^''i*;v A; Ai 0: O: 1 \ 41 1 i TheLastEssays ^ofElia- 7^1 ^^^H ^^^^H 3 ' S ^^^^^^1 ^^^^^^^H ^ ^=c ^^^^^^^^^^1 ^^^^^^^^^^^^1 7 ^- ^^^^H ^^^^^H pm ^^^^^H ^^^^^1 M ^^1 ^^H ^n\i^M ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^1 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H f 1 -^ ^^^^^^^^^H| ^^^^^^^^^H i^i^ ^^^^^^^^H ^^^^^^^^1 ffic^ 9J|V>v|^^^^^^H ^^^^^^M c^^ ' ^^^^^^^^^R". Ji vbk^ y .■ .;' ^^^^^^^^^^BiK .' ^ m ± >v m m LIBRARY THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA PRESENTED BY MRS. ERIC SCHMIDT Vf. 'i rf(* THE LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA BY CHARLES LAMB (:hi(;a(;() DONOHUH, HENNEBERRY & CO. 407 T(j 425 Dkariujkn STKEF.!'. CONTENTS. PAGK, Blakesmoor in H shire 5 Poor Kelations 14 Detached Tiioughts on Books and Reading 25 Stage Ilhision 35 Tolhe Shade of Elliston 41 Ell istoniaua 45 The Old Margate Hoy 54 The Convalescent 07 Sanity of True Genius 75 Captain Jackson 80 The Superannuated Man 87 The Genteel Style in Writing 99 Barbara S 107 The Tombs in the Abbey 116 Amicus Itedivivus 121 Some Sonnets of Sir Philip Sidney 129 Newspapers Thirty-Five Years Ago 141 Barrenness of the Imaginative Faculty in the Pro- ductions of Modern Art 153 The Wedding 172 Rejoicings upon the New Year's Coming of Age. . . 182 Old China 191 The Child-Angel ; a Dream 201 Confessions of a Drunkard 206 Popular Fallacies — PAGE, I. That a Bully is Always a Coward 220 II. That IlI-(TOtten Gain Never Prospers 121 III. That a Man Must Not Laugh at Plis Own Jest. 222 IV. That >Such a One Shows His Breeding — That it is Easy to Perceive He is No Gentle- man 223 V. That the Poor C'opy the Vices of the Pach .... 224 vi. That Enough is as Good as a Feast 227 VII. Of Two Disputants the Warmest is Generally in the Wrong , 22!) v:!i. That Verbal Allusions are not AVit, Because They Will Not Bear a Translation 230 IX. That the Worst Puns are the Best 231 X. That Handsome is That Handsome Does 235 XI. That We Must Not Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth 289 XII. That Home is Home, Though it is Never So Homely 242 XIII. That You ]Must Love Me and Love My Dog.... 249 XIV. That We Should Rise With the Lark 255 XV. That We Should Lie Down With the Lamb. .. 259 XVI. That a Sulky Temper is a Misfortune 262 THE LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA. Blakesmoor in H shire. I DO not know a pleasure more affecting than to range at will over the deserted apart- ments of some line old family mansion. The traces of extinct grandeur admit of a better passion than envy; and contempla- tions on the great and good, whom we fancy in succession to have been its inhabitants, weave for us illusions, incompatible with the bustle of modern occupancy, and vani- ties of foolish present aristocracy. The same difference of feeling, I think, attends us be- tween entering an empty and a crowded church. In the latter it is chance but some present human frailty, — an act of inatten- tion on the part of some of the auditory, — or a trait of affectation, or worse, vain-glory on that of the preacher, — puts us by our best thoughts, disharmonizing the place and the occasion. But Avouldst thou know the beauty of holiness ? — go alone on some week- day, borrowing the keys of good Master 6 ©he faist (^^m^ of (gtia. Sexton, traverse the cool aisles of some country church ; think of the piety that has kneeled there, — the congregations, old and young, that have found consolation there,-^ the meek pastor,— the docile parishioner. With no disturbing emotions, no cross con- flicting comparisons, drink in the tranquil- lity of the place, till thou thyself become as fixed and motionless as the marble efBgies that kneel and weep around thee. . Journej'ing northward lately, I could not resist going some few miles out of my road to look upon the remains of an old great house with which I had been impressed in- this way in infancy. I was apprised that the owner of it had lately pulled it down ; still I had a vague notion that it could not all have perished, that so much solidity with magnificence could not have been crushed all at once into the mere dust and rubbish which I found it. The work of ruin had proceeded with a. swift hand indeed, and the demolition of a few weeks had reduced it to — an antiquity. I was astonished at the indistinction of everything. Where had stood the great gates ? What bounded the court-yard ? Whereabout did the outhouses commence ? A few bricks only lay as representatives of that which was so stately and so spacious.. Death does not shrink up his human vic- tim at this rate. The burnt ashes of a man weigh more in their proportion. Had I seen these brick-and mortar knaves- at their process of destruction, at the pluck- ing of every panel I should have felt the varlets at my heart. I should have cried out to them to spare a plank at least out of the cheerful store-room, in whose hot win- dow-seat I used to sit and read Cowley, witli the grass-plot before, and the hum and flap- pings of that one solitary wasp that ever haunted it about me, — it is in mine ears now, as oft as summer returns ; or a panel of the yellow-room. Why, every plank and panel of that house for me had magic in it. The tapestried bed- rooms — tapestry so much better th»n paint- ing — not adorning merely, but peopling the wainscots, — at which childhood ever and anon would steal a look, shifting its coverlet (replaced as quickly) to exercise its tender courage in a momentary eye-encounter with those stern In-ight visages, staring recipro- call}^, — all Ovid on the walls, in colors viv- ider than his descriptions. Actason in mid sprout, Avith the unappeasable prudery of Diana; and the still more provoking, and almost culinary coolness of Dan Phrebus, eel-fashion delil)erately divesting of IVfarsyas. Then, that haunted room — in which old Mrs. Battle died, — whereinto I have crept, but always in the daytime, with a passion of fear ; and a sneaking curiosity, terror- tainted to hold communication with th© past. How shall they haild it up again f It was an old deserted place, yet not so long deserted but that traces of the splendor of j)ast inmates were everywhere apparent. Its furniture was still standing — even to the tarnished gilt leather battledores, and crumbling feathers of shuttlecocks in the nursery, Avhich told that children had once played there. But I was a lonely child, and had the range at will of every ai:)artment, knew every nook and corner, wondered and worshiped everywhere. The solitude of childhood is not so much the mother of thought, as it is the feeder of love, and silence, and admiration. So strange a passion for the place jjossessed nie in those years, that, though there lay — I shame to say how few roods distant from the mansion — half hid by trees what I judged some romantic lake, such was the spell which bound me to the house, and such my carefulness not to pass its strict and proper ]3recincts, that the idle waters lay unex- plored for me ; and not till late in life, curi- osity prevailing over elder devotion, I found, to my astonishment, a pretty brawling brook had been the Lacus Incognitus of my infancy. Variegated views, extensive prospects, — and those at no great distance from the house, — I was told of such — what were they to me, being out of the boundaries of my Eden ? — So far from a wish to roam, I would have drawn, methought, still closer the fences of my chosen prison ; and have been hemmed ^kt i^H^t ^>';&m;j3i at (t'lm. 9 in by a yet securer cincture of those exclud- ing garden walls. I could have exclaimed Avith that garden-loving poet — " Bhifl me, ye woodbines, in j^our twines; Curl me about, ye gadding vines; And oil so close your circles lace. That I may never leave this place; But, lest your fetters ])rove too weak, Ere I your silken bondage break, Do you, O brambles, chain me too. And, courteous briars, nail me tlirough." I was here as in a lonely temple. Snug fire-sides, — the low-built roof, — parlors ten feet by ten, — frugal boards, and all the homeliness of home, — these were the condi- tion of my birth, — the wholesome soil which I was planted in. Yet, without impeach- ment to tlieir tenderest lessons, I am not sorry to have had glances of something be- yond; and to have taken, if but a peep, in childhood, at the contrasting accidents of a great fortune. To have the feeling of gentility, it is not necessary to have been born gentle. The pride of ancestry may be had on cheaper terms than to be obliged to an importunate race of ancestors ; and the coatless anti- quary in his miemblazoned cell, revolving tlie long line of a Mowbray's or De Clifford's pedigree, at those sounding names may warm himself into as gay a vanity as these who do inherit them. The claims of birth -are ideal merely, and what herald shall go 10 m\t psit ©s'^ay.