Essays of Leigh Hunt

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5j4 I 3.0 1, X

tt%t ^ttttflt Xtfitotp

ESSAYS OF LEIGH HUNT

r

Only One Hundred and Fifty co^ of this Large Paper
Edition have been ^ntedfor sale in England^ and
Seventy-five copies for America {acquired by Messrs.
Macmillan and Co.y.

This is No. of the American Edition.

J. M. Dent <Sr* Co.

ESSAYS

OF

LEIGH HUNT

SELECTED AND EDITED
REGINALD BRIMLEV JOHNSON

LONDON
J. M. DENT AND CO

«/

#:

ill

Vol. I.
CONTENTS.

PACK

Pk«&ce ix

Introduction xi

Essays, Miscellaneous, Critical, and
autobiogkaphical.

Deaths of Little Children i

Child-Bed 7

An Earth npon Heaven 8

Thoughts and Guesses on Human Nature ... 15

Angling 17

February 33

nardi ■•..■.•.•..33

Bfay 34

Dawn . , 34

Fine Days in January and^ebruary .... 36

The Walk in the Wood 39

A " Now," Descriptive of a Hot Day .... 30

A " Now,** Descriptive of a Cold Day • • • 35

Getting up on Cold Mornings 43

The Old Gentleman 49

The Old Lady 55

The Maid-Servant ....... 60

The Waiter 65

Seamen on Shore ........ 70

Coadies 80

[From] A Wish to the Zoological Gardens . . . 108

vi CONTENTS;

PAGB

Al^tertotheBells ofa ParishChurohin Italy . ixx
The True Enjoyment of Splendour :— A Qiinese

Apologue xz6

Wit made Easy, or, A Hint to Word-Catchers . . .. xao

The Prince on St. Patrick's Day X35

An Answer to the Question, What is Poetry ? . .137

Reason in Poetry ia8

Wit and Humour 129

On the Representation of Tragedy .... X32

Table Talk Z35

Spenser . 136

«» Shakespeare 137

«- Beaumont and Fletcher 140

Samuel Butler 143

--Pope 14s

«. An Evening with Pope 147

^dray 148

.«43oldsmith 150

i^Bums 15Z

^Wordsworth 152

^Coleridge 153

^Lamb 157

«* Shelley z6x

The Oolman Family 171

John Buncle 178

My Books z8z

Dedication to " Foliage," z8i8, to Sir John Edward

Swinburne, Bart 306

A Schoolboy's First Love 307

An Account of Christ-Hospital 3zz

His Jailers 334

Maiano . . 339

The Religion of a Lover of i Truth .... 233

Alive . . . . ' 234

ILLUSTRATIONS.

Portrait (from a Sketch by Samuel Lawrence, in the

poaseanoD of Mr. W. Leigh Hunt) • JroniUfUce
Chapel at Horsemonger Lane Gaol . . o^site^*i96
Christ-Hospital (shewing the window beneath which
Leigh Hunt slept, as indicated by his grandson)

0^pOnt€p. 3XX

PREFACE.

gSEKt^^^ Ibllowtng lekctkiDi have been
iKSB^I printed fr<»ii (he earliest knowo edi-
^j|^ Q tioos (although Ihe reiereoce* in Ibe
^fl""5 fbotnotei apply to the latest editioai,
loi convenierKe of verificatioii) and to each is pre-
liied a list of all the occasions 00 which, *a bi a*
i have been able to digcovei, it baa rmnerlr ap-
peared. The essays and poems which are given
Ua the first time in this edition have been printed
from co[Hes made by Mr. Alexander Ireland frmn
the original manusciipis, and with the permissioo
of Mr. Walter I^^h Hunt, to whom it seems
most probable that the copyiight belongs. Hessra.
Routledge and Sons have kindly allowed roe to
ioclnde" A Coronation Soliloquy" (voL n.,p.j6).
The anlhonhip of "TheWalk in aWood "(vol L,
p. ag), i* indirectly proved by a footnote in one of
Mrs. Cailyle's letters (voL L, p. 104).

Every student c^ Leigh Hont owes giatittide to
Mr. Alexander Ireland lor his invaluable " list ctf
the Writings of William Hailitt and Ldgh Hunt,"
and 1 have further to express my thanks to him

X PREFACE.

for the veiy great personal kindness with which he
has always been ready to communicate to me the
results of his later researches. I am also uider
great obligations to Mr. Walter Leigh Hunt, the
poet's grandson, especially for his assistance ¥dth
regard to the list of portraits and the illustrations
and for kindly allowing a portrait in his possession
to be reproduced for the frontispiece.

To Mr. C. W. Reynell, the lifelong friend of
Leigh Hunt, I am indebted for some interesting
reminiscences, and to Dr. Richard Gamett for his
kind answers to my inquiries. My special thanks
are due to Mr. F. J. Sebley of Cambridge, who
has allowed me the free use of his valuable collec-
tion of early editions of Leigh Hunt, and to my
sister, Miss Alice Johnson, for the great care ¥dth
which she has revised the proofs and for numerous
su^estions made by her in the course of the
work.

R. B. J.

[NoTB.~The abbreviations in the bibliographies prefixed
to the selections are : —

C. Kent for Leigh Hunt as Poet and Euayist,
edited by C. Kent.

A, Symons for Essays by Leigh Hunt, edited by
A. Symons.

Canterbury Poets for the Poems of Leigh Hunt and
Tfumuss Hood (in that series).

Works (in vol. u.) for Poetical Works,

In other cases the main part of the title is given.]

INTRODUCTION.

lAMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT was
bom on the 19th of October, 17S4, in
what was then the pretty viUi^ of
Sottthgate, county Middlesex, "not
only in the lap of the nature which he loved, but
in Uie midst of the truly English scenery which he
loved beyond all other." It was doubtless this
« scene of trees and meadows, of ' greenery ' and
nestling cottages," that laid the foundation of his
love for the simple beauties of nature, and gave
him the same affection for the suburbs of London,
that literary associations did for her streets.

He states in his "Autobiography" that "a
man is but his parents, or some other of his
ancestors, drawn out," and prefiaces that work
with some very charming sketches of his progeni-
tors. " On the mother's side they seemed all sailors
and rough subjects, with a mitigation (on the fe-
male part) of quakerism ; as, on the father's side,
they were Creoles and claret drinkers, very polite
and clerical.'* His own father, the Rev. Isaac

ni INTRODUCTION,

Hiinty was moie polite thao prodent. His firm
loyalty made it impossible fof him to remain in
the West Indies, while the width of his sympathies
hindered his preferment at home. As his fiunily
increased, and he was not in a position to turn hh
powers of oratory to financial account, he became
acquainted with debtors* prisons, and was con-
stantly in dread of arrest Yet so capable was he
"of settling himself to the most tranquil plea-
sures," that he could always forget his troubles
in reading aloud to his wife with the same fine
voice that had first won her heart when he spoke
the ferewell oration on leaving college. '*We
thus struggled on between quiet and disturbance,
between placid readings and frightful knocks at
the door, and sickness, and calamity, and hopes,
which hardly ever forsook us."

His wife, Mary Shewell, the daughter of a mer-
chant of Philadelphia, had a disposition the exact
reverse of his. " I may call myself," writes her
son, "in every sense of the word, etymol<^cal
not excepted, a son of mirth and melancholy."
From his mother Leigh Hunt inherited an " ultra-
sympathy with the least show of pain and suffer-
ing," and a tendency to fits of depression. But it
was no less her memory that stimulated him to
an uncompromising uprightness of conduct and
gave him " the power of making sacrifices for the
sake of a principle. " He ventures very hesitatingly
to question :the full wisdom of her training on
account of its tendency to encourage sensitiveness,
but he adds at once, ** how happy shall I be (if I
may) to laugh and compart notes with her on the

INTRODUCTION, xiu

subject in any humble corner of heaven ; to recall
to her the filial tenderness ¥dth which she was
accustomed to speak of the nustakes of one of her
own parents, and to think that her grandchildren
will be as kind to the memory of their fiither.'*
She .was a woman of much power through her
snfiering and her love.

Leigh Hunt was nine years younger than any of
his brothers, and thus came more under his
mother's influence, which was, at any rate for the
moment, an unfortunate preparation for the life of
a great scfaooL He went to Christ's Hospital, or
Christ-Hospital, as he tells us it should be called,
in 1792, at the age of eight, and stayed there till
he was sixteen. It was a period of some trouble,
and, at the same time, of very great enjoyment.
The Spartan system and healthy tone of the school
probably helped to strengthen his character, but
the course <rf education was &r firom being com-
plete. Here he first learnt the meaning of the word
compromise. Here he began to take up the cause of
independence, and practised resistance to tyranny.
Here he at once dreaded and delighted in the
haunted cloisters. Here he found his inseparable
friend, and here, above all, he devoured Cooke's
edition of the British Poets; "he bought them
over and over again, and used to get up select
sets, which disappeared like buttered crumpets ;
for he could resist neither giving them away nor
possessing them." He seems at this early age to
have acquired the habit of keen and kindly obser-
vation, which afterwards enabled him to write
such delightfiil character-sketches in the " Indi-

\

\

xiv INTRODUCTION.

cator'' and elsewhere, and the third and fourth
chapters of the "Autobiography " contain the most
lifelike pictures of the boys, the masters, and his
own place in their midst.

When the time for departure was come he wept
bitterly, and took individual leave of every person
and spot on the establishment. " I had now a
vague sense of worldly trouble, and of a great and
serious change in my condition. "

He had not meanwhile been left entirely to
school influences, for he was alwa3rs welcomed at
three houses where he could share the advantages
of £unily life. First that of Mr. West with '*the
quiet of [the artist's] gallery, the tranquil, intent
beauty of the statues ; " then that of Mr. Godfrey
Thornton in Austin Friars, " where there was
cordiality, and there was music, and a femily
brimful of hospitality and good-nature, and dear

Almeria (now Mrs. P e), who in vain pretends

that she has beccMne aged, which is idiat she
never did, shall, would, might, should, or could
do'; " and later that of his aunt Mrs. Dayrell,
"another paradise in Great Ormond Street,**
where he fell in love with his cousin Fan, and
acquired a " religious idea of keeping a secret,''
from having been accidentally present at his
brother's private marriage with her sister. He
was fortunate in his friends throughout life, (»
rather his beautiful nature always attracted to
itself the most congenial companions.

" For some time after he left school, he did
nothing but visit his schoolfellows, haunt the book-
stalls, and write verses." His proud and inju-

tNTRODUCTJON. xw

didous father collected the verses and published
them by subscription in iSoi, so that among all
whom he was likely to meet the boy became
&mous in his eighteenth year. Shortly after the
publication of these poems he was introduced to
the femily of Mrs. Kent, lodged for some time in
her house, and became engaged to her dai^^fater
Marianne. During the greater part of their en-
gagement he seems to have continued living at the
houses of various friends, and to have tried hit
hand at several dififerent employments. He was
for a short time a clerk with his brother Stephen,
an attorney, and was afterwards placed in the War
Office by Mr. Addington.

But his habits of complete absorption in the
immediate occupation of the moment left him no
faculty .for noting the lapse of time, and rendered
him unfit for official regularity ; while the work of
writing for the papers — particularly as a theatrical
critic — with which he filled his leisure hours, was
far more congenial to his whole .turn of mind. In
later life, by great exertions, he partially conquered
his difficulty in measuring time, but fortunately he
did not cease to write.

