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Imitations 
 
 CELEBRATED AUTHORS; 
 
 OR, 
 
 IMAGINARY REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 FOURTH EDITION. 
 
 
 LONDON : 
 PUBLISHED FOR HENRY COLBURN, 
 
 1844. 
 

ff» 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 An Unsentimental Journey. By Elia. - C. L. 1 
 
 Rich and Poor. A Letter from William Cobbett 
 to the Ploughboys and Labourers of Hamp- 
 shire. - ---------- -W. C. 31 
 
 To-Morrow. A Gaiety and Gravity. By one of 
 
 the Authors of Rejected Addresses. - - H. S. 65 
 
 Demoniacals. (Posthumous.) By Childe Harold 
 
 The Token. -------- 79 
 
 Remonstrance. ------- 82 
 
 Stanzas. _-__--_-_ S5 
 
 Dining Out. By one of the Authors of Re- 
 jected Addresses. - - ------ H. S. 87 
 
 Letters on Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet. J. W. Ill 
 
 Grimm's Ghost. The Culpeppers on the Con- 
 tinent. By the other Author of Rejected 
 Addresses. ---------- J.S. *141 
 
 Spirit of the Age. Portrait of William 
 
 Hazlitt. - - -------- W. H. 165 
 
 London Letters to Country Cousins. - P. G. P. 209 
 
 Brother Jonathan. Rejected from the Edin- 
 burgh Review. -------- F.J. 261 
 
 Boccaccio and Fiametta. A Tale of the 
 
 Greenwood-Shade. - - ------ L. H. 313 
 
AN UN-SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY. 
 
AN UNSENTIMENTAL JOURNEY. 
 
 Reader, thou art haply one of those persons who 
 feel themselves bound in honour to earn (in their 
 own estimation) whatever title it may please others 
 to bestow upon them. If so, reading thyself every 
 day addressed as " reader/' (not to reckon the 
 flattering additaments of " gentle," " generous," 
 " tasteful," " learned," " critical," and so forth,) 
 thou hast doubtless felt thyself constrained in con- 
 science to prove the validity of thy title, by perus- 
 ing every Work '(so we puny moderns are minded 
 to denominate our poor, pigmy productions) that 
 comes before thee in a questionable shape : mean- 
 ing thereby, every one that thou art in the least 
 likely to be questioned about, as to whether it has 
 been perused by thee, or not. In this case, thou 
 hast perchance whiled away an odd half hour now 
 and then, in turning over and tasting the leaves of 
 
 e 2 
 
4 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 certain lucubrations, erewhile distilled by driblets 
 from the adust brain of one Elia. 
 
 I will suppose thou hast, at any rate. An author 
 would drive a sorry trade indeed, if he were not 
 privileged to suppose the case of his having readers. 
 To nine out of ten it is the only means of securing 
 any. And even to the tenth it is much the same. 
 
 Thou hast read Elia, then, and art therefore not 
 absolutely incognizant of the turn of his humours 
 and oddities, and the character which habit and 
 nature, uniting together, have succeeded (and failed) 
 in impressing upon his mental and bodily man. 
 I put it to thy candour, then, whether, being thus 
 informed, if any but Elia himself were to come 
 and make averment before thee, that they had 
 encountered his pale face, and attenuated form, 
 beyond the confines of his own England, thou 
 wouldest not have treated the tale as an ingenious, 
 albeit an ill-conceived fiction, and greeted the 
 teller with a glance chiefly compounded of the 
 incredulus odi ? 
 
 Perchance thou sufFerest the equivocal happiness 
 of being, like Elia himself, a pun-propounder : (for 
 punster is " a weak invention of the enemy " of puns, 
 and not to be uttered by one who honours them :) in 
 which case thou wilt doubtless exclaim, "Elia in- 
 continent ! it cannot be ;" and wilt add,— as Othello 
 
AN UN-SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY. & 
 
 did when a charge of being similarly situated 
 was made against his gentle mistress, — " I'll not 
 believe it!" 
 
 Thou art altogether in the right, and Elia him- 
 self hereby thanks thee for thy well-placed confi- 
 dence in his consistency. And yet Elia himself is 
 at the same time constrained to assure thee, that 
 thou art altogether as wrong as thou art right : 
 for nothing is more easy (and hard) than to be 
 entirely both, in regard to one and the same matter. 
 
 Look at the transparent tegument (mis-named 
 paper) on which these uneven words are ecrivated. 
 On turning it over, thou mayest, by following the 
 fashion of the Hebrew, read them almost as well 
 on the wrong side as on that which is not the 
 right. Glance thine eye, too, towards the top of 
 the page. It is dated " Calais." There is no 
 gainsaying the fact. Elia is, like Bottom, " trans- 
 lated " from his own modest, low-roofed parlour, 
 looking out upon the little Ever-Green (here they 
 would think it a strip of baize) that stretches 
 before the plain, uni-painted door of his quiet 
 domicile, in the suburban village of " Shacklewell, 
 near Hackney, near London, England — " for such 
 is the endless supererogation which he is obliged 
 to inscribe upon the letter which he has just dis- 
 patched (what a word, when they tell me it will 
 
O REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 not reach her these three days !) to his dear cousin 
 Bridget — he is translated, I say, from the above 
 spot (apt title, spot, when compared with the " in- 
 finite space" of which at present he is denizen) 
 to a magnificent Scene in the Play which seems 
 to be continually acting here, called " Dessin's 
 Hotel." 
 
 Reader, if thou wilt accord me a more than 
 ordinary share of thy patience, I will recount how 
 this seeming inconsequentiality came about : for 
 thy confidence in its unlikelihood merits my confi- 
 dence in return. 
 
 As I have begun supposing for thee, I may 
 as well go on. I suppose, then, that thou art 
 not ignorant of the signal change which, a brief 
 while ago, (brief it is by the book, though to 
 me it already seems an age — so crowded has it been 
 with thoughts, feelings, fancies, imaginations, and 
 what not), took place in my terrene condition, in 
 virtue of my becoming a " superannuated man." 
 Some of the consequences of this change I have 
 elsewhere related ; but the " greatest is behind." 
 
 If thou hast perused, reader, the relation I have 
 just alluded to, touching the first impressions of a 
 man who just begins to feel his freedom press upon 
 him, with a weight 
 
 " Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life," 
 
AN UN -SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY. 7 
 
 thou wilt readily conceive # * - # * . In 
 short, something was evidently # ##.#-.; 
 Besides which # # # # . 
 
 And moreover, what so natural to expect from 
 Elia, under extraordinary circumstances, as that 
 which nobody who knew him would expect from 
 him? 
 
 Suffice it that I " made up my mind" to go. 
 (The phrase is singularly "german to the matter" — 
 that is to say, not within some hundreds of miles 
 of expressing what it is meant to express : but let 
 it pass.) So I clapped a shirt in my pocket; (it 
 is hard that we cannot do the simplest of actions 
 without incurring the suspicion of being imitatores 
 servum pecus : people will say I borrowed the 
 idea, of putting a clean shirt in my pocket, from 
 Yorick : as if the abstract idea of a clean shirt did not 
 instinctively become apart of every man's conscious- 
 ness, the moment he thinks of leaving home !) I put 
 a shirt into my pocket; hurried a kiss, with no very 
 firm or florid lip, on the faded cheek of my cousin 
 Bridget ; (we have never been separated for twelve 
 hours since we came together twice twelve years 
 agone); got into the Shacklewell stage, as was my 
 wont every morning for all those years ; and as 
 wont also, when it set me down at the Bank as 
 usual, I proceeded towards my accustomed haunt 
 
O REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 in Leadenhall Street, and should assuredly have 
 taken my accustomed seat on the accustomed 
 stool, but that, just as I was stepping up, un- 
 der the magnificent portico of that Palace of 
 Commerce, I felt an ^accustomed weight — not 
 upon my heart, reader : I declare to thee that that 
 waxed lighter and lighter every step I approached 
 towards the spot where its rest had so long been 
 set up ; but — bobbing against the calf of my sinis- 
 ter leg. It was the bundle that Bridget had 
 squeezed into my pocket. This roused me from 
 my reverie ; and I turned back, just so as to reach 
 in time the great monster that was to bear me on 
 its back, (not more against my will than that of the 
 water,) to the shores of France. 
 
 THE VOYAGE. 
 
 I hate all Steam, and all that it can do ; except 
 when it comes singing its soft sweet tune, from 
 out the mouth of a half bright, half black tea- 
 kettle, on a December evening fire. But above 
 all I hate it, when, as I have chanced to see it 
 once or twice, it gets possession (like a bad demon) 
 of some otherwise dead hull, and drives it, scram- 
 bling, splashing, heaving, straining, and roaring 
 along, np our noble river Thamisis, belching forth 
 
AN UN-SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY. 9 
 
 fire and smoke, and invading, terrifying, and 
 polluting the sweet solitudes of Twickenham and 
 Richmond, with its hideous brawl. 
 
 I once watched one of these new " infernal 
 machines," as it came towards me while I was 
 wandering under those fine old trees near Bran- 
 denburg House ; and I perceived that the poor 
 victim of Steam was straining itself against the 
 water, and lifting its breast partly out, at every 
 stroke of its relentless task-master ; just as a half- 
 heart-broken stage-coach horse strains against the 
 collar, up a steep hill, at the stroke of the whip. 
 And yet the stroke came (as it does in the other 
 case) as regular as clock-work. There was 
 " damnable iteration '• in it ; it sent me home 
 sick ; and I have hated Steam better than ever, 
 ever since. 
 
 And yet here did I find myself, at eleven of the 
 clock on a sweet sunshiny day of September, in the 
 actual clutches of this abhorred power ; prepared, 
 nay expecting to be borne by it — to the clouds, as 
 likely as not, in a clap of thunder ; and to come 
 down from thence, scorched to a cinder, and hiss 
 as I fell into the water, and sunk at once to the 
 bottom like a bit of burnt coal ! 
 
 When I am in good health, (good, I mean, for me,) 
 and have my wits about me, I feel but one care con- 
 
10 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 cerning Death: it is that I may meet him not 
 absolutely unlooked for, and in my own bed with 
 the old dark crimson damask hangings ; and with 
 my cousin Bridget not beside me. And yet here 
 was I, willingly, or rather wilfully, putting myself 
 in the way of half a dozen of the most hideous 
 of all deaths, (for the name of Steam is not one but 
 Legion,) without even having a choice in them. 
 
 It was not to be thought of. So I seated my- 
 self at once on the first projection that came to 
 hand — looked down towards my feet — and as I 
 heard the bowels of the great creature begin to 
 grumble within it, and felt its body move be- 
 neath me, luckily the thought came across me 
 of Sinbad the sailor, when he was inveigled, by 
 some unaccountable fascination, to trust himself 
 on the back of the Old Man of the Sea. 
 
 This recollection, by virtue of the associations I 
 had connected with it, partly restored me from 
 myself; and I did not return till I was called back 
 by an indescribable jargon of tongues, as if some 
 foreign Bedlam or Bank Rotunda had broke loose 
 at midnight — from which I could gather nothing, 
 but that "I was actually arrived in the port of 
 Calais. But this was more than enough; so I re- 
 signed myself into the hands of fate, under the 
 form of a French waiter, and after a few ceremo- 
 
AN UN-SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY. II 
 
 nies which I did not seek to understand, found 
 myself in a spacious sleeping apartment of 
 
 DESSIN S HOTEL. 
 
 I am not the person to go gadding after other 
 men's fancies. I have enough to do to keep pace 
 with my own. I was never fond of " follow my 
 leader," even at school. I would not follow, and 
 did not want to lead. And yet, reader, I am fain 
 to confess to thee, that peradventure if it had not 
 been for Hogarth and Sterne, " The gates of 
 Calais " would never have shut upon Elia ; and 
 even if they had, the hundred harpies from its 
 Hotels would in all probability have divided him 
 amongst them, instead of one being permitted to 
 spirit him away in the name of '-' Dessin" in parti- 
 cular. 
 
 To be sure there is, in regard to the latter 
 point, something to be said for the determina- 
 tion which the before-named one had evidently 
 formed, as to the necessity of my following him, 
 and no one else. " Sare — you shall go to Mister 
 Dessin," he repeated, close into my ear, twenty 
 times at least. And when a man shall do a thing, 
 he must. So I went. 
 
12 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 I need scarcely tell the " travelled " reader, that 
 on this first moment of my setting foot in a foreign 
 land, I was in no disposition to note very carefully 
 the localities through which I was led by the 
 absolute person into whose hands I fell. It must 
 suffice to say, that I retired to my unrest, in the 
 midst of indistinct and confused visions, of an im- 
 measurable Gateway, an illimitable Court-yard, 
 an incomprehensible Coach and Horses, an unin- 
 telligible Chambermaid, and an inaccessible Bed. 
 
 My dreams on that night favoured me by being 
 more fantastical than I have known them for 
 many a long year : for, as I think I have other- 
 where informed thee, reader, I am but a poor hand 
 at dreaming. My dreams put me out of conceit 
 of myself. Anybody might dream them. But on 
 that night, methought, among other matters, that 
 I suddenly sank into the sea, and was (Jonas-like) 
 swallowed by a whale; and that the passage 
 through his throat to his belly, where I lodged, 
 was exactly like that between Lombard Street and 
 Cornhill, where Mr. Myers the fishmonger lives, 
 and that it smelt of fish much the same as that 
 does ; and that, when I had got through it, I 
 found myself in a great paved court-yard, the 
 extremities of which I could not see, which was 
 partly lighted by what seemed to be the creature's 
 
AN UN-SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY. 13 
 
 great liclless eye ; and that, while I was passing 
 across its dreary spaciousness, I heard a number 
 of what the children call crackers go offjust outside, 
 and then saw, by the glimmering light, a sort of 
 carriage like Neptune's conch come clattering in, 
 drawn by three animals, (a-breast,) which seemed to 
 be compounded of half Meux's dray-horses, half 
 mermaids ; and from the side of one of which I 
 could see depending that enormous sign of a Boot 
 and Spur, which has so long delighted the eyes of 
 all the urchins who inhabit the Borough of South- 
 wark. Methought, too, as I looked up towards 
 the ceiling of my new apartment, it seemed to be 
 intersected by enormous black beams, just like 
 my cousin's great barn at Mackery End, in Hert- 
 fordshire, where I used to sit upon the wheat- 
 sheaves, and read Burton : and yet I could see 
 the stars shine through it. 
 
 Then all of a sudden I heard an enormous ex- 
 plosion, and found myself flying through the air, 
 seated astride upon a great piece of burning wood, 
 rudely carved into the form of a rocking-horse ; 
 which I held by, exactly as John Gilpin in the 
 prints does by the neck of his horse. And I re- 
 member very well fancying, as I shot through the 
 air, and got glimpses of the flaming tail of my steed 
 
14 
 
 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 flaring out behind me, how the philosophers of 
 London would proclaim me a Comet, and call it by 
 the name of Elia ! 
 
 Then, as suddenly, I found myself quietly seat- 
 ed in a great unknown room, by the side of an un- 
 known tent-like erection, beneath which was 
 what bore some resemblance to a bed; and 
 around were various objects, which I did not 
 take the trouble to examine — especially as, in 
 divesting myself of my nether garments, prepa- 
 ratory to trying whether the seeming bed was a 
 bed or not, I found that they came away piece- 
 meal, and were in fact scorched to a cinder. 
 
 This seemed to disconcert me more than the 
 nature of the accident warranted ; and I got up 
 hastily, to ring the bell, and call for another pair, 
 just as I would have called for a pint of wine — (for 
 I now seemed to recollect that I was at an inn) 
 — when, taking hold of the great ring which hung 
 to the bell-rope, I pulled it somewhat impatiently 
 — and lo ! it seemed to produce as miraculous 
 effects as the pull or cut of the Sultan, in the Ara- 
 bian Nights, at the ring revealed to him by his 
 faithful Vizier. Mr. Dessin's hotel seemed to 
 stand before me for a moment, like a scene on the 
 stage, and then, like that, sunk into the earth at 
 
AN UN-SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY. lO 
 
 the sound of the bell I had pulled— the Gates of 
 Calais (which formed part of the back scene) came 
 clattering about the ears of their astonished keep- 
 ers—the Sea in the distance was changed into the 
 Strand, with its gas-lights and coaches just when 
 the Play is over ;~-and the next moment I found my- 
 self seated beside my cousin Bridget, in our own 
 quiet parlour, and Betty was just entering to ask 
 whether it was the bed-candle that I had rung 
 for. 
 
 My late friend Tobin makes Juliana say, (pret- 
 tily enough, under the circumstances of the scene, 
 I remember,) " we cannot help our dreams." But 
 what is a great deal worse, we cannot help telling 
 them. If all the above incoherencies had actually 
 and bona fide befallen me, I verily believe, reader, 
 I should have had too much respect for thy time 
 and patience (to say nothing of my taste) to think of 
 relating them to thee ; because there is nothing to 
 be extracted from them in anyway tending to thy 
 moral instruction, or even to thy mental delectation. 
 But because they have not happened to me, and 
 could not, I have been tempted to record them. 
 
 This is one of the most unpardonable imperti- 
 nences of which any of us are guilty. If I 
 ever for a moment think that my cousin Bridget 
 talks too much, or not wisely., it is when she 
 
16 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 is telling me of some strange dream that she 
 has had. Nobody should ever tell their dreams, 
 
 but C . Even de Q should leave it off, 
 
 now that he has left off that which made his 
 dreams so marketable a commodity. 
 
 Travelled reader, I would fain have thee believe, 
 that in the midst of my humours and oddities, I 
 am not an altogether unreasonable specimen of 
 the human animal — I mean in respect of those of 
 his intellectuals by which he carries on the daily 
 business of his life. Thou opinest, perhaps, that 
 because I have hitherto been content (howbeit, 
 " on compulsion," yet not the less sincerely there- 
 fore) to pass my days within the atmosphere of 
 the Great City, (for my retreat at Shackle well is a 
 retreat from her noise only, not a recession from 
 beneath that noble canopy of congregated clouds 
 which constantly hangs over her head, queen-like,) 
 — therefore I do keck and reluct at the taste and 
 odour of any atmosphere which has the demerit of 
 being more pure, and quarrel with every form 
 that comes before me, not moulded on the accus- 
 tomed model. 
 
 In this thou deceivest thyself, and discreditest 
 me. In respect of feelings, fancies, modes of 
 belief, and the like, I do agnize a certain de- 
 gree of wilful predisposition. But in what re- 
 
AN UN-SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY. 17 
 
 lutes to form, to matter, to manner, to taste, 
 to sound, to smell, in short all pertaining 
 to our sensuous and animal nature, I do stre- 
 nuously assert my entire freedom from preju- 
 dice and pre-occupation. What if I do cherish 
 a somewhat inordinate passion for Roast Pig, 
 and am even prepared (peace-lover as I am) to 
 place spear in rest to prove the pre-eminence of 
 that dulcet refection, over every other in the whole 
 circle of my mundus edibilis ? Yet assuredly I 
 speak but of my world. I am no mad-brained 
 Quixote in this matter. Far be it from me to be- 
 lieve, prima facie, much less to insist, that a sucking- 
 Kangaroo, treated in a similar manner, may not be 
 as good. (Perhaps my friend B. F. is able to speak 
 to this point.) And if your Cannibal, who is " your 
 only emperor for diet," were to twit me with the 
 superlative savoriness of a roasted Christian, as- 
 suredly I should not dispute the point with him. 
 I am not in a condition to determine. I have never 
 tasted one ; and according to the calculable probabi- 
 lities of the case, never may. 
 
 After this open confession, reader, thou wilt not 
 see cause to admire overmuch, when I assure thee, 
 that my morning ablutions were no less refreshing 
 than usual, albeit they were performed from a 
 
18 REJECTED ARTICLES, 
 
 pie-dish in place of that hemispherical receptacle 
 which we employ for that purpose ; that my tea 
 tasted not the less fragrant for being sipped from 
 a cup that a bee might have mistaken for a tulip ; 
 and that I did not fancy myself in worse than my 
 ordinary health when I felt myself in better, 
 merely because my braekfast was brought to me 
 in my bed-room. 
 
 In truth, whether that the sea air of yesterday 
 has braced up the bands of my spirits, or that 
 the entire novelty of the scene which I find before 
 my eyes on waking this morning has loosened 
 and set them vibrating, (for I give thee thy 
 choice, reader, between the material and the 
 moral theory), certain it is, that they are in better 
 than their usual trim. And as I have often given 
 thee the proceeds of their peevishness and want 
 of self-controul, it is but fair that thou shouldst 
 have thy share in their more " blest condition." 
 
 But look not for any regular narrative from me. 
 A series of events, even when, as my friend W. 
 hath it, they are " linked each to each by natural 
 piety/' is what I am altogether incapable of fol- 
 lowing, even in idea. My intellectuals have, at 
 some period or other of their existence — whether 
 before they appertained to me, the man Elia, or 
 
AN UN-SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY. 19 
 
 since, I guess not — undergone a sort of disj oint- 
 ment or dislocation, which has shut up some of 
 those alleys or avenues by which the several apart- 
 ments communicated with each other and formed 
 a suite. And the consequence is, that though 
 each room may be as well adapted to its ap- 
 pointed use as another's, and may be as fitly fur- 
 nished, (though I say not that they be so), yet 
 many of them can only be come at by out-of-the- 
 way means — such as climbing in at the window, or 
 dropping down the chimney. 
 
 Touching the sky of France, and the atmos- 
 phere that fills its blue breadth, I like them well, 
 as a change. They seem to breathe into me a 
 buoyancy, (why not write it 603/ancy?) that I 
 have not lately felt, (I confess it), even in the 
 greenest of the green places that neighbour my 
 suburban home ; or in the pleasant fields of Hert- 
 fordshire, or of more distant Devon. It is as if 
 they were impregned with a vinous spirit, drawn 
 forth by the glances of that " hot amorist/' the 
 Sun, from the innumerous vine-clad vallies on 
 which he looks in his lightsome course. In England 
 the open air, when it is open, never fails to still 
 that restless stir " which hangs upon the beatings 
 of the heart." It hushes it, as a nursing-mother 
 
 c2 
 
20 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 hushes her infant, <c while pap content is making." 
 (I speak of it at its best.) We can fall asleep 
 in its arms ; or fancy that we are sleeping — which 
 is better. It is lulling sweet, and soft ; balmy,as 
 if distilled from the breath of flowers. It is 
 dream-compelling — the mother of sweet medi- 
 tations. When all wrapt about by it like a soft 
 garment, we feel that 
 
 " If it were now to die, 't were now to be most happy :" 
 
 so full and sure is the bliss — so quiet, yet so con- 
 summate. But here — hey for old Ben's " New 
 Inn, or the light of heart !" No dreaming here 
 — no meditations — no mild melancholy — no plea- 
 sant despondencies. And as for dying, it is a 
 thing clean out of the question. It cannot be. 
 Death himself seems dead and gone. He could 
 not live upon such life-creating food. He is 
 fairly starved out. Or if he comes at all, it 
 must be '". like a thief in the night." There can 
 be no such thing as dying in the day-time, here. 
 
 I never could make out what it was which 
 created that anomaly in morals and manners, the 
 French character. But I have tasted their air, 
 and my difficulties have melted away into it. 
 I am a Frenchman myself! I go about on the 
 
AN UN-SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY. 21 
 
 tips of my toes ; and move my arms from my 
 sides " with an air ;" and hum snatches of old 
 French tunes,- and step aside when I meet the 
 blooming peasant women in the market-place, — 
 gracefully bowing the head of my imagination as 
 they pass, and scattering flowers (of fancy) in 
 their path. I must return incontinently ; or there 
 will be two Elias — which were too many ; and 
 yet not one — which were too few. 
 
 Let me, however, set down a few notes, as me- 
 morials of the danger I have run, of losing my 
 identity, and becoming " sophisticated." And 
 first, let me do justice to M. Dessin's Hotel. It is 
 an Inn for the Titans to have stopped at. Its court- 
 yard is like one of the great Quadrangles at Oxford, 
 in all but the stillness and the green. It is, to 
 other inns, what the India-house is to other count- 
 ing-houses. It seems built in mockery of us 
 puny moderns ; and it were idle to inquire if it is 
 ever full, — for if every room were occupied it 
 would still be empty. — Sallying forth from its 
 great gateway into the street, (of which a tenth part 
 of the Hotel forms half,) you feel "cabinned, 
 cribbed, confined," — as when passing out of Lin- 
 coln's-inn-fields into Turnstile. If M. Dessin 
 could be prevailed on to build a Church in the 
 centre of the court-yard, and turn one of the 
 
I'Z REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 rooms into a Theatre, it would be a complete 
 thing;. . 
 
 THE MARKET-PLACE. 
 
 It is Saturday, and Market-day ; and if, reader, 
 thou art not susceptible of Market-day in a great 
 country-town, thou art not for Elia's money ; or 
 rather he is not for thine. It is among the 
 prettiest sights in nature : in the nature of art, I 
 mean. Such nut-brown faces, with the red bloom 
 breaking through them ! Such teeth, shining 
 forth through such lips ! Such clean clothes, and 
 
 such fly caps ! I have not, like de Q , been 
 
 a great frequenter of markets — especially London 
 ones, at night. But of all the markets that I 
 have seen, commend me to this one of Calais. If 
 all England can shew a dozen such sights, once a 
 week throughout the year, it is a better place 
 than I think it — which is much. And if every 
 great town in France can shew such a one, it is a 
 better place than anybody thinks it — which is 
 much more. 
 
 In passing from the Port last night, in custody 
 of the commissioner (so the little ragged rogue 
 calls himself) whose will, or rather wliose shall 
 
AN UN-SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY. 23 
 
 it was that I should go to Mister Dessin's hotel 
 in particular, I observed that we traversed a 
 great open Square, shut in by high houses on 
 every side, and empty of every living and dead 
 thing — except the moon-light — which is neither. 
 To-day that Square is one unbroken mass of 
 moving life and beauty, and of that without which 
 they are not worth having. I never saw anything 
 so brilliant ; — not even the Dutch pictures of simi- 
 lar scenes. Indeed, I never greatly affected pic- 
 tures of this kind of scene. In a picture they 
 can neither be idealized nor realized : and the 
 merit of pictures consists in their doing either 
 one or other of these, in regard to the scene or 
 object they profess to represent. The old Italians 
 often did the first, and the old Flemings the se- 
 cond ; and the moderns do neither. But this 
 Market is a better thing, in its way, than any of 
 them ever did. Come with me into it, reader, 
 and let us see of what it consists. 
 
 On first entering it, from the street where I so- 
 journ, (yclept " Royal," on account, I suppose, 
 of its containing the Prince of Hotels), it looks, 
 to a general glance over it, something like what 
 the great Tulip bed, in Mr. Smith's Nursery at 
 Dalstorij must appear to the '- microscopic eye" 
 of a fly — so intermingled are the colours of the 
 
24 ; REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 peasant's dresses, so various, so bright, so un- 
 broken, and so ever-shifting about as the breeze 
 of busy traffic passes over it. It is less dense 
 and less lively than elsewhere, here, where we are 
 entering ; because here, you see, the grain is ex- 
 posed ; which asks for room, and does not go off 
 so quickly as the more ready edibles. What a fine 
 patriarchal look dwells in the sun-burnt cheeks 
 and snow-white forehead of that old peasant, who 
 stands erect behind his open-mouthed sack, wait- 
 ing his turn for a customer ; for there is no noisy 
 rivalry here — no bullying or cajoling you into 
 buying, whether you will or not. Those younger 
 ones, too, that stand beside and about him, each 
 behind his sack ; what noble heads some of them 
 have ! They might have been bred up with 
 Guiderius and Arviragus. Nay, you might select 
 enough from among them to stand for a Cartoon 
 of Joseph and his brethren — each with his sack. 
 
 Turning to the right, here, on this raised spot 
 in front of the handsome old Town-hall, are spread 
 out the few varieties of country crockery-ware 
 which these primitive people need for their simple 
 purposes ; but on which the brouze busts of Guise 
 and Richelieu seem to look down with infinite 
 contempt. You may save yourself the trouble of 
 telling that aged crone, there, who sits in the 
 
AN UN-SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY. 'ZO 
 
 little watch-box, waiting to sell them, that there 
 is not one object among them all of which the use 
 could be conjectured in any state of society ap- 
 proaching to civilization ; for if you do she will 
 only return you a faint smile, of which both you 
 and she would be equally puzzled to make out the 
 meaning. 
 
 But pass we on towards the heart of the busy 
 scene. In the midst of all, and almost from end 
 to end of the Square, stands a row of as fine 
 specimens of the human animal as eye ever looked 
 upon. Flesh and blood can go no farther than 
 this. Set it down in thy tablets, reader, that 
 these are your only symptoms of health and con- 
 tent. Whatever looks different from this, is not 
 as it should be, however taking it may be to our 
 effeminate tastes, and vulgarly refined asso- 
 ciations. 
 
 I never saw. any thing like these people before. 
 And yet the instant I look at them the truth 
 comes upon me as if by instinct. This is the 
 real thing. All else is sophisticate. Such clear 
 and spacious brows — such brilliant yet innocent 
 eyes — such apple cheeks, as hard, as red, and as 
 round — such mouths, made up of the good tem- 
 per which grows out of content — such ripe, unrc- 
 luctant lips — such unconscious teeth — and withal, 
 
26 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 such an air of happy independence, overflowing 
 every now and then into sparkling streams of 
 mirth ; — all this, I freely confess to thee, reader, I 
 never witnessed before. I do not know how it 
 may be with thee ; but for me, it has filled me 
 with a serious joy, interfused with a still more 
 serious melancholy and misgiving, which I do not 
 very well know how to entertain. We, in England, 
 cannot shew such a sight as this for our lives. 
 And if a state like this of France can shew it, at 
 a stone's throw from our shores, and after all that 
 she has suffered and performed, there must be 
 f* something rotten" in — but hold, hold, my gentle 
 friend, Elia ! if thou lovest me (or thyself) hold ! 
 Let thy wild fancy intermeddle as it will with all 
 things else ; but let it leave Politics to patriots, 
 parrots, and popular preachers. Shun it as thou 
 wouldst a pestilence. Knowest thou not the 
 wreck and ruin it has wrought among thy dearest 
 friends ? Has it not made * # * # * but let us 
 have done with it. 
 
 These beautiful realities, from which we for a 
 moment turned away so idly, are butter-women. 
 Each is standing (not sitting) behind a milk-white 
 wooden receptacle, over which she bends grace- 
 fully, with a hand on each knee, and the cover 
 of which she lifts up on the approach of a cus- 
 
AN UN-SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 27 
 
 tomer, and discloses her little store. It may be 
 worth, perhaps, altogether — including the basket 
 of eggs which always accompanies it — as much 
 as we (erewhile) clerks used to give for our daily 
 mutton chop and pint of wine, at a paltry tavern 
 in the city. And yet she who owns it reckons 
 the mere profit on it — which she has already 
 realized in imagination — a little possession. And 
 that she gets more than " a living" upon the in- 
 terchange of it, is evident from the tasty trim- 
 ness of her attire, its delicate cleanness and pro- 
 priety, and above all from those great yellow gold 
 ear-ornaments (" tops and drops," I remember we 
 used to call them, when they were in vogue among 
 us) that hang down from her ears to her very 
 shoulders, where they rest. Her attire is fashioned 
 as follows : and it differs from all her tribe only 
 in the relative arrangement of its colours. On 
 the body a crimson jacket, of a thick, solid tex- 
 ture, and tight to the shape ; but without any 
 pretence at ornament. This is met at the waist 
 (which is neither long, nor short, but exactly 
 where nature placed it) by a dark blue petticoat, 
 of a still thicker texture, so that it hangs in large 
 plaits where it is gathered in behind. Over this, 
 in front, is tied tightly round the waist, so as to 
 keep all trim and compact, a dark apron, the 
 
28 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 string of which passes over the little fulled skirt 
 of the jacket behind, and makes it stick out 
 smartly and tastily, while it clips the waist in. 
 The head-gear consists of a sort of mob cap, 
 nothing of which but the edge round the face can 
 be seen, on account of the kerchief (of flowered 
 cotton) which is passed over it, hood fashion, and 
 half tied under the chin. This head-kerchief is 
 in place of the bonnet — a thing not to be seen 
 among the whole five hundred females who make 
 up this pleasant show. Indeed, varying the 
 colours of the different articles, this description 
 applies to every dress of the whole assembly ; ex- 
 cept that in some the fineness of the day has dis- 
 pensed with the kerchief, and left the snow-white 
 cap exposed ; and in others, the whole figure (ex- 
 cept the head) is coyishly covered and concealed 
 by a large hooded cloak of black cloth, daintily 
 lined with silk, and confined close up to the 
 throat by an embossed silver clasp, but hanging 
 loosely down to the heels, in thick, full folds. 
 The petticoat is very short ; the trim ancles are 
 cased in close-fit hose of dark, sober, slate colour ; 
 and the shoes, though thick and serviceable like 
 all the rest of the costume, fit the foot as neatly 
 as those which are not made to walk in. 
 
 I declare these picturesque people (the epithet 
 
AN UN-SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY. 29 
 
 belongs to them more than to any I ever saw, for 
 they look as if they had just walked out of pic- 
 tures) have made quite a delineator of me. I 
 never was so descriptive before. How sayest 
 thou, reader? This is the age of authors who 
 write with the pencil instead of the pen. Shall I 
 enlist myself among the number, and issue pro- 
 posals for publishing by subscription a set (of all 
 things in the world) of " French Scenes and Cos- 
 tumes V I, who do not pretend even to see, 
 much less to make others see, any thing more 
 of human life, and its results, than those little 
 obliquities and excrescencies which start out from 
 the strait line and dead level of it, and are over- 
 looked by its other spectators? To me, those per- 
 sons and things which are like other persons and 
 things, are like nothing — or they are nothing, for 
 I do not observe them long enough to see them. 
 They slip off my sensorium without making any 
 impression upon it. 
 
 No ; I may, perhaps have given, above, an in- 
 telligible account of a common thing ; because to 
 me it was not common, and because, moreover, there 
 is something in it which, if I mistake not, is es- 
 sentially characteristic and peculiar. But I must 
 stop in time, or I shall put in jeopardy any little 
 credit I may have, gained for seeing what others 
 
30 REJECTEE! ARTICLES. 
 
 do not, by putting down as strange and worthy 
 of record what every body else regards in the 
 light of a level common-place. I will therefore 
 leave thee, reader, (and thou canst scarcely be on 
 a spot better adapted to provide thee with a few 
 hours, of innocent delectation), in the midst of the 
 grand Place of Calais, on the Market-day of the 
 first Saturday in September, eighteen hundred and 
 twenty -five ; — assuring thee, in all sincerity, that 
 if thou lookest about thee with an observant eye, 
 and a mind made soft by sympathy with the 
 crowd of happy humans that surround thee, thou 
 shalt carry away a throng of impressions that will 
 stand thee in better stead, in thy passage through 
 this valley of {not <( the shadow of death," but) 
 the sunshine of life, than will, though he should 
 write till doomsday, all the crude thoughts, and 
 dreamy fancies, and wild imaginations, and super- 
 subtle distinctions — all the false truths, and the 
 true falsehoods of thy sincere well-wisher, 
 
 E r, i a . 
 
RICH AND POOR. 
 
 A LETTER FROM WILLIAM COEBETT TO THE PLOUGHBOYS AND 
 LABOURERS OF HAMPSHIRE. 
 
RICH AND POOR. 
 
 A LETTER FROM WILLIAM COBBETT 10 THE PLOUGHROYS AND 
 LABOURERS OF HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 MY HONEST FRIENDS AND FELLOW COUNTRYMEN, 
 
 1. I happened to be down in your parts the 
 other day, about a little Turnpike business— 
 (perhaps you've heard of the pretty game I've been 
 playing up lately, among the rascally Jews who* 
 have got all the London Turnpike Trusts into their 
 hands, and are filling their own pockets by pick- 
 ing those of other people) — I say, happening to 
 be down in the neighbourhood of Botley, I took a 
 little pains to find out whether you are as well 
 off now as when I was living among you ; and 
 I was sorry to hear sad complaints about you 
 from some of my old farming friends. 
 
 2. Times are a little changed with the land- 
 lords and the farmers since then, to be sure — 
 
34 ■ REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 thanks to the Paper Money and the Corn Bill ; 
 as I told them over and over again it would be. 
 And when times change for the worse with them, 
 they are not very likely to change for the better 
 with you. When the head and body are cold, 
 the hands and feet are seldom very warm. It is 
 as I said it would be, years ago. There is'nt 
 work for half of you ; and those that there is 
 work for don't get half paid ; and the old ones 
 among you are obliged to take up with the work- 
 house ; and the young ones to break stones to 
 mend the roads, that the rich parsons and par- 
 liament-men may roll along smoothly, as they 
 loll their lazy carcases back in their fine carriages 
 — one of which, by the bye, and the cost of its 
 keep, would provide twenty of you and your 
 families with wholesome food, warm clothing, 
 and a nice little snug cottage over your heads, 
 for twenty years to come ! 
 
 3. I hear too that some of you have actually 
 the audacity (so the said parsons and parlia- 
 ment-men think and call it) not to be content 
 with this amusing occupation of everlasting 
 stone cracking; or even to be quite satisfied 
 with holding the plough from morning till night 
 for ten pence a-day ; and have been trying to 
 better yourselves by making your way up to 
 
RICH AND POOR. 35 
 
 town to get places. Now this information, my 
 good lads, is what has tempted me to put aside 
 many other important matters that I had in hand, 
 and address you the present letter. 
 
 4. And so, because matters are going a little 
 hard with you, and your accustomed labour will 
 not procure all that you would like to have, (and 
 that, I admit, you ought to have,) you are get- 
 ting tired of your present condition, and hanker- 
 ing after others that you ought to be proud of 
 knowing nothing about. Because ploughboys 
 and labourers don't get quite so much as they 
 used to do, and as you hear is to be got by other 
 occupations, you begin to think that ploughing 
 and labouring are not the best kinds of work for 
 those whose lot it is to work for their bread. 
 
 5. But I should be glad to know how you 
 can change your condition for a better. What 
 occupation is more honourable than husbandry? 
 What is more manly, more healthful, more 
 pleasant ? I tell you what, my lads, I shrewdly 
 suspect that some of your rantipole Squires have 
 been filling their houses with visiters from London 
 for the sporting season, who have brought down 
 with them a pack of grooms, valets, lacqueys, and 
 other lazy hounds, and that these chaps have got 
 among you at the Alehouse, while their masters 
 
 D.2 
 
36 REJECTED ARTICLES, 
 
 were getting drunk together at the Hall, and have 
 instilled some of their cursed notions into your 
 heads, about the pleasures of a London life, and 
 the delights of having large wages and little work, 
 and of being dizened out in flashy clothes, and 
 riding behind their masters, or perhaps sitting 
 cheek-by-jowl beside them, in some gimcrack 
 gingerbread gig, so that nobody but themselves 
 can tell which is which ! 
 
 6. But do you pretend to have English blood 
 in your veins, and yet tell me that this is a life 
 fit for an Englishman ? Would you, who rise 
 with the sun, and sally out into the sweet morn- 
 ing air, and having driven your team a- field, 
 seize the smooth-rubbed handle of your glitter- 
 ing plough, and whistle at your work till break- 
 fast time, while the blackbird is whistling back 
 to you from the copse, the lark singing merrily 
 in the sunshine above your head, and the whole- 
 some steam of the new-turned earth is rising 
 all about you, and mixing with the sweet breath 
 of the hawthorn ; would you, I say, who can 
 live such a life as this, and have lived it, change 
 it to be groom of the stable and hold the stirrup 
 to some lubberly lord, who is himself perhaps 
 groom of the bedchamber and holds (I won't say 
 what) to a king, who is himself lacquey to all of 
 
RICH AND POOR. 37 
 
 us, for he receives our pay and wears our livery ? 
 Would you, who when your day's work is over, 
 are as much your own masters as any lord in the 
 land ; and more ; and are at no man's beck and 
 call ; (as no one who bears the name of man ought 
 to be ;) would you change your condition, to be- 
 come the servant of a servant's servant, and not 
 be able to call your soul your own ; merely because 
 you can get a few shillings in a year more wages 
 by it ? Would you, I say, do this ? Then shame 
 and short commons be your portion ! 
 
 7. But no ; you would not do it. I know you 
 would not. I have not lived in the midst of you 
 all these years, and spent the greater part of them 
 in trying to cultivate a spirit of independence 
 among you, and all for nothing. You would not, 
 I'm sure you would not, be content to be slaves 
 to the rich, merely because you happen to be 
 what they (the rich) call poor. 
 
 8. But, my good lads, I'm almost afraid you 
 don't properly understand the meaning of those 
 words " Rich " and " Poor." And if you don't 
 I'll be sworn the parson of the parish won't teach 
 you. So I will. You must know, then, that the 
 London Press — you've heard of the Press, I sup- 
 pose ; the base, beggarly, lying Press ; the coward- 
 ly, skulking, scoundrel Press; the Newspaper 
 
38 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 Press ; you've heard of this thing, by means of 
 which half a score cunning knaves contrive to 
 gull, hoodwink, and bamboozle half the nation, 
 (and would do the whole if it was not for me,) 
 and cram their pockets with pelf at the same time. 
 I wish I had time to put you up to a few of their 
 tricks. But I'll just give you a notion how some 
 of them are paid for what they do ; and then you 
 may give a pretty good guess as to what it is 
 that they do, to get paid after that fashion. It 
 was but the other day that a fellow named Clement ; 
 a great fat bull-necked pot-bellied chap he is now ; 
 but I knew him when he was so thin and half 
 starved that he could have crept in and out at a 
 rat-hole. Well ; this fellow set up a thing called 
 a ''Sunday Paper;" in which he used to collect 
 together all the lies that had been hatched in the 
 course of the week, and add a lot more of his own 
 invention, and then persuade the people, by his 
 puffing advertisements, to buy all this trash, and 
 read it to one another of a Sunday, and fancy that 
 they were as much concerned in it as if it had 
 all been gospel. 
 
 9. Well ; this fellow, I say, after having 
 carried on a roaring trade in these lies for some 
 time, found the money tell in at such a rate, that 
 he bethought himself, if he could but contrive to 
 
RICH AND POOR. 39 
 
 bring his pigs to market seven times a week instead 
 of once, his profits would be seven times as 
 much as they were before : for he's one of those 
 people who have just sense enough to know that 
 seven is seven times as much as one. Accordingly, 
 the other day (that is a few months ago) another 
 newspaper chap of the name of Perry; a paltry, 
 pitiful fellow, who used to kick his heels in the 
 antichambers of lords and dukes, and was some- 
 times allowed to lick his fingers at the lower end 
 of their dinner tables, on condition of puffing their 
 parliament speeches next day ; this last chap, 
 I say, happened to die just pat, as if on pur- 
 pose, for the other (Clement) to pop into his 
 place. 
 
 10. But how was he to do this ? for places 
 that are worth having are not to be got by ask- 
 ing for. How was he to get into this place ? 
 Why by cash to be sure. He determined to 
 buy it. Buy a newspaper ! A thing, the success 
 of which (putting merit and demerit out of the 
 question) depends entirely on the person who 
 conducts it ! and the person who had hitherto 
 conducted this was dead ! But no matter : 
 Clement determined to buy this place, left va- 
 cant by the death of Perry. (And what place, 
 by the bye, is not to be bought in London, if you 
 
40 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 know liow to set about making the bargain?) 
 In short, Clement bought this defunct daily paper, 
 called the Morning Chronicle ; for defunct it must 
 be when Perry was so ; since the Morning Chro- 
 nicle meant neither more nor less than a sheet of 
 paper, on which he (Perry) chose to print any- 
 thing that he had to say on any topic that might 
 be the talk of the hour. Clement bought it, how- 
 ever. And how much do you think he gave for 
 it? for this is the point to which I wish to direct 
 your attention. How much do you think he paid 
 for it ? 
 
 11. Why." fools and their money are soon 
 parted; perhaps a matter of a hundred pounds;" 
 I hear some of you say. A hundred pounds ! 
 What do you say to forty thousand? forty 
 thousand pounds!! ! — This is what Clement 
 paid, for the privilege of venting his lies six times 
 a-week oftener than he had hitherto done, under 
 the name of the Morning Chronicle. Forty 
 thousand pounds ! ! ! Enough to keep you 
 and all your families from want, all through the 
 county, if you were never to do another day's 
 work while you live ! What do you say to this, 
 my honest friends ? — You see lying is the trade 
 to get rich by, after all. It is better than farm- 
 ing, even when wheat is 905. a quarter. 
 
B I C H AND POO R . 4 1 
 
 12. But I must get back to the subject on 
 which I began to address you. I was saying 
 that I'm afraid you do not exactly see the true 
 difference between what are called the Rich and 
 the Poor. And I don't know how you should, 
 when it has been, any time these thirty years, the 
 sole business of this base Press to throw dust 
 into your eyes to prevent you from seeing the truth, 
 and dirt at all those who, like me, are able and 
 willing to shew 7 it you ? 
 
 13. Ask, for instance, the Times newspaper; 
 the hireling, hellish Times ; the bloody Old 
 Times ; who calls me " old Cobbett :" the brute 
 beast ! as if I was'nt young enough to be pretty 
 sure of living to see him and all his base crew 
 carted, and to spit upon their graves I Ask, I 
 say, this infamous " Times " newspaper what's 
 the difference between a '.' rich " man and a 
 ** poor " one, and the advantages or disadvantages 
 of each • and it's ten to one but he tells you that 
 the chief difference consists in the one being able, 
 and the other not able, to buy his paper ! 
 
 14. But the dolt forgets (or at least he would 
 have you forget ; for I'll take good care he shall 
 never forget it) that there is such a writer as 
 William Cobbett in the world ; who glories, and 
 ever will, in telling the truth to those who cannot 
 
42 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 afford to purchase it, even if there were any one 
 else to offer it them ; and who thus puts an end 
 to the distinction between " poor" and " rich/' 
 and places them both on a level in point of in- 
 tellect and knowledge ; which is the only real 
 riches. The pay that pleases me is the good I'm 
 doing. I don't deny that I like money well 
 enough ; especially when it comes out of the 
 pockets of those who have plundered it from 
 the people ; for I know what to do with it better 
 than they do : and what is more, I deserve it ; 
 which nobody will say of them. But of the 
 poor I scorn to take a penny beyond what is just 
 enough to pay me for the paper and print of what 
 I write for them. As for the writing itself, they 
 are welcome to that. My Register is a nice little 
 book containing thirty -two pages ; not a great, 
 flapping, fly away thing, containing only four 
 pages ; like the offspring of the vagabond Press. 
 And yet the price of my thirty-two pages is 
 sixpence, and the price of their four pages is 
 sevcnpence ! ! 
 
 15. Now mark me, my friends. All that I 
 desire is, that in London (the Metropolis, as it 
 is nicknamed by scholars; the great wen, as I 
 call it, who, thank God ! am no scholar) all I 
 wish by way of remuneration for my labours is, 
 
RICH AND POOR. 43 
 
 that all the mechanics and artizans in this wen 
 would form themselves into little clubs or com- 
 panies, of either six or twelve, as their circum- 
 stances will permit, and each lay down his penny 
 or halfpenny (as the case may be) to buy my 
 Register, and read it in turn, or to one another ; 
 — that in every market town throughout the king- 
 dom of England, Scotland,- and Ireland similar 
 clubs be formed, and also that every tap-room be 
 compelled (by its customers I mean) to take one 
 copy, in order to have it at hand to refer to in 
 case of need ; — and lastly, that every village and 
 hamlet in the United Kingdom be supplied with 
 one or more copies, according to its size ; the 
 said copies to be paid for in any manner most 
 convenient to the persons interested. The trifling 
 profit that would be derived from this, is all I 
 desire. As for the parlour people ; the parsons, 
 the squires, and all their gang ; they may read the 
 Register, or not, just as they please. 
 