^ of mn. about to strip ine of an idea ? Is it trench- ant to their swords ? can it 15e hacked off as a spur can ? or torn away like a tarnished garter ? What else Avere tlie families of the great to us? What pleasure should Ave take in their tedious genealogies, or their capitula- tory brass monuments ? What to us the uninterrupted current of their bloods, if our own did not answer Avitliin us to a cognate and correspondent elevation ? Or wherefore else, O tattered and dimin- ished 'scutcheon that hung upon the time- worn walls of thy princely stairs, Blakes- MooR ! have I in childhood so oft stood poi'ing upon the mystic characters, — thy emblematic supporters, with their pro- phetic " Resurgam," — till, every dreg of peasantry purging off, I received into myself Very Gentility ? Thou wert first in my morning eyes ; and of nights hast detained my stej)s from bedward, till it was but a step from gazing at thee to dreaming on thee. This is the oidy true gentry by adoption ; the veritable change of blood, and not, as empirics have fabled, by transfusion. Who it was by dying that had earned the splendid trophy, I know not, I inquired not; but its f;idiiig rags, and colors cobweb- stained, told that its subject was of two centuries back. And what if my ancestor at that date wa& some Damoetas, — feeding flocks — not his own, upon tlie hills of Lincoln, — did I in less earnest vindicate to mj^self the family trap- pings of this once proud ^Egon '? repaying by a backward triumph the insults he might j)ossibly have heaped in his lifetime upon my poor pastoral progenitor. If it were presumption so to speculate, the present owners of the mansion had least rea- son to complain. They had long forsaken the old house of their fathers for a newer trifle ; and I was left to appropriate to my- self what images I could pick up, to raise my fancy, or to soothe my vanity. I was the true descendant of those old W s ; and hot the present family of that name, Avho had fled the old waste V)laces. Mine was tliat gallery of good old family portraits, Avhicli as I have gone over, giving them in fancy my own family name, one — and then another — would seem to smile, reaching forward from the canvas, to recog- nize the new relationship; while the rest looked grave, as it seemed, at the vacancy in their dwelling, and thoughts of fled jjos- terity. That Beauty with the cool blue pastoral drapery, and a lamb — that hung next the great bay window — with the bright yellow H shire hair, and eye of wachet hue — so like my Alice! — I am persuaded she was a true Elia, Mildred Elia, I take it. Mine too, Blakesmoor, was thy noble Marble Hall with its mosaic pavements, and its Twelve Csesars, — stately busts in marble, — ranged round ; of whose countenances, young- reader of faces as I was, the frown- ing beauty of Nero, I remember, had most of my wonder; but the mild Galba had my love. There they stood in the coldness of death, yet freshness of immortality. Mine too, thy lofty Justice Hall, with its one chair of authority, high-backed and wick- ered, once the terror of luckless poacher, or self-forgetful maiden — so common since, that bats have roosted in it. Mine too — whose else ? — thy costly fruit- garden, Avith its sun-baked southern wall ; the ampler i:)leasure garden, rising back- wards from the house in triple terraces, with flower-pots now of palest lead, save that a -speck here and there, saved from the elements, bespake their pristine state to have been gilt and glittering ; the verdant quar- ters backwarder still ; and, stretching still beyond, in old formality, thy firry wilder- ness, the haunt of the squirrel, and the day- long murmuring wood-pigeon, with that an- tique image in the center, God or Goddess I wist not ; but child of Athens or old Rome paid never a sincerer worship to Pan or to Sylvanus in their native groves, than I to that fragmental mystery. Was it for this, that I kissed my childish hands too fervently in your idol- worship, walks and v/indings of Blakesmoor! for ®Ue i^asit (g^^ay^ of dim, IS this, or what sin of mine, has the plow passed over your pleasant places? I sometimes^ think that as men, when they die, do not die all, so of their extina^nished habitations there may be a hope — a germ to be reviviheU.. 14 ©he |:a.$t (^^^ix\p of i^lm. Poor Relations. A Poor Relation — is the most irrelevant thing in nature, — a piece of inij^ertinent cor- respondency, — an oclious approximation, — a haunting conscience, — a preposterous shaclo^y, lengthening in the noontide of our prosperity, — an unwelcome remembrancer, — a perpetually recurring mortification, — a drain on your purse, — a more intolerable dun upon your pride, — a drawback upon suc- cess, — a rebuke to your rising, — a stain in your blood, — a blot on your 'scutcheon, — a rent in your garment, — a death's head at your banquet, — Agathocles's pot,— a Mor- decai in your gate, a Lazarus at your door, a lion in your path, — a frog in your cham- ber, — a fly in your ointment, — a mote in your eye, — a triumph to your enemy, an apology to your friends, — the one thing not needful, — the hail in harvest, — the ounce of sour in a pound of sweet. He is known by his knock. Your heart telleth you "That is Mr. ." A rap between familiarity and respect ; that de- mands and at the same time seems to de- ®h« i^a^t (^^^m^^ oi (gtia. 15 spair of, entertainment. He entereth smil- ing and — embarrassed. He holdeth out his hand to you to shake, and — draweth it back again. He casually looketh in about dinner- time — when the table is full. He offereth to go away, seeing you have company, — but is induced to stay. He filleth a chair, and your visitor's two chikb'en are accommo- dated at a side-table. He never cometli upon open days, when your wife says witli some complacency, "My dear, perhaps Mr. will drop in to-day." He remembereth birth- days, — and professeth he is fortunate to have stumbled upon one. He declaretli against fish, the turl)ot being small — yet suffereth himself to be importimed into a slice, against his first resolution. He sticketh by the port, — yet will be prevailed upon to empty the remainder glass of claret, if a stranger press it upon him. He is a puzzle to the servants, who are fearful of ])eing too obsequious, or not civil enough, to him. The guests think " they have seen him before." Every one speculat- eth upon his condition; and the most part take him to be — a tide waiter. He calletli you by your Christian name, to imply that his other is the same with your own. He is too familiar by lialf, yet you wish he had less diffidence. With half the familiarity, he miglit pass for a casual dei)endent ; with more boldness, he would be in no danger of being taken for what he is. He is too luim- ble for a friend; yet taketh on him more 16 (The p.^t €$m^ of (gtia. state than befits a client. He is a worse guest than a country tenant, inasmuch as he bringetli up no rent — yet 'tis odds, from his garb and demeanor, that your guests take him for one. He is asked. to make one at the wliist table ; refuseth on the score of poverty, and — resents being left out. When the com- pany break up, he profferetli to go for a coach — and lets the servant go. He recol- lects your grandfather ; and will thrust in some mean and quite unimportant anecdote — of the family. He knew it when it was not quite so flourishing as " he is blest in seeing it now." He reviveth past situations, to in- stitute Avhat he calleth — favorable compari- sons. With a reflecting sort of congratula- tion, he will inquire the price of your furni- ture ; and insults you with a special com- mendation of your window-curtains. He is of opinion that the urn is the more elegant shape, but, after all, there was something more comfortable about the old tea-kettle, — which you must remember. He dare say you must find a great convenience in having a carriage of your own, and appealeth to your lady if it is not so. Inquireth if you have had your arms done on vellum yet; and did not know, till lately, that such-and-such had been the crest of the family. His memory is unseasonable; his compliments perverse ; his talk a trouble ; his stay perti- nacious ; and when he goeth aAvay, you dis- miss his chair into a coi'ner, as precipitately ^\it fajst (g.ssay^ 0^ (^li«. 17 as possible, and feel fairly rid of two nui- sances. There is a worse evil under the sun, and that is — a female Poor Relation. You may do something with the other ; you may pass him off tolerably well; but your indigent she-relative is hopeless. "He is an old humorist," you may say, " and affects to go threadbare. His circumstances are better than folks would take them to be. You are fond of having a Character at your table, and truly he is one." But in the indications of female poverty there can be no disguise. Ko womun dresses below herself from cap- rice. The truth must out v/ithout shuffling. " She is plainly related to the L s ; or what does she at their house ? " She is, in all probiibility, your wife's cousin. Nine times out of ten, at least, this is the case. Her garb is something between a gentle- woman and a beggar, yet the former evi- dently predominates. She is most pro- vokingly humble, and ostentatiously sensi- ble to her inferiority. He may require to be repressed sometimes — aliquando sufilamui- andus erat — but there is no raising her. You send her soup at dinner, and she begs to be helped — after tlie gentlemen. Mr. requests the honor of taking wine with her ; she hesitates be^-ween Port and jMadeira, and chooses the former — because he does. She calls the servant ^Slr ; and insists on not troubling him to hold her plate. The house- 2 18 ^ht i;a5t (??^.