A Book of English Prose

Part II

_Arranged for Secondary and High Schools_

BY

PERCY LUBBOCK, M. A. 

KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

Cambridge:

at the University Press

1913

Cambridge:

PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M. A. 

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

PREFATORY NOTE

The Editor desires to record his thanks to MessrsMacmillan & Co. , Ltd. , Messrs Chatto & Windusand Messrs Longmans, Green & Co. , for their respectivepermission to include in this volume passages fromWalter Pater's _Miscellaneous Studies_, from R. L. Stevenson's_Random Memories_ and from Newman's _HistoricalSketches_. 

P. L. 

October 1913

CONTENTS

 PAGE

Death of Sir Gawaine . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Sir Thomas Malory_ 1

The Queen's Speech to her last Parliament . . . . . . . . . . . . _Elizabeth, Queen of England_ 4

Death of Cleopatra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Sir Thomas North_ 8

The Vanity of Greatness . . . . . . . . . . . _Sir Walter Ralegh_ 12

The Law of Nations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Richard Hooker_ 16

Of Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Francis Bacon_ 17

Meditation on Death . . . . . . . . . . . . . _William Drummond_ 19

Primitive Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Thomas Hobbes_ 21

Character of a Plodding Student . . . . . . . . . . _John Earle_ 24

Charity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Sir Thomas Browne_ 25

The Danger of interfering with the Liberty of the Press . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _John Milton_ 27

Death of Falkland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Earl of Clarendon_ 30

The End of the Pilgrimage . . . . . . . . . . . . . _John Bunyan_ 35

Poetry and Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Sir William Temple_ 40

A Day in the Country . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Samuel Pepys_ 42

Captain Singleton in China . . . . . . . . . . . . _Daniel Defoe_ 46

The Art of Conversation . . . . . . . . . . . . _Jonathan Swift_ 51

The Royal Exchange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Joseph Addison_ 56

Sir Roger de Coverley's Ancestors . . . . . . . _Richard Steele_ 60

Partridge at the Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Henry Fielding_ 65

A Journey in a Stage-coach . . . . . . . . . . . _Samuel Johnson_ 71

Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim . . . . . . . . . . _Laurence Sterne_ 76

The Funeral of George II . . . . . . . . . . . . _Horace Walpole_ 79

The Credulity of the English . . . . . . . . . . _Oliver Goldsmith_ 83

Decay of the Principles of Liberty . . . . . . . . . _Edmund Burke_ 85

The Candidate for Parliament . . . . . . . . . . . _William Cowper_ 89

Youth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Edward Gibbon_ 93

First Sight of Dr Johnson . . . . . . . . . . . . _James Boswell_ 94

Arrival at Osbaldistone Hall . . . . . . . . . . _Sir Walter Scott_ 100

A Visit to Coleridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Charles Lamb_ 107

Diogenes and Plato . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _W. S. Landor_ 109

An Invitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Jane Austen_ 113

Coleridge as Preacher . . . . . . . . . . . . . _William Hazlitt_ 118

A Dream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Thomas de Quincey_ 120

The Use of Poetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _John Keats_ 122

The Flight to Varennes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Thomas Carlyle_ 124

The Trial of the Seven Bishops . . . . . . . . . . _Lord Macaulay_ 130

The University of Athens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _J. H. Newman_ 135

The House of the Seven Gables . . . . . . . _Nathaniel Hawthorne_ 140

Denis Duval's first journey to London . . . . . _W. M. Thackeray_ 144

Storm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Charles Dickens_ 149

Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester . . . . . . . . . . . _Charlotte Brontë_ 153

A Hut in the Woods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _H. D. Thoreau_ 157

A Miser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _George Eliot_ 159

Ships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _John Ruskin_ 163

The Child in the House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Walter Pater_ 168

Diving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _R. L. Stevenson_ 171

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

{1}

SIR THOMAS MALORY 15th century

DEATH OF SIR GAWAINE

And so, as Sir Mordred was at Dover with his host, there came KingArthur with a great navy of ships, galleys, and carracks. And therewas Sir Mordred ready waiting upon his landing, to let his own fatherto land upon the land that he was king of. Then was there launching ofgreat boats and small, and all were full of noble men of arms; andthere was much slaughter of gentle knights, and many a full bold baronwas laid full low on both parties. But King Arthur was so courageous, that there might no manner of knight let him to land, and his knightsfiercely followed him, and so they landed maugre Sir Mordred and allhis power, and put Sir Mordred back, that he fled and all his people. So when this battle was done, King Arthur let bury his people that weredead. And then was the noble knight Sir Gawaine found in a great boat, lying more than half dead. When King Arthur wist that Sir Gawaine waslaid so low, he went unto him; and there the king made sorrow out ofmeasure, and took Sir Gawaine in his arms, and thrice he swooned. Andwhen he came to himself again, he said, "Alas! my sister's son, herenow thou liest, the man in the world {2} that I loved most, and now ismy joy gone. For now, my nephew Sir Gawaine, I will discover me untoyour person. In Sir Launcelot and you I most had my joy and mineaffiance, and now have I lost my joy of you both, wherefore all mineearthly joy is gone from me. " "My uncle King Arthur, " said SirGawaine, "wit you well that my death's day is come, and all is throughmine own hastiness and wilfulness, for I am smitten upon the old woundthat Sir Launcelot du Lake gave me, of the which I feel that I mustdie; and if Sir Launcelot had been with you as he was, this unhappy warhad never begun, and of all this I myself am causer; for Sir Launcelotand his blood, through their prowess, held all your cankered enemies insubjection and danger. And now, " said Sir Gawaine, "ye shall miss SirLauncelot. But alas! I would not accord with him; and therefore, "said Sir Gawaine, "I pray you, fair uncle, that I may have paper, pen, and ink, that I may write unto Sir Launcelot a letter with mine ownhands. " And when paper and ink was brought, Sir Gawaine was set upweakly by King Arthur, for he had been shriven a little before; and hewrote thus unto Sir Launcelot: "Flower of all noble knights that ever Iheard of or saw in my days, I, Sir Gawaine, King Lot's son of Orkney, sister's son unto the noble King Arthur, send unto thee greeting, andlet thee have knowledge, that the tenth day of May I was smitten uponthe old wound which thou gavest me before the city of Benwick, andthrough the same wound that thou gavest me I am come unto my death day, and I will that all the world wit that I Sir Gawaine, Knight of theRound Table, sought my death, and not through thy deserving, {3} but itwas mine own seeking; wherefore I beseech thee, Sir Launcelot, for toreturn again unto this realm and see my tomb, or pray some prayer moreor less for my soul. And that same day that I wrote this letter, I washurt to the death in the same wound the which I had of thy hands, SirLauncelot, for of a more nobler man might I not be slain. Also, SirLauncelot, for all the love that ever was between us, make no tarrying, but come over the sea in all the haste that thou mayst with thy nobleknights, and rescue that noble king that made thee knight, that is mylord and uncle King Arthur, for he is full straitly bestood with afalse traitor, which is my half-brother Sir Mordred, and he hath letcrown himself king, and he would have wedded my lady Queen Guenevere, and so had he done, if she had not put herself in the Tower of London. And so the tenth day of May last past, my lord and uncle King Arthurand we all landed upon them at Dover, and there we put that falsetraitor Sir Mordred to flight. And there it misfortuned me for to bestricken upon thy stroke. And the date of this letter was written buttwo hours and a half before my death, written with mine own hand, andso subscribed with part of my heart-blood. And I require thee, as thouart the most famost knight of the world, that thou wilt see my tomb. "And then Sir Gawaine wept, and also King Arthur wept; and then theyswooned both. And when they awaked both, the king made Sir Gawaine toreceive his Saviour. And then Sir Gawaine prayed the king to send forSir Launcelot, and to cherish him above all other knights. And so atthe hour of noon Sir Gawaine betook his soul into the {4} hands of ourLord God. And then the king let bury him in a chapel within the castleof Dover; and there yet unto this day all men may see the skull of SirGawaine, and the same wound is seen that Sir Launcelot gave him inbattle. Then it was told to King Arthur that Sir Mordred had pight anew field upon Barendown. And on the morrow the king rode thither tohim, and there was a great battle between them, and much people wereslain on both parts. But at the last King Arthur's party stood best, and Sir Mordred and his party fled into Canterbury. 

(_Morte Darthur_. )

ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF ENGLAND

1533-1603

THE QUEEN'S SPEECH TO HER LAST PARLIAMENT, NOVEMBER 30, 1601

Mr Speaker, --We perceive your coming is to present thanks unto us. Know I accept them with no less joy than your loves can desire to offersuch a present, and do more esteem it than any treasure or riches; forthose we know how to prize, but loyalty, love, and thanks, I accountthem invaluable; and though God hath raised me high, yet this I accountthe glory of my crown, that I have reigned with your loves. This makesthat I do not so much rejoice that God hath made me to be a queen, asto be a queen over so thankful a people, and to be the means under Godto conserve you in safety, and {5} preserve you from danger, yea to bethe instrument to deliver you from dishonour, from shame and frominfamy, to keep you from out of servitude, and from slavery under ourenemies, and cruel tyranny, and vile oppression intended against us;for the better withstanding whereof, we take very acceptable yourintended helps, and chiefly in that it manifesteth your loves andlargeness of hearts to your sovereign. Of myself I must say this, Inever was any greedy scraping grasper, nor a strict fasting-holdingprince, nor yet a waster; my heart was never set upon any worldlygoods, but only for my subjects' good. What you do bestow on me I willnot hoard up, but receive it to bestow on you again; yea, mine ownproperties I account yours to be expended for your good, and your eyesshall see the bestowing of it for your welfare. 

Mr Speaker, I would wish you and the rest to stand up, for I fear Ishall yet trouble you with longer speech. 

Mr Speaker, you give me thanks, but I am more to thank you, and Icharge you thank them of the Lower House from me; for had I notreceived knowledge from you, I might a' fallen into the lapse of anerror, only for want of true information. Since I was queen, yet did Inever put my pen to any grant but upon pretext and semblance made methat it was for the good and avail of my subjects generally, though aprivate profit to some of my ancient servants, who have deserved well;but that my grants shall be made grievances to my people, andoppressions to be privileged under colour of our patents, our princelydignity shall not suffer it. 

When I heard it, I could give no rest unto my {6} thoughts until I hadreformed it, and those varlets, lewd persons, abusers of my bounty, shall know I will not suffer it. And, Mr Speaker, tell the House fromme, I take it exceeding grateful that the knowledge of these things iscome unto me from them. And though amongst them the principal membersare such as are not touched in private, and therefore need not speakfrom any feeling of the grief, yet we have heard that other gentlemenalso of the House, who stand as free, have spoken freely in it; whichgives us to know that no respects or interests have moved them, otherthan the minds they bear to suffer no diminution of our honour and oursubjects' love unto us. The zeal of which affection tending to ease mypeople and knit their hearts unto us, I embrace with a princely carefar above all earthly treasures. I esteem my people's love, more thanwhich I desire not to merit: and God, that gave me here to sit, andplaced me over you, knows that I never respected myself, but as yourgood was conserved in me; yet what dangers, what practices, what perilsI have passed, some, if not all of you, know; but none of these thingsdo move me, or ever made me fear, but it's God that hath delivered me. 

And in my governing this land, I have ever set the last judgment daybefore mine eyes, and so to rule as I shall be judged and answer beforea higher Judge, to whose judgment seat I do appeal; in that thought wasnever cherished in my heart that tended not to my people's good. 

And if my princely bounty have been abused, and my grants turned to thehurt of my people contrary to {7} my will and meaning, or if any inauthority under me have neglected, or have converted what I havecommitted unto them, I hope God will not lay their culps to my charge. 

To be a king, and wear a crown, is a thing more glorious to them thatsee it than it's pleasant to them that bear it: for myself, I never wasso much enticed with the glorious name of a king, or the royalauthority of a queen, as delighted that God hath made me his instrumentto maintain his truth and glory, and to defend this kingdom fromdishonour, damage, tyranny, and oppression. But should I ascribe anyof these things to myself or my sexly weakness, I were not worthy tolive, and of all most unworthy of the mercies I have received at God'shands, but to God only and wholly all is given and ascribed. 

The cares and troubles of a crown I cannot more fitly resemble than tothe drugs of a learned physician, perfumed with some aromatical savour, or to bitter pills gilded over, by which they are made more acceptableor less offensive, which indeed are bitter and unpleasant to take; andfor my own part, were it not for conscience sake to discharge the dutythat God hath laid upon me, and to maintain his glory, and keep you insafety, in mine own disposition I should be willing to resign the placeI hold to any other, and glad to be freed of the glory with thelabours, for it is not my desire to live nor to reign longer than mylife and reign shall be for your good. And though you have had and mayhave many mightier and wiser princes sitting in this seat, yet younever had or shall have any that will love you better. 

{8}

SIR THOMAS NORTH 1535-1601

DEATH OF CLEOPATRA

Shortly after Caesar came himself in person to see her, and to comforther. Cleopatra being laid upon a little low bed in poor estate, whenshe saw Caesar come in to her chamber, she suddenly rose up, naked inher smock, and fell down at his feet marvellously disfigured: both forthat she had plucked her hair from her head, as also for that she hadmartyred all her face with her nails, and besides, her voice was smalland trembling, her eyes sunk into her head with continual blubbering:and moreover, they might see the most part of her stomach torn insunder. To be short, her body was not much better than her mind: yether good grace and comeliness and the force of her beauty was notaltogether defaced. But notwithstanding this ugly and pitiful state ofhers, yet she shewed herself within, by her outward looks andcountenance. When Caesar had made her lie down again, and sat by herbedside, Cleopatra began to clear and excuse herself for that she haddone, laying all to the fear she had of Antonius. Caesar, in contrarymanner, reproved her in every point. Then she suddenly altered herspeech, and prayed him to pardon her, as though she were afraid to die, and desirous to live. At length she gave him a brief and memorial ofall the ready money and treasure she had. But by chance there stoodSeleucus by, one of her treasurers, who, to seem a good servant, camestraight to Caesar to disprove {9} Cleopatra, that she had not set inall, but kept many things back of purpose. Cleopatra was in such arage with him, that she flew upon him, and took him by the hair of thehead, and boxed him well-favouredly. Caesar fell a-laughing, andparted the fray. "Alas, " said she, "O Caesar, is not this a greatshame and reproach, that thou having vouchsafed to take the pains tocome unto me, and hast done me this honour, poor wretch, and caitiffcreature, brought into this pitiful and miserable estate: and that mineown servants should come now to accuse me, though it may be I havereserved some jewels and trifles meet for women, but not for me (poorsoul) to set out myself withal, but meaning to give some prettypresents and gifts unto Octavia and Livia, that they making means andintercession for me to thee, thou mightest yet extend thy favour andmercy upon me?" Caesar was glad to hear her say so, persuading himselfthereby that she had yet a desire to save her life. So he made heranswer, that he did not only give her that to dispose of at herpleasure, which she had kept back, but further promised to use her morehonourably and bountifully than she would think for: and so he took hisleave of her, supposing he had deceived her, but indeed he was deceivedhimself. 

There was a young gentleman Cornelius Dolabella, that was one ofCaesar's very great familiars, and besides did bear no evil will untoCleopatra. He sent her word secretly as she had requested him, thatCaesar determined to take his journey through Syria, and that withinthree days he would send her away before with her children. When thiswas told Cleopatra, she requested Caesar that {10} it would please himto suffer her to offer the last oblations of the dead, unto the soul ofAntonius. This being granted her, she was carried to the place wherehis tomb was, and there falling down on her knees, embracing the tombwith her women, the tears running down her cheeks, she began to speakin this sort: "O my dear Lord Antonius, not long sithence I buried theehere, being a free woman: and now I offer unto thee the funeralsprinklings and oblations, being a captive and prisoner; and yet I amforbidden and kept from tearing and murdering this captive body of minewith blows, which they carefully guard and keep, only to triumph ofthee: look therefore henceforth for no other honours, offerings, norsacrifices from me, for these are the last which Cleopatra can givethee, sith now they carry her away. Whilst we lived together, nothingcould sever our companies: but now at our death, I fear me they willmake us change our countries. For as thou, being a Roman, hast beenburied in Egypt: even so, wretched creature I, an Egyptian, shall beburied in Italy, which shall be all the good that I have received bythy country. If therefore the gods where thou art now have any powerand authority, sith our gods here have forsaken us, suffer not thy truefriend and lover to be carried away alive, that in me they triumph ofthee: but receive me with thee, and let me be buried in one self tombwith thee. For though my griefs and miseries be infinite, yet nonehath grieved me more, nor that I could less bear withal, than thissmall time which I have been driven to live without thee. " Then, having ended these doleful plaints, and crowned the tomb with garlandsand sundry {11} nosegays, and marvellous lovingly embraced the same, she commanded they should prepare her bath, and when she had bathed andwashed herself, she fell to her meat and was sumptuously served. 

Now whilst she was at dinner there came a countryman, and brought her abasket. The soldiers that warded at the gates, asked him straight whathe had in his basket. He opened the basket, and took out the leavesthat covered the figs, and shewed them that they were figs he brought. They all of them marvelled to see so goodly figs. The countrymanlaughed to hear them, and bade them take some if they would. Theybelieved he told them truly, and so bade him carry them in. 

After Cleopatra had dined, she sent a certain table written and sealedunto Caesar, and commanded them all to go out of the tombs where shewas, but the two women; then she shut the doors to her. Caesar, whenhe received this table, and began to read her lamentation and petition, requesting him that he would let her be buried with Antonius, foundstraight what she meant, and thought to have gone thither himself:howbeit he sent one before in all haste that might be, to see what itwas. Her death was very sudden. For those whom Caesar sent unto herran thither in all haste possible, and found the soldiers standing atthe gate, mistrusting nothing, nor understanding of her death. Butwhen they had opened the doors, they found Cleopatra stark dead, laidupon a bed of gold, attired and arrayed in her royal robes, and one ofher two women, which was called Iras, dead at her feet: and her otherwoman, called Charmion, half dead, and trembling, trimming the diademwhich {12} Cleopatra ware upon her head. One of the soldiers, seeingher, angrily said unto her: "Is that well done, Charmion?" "Verywell, " said she again, "and meet for a princess descended from the raceof so many noble kings. " She said no more, but fell down dead hard bythe bed. 

(_Plutarch's Lives_. )

SIR WALTER RALEGH 1552-1618

THE VANITY OF GREATNESS

By this which we have already set down is seen the beginning and end ofthe three first monarchies of the world; whereof the founders anderecters thought, that they could never have ended. That of Rome, which made the fourth, was also at this time almost at the highest. Wehave left it flourishing in the middle of the field, having rooted upor cut down all that kept it from the eyes and admiration of the world. But after some continuance, it shall begin to lose the beauty it had;the storms of ambition shall beat her great boughs and branches oneagainst another; her leaves shall fall off, her limbs wither, and arabble of barbarous nations enter the field and cut her down. 

Now these great kings and conquering nations have been the subject ofthose ancient histories which have been preserved and yet remain amongus; and withal of so many tragical poets, as in the persons of powerfulprinces and other mighty men have complained against {13} infidelity, time, destiny, and most of all against the variable success of worldlythings and instability of fortune. To these undertakings these greatlords of the world have been stirred up, rather by the desire of fame, which plougheth up the air and soweth in the wind, than by theaffection of bearing rule, which draweth after it so much vexation andso many cares. And that this is true, the good advice of Cineas toPyrrhus proves. And certainly, as fame hath often been dangerous tothe living, so it is to the dead of no use at all, because separatefrom knowledge. Which were it otherwise, and the extreme ill bargainof buying this lasting discourse understood by them which aredissolved, they themselves would then rather have wished to have stolenout of the world without noise, than to be put in mind that they havepurchased the report of their actions in the world by rapine, oppression, and cruelty, by giving in spoil the innocent and labouringsoul to the idle and insolent, and by having emptied the cities of theworld of their ancient inhabitants, and fitted them again with so manyand so variable sorts of sorrows. 

Since the fall of the Roman Empire (omitting that of the Germans, whichhad neither greatness nor continuance) there hath been no state fearfulin the east but that of the Turk; nor in the west any prince that hathspread his wings far over his nest but the Spaniard; who, since thetime that Ferdinand expelled the Moors out of Grenado, have made manyattempts to make themselves masters of all Europe. And it is true thatby the treasures of both Indies, and by the many kingdoms which theypossess in Europe, they are at this day the most {14} powerful. But asthe Turk is now counterpoised by the Persian, so instead of so manymillions as have been spent by the English, French, and Netherlands ina defensive war and in diversions against them, it is easy todemonstrate that with the charge of two hundred thousand poundcontinued but for two years, or three at the most, they may not only bepersuaded to live in peace, but all their swelling and overflowingstreams may be brought back into their natural channels and old banks. These two nations, I say, are at this day the most eminent and to beregarded; the one seeking to root out the Christian religionaltogether, the other the truth and sincere profession thereof; the oneto join all Europe to Asia, the other the rest of all Europe to Spain. 

For the rest, if we seek a reason of the succession and continuance ofthis boundless ambition in mortal men, we may add to that which hathbeen already said, that the kings and princes of the world have alwayslaid before them the actions, but not the ends, of those great oneswhich preceded them. They are always transported with the glory of theone, but they never mind the misery of the other, till they find theexperience in themselves. They neglect the advice of God, while theyenjoy life or hope it; but they follow the counsel of Death upon hisfirst approach. It is he that puts into man all wisdom of the world, without speaking a word; which God with all the words of His law, promises or threats, doth not infuse. Death, which hateth anddestroyeth man, is believed; God, which hath him and loves him, isalways deferred. _I have considered_ (saith Solomon) _all the worksthat are wider the sun, and behold, all is vanity and vexation of {15}spirit_: but who believes it, till Death tells it us? It was Death, which, opening the conscience of Charles the fifth, made him enjoin hisson Philip to restore Navarre; and King Francis the first of France, tocommand that justice should be done upon the murderers of theProtestants in Merindol and Cabrieres, which till then he neglected. It is therefore Death alone that can suddenly make man to know himself. He tells the proud and insolent that they are but abjects, and humblesthem at the instant, makes them cry, complain, and repent, yea, even tohate their forepassed happiness. He takes the account of the rich andproves him a beggar, a naked beggar, which hath interest in nothing butin the gravel that fills his mouth. He holds a glass before the eyesof the most beautiful, and makes them see therein their deformity androttenness, and they acknowledge it. 

O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hastpersuaded; what none hath dared thou hast done; and whom all the worldhath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised. Thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all thepride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with thesetwo narrow words, _Hic jacet_. 

(_History of the World_. )

{16}

RICHARD HOOKER 1554-1600

THE LAW OF NATIONS

Now besides that law which simply concerneth men as men, and that whichbelongeth unto them as they are men linked with others in some form ofpolitic society, there is a third kind of law which toucheth all suchseveral bodies politic, so far forth as one of them hath publiccommerce with another. And this third is the Law of Nations. Betweenmen and beasts there is no possibility of social communion, because thewell-spring of that communion is a natural delight which man hath totransfuse from himself into others, and to receive from others intohimself especially those things wherein the excellency of his kind dothmost consist. The chiefest instrument of human communion therefore isspeech, because thereby we impart mutually one to another the conceitsof our reasonable understanding. And for that cause seeing beasts arenot hereof capable, forasmuch as with them we can use no suchconference, they being in degree, although above other creatures onearth to whom nature hath denied sense, yet lower than to be sociablecompanions of man to whom nature hath given reason; it is of Adam saidthat amongst the beasts "he found not for himself any meet companion. "Civil society doth more content the nature of man than any private kindof solitary living, because in society this good of mutualparticipation is so much larger than otherwise. Herewithnotwithstanding we are not satisfied, but we covet {17} (if it mightbe) to have a kind of society and fellowship even with all mankind. Which thing Socrates intending to signify professed himself a citizen, not of this or that commonwealth, but of the world. And an effect ofthat very natural desire in us (a manifest token that we wish after asort an universal fellowship with all men) appeareth by the wonderfuldelight men have, some to visit foreign countries, some to discovernations not heard of in former ages, we all to know the affairs anddealings of other people, yea to be in league of amity with them: andthis not only for traffic's sake, or to the end that when many areconfederated each may make other the more strong; but for such causealso as moved the Queen of Saba to visit Solomon; and in a word, because nature doth presume that how many men there are in the world, so many gods as it were there are, or at leastwise such they should betowards men. 

(_Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_. )

FRANCIS BACON 1561-1626

OF STUDIES

Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chiefuse for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is indiscourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition ofbusiness. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge ofparticulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots, andthe marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. Tospend too much time in {18} studies is sloth; to use them too much forornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules is thehumour of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected byexperience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that needpruning by study: and studies themselves do give forth directions toomuch at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty mencontemn studies; simple men admire them; and wise men use them: forthey teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, andabove them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to beswallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some booksare to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; andsome few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Somebooks also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others:but that would be only in the less important arguments and the meanersort of books: else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, andwriting an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he hadneed have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have apresent wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, toseem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise, poets witty, the mathematics subtle, natural philosophy deep, moral grave, logic andrhetoric able to contend: _Abeunt studia in mores_. Nay, there is nostond or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought {19} out by fitstudies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs andbreast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and thelike. So if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics;for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, hemust begin again. If his wit be not apt to distinguish or finddifferences, let him study the school-men; for they are _Cyminisectores_. If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up onething to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers'cases. So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt. 

(_Essays_. )

WILLIAM DRUMMOND 1585-1649

MEDITATION ON DEATH

If on the great theatre of this earth among the numberless number ofmen, _to die_ were only proper to thee and thine, then undoubtedly thouhad reason to repine at so severe and partial a law. But since it is anecessity, from which never any age by-past hath been exempted, andunto which they which be, and so many as are to come, are thralled (noconsequent of life being more common and familiar), why shouldst thouwith unprofitable and nought-availing stubbornness, oppose soinevitable and necessary a condition? This is the high-way ofmorality, and our general home: Behold what millions have trod itbefore thee, what multitudes shall after thee, with them which at thatsame instant {20} run. In so universal a calamity (if Death be one)private complaints cannot be heard: with so many royal palaces, it isno loss to see thy poor cabin burn. Shall the heavens stay theirever-rolling wheels (for what is the motion of them but the motion of aswift and ever-whirling wheel, which twineth forth and again uprollethour life), and hold still time to prolong thy miserable days, as if thehighest of their working were to do homage unto thee? Thy death is apace of the order of this _All_, a part of the life of this world; forwhile the world is the world, some creatures must die, and others takelife. Eternal things are raised far above this sphere of generationand corruption, where the first matter, like an ever flowing and ebbingsea, with divers waves, but the same water, keepeth a restless andnever tiring current; what is below in the universality of the kind, not in itself doth abide: _Man_ a long line of years hath continued, _This man_ every hundred is swept away. This globe environed with airis the sole region of Death, the grave where everything that takethlife must rot, the stage of fortune and change, only glorious in theinconstancy and varying alterations of it, which though many, seem yetto abide one, and being a certain entire one, are ever many. The neveragreeing bodies of the elemental brethren turn one into another; theearth changeth her countenance with the seasons, sometimes looking coldand naked, other times hot and flowery: nay, I cannot tell how, buteven the lowest of those celestial bodies, that mother of months, andempress of seas and moisture, as if she were a mirror of our constantmutability, appeareth (by her too great nearness {21} unto us) toparticipate of our changes, never seeing us twice with that same face:now looking black, then pale and wan, sometimes again in the perfectionand fulness of her beauty shining over us. Death no less than lifedoth here act a part, the taking away of what is old being the makingway for what is young. 

(_A Cypress Grove_. )

THOMAS HOBBES 1588-1679

PRIMITIVE LIFE

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man isenemy to every man, the same is consequent to the time, wherein menlive without other security, than what their own strength and their owninvention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is noplace for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: andconsequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of thecommodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; noinstruments of moving and removing such things as require much force;no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; noletters; no society; and, which is worst of all, continual fear, anddanger of violent death; and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. 

It may seem strange to some man that has not well weighed these things, that nature should thus dissociate, and render men apt to invade anddestroy one another: and he may therefore, not trusting to thisinference, {22} made from the passions, desire perhaps to have the sameconfirmed by experience. Let him therefore consider with himself, whentaking a journey, he arms himself, and seeks to go well accompanied;when going to sleep, he locks his doors; when even in his house helocks his chests; and this when he knows there be laws and publicofficers, armed, to revenge all injuries shall be done him; whatopinion he has of his fellow-subjects, when he rides armed; of hisfellow-citizens, when he locks his doors; and of his children andservants, when he locks his chests. Does he not there as much accusemankind by his actions, as I do by my words? But neither of us accuseman's nature in it. The desires and other passions of man are inthemselves no sin. No more are the actions that proceed from thosepassions, till they know a law that forbids them; which, till laws bemade, they cannot know; nor can any law be made, till they have agreedupon the person that shall make it. 