 16. But to the point, as to who is " Rich," 
 and who M Poor," in the real practical meaning 
 of these words. My Lord Lack wit, who lives at 
 the great " Place," as they call it; (I need not 
 point him out more particularly, for you know 
 who I mean, well enough) ; this " Lord" has an 
 income of forty thousand pounds a year ; or three 
 
44 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 thousand three hundred and thirty- three pounds 
 a month ; or eight hundred pounds a week ; or 
 a hundred and ten pounds a day ! ! This is, in 
 round numbers, the amount of his income; of the 
 money that he has to spend every day in his life 
 throughout the year. There are several of these 
 " Lords," elsewhere, who have twice or three times 
 as much as this. But we will take him as an 
 example, because you know something of him, and 
 will therefore know whether what I shall have to 
 say about him is true or not. 
 
 17. This *' Lord," then, has a sum of money 
 coming to him every day of his life, which amounts 
 to as much as would keep four of your families in 
 comfort for a whole year. Now, is this " Lord" a 
 " Rich" man, or a " Poor" one? You laugh at 
 the question ; and so would he if it were put to 
 him. But if it were / who put it, and he had 
 sense enough to understand and feel the reply 
 which I should make to it, he would pretty soon 
 begin to laugh on the wrong side of his mouth. 
 But is he a " rich" man? I mean rich in point 
 of mere money ; for the riches of comfort and 
 content are not what we are now talking about. 
 We shall come to that afterwards. Is this Lord 
 " rich" in point of money ? 
 
 18. Let us see. But, in order that we mav 
 
RICH AND POOR, 45 
 
 understand each other clearly, let us start on 
 this principle, that a man is " rich" or " poor," 
 in proportion as he has much left, or less than 
 nothing, after providing himself and his family 
 with the necessaries of life. 
 
 19. In the first place this " Lord" has to provide 
 food, lodging, and clothes for a whole army of lazy 
 hounds, who stuff and gorge themselves all day 
 long, and half the night, and waste as much again 
 as they eat ; and to pay them once a quarter into 
 the bargain, for letting themselves live at his ex- 
 pense and do nothing ; pay them each as much 
 as one of you can earn by working hard from sun- 
 rise to sunset. 
 
 20. Mind, he must do this. No. matter what 
 his inclination or disposition may be, he must 
 keep up " a proper establishment." It is a 
 " necessary" of his life. He would no more dare 
 to do otherwise, than he would dare to let the 
 parliament-men who sit for his boroughs vote ac- 
 cording to their consciences. He is stingy enough 
 where he dares to be so, heaven knows ! and so 
 do you know too, I dare say, if you have ever 
 had to go into his servants' hall. I'll answer for 
 it, all the strong ale you ever got there would 
 have gone into a nutshell, without drowning the 
 maggot that lodged in it. And if the beggar never 
 
46 REJECTED ARTICLES. , 
 
 goes away empty handed from his door, it is 
 because he takes good care none shall ever get 
 near it. And yet he must support this army of 
 menials, because he would not be " a Lord" with- 
 out them. It is they that make him " a noble- 
 man," by calling him one. If it were not for 
 them, neither he nor any one else would know 
 that he was one. 
 
 21. A " noble man," if it means any thing, 
 means something that is better than us, who 
 are of the common run of men. And is he 
 this in himself? Look at his poor crazy carcass, 
 as it lolls back in its easy carriage to take the 
 air ; and then tell me — Is there any thing in 
 that better than there is in yours, or in mine? 
 Does it look better ? Can it act better ? Can he 
 who owns it think better than we can, or talk 
 better ? Is he more healthful, more honest, more 
 happy? What can he do (of himself I mean) 
 that you or I cannot do as well, if not ten times 
 better ? In short, in what respect is he more of 
 a man than we are? In what does he better, 
 or a tenth part so well, fulfil the objects of our 
 common existence ? 
 
 22. " But look at his houses— his carriages 
 — his horses — his servants — his liveries" — you say. 
 Ay, there it is. In these he is a " Lord ;" and 
 
RICH AND POOR, 47 
 
 consequently it is these that make him a Lord ; 
 and without these he is none. These, therefore, 
 he must have, if they cost him half his income. 
 They are the " necessaries of life" of " a Lord." 
 
 22. In the next place, he must keep a pack of 
 hounds and a stable of hunters ; though he does 
 not know a beagle from a bull-dog, or a fox from 
 a ferret, and is as little at home in his seat in the 
 saddle as he is in his seat in the House. He 
 must do this. What would you say of him if he 
 were to sell his dogs, and turn off his huntsmen, 
 and put his hunters into harness ? What would 
 his friends say of him, who are kind enough 
 to come down from London every sporting season, 
 to ride those horses and follow those dogs, and 
 live through half the winter at his expense, to 
 save living at their own? What would his ser- 
 vants and country neighbours, the " gentry," and 
 substantial farmers (if there be any left) say of 
 him ? What would he say and think and feel of 
 himself? Why that he was no longer " a Lord," 
 to be sure ; no longer what his ancestors were 
 before him, and what they made and left him. 
 He must do it. He has no choice. 
 
 23. Then this " Lord" has a " Lady ;" and the 
 " Ladies" of " Lords," as every body knows, are 
 not the persons to decrease their expenses ; for 
 
48 REJECTED ARTICLES, 
 
 if they bring them much, they take good care 
 to spend them more. I believe, for my own part, 
 that this particular " Lord" of whom we are 
 speaking, would be glad enough to pass the rest 
 of his days o^iietly in the country ; for he has 
 just sense enough to know that the racketings and 
 junketings of a London life have already left him 
 with " one foot in the grave ;" and he has too 
 lordly a fear of death to be in any hurry to help the 
 other there. But the " Ladies" of Lords (espe- 
 cially when they are getting old) are not to be in- 
 fluenced by any fear of this sort. To do them j ustice, 
 they will have their swing, if they die for it, 
 and even while they are dying for it. So long- 
 as they can keep out of their coffins, they will 
 not keep out of their card-rooms, and ball-rooms. 
 And card-rooms and ball-rooms abroad beget 
 card -rooms and ball-rooms at home. And for 
 this there must be a home. And the " Home" of 
 the " Lady" of a great " Lord" means something 
 rather different from what you and I understand 
 by the word. In short (for we have no time to 
 dwell upon it) it means much the same as the 
 " Home" of the " Lord" himself means in the 
 country ; a place as big as a barrack ; plastered 
 over from top to bottom with paint and gilding ; 
 and beset at every step by another army of locusts, 
 
RICH AND POOR. 49 
 
 in the shape of lacqueys, valets, butlers, footmen, 
 coachmen, stablemen, housekeepers, lady's maids, 
 housemaids, kitchen-maids, laundry-maids, and 
 the Lord knows how many more besides : (not the 
 " lord " of the house, by the bye ; for I'll be 
 sworn he knows no more about the matter than 
 if he had nothing to do with it. If he has been 
 withinside half the rooms in his own house, 
 and knows the name of a fourth part of his ser- 
 vants, it is as much as he does !) 
 
 24. This, then, is another " establishment" 
 that is as much a " necessary of life" to a great 
 " Lord," as bread and meat are to you and I. And 
 the few " necessaries" that we have already seen 
 go to the preserving of this " Lord's" life, must 
 have swallowed up a pretty good slice of his in- 
 come. But we have not seen half of them yet. 
 You must know (for I'm sure you don't know it 
 yet) that " people of fashion" — (and a " Lord " is 
 always a person of fashion, by birth ; though in 
 point of manners and habits he may be more vulgar 
 than the boor that blacks his shoes) ; I say, 
 " people of fashion" have decided among them- 
 selves, that it is altogether inconsistent with reason 
 and common-sense, that they should live either 
 in London or in the country, for more than about 
 two-thirds of the year. '* But if they live neither 
 
50 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 in London nor in the country, where are they to 
 live?" you very naturally inquire. Ay; that's 
 the question ; and a pretty puzzling question it 
 is to them. Quite as much so as it is to you. 
 But I'll tell you how they manage. 
 
 25. This habit, of not being able to live at 
 home during a certain portion of the year, has 
 long been prevalent among them ; and they have 
 at last contrived (or at least those who gain a 
 base livelihood by administering to their idle, 
 senseless, and unnatural wants have contrived for 
 them) to establish certain spots, at a greater or less 
 distance from the wen, and chiefly on the sea- 
 coast, but so situated in regard to soil, aspect, 
 &c. that nothing in the shape of vegetation will 
 flourish near them. Now, where there is no ve- 
 getation there can evidently be no " Country." 
 Consequently these places (" watering-places" 
 they call them) bear no resemblance whatever to 
 either London or the Country, and are therefore 
 chosen as the residences of " people of fashion," 
 during about a third part of every year. 
 
 26. But they do not build houses at these 
 places. They hire them • hire them at an enor- 
 mous expense, more than proportioned to that 
 of their own houses; while their own houses, and 
 all the lt establishments" belonging to them, (or 
 
RICH AND POOR. 51 
 
 nearly all), are going on just the same as if they 
 themselves were there. Add to all this the ex- 
 penses of getting backwards and forwards from 
 these " watering-places," (which are the more 
 fashionable the more expensive they are to reach) 
 and we shall have got at another pretty hungry 
 outlet for our " Lord's" income. 
 
 27. I fancy, if we calculate a little, we shall 
 find that the forty thousand a year looks rather 
 foolish by the time all these calls upon it have 
 been answered. In fact, need I go any farther 
 in my enumeration of the " necessaries" of a 
 " Lord's" life? I think not. There are many 
 '■* Lords" who cannot contrive to get these few 
 " necessaries of life" which I have already named, 
 with double the income of our lord. Not that they 
 are therefore content to do without them. No 
 — no — they continue to get them easily enough ; 
 but not with their income ; not by paying for 
 them honestly and fairly, as you and I are obliged 
 to pay for whatever xoe get. They get them, it 
 is true ; but they get them " by hook and by crook," 
 as the phrase goes ; by means of a herd of rascally 
 stewards, and attorneys, and money-lenders, and 
 Jews ; by mortgages, and postobits, and policies 
 of insurance, and the devil of usury knows what 
 
 f. 2 
 
52 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 besides ; and by involving in comparative ruin 
 those who are to come after them, and who ought 
 by rights to receive the family estate bettered in- 
 stead of beggared ; and who do so receive it in 
 every case where the holder is an honest man. 
 
 28. Mind, I am not complaining of, or lament- 
 ing, this mode by which lords and people of fashion . 
 " raise money,' 7 as they call it. I should as soon 
 think of interfering, or feeling sorry, if & saw one 
 thief trying to pick another's pocket in the streets 
 of London. I am not complaining of it ; I am 
 only telling you that so it is ; that this is what 
 many " Lords" are forced to do in order to keep 
 up those " establishments" which are necessary 
 to their existence ; and that among others my Lord 
 Lackwit is forced to do it. And the conse- 
 quence is that he does not enjoy a moment's 
 real peace of his lordly life, and that he cannot 
 honestly call the coat he wears his own. 
 
 29. And now comes the question with which 
 we began our inquiry about him. Is he a 
 " rich'' man? Is this " Lord" — with his forty 
 thousand pounds a year, or three thousand three 
 hundred pounds a month, or eight hundred pounds 
 a week, or one hundred and ten pounds a day — 
 is he a " rich" man? Rich even in the mere 
 
RICH AND POOR. 53 
 
 money of which alone we are now speaking ? I 
 will not insult your understandings by answering 
 the question. 
 
 30. Now let us give a look back at the other 
 part of the inquiry, as to who is properly to be 
 called a " poor" man ; still confining the ques- 
 tion to money alone, and still keeping in mind 
 the principle on which we set out, that a man 
 is *' rich," or " poor," in proportion as he has 
 much, or less them nothing, left, after having sup- 
 plied himself and his family with what are, to 
 them, " the necessaries of life " 
 
 31. When I lived at Botley, there was (and I 
 hope still is) an honest labourer, named Will 
 Grange, who rented the little cottage at the corner 
 of the lane as you turn down to the Holt. Every 
 body at Botley knew Will Grange. He used to 
 work for me ; and I was proud to see him in my 
 fields. He was a credit to any master: if indeed 
 it is not a piece of impudent presumption for any 
 man to call himself the " master" of another, 
 merely because that other chooses, of his own 
 free will, to do certain things, for a certain price 
 which is fixed upon beforehand. If a labourer, of 
 no matter what description, does the work for me 
 that I require and engage him to do, and that 
 he agrees to do, I must pay him the price of his 
 
54 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 labour. I have no choice in the matter. I must 
 do it ; for if I refuse to do it by fair means, he 
 can make me do it. Thank heaven, we have still 
 so much of justice left in our debased and degraded 
 country. When he has done his day's work he 
 can make me pay him the price of it, and need 
 never do another for me while he lives, unless he 
 likes. What impudence, then, for me to call 
 myself the master of this man ! And what abject 
 baseness in him, to call and to consider himself 
 as my slave! For the word " master" is without 
 a meaning, except when coupled with that other 
 word, " slave." 
 
 32. But to return to honest Will Grange, who, 
 if I remember rightly, never called any man 
 " master" ; though he was as far from fancying 
 himself above his station as he was from feeling 
 himself below it. Will Grange, when I knew him, 
 was a labourer ; a day labourer. I need not tell 
 you that this means, one who earns his livelihood, 
 day by day, by the sweat of his brow. He had 
 been this all his life ; and at the time I am speak- 
 ing of he had been this long enough to have 
 enabled him to get together just enough to pur- 
 chase a cow and the furniture of the cottage in 
 which he lived. He had, when I last saw him, a 
 wife and four children, 
 
RICH AND POOR. 55 
 
 33. Now what would my Lord Lack wit, or 
 any other "Lord," or any of the herds of "nobility 
 and gentry," as they call themselves, who live 
 upon the plunder that comes out of the pockets 
 of the oppressed people of this degraded country ; 
 what would any of these " gentry" say, if you 
 were to ask them seriously whether a man like 
 Will Grange, a day labourer, with a wife and four 
 children to support out of the earnings of that 
 labour, is a " poor" man or a " rich" one? What 
 would they say ? Why they would say nothing ; 
 but they would first laugh in your face, and then 
 turn away their heads in token of their contempt 
 for the person who could ask them such a silly 
 question. And they would do just the same if 
 you were to ask them whether my Lord Lackwit 
 is a '■ rich" man. 
 
 34. But does this make or prove the Lord to 
 be in reality " rich" and the labourer " poor?" 
 Heaven forbid ! If any thing that they could 
 either think or say could alter the condition of 
 their " inferiors," (as they are pleased to term us 
 who do something for our bread,) we should all 
 of us be rather worse off than we are at present : 
 which, heaven knows, need not be. But is Will 
 Grange a " poor" man ? for I will suppose that 
 
56 REJECTED ARTICLES, 
 
 he still is what he was when I knew him. Let 
 us see. 
 
 35. I have said that he lives in a snug little 
 cottage, large enough to afford a warm shelter 
 to all his family in the winter weather : in the 
 summer they want none. I have said also that 
 he has a cow. This he keeps, partly by letting 
 the youngest of his little ones lead it in a string- 
 about the green lanes ; (for there is no common 
 in his neighbourhood) ; but chiefly by the pro- 
 duce of the forty rods, or thereabouts, of garden 
 ground which is attached to his cottage. This 
 ground he cultivates entirely with a view to the 
 keep of his cow ; because he has the good sense 
 to know, that by so doing he contributes more 
 towards the health and comfort of his wife and 
 children, than if he could fill it ten times over 
 with potatoes and '.' garden stuff." 
 
 36. The cabbages and turnips that will grow 
 in this forty rods of land feed his cow well and 
 plentifully during the whole winter, and all that 
 part of the summer when she cannot pick up 
 her living in the lanes and by the road side. 
 And while she is well fed his children never want 
 a bowl of good wholesome skimmed milk ; and 
 his wife can make as much butter with the cream 
 
RICH x\ND POOR. 57 
 
 that comes from it, as will give an increase to their 
 weekly earnings, at least equal to what two addi- 
 tional days' work in the week would do. 
 
 37. He is able to cultivate this bit of ground 
 easily, by taking an hour now and then before 
 and after his ordinary day's work, and by the 
 assistance of his eldest boy ; to say nothing of 
 his having all Sunday to himself: and theirs 
 must be an odd kind of religion who would ob- 
 ject to his employing a portion of that day, 
 ■* holy" as it is, to such an end : for what work 
 can be holier, I should be glad to know, than 
 that which contributes to the health and comfort 
 of the offspring which God has given him ? 
 
 38. This cow, which, observe, is almost entirely 
 kept by the labour of honest Will, and which 
 must therefore be looked upon in the light of the 
 actual consequence of that labour, is the only 
 direct source of profit which he possesses, exclu- 
 sive of his own daily earnings. So that he is not 
 to be considered as any other than an ordinary day 
 labourer. Mind this ; because it is of consequence 
 to my argument that you should not regard Will 
 Grange, my example in this case, as any other 
 than a common labourer, like one of yourselves. 
 
 39. But Will has a wife; a good, honest, 
 comely, industrious, neat-handed wife. And in 
 
 / 
 
58 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 no station of life, and least of all in yours, can 
 a man be all that he may be in that station, ivith- 
 out such a wife ; any more than he can be it with 
 one of an opposite description ; with a slattern, 
 a scold, and a gossip : for these precious quali- 
 ties always go together. 
 
 40. Now Will's wife, as every good wife ought, 
 (I had almost said as every good wife does ; but 
 I'm afraid this would be going a little too far, 
 considering that not more than about sixty thou- 
 sand copies of my Cottage Economy have as yet 
 been circulated), I say that Will's wife hates and 
 abhors all manner of slops and messes about the 
 cottage ; and most of all she hates that worst, be- 
 cause most mischievous of all messes, tea. 
 
 41. As for the children, they do not know the 
 taste of beer, much less of any thing stronger. 
 And what little of it Will himself may stand in 
 need of, to enable him to get through his daily 
 labour more cheerfully, they can afford to buy : 
 that is if they can buy such a thing as beer at all 
 now-a-days, or get it any way without making it 
 themselves. I'm afraid that, at the time we are 
 speaking of, this excellent custom of brewing at 
 home ; this custom so indispensable to the English 
 cottager's enjoying the greatest share of health 
 and comfort of which his station is susceptible ; 
 
RICH AiND POOR. 59 
 
 was almost necessarily laid aside, in consequence 
 of the monstrous weight of taxes which had been 
 laid on all the materials of brewing ; and which 
 custom, by the bye, I do not despair of seeing 
 almost universally revived at no very distant 
 day, when the cottagers shall have read and con- 
 sidered what I have written for them, on this most 
 important subject, in my Cottage Economy. But 
 we will suppose that Will Grange did not, be- 
 cause under the then circumstances of the times 
 he could not, brew their own beer. All that they 
 needed they could well afford to buy, out of the 
 earnings of their cow* 
 
 42. Then for bread, that of course Will's wife 
 baked herself. If she had not, I should never 
 have called her an " industrious" wife ; no, not 
 even an " honest" one ; for a cottager's wife who 
 chooses to- feed her children upon the pernicious 
 trash that she gets at the bakers for about half 
 as much again as she can make good wholesome 
 bread herself, has no more claim to be called 
 " honest," than any one has who defrauds others 
 of what is their due. The married labourers earn- 
 ings are in part the due of his children ; for if 
 it were not for them he would not take the trouble 
 of earning so much as he does. That mother, 
 then, who squanders away those earnings unnc- 
 
60 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 cessarily (to say nothing of mischievously) robs 
 her children of their due. This is what Will's 
 wife never did, or I should not now be offering 
 him and his family as an example to illustrate 
 the point of inquiry that we are presently coming 
 to. 
 
 43. I must not dwell much longer on the de- 
 tails connected with this point ; and I need not. 
 It is sufficient to say that the inmates of Will 
 Grange's cottage have seldom occasion to go else- 
 where in search of any thing that they may 
 want to make their lives easy, and even cheerful 
 and happy. They have a few pigs of course ; 
 which, with good management, not only give 
 them bacon for every alternate day throughout 
 the year, but, together with the cow, afford them 
 plenty of manure for their little garden ; with- 
 out an ample supply of which they could not 
 get from it what I have said that they do get, 
 namely, food for the cow during nine months 
 out of the twelve. They have also half a dozen 
 laying hens, which always afford them a hot din- 
 ner, when the cupboard happens to run bare. 
 And they have a couple of hives of bees, which 
 give them honey enough for the younger children 
 always to have a scrape of it upon their hunch of 
 bread, before they go to bed. 
 
RICH AND POOR. 61 
 
 44. This is all that Will Grange and his 
 family have within themselves, to be sure. But 
 then what an " all" it is ! I should like to see 
 the " lord" who is half so independent of the 
 rest of the world, as this honest labourer, and 
 his industrious, healthy, and happy family ; who 
 may almost be considered as the creators of all that 
 is necessary to supply their daily wants, and who 
 have nearly the whole of their earnings left, to buy 
 themselves and their children decent and com- 
 fortable clothing, and to lay by for a rainy day. 
 
 45. It is true that, after supplying themselves 
 with all the comforts which any of us require, 
 they have not enough left to pay for their children 
 going to school to the parson of the parish, to be 
 taught to spurn at their station, and be ashamed of 
 the father that fed, and the mother that bore them. 
 It is true they have not surplus enough to let them 
 sit at home idle half their time, and quarrel with 
 one another to make it pass away the more quick- 
 ly ; or if they like that better, the husband to loll 
 at the alehouse and get drunk three days in the 
 week, while the wife leaves the children at home 
 to " mind" each other, and goes gadding about 
 through the village, tea-drinking, trolloping, and 
 tale-bearing. 
 
 46. It is true they have not enough to tempt 
 
62 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 them to do these things, and half a hundred 
 more, equally proper and praiseworthy, which a 
 superfluity might tempt even them to do, be- 
 cause it has before now tempted others, who, 
 without that temptation, would have been as 
 honest and as happy as they are. But, as we 
 have just seen," they have enough and to spare 
 for all the good purposes to which money can be 
 applied in their station of life ; a station which, 
 if it were what it might be from its nature, and 
 what it ought to be according to the claims of 
 natural justice, would be the envy of all other 
 stations, and the glory and delight of all who 
 belong to it. 
 
 47. And now our question returns : Is Will 
 Grange a " poor" man ? Again let me say, I will 
 not insult your understandings by answering this 
 question ; because I am sure that you have already 
 answered it for yourselves, and answered it in a 
 way that will I hope make it quite needless for 
 me to advise you to give up all those idle crotchets 
 that I hear you have got into your heads, about 
 leaving your beautiful, healthful, and sweet-scent- 
 ed fields, and coming up to " seek your fortunes" 
 in this detestable sink of all filth, folly, and 
 iniquity ; this standing and ever-increasing disease 
 of our country; this wen; this London. Shun 
 
RICH AND POOl?. 63 
 
 it, my honest friends, as you would shun a pest- 
 house, or a parish work-house. You may take 
 my word for it, that all the " fortune" you, with 
 your habits, could ever find in London, would be 
 poverty, contempt, and shame. By the bye, if you 
 knew what London is, I need not have named the 
 two last ; for there poverty means them both. 
 
 48. But even if you were sure of earning, by 
 coming here, three times as much as you can 
 by remaining where you are, you would be still 
 three times as badly off, because you would, in 
 a month from the time you set foot in this want- 
 creating city, have ten times as many to supply 
 as you now have, besides losing the power of 
 enjoying that supply even if you could get it. 
 No, no, my good friends • stay where you are, 
 and be as contented as you can till better times 
 come. And come they must, one way or another ; 
 and that shortly. In the mean while you may 
 believe me when I tell you, that the only " rich" 
 man is he who is healthy, honest, and contented 
 with his lot ; (neither of which anybody is in 
 London) ; and that the only " poor" man is he 
 who has wants that he cannot supply. 
 
 So says your sincere friend 
 And well-wisher, 
 
 William Cojbbett. 
 
 Kensington, Sep. 1825. 
 
TO-MORROW; 
 
 A GAIETY AND GRAVITY. 
 
 BY ONE OF THE AUTHORS OF " REJECTED ADDRESSES.' 
 
TO-MORROW; 
 
 A GAIETY AND GRAVITY. 
 
 BY ONE OF THE AUTHORS OF " REJECTED ADDRESSES.' 
 
 ' To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow." 
 Macbeth. 
 
 It seems but yesterday that I took occasion to be- 
 stow a month's immortality upon '■' To-day ;" and 
 I propose not to let To-day pass without doing as 
 much for To-morrow. Perhaps I may devote To- 
 morrow to performing a similar office for Yesterday. 
 But this latter is more than I can promise, since it 
 is the very essence of To-morrow that no one can 
 tell what it will bring forth. 
 
 Of all the days in the year, there is none so 
 pregnant of wise determinations, flattering pro- 
 mises, sage resolutions, and salutary reforms, as 
 To-morrow. It is astonishing what projects are to 
 be commenced To-morrow ; and it is still more sur- 
 
 f 2 
 
68 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 prising what a number are to be brought to a con- 
 clusion on the same day ! 
 
 Judging from the innumerable tradesmen's bills 
 that are to be paid " To-morrow/' one would sup- 
 pose that some new source of wealth had been simul- 
 taneously discovered by every small debtor through- 
 out the world of credit, and that to pay were as 
 easy and agreeableas to run in debt. 
 
 As for the intended " calls" of To-morrow, if 
 they should all be made they will all be to make 
 over again ; for every body will be out calling, on 
 every body. Then again, the " new leaves" that 
 are to be " turned over " To-morrow, are more 
 numerous than those " in Valombrosa's shade." 
 
 In short, To-morrow is to be the day more "■ big 
 with fate " than any that the sun ever shone upon ; 
 and more is to be done in the course of it than has 
 been done in any day since the world was made 
 out of chaos. And, " not to speak it profanely," 
 even on that day there was but form and entity 
 given to what was before a confused mass of 
 matter ; whereas To-morrow, thoughts, intentions, 
 fancies, feelings, and imaginations, are to be me- 
 tamorphosed into actual and tangible facts ; and 
 what is more, a thousand events are to take place 
 that will never take place at all ! 
 
 What a world would this be, if all were ac- 
 
TO-MORROW. 69 
 
 compiished in it that assuredly will be accom- 
 plished to-morrow ! To-morrow A. will ask a 
 friend to dine with him ; and B. will be as good 
 as his word; and C. will commit no blunder; 
 and D. will get a decision in the Court of Chan- 
 cery; and E. will commence his new epic ; and 
 F. will finish his ; and G. will begin to grow wise ; 
 and H. will begin to grow honest ; and I. will be- 
 gin to leave off writing nonsense ; and K. will 
 keep himself sober ; and L. will not tell a single 
 lie ; and M. will try to make himself agreeable ; 
 and N. will not ; and O. will get over his own 
 style; and P. will pay his long-standing tailor's 
 bill ; and Q. will quarrel with a taller man than 
 himself; and R. will begin to retrench his ex- 
 pences within his income ; and S. will say a good 
 thing ; and T. will tell one without spoiling 
 it ; and V. will vote in opposition to his interest ; 
 and U. will read this essay a second time; and 
 W. will leave off wondering who wrote it; and 
 X. Y. Z. will get a satisfactory answer to his ad- 
 vertisement for a wife. 
 
 And why is it that all these good things, and a 
 thousand more, which will certainly take place To- 
 morrow, never take place at all ? The secret is, 
 that To-morrow, like " good bye," is easily said, 
 
70 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 and that most of us are content to let our good 
 deeds appear under the guise of good words. 
 
 Besides which, though every body talks and 
 thinks of To-morrow as of a day that must come, 
 and though it is as familiar in our mouths " as 
 household words," yet we all feel that- it is only 
 a word — that there is no such thing as To-morrow 
 — that it is a day which cannot happen — a dies 
 non. Who can explain what To-morrow is? — or 
 where it is ? — or when it is? It is always coming, 
 like a waiter at an inn ; and yet it never comes. 
 The littla boys at school understand it best. They 
 call it ■* To-morrow come-never." 
 
 And probably this, after all, is the point of 
 view in which most people secretly look at To- 
 morrow. And, accordingly, they are willing to 
 do anything in the world to oblige you — "To- 
 morrow." " To-day" they really must be excused 
 — they have so many things to attend to — but if 
 
 you will but call To-morrow . And then, when 
 
 you fancy that "To-morrow" is come, and you take 
 them at their word — Oh, they really can't find 
 time To-day — but " To-morrow." And then when 
 that To-morrow comes — they are really very sorry 
 ■ — but " circumstances have transpired," &c. And 
 thus it goes on for ever : 
 
TO-MORROW. 7] 
 
 " To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow 
 Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, 
 To the last syllable of recorded time ; 
 And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 
 
 (and wise men too) 
 The way to " To-morrow ! 
 
 An ancient philosopher has said, that he is wise 
 who has lived To-day. And it was wisely said. 
 And his commentator has added, no less wisely, 
 that he is wiser still who lived Yesterday. Let 
 me, who am albeit neither philosopher nor com- 
 mentator, not be accused of presumption, if I 
 complete the trinity of wise saying, by adding, 
 that he is wisest of the three who lives To-morrow ; 
 for To-morrow we may live as we please, whether 
 it comes to us or not. 
 
 In truth, we have hitherto been considering 
 this subject with a degree of flippancy which is 
 scarcely appropriate to it ; for after all, what is 
 To-morrow but that great Future to which we all 
 look, and to which we are all hastening, on the 
 swift pinions of Time, and must inevitably reach, 
 even though we should succeed in trifling away 
 To-day as we did Yesterday, and To-morrow as we 
 have done To-day. The only truly wise man, is 
 he who so passes To-day, that To-morrow may be 
 
72 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 anticipated if it come not, and improved and en- 
 joyed if it come. 
 
 In the present frightfully artificial and diseased 
 state of society — with its ever-increasing cities, 
 and its ever more and more deserted and despised 
 fields, and groves, and solitudes ; — when all are 
 rushing towards the plague-tainted spots, and 
 crowding into them as if they were tired of health, 
 and in love with disease and death; — when govern- 
 ments are going about, under the guise of holi- 
 ness, seeking whom among the weak and dis- 
 united they may devour, and among the virtuous 
 divide and destroy ; — when rulers are raking in the 
 dirt of ages for pleas and precedents, whereby 
 they may debase the people they have been put 
 over, and lay their liberty prostrate at the feet of 
 power ; — in short, when vice, luxury, and crime 
 (to say nothing of cant, cajolery, arid cunning) 
 reign triumphant ; and virtue, wisdom, and na- 
 ture are laughed to scorn, and driven to seek 
 refuge in the solitudes of woods and deserts — 
 what should the truly wise man do, but live in 
 that only world which is left him unpolluted, and 
 of which he can make what use he pleases, by 
 fashioning it after any form that his :"ancy feels 
 inclined to — namely, the world of To-morrow — the 
 
TO-MORROW. 73 
 
 great Future — "the all hailed hereafter?" Let 
 me ask those who doubt the wisdom of living 
 with a view to To-morrow rather than To-day, — 
 Of what avail were all the riches which Croesus 
 looked upon as the prime blessing of life — or the 
 honour which was so honoured by Periander of 
 Corinth — or the strength which Milo the Croto- 
 nian boasted of— or the knowledge which Socrates 
 worshipped — or the beauty which Orpheus adored 
 — or the ideal world of Plato — or the prudence 
 and forethought of Thales the Milesian — or even 
 the supreme virtue to which Aristotle referred all 
 happiness, and the happiness itself which Epi- 
 curus alone thought worth living for — what were 
 all these, unless with a view to To-morrow ? 
 
 Would any one consent even to live through 
 To-day, if he were sure that no To-morrow would 
 follow it ? Alas ! To-morrow is not a matter to 
 be trifled either with or upon. It is the best part 
 of our existence ; since it is the only part of 
 which we can be sure that it will be what we 
 would have it be. Ophelia says that " we all 
 know what we are, but we know not what we 
 may be." But with all due deference to the 
 wisdom of her simplicity, she was wrong in both 
 clauses of h^r proposition. None of us know 
 what we are ; and we all know what we may be 
 
/4 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 — To-morrow ; because To-morrow itself is but an 
 imagination ; and while we are imagining it y we 
 can just as well imagine ourselves into what we 
 please when it arrives. True, it arrives at last ; 
 and then we do not find either it or ourselves 
 what we intended or expected them to be. 
 But then it cannot be said that we have deceived 
 ourselves ; because we cannot find out our error 
 till to-day ; and then To-morrow is before us again, 
 as fresh and promising as ever. 
 
 In a word, those who would live to any good 
 end in the present unnatural and over-excited state 
 of society and manners, (to say nothing of the 
 corruption in morals and the degradation in poli- 
 tics), must make up their minds to forget Yes- 
 terday, and take no note of To-day, but live in the 
 future of To-morrow : for in the wise man's calen- 
 dar there are but these three days, which include 
 all time, past, present, and to come. 
 
 But can they so live ? Can the unavailing Yes- 
 terday be forgotten, and the imaginary To-morrow 
 be enjoyed, amidst the feverish turmoil and the 
 insane noise and distraction of To-day, as it exists 
 in the centre and heart of society and the world ? 
 Assuredly not. But " there is another and a 
 better world" — the world of woods, and fields, 
 and gardens, and groves, and streams — each de- 
 
TO-MORROW. 75 
 
 partment of which is a world of itself, and peopled 
 with beings who live only to be happy, and who 
 are happy only that they live. In that world the 
 soul may find rest for its wearied wings, and re- 
 freshment for its exhausted powers ; there it 
 may contemplate the future with a quiet and un- 
 disturbed gaze, till at last it sinks softly into it, 
 and becomes a part of what it looks upon. 
 
 There are many other points of view in which 
 To-morrow may be looked upon ; but I fear the 
 reader will be of opinion that I have said more 
 than enough of it for To-day. At any rate, I have 
 exhausted my limits, if not my subject ; and the 
 remaining considerations touching To-morrow,must 
 be deferred till — To-morrow. 
 
 H. 
 
DEMONIACALS. 
 
 (posthumous.) 
 BY CHILDE HAROLDE. 
 
THE TOKEN. 
 
 To 
 
 Lady, forbear the fruitless strife ! 
 Would'st thou forget this solemn Token ? 
 It may not be ! this holds thy life 
 In bonds, that never can be broken. 
 
 This consummated the deep vow 
 Breathed at the marriage of our minds ; 
 And by its power I claim thee now : — 
 The silent spell thy spirit binds. 
 
 I claim thee : — not thine outward beauty— 
 That lost for ever its controul 
 When thy thoughts wandered from their duty :- 
 But thee — thy mind and heart and soul. 
 
 G 2 
 
80 
 
 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 How I once loved them ! Human love 
 Was never felt more deeply pure ; 
 But 'twas an effluence from above, 
 That could not — ought not to endure. 
 
 tt was too spiritually bright 
 To mingle with a form of earth, 
 Even tho' that form of seeming light 
 Belied the dungeon of its birth, 
 
 And breathed of heaven. — One fatal hour 
 Hath changed all hours to come. Love's fled, 
 And with it love-born bliss : — the flower 
 Must wither when its root is dead. 
 
 But not the less I claim thy faith : 
 Unsought — unhoped for it was given : 
 Witness the listening earth beneath — 
 The watching stars — the breathing heaven. 
 
 That deep-vowed faith thou canst recall 
 Never ! — this simple ring of gold 
 To thee is magical — its thrall 
 Holds thee, and shall not cease to hold. 
 
DEMON1ACALS. 81 
 
 Then struggle not— do force of thine 
 Can break the bond — no art can sever 
 Its links of adamant — thou'rt mine, 
 Absent or present— now — for ever ! 
 
REMONSTRANCE. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Pause ! pause and listen ! ? Tis a voice 
 That was all music to thine ear ; — 
 Now hear its deep-breath'd discords ! Pause- 
 Listen, and think, and fear ! 
 
 Thy hopes stand trembling on the brink 
 Of a dark stream not to be cross'd ; 
 One plunge, and they for ever sink ! 
 Turn back — or thou art lost. 
 
 Who hath done this? — With impious force 
 To tear the spirit from its shrine, 
 
 And call it marriage ! — 'Tis divorce ! 
 Thy heart and soul are mine ! 
 
DEMON! ACALS. 83 
 
 Need I recall that solemn hour ? 
 Alas ! it will not be forgot. 
 Twas brief and silent — but its power 
 Hath fix'd thy future lot. 
 
 Silent and brief — but its deep bliss, 
 Though fatal now, cannot decay : 
 The memory of that first — last kiss, 
 Shall never pass away. 
 
 Passion can work strange ends — a trance 
 Comes over me- — it stills my pain. 
 What ! tears ! — ay — let them flow ! — perchance 
 You ne'er may smile again. 
 
 Passion can work strange ends : I hear 
 Accents, that seem to have their birth 
 In the deep prophetic heart. — Revere 
 Sounds that are not of earth ! 
 
 " Dare not to struggle against fate ! 
 " Or, with a guilty weakness, yield 
 " To bonds that shall lay desolate 
 " The path thy youth revealed ! 
 
84 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 " Else shall the merry bridal bell 
 " Ring out a death-peal to thy joy ; 
 " And every hope that fatal knell 
 " Shall kill — but not destroy : 
 
 " Their ghosts shall linger with thee yet, 
 " Telling a tale of future years 
 " That shall thy bridal pillow wet 
 " With unavailing tears. 
 
 " When thy friends wish thee" Joy 1" — the word 
 " Shall sound like mockery to thine ear ; 
 ' And its dim echo haunt thy thoughts 
 " Like a perpetual fear. 
 
 " But last, and most of all, beware 
 " The bridal kiss : — that seals thy doom ; 
 " Changing so foul what else were fair — 
 " A temple to a tomb. 
 
 " That renders even repentance vain ; — 
 " For as thy last faint smiles depart, 
 " A cold, dull, everlasting pain 
 " Shall settle at thy heart !" 
 
STANZAS. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 I dread to think upon thy fate, 
 Yet all my thoughts will that way tend ; 
 Forms of the Past they recreate, 
 And with the Future blend. 
 
 Love consecrates the marriage bed ; 
 Without it all is guilt and gloom ; 
 A living form linked to a dead ! — 
 A spirit in a tomb ! 
 
 Better be senseless dust indeed, — 
 Of the vile flesh-worm's food a part,— 
 Than live to pamper worms that feed 
 Upon the living heart. 
 
86 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 To die is nothing ; but to feel 
 A living death creep thro' thy veins, 
 While hope yet lingers, not to heal, 
 But aggravate thy pains ; — 
 
 This is to neither live nor die — 
 
 Suffering at one the worst of both. 
 
 What desperate hope starts to thine eye ?- 
 Beware ! — thy bridal oath ! 
 
 ^Besides — I only pity thee : 
 Thy guilty weakness lost my love. 
 On earth thou hast nowhere to flee ! 
 No hope — but " Heaven above ! !" 
 
DINING OUT. 
 
 ' QUE OE THE AUTHORS OF REJECTED ADDRESSES. 
 
DINING OUT. 
 
 '• ONE OF THE AUTHORS OF REJECTED ADDRESSES. 
 
 Dining out is an accomplishment in which we 
 English do not excel. It demands a certain po- 
 litic pliancy, both of mind and body, which we 
 cannot boast. It is that one among the Fine Arts 
 in which we are immeasurably behind our conti- 
 nental neighbours. In fact we are the worst 
 Diners- out in the world. We do not understand 
 the principle of it. Even the South Sea Islanders 
 understand and practice it better ; for when they 
 go to a dinner party, it is for the express purpose 
 of dining upon an enemy ; whereas an English- 
 man, when he does not dine at home, dines upon 
 his friend. The truth is, that in civilized society, 
 Dining out has nothing whatever to do with eating 
 and drinking. Who asks a man to dine out that 
 cannot afford to dine at home ? — The thing never 
 
90 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 happened. It is altogether incompatible with the 
 " scope and tendency" of dinner parties. 
 
 Not that one can dine out without eating and 
 drinking. But for that very reason, among others, 
 eating and drinking are but secondary consequences 
 of Dining Out, and are no causes of it at all. They 
 are necessary concomitants of it, to be sure; just 
 as tea accompanies talk in a party of elderly ladies, 
 and as love goes hand in hand (for a little way) 
 with marriage, in a youthful pair, of opposite sexes. 
 But eating and drinking have no more to do with 
 the immediate end of Dining Out, than love has 
 to do with that of marriage, or marriage with that 
 of love. 
 
 In England, there is nothing to be done, or 
 even undertaken, without a dinner party. From 
 the governing of the nation to the goings on of 
 the pettiest of its parishes, all begins and all ends 
 in a dinner. Accordingly, there is no country in 
 which dinner parties assume so pleasing a variety 
 as they do here. We have dinners on all occa- 
 sions, — from the Coronation of the King, to the 
 Christening of the newest born of his subjects ; 
 dinners in all places, — from the palaces of the 
 peers in Saint James's, to the back-slums of the 
 beggars in Saint Giles's ; dinners of all dimen- 
 sions, — from the calipash and calipee of the 
 
DINING OUT. 91 
 
 cabinet minister, to the pot-luck of the cabinet 
 maker. We have dinners of all denominations : 
 diplomatic dinners, and patriotic dinners, and 
 pugilistic dinners, and parliamentary dinners ; 
 cabinet dinners and reform dinners ; ministerial 
 dinners and opposition dinners ; O. P. dinners and 
 P. S. dinners; Pitt dinners and Fox dinners; 
 election dinners, and theatrical dinners, and lite- 
 rary dinners, and scientific dinners. — Is a minister 
 to be ousted from his place ? The cabal is con- 
 cocted and carried on at a dinner party. Is a 
 million to be raised by a joint-stock company, in 
 order that certain clerks and projectors may be 
 able to dine in private ? — They must first assemble 
 the intended sufferers at a dinner in public. — Is a 
 chapel to be built, a charity founded, a school 
 formed, an institution established ? — Ask the 
 public to dinner, and it is done. — Does a friend 
 want to borrow fifty pounds of you ? — He asks you 
 to dine with him at a tavern, and pays the bill with 
 your own money. — Even Mr. Owen cannot banish 
 vice from the world without the aid of a public 
 dinner — (nor with one either.) Nay — marriages 
 themselves — which are elsewhere " made in heaven" 
 — are here made at a dinner party arranged for the 
 purpose ! 
 
 All this admitted, one would expect that John 
 
92 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 Bull, being so used to it, would make an excellent 
 Diner-out. As we have happily had opportunities 
 of meeting- him at nearly all the different kinds 
 of dinner parties above alluded to, — as well as at 
 numerous others " too tedious to mention," as 
 the conjurors' advertisements have it, — we may 
 perhaps occasionally introduce the reader to some 
 of them, and enable him to judge for himself. 
 And if he should object to this, that Dining Out 
 in imagination is likely to afford but " lenten 
 entertainment," he may be assured that it will be 
 our fault if the reflection is not pleasanter to look 
 upon than the reality : for it must be a very hand- 
 some face indeed that does not look better in a 
 mirror than out of it. 
 
 The dinner party to which we now invite our 
 friends shall be one of that class which is perhaps 
 of all others the most characteristically English. 
 The family of the Tibbs's move in the first 
 circles of city life : in other words, they are never 
 to be seen in the city at all, except when they pay 
 an occasional visit of ceremony to. Saint Mary 
 Axe, or " dine out" once in the season or so, at 
 Devonshire Square : for they would not be thought 
 proud, though they do reside near the Regent's 
 Park! — The family consists, in the male branch, of 
 Mr. Tibbs and his son Thomas. Mr. T. the elder 
 
DINING OUT. 93 
 
 is a person " engaged in mercantile pursuits/' as 
 his wife and daughters delicately phrase it ; but 
 according to his own less ambiguous and ambi- 
 tious version of the matter, he is a Manchester ware- 
 houseman. To say that he was formerly a " ware- 
 houseman" merely, without the " Manchester," 
 and that in the very concern which he now owns, 
 is to describe him as at once shrewd, upright, and 
 not altogether without either pride, or prejudices. 
 Mr. Tibbs the elder has a son and heir, who, in 
 virtue of this latter quality in particular, is allowed 
 the privilege of persuading himself that he has a 
 soul altogether incapable of admitting the idea of 
 printed muslins, and which holds brown holland in 
 a natural abhorrence. Accordingly, he has received 
 the best education that Dr. Drill could prevail 
 upon him to accept, and is now near the end of 
 his term in an attorney's office. 
 
 The female Tibbs's are more numerous than the 
 males, and not less worthy of historical mention. 
 We must, however, touch upon the merits of each 
 but very slightly, or we shall not be in time to 
 assist at their dinner party. Mrs. Tibbs is by 
 no means " of a certain age :" which is saying, 
 in other words, that she is of a very certain age, 
 and doesn't care who knows it. She is moreover 
 
94 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 unaffectedly fond of her children ; so that there 
 is nothing in the shape of rivalry between them. 
 But she is fond of herself too ; for she is in the 
 habit of cherishing a very natural notion, that, 
 if one sets the example of not loving oneself, it 
 would be strange indeed if others did not follow 
 it ; seeing that we ourselves must necessarily be 
 the best possible judges of our own deserts. The 
 best of Mrs. Tibbs's self-love is, however, that she 
 is apt to consider her husband and children, and 
 even her house and furniture, as part and parcel 
 of herself, and is satisfied that in admiring them 
 you are admiring her. It must be confessed, in 
 passing, that in this Mrs. T. is more philosophical 
 than she is aware of: for to philosophy she 
 makes no pretensions whatever, and thinks that 
 in the family of an English merchant it would be 
 altogether out of place. 
 
 Mrs. Tibbs has three daughters ; Juliana and 
 Frances, who, being women grown, Mrs. Tibbs 
 considers as entitled to be called " the girls ;" and 
 Jessica — who being born five years after the 
 youngest of the others, is destined to remain " the 
 child" till her sisters cease to be " the girls." The 
 said " girls" are, in their own house and their 
 own opinion, considered as very Jine young women : 
 
DINING OUT. 95 
 
 which epithet, being interpreted, signifies that 
 they are somewhat coarse. In fact, their Irish ad- 
 mirer (for he professedly admires them both at 
 present) Captain Castabout, is fain to confess 
 that their forms are constructed on a scale of con- 
 siderable magnitude, and that their ruddy com- 
 plexions indicate a degree of health amounting to 
 what is rudely enough denominated rude : so much 
 so, indeed, that Miss Priscilla Paleface, who re- 
 sides on the opposite side of the Place, cannot 
 abide to stand at the window when they go out : 
 she says they look as if they were painted, without 
 being so; which she thinks extremely vulgar at 
 best — not to say indecent. 
 
