
 After a while Dr. Aikin was called to a professorship 
 at the little academy of Warrington. While there his 
 University of Aberdeen conferred on him the degree 
 of D. D. 
 
 Mrs. Aikin was much struck with the early promise 
 of Laetitia, and wrote of her : " I once, indeed, knew 
 a little girl who was as eager to learn as her instructors 
 could be to teach her, and who, at two years old, could 
 read sentences and little stories in her wise book 
 roundly, without spelling, and in half a year more 
 could read as well as most women ; but I never knew 
 such another, and I believe, never shall." 
 
 Only one son and daughter were born to Dr. and 
 Mrs. Aikin. The son was Dr. John Aikin, who is well 
 known for his critical work and essays, and that valu- 
 able book for children, " Evenings at Home." Dr. 
 Aikin practised medicine at Yarmouth, and later in 
 London, where he was long settled, till he moved to 
 Stoke Newington, a little village, now lost in London. 
 
 Anna received a fine classical education from her 
 father, and under her mother's devoted care grew to 
 womanhood. Others observed the remarkable genius 
 
xvi MEMOIR. 
 
 of the child. One day a student of Dr. Aikin's was 
 conversing with him on the passions. Dr. Aikin re- 
 marked to Mr. Cappe, that "joy accurately defined 
 could not have a place in a state of perfect felicity, since 
 it supposed an accession^of happiness." " I think you 
 are mistaken, papa," said a little voice from the oppo- 
 site side of the table. "Why so, Laetitia?" "Be- 
 cause in the chapter I read to you this morning in the 
 Testament, it is said, there is more joy in heaven over 
 one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine 
 just persons that need no repentance." Mr. Cappe in 
 recording this incident, says that she was but five years 
 old. 
 
 When Miss Aiken was fifteen years old her father 
 became classical instructor at the academy lately 
 founded by Dissenters in Warrington. This acad- 
 emy numbered among its trustees, tutors, and scholars 
 names celebrated in literature, art, and the sciences. 
 Lord Willoughby of Parham, was for a time President 
 of the Board of Trustees, and the trustees were men 
 of position and respectability, who gave largely towards 
 its first endowment and support. The tutors or pro- 
 fessors included Dr. Taylor of Norwich, author of a 
 Hebrew Concordance which received the cordial en- 
 dorsement of the bishops of the Established Church, 
 whose names were among its first subscribers. Dr. 
 Enfield, Gilbert Wakefield, and Mr. Holt were among 
 the other tutors, and the celebrated Dr. Priestley, 
 the " Patriot, and Saint, and Sage " of Coleridge, 
 first displayed his great mental endowments and be- 
 
MEMOIR. xvn 
 
 gan his original investigations in science during his 
 residence at Warrington. He wrote of his residence 
 there : " The tutors in my time, lived in the most 
 perfect harmony. We drank tea together every Satur- 
 day, and our conversation was equally instructive and 
 pleasing. We were all Arians, and the only subject of 
 much consequence on which we differed respected 
 the doctrine of the Atonement, concerning which Dr. 
 Aikin held some obscure notions." 
 
 The little academy drew to Warrington distinguished 
 visitors and pupils from the best dissenting families in 
 the kingdom. 
 
 Howard, the philanthropist, was a visitor there, that 
 Mrs. Barbauld's brother, John Aikin, might revise his 
 MSS. and correct his proofs which were being struck 
 off at the Warrington press. Roscoe of Liverpool, the 
 botanist, Pennant the naturalist, Currie the biographer 
 of Burns, and other names of local repute in that day, 
 were among those who visited there more or less fre- 
 quently, attracted by the talents and learning of the 
 professors. Miss Aikin wrote : " I have often thought 
 with envy of that society. Neither Oxford nor Cam- 
 bridge could boast of brighter names in literature or 
 science than several of these dissenting tutors — humbly 
 content, in an obscure town and on a scanty pittance, 
 to cultivate in themselves, and communicate to a rising 
 generation, those mental acquirements and moral habits 
 which are their own exceeding great reward. They 
 and theirs lived together like one large family, and 
 in the facility of their intercourse they found large 
 b 
 
XVin MEMOIR. 
 
 compensation for its deficiency in luxury and splendor. 
 Such days^ are past ; whom have we now ' content 
 with science in a humble shed?'" 
 
 Kibworth was a very small village, and probably Mrs. 
 Barbauld had a very monotonous life there ; though 
 she was able to recall the excitement and anxiety felt 
 in the family when the news of the advance of the 
 Pretender's army on London reached Kibworth in 
 1 745. The town was on the high-road to London, and 
 the three-year child could vividly recall the commotion 
 caused by the approach of the rebels, and the relief 
 felt when the news came of their defeat at Derby. 
 
 Always brilliant in beauty, Anna had admirers in 
 Kibworth, and one of these suitors was desperately in 
 love with the young girl. She was full of life and un- 
 tamed spirits, though her mother was even rigorous in 
 exacting all the details of a household training from 
 her, and made her a proficient in the usual feminine ac- 
 complishments. Her severe classical training, thorough 
 course of reading, and intense love of books and na- 
 ture, did not prevent her from a very lively enjoyment 
 of the pleasures of youth. " Great bodily activity, and 
 a lively spirit struggled hard against the tight rein " 
 which her mother held over her. In later years she 
 told her niece that she had never been placed in a 
 situation thoroughly congenial to her. This undoubt- 
 edly was true, if we except the fifteen years at Warring- 
 ton, which were certainly full of promise and brilliant 
 with intellectual and social attractions. It was a limited 
 circle, it is true, but exceptionally endowed with social 
 
MEMOIR. xix 
 
 and mental attractions for one of Miss Aikin's powers. 
 In after life she undoubtedly realized more fully that 
 she had not had the full advantages of a worldly 
 career ; but the very attitude of dissent precluded all 
 hopes of an introduction among the first literary circles 
 in London, until .she had won recognition by her talents 
 and gentle womanly charms. Her life was then settled 
 beyond a hope of material alteration, and her position 
 as the wife of a dissenting clergyman was too clearly 
 defined to afford her the opportunities she must have 
 much desired. Dissent was respectable but very un- 
 fashionable in England, and all the legal privileges 
 granted Dissenters in later years have not entirely 
 removed this stigma. Mrs. Aikin was " neat, punctual, 
 strict ; " and though of cultivated mind and polished 
 manners, it is said by those who knew best, that Anna 
 and her mother were not in any respect congenial. 
 
 Mrs. Barbauld was described at this time by an 
 observer as follows : — 
 
 " She was possessed of great beauty, distinct traces 
 of which she retained to the latest period of her life. 
 Her person was slender, her complexion exquisitely fair 
 with the bloom of perfect health ; her features regular 
 and elegant, and her dark blue eyes beamed with the light 
 of wit and fancy." 
 
 " London cousins wondered sometimes at the gymnas- 
 tic feats of the country lass. It was these perhaps, added 
 to the brightness of her lilies and roses which sunk so 
 deep into the heart of Mr. Haynes, a rich farmer of Kib- 
 worth. He followed this damsel of fifteen to Warrington 
 and obtained a private audience of her father, and begged 
 
XX MEMOIR. 
 
 his consent to make her his wife. My grandfather an- 
 swered that his daughter was then walking in the garden, 
 and he might go and ask her himself. With what grace 
 the farmer pleaded his cause I know not ; but at length, 
 out of all patience at his unwelcome importunities, she 
 ran nimbly up a tree which grew by the garden wall, and 
 let herself down into the lane beyond, leaving her suitor 
 ' ftlante 'Id.? The poor man went home disconsolate; he 
 lived and died a bachelor; though he was never known to 
 purchase any other book whatever, 'the works of Mrs. 
 Barbauld,' splendidly bound, adorned his parlor to the 
 end of his days." 
 
 At Warrington, stimulated by the affectionate ad- 
 miration she received from the society which surround- 
 ed her, Miss Aikin began to write ; and the interest 
 which Dr. Priestley and his wife, with other friends, 
 showed in her work, encouraged her to continue labors 
 first assumed to amuse and enliven social gatherings. 
 Both "bout rimes " and "vers de societe " were in fashion 
 in the set which gathered there. Anonymous poems 
 were often read, and excited much comment and ad- 
 miration. The authorship of these poems was often 
 very puzzling to the hearers, and many were the 
 guesses made. Once a' very brilliant copy of verses 
 was slipped into Mrs. Priestley's work-bag, a favorite 
 place with these players at hide and seek. After long 
 consideration it was finally traced to Dr. Priestley 
 himself. 
 
 Simple pleasures, and an elevated social and literary 
 taste characterized the life at Warrington. The inspira- 
 tion of such minds as Priestley gave the opening years 
 
MEMOIR. xxi 
 
 of this academy much activity ; and the educational 
 advantages of the place were combined with such 
 moderate expenses of living that many scholars were 
 drawn there from the remote parts of Great Britain 
 and her dependencies. 
 
 After a time, as the students were lodged in buildings 
 arranged for them, and no longer under the personal 
 care of the tutors, at whose houses they had previously 
 lived, they had more freedom, and the West Indian 
 scholars became very troublesome. They shocked the 
 tutors by their violence and lawlessness. They were 
 wont to bewail their native islands, and say that the 
 earliest request of the planter's children was for "a 
 young nigger to kick." This set of unruly spirits 
 finally ruined the academy by their insubordination, 
 and it was merged in another institution. 
 
 In the palmy days of Warrington Academy, Miss 
 Aikin was the centre of all that was brightest in the 
 little town. In 1773, John Aikin, who had recently 
 returned from his medical studies, persuaded his sister 
 to allow him to print and publish her poems. She had 
 been writing more or less for some years. Dr. Priestley 
 says that some of her first poems were written during 
 a visit at his house in Leeds. Mrs. Barbauld herself 
 stated that her first poems were written after reading 
 some verses of Dr. Priestley's, which interested her so 
 much that she began to write in verse. 
 
 She began to write early in life, and on various occa- 
 sions showed her facility in the range of thought and 
 style, which varied happily from " grave to gay, from 
 
xxu MEMOIR. 
 
 lively to severe." Riddles, jeux d'esprit, letters in 
 verse, alternated with the noble "Address to the Deity," 
 inspired by a sermon of Dr. Priestley's, and the " In- 
 vitation to Miss Belsham," containing the fine lines 
 often quoted, — 
 
 " Man is the nobler growth our realms supply, 
 And souls are ripened in our northern sky." 
 
 There is a very affectionate address to Dr. Aikin, 
 when he left the family to pursue his studies at Aber- 
 deen ; and verses thrown into Dr. and Mrs. Priestley's 
 chaise when they left Warrington show her playful 
 fancy. She was blessed with a fine imagination and 
 nice sense of the ridiculous, blended with the highest 
 capacity for sublime and devotional thought. How 
 impressive are the following lines from " A Summer 
 Evening's Meditation," which are written by the 
 same hand that penned the sportive " Lines from A 
 Mouse," "Washing Day" and the "Inventory of the 
 Furniture in Dr. Priestley's Library," — 
 
 " How deep the silence, yet how loud the praise ! 
 But are they silent all? — or is there not 
 A tongue in every star, that talks with man, 
 And woos him to be wise ? Nor woos in vain : 
 This dead of midnight is the noon of thought, 
 And Wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars." 
 
 Dr. Aikin's publication of his sister's poems was 
 attended with results which justified his opinion of 
 their merits. The public and the critics received 
 them well, and four editions were called for during the 
 
MEMOIR. XXlll 
 
 year 1773. Encouraged by success of the poems Dr. 
 Aikin urged his sister to print some essays in prose, 
 and added some of his own pieces to the collection. 
 Lucy Aikin, his daughter, does not repeat the good 
 story about the reception of his essays. 
 
 She very bitterly says that, as the authors did not put 
 their names to each essay, some were credited wrongly ; 
 "and the fragment of 'Sir Bertrand,' in particular, 
 though alien from the character of that brilliant and 
 airy imagination which was never conversant with terror, 
 and rarely with pity, has been repeatedly ascribed to 
 Mrs. Barbauld, even in print." 
 
 The truth was quite evident at the time, that Dr. 
 Aikin's portion of the book he would have been wise 
 to confine to editing. At a London dinner table where 
 Samuel Rogers was, C. J. Fox met Aikin. " I am 
 greatly pleased with your Miscellaneous Pieces, Mr. 
 Aikin," said Fox (alluding to this collection of Essays). 
 Aikin bowed. " I particularly admire," continued Fox, 
 "your essay Against Inconsistency in Our Expecta- 
 tions." "That," says Aikin, "is my sister's." "I like 
 much," returned Fox, "your essay On Monastic Insti- 
 tutions" "That," answered Aikin, "is also my sister's." 
 Rogers adds, " Fox thought it best to say no more 
 about the book." Miss Aikin never alluded to this 
 little incident. 
 
 The essay " On Romances " was an imitation of Dr. 
 Johnson's style. Boswell, in talking with Dr. Johnson, 
 spoke of Hugh Blair's comments on his style, which 
 he had deprecated as too pompous, and he had at- 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
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 .duct, he was sent to Warrington, and A 
 v:;:- Ae Arr. leh.irei. ir. reiiAAve: A:? =■:;: :. Aiere. 
 
 This remarkable man, in whose defence Curran 
 
 -~.iiz his funis e A : r ::. ::* :he Erirish A:/" — A Le 
 Aich proclaims even to the stranger arid sojourner, 
 the moment he foot on British earth, that the 
 
 gr:rni At rreiis is h:iy. ir. i :::-::::::: :y :he 
 genius of universal emancipation," — was only one of 
 itverii irien: ilrnirers :: Mi:S AA-nn. 
 
 "arrington students there was a yox 
 rr.ir. :: Frr'A: ies:en:. Rii.en::.: Birzinii. 
 
 rrandson of a French Huguenot. During 1 
 persecution of the Protestants by Louis XIV 
 _r.v. iAAAirr. " A.en :. ': :y. - ; 5 nrr.e :i :~ ; :ir:i 1 shy . 
 enclosed in a cask, and conveyed to England." He 
 
MEMOIR. xxv 
 
 settled in that country, married there, and had a son 
 who took orders in the Established Church. On the 
 marriage of one of the daughters of George II. to the 
 Elector of Hesse, he received an appointment as chap- 
 lain in her household ; and at Cassel his son Roche - 
 mont was born and passed his early years. When the 
 household of the Electress was broken up, he accom- 
 panied his father to Paris, remaining there a year. 
 After his return to England his father sent him to 
 Warrington. It was Mr. Barbauld's intention that his 
 son should enter the English establishment, but his life 
 at Warrington and his intimacy with Miss Aikin so 
 altered his views that he began to fit himself for the 
 Presbyterian ministry. For some time want of occupa- 
 tion prevented his marriage, but finally, in May, 1774, 
 he married Miss Aikin. 
 
 Anna, or " Nancy," Aikin, as her family and the 
 friends of her youth called her, had one among other 
 lifelong friends, "Betsey" Belsham, afterwards Mrs. 
 Kenrick. To this lady she. poured out all the joys 
 and sorrows of her lot. These letters began in 1 768. 
 Sometimes, in the gayety of youth, it was lively chatter 
 about a " beau," as girls then designated their ad- 
 mirers. Of one, " I talked to him, smiled upon him, 
 gave him my fan to play with. Nothing would do ; he 
 was grave as a philosopher. I tried to raise a conver- 
 sation : ' 'Twas fine weather for dancing.' He agreed 
 to my observation. 'We had a tolerable set this time.' 
 Neither did he contradict that. Then we were both 
 silent. Stupid mortal ! thought I. But, unreasonable 
 
xxvi MEMOIR. 
 
 ii ':_t :::er:::: \:.t : '. :~:t- : i: I ~iit r.ir;:. -.here 
 :ne object in the room, a sparkling object, which 
 
 5rr~ef. :: ::r::: :.'.'. r.ii iner.r!:z. :z ~>.;:'.: \t = ttr;:ri 
 
 off die whole time. The object I mean was his 
 5Ji: r-:u:kle." 
 
 — _ :: . : :\: :ve:.r. ! :. : " ; :: :".:- r". :-e : 
 
 •_:-...-:::.:- :r:5ye::i :: Mr. Eiririli. 
 
 : : - 
 for the uncertainty and suspense in which lor a long time 
 
 ;_:.r r tz. i v : 1 vt i . i- i --.. ~ ~ '. ; : h li : t r :: n -t e i. : : r 
 
 ;: _ r-rt. 7 :ty . ;-; ~ r : _: ::' ::y '.::t I: 5 j-.irily 
 
 a month that I have certainly known I should fix on 
 
 ! 
 
 finally, Irrevocably married. Pity me, dear Betsy ; for on 
 
 :i';t ;-::t v :" :s :: rr_L-:r=: :~ri: ir. tn In — y lit 
 I feel depressed, and my courage almost fails me. Yet 
 ■zz-zz. :!-= - ■'.-. :".t. " hi- t -.'..t rrti:r«: rtiiii :: :i:i*-: '. 5 '"ill 
 ;r :.i_;y. I s il ; issess :ht =r.::re ift:rl:z : :' i " :::hy 
 rr.i.-. •• .. in ~y :i:.-t: n i - :.-;: r. : '< e - -..:•.-".;■ ir. i -:::• 
 loprove. The people where we are going, though 
 ;:ri-itr5. r.irt zt. it- :"- :>.e rrri-.es: iri" I'-i irft:- 
 
 ! - ~: ;.:v: : :': : - ;. - : : : : -.--_■ .: : t : - '. . 
 
 and living comfortably in that state of middling life to 
 -■"-■;•- : .: : :tt- i::-::r.ei ni .. :.. : live " 
 
 her first youth entering on the uncertain venture of 
 
MEMOIR. xxvii 
 
 matrimony. Then came a word about John Howard, 
 the Christian philanthropist, the friend of her father, 
 and always her hero. 
 
 " It was too late, as you say, or I believe I should have 
 been in love with Mr. Howard. Seriously, I looked upon 
 him with that sort of reverence and love which one should 
 have for a guardian angel. God bless him, and preserve 
 his health for the health's sake of thousands. And now, 
 farewell," she writes in conclusion; " I shall write to you 
 no more under this name ; but under any name, in every 
 situation, at any distance of time or place, I shall love 
 you equally, and be always affectionately yours, tho' not 
 always, A. Aikix." 
 
 Dr. John Kenrick of York, a very dear friend, in 
 speaking of Mrs. Barbauld's regard for her future 
 husband, said he was slow to believe that her attach- 
 ment to him was not of the truest and tenderest kind. 
 He added that he knew she described her future 
 husband to the friend to whom " he had before re- 
 ferred," who warned her that Mr. Barbauld had already 
 had an attack of insanity, " as little in stature but all 
 over heart /" and Mr. Kenrick, from his intimate and 
 long acquaintance with her, judged that " the extreme 
 sensibility of her own heart would make the manifesta- 
 tion of such feeling on his part irresistible." 
 
 Miss Lucy Aikin, who was of a remarkably bitter 
 disposition, joined to a considerable literary skill and 
 power, has left so sharp a picture of Mr. Barbauld that 
 it is fair to qualify it somewhat after quoting it. Miss 
 Aikin did not like to print this in the lifetime of the 
 
xxvui MEMOIR. 
 
 relations of Mr. Barbauld ; Mrs. Le Breton the great- 
 niece of Mrs. Barbauld, has recently published it. 
 Miss Lucy Aikin says : — 
 
 " Her attachment to Mr. Barbauld was the illusion 
 of a romantic fancy — not of a tender heart. Had her 
 true affections been early called forth by a more genial 
 home atmosphere, she would never have allowed herself 
 to be caught by crazy demonstrations of amorous rapture, 
 set off with theatrical French manners, or have conceived 
 of such exaggerated passion as a safe foundation on 
 which to raise the sober structure of domestic happiness. 
 My father ascribed that ill-starred union in great part to 
 the baleful influence of the ' Nouvelle Heloise,' Mr. B. 
 impersonating St. Preux. She was informed by a true 
 friend that he had experienced one attack of insanity, and 
 was urged to break off the engagement on that account. 
 ' Then,' answered she, ' if I were now to disappoint 
 him, he would certainly go mad.' To this there could be 
 no reply ; and with a kind of desperate generosity, she 
 rushed upon her melancholy destiny. It should however 
 in justice be said, that a more upright, benevolent, gener- 
 ous, or independent spirit than Mr. Barbauld's did not 
 exist, as far as his malady would permit ; his moral char- 
 acter did honor to her choice, but he was liable to fits of 
 insane fury, frightful in a schoolmaster. Her sufferings 
 with such a husband, who shall estimate ? Children this 
 pair seemed immediately to have despaired of. My 
 brother Charles, born only one year after their marriage, 
 was bespoken by them almost directly. They took him 
 home with them before he was two years old. She en- 
 joyed in his dutiful affection, in the charms of his de- 
 lightful disposition, his talents and his accomplished mind, 
 
MEMOIR. xxix 
 
 her pride, her pleasure, the best solace of her lonely age. 
 Mrs. Barbauld's indolence was a standing subject of re- 
 gret and reproach with the admirers of her genius. But 
 those who blamed her, little knew the daily and hourly 
 miseries of her home ; they could not compute the 
 amount of hindrances proceeding from her husband's 
 crazy habits, and the dreadful apprehensions with which 
 they could not fail to inspire her. 
 
 "At length the blow fell, — Mr. B.'s insanity became 
 manifest, undeniable ; and it took the unfortunate form of 
 a quarrel with his wife. Well for her that she had the 
 protection of an opposite neighbor in her brother ! We 
 were all of us constantly on the watch as long as she 
 persisted in occupying the same house with the lunatic. 
 Her life was in perpetual clanger. Then shone forth the 
 nobleness of her spirit. She had a larger share than any 
 woman I ever knew of the great quality of courage, — 
 courage both physical and moral. She was willing to ex- 
 pose herself to really frightful danger from the madman's 
 rage, rather than allow him to be irritated by necessary re- 
 straint. When all was over, and this miserable chapter of 
 her history finally closed, her genius reasserted its claims. 
 Her best poems, her noble, though not appreciated, "1811," 
 all those evincing a tenderness she had never before been 
 known to possess, bear date from her widowhood." 
 
 Miss Lucy Aikin was certainly too severe in her 
 statements when she wrote these words. Mrs. Bar- 
 bauld's own words and the devotion of her lifetime are 
 a strong refutation of parts of this description of Mr. 
 Barbauld. To the last she tenderly loved Mr. Bar- 
 bauld, and trying as his eccentricities were, she must 
 have deeply loved her husband and respected his 
 
xxx MEMOIR. 
 
 character. In the " Dirge " written November, 1808, 
 she makes touching allusion to his sufferings and rest : — 
 
 " Pure Spirit ! Oh, where art thou now ! 
 Oh, whisper to my soul ! 
 Oh, let some soothing thought of thee, 
 This bitter grief control ! 
 
 "'Tis not for thee the tears I shed, 
 Thy sufferings now are o'er ; 
 The sea is calm, the tempest past, 
 On that eternal shore. 
 
 " Farewell ! With honor, peace, and love, 
 
 Be thy dear memory blest ! 
 Thou hast no tears for me to shed, 
 
 When I too am at rest." 
 
 In the sketch written by Mrs. Barbauld after her 
 husband's death, for the " Monthly Repository of The- 
 ology and General Literature," she expressed herself 
 so clearly that it is well to allow her opinion to decide 
 us in our estimate of Mr. Barbauld's character. 
 
 " The scenes of life Mr. Barbauld passed through were 
 common ones, but his character was not a common one. 
 His reasoning powers were acute, and sharpened by exer- 
 cise ; for he was early accustomed to discussion, and 
 argued with great clearness, — with a degree of warmth, 
 indeed, but with the most perfect candor towards his 
 opponent. He gave the most liberal latitude to free in- 
 quiry, and could bear to hear those truths attacked which 
 he most steadfastly believed ; the more because he stead- 
 fastly believed them ; for he was delighted to submit to 
 
MEMOIR. xxxi 
 
 the test of argument those truths, which he had no doubt 
 could, by argument, be defended. He had an uncommon 
 flow of conversation on those points which had engaged 
 his attention, and delivered himself with a warmth and 
 animation which enlivened the driest subject. He was 
 equally at home in French and English literature ; and 
 the exquisite sensibility of his mind, with the early culture 
 his taste had received, rendered him an excellent judge of 
 all those works which appeal to the heart and the imagi- 
 nation. His feelings were equally quick and vivid; his 
 expressive countenance was the index of his mind, and of 
 every instantaneous impression made upon it. Children, 
 who are the best physiognomists, were always attracted 
 to him, and he delighted to entertain them with lively nar- 
 ratives suited to their age, in which he had great invention*. 
 The virtues of his heart will be acknowledged by all who 
 knew him. His benevolence was enlarged: it was the 
 spontaneous propensity of his nature, as well as the result 
 of his religious system. He was temperate, almost to 
 abstemiousness ; yet without any tincture of ascetic rigor. 
 A free, undaunted spirit, a winning simplicity, a tendency 
 to enthusiasm, but of the gentle and liberal kind, formed 
 the prominent lineaments of his character. The social af- 
 fections were all alive and active in him. His heart over- 
 flowed with kindness to all, — the lowest that came within 
 his sphere. There never was a human being who had less 
 of the selfish and worldly feelings ; they hardly seemed 
 to form a part of his nature. His was truly the charity 
 which thinketh no ill. Great singleness of heart, and a 
 candor very opposite to the suspicious temper of worldly 
 sagacity, made him slow to impute unworthy motives to 
 the actions of his fellow-men; yet his candor by no 
 means sprung from indifference to moral rectitude, for 
 
xxxii MEMOIR. 
 
 when he could no longer resist conviction, his censure 
 was decided and his indignation warm and warmly ex- 
 pressed. His standard of virtue was high, and he felt no 
 propensities which disposed him to lower it. His re- 
 ligious sentiments were of the most pure and liberal cast ; 
 and his pulpit services, when the state of his spirits sec- 
 onded the ardor of his mind, were characterized by the 
 rare union of a fervent spirit of devotion with a pure, 
 sublime philosophy, supported by arguments of meta- 
 physical acuteness. He did not speak the language of 
 any party, nor exactly coincide with the systems of any. 
 He was a believer in the pre-existence of Christ, and, in 
 a certain modified sense, in the atonement ; thinking those 
 doctrines most consonant to the tenor of scripture ; . . . 
 but he was too sensible of the difficulties which press 
 upon every system not to feel indulgence for all, and he 
 was not zealous for any doctrine which did not affect the 
 heart. Of the moral perfections of the Deity he had the 
 purest and most exalted ideas ; on these was chiefly 
 founded his system of religion, and these, together with 
 his own benevolent nature, led him to embrace so warmly 
 his favorite doctrine of the final salvation of all the 
 human race, and indeed, the gradual rise and perfectibility 
 of all created existence. . . . His latter days were op- 
 pressed by a morbid affection of his spirits, in a great 
 degree hereditary, which came gradually upon him, and 
 closed the scene of his earthly usefulness ; yet in the 
 midst of the irritation it occasioned, the kindness of his 
 nature broke forth, and some of his last acts were acts of 
 benevolence." 
 
 In the jeu d' esprit of Mrs. Barbauld, called the 
 " Map of Matrimony," which she addressed to Mr. 
 Barbauld some years after their marriage, she concluded 
 
MEMOIR. xxxi u 
 
 with the following lines, after speaking of the fickleness 
 of man, and his love of change : — 
 
 " So shalt not thou, for no returning prow 
 E'er cut the ocean which thy bark has past ; 
 Too strong relentless Fate has fixed her bars, 
 And I my destined captive hold too fast." 
 
 While Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld were undecided as to 
 their plans for the future, and considering how they 
 might increase Mr. Barbauld's small income as a 
 preacher, a proposal was made by Mrs. Montague, and 
 some other friends of Mrs. Barbauld, to her of the 
 plan of a college or academy for young ladies. No 
 better idea can be gained of Mrs. Barbauld's views 
 on the higher education of women, and the changes 
 which have occurred in the last hundred years, in this 
 respect, than by reading her reply to these ladies. She 
 gave them her views on the subject in a letter which 
 contains so much good sense and sound reasoning that 
 her statement is worthy of note as the opinion of one 
 who was an ornament to her age and sex. With some 
 modifications, which a century with its inevitable 
 changes brings, the reasoning is as sound to-day as it 
 was then, and it is worthy of attention as the view of a 
 cultivated woman, and also something of a picture of 
 her own early training. She says : — 
 
 "A kind of Literary Academy for ladies (for that is 
 
 what you seem to propose), where they are to be taught 
 
 in a regular, systematic manner the various branches of 
 
 science, appears to me better calculated to form such 
 
 c 
 
xxxiv MEMOIR. 
 
 characters as the i Precieuses' 1 or the '■Femmes sqavantes ' 
 of Moliere, than good wives or agreeable companions. . . . 
 The best way for women to acquire knowledge, is from 
 conversation with a father, a brother, or friend, in the way 
 of family intercourse and easy conversation, and by such 
 a course of reading as they may recommend. . . . Per- 
 haps you may think, that having myself stepped out of the 
 bounds of female reserve in becoming an author, it is with 
 an ill grace I offer these sentiments : but though this cir- 
 cumstance may destroy the grace, it does not the justice 
 of the remark ; and I am full well convinced that to have a 
 too great fondness for books is little favorable to the hap- 
 piness of a woman, especially one not in affluent circum- 
 stances. My situation has been peculiar, and would be 
 no rule for others. 
 
 " I should likewise object to the age proposed. Their 
 knowledge ought to be acquired at an earlier period ; 
 geography, those languages it may be proper for them to 
 learn, grammar, etc., are best learned from about nine to 
 thirteen or fourteen, an4 will then interfere less with other 
 duties. I should have little hopes of cultivating a love of 
 knowledge in a young lady of fifteen, who came to me 
 ignorant and untaught. ... It is too late then to begin 
 to learn. The empire of the passions is coming on ; a 
 new world opens to the youthful eye ; those attachments 
 begin to be formed which influence the happiness of future 
 life ; — the care of a mother, and that alone, can give suit- 
 able attention to this important period. At this period 
 they have many things to learn which books and systems 
 never taught, — the grace and ease of polished society, 
 with the established modes of behavior to every different 
 class of people ; the detail of domestic economy, to which 
 they must be gradually introduced; the duties, the pro- 
 
MEMOIR. xxxv 
 
 prieties of behavior which they must practise in their own 
 family, in the families where they visit, to their friends, 
 to their acquaintance ; lastly, their behavior to the other 
 half of their species, with whom before they were hardly 
 acquainted, and who then begin to court their notice. . . . 
 These are the accomplishments which a young woman has 
 to learn from fourteen or fifteen till she is married, or fit to 
 be so ; and surely these are not to be learned in a school. 
 They must be learned partly at home, and partly by visits. 
 . . . For all these reasons, it is my full opinion that the 
 best public education cannot at that period be equally ser- 
 viceable with — I had almost said — an indifferent private 
 one. 
 
 " My next reason is, that I am not at all qualified for 
 the task. I have seen a good deal of the manner of edu- 
 cating boys, and known pretty well what is expected in 
 the care of them ; but in a girl's boarding-school I should 
 be quite a novice : I never was at one myself, have not 
 even the advantage of younger sisters, which might have 
 given me some notion of the management of girls ; indeed, 
 for the early part of my life I conversed little with my 
 own sex. In the village where I was, there were none to 
 converse with ; and this, I am very sensible, has given me 
 an awkwardness in many common things, which would 
 make me most peculiarly unfit for the education of my 
 own sex. But suppose I were tolerably qualified to in- 
 struct those of my own rank ; — consider, that these must 
 be of a class far superior to those I have lived amongst 
 and conversed with. Young ladies of that rank ought to 
 have their education superintended by a woman perfectly 
 well-bred, from whose manner they may catch that ease 
 and gracefulness which can only be learned from the best 
 company ; and she should be able to direct them, and 
 
. vs ;;:::. 
 
 I ::u".i -:: yiizt ::' : 
 ztz-iz iri :: ::r:e:: 
 smile at my own : for 
 
 fitient in gracefoines! 
 
 I i~ =eis:":".e ±r ::: 
 r'.ir.. ir.l "relieve 1 : 
 n:: exer_:e i: 
 
 5i:ll :.:":e: 
 band receivec 
 
 I .5:. :.:: ?;.'. 
 ru'r.zTt l:llv ?;. 
 c: :r.t iiy. 1: 
 llll! ir;-zr.i 
 
 L ~t 13.11 '.':.:} 
 
 ir.z :l.e 1 : :r 
 
 itf-tf. :: =t- 
 
 1 le: he: set : 
 i=::tr= ::l ll ? 
 
 Tilv. :r. :l-.t 
 
 sited die various places of interest in 
 zzZTZZ-z'-is. z'z.ty Eerie 1 :.: Pilrri. t. 
 le on Horace Walpole, who, in writ- 
 
 dn has 
 zzzizzz -'--: le ; :s: ill:—, el : she 
 Casfle of Otranto (Strawberry Hffl) ; 
 £ antiquities of it," Among me first 
 
 "t 15 I LLc . :LL.L.LL ' i.Lr L-LL-L. II 
 
 .: Lrr. :'l1:l>. :11 il:r.e 111 ill; rreiL 
 old being studying a sermon, do I 
 
 The school for boys, which Mr. Barbauld opened at 
 
 ilrrr . 
 
 first lord Denman, Sir William GeD, Dr. Savers and 
 
 V.'illiirr. Tayl:: ::' N:rv^i:h. 1::1. L:rl 1 ;■::. he I;_h 
 of Selkirk, and two of his brothers, sons of Lord Tem- 
 pledown, and Lord More. Lord Aghrim, and others 
 
MEMOIR. xxxvn 
 
 were among the roll at Palgrave, — names distinguished 
 in the professions, and among the best in Great Britain. 
 William Taylor of Norwich, afterwards celebrated as 
 one of England's first German scholars, always called 
 Mrs. Barbauld " the mother of his mind." He recalled 
 with gratitude her instruction, and the way in which 
 she encouraged his talent for poetry. He wrote long 
 afterwards of the school : — 
 
 " On Wednesdays and Saturdays the boys were called 
 in separate classes to her apartment : she read a fable, a 
 short story, or a moral essay, to them aloud, and then 
 sent them back into the school-room to write it out on the 
 slates in their own words. Each exercise was separately 
 overlooked by her ; the faults of grammar were obliterated, 
 the vulgarisms were chastised, the idle epithets were can- 
 celled, and a distinct reason was always assigned for every 
 correction ; so that the arts of enditing and of criticising 
 were in some degree learnt together. Many a lad from 
 the great schools, who excels in Latin and Greek, cannot 
 write properly a vernacular letter, for want of some such 
 discipline." 
 
 Sir William Gell, afterwards the explorer of Pompeii, 
 was among the youngest scholars in her infant-class, for 
 whom she wrote the beautiful " Hymns in Prose." 
 Lord Denman, who was Chief Justice of England, 
 meeting Lucy Aikin years after, went up to her at a 
 great public entertainment, and said, with a look of 
 delight, " I dreamed of Mrs. Barbauld last night." With 
 all his legal learning Lord Denman cherished a love for 
 literature and poetry, and he always ascribed to his 
 beloved teacher his taste for belles lettres. 
 
xxxvni MEMOIR. 
 
 The " Prose Hymns " of Mrs. Barbauld are really 
 remarkable for the spirit of pure devotion, simple 
 beauty, and absolute perfection of form and idea. 
 Called prose by their gifted author, they abound in the 
 most harmonious periods, and pure, elevating ideas of 
 true poetry ; written for the very young, they cannot 
 fail to affect the intelligent, cultivated, and developed 
 mind by their pure simplicity of style, their elevation of 
 thought, and devotional spirit which they display. 
 
 The " Early Lessons " were written for the use of 
 little Charles Aikin, son of Mrs. Barbauld's brother, 
 John Aikin, M.D., author of most of the charming tales 
 in " Evenings at Home," " Essays on Song Writing," 
 and many other valuable works and compilations, in- 
 cluding his " Biographical Dictionary." Fifty large pub- 
 lications are numbered among Dr. Aikin's literary 
 works. 
 
 Mrs. Barbauld took little Charles at his birth, and 
 never having any children of her own, both Mr. and 
 Mrs. Barbauld gave him most devoted care. For him 
 she wrote " Early Lessons," with the desire to facilitate 
 his first reading, and make less painful those difficult 
 steps on the ladder of learning which all beginners must 
 take. 
 
 Her practical experience in teaching very little chil- 
 dren led her to say of this little book and her purpose 
 in preparing it : — 
 
 " It was found that amidst the multitude of books pro- 
 fessedly written for children, there is not one adapted to 
 the comprehension of a child from two to three years old. 
 
MEMOIR. xxxix 
 
 A grave remark or a connected story, however simple, is 
 above his capacity, and nonsense is always below it, for 
 folly is worse than ignorance. Another defect is the want 
 of good paper, a clear and large type, and large spaces. 
 Those only who have actually taught young children can 
 be sensible how necessary these assistances are. The 
 eye of a child cannot catch a small obscure ill-formed 
 word amidst a number of others, all equally unknown. To 
 supply these deficiencies is the object of this book. The 
 task is humble, but not mean ; for to lay the first stone of 
 a noble building and to plant the first idea in a human 
 mind can be no dishonor to any hand." 
 
 Of the "Hymns in Prose for Children," perhaps the 
 best known of all her writings, she says in her preface 
 her " peculiar object was to impress devotional feelings 
 as early as possible on the infant mind, — to impress 
 them, by connecting religion with a variety of sensible 
 objects, with all that he sees, all he hears, all that 
 affects his young mind with wonder and delight ; and 
 thus, by deep, strong, and permanent associations, to 
 lay the best foundation for practical devotion in future 
 life." 
 
 Mrs. Barbauld kept all the school and family accounts 
 during these very busy years at Palgrave, lectured to 
 the boys, wrote "Hymns in Prose" and "Early Les- 
 sons," " Devotional Pieces," with "Thoughts on Devo- 
 tional Taste," and in answer to her brother, who was 
 continually urging her to greater literary efforts, she 
 replied, — " Now to prove to you I am not lazy, I will 
 tell you what I have been about. First, then, making 
 up beds ; secondly, scolding my maids, preparing for 
 
xl MEMOIR. 
 
 company; and lastly, drawing up and delivering lec- 
 tures on geography. Give me joy of our success, for 
 we shall have twenty-seven scholars before the vacation, 
 and two more have bespoke places at midsummer ; so 
 that we do not doubt of being soon full." 
 
 Dr. Johnson was very severe on Mrs. Barbauld's little 
 books, and was once heard to say, " Miss Aikin was 
 an instance of early cultivation, but in what did it ter- 
 minate ? In marrying a little Presbyterian parson, who 
 keeps an infant boarding-school ; so that all her employ- 
 ment now is ' to suckle fools, and chronicle small beer.' 
 She tells the children, ' This is a cat, and this is a dog, 
 with four legs and a tail. See there ! You are much 
 better than a cat or a dog, for you can speak.' If I 
 had bestowed such an education on a daughter, and 
 had discovered that she thought of marrying such a 
 fellow, I would have sent her to the Congress." In 
 another mood the famous grumbler said better things 
 of her, for Mrs. Piozzi says, " Mrs. Barbauld, however, 
 had his best praise, and deserved it. No man was ever 
 more struck than Mr. Johnson with voluntary descent 
 from possible splendor to painful duty." 
 
 During the eleven years passed at Palgrave, Mr. and 
 Mrs. Barbauld were often in London, and at the hospi- 
 table house of her publisher, Joseph Johnson of St. 
 Paul's Churchyard, she saw many celebrated literary 
 people. The more fashionable circles of the West End 
 were not unknown to her, and at the house of Mrs. 
 Montague she met many distinguished men and women. 
 Hannah More, in her poem on "Sensibility," alludes to 
 
MEMOIR. xli 
 
 the famous literary and social queens of the day. In 
 her Bos Bleu she had already celebrated Mrs. Eliza- 
 beth Montague, Mrs. Boscawen, and Mrs. Vesey, as 
 leaders of society. 
 
 In Miss More's eulogy of woman's friendship, which 
 contains beautiful tributes to the distinguished women 
 of her day, including Mrs. Boscawen, Vesey, Delany, 
 Montague, Chapone, and others, she addressed the fol- 
 lowing fine lines to Mrs. Barbauld, whose friendship she 
 valued much, though their opinions differed on many 
 subjects : — 
 
 " Nor, Barbauld, shall my glowing heart refuse 
 Its tribute to thy virtues or thy Muse ; 
 This humble merit shall at least be mine, 
 The poet's chaplet for thy brow to twine ; 
 My verse thy talents to the world shall teach, 
 And praise the genius it despairs to reach. 
 Yet what is wit, and what the poet's art ? 
 Can genius shield the vulnerable heart ? 
 Ah, no ! where bright imagination reigns, 
 The fine-wrought spirit feels acuter pains ; 
 Where glow exalted sense and taste refined, 
 There, keener anguish rankles in the mind ; 
 There, feeling is diffused through every part, 
 Thrills in each nerve, and lives in all the heart ; 
 And those whose generous souls each tear would keep 
 From others' eyes, are born themselves to weep. 
 Can all the boasted powers of wit and song, 
 Of life one pang remove, one hour prolong ? 
 Fallacious hope ! which daily truths deride ; 
 For you, alas ! have wept, and Garrick died ! " 
 
xlii MEMOIR. 
 
 During the holidays the Barbaulds made excursions to 
 Warrington, Norwich, and London, pleasantly relieving 
 the tedium of teaching by such jaunts. 
 
 Soon after their marriage, in a visit to Warrington, 
 the lively lady found that her friend "Dr. Enfield's 
 face is grown half a foot longer since I saw him, with 
 studying mathematics, and for want of a game of 
 romps ; for there are positively none now at Warrington 
 but grave matrons. I, who have but half assumed the 
 character, was ashamed of the levity of my behavior." 
 
 Mr. James Martineau inherited a friendship and 
 respect for Mrs. Barbauld, and told me many little 
 anecdotes of her early years, gathered from her own lips 
 in after life. Once, perhaps during this very visit, the 
 lively school-mistress who so sadly felt the want of a 
 "game of romps," — imagine her usher and scholars 
 hearing of this confession ! — went to ride with her hus- 
 band and Dr. and Mrs. Estlin. They were travelling 
 on pillions, as was customary at that time in the coun- 
 try roads of England, where travelling could only be 
 accomplished on horseback. Dr. Estlin had Mrs. 
 Barbauld with him, and the other lady rode with Mr. 
 Barbauld. Dr. Estlin's horse made some sudden vio- 
 lent bounds, which threw Mrs. Barbauld off. Mr. Bar- 
 bauld, on seeing his wife fall, sprang off his own horse 
 regardless of his fair companion, and thus threw her off. 
 Neither of the four were hurt, but the horse ran off 
 before he could be caught, and two of the party were 
 obliged to walk ignominiously home. 
 
 In 1784, during one of these London visits, Mrs. 
 
MEMOIR. xliii 
 
 Barbauld wrote she began " to be giddy with the whirl 
 of London, and to feel my spirits flag. There are so 
 many drawbacks, from hair-dressers, bad weather, and 
 fatigue, that it requires strong health greatly to enjoy 
 being abroad." She was beginning to feel the tremen- 
 dous strain on mind and body which her years of teach- 
 ing, active housekeeping, and thought of Mr. Barbauld 
 caused her. In this last London visit she felt the 
 , fatigue more fully than before, and in 1 785 an entire 
 change of scene was decided to be necessary for both 
 Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld. They gave up the school, and 
 Mr. Barbauld resigned his church ; which allowed them 
 perfect freedom, and this they determined to enjoy in 
 a continental tour. They left England in September, 
 1785, and were absent until the following June ; which 
 time they passed very agreeably in France and Switzer- 
 land. 
 
 While the Barbaulds were absent, Mrs. Barbauld sent 
 home many bright and witty letters to her family and 
 friends. They saw much to interest them, and found a 
 cordial reception in many places. Geneva, where they 
 made something of a stay, attracted them by its social 
 charms, and there Mr. Barbauld found relations among 
 the Rochemonts, "amiable and respectable people." 
 Geneva was a literary centre then and for many years, 
 and the names of Necker, Minister of France, father 
 of Madame de Stael, Madame Necker {?iee Curchod), 
 the early love of Gibbon, De Saussure, De Candolle, 
 Sismondi, Bonstetten, M. Dumont, the Pictets, Marc 
 Auguste and his brother M. Pictet de Roche mont, 
 
xliv 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 worthily sustained the reputation of Geneva, which had 
 long been an educational centre for the Protestant 
 youth of Great Britain, France, Germany, and Spam. 
 The college founded by Calvin in 1558, with the 
 Academie of earlier date which was reorganized by him 
 and Beza in 1539, with many other public institutions 
 conducted on the most liberal principles, had made 
 Geneva, in the course of centuries, a place of enviable 
 importance, an abode of science and literature. Visits 
 at Aix, Nismes, Carcassone, Marseilles, and many other 
 interesting spots in France occupied their time very 
 pleasantly. In one letter descriptive of their summer's 
 journey, Mrs. Barbauld sent the following little summary 
 of her views on travelling : — 
 
 Advantages of Travelling. 
 
 A July sun and a southern 
 
 breeze. 
 Figs, almonds, etc., etc. 
 
 Sweet scents in the fields. 
 Grapes and raisins. 
 Coffee as cheap as milk. 
 Wine a demi-sous the bottle. 
 
 Provencal songs and laughter. 
 
 Soup, salad, and oil. 
 
 Arcs of triumph, fine churches, 
 
 stately palaces. 
 A pleasant and varied country. 
 
 Per Contra. 
 
 Flies, fleas, and all Pharaoh's 
 plague of vermin. 
 
 No tea, and the very name of a 
 teakettle unknown. 
 
 Bad scents within doors. 
 
 No plum-pudding. 
 
 Milk as dear as coffee. 
 
 Bread three sous the halfpenny 
 roll. 
 
 Provencal roughness and scold- 
 ing. 
 
 No beef, no butter. 
 
 Dirty inns, heavy roads, uneasy 
 carriages. 
 
 But many, many, a league from 
 those we love. 
 
MEMOIR. xlv 
 
 At Marseilles they bought a comfortable English 
 chaise for their return journey, — at that time this was 
 the only pleasant way of making long journeys, — and 
 posting with their own carriage was much more agree- 
 able to them than a diligence. 
 
 In this manner they saw Toulon, crossed the mount- 
 ains of the South of France, making excursions aside as 
 objects of interest were thought of. Hieres they visited 
 on foot, and returned to Toulon in a primitive fashion, 
 Mrs. Barbauld probably to her own amazement, on the 
 bourrique of a paysanne, as the nine mile road was so 
 steep that she was glad of a change and rest. 
 
 Mrs. Barbauld was troubled to see that at Nismes, 
 the very centre of Protestantism in France, the congre- 
 gation, some thirty thousand people, assembled in what 
 they called the desert, a place " in the open air, sur- 
 rounded by rocks which reverberate the voice," a few 
 stones served as seats for the elders, and with a mova- 
 ble pulpit made up the furnishing of this singular place 
 of worship. Their .great festivals conducted in this 
 place were most striking. " No church, not even a 
 barn," was theirs to use, and yet they were supposed 
 to be wealthy, and only persecutions of the government 
 prevented their building for religious purposes. 
 
 Some little time was passed at Paris, which was just 
 then all excitement over the affair of the Diamond 
 Necklace. 
 
 After the Barbaulds' return to England they passed 
 some months in London, lodging in Caroline street, 
 seeing their friends and enjoying very much the attrac- 
 
xlvi MEMOIR. 
 
 tions of the social atmosphere and literary life. Mrs. 
 Barbauld could greatly add to the pleasure of any social 
 gathering by her conversational powers. Miss Aikin 
 says, from her own recollections of her aunt in the ma- 
 turity of her powers, " Her conversation in her happiest 
 moods had a charm inexpressible : wit, playful wit, 
 tempered with true feminine softness and the gentle 
 dignity of a high mind, unwont to pour forth its hidden 
 treasures on all demands." Mr. John Kenrick, whose 
 wife was a life-long friend of Mrs. Barbauld, wrote 
 recently that " her conversational powers were best 
 seen when, in a circle of friends of cultivated minds, 
 some topic" of literary, historical, or moral interest was 
 started, and the ball was thrown freely from hand to 
 hand. She could maintain her place against the most 
 fluent and subtle of the party." 
 
 Sometimes, perhaps, she offended by this spirit of 
 argument ; for Mrs. Opie wrote to Mrs. Barbauld's very 
 dear friend, Mrs. John Taylor of Norwich, that she had 
 a talk with Mrs. Barbauld, who maintained " that read- 
 ing was an indolent way of passing the time," and took 
 that view of what she probably thought was reading in 
 a desultory manner without an object. Mrs. Opie "was 
 extremely surprised, as you may think, and began," she 
 adds, " to combat her assertions ; but I recollected 
 that I had heard it said that Mrs. Barbauld, like Mr. 
 Taylor, often contradicted for the sake of argument, 
 and when I feel this, as it is a proceeding which I 
 thoroughly disapprove, I am too angry to keep up the 
 ball." 
 
 
MEMOIR. xlvii 
 
 In 1787 Mr. Barbauld received a call from the 
 Hampstead dissenting chapel, and the move there was 
 made in the spring of that year. Hampstead was a 
 very rural suburb of London, and most inconvenient of 
 access from the metropolis, but it was a little centre 
 of a delightful society. The Carrs, the sisters Agnes 
 and Joanna Baillie, the Hoares, and other delightful 
 neighbors were near them ; and at Hackney, near by, 
 lived Dr. Priestley and Gilbert Wakefield, both endeared 
 to Mrs. Barbauld by many tender associations of her 
 happy years at Warrington. 
 
 She described her new home to her brother, who was 
 settled in London, in a note which I extract from : — 
 
 "Hampstead is certainly the pleasantest village about 
 London. The mall of the place, a kind of terrace, which 
 they call Prospect Walk, commands a most extensive 
 and varied view over Middlesex and Berkshire, in which 
 is included, besides many inferior places, the majestic 
 Windsor and lofty Harrow, which last is so conspicuously 
 placed that, you know, King James called it ' God's visible 
 church upon earth.' Hampstead and Highgate are mutu- 
 ally objects to each other, and the road between them is 
 delightfully pleasant, lying along Lord Mansfield's fine 
 woods, and the Earl of Southampton's/^/-//?.? o?-nee. Lady 
 Mansfield and Lady Southampton, I am told, are both 
 admirable dairy-women, and so jealous of each other's 
 fame in that particular that they have had many heart- 
 burnings, and have once or twice been very near a serious 
 falling-out, on the dispute which of them could make the 
 greatest quantity of butter from such a number of cows. 
 
 "As we have no house, we are not visited except by 
 those with whom we have connections ; but few as they 
 
xlviii MEMOIR. 
 
 are, they have filled our time with a continual round of 
 company; we have not been six days alone. This is a 
 matter I do not altogether wish, for they make very long 
 tea-drinking afternoons, and a whole long afternoon is 
 really a piece of life. However, they are very kind and 
 civil. I am trying to get a little company in a more im- 
 proving way, and have made a party with a young lady to 
 read Italian together." 
 
 Church Row was a green avenue of quaint old Dutch- 
 built houses, which led to the old church tower, which 
 guards the graves of old Hampstead worthies. 
 
 On a visit in Hampstead in 1873, I saw the house 
 described by Mrs. Barbauld as " standing in the high- 
 road, at the entrance of the village, quite surrounded by 
 fields." The house is much dilapidated, and the fields 
 quite built over now. After a time they chose a de- 
 lightful old house on Rosslyn Hill, and this was their 
 home till the move was made to Newington. There 
 came parishioners and friends, and they in their turn 
 made excursions which varied the year's occupations. 
 
 A stage-coach was the only means of communication 
 between the "village revelling in varieties," as Leigh 
 Hunt named it in his sonnet, and the hill was so steep 
 which had to be surmounted to reach their abode that 
 the passengers were always obliged to walk up the hill. 
 The state of the roads was such, too, that Mr. Barbauld 
 was often kept at home when he wished to go to town. 
 
 At Hampstead Mrs. Barbauld did some literary 
 work. The stories for "Evenings at Home," and sev- 
 eral prose essays, were written there. The spirited 
 
MEMOIR. xlix 
 
 poem addressed to the champion of the West Indian 
 blacks, William Wilberforce, was also composed there, 
 and Mrs. Hannah More thanked Mrs. Barbauld most 
 cordially for it in July, 1791, saying that she 'had re- 
 peated parts of it to Mr. Wilberforce, who was visiting 
 her, "and he did full justice to the striking picture" 
 of the barbarity of the West Indian women, in the 
 lines : — 
 
 " Lo ! where reclined, pale Beauty courts the breeze 
 Diffused on sofas of voluptuous ease ; 
 With anxious awe her menial train around 
 Catch her faint whispers of half-uttered sound ; 
 See her in monstrous fellowship unite 
 At once the Scythian and the Sybarite ! 
 Blending repugnant vices, misallied, 
 Which frugal nature purposed to divide ; 
 See her, with indolence to fierceness joined, 
 Of body delicate, infirm of mind, 
 With languid tones imperious mandates urge ; 
 With arm recumbent wield the household scourge ; 
 And with unruffled mien, and placid sounds, 
 Contriving torture, and inflicting wounds." 
 