At the beginning of 1806 he was living with his
brother John, who had been apprenticed to R^o
nell the printer, and after several more or less
abortive attempts to establish newspapers the two
brothers started in 1808 <<The Examiner," the
only one of his papers that succeeded, and by
means of which the main part of his political work
was achieved. By the end of the same year he
felt that he could carry on the paper with greater

xn tlTTRODUCTION,

eneigy and indq)endence if he resigned his
work at the War Office ; and in 1S09 his pro-
spects were such as to justify his marriage, a
cmtdUum into which he would not enter until
hi could fed secure of a moderate income in the
future.

Leigh Hunt and Marianne Kent were married
on July 3fd, 1S09, and spent together a life in
which there was much sorrow, and jret no little
joy, till her death at the beginning of 1S57, rather
more than two years before his own.

After he had decided to devote himself to the
profession of writing, the outward events of his
life, with two exceptions, presented but little
variety. He continued to edit papers and write
books with extraordinary energy and small financial
result. His £unily increased, and he was con-
stantly moving from house to house, though he
lived almost alwa3rs in one of the London suburbs.
He wrote with great care, and seldom with any
rapidity, and his ignorance of popular taste pre-
vented him from catching the ear of the public,
which was, moreover, prejudiced against him
by the scurrilous abuse of Blackwood and the
" Quarterly," who spared no weapon against the
man for whom they had invented the silly nickname
of the ** Cockney King." He was not suited by
nature for the practical control of a newspaper,
and his incapacity for business had been fostered
by the peculiar system of Christ-Hospital, where
he had not learnt arithmetic, and by a certain in-
herited incapacity for turning his attention to his
own interests. Circumstances and character thus

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xviii INTRODUCTION.

appreciated. Under such influences Carlyle refers
to his conversation as '* free, cheery, idly melodious
as bird on bough," and to " his fine, chivalrous,
gentlemanly carriage, polite, affectionate, respect-
ful (especially to her ') and yet so free and natural.''

His greatest friend was Shelley, but the *' Auto-
biography " and *' Correspondence " bring out also
his intimacy with Keats, Hazlitt, the Lambs, and in
a lesser degree the Carlyles, Brownings, Thackeray,
etc., etc., while from their biographies we may
gather interesting impressions of him.

Every one knows "that in an unfortunate mo-
ment Charles Dickens conceived the idea of ^ving
a bright life-likeness to one of his most despicable
creations by investing him with a certain atmo-
sphere of gay sentiment, and by attributing to him
certain tricks of manner which were generally re-
cognized as Hunt's."^ It was natural that, at the
time, ignorant or careless readers should have sup-
posed the moral characters of the real Hunt and
the imaginary Skimpole to be much alike ; but
there can be no excuse for such a supposition to-
day. Dickens' own denial of it was obviously
cordial and genuine, while our knowledge of Leigh
Hunt shows him to have been a man of courageous
as well as sensitive morality, and of the strictest
integrity. His writings alone afford indisputable
testimony to his purity of thought and principle.

The two events to which I have referred, as

1 Mrs. Carlyle.

* From a most interesting article on " Leigh Hunt, his life,
character, and work," in the ''London Quarterly Review,"
written, I believe, by Mr. J. A. Noble, author of "The
Pelican Papers."

in the eves cf

*Ti

uE

Gael ham 1S13 11 £fe>. sk &

XX INTRODUCTION.

should be tempted by an invitation from Shelley
and Lord Byron to join them in bringing out a new
periodical, in which their more advanced opinions
might be made public. The combination of
Byron*s brilliance and popularity with Hunt*s ex-
perience in journalism seemed to promise fair for
the venture, which was to be called "The Liberal,*'
and it was with the brightest hopes that the Hunts
set out for Italy. The terrible delays and suffer-
ings of their voyage might well have been r^arded
as ominous by a superstitious spirit ; but, in the first
moment of reunion with Shelley, all troubles were
forgotten. — ^And then Shelley was drowned.

The more we know of Leigh Hunt the deeper
do we seem to see into this calamity, and the more
clearly can we realize how it must have unstrung
him for the painful necessity of working with
Byron. Meanwhile that nobleman's aristocratic
friends had been alarming his vanity by reflections
upon his association with a poor radical journalist.
The new journal that had seemed so attractive in
prospect became distasteful in execution. Byron
never admitted his change of feeling to Hunt, but he
delayed the work, and, when he took it up, did it so
grudgingly that failure was inevitable. Hunt, more-
over, could not afford to wait, and was thus forced
to receive pecuniary help from Byron, at whose
invitation he had come out to live upon the pro-
ceeds of a periodical, which was now n^lected by
its own originator. Apart from the strain of their
financial relations, the natures of Byron and Hunt
were essentially incompatible, while the latter's
family rather helped to widen the breach. '* The

INTRODUCTION, xxi

Liberal " dragged through four numbers, and then
died of inanition, and its projectors separated. The
Hunts remained in Italy till 1825, partly in com-
pany with Mrs. Shelley, but in the end were
thankful to return to England.

In the meantime B3nron died, and the public was
greedy for any details of his life. The eyes of an
enterprising publisher turned to Leigh Hunt, and
it was agreed that he should write a biographical
sketch for an edition of Byron's works. But the
delight of his return to English fields led him to
take too long a holiday, and in the hurry of keep-
ing an engagement with his publisher, he had to
make use of materials already in hand, so that
'^ Lord Byron and his Contemporaries " assumed,
almost by accident, the shape in which it now
exists. The circumstances under which it was
written coloured it with a sense of injury, not
wholly wise, perhaps, but at any rate fully apolo-
gized for later by the author. It is to be observed
further that Leigh Hunt's own relations with
Byron had been cruelly misrepresented by earlier
writers, and that his picture of ** the noble poet's "
character is now admitted on all hands to be
true, original, and essentially kindly.

We may disregard to-day the indignation of
those who would listen to nothing against Byron ;
and need only add that the probable cause of the
continued and more reasonable complaints against
the book, was the spiritual and somewhat quixotic
nature of Leigh Hunt's theories concerning the
rights of property, which made him r^ard the
power to be generous as a privil^e, for others as

xxii INTRODUCTION,

well as for himself, and led him to speak of the
gifts of money he received in a manner very likely
to offend the average Englishman's formal notions
of financial responsibilities.^

During his stay in Italy, Leigh Hunt wrote a
beautifiil set of meditations, privately printed with
the title " Christianism " (later enhurged into a
book called "The Religion of the Heart"),
'* which represent very fiilly the religious side of an
essentially pious nature." They are "the voice
of a good heart on the lips of a beautiful speaker,"
whose beliefs were as tolerant as his nature was
sympathetic.

He did not again leave England after his return,
and later in life his affairs became less embarrassed
through the generosity of the Shelley family and a
royal pension, granted in 1847.

He died on August 28th, 1859. "Although
his bodily powers had been giving way, his most
conspicuous qualities — ^his memory for books, and
his affection — remained; and when his hair was
white, when his ample chest had grown slender,
when the very proportion of his height had visibly
lessened, his step was still ready, and his dark eyes
brightened at every happy expression, and at every

1 A letter written to Mrs. Shelley in September, 1821,
will, perhaps, illustrate most simply the way in which Leigh
Hunt accepted the generosity of his friends : — " My dear
Mary, Pray thank Shelley, or rather do not, for tluut kind
part of his offer relating to the expenses. I find I have
omitted it, but the instinct that led me to do so is more
honourable to him than thanks. I hope you think so."

This was a gratitude that the Shelleys no doubt knew how
to appreciate.

ISTRODVCTTON.

thoagltf of Idndxtes. Hs dotik «k
hansdoD : he broke off Ids wk to fie dovn
repose. So gentle «» tbe final appRadu tba
scuoelj reoqgniaed k tffl tbe vajfatst, and tki

used to dnw froai one of Ids sons, liy
e^er, and s e aichi ng q ii e rtki i a all that 1
learn about the latest %iiiyuti M lr< and
hopes of Italy, — to adc tiie 6ieods and
aroond him fcr news of those vluai ]
and to send lore and mesages to the
loved him." And so died

In a critical esrimatf of Halt's vdtings, aflov-
ance mnst be nade fior two advene iniaeDcscs — the
models that his ccwlfiporaiigs admired, and the

At the time he begm to vnte, the £dai habit of
imStating Dr. Jofanson's poBpositj
while "in poetry the Delia Ci
vailed, with its £dse mnpHrify and teal tinsel, its
laduymose tenderness and sham rnmanfr." He
first imitated this artifidalitj, and then, bylds vcxy
detestation of it, was led to adopt a fivedcai of
style that somrfimc* degenerated into inoooect-
ness. If he seems to dweO npco trifles, or to
afiect too mocfa simpbdty, the impnhr may pro-
bably be traced to an impatimce of fidse ideak of
dignity in wnting, as the oocasioaally in t <^ we d and

xxiv INTRODUCTION.

parenthetic construction of his sentences seems to
arise from an intense desire for truth.

In the case of his prose work, the Herculean
journalistic responsibilities that he undertook may
have stood in the way of his recognition of these
defects, while they must obviously have encouraged
the tendency to express any idea as fully and from
as many points of view as possible. When it is
remembered that he had to produce copy almost
daily for more than fifty years, the wonder is that
so much should be worth reprinting. An explana-
tion may be found in the great care with which he
invariably wrote, in the extraordinary width of his
acquaintance with the best literature, and in the
fact that " he was a man of genius in a very strict
sense of that word.** ^

It is a difficult matter indeed to postulate the
unique beauties of his writings. They defy defini-
tion. "Versatility, clearness, lovingness, truth-
fulness,** and absolute healthfulness are there.
The touch is light and rapid, yet the deepest and
widest sympathies are evinced. His pages are
illuminated with passages of delicate wit and un-
expected poetry, and enriched by the most happily
chosen quotations.

He is most charming when writing of his friends,
— Shelley, his mother, and many others that live
before us in the fascinating pages of his "Auto-
biography. ** His imaginary character-sketches are
scarcely less sympathetic, and, though the publica-
tion of Professor Knight's "Tales from Leigh
Hunt ** has perhaps shown that he was not himself

1 Carlyle.

cf a dispcer;" das fae vraces cf
tliat "bis csifs wiii take diar

wit-md a ncholy,'' and cf CXKeefe tioc ''bs hok
wasasfrcshasaduij-iHaid.' Hslonger

INTRODUCTION,

appreciatums^ and yet discriminating. He de-
lighted to consider himself a taster in literature,
the Indicator^ or honey-hunter, among the flowers
of the past. He does not construct theories of
composition, but gives utterance to his delight in
an author, and makes his reader share it. He
seems to have no prejudices,^ though he does not
praise blindly.

His more strictly journalistic work may be esti-
mated by a brief risumioi the main characteristics
of the *' Examiner,*' which are fiilly set forth in its
prospectus (see vol ii. ). The independent theatrical
criticism, which he had originated in the **News,"
was here maintained, and his carefully written
miscellaneous articles gave it a literary tone, which
was unusual in newspapers of that time. Here
also he bore witness to his admiration for the men
of real genius among his contemporaries, welcom-
ing contributions from Lamb, Hazlitt, Keats, and
Shelley, at a time when the last three were almost
entirely unknown or despised. The same judg-
ment was shown later in the *' London Journal,"
where the writings of Bentham and Hugh Miller
received some of their earliest recognitions, and
where Carlyle's translations of Goethe were enthu-
siastically noticed. In the " Tatler," we find him
working with Barry Cornwall, and, in the ** Monthly
Repository," with W. S. Landor.