$ay.s at (Bliix, keeper patronizes her. The children's gover- ness takes upon her to correct her Avhen she has mistaken the piano for the harpsichord., Richard Amlet, Esq., in the play, is a notable instance of the disadvantages, to which this chimerical notion of affinity con- stituting a claim to acquaintance, may sub- ject the spirit of a gentleman. A little fool- ish blood is all that is betwixt him and a lady with a great estate. His stars are perpetu- ally crossed by the malignant maternity of an old woman, who persists in calling him " her son Dick." But she has wherewithal in the end to recompense his indignities, and float him again upon the brilliant sur- face, under Avliich it had been her seeming business and pleasure all along to sink him. All men, besides, are not of Dick's tempera- ment. I knew an Amlet in real life, who^ wanting Dick's buoyancy, sank indeed. Poor W was of my. own standing at Christ's, a fine classic, and a youth of prom- ise. If he had a blemish, it was too much pride ; but its quality was inoffensive ; it was not of that sort which hardens the heart, and serves to keep inferiors at a distance; it only sought tO ward off derogation from itself. It was the principle of self-respect carried as far as it could go without infring- ing upon that respect, which he would have every one else equally maintain for himself, lie would have you to think alike with him on this tofpic. Many a quarrel ^hc i:a^t (^^$inp oi min, 19 have I had with hhii, when we were rather older boys, and our talhiess made us more obnoxious to observation in tlie bhie clothes, because I would not thread the alleys mu\ blind ways of the town with him to elude notice, when we have been out to- gether on a holiday in the streets of this sneering and prying metropolis. W WTut, sore with these notions, to Oxford, where the dignity and sweetness of a schol- ar's life, meeting with the alloy of a humble hitroduction, wrought in him a passionate devotion to the place, with a profound aver- sion from the society. The servitor's gown (worse than his school array) clung to him with Xessian venom. He thought himself ridiculous in a garb, under which Latimer must have walked erect, and in which Hooker, in his young days, possibly flaunted in a vein of no discommendalile vanity. In the depth of college shades, or in his lonely chamber, the poor student shrunk from ob- servation. He found shelter among books, which insult not ; and studies, that ask no questions of a youth's finances. He was lord of his library, and seldom cared for looking out beyond his domains. The heal- ing influence of studious pursuits was upon him, to soothe and to abstract. He was almost a healthy man ; when the wayward- ness of his fate broke out against him with a second and worse malignity. The father of Vr had hitherto exercised the humble 20 5?hc i:a;st (g^'.aaM,^ of miix. profession of house-painter at X , near- Oxford. A supposed interest with some of the heads of colleges had now induced him to take up his abode in tliat city, with the hope of being emj^loyed upon some pubUc works which were talked of. From that moment I read in the countenance of the young man the determination which at length tore him from academical pursuits forever. To a person unacquainted with our universities, the distance between the gownsmen and the townsmen, as they are called — the trading part of the latter espe- cially — is carried to an excess that would appear harsh and incredible. The tempera- ment of W 's father was diametrically the reverse of his own. Old W was a little, busy, cringing tradesman, who, with his son upon his arm, would stand bo^^^'ing and scraping, cap in hand, to anything that wore the semblance of a gown, — insensible to the winks and opener remonstrances of the young man, to whose chamber-fellow, or equal in standing, perhaps, he was thus obsequiously and gratuitously ducking. Such a state of things could not last. W must change the air of Oxford, or be suffocated. He chose the former ; and let the sturdy moralist, who strains the point of the filial duties as high as they can bear, censure the dereliction ; he cannot estimate the struggle. I stood with AV , the last afternoon I ever saw him, under the eaves of m\t p,$t (^^^mp of (fUa. 21 his paternal dwelling. It was in the fine lane leading from the High Street to the back of College, where W kept his rooms. He seemed thoughtfnl and more reconciled. I ventured to rally him — find- ing him in a better mood — upon a represen- tation of the Artist Evangelist, which the old man, whose aft'airs were beginning to flourish, had caused to be set up in a splen- did sort of frame over his really handsome shop, either as a token of prosperity or badge of gratitude to his saints. "W looked up at the Luke, and, like Satan, " knew his mounted sign — and fled." A let- ter on his father's table the next morning announced that he had accepted a commis- sion in a regiment about to embark for Portugal. He was among the first who per- ished before the walls of St. Sebastian. I do not know how, upon a suljject which I began by treating half seriously, I should have fallen upon a recital so eminently pain- ful; but this theme of poor relationship is replete with so nuich matter for tragic as well as comic associations, that it is difficult to keep the account distinct without blend- ing. The earliest impressions which I re- ceived on this matter, are certainly not attended with anything painful or very humiliating in the recalling. At my father's table (no very splendid one) was to-l)e found, every Saturday, the mj^sterious figure of an aged gentleman, clothed in neat black, of a •22 ^\\t pvst (^^^mp at (BUiu sad yet comely appearance. His deportment was of the essence of gravity ; his words few or none ; and I was not to make a noise in his presence. I had Uttle inclination to have done so — for my cue was to admire in silence. A particular elbow-chair was ap- l")ropriated to him, which was in no case to be violated. A peculiar sort of sweet juid- ding-, which appeared on no otlier occasion^ disting'uislied the days of his coming'. I used to think him a prodigiously rich man. All I could make out of him vras, that he and my father had been school-fellows, a world ag-o, at Lincoln, and that he came from the Mint. The Mint I knew to be a place where all the money was coined — and I thoug;ht he was the owner of all that money. Awful ideas of the Tower twined themselves about his presence. lie seemed above human infirmities and passions. A sort of melancholy grandeur invested him. From some inexplicable doom I fancied him obliged to go about in an eternal suit of mourning; a captive — a stately being, let out of the Tower on Saturdays. Often have I wondered at the temerity of my father, who, in spite of an haljitual general respect which we all in common manifested towards him, would venture now and then to stand up against him in some argument, touching their youthful daj^s. The houses of the ancient city of Lincoln are divided (as most of my readers know) between the dwellers ^h( Xn^t (^$^n\\^ 0f mm, 23 on the hill and in the valley. This marked distinction formed an obvious division be- tAveen the boys who lived above (ho\vever brought tog-ether in a common school) and the boys whose paternal residence Avas on the plain ; a sufScient cause of hostility in the code of these young Grotiuses. My father had been a leading Mountaineer ; and would still maintain the general superiority, in skill and hardihood, of the Above Boys (his own faction) over the Below Boi/s {so were they called), of which party his con- temporary had been a chieftain. Many and hot were the skirmishes on this topi(3 — the only one upon which the old gentleman was C:ver brought out — and bad blood bred ; even sometimes almost to the reconnnencement (so 1 expected) of actual hostilities. But my lather, who scorned to insist upon advan- tages, generally contrived to turn the con- versation upon some adroit by-conuiiendation of the old Minster ; in the general prefer- ence of which, before all other cathedrals in the island, the dweller on the hill, and the plain-born, could meet on a conciliating level, and lay down their less important differ- ences. Once only I saw the old gentleman really ruffled, and I remembered with an- guish the thought that came over me : " Per- haps he will never come here again." He had been x)ressed to take another plate of the viand, which I have already mentioned as the indispensable concomitant of his 24 ^\it H:a,ot (£^^i\\\^ of ^Ha. visits. He had refused Tvatli a resistance amounting' to rigor, \ylien my aunt — an old Lincolnian, but \Aio had something of this, in common ^^"ith my cousin Bridget, that she would sometimes press civility out of season — uttered the following memorable apiolication, — "Do take another slice, Mv. Billet, for you do not get pudding every day." The old gentleman said nothing at the time ; but he took occasion in the course of the evening when some argument had intervened between them, to litter with an emphasis which chilled the company, and which chills me now as 1 wa-ite it — " Woman, you are superannuated ! " John Billet did not survive long, after the digesting of this affront ; but he survived long enough to assure me that peace was actually restored ! and, if 1 remember aright, another pudding was discreetly substituted in the i")lace of that which had occasioned the offense. He died at the Mint (anno 1781) where he had long held Avhat he accounted a