IN A COACH [Sidenote: Charles Lamb]

The incidents of our journey were trifling, but you bade me tell them. We had, then, in the coach a rather talkative gentleman, but very civil, all the way, and took up a servant-maid at Stamford, going to a sick mistress.... The former engaged me in a discourse for full twenty miles on the probable advantages of Steam Carriages, which, being merely problematical, I bore my part in with some credit, in spite of my totally un-engineer-like faculties. But when, somewhere about Stanstead, he put an unfortunate question tome as to the "probability of its turning out a good turnip season," and when I, who am still less of an agriculturist than a steam-philosopher, not knowing a turnip from a potato-ground, innocently made answer that I believed it depended very much upon boiled legs of mutton, my unlucky reply set Miss Isola a-laughing to a degree that disturbed her tranquillity for the only moment in our journey. I am afraid my credit sank very low with my other fellow-traveller, who had thought he had met with a well-informed passenger, which is an accident so desirable in a stage coach. We were rather less communicative, but still friendly, the rest of the way.

KING DAVID AND THE GARDENER [Sidenote: Anon.]

Vrom readin' Scripture well Oi knows Pzalmist 'e had na rest vrom voes; Vor po-or ole Dave gre-at pits they'd delve, An' then, dam loons, vail in theirselve. This iz ma readin' ov the Book, An' to ma self do mak' me look; Wi' dew respeck, Oi veel loike him, Tho' later born, and deal more slim.

Vor ev'ry day, wi' buzz an' hum, Into ma garden voes do come; The waspies starm ma gabled wall An' into t' trenches t' grub do crawl. The blackbird, sparrer, tit, an' thrush Do commandeer each curran' bush, While slugs off lettuce take their smack, And maggots turn the celery black.

Wi' greenfly zlimin' roun' ma roses, An' earwigs pokin' be-astly noses In dahlias vit vor virst at Show, Oi ha' ma troubles, as yew may know; But Dave did circumwent the Devil, An' wi' ma insecks Oi get level, Lard! wi' what piety Oi tend 'em, An' wi' ma boot rejoicin' end 'em!

Zo, maister gets his dish o' peas, An' mum her roses, if yew please, But, lawks, they little knaw, Oi 'speck, What Oi've laid out in intelleck; But Dave got little praise vrom man, An' as Oi ta-ake ma wat'rin'-can, Oi zays, zays Oi, next world wull show Who wuz tip-tappers here below.

THE CALAIS NIGHT-BOAT [Sidenote: Charles Dickens]

It is an unsettled question with me whether I shall leave Calais something handsome in my will, or whether I shall leave it my malediction. I hate it so much, and yet I am always so very glad to see it, that I am in a state of constant indecision on this subject. When I first made acquaintance with Calais it was as a maundering young wretch in a clammy perspiration and dripping saline particles, who was conscious of no extremities but the one great extremity, sea-sickness—who was a mere bilious torso, with a mislaid headache somewhere in its stomach—who had been put into a horrible swing in Dover Harbour, and had tumbled giddily out of it on the French coast, or the Isle of Man, or anywhere. Times have changed, and now I enter Calais self-reliant and rational. I know where it is beforehand, I keep a look-out for it, I recognise its landmarks when I see any of them, I am acquainted with its ways, and I know—and I can bear—its worst behaviour.

Malignant Calais! Low-lying alligator, evading the eye-sight and discouraging hope! Dodging flat streak, now on this bow, now on that, now anywhere, now everywhere, now nowhere! In vain Cape Grinez, coming frankly forth into the sea, exhorts the failing to be stout of heart and stomach; sneaking Calais, prone behind its bar, invites emetically to despair. Even when it can no longer quite conceal itself in its muddy dock, it has an evil way of falling off, has Calais, which is more hopeless than its invisibility. The pier is all but on the bowsprit and you think you are there—roll, roar, wash!—Calais has retired miles inland, and Dover has burst out to look for it. It has a last dip and slide in its character, has Calais, to be specially commended to the infernal gods. Thrice accursed be that garrison-town, when it dives under the boat's keel, and comes up a league or two to the right, with the packet shivering and spluttering and staring about for it!

Not but what I have my animosities towards Dover. I particularly detest Dover for the self-complacency with which it goes to bed. It always goes to bed (when I am going to Calais) with a more brilliant display of lamp and candle than any other town. Mr. and Mrs. Birmingham, host and hostess of the Lord Warden Hotel, are my much-esteemed friends, but they are too conceited about the comforts of that establishment when the Night Mail is starting. I know it is a good house to stay at, and I don't want the fact insisted upon in all its warm bright windows at such an hour. I know the Warden is a stationary edifice that never rolls or pitches, and I object to its big outline seeming to insist upon that circumstance, and, as it were, to come over me with it, when I am reeling on the deck of the boat. Beshrew the Warden likewise for obstructing that corner, and making the wind so angry as it rushes round. Shall I not know that it blows quite soon enough, without the officious Warden's interference?

As I wait here on board the night-packet, for the South-Eastern train to come down with the mail, Dover appears to me to be illuminated for some intensely aggravating festivity in my personal dishonour. All its noises smack of taunting praises of the land, and dispraises of the gloomy sea, and of me for going on it. The drums upon the heights have gone to bed, or I know they would rattle taunts against me for having my unsteady footing on this slippery deck. The many gas-eyes of the Marine Parade twinkle in an offensive manner, as if with derision. The distant dogs of Dover bark at me in my misshapen wrappers, as if I were Richard the Third.

A screech, a bell, and two red eyes come gliding down the Admiralty Pier with a smoothness of motion rendered more smooth by the heaving of the boat. The sea makes noises against the pier, as if several hippopotami were lapping at it, and were prevented by circumstances over which they have no control from drinking peaceably. We, the boat, become violently agitated—rumble, hum, scream, roar—and establish an immense family washing-day at each paddle-box. Bright patches break out in the train as the doors of the post-office vans are opened, and instantly stooping figures with sacks upon their backs begin to be beheld among the piles, descending as it would seem in ghostly procession to Davy Jones's Locker. The passengers come on board; a few shadowy Frenchmen, with hatboxes shaped like the stoppers of gigantic case-bottles; a few shadowy Germans in immense fur coats and boots; a few shadowy Englishmen prepared for the worst and pretending not to expect it. I cannot disguise from my uncommercial mind the miserable fact that we are a body of outcasts; that the attendants on us are as scant in number as may serve to get rid of us with the least possible delay; that there are no night-loungers interested in us; that the unwilling lamps shiver and shudder at us; that the sole object is to commit us to the deep and abandon us. Lo, the two red eyes glaring in increasing distance, and then the very train itself has gone to bed before we are off! What is the moral support derived by some sea-going amateurs from an umbrella? Why do certain voyagers across the Channel always put up that article, and hold it up with a grim and fierce tenacity? A fellow-creature near me—whom I only know to be a fellow-creature because of his umbrella: without which he might be a dark bit of cliff, pier, or bulkhead—clutches that instrument with a desperate grasp that will not relax until he lands at Calais. Is there an analogy, in certain constitutions, between keeping an umbrella up and keeping the spirits up? A hawser thrown on board with a flop replies, "Stand by!" "Stand by, below!" "Half a turn ahead!" "Half a turn ahead!" "Half speed!" "Half speed!" "Port!" "Port!" "Steady!" "Steady!" "Go on!" "Go on!"

A stout wooden wedge driven in at my right temple and out at my left, a floating deposit of lukewarm oil in my throat, and a compression of the bridge of my nose in a blunt pair of pincers—these are the personal sensations by which I know we are off, and by which I shall continue to know it until I am on the soil of France. My symptoms have scarcely established themselves comfortably, when two or three skating shadows that have been trying to walk or stand, get flung together, and other two or three shadows in tarpaulin slide with them into corners and cover them up. Then the South Foreland lights begin to hiccup at us in a way that bodes no good.

It is at about this period that my detestation of Calais knows no bounds. Inwardly I resolve afresh that I never will forgive that hateful town. I have done so before, many times, but that is past. Let me register a vow. Implacable animosity to Calais everm—that was an awkward sea, and the funnel seems of my opinion, for it gives a complaining roar.

The wind blows stiffly from the nor'-east, the sea runs high, we ship a deal of water, the night is dark and cold, and the shapeless passengers lie about in melancholy bundles, as if they were sorted out for the laundress; but, for my own uncommercial part, I cannot pretend that I am much inconvenienced by any of these things. A general howling, whistling, flopping, gurgling, and scooping, I am aware of, and a general knocking about of Nature; but the impressions I receive are very vague. In a sweet, faint temper, something like the smell of damaged oranges, I think I should feel languidly benevolent if I had time. I have not time, because I am under a curious compulsion to occupy myself with Irish melodies. "Rich and rare were the gems she wore," is the particular melody to which I find myself devoted. I sing it to myself in the most charming manner and with the greatest expression. Now and then I raise my head (I am sitting on the hardest of wet seats, in the most uncomfortable of wet attitudes, but I don't mind it) and notice that I am a whirling shuttle-cock between a fiery battledore of a lighthouse on the French coast and a fiery battledore of a lighthouse on the English coast; but I don't notice it particularly, except to feel envenomed in my hatred of Calais. Then I go on again, "Rich and rare were the ge-ems she-e-e-e wore, And a bright gold ring on her wa-and she bo-ore, But O her beauty was fa-a-a-r beyond"—I am particularly proud of my execution here, when I become aware of another awkward shock from the sea, and another protest from the funnel, and a fellow-creature at the paddle-box more audibly indisposed than I think he need be—"Her sparkling gems, or snow-white wand, But O her beauty was fa-a-a-a-a-r beyond"—another awkward one here, and the fellow creature with the umbrella down and picked up—"Her spa-a-arkling ge-ems, or her Port! port! steady! steady! snow-white fellow-creature at the paddle-box very selfishly audible, bump roar wash white wand."