 Among the cares of housekeeping, anxious watchful- 
 ness of her husband's mental condition, and her inter- 
 est in literature, Mrs. Barbauld found time to enjoy 
 society. In writing Samuel Rogers, the banker-poet, 
 then a young man, whose career was watched by Mrs. 
 Barbauld with motherly affection, she says : — 
 
 " We are to have an assembly at the Long Room, on 
 Monday next, the 22nd, which they say will be a pretty 
 
 d 
 
1 MEMOIR. 
 
 good one ; I take the liberty to ask whether it will be 
 agTeeable to you to be of our party, and in that case we 
 have a bed at your service. I could, I am sure, have my 
 petition supported by a round robin of the young ladies of 
 Hampstead, which would act like a spell to oblige your 
 attendance, but not being willing to make use of such 
 compulsory methods I will only say how much pleasure it 
 will give to, Sir, 
 
 "Your obliged and obedient servant, 
 
 "A. L. Barbauld. 
 
 " Our dinner hour, if you can give us your company to 
 dinner, is half after three. 
 
 "Hampstead, October" (about 1788). 
 
 In 1790 Mrs. Barbauld was roused by the rejection 
 of the bill for the repeal of the Corporation and Test 
 Acts, and she produced her eloquent and impressive 
 address to the opposers of the repeal. By this act, 
 passed in the reign of Charles II., no person was eligi- 
 ble to any position, either civil or military, under the 
 crown, without the acceptance of the Lord's Supper 
 according to the forms of the Church of England. 
 The act was finally repealed in 1828. 
 
 The high spirit of Mrs. Barbauld, her broad and lib- 
 eral views, and earnest advocacy of all measures of pro- 
 gress made her some enemies among the ranks of the 
 conservative party. She was without a shadow of party 
 feeling, and her whole aim was to elevate the cause of 
 humanity. 
 
 The spirited " Lines of the Rising of the French Na- 
 tion," with the prose essays already named, and " Re- 
 
MEMOIR. li 
 
 marks on Mr. Wakefield's Inquiry into the Expediency 
 and Propriety of Public or Social Worship," a discourse 
 for the Fast in 1793, with the " Epistle to William Wil- 
 berforce," made her enemies. Horace Walpole called 
 her Deborah, and Helen Maria Williams Jael, and in 
 writing constantly was abusing her even to her friends. 
 To Hannah More he wrote, " Deborah may cant rhymes 
 of compassion — she is a hypocrite ; and you shall not 
 make her real, nor with all your sympathy and candor 
 can you esteem her. Your compassion for the blacks 
 is genuine, sincere from your soul, most amiable ; hers, 
 a measure of faction." Deep indignation against her 
 "Address on the Corporation and Test Acts" made 
 him forget himself so far to call her "the virago 
 Barbauld," and class her among the lowest pamph- 
 leteers, "who spit their rage at eighteen pence a 
 head." - 
 
 Meantime the disinterested spirit of Mrs. Barbauld, 
 and her real love of freedom and humanity, upheld her 
 under the rising storm of scorn and ridicule. Her 
 heart always beat true for mankind, for every class 
 and nation, in their struggles for freedom and right. 
 Her pen and voice were ever ready for the defence of 
 what she felt was the true cause. Her gaze was ever 
 turned to the brightening future, to which she confi- 
 dently looked forward. 
 
 Diffident, modest by nature, and distrusting always 
 her own powers, it required great firmness to espouse 
 the unpopular side. Her first ambitious effort was 
 the generous appeal for Corsica, which she wrote 
 
Hi MEMOIR. 
 
 when only twenty-six, in the seclusion of her country 
 home. 
 
 She realized from the first the true meaning of the 
 French Revolution, and braved the displeasure of Burke 
 and many other friends to uphold her opinions. 
 
 She encouraged Priestley when mob law drove him 
 from his home with brutal violence ; saw the desecra- 
 tion which the rigid enforcement of the Test Act caused, 
 and the hypocrisy, also, which grew out of it ; spoke a 
 brave and timely word in the lines to Wilberforce, then 
 at the outset of his work for the slaves ; and even in 
 her much-abused poem of " 1811 " showed she had the 
 " courage of her convictions," when she re-encountered 
 voluntarily such attacks as that made on her by " the 
 Wicked Wasp," J. W. Croker. 
 
 In 1793 the memorable visit was made to Scotland, 
 when Mrs. Barbauld, while at Dugald Stewart's, drew 
 from her pocket-book the spirited verses of Burger's 
 "Lenore," and read the "composition to the company, 
 who were electrified by the tale. It was the more suc- 
 cessful," adds Sir Walter Scott, "that Mr. Taylor had 
 boldly copied the imitative harmony of the German, 
 and described the spectral journey in language resem- 
 bling that of the original." 
 
 " Burger had thus painted the ghastly career : — 
 
 1 Und hurre, hurre, hop, hop, hop ! 
 Ging's fort in sausendem Galopp, 
 Dass Ross und Reiter schnoben, 
 Und Kies und Funken stoben.' 
 
MEMOIR. liii 
 
 " The words were rendered by the kindred sounds in 
 English : — 
 
 ' Tramp, tramp, across the land they speed ; 
 Splash, splash, across the sea ; 
 Hurrah ! the dead can ride apace, 
 Dost fear to ride with me ? ' 
 
 " When Miss Aikin had finished her recitation, she 
 replaced in her pocket-book the paper from which she 
 had read it, and enjoyed the satisfaction of having made 
 a strong impression on the hearers, whose bosoms thrilled 
 yet the deeper as the ballad was not to be more closely 
 introduced to them. The author was not present on this 
 occasion, although he had then the distinguished advan- 
 tage of being a familiar friend and frequent visitor of Pro- 
 fessor Stewart and his family. But he was absent from 
 town while Miss Aikin was in Edinburgh, and it was not 
 until his return that he found all his friends in rapture 
 with the intelligence and good sense of their visitor, but 
 in particular with the wonderful translation from the Ger- 
 man, by means of which she had delighted and astonished 
 them. The enthusiastic description given of Burger's 
 ballad and the broken account of the story, of which only 
 two lines were recollected, inspired the author, who had 
 some acquaintance, as has been said, with the German 
 language, and a strong taste for popular poetry, with a 
 desire to see the original." 
 
 Miss Cranstoun, afterwards Countess of Purgstall, 
 who was present that evening, described the scene to 
 Captain Basil Hall many years after. Scott was so 
 much interested in his translation that he sat up very 
 late finishing it, and carried it next morning to Miss 
 Cranstoun who was delighted and wrote to a country 
 
liv MEMOIR. 
 
 friend, "Upon my word, Walter Scott is going to turn 
 out a poet, — something of a cross, I think, between 
 Burns and Gray." 
 
 In 1795 tne Essays prefixed by Mrs. Barbauld to 
 illustrated editions of Akenside's " Pleasures of the 
 Imagination " and Collins's " Odes " were published. 
 They show her usual critical taste and nice discrim- 
 ination. 
 
 In 1796 Mrs. Barbauld met Paoli, whom she had 
 so warmly eulogized in her poem on Corsica thirty 
 years before. She said herself, " Had it been thirty 
 years ago, it would have made my heart beat stronger." 
 
 Visits at various pleasant country places varied the 
 suburban life of Hampstead ; and South Wales, Surrey, 
 and the region about Bristol were familiar to them. 
 
 While at Bristol, in 1797, Mrs. Barbauld became 
 better acquainted with Hannah More, whom she had 
 long known as a correspondent after meeting her in 
 London. A day was passed at the little cottage of the 
 Mores', Cowslip Green. The Estlins, who were inti- 
 mate friends of the Barbaulds, kept a large boarding 
 school in Bristol, and with them many pleasant days 
 were spent. Delightful walks and drives varied the 
 time, and new acquaintances were made among the 
 literary and scientific men of the town. Dr. Beddoes 
 was then at the height of his fame and practising at the 
 "Pneumatic Institution" his various hobbies in gas 
 inhalation, and making his patients inhale the breath 
 of cattle. 
 
 While at Dorking in Surrey they made one visit to 
 
MEMOIR. lv 
 
 Madame D'Arblay, Fanny Burney, which that lady 
 chronicles as follows : — 
 
 "I was extremely surprised to be told by the maid a 
 gentleman and lady had called at the door, who sent in a 
 card and begged to know if I could admit them, and to see 
 the names on the card were Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld. I 
 had never seen them more than twice : the first time, by 
 their own desire, Mrs. Chapone carried me to meet them 
 at Mr. Burrow's ; the other time, I think, was at Mrs. 
 Chapone's. You must be sure I could not hesitate to 
 receive with thankfulness this civility from the authoress 
 of the most useful books, next to Mrs. Trimmer's, that 
 have been yet written for children ; though this with the 
 world is probably her very secondary merit, her many 
 pretty poems, and particularly songs, being generally 
 esteemed. But many more have written those as well, 
 and not a few better; for children's books she began the 
 new walk which has since been so well cultivated, to the 
 great information as well as utility of parents. 
 
 "Mr. Barbauld is a Dissenting minister, — an author 
 also, but I am unacquainted with his works. They were 
 in our little dining-parlor, — the only room that has any 
 chairs in it, — and began apologies for the visit; but I 
 interrupted, and finished them with my thanks." (Madame 
 D'Arblay had just moved into her new cottage, named by 
 her, after her last novel, Camilla Cottage ; and it was in 
 much disorder, for her marriage with M. D'Arblay had 
 been one of affection, hardly of prudence, and they were 
 very much straitened in their income.) " She is much 
 altered, but not for the worse to me, though she is for 
 herself, since the flight of her youth, which is evident, has 
 also taken with it a great portion of an almost set smile, 
 which had an air of determined complacence and prepared 
 
lvi MEMOIR. 
 
 acquiescence that seemed to result from a sweetness 
 which never risked being off guard. I remember Mrs. 
 Chapone's saying to me, after our interview, 'She is a 
 very good young woman, as well as replete with talents ; 
 but why must one always smile so ? It makes my poor 
 jaws ache to look at her.' We talked, of course, of that 
 excellent lady ; and you will believe I did not quote her 
 notions of smiling. . . . Her brother, Dr. Aikin, with his 
 family, were passing the summer at Dorking on account 
 of his ill health, the air of that town having been recom- 
 mended for his complaint. The Barbaulds were come to 
 spend some time with him, and would not be so near 
 without renewing their acquaintance. They had been 
 walking in Norbury Park, which they admired very much ; 
 and Mrs. Barbauld very elegantly said, ' If there was such 
 a public officer as Legislator of Taste, Mr. Lock ought to 
 be chosen for it.' They inquired much about M. D'Ar- 
 blay, who was working in his garden, and would not be at 
 the trouble of dressing to appear. They desired to see 
 Alex" (her son), "and I produced him; and his ortho- 
 graphical feats were very well timed here, for, as soon as 
 Mrs. Barbauld said, 'What is your name, you pretty 
 creature ?' he sturdily answered, ' BOY.' 
 
 " Almost all our discourse was upon the Irish rebellion. 
 Mr. Barbauld is a very little, diminutive figure, but well- 
 bred and sensible. I borrowed her poems afterwards, of Mr. 
 Daniel, who chanced to have them, and have read them 
 with much esteem of the piety and worth they exhibit, and 
 real admiration of the last amongst them, which is an 
 epistle to Mr. Wilberforce in favor of the demolition of the 
 slave-trade, in which her energy seems to spring from the 
 real spirit of virtue, suffering at the luxurious depravity 
 which can tolerate in a free land, so unjust, cruel, and 
 abominable a traffic. 
 
MEMOIR. lvii 
 
 " We returned their visit together in a few days, at Dr. 
 Aikin's lodgings at Dorking, where, as she permitted M. 
 D'Arblay to speak French, they had a very animated dis- 
 course upon buildings, French and English, each support- 
 ing those of their own country with great spirit, but my 
 monsieur, to own the truth, having greatly the advantage, 
 both in manner and argument. He was in spirits, and 
 came forth with his best exertions. Dr. Aikin looks very- 
 sickly, but is said to be better ; he had a good coun- 
 tenance." 
 
 In Rogers's "Table-Talk " there is an anecdote re- 
 lated by him of Madame D'Arblay in her old age, 
 which is not out of place here. He says : " I know 
 few lines finer than the concluding stanza of ' Life ' by 
 Mrs. Barbauld, who composed it when she was very old. 
 
 1 Life ! we 've been long together, 
 Through pleasant and through cloudy weather ; 
 'T is hard to part when friends are dear ; 
 Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear ; 
 Then steal away, give little warning, 
 Choose thine own time ; 
 
 Say not Good Night, — but in some brighter clime 
 Bid me Good Morning.' 
 
 Sitting with Madame D'Arblay some weeks before 
 she died, I said to her, ' Do you remember those lines 
 of Mrs. Barbauld's " Life " which I once repeated to 
 you ? ' ' Remember them ! ' she replied ; ' I repeat 
 them to myself every night before I go to sleep.' " 
 
 In a visit of 1799 at Clifton, Mrs. Barbauld, by the 
 invitation of Mr. Edgeworth made the acquaintance of 
 
lviii MEMOIR. 
 
 his interesting family. Maria and she became life- 
 long friends. Some criticism courted by Mr. Edge- 
 worth, on " Practical Education," the joint work of his 
 daughter and himself, was graciously received by him 
 and adopted in a later edition, though at the time Mrs. 
 Barbauld made it, it was evidently distasteful to him. 
 After several pertinent suggestions, " Mrs. Barbauld was 
 further well prepared," says Maria, " to urge against 
 his plan the tendency to foster aristocratic pride and 
 perhaps ingratitude. The one and twenty other good 
 reasons she said could be given, my father spared her." 
 As she was the first person to make' some unanswerable 
 objections to Mr. Edgeworth's peculiar system of edu- 
 cation he found it difficult to hear her, but the practical 
 views of Mrs. Barbauld had their effect. 
 
 Mrs. Edgeworth gave a little account of their new 
 friends in a letter to her family in Ireland : — 
 
 " Mr. Barbauld was an amiable and benevolent man, so 
 eager against the slave-trade that when he drank tea with 
 us he always brought some East India sugar, that he 
 might not share our wickedness in eating that made by 
 the negro slave. Mrs. Barbauld, whose ' Evenings at 
 Home ' had so much delighted Maria and her father was 
 very pretty, and conversed with great ability in admirable 
 language." 
 
 One story told me in London of Mr. Barbauld 
 while minister at Hampstead gives one a funny impres- 
 sion of the little man. He visited an old lady who had 
 recently joined his society, accompanied by his wife. 
 He was exceedingly restless and fidgety, and moved 
 
MEMOIR. lix 
 
 about a good deal. Finally the lady turned to Mrs. 
 Barbauld and said, " Would not your little boy like to 
 go and play in the garden, and then we can have a nice 
 long talk ! " 
 
 Among other Hampstead friends were two young 
 Scotch women, who came to "Mr. Barbauld's meet- 
 ing," and were kindly greeted and welcomed as house- 
 hold friends by the pastor and his wife. A volume of 
 anonymous tragedies which appeared at the close of 
 the last century was much admired by Mrs. Barbauld, 
 and one morning she praised the plays " with all her 
 heart " to Miss Baillie. Lucy Aikin was struck by the 
 coincidence, — Mrs. Barbauld had no knowledge of the 
 authorship, — and says, " I well remember the scene. 
 She and her sister arrived on a morning call at Mrs. 
 Barbauld's. My aunt immediately introduced the topic 
 of the anonymous tragedies, and gave utterance to her 
 admiration with the generous delight in the manifesta- 
 tions of kindred genius which distinguished her." 
 The "sudden delight" which she thinks the author 
 must have felt, did not tear the veil of reserve in which 
 she had shrouaed her plays, and Mrs. Barbauld must 
 have learned elsewhere her young friend's secret. Years 
 after, she addressed her in the poem "1811" : — 
 
 " Then, loved Joanna, to admiring eyes, 
 Thy storied groups in scenic pomp shall rise : 
 Their high-souled strains and Shakespeare's noble rage 
 Shall with alternate passion shake the stage." 
 
 In 1802 Mr. Barbauld received a call from the soci- 
 ety at Newington Green, which had been under the 
 
lx MEMOIR. 
 
 pastoral care of Dr. Price. The fact that Dr. Aikin 
 had permanently fixed his abode in this village, which 
 was quiet and yet convenient of access to London, was 
 a great inducement to Mrs. Barbauld, and caused her 
 to leave the many dear Hampstead friends with less 
 reluctance. William Howitt, some years since, said of 
 the Green, " It is one of the oldest places of the parish, 
 and has had ancient houses and distinguished inhabi- 
 tants. It had, till of late years, a still, out-of-the-way 
 look, surrounded in most parts by large trees, and 
 green lanes to it on all sides." One of her letters to 
 Mrs. Kenrick gives a description of what might have 
 been a happy home : " We have a pretty little back 
 parlor that looks into our little spot of a garden," she 
 says, "and catches every gleam of sunshine. We 
 have pulled down the ivy, except what covers the 
 coach-house. We have planted a vine and a passion- 
 flower, with abundance of jasmine, against the window, 
 and we have scattered roses and honey-suckle all over 
 the garden. You may smile at me for parading so over 
 my house and domains." In May she writes a pleasant 
 letter, in good spirits, comparing her correspondence 
 with her friend to the flower of an aloe, which sleeps 
 for a hundred years, and on a sudden pushes out when 
 least expected. " But take notice, the life is in the aloe 
 all the while, and sorry should I be if the life were not 
 in our friendship all the while, though it so rarely dif- 
 fuses itself over a sheet of paper." 
 
 The writer saw it much changed a few years since. 
 The quaint houses are now crowded by suburban villas 
 
MEMOIR. lxi 
 
 bearing the usual flowery inscriptions over their preten- 
 tious gates, and Newington is no longer the sequestered 
 and rural place it was when good Mrs. Barbauld settled 
 herself in her quaint little home next that occupied by 
 John Aikin. This happy family reunion had its sad 
 drawback in the shape of the ill health and increasing 
 irritability of Mr. Barbauld. The wearing life led by 
 Mrs. Barbauld, and the overshadowing anxiety, made 
 itself felt when she wrote an old friend in 1802, just 
 after this change of home, " My enthusiasm is all gone, 
 — not for Buonaparte, for with regard to him I never 
 had any, — but for most things. I wish there were any 
 process, electric, galvanic, or through any other me- 
 dium, by which we might recover some of the fine feel- 
 ings which age is so apt to blunt ; it would be the true 
 secret of growing young." 
 
 For the "Annual Review," edited by her nephew- 
 Arthur Aikin, Mrs. Barbauld prepared some reviews of 
 the poetry and polite literature of the day for the earlier 
 volumes, and among these may be mentioned the cri- 
 tique on the " Lay," named by Scott as the review of 
 it which he " approved and admired the most." 
 
 The year 1804 was a happier period, and we read a 
 lively letter written from Tunbridge Wells, describing 
 the various diversions of the crowds who walked the 
 Pantiles for health or pleasure. 
 
 In this year Mrs. Barbauld was asked to prepare a 
 selection from the "Spectator," "Tatler," "Guardian," 
 and " Freemen," with an essay on the various writers 
 whose papers are there embalmed for the edification of 
 
lxii MEMOIR. 
 
 the future student of the finest English style. This 
 essay has been considered by many critics as Mrs. 
 Barbauld's finest piece of work. The genius and power 
 of Addison has never been more ably displayed than in 
 the nice and discriminating study of his works here 
 offered by Mrs. Barbauld. Steele, and other writers of 
 the day, contributors to these periodicals, are briefly 
 but carefully and judiciously reviewed by her skilful 
 hand. The essay opens with the observation that " it 
 is equally true of books as of their authors, that one 
 generation passeth away and another cometh." The 
 mutual influence exerted by books and manners on 
 each other is then remarked ; and the silent and grad- 
 ual declension from what might be called the active 
 life of an admired and popular book to the honorable 
 retirement of a classic is briefly but impressively traced ; 
 the essay being closed by remarks on the mutations and 
 improvements which have particularly affected the 
 works in question. 
 
 During the same year Mrs. Barbauld, having been 
 asked to prepare a life of Richardson and edit his let- 
 ters, began the work. The real value of the work lies 
 in her biography, and the dull, prolix letters of the 
 publisher-novelist are very uninteresting. The bright 
 and pleasant account of his life, his stories, and his 
 friends and home makes modern readers for Richard- 
 son. Many excellent critics thought the "Life of 
 Richardson " Mrs. Barbauld's best work. Charles 
 James Fox told Samuel Rogers he thought it " admi- 
 rable, and regretted that she had wasted her talents on 
 
MEMOIR. lxiii 
 
 writing books for children (excellent as "those books 
 might be) now that there were so many pieces of that 
 description." 
 
 One day, as Mrs. Barbauld was going home from 
 London in the stage-coach she had a Frenchman for 
 her companion, and upon entering into conversation 
 with him she found that he was making an excursion to 
 Hampstead for the express purpose of seeing the house 
 in the Flask Walk where Clarissa Harlowe lodged. 
 Rogers, in telling this anecdote, adds, " What a com- 
 pliment to the genius of Richardson ! " 
 
 Mrs. Barbauld was much struck with the enthusiasm 
 of the foreigner, and he for his part "was surprised," 
 she says, "at the ignorance or indifference of the in- 
 habitants on that subject. The Flask Walk was to 
 him as classic ground as the rocks of Meilirie to the 
 admirers of Rousseau." 
 
 Henry Crabbe Robinson wrote : — 
 
 " In December I formed a new acquaintance, of which 
 I was reasonably proud, and in the recollection of which I 
 still rejoice. At Hackney I saw repeatedly Miss Wake- 
 field, 1 a charming girl. And one day at a party, when 
 Mrs. Barbauld had been the subject of conversation, and 
 I had spoken of her in enthusiastic terms, Miss Wakefield 
 came to me, and said, ' Would you like to know Mrs. Bar- 
 bauld?' I exclaimed, 'You might as well ask me whether 
 I should like to know the Angel Gabriel ! ' ' Mrs. Bar- 
 bauld is, however, more accessible. I will introduce you 
 to her nephew.' She then called to Charles Aikin, whom 
 she soon after married ; and he said : ' I dine every Sun- 
 
 1 Daughter of Gilbert Wakefield. 
 
lxiv MEMOIR. 
 
 day with my uncle and aunt at Stoke Newington, and I 
 am expected always to bring a friend with me. Two 
 knives and forks are laid for me. Will you go with me 
 next Sunday ? ' Gladly acceding to the proposal, I had 
 the good fortune to make myself agreeable, and soon 
 became intimate in the house. 
 
 " Mr. Barbauld had a slim figure, a meagre face, and a 
 shrill voice. He talked a great deal, and was fond of 
 dwelling on controversial points in religion. He was by 
 no means destitute of ability, though the afflictive disease 
 was lurking in him, which in a few years broke out, and, 
 as is well known, caused a sad termination to his life. 
 
 " Mrs. Barbauld bore the remains of great personal 
 beauty. She had a brilliant complexion, light hair, blue 
 eyes, a small, elegant figure, and her manners were very 
 agreeable, with something of the generation then depart- 
 ing. She received me very kindly, spoke very civilly of 
 my aunt, Zachary Crabbe, and said she had herself once 
 slept at my father's house. In the estimation of Words- 
 worth she was the first of our literary women, and he was 
 not bribed to this judgment by any especial congeniality 
 of feeling, or by concurrence in speculative opinions. I 
 may here relate an anecdote concerning her and Words- 
 worth : It was after her death that Lucy Aikin published 
 Mrs. Barbauld's collected works, of which I gave a copy 
 to Miss Wordsworth. Among the poems is a stanza on 
 Life, written in extreme old age. It had delighted my 
 sister, to whom I repeated it on her death-bed. It was 
 long after I gave these works to Miss Wordsworth that 
 her brother said, ' Repeat me that stanza by Mrs. Bar- 
 bauld.' I did so. He made me repeat it again. And so 
 he learned it by heart. He was at the time walking in 
 his sitting-room at Rydal, with hands behind him ; I 
 
MEMOIR. lxv 
 
 heard him mutter to himself, ' I am not in the habit of 
 grudging other people their good things, but I wish I had 
 written those lines,' and repeated to himself the stanza 
 which I have already quoted : — 
 
 1 Life we 've been long together,' etc." 
 
 In naming a number of poetesses, Wordsworth him- 
 self, in writing to Mr. Dyce in 1830, put Mrs. Barbauld 
 at the head of the list. He mentions Helen Maria 
 Williams, Charlotte Smith, Anna Seward, and others, 
 and adds of Mrs. Barbauld, that, "with much higher 
 powers of mind," she "was spoiled as a poetess by 
 being a Dissenter, and concerned with a Dissenting 
 Academy. . . . One of the most pleasing passages in 
 her poetry is the close of the lines on ' Life,' written, 
 I believe, when she was not less than eighty years of 
 age," and he quotes it to his friend. " He much ad- 
 mired Mrs. Barbauld's ' Essays,' and sent a copy of 
 them, with a laudatory note, to the then Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, his friend," says the biographer of the poet. 
 
 The great Lake Poet appears to have disregarded 
 the fact that his own father was an attorney, and acted 
 as agent to a nobleman, and he himself consented to 
 hold an office of small honor but fair salary, — that of 
 stamp distributor, — and later receive a pension from 
 government; all of which makes it rather unjust in him 
 to blame Mrs. Barbauld for the position in life to which 
 she was born. 
 
 Mrs. Barbauld made some little journeys during the 
 year 1805. We hear of a visit at Dorking and some 
 weeks spent in London lodgings, where she offered to 
 
lxvi MEMOIR. 
 
 take Lucy Aikin, but she refused, saying to a corre- 
 spondent : " The Barbaulds are going next week to 
 lodgings in town, which they have taken for a few 
 weeks, in order to see everything and everybody with 
 little trouble. They wish me to go and share their 
 gayety, but I feel by no means equal to racketing at 
 present, and my father shows little inclination to in- 
 trust me to the prudence of my aunt, who is at least 
 forty years younger than I am." 
 
 What poor Mrs. Barbauld could have done with her 
 niece, beyond giving her many desirable introductions, 
 it is hard to see. 
 
 The condition of her husband must have been 
 enough to steady the gayest nature. A sudden outburst 
 of violence, in which he threatened Mrs. Barbauld's 
 life put an end to the long restraint the devoted wife 
 had put on her nerves and heart. For years his temper 
 had been very trying, and sudden outbreaks of fury 
 even at Palgrave made her cares very great ; but this 
 attack was accompanied by such hallucinations regard- 
 ing his wife and Dr. Aikin that he was removed to a 
 house next that of Dr. C. R. Aikin, in the care of a 
 keeper. 
 
 For several years his eccentricities had been very 
 trying to his wife. He would spend whole days wash- 
 ing himself. A lady whom the Barbaulds visited a few 
 years before his death wrote of this peculiar craze that 
 frequently at six o'clock in the afternoon, after all day 
 had been passed by him bathing, Mrs. Barbauld would 
 urge him to walk with them. Again and again she 
 
MEMOIR. lxvii 
 
 would ask him if he was ready, calling in her kindest 
 tones, " Rochemont, Rochemont, are you coming ? We 
 are all waiting for you to walk with us ! " " Yes, my 
 dear," the little man would reply, " I am just washing 
 myself, and will soon be ready to go with you." 
 
 It became a very dangerous position, however, for 
 his wife, some time before she consented to give up 
 her brave and self-sacrificing devotion ; but at last, fre- 
 quent attempts upon her life brought about a necessary 
 change in their relations. After his removal to London 
 she did not give up all hopes for his recovery, though 
 his disease was hereditary, and she tried to cheer her- 
 self as well as she could with thoughts of old friends. 
 She wrote briefly of the sad condition of Mr. Barbauld, 
 urging her old friend "Betsy " to visit her. " An alien- 
 ation from me has taken possession of his mind," 
 she says, in a letter to Mrs. Kenrick ; " my presence 
 seems to irritate him, and I must resign myself to a 
 separation from him who has been for thirty years the 
 partner of my heart, my faithful friend, my inseparable 
 companion." 
 
 A little later, after Mrs. Kenrick had made her a 
 visit, and comforted her in her desolate home, she 
 wrote, when again alone, to her of Mr. Barbauld. 
 
 " He is now at Norwich, and I hear very favorable ac- 
 counts of his health and spirits ; he seems to enjoy him- 
 self very much among his old friends there, and converses 
 among them with his usual animation. There are no 
 symptoms of violence or of depression ; so far is favorable ; 
 but this cruel alienation from me, in which my brother is 
 
lxviii MEMOIR. 
 
 included, still remains deep-rooted, and whether he will 
 ever change in this point Heaven only knows ; the medi- 
 cal men fear he will not. If so, my dear friend, what 
 remains for me but to resign myself to the will of Heaven, 
 and to think with pleasure that every day brings me 
 nearer a period which naturally cannot be very far off, 
 and at which this as well as every temporal affliction must 
 terminate ? 
 
 " ' Anything but this ! ' is the cry of weak mortals when 
 afflicted ; and sometimes I own I am inclined to make it 
 mine ; but I will check myself." 
 
 The improvement in the sufferer's health and spirits 
 was such that he was allowed more freedom, and being 
 trusted with money, he bribed his keepers to let him 
 walk out. He disappeared, and being looked for, was 
 found dead in the New River, attracted doubtless by 
 his singular fancy for bathing at all times and places. 
 
 As before said, Mrs. Le Breton having published 
 what was known generally, though not publicly stated, 
 concealment is no longer necessary, and one can only 
 revere and admire the more the fortitude and courage, 
 and the true wifely devotion of Mrs. Barbauld to her 
 husband. It is no longer a matter of surprise that she 
 did so little literary work after her marriage ; the wonder 
 is that she lived so calm and beautiful a life, full of the 
 noblest silence about her cruel lot. 
 
 One better understands that mind which wrote what 
 Sir James Mackintosh calls as fine a piece of mitigated 
 and rational stoicism as our language can boast of, — the 
 observations on the moral of Clarissa Harlowe. It is but 
 simple justice to name the great trial of Mrs. Barbauld's 
 
MEMOIR. lxix 
 
 life, as a better evidence of the powers of her mind than 
 all her writings, grand and powerful as all the great 
 minds of England pronounce them. 
 
 In the year 1809, Mrs. Barbauld had the strength of 
 mind to turn her attention to literary work ; and receiv- 
 ing an offer to prepare a " Collection of the British 
 Novelists," she edited, with introductions, lives, and 
 notes, the fifty charming volumes which appeared in 
 the year 18 10, an edition highly valued now as then. 
 Sir Walter Scott acknowledged his indebtedness to 
 Mrs. Barbauld for some material he used on Ballantyne's 
 " Novelists " which he received from her. 
 
 In 181 1, appeared from her hand the selection of 
 prose and verse known to the scholars of the day as 
 the " Enfield Speaker," a work in one volume, intended 
 for the use of young ladies. 
 
 The year 181 1 was a memorable one for Mrs. Bar- 
 bauld. For years she had felt the apathy which open 
 or concealed grief and distress causes the strongest 
 mind, the bravest heart. The work of biographer, edi- 
 tor, or annotator was sufficiently easy to her well-trained 
 mind and vigorous reasoning powers to afford her re- 
 laxation, not exhilaration or inspiration. At last she 
 felt a stirring of the old poetic fire which blazed in the 
 "Corsica," the "Epistle on Slavery," addressed to Wil- 
 liam Wilberforce, the "Summer Evening's Meditation," 
 and the noble "Address to the Deity," with the soul- 
 inspiring hymns. The subject of her poem was the 
 luxury and ambition of Great Britain, and the warning 
 conveyed to the nation was, that unbounded ambition 
 
lxx MEMOIR. 
 
 and unjustifiable wars must finally destroy the noblest 
 government. 
 
 " Arts, arms, and wealth destroy the fruits they bring ; 
 Commerce, like beauty, knows no second spring." 
 
 She may justly claim the simile used by many later 
 writers, and by none more grandly than by Macaulay 
 in his sonorous prose, — that of the New Zealander who 
 " shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on. 
 a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of 
 St. Paul's." The youth from Ontario's shore was no 
 more objectionable than Macaulay 's New Zealander, 
 but the indignation of the critics at the thought was 
 most violent. The visit to the former seat of a grand 
 empire upon which the sun never set was as follows : — 
 
 "Pensive and thoughtful shall the wanderers greet 
 Each splendid square, and still untrodden street ; 
 Or, of some crumbling turret, mined by time, 
 The broken stairs with perilous step shall climb; 
 Thence stretch their view the wide horizon round, 
 By scattered hamlets trace its ancient bound, 
 And, choked no more with fleets, fair Thames survey 
 Through reeds and sedge pursue his idle way." 
 
 A singularly offensive article in the " London Quar- 
 terly " for 1812, noted for its bitterness towards women, 
 attacked the venerable lady. It was not known till long 
 after that this was the work of Southey. He descends 
 to personal insult in the attack, knocking even her 
 spectacles and knitting-needles about in the assault. 
 There was a good deal of scurrility written and printed 
 
MEMOIR. lxxi 
 
 in the letters which come to us from Coleridge, Lamb, 
 Godwin and others of that set, — literary men of a cer- 
 tain school. During their lives they were very glad, as 
 we learn, to accept the friendship and hospitality of Mrs. 
 Barbauld. Jealousy, or disappointed literary aspira- 
 tions, often had a part in these gentle personalities, as 
 when Lamb called Mrs. Inchbald and Mrs. Barbauld 
 "his bald women," nicknamed her Ba7'ebald and the 
 like. At another time Charles wrote to Coleridge : 
 " ' Goody Two Shoes ' is almost out of print. Mrs. Bar- 
 bauld's stuff has banished all the old classics of the 
 nursery, and the shopmen at Newberry's hardly deigned 
 to reach them off an old shelf when Mary asked for 
 them. Mrs. Barbauld's and Mrs. Trimmer's nonsense 
 lay in piles around." More of this he added, ending, 
 " Hang them ! I mean the cursed reasoning crew, 
 those blights and blasts of all that is human in man 
 and child." 
 
 It is not wonderful that Southey wished Lamb to 
 " declare war upon Mrs. Barebold. He should singe 
 her flaxen wig," he adds, " with squibs, and tie crack- 
 ers to her petticoats till she leaped about like a parched 
 pea for very torture. There is no man in the world 
 who could so well revenge himself." This extraordinary 
 tirade on the part of the poet-laureate was provoked by 
 the rejection of an article he sent Arthur Aikin for his 
 magazine. The revenge he took was most brutal, and 
 the pain inflicted was never forgotten by Mrs. Barbauld. 
 She never printed anything after the appearance of this 
 poem and the abusive criticism of the " Quarterly." 
 
lxxii MEMOIR. 
 
 She wrote, however, occasionally, and the exquisite 
 lines on "Life," the ode which Wordsworth wished 
 he had written, and Tennyson called " sweet verses," 
 were composed after this. 
 
 Mr. Murray was known to regret exceedingly the 
 appearance of Southey's article in the "Review," of 
 which he was then the publisher. He said he was 
 more ashamed of it than of anything that had ever been 
 published in that periodical. 
 
 To the quiet little home at Newington came many 
 distinguished men and women. Earnest thinkers, 
 learned men and women, clever and appreciative of 
 the talents of others were often seen at the door, and 
 the little parlor of Mrs. Barbauld was frequently the 
 meeting-place of England's men of mark. Here came 
 Mackintosh and Macaulay, Coleridge and Charles 
 Lamb, Sir Henry Holland, Dr. Channing, the Edge- 
 worths, Sir John Bowring, Sir James Smith. Samuel 
 Rogers, and Joanna Baillie, with her sister Agnes, were 
 among the old Hampstead friends. In 1815 one 
 reads of a day at Hampstead at the Carrs, " a charm- 
 ing day," when Sir Walter Scott told the old lady her 
 reading of Taylor's " Lenore," " Tramp, tramp, splash, 
 splash," " made him a poet." 
 
 One gets a glimpse of her taking up a little girl into 
 her lap and asking her if she could read, and what book 
 she was then reading. " I answered, ' Barbauld's Les- 
 sons,' quite unconscious I was sitting in the lap of their 
 author. She then said, ' I suppose you study geogra- 
 phy, and can tell me what ocean is between England 
 
MEMOIR. lxxiii 
 
 and America?'" Mrs. Farrar adds that her mother 
 having relatives in America, to whom she wrote often, 
 she was able to answer this question ; but fearing that 
 the next might be more difficult, she slid down from the 
 perch, where she was very comfortable, and ran off. 
 She says, " I often met her after I was grown up, and 
 remember her as a sweet-looking, lively old lady, wear- 
 ing her gray hair, which was then uncommon, reading 
 aloud to a circle of young people on a rainy morning in 
 the country. She read well ; the book was ' Guy Man- 
 nering,' then just published." Mrs. Barbauld then 
 made them all draw their impressions of the witch, and 
 kept that done by Mrs. Farrar's sister. " The kind old 
 lady" and her pleasant manners made much of an im- 
 pression on the youthful mind of Mrs. Farrar, who long 
 after recalled with pleasure her venerable friend. 
 
 In the summer of 1812 Mrs. Barbauld, who always 
 enjoyed a journey, made a visit to Hannah More, while 
 she was with the Estlins at Bristol. It was thirty years 
 since the two had met, — thirty years of change and 
 sorrow for Mrs. Barbauld, but Miss More she found 
 very much as she left her. " Nothing could be more 
 friendly than their reception, and nothing more charm- 
 ing than their situation." The thatched cottage over- 
 looking the lovely view of Wrington and the Mendip 
 Hills, and standing on a slight declivity, they had 
 planted and made " quite a little paradise." She adds, 
 "The five sisters, all good old maids, have lived to- 
 gether these fifty years, without any break having been 
 made in their little community, by death or any other 
 
lxxiv MEMOIR. 
 
 cause of separation. Hannah More is a good deal 
 broken by illness, but possesses fully her powers of 
 conversation, and her vivacity. We exchanged riddles 
 like the wise men of old." 
 
 Dr. Channing, who saw Mrs. Barbauld in her old age, 
 was much struck with her mental vigor and the interest 
 she felt in daily events. He said to a friend, after- 
 wards, " I recollect with much pleasure the visit which 
 we paid with you to Mrs. Barbauld. It is rare to meet 
 with such sensibility, mildness, and I may say sweet- 
 ness, united with the venerableness of old age ; and I 
 was particularly gratified with seeing, in a woman so 
 justly distinguished, such entire absence of the con- 
 sciousness of authorship." And after her death, in 
 writing Lucy Aikin, he said, " I remember my short 
 interview with her with much pleasure. Perhaps I 
 never saw a person of her age who had preserved so 
 much of youth, — on whom time had laid so gentle a 
 hand. Her countenance had nothing of the rigidness 
 and hard lines of advanced life, but responded to the 
 mind like a young woman's. I carry it with me as 
 one of the treasures of memory." 
 
 Mrs. Barbauld visited more or less in the later years 
 of her life. One letter of 1819, from Miss Aikin, in 
 speaking of their home-circle says, " We are all quite 
 well here ; my Aunt Barbauld hears as quick as ever," 
 and " though complaining a little, occasionally, has 
 continued to make many visits, and enjoy, I think, a 
 great deal of pleasure this summer." She herself wrote 
 of the season, and her visiting one friend's house : 
 
MEMOIR. lxxv 
 
 " Our weather is still pleasant. I am going to spend 
 two or three days at , Mr. and Miss B. and my- 
 self in a post-chaise. An agreeable companion in a 
 post-chaise — though I would not advertise for one — 
 is certainly an agreeable thing. You talk, and yet you 
 are not bound to talk ; and if the conversation drops, 
 you may pick it up again at every brook, or village, or 
 seat you pass, — 'What 's o'clock ? ' and ' How 's the 
 ! wind ? ' ' Whose chariot 's that we left behind ? ' You 
 may sulk in a corner if you will ; nay, you may sleep, 
 without offence." 
 
 The sketches of Mr. Murch, president of the Bath 
 Literary Association, contain a pleasant reminiscence 
 of the eloquent praise bestowed by Walter Savage 
 Landor on Mrs. Barbauld at a dinner. Mr. Murch says : 
 " He spoke of her as 'the first writer of the day,' and 
 became so enthusiastic in her praise that he ended by 
 gaining the attention of the entire company. His good 
 memory enabled him to repeat his favorite passages. 
 After quoting the following passage from the ' Summer 
 Evening's Meditation ' he turned in his well-known 
 manner, and asked, ' Can you show me anything finer 
 in the English language ? ' — 
 
 " ' But are they silent all ? — or is there not 
 A tongue in every star that talks with man, 
 And woos him to be wise ? Nor woos in vain : 
 This dead of midnight is the noon of thought, 
 And Wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars. 
 At this still hour the self-collected soul 
 Turns inward ; and behold ! a stranger there, 
 
lxxvi MEMOIR. 
 
 Of high descent and more than mortal rank, — 
 An embryo God ! — a spark of fire divine, 
 Which must burn on for ages, when the sun — 
 Fair transitory creature of a day — 
 Has closed his golden eye, and, wrapt in shades, 
 Forgets his wonted journey through the east.' 
 
 " The very impressive manner of the speaker height- 
 ened the effect of the words intended to convey the 
 deep, solemn, awful silence of the stars." 
 
 It was to this poem Leigh Hunt made allusion in his 
 lines on Mrs. Barbauld, in the " Blue Stocking Revels," 
 published in 1837 in the " Monthly Repository," where 
 he says, after naming other poetesses and novelists of 
 the day : — 
 
 " Then Barbauld, fine teacher, correcting impatience, 
 Or mounting the stars in divine meditations." 
 
 The ode " Life " was written after Mrs. Barbauld was 
 seventy years old; and there is another impressive 
 poem, "Octogenary Reflections," a touching bit of 
 personal experience. It begins : — 
 
 " Say ye, who through this round of eighty years 
 Have proved its joys and sorrows, hopes and fears, 
 Say, what is life, ye veterans who have trod, 
 Step following step, its flowery, thorny road ? 
 Enough of good to kindle strong desire ; 
 Enough of ill to damp the rising fire ; 
 Enough of love and fancy, joy and hope, 
 To fan desire and give the passions scope ; 
 Enough of disappointment, sorrow, pain, 
 To seal the wise man's sentence — 'All is vain.' " 
 
MEMOIR. lxxvii 
 
 One observer, who saw her often, said, only a short 
 time before she died, "She is now the confirmed old 
 lady. Independently of her fine understanding, and 
 literary reputation, she would be interesting. Her 
 white locks, fair and unwrinkled skin, brilliant starched 
 linen, and rich silk gown, make her a fit object for a 
 painter. Her conversation is lively, her remarks judi- 
 cious, and always pertinent." The usual fate of those 
 who live long was hers. She saw her brother suffer 
 much and long, and then, as he himself said, — 
 
 " From the banquet of Life rise a satisfied guest, 
 Thank the Lord of the Feast, and in hope go to rest." 
 
 Mrs. Kenrick, a very dear and life-long friend, was 
 lost in 1819. A few months later came the tidings of 
 the death of Mrs. John Taylor, of Norwich, perhaps her 
 most near and sympathetic friend in spirit, though 
 always more separated by distance than some others. 
 For her she always cherished peculiarly tender feelings. 
 To this lady she wrote, after the tragic death of Mr. 
 Barbauld, " A thousand thanks for your kind letter, still 
 more for the very short visit that preceded it. Though 
 short — too short — it has left indelible impressions on 
 my mind. My heart has truly had communion with 
 yours ; your sympathy has been balm to it ; and I feel 
 that there is now no one on earth to whom I could 
 pour out that heart more readily." 
 
 Some striking lines were lound among her papers, 
 written not many months before her death. One, a 
 fragment in which she likens herself to a schoolboy who 
 
lxxviii MEMOIR. 
 
 is left forgotten, and hears no wheels to bear him to his 
 father's home : — 
 
 " To him alone no summons comes. 
 
 Thus I 
 Look to the hour when I shall follow those 
 That are at rest before me." 
 
 Another is a natural and simple comparison of her- 
 self to a leaf left alone : — 
 
 " Fall, fall ! poor leaf, that on the naked bough, 
 Sole lingering spectacle of sad decay, 
 Sits shivering at the blasts of dark November. 
 Thy fellows strew the ground ; not one is left 
 To grace thy naked side. Late, who could count 
 Their number multitudinous and thick, 
 Veiling the noon-day blaze ? Behind their shade, 
 The birds half-hid disported ; clustering fruit 
 Behind their ample shade lay glowing ripe. 
 No bird salutes thee now ; nor the green sap 
 Mounts in thy veins : thy spring is gone, thy summer ; 
 Even the crimson tints, 
 Thy grave but rich autumnal livery, 
 That pleased the eye of contemplation. 
 Some filament perhaps, some tendril stronger 
 Than all the rest, resists the whistling blast. 
 Fall, fall, poor leaf ! 
 Thy solitary, single self shows more 
 The nakedness of winter. 
 Why wait and fall, and strew the ground like them ? " 
 
 She welcomed the approaching change with compo- 
 sure and relief, as a release from weakness and suffering ; 
 consented to change her home to that of her nephew 
 
 
MEMOIR. lxxix 
 
 and adopted son Charles, and was so little distressed 
 by her decline of strength that she was visiting her 
 sister-in-law, Mrs. Aikin, when she very rapidly failed, 
 and passed away gently from earth on the 9th of 
 March, 1825, in the eighty-second year of her age. 
 
 For this noble heart, with its life -long burden grandly 
 borne, what more appropriate words than her own 
 beautiful lines on the death of the virtuous ? — 
 
 " So fades a summer cloud away ; 
 
 So sinks the gale when storms are o'er ; 
 So gently shuts the eye of day ; 
 So dies a wave along the shore. 
 
 " Farewell, conflicting joys and fears, 
 
 Where light and shade alternate dwell ; 
 How bright the unchanging morn appears ! 
 Farewell, inconstant world, farewell ! 
 
 " While heaven and earth combine to say, 
 'Sweet is the scene when virtue dies ! ' " 
 

THE HILL OF SCIENCE. 
 
 A VISION. 
 
 In that season of the year when the serenity of the 
 sky, the various fruits which cover the ground, the 
 discolored foliage of the trees, and all the sweet but 
 fading graces of inspiring autumn open the mind to 
 benevolence, and dispose it for contemplation, I was 
 wandering in a beautiful and romantic country, till 
 curiosity began to give way to weariness ; and I sat 
 me down on the fragment of a rock overgrown with 
 moss, where the rustling of the falling leaves, the 
 dashing of waters, and the hum of the distant city 
 soothed my mind into the most perfect tranquillity, 
 and sleep insensibly stole upon me, as I was indulging 
 the agreeable reveries which the objects around me 
 naturally inspired. 
 
 I immediately found myself in a vast extended 
 plain, in the middle of which arose a mountain higher 
 than I had before any conception of. It was covered 
 with a multitude of people, chiefly youth ; many of 
 whom pressed forwards with the liveliest expression 
 of ardor in their countenance, though the way was in 
 many places steep and difficult. I observed that those 
 who had but just begun to climb the hill thought them- 
 selves not far from the top ; but, as they proceeded, 
 new hills were continually rising to their view ; and 
 the summit of the highest they could before discern 
 seemed but the foot of another, till the mountain at 
 length appeared to lose itself in the clouds. As I was 
 gazing on these things with astonishment, my good 
 
2 THE HILL OF SCIENCE. 
 
 Genius suddenly appeared. "The mountain before 
 thee," said he, "is the Hill of Science. On the top 
 is the temple of Truth, whose head is above the 
 clouds, and whose face is covered with a veil of pure 
 light. Observe the progress of her votaries ; be silent 
 and attentive." 
 
 I saw that the only regular approach to the moun- 
 tain was by a gate, called the Gate of Languages. It 
 was kept by a woman of a pensive and thoughtful 
 appearance, whose lips were continually moving, as 
 though she repeated something to herself. Her name 
 was Memory. On entering this first enclosure I was 
 stunned with a confused murmur of jarring voices and 
 dissonant sounds, which increased upon me to such a 
 degree that I was utterly confounded, and could com- 
 pare the noise to nothing but the confusion of tongues 
 at Babel. The road was also rough and stony, and 
 rendered more difficult by heaps of rubbish, continu- 
 ally tumbled down from the higher parts of the moun- 
 tain, and by broken ruins of ancient buildings, which 
 the travellers were obliged to climb over at every step ; 
 insomuch that many, disgusted with so rough a begin- 
 ning, turned back, and attempted the mountain no 
 more ; while others, having conquered this difficulty, 
 had no spirits to ascend further, and, sitting down on 
 some fragment of the rubbish, harangued the multi- 
 tude below with the greatest marks of importance and 
 self-complacency. 
 
 About half-way up the hill, I observed on each side 
 the path a thick forest, covered with continual fogs, 
 and cut out into labyrinths, cross-alleys, and serpentine 
 walks, entangled with thorns and briars. This was 
 called the Wood of Error ; and I heard the voices of 
 many who were lost up and down in it, calling to one 
 another and endeavoring in vain to extricate them- 
 selves. The trees in many places shot their boughs 
 over the path, and a thick mist often rested on it ; yet 
 
THE HILL OF SCIENCE. 3 
 
 never so much but that it was discernible by the light 
 which beamed from the countenance of Truth. 
 
 In the pleasantest part of the mountain were placed 
 the bowers of the Muses, whose office it was to cheer 
 the spirits of the travellers, and encourage their faint- 
 ing steps with songs from their divine harps. Not far 
 from hence were the Fields of Fiction, filled with a 
 variety of wild flowers springing up in the greatest 
 luxuriance, of richer scents and brighter colors than I 
 had observed in any other climate. And near them 
 was the Dark Walk of Allegory, so artificially shaded 
 that the light at noonday was never stronger than that 
 of a bright moonshine. This gave it a pleasingly 
 romantic air for those who delighted in contemplation. 
 The paths and alleys were perplexed with intricate 
 windings, and were all terminated with the statue of a 
 Grace, a Virtue, or a Muse. 
 
 After I had observed these things I turned my eyes 
 towards the multitudes who were climbing the steep 
 ascent, and observed amongst them a youth of a lively 
 look, a piercing eye, and something fiery and irregular 
 in all his motions. His name was Genius. He 
 darted like an eagle up the mountain, and left his com- 
 panions gazing after him with envy and admiration ; 
 but his progress was unequal, and interrupted by a 
 thousand caprices. When Pleasure warbled in the 
 valley, he mingled in her train. When Pride beckoned 
 towards the precipice, he ventured to the tottering 
 edge. He delighted in devious and untried paths ; 
 and made so many excursions from the road that his 
 feebler companions often outstripped him. I observed 
 that the Muses beheld him with partiality ; but Truth 
 often frowned and turned aside her face. While 
 Genius was thus wasting his strength in eccentric 
 flights, I saw a person of a very different appearance, 
 named Application. He crept along with a slow and 
 unremitting pace, his eyes fixed on the top of the 
 
4 THE HILL OF SCIENCE. 
 
 mountain, patiently removing every stone that ob- 
 structed his way, till he saw most of those below him 
 who had at first derided his slow and toilsome prog- 
 ress. Indeed there were few who ascended the hill 
 with equal and uninterrupted steadiness ; for, beside 
 the difficulties of the way, they were continually so- 
 licited to turn aside by a numerous crowd of Appetites, 
 Passions, and Pleasures, whose importunity, when they 
 had once complied with, they became less and less 
 able to resist ; and, though they often returned to the 
 path, the asperities of the road were more severely 
 felt, the hill appeared more steep and rugged, the 
 fruits, which were wholesome and refreshing, seemed 
 harsh and ill-tasted, their sight grew dim, and their feet 
 tripped at every little obstruction. 
 
 I saw with some surprise that the Muses, whose 
 business was to cheer and encourage those who were 
 toiling up the ascent, would often sing in the bowers 
 of Pleasure, and accompany those who were enticed 
 away at the call of the Passions. They accompanied 
 them, however, but a little way, and always forsook 
 them when they lost sight of the hill. Their tyrants 
 then doubled their chains upon the unhappy captives, 
 and led them away without resistance to the cells of 
 Ignorance or the mansions of Misery. Amongst the 
 innumerable seducers who were endeavoring to draw 
 away the votaries of Truth from the path of Science, 
 there was one, so little formidable in her appearance, 
 and so gentle and languid in her attempts, that I 
 should scarcely have taken notice of her but for the 
 numbers she had imperceptibly loaded with her chains. 
 Indolence (for so she was called) , far from proceeding 
 to open hostilities, did not attempt to turn their feet 
 out of the path, but contented herself with retarding 
 their progress ; and the purpose she could not force 
 them to abandon she persuaded them to delay. Her 
 touch had a power like that of the torpedo, which 
 
THE HILL OF SCIENCE. 5 
 
 withered the strength of those who came within its 
 influence. Her unhappy captives still turned their 
 faces towards the temple, and always hoped to arrive 
 there ; but the ground seemed to slide from beneath 
 their feet, and they found themselves at the bottom 
 before they suspected that they had changed their 
 place. The placid serenity which at first appeared in 
 their countenance changed by degrees into a melan- 
 choly languor, which was tinged with deeper and 
 deeper gloom as they glided down the Stream of In- 
 significance, — a dark and sluggish water, which is 
 curled by no breeze, and enlivened by no murmur, till 
 it falls into a dead sea, where the startled passengers 
 are awakened by the shock, and the next moment 
 buried in the Gulf of Oblivion. 
 
 Of all the unhappy deserters from the paths of 
 Science none seemed less able to return than the fol- 
 lowers of Indolence. The captives of Appetite and 
 Passion could often seize the moment when their 
 tyrants were languid or asleep, to escape from their 
 enchantment ; but the dominion of Indolence was con- 
 stant and unremitted, and seldom resisted till resistance 
 was in vain. 
 