It may peradventure be thought, there was never such a time, norcondition of war as this; and I believe it was never generally so overall the world; but there are many places where they live so now. Forthe savage people in many places of America, except the government ofsmall families, the concord whereof dependeth on natural lust, have nogovernment at all; and live at this day in that brutish manner, as Isaid before. Howsoever, it may be perceived what manner of life therewould be, where there were no common power to fear, by the manner oflife which men that have formerly lived under a peaceful governmentused to degenerate into in a civil war. 

{23} But though there had never been any time, wherein particular menwere in a condition of war one against another; yet in all times, kingsand persons of sovereign authority, because of their independency, arein continual jealousies, and in the state and posture of gladiators:having their weapons pointing, and their eyes fixed on one another;that is, their forts, garrisons, and guns upon the frontiers of theirkingdoms; and continual spies upon their neighbours; which is a postureof war. But, because they uphold thereby the industry of theirsubjects, there does not follow from it that misery which accompaniesthe liberty of particular men. 

To this war of every man against every man, this also is consequent, that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justiceand injustice, have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law: where no law, no injustice. Force and fraud are inwar the two cardinal virtues. Justice and injustice are none of thefaculties, neither of the body nor mind. If they were, they might bein a man that were alone in the world, as well as his senses andpassions. They are qualities that relate to men in society, not insolitude. It is consequent also to the same condition, that there beno propriety, no dominion, no _mine_ and _thine_ distinct; but onlythat to be every man's, that he can get; and for so long as he can keepit. And thus much for the ill condition, which man by mere nature isactually placed in: though with a possibility to come out of it, consisting partly in the passions, partly in his reason. 

(_Leviathan_. )

{24}

JOHN EARLE 1601?-1665

CHARACTER OF A PLODDING STUDENT

_A Plodding Student_ is a kind of alchemist or persecutor of Nature, that would change the dull lead of his brain into finer metal, withsuccess many times as unprosperous, or at least not quitting the cost, to wit, of his own oil and candles. He has a strange forced appetiteto learning, and to achieve it brings nothing but patience and a body. His study is not great, but continual, and consists much in the sittingup till after midnight in a rug gown and a nightcap, to the vanquishingperhaps of some six lines: yet what he has, he has perfect, for hereads it so long to understand it, till he gets it without book. Hemay with much industry make a breach into logic, and arrive at someability in an argument; but for politer studies, he dare not skirmishwith them, and for poetry, accounts it impregnable. His invention isno more than the finding out of his papers, and his few gleaningsthere; and his disposition of them is as just as the book-binder's, asetting or glueing of them together. He is a great discomforter ofyoung students, by telling them what travail it has cost him, and howoften his brain turned at philosophy, and makes others fear studying asa cause of duncery. He is a man much given to apothegms, which servehim for wit, and seldom breaks any jest but which belonged to someLacedaemonian or Roman in _Lycosthenes_. He is like {25} a dullcarrier's horse, that will go a whole week together, but never out of afoot-pace: and he that sets forth on the Saturday shall overtake him. 

(_Microcosmography_. )

SIR THOMAS BROWNE 1605-1682

CHARITY

Now for that other virtue of charity, without which faith is a merenotion and of no existence, I have ever endeavoured to nourish themerciful disposition and humane inclination I borrowed from my parents, and regulate it to the written and prescribed laws of charity. And, ifI hold the true anatomy of myself, I am delineated and naturally framedto such a piece of virtue; for I am of a constitution so general thatit consorts and sympathizeth with all things; I have no antipathy, orrather idiosyncrasy, in diet, humour, air, anything. I wonder not atthe French for their dishes of frogs, snails, and toadstools, nor atthe Jews for locusts and grasshoppers; but, being amongst them, makethem my common viands; and I find they agree with my stomach as well astheirs. I could digest a salad gathered in a churchyard as well as ina garden. I cannot start at the presence of a serpent, scorpion, lizard, or salamander; at the sight of a toad or viper, I find in me nodesire to take up a stone to destroy them. I feel not in myself thosecommon antipathies that I discover in others: those nationalrepugnances do not touch me, {26} nor do I behold with prejudice theFrench, Italian, Spaniard, or Dutch; but, where I find their actions inbalance with my countrymen's, I honour, love, and embrace them, in thesame degree. I was born in the eighth climate, but seem to be framedand constellated unto all. I am no plant that will not prosper out ofa garden. All places, all airs, make unto me one country; I am inEngland everywhere, and under any meridian. I have been shipwrecked, yet am not enemy with the sea or winds; I can study, play, or sleep ina tempest. In brief, I am averse from nothing: my conscience wouldgive me the lie if I should say I absolutely detest or hate anyessence, but the devil, or so at least abhor anything, but that wemight come to composition. If there be any among those common objectsof hatred I do contemn and laugh at, it is that great enemy of reason, virtue, and religion, the multitude; that numerous piece ofmonstrosity, which, taken asunder, seem men, and the reasonablecreatures of God, but, confused together, make but one great beast, anda monstrosity more prodigious than Hydra. It is no breach of charityto call these _Fools_; it is the style all holy writers have affordedthem, set down by Solomon in canonical scripture, and a point of ourfaith to believe so. Neither in the name of _multitude_ do I onlyinclude the base and minor sort of people: there is a rabble evenamongst the gentry; a sort of plebeian heads, whose fancy moves withthe same wheel as these; men in the same level with mechanics, thoughtheir fortunes do somewhat gild their infirmities, and their pursescompound for their follies. But, as in casting account three or fourmen {27} together come short in account of one man placed by himselfbelow them, so neither are a troop of these ignorant _Doradoes_ of thattrue esteem and value as many a forlorn person, whose condition dothplace him below their feet. Let us speak like politicians; there is anobility without heraldry, a natural dignity, whereby one man is rankedwith another, another filed before him, according to the quality of hisdesert, and pre-eminence of his good parts. Though the corruption ofthese times, and the bias of present practice, wheel another way, thusit was in the first and primitive commonwealths, and is yet in theintegrity and cradle of well-ordered polities: till corruption gettethground; ruder desires labouring after that which wiser considerationscontemn; every one having a liberty to amass and heap up riches, andthey a licence or faculty to do or purchase anything. 

(_Religio Medici_. )

JOHN MILTON 1608-1674

THE DANGER OF INTERFERING WITH THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS

First, when a city shall be as it were besieged and blocked about, hernavigable river infested, inroads and incursions round, defiance andbattle oft rumoured to be marching up, even to her walls and suburbtrenches; that then the people, or the greater part, more than at othertimes, wholly taken up with the study of highest and {28} mostimportant matters to be reformed, should be disputing, reasoning, reading, inventing, discoursing, even to a rarity and admiration, things not before discoursed or written of, argues first a singulargood will, contentedness and confidence in your prudent foresight, andsafe government, lords and commons; and from thence derives itself to agallant bravery and well grounded contempt of their enemies, as ifthere were no small number of as great spirits among us, as his was whowhen Rome was nigh besieged by Hannibal, being in the city, bought thatpiece of ground at no cheap rate, whereon Hannibal himself encamped hisown regiment. Next, it is a lively and cheerful presage of our happysuccess and victory. For as in a body when the blood is fresh, thespirits pure and vigorous, not only to vital, but to rationalfaculties, and those in the acutest and the pertest operations of witand subtlety, it argues in what good plight and condition the body is;so when the cheerfulness of the people is so sprightly up, as that ithas not only wherewith to guard well its own freedom and safety, but tospare, and to bestow upon the solidest and sublimest points ofcontroversy and new invention, it betokens us not degenerated, nordrooping to a fatal decay, by casting off the old and wrinkled skin ofcorruption to outlive these pangs, and wax young again, entering theglorious ways of truth and prosperous virtue, destined to become greatand honourable in these latter ages. Methinks I see in my mind a nobleand puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, andshaking her invincible locks: methinks I see her as an eagle mewing hermighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at {29} the full middaybeam; purging and unsealing her long abused sight at the fountainitself of heavenly radiance; while the whole noise of timorous andflocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means, and in their envious gabble wouldprognosticate a year of sects and schisms. 

What would ye do then, should ye suppress all this flowery crop ofknowledge and new light sprung up and yet springing daily in this city?Should ye set an oligarchy of twenty engrossers over it, to bring afamine upon our minds again, when we shall know nothing but what ismeasured to us by their bushel? Believe it, lords and commons! theywho counsel ye to such a suppressing, do as good as bid ye suppressyourselves; and I will soon show how. If it be desired to know theimmediate cause of all this free writing and free speaking, therecannot be assigned a truer than your own mild and free and humanegovernment; it is the liberty, lords and commons, which your ownvalorous and happy counsels have purchased us; liberty which is thenurse of all great wits: this is that which hath rarified andenlightened our spirits like the influence of Heaven; this is thatwhich hath enfranchised, enlarged, and lifted up our apprehensionsdegrees above themselves. Ye cannot make us now less capable, lessknowing, less eagerly pursuing of the truth, unless ye first makeyourselves, that made us so, less the lovers, less the founders of ourtrue liberty. We can grow ignorant again, brutish, formal, andslavish, as ye found us; but you then must first become that which yecannot be, oppressive, arbitrary and tyrannous, as they were from whomye have freed us. {30} That our hearts are now more capacious, ourthoughts more erected to the search and expectation of greatest andexactest things, is the issue of your own virtue propagated in us; yecannot suppress that, unless ye reinforce an abrogated and mercilesslaw, that fathers may despatch at will their own children. And whoshall then stick closest to thee and excite others? Not he who takesup arms for coat and conduct, and his four nobles of Danegelt. Although I dispraise not the defence of just immunities, yet love mypeace better, if that were all. Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties. 

(_Areopagitica_. )

EARL OF CLARENDON 1609-1674

DEATH OF FALKLAND

In this unhappy battle was slain the Lord Viscount Falkland, a personof such prodigious parts of learning and knowledge, of that inimitablesweetness and delight in conversation, of so flowing and obliging ahumanity and goodness to mankind, and of that primitive simplicity andintegrity of life, that if there were no other brand upon this odiousand accursed civil war than that single loss, it must be most infamousand execrable to all posterity. 

Before this parliament his condition of life was so happy that it washardly capable of improvement. Before he came to be twenty years ofage, he was master of a noble fortune, which descended to him by thegift of a {31} grandfather, without passing through his father ormother, who were then both alive, and not well enough contented to findthemselves passed by in the descent. His education for some years hadbeen in Ireland, where his father was Lord Deputy; so that, when hereturned into England to the possession of his fortune, he wasunentangled with any acquaintance or friends, which usually grow up bythe custom of conversation; and therefore was to make a pure electionof his company, which he chose by other rules than were prescribed tothe young nobility of that time. And it cannot be denied, though headmitted some few to his friendship for the agreeableness of theirnatures, and their undoubted affection to him, that his familiarity andfriendship for the most part was with men of the most eminent andsublime parts, and of untouched reputation in point of integrity; andsuch had a title to his bosom. 

He was a great cherisher of wit and fancy and good parts in any man, and, if he found them clouded with poverty or want, a most liberal andbountiful patron towards them, even above his fortune; of which, inthose administrations, he was such a dispenser, as, if he had beentrusted with it to such uses, and if there had been the least of vicein his expense, he might have been thought too prodigal. He wasconstant and pertinacious in whatsoever he resolved to do, and not tobe wearied by any pains that were necessary to that end. Andtherefore, having once resolved not to see London, which he loved aboveall places, till he had perfectly learned the Greek tongue, he went tohis own house in the country, and pursued it with that indefatigable{32} industry, that it will not be believed in how short a time he wasmaster of it, and accurately read all the Greek historians. 

In this time, his house being within little more than ten miles ofOxford, he contracted familiarity and friendship with the most politeand accurate men of that university; who found such an immenseness ofwit and such a solidity of judgment in him, so infinite a fancy, boundin by a most logical ratiocination, such a vast knowledge, that he wasnot ignorant in anything, yet such an excessive humility, as if he hadknown nothing, that they frequently resorted, and dwelt with him, as ina college situated in a purer air; so that his house was a universityin less volume; whither they came not so much for repose as study, andto examine and refine those grosser propositions, which laziness andconsent made current in vulgar conversation. . . 

From the entrance into this unnatural war, his natural cheerfulness andvivacity grew clouded, and a kind of sadness and dejection of spiritstole upon him, which he had never been used to: yet being one of thosewho believed that one battle would end all differences, and that therewould be so great a victory on one side, that the other would becompelled to submit to any conditions from the victor (whichsupposition and conclusion generally sunk into the minds of most men, and prevented the looking after many advantages that might then havebeen laid hold of) he resisted those indispositions. But after theKing's return from Brentford, and the furious resolution of the twohouses not to admit any treaty for peace, those indispositions, whichhad before touched {33} him, grew into a perfect habit ofuncheerfulness, and he, who had been so exactly easy and affable to allmen that his face and countenance was always present and vacant to hiscompany, and held any cloudiness and less pleasantness of the visage akind of rudeness or incivility, became on a sudden less communicable, and thence very sad, pale, and exceedingly affected with the spleen. In his clothes and habit, which he had minded before always with moreneatness and industry and expense than is usual to so great a soul, hewas not now only incurious, but too negligent; and in his reception ofsuitors, and the necessary or casual addresses to his place, so quickand sharp and severe, that there wanted not some men (strangers to hisnature and disposition) who believed him proud and imperious, fromwhich no mortal man was ever more free. . . 

When there was any overture, or hope of peace, he would be more erectand vigorous, and exceedingly solicitous to press anything which hethought might promote it; and sitting among his friends, often, after adeep silence and frequent sighs, would, with a shrill and sad accent, ingeminate the word _Peace, peace_; and would passionately profess thatthe very agony of the war, and the view of the calamities anddesolation the kingdom did and must endure, took his sleep from him, and would shortly break his heart. This made some think, or pretend tothink, that he was so much enamoured on peace that he would have beenglad the King should have bought it at any price; which was a mostunreasonable calumny. As if a man that was himself the most punctualand precise in every circumstance {34} that might reflect uponconscience or honour, could have wished the King to have committed atrespass against either. And yet this senseless scandal made someimpression upon him, or at least he used it for an excuse of thedaringness of his spirit; for at the leaguer before Gloucester, whenhis friend passionately reprehended him for exposing his personunnecessarily to danger (for he delighted to visit the trenches andnearest approaches, and to discover what the enemy did) as being somuch beside the duty of his place that it might be understood rather tobe against it, he would say merrily, that his office could not takeaway the privileges of his age, and that a Secretary in war might bepresent at the greatest secret of danger; but withal alleged seriously, that it concerned him to be more active in enterprises of hazard thanother men, that all might see that his impatiency for peace proceedednot from pusillanimity or fear to adventure his own person. 

In the morning before the battle, as always upon action, he was verycheerful, and put himself into the first rank of Lord Byron's regiment, then advancing upon the enemy, who had lined the hedges on both sideswith musketeers; from whence he was shot with a musket in the lowerpart of the belly, and in the instant falling from his horse, his bodywas not found till the next morning; till when, there was some hope hemight have been a prisoner, though his nearest friends, who knew histemper, received small comfort from that imagination. Thus fell thatincomparable young man, in the four and thirtieth year of his age, having so much despatched the true business of life, {35} that theeldest rarely attain to that immense knowledge, and the youngest enternot into the world with more innocency. Whosoever leads such a lifeneeds be the less anxious upon how short warning it is taken from him. 

(_History of the Rebellion_. )

JOHN BUNYAN 1628-1688

THE END OF THE PILGRIMAGE

After this I beheld until they were come unto the land of Beulah, wherethe sun shineth night and day. Here, because they were weary, theybetook themselves a while to rest. And because this country was commonfor pilgrims, and because the orchards and vineyards that were herebelonged to the King of the Celestial Country, therefore they werelicensed to make bold with any of his things. 

But a little while soon refreshed them here, for the bells did so ring, and the trumpets continually sound so melodiously, that they could notsleep; and yet they received as much refreshing as if they had slepttheir sleep never so soundly. Here also all the noise of them thatwalked the streets was, More pilgrims are come to town. And anotherwould answer, saying, And so many went over the water, and were let inat the golden gates to-day. They would cry again, There is now alegion of shining ones just come to town, by which we know that thereare more pilgrims upon the road; for here {36} they come to wait forthem, and to comfort them after all their sorrow. Then the pilgrimsgot up and walked to and fro; but how were their ears now filled withheavenly noises, and their eyes delighted with celestial visions! Inthis land they heard nothing, saw nothing, felt nothing, smelt nothing, tasted nothing, that was offensive to their stomach or mind; only whenthey tasted of the water of the river, over which they were to go, theythought that tasted a little bitterish to the palate, but it provedsweeter when 'twas down. 

In this place there was a record kept of the names of them that hadbeen pilgrims of old, and a history of all the famous acts that theyhad done. It was here also much discoursed, how the river to some hashad its flowings, and what ebbings it has had while others have goneover. It has been in a manner dry for some, while it has overflowedits banks for others. 

In this place, the children of the town would go into the King'sgardens, and gather nosegays for the pilgrims, and bring them to themwith much affection. Here also grew camphor, with spikenard, andsaffron, calamus, and cinnamon, with all its trees of frankincense, myrrh, and aloes, with all chief spices. With these the pilgrims'chambers were perfumed while they stayed here; and with these weretheir bodies anointed, to prepare them to go over the river when thetime appointed was come. 

Now while they lay here and waited for the good hour, there was a noisein the town that there was a post come from the Celestial City withmatter of great importance to one Christiana, the wife of Christian the{37} pilgrim. So inquiry was made for her, and the house was found outwhere she was, so the post presented her with a letter; the contentswhereof was, Hail, good woman, I bring thee tidings that the Mastercalleth for thee, and expecteth that thou should stand in His presence, in clothes of immortality, within this ten days. 

When he had read this letter to her, he gave her therewith a sure tokenthat he was a true messenger, and was come to bid her make haste to begone. The token was an arrow with a point, sharpened with love, leteasily into her heart, which by degrees wrought so effectually withher, that at the time appointed she must be gone. 

When Christiana saw that her time was come, and that she was the firstof this company that was to go over, she called for Mr Great-heart, herguide, and told him how matters were. So he told her he was heartilyglad of the news, and could a' been glad had the post come for him. Then she bid that he should give advice how all things should beprepared for her journey. 

So he told her, saying, Thus and thus it must be, and we that survivewill accompany you to the riverside. 

Then she called for her children, and gave them her blessing; and toldthem that she yet read with comfort the mark that was set in theirforeheads, and was glad to see them with her there, and that they hadkept their garments so white. Lastly, she bequeathed to the poor thatlittle she had, and commanded her sons and her daughters to be readyagainst the messenger should come for them. . . . 

{38} Now the day drew on that Christiana must be gone. So the road wasfull of people to see her take her journey. But behold, all the banksbeyond the river were full of horses and chariots, which were come downfrom above to accompany her to the city-gate. So she came forth, andentered the river with a beckon of farewell to those that followed herto the river-side. The last word she was heard to say was, I come, Lord, to be with thee, and bless thee. 

So her children and friends returned to their place, for that thosethat waited for Christiana had carried her out of their sight. So shewent and called, and entered in at the gate with all the ceremonies ofjoy that her husband Christian had done before her. 

At her departure her children wept, but Mr Great-heart and Mr Valiantplayed upon the well-tuned cymbal and harp for joy. So all departed totheir respective places. . . . 

Then it came to pass, a while after, that there was a post in the townthat inquired for Mr Honest. So he came to his house where he was, anddelivered to his hand these lines: Thou art commanded to be readyagainst this day seven-night, to present thyself before thy Lord at HisFather's house. And for a token that my message is true, "all thedaughters of music shall be brought low. " Then Mr Honest called forhis friends, and said unto them, I die, but shall make no will. As formy honesty, it shall go with me; let him that comes after be told ofthis. When the day that he was to be gone was come, he addressedhimself to go over the river. Now the river at that time overflowedthe banks {39} in some places. But Mr Honest, in his life-time, hadspoken to one Good-conscience to meet him there, the which he also did, and lent him his hand, and so helped him over. The last words of MrHonest were, Grace reigns. So he left the world. 

After this it was noised abroad that Mr Valiant-for-truth was takenwith a summons by the same post as the other; and had this for a tokenthat the summons was true, that his pitcher was broken at the fountain. When he understood it, he called for his friends, and told them of it. Then said he: I am going to my Father's, and though with greatdifficulty I am got hither, yet now I do not repent me of all thetrouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword I give to himthat shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to himthat can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witnessfor me that I have fought His battles who now will be my Rewarder. 

When the day that he must go hence was come, many accompanied him tothe river-side; into which as he went he said, Death, where is thysting? And as he went down deeper he said, Grave, where is thyvictory? So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him onthe other side. . . . 

But glorious it was to see how the open region was filled with horsesand chariots, with trumpeters and pipers, with singers and players onstringed instruments, to welcome the pilgrims as they went up, andfollowed one another in at the beautiful gate of the city. 

(_Pilgrim's Progress_. )

{40}

SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE 1628-1699

POETRY AND MUSIC

But to spin off this thread, which is already grown too long; whathonour and request the ancient poetry has lived in, may not only beobserved from the universal reception and use in all nations from Chinato Peru, from Scythia to Arabia, but from the esteem of the best andthe greatest men as well as the vulgar. Among the Hebrews, David andSolomon, the wisest kings, Job and Jeremiah, the holiest men, were thebest poets of their nation and language. Among the Greeks, the twomost renowned sages and lawgivers were Lycurgus and Solon, whereof thelast is known to have excelled in poetry, and the first was so great alover of it, that to his care and industry we are said (by someauthors) to owe the collection and preservation of the loose andscattered pieces, of Homer in the order wherein they have sinceappeared. Alexander is reported neither to have travelled nor sleptwithout those admirable poems always in his company. Phalaris, thatwas inexorable to all other enemies, relented at the charms ofStesichorus his muse. Among the Romans, the last and great Scipiopassed the soft hours of his life in the conversation of Terence, andwas thought to have a part in the composition of his comedies. Caesarwas an excellent poet as well as orator, and composed a poem in hisvoyage from Rome to Spain, relieving the tedious difficulties of hismarch with the entertainments {41} of his muse. Augustus was not onlya patron, but a friend and companion of Virgil and Horace, and washimself both an admirer of poetry and a pretender too, as far as hisgenius would reach, or his busy scene allow. 'Tis true, since his agewe have few such examples of great Princes favouring or affectingpoetry, and as few perhaps of great poets deserving it. Whether it bethat the fierceness of the Gothic humours, or noise of their perpetualwars, frighted it away, or that the unequal mixture of the modernlanguages would not bear it; certain it is, that the great heights andexcellency both of poetry and music fell with the Roman learning andempire, and have never since recovered the admiration and applausesthat before attended them. Yet, such as they are amongst us, they mustbe confessed to be the softest and sweetest, the most general and mostinnocent amusements of common time and life. They still find room inthe courts of Princes and the cottages of shepherds. They serve torevive and animate the dead calm of poor or idle lives, and to allay ordivert the violent passions and perturbations of the greatest and thebusiest men. And both these effects are of equal use to human life;for the mind of man is like the sea, which is neither agreeable to thebeholder nor the voyager in a calm or in a storm, but is so to bothwhen a little agitated by gentle gales; and so the mind, when moved bysoft and easy passions and affections. I know very well that many, whopretend to be wise by the forms of being grave, are apt to despise bothpoetry and music as toys and trifles too light for the use orentertainment of serious men. But, whoever find {42} themselves whollyinsensible to these charms, would, I think, do well to keep their owncounsel, for fear of reproaching their own temper, and bringing thegoodness of their natures, if not of their understandings, intoquestion; it may be thought at least an ill sign, if not an illconstitution, since some of the fathers went so far as to esteem thelove of music a sign of predestination, as a thing divine, and reservedfor the felicities of heaven itself. While this world lasts, I doubtnot but the pleasure and requests of these two entertainments will doso too: and happy those that content themselves with these, or anyother so easy and so innocent; and do not trouble the world, or othermen, because they cannot be quiet themselves, though nobody hurts them!

When all is done, human life is, at the greatest and the best, but likea froward child, that must be played with and humoured a little to keepit quiet till it falls asleep, and then the care is over. 

SAMUEL PEPYS 1633-1703

A DAY IN THE COUNTRY

July 14th (Lord's Day), 1667. Up, and my wife, a little before four, and to make us ready; and by and by Mrs Turner come to us, byagreement, and she and I staid talking below, while my wife dressedherself, which vexed me that she was so long about it, keeping us tillpast five o'clock before she was ready. She ready; and taking somebottles of wine, and beer, and some {43} cold fowl with us into thecoach, we took coach and four horses, which I had provided last night, and so away. A very fine day, and so towards Epsom, talking all theway pleasantly. The country very fine, only the way very dusty. Wegot to Epsom by eight o'clock, to the well; where much company, andthere we 'light, and I drank the water. Here I met with divers of ourtown, among others with several of the tradesmen of our office, but didtalk but little with them, it growing hot in the sun, and so we tookcoach again and to the town, to the King's Head, where our coachmancarried us, and there had an ill room for us to go into, but the bestin the house that was not taken up. Here we called for drink, andbespoke dinner. We all lay down after dinner (the day being wonderfulhot) to sleep, and each of us took a good nap, and then rose; and TomWilson come to see me, and sat and talked an hour. By and by heparted, and we took coach and to take the air, there being a finebreeze abroad; and I went and carried them to the well, and therefilled some bottles of water to carry home with me. Here W. Hewer'shorse broke loose, and we had the sport to see him taken again. Then Icarried them to see my cousin Pepys's house, and 'light, and walkedround about it, and they like it, as indeed it deserves, very well, andis a pretty place; and then I walked them to the wood hard by, andthere got them in the thickets till they had lost themselves, and Icould not find the way into any of the walks in the wood, which indeedare very pleasant, if I could have found them. At last got out of thewood again; and I, by leaping down the little bank, coming out of {44}the wood, did sprain my right foot, which brought me great presentpain, but presently, with walking, it went away for the present, and sothe women and W. Hewer and I walked upon the Downs, where a flock ofsheep was; and the most pleasant and innocent sight that ever I saw inmy life--we find a shepherd and his little boy reading, far from anyhouses or sight of people, the Bible to him; so I made the boy read tome, which he did, with the forced tone that children do usually read, that was mighty pretty, and then I did give him something, and went tothe father, and talked with him; and I find he had been a servant in mycousin Pepys's house, and told me what was become of their oldservants. He did content himself mightily in my liking his boy'sreading, and did bless God for him, the most like one of the oldpatriarchs that ever I saw in my life, and it brought those thoughts ofthe old age of the world in my mind for two or three days after. Wetook notice of his woollen knit stockings of two colours mixed, and ofhis shoes shod with iron shoes, both at the toe and heels, and withgreat nails in the soles of his feet, which was mighty pretty: and, taking notice of them, "Why, " says the poor man, "the downs, you see, are full of stones, and we are fain to shoe ourselves thus; and these, "says he, "will make the stones fly till they sing before me. " I didgive the poor man something, for which he was mighty thankful, and Itried to cast stones with his horn crook. He values his dog mightily, that would turn a sheep any way which he would have him, when he goesto fold them: told me there was about eighteen score sheep in hisflock, and that he hath four shillings {45} a week the year round forkeeping them: so we posted thence with mighty pleasure in the discoursewe had with this poor man, and Mrs Turner, in the common fields here, did gather one of the prettiest nosegays that ever I saw in my life. So to our coach, and through Mr Minnes's wood, and looked upon MrEvelyn's house; and so over the common, and through Epsom town to ourinn, in the way stopping a poor woman with her milk-pail, and in one ofmy gilt tumblers did drink our bellyfulls of milk, better than anycream: and so to our inn, and there had a dish of cream, but it wassour, and so had no pleasure in it; and so paid our reckoning, and tookcoach, it being about seven at night, and passed and saw the peoplewalking with their wives and children to take the air, and we set outfor home, the sun by and by going down, and we in the cool of theevening all the way with much pleasure home, talking and pleasingourselves with the pleasure of this day's work, Mrs Turner mightilypleased with my resolution, which, I tell her, is never to keep acountry-house, but to keep a coach, and with my wife on the Saturday togo sometimes for a day to this place, and then quit to another place;and there is more variety and as little charge, and no trouble, asthere is in a country-house. Anon it grew dark, and as it grew dark wehad the pleasure to see several glow-worms, which was mighty pretty, but my foot begins more and more to pain me, which Mrs Turner, bykeeping her warm hand upon it, did much ease; but so that when we comehome, which was just at eleven at night, I was not able to walk fromthe lane's end to my house without being helped, which did trouble {46}me, and therefore to bed presently, but, thanks be to God, found that Ihad not been missed, nor any business happened in my absence. So tobed, and there had a cere-cloth laid to my foot and leg alone, but ingreat pain all night long. 