As my execution of the Irish melodies partakes of my imperfect perceptions of what is going on around me, so what is going on around me becomes something else than what it is. The stokers open the furnace-doors below, to feed the fires, and I am again on the box of the old Exeter Telegraph fast coach, and that is the light of the for-ever-extinguished coach-lamps, and the gleam on the hatches and paddle-boxes is their gleam on cottages and haystacks, and the monotonous noise of the engines is the steady jingle of the splendid team. Anon, the intermittent funnel-roar of protest at every violent roll becomes the regular blast of the high-pressure engine, and I recognise the exceedingly explosive steamer in which I ascended the Mississippi when the American Civil War was not, and when only its causes were. A fragment of mast on which the light of a lantern falls, an end of rope, and a jerking block or so become suggestive of Franconi's Circus in Paris, where I shall be this very night mayhap (for it must be morning now), and they dance to the selfsame time and tune as the trained steed, Black Raven. What may be the speciality of these waves as they come rushing on I cannot desert the pressing demands made upon me by the gems she wore, to inquire, but they are charged with something about Robinson Crusoe, and I think it was in Yarmouth Roads that he first went a-seafaring and near foundering (what a terrific sound that word had for me when I was a boy!) in his first gale of wind. Still, through all this, I must ask her (who was she, I wonder!) for the fiftieth time, and without ever stopping, Does she not fear to stray, so lone and lovely through this bleak way, And are Erin's sons so good or so cold, As not to be tempted by more fellow-creatures at the paddle-box or gold? Sir Knight, I feel not the least alarm, No son of Erin will offer me harm, For though they love fellow creatures with umbrella down again and golden store, Sir Knight, they—what a tremendous one!—love honour and virtue more: For though they love stewards with a bull's-eye bright, they'll trouble you for your ticket, sir—rough passage to-night!

I freely admit it to be a miserable piece of human weakness and inconsistency, but I no sooner become conscious of those last words from the steward than I begin to soften towards Calais. Whereas I have been vindictively wishing that those Calais burghers who came out of their town by a short cut into the History of England, with those fatal ropes round their necks by which they have since been towed into so many cartoons, had all been hanged on the spot, I now begin to regard them as highly respectable and virtuous tradesmen. Looking about me, I see the light of Cape Grinez well astern of the boat on the davits to leeward, and the light of Calais Harbour undeniably at its old tricks, but still ahead and shining. Sentiments of forgiveness of Calais, not to say of attachment to Calais, begin to expand my bosom. I have weak notions that I will stay there a day or two on my way back. A faded and recumbent stranger, pausing in a profound reverie over the rim of a basin, asked me what kind of place Calais is? I tell him (Heaven forgive me!) a very agreeable place indeed—rather hilly than otherwise.

So strangely goes the time, and on the whole so quickly—though still I seem to have been on board a week—that I am bumped, rolled, gurgled, washed, and pitched into Calais Harbour before her maiden smile has finally lighted her through the Green Isle. When blest for ever is she who relied On entering Calais at the top of the tide. For we have not to land to-night down among those slimy timbers—covered with green hair as if it were the mermaid's favourite combing-place—where one crawls to the surface of the jetty, like a stranded shrimp; but we go steaming up the harbour to the Railway-station Quay. And, as we go, the sea washes in and out among the piles and planks with dead, heavy beats and in quite a furious manner (whereof we are proud), and the lamps shake in the wind, and the bells of Calais striking One seem to send their vibrations struggling against troubled air, as we have come struggling against troubled water. And now, in the sudden relief and wiping of faces, everybody on board seems to have had a prodigious double-tooth out, and to be this very instant free of the dentist's hands. And now we all know for the first time how wet and cold we are, and how salt we are; and now I love Calais with my heart of hearts!

"Hotel Dessin!" (but in this one case it is not a vocal cry; it is but a bright lustre in the eyes of the cheery representative of that best of inns). "Hotel Meurice!" "Hotel de France!" "Hotel de Calais!" "The Royal Hotel, sir, Anglaishe 'ouse!" "You going to Parry, sir?" "Your baggage, registair free, sir?" Bless ye, my Touters; bless ye, my commissionaires; bless ye, my hungry-eyed mysteries in caps of military form, who are always here, day or night, fair weather or foul, seeking inscrutable jobs which I never see you get! Bless ye, my Custom-house officers in green and grey; permit me to grasp the welcome hands that descend into my travelling-bag, one on each side, and meet at the bottom to give my change of linen a peculiar shake-up, as if it were a measure of chaff or grain! I have nothing to declare, Monsieur le Douanier, except that, when I cease to breathe, Calais will be found written on my heart. No article liable to local duty have I with me, Monsieur l'Officier de l'Octroi, unless the overflowing of a breast devoted to your charming town should be in that wise chargeable. Ah! see at the gangway by the twinkling lantern my dearest brother and friend, he once of the Passport Office, he who collects the names! May he be for ever changeless in his buttoned black boat-surtout, with his note-book in his hand, and his tall black hat surmounting his round, smiling, patient face! Let us embrace, my dearest brother. I am yours a tout jamais—for the whole of ever.

Calais up and doing at the railway-station, and Calais down and dreaming in its bed; Calais with something of "an ancient and fish-like smell" about it, and Calais blown and sea-washed pure; Calais represented at the Buffet by savoury roast fowls, hot coffee, cognac, and Bordeaux; and Calais represented everywhere by flitting persons with a monomania for changing money—though I never shall be able to understand, in my present state of existence, how they live by it; but I suppose I should, if I understood the currency question; Calais en gros and Calais en detail, forgive one who has deeply wronged you,—I was not fully aware of it on the other side, but I meant Dover.

Ding, ding! To the carriages, gentlemen the travellers. Ascend then, gentlemen the travellers, for Hazebroucke, Lille, Douai, Bruxelles, Arras, Amiens, and Paris! I, humble representative of the uncommercial interest, ascend with the rest. The train is light to-night, and I share my compartment with but two fellow-travellers; one, a compatriot in an obsolete cravat, who thinks it a quite unaccountable thing that they don't keep "London time" on a French railway, and who is made angry by my modestly suggesting the possibility of Paris time being more in their way; the other, a young priest, with a very small bird in a very small cage, who feeds the small bird with a quill, and then puts him up in the network above his head, where he advances twittering to his front wires, and seems to address me in an electioneering manner. The compatriot (who crossed in the boat, and whom I judge to be some person of distinction, as he was shut up, like a stately species of rabbit, in a private hutch on deck) and the young priest (who joined us at Calais) are soon asleep, and then the bird and I have it all to ourselves....

LETTERS [Sidenote: Walter Bagehot]

The complete letter-writer is now an unknown animal. In the last century, when communications were difficult, and epistles rare, there were a great many valuable people who devoted a good deal of time to writing elaborate letters. You wrote letters to a man whom you knew nineteen years and a half ago, and told him what you had for dinner, and what your second cousin said, and how the crops got on. Every detail of life was described and dwelt on, and improved. The art of writing, at least of writing easily, was comparatively rare, which kept the number of such compositions within narrow limits. Sir Walter Scott says he knew a man who remembered that the London post-bag once came to Edinburgh with only one letter in it. One can fancy the solemn, conscientious elaborateness with which a person would write, with the notion that his letter would have a whole coach and a whole bag to itself, and travel two hundred miles alone, the exclusive object of a red guard's care. The only thing like it now—the deferential minuteness with which one public office writes to another, conscious that the letter will travel on her Majesty's service three doors down the passage—sinks by comparison into cursory brevity.

No administrative reform will be able to bring even the official mind of these days into the grave inch-an-hour conscientiousness with which a confidential correspondent of a century ago related the growth of apples, the manufacture of jams, the appearance of flirtations, and other such-like things. All the ordinary incidents of an easy life were made the most of; a party was epistolary capital, a race a mine of wealth. So deeply sentimental was this intercourse that it was much argued whether the affections were created for the sake of ink, or ink for the sake of the affections. Thus it continued for many years, and the fruits thereof are written in the volumes of family papers, which daily appear, are prized as "materials for the historian," and consigned, as the case may be, to posterity or oblivion. All this has now passed away. Mr. Rowland Hill is entitled to the credit, not only of introducing stamps, but also of destroying letters.

THE TRAGEDY [Sidenote: Ingoldsby]

Quaeque ipse miserrima vidi.—Virgil

Catherine of Cleves was a Lady of rank, She had lands and fine houses, and cash in the bank; She had jewels and rings, And a thousand smart things; Was lovely and young, With a rather sharp tongue, And she wedded a Noble of high degree With the star of the order of St. Esprit; But the Duke de Guise Was, by many degrees, Her senior, and not very easy to please; He'd a sneer on his lip, and a scowl with his eye, And a frown on his brow,—and he look'd like a Guy,— So she took to intriguing With Monsieur St. Megrin, A young man of fashion, and figure, and worth, But with no great pretensions to fortune or birth; He would sing, fence, and dance With the best man in France, And took his rappee with genteel nonchalance; He smiled, and he flattered, and flirted with ease, And was very superior to Monseigneur de Guise. Now Monsieur St. Megrin was curious to know If the lady approved of his passion or no; So without more ado, He put on his surtout, And went to a man with a beard like a Jew, One Signor Ruggieri, A cunning man near, he Could conjure, tell fortunes, and calculate tides, Perform tricks on the cards, and Heaven knows what besides, Bring back a stray'd cow, silver ladle, or spoon, And was thought to be thick with the Man in the Moon. The Sage took his stand With his wand in his hand, Drew a circle, then gave the dread word of command, Saying solemnly—"Presto!—Hey, quick!—Cock-a-lorum!" When the Duchess immediately popp'd up before 'em.