1 This impartiality, however, cannot be claimed for the
criticism in die early numbers of the ** Examiner,** while he
retained two prejudices throughout life : agunst Dante, for
his belief in heU, and against Southey, for his complacent
Toryism.

ISTMODCCTiOX.

The attttadecf the "
political mann^
began bj being df bo
one ;'^ and akfacv^ £
Himt ever wioi
doobt that the
editarial ntTrum rs
his paper ciid no bole
Libenlism in one of

Turning to the
can see the same
pffose. It is often tiivial
in treatment, and
tonmtoseed. Hewastoo
words innnnsaal
of his own, thoag|i wiihoE:
It majabo uritmft be cziticiiai
ponction than his prose, becaaseii
work, written in times of <
bjr which he hoped to

But **hi5 poctiy
tive glow and glamom wfaidi tzkcs x» rsco
another world than the pmaaic i^ cf ererr czj,
and enables OS to fcqget the dollness and :

of the actnaL . . . Whatever else it mar 2acx, ii
never bdcs gmto, — die sense of ifae cxpresko of
quick, keen deli^ in all things aarariJij and
wholesomely ddigfatfid." ' His nttne was cacn-
tially romantic: His tiboo^us kept ooespaaj wisb
biavekni^its and £rirlaA«, w anderin g in beiifliiid
gardens and eiih an giug tender c om^iiim ccaiL. The

J. A. ^oUc^ 0^m cbL

xxnu INTRODUCTION.

ceremonies and customs that had grown archaic in'
the world of action retained their full significance
in his imagination, and it was upon them that he
delighted to dwell.

It is largely because he was so much at , home
in the fields of imagination that his poetry pos-
sesses its peculiar faults and its peculiar merits.
Hb most perfect poems are the short Eastern
tales and some of the translations, while the "Story
of Rimini " well represents his genius as a whole,
and is of supreme interest on account of the admira-
tion it excited in some of the master-minds of his
day.

And finally his writings are the expression of his
moral nature. They are genial, S3nnpathetic, and
chivalrous like himself; revealing the main motive
of his life — the desire to increase the happiness of
mankind. They seem to echo the ever-memorable
petition of Abou Ben Adhem : —

** Write me as one that loves his fellow-men."

«

Reginald Brimley Johnson. •

Cambridge,

February^ 1891.

DEATHS OF
I'

CHUZi

' s ^^

-I

\m

n

ItmnidtK

m 4IE-VX1K

ic tie

•7 L

s LEIGH HUNT.

Tlioe are aonows, it is true, so great, that to
(be tibem aoBae of the ofdinaij vents is to nm a
IwBid of being otcrthrown. These we must
father strengthen omsdYes to resist, or bow quietly
and drily down, in order to let them pass over as,
as the tnYdkr does the wind of the desert. But
where we feel that teais would relieve us, it is £dse
philosophy to deny ooraelvcs at least that 6rst re-
freshment ; and it is alwo^ 6dse conscdation to
tell people that because they cannot hdp a thing,
they are not to miad ^L The troe way is, to let
them grapple with the unavoidable sorrow, and try
to win it into gentleness by a reasonaUe yielding.
There are grieb so gentle in their very nature, that
it would be worse than false heroism to rduse them
a tear. Of this kind are the deaths of infimts.
Particular drcnmstanoes may render it more or less
advisable to indulge in gridf for the loss of a little
diild ; but, in general, parents should be no more
advised to repress their 6rst tears on such an occa-
aon, than to repress their smiles towards a diild
surviving, or to indulge in any other sympathy. It
is an appeal to the same gentle tenderness ; and
such appeals are never made in vain. The end ci
them is an acquittal from the harsher bonds <A
affliction — from the tying down of the qnrit to one
melancholy idea.

It is the nature of tears ci this kind, however
strcmgly they may gush forth, to run into quiet
waters at last We caimot easily, for the whole
course of our lives, think with pain of any good
and kind person whom we have lost. It is the
divine nature of their qualities to conquer pain and

21=

4 LBiGH Huirr,

Children have not exercised the voluntary offices
of friendship-; they have not chosen to be kind
and good to us ; nor stood by us, from conscious
will, in the hour of adversity. But they have shared
their pleasures and pains with us as well as th^y
could ; the interchange of good offices between us
has, (^ necessity, been less mingled with the
troubles of the world; the sorrow arising from
their death is the only one which we can associate
with their memories. These are happy thoughts
that cannot die. Our loss may always render them
pensive ; but they will not idways be painful. It
is a part of the benignity of Nature that pain does
not survive like j^easure, at any time, much less
where the cause of it is an innocent one. The
smile will remain reflected by memory, as the
mocHi reflects the light upon us when the sun has
gone into heaven.

When writers like ourselves quarrel with earthly
pain (we mean writers of the same intentions,
without implying, of course, anything about abilities
or otherwise), they are misunderstood if they are
supposed to quarrel with pains of every sort This
would be idle and effeminate. They do not pre-
tend, indeed, that humanity might not wish, if it
could, to be entirely free from pain ; for it endea-
vours, at all times, to turn pain into pleasure : or
at least to set off the one with the other, to make
the former a zest and the latter a refreshment
The most unaffected dignity of suffering does thisj
and, if wise, acknowledges it. The greatest benevo-
lence towards others, the most unselfish relish of
their pleasures, even at its own expense, does but

DEATHS OF LJTTLS CHILDREN, s

look to increasiiig the geneml stock fA happinessy
though content, if it could, to have its identit]|i
swallowed up in that splendid contemplation. We
are £ir from meaning that this is to be called selfish-
ness. We are £ir, indeed, from thinking so^ or (tf
so confounding words. But ndther is it to he-
called pain wh^ most iwselfish, if disinterestedness
be truly understood. The pain that is in it softens
into pleasure, as the darker hue of the rainbow
melts into the brighter. Yet even if a harsher Une
is to be drawn between the pAlO and pleasure of
the most unselfish mind (and ill*health,^ for in-
stance, may draw it)» we should not quai^l with it
if it contributed to the general mass of ccmifort,.
and were of a nature which general kindh'ness
could not afiord. Made as we are, there are cer-
tain pains without which it would be difficult to
conceive certain great and oyerbalancing pleasures.
We may conceive it possible for beings to be made
entirely happy ; but in our composition something
of pain seems to be a necessary ingredient, in order
that . the mi^terials may turn to as fine account as
possible, though our clay, in the course of ages and
experience, may be refined more and mcnre. We
may get rid of the w(»rst earth, though not of earth
itself,

Now the liability to the loss of children— or
rather what renders us sensible of it, the occasional
loss itself— seems to be one of these necessary
bitters thrown into the cup of humanity. We do

1 For himself, he valued ill-health because " it taught me
the worth of little pleasures as well as the dignity and
utility of great pains.**—" Autobiography/' p. 147.— Ed.

6 LEtGH HUNT.

not mean thai everybody most lose one kA his chil-
dren in order to enjoy the rest ; or that every indi-
vidtial loss afflicts us in the same proportion. We
allude to the deaths of in&nts in generaL These
nliight be as few as we could render them. But if
none at all ever took place, we should regard every
little child as a man or woman secured ; and it will
easily be conceived what a worid of endearing cares
and hopes this security would endanger. The very
idea of in£emcy would lose its continuity with us.
Girls and boys would be future men and women,
not present children. They would have attained
their full growth in our imaginations, and might as
well have been men and women at once. On the
other hand, those who have lost an in&nt, are
never, as it were, without an in&nt child. They
are the only persons who, in one sense, retain it
always, and they furnish their neighbours with the
same idea.' The other children grow up to man-
hood and womanhood, and suffer all the changes
of mortality. This one alone is rendered an im«
mortal child. Death has arrested it with his kindly
harshness, and blessed it into an eternal image of
youth and innocence.

Of suchas these are the pleasantestshapes that visit
our &ncy and our hopes. They are the ever-smiling
emblems of joy ; the prettiest pages that wait upon
imagination. Lastly, " Of these are the kingdom
of heaven." Wherever there is a province of that

* " I sighed," says old Captain Bolton, " when I envied
you the two bonnie children ; but I sigh not now to call
either the monk or the soldier mine own ! " — " Monastery/*
voL iii., p. 341 ; in edition of 1830, vol. ii., p. 346.

CHILDBED, 7

benevolent and all-accessible empire, whether on
earth or elsewhere, such are the gentle spirits that
must inhabit it To such simplicity, or the resem-
blance of it, must they come. Such must be the
ready confidence of their hearts, and creativeness
of their fancy. And so ignorant must they be of
the "knowledge of good and evil," losing their dis-
cernment of that sdf-created trouble, by enjoying
the garden before them, and not being ashamed of
what b kindly and innocent^

CHILDBED.

A PROSE POEM.

["Monthly Repository," Nor. 1835. "Wishing Cap
Papers," &C., 1874.]

ND is childbed among the graces, with
its close room, and its unwilling or idle
visitors, and its jesting nurse (the old
and indecent stranger), and its un-
motherly^ and unwifely, and unlovely lamenta-
tions? Is pain so unpleasant that love cannot
reconcile it? And can pleasures be repeated
without shame, which are regretted with hostile
cries and resentment ?

No. But childbed is among the graces, with
the handsome quiet of its preparation, and the
smooth pillow sustaining emotion, and the soft
steps of love and respect, and the room in which
the breath of the universe is gratefully permitted

!> One of Lamb's favourite papers. See^'AutobioRraphy,"
p. 250.

S LEIGH HUNT.

to enter, and mild and venerable Vid, and the
physician (the urbane security), and the living
treasure containing treasure about to live» who
looks in the eyes of him that caused it and seeks
encigy in the grappling of his hand, and hides her
C»ce in the piUow that she may save him a pain by
stifling a greater. There is a tear for what may
have beea done wrong, ever; and what may
never be to be mutually pardoned again ;. but it is
gone, for what needs^it? Angelical are their
whispers apart ; and Pleasure meets Pain the
seraph, and knows itself to be noble in the smiling
testimony of his severity. '

It was on a May evening, in a cottage flower-
ing with the greengage in the time of hyacinths
and new hopes, when the hand that wrote this
took the hand that had nine times laid thin and
delicate on the bed of a mother's endurance ; and
he kissed it, like a bride's. - - -

L. H» 1827.

AN EARTH UPON HEAVEN.^

["The CompanioDi'* April and, 1828. "Indicator and
Coinpanion," 1834. A. Sjrmons, z888. C. Kent, 1889.]

SOMEBODY, a little while ago, wrote
an excellent article in the New Monthly
Magazine on * 'Persons (me would wish
to have known." He should write
another on ** Persons one could wish to have
dined with." There is Rabelais, and Horace, aiid

^ See the poem, "A Heaven upon Earth/' in voL ii —
Ed.

AN EARTH UPQN HEAVEN. 9

the Mennaid roysters, and Charles CotKMi, and
Andrew Marvell, and Sir Richard Steele, cum
multis aliis : and for the colloquial, if not the festive
party Swift and Pope, and Dr. Johnson, and
Budce, and Hoime Togke. What a pity one can-
not din^ with them all round 1 People are accused
of having earthly nodoas of heaven.. Aft it is
difficult to have apy other, we may be pardoned
for thinking that we could spend a vay pretty
thousand yeais^in: dining and getting acquainted
with all the good fellows on record ; and having
got leed to them, we think we could go very well
on, and be content to wait some other thousands
for a higher beatitude. Oh,, to wear out one of
the celestial lives of a triple century's duration,
and exquisitely, to grow. old,, in redprocatii^ din-
ners and teas with the immortals of old books 1
Will Fielding "leave his caid" in the next
world? Will Berkeley (an angel in a wig and
lawn sleeves 1) come to ask how Utopia gets on ?
Will Shakespeare (for the greater the man, the
more the good-nature might be expected) know, by
intuition that one of his readers (knocked up with
bliss) is dying to see him at the Angel and Turk's
Head, and come lounging with his hands ifi his
doublet-pockets accordingly ?