 In regard to the mental qualities and accom- 
 plishments of the two elder Miss Tibbs's — or as 
 the boards at the young ladies' seminaries insist 
 on having it, the Misses Tibbs — we have but 
 little to report at present. Suffice it that they 
 speak French with a propriety of accent peculiar 
 to English young ladies who have visited Paris; 
 know enough of Italian to be able to explain 
 to Captain C. (who never fails to make the in- 
 quiry) that "Ah! perdona," means " I beg your 
 pardon ;" play the piano with a perseverance that 
 is truly praiseworthy, and a spirit that some of 
 their hearers characterize by the epithet which, as 
 
 h2 
 
96 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 we have hinted above, others apply to their appear- 
 ance of health ; and sing Moore's melodies in a 
 highly decorous style : by which latter we would be 
 understood to indicate that their execution of these 
 very " taking airs" is in no degree calculated to 
 endanger the morals of their hearers. Finally, 
 Juliana, the eldest Miss Tibbs, may, by particular 
 entreaty, be occasionally prevailed upon to bestow 
 her embraces on one of Erard's harps ; which pro- 
 cess she is accustomed to accomplish in so edi- 
 fying a fashion, that Captain C, who is gene- 
 rally present on these occasions, never fails to turn 
 round to his next male neighbour once or twice 
 during the exhibition, and favour him with a 
 knowing look, which the other, unless he happens 
 to be an Irishman, can seldom be prevailed upon 
 to understand. 
 
 It only remains to speak of little Jessica; for 
 though she is still ranked as a school-girl at home, 
 she has left school nominally, and is therefore en- 
 titled to a permanent place in our family picture. 
 And yet we are half disposed to leave her out 
 altogether ; since she is not exactly in keeping 
 with any other part of it. Let us pass her over 
 slightly, by saying that she is one of those plants 
 which are occasionally found to spring up, as if 
 spontaneously, in a soil and under circumstances 
 
DINING OUT. 97 
 
 altogether uncongenial to them, or at least altoge- 
 ther unlikely to have produced them according to 
 the common course of things. She reminds one of 
 a lily of the valley in the midst of a bed of poppies, 
 or a delicate white rose starting from the same 
 root with a whole family of flaunting red ones. 
 There is a natural refinement about the little Jes- 
 sica — both of mind, manner, and person — which 
 has in fact no connexion whatever with place or 
 circumstances ; and into the causes of which we 
 are not in a mood sufficiently philosophical to pe- 
 netrate, even if this were a fit occasion. Suffice it 
 therefore to add that Jessica, " the gentle Jessica/' 
 was born a few days after her mama had been to 
 see the Merchant of Venice, and received her name 
 from the association of ideas attendant on that 
 circumstance. This is the only touch of the ro- 
 mantic that can be detected in the history of the 
 Tibbs's. 
 
 Be it known that Mr. and Mrs. Tibbs are 
 above the affectation of assembling all their friends 
 once or twice in a season to a crowded '* At 
 Home," and treating them to thin negus, mis- 
 cellaneous biscuits, and a seat between six ; — for 
 they shrewdly suspect that the said practice is 
 no less dictated by the parsimony of the in- 
 vitcrs, than they know it to be destructive to the 
 
98 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 pleasure of the invited. They have no notion that 
 any thing is worth having, and therefore worth 
 offering, that costs nothing; and as they can 
 afford it, they never ask people to sit upon any 
 other chairs than their own. It is to one of the 
 dinner parties which grew out of this prejudice 
 (which, by the by, the most fastidious of their 
 friends admit to be an amiable one) that we shall 
 now introduce our readers. As, however, we have 
 not hitherto had any cause to indulge in a pique 
 against the said readers, we shall spare them the 
 trouble of forming one of the party as it remains 
 assembled in the drawing-room during the half 
 hour following that named in the invite: for if 
 there be an occasion when the genii of awkward- 
 ness and ennui take incarnate forms, and each 
 multiplies itself by eight, like Kehama, it is at 
 a party of sixteen assembled as aforesaid. We 
 will therefore join the Tibbs's party at the foot 
 of the stairs, and enter the dining-room with it 
 at once. 
 
 In ten minutes (and not less) the company were 
 seated to the satisfaction of Mrs. T., — who always 
 insists on managing these matters herself, and 
 utterly sets her face against that freewill which 
 she hears is making such alarming encroachments 
 in the realms of fashion : for she is of Lady Mac- 
 
DINING OUT. 99 
 
 beth's opinion, that " the sauce to meat is cere- 
 mony." She thinks too, with the same hostess, 
 that 
 
 — the feast is sold 
 
 That is not often vouch'd, while 'tis a making, 
 'Tis given with welcome." 
 
 Accordingly, she expresses that welcome occa- 
 sionally during her feasts ; to the great scandal of 
 her son Thomas, who has imbibed notions which 
 she considers of a very heterodox nature in these 
 particulars ; and to the infinite horror on this oc- 
 casion of Miss Leftoff, the antiquated sister in law 
 of a city knight, at whose house in Nottingham 
 Place she occasionally dines, and whose fashionable 
 friends, she will venture to say, never made any 
 body welcome in their lives ! It need scarcely be 
 intimated that Miss L. took the precaution of ex- 
 pressing this opinion by looks alone. 
 
 Of the cates that displayed themselves on re- 
 moving the spacious cushion-shaped covers (for 
 the Tibbs's have not yet escaped from the Age of 
 Tin in this particular) we shall not give any minute 
 account ; merely stating that they maintained a 
 well-poised medium between the mere substantials, 
 clad au naturel, of the old English school, and the 
 " high fantasticals" of the modern French cuisine 
 
100 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 — that Monmouth-street of meats — where they gel 
 dressed out in a hundred different fashions of se- 
 cond-hand frippery, in not one of which do their 
 best friends know them. 
 
 Dinner now commenced, and taciturnity began 
 at the same moment to sound a retreat. For an 
 Englishman, if he will talk at no other time, will 
 at his dinner. He then sees something before 
 him to talk about : which at other times he is 
 forced to imagine ; and that is too much trouble : 
 —for, whatever his friends or enemies may say to 
 the contrary, John Bull is the most poco-curante 
 animal in nature, and cares for nothing that does 
 not " come home to his business." — But let us 
 have no digressions from our dinner, whatever we 
 may be obliged to endure at it. 
 
 Mrs. Tibbs had taken the precaution, as in duty 
 to her good dinner bound, of arranging the male 
 portion of her company with an eye to what her 
 covers concealed ; so that when they disappeared, 
 each party found himself opposite to the dish best 
 adapted to his dissecting talents. For the first 
 ten minutes, therefore, after the removal of the 
 accustomed soup and fish which never failed to 
 form the standing top and bottom of the Tibbs's 
 table, nothing was distinguishable but a somewhat 
 confused hubbub, consisting of the heads and tails 
 
DINING OUT. 101 
 
 of phrases as disjointed as the contents of the 
 dishes to which they referred — such as " May I 
 
 be permitted " " Will you allow me — " 
 
 " Really I'm quite ashamed - " " Pray give 
 
 me leave " " I'm sorry to trouble you — — " 
 
 " The trouble's a pleasure ■ " &c. &c. &c. By 
 the bye, we should not have permitted the afore- 
 said soup and fish to have entirely vacated their 
 places, without repeating an enormous pun apper- 
 taining thereto, which Mr. Tibbs the younger had 
 picked up at office that morning, and being a bit 
 of a wag, perpetrated on this occasion. And we 
 are the more unwilling that it should be defrauded 
 of its fame, seeing that the youth had magnanimity 
 enough to mulct himself of both soup and fish, in 
 order to have an opportunity of atcheiving it. 
 Both Mr. and Mrs. T. happened to ask him, nearly 
 at the same moment, which he would chuse, soup 
 or fish; to which he replied, "with infinite promp- 
 titude," that he did not chuse either, for that 
 he was not a superficial person. This sally, 
 though it greatly scandalized Mr. Tibbs, the elder, 
 and fell entirely still-born on the ear of Mrs. T., 
 was received by the company in general with great 
 eclat ; and moreover it had the important effect of 
 deciding the future fate of Mr. Deputy Double- 
 chin's youngest son — which had been resting in 
 
102 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 equilibrio for the last six months, and which was 
 now finally fixed for an attorney's office — " it made 
 a lad so sharp/' the Deputy said. 
 
 We must now let the dinner take its course till 
 the sweets come on; for the remarks of city epi- 
 cures on the merits of any given dish are only edi- 
 fying when the dish itself happens to be at hand, 
 and the hearer can prove the truth of the dogma 
 laid down in regard to it. Suffice it that the gen- 
 tlemen had all " great pleasure in taking wine" 
 with each other, and that each of the ladies bowed 
 their heads sundry times across the table, in token 
 of their skill in practising the ingenious fiction of 
 doing the same without wetting their lips : for 
 ladies in the class of those with whom we have at 
 present the pleasure of associating, (especially un- 
 married ones,) have a notion that they are bound 
 to take wine with every body who asks them, and 
 are at the same time bound to avoid taking wine at 
 all, as studiously as if they were Mussulmans. A 
 young lady from the city, who should be detected 
 in taking two glasses of wine at dinner, would 
 expect her father's clerk to make love to her the 
 next day, and would not be very angry if he did. 
 
 Towards the latter end of a dinner-party, if at 
 all, an Englishman begins to feel a disposition to 
 hear himself talk. Accordingly, then it was that 
 
DINING OUT. 103 
 
 the topics of the day began to be discussed at the 
 table of the Tibbs's. And who, after having been 
 present at a party of this kind, shall say that busi- 
 ness and politics are the only subjects in which 
 Englishmen of the middle classes take an interest, 
 and that literature, and the fine arts, do not enjoy 
 their due share of consideration ? On the present 
 occasion Mrs. Tibbs herself introduced the subject 
 of literature even before the cloth was drawn, by 
 observing that she understood from her girls Sir 
 Walter Scott's last new play of Woodstock was not 
 near so clever as two that he wrote some time ago 
 called Guy Mannering and Rob Roy ; and which 
 latter, as she intimated, some person had expanded 
 into a book of several volumes — for she had seen 
 it lying on Mrs. Lightblue's library table. " La, 
 Ma !" — exclaimed Juliana, somewhat impatiently, 
 on hearing Mrs. T. make this unexpected sally 
 into the confines of literature — " I'm sure we told 
 you no such thing. And how you do confuse 
 things together ! — Why Guy Mannering is an 
 opera, written by Mr. Bishop ; and it was Mr. 
 Terry, the actor, who wrote Rob Roy, and Sir 
 Walter himself who afterwards made it into a 
 novel." — " Well, my love" — said Mrs. T. — " you 
 know I don't pretend to understand so much about 
 these things as you do. But what was that" — she 
 
104 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 continued — for she likes to display her daughter's 
 knowledge, even at the expense of her own — 
 " what was that you were telling me, about Sir 
 Walter Scott being known among his friends by 
 the title of the great 'unknown 1 What do they 
 mean by calling him the Great Unknown ? I 
 thought he was better known than body, except 
 ' the author of Waverly,' and the court of Alder- 
 men." — "Dear me, Ma!" — said Frances — " why 
 you're at your confusions again — ' the author of 
 Waverly' died long before we were born. Why 
 Waverly was written ' sixty years ago,' It says 
 so in the title-page." 
 
 Luckily the noise of knives and forks, and the 
 clearing of the table, prevented this enlightened 
 colloquy from extending beyond the immediate 
 precincts in which it was uttered, and where the 
 subjects of it were not sufficiently interesting to 
 render its little errors of any importance ; and by 
 the time the desert and wine were placed on the 
 table,' all thoughts of it had passed away, and 
 given place to a discussion which now arose, rela- 
 tive to the progress of the fine arts in this country ; 
 in which discussion all the party seemed fully 
 qualified and prepared to take their share. The 
 point in question was, the- comparative merits of 
 that year's Exhibition at Somerset House, (then 
 
DINING OUT. 105 
 
 open,) and the previous year's; — the point having 
 been started in consequence of some remark on 
 the merits of a whole length likeness of Mr. 
 Tibbs the elder, which had been recognised that 
 very morning by two of the party, notwithstanding 
 its modest alias of " portrait of a gentleman." On 
 this question, as to the aforesaid progress of the 
 fine arts generally, it is singular that every one of 
 the party had fully made up their minds. It is no 
 less singular too, that the judgments were pretty 
 equally divided ; about one half being decidedly 
 of opinion that the Exhibition this year was 
 " much better" than that of last year, and the 
 other half feeling equally satisfied that it was 
 " not near so good :" both parties agreeing, how- 
 ever, that there were " a great many portraits ;" 
 and that the rooms were " exceedingly warm," and 
 the company " very mixed !" 
 
 By this time the wine had passed round two or 
 three times ; and as this proceeded in its regular 
 course (out of which Mr. T. never permits it to 
 swerve on any consideration whatever) most of the 
 various topics of the day came by turn into dis- 
 cussion ; and we may venture to say that not one 
 of them was treated with a less conspicuous share 
 of acumen and discrimination than had been dis- 
 played in regard to the above. What was said on 
 
106 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 any of these subjects it would be obviously improper 
 for us to report at any length, however edifying- 
 such a report might be. Suffice it to add, that, 
 after the fifth glass of wine, politics, as it always 
 does on similar occasions, became the sole order of 
 the day. Whereupon the ladies, accepting this as a 
 very intelligible signal that their company could 
 be dispensed with, retired to the drawing-room ; 
 and each gentleman proceeded to take advantage of 
 the first opportunity that offered, of expressing his 
 own particular opinions on the prominent political 
 events and topics of the past week ; each availing 
 himself, respectively, of the particular newspaper 
 to which he was attached, and each of course 
 being " decidedly of opinion" with that. As po- 
 litics is a subject not to be ousted when once it 
 gets a fair footing at an English after-dinner table, 
 and as it is one with which we do not profess to 
 meddle, we shall now silently take our leave : 
 though we were perhaps bound to consider the 
 Dinner Party of the day as virtually at an end, 
 the moment the ladies left the table. 
 
 H. 
 
LETTERS ON SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 BY PROFESSOR W- 
 
LETTERS ON SHAKESPEARE. * 
 
 No. 2. 
 
 ROMEO AND JULIET. 
 
 BY PROFESSOR W . 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 After a long protracted silence, I again venture 
 to address you, on the subject of that divine 
 mind whose productions have so often occupied 
 and delighted our minds— not without occasion- 
 ally overshadowing, and even overwhelming them, 
 with a sense of its wondrous and superhuman 
 power. And in truth, I am fain to confess my 
 belief, that it is the perhaps half-unconscious 
 presence of this sense, perpetually pressing upon 
 me whenever I have turned my thoughts to this 
 subject, which has so long deterred me from 
 fulfilling my promise, of communicating to you, 
 
 * Continued from Blackwood's Magazine, vol. 2. p. 512. 
 
 I 
 
114 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 in something like a regular and tangible form, 
 those views and feelings which we have so often 
 discussed together, touching the true individual 
 characters of Shakespeare's principal dramatic 
 works. 
 
 It is not that I have feared to approach the 
 footstool of this mighty being — this god among 
 men ; or that I have felt abashed in his ima- 
 ginary presence: for he too has said, in senti- 
 ment if not in words, " Let little children come 
 unto me, and I will not turn them away." (To 
 you, who know my heart, I need not disclaim, 
 in this allusion, anything approaching to levity, 
 or a disposition towards the undue mingling of 
 sacred things with profane.) It is not, I say, 
 that in entering the presence of this great repre- 
 sentative of all the various powers of the divinely 
 human intellect of man, I have experienced a 
 more than ordinary sense of my own comparative 
 nothingness, and have shrunk backward abashed at 
 the contemplation : for it is one of the finest and 
 most characteristical qualities of Shakespeare's 
 mind, that, on feeling ourselves within the sphere 
 of its action and influence, all egotism, whether 
 it be of a vain-glorious and self-exalting, or of 
 an equally vain-glorious though self-abasing na- 
 
LETTERS ON SHAKESPEARE. 115 
 
 ture, melts utterly away, and becomes merged and 
 lost in an all absorbing sentiment of mingled ad- 
 miration and love ; an admiration, however, and 
 a love, which have for their object nothing more, 
 after all, than human attributes and qualities ; 
 and which therefore inspire us with anything 
 rather than contempt for the form that we wear, 
 and the mind that gives it life and motion. It 
 is, in fact, only a man that we are listening to ; 
 and being men ourselves, we cannot chuse but 
 listen with something like secret self-congratu- 
 lations, on the possible greatness and beauty and 
 power of our common nature. 
 
 No — if I am ever disposed to sink into an un- 
 due despondency of heart, and to let my coward 
 thoughts fly before the conquering spirit of 
 doubt that will sometimes beset them, I have 
 only to make my stand within the stronghold of 
 Shakespeare, and I feel instantly revived and re- 
 instated and re-assured ; and the very spot that 
 I had entered the moment before, cowering and 
 crest-fallen, I am ready the next moment to 
 quit, erect, stedfast, and heart-whole. No — of 
 all those master-spirits upon whom we call, and 
 bid them " minister to a mind diseased," he is 
 the only one who does not, in the end, refer 
 
 1 2 
 
116 
 
 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 the patient back to himself ; — he and he alone is 
 able to 
 
 " Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, 
 Rase out the written troubles of the brain, 
 And, with some sweet oblivious antidote, 
 Cleanse the foul bosom of that perilous stuff 
 Which weighs upon the heart." 
 
 In short, it is he alone who can make us feel — - 
 what we never should have felt without him — 
 the full value and virtue of our own hearts, and 
 minds, and affections, and passions, and powers 
 — in a word, of our own mighty and mysterious 
 nature. 
 
 If I remember rightly, I remarked to you in 
 my first letter, that all the great works of Shake- 
 speare have within them that oneness, that unity 
 of purpose, which is demanded by Aristotle as 
 an essential quality of the highest species of 
 drama: though, assuredly, I did not pretend to 
 state that the quality I speak of is atchieved in 
 the manner directed by Aristotle; namely, by 
 making every part of the action grow out of that 
 part immediately preceding it, and thus ren- 
 dering each part at once a cause and an effect. 
 
 No — this was not Shakespeare's way, because 
 
LETTERS ON SHAKESPEARE. 117 
 
 it was not Nature's. It might easily be demon- 
 strated, that in every separate portion of actual 
 life which includes a sufficient degree of passion 
 to make it susceptible of a dramatic representa- 
 tion, there is, in effect, a perfect unity of charac- 
 ter. But no one will pretend that that unity is 
 produced, even once out of a hundred times, by 
 the mere mechanical course and concatenation of 
 the events which occupy the period in question. 
 On the contrary, anything like such a mechani- 
 cal linking together, and dependence upon, one 
 event and another, would go nigh to destroy 
 that real unity of the imagination, which is what 
 Shakespeare aims at and atchieves. 
 
 To make what I mean more clear, let us turn 
 at once to the drama which I have chosen for 
 the immediate subject of my present letter, and 
 which, if I mistake not, is even more deeply 
 imbued with this dramatic unity of imagina- 
 tion than any other of its wondrous author's 
 productions. 
 
 The unity which belongs to the play of Romeo 
 and Juliet, consists in that spirit of youth which 
 everywhere penetrates and pervades it— even from 
 the flow of its language and the music of its 
 rhythm, to the very depths and innermost recesses 
 
118 REJECTED ARTICLES, 
 
 of that passion which is its nominal subject : I 
 say its "nominal" subject; for, paradoxical as 
 the assertion may at first seem, love is not the real 
 subject of this tragedy, but only the accidental, 
 or rather the incidental one- — incidental to it, sim- 
 ply because it is, in an incomparably greater degree 
 than all other passions, incidental to that state 
 of being which is the essential subject of the 
 work. 
 
 If Shakespeare had proposed to himself to 
 illustrate and make manifest the various move- 
 ments and qualities appertaining to and consti- 
 tuting the passion of love, would he have made 
 it the first action of his lover to rise from the 
 feet of one mistress, and, without a moment's 
 pause, throw himself before another ; forgetting 
 from that time forth that the first had ever 
 existed, much less held him in thrall? Is this 
 the character of love ? No : — but it is the cha- 
 racter of youth, and therefore Shakespeare has 
 made his youthful man exhibit it : for Romeo is 
 not a lover, nor any other individual modifica- 
 cation of the human character ; he has, in fact, 
 no individual and determinate character at all, 
 but is a general specimen of man — a pure ab- 
 straction of our human nature — at that particular 
 
LETTERS ON SH AKESPEARE. 119 
 
 period of its being which occurs exactly between 
 boyhood and maturity, and which we call, by way 
 of distinction, the period of Youth. 
 
 Is it a characteristic of love — I mean of that 
 profound mental passion of which I am now 
 speaking — to start into life in an instant, at the 
 mere lightning glance of beauty, and to reach 
 its full and perfect maturity even in the very- 
 hour of its birth ? Oh, no ! — but it is the cha- 
 racteristic of that other love, which constitutes 
 so great and absorbing a portion of the " beings 
 end and aim" of Youth. 
 
 I am confident, my dear friend, that you will 
 not mistake me, in what I am now saying. You 
 will not suspect me of wishing — nay, of daring 
 — to breathe the slightest suspicion of impurity 
 over the enchanting passion and persons of the 
 lovers in this drama, or to throw a doubt upon 
 the right of that passion to be called love. It 
 was a love " pure as the thought of purity " — ■ 
 pure as is that purely intellectual love of which 
 I have just spoken, and which cannot co-exist 
 with impurity. It was as pure as that ; but it 
 was not that. 
 
 It is not my purpose to institute a comparative 
 estimate of these two different kinds of love, but 
 only to mark the distinction which exists be- 
 
120 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 tween them. And in order to this, let me say- 
 that they differ, as everything must differ, the 
 sources of which are not the same. They differ, 
 as the earth differs from the heavens — or rather 
 as their productions differ ; for one of these pas- 
 sions is the production of the heavenly within us, 
 and the other of the earthly. But the latter is 
 equally pure with the former, when it exists in 
 the state in which they possessed it whose history 
 we are examining ; and it differs from its relative 
 only as the flowers differ from the stars, or as phy- 
 sical beauty differs from intellectual. Is the rose 
 impure because its roots are in the earth, and its 
 nourishment springs from thence? Neither then 
 is the love of Romeo and Juliet impure because its 
 roots and its food are in the flesh, not in the 
 spirit. 
 
 But let us look a little more closely into the 
 characteristic qualities of this most enchanting 
 of all dramas — most enchanting to all of us, be- 
 cause it offers, to those who are still the happy 
 denizens of that state of being which it represents, 
 an echo of the rich music that is for ever ring- 
 ing in their hearts ; and to those who have passed 
 through that state, it recalls and revives and re- 
 creates all that sanctified and made it sweet. 
 
 xA.t the opening of the play, we find the hero of 
 
LETTERS ON SHAKESPEARE. 121 
 
 it as deeply in love (as the phrase is) as words, 
 even the words of Shakespeare, can describe him 
 to be. He is altogether a creature of passion ; 
 floating this way and that on the waves of it ; 
 blown hither and thither by its winds ; now borne 
 downwards into its darkest depths, and now rapt 
 upward to it highest and brightest heavens ; one 
 moment revelling in its richest fields of hope and 
 happiness, and the next bound hand and foot in 
 the dungeons of its despair. 
 
 Let it be observed, too, that we hear of all this 
 passion, long before we hear of its object ; and 
 the reader who comes to the perusal of Romeo and 
 Juliet for the first time, imagines, of course, that 
 it is Juliet who inspires it all ; or rather, he does not 
 tax his imagination on the subject, or ever think 
 of inquiring, but takes it for granted. And I am 
 inclined to fear, too, that when he first comes to 
 discover that all these transports are felt for an- 
 other, and not for Juliet, he is at least disappoint- 
 ed, if not displeased or indignant. 
 
 And yet the above is, beyond comparison, that 
 point in the character which shows its creator in 
 the most extraordinary light— which most clearly 
 evinces the subtlety of his conceptions, and his 
 astonishing boldness in developing them. No 
 poet that ever lived, except Shakespeare, would 
 
122 K EJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 have thought of proving the depth and sincerity 
 of his hero's love for his present mistress, by re- 
 presenting him as feeling and expressing it for the 
 first time, in the very presence of her who was his 
 mistress half an hour ago, and for whom he would 
 then have professed and acted all that he now will 
 for his new one. And yet, instead of feeling that 
 Romeo's late professions of love for Rosaline throw 
 any suspicion upon the sincerity of his present 
 love for Juliet, there can be no doubt whatever 
 that the effect is exactly the reverse. I say the 
 effect ; for I believe that those (even among female 
 readers) who make it a question with themselves 
 whether this fickleness, as they would call it, does 
 or does not affect the value of Romeo's later 
 passion, are at first inclined to determine, that at 
 any rate Rosaline had his first love. But let a 
 Romeo of real life transfer his transports from an- 
 other to them ; and at the same time, let another 
 adorer of equal pretensions, lay at their feet the 
 premices of his heart ; and see whether they will 
 not incline to the first rather than the second. 
 And this, not from any feeling of gratified vanity 
 at the preference, but from an instinctive sense of 
 the spontaneous nature of the love of youth, and 
 its consequent incapacity of waiting for a particu 
 lar object before it becomes developed. Every 
 
LETTERS ON SHAKESPEARE. 123 
 
 woman believes, and is bound to believe, that she 
 is the only object that could have^e^ her lover,. 
 But she does not think him the less fixed because 
 his love was lent to another before it was given to 
 her; nor does she covet it the less because she 
 cannot look upon herself as its creator. It is for 
 man, not woman, to cherish a feeling so nearly 
 allied to selfishness. 
 
 But another effect of representing Romeo as ex- 
 perienced in the ways of love, long before he meets 
 with the true object of it, is, to aggrandise our 
 sense of the power and weight of his passion, 
 when it comes to be transferred to its ultimate 
 destination. It was absolutely necessary to the 
 conduct of the story, that we should see the 
 commencement of the love of Romeo for Juliet. 
 And it was equally necessary that we should 
 attach a certain value and importance to that 
 love. But we have no great faith in either 
 the force or the stability of a passion which is 
 conceived and born before our eyes. Accordingly, 
 Romeo is placed before us, the very concentration 
 or personification of passion. " Passion !" Mer- 
 cutio calls him ; as if it were his name. He is all 
 made up of it. And when he sees what we all 
 along feel to be the legitimate object of that 
 passion, he has nothing to do but pour it all out 
 
124 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 into her heart, and disbui then himself of what has 
 hitherto been pressing upon him with a weight 
 " heavy as frost, and deep almost as life ;" but 
 heavy and oppressive only because it could not 
 find the object that was destined to receive and 
 share it : as the clouds go heavily and darkly 
 along, while they are surcharged with the bright 
 rain, but become bright and bouyant themselves 
 the moment they come near enough to the earth 
 to part with their fertilizing burthen. 
 
 If Romeo's love had been the love of a moment, 
 we should never have endured the train of conse- 
 quences that flow from it, but should have regard- 
 ed them in the anomalous light of effects without 
 an adequate cause. But as it is, that weight of 
 passion (the accumulation of years perhaps) which 
 he pours forth at once into the heart of Juliet the 
 moment he beholds her, is cause enough for any 
 effect that can flow from it. 
 
 I will not scruple to confess, that the good effect 
 which is produced by Romeo presenting himself 
 before Juliet with a heart already filled to over- 
 flowing with passion, is not gained without some 
 counterbalancing evil. And if Rosaline, the first 
 object of that passion, had been brought forward 
 in the play, in a visible form, this evil would have 
 been still more manifest. But, to say nothing of 
 
LETTERS ON SHAKESPEARE. 125 
 
 her not returning his passion, she is but a name 
 in our imagination, after all— not a person. And, 
 to shew how entirely Shakespeare has gained 
 his object in making Rosaline only a name, it is 
 but necessary to appeal to every ordinary reader 
 and spectator of the play, who, on referring to 
 their feelings on the point in question, will 
 find that they scarcely remember that such a per- 
 son is alluded to. 
 
 If, indeed, Rosaline had been represented to us 
 as the accepting and accepted mistress of Romeo, 
 and his change of allegiance had come upon us 
 in the light of a desertion, the case would have 
 been widely different, and its effect on the whole 
 after part of the drama would have been mischie- 
 vous, and indeed intolerable. 
 
 But why, you ask, contemplate a case which 
 was never contemplated by Shakespeare ? I ac- 
 cept the reproof, and at once return to him and 
 his divine work; — for I shall have quite enough to 
 do to explain to you my views of what this play is, 
 without speculating on what it might have been. 
 
 The love of Romeo and Juliet must be re- 
 garded, then, as the manifestation of that passion 
 (call it by what name you will) which is the 
 dominating spirit of that period of human life of 
 which these lovers are the type and representa- 
 
126 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 tive ; — a period when to live and to love are one, 
 and the life of which and its love expire together ; 
 as we see mystically shadowed forth in the deaths 
 of these two beings. It has every characteristic 
 of that period : its headlong precipitancy ; its 
 heedless rashness ; its total disregard of all 
 worldly considerations or consequences ; its en- 
 thusiastic ardour of aspiration, and force of will ; 
 its unhesitating confidence in the reality of all 
 which does but seem, whether of good or of 
 evil ; its pronesss to seize, without an instant's 
 delay, on all that the hand of pleasure proffers, 
 without asking the price, or calculating the com- 
 parative value ; and above all, that boundless ca- 
 pacity for enjoyment and for suffering, which one 
 moment lifts it to the highest empyrean of bliss, 
 and the next sinks it to the lowest dungeons of 
 despair. 
 
 So true does it seem to me that Romeo and 
 Juliet are mere abstractions, or rather that the 
 two are an abstraction of human life at a par- 
 ticular period of it ; or, perhaps it were better to 
 say, of the human being in its dual state, of 
 man and woman; that if we examine our feel- 
 ings in regard to their characters, (as we are ac- 
 customed to phrase it,) we shall find that we do 
 not recognize anything in the shape of indivi- 
 
LETTERS ON SHAKESPEARE. 127 
 
 duality, or of intellectual portraiture, in either of 
 them : which I will venture to say is not the case 
 with any one other of the creations of Shakes- 
 peare's hand. 
 
 Neither do we connect with the lovers any ima- 
 ginary association whatever, appertaining to ex- 
 ternal form : which truth, if it be one, is equally 
 with the above confined to them alone. 
 
 If we were to descend from this general state^ 
 ment of the proposition, and examine every se- 
 parate sentiment or sentence uttered by each of 
 them throughout the play, it would probably lead 
 to the same conclusion. And the reason is, that 
 they utter, not the results of that complicated 
 condition of being which we call character, and 
 which consists of a thousand modifying influences 
 and impulses ; but of passion — passion, which is 
 one and indivisible, and which is the same yes- 
 terday, to-day, and for ever; — passion, which 
 circumstances may repress, or keep out of sight, 
 or even destroy ; but which nothing can change; 
 which is in fact not susceptible of change, in the 
 very nature of things ; because it is in our pas- 
 sions that our human being consists ; and while 
 that remains, they must remain too; and while 
 they remain, their result must be universally and 
 unchangeably the same. 
 
128 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 Such, my dear friend, are the conceptions which 
 I have formed of the two principal persons of this 
 divinely human work. Let me not quit them, 
 however, without following them to their fragrant 
 grave, and seeing them quietly inurned there : for, 
 untimely as that grave is, it is still sweet, since 
 each finds it in the arms of the other, and ex- 
 hales over it the sweetest sighs that were ever 
 breathed from the lips of loveliness. 
 
 Let me approach it, too, without a thought of 
 sorrow, nor shed over it one profaning tear ; 
 for they whom it encloses shed none, but laid 
 themselves down in it as if it had been their 
 bridal bed : which in truth it was ; for they had 
 no other. 
 
 No — let us utter no idle lamentations over the 
 early death of these lovers, either on their ac- 
 count, or our own ; for had they lived they would 
 have ceased to be lovers, both for us and for 
 themselves. If the flowers were not to die almost 
 in the hour of their birth, they would be born in 
 vain ; and if the state of being which these lovers 
 typify were not as fleeting as it is fair, its fairness 
 would be forgotten or disregarded long before it 
 was passed away. 
 
 Doubtless Shakespeare intended that this should 
 be the condition of our feelings in regard to the 
 
LETTERS ON SHAKESPEARE. 129 
 
 deaths of Romeo and Juliet ; for he has inflicted 
 no positive pain upon them, either physical or 
 intellectual ; no " longing, lingering looks" are 
 cast behind them as they pass away from our 
 sight ; but all is anticipation and hope ; each being 
 dead to the other, and each therefore hastening to 
 join its other self. It is to each as if its soul 
 had passed away beforehand, and there was no- 
 thing left for the deserted body to do, but melt 
 meekly into the bosom of its parent earth, and 
 mingle with the elements from whence it arose. 
 
 The catastrophe of Romeo and Juliet is ex- 
 pressly contrived with a view to this avoidance of 
 all painful impressions at our parting with this 
 pair of " star-crossed lovers ;" and no other ar- 
 rangement but that which has been adopted could 
 have accomplished this view. As for Juliet, — 
 e * the weaker vessel" — she is put gently to sleep 
 the moment that adverse circumstances are at 
 hand ; and she only awakes to see her lord lying 
 at her feet, and to ponr forth her soul into his still 
 warm bosom. While he, having been struck 
 dead at once, in spirit, by the account of her 
 death, has nothing to do, and never for an instant 
 even thinks of doing anything, but seek himself 
 out " a triumphant grave," and pass into it, 
 drinking an almost jocund health to his love : for 
 
130 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 that he feels to be immortal, even at the very mo- 
 ment when its object lies dead before his eyes. 
 
 Let it be observed, too, that none of the 
 ordinary concomitants of death are admitted 
 into this closing scene of the lives of our lovers. 
 As for Juliet, — her beauty is upon her, bright as 
 ever. And though, from the supposed truth of 
 his information as to her death, Romeo believes 
 her to be dead, yet he evidently feels that she is 
 not dead, and dies himself in the half- voluptuous 
 kiss that recals her to life. 
 
 " Here's to- my love!" * * * * 
 *.».*•« Thus with a kiss I die !" 
 
 While she, so recalled to life, does but ask for 
 her husband ; and at once finding him, and find- 
 ing him not, replies to his kiss by another, (the 
 Jirst and the last of each) and so dies too, with 
 the " warm" pressure of his lips upon hers. 
 
 " Thy lips are warm !" 
 
 What is there of death here ? what of the 
 grave ? It is but the spirit of youth, exhaling 
 itself away in sweet sighs, to the music of meet- 
 ing lips. And if you would not think me too 
 fanciful, I would add,. — with reference to what I 
 
LETTERS ON SHAKESPEARE. 131 
 
 have before hinted, as to the nature of Romeo and 
 Juliet's love, — that this scene is, perchance, merely 
 intended to be typical of the natural and necessary 
 death of that particular species of love which 
 cannot survive fruition even for a moment, at 
 least under its original form and character; but, 
 when it does survive it, assumes a new form, and 
 rises into that intellectual love which is immortal 
 as the soul that is its seat. Each of the lovers 
 seeks death — each dies willingly, and without a 
 reverting look — and e.ach expires instantly on 
 pressing its lips to those of the other. And we 
 may, if we please, fancy that each presently arises 
 from its " triumphant grave, " in another and a 
 better world ; assoiled from all its earthly weak- 
 nesses and woes, and living, and to live for ever. 
 
 Perhaps I ought to apologize, even to you, for 
 dwelling so long on this particular point in the 
 drama, and still more for dwelling on it in terms 
 which I fear you will at least not admire for their 
 sobriety. But the truth is, I never can keep 
 my feelings, in regard to this part of the drama, 
 (and therefore not my expressions), within very 
 strict bounds, when I think upon the base and 
 senseless profanation which has been practised on 
 it by some ignorant modern hand, and universally 
 adopted by the still more ignorant players in their 
 
 k 2 
 
132 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 representation of it. The catastrophe was not 
 tragic enough, forsooth ; and they must have the 
 lovers meet face to face, and die in each others 
 arms by lingering torments : the one torn to 
 pieces in body by the physical effects of the poi- 
 son, and in mind by the still more terrible poison 
 of rage and despair at seeing his lady living after 
 he has killed himself to be with her ; and the 
 other, racked and riven still more fearfully at the 
 sight of all these horrors, — till she has scarcely 
 strength left in her tender body and exhausted 
 mind, to let out that life which it would be mad- 
 ness to keep a moment longer, after witnessing the 
 scene which they make her witness ! 
 
 But let us not be too angry with those who 
 knew not what they did, and whose crime in- 
 cluded its own punishment. We need not wish 
 them worse than to want that which, having, they 
 could not have perpetrated the profanation of 
 which I speak. Though it is scarcely just to 
 indulge towards them any feeling approaching to 
 pity and forgiveness, when we recollect how many 
 thousands of their betters they have deprived of 
 that delight which they will now never experience, 
 of witnessing the true and natural catastrophe of 
 this drama, and of enjoying it as their natural 
 sense of the true and beautiful would have led 
 
LETTERS ON SHAKESPEARE. 133 
 
 them to do : for there can be little doubt that, 
 even in this age of readers, scarcely one person 
 in a thousand knows any thing of Shakespeare, but 
 what they have seen on the stage. 
 
 Let us now return to a more general consider- 
 ation of this divine drama. It is not in the two 
 principal persons alone that that spirit of youth 
 prevails, which I have spoken of as the predomi- 
 nating character of the work. All are alike em- 
 bued with it ; it renders all buoyant and full of 
 life ; it is an abiding presence which pervades 
 and interpenetrates all, and in so doing creates 
 that dramatic unity of effect which is so indis- 
 pensable to the highest species of drama, and 
 which is so rarely to be met with out of Shakes- 
 peare. 
 
 A glance at the principal secondary characters 
 will make manifest the truth of what I am 
 stating. What is old Capulet, but a grey-headed 
 youth ? Age has had its inevitable effect upon 
 his body, it is true ; for physical things cannot 
 resist it. But his mind has escaped its power, and 
 is as young as when he was a hair-brained school- 
 boy. He is as eager and hot-hearted in the pur- 
 suit of an imaginary quarrel, as he was then ; 
 as delighted at the anticipation of a feast and 
 revelry, and as animated and light-hearted when 
 
134 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 it arrives ; as precipitate in making up his mind 
 on points of vital importance, and as headstrong 
 in maintaining his hasty determinations; as free 
 and generous in his expenditure ; as happy at the 
 sight of others happiness ; — in short, he has no 
 one quality of age, but that one which half-trans- 
 lates age into youth, by recalling and recreating 
 all that it then felt, and thought, and acted : I 
 mean its gay-hearted garrulousness. An old man 
 who is perpetually talking over the exploits of his 
 youth, and finds no lack of listeners, is happier 
 than when he was acting them ; and, in effect, 
 he is younger; for he has already reached that 
 period the anticipation of which is the only curse 
 of youth : he is young, without the fear before 
 him of growing old. 
 
 The rest of the old people are scarcely less hap- 
 pily gifted than Capulet. Even Friar Lawrence 
 is no exception. However he may deceive him- 
 self and others by having wise proverbs on his lips, 
 his heart is as young as a romantic school-girl's ; 
 and he does not hesitate for a single instant (any 
 more than she would) to assist his young friend 
 and pupil in committing an insane marriage with 
 the daughter of his direst foe. 
 
 " Wisely and slow ; they stumble that run fast;" 
 he says. And then he goes immediately and marries 
 
LETTERS ON SHAKESPEARE. 135 
 
 a couple, whose acquaintance is the growth of 
 half an hour ! 
 
 He is a poet, too. Not a word he utters but 
 what is steeped in the rich music of the imagi- 
 nation. And poets are ever young. Hark, how 
 lie greets the first approach of the lady Juliet to 
 his lonely cell. It is the very spirit of youth and 
 of poetry combined, that speaks : 
 
 " Here comes the lady. O, so light a foot 
 Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flints. 
 A lover may bestride the gossamers 
 That idle in the wanton summer air, 
 And yet not fall : so light is vanity !" 
 
 And as for the delightful old Nurse— she is the 
 youngest of all the party. Her tongue seems to 
 have the power as well as the privilege of child- 
 hood ; and whether it has anything or nothing to 
 say, runs babbling on like a summer brook. 
 
 But if the old people are all young, what shall 
 we say of the young ones ? of Mercutio, Tybalt, 
 County Paris, and the rest ? — What— but that they 
 are all more or less embued with the pre vai ling- 
 spirit of the drama ; and that in none of them is 
 that spirit blended with any other;— and that the 
 first named— -Mercutio— is the very quintessential 
 extract — the spirit of that spirit. He is as young 
 
136 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 as the rest of his companions, without like them 
 having yet tasted of that bitter-sweet fruit of 
 youth which is the first step towards age. He is 
 like them in all other respects ; but with this (to 
 him at least) manifest advantage over them — that 
 he can jest all day long at that which is the only 
 serious thing in the world to them. And even 
 when death comes upon him in the midst of his 
 mad-brained joy, he will not yield to the sum- 
 mons, but struggles jestingly against it ; as if it 
 were nothing more than an impertinent creditor 
 arresting him on his way to a feast. 
 
 There is still one other person of this drama, 
 whom you must not suppose that I have forgotten ; 
 still less must you imagine that I would inten- 
 tionally overlook him, from any feeling that his 
 introduction militates against that unity of effect 
 which, I have said, is so finely spread over the 
 whole design, and wrought into the whole texture, 
 of this perfect work. I mean the Apothecary. 
 So far from wishing to do so, I conceive that he is 
 no less essential to the due bringing-out of the 
 effect (to use a painter's phrase), than any one other 
 person in the drama. And this alone is a suffi- 
 cient reason for finding him here. 
 
 But even putting aside this view of the matter, — 
 if it were not for him, the impression received 
 
LETTERS ON SHAKESPEARE. 137 
 
 from the whole work would be too buoyant, and 
 full of the spirit of youth, to be a true echo of 
 any impression which we can receive from the 
 contemplation of any actual portion of our human 
 life : which imitative impression is what every 
 one of Shakespeare's dramas is intended to create, 
 and in fact does create. 
 
 The two extremes of our existence— Life and 
 Death — like all other extremes, meet. They are 
 necessary corollaries from each other ; and we can 
 no more contemplate one absent from the other, 
 than we can the two extremes of a continuous 
 line. Now, the idea of the Apothecary perpetually 
 haunts our imagination when we are thinking 
 of the play of Romeo and Juliet, just as the idea 
 of Death haunts it when we are thinking even of 
 the brightest and freshest portions of our Human 
 Life. And the idea just as little disturbs the 
 general impressions we receive in either case. It 
 does not disturb, but only modifies them, by 
 blending them with others, which, in taking 
 away a little of their brightness, add to rather 
 than diminish their moral beauty. The idea, in 
 both cases, serves but as a gentle memento mori, — 
 endearing the objects and images with which it 
 blends ; even as I have seen it do in the burial- 
 places of a foreign, land, when engraven on a 
 
138 
 
 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 little cross of black wood, planted on an infant's 
 grave, and almost hidden among the bright flowers 
 that garland and grow around it. 
 
 Permit me, my dear friend, before closing this 
 inordinately long letter, to warn you (though I feel 
 assured that the warning is superfluous) against 
 judging of what I have now said of this sweetest, 
 gentlest, and most perfect of all Shakespeare's 
 productions, in the presence of any of those im- 
 pressions which you may have received from 
 witnessing the acted play. And this warning is 
 particularly necessary (if at all) in connection with 
 the latter part of my remarks. I have there sup- 
 posed that this drama requires some one idea or 
 image, to balance m that exuberant spirit of life 
 which everywhere pervades it; and that, there- 
 fore, Shakespeare has introduced the one alluded 
 to. Need I add, then, that I speak of Shake- 
 speare's drama, not of that which has been polluted 
 by the impudent interpolations of the players? 
 Heaven knows, the general impression left by the 
 catastrophe of this latter, when represented, as we 
 have seen it, by consummate actors, is enough to 
 embitter a whole after life, and half blight the re- 
 collections of the past, however bright they may 
 have been ! Assuredly, that is enough to coun- 
 terbalance a thousand fold all the buoyancy that 
 
LETTERS ON SHAKESPEARE. 139 
 
 has gone before it, even though the " overwhelm- 
 ing brows," and haggard, and famine stricken 
 visage of the poor Apothecary, were to be trans- 
 formed, by the same kind of play-house magic, 
 into the sparkling eyes and rubicund cheeks of 
 some fat and contented friar: which transforma- 
 tion, by the bye, would be quite as natural and 
 necessary to the consistency of the work. 
 
 No— never did I see an essential change made 
 in any of Shakespeare's dramas, that was not in- 
 finitely for the worse ; and this is infinitely the 
 worst of all. So that you will not wonder if I 
 am a little anxious that you should not inadver- 
 tently try anything I have said of Romeo and 
 Juliet, by the impressions received from this ver- 
 sion of it — which absolutely destroys the very 
 essence of its character, and changes it, so far as 
 regards the catastrophe, from a perfect drama of 
 the very highest class, into a paltry me/o-drama, of 
 the very lowest. 
 
 It was my intention to have said something on 
 the poetry of this divine production, both as dis- 
 tinguished from, and as blended with, its passion ; 
 and also of the exquisite language in which both 
 are conveyed. But I must reserve these remarks 
 for another letter. Your affectionate friend, 
 
 T. C. 
 
GRIMM'S GHOST. 
 
 THE CULPEPPERS ON THE CONTINENT. 
 
 BY THE OTHER OF THE AUTHORS OF " REJECTED ADDRESSES.' 
 
GRIMMS GHOST.* 
 
 THE CULPEPPERS ON THE CONTINENT. 
 
 BY THE OTHER OF THE AUTHORS OF " REJECTED ADDRESSES.' 
 
 The Culpeppers and the Dixons have made nu- 
 merous and noticeable advances in the ways of 
 haut ton, since I last had occasion to report pro- 
 gress on their proceedings. It is true they still 
 " hang out," (as Ned Culpepper in his less re- 
 fined moments phrases it), in Savage Gardens, 
 : — seeing that the leases of their respective resi- 
 dences have yet some years to run, and neither 
 party has hitherto hit upon any effectual method 
 of quickening the pace of those parchment 
 ponies. But in default of being able to remove 
 their domiciles to the desiderated purlieus of the 
 Regent's Park, they have done what they justly 
 deem the next best thing, in transferring, as 
 much as may be, the air of the said Park to 
 
 * See New Monthly Magazine passim. 
 
144 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 Savage Gardens. Not being at present in a con- 
 dition to go to the mountain, they have con- 
 trived to make the mountain come to them. In 
 short, by the aid of Mr. Parker's patent cos- 
 metic for the cure of cracks in the complexions 
 of decaying walls, (which, by the bye, like all 
 other cosmetics, requires to be " laid on with a 
 trowel'*), they have struck off a century from 
 the seeming age of their now " modern antique" 
 dwellings, and made them as pretty illustrations 
 as need be of " the Deformed Transformed.'' 
 
 Both parties, too, were determined " not to 
 stick at trifles," as Ned reports, " but do the 
 thing handsome while they were about it." And 
 accordingly, this memorable change has been 
 effected no less intas than in cute; and now, 
 Captain Augustus Thackery would no more re- 
 cognise the dark, dingy drawing-room, with its 
 grey wainscotted walls, in which I have recorded 
 his first hospitable reception by the Culpeppers, 
 than he did his own face in the glass the other day, 
 after having permitted it to be so pitilessly mulct 
 of the major part of its mustachios. 
 