(_Diary_. )

DANIEL DEFOE 1660-1731

CAPTAIN SINGLETON IN CHINA

In the meantime, we came to an anchor under a little island in thelatitude of 23 degrees 28 minutes, being just under the northerntropic, and about twenty leagues from the island. Here we lay thirteendays, and began to be very uneasy for my friend William, for they hadpromised to be back again in four days, which they might very easilyhave done. However, at the end of thirteen days, we saw three sailcoming directly to us, which a little surprised us all at first, notknowing what might be the case; and we began to put ourselves in aposture of defence: but as they came nearer us, we were soon satisfied, for the first vessel was that which William went in, who carried a flagof truce; and in a few hours they all came to an anchor, and Williamcame on board us with a little boat, with the Chinese merchant in hiscompany, and two other merchants, who seemed to be a kind of brokersfor the rest. 

{47} Here he gave us an account how civilly he had been used; how theyhad treated him with all imaginable frankness and openness; that theyhad not only given him the full value of his spices and other goodswhich he carried, in gold, by good weight, but had loaded the vesselagain with such goods as he knew we were willing to trade for; and thatafterwards they had resolved to bring the great ship out of theharbour, to lie where we were, that so we might make what bargain wethought fit; only William said he had promised, in our name, that weshould use no violence with them, nor detain any of the vessels afterwe had done trading with them. I told him we would strive to outdothem in civility, and that we would make good every part of hisagreement; in token whereof, I caused a white flag likewise to bespread at the poop of our great ship, which was the signal agreed on. 

As to the third vessel which came with them, it was a kind of bark ofthe country, who, having intelligence of our design to traffic, cameoff to deal with us, bringing a good deal of gold and some provisions, which at that time we were very glad of. 

In short, we traded upon the high seas with these men, and indeed wemade a very good market, and yet sold thieves' pennyworths too. Wesold here about sixty ton of spice, chiefly cloves and nutmegs, andabove two hundred bales of European goods, such as linen and woollenmanufactures. We considered we should have occasion for some suchthings ourselves, and so we kept a good quantity of English stuns, cloth, baize, &c. , for ourselves. I shall not take up any of thelittle {48} room I have left here with the further particulars of ourtrade; it is enough to mention, that, except a parcel of tea, andtwelve bales of fine China wrought silks, we took nothing in exchangefor our goods but gold; so that the sum we took here in that glitteringcommodity amounted to above fifty thousand ounces good weight. 

When we had finished our barter, we restored the hostages, and gave thethree merchants about the quantity of twelve hundredweight of nutmegs, and as many of cloves, with a handsome present of European linen andstuff for themselves, as a recompense for what we had taken from them;so we sent them away exceedingly well satisfied. 

Here it was that William gave me an account, that while he was on boardthe Japanese vessel, he met with a kind of religious, or Japan priest, who spoke some words of English to him; and, being very inquisitive toknow how he came to learn any of those words, he told him that therewas in his country thirteen Englishmen; he called them Englishmen veryarticulately and distinctly, for he had conversed with them veryfrequently and freely. He said that they were all that were left oftwo-and-thirty men, who came on shore on the north side of Japan, beingdriven upon a great rock in a stormy night, where they lost their ship, and the rest of their men were drowned; that he had persuaded the kingof his country to send boats off to the rock or island where the shipwas lost, to save the rest of the men, and to bring them on shore, which was done, and they were used very kindly, and had houses {49}built for them, and land given them to plant for provision; and thatthey lived by themselves. 

He said he went frequently among them, to persuade them to worshiptheir god (an idol, I suppose, of their own making), which, he said, they ungratefully refused; and that therefore the king had once ortwice ordered them all to be put to death; but that, as he said, he hadprevailed upon the king to spare them, and let them live their own way, as long as they were quiet and peaceable, and did not go about towithdraw others from the worship of the country. 

I asked William why he did not inquire from whence they came. "I did, "said William; "for how could I but think it strange, " said he, "to hearhim talk of Englishmen on the north side of Japan?" "Well, " said I, "what account did he give of it?" "An account, " said William, "thatwill surprise thee, and all the world after thee, that shall hear ofit, and which makes me wish thou wouldst go up to Japan and find themout. " "What do you mean?" said I. "Whence could they come?" "Why, "says William, "he pulled out a little book, and in it a piece of paper, where it was written, in an Englishman's hand, and in plain Englishwords, thus; and, " says William, "I read it myself:--'We come fromGreenland, and from the North Pole. '" This indeed, was amazing to usall, and more so to those seamen among us who knew anything of theinfinite attempts which had been made from Europe, as well by theEnglish as the Dutch, to discover a passage that way into those partsof the world; and as William pressed as earnestly to go on to the northto rescue those poor men, so the ship's {50} company began to inclineto it; and, in a word, we all come to this, that we would stand in tothe shore of Formosa, to find this priest again, and have a furtheraccount of it all from him. Accordingly the sloop went over; but whenthey came there, the vessels were very unhappily sailed, and this putan end to our inquiry after them, and perhaps may have disappointedmankind of one of the most noble discoveries that ever was made, orwill again be made, in the world, for the good of mankind in general;but so much for that. 

William was so uneasy at losing this opportunity, that he pressed usearnestly to go up to Japan to find out these men. He told us that ifit was nothing but to recover thirteen honest poor men from a kind ofcaptivity, which they would otherwise never be redeemed from, andwhere, perhaps, they might, some time or other, be murdered by thebarbarous people, in defence of their idolatry, it were very well worthour while, and it would be, in some measure, making amends for themischiefs we had done in the world; but we, that had no concern upon usfor the mischiefs we had done, had much less about any satisfactions tobe made for it, so he found that kind of discourse would weigh verylittle with us. Then he pressed us very earnestly to let him have thesloop to go by himself, and I told him I would not oppose it; but whenhe came to the sloop none of the men would go with him; for the casewas plain, they had all a share in the cargo of the great ship, as wellas in that of the sloop, and the richness of the cargo was such thatthey would not leave it by any means; so poor William, much to {51} hismortification, was obliged to give it over. What became of thosethirteen men, or whether they are not there still, I can give noaccount of. 

(_Captain Singleton_. )

JONATHAN SWIFT 1667-1745

THE ART OF CONVERSATION

I have observed few obvious subjects to have been so seldom, or, atleast, so slightly handled as this; and, indeed, I know few sodifficult to be treated as it ought, nor yet upon which there seemethso much to be said. 

Most things, pursued by men for the happiness of public or privatelife, our wit or folly have so refined; that they seldom subsist but inidea; a true friend, a good marriage, a perfect form of government, with some others, require so many ingredients, so good in their severalkinds, and so much niceness in mixing them, that for some thousands ofyears men have despaired of reducing their schemes to perfection. But, in conversation, it is, or might be otherwise; for here we are only toavoid a multitude of errors, which, although a matter of somedifficulty, may be in every man's power, for want of which it remainethas mere an idea as the other. Therefore it seemeth to me, that thetruest way to understand conversation, is to know the faults and errorsto which it is subject, and from thence every man to form maxims tohimself whereby it may be regulated, because it requireth few talentsto which most men are {52} not born, or at least may not acquirewithout any great genius or study. For nature hath left every man acapacity of being agreeable, though not of shining in company; andthere are an hundred men sufficiently qualified for both, who, by avery few faults, that they might correct in half an hour, are not somuch as tolerable. 

I was prompted to write my thoughts upon this subject by mereindignation, to reflect that so useful and innocent a pleasure, sofitted for every period and condition of life, and so much in all men'spower, should be so much neglected and abused. 

And in this discourse it will be necessary to note those errors thatare obvious, as well as others which are seldomer observed, since thereare few so obvious, or acknowledged, into which most men, some time orother, are not apt to run. 

For instance: Nothing is more generally exploded than the folly oftalking too much; yet I rarely remember to have seen five peopletogether, where some one among them hath not been predominant in thatkind, to the great constraint and disgust of all the rest. But amongsuch as deal in multitudes of words, none are comparable to the soberdeliberate talker, who proceedeth with much thought and caution, makethhis preface, brancheth out into several digressions, findeth a hintthat putteth him in mind of another story which he promiseth to tellyou when this is done; cometh back regularly to his subject, cannotreadily call to mind some person's name, holding his head, complainethof his memory; the whole company all this while in {53} suspense; atlength says, it is no matter, and so goes on. And, to crown thebusiness, it perhaps proveth at last a story the company hath heardfifty times before; or, at best, some insipid adventure of the relater. 

Another general fault in conversation is, that of those who affect totalk of themselves: Some, without any ceremony, will run over thehistory of their lives; will relate the annals of their diseases, withthe several symptoms and circumstances of them; will enumerate thehardships and injustice they have suffered in court, in parliament, inlove, or in law. Others are more dexterous, and with great art willlie on the watch to hook in their own praise: They will call a witnessto remember, they always foretold what would happen in such a case, butnone would believe them; they advised such a man from the beginning, and told him the consequences, just as they happened; but he would havehis own way. Others make a vanity of telling their faults; they arethe strangest men in the world; they cannot dissemble; they own it is afolly; they have lost abundance of advantages by it; but, if you wouldgive them the world, they cannot help it; there is something in theirnature that abhors insincerity and constraint; with many otherinsufferable topics of the same altitude. 

Of such mighty importance every man is to himself, and ready to thinkhe is so to others; without once making this easy and obviousreflection, that his affairs can have no more weight with other men, than theirs have with him; and how little that is, he is sensibleenough. 

Where company hath met, I often have observed {54} two personsdiscover, by some accident, that they were bred together at the sameschool or university, after which the rest are condemned to silence, and to listen while these two are refreshing each other's memory withthe arch tricks and passages of themselves and their comrades. 

I know a great officer of the army, who will sit for some time with asupercilious and impatient silence, full of anger and contempt forthose who are talking; at length of a sudden demand audience, decidethe matter in a short dogmatical way; then withdraw within himselfagain, and vouchsafe to talk no more, until his spirits circulate againto the same point. 

There are some faults in conversation, which none are so subject to asthe men of wit, nor ever so much as when they are with each other. Ifthey have opened their mouths, without endeavouring to say a wittything, they think it is so many words lost: It is a torment to thehearers, as much as to themselves, to see them upon the rack forinvention, and in perpetual constraint, with so little success. Theymust do something extraordinary, in order to acquit themselves, andanswer their character, else the standers-by may be disappointed and beapt to think them only like the rest of mortals. I have known two menof wit industriously brought together, in order to entertain thecompany, where they have made a very ridiculous figure, and providedall the mirth at their own expense. 

I know a man of wit, who is never easy but where he can be allowed todictate and preside: he neither expecteth to be informed orentertained, but to display {55} his own talents. His business is tobe good company, and not good conversation; and, therefore, he choosethto frequent those who are content to listen, and profess themselves hisadmirers. And, indeed, the worst conversation I ever remember to haveheard in my life was that at Will's coffeehouse, where the wits (asthey were called) used formerly to assemble; that is to say, five orsix men, who had writ plays, or at least prologues, or had share in amiscellany, came thither, and entertained one another with theirtrifling composures, in so important an air, as if they had been thenoblest efforts of human nature, or that the fate of kingdoms dependedon them; and they were usually attended with an humble audience ofyoung students from the inns of court, or the universities, who, at duedistance, listened to these oracles, and returned home with greatcontempt for their law and philosophy, their heads filled with trash, under the name of politeness, criticism and _belles lettres_. 

By these means the poets, for many years past, were all overrun withpedantry. For, as I take it, the word is not properly used; becausepedantry is the too frequent or unreasonable obtruding our ownknowledge in common discourse, and placing too great a value upon it;by which definition, men of the court or the army may be as guilty ofpedantry as a philosopher or a divine; and, it is the same vice inwomen, when they are over copious upon the subject of their petticoats, or their fans, or their china. For which reason, although it be apiece of prudence, as well as good manners, to put men upon talking onsubjects they are best versed in, yet that is a liberty a wise mancould hardly take; {56} because, beside the imputation of pedantry, itis what he would never improve by. 

(_Polite Conversation_. )

JOSEPH ADDISON 1672-1719

THE ROYAL EXCHANGE

There is no place in the town which I so much love to frequent as theRoyal Exchange. It gives me a secret satisfaction, and in some measuregratifies my vanity, as I am an Englishman, to see so rich an assemblyof countrymen and foreigners, consulting together upon the privatebusiness of mankind, and making this metropolis a kind of _emporium_for the whole earth. I must confess I look upon high-change to be agreat council, in which all considerable nations have theirrepresentatives. Factors in the trading world are what ambassadors arein the politic world; they negotiate affairs, conclude treaties, andmaintain a good correspondence between those wealthy societies of menthat are divided from one another by seas and oceans, or live on thedifferent extremities of a continent. I have often been pleased tohear disputes adjusted between an inhabitant of Japan, and an aldermanof London, or to see a subject of the Great Mogul entering into aleague with one of the Czar of Muscovy. I am infinitely delighted inmixing with these several ministers of commerce, as they aredistinguished by their different walks and different languages. Sometimes I am jostled {57} among a body of Armenians; sometimes I amlost in a crowd of Jews; and sometimes make one in a group of Dutchmen. I am a Dane, Swede, or Frenchman at different times; or rather fancymyself like the old philosopher, who upon being asked what countrymanhe was, replied that he was a citizen of the world. . . . 

Nature seems to have taken a particular care to disseminate herblessings among the different regions of the world, with an eye to thismutual intercourse and traffic among mankind, that the natives of theseveral parts of the globe might have a kind of dependence upon oneanother, and be united together by their common interest. Almost everydegree produces something peculiar to it. The food often grows in onecountry, and the sauce in another. The fruits of Portugal arecorrected by the products of Barbadoes, and the infusion of a Chinaplant is sweetened with the pith of an Indian cane. The Philippicislands give a flavour to our European bowls. The single dress of awoman of quality is often the product of an hundred climates. The muffand the fan come together from the different ends of the earth. Thescarf is sent from the torrid zone, and the tippet from beneath thepole. The brocade petticoat rises out of the mines of Peru, and thediamond necklace out of the bowels of Indostan. 

If we consider our own country in its natural prospect, without any ofthe benefits and advantages of commerce, what a barren anduncomfortable spot of earth falls to our share! Natural historianstell us, that no fruit grows originally among us, besides hips andhaws, acorns and pig-nuts, with other delicacies of the {58} likenature; that our climate of itself, and without the assistance of art, can make no further advances towards a plum than to a sloe, and carriesan apple to no greater a perfection than a crab; that our melons, ourpeaches, our figs, our apricots and cherries, are strangers among us, imported in different ages, and naturalised in our English gardens; andthat they would all degenerate and fall away into the trash of our owncountry, if they were wholly neglected by the planter, and left to themercy of our sun and soil. Nor has traffic more enriched our vegetableworld, than it has improved the whole face of nature among us. Ourships are laden with the harvest of every climate. Our tables arestored with spices and oils and wines. Our rooms are filled withpyramids of China, and adorned with the workmanship of Japan. Ourmorning's draught comes to us from the remotest corners of the earth. We repair our bodies by the drugs of America, and repose ourselvesunder Indian canopies. My friend Sir Andrew calls the vineyards ofFrance our gardens; the spice-islands, our hot-beds; the Persians oursilk-weavers, and the Chinese our potters. Nature indeed furnishes uswith the bare necessaries of life, but traffic gives us a great varietyof what is useful, and at the same time supplies us with everythingthat is convenient and ornamental. Nor is it the least part of thisour happiness, that whilst we enjoy the remotest products of the northand south, we are free from those extremities of weather which givethem birth; that our eyes are refreshed with the green fields ofBritain, at the same time that our palates are feasted with fruits thatrise between the tropics. 

{59} For these reasons there are not more useful members in acommonwealth than merchants. They knit mankind together in a mutualintercourse of good offices, distribute the gifts of nature, find workfor the poor, add wealth to the rich, and magnificence to the great. Our English merchant converts the tin of his own country into gold, andexchanges its wool for rubies. The Mahometans are clothed in ourBritish manufacture, and the inhabitants of the frozen zone warmed withthe fleeces of our sheep. 

When I have been upon the change, I have often fancied one of our oldkings standing in person, where he is represented in effigy, andlooking down upon the wealthy concourse of people with which that placeis every day filled. In this case, how would he be surprised to hearall the languages of Europe spoken in this little spot of his formerdominions, and to see so many private men, who in his time would havebeen the vassals of some powerful baron, negotiating like princes forgreater sums of money than were formerly to be met with in the royaltreasury! Trade, without enlarging the British territories, has givenus a kind of additional empire. It has multiplied the number of therich, made our landed estates infinitely more valuable than they wereformerly, and added to them an accession of other estates as valuableas the lands themselves. 

(_The Spectator_, No. 69. )

{60}

RICHARD STEELE 1672-1729

SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY'S ANCESTORS

I was this morning walking in the gallery, when Sir Roger entered atthe end opposite to me, and advancing towards me, said he was glad tomeet me among his relations, the De Coverleys, and hoped I liked theconversation of so much good company, who were as silent as myself. Iknew he alluded to the pictures, and as he is a gentleman who does nota little value himself upon his ancient descent, I expected he wouldgive me some account of them. We were now arrived at the upper end ofthe gallery, when the knight faced towards one of the pictures, and aswe stood before it he entered into the matter, after his blunt way ofsaying things as they occur to his imagination, without regularintroduction, or care to preserve the appearance of chain of thought. 

"It is, " said he, "worth while to consider the force of dress; and howthe persons of one age differ from those of another, merely by thatonly. One may observe also that the general fashion of one age hasbeen followed by one particular set of people in another, and by thempreserved from one generation to another. Thus the vast jetting coatand small bonnet, which was the habit in Harry the Seventh's time, iskept on in the Yeomen of the Guard; not without a good and politicview, because they look a foot taller, and a foot and a half {61}broader: besides, that the cap leaves the face expanded, andconsequently more terrible, and fitter to stand at the entrance ofpalaces. 

"This predecessor of ours, you see, is dressed after this manner, andhis cheeks would be no larger than mine were he in a hat as I am. Hewas the last man that won a prize in the Tilt-Yard (which is now acommon street before Whitehall). You see the broken lance that liesthere by his right foot; he shivered that lance of his adversary all topieces; and bearing himself, look you, sir, in this manner, at the sametime he came within the target of the gentleman who rode against him, and taking him with incredible force before him on the pommel of hissaddle, he in that manner rid the tournament over, with an air thatshowed he did it rather to perform the rule of the lists, than exposehis enemy; however, it appeared he knew how to make use of a victory, and with a gentle trot he marched up to a gallery where their mistresssat (for they were rivals) and let him down with laudable courtesy andpardonable insolence. I don't know but it might be exactly where thecoffee-house is now. 

"You are to know this my ancestor was not only of a military genius, but fit also for the arts of peace, for he played on the base-viol aswell as any gentleman at court; you see where his viol hangs by hisbasket-hilt sword. The action at the Tilt-Yard you may be sure won thefair lady, who was a maid-of-honour, and the greatest beauty of hertime; here she stands, the next picture. You see, sir, mygreat-great-great-grandmother has on the new-fashioned petticoat, except that the {62} modern is gathered at the waist; my grandmotherappears as if she stood in a large drum, whereas the ladies now walk asif they were in a go-cart. For all this lady was bred at court, shebecame an excellent country-wife, she brought ten children, and when Ishow you the library, you shall see in her own hand (allowing for thedifference of the language) the best receipt now in England both for anhasty pudding and a whitepot. 

"If you please to fall back a little, because it is necessary to lookat the three next pictures at one view; these are three sisters. Sheon the right hand, who is so very beautiful, died a maid; the next toher, still handsomer, had the same fate, against her will; this homelything in the middle had both their portions added to her own, and wasstolen by a neighbouring gentleman, a man of stratagem and resolution, for he poisoned three mastiffs to come at her, and knocked down twodeer-stealers in carrying her off. Misfortunes happen in all families. The theft of this romp and so much money, was no great matter to ourestate. But the next heir that possessed it was this soft gentleman, whom you see there. Observe the small buttons, the little boots, thelaces, the slashes about his clothes, and above all the posture he isdrawn in (which, to be sure, was his own choosing); you see he sitswith one hand on a desk writing, and looking as it were another way, like an easy writer, or a sonneteer. He was one of those that had toomuch wit to know how to live in the world; he was a man of no justice, but great good manners; he ruined everybody that had anything to dowith him, but {63} never said a rude thing in his life; the mostindolent person in the world, he would sign a deed that passed awayhalf his estate with his gloves on, but would not put on his hat beforea lady if it were to save his country. He is said to be the first thatmade love by squeezing the hand. He left the estate with ten thousandpounds' debt upon it, but however by all hands I have been informedthat he was every way the finest gentleman in the world. That debt layheavy on our house for one generation, but it was retrieved by a giftfrom that honest man you see there, a citizen of our name, but nothingat all akin to us. I know Sir Andrew Freeport has said behind my back, that this man was descended from one of the ten children of themaid-of-honour I showed you above. But it was never made out; wewinked at the thing indeed, because money was wanting at that time. "

Here I saw my friend a little embarrassed, and turned my face to thenext portraiture. 

Sir Roger went on with his account of the gallery in the followingmanner: "This man (pointing to him I looked at) I take to be the honourof our house, Sir Humphrey de Coverley; he was in his dealings aspunctual as a tradesman, and as generous as a gentleman. He would havethought himself as much undone by breaking his word, as if it were tobe followed by bankruptcy. He served his country as knight of thisshire to his dying day. He found it no easy matter to maintain anintegrity in his words and actions, even in things that regarded theoffices which were incumbent upon him, in the care of his own affairsand relations of life, and therefore dreaded (though he had greattalents) {64} to go into employments of state, where he must be exposedto the snares of ambition. Innocence of life and great ability werethe distinguishing parts of his character; the latter, he had oftenobserved, had led to the destruction of the former, and used frequentlyto lament that great and good had not the same signification. He wasan excellent husbandman, but had resolved not to exceed such a degreeof wealth; all above it he bestowed in secret bounties many years afterthe sum he aimed at for his own use was attained. Yet he did notslacken his industry, but to a decent old age spent the life andfortune which was superfluous to himself, in the service of his friendsand neighbours. "

Here we were called to dinner, and Sir Roger ended the discourse ofthis gentleman, by telling me, as we followed the servant, that thishis ancestor was a brave man, and narrowly escaped being killed in theCivil Wars. "For, " said he, "he was sent out of the field upon aprivate message the day before the Battle of Worcester. " The whim ofnarrowly escaping, by having been within a day of danger, with othermatters above mentioned, mixed with good sense, left me at a losswhether I was more delighted with my friend's wisdom or simplicity. 

(_The Spectator_, No. 109. )

{65}

HENRY FIELDING 1707-1754

PARTRIDGE AT THE PLAY

In the first row, then, of the first gallery did Mr Jones, Mrs Miller, her youngest daughter, and Partridge, take their places. Partridgeimmediately declared it was the finest place he had ever been in. Whenthe first music was played, he said, "It was a wonder how so manyfiddlers could play at one time, without putting one another out. "While the fellow was lighting the upper candles, he cried out to MrsMiller, "Look, look, madam, the very picture of the man in the end ofthe Common-Prayer Book before the gunpowder-treason service. " Norcould he help observing, with a sigh, when all the candles werelighted, "That here were candles enough burnt in one night, to keep anhonest poor family for a whole twelve-month. "

As soon as the play, which was Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, began, Partridge was all attention, nor did he break silence till the entranceof the ghost; upon which he asked Jones, "What man was that in thestrange dress; something, " said he, "like what I have seen in apicture. Sure it is not armour, is it?" Jones answered, "That is theghost. " To which Partridge replied with a smile, "Persuade me to that, sir, if you can. Though I can't say I ever actually saw a ghost in mylife, yet I am certain I should know one, if I saw him, better thanthat comes to. No, no, sir, ghosts don't appear in such dresses asthat, neither. " In this mistake, which caused much {66} laughter inthe neighbourhood of Partridge, he was suffered to continue, till thescene between the ghost and Hamlet, when Partridge gave that credit toMr Garrick, which he had denied to Jones, and fell into so violent atrembling, that his knees knocked against each other. Jones asked himwhat was the matter, and whether he was afraid of the warrior upon thestage? "O la! sir, " said he, "I perceive now it is what you told me. I am not afraid of anything; for I know it is but a play. And if itwas really a ghost, it could do one no harm at such a distance, and inso much company; and yet if I was frightened, I am not the onlyperson. " "Why, who, " cries Jones, "dost thou take to be such a cowardhere besides thyself?" "Nay, you may call me coward if you will, butif that little man there upon the stage is not frightened, I never sawany man frightened in my life. Ay, ay: go along with you: Ay, to besure! Who's fool then? Will you? Lud have mercy upon suchfool-hardiness!--Whatever happens, it is good enough for you. ----Followyou? I'd follow the devil as soon. Nay, perhaps it is thedevil----for they say he can put on what likeness he pleases. --Oh! herehe is again. ----No farther! No, you have gone far enough already;farther than I'd have gone for all the king's dominions. " Jonesoffered to speak, but Partridge cried, "Hush, hush! dear sir, don't youhear him?" And during the whole speech of the ghost, he sat with hiseyes fixed partly on the ghost and partly on Hamlet, and with his mouthopen; the same passions which succeeded each other in Hamlet, succeeding likewise in him. 

When the scene was over Jones said, "Why, Partridge, {67} you exceed myexpectations. You enjoy the play more than I conceived possible. ""Nay, sir, " answered Partridge, "if you are not afraid of the devil, Ican't help it, but to be sure, it is natural to be surprised at suchthings, though I know there is nothing in them: not that it was theghost that surprised me, neither; for I should have known that to havebeen only a man in a strange dress; but when I saw the little man sofrightened himself, it was that which took hold of me. " "And dost thouimagine, then, Partridge, " cries Jones, "that he was reallyfrightened?" "Nay, sir, " said Partridge, "did not you yourself observeafterwards, when he found it was his own father's spirit, and how hewas murdered in the garden, how his fear forsook him by degrees, and hewas struck dumb with sorrow, as it were, just as I should have been, had it been my own case?--But hush! O la! what noise is that? Therehe is again. ----Well to be certain, though I know there is nothing atall in it, I am glad I am not down yonder, where those men are. " Thenturning his eyes again upon Hamlet, "Ay, you may draw your sword; whatsignifies a sword against the power of the devil?"

During the second act, Partridge made very few remarks. He greatlyadmired the fineness of the dresses; nor could he help observing uponthe king's countenance. "Well, " said he, "how people may be deceivedby faces! _Nulla fides fronti_ is, I find, a true saying. Who wouldthink, by looking in the king's face, that he had ever committed amurder?" He then inquired after the ghost; but Jones, who intendedthat he should be surprised, gave him no other satisfaction, than, "that {68} he might possibly see him again soon, and in a flash offire. "

Partridge sat in a fearful expectation of this; and now, when the ghostmade his appearance, Partridge cried out, "There, sir, now; what sayyou now? is he frightened now or no? As much frightened as you thinkme, and, to be sure, nobody can help some fears. I would not be in sobad a condition as what's his name, squire Hamlet, is there, for allthe world. Bless me! what's become of the spirit? As I am a livingsoul, I thought I saw him sink into the earth. " "Indeed, you sawright, " answered Jones. "Well, well, " cries Partridge, "I know it isonly a play: and besides, if there was anything in all this, MadamMiller would not laugh so; for as to you, sir, you would not be afraid, I believe, if the devil was here in person. --There, there--Ay, nowonder you are in such a passion, shake the vile wicked wretch topieces. If she was my own mother, I would serve her so. To be sureall duty to a mother is forfeited by such wicked doings. ----Ay, goabout your business, I hate the sight of you. "

Our critic was now pretty silent till the play, which Hamlet introducesbefore the king. This he did not at first understand, till Jonesexplained it to him; but he no sooner entered into the spirit of it, than he began to bless himself that he had never committed murder. Then turning to Mrs Miller, he asked her, "If she did not imagine theking looked as if he was touched; though he is, " said he, "a goodactor, and doth all he can to hide it. Well, I would not have so muchto answer for, as that wicked man there hath, to sit upon a much higher{69} chair that he sits upon. No wonder he runs away; for your sakeI'll never trust an innocent face again. "

The grave digging scene next engaged the attention of Partridge, whoexpressed much surprise at the number of skulls thrown upon the stage. To which Jones answered, "That it was one of the most famousburial-places about town. " "No wonder, then, " cries Partridge, "thatthe place is haunted. But I never saw in my life a worse grave-digger. I had a sexton, when I was clerk, that should have dug three graveswhile he is digging one. The fellow handles a spade as if it was thefirst time he had ever had one in his hand. Ay, ay, you may sing. Youhad rather sing than work, I believe. "--Upon Hamlet's taking up theskull he cried out, "Well! it is strange to see how fearless some menare: I never could bring myself to touch anything belonging to a deadman, on any account. --He seemed frightened enough, too, at the ghost, Ithought. _Nemo omnibus horis sapit_. "

Little more worth remembering occurred during the play, at the end ofwhich Jones asked him, "Which of the players he had liked best?" Tothis he answered, with some appearance of indignation at the question, "The king, without doubt. " "Indeed, Mr Partridge, " says Mrs Miller, "you are not of the same opinion with the town; for they are allagreed, that Hamlet is acted by the best player who ever was on thestage. " "He the best player!" cries Partridge, with a contemptuoussneer, "why, I could act as well as he myself. I am sure, if I hadseen a ghost, I should have looked in the very same manner, and donejust as he did. And then, {70} to be sure, in that scene, as youcalled it, between him and his mother, where you told me he acted sofine, why, Lord help me, any man, that is, any good man, that had sucha mother, would have done exactly the same. I know you are only jokingwith me; but indeed, madam, though I was never at a play in London, yetI have seen acting before in the country; and the king for my money; hespeaks all his words distinctly, half as loud again as theother. --Anybody may see he is an actor. "

While Mrs Miller was thus engaged in conversation with Partridge, alady came up to Mr Jones, whom he immediately knew to be MrsFitzpatrick. She said, she had seen him from the other part of thegallery, and had taken that opportunity of speaking to him, as she hadsomething to say, which might be of great service to himself. She thenacquainted him with her lodgings, and made him an appointment the nextday in the morning; which, upon recollection, she presently changed tothe afternoon; at which time Jones promised to attend her. 