Just then a conjunction of Venus and Mars, Or something peculiar above in the stars, Attracted the notice of Signor Ruggieri, Who "bolted," and left him alone with his deary.— Monsieur St. Megrin went down on his knees, And the Duchess shed tears large as marrow-fat peas, When,—fancy the shock,—a loud double-knock, Made the lady cry, "Get up, you fool!—there's De Guise!"— 'Twas his Grace, sure enough; So Monsieur, looking bluff, Strutted by, with his hat on, and fingering his ruff, While, unseen by either, away flew the dame Through the opposite key-hole, the same way she came; But, alack! and alas! A mishap came to pass, In her hurry she, somehow or other, let fall A new silk bandana she'd worn as a shawl; She used it for drying Her bright eyes while crying, Ane blowing her nose, as her beau talk'd of dying!

Now the Duke, who had seen it so lately adorn her, And he knew the great C with the Crown in the corner, The instant he spied it, smoked something amiss, And said, with some energy, "D—— it! what's this?" He went home in a fume, And bounced into her room, Crying, "So, Ma'am, I find I've some cause to be jealous! Look here!—here's a proof you run after the fellows! —Now take up that pen,—if it's bad choose a better,— And write, as I dictate, this moment a letter To Monsieur—you know who!" The lady look'd blue; But replied with much firmness—"Hang me if I do!" De Guise grasped her wrist With his great bony fist, And pinched it, and gave it so painful a twist, That his hard gauntlet the flesh went an inch in,— She did not mind death, but she could not stand pinching; So she sat down and wrote This polite little note:—

"Dear Mister St. Megrin, The Chiefs of the League in Our house mean to dine This evening at nine; I shall, soon after ten, Slip away from the men, And you'll find me upstairs in the drawing-room then; Come up the back way, or those impudent thieves Of servants will see you; Yours CATHERINE OF CLEVES."

She directed and sealed it, all pale as a ghost, And De Guise put it into the Twopenny Post. St. Megrin had almost jumped out of his skin For joy that day when the post came in; He read the note through Then began it anew, And thought it almost too good news to be true.— He clapp'd on his hat, And a hood over that, With a cloak to disguise him, and make him look fat; So great his impatience, from half after Four, He was waiting till Ten at De Guise's backdoor. When he heard the great clock of St. Genevieve chime, He ran up the back staircase six steps at a time, He had scarce made his bow, He hardly knew how, When alas! and alack! There was no getting back, For the drawing-room door was bang'd to with a whack;—

In vain he applied To the handle and tried, Somebody or other had locked it outside! And the Duchess in agony mourn'd her mishap: "We are caught like a couple of rats in a trap."

Now the Duchess's page, About twelve years of age, For so little a boy was remarkably sage; And, just in the nick, to their joy and amazement, Popp'd the gas-lighter's ladder close under the casement. But all would not do,—Though St. Megrin got through The window,—below stood De Guise and his crew. And though never man was more brave than St. Megrin, Yet fighting a score is extremely fatiguing; He thrust carte and tierce Uncommonly fierce, But not Beelzebub's self could their cuirasses pierce: While his doublet and hose, Being holiday clothes, Were soon cut through and through from his knees to his nose. Still an old crooked sixpence the Conjurer gave him, From pistol and sword was sufficient to save him, But, when beat on his knees, That confounded De Guise Came behind with the "fogle" that caused all this breeze, Whipp'd it tight round his neck, and, when backward he'd jerk'd him, The rest of the rascals jump'd on him and Burked him. The poor little page, too, himself got no quarter, but Was served the same way, And was found the next day With his heels in the air, and his head in the water-butt;

Catherine of Cleves Roar'd "Murder!" and "Thieves!" From the window above While they murder'd her love; Till, finding the rogues had accomplish'd his slaughter, She drank Prussic acid without any water, And died like a Duke-and-a-Duchess's daughter!

CHATTER OF A DILETTANTE [Sidenote: Horace Walpole]

The people are good-humoured here and easy; and, what makes me pleased with them, they are pleased with me. One loves to find people who care for one, when they can have no view in it.

[Sidenote: Horace Walpole]

As to "Hosier's Ghost," I think it very easy, and consequently pretty; but, from the ease, should never have guessed it Glover's. I delight in your, "the patriots cry it up, and the courtiers cry it down, and the hawkers cry it up and down."

[Sidenote: Horace Walpole]

There is a little book coming out that will amuse you. It is a new edition of Isaac Walton's "Complete Angler," full of anecdotes and historic notes. It is published by Mr. Hawkins, a very worthy gentleman in my neighbourhood, but who, I could wish, did not think angling so very innocent an amusement. We cannot live without destroying animals, but shall we torture them for our sport—sport in their destruction? I met a rough officer at his house t'other day, who said he knew such a person was turning Methodist; for, in the middle of conversation, he rose and opened the window to let out a moth. I told him I did not know that the Methodists had any principle so good, and that I, who am certainly not on the point of becoming one, always did so too. One of the bravest and best men I ever knew, Sir Charles Wager, I have often heard declare he never killed a fly willingly. It is a comfortable reflection to me, that all the victories of last year have been gained since the suppression of the Bear Garden and prize-fighting; as it is plain, and nothing else would have made it so, that our valour did not singly and solely depend upon these two Universities. Adieu!

[Sidenote: Horace Walpole]

Can we easily leave the remains of such a year as this? It is still all gold. I have not dined or gone to bed by a fire till the day before yesterday. Instead of the glorious and ever-memorable year 1759, as the newspapers call it, I call it this ever-warm and victorious year. We have not had more conquest than fine weather; one would think we had plundered East and West Indies of sunshine. Our bells are worn threadbare with ringing for victories. I believe it will require ten votes of the House of Commons before people will believe it is the Duke of Newcastle that has done this, and not Mr. Pitt. One thing is very fatiguing—all the world is made knights or generals. Adieu! I don't know a word of news less than the conquest of America. Adieu! yours ever.

P.S.—You shall hear from me again if we take Mexico or China before Christmas.

[Sidenote: Horace Walpole]

You are so thoughtless about your dress that I cannot help giving you a little warning against your return. Remember, everybody that comes from abroad is cense to come from France, and whatever they wear at their first reappearance immediately grows the fashion. Now if, as is very likely, you should through inadvertence change hats with a master of a Dutch smack, Offley will be upon the watch, will conclude you took your pattern from M. de Bareil, and in a week's time we shall all be equipped like Dutch skippers. You see I speak very disinterestedly; for, as I never wear a hat myself, it is indifferent to me what sort of hat I don't wear.

[Sidenote: Horace Walpole]

Lord Frederick Cavendish is returned from France. He confirms and adds to the amiable accounts we have received of the Duc d'Aiguillon's behaviour to our prisoners. You yourself, the pattern of attentions and tenderness, could not refine on what he has done both in good-nature and good-breeding: he even forbad any ringing of bells or rejoicings wherever they passed—but how your representative blood will curdle when you hear of the absurdity of one of your countrymen: the night after the massacre at St. Cas, the Duc d'Aiguillon gave a magnificent supper of eighty covers to our prisoners—a Colonel Lambert got up at the bottom of the table, and, asking for a bumper, called out to the Duc, "My Lord Duke, here's the Roy de Franse!" You must put all the English you can crowd into the accent. My Lord Duke was so confounded at this preposterous compliment, which it was impossible for him to return, that he absolutely sank back into his chair and could not utter a syllable: our own people did not seem to feel more.

[Sidenote: Horace Walpole]

Well! and so you think we are undone!—not at all; if folly and extravagance are symptoms of a nation's being at the height of their glory, as after-observers pretend that they are forerunners of its ruin, we never were in a more flourishing situation. My Lord Rockingham and my nephew Lord Orford have made a match of five hundred pounds, between five turkeys and five geese, to run from Norwich to London. Don't you believe in the transmigration of souls? And are you not convinced that this race is between Marquis Sardanapalus and Earl Heliogabalus? And don't you pity the poor Asiatics and Italians who comforted themselves, on their resurrection, with their being geese and turkeys?

[Sidenote: Horace Walpole]

Here's another symptom of our glory! The Irish Speaker, Mr. Ponsonby, has been reposing himself at Newmarket. George Selwyn, seeing him toss about bank-bills at the hazard-table, said, "How easily the Speaker passes the money-bills!"

[Sidenote: Horace Walpole]

You would be more diverted with a Mrs. Holman, whose passion is keeping an assembly, and inviting literally everybody to it. She goes to the drawing-room to watch for sneezes; whips out a curtsy, and then sends next morning to know how your cold does, and to desire your company next Thursday.

[Sidenote: Horace Walpole]

For my own part, I comfort myself with the humane reflection of the Irishman in the ship that was on fire—I am but a passenger! If I were not so indolent, I think I should rather put in practice the late Duchess of Bolton's geographical resolution of going to China, when Whiston told her the world would be burnt in three years. Have you any philosophy? Tell me what you think.

[Sidenote: Horace Walpole]

If it was not too long to transcribe, I would send you an entertaining petition of the periwig-makers to the King, in which they complain that men will wear their own hair. Should one almost wonder if carpenters were to remonstrate that since the peace their trade decays, and that there is no demand for wooden legs? Apropos my Lady Hertford's friend, Lady Harriot Vernon, has quarrelled with me for smiling at the enormous head-gear of her daughter, Lady Grosvenor. She came one night to Northumberland House with such display of friz that it literally spread beyond her shoulders. I happened to say it looked as if her parents had stinted her in hair before marriage, and that she had determined to indulge her fancy now. This, among ten thousand things said by all the world, was reported to Lady Harriot, and has occasioned my disgrace. As she never found fault with anybody herself, I excuse her. You will be less surprised to hear that the Duchess of Queensberry has not yet done dressing herself marvellously: she was at Court on Sunday in a gown and petticoat of red flannel.