 The said drawing-room has been forced, by 
 the friendly intervention of a pair of folding- 
 doors, into a fashionable alliance with its late 
 neighbour the back bed-room adjoining, and the 
 
gbtmm's ghost. 145 
 
 latter has of course assumed the name and arms 
 of the former ; while the windows of each have 
 been duly cut down to the floor and raised up to 
 the ceiling, according to the newest mode in that 
 case made and provided for letting in the cold; 
 and the antique mouldings of the wainscot have 
 been macadamized into a smooth plain of French 
 tapisserie, on which the whole heathen mythology 
 are manifesting themselves under the most amiable 
 attitudes. 
 
 The furniture has also undergone a no less 
 radical reform. The grim old Kidderminster is 
 discarded in favour of a brilliant Brussels of a 
 kaleidoscope pattern. The eight huge, stiff-legged 
 and high-shouldered arm-chairs, each as big as a 
 sofa-bedstead, have been changed for a dozen of 
 trim little rose- wood receptacles, with legs as 
 crooked as ram's horns, and backs that laugh 
 lolling to scorn ; besides a tastily-turned Grecian 
 couch to match, — constructed (for the con- 
 venience of modern Routers) on the express prin- 
 ciple of preventing people from going to sleep : 
 — to say nothing of a settee in each window, the 
 like of which, as Old Culpepper facetiously ob- 
 serves, was never seen in the Cittee before. 
 
 As for the rest of the furniture, it has under- 
 gone an entire " French Revolution." There is 
 
146 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 a French Console in the pier; (" Consols are 
 deuced high!" said old C. when he saw the 
 bill of it) ; a French clock and French china on 
 the mantle-piece ; a French glass over the fire- 
 place ; French lamps on the French-fashioned 
 card-tables ; and French polish on everything in 
 the room, except its inhabitants. 
 
 Perhaps it was an amiably unconscious con- 
 sciousness of this last-named deficiency, which 
 prompted the similar and simultaneous proposal 
 of Mrs. Culpepper and Mrs. Dixon to their re- 
 spective, respected, and respectable spouses, the 
 results of which I am now to report : premising, 
 however, that, whatever the censorious may in- 
 sinuate to the contrary, the almost identical 
 periods and idioms at and in which these two pro- 
 posals were promulgated, do not by any means 
 demonstrate a previous concert on the part of 
 these prudent consorts, touching the point in 
 question. Not that I take upon me to deny, any 
 more than to asseverate, said concert between said 
 consorts. I leave the point to be settled between the 
 future commentators on these immortal epistles. 
 
 the family quartett sat looking at each other 
 just after dinner, opposite the four points of the 
 
grimm's ghost. 147 
 
 flowery compass impressed in centre of the 
 newly calendered blue baize cover of the cushion- 
 shaped dining-table — " Railly, ? p 1 n [ I 
 
 think the young people ought to see some'at of 
 foreign parts now. Not but what Margate is 
 monstrous genteel, and frequented by the rail tip- 
 toppers of Trinity Square and the Crescent — 
 especially since the steamers have run so re- 
 gular and cheap. But then, you know, one 
 does'nt see any of the continent at Margate — 
 and I'm sure it must be a fine sight, from what 
 Captain Thackery said about it the other day — 
 though I cou'dn't very well make out what it was 
 like. I'm told, too, it's to be seen just as well 
 at Bullen as if you went all the way to Jamaica 
 to look at it. Now what do you say, my love, to 
 taking us all over for a week or ten days ? I've 
 heard it's only like crossing over the way, in a 
 manner speaking. Now I think of it, too, I 
 shou'dn't wonder a bit if our next door neighbours 
 would like to jine us — and that would make it 
 come quite easy, you know — for then we could 
 all be together, and have our meals under one. 
 Besides, — I railly do think the young folks ought 
 to see some'at of foreign ways. Why there's 
 
 l 2 
 
148 R EJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 them Hincks's gals have been to Rome, and Italy, 
 and the Rhine, and" — 
 
 The elder Culpepper's patience, which was 
 generally quite exemplary under the infliction of 
 an apparently interminable harangue of this 
 nature, would probably have stood him in stead 
 some time longer. But his love of a joke (pro- 
 vided he himself was the ostensible projector of 
 it) was not so easily to be kept under ; and ac- 
 cordingly, this mention of the Rhine roused him 
 from his chin-on-elbow-supported attitude, in a 
 moment. 
 
 "The Rind!" reiterated he with a good- 
 humoured chuckle — " ha ! ha ! the Rind ! they 
 need'nt go far to see that. They've only to step 
 into our friend Dixon's shop in Fenchurch Street, 
 and they may see plenty of the Rind, and smell 
 it too, for that matter." # 
 
 There are certain kinds of puns the mere 
 odour of which, like that of " the morning air" 
 to the ghost of Hamlet's father, is potent enough 
 to drive a disembodied spirit like myself out of 
 the room in which they are engendered. And 
 
 * I hope I need not recall to the reader's recollection 
 that Mr. Andrew Dixon is the senior partner in an emi- 
 nent cheesemongering concern in Fenchurch-street. 
 
grimm's ghost. 149 
 
 this of Old Culpepper's was one of them. I am 
 therefore not able to report by what more co- 
 gent arguments than those urged above, the 
 ladies respectively of Messrs. Culpepper and 
 Dixon prevailed upon their lords not only to 
 allow of, but partake in, the projected excursion 
 to " Bullen." But that they did so prevail will 
 scarcely be considered as problematical, when I 
 aver that the Friday following saw the whole 
 party of eight duly installed oh the deck of the 
 Superb, steaming away down the river, to their 
 hearts' content. 
 
 Having, in my present state of being, a mortal 
 or rather an immorta\ antipathy to anything in 
 the shape of smoke, the reader will not be sur- 
 prised to learn that I declined accompanying our 
 travellers any farther than to see them safe off' 
 from the Tower stairs. I must therefore consign 
 to another pen the task of communicating the 
 events consequent on the voyage, 
 
 MISS CLARA CULPEPPER TO HER FRIEND MISS BELINA 
 BINKS OF BUCKLERSBTJRY. 
 
 Boulogne, Friday Evening, Sept. 1825. 
 Well, my love ! here we are in France, sure 
 enough ! but after such a voyage ! — oh my dear, 
 the ocean is a frightful beast to be tossed about 
 
150 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 upon the back of, I do assure you. It was all 
 very well at first. Just for all the world like 
 going to Margate, only the company was far 
 genteeler. But after we had made as nice a 
 little pic-nic dinner as could be, off the con- 
 tents of our hamper, and were just thinking of 
 having a comfortable cup of tea — oh, my dear! 
 the wind began to blow — (a " breeze/' they called 
 it — a pretty breeze it kicked up among all of us, 
 sure enough!) — the sea began to swell up every 
 here and there, just as it does in the last scene 
 of Paul and Virginia, only worse if anything — 
 and all in a moment I began to be so sick, and 
 so frightened, and Pa was so cross about having 
 consented to come, and Ma was so angry with Ned 
 and me for having persuaded her to persuade him, 
 and Ned, (who did'nt seem to mind it a bit,) was 
 so provoking, and everything was so disagreeable, 
 that I can't bear even to think of it now it's all 
 over -, so I shall only say that the nasty sea water 
 has quite annihilated my sweet green spencer, and 
 turned Ma's crimson pelisse all over as black as 
 the chimney, and run away with Pa's hat, and 
 what's most provoking of all, has got into the box 
 that held all Ma's and my pretty lisse caps and 
 frills, and washed them all up into a little dirty 
 bundle in one corner. 
 
grimm's ghost. 151 
 
 This is all I can tell you to-night, my love ; 
 for Ma is so cross about the caps and frills that 
 she says I sha'nt sit up a minute longer. But 
 to-morrow I mean to take up my pen again, and 
 then I've got such things to tell you ! Oh, my 
 dear Bel, you can't imagine what very odd things 
 happened to us when we first got here. But Ma 
 won't let me scribble, as she calls it, any longer 
 —so good night. 
 
 Saturday Morning. 
 
 Well, my love — I feel quite recovered from the 
 fatigues and disasters of yesterday — and I ex- 
 pect to pass the charmingest day, and I'm so de- 
 lighted with France — at least I think I shall be 
 — and — but I must tell you about our landing 
 first, for I don't think we shall meet with 
 anything so odd as that, if we stay here till 
 Christmas. 
 
 When we got opposite the Porte of Boulogne — 
 (I'm sorry to say I can't tell you anything that 
 happened till then, I was so shocking ill) — but 
 when we got to the Porte — (By the bye, I wonder, 
 my dear, what they can mean by calling it the Porte 
 of Boulogne. Porte, you know, means door, in 
 French — and there's not a bit of a door, or any^ 
 thing of the sort — it all lays as open as Black- 
 
152 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 heath — but, now I think of it, captains of ships, 
 and such kind of persons, can't be expected to 
 understand French) — however, when, as I was 
 saying, we got opposite Boulogne, what do you 
 think the odious captain did ? He made a dead 
 stop at about a quarter of a mile from the town, 
 and pretended he could'nt get in — that there 
 was'nt room, or water enough, or some such non- 
 sensical excuse ! Why, he must have thought us 
 all fools, I suppose, or blind — for there was oceans 
 of water — you could hardly see anything else — and 
 as for room, there was enough for fifty ships as 
 big as his to have gone in side by side. Ned said 
 it was " a regular take in" — but Pa said he did'nt 
 see how it could be a " take in" — that if they 
 would but take us in, it was all we wanted — but 
 as far as he could see they seemed determined on 
 keeping us out. However, when they found that 
 we would not get out into the nasty little ships 
 that came from the town to fetch us, and that 
 looked, as Mr. Dixon said, like great empty but- 
 ter casks cut down the middle, and a scaffold 
 pole stuck up in them with a dirty sheet tied to 
 it, — they at last took us into the harbour. 
 
 By the bye, calling this place the harbour 
 was the first thing that set Ma off about the in- 
 feriorness of the French to us. She said if they 
 
GRIMM'S GHOST. 153 
 
 did'nt know what a harbour was, better than that, 
 it was a pity somebody did'nt learn them — for 
 it was no more like the one in which she had so 
 often took tea at the bottom of Mr. Mince's 
 garden in Camber well Grove, than nothing at all. 
 
 By this time you must suppose us got close 
 up to the side of the water, just as it might be 
 at Billingsgate, only nothing like it at all, but 
 quite different. Here we were met by a string 
 of people who had been following by the side of 
 us for ever so far, and making such frightful and 
 outlandish noises that I was actually afraid to 
 look up and see what it was all about. But 
 when we stopped close to the side, and I did look 
 up — la ! my love, it was really quite shocking, I 
 do assure you, besides its being by no means 
 what Ma calls proper. Do you know there was 
 I dare say a dozen women, some dragging at the 
 ropes that were tied to our ship, and others 
 squabbling and squalling at each other, about who 
 should be the first to lift into the ship a huge 
 staircase, on which we were to climb up. And 
 all this while there was a whole lot of big sailor- 
 looking men, lolling about doing nothing, and never 
 offering to help them 1 
 
 But this was nothing, my love, to the state of 
 these poor women's dress, or rather their undress. 
 
154 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 Do you know they had on neither bonnets, nor 
 gowns, nor — in short, my dear, they did not 
 seem to me to have anything on but their stays 
 and under petticoats — and they actually reached 
 up to their knees ! I declare I did not not know 
 what to do, or which way to look, especially when 
 I saw Ned and George Dixon whispering and 
 smiling to each other, and then casting impudent 
 leers at Miss Dixon and me. 
 
 It was night, to be sure, though it was quite 
 a fine moonlight. If it had been in the day 
 time I'm sure I don't know what I should have 
 done. Though, I've been thinking since, that 
 the reason of this very unpleasant circumstance 
 was, that the poor creatures, not expecting our 
 arrival, had gone to bed, and were called up in 
 such a hurry that they had not time to put their 
 things on. 
 
 Well — after a deal of fuss and to do, we landed 
 at last; and when we had got ourselves all to- 
 gether, two and two, under the directions of Pa, 
 and were going to march off towards the Inn 
 which had been recommended to us by a very 
 polite French gentleman in the crowd, as " dee 
 onlee good for genteel folks," and he was even so 
 kind as to offer to shew us the way to it himself, 
 which Pa said was doing the civil thing in a 
 
grimm's ghost. 155 
 
 way he did'nt expect to meet with in a foreign 
 country — I say, just as we were going to set off, 
 what do you think ? We found that some French 
 fellows, with great cocked hats like the lord 
 mayor's footmen, and great swords by their sides, 
 had actually drawn an enormous chain all round 
 us, to prevent our getting away — and they 
 would'nt let a soul of us pass ! 
 
 La ! my love, you can't think how frightened 
 I was — though I did'nt say anything. And as for 
 Ma — she was ready to drop. And well she 
 might, for she told us afterwards she thought 
 that a war had broke out between us and the 
 French since the morning, and that they had 
 let us come into their nasty town on purpose to 
 make prisoners of war of all of us. 
 
 But we soon found that they only did this out 
 of civility, to keep us together till all were landed, 
 that we might then go the Custom House and 
 show our tickets — for do you know Pa was obliged 
 to make interest with a great French lord in 
 London before we came away, to get tickets for 
 all of us — (passports they call them in French) — or 
 else they would not have let us in. And I think 
 this is very proper — for you know if it was not 
 for this anybody might come, and then how could 
 one expect the company to be so select as it 
 
lb() REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 is? Well — when everybody was out of the ship, 
 they let down a bit of the great chain that kept us 
 together, and away we all marched, two and two, 
 to the Custom House, to give in our tickets, and 
 then to the Inn, attended all the way by the civil 
 French gentleman I told you of before, who we 
 heard afterwards was no less a person than a Com- 
 missioner — though Pa said he could not find out 
 whether he was a Commissioner of the Customs, 
 or the Excise. 
 
 I think, by the bye, Pa might have asked him 
 to dinner, for he was uncommon civil and at- 
 tentive, to be sure. And he spoke very good 
 English, too, considering he was only a French- 
 man. 
 
 And now good bye, my dear Bel, for a day or 
 
 two; for I have neither time nor room to tell 
 
 you any more at present. And I'm afraid this 
 
 , is so crossed and crossed that you will not be able 
 
 to make it out. Adieu. < 
 
 Your devoted friend 
 
 C. C. 
 
 P. S. I must find a little corner to tell you 
 that young Dixon (Dixon's a nasty name — is'nt 
 it? — not half so genteel as Culpepper) — but he 
 has been vastly attentive. And if it was'nt for 
 the recollections of the handsome and interest- 
 
grimm's ghost. 157 
 
 ing Captain Augustus Thackery (that is some- 
 thing like a name!) — I — but I can't squeeze in 
 a word more. 
 
 FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME, 
 
 Boulogne, Saturday Evening. 
 
 Oh ! my dear Bel ! Something so interesting 
 has happened. It's quite like one of Miss 
 What's- her-name's novels. You know I was 
 telling you in my last letter that that foolish 
 chap George Dixon had been pestering me with 
 his " attentions," as he calls them ; and I told 
 you too, or at least I should, if I had had room, 
 how I hate and detest his awkward attempts at 
 what Ned calls " doing the polite." I believe 
 too that a word or two escaped me, on that one 
 soft secret of my susceptible heart, which has 
 been confided to your sympathetic bosom alone. 
 
 Well, my love, would you believe it? Who 
 should we meet here, the very first person on 
 going out this morning to look about us in the 
 town, but the Captain himself! But I must 
 begin where I left off, and tell it you all regular, 
 or else I shall never overtake myself, for you know 
 I promised to tell you all that happened to_us. 
 
 You may suppose we were all too tired and 
 too ill on the night of our arrival, to make many 
 
158 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 very particular observations on the manners and 
 customs of the French people. But as soon as 
 ever I got up in the morning I determined to 
 begin — for I've often told you how it used to pro- 
 voke me to sit and hear that conceited Miss 
 Christie, of Crutched Friars, tell a parcel of things 
 about France, and not be able to contradict any- 
 thing she said. So as soon as ever I had written 
 my letter to you, I began to put everything 'down 
 in a nice little note-book I made Pa buy me 
 before we came away — especially as I promised 
 him I would do everything in the world to im- 
 prove my mind, if he would but bring us here. 
 Besides — the captain is so clever and accomplish- 
 ed, that if — but this is not what I was going to say. 
 Sarah Dixon and I slept in the same room — 
 for you know I should have been terrified out of 
 my life to sleep in a room by myself in a foreign 
 country. Well — about nine o'clock the Captain 
 — no — I mean Ned knocked at our door, and 
 bid us make haste down, for the Captain — no 
 — I mean the breakfast was ready, and Pa was 
 waiting — and that — la ! my love — I really cannot 
 stay to tell you all these uninteresting things, 
 which happened just as they might have done 
 at Margate or at home. I can tell you all these, 
 you know, when we meet — especially as I'm sure 
 
grimm's ghost. 159 
 
 you must be dying to know how it all happened 
 about the Captain, and how he looks, and what 
 he said, and every thing. So I shall merely say 
 that we had a nice breakfast of regular English 
 tea and eggs, dry toast, and twists, and a nice 
 little plate of beef— just as it might have been at 
 Dandelion — (I knew it was all stories that Miss 
 Christie was telling, about the strangeness of the 
 French customs, and about their eating dinners 
 for breakfast) — and then we all went and dressed 
 to go out. 
 
 Sarah Dixon would put on that odious frock of 
 her's, with the great staring crimson stripe on the 
 green ground, which you know we both agreed she 
 looks so very vulgar in. But I did not say anything 
 to her about it, for she will have her own way. 
 
 I'll tell you exactly how I was dressed — and 
 I must say I thought I never looked neater. I 
 had on a new morning frock that Pa bought me 
 just before we came away. The sweetest thing ! 
 -—so new, and so genteel, and so French — and 
 made so pretty a la blouse as the French call it. 
 I got Ma to let me have it made at the west 
 end — in Sydney's Alley. It's the sweetest pattern 
 you ever saw— a crimson and blue stripe shaded 
 off somehow into nothing, just like a rainbow 
 upon a primrose ground — and then a sort of zig- 
 
160 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 zag running all over it — for all the world like 
 thunder and lightning. It comes high up at the 
 throat — and has five broad tucks made the cross 
 way — and I've got the sweetest scarlet leather 
 cincture for it, with a steel buckle to buckle on 
 the left side. I wore nothing over it but a green 
 silk half handkerchief buckled into the band be- 
 hind and before — for you know I told you the 
 nasty sea water annihilated all our frills, and I 
 did'nt like to be beholden to Sarah Dixon for one 
 — especially as her's are all so odiously ugly. 
 
 I had on my head my pretty little pink silk 
 cottage bonnet — that one, you know, that every 
 body says I look so nice in — that only just comes 
 even with my face, and shews my profile — that 
 everybody says — I mean that the Captain said 
 yesterday — I mean — la ! my dear — what do I 
 mean ? — How very confused I do get. I was go- 
 ing to say that under the bonnet I wore that 
 sweet little lace cap that I bought that morn- 
 ing at the Bazaar when you were with me — don't 
 you remember ? And under that I wore the 
 sweetest pair of rose-buds stuck one just over 
 each temple. And then, you know, all my nice 
 corkskrew curls that I had kept in papers for 
 two whole days on purpose. You know every 
 body says what nice hair I have, and how nice 
 
gkimm's ghost. 161 
 
 I do it — and as for the Captain — he says — but stay 
 — I'm not come to him yet. 
 
 Well, my dear, I've now told you exactly how 
 I was dressed, except that I had on my nankeen 
 boots which lace up inside, and fit me so delight- 
 fully that I can hardly walk in them. As for Pa 
 and Ma, and old Mr. and Mrs. Dixon, I can't 
 stay to tell you how they were dressed, except 
 that Pa will keep wearing those nasty gaiters 
 that he bought in Cranbourne Alley, and that I 
 believe he wears on purpose that he may have to 
 tell everybody they are alley gaiters* — though 
 why they laugh when he tells them so, I never 
 could make out, or why, if it's such a laughing 
 matter, he should be so fond of telling it. 
 
 But la ! my dear — I shall fill my paper again, 
 without getting to the dear Captain. As I was 
 saying, we all got ready to go out immediately 
 after breakfast, and at last out we sallied, two 
 and two in a string — Pa and Ma and Mr. and 
 Mrs. Dixon walking together by themselves, and 
 we young ones following — though Ned would 
 not walk with me as I wanted him, but would 
 make me take hold of that foolish George Dixon's 
 arm, though he knows very well how I hate him, 
 and how provoked I should be if the Captain — I 
 
 * Qy. alligators. — Printer's Devil.. 
 
 M 
 
162 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 mean how provoked I was when the Captain— in 
 short, my dear, we had hardly walked half the 
 length of the street in which the inn is, and were 
 all standing still in a row looking up at the beauti- 
 fullest picture you ever saw, which is oddly enough 
 stuck up outside the house instead of inside, and 
 which Pa says he asked a gentleman that he met 
 at the inn since, how it came to be hung outside 
 the house, and what it was a picture of — and the 
 gentleman said it was a sign — and Pa said a sign 
 of what ? and the gentleman smiled, and said it 
 was a sign that the French artists are the best sign 
 painters in the world, and — but where was I — 
 oh — we were all standing still, looking up at this 
 beautiful picture — when who should I see pass by 
 us but Captain Augustus Thackery himself! I 
 knew him in a moment— though he has had almost 
 all his beautiful whiskers cut off, and had on 
 only a common blue coat, and white pantaloons, 
 and did'nt look like a captain at all. 
 
 La ! my dear, you might have knocked me 
 down with a feather. My heart did beat so, 
 you can't think. Meeting him, you know, under 
 such very romantic circumstances — in a foreign 
 country — and so unexpectedly — and I hold of that 
 nasty George Dixon's arm too — and every thing. 
 
 I declare I did'nt know what to do. How- 
 
GRIMM'S GHOST. 163 
 
 ever, I had plenty of time to recover myself — 
 for though the Captain looked full at us all as 
 he passed— at least at me and Sarah Dixon — 
 and turned round to look at us after he got by — 
 yet he did'nt know us a bit, no more than if he 
 had never seen us. I think I told you he wears 
 a beautiful quizzing glass — which accounts for 
 his not seeing us. Well — on he passed without 
 ever seeing us, though he looked at us all the 
 time. And to tell you the truth, I'm not sorry 
 for it now — though I was monstrously disappointed 
 at the time — for if he had seen us, and come up 
 and spoke to us, I declare I do think I should 
 have dropped. You see, my dear Bel, I have 
 filled my paper cram full again, without getting 
 to the end — or rather hardly to the beginning — of 
 our adventure with the Captain. But to-morrow 
 I mean to devote a whole sheet to nothing else — 
 about how we met him again the same evening 
 when I was walking alone with George Dixon— 
 and how he did see us then the moment he came 
 near us — and how he came up to me and took 
 hold of my hand — and how — in short, every thing 
 about it. So adieu till to-morrow dear Bel. 
 Ever your devoted friend, 
 
 c. c. 
 
 M 2 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 
 
 WILLIAM HAZLTTT. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE, * 
 
 WILLIAM HAZLITT. 
 
 We are going to perform a novel undertaking, 
 It is, to speak the truth of William Hazlitt. This 
 writer has been praised more than he deserves ; 
 and yet not enough. And he has been abused 
 more than he or than any man deserves ; and yet 
 his faults have never been pointed out. In short, 
 
 * This paper was for obvious reasons " rejected" from a late 
 publication, entitled The Spirit of the Age ; and it was, I suppose 
 for the same reasons, refused admission into the amusing periodi- 
 cal in which a portion of that work had previously appeared. 
 I feel peculiar satisfaction in being able to pi-esent this paper to 
 the public ; — first, because it is more than probable that, but for 
 this particular medium, it would never have seen the light at all ; 
 and secondly, because there can be no doubt whatever, in regard 
 to the person whose portrait is here drawn, that, as " none but 
 himself can be his parallel," so none but himself either can or dare 
 give a true account of him.-*— Editor. 
 
168 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 he has been praised and abused through thick and 
 thin ; but he has never yet been estimated. 
 He shall be so now, as nearly as we are able to 
 do it. 
 
 We have had some doubts about placing Mr. 
 Hazlitt's portrait among those whose intellects 
 make up "The Spirit of the Age ;" because strict- 
 ly speaking none are entitled to that rank who 
 have not positively and directly contributed to 
 create that spirit, or are pretty sure sooner or later 
 to do so : and Mr. Hazlitt neither has nor ever 
 . will. But we could not persuade ourselves to 
 exclude him from* a company of which we have 
 thought JeofFry Crayon, and two or three others 
 who shall be equally nameless, not unworthy to 
 come among the number. 
 
 If a better reason than the above is desired, all 
 we have to give is, that if Mr. Hazlitt has not set 
 his mark upon the Age in which he lives, it is his 
 own fault. He might have done it if he would, and 
 in signs and characters that those who run might 
 read. It is a sufficient misfortune to his Age and 
 to himself that he has not done so, and will 
 not, without its being made an excuse for de- 
 priving our readers of a portrait that they will 
 probably look for with some curiosity, if it is only 
 in expectation of the abuse that they have so long 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 169 
 
 been accustomed to see connected with his name ; 
 Mr. Hazlitt being for the most part known only 
 through the medium of the Quarterly Review 
 and Blackwood's Magazine. And by the bye, that 
 abuse itself, reaching us through the above-named 
 mediums, may be offered as tolerably conclusive 
 collateral evidence that we are not doing any great 
 wrong in placing Mr. Hazlitt's name in our list ; 
 for the person whom those publications " delight 
 to c/z'shonour," may be safely pronounced to be no 
 insignificant one at least. But let us " leave this 
 face-making, and begin." 
 
 No writer ever acquired marked distinction in 
 his day, of whose writings something might not be 
 said, either in relation to kind or to degree, which 
 could not be said of any others whatever. And 
 perhaps this is the best criterion that can be 
 given, to determine who is and who is not entitled 
 to rank among the Spirits of the Age in which he 
 lives. In regard to Mr. Hazlitt's writings, this 
 one distinguishing quality is the unrivalled power 
 which they display of looking into the hidden 
 truth of things. He pierces the depths of human 
 life, and " plucks out the heart of their mystery." 
 His pen is like Itburiel's spear; whatever it touches 
 starts up before us in its naked truth. If you are 
 
170 REJECTED ARTICLES, 
 
 afraid to hear the truth you must not listen to 
 him ; for it will out, whatever may be the conse- 
 quences. And this even when the truth in ques- 
 tion is a personal one. But when it is an abstract 
 truth that he happens to hit upon, " away at once 
 with love and jealousy !" out it must come, even 
 though it should blacken his dearest friend or 
 brighten his bitterest foe ; for the truth is to him 
 — the truth. 
 
 Perhaps it may be said that the leading feature 
 of Mr. Hazlitt's mind — that which constitutes its 
 great strength as well as its great weakness — is 
 this passion which he cherishes, to the exclusion 
 of all others, for abstract truth; for his other 
 passion, for Liberty, is but a branch or off-set of 
 this. He would not scruple, upon occasion, to 
 tell a lie, out of pure love for the truth ! just as he 
 would assist in making himself and everybody 
 else slaves in practice, out of his love for Liberty in 
 the abstract. This may seem paradoxical, but it 
 is capable of an easy explanation. He has a 
 catholic zeal for the truth ; and though he would 
 not die a martyr to it in a bodily sense, (for we 
 venture to guess that he is constitutionally timid 
 in regard to bodily suffering), yet he would not 
 scruple to sacrifice his principles to it, and his 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 3 71 
 
 sense of practical justice : just as a lover is 
 always fonder of his passion than of his mistress, 
 and would at any time sacrifice the latter to the 
 former. 
 
 A consequence of Mr. Hazlitt's indestructible 
 passion for abstract truth is, the absolutely un- 
 changeable nature of all his opinions. With 
 him a thing either is, or is not; and there is 
 no disputing about it. He would even interpret 
 literally the old axiom, De gustibus ?io?i est dis- 
 putandum, and insist that a man either has a taste 
 for truth and beauty, or he has it not ; and that 
 he who prefers falsehood and deformity, or even 
 the lesser degree of beauty to the greater, does so 
 not because he sees with- another eye, but because 
 he does not see at all ; not because his faculties 
 are different, but because they are defective. If you 
 tell him, for example, that you prefer a picture of 
 Correggio's to one of Raphael's, he will not let you 
 off in virtue of the above maxim ; though he is 
 too modest a man to be the first to dispute the 
 point with you. But if you are imprudent 
 enough to insist on " giving a reason for the faith 
 that is in you," then the chances are that he will 
 not only prove but proclaim you a fool for your 
 pains. 
 
172 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 It has been said of Cobbett, that he has not 
 one Mrs. Cobbett among all his opinions. It 
 may in the same manner be said of Hazlitt, that 
 he has no one opinion which is uot& Mrs. Hazlitt. 
 He was wedded to every one of them in his youth, 
 and he- has stuck to them ever since, " through 
 good report and through evil report." Not but 
 what we believe he would be very glad to be di- 
 vorced from some of them a mensa et thoro ; for 
 if we may judge from some parts of his writings, 
 they lead him a sad life between them ; particu- 
 larly those of them that trouble their heads about 
 Politics. But it is no easy matter to make up 
 one's mind to part for ever from a wife that one 
 loves, however ill she may treat us, or whatever 
 we may be forced to suffer through her follies or 
 extravagancies. And perhaps the more wives a 
 man has, the less inducement he feels for getting 
 rid of any one that he may be suffering by. In 
 Turkey, where a man may have as many as he 
 pleases, the law of divorce is a dead letter. 
 
 But besides these considerations, Mr. Hazlitt 
 has a conscience, touching his intellectual ties, 
 however he may feel himself too poor to afford to 
 keep one in other matters. He took his opinions 
 " for better for worse ;" and he cannot how per- 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 173 
 
 suade himself to kick them out of doors merely 
 because with their youth they may have lost some 
 of their pristine freshness and beauty. One thing 
 we will say in his favour on this head ; (and it 
 even makes up for all the faults that have been 
 imputed to him, much more for those which 
 he actually possesses) : it is this — if some of the 
 opinions to which he is wedded have long been 
 " the plague of his life," and he would fain 
 have been ' without them in an honest way, 
 he has never yet been base enough to connive 
 at their prostituting themselves, in order that 
 he might make that an excuse for getting quit of 
 them ! 
 
 To escape at once from this long-winded meta- 
 phor, — Mr. Hazlitt commenced his career as a 
 thinker, (though not as an author), at that period 
 which produced several more of the most distin- 
 guished writers of the day. He was, at the 
 breaking out of the French Revolution, one of 
 a band of youthful enthusiasts, who implicitly 
 believed in all the moral truth and beauty which 
 that event held forth the hopes of, and who were 
 all acted upon by it in an equal degree, though all 
 in a different manner. We allude, besides Mr. 
 Hazlitt, to his then friends, Messrs. Wordsworth, 
 
174 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 Coleridge, Southey, and Dr. Stoddart. This 
 associated band of intellectual brothers included 
 a few more names ; but these are the only ones 
 which have since become distingushed. 
 
 Upon Mr. Wordsworth this event acted but as 
 a confirmation of his preconceived notions touch- 
 ing the nature and destiny of man. If Mr. Words- 
 worth is the most philosophical of poets, or the 
 most poetical of philosophers, (which you will), 
 he is even more of a philosopher than a poet. 
 This event, therefore, was for him only a natural 
 and necessary corollary from the premises to which 
 he had early made up his mind ; and it moved 
 him no jot from " the even tenor of his way." He 
 wrote ballads, then, about Alice Fells and Idiot 
 Boys, just as he writes them about Peter Bells 
 and Waggoners, now, that all his bright hopes have 
 blasted in the bud by the pestiferous breath of 
 the hag Legitimacy, which he and his friends in 
 their mistaken humanity helped to escape with 
 her life, instead of, as they ought, treading her 
 black blood and rotten bones into the soil which 
 she had so long polluted, or burning them in a 
 great auto da ft on the altar of human liberty, 
 and scattering their ashes to the four winds of 
 heaven, amid shouts of holy exultation that the 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 175 
 
 angels themselves might have listened to on their 
 thrones of light. 
 
 But Mr. Wordsworth is a philanthropist as 
 well as a philosopher ; and we must not wonder, 
 therefore, if he was willing to connive at sparing 
 the lives of half a dozen kings ; though his boast- 
 ed philosophy might have taught him that it must 
 be done at the cost of those of millions upon 
 millions of their subjects ; to say nothing of that 
 of Liberty herself — which is worth them all ! 
 
 The personal consequences to Mr. Wordsworth 
 have been exactly what they ought :— he is patro- 
 nized by Lord Lonsdale, praised by Mr. GifFord, 
 and paid out of the pockets of the people ! 
 
 On Mr. Coleridge the effects of the French 
 Revolution and its failure were as different as the 
 different nature of the two minds on which they 
 were to operate. Mr. Coleridge lives but in dreams 
 of poetry, and mystic revelations from other worlds • 
 and this event promised to be the parent of such 
 dreams and revelations as had not till then visited 
 the mind of man. What then could he do, 
 when all these " gorgeous palaces " of our intellec- 
 tual pride, these " solemn temples" of our human 
 hopes and affections, were either levelled with the 
 dust and their golden images broken in pieces and 
 
176 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 trodden under foot, or (still worse) turned into 
 marts for money-changers and dens for thieves ; 
 and when all the fairy fabric had melted away (as it 
 soon afterwards did) " like breath into the wind ;" 
 what, we say, could Mr. Coleridge be expected to 
 do under such circumstances, but " wink, and 
 shut his apprehension up " for a brief space, and 
 then sink into that listless state, between sleeping 
 and waking, in which he has remained ever since ? 
 
 And yet Coleridge was the wisest of the set, 
 after all ; or at any rate he was the happiest ; 
 which is much the same thing. Until the French 
 Revolution came, he knew of nothing better in 
 the world than his own talk about his own fancies ; 
 and when it ceased to exist it left him just where 
 it found him. He had done nothing but talk before ; 
 (and how could he do better, considering what his 
 talk is?) and he has done nothing else since. 
 And the only difference its failure has made to 
 him is, that he has one more subject to talk about : 
 which indeed he would if it had succeeded ; so 
 that to him it has made no difference at all. 
 
 Alas ! not so to Mr. Southey. The breaking 
 out of the French Revolution found him " a poet," 
 in the purest and loftiest sense of that pure and 
 lofty title. And its failure has left him — a Poet- 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 177 
 
 laureat ! Ill betide those who caused that failure, 
 if for nothing but for this alone ! The French 
 Revolution came upon Mr. Southey like a flash of 
 lightning breaking over a traveller in sight of a 
 nobly extended prospect at midnight ; not only 
 revealing for a moment to his half benighted 
 senses a thousand objects that he had not even 
 hoped to see, but decking them all in a beauty 
 not their own. Alas ! where is that prospect now ! 
 " Whither is fled the glory and the dream ?" 
 No wonder, when the sky closed again, and made 
 all by the contrast seem ten times darker than it 
 was before — no wonder that the author of Wat 
 Tyler and Joan of Arc should wilfully shut his 
 eyes upon the scene, and after wandering about 
 for a while amidst the dreary darkness, find him- 
 self at last walking up the steps of Carlton Palace, 
 with a dress sword by his side, an opera hat under 
 his arm, and a copy of the Quarterly Review and 
 the Vision of Judgment sticking out of each poc- 
 ket of his cut velvet coat ! 
 
 Foul befal those (we repeat it) who brought 
 about that bitter change ! For all the other 
 changes which that fatal blow to the hopes of 
 human liberty brought with it, we could have 
 found " some drop of patience ;" because all 
 
 N 
 
178 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 the others, if they were not anticipated, might 
 have been. 
 
 " But there, where we had garnered up our hearts ! 
 To be discarded thence — 
 Or keep it as a cistern for foul tori/ism 
 To knot and gender in ! 
 
 Patience, thou young and rose-lipped cherubim, 
 Turn thy complexion there, ay, there look grim 
 As hell !" 
 
 But no more of this. 
 
 It is not worth while to inquire what were the 
 changes wrought on the then unknown, but 
 since notorious Dr. Stoddart, by. the great event 
 we have alluded to ; for it is true (though Mr. 
 Croker has said it) that " once a Jacobin always 
 a Jacobin j" and the Editor of the Old and New 
 Times was never anything better. He took up 
 the trade then because it gave him an opportunity 
 of indulging his natural disposition to blacken his 
 betters ; and he has laid it by for that of Editor 
 of a Tory newspaper, for the same reason. How this 
 person contrives to live at all, now that he who 
 was lately, even while bound to his barren rock, 
 " the foremost man of all this world," is laid in 
 his lowly grave, and no longer a butt for the 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 179 
 
 poisoned arrows of his filthy abuse, is more than 
 we can imagine. Probably he consoles himself 
 with the soothing reflection that he assisted in 
 sending him there. 
 
 So much for the effect of the French Revolution 
 on the early associates of Mr. Hazlitt. On him- 
 self it worked a change less noticeable than on his 
 friends, but more worthy of notice. It found him 
 still a youth, and his youthful faculties, however 
 prematurely developed in some respects, more 
 than proportionately backward in others. He was 
 a reasoner and a metaphysician even then ; but he 
 was not then what he soon afterwards became — 
 a man of deep sensibility, of a most vigorous 
 and profound if not an excursive imagination, 
 and a fancy active and vivacious in the highest 
 degree. 
 
 The event in question promised to realize all the 
 conclusions, in regard to the fitness of things, and 
 their conformity with natural truth and justice^, 
 which Mr. Hazlitt's logical understanding had at 
 that time enabled him to reach. And these pro- 
 mises so far exceeded any hopes that he could 
 have previously entertained, (for his temperament 
 is anything but sanguine,) that they must have 
 produced an instantaneous and an almost miracu- 
 lous effect, in developing those other faculties which 
 
 n 2 
 
180 
 
 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 we have ascribed to him, and which are usually 
 so seldom allied to extraordinary powers of reason- 
 ing. But, however this may be, those other facul- 
 ties were developed about this time; the early 
 successes of the good cause urged them forward 
 in their course, and impelled them to a pitch of 
 almost diseased activity ; and then, in the midst 
 of all this tumult of irrepressible exultation at the 
 re-appearance of those hopes of human liberty 
 which had for so many ages been hidden in the 
 secret hearts of a few lone enthusiasts — -in the 
 midst of this came crime, and bloodshed, and 
 shame ; and then an instinctive combination of 
 all the bad of the earth against all the good ; 
 and at last the consequent triumph of the former, 
 as they always must triumph while the latter 
 refuse to avail themselves of the same ways and 
 the same weapons. If the people of the earth 
 had felt no more remorse at shedding drops of 
 blood than its kings did and do at shedding oceans, 
 all would have been well, and that people would not 
 have seen their own blood poured forth like water, 
 and their miseries laughed to scorn. As it is, they 
 have more than half deserved their fate. 
 
 But what must have been the effect of all this 
 on a mind like Mr. Hazlitt's ? We must not 
 dwell upon the picture. Suffice it to say, that 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 181 
 
 " He, repulsed, (a short tale to make) 
 
 Fell into a sadness — then into a fast — 
 
 Thence into a watch — then into a weakness — 
 
 Thence to a lightness ; and by this declension 
 
 Into the madness wherein he (sometimes) raves 
 
 And we all mourn for." 
 
 But let us not forget to mention one thing. To 
 
 Mr. Hazlitt's eternal honour be it spoken, whatever 
 
 else the failure of all his hopes and aspirations made 
 
 of him, it did not make him an apostate. And 
 
 which of his early friends, " all honourable men" as 
 
 they are, can say as much ? Because those hopes 
 
 were blasted in their bloom, and lost the odour of 
 
 their sweetness, he did not turn round upon them 
 
 with a feigned contempt, and after " casting them 
 
 like loathsome weeds away," fling himself at the 
 
 feet of the blasters. Because his arm was too 
 
 weak to overthrow the car of the great Juggernaut, 
 
 Legitimacy, he did not basely cast himself beneath 
 
 its blood-stained wheels — a willing sacrifice to the 
 
 object of his execrations. Because he found from 
 
 fatal experience that man was not made to be only 
 
 " a little lower than the angels," he did not lend a 
 
 helping hand to put harness on his back, and sink 
 
 him to a lower level than that of the brutes that 
 
 perish. In short, because Liberty, the betrothed 
 
 of his early hopes, the divinity of his youthful 
 
 adoration, proved false and " haggard," he did 
 
182 
 
 REJECTED AHTTCLES. 
 
 not " cast her off to beggarly divorcement,' 7 and 
 thus prove that it was not her but himself he was 
 loving all the while ; but he clung to her more 
 closely the more she was deserted by others ; and 
 fallen and polluted as she is, has worshipped 
 her with a religious idolatry ever since. Let but 
 this one truth be written on his tomb-stone, and 
 with all his faults, (of which he has his full 
 share), his name shall be repeated with respect 
 when those of his ci-devant friends " stink in the 
 nostrils of posterity." 
 
 Those friends may say, perhaps, that he has 
 not been tempted like them, or like them he would 
 have fallen. But this is begging the question 
 with a vengeance ; or worse — it is stealing it. No 
 sophistry can annul the vital difference that exists 
 between them. It is a matter of bare fact, and it 
 stands simply thus : they abandoned the principles 
 on which they commenced their career, the mo- 
 ment it became dangerous and unprofitable to 
 hold them ; and he has held by them manfully to 
 the last. In a word, they are apostates, and 
 he is not. 
 
 But " something too much of this." It w r ould 
 not have been introduced at all here, if the cir- 
 cumstances immediately connected with it had 
 not produced a marked effect on the intellectual 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 183 
 
 features of the person whose portrait we are at- 
 tempting to sketch. The French Revolution rose 
 like a beautiful meteor, only to dazzle the eye for 
 a moment, and then to set in blood ; and with it 
 set for ever the momentary hopes of our young 
 searcher after truth. And as their last rays re- 
 ceded from his eyes upon the distant horizon, and 
 he saw at the same time his early friends and 
 companions — men to whom he had looked up 
 with the most unfeigned reverence — falling down 
 in ignoble worship before the idols that were rising 
 from the earth in an opposite direction, a black 
 and baleful melancholy seemed to be settling within 
 his heart ; a cherished distrust in his fellow men 
 took possession of his imagination ; an indignant 
 scowl seated itself upon his magnificent brow, 
 (like a demon usurping the throne that was erect- 
 ed for a god) ; a pallid languor hung upon his 
 cheeks and lips, and dragged them downwards; 
 his shoulders became bowed and bent as if a 
 world of disappointments were resting and pressing 
 upon them ; and he went wandering about among 
 his fellow men, as he has done ever since, in loose 
 attire, a shambling gait, and a sinister look, the 
 very picture of a man possessed by a spirit of 
 mingled hatred and contempt for all the world, 
 and most of all for himself, 
 
184 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 This is a sorry picture to be obliged to draw, of 
 a man towards whom we feel as we do towards Mr. 
 Hazlitt. But we promised our readers the truth, 
 and it shall be told. And at any rate he will not 
 be the person to complain of it ; for, to say no- 
 thing of his being the most bold and reckless 
 truth-teller of the day, he has still one love left : — 
 his passion for truth is not yet extinguished, and 
 he will bear to hear it with equanimity even of 
 himself. 
 
 If it should be said that we have dwelt too long 
 on the merely personal part of our picture, we 
 could not help it. It is a theme that will have its 
 way, when it comes across us. We must endea- 
 vour to make up for our transgression in what 
 follows. 
 
 We have said that the most distinguishing fea- 
 ture of Mr. Hazlitt's mind, as displayed in his 
 writings, is its unrivalled power of piercing into 
 the truth. When there is nothing, either from 
 without or from within, to affect the natural 
 powers of his vision, perhaps, to use a vulgar 
 phrase, he " sees farther into the mill-stone" than 
 any man that ever lived. But on the other hand, 
 there is this to be said of him : he frequently sees 
 farther into it than its proper thickness ; he sees • 
 more than is to be seen. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 185 
 
 We are willing to believe that this results, in 
 most cases, from his determination to say striking 
 things. He writes for his bread. (We need not 
 scruple to say here what we learn from those 
 writings themselves.) He writes for his bread ; 
 and therefore he must write what people will read. 
 If the subject on which he happens to be writing- 
 is capable of a popular development consistently 
 with truth, well and good ; but it must have one 
 at all events. If he determines that half a dozen 
 brilliant things must be said on a given topic, 
 and only three present themselves naturally, three 
 more must be made. " Be brilliant/' — is his 
 business maxim in these matters ; in conformity 
 with reason and common-sense if you can ; but — 
 be brilliant. 
 
 It is astonishing the mischievous effect this has 
 produced upon his writings ; and if nothing 
 should hereafter occur to induce him to care more 
 about his reputation than he at present seems to 
 do, or look better after it while he lives, when he 
 dies it will not be strong enough to take care of 
 itself. If the profound and subtle truths, and 
 the admirable illustrations and applications of 
 them, scattered about at random through half a 
 dozen of Mr. Hazlitt's volumes, had made their 
 appearance in a well-concocted form in one, that 
 
186 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 one would have gone down to posterity, a monu- 
 ment of human penetration and wisdom scarcely 
 inferior in value to the Essays of Lord Bacon. 
 But as it is, the false coin and the true are so 
 completely intermixed, that common observers, 
 not being able to distinguish which is which, re- 
 fuse to take either : and after all, it is of common 
 observers that the posterity of every age is com- 
 posed. 
 
 If Mr. Hazlitt says that all this is his own 
 concern, and that if it pleases him to shew his 
 contempt for his readers and his reputation at 
 the same time, by pouring forth flashy falsehoods 
 and profound truths in a mingled stream, reck- 
 less of the effect of either, no man has a right to 
 say him nay ; — we admit the proposition. But in 
 return we require him to admit, without com- 
 plaining, the consequences of such foolish, not to 
 say w r icked indifference. He would have us be- 
 lieve, and we do believe, that he loves Truth better 
 than anything else in the world ; indeed that he 
 cares about nothing else. And yet he treats her 
 with that cavalier indifference with which some 
 men treat their wives and mistresses, who would 
 yet be very indignant at having their love called 
 in question. But we must tell Mr. Hazlitt that 
 in nine cases out of ten, those who treat the ob- 
 
THE S1MRIT OF THE AGE. 187 
 
 jccts of their supposed love with indifference, ac- 
 tually feel it for them. And that even in the 
 tenth case (which we admit to be his) they do 
 not love them as they think they do, or as they 
 would have us think. Besides which, it is a 
 shrewd evidence of littleness of heart, not to 
 treat the betrothed of our affections as if we con- 
 sidered her worthy of them. The chastity of 
 Caesar's wife was not even to be suspected. 
 And so it must be with the love of those who 
 make Truth the object of their idolatry. She 
 will not have it even suspected that they bestow 
 upon her but half a heart ; and still less can she 
 bear to have it supposed that her only hated rival, 
 Falsehood, enjoys the other half. 
 