 After contemplating these things I turned my eyes 
 towards the top of the mountain, where the air was 
 always pure and exhilarating, the path shaded with 
 laurels and other evergreens, and the effulgence which 
 beamed from the face of the Goddess seemed to shed 
 a glory round her votaries. Happy, said I, are they 
 who are permitted to ascend the mountain ! But 
 while I was pronouncing this exclamation with uncom- 
 mon ardor, I saw standing beside me a form of diviner 
 features and a more benign radiance. " Happier," 
 said she, " are those whom Virtue conducts to the man- 
 sions of Content ! " " What ! " said I, " does Virtue then 
 reside in the vale? " " I am found," said she, " in the 
 vale, and I illuminate the mountain. I cheer the cot- 
 
6 AGAINST INCONSISTENCY 
 
 tager at his toil, and inspire the sage at his meditation. 
 I mingle in the crowd of cities, and bless the hermit in 
 his cell. I have a temple in every heart that owns my 
 influence ; and to him that wishes for me I am already 
 present. Science may raise you to eminence, but I 
 alone can guide you to felicity." While the Goddess 
 was thus speaking I stretched out my arms towards 
 her with a vehemence which broke my slumbers. 
 The chill dews were falling around me, and the shades 
 of evening stretched over the landscape. I hastened 
 homeward, and resigned the night to silence and 
 meditation. 
 
 AGAINST INCONSISTENCY IN OUR 
 EXPECTATIONS. 
 
 " What is more reasonable, than that they who take 
 pains for any thing, should get most in that particular 
 for which they take pains ? They have taken pains for 
 power, you for right principles ; they for riches, you 
 for a proper use of the appearances of things : see 
 whether they have the advantage of you in that for 
 which you have taken pains, and which they neglect. 
 If they are in power, and you not, why will not you 
 speak the truth to yourself, that you do nothing for the 
 sake of power, but that they do every thing ? No, but 
 since I take care to have right principles, it is more 
 reasonable that I should have power. Yes, in respect 
 to what you take care about, your principles. But give 
 up to others the things in which they have taken more 
 care than you. Else it is just as if, because you have 
 right principles, you should think it fit that when you 
 shoot an arrow, you should hit the mark better than 
 an archer, or that you should forge better than a 
 smith." Carter's Epictetus. 
 
IN OUR EXPECTATIONS. 7 
 
 As most of the unhappiness in the world arises rather 
 from disappointed desires than from positive evil, it is 
 of the utmost consequence to attain just notions of the 
 laws and order of the universe, that we may not vex 
 ourselves with fruitless wishes, or give way to ground- 
 less and unreasonable discontent. The laws of natural 
 .philosophy, indeed, are tolerably understood and at- 
 tended to ; and though we may suffer inconveniences, 
 we are seldom disappointed in consequence of them. 
 No man expects to preserve orange-trees in the open 
 air through an English winter ; or when he has planted 
 an acorn, to see it become a large oak in a few 
 months. The mind of man naturally yields to neces- 
 sity ; and our wishes soon subside when we see the 
 impossibility of their being gratified. Now, upon an 
 accurate inspection, we shall find, in the moral govern- 
 ment of the world, and the order of the intellectual 
 system, laws as determinate, fixed, and invariable as 
 any in Newton's Principia. The progress of vegetation 
 is not more certain than the growth of habit ; nor is 
 the power of attraction more clearly proved than the 
 force of affection or the influence of example. The 
 man therefore who has well studied the operations of 
 nature in mind as well as matter, will acquire a certain 
 moderation and equity in his claims upon Providence. 
 He never will be disappointed either in himself or 
 others. He will act with precision ; and expect that 
 effect and that alone from his efforts, which they are 
 naturally adapted to produce. For want of this, men 
 of merit and integrity often censure the dispositions of 
 Providence for suffering characters they despise, to run 
 away with advantages which, they yet know, are pur- 
 chased by such means as a high and noble spirit could 
 never submit to. If you refuse to pay the price, why 
 expect the purchase ? We should consider this world as 
 a great mart of commerce, where fortune exposes to 
 our view various commodities, riches, ease, tranquillity. 
 
8 AGAINST INCONSISTENCY 
 
 fame, integrity, knowledge. Every thing is marked at 
 a settled price. Our time, our labor, our ingenuity, is 
 so much ready money which we are to lay out to the 
 best advantage. Examine, compare, choose, reject ; 
 but stand to your own judgment ; and do not, like chil- 
 dren, when you have purchased one thing, repine that 
 you do not possess another which you did not pur- 
 chase. Such is the force of well-regulated industry, 
 that a steady and vigorous exertion of our faculties, 
 directed to one end, will generally insure success. 
 Would you, for instance, be rich ? Do you think that 
 single point worth the sacrificing every thing else to ? 
 You may then be rich. Thousands have become so 
 from the lowest beginnings by toil, and patient dili- 
 gence, and attention to the minutest articles of expense 
 and profit. But you must give up the pleasures of 
 leisure, of a vacant mind, of a free, unsuspicious tem- 
 per. If you preserve your integrity, it must be a 
 coarse-spun and vulgar honesty. Those high and lofty 
 notions of morals which you brought with you from 
 the schools must be considerably lowered, and mixed 
 with the baser alloy of a jealous and worldly-minded 
 prudence. You must learn to do hard, if not unjust 
 things ; and for the nice embarrassments of a delicate 
 and ingenuous spirit, it is necessary for you to get rid 
 of them as fast as possible. You must shut your heart 
 against the Muses, and be content to feed your under- 
 standing with plain, household truths. In short, you 
 must not attempt to enlarge your ideas, or polish your 
 taste, or refine your sentiments ; but must keep on in 
 one beaten track, without turning aside either to the 
 right hand or to the left. "But I cannot submit to 
 drudgery like this — I feel a spirit above it." T is well ; 
 be above it then ; only do not repine that you are not 
 rich. 
 
 Is knowledge the pearl of price ? That, too, may be 
 purchased — by steady application, and long solitary 
 
IN OUR EXPECTATIONS. 9 
 
 hours of study and reflection. Bestow these, and you 
 shall be wise. "But," says the man of letters, "what 
 a hardship is it that many an illiterate fellow who can- 
 not construe the motto of the arms on his coach, shall 
 raise a fortune and make a figure, while I have little 
 more than the common conveniences of life." Et tibi 
 magna satis ! — Was it in order to raise a fortune that 
 you consumed the sprightly hours of youth in study 
 and retirement ? Was it to be rich that you grew pale 
 over the midnight lamp, and distilled the sweetness 
 from the Greek and Roman spring? You have then 
 mistaken your path, and ill employed your industry. 
 " What reward have I then for all my labors? " What 
 reward ! A large comprehensive soul, well purged from 
 vulgar fears, and perturbations, and prejudices ; able 
 to comprehend and interpret the works of man — of 
 God. A rich, flourishing, cultivated mind, pregnant 
 with inexhaustible stores of entertainment and reflec- 
 tion. A perpetual spring of fresh ideas ; and the con- 
 scious dignity of superior- intelligence. Good heaven ! 
 and what reward can you ask besides ? 
 
 " But is it not some reproach upon the economy of 
 Providence that such a one, who is a mean, dirty fel- 
 low, should have amassed wealth enough to buy half a 
 nation? " Not in the least. He made himself a mean, 
 dirty fellow for that very end. He has paid his health, 
 his conscience, his liberty for it ; and will you envy 
 him his bargain ? Will you hang your head and blush 
 in his presence because he outshines you in equipage 
 and show ? Lift up your brow with a noble confidence, 
 and say to yourself, I have not these things, it is true ; 
 but it is because I have not sought, because I have 
 not desired them ; it is because I possess something 
 better. I have chosen my lot. I am content and 
 satisfied. 
 
 You are a modest man ; you love quiet and inde- 
 pendence, and have a delicacy and reserve in your 
 
IO AGAINST INCONSISTENCY 
 
 temper which renders it impossible for you to elbow 
 your way in the world, and be the herald of your own 
 merits. Be content then with a modest retirement, 
 with the esteem of your intimate friends, with the 
 praises of a blameless heart, and a delicate, ingenuous 
 spirit ; but resign the splendid distinctions of the world 
 to those who can better scramble for them. 
 
 The man whose tender sensibility of conscience and 
 strict regard to the rules of morality makes him scru- 
 pulous and fearful of offending, is often heard to com- 
 plain of the disadvantages he lies under in every path 
 of honor and profit. " Could I but get over some 
 nice points, and conform to the practice and opinion 
 of those about me, I might stand as fair a chance as 
 others for dignities and preferment." And why can you 
 not? What hinders you from discarding this trouble- 
 some scrupulosity of yours, which stands so grievously 
 in your way? If it be a small thing to enjoy a healthful 
 mind, sound at the very core, that does not shrink 
 from the keenest inspection ; inward freedom from 
 remorse and perturbation ; unsullied whiteness and 
 simplicity of manners ; a genuine integrity 
 
 " Pure in the last recesses of the mind ; " 
 
 if you think these advantages an inadequate recom- 
 pense for what you resign, dismiss your scruples this 
 instant, and be a slave-merchant, a parasite, or — what 
 you please. 
 
 " If these be motives weak, break off betimes ; " 
 
 and as you have not spirit to assert the dignity of 
 virtue, be wise enough not to forego the emoluments 
 of vice. 
 
 I much admire the spirit of the ancient philoso- 
 phers, in that they never attempted, as our moralists 
 often do, to lower the tone of philosophy, and make it 
 
IN OUR EXPECTATIONS. II 
 
 consistent with all the indulgences of indolence and 
 sensuality. They never thought of having the bulk of 
 mankind for their disciples ; but kept themselves as 
 distinct as possible -from a worldly life. They plainly 
 told men what sacrifices were required, and what ad- 
 vantages they were which might be expected. 
 
 " Si virtus hoc una potest dare, fortis omissis 
 Hoc age deliciis " 
 
 If you would be a philosopher, these are the terms. 
 You must do thus and thus ; there is no other way. 
 If not, go and be one of the vulgar. 
 
 There is no one quality gives so much dignity to a 
 character, as consistency of conduct. Even if a man's 
 pursuits be wrong and unjustifiable, yet if they are pros- 
 ecuted with steadiness and vigor, we cannot withhold 
 our admiration. The most characteristic mark of a 
 great mind is to choose some one important object, 
 and pursue it through life. It was this made Caesar a 
 great man. His object was ambition ; he pursued it 
 steadily, and was always ready to sacrifice to it, every 
 interfering passion or inclination. 
 
 There is a pretty passage in one of Lucian's dia- 
 logues, where Jupiter complains to Cupid that though 
 he has had so many intrigues, he was never sincerely 
 beloved. In order to be loved, says Cupid, you must 
 lay aside your segis and your thunder-bolts, and you 
 must curl and perfume your hair, and place a garland 
 on your head, and walk with a soft step, and assume a 
 winning, obsequious deportment. But, replied Jupiter, 
 I am not willing to resign so much of my dignity. 
 Then, returns Cupid, leave off desiring to be loved. 
 He wanted to be Jupiter and Adonis at the same 
 time. 
 
 It must be confessed, that men of genius are of all 
 others most inclined to make these unreasonable 
 claims. As their relish for enjoyment is strong, their 
 
12 AGAINST INCONSISTENCY 
 
 views large and comprehensive, and they feel them- 
 selves lifted above the common bulk of mankind, they 
 are apt to slight that natural reward of praise and 
 admiration which is ever largely paid to distinguished 
 abilities ; and to expect to be called forth to public 
 notice and favor : without considering that their talents 
 are commonly very unfit for active life ; that their ec- 
 centricity and turn for speculation disqualifies them for 
 the business of the world, which is best carried on by 
 men of moderate genius; and that society is not 
 obliged to reward any one who is not useful to it. 
 The poets have been a very unreasonable race, and 
 have often complained loudly of the neglect of genius 
 and the ingratitude of the age. The tender and pen- 
 sive Cowley, and the elegant Shenstone, had their 
 minds tinctured by this discontent ; and even the 
 sublime melancholy of Young was too much owing to 
 the stings of disappointed ambition. 
 
 The moderation we have been endeavoring to incul- 
 cate, will likewise prevent much mortification and dis- 
 gust in our commerce with mankind. As we ought not 
 to wish in ourselves, so neither should we expect in 
 our friends contrary qualifications. Young and san- 
 guine, when we enter the world, and feel our affections 
 drawn forth by any particular excellence in a character, 
 we immediately give it credit for all others ; and are 
 beyond measure disgusted when we come to discover, 
 as we soon must discover, the defects in the other side 
 of the balance. But nature is much more frugal than 
 to heap together all manner of shining qualities in one 
 glaring mass. Like a judicious painter, she endeavors 
 to preserve a certain unity of style and coloring in her 
 pieces. Models of absolute perfection are only to be 
 met with in romance ; where exquisite beauty, and 
 brilliant wit, and profound judgment, and immaculate 
 virtue, are all blended together to adorn some favorite 
 character. As an anatomist knows that the racer can- 
 
IN OUR EXPECTATIONS. 13 
 
 not have the strength and muscles of the draught- 
 horse ; and that winged men, griffons, and mermaids 
 must be mere creatures of the imagination ; so the phi- 
 losopher is sensible that there are combinations of 
 moral qualities which never can take place but in idea. 
 There is a different air and complexion in characters 
 as well as in faces, though perhaps each equally beau- 
 tiful ; and the excellencies of one cannot be transferred 
 to the other. Thus, if one man possesses a stoical 
 apathy of soul, acts independent of the opinion of the 
 world, and fulfils every duty with mathematical exact- 
 ness, you must not expect that man to be greatly influ- 
 enced by the weakness of pity, or the partialities of 
 friendship : you must not be offended that he does not 
 fly to meet you after a short absence ; or require from 
 him the convivial spirit and honest effusions of a warm, 
 open, susceptible heart. If another is remarkable for a 
 lively, active zeal, inflexible integrity, a strong indigna- 
 tion against vice, and freedom in reproving it, he will 
 probably have some little bluntness in his address not 
 altogether suitable to polished life ; he will want the 
 winning arts of conversation ; he will disgust by a kind 
 of haughtiness and negligence in his manner, and often 
 hurt the delicacy of his acquaintance with harsh and 
 disagreeable truths. 
 
 We usually say, that man is a genius, but he has 
 some whims and oddities ; such a one has a very gen- 
 eral knowledge, but he is superficial, etc. Now in all 
 such cases we should speak more rationally did we 
 substitute therefore for but. He is a genius, therefore he 
 is whimsical ; and the like. 
 
 It is the fault of the present age, owing to the freer 
 commerce that different ranks and professions now en- 
 joy with each other, that characters are not marked 
 with sufficient strength : the several classes run too 
 much into one another. We have fewer pedants, it is 
 true, but we have fewer striking originals. Every one 
 
14 AGAINST INCONSISTENCY. 
 
 is expected to have such a tincture of general knowl- 
 edge as is incompatible with going deep into any sci- 
 ence ; and such a conformity to fashionable manners, 
 as checks the free workings of the ruling passion, and 
 gives an insipid sameness to the face of society, under 
 the idea of polish and regularity. 
 
 There is a cast of manners peculiar and becoming to 
 each age, sex, and profession ; one, therefore, should 
 not throw out illiberal and common-place censures 
 against another. Each is perfect in its kind, — a woman 
 as a woman ; a tradesman as a tradesman. We are 
 often hurt by a brutality and sluggish conceptions of 
 the vulgar ; not considering that some there must be, 
 to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, and that 
 cultivated genius, or even any great refinement and 
 delicacy in their moral feelings, would be a real mis- 
 fortune to them. 
 
 Let us then study the philosophy of the human 
 mind. The man who is master of this science, will 
 know what to expect from every one. From this man, 
 wise advice ; from that, cordial sympathy ; from an- 
 other, casual entertainment. The passions and inclina- 
 tions of others are his tools, which he can use with as 
 much precision as he would the mechanical powers ; 
 and he can as readily make allowance for the workings 
 of vanity, or the bias of self-interest in his friends, as 
 for the power of friction, or the irregularities of the 
 needle. 
 
TO-MORROW. 
 
 See where the falling day 
 
 In silence steals away 
 Behind the western hills withdrawn ; 
 Her fires are quenched, her beauty fled, 
 While blushes all her face o'erspread, 
 As conscious she had ill fulfilled 
 
 The promise of the dawn. 
 
 Another morning soon shall rise, 
 Another day salute our eyes, 
 As smiling and as fair as she, 
 And make as many promises ; 
 
 But do not thou 
 
 The tale believe, 
 
 They're sisters all, 
 
 And all deceive. 
 
 RIDDLE. 
 
 From rosy bowers we issue forth, 
 From east to west, from south to north, 
 Unseen, unfelt, by night, by day, 
 Abroad we take our airy way : 
 We foster love and kindle strife, 
 The bitter and the sweet of life : 
 Piercing and sharp, we wound like steel ; 
 Now, smooth as oil, those wounds we heal 
 Not strings of pearl are valued more, 
 Or gems enchased in golden ore ; 
 Yet thousands of us every day, 
 Worthless and vile are thrown away. 
 Ye wise, secure with bars of brass 
 The double doors through which we pass ; 
 For, once escaped, back to our cell 
 No human art can us compel. 
 
ON EDUCATION. 
 
 The other day I paid a visit to a gentleman with 
 whom, though greatly my superior in fortune, I have 
 long been in habits of an easy intimacy. He rose in 
 the world by honorable industry ; and married, rather 
 late in life, a lady to whom he had been long attached, 
 and in whom centered the wealth of several ^expiring 
 families. Their earnest wish for children was not 
 immediately gratified. At length they were made 
 happy by a son, who, from the moment he was born, 
 engrossed all their care and attention. — My friend 
 received me in his library, where I found him busied in 
 turning over books of education, of which he had col- 
 lected all that were worthy notice, from Xenophon to 
 Locke, and from Locke to Catherine Macauley. As 
 he knows I have been engaged in the business of 
 instruction, he did me the honor to consult me on the 
 subject of his researches, hoping, he said, that, out of 
 all the systems before him, we should be able to form 
 a plan equally complete and comprehensive ; it being 
 the determination of both himself and his lady to 
 choose the best that could be had, and to spare neither 
 pains nor expense in making their child all that was 
 great and good. I gave him my thoughts with the 
 utmost freedom, and after I returned home, threw 
 upon paper the observations which had occurred to 
 me. 
 
 The first thing to be considered, with respect to 
 education, is the object of it. This appears to me to 
 have been generally misunderstood. Education, in 
 its largest sense, is a thing of great scope and extent. 
 
ON EDUCATION. 17 
 
 It includes the whole process by which a human being 
 is formed to be what he is, in habits, principles, and 
 cultivation of every kind. But of this, a very small 
 part is in the power even of the parent himself; a 
 smaller still can be directed by purchased tuition of 
 any kind. You engage for your child masters and 
 tutors at large salaries ; and you do well, for they are 
 competent to instruct him : they will give him the 
 means, at least, of acquiring science and accomplish- 
 ments ; but in the business of education, properly so 
 called, they can do little for you. Do you ask, then, 
 what will educate your son ? Your example will edu- 
 cate him ; your conversation with your friends ; the 
 business he sees you transact ; the likings and dislikings 
 you express ; these will educate him ; — the society 
 you live in will educate him ; — your domestics will 
 educate him ; above all, your rank and situation in life, 
 your house, your table, your pleasure-grounds, your 
 hounds, and your stables will educate him. It is not 
 in your power to withdraw him from the continual 
 influence of these things, except you were to withdraw 
 yourself from them also. You speak of beginning the 
 education of your son. The moment he was able to 
 form an idea his education was already begun; the 
 education of circumstances — insensible education — 
 which, like insensible perspiration, is of more constant 
 and powerful effect, and of infinitely more consequence 
 to the habit, than that which is direct and apparent. 
 This education goes on at every instant of time ; it goes 
 on like time ; you can neither stop it nor turn its 
 course. What these have a tendency to make your 
 child, that he will be. Maxims and documents are 
 good precisely till they are tried, and no longer ; they 
 will teach him to talk, and nothing more. The circiwi- 
 stances in which your son is placed will be even more 
 prevalent than your example ; and you have no right 
 to expect him to become what you yourself are, but by 
 
1 8 ON EDUCATION. 
 
 the same means. You, that have toiled during youth 
 to set your son upon higher ground, and to enable him 
 to begin where you left off, do not expect that son to 
 be what you were, — diligent, modest, active, simple in 
 his tastes, fertile in resources. You have put him 
 under quite a different master. Poverty educated you \ 
 wealth will educate him. You cannot suppose the 
 result will be the same. You must not even expect 
 that he will be what you now are ; for though relaxed 
 perhaps from the severity of your frugal habits, you 
 still derive advantage from having formed them ; and, 
 in your heart, you like plain dinners, and early hours, 
 and old friends, whenever your fortune will permit you 
 to enjoy them. But it will not be so with your son : 
 his tastes will be formed by your present situation, and 
 in no degree by your former one. But I take great 
 care, you will say, to counteract these tendencies, and 
 to bring him up in hardy and simple manners ; I know 
 their value, and am resolved that he shall acquire no 
 other. Yes, you make him hardy ; that is to say, you 
 take a country-house in a good air, and make him run, 
 well clothed and carefully attended, for, it may be, an 
 hour in a clear, frosty winter's day upon your gravelled 
 terrace ; or perhaps you take the puny shivering infant 
 from his warm bed, and dip him in an icy cold bath, — 
 and you think you have done great matters. And so you 
 have ; you have done all you can. But you were suf- 
 fered to run abroad half the day on a bleak heath, in 
 weather fit and unfit, wading barefoot through dirty 
 ponds, sometimes losing your way benighted, scram- 
 bling over hedges, climbing trees, in perils every hour 
 both of life and limb. Your life was of very little 
 consequence to any one ; even your parents, encum- 
 bered with a numerous family, had little time to indulge 
 the softnesses of affection, or the solicitude of anxiety ; 
 and to every one else it was of no consequence at 
 all. It is not possible for you, it would not even be 
 
ON EDUCATION. 19 
 
 right for you, in your present situation, to pay no more 
 attention to your child than was paid to you. In these 
 mimic experiments of education, there is always some- 
 thing which distinguishes them from reality ; some weak 
 part left unfortified, for the arrows of misfortune to find 
 their way into. Achilles was a young nobleman, dios 
 AchilleuSy and therefore, though he had Chiron for his 
 tutor, there was one foot left undipped. You may 
 throw by Rousseau ; your parents practised without 
 having read it ; you may read, but imperious circum- 
 stances forbid you the practice of it. 
 
 You are sensible of the advantages of simplicity of 
 diet ; and you make a point of restricting that of your 
 child to the plainest food, for you are resolved that he 
 shall not be nice. But this plain food is of the choicest 
 quality, prepared by your own cook ; his fruit is ripened 
 from your walls ; his cloth, his glasses, all the accom- 
 paniments of the table, are such as are only met with 
 in families of opulence : the very servants who attend 
 him are neat, well dressed, and have a certain air of 
 fashion. You may call this simplicity ; but I say he 
 will be nice, — for it is a kind of simplicity which 
 only wealth can attain to, and which will subject him 
 to be disgusted at all common tables. Besides, he 
 will from time to time partake of those delicacies 
 which your table abounds with ; you yourself will give 
 him of them occasionally ; you would be unkind if you 
 did not : your servants, if good-natured, will do the 
 same. Do you think you can keep the full stream of 
 luxury running by his lips, and he not taste of it ? Vain 
 imagination ! 
 
 I would not be understood to inveigh against wealth, 
 or against the enjoyments of it ; they are real enjoy- 
 ments, and allied to many elegancies in manners and 
 in taste ; — I only wish to prevent unprofitable pains 
 and inconsistent expectations. 
 
 You are sensible of the benefit of early rising ; and 
 
20 ON EDUCATION. 
 
 you may, if you please, make it a point that your 
 daughter shall retire with her governess, and your son 
 with his tutor, at the hour when you are preparing to 
 see company. But their sleep, in the first place, will 
 not be so sweet and undisturbed amidst the rattle of 
 carriages, and the glare of tapers glancing through the 
 rooms, as that of the village child in his quiet cottage, 
 protected by silence and darkness ; and moreover, 
 you may depend upon it, that, as the coercive power 
 of education is laid aside, they will in a few months 
 slide into the habitudes of the rest of the family, 
 whose hours are determined by their company and 
 situation in life. You have, however, done good, as 
 far as it goes ; it is something gained, to defer perni- 
 cious habits, if we cannot prevent them. 
 
 There is nothing which has so little share in educa- 
 tion as direct precept. To be convinced of this, we 
 need only reflect that there is no one point we labor 
 more to establish with children, than that of their 
 speaking truth; and there is not any in which we 
 succeed worse. And why ? Because children readily 
 see we have an interest in it. Their speaking truth is 
 used by us as an engine of government — " Tell me, 
 my dear child, when you have broken anything, and I 
 will not be angry with you." " Thank you for nothing," 
 says the child ; " if . I prevent you from finding it out, 
 I am sure you will not be angry : " and nine times 
 out of ten he can prevent it. He knows that, in the 
 common intercourses of life, you tell a thousand false- 
 hoods. But these are necessary lies, on important 
 occasions. 
 
 Your child is the best judge how much occasion he 
 has to tell a lie : he may have as great occasion for it, 
 as you have to conceal a bad piece of news from a 
 sick friend, or to hide your vexation from an unwel- 
 come visitor. That authority which extends its claims 
 over every action, and even every thought, which in- 
 
ON EDUCATION 21 
 
 sists upon an answer to every interrogation, however 
 indiscreet or oppressive to the feelings, will, in young 
 or old, produce falsehood ; or, if in some few instances 
 the deeply imbibed fear of future and unknown punish- 
 ment should restrain from direct falsehood, it will pro- 
 duce a habit of dissimulation, which is still worse. 
 The child, the slave, or the subject, who, on proper 
 occasions, may not say, "I do not choose to tell," will 
 certainly, by the circumstances in which you place him, 
 be driven to have recourse to deceit, even should he 
 not be countenanced by your example. 
 
 I do not mean to assert that sentiments inculcated 
 in education have no influence ; — they have much, 
 though not the most : but it is the sentiments we let 
 drop occasionally, the conversation they overhear when 
 playing unnoticed in a corner of the room, which has 
 an effect upon children ; and not what is addressed 
 directly to them in the tone of exhortation. If you 
 would know precisely the effect these set discourses 
 have upon your child, be pleased to reflect upon that 
 which a discourse from the pulpit, which you have 
 reason to think merely professional, has upon you. 
 Children have almost an intuitive discernment between 
 the maxims you bring forward for their use, and those 
 by which you direct your own conduct. Be as cun- 
 ning as you will, they are always more cunning than 
 you. Every child knows whom his father and mother 
 love and see with pleasure, and whom they dislike ; 
 for whom they think themselves obliged to set out 
 their best plate and china; whom they think it an 
 honor to visit, and upon whom they confer honor by 
 admitting them to their company. " Respect nothing 
 so much as virtue," says Eugenio to his son ; " virtue 
 and talents are the only grounds of distinction." The 
 child presently has occasion to inquire why his father 
 pulls off his hat to some people and not to others ; he 
 is told, that outward respect must be proportioned to 
 
22 ON EDUCATION. 
 
 different stations in life. This is a little difficult of 
 comprehension : however, by dint of explanation, he 
 gets over it tolerably well. But he sees his father's 
 house in the bustle and hurry of preparation ; com- 
 mon business laid aside, everybody in movement, an 
 unusual anxiety to please and to shine. Nobody is at 
 leisure to receive his caresses or attend to his ques- 
 tions ; his lessons are interrupted, his hours deranged. 
 
 At length a guest arrives : it is my Lord , whom 
 
 he has heard you speak of twenty times as one of the 
 most worthless characters upon earth. Your child, 
 Eugenio, has received a lesson of education. Resume, 
 if you will, your systems of morality on the morrow, 
 you will in vain attempt to eradicate it. " You expect 
 company, mamma, must I be dressed to-day? " " No, 
 it is only good Mrs. Such-a-one." Your child has 
 received a lesson of education, one which he well un- 
 derstands, and will long remember. You have sent 
 your child to a public school; but to secure his 
 morals against the vice which you too justly apprehend 
 abounds there, you have given him a private tutor, a 
 man of strict morals and religion. He may help him 
 to prepare his tasks ; but do you imagine it will be in 
 his power to form his mind? His school-fellows, the 
 allowance you give him, the manners of the age and of 
 the place, will do that ; and not the lectures which he 
 is obliged to hear. If these are different from what 
 you yourself experienced, you must not be surprised to 
 see him gradually recede from the principles, civil and 
 religious, which you hold, and break off from your con- 
 nections, and adopt manners different from your own. 
 This is remarkably exemplified amongst those of the 
 Dissenters who have risen to wealth and consequence. 
 I believe it would be difficult to find an instance of 
 families, who for three generations have kept their car- 
 riage and continued Dissenters. 
 
 Education, it is often observed, is an expensive 
 
ON EDUCATION. 23 
 
 thing. It is so; but the paying for lessons is the 
 smallest part of the cost. If you would go to the 
 price of having your son a worthy man, you must be 
 so yourself; your friends, your servants, your company 
 must be all of that stamp. Suppose this to be the 
 case, much is done : but there will remain circum- 
 stances, which perhaps you cannot alter, that will still 
 have their effect. Do you wish him to love simplicity ? 
 Would you be content to lay down your coach, to 
 drop your title? Where is the parent who would do 
 this to educate his son ? You carry him to the work- 
 shops of artisans, and show him different machines 
 and fabrics, to awaken his ingenuity. The necessity 
 of getting his bread would awaken it much more 
 effectually. The single circumstance of having a for- 
 tune to get, or a fortune to spend, will probably operate 
 more strongly upon his mind, not only than your pre- 
 cepts, but even than your example. You wish your 
 child to be modest and unassuming; you are so, 
 perhaps, yourself, — and you pay liberally a preceptor 
 for giving him lessons of humility. You do not per- 
 ceive, that the very circumstance' of having a man of 
 letters and accomplishments retained about his person, 
 for his sole advantage, tends more forcibly to inspire 
 him with an idea of self-consequence, than all the les- 
 sons he can give him to repress it. "Why do not you 
 look sad, you rascal? " says the undertaker to his man, 
 in the play of The Funeral ; " I give you I know not 
 how much money for looking sad, and the more I give 
 you, the gladder I think you are." So will it be with 
 the wealthy heir. The lectures that are given him on 
 condescension and affability, only prove to him upon 
 how much higher ground he stands than those about 
 him ; and the very pains that are taken with his moral 
 character will make him proud, by showing him how 
 much he is the object of attention. You cannot help 
 these things. Your servants, out of respect to you, will 
 
24 ON EDUCATION. 
 
 bear with his petulance ; your company, out of respect 
 to you, will forbear to check his impatience ; and you 
 yourself, if he is clever, will repeat his observations. 
 
 In the exploded doctrine of sympathies, you are di- 
 rected, if you have cut your finger, to let that alone, 
 and put your plaster upon the knife. This is very bad 
 doctrine, I must confess, in philosophy ; but very good 
 in morals. Is a man luxurious, self-indulgent ? do not 
 apply your physic of the soul to him, but cure his for- 
 tune. Is he haughty? cure his rank, his title. Is he 
 vulgar? cure his company. Is he diffident or mean- 
 spirited? cure his poverty, give him consequence. 
 But these prescriptions go far beyond the family recipes 
 of education. 
 
 What then is the result ? In the first place, that we 
 should contract our ideas of education, and expect no 
 more from it than it is able to perform. It can give in- 
 struction. There will always be an essential difference 
 between a human being cultivated and uncultivated. 
 Education can provide proper instructors in the vari- 
 ous arts and sciences, and portion out to the best ad- 
 vantage those precious hours of youth which never will 
 return. It can likewise give, in a great degree, per- 
 sonal habits ; and even if these should afterwards give 
 way under the influence of contrary circumstances, 
 your child will feel the good effects of them ; for the 
 later and the less will he go into what is wrong. Let 
 us also be assured, that the business of education, 
 properly so called, is not transferable. You may en- 
 gage masters to instruct your child in this or the other 
 accomplishment, but you must educate him yourself. 
 You not only ought to do it, but you must do it, 
 whether you intend it or no. As education is a thing 
 necessary for all, — for the poor and for the rich, for the 
 illiterate as well as for the learned, — Providence has not 
 made it dependent upon systems uncertain, operose, 
 and difficult of investigation. It is not necessary, with 
 
ON EDUCATION 25 
 
 Rousseau or Madame de Genlis, to devote to the edu- 
 cation of one child the talents and the time of a num- 
 ber of grown men ; to surround him with an artificial 
 world ; and to counteract, by maxims, the natural ten- 
 dencies of the situation he is placed in, in society. 
 Every one has time to educate his child : the poor man 
 educates him while working in his cottage — the man 
 of business while employed in his counting-house. 
 
 Do we see a father who is diligent in his profession, 
 domestic in his habits, whose house is the resort of 
 well-informed, intelligent people — a mother whose 
 time is usefully filled, whose attention to her duties se- 
 cures esteem, and whose amiable manners attract af- 
 fection? Do not be solicitous, respectable couple, 
 about the moral education of your offspring ! do not be 
 uneasy because you cannot surround them with the 
 apparatus of books and systems ; or fancy you must 
 retire from the world to devote yourselves to their im- 
 provement. In your world they are brought up much 
 better than they could be under any plan of factitious 
 education which you could provide for them : they will 
 imbibe affection from your caresses ; taste from your 
 conversation ; urbanity from the commerce of your so- 
 ciety ; and mutual love from your example. Do not 
 regret that you are not rich enough to provide tutors 
 and governors, to watch his steps with sedulous and 
 servile anxiety, and furnish him with maxims it is mor- 
 ally impossible he should act upon when grown up. 
 Do not you see how seldom this over-culture produces 
 its effect, and how many shining and excellent charac- 
 ters start up every day, from the bosom of obscurity, 
 with scarcely any care at all ? 
 
 Are children then to be neglected ? Surely not : but 
 having given them the instruction and accomplishments 
 which their situation in life requires, let us reject super- 
 fluous solicitude, and trust that their characters will form 
 themselves from the spontaneous influence of good ex- 
 
26 ON EDUCATION. 
 
 amples, and circumstances which impel them to useful 
 action. 
 
 But the education of your house, important as it is, 
 is only a part of a more comprehensive system. Provi- 
 dence takes your child where you leave him. Provi- 
 dence continues his education upon a larger scale, and 
 by a process which includes means far more efficacious. 
 Has your son entered the world at eighteen, opinion- 
 ated, haughty, rash, inclined to dissipation? Do not 
 despair; he may yet be cured of these faults, if it 
 pleases Heaven. There are remedies which you could 
 not persuade yourself to use, if they were in your power, 
 and which are specific in cases of this kind. How often 
 do we see the presumptuous, giddy youth, changed 
 into the wise counsellor, the considerate, steady friend ! 
 How often the thoughtless, gay girl, into the sober wife, 
 the affectionate mother ! Faded beauty, humbled self- 
 consequence, disappointed ambition, loss of fortune, — 
 this is the rough physic provided by Providence to 
 meliorate the temper, to correct the offensive petulan- 
 cies of youth, and bring out all the energies of the 
 finished character. Afflictions soften the proud ; diffi- 
 culties push forward the ingenious ; successful industry 
 gives consequence and credit, and develops a thou- 
 sand latent good qualities. There is no malady of the 
 mind so inveterate, which this education of events is 
 not calculated to cure, if life were long enough ; and 
 shall we not hope, that He, in whose hand are all the 
 remedial processes of nature, will renew the discipline 
 in another state, and finish the imperfect man? 
 
 States are educated as individuals — by circum- 
 stances : the prophet may cry aloud, and spare not ; 
 the philosopher may descant on morals ; eloquence 
 may exhaust itself in invective against the vices of the 
 age : these vices will certainly follow certain states of 
 poverty or riches, ignorance or high civilization. But 
 what these gentle alteratives fail of doing, may be ac- 
 
ON PREJUDICE. 27 
 
 complished by an unsuccessful war, a loss of trade, or 
 any of those great calamities by which it pleases Provi- 
 dence to speak to a nation in such language as will be 
 heard, If, as a nation, we would be cured of pride, it 
 must be by mortification ; if of luxury, by a national 
 bankruptcy, perhaps ; if of injustice, or the spirit of 
 domination, by a loss of national consequence. In 
 comparison with these strong remedies, a fast, or a ser- 
 mon, are prescriptions of very little efficacy. 
 
 ON PREJUDICE. 
 
 It is to speculative people, fond of novel doctrines, 
 and who, by accustoming themselves to make the most 
 fundamental truths the subject of discussion, have di- 
 vested their minds of that reverence which is generally 
 felt for opinions and practices of long standing, that 
 the world is ever to look for its improvement or refor- 
 mation. But it is also these speculatists who introduce 
 into it absurdities and errors, more gross than any 
 which have been established by that common consent 
 of numerous individuals which opinions long acted 
 upon must have required for their basis. For systems 
 of the latter class must at least possess one property, — 
 that of being practicable : and there is likewise a pre- 
 sumption that they are, or at least originally were, use- 
 ful ; whereas the opinions of the speculatist may turn 
 out to be utterly incongruous and eccentric. The 
 speculatist may invent machines which it is impossible 
 to put in action, or which, when put in action, may 
 possess the tremendous power of tearing up society by 
 the roots. Like the chemist, he is not sure in the mo- 
 ment of projection whether he shall blow up his own 
 
28 ON PREJUDICE. 
 
 dwelling and that of his neighbor, or whether he shall 
 be rewarded with a discovery which will secure the 
 health and prolong the existence of future generations. 
 It becomes us, therefore, to examine with peculiar care 
 those maxims which, under the appearance of follow- 
 ing a closer train of reasoning, militate against the usual 
 practices or genuine feelings of mankind. No subject 
 has been more canvassed than education. With regard 
 to that important object there is a maxim avowed by 
 many sensible people, which seems to me to deserve 
 particular investigation. " Give your child," it is said, 
 " no prejudices : let reason be the only foundation of 
 his opinions ; where he cannot reason, let him suspend 
 his belief. Let your great care be, that as he grows up 
 he has nothing to unlearn ; and never make use of au- 
 thority in matters of opinion, for authority is no test of 
 truth." The maxim sounds well, and flatters perhaps 
 the secret pride of man, in supposing him more the 
 creature of reason than he really is : but, I suspect, on 
 examination we shall find it exceedingly fallacious. We 
 must first consider what a prejudice is. A prejudice is 
 a sentiment in favor or disfavor of any person, practice, 
 or opinion, previous to and independent of examining 
 their merits by reason and investigation. Prejudice is 
 prejudging ; that is, judging previously to evidence. It 
 is therefore sufficiently apparent, that no philosophical 
 belief can. be founded on mere prejudice ; because it is 
 the business of philosophy to go deep into the nature 
 and properties of things : nor can it be allowable for 
 those to indulge prejudice who aspire to lead the pub- 
 lic opinion ; those to whom the high office is appointed 
 of sifting truth from error, of canvassing the claims of 
 different systems, of exploding old and introducing new 
 tenets. These must investigate, with a kind of auda- 
 cious boldness, every subject that comes before them ; 
 these, neither impressed with awe for all that mankind 
 have been taught to reverence, nor swayed by affection 
 
ON PREJUDICE. 29 
 
 for whatever the sympathies of our nature incline us to 
 love, must hold the balance with a severe and steady 
 hand, while they are weighing the doubtful scale of 
 probabilities ; and with a stoical apathy of mind, yield 
 their assent to nothing but a preponderancy of evi- 
 dence. But is this an office for a child? Is it an of- 
 fice for more than one or two men in a century ? And 
 is it desirable that a child should grow up without 
 opinions to regulate his conduct, till he is able to form 
 them fairly by the exercise of his own abilities Such 
 an exercise requires at least the sober period of ma- 
 tured reason : reason not only sharpened by argumen- 
 tative discussion, but informed by experience. The 
 most sprightly child can only possess the former : for 
 let it be remembered, that though the reasoning pow- 
 ers put forth pretty early in life, the faculty of using 
 them to effect does not come till much later. The first 
 efforts of a child in reasoning resemble those quick 
 and desultory motions by which he gains the play of 
 his limbs ; they show agility and grace, they are pleas- 
 ing to look at, and necessary for the gradual acquire- 
 ment of his bodily powers ; but his joints must be knit 
 into more firmness, and his movements regulated with 
 more precision, before he is capable of useful labor and 
 manly exertion. A reasoning child is not yet a reasona- 
 ble being. There is great propriety in the legal phrase- 
 ology which expresses maturity, not by having arrived 
 at the possession of reason, but of that power, the late 
 result of information, thought, and experience — dis- 
 cretion, which alone teaches, with regard to reason, its 
 powers, its limits, and its use. This the child of the 
 most sprightly parts cannot have ; and therefore his at- 
 tempts at reasoning, whatever acuteness they may 
 show, and how much soever they may please a parent 
 with the early promise of future excellence, are of no 
 account whatever in the sober search after truth. Be- 
 sides, taking it for granted (which however is utterly 
 
30 ON PREJUDICE. 
 
 impossible) that a youth could be brought up to the 
 age of fifteen or sixteen without prejudice in favor of 
 any opinions whatever, and that he is then set to ex- 
 amining for himself some important proposition, — 
 how is he to set about it ? Who is to recommend books 
 to him? Who is to give him the previous information 
 necessary to comprehend the question ? Who is to tell 
 him whether or no it is important? Whoever does 
 these, will infallibly lay a bias upon his mind, according 
 to the ideas he himself has received upon the subject. 
 Let us suppose the point in debate was the preference 
 between the Roman Catholic and Protestant modes of 
 religion. Can a youth in a Protestant country, born of 
 Protestant parents, with access, probably, to hardly a 
 single controversial book on the Roman Catholic side 
 of the question — can such a one study the subject 
 without prejudice? His knowledge of history, if he 
 has such knowledge, must, according to the books he 
 has read, have already given him a prejudice on the 
 one side or the other ; so must the occasional conver- 
 sation he has been witness to, the appellations he has 
 heard used, the tone of voice with which he has heard 
 the words monk or priest pronounced, and a thousand 
 other evanescent circumstances. It is likewise to be 
 observed, that every question of any weight and im- 
 portance has numerous dependencies and points of 
 connection with other subjects, which make it impossi- 
 ble to enter upon the consideration of it without a great 
 variety of previous knowledge. There is no object of 
 investigation perfectly insulated ; — we must not con- 
 ceive therefore, of a man's sitting down to it with a 
 mind perfectly new and untutored : he must have 
 passed more or less through a course of studies ; and, 
 according to the color of those studies, his mind will 
 have received a tincture, — that is, a prejudice. But 
 it is, in truth, the most absurd of all suppositions, that 
 a human being can be educated, or even nourished 
 
ON PREJUDICE. 31 
 
 and brought up, without imbibing numberless preju- 
 dices from every thing which passes around him. 
 A child cannot learn the signification of words without 
 receiving ideas along with them ; he cannot be im- 
 pressed with affection to his parents and those about 
 him, without conceiving a predilection for their tastes, 
 opinions, and practices. He forms numberless asso- 
 ciations of pain or pleasure, and every association 
 begets a prejudice ; he sees objects from a particular 
 spot, ancl his views of things are contracted or ex- 
 tended according to his position in society. As no two 
 individuals can have the same horizon, so neither can 
 any two have the same associations ; and different 
 associations will produce different opinions, as neces- 
 sarily as, by the laws of perspective, different distances 
 will produce different appearances of visible objects. 
 Let us confess a truth, humiliating perhaps to human 
 pride ; — a very small part only of the opinions of the 
 coolest philosopher are the result of fair reasoning ; 
 the rest are formed by his education, his temperament, 
 by the age in which he lives, by trains of thought di- 
 rected to a particular track through some accidental 
 association — in short, by prejudice. But why, after 
 all, should we wish to bring up children without pre- 
 judices? A child has occasion to act, long before he 
 can reason. Shall we leave him destitute of all the 
 principles that should regulate his conduct, till he can 
 discover them by the strength of his own genius ? If it 
 were possible that one whole generation could be 
 brought up without prejudices, the world must return 
 to the infancy of knowledge, and all the beautiful 
 fabric which has been built up by successive genera- 
 tions, must be begun again from the very foundation. 
 Your child has a claim to the advantage of your expe- 
 rience, which it would be cruel and unjust to deprive 
 him of. Will any father say to his son, " My dear child, 
 you are entering upon a world full of intricate and per- 
 
32 ON PREJUDICE. 
 
 plexed paths, in which many miss their way, to their 
 final misery and ruin. Amidst many false systems, 
 and much vain science, there is also some true knowl- 
 edge ; there is a right path : I believe I know it, for I 
 have the advantage of years and experience, but I will 
 instil no prejudices into your mind ; I shall therefore 
 leave you to find it out as you can ; whether your abil- 
 ities are great or small, you must take the chance of 
 them. There are various systems in morals ; I have 
 examined and found some of a good others of a bad 
 tendency. There is such a thing as religion ; many 
 people think it the most important concern of life : 
 perhaps I am one of them : perhaps I have chosen 
 from amidst the various systems of belief, — many of 
 which are extremely absurd, and some even perni- 
 cious, — that which I cherish as the guide of my life, 
 my comfort in all my sorrows, and the foundation of 
 my dearest hopes : but far be it from me to influence 
 you in any manner to receive it ; when you are grown 
 up, you must read all the books upon these subjects 
 which you can lay your hands on, for neither in the 
 choice of these would I presume to prejudice your 
 mind : converse with all who pretend to any opinions 
 upon the subject ; and whatever happens to be the re- 
 sult, you must abide by it. In the mean time, con- 
 cerning these important objects you must keep your 
 mind in a perfect equilibrium. It is true you want 
 these principles more now than you can do at any other 
 period of your life ; but I had rather you never had 
 them at all than that you should not come fairly by 
 them." Should we commend the wisdom or the kind- 
 ness of such a parent ? The parent will perhaps plead 
 in his behalf that it is by no means his intention to leave 
 the mind of his child in the uncultivated state I have 
 supposed. As soon as his understanding begins to 
 open, he means to discuss with him those propositions 
 on which he wishes him to form an opinion. He will 
 
ON PREJUDICE. 33 
 
 make him read the best books on the subject, and by- 
 free conversation and explaining the arguments on both 
 sides, he does not doubt but the youth will soon be en- 
 abled to judge satisfactorily for himself. I have no 
 objection to make against this mode of proceeding : as 
 a mode of instruction, it is certainly a very good one : 
 but he must know little of human nature, who thinks 
 that after this process the youth will be really in a ca- 
 pacity of judging for himself, or that he is less under the 
 dominion of prejudice than if he had received the same 
 truths from the mere authority of his parent ; for most 
 assuredly the arguments on either side will not have 
 been set before him with equal strength or with equal 
 warmth. The persuasive tone, the glowing language, 
 the triumphant retort, will all be reserved for the side on 
 which the parent has formed his own conclusions. It 
 cannot be otherwise ; he cannot be convinced himself of 
 what he thinks a truth, without wishing to convey that 
 conviction, nor without thinking all that can be urged on 
 the other side weak and futile. He cannot in a mat- 
 ter of importance neutralize his feelings : perfect impar- 
 tiality can be the result only of indifference. He does 
 not perhaps seem to dictate, but he wishes gently to 
 guide his pupil ; and that wish is seldom disappointed. 
 The child adopts the opinion of his parent, and seems 
 to himself to have adopted it from the decisions of his 
 own judgment ; but all these reasonings must be gone 
 over again, and these opinions undergo a fiery ordeal, 
 if ever he comes really to think and determine for 
 himself, 
 
 The fact is, that no man, whatever his system may 
 be, refrains from instilling prejudices into his child in 
 any matter he has much at heart. Take a disciple of 
 Rousseau, who contends that it would be very per- 
 nicious to give his son any ideas of a Deity till he is 
 of an age to read Clarke or Leibnitz, and ask him if 
 he waits so long to impress on his mind the sentiments 
 
 3 
 
34 ON PREJUDICE. 
 
 of patriotism — the civic affection. Oh no ! you will 
 find his little heart is early taught to beat at the very 
 name of liberty, and that, long before he is capable of 
 forming a single political idea, he has entered with 
 warmth into all the party sentiments and connections 
 of his parent. He learns to love and hate, to venerate 
 or despise, by rote ; and he soon acquires decided 
 opinions, of the real ground of which he can know ab- 
 solutely nothing. Are not ideas of female honor and 
 decorum impressed first as prejudices ; and would any 
 parent wish they should be so much as canvassed till 
 the most settled habits of propriety have rendered it 
 safe to do it? In teaching first by prejudice that 
 which is afterwards to be proved, we do but follow 
 Nature. Instincts are prejudices she gives us : we 
 follow them implicitly, and they lead us right ; but it 
 is not till long afterwards that reason comes and justi- 
 fies them. Why should we scruple to lead a child to 
 right opinions in the same way by which Nature leads 
 him to right practices ! 
 
 Still it will be urged that man is a rational being, and 
 therefore reason is the only true ground of belief, 
 and authority is not reason. This point requires a 
 little discussion. That he who receives a truth upon 
 authority has not a reasonable belief, is in one sense 
 true, since he has not drawn it from the result of his 
 own inquiries ; but in another it is certainly false, since 
 the authority itself may be to him the best of all 
 reasons for believing it. There are few men who, from 
 the exercise of the best powers of their minds, could 
 derive so good a reason for believing a mathematical 
 truth as the authority of Sir Isaac Newton. There are 
 two principles deeply implanted in the mind of man, 
 without which he could never attain knowledge, — 
 curiosity, and credulity; the former to lead him to 
 make discoveries himself, the latter to dispose him to 
 receive knowledge from others. The credulity of a child 
 
ON PREJUDICE. 35 
 
 to those who cherish him, is in early life unbounded. 
 This is one of the most useful instincts he has, and is 
 in fact a precious advantage put into the hands of the 
 parent for storing his mind with ideas of all kinds. 
 Without this principle of assent he could never gain 
 even the rudiments of knowledge. He receives it, it 
 is true, in the shape of prejudice ; but the prejudice 
 itself is founded upon sound reasoning, and conclusive 
 though imperfect experiment. He finds himself weak, 
 helpless, and ignorant ; he sees in his parent a being of 
 knowledge and powers more than his utmost capacity- 
 can fathom ; almost a god to him. He has often done 
 him good, therefore he believes he loves him ; he finds 
 him capable of giving him information upon all the 
 subjects he has applied to him about ; his knowledge 
 seems unbounded, and his information has led him 
 right whenever he has had occasion to try it by actual 
 experiment : the child does not draw out his little 
 reasonings into a logical form, but this is to him a 
 ground of belief that his parent knows every thing, 
 and is infallible. Though the proposition is not exactly 
 true, it is sufficiently so for him to act upon : and 
 when he believes in his parent with implicit faith, he 
 believes upon grounds as truly rational as when, in 
 after life, he follows the deductions of his own reason. 
 
 But you will say, I wish my son may have nothing 
 to unlearn, and therefore I would have him wait to 
 form an opinion till he is able to do it on solid grounds. 
 And why do you suppose he will have less to unlearn 
 if he follows his own reason, than if he followed yours ? 
 If he thinks, if he inquires, he will no doubt have a 
 great deal to unlearn, whichever course you take with 
 him ; but it is better to have some things to unlearn, 
 than to have nothing learnt. Do you hold your own 
 opinions so loosely, so hesitatingly, as not to think them 
 safer to abide by than the first results of his stammering 
 reason? Are there no truths to learn so indubitable as 
 
2,6 ON PREJUDICE. 
 
 to be without fear of their not approving themselves 
 to his mature and well-directed judgment? Are there 
 none you esteem so useful as to feel anxious that he 
 be put in possession of them ? We are solicitous not 
 only to put our children in a capacity of acquiring 
 their daily bread, but to bequeath to them riches which 
 they may receive as an inheritance. Have you no 
 mental wealth you wish to transmit, no stock of ideas 
 he may begin with, instead of drawing them all from 
 the labor of his own brain ? If, moreover, your son 
 should not adopt your prejudices, he will certainly adopt 
 those of other people ; or, if on subjects of high 
 interest he could be kept totally indifferent, the conse- 
 quence would be, that he would conceive either that 
 such matters were not worth the trouble of inquiry, or 
 that nothing satisfactory was to be learnt about them : 
 for there are negative prejudices as well as positive. 
 
 Let parents, therefore, not scruple to use the power 
 God and Nature have put into their hands for the 
 advantage of their offspring. Let them not fear to 
 impress them with prejudices for whatever is fair and 
 honorable in action — whatever is useful and important 
 in systematic truth. Let such prejudices be wrought 
 into the very texture of the soul. Such truths let them 
 appear to know by intuition. Let the child never 
 remember the period when he did not know them. 
 Instead of sending him to that cold and hesitating 
 belief which is founded on the painful and uncertain 
 consequences of late investigation, let his conviction 
 of all the truths you deem important be mixed up with 
 every warm affection of his nature, and identified with 
 his most cherished recollections ; the time will come 
 soon enough when his confidence in you will have 
 received a check. The growth of his own reason and 
 the development of his powers will lead him with a 
 sudden impetus to examine every thing, to canvass 
 every thing, to suspect every thing. If he finds, as he 
 
ON PREJUDICE. 37 
 
 certainly will find, the results of his reasoning different 
 in some respects from those you have given him, far 
 from being now disposed to receive your assertions as 
 proofs, he will rather feel disinclined to any opinion 
 you profess, and struggle to free himself from the net 
 you have woven about him. 
 
 The calm repose of his mind is broken, the placid 
 lake is become turbid, and reflects distorted and 
 broken images of things ; but be not you alarmed at 
 the new workings of his thoughts, — it is the angel of 
 reason which descends and troubles the waters. To 
 endeavor to influence by authority, would be as useless 
 now as it was salutary before. Lie by in silence, and 
 wait the result. Do not expect the mind of your son 
 is to resemble yours, as your figure is reflected by the 
 image in the glass ; he was formed, like you, to use 
 his own judgment, and he claims the high privilege 
 of his nature. His reason is mature, his mind must 
 now form itself. Happy must you esteem yourself, 
 if amidst all lesser differences of opinion, and the 
 wreck of many of your favorite ideas, he still preserves 
 those radical and primary truths which are essential 
 to his happiness, and which different trains of thought 
 and opposite modes of investigation will very often 
 equally lead to. 
 