[Sidenote: Horace Walpole]

You perceive that I have been presented. The Queen took great notice of me; none of the rest said a syllable. You are let into the King's bedchamber just as he has put on his shirt; he dresses and talks good-humouredly to a few, glares at strangers, goes to mass, to dinner, and a-hunting. The good old Queen, who is like Lady Primrose in the face, is at her dressing-table, attended by two or three old ladies, who are languishing to be in Abraham's bosom, as the only man's bosom to whom they can hope for admittance.

[Sidenote: Horace Walpole]

Old age is no such uncomfortable thing, if one gives oneself up to it with a good grace, and don't drag it about

To midnight dances and the public show.

If one stays quietly in one's own house in the country, and cares for nothing but oneself, scolds one's servants, condemns everything that is new, and recollects how charming a thousand things were formerly that were very disagreeable, one gets over the winters very well, and the summers get over themselves.

[Sidenote: Horace Walpole]

As I was writing this, my servants called me away to see a balloon; I suppose Blanchard's, that was to be let off from Chelsea this morning. I saw it from the common field before the window of my round tower. It appeared about a third of the size of the moon, or less, when setting, something above the tops of the trees on the level horizon. It was then descending; and, after rising and declining a little, it sunk slowly behind the trees, I should think about or beyond Sunbury, at five minutes after one. But you know I am a very inexact guesser at measures and distances, and may be mistaken in many miles; and you know how little I have attended to these airgonauts: only t'other night I diverted myself with a sort of meditation on future airgonation, supposing that it will not only be perfected, but will depose navigation. I did not finish it, because I am not skilled, like the gentleman that used to write political ship-news, in that style which I wanted to perfect my essay; but in the prelude I observed how ignorant the ancients were in supposing Icarus melted the wax of his wings by too near access to the sun, whereas he would have been frozen to death before he made the first post on that road. Next, I discovered an alliance between Bishop Wilkin's art of flying and his plan of universal language; the latter of which he no doubt calculated to prevent the want of an interpreter when he should arrive at the moon.

But I chiefly amused myself with ideas of the change that would be made in the world by the substitution of balloons to ships. I supposed our seaports to become deserted villages; and Salisbury Plain, Newmarket Heath (another canvass for alteration of ideas), and all downs (but the Downs) arising into dockyards for aerial vessels. Such a field would be ample in furnishing new speculations. But to come to my ship-news:

"The good balloon Daedalus, Captain Wingate, will fly in a few days for China; he will stop at the top of the Monument to take in passengers.

"Arrived on Brand-sands, the Vulture, Captain Nabob; the Tortoisesnow, from Lapland; the Pet-en-l'air, from Versailles; the Dreadnought, from Mount Etna, Sir W. Hamilton, commander; the Tympany, Montgolfier; and the Mine-A-in-a-bandbox, from the Cape of Good Hope. Foundered in a hurricane, the Bird of Paradise, from Mount Ararat. The Bubble, Sheldon, took fire, and was burnt to her gallery; and the Phoenix is to be cut down to a second-rate."

In those days Old Sarum will again be a town and have houses in it. There will be fights in the air with wind-guns and bows and arrows; and there will be prodigious increase of land for tillage, especially in France, by breaking up all public roads as useless.

[Sidenote: Horace Walpole]

One of the Duke of Marlborough's generals, dining with the Lord Mayor, an Alderman who sat next to him said, "Sir, yours must be a very laborious profession." "No," replied the general, "we fight about four hours in the morning, and two or three after dinner, and then we have all the rest of the day to ourselves."

HIS MARRIAGE [Sidenote: William Cobbett]

When I first saw my wife she was thirteen years old.[5] I was within a month of twenty-one.[6] She was the daughter of a sergeant of artillery, and I was the sergeant-major of a regiment of foot, both stationed in forts near the city of St. John, in the province of New Brunswick. I sat in the same room with her for about an hour, in the company of others, and I made up my mind that she was the very girl for me. That I thought her beautiful is certain, for that, I had always said, should be an indispensable qualification; but I saw in her what I deemed marks of that sobriety of conduct ... which has been by far the greatest blessing of my life. It was now dead of winter, and, of course, the snow several feet deep on the ground, and the weather piercing cold. It was my habit, when I had done my morning's writing, to go out at break of day to take a walk on a hill at the foot of which our barracks lay. In about three mornings after I had first seen her, I had, by an invitation to breakfast with me, got up two young men to join me in my walk; and our road lay by the house of her father and mother. It was hardly light, but she was out on the snow scrubbing out a washing-tub. "That's the girl for me," said I, when we had got out of hearing.

One of these young men came to England soon afterwards; and he, who keeps an inn in Yorkshire, came over to Preston at the time of the election (in 1826) to verify whether I were the same man. When he found that I was he appeared surprised; but what was his surprise when I told him that those tall young men whom he saw around me were the sons of that pretty little girl that he and I saw scrubbing out the washing-tub on the snow in New Brunswick at day-break in the morning!

From the day that I first spoke to her I never had a thought of her ever being the wife of any other man, more than I had a thought of her being transformed into a chest of drawers; and I formed my resolution at once, to marry her as soon as we could get permission, and to get out of the army as soon as I could. So that this matter was at once settled as firmly as if written in the book of fate. At the end of about six months my regiment, and I along with it, were removed to Fredericton, a distance of a hundred miles up the river of St. John; and, which was worse, the artillery was expected to go off to England a year or two before our regiment! The artillery went, and she along with them; and now it was that I acted a part becoming a real and sensible lover. I was aware that, when she got to that gay place Woolwich, the house of her father and mother, necessarily visited by numerous people, not the most select, might become unpleasant to her, and I did not like, besides, that she should continue to work hard. I had saved a hundred and fifty guineas, the earnings of my early hours, in writing for the paymaster, the quartermaster, and others, in addition to the savings of my own pay. I sent her all my money before she sailed, and wrote to her to beg of her, if she found her home uncomfortable, to hire a lodging with respectable people, and, at any rate, not to spare the money by any means, but to buy herself good clothes, and to live without hard work, until I arrived in England; and I, in order to induce her to lay out the money, told her that I should get plenty more before I came home.

As the malignity of the devil would have it, we were kept abroad two years longer than our time, Mr. Pitt (England not being so tame then as she is now[7]) having knocked up a dust with Spain about Nootka Sound. Oh, how I cursed Nootka Sound, and poor bawling Pitt too, I am afraid! At the end of four years, however, home I came, landed at Portsmouth, and got my discharge from the army by the great kindness of poor Lord Edward FitzGerald, who was then the major of my regiment. I found my little girl a servant of all work (and hard work it was) at five pounds a year, in the house of a Captain Brisac; and, without hardly saying a word about the matter, she put into my hands the whole of my hundred and fifty guineas unbroken!

LIFE AT BOTLEY [Sidenote: William Cobbett]

But, to do the things I did, you must love home yourself. To rear up children, in this manner, you must live with them; you must make them, too, feel by your conduct, that you prefer this to any other mode of passing your time. All men cannot lead this sort of life, but many may; and all much more than many do. My occupation, to be sure, was chiefly carried on at home; but I had always enough to do. I never spent an idle week, or even day, in my whole life. Yet I found time to talk with them, to walk, or ride, about with them; and, when forced to go from home, always took one or more with me. You must be good-tempered, too, with them; they must like your company better than any other person's; they must not wish you away, not fear your coming back, not look upon your departure as a holiday....

When I went from home, all followed me to the outer gate, and looked after me, till the carriage, or horse, was out of sight. At the time appointed for my return, all were prepared to meet me; and, if it were late at night, they sat up as long as they were able to keep their eyes open. This love of parents, and this constant pleasure at home made them not even think of seeking pleasure abroad; and they, thus, were kept from vicious playmates and early corruption.

This is the age, too, to teach children to be trustworthy, and to be merciful and humane. We lived in a garden of about two acres, partly kitchen-garden with walls, partly shrubbery and trees, and partly grass. There were the peaches, as tempting as any that ever grew, and yet as safe from fingers as if no child were ever in the garden. It was not necessary to forbid. The blackbirds, the thrushes, the white-throats, and even that very shy bird the goldfinch had their nests and bred up their young ones in great abundance, all about this little spot, constantly the play-place of six children; and one of the latter had its nest and brought up its young ones in a raspberry-bush, within two yards of a walk, and at the time that we were gathering the ripe raspberries. We give dogs, and justly, great credit for sagacity and memory; but the following two most curious instances, which I should not venture to state, if there were not so many witnesses to the facts, in my neighbours at Botley, as well as in my own family, will show, that birds are not, in this respect, inferior to the canine race. All country people know that the skylark is a very shy bird; that its abode is the open fields; that it settles on the ground only; that it seeks safety in the wideness of space; that it avoids enclosures, and is never seen in gardens. A part of our ground was a grass-plot of about forty rods, or a quarter of an acre, which, one year, was left to be mowed for hay. A pair of larks, coming out of the fields into the midst of a pretty populous village, chose to make their nest in the middle of this little spot and at not more than about thirty-five yards from one of the doors of the house, in which there were about twelve persons living, and six of these children, who had constant access to all parts of the ground. There we saw the cock rising up and singing, then taking his turn upon the eggs; and by and by we observed him cease to sing, and saw them both constantly engaged in bringing food to the young ones. No unintelligible hint to fathers and mothers of the human race, who have, before marriage, taken delight in music. But the time came for mowing the grass! I waited a good many days for the brood to get away, but at last I determined on the day; and if the larks were there still, to leave a patch of grass standing around them. In order not to keep them in dread longer than necessary, I brought three able mowers, who would cut the whole in about an hour; and, as the plat was nearly circular, set them to mow round, beginning at the outside. And now for sagacity indeed! The moment the men began to whet their scythes, the two old larks began to flutter over the nest, and to make a great clamour. When the men began to mow, they flew round and round, stooping so low, when near the men, as almost to touch their bodies, making a great chattering at the same time; but, before the men had got round with the second swath, they flew to the nest, and away they went, young ones and all, across the river, at the foot of the ground, and settled in the long grass in my neighbour's orchard.