Thus ended the adventure at the play-house; where Partridge hadafforded great mirth, not only to Jones and Mrs Miller, but to all whosat within hearing, who were more attentive to what he said, than toanything that passed on the stage. 

He durst not go to bed all that night, for fear of the ghost; and formany nights after sweated two or three hours before he went to sleep, with the same apprehensions, and waked several times in great horrors, crying out, "Lord have mercy upon us! there it is. "

(_Tom Jones_. )

{71}

SAMUEL JOHNSON 1709-1784

A JOURNEY IN A STAGE-COACH

In a stage coach the passengers are for the most part wholly unknown toone another, and without expectation of ever meeting again when theirjourney is at an end; one should, therefore, imagine, that it was oflittle importance to any of them, what conjectures the rest should formconcerning him. Yet so it is, that as all think themselves secure fromdetection, all assume that character of which they are most desirous, and on no occasion is the general ambition of superiority moreapparently indulged. 

On the day of our departure, in the twilight of the morning, I ascendedthe vehicle with three men and two women, my fellow travellers. It waseasy to observe the affected elevation of mien with which every oneentered, and the supercilious civility with which they paid theircompliments to each other. When the first ceremony was dispatched, wesat silent for a long time, all employed in collecting importance intoour faces, and endeavouring to strike reverence and submission into ourcompanions. 

It is always observable, that silence propagates itself, and that thelonger talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say. We began now to wish for conversation; but no one seemedinclined to descend from his dignity, or first to propose a topic ofdiscourse. At last a corpulent gentleman, who had equipped himself forthis expedition with a scarlet surtout {72} and a large hat with abroad lace, drew out his watch, looked on it in silence, and then heldit dangling at his finger. This was, I suppose, understood by all thecompany as an invitation to ask the time of the day, but nobodyappeared to heed his overture; and his desire to be talking so farovercame his resentment, that he let us know of his own accord that itwas past five, and that in two hours we should be at breakfast. 

His condescension was thrown away; we continued all obdurate; theladies held up their heads; I amused myself with watching theirbehaviour; and of the other two, one seemed to employ himself incounting the trees as we drove by them, the other drew his hat over hiseyes and counterfeited a slumber. The man of benevolence, to shew thathe was not depressed by our neglect, hummed a tune and beat time uponhis snuff-box. 

Thus universally displeased with one another, and not much delightedwith ourselves, we came at last to the little inn appointed for ourrepast; and all began at once to recompense ourselves for the restraintof silence, by innumerable questions and orders to the people thatattended us. At last, what every one had called for was got, ordeclared impossible to be got at that time, and we were persuaded tosit round the same table; when the gentleman in the red surtout lookedagain upon his watch, told us that we had half an hour to spare, but hewas sorry to see so little merriment among us; that allfellow-travellers were for the time upon the level, and that it wasalways his way to make himself one of the company. "I remember, " sayshe, "it was on just such a morning as this, that I and my lord Mumbleand the {73} duke of Tenterden were out upon a ramble: we called at alittle house as it might be this; and my landlady, I warrant you, notsuspecting to whom she was talking, was so jocular and facetious, andmade so many merry answers to our questions, that we were all ready toburst with laughter. At last the good woman happening to overhear mewhisper the duke and call him by his title, was so surprised andconfounded, that we could scarcely get a word from her; and the dukenever met me from that day to this, but he talks of the little house, and quarrels with me for terrifying the landlady. "

He had scarcely time to congratulate himself on the veneration whichthis narrative must have procured him from the company, when one of theladies having reached out for a plate on a distant part of the table, began to remark "the inconveniences of travelling, and the difficultywhich they who never sat at home without a great number of attendantsfound in performing for themselves such offices as the road required;but that people of quality often travelled in disguise, and might begenerally known from the vulgar by their condescension to poorinn-keepers, and the allowance which they made for any defect in theirentertainment; that for her part, while people were civil and meantwell, it was never her custom to find fault, for one was not to expectupon a journey all that one enjoyed at one's own house. "

A general emulation seemed now to be excited. One of the men, who hadhitherto said nothing, called for the last news-paper; and havingperused it a while with deep pensiveness, "It is impossible, " says he, "for any man to guess how to act with regard to the stocks: last {74}week it was the general opinion that they would fall; and I sold outtwenty thousand pounds in order to a purchase: they have now risenunexpectedly; and I make no doubt but at my return to London, I shallrisk thirty thousand pounds amongst them again. "

A young man, who had hitherto distinguished himself only by thevivacity of his looks, and a frequent diversion of his eyes from oneobject to another, upon this closed his snuff-box, and told us, that"he had a hundred times talked with the chancellor and the judges onthe subject of the stocks; that for his part he did not pretend to bewell acquainted with the principles on which they were established, buthad always heard them reckoned pernicious to trade, uncertain in theirproduce, and unsolid in their foundation; and that he had been advisedby three judges, his most intimate friends, never to venture his moneyin the funds, but to put it out upon land security, till he could lightupon an estate in his own country. "

It might be expected, that upon these glimpses of latent dignity, weshould all have begun to look round us with veneration; and havebehaved like the princes of romance, when the enchantment thatdisguises them is dissolved and they discover the dignity of eachother: yet it happened, that none of these hints made much impressionon the company; everyone was apparently suspected of endeavouring toimpose false appearances upon the rest; all continued theirhaughtiness, in hopes to enforce their claims; and all grew every hourmore sullen, because they found their representations of themselveswithout effect. 

{75} Thus we travelled on four days with malevolence perpetuallyincreasing, and without any endeavour but to outvie each other insuperciliousness and neglect; and when any two of us could separateourselves for a moment, we vented our indignation at the sauciness ofthe rest. 

At length the journey was at an end; and time and chance, that stripoff all disguises, have discovered, that the intimate of lords anddukes is a nobleman's butler, who has furnished a shop with the moneyhe has saved; the man who deals so largely in the funds, is a clerk ofa broker in 'Change-alley; the lady who so carefully concealed herquality, keeps a cook-shop behind the Exchange; and the young man, whois so happy in the friendship of the judges, engrosses and transcribesfor bread in a garret of the Temple. Of one of the women only I couldmake no disadvantageous detection, because she had assumed nocharacter, but accommodated herself to the scene before her, withoutany struggle for distinction or superiority. 

I could not forbear to reflect on the folly of practising a fraud, which, as the event shewed, had been already practised too often tosucceed, and by the success of which no advantage could have beenobtained; of assuming a character, which was to end with the day; andof claiming upon false pretences honours which must perish with thebreath that paid them. 

But, Mr Adventurer, let not those who laugh at me and my companions, think this folly confined to a stage coach. Every man in the journeyof life takes the same advantage of the ignorance of his fellowtravellers, disguises himself in counterfeited merit, and hears those{76} praises with complacency which his conscience reproaches him foraccepting. Every man deceives himself, while he thinks he is deceivingothers; and forgets that the time is at hand when every illusion shallcease, when fictitious excellence shall be torn away, and all must beshown to all in their real estate. 

I am, Sir, Your humble servant, VIATOR. 

(_The Adventurer_. )

LAURENCE STERNE 1713-1768

HOW UNCLE TOBY AND CORPORAL TRIM FOLLOWED MARLBOROUGH'S CAMPAIGNS

If the reader has not a clear conception of the rood and the half ofground which lay at the bottom of my uncle Toby's kitchen-garden, andwhich was the scene of so many of his delicious hours, --the fault isnot in me, --but in his imagination;--for I am sure I gave him so minutea description, I was almost ashamed of it. 

When _Fate_ was looking forwards one afternoon, into the greattransactions of future times, --and recollected for what purposes thislittle plot, by a decree fast bound down in iron, had beendestined, --she gave a nod to _Nature_:--'twas enough, --Nature threwhalf a spadeful of her kindliest compost upon it, with just so _much_clay in {77} it as to retain the forms of angles and indenting, --and so_little_ of it too, as not to cling to the spade, and render works ofso much glory, nasty in foul weather. 

My uncle Toby came down, as the reader has been informed, with plansalong with him, of almost every fortified town in Italy and Flanders;so let the Duke of Marlborough, or the allies, have set down beforewhat town they pleased, my uncle Toby was prepared for them. 

His way, which was the simplest one in the world, was this: as soon asever a town was invested--(but sooner when the design was known) totake the plan of it (let it be what town it would) and enlarge it upona scale to the exact size of his bowling green; upon the surface ofwhich, by means of a large roll of packthread, and a number of smallpickets driven into the ground, at the several angles and redans, hetransferred the lines from his paper; then taking the profile of theplace, with its works, to determine the depths and slopes of theditches, --the talus of the glacis, and the precise height of theseveral _banquettes_, parapets, etc. --he set the Corporal to work; andsweetly went it on. --The nature of the soil, --the nature of the workitself, --and, above all, the good-nature of my uncle Toby, sitting byfrom morning to night, and chatting kindly with the Corporal upon pastdone deeds, --left _labour_ little else but the ceremony of the name. . . 

When the town, with its works, was finished, my uncle Toby and theCorporal began to run their first parallel, --not at random, oranyhow, --but from the same points and distances the allies had begun torun {78} theirs; and regulating their approaches and attacks by theaccounts my uncle Toby received from the daily papers, --they went on, during the whole siege, step by step, with the allies. 

When the Duke of Marlborough made a lodgment, --my uncle Toby made alodgment too;--and when the face of a bastion was battered down, or adefence ruined, --the Corporal took his mattock and did as much, --and soon;--gaining ground, and making themselves masters of the works, oneafter another, till the town fell into their hands. 

To one who took pleasure in the happy state of others, there could nothave been a greater sight in the world than on a post-morning, in whicha practicable breach had been made by the Duke of Marlborough in themain body of the place, --to have stood behind the horn-beam hedge, andobserved the spirit with which my uncle Toby, with Trim behind him, sallied forth;--the one with the Gazette in his hand, --the other with aspade on his shoulder, to execute the contents. --What an honest triumphin my uncle Toby's looks as he marched up to the ramparts! what intensepleasure swimming in his eye as he stood over the Corporal, reading theparagraph ten times over to him, as he was at work, lest, peradventure, he should make the breach an inch too wide, --or leave it an inch toonarrow!--but when the _chamade_ was beat, and the Corporal helped myuncle up it, and followed with the colours in his hand, to fix themupon the ramparts, --Heaven! Earth! Sea!--but what availapostrophes?--with all your elements, wet or dry, ye never compoundedso intoxicating a draught. 

{79} In this track of happiness for many years, without oneinterruption to it, except now and then when the wind continued to blowdue west for a week or ten days together, which detained the Flandersmail, and kept them so long in torture, but still it was the torture ofthe happy:--in this track, I say, did my uncle Toby and Trim move formany years, every year of which, and sometimes every month, from theinvention of either the one or the other of them, adding some newconceit or quirk of improvement to their operations, which alwaysopened fresh springs of delight in carrying them on. 

(_Tristram Shandy_. )

HORACE WALPOLE 1717-1797

THE FUNERAL OF GEORGE II

_Horace Walpole to George Montagu_

ARLINGTON STREET, _November_ 13, 1760. 

Even the honeymoon of a new reign don't produce events every day. There is nothing but the common saying of addresses and kissinghands. . . For the King himself, he seems all good nature, and wishingto satisfy everybody; all his speeches are obliging. 

I saw him again yesterday, and was surprised to find the levee-room hadlost so entirely the air of the lion's den. This sovereign don't standin one spot, with his eyes fixed royally on the ground, and droppingbits of {80} German news: he walks about, and speaks to everybody. Isaw him afterwards on the throne where he is graceful and genteel, sitswith dignity and reads his answers to addresses well; it was theCambridge address, carried by the Duke of Newcastle in his doctor'sgown, and looking like the _Médecin malgré lui_. He had beenvehemently solicitous for attendance for fear my Lord Westmoreland, whovouchsafes himself to bring the address from Oxford, should outnumberhim. Lord Litchfield and several other Jacobites have kissed hands;George Selwyn says, "They go to St James', because _now_ there are somany Stuarts there. "

Do you know, I had the curiosity to go to the burying t'other night; Ihad never seen a royal funeral; nay, I walked as a rag of quality, which I found would be, and so it was, the easiest way of seeing it. It is absolutely a noble sight. The Prince's chamber, hung withpurple, and a quantity of silver lamps, the coffin under a canopy ofpurple velvet, and six vast chandeliers of silver on high stands, had avery good effect. The ambassador from Tripoli and his son were carriedto see that chamber. 

The procession, through a line of foot-guards, every seventh manbearing a torch, the horse-guards lining the outside, their officerswith drawn sabres and crape sashes on horse-back, the drums muffled, the fifes, bells tolling, and minute guns, --all this was very solemn. But the charm was the entrance of the abbey, where we were received bythe dean and chapter in rich robes, the choir and almsmen bearingtorches; the whole abbey so illuminated, that one saw it to greateradvantage than by {81} day; the tombs, long aisles, and fretted roof, all appearing distinctly, and with the happiest _chiaroscuro_. Therewanted nothing but incense, and little chapels here and there, withpriests saying mass for the repose of the defunct; yet one could notcomplain of its not being catholic enough. I had been in dread ofbeing coupled with some boy of ten years old; but the heralds were notvery accurate, and I walked with George Grenville, taller and older, tokeep me in countenance. When we came to the chapel of Henry theSeventh, all solemnity and decorum ceased; no order was observed, people sat or stood where they could or would; the Yeomen of the Guardwere crying out for help, oppressed by the immense weight of thecoffin; the bishop read sadly and blundered in the prayers; the finechapter, _Man that is born of woman_, was chanted, not read; and theanthem, besides being immeasurably tedious, would have served as wellfor a nuptial. The real serious part was the figure of the Duke ofCumberland, heightened by a thousand melancholy circumstances. He hada dark brown adonis, and a cloak of black cloth, with a train of fiveyards. 

Attending the funeral of a father could not be pleasant; his legextremely bad, yet forced to stand upon it near two hours; his facebloated and distorted with his late paralytic stroke, which hasaffected, too, one of his eyes; and placed over the mouth of the vaultinto which, in all probability, he must himself so soon descend; thinkhow unpleasant a situation! He bore it all with a firm and unaffectedcountenance. This grave scene was fully contrasted by the burlesqueDuke {82} of Newcastle. He fell into a fit of crying the moment hecame into the chapel, and flung himself back in a stall, the archbishophovering over him with a smelling-bottle; but in two minutes hiscuriosity got the better of his hypocrisy, and he ran about the chapelwith his glass to spy who was or was not there, spying with one hand, and mopping his eyes with the other. Then returned the fear ofcatching cold; and the Duke of Cumberland, who was sinking with heat, felt himself weighed down, and turning round, found it was the Duke ofNewcastle standing upon his train, to avoid the chill of the marble. It is very theatric to look down into the vault, where the coffin was, attended by mourners with lights. Clavering, the groom of thebed-chamber, refused to sit up with the body, and was dismissed by theKing's order. 

I have nothing more to tell you, but a trifle, a very trifle. The Kingof Prussia has totally defeated Marshal Daun. This, which would havebeen prodigious news a month ago, is nothing to-day; it only takes itsturn among the questions, "Who is to be the groom of the bedchamber?What is Sir T. Robinson to have?" I have been to Leicester Fieldsto-day; the crowd was immoderate; I don't believe it will continue so. Good night. 

(_Letters_. )

{83}

OLIVER GOLDSMITH 1728-1774

THE CREDULITY OF THE ENGLISH

It is the most usual method in every report, first to examine itsprobability, and then act as the conjuncture may require. The English, however, exert a different spirit in such circumstances; they firstact, and when too late, begin to examine. From a knowledge of thisdisposition, there are several here, who make it their business toframe new reports at every convenient interval, all tending to denounceruin, both on their contemporaries and their posterity. Thisdenunciation is eagerly caught up by the public: away they fling topropagate the distress; sell out at one place, buy in at another, grumble at their governors, shout in mobs, and when they have thus forsome time behaved like fools, sit down coolly to argue and talk wisdom, to puzzle each other with syllogism, and prepare for the next reportthat prevails, which is always attended with the same success. 

Thus are they ever rising above one report, only to sink into another. They resemble a dog in a well, pawing to get free. When he has raisedhis upper parts above water, and every spectator imagines himdisengaged, his lower parts drag him down again and sink him to thenose; he makes new efforts to emerge, and every effort increasing hisweakness, only tends to sink him the deeper. . . 

{84} This people would laugh at my simplicity, should I advise them tobe less sanguine in harbouring gloomy predictions, and examine coollybefore they attempted to complain. I have just heard a story, which, though transacted in a private family, serves very well to describe thebehaviour of the whole nation, in cases of threatened calamity. Asthere are public, so there are private incendiaries here. One of thelast, either for the amusement of his friends, or to divert a fit ofthe spleen, lately sent a threatening letter to a worthy family in myneighbourhood, to this effect:

"Sir, --Knowing you to be very rich, and finding myself to be very poor, I think proper to inform you, that I have learned the secret ofpoisoning man, woman, and child, without danger of detection. Don't beuneasy, Sir, you may take your choice of being poisoned in a fortnight, or poisoned in a month, or poisoned in six weeks; you shall have fulltime to settle all your affairs. Though I am poor, I love to do thingslike a gentleman. But, Sir, you must die. Blood, Sir, blood is mytrade; so I could wish you would this day six weeks take leave of yourfriends, wife, and family, for I cannot possibly allow you longer time. To convince you more certainly of the power of my art, by which you mayknow I speak truth, take this letter; when you have read it, tear offthe seal, fold it up, and give it to your favourite Dutch mastiff thatsits by the fire; he will swallow it, Sir, like a buttered toast: inthree hours four minutes after he has taken it, he will attempt to biteoff his own tongue, and half an hour after burst asunder in twentypieces. Blood! blood! blood! So no more at present from, {85} Sir, your most obedient, most devoted humble servant to command, till death. "

You may easily imagine the consternation into which this letter threwthe whole good-natured family. The poor man to whom it was addressedwas the more surprised, as not knowing how he could merit suchinveterate malice. All the friends of the family were convened; it wasuniversally agreed that it was a most terrible affair, and that thegovernment should be solicited to offer a reward and a pardon: a fellowof this kind would go on poisoning family after family; and it wasimpossible to say where the destruction would end. In pursuance ofthese determinations, the government was applied to; strict search wasmade after the incendiary, but all in vain. At last, therefore, theyrecollected that the experiment was not yet tried upon the dog; theDutch mastiff was brought up, and placed in the midst of the friendsand relations; the seal was torn off, the packet folded up with care, and soon they found, to the great surprise of all--that the dog wouldnot eat the letter. Adieu. 

(_Citizen of the World_. )

EDMUND BURKE 1729-1797

DECAY OF THE PRINCIPLES OF LIBERTY

We may amuse ourselves with talking as much as we please of the virtueof middle or humble life; that is, we may place our confidence in thevirtue of those who {86} have never been tried. But if the persons whoare continually emerging out of that sphere be no better than thosewhom birth has placed above it, what hopes are there in the remainderof the body, which is to furnish the perpetual succession of the state?All who have ever written on government are unanimous that among apeople generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist. And indeed how isit possible? When those who are to make the laws, to guard, toenforce, or to obey them, are by a tacit confederacy of mannersindisposed to the spirit of all generous and noble institutions. 

I am aware that the age is not what we all wish. But I am sure thatthe only means of checking its precipitate degeneracy is heartily toconcur with whatever is the best in our time: and to have some morecorrect standard of judging what that best is than the transient anduncertain favour of a court. If once we are able to find and canprevail on ourselves to strengthen an union of such men, whateveraccidentally becomes indisposed to ill-exercised power, even by theordinary operation of human passions, must join with that society, andcannot long be joined without in some degree assimilating to it. Virtue will catch as well as vice by contact, and the public stock ofhonest, manly principle will daily accumulate. We are not too nicelyto scrutinise motives as long as action is irreproachable. It isenough (and for a worthy man perhaps too much) to deal out its infamyto convicted guilt and declared apostasy. 

This, gentlemen, has been from the beginning the rule of my conduct;and I mean to continue it as long as such a body as I have describedcan by any possibility {87} be kept together, for I should think it themost dreadful of all offences, not only towards the present generationbut to all the future, if I were to do anything which could make theminutest breach in this great conservatory of free principles. Thosewho perhaps have the same intentions but are separated by some littlepolitical animosities will I hope discern at last how little conduciveit is to any rational purpose to lower its reputation. For my part, gentlemen, from much experience, from no little thinking, and fromcomparing a great variety of things, I am thoroughly persuaded that thelast hope of preserving the spirit of the English constitution, or ofre-uniting the dissipated members of the English race upon a commonplan of tranquillity and liberty, does entirely depend on their firmand lasting union, and above all on their keeping themselves from thatdespair which is so very apt to fall on those whom a violence ofcharacter and a mixture of ambitious views do not support through along, painful, and unsuccessful struggle. 

There never, gentlemen, was a period in which the stedfastness of somemen has been put to so sore a trial. It is not very difficult forwell-formed minds to abandon their interest, but the separation of fameand virtue is a harsh divorce. Liberty is in danger of being madeunpopular to Englishmen. Contending for an imaginary power we begin toacquire the spirit of domination and to lose the relish of an honestequality. The principles of our forefathers become suspected to us, because we see them animating the present opposition of our children. The faults which grow out of the luxuriance of freedom appear much moreshocking to us than the {88} base vices which are generated from therankness of servitude. Accordingly, the least resistance to powerappears more inexcusable in our eyes than the greatest abuses ofauthority. All dread of a standing military force is looked upon as asuperstitious panic. All shame of calling in foreigners and savages ina civil contest is worn off. We grow indifferent to the consequencesinevitable to ourselves from the plan of ruling half the empire by amercenary sword. We are taught to believe that a desire of domineeringover our countrymen is love to our country, that those who hate civilwar abet rebellion, and that the amiable and conciliatory virtues oflenity, moderation, and tenderness of the privileges of those whodepend on this kingdom are a sort of treason to the state. 

It is impossible that we should remain long in a situation which breedssuch notions and dispositions without some great alteration in thenational character. Those ingenuous and feeling minds who are sofortified against all other things, and so unarmed to whateverapproaches in the shape of disgrace, finding these principles, whichthey considered as sure means of honour, to be grown into disrepute, will retire disheartened and disgusted. Those of a more robust make, the bold, able, ambitious men who pay some of their court to powerthrough the people, and substitute the voice of transient opinion inthe place of true glory, will give in to the general mode; and thosesuperior understandings which ought to correct vulgar prejudice willconfirm and aggravate its errors. Many things have been long operatingtowards a gradual change in our principles. {89} But this American warhas done more in a very few years than all the other causes could haveeffected in a century. It is therefore not on its own separateaccount, but because of its attendant circumstances that I consider itscontinuance or its ending in any way but that of an honourable andliberal accommodation as the greatest evils which can befall us. Forthat reason I have troubled you with this long letter. For that reasonI entreat you again and again neither to be persuaded, shamed, orfrighted out of the principles that have hitherto led so many of you toabhor the war, its cause, and its consequences. Let us not be amongthe first who renounce the maxims of our forefathers. 

(_Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, on the affairs of America_. )

WILLIAM COWPER 1731-1800

THE CANDIDATE FOR PARLIAMENT

_To the Rev. John Newton_. 

_March_ 29, 1784. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, --It being his majesty's pleasure that I should yet haveanother opportunity to write before he dissolves the parliament, Iavail myself of it with all possible alacrity. I thank you for yourlast, which was not the less welcome for coming, like an extraordinarygazette, at a time when it was not expected. 

{90} As when the sea is uncommonly agitated, the water finds its wayinto creeks and holes of rocks, which in its calmer state it neverreaches, in like manner the effect of these turbulent times is felteven at Orchard side, where in general we live as undisturbed by thepolitical element, as shrimps or cockles that have been accidentallydeposited in some hollow beyond the water mark, by the usual dashing ofthe waves. We were sitting yesterday after dinner, the two ladies andmyself, very composedly, and without the least apprehension of any suchintrusion in our snug parlour, one lady knitting, the other netting, and the gentleman winding worsted, when to our unspeakable surprise amob appeared before the window; a smart rap was heard at the door, theboys halloo'd, and the maid announced Mr Grenville. Puss wasunfortunately let out of her box, so that the candidate, with all hisgood friends at his heels, was refused admittance at the grand entry, and referred to the back door, as the only possible way of approach. 

Candidates are creatures not very susceptible of affronts, and wouldrather, I suppose, climb in at a window, than be absolutely excluded. In a minute, the yard, the kitchen, and the parlour, were filled. MrGrenville advancing toward me shook me by the hand with a degree ofcordiality that was extremely seducing. As soon as he and as many moreas could find chairs were seated, he began to open the intent of hisvisit. I told him I had no vote, for which he readily gave me credit. I assured him I had no influence, which he was not equally inclined tobelieve, and the less, no doubt, because Mr Ashburner, the {91}drapier, addressing himself to me at this moment, informed me that Ihad a great deal. Supposing that I could not be possessed of such atreasure without knowing it, I ventured to confirm my first assertion, by saying, that if I had any I was utterly at a loss to imagine whereit could be, or wherein it consisted. Thus ended the conference. MrGrenville squeezed me by the hand again, kissed the ladies, andwithdrew. He kissed likewise the maid in the kitchen, and seemed uponthe whole a most loving, kissing, kind-hearted gentleman. He is veryyoung, genteel, and handsome. He has a pair of very good eyes in hishead, which not being sufficient as it should seem for the many niceand difficult purposes of a senator, he has a third also, which he woresuspended by a ribband from his buttonhole. The boys halloo'd, thedogs barked, Puss scampered, the hero, with his long train ofobsequious followers, withdrew. We made ourselves very merry with theadventure, and in a short time settled into our former tranquillity, never probably to be thus interrupted more. I thought myself, however, happy in being able to affirm truly that I had not that influence forwhich he sued; and which, had I been possessed of it, with my presentviews of the dispute between the Crown and the Commons, I must haverefused him, for he is on the side of the former. It is comfortable tobe of no consequence in a world where one cannot exercise any withoutdisobliging somebody. The town however seems to be much at hisservice, and if he be equally successful throughout the county, he willundoubtedly gain his election. Mr Ashburner perhaps {92} was a littlemortified, because it was evident that I owed the honour of this visitto his misrepresentation of my importance. But had he thought properto assure Mr Grenville that I had three heads, I should not I supposehave been bound to produce them. 

Mr Scott, who you say was so much admired in your pulpit, would beequally admired in his own, at least by all capable judges, were he notso apt to be angry with his congregation. This hurts him, and had hethe understanding and eloquence of Paul himself, would still hurt him. He seldom, hardly ever indeed, preaches a gentle, well-tempered sermon, but I hear it highly commended: but warmth of temper, indulged to adegree that may be called scolding, defeats the end of preaching. Itis a misapplication of his powers, which it also cripples, and teasesaway his hearers. But he is a good man, and may perhaps outgrow it. 