 There is another thing which does great mis- 
 chief to Mr. Hazlitt's writings in their own day, 
 though it will not have much effect on them here- 
 after. He makes them the vehicles of his per- 
 sonal feelings in regard to living persons about 
 whom his living readers care but little, and about 
 whom posterity will neither know nor care one 
 farthing ; — he uses them as instruments of his re- 
 venge for supposed injuries, and gratitude for 
 supposed favours, received not in his character 
 of a writer, but a private man. If a person foi; 
 
188 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 whom he feels bui a slender portion of respect 
 lends him a hundred pounds when he could have 
 little expected it, he proclaims him in his next 
 volume, " the prince of critics, and the king of 
 men." And if another, whom he perhaps does re- 
 spect, passes him in the street without seeing him, 
 he writes him down " a rascal" on the very first 
 opportunity that offers. If Mr. Hazlitt says, as 
 perhaps he may, that if self-preservation is the 
 first law of nature, gratitude and revenge are the 
 second and third, and that if you cannot have 
 them in one way, you must in another — we shall 
 not dispute it. All we say is, that such a mode 
 of achieving them leads him into the most ridi- 
 culous dilemmas ; besides taking away from his 
 writings that " broad and general air" which 
 should belong to them, and making them 
 
 " cabinned, cribbed, confined, 
 
 Bound in to saucy doubts and fears." 
 
 Mr. Hazlitt is one of those rare writers who 
 teach you what, but for them, you never would have 
 known : and this we take to be the true criterion 
 of genius, in whatever department of human in- 
 quiry it may be found. Some of the moral truths 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE ACE. 189 
 
 which he has stated and developed would have 
 remained for ever among the hidden secrets of 
 nature, if he had not lived to draw them forth. 
 We do not of course mean to state that it re- 
 quired a degree of mental power never attained 
 before, to enable him to produce certain portions 
 of his writings. What we mean is, that it re- 
 quired precisely that degree which is possessed by 
 him, added "to his other qualities of sensibility, 
 excitability, &c. and that these together amount 
 to what we consent to call genius. Without any- 
 thing like this degree of mental power, he might 
 have been quite as lively, as brilliant, and as po- 
 pular a writer as he is ; and if we are obliged to 
 add quite as useful, it is because he has chosen, 
 not absolutely to misapply those powers, but to 
 leave them wwapplied. But still, without precisely 
 that degree of capacity possessed by him, and 
 unless that degree had amounted to genius, he 
 could not have done certain things that he has 
 done. 
 
 This leads us to state what is perhaps the most 
 distinguishing fact connected with Mr. Hazlitt as 
 a prose writer of the nineteenth century. He is 
 the only one of them all whose powers do amount 
 to genius : we mean, those who have addicted 
 themselves to prose exclusively ; for we are not 
 
190 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 aware that Mr. Hazlitt has ever written a line of 
 poetry, except in his prose. 
 
 By the bye, we take this to be a singular fact ; 
 though one that it would perhaps be not very 
 difficult to account for. Mr. Hazlitt has dis- 
 played as enthusiastic a passion for poetry, and 
 as acute a judgment and delicate a sensibility 
 in detecting its beauties, as any one of his co- 
 temporaries. There is a maxim, too, which 
 is pretty generally admitted, that " none but a 
 poet can criticise a poet." And yet Mr. Hazlitt 
 has never attempted a line of poetry himself. 
 The reason is this : he has never written poetry, 
 because he is able to think it, and feel it, just as 
 well vjithout writing it : for as to his writing- 
 poetry, or any thing else, with a direct view to 
 any one's benefit but his own — that is entirely out 
 of the question with him ; partly from a selfish 
 indifference to the good of others, which has been 
 superinduced on his natural disposition by the 
 events of his early life ; but chiefly, we verily be- 
 lieve, from a shrewd suspicion, that if " a great 
 book is a great evil," a small one is only so much 
 the less evil. But however this may be, perhaps, 
 no poem was ever yet written that it might be 
 read. Poets write because their faculties require 
 the stimulus of composition, before they can reach 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 191 
 
 that state of excitement in which their being, as 
 poets, consists ; — they sit down to write, not be- 
 cause they are poets at the moment, but in order 
 that they may become such. If it were not for 
 this, heaven knows, those who are not poets would 
 have little chance of enjoying any of those 
 feelings which poetry excites ; at least, so long 
 as the market price of poetry remains, generally 
 speaking, infinitely below that of prose, in pro- 
 portion to the time required for its production. 
 We conceive Mr. Hazlitt's imagination to be 
 so intense, his fancy so active, and his sensi- 
 bility so acute, that he sees poetry in every- 
 thing, and feels it at all times ; and therefore, 
 he never writes it. Let any bookseller pay 
 him fifty guineas (beforehand !) for five hundred 
 lines of poetry, and see if he will not produce them. 
 But otherwise, why should he, when he can get 
 four times the sum for as many pages of prose 
 that would hardly cost him more time ? # 
 
 * We would wish our readers to take this speculation cum 
 grano salis, so far as regards those who have written poetry in 
 the present day. We will not pretend to state it as our belief 
 that all the vast mass of our co temporary poetry was written 
 purely for the immediate pleasure of writing it ; and assuredly, 
 very little of it was written for the money that was to be made 
 by it. No doubt, the motive which produced the greater part of 
 it. was triple — present pleasure, profit, and reputation. So far 
 
192 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 It is not generally known that Mr. Hazlitt stu- 
 died Painting for several years, and practised as 
 an artist ; and that he has executed some copies 
 from Titian which are looked upon by pretty good 
 judges as among the best that have ever been 
 done after that master — whom it is almost as diffi- 
 cult to copy as to rival. But though no one else 
 was dis-satisfied with the progress he made in 
 Painting, he himself was. He did not see why he 
 should be inferior to any man ; and when he found 
 that he was so, he threw up his pencil in disgust, 
 and has never touched it since. 
 
 He then came to London, and was engaged as 
 Parliamentary reporter for some of the daily 
 
 as relates to Mr. Hazlitt himself our speculation rests on the 
 express understanding- that his motive to write is profit alone.* 
 Not that he is careless about reputation. No man of fine genius 
 ever was. He is even greedy of it, and would enjoy no small 
 share if it could be had merely for the trouble of wishing for. 
 But he is utterly incapable of acting with a direct and immediate 
 view to its acquirement. 
 
 * If the reader should detect some little inconsistency between 
 this passage and another at p. 190, where the writer says that 
 the subject of his notice does not write poetry " because he 
 is able to think it and feel it just as well icithout writing it," 
 he must not complain of me, at least. I am not editor enough 
 to pretend to make these articles better than I find them. Still 
 less do I offer a selection of the " beauties" of our popular prose 
 writers. I give the matter just as it comes to hand — adhering 
 with strictness even to the punctuation. — Editor. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 193 
 
 papers. From this laborious but useful drudgery 
 he was promoted to purveyor of theatrical critiques, 
 and other occasional paragraphs ; in which his 
 power of thought and of style soon shone out in a 
 manner not a little marvellous in the eyes of those 
 who had hitherto looked to the Morning Post for 
 their beau-ideal of such matters. There can be 
 little doubt that we owe almost entirely to him 
 the present tone of our theatrical criticism, — which 
 is not absolutely contemptible ; whereas, at the 
 time we speak of, it was infinitely below con- 
 tempt. 
 
 About the same time, too, or shortly after, he 
 began writing under the form of essays, in weekly 
 papers ; (chiefly, we believe, the Examiner) ; and 
 evinced a boldness and originality of thought, and 
 a spirit and vigour of style, that excited consider- 
 able attention among a certain class of readers, 
 but much less than they deserved generally, on ac- 
 count of an evidently careless, not to say insolent 
 disregard of the commonly received opinions of the 
 day, which accompanied almost all he put forth, 
 When an important truth occurred to him, he did 
 not, any more than he does now, tender it politely 
 for your examination, nnically folded up in a 
 genteel wrapper of gentle phrases, as if he was 
 
194 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 afraid it might contaminate your touch ; but he 
 flung it in its simple nakedness, right in the face 
 of the most deep-rooted prejudice of the day, 
 or the most wide-spread interest; and if those 
 whom it concerned did not like to pick it up, they 
 might leave it. When he was determined to 
 make war upon a well-bred lie, or a fashionably 
 attired sophistry, he did not send a friend to call 
 upon it, provided with a politely penned challenge, 
 written on hot-pressed and gilt-edged paper, and 
 sealed with his coat of arms ; but he flung his 
 mailed glove smack down before it wherever he 
 happened to meet it, and dared it once " to the 
 outrance." 
 
 Soon after this, Mr. Hazlitt was engaged to 
 give Lectures on English poetry, at the Surry In- 
 stitution, which were afterwards published in a. 
 collected form. This brought him much more into 
 public notice than he had hitherto been ; though 
 in the literary world he had for some time past 
 been pretty generally looked upon as a person 
 of first-rate ability. But while it gained him 
 many admirers that he would not otherwise have 
 met with, by presenting his opinions in a tangible 
 and cognizable form, it placed him at the mercy of 
 those who have no mercy, much less justice, when 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 195 
 
 the paltry interests of their employers are threaten- 
 ed from the remotest distance with invasion, or 
 even with examination. 
 
 What followed is too well known to need re- 
 petition here. Mr. Hazlitt has ever since been 
 the butt and byeword of all the base hirelings of 
 the day ; from the editor of the Quarterly Review, 
 downwards, or upwards — which you will, — for 
 there is not a pin to choose between them, in lite- 
 rary rank any more than in moral respectability. 
 On every successive publication he has been as- 
 sailed by the mingled hootings and execrations of 
 those who have no other honours to bestow. 
 
 Let it not be supposed that we refer to this fact 
 under any affected feelings of pity or deprecation. 
 Mr. Hazlitt is among the last persons in the world 
 to claim exemption, when the lex talionis is the 
 order of the day — as it is at present ; for no one 
 ever stood less nice than he does about taking the 
 exact measurement of personal merit in a political 
 adversary, or of awarding precisely the deserved 
 number of blows to any unfortunate delinquent of 
 this sort who may happen to fall into his hands. 
 So far from it, he seems to think all fair in politics, 
 whatever he may in love ; and when he is in the 
 mood for it, would as soon call Mr. Wordsworth 
 a knave as he would Mr. Theodore Hook. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 We merely refer to the unmeasured abuse that 
 has been heaped on Mr. Hazlitt, as a striking sign 
 of the Spirit of the Age. We firmly believe, in- 
 deed, that he would have fallen into this error in 
 regard to others, in whatever age he had lived ; 
 because it is a vice of his blood, and he can no 
 more help it than he can help dashing his racket 
 or his head against the wall when he makes a bad 
 stroke at the Fives Court, or in fact than any of 
 us can help losing our temper when we do lose it. 
 In him, therefore, we can in some sort excuse it; 
 though we would on no account seek to exempt 
 him from the consequence which such a weakness 
 entails. But perhaps he is the only reckless 
 abuser of his day for whom this excuse (such as 
 it is) can be made. He vituperates the objects of 
 his political hatred in terms that they do not al- 
 ways, deserve, because, when that hatred is stirred 
 up to its height, he neither knows nor cares for 
 the precise value of the terms he uses. But with 
 the systematic maligners of the day it is a very dif- 
 ferent matter. They do not even murder reputa- 
 tion with " malice prepense ;" for they have not 
 heart or gall enough to be ' ' haters " at all, much 
 less such a " good hater 7 ' as he piques himself on 
 being. They commit their moral assassinations 
 as the Italian bravos do, — for hire ; and have no 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 197 
 
 more enmity to the person they seek to destroy, 
 than they have love to the cause or the party 
 they serve. With them it is an affair of pure cal- 
 culation, and they sit down to consider of it as 
 coolly as they would to a sum in arithmetic. 
 Will it pay to poison the public mind against such 
 or such a person ? Is he of sufficient importance 
 to make it prudent to do so ? Will the reprisals he 
 is likely to make leave a balance in favour of our 
 party ? These are the kind of questions they ask 
 themselves — or when not authorised to act on 
 their own judgment, their employers. And if the 
 answers are in the affirmative, they next proceed 
 to enquire into the actual character, both mental 
 and moral, of the person to be put down ; and 
 whatever that may be, regulate their attack ac- 
 cordingly. For example, if the peculiar charac- 
 teristics of his mind happen to be subtlety and 
 acuteness, they swear that he is an ass ; if he is 
 particularly remarkable for modesty and diffidence 
 of deportment, they write him up a bully and a 
 Bobadil ; if they should happen to learn (by means 
 of their spies) that he never drinks any thing but 
 water, they instantly offer to prove that he gets drunk 
 every morning upon gin and bitters, and every night 
 upon brandy-punch; and so of the rest. Nay, it 
 is not without example, when nothing else seemed 
 
198 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 likely to do, for them to throw out pretty broad 
 insinuations, the nature of which cannot even be 
 insinuated here ! 
 
 But they have another method, which is a still 
 greater favourite with them than any of the 
 preceding, and not without reason, for it is in 
 some cases more effective than any other. It 
 consists in the artillery of nick-names. A nick- 
 name is at once irresistible and unanswerable. 
 It is a dab of moral mud thrown at a man. If 
 thrown skilfully it is sure to stick, and if it sticks 
 it is sure to make the bearer of it look ridiculous. 
 If the first nobleman or the finest gentleman in 
 the land were to walk along London Streets with 
 a great dab of mud upon his cheek, the very 
 chimney-sweepers would laugh and " point the 
 finger " at him as he passed. And precisely so it 
 is with a nick-name. There is no gainsaying it. 
 It is worse than an " z7/-name ;" and those who 
 g>ive it might as well swear away a man's life at 
 once, and have him hanged outright. And so they 
 would if they dared. 
 
 But these gentry are leading us farther from 
 our subject than it is either worth while or decent 
 to follow them. What we were about to say was, 
 that this kind of warfare is one of those signs 
 which mark the Spirit of the Age. Extremes meet ; 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 199 
 
 and we are now arrived at that extreme pitch of 
 refinement which merges into barbarism. In 
 no other age would the kind of warfare we have 
 alluded to been tolerated ; and it is tolerated now, 
 only because 
 
 " We have given our hearts away — a sordid boon ;" 
 
 and are pretty much in that moral condition in 
 which men are before they have hearts to give. 
 
 Oh, it was not so once ! Alas ! whither are ye 
 fled, white years of youth ! Beautiful hopes of 
 opening life, why are ye changed to blank mis- 
 givings, and base suspicions, and coward fears, 
 and constant uncontrollable perturbations, that 
 prey upon the pierced spirit like canker-worms, 
 and will not let it rest ! It is but a little while, 
 and that spirit was wandering like a bird beside 
 the ever-sounding sea ; as pure as the air that 
 seemed to lift it from the earth ; as clear as the 
 waters over which it floated at will, or plunged 
 into their green depths in search of unimagined 
 wonders; as free and unconfined as the space in 
 which it expatiated, or turned by a thought into 
 the temple of its triumphant worship ! What and 
 where is it now ? A denizen of that world which 
 it loathes, yet dares not leave; — -a declaimer in 
 favour of that virtue it has forfeited and that sin- 
 
200 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 cerity it has flung away; — a sophisticate* with 
 that truth which it still professes to idolize; — 
 and (oh shame of shames ! ) ready to truckle at 
 the footstool of that power which it would fain 
 see sunk into the central fires of the earth that 
 it outrages and pollutes ! 
 
 We shall not detain our readers by any 
 lengthened details in regard to works now so well 
 known as the characters of Shakespeare's Plays, 
 the Lectures on the English Poets, and the Table 
 Talk. They are each " of a mingled yarn — good 
 and ill" — as what book is not ? each contains nu- 
 merous examples of all the faults that we have 
 attributed to this writer, and all his good qualities ; 
 and all are what they were perhaps intended to be 
 more than any thing else, — infinitely entertaining ; 
 and the last named — the two volumes of Table 
 Talk — are perhaps more so than any other volumes 
 of the day. For our own parts we would even go 
 the length of making no exception whatever to this 
 remark. We do not of course mean to assert that 
 people hurry through them with that eager interest 
 with which they devour the Scotch Novels ; or that 
 a tenth part so many persons look into them at all. 
 But those who do read them turn to them ten 
 times after the first perusal, for once that they 
 turn to the others. And to say nothing of their 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 201 
 
 readers being of the only class worthy that name, 
 they are nearly all buyers of them ; which very 
 few are indeed of the novels, compared with the 
 enormous number that is sold. The chief consu- 
 mers of the latter are the circulating libraries, and 
 those numerous little lending shops which they 
 have created in every large town throughout the 
 kingdom. There are circulating libraries in Lon- 
 don that are obliged to have from fifty to seventy 
 copies of each novel when it comes out. And 
 those who actually buy them on their first ap- 
 pearance, merely to read, are chiefly those who 
 have plenty of money and little patience, and 
 therefore chuse to pay a guinea and a half for an 
 early perusal. And this includes the additional 
 advantage of being able to lend them to friend 
 after friend, till they are fairly lost, and you are 
 exempted from the task of taking them up again ! 
 for delightful as it is the first time, it is felt to be 
 a task afterwards. 
 
 But with the Table Talk it is different. The 
 real readers of the day are comparatively very 
 few. And of these every one is a buyer, to a 
 certain extent. There are a few books — one or 
 two in a season or so — that they must have. 
 Now if the little libraries of these real lovers of 
 
202 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 books were searched, with a view to ascertain the 
 comparative popularity of any given prose writer 
 of the day, we would venture odds that Mr. 
 Hazlitt would carry it hollow against them all. 
 And we would take odds that the Table Talk 
 would, like Roderick Random (was it not?) in 
 the ten Carlton-house lists of books supposed to 
 be the most entertaining in the English language, 
 be included in them all ! 
 
 The reader will perceive that, according to this 
 calculation, (or speculation, if he pleases) the 
 popularity of a book is in an inverse ratio to its 
 sale ! But though as a general proposition this 
 would be ridiculously untrue, it is nothing less in 
 the particular instance in question. Nay — it may 
 be added — (and the rationale of the proposition 
 may be found in what has been said above) — that 
 if the Scotch Novels were read ten times as often 
 as they are by the same persons who now read 
 them, there would not be half so many of them 
 sold. So that the author of them must take 
 care what he is about, and not write them too 
 well, lest he should get more of the " empty 
 praise" of admiration in part payment of his de- 
 mands, and less of that " solid pudding" which 
 is evidently so much more palatable to him. Not 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 203 
 
 that he needs any hint of this kind from us. 
 Indeed he seems to have been acting on this feel- 
 ing of late, to a somewhat ominous extreme ! 
 
 We have but little more to say of Mr. Hazlitt, 
 and his works. The most remarkable feature of 
 his style is, that there is no remarkable feature 
 belonging to it. He studiously avoids the use of 
 uncommon and obsolete words ; and never uses 
 a common word in an uncommon sense. But 
 perhaps it would be impossible to give a just 
 account of what his style would seem to aim at 
 being, without repeating, almost in so many words, 
 what he has himself said in describing his notion of 
 " The Familiar Style." We must therefore refer 
 the reader to that essay, in the second volume of 
 Table Talk. How far it is conformable with that 
 notion, is another question. In some particular 
 instances, and where he has taken pains to make 
 it so, (as for example in the Essay itself just re- 
 ferred to), we take it to be the very best specimen 
 of that style extant; and we agree with him in 
 thinking that style the best. But generally 
 speaking it falls short of what it aims at being • 
 or rather it goes beyond. It is frequently so 
 idiomatical as to be quite enigmatical, to all but 
 those who are up to the slang of the last quarter 
 
204 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 of a century. It is sometimes so very " familiar" 
 that it " breeds contempt." Its plainness often 
 borders on ugliness. In avoiding anything like 
 an oratorical construction, it is frequently broken 
 into bits. Its periods have no more words than 
 some writers have clauses. It is anything but 
 long-winded. It seems to be written for persons 
 afflicted with asthma. You may read it aloud 
 while smoking your cigar; puff and paragraph, 
 alternately. Not that we would recommend this 
 practice : for though not professors of it ourselves, 
 we should conceive that smoking, like painting, 
 requires the whole man. 
 
 We should venture to judge that if Mr. 
 Hazlitt's choice of the familiar style in the first 
 instance was the result of his naturally pure taste, 
 he has adhered to it so long on account of the 
 facilities it has afforded him ; for, as we before 
 hinted, he does not pretend to keep a conscience 
 in so purely a matter of business as authorship 
 now is with him. On the contrary, whatever 
 serves the turn of the moment is welcome. 
 Forced conceits and hacknied quotations ; paltry 
 points, staring paradoxes, and petty plays on 
 words ; scraps of Latin and French picked up 
 nobody or everybody knows where ; anthitheses, 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 205 
 
 alliterations, and any other helps and make- 
 weights, however unmeaning and meretricious, 
 (including the whole family of the Gingles) — ■ 
 all are laid under contribution whenever they 
 present themselves. He is far from particular : 
 if " my lady" is not to be had, he is content with 
 " Joan." In short, in this respect, " nought is 
 for him too high, and nought too low." 
 
 Again — when he sets himself to make out a 
 case, if he cannot do it by fair means he will do 
 it by foul ; or he will frequently do whichever is 
 easiest, or whichever will tell best. And why 
 not? He writes that you may " read;" but not 
 that you may " mark, learn, and inwardly di- 
 gest." Or, putting it in another point of view, — - 
 he cannot afford to give you more than a little of 
 the " leaven" of wisdom to each " lump" (" abor- 
 tions" he has himself called them) that he pe- 
 riodically lays before you ; otherwise what is to 
 become of all those which he must produce 
 during the next twenty years ? But this does 
 not belong to style. 
 
 Mr. Hazlitt's metaphors, figures, and what are 
 usually considered as the higher parts of style, 
 frequently " come as tardy off" as his language 
 and construction. They are very seldom inapt; 
 but they run upon one, two, three, or four feet, 
 
206 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 as it may happen. And no wonder, considering the 
 distance from which some of them are fetched. 
 
 So much for the defects of Mr. Hazlitt's style. 
 Its merits must not be dwelt upon so long in pro- 
 portion, or the rest of the Spirit of the Age 
 " must halt for it.'' We will only say that. when 
 he is in earnest in his endeavour to develop a 
 truth, or anxious in his attempt to disentangle a 
 difficulty, or unaffectedly impelled to pour forth 
 a burst of passion, or sincerely eager to impress 
 an opinion, or deeply interested in establishing a 
 theory or illustrating a theme, — there is no one 
 like him. Then his power of style is equal to his 
 power of thought and penetration, — which are un- 
 rivalled. Then he can shoot forth winged words 
 like arrows ; each following each to its desti- 
 nation, and no one impeding another. Then he 
 can link simile to simile, and place figure beside 
 figure, and pile metaphor upon metaphor, till 
 each illustrates each, and all melt into one mellow 
 whole, like the parts of a beautiful picture. Then 
 he can make fancy beget fancy, and draw imagi- 
 nation from imagination, and support truth against 
 truth, and multiply argument into argument, and 
 distil sentiment out of sentiment, — till there is 
 neither power nor will left in the reader to gainsay 
 or resist him. In short, then, and then only, he 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 207 
 
 is that really admirable expounder of truth, and 
 detector and destroyer of falsehood, which he might 
 always be if he pleased. 
 
 As we have mentioned the conversational powers 
 of some other of the subjects of our remarks, it 
 would scarcely be fair towards Mr. Hazlitt entirely 
 to pass over his. Perhaps if Mr. Coleridge is, 
 among professedly literary men, the best talker of 
 his day, Mr. Hazlitt is upon the whole the best 
 converser ; which is better — for it is calculated to 
 give more immediate pleasure to his fellow con- 
 versers than ever Mr. C.'s can to his hearers, 
 while it is pretty sure to be of more after benefit 
 to them. We will venture to say of Mr. Hazlitt's 
 conversation, that it includes every one of the good 
 qualities of his writings, and not one of their 
 faults. And the reasons are simply these : he is 
 fond of talking, whereas he hates writing; and 
 in talking, he is not called upon to say more than 
 he has to say, whereas in writing he frequently 
 is — having engaged to fill a certain space on 
 a certain topic. In short, he talks with per- 
 fect sincerity and good faith ; thinking what- 
 ever he says, and saying whatever he thinks. But 
 he writes, as it may happen : what he thinks, if he 
 thinks that will do ; if not, anything that will. 
 
 We must now take leave of Mr. Hazlitt, and 
 
208 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 abruptly, for we have long passed our limits. We 
 shall do so by saying, that whenever he pleases to 
 take the trouble, he may approve himself to all 
 the world, what two of the best judges in it have 
 already pronounced him — the best prose writer of 
 his day, and one of the finest spirits of his age 
 and country. # 
 
 * Hear (if you can) Lord Holland's conversation; and see a 
 Letter of Mr. Charles Lamb to Mr. Southey, printed some time 
 ago in the London Magazine. 
 
LONDON LETTERS 
 
 COUNTRY COUSINS, 
 
LONDON LETTERS 
 
 TO 
 
 COUNTRY COUSINS. 
 No. 5.* 
 
 THE STREETS OF LONDON BY GAS-LIGHT. 
 
 I intended, my dear Frank, (or rather, my dear 
 cousins conjointly — for this epistle is addressed to 
 all of you,) to have delayed offering you any gene- 
 ral sketches of London in 1825, till I had prepared 
 you for their due appreciation, by placing before 
 you a few more of its particular features. But as 
 I hear from authentic sources, that certain evil 
 disposed persons are, at this present writing, en- 
 gaged in laying a deep hatched and deadly plot, 
 against the very existence of what I had intended 
 should form one of the most characteristic and 
 attractive of my themes, I must pounce upon it 
 
 * Continued from New Monthly Magazine — p. 132 of the 
 Number for August, 1825. 
 
 p 2 
 
212 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 at once, before it passes into a thing that was ; — 
 seeing that it is the very essence of these agreeable 
 missives, to make you acquainted with nothing but 
 what actually is ; leaving what has been to those 
 who have been, and what is to be, to those who 
 are not. 
 
 You must know, that it has been the laudable 
 practice of the principal London linen-drapers, 
 and a few other retail tradesmen, time immemorial, 
 (that is to say for these ten years past,) to keep 
 open their shops till twelve o'clock at night, — for 
 the patriotic purpose, I suppose, of providing at 
 once a useful light for the footsteps of the 
 passengers through our evening streets, and a 
 pleasing delassement for their optics : not to men- 
 tion the advantages which these attractive exhibi- 
 tions offer to the interests of another very numerous 
 class of traders, whose primitive notions induce 
 them to carry on their operations in the open air : 
 I dare say as many pockets have been picked out- 
 side the lighted shops of London, as inside thein. 
 
 There is also another highly useful and agree- 
 able result of this practice. I mean the keeping 
 at home till bed-time innumerable nuisances — 
 parallels to the critical calicots of Paris — who 
 would otherwise infest our minor theatres, and 
 give a too classical tone to their performances : 
 
LONDON LETTERS. 213 
 
 for there is no one so fastidious in his tastes as your 
 fashionable shop-man. 
 
 But to the plot itself, — for with this anticipated 
 effect of it, I have at present little to do; though it 
 may become a matter for serious speculation when 
 I make you acquainted with our theatres and 
 places of public amusement. 
 
 You are to understand, then, that it is in con- 
 templation to call a meeting of all the London 
 Linen-drapers, to take into consideration the pro- 
 priety of shutting up their shops at what they are 
 pleased to regard as a reasonable hour. As a 
 ground for which measure it is alleged, firstly, 
 that good housewives do not make a practice q^ 
 corning out to buy linnen-drapery, long after they 
 are gone to bed, and consequently, that the last 
 two or three hours involve a wasteful expenditure 
 of gas and good looks ; and secondly, that linen- 
 drapers' shop-men are men as well as their masters, 
 (more shame for the said masters ! they ought to 
 be women,) and that, •' as such," they should be 
 allowed to partake in those needful recreations, 
 both of body and mind, which the arduous nature 
 of their occupations so obviously demand ; in other 
 words, that being employed all day long in the 
 labour of lounging over counters, setting forth the 
 merits of mull muslins, and expatiating on the 
 
214 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 pre-eminence of new patterns, they ought to be 
 let loose at night to recruit their exhausted powers, 
 both physical and intellectual, in those hospitals 
 for invalid health and morals, the Royal Saloon, 
 the Cyder Cellar, and the half-price pits of the 
 Adelphi, Coburg, and Surry theatres. 
 
 I shall not venture to conjecture how far the 
 plot in question may prove successful with re- 
 ference to the above object; but this I will say, 
 that, even if it gains all it seeks, the price paid for 
 it will be " a penny all too dear," — seeing that it 
 will go nigh to cost our metropolis that one pecu- 
 liar feature which distinguishes it favourably 
 above all other great cities whatever. If an in- 
 habitant of any other capital in the world, great 
 or small, were to be driven through the principal 
 streets of London for the first time, at nine o'clock 
 at night, even in the depth of winter, he would 
 enquire what grand fete was going on ; and when 
 you told him this was the every night aspect of 
 the place, he would give you credit, or perchance 
 discredit, for practising upon him that only form of 
 joke with which he thinks we solemn English are 
 acquainted — -namely, the hoax. 
 
 And this sole redeeming peculiarity in the in- 
 ternal economy of our Capital, we are to be de- 
 prived of at one blow — this single " Gaiety" in our 
 
LONDON LETTERS. 215 
 
 huge volume of metropolitan " Gravities " we are 
 to see cut out before our faces — in order that cer- 
 tain slim apprentices and simpering shop-men 
 may have time to sip their tea at sixpenny coffee- 
 shops, and then proceed to recreate themselves 
 after the intellectual labours of the day, by utter- 
 ing enlightened critiques on the merits of the last 
 new monkey-piece at the Surry, or espousing the 
 cause of some victim of managerial tyranny at the 
 Tottenham Court Road, or pronouncing profound 
 untruisms on the delicate distinctions which exist 
 between the tragedy of Mr. Huntly and Mr. Cob- 
 ham at the Coburg ! 
 
 The truth is, I suspect that the managers of 
 these major of the minors are the bottom of this 
 worse than gunpowder plot ; and as there is no 
 knowing what their influence may bring about, 
 when aided by all the eloquence of all the junior 
 Waithmans, (who are said to be at the top of it,) 
 I have determined to lose no time in chaperoning 
 you through the gas-lighted streets of London, 
 while we can still find something in them to dis- 
 tinguish one from another : for pleasant as they 
 are when their shops are opened, and give to each 
 of them a distinct and noticeable character, — when 
 they are shut up, their total want of architectural 
 
216 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 merit makes it merely like walking through inter- 
 minable lines of gas-lighted brick-kilns. 
 
 We will, if you please, commence our perambu- 
 lation at a point which it is the more necessary 
 you should see now in imagination, inasmuch as 
 it is one which, I suspect, your somewhat exclu- 
 sive notions touching the limits of visitable locali- 
 ties will lead you to avoid when you come among 
 
 us. Lady M h alleges, — as an excuse for not 
 
 visiting her stately friend, the M ue, who dares 
 
 to live in Bedford Square, — that nothing can pre- 
 vail upon her horses to pass to the north of Oxford 
 Street. And I'm inclined to think your horses 
 will very soon acquire a similar distaste towards 
 certain quarters. This at least I am sure of, that 
 two or three of the families with whom you will 
 be most intimate, will do their possible to per- 
 suade you of the absolute impracticability of Lud- 
 gate Hill, beyond that precise point occupied by 
 the far-famed emporium of Messrs Rundell and 
 Bridge, and will assure you that no instance ever 
 came within their experience of any known per- 
 son having penetrated farther. 
 
 The spot from wdience we are to start, on our 
 evening tour in search of the London picturesque, 
 shall be that where the Poultry abuts upon Corn- 
 
LONDON LETTERS. 217 
 
 hill; for even I, who am by no means fastidious 
 as to the particular latitude in which I let myself 
 be seen, will not pretend to have penetrated far- 
 ther towards the East Pole than the immediate 
 purlieus of this point, where the Prince of the 
 City gives his annual dinners. Not but I believe 
 the passage to be practicable ; and indeed I have 
 some thoughts of exploring it myself, as far as 
 certain points which have been discovered by 
 Grimm's Ghost, (of course you read the New 
 Monthly,) and by him denominated Crutched Friars 
 and Saint Mary Axe. And if I do so, I shall cer- 
 tainly imitate the example of our equally adven- 
 turous northern explorers, and affix new names to 
 certain noticeable spots. Indeed, I do not know 
 that I can do better than adopt the identical ones 
 chosen by those modern Columbuses. If not quite 
 so flattering, they will be to the full as appropriate. 
 What, for instance, can be better than to call the 
 little narrow defile which flanks the great monu- 
 ment and mausoleum of our national wealth, the 
 Bank, Baring's Straits ; that spot about the 
 'Change where innumerable apple-women congre- 
 gate, Barrow's Point ; and that other, where the 
 losing gamesters of the Alley first issue forth to 
 utter their angry bewailings, Croaker's Sound ? 
 But this, by the bye. 
 
218 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 You are to understand, then, that we begin our 
 walk at the Mansion House ; — turning our eyes 
 eastward before we set off, and casting up a glance, 
 first, on our right, at that gloomy monument of city 
 grandeur, which has been smoked till it looks as 
 black upon all around it as the pots in its own far- 
 famed kitchen ; but is, nevertheless, not without a 
 certain air of dingy dignity, which would be less 
 exceptionable than it is, if the building were not 
 perched up above its natural position, by means of 
 certain mysterious arches, which run beneath it 
 like the vaults of a church, and the darkness of 
 which is made visible, all day long even, by a 
 single sepulchral lamp hanging at the extreme end. 
 
 In a line with the face of this really fine build- 
 ing runs that principal vein in the mine of our 
 London wealth, Lombard Street: so denominated, 
 in courtesy, I suppose, to Sir William Curtis ; that 
 most lumbering of all the Lombards : — for any- 
 where else it would be called a lane. It is, in 
 fact, at present, not wide enough to admit 
 two ordinary aldermen abreast; and I under- 
 stand that Sir William himself has it in serious 
 contemplation to move next Session for leave 
 to bring in a bill for widening it ; as he alleges 
 that at present he cannot pass up it, in his way to 
 his banking house of a mornino* without the 
 
LONDON LETTERS. 219 
 
 eminent danger of crushing some of his own clerks 
 against the walls. I am told, too, that consider- 
 ing the buildings of Lombard Street are of brick, 
 and not of wood, he intends to throw out a hint, 
 for the better judgment of the House, as to whether 
 it might not be an improvement on the usual 
 method, if they were to grant him leave to bring 
 in a pickaxe instead of a bill. 
 
 The other creeks that pour their ever-running 
 streams westward at this point, and form a con- 
 fluence into the rapid river of Cheapside, are, to 
 the left of Lombard Street, Cornhill, the resort of 
 Lucky Lottery office keepers, Stationers, and 
 Stage-coaches ; — to the left of that, the space 
 behind Bank Buildings, which is used chiefly 
 by Mr. Soane, as a sort of public exhibition-room 
 for the display of his taste in manufacturing 
 pillars of that particular order which are intend- 
 ed to support only themselves, and have capitals 
 that are anything but capital ; — and finally, to the 
 left of this, with the chef-d'oeuvre of the above- 
 named tomb-builder between, is the little street, 
 or rather strait, which I have alluded to before, and 
 which has an unaccountable air of melancholy 
 about it, that even the endless jokes of the end- 
 less Paddington-stage-coachmen who have lately 
 been quartered upon it, are unable to dispel. 
 
220 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 The whole of this purlieu, on which, in virtue of 
 our politeness, we are now about so un politely to 
 turn our backs, would, unless I am greatly misin- 
 formed by a city friend who is not ashamed to 
 own a familiarity with it, afford food for a very 
 instructive epistle ; and it is by no means impossible 
 that I may hereafter fulfil my already-hinted-at 
 intention of exploring it with this view. But at 
 present we must follow the example of the love- 
 sick lady in Burns 's song, and " keep looking to 
 the west" all the rest of the evening; especially 
 as it is only by day-light, and at a particular hour, 
 that the district we are leaving behind us can be 
 seen to proper disadvantage. 
 
 If we shall, in the course of our evening pilgri- 
 mage, pass through several scenes more striking 
 than this of Cheapside, or more picturesque from 
 their scite and style of building, or more brilliant 
 from the boundless expense bestowed on the em- 
 bellishment of particular portions of them, — we 
 shall meet with none that is upon the whole so 
 gay, spirit-stirring, and full to overflowing of 
 variety and life. In almost all the principal 
 streets except Cheapside, if we meet with here and 
 there a shop whose splendours put to shame even 
 its splendid neighbours, we shall also meet with 
 here and there one whose comparative poverty 
 
LONDON LETTERS. 221 
 
 makes us wonder how it can possibly afford to 
 keep such company. But in Cheapside there is 
 no such disagreeable dissimilarity. Each seems 
 determined to shine equally with its neighbours, 
 and none is ambitious of o?/£-shining them. 
 
 In fact, the housewives east of the Mansion 
 House repair to Cheapside, as to a sort of general 
 mart for whatever they may want under ordinary 
 circumstances, — without determining beforehand at 
 what particular shop they intend to make their 
 purchase. Whereas, the inhabitants of all other 
 districts of the metropolis go direct to so-and-so 
 house, or to such-a-one's shop; and they find 
 themselves on Ludgate Hill, or in Piccadilly, or 
 Oxford Street, because the favourite emporium 
 happens to be situated there. 
 
 Which practice is the wiser of the two, is a mys- 
 tery into which it is not my present pleasure to pene- 
 trate. It is quite sufficient for me that the former 
 has made Cheapside the most lively, various, and 
 amusing street in all London, taking length for 
 length; unless, indeed, you should say that I am 
 putting the effect for the cause, and that it is the 
 street which has made the practice, not the prac- 
 tice the street. This point I promise to argue 
 with you when we meet, and to prove, to the entire 
 
222 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 dis-satisfaction of each of you, that you are each 
 wrong, whichever side of the argument you may 
 espouse. In the mean time, let us proceed in our 
 walk; or rather let us begin it ; — for to my want of 
 shame be it spoken — (and I fear to the sad discomfi- 
 ture of the worthy governor's patience,) I have 
 not yet led you a single step on your way. 
 
 Passing on, then, to the western extremity of 
 Cornhill, where Cheapside nominally begins, we 
 shall find that the coup-d'ceil of this latter is by no 
 means striking, even now by gas-light ; for though 
 it is brighter than almost any other part of Lon- 
 don, the private lights are so intermixed with the 
 public ones, that all regularity of appearance is 
 destroyed, and with it all istinct and uniform effect. 
 Not but what the converging lines of parish gas, 
 with the fourfold one which terminates them in 
 the centre of the street, may easily be traced by 
 an eye practised in this terrestrial astronomy ; just 
 as an accomplished star-gazer can trace the con- 
 stellations amidst the seeming confusion of the 
 heavens. The light from the shops, too, at this 
 early hour, when they are all open, eclipses all 
 the diffused light of the lamps, and you see them 
 by their form merely, — just as you see the planets 
 and other larger stars, when there is a bright 
 
LONDON LETTERS. 223 
 
 moon in the sky. This uniform confusion of 
 lights is also scarcely at all varied, as it is in 
 most other streets, by remarkably conspicuous 
 points, on which the eye is as it were compelled 
 to rest, whether it will or no. It is not the 
 fashion here, as it is elsewhere, to insist on being 
 known as the proprietor of a lamp as big as a 
 light-house. 
 
 Neither can I, as before hinted, introduce you 
 to many very conspicuous shops in this street, 
 either for the surpassing splendour of their em- 
 bellishments, or the richness of their wares. There 
 is one, however, which cannot be passed by with- 
 out notice ; since it is perhaps the handsomest 
 house of retail business in all London. This is 
 Mr. Tegg's new emporium for everything con- 
 nected with writing and reading, — from the New 
 London Encyclopaedia of all Sciences, Arts, and 
 Knowledge, down to the sixpenny bottle of ink, the 
 penny-worth of wafers, and the ream of " out- 
 sides," by the aid of which the forthcoming number 
 of it will in all probability be put together. 
 
 There is a keeping in the character of Mr. Tegg's 
 shop, which I admire in all things. It is as inter- 
 minable as some of the new-old works which he has 
 begun to issue from it " in numbers'' — and the above- 
 named more than any perhaps : like that, you 
 
224 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 cannot see to the end of it. It is however a noble 
 place ; and the outside of it is worthy the in — 
 being of richly carved stone from top to bottom, 
 and built (and I believe it was inhabited) by Sir 
 Christopher Wren. 
 
 Extremes meet, in more senses than we are apt 
 to believe, or willing to admit. Perhaps if it 
 were asked, at any given time, which of all the 
 merely thriving, but still unnoticed and unknown 
 inhabitants of any given city or district, is most 
 likely to outstrip all his competitors, and reach to 
 the head of his class, the prophet who pitched upon 
 the poorest and least externally promising, would be 
 nearest to the truth of the event. Mr. H — of Syd- 
 ney's Alley, is beyond comparison the richest shop- 
 keeper in all London ; and they tell me it was but 
 the other day (some twenty years ago) that he kept 
 a six-penny stick shop on the very spot where he 
 has since contrived to accumulate a mine of wealth. 
 And Mr. Tegg, whose splended emporium has 
 just gained him the honour of an introduction to 
 your acquaintance, I myself remember, only two 
 or three years ago, as the master of a little shop 
 over the way, the back part of which (a sort of 
 cabin about six feet square, which, from its heat 
 and crowd during its hours of business, might 
 have been inaptly enough termed the black hole 
 
LONDON LETTERS. 225 
 
 of Cheapside) he used to devote to the purposes 
 of an evening mock auction, for the sale of cheap 
 editions of popular works, to stray apprentices 
 " of a literary turn," who happened to be passing 
 by on their errands ; while his lady was selling 
 the same works in the front shop, for fifty per 
 cent, more, or less, according to the more or less 
 sanguine temperament of the body of bidders 
 who happened to be collected behind. So much 
 for philosophy and scandal. Now to our walk 
 again . 
 
 On reaching the western extremity of Cheap- 
 side we shall of course deploy to the left a little, — 
 leaving the endless, and as it should seem, eternal 
 scaffoldings of the (intended) New Post Office on 
 our right, and not even condescending to cast a 
 single glance down the dreary defile of Pater- 
 noster Row, — that dark domain of the Booksellers, 
 from which issue forth (like the Winds from the 
 black cave of Eolus) those winged messengers of 
 the national mind which make their way to the four 
 quarters of the Globe. 
 
 Saint Paul's Church Yard, upon which we 
 emerge immediately on quitting Cheapside, un- 
 doubtedly bears away the bell, in point of liveli- 
 ness, from all other existing burying-grounds — 
 not excepting that of Pere la Chaise itself, at 
 
 Q 
 
226 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 Paris. At least such is the case with respect to 
 the northern side of it, along which we are now 
 to pass. As for the opposite side, that bears ex- 
 actly the same resemblance to its gay counterpart, 
 as the dead half of the Lady of Fashion does to 
 the living one, in that edifying print which, when 
 I was a boy, (you smile, as if you thought me one 
 still ! ) used to attract sucK solemn attention from 
 
 " The white upturned eyes, 
 Of wondering mortals that fell back to gaze on it," 
 
 as it hung against the centre pane of Mr. Bowles's 
 print shop farther on. 
 
 Let us, however, not pass a step forward on 
 our way, till we have looked up at the Cathedral, 
 which here rises before us, like the shadow of 
 some great mountain. 
 
 To use the favourite phrase of a certain assem- 
 bly when the orator who is " in possession of 
 the house" is about to advance what he feels to 
 be a very questionable proposition, — "I have no 
 hesitation in saying" that St. Paul's Cathedral 
 can never be seen to so much advantage, in point 
 of general effect, as at this time of the evening, 
 when it cannot be seen at all! In the day time 
 we can see just enough of this unrivalled temple — 
 for you may take my word that it is unrivalled, 
 
LONDON LETTERS. 227 
 
 even by Saint Peter's at Rome — to discover that 
 it might just as well be at Rome, keeping Saint 
 Peter's company, for any general impression that 
 we can receive from it as a whole, — in conse- 
 quence of the horrible manner in which the 
 houses are crowded around it, almost up to its 
 very doors on every side. In fact, whatever the 
 worthy governor may hint to the contrary, I am 
 not starting an idle paradox, but stating a simple 
 truth, when I say, that by day-light Saint Paul's 
 is invisible. It is physically impossible to see 
 it — just as much as if it were out of sight ;— be- 
 cause, to see any given object, the laws of optics 
 absolutely require that the eye should be placed 
 at such a distance as will permit the rays of light 
 to enter it from every point of the outiine ; and 
 this distance, in the case of Saint Paul's, is at 
 least twenty times as great as any at which you 
 can place yourself. Consequently, you can no • 
 more see Saint Paul's when you are walking in 
 Saint Paul's Church Yard, than you can see 
 Mont Blanc when you are climbing up the side 
 of it. But now, when the whole air immedi- 
 ately about you is in a blaze of light, from the 
 gas and the shops, you do better than see, you 
 feel it ; for, as the effect of the lights reaches 
 to a comparatively small distance they do not in the 
 
 Q2 
 
228 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 least degree illumine the building, but only make 
 it show more black by the contrast : so that it 
 seems to stand lowering down upon you, like one 
 of the enormous living shadows in Milton, or 
 " Like Demogorgon, a tremendous gloom." 
 Saint Paul's Church Yard is to the city what 
 the Burlington Arcade, which we shall visit by 
 and by, is to the West-End — a sort of mart for 
 fancy matters, when the good citizens have a 
 mind to be more than ordinarily generous, and 
 pay more for a thing than they think it's worth. 
 This is the greatest thoroughfare for pedestrians 
 in all the city; as it collects all that are going 
 westward, from both sides of Cheapside. The 
 consequence of this is, that the shops pay higher 
 rents than anywhere else ; and the consequence of 
 this is, that they ask higher prices and profits ; 
 and the consequence of this is, that, in order to 
 get them, they make a smarter external shew than 
 they otherwise need do ; and the consequence of 
 this is, that they attend more to what their wares 
 look than what they are ; and the consequence of 
 this is, that Saint Paul's Church Yard is, without 
 exception, the prettiest place in all the city in 
 which to spend money that you don't know what 
 to do with upon things that you don't want. 
 You are to understand, too, that Saint Paul's 
 
LONDON LETTERS. 229 
 
 Church Yard is a spot belonging exclusively to 
 the City, — the very circumstance which makes its 
 fortune with the inhabitants of that, (namely, its 
 being no thoroughfare for carriages), altogether 
 precluding it from the patronage of any but pe- 
 destrian purchasers. As it cannot boast any shops 
 claiming particular mention to the disparagement 
 of their fellows, we will pass on to Ludgate Hill. 
 
 On reaching the top of Ludgate Hill, we stand 
 on a spot which will not be absolutely interdicted, 
 to the lady part of the circle for whose edification 
 these epistles are indited ; for those persons who 
 set the fashions are not such fools as those who 
 cannot afford to follow them would insinuate ; 
 but, on the contrary, know when they are well 
 served better than their inferiors. It does not fol- 
 low, from this, that a good shop shall be a fashion- 
 able one ; but it does follow that a fashionable 
 one is invariably a good one, and at least as cheap 
 as a hundred worse. Now Ludgate Hill can 
 boast three or four shops that are fashionable, 
 even among fashionable people ; so that it must 
 not be treated as a place absolutely unknown even 
 in the western world. I believe Mr. Everington's 
 show of India shawls really is matchless, not- 
 withstanding his advertisements declare as much. 
 Ellis's depot for " everything in the world" of Ha- 
 
230 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 berdashery is unrivalled, for united cheapness and 
 goodness. And all the first- rate jewellers and silver- 
 smiths in London inhabit Ludgate Hill, and have 
 done for this hundred years past, in the single 
 establishment of Messrs. llundell and Bridge. 
 