The other instance relates to a house-marten. It is well known that these birds build their nests under the eaves of inhabited houses, and sometimes under those of door-porches; but we had one that built its nest in the house, and upon the top of a common door-case, the door of which opened into a room out of the main passage into the house. Perceiving that the marten had begun to build its nest here, we kept the front door open in the day-time, but were obliged to fasten it at night. It went on, had eggs, young ones, and the young ones flew. I used to open the door in the morning early, and then the birds carried on their affairs till night. The next year the marten came again, and had another brood in the same place. It found its old nest; and, having repaired it, and put it in order, went on again in the former way; and it would, I dare say, have continued to come to the end of its life, if we had remained there so long, notwithstanding there were six healthy children in the house making just as much noise as they pleased.

HIS CHILDREN [Sidenote: William Cobbett]

We wanted no stimulants of this sort [he is referring to social dissipation, romances, and playhouses] to keep up our spirits; our various pleasing pursuits were quite sufficient for that; and the book-learning came amongst the rest of the pleasures, to which it was, in some sort, necessary. I remember that, one year, I raised a prodigious crop of fine melons, under hand-glasses; and I learned how to do it from a gardening-book; or, at least, that book was necessary to remind me of the details. Having passed part of an evening in talking to the boys about getting this crop, "Come," said I, "now let us read the book." Then the book came forth, and to work we went, following very strictly the precepts of the book. I read the thing but once, but the eldest boy read it, perhaps, twenty times over; and explained all about the matter to the others. Why, here was a motive! Then he had to tell the garden labourer what to do to the melons. Now, I will engage, that more was really learned by this single lesson, than would have been learned by spending, at this son's age, a year at school; and he happy and delighted all the while. When any dispute arose among them about hunting or shooting, or any other of their pursuits, they, by degrees, found out the way of settling it by reference to some book; and, when any difficulty occurred as to the meaning, they referred to me, who, if at home, always instantly attended to them in these matters.

They began writing by taking words out of printed books: finding out which letter was which, by asking me, or asking those who knew the letters one from the other; and, by imitating bits of my writing, it is surprising how soon they began to write a hand like mine, very small, very faint-stroked, and nearly plain as print. The first use that any of them made of the pen, was to write to me, though in the same house with them. They began doing this in mere scratches, before they knew how to make any one letter; and, as I was always folding up letters and directing them, so were they; and they were sure to receive a prompt answer, with most encouraging compliments. All the meddling and teasing of friends, and, what was more serious, the pressing prayers of their anxious mother, about sending them to school, I withstood without the slightest effect on my resolutions. As to friends, preferring my own judgment to theirs, I did not care much; but an expression of anxiety, implying a doubt of the soundness of my own judgment, coming, perhaps twenty times a day, from her whose care they were as well as mine, was not a matter to smile at, and very great trouble did it give me. My answer at last was, as to the boys, I want them to be like me; and as to the girls "in whose hands can they be so safe as in yours? Therefore my resolution is taken; go to school they shall not."

Nothing is much more annoying than the intermeddling of friends in a case like this. The wife appeals to them, and "good breeding," that is to say nonsense, is sure to put them on her side. Then they, particularly the women, when describing the surprising progress made by their own sons at school, used, if one of mine were present, to turn to him, and ask to what school he went, and what he was learning? I leave any one to judge of his opinion of her; and whether he would like her the better for that! "Bless me, so tall, and not learned anything yet!" "Oh, yes, he has," I used to say; "he has learned to ride, and hunt, and shoot, and fish, and look after cattle and sheep, and to work in the garden, and to feed his dogs, and to go from village to village in the dark." This was the way I used to manage with troublesome customers of this sort. And how glad the children used to be, when they got clear of such criticising people! And how grateful they felt to me for the protection which they saw that I gave them against that state of restraint, of which other people's boys complained! Go whither they might, they found no place so pleasant as home, and no soul that came near them affording them so many means of gratification as they received from me.

THE CAP THAT FITS [Sidenote: Austin Dobson]

"Qui seme epines n'aille dechaux"

SCENE—A Salon with blue and white panels. Outside, persons pass and repass upon a terrace.

HORTENSE. ARMANDE. MONSIEUR LOYAL

HORTENSE (behind her fan) Not young, I think.

ARMANDE (raising her eye-glass) And faded, too!— Quite faded! Monsieur, what say you?

M. LOYAL Nay,—I defer to you. In truth, To me she seems all grace and youth.

HORTENSE Graceful? You think it? What, with hands That hang like this? (with a gesture).

ARMANDE And how she stands!

M. LOYAL Nay,—I am wrong again. I thought Her air delightfully untaught!

HORTENSE But you amuse me—

M. LOYAL Still her dress,— Her dress at least, you must confess—

ARMANDE Is odious simply! Jacotot Did not supply that lace, I know; And where, I ask, has mortal seen A hat unfeathered?

HORTENSE Edged with green!!

M. LOYAL The words remind me. Let me say A Fable that I heard to-day. Have I permission?

BOTH (with enthusiasm) Monsieur, pray!

M. LOYAL "Myrtilla (lest a scandal rise The lady's name I thus disguise), Dying of ennui, once decided— Much on resource herself she prided— To choose a hat. Forthwith she flies On that momentous enterprise. Whether to Petit or Logros, I know not: only this I know;— Headdresses then, of any fashion, Bore names of quality, or passion. Myrtilla tried them, almost all: 'Prudence,' she felt, was somewhat small; 'Retirement' seemed the eyes to hide; 'Content,' at once, she cast aside. 'Simplicity,'—'twas out of place; 'Devotion' for an older face; Briefly, selection smaller grew, 'Vexatious! odious!'—none would do! Then, on a sudden, she espied One that she thought she had not tried: Becoming, rather,—'edged with green,'— Roses in yellow, thorns between. 'Quick! Bring me that!' 'Tis brought. 'Complete, Superb, enchanting, tasteful, neat,' In all the tones. 'And this you call—?' '"Ill-Nature," Madame. It fits all.'"

HORTENSE

A thousand thanks! So naively turned!

ARMANDE

So useful too ... to those concerned! 'Tis yours?

M. LOYAL Ah no,—some cynic wits; And called (I think)— (Placing his hat upon his breast), "The Cap that Fits."

ENIGMA [Sidenote: Mark Twain]

Not wishing to be outdone in literary enterprise by those magazines which have attractions especially designed for the pleasing of the fancy and the strengthening of the intellect of youth, we have contrived and builded the following enigma, at great expense of time and labour:

I am a word of 13 letters.

My 7, 9, 4, 4 is a village in Europe.

My 7, 14, 5, 7 is a kind of dog.

My 11, 13, 13, 9, 2, 7, 2, 3, 6, 1, 13 is a peculiar kind of stuff.

My 2, 6, 12, 8, 9, 4 is the name of a great general of ancient times (have spelt it to best of ability, though may have missed the bull's-eye on a letter or two, but not enough to signify).

My 3, 11, 1, 9, 15, 2, 2, 6, 2, 9, 13, 2, 6, 15, 4, 11, 2, 3, 5, 1, 10, 4, 8 is the middle name of a Russian philosopher, up whose full cognomen fame is slowly but surely climbing.

My 7, 11, 4, 12, 3, 1, 1, 9 is an obscure but very proper kind of bug.

My whole is—but perhaps a reasonable amount of diligence and ingenuity will reveal that.

We take a just pride in offering the customary gold pen or cheap sewing-machine for correct solutions of the above.

THE HAPPINESS OF SIR THOMAS BROWNE [Sidenote: Religio Medici]

In my solitary and retired imagination (Neque enim cum porticus, aut me lectulus accepit, desum mihi) I remember I am not alone, and therefore forget not to contemplate Him and His Attributes who is ever with me, especially those two mighty ones, His Wisdom and Eternity; with the one I recreate, with the other I confound, my understanding; for who can speak of Eternity without a soloecism, or think thereof without an Extasie? Time we may comprehend; 'tis but five days elder than ourselves, and hath the same Horoscope with the World; but to retire so far back as to apprehend a beginning, to give such an infinite start forwards as to conceive an end in an essence that we affirm hath neither the one nor the other, it puts my Reason to St. Paul's Sanctuary: my Philosophy dares not say the angels can do it; God hath not made a Creature that can comprehend Him; 'tis a privilege of His own nature....

[Sidenote: Religio Medici]

Art is the perfection of Nature: were the World now as it was the sixth day, there were yet a Chaos: Nature hath made one World, and Art another. In brief, all things are artificial; for Nature is the Art of God.