 Let it be well remembered that we have only been 
 recommending those prejudices which go before reason, 
 not those which are contrary to it. To endeavor to 
 make children, or others over whom we have influence, 
 receive systems which we do not believe, merely be- 
 cause it is convenient to ourselves that they should 
 believe them, though a very fashionable practice, 
 makes no part of the discipline we plead for. These 
 are not prejudices, but impositions. We may also grant 
 that nothing should be received as a prejudice which 
 can be easily made the subject of experiment. A child 
 may be allowed to find out for himself that boiling 
 
38 ON PREJUDICE. 
 
 water will scald his fingers, and mustard bite his tongue ; 
 but he must be prejudiced against ratsbane, because the 
 experiment would be too costly. In like manner it 
 may do him good to have experienced that little in- 
 stances of inattention or perverseness draw upon him the 
 displeasure of his parent ; but that profligacy is attended 
 with loss of character, is a truth one would rather wish 
 him to take upon trust. 
 
 There is no occasion to inculcate by prejudices those 
 truths which it is of no importance for us to know, till 
 our powers are able to investigate them. Thus the meta- 
 physical questions of space and time, necessity and 
 free-will, and a thousand others, may safely be left 
 for that age which delights in such discussions. They 
 have no connection with conduct ; and none have any 
 business with them at all, but those who are able by 
 such studies to exercise and sharpen their mental pow- 
 ers ; but it is not so with those truths on which our well- 
 being depends ; these must be taught to all, not only 
 before they can reason upon them, but independently of 
 the consideration whether they will ever be able to rea- 
 son upon them as long as they live. What has hith- 
 erto been said, relates only to instilling prejudices into 
 others ; how far a man is to allow them in himself, or, 
 as a celebrated writer expresses it, to cherish them, is a 
 different question, on which perhaps I may some time 
 offer my thoughts. In the mean time I cannot help 
 concluding, that to reject the influence of prejudice in 
 education is itself one of the most unreasonable of 
 prejudices. 
 
THE BABY-HOUSE. 
 
 Dear Agatha, I give you joy, 
 
 And much admire your pretty toy, — 
 
 A mansion in itself complete, 
 
 And fitted to give guests a treat ; 
 
 With couch and table, chest and chair, 
 
 The bed or supper to prepare. 
 
 We almost wish to change ourselves 
 
 To fairy forms of tripping elves, 
 
 To press the velvet couch, and eat 
 
 From tiny cups the sugared meat. 
 
 I much suspect that many a sprite 
 
 Inhabits it at dead of night ; 
 
 That, as they dance, the listening ear 
 
 The pat of fairy feet might hear ; 
 
 That, just as you have said your prayers, 
 
 They hurry-scurry down the stairs : 
 
 And you '11 do well to try to find 
 
 Tester or ring they 've left behind. 
 
 But think not, Agatha, you own 
 That toy, a Baby-house, alone ; 
 For many a sumptuous one is found 
 To press an ampler space of ground. 
 The broad-based Pyramid that stands 
 Casting its shade in distant lands, 
 Which asked some mighty nation's toil 
 With mountain-weight to press the soil, 
 And there has raised its head sublime 
 Through eras of uncounted time. — 
 Its use if asked, 't is only said, 
 A Baby-house to lodge the dead. 
 
40 DIALOGUE IN THE SHADES. 
 
 Nor less beneath more genial skies 
 
 The domes of pomp and folly rise, 
 
 Whose sun through diamond windows streams, 
 
 While gems and gold reflect his beams ; 
 
 Where tapestry clothes the storied wall, 
 
 And fountains spout and waters fall. 
 
 The peasant faints beneath his load, 
 
 Nor tastes the grain his hands have sowed, 
 
 While scarce a nation's wealth avails 
 
 To raise thy Baby-house, Versailles. 
 
 And Baby-houses oft appear 
 
 On British ground, of prince or peer ; 
 
 Awhile their stately heads they raise, 
 
 The admiring traveller stops to gaze ; 
 
 He looks again — where are they now ? 
 
 Gone to the hammer or the plough : 
 
 Then trees, the pride of ages, fall, 
 
 And naked stands the pictured wall ; 
 
 And treasured coins from distant lands 
 
 Must feel the touch of sordid hands ; 
 
 And gems, of classic stores the boast, 
 
 Fall to the cry of — Who bids most? 
 
 Then do not, Agatha, repine 
 
 That cheaper Baby-house is thine. 
 
 DIALOGUE IN THE SHADES. 
 
 Clio. — There is no help for it, — they must go. 
 The river Lethe is here at hand ; I shall tear them off 
 and throw them into the stream. 
 
 Mercury. — Illustrious daughter of Mnemosyne, 
 Clio ! the most respected of the Muses, — you seem 
 disturbed. What is it that brings us the honor of a 
 visit from you in these infernal regions ? 
 
DIALOGUE IN THE SHADES. 41 
 
 Clio. — You are a god of expedients, Mercury; I 
 want to consult you. I am oppressed with the con- 
 tinually increasing demands upon me : I have had 
 more business for these last twenty years than I have 
 often had for two centuries ; and if I had, as old Ho- 
 mer says, "a throat of brass and adamantine lungs " I 
 could never get through it. And what did he want 
 this throat of brass for ? for a paltry list of ships, ca- 
 noes rather, which would be laughed at in the Admi- 
 ralty Office of London. But I must inform you, Mer- 
 cury, that my roll is so full, and I have so many appli- 
 cations which cannot in decency be refused, that 
 I see no other way than striking oft some hundreds of 
 names in order to make room ; and I am come to in- 
 form the shades of my determination. 
 
 Mercury. — I believe, Clio, you will do right : and as 
 one end of your roll is a little mouldy, no doubt you will 
 begin with that ; but the ghosts will raise a great clamor. 
 
 Clio. — I expect no less ; but necessity has no law. 
 All the parchment in Pergamus is used up, — my roll 
 is long enough to reach from earth to heaven ; it is 
 grown quite cumbrous ; it takes a life, as mortals 
 reckon lives, to unroll it. 
 
 ' Mercury. — Yet consider, Clio, how many of these 
 have passed a restless life, and encountered all man- 
 ner of dangers, and bled and died only to be placed 
 upon your list, — and now to be struck off ! 
 
 Clio. — And committed all manner of crimes, you 
 might have added ; — but go they must. Besides, 
 they have been sufficiently recompensed. Have they 
 not been praised, and sung, and admired for some 
 thousands of years ? Let them give place to others : 
 What! Have they no conscience? no modesty? 
 Would Xerxes, think you, have reason to complain, 
 when his parading expeditions have already procured 
 him above two thousand years of fame, though a 
 Solyman or a Zingis Khan should fill up his place ? 
 
42 DIALOGUE IN THE SHADES. 
 
 Mercury. — Surely you are not going to blot out 
 Xerxes from your list of names ? 
 
 Clio. — I do not say that I am : but that I keep 
 him is more for the sake of his antagonists than his 
 own. And yet their places might be well supplied 
 by the Swiss heroes of Morgarten, or the brave though 
 unsuccessful patriot, Aloys Reding. — But pray what 
 noise is that at the gate ? 
 
 Mercury. — A number of the shades who have re- 
 ceived an intimation of your purpose, and are come 
 to remonstrate against it. 
 
 Clio. — In the name of all the gods whom have we 
 here ? — Hercules, Theseus, Jason, (Edipus, Bacchus, 
 Cadmus, with a bag of dragon's teeth, and a whole 
 tribe of strange shadowy figures ! I shall expect to 
 see the Centaurs and Lapithae, or Perseus on his fly- 
 ing courser. Away with them ; they belong to my 
 sisters, not to me; Melpomene will receive them 
 gladly. 
 
 Mercury. — You forget, Clio, that Bacchus con- 
 quered India. 
 
 Clio. — And had horns like Moses, as Vossius is 
 pleased to say. No, Mercury, I will have nothing to 
 do with these ; if ever I received them, it was when 
 I was young and credulous. — As I have said, let my 
 sisters take them ; or let them be celebrated in tales 
 for children. 
 
 Mercury. — That will not do, Clio ; children in this 
 age read none but wise books : stories of giants and 
 dragons are all written for grown-up children now. 
 
 Clio. — Be that as it may, I shall clear my hands 
 of them, and of a great many more, I do assure 
 you. 
 
 Mercury. — I hope " the tale of Troy divine — ! " 
 
 Clio. — Divine let it be, but my share in it is very 
 small ; I recollect furnishing the catalogue. — Mercury, 
 I will tell you the truth. When I was young, my 
 
DIALOGUE IN THE SHADES. 43 
 
 mother (as arrant a gossip as ever breathed) related to 
 me a great number of stories : and as in those days 
 people could not read or write, I had no better author- 
 ity for what I recorded : but after letters were found 
 out, and now since the noble invention of printing, — 
 why, do you think, Mercury, any one would dare to tell 
 lies in print? 
 
 Mercury. — Sometimes, perhaps. I have seen a 
 splendid victory in the gazette of one country dwindle 
 into an honorable retreat in that of another. 
 
 Clio. — In newspapers, very possibly : but with re- 
 gard to myself, when I have time to consider and lay 
 things together, I assure you, you may depend upon 
 me. — Whom have we in that group which I see in- 
 distinctly in a sort of twilight ? 
 
 Mercury. — Very renowned personages ; Ninus, 
 Sesostris, Semiramis, Cheops who built the largest 
 pyramid. 
 
 Clio. — If Cheops built the largest pyramid, people 
 -are welcome to inquire about him at the spot, — room 
 must be made. As to Semiramis, tell her her place 
 shall be filled up by an empress and a conqueror from 
 the shores of the wintry Baltic. 
 
 Mercury. — The renowned Cyrus is approaching 
 with a look of confidence, for he is introduced by a 
 favorite of yours, the elegant Xenophon. 
 
 Clio. — Is that Cyrus ? Pray desire him to take off 
 that dress which Xenophon has given him ; truly I 
 took him for a Greek philosopher. I fancy queen 
 Tomyris would scarcely recognize him. 
 
 Mercury. — Aspasia hopes, for the honor of her 
 sex, that she shall continue to occupy a place among 
 those you celebrate. 
 
 Clio. — Tell the mistress of Pericles we can spare 
 her without inconvenience : many ladies are to be 
 found in modern times who possess her eloquence 
 and her talents, with the modesty of a vestal ; and 
 
44 DIALOGUE IN THE SHADES. 
 
 should a more perfect likeness be required, modern 
 times may furnish that also. 
 
 Mercury. — Here are two figures who approach 
 you with a very dignified air. 
 
 Solon and Lycurgus. — We present ourselves, di- 
 vine Clio, with confidence. We have no fear that 
 you should strike from your roll the lawgivers of 
 Athens and Sparta. 
 
 Clio. — Most assuredly not. Yet I must inform 
 you that a name higher than either of yours, and a 
 constitution more perfect, is to be found in a vast con- 
 tinent, of the very existence of which you had not the 
 least suspicion. 
 
 Mercury. — I see approaching a person of a noble 
 and spirited air, if he did not hold his head a little on 
 one side as if his neck were awry. 
 
 Alexander. — Clio, I need not introduce myself : I 
 am, as you well know, the son of Jupiter Amnion, and 
 my arms have reached even to the remote shore of the 
 Indus. 
 
 Clio. — Pray burn your genealogy; and for the 
 rest, suffer me to inform you that the river Indus and 
 the whole peninsula which you scarcely discovered, 
 with sixty millions of inhabitants, is at this moment 
 subject to the dominion of a few merchants in a remote 
 island of the Northern Ocean, the very name of which 
 never reached your ears. 
 
 Mercury. — Here is Empedocles, who threw him- 
 self into y^Etna merely to be placed upon your roll ; 
 and Calanus, who mounted his funeral pile before 
 Alexander, from the same motive. 
 
 Clio. — They have been remembered long enough 
 in all reason : their places may be supplied by the two 
 next madmen who shall throw themselves under the 
 wheels of the chariot of Jaggernaut, — fanatics are the 
 growth of every age. 
 
 Mercury. — Here is a ghost preparing to address 
 
DIALOGUE IN THE SHADES. 45 
 
 you with a very self-sufficient air : his robe is era- 
 broided with flower-de-luces. 
 
 Louis XIV. — I am persuaded, Clio, you will re- 
 cognize the immortal man. I have always been a 
 friend and patron of the Muses ; my actions are well 
 known ; all Europe has resounded with my name, — 
 the terror of other countries, the glory of my own : I 
 am well assured you are not going to strike me off. 
 
 Clio. — To strike you off? certainly not ; but to 
 place you many degrees lower in the list ; to reduce 
 you from a sun, your favorite emblem, to a star in the 
 galaxy. My sisters have certainly been partial to you : 
 you bought their favor with — how many livres a year ? 
 not much more than a London bookseller will give for 
 a quarto poem. But me you cannot bribe. 
 
 Louis. — But, Clio, you have yourself recorded my 
 exploits ; — the passage of the Rhine, Namur, Flan- 
 ders, Franche Comte. 
 
 Clio. — O Louis, if you could but guess the extent of 
 the present French empire ; — but no, it could never 
 enter into your imagination. 
 
 Louis. — I rejoice at what you say ; I rejoice that 
 my posterity have followed my steps, and improved 
 upon my glory. 
 
 Clio. — Your posterity have had nothing to do with it. 
 
 Louis. — Remember too the urbanity of my charac- 
 ter, how hospitably I received the unfortunate James 
 of England, — England, the natural enemy of France. 
 
 Clio. — Your hospitality has been well returned. 
 Your descendants, driven from their thrones, are at 
 this moment supported by the bounty of the nation 
 and king of England. 
 
 Louis. — O Clio, what is it that you tell me ! let me 
 hide my diminished head in the deepest umbrage of 
 the grove ; let me seek out my dear Maintenon, and 
 tell my beads with her till I forget that I have been 
 either praised or feared. 
 
46 DIALOGUE IN THE SHADES. 
 
 Clio. — Comfort yourself, however ; your name, like 
 the red letter which marks the holiday, though insignifi- 
 cant in itself, shall still enjoy the honor of designating 
 the age of taste and literature. 
 
 Mercury. — Here is a whole crowd coming, Clio ; I 
 can scarcely keep them off with my wand : they have 
 all got notice of your intentions, and the infernal re- 
 gions are quite in an uproar, — what is to be done ? 
 
 Clio. — I cannot tell ; the numbers distract me : to 
 examine their pretensions one by one is impossible ; I 
 must strike off half of them at a venture : the rest 
 must make room, — they must crowd, they must fall into 
 the background ; and where I used to write a name all 
 in capitals with letters of gold illuminated, I must put 
 it in small pica. I do assure you, Mercury, I cannot 
 stand the fatigue I undergo, much longer. I am not 
 provided, as you very well know, with either chariot or 
 wings, and I am expected to be in all parts of the 
 globe at once. In the good old times, my business lay 
 almost entirely between the Hellespont and the Pillars 
 of Hercules, with sometimes an excursion to the 
 mouths (then seven) of the Nile, or the banks of the 
 Euphrates. But now I am required to be in a hun- 
 dred places at once ; I am called from Jena to Auster- 
 litz, from Cape Trafalgar to Aboukir, and from the 
 Thames to the Ganges and Burampooter; besides a 
 whole continent, a world by itself, fresh and vigorous, 
 which I foresee will find me abundance of employ- 
 ment. 
 
 Mercury. — Truly I believe so ; I am afraid the old 
 leaven is working in the new world. 
 
 Clio. — I am puzzled at this moment how to give 
 the account, which always is expected of me, of the 
 august sovereigns of Europe. 
 
 Mercury. — How so ? 
 
 Clio. — I do not know where to find them ; they 
 are most of them upon their travels. 
 
DIALOGUE IN THE SHADES. 47 
 
 Mercury. — You must have been very much em- 
 ployed in the French revolution. 
 
 Clio. — Continually; the actors in the scene suc- 
 ceeded one another with such rapidity, that the hero 
 of to-day was forgotten on the morrow. Necker, Mi- 
 rabeau, Dumourier, Lafayette, appeared successively, 
 like the pictures in a magic lantern — shown for a 
 moment and then withdrawn : and now the space is 
 filled by one tremendous gigantic figure, that throws 
 his broad shadow over half the globe. 
 
 Mercury. — The ambition of Napoleon has indeed 
 procured you much employment. 
 
 Clio. — Employment ! There is not a goddess so 
 harassed as I am ; my sisters lead quite idle lives in 
 comparison. Melpomene has in a manner slept 
 through the last half-century, except when now and 
 then she dictated to a certain favorite nymph. Ura- 
 nia, indeed, has employed herself with Herschel in 
 counting the stars ; but her task is less than mine. 
 Here am I expected to calculate how many hundred 
 thousands of rational beings cut one another's throats 
 at Austerlitz, and to take the tale of two hundred and 
 thirteen thousand human bodies and ninety-five thou- 
 sand horses, that lie stiff, frozen and unburied on the 
 banks of the Berecina ; — and do you think, Mercury, 
 this can be a pleasant employment ? 
 
 Mercury. — I have had a great increase of employ- 
 ment myself lately, on account of the multitude of 
 shades I have been obliged to convey ; and poor old 
 Charon is almost laid up with the rheumatism : we 
 used to have a holiday comparatively during the win- 
 ter months ; but of late, winter and summer I have 
 observed are much alike to heroes. 
 
 Clio. — I wish to Jupiter I could resign my office ! 
 Son of Maia, I declare to you I am sick of the horrors 
 I record ; I am sick of mankind. For above these 
 three thousand years have I been warning them and 
 
48 DIALOGUE IN THE SHADES. 
 
 reading lessons to them, and they will not mend : 
 Robespierre was as cruel as Sylla, and Napoleon has 
 no more moderation than Pyrrhus. The human 
 frame, of curious texture, delicately formed, feeling, 
 and irritable by the least annoyance, with face erect 
 and animated with Promethean fire, they wound, they 
 lacerate, they mutilate with most perverted ingenuity. 
 I will go and record the actions of the tigers of Africa ; 
 in them such fierceness is natural. Nay, the human 
 race will be exterminated, if this work of destruction 
 goes on much longer. 
 
 Mercury. — With regard to that matter, Clio, I can 
 set your heart at rest. A great philosopher has lately 
 discovered that the world is in imminent danger of be - 
 ing over-peopled ; and that if twenty or forty thousand 
 men could not be persuaded every now and then to 
 stand and be shot at, we should be forced to eat one 
 another. This discovery has had a wonderful effect in 
 quieting tender consciences. The calculation is very 
 simple, any schoolboy will explain it to you. 
 
 Clio. — O what a number of fertile plains and green 
 savannahs, and tracts covered with trees of beautiful 
 foliage, have never yet been pressed by human foot- 
 steps ! My friend Swift's project of eating children 
 was not so cruel as these bloody and lavish sacrifices 
 to Mars, the most savage of all the gods. 
 
 Mercury. — You forget yourself, Clio ; Mars is not 
 worshipped now in Christian Europe. 
 
 Clio. — By Jupiter, but he is ! Have I not seen the 
 bloody and torn banners, with martial music and mili- 
 tary procession, brought into the temple, — and whose 
 temple, thinkest thou ? and to whom have thanks been 
 given on both sides, amidst smoking towns and wasted 
 fields, after the destruction of man and devastation of 
 the fair face of nature ! — And Mercury, god of wealth 
 and frauds, you have your temple too, though your 
 name is not inscribed there. 
 
KNOWLEDGE AND HER DAUGHTER. 49 
 
 Mercury. — I am afraid men will always love wealth. 
 
 Clio. — Oh, if I had to record only such pure names 
 as a Washington or a Howard ! 
 
 Mercury. — It would be very gratifying, certainly : 
 but then, Clio, you would have very little to do, and 
 might almost as well burn your roll. 
 
 KNOWLEDGE AND HER DAUGHTER. 
 
 A FABLE. 
 
 Knowledge, the daughter of Jupiter, descended 
 from the skies to visit man. She found him naked 
 and helpless, living on the spontaneous fruits of the 
 earth, and little superior to the ox that grazed beside 
 him. She clothed and fed him ; she built him pal- 
 aces ; she showed him the hidden riches of the earth, 
 and pointed with her finger the course of the stars as 
 they rose and set in the horizon. Man became rich 
 with her gifts, and accomplished from her conversa- 
 tion. In process of time Knowledge became acquain- 
 ted with the schools of the philosophers ; and being 
 much taken with their theories and their conversation, 
 she married one of them. They had many beautiful 
 and healthy children ; but among the rest was a 
 daughter of a different complexion from all the rest, 
 whose name was Doubt. She grew up under many 
 disadvantages ; she had a great hesitation in her 
 speech ; a cast in her eye, which, however, was keen 
 and piercing ; and was subject to nervous tremblings. 
 Her mother saw her with dislike : but her father, who 
 was of the sect of the Pyrrhonists, cherished and 
 taught her logic, in which she made a great progress. 
 The Muse of History was much troubled with her in- 
 trusions : she would tear out whole leaves, and blot 
 
50 WASHING-DA Y. 
 
 over many pages of her favorite works. With the di- 
 vines her depredations were still worse : she was 
 forbidden to enter a church ; notwithstanding which, 
 she would slip in under the surplice, and spend her 
 time in making mouths at the priest. If she got at a 
 library, she destroyed or blotted over the most valua- 
 ble manuscripts. A most undutiful child ; she was 
 never better pleased than when she could unexpect- 
 edly trip up her mother's heels, or expose a rent or an 
 unseemly patch in her flowing and ample garment. 
 With mathematicians she never meddled; but in all 
 other systems of knowledge she intruded herself, and her 
 breath diffused a mist over the page which often left 
 it scarcely legible. Her mother at length said to her, 
 " Thou art my child, and I know it is decreed that 
 while I tread this earth thou must accompany my foot- 
 steps ; but thou art mortal, I am immortal ; and there 
 will come a time when I shall be freed from thy intru- 
 sion, and shall pursue my glorious track from star to 
 star, and from system to system, without impediment 
 and without check." 
 
 WASHING-DAY. 
 
 . . . and their voice, 
 Turning again towards childish treble, pipes 
 And whistles in its sound. 
 
 The Muses are turned gossips ; they have lost 
 The buskined step, and clear high-sounding phrase, 
 Language of gods. Come then, domestic Muse, 
 In slipshod measure loosely prattling on 
 Of farm or orchard, pleasant curds and cream, 
 Or drowning flies, or shoe lost in the mire 
 By little whimpering boy, with rueful face ; 
 Come, Muse, and sing the dreaded Washing- Day. 
 
WASHING-DA Y. 5 T 
 
 Ye who beneath the yoke of wedlock bend, 
 
 With bowed soul, full well ye ken the day 
 
 Which week, smooth sliding after week, brings on 
 
 Too soon ; — for to that day nor peace belongs 
 
 Nor comfort ; — ere the first gray streak of dawn, 
 
 The red-armed washers come and chase repose. 
 
 Nor pleasant smile, nor quaint device of mirth, 
 
 E'er visited that day : the very cat, 
 
 From the wet kitchen scared, and reeking hearth, 
 
 Visits the parlor, — an unwonted guest. 
 
 The silent breakfast-meal is soon despatched ; 
 
 Uninterrupted, save by anxious looks 
 
 Cast at the lowering sky, if sky should lower. 
 
 From that last evil, O preserve us, heavens ! 
 
 For should the skies pour down, adieu to all 
 
 Remains of quiet : then expect to hear 
 
 Of sad disasters, — dirt and gravel stains 
 
 Hard to efface, and loaded lines at once 
 
 Snapped short, — and linen-horse by dog thrown 
 
 down, 
 And all the petty miseries of life. 
 Saints have been calm while stretched upon the 
 
 rack, 
 And Guatimozin smiled on burning coals ; 
 But never yet did housewife notable 
 Greet with a smile a rainy washing-day. 
 — But grant the welkin fair, require not thou 
 Who call'st thyself perchance the master there, 
 Or study swept, or nicely dusted coat, 
 Or usual 'tendance ; — ask not, indiscreet, 
 Thy stockings mended, though the yawning rents 
 Gape wide as Erebus ; nor hope to find 
 Some snug recess impervious : shouldst thou try 
 The 'customed garden walks, thine eye shall rue 
 The budding fragrance of thy tender shrubs, 
 Myrtle or rose, all crushed beneath the weight, 
 Of coarse checked apron, — with impatient hand 
 
52 WASHING-DAY. 
 
 Twitched off when showers impend : or crossing 
 
 lines 
 Shall mar thy musings, as the wet cold sheet 
 Flaps in thy face abrupt. Woe to the friend 
 Whose evil stars have urged him forth to claim 
 On such a day the hospitable rites ! 
 Looks, blank at best, and stinted courtesy, 
 Shall he receive. Vainly he feeds his hopes 
 With dinner of roast chickens, savory pie, 
 Or tart or pudding : — pudding he nor tart 
 That day shall eat ; nor, though the husband try,' 
 Mending what can't be helped, to kindle mirth 
 From cheer deficient, shall his consort's brow 
 Clear up propitious : — the unlucky guest 
 In silence dines, and early slinks away. 
 I well remember, when a child, the awe 
 This day struck into me; for then the maids, 
 I scarce knew why, looked cross, and drove me from 
 
 them : 
 Nor soft caress could I obtain, nor hope 
 Usual indulgences, — jelly or creams, 
 Relic of costly suppers, and set by 
 For me their petted one ; or buttered toast, 
 When butter was forbid ; or thrilling tale 
 Of ghost or witch, or murder. So I went 
 And sheltered me beside the parlor fire : 
 There my dear grandmother, eldest of forms, 
 Tended the little ones, and watched from harm, 
 Anxiously fond, though oft her spectacles 
 With elfin cunning hid, and oft the pins 
 Drawn from her ravelled stockings, might have 
 
 soured 
 One less indulgent. 
 
 At intervals my mother's voice was heard, 
 Urging despatch : briskly the work went on, 
 All hands employed to wash, to rinse, to wring, 
 To fold, and starch, and clap, and iron, and plait. 
 
TRUE MAGICIANS. 53 
 
 Then would I sit me down, and ponder much 
 Why washings were. Sometimes through hollow 
 
 bowl 
 Of pipe amused we blew, and sent aloft 
 The floating bubbles ; little dreaming then 
 To see, Mongolfier, thy silken ball 
 Ride buoyant through the clouds — so near ap- 
 proach 
 The sports of children and the toils of men. 
 Earth, air, and sky, and ocean, hath its bubbles, 
 And verse is one of them — this most of all. 
 
 TRUE MAGICIANS. 
 
 TO MISS C. 
 
 My dear Sarah, — I have often reflected, since I 
 left you, on the wonderful powers of magic exhibited 
 by you and your sister. The dim obscurity of that 
 grotto hollowed out by your hands under the laurel 
 hedge, where you used to mix the ingredients of your 
 incantations, struck us with awe and terror; and the 
 broom which you so often brandished in your hands 
 made you look very like witches indeed. I must con- 
 fess, however, that some doubts have now and then 
 arisen in my mind, whether or no you were truly initi- 
 ated in the secrets of your art ; and these suspicions 
 gathered strength after you had suffered us and your- 
 self to be so drenched as we all were on that rainy 
 Tuesday ; which, to say the least, was a very odd cir- 
 cumstance, considering you had the command of the 
 weather. As I was pondering these matters alone in 
 the chaise between Epsom and London, I fell asleep 
 and had the following dream. 
 
54 TRUE MAGICIANS. 
 
 I thought I had been travelling through an unknown 
 country, and came at last to a thick wood cut out into 
 several groves and avenues, the gloom of which in- 
 spired thoughtfulness, and a certain mysterious dread 
 of unknown powers came upon me. I entered how- 
 ever one of the avenues, and found it terminated in a 
 magnificent portal, through which I could discern con- 
 fusedly among thick foliage, cloistered arches and Gre- 
 cian porticos, and people walking and conversing 
 amongst the trees. Over the portal was the following 
 inscription : "Here dwell the true magicians. Nature 
 is our servant. Man is our pupil. We change, we 
 conquer, we create." 
 
 As I was hesitating whether or no I should presume 
 to enter, a pilgrim, who was sitting under the shade, 
 offered to be my guide, assuring rne that these magi- 
 cians would do me no harm, and that so far from hav- 
 ing any objection to be observed in their operations, 
 they were pleased with any opportunity of exhibiting 
 them to the curious. In therefore I went, and ad- 
 dressed the first of the magicians I met with, who 
 asked me whether I liked panoramas. On replying 
 that I thought them very entertaining, she took me to 
 a little eminence and bade me look round. I did so, 
 and beheld the representation of the beautiful vale of 
 Dorking, with Norbury-park and Box-hill to the north, 
 Reigate to the east, and Leith tower with the Surrey 
 hills to the south. After I had admired for some time 
 the beauty and accuracy of the painting, a vast curtain 
 seemed to be drawn gradually up, and my view extend- 
 ed on all sides. On one hand I traced the windings 
 of the Thames up to Oxford, and stretched my eye 
 westward over Salisbury Plain, and across the Bristol 
 Channel into the romantic country of South Wales ; 
 northward the view extended to Lincoln cathedral, and 
 York minster towering over the rest of the churches. 
 Across the Sussex downs I had a clear view of the 
 
TRUE MAGICIANS. 55 
 
 British Channel, and the opposite coast of France, with 
 its ports blockaded by our fleets. As the horizon of 
 the panorama still extended, I spied the towers of 
 Notre Dame, and the Tuileries, and my eye wan- 
 dered at large over " The vine-covered hills and gay 
 regions of France," quite down to the source of the 
 Loire. At the same time the great Atlantic ocean 
 opened to my view ; and on the other hand I saw 
 the lake of Geneva, and the dark ridge of Mount 
 Jura, and discovered the summits of the Alps cov- 
 ered with snow ; and beyond, the orange groves of It- 
 aly, the majestic dome of St. Peter's, and the smok- 
 ing crater of Vesuvius. As the curtain still rose, I 
 stretched my view over the Mediterranean, the scene 
 of ancient glory, the Archipelago studded with islands, 
 the shores of the Bosphorus, and the gilded minarets 
 and cypress groves of Constantinople. Throwing back 
 a look to the less attractive north, I saw pictured the rug- 
 ged, broken coast of Norway, the cheerless moors of 
 Lapland, and the interminable desolation of the plains 
 of Siberia. Turning my eye again southward, the land- 
 scape extended to the plains of Barbary, covered with 
 date-trees ; and I discerned the points of pyramids 
 appearing above the horizon, and saw the Delta and 
 the seven-mouthed Nile. In short, the curtain still 
 rose, and the view extended further and further till 
 the panorama took in the whole globe. I cannot ex- 
 press to you the pleasure I felt as I saw mountains, 
 seas, and islands, spread out before me. Sometimes 
 my eye wandered over the vast plains of Tartary, 
 sometimes it expatiated in the savannahs of America. 
 I saw men with dark skins, white cotton turbans 
 wreathed about their heads, and long flowing robes 
 of silk ; others almost naked under a vertical sun. 
 I saw whales sporting in the northern seas, and ele- 
 phants trampling amidst fields of maize and forests 
 of palm-trees. I seemed to have put a girdle about 
 
56 TRUE MAGICIANS. 
 
 the earth, and was gratified with an infinite variety of 
 objects which I thought I never could be weary of 
 contemplating. At length, turning towards the magi- 
 cian who had entertained me with such an agreeable 
 exhibition, and asking her name, she informed me it 
 was Geography. 
 
 My attention was next arrested by a sorceress, who, 
 I was told, possessed the power of calling up from the 
 dead whomsoever she pleased, man or woman, in 
 their proper habits and figures, and obliging them to 
 converse and answer questions. She held a roll of 
 parchment in her hand, and had an air of great dig- 
 nity. I confess that I felt a little afraid ; but having 
 been somewhat encouraged by the former exhibition, 
 I ventured to ask her to give me a specimen of her 
 power, in case there was nothing unlawful in it. 
 "Whom," said she, "do you wish to behold?" Af- 
 ter considering some time, I desired to see Cicero, the 
 Roman orator. She made some talismanic figures 
 on the sand, and presently he rose to my view, his 
 neck and head bare, the rest of his body in a flowing 
 toga, which he gathered round him with one hand, 
 and stretching out the other very gracefully, he recited 
 to me one of his orations against Catiline. He also 
 read to me — which was more than I could in reason 
 have expected — several of his familiar letters to his 
 most intimate friends. I next desired that Julius Cae- 
 sar might be called up : on which he appeared, his 
 hair nicely arranged, and the fore part of his head, 
 which was bald, covered with wreaths of laurel ; and 
 he very obligingly gave me a particular account of his 
 expedition into Gaul. I wished to see the youth of 
 Macedon, but was a little disappointed in his figure, 
 for he was low in stature and held his head awry ; 
 but I saw him manage Bucephalus with admirable 
 courage and address, and was afterwards introduced 
 with him into the tent of Darius, where I was greatly 
 
TRUE MAGICIANS. 57 
 
 pleased with the generosity and politeness of his be- 
 havior. I afterwards expressed some curiosity to see 
 a battle, if I might do it with safety, and was grat- 
 ified with the sea-fight of Actium. I saw, after the 
 first onset, the galleys of Cleopatra turning their prows 
 and flying from the battle, and Antony, to his eternal 
 shame, quitting the engagement and making sail after 
 her. I then wished to call up all the kings of Eng- 
 land, and they appeared in order, one after the other, 
 with their crowns and the insignia of their dignity, 
 and walked over the stage for my amusement, much 
 like the descendants of Banquo in Macbeth. Their 
 queens accompanied them, trailing their robes upon 
 the ground, and the bishops with their mitres, and 
 judges, and generals, and eminent persons of every 
 class. I asked many questions as they passed, and 
 received a great deal of information relative to the 
 laws, manners, and transactions of past times. I did 
 not, however, always meet with direct answers to my 
 questions. For instance, when I called up Homer, and 
 after some other conversation asked him where he was 
 born, he only said, " Guess ! " And when I asked Louis 
 the Fourteenth who was the man in the iron mask, 
 he frowned and would not tell me. I took a great deal 
 of pleasure in calling up the shades of distinguished 
 people in different ages and countries, making them 
 stand close by one another, and comparing their man- 
 ners and costume. Thus I measured Catharine of 
 Russia against Semiramis, and Aristotle against Lord 
 Bacon. I could have spent whole years in conversa- 
 tion with so many celebrated persons, and promised 
 myself that I would often frequent this obliging magi- 
 cian. Her name, I found, was in heaven Clio, on 
 earth History. 
 
 I saw another, who was making a charm for two 
 friends, one of whom was going to the East Indies : 
 they were bitterly lamenting that when they were 
 
58 TRUE MAGICIANS. 
 
 parted at so great a distance from each other they 
 could no longer communicate their thoughts, but 
 must be cut off from each other's society. Pre- 
 senting them with a talisman inscribed with four-and- 
 twenty black marks, "Take this," she said; "I have 
 breathed a voice upon it : by means of this talisman 
 you shall still converse, and hear one another as dis- 
 tinctly, when half the globe is between you, as if you 
 were talking together in the same room." The two 
 friends thanked her for such an invaluable present, 
 and retired. Her name was Abracadabra. 
 
 I was next invited to see a whispering- gallery, of a 
 most curious and uncommon structure. To make 
 the experiment of its powers, a young poet of a very 
 modest appearance, who was stealing along in a re- 
 tired walk, was desired to repeat a verse in it. He 
 applied his lips to the wall, and whispered in a low 
 voice, "l?ura mihi et rigui placeant in vallibus a??i- 
 nes." The sound ran along the walls for some time 
 in a kind of low whisper • but every minute it grew 
 louder and louder, till at length it was echoed and re- 
 echoed from every part of the gallery, and seemed 
 to be pronounced by a multitude of voices at once, 
 in different languages, till the whole dome was filled 
 with the sound. There was a strong smell of in- 
 cense. The gallery was constructed by Fame. 
 
 The good pilgrim next conducted me to a cave 
 where several sorceresses, very black and grim, were 
 amusing themselves with making lightning, thunder, 
 and earthquakes. I saw two vials of cold liquor 
 mixed together, and flames burst forth from them. 
 I saw some insignificant-looking black grains, which 
 would throw palaces and castles into the air. I saw 
 — and it made my hair stand on end — a headless 
 man, who lifted up his arm and grasped a sword. I 
 saw men flying through the air, without wings, over 
 the tops of towns and castles, and come down unhurt. 
 
TRUE MAGICIANS. 59 
 
 The cavern was very black, and the smoke and fires 
 and mephitic blasts and sulphureous vapors that is- 
 sued from it, gave the whole a very tremendous ap- 
 pearance. I did not stay long, but as I retired I saw 
 Chemistry written on the walls in letters of flame, with 
 several other names which I do not now remember. 
 
 My companion whispered me that some of these 
 were suspected of communication with the evil genii, 
 and that the demon of War had been seen to resort 
 to the cave. "But now," said the pilgrim, "I will 
 lead you to enchanters who deserve all your venera- 
 tion, and are even more beneficent than those you 
 have already seen." He then led me to a cavern that 
 opened upon the sea shore : it blew a terrible storm, 
 the waves ran mountains high, the wind roared, and 
 vessels were driven against each other with a terrible 
 shock. A female figure advanced and threw a little 
 oil upon the waves ; they immediately subsided, the 
 winds were still, the storm was laid, and the vessels 
 pursued their course in safety. " By what magic is 
 this performed?" exclaimed I. "The magician is 
 Meekness" replied my conductor ; " she can smooth 
 the roughest sea, and allay the wildest storm." 
 
 My view was next directed to a poor wretch, who 
 lay groaning in a most piteous manner, and crushed 
 to the earth with a mountain on his breast ; he uttered 
 piercing shrieks, and seemed totally unable to rise or 
 help himself. One of these good magicians, whose 
 name I found was Patience, advanced and struck the 
 mountain with a wand ; on which, to my great sur- 
 prise, it diminished to a size not more than the load 
 of an ordinary porter, which the man threw over 
 his sho alders, with something very like a smile, and 
 marched off with a firm step and very composed air. 
 
 I must not pass over a charmer of a very pleasing 
 appearance and lively aspect. She possessed the 
 power (a very useful one in a country so subject to 
 
60 TRUE MAGICIANS. 
 
 fogs and rains as this is) of gilding a landscape with 
 sunshine whenever she breathed upon it. Her name 
 was Cheerfulness. Indeed you may remember that 
 your papa brought her down with him on that very 
 rainy day when we could not go out at all, and he 
 played on his flute to you and you all danced. 
 
 I was next struck, on ascending an eminence, with 
 a most dreary landscape. All the flat country was 
 one stagnant marsh. Amidst the rushy grass lay the 
 fiend Ague, listless and shivering : on the bare and 
 bleak hills sat Famine, with a few shells of acorns 
 before her, of which she had eaten the fruit. The 
 woods were tangled and pathless ; the howl of wolves 
 was heard. A few smoky huts, or caves, not much 
 better than the dens of wild beasts, were all the hab- 
 itations of men that presented themselves. " Miser- 
 able country ! " I exclaimed ; "step-child of nature ! " 
 "This," said my conductor, "is Britain as our ances- 
 tors possessed it." " And by what magic," I replied, 
 " has it been converted into the pleasant land we now 
 inhabit?" "You shall see," said he. "It has been 
 the work of one of our most powerful magicians. 
 Her name is Industry." At the word, she advanced 
 and waved her wand over the scene. Gradually the 
 waters ran off into separate channels, and left rich 
 meadows covered with innumerable flocks and herds. 
 The woods disappeared, except what waved grace- 
 fully on the tops of the hills, or rilled up the unsightly 
 hollows. Wherever she moved her wand, roads, 
 bridges, and canals laid open and improved the face 
 of the country. A numerous population, spread 
 abroad in the fields, were gathering in the harvest. 
 Smoke from warm cottages ascended through the 
 trees, pleasant towns and villages marked the several 
 points of distance. Last, the Thames was filled with 
 forests of masts, and proud London appeared with all 
 its display of wealth and grandeur. 
 
A LECTURE ON THE USE OF WORDS. 61 
 
 I do not know whether it was the pleasure I re- 
 ceived from this exhilarating scene, or the carriage 
 having just got upon the pavement, which awakened 
 me ; but I determined to write out my dream, and 
 advise you to cultivate your acquaintance with all the 
 true Arts of Magic. 
 
 A LECTURE ON THE USE OF WORDS. 
 
 My dear mamma, who worked you this scarf? it is 
 excessively pretty. 
 
 I am sorry for it, my dear. 
 
 Sorry, mamma ! are you sorry it is pretty ? 
 
 No, but I am sorry if it is excessively pretty. 
 
 Why so ? — a thing cannot be too pretty, can it ? 
 
 If so, it cannot be excessively pretty. Pray what do 
 you mean by excessively pretty? 
 
 Why, excessively pretty means — it means very 
 pretty. 
 
 What does the word excessively come from? What 
 part of speech is it ? You know your grammar ? 
 
 It is an adverb : the words that end in ly are ad- 
 verbs. 
 
 Adverbs are derived from adjectives by adding ly, 
 you should have said ; — excessive, excessively. And 
 what is the noun from which they are both derived ? 
 
 Excess. 
 
 And what does excess mean ? 
 
 It means too much of any thing. 
 
 You see then that it implies a fault, and therefore 
 cannot be applied as a commendation. We say a 
 man is excessively greedy, excessively liberal ; a wo- 
 man excessively fine : but not that a man is exces- 
 sively wise, a woman excessively faithful to her hus- 
 
62 A LECTURE ON THE USE • OF WORDS. 
 
 band ; because in these there is no excess : nor is 
 there in beauty, that being the true and just proportion 
 which gives pleasure. 
 
 But we say " excessively kind." 
 
 We do, because kindness has its limits. A person 
 may be too kind to us, who exposes himself to a great 
 and serious inconvenience to give us a slight pleasure : 
 we also may mean by it, exceeding that kindness which 
 we have a claim to expect. But when people use it, 
 as they often do, on the slightest occasion, it is cer- 
 tainly as wrong as " excessively pretty." 
 
 But, mamma, must we always consider so much the 
 exact meaning of words ? Every body says " exces- 
 sively pretty," and "excessively tall," and "infinitely 
 obliged to you." What harm can it do ? <, 
 
 That every body does it, I deny ; that the generality 
 do it, is very true ; but it is likewise true, that the 
 generality are not to be taken as a pattern in any 
 thing. As to the harm it does, — in the first place it 
 hurts our sincerity. 
 
 Why, it is not telling a lie, sure ? 
 
 Certainly I do not mean to say it is ; but it tends to 
 sap and undermine the foundations of our integrity, 
 by making us careless, if not in the facts we assert, 
 yet in the measure and degree in which we assert 
 them. If we do not pretend to love those we have 
 no affection for, or to admire those we despise, at least 
 we lead them to think we admire them more and love 
 them better than we really do ; and this prepares the 
 way for more serious deviations from truth. So much 
 for its concern with morality : — but it has likewise a 
 very bad effect on our taste. What, think you, is the 
 reason that young people, especially, run -into these 
 vague and exaggerated expressions ? 
 
 What is vague, mamma? 
 
 It means what has no precise, definite signification. 
 Young people run into these, sometimes indeed from 
 
A LECTURE OAT THE USE OF WORDS. 63 
 
 having more feeling than judgment, but more com- 
 monly from not knowing how to separate their ideas 
 and tell what it is they are pleased with. They either 
 do not know, or will not give themselves the trouble to 
 mark, the qualities, or to describe the scenes which 
 disgust or please them, and hope to cover their defi- 
 ciency by these overwhelming expressions ; as if your 
 dress-maker, not knowing your shape, should make a 
 large loose frock, that would cover you over were you 
 twice as tall as you are. Now you would have shown 
 your taste, if in commending my scarf you had said 
 that the pattern was light, or it was rich, or that the 
 work was neat and true ; but by saying it was exces- 
 sively pretty, you showed you had not considered 
 what it was you admired in it. Did you never hear of 
 the countryman who said, " There will be monstrous 
 few apples this year, and those few will be huge little " ? 
 Poets run into this fault when they give unmeaning 
 epithets instead of appropriate description ; — young 
 ladies, when in their letters they run into exaggerated 
 expressions of friendship. 
 
 You have often admired, in this painting, the variety 
 of tints shaded into one another. Well ! what would 
 you think of a painter who should spread one deep 
 blue over all the sky, and one deep green over the 
 grass and trees ? would not you say he was a dauber ? 
 and made near objects and distant objects, and objects 
 in the sun and objects in the shade, all alike? I think 
 I have some of your early performances in which you 
 have colored prints pretty much in this style ; but you 
 would not paint so now ? 
 
 No, indeed. 
 
 Then do not talk so : do not paint so with words. 
 
THE CATERPILLAR. 
 
 No, helpless thing, I cannot harm thee now ; 
 
 Depart in peace, thy little life is safe. 
 
 For I have scanned thy form with curious eye, 
 
 Noted the silver line that streaks thy back, 
 
 The azure and the orange that divide 
 
 Thy velvet sides ; thee, houseless wanderer, 
 
 My garment has enfolded, and my arm 
 
 Felt the light pressure of thy hairy feet ; 
 
 Thou hast curled round my finger ; from its tip, 
 
 Precipitous descent ! with stretched out neck, 
 
 Bending thy head in airy vacancy, 
 
 This way and that, inquiring, thou hast seemed , 
 
 To ask protection ; now, I cannot kill thee. 
 
 Yet I have sworn perdition to thy race, 
 
 And recent from the slaughter am I come 
 
 Of tribes and embryo nations : I have sought 
 
 With sharpened eye and persecuting zeal, 
 
 Where, folded in their silken webs they lay 
 
 Thriving and happy ; swept them from the tree 
 
 And crushed whole families beneath my foot ; 
 
 Or sudden, poured on their devoted heads 
 
 The vials of destruction. This I 've done, 
 
 Nor felt the touch of pity : but when thou, — 
 
 A single wretch, escaped the general doom, 
 
 Making me feel and clearly recognize 
 
 Thine individual existence, life, 
 
 And fellowship of sense with all that breathes, — 
 
 Present'st thyself before me, I relent, 
 
 And cannot hurt thy weakness. So the storm 
 
EARTH. 65 
 
 Of horrid war, o'erwhelming cities, fields, 
 
 And peaceful villages, rolls dreadful on : 
 
 The victor shouts triumphant ; he enjoys 
 
 The roar of cannon and the clang of arms, 
 
 And urges, by no soft relentings stopped, 
 
 The work of death and carnage. Yet should one, 
 
 A single sufferer from the field escaped, 
 
 Panting and pale, and bleeding at his feet, 
 
 Lift his imploring eyes, — the hero weeps ; 
 
 He is grown human, and capricious Pity, 
 
 Which would not stir for thousands, melts for one 
 
 With sympathy spontaneous : — 'T is not Virtue, 
 
 Yet 't is the weakness of a virtuous mind. 
 
 EARTH. 
 
 All the different substances which we behold have 
 by the earliest philosophers been resolved into four ele- 
 ments, — Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. These, com- 
 bined with endless diversity, in their various dance, 
 under the direction of the great First Mover, form this 
 scene of things, — so complex, so beautiful, so infinitely 
 varied ! 
 
 Earth is the element which on many accounts claims 
 our chief notice. It forms the bulk of that vast body 
 of matter which composes our globe ; and, like the 
 bones to the human body, it gives firmness, shape, and 
 solidity to the various productions of Nature. It is 
 ponderous, dull, unanimated, ever seeking the lowest 
 place ; and, except moved by some external impulse, 
 prone to rest in one sluggish mass. Yet when fermented 
 into life by the quickening power of vegetation, — in 
 how many forms of grace and beauty does it rise to 
 the admiring eye ! How gay, how vivid with colors ! 
 
 5 
 
66 EARTH. 
 
 how fragrant with smells ! how rich with tastes, — lus- 
 cious, poignant, sapid, mild, pungent, or saccharine ! 
 Into what delicate textures is it spread out in the thin 
 leaf of the rose, or the light film of the floating gossa- 
 mer ! How curious in the elegant ramifications of trees 
 and shrubs, or the light dust which the microscope dis- 
 covers to contain the seed of future plants ! 
 
 Nor has earth less of magnificence, in the various 
 appearances with which upon a larger scale its broad 
 surface is diversified ; whether we behold it stretched 
 out into immense plains and vast savannahs, whose 
 level green is bounded only by the horizon ; or mould- 
 ed into those gentle risings and easy declivities whose 
 soft and undulating lines court the pencil of the land- 
 scape-painter ; or whether, swelled into bulk enormous, 
 it astonishes the eye with vast masses of solid rock and 
 long-continued bulwarks of stone. Such are the Pyre- 
 nees, the Alps, the Andes, which stand the everlasting 
 boundaries of nations ; and, while kingdoms rise and 
 fall, and the lesser works of nature change their appear- 
 ance all around them, immovable on their broad basis, 
 strike the mind with an idea of stability little short of 
 eternal duration. 
 
 If from the mountains which possess the middle of 
 Earth we bend our course to the green verge of her 
 dominions, the utmost limits of her shores, where land 
 and water, like two neighboring potentates, wage eter- 
 nal war, — with what steady majesty does she repel the 
 encroachments of the ever-restless ocean, and dash the 
 turbulence of waves from her strong-ribbed sides ! 
 
 Nor do thy praises end here. With a kind of filial 
 veneration I hail thee, O universal mother of all the 
 elements, — to man the most mild, the most benefi- 
 cent, the most congenial ! Man himself is formed from 
 thee : on thy maternal breast he reposes when weary ; 
 thy teeming lap supplies him with never-failing plenty ; 
 and when for a few years he has moved about upon thy 
 
EARTH. 67 
 
 surface, he is gathered again to thy peaceful bosom, at 
 once his nurse, his cradle, and his grave. 
 
 Who can reckon up the benefits supplied to us by 
 this parent Earth, — ever serviceable, ever indulgent ! 
 with how many productions does she reward the labor 
 of the cultivator ! how many more does she pour out 
 spontaneously ! How faithfully does she keep, with 
 what large interest does she restore, the seed committed 
 to her by the husbandman ! What an abundance does 
 she yield, of food for the poor, of delicacies for the 
 rich ! Her wealth is inexhaustible ; and all that is 
 called riches among men consists in possessing a small 
 portion of her surface. 
 
 How patiently does she support the various burdens 
 laid upon her ! We tear her with ploughs and harrows, 
 we crush her with castles and palaces ; nay, we pene- 
 trate her very bowels, and bring to light the veined 
 marble, the pointed crystal, the ponderous ores and 
 sparkling gems, deep hid in darkness, the more to ex- 
 cite the industry of man. Yet, torn and harassed as 
 she might seem to be, our mother Earth is still fresh 
 and young, as if she but now came out of the hands of 
 her Creator. Her harvests are as abundant, her horn 
 of plenty as overflowing, her robe as green, her un- 
 shorn tresses (the waving foliage of brown forests) as 
 luxuriant ; and all her charms as blooming and full of 
 vigor. Such she remains, and such we trust she will 
 remain, till in some fated hour the more devouring ele- 
 ment of fire, having broke the bonds of harmonious 
 union, shall seize upon its destined prey, and all nature 
 sink beneath the mighty ruin. 
 
ON THE USES OF HISTORY. 
 
 Letter I. 
 
 My dear Lydia, — I was told the other day that you 
 have not forgotten a promise of mine to correspond 
 with you upon some subject which might be worth dis- 
 cussing, and relative to your pursuits. I have often 
 recollected it also ; and,, as promises ought not only to 
 be recollected but fulfilled, I will without further pre- 
 face throw together some thoughts on History, — a 
 study that I know you value as it deserves ; and I trust 
 it will not be disagreeable to you, if you should find 
 some observations which your own mind may have sug- 
 gested, or which you may recollect to have heard from 
 me in some of those hours which we spent together 
 with mutual pleasure. 
 
 Much has been said of the uses of history. They 
 are no doubt many, yet do not apply equally to all : 
 but it is quite sufficient to make it a study worth our 
 pains and time, that it satisfies the desire which natu- 
 rally arises in every intelligent mind to know the trans- 
 actions of the country, of the globe in which he lives. 
 Facts, as facts, interest our curiosity and engage our 
 attention. 
 
 Suppose a person placed in a part of the country 
 where he was a total stranger ; he would naturally ask. 
 who are the chief people of the place, what family they 
 are of, whether any of their ancestors have been famous, 
 and for what. If he see a ruined abbey, he will inquire 
 what the building was used for ; and if he be told it 
 
ON THE USES OF HISTORY. 69 
 
 is a place where people got up at midnight to sing 
 psalms, and scourged themselves in the day, he will 
 ask how there came to be such people, or why there 
 are none now. If he observes a dilapidated castle 
 which appears to have been battered by violence, he 
 will ask in what quarrel it suffered, and why they built 
 formerly structures so different from any we see now. 
 If any part of the inhabitants should speak a different 
 language from the rest, or have some singular customs 
 among them, he would suppose they came originally 
 from some remote part of the country, and would in- 
 form himself, if he could, of the causjs of their peculi- 
 arities. 
 