Many thanks for the worsted, which is excellent. We are as well as aspring hardly less severe than the severest winter will give us leaveto be. With our united love, we conclude ourselves yours and MrsNewton's affectionate and faithful

 W. C. M. U. 

(_Letters_. )

{93}

EDWARD GIBBON 1737-1794

YOUTH

At the conclusion of this first period of my life, I am tempted toenter a protest against the trite and lavish praise of the happiness ofour boyish years, which is echoed with so much affectation in theworld. That happiness I have never known, that time I have neverregretted; and were my poor aunt still alive, she would bear testimonyto the early and constant uniformity of my sentiments. It will, indeed, be replied that _I_ am not a competent judge; that pleasure isincompatible with pain, that joy is excluded from sickness; and thatthe felicity of a school-boy consists in the perpetual motion ofthoughtless and playful agility, in which I was never qualified toexcel. My name, it is most true, could never be enrolled among thesprightly race, the idle progeny of Eton or Westminster, who delight tocleave the water with pliant arm, to urge the flying ball, and to chasethe speed of the rolling circle. But I would ask the warmest and mostactive hero of the play-field whether he can seriously compare hischildish with his manly enjoyments. . . . A state of happiness arisingonly from the want of foresight and reflection shall never provoke myenvy; such degenerate taste would tend to sink us in the scale ofbeings from a man to a child, a dog and an oyster, till we had reachedthe confines of brute matter, which cannot suffer because it cannotfeel. The poet may gaily describe the short hours of {94} recreation;but he forgets the daily, tedious labours of the school, which isapproached each morning with anxious and reluctant steps. Degrees ofmisery are proportioned to the mind rather than to the object; _parvaleves capiunt animos_; and few men, in the trials of life, haveexperienced a more painful sensation than the poor school-boy with animperfect task, who trembles on the eve of the black Monday. A schoolis the cavern of fear and sorrow; the mobility of the captive youths ischained to a book and a desk; an inflexible master commands theirattention, which every moment is impatient to escape; they labour likethe soldiers of Persia under the scourge, and their education is nearlyfinished before they can apprehend the sense or utility of the harshlessons which they are forced to repeat. Such blind and absolutedependence may be necessary, but can never be delightful: Freedom isthe first wish of our heart; freedom is the first blessing of ournature; and, unless we bind ourselves with the voluntary chains ofinterest or passion, we advance in freedom as we advance in years. 

(_Autobiography_. )

JAMES BOSWELL 1740-1795

FIRST SIGHT OF DR JOHNSON

1763. This is to me a memorable year; for in it I had the happiness toobtain the acquaintance of that extraordinary man whose memoirs I amnow writing; an acquaintance which I shall ever esteem as one of {95}the most fortunate circumstances in my life. Though then buttwo-and-twenty, I had for several years read his works with delight andinstruction, and had the highest reverence for their author, which hadgrown up in my fancy into a kind of mysterious veneration, by figuringto myself a state of solemn abstraction, in which I supposed him tolive in the immense metropolis of London. Mr Gentleman, a native ofIreland, who passed some years in Scotland as a player, and as aninstructor in the English language, a man whose talents and worth weredepressed by misfortunes, had given me a representation of the figureand manner of DICTIONARY JOHNSON! as he was then generally called; andduring my first visit to London, which was for three months in 1760, MrDerrick the poet, who was Gentleman's friend and countryman, flatteredme with hopes that he would introduce me to Johnson, an honour of whichI was very ambitious. But he never found an opportunity; which made medoubt that he had promised to do what was not in his power; tillJohnson some years afterwards told me, "Derrick, Sir, might very wellhave introduced you. I had a kindness for Derrick, and am sorry he isdead. "

In the summer of 1761 Mr Thomas Sheridan was at Edinburgh, anddelivered lectures upon the English language and Public Speaking tolarge and respectable audiences. I was often in his company, and heardhim frequently expatiate upon Johnson's extraordinary knowledge, talents, and virtues, repeat his pointed sayings, describe hisparticularities, and boast of his being his guest sometimes till two orthree in the morning. At {96} his house I hoped to have manyopportunities of seeing the sage, as Mr Sheridan obligingly assured meI should not be disappointed. 

When I returned to London in the end of 1762, to my surprise and regretI found an irreconcileable difference had taken place between Johnsonand Sheridan. A pension of two hundred pounds a year had been given toSheridan. Johnson, who, as has been already mentioned, thoughtslightingly of Sheridan's art, upon hearing that he was also pensioned, exclaimed, "What! have they given _him_ a pension? Then it is time forme to give up mine. " Whether this proceeded from a momentaryindignation, as if it were an affront to his exalted merit that aplayer should be rewarded in the same manner with him, or was thesudden effect of a fit of peevishness, it was unluckily said, and, indeed, cannot be justified. Mr Sheridan's pension was granted to himnot as a player, but as a sufferer in the cause of government, when hewas manager of the Theatre Royal in Ireland, when parties ran high in1753. And it must also be allowed that he was a man of literature, andhad considerably improved the arts of reading and speaking withdistinctness and propriety. . . . 

This rupture with Sheridan deprived Johnson of one of his mostagreeable resources for amusement in his lonely evenings; forSheridan's well-informed, animated, and bustling mind never sufferedconversation to stagnate; and Mrs Sheridan was a most agreeablecompanion to an intellectual man. She was sensible, ingenious, unassuming, yet communicative. I recollect, with satisfaction, manypleasing hours which I passed with her {97} under the hospitable roofof her husband, who was to me a very kind friend. Her novel, entitled_Memoirs of Miss Sydney Biddulph_, contains an excellent moral while itinculcates a future state of retribution; and what it teaches isimpressed upon the mind by a series of as deep distress as can affecthumanity, in the amiable and pious heroine who goes to her graveunrelieved, but resigned, and full of hope of heaven's mercy. Johnsonpaid her this high compliment upon it: "I know not, Madam, that youhave a right, upon moral principles, to make your readers suffer somuch. "

Mr Thomas Davies, the actor, who then kept a bookseller's shop inRussell Street, Covent Garden, told me that Johnson was very much hisfriend, and came frequently to his house, where he more than onceinvited me to meet him; but by some unlucky accident or other he wasprevented from coming to us. 

Mr Thomas Davies was a man of good understanding and talents, with theadvantage of a liberal education. Though somewhat pompous, he was anentertaining companion; and his literary performances have noinconsiderable share of merit. He was a friendly and very hospitableman. Both he and his wife (who has been celebrated for her beauty), though upon the stage for many years, maintained an uniform decency ofcharacter; and Johnson esteemed them, and lived in an as easy anintimacy with them, as with any family which he used to visit. MrDavies recollected several of Johnson's remarkable sayings, and was oneof the best of the many imitators of his voice and manner, whilerelating them. He increased my impatience more and more to see the{98} extraordinary man whose works I highly valued, and whoseconversation was reported to be so peculiarly excellent. 

At last, on Monday the 16th of May, when I was sitting in Mr Davies'sback-parlour, after having drunk tea with him and Mrs Davies, Johnsonunexpectedly came into the shop; and Mr Davies having perceived himthrough the glass door in the room in which we were sitting, advancingtowards us, --he announced his aweful approach to me, somewhat in themanner of an actor in the part of Horatio, when he addresses Hamlet onthe appearance of his father's ghost, "Look, my lord, it comes. " Ifound that I had a very perfect idea of Johnson's figure, from theportrait of him painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds soon after he hadpublished his _Dictionary_, in the attitude of sitting in his easychair in deep meditation, which was the first picture his friend didfor him, which Sir Joshua very kindly presented to me, and from whichan engraving has been made for this work. Mr Davies mentioned my name, and respectfully introduced me to him. I was much agitated; andrecollecting his prejudice against the Scotch, of which I had heardmuch, I said to Davies, "Don't tell where I come from. "--"FromScotland, " cried Davies, roguishly. "Mr Johnson (said I) I do indeedcome from Scotland, but I cannot help it. " I am willing to flattermyself that I meant this as light pleasantry to soothe and conciliatehim, and not as an humiliating abasement at the expense of my country. But however that might be, this speech was somewhat unlucky; for withthat quickness of wit for which he was so remarkable, he {99} seizedthe expression "come from Scotland, " which I used in the sense of beingof that country; and, as if I had said that I had come away from it, orleft it, retorted, "That, Sir, I find, is what a very great many ofyour countrymen cannot help. " This stroke stunned me a good deal; andwhen we had sat down, I felt myself not a little embarrassed, andapprehensive of what might come next. He then addressed himself toDavies: "What do you think of Garrick? He has refused me an order forthe play for Miss Williams, because he knows the house will be full, and that an order would be worth three shillings. " Eager to take anyopening to get into conversation with him, I ventured to say, "O, Sir, I cannot think Mr Garrick would grudge such a trifle to you. " "Sir, (said he, with a stern look) I have known David Garrick longer than youhave done; and I know no right you have to talk to me on the subject. "Perhaps I deserved this check; for it was rather presumptuous in me, anentire stranger, to express any doubt of the justice of hisanimadversion upon his old acquaintance and pupil. I now felt myselfmuch mortified, and began to think that the hope which I had longindulged of obtaining his acquaintance was blasted. And, in truth, hadnot my ardour been uncommonly strong, and my resolution uncommonlypersevering, so rough a reception might have deterred me for ever frommaking any further attempts. Fortunately, however, I remained upon thefield not wholly discomfited. . . . 

I was highly pleased with the extraordinary vigour of his conversation, and regretted that I was drawn {100} away from it by an engagement atanother place. I had, for a part of the evening, been left alone withhim, and had ventured to make an observation now and then, which hereceived very civilly; so that I was satisfied that though there was aroughness in his manner, there was no ill-nature in his disposition. Davies followed me to the door, and when I complained to him a littleof the hard blows which the great man had given me, he kindly took uponhim to console me by saying, "Don't be uneasy. I can see he likes youvery well. "

(_Life of Samuel Johnson_. )

SIR WALTER SCOTT 1771-1832

ARRIVAL AT OSBALDISTONE HALL

"There are hopes of you yet, " she said. "I was afraid you had been avery degenerate Osbaldistone. But what on earth brings you toCub-Castle?--for so the neighbours have christened this hunting-hall ofours. You might have staid away, I suppose, if you would?"

I felt I was by this time on a very intimate footing with my beautifulapparition, and therefore replied in a confidential undertone, --"Indeed, my dear Miss Vernon, I might have considered it as a sacrifice to be atemporary resident in Osbaldistone Hall, the inmates being such as youdescribe them; but I am convinced there is one exception that will makeamends for all deficiencies. "

"O, you mean Rashleigh?" said Miss Vernon. 

{101} "Indeed I do not; I was thinking--forgive me--of some person muchnearer me. "

"I suppose it would be proper not to understand your civility?--But thatis not my way--I don't make a curtsey for it, because I am sitting onhorseback. But, seriously, I deserve your exception, for I am the onlyconversible being about the Hall, except the old priest and Rashleigh. "

"And who is Rashleigh, for Heaven's sake?"

"Rashleigh is one who would fain have every one like him for his ownsake. --He is Sir Hildebrand's youngest son--about your own age, but notso--not well looking, in short. But nature has given him a mouthful ofcommon sense, and the priest has added a bushelful of learning--he iswhat we call a very clever man in this country, where clever men arescarce. Bred to the church, but in no hurry to take orders. "

"To the Catholic Church?"

"The Catholic Church! what Church else?" said the young lady. "But Iforgot, they told me you are a heretic. Is that true, Mr Osbaldistone?"

"I must not deny the charge. "

"And yet you have been abroad, and in Catholic countries?"

"For nearly four years. "

"You have seen convents?"

"Often; but I have not seen much in them which recommended the Catholicreligion. "

"Are not the inhabitants happy?"

"Some are unquestionably so, whom either a profound sense of devotion, oran experience of the {102} persecution and misfortunes of the world, or anatural apathy of temper, has led into retirement. Those who haveadopted a life of seclusion from sudden and overstrained enthusiasm, orin hasty resentment of some disappointment or mortification, are verymiserable. The quickness of sensation soon returns, and, like the wilderanimals in a menagerie, they are restless under confinement, while othersmuse or fatten in cells of no larger dimensions than theirs. "

"And what, " continued Miss Vernon, "becomes of those victims who arecondemned to a convent by the will of others? what do they resemble?especially, what do they resemble, if they are born to enjoy life, andfeel its blessings?"

"They are like imprisoned singing-birds, " replied I, "condemned to wearout their lives in confinement, which they try to beguile by the exerciseof accomplishments, which would have adorned society, had they been leftat large. "

"I shall be, " returned Miss Vernon--"that is, " said she, correctingherself, --"I should be rather like the wild hawk, who, barred the freeexercise of his soar through heaven, will dash himself to pieces againstthe bars of his cage. But to return to Rashleigh, " said she, in a morelively tone, "you will think him the pleasantest man you ever saw in yourlife, Mr Osbaldistone, that is, for a week at least. If he could findout a blind mistress, never man would be so secure of conquest; but theeye breaks the spell that enchants the ear. But here we are in the courtof the old hall, which looks as wild and old-fashioned as any of itsinmates. There is {103} no great toilette kept at Osbaldistone Hall, youmust know; but I must take off these things, they are so unpleasantlywarm, and the hat hurts my forehead too, " continued the lively girl, taking it off, and shaking down a profusion of sable ringlets, which, half laughing, half blushing, she separated with her white slenderfingers, in order to clear them away from her beautiful face and piercinghazel eyes. If there was any coquetry in the action, it was welldisguised by the careless indifference of her manner. I could not helpsaying, "that, judging of the family from what I saw, I should supposethe toilette a very unnecessary care. "

"That's very politely said; though, perhaps, I ought not to understand inwhat sense it was meant, " replied Miss Vernon; "but you will see a betterapology for a little negligence, when you meet the Orsons you are to liveamongst, whose forms no toilette could improve. But, as I said before, the old dinner-bell will clang, or rather clank, in a few minutes--itcracked of its own accord on the day of the landing of King Willie, andmy uncle, respecting its prophetic talent, would never permit it to bemended. So do you hold my palfrey, like a duteous knight, until I sendsome more humble squire to relieve you of the charge. "

She threw me the rein as if we had been acquainted from our childhood, jumped from her saddle, tripped across the court-yard, and entered at aside-door, leaving me in admiration of her beauty, and astonished withthe overfrankness of her manners, which seemed the more extraordinary, ata time when the dictates of politeness, flowing from the court of theGrand Monarque Louis {104} XIV. , prescribed to the fair sex an unusualseverity of decorum. I was left awkwardly enough stationed in the centreof the court of the old hall, mounted on one horse, and holding anotherin my hand. 

The building afforded little to interest a stranger, had I been disposedto consider it attentively; the sides of the quadrangle were of variousarchitecture, and with their stone-shafted latticed windows, projectingturrets, and massive architraves, resembled the inside of a convent, orof one of the older and less splendid colleges of Oxford. I called for adomestic, but was for some time totally unattended to; which was the moreprovoking, as I could perceive I was the object of curiosity to severalservants, both male and female, from different parts of the building, whopopped out their heads and withdrew them, like rabbits in a warren, before I could make a direct appeal to the attention of any individual. The return of the huntsmen and hounds relieved me from my embarrassment, and with some difficulty I got one clown to relieve me of the charge ofthe horses, and another stupid boor to guide me to the presence of SirHildebrand. This service he performed with much such grace andgood-will, as a peasant who is compelled to act as guide to a hostilepatrol; and in the same manner I was obliged to guard against hisdeserting me in the labyrinth of low vaulted passages which conducted to"Stun Hall, " as he called it, where I was to be introduced to thegracious presence of my uncle. 

We did, however, at length reach a long vaulted room, floored with stone, where a range of oaken tables, of a weight and size too massive ever tobe moved {105} aside, were already covered for dinner. This venerableapartment, which had witnessed the feasts of several generations of theOsbaldistone family, bore also evidence of their success in field-sports. Huge antlers of deer, which might have been trophies of the hunting ofChevy Chace, were ranged around the walls, interspersed with the stuffedskins of badgers, otters, martens, and other animals of the chase. Amidst some remnants of old armour, which had, perhaps, served againstthe Scotch, hung the more valued weapons of silvan war, cross-bows, gunsof various device and construction, nets, fishing-rods, otter-spears, hunting-poles, with many other singular devices and engines for taking orkilling game. A few old pictures, dimmed with smoke, and stained withMarch beer, hung on the walls, representing knights and ladies, honoured, doubtless, and renowned in their day; those frowning fearfully from hugebushes of wig and of beard; and these looking delightfully with all theirmight at the roses which they brandished in their hands. 

I had just time to give a glance at these matters, when about twelveblue-coated servants burst into the hall with much tumult and talk, eachrather employed in directing his comrades than in discharging his ownduty. Some brought blocks and billets to the fire, which roared, blazed, and ascended, half in smoke, half in flame, up a huge tunnel, with anopening wide enough to accommodate a stone-seat within its ample vault, and which was fronted, by way of chimney-piece, with a huge piece ofheavy architecture, where the monsters of heraldry, embodied by the artof some Northumbrian {106} chisel, grinned and ramped in red free-stone, now japanned by the smoke of centuries. Others of these old-fashionedserving-men bore huge smoking dishes, loaded with substantial fare;others brought in cups, flagons, bottles, yea barrels of liquor. Alltramped, kicked, plunged, shouldered, and jostled, doing as littleservice with as much tumult as could well be imagined. At length, whilethe dinner was, after various efforts, in the act of being arranged uponthe board, "the clamour much of men and dogs, " the cracking of whips, calculated for the intimidation of the latter, voices loud and high, steps which, impressed by the heavy-heeled boots of the period, clatteredlike those of the statue in the _Festin de pierre_, announced the arrivalof those for whose benefit the preparations were made. The hubbub amongthe servants rather increased than diminished as this crisisapproached, --some called to make haste, --others to take time, --someexhorted to stand out of the way, and make room for Sir Hildebrand andthe young squires, --some to close round the table, and be _in_ theway, --some bawled to open, some to shut a pair of folding-doors, whichdivided the hall from a sort of gallery, as I afterwards learned, orwithdrawing-room, fitted up with black wainscot. Opened the doors wereat length, and in rushed curs and men, --eight dogs, the domesticchaplain, the village doctor, my six cousins, and my uncle. 

(_Rob Roy_. )

{107}

CHARLES LAMB 1775-1834

A VISIT TO COLERIDGE

LONDON, _September_ 24, 1802. 

MY DEAR MANNING--Since the date of my last letter I have been aTraveller. A strong desire seized me of visiting remote regions. Myfirst impulse was to go and see Paris. It was a trivial objection tomy aspiring mind, that I did not understand a word of the language, since I certainly intend some time of my life to see Paris, and equallycertainly intend never to learn the language; therefore that could beno objection. However, I am very glad I did not go, because you hadleft Paris (I see) before I could have set out. . . . My final resolvewas, a tour to the Lakes. I set out with Mary to Keswick, withoutgiving Coleridge any notice, for my time, being precious, did not admitof it. He received us with all the hospitality in the world, and gaveup his time to show us all the wonders of the country. He dwells upona small hill by the side of Keswick, in a comfortable house, quiteenveloped on all sides by a net of mountains: great floundering bearsand monsters they seemed, all couchant and asleep. We got in in theevening, travelling in a post-chaise from Penrith, in the midst of agorgeous sunshine, which transmuted all the mountains into colours, purple, etc. , etc. We thought we had got into fairyland. But thatwent off (as it never came {108} again; while we stayed we had no morefine sunsets), and we entered Coleridge's comfortable study just in thedusk, when the mountains were all dark with clouds upon theirheads. . . . Coleridge had got a blazing fire in his study; which is alarge antique, ill-shaped room, with an old-fashioned organ, neverplayed upon, big enough for a church, shelves of scattered folios, anAeolian harp, and an old sofa, half bed, etc. And all looking out uponthe last fading view of Skiddaw, and his broad-breasted brethren: whata night! . . . We have clambered up to the top of Skiddaw, and I havewaded up the bed of Lodore. In fine, I have satisfied myself thatthere is such a thing as that which tourists call _romantic_, which Ivery much suspected before: they make such a spluttering about it, andtoss their splendid epithets around them, till they give as dim a lightas at four o'clock next morning the lamps do after an illumination. Mary was excessively tired when she got about half-way up Skiddaw, butwe came to a cold rill (than which nothing can be imagined more cold, running over cold stones), and with the reinforcement of a draught ofcold water she surmounted it most manfully. Oh, its fine black head, and the bleak air atop of it, with a prospect of mountains all aboutand about, making you giddy; and then Scotland afar off, and the bordercountries so famous in song and ballad! It was a day that will standout, like a mountain, I am sure, in my life. But I am returned (I havenow been come home near three weeks; I was a month out), and you cannotconceive the degradation I felt at first, from being accustomed towander free as air among mountains, and bathe in rivers {109} withoutbeing controlled by any one, to come home and _work_. I felt very_little_, I had been dreaming I was a very great man. But that isgoing off, and I find I shall conform in time to that state of life towhich it has pleased God to call me. Besides, after all, Fleet Streetand the Strand are better places to live in for good and all thanamidst Skiddaw. Still, I turn back to those great places where Iwandered about, participating in their greatness. After all, I couldnot _live_ in Skiddaw. I could spend a year, two, three years amongthem, but I must have a prospect of seeing Fleet Street at the end ofthat time, or I should mope and pine away, I know. Still, Skiddaw is afine creature. . . I fear my head is turned with wandering. I shallnever be the same acquiescent being. Farewell. Write again quickly, for I shall not like to hazard a letter, not knowing where the fateshave carried you. Farewell, my dear fellow. 

C. LAMB. 

(_Letters_. )

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 1775-1864

DIOGENES AND PLATO

_Diogenes_. The bird of wisdom flies low, and seeks her food underhedges: the eagle himself would be starved if he always soared aloftand against the sun. The sweetest fruit grows near the ground, and theplants that bear it require ventilation and lopping. Were this not tobe done in thy garden, every walk and alley, every {110} plot andborder, would be covered with runners and roots, with boughs andsuckers. We want no poets or logicians or metaphysicians to govern us:we want practical men, honest men, continent men, unambitious men, fearful to solicit a trust, slow to accept, and resolute never tobetray one. Experimentalists may be the best philosophers; they arealways the worst politicians. Teach people their duties, and they willknow their interests. Change as little as possible, and correct asmuch. 

Philosophers are absurd from many causes, but principally from layingout unthriftily their distinctions. They set up four virtues:fortitude, prudence, temperance, and justice. Now a man may be a verybad one, and yet possess three out of the four. Every cutthroat must, if he has been a cutthroat on many occasions, have more fortitude andmore prudence than the greater part of those whom we consider as thebest men. And what cruel wretches, both executioners and judges, havebeen strictly just! how little have they cared what gentleness, whatgenerosity, what genius, their sentence have removed from the earth!Temperance and beneficence contain all other virtues. Take them home, Plato; split them, expound them; do what thou wilt with them, if thoubut use them. 

Before I gave thee this lesson, which is a better than thou ever gavestany one, and easier to remember, thou wert accusing me of invidiousnessand malice against those whom thou callest the great, meaning to saythe powerful. Thy imagination, I am well aware, had taken its flighttoward Sicily, where thou seekest thy great {111} man, as earnestly andundoubtingly as Ceres sought her Persephone. Faith! honest Plato, Ihave no reason to envy thy worthy friend Dionysius. Look at my nose!A lad seven or eight years old threw an apple at me yesterday, while Iwas gazing at the clouds, and gave me nose enough for two moderate men. Instead of such a godsend, what should I have thought of my fortune if, after living all my lifetime among golden vases, rougher than my handwith their emeralds and rubies, their engravings and embossments; amongParian caryatides and porphyry sphinxes; among philosophers with ringsupon their fingers and linen next their skin; and among singing-boysand dancing-girls, to whom alone thou speakest intelligibly, --I askthee again, what should I in reason have thought of my fortune, if, after these facilities and superfluities, I had at last been pelted outof my house, not by one young rogue, but by thousands of all ages, andnot with an apple (I wish I could say a rotten one), but with pebblesand broken pots; and, to crown my deserts, had been compelled to becomethe teacher of so promising a generation? Great men, forsooth! thouknowest at last who they are. 

_Plato_. There are great men of various kinds. 

_Diogenes_. No, by my beard, are there not!

_Plato_. What! are there not great captains, great geometricians, great dialecticians?

_Diogenes_. Who denied it? A great man was the postulate. Try thyhand now at the powerful one. 

_Plato_. On seeing the exercise of power, a child cannot doubt who ispowerful, more or less; for power is relative. All men are weak, notonly if compared to {112} the Demiurgos, but if compared to the sea orthe earth, or certain things upon each of them, such as elephants andwhales. So placid and tranquil is the scene around us, we can hardlybring to mind the images of strength and force, the precipices, theabysses--

_Diogenes_. Prythee hold thy loose tongue, twinkling and glitteringlike a serpent's in the midst of luxuriance and rankness! Did neverthis reflection of thine warn thee that, in human life, the precipicesand abysses would be much farther from our admiration, if we were lessinconsiderate, selfish, and vile? I will not however stop thee long, for thou wert going on quite consistently. As thy great men arefighters and wranglers, so thy mighty things upon the earth and sea aretroublesome and intractable incumbrances. Thou perceivedst not whatwas greater in the former case, neither art thou aware what is greaterin this. Didst thou feel the gentle air that passed us?

_Plato_. I did not, just then. 

_Diogenes_. That air, so gentle, so imperceptible to thee, is morepowerful not only than all the creatures that breathe and live by it;not only than all the oaks of the forest, which it rears in an age andshatters in a moment; not only than all the monsters of the sea, butthan the sea itself, which it tosses up into foam, and breaks againstevery rock in its vast circumference; for it carries in its bosom, withperfect calm and composure, the incontrollable ocean and the peopledearth, like an atom of a feather. 

To the world's turmoils and pageantries is attracted, not only theadmiration of the populace, but the zeal of {113} the orator, theenthusiasm of the poet, the investigation of the historian, and thecontemplation of the philosopher: yet how silent and invisible are theyin the depths of air! Do I say in those depths and deserts? No; I sayat the distance of a swallow's flight, --at the distance she rises aboveus, ere a sentence brief as this could be uttered. 

What are its mines and mountains? Fragments welded up and dislocatedby the expansion of water from below; the most part reduced to mud, therest to splinters. Afterwards sprang up fire in many places, and againtore and mangled the mutilated carcass, and still growls over it. 

What are its cities and ramparts, and moles and monuments? Segments ofa fragment, which one man puts together and another throws down. Herewe stumble upon thy great ones at their work. Show me now, if thoucanst, in history, three great warriors, or three great statesmen, whohave acted otherwise than spiteful children. 

(_Imaginary Conversations_. )

JANE AUSTEN 1775-1817

AN INVITATION

It was now the middle of June and the weather fine, and Mrs Elton wasgrowing impatient to name the day, and settle with Mr Weston as topigeon-pies and cold lamb, when a lame carriage-horse threw everythinginto {114} sad uncertainty. It might be weeks, it might be only a fewdays, before the horse were useable, but no preparations could beventured on, and it was all melancholy stagnation. Mrs Elton'sresources were inadequate to such an attack. 

"Is not this most vexatious, Knightley?" she cried; "and such weatherfor exploring! these delays and disappointments are quite odious. Whatare we to do? The year will wear away at this rate, and nothing done. Before this time last year, I assure you, we had had a delightfulexploring party from Maple Grove to Kings Weston. "

"You had better explore to Donwell, " replied Mr Knightley. "That maybe done without horses. Come and eat my strawberries; they areripening fast. "

If Mr Knightley did not begin seriously, he was obliged to proceed so;for his proposal was caught at with delight; and the "Oh! I shouldlike it of all things, " was not plainer in words than manner. Donwellwas famous for its strawberry-beds, which seemed a plea for theinvitation; but no plea was necessary; cabbage-beds would have beenenough to tempt the lady, who only wanted to be going somewhere. Shepromised him again and again to come--much oftener than he doubted--andwas extremely gratified by such a proof of intimacy, such adistinguishing compliment as she chose to consider it. 

"You may depend upon me, " said she; "I certainly will come. --Name yourday, and I will come. --You will allow me to bring Jane Fairfax?"

"I cannot name a day, " said he, "till I have {115} spoken to someothers, whom I would wish to meet you. "

"Oh, leave all that to me; only give me a carte-blanche. --I am LadyPatroness, you know. It is my party. I will bring friends with me. "

"I hope you will bring Elton, " said he; "but I will not trouble you togive any other invitations. "

"Oh, now you are looking very sly; but consider, --you need not beafraid of delegating power to _me_. I am no young lady on herpreferment. Married women, you know, may be safely authorized. It ismy party. Leave it all to me. I will invite your guests. "

"No, " he calmly replied, "there is but one married woman in the worldwhom I can ever allow to invite what guests she pleases to Donwell, andthat one is----"

"Mrs Weston, I suppose, " interrupted Mrs Elton, rather mortified. 

"No, --Mrs Knightley; and till she is in being, I will manage suchmatters myself. "

"Ah, you are an odd creature!" she cried, satisfied to have no onepreferred to herself. "You are a humourist, and may say what you like. Quite a humourist. Well, I shall bring Jane with me--Jane and heraunt. The rest I leave to you. I have no objections at all to meetingthe Hartfield family. Don't scruple, I know you are attached to them. "

"You certainly will meet them, if I can prevail; and I shall call onMiss Bates in my way home. "

"That's quite unnecessary; I see Jane every day;--but {116} as youlike. It is to be a morning scheme, you know, Knightley; quite asimple thing. I shall wear a large bonnet, and bring one of my littlebaskets hanging on my arm. Here, --probably this basket with pinkribbon. Nothing can be more simple, you see. And Jane will have suchanother. There is to be no form or parade--a sort of gipsy party. Weare to walk about your gardens, and gather the strawberries ourselves, and sit under trees; and whatever else you may like to provide, it isto be all out of doors; a table spread in the shade, you know. Everything as natural and simple as possible. Is not that your idea?"