 For a street which is gifted with two sides of 
 the way, (and there are very few of the principal 
 ones in this enviable predicament), Ludgate Hill 
 is the most popular and populous in all London. 
 At whatever time you visit it — morning, noon, 
 night, and all night long — it is everywhere alive 
 with busy faces, and its houses are shaking to 
 their very foundations with the rattle of innu- 
 merable wheels. But at the time we are passing 
 down it — just at night-fall, when the lamps are 
 lighted, and the shops are none of them shut — it 
 is more bright and busy than any other, or than 
 itself at any other time. It is, however, a street 
 of business merely, and nobody ever sets foot in 
 it that can keep away : which I think shews a 
 singular want of taste : for those who cannot find 
 an hour's amusement in the mere shops of Lud- 
 gate Hill, will look in vain for it elsewhere. 
 
 The view from the upper end is not striking ; for 
 the street takes a bend about half way down ; and 
 though brilliantly lighted with public lamps, the 
 private ones so intermix with them, that all regula- 
 
LONDON LETTERS. 231 
 
 rity is destroyed. But in detail Ludg'ate Hill more 
 than makes up for its deficiencies of general effect. 
 The shops are all good without exception ; which 
 is not true of any of the streets farther westward. 
 And some of them are unrivalled. There is no- 
 thing in London equal to Everington's India ware- 
 house — nowhere else so much expence incurred, 
 with so little mere empty display of it. The two 
 great arched windows, each consisting of only 
 four immense plates of glass held together by 
 almost invisible polished brass frames, introduce 
 the eye to vistas which seem almost interminable, 
 from the ever multiplying mirrors with which the 
 whole interior of the shop is lined. The principal 
 lights, too, are so placed, in the centre of each 
 window, that they shall break the vacancy with- 
 out destroying the extent of the view. They con- 
 sist of several gas-burners, placed in a sort of 
 Chinese pagoda or temple, composed of richly cut 
 glass ; without any brass or other ornaments to 
 take off the lightness and brilliancy of the effect. 
 These are placed over the counter in the centre of 
 each window ; and there is another depending 
 from the ceiling, in the centre of the shop : so 
 that, when lighted, the place is tenfold more 
 brilliant than during the brightest sunshine. The 
 floor is covered with rich Brussells carpetting ■ 
 
232 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 every part of the walls, from floor to ceiling, and 
 the whole of the ceiling itself is entirely covered 
 with looking-glass ; and the articles placed in the 
 windows are so few, and are hung in such drapery- 
 like fashion, that, aided by the great Indian jars 
 which are generally displayed among them, the 
 whole looks, from without, like a splendid drawing- 
 room lighted up for a party, or a fairy scene in 
 an oriental melo-drama. 
 
 To this general approval, however, of Mr. 
 Everington's taste, I must put in one exception, in 
 justice to my own. I do not object to his em- 
 ploying a plate-glass multiplication-table for the 
 purpose of increasing, ad infinitum, his shawls 
 and his shopmen j but I cannot approve of that 
 part of the arrangement which prevents his fair 
 customers from judging whether the latter stand 
 upon their heads or their heels. 
 
 There are three or four other shops in the same 
 trade, close to the above on either side, that do 
 their best to rival the one which first set them an 
 example of expensive embellishment. But though 
 they display as much light, and ten times more 
 gilding, they fall short of their rival in tasty rich- 
 ness of effect. They, however, surpass it in the 
 variety and beauty of the objects they offer to the 
 mere passing eye — the other merely indicating its 
 
LONDON LETTERS. 233 
 
 calling, by the display of a few elegant nonde- 
 scripts in the shape of shawls. 
 
 I wish this had been your season for coming 
 among us ; and as you would never guess the rea- 
 son why I wish so, I must tell you ; — it is this, — that 
 you will never have such another opportunity of ad- 
 miring the genius (for they have displayed nothing 
 less) of our English pattern-drawers. The win- 
 dows of the linen-draper's shops have this season 
 been at least as w T ell worth looking at, for the 
 " works of art" they have displayed, as the R. A.'s 
 exhibition was. 
 
 I'm not joking, I assure you, nor even exag- 
 gerating, according to my own feelings of the 
 matter. I do not think anything so beautiful in 
 its way was ever before invented, as the patterns 
 of the morning dresses of this season have been : 
 and I pique myself on being something of a con- 
 noisseur in these matters. The prevailing trait of 
 them has been, brilliance and variety of colours — 
 chiefly the primitive, or rainbow colours — and 
 often all these united in one pattern. But the 
 effect produced in many cases has been what I 
 could not have thought possible — a species of op- 
 tical illusion, produced by printing one pattern 
 over another, and sometimes two — so as to give 
 the impression of seeing one through the other. 
 
234 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 But if these beautiful things have not yet 
 penetrated to your remote regions, you must e'en 
 suspend any notion you wish to form of them till 
 they do ; for one of their chief merits is that they 
 must ever remain nondescript. 
 
 In the mean time, let me offer your imagination 
 my arm, and let us proceed towards Fleet Street ; 
 for I feel that I am keeping you a most uncon- 
 scionable time here in the very heart of the city. 
 But as you will probably never condescend to 
 visit that spot in any other vehicle than the pre- 
 sent, perhaps you will forgive me. We must, 
 however, not quit Ludgate Hill, (the Bond Street 
 of the city,) without observing that what was 
 lately its most distinguishing feature, is now un- 
 dergoing a change which I cannot but think is 
 anything but an appropriate one ; though I ex- 
 pect few will agree with me in this opinion. 
 You must know that Rundell and Bridge (you 
 have heard of them, I suppose, even in Yorkshire) 
 have hitherto seemed to pride themselves on own- 
 ing the most ugly, old-fashioned, and ill-con- 
 ditioned domicile in all the city— so far as ex- 
 ternal appearance goes. And for my part, I 
 always used to think there was something high in 
 this — that it indicated a fine, bold-faced plebae- 
 anism, to make ail the Nobles of the land, up to 
 
LONDON LETTERS. 235 
 
 Royalty itself, after passing through the purgatory 
 of the Strand and Fleet Street to arrive at their 
 emporium, find the entrance to it less gainly — 
 less prepared and adorned for their reception — 
 than that of the trunk-maker higher up, or the 
 tin-shop lower down, — which were never destined 
 to be entered by any personages more exalted in 
 rank than a stockbroker's valet, or an alderman's 
 housekeeper. To make " the nobility and gentry' 7 
 come into the City at all, was bad, or rather good 
 enough, I used to think ; but to see their splendid 
 equipages — a dozen or a score at a time — -standing 
 about the door of the shabbiest looking shop in it — 
 was better. It seemed as much as to say, you need 
 us, more than we need you, and we'll let you 
 know it. But besides this purse-proud display of 
 a London citizen's amour-propre, I used to think 
 there was something characteristic and appro- 
 priate in the entrance to these modern mines of 
 Galconda being, like the entrance to all other 
 mines, dark, gloomy, and forbidding ; to say 
 nothing of its affording a politic contrast to the 
 blaze of splendour which greets you on getting 
 within. 
 
 But alas ! all my profound speculations on this 
 matter were the other day, as I was passing by, 
 buried in a moment, beneath a shower of bricks 
 
236 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 and mortar that came tumbling down about the 
 ears of my friends the two golden salmon that used 
 to stand sentries over the old-fashioned door-way, 
 and that I can remember as a sort of city land- 
 mark as long as I can remember the City itself. 
 And I have now been obliged to come to the sorry 
 conclusion, that avarice was the only ambition of 
 these modern Croesuses, and that it was not till 
 each partner in the firm could reckon his wealth 
 by millions, that they would permit themselves to 
 be seduced, by the examples of their neighbours 
 and the warnings of their surveyor, into the heart- 
 and-purse-rending extravagance of laying out a 
 few thousands merely to accommodate their cus- 
 tomers, and without having anything more sterling 
 to show for it than bricks and mortar. 
 
 That this was the feeling which preserved the 
 old entrance so long, and not the one which I had 
 foolishly enough fancied, is clear; for now that 
 they have made up their minds to demolish it, in- 
 stead of supplying its place by a plain, unpretend- 
 ing, old-fashioned erection, such as my first theory 
 would have required, they have run up the most 
 " A/g-^-fantastical " affair in all the town, and one 
 that, for a certain tasty want of taste, is not to be 
 surpassed even in Regent Street itself. 
 
 On passing from Ludgate Hill to Fleet Street, — 
 
LONDON LETTERS. 237 
 
 which is a continuation of it on a gentle rise to the 
 west, as the former is to the east, — we traverse the 
 north end of Bridge Street, which is terminated at 
 the opposite end by Blackfriars Bridge. This is 
 the best street in the City, and has less than any, 
 that perfectly city air which belongs to all the others. 
 It is the Pall Mall of the City ; consisting, like that, 
 chiefly of private houses — private in appearance, 
 but most of them used for purposes of trade. We 
 will not pass down it, but merely glance at the 
 double converging line of brilliant lamps, uniting 
 at the end with the ascending, and then descend- 
 ing arch of them which is formed by the rise and 
 fall of the Bridge. 
 
 The execrable line of sheds which face the end 
 of this street, — continuing in the same line all the 
 way to Holborn, and called Fleet Market, — we will 
 not glance at; because they would disgrace the 
 Capital of the Caribbee Indians, — not to mention 
 the Capital of the World. 
 
 Before quitting this spot, let me say that there 
 is no other so well adapted for observing that 
 finest and most characteristic among all our me- 
 tropolitan phenomena, a genuine London Fog. To 
 stand opposite the Obelisk at the head of Bridge 
 Street, when one of these far-famed fogs is coming 
 on, and look eastward up Ludgate Hill to Saint 
 
238 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 Paul's,— which is perhaps just distinguishable in 
 the distance, like a deeper shadow seen through a 
 less deep one ; — westward, up the winding defile 
 of Fleet Street; — southward, along Bridge Street, 
 where the thickening mass comes rolling up from 
 the Thames, cloud over cloud, each gleaming with 
 the light of the gas ; — and northward, down the 
 long line of demoniacal looking dens of Fleet 
 Market, where the flaring oil lamps of the stall 
 keepers seem to struggle with the overwhelming 
 gloom; — this, I say, is a sight worth coming all 
 the way from Yorkshire to see, and very likely to 
 drive you all the way back again when seen. 
 
 Fleet Street and the Strand form, for a strait 
 street, the most crooked one we have. It runs a 
 mile due east and west, and yet at no one point does 
 it present a coup-d'ceil worth standing still to 
 dwell upon. They manage these things better 
 everywhere else, it must be confessed. True, few 
 other cities can boast of such a street as this. But 
 those which have one contrive to make the most of 
 it ; while we, somehow or other, seem to set our 
 wits to work to make the very least of it. Here 
 is, for its length, the most busy, populous, and 
 lively street in the world, perhaps. And yet you 
 can make nothing whatever of it as a single thing 
 — can get no great and general effect from any 
 
LONDON LETTERS. 239 
 
 portion of it ; but are compelled to examine it, if 
 at all, in mere detail, as a whole parcel of short 
 streets, strung together as if by accident. Its 
 best quality is its infinite variety. Being the only 
 direct passage from the West End of the town to 
 the City, it is the most populous thoroughfare of 
 London. Consequently, it is the favourite resort 
 of adventurers in every class of trade, in distinc- 
 tion from those who have already established 
 themselves, or whose particular calling does not 
 depend on mere chance patronage. It is the fa- 
 vourite spot for the coup-d'essai of young begin- 
 ners, who fancy that nothing is to be done except 
 in the midst of a perpetual noise and bustle. But 
 they soon find it the Purgatory in which they are 
 destined to remain, to qualify themselves for those 
 Elysian fields of all London shopkeepers, Bond 
 Street and Regent Street. 
 
 The consequence of all this is, that the whole of 
 Fleet Street and the Strand does not contain 
 a single favourite shop. In all my shopping 
 chaperonings, I do not remember to have leant 
 against the door-post, or stood with my back to 
 the fire-place, or sat half on half off that anomaly 
 in household furniture, the shop-chair, of a single 
 house in this whole line of street. In short, it is 
 altogether ungenteel to buy anything in Fleet Street 
 
240 REJECTED APwTICLES. 
 
 or the Strand, and nobody does it but those two 
 numerous classes of persons, who know no better, 
 and who cannot help themselves, — including in the 
 former class Country Cousins from the eastern coun- 
 ties, who are determined to get far enough westward, 
 even if it costs them a lodging in Norfolk Street ; 
 and in the latter class all those improvident per- 
 sons who purchase what they want, not when 
 they want it, but when they happen to see it 
 before their eyes ; and as this is likely to happen 
 oftener in this line of street than in any other, it 
 is here that they oftenest buy. In fact, the shop- 
 keepers of Fleet Street and the Strand depend 
 entirely on chance ; and I dare say few of them 
 expect, and not many of them wish, ever to see a 
 customer a second time. 
 
 As the constant life and bustle of this line 
 of street, and its ceaseless din of coaches and 
 carts, require an exclusively metropolitan taste to 
 appreciate them, I shall take it for granted that 
 they will present no great attractions to you, and 
 shall therefore not detain you much longer in the 
 midst of them; merely pointing out a few of the 
 noticeable spots as we pass quickly along. And 
 first let me place you before the new opening a 
 little way up on the left, in Fleet Street, which 
 has lately been made by a great fire. 
 
LONDON LETTERS. 
 
 241 
 
 The rage for improvement in the present day 
 has amounted to a pitch nothing short of 
 romantic ; for it has actually impelled the citizens 
 of London, in Common Council assembled, to lay 
 their heads and purses together for the purpose of 
 sacrificing some fifty feet of the frontage of Fleet 
 Street, in order to gain — what, do you suppose ? — a 
 shorter cut to the 'Change ? or a grand opening 
 to some new Bazaar ? or an imposing approach to 
 some " eminent " Assurance office ? No — nothing 
 of all this, nor nothing like it ; but merely a view 
 of the handsome spire of St. Bride's Church ! 
 
 Oh ! that some patriotic incendiary, now that 
 the good citizens are in the humour for taking 
 advantage of happy accidents of this nature, 
 would contrive to set fire to both sides of St. Paul's 
 Church Yard, and burn to the ground every 
 thing it contains, outside the railing — not except- 
 ing the new front of St. Paul's School ! We 
 should then have some chance of seeing for our- 
 selves, and showing to others, what would, if we 
 could see and show it, be the boast of our island, 
 but is now little better than its disgrace, — since we 
 are content to sacrifice it to a few paltry shops. 
 I suppose there never was such a blunder com- 
 mitted, by a people that pretends to know the 
 value of money, as to lay out several millions of 
 
 R 
 
242 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 it upon a building which is professedly erected 
 purely to be looked at, but which nobody can see 
 any more than if it were not there. Truly, the 
 English are not " the most thinking people in the 
 world," after all. 
 
 But we are wandering and standing still at the 
 same time. Let us pass on, — merely observing, 
 that from the commencement of Fleet Street may 
 be best seen, in both directions, that fine and pe- 
 culiarly characteristic effect which is never absent 
 from our evening streets in this part of the town. 
 I mean the gradually immersing of the farther end 
 of every vista into that dun, dusky distance — that 
 " palpable obscure" — which is infinitely more ap- 
 propriate to a great city than the airy lightsome- 
 ness which some of them so foolishly affect. In 
 moving along through the principal streets of the 
 city part of London, on a thoroughly dark Decem- 
 ber evening, you can scarcely help fancying your- 
 self traversing the illuminated galleries of a vast 
 Mine, or of some city built beneath another city. 
 And this is just as it should be. 
 
 There is nothing to delay us any longer in 
 Fleet Street; for it does not contain a single 
 noticeable shop, nor is there* a single street branch- 
 ing off from it that presents the appearance of any- 
 thing better than an accidental gap caused by the 
 
LONDON LETTERS, 243 
 
 separation of the walls. In fact, it is the mere 
 pave and trottoir of Fleet Street which constitute 
 its merits. Just before passing out, however, 
 through Temple Bar, we may, or rather we must 
 observe the great lumbering clock of St. Dimstan's 
 church, sticking out upon the end of a square beam, 
 over the heads of Hackney-coachmen, into the 
 middle of the street, and insisting on telling us what 
 time it is, whether we will or no : which, in any 
 clock but one belonging to a church, would be an 
 impertinence. 
 
 On passing through Temple Bar, we emerge 
 upon a scene which more than loses in charac- 
 teristic effect, what it gains in openness and 
 variety. In fact, the whole of the Strand is a 
 sort of " debateable ground," not belonging to or 
 partaking the character of either the city or the west 
 end ; and I shall therefore, not detain you in it 
 any longer than to say, that I have nothing either 
 very pleasant or very particular to say about it. 
 Fancy yourselves, at once therefore, at Charing 
 Cross; and then fancy, if you can, (which you 
 cannot,) the fine prospect that here opens upon you 
 on all sides. 
 
 Leaving you to enjoy this prospective prospect 
 for a post or two, I must, as usual, break off 
 in the centre of my subject : for I perceive, what 
 
 r 2 
 
244 REJECTED ARTICLES, 
 
 you I dare say perceived some half letter ago, — 
 that my epistle has already reached a most unread- 
 able length. Adieu for a day or two. — Your loving- 
 cousin to command, 
 
 Terence Templeton. 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME. 
 
 I have for a long time thought that the spot, 
 on which I left you standing, at the close of my 
 last epistle, is the finest, because the most charac- 
 teristic part of all London — that from which you 
 get the most various and extensive coup-d'ceil, 
 and the one which is at the same time most 
 imbued with the spirit and genius of a London 
 view. Looking eastward, you have the gloomy 
 defile of the Strand, thick w 7 ith smoke, thronged 
 and thundering with carriages of every kind, and 
 all alive, like the entrance of a bee-hive, with 
 ever-busy people passing hither and thither " as 
 though they would never grow tired." 
 
 Turning to the south, we look down what is now, 
 without exception, the finest street in London ; 
 that to which I would, sooner than to any one 
 other, direct the attention of a foreigner; — Regent 
 Street, Portland Place, and Piccadillv neverthe- 
 
LONDON LETTERS. 245 
 
 less, notwithstanding. True, Parliament Street 
 wants the flashy newness of the first of these, 
 the imposing uniformity of the second, and the 
 (now that the old gate is removed) literally end- 
 less extent of the last. But on the other hand, 
 it has the noble width of the widest of these ; the 
 constant bustle and traffic of the most populous ; 
 and, mixed with some indifferent houses that serve 
 as a contrast, several of our best and most striking 
 public buildings — which are so arranged as to give 
 it an air of grandeur that no other street or place 
 in London possesses. 
 
 When buildings are joined to each other, — as 
 the private dwellings are, all through the rest of 
 London, as well as the public edifices that blend 
 with them, — of whatever character they may be 
 individually, a want of consistency and uniformity 
 takes away from them all unity as well as gran- 
 deur of general effect. But when they are de- 
 tached, however near together, the case is entirely 
 different. Then, each, however dissimilar from 
 its neighbour, produces its own immediate effect 
 on the spectator's mind, and at the same time 
 conduces to a certain general effect which is in fact 
 the amount of all the individual ones. 
 
 Now the public buildings in this fine street 
 may be considered as detached ; and though, with 
 
246 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 the exception of White Hall, none of them are 
 buildings which can, individually, excite much 
 admiration in those who look for something more 
 than a mere piling up of stone upon stone, yet all 
 taken together produce a better impression than 
 any other collection of equal extent that we can 
 shew. Those noble private residences, too, on the 
 left side of this street, which recede considerably, 
 and have groves of trees and open courts before 
 them, add to this effect in a very marked manner, 
 by giving that comparative spaciousness the want 
 of which so sadly destroys everything like gran- 
 deur in our metropolis. This latter effect, too, 
 has lately been increased, by the whole pavement 
 of this street having been Macadamized : — which 
 phrase, being interpreted, merely signifies that the 
 whole has been changed from pavement to road; 
 and that particular kind of road which, when in 
 proper order, returns no grating, gravelly sound, 
 but over which the carriages bowl along as if the 
 tires of their wheels were made of felt. Nothing- 
 can be finer than the effect of this on a wide, 
 populous, and busy thoroughfare like Parliament 
 Street. It not only adds an apparent width to 
 the street, but the carriages bowl over it so 
 smoothly and silently, that the scene produces, at 
 a little distance, the united effect of an actual 
 
LONDON LETTEBS. 247 
 
 scene, and of a sort of animated panorama of 
 the same, executed on a scale " as large as life." 
 
 You are to understand, by the bye, that in the 
 above, I am not taking you through Parliament 
 Street, but merely bidding you look down it in 
 imagination : for it is a street that can be seen to 
 advantage by day-light alone ; being almost en- 
 tirely without shops, and therefore with little light 
 but that furnished by the double row of gas-lamps 
 which sweep down its slight descent. 
 
 Looking north-westward, or to the right, from 
 the spot on which I have placed you, the coup- 
 d'ceil is still fine, though not equal to that portion 
 we have just turned from. It consists of irre- 
 gular masses of building, separated by several 
 wide openings, the chief of which lead away to 
 the more fashionable parts — the real West-end of, 
 the town. As we can only see these to advan- 
 tage a little farther on, we will proceed onward, 
 through Cockspur Street. 
 
 This, like most of the other principal thorough- 
 fares, has but one side of the way : though this 
 has it literally ; — the other side of the road being 
 without a continuous pathway, on account of 
 the carriage approaches to the various splendid 
 Club-houses which have lately been erected in this 
 immediate purlieu ; whereas, when I say in other 
 
248 
 
 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 instances that a street has but one side of the 
 way, I mean one favourite side, on which the 
 houses are worth fifty per cent more rent than on 
 the other. 
 
 The best thing belonging to Cockspur Street, 
 especially at this time in the evening, is the 
 prospect it gives you of the above-named Club- 
 houses. They are the handsomest ornaments 
 the town has received since the spirit of im- 
 provement has taken possession of our rulers. 
 They have all the grandeur of the town residences 
 of our principal nobility, without any of that 
 gloom which always accompanies it except on 
 their public nights. After dark, a nobleman's 
 mansion in London looks like a great tomb, ex- 
 cept on those nights when it takes upon itself 
 to disturb the rest of the neighbourhood with the 
 rattle of wheels, from the usual time of going 
 to bed till that of rising again. But these Club- 
 houses are transparent in every part, every even- 
 ing ; and in passing by them outside, you see just 
 enough of their brilliantly lighted rooms, and 
 gorgeous furniture, to excite you to invest them 
 with just the sort of company that they may be 
 supposed to have been built for; — for which inves- 
 titure, by the bye, they ought to be very much 
 obliged to you, seeing that, without that, they 
 
LONDON LETTERS. 249 
 
 are just so many " splendid deserts:" for an En- 
 glish man thinks he does quite enough towards an 
 establishment of this nature, if he subscribes his 
 money to it : to subscribe his person too, is more 
 than he thinks reasonable. He pays his twenty 
 guineas a year that he may " belong'' to this or 
 that Club. But to go to it is considerably more 
 than he bargains for ; and if you insist on that, 
 you cannot do less than pay him ! 
 
 As Pall Mall, though one of the most agree- 
 able streets in all London, is entirely a day street, 
 and cuts but a gloomy figure at night, we will 
 leave it on our left, and pass up that lively ano- 
 maly, the Haymarket ; — keeping on the right hand 
 side of it at first, that we may have a view of 
 the handsome new facade of the Italian Opera, 
 with its lofty colonnade of iron pillars ; and con- 
 tinuing on the same side, that we may not admire 
 the facade of the " Little Theatre," — because it is 
 neither handsome in itself, nor would it look so if 
 it really were, in the eyes of those who yearn 
 after the little unsightly building which it has 
 superseded, and in which they witnessed their 
 " first plays." 
 
 The Haymarket is a fine, bold-faced, open 
 street, which has the air of being half-devoted to 
 business, half to pleasure — the latter, however, 
 
250 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 predominating. In fact, besides the two Theatres, 
 it is half-filled, on the western side, with taverns 
 and houses of public resort of one kind or 
 another ; and it is also the first spot where you 
 begin to meet foreigners lounging along, with 
 that pleasant air of an infinite want of anything 
 to do, which is a virtue that no Englishman 
 could ever even " assume/' The Haymarket con- 
 tains half a dozen French houses for the enter- 
 tainment of these happy idlers ; which however 
 seem to have been established, more with a view 
 to remind them of what a French Restaurant is 
 not, than what it is ; and to let them know what 
 a bad French dinner it is possible to get in Lon- 
 don, for the price of a good English one. The 
 opposite side of the way is occupied by shops, 
 chiefly old established ones, which have a regular 
 connexion belonging to them : for nobody thinks 
 of coming here on purpose to buy, or of buying 
 here by accident. On the left of this street there 
 is a handsome opening, terminated by the statue 
 in St. James's Square; and the whole street 
 forms an ascent steeper than any other part of 
 London, except Saint James's Street, which runs 
 parallel with it farther west. 
 
 Since we left the Strand we have missed those 
 perpetual oppositely-flowing currents of human 
 
LONDON LETTERS* 251 
 
 life, which have the singular faculty, for currents, 
 of interpenetrating each other without being dis- 
 turbed or retarded in their respective courses. 
 On reaching the top of the Haymarket we come 
 into this double current again, — which is, at this 
 spot, growing stronger than ever, in consequence 
 of its course being contracted, while its bulk is 
 increased by the various branches that pour it in 
 here, towards the east, from the Haymarket, Pic- 
 cadilly, and Regent Street, and towards the west, 
 through the narrow straits of Sidney and Cran- 
 bourne Courts. The consequence of this con- 
 fluence is, at all times of the day, and particularly 
 at night, that the north side of Coventry Street 
 is almost impassable, except to those who are 
 more than usually expert in the mystery of making 
 way under such circumstances. 
 
 The character of the shops in this street is just 
 what might be expected from the situation. 
 None of them make any conspicuous shew, be- 
 cause no one could stand to admire them if they 
 did ; and therefore most of them are such as 
 every neighbourhood must have. The only ex- 
 ception to this is the Watch and Snuff-box shop 
 of the Hawleys' — which stands just where the 
 current of traffic separates — and which, next to 
 that of the same persons in the Strand, (which 1 
 
ZOZ REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 forgot to shew you,) makes a handsomer outward 
 display than any of its kind in London. 
 
 Just at the point above-mentioned the paths 
 divide. We will take the left hand one, and pass 
 into Piccadilly. This is a fine street, no doubt ; 
 and by day-light there is a character of mingled 
 liveliness and gentility about it, which makes it 
 the pleasantest we have, for a mere promenade. 
 But by lamp-light it does not preserve this cha- 
 racter ; especially towards the latter half, which is 
 lighted, or rather not lighted, by oil instead of 
 gas : wherefore, those who are conversant in the 
 parish politics of St. George's can alone tell. 
 
 The first view of Piccadilly, on entering it here, 
 at the east end, is fine ; because the gas-lights 
 extend as far as the eye reaches, and there are 
 few other private lights to interfere with their 
 effect. Stepping onward a little, we arrive at 
 those ever-busy scenes, the Coach Offices, — orna- 
 mented by a whole menagerie of Spread Eagles, 
 Bulls and Mouths, and Bears of all colours, 
 
 " Black, white, and grey, with all their trumpery." 
 
 These would be worth stopping at for a few 
 moments, but that we shall meet with a still more 
 striking specimen of the same characteristic and 
 truly English scene, higher up. Passing these, 
 
LONDON LETTERS. 253 
 
 then, we find ourselves in an open space where 
 the buildings form a Circus, at the head of Wa- 
 terloo Place on the left, and with the Regent's 
 Quadrant sweeping away on the right. If this is 
 not the most characteristic point of view in all 
 London, it is without exception the most striking, 
 and what may be called handsome — especially at 
 night. 
 
 Waterloo Place is situated on a regular decli- 
 vity, and is terminated by Carlton Palace ; which 
 building has the merit (the only one it has) 
 of in no respect throwing into insignificance the 
 range of which it now, in effect, forms a part. 
 It is quite as handsome as the haberdasher's shop 
 on the right of the street which it terminates, or 
 the bootmaker's on the left : and it is no hand- 
 somer. Which is, I suppose, just as it should be. 
 They say we are a Nation of Shop-keepers ; and 
 accordingly, the national architect who has im- 
 mortalized himself (for at least fifty years to come) 
 by his late improvements, seems to think that 
 there is no reason whatever, why our Shops should 
 not vie with our Palaces. 
 
 I think he is quite right. But then he is carry- 
 ing his principle to what I am afraid some people 
 will think an impertinent extreme. There is not 
 
254 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 a single portion of Waterloo Place, or even Re- 
 gent's Street, which, taking length for length, 
 does not put the poor Palace to open shame, even 
 before its very face. And as for the County Fire 
 Office, which forms the pendant to the Palace, at 
 the opposite end, — it actually looks down upon its 
 low neighbour, with an air of infinite elevation ; 
 and its lordly inhabitant and Director, Barber 
 Beaumont the First, from the mode in which he 
 directs the Morning Post to announce the Evening 
 Levees of his Lady, evidently looks upon himself 
 as sustaining a station at least as kingly as that of 
 his opposite neighbour George the Fourth. 
 
 This is perhaps carrying the levelling principles 
 of architecture rather too far. And yet they say 
 Mr. Nash is a great favourite even at Carlton 
 Palace itself, which he has contrived to place in 
 such a ridiculous predicament. This is a singular 
 instance of royal humility, and ought not to go 
 without its record in the annals of the hour. 
 
 At all events, Waterloo Place is incomparably 
 the most complete thing of the kind we possess ; 
 and at night in particular the effect of it, seen 
 from either end, is what I must call, for want of 
 a better epithet, quite classical. This effect is 
 rained, however, at what some will consider a 
 
LONDON LETTERS. 255 
 
 rather extravagant, not to say a ridiculous and 
 contradictory expence ; namely, by making a 
 whole street full of Shops look like anything but 
 what they should look like ; that is to say, what 
 they are. In fact, a classical shop is a contra- 
 diction in terms, anywhere but at Pompeii. 
 
 Turning from the view down Waterloo Place, 
 to that which opposes it on the other side the 
 Circus, we look upon another view which, I 
 believe, is quite unique. The Regent's Quadrant 
 has the merit of being still more classical in its 
 appearance and general effect than Waterloo 
 Place ; and therefore it has the demerit of being 
 still less appropriate to the purpose for which it is 
 intended. In this gloomy climate of ours, shade 
 is a thing that we seldom have occasion to seek, 
 even in the country ; and in London, Richard's 
 moody question of " Who saw the sun to-day ?" 
 seldom meets with a satisfactory answer during 
 more than two months in the year. Not that 
 London needs sunshine. For my part, I think 
 she is much better without it. She never looks 
 so thoroughly herself as when dressed in her 
 favourite dun-coloured cloak of sea-coal smoke. 
 And as for " a suit of flame-coloured taffeta," it 
 does not at all become her staid complexion and 
 
256 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 sober deportment. And even if she does secretly 
 affect finery of this kind — even if she cannot help, 
 now and then, in a momentary fit of spleen, com- 
 plaining that the sun " disdains to shine" upon her 
 — the next moment she is reasonable enough to 
 recollect herself, and add, still with Richard, 
 
 " What's that to me, more than to Richmond" 
 
 on whose ineffable beauties he looks equally 
 lowering?" 
 
 But where am I getting to? I was going to 
 say, that the Regent's Quadrant seems to have 
 been erected for the laudable purpose of shewing 
 that a set of shops (of which it entirely consists) 
 may be made to look even less like what they are, 
 and be less like what they ought to be, than any 
 part of Waterloo Place itself. This desideratum 
 is obtained, in the present case, by constructing 
 a noble colonnade in front of the said shops ; 
 which, in the first place, hides them entirely from 
 the view of those who may be in search of them ; 
 and in the second place, excludes every ray of 
 light from them, even when they have been dis- 
 covered . 
 
 But all this, you know, is the shop-keepers' 
 concern, not ours. It is quite enough for us, that 
 
LONDON LETTERS. 257 
 
 the Regent's Quadrant, with its finely simple 
 concentric colonnades of Doric pillars, sweeping- 
 round towards the left from the point where we 
 stand, and losing themselves in each other and in 
 the misty twilight long before they come to an 
 end, — present one of the most effective views of 
 this kind that any metropolis can offer. 
 
 It is lucky, however, that we are looking upon 
 this handsome anomaly by night instead of by 
 day; otherwise we should have to observe that 
 the execrable English plan, of building our houses 
 only two stories high instead of five or six, is 
 nowhere productive of such mischievous effects, 
 in a picturesque point of view, as in this in other 
 respects noble range of building. When you 
 look at the Regent's Quadrant by day-light, and 
 as a whole, it has the appearance of being in- 
 tended merely for the lower range of an erection ; 
 and you cannot help fancying how fine it will look 
 when it comes to be completed. 
 
 The mode in which this portion of the new 
 street is lighted produces an excellent effect ; 
 though more, I imagine, from accident than de- 
 sign. The range of great gas-lamps, that depend 
 from the centre of each colonnade, give a brilliant 
 light to the foot-path and the shops, while the 
 
258 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 colonnade itself, with its massy pillars, intercepts 
 much of the light from passing out into the car- 
 riage road, and leaves that in a state of half-shadow 
 which is much more effective than the highest 
 light would be. 
 
 We will now pass onward, through the spot on 
 which we have just been dwelling, and continue 
 our examination of this most striking part of all 
 our metropolis ; including the range of buildings 
 from Carlton Palace on the south, to the so much 
 vituperated Church at the beginning of Langham 
 Place on the north-east. At the end of the 
 Quadrant, Regent Street itself opens upon us in 
 all its new-fledged beauties. And, to be candid, 
 I must say that I wish those who do all they can 
 to put us out of conceit of this only noticeable 
 achievement of our own age in the matter of 
 architecture, would put us in the way of compass- 
 ing something better, or even hint to us how such 
 a thing might have been accomplished — I mean, 
 might have been with our existing " appliances 
 and means." I do not want them to tell us, that 
 if Salisbury Plain could be transplanted to the 
 centre of London, and the Portland stone quarries 
 could be persuaded to follow it, we might in that 
 case build a square, a circus, a crescent, and 
 
LONDON LETTERS. 259 
 
 what not, that would laugh the low-roofed tene- 
 ments of Regent Street to scorn, and look down, 
 in all the freshness of youth, upon the spot where 
 the latter now stand, when that spot itself shall 
 know them not, except as so many heaps of pre- 
 mature rubbish. But this is not the question. I 
 do not want to know what might have been, if 
 other things had happened to be as they are not ; 
 — but what could be, everything else being as it 
 was. I do not even want to know what London 
 would have been by this time, if George the 
 Fourth had been Buonaparte, the House of Com- 
 mons a Chamber of Deputies, and Messrs. Hume 
 and Brougham persons in posse. What I desire 
 to know is, how Mr. Nash could have built a 
 better street than he has done, with the means he 
 had at command ; and what I wonder at is, how- 
 he has contrived to build one, half so far from 
 bad. 
 
 If any one of you, or all united, can solve me 
 these questions, do. My paper being exhausted, 
 I pause for a reply ; which, if I do not receive in 
 due course of post, I shall take it for granted 
 that in matters of this merely metropolitan nature 
 you yield the pas to my superior knowledge, and 
 shall in that case proceed to describe the rest of 
 
 s2 
 
260 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 this new, and by comparison noble, feature in the 
 face of modern London. 
 
 In the mean time know me to be 
 
 Your ever-loving cousin, 
 
 Terence Templeton.* 
 
 * It is proper to mention that it is not Mr. Templeton's fault 
 if this Walk breaks off more abruptly than some of its readers 
 may wish. But variety being above all things else my object 
 in the selection of these papers from the vast mass which have 
 come into my hands, I have been fain to stop short in the middle 
 of this and one or two other communications, the forte of whose 
 writers is decidedly continuation : otherwise, I should have been 
 forced to " curtail of their fair proportions" others equally en- 
 titled to attention. — Editor. 
 
BROTHER JONATHAN; 
 
 THE NEW ENGLANDERS. 
 
BROTHER JONATHAN ; 
 
 OR 
 
 THE NEW ENGLANDERS.* 
 
 REJECTED FROM THE EDINBURGH REVIEW. 
 
 If his Satanic Majesty should make up his 
 mind to ascend among us in the present day, 
 
 * Unless I am mis-informed, the reason this article did not ap- 
 pear in its proper place, is, that the writer of Brother Jonathan 
 has neutralized his American title to the patronage of the " Prince 
 of Critics," by becoming a writer in Blackwood's Magazine. What 
 still greater literary enormity (if greater there be in the eyes of 
 some persons) he can have committed, to have so long cut off 
 from critical notice one of the most extraordinary works of its 
 day-, is more than I can guess. At all events, I am happy to 
 have been the medium of presenting to the public this first tole- 
 rably fair estimate of a work which (to adopt the distinction made 
 by its shrewd and lively critic) at least " indicates," if it does 
 not " display," more talent than the whole body of American lite- 
 rature besides. — JEditar.f 
 
 t [Since these pages were sent to press, a paper has appeared in 
 
264 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 it is probable his first attempt to ingratiate him- 
 self with the world will consist in writing a book. 
 Indeed he can scarcely do less, in compliment to 
 that particular school which Dr. Southey has 
 thought proper to do him the honour of dignify- 
 ing with his style and title. At any rate, if he 
 should write a book, we shall assuredly be among 
 the first to " give the devil his due," whatever that 
 may be. Let us then not withhold it from a 
 person almost as little likely to think, act, or 
 write like other people. 
 
 It is said that when a certain distinguished secre- 
 tary of the present day first turned his back (not 
 " upon himself," but) upon his native country, Ire- 
 land, and came up to seek his fortune in the great 
 world of London, he was introduced to C umberland ; 
 and that the literary veteran exclaimed when he was 
 gone, " a talking potatoe, by G — d !" And on this 
 our first interview with the author before us, sober- 
 suited critics as we are, and therefore altogether 
 unaddicted to the style exclamatory, we can 
 
 the London Magazine, the anonymous writer of which claims the 
 authorship of Brother Jonathan. And truly the paper writer, 
 whoever he may be, is, in some respects, not an unlikely person 
 to have produced the novel. But there is no saying : for if the 
 writer in the magazine is to be believed on his word, there's no 
 believing a word he says. — Editor,'] 
 
BROTHER JONATHAN. 2(55 
 
 scarcely refrain from uttering aloud, " a writing 
 savage, by G — d !" — for that the work, the title 
 of which we have placed at the head of this paper, 
 is the production of a North American savage, we 
 have no doubt whatever ; and if our " exquisite 
 reason " for so thinking be demanded of us, all 
 we can give is, that it can be the production of no 
 one else. 
 
 Not to stand shilly shally over it, (which is a 
 mode of treatment it will bear less than any other,) 
 Brother Jonathan is, we will venture to say, the 
 most extraordinary work of its kind which this 
 age of extraordinary works has put forth — in Great 
 Britain, we mean : what America or Germany 
 may have produced in this sort, is more than we 
 are able to say ; and the former of those countries 
 in particular, may, for any thing we know to the 
 contrary, be able to count a whole catalogue of 
 similar works, written by the same hand — or 
 rather hands — for we imagine this person employs 
 both his hands at the same time, one on one 
 volume, and the other on the another ! At least, 
 we can at the moment hit upon no other theory, to 
 explain the extraordinary and headlong rapidity 
 of style, as well as the insane incoherence of 
 matter, which prevail throughout these volumes — 
 
26<> REJECTED ARTICLES, 
 
 which "prevail" throughout them, but which 
 (be it expressly understood) are far from being 
 their only distinguishing characteristics, and which 
 are still less the causes of our feeling called upon 
 to notice them. 
 
 In fact, the author of these volumes, whoever he 
 may be — whether " a saint, a savage, or a sage," 
 and whether this be his first work or his fiftieth, 
 (and it may, from its internal evidence, be either 
 the one or the other,) — is, to say the least of 
 him, the most original writer of his day ; and 
 we are greatly mistaken indeed, if he will not 
 turn out to be, without one exception, the most 
 extraordinarily gifted of them all, as far as mere 
 natural faculties go. How far adventitious 
 circumstances may interfere, to frustrate the 
 operation of those faculties, or turn their effects to 
 evil account instead of good, is more than we 
 shall pretend to predict, in the present early stage 
 of our acquaintance with their possessor ; but 
 that no circumstances can ever neutralize them, 
 we are confident. 
 
 Brother Jonathan, if it must be classed at all, 
 may be placed under the head of that altogether 
 modern anomaly, the historical novel ; and if an 
 express object must be assigned to it, it will be 
 
BROTHER JONATHAN. 267 
 
 that of illustrating the manners of the Americans, 
 and of the New Englanders in particular, at the 
 commencement of the American Revolutionary 
 War. And in fact, the work does furnish this 
 illustration, in a most striking and effective manner ; 
 and as no other work does, and no other writer 
 that we are acquainted with is at all likely to do. 
 But the truth is, that neither the above, nor any- 
 thing else, can be assigned as the specific object 
 and end of this singular production, — which we 
 conceive to have been written, not as a means to 
 any end whatever, but as an end in itself. 
 
 We live in an age when, for the first time in the 
 history of mankind, authors may be said to be 
 natural productions : that is to say, they spring up 
 necessarily, out of the circumstances of the times, 
 We imagine that the writer of Brother Jonathan 
 was born an author, and that he could no more 
 have failed to fulfil his calling, than he could to 
 have exercised any other of the active functions of 
 his nature. His mind is of such a character and 
 constitution, that it could not choose but fill itself 
 to overflowing with ideas and images, no matter 
 by what circumstances it might have been sur- 
 rounded ; and being so filled, it cannot choose but 
 pour its contents forth, like an overflowing vessel* — r 
 
268 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 reckless of all consequences, and without any neces- 
 sary reference to recipients. If he were thrown 
 upon a desert island to-morrow, and left without 
 the remotest hope of escape from it, he would, the 
 day after, begin writing at the rate of fifty pages 
 a-day, and never cease till his materials were ex- 
 hausted : we mean his material ones ; for his moral 
 ones would never be likely to fail. The former 
 deficiency being, under present circumstances, not 
 within hope, we see no probable end whatever 
 to the productions of his pen. At any rate, Dr. 
 Southey may abandon his reported project of 
 achieving immortality by writing more than Vol- 
 taire did ; for here is a person, who, if he lives 
 to the ordinary age of man, may, if he pleases, 
 write more than all that Voltaire has written, and 
 all that Dr. Southey intends to write ; and it will 
 be his own fault, not Nature's, if he does not 
 write it ail better than either ! 
 
 The reader will be able to form some faint no- 
 tion of the fertility (fur we will not call it diffuse- 
 ness) of this writer's invention, as well as of his 
 pen, when we say, that though Brother Jonathan 
 consists of three thick volumes, of four hundred 
 and fifty pages each, it only manages to make us 
 acquainted with the events of about a year or so in 
 
BROTHER JONATHAN 269 
 
 the life of its hero, — who is in fact only a boy when 
 we are called upon to take leave of him, and who 
 during that brief period is made to undergo as 
 many adventures, both in love and war, as would 
 fill the lives and furnish forth the pages of half a 
 dozen ordinary romance heroes and romances. He 
 has no less than three love affairs on his hands and 
 heart, all at the same moment ; each appertaining 
 to a heroine of an absolutely distinct character ; 
 and each illustrative of a distinct kind of love. 
 And all this takes place while he is engaged in 
 the very thick of the " guns, drums, trumpets, 
 blunderbuss, and thunder," of the opening of the 
 American War. 
 
 But besides this, the hero himself, as well as 
 every other principal character in the work, is not 
 only him or her self, but some one, two, three, 
 or more other persons at the same time. Add to 
 which, we are introduced to several historical cha- 
 racters ; two of them no less distinguished than 
 Washington and Franklin themselves; and one 
 character who, as if all this were not enough to 
 fill up the space of one year, is gifted with the 
 faculty of relating events that never happened at 
 all! 
 
 We shall not attempt to make our readers ac- 
 
270 R EJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 quainted with the plot of Brother Jonathan ; and 
 if for no other reason, for this very sufficient one 
 — that though we have just read the work from 
 beginning to end, and with that undivided atten- 
 tion which extraordinary pleasure in the perusal of 
 a work always excites, we are at this present 
 writing as absolutely ignorant of the said plot as 
 if it had never been propounded to us. And to 
 say the truth, we consider this circumstance to be of 
 very little importance, where, as in the case before 
 us, there is enough to arrest the attention of the 
 reader, independently of any merely progressive 
 interest arising from an artificial concatenation of 
 events. We doubt if the Scotch Novels would be 
 so good as they are, if their plots were better : we 
 say this of them abstractedly, as works. And we 
 do not doubt, that if the writer of them had waited 
 to make his plots better, he would have ended 
 by making his works upon the whole not so good ; 
 for what they would gain by the process in one 
 way, they would more than lose in another. It is 
 the characters, the scenes, and the descriptions, 
 that we remember, and desire to remember, and 
 not the mere vehicle which conveys them to us, 
 any more than it is the paper and print which 
 place them before our bodily senses. And perhaps 
 
BROTHER JONATHAN. 271 
 
 it will be found on examination, that we feel the 
 moral beauties of those works more during the 
 perusal, and are better able to recall them after- 
 wards, in proportion as the mere plots have gained 
 little hold of our attention at the moment, and 
 have dwelt but faintly and confusedly on the 
 memory. 
 
 But be this as it may, the readers of Brother 
 Jonathan will do well not to complain of its defi- 
 ciencies in regard to plot : for its writer, to say 
 nothing of his being evidently a person who will 
 not be schooled as to what he shall or shall not 
 write, is altogether incapable, by the constitution 
 of his mind, even of imagining, much less of 
 constructing, a regular concatenation of events. 
 In short his genius is anything (we had almost 
 said everything) but mechanical ; and we are 
 greatly mistaken if it is not capable of producing 
 works which shall possess every possible good 
 quality, (not to mention every bad one,) only 
 excepting that one (whether good or bad we shall 
 not determine) of having a beginning, a middle, 
 and an end. 
 
 We have said that this work is the most original 
 of its day ; and if originality consists in a something 
 which can be likened to no other thing that existed 
 
272 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 previously, our proposition will not be disputed by 
 the most cavilling of critics. A work, to be per- 
 fectly original, should not merely remind us of no 
 other work of the same class, but prevent us from 
 thinking of any other in connection with it. And 
 such, we will venture to say, is the case with 
 Brother Jonathan. 
 
 But this applies generally. To be perfectly 
 original, a work must possess characters, a turn 
 of thought and of sentiment, and a style, altogether 
 its own. And here again Brother Jonathan stands 
 alone in our literature. 
 
 But then, to render its claim to originality of 
 any value even if admitted, the materials in the 
 management of which that originality is shewn 
 must be drawn from the great store-house of 
 nature, and be referable to something existing 
 there, and therefore interesting to the mind and 
 heart of man; otherwise the originality becomes 
 mere eccentricity and impertinence. 
 
 And here too we are bound to say that the 
 writer before us merits no mean degree of com- 
 mendation. His characters, though they seem 
 to come before us as if from a new world of 
 which we had no previous notion, (as indeed 
 so far as we are concerned they do,) all bear 
 
BROTHER JONATHAN. 273 
 
 that impress of our common nature which makes 
 them at once pass current with us as beings 
 in regard to whom we are bound to feel a human 
 sympathy. The thoughts and sentiments, too, 
 which, by a mistake common to all writers of fic- 
 titious narrative, he occasionally thinks fit to put 
 forth in his own proper person, though full 
 of novelty, are seldom founded in other than 
 sound views of the subject in question. And 
 above all, his style, which is more exclusively his 
 own than any thing else belonging to him, is so 
 only because he has had courage to tell his story 
 in the manner that is most natural to him — be- 
 cause he has put his heart, his memory, and his 
 tongue, into his pen, instead of adopting the usual 
 method, of letting his pen supply the place of all 
 these. 
 