 If he were of a curious temper, he would not rest till 
 he had informed himself whom every estate in the par- 
 ish belonged to, what hands they had gone through, 
 how one man got this field by marrying an heiress, and 
 the other lost that meadow by a ruinous lawsuit. As 
 a man of spirit, he would feel delighted on hearing the 
 relation of the opposition made by an honest yeoman 
 to an overbearing rich man, on the subject of an accus- 
 tomed pathway or right of common. If he should find 
 the town or village divided into parties he would take 
 some pains to trace the original cause of their dissen- 
 sion, and to find out, if possible, who had the right on 
 his side. Circumstances would often occur to excite 
 his attention. If he saw a bridge, he would ask when 
 and by whom it was built. If in digging in his garden 
 he should find utensils of a singular form and construc- 
 tion, or a pot of money with a stamp and legend quite 
 different from the common coin, he would be led to in- 
 quire when they were in use, and to whom they had 
 belonged. His curiosity would extend itself by degrees. 
 If a brook ran through the meadows, he would be 
 pleased to trace it till it swelled into a river, and the 
 river till it lost itself in the sea. He would be asking 
 whose seat he saw upon the edge of a distant forest, 
 
70 ON THE USES OF HISTORY. 
 
 and what sort of country lay behind the range of hills 
 that bounded his utmost view. If any strangers came 
 to visit or reside in the place where he lived, he would 
 be questioning them about the country they came from, 
 their connections and alliances, and the remarkable 
 transactions that had taken place within their memory 
 or that of their parents. The answers to these ques- 
 tions would insensibly grow up into history, which, as 
 you see, does not originate in abstruse speculations, but 
 grows naturally out of our situation and relative connec- 
 tions. It gratifies a curiosity which all feel in some 
 degree, but which spreads and enlarges itself with the 
 cultivation of our powers, till at length it embraces the 
 whole globe which we inhabit. To know is as natural 
 to the mind as to see is to the eye, and knowledge is 
 itself an ultimate end. But though this may be es- 
 teemed an ultimate and sufficient end, the study of 
 history is important to various purposes. Few pursuits 
 tend more to enlarge the mind. It gives us, and it 
 only can give us, an extended knowledge of human 
 nature ; — not human nature as it exists in one age or 
 climate or particular spot of earth, but human nature 
 under all the various circumstances by which it can be 
 affected. It shows us what is radical and what is 
 adventitious ; it shows us that man is still man in Tur- 
 key and in Lapland, as a vassal in Russia or a member 
 of a wandering tribe in India, in ancient Athens or 
 modern Rome ; yet that his character is susceptible of 
 violent changes, and becomes moulded into infinite 
 diversities by the influence of government, climate, 
 civilization, wealth, and poverty. By showing us how 
 man has acted, it shows us to a certain degree how he 
 will ever act in given circumstances ; and general rules 
 and maxims are drawn from it for the service of the 
 lawgiver and the statesman. 
 
 Here I must observe however, with regard to events ', 
 that a knowledge of history does not seem to give us 
 
ON THE USES OF HISTORY. 71 
 
 any great advantage in foreseeing and preparing for 
 them. The deepest politician, with all his knowledge 
 of the revolutions of past ages, could probably no 
 more have predicted the course and termination of the 
 late French Revolution, than a common man. The state 
 of our own national debt has baffled calculation ; the 
 course of ages has presented nothing like it. Who 
 could have pronounced that the struggle of the Ameri- 
 cans would be successful — that of the Poles unsuc- 
 cessful ? Human characters indeed act always alike : 
 but events depend upon circumstances as well as 
 characters ; and circumstances are infinitely various 
 and changed by the slightest causes. A battle won 
 or lost may decide the fate of an empire : but a bat- 
 tle may be won or lost by a shower of snow being 
 blown to the east or the west ; by a horse (the gener- 
 al's) losing his shoe ; by a bullet or an arrow taking 
 a direction a tenth part of an inch one way or the 
 other. The whole course of the French affairs might 
 have been changed if the king had not stopped to 
 breakfast, or if the postmaster of Varennes had not 
 happened to know him. These are particulars which 
 no man can foresee ; and therefore no man can with 
 precision foresee events. 
 
 The rising up of certain characters at particular 
 periods ranks among those unforeseen circumstances 
 that powerfully influence events. Often does a single 
 man, as Epaminondas, illustrate his country, and leave 
 a long track of light after him to future ages. And 
 who can tell how much even America owed to the 
 accident of being served by such a man as Washing- 
 ton? There are always many probable events. All 
 that history enables the politician to do, is to predict 
 that one or other of them will take place. If so and 
 so, it will be this ; if so and so, it will be that : but 
 which, we cannot tell. There are always combinations 
 of circumstances which have never met before from 
 
72 ON THE USES OF HISTORY. 
 
 the creation of the world, and which mock all power 
 of calculation. But let the circumstances be known 
 and the characters upon the stage, and history will tell 
 him what to expect from them. It will tell him with 
 certainty, for instance, that a treaty extorted by force 
 from distress, will be broken when opportunity offers ; 
 that if the church and the monarch are united they 
 will oppress, if at variance they will divide, the peo- 
 ple ; that a powerful nation will make its advantage 
 of the divisions of a weaker which applies for its as- 
 sistance. 
 
 It is another advantage of history, that it stores the 
 mind with facts that apply to most subjects which 
 occur in conversation among enlightened people. 
 Whether morals, commerce, languages, polite litera- 
 ture be the object of discussion, it is history that must 
 supply her large storehouse of proofs and illustrations. 
 A man or a woman may decline without blame many 
 subjects of literature, but to be ignorant of history is 
 not permitted to any of a cultivated mind. It may 
 be reckoned among its advantages, that this study nat- 
 urally increases the love of every man to his country. 
 We can only love what we know ; it is by becoming 
 acquainted with the long line of patriots, heroes, and 
 distinguished men, that we learn to love the country 
 which has produced them. 
 
 But I must conclude this letter, already perhaps too 
 long, though I have not got to the end of my subject : 
 it will give me soon another opportunity of subscribing 
 myself 
 
 Your ever affectionate friend. 
 
ON THE USES OF HISTORY. 73 
 
 Letter II. 
 
 I left off, my dear Lydia, with mentioning, among 
 the advantages of an acquaintance with history, that it 
 fosters the sentiments of patriotism. 
 
 What is a man's country? To the unlettered 
 peasant who has never left his native village, that 
 village is his country, and consequently all of it he 
 can love. The man who mixes in the world, and has 
 a large acquaintance with the characters existing along 
 with himself upon the stage of it, has a wider range. 
 His idea of a country extends to its civil polity, its 
 military triumphs, the eloquence of its courts, and the 
 splendor of its capital. All the great and good char- 
 acters he is acquainted with swell his idea of its im- 
 portance, and endear to him the society of which he 
 is a member. But how wonderfully does this idea 
 expand, and how majestic a form does it put on, when 
 history conducts our retrospective view through past 
 ages ! How much more has the man to love, how 
 much to interest him in his country, in whom her 
 image is identified with the virtues of an Alfred, with 
 the exploits of the Henrys and Edwards, with the 
 fame and fortunes of the Sidneys and Hampdens, the 
 Lockes and Miltons, who have illustrated her annals ! 
 Like a man of noble birth who walks up and down in 
 a long gallery of portraits, and is able to say, " This, 
 my progenitor, was admiral in such a fight; that, my 
 great-uncle, was general in such an engagement ; he 
 on the right hand held the seals in such a reign ; that 
 lady in so singular a costume was a celebrated beauty 
 two hundred years ago ; this little man in the black 
 cap and peaked beard was one of the luminaries of 
 his age, and suffered for his religion; " — he learns to 
 value himself upon his ancestry, and to feel interested 
 for the honor and prosperity of the whole line of de- 
 
74 ON THE USES OF HISTORY. 
 
 scendants. Could a Swiss, think you, be so good a 
 patriot who had never heard of the name of William 
 Tell ? or the Hollander, who should be unacquainted 
 with the glorious struggles which freed his nation from 
 the tyranny of the Duke of Alva? 
 
 The Englishman conversant in history has been 
 long acquainted with his country. He knew her in 
 the infancy of her greatness ; has seen her, perhaps, 
 in the wattled huts and slender canoes in which Caesar 
 discovered her : he has watched her rising fortunes, 
 has trembled at her dangers, rejoiced at her deliver- 
 ances, and shared with honest pride triumphs that 
 were celebrated ages before he was born. He has 
 traced her gradual improvement through many a dark 
 and turbulent period, many a storm of civil warfare, to 
 the fair reign of her liberty and law, to the fulness 
 of her prosperity and the amplitude of her fame. 
 
 Or, should our patriot have his lot cast in some age 
 and country which has declined from this high sta- 
 tion of pre-eminence ; should he observe the gath- 
 ering glooms of superstition and ignorance ready to 
 close again over the bright horizon ; should Liberty 
 lie prostrate at the feet of a despot, and the golden 
 stream of commerce, diverted into other channels, 
 leave nothing but beggary and wretchedness around 
 him ; — even then, in these ebbing fortunes of his coun- 
 try, history, like a faithful meter, would tell him how 
 high the tide had once risen ; he would not tread un- 
 consciously the ground where the Muses and the Arts 
 had once resided, like the goat that stupidly browses 
 upon the fane of Minerva. Even the name of his 
 country will be dear and venerable to him. He will 
 muse over her fallen greatness, sit down under the 
 shade of her never-dying laurels, build his little cot- 
 tage amidst the ruins of her towers and temples, and 
 contemplate with tenderness and respect the decaying 
 age of his once illustrious parent. 
 
ON THE USES OF HISTORY. 75 
 
 But if an acquaintance with history thus increases a 
 rational love of our country, it also tends to check 
 those low, illiberal, vulgar prejudices which adhere to 
 the uninformed of every nation. Travelling will also 
 cure them : but to travel is not within the power of 
 every one. There is no use, but a great deal of harm 
 in fostering a contempt for other nations ; in an arro- 
 gant assumption of superiority, and the clownish sneer 
 of ignorance at every thing in laws, government, or 
 manners which is not fashioned after our partial ideas 
 and familiar usages. A well-informed person will 
 not be apt to exclaim at every event out of the com- 
 mon way, that nothing like it has ever happened since 
 the creation of the world, that such atrocities are to- 
 tally unheard-of in any age or nation, — sentiments we 
 have all of us so often heard of late on the subject of 
 the French Revolution, — when in fact we can scarcely 
 open a page of their history without being struck with 
 similar and equal enormities. Indeed, party spirit is 
 very much cooled and checked by an acquaintance 
 with the events of past times. 
 
 When we see the mixed and imperfect virtue of 
 the most distinguished characters ; the variety of mo- 
 tives, some pure and some impure, which influence 
 political conduct; the partial success of the wisest 
 schemes, and the frequent failure of the fairest hopes ; 
 — we shall find it more difficult to choose a side, and 
 to keep up an interest towards it in our minds, than 
 to restrain our feelings and language within the bounds 
 of good sense and moderation. This, by the way, 
 makes it particularly proper that ladies who interest 
 themselves in the events of public life should have 
 their minds cultivated by an acquaintance with histo- 
 ry, without which they are apt to let the whole 
 warmth of their natures flow out, upon party matters, 
 in an ardor more honest than wise, more zealous than 
 candid. 
 
76 ON THE USES OF HISTORY. 
 
 With regard to the moral uses of history, what has 
 just been mentioned may stand for one. It serves 
 also by exercise to strengthen the moral feelings. 
 The traits of generosity, heroism, disinterestedness, 
 magnanimity, are scattered over it like sparkling gems, 
 and arrest the attention of the most common reader. 
 It is wonderfully interesting to follow the revolutions 
 of a great state, particularly when they lead to the 
 successful termination of some glorious contest. Is it 
 true ? — a child asks, when you tell him a wonderful 
 story that strikes his imagination. The writer of fic- 
 tion has the unlimited command of events and of 
 characters ; yet that single circumstance of truth, — that 
 the events related really came to pass, that the heroes 
 brought upon the stage really existed, — counterbal- 
 ances, with respect to interest, all the privileges of the 
 former, and in a mind a little accustomed to exertion 
 will throw the advantage on the side of the historian. 
 
 The more history approaches to biography the 
 more interest it excites. Where the materials are 
 meagre and scanty, the antiquarian and chronologer 
 may dwell upon the page ; but it will seldom excite 
 the glow of admiration or draw the delicious tear of 
 sensibility. I must acknowledge, however, in order 
 to be candid, that the emotions excited by the actions 
 of our species are not always of so pleasing or so 
 edifying a nature. The miseries and the vices of man 
 form a large part of the picture of human society : 
 the pure mind is disgusted by depravity, the existence 
 of which it could not have imagined to itself; and the 
 feeling heart is cruelly lacerated by the sad repetition 
 of wrongs and oppression, chains and slaughter, sack 
 and massacre, which assail it in every page : till the 
 mind has gained some strength, so frightful a picture 
 should hardly be presented to it. Chosen periods of 
 history may be selected for youth, as the society of 
 chosen characters precedes in well-regulated educa- 
 
ON THE USES OF HISTORY. 77 
 
 tion a more indiscriminate acquaintance with the 
 world. In favor of a more extended view, I can 
 only say that truth is truth, — man must be shown as 
 the being he really is, or no real knowledge is gained. 
 If a young person were to read only the Beauties of 
 History, or, according to Madame Genlis's scheme, 
 stories and characters in which all that was vicious 
 should be left out, he might as well, for any real ac- 
 quaintance with life he would gain, have been reading 
 all the while Sir Charles Grandison or the Princess of 
 Cleves. 
 
 One consoling idea will present itself with no small 
 degree of probability on comparing the annals of past 
 and present times, — that of a tendency to ameliora- 
 tion ; at least it is evidently found in those countries 
 with which we are most connected. But the only 
 balm that can be poured with full effect into the feel- 
 ing mind which bleeds for the folly and wickedness of 
 man, is the belief that ail events are directed and con- 
 trolled by supreme wisdom and goodness. Without 
 this persuasion, the world becomes a desert, and its 
 devastators the wolves and tigers that prowl over it. 
 
 It is needless to insist on the uses of history to those 
 whose situation in life gives them room to expect 
 that their actions may one day become the objects of 
 it. Besides the immediate necessity to them of the 
 knowledge it supplies, it affords the strongest motives 
 for their conduct, of hope and fear. The solemn 
 award, the incorruptible tribunal, and the severe soul- 
 searching inquisition of posterity is calculated to strike 
 an awe into their souls. They cannot take refuge 
 in oblivion : it is not permitted them to die : — they 
 may be the objects of gratitude or detestation as long 
 as the world stands. They may flatter themselves 
 that they have silenced the voice of truth ; they may 
 forbid newspapers and pamphlets and conversation ; — 
 an unseen hand is all the while tracing out their his- 
 
78 ON THE USES OF HISTORY. 
 
 tory, and often their minutest actions, in indelible 
 characters ; and it will soon be held up for the judg- 
 ment of the world at large. 
 
 Lastly, this permanency of human characters tends 
 to cherish in the mind the hope and belief of an ex- 
 istence after death. If we had no notices from the 
 page of history of those races of men that have lived 
 before us, they would seem to be completely swept 
 away ; and we should no more think of inquiring what 
 human beings filled our place upon the earth a thou- 
 sand harvests ago, than we should think about the 
 generations of cattle which at that time grazed the 
 marshes of the Tiber, or the venerable ancestors of 
 the goats that are browsing upon Mount Hymettus ; — 
 no vestige would remain of one any more than of the 
 other, and we might more pardonably fall into the 
 opinion that they both had shared a similar fate. But 
 when we see illustrious characters continuing to live on 
 in the eye of posterity, their memories still fresh, 
 and their noble actions shining with all the vivid col- 
 oring of truth and reality, ages after the very dust of 
 their tombs is scattered, high conceptions kindle within 
 us ; and feeling one immortality we are lead to hope 
 for another. We find it hard to persuade ourselves 
 that the man, who like Antoninus or Socrates, fills the 
 world with the sweet perfume of his virtue, the mar- 
 tyr or the patriot to whom posterity is doing the justice 
 which was denied him by his contemporaries, should 
 all the while himself be blotted out of existence ; that 
 he should be benefiting mankind and doing good so 
 long after he is capable of receiving any; that we 
 should be so well acquainted with him, and that he 
 should never know any thing of us. That one who is 
 an active agent in the world, instructing, informing it, 
 inspiring friendship, making disciples, should be noth- 
 ing — this does not seem probable ; the records of 
 time suggest to us eternity. — Farewell. 
 
ON THE USES OF HISTORY. 79 
 
 Letter III. 
 
 My dear Lydia, — We have considered the uses of 
 History ; I would now direct your attention to those 
 collateral branches of science which are necessary for 
 the profitable understanding of it. It is impossible to 
 understand one thing well without understanding to a 
 certain degree many other things ; there is a mutual 
 dependence between all parts of knowledge. This is 
 the reason that a child never fully comprehends what 
 he is taught : he receives an idea, but not the full idea, 
 perhaps not the principal of what you want to teach 
 him. But as his mind opens, this idea enlarges and 
 receives accessory ideas, till slowly and by degrees he 
 is master of the whole. This is particularly the case in 
 history. You may recollect probably that the mere 
 adventure was all you entered into, in those portions of 
 it which were presented to you at a very early age. 
 You could understand nothing of the springs of action, 
 nothing of the connection of events with the intrigues 
 of cabinets, with religion, with commerce ; nothing of 
 the state of the world at different periods of society and 
 improvement : and as little could you grasp the meas- 
 ured distances of time and space which are set between 
 them. This you could not do, not because the history 
 was not related with clearness, but because you were 
 destitute of other knowledge. 
 
 The first studies which present themselves as acces- 
 sories in this light are Geography and Chronology, 
 which have been called the two eyes of History. When 
 was it done? Where was it done? are the two first 
 questions you would ask concerning any fact that was 
 related to you. Without these two particulars there 
 can be no precision or clearness. 
 
 Geography is best learned along with history ; for if 
 the first explains history, the latter gives interest to 
 
So ON THE USES OF HISTORY. 
 
 geography, which without it is but a dry list of names. 
 For this reason, if a young person begin with ancient 
 history, I should think it advisable, after a slight gene- 
 ral acquaintance with the globe, to confine his geogra- 
 phy to the period and country of which he is reading ; 
 and it would be a desirable thing to have maps adapted 
 to each remarkable period in the great empires of the 
 world. These should not contain any towns or be 
 divided into any provinces which were not known at 
 that period. A map of Egypt for instance, calculated 
 for its ancient monarchy, should have Memphis marked 
 in it, but not Alexandria, because the two capitals did 
 not exist together. A map of Judea for the time of 
 Solomon, or any period of its monarchy, should not ex- 
 hibit the name of Samaria, nor the villages of Bethany 
 and Nazareth : but each country should have the towns 
 and divisions, as far as they are known, calculated for 
 the period the map was meant to illustrate. Thus ge- 
 ography, civil geography, wxmld be seen to grow out of 
 history • and the mere view of the map would suggest 
 the political state of the world at any period. 
 
 It would be a pleasing speculation to see how the 
 arbitrary divisions of kingdoms and provinces vary and 
 become obsolete, and large towns flourish and fall again 
 into ruins : while the great natural features, the moun- 
 tains, rivers, and seas remain unchanged, by whatever 
 names we please to call them, whatever empire encloses 
 them within its temporary boundaries. We have, it is 
 true, ancient and modern maps ; but the one set in- 
 cludes every period from the Flood to the provinciat- 
 ing the Roman empire under Trajan, and the other 
 takes in all the rest. About half a dozen sets for the 
 ancient states and empires, and as many for the mod- 
 ern, would be sufficient to exhibit the most important 
 changes, and would be as many as we should be able 
 to give with any clearness. The young student should 
 make it an invariable rule never to read history with- 
 
ON THE USES OF HISTORY. Si 
 
 out a map before him ; to which should be added 
 plans of towns, harbors, &c. These should be conven- 
 iently placed under the eye, separate if possible from 
 the book he is reading, that by frequent glancing upon 
 them the image of the country may be indelibly im- 
 pressed on his imagination. 
 
 Besides the necessity of maps for understanding his- 
 tory, the memory is wonderfully assisted by the local 
 association which they supply. The battles of Issus 
 and the Granicus will not be confounded by those who 
 have taken the pains to trace the rivers on whose banks 
 they were fought : the exploits of Hannibal are con- 
 nected with a view of the Alps, and the idea of Leoni- 
 das is inseparable from the straits of Thermopylae. The 
 greater accuracy of maps, and still more the facility, 
 from the arts of printing and engraving, of procuring 
 them, is an advantage the moderns have over the an- 
 cients. They have been perfected by slow degrees. 
 The Egyptians and Chaldeans studied the science of 
 mensuration; and the first map — rude enough no 
 doubt — is said to have been made by order of Sesos- 
 tris when he became master of Egypt. Commerce 
 and war have been the two parents of this science. 
 Pharaoh Necho ordered the Phoenicians whom he sent 
 round Africa, to make a survey of the coast. This they 
 finished in three years. Darius caused the Ethiopic 
 Sea and the mouth of the Indus to be surveyed. That 
 maps were known in Greece you no doubt recollect 
 from the pretty story of Socrates and Alcibiades. Anaxi- 
 mander, a disciple of Thales, is said to have made 
 the first sphere, and first delineated what was then 
 known of the countries of the earth. He flourished 
 547 years before Christ. Herodotus mentions a map 
 of brass or copper which was presented by Aristagora's, 
 tyrant of Miletus, to Cleomenes, king of Sparta, in 
 which he had described the known world with its seas 
 and rivers. Alexander the Great, in his expedition into 
 6 
 
82 ON THE USES OF HISTORY. 
 
 Asia, took two geographers with him ; and from their 
 itineraries many things have been copied by succeeding 
 writers. 
 
 From Greece the science of geography passed to 
 Rome. The enlightened policy of the Romans culti- 
 vated it as a powerful means of extending and secur- 
 ing their dominion. One of the first things they did 
 was to make roads, for which it was necessary to have 
 the country measured. They had a custom when they 
 had conquered a country, to have a painted map of 
 it always carried aloft in their triumphs. The great 
 historian Polybius reconnoitred under a commission 
 from Scipio Emilianus the coasts of Africa, Spain, and 
 France, and measured the distances of Hannibal's 
 march over the Alps and Pyrenees. Julius Caesar em- 
 ployed men of science to survey and measure the 
 globe ; and his own Commentaries show his attention 
 to this part of knowledge. Strabo, a great geographer 
 whose works are extant, flourished under Augustus ; 
 Pomponius Mela, in the first century. 
 
 Many of the Roman itineraries which are still extant 
 show the systematic care which they bestowed on a 
 science so necessary for the orderly distribution and 
 government of their large dominions. But still it was 
 late before geography was settled upon its true basis, 
 — astronomical observations. The greater part of the 
 early maps were laid down in a very loose, inaccurate 
 manner; and where particular parts were done with 
 the greatest care, yet if the longitude and latitude were 
 wanting, their relative situation to the rest of the earth 
 could not be known. Some attempts had indeed been 
 made by Hipparchus and Posidonius, Greek philoso- 
 phers, to settle the parallels of latitude by the length of 
 the days ; but the foundation they had laid was neg- 
 lected till the time of Ptolemy, who flourished at 
 Alexandria about 150 years after Christ, under Adrian 
 and Antoninus Pius. This is he from whom the Ptole- 
 
ON THE USES OF HISTORY. 83 
 
 maic system took its name. He diligently compared 
 and revised the ancient maps and charts, correcting 
 their errors and supplying their defects by the reports 
 of travellers and navigators, the measured or reputed 
 distances of maps and itineraries, and astronomical cal- 
 culations, all digested together ; he reduced geography 
 to a regular system, and laid down the situation of 
 places according to minutes and degrees of longitude 
 and latitude as we now have them. His maps were in 
 general use till the last three or four centuries, in which 
 time the progress of the moderns in the knowledge of 
 the globe we inhabit has thrown at a great distance all 
 the ancient geographers. 
 
 We are now, some few breaks and chasms excepted, 
 pretty well acquainted with the outline of the globe, 
 and with those parts of it with which we are connected 
 by our commercial or political relations ; but we are 
 still profoundly ignorant of the interior of Africa, and 
 imperfectly acquainted with that of South America, and 
 the western part of North America. We know little of 
 Thibet and the central parts of Asia, and have as yet 
 only touched upon the great continent of New Hol- 
 land. 
 
 The best ancient maps are those of D'Anville. It 
 has required great learning and proportionate skill to 
 bring together the scattered notices which are found in 
 various authors, and to fix the position of places which 
 have been long ago destroyed ; very often the geogra- 
 pher has no other guide than the relation of the histo- 
 rian, that such a place is within six or eight days' jour- 
 ney from another place. In some instances the maps 
 of Ptolemy are lately come into repute again, — as in 
 his delineation of the course of the Niger, which is 
 thought to be favored by modern discoveries. Major 
 Rennel has done much to improve the geography of 
 India. 
 
 There are many valuable maps scattered in voyages 
 
*>4 ON THE USES OF HISTORY. 
 
 and travels, and many of the atlases contain a collec- 
 tion sufficient for all common purposes ; but a com- 
 plete collection of the best maps and charts, with plans 
 of harbors, towns, &c. becomes an object of even 
 princely expense. The French took the lead in this, 
 as in some other branches of science. The late em- 
 press of Russia caused a geographical survey to be 
 taken of her dominions, which has much improved our 
 knowledge of the north-eastern regions of Europe and 
 Asia. We have now, however, both single maps and 
 atlases which yield to none in accuracy or elegance. 
 
 Yours affectionately. 
 
 Letter IV. 
 
 Dear Lydia, — Geography addresses itself to the eye, 
 and is easily comprehended : to give a clear idea of 
 chronology is somewhat more difficult. It is easy to 
 define it by saying it gives an answer to the question, 
 When was it done ? but the meaning of the when is 
 not quite so obvious. A date is a very artificial thing, 
 and the world had existed for a long course of cen- 
 turies before men were aware of its use and necessity. 
 When is a relative term ; the most natural application 
 of it is, How long ago, reckoning backwards from the 
 present moment. Thus, if you were to ask an Indian 
 when such an event happened he would probably say 
 
 — So many harvests ago, when I could but just reach 
 the boughs of yonder tree ; — in the time of my father, 
 grandfather, great-grandfather ; still making the time 
 then present to him the date from which he sets out. 
 Even where a different method is well understood, we 
 use in more familiar life this natural kind of chronology, 
 
 — The year before I was married, — When Henry, who 
 
ON THE USES OF HISTORY. 85 
 
 is now live years old, was born, — The winter of the 
 hard frost. These are the epochs which mark the an- 
 nals of domestic life more readily and with greater 
 clearness, so far as the real idea of time is concerned, 
 than the year of our Lord, as long as these are all with- 
 in the circle of our personal recollection. But when 
 events are recorded, the relater may be forgotten, and 
 when again occurs : "When did_ the historian live? I 
 understand the relative chronology of his narration ; I 
 know how the events of it follow one another ; but what 
 is their relation to general chronology, to time as it re- 
 lates to me and to other events? " 
 
 To know the transactions of a particular reign, that 
 of Cyrus for instance, in the regular order in which 
 they happened in that reign, but not to know where 
 to place them with respect to the history of other 
 times and nations, is as if we had a very accurate map 
 of a small island existing somewhere in the boundless 
 ocean, and could lay down all the bearings and dis- 
 tances of its several towns and villages, but for want of 
 its longitude and latitude were ignorant of the relative 
 position of the island itself. Chronology supplies this 
 longitude and latitude, and fixes every event to its pre- 
 cise point in the chart of universal time. It supplies 
 a common measure by which I may compare the rela- 
 ter of an event with myself, and his now or ten years 
 ago with the present now or ten years, reckoning from 
 the time in which I live. 
 
 In order to find such a common measure, men have 
 been led by degrees to fix upon some one known event, 
 and to make that the centre from which, by regular 
 distances, the different periods of time are reckoned, 
 instead of making the present time, which is always 
 varying, and every man's own existence, the centre. 
 
 The first approach to such a mode of computing 
 time is to date by the reigns of kings ; which, being 
 public objects of great notoriety, seem to offer them- 
 
86 ON THE USES OF HISTORY. 
 
 selves with great advantage for such a purpose. The 
 Scripture history, which is the earliest of histories, has 
 no other than this kind of successive dates : " Now it 
 came to pass in the fifth year of the king Hezekiah." 
 " And the time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over 
 all Israel was forty years : and Solomon slept with his 
 fathers ; and Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead." 
 From this method a regular chronology might certainly 
 be deduced, if we had the whole unbroken series ; but 
 unfortunately there are many gaps and chasms in his- 
 tory ; and you easily see that if any links of the chain 
 are wanting, the whole computation is rendered imper- 
 fect. Besides, it requires a tedious calculation to bring 
 it into comparison with other histories and events. To 
 say that an event happened in the tenth year of the 
 reign of King Solomon, gives you only an idea of the 
 time relative to the histories of that king, but leaves you 
 quite in the dark as to its relation with the time you 
 live in, or with the events of the Roman history. 
 
 We want therefore an universal date, like a lofty 
 obelisk, seen by all the country round, from and to 
 which every distance should be measured. The most 
 obvious that oners itself for this purpose is the crea- 
 tion of the world, an event equally interesting to all ; 
 to us the beginning of time, and from which therefore 
 time would flow regularly down in an unbroken stream 
 from the earliest to the latest generations of the human 
 race. This would probably therefore have been made 
 use of, if the date of the creation itself could be ascer- 
 tained with any exactness ; but as chronologers differ 
 by more than a thousand years as to the time of that 
 event, it is necessary previously to mention what sys- 
 tem is made use of; which renders this era obscure 
 and inconvenient. It has therefore been found more 
 convenient, in fact, to take some known event within 
 the limit of well authenticated history, and to reckon 
 from that fixed point backwards and forwards. As we 
 
ON THE USES OF HISTORY. 87 
 
 cannot find the head of the river, and know not its 
 termination, we must raise a pillar upon its banks, and 
 measure our distances from that, both up and down the 
 stream. This event ought to be important, conspicuous, 
 and as interesting as possible, that it may be generally 
 received ; for it would spare a great deal of trouble in 
 computation if all the world would make use of the 
 same date. This however has never been the case, 
 chance and national vanity having had their full share 
 in settling them. 
 
 The Greeks reckoned by olympiads, but not till 
 more than sixty years after the death of Alexander 
 the Great. The Olympic games were the most brill- 
 iant assembly in Greece, the Greeks were very fond 
 of them, they began 776 years before Christ, and each 
 olympiad includes four years. Some of the earlier 
 Greek historians digested their histories by ages, or 
 by the succession of the priestesses of Juno at Argos ; 
 others by the archons of Athens or the kings of Lace- 
 daemon. Thucydides uses simply the beginning of 
 the Peloponnesian war, the subject of his history ; for, 
 writing to his contemporaries, it seems not to have 
 occurred to him that another date would ever be 
 necessary. The Arundelian marbles, composed sixty 
 years after the death of Alexander the Great, reckon 
 backwards from the then present time. 
 
 The Roman era was the building of their city, the 
 eternal city, as they loved to call it. 
 
 The Mahometans date from the Hegira, or flight of 
 Mahomet from Mecca, his birth-place, to Medina, 
 A. D. 622 ; and they have this advantage, that they 
 began almost immediately to use it. 
 
 The era used all over the Christian world is the 
 birth of Christ. This was adopted as a date about 
 A. D. 360 ; and though there is an uncertainty of a 
 few years, which are in dispute, the accuracy is suffi- 
 cient for any present purpose. 
 
88 ON THE USES OF HISTORY. 
 
 The reign of Nabonassar, the first king of Babylon, 
 of Yesdigerd, the last king of Persia, — who was con- 
 quered by the Saracens, — and of the Seleucidae of 
 Syria, have likewise furnished eras. 
 
 Julius Scaliger 1 formed an era which he called the 
 Julian Period, being a cycle of 7980 years, produced 
 by multiplying several cycles into one another, so as 
 to carry us back to a period 764 years before the crea- 
 tion of the world. This era, standing out of all history, 
 like the fulcrum which Archimedes wished for, and in- 
 dependent of variation or possibility of mistake, was a 
 very grand idea ; and in measuring everything by it- 
 self, measured it by the eternal truth of the laws of the 
 heavenly bodies. But it is not greatly employed, the 
 common era serving all ordinary purposes. In modern 
 histories the olympiads, Roman eras, and others, are 
 reduced, in the margin, to the year of our Lord, or of 
 the creation. 
 
 Such is the nature of eras now in such common use 
 that we can with difficulty conceive the confusion in 
 which, for the want of them, all the early part of his- 
 tory is involved, and the strenuous labors of the most 
 learned men which have been employed in arranging 
 them and reducing history to the order in which we 
 now have it. 
 
 The earliest history which we possess, as we have 
 before observed, is that of the Jewish scriptures ; these 
 carry us from the creation to about the time of Herod- 
 otus : having no date, we are obliged to compute from 
 generations, and to take the reigns of kings where they 
 are given. But a great schism occurs at the very out- 
 set. The Septuagint translation of the Mosaic history 
 into Greek, which was made by order of Ptolemy Phila- 
 delphus, differs from the Hebrew text by 1400 years 
 from the creation to the birth of Abraham. 
 
 1 Joseph Justus Scaliger, the son of Julius, was the inventor of the 
 Julian period. 
 
ON THE USES OF HISTORY. 89 
 
 The chronology of the Assyrian and Babylonish 
 monarchies is involved in inextricable difficulties ; nor 
 are we successful in harmonizing the Greek with the 
 oriental writers of history. The Persian historians 
 make no mention of the defeat of Xerxes by the 
 Greeks, or that of Darius by Alexander. All nations 
 have had the vanity to make their origin mount as 
 high as possible ; and they have often invented series 
 of kings, or have reckoned the contemporary indi- 
 viduals of different dynasties as following each other 
 in regular succession, as if one should take the kings 
 of the Heptarchy singly instead of together. 
 
 You will perhaps ask, if we have no eras, what have 
 we to reckon by? We have generations and succes- 
 sions of kings. Sir Isaac Newton, who joined wonder- 
 ful sagacity to profound learning and astronomical 
 skill, made very great reforms in the ancient chronology. 
 He pointed out the difference between generations and 
 successions of kings. A generation is not the life of 
 man ; it is the time that elapses before a man sees his 
 successor ; and this, reckoning to the birth of the eld- 
 est son, is estimated at about thirty years. The succes- 
 sion of kings would seem at first sight to be the same, 
 and so it had been reckoned ; but Newton corrected 
 it, on the principle that kings are often cut off prema- 
 turely in turbulent times, or are succeeded either by 
 their brothers, or by their uncle's, or others older than 
 themselves. The lines of kings of France, England, 
 and other countries within the range of exact chronol- 
 ogy, confirmed this principle. He therefore rectified 
 all the ancient chronology according to it; and with 
 the assistance of astronomical observations he found 
 reason to allow, as the average length of a reign, about 
 eighteen or twenty years. 
 
 But after all, great part of the chronology of ancient 
 history is founded upon conjecture and clouded with 
 uncertainty. 
 
90 ON THE USES OF HISTORY. 
 
 Although I recommend to you a constant attention 
 to chronology, I do not think it desirable to load your 
 memory with a great number of specific dates, both 
 because it would be too great a burden on the reten- 
 tive powers, and because it is, after all, not the best 
 way of attaining clear ideas on the subjects of history. 
 In order to do this, it is necessary to have in your 
 mind the relative situation of other countries at the 
 time of any event recorded in one of them. For 
 instance, if you have got by heart the dates of the 
 accession of the kings of Europe, and want to know 
 whether John lived at the time of the crusades, and in 
 what state the Greek empire was, you cannot tell with- 
 out an arithmetical process, which perhaps you may 
 not be quick enough to make. You cannot tell 
 whether Constantinople had been taken by the Turks 
 when the Sicilian Vespers happened ; for each fact is 
 insulated in your mind ; and indeed your dates give 
 you only the dry catalogue of accessions. Nay, you" 
 may read separate histories, and yet not bring them 
 together if the countries be remote. Each exists in 
 your mind separately, and you have at no time the 
 state of the world. But you ought to have an idea at 
 once of the whole world, as far as history will give it. 
 You do not see truly what the Greeks were, except you 
 know that the British Isles were then barbarous. 
 
 A few dates therefore, perfectly learned, may suffice, 
 and will serve as landmarks to prevent your going far 
 astray in the rest : but it will be highly useful to con- 
 nect the histories you read in such a manner in your 
 own mind, that you may be able to refer from one to 
 the other, and to form them all into a whole. For this 
 purpose, it is very desirable to observe and retain in 
 your memory certain coincidences, which may link, as it 
 were, two nations together. Thus you may remember 
 that Haroun al Raschid sent to Charlemagne the first 
 clock that was seen in Europe. If you are reading the 
 
ON THE USES OF HISTORY. 91 
 
 history of Greece when it flourished most, and want to 
 know what the Romans were doing at the same time, 
 you may recollect that they sent to Greece for instruc- 
 tion when they wanted to draw up the laws of the 
 Twelve Tables. Solon and Crcesus connect the history 
 of Lesser Asia with that of Greece. Egbert was brought 
 up in the court of Charlemagne ; Philip Augustus of 
 France and Richard I. of England fought in the same 
 crusade against Saladin. Queen Elizabeth received the 
 French ambassador in deep mourning after the massa- 
 cre of St. Bartholomew. 
 
 It may be desirable to keep one kingdom as a meter 
 for the rest. Take for this purpose first the Jews, then 
 the Greeks, the Romans, and, because it is so, our own 
 country : then harmonize and connect all the other 
 dates with these. 
 
 That the literary history of a nation may be con- 
 nected with the political, study also biography, and en- 
 deavor to link men of science and literature and artists 
 with political characters. Thus Hippocrates was sent 
 for to the plague of Athens ; Leonardo da Vinci died 
 in the arms of. Francis I. Often an anecdote, a smart 
 saying, will indissolubly fix a date. 
 
 Sometimes you may take a long reign, as that of 
 Elizabeth or Louis XIV., and making that the centre, 
 mark all the contemporary sovereigns, and also the 
 men of letters. Another way is, to make a line of life, 
 composed of distinguished characters who touch each 
 other. It will be of great service to you in this view 
 to study Dr. Priestley's biographical chart ; and of still 
 greater, to make one for yourself, and fill it by degrees, 
 as your acquaintance with history extends. Marriages 
 connect the history of different kingdoms ; as those of 
 Mary Queen of Scots and Francis II., Philip II. and 
 Mary of England. 
 
 These are the kind of dates which make every- 
 thing lie in the mind in its proper order ; they also 
 
92 ON THE USES OF HISTORY. 
 
 take fast hold of it. If you forget the exact date by 
 years, you have nothing left ; but of circumstances 
 you never lose all idea. As we come nearer to our 
 own times, dates must be more exact. A few years 
 more or less signify little in the destruction of Troy, 
 if we knew it exactly; but the conclusion of the 
 American war should be accurately known, or it will 
 throw other events near it into confusion. 
 
 In so extensive a study no auxiliary is to be neg- 
 lected. Poetry impresses both geography and history 
 in a most agreeable manner upon those who are fond 
 of it. Thus, 
 
 "... fair Austria spreads her mournful charms, 
 The queen, the beauty, sets the world in arms." 
 
 A short, lively character in verse is never forgotten : 
 
 " From Macedonia's madman to the Swede." 
 
 Historic plays deeply impress, but should be read with 
 caution. We take our ideas from Shakespeare more 
 than history : he, indeed, copied pretty exactly from 
 the chroniclers, but other dramatic writers have taken 
 great liberties both with characters and events. 
 
 Painting is a good auxiliary ; and though in this 
 country history is generally read before we see pic- 
 tures, they mutually illustrate one another : painting 
 also shows the costume. In France, where pictures 
 are more accessible, there is more knowledge gener- 
 ally diffused of common history. Many have learned 
 Scripture history from the rude figures on Dutch tiles. 
 
 I will conclude with the remark, that though the 
 beginner in history may and ought to study dates and 
 epochs for his guidance, chronology can never be 
 fully possessed till after history has been long studied 
 and carefully digested. 
 
 Farewell ; and believe me 
 
 Yours affectionately. 
 
FASHION. 
 
 A VISION. 
 
 Young as you are, my dear Flora, you cannot but 
 have noticed the eagerness with which questions rela- 
 tive to civil liberty have been discussed in every 
 society. To break the shackles of oppression, and 
 assert the native rights of man, is esteemed by many 
 among the noblest efforts of heroic virtue ; but vain 
 is the possession of political liberty if there exists a 
 tyrant of our own creation, who, without law or rea- 
 son, or even external force, exercises over us the most 
 despotic authority; whose jurisdiction is extended 
 over every part of private and domestic life ; controls 
 our pleasures, fashions our garb, cramps our motions, 
 fills our lives with vain cares and restless anxiety. 
 The worst slavery is that which we voluntarily impose 
 upon ourselves ; and no chains are so cumbrous and 
 galling as those which we are pleased to wear by way 
 of grace and ornament. Musing upon this idea gave 
 rise to the following dream or vision : 
 
 Methought I was in a country of the strangest and 
 most singular appearance I had ever beheld : the riv- 
 ers were forced into jet-d'eaus, and wasted in artificial 
 water-works; the lakes were fashioned by the hand 
 of art ; the roads were sanded with spar and gold- 
 dust ; the trees all bore the marks of the shears, they 
 were bent and twisted into the most whimsical forms, 
 and connected together by festoons of ribbon and silk 
 fringe ; the wild flowers were transplanted into vases 
 of fine china, and painted with artificial white and red. 
 
 The disposition of the ground was full of fancy, 
 but grotesque and unnatural in the highest degree ; it 
 
94 FASHION. 
 
 was all highly cultivated, and bore the marks of won- 
 derful industry ; but among its various productions I 
 could hardly discern one that was of any use. 
 
 My attention, however, was soon called off from 
 the scenes of inanimate life, by the view of the in- 
 habitants, whose form and appearance were so very 
 preposterous, and, indeed, so unlike anything human, 
 that I fancied myself transported to the country of 
 
 " The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads 
 Do grow beneath their shoulders : " 
 
 for the heads of many of these people were swelled 
 to an astonishing size, and seemed to be placed in the 
 middle of their bodies. Of some, the ears were dis- 
 tended till they hung upon the shoulders ; and of 
 others, the shoulders were raised till they met the ears : 
 there was not one free from some deformity, or mon- 
 strous swelling, in one part or other; either it was 
 before, or behind, or about the hips, or the arms were 
 puffed up to an unusual thickness, or the throat was 
 increased to the same size with the poor objects once 
 exhibited under the name of the monstrous Craws : 
 some had no necks ; others had necks that reached 
 almost to their waists ; the bodies of some were bloated 
 up to such a size, that they could scarcely enter a pair 
 of folding doors ; and others had suddenly sprouted 
 up to such a disproportionate height, that they could 
 not sit upright in their loftiest carriages. 
 
 Many shocked me with the appearance of being 
 nearly cut in two, like a wasp ; and I was alarmed at 
 the sight of a few, in whose faces, otherwise very fair 
 and healthy, I discovered an eruption of black spots, 
 which I feared was the fatal sign of some pestilential 
 disorder. 
 
 The sight of these various and uncouth deformities 
 inspired me with much pity ; which however was soon 
 changed into disgust, when I perceived, with great 
 
FASHION. 95 
 
 surprise, that every one of these unfortunate men and 
 women was exceeding proud of his own peculiar deform- 
 ity, and endeavored to attract my notice to it as much 
 as possible. A lady, in particular, who had a swelling 
 under her throat, larger than any goitre in the Valais, 
 and which, I am sure, by its enormous projection, pre- 
 vented her from seeing the path she walked in, brushed 
 by me with an air of the greatest self-complacency, 
 and asked me if she was not a charming creature. 
 
 But by this time I found myself surrounded by an 
 immense crowd, who were all pressing along in one 
 direction ; and I perceived that I was drawn along 
 with them by an irresistible impulse, which grew 
 stronger every moment, I asked whither we were hur- 
 rying with such eager steps ; and was told that we 
 were going to the court of Queen Fashion, the great 
 Diana whom all the world worshippeth. I would have 
 retired, but felt myself impelled to go on, though with- 
 out being sensible of any outward force. 
 
 When I came to the royal presence, I was astonished 
 at the magnificence I saw around me. The queen 
 was sitting on a throne, elegantly fashioned in the form 
 of a shell, and inlaid with gems and mother-of-pearl. 
 It was supported by a chameleon, formed of a single 
 emerald. She was dressed in a light robe of change- 
 able silk, which fluttered about her in a profusion of 
 fantastic folds, that imitated the form of clouds, and 
 like them were continually changing their appearance. 
 In one hand she held a rouge-box, and in the other 
 one of those optical glasses which distort figures in 
 length or in breadth, according to the position in which 
 they are held. At the foot of the throne was displayed 
 a profusion of the richest productions of every quarter 
 of the globe, tributes from land and sea, from every 
 animal and plant ; perfumes, sparkling stones, drops 
 of pearl, chains of gold, webs of the finest linen ; 
 wreaths of flowers, the produce of art, which vied 
 
96 FASHION. 
 
 with the most delicate productions of nature ; forests 
 of feathers waving their brilliant colors in the air and 
 canopying the throne ; glossy silks, network of lace, 
 silvery ermine, soft folds of vegetable wool, rustling 
 paper, and shining spangles ; — the whole intermixed 
 with pendants and streamers of the gayest tinctured 
 ribbon. 
 
 All these together made so brilliant an appearance 
 that my eyes were at first dazzled, and it was some 
 time before I recovered myself enough to observe the 
 ceremonial of the court. Near the throne, and its 
 chief supports, stood the queen's two prime ministers, 
 Caprice on one side, and Vanity on the other. Two 
 officers seemed chiefly busy among the attendants. 
 One of them was a man with a pair of shears in his 
 hand and a goose by his side, — a mysterious em- 
 blem, of which I could not fathom the meaning : he 
 sat cross-legged, like the great lama of the Tartars. 
 He was busily employed in cutting out coats and gar- 
 ments ; not, however, like Dorcas, for the poor, — nor, 
 indeed, did they seem intended for any mortal what- 
 ever, so ill were they adapted to the shape of the hu- 
 man body. Some of the garments were extravagantly 
 large, others as preposterously small : of others, it was 
 difficult to guess to what part of the person they were 
 meant to be applied. Here were coverings which did 
 not cover ; ornaments which disfigured ; and defences 
 against the weather, more slight and delicate than 
 what they were meant to defend ; but all were eagerly 
 caught up, without distinction, by the crowd of votaries 
 who were waiting to receive them. 
 
 The other officer was dressed in a white succinct 
 linen garment, like a priest of the lower order. He 
 moved in a cloud of incense more highly scented than 
 the breezes of Arabia ; he carried a tuft of the whitest 
 down of the swan in one hand, and in the other a small 
 iron instrument heated red-hot, which he brandished 
 
FASHION. 9 7 
 
 in the air. It was with infinite concern I beheld the 
 Graces, bound at the foot of the throne, and obliged 
 to officiate as handmaids under the direction of these 
 two officers. 
 
 I now began to inquire by what laws this queen 
 governed her subjects, but soon found her administra- 
 tion was that of the most arbitrary tyrant ever known. 
 Her laws are exactly the reverse of those of the Medes 
 and Persians ; for they are changed every day, and 
 every hour : and what makes the matter still more per- 
 plexing, they are in no written code, nor even made 
 public by proclamation : they are promulgated only by 
 whispers, an obscure sign, or turn of the eye, which 
 those only who have the happiness to stand near the 
 queen can catch with any degree of precision : yet 
 the smallest transgression of the laws is severely pun- 
 ished ; not indeed by fines or imprisonment, but by a 
 sort of interdict similar to that which in superstitious 
 times was laid by the Pope on disobedient princes, 
 and which operated in such a manner that no one 
 would eat, drink, or associate with the forlorn culprit, 
 and he was almost deprived of the use of fire and 
 water. 
 
 This difficulty of discovering the will of the goddess 
 occasioned so much crowding to be near the throne, 
 such jostling and elbowing of one another, that I was 
 glad to retire and observe what I could among the 
 scattered crowd : and the first thing I took notice of 
 was various instruments of torture which everywhere 
 met my eyes. Torture has in most other governments 
 of Europe been abolished by the mild spirit of the 
 times ; but it reigns here in full force and terror. I 
 saw • officers of this cruel court employed in boring 
 holes with red-hot wires, in the ears, nose, and various 
 parts of the body, and then distending them with the 
 weight of metal chains, or stones cut into a variety of 
 shapes : some had invented a contrivance for cramp- 
 
98 FASHION. 
 
 ing the feet in such a manner that many are lamed by 
 it for their whole lives. Others I saw, slender and 
 delicate in their form and naturally nimble as the 
 young antelope, who were obliged to carry constantly 
 about with them a cumbrous unwieldy machine, of a 
 pyramidal form, several ells in circumference. 
 
 But the most common and one of the worst instru- 
 ments of torture was a small machine armed with fish- 
 bone and ribs of steel, wide at top but extremely small 
 at bottom. In this detestable invention the queen or- 
 ders the bodies of her female subjects to be inclosed : 
 it is then, by means of silk cords, drawn closer and 
 closer at intervals, till the unhappy victim can scarcely 
 breathe ; and they have found the exact point that 
 can be borne without fainting, which, however, not un- 
 frequently happens. The flesh is often excoriated, and 
 the very ribs bent, by this cruel process. Yet what as- 
 tonished me more than all the rest, these sufferings are 
 borne with a degree of fortitude which, in a better cause, 
 would immortalize a hero or canonize a saint. The 
 Spartan who suffered the fox to eat into his vitals, did 
 not bear pain with greater resolution : and as the Spar- 
 tan mothers brought their children to be scourged at 
 the altar of Diana, so do the mothers here bring their 
 children, — and chiefly those whose tender sex one would 
 suppose excused them from such exertions, — and early 
 inure them to this cruel discipline. But neither Spar- 
 tan, nor Dervise, nor Bonze, nor Carthusian monk, ever 
 exercised more unrelenting severities over their bodies, 
 than these young zealots : indeed the first lesson they are 
 taught, is a surrender of their own inclinations and an 
 implicit obedience to the commands of the goddess. 
 
 But they have, besides, a more solemn kind of ded- 
 ication, something similar to the rite of confirmation. 
 When a young woman approaches the marriageable 
 age, she is led to the altar : her hair, which before 
 fell loosely about her shoulders, is tied up in a tress, 
 
fashion: 99 
 
 sweet oils drawn from roses and spices are poured 
 upon it ; she is involved in a cloud of scented dust, 
 and invested with ornaments under which she can 
 scarcely move. After this solemn ceremony, which is 
 generally concluded by a dance round the altar, the 
 damsel is obliged to a still stricter conformity than be- 
 fore to the laws and customs of the court, and any de- 
 viation from them is severely punished. 
 
 The courtiers of Alexander, it is said, flattered him 
 by carrying their heads on one side, because he had 
 the misfortune to have a wry neck ; but all adulation 
 is poor, compared to what is practised in this court. 
 Sometimes the queen will lisp and stammer, — and 
 then none of her attendants can speak plain ; some- 
 times she chooses to totter as she walks, — and then 
 they are seized with sudden lameness : according as 
 she appears half undressed, or veiled from head to 
 foot, her subjects become a procession of nuns, or a 
 troop of Bacchanalian nymphs. I could not help ob- 
 serving, however, that those who stood at the greatest 
 distance from the throne were the most extravagant in 
 their imitation. 
 
 I was by this time thoroughly disgusted with the 
 character of a sovereign at once so light and so cruel, 
 so fickle and so arbitrary, when one who stood next 
 me bade me attend to still greater contradictions in her 
 character, and such as might serve to soften the indig- 
 nation I had conceived. He took me to the back of 
 the throne, and made me take notice of a number of 
 industrious poor, to whom the queen was secretly dis- 
 tributing bread. I saw the Genius of Commerce do- 
 ing her homage, and discovered the British cross woven 
 into the insignia of her dignity. 
 
 While I was musing on these things, a murmur arose 
 among the crowd, and I was told that a young votary 
 was approaching. I turned my head, and saw a light 
 figure, the folds of whose garment showed the elegant 
 
ioo DESCRIPTION OF TWO SISTERS. 
 
 turn of the limbs they covered, tripping along with 
 the step of a nymph. I soon knew it to be yourself : 
 — I saw you led up to the altar, — I saw your beautiful 
 hair tied in artificial tresses, and its bright gloss stained 
 with colored dust, — I even fancied I beheld produced 
 the dreadful instruments of torture ; — my emotions in- 
 creased : — I cried out, " Oh, spare her ! spare my 
 Flora ! " with so much vehemence that I awaked. 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF TWO SISTERS. 
 
 Dear Cousin, — Our conversation last night upon 
 beauties put me in mind of two charming sisters, with 
 whom I think you must be acquainted as well as I, 
 though they were not in your list of belles. Their 
 charms are very different however ; the youngest is 
 generally thought the handsomest, and yet other beau- 
 ties shine more in her company than in her sister's ; 
 whether it be that her gay looks diffuse a lustre on all 
 around, while her sister's beauty has an air of majesty 
 which strikes with awe, or that the younger sets every 
 one she is with in the fairest light, and discovers per- 
 fections which were before concealed, whilst the elder 
 seems only solicitous to set off her own person and 
 throw a shade upon every one else. Yet, what you will 
 think strange, it is she who is generally preferred for a 
 confidant ; for her sister, with all her amiable qualities, 
 cannot keep a secret. 
 
 Oh, what an eye the younger has, as if she could 
 look a person through ; yet modest is her countenance, 
 even and composed her pace, and she treads so softly, 
 — " smooth sliding without step," as Milton says 
 She seldom meets you without blushing, — her sister 
 cannot blush, — she dresses very gayly, sometimes in 
 
DESCRIPTION OF TWO SISTERS. IOI 
 
 clouded silks, which indeed she first brought into fash- 
 ion, but blue is her most becoming color, and she gen- 
 erally appears in it. Now and then, she wears a very 
 rich scarf, or sash, braided with all manner of colors. 
 