comfortable independence ; and with five pounds four- teen shillings and a penny, which were found in his escritoire after his decea'se, left the world, blessing God that he had enough to bury him, and that he had never been obliged to any man for a sixpence. This was — a Poor lielatiou. mt f a,«t (B^m3^ 0f ($Wa. 25 Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading. To mind the inside of a book is to entertain one's self with the forced product of another man's brain. Now I think a man of quality and breeding may be much anuised wiih th<^ natural sprouts of his own. — Lord Fopimujton in the Relapse. Ax ingenious acquaintance of my own was so much struck with this bri<:^ht saUy of his Lordship, tliat he has left ok reading altogether, to the great improvement of his originality. At the hazard of losing some credit on this head, I must confess that I dedicate no inconsiderable portion of my time to other people's thoughts. I dream away my life in others' speculations. I love to lose myself in other men's minds. "When I am not walking, I am reading ; I cannot sit and think. Books think for me. I have no repugnances. Shaftesbury is not too genteel for me, nor Jonathan Wild too low. I can read anything which I call u hook. There are things in that shape which T cannot allow for such. In this catalogue of books v^Jilch are no looks — MOlia a-biUia — I reckon Court Cal- endars, Directories, Pocket-boolvs, Draught Boards, "bound and lettered on tlie back, Scientific Treatises, Almanacs, Statutes at Large ; tlie works of Hume, Gibbon, Robert- son, Beattie, Soame Jenyns, and generally, all those volumes which "no gentleman's library should be without;" the Histories of Flavins Josephus (that learned Jew), and Paley's Moral Philosophy. With these exceptions, I can read almost anything. I bless my stars for a taste so catholic, so un excluding. I confess that it moves my spleen to see these thinr/s in books'' clothing perched upon shelves, like false saints, usurpers of true shrines, intruders into the sanctuary, thrust- ing out the legitimate occupants. To reach down a well-bound semblance of a volume, and hope it some kind-hearted play-book, then, opening what " seem its leaves," to come bolt upon a withering Population Essay. To expect a Steele, or a Farquhar, and find — Adam Smith. To view a • well- arranged assortment of blockheaded Ency- clopaedias (^Vnglicanas or Metropolitanas) set out in an array of Russia, or Morocco, when a tithe of that good leather woulcl comfortably reclothe my shivering folios ; would renovate Paracelsus himself, and en- able old Raymund Lully to look like him- self again in the world. I never see these impostors, but I long to strip them, to warm my ragged veterans in their spoils. To be strong-backed and neat-bound is the desideratum of a volume. Magnificence comes after. This, when it can be afforded, is not to be lavished upon all kinds of books indiscriminately. I would not dress a set of Magazines, for instance, in full suit. The dishabille, or half-binding (with Russia backs ever) is on?' costume. A Shakespeare^ or a Milton (unless the first editions), it Avere mere foppery to trick out in gay apparel. The possession of them confers no dis- tinction. The exterior of them (the things themselves being so common), strange to say, raises no sweet emotions, no tickling sense of property in the owner. Thomson's Sea- sons, again, looks best (I maintain it) a little torn, and dog's-eared. How beautiful to a genuine lover of reading are the sullied leaves, and worn-out appearance, nay the very odor (beyond Russia), if Ave would not forget kind feelings in fastidiousness, of an old " Circulating Library " Tom Jones, or Vicar of Wakefield ! How they speak of the thousand thumbs that have turned over their pages with delight! — of the lone seam- stress, whom they may have cheered (milli- n.er, or hard-working mantua-maker) after her long day's needle-toil, running far into midnight, when she has snatched an hour, ill spared from sleep to steep her cares, as in some Lethean cup, in spelling out their enchanting contents ! Who would have 28 ^]\t ^a.^t (^^m^ 0f 6Iia. them a whit less soiled ? What better con- dition could we desire to see them in ? In some respects the better a book is, the less it demands from binding. Fielding, Smollett, Sterne, and all that class of per- petually self-reproductive volumes — Great Nature's stereot^ypes — we see them individ- ually perish with less regret, because we know the copies of them to be "-eterne." But where a book is at once both good and rare — where the individual is almost the species, and when t/iat perishes, We know not where is that Promethean torch That can its light rehimine — such a book, for instance, as the Life of the Duke of Newcastle, by his Duchess — no casket is rich enough, no casing sufficiently durable, to honor and keep safe such a jewel. Not only rare volumes of this description, which seem hopeless ever to be reprinted, but old editions of writers, such as Sir Philip Sydney, Bishop Taylor, Milton in liis prose works. Fuller — of whom we have reprints, yet the books themselves, though they go about, and are talked of here and there, we know, have not endenizened them- selves (nor possibly ever Avill) in the national heart, so as to become stock books — it is good to possess these in durable and costly covers. I do not care for a First Folio of Shakespeare. I rather prefer the common editions of Kowe and Tonson, without notes, and with plates which, being so execrably bad, serve as maps, or modest remembrancers, to the text ; and witliout pretending to any supposable emulation with it, are so much better than the Shakespeare gallery eufjramngs which did. I have a comnmnity of feeling with my countrymen about his Plays, aild I like those editions of him best, which have been oftenest tumbled about and handled. On the contrary, I cannot read Beaumont and Fletcher but in Folio, The Octavo editions are painful to look at. I have no sympathy with them. If they were as much read as the current editions of the other poet, I should prefer them in that shape to the older one. I do not know a more heart- less sight tlian the reprint of the Anatomy of ^Melancholy. What need was there of unearthing the bones of that fantastic old great man, to expose them in a winding-sheet of the newest fashion to modern censure? what hapless stationer could dream of Bur- ton ever becoming popular? The wretched Malone could not do worse, when he bribed the sexton of Stratford church to let him whitewash the painted effigy of old Shakes- peare, which stood there, in rude but lively fashion dei)icted, to the very color of the cheek, tlie eye, the eyebrovv% hair, the very dress he used to wear — the only authentic testimony we had, however imperfect, 'of these curious parts and parcels of him» 30 ®lte f a*it (^^fsnxp at min. They covered him over with a coat of white- paint. By ^, if I had been a justice of peace for Warwickshire, I would have clapt both commentator and sexton fast in tlie stoclcs, for a pair of meddling sacri- legions varlets. 1 think I see them at their work thesQ sapient trouble-tombs. Shall I be thought fantastical, if I confess, that the names of some of our poets sound sweeter, and have a finer relish to the ear — to mine, at least — than that of Milton or of Shakespeare? It may be, that the latter are more staled and rung upon in common discourse. The sweetest names, and which carry a perfume in the mention, are Kit Marlowe, Drayton, Drummond of Ilaw- thornden, and Cowley. Much depends upon v:he)i and where you read a book. In the five or six impatient minutes, before the dinner is quite ready, who would think of taking up the Fairy Queen for a stopgap, or a volume of Bishop Andrewes's sermons ? Milton almost requires a solemn service of music to be jilayed before you enter upon him. But he brings his music, to which, who listens, had need bring docile thoughts, and purged ears. Winter evenings — the world shut out — with less of ceremony the gentle Shake- speare enters. At such a season, the Tem- pest, or his own Winter's Tale — ^Ut W^^t mmp ot min, 31 These two poets you cannot avoid reading aloud — to yourself, or (as it chances) to some single person listening. ]\Iore than one — • and it degenerates into an audience. Books of quick interest, that hurry on for incidents, are for the eye to glide over only. It will not do to read them out. I could never listen to even the better kind of mod- ern novels without extreme irksomeness. A newspaper, read out, is intolerable. In some of the bank offices it is the custom (to save so much individual time) for one of the clerks — who is the best scholar — to com- mence upon the Times, or the C/wonicle, and recite its entire contents aloud, /)rr> bono pub- lico. With every advantage of lungs and elocution, the effect is singularly vapid. In barbers' shops and public-liouses a fellow will get up and spell out a paragraph, which lie communicates as some discovery. ^Vn- other follows with /lis selection. So the entire journal transpires at length by piece- meal. Seldom-readers are slow readers, and without this expedient, no one in the com- pany would probably ever travel through the contents of a whole paper. Newspapers always excite curiosity. iSTo