 Let us go a little more into detail ; for as we 
 intend to present the reader with little or no ac- 
 count of the plot of this work, we can the better 
 afford to dwell somewhat minutely upon its cha- 
 racteristic particulars. Conceive, then, of the 
 hero of a work, every event of which is fraught 
 with the most romantic interest, and every page of 
 which includes some subtle refinement of thought 
 or sentiment— conceive the hero of a work like 
 
274 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 this, as an overgrown lout of a boy, brought up in 
 the Back Woods of America, — with a stoop in his 
 shoulders, a swing in his gait, hob-nailed shoes 
 upon his feet, a smock-frock upon his back, a 
 nasal twang in his speech, and almost every phrase 
 he utters regular Yankee ! And conceive (if you 
 can) how all this shall obtrude itself at every page, 
 without for an instant weakening the interest you 
 from the first moment feel towards this singular 
 hero, or even throwing over him the slightest air 
 of the ridiculous — an association which is fatal to 
 anything like a serious interest, however deep- 
 seated it may previously have been. 
 
 Courageous even to a pitch of mad-headed fool- 
 hardiness, — yet occasionally trembling in his shoes 
 with sheer affright ; — open and sincere as Truth itself, 
 — yet sometimes artful, hypocritical, and a liar; — 
 proud and ambitious as Lucifer, — yet fooling away 
 his time in idle fancies and effeminate dreams ; — 
 an adorer of reason and justice,- — yet pursuing to 
 the verge of destruction and death a being who 
 never injured him ; — his heart " pure as the thought 
 of purity," — yet leading him to cast himself head- 
 long (though advisedly) into the lowest depths of 
 profligate degradation ; — high-minded and chival- 
 rous as a hero of ancient romance, — yet heaping 
 
13R0THER JONATHAN. 275 
 
 daily injuries and insults on the heart that avowed- 
 ly adores him, and that he adores :— such, and a 
 great deal more, is the compound of contradictions 
 to which this author introduces us, under the 
 name of Walter Harwood. And yet, such is the 
 intuitive skill and knowledge of human nature with 
 which he has mixed up together (without amalga- 
 mating) these opposites, that in no one instance 
 do we feel them to be necessarily incompatible 
 with each other, nor do they greatly interfere with 
 that sentiment of deference and respect which 
 novel readers are bound to entertain towards a 
 hero of three goodly volumes. 
 
 But if the hero of this strange work is not of 
 the ordinary class, the heroine with which our 
 author has supplied him is at least a match for 
 him in singularity. At our first introduction 
 it is difficult to suppose her anything but a born 
 idiot. Presently, however, we begin to fancy she 
 is more mad than foolish, and more cunning than 
 either. But after a little further acquaintance 
 we find her one of the sweetest and purest, one of 
 the most delicate and feminine of all the beings 
 that imagination has formed from the actual 
 models which nature has furnished. With all 
 the wildness and originality, as well as all the 
 
 t 2 
 
276 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 fervour of character possessed by her lover, she 
 has that equable placidity of temperament, and 
 that steady consistency of feeling and of purpose, 
 which were never allied to the former qualities 
 except in woman. We know of no imaginary 
 character bearing the slightest resemblance to 
 Edith Cummin, with the exception of Mignon, in 
 Goethe's Wilhelmeister — from whom it is probable 
 that the author before us took his notion of Edith. 
 But let us add, that if she wants that etherial 
 lightness of outline, and that thin transparency 
 of colouring (if we may so speak), which belong 
 to the singular creation of Goethe, and which 
 give to it an almost spirit-like and superhuman 
 air, she is altogether infinitely more natural, with- 
 out being either less imaginative, or less touch- 
 ingly simple, child-like, and innocent. And the 
 consequence of this difference is, that she excites 
 in the reader a much more permanent and va- 
 luable, because a more purely human interest and 
 sympathy. 
 
 But as we have hinted before, our author is not 
 satisfied in supplying his hero with one heroine, 
 but furnishes him with no less than three ; be- 
 tween whom he is at no little loss how to divide 
 himself fairly, and according to his somewhat 
 
BROTHER JONATHAN. 277 
 
 singular notions of right and justice in such 
 matters. As far as we can judge for him, his 
 heart seems to belong throughout to his first love, 
 Edith ; his imagination to Olive ; and his reason 
 to the poor, polluted, and spirit-broken, but pure- 
 minded and repentant Emily. 
 
 These two latter supernumerary ladies we can- 
 not stay to introduce formally to the reader ; but 
 we must not pass them by without saying that 
 both characters are drawn with great distinctness 
 and truth, and that both evince in the author 
 a very subtle as well as a very extensive acquaint- 
 ance with the movements of the human heart ; 
 an acquaintance, however, which we must con- 
 sider as more intuitive than practical, or in other 
 words, as springing rather from a diligent watch- 
 ing and questioning of his own nature, than from 
 actual observations on that of other people. 
 
 Of the other imaginary characters introduced 
 in this tale, we can only stay to particularize two 
 — both of which are as entirely original as those 
 already referred to, and both are drawn with 
 equal vigor, spirit, and truth, so far as the ex- 
 tremely confused and defective nature of the plot 
 permits us to follow and observe them. Jonathan 
 Peters, while he retains that title, and during his 
 
278 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 appearance in the family of the hero's father, is 
 undoubtedly sketched with a bold, masterly, and 
 felicitous pencil. His admirable good sense, and 
 the skill with which he applies it, in connection 
 with his extensive knowledge of the world and 
 the human heart, to gain and keep an over- 
 whelming ascendancy in the family in which 
 (nobody can tell for what reason) he has domi- 
 ciliated himself at the opening of the story, — pro- 
 duce a most powerful effect upon the reader ; an 
 effect which is rendered necessary, in order to sus- 
 tain the influence which he is afterwards to exer- 
 cise (unconsciously and unintentionally) upon all 
 the subsequent events of the story, when he has 
 almost wholly disappeared from it.. As to his 
 after introduction, under his aliases of Warwick 
 Savage, Evans, &c. these are among those gra- 
 tuitous make-weights to the plot, which alto- 
 gether confuse and destroy its -consecutive in- 
 terest, and render it little better than a wild and 
 incoherent hubbub of scenes and incidents, pro- 
 ducing together the effect of a feverish dream. 
 
 The other character that we have alluded to 
 above is Harry Flemming — a sort of Ferdinand 
 Mendez Pinto — a " liar of the first magnitude. " 
 It should seem from the principle feature of this 
 
BROTHER JONATHAN. 279 
 
 character, as well as from some other points in 
 the work, that our author believes in the here- 
 ditary nature of the moral qualities of man. At 
 any rate, the only argument we are offered, to 
 shew that Harry Flemming is the son of his father, 
 is, that whereas the father was a little given to 
 embellishment in his relation of any event that 
 occurred to him, the son invents the whole story 
 from beginning to end, and relates it in such a 
 manner that you believe it at least as confidently 
 as if you saw it happen. He invents too, with a 
 sincerity of purpose, and a fervour of imagination, 
 which almost have the effect of doing away the 
 demerit of his delusions, by making them more of 
 poetical creations than anything else. It has 
 been_said in accusation of poets, that they are 
 only liars : and it may be said in excuse of our 
 author's liar, that he is only a poet. This cha- 
 racter does not occupy much space in the work ; 
 but what there is of it is the most spirited sketch 
 of the whole. 
 
 The only particular in which this singular au- 
 thor has chosen to follow any fashion but his own 
 in this work, is in the introduction of other than 
 the natural machinery of the story : whether to 
 call it super, sub, or ^/-natural, we cannot very 
 
280 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 well determine. In conformity with the taste of 
 the day, the writer of Brother Jonathan, as if his 
 story was not wild and incoherent enough in 
 itself, has made the " confusion worse con- 
 founded," by introducing a Prophet and a Witch, 
 who seem to act the parts respectively of good 
 and evil genius in regard to the hero and all his 
 concerns, and who contrive by their joint influ- 
 ence, or rather their perpetual opposition, to make 
 that absolutely and irremediable unintelligible, 
 which would have been very nearly so without 
 their aid. Perhaps the writer may tell us that 
 he has introduced these two mischievous Marplots, 
 because he found them in the state of society in 
 which his scenes are laid, and which they pro- 
 fess to illustrate ; and he will probably shelter 
 himself behind the example of our illustrious 
 countryman, the author of Waverley : though we 
 scarcely think him a person likely to plead pre- 
 cedent for anything he may think fit to either say 
 or do. The truth is, that with all his strong 
 sense and sturdy straitforwardness, he has a 
 lurking taste for the unintelligible, and a faculty 
 that will secure him from ever being debarred the 
 indulgence of it. And as to mere mystery in the 
 abstract, he knows very well that there cannot 
 
BROTHER JONATHAN. 281 
 
 be too much of that in a work which would hope 
 to succeed with the class of readers to whom his 
 ostensibly addresses itself ; that in fact a novel, 
 to be popular with those who will pay for the 
 reading of it, must be " perplexed in the extreme" 
 — or rather, from one extreme to the other — from 
 the beginning to the end. 
 
 Thus far of the merely imaginative portion of 
 this work ; — which portion, though it is un- 
 doubtedly the result of great intellectual power, 
 and is fraught with much scattered interest, and 
 every here and there with the most exquisite 
 touches of passion and pathos, is altogether wild, 
 incoherent, and unsatisfactory as a whole j and 
 what is still worse, it is not without a leetle 
 affectation — to adopt a New England word from 
 its author. 
 
 But not so the portion which is founded on 
 mere fact and observation. That is in its way, 
 and as far as it goes, incomparably the best illus- 
 tration of American manners we have yet been 
 presented with. The half-savage, half-civilized 
 scenes at the early home of the hero, on the bor- 
 ders of the Back Woods — those which occur on 
 his journey thence to New York — those connected 
 with the first declaration of American indepen- 
 
282 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 deuce, and the opening of the War — the sketches 
 connected with the native Indian manners, and 
 growing out of their wild superstitions — and 
 finally the descriptions of local scenery — all these 
 are drawn by the hand not only of a master, but 
 of a master who has been absolutely self-taught ; 
 or rather, who evidently believes that there is no 
 teacher worth attending to in such matters, but 
 Observation alone ; and who therefore boldly re- 
 peats to us, in so many words, what she has re- 
 peated to him. 
 
 Considering the kind of scenes and the class 
 of manners which his narrative leads him to place 
 before us, it is pretty clear that such a describer 
 must not reckon upon the suffrages of readers 
 who pique themselves on the refinement of their 
 tastes. But those who like to hear the plain 
 truth told in the plainest words that will tell it, 
 may here meet with some of the most lively, 
 spirited, and vigorous pictures of national man- 
 ners that have ever been painted. We have no 
 mincing the matter here — no squeamish keeping 
 out of sight of ungainly objects or obnoxious 
 habits of feeling — -no finical fining down of 
 phrases — no effeminate refinements of one thing 
 into another, or artificial contrasts which neu- 
 
BROTHER JONATHAN. 283 
 
 tralize all truth, of effect. In short, the author of 
 Brother Jonathan has the wit to see, and the cou- 
 rage to attempt to shew, that truth and nature 
 are quite good enough to be looked at as they 
 really are, and are much more likely to appear 
 what they really are when looked at in their 
 nakedness, than when dressed up in the Monmouth 
 Street foppery of falsehood and art. 
 
 We shall now present the reader with a few 
 extracts from this singular work — without which, 
 and indeed we are almost afraid with which, he 
 will not be able to gain, from what we have said, 
 anything like a distinctive notion of it. And to 
 say truth, we shall not be very sorry if this should 
 be the case, provided what we have said should 
 lead to the general perusal of the work itself : for 
 we are disposed to fear that the extraordinary 
 originality displayed in Brother Jonathan is cal- 
 culated to insure it anything rather than exten- 
 sive popularity in the present day, unless some 
 adventitious impulse be given to it from without 
 in the first instance. And we are confirmed in 
 this fear by the fact of its having been already 
 many months before the public, without its having 
 hitherto attracted any notice whatever. 
 
 We have already hinted at the singular cha- 
 
284 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 racter of the heroine of this New England story. 
 We cannot attempt to convey a notion of Edith 
 Cummin by means of extracts from those por- 
 tions of the work in which her character is de- 
 veloped. But we will do the next best thing, by 
 presenting the author's conception of her. 
 
 # " Edith Cummin — we shall pass over the rest 
 for the present — was a Virginian ; a niece of 
 Abraham Harwood : a creature, so whimsical, so 
 contradictory, that, for many years, until her cha- 
 racter changed, (all at once, in. a single winter,) it 
 would have been quite impossible to describe her, 
 so as to give one a true notion of what she really 
 was; without leading her out, making her talk, 
 and showing her off, in a thousand ways, at the 
 same time. 
 
 " She was little ; very girlish, very spirited, and 
 quite singular in her whole appearance ; with 
 
 * The reader will have the goodness to attribute the singular 
 punctuation of these extracts to anybody but us. Whether it has 
 been invented by the printer of Brother Jonathan, or the author, 
 is more than we can guess. But of this we have very little 
 doubt, that one most prevailing cause of the want of success of 
 the work is this very system (for it is done, not by accident, but 
 on a kind of system, such as it is) of pointing —which mangles 
 and fritters away the effect of many of the finest passages, and 
 changes not a few into pure and impracticable nonsense, 
 
BROTHER JONATHAN. 285 
 
 rich, plentiful hair, always in the way of herself, 
 or somebody else ; a pale complexion ; large, 
 hazel eyes, full of moonlight and water, never 
 still for a moment : — one hour she was a woman, 
 the next, a child, a baby, a simpleton ; with 
 hardly wit enough to keep herself out of the fire. 
 Now, she would be found sitting in a corner, 
 alone ; purple with cold ; poring over some great, 
 heavy, serious book, such as no other child, 
 of her age, ever thought of poring over; and, 
 after a little time, perhaps, cuddled up in a heap, 
 with her loose hair falling about her face ; pout- 
 ing and sobbing over some poor two-penny ballad, 
 such as no other child ever thought of sobbing 
 over." 
 
 " She had a thousand childish ways with her ; 
 innocent, simple ways, which there was no speak- 
 ing seriously about, absurd as many of them were ; 
 a sprightly, sincere temper ; without one atom of 
 art, or affectation. She had a knack, too, quite 
 her own, of bringing the water into your eyes, and 
 a smile about your mouth, at the same time ; and 
 always (which was the charm, after all) without 
 intending it, or knowing it, or even caring for it, 
 if she did know it. She loved romping ; ' that 
 she did ;' and would go without her dinner any 
 time, for a good long race with her cousin Watty's 
 
286 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 large dog, under the elm trees ; or any thing- 
 else, for a few hearty tumbles, all alone — head 
 over heels — in the long fresh grass ; or the newly 
 mown hay, before the rich clover blossoms were 
 dead." 
 
 " During these pastimes, it was amusing enough 
 to see, with what an air, she punished all intru- 
 ders ; not even excepting her ' dear, dear cousin 
 Watty/ whom, in the language of old Virginia, 
 she loved, ' mighty bad ; so she did.' In such 
 a case, at such a time, Edith would look and 
 speak, much more like a dwarf woman, caught 
 perhaps with her night-cap on, or slippers off; 
 than like a sad little tom-boy, as — begging her 
 pardon — she certainly was. — Her large eyes would 
 sparkle, — so the men ' allowed' — like the mis- 
 chief; and she would stand a tip-toe, with a 
 dignity, quite heroic, for such a diminutive little 
 creature. 
 
 " She was perpetually doing what nobody was 
 prepared for — perpetually making people jump; 
 and had, if there be such a one, the faculty of 
 unexpectedness within her; like a Leyden jar, 
 always ready to be let off. At one time, it would 
 really appear, as if she had been lying in wait, 
 like a torpedo-fish, in the water, for an opportu- 
 nity to set people tingling ; at another, as if she 
 
BROTHER JONATHAN, 287 
 
 enjoyed, in her very soul, the confusion of those ; 
 especially if they were grown up, who, led astray 
 by her manner and size, had mistaken her for 
 a child. A word, or a laugh, was enough ; just 
 when some stranger, perhaps, who had been 
 looking at her absurd gambols, with a large dog, 
 was on the point of pulling her into his lap, for a 
 fine romp — only a word, or a laugh ; and he 
 would start back, as if he had been playing with 
 an electrical machine." 
 
 " Between the upper and lower parts of her face, 
 there was a remarkable contradiction. Judging 
 by her forehead and look, you would call her 
 much older ; by her mouth, much younger than 
 she was. Her large eyes were sometimes full of 
 strange, womanly meaning ; solemn and beauti- 
 ful, beyond anything that we see in the eyes of 
 children ; while her mouth was always — no matter 
 where she was — no matter though her eyes- were 
 full of tears — her mouth was always just ready for 
 a laugh. 
 
 " Her character was like her face ; whatever she 
 did, whatever she said, was full of contradiction. 
 She was a puzzle. She would say the strangest 
 out-of-the-way things ; now, like a little child ; 
 now, like something wiser than a woman : at one 
 time, as if she wanted common sense ; at another, 
 
288 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 as if she were inspired. She had, in truth, all 
 the simplicity of a child, with much of the woman's 
 loftiness." 
 
 " There were times also, when her thoughtful 
 eyes, her pale face — and mouth, like the wet rose- 
 bud — were brimful of something, like poetry ; 
 and others, while she sat in the corner, with a 
 profusion of hair, overshadowing her whole face 
 ■ — when she might have passed for an idiot ; so 
 patiently — so stupidly tranquil, would she remain, 
 for a whole hour, together ; looking into the 
 ashes, where others were parching corn • or watch- 
 ing the current of sparks, that rushed up the 
 chimney, whenever the ' back log ' moved, or 
 the ' forestick ' parted in the fire. — There was 
 that, also, in her look and manner, while she 
 was reading by herself; or listening, attentively, 
 to the conversation of others, which would have 
 been regarded, by some, as the indication of a soft 
 and submissive temper. But, if anything hap- 
 pened ; if she were taken by surprise ; or found, 
 on looking up, that she had been observed — 
 there was, instantly, over all her face, a look of 
 insulted womanhood ; a something absolutely im- 
 perious about her clear forehead ; and a sort of 
 beautiful petulance about her mouth, which, be- 
 fore one could make up his opinion of her, would 
 
BROTHER JONATHAN 289 
 
 be gone — for ever gone — like the shadow of a 
 strange bird, from a lighted mirror. " Vol. I. pp. 
 26—33. 
 
 Our next extract shall consist of a piece of local 
 description, in which these volumes abound, but 
 much of which, though steeped in a vein of fine, 
 bold, full sounding eloquence, is rather poetical 
 from its mistiness than picturesque from its pre- 
 cision and distinctness. The following, though 
 somewhat overstrained and extravagant, conveys 
 a gorgeous and glowing idea (not a picture) of the 
 sight it describes. 
 
 " The autumnal beauty of a North American 
 forest cannot be exaggerated. It is like nothing 
 else on earth . Many a time have we gone through 
 it ; slowly tilting over a pretty blue lake, there, 
 among the hills ; our birch canoe dipping, with 
 every motion of the paddle — the waters beneath 
 us — all the mountains about — all — unknown to 
 the world ; in a solitude — a quiet- — profound as 
 death — and bright as heaven ; the shores over- 
 hung with a superb autumnal foliage ; and a sky 
 so wonderful — so visionary — that all the clouds, 
 and all the mountains were of a piece, in the clear 
 water ; and our boat was like a balloon. 
 
 " Say what you will, there is nothing to be 
 compared with a scene of this kind — about an 
 
 u 
 
290 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 hour before sunset — in the depth of a great North 
 American solitude ; — a vast amphitheatre of wil- 
 derness, rock and mountain — after the trees are 
 changed by the frost. People may talk of their 
 fine Italian skies ; of their hot, bright East In- 
 dian skies ; of the deep midnight blue, of the 
 South American skies. We have seen them all ; 
 slept under them all ; slept under a sky, like one 
 great moon ; — worshipped under them all ; — seen 
 them through all their changes, of storm and 
 sunshine — darkness and light ; and we say, that, 
 in reality, they are dim, heavy — unclouded, un- 
 interesting — compared with your North American 
 skies, a little before, and after sunset. 
 
 M And so, too, of the garniture ; the superb gar- 
 niture of a North American wilderness, after two 
 or three clear, frosty nights. There is nothing 
 to compare with it, under heaven. The moun- 
 tains — vallies— woods — all burst into flower ; and 
 all at once. Other countries are in a better state 
 of cultivation. Their trees are less numerous; 
 their wild shrubbery, less like a vegetable inunda- 
 tion over the land — covering every foot of the 
 earth ; or the changes of their colour, from season 
 to season, are slow and gradual. 
 
 " It is not so, in America — North America. 
 There, the transformation is universal — instanta- 
 
BROTHER JONATHAN. 291 
 
 neous. A single night will do it. In the even- 
 ing of a fine day, perhaps, all the great woods 
 will be green — with hardly a red, or a brown, 
 or a yellow leaf. A sharp frost will set in, at 
 night. Before the sun rises again, the boundless 
 verdure of a whole province — a whole empire, 
 in truth, will be changed. In the morning, there 
 will be hardly a natural green leaf to be found. 
 Before a week is over, go where you may, through 
 the superb wilderness, you will meet with no- 
 thing but gay, brilliant scarlet — purple — orange ; 
 with every possible variety of brown, light blue, 
 and vivid crimson; or blood colour. Of all the 
 trees, none but the evergreen tribe, will keep 
 their integrity. They will show along the battle- 
 ments of the mountain — darker than ever — more 
 cloudy than ever ; like so many architectural ruins, 
 or surviving turrets — -in the splendour of the sur- 
 rounding landscape. 
 
 " No, no — it is not saying too much of all 
 this beauty — of all this great magnificence — 
 when the fresh, cold, brisk wind of the season, 
 gets among the branches — after such a night — 
 and blows up the superfluous leafing, to the warm 
 sunshine — like a tempest, among prodigious 
 flowers — tearing and scattering the tulip colour- 
 ed foliage over all the earth, and over all the 
 
 u 2 
 
292 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 waters ; no, it is not saying too much — merely to 
 say — that, under heaven — throughout all the 
 vegetable creation, there is no spectacle of beauty, 
 or show ; of richness, or grandeur — to be com- 
 pared with it. Imagine — we do not mind ap- 
 pearing a little absurd, if, thereby, we may give 
 the stranger, a true idea of this appearance — 
 imagine, therefore, a great wilderness of poppies, 
 or tulips — outspreading itself on every side — 
 reaching quite away to the horizon — over hill, and 
 over valley ; — or a wood, literally encumbered — 
 heavy — with great, gorgeous, live butterflies — for 
 ever in motion. 
 
 " We have been a traveller; we have looked 
 upon the dark Norwegian woods — the dull ever- 
 greens — towering up — into the sky — covering 
 whole provinces ; woods, too, of stupendous oak 
 — each tree, if the soil were divided, overshadow- 
 ing a man's inheritance — flourishing bravely 
 through whole territories : more than one quiet, 
 solitary place — entirely shut in, by the hills — 
 flowering all over — all the year round. But we 
 have never met with — never heard of — never 
 looked upon, elsewhere, that profusion of glorious 
 vegetable beauty, which is to be seen, every 
 * fall, 9 in the woods of North America; heaped 
 up, on all the banks of all the rivers — up— up— 
 
BROTHER JONATHAN. 293 
 
 to the very skies — on the great mountains — or, 
 accumulated over the low countries — and welter- 
 ing there, all the day through, in the light, or 
 shadow — wind, or sunshine, of the season." Vol. 
 ii. pp. 29—33. 
 
 We shall now offer a specimen of those parts of 
 Brother Jonathan which perhaps deserve to rank 
 as the most valuable, and will assuredly be looked 
 upon by many as the most if not the only intelli- 
 gible ones. We mean the scenes illustrative of 
 the state of manners and society in the country 
 where the events of the story take place. The 
 rare merit of the following scene consists in the 
 literal and uncompromising truth with which every 
 part of it is given. Walter Harwood, the hero of 
 the story, is about to leave his home in Connecti- 
 cut, and seek his fortune at New York ; and he is 
 conveyed thither after the following fashion — the 
 only one of the time. 
 
 " Waiter sprang away; and came bounding 
 over the low stone walls, and brush fences, ' like 
 a deer,' — with a large dog at his heels. A mo- 
 ment more, and he was stowed away in what is 
 called a * stage/ in America. But Panther, 
 somehow — the large dog — did not appear to com- 
 prehend, precisely, the nature of the arrange- 
 ment. He stood still — waiting the sign from his 
 
294 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 beloved master — friend — companion — either to 
 spring up, on the roof— into the carriage — or to 
 follow a-foot. 
 
 " The driver blew a farewell blast. Panther 
 moaned — but stood still. The wheels moved— 
 rattled — smoked : he stood still, nevertheless, 
 waiting the signal, up to the very last moment, 
 poor fellow ; when the carriage turned out of the 
 lane, all at once, into the great high-road. He 
 uttered a howl, when he saw that ; ran off to the 
 fence — rose up — and put his two fore-paws upon 
 the gate. Walter saw him — heard his voice, end- 
 ing as he had never heard it before, in a sick, 
 angry, impatient yelp, or two. He covered his 
 face, then ; pulled his hat over his weary eyes ; 
 and got back into the carriage, as far as he 
 could. 
 
 M ' A pooty eonsid'rble funny noise that, I guess 
 — for sich a whelp/ said one of his neighbours. 
 ' I never heard no thin' like, it afore/ 
 
 " ' Nor I ' — said another — * in all my life : ony 
 once — tell ye how that was, though. One day, 
 our Towzle — he fit a painter ; — well — and so, 
 the painter, he smacks him thro' the ribs — clean 
 as a whistle — same as a cat ; — well ; an' so ; ever 
 see a cat ? — wild cat, I mean ? — well — an' so — ■ 
 poor Towzle, he sets up sich a noise ! right away ; 
 
BROTHER JONATHAN. 295 
 
 jess like that; — well — an' so, I say; you, what's 
 that air dog's name V 
 
 '* ' Poor Panther, sir — only poor Panther.' 
 
 " They had now come to another turn ; a place, 
 where Panther never failed his poor master, be- 
 fore, when he was going away. Our hero looked 
 out; rubbed his eyes — glanced, hastily, over 
 the grounds — but no — no Panther was to be seen. 
 The brave brute had given up all hope. The 
 boy's heart sunk within him. He drew back, 
 further and further, into the deep seat ; with a 
 feeling, so unworthy of a man ; so unlike any 
 that he had ever known before,— through sickness 
 — through sorrow — that he would have wept 
 aloud, perhaps, if he had been altogether alone. 
 
 " ' Seems to take it ruther unkindly, judge, 
 hey ? * — said one of the people. " Home sick, 
 a few — I guess — don't you ? — -wonder who that 
 air baby-faced gal was ; nation white, I guess — 
 never seed any body half so white afore ; love sick 
 — I guess. I say, you — sweetheart o' your'n, I 
 guess — hey V 
 
 " ' If you are speaking to me, sir/ said our boy; 
 starting bolt upright ; pushing away his hat ; 
 and showing his lighted eyes — the brightness 
 whereof was rather alarming :— ' If that's for me, 
 sir , you'd better look out,' 
 
296 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 " ' Nation !' 
 
 " ' A leetle on the huffy order, I guess ! aint 
 you ? — Like to have a tussel, may be ? wouldn't 
 ye ? — or a good clever game o' rough an' tumble ?' 
 
 " ' Yes ! with all my heart — yes ! — would you ? 
 If you would, Mister, what's your name, you have 
 only to say another word about my sweetheart, as 
 you call her ; — baby-face ! — -ye great black lookin' 
 lubberly beast.' 
 
 " The convulsive agitation of his mouth was 
 quite enough. They grew still, immediately, on 
 every side of him ; not so much from fear, as 
 from curiosity to know more of ' sich a quair 
 funny sort of a feller.' One gave a whistle of sur- 
 prise ; another, a sort of low, good humoured growl ; 
 after which they, and all the rest, were quiet. 
 
 " Here was the boy's first essay in outbraving 
 ' real imperdence.' He saw the advantage of it, 
 long before they parted ; for, all the passengers 
 came to be on good agreeable terms with him— 
 pleasant, free, and sociable, without being saucy." 
 
 " The ' stage' was a long, rough-built, heavy 
 waggon ; capable of ' accommodating ' twelve or 
 fourteen people inside— they carry no outside pas- 
 sengers, up to this day, in that country. There 
 was only one way of getting up to it, or into 
 it ; and that was, over the backs of the horses, by 
 
BROTHER JONATHAN. 297 
 
 climbing, or by storm. It would go — lumbering, 
 pitching and jolting over the almost impassable 
 roads, of the country, with a wheel, or two, for 
 ever in the air — at the rate of about forty miles 
 a-day — f more or less.' 
 
 " There were nine live passengers aboard ; with 
 a great heap of rubbish ; and a large dead hog. 
 Eight of the former, were human beings; the 
 ninth, a sucking pig. Walter, unhappily for him, 
 was rigged out, in all his go-to-meetin' finery ; 
 unhappily, because, he never appeared so like a 
 great, overgrown, awkward country boy, as when 
 he was thus equipped ; nor ever to such advan- 
 tage, as in his old clothes ; a striped woollen 
 frock — or short gaberdine ; with his collar open : 
 — his throat naked — and his rich, loose hair 
 huddled about his neck. 
 
 " He wore, now, a large, broad brimmed, low 
 crowned, wool hat — newly ironed up, for the 
 occasion — you might have seen your face in it 
 — ' a leetle o' one side' — with a flaming brass 
 buckle, in front ; a dimity waistcoat — striped with 
 dark yellow — it had been a petticoat of his mo- 
 ther's — a part of her wedding dress — the flaps 
 hanging half down to his knees ; cow-hide shoes 
 — newly greased with a famous preparation of the 
 lime, for keeping out water — -which left a * smooch' 
 
298 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 upon whatever they came near ; a pair of huge 
 buckles in them, too ; — his hair gathered in a 
 club, and bound up, with a piece of sky-blue 
 ' worsted ribbon ;' a large, bright, silver brooch, 
 firmly skewered into the bosom of a coarse, clean, 
 good-looking shirt, — which it held, as it were, by 
 the teeth — so that his white skin was visible 
 above, and below it. His look was that of a 
 lubberly country boy; — a ' jinooine' Brother Jona- 
 than — going forth, from his home, to ( undertake ' 
 a school for the winter, wherein he may retail out 
 such learning, as he has been able to ' lay in/ at 
 wholesale, the summer before, at some of the 
 schools, academies, colleges or universities, of 
 North America. 
 
 " The passengers were very still, after the re- 
 buff, which Waiter bestowed on his very curious 
 companion. They were all, or the greater part of 
 them, nearly or quite asleep ; their heads bob- 
 bing about, all the way, as if there were no par- 
 ticular' owners for them ; — all was quiet — as quiet, 
 in truth, as it could be, in such a carriage, 
 where the smothered squealing of the pig ; the 
 noisy rattling of the iron ware — with all the ' an' 
 so forths, an' so forths, and so forths,' — were 
 quite enough to drown the voice of an ordinary 
 man, while in ordinary conversation. They got 
 
BROTHER JONATHAN. 299 
 
 along very well— very— till a sudden, rough jolt, 
 brought all their heads together, at once, with a 
 tremendous crash, on the ' near ' side of the car- 
 riage ; the other being e up a tree ' — that is— 
 lodged on the top of a large, rugged stump, so 
 that, for half a minute, or more— the * stage ' 
 appeared in a sort of irresolute balancing humour ; 
 as if undetermined whether to go ' clean over, 
 slap' — or only part way. 
 
 " The pig squealed as if the devil was in him : 
 the passengers awoke; started up— got loose 
 from each other ; and crawled out, as well as 
 they could, over the horses, into the deep heavy 
 mud ; making wry mouths ; growling — -limping 
 — and chafing their limbs; all of them being 
 more or less beaten, bruised, or * banged/ by the 
 lumber, and stuff, which, like themselves, were 
 inside passengers over the same outrageous, abo- 
 minable road «>" 
 
 They soon recover from this mishap, only to be 
 plunged into a still greater, and one which is re- 
 lated with equal truth and spirit. They are going 
 down a horrible hill at a fierce rate, in order, as. 
 the driver says, " to keep the cattle out o' the 
 way o' the stage," when suddenly it is discovered 
 that some fire from their pipes has got among the 
 straw about their feet. 
 
300 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 " The horses took fright. Away they sprang, 
 at full speed, in the midst of the uproar, taking 
 the heavy carriage off the ground, at every jump. 
 Our hero leaned back into the seat, and held his 
 breath ; for he felt as if they were tipping over, 
 all the way — as they went — leap after leap — 
 escaping the uptorn trees, by a sort of miracle, 
 every time ; and shaking the driver, rudely enough 
 to dislocate every bone of his body ; for his feet 
 rested on a foot-board, which, in America, was 
 attached, of course, to the rough axle-tree : Away 
 they sprang — away — away — while the harder the 
 poor old man shrieked, in his fear, the harder they 
 galloped. — * Fire ! fire !' cried he — ' murder ! mur- 
 der !' 
 
 " ' Stop his throat, for the love o' God — whoa ! 
 whoa !' said the driver — leaning backward into 
 the carriage ; ' whoa ! whoa !' straining every 
 muscle of his body, till he was red in the face ; 
 and speaking through his teeth. — * Whoa ! whoa ! 
 stop his throat ! whoa ! there ; whoa ! gag him ! 
 gag him ! — It's all over with us, if they get more 
 head way ! — Steady ! steady ! — Jam a cloth down 
 his throat; or a hankycher ! Whoa! whoa — 
 Choke him.' 
 
 " ' There we go '.—there we go !•' — repeated the 
 old man ; breaking loose from Walter, and trying 
 
BROTHER JONATHAN. 301 
 
 to throw himself out of the carriage, over the 
 heads of the horses. — ' There we go !' 
 
 " ' Say your last prayer !— nothin' but a merigle 
 can save us ! ' — cried the driver, with a voice 
 of horrible consternation. — ' There we go ! — sure 
 enough !' 
 
 " They were approaching a sharp tarn— with a 
 precipice on the left ; and a steep, high bank, or 
 wall, on the right ; all the way incumbered, or 
 broken up, with huge pine trees, or stumps, 
 which threw their prodigious roots quite across 
 the road. 
 
 " ' Driver ! driver ! ' — ' What say ? ' — ' Keep 
 to the right ; will you ? ' — e What for ? ' — ' Upset 
 us, if you can — pitch us into the bank, there !' 
 — ' What for ? ' — ' Why ; there's no other hope ; 
 no other way to save a soul o' the cargo.' — The 
 driver stood up. — ' Hourra, now ! hourra !' cried 
 he ; ' hourra, now — lay holt here ; lay holt, every 
 one o' you !' — throwing the reins behind him, into 
 the carriage. — ' Whoa — gently, gently, there — 
 gent— ly— ' 
 
 " ' Hang on ! — hang on ! — by G — d, I'll treat.' 
 — 'Hourra!' — ' So will I '— ' So will I ! '— 
 ' Hourra, now ; hourra ! ' — The reins gave way ; 
 the driver fell back ; the carriage heeled off; the 
 
302 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 horses tried in vain to stop — the leaders falling 
 back upon their fellows, when they saw the pre- 
 cipice, with such power, that, for a moment — a 
 single moment — while the strong leather cracked 
 with every plunge — they were all in a heap, to- 
 gether : — It was a moment of trial, though ; for 
 the carriage was tumbling over upon the horses, 
 while they, as if quite sensible of their danger, 
 were staggering about, with distended nostrils ; 
 and large, dilated eyes — irresolute — convulsed — 
 and frightfully weak — breathing, as if they had 
 been over-board — swimming for their lives ; a 
 moment of trial ; but no more — a pause, only ; 
 for, another cry being heard — a cry of despair, 
 from the poor old man — up went all their heads, 
 together ; and off, they started, anew. 
 
 " ' Lord have mercy upon us !' cried out all the 
 passengers, with one voice, when they saw the 
 heavy manes of the horses fly up ; and heard the 
 crash that followed. 
 
 " ' Amen,' said Walter, very quietly ; locking 
 his uplifted hands ; holding his breath ; and 
 shutting his eyes, like a coward, — as he thought 
 of Edith ; and of what her insupportable anguish 
 would be, when they should come to hear of his 
 untimely fate. 
 
BROTHER JONATHAN. 303 
 
 " ' Amen — Arae n !' — devoutly responded a 
 steady, clear voice, at his elbow ; — * our Father, 
 who art in heav ' 
 
 "The prayer was unfinished : the horses leaped 
 forward, again, as if a thunderbolt had fallen 
 among them ; two of the four broke loose from 
 the tackling ; — one of which, went over the pre- 
 cipice, backward, with a scream— the other was 
 killed upon the spot ; while the remaining pair 
 struggled and plunged, with terrible force, under 
 the crushing weight of the carriage. — It gave 
 way. — 'There we go! — over — over!' cried out 
 all the passengers, with a shriek of dismay. — 
 
 ' There we go !' and — over they did go, 
 
 sure enough !" 
 
 They go over on the right side, that is to say 
 not over the precipice, and then, in conferring to- 
 gether on their escape, and the circumstances which 
 preceded it, the following history takes place. 
 
 " ' Oh — yes! — and that air infarnal kag !' re- 
 sponded another. — ' I do marvel what's in it ; — 
 live eels, I guess ? — -How it skipped an' bobbed 
 about, among our toes.' 
 
 '* The driver was that moment examining a 
 small keg with great apparent solicitude. Every 
 hoop and every stave underwent a trial with him. 
 
304 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 " ' Gold dust, I should think/ said Walter, 
 who had often read of it in story books, and 
 poetry : — ' Gold dust, I should think, by his care 
 of what has been spilt among the straw.' 
 
 " ' GooP dust ! fiddle-de-dee ! — some sort o' 
 seed, more like — ' quoth his neighbour ; — * some 
 sort o' seed, I guess ; — nothin' that's made o' 
 gool' is ventered here, on this road, Mister. — 
 I say — you, driver — driver ! — I say ! — what's 
 in that air kag ; hey ? — It aint yong'un seed ; 
 is it?' 
 
 " ' Inyon seed ! — pooty feller, you ! never met 
 with any peep seed afore, I guess? have ye?' 
 
 " ' Peep seed ! you cross, ill tempered, good for 
 nothing whelp !' cried our hero ; springing at him : 
 — ' speak out, sir, speak ! tell him, what's in that 
 air keg?' 
 
 " - Let go o' my throat! let go o' my throat !' 
 
 " ' Let him go,' said a young, serious man, with 
 a mild, but very determined air.- — ' Let him go, 
 sir — would you strangle him? — How can he 
 speak, now?' 
 
 " ' Never, sir — never — till he speaks out ; alive 
 or dead. He can do it, well enough : and if he 
 dooze not, before I count five ; by the God that 
 made me, I'll pitch him over the precipice, after 
 
BROTHER JONATHAN. 305 
 
 the horse ; — aye — and you too, Mr. Hale, if you 
 interfere — we'll go, together.— What's in that air 
 keg, sir ? — one — two — three ' 
 
 " ' Powder — powder — nothin' but powder!' 
 shrieked the ruffian, feeling himself urged, with 
 irresistible power toward the cliff. 
 
 " ' Powder !'— echoed our boy — with a sudden 
 leap of the heart ; — followed by a deadly sick- 
 ness : — ' Powder !' — his arms falling away from 
 the collar of the wretch, as he spoke ; — ' not gun- 
 powder, surely!' 
 
 " 'Ah ; — but I rather guess it is, though !' an- 
 swered the driver ; sneaking off, toward a place 
 of safety, with a malignant shake of the head, 
 which our hero was never able to forget, and had 
 soon cause enough to think of. 
 
 "'Gunpowder! — you don't say so!' faltered 
 out one of the smokers ; — ' not gun-powder ! — 
 why ! ' — ' Possible !' quoth his companion — 
 gasping for breath — dropping his under jaw 7 — 
 and letting his lighted pipe fall out of his mouth, 
 
 into the mud. — — ' Possible !' ( My stars ! — 
 
 Ugh !'" * # # ###### 
 
 " America — as every body knows, there — is the 
 land of liberty and equality ; ' the land of the 
 brave; and the home of the free.' Wherefore, 
 it would be no easy matter for a person travelling, 
 
 x 
 
306 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 to persuade a fall-blooded republican ' driver,' that 
 a keg of gunpowder — and a live pig — with warm- 
 ing pans — cod fish, broad axes, and hollow ware, 
 — paid for inside, were not fit company for half a 
 score of human beings, paid for, inside — with 
 lighted pipes. "— Vol. II. pp. 40—68. 
 
 Nothing in its way can be more admirable than 
 this whole description of the boy's travel in the 
 " stage." It is kept up with equal force and 
 spirit, through forty or fifty pages more. Perhaps 
 we cannot do better than contrast this scene of 
 absolute, literal truth, with one of a somewhat 
 different class. It will serve to shew that our 
 author is not wedded to any particular style of 
 composition, but is equally at home in the cloudy 
 regions of german mysticism as on the face of 
 the common earth. The following, though wild, 
 extravagant, and incoherent, is full of eloquent 
 and passionate beauty. It refers to the hero's 
 first introduction to those scenes with which all 
 great cities abound. 
 
 " They led him to a sofa. They sang — they 
 played. His perceptions grew confused. He 
 thought over all the stories of wood women — 
 fairies — witchcraft — and sorcery. A thousand 
 bright flashes of early dreaming, issued from his 
 young heart, whenever he shut his eyes. The 
 
BROTHER JONATHAN. 307 
 
 room — the flowers — the furniture — -the lemon tree 
 — the birds — the pictures — the pretty goblins— 
 they were like the paraphernalia of sleep, to 
 him. He was half prepared, for their vanishing ; 
 half prepared, for a change, whenever he opened 
 his eyes, whereby they would become giants — 
 or dwarfs ; or he would find himself at home- 
 after all — in his own bed. He grew sleepy- 
 faint. He felt as if sweet lips were saying a 
 sweeter incantation over him. He lay down — 
 he gave himself up, in spite of Harry's admoni- 
 tion, without one word of prayer, to the drowsy, 
 dangerous quiet of the place. He slept— he 
 dreamt ; a small, soft hand was put upon his 
 forehead. He awoke — he started up. The pres- 
 sure was gentle — affectionate ; but, unpreme- 
 ditated — involuntary, perhaps ; yet, he started 
 up, quivering with preternatural fervour, through 
 all his frame. His head swam — his heart reeled 
 —his limbs were powerless. He knew not where 
 he was — nor what he meditated : a glowing face 
 — and large eyes were visible through the dim 
 light; a profusion of hair— and lips, that pur- 
 sued his. He felt, as if he were yet sleeping ; he 
 strove to awake. He felt as if he had gone back, 
 alive, to the day of mystery and fable : as if, with 
 all the power and prerogative ; all the grandeur 
 
 x 2 
 
308 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 — all the bravery, of a man — he had become «, 
 little child, again ; more credulous, than ever ; 
 believing, as then, whatever he read — whatever 
 was told him ; haunting the chambers of the sea, 
 whenever he slept — like that of his own mother, 
 when he was awake. In short — his heart was full 
 of woman — his head, of wine. 
 
 " Do ye marvel that he grew dizzy? Do ye 
 wonder that he grew faint ? — or, that, he breath- 
 ed, after a time, as if his heart were in travail 
 — every sob, a throe ? — or, that, when he awoke, 
 there was a strange trouble in his blood ? — or, 
 that, his hand fell, with convulsive eagerness 
 upon what he knew, by the touch, to be the hand 
 of a beautiful woman? or, that, he pursued it, 
 when it fled, with a cry of passionate longing ? 
 — or, that, when it should have been hastily 
 withdrawn from his bold — presumptuous — dis- 
 tracted pressure — it only trembled with fear — 
 until the alarm of its pulse rang, like electricity, 
 through every fibre of his frame? — or, that, a 
 swift blindness fell upon his eyes ? — or, that, he 
 heard a loud singing all about him, in the air ? 
 — or, that, he would have spoken — but could 
 not — because of his youth — because of his in- 
 tegrity — because of his great innocence — because 
 of his love — in the deep, dreadful, hot, luxury 
 
BROTHER JONATHAN. 309 
 
 of his thought?— or, that, he drew nigh to the 
 tempter — and was about — boy, though he was 
 — to transfer the holy kiss of tried, innocent love, 
 to the lips of pollution ? — or, that, he knew not 
 where he was — nor what he wanted ? — or, that, 
 he grew blind, as it were, and sick, with passion ? 
 — or, that, he was gathering the strange woman 
 — the woman of beauty — into his untroubled, 
 pure bosom, with all his power — in a sort of 
 delirium — a paroxysm — a wild, ungovernable 
 fervour, such as he had never felt before, in all his 
 life ? — or ; do ye marvel, that on seeing — or 
 dreaming that he saw — the apparition of Edith 
 — his own — his beloved Edith — pale and sorrow- 
 ful — before he had betrayed her to the woman ; 
 before he had profaned her innocent love ; sacri- 
 ficed her ; violated her image, in his heart ; or 
 sinned, verily, beyond forgiveness ; do ye marvel 
 that he, the brave boy, when the spirit of Edith 
 went by him, thus — awoke, all at once — like a 
 giant ; sprang away, from the enchantress, with a 
 sharp cry ; and shook her off— the delicate, bad 
 creature — from his bosom — as if she were a thou- 
 sand festering serpents ? 
 
 " Thus did he ; thus — and more like a timid 
 girl, starting from the thraldom of love, just in 
 time to save herself; trembling — full of sorrow 
 
310 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 — and abhorrence — grief — gratitude — and shame: 
 crushed with a sense of her degradation — at 
 having been — for a moment, perhaps, under the 
 influence of mortal treachery ; or, at having felt, 
 for a moment, perhaps — the unholy contagion of 
 a bad love : thus did he — more like such a girl 
 — at such a time — than like a young, adven- 
 turous man — half crazy, with impure passion ; 
 half desperate, with wine. Thus did he — the 
 noble boy. He shook off the woman — went 
 forth, into the middle of the floor ; smote upon it, 
 with his foot — until the house trembled — until 
 a thousand echoes rang through the deserted 
 chambers, with a noise, like that of a multitude 
 ascending the stairs — or mustering on every side 
 of him. 
 
 " But he was alone. Harry had left him, asleep. 
 The woman would have stayed him ; but, when 
 she looked into his pallid face, there was that, in 
 it — so awful — so serious — that she went away 
 abashed, and utterly confounded ; weeping with 
 shame — perhaps, with sorrow — and covering her 
 own face, with her hands. 
 
 " ' Farewell,' said he ; ' I know not who you 
 are — nor what. I only know that you have pur- 
 sued me — till I have come to hate myself. A 
 little more, and I should have hated you ; all 
 
BROTHER JONATHAN, 311 
 
 mankind — all womankind. Nevertheless — I for- 
 give you.' 
 
 " He departed."— Vol. II. pp. 412—417. 
 