 The elder, like the Spanish ladies, dresses in black 
 in order to set off her jewels, of which she has a greater 
 
 quantity than Lady , and, if I might judge, much 
 
 finer. I cannot pretend to give you a catalogue of 
 them ; they are of all sizes, and set in all figures : her 
 enemies say she does well to adorn her dusky brow 
 with brilliants, and that without them she would be but 
 little taken notice of; but certain it is, she has inspired 
 more serious and enthusiastic passions than her sister, 
 whose admirers are often fops more in love with them- 
 selves than with her. A learned clergyman some time 
 ago fell deeply in love with her, and wrote a fine copy 
 of verses on her ; and what was worst, her sister could 
 not go into company without hearing them. 
 
 One thing they quite agree in, — not to go out of 
 their way or alter their pace for anybody. Once or 
 twice indeed I have heard that the younger . . . but it 
 was a great while ago, and she was not so old then, 
 and was more complaisant. She is generally waked 
 with a fine concert of music, the other prefers a good 
 solo. 
 
 But see, the younger beauty looks pale and sick, — 
 she faints, — she is certainly dying, — a slight blush 
 still upon her cheek, — it fades, fast, fast. — She is 
 gone, yet a sweet smile overspreads her countenance. 
 Will she revive ? Shall I ever see her again ? Who can 
 tell me ? 
 
P I C-N I C. 
 
 Pray, mamma, what is the meaning of pic-nic 1 I 
 have heard lately once or twice of a pic-nic supper, and 
 I cannot think what it means ; I looked for the word in 
 Johnson's Dictionary and could not find it. 
 
 I should wonder if you had; the word was not 
 coined in Johnson's time ; and if it had been, I believe 
 he would have disdained to insert it among the legiti- 
 mate words of the language. I cannot tell you the 
 derivation of the phrase. I believe pic-nic is originally 
 a cant word, and was first applied to a supper or other 
 meal in which the entertainment is not provided by 
 any one person, but each of the guests furnishes his 
 dish. In a pic-nic supper one supplies the fowls, an- 
 other the fish, another the wine and fruit, &c. ; and 
 they all sit down together and enjoy it. 
 
 A very sociable way of making an entertainment. 
 
 Yes, and I would have you observe, that the princi- 
 ple of it may be extended to many other things. No 
 one has a right to be entertained gratis in society ; he 
 must expend, if he wishes to enjoy. Conversation, 
 particularly, is a pic-nic feast, where every one is to 
 contribute something, according to his genius and abil- 
 ity. Different talents and acquirements compose the 
 different dishes of the entertainment, and the greater 
 variety, the better ; but every one must bring some- 
 thing, for society will not tolerate any one long who 
 lives wholly at the expense of his neighbors. Did not 
 you observe how agreeably we w.ere entertained at 
 Lady Isabella's party last night ? 
 
PIC-NIC. 103 
 
 Yes : one of the young ladies sung, and another exhib- 
 ited her drawings, and a gentleman told some very- 
 good stories. 
 
 True : another lady who is very much in the fashion- 
 able world gave us a great deal of anecdote ; Dr. R., 
 who is just returned from the continent, gave us an 
 interesting account of the state of Germany; and in 
 another part of the room a cluster was gathered round 
 an Edinburgh student and a young Oxonian, who were 
 holding a lively debate on the power of galvanism. 
 But Lady Isabella herself was the charm of the party. 
 
 I think she talked very little ; and I do not recollect 
 anything she said which was particularly striking. 
 
 That is true. But it was owing to her address and 
 attention to her company that others talked and were 
 heard by turns ; that the modest were encouraged and 
 drawn out, and those inclined to be noisy restrained 
 and kept in order. She blended and harmonized the 
 talents of each ; brought those together who were 
 likely to be agreeable to each other, and gave us no 
 more of herself than was necessary to set off others. I 
 noticed particularly her good offices to an accomplished 
 but very bashful lady and a reserved man of science, 
 who wished much to be known to one another, but 
 who would never have been so without her introduc- 
 tion. As soon as she had fairly engaged them in an 
 interesting conversation, she left them, regardless of 
 her own entertainment, and seated herself by poor Mr. 
 
 , purely because he was sitting in a corner and no 
 
 one attended to him. You know that in chemical 
 preparations two substances often require a third, to 
 enable them to mix and unite together. Lady Isabella 
 possesses this amalgamating power : — this is what she 
 brings to the pic-nic. I should add, that two or three 
 times I observed she dexterously changed topics, and 
 suppressed stories which were likely to bear hard on 
 the profession or connections of some of the company. 
 
104 PIC-NIC. 
 
 In short, the party which was so agreeable under her 
 harmonizing influence, would have had quite a differ- 
 ent aspect without her. These merits, however, might 
 easily escape a young observer. But I dare say you did 
 not fail to notice Sir Henry B 's lady, who was de- 
 claiming with so much enthusiasm, in the midst of a 
 circle of gentlemen which she had drawn around her, 
 upon the beau ideal. 
 
 No indeed, mamma ; I never heard so much fire 
 and feeling : — and what a flow of elegant language ! I 
 do not wonder her eloquence was so much admired. 
 
 She has a great deal of eloquence and taste : she 
 has travelled, and is acquainted with the best works of 
 art. I am not sure, however, whether the gentlemen 
 were admiring most her declamation or the fine turn 
 of her hands and arms. She has a different attitude 
 for every sentiment. Some observations which she 
 made upon the beauty of statues seemed to me to go 
 to the verge of what a modest female will allow herself 
 to say upon such subjects, — but she has travelled. 
 She was sensible that she could not fail to gain by 
 the conversation while beauty of form was the subject 
 of it. 
 
 Pray what did , the great poet, bring to the 
 
 pic-nic ? — for I think he hardly opened his mouth. 
 
 He brought his fame. Many would be gratified 
 with merely seeing him who had entertained them in 
 their closets ; and he who had so entertained them had 
 a right to be himself entertained in that way which he 
 had no talent for joining in. Let every one, I repeat, 
 bring to the entertainment something of the best he 
 possesses, and the pic-nic table will seldom fail to af- 
 ford a plentiful banquet. 
 
WRITTEN ON A MARBLE. 
 
 The world 's something bigger, 
 
 But just of this figure, 
 And speckled with mountains and seas ; 
 Your heroes are overgrown schoolboys 
 Who scuffle for empires and toys, 
 And kick the poor ball as they please. 
 Now Caesar, now Pompey, gives law ; 
 
 And Pharsalia's plain, 
 
 Though heaped with the slain, 
 
 Was only a game at taw. 
 
 LETTER FROM GRIMALKIN TO 
 SELIMA. 
 
 My dear Selima, — As you are now going to quit 
 the foste*ring cares of a mother, to enter, young as you 
 are, into the wide world, and conduct yourself by your 
 own prudence, I cannot forbear giving you some part- 
 ing advice in this important era of your life. 
 
 Your extreme youth, and permit me to add, the 
 giddiness incident to that period, make me particularly 
 anxious for your welfare. In the first place, then, let 
 me beg you to remember that life is not to be spent in 
 running after your own tail. Remember you were sent 
 into the world to catch rats and mice. It is for this 
 you are furnished with sharp claws, whiskers to improve 
 your scent, and with such an elasticity and spring in 
 your limbs. Never lose sight of this great end of your 
 existence. When you and your sister are jumping over 
 
106 LETTER FROM GRIMALKIN TO SELIMA. 
 
 my back, and kicking and scratching one another's 
 noses, you are indulging the propensities of your nature, 
 and perfecting yourselves in agility and dexterity. But 
 remember that these frolics are only preparatory to the 
 grand scene of action. Life is long, but youth is short. 
 The gayety of the kitten will most assuredly go off. 
 In a few months, nay even weeks, those spirits and that 
 playfulness, which now exhilarate all who behold you, 
 will subside ; and I beg you to reflect how contemptible 
 you will be, if you should have the gravity of an old cat 
 without that usefulness which alone can ensure respect 
 and protection for your maturer years. 
 
 In the first place, my dear child, obtain a command 
 over your appetites, and take care that no tempting 
 opportunity ever induces you to make free with the 
 pantry or larder of your mistress. You may possibly 
 slip in and out without observation ; you may lap a 
 little cream, or run away with a chop without its being 
 missed : but depend upon it, such practices sooner or 
 later will be found out; and if in a single instance 
 you are discovered, everything which is missing will be 
 charged upon you. If Mrs. Betty or Mrs. Susan chooses 
 to regale herself with a cold breast of chicken which was 
 set by for supper, — you will have clawed it ; or a rasp- 
 berry cream, — you will have lapped it. Nor is this all. 
 If you have once thrown down a single cup in your 
 eagerness to get out of the storeroom, every china plate 
 and dish that is ever broken in the house, you will have 
 broken it ; and though your back promises to be pretty 
 broad, it will not be broad enough for all the mischief 
 that will be laid upon it. Honesty you will find is the 
 best policy. 
 
 Remember that the true pleasures of life consist in 
 the exertion of our own powers. If you were to feast 
 every day upon roasted partridges from off Dresden 
 china, and dip your whiskers in syllabubs and creams, 
 it could never give you such true enjoyment as the 
 
LETTER FROM GRIMALKIN TO SELIMA. 107 
 
 commonest food procured by the labor of your own 
 paws. When you have once tasted the exquisite pleas- 
 ure of catching and playing with a mouse, you will 
 despise the gratification of artificial dainties. 
 
 I do not, with some moralists, call cleanliness a half 
 virtue only. Remember, it is one of the most essential 
 to your sex and station; and if ever you should fail in 
 it, I sincerely hope Mrs. Susan will bestow upon you a 
 good whipping. 
 
 Pray do not spit at strangers who do you the honor 
 to take notice of you. It is very uncivil behavior, 
 and I have often wondered that kittens of any breeding 
 should be guilty of it. 
 
 Avoid thrusting your nose into every closet and cup- 
 board, — unless indeed you smell mice ; in which case 
 it is very becoming. 
 
 Should you live, as I hope you will, to see the chil- 
 dren of your patroness, you must prepare yourself 
 to exercise that branch of fortitude which consists in 
 patient endurance : for you must expect to be lugged 
 about, pinched and pulled by the tail, and played a 
 thousand tricks with ; all which you must bear without 
 putting out a claw : for you may depend upon it, if you 
 attempt the least retaliation you will forever lose the 
 favor of your mistress. 
 
 Should there be favorites in the house, such as tame 
 birds, dormice, or a squirrel, great will be your tempta- 
 tions. In such a circumstance, if the cage hangs low 
 and the door happens to be left open, — to govern your 
 appetite I know will be a difficult task. But remember 
 that nothing is impossible to the governing mind ; and 
 that there are instances upon record of cats who, in the 
 exercise of self-government, have overcome the strong- 
 est propensities of their nature. 
 
 If you would make yourself agreeable to your mis- 
 tress, you must observe times and seasons. You must 
 not startle her by jumping upon her in a rude manner : 
 
108 LETTER FROM GRIMALKIN TO SELIMA. 
 
 and above all, be sure to sheathe your claws when you 
 lay your paw upon her lap. 
 
 You have, like myself, been brought up in the coun- 
 try, and I fear you may regret the amusements it af- 
 fords ; such as catching butterflies, climbing trees, and 
 watching birds from the windows, which I have done 
 with great delight for a whole morning together. But 
 these pleasures are not essential. A town life has also 
 its gratifications. You may make many pleasant ac- 
 quaintances in the neighboring courts and alleys. A 
 concert upon the tiles in a fine moonlight summer's 
 evening may at once gratify your ear and your social 
 feelings. Rats and mice are . to be met with every- 
 where : and at any rate you have reason to be thank- 
 ful that so creditable a situation has been found for you ; 
 without which you must have followed the fate of your 
 poor brothers, and with a stone about your neck have 
 been drowned in the next pond. 
 
 It is only when you have kittens yourself that you 
 will be able to appreciate the cares of a mother. How 
 unruly have you been when I wanted to wash your 
 face ! how undutiful in galloping about the room in- 
 stead of coming immediately when I called you ! But 
 nothing can subdue the affections of a parent. Being 
 grave and thoughtful in my nature, and having the ad- 
 vantage of residing in a literary family, I have mused 
 deeply on the subject of education ; I have pored by 
 moonlight over Locke, and Edgeworth, and Mrs. Ham- 
 ilton, and the laws of association : but after much cogi- 
 tation I am only convinced of this, that kittens will be 
 kittens, and old cats old cats. May you, my dear 
 child, be an honor to all your relations and to the whole 
 feline race. May you see your descendants of the 
 fiftieth generation. And when you depart this life, may 
 the lamentations of your kindred exceed in pathos the 
 melody of an Irish howl. 
 
 Signed by the paw of your affectionate mother, 
 
 Grimalkin. 
 
ALLEGORY ON SLEEP. 
 
 My dear Miss D., — The affection I bear you, and 
 the sincere regard I have for your welfare, will, I hope, 
 excuse the liberty I am going to take in remonstrating 
 against the indulgence of a too partial affection which 
 I see with sorrow is growing upon you every day. 
 
 You start at the imputation : but hear me with pa- 
 tience ; and if your own heart, your own reason, does 
 not bear witness to what I say, then blame my sus- 
 picions and my freedom. 
 
 But need I say much to convince you of the power 
 this favored lover, whose name I will not mention, 
 has over you, when at this very moment he absorbs 
 all your faculties, and engrosses every power of your 
 mind to such a degree as leaves it doubtful whether 
 this friendly admonition will reach your ear, lost as 
 you are in the soft enchantment? Is it not evident 
 that in his presence you are dead to everything 
 around you ? The voice of your nearest friends, your 
 most sprightly and once-loved amusements, cannot 
 draw your attention ; you breathe, you exist, only for 
 him. And when at length he has left you, do not I 
 behold you languid, pale, bearing in your eyes and 
 your whole carriage the marks of his power over you ? 
 When we parted last night, did not I see you impa- 
 tient to sink into his arms? Have you never been 
 caught reclined on his bosom, on a soft carpet of 
 flowers, on the banks of a purling stream, where the 
 murmuring of the waters, the whispering of the trees, 
 the silence and solitude of the place, and the luxuri- 
 
HO ALLEGORY ON SLEEP. 
 
 ous softness of everything around you, favored his 
 approach and disposed you to listen to his addresses? 
 Nay, in that sacred temple which ought to be dedicated 
 to higher affections, has he never stolen insensibly on 
 your mind, and sealed your ears against the voice of 
 the preacher, though never so persuasive? Has not 
 his influence over you greatly increased within these 
 few weeks ? Does he not every day demand, do you 
 not every day sacrifice to him, a larger portion of your 
 time? 
 
 Not content with devoting to him those hours 
 
 " When business, noise, and day are fled," 
 
 does he not encroach upon the morning watches, 
 break in upon your studies, and detain your mind 
 from the pursuit of knowledge and the pursuit of 
 pleasure, — of all pleasure but the enervating indul- 
 gence of your passion ? 
 
 Diana, who still wishes to number you in her train, 
 invites you to join in her lively sports ; for you Aurora 
 bathes the new-born rose in dew, and streaks the 
 clouds with gold and crimson ; and Youth and Health 
 offer a thousand innocent pleasures to your accept- 
 ance. 
 
 And, let me ask you, what can you find in the com- 
 pany of him with whom you are thus enamored, to 
 make you amends for all that you give up for his sake ? 
 Does he entertain you with anything but the most in- 
 coherent rhapsodies, the most romantic and visionary 
 tales? To believe the strange, improbable, and con- 
 tradictory things he tells you, requires a credulity be- 
 yond that of an infant. If he has ever spoken truth, 
 it is mixed with so much falsehood and obscurity, that 
 it is esteemed the certain sign of a weak mind to be 
 much affected with what he says. 
 
 As I wish to draw a true portrait, I will by no 
 means disguise his good qualities ; and shall therefore 
 
 
ALLEGORY ON SLEEP. ill 
 
 allow that he is a friend to the unhappy and the friend- 
 less, that his breast is the only pillow for misfortune 
 to repose on, and that his approaches are so gentle 
 and insinuating as in some moments to be almost ir- 
 resistible. If he is at all disposed to partiality, it is 
 in favor of the poor and mean, with whom he is 
 generally thought to associate more readily than with 
 the rich. Yet he dispenses favors to all : and those 
 who are most disposed to rebel against his power and 
 treat him with contempt, could never render them- 
 selves quite independent of him. 
 
 He is of a very ancient family, and came in long 
 before the Conquest. He has a half-brother, some- 
 what younger than himself, who has made his name 
 very famous in the world : he is a tall meagre figure, 
 with a ghastly air and a most forbidding countenance ; 
 he delights in slaughter, and has destroyed more men 
 than Caesar or Alexander. 
 
 He who is the subject of my letter is fond of peace, 
 sleek and corpulent, with a mild heavy eye and a 
 physiognomy perfectly placid ; yet with all this oppo- 
 sition of feature and character, there is such a resem- 
 blance between them (as often happens in family 
 likenesses), that in some lights and attitudes you can 
 scarce distinguish the one from the other. 
 
 To finish the description of your lover, — he is 
 generally crowned with flowers, but of the most lan- 
 guid kind, such as poppies and cowslips ; and he is 
 attended by a number of servants, thin and light-footed, 
 to whom he does not give the same livery ; for some 
 are dressed in the gayest, others in the most gloomy 
 habits imaginable, but all fantastic 
 
 He is subject to many strange antipathies, and as 
 strange likings. The warbling of the lark, to others 
 so agreeable, is to him the harshest discord, and Peter 
 could not start more at the crowing of a cock. The 
 slightest accident, the cry of an infant, a mouse behind 
 
1 1 2 HYMN. 
 
 the wainscot, will oftentimes totally disconcert and 
 put him to flight, and at other times he will not regard 
 the loudest thunder. His favorite animal is the dor- 
 mouse, and his music the dropping of water, the low 
 tinkling of a distant bell, the humming of bees, and the 
 hollow sound of the wind rustling through the trees. 
 
 But I have now said enough to let you into the 
 true character of this powerful enchanter. You will 
 answer, I know, to all this, that he begins by enslav- 
 ing every faculty that might resist him, and that his 
 power must be already broken before Reason can 
 exert herself. You will perhaps likewise tell me (and 
 I must acknowledge the justice of the retort) that 
 I myself, though my situation affords a thousand rea- 
 sons to resist him which do not take place with you, 
 have been but too sensible of his attractions. 
 
 With blushes I confess the charge. At this mo- 
 ment, however, the charm is broken, and Reason has 
 her full empire over me. Let me exhort you there- 
 fore. . . . But why exhort you to what is already done ? 
 for if this letter has made its way to your ear, if your 
 eye is now perusing its contents, the spell is dissolved, 
 and you are no longer sunk in the embraces of Sleep. 
 
 A HYMN. 
 
 Lift up thyself, O mourning soul ! lift up thyself, 
 raise thine eyes that are wet with tears ! 
 
 Why are thine eyes wet with tears? why are they 
 bent continually upon the earth? and why dost thou 
 go mourning as one forsaken of thy God? 
 
 O thou that toilest ever and restest not ; thou that 
 wishest ever and art not satisfied ; thou that carest 
 ever and art not 'stablished ; 
 
HYMN. 113 
 
 Why dost thou toil and wish? why is thine heart 
 withered with care, and thine eyes sunk with watching ? 
 
 Rest quietly on thy couch, steep thine eyelids in 
 sleep, wrap thyself in sleep as in a garment; for he 
 careth for thee : 
 
 He is with thee, he is about thee, he compasseth 
 thee, he compasseth thee on every side. 
 
 The voice of thy Shepherd among the rocks ! he 
 calleth thee, he beareth thee tenderly in his arms ; he 
 suffereth thee not to stray. 
 
 Thy soul is precious in his sight, O child of many 
 hopes ! 
 
 For he careth for thee in the things which perish, 
 and he hath provided yet better things than those. 
 
 Raise thyself, beloved soul ! turn thine eyes from 
 care, and sin, and pain ; turn them to the brightness of 
 the heavens, and contemplate thine, inheritance ; for 
 thy birthright is in the skies, and thine inheritance 
 amongst the stars of light. 
 
 The herds of the pasture sicken and die, they lie 
 down among the clods of the valley, the foot passeth 
 over them ; they are no more. But it is not so with 
 thee. 
 
 For the Almighty is the father of thy spirit, and he 
 hath given thee a portion of his own immortality. 
 
 Look around thee and behold the earth, for it is the 
 gift of thy Father to thee and to thy sons, that they 
 should possess it. 
 
 Out of the ground cometh forth food ; the hills are 
 covered with fresh shade ; and the animals, thy sub- 
 jects, sport among the trees. 
 
 Delight thyself in them, for they are good ; and all 
 that thou seest is thine. 
 
 But nothing that thou seest is like unto thyself; thou 
 art not of them, nor shalt thou return to them. 
 
 Thou hast a mighty void which they cannot fill ; 
 thou hast an immortal hunger which they cannot sat- 
 8 
 
H4 ON FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 isfy : they cannot nourish, they cannot support, they 
 are not worthy that they should occupy thee. 
 
 As the fire which while it resteth on the earth yet 
 sendeth forth sparks continually towards heaven ; so do 
 thou from amidst the world send up fervent thoughts 
 to God. 
 
 As the lark, though her nest is on the low ground, as 
 soon as she becometh fledged, poiseth her wings, and 
 finding them strong to bear her through the light air, 
 springeth up aloft, singing as she soars ; 
 
 So let thy desires mount swiftly upwards, and thou 
 shalt see the world beneath thy feet. 
 
 And be not overwhelmed with many thoughts. 
 Heaven is thine, and God is thine : thou shalt be 
 blessed with everlasting salvation and peace upon thy 
 head forever more. 
 
 ON FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 Friendship is that warm, tender, lively attachment, 
 which takes place between persons in whom a similarity 
 of tastes and manners, joined to frequent intercourse, 
 has produced an habitual fondness for each other. It is 
 not among our duties, for it does not flow from any of 
 the necessary relations of society ; but it has its duties 
 when voluntarily entered into. In its highest perfec- 
 tion it can only, I believe, subsist between two ; for 
 that unlimited confidence and perfect conformity of 
 inclinations which it requires, cannot well be found in a 
 larger number : besides, one such friendship fills the 
 heart, and leaves no want or desire after another. 
 
 Friendship, where it is quite sincere and affectionate, 
 free from affectation or interested views, is one of the 
 greatest blessings of life. It doubles our joys, and it 
 
ON FRIENDSHIP. 115 
 
 lessens our sorrows, when we are able to pour both 
 into the bosom of one who takes the tenderest part in 
 all our interests, who is to us as another self. We love 
 to communicate all our feelings ; and it is in the high- 
 est degree grateful where we can do it to one who will 
 enter into them all ; who takes an interest in everything 
 that befalls us j before whom we can freely indulge 
 even our little weaknesses and foibles, and show our 
 minds as it were undressed ; who will take part in all our 
 schemes, advise us in any emergency ; who rejoices in 
 our company, and who, we are sure, . thinks of us in 
 our absence. 
 
 With regard to the choice of friends, there is little to 
 say : for a friend was never chosen. A secret sympa- 
 thy, the attraction of a thousand nameless qualities ; 
 a charm in the expression of the countenance, even in 
 the voice, or the manner, a similarity of circumstances, 
 — these are the things that begin attachment, which is 
 fostered by being in a situation which gives occasion 
 for frequent intercourse ; and this depends upon 
 chance. Reason and prudence have, however, much 
 to do in restraining our choice of improper or danger- 
 ous friends. They are improper, if our line of life and 
 pursuits are so totally different as to make it improba- 
 ble we shall long keep up an intimacy, at least without 
 sacrificing to it connections of duty ; they are danger- 
 ous, if they are in any respect vicious. 
 
 It has been made a question whether friendship can 
 subsist among the vicious. If by vicious be meant 
 those who are void of the social, generous, and affec- 
 tionate feelings, it is most certain it cannot ; because 
 these make the very essence of it. But it is very pos- 
 sible for persons to possess fine feelings, without that 
 steady principle which alone constitutes virtue ; and it 
 does not appear why such may not feel a real friend- 
 ship. It will not indeed be so likely to be lasting, and 
 is often succeeded by bitter, enmities. 
 
n6 ON FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 The duties of friendship are, first, sincere and disin- 
 terested affection. This seems self-evident : and yet 
 there are many who pretend to love their friends, when 
 at the same time they only take delight in them, as we 
 delight in a fine voice or a good picture. If you love 
 your friend, you will love him when his powers of 
 pleasing and entertaining you have given way to mal- 
 ady or depression of spirits ; you will study his interest 
 and satisfaction, you will be ready to resign his com- 
 pany, to promote his advantageous settlement at a dis- 
 tant residence, to favor his connection with other 
 friends ; — these are the tests of true affection : without 
 such a disposition, you may enjoy your friend, but you 
 do not love him. 
 
 Next, friendship requires pure sincerity and the 
 most unreserved confidence. Sincerity every man has 
 a right to expect from us, but every man has not a 
 right to our confidence : this is the sacred and peculiar 
 privilege of friendship ; and so essential is it to the 
 very idea of this connection, that even to serve a 
 friend without giving him our confidence, is but going 
 half way ; — it may command gratitude, but will not 
 produce love. Above all things, the general tenor of 
 our thoughts and feelings must be shown to our friends 
 exactly as they are ; without any of those glosses, col- 
 orings, and disguises which we do, and partly must, put 
 on in our commerce with the world. 
 
 Another duty resulting from this confidence is invio- 
 lable secrecy in what has been entrusted to us. To 
 every one indeed we owe secrecy in what we are for- 
 mally entrusted with ; but with regard to a friend, this 
 extends to the concealing everything which in the ful- 
 ness of his heart and in the freedom of unguarded con- 
 versation he has let drop, if you have the least idea it 
 may in any manner injure or offend him. In short, 
 you are to consider yourself as always, to him, under 
 an implied promise of secrecy ; and should even the 
 
ON FRIENDSHIP. 117 
 
 friendship dissolve, it would be in the highest degree 
 ungenerous to consider this obligation as dissolved 
 with it. 
 
 In the next place, a friend has a right to our best 
 advice on every emergency ; and this even though we 
 run the risk of offending him by our frankness. Friends 
 should consider themselves as the sacred guardians of 
 each other's virtue ; and the noblest testimony they 
 can give of their affection is the correction of the faults 
 of those they love. But this generous solicitude must 
 be distinguished from a teasing, captious, or too offi- 
 cious notice of all the little defects and frailties which 
 their close intercourse with each other brings contin- 
 ually into view : these must be overlooked or borne 
 with ; for as we are not perfect ourselves, we have no 
 right to expect our friends should be so. 
 
 Friends are most easily acquired in youth, but they 
 are likewise most easily lost : the petulance and impet- 
 uosity of that age, the eager competitions and rivals hips 
 of an active life, and more especially the various 
 changes in rank and fortune, connections, party, opin- 
 ions, or local situation, burst asunder or silently untwist 
 the far greater part of those friendships which, in the 
 warmth of youthful attachment, we had fondly prom- 
 ised ourselves should be indissoluble. 
 
 Happy is he to whom, in the maturer season of life, 
 there remains one tried and constant friend : their 
 affection, mellowed by the hand of time, endeared by 
 the recollection of enjoyments, toils, and even suffer- 
 ings shared together, becomes the balm, the consola- 
 tion, and the treasure of life. Such a friendship is 
 inestimable, and should be preserved with the utmost 
 care ; for it is utterly impossible for any art ever to 
 transfer to another the effect of all those accumulated 
 associations which endear to us the friend of our early 
 years. 
 
 These considerations should likewise induce us to 
 
n8 ON FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 show a tender indulgence to our friends, even for those 
 faults which most sensibly wound the feeling heart, — 
 a growing coldness and indifference. These may be 
 brought on by many circumstances, which do not im- 
 ply a bad heart ; and provided we do not by bitter 
 complaints and an open rupture preclude the possibility 
 of a return, in a more favorable conjuncture the friend- 
 ships of our youth may knit again, and be cultivated 
 with more genuine tenderness than ever. 
 
 I must here take occasion to observe, that there is 
 nothing young people ought to guard against with 
 more care than a parade of feeling, and a profusion of 
 exaggerated protestations. These may sometimes pro- 
 ceed from the amiable warmth of a youthful heart ; but 
 they much oftener flow from the affectation of senti- 
 ment, which is both contemptible and morally wrong. 
 
 All that has been said of the duties or of the pleas- 
 ures of friendship in its most exalted sense, is applica- 
 ble in a proportionate degree to every connection in 
 which there exists any portion of this generous affec- 
 tion : so far as it does exist in the various relations of 
 life, so far it renders them interesting and valuable ; 
 and were the capacity for it taken away from the hu- 
 man heart, it would find a dreary void, and starve 
 amidst all the means of enjoyment the world could 
 pour out before it. 
 
CONFIDENCE AND MODESTY. 
 
 A FABLE. 
 
 When the gods, knowing it to be for the benefit of 
 mortals that the few should lead and that the many 
 should follow, sent down into this lower world Igno- 
 rance and Wisdom, they decreed to each of them an 
 attendant and guide, to conduct their steps and facili- 
 tate their introduction. To Wisdom they gave Confi- 
 dence, and Ignorance they placed under the guidance 
 of Modesty. Thus paired, the parties travelled about 
 the world for some time with mutual satisfaction. 
 
 Wisdom, whose eye was clear and piercing, and 
 commanded a long reach of country, followed her 
 conductor with pleasure and alacrity. She saw the 
 windings of the road at a great distance ; her foot was 
 firm, her ardor was unbroken, and she ascended the 
 hill or traversed the plain with speed and safety. 
 
 Ignorance, on the other hand, was short-sighted and 
 timid. When she came to a spot where the road 
 branched out in different directions, or was obliged to 
 pick her way through the obscurity of the tangled 
 thicket, she was frequently at a loss, and was accus- 
 tomed to stop till some one appeared, to give her the 
 necessary information, which the interesting counte- 
 nance of her companion seldom failed to procure her. 
 
 Wisdom in the mean time, led by a natural instinct, 
 advanced toward the temple of Science and Eternal 
 Truth. For some time the way lay plain before her, 
 and she followed her guide with unhesitating steps : 
 but she had not proceeded far before the paths grew 
 intricate and entangled ; the meeting branches of the 
 
120 CONFIDENCE AND MODESTY. 
 
 trees spread darkness over her head, and steep moun- 
 tains barred her way, whose summits, lost in clouds, 
 ascended beyond the reach of mortal vision. At 
 every new turn of the road her guide urged her to 
 proceed ; but after advancing a little way, she was 
 often obliged to measure back her steps, and often 
 found herself involved in the mazes of a labyrinth 
 which, after exercising her patience and her strength, 
 ended but where it began. 
 
 In the mean time Ignorance, who was naturally 
 impatient, could but ill bear the continual doubts and 
 hesitation of her companion. She hated deliberation, 
 and could not submit to delay. At length it so hap- 
 pened that she found herself on a spot where three 
 ways met, and no indication was to be found which 
 might direct her to the right road. Modesty advised 
 her to wait ; and she had waited till her patience was 
 exhausted. At that moment Confidence, who was in 
 disgrace with Wisdom for some false steps he had led 
 her into, and who had just been discarded from her 
 presence, came up, and offered himself to be her 
 guide. He was accepted. Under his auspices Igno- 
 rance, naturally swift of foot, and who could at any 
 time have outrun Wisdom, boldly pressed forward, 
 pleased and satisfied with her new companion. He 
 knocked at every door, visited castle and convent, and 
 introduced his charge to many a society whence Wis- 
 dom found herself excluded. 
 
 Modesty, in the mean time, finding she could be of 
 no further use to her charge, offered her services to 
 Wisdom. They were mutually pleased with each 
 other, and soon agreed never to separate. And ever 
 since that time Ignorance has been led by Confi- 
 dence, and Modesty has been found in the society of 
 Wisdom. 
 
ON EXPENSE. 
 
 A DIALOGUE. 
 
 You seem to be in a reverie, Harriet ; or are you 
 tired with your long bustling walk through the streets 
 of London ? 
 
 Not at all, papa; but I was wondering at some- 
 thing. 
 
 A grown person even cannot even walk through such 
 a metropolis without meeting with many things to won- 
 der at. But let us hear the particular subject of your 
 admiration ; was it the height and circumference of 
 St. Paul's, or the automatons, or the magical effect 
 of the Panorama that has most struck you ? 
 
 No, papa ; but I was wondering how you who have 
 always so much money in your pockets can go through 
 the streets of London, all full of fine shops, and not 
 buy things : I am sure if I had money I could not 
 help spending it all. 
 
 As you never have a great deal of money, and it is 
 given you only to please your fancy with, there is no 
 harm in your spending it in any thing you have a mind 
 to ; but it is very well for you and me too that the 
 money does not burn in my pocket as it does in yours. 
 
 No, to be sure you would not spend all your money 
 in those shops, because you must buy bread and meat, 
 but you might spend a good deal. But you walk past 
 just as if you did not see them : you never stop to 
 give one look. Now tell me really, papa, can you 
 help wishing for all those pretty things that stand in 
 the shop windows? 
 
122 ON EXPENSE. 
 
 For all ! Would you have me wish for all of them ? 
 But I will answer you seriously. I do walk by these 
 tempting shops without wishing for- any thing, and in- 
 deed in general without seeing them. 
 
 Well, that is because you are a man, and you do 
 not care for what I admire so very much. 
 
 No, there you are mistaken ; for though I may not 
 admire them so very much as you say you do, there 
 are a vast number of things sold in London which it 
 would give me great pleasure to have in my possession. 
 I should greatly like one of Dollond's best reflecting 
 telescopes. I could lay out a great deal of money, if I 
 had it to spare, in books of botany and natural his- 
 tory. Nay, I assure you I should by no means be 
 indifferent to the fine fruit exposed at the fruit-shops ; 
 the plums with the blue upon them as if they were 
 just taken from the tree, the luscious hot-house grapes, 
 and the melons and pine-apples. Believe me, I could 
 eat these things with as good a relish as you could. 
 
 Then how can you help buying them, when you 
 have money ; and especially, papa, how can you help 
 thinking about them and wishing for them ? 
 
 London is the best place in the world to cure a 
 person of extravagance, and even of extravagant 
 wishes. I see so many costly things here which I 
 know I could not buy, even if I were to lay out all 
 the money I have in the world, that I never think of 
 buying any thing which I do not really want. Our 
 furniture, you know, is old and plain. Perhaps if 
 there were only a little better furniture to be had, I 
 might be tempted to change it ; but when I see houses 
 where a whole fortune is laid out in decorating a set 
 of apartments, I am content with chairs whose only 
 use is to sit down upon, and tables that were in fashion 
 half a century ago. In short, I have formed the habit 
 of self-government, one of the most useful powers a 
 man can be possessed of. Self-government belongs 
 
ON EXPENSE. 123 
 
 only to civilized man, — a savage has no idea of it. A 
 North-American Indian is temperate when he has no 
 liquor ; but as soon as liquor is within his reach, he 
 invariably drinks till he is first furious and then insen- 
 sible. He possesses no power over himself, and he 
 literally can no more help it than iron can help being 
 drawn by the loadstone. 
 
 But he seldom gets liquor, so he has not a habit of 
 drinking. 
 
 You are right ; he has not the habit of drinking, but 
 he wants the habit of self-control : this can only be 
 gained by being often in the midst of temptations, and 
 resisting them. This is the wholesome discipline of 
 the mind. The first time a man denies himself any 
 thing he likes and which it is in his power to procure, 
 there is a great struggle within him, and uneasy wishes 
 will disturb for some time the tranquillity of his mind. 
 He has gained the victory, but the enemy dies hard. 
 The next time, he does not wish so much, but he still 
 thinks about it. After a while he does not think of it ; 
 he does not even see it. A person of moderate for- 
 tune, like myself, who lives in a gay and splendid me- 
 tropolis, is accustomed to see every day a hundred 
 things which it would be madness to think of 
 buying. 
 
 Yes ; but if you were very rich, papa, — if you were 
 a lord ? 
 
 No man is so rich as to buy every thing his unre- 
 strained fancy might prompt him to desire. Hounds 
 and horses, pictures and statues and buildings, will ex- 
 haust any fortune. There is hardly any one taste so 
 simple or innocent, but what a man might spend his 
 whole estate in it, if he were resolved to gratify it to 
 the utmost. A nobleman may just as easily ruin 
 himself by extravagance as a private man, and indeed 
 many do so. 
 
 But if you were a king ? 
 
124 ON EXPENSE. 
 
 If I were a king, the mischief would be much 
 greater ; for I should ruin not only myself, but my 
 subjects. 
 
 A king could not hurt his subjects, however, with 
 buying toys or things to eat. 
 
 Indeed but he might. What is a diamond but a 
 mere toy? but a large diamond is an object of prince- 
 ly expense. That called the Pitt diamond was valued 
 at £ 1,000,000. It was offered to George the Second, 
 but he wisely thought it too dear. The dress of the 
 late queen of France was thought by the prudent 
 Necker a serious object of expense in the revenues 
 of that large kingdom ; and her extravagance and that 
 of the king's brothers had a great share in bringing on 
 the calamities of the kingdom. As to eating, you 
 could gratify yourself with laying out a shilling or two 
 at the pastry-cook's : but Prince Potemkin, who had 
 the revenues of the mighty empire of Russia at com- 
 mand, could not please his appetite without a dish of 
 sterlet soup, which cost every time it was made above 
 thirty pounds ; and he would send one of his aides- de- 
 camp an errand from Yassy to Petersburg, a distance 
 of nearly 700 miles, to fetch him a tureen of it. He 
 once bought all the cherries of a tree in a green-house 
 at about half-a-crown apiece. The Roman empire 
 was far richer than the Russian, and in the time of the 
 Emperors was all under the power of one man. Yet 
 when they had such gluttons as Vitellius and Helioga- 
 balus, the revenue of whole provinces was hardly suf- 
 ficient to give them a dinner: they had tongues of 
 nightingales, and such kind of dishes, the value of 
 which was merely in the expense. 
 
 I think the throat of the poor little nightingales 
 might have given them much more pleasure than the 
 tongue. 
 
 True : but the proverb says, The belly has no ears. 
 In modern Rome, Pope Adrian, a frugal Dutchman, 
 
ON EXPENSE. 125 
 
 complained of the expense his predecessor Leo X. 
 was at in peacock sausages. The expenses of Louis 
 XIV. were of a more elegant kind; — he was fond' 
 of fine tapestry, mirrors, gardens, statues, magnificent 
 palaces. These tastes were becoming in a great king, 
 and would have been serviceable to his kingdom if kept 
 within proper limits : but he could not deny himself 
 any thing, however extravagant, that it came into his 
 mind to wish for ; and indeed would have imagined it 
 beneath him to think at all about the expense : and 
 therefore while he was throwing up water fifty feet high 
 at his palaces of Versailles and Marli, and spouting it 
 out of the mouths of dolphins and tritons, thousands of 
 his people in the distant provinces were wanting bread. 
 
 I am sure I would not have done so to please my 
 fancy. 
 
 Nor he neither perhaps, if he had seen them ; but 
 these poor men and their families were a great way 
 off, and all the people about him looked pleased and 
 happy, and said he was the most generous prince the 
 world had ever seen. 
 
 Well, but if I had Aladdin's lamp I might have every 
 thing I wished for. 
 
 I am glad at least I have driven you to fairyland. 
 You might no doubt with the lamp of Aladdin, or 
 Fortunatus's purse, have every thing you wished for ; 
 but do you know what the consequences would be ? 
 
 Very pleasant, I should think. 
 
 On the contrary, you would become whimsical and 
 capricious, and would soon grow tired of every thing. 
 We do not receive pleasure long from any thing that 
 is not bought with our own labor : this is one of those 
 permanent laws of nature which man cannot change ; 
 and therefore pleasure and exertion will never be separ- 
 ated even in imagination in a well-regulated mind. I 
 could tell you of a couple who received more true en- 
 joyment of their fortune than Aladdin himself. 
 
126 ON EXPENSE. 
 
 Pray do. 
 
 The couple I am thinking of lived about a century 
 ago in one of our rich trading towns, which was then 
 just beginning to rise by manufacturing tapes and inkle. 
 They had married because they loved one another ; 
 they had very little to begin with, but they were not 
 afraid, because they were industrious. When the hus- 
 band had come to be the richest merchant in the place, 
 he took great pleasure in talking over his small begin- 
 nings ; but he used always to add, that poor as he was 
 when he married, he would not have taken a thousand 
 pounds for the table his dame and he ate their dinner 
 from. 
 
 What ! had he so costly a table before he was grown 
 rich? 
 
 On the contrary, he had no table at all ; and his 
 wife and he used to sit close together, and place their 
 dish of pottage upon their knees ; — their knees were 
 the table. They soon got forward in the world, as in- 
 dustrious people generally do, and were enabled to 
 purchase one thing after another : first perhaps a deal 
 table ; after a while a mahogany one ; then a sump- 
 tuous sideboard. At first they sat on wooden benches ; 
 then they had two or three rush-bottom chairs ; and 
 when they were rich enough to have an arm-chair for 
 the husband, and another for a friend, to smoke their 
 pipes in, how magnificent they would think themselves ! 
 At first they would treat a neighbor with a slice of bread 
 and cheese and a draught of beer ; by degrees, with a 
 good joint and a pudding ; and at length, with all the 
 delicacies of a fashionable entertainment : and all along 
 they would be able to say, " The blessing of God upon 
 our own industry has procured us these things." By 
 this means they would relish every gradation and in- 
 crease of their enjoyments : whereas the man born to 
 a fortune swallows his pleasures whole, he does not taste 
 them. Another inconvenience that attends the man 
 
THE WASP AND BEE. 127 
 
 who is born rich, is, that he has not early learned to 
 deny himself. If I were a nobleman, though I could 
 not buy every thing I might fancy for myself, yet play- 
 things for you would not easily ruin me, and you would 
 probably have a great deal of pocket-money ; and you 
 would grow up with a confirmed habit of expense, and 
 no ingenuity; for you would never try to make any 
 thing, or find out some substitute if you could not get 
 just the thing you wanted. That is a very fine cabinet 
 of shells which the young heiress showed you the other 
 day : it is perfectly arranged and mounted with the 
 utmost elegance, and yet I am sure she has not half 
 the pleasure in it, which you have had with those little 
 drawers of shells of your own collecting, aided by the 
 occasional contributions of friends, which you have 
 arranged for yourself and display with such triumph. 
 And now, to show you that I do sometimes think of the 
 pleasures of my dear girl, here is a plaything for you 
 which I bought while you were chatting at the door of 
 a shop with one of your young friends. 
 
 A magic-lantern ! — how delightful ! Oh, thank you, 
 papa ! Edward, come and look at my charming magic- 
 lantern. 
 
 THE WASP AND BEE. 
 
 A FABLE. 
 
 A Wasp met a Bee, and said to him, Pray, can you 
 tell me what is the reason that men are so ill-natured to 
 me, while they are so fond of you ? We are both very 
 much alike, only that the broad golden rings about my 
 body make me much handsomer than you are : we are 
 both winged insects, we both love honey, and we both 
 sting people when we are angry ; yet men always hate me 
 and try to kill me, though I am much more familiar with 
 
128 THE YOUNG MOUSE. 
 
 them than you are, and pay them visits in their houses, 
 and at their tea-table, and at all their meals ; while you 
 are very shy, and hardly ever come near them : yet 
 they build you curious houses, thatched with straw, 
 and take care of and feed you in the winter very 
 often : — I wonder what is the reason. 
 
 The Bee said, Because you never do them any good, 
 but, on the contrary, are very troublesome and mis- 
 chievous ; therefore they do not like to see you ; but 
 they know that I am busy all day long in making them 
 honey. You had better pay them fewer visits, and try 
 to be useful. 
 
 THE YOUNG MOUSE. 
 
 A FABLE. 
 
 A Young Mouse lived in a cupboard where sweet- 
 meats were kept : she dined every day upon biscuit, 
 marmalade, or fine sugar. Never had any little Mouse 
 lived so well. She had often ventured to peep at the 
 family while they sat at supper ; nay, she had some- 
 times stole down on the carpet, and picked up the 
 crumbs, and nobody had ever hurt her. She would have 
 been quite happy, but that she was sometimes fright- 
 ened by the cat, and then she ran trembling to her hole 
 behind the wainscot. One day she came running to 
 her mother in great joy ! Mother ! said she, the good 
 people of this family have built me a house to live in ; 
 it is in the cupboard : I am sure it is for me, for it is 
 just big enough : the bottom is of wood, and it is cov- 
 ered all over with wires ; and I dare say they have 
 made it on purpose to screen me from that terrible cat, 
 which ran after me so often : there is an entrance just 
 
ALFRED. 1 29 
 
 big enough for me, but puss cannot follow : and they 
 have been so good as to put in some toasted cheese, 
 which smells so deliciously, that I should have run in 
 directly and taken possession of my new house, but I 
 thought I would tell you first, that we might go in to- 
 gether and both lodge there to-night, for it will hold us 
 both. 
 
 My dear child, said the old Mouse, it is most happy 
 you did not go in, for this house is called a trap, and 
 you would never have come out again, except to have 
 been devoured, or put to death in some way or other. 
 Though man has not so fierce a look as a cat, he is as 
 much our enemy, and has still more cunning. 
 
 ALFRED. 
 
 A DRAMA. 
 Persons of the Drama. 
 
 Alfred, King of England. 
 
 Gubba, a Farmer. 
 
 Gandelin, his Wife. 
 
 Ella, an Officer of Alfred. 
 
 Scene, the Isle of Athelney. 
 
 Alf. — How retired and quiet is every thing in this 
 little spot ! The river winds its silent waters round 
 this retreat ; and the tangled bushes of the thicket 
 fence it in from the attack of an enemy. The bloody 
 Danes have not yet pierced into this wild solitude. I 
 believe I am safe from their pursuit. But I hope I 
 shall find some inhabitants here, otherwise I shall die 
 of hunger. Ha ! here is a narrow path through the 
 wood ; and I think I see the smoke of a cottage rising 
 between the trees. I will bend my steps thither. 
 
 9 
 
130 ALFRED. 
 
 Scene : Before the Cottage. 
 Gubba coming forward. Gandelin within. 
 
 Alf — Good even to you, good man. Are you dis- 
 posed to show hospitality to a poor traveller ? 
 
 Gub. — Why truly, there are so many poor travellers 
 now-a-days, that if we entertain them all, we shall have 
 nothing left for ourselves. However, come along to 
 my wife, and we will see what can be done for you. 
 
 Wife, I am very weary ; I have been chopping wood 
 all day. 
 
 Gan. — You are always ready for your supper, but 
 it is not ready for you, I assure you : the cakes will 
 take an hour to bake, and the sun is yet high ; it has 
 not yet dipped behind the old barn. But who have 
 you with you, I trow ? 
 
 Alf — Good mother, I am a stranger ; and entreat 
 you to afford me food and shelter. 
 
 Gan. — Good mother, quotha ! Good wife, if you 
 please, and welcome. But I do not love strangers ; 
 and the land has no reason to love them. It has never 
 been a merry day for Old England since strangers 
 came into it. 
 
 Alf. — I am not a stranger in England, though I am 
 a stranger here. I am a true born Englishman. 
 
 Gub. — And do you hate those wicked Danes, that 
 eat us up, and burn our houses, and drive away our 
 cattle ? 
 
 Alf. — I do hate them. 
 
 Gan. — Heartily ? He does not speak heartily, hus- 
 band. 
 
 Alf. — Heartily I hate them ; most heartily. 
 
 Gub. — Give me thy hand then ; thou art an honest 
 fellow. 
 
 Alf. — I was with King Alfred in the last battle he 
 fought. 
 
ALFRED. 131 
 
 Gan. — With King Alfred? heaven bless him. 
 
 Gub. — What is become of our good king ? 
 
 Alf. — Did you love him, then? 
 
 Gub. — Yes, as much as a poor man may love a 
 king ; and kneeled down and prayed for him every 
 night, that he might conquer those Danish wolves ; 
 but it was not to be so. 
 
 Alf. — You could not love Alfred better than I did. 
 
 Gub. — But what is become of him ? 
 
 Alf. — He is thought to be dead. 
 
 Gub. — Well, these are sad times ; heaven help us ! 
 Come, you shall be welcome to share the brown loaf 
 with us ; I suppose you are too sharp-set to be nice. 
 
 Gan. — Ay, come with us ; you shall be as welcome 
 as a prince ! But hark ye, husband ; though I am 
 very willing to be charitable to this stranger (it would 
 be a sin to be otherwise), yet there is no reason he 
 should not do something to maintain himself : he looks 
 strong and capable. 
 
 Gub. — Why, that 's true. What can you do, 
 friend ? 
 
 Alf. — I am very willing to help you in any thing 
 you choose to set me about. It will please me best to 
 earn my bread before I eat it. 
 
 Gub. — Let me see. Can you tie up fagots neatly ? 
 
 Alf. — I have not been used to it. I am afraid I 
 should be awkward. 
 
 Gub. — Can you thatch? There is apiece blown 
 off the cow-house. 
 
 Alf. — Alas, I cannot thatch. 
 
 Gan. — Ask him if he can weave rushes : we want 
 some new baskets. 
 
 Alf. — I have never learned. 
 
 Gub. — Can you stack hay? 
 
 Alf. — No. 
 
 Gub. — Why, here 's a fellow ! and yet he hath as 
 many pair of hands as his neighbors. Dame, can you 
 
132 ALFRED. 
 
 employ him in the house ? He might lay wood on the 
 fire, and rub the tables. 
 
 Gem. — Let him watch these cakes, then : I must 
 go and milk the kine. 
 
 Gub. — And I '11 go and stack the wood, since sup- 
 per is not ready. 
 
 Gan. — But pray observe, friend ! do not let the 
 cakes burn : turn them often on the hearth. 
 
 Alf. — I shall observe your directions. 
 
 Alfred alone. 
 
 Alf. — For myself, I could bear it ; but England, 
 my bleeding country, for thee my heart is wrung with 
 bitter anguish ! From the Humber to the Thames the 
 rivers are stained with blood ! My brave soldiers cut 
 to pieces ! My poor people — some massacred, oth- 
 ers driven from their warm homes, stripped, abused, 
 insulted : — and I, whom heaven appointed their shep- 
 herd, unable to rescue my defenceless flock from the 
 ravenous jaws of these devourers ! Gracious heaven ! 
 if I am not worthy to save this land from the Danish 
 sword, raise up some other hero to fight with more 
 success than I have done, and let me spend my life in 
 this obscure cottage, in these servile offices : I shall be 
 content, if England is happy. 
 
 Oh, here come my blunt host and hostess. 
 
 Enter Gubba and Gandelin.. 
 
 Gan. — Help me down with the pail, husband. This 
 new milk, with the cakes, will make an excellent sup- 
 per : but, mercy on us, how they are burnt ! black as 
 my shoe ; they have not once been turned : you oaf, 
 you lubbard, you lazy loon — 
 
 Alf. — Indeed, dame, I am sorry for it ; but my 
 mind was full of sad thoughts. 
 
ALFRED. 133 
 
 Gub. — Come, wife, you must forgive him ; perhaps 
 he is in love. I remember when I was in love with 
 thee — 
 
 Gan. — You remember? 
 
 Gub. — Yes, dame, I do remember it, though it was 
 many a long year since ; my mother was making a ket- 
 tle of furmenty — 
 
 Gan. — Prithee, hold thy tongue, and let us eat 
 our suppers. 
 
 Alf. — How refreshing is this sweet new milk, and 
 this wholesome bread ! 
 
 Gub. — Eat heartily, friend. Where shall we lodge 
 him, Gandelin? 
 
 Gan. — We have but one bed, you know ; but there 
 is fresh straw in the barn. 
 
 Alf. {aside) — If I shall not lodge like a king, at 
 least I shall lodge like a soldier. Alas, how many of 
 my poor soldiers are stretched on the bare ground ! 
 
 Gan. — What noise do I hear? It is the trampling 
 of horses. Good husband, go and see what is the 
 matter. 
 
 Alf. — Heaven forbid my misfortunes should bring 
 destruction on this simple family. I had rather have 
 perished in the wood. 
 
 Gubba returns followed by Ella with his sword 
 drawn. 
 
 Gan. — Mercy defend us, a sword ! 
 
 Gub. — The Danes ! the Danes ! O do not kill us ! 
 
 Ella, (kneeling) — My liege, my lord, my sove- 
 reign ; have I found you ! 
 
 Alf. {embracing him) — My brave Ella ! 
 
 Ella. — I bring you good news, my sovereign ! Your 
 troops that were shut up in Kinwith Castle made a des- 
 perate sally — the Danes were slaughtered. The fierce 
 Hubba lies gasping on the plain. 
 
134 ALFRED. 
 
 Alf. — Is it possible ! Am I yet a king ? 
 
 Ella. — Their famous standard, the Danish raven, is 
 taken ; their troops are panic struck ; the English sol- 
 diers call aloud for Alfred. Here is a letter which will 
 inform you of more particulars. ( Gives a letter.) 
 
 Gub. {aside) — What will become of us ! Ah, 
 dame, that tongue of thine has undone us ! 
 
 Gan. — Oh, my poor, dear husband ! we shall all be 
 hanged, that 's certain. But who could have thought 
 it was the king? 
 
 Gub. — Why, Gandelin, do you see, we might have 
 guessed he was born to be a king, or some such great 
 man, because, you know, he was fit for nothing else. 
 
 Alf. (coming forward) — God be praised for these 
 tidings ! Hope is sprung up out of the depths of de- 
 spair. Oh, my friend ! shall I again shine in arms — 
 again fight at the head of my brave Englishmen — 
 lead them on to victory ! Our friends shall now lift 
 their heads again. 
 
 Ella. — Yes, you have many friends, who have long 
 been obliged, like their master, to skulk in deserts and 
 caves, and wander from cottage to cottage. When they 
 hear you are alive, and in arms again, they will leave 
 their fastnesses, and flock to your standard. 
 