one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment. What an eternal time that gentleman in black, at Xando's, keeps the paper ! I am sick of hearing the waiter bawling out inces- santly, " The Chronicle is in hand, sir." 32 ZU iTa^t d^^^nxp 0f min. Coming into an inn at night — having or- dered your supper — what can be more de- lightful than to tind lying in the Avindow- seat, left there time out of mind by the care- lessness of some former guest, — twaor three numbers of the old Town and Country Maga- zine, with its amusing Ute-a-ttte pictures — " The Royal Lover and Lady G ; " " The Melting Platonic and the old Beau,'' — and such-like antiquated scandal ? Would you exchange it — at that time, and in that i^lace ■ — for a better book ? Poor Tobin, who latterly fell blind, did not regret it so. much for the weightier kinds of reading — the Paradise JLost, or Comus, he could have read to him — but ho missed the pleasure of skimming over v.'ith his own eye a magazine, or a light pamphlet. I should not care to be caught in the seri- ous avenues of some cathedral alone, and reading Candid-^. I do not remember a more whimsical sur- prise than having been once detected — by a- familiar damsel — reclined at my ease upon the grass, on Primrose Hill (her Cythera), reading Pamela. Tliere Vv'as nothing in the book to make a man seriously ashamed at the exposure ; but as she seated herself down by me, and seemed determined to read in company, I could have wished it had been — any other book. We read on very sociably for a few pages ; and, not finding the au- thor muoli to her taste, she got up, and — ®he ^n^i (^^mp of miix. 33 went away. Gentle casuist, I leave it to thee to conjecture, whether tlie blush (for there was one between us) was the property of the nymph or the swain in this dilemma. From me you shall never get the secret. I am net much a friend to out-of-doors reading. I cannot settle my spirits to it. I knew a Unitarian minister, who was gener- ally to be seen upon Snow Tlill (as yet Skin- ner's Street teas not), between the hours of ten and eleven in the morning, studying a volume of Lardner. I own this to have been a strain of abstraction beyond my reach. I used to admire how he sidled along, keeping clear of secular contacts. An illiterate en- counter with a porter's knot, or a bread-bas- ket, Avould have quickly i)ut to flight all the theology I am master of, and have left me worse than indifferent to the hvQ points. There is a class of street-readers, whom I can never contemplate without affection — tlie poor gentry, who, not having where- withal to buy or hire a book, filch a little learning at the open stalls — the owner, with his hard eye, casting envious looks at them all the while, and thinking when they will have done. Venturing tenderly, page after page, expecting eveiy moment Avhen he shall interpose his interdict, and yet un- able to deny themselves the gratification, they " snatch a fearful joy." Martin V> , in this Avay, by daily fragments, got through two volumes of Clarissa, when the stall- 3 keeper damped his laudable ambition, by asking him (it was in his younger days) whether he meant to purchase the work. M. declares, that under no circumstances in his life did he ever peruse a book with half the satisfaction which he took in those uneasy snatches. A quaint poetess of our day has moralized upon this subject iu two very touching but homely stanzas. I saw a boy with eager eye Open a book upon a stall, And read, as he'd devour it all; Wliicli when tlie stall-uiau did espy, Soon to the boy I heard him call, " Yon, sir, yon never buy a book. Therefore in one yon shall not look." The boy pass'd slowly on, and with a sigh He wish'd he never had been taught to read, Then of the old churl's books he should have had no need. Of sufferings the poor have many, Which never can the rich annoy : I soon perceived another boy. Who look'd as if he had not any Food — for that day at least, — enjoy The sight of cold meat in a tavern larder, Tliis boy's case, then thought I, is surely harder, Thus hungry, longing, thus without a penny, Beholdina; choice of dainty-dressed meat: No wonder if he wished lie ne'er had learn' d to eat. mu i:a,^t (^$m^ o^ c^^a. 35 Stage Illusion. A PLAY is said to be well or ill acted, in proportion to the scenical illusion produced. Whether such illusion can in any case be perfect, is not the question. The nearest approach to it, we are told, is when the actor appears wholly unconscious of the presence of spectators. In tragedy — in all which is to affect the feelings — this undivided atten- tion to his stage business seems indispen- sable. Yet it is, in fact, dispensed with everyday by our cleverest tragedians; and while these references to an audience, in the shape of rant of sentiment, are not too fre- quent or palpable, a sufficient quantity of illusion for the purposes of dramatic interest may be said to be produced in spite of them. But, tragedy apart, it may be inquired whether, in certain characters in comedy, especially those which are a little extrava- gant, or which involve some notion repugnant to the moral sense, it is not a proof of the highest skill in the comedian when, with- out absolutely appealing to an audience, he keeps up a tacit understanding with them, and makes them, unconsciously to them- 36 ©he p!St (£^m^ 0^ ^na. selves, a part}'- in the scene. The utmost nicety is required in the mode of doing this ; but we speak only of the great artists in. the profession. The most mortifying infirmitj'- in human nature, to feel in ourselves, or to contemplate in another, is perhaj^s, cowardice. To see a coward done to the life upon a stage would produce anything hut mirth. Yet w^e most of us remember Jack Bannister's cowards. Could anything be more agreeable, more pleasant ? We loved the rogues. How was this effected but by the exquisite art of the actor in a perpetual sub-insinuation to us, the spectators, even in the extremity of the shaking lit, that he was not half such a coward as we took him for ? We saw all the common symptoms of the malady uj)on him ; the quivering lip, the cowering knees, the teeth chattering; and could have sworn " that man was frightened." But we forgot all the while — or kept it almost a secret to ourselves — that he never once lost his self- jDossession ; that he let out by a thousand droll looks and gestures — meant at us^ and not at all supposed to be visible to his fel- lows in the scene, that his confidence in his own resources had never once deserted him. Was this a genuine picture of a coward ? or not rather a likeness, which the clever artist contrived to palm upon us instead of an original ; while we secretly connived at the delusion for the purpose of greater pleasure^ ^lAt fa^t (^n^mp ot mm, 37 than a more genuine counterfeiting of the imbecility, helplessness, and utter self-deser- tion, which we know to be concomitants of cowardice in real life, could have given us ? Why are misers so hateful in the world, and so endurable on the stage, but because the skillful actor, by a sort of sub-reference, rather than direct appeal to us, disarms the character of a great deal of its odiousness, by seeming to engage o?/?* compassion for the insecure tenure by which he holds his money- bags and parchments '? By this subtle vent half of tlie hatef ulness of the character — the self-closeness with which in real life it coils itself up from the sympathies of men- evaporates. The miser becomes sympa- thetic ; i. e., is no genuine miser. Here again a diverting likeness is substituted for a very disagreeable reality. Spleen, irritability — the pitiable infirmities of old men, which produce only pain to be- hold in the realities, counterfeited upon a stage, divert not altogether for the comic ap- pendages to them, but in part from an inner conviction that they are bei/tf/ acted before us ; that a likeness only is going on, and not the thing itself. They please by being done under the life, or beside it; not to tlie life. When Gattie acts an old man, is he angry indeed? or only a pleasant counterfeit, jast enough of a likeness to recognize, without pressing upon us the uneasy sense of a re- ality. 38 mt ^n^t (t$$^\p of mm. Comedians, paradoxical as it may seem^ may be too natural. It AA-as the case with a late actor. Notliing could be more earnest or true than the manner of Mr. Emery; this told excellently in his Tyke, and charac- ters of a tragic cast. But when he carried the same rigid exclusiveness of attention to the stage business, and wilful blindness and oblivion of everything before the curtain in- to his comed}^, it produced a harsh and dis- sonant effect. He was out of keeping Avith the rest of the Persoiue Dnanatis. There was as little link between him and them, as betwixt himself and the audience. He was- a third estate, dry, repulsive, and unsocial to all. Individually considered, his execu- tion w"as masterly. But comedy is not this- unbending thing ; for this reason, that tlie same degree of credibility is not required of it as to serious scenes. The degrees of credi- bility demanded to the Xwo things, may b& illustrated by the different sort of truth which we expect wlien a man tells us a mournful or a merry story. If we suspect the former of falsehood in any one tittle, we reject it altogether. Our tears refuse to flow at a suspected imposition. But the teller of a mirthful tale has latitude allowed him. "We are content with less than abso- lute truth. 