It is a pity that none of the great geniuses, to
whose lot it has £edlen to describe a future state,
has givqi us his own notions of heaven. Their
accounts are all modified by the national theology ;
whereas the Apostle himself has tdd us, that we
can have no conception of the blessings intended
for us. " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard," &c.

lo LBlGtt HUNT.

After this, Dante's shining lights are poor. Milton's
heaven, with the armed youth exercising them-
selves in military games, is worse. His best Para-
dise was on earth, and a very pretty heaven he
made of it For our parts, admittii^ and vene-
rating as we do the notion of a heaven surpassing
all human conception, we trust that it is no pre-
sumption to hope, that the state mentioned by the
Apostle is the Jinai heaven ; and that we may
ascend and gradually accustom ourselves to the
intensity of it, by others of a less superhuman
nature. Familiar as we may be both with poetry and
calamity, and accustomed to surprises and strange
sights of imagination, it is difficult to fiuncy even
the delight of suddenly emerging into a new and
boundless state of existence, where everything is
marvellous, and opposed to our experience. We
could wish to take gently to it ; to be loosed not
entirely at once. Our song desiries to be *' a soi^
of degrees." Earth and its capabilities — are these
nothing ? And are they to come to nothing ? Is
there no beautiful realization of the fleetii^ type
that is shown us ? No body to this shadow ? No
quenching to this [drought] *■ and continued thirst ?
No arrival at these natural homes and resting-
places, which are so heavenly to our imaginations,
even though they be built of clay, and are situate
in the fields of our infancy ? We are becoming
graver than we intended ; but to return to our
proper style : — ^nothing shall persuade us, for the
present, that Paradise Mount, in any pretty village
in England, has not another Paradise Mount to
* Printed " taaght ** in earlier editions.— 'Ed.

AN EARTH UPON HEAVEN, xt

correspond, in some less perishing r^on ; that is
to say, provided anybody has set his heart upon
it : — and that we shall not all be dining, and
drinking tea, and complaining of the weather (we
mean, for its not being perfectly blissful) three
hundred years hence, in some snug interlunar
spot, or perhaps in the moon itself, seeing that it
is our next visible neighbour, and shrewdly sus-
pected of being hill and dale.

It appears to us, that for a certain term of cen-
turies, Heaven must consist of something of this
kind. In a word, we cannot but persuade our-
selves, that to realize everything that we have
justly desired on earth, will be heaven ; — ^we mean,
for that period : and that afterwards, if we behave
ourselves in a proper pre-angelical manner, we
shall go to another heaven, still better, where we
shall realize all that we desired in our first Of
this latter we can as yet have no conception ; but
of the former, we think some of the items may be
as follow : —

Imprimis^ — (not because friendship comes be*
fore love in point of degree, but because it pre-
cedes it, in point of time, as at school we have a
male companion' before we are old enough to
have a female) — Imprimis then, a friend. He
will have the same tastes and inclinations as our-
selves, with just enough difference to furnish
argument without sharpness ; and he will be gene-
rous, just, entertaining, and no shirker of his
nectar. In short, he will be the best friend we

^ As a cchoolboy Leigh Hunt had very exalted notions
of "Friendship.*' See ** Juvenilia."->£D.

la LBIGH HUNT.

have had apon earth* We shall talk together *' of
afternoons;" and when i}ait Earth b^;ins to rise
(a great big moon, looking as happy as we know
its inhabitants will be), other friends will join us,,
not so emphatically our friend as he, but excellent
fellows all ; and we shall read the poets, and have
some sphere-music (if we please), or renew one of
our old earthly evenings, picked out of a dozen
Christmases.

lUm^ a mistress. In heaven (not to speak it
pro&ndy) we know, upon the best authority, that
people are " neither married nor given in mar-
riage ; " so that there is nothing illegal in the
term.** (By the way, there can be no cleig3rmen
there, if there are no official duties for them. We
do not say, there will be nobody who has been a
clergyman. Berkeley would refute that; and a
hundred Welsh curates. But they would be no
longer in orders.. They woulfl refuse to call them-
selves more Reverend;. than their neighbours.)
Item then, a mistress ; beautiful, of course, — an>
angelical expression, — ^a Peri,. or Houri, or what-
ever shape of perfection you choose to imagine
her, and yet retaining the likeness of the woman
you loved best on earth ; in fact, she herself, but
completed ; all her good qualities made perfect,
and all her defects taken away (with the exception
of one or two charming little angelical peccadil-
loes, which she can only get rid of in a postrfuture
state) ; good-tempered, laughing, serious, fond of
everything about her without detriment to her
special fondness for yourself, a great roamer in
Elysian fields and forests, but not alone (they go

») ; bat above all
jam take Ikt

of:

too fjOOA 11

to

Ik wSbetkcBCioo

aB

Toiy

WcaKaleowiD

aod Van^fce k «r Ae fHiyL'

die <dd

hop

14 LRtGH HlXitr,

will be benefited from time to time by the know-
ledge of new-comers. We cannot well fiincy a
celestial ancient Briton delighting himself with
painting his skin, or a Chinese angel hobbling a
mile up the Milky Way in order to show herself to
advantage.

For break&st, we must have a tea beyond any-
thing Chinese. Slaves will certainly not make
the sugar ; but there will be cows for the milk.
One's landscapes cannot do without cows.

For horses we shall ride a Pegasus, or Ariosto*s
Hippogriff, or Sinbad's Roc. We mean, for our
parts, to ride them all, having a passion for &bu-
lous animals. Fable will be no fiible then. We
shall have just as much of it as we like ; and the
Utilitarians will be astonished to find how much
of that sort of thing will be in request They will
look very odd, by the bye, — those gentlemen,
when they first arrive ; but will soon get used to
the delight, and find there was more of it in their
own doctrine than they imagined.

The weather will be extremely fine, but not
without such varieties as shall hinder it from being
tiresome. April will dress the whole country in
diamonds; and there will be enough cold in
winter to make a fire pleasant of an evening. The
fire will be made of sweet-smelling turf and sun-
beams ; but it will have a look of coal. If we
choose, now and then we shall even have in-
conveniences.

ON HUMAN NATURE. 15

THOUGHTS AND GUESSES ON
HUMAN NATURE.

r

[F an impcBitiaos on tlie pabfic, the
greatest seeau to lie death. It ae-
scmblcs tne tfii^at]^iwi^ ciccs cb
side the Treasaij. Or other, it
necessary bar to oar trndcpcy to matt,
Nature sends us oat of her hand with sch \
petns towards increase of eiqojBent, that
thing is obliged to be Kt ap at the end of the
avenue we are in, to modeiatr oar bias, and
us enjoy the present being. Death series to
OS thiidc« not of itsdf, but of what is abo^ c

DBGKADUSG II»AS CV DKITT.

The siipcistitioos, in their ooatradictafy vepve'
sentations of God, call hnaviitBCMB and benevi>>
lent oat of the same passioB of fear as indaoes them
to make him andb a tynnL They dunk they shall
be damned if they do not bdieve him the tynnt he
is descnbed: — they dunk they shall be damned
also, if they do not gratmtonsly ascribe to him die
▼iitnes inoompatible with damnation. Being 10
imworthy of poise, they think he wiD be particn-
laily angiy at not being poind. Theydmdderto
think tl i ^ mn^f f ^. hetter; and fc* Tt f ^ to aaakc

i6 LBiGH MUST.

amends for it, by dedaring themsel^KS as worthless
as he is worthy.

GRSAT DISTINCTION TO BB MADS IN BIGOTS.

There are t¥n> sorts of religious bigots, the un-
healthy and the unfeeling. The fear of the fanner
is mixed with humanity, and they never succeed in
thinking themselves &vourites of God, but thdr
sense of security is embittered, by aversions which
they dare not own to themselves, and tenor lor
the fiite of those who are not so lucky. The v^-
feeling b^t is a mere unimaginative animal, whose
thoughts are confined to the sni;^ess of his own
kennel, and who would have a good one in the
next world as well as in this. He secures a {dace
in heaven as he does in the Manchester coach or
a Margate hoy. Never mind who suffers outside,
woman or child. We once found ourselves by
accident on board a Maigate hoy, which professed
to "sail by Divine Providence." Walking about
the deck at night to get rid of the chillness which
would occasionally visit our devotions to the starry
heavens and the sparkling sea, our foot came in
contact with something white, which yn& lying
gathered up in a heap. Upon stooping down, we
found it to be a woman. The methodisfs had
secured all the beds below, and were not to be
disturbed.^

^ This anecdote is repeated in the "Aatotuography." —
Ed. Leigh Hunt thinks that this, whole paper was one of
C. Lamb's favourites. See " Autobiography,** p. 350.

ANGUKG.

ANGLINa*

["Indacatorr Nor. iTtk, 1S19. "
1834. A. Syi.t, iMKL C.

[HE angicK are a nee of
puzzie OS. We do not mean for their
patience, wfaidi is lanrlahlr, nor far the
infinite non-snooess of some of tfaem,
which is dcsiiablc. Neither do ve agree viih the
good joke attribated to Swift, that aagftng is
always to be considered as "a stidL and a sona^
with a fly at one end and a fool at the other."
Nay, if he had books with him, and a
da^, we can even amrMnt far the
that prince of all pontes, who, having been »en
in the same idfTitifal spot out ■'^""■g and eicn-
ii^ and asked both times whether he had had
any snccess, said No, bat in the oonse of the daj
he had had "a gkrioos nibUe."

But the anglers boast of the "'■«^*'^«^»^ of their
pastime; yet it pots fenow<reatBcstothetaftBie.
They jMqoe themselves 00 their meditative facul-
ties; aikd yet their only ezcnse is a waat of
thov^t It is this that poades ns. OM Isaac
Walton, their patriarch, yraking of his impni-
torial abstractions on the banks of a river, sfs.

1 Ldgh HnM
See e.£^, ** laag^iary CoBvcnadflBs of Pope zaA
the cwl of *' TaUe Talk* ^ofaae.— En.

I.

i8 LRtGH HUNT.

Before death
Stops our breath.

Other jo]rt

Are but toys.

And to be lamented.

So saying, he *' stops the breath " of a troat, by
plucking him up into an element too thin to re-
spire, with a hook and a tortured wonn in his

jaws —

Other joyt
Are but toys.

If you ride, walk, or skait, or play at cricket,
or at rackets, or enjoy a ball or a concert, it b
*' to be lamented.*' To put pleasure into the fiuxs
of half a dozen agreeable women, is a toy unworthy,
of the manliness of a worm-sticker. But to put a
hook into the gills of a carp — there you attain the
end of a reasonable being ; there you show your-
self truly a lord of the creation. To plant your
feet occasionally in the mud, is also a pleasing
step. So is cutting your ankles with weeds and

stones —

Other jojrs
Are but toys.