"Not quite. My idea of the simple and the natural will be to have thetable spread in the dining-room. The nature and the simplicity ofgentlemen and ladies, with their servants and furniture, I think isbest observed by meals within doors. When you are tired of eatingstrawberries in the garden, there shall be cold meat in the house. "

"Well, as you please; only don't have a great set-out. And, by thebye, can I or my housekeeper be of any use to you with our opinion?Pray be sincere, Knightley. If you wish me to talk to Mrs Hodges, orto inspect anything----"

"I have not the least wish for it, I thank you. '"

"Well, --but if any difficulties should arise, my housekeeper isextremely clever. "

"I will answer for it that mine thinks herself full as clever, andwould spurn anybody's assistance. "

"I wish we had a donkey. The thing would be for us all to come ondonkeys, Jane, Miss Bates, and me, {117} and my _caro sposo_ walkingby. I really must talk to him about purchasing a donkey. In a countrylife I conceive it to be a sort of necessary; for, let a woman haveever so many resources, it is not possible for her to be always shut upat home; and very long walks, you know--in summer there is dust, and inwinter there is dirt. "

"You will not find either between Donwell and Highbury. Donwell Laneis never dusty, and now it is perfectly dry. Come on a donkey, however, if you prefer it. You can borrow Mrs Cole's. I would wisheverything to be as much to your taste as possible. "

"That I am sure you would. Indeed I do you justice, my good friend. Under that peculiar sort of dry, blunt manner, I know you have thewarmest heart. As I tell Mr E. , you are a thorough humourist. Yes, believe me, Knightley, I am fully sensible of your attention to me inthe whole of this scheme. You have hit upon the very thing to pleaseme. "

Mr Knightley had another reason for avoiding a table in the shade. Hewished to persuade Mr Woodhouse, as well as Emma, to join the party;and he knew that to have any of them sitting down out of doors to eatwould inevitably make him ill. Mr Woodhouse must not, under thespecious pretence of a morning drive, and an hour or two spent atDonwell, be tempted away to his misery. 

He was invited on good faith. No lurking horrors were to upbraid himfor his easy credulity. He did consent. He had not been at Donwellfor two years. "Some very fine morning, he, and Emma, and Harriet{118} could go very well; and he could sit still with Mrs Weston whilethe dear girls walked about the gardens. He did not suppose they couldbe damp now, in the middle of the day. He should like to see the oldhouse again exceedingly, and should be very happy to meet Mr and MrsElton, and any other of his neighbours. He could not see any objectionat all to his, and Emma's, and Harriet's going there some very finemorning. He thought it very well done of Mr Knightley to invite them;very kind and sensible; much cleverer than dining out. He was not fondof dining out. "

Mr Knightley was fortunate in everybody's most ready concurrence. Theinvitation was everywhere so well received, that it seemed as if, likeMrs Elton, they were all taking the scheme as a particular complimentto themselves. 

(_Emma_. )

WILLIAM HAZLITT 1778-1830

COLERIDGE AS PREACHER

It was in January of 1798 that I rose one morning before daylight, towalk ten miles in the mud to hear this celebrated person preach. Never, the longest day I have to live, shall I have such another walkas this cold, raw, comfortless one, in the winter of the year 1798. When I got there the organ was playing the 100th Psalm, and when it wasdone Mr Coleridge rose and gave out {119} his text, "And he went upinto the mountain to pray, _himself, alone_. " As he gave out this texthis voice "rose like a stream of rich distilled perfumes, " and when hecame to the two last words, which he pronounced loud, deep, anddistinct, it seemed to me, who was then young, as if the sounds hadechoed from the bottom of the human heart, and as if that prayer mighthave floated in solemn silence through the universe. The idea of StJohn came into my mind, "of one crying in the wilderness, who had hisloins girt about, and whose food was locusts and wild honey. " Thepreacher then launched into his subject like an eagle dallying with thewind. The sermon was upon peace and war; upon church and state--nottheir alliance but their separation--on the spirit of the world and thespirit of Christianity, not as the same, but as opposed to one another. He talked of those who had "inscribed the cross of Christ on bannersdripping with human gore. " He made a poetical and pastoralexcursion--and to show the fatal effects of war, drew a strikingcontrast between the simple shepherd boy, driving his team afield, orsitting under the hawthorn, piping to his flock, "as though he shouldnever be old, " and the same poor country lad, crimped, kidnapped, brought into town, made drunk at an alehouse, turned into a wretcheddrummer-boy, with his hair sticking on end with powder and pomatum, along cue at his back, and tricked out in the loathsome finery of theprofession of blood:

 "Such were the notes our once-loved poet sung. "

And for myself, I could not have been more delighted if I had heard themusic of the spheres. Poetry and {120} Philosophy had met together. Truth and Genius had embraced, under the eye and with the sanction ofReligion. This was even beyond my hopes. I returned home wellsatisfied. The sun that was still labouring pale and wan through thesky, obscured by thick mists, seemed an emblem of the good cause; andthe cold, dank drops of dew that hung half melted on the beard of thethistle had something genial and refreshing in them; for there was aspirit of hope and youth in all nature that turned everything into good. 

(_Winterslow_. )

THOMAS DE QUINCEY 1785-1859

A DREAM

Sweet funeral bells from some incalculable distance, wailing over thedead that die before the dawn, awakened me as I slept in a boat mooredto some familiar shore. The morning twilight even then was breaking;and, by the dusky revelations which it spread, I saw a girl, adornedwith a garland of white roses about her head for some great festival, running along the solitary strand in extremity of haste. Her runningwas the running of panic; and often she looked back as to some dreadfulenemy in the rear. But when I leaped ashore, and followed on her stepsto warn her of a peril in front, alas! from me she fled as from anotherperil, and vainly I shouted to her of quicksands that lay ahead. Faster and faster she ran; round a promontory of rocks she {121}wheeled out of sight; in an instant I also wheeled round it, but onlyto see the treacherous sands gathering above her head. Already herperson was buried; only the fair young head and the diadem of whiteroses around it were still visible to the pitying heavens; and, last ofall, was visible one white marble arm. I saw by early twilight thisfair young head, as it was sinking down to darkness--saw this marblearm, as it rose above her head and her treacherous grave, tossing, faltering, rising, clutching, as at some false deceiving hand stretchedout from the clouds--saw this marble arm uttering her dying hope, andthen uttering her dying despair. The head, the diadem, the arm--theseall had sunk; at last over these also the cruel quicksand had closed;and no memorial of the fair young girl remained on earth, except my ownsolitary tears, and the funeral bells from the desert seas, that, rising again more softly, sang a requiem over the grave of the buriedchild, and over her blighted dawn. 

I sat, and wept in secret the tears that men have ever given to thememory of those that died before the dawn, and by the treachery ofearth, our mother. But suddenly the tears and funeral bells werehushed by a shout as of many nations, and by a roar as from some greatking's artillery, advancing rapidly along the valleys, and heard afarby echoes from the mountains. "Hush!" I said, as I bent my earearthwards to listen--"hush!--this either is the very anarchy ofstrife, or else"--and then I listened more profoundly, and whispered asI raised my head--"or else, oh heavens! it is _victory_ that is final, victory that swallows up all strife. "

(_The English Mail-coach_. )

{122}

JOHN KEATS 1795-1821

THE USE OF POETRY

I had an idea that a Man might pass a very pleasant life in thismanner--Let him on a certain day read a certain page of full Poesy ordistilled Prose, and let him wander with it, and muse upon it, andreflect from it, and bring home to it, and prophesy upon it, and dreamupon it: until it becomes stale--But when will it do so? Never--WhenMan has arrived at a certain ripeness in intellect any one grand andspiritual passage serves him as a starting-post towards all "thetwo-and-thirty Palaces. " How happy is such a voyage of conception, what delicious diligent indolence! A doze upon a sofa does not hinderit, and a nap upon Clover engenders ethereal finger-pointings--theprattle of a child gives it wings, and the converse of middle-age astrength to beat them--a strain of music conducts to "an odd angle ofthe Isle, " and when the leaves whisper it puts a girdle round theearth. --Nor will this sparing touch of noble Books be any irreverenceto their Writers--for perhaps the honours paid by Man to Man aretrifles in comparison to the benefit done by great works to the "spiritand pulse of good" by their mere passive existence. Memory should notbe called Knowledge--Many have original minds who do not think it--theyare led away by Custom. Now it appears to me that almost any Man may, like the spider, spin from his own inwards his own airy Citadel--thepoints of leaves and twigs on which {123} the spider begins her workare few, and she fills the air with a beautiful circuiting. Man shouldbe content with as few points to tip with the fine Web of his Soul, andweave a tapestry empyrean--full of symbols for his spiritual eye, ofsoftness for his spiritual touch, of space for his wandering, ofdistinctness for his luxury. But the minds of mortals are so differentand bent on such diverse journeys that it may at first appearimpossible for any common taste and fellowship to exist between two orthree under these suppositions. It is however quite the contrary. Minds would leave each other in contrary directions, traverse eachother in numberless points, and at last greet each other at thejourney's end. An old man and a child would talk together and the oldman be led on his path and the child left thinking. Man should notdispute or assert, but whisper results to his Neighbour, and thus, byevery germ of spirit sucking the sap from mould ethereal, every humanmight become great, and humanity instead of being a wide heath of furzeand briars, with here and there a remote Oak or Pine, would become agrand democracy of forest trees. It has been an old comparison forurging on--the bee-hive--however it seems to me that we should ratherbe the flower than the Bee--for it is a false notion that more isgained by receiving than giving--no, the receiver and the giver areequal in their benefits. The flower, I doubt not, receives a fairguerdon from the Bee--its leaves blush deeper in the next spring--andwho shall say between Man and Woman which is the most delighted? Nowit is more noble to sit like Jove than to fly like Mercury:--let us nottherefore go hurrying about and collecting honey, {124} bee-like, buzzing here and there impatiently from a knowledge of what is to bearrived at. But let us open our leaves like a flower, and be passiveand receptive; budding patiently under the eye of Apollo and takinghints from every noble insect that favours us with a visit--Sap will begiven us for meat, and dew for drink. 

(_Letters_. )

THOMAS CARLYLE 1795-1881

THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES

One finds that in the second week in June Colonel de Choiseul isprivately in Paris; having come "to see his children. " Also thatFersen has got a stupendous new Coach built, of the kind named_Berline_; done by the first artists; according to a model: they bringit home to him, in Choiseul's presence; the two friends take aproof-drive in it, along the streets; in meditative mood; then send itup to "Madame Sullivan's, in the Rue de Clichy, " far north, to waitthere till wanted. Apparently a certain Russian Baroness de Korff, with Waiting-woman, Valet, and two Children, will travel homewards withsome state: in whom these young military gentlemen take interest? APassport has been procured for her, and much assistance shewn, withCoachbuilders and such-like;--so helpful-polite are young militarymen. . . These are the Phenomena, or visual Appearances, of thiswide-working terrestrial world: which truly is all phenomenal, whatthey call spectral; and never rests at any moment; one never at anymoment can know why. 

On Monday night, the Twentieth of June 1791, about eleven o'clock, there is many a hackney-coach and {125} glass-coach still rumbling orat rest on the streets of Paris. But of all glass-coaches we recommendthis to thee, O Reader, which stands drawn up in the Rue de l'Echelle, hard by the Carrousel and outgate of the Tuileries; in the Rue del'Echelle that then was, "opposite Ronsin the saddler's door, " as ifwaiting for a fare there. Not long does it wait: a hooded Dame, withtwo hooded Children has issued from Villequier's door, where no sentrywalks, into the Tuileries' Court-of-Princes; into the Carrousel; intothe Rue de l'Echelle; where the Glass-coachman readily admits them; andagain waits. Not long; another Dame, likewise hooded or shrouded, leaning on a servant, issues in the same manner; bids the servantgood-night; and is, in the same manner, by the Glass-coachman, cheerfully admitted. Whither go so many Dames? 'Tis his Majesty's_Couchée_, Majesty just gone to bed, and all the Palace-world isretiring home. But the Glass-coachman still waits; his fare seeminglyincomplete. 

By-and-by, we note a thickset Individual, in round hat and peruke, armin arm with some servant, seemingly of the Runner or Courier sort; healso issues through Villequier's door; starts a shoebuckle as he passesone of the sentries, stoops down to clasp it again; is however, by theGlass-coachman, still more cheerfully admitted. And _now_, is his farecomplete? Not yet; the Glass-coachman still waits. --Alas! and thefalse Chambermaid has warned Gouvion that she thinks the Royal Familywill fly this very night; and Gouvion, distrusting his own glazed eyes, has sent express for Lafayette; and Lafayette's Carriage, flaring withlights, rolls this moment through the inner arch of theCarrousel, --where a Lady shaded in {126} broad gypsy-hat, and leaningon the arm of a servant, also of the Runner or Courier sort, standsaside to let it pass, and has even the whim to touch a spoke of it withher _badine_, --light little magic rod which she calls _badine_, such asthe Beautiful then wore. The flare of Lafayette's carriage rolls past:all is found quiet in the Court-of-Princes; sentries at their post;Majesties' Apartments closed in smooth rest. Your false Chambermaidmust have been mistaken? Watch thou, Gouvion, with Argus' vigilance;for of a truth treachery is within these walls. 

But where is the Lady that stood aside in gypsy-hat, and touched thewheel-spoke with her _badine_? O Reader, that Lady that touched thewheel-spoke was the Queen of France! She has issued safe through thatinner arch, into the Carrousel itself; but not into the Rue del'Echelle. Flurried by the rattle and rencounter, she took the righthand, not the left; neither she nor her Courier knows Paris; he isindeed no Courier, but a loyal stupid _ci-devant_ Body-guard disguisedas one. They are off, quite wrong, over the Pont Royal and River;roaming disconsolate in the Rue du Bac; far from the Glass-coachman, who still waits. Waits, with flutter of heart; with thoughts--which hemust button close up, under his jarvie-surtout!

Midnight clangs from all the City-steeples; one precious hour has beenspent so; most mortals are asleep. The Glass-coachman waits; and inwhat mood! A brother jarvie drives up, enters into conversation; isanswered cheerfully in jarvie-dialect: the brothers of the whipexchange a pinch of snuff; decline drinking together; and part withgood-night. Be the Heavens blest! here at length is the Queen-lady, ingypsy-hat; {127} safe after perils; who has had to enquire her way. She too is admitted; her Courier jumps aloft, as the other, who is alsoa disguised Bodyguard, has done; and now, O Glass-coachman of athousand, --Count Fersen, for the Reader sees it is thou, --drive!

Dust shall not stick to the heels of Fersen: crack! crack! TheGlass-coach rattles, and every soul breathes lighter. But is Fersen onthe right road? North-eastward, to the Barrier of Saint-Martin andMetz Highway, thither were we bound: and lo, he drives right Northward!The royal Individual, in round hat and peruke, sits astonished; butright or wrong, there is no remedy. Crack, crack, we go incessant, through the slumbering City. Seldom, since Paris rose out of mud, orthe Longhaired Kings went in bullock-carts, was there such a drive. Mortals on each hand of you, close by, stretched out horizontal, dormant; and we alive and quaking! Crack, crack, through the Rue deGrammont; across the Boulevard; up the Rue de la Chausséed'Antin, --these windows, all silent, of Number 42, were Mirabeau's. Towards the Barrier, not of Saint-Martin, but of Clichy on the utmostnorth! Patience, ye royal Individuals; Fersen understands what he isabout. Passing up the Rue de Clichy, he alights for one moment atMadame Sullivan's: "Did Count Fersen's Coachman get the Baroness deKorff's new Berline?"--"Gone with it an hour and a half ago, " grumblesresponsive the drowsy Porter. --"_C'est bien_. " Yes, it iswell;--though had not such hour-and-half been _lost_, it were stillbetter. Forth therefore, O Fersen, fast, by the Barrier de Clichy;then eastward along the Outer Boulevard, what horses and whipcord cando!

{128} Thus Fersen drives, through the ambrosial night. Sleeping Parisis now all on the right-hand of him; silent except for some snoringhum: and now he is eastward as far as the Barrier of Saint-Martin;looking earnestly for Baroness de Korff's Berline. This Heaven'sBerline he at length does descry, drawn up with its six horses, his ownGerman coachman waiting on the box. Right, thou good German: nowhaste, whither thou knowest!--And as for us of the Glass-coach, hastetoo, O haste; much time is already lost! The august Glass-coach fare, six Insides, hastily packs itself into the new Berline; two Body-guardCouriers behind. The Glass-coach itself is turned adrift, its headtowards the City, to wander where it lists, --and be found next morningtumbled in a ditch. But Fersen is on the new box, with its brave newhammer-cloths; flourishing his whip; he bolts forward towards Bondy. There a third and final Bodyguard Courier of ours ought surely to be, with post-horses ready ordered. There likewise ought that purchasedChaise, with the two Waiting-maids and their bandboxes, to be; whomalso her Majesty could not travel without. Swift, thou deft Fersen, and may the Heavens turn it well!

Once more, by Heaven's blessing, it is all well. Here is the sleepinghamlet of Bondy; Chaise with Waiting-women; horses all ready, andpostilions with their churn-boots, impatient in the dewy dawn. Briefharnessing done, the postilions with their churn-boots vault into thesaddles; brandish circularly their little noisy whips. Fersen, underhis jarvie-surtout, bends in lowly silent reverence of adieu; royalhands wave speechless inexpressible response; Baroness de Korff'sBerline, with {129} the Royalty of France, bounds off; for ever, as itproved. Deft Fersen dashes obliquely northward, through the country, towards Bougret; gains Bougret, finds his German coachman and chariotwaiting there; cracks off, and drives undiscovered into unknown space. A deft active man, we say; what he undertook to do is nimbly andsuccessfully done. 

And so the Royalty of France is actually fled? This precious night, the shortest of the year, it flies, and drives! _Baroness de Korff_is, at bottom, Dame de Tourzel, Governess of the Royal Children: shewho came hooded with the two hooded little ones: little Dauphin; littleMadame Royale, known long afterwards as Duchesse d'Angoulême. Baronessde Korff's _Waiting-maid_ is the Queen in gypsy-hat. The royalIndividual in round hat and peruke, he is _Valet_ for the time being. That other hooded Dame, styled _Travelling-companion_, is kind SisterElizabeth; she had sworn long since, when the Insurrection of Womenwas, that only death should part her and them. And so they rush there, not too impetuously, through the Wood of Bondy;--over a Rubicon intheir own and France's history. 

Great; though the future is all vague! If we reach Bouillé? If we donot reach him? O Louis! and this all round thee is the greatslumbering Earth (and overhead, the great watchful Heaven); theslumbering Wood of Bondy, --where Longhaired Childeric Do-nothing wasstruck through with iron; not unreasonably, in a world like ours. These peaked stone-towers are Raincy; towers of wicked d'Orleans. Allslumbers save the {130} multiplex rustle of our new Berline. Loose-skirted scarecrow of an Herb-merchant, with his ass and earlygreens, toilsomely plodding, seems the only creature we meet. Butright ahead the great North-east sends up evermore his grey brindleddawn: from dewy branch, birds here and there, with short deep warble, salute the coming sun. Stars fade out, and galaxies; street-lamps ofthe City of God. The Universe, O my brothers, is flinging wide itsportals for the levee of the GREAT HIGH KING. Thou, poor King Louis, farest nevertheless, as mortals do, towards Orient lands of Hope; andthe Tuileries with _its_ levées, and France and the Earth itself, isbut a larger kind of dog-hutch--occasionally going rabid. 

(_The French Revolution_. )

LORD MACAULAY 1800-1859

THE TRIAL OF THE SEVEN BISHOPS

It was dark before the jury retired to consider of their verdict. Thenight was a night of intense anxiety. Some letters are extant whichwere despatched during that period of suspense, and which havetherefore an interest of a peculiar kind. "It is very late, " wrote thePapal Nuncio; "and the decision is not yet known. The Judges and theculprits have gone to their own homes. The jury remain together. To-morrow we shall learn the event of this great struggle. "

The solicitor for the Bishops sate up all night with a body of servantson the stairs leading to the room {131} where the jury was consulting. It was absolutely necessary to watch the officers who watched thedoors; for those officers were supposed to be in the interest of thecrown, and might, if not carefully observed, have furnished a courtlyjuryman with food, which would have enabled him to starve out the othereleven. Strict guard was therefore kept. Not even a candle to light apipe was permitted to enter. Some basins of water for washing weresuffered to pass at about four in the morning. The jurymen, ragingwith thirst, soon lapped up the whole. Great numbers of people walkedthe neighbouring streets till dawn. Every hour a messenger came fromWhitehall to know what was passing. Voices, high in altercation, wererepeatedly heard within the room: but nothing certain was known. 

At first nine were for acquitting and three for convicting. Two of theminority soon gave way; but Arnold was obstinate. Thomas Austin, acountry gentleman of great estate, who had paid close attention to theevidence and speeches, and had taken full notes, wished to argue thequestion. Arnold declined. He was not used, he doggedly said, toreasoning and debating. His conscience was not satisfied; and heshould not acquit the Bishops. "If you come to that, " said Austin, "look at me. I am the largest and strongest of the twelve; and beforeI find such a petition as this a libel, here I will stay till I am nobigger than a tobacco pipe. " It was six in the morning before Arnoldyielded. It was soon known that the jury were agreed: but what theverdict would be was still a secret. 

{132} At ten the Court again met. The crowd was greater than ever. The jury appeared in their box; and there was a breathless stillness. 

Sir Samuel Astry spoke. "Do you find the defendants, or any of them, guilty of the misdemeanour whereof they are impeached, or not guilty?"Sir Roger Langley answered, "Not guilty. " As the words passed hislips, Halifax sprang up and waved his hat. At that signal, benches andgalleries raised a shout. In a moment ten thousand persons, whocrowded the great hall, replied with a still louder shout, which madethe old oaken roof crack; and in another moment the innumerable throngwithout set up a third huzza, which was heard at Temple Bar. The boatswhich covered the Thames gave an answering cheer. A peal of gunpowderwas heard on the water, and another, and another; and so, in a fewmoments, the glad tidings went flying past the Savoy and the Friars toLondon Bridge, and to the forest of masts below. As the news spread, streets and squares, market places and coffee-houses, broke forth intoacclamations. Yet were the acclamations less strange than the weeping. For the feelings of men had been wound up to such a point that atlength the stern English nature, so little used to outward signs ofemotion, gave way, and thousands sobbed aloud for very joy. Meanwhile, from the outskirts of the multitude, horsemen were spurring off to bearalong all the great roads intelligence of the victory of our Church andnation. Yet not even that astounding explosion could awe the bitterand intrepid spirit of the Solicitor. Striving to make himself heardabove the {133} din, he called on the Judges to commit those who hadviolated, by clamour, the dignity of a court of justice. One of therejoicing populace was seized. But the tribunal felt that it would beabsurd to punish a single individual for an offence common to hundredsof thousands, and dismissed him with a gentle reprimand. 

It was vain to think of passing at that moment to any other business. Indeed the roar of the multitude was such that, for half an hour, scarcely a word could be heard in court. Williams got to his coachamidst a tempest of hisses and curses. Cartwright, whose curiosity wasungovernable, had been guilty of the folly and indecency of coming toWestminster in order to hear the decision. He was recognised by hissacerdotal garb and by his corpulent figure, and was hooted through thehall. "Take care, " said one, "of the wolf in sheep's clothing. " "Makeroom, " cried another, "for the man with the Pope in his belly. "

The acquitted prelates took refuge from the crowd which implored theirblessing in the nearest chapel where divine service was performing. Many churches were open on that morning throughout the capital; andmany pious persons repaired thither. The bells of all the parishes ofthe City and liberties were ringing. The jury meanwhile could scarcelymake their way out of the hall. They were forced to shake hands withhundreds. "God bless you, " cried the people; "God prosper yourfamilies; you have done like honest good-natured gentlemen; you havesaved us all to-day. " As the noblemen who had appeared to support thegood cause drove off, they flung from their carriage windows {134}handfuls of money, and bade the crowd drink to the health of the King, the Bishops, and the jury. 

The attorney went with the tidings to Sunderland, who happened to beconversing with the Nuncio. "Never, " said Powis, "within man's memory, have there been such shouts and such tears of joy as to-day. " The Kinghad that morning visited the camp on Hounslow Heath. Sunderlandinstantly sent a courier thither with the news. James was in LordFeversham's tent when the express arrived. He was greatly disturbed, and exclaimed in French, "So much the worse for them. " He soon set outfor London. While he was present respect prevented the soldiers fromgiving a loose to their feelings; but he had scarcely quitted the campwhen he heard a great shouting behind him. He was surprised, and askedwhat that uproar meant. "Nothing, " was the answer. "The soldiers areglad that the bishops are acquitted. " "Do you call that nothing?" saidJames. And then he repeated, "So much the worse for them. "

(_History of England_. )

{135}

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 1801-1890

THE UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS

If we would know what a University is, considered in its elementaryidea, we must betake ourselves to the first and most celebrated home ofEuropean literature and source of European civilization, to the brightand beautiful Athens, --Athens, whose schools drew to her bosom, andthen sent back again to the business of life, the youth of the WesternWorld for a long thousand years. Seated on the verge of the continent, the city seemed hardly suited for the duties of a central metropolis ofknowledge; yet, what it lost in convenience of approach it gained inits neighbourhood to the traditions of the mysterious East, and in theloveliness of the region in which it lay. Hither, then, as to a sortof ideal land, where all archetypes of the great and the fair werefound in substantial being, and all departments of truth explored, andall diversities of intellectual power exhibited, where taste andphilosophy were majestically enthroned as in a royal court, where therewas no sovereignty but that of mind, and no nobility but that ofgenius, where professors were rulers, and princes did homage, hitherflocked continually from the very corners of the _orbis terrarum_, themany-tongued generation, just rising, or just risen into manhood, inorder to gain wisdom. 

Pisistratus had in an early age discovered and nursed the infant geniusof his people, and Cimon, after the {136} Persian war, had given it ahome. That war had established the naval supremacy of Athens; she hadbecome an imperial state; and the Ionians, bound to her by the doublechain of kindred and of subjection, were importing into her both theirmerchandize and their civilization. The arts and philosophy of theAsiatic coast were easily carried across the sea, and there was Cimon, as I have said, with his ample fortune, ready to receive them with duehonours. Not content with patronizing their professors, he built thefirst of those noble porticos, of which we hear so much in Athens, andhe formed the groves, which in process of time became the celebratedAcademy. Planting is one of the most graceful, as in Athens it was oneof the most beneficent, of employments. Cimon took in hand the wildwood, pruned and dressed it, and laid it out with handsome walks andwelcome fountains. Nor, while hospitable to the authors of the city'scivilization, was he ungrateful to the instruments of her prosperity. His trees extended their cool, umbrageous branches over the merchants, who assembled in the Agora, for many generations. 

Those merchants certainly had deserved that act of bounty; for all thewhile their ships had been carrying forth the intellectual fame ofAthens to the western world. Then commenced what may be called herUniversity existence. Pericles, who succeeded Cimon both in thegovernment and in the patronage of art, is said by Plutarch to haveentertained the idea of making Athens the capital of federated Greece:in this he failed, but his encouragement of such men as Phidias andAnaxagoras led the way to her acquiring a far more lasting {137}sovereignty over a far wider empire. Little understanding the sourcesof her own greatness, Athens would go to war: peace is the interest ofa seat of commerce and the arts; but to war she went; yet to her, whether peace or war, it mattered not. The political power of Athenswaned and disappeared; kingdoms rose and fell; centuries rolledaway, --they did but bring fresh triumphs to the city of the poet andthe sage. There at length the swarthy Moor and Spaniard were seen tomeet the blue-eyed Gaul; and the Cappadocian, late subject ofMithridates, gazed without alarm at the haughty conquering Roman. Revolution after revolution passed over the face of Europe, as well asof Greece, but still she was there, --Athens, the city of mind, --asradiant, as splendid, as delicate, as young, as ever she had been. 

Many a more fruitful coast or isle is washed by the blue Aegean, many aspot is there more beautiful or sublime to see, many a territory moreample; but there was one charm in Attica, which in the same perfectionwas nowhere else. The deep pastures of Arcadia, the plain of Argos, the Thessalian vale, these had not the gift; Boeotia, which lay to itsimmediate north, was notorious for its very want of it. The heavyatmosphere of that Boeotia might be good for vegetation, but it wasassociated in popular belief with the dulness of the Boeotianintellect: on the contrary, the special purity, elasticity, clearness, and salubrity of the air of Attica, fit concomitant and emblem of itsgenius, did that for it which earth did not;--it brought out everybright hue and tender shade of the landscape over which it was {138}spread, and would have illuminated the face even of a more bare andrugged country. 