'Tis the same with dramatic illusion. "We confess we love in comedy to see an audience naturalized behind the scenes, taken into the interest of the drama, WU miA$t (^.o'saM,^ 0f (glia. 39 welcomed as by-standers however. There is something ungracious in a comic actor holding himself aloof from all participation or concern with those who are come to be diverted by him. Macbeth must see the dagger, and no ear but his own to be told of it ; but an old fool in farce may think he sees somet/tiJi his more lofty /;^/e^/ec^«f a/ pretensions, " Have you heard," (his customary exordium) — " have you heard," said he, " how they treat me? they put me in comedy.''' Thought I • — but his finger on his lips forbade any verbal interruption — " where could they have put you better ? " Then after a pause — " "Where ]« formerly played Iiomeo, I now play Mercutio," — and so again he stalked away, neither staying, nor caring for, re- sponses. O, it was a rich scene,^3ut Sir A • C — — , the best of story-tellers and surgeons, ^'ht i:a.st (^^^n\p 0f min, 51 who mends a lame narrative almost as well as he sets a fracture, alone could do justice to it, that I was a witness to, in the tarnished room (that iiad once been green) of that same little Olympic. There, after his deposition from Imperiul Drury, he substituted a throne. That Olympic Hill was his ' hii^hest heaven;" himself "Jove in his chair." There he sat in state, while before him, on complaint of prompter, was brought for judgment— how shall I describe her ? — one of thos.e little tawdry things that flirt at the tails of choruses — a probationer for the town, in either of its senses — the pertest little drab • — a dirty fringe and appendage of the lamps' smoke — who, it seems, on some disapproba- tion expressed by a "highly respectable" audience, — had precipitately quitted her station on the boards, and withdrawn her small talents in disgust. " And how dare you," said her manager, — assuming a censoi-ial severity, which would have crushed the confidence of a Yestris, and disarmed that beautiful Rebel herself of her professional caprices, — I verily believe, he thought /ler standing before him, — " how dare you. Madam, withdraw yourself, .with- out a notice from your theatrical duties?" "I was hissed, sir." " And you have the presumption to decide upon the taste of the town?" "I don't know that, sir, but Twill never stand to be hissed," was the sul)joinder of young- Confidence, — when gathering up 52 ®h« fa.^t (g^!&ay,^ of mm. his features into one significant mass of wonder, pity, and expos tulatoi-y indignation — in a lesson never to have been lost upon a creature less forward than she who stood before him, — his words were these : " They have hissed w^e." 'Twas the identical argument a fortiori., which the son of Peleus uses to Lycaon trembling under his lance, to persuade him to take his destiny with a good grace. " I too am mortal." And it is to be believed that in both cases the rhetoric missed of its application, for want of a proper under- standing with the faculties of the respective recipients. " Quite an Opera pit," he said to me, as he was courteously conducting me over the benches of his Surrey Theatre, the last re- treat, and recess, of his every-day waning- grandeur. Those who knew Elliston, will know the manner in which he pronounced the latter sentence of the few A^'ords I am about to record. One proud day to me he took his roast mutton with us in the Temple, to which I had superadded a preliminary had- dock. ' After a rather plentiful partaking of the meager banquet, not unrefreshed with, the humbler sort of liquors, I made a sort of apology for the humility of the fare, ob- serving that for my own part I never ate but one dish at dinner. " I too never eat but one thing at dinner," — was his reply, — • ®1« ITa.^t ^,s'.si3i|.s ot miih 53 then, after a pause, — " reckoning: fish as notliino-." Tlie manner was all. It was as if by one peremptory sentence he had decreed the annihilation of all the savory esculents, which the pleasant and nutritious food-giv- ing Ocean pours forth upon poor humans from her watery bosom. This was g7'eatness, tempered with considerate tenderness to the feelings of his scanty but welcoming enter- tainer. Great wert thou in thy life, Kobert William Elliston ! and not lessened in thy death, if report speak truly, which says that thou didst direct that thy mortal remains should repose under no inscription but one of pure LatinUij. Classical was thy bring- ing up ! and beautiful was the feeling on thy last bed, which, connecting the man with the boy, took thee back to thy latest exercise of imagination, to the days when, undreaming of Theaters and Managers hi2)s, thou wert a scholar, and an early ripe one, under the roofs builded by the munificent and pious Colet. For thee the Pauline Muses weep. In elegies, that shall silence this crude prose, they shall celebrate thy praise. 54 ehc ^.v^t (t-^^ma of (^.Ua» The Old Margate Hoy. I A:.r fond of passing" my vacations (I be- lieve I liave said so before) at one or otlier of tlie Universities. Xext to these my clioice would fix me at some woody spot, sucli as tlie neigiiborliood of Henley affords in abun- dance, on the banks of my beloved Thames. But someliow or other my cousin contrives to wlieedle me, once in three or four sea- sons, to a watering'-place. Old attachments bling to her in spite of experience. We have been dull at Worthing one summer, duller at Brighton anotlier, dullest at East- bourne a third, and are at this moment doing dreary penance at — Hastings ! — and all be- cause vo Averc happy many years ago for a brief week at ]Margate. That was our first seaside experiment, and many circumstances combined to make it tlio most agreeable holiday of my life. We had neither of us seen the sea, and we had never been frOm home so long together in company. Can I forget thee, thou old ]\Iargate Hoy, with thy weather-beaten, sunburnt captain, and his rough accommodations, — ill ex- changed for the foppery and fresh-water (The Pi.s.t Cr.^.^ay-i' of (»:Ua. 55 ' ceness of the modern steam-packet ? To the M'iiids and waves thou committedst thy goodly freightage, and didst ask no aid of magic fumes, and spells, and boiling cal- drons. With the gales of heaven thou went- est swimmingly ; or, when it Avas their pleas- ure, stoodest still v/itli sailor-like patience. Thy course was natural, not forced as in a hot-bed ; nor didst thou go poisoning the breath of ocean with sulphureous smoke — a great sea chimera, chimneying and fur- nacing the deep ; or liker to that fire god parching up Scamander. Can I forget thy honest, yet slender crew, with their coy reluctant responses (yet to the suppression of anything like contempt) to the raw questions, which we of the great city would be ever and anon putting to them, as to the uses of this or that strange naval implement? 'Specially can I forget thee, thou happy medium, thou shade of refuge between us and them, conciliating interpreter of their skill to our simplicity, comfortable ambassador between sea and land! — Avhose sailor-trousers did not more convincingly assure thee to be an adopted denizen of the former, than thy Avhite cap, and whiter a]n'on over them, with thy neat- figured practice in thy culinary vocation, bespoke thee to have been of inland nature heretofore — a master cook of Eastcheap? How busily didst thou ply thy multifarious occupation, cook, mariner, attendant, cham- 56 ^u Ea,$t (^^^n\\^ of #tia. berlain ; here, there, like another Ariel, flaming at once about all parts of the deck, yet witli kindlier ministrations, — not to assist the tempest, but, as if touched with a kindred sense of our infirmities, to soothe the qualms whicli that untried motion might haply raise in our crude land fancies. And when theo'erwashing billows drove us below deck (for it was far gone in October, and we had stiff and blowing weather), how did thy officious ministerings, still catering for our comfort, witli cards, and cordials and thy more cordial conversation, alleviate the closeness and the confinement of thy else {truth to say) not very savory, nor very invit- ing little cabin ? With these additaments to boot, we had on board a fellow-passenger, whose discourse in verity might have beguiled a longer voyage than we meditated, and have made mirth and wonder abound as far as the Azores. He was a dark, Spanish-complex- ioned young man, remarkably handsome, Avith an officer-like assurance, and an insup- pressible volubility of assertion. lie was, in fact, the greatest liar I had met with then, or since. He was none of your hesi- tating, half story-tellers (a most painful de- scription of mortals) who go on sounding your belief, and only giving you as much as they see you can swallow at a time, — the nibbling pick-pockets of your patience, — but one who committed downright, daylight. depredations upon his neighbor's faith. He did not stand shivering uiX)n tlie brink, but was a hearty, thorough-paced liar, and plunged at once into the depths of your credulity. I partly believe he made pretty sure of ills company. Not many rich, not many wise, or learned, composed at that time the common stowage of a Margate packet. "We