[Sidenote: Religio Medici]

There is surely a piece of divinity in us, something that was before the Elements, and owes no homage unto the Sun. Nature tells me I am the Image of God, as well as Scripture: he that understands not thus much, hath not his introduction or first lesson, and is yet to begin the Alphabet of man. Let me not injure the felicity of others, if I say I am as happy as any: Ruat coelum, Fiat voluntas tua, salveth all; so that whatsoever happens, it is but what our daily prayers desire. In brief, I am content, and what should providence add more? Surely this is it we call Happiness, and this do I enjoy; with this I am happy in a dream, and as content to enjoy a happiness in a fancy, as others in a more apparent truth and reality. There is surely a nearer apprehension of anything that delights us in our dreams, than in our waked senses; without this I were unhappy: for my awaked judgment discontents me, ever whispering unto me, that I am from my friend; but my friendly dreams in night requite me, and make me think I am within his arms. I thank God for my happy dreams, as I do for my good rest, for there is a satisfaction in them unto reasonable desires, and such as can be content with a fit of happiness. And surely it is not a melancholy conceit to think we are all asleep in this World, and that the conceits of this life are as near dreams to those of the next, as the Phantasms of the night, to the conceits of the day. There is an equal delusion in both, and the one doth but seem to be the emblem or picture of the other; we are somewhat more than ourselves in our sleeps, and the slumber of the body seems to be but the waking of the soul. It is the ligation of sense, but the liberty of reason, and our waking conceptions do not match the Fancies of our sleeps. At my Nativity, my Ascendant was the watery sign of Scorpius; I was born in the Planetary hour of Saturn, and I think I have a piece of that Leaden Planet in me. I am no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardize of company; yet in one dream I can compose a whole Comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof: were my memory as faithful as my reason is then fruitful, I would never study but in my dreams; and this time also would I chuse for my devotions: but our grosser memories have then so little hold of our abstracted understandings that they forget the story, and can only relate to our awaked souls, a confused and broken tale of that that hath passed.

[Sidenote: Religio Medici]

He is rich, who hath enough to be charitable; and it is hard to be so poor that a noble mind may not find a way to this piece of goodness. He that giveth to the poor, lendeth to the Lord; there is more Rhetorick in that one sentence, than in a Library of Sermons; and indeed if those Sentences were understood by the Reader, with the same Emphasis as they are delivered by the Author, we needed not those Volumes of instructions, but might be honest by an Epitome. Upon this motive only I cannot behold a Beggar without relieving his Necessities with my Purse, or his Soul with my Prayers; those scenical and accidental differences between us, cannot make me forget that common and untoucht part of us both; there is under these Cantoes and miserable outsides, these mutilate and semi-bodies, a soul of the same alloy with our own, whose Genealogy is God as well as ours, and in as fair a way to Salvation as our selves.

"PLEASE TO RING THE BELLE" [Sidenote: Hood]

I'll tell you a story that's not in Tom Moore:— Young Love likes to knock at a pretty girl's door: So he call'd upon Lucy—'twas just ten o'clock— Like a spruce single man, with a smart double knock.

Now, a handmaid, whatever her fingers be at, Will run like a puss when she hears a rat-tat: So Lucy ran up—and in two seconds more Had questioned the stranger and answered the door.

The meeting was bliss; but the parting was woe; For the moment will come when such comers must go: So she kissed him, and whispered—poor innocent thing!— "The next time you come, love, pray come with a ring."

THE HAPPY DEAN [Sidenote: Dean Hole]

My dear Hall,—I don't like the writing of this letter. I feel as I felt in childhood when they were measuring out the castor-oil in a spoon; or when, in boyhood, it was suggested "that kind Mr. Crackjaw should just look at my teeth."

But the gulp and the "scrawnsh" must come.

My Master, the Archbishop, wishes me to speak at the Annual Meeting of the Church Defence Society in London, on the 9th of July, and as this is his first invitation to duty since I became his Chaplain, I cannot plead pleasure as an excuse.

Regarding the Fete des Roses at Larchwood, as the most joyful holiday of my year, from my first entrance into that pleasant home until you chaperon me to the Omnibus at the gate of the Show-ground, I need not enlarge on my disappointment. The less said the better.

When Dido found AEneas did not come, She mourned in silence, and was Di do dum.

Roses are improving here, but they will be very late. May you add to the victories which your zeal and care have so well deserved. Shall you be at Sheffield? If so, you might return with me and have a quiet day's talk and ramble. With kindest regards and most obnoxious regrets, I remain yours most sincerely,

* * * * *

When the Church Conference was held at Newcastle, Hole told a story of a young curate who was preaching in a strange church from which the rector was away. He preached a very short sermon, and in the vestry afterwards the churchwarden remarked upon its shortness, and the curate told him that a pup at his lodgings got into his room and ate half his sermon, whereupon the churchwarden said: "I should be much obliged if you could get our rector one of the breed." Reading this story, Mr. Boultbee wrote to ask Hole if he could say what happened to the dog after eating the sermon, and the reply was:

Dear Sir,—You will be pleased to hear that when the dog had inwardly digested the sermon which he had torn, he turned over a new leaf. He had been sullen and morose; he became "a very jolly dog." He had been selfish and exclusive in his manger; he generously gave it up to an aged poodle. He had been noisy and vulgar; he became a quiet, gentlemanly dog; he never growled again; and when he was bitten he always requested the cur who had torn his flesh to be so good, as a particular favour, to bite him again. He has established a Reformatory in the Isle of Dogs for perverse puppies, and an Infirmary for Mangy Mastiffs in Houndsditch. He has won twenty-six medals from the Humane Society for rescuing children who have fallen into the canal. He spends six days of the week in conducting his brothers and sisters, who have lost their ways, to the Dog's Home, and it is a most touching sight to see him leading the blind to church from morning to night on Sundays.

[Sidenote: Dean Hole]

My dear Lord Bishop,—I have a strong suspicion that the inundation of the Nave at Rochester was a knavish conspiracy of the Tee-totallers to submerge the Cathedral during the absence of the Dean. The vergers have had Water-on-the-Brain, but Messrs. Bishop and Sons from London have assured Mr. Luard Selby that there is no organic disease.

I have regarded it as my duty, in anticipation of your lordship's visit to North Wales on Wednesday next, to see that all due preparations are made to receive you. I have been to ——, and found that the new chancel is making satisfactory progress. The new altar frontal is beautiful, the tea and bread and butter at the Rectory are excellent, the roses in the garden are making extra efforts, the school-mistress is in good health, the mountains are drawn up in saluting order, the mines are smoking peacefully, there will be cold lamb at the luncheon, weather permitting, and all frivolous persons will be banished to England, including yours ever.

THE ANSWER OF LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE [Sidenote: Henry S. Leigh]

The Lady Clara V. de V. Presents her very best regards To that misguided Alfred T. (With one of her enamell'd cards). Though uninclin'd to give offence, The Lady Clara begs to hint That Master Alfred's common sense Deserts him utterly in print.

The Lady Clara can but say, That always from the very first She snubb'd in her decisive way The hopes that silly Alfred nurs'd. The fondest words that ever fell From Lady Clara, when they met, Were, "How d'ye do? I hope you're well!" Or else, "The weather's very wet."

Her Ladyship needs no advice How time and money should be spent, And can't pursue at any price The plan that Alfred T. has sent. She does not in the least object To let the "foolish yeoman" go, But wishes—let him recollect— That he should move to Jericho.

THE WOODCRAFT OF JONSON [Sidenote: Ben Johnson]

Nothing is a courtesy unless it be meant us; and that friendly and lovingly. We owe no thanks to rivers, that they carry our boats; or winds, that they be favouring and fill our sails; or meats, that they be nourishing; for these are what they are necessarily. Horses carry us, trees shade us, but they know it not. It is true, some men may receive a courtesy and not know it; but never any man received it from him that knew it not. Many men have been cured of diseases by accident; but they were not remedies. I myself have known one helped of an ague by falling into a water; another whipped out of a fever; but no man would ever use these for medicines. It is the mind, and not the event, that distinguisheth the courtesy from wrong. My adversary may offend the judge with his pride and impertinences, and I win my cause; but he meant it not to me as a courtesy. I 'scaped pirates by being ship-wracked; was the wrack a benefit therefore? No; the doing of courtesies aright is the mixing of the respects for his own sake and for mine. He that doeth them merely for his own sake is like one that feeds his cattle to sell them; he hath his horse well dressed for Smithfield.

[Sidenote: Ben Johnson]

Many might go to heaven with half the labour they go to hell, if they would venture their industry the right way; but "The devil take all!" quoth he that was choked i' the mill-dam, with his four last words in his mouth.

[Sidenote: Ben Johnson]

A good man will avoid the spot of any sin. The very aspersion is grievous, which makes him choose his way in his life as he would in his journey. The ill man rides through all confidently; he is coated and booted for it. The oftener he offends, the more openly, and the fouler, the fitter in fashion. His modesty, like a riding-coat, the more it is worn is the less cared for. It is good enough for the dirt still, and the ways he travels in.

[Sidenote: Ben Johnson]

Money never made any man rich, but his mind. He that can order himself to the law of Nature is not only without the sense but the fear of poverty. O, but to strike blind the people with our wealth and pomp is the thing! What a wretchedness is this, to thrust all our riches outward, and be beggars within; to contemplate nothing but the little, vile, and sordid things of the world; not the great, noble, and precious! We serve our avarice, and, not content with the good of the earth that is offered us, we search and dig for the evil that is hidden. God offered us those things, and placed them at hand, and near us, that He knew were profitable for us, but the hurtful He laid deep and hid. Yet do we seek only the things whereby we may perish, and bring them forth, when God and Nature hath buried them. We covet superfluous things, when it were more honour for us if we could contemn necessary. What need hath Nature of silver dishes, multitudes of waiters, delicate pages, perfumed napkins? She requires meat only, and hunger is not ambitious. Can we think no wealth enough but such a state for which a man may be brought into a praemunire, begged, proscribed, or poisoned? O! if a man could restrain the fury of his gullet and groin, and think how many fires, how many kitchens, cooks, pastures, and ploughed lands; what orchards, stews, ponds and parks, coops and garners, he could spare; what velvets, tissues, embroideries, laces, he could lack; and then how short and uncertain his life is; he were in a better way to happiness than to live the emperor of these delights, and be the dictator of fashions. But we make ourselves slaves to our pleasures, and we serve fame and ambition, which is an equal slavery.