 Alf. — I am impatient to meet them : my people 
 shall be revenged. 
 
 Gub. and Gan. {throwing themselves at the feet of 
 Alfred) — Oh, my lord 
 
 Gan. — We hope your majesty will put us to a mer- 
 ciful death. Indeed, we did not know your majesty's 
 grace. 
 
 Gub. — If your majesty could but pardon my wife's 
 tongue ; she means no harm, poor woman ! 
 
 Alf. — Pardon you, good people ! I not only pardon 
 you, but thank you. You have afforded me protection 
 in my distress ; and if ever I am seated again on the 
 throne of England, my first care shall be to reward 
 
CANUTE'S REPROOF. 135 
 
 your hospitality. I am now going to protect you. 
 Come, my faithful Ella, to arms ! to arms ! My bosom 
 burns to face once more the haughty Dane ; and here 
 I vow to heaven, that I will never sheathe the sword 
 against these robbers, till either I lose my life in this 
 just cause, or 
 
 Till dove-like Peace return to England's shore, 
 And war and slaughter vex the land no more. 
 
 CANUTE'S REPROOF TO HIS 
 COURTIERS. 
 
 Persons. 
 
 Canute King of England. 
 
 Oswald, Offa . . . Courtiers. 
 
 Scene, the Sea-Side, near Southampton — the tide 
 coming in. 
 
 Can. — Is it true, my friends, what you have so 
 often told me, that I am the greatest of monarchs ? 
 
 Offa. — It is true, my liege ; you are the most pow- 
 erful of all kings. 
 
 Osw. — We are all your slaves : we kiss the dust of 
 your feet. 
 
 Offa. — Not only we, but even the elements, are 
 your slaves. The land obeys you from shore to shore ; 
 and the sea obeys you. 
 
 Can. — Does the sea, with its loud boisterous waves, 
 obey me? Will that terrible element be still at my 
 bidding? 
 
 Offa. — Yes, the sea is yours ; it was made to bear 
 your ships upon its bosom, and to pour the treasures 
 of the world at your royal feet. It is boisterous to your 
 enemies, but it knows you to be its sovereign. 
 
136 CANUTE'S REPROOF. 
 
 Can. — Is not the tide coming up ? 
 
 Osw. — Yes, my liege ; you may perceive the swell 
 already. 
 
 Can. — Bring me a chair then ; set it here upon the 
 sands. 
 
 Offa. — Where the tide is coming up, my gracious 
 lord? 
 
 Can. — Yes, set it just here. 
 
 Osw. {aside) — I wonder what he is going to do. 
 
 Offa. {aside) — Surely he is not such a fool as to 
 believe us. 
 
 Can. — O mighty Ocean ! thou art my subject ; my 
 courtiers tell me so ; and it is thy bounden duty to 
 obey me. Thus, then, I stretch my sceptre over thee, 
 and command thee to retire. Roll back thy swelling 
 waves, nor let them presume to wet the feet of me, thy 
 royal master. 
 
 Osw. {aside) — I believe the sea will pay very little 
 regard to his royal commands. 
 
 Offa. — See how fast the tide rises ! 
 
 Osw. — The next wave will come up to the chair. It 
 is a folly to stay ; we shall be covered with salt water. 
 
 Can. — Well, does the sea obey my commands ? If 
 it be my subject, it is a very rebellious subject. See 
 how it swells, and dashes the angry foam and salt 
 spray over my sacred person. Vile sycophants ! did 
 you think I was the dupe of your base lies? that I 
 believed your abject flatteries? Know, there is only 
 one Being whom the sea will obey. He is Sovereign 
 of heaven and earth, King of kings, and Lord of lords. 
 It is only he who can say to the ocean, " Thus far shalt 
 thou go, but no farther, and here shall thy proud waves 
 be stayed." A king is but a man ; and a man is but a 
 worm. Shall a worm assume the power of the great 
 God, and think the elements will obey him? Take 
 away this crown, I will never wear it more. May kings 
 learn to be humble from my example, and courtiers 
 learn truth from your disgrace ! 
 
THE MASQUE OF NATURE. 
 
 Who is this beautiful virgin that approaches, clothed 
 in a robe of light green ? She has a garland of flowers 
 on her head, and flowers spring up wherever she sets 
 her foot. The snow which covered the fields, and the 
 ice which was in the rivers, melt away when she breathes 
 upon them. The young lambs frisk about her, and the 
 birds warble in their little throats to welcome her 
 coming ; and when they see her, they begin to choose 
 their mates, and to build their nests. Youths and 
 maidens, have ye seen this beautiful virgin? If ye 
 have, tell me who is she, and what is her name. 
 
 Who is this that cometh from the south, thinly clad 
 in a light transparent garment ? Her breath is hot and 
 sultry ; she seeks the refreshment of the cool shade ; 
 she seeks the clear streams, the crystal brooks, to 
 bathe her languid limbs. The brooks and rivulets 
 fly from her, and are dried up at her approach. She 
 cools her parched lips with berries, and the grateful 
 acid of all fruits ; the seedy melon, the sharp apple, and 
 the red pulp of the juicy cherry, which are poured 
 out plentifully around her. The tanned haymakers 
 welcome her coming ; and the sheep-shearer, who clips 
 the fleeces off his flock with his sounding shears. When 
 she cometh, let me lie under the thick shade of a 
 spreading beech tree ; let me walk with her in the 
 early morning, when the dew is yet upon the grass ; 
 
138 THE MASQUE OF NATURE. 
 
 let me wander with her in the soft twilight, when the 
 shepherd shuts his fold, and the star of evening ap- 
 pears. Who is she that cometh from the south? 
 Youths and maidens, tell me, if you know, who is 
 she, and what is her name. 
 
 Who is he that cometh with sober pace, stealing 
 upon us unawares ? His garments are red with the 
 blood of the grape, and his temples are bound with 
 a sheaf of ripe wheat. His hair is thin and begins to 
 fall, and the auburn is mixed with mournful gray. He 
 shakes the brown nuts from the tree. He winds the 
 horn, and calls the hunters to their sport. The gun 
 sounds. The trembling partridge and the beautiful 
 pheasant nutter bleeding in the air, and fall dead at 
 the sportsman's feet. Who is he that is crowned with 
 the wheat- sheaft Youths and maidens, tell me, if 
 ye know, who is he and what is his name. 
 
 Who is he that cometh from the north, clothed in 
 furs and warm wool? He wraps his cloak close 
 about him. His head is bald : his beard is made of 
 sharp icicles. He loves the blazing fire high piled 
 upon the hearth, and the wine sparkling in the glass. 
 He binds skates to his feet, and skims over the frozen 
 lakes. His breath is piercing and cold, and no little 
 flower dares to peep above the surface of the ground 
 when he is by. Whatever he touches turns to ice. 
 
 If he were to stroke you with his cold hand, you 
 would be quite stiff and dead like a piece of marble. 
 Youths and maidens, do you see him ? He is coming 
 fast upon us, and soon he will be here. Tell me, if 
 you know, who he is, and what is his name. 
 
THINGS BY THEIR RIGHT NAMES. 
 
 Charles. — Papa, you grow very lazy. Last winter 
 you used to tell us stories, and now you never tell us 
 any; and we are all got round the fire quite ready 
 to hear you. Pray, dear papa, let us have a very 
 pretty one. 
 
 Father. — With all my heart ; what shall it be ? 
 
 C. — A bloody murder, papa ! 
 
 F. — A bloody murder ! Well then, — Once upon a 
 time, some men, dressed all alike — 
 
 C. — With black crapes over their faces ? 
 
 F. — No ; they had steel caps on : — having crossed 
 a dark heath, wound cautiously along the skirts of a 
 deep forest — 
 
 C. — They were ill-looking fellows, I dare say. 
 
 F. — I cannot say so ; on the contrary, they were 
 tall, personable men as most one shall see : — leaving 
 on their right hand an old ruined tower on the hill — 
 
 C. — At midnight, just as the clock struck twelve ; 
 was it not, papa? 
 
 F. — No, really; it was on a fine balmy sum- 
 mer's morning : — and moved forwards, one behind 
 another — 
 
 C. — As still as death, creeping along under the 
 hedges. 
 
 F. — On the contrary, they walked remarkably up- 
 right ; and so far from endeavoring to be hushed and 
 still, they made a loud noise as they came along, with 
 several sorts of instruments. 
 
14° THE GOOSE AND HORSE. 
 
 C. — But, papa, they would be found out imme- 
 diately. 
 
 F — They did not seem to wish to conceal them- 
 selves : on the contrary, they gloried in what they 
 were about. They moved forwards, I say, to a large 
 plain, where stood a neat pretty village, which they 
 set on fire — 
 
 C. — Set a village on fire ? wicked wretches ! 
 
 F. — And while it was burning, they murdered — 
 twenty thousand men. 
 
 C. — Oh fie, papa ! You don't intend I should be- 
 lieve this ; I thought all along you were making up a 
 tale, as you often do ; but you shall not catch me this 
 time. What ! they lay still, I suppose, and let these 
 fellows cut their throats ! 
 
 F. — No, truly ; they resisted as long as they could. 
 
 C. — How should these men kill twenty thousand 
 people, pray? 
 
 F — Why not? the murderers were thirty thousand. 
 
 C. — O, now I have found you out ! You mean a 
 Battle. 
 
 F — Indeed I do. I do not know of any murders 
 half so bloody. 
 
 THE GOOSE AND HORSE. 
 
 A FABLE. 
 
 A Goose, who was plucking grass upon a common, 
 thought herself affronted by a Horse who fed near 
 her, and in hissing accents thus addressed him : " I 
 am certainly a more noble and perfect animal than 
 you ; for the whole range and extent of your faculties 
 are confined to one element. I can walk upon the 
 ground as well as you; I have besides wings, with 
 
ON MANUFACTURES. 141 
 
 which I can raise myself in the air; and when I 
 please, I can sport in ponds and lakes, and refresh 
 myself in the cool waters; I enjoy the different pow- 
 ers of a bird, a fish, and a quadruped." 
 
 The Horse, snorting somewhat disdainfully, replied, 
 " It is true you inhabit three elements, but you make 
 no very distinguished figure in any one of them. You 
 fly indeed; but your flight is so heavy and clumsy, 
 that you have no right to put yourself on a level with 
 the lark or the swallow. You can swim on the sur- 
 face of the waters, but you cannot live in them as 
 fishes do ; you cannot find your food in that element, 
 nor glide smoothly along the bottom of the waves. 
 And when you walk, or rather waddle, upon the 
 ground, with your broad feet and your long neck 
 stretched out, hissing at every one who passes by, you 
 bring upon yourself the derision of all beholders. I 
 confess that I am only formed to move upon the 
 ground ; but how graceful is my make ! how well 
 turned my limbs ! how highly finished my whole body ! 
 how great my strength 1 how astonishing my speed ! 
 I had rather be confined to one element, and be ad- 
 mired in that, than be a Goose in all." 
 
 ON MANUFACTURES. 
 
 Father — Henry. 
 
 Hen. — My dear father, you observed the other day 
 that we had a great many manufactures in England. 
 Pray, what is a manufacture ? 
 
 Fa. — A manufacture is something made by the 
 hand of man. It is derived from two Latin words, 
 manus, the hand, and facer e, to make. Manufactures 
 
142 ON MANUFACTURES. 
 
 are therefore opposed to productions, which latter are 
 what the bounty of nature spontaneously affords us ; 
 as fruits, corn, marble. 
 
 Hen. — But there is a great deal of trouble with 
 corn ; you have often made me take notice how 
 much pains it costs the farmer to plough his ground, 
 "and put the seed in the earth, and keep it clear from 
 weeds. 
 
 Fa. — Very true ; but the farmer does not make the 
 corn ; he only prepares for it a proper soil and situa- 
 tion, and removes every hindrance arising from the 
 hardness of the ground, or the neighborhood of other 
 plants, which might obstruct the secret and wonderful 
 process of vegetation ; but with the vegetation itself he 
 has nothing to do. It is not his hand that draws out 
 the slender fibres of the root, pushes up the green stalk, 
 and by degrees the spiky ear; swells the grain, and 
 embrowns it with that rich tinge of tawny russet, which 
 informs the husbandman it is time to put in his sickle : 
 all this operation is performed without his care or even 
 knowledge. 
 
 Hen. — Now then I understand ; corn is a produc- 
 tion, and bread a manufacture. 
 
 Fa. — Bread is certainly, in strictness of speech, a 
 manufacture ; but we do not in general apply the term 
 to any thing in which the original material is so little 
 changed. If we wanted to speak of bread philosophi- 
 cally, we should say, it is a preparation of corn. 
 
 Hen. — Is sugar a manufacture. 
 
 Fa. — No, for the same reason. Besides which, I 
 do not recollect the term being applied to any article 
 of food, — I suppose from an idea that food is of too 
 perishable a nature, and generally obtained by a pro- 
 cess too simple to deserve the name. We say, there- 
 fore, sugar-works, oil-mills, chocolate-works ; we do 
 not say a beer-manufactory, but a brewery ; but this is 
 only a nicety of language, for properly all those are 
 
ON MANUFACTURES. 143 
 
 manufactories, if there is much of art and curiosity in 
 the process. 
 
 Hen. — Do we say a manufactory of pictures ? 
 
 Fa. — No ; but for a different reason. A picture, 
 especially if it belong to any of the higher kinds of 
 painting, is an effort of genius. A picture cannot be 
 produced by any given combinations of canvas and 
 color. It is the hand, indeed, that executes, but the 
 head that works. Sir Joshua Reynolds could not have 
 gone, when he was engaged to paint a picture, and 
 hired workmen, the one to draw the eyes, another the 
 nose, a third the mouth ; the whole must be the paint- 
 er's own, that particular painter's, and no other ; and 
 no one who has not his ideas can do his work. His 
 work is therefore nobler, of a higher species. 
 
 Hen. — Pray give me an instance of a manufacture. 
 
 Fa. — The making of watches is a manufacture : the 
 silver, iron, gold, or whatever else is used in it, are pro- 
 ductions, the material of the work ; but it is by the 
 wonderful art of man that they are wrought into the 
 numberless wheels and springs of which this compli- 
 cated machine is composed. 
 
 Hen. — Then is there not so much art in making a 
 watch as a picture ? Does not the head work ? 
 
 Fa. — Certainly, in the original invention of watches, 
 as much or more, than in painting; but when once 
 invented, the art of watchmaking is capable of being 
 reduced to a mere mechanical labor, which may be 
 exercised by any man of common capacity, according 
 to certain precise rules, when made familiar to him by 
 practice. This, painting is not. 
 
 Hen. — But, my dear father, making of books surely 
 requires a great deal of thinking and study ; and yet 
 I remember the other day at dinner a gentleman said 
 that Mr. Pica had manufactured a large volume in less 
 than a fortnight. 
 
 Fa. — It was meant to convey a satirical remark on 
 
144 ON MANUFACTURES. 
 
 his book, because it was compiled from other authors, 
 from whom he had taken a page in one place, and a 
 page in another : so that it was not produced by the 
 labor of his brain, but of his hands. Thus you heard 
 your mother complain that the London cream was 
 manufactured; which was a pointed and concise way 
 of saying that the cream was not what it ought to be, 
 nor what it pretended to be ; for cream, when genuine, 
 is a pure production ; but when mixed up and adulter- 
 ated with flour and isinglass, and I know not what, it 
 becomes a manufacture. It was as much as to say, 
 art has been here, where it has no business ; where it 
 is not beneficial, but hurtful. A great deal of the deli- 
 cacy of language depends upon an accurate knowledge 
 of the specific meaning of single terms, and a nice 
 attention to their relative propriety. 
 
 Hen. — Have all nations manufactures ? 
 
 Fa. — All that are in any degree cultivated ; but it 
 very often happens that countries naturally the poorest 
 have manufactures of the greatest extent and variety. 
 
 Hen. — Why so ? 
 
 Fa. — For the same reason, I apprehend, that indi- 
 viduals, who are rich without any labor of their own, 
 are seldom so industrious and active as those who 
 depend upon their own exertions : thus the Spaniards, 
 who possess the richest gold and silver mines in the 
 world, are in want of many conveniences of life, which 
 are enjoyed in London and Amsterdam. 
 
 Hen. — I can comprehend that ; I believe if my 
 uncle Ledger were to find a gold mine under his ware- 
 house, he would soon shut up shop. 
 
 Fa. — I believe so. It is not, however, easy to estab- 
 lish manufactures in a very poor nation ; they require 
 science and genius for their invention ; art and contri- 
 vance for their execution ; order, peace, and union, 
 for their flourishing ; they require a number of men to 
 combine together in an undertaking, and to prosecute 
 
ON MANUFACTURES. 145 
 
 it with the most patient industry ; they require, there- 
 fore, laws and government for their protection. If you 
 see extensive manufactures in any nation, you may be 
 sure it is a civilized nation ; you may be sure property 
 is accurately ascertained, and protected. They require 
 great expenses for their first establishment, costly ma- 
 chines for shortening manual labor, and money and 
 credit for purchasing materials from distant countries. 
 There is not a single manufacture of Great Britain 
 which does not require, in some part or other of its 
 process, productions from the different parts of the 
 globe ; oils, drugs, varnish, quicksilver, and the like ; 
 it requires therefore, ships and a friendly intercourse 
 with foreign nations to transport commodities, and 
 exchange productions. We could not be a manu- 
 facturing, unless we were also a commercial nation. 
 They require time to take root in any place, and their 
 excellence often depends upon some nice and delicate 
 circumstance ; a peculiar quality, for instance, in the 
 air or water, or some other local circumstance not 
 easily ascertained. Thus, I have heard, that the Irish 
 women spin better than the English, because the 
 moister temperature of their climate makes their skin 
 more soft and their fingers more flexible : thus, again, 
 we cannot dye so beautiful a scarlet as the French can, 
 though with the same drugs, perhaps on account of the 
 superior purity of their air. But though so much is 
 necessary for the perfection of the more curious and 
 complicated manufactures, all nations possess those 
 which are subservient to the common conveniences of 
 life ; the loom and the forge, particularly, are of the 
 highest antiquity. 
 
 Hen. — Yes, I remember Hector bids Andromache 
 return to her apartment, and employ herself in weaving 
 with her maids ; and I remember the shield of Achilles. 
 
 Fa. — True; and you likewise remember, in an 
 earlier period, the fine linen of Egypt ; and, to go 
 10 
 
146 ON MANUFACTURES. 
 
 still higher, the working in brass and iron is recorded 
 of Tubal Cain before the flood. 
 
 Hen. — Which is the most important, manufactures 
 or agriculture ? 
 
 Fa. — Agriculture is the most necessary, because it is 
 first of all necessary that man should live ; but almost 
 all the enjoyments and comforts of life are produced 
 by manufactures. 
 
 Hen. — Why are we obliged to take so much pains 
 to make ourselves comfortable? 
 
 Fa. — To exercise our industry. Nature provides 
 the materials for man. She pours out at his feet a 
 profusion of gems, metals, dyes, plants, ores, barks, 
 stones, gums, wax, marbles, woods, roots, skins, earths, 
 and minerals of all kinds ! She has likewise given him 
 tools. 
 
 Hen. — I did not know that Nature gave us tools. 
 
 Fa. — No ! what are those two instruments you car- 
 ry always about with you, so strong and yet so flexible, 
 so nicely jointed, and branched out into five long, taper, 
 unequal divisions, any of which may be contracted or 
 stretched out at pleasure : the extremities of which 
 have a feeling so wonderfully delicate, and which are 
 strengthened and defended by horn? 
 
 He?i. — The hands. 
 
 Fa. — Yes. Man is as much superior to the brutes 
 in his outward form, by means of the hand, as he is in 
 his mind by the gift of reason. The trunk of the ele- 
 phant comes perhaps the nearest to it in^ts exquisite 
 feeling and flexibility (it is, indeed, called his hand in 
 Latin), and accordingly that animal has always been 
 reckoned the wisest of brutes. When Nature gave man 
 the hand, she said to him, " Exercise your ingenuity, 
 and work." As soon as ever man rises above the state 
 of a savage, he begins to contrive and to make things, 
 in order to improve his forlorn condition ; thus you 
 may remember Thomson represents Industry coming 
 
ON MANUFACTURES. 147 
 
 to the poor shivering wretch, and teaching him the arts 
 of life. 
 
 " Taught him to chip the wood, and hew the stone, 
 Till by degrees the finish'd fabric rose : 
 Tore from his limbs the blood-polluted fur, 
 And wrapt them in the woolly vestment warm, 
 Or bright in glossy silk and flowing lawn." 
 
 Hen. — It must require a great deal of knowledge, 
 I suppose, for so many curious works; what kind of 
 knowledge is most necessary ! 
 
 Fa. — There is not any which may not be occasion- 
 ally employed ; but the two sciences which most assist 
 the manufacturer are mechanics and chemistry. The 
 one for building mills, working of mines, and in gen- 
 eral for constructing wheels, wedges, pulleys, &c. either 
 to shorten the labor of man, by performing it in less 
 time, or to perform what the strength of man alone 
 could not accomplish : — the other in fusing and work- 
 ing ores, in dyeing and bleaching, and extracting the 
 virtues of various substances for particular uses : mak- 
 ing of soap, for instance, is a chemical operation ; and 
 by chemistry an ingenious gentleman has lately found 
 out a way of bleaching a piece of cloth in eight and 
 forty hours, which by the common process would have 
 taken up a great many weeks. You have heard of Sir 
 Richard Arkwright who died lately — 
 
 Hen. — Yes, I have heard he was at first only a bar- 
 ber, and shaved people for a penny apiece. 
 
 Fa. — He did so ; but having a strong turn for 
 mechanics, he invented, or at least perfected, a ma- 
 chine, by which one pair of hands may do the work of 
 twenty or thirty ; and, as in this country every one is 
 free to rise by merit, he acquired the largest fortune in 
 the county, had a great many hundreds of workmen 
 under his orders, and had leave given him by the king 
 to put Sir before his name. 
 
 Hen. — Did that do him any good ? 
 
148 ON MANUFACTURES. 
 
 Fa. — It pleased him, I suppose, or he would not 
 have accepted of it ; and you will allow, I imagine, 
 that if titles are used, it does honor to those who 
 bestow them, that they are given to such as have made 
 themselves noticed for something useful. — Arkwright 
 used to say, that if he had time to perfect his inven- 
 tions, he would put a fleece of wool into a box, and it 
 should come out broadcloth. 
 
 Hen. — What did he mean by that ; was there any 
 fairy in the box to turn it into broadcloth with her 
 wand ? 
 
 Fa. — He was assisted by the only fairies that ever 
 had the power of transformation, — Art and Industry : 
 he meant that he would contrive so many machines, 
 wheel within wheel, that the combing, carding, and 
 other various operations, should be performed by mech- 
 anism, almost without the hand of man. 
 
 Hen. — I think, if I had not been told, I should 
 never have been able to guess that my coat came off 
 the back of a sheep. 
 
 Fa. — You hardly would ; but there are manufac- 
 tures in which the material is much more changed than 
 in woollen cloth. What can be meaner in appearance 
 than sand and ashes? Would you imagine that any 
 thing beautiful could be made out of such a mixture ? 
 Yet the furnace transforms this into that transparent 
 crystal we call glass, than which nothing is more spark- 
 ling, more brilliant, more full of lustre. It throws 
 about the rays of light as if it had life and motion. 
 
 Hen. — There is a glass-shop in London, which 
 always puts me in mind of Aladdin's palace. 
 
 Fa. — It is certain that if a person ignorant of the 
 manufacture were to see one of our capital shops, he 
 would think all the treasures of Golconda were centred 
 there, and that every drop of cut glass was worth a 
 prince's ransom. Again, who would suppose, on see- 
 ing the green stalks of a plant, that it could be formed 
 
ON MANUFACTURES. 149 
 
 into a texture so smooth, so snowy-white, so firm, and 
 yet so flexible, as to wrap round the limbs and adapt 
 itself to every movement of the body? Who would 
 guess this fibrous stalk could be made to float in such 
 light undulating folds as in our lawns and cambrics? 
 not less fine, we presume, than that transparent drapery 
 which the Romans called ventus- textilis, woven wind. 
 
 Hen. — I wonder how anybody can spin such fine 
 thread. 
 
 Fa. — Their fingers must have the touch of a spicier, 
 that, as Pope says, 
 
 Feels at each thread, and lives along the line. 
 
 And indeed you recollect that Arachne was a spinster. 
 Lace is a still finer production from flax, and is one of 
 those in which the original material is most improved. 
 How many times the price of a pound of flax do you 
 think that flax will be worth when made into lace ? 
 
 Hen. — A great many times, I suppose. 
 
 Fa. — Flax at the best hand is bought at fourteen 
 pence a pound. They make lace at Valenciennes, in 
 French Flanders, of ten guineas a yard, I believe 
 indeed higher, but we will say ten guineas ; this yard 
 of lace will weigh probably not more than half an 
 ounce : what is the value of half an ounce of flax ? 
 Reckon it. 
 
 Hen. — It comes to one farthing and three quarters 
 of a farthing. 
 
 Fa. — Right ; now tell me how many times the orig- 
 inal value the lace is worth. 
 
 Hen. — Prodigious ! it is worth 5760 times as much 
 as the flax it is made of. 
 
 Fa. — Yet there is another material that is still more 
 improvable than flax. 
 
 Hen. — What can that be ? 
 
 Fa. — Iron. The price of pig-iron is ten shillings a 
 hundred weight ; this is not quite one farthing for two 
 
150 ON MANUFACTURES. 
 
 ounces ; now you have seen some of the beautiful cut 
 steel that looks like diamonds ? 
 
 Hen. — Yes, I have seen buckles, and pins, and 
 watch-chains. 
 
 Fa. — Then you can form an idea of it; but you 
 have seen only the most common sorts. There was 
 a chain made at Woodstock, in Oxfordshire, and sent 
 to France, which weighed only two ounces, and cost 
 1 70/. Calculate how many times that has increased its 
 value. 
 
 Hen. — Amazing ! It was worth 163,600 times the 
 value of the iron it was made of. 
 
 Fa. — That is what manufacturers can do ; here 
 man is a kind of creator, and, like the great Creator, 
 he may please himself with his work, and say it is 
 good. In the last mentioned manufacture, too, that of 
 steel, the English have the honor of excelling all the 
 world. 
 
 Hen. — What are the chief manufactures of Eng- 
 land? 
 
 Fa. — We have at present a greater variety than I 
 can pretend to enumerate, but our staple manufacture 
 is woollen cloth. England abounds in fine pastures 
 and extensive downs, which feed great numbers of 
 sheep ; hence our wool has always been a valuable arti- 
 cle of trade ; but we did not always know how to work 
 it. We used to sell it to the Flemish or Lombards, 
 who wrought it into cloth; till, in the year 1326, 
 Edward the Third invited some Flemish weavers over 
 to teach us the art ; but there was not much made in 
 England till the reign of Henry the Seventh. Man- 
 chester and Birmingham are towns which have arisen 
 to great consequence from small beginnings, almost 
 within the memory of old men now living ; the first for 
 cotton and muslin goods, the second for cutlery and 
 hardware, in which we at this moment excel all Europe. 
 Of late years, too, carpets, beautiful as fine tapestry, 
 
ON MANUFACTURES. 15 1 
 
 have been fabricated in this country. Our clocks and 
 watches are greatly esteemed. The earthen-ware 
 plates and dishes, which we all use in common, and 
 the elegant set for the tea-table, ornamented with 
 musical instruments, which we admired in our visit yes- 
 terday, belong to a very extensive manufactory, the 
 seat of which is at Burslem in Staffordshire. The prin- 
 cipal potteries there belong to one person, an excel- 
 lent chemist, and a man of great taste ; he, in conjunc- 
 tion with another man of taste who is since dead, has 
 made our clay more valuable than the finest porcelain 
 of China. He has moulded it into all the forms of 
 grace and beauty that are to be met with in the 
 precious remains of the Greek and Etruscan artists. 
 In the more common articles he has pencilled it with 
 the most elegant designs, shaped it into shelves and 
 leaves, twisted it into wicker-work, and trailed the 
 ductile foliage round the light basket. He has filled 
 our cabinets and chimney-pieces with urns, lamps, and 
 vases, on which are lightly traced, with the purest sim- 
 plicity, the fine forms and floating draperies of Hercula- 
 neum. In short, he has given to our houses a classic 
 air, and has made every saloon and every dining-room 
 schools of taste. I should add that there is a great 
 demand abroad for this elegant manufacture. The 
 Empress of Russia has had some magnificent services 
 of it ; and the other day one was sent to the King of 
 Spain, intended as a present from him to the Arch- 
 bishop of Toledo, which cost a thousand pounds. 
 Some morning you shall go through the rooms in the 
 London warehouse. 
 
 Hen. — I should like very much to see manufactures, 
 now you have told me such curious things about them. 
 
 Fa. — You will do well ! There is much more 
 entertainment to a cultivated mind in seeing a pin 
 made, than in many a fashionable diversion which 
 young people half ruin themselves to attend. In the 
 
152 THE FLYING FISH. 
 
 mean time I will give you some account of one of the 
 most elegant of them, which is paper. 
 
 Hen. — Pray do, my dear father. 
 
 Fa. — It shall be left for another evening, however, 
 for it is now late. Good night. 
 
 THE FLYING FISH. 
 
 The Flying Fish, says the fable, had originally no 
 wings, but being of an ambitious and discontented 
 temper, she repined at being always confined to the 
 waters, and wished to soar in the air. " If I could 
 fly like the birds," said she, " I should not only see 
 more of the beauties of nature, but I should be able 
 to escape from those fish which are continually pursu- 
 ing me, and which render my life miserable." She 
 therefore petitioned Jupiter for a pair of wings : and 
 immediately she perceived her fins to expand. They 
 suddenly grew to the length of her whole body, and 
 became at the same time so strong as to do the office 
 of a pinion. She was at first much pleased with her 
 new powers, and looked with an air of disdain on all 
 her former companions ; but she soon perceived herself 
 exposed to new dangers. When flying in the air, 
 she was incessantly pursued by the Tropic bird and 
 the Albatross ; and when for safety she dropped into 
 the water, she was so fatigued with her flight, that she 
 was less able than ever to escape from her old ene- 
 mies, the fish. Finding herself more unhappy than 
 before, she now begged of Jupiter to recall his present ; 
 but Jupiter said to her, " When I gave you your wings, 
 I well knew they would prove a curse ; but your 
 proud and restless disposition deserved this disappoint- 
 ment. Now, therefore, what you begged as a favor 
 keep as a punishment." 
 
A LESSON IN THE ART OF 
 DISTINGUISHING. 
 
 F. — Come hither, Charles ; what is that you see graz- 
 ing in the meadow before you ? 
 
 C. — It is a horse. 
 
 F. — Whose horse is it? 
 
 C. — I do not know ; I never saw it before. 
 
 F. — How do you know it is a horse, if you never 
 saw it before ? 
 
 C. — Because it is like other horses. 
 
 F. — Are all horses alike then? 
 
 C — Yes. 
 
 F. — If they are all alike, how do you know one 
 horse from another? 
 
 C. — They are not quite alike. 
 
 F — But they are so much alike that you can easily 
 distinguish a horse from a cow ? 
 
 C. — Yes, indeed. 
 
 F. — Or from a cabbage ? 
 
 C. — A horse from a cabbage ! yes, surely I can. 
 
 F. — Very well ; then let us see if you can tell how 
 a horse differs from a cabbage. 
 
 C. — Very easily ; sl horse is alive. 
 
 F — True ; and how is every thing called which is 
 alive ? 
 
 C. — I believe all things that are alive are called 
 animals. 
 
 F > — Right ; but can you tell me what a horse and a 
 cabbage are alike in? 
 
 C. — Nothing, I believe. 
 
154 THE ART OF DISTINGUISHING. 
 
 F. — Yes, there is one thing in which the slenderest 
 moss that grows upon the wall is like the greatest man 
 or the highest angel. 
 
 C. — Because God made them ? 
 
 F — Yes ; and how do you call every thing that is 
 made? 
 
 C. — A creature. 
 
 F — A horse then is a creature, but a living crea- 
 ture ; that is to say, an animal. 
 
 C. — And a cabbage is a dead creature ; that is the 
 difference. 
 
 F. — Not so, neither ; nothing is dead that has never 
 been alive. 
 
 C. — What must I call it then, if it is neither dead 
 nor alive ? 
 
 F. — An inanimate creature ; there is the animate 
 and inanimate creation. Plants, stones, metals, are of 
 the latter class ; horses belong to the former. 
 
 C. — But the gardener told me some of my cabbages 
 were dead, and some were alive. 
 
 F. — Very true. Plants have a vegetative life, a prin- 
 ciple of growth and decay ; this is common to them 
 with all organized bodies ; but they have not sensation, 
 at least we do not know they have ; they have not life, 
 therefore, in the sense in which animals enjoy it. 
 
 C. — A horse is called an animal, then. 
 
 F. — Yes ; but a salmon is an animal, and so is 
 a sparrow; how will you distinguish a horse from 
 these ? 
 
 C. — A salmon lives in the water, and swims; a 
 sparrow flies, and lives in the air. 
 
 F — I think a salmon could not walk upon the 
 ground, even if it could live out of the water. 
 
 C. — No, indeed ; it has no legs. 
 
 F. — And a bird would not gallop like a horse. 
 
 C. — No ; it would hop away upon its two slender 
 legs. 
 
THE ART OF DISTINGUISHING. 155 
 
 F. — How many legs has a horse ? 
 
 C. — Four. 
 
 F. — ■ And an ox ? 
 
 C. — Four likewise. 
 
 F. — And a camel ? 
 
 C. — Four still. 
 
 F. — Do you know any animals which live upon the 
 earth that have not four legs ? 
 
 C. — I think not; they have all four legs; except 
 worms and insects, and such things. 
 
 F. — You remember, I suppose, what an animal is 
 called that has four legs; you have it in your little 
 books. 
 
 C. — A quadruped. 
 
 F — A horse then is a quadruped: by this we distin- 
 guish him from the birds, fishes, and insects. 
 
 C. — ■ And from men. 
 
 F. — True ; but if you had been talking about birds, 
 you would not have found it so easy to distinguish 
 them. 
 
 C. — How so ! a man is not at all like a bird. 
 
 F — Yet an ancient philosopher could find no way 
 to distinguish them, but by calling man a two-legged 
 animal without feathers. 
 
 C. — I think he was very silly ; they are not at all 
 alike, though they have both two legs. 
 
 F — Another ancient philosopher, called Diogenes, 
 was of your opinion. He stripped a cock of his feath- 
 ers, and turned him into the school where Plato — 
 that was his name — was teaching, and said, Here is 
 Plato's man for you. 
 
 C. — I wish I had been there, I should have laughed 
 very much. 
 
 F. — Probably. Before we laugh at others, however, 
 let us see what we can do ourselves. We have not yet 
 found any thing which will distinguish a horse from an 
 elephant, or from a Norway rat. 
 
156 THE ART OF DISTINGUISHING. 
 
 C. — Oh, that is easy enough. An elephant is very 
 large, and a rat is very small ; a horse is neither large 
 nor small. 
 
 F. — Before we go any further, look, what is settled 
 on the skirt of your coat ? 
 
 C. — It is a butterfly ; what a prodigious large one ! 
 I never saw such a one before. 
 
 F — Is it larger than a rat, think you ? 
 
 C. — No, that it is not. 
 
 F — Yet you called the butterfly large, and you 
 called the rat small. 
 
 C. — It is very large for a butterfly. 
 
 F. — It is so. You see, therefore, that large and 
 small are relative terms. 
 
 C. — I do not well understand that phrase. 
 
 F. — It means that they have no precise and deter- 
 minate signification in themselves, but are applied dif- 
 ferently, according to the other ideas which you join 
 with them, and the different positions in which you 
 view them. This butterfly, therefore, is large, com- 
 pared with those of its own species, and small, com- 
 pared with many other species of animals. Besides, 
 there is no circumstance which varies more than the 
 size of individuals. If you were to give an idea of a 
 horse from its size, you would certainly say it was 
 much bigger than a dog ; yet if you take the smallest 
 Shetland horse, and the largest Irish greyhound, you 
 will find them very much upon a par : size, therefore, is 
 not a circumstance by which you can accurately distin- 
 guish one animal from another ; nor yet his color. 
 
 C. — No ; there are black horses, and bay, and white, 
 and pied. 
 
 F. — But you have not seen that variety of colors in 
 a hare, for instance. 
 
 C. — No, a hare is always brown. 
 
 F — Yet if you were to depend upon that circum- 
 stance, you would not convey the idea of a hare to a 
 
THE ART OF DISTINGUISHING. 157 
 
 mountaineer, or an inhabitant of Siberia ; for he sees 
 them white as snow. We must, therefore, find out 
 some circumstances that do not change like size and 
 color, and, I may add, shape ; though they are not so 
 obvious, nor perhaps so striking. Look at the feet of 
 quadrupeds ; are they all alike ? 
 
 C. — No ; some have long taper claws, and some 
 have thick clumsy feet without claws. 
 
 F. — The thick feet are horny, are they not ? 
 
 C. — Yes, I recollect they are called hoofs. 
 
 F. — And the feet that are not covered with horn, 
 and are divided into claws, are called digitated, from 
 digitus, a finger ; because they are - parted like fingers. 
 Here, then, we have one grand division of quadrupeds 
 into hoofed and digitated. Of which division is the 
 horse ? 
 
 C. — He is hoofed. 
 
 F. — There are a great many different kinds of 
 horses ; did you ever know one that was not hoofed ? 
 
 C. — No, never. 
 
 F. — Do you think we run any hazard of a stranger 
 telling us, Sir, horses are hoofed indeed in your coun- 
 try, but in mine, which is in a different climate, and 
 where we feed them differently, they have claws ? 
 
 C. — No, I dare say not. 
 
 F. — Then we have got something to our purpose ; 
 a circumstance easily marked, which always belongs 
 to the animal, under every variation of situation or 
 treatment. But an ox is hoofed, and so is a sheep ; 
 we must distinguish still farther. You have often 
 stood by, I suppose, while the smith was shoeing a 
 horse. What kind of a hoof has he ? 
 
 C. — It is round and all in one piece. 
 
 F. — And is that of an ox so ? 
 
 C. — No, it is divided. 
 
 F. — A horse, then, is not only hoofed, but whole 
 hoofed. Now how many quadrupeds do you think 
 there are in the world that are whole hoofed ? 
 
158 THE ART OF DISTINGUISHING. 
 
 C. — Indeed I do not know. 
 
 F. — There are, among all animals that we are ac- 
 quainted with, either in this country or in any other, 
 only the horse, the ass, and the zebra, which is a spe- 
 cies of wild ass. Now, therefore, you see we have 
 nearly accomplished our purpose ; we have only to 
 distinguish him from the ass. 
 
 C. — That is easily done, I believe ; I should be 
 sorry if anybody could mistake my little horse for an 
 ass. 
 
 F. — It is not so easy, however, as you imagine ; 
 the eye readily distinguishes them by the air and gen- 
 eral appearance, but naturalists have been rather puz- 
 zled to fix upon any specific difference, which may 
 serve the purpose of a definition. Some have, there- 
 fore, fixed upon the ears, others on the mane and tail. 
 What kind of ears has an ass ? 
 
 C. — O, very long clumsy ears. Asses' ears are 
 always laughed at. 
 
 F. — And the horse ? 
 
 C. — The horse has small ears, nicely turned, and 
 upright. 
 
 F. — And the mane, is there no difference there ? 
 
 C. — The horse has a fine, long, flowing mane ; the 
 ass has hardly any. 
 
 F. — And the tail ; is it not fuller of hair in the 
 horse than in the ass ? 
 
 C. — Yes ; the ass has only a few long hairs at the 
 end of his tail ; but the horse has a long bushy tail, 
 when it is not cut. 
 
 F. — Which, by the way, it is pity it ever should. 
 Now, then, observe what particulars we have got. A 
 horse is an ani7na! of the quadruped kind, whole-hoofed, 
 with short erect ears, a flowing mane, and a tail cov- 
 ered in every part with long hairs. Now is there any 
 other animal, think you, in the world, that answers 
 these particulars ? 
 
THE ART OF DISTINGUISHING. 159 
 
 C. — I do not know ; "this does not tell us a great 
 deal about him. 
 
 F. — And yet it tells us enough to distinguish him 
 from all the different tribes of the creation which we 
 are acquainted with in any part of the earth. Do you 
 know now what we have been making ? 
 
 C — What? 
 
 F — A Definition. It is the business of a defini- 
 tion to distinguish precisely the thing defined from 
 every other thing, and to do it in as few terms as pos- 
 sible. Its object is to separate the subject of defini- 
 tion, first, from those with which it has only a general 
 resemblance ; then, from those which agree with it 
 in a greater variety of particulars ; and so on, till by 
 constantly throwing out all which have not the qualities 
 we have taken notice of, we come at length to the 
 individual or the species we wish to ascertain. It is 
 a kind of chase, and resembles the manner of hunting 
 in some countries, where they first enclose a very 
 large circle with their dogs, nets, and horses ; and 
 then, by degrees, draw their toils closer and closer, 
 driving their game before them till it is at length 
 brought into so narrow a compass, that the sportsmen 
 have nothing to do but to knock down their prey. 
 
 C. — Just as we have been hunting this horse, till at 
 last we held him fast by his ears and his tail. 
 
 F. — I should observe to you, that in the definition 
 naturalists give of a horse, it is generally mentioned 
 that he has six cutting teeth in each jaw ; because 
 this circumstance of the teeth has been found a very 
 convenient one for characterizing large classes : but 
 as it is not absolutely necessary here, I have omitted 
 it ; a definition being the more perfect the fewer par- 
 ticulars you make use of, provided you can say with 
 certainty from those particulars, The object so char- 
 acterized must be this, and no other whatever. 
 
 C. — But, papa, if I had never seen a horse, I 
 
160 THE ART OF DISTINGUISHING. 
 
 should not know what kind of animal it was by this 
 definition. 
 
 F. — Let us hear, then, how you would give me an 
 idea of a horse. 
 
 C. — I would say it was a fine large prancing crea- 
 ture, with slender legs and an arched neck, and a sleek 
 smooth skin, and a tail that sweeps the ground, and 
 that he snorts and neighs very loud, and tosses his 
 head, and runs as swift as the wind. 
 
 F. — I think you learned some verses upon the 
 horse in your last lesson : repeat them. 
 
 C. — The wanton courser thus with reins unbound 
 
 Breaks from his stall, and beats the trembling ground; 
 
 Pampered and proud, he seeks the wonted tides, 
 
 And laves, in height of blood, his shining sides ; 
 
 His head, now freed, he tosses to the skies ; 
 
 His mane dishevelled, o'er his shoulders flies ; 
 
 He snuffs the females in the distant plain, 
 
 And springs, exulting, to his fields again. pQpE , s H0MER> 
 
 F. — You have said very well ; but this is not a Defi- 
 nition, it is a Description. 
 
 C. — What is the difference ? 
 
 F. — A description is intended to give you a lively 
 picture of an object, as if you saw it ; it ought to be 
 very full. A definition gives no picture to those who 
 have not seen it ; it rather tells you what its subject is 
 not, than what it is, by giving you such clear specific 
 marks, that it shall not be possible to confound it with 
 any thing else ; and hence it is of the greatest use in 
 throwing things into classes. We have a great many 
 beautiful descriptions from ancient authors so loosely 
 worded that we cannot certainly tell what animals are 
 meant by them ; whereas if they had given us defini- 
 tions, three lines would have ascertained their meaning. 
 
 C. — I like a description best, papa. 
 
 F. — Perhaps so ; I believe I should have done the 
 same at your age. Remember, however, that nothing 
 
THE P HEN IX AND DOVE. 161 
 
 is more useful than to learn to form ideas with pre- 
 cision, and to express them with accuracy : I have 
 not given you a definition to teach you what a horse 
 is, but to teach you to think. 
 
 THE PHENIX AND DOVE. 
 
 A Phenix, who had long inhabited the solitary des- 
 erts of Arabia, once flew so near the habitations of 
 men as to meet with a tame Dove, who was sitting on 
 her nest, with wings expanded, fondly brooding over 
 her young ones, while she expected her mate, who was 
 foraging abroad to procure them food. The Phenix, 
 with a kind of insulting compassion, said to her, " Poor 
 bird, how much I pity thee ! confined to a single spot, 
 and sunk in domestic cares ; thou art continually 
 employed either in laying eggs or in providing for thy 
 brood ; and thou exhaustest thy life and strength in 
 perpetuating a feeble and defenceless race. As to my- 
 self, I live exempt from toil, care, and misfortune. I 
 feed upon nothing less precious than rich gums and 
 spices ; I fly through the trackless regions of the air, 
 and when I am seen by men, am gazed at with curios- 
 ity and astonishment ; I have no one to control my 
 range, no one to provide for ; and when I have fulfilled 
 my five centuries of life, and seen the revolutions of 
 ages, I rather vanish than die, and a successor, without 
 my care, springs up from my ashes. I am an image of 
 the great sun whom I adore ; and glory in being, like 
 him, single and alone, and having no likeness." 
 
 The Dove replied, " O Phenix, I pity thee much 
 more than thou affectest to pity me ! What pleasure 
 canst thou enjoy, who livest forlorn and solitary in a 
 trackless and unpeopled desert ; who hast no mate to 
 
1 62 THE MANUFACTURE OF PAPER. 
 
 caress thee, no young ones to excite thy tenderness 
 and reward thy cares, no kindred, no society amongst 
 thy fellows. Not long life only, but immortality itself 
 would be a curse, if it were to be bestowed on such 
 uncomfortable terms. For my part, I know that my 
 life will be short, and therefore I employ it in raising a 
 numerous posterity, and in opening my heart to all the 
 sweets of domestic happiness. I am beloved by my 
 partner ; I am dear to man ; and shall leave marks 
 behind me that I have lived. As to the sun, to whom 
 thou hast presumed to compare thyself, that glorious 
 being is so totally different from, and so infinitely supe- 
 rior to, all the creatures upon earth, that it does not 
 become us to liken ourselves to him, or to determine 
 upon the manner of his existence. One obvious differ- 
 ence, however, thou mayest remark; that the sun, 
 though alone, by his prolific heat, produces all things, 
 and though he shines so high above our heads, gives 
 us reason every moment to bless his beams ; whereas 
 thou, swelling with thy imaginary greatness, dreamest 
 away a long period of existence, equally void of com- 
 fort and usefulness." 
 
 THE MANUFACTURE OF PAPER. 
 
 Fa. — I will now, as I promised, give you an ac- 
 count of the elegant and useful manufacture of Paper, 
 the basis of which is itself a manufacture. This deli- 
 cate and beautiful substance is made from the meanest 
 and most disgusting materials, from old rags, which 
 have passed from one poor person to another, and at 
 length have perhaps dropped in tatters from the child of 
 the beggar. These are carefully picked up from dung- 
 hills, or bought from servants by Jews, who make it their 
 
THE MANUFACTURE OF PAPER. 163 
 
 business to go about and collect them. They sell them 
 to the rag-merchant, who gives from two-pence to four- 
 pence a pound, according to their quality; and he, 
 when he has got a sufficient quantity, disposes of them 
 to the owner of the paper-mill. He gives them first 
 to women to sort and pick, agreeably to their different 
 degrees of fineness : they also with a knife cut out 
 carefully all the seams, which they throw into a basket 
 for other purposes ; they then put them into the dust- 
 ing engine, a large circular wire sieve, from whence 
 they receive some degree of cleansing. The rags are 
 then conveyed. to the mill. Here they were formerly 
 beat to pieces with vast hammers, which rose and fell 
 continually with a most tremendous noise, that was 
 heard from a great distance. But now they put the 
 rags into a large trough or cistern, into which a pipe of 
 clear spring water is constantly flowing. In this cis- 
 tern is placed a cylinder, about two feet long, set 
 thick round with rows of iron spikes, standing as near 
 as they can to one another without touching. At the 
 bottom of the trough there are corresponding rows of 
 spikes. The cylinder is made to whirl round with 
 inconceivable rapidity, and with these iron teeth rends 
 and tears the cloth in every possible direction ; till, by 
 the assistance of the water, which continually flows 
 through the cistern, it is thoroughly masticated, and 
 reduced to a fine pulp ; and by the same process all its 
 impurities are cleansed away, and it is restored to its 
 original whiteness. This process takes about six hours. 
 To improve the color they then put in a little smalt, 
 which gives it a bluish cast, which all paper has more 
 or less : the French paper has less of it than ours. 
 This fine pulp is next put into a copper of warm water. 
 It is the substance of paper, but the form must now 
 be given it : for this purpose they use a mould. It is 
 made of wire, strong one way, and crossed with finer. 
 This mould they just dip horizontally into the copper, 
 
1 64 THE MANUFACTURE OF PAPER. 
 
 and take it out again. It has a little wooden frame on 
 the edge, by means of which it retains as much of the 
 pulp as is wanted for the thickness of the sheet, and 
 the superfluity runs off through the interstices of the 
 wires. Another man instantly receives it, opens the 
 frame, and turns out the thin sheet, which has now 
 shape, but not consistence, upon soft felt, which is 
 placed on the ground to receive it. On that is placed 
 another piece of felt, and then another sheet of paper, 
 and so on till they have made a pile of forty or fifty. 
 They are then pressed with a large screw-press, moved 
 by a long lever, which forcibly squeezes the water out 
 of them, and gives them immediate consistence. There 
 is still, however, a great deal to be done. The felts 
 are taken off, and thrown on one side, and the paper 
 on the other, from whence it is dexterously taken up 
 with an instrument in the form of a T, three sheets at 
 a time and hung on lines to dry. There it hangs for a 
 week or ten days, which likewise further whitens it; 
 and any knots and roughnesses it may have are picked 
 off carefully by the women, It is then sized. Size is 
 a kind of glue ; and without this preparation the paper 
 would not bear ink ; it would run and blot, as you see 
 it does on gray paper. The sheets are just dipped into 
 the size and taken out again. The exact degree of 
 sizing is a matter of nicety, which can only be known 
 by experience. They are then hung up again to dry, 
 and when dry taken to the finishing-room, where they 
 are examined anew, pressed in the dry presses, which 
 gives them their last gloss and smoothness ; counted 
 up into quires, made up in reams, and sent to the sta- 
 tioner's, from whom we have it, after he has folded it 
 again and cut the edges ; some too he makes to shine 
 like satin, by glossing it with hot plates. The whole 
 process of paper-making takes about three weeks. 
 
 H. — It is a very curious process indeed. I shall 
 almost scruple for the future to blacken a sheet of 
 
THE MANUFACTURE OF PAPER. 165 
 
 paper with a careless scrawl, now I know how much 
 pains it costs to make it so white and beautiful. 
 
 F. — It is true that there is hardly any thing we use 
 with so much waste and profusion as this manufacture ; 
 we should think ourselves confined in the use of it, 
 if we might not tear, disperse, and destroy it in a thou- 
 sand ways ; so that it is really astonishing from whence 
 linen enough can be procured to answer so vast a 
 demand. As to the coarse brown papers, of which 
 an astonishing quantity is used by every shopkeeper 
 in packages &c, these are made chiefly of oakum, 
 that is, old hempen ropes. A fine paper is made in 
 China of silk. 
 
 H. — I have heard lately of woven paper; pray what 
 is that? they cannot weave paper, surely ! 
 
 F. — Your question is very natural. In order to 
 answer it I must desire you to take a sheet of com- 
 mon paper, and hold it up against the light. Do not 
 you see marks in it ? 
 
 H. — I see a great many white lines running along 
 lengthways, like ribs, and smaller that cross them. 
 I see, too, letters and the figure of a crown. 
 
 F. — These are all the marks of the wires ; the thick- 
 ness of the wire prevents so much of the pulp lying 
 upon the sheet in those places, consequently wherever 
 the wires are, the paper is thinner, and you see the 
 light through more readily, which gives that appear- 
 ance of white lines. The letters, too, are worked in 
 the wire, and are the maker's name. Now to prevent 
 these lines, which take off from the beauty of the pa- 
 per, particularly of drawing paper, there have been 
 lately used moulds of brass wire exceedingly fine, of 
 equal thickness, and woven or latticed one within 
 another; the marks therefore, of these are easily 
 pressed out, so as to be hardly visible ; if you look 
 at this sheet you will see it is quite smooth. 
 
 If. — It is so. 
 
1 66 THE FOUR SISTERS. 
 
 F. — I should mention to you, that there is a discov- 
 ery very lately made, by which they can make paper, 
 equal to any in whiteness, of the coarsest brown rags, 
 and even of dyed cottons ; which they have till now 
 been obliged to throw by for inferior purposes. This 
 is by means of manganese, a sort of mineral, and oil 
 of vitriol ; a mixture of which they just pass through 
 the pulp, while it is in water, for otherwise it would 
 burn it, and in an instant it discharges the colors of 
 the dyed cloths, and bleaches the brown to a beauti- 
 ful whiteness. 
 
 H. — That is like what you told me before of bleach- 
 ing cloth in a few hours. 
 
 F. — It is indeed founded upon the same discovery. 
 The paper made of these brown rags is likewise more 
 valuable, from being very tough and strong, almost like 
 parchment. 
 
 H. — When was the making of paper found out ? 
 
 F. — It is a disputed point, but probably in the four- 
 teenth century. The invention has been of almost 
 equal consequence to literature, as that of printing it- 
 self; and shows how the arts and sciences, like children 
 of the same family, mutually assist and bring forward 
 each other. 
 
 THE FOUR SISTERS. 
 