The book of Isaac Walton upon angling is un-
doubtedly a delightful performance in some res-
pects. It smells of the country air, and of the
flowers in cottage windows. Its pictures of rural
scenery, its simplicity, its snatches of old songs,
are all good and refreshing; and his prodigious
relish of a dressed fish would not be grudged him,
if he bad killed it a little more decently. He
really seems to have a respect for a piece of sal-

ANGLING. X9

mon ; to approach it, like the grace, with his hat
off. But what are we to think of a man, who in
the midst of his tortures of other animals, is always
valuing himself on his wonderful harmlessness ;
and who actually follows up one of his most com-
placent passages of this kind, vdth an injunction to
impale a certain worm twice upon the hook, be-
cause it is lively, and might get off ! All that can be
said of such an extraordinary inconsistency is, that
having been bred up in an opinion of the innocence
of his amusement, and possessing a healthy power
of exercising voluntary thoughts (as far as he had
any), he must have dozed over the opposite side of
the question, so as to become almost, perhaps
quite, insensible to it« And angling does indeed
seem the next thing to dreaming. It dispenses
with locomotion, reconciles contradictions, and
renders the very countenance null and void. A
friend of ours, who is an admirer of Walton, was
struck, just as we were, vdth the likeness of the
old angler's face to a fish. It is hard, angular,
and of no expression. It seems to have been
" subdued to what it worked in ; " to have become
native to the watery element. One might have
said to Walton, "Oh flesh, how art thou fishi-
fied ! " He looks like a pike, dressed in broad-
cloth instead of butter.

The face of his pupil and follower, or, as he
fondly called himself, son, Charles Cotton, a poet
and a man of ¥dt, is more good-natured and un-
easy.^ Cotton's pleasures had not been confined

1 The reader may see both the portraits in the late
editions of Walton.

90 LEIGH HUNT.

to fishing. His sympathies indeed had been a
little superabundant, and left him, perhaps, not so
great a power of thinking as he pleased. Accord-,
ingly, we find upon the subject of anglii^ in his
writings more symptoms of scrupulousness than in
those of his fisither.

Walton says, that an angler does no hurt but to
fish ; and this he counts as nothing. Cotton
argues, that the slaughter of them is not to be
"repented;" and he says to his fsither (which
looks as if the old gentleman sometimes thought
upon the subject too)

There whilst behhxl some bosh we wait

The scaly people to hetray,
Well prove it just, with treacherous bait.

To make the prejring trout our prey.

This argument, and another about fish's bemg
made for " man's pleasure and diet," are all that
anglershcsve to say for the innocence of their sport.
But they are both as rank sophistications as can be ;
mere beggings of the question. To kill fish out^
right b a different matter. Death is common to
all ; and a trout, speedily killed by a man, may
suffer no worse fate than from the jaws of a pike.
It is the mode, the lingering cat-like cruelty of the
angler's sport, that renders it unworthy. If fish
were made to be so treated, then men were also
made to be racked and throttled by inquisitors.
Indeed among other advantages of angling. Cotton
reckons up a tame, fishlike acquiescence to what-
ever the powerful choose to inflict.

We scratch not our pates,
Nor repine at the rates

ANGLING. ax

Our superiors impose on our living ;

But do frankly submit.

Knowing they have more wit

In demanding, than we have in giving.

Whilst quiet we sit.

We conclude all things fit.

Acquiescing with hearty submission, &c.

And this was no pastoral fiction. The anglers of
those times, whose skill became famous from the
celebrity of their names, chiefly in divinity, were
great £Edlers-in with passive obedience. They
seemed to think (whatever they found it necessary
to say now and then upon that point) that the
great had as much right to prey upon men, as the
small had upon fishes ; only the men luckily had
not hooks put into their jaws, and the sides of their
cheeks torn to pieces. The two most famous anglers
in history are Antony and Cleopatra. These ex-
tremes of the angling character are very edifying.

We should like to know what these grave divines
would have said to the heavenly maxim of " Do as
you would be done by.'* Let us imagine ourselves,
for instance, a sort of human fish. Air is but a
rarer fluid ; and at present, in this November
weather, a supernatural being who should look
down upon us from a higher atmosphere, would
have some reason to regard us as a kind of pedes-
trian carp. Now £uicy a Genius fishing for us.
Fancy him baiting a great hook with pickled
salmon, and twitching up old Isaac Walton from
the banks of the river Lee, with the hook through
his ear. How he would go up, roaring and scream-
ing, and thinking the devil had got him !

aa LEIGH HUNT.

Other joys
Are but toys.

We repeat, that if fish were made to be so
treated, then we were just as much made to be
racked and suffocated ; and a footpad might have
argued that old Isaac was made to have his pocket
picked, and be tumbled into the river. There b
no end of these idle and selfish beggings of the
question, which at last argue quite as much against
us as for us. And granting them, for the sake of
argument, it is still obvious, on the very same
ground, that men were also made to be taught
better. We do not say, that all anglers are of a
cruel nature ; many of them, doubtless, are amiable
men in other matters. They have only never
thought perhaps on that side of the question, or
been accustomed from childhood to blink it. But
once thinking, their amiableness and their practice
become incompatible ; and if they should wish, on
that account, never to have thought upon the, sub-
ject, they would only show, that they cared for
their own exemption from suffering, and not for
its diminution in general.^

1 Perhaps the best thing to be said finally about angling
is, that not being able to detenmne whether ^sh feel it
very sensibly or otherwise, we ought to give them the
benefit rather than the disadvantage of the doubt, where
we can help it; and our feelings the benefit, where we
cannoL

FESKUARV. MAMCH.

FEBRUARY.

•■

the fiBiwIiy

wheat, sets carij potatoes, dnans wetlands
and repaiis bedges lops tiees, aDd plants
kind diat love a wet soil, sdb as popiais,
and willows. Here is die nofakst
jteilbr a iBtkM,— die healdKst is its
tlie most tndy ncfa and letmiHig in its

MARCH.

«* Litennr Ftaket Book " ef iti9.]

£ scanrtiMcs, it iBast be O0B§BBedy as if
in a fit of tlie spleen, frindris the bnds
wbiciibebas dned froBblowinc; and
it is allowable in the less robort part of
hisfiriends oat of doon, to object to -the fioicj he
has for coming in sodi a cstting manna firan the
East Bat it may be tndy said, that the oftener
yoQ meet him fiimly, the less he wiD diake jm ;
and the moie smiles yon wiD haie firam the fur
months that fonow him.

LEtGH HUNT.

MAY.

«

[From the *' Months," x8ai, which is reprinted from the
literary Pocket Book " of 1819.]

|HE former does little but leisurely weed
his garden, and enjoy the sight of his
flowering industry ; the sun stops long,
and beg^ to let us feel him warmly ;
and when the vital sparkle of the day is over, in
sight and sound, the nightingale still continues to
tell us its joy ; the moon seems to be vratching us,
as a mother does her sleeping child ; and the little
glowworm lights up her trusting lamp, to show her
lover where she is.

DAWN.

["Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla,** 1847. Reprinted
from " Ainsworth's Magazine** 1844.]

£E also the Satyr's account of dawn [in
Fletcher's " Faithful Shepherdess "],
which opens with the four most ex-
quisite lines perhaps in the whole

See, the day begins to break.
And ike ligki shoots like a strtak
0/ subtle Jirt, The wind blows cold^
WhiU the morning doth unfold.

Who has not felt this mingled charmingness and
chilliness (we do not use the words for the sake of
the alliteration) at the first opening of the morning !

DAWN, is

Yet none but the finest poets venture upon thus
combining pleasure with something that might be
thought a drawback. But it is truth ; and it is
truth in which the beauty surmounts the pain ; and
therefore th^give it. And how simple and straight-
fonn^ard is every word ! There are no artificial
tricks of composition here. The words are not
suggested to the truth by the author, but to the
author by the truth. We feel the wind blowing as
simply as it does in nature ; so that if the reader be
artificially trained, and does not bring a feeling for
truth vdth him analogous to that of the poet, the
veiy simplicity is in danger of losing him the per-
ception of the beauty. And yet there is art as well
as nature in the verses ; for art in the poet must
perfect what nature does by her own art. Observe,
for instance, the sudden and strong emphasis on
the word shoots, and the variety of tone and modu-
lation in the whole passage, and the judicious
exceptions of the two o*s in the wind "blows cold,"
whidi have the solemn continuous sound of what
it describes : also the corresponding ones in " doth
unfold," which maintain the like continuity of the
growing daylight. And exquisite, surely, is the
dilatory and golden sound of the word "morning *'
between them :

The wind blows cold,
While the mar^mng doth unfold.

96 LBIGH HUNT.

FINE DAYS IN JANUARY AND
FEBRUARY.*

[" The Companion/' Jan. 30th, zSaS. ** Indicator aiid
Companion/* X834. C Kent, 1889.]

' E speak of those days, unexpected, sun-
shiny, cheerful, even vernal, which come
towards the end of January, and are too
apt to come alone. They are often set
in the midst of a series of rainy ones, like a patch
of blue in the sky. Fine weather is much at any
time, after or before the end of the year ; but, in
the latter case, the days are still winter days;
whereas, in the former, die year beii^ turned, and
March and April before us, we seem to feel the
coming of spring. In the streets and squares, the
ladies are abroad, with their colours and glowing
cheeks. If you can hear anything but noise, you
hear the sparrows. People anticipate at breakfiet
the pleasure they shall have in " getting out." The
solitary poplar in a comer looks green against the
sky ; and the brick wall has a warmth in it. Then
in the noisier streets, what a multitude and a new
life ! What horseback ! What promenading !
What shopping, and giving good day I Bonnets
encounter bonnets : — ^all the Miss Williamses meet
all the Miss Joneses ; and everybody wonders, par-
ticularly at nothing. The shop-windows, putting
forward their best, may be said to be in blossom.
The yellow carriages flash in the sunshine ; foot-

1 Cf. " Sudden fine weather/' in vol. ii.

FINE DAYS IN JANUARY *• FEBRUARY. 27

men rejoice in their white calves, not dabbed, as
usual, with rain ; the gossips look out of their
three-pair-of-stairs windows ; other windows are
thrown open ; fruiterers* shops look well, swelling
with full baskets ; pavements are found to be diy ;
lapdogs frisk under their asthmas ; and old gentle- '
men issue forth, peering up at the r^on of the
north-east.

Then in the country, how emerald the green,
how open-looking the prospect I Honeysuckles
(a name alone with a garden in it) are detected in
blossom ; the hazel follows ; the snowdrop hangs
its white perfection, exquisite with green; we
fancy the trees are already thicker; voices of
winter birds are taken for new ones ; and in Feb-
ruary new ones come — ^the thrush, the chaffinch,
and the wood-lark. Then rooks b^^ to pair ; and
the wagtail dances in the lane. As we write this
article, the sun is on our paper, and chanticleer (the
same, we trust, that we heard the other day) seems
to crow in a very different style, lord of the ascen-
dant, and as willing to be with his wives abroad
as at home. We think we see him, as in Chaucer's
homestead :

He loolcethy as it were, a grim leoiun ;
And on his toes he roameth up and down ;
Him deigneth not to set his foot to ground ;
He ducketh when he hath a com yfound,
And to him runnen then his wiv^ aU.

Will the reader have the rest of the picture, as
Chaucer gave it ? It is as bright and strong as
the day itself, and as suited to it as a iaXcon to a
knight's fist Hear how the old poet throws forth

88 LEIGH HUNT,

his strenuous music ; as fine, considered as niere
music and versification, as the description is plea-
sant and noble.