 Where there is any of this kind of writing the 
 reader may be pretty sure of finding plenty. 
 What we have given above is a fair specimen of 
 that portion of it which the present volumes con- 
 tain. In fact, they include many shorter pas- 
 sages, and several long scenes, belonging to the 
 above class of writing, which, together with 
 much extravagance, blend not a little of extra- 
 ordinary beauty. 
 
 We cannot close our account of this singular 
 work without unequivocally expressing the very 
 high admiration that we feel for the powers which 
 it indicates : for as an indication alone of intel- 
 lectual power can we accept it — not as a display. 
 Without being so valuable a work as some others 
 that might be named among the late productions 
 of our republican rivals, it is, without any com- 
 parison whatever, the strongest evidence of high 
 talent which that country has hitherto put forth. 
 But whether or not to regard it as a sure promise 
 of greater things from the same source, is more 
 than our total want of information respecting its 
 writer enables us to determine. If Brother Jona- 
 than is the production of a new hand, and is 
 
312 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 thrown off in that reckless and unpremeditated 
 manner which the construction of its plot, &c. 
 seems to indicate, we would at once pronounce it 
 to be the precursor of works of the very highest 
 class, and its writer as destined to occupy a per- 
 manent place in the very foremost rank of his 
 age's literature. But if — as we are half-tempted 
 to fear, from a certain air of practice which pre- 
 vails throughout — it is only one of many similar 
 incoherences which its writer has been inflicting 
 upon his countrymen till they will bear them no 
 longer, and he has now come over to try his 
 fortune upon our less fastidious and experienced 
 judgments, it is a very different matter. In short, 
 if this is a first production in its way, and its 
 author is young, we should be accused of extra- 
 vagance if we were to express the extent of our 
 hopes as to what may follow it. But if its au- 
 thor has written two or three such works, we 
 almost despair of his ever writing a better. 
 
BOCCACCIO AND FIAMETTA. 
 
BOCCACCIO AND FIAMETTA;* 
 
 A TALE OF THE GREEN-WOOD-SHADE, 
 
 BY L H- 
 
 [As far as the writer of the following story is acquainted with 
 the history of the persons mentioned in it, there is no actual 
 foundation for its details. But he seems to have read somewhere, 
 within these few years, a tale in verse, the recollection of which 
 may have suggested it to him. And he believes, also, that Mde. 
 de Genlis, in her half historical romance of " Petrarque and 
 Laure," has imagined a passion between Boccaccio and the 
 daughter of king Robert of Naples.] 
 
 Of all the beautiful vales that wind about among 
 the beautiful hills of Italy, (like blue veins about 
 a young maiden's bosom), there is none so beau- 
 
 * Whence, or for what reason, this paper became a " Rejected" 
 one, I have not been able to learn. Perhaps it was, that some 
 editor, more sagacious than need be, fancied the writer was hoax- 
 ing him. And in fact, I must confess that I am a little puzzled 
 by the paper myself. It professes to be written by the gentleman 
 whose initials it bears ; and I am bound to offer it as such. But 
 
316 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 tiful as that through which the beautiful Arno 
 lapses along beautifully, towards the blue Medi- 
 terranean. 
 
 We have passed a whole short year in this vale, 
 reader, and can hit upon no other so compen- 
 dious method of making thee feel its charms, as 
 that of reiterating upon it the above charming 
 epithet, — which even the language of Italy itself 
 cannot equal, for a certain lingering and liquid 
 softness. 
 
 Among other favours which the Arno confers 
 upon this vale, in return for the privilege of 
 gliding along for ever through its green loveliness, 
 is that of writing its name upon it : Val d' Arno, 
 or Valdarno. At a certain point of Valdarno, then, 
 just where its scenery first begins to be most wild 
 and cultivated, a great forest suddenly starts up 
 almost from the river's edge, and goes frowning 
 away towards the brow of an adjacent hill, where 
 
 though it undoubtedly includes something of the peculiar man- 
 ner of that amiable writer, it seems to me to include more that is 
 not in his manner, but rather in one of the manners of another 
 writer who has also contributed an avowed portion of this volume. 
 The truth is, J am half inclined to suspect that an innocent little 
 deceit has in this instance been practised, and that the story is in 
 fact an imitation of one of these writers' style, by the other. 
 But which is the imitated, which is the imitator, is more than I 
 shall pretend to determine. — Editor. 
 
BOCCACCIO AND FIAMETTA. 317 
 
 its rich cloud-like depths seem to hang upon the 
 otherwise soft and smiling elevation, like masses 
 of dark hair upon the forehead and cheeks of a 
 sweet English woman. 
 
 At the period of our story, Giovanni Boccaccio 
 is said to have held the office of Bard or Minstrel 
 at the court of Robert, King of Naples. And 
 whether from disgust at the hollow pageantries 
 of a court life, or from that morbid turn of feel- 
 ing which poets and scholars are so apt to give 
 way to when they are forced to mix in the merely 
 worldly throng of which they can never form a 
 part, — he had for a time escaped from all inter- 
 course with the world of cities, and was fancying 
 himself content to keep no other company than 
 his own full thoughts, and those fine echoes and 
 answers to them which he seemed never to listen 
 for in vain among the dim glades and under the 
 twilight gloom of this " forest old." 
 
 That the feeling which could prompt the gay 
 and galliard, the lively and loving Boccaccio to 
 take up his abode in the solitary hut of a moun- 
 tain shepherd, must have been a morbid one, who 
 can doubt ? Perhaps — for he was very young at 
 the time we speak of, and had not yet begun 
 to hanker after any other immortality than that 
 " for ever" which enters into every vow of love 
 
318 REJECTED ARTICLES, 
 
 which young lovers are in the habit of pro- 
 nouncing — perhaps some Florentine beauty had 
 looked inimically upon him, just when she had 
 given him least cause to expect it, — as even 
 Italian beauties will. Or perhaps she had smiled 
 consentingly, just as he had begun to revel in the 
 pleasant pains of a lover's despair ; and this had 
 put him out of sorts : for your youthful, and es- 
 pecially your poet lover, is hard to please at any 
 moment or after any fashion but his own. 
 
 Be this as it may, certain it is that our hero 
 had fallen out with everything in the world, but 
 his pen-knife, — armed with which he used to 
 betake himself every morning to the dim recesses 
 of the old wood we have just mentioned, and 
 carve himself out a wayward and wanton sort of 
 comfort, by cutting verses upon the smooth bark 
 of the great Linden trees. 
 
 There was a particular part of the wood in 
 which a noble company of these trees flourished 
 together, each adapting its growth to that of all 
 the rest, in a manner which, if any but a lover 
 had observed it, might have furnished a model 
 from which the members of more pretending com- 
 munities might have taken a lesson. It was to 
 this spot that our sylvan malcontent chiefly 
 directed his steps ; and as practice makes perfect 
 
BOCCACCIO AND IIAMETTA. 319 
 
 in all things — even in writing poetry with a pen- 
 knife — there is no knowing how far his efforts 
 might have gone, towards the demolition of this 
 fine family of " green-robed senators," — (for a 
 Linden tree cannot live without its bark, any 
 more than a lady's lap-dog), — but for a circum- 
 stance which we are now to relate. 
 
 Arriving about noon one day at his accustomed 
 haunt, full, even to the tip of his pen-knife, of a 
 sonnet he had composed as he came along, he was 
 peering about rather impatiently for a fair sheet 
 of bark on which to inscribe it — when lo ! he 
 observed, with a feeling of half fearful surprise, 
 that two or three of his most passionate lucubra- 
 tions had been detached from their places, and 
 fairly carried off by some invisible, and (to him) 
 inconceivable agency ! 
 
 He dropped his extended penknife among the 
 long grass and wild flowers that grew about the 
 roots of the trees — retreated a pace or two from 
 the spot where he was standing, as if to assure 
 himself that what he had seen was not an op- 
 tical trick which his over-excited fancy was play- 
 ing him — and the first half dozen lines of his new 
 sonnet went as clean out of his head as if they had 
 been written by somebody else. 
 
 Recovered a little from his first surpiise, he 
 
320 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 began to cast about him for something like a ra- 
 tional explanation of this seeming mystery. But 
 none presented itself that was at all satisfactory. 
 He believed the wood itself to be entirely free 
 from human inhabitants, or even visitants, except 
 himself. It was evident that the writing had not 
 been defaced by any of the wild animals which he 
 knew made their green dwellings in the forest, or 
 even by any of the few shepherds and herdsmen 
 who alone dwelt on its borders ; for, instead of 
 being nibbled away irregularly by the teeth of the 
 first, or carelessly cut and scraped off by the rude 
 clasp-knives of the second, it had been detached 
 in the most careful manner, by making an incision 
 above, below, and on each side of the writing, 
 and then peeling the whole off together, — leaving 
 the inner surface of the trunk beneath as smooth 
 and white as the back of a new shorn sheep. 
 
 There was another circumstance, too, which 
 perplexed our poet not a little. The particular 
 sets of verses which had so strangely disappeared, 
 were precisely those which he had piqued him- 
 self upon the merit of. In short, the being, 
 whatever it might be, which had thus made so 
 free with some of his best things, was evidently 
 not without a very pretty taste for poetry. 
 
 This thought at any rate helped to restore our 
 
BOCCACCIO AND FIAMETTA. 
 
 321 
 
 wonderer to that state of easy self-complacency 
 in which, notwithstanding his moody quarrel 
 with the world, he was by no means slow to in- 
 dulge himself, when his own poetry was in ques- 
 tion 5 and, instead of perplexing himself further 
 with an affair that seemed likely to baffle all im- 
 mediate inquiry, he conned over his new sonnet 
 again, and having recovered those portions of it 
 which his late surprise had scared away, he em- 
 ployed the rest of the day in carefully pen-knifing 
 it down, at no great distance from the spot from 
 which the others had so lately become Fugitive 
 Pieces. He then sauntered slowly towards his 
 evening retreat, — wondering all the way what could 
 have become of his verses, but feeling less list- 
 less and unhinged than heretofore, from the fillip 
 which his spirits had received by the adventure of 
 the morning. 
 
 The next day found our poet earlier than usual 
 among his Linden trees; on reaching which, how 
 was his not yet abated surprise of yesterday in- 
 creased, at finding that his last sonnet had follow- 
 ed the missing stanzas, and that no trace of it was 
 left, but the great white hiatus which indicated 
 where it had been! 
 
 He composed no more verses that day, but 
 passed the whole of it in puzzling his head with 
 
322 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 vain conjectures about the mystery, and in de- 
 vising the means of making it out. 
 
 At last it occurred to him, (as it would two days 
 before, to any one but a carver of love verses upon 
 lime trees in an old solitary forest), that an act 
 argued an agency, and that as an agent could 
 not conveniently proceed without visible instru- 
 ments, there could be no great difficulty in making 
 out this important mystery, to any one who 
 chose to take the pains of prying pretty closely 
 into it. 
 
 Our poet's measures were therefore taken imme- 
 diately. But before putting them into practice, 
 there was one thing to be considered. The pur- 
 loiner of his poetry (for that there was a pur- 
 loiner seemed now more than probable to our 
 hero, after he had given two whole days' and one 
 night's consideration to the subj ect !) in the first 
 place evidently sought concealment ; and in the 
 next place, was of too elegant and tasteful a turn 
 of mind to be treated impertinently or cavalierly. 
 Accordingly, our inquirer was tempted to postpone 
 his investigation for a day or two, in order to see 
 if chance might not give a natural turn to the dis- 
 closure ; and in the mean time he determined to 
 try the taste of his unknown critic once more, by 
 another copy of verses, which were such particu- 
 
BOCCACCIO AND FIAMETTA. 323 
 
 lar favourites with himself that he had not yet 
 committed them to bark. He did so on this 
 evening, and then went home, in lightsomer spirits 
 than he had felt since he left Naples. 
 
 On the following morning he left his bed of 
 leaves almost as soon as the sun looked in upon 
 it ; and after satisfying himself that he was by no 
 means impatient to learn the fate of his last 
 stanzas, he made his way towards the Linden 
 trees by the most direct path he knew of; not, 
 however, without loitering a little by the way, in 
 order to convince himself that he was in no hurry : 
 a piece of natural and innocent self-deceit, which, 
 by the bye, cost him another whole day and 
 night's increased curiosity and impatience ; to say 
 nothing of its making him run the risk of catching 
 his death of cold into the bargain : for at the very 
 instant that he came, at a sudden turn of the 
 path, upon the spot where his favourite Lindens 
 flourished, he heard a rustling sound among the 
 underwood at the extremity of the little glade, 
 and caught a glimpse of a white vestment gleam- 
 ing through the leaves, and saw a still whiter 
 hand vanish away among them, and leave them 
 quivering as if with pleasure at its touch. 
 
 To couple this unlooked-for appearance with 
 the equally unlooked-for ^-appearance of his 
 
 y 2 
 
324 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 verses, was the affair of a moment. He flew to 
 those which he had carved the evening before, and 
 they were gone. 
 
 Here, then, was the mystery explained at once ; 
 but explained in a way to anything but satisfy 
 our hero's curiosity. What was to be done in 
 this case ? To follow the fair fugitive would be 
 rude, since her wisli for concealment was evidently 
 not coquettish, but sincere. And yet to rest 
 satisfied with the discovery that his verses had 
 not been spirited away by superhuman agency, 
 was quite as little to be thought of. An alterna- 
 tive presented itself, which promised to satisfy his 
 curiosity without sacrificing his politeness ; and 
 this he at once made up his mind to adopt. 
 
 Though he felt that courtesy forbad him to pry 
 into the comings and goings of this beautiful 
 plagiarist, (for he had already invested her with 
 every beauty under heaven,) he had evidently a 
 perfect right to pass his evenings where he 
 pleased ; and if he had a fancy, even, for sleep- 
 ing in the open air these fine summer nights, and 
 making his bed on the bough of a particular tree, 
 there could be no doubt whatever that he was 
 free to indulge it. Accordingly, he spent what 
 might have seemed to anybody else a more than 
 reasonable portion of the day in polishing into the 
 
BOCCACCIO AND FJAMETTA. 325 
 
 most graceful and sparkling perfection a stanza 
 touching the discovery of the morning. This he 
 carved on a convenient spot, in his best manner/ 
 and then returned to his hut, to make some little 
 preparations for his intended alfresco. For, to do 
 our poet justice, he was not one of those ill-condi- 
 tioned people who neglect their personal comfort, 
 and fancy they have taken a distaste to life and its 
 pleasures, merely because they have happened to 
 fall upon a particular mode of it which is naturally 
 unsuited to them. In short, though his naturally 
 exciteable temperament had led him to feel a sort 
 of moody anger against certain things and people 
 among whom he had lately been thrown, he was 
 too young and full of health to be other than wise ; 
 his veins were filled with a stream of wholesome 
 red blood, which ran too freely up and down them 
 ever to permit him to be blind to the beauties 
 of that creation which he already felt that he 
 himself was destined hereafter to assist in beau- 
 tifying. 
 
 We will not follow our hero back to his cottage 
 dwelling, but fancy that he has been there, and 
 provided himself with his little wallet of wine and 
 eatables, not forgetting his graceful cloak of crim- 
 son velvet, over the collar of which his rich chesnut 
 curls used to drop clusteringly, when, a month 
 
326 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 ago, he justly reckoned himself among the gayest 
 of Neapolitan gallants. We will fancy, too, that 
 he has eaten his supper of fruit with more than 
 usual gusto ; taken an additional cup of Cyprus, 
 to keep out the cold air ; and comfortably esta- 
 blished himself for the night, among the inter- 
 twisted branches of the very tree on the stem of 
 which he had carved his last piquant effusion. 
 
 He was not much disposed to sleep ; for, to say 
 nothing of the novel nature of his couch, with its 
 everquivering curtains of green leaves, his thoughts, 
 however pleasing, were of a nature to perplex ra- 
 ther than soothe — they were so entirely without 
 any particular point to rest on. So that, after 
 puzzling himself for a long while, pleasantly enough, 
 but to no purpose, as to who and what the owner 
 of the white hand that he still saw perpetually 
 vanishing away among the hazel leaves could 
 possibly be, he was fain to yield himself up to that 
 voluptuous waking dream which the sights and 
 sounds all about him seemed expressly intended 
 to excite. There was the misty and scarcely more 
 than twilight gloom of the old wood. There was 
 the soft Italian air, sighing gently among the 
 leaves, and making them whisper and twitter to 
 each other like birds at love-making. There was the 
 scent of the wild-flowers, steaming up from below, 
 
BOCCACCIO AND F1AMETTA. 327 
 
 like incense from so many fairy censers. And above 
 all, there was the rich, deep- hearted voice of one 
 solitary nightingale, (made solitary, perhaps, as our 
 visionary fancied, by the same cause that made 
 him so,) bathing all things in a bright flood of 
 melody, as the moonlight bathes the waters. 
 
 That such a state of things as this, was not very 
 likely to set a poet to sleep, is pretty evident. 
 Whether or not it did set ours to sleep, is more 
 than we pretend to have been informed of. Cer- 
 tain it is that he saw the new day blush to life, 
 through the leafy lattice- work of his green bed- 
 room — for the first time, by the bye, since he 
 had taken to cultivate an intimacy with courtiers. 
 And he had scarcely time to reckon how dearly he 
 had been paying for the very equivocal pleasure of 
 passing for a wit and a fine gentleman, before his 
 whole soul and senses were absorbed in the object 
 which now presented itself. 
 
 In choosing out the spot that was to serve him 
 for a bed-room and watch-tower in one, he had of 
 course taken care that it should command a view 
 of that particular point of the wood where the 
 white hand had made its disappearance. And to 
 this point, be sure, his eyes had been constantly 
 directed, ever since the light had given him leave 
 
328 
 
 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 to see it ; and directed so intensely, that, to say- 
 truth, they had no less than three times created 
 the object they were in search of. So that at last, 
 when that object did come in reality, he was by 
 no means sure that they were not for the fourth 
 time making a fool of him. But who shall de- 
 scribe his wondering and breathless attention, 
 when, as he gazed, that still emerging hand was 
 followed by a foot to match ; and then, after a 
 moment's pause, by a face looking like a fawn's 
 half fearfully from out the leaves, that seemed to 
 crowd about it lovingly; and then, after another 
 moment's pause, the whole form emerged from 
 among the closing bushes, and having stood for 
 a-while as if to listen if there was any other sound 
 than that made by the coming together of the 
 leaves, stepped forward on tip-toe, with a hushing 
 motion of the right hand, and with half-open 
 listening lips, — the very picture, as our poet 
 thought, of some fabled creature, born of the air, 
 the twilight, and the leaves. 
 
 Alas ! it had been well for both if she had been 
 such ! It had spared many a pang to two loving 
 hearts, that should by rights have been lapt for 
 ever in the Elysium of their own gentleness ! It 
 had — but stay — we had not need anticipate. The 
 
BOCCACCIO AND FIAMETTA. 329 
 
 sad part of our story will come soon enough of itself, 
 and will last long enough, without our letting it 
 interfere with the happy part. 
 
 There was a hushing silence all about, as the 
 beautiful creature kept advancing — every now and 
 then pausing for a moment, and looking round 
 half playfully, half timidly, towards the spot from 
 which she had emerged, as if fearful of being seen 
 or pursued ; while our poet kept gazing at her more 
 and more intently, as she came nearer and nearer 
 to the spot above which he was situated. 
 
 At last he saw the lady — (for that she was a 
 lady — a very woman — he was soon pretty well 
 convinced, if by nothing else, by the eager cours- 
 ing of his own blood through its channels, and 
 the tingling sensation which it seemed to carry 
 with it, even to the very tips of his fingers) — he 
 saw her approach the very tree in the branches of 
 which he was couching, and at last come to a full 
 stop before it. 
 
 His heart beat awfully. It fairly frightened 
 him with its pertinacious knocking : for he had 
 never felt anything of this kind in the presence of 
 those court beauties among whom he had gained 
 what little experience he possessed in matters of 
 love. It beat — and beat — and his breath came 
 
330 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 shorter and shorter — and he grew sick with a sort 
 of faint longing, for — he knew not what — unless it 
 was, to drop from his concealment at the feet of 
 that fair creature, and tell her that the poet whose 
 poor verses she had come all that way to read (all 
 the way from Florence, for anything he knew to 
 the contrary) was there at hand, ready to pour 
 out whole floods of them, with which the bare 
 sight of her sweet presence had filled his soul to 
 overflowing. 
 
 Meanwhile, the object of this unpronounced 
 rhapsody was standing almost immediately be- 
 neath the silent rhapsodist, quietly perusing the 
 effusion of yesterday. She read it twice from be- 
 ginning to end, before she perceived the allusion 
 it contained to the disappearance of its fellows. 
 But when she did perceive this allusion, into what a 
 pretty blushing perplexity it cast her ! She felt as 
 if the poet himself was present in his verses, and was 
 gazing full upon her, as she gazed on them ; and 
 she half turned round, and made a movement, as 
 if she would have fled before that eager glance. 
 
 Our poet saw her, and was ready to drop from 
 out his hiding place at the sight ; for he thought 
 that if once that vision melted away from before 
 his rapt senses, (for now that the first rush of his 
 
BOCCACCIO AND FIAMETTA. 331 
 
 young blood had ceased, he began to fancy it a 
 vision again,) he should never either behold it 
 again, or be able to bear the loss of it. But 
 she turned again, and stood still to re-peruse 
 the verses ; and he was again still as a statue. 
 
 She could scarcely (as he thought) have had 
 time to read the first couplet again, before a 
 thought seemed suddenly to strike her. She 
 looked away from the stem on which the verses 
 were graven — felt about her slender waist hurried- 
 ly, as if for something that was concealed in 
 her girdle — found it-— stepped up towards the 
 tree eagerly — and placing one of her white hands 
 leaningly against the dark trunk, began to move 
 the dainty fingers of the other above and on each 
 side the spot where the verses stood, 
 
 There was no time to be lost. She was evi- 
 dently about to carry them and herself off to- 
 gether; and now that her furtive visits to the 
 wood had been noticed, she would of course never 
 repeat them, and he should equally of course never 
 see her again. 
 
 This latter thought brought back all his self-pos- 
 session ; and his recollection that she was a mere 
 woman, and not a vision, came back with it. The 
 next moment she started almost " like a guilty 
 
332 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 thing," at the sound of rustling leaves and crack- 
 ling branches over head ; and the next, Boccaccio 
 was kneeling at her feet. 
 
 Fiametta- (for that was the lady's name — in 
 thinking of her gentle nature we had almost for- 
 gotten that she had a name) Fiametta fairly cried 
 out, from a momentary mixture of terror and sur- 
 prise at this somewhat startling apparition : for, 
 coyishness apart, it was a little startling, coming 
 before her as it did in the midst of a solitary wood, 
 when she was thinking of nothing less. But we 
 must do her the injustice to say, that she did not 
 perform this little female feat by any means after 
 the most approved method in such cases made 
 and provided by our modern representatives of 
 romance heroines, either on the stage, or among 
 the leaves of the circulating library. The truth is, 
 she did not perceive anything very frightful in the 
 sight of a graceful human form, bending silently 
 at her feet, in that attitude of adoration which 
 she had been taught to adopt herself, when she 
 sent up her innocent prayers to the unseen giver 
 of good ; and therefore, after the first instinctive 
 movement of surprise, she did not see any reason 
 whatever for falling into that passion of tears, 
 screams, and terrified supplications for pity and 
 
BOCCACCIO AND FI.AMETTA. 333 
 
 forbearance, which undoubtedly ought, according 
 to all rule, to have been the immediate consequence 
 of her situation. 
 
 If indeed the object which she saw couching 
 before her, with its bright eyes eagerly fixed upon 
 hers, had been a young tiger instead of a young 
 man, the abovenamed mode of receiving its atten- 
 tions might have been natural enough, however 
 unlikely to answer its intended end. But under 
 the " existing circumstances," we cannot but 
 think that our heroine acted the more natural 
 part, and certainly the more agreeable one, in 
 merely uttering a faint hurried cry, like that of a 
 bird scared from its covert, and then bounding 
 back for a space, and shrinking up into herself, as 
 it were, as she gazed silently upon the silent being 
 before her. At the same time, her countenance 
 shewed all the marks of the prettiest wonderment 
 in the world ; but a wonderment, withal, by no 
 means either angry or terrified. 
 
 But what is our poet doing and saying all this 
 while? Why, not moving a jot from his first 
 attitude, nor uttering a single word ! And yet 
 (for we must not conceal the truth) he had knelt 
 at ladies' feet before now, and was never accused 
 of any lack of words or impediment of utterance 
 on such occasions. 
 
334 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 In fact, the loves and beauties of a court and 
 city life — even the court of the excellent King 
 Robert, and the city of Naples itself — however 
 pleasant and proper they may be, are something 
 different from those which are to be met with 
 among woods and glades : that is to say, when 
 any are to be met with among the latter places at 
 all. And our poet was not the person to pass over 
 that difference, or fail to appreciate it. In the 
 gentle yet blooming form of Fiametta, he beheld 
 what he had never seen before, even in fancy ; 
 though he could not help feeling,-— as he gazed on 
 it, and it grew more blooming every moment by 
 the blushes that broke out all over it, —that at least 
 he ought to have seen it in fancy — else, of what 
 avail was his poetry to him ? And he felt, for a 
 passing moment, that poetry must be but a poor 
 thing, if it could be put to open shame, and its 
 votary be surprised and dumb-foundered, before a 
 being who, from her air and appearance, (to say 
 nothing of her strangely wild and sylvan attire,) 
 had evidently never undergone the process of a 
 lover's adoration before, and scarcely seemed to 
 know what it could mean. 
 
 But Boccaccio was luckily a poet, as well as a 
 poet laureate. It is no wonder, therefore, that all 
 these artificial modes of considering the matter 
 
BOCCACCIO AND FIAMETTA. 335 
 
 presently melted away, as the bright creature 
 before him recovered her natural and graceful 
 self-possession, and without shewing any very 
 determinate signs of departure, permitted him to 
 rise from his knee, and address a few phrases to 
 her (which, by the bye, we are bound to confess 
 were by no means skilfully constructed ones) 
 touching the situation in which the parties at that 
 moment found themselves. 
 
 Oh ! what bright looks and what tender talk 
 now ensued, between this pair of gentle sylvans ! 
 for each had been more than half enamoured of 
 the other before they met, and one soft interchange 
 of eyebeams stood them in stead of all the " give 
 me leave to introduces" that they ought, by rights 
 of wrong, to have waited for. In a word, each 
 saw in the other what each had long been looking 
 and sighing for without knowing it ; and of their 
 now meeting eyes was born a love that lasted — too 
 long. 
 
 Thus far our information has enabled us to be 
 tolerably precise, as to the " whereabout" of at 
 least one of our lovers. And we are enabled to 
 add, in regard to the other, that she had been 
 living, ever since her birth, in a great solitary 
 castle at the farther extremity of the old wood ; 
 splendidly attended, and suffered to run almost 
 
336 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 wild about the grounds, and the adjacent forest, 
 like a fawn. But she knew nothing of her birth 
 and condition, any more than that her father 
 sometimes visited her from a great way off, where 
 he lived. Except him, she had seen no one that 
 she could remember, but the various attendants 
 that were about her. These treated her as their 
 mistress in everything, except that they did not 
 seem to like her to be out of their sight for long 
 together ; — though we have seen that she had con- 
 trived to be so two or three times, since her first 
 discovery of the poetical Linden trees. 
 
 All this she herself had told our (now her) 
 hero, before they had been together a lover's half 
 minute — that is to say a rather long half-hour. 
 Moreover, she assured him that she was " very 
 happy." But it appeared evident, from some- 
 thing which dropped from her at the same time, 
 that it was the happiness of a bird that is born 
 in a great gilded aviary, and passes its life half 
 in singing for joy at what it has, and half in 
 pining after what it wants, without knowing what 
 that is. 
 
 If we piqued ourselves on being accomplished 
 story-tellers, we should now proceed to edify the 
 reader with an account of the various love scenes 
 which followed the above meeting. But we do not. 
 
BOCCACCIO AND FI AM ETTA. 337 
 
 If we pique ourselves on anything, *it is on 
 having more respect for the passion of love 
 itself, than desire of showing our skill in develop- 
 ing its subtleties. So we shall here drop the 
 curtain of concealment upon our gentle pair of 
 wooers, and leave them to their own devices for 
 a brief space — brief in the world's calendar — 
 and brief even in their reckoning of it— but yet 
 filled to overflowing with thoughts and images 
 and sentiments, that spread themselves out 
 endlessly over their whole after life, and made 
 that little space seem longer than all the rest, 
 and yet, somehow or other, briefer than a passing 
 thought. 
 
 No — never shall it be said that we sought to 
 pry impertinently into that most holy of all pre- 
 cincts, the spot which is hallowed by the pre- 
 sence of two lovers. Let the ground all about 
 them, as far as their bright eyebeams can dart, 
 be sacred as Apollo's grove ! And let their 
 words and looks and actions be as much their 
 own as their un pronounced thoughts ! From 
 us the reader shall never hear a whisper of what 
 passed between these lovers, from the moment 
 they became such. Let it suffice that they did 
 become lovers — no " star-crossed " pair more true. 
 But how their great love showed itself — whether 
 
 z 
 
338 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 in mere eye-language, or sigh-music, or whispered 
 words, 
 
 " O dolci baci, o eosa altra piu cara," 
 
 is more than we pretend to know a syllable about. 
 No — we leave them to each other ; — the only com- 
 pany lovers ever care to keep, and into which 
 none else should intrude, even in fancy. 
 
 Many, summer days had come and gone, and 
 few of their suns had risen without seeing Boc- 
 caccio and Fiametta on their way to meet each 
 other, beneath the deep shade of the favourite 
 Linden trees. When one evening, as our bard 
 was musing within himself on a world of matters 
 touching the future and the past, (that is to say, 
 to-morrow and yesterday), but utterly unheeding 
 of the present, a messenger reached him from his 
 royal master at Naples, requiring his early pre- 
 sence, to assist in giving eclat to a fete of unri- 
 valled splendour, which was soon to take place 
 at court, but the precise occasion of w T hich w 7 as 
 enveloped in a sort of courtly mystery. 
 
 This intelligence seemed to come upon our young 
 dreamer " like a thief in the night." It waked 
 him to a remembrance that there was something 
 else in the world besides day-break, Linden trees, 
 and lovers' talk. Not that this made him un- 
 
BOCCACCIO AND FIAMETTA. 339 
 
 happy. On the contrary, it seemed to open be- 
 fore him a new and almost endless vista of bright 
 hopes — every one of which seemed stamped, as it 
 were, with the image of his Fiametta : for he felt 
 that she was his, though they had not yet ex- 
 changed vows, or even recollected that there were 
 such things as vows in the world. 
 
 They must part for a time. That was evi- 
 dent. But how should they meet again ? And 
 when? And under what characters? And to 
 what end ? These, and a whole string, or rather 
 crowd of other questions, all came rushing upon 
 his awakening fancy at once, and perplexing it for 
 replies. 
 
 " But away with fears and misgivings !" thought 
 our ardent hero, in the buoyancy of youthful spirits 
 that came back with his new-born hopes. ei My 
 royal master is good and kind — and has loved, him- 
 self, they say, and therefore will not turn ungently 
 from the tale of my love — and I shall gain his quick 
 leave to return here, and seek out the father of 
 my sweet mistress — and we will tell him how 
 truly we love — and he shall join our hands, under 
 a rain of tearful blessings — and we will live 
 here, in our own forest world— and I will so 
 people it with the bright beings of my fancy, 
 
 z 2 
 
340 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 and so beautify it with enamoured thoughts, that 
 the lovers of after times shall make love-pilgrimages 
 to the spot where Fiametta and Boccaccio met, 
 and loved, and lived, and " died, he was go- 
 ing to pronounce, like all the rest, triumphant- 
 ly : but the thought struck a chill upon his heart, 
 and put to flight in a moment all his fond ima- 
 ginations ; for now that word had acquired a 
 new and sad meaning. To die, meant, not to 
 part from life — which had never yet entered 
 his young imagination — but from Fiametta — 
 which he was at this very moment called upon 
 to do. 
 
 There was no time for pondering on the summons 
 he had received. If he set out on the day after to- 
 morrow, he would only just have time to reach 
 Naples by that appointed for the solemn festival. 
 There was nothing left, therefore, but to prepare for 
 his departure. So he breathed forth a blithe de- 
 fiance to the sad images that a word had conjured 
 up — thought away for a moment the interval be- 
 tween ':' now" and that other " now" which was 
 to make him so happy — and then laid himself 
 down upon his simple couch, and fairly wept him- 
 self to sleep with fond yearnings after the meeting 
 of to-morrow. 
 
BOCCACCIO AND FIAMETTA. 341 
 
 Let that meeting, more than all the rest, be 
 sacred from sight. Let it suffice to know that 
 the lovers parted, as they met, happy in each 
 other's smiles, and still more happy in the sweet 
 * tears that broke through them. And Boccaccio, 
 without waiting for the morrow, hurried at once 
 on his way to Naples. Nor did his journey lack 
 the accompaniment of glad songs, which told of 
 his happy return to the dark forest of Valdarno, 
 and the dark eyed beauty that dwelt upon its 
 borders. 
 
 On reaching Naples the day before the festival, 
 our minstrel (for he must now put on that cha- 
 racter for a time) found that no one could give 
 him any information, as to the occasion of this 
 extraordinary gathering together of all the nobles 
 of the kingdom at the court of King Robert ; 
 (hough many strange rumours were afloat, assign- 
 ing all sorts of incomprehensible reasons, and 
 among others, that either a new queen was to be 
 presented to them, or what seemed still more 
 unlikely, (for the king had never been married,) 
 an unexpected heir to the throne and kingdom. 
 
 But all this, and even all the kind and eager 
 greetings that met him on his return to Naples, 
 (for he was a great favourite with everybody,) 
 
342 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 were " caviare" to our poet lover. He was 
 thinking of when it would all be over, and he 
 should be on his happy return to his now chosen 
 retreat in the old forest of Valdarno, and within 
 sighing distance of its sweet sylvan queen. Even 
 the brilliant court beauties, that glided stately by 
 him as he made his way through the well known 
 avenues of the palace, with their earnest faces 
 intent on the preparations for the morrow, did 
 not stir his still thoughts a jot. They had never 
 touched his heart ; and now that that was occu- 
 pied, his senses were asleep. 
 
 Meanwhile, time passes — and the morning of 
 the festival is come — and the great hall of the 
 palace is thrown open — and the courtly guests 
 are arriving in companies of two, three, four, five 
 together, and moving along silently over the velvet 
 floor, — their stately plumes nodding and sway- 
 ing about loftily till they reach their appointed 
 places, and then, after one deep bend forwards, 
 settling into a quivering stillness as their wearers 
 finally take their seats — and the banquet tables 
 are spread out profusely, with all but the hot 
 refections that are to be put on when the feast is 
 about to commence — and the tall guards stand 
 motionless at the lofty entrances— and the trimly 
 
BOCCACCIO AND FJAMETTA. ' 343 
 
 attired pages are passing their slim forms hither 
 and thither daintily — and there is a hushing and 
 eager stillness over the whole scene. 
 
 Let us now look away for a moment, and then 
 turn to the scene again, when the more lordly of 
 the guests are arrived, and it has put on its whole 
 rich completeness. Entering upon it from the 
 lofty antichamber into which the great hall opens, 
 we will place ourselves in the great gaping door- 
 way itself, and look around us, just before the 
 signal has been given for the banquet to com- 
 mence. 
 
 Right in front stretches out, strait as a line, 
 the rich foot-cloth of white velvet painted all over 
 with flowers, on which the king and his chief 
 nobles have just passed up the hall to their high 
 places. The rest of the floor is laid all over with 
 crimson velvet ; and for a space on each side the 
 centre foot-cloth, there is a vacancy, for the pages 
 and attendants to move about freely. On each 
 side of the hall, from end to end, are placed the 
 tables at which are sitting, face to face, the 
 second rank of guests, — the princely plumes and 
 glittering tiaras of the dames alternating brilliant- 
 ly with the dark dropping curls of the unbonneted 
 cavaliers, all along the double line of perspective ; 
 while, between these at intervals, as they move 
 
344 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 gracefully to address each other, we catch quick 
 glances of the glittering table furniture, and see 
 the pyramids of ornamental confectionary, and 
 rich clusters of flowers, stand motionless. This 
 part of the scene is finished, midway in height on 
 each side, by the rich old tapestry which lines 
 the walls, — the still and absorbing gloom of which 
 contrasts quaintly with the busy brilliance which 
 it shuts in. 
 
 . Now, passing the eye upward a little on either 
 side, it rests upon the temporary galleries which 
 have been erected for the, third rank of guests, 
 who must be content on this solemn occasion to 
 be spectators merely. These galleries run parallel 
 with the side tables ; their gorgeously carved and 
 gilded fronts projecting just even with the inner 
 line of the table guests below. Here, in these 
 galleries, the show of beauty is still more brilliant 
 than below ; the plumed heads and jewelled necks 
 being crowded more closely together, and the 
 seats rising one behind another as they recede ; so 
 that the bright shew reaches up to the arched and 
 painted ceiling of the hall. 
 
 Midway between these galleries, from the cen- 
 tre of the arched ceiling, hang the pyramids of 
 light that illuminate the whole scene — circle 
 rising above circle, and diminishing as they rise, 
 
BOCCACCIO AND FIAMETTA. 345 
 
 till the upper one does but j ust leave space for the 
 great twisted cord of crimson silk which supports 
 them to pass through, and end underneath in a 
 heavy pear-shaped tassel. 
 
 Now, passing the eye downward again towards 
 the farther end of the hall, ■ it falls upon the 
 crowning richness of this bright scene. There, 
 on a platform raised three steps above the floor, 
 stands the royal table, bent inwards to a half 
 circle, corresponding in size with the side ones. 
 The surface we cannot see ; but from its hither 
 edge depends a drapery of purple velvet, hanging 
 down to the ground in heavy flutings — heavy with 
 the rich embroidery-work of gold that runs round 
 its lower edge. 
 
 On this table stand no flowers, nor fantastical 
 ornaments ; but only a gorgeous profusion of 
 vessels, of every shape, and for every use that 
 can serve at a great festival ; and all golden : — not 
 polished and glittering, as if alive with the 
 glancing lights that they fling back from them ; 
 but heavy, massive, dead, as if they absorbed the 
 rich yellow rays, and grew richer and heavier as 
 they stood. 
 
 Here and there among them, you may dis- 
 tinguish jewelled cups and chalices, not sparkling, 
 but glowing, with the mingled hues of the grate- 
 
346 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 ful emerald — the streaming topaz — the smiling 
 ruby — the tender sapphire — the intense amethyst 
 — the burning carbuncle — and the everchanging, 
 infinite-hued opal. 
 
 Round the furthermost side of this semicircle 
 of clustering gorgeousness are seated (six on each 
 side the centre) the twelve chief nobles of king 
 Robert's dominions • and in the centre of all — 
 distinguished from the rest only by his jewelled 
 crown — sits the noblest of them all, no less in 
 mind than in mien and bearing ; — the good, the 
 gracious, the graceful, the kind-hearted, the high- 
 thoughted king himself, — more kingly in his 
 proud want of all pride than the merely vain ones 
 of the earth can conceive. 
 
 Almost immediately behind the king, (serving 
 at once as a dark ground to set off, and a glowing 
 richness to finish, that part of the scene), there 
 falls from ceiling to floor, and from side to side of 
 the hall, a drapery, full to an almost cumbersome 
 profuscness, of crimson velvet — all of one uni- 
 formly rich yet sober intensity, and only broken 
 at top by a second set of draperies, looped up 
 into heavy folds, which take a tent-like form in 
 the centre, and are finished at the edge by a 
 deep embroidered border, and a dropping fringe of 
 gold. 
 
BOCCACCIO AND F1AMETTA. 347 
 
 But enough of the mere externals of this 
 courtly scene. Its gorgeous glories are dazzling 
 our eyes, and keeping them too long away from 
 our story. 
 
 What has become of our minstrel, amidst all 
 this splendour? Be sure he has not been for- 
 gotten by his princely master and friend — made 
 too princely by his high nature, not to feel, that 
 a poet's presence graces the proudest feast, and 
 that a poet's friendship adds a finishing lustre 
 to the brightest crown. 
 
 The place assigned to Boccaccio was one which, 
 while it made him conspicuous in the eyes of the 
 whole great assembly, shew r ed off the fine unifor- 
 mity of the scene, by slightly breaking in upon it. 
 To every other object on which the eye seemed 
 called upon to rest, it might, by looking in an 
 opposite direction, find a corresponding object to 
 match. But the minstrel was seated alone, in 
 that otherwise vacant space left on the raised 
 platform by the inward sweep of the royal table. 
 His gracious master himself had assigned him 
 that place : for though he seldom remembered that 
 there was but one king in his dominions, he 
 never forgot that there was but one Boccaccio. 
 
 There our young bard sat — his head modestly 
 and gracefully bent forward — iiis eyes half-closed 
 
348 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 and cast upon the ground — his air half-abashed, 
 half abstracted — and motionless as a marble 
 statue. 
 
 He was at that moment enjoying his glorious 
 poet-privilege, of living in two states of being at 
 once — each the best of all other states in its way. 
 His imagination was soaring to the high and 
 bright regions of poesy, in search of thoughts 
 and images to fulfil his appointed task ; and his 
 heart was walking humbly upon the green earth, 
 far away among the Linden trees of Valdarno. 
 
 We have not yet mentioned, that at the king's 
 right hand stood a vacant chair. Here, then, no 
 doubt, centered the high mystery of the hour. 
 He turned, and gave a momentary glance at that 
 unfilled seat — a flush of grave joy passed over his 
 face — and he rose up. 
 
 In an instant the busy hum was hushed, and 
 an utter silence seemed to fall over the whole as- 
 sembly like a misty cloud. 
 
 After a moment's pause, and a look of proud 
 pleasure cast all around him, the king spoke. 
 His address was brief and simple ; not without 
 that terseness which it seems in the very nature 
 of kings to affect. He said, that he had to thank 
 Heaven, and he did thank it night and morning, 
 lor a reign which had hitherto been as happy to 
 
BOCCACCIO AND FIAMETTA. 349 
 
 him as the sight of his people's happiness could 
 make it. He said, that the love they had ever 
 shewn for him was no less grateful to his heart, 
 than that which he felt for them. He said, that 
 one thing alone had seemed wanting to both, to 
 complete the happy union between them, and 
 make it a bond of mutual hope as well as joy. 
 " That want," he added, after a pause, during 
 which those who were near him might have seen 
 a sweet thrill of delight tremble round his affec- 
 tionate mouth, and his eyes fill with tears, which 
 kept standing there while he spoke, — " That 
 want, I fondly think, is this happy day to be 
 supplied. For sixteen years I have been cherish- 
 ing a treasure, which I have concealed from the 
 eyes of the world with a miser's care ; but only 
 till I could try its worth, and prove it to be a 
 treasure, such as it becomes a beloved king to offer 
 to the people of his love. I have proved it — I 
 have found it that treasure — and I now present it 
 to the admiring eyes, and commend it to the 
 grateful hearts, of those whom it will, I fondly 
 hope, one day help to make as happy as I have 
 tried to make them." 
 
 So saying, he turned half round where he stood 
 — motioned with his hand — and as he did so, the 
 
350 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 great velvet curtain, that hung closed behind him, 
 began to open in the centre, and gather itself 
 away into gorgeous cloud-like folds towards the 
 sides of the hall. At the same moment the king 
 stepped back a pace or two, and led forth from 
 beneath it, a form whose gentleness so tempered 
 its beauty, that the gazers seemed to love it at 
 once, even in the midst of the admiring awe and 
 surprise that the first sight of it threw over 
 them. 
 
 " Behold," said Robert, " the daughter of your 
 king !" 
 
 In an instant a shout was uttered through the 
 hall, that seemed to strike against the vaulted 
 roof as if for escape. It shook the flames of 
 the tapers till they quivered, and seemed to pene- 
 trate through all the inanimate objects till they 
 trembled as they stood. But its utterers scarcely 
 heard it at all — so absorbed were they in the busy 
 thoughts and feelings of the moment. 
 
 There was one present who heard that shout — 
 and it shook her heart with an unknown fear — and 
 she sank silently into the seat that was near her — 
 and held her father's hand — -and pressed it trem- 
 blingly. 
 
 There was another who heard it with a grave 
 
BOCCACCIO AND FI AM ETTA. 351 
 
 joy — and it lifted him where he stood, and seemed 
 to place him on that highest of thrones, built up 
 of the hearts of his people. 
 
 There was one who heard it not at all. Boccaccio 
 had looked upon the scene with an indifference 
 amounting almost to impatience, till towards the 
 latter part of the king's address. But when he 
 talked of having cherished a treasure, and " con- 
 cealed it from the eyes of the world,' 7 a vague 
 feeling of — he scarcely knew what — seemed to 
 shoot through his frame, and shake it with a 
 strange fear ; and his attention was instantly 
 aroused to a pitch of intense fixedness. 
 
 As the king paused, and motioned with his 
 hand, a fatal presentiment seemed to seize upon 
 Boccaccio's breast, as it were with bodily fingers, 
 and almost stop his breath : but still he gazed at 
 the great mysterious curtain, which now began 
 to move. His eye seemed to pierce like an arrow 
 through the opening. At length the heavy folds 
 drew back, and he heheld — his gentle Fiametta ! 
 — beheld her only for a moment — but long 
 enough to feel that she was not his, and never 
 could be. 
 
 The icy coldness that had been for the last few 
 moments gathering about his heart, seemed to 
 
352 REJECTED ARTICLES. 
 
 settle into its very centre — a dull, dead weight 
 fell upon his brain— his limbs trembled and 
 bent beneath him as if palsy-stricken — and 
 (unobserved) he sunk lifeless on the spot where 
 he stood. 
 
 That great sljout had no more power to wake 
 him from his trance, than an infant's whisper. 
 He never thoroughly awoke from it again. When 
 the momentary surprise and joy of the assembly 
 had subsided, and the banquet was about to com- 
 mence, Boccaccio's situation was discovered, and 
 he was taken from the hall. 
 
 He left Naples that very night, and was heard 
 of no more for many months. When he was heard 
 of, it was in his native Florence ; where his fine 
 spirit was flinging itself away recklessly, upon the 
 loose pleasures of a licentious city. 
 
 As for his sometime mistress, the splendours 
 of a court life disturbed and perplexed her at 
 first ; then dazzled and delighted her. But when 
 she afterwards became the wife of the Prince of 
 Arragon, (to whom her father had contracted 
 her before he took her from her retreat), the 
 twilight shades and smooth stemmed Linden 
 trees of the old forest of Valdarno, haunted her 
 fancy for ever, like a dream, and cast a dim hue 
 
BOCCACCIO AND Fl AM ETTA. 353 
 
 of thought over her face, which did not make it 
 less fair. 
 
 And now, do not let us leave the conclusion of 
 our story sadder than it need be. Let us believe 
 that if Boccaccio had not, in his early youth, met 
 with this ill-starred " affair of the heart," he 
 would have kept aloof from those scenes into 
 which his sad thoughts threw him, and the world 
 have been without that famous " Decameron" 
 which those scenes at once impelled and qualified 
 him to write. 
 
 TH E EN D 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 IBOTSON AND PALMER, PRINTERS, SAVOY STREET, STRAND. 
 
m 2 5 1951 
 

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