were, I am afraid, a set of as unseasoned Londoners (let our enemies give it a worse name) as Aldermanbury, or Watling Street, at that time of day could have supplied. There might be an excep- tion or two among us, but 1 scorn to make any invidious distinctions among such a jolly, companionable ship's company, as those were whom I sailed with. Something too must be conceded to the Genius Loci. Had the confident fellow told us half the legends on land, which he favored us with on tlie other element, I flatter myself the good sense of most of us would have revolted. But we were in a new world, with everything unfamiliar about us, and the time and place disposed us to the reception •of any prodigious marvel whatsoever. Time has obliterated from my memory much of his wild fablings ; and the rest would appear but dull, as written, and to be read on shore. He had been aide-de-camp (among other rare accidents and fortunes) to a Persian Prince, and at one blow had stricken off the head of the King of 58 ©he l^a.st (^^r^'Axp of (t\m. Carimania on horseback. He, of course, married the Prince's daughter. I forget what unlucky turn in the politics of that court, comljiniiig with the loss of his consort, was the reason of his quitting Persia ; but, with the rapidity of a magician, he trans- ported himself, along witli his hearers, back to England, wliere we still found him in the confidence of great ladies. . There was some story of a princess — Elizabeth, if I remember ■ — having intrusted to his care an extraor- dinary casket of jewels, upon some extraor- dinary occasion, — ^but, as I am not certain of the name or circumstance at this distance of time, I must leave it to the Poyal daughters of England to settle the honor among them- selves in private. I cannot call to mind half his pleasant wonders ; but I perfectly remember, that in the course of his travels he had seen a phoenix ; and he obligingly un- deceived us of the vulgar error, that there is but one of that species at a time, assuring us that they were not unconnnon in some parts of Upper Egypt. Hitherto he had found the most implicit listeners. His dreammg fancies had transi^orted us be- yond the "ignorant present." But when (still hardying more and more in his triumphs over our simplicity) he went on to affirm that he had actually sailed through the legs of the Colossus at Rhodes, it really be- came necessary to make a stand. .\nd^ here I must do justice to the good sense and intrepidity of one of qui- party, a youtli that had hitherto been one of his most deferential auditors, Avho, from his recent reading-, made bold to assure the gentle- m;u], that there must be some mistake, as " the Colossus in question had been destroyed long since ; " to whose opinion, delivered T/itli all modesty, our hero was obliging enough to concede thus much, that " the figure was indeed a little damaged." This ^v;ls the only opposition he met with, and it did not at all seem to stagger him, for he proceeded with his fables, which the same youth appeared to swallow with still more (;omplacency than ever, — confirmed, as it were, by the extreme candor of that conces- 5iion. With these prodigies he wheedled us on till we came in sight of the Reculvers, ^vhich one of our own company (having been the voyage before) immediately recognizing, ;md pointing out to us, was considered by us as no ordinary seaman. All this time sat upon the edge of the deck quite a different character. It was a lad, apparently very poor, very infirm, and very patient. His eye was ever on the sea, with a smile ; and, if he caught now and then some snatches of these wild legends, it was by accident, and tliey seemed not to concern him. Tlie waves to him whispered more pleasant stories. lie was as one, being with us, but not of us. lie heard thebell of dinner ring without stirring : and when. «0 ^\it m\^i (^:^'J,^■aM,(i of ^lia. some of us pulled out our private stores — our cold meat and our salads, — he produced iioue, and seemed to want none. Only a solitary biscuit he had laid in ; provision for the one or two days and nigiits, to which these vessels then were oftentimes obliged to ijrolong- their voyage. Upon a nearer ac- quaintance with him, w^hicli he seemed neither to court nor decline, we learned that he was going to Margate, ^yith the hoj^e of being admitted into the Tnfirraary there for sea-bathing. His disease was a scrofula which appeared to have eaten all over him. He expressed great hopes of a cure; and when we asked him whether he, had any friends where he was going, he replied " he had wo friends." These pleasant, and some mournful pas- sages with the first sight of the sea, co-oper- ating with youth, and a sense of holidays, and out-of-door adventure, to me that had been pent up in populous cities for many months before, — have left upon my mind the fragrance as of svunmer days gone by, bequeathing nothing but their remembrance for cold and wintry hours to chew upon. Will it be thought a digression (it may spare some unwelcome comparisons) if I en- deavor to account for the dissatisfaction which I have heard so many persons con- fess to have felt (as I did myself feel in part on this occasion) at the siijht of the sea for .the first time/ I think the reason usually given — referring to the incapacity of actual objects for satisfying our preconceptions of them — scarcely goes deep enough into tlie question. Let the same person see a lion, an elepliant, a mountain, for the first time in his life, and he shall perhaps feel himself a little mortified. The things do not fill up that space, which the idea of them seemed to take up in his mind. But they have still a correspondency to his first notion, and in time grow up to it, so as to produce a very similar impression ; enlarging themselves (if I may say so) upon familiarity. But the sea remains a disappointment. Is it not that in the latter we had expected to behold (absurdly, I grant, but I am afraid, by the law of imagination, unavoidably) not a defi- nite object, as those wild beasts, or that mountain compassable by the eye, but all the sea at once, tue commensurate antag- onist OF THE EARTH ? I do uot Say we tell , ourselves so much, but the craving of the mind is to be satisfied with nothing less. I will suppose the case of a young person of fifteen (as I then was) knowing nothing of the sea but from description. lie comes to it for the first time, — all that he has been reading of it all liis life, and that the most enthusiastic part of life, — all he has gathered from narratives of wandei'ing seamen, — what he has gained from true voyages, and what he cherishes as credulously from ro- mance and poetry — crowding their images 62 m\t 3:a,st (^^^n\\^ of (T^tia. a,nd exacting strange tributes from expecta- tion. He thinks of tlie great deep, and of those who go down into it ; of its thousand isles, and of tlie vast continents it waslies ; of its receiving tlie mighty Plate, or Orellana into its bosom, without disturbance, or sense of augmentation ; of Biscay swells, and the mariner " For many a day, and many a dreadful night, Incessant laboring round the stormy Cape ; " of fatal rocks, and the "still-vexed Ber^ moothes ; " of great Avhirlpools, and the watersix)ut ; of sunken ships, and sumlesf» treasures swallowed up in the unrestor- ing depths ; of fishes and quaint monsters, to which all that is terrible on earth " Be hut as huggs to frighten bahes withal, Compared v.'itli the creatures in the sea's entral;" of naked savages, and Juan Fernandez ; of pearls and shells ; of coral beds, and of en- chanted isles ; of mermaids' grots ; — I do not assert that in sober earnest he ex- pects to be shown all these wonders at once, but he is under the tyranny of a mighty fac- ulty which haunts him with confused hints and shadows of all these ; and when the actual object opens lirst upon him, seen (in tame weather too, most likely) from our unro- mantic coasts, — a speck, a slip of sea-water, as it shows to him, — what can it prove but a very unsatisfying and even diminutive entertainment ? Or if he has come to it from the montli of a river, was it mucli more tlian the river widening? and, even out of sight of hind, wliat liad lie but a flat Avatery liorizon about him, notliing compar- able to the vast o'er-curtaining sky, his familiar object, seen daily witliout dread or amazement? — Who, in similar circum- stances, has not been tempted to exclaim with Charoba, in the poem of Gebir, " Is this the mighty oceau ? is this all ? " I love town, or country ; but this detest- able Cinque Port is neither. I hate these scrubbed shoots, thrusting out their starved foliage from between the horrid fissures of dusty innutritions rocks, which the ama- teur calls " verdure to the edge of the sea." I require woods, and they show me stunted coppices. I cry out for the water-brooks, and pant for fresh streams, and inland murmurs. I cannot stand all day on the naked beach, watching the capricious hues of the sea, shifting like the colors of a dying mullet. I am tired of looking out at the windows of this island-prison. I would fain retire into the interior of my cage, "While I gaze upon the sea, I want to be on it, over it, across it. Tt binds me in with chains, as of iron. jNIy thoughts are abroad. I should not so feel in Staffordshire. There is no home for