His comb was redder than the fine coridl,
Embattled as it were a castle wall ;
His biU was black, and as the jet it shone ;
Like azure was his legg^ and his tone ;
His nail^ whiter than the lilly flower.
And like the bumM gold was his coloiir.

Hardly one pause like the other throughout, and
yet all flowing and sweet. The pause on the third
syllable in the last line but one, and that on the
sixth in the last, together with the deep variety ot
vowels, make a beautiful concluding couplet ; and
indeed the whole is a study for versification. So
little were those old poets unaware of their task,
as some are apt to suppose them ; and so little
have others dreamt, that they surpassed them in
their own pretensions. The accent, it is to be ob-
served, in those concluding words, as coral and
colour, is to be thrown on the last syllable, as it is
in Italian. Coldr, coldre, and Chaucer's old Anglo-
Gallican word, is a much nobler one than our
modem one cblour. We have injured many such
words, by throwing back the accent.

We should b^ pardon for this digression, if it
had not been part of our understood agreement
with the reader to be as desultory as we please,
and as befits Companions. Our very enjoyment
of the day we are describing would not let us be
otherwise. It is abo an old fancy of ours to as-
sociate the ideas of Chaucer with that of any early
and vigorous manifestation of light and pleasure.

THE WALK IN THE WOOD, 99

He is not only the " momii^-star " of our poetry,
as Denham called him, but the morning itself, and
a good bit of the noon ; and we could as soon
help quoting him at the b^inning of the year,
as we could help wishing to hear the cry of prim-
roses, and thinking of the sweet faces that buy
them.

THE WALK IN THE WOOD.

A PROSE POEM BY A LITTLE BOY.
[" Monthly Repository/ Dec. 1837.]

JHILDREN are, more or less, poets by.
nature, they are so disposed to enjoy
existence and to see the beautiful and
admirable wherever they cast their
eyes. And if it is not ^otism in a father to think
it, there is a genuine poetical feeling in the follow-
ing simple and joyous observations made by a little
\3oy^ in the companiable gaiety of his heart, while
strolling with him in the Bishop's Wood, between
Highgate and Hampstead. He had no suspicion,
of course, that he was uttering anything unusual,
or that his fiither was taking the words down. It
was a sort of human bird-song, uttered out of the
fulness of comfort]

" It would be nice to have a little house in this
wood, and to walk out of it whenever we chose,
and take a little grun walk,

" You look for violets on that side, and I will
look on this ; and then we shall be wanderers.

30 LEIGH HUNT,

'* It is a good joy y having found this wood.
" Ah, you are writing : — ^it is convenient, that, —
to be able to write in a little green woodJ*

A "NOW."

DESCRIPTIVE OF A HOT DAY.

[" Indicator," June 38th, x8aa '* London Journal,'* July
33rd, 2834. "Indicator and Companion,** 1834. '*Tale
for Chimney Comer,** 2869. A. Symons, x888. C Kent,
X889.]

OW the rosy- (and lazy-) fingered Aurora,
issuing firom her safiron house, calls up
the moist vapours to surround her, and
goes veiled ¥dth them as long as she
can ; till Phoebus, coming forth in his power, looks
ever3rthing out of the sky, and holds /sharp uninter-
rupted empire from his throne of beams. Now the
mower begins to make his sweeping cuts more
slowly, and resorts oftener to the beer. Now the
carter sleeps a-top of his load of hay, or plods with
double slouch of shoulder, looking out with eyes
winking under his shading hat, and with a hitch
upward of one side of his mouth. Now the Httle
girl at her grandmother's cottage-door watches the
coaches that go by, with her hand held up over her
sunny forehead. Now labourers look well resting
in their white shirts at the doors of rural alehouses.
Now an elm is fine there, with a seat under it ;
and horses drink out of the trough, stretching their
yearning necks with loosened collars; and the
traveller calls for his glass of ale, having been with-

A "^KOm* jv

out ooe fcr BMve tliaB tcs wimtK%\ laikiikaEK

his skin, and mofs^ to ai in Mi wtMBOamA

docked tail; and dov Wm Bccj WBna, ife

host's daBgliteryOOBKSStiCHHHi^fiBABaflovaBd

fdlfingeis the inaiing ^bs* for vUdb, iter ife

ent Cfe, kxikiig anoAer vay, ife Irafri nro-

pence : that is to aj, nnless the tBvcfler, ■oddH^

his iiidd]^ £ikoe, pajs sobk giBiBf ooHpfaKat to

her brlore he dnda, sidh as, Td other Uv

jou, mj dear, dian the tuBUei," oi; " n wA

if the man is good-loQki^ aMl the Uj ai eood-

imimii- ^oC ^^^U^S ^HD I^^^S ^^S^ IHI^L ^^^H ^BV^L

old sti^e-coadiHaB, iHk> is ImIIi^ aoBedi^

near her, before he sets dt, sufs aa a hoane voioe.

"So can wooMn too iv thai aatter,* ami John

Boots grins unongh faisnggBd icd locks ana ooats

on die lepaitee afl the dsjr aAcc. Xow ^lais-

hoppets"67,''asDi7daisqrs. Kovcaidesand

shoes, and trees bf the load-side, ase dack vidb

dnst; and dogs, nOh^iB it, after nni^otf of &e

water, into whidi th^ ha:«<e been dnown to fetch

sticks, come scattering honor ainnng the lep oC

the spectators. Now a feOoar iHk> finds he has

thpee anles finther to go aa a pak of tight shoes, is

in a pretty sdnation. Now ioobbs with die shi

upon them become mtnlcrahle ; and the apoAe-

39 LEIGH HUNT,

thinks of the pond he used to bathe in at aehooL
Now men with powdered heads (especially if thick)
envy those that are unpowdered, and stop to wipe
them up hill, with countenances that seem to ex-
postulate with destiny. Now boys assemble round
the village pump with a ladle to it, and delight to
make a forbidden splash and get wet through the
shoes. Now also they make suckers of leather, and
bathe all day long in rivers and ponds, and follow
the fish into their cool comers and say millioiis
of " MY eyes ! ** at " titUebats." Now the bee.
as he hums along, seems to be talking hekvily
of the heat. Now doors and brick-walls ate
burning to the hand; and a walled lane, with
dust and broken bottles in it, near a brick-field, is
a thing not to be thought of. Now a green lane*
on the contrary, thick-set with hedge-row dms,
and having the noise of a brook *' rumbling in
pebble-stone," is one of the pleasantest thii^ in
the world. Now youths and damsels walk through
hayfields, by chance, and the latter say, *' Ha'
done then, William ; " and the overseer in the
next field calls out to '* let thic thear hay thear
bide ; " and the girls persist merely to plague
'* such a frumpish old fellow."

Now, in town, gossips talk more than ever to
one another, in rooms, in door-ways, and out of
window, always beginning the conversation with
saying that the heat is overpowering. Now blinds
are let down, and doors thrown open, and flannel
waistcoats left off, and cold meat preferred to hot,
and wonder expressed why tea continues so refiresh-
ing, and people delight to sliver lettuces into bowls.

and jt pp ien tic es vatcrdoorvqis with t
that lay sereial atxass ct &aA. Kov
cait, jnmiblmg akng tbe awldle of the stieet, and
jol6og the showers out of itsboK of watet, reaHy
does somethmg. Nov hmtkcK*^ lihops
look pleasant, and ices are the only tibings to
who can get them. Kov Indies loiter in IntdiB ;
and people make presents of Aowcb; and vines
pgtintoioe; andtheafterHBpner kjning e i wnratrs
his head withapphcatiaBS of pei&BBed vaier ont cf
kng-nedLed bottles. Mow the knmeer, mho can-
not resist ri^ng his new hone, fcels bis boots bmx
hhn. Now lawt^Hns are not the lawn of Cgl^
Now jockeys, walking in great-ooats to
cwse inward^. Now five fat peopl e
ooadi hate the siith €tt one iHk> is oonaiBg in, and
think he ham no right to be so Uigu Kowdeiks
m office do nnlbiHg bat dnnk soda-water and
spmce-beer, and read the newi|ja|ieEi Now tbc
old-elothesman drops bis wditaiy ay more ilecfii}

into the areas OB the hot and fonakcn side of the
street; and bakers look Tioons; and cooks
agg^vated; and the steam of a
catdies hold of one l&e the breath of Ta
Now delicate skins are beset with gnats ; and boys
make their sleeping compoBiian stait w p, with
playing a

smiths are snper-c ai faop a ied ; and cobblers in their
stalls almost fed a wish to be tma^ilaaled ; and
batter is too easy to spread; and the diagooitt
wonder whether the Romans liked thdr *»»''«^«^ ;

^ Cms xvx/ck, a tkam idmd ci sUk or
idnd of Cos, aOiided to bj Hcnoe.— £d

I.

34 LEIGH HUNT,

and old ladies, with their lappets unpinned, walk
along in a state of dilapidation ; and the servant-
maids are afraid they look vulgarly hot ; and the
author, who has a plate of strawberries brought
him, finds that he has come to the end of his
writing.

We cannot conclude this article, however, with-
out returning thanks, both on our own account and
on that of our numerous predecessors, who have
left so laige a debt of gratitude unpaid, to this very
useful and ready monosyllable — " Now." We are
sure that there is not a didactic poet, ancient or
modem, who, if he possessed a decent share of
candour, would not be happy to own his obliga-
tions to that masterly conjunction, which possesses
the very essence of wit, for it has the art of haog-
ing the most remote things together. And its gene-
rosity is in proportion to its ¥dt, for it always is most
profuse of its aid where it is most wanted.

We must enjoy a pleasant passage ¥dth the
reader on the subject of this "eternal Now" in
Beaumont and Fletcher's play of the "Woman-
Hater." ^

1 We have not room to enjoy it here, and it is therefore
omitted. The above paper was a special &vourite with
Keats, who contributed one or two passages to it.— "Auto-
biography," p. 350.— Ed.

A ""now:' 35

A "NOW.''

DESCRIPTIVE OF A COLD DAY.
'* Now, all amid the rigours of the year."— Thomson.

["London Journal," Dec 3rd, 1834. "Seer," z84a A.
Symons, z888. C. Kent, 1889.]

FRIEND tells us, that having written
a "Now," descriptive of a hot day [see
previous essay], we ought to write
another, descriptive of a cold one ; and
accordingly we do so. It happens that we are, at
this minute, in a state at once fit and unfit for the
task, being in the condition of the little boy at
school, who, when asked the Latin for ''cold,"
said he had it "at his fingers* ends ; " but this
helps us to set off with a right taste of our sub-
ject; and the fire, which is clicking in our ear,
shall soon enable us to handle it comfortably in
other respects.

Now^ then, to commence. — But first, the reader
who is good-natured enough to have a regard for
these papers, may choose to be told of the origin
of the use of this word Now, in case he is not al-
ready acquainted with it.* It was suggested to us
by the striking convenience it affords to descriptive
writers, such as Thomson and others, who are
fond of beginning their paragraphs with it, thereby
saving themselves a world of trouble in bringing
about a nicer conjunction of ^the various parts of
their subject
New when the first foul torrent of the brooks—

36 LEIGH HUNT.

Now flaming up to heaven, the potent sun —

Now when the cheerless empire of the sky —

But now —

When now —

Where now —

For now — &c

We say nothing of similar words among other
nations, or of a certain But of the Greeks which
was as nsefiil to them on all occasions as the And
jip of the little children's stories. Our. bosiBtts is
with our old indigenous friend. No other Norn
can be. so present, so instantaneous, jso extreme^
NaWf as our owa Now. The now of the.Latins,
— Nwu^ oijoptf as he .sometimes calls himself,^-**
is a fellow of past ages. He is no Now^ And
the Ntm oi the Greek is older. How can there
be a Now which was TTk^f a « Ncm-tken^y as
we sometimes barbarously phrase it *' Now omd.
then " is intelligible ; but " l«{ow-then" is an ex-
travagance, fit only for the delicious moments of a
gentleman about to crack his bottle, or to run
away with a lady, or to open a dance, or to carve
a turkey and chine, or to pelt snow-balls, or to
commit some other piece of ultra-vivacity, such as
excuses a man from the nicer proprieties of
language.