[Sidenote: Ben Johnson]

I remember the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, "Would he had blotted out a thousand," which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this but for their ignorance who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candour, for I loved the man, and do honour his memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent phantasy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped. "Sufflaminandus erat," as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so, too! Many times he fell into those things could not escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Caesar, one speaking to him, "Caesar, thou dost me wrong." He replied, "Caesar did never wrong but with just cause"; and such-like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned.

[Sidenote: Ben Johnson]

Wisdom without honesty is mere craft and cozenage. And therefore the reputation of honesty must first be gotten; which cannot be but by living well. A good life is a main argument.

MOTHERHOOD [Sidenote: Calverley]

She laid it where the sunbeams fall Unscann'd upon the broken wall, Without a tear, without a groan, She laid it near a mighty stone Which some rude swain had haply cast Thither in sport, long ages past, And Time with mosses had o'erlaid, And fenced with many a tall grass-blade, And all about bid roses bloom And violets shed their soft perfume. There, in its cool and quiet bed, She set her burden down and fled: Nor flung, all eager to escape, One glance upon the perfect shape That lay, still warm and fresh and fair, But motionless and soundless there.

No human eye had mark'd her pass Across the linden-shadow'd grass Ere yet the minster clock chimed seven: Only the innocent birds of heaven— The magpie, and the rook whose nest Swings as the elm-tree waves his crest— And the lithe cricket, and the hoar And huge-limb'd hound that guards the door, Look'd on when, as a summer wind That, passing, leaves no trace behind, All unapparell'd, barefoot all, She ran to that old ruin'd wall, To leave upon the chill dank earth (For ah! she never knew its worth) 'Mid hemlock rank, and fern, and ling, And dews of night, that precious thing!

And there it might have lain forlorn From morn till eve, from eve to morn: But that, by some wild impulse led, The mother, ere she turn'd and fled, One moment stood erect and high; Then pour'd into the silent sky A cry so jubilant, so strange, That Alice—as she strove to range Her rebel ringlets at her glass— Sprang up and gazed across the grass; Shook back those curls so fair to see, Clapp'd her soft hands in childish glee; And shriek'd—her sweet face all aglow, Her very limbs with rapture shaking— "My hen has laid an egg, I know; And only hear the noise she's making!"

THE JUMPING FROG [Sidenote: Mark Twain]

In compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote me from the East, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon Wheeler, and inquired after my friend's friend, Leonidas W. Smiley, as requested to do, and I hereunto append the result. I have a lurking suspicion that Leonidas W. Smiley is a myth; that my friend never knew such a personage; and that he only conjectured that, if I asked old Wheeler about him, it would remind him of his infamous Jim Smiley, and he would go to work and bore me nearly to death with some infernal reminiscence of him as long and tedious as it should be useless to me. If that was the design, it certainly succeeded.

I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of the old, dilapidated tavern in the ancient mining camp of Angel's, and I noticed that he was fat, and bald-headed, and had an expression of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance. He roused up and gave me good-day. I told him a friend of mine had commissioned me to make some inquiries about a cherished companion of his boyhood, named Leonidas W. Smiley—Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, a young minister of the gospel, who he had heard was at one time a resident of Angel's Camp. I added that, if Mr. Wheeler could tell me anything about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, I would feel under many obligations to him.

Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner, and blockaded me there with his chair, and then sat me down and reeled off the monotonous narrative which follows this paragraph. He never smiled, he never frowned, he never changed his voice from the gentle-flowing key to which he tuned the initial sentence, he never betrayed the slightest suspicion of enthusiasm; but all through the interminable narrative there ran a vein of impressive earnestness and sincerity, which showed me plainly that, so far from his imagining that there was anything ridiculous or funny about his story, he regarded it as a really important matter, and admired its two heroes as men of transcendent genius in finesse. To me, the spectacle of a man drifting serenely along through such a queer yarn without ever smiling, was exquisitely absurd. As I said before, I asked him to tell me what he knew of Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and he replied as follows. I let him go on in his own way, and never interrupted him once:

There was a feller here once by the name of Jim Smiley in the winter of '49—or maybe it was the spring of '50—I don't recollect exactly, somehow, though what makes me think it was one or the other is because I remember the big flume wasn't finished when he first came to the camp; but, anyway, he was the curiosest man about, always betting on anything that turned up you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet on the other side; and if he couldn't, he'd change sides. Anyway that suited the other man would suit him—anyway, just so's he got a bet, he was satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky; he most always come out winner. He was always ready and laying for a chance; there couldn't be no solit'ry thing mentioned but that feller'd offer to bet on it, and take any side you please, as I was just telling you. If there was a horse-race, you'd find him flush, or you'd find him busted at the end of it. If there was a dog-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a cat-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a chicken-fight, he'd bet on it; why, if there was two birds sitting on a fence he would bet you which one would fly first; or if there was a camp-meeting, he would be there reg'lar to bet on Parson Walker, which he judged to be the best exhorter about here—and so he was, too, and a good man. If he even seen a straddle-bug start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take to get wherever he was going to, and if you took him up, he would foller that straddle-bug to Mexico, but what he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on the road. Lots of boys here has seen that Smiley, and can tell you about him. Why, it never made no difference to him—he would bet on any thing—the dangest feller. Parson Walker's wife laid very sick once, for a good while, and it seemed as if they warn't going to save her; but one morning he come in, and Smiley asked how she was, and he said she was considerable better—thank the Lord for his inf'nit mercy—and coming on so smart that, with the blessing of Prov'dence, she'd get well yet; and Smiley, before he thought, says, "Well, I'll risk two-and-a-half that she don't, anyway."

Thish-yer Smiley had a mare—the boys called her the fifteen-minute nag, but that was only in fun, you know, because, of course, she was faster than that—and he used to win money on that horse, for all she was so slow and always had the asthma, or the distemper, or the consumption, or something of that kind. They used to give her two or three hundred yards' start, and then pass her under way; but always at the fag-end of the race she'd get excited and desperate-like, and come cavorting and straddling up, and scattering her legs around limber, sometimes in the air, and sometimes out to one side amongst the fences, and kicking up m-o-r-e dust and raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and sneezing and blowing her nose—and always fetch up at the stand, just about a neck ahead, as near as you could cypher it down.

And he had a little small bull-pup, that to look at him you'd think he wan't worth a cent, but to set around and look ornery, and lay for a chance to steal something. But as soon as money was upon him, he was a different dog; his under-jaw'd begin to stick out like the fo'castle of a steamboat, and his teeth would uncover, and shine savage like the furnaces. And a dog might tackle him, and bully-rag him, and bite him, and throw him over his shoulder two or three times, and Andrew Jackson—which was the name of the pup—Andrew Jackson would never let on but what he was satisfied, and hadn't expected nothing else—and the bets being doubled and doubled on the other side all the time, till the money was all up; and then all of a sudden he would grab that other dog jest by the j'int of his hind leg and freeze to it—not chaw, you understand, but only jest grip and hang on till they throwed up the sponge, if it was a year. Smiley always come out winner on that pup, till he harnessed a dog once that didn't have no hind legs, because they'd been saw'd off by a circular saw, and when the thing had gone along far enough, and the money was all up, and he come to make a snatch for his pet holt, he saw in a minute how he'd been imposed on, and how the other dog had him in the door, so to speak, and he 'peared surprised, and then he looked sorter discouraged-like, and didn't try no more to win the fight, and so he got shucked out bad. He gave Smiley a look, as much as to say his heart was broke, and it was his fault, for putting up a dog that hadn't no hind legs for him to take holt of, which was his main dependence in a fight, and then he limped off a piece and laid down and died. It was a good pup, was that Andrew Jackson, and would have made a name for hisself if he'd lived, for the stuff was in him, and he had genius—I know it, because he hadn't had no opportunities to speak of, and it don't stand to reason that a dog could make such a fight as he could under them circumstances, if he hadn't no talent. It always makes me feel sorry when I think of that last fight of his'n, and the way it turned out.

Well, thish-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken-cocks, and tom-cats, and all them kind of things, till you couldn't rest, and you couldn't fetch nothing for him to bet on but he'd match you. He ketched a frog one day, and took him home, and said he cal'klated to edercate him; and so he never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and learn that frog to jump. And you bet you he did learn him, too? He'd give him a little punch behind, and the next minute you'd see that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut—see him turn one summerset, or maybe a couple, if he got a good start, and came down flat-footed and all right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter of catching flies, and kept him in practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly every time as far as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do most anything—and I believe him. Why, I've seen him set Dan'l Webster down here on this floor—Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog—and sing out, "Flies, Dan'l, flies!" and quicker'n you could wink, he'd spring straight up, and snake a fly off'n the counter there, and flop down on the floor again as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn't no idea he'd been doin' any mor'n any frog might do. You never see a frog so modest and straightfor'ard as he was, for all he was so gifted. An' when it come to fair and square jumping on a dead level, he could get over more ground at one straddle than any animal of his breed you ever see. Jumping on a dead level was his strong suit, you understand; and when it come to that, Smiley would ante up money on him as long as he had a red. Smiley was monstrous proud of his frog, and well he might be, for fellers that had travelled and been everywhere, all said he laid over any frog that ever they see.

Well, Smiley kept the beast in a little lattice box, and he used to fetch him down town sometimes and lay for a bet. One day a feller—a stranger in the camp, he was—come across him with his box, and says:

"What might it be that you've got in that box?"