A confined triangle, perhaps fifty miles its greatest length, andthirty its greatest breadth; two elevated rocky barriers, meeting at anangle; three prominent mountains, commanding the plain, --Parnes, Pentelicus, and Hymettus; an unsatisfactory soil; some streams, notalways full;--such is about the report which the agent of a Londoncompany would have made of Attica. He would report that the climatewas mild; the hills were limestone; there was plenty of good marble;more pasture land than at first survey might have been expected, sufficient certainly for sheep and goats; fisheries productive; silvermines once, but long since worked out; figs fair; oil first-rate;olives in profusion. But what he would not think of noting down, was, that that olive tree was so choice in nature and so noble in shape, that it excited a religious veneration; and that it took so kindly tothe light soil, as to expand into woods upon the open plain, and toclimb up and fringe the hills. He would not think of writing word tohis employers, how that clear air, of which I have spoken, brought out, yet blended and subdued, the colours on the marble, till they had asoftness and harmony, for all their richness, which in a picture looksexaggerated, yet is after all within the truth. He would not tell, howthat same delicate and brilliant atmosphere freshened up the paleolive, till the olive forgot its monotony, and its cheek glowed likethe arbutus or beech of the Umbrian hills. He would say nothing of thethyme and thousand fragrant herbs which carpeted Hymettus; he wouldhear nothing of the hum {139} of its bees; nor take much account of therare flavour of its honey, since Gozo and Minorca were sufficient forthe English demand. He would look over the Aegean from the height hehad ascended; he would follow with his eye the chain of islands, which, starting from the Sunian headland, seemed to offer the fableddivinities of Attica, when they would visit their Ionian cousins, asort of viaduct thereto across the sea: but that fancy would not occurto him, nor any admiration of the dark violet billows with their whiteedges down below; nor of those graceful, fan-like jets of silver uponthe rocks, which slowly rise aloft like water spirits from the deep, then shiver, and break, and spread, and shroud themselves, anddisappear, in a soft mist of foam; nor of the gentle, incessant heavingand panting of the whole liquid plain; nor of the long waves, keepingsteady time, like a line of soldiery, as they resound upon the hollowshore, --he would not deign to notice that restless living element atall, except to bless his stars that he was not upon it. Nor thedistinct detail, nor the refined colouring, nor the graceful outlineand roseate golden hue of the jutting crags, nor the bold shadows castfrom Otus or Laurium by the declining sun;--our agent of a mercantilefirm would not value these matters even at a low figure. Rather wemust turn for the sympathy we seek to yon pilgrim student, come from asemi-barbarous land to that small corner of the earth, as to a shrine, where he might take his fill of gazing on those emblems andcoruscations of invisible unoriginate perfection. It was the strangerfrom a remote province, from Britain or from Mauritania, who in a sceneso different from that of his chilly, woody swamps, or of {140} hisfiery choking sands, learned at once what a real University must be, bycoming to understand the sort of country which was its suitable home. 

(_Historical Sketches_. )

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 1804-1864

THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES

A descriptive paragraph or two, treating of the seven-gabled mansion inits more recent aspect, will bring this preliminary chapter to a close. The street in which it upreared its venerable peaks has long ceased tobe a fashionable quarter of the town; so that, though the old edificewas surrounded by habitations of modern date, they were mostly small, built entirely of wood, and typical of the most plodding uniformity ofcommon life. Doubtless, however, the whole story of human existencemay be latent in each of them, but with no picturesqueness, externally, that can attract the imagination or sympathy to seek it there. But asfor the old structure of our story, its white-oak frame, and itsboards, shingles, and crumbling plaster, and even the huge clusteredchimney in the midst, seemed to constitute only the least and meanestpart of its reality. So much of mankind's varied experience had passedthere, --so much had been suffered, and something, too, enjoyed, --thatthe very timbers were oozy, as with the moisture of a heart. It wasitself like a great human heart, with a life of its own, and full ofrich and sombre reminiscences. 

{141} The deep projection of the second story gave the house such ameditative look, that you could not pass it without the idea that ithad secrets to keep, and an eventful history to moralize upon. Infront, just on the edge of the unpaved sidewalk, grew the Pyncheon-elm, which, in reference to such trees as one usually meets with, might wellbe termed gigantic. It had been planted by a great-grandson of thefirst Pyncheon, and, though now fourscore years of age, or perhapsnearer a hundred, was still in its strong and broad maturity, throwingits shadow from side to side of the street, overtopping the sevengables, and sweeping the whole black roof with its pendent foliage. Itgave beauty to the old edifice, and seemed to make it a part of nature. The street having been widened about forty years ago, the front gablewas now precisely on a line with it. On either side extended a ruinouswooden fence, of open lattice-work, through which could be seen agrassy yard, and, especially in the angles of the building, an enormousfertility of burdocks, with leaves, it is hardly an exaggeration tosay, two or three feet long. Behind the house there appeared to be agarden, which undoubtedly had once been extensive, but was nowinfringed upon by other enclosures, or shut in by habitations andout-buildings that stood on another street. It would be an omission, trifling indeed, but unpardonable, were we to forget the green mossthat had long since gathered over the projections of the windows, andon the slopes of the roof; nor must we fail to direct the reader's eyeto a crop, not of weeds, but flower-shrubs, which were growing aloft inthe air, not a great way from the chimney, in the nook between two ofthe gables. {142} They were called Alice's Posies. The tradition was, that a certain Alice Pyncheon had flung up the seeds in sport, and thatthe dust of the street and the decay of the roof gradually formed akind of soil for them, out of which they grew, when Alice had long beenin her grave. However the flowers might have come there, it was bothsad and sweet to observe how nature adopted to herself this desolate, decaying, gusty, rusty old house of the Pyncheon family; and how theever-returning summer did her best to gladden it with tender beauty, and grew melancholy in the effort. 

There is one other feature, very essential to be noticed, but which, wegreatly fear, may damage any picturesque and romantic impression whichwe have been willing to throw over our sketch of this respectableedifice. In the front gable, under the impending brow of the secondstory, and contiguous to the street, was a shop-door, dividedhorizontally in the midst, and with a window for its upper segment, such as is often seen in dwellings of a somewhat ancient date. Thissame shop-door had been a subject of no slight mortification to thepresent occupant of the august Pyncheon-house, as well as to some ofher predecessors. The matter is disagreeably delicate to handle; but, since the reader must needs be let into the secret, he will please tounderstand, that about a century ago, the head of the Pyncheons foundhimself involved in serious financial difficulties. The fellow(gentleman, as he styled himself) can hardly have been other than aspurious interloper; for, instead of seeking office from the king orthe royal governor, or urging his hereditary claim to eastern lands, hebethought {143} himself of no better avenue to wealth than by cutting ashop-door through the side of his ancestral residence. It was thecustom of the time, indeed, for merchants to store their goods andtransact business in their own dwellings. But there was somethingpitifully small in this old Pyncheon's mode of setting about hiscommercial operations; it was whispered, that, with his own hands, allbe-ruffled as they were, he used to give change for a shilling, andwould turn a half-penny twice over, to make sure that it was a goodone. Beyond all question, he had the blood of a petty huckster in hisveins, through whatever channel it may have found its way there. 

Immediately on his death, the shop-door had been locked, bolted, andbarred, and, down to the period of our story, had probably never oncebeen opened. The old counter, shelves, and other fixtures of thelittle shop remained just as he had left them. It used to be affirmed, that the dead shopkeeper, in a white wig, a faded velvet coat, an apronat his waist, and his ruffles carefully turned back from his wrists, might be seen through the chinks of the shutters, any night of theyear, ransacking his till, or poring over the dingy pages of hisday-book. From the look of unutterable woe upon his face, it appearedto be his doom to spend eternity in a vain effort to make his accountsbalance. 

And now--in a very humble way, as will be seen--we proceed to open ournarrative. 

(_House of the Seven Gables_. )

{144}

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 1811-1863

DENIS DUVAL'S FIRST JOURNEY TO LONDON

At Michaelmas, in the year 1776 (I promise you I remember the year), mydear and kind friend, Doctor Barnard, having to go to London with hisrents, proposed to take me to London to see my other patron, Sir PeterDenis, between whom and the Doctor there was a great friendship; and itis to those dear friends that I owe the great good fortune which hassince befallen me in life. Indeed, when I think of what I might havebeen, of what I have escaped, my heart is full of thankfulness for thegreat mercies which have fallen to my share. Well, at this happy andeventful Michaelmas of 1776, Doctor Barnard says to me, "Denis, mychild, if thy mother will grant leave, I have a mind to take thee tosee thy god-father, Sir Peter Denis, in London. I am going up with myrents, my neighbour Weston will share the horses with me, and thoushall see the Tower and Mr Salmon's wax-work before thou art a weekolder. "

You may suppose that this proposition made Master Denis Duval jump forjoy. Of course I had heard of London all my life, and talked withpeople who had been there, but that I should go myself to Admiral SirPeter Denis's house, and see the play, St Paul's and Mr Salmon's, herewas a height of bliss I had never hoped to attain. I could not sleepfor thinking of my pleasure; I had {145} some money, and I promised tobuy as many toys for Agnes as the Chevalier used to bring her. Mymother said I should go like a gentleman, and turned me out in a redwaistcoat with plate buttons, a cock to my hat, and ruffles to myshirts. How I counted the hours of the night before our departure! Iwas up before the dawn, packing my little valise. I got my littlebrass-barrelled pocket-pistol, and I loaded it with shot. I put itaway into my breast-pocket; and if we met with a highwayman I promisedmyself he should have my charge of lead in his face. The Doctor'spostchaise was at his stables not very far from us. The stablelanterns were alight, and Brown, the Doctor's man, cleaning thecarriage, when Mr Denis Duval comes up to the stable-door, lugging hisportmanteau after him through the twilight. Was ever daylight so longa-coming? Ah! there comes the horses at last; the horses from the"King's Head, " and old Pascoe, the one-eyed postillion. How well Iremember the sound of their hoofs in that silent street! I can telleverything that happened on that day; what we had for dinner--viz. , veal cutlets and French beans, at Maidstone; where we changed horses, and the colour of the horses. "Here, Brown! here's my portmanteau! Isay, where shall I stow it?" My portmanteau was about as large as agood-sized apple-pie. I jump into the carriage and we drive up to therectory: and I think the Doctor will never come out. There he is atlast: with his mouth full of buttered toast, and I bob my head to him ahundred times out of the chaise window. Then I must jump out, forsooth. "Brown, shall I give you a hand with the luggage?" says I, and I dare say they all laugh. Well, {146} I am so happy that anybodymay laugh who likes. The Doctor comes out, his precious box under hisarm. I see dear Mrs Barnard's great cap nodding at us out of theparlour window as we drive away from the Rectory door to stop a hundredyards further on at the Priory. 

There at the parlour window stands my dear little Agnes, in a whitefrock, in a great cap with a blue riband and bow, and curls clusteringover her face. I wish Sir Joshua Reynolds had painted thee in thosedays, my dear: but thou wert the very image of one of his littleladies, that one who became Duchess of Buccleuch afterwards. There ismy Agnes, and now presently comes out Mr Weston's man and luggage, andit is fixed on the roof. Him, his master, Mr George Weston, follows. This was the most good-natured of the two, and I shall never forget mysensation of delight, when I saw him bring out two holster-pistols, which he placed each in a pocket of the chaise. Is Tommy Chapman, theapothecary's son of Westgate, alive yet, and does he remember mywagging my head to him as our chaise whirled by? He was shaking a matat the door of his father's shop as my lordship accompanied by my noblefriends passed by. 

First stage, Ham Street, "The Bear. " A grey horse and a bay to change, _I_ remember them. Second stage, Ashford. Third stage--I think I amasleep about the third stage; and no wonder, a poor little wretch whohad been awake half the night before, and no doubt many nightsprevious, thinking of this wonderful journey. Fourth stage, Maidstone, "The Bell. " "And here we will stop to dinner, master Shrimp-catcher, "says the Doctor, and I jump down out of the carriage, nothing {147}loth. The Doctor followed with his box, of which he never lost sight. 

The Doctor liked his ease in his inn, and took his sip of punch socomfortably, that I, for my part, thought he never would be gone. Iwas out in the stables and looking at the horses, and talking to theostler who was rubbing his nags down. I dare say I had a peep into thekitchen, and at the pigeons in the inn-yard, and at all things whichwere to be seen at "The Bell, " while my two companions were still attheir interminable punch. It was an old-fashioned inn, with a galleryround the court-yard. Heaven bless us! Falstaff and Bardolph may havestopped there on the road to Gadshill. I was in the stable looking atthe nags, when Mr Weston comes out of the inn, looks round the court, opens the door of the postchaise, takes out his pistols, looks at thepriming, and puts them back again. Then we are off again, and timeenough too. It seemed to me many hours since we had arrived at thatcreaking old "Bell. " And away we go through Addington, Eynesford, bymiles and miles of hop-gardens. I dare say I did not look at theprospect much, beautiful though it might be, my young eyes being forever on the look-out for St Paul's and London. 

For a great part of the way Doctor Barnard and his companion had a finecontroversy about their respective religions, for which each was alikezealous. Nay: it may be the Rector invited Mr Weston to take a placein his postchaise in order to have this battle, for he never tired ofarguing the question between the two churches. Towards the close ofthe day Master Denis Duval fell {148} asleep on Doctor Barnard'sshoulder, and the good-natured clergyman did not disturb him. 

I woke up with the sudden stoppage of the carriage. The evening wasfalling. We were upon a lonely common, and a man on horseback was atthe window of the postchaise. 

"Give us out that there box! and your money!" I heard him say in a verygruff voice. O heavens! we were actually stopped by a highwayman! Itwas delightful. 

Mr Weston jumped at his pistols very quick. "Here's our money, youscoundrel!" says he, and fired point-blank at the rogue's head. Confusion! the pistol missed fire. He aimed the second, and again noreport followed!

"Some scoundrel has been tampering with these, " says Mr Weston, aghast. 

"Come, " says Captain Macheath, "come, your--"

But the next word the fellow spoke was a frightful oath; for I took outmy little pistol, which was full of shot, and fired it into his face. The man reeled, and I thought would have fallen out of his saddle. Thepostillion, frightened, no doubt, clapped spurs to his horse, and beganto gallop. "Shan't we stop and take that rascal, sir?" said I to theDoctor. On which Mr Weston gave a peevish kind of push at me, andsaid, "No, no. It is getting quite dark. Let us push on. " And, indeed, the highwayman's horse had taken fright, and we could see himgalloping away across the common. 

I was so elated to think that I, a little boy, had shot a livehighwayman, that I dare say I bragged outrageously of my action. Weset down Mr Weston at his {149} inn in the Borough, and crossed LondonBridge, and there I was in London at last. Yes, and that was theMonument, and then we came to the Exchange, and yonder, yonder was StPaul's. We went up Holborn, and so to Ormonde Street, where my patronlived in a noble mansion; and where his wife, my lady Denis, receivedme with a great deal of kindness. You may be sure the battle with thehighwayman was fought over again, and I got due credit from myself andothers for my gallantry. 

(_Denis Duval_. )

CHARLES DICKENS 1812-1870

STORM

"Don't you think that, " I asked the coachman, in the first stage out ofLondon, "a very remarkable sky? I don't remember to have seen one likeit. "

"Nor I, --not equal to it, " he replied. "That's wind, sir. There'll bemischief done at sea, I expect, before long. "

It was a murky confusion--here and there blotted with a colour like thecolour of the smoke from damp fuel--of flying clouds tossed up intomost remarkable heaps, suggesting greater heights in the clouds thanthere were depths below them to the bottom of the deepest hollows inthe earth, through which the wild moon seemed to plunge headlong, asif, in a dread disturbance of the laws of nature, she had lost her wayand were frightened. {150} There had been a wind all day; and it wasrising then, with an extraordinary great sound. In another hour it hadmuch increased, and the sky was more overcast, and it blew hard. 

But, as the night advanced, the clouds closing in and denselyoverspreading the whole sky, then very dark, it came on to blow, harderand harder. It still increased, until our horses could scarcely facethe wind. Many times, in the dark part of the night (it was then latein September, when the nights were not short), the leaders turnedabout, or came to a dead stop; and we were often in seriousapprehension that the coach would be blown over. Sweeping gusts ofrain came up before this storm, like showers of steel; and, at thosetimes, when there was any shelter of trees or lee walls to be got, wewere fain to stop, in a sheer impossibility of continuing the struggle. 

When the day broke, it blew harder and harder. I had been in Yarmouthwhen the seamen said it blew great guns, but I had never known the likeof this, or anything approaching to it. We came to Ipswich--very late, having had to fight every inch of ground since we were ten miles out ofLondon; and found a cluster of people in the market-place, who hadrisen from their beds in the night, fearful of falling chimneys. Someof these, congregating about the inn-yard while we changed horses, toldus of great sheets of lead having been ripped off a high church-tower, and flung into a bye-street, which they then blocked up. Others had totell of country people, coming in from neighbouring villages, who hadseen great trees lying torn out of the earth, and whole {151} ricksscattered about the roads and fields. Still, there was no abatement inthe storm, but it blew harder. 

As we struggled on, nearer and nearer to the sea, from which thismighty wind was blowing dead on shore, its force became more and moreterrific. Long before we saw the sea, its spray was on our lips, andshowered salt rain upon us. The water was out, over miles and miles ofthe flat country adjacent to Yarmouth; and every sheet and puddlelashed its banks, and had its stress of little breakers setting heavilytowards us. When we came within sight of the sea, the waves on thehorizon, caught at intervals above the rolling abyss, were likeglimpses of another shore with towers and buildings. When at last wegot into the town, the people came out to their doors, all aslant, andwith streaming hair, making a wonder of the mail that had come throughsuch a night. 

I put up at the old inn, and went down to look at the sea; staggeringalong the street, which was strewn with sand and seaweed, and withflying blotches of sea-foam; afraid of falling slates and tiles; andholding by people I met, at angry corners. Coming near the beach, Isaw, not only the boatmen, but half the people of the town, lurkingbehind buildings; some, now and then braving the fury of the storm tolook away to sea, and blown sheer out of their course in trying to getzigzag back. 

Joining these groups, I found bewailing women whose husbands were awayin herring or oyster boats, which there was too much reason to thinkmight have foundered before they could run in anywhere for safety. Grizzled old sailors were among the people, shaking their heads, {152}as they looked from water to sky, and muttering to one another;ship-owners, excited and uneasy; children, huddling together, andpeering into older faces; even stout mariners, disturbed and anxious, levelling their glasses at the sea from behind places of shelter, as ifthey were surveying an enemy. 

The tremendous sea itself, when I could find sufficient pause to lookat it, in the agitation of the blinding wind, the flying stones andsand, and the awful noise, confounded me. As the high watery wallscame rolling in, and, at their highest, tumbled into surf, they lookedas if the least would engulf the town. As the receding wave swept backwith a hoarse roar, it seemed to scoop out deep caves in the beach, asif its purpose were to undermine the earth. When some white-headedbillows thundered on, and dashed themselves to pieces before theyreached the land, every fragment of the late whole seemed possessed bythe full might of its wrath, rushing to be gathered to the compositionof another monster. Undulating hills were changed to valleys, undulating valleys (with a solitary storm-bird sometimes skimmingthrough them) were lifted up to hills; masses of water shivered andshook the beach with a booming sound; every shape tumultuously rolledon, as soon as made, to change its shape and place, and beat anothershape and place away; the ideal shore on the horizon, with its towersand buildings, rose and fell; the clouds flew fast and thick; I seemedto see a rending and upheaving of all nature. . . . 

I went back to the inn; and when I had washed and dressed, and tried tosleep, but in vain, it was five o'clock in the afternoon. I had notsat five minutes by the {153} coffee-room fire, when the waiter comingto stir it, as an excuse for talking, told me that two colliers hadgone down, with all hands, a few miles away; and that some other shipshad been seen labouring hard in the Roads, and trying, in greatdistress, to keep off shore. Mercy on them, and on all poor sailors, said he, if we had another night like the last!

(_David Copperfield_. )

CHARLOTTE BRONTË 1816-1855

JANE EYRE AND MR ROCHESTER

"And now, what did you learn at Lowood? Can you play?"

"A little. "

"Of course, that is the established answer. Go into the library--Imean, if you please. --(Excuse my tone of command; I am used to say, 'Dothis, ' and it is done. I cannot alter my customary habits for one newinmate. )--Go, then, into the library; take a candle with you; leave thedoor open; sit down to the piano, and play a tune. "

I departed, obeying his directions. 

"Enough!" he called out in a few minutes. "You play a _little_, I see, like any other English school-girl; perhaps rather better than some, but not well. "

I closed the piano, and returned. Mr Rochester continued--

{154} "Adèle showed me some sketches this morning, which, she said, were yours. I don't know whether they were entirely of your doing:probably a master aided you?"

"No, indeed!" I interjected. 

"Ah! that pricks pride. Well, fetch me your portfolio, if you canvouch for its contents being original; but don't pass your word unlessyou are certain: I can recognise patchwork. "

"Then I will say nothing, and you shall judge for yourself, sir. "

I brought the portfolio from the library. 

"Approach the table, " said he; and I wheeled it to his couch. Adèleand Mrs Fairfax drew near to see the pictures. 

"No crowding, " said Mr Rochester: "take the drawings from my hand as Ifinish with them; but don't push your faces up to mine. "

He deliberately scrutinised each sketch and painting. Three he laidaside; the others, when he had examined them, he swept from him. 

"Take them off to the other table, Mrs Fairfax, " said he, "and look atthem with Adèle;--you" (glancing at me) "resume your seat, and answermy questions. I perceive these pictures were done by one hand. Wasthat hand yours?"

"Yes. "

"And when did you find time to do them? They have taken much time, andsome thought. "

"I did them in the last two vacations I spent at Lowood, when I had noother occupation. "

{155} "Where did you get your copies?"

"Out of my head. "

"That head I see now on your shoulders?"

"Yes, sir. "

"Has it other furniture of the same kind within?"

"I should think it may have. I should hope--better. "

He spread the pictures before him, and again surveyed them alternately. 

While he is so occupied, I will tell you, reader, what they are, andfirst, I must premise that they are nothing wonderful. The subjectshad, indeed, risen vividly on my mind. As I saw them with thespiritual eye, before I attempted to embody them, they were striking;but my hand would not second my fancy, and, in each case, it hadwrought out but a pale portrait of the thing I had conceived. 

These pictures were in water-colours. The first represented clouds lowand livid, rolling over a swollen sea: all the distance was in eclipse;so, too, was the foreground; or, rather, the nearest billows, for therewas no land. One gleam of light lifted into relief a half-submergedmast, on which sat a cormorant, dark and large, with wings flecked withfoam; its beak held a gold bracelet, set with gems, which I had touchedwith as brilliant tints as my pencil could impart. Sinking below thebird and mast, a drowned corpse glanced through the green water; a fairarm was the only limb clearly visible, whence the bracelet had beenwashed or torn. 

The second picture contained for foreground only the dim peak of ahill, with grass and some leaves slanting {156} as if by a breeze. Beyond and above spread an expanse of sky, dark blue, as at twilight;rising into the sky was a woman's shape to the bust, portrayed in tintsas dusk and soft as I could combine. The dim forehead was crowned witha star; the lineaments below were seen as through the suffusion ofvapour; the eyes shone dark and wild; the hair streamed shadowy, like abeamless cloud torn by storm or by electric travail. On the neck lay apale reflection like moonlight: the same faint lustre touched the trainof thin clouds from which rose and bowed this vision of the EveningStar. 

The third showed the pinnacle of an iceberg piercing a polar wintersky: a muster of northern lights reared their dim lances, closeserried, along the horizon. Throwing these into distance, rose, in theforeground, a head, --a colossal head, inclined towards the iceberg, andresting against it. Two thin hands, joined under the forehead, andsupporting it, drew up before the lower features a sable veil; a browquite bloodless, white as bone, and an eye hollow and fixed, blank ofmeaning but for the glassiness of despair, alone were visible. Abovethe temples, amidst wreathed turban folds of black drapery, vague inits character and consistency as cloud, gleamed a ring of white flame, gemmed with sparkles of a more lurid tinge. This pale crescent was"the likeness of a Kingly Crown"; what it diademed was "the shape whichshape had none. "

(_Jane Eyre_. )

{157}

HENRY DAVID THOREAU 1817-1862

A HUT IN THE WOODS

I did not read books the first summer; I hoed beans. Nay, I often didbetter than this. There were times when I could not afford tosacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of thehead or hands. I love a broad margin to my life. Sometimes, in asummer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunnydoorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a reverie, amidst the pines andhickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while thebirds sang around, or flitted noiseless through the house, until by thesun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveller'swaggon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. Igrew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far betterthan any work of the hands would have been. They were not timesubtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance. I realised what the Orientals mean by contemplation and the forsakingof works. For the most part, I minded not how the hours went. The dayadvanced as if to light some work of mine; it was morning, and lo, nowit is evening, and nothing memorable is accomplished. Instead ofsinging like the birds, I silently smiled at my incessant good fortune. As the sparrow had its trill, sitting on the hickory before my door, soI had my chuckle or suppressed warble which he might hear out of mynest. My days were not days {158} of the week, bearing the stamp ofany heathen deity, nor were they minced into hours and fretted by theticking of a clock; for I lived like the Puri Indians, of whom it issaid that for yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow they have only one word, and they express the variety of meaning by pointing backward foryesterday, forward for to-morrow, and overhead for the passing day. This was sheer idleness to my fellow-townsmen, no doubt; but if thebirds and flowers had tried me by their standard, I should not havebeen found wanting. A man must find his occasions in himself, it istrue. The natural day is very calm, and will hardly reprove hisindolence. 

I had this advantage, at least, in my mode of life, over those who wereobliged to look abroad for amusement, to society and the theatre, thatmy life itself was become my amusement and never ceased to be novel. It was a drama of many scenes and without an end. If we were alwaysindeed getting our living, and regulating our lives according to thelast and best mode we had learned, we should never be troubled withennui. Follow your genius closely enough, and it will not fail to showyou a fresh prospect every hour. House-work was a pleasant pastime. When my floor was dirty, I rose early, and, setting all my furnitureout of doors on the grass, bed and bedstead making but one budget, dashed water on the floor, and sprinkled white sand from the pond onit, and then with a broom scrubbed it clean and white; and by the timethe villagers had broken their fast the morning sun had dried my housesufficiently to allow me to move in again, and my meditations werealmost uninterrupted. It was pleasant to see my whole {159} householdeffects out on the grass, making a little pile like a gypsy's pack, andmy three-legged table, from which I did not remove the books and penand ink, standing amid the pines and hickories. They seemed glad toget out themselves, and as if unwilling to be brought in. I wassometimes tempted to stretch an awning over them and take my seatthere. It was worth the while to see the sun shine on these things, and hear the free wind blow on them; so much more interesting mostfamiliar objects look out of doors than in the house. A bird sits onthe next bough; life everlasting grows under the table, and blackberryvines run round its legs; pine cones, chestnut burs, and strawberryleaves are strewn about. It looked as if this was the way these formscame to be transferred to our furniture, to tables, chairs, andbedsteads, --because they once stood in their midst. 

(_Walden_. )

GEORGE ELIOT (MARY ANN EVANS) 1819-1880

A MISER

Gradually the guineas, the crowns, and the half-crowns grew to a heap, and Marner drew less and less for his own wants, trying to solve theproblem of keeping himself strong enough to work sixteen hours a day onas small an outlay as possible. . . . He handled them, he countedthem, till their form and colour were like the {160} satisfaction of athirst to him; but it was only in the night, when his work was done, that he drew them out to enjoy their companionship. He had taken upsome bricks in his floor underneath his loom, and here he made a holein which he set the iron pot that contained his guineas and silvercoins, covering the bricks with sand whenever he replaced them. Notthat the idea of being robbed presented itself often or strongly to hismind: hoarding was common in country districts in those days; therewere old labourers in the parish of Raveloe who were known to havetheir savings by them, probably inside their flock-beds; but theirrustic neighbours, though not all of them as honest as their ancestorsin the days of King Alfred, had not imaginations bold enough to lay aplan of burglary. How could they have spent the money in their ownvillage without betraying themselves? They would be obliged to "runaway"--a course as dark and dubious as a balloon journey. 