But to begin.

Ncfw the moment people wake in the morning,
they perceive the coldness with their faces^ though,
they are warm with their bodies, and exclaim
" Here's a day ! " and pity the poor little sweep,
and the boy with the water-cresses. How any-
body, can go to a cold ditch, and gather water-

38 LEtGH MUST,

from the baker's ; and people who come with
sij^le knocks at the door are pitied; and the
voices of boys are loud in the street, sliding or
throwing snow-balls ; and the dustman's bell
sounds cold ; and we wonder how anybody can go
about selling fish, especially with that hoarse
voice ; and schoolboys hate their slates, and blow
their fingers, and detest infinitely the no-fire at
school; and the parish-beadle's nose is redder
than ever.

Now sounds in general are dull, and smoke out
of chimnies looks warm and rich, and birds are
pitied, hopping about for crumbs, and the trees
look wiry and cheerless, albeit they are still
beautiful to imaginative . eyes, especially the ever-
greens, and the birch vdth boughs like dishevelled
hair. Now mud in roads is stiff, and the kennel
ices over, and boys make illegal slides in the path-
ways, and ashes are strewed before doors ; or you
crunch the snow as you tread, or kick mud-flakes
before you, or are horribly muddy in cities. But
if it is a hard frost, all the world is buttoned
up and great-coated, except ostentatious elderly
gentlemen, and pretended b^;gars with naked
feet; and the delicious sound of "All hot" is
heard from roasted apple and potato stalls, the
vender himself being cold, in spite of his " hot,"
and stamping up and down to warm his feet ; and
the little boys are astonished to think how he can
eat bread and cold meat for his dinner, instead of
the smoking apples.

Now skaiters are on the alert ; the cutlers' shop-
windows abound with their swift shoes; and as

A **N01Vr 39

you approach the scene of action (pond or canal)
you hear the dull grinding noise of die skaits to and
fro, and see tumbles, and Banbury cake-men and
blackguard boys playing "hockey," and ladies
standing shivering on the banks, admiring anybody
but their brother, especially the gentleman who is
cutting figures of eight, who, for his part, is ad-
miring his own figure. Beginners affect to laugh
at their tumbles, but are terribly angry, and long
to thump the bye-standers. On thawing days,
idlers persist to the last in skaiting or sliding
amidst the slush and bending ice, making the
Humane-Sodety-man ferocious. He feels as if
he could give them the deaths from which it is his
business to save them. When you have done
skaiting, you come away feeling at once warm and
numb in the feet, from the tight effect of the skaits ;
and you carry them with an ostentatious air of in-
difference, as if you had done wonders; whereas
you have fairly had three slips, and can barely
achieve the inside edge.

Now riders look sharp, and horses seem brittle
in the legs, and old gentlemen feel so ; and coach-
men, cabmen, and others, stand swinging their
anns across at their sides to warm themselves ; and
blacksmiths* shops look pleasant, and potato shops
detestable; the fishmongers' still more so. We
wonder how he can live in that plash of wet and
cold fish, ¥dthout even a window. Now clerks in
oiices envy the one next the fire-place ; and men
from behind counters hardly think themselves re-
paid by being called out to speak to a G)untess in
her chariot ; and the wheezy and effeminate pastry-

40 LBIGH HUNT,

cook, hatless and aproned, and with his hand in
his breeches-pockets (as the graphic Cmikshank
noticeth in his almanack) stagds outside his door,
chilling his household warmth with attending to
the ice which is brought him, and seeing Jt «n-
loaded into his cellar like coals. Comfortably look
the Mis% Joneses, coming this way with their mu&.
and fius; and the baker pities the majd-servant
cleaning the steps, who, for her part, says she is
not cold, which he find^ it difficult to believe.

Now dinner rejoiceth. the gatherers together,
and cold meat is despised, and the gout defieth the
morrow, thinking it but reasonal^e on SQch.a day
to inflame itself with *< t'other bottle j" ai^ the
sofiei is wheeled round to the fire after dinner^ and
people proceed to burn their 1^ in their boots,
and little boys their faces; and youqg ladies are
tormented between the cold and their complexions,
and their fingers freeze at the piano-forte, bpt they
must not say so,, because it will vex ^<sax poor com-
fortable grand-aunt, who is sitting ^wi^i her knees
in the fire, and who is so anxious that they should
not be spoilt.

Now the muffin-bell soundeth sweetly in the
streets, reminding us, not of the man, but hiis
muffins, and of twilight, and evening, and cui^tains,
and the fireside. JNfow play-goers get cold feet,
and invalids stop up every crevice in their rooms,
and make themselves worse ; and the street^ are
comparatively silent ; and the wind rises and falls
in meanings ; and fires burn blue and crackle ;
and an easy-chair widi your feet by it on a stool,
the lamp or pandles a ^ttle behind ypu, axid an i^-

A ''NOW,** 41

teresting book just opened where you left off, is a
bit of heaven upon earth. People in cottages crowd
close into the chimney, and tell stories of ghosts
and murders, the blue flame affording something
like evidence of the £u:ts.

" The owl, with all her feathers, is a-cold," ^

or you think her so. The whole country feels like
a petri&ction of slate and stillness, .cut across by
the wind ; and nobody in the mail-coach is warm
but the horses, who steam pitifully when they^top.
The " oldest man " makes a point of never having
''seen such weather.*' People have a painful
doubt whether they have any chins or not ; ears
adie with the wind ; and- the waggoner, setting his
teeth together, goes puckering up his cheeks, and
thmVing the time will never arrive when he shall
get to the Five Bells.

At night, people get sleepy with the fireside,
and long to go to bed, yet fear it on account of the
different temperature of the bed-room ; which is
furthermore apt to wake them up. Warming-pans
and hot-water bottles are in request ; and naughty
boys eschew their night-shirts^ and go to bed in
their socks.

" Yes," quoth a little boy, to whom we read this
passage, "and make their younger brother go to
bed first"

1 Keati, in the " Eve of Sl Agnes." Mr. Keats gave us
a^me toadies in our account U the " Hot Day " (first pub-
lished in the " Indicator ") a^ we sat writing it in his com-
pany, alas ! how many years back. We have here made
him contribute to our "Cold Day." Thus it is to have
inuBortal friends whose company never forsakes us.

4* LEIGH HUNT,

GETTING UP ON COLD MORNINGS^

[''Indicator/* Jan. X9th, xSoo. "Indicator and Com-
panion," 1834. "Tale for a Chimney Comer," 1869. A.
Symons, x888.]

[N Italian author — Giolio Cordara, a
Jesuit — ^has written a poem upon in-
sects, which he begins by insisting, that
those troublesome and abominable little
animals were created for our annoyance, and that
they were certainly not inhabitants of Paradise.
We of the north may dispute this i»ece of theology ;
but on the other hand, it is as clear as the snow qicl
the house-tops, that Adam was not under the
necessity of shaving ; and that when Eve walked
out of her delicious bower, she did not step upon
ice three inches thick.

Some people say it is a very easy thing to get up
of a cold morning. You have only, they tell you,
to take the resolution; and the thing is done.
This may be very true ; just as a boy at school has
only to take a flogging, and the thing is over. But
we have not at all made up our minds upon it ;
and we find it a very pleasant exercise to discuss
the matter, candidly, before we get up. This at
least is not idling, though it may be lying. It
affords an excellent answer to those, who ask how
lying in bed can be indulged in by a reasoning
being, — a rational creature. How? Why with

1 The other side of the argument is given in the " Seer,"
No. Vlll., under the title, " A word on early vising."— Ed.

GETTING UP ON COLD MORNINGS. 43

the aigament calmly at work in one's head, and
the clothes over one's shoulder. Oh — it is a fine
way of spending a sensible, impartial half-hour.

If these people would be move diaritable, they
would get on with their argument better. But
they are apt to reason so ill, and to assert so dog-
matically, that one could wish to have them stand
round one's bed of a bitter morning, and lie before
their &ces. They oi^ht to hear both sides of the
bed, the Inside and out. If they cannot entertain
themselves with theb own thoi^hts for half an
hour or so, it is not the £udt d[ those who can. If
tfadr will is never pulled aside by the enticing
arms of imagination, so much the luckier for the
stage*coachman.

Candid inquiries into one's decumbency, besides
the greater or less privileges to be allowed a man
in proportion to his ability ci keeping early hours,
the work given his faculties, &c., will at least con-
cede their due merits to sndi representations as the
following. In the first place, says the injured but
cabn appealer, I have been warm all n^t, and find
my system in a state perfectly suitable to a warm-
blooded animaL To get out of this state into the
cold, besides the inharmonious and uncritical
abruptness of the transition, is so unnatural to
such a creature, that the poets, refining upon the
tortures of the damned, make one of their greatest
agonies oonsbt in being suddenly tranqxxted firom
heat to cold, — from fire to ice. They are "haled "
out of their "beds," says Milton, by "harpy-
footed fiuries," — fellows who come to call them.
On my first movement towards the anticipatioo of

44 LEIGH HUNT,

getting up, I find that such parts of the sheets and
bokter, as are exposed to the air of the room, are
stone-cold. On opening my eyes, the first thing
that meets them is my own breath rolling forth, as
if in the open air, like smoke out of a cottage
chimney. Think of this symptom. Then I turn
my eyes sidewAys and see the window all fitieen
over. Think of that. Then the servant oomes in.
'* It is very cold this momii^, is it not?**— *^ Very
coW, Sir.*'— "Veiy cold indeed, isn*t^ it?"—
" Very cold indeed. Sir." — ^* More than usually
so, isn't it, even for this weather?^' ' (Heie tiie
servant's wit and good-nature are put to « con-
siderable test, and the inquirer lies on thorns fer
the answer.) "Why, Sir. ... I thmk it tir,"
(Good creature ! There is not a better, or more
truth-telling servant going.) ^'I must fise,iM>w-
ever — get me some warm water." — ^Here coiiies a
fine interval between the departure of the flervani
and the arrival of the hot water; durii^ whkb^of
course, it is of "no use** to get up. The hot water'
comes. " Is it quite hot?"— "Yes, Sir."^*— ^ Per-
haps too hot for shaving: I must wait a httte?"-*-
" No, Sir ; it will just do." (There is an over-
nice propriety sometimes, an c^cious seal of
virtue, a little troublesome.) "Oh— the shirt^^
you must air my clean ^irt;^ — linen gets'veiy
damp this weather/'—** Yes, Sir.** Here another
delicious five minutes. A knock at the door;-
"Oh, the shirt — very well. My stockii^;s — I
think the stockings had better be aired toow****^
"Very wellj Sir." — Here another interval* At
length everything is ready, exc^ myself I now,