 I am one of four sisters ; and having some reason to 
 think myself not well used either by them or by the 
 world, I beg leave to lay before you a sketch of our 
 history and characters. You will not wonder there 
 should be frequent bickerings amongst us, when I tell 
 you that in our infancy we were continually fighting ; 
 and so great was the noise, and din, and confusion, in 
 our continual struggles to get uppermost, that it was 
 
THE FOUR SISTERS. 167 
 
 impossible for anybody to live amongst us in such a 
 scene of tumult and disorder. These brawls, however, 
 by a powerful interposition, were put an end to ; our 
 proper place was assigned to each of us, and we had 
 strict orders not to encroach on the limits of each 
 other's property, but to join our common offices for 
 the good of the whole family. 
 
 My first sister (I call her the first, because we have 
 generally allowed her the precedence in rank) is, I 
 must acknowledge, of a very active, sprightly dispo- 
 sition ; quick and lively, and has more brilliancy than 
 any of us ; but she is hot ; every thing serves for fuel to 
 her fury, when it is once raised to a certain degree, and 
 she is so mischievous whenever she gets the upper 
 hand, that, notwithstanding her aspiring disposition, if 
 I may freely speak my mind, she is calculated to make 
 a good servant, but a very bad mistress. 
 
 I am almost ashamed to mention, that notwithstand- 
 ing her seeming delicacy, she has a most voracious 
 appetite, and devours every thing that comes in her 
 way; though, like other eager thin people, she does 
 no credit to her keeping. Many a time has she con- 
 sumed the product of my barns and store-houses, but 
 it is all lost upon her. She has even been known to 
 get into an oil-shop or tallow-chandler's, when every- 
 body was asleep, and lick up, with the utmost greedi- 
 ness, whatever she found there. Indeed, all prudent 
 people are aware of her tricks, and though she is admit- 
 ted into the best families, they take care to watch her 
 very narrowly. I should not forget to mention, that 
 my sister was once in a country where she was treated 
 with uncommon respect. She was lodged in a sump- 
 tuous building, and had a number of young women, of 
 the best families, to attend on her, and feed her, and 
 watch over her health ; in short, she was looked upon 
 as something more than a common mortal. But she 
 always behaved with great severity to her maids, and if 
 
1 68 THE FOUR SISTERS. 
 
 any of them were negligent of their duty, or made a 
 slip in their own conduct, nothing would serve her but 
 burying the poor girls alive. I have myself had some 
 dark hints and intimations from the most respectable 
 authority, that she will some time or other make an end 
 of me. You need not wonder, therefore, if I am jeal- 
 ous of her motions. 
 
 The next sister I shall mention to you, has so far 
 the appearance of modesty and humility, that she gen- 
 erally seeks the lowest place. She is indeed of a very 
 yielding, easy temper, generally cool, and often wears a 
 sweet placid smile upon her countenance ; but she is 
 easily ruffled, and when worked up, as she often is, by 
 another sister, whom I shall mention to you by and by, 
 she becomes a perfect fury. Indeed, she is so apt to 
 swell with sudden gusts of passion, that she is sus- 
 pected at times to be a little lunatic. Between her and 
 my first mentioned sister, there is more settled antipa- 
 thy than between the Theban pair; and they never 
 meet without making efforts to destroy one another. 
 With me she is always ready to form the most intimate 
 union, but it is not always to my advantage. There 
 goes a story in our family, that when we were all young, 
 she once attempted to drown me. She actually kept 
 me under a considerable time, and though at length I 
 got my head above water, my constitution is generally 
 thought to have been essentially injured by it ever 
 since. From that time she has made no such atro- 
 cious attempt, but she is continually making encroach- 
 ments upon my property ; and even when she appears 
 most gentle, she is very insidious, and has such an 
 undermining way with her, that her insinuating arts are 
 as much to be dreaded as open violence. I might 
 indeed remonstrate, but it is a known part of her char- 
 acter, that nothing makes any lasting impression upon 
 her. 
 
 As to my third sister, I have already mentioned the 
 
THE FOUR SISTERS. 169 
 
 ill offices she does me with my last mentioned one, 
 who is entirely under her influence. She is, besides, of 
 a very uncertain, variable temper, sometimes hot, and 
 sometimes cold ; nobody knows where to have her. 
 Her lightness is even proverbial, and she has nothing 
 to give those who live with her more substantial than 
 the smiles of courtiers. I must add, that she keeps 
 in her service three or four rough, blustering bullies, 
 with puffed cheeks, who, when they are let loose, think 
 they have nothing to do but to drive the world before 
 them. She sometimes joins with my first sister, and 
 their violence occasionally throws me into such a trem- 
 bling, that, though naturally of a firm constitution, I 
 shake as if I was in an ague fit. 
 
 As to myself, I am of a steady, solid temper ; not 
 shining indeed, but kind and liberal, quite a Lady 
 Bountiful. Every one tastes of my beneficence, and 
 I am of so grateful a disposition, that I have been 
 known to return an hundred-fold for any present that 
 has been made me. I feed and clothe all my children, 
 and afford a welcome home to the wretch who has no 
 other home. I bear with unrepining patience all man- 
 ner of ill usage ; I am trampled upon ; I am torn and 
 wounded with the most cutting stroke ; I am pillaged 
 of the treasures hidden in my most secret chambers ; 
 notwithstanding which, I anf always ready to return 
 good for evil, and am continually subservient to the 
 pleasure or advantage of others ; yet so ungrateful is 
 the world, that because I do not possess all the airiness 
 and activity of my sisters, I am stigmatized as dull and 
 heavy. Every sordid, miserly fellow is called by way 
 of derision one of my children ; and if a person on 
 entering a room does but turn his eyes upon me, he is 
 thought stupid and mean, and not fit for good com- 
 pany. I have the satisfaction, however, of finding that 
 people always incline towards me as they grow older ; 
 and that those who seemed proudly to disdain any 
 
170 THE PINE AND THE OLIVE. 
 
 affinity with me, are content to sink at last into my 
 bosom. You will probably wish to have some account 
 of my person. I am not a regular beauty : some of 
 my features are rather harsh and prominent, when 
 viewed separately ; but my countenance has so much 
 variety of expression, and so many different attitudes 
 of elegance, that those who study my face with atten- 
 tion, find out continually new charms ; and it may be 
 truly said of me, what Titus says of his mistress, and 
 for a much longer space, 
 
 Pendant cinq ans entiers tous les jours je la vois, 
 Et crois toujours la voir pour la premiere fois. 
 
 For five whole years each day she meets my view, 
 Yet every day I seem to see her new. 
 
 Though I have been so long a mother, I have still a 
 surprising air of youth and freshness, which is assisted 
 by all the advantages of well-chosen ornament ; for I 
 dress well, and according to the season. 
 
 This is what I have chiefly to say of myself and my 
 sisters. To a person of your sagacity it will be unnec- 
 essary for me to sign my name. Indeed, one who 
 becomes acquainted with any one of the family, cannot 
 be at a loss to discover the rest, notwithstanding the 
 difference in our features and characters. 
 
 THE PINE AND THE OLIVE. 
 
 A FABLE. 
 
 A Stoic, swelling with the proud consciousness of 
 his own worth, took a solitary walk; and straying 
 amongst the groves of Academus, he sat down be- 
 tween an Olive and a Pine tree. His attention was 
 soon excited by a murmur which he heard among the 
 leaves. The whispers increased; and listening at- 
 
THE PINE AND THE OLIVE. 171 
 
 tentively, he plainly heard the Pine say to the Olive 
 as follows : " Poor tree ! I pity thee : thou now spread- 
 est thy green leaves and exultest in all the pride of 
 youth and spring ; but how soon will thy beauty be 
 tarnished ! The fruit which thou exhaustest thyself to 
 bear, shall hardly be shaken from thy boughs before 
 thou shalt grow dry and withered : thy green veins, 
 now so full of juice, shall be frozen ; naked and bare, 
 thou wilt stand exposed to all the storms of winter, 
 whilst my firmer leaf shall resist the change of the sea- 
 sons. Unchangeable is my motto, and through the 
 various vicissitudes of the year I shall continue equally 
 green and vigorous as I am at present." 
 
 The Olive, with a graceful wave of her boughs re- 
 plied : " It is true thou wilt always continue as thou art 
 at present. Thy leaves will keep that sullen and gloomy 
 green in which they are now arrayed, and the stiff 
 regularity of thy branches will not yield to those storms 
 which will bow down many of the feebler tenants of 
 the grove. Yet I wish not to be like thee. I rejoice 
 when nature rejoices ; and when I am desolate, nature 
 mourns with me. I fully enjoy pleasure in its season, 
 and I am contented to be subject to the influences of 
 those seasons and that economy of nature by which I 
 flourish. When the spring approaches, I feel the kind- 
 ly warmth ; my branches swell with young buds, and 
 my leaves unfold ; crowds of singing birds which never 
 visit thy noxious shade, sport on my boughs ; my fruit 
 is offered to the gods, and rejoices men ; and when the 
 decay of nature approaches, I shed my leaves over the 
 funeral of the falling year, and am well contented not 
 to stand a single exception to the mournful desolation 
 I see everywhere around me." 
 
 The Pine was unable to frame a reply ; and the phil- 
 osopher turned away his steps, rebuked and humbled. 
 
ON RIDDLES. 
 
 My dear young Friends, — I presume you are now 
 all come home for the holidays, and that the brothers 
 and sisters and cousins, papas and mammas, uncles and 
 aunts, are all met cheerfully round a Christmas fire, 
 enjoying the company of their friends and relations, 
 and eating plum pudding and mince pie. These are 
 very good things ; but one cannot always be eating 
 plum pudding and mince pie : the days are short, and 
 the weather bad, so that you cannot be much abroad ; 
 and I think you must want something to amuse you. 
 Besides, if you have been employed as you ought to be 
 at school, and if you are quick and clever, as I hope 
 you are, you will want some employment for that part 
 of you which thinks, as well as that part of you which 
 eats ; and you will like better to solve a riddle than to 
 crack a nut or walnut. Finding out riddles is the same 
 kind of exercise of the mind which running and leaping 
 and wrestling in sport are to the body. They are of no 
 use in themselves, — they are not work, but play ; but 
 they prepare the body, and make it alert and active for 
 any thing it may be called to perform in labor or war. 
 So does the finding out of riddles, if they are good es- 
 pecially, give quickness of thought, and a facility of 
 turning about a problem every way, and viewing it in 
 every possible light. When Archimedes, coming out of 
 the bath, cried in transport, " Eureka /" (I have found 
 it !) he had been exercising his mind precisely in the 
 same manner as you will do when you are searching 
 about for the solution of a riddle. 
 
ON RIDDLES. 173 
 
 And pray, when you are got together, do not let any 
 little Miss or Master say, with an affected air, " Oh, do 
 not ask me ; I am so stupid I never can guess." They 
 do not mean you should think them stupid and dull ; 
 they mean to imply that these things are too trifling to 
 engage their attention. If they are employed better, it 
 is very well ; but if not, say, " I am very sorry indeed 
 you are so dull, but we that are clever and quick will 
 exercise our wits upon these ; and, as our arms grow 
 stronger by exercise, so will our wits." 
 
 Riddles are of high antiquity, and were the employ- 
 ment of grave men formerly. The first riddle that we 
 have on record was proposed by Samson at a wedding 
 feast to the young men of the Philistines who were in- 
 vited upon the occasion. The feast lasted seven days * 
 and if they found it out within the seven days, Samson 
 was to give them thirty suits of clothes and thirty 
 sheets ; and if they could not guess it, they were to 
 forfeit the same to him. The riddle was, " Out of the 
 eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth 
 sweetness." He had killed a lion, and left its carcass : 
 on returning soon after, he found a swarm of bees had 
 made use of the skeleton as a hive, and it was full of 
 honeycomb. Struck with the oddness of the circum- 
 stance, he made a riddle of it. They puzzled about it 
 the whole seven days, and would not have found it out 
 at last if his wife had not told them. 
 
 The Sphinx was a great riddle-maker. According to 
 the fable, she was half a woman and half a lion. She 
 lived near Thebes, and to everybody that came she 
 proposed a riddle ; and if they did not find it out, 
 she devoured them. At length CEdipus came, and she 
 asked him, " What is that animal which walks on four 
 legs in the morning, two at noon, and three at night ! " 
 CEdipus answered, " Man : in childhood, which is the 
 morning of life, he crawls on his hands and feet ; in 
 middle age, which is noon, he walks erect on two ; in 
 
174 ON RIDDLES. 
 
 old age he leans on a crutch, which serves for a sup- 
 plementary third foot." 
 
 The famous wise men of Greece did not disdain to 
 send puzzles to each other. They are also fond of rid- 
 dles in the East. There is a pretty one in some of 
 their tales : " What is that tree which has twelve 
 branches, and each branch thirty leaves, which are 
 all black on one side and white on the other? " The 
 tree is the year ; the branches the months ; the leaves, 
 black on one side and white on the other, signify day 
 and night. Our Anglo-Saxon ancestors also had rid- 
 dles, some of which are still preserved in a very ancient 
 manuscript. 
 
 A riddle is a description of a thing without the name ; 
 but as it is meant to puzzle, it appears to belong to 
 something else than what it really does, and often 
 seems contradictory ; but when you have guessed it, it 
 appears quite clear. It is a bad riddle if you are at all 
 in doubt when you have found it out whether you are 
 right or no. A riddle is not verbal, as charades, conun- 
 drums, and rebuses are : it may be translated into any 
 language, which the others cannot. Addison would put 
 them all in the class of false wit : but Swift, who was 
 as great a genius, amused himself with making all 
 sorts of puzzles ; and therefore, I think you need not 
 be ashamed of reading them. It would be pretty en- 
 tertainment for you to make a collection of the better 
 ones, — for many are so dull that they are not worth 
 spending time about. I will conclude by sending you 
 a few which will be new to you. 
 
 I often murmur, yet I never weep ; 
 
 I always lie in bed, yet never sleep ; 
 
 My mouth is wide, and larger than my head, 
 
 And much disgorges though it ne'er is fed ; 
 
 I have no legs or feet, yet swiftly run, 
 
 And the more falls I get, move faster on. 
 
ON RIDDLES. 175 
 
 Ye youths and ye virgins, come list to my tale, 
 
 With youth and with beauty my voice will prevail. 
 
 My smile is enchanting, and golden my hair, 
 
 And on earth I am fairest of all that is fair ; 
 
 But my name it perhaps may assist you to tell, 
 
 That 1 'm banish'd alike both from heaven and hell. 
 
 There 's a charm in my voice, 't is than music more 
 
 sweet, 
 And my tale oft repeated, untired I repeat. 
 I flatter, I soothe, I speak kindly to all, 
 And wherever you go, I am still within call. 
 Though I thousands have blest, 't is a strange thing to 
 
 say, 
 That not one of the thousands e'er wishes my stay. 
 But when most I enchant him, impatient the more, 
 The minutes seem hours till my visit is o'er. 
 In the chase of my love I am ever employed, 
 Still, still he 's pursued, and yet never enjoyed ; 
 O'er hills and o'er valleys unwearied I fly, 
 But should I o'ertake him, that instant I die ; 
 Yet I spring up again, and again I pursue, 
 The object still distant, the passion still new. 
 Now guess, — and to raise your astonishment most, 
 While you seek me you have me, when found I am lost. 
 
 in. 
 
 I never talk but in my sleep ; 
 I never cry, but sometimes weep ; 
 My doors are open day and night ; 
 Old age I help to better sight ; 
 I, like chameleon, feed on air, 
 And dust to me is dainty fare. 
 
 IV. 
 
 We are spirits all in white, 
 On a field as black as night ; 
 There we dance and sport and play, 
 Changing every changing day ; 
 Yet with us is wisdom found, 
 As we move in mystic round. 
 
1 76 HYMNS. 
 
 Mortal, wouldst thou know the grains 
 That Ceres heaps on Libya's plains, 
 Or leaves that yellow Autumn strews, 
 Or the stars that Herschel views, 
 Or find how many drops would drain 
 The wide-scooped bosom of the main, 
 Or measure central depths below, — 
 Ask of us, and thou shalt know. 
 With fairy feet we compass round 
 The pyramid's capacious bound, 
 Or step by step ambitious climb 
 The cloud-capt mountain's height sublime. 
 
 Riches though we do not use, 
 'T is ours to gain, and ours to lose. 
 From Araby the Blest we came. 
 In every land our tongue 's the same ; 
 And if our number you require, 
 Go count the bright Aonian quire. 
 Wouldst thou cast a spell to find 
 The track of light, the speed of wind, 
 Or when the snail with creeping pace 
 Shall the swelling globe embrace ; 
 Mortal, ours the powerful spell ; — 
 Ask of us, for we can tell. 
 
 H Y M N S. 
 
 Come, let us praise God, for he is exceeding great : 
 let us bless God, for he is very good. 
 
 He made all things ; the sun to rule the day, the 
 moon to shine by night. 
 
 He made the great whale, and the elephant; and 
 the little worm that crawleth on the ground. 
 
 The little birds sing praises to God, when they war- 
 ble sweetly in the green shade. 
 
 The brooks and rivers praise God, when they mur- 
 mur melodiously amongst the smooth pebbles. 
 
HYMNS. 177 
 
 I will praise God with my voice ; for I may praise 
 him, though I am but a little child. 
 
 A few years ago, and I was a little infant, and my 
 tongue was dumb within my mouth : 
 
 And I did not know the great name of God, for my 
 reason was not come unto me. 
 
 But now I can speak, and my tongue shall praise 
 him ; I can think of all his kindness, and my heart 
 shall love him. 
 
 Let him call me, and I will come unto him ; let him 
 command, and I will obey him. 
 
 When I am older, I will praise him better ; and I 
 will never forget God, so long as my life remaineth 
 in me. 
 
 HYMN II. 
 
 Come, let us go forth into the fields, let us see how 
 the flowers spring, let us listen to the warbling of the 
 birds, and sport ourselves upon the new grass. 
 
 The winter is over and gone, the buds come out up- 
 on the trees, the crimson blossoms of the peach and 
 the nectarine are seen, and the green leaves sprout. 
 
 The hedges are bordered with tufts of primroses, and 
 yellow cowslips that hang down their heads ; and the 
 blue violet lies hid beneath the shade. 
 
 The young goslings are running upon the green ; 
 they are just hatched, their bodies are covered with 
 yellow down ; the old ones hiss with anger if any one 
 comes near. 
 
 The hen sits upon her nest of straw, she watches pa- 
 tiently the full time, then she carefully breaks the shell, 
 and the young chickens come out. 
 
 The lambs just dropped are in the field, they totter 
 by the side of their dams, their young limbs can hardly 
 support their weight. 
 
 If you fall, little lambs, you will not be hurt ; there 
 
178 HYMNS. 
 
 is spread under you a carpet of soft grass ; it is spread 
 on purpose to receive you. 
 
 The butterflies flutter from bush to bush, and open 
 their wings to the warm sun. 
 
 The young animals of every kind are sporting about, 
 they feel themselves happy, they are glad to be alive, 
 they thank him that has made them alive. 
 
 They may thank him in their hearts, but we can 
 thank him with our tongues ; we are better than they, 
 and can praise him better. 
 
 The birds can warble, and the young lambs can 
 bleat ; but we can open our lips in his praise, we can 
 speak of all his goodness. 
 
 Therefore we will thank him for ourselves, and we 
 will thank him for those that cannot speak. 
 
 Trees that blossom, and little lambs that skip about, 
 if you could, you would say how good he is ; but you 
 are dumb, we will say it for you. 
 
 We will not offer you in sacrifice, but we will offer 
 sacrifice for you ; on every hill, and in every green 
 field, we will offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and 
 the incense of praise. 
 
 HYMN III. 
 
 Behold the shepherd of the flock; he taketh care 
 for his sheep, he leadeth them among clear brooks, he 
 guideth them to fresh pasture : if the young lambs are 
 weary, he carrieth them in his arms ; if they wander, 
 he bringeth them back. 
 
 But who is the shepherd's shepherd: who taketh 
 care for him ? who guideth him in the path he should 
 go ? and, if he wander, who shall bring him back ? 
 
 God is the shepherd's Shepherd. He is the Shep- 
 herd over all ; he taketh care for all ; the whole earth 
 is his fold ; we are all his flock ; and every herb, and 
 every green field is the pasture which he hath pre- 
 pared for us. 
 
HYMNS. 179 
 
 The mother loveth her little child ; she bringeth it up 
 on her knees ; she nourisheth its body with food ; she 
 feedeth its mind with knowledge : if it is sick, she 
 nurseth it with tender love ; she watcheth over it when 
 asleep ; she forgetteth it not for a moment ; she teach- 
 eth it how to be good ; she rejoiceth daily in its growth. 
 
 But who is the parent of the mother? who nourish- 
 eth her with good things, and watcheth over her with 
 tender love, and remembereth her every moment? 
 Whose arms are about her to guard her from harm? 
 and if she is sick, who shall heal her ? 
 
 God is the Parent of the mother ; he is the Parent of 
 all, for he created all. All the men, and all the women, 
 who are alive in the wide world, are his children ; he 
 loveth all, he is good to all. 
 
 The king governeth his people ; he hath a golden 
 crown upon his head, and the royal sceptre is in his 
 hand; he sitteth upon a throne, and sendeth forth 
 his commands ; his subjects fear before him ; if they 
 do well, he protecteth them from danger ; and if they 
 do evil, he punisheth them. 
 
 But who is the sovereign of the king? who com- 
 mandeth him what he must do ? whose hand is reached 
 out to protect him from danger ? and if he doeth evil, 
 who shall punish him ? 
 
 God is the Sovereign of the king? his crown is of 
 rays of light, and his throne is amongst the stars. He 
 is King of kings, and Lord of lords : if he biddeth us 
 live, we live ; and if he biddeth us die, we die : his do- 
 minion is over all worlds, and the light of his counte- 
 nance is upon all his works. 
 
 God is our Shepherd, therefore we will follow him ; 
 God is our Father, therefore we will love him ; God is 
 our King, therefore we will obey him. 
 
180 HYMNS. 
 
 HYMN IV. 
 
 Come, and I will show you what is beautiful. It 
 is a rose fully blown. See how she sits upon her 
 mossy stem, like the queen of all the flowers ! her 
 leaves glow like fire ; the air is filled with her sweet 
 odor ! she is the delight of every eye. 
 
 She is beautiful, but there is a fairer than she. He 
 that made the rose is more beautiful than the rose ; 
 he is all lovely ; he is the delight of every heart. 
 
 I will show you what is strong. The lion is strong ; 
 when he raiseth up himself from his lair, when he 
 shaketh his mane, when the voice of his roaring is 
 heard, the cattle of the field fly, and the wild beasts 
 of the desert hide themselves, for he is very terrible. 
 
 The lion is strong, but he that made the lion is 
 stronger than he.: his anger is terrible ; he could make 
 us die in a moment, and no one could save us out of 
 his hand. 
 
 I will show you what is glorious. The sun is glo- 
 rious. When he shineth in the clear sky, when he 
 sitteth on the bright throne in the heavens, and look- 
 eth abroad over all the earth, he is the most excellent 
 and glorious creature the eye can behold. 
 
 The sun is glorious, but he that made the sun is 
 more glorious than he. The eye beholdeth him not, 
 for his brightness is more dazzling than we could bear. 
 He seeth in all dark places ; by night as well as by 
 day ; and the light of his countenance is over all his 
 works. 
 
 Who is this great name, and what is he called, that 
 my lips may praise him ? 
 
 This great name is GOD. He made all things, but 
 he is himself more excellent than all which he hath 
 made : they are beautiful, but he is beauty ; they are 
 strong, but he is strength ; they are perfect, but he is 
 perfection. 
 
HYMNS. 181 
 
 HYMN V. 
 
 The glorious sun is set in the west ; the night dews 
 fall ; and the air, which was sultry, becomes cool. 
 
 The flowers fold up their colored leaves ; they fold 
 themselves up, and hang their heads on the slender 
 stalk. 
 
 The chickens are gathered under the wing of the 
 hen, and are at rest ; the hen herself is at rest also. 
 
 The little birds have ceased their warbling, they are 
 asleep on the boughs, each one with his head behind 
 his wing. 
 
 There is no murmur of bees around the hive, or 
 among the honeyed woodbines ; they have done their 
 work, and lie close in their waxen cells. 
 
 The sheep rest upon their soft fleeces, and their 
 loud bleating is no more heard amongst the hills. 
 
 There is no sound of a number of voices, or of 
 children at play, or the trampling of busy feet, and of 
 people hurrying to and fro. 
 
 The smith's hammer is not heard upon the anvil ; 
 nor the harsh saw of the carpenter. 
 
 All men are stretched on their quiet beds ; and the 
 child sleeps upon the breast of its mother. 
 
 Darkness is spread over the skies, and darkness is upon 
 the ground ; every eye is shut, and every hand is still. 
 
 Who taketh care of all people when they are sunk 
 in sleep ; when they cannot defend themselves, nor 
 see if danger approacheth ? 
 
 There is an eye that never sleepeth ; there is an eye 
 that seeth in dark night as well as in the bright sun- 
 shine. 
 
 When there is no light of the sun, nor of the moon ; 
 when there is no lamp in the house, nor any little star 
 twinkling through the thick clouds ; that eye seeth 
 everywhere, in all places, and watcheth continually 
 over all the families of the earth. 
 
1 82 HYMNS. 
 
 The eye that sleepeth not is God's ; his hand is 
 always stretched out over us. 
 
 He made sleep to refresh us when we are weary ; 
 he made night, that we might sleep in quiet. 
 
 As the mother moveth about the house with her 
 finger on her lips, and stilleth every little noise, that 
 her infant be not disturbed ; as she draweth the cur- 
 tains around its bed, and shutteth out the light from 
 its tender eyes ; so God draweth the curtains of dark- 
 ness around us ; so he maketh all things to be hushed 
 and still, that his large family may sleep in peace. 
 
 Laborers spent with toil, and young children, and 
 every little humming insect, sleep quietly, for God 
 watcheth over you. 
 
 You may sleep, for he never sleeps : you may close 
 your eyes in safety, for his eye is always open to pro- 
 tect you. 
 
 When the darkness is passed away, and the beams 
 of the morning sun strike through your eyelids, begin 
 the day with praising God, who hath taken care of 
 you through the night. 
 
 Flowers, when you open again, spread your leaves, 
 and smell sweet to his praise. 
 
 Birds, when you awake, warble your thanks amongst 
 the green boughs ; sing to him before you sing to your 
 mates. 
 
 Let his praise be in our hearts, when we lie down j 
 let his praise be in our lips, when we awake. 
 
 HYMN VI. 
 
 Child of reason, whence comest thou? What 
 has thine eye observed, and whither has thy foot been 
 wandering ? 
 
 I have been wandering along the meadows, in the 
 thick grass ; the cattle were feeding around me, or 
 reposing in the cool shade ; the corn sprung up in the 
 
HYMNS. 183 
 
 furrows ; the poppy and the harebell grew among the 
 wheat ; the fields were bright with summer, and glow- 
 ing with beauty. 
 
 Didst thou see nothing more? Didst thou observe 
 nothing besides? Return again, child of reason, for 
 there are greater things than these. 
 
 God was among the fields ; and didst thou not 
 perceive him ? his beauty was upon the meadows ; 
 his smile enlivened the sunshine. 
 
 I have walked through the thick forest ; the wind 
 whispered among the trees ; the brook fell from the 
 rocks with a pleasant murmur ; the squirrel leapt from 
 bough to bough : and the birds sung to each other 
 amongst the branches. 
 
 Didst thou hear nothing but the murmur of the 
 brook? no whispers but the whispers of the wind? 
 Return again, child of reason, for there are greater 
 things than these. God was amongst the trees ; his 
 voice sounded in the murmur of the water ; his music 
 warbled in the shade ; and didst thou not attend ? 
 
 I saw the moon rising behind trees ; it was like a 
 lamp of gold. The stars one after another appeared in 
 the clear firmament. Presently I saw black clouds 
 arise, and roll towards the south ; the lightning 
 streamed in thick flashes over the sky; the thunder 
 growled at a distance ; it came nearer, and I felt 
 afraid, for it was loud and terrible. 
 
 Did thy heart feel no terror but of the thunderbolt ? 
 Was there nothing bright and terrible but the light- 
 ning ? Return, O child of reason, for there are greater 
 things than these. God was in the storm, and didst 
 thou not perceive him ? His terrors were abroad, and 
 did not thine heart acknowledge him ? 
 
 God is in every place ; he speaks in every sound we 
 hear ; he is seen in all that our eyes behold ; nothing, 
 O child of reason, is without God : — let God there- 
 fore be in all thy thoughts. 
 
HYMNS. 
 
 HYMN VII. 
 
 Come, let us go into the thick shade, for it is the 
 noon of day, and the summer sun beats hot upon our 
 heads. 
 
 The shade is pleasant and cool ; the branches meet 
 above our heads, and shut out the sun as with a green 
 curtain ; the grass is soft to our feet, and a clear brook 
 washes the roots of the trees. 
 
 The sloping bank is covered with flowers ; let us lie 
 down upon it; let us throw our limbs on the fresh 
 grass and sleep ; for all things are still, and we are 
 quite alone. 
 
 The cattle can lie down to sleep in the cool shade, 
 but we can do what is better ; we can raise our voices 
 to heaven ; we can praise the great God who made 
 us. He made the warm sun, and the cool shade ; 
 the trees that grow upwards, and the brooks that 
 run murmuring along. All the things that we see are 
 his work. 
 
 Can we raise our voices up to the high heaven? 
 Can we make him hear who is above the stars ? We 
 need not raise our voices to the stars, for he heareth 
 us when we only whisper ; when we breathe out words 
 softly with a low voice. He that filleth the heavens is 
 here also. 
 
 May we that are so young speak to him that always 
 was ? May we, that can hardly speak plain, speak to 
 God? 
 
 We that are so young are but lately made alive ; 
 therefore we should not forget his forming hand who 
 hath made us alive. We that cannot speak plain, 
 should lisp out praises to him who teacheth us how to 
 speak, and hath opened our dumb lips. 
 
 When we could not think of him, he thought of us ; 
 before we could ask him to bless us, he had already 
 given us many blessings. 
 
HYMNS. 185 
 
 He fashioneth our tender limbs, and causeth them 
 to grow ; he maketh us strong, and tall, and nimble. 
 
 Every day we are more active than the former day, 
 therefore every day we ought to praise him better than 
 the former day. 
 
 The buds spread into leaves, and the blossoms swell 
 to fruit ; but they know not how they grow, nor who 
 caused them to spring up from the bosom of the earth. 
 
 Ask them if they will tell thee; bid them break 
 forth into singing, and fill the air with pleasant sounds. 
 
 They smell sweet; they look beautiful; but they 
 are quite silent ; no sound is in the still air ; no mur- 
 mur of voices amongst the green leaves. 
 
 The plants and the trees are made to give fruit to 
 man ; but man is made to praise God who made him. 
 
 We love to praise him, because he loveth to bless 
 us ; we thank him for life, because it is a pleasant 
 thing to be alive. 
 
 We love God, who hath created all beings ; we love 
 all beings, because they are the creatures of God. 
 
 We cannot be good, as God is good to all persons 
 everywhere ; but we can rejoice that everywhere there 
 is a God to do them good. 
 
 We will think of God when we play, and when we 
 work ; when we walk out, and when we come in ; 
 when we sleep, and when we wake ; his praise shall 
 dwell continually upon our lips. 
 
 HYMN VIII. 
 
 See where stands the cottage of the laborer covered 
 with warm thatch ! the mother is spinning at the door ; 
 the young children sport before her on the grass ; the 
 elder ones learn to labor, and are obedient ; the father 
 worketh to provide them food : either he tilleth the 
 ground, or he gathereth in the corn, or shaketh his 
 ripe apples from the tree ; his children run to meet 
 
1 86 HYMNS. 
 
 him when he cometh home, and his wife prepareth the 
 wholesome meal. 
 
 The father, the mother, and the children, make a 
 family ; the father is the master thereof. If the family- 
 be numerous, and the grounds large, there are servants 
 to help to do the work : all these dwell in one house ; 
 they sleep beneath one roof; they eat of the same 
 bread ; they kneel down together and praise God every 
 night and every morning with one voice ; they are very 
 closely united, and are dearer to each other than any 
 strangers. If one is sick, they mourn together ; and if 
 one is happy, they rejoice together. 
 
 Many houses are built together ; many families live 
 near one another ; they meet together on the green, 
 and in pleasant walks, and to buy and sell, and in the 
 house of justice : and the sound of the bell calleth 
 them to the house of God, in company. If one is 
 poor, his neighbor helpeth him ; if he is sad, he com- 
 forteth him. This is a village ; see where it stands 
 enclosed in a green shade, and the tall spire peeps 
 above the trees. If there be very many houses, it is a 
 town ; it is governed by a magistrate. 
 
 Many towns, and a large extent of country, make a 
 kingdom ; it is enclosed by mountains ; it is divided 
 by rivers ; it is washed by seas ; the inhabitants thereof 
 are countrymen ; they speak the same language ; they 
 make war and peace together; a king is the ruler 
 thereof. 
 
 Many kingdoms and countries full of people, and 
 islands, and large continents, and different climates, 
 make up this whole world ; God governeth it. The 
 people swarm upon the face of it like ants upon a hil- 
 lock ; some are black with the hot sun ; some cover 
 themselves with furs against the sharp cold ; some 
 drink of the fruit of the vine ; some the pleasant milk 
 of the cocoa-nut ; and others quench their thirst with 
 the running stream. 
 
HYMNS. 187 
 
 All are God's family ; he knoweth every one of 
 them, as a shepherd knoweth his flock ; they pray to 
 him in different languages, but he understandeth them 
 all ; he heareth them all ; he taketh care of all ; none 
 are so great that he cannot punish them ; none are so 
 mean that he will not protect them. 
 
 Negro woman, who sittest pining in captivity, and 
 weepest over thy sick child : though no one seeth thee, 
 God seeth thee ; though no one pitieth thee, God piti- 
 eth thee : raise thy voice, forlorn and abandoned one ; 
 call upon him from amidst thy bonds, for assuredly he 
 will hear thee. 
 
 Monarch, that rulest over an hundred states ; whose 
 frown is terrible as death, and whose armies cover the 
 land, boast not thyself as though there were none 
 above thee : — God is above thee ; his powerful arm 
 is always over thee ; and if thou doest ill, assuredly he 
 will punish thee. 
 
 Nations of the earth, fear the Lord ; families of men, 
 call upon the name of your God. 
 
 Is there any one whom God hath not made ? — let 
 him not worship him. Is there any one whom he hath 
 not blessed ? — let him not praise him. 
 
 HYMN IX. 
 
 Come, let us walk abroad ; let us talk of the works 
 of God. 
 
 Take up a handful of the sand ; number the grains 
 of it ; tell them one by one into your lap. 
 
 Try if you can count the blades of grass in the field, 
 or the leaves on the trees. 
 
 You cannot count them, they are innumerable ; 
 much more the things which God has made. 
 
 The fir groweth on the high mountain, and the gray 
 willow bends above the stream. 
 
1 88 HYMNS. 
 
 The thistle is armed with sharp prickles ; the mallow 
 is soft and woolly. 
 
 The hop layeth hold with her tendrils, and claspeth 
 the tall pole : the oak hath firm root in the ground, and 
 resisteth the winter storm. 
 
 The daisy enamelleth the meadows, and groweth 
 beneath the foot of the passenger : the tulip asketh a 
 rich soil, and the careful hand of the gardener. 
 
 The iris and the reed spring up in the marsh ; the 
 rich grass covereth the meadows ; and the purple 
 heath flower enliveneth the waste ground. 
 
 The water lilies grow beneath the stream ; their 
 broad leaves float on the surface of the water : the 
 wall-flower takes root in the hard stone, and spreads 
 its fragrance amongst the broken ruins. 
 
 Every leaf is of a different form ; every plant hath a 
 separate inhabitant. 
 
 Look at the thorns that are white with blossoms, and 
 the flowers that cover the fields, and the plants that 
 are trodden in the green path. The hand of man hath 
 not planted them ; the sower hath not scattered the 
 seeds from his hand, nor the gardener digged a place 
 for them with his spade. 
 
 Some grow on steep rocks, where no man can 
 climb : in shaking bogs, and deep forests, and desert 
 islands : they spring up everywhere, and cover the 
 bosom of the whole earth. 
 
 Who causeth them to grow everywhere, and bloweth 
 the seeds about in winds, and mixeth them with the 
 mould, and watereth them with soft rains, and cherish- 
 eth them with dews? Who fanneth them with the 
 pure breath of heaven, and giveth them colors, and 
 smells, and spreadeth out their thin transparent leaves ? 
 
 How doth # the rose draw its crimson from the dark 
 brown earth, or the lily its shining white? How can 
 a small seed contain a plant ? How doth every plant 
 know its season to put forth? They are marshalled 
 
HYMNS. 189 
 
 in order : each one knoweth his place, and standeth 
 up in his own rank. 
 
 The snow-drop and the primrose make haste to 
 lift their heads above the ground. When the spring 
 cometh, they say, Here we are ! The carnation wait- 
 eth for the full strength of the year ; and the hardy 
 laurustinus cheereth the winter months. 
 
 Every plant produceth its like. An ear of corn will 
 not grow from an acorn ; nor will a grape-stone pro- 
 duce cherries ; but every one springeth from its proper 
 seed. 
 
 Who preserveth them alive through the cold of win- 
 ter, when the snow is on the ground, and the sharp 
 frost bites on the plain? Who soweth a small seed, 
 and a little warmth in the bosom of the earth, and 
 causeth them to spring up afresh, and sap to rise 
 through the hard fibres. 
 
 The trees are withered, naked, and bare ; they are 
 like dry bones. Who breatheth on them with the 
 breath of spring, and they are covered with verdure, 
 and green leaves sprout from the dead wood ? 
 
 Lo, these are a part of his works ; and a little por- 
 tion of his wonders. 
 
 There is little need that I should tell you of God, 
 for every thing speaks of him. 
 
 Every field is like an open book ; every painted 
 flower hath a lesson written on its leaves. 
 
 Every murmuring brook hath a tongue : a voice is 
 in every whispering wind. 
 
 They all speak of him who made them ; they all 
 tell us he is very good. 
 
 We cannot see God, for he is invisible ; but we can 
 see his works, and worship his footsteps in the green 
 sod. 
 
 They that know the most, will praise God the best ; 
 but which of us can number half his works ? 
 
190 HYMNS. 
 
 HYMN X. 
 
 Look at that spreading oak, the pride of the village 
 green ! Its trunk is massy, its branches are strong : its 
 roots, like crooked fangs, strike deep into the soil, and 
 support its huge bulk. The birds build among the 
 boughs ; the cattle repose beneath its shade ; the 
 neighbors form groups beneath the shelter of its green 
 canopy. The old men point it out to their children, 
 but they themselves remember not its growth : genera- 
 tions of men one after another have been born and 
 died, and this son of the forest has remained the same, 
 defying the storms of two hundred winters. 
 
 Yet this large tree was once a little acorn ; small in 
 size, insignificant in appearance ; such as you are now 
 picking up, upon the grass beneath it. Such an acorn, 
 whose cup can only contain a drop or two of dew, 
 contained the whole oak. All its massy trunk, all its 
 knotty branches, all its multitude of leaves were in that 
 acorn ; it grew, it spread, it unfolded itself by degrees, 
 it received nourishment from the rain, and the dews, 
 and the well adapted soil, but it w^s all there. Rain, 
 and dews, and soil, could not raise an oak without the 
 acorn ; nor could they make the acorn any thing but 
 an oak. 
 
 The mind of a child is like the acorn ; its powers 
 are folded up, they do not yet appear, but they are all 
 there. The memory, the judgment, the invention, the 
 feeling of right and wrong, are all in the mind of a 
 child, — of a little infant just born ; but they are not 
 expanded, you cannot perceive them. 
 
 Think of the wisest man you ever knew or heard of ; 
 think of the greatest man ; think of the most learned 
 man, who speaks a number of languages and can find 
 out hidden things ; think of a man who stands like 
 that tree, sheltering and protecting a number of his fel- 
 low men, and then say to yourself, the mind of that 
 
HYMNS. 191 
 
 man was once like mine, his thoughts were childish 
 like my thoughts, nay, he was like the babe just bora, 
 which knows nothing, remembers nothing, which can- 
 not distinguish good from evil, nor truth from false- 
 hood. 
 
 If you had only seen an acorn, you could never 
 guess at the form and size of an oak : if you had never 
 conversed with a wise man, you could form no idea of 
 him from the mute and helpless infant. 
 
 Instruction is the food of the mind ; it is like the 
 dew and the rain and the rich soil. As the soil and 
 the rain and the dew cause the tree to swell and put 
 forth its tender shoots, so do books and study and dis- 
 course feed the mind, and make it unfold its hidden 
 powers. 
 
 Reverence therefore your own mind ; receive the 
 nurture of instruction, that the man within you may 
 grow and flourish. You cannot guess how excellent he 
 may become. 
 
 It was long before this oak showed its greatness ; 
 years passed away, and it had only shot a little way 
 above the ground ; a child might have plucked it up 
 with his little hands. It was long before any one called it 
 a tree ; and it is long before the child becomes a man. 
 
 The acorn might have perished in the ground, the 
 young tree might have been shorn of its graceful 
 boughs, the twig might have bent, and the tree would 
 have been crooked ; but if it grew at all, it could have 
 been nothing but an oak ; it would not have been grass 
 or flowers, which live their season and then perish 
 from the face of the earth. 
 
 The child may be a foolish man, he may be a 
 wicked man, but he must be a man ; his nature is not 
 that of any inferior creature, his soul in not akin to 
 the beasts which perish. 
 
 Oh, cherish then this precious mind, feed it with truth, 
 nourish it with knowledge ; it comes from God, it is 
 
192 HYMNS. 
 
 made in his image. The oak will last for centuries of 
 years, but the mind of man is made for immortality. 
 
 Respect in the infant the future man. Destroy not 
 in the man the rudiments of an angel. 
 
 HYMN XI. 
 
 The golden orb of the sun is sunk behind the hills ; 
 the colors fade away from the western sky, and the 
 shades of evening fall fast around me. 
 
 Deeper and deeper they stretch over the plain ; I 
 look at the grass, it is no longer green ; the flowers 
 are no more tinted with various hues ; the houses, the 
 trees, the cattle, are all lost in the distance. The 
 dark curtain of night is let down over the works of 
 God ; they are blotted out from the view, as if they 
 were no longer there. 
 
 Child of little observation ! canst thou see nothing 
 because thou canst not see grass and flowers, trees and 
 cattle? Lift up thine eyes from the ground shaded 
 with darkness, to the heavens that are stretched over 
 thy head ; see how the stars one by one appear and 
 light up the vast concave. 
 
 There is the moon, bending her bright horns like a 
 silver bow, and shedding her mild light like liquid 
 silver over the blue firmament. 
 
 There is Venus, the evening and the morning star ; 
 and the Pleiades ; and the Bear, that never sets ; and 
 the pole star, that guides the mariner over the deep. 
 
 Now the mantle of darkness is over the earth ; the 
 last little gleam of twilight is faded away ; the lights 
 are extinguished in the cottage windows, but the firma- 
 ment burns with innumerable fires ; every little star 
 twinkles in its place. If you begin to count them, 
 they are more than you can number; they are like 
 the sands of the sea shore. 
 
HYMNS. 193 
 
 The telescope shows you far more, and there are 
 thousands and ten thousands of stars which no tele- 
 scope has ever reached. 
 
 Now Orion heaves his bright shoulder above the 
 horizon ; and Sirius, the dog star, follows him, the 
 brightest of the train. 
 
 Look at the milky way : it is a field of brightness ; 
 its pale light is composed of myriads of burning suns. 
 
 All these are God's families : he gives the sun to 
 shine with a ray of his own glory : he marks the path 
 of the planets ; he guides their wanderings through the 
 sky, and traces out their orbit with the finger of his 
 power. 
 
 If you were to travel as swift as an arrow from a 
 bow, and to travel on, further and further still, for mil- 
 lions of years, you would not be out of the creation of 
 God. 
 
 New suns in the depth of space would still be burn- 
 ing round you, and other planets fulfilling their ap- 
 pointed course. 
 
 Lift up thine eyes, child of earth, for God has given 
 thee a glimpse of heaven. 
 
 The light of one sun is withdrawn, that thou mayest 
 see ten thousand. Darkness is spread over the earth, 
 that thou mayest behold, at a distance, the regions of 
 eternal day. 
 
 This earth has a variety of inhabitants ; the sea, 
 the air, the surface of the ground, swarm with crea- 
 tures of different natures, sizes, and powers ; to know 
 a very little of them, is to be wise among the sons of 
 men. 
 
 What then, thinkest thou, are the various forms and 
 natures and senses and occupations of the peopled 
 universe ? 
 
 Who can tell the birth and generation of so many 
 worlds? Who can relate their histories? Who can 
 describe their inhabitants? 
 
 13 
 
194 HYMNS. 
 
 Canst thou measure infinity with a line ? Canst thou 
 grasp the circle of infinite space ? 
 
 Yet these all depend upon God ; they hang upon 
 Him as a child upon the breast of its mother ; He tem- 
 pereth the heat to the inhabitant of Mercury ; He pro- 
 vided! resources against the cold in the frozen orb of 
 Saturn. Doubt not that He provideth for all beings 
 that He has made. 
 
 Look at the moon when it walketh in brightness ; 
 gaze at the stars when they are marshalled in the 
 firmament ; and adore the Maker of so many worlds. 
 
 HYMN XII. 
 
 It is now winter, dead winter. Desolation and 
 silence reign in the fields ; no singing of birds is heard, 
 no humming of insects. The streams murmur no 
 longer ; they are locked up in frost. 
 
 The trees lift their naked boughs, like withered 
 arms, into the bleak sky ; the green sap no longer 
 rises in their veins ; the flowers and the sweet-smell- 
 ing shrubs are decayed to their roots. 
 
 The sun himself looks cold and cheerless ; he 
 gives light only enough to show the universal desola- 
 tion. 
 
 Nature, child of God, mourns for her children. A 
 little while ago, and she rejoiced in her offspring ; the 
 rose shed its perfume upon the gale ; the vine gave 
 its fruit ; her children were springing and blooming 
 around her, on every lawn and every green bank. 
 
 O Nature, beautiful Nature, beloved child of God, 
 why dost thou sit mourning and desolate ? Has thy 
 father forsaken thee, has he left thee to perish ? Art 
 thou no longer the object of his care? 
 
 He has not forsaken thee, O Nature ; thou art his 
 beloved child, the eternal image of his perfections ; his 
 
HYMNS. 195 
 
 own beauty is spread over thee, the light of his coun- 
 tenance is shed upon thee. 
 
 Thy children shall live again, they shall spring up 
 and bloom around thee ; the rose shall again breathe 
 its sweetness on the soft air, and from the bosom of 
 the ground verdure shall spring forth. 
 
 And dost thou not mourn, O Nature, for thy human 
 births ; for thy sons and thy daughters that sleep under 
 the sod ; and shall they not also revive ? Shall the 
 rose and the myrtle bloom anew, and shall man perish ? 
 Shall goodness sleep in the ground, and the light of 
 wisdom be quenched in the dust, and shall tears be 
 shed over them in vain? 
 
 They also shall live ; their winter shall pass away ; 
 they shall bloom again. The tears of thy children shall 
 be dried up, when the eternal year proceeds. Oh, come 
 that eternal year ! 
 
 HYMN XIII. 
 
 Child of mortality, whence comest thou? why is 
 thy countenance sad, and why are thine eyes red with 
 weeping ? 
 
 I have seen the rose in its beauty; it spread its 
 leaves to the morning sun. I returned, — it was dying 
 upon its stalk : the grace of the form of it was gone ; 
 its loveliness was vanished away ; the leaves thereof 
 were scattered on the ground, and no one gathered 
 them again. 
 
 A stately tree grew on the plain ; its branches were 
 covered with verdure ; its boughs spread wide and 
 made a goodly shadow ; the trunk was like a strong 
 pillar ; the roots were like crooked fangs. I returned, 
 — the verdure was nipped by the east wind ; the 
 branches were lopped away by the axe ; the worm had 
 made its way into the trunk, and the heart thereof was 
 decayed ; it mouldered away, and fell to the ground. 
 
196 HYMNS. 
 
 I have seen the insects sporting in the sunshine, 
 and darting along the streams ; their wings glittered 
 with gold and purple ; their bodies shone like the 
 green emerald : they were more numerous than I 
 could count ; their motions were quicker than my eye 
 could glance. I returned, — they were brushed into 
 the pool ; they were perishing with the evening breeze ; 
 the swallow had devoured them ; the pike had seized 
 them ; there were none found of so great a multitude. 
 
 I have seen man in the pride of his strength ; his 
 cheeks glowed with beauty ; his limbs were full of ac- 
 tivity ; he leaped ; he walked ; he ran ; he rejoiced in 
 that he was more excellent than those. I returned, — 
 he lay stiff and cold on the bare ground ; his feet 
 could no longer move, nor his hands stretch themselves 
 out ; his life was departed from him ; and the breath 
 out of his nostrils. Therefore do I weep because 
 DEATH is in the world ; the spoiler is among the 
 works of God. All that is made, must be destroyed ; 
 all that is born, must die. Let me alone, for I will 
 weep yet longer. 
 
 HYMN XIV. 
 
 I have seen the flower withering on the stalk, and 
 its bright leaves spread on the ground. I looked 
 again, and it sprung forth afresh ; the stem was crowned 
 with new buds, and the sweetness thereof filled the air. 
 
 I have seen the sun set in the west, and the shades 
 of night shut in the wide horizon ; there was no color, 
 nor shape, nor beauty, nor music ; gloom and darkness 
 brooded around. I looked, the sun broke forth again 
 from the east ; he gilded the mountain tops ; the lark 
 rose to meet him from her low nest, and the shades of 
 darkness fell away. 
 
 I have seen the insect being come to its full size, 
 languish and refuse to eat : it spun itself a tomb, and 
 
HYMNS. 197 
 
 was shrouded in the silken cone ; it lay without feet, 
 or shape, or power to move. 
 
 I looked again, — it had burst its tomb ; it was full of 
 life, and sailed on colored wings through the soft air ; 
 it rejoiced in its new being. 
 
 Thus shall it be with thee, O man ! and so shall thy 
 life be renewed. 
 
 Beauty shall spring up out of ashes ; and life out of 
 the dust. 
 
 A little while shalt thou lie in the ground, as the 
 seed lieth in the bosom of the earth : but thou shalt be 
 raised again ; and, if thou art good, thou shalt never 
 die any more. 
 
 Who is he that cometh to burst open the prison 
 doors of the tomb ; to bid the dead awake, and to 
 gather his redeemed from the four winds of heaven ? 
 
 He descendeth on a fiery cloud; the sound of a 
 trumpet goeth before him ; thousands of angels are on 
 his right hand. 
 
 It is Jesus, the Son of God ; the Savior of men ; 
 the friend of the good. 
 
 He cometh in the glory of his Father ; he hath re- 
 ceived power from on high. 
 
 Mourn not, therefore, child of immortality ; for the 
 spoiler, the cruel spoiler, that laid waste the works 
 of God, is subdued : Jesus hath conquered death. 
 Child of immortality ! mourn no longer. 
 
 HYMN XV. 
 
 The rose is sweet, but it is surrounded with thorns : 
 the lily of the valley is fragrant, but it springeth up 
 amongst the brambles. 
 
 The spring is pleasant, but it is soon past : the 
 summer is bright, but the winter destroyeth the beauty 
 thereof. 
 
198 HYMNS. 
 
 The rainbow is very glorious, but it soon vanisheth 
 away : life is good, but it is quickly swallowed up in 
 death. 
 
 There is a land where the roses are without thorns, 
 where the flowers are not mixed with brambles. 
 
 In that land, there is eternal spring, and light with- 
 out any cloud. 
 
 The tree of life groweth in the midst thereof; riv- 
 ers of pleasures are there, and flowers that never fade. 
 
 Myriads of happy spirits are there, and surround 
 the throne of God with a perpetual hymn. 
 
 The angels with their golden harps sing praises 
 continually, and the cherubim fly on wings of fire. 
 
 This country is Heaven : it is the country of those 
 that are good ; and nothing that is wicked must in- 
 habit there. 
 
 The toad must not spit its venom amongst turtle 
 doves : nor the poisonous henbane grow amongst 
 sweet flowers. 
 
 Neither must any one that doeth ill enter into that 
 good land. 
 
 This earth is pleasant, for it is God's earth, and it 
 is filled with many delightful things. 
 
 But that country is far better : there we shall not 
 grieve any more, nor be sick any more, nor do wrong 
 any more ; there, the cold of winter shall not wither 
 us, nor the heats of summer scorch us. 
 
 In that country there are no wars nor quarrels, but 
 all love one another with dear love. 
 
 When our parents and friends die, and are laid in 
 the cold ground, we see them here no more ; but 
 there we shall embrace them again, and live with 
 them, and be separated no more. 
 
 There we shall meet all good men, whom we read 
 of in holy books. 
 
 There we shall see Abraham, the called of God, 
 the father of the faithful ; and Moses, after his long 
 
HYMNS. 199 
 
 wanderings in the Arabian desert; and Elijah, the 
 prophet of God ; and Daniel, who escaped the lion's 
 den ; and there, the son of Jesse, the shepherd king, 
 the sweet singer of Israel. 
 
 They loved God on earth ; they praised him on 
 earth ; but in that country they will praise him better, 
 and love him more. 
 
 There we shall see Jesus, who is gone before us to 
 that happy place ; and there we shall behold the glory 
 of the high God. 
 
 We cannot see him here, but we will love him 
 here ; we must be now on earth, but we will often 
 think on heaven. 
 
 That happy land is our home : we are to be here 
 but for a little while, and there forever, even for ages 
 of eternal years. 
 
 University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 
 
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