So, year after year, Silas Marner had lived in this solitude, hisguineas rising in the iron pot, and his life narrowing and hardeningitself more and more into a mere pulsation of desire and satisfactionthat had no relation to any other being. His life had reduced itselfto the functions of weaving and hoarding, without any contemplation ofan end towards which the functions tended. The same sort of processhas perhaps been undergone by wiser men, when they have been cut offfrom faith and love--only, instead of a loom and a heap of guineas, they have had some erudite research, some ingenious project, or somewell-knit theory. Strangely Marner's face and figure shrank and bentthemselves {161} into a constant mechanical relation to the objects ofhis life, so that he produced the same sort of impression as a handleor a crooked tube, which has no meaning standing apart. The prominenteyes that used to look trusting and dreamy, now looked as if they hadbeen made to see only one kind of thing that was very small, like tinygrain, for which they hunted everywhere; and he was so withered andyellow, that, though he was not yet forty, the children always calledhim "Old Master Marner. "

Yet even in this stage of withering a little incident happened, whichshowed that the sap of affection was not all gone. It was one of hisdaily tasks to fetch his water from a well a couple of fields off, andfor this purpose, ever since he came to Raveloe, he had a brownearthenware pot, which he held as his most precious utensil among thevery few conveniences he had granted himself. It had been hiscompanion for twelve years, always standing on the same spot, alwayslending its handle to him in the early morning, so that its form had anexpression for him of willing helpfulness, and the impress of itshandle on his palm gave a satisfaction mingled with that of having thefresh clear water. One day as he was returning from the well, hestumbled against the step of the stile, and his brown pot, falling withforce against the stones that over-arched the ditch below him, wasbroken in three pieces. Silas picked up the pieces and carried themhome with grief in his heart. The brown pot could never be of use tohim any more, but he stuck the bits together and propped the ruin inits old place for a memorial. 

{162} This is the history of Silas Marner, until the fifteenth yearafter he came to Raveloe. The livelong day he sat in his loom, his earfilled with its monotony, his eyes bent close down on the slow growthof sameness in the brownish web, his muscles moving with such evenrepetition that their pause seemed almost as much a constraint as theholding of his breath. But at night came his revelry: at night heclosed his shutters, and made fast his doors, and drew forth his gold. Long ago the heap of coins had become too large for the iron pot tohold them, and he had made for them two thick leather bags, whichwasted no room in their resting-place, but lent themselves flexibly toevery corner. How the guineas shone as they came pouring out of thedark leather mouths! The silver bore no large proportion in amount tothe gold, because the long pieces of linen which formed his chief workwere always partly paid for in gold, and out of the silver he suppliedhis own bodily wants, choosing always the shillings and sixpences tospend in this way. He loved the guineas best, but he would not changethe silver--the crowns and half-crowns that were his own earnings, begotten by his labour; he loved them all. He spread them out in heapsand bathed his hands in them; then he counted them and set them up inregular piles, and felt their rounded outline between his thumb andfingers, and thought fondly of the guineas that were only half earnedby the work in his loom, as if they had been unborn children--thoughtof the guineas that were coming slowly through the coming years, through all his life, which spread far away before him, the end quitehidden by countless days of weaving. 

(_Silas Marner_. )

{163}

JOHN RUSKIN 1819-1900

SHIPS

Down to Elizabeth's time chivalry lasted; and grace of dress and mien, and all else that was connected with chivalry. Then came the ageswhich, when they have taken their due place in the depths of the past, will be, by a wise and clear-sighted futurity, perhaps wellcomprehended under a common name, as the ages of Starch; periods ofgeneral stiffening and bluish-whitening, with a prevailingwasherwoman's taste in everything; involving a change of steel armourinto cambric; of natural hair into peruke; of natural walking into thatwhich will disarrange no wristbands; of plain language into quips andembroideries; and of human life in general, from a green race-course, where to be defeated was at worst only to fall behind and recoverbreath, into a slippery pole, to be climbed with toil and contortion, and in clinging to which, each man's foot is on his neighbour's head. 

But, meanwhile, the marine deities were incorruptible. It was notpossible to starch the sea; and precisely as the stiffness fastenedupon men, it vanished from ships. What had once been a mere raft, withrows of formal benches, pushed along by laborious flap of oars, andwith infinite fluttering of flags and swelling of poops above, gradually began to lean more heavily into the deep water, to sustain agloomy weight of guns, to draw back its spider-like feebleness of limb, and open its bosom to the wind, and finally darkened down from all itspainted {164} vanities into the long low hull, familiar with theover-flying foam; that has no other pride but in its daily duty andvictory; while, through all these changes, it gained continually ingrace, strength, audacity, and beauty, until at last it has reachedsuch a pitch of all these, that there is not, except the very loveliestcreatures of the living world, anything in nature so absolutelynotable, bewitching, and, according to its means and measure, heart-occupying, as a well-handled ship under sail in a stormy day. Any ship, from lowest to proudest, has due place in that architectureof the sea; beautiful, not so much in this or that piece of it, as inthe unity of all, from cottage to cathedral, into their great buoyantdynasty. Yet, among them, the fisher-boat, corresponding to thecottage on the land (only far more sublime than a cottage ever can be), is on the whole the thing most venerable. I doubt if ever academicgrove were half so fit for profitable meditation as the little strip ofshingle between two black, steep, overhanging sides of strandedfishing-boats. The clear, heavy water-edge of ocean rising and fallingclose to their bows, in that unaccountable way which the sea has alwaysin calm weather, turning the pebbles over and over as if with a rake, to look for something, and then stopping a moment down at the bottom ofthe bank, and coming up again with a little run and clash, throwing afoot's depth of salt crystal in an instant between you and the roundstone you were going to take in your hand; sighing, all the while, asif it would infinitely rather be doing something else. And the darkflanks of the fishing-boats all aslope above, in their shiningquietness, hot in the morning sun, rusty and seamed with square patchesof {165} plank nailed over their rents; just rough enough to let thelittle flat-footed fisher-children haul or twist themselves up to thegunwales, and drop back again along some stray rope; just round enoughto remind us, in their broad and gradual curves, of the sweep of thegreen surges they know so well, and of the hours when those old sidesof seared timber, all ashine with the sea, plunge and dip into the deepgreen purity of the mounded waves more joyfully than a deer lies downamong the grass of spring, the soft white cloud of foam openingmomentarily at the bows, and fading or flying high into the breezewhere the sea-gulls toss and shriek, --the joy and beauty of it, all thewhile, so mingled with the sense of unfathomable danger, and the humaneffort and sorrow going on perpetually from age to age, waves rollingfor ever, and winds moaning for ever, and faithful hearts trusting andsickening for ever, and brave lives dashed away about the rattlingbeach like weeds for ever; and still at the helm of every lonely boat, through starless night and hopeless dawn, His hand, who spread thefisher's net over the dust of the Sidonian palaces, and gave into thefisher's hand the keys of the kingdom of heaven. 

Next after the fishing-boat--which, as I said, in the architecture ofthe sea represents the cottage, more especially the pastoral oragricultural cottage, watchful over some pathless domain of moorland orarable, as the fishing-boat swims humbly in the midst of the broadgreen fields and hills of ocean, out of which it has to win such fruitas they can give, and to compass with net or drag such flocks as it mayfind, --next to this ocean-cottage ranks in interest, it seems to me, the small, over-wrought, {166} under-crewed, ill-caulked merchant brigor schooner; the kind of ship which first shows its couple of thinmasts over the low fields or marshes as we near any third-rate seaport;and which is sure somewhere to stud the great space of glitteringwater, seen from any sea-cliff, with its four or five square-set sails. Of the larger and more polite tribes of merchant vessels, three-masted, and passenger-carrying, I have nothing to say, feeling in generallittle sympathy with people who want to go anywhere; nor caring muchabout anything, which in the essence of it expresses a desire to get toother sides of the world; but only for homely and stay-at-home ships, that live their life and die their death about English rocks. Neitherhave I any interest in the higher branches of commerce, such as trafficwith spice islands, and porterage of painted tea-chests or carvedivory; for all this seems to me to fall under the head of commerce ofthe drawing-room; costly, but not venerable. I respect in the merchantservice only those ships that carry coals, herrings, salt, timber, iron, and such other commodities, and that have disagreeable odour, andunwashed decks. But there are few things more impressive to me thanone of these ships lying up against some lonely quay in a blacksea-fog, with the furrow traced under its tawny keel far in the harbourslime. The noble misery that there is in it, the might of its rent andstrained unseemliness, its wave-worn melancholy, resting there for alittle while in the comfortless ebb, unpitied, and claiming no pity;still less honoured, least of all conscious of any claim to honour;casting and craning by due balance whatever is in its hold up to thepier, in quiet truth of time; spinning of wheel, and {167} slackeningof rope, and swinging of spade, in as accurate cadence as a waltzmusic; one or two of its crew, perhaps, away forward, and a hungry boyand yelping dog eagerly interested in something from which a blue dullsmoke rises out of pot or pan; but dark-browed and silent, their limbsslack, like the ropes above them, entangled as they are in thoseinextricable meshes about the patched knots and heaps of ill-reefedsable sail. What a majestic sense of service in all that languor! therest of human limbs and hearts, at utter need, not in sweet meadows orsoft air, but in harbour slime and biting fog; so drawing their breathonce more, to go out again, without lament, from between the twoskeletons of pier-heads, vocal with wash of under wave, into the greytroughs of tumbling brine; there, as they can, with slacked rope, andpatched sail, and leaky hull, again to roll and stagger far away amidstthe wind and salt sleet, from dawn to dusk and dusk to dawn, winningday by day their daily bread; and for last reward, when their oldhands, on some winter night, lose feeling along the frozen ropes, andtheir old eyes miss mark of the lighthouse quenched in foam, theso-long impossible Rest, that shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore, --their eyes and mouths filled with the brown sea-sand. 

(_Harbours of England_. )

{168}

WALTER PATER 1839-1894

THE CHILD IN THE HOUSE

As Florian Deleal walked, one hot afternoon, he overtook by the waysidea poor aged man, and, as he seemed weary with the road, helped him onwith the burden which he carried, a certain distance. And as the mantold his story, it chanced that he named the place, a little place inthe neighbourhood of a great city, where Florian had passed hisearliest years, but which he had never since seen, and, the story told, went forward on his journey comforted. And that night, like a rewardfor his pity, a dream of that place came to Florian, a dream which didfor him the office of the finer sort of memory, bringing its object tomind with a great clearness, yet, as sometimes happens in dreams, raised a little above itself, and above ordinary retrospect. The trueaspect of the place, especially of the house there in which he hadlived as a child, the fashion of its doors, its hearths, its windows, the very scent upon the air of it, was with him in sleep for a season;only, with tints more musically blent on wall and floor, and some finerlight and shadow running in and out along its curves and angles, andwith all its little carvings daintier. He awoke with a sigh at thethought of almost thirty years which lay between him and that place, yet with a flutter of pleasure still within him at the fair light, asif it were a smile, upon it. And it happened that this accident of hisdream was just the thing needed for the beginning of a certain designhe {169} then had in view, the noting, namely, of some things in thestory of his spirit--in that process of brain-building by which we are, each one of us, what we are. With the image of the place so clear andfavourable upon him, he fell to thinking of himself therein, and howhis thoughts had grown up to him. In that half-spiritualised house hecould watch the better, over again, the gradual expansion of the soulwhich had come to be there--of which indeed, through the law whichmakes the material objects about them so large an element in children'slives, it had actually become a part; inward and outward being woventhrough and through each other into one inextricable texture--half, tint and trace and accident of homely colour and form, from the woodand the bricks; half, mere soul-stuff, floated thither from who knowshow far. In the house and garden of his dream he saw a child moving, and could divide the main streams at least of the winds that had playedon him, and study so the first stage in that mental journey. 

The _old house_, as when Florian talked of it afterwards he alwayscalled it (as all children do, who can recollect a change of home, soonenough but not too soon to mark a period in their lives) really was anold house; and an element of French descent in its inmates--descentfrom Watteau, the old court-painter, one of whose gallant pieces stillhung in one of the rooms--might explain, together with some otherthings, a noticeable trimness and comely whiteness about everythingthere--the curtains, the couches, the paint on the walls with which thelight and shadow played so delicately; might explain also the toleranceof the great poplar in the garden, a tree {170} most often despised byEnglish people, but which French people love, having observed a certainfresh way its leaves have of dealing with the wind, making it sound, innever so slight a stirring of the air, like running water. 

The old-fashioned, low wainscoting went round the rooms, and up thestaircase with carved balusters and shadowy angles, landing half-way upat a broad window, with a swallow's nest below the sill, and theblossom of an old pear-tree showing across it in late April, againstthe blue, below which the perfumed juice of the find of fallen fruit inautumn was so fresh. At the next turning came the closet which held onits deep shelves the best china. Little angel faces and reedy flutingsstood out round the fire-place of the children's room. And on the topof the house, above the large attic, where the white mice ran in thetwilight--an infinite, unexplored wonderland of childish treasures, glass beads, empty scent-bottles still sweet, thrum of coloured silks, among its lumber--a flat space of roof, railed round, gave a view ofthe neighbouring steeples; for the house, as I said, stood near a greatcity, which sent up heavenwards, over the twisting weather-vanes, notseldom, its beds of rolling cloud and smoke, touched with storm orsunshine. But the child of whom I am writing did not hate the fogbecause of the crimson lights which fell from it sometimes upon thechimneys, and the whites which gleamed through its openings, on summermornings, on turret or pavement. For it is false to suppose that achild's sense of beauty is dependent on any choiceness or specialfineness, in the objects which present themselves to it, though thisindeed comes to be the rule with most of us in later life; earlier, in{171} some degree, we see inwardly, and the child finds for itself, andwith unstinted delight, a difference for the sense, in those whites andreds through the smoke on very homely buildings, and in the gold of thedandelions at the road-side, just beyond the houses, where not ahandful of earth is virgin and untouched, in the lack of betterministries to its desire of beauty. 

(_Miscellaneous Studies_. )

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 1850-1894

DIVING

Into the bay of Wick stretched the dark length of the unfinishedbreakwater, in its cage of open staging; the travellers (like frames ofchurches) over-plumbing all; and away at the extreme end, the diverstoiling unseen on the foundation. On a platform of loose planks, theassistants turned their air-mills; a stone might be swinging between windand water; underneath the swell ran gaily; and from time to time, amailed dragon with a window-glass snout came dripping up theladder. . . . To go down in the diving-dress, that was my absorbingfancy; and with the countenance of a certain handsome scamp of a diver, Bob Bain by name, I gratified the whim. 

It was grey harsh, easterly weather, the swell ran pretty high, and outin the open there were "skipper's daughters, " when I found myself at laston the diver's platform, twenty pounds of lead upon each foot and my{172} whole person swollen with ply and ply of woollen underclothing. One moment, the salt wind was whistling round my night-capped head; thenext, I was crushed almost double under the weight of the helmet. Asthat intolerable burthen was laid upon me, I could have found it in myheart (only for shame's sake) to cry off from the whole enterprise. Butit was too late. The attendants began to turn the hurdy-gurdy, and theair to whistle through the tube; some one screwed in the barred window ofthe vizor; and I was cut off in a moment from my fellow-men; standingthere in their midst, but quite divorced from intercourse: a creaturedeaf and dumb, pathetically looking forth upon them from a climate of hisown. Except that I could move and feel, I was like a man fallen in acatalepsy. But time was scarce given me to realise my isolation; theweights were hung upon my back and breast, the signal rope was thrustinto my unresisting hand; and setting a twenty-pound foot upon theladder, I began ponderously to descend. 

Some twenty rounds below the platform, twilight fell. Looking up, I sawa low green heaven mottled with vanishing bells of white; looking around, except for the weedy spokes and shafts of the ladder, nothing but a greengloaming, somewhat opaque but very restful and delicious. Thirty roundslower, I stepped off on the _pierres perdues_ of the foundation; a dumbhelmeted figure took me by the hand, and made a gesture (as I read it) ofencouragement; and looking in at the creature's window, I beheld the faceof Bain. There we were, hand to hand and (when it pleased us) eye toeye; and either might have burst himself with shouting, and not a {173}whisper come to his companion's hearing. Each, in his own little worldof air, stood incommunicably separate. 

Bob had told me ere this a little tale, a five minutes' drama at thebottom of the sea, which at that moment possibly shot across my mind. Hewas down with another, settling a stone of the sea-wall. They had itwell adjusted, Bob gave the signal, the scissors were slipped, the stoneset home; and it was time to turn to something else. But still hiscompanion remained bowed over the block like a mourner on a tomb, or onlyraised himself to make absurd contortions and mysterious signs unknown tothe vocabulary of the diver. There, then, these two stood for a while, like the dead and the living; till there flashed a fortunate thought intoBob's mind, and he stooped, peered through the window of that otherworld, and beheld the face of its inhabitant wet with streaming tears. Ah! the man was in pain! And Bob, glancing downward, saw what was thetrouble: the block had been lowered on the foot of that unfortunate--hewas caught alive at the bottom of the sea under fifteen tons of rock. 

That two men should handle a stone so heavy, even swinging in thescissors, may appear strange to the inexpert. These must bear in mindthe great density of the water of the sea, and the surprising results oftransplantation to that medium. To understand a little what these are, and how a man's weight, so far from being an encumbrance, is the veryground of his agility, was the chief lesson of my submarine experience. The knowledge came upon me by degrees. As I began to go forward with thehand of my estranged companion, a world of tumbled stones {174} wasvisible, pillared with the weedy uprights of the staging: overhead, aflat roof of green: a little in front, the sea-wall, like an unfinishedrampart. And presently in our upward progress, Bob motioned me to leapupon a stone; I looked to see if he were possibly in earnest, and he onlysigned to me the more imperiously. Now the block stood six feet high; itwould have been quite a leap to me unencumbered; with the breast and backweights, and the twenty pounds upon each foot, and the staggering load ofthe helmet, the thing was out of reason. I laughed aloud in my tomb; andto prove to Bob how far he was astray, I gave a little impulse from mytoes. Up I soared like a bird, my companion soaring at my side. As highas the stone, and then higher, I pursued my impotent and empty flight. Even when the strong arm of Bob had checked my shoulders, my heelscontinued their ascent; so that I blew out sideways like an autumn leaf, and must be hauled in, hand over hand, as sailors haul in the slack of asail, and propped upon my feet again like an intoxicated sparrow. Yet alittle higher on the foundation, and we began to be affected by thebottom of the swell, running there like a strong breeze of wind. Or so Imust suppose; for, safe in my cushion of air, I was conscious of noimpact; only swayed idly like a weed, and was now borne helplesslyabroad, and now swiftly--and yet with dreamlike gentleness--impelledagainst my guide. So does a child's balloon divagate upon the currentsof the air, and touch and slide off again from every obstacle. So musthave ineffectually swung, so resented their inefficiency, those lightcrowds that followed the {175} Star of Hades, and uttered exiguous voicesin the land beyond Cocytus. 

There was something strangely exasperating, as well as strangelywearying, in these uncommanded evolutions. It is bitter to return toinfancy, to be supported, and directed, and perpetually set upon yourfeet, by the hand of some one else. The air besides, as it is suppliedto you by the busy millers on the platform, closes the eustachian tubesand keeps the neophyte perpetually swallowing, till his throat is grownso dry that he can swallow no longer. And for all thesereasons--although I had a fine, dizzy, muddle-headed joy in mysurroundings, and longed, and tried, and always failed, to lay hands onthe fish that darted here and there about me, swift as humming-birds--yetI fancy I was rather relieved than otherwise when Bain brought me back tothe ladder and signed to me to mount. And there was one more experiencebefore me even then. Of a sudden, my ascending head passed into thetrough of a swell. Out of the green, I shot at once into a glory ofrosy, almost of sanguine light--the multitudinous seas incarnadined, theheaven above a vault of crimson. And then the glory faded into the hard, ugly daylight of a Caithness autumn, with a low sky, a grey sea, and awhistling wind. 

(_Across the Plains_. )

{178}

NOTES

Page

1 Sir Mordred, left in charge of the kingdom during King Arthur'sabsence oversea, treacherously raised a rebellion and made war on theking when he returned. It was in this war that Arthur presently methis end. 

5 The grants to which the Queen refers are the trade-monopoliesgranted by her, which she now proceeded to abolish. 

8 This account of Cleopatra's death (from North's translation ofPlutarch's _Life of Antony_) is closely followed by Shakespeare in_Antony and Cleopatra_. 

11 The basket of figs contained the asp, from the bite of whichCleopatra died (_Antony and Cleopatra_, act V. Scene ii. ). 

12 _The three first monarchies of the world_: these, according toRalegh's account of the world's history, are those of Assyria, Egypt, and Persia. 

13 _The good advice of Cineas_: when Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, wascontemplating the invasion of Italy (B. C. 280) his friend and adviserCineas asked him what he would do when he was master of the world. 'Pyrrhus, finding his drift, answered pleasantly, that they would livemerrily: a thing (as Cineas then told him) that they presently might dowithout any trouble, if he could be contented with his own' (Ralegh). 

_discourse_ here means 'fame. '

16 The two kinds of law which Hooker (as he indicates at the beginningof this extract) has already dealt with are: the law which binds aman's private conscience, and the law which regulates his dealings withthe state (or 'politic society') of which he is a member. 

_conceits_=conceptions. 

18 _But that is a wisdom_: i. E. The wisdom of wise men, who know howto make a proper use of their studies. 

_distilled books_: i. E. Books of selections and extracts. 

_Abeunt studia, etc_. : 'studies pass into the character. '

_stond_= impediment. 

19 _bowling_, i. E. Playing bowls. 

_schoolmen_: the theological and metaphysical writers of the middleages. 

_Cymini sectores_: 'splitters of cumin-seed, ' i. E. What we should call'hair-splitters, ' the seed of the cumin (a plant something like fennel)being very minute. 

20 _In the universality of the kind, etc_. : i. E. The race endures, theindividual perishes. 

24 _Lycosthenes_, a German scholar of the sixteenth century, wrote acommentary on a book of _Lives of eminent men_, a work attributed toPliny the younger (first century A. D. ). 

26 _The eighth climate_: i. E. England, which lies in the eighth of thezones (or 'climates') into which the old geographers divided the globe. 

_constellated_: i. E. Born under a particular 'constellation' orconjunction of planets (an astrological expression). 

_Hydra_: the many-headed monster slain by Hercules. 

_in casting account_=in doing sums. 

27 _Doradoes_=rich men; a Spanish word, as in the phrase 'El dorado'('the rich country'). 

_First, when a city, etc_. : the skeleton of this highly involvedsentence is as follows: 'First, when a city shall be as it werebesieged. . . , that then the people . . . Should be disputing. . . , argues first a singular good will. . . , and from thence derives itself[i. E. Flows on, proceeds] to a gallant bravery. . . . '

28 _as his was who when Rome, etc_. : this story is told by Livy, as aninstance of the undaunted spirit of the Romans during the Punic war. 

_mewing_ properly means 'moulting. ' Milton apparently uses it in thesense of 'renewing by the process of moulting. '

29 _engrossers_: wholesale buyers; here used metaphorically of thosewho, by curtailing the liberty of book-printing, would 'buy up' thestock of knowledge and dole it out as they thought fit. 

30 _he who takes up arms for coat and conduct_: this refers to CharlesI's exaction of a tax for the clothing and conducting (i. E. Conveying)of troops. 

_his four nobles of Danegelt_: a noble was a coin worth 6s. 8d. Danegelt was originally the land-tax raised by Ethelred the Unready tobuy off the Danes; the word was afterwards used of any unpopular tax, here of Charles I's imposition of ship-money, resisted by Hampden. 

_In this unhappy battle_: the battle of Newbury, Sept. 20, 1643, inwhich the advantage was on the whole with the King against theRoundheads. 

33 _vacant_: i. E. Open, unclouded. 

_addresses to his place_: i. E. To his office. Falkland was Secretaryof State to Charles I. 

40 _Phalaris_: a Sicilian tyrant of the sixth century B. C. , famous forhis cruelties. The Greek poet Stesichorus was a contemporary of his. 

42 Samuel Pepys, from whose diary this extract (slightly abridged) istaken, wrote solely for his own private amusement, troubling himselfvery little about style or grammar. He held a post in the Navy Office, and his work did not often allow him to take a day in the country, suchas he here describes. 

46 Defoe's _Captain Singleton_ is an imaginary account of theadventures of certain pirates in different parts of the world. In theextract here given they are lying in Chinese waters. 'William, ' one oftheir crew, has gone ashore to trade with some Chinese merchants. 

47 _thieves' pennyworths_: 'things sold at a robber's price, ' i. E. Below their real value. 

55 _composures_=compositions. 

56 _the Great Mogul_: the Emperor of Hindostan. 

_Muscovy_=Russia, of which Moscow was formerly the capital. 

57 _the old philosopher_: Socrates; see Hooker's reference to theanecdote on page 17 of this book. 

_degree_: i. E. Of latitude and longitude. 

62 _whereas the ladies now walk, etc_. ; this was written in 1711, whenladies wore very large 'hoops, ' or crinolines. 

65 Tom Jones, the hero of Fielding's novel of that name, takes somefriends to see Hamlet, acted by Garrick. Partridge, is a timorousex-schoolmaster, without experience of the theatre. 

77 _redans_: projecting fortifications. 

_the talus of the glacis_: the pitch of the outer slope of an earthwork. 

_banquettes_: the raised way running along the inside of a rampart. 

78 _chamade_: a signal given by drum, announcing surrender. 

79 _a new reign_: George II died on October 25, 1760. 

80 _a rag of quality_: Horace Walpole was a younger son of Sir RobertWalpole (Earl of Orford). 

81 _the Duke of Cumberland_: second son of George II. 

_a dark brown adonis_: a kind of wig. 

_the Duke of Newcastle_: the Prime Minister. 

83 Goldsmith's _Citizen of the World_ consists of a series of letterson European manners and customs, purporting to be written by a Chinamanwho has never before visited England. 

86 _whatever accidentally becomes indisposed, etc_. ; i. E. Whoeverfalls out with the authorities. 

87 _There never was a period, etc_. : this was written in 1777, duringthe American War of Independence. 

90 'Puss' was Cowper's tame hare. 

92 The initials at the foot of the letter are those of William Cowperand Mary Unwin, a friend of the poet's. 

99 _David Garrick_: the celebrated actor (1717-1779). 

100 Frank Osbaldistone, the hero of Scott's novel _Rob Roy_, goes toYorkshire on a visit to his uncle, Sir Hildebrand Osbaldistone, whom hehas never seen. As he approaches his destination he falls in with ayoung lady on horseback, who turns out to be Diana Vernon, a niece ofSir Hildebrand's. The period of the story is early in the eighteenthcentury. 

106 _The 'Festin de pierre'_: Moliere's play, in which the hero, DonJuan, rashly invites the statue of a man he has murdered to dine withhim. The invitation is unexpectedly accepted. 

107 Coleridge, the poet, was an old friend and school-fellow ofCharles Lamb's. 

109 An imaginary dialogue between the two philosophers. Plato, born427 B. C. , was some years the older of the two. 

111 Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, with whom Plato had lived for atime, was overthrown and expelled by his subjects, and driven tosupport himself as a schoolmaster at Corinth. 

_The Demiurgos_: the Creator. 

113 Mrs Elton, in Jane Austen's novel _Emma_, is the somewhatmeddlesome wife of the village parson. Mr Knightley is a gentlemanliving at Donwell, in the neighbourhood. The rest of the people namedare other neighbours and friends, one of them, Mr Woodhouse, being anold gentleman of valetudinarian habits. 

118 Coleridge, as a young man (he was born in 1772), was for a time inthe habit of preaching in Unitarian chapels. 

122 This is an extract from a letter of Keats to a friend, written in1818. 

124 _The Flight to Varennes_: by the middle of 1791 the FrenchRevolution had gone so far that the king and queen were practicallyprisoners in the palace of the Tuileries at Paris. They at lastdetermined to try to escape, and the arrangements for their flight werecarried out, in all possible secrecy, by Choiseul, an officer of theFrench army, and Fersen, a young Swedish count. Carlyle's vividaccount tells how the start was made; but the royal party were stoppedat Varennes, not far from the frontier, and brought back to Paris. 

_the Carrousel_, or 'tilting-ground, ' was an open space in front of theTuileries. 

130 _Trial of the Seven Bishops_: James II, in 1687, issued a'declaration of indulgence, ' promising to suspend certain laws againstRoman Catholics. His command that this declaration should be read inall parish churches was resisted by seven bishops, who were accordinglybrought to trial for sedition. The declaration was very unpopular inthe country, so that the result of the trial was anxiously awaited. 

135 _Cimon_ was one of the Athenian commanders in the Persian war. Hedied in 449 B. C. 

140 The scene of Hawthorne's novel, _The House of the Seven Gables_, is laid in a small town in New England. 

148 Mr Weston was in the plot with the highwayman to rob Dr Barnard. He had himself tampered with his own pistols (in the stable atMaidstone) so that they should miss fire. Hence his peevishness withDenis Duval, for so unexpectedly routing the thief. 

153 Jane Eyre is governess to Mr Rochester's daughter, Adèle. Shedescribes how he cross-questioned her with regard to heraccomplishments. 

157 Thoreau lived for two years in a small hut which he built forhimself in a wood near Concord, in New England. This extract is fromthe account he wrote of his life there. 

171 Stevenson came of a family of engineers, and he himself wassupposed to be preparing for the same profession. But he alreadywished to be a writer, and his interest in the harbour-works at Wick, in Caithness, which he had been sent to study, was romantic rather thanpractical.