And Smiley says, sorter indifferent-like, "It might be a parrot, or it might be a canary, maybe, but it ain't—it's only just a frog."

And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it round this way and that, and says, "H'm—so 'tis. Well, what's he good for?"

"Well," Smiley says, easy and careless, "he's good enough for one thing, I should judge—he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county."

The feller took the box again, and took another long, particular look, and gave it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate, "Well, I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog."

"Maybe you don't," Smiley says. "Maybe you understand frogs, and maybe you don't understand 'em; maybe you've had experience, and maybe you ain't only a amateur, as it were. Anyways, I've got my opinion, and I'll risk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county."

And the feller studies a minute, and then says, kinder sad like, "Well, I'm only a stranger here, and I ain't got no frog; but if I had a frog, I'd bet you."

And then Smiley says, "That's all right—that's all right—if you'll hold my box a minute, I'll go and get you a frog." And so the feller took the box and put up his forty dollars along with Smiley's, and set down to wait.

So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to hisself, and then he got the frog out and prized his mouth open and took a teaspoon and filled him full of quail shot—filled him pretty near up to the chin—and set him on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped around in the mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and fetched him in, and gave him to this feller, and says:

"Now, if you're ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, with his forepaws just even with Dan'l, and I'll give the word." Then he says, "One—two—three—jump!" and him and the feller touched up the frogs from behind, and the new frog hopped off, but Dan'l give a heave, and hysted up his shoulders—so—like a Frenchman, but it wan't no use—he couldn't budge; he was planted as solid as an anvil, and he couldn't no more stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a good deal surprised, and he was disgusted too, but he didn't have no idea what the matter was, of course.

The feller took the money and started away; and when he was going out at the door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulder—this way—at Dan'l, and says again, very deliberate, "Well, I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog."

Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan'l a long time, and at last he says, "I do wonder what in the nation that frog throwed off for—I wonder if there ain't something the matter with him—he 'pears to look mighty baggy, somehow." And he ketched Dan'l by the nap of his neck, and lifted him up and says, "Why, blame my cats, if he don't weigh five pounds!" and turned him upside down, and he belched out a double handful of shot. And then he see how it was and he was the maddest man—he set the frog down and took out after that feller, but he never ketched him. And—

(Here Simon Wheeler heard his name called from the front yard, and got up to see what was wanted.) And, turning to me as he moved away, he said: "Just set where you are, stranger, and rest easy—I ain't going to be gone a second."

But, by your leave, I did not think that a continuation of the history of the enterprising vagabond Jim Smiley would be likely to afford me much information concerning the Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and so I started away.

At the door I met the social Wheeler returning, and he buttonholed me and recommenced:

"Well, thish-yer Smiley had a yaller one-eyed cow that didn't have no tail, only just a short stump like a bannanner, and—"

"Oh! hang Smiley and his afflicted cow!" I muttered good-naturedly, and, bidding the old gentleman good-day, I departed.



THE CHARMING FRENCHMAN

BOSSUET [Sidenote: Sainte-Beuve]

As for the happiness itself, of which he would give us a just idea, the purely spiritual and internal happiness of the soul in the other life, he sums it up in an expression which concludes a happy development of the subject, and he defines it: Reason always attentive and always contented. Take reason in its liveliest and most luminous sense, the pure flame disengaged from the senses.

ROUSSEAU [Sidenote: Sainte-Beuve]

It is from him that the sentiment of nature is reckoned among us, in the eighteenth century. It is from him also that is dated, in our literature, the sentiment of domestic life; of that homely, poor, quiet, hidden life, in which are accumulated so many treasures of virtue and affection. Amid certain details, in bad taste, in which he speaks of robbery and of eatables, how one pardons him on account of that old song of childhood, of which he knows only the air and some words stitched together, but which he always wished to recover, and which he never recalls, old as he is, without a soothing charm!

JOUBERT [Sidenote: Sainte-Beuve]

Taste, for him, is the literary conscience of the soul....

M. Joubert was, in his day, the most delicate and the most original type of that class of honest people which the old society alone produced,—spectators, listeners who had neither ambition nor envy, who were curious, at leisure, attentive, and disinterested, who took an interest in everything, the true amateurs of beautiful things. "To converse and to know—it was in this, above all things, that consisted, according to Plato, the happiness of private life." This class of connoisseurs and of amateurs, so fitted to enlighten and to restrain talent, has almost disappeared in France since every one there has followed a profession. "We should always," said M. Joubert, "have a corner of the head open and free, that we may have a place for the opinions of our friends, where we may lodge them provisionally. It is really insupportable to converse with men who have, in their brains, only compartments which are wholly occupied, and into which nothing external can enter. Let us have hospitable hearts and minds."

* * * * *

Life is a duty; we must make a pleasure of it, so far as we can, as of all other duties. If the care of cherishing it is the only one with which it pleases Heaven to charge us, we must acquit ourselves gaily and with the best possible grace, and poke that sacred fire, while warming ourselves by it all we can, till the word comes to us: That will do.

MME D'HOUDETOT [Sidenote: Sainte-Beuve]

In the years to which we refer—that is, the years immediately preceding 1800—there were gathered in the salon of this charming old lady the remnants both of fashionable and philosophical society—never, indeed, entirely exiled thence. It may be said of Mme d'Houdetot that her ideal existence was always bounded by that Montmorency valley where the ardent devotion of Jean Jacques has engraved her memory, as it were, in immortal characters. There, again and again, her idyllic spring-time renewed its bloom, and the freshness of her impressions continued unimpaired until her dying day. She even remained in the country during the Reign of Terror, her retreat being respected, and her relatives flocking about her; and "I can readily believe," writes Mme de Remusat, in a charming portrait of her venerable friend, "that she retains, of those frightful days, merely the memory of the increased tenderness and consideration which they procured for her."

MME DE REMUSAT [Sidenote: Sainte-Beuve]

O mothers, gather your children about you early. Dare to say, when they come into the world, that your youth is passing into theirs. O mothers, be mothers, and you will be wise and happy!

DIDEROT [Sidenote: Sainte-Beuve]

If the Encyclopedia was in Diderot's time considered his principal social work, his principal glory in the eyes of the men of to-day consists in his having been the first to create the emotional and eloquent style of criticism. It is through this that he has become immortal, through this that he will be for ever dear to us journalists of every sort and condition. Let us bow down to him as our father, and as the founder of this style of criticism.

Before Diderot's time, the French style of criticism had been, firstly, as offered by Bayle, of a precise, inquiring, and subtle tone. Fenelon represented criticism as an elegant and delicate art, while Rollin exhibited its most useful and honest side. From a due sense of decency, I refrain from mentioning the names of Freron and Des Fontaines. But nowhere yet had criticism acquired anything like vividness, fertility, and penetration; it had not yet found its soul. Diderot was the first to find it. Naturally inclined to look over defects, and to admire good qualities, "I am more affected," he remarked, "by the charms of virtue than the deformity of vice; I quietly turn away from the wicked and fly forward to meet the good. If there happens to be a beautiful spot in a book, a character, a picture, or a statue, it is there that I let my eyes rest; I can only see this beautiful spot, I can only remember it, while the rest I nearly forget. What do I become when everything is beautiful!" This inclination to welcome everything with enthusiasm—this sort of universal admiration—undoubtedly had its danger. It is said of him that he was singularly happy "in never having encountered a wicked man nor a bad book." For, even if the book were bad, he would unconsciously impute to the author some of his own ideas. Like the alchemist, he found gold in the melting-pot, from the fact he had placed it there himself. However, it is to him that all honour is due for having introduced among us the fertile criticism of beauties, which he substituted for that of defects. Chateaubriand himself, in that portion of the Genius of Christianity in which he eloquently discourses on literary criticism, only follows the path opened by Diderot....

"A pleasure that I enjoy alone affects me but slightly, and is of short duration. It is for my friends as well as myself that I read, that I reflect, that I write, that I meditate, that I listen, that I look, that I feel. In their absence I am still devoted to them; I am continually thinking of their happiness. If I am struck with a beautiful line, they must know it. If I meet with a fine passage, I promise myself to impart it to them. If I have before my eyes some enchanting spectacle, I unconsciously plan a description of it for their benefit. I have consecrated to them the use of all my senses and faculties; and it is perhaps for this reason that everything becomes somewhat enriched in my imagination and exaggerated in my discourse. Nevertheless, the ungrateful creatures sometimes reproach me."

LA BRUYERE [Sidenote: Sainte-Beuve]

That philosopher, always accessible, even in the deepest studies, who tells you to come in, for you bring him something more precious than gold or silver, if it is the opportunity of obliging you.

SABBATH BELLS [Sidenote: Anon.]

Ding—ding-a-ding! Ding—ding-a-ding! The church bells they du ring, Ding—ding-a-ding! Ding—ding-a-ding! An' seems they bells du zing: "O merry be! O merry be! The work it all be done, Zee, peas and brocoli du graw Tremenjus in the zun; An' hot it is, an' calm it is, Bees buzz an' cattle doze; Zo, laze about, an' talk about, All in your Zunday clo's." _Ding—ding-a-ding_! Ding—ding-a-ding_!

Ding—ding-a-ding! Ding—ding-a-ding! The church bells merry ring, Ding—ding-a-ding! Ding—ding-a-ding! An,' dang it! doan't they zing?— "O rest awhile! O rest awhile! Vor 'tis amazin' sweet To watch the white-heart cabbages All bustin' in the heat; Zo, zit about, an' stand about, Beside ov Early Rose, An' puff a pipe, an' think ov things, All in your Zunday clo's." _Ding—ding-a-ding_! Ding—ding-a-ding_!