me here. There is no sense of home at Hastings. It is a place of fugitive resort, an heterogeneous assemblage of sea- mews and stock-brokers, Amphitrites of the town, and misses that coquet with the Ocean. If it were what it was in its primitive shape, and what it ought to have remained, a fair, honest fishing-town, and no more, it were sometliing; — with a few straggling fisher- men's huts scattered about, artless as its cliffs, and with their materials filched from them, it were something. I could abide to dwell with Meshech ; to assort with fisher- swains, and smugglers. There are, or I dream there are, many of this latter occupa- tion here. Their faces become the place. I like a smuggler. He is the only honest thief. He robs nothing but the revenue, — an abstraction I never greatly cared about. I could go out with them in their mackerel boats, or about their less ostensible business, with some satisfaction. I can even tolerate those poor victims to monotony, who from day to day pace along the beach, in endless progress and recurrence, to watch their illicit countrymen — townsfolk or brethren perchance — whistling to the sheathing or unsheathing of their cutlasses (their only solace), who, under the mild name of Pre- ventive Service, kept up a legitimated civil warfare in the deplorable absence of a foreign one, to show their detestation of run Hollands, and zeal for Old England. But it ^\it p^t (^^mp ot mm. 65 is the visitants from town, that come here to saij that they have been here, with no more rehsh of the sea than a pond-]ierch or a dace might be supposed to have, that are my aversion. I feel hke a foohsh dace in these regions, and have as httle toleration for myself here as for them. What can they want here ? if they had a true I'elish of the ocean, Avhy have they brought all this land luggage with them ? or why pitch their civilized tents in the desert? What mean these scanty book-rooms — marine libraries as they entitle them — if the sea were, as they would have us believe, a book " to read strange matter in '? " what are' their foolish concert-rooms, if they come, as they would f i^in be thought to do, to listen to the music of the waves. All is false and hollow pretension. They come, because it is the fashion, and to spoil the nature of the place. The}'- are, mostly, as I have said, stockbrokers ; but I have watched the better sort of them, — now and then an honest citizen (of the old stamp), in the simplicity of his heart, shall bring down his wife and daughters, to taste the sea-breezes. I always know the date of their arrival. It is easy to see it in their countenances. A day or two they go wandering on the shingles, pick- ing up cockle-shells, and thinking them great things ; but, in a poor week, imagina- tion slackens : they begin to discover that cockles produce no pearls, and then — O then ! — if I conld interpret for the pretty creatures ( I know they have not the courage to confess it themselves), how giadly would they exchange their seaside rambles for a Sunday- walk on the greensward of their accustomed Twickenham meadows ! I would ask of one of these sea-charmed emigrants, Avho think they truly lo%'e the sea, with its wild usages, what would their feelings be, if some of the unsophisticated aborigines of this place, encouraged by their courteous questionings here should venture, on the faith of such assured sympathy between them, to return the visit, and come up to see — London. I must imagine them with their fishing-tackle on their back, as we carry our town necessaries. "What a sensation would it cause in Lothbury. "What vehement laughter would it not excite among *' The daughters of Cheapside, and ■nives of Lom- bard Street ! '^ I am sure that no town-bred or inland- born subjects can feel their true and natural nourishment at these sea-places. Nature, where she does not mean us for mariners and vagabonds, bids us stay at home. The salt foam seems to nourish a spleen. I am not half so good-natured as by the milder waters of my natural river. I would ex- change these sea-gulls for swans, and scud a swallow forever about the banks of Tamesis. ^\\t iTast (^^^n\p of eUii. 67 The Convalesce A PEETTY severe fit of indisposition which, Ymder tlie name of a nervous fever, has made a prisoner of nie for some weeks past, and is but slowly leaving me, has reduced ine to an incapacity of reflecting upon any topic foreign to itself. Expect no healthy conclusions from me this month, reader ; I can offer you only sick men's dreams. And truly the whole state of sickness is such ; for what else is it but a magniiicent dream for a man to lie a-bed, and draw day- light curtains about him ; and, shutting out the sun, to induce a total oblivion of all the works which are going on under it? To become insensible to all the operations of life, except the beatings of one feeble pulse ? If there be a regal solitude, it is a sick- bed. How the patient lords it there ! what caprices he acts without control ! hoAv king- like he sways his pillow — tumbling, and tossing, and shifting, and lowering, and thumping, and flatting, and molding it, to the ever- varying requisitions of his throb- bing temples. He changes sides oftener than a ]")olitician. Now he lies full length, then half length, G8 ^\tt f a!5t (^^mp at m\^. obliquely, transversely, head and feet quite- across the bed; and none accuses him of tergiversation. Within the four curtains he is absolute. They are his Mare Clau- sum. How sickness enlarges the dimensions of a man's self to himself ! he is his own ex- elusive object. Supreme selfishness is in- culcated upon him as his only duty. 'Tis the Two Tables of the Law to him. He has nothing to think of but how to get well. What passes out of doors, or within tliem, so he hear not the jarring of them, affects him not. A little while ago he was greatly con- cerned in the event of a lawsuit, which was to be the making or the marring of his dear- est friend. He was to be seen trudging about upon this man's errand to fifty quarters of the town at once, jogging this witness, re- freshing that solicitor. The cause was ta come on yesterday. He is absolutely as indifferent to the decision, as if it M'cre a question to be tried at Pekin. Peradvent- ure from some whispering, going on about the house, not intended for his hearing, he picks up enough to make him under- stand, that things went cross-grained in the Court yesterday, and his friend is ruined. But the word "friend," and the word "ruin,'* disturb him no more than so much jargon. He is not to think of anything but iiow to get better. ^U p.st (^^^inp of mix, 69 What a world of foreign cares are merged in that absorbing consideration ! lie has put on the strong armor of sick- ness, he is wrapped in tlie callous hide of suffering ; he keeps his sympathy, like some curious vintage, under trusty lock and key, for his own use only. He lies pitying himself, honing and moan- ing to himself ! he yearneth over himself ; his bowels are even melted within him, to think what he suffers ; he is not ashamed to weep over himself. He is forever x)lotting how to do some good to himself ; studying little stratagems and artificial alleviations. He makes the most of himself ; dividing himself, by an allowable fiction, into as many distinct individuals, as he hath sore and sor- rowing members. Sometimes he meditates ■ — as of a thing apart from him — upon liis poor aching head, and tliat dull pain which, dozing or waking, lay in it all the past night like a log, or palpable substance of pain, not to be removed without opening the very skull, as it seemed, to take it thence. Or he pities his long, clammy, attenuated fingers. He compassionates himself all over ; and his bed is a very discipline of liumanity, and tender heart. lie is his own sympathizer ; and instinc- tively feels that none can so well perform iihat office for him. He cares for few specta- tors to his tragedy. Only that punctual face 70 (The p.st (!!^,$,$ay,^ of miix. of the old nurse i^leases him, that an- nounces his brotlis and his cordials. lie likes it because it is so unmoved, and because he can pour forth his feverish ejacula- tion before it as unreservedly as to his bedpost. To the "\;^'orld*s business he is dead. He understands not what the callings and occu- pations of mortals are ; only he has a glim- mering conceit of some such thing, Avheii the doctor makes bis daily call ; and even in the lines on that busy face he reads no multiplicity of patients, but solely conceives of himself as the sic/c man. To what other uneasy couch the good man is hastening, when he slips out of his chamber, folding up his thin douceur so carefully, for fear or rustling — is no speculation which he can at present entertain. He thinks only of the regular return of the same iDhenomenc.i at the same hour to-morrow. Household rumors touch him not. Some faint murmur, indicative of life going on within the house, soothes him, while he knows not distinctly what it is. He is not to know anything, not to think of anything. Servants gliding up or doA^mi the distant staircase, treading as upon velvet, gently keep his ear awake so long as he troubles not himself further than with some feeble guess at their errands. Exacter knowledge would be a burden to him ; he can just en- dure the pressure of conjecture.:;. He opens.