GETTING UP ON COLD MORNINGS. 45

ooadmies oar iaci u abent (a bappT wixd, bj Uk
faje, for a oomitrf Ticar) — I now cibdoC help
fhin^^wg a good deal — who can ? — npca the on*
necessary and viUaiiioos castom of sfaaTing : it is a
thing so nnmanly (here I nestle closer) — so tScmt-
Date (here I leoofl firom an nnincky step into the
colder part of the bed.) — ^No wonder that the
(^oeea of Fiance took part with the lebds against
that degenerate King, her hosband, who first
affronted her smooth visage with a fact Hke her
own. The Emperor Jnhan never showed the
faDcmiancy of his genins to better advantage than in
reviving the flowing beard. Look at Cardinal
Bembo's pictnre— at Michael Angelo's— at Utian's
•—at Shake^waie V-at Fletdier's— at Spenser's—
at Chaacer's— at Alfred's— at Plato's~I coaM
name a great man for every tide of my watch. —
Look at the Turks, a grave and odose people. —
Thmk of Haroon Al Rasdiid and Bed-ridden
HaiBsan, — ^Thiak (^ Wortky Montague;, the worthy
son of his mother, a man above the prejodioe of
his time. — Look at the Persian gentlemen, whom
one is ashamed oi meetii^ about the sabmbs, their
dress and appearance are so moch finer than oar
own. — ^Lastly, think of the razor itself— how
totally opposed to every sensation oi bed — how
cold, how edgy, how hard ! how utterly difierent
frvMtt anything like the warm and drdii^ ampli-
tude, which

Sweedy ncominends itself
Unto our gentle senscSb

Add to this, benumbed fingers, which may help
yon to cut yourself^ a quivering body, a frose^i

46 LSIGH HUNT,

towel, and a ewer fiill of ice ; and he that says
there is nothing to oppose in all this, only shows,
at any rate, that he has no merit in opposing it

Thomson the poet, who exclaims in his
Seasons —

Falsely luzurioas I Will not man awake f

used to lie in bed till noon, because he said he had
no motive in getting up. He could imagine the
good of rising ; but then he could also imagine the
good of lying still; and his exclamation, it must
be allowed, was made upon summer-time, not
winter. We must proportion the argument to the
individual character. A money-getter may be
drawn out of his bed by three and four pence ; but
this will not suffice for a student. A proud man
may say, "What shall I think of myself, if I don't
get up?" but the more humble one will be content
to waive this prodigious notion of himself, out of
respect to his kindly bed. The mechanical man
shall get up without any ado at all ; and so shall
the barometer. An ingenious Her in bed will find
hard matter of discussion even on the score of
health and longevity. He will ask us for our
proofs and precedents of the ill efifects of lying
later in cold weather ; and sophisticate much on
the advantages of an even temperature of body; of
the natural propensity (pretty universal) to have
one's way; and of the anknals that roll themselves
up, and sleep all the winter. As to longevity, he
will ask whether the longest life is of necessity the
best; and whether Holbom is the handsomest
street in London.

fif BBC raSaoBaSa^ ao: ir
jc ID rraemnx. ItK

and tlK bat w^^D^cail-

ID'

X i0&; 'fine "dK

to get tlK Ikmbc ioiD vkokk, imk» le

Aatt JOB ane sane he wTinliii do Tiihigfr ijpi.irj tmiss^

so hm^m^KKH^m
healdi; bat Idl kin dkot k s so iDofiDKni
to JOB ; dnt the sif^ <i hs Shies
people fldfcrdBBoae; bat ihn il, acvcrcbciea^ be
leaUydoesfeelsovajiieepf and so vcl73n■db■e«
6cdledb|F— -^ Ycttfj^; webanSj^laov'BfbflSba'
thefiEuhjcfa Yes fs ; iqr ihtt tOD^

48 LBIGH HUNT.

ally if you say it with sincerity ; for if the weakness
of human nature on the one hand and the vii
inertia on the other, should lead him to take ad-
vantage of it once or twice, good-humour and sin-
cerity form an irresistible junction at last ; and are
still better and warmer things than pillows and
blankets.

Other little helps of appeal may be thrown in,*
as occasion requires. You may tell a lover, for
instance, that lying in bed makes people corpulent;
a Aither, that you wish him to complete the fine
manly example he sets his children ; a lady, tha£
she will injure her bloom or her shape, which VL
or W. admires so much ; and a student or artist,
that he is alwa3rs so glad to have done a good day's
work, in his best manner;

R$ader, And pray, Mr. Indicator, how do ym$
behave yourself in this respect ?

Indie, Oh, Madam, perfectly, of course ; like
all advisers.

Rtader. Nay, I allow that your mode of argu-
ment does not look quite so suspicious as the old
way of sermonizing and severity, but I have my
doubts, especially from that laugh of yours. If I
should look in to-morrow morning —

/fii/rV. Ah, Madam, the look in of a face like
yours does anything with me. It shall fetch me
up at nine, if you please — xrr, I meant to say.

*
I

THE OLD GEWTLEMAS.

THE OLD CXNTUJIAN.

the
ported ^LoKj ci the
i^iite, mijiiteof his

to set OQ the chair befaiod hM, ad pd the
hahs out, ten Tcais ^OL If he is bald at top, the

like a second jotth, takes care to f^ the Ud
place as aiiicfa powder as the
that he may convey to the
pkash:^ imltMii i f l a ess of idea
limits of ddn and hair. He is very
neat ; and, in warm weather, is pRnd of
his waistcoat half-waj down, and lettiiig so
of his friU be seen, in order to show his
as weU as taste. His watch and sfairt-battaaB mt
of the best; and he does not care if he has two
rii^ on a finger. If his watch ever £uled hm at
the dob or cofiise-bowse, he w«dd take m. walk
every day to the nearest dock of good
purdy to keep it right. He has a camt at
I. c

50 LEIGH HUNT,

but seldom uses it, on finding it out of fieishion with
his elderly juniors. He has a small cocked hat for
gala days* which he lifts higher from his head than
the round one, when made a bow to. In his
pockets are two handkerdiiefs (one for the neck at
night-time), his spectacles, and his pocket-book.
The pocket-book, among other things, onBtrini a
receipt for a cough, and some verses cut o«t of an
odd sheet of an old magazine, on the lovely Dndbtss
(^A., beginning —

When beauteous Mira vaUct the plam.

He intends this for a common-place book which
he keeps, consisting of passages in verse and prose,
cut out of newspapers and magazines, and pasted
in columns ; some of them rather gay. His prin-
cipal other books ^ are Shakespeare's Plays and
Milton's Paradise Lost; the Spectator, the His-
tory of England, the Works of Lady M. W.
Montague, Pope and Churchill ; Middleton's Geo-
graphy ; the Gentleman's Magadne ; Sir John
Sinclair on Longevity; several plays with portraits
in character; Account of Elizabeth Canning,
Memoirs of George Ann Bellamy, Poetical Amuse-
ments at Bath-E^ston, Blair's Works, Elegant
Extracts ; Junius as originally published ; a few
pamphlets on the American War and Lord
George Gordon, ftc, and one on the Frendi Revo-
lution. In his sitting-rooms are some engravings
from Hogarth and Sur Joshua ; an engraved por-

1 Thb is only one of the nnmerous proofs — ^in his books
and letters — of the width of Leigh Hunt's own acquaintance
with literature, whidi would sufixest to him at oneebooks
sttitabk for any taste or subject.— £d.

THR OLD GENTLEMAN, 5*

trait of the Maiqais of Granby ; ditto of M. k
Gmite de GrassesarrenderiDg to Admiral Rodney ;
a bomoious piece after Penny ; and a portrait of
himself, painted by Sir Joslraa. His wife's por-
trait is in his chamber, looking upon his bed. She
is a little girl, stepping forward with a smile, and
a pointed toe, as if going to dance. He lost her
when she was sixty.

The Old Gentleman is an early riser, because
he intends to live at least twenty years longer.
He continues to take tea for breakfast, in spite of
what is said against its nervous efifects ; having
been satisfied on that point some years ago by Dr.
Johnson's criticism on Hanway, and a great liking
for tea previously. His china cups and saucers
have been brokoi since his wife's death, all but
one^ which is religiously kept for his use. He
passes his morning in walking or riding, looking in
at anctioiis, looking after his India bonds or some
fudi money secu ri t ie s, fiirtherii^ some subscript
tion set on foot by his excellent friend Sir John, or
cheapening a new oki print for his portfolio. He
also hears of the newspapers ; not caring to see
them till after dinner at the coffee-house. He
may abo cheapen a fish or so; the fishmonger
soliciting his doubting eye as he passes, with a pro-
found bow of reoognitioo. He eats a pear b^oce
dinner.

His dinner at the cofiee-liouse is served va^ to
him at the accustomed boor, in the old accustomed
way, and by the accustomed waiter. If William
did not bang it, the fish would be sure to be stale,
and the flesh new. He eats 00 tart; or if he Yen-

5* -LEIGH HUNT,

tares on a little, takes cheese with it. You mig^t
as soon attempt to persuade him out of his senses,
as that cheese is not good for digestion. He takes
port ; and if he has drunk more than usual, and in
a more private place, may be induced by some re-
spectful inquiries respecting the old style of music,
to sing a song composed by Mr. Oswald or Mr.
Lampe, such as —

Chloe, by that borrowed last,
or

Ome, gentle god of toft repose,

or his wife's fiftvourite ballad, beginning —

At Uptoo OB the hill.
There lived a happy pair.

Of course, no such exploit can take place in the
coffee-room : but he will canvass the theory of that
matter there with you, or discuss the weather, or
the markets, or the theatres, or the merits of "my
lord North "or "my lord Rockingham;" for he
rarely says simply, lord; it is generally "my
lord," trippingly and genteelly off the tongue. If
alone after dinner, his great delight is the news-
paper; which he prepares to read by wiping his
spectacles, carefully adjusting them on his esres,
and dravong the candle close to him, so as to stand
sideways betwixt his ocular aim and the small
type. He then holds the paper at arm's length,
and dropping his eyelids half down and his mouth
half open, takes cognizance of the da3r's informa-
tion. If he leaves off, it is only when the door b
opened by a new-comer, or when he suspects
somebody is over-anxious to get the paper out of

THE OLD GENTLEMAN, 53

his hand. On these occasions he gives an impor-
tant hem 1 or so ; and resumes.

In the evening, our Old Gentleman is fond
of going to the theatre, or of having a game of
cards. If he enjoys the latter at his own house or
lodgings, he likes to play with some friends whom
he has known for many years; but an elderly
stranger may be introduced, if quiet and scientific;
and the privilege is extended to younger men of
letters ; who, if ill players, are good losers. Not
that he is a miser, but to win money at cards is
like proving his victory by getting the baggage ;
and to win of a younger man is a substitute for his
not being able to beat him at rackets. He breaks
np early, whether at home or abroad.

At the theatre, he likes a front row in the pit
He comes early, if he can do so without getting
into a squeeze, and sits patiently vraiting for the
drawing up of the curtain, with his hands placidly
lying one over the other on the top of his stick.
He generously admires some of the best per?
formers, but thinks them far inferior to Garrick,
Woodward, and Clive. During splendid scenes,
he is anxious that the little boy should see.

He has been induced to look in at Vauxhall
again, but likes it still less than he did years back,
and cannot bear it in comparison with Randagh*
lie thinks everything looks poor, flaring, and
jaded. " Ah !*' says he, with a sort of triumphant
sig^, " Ranelagh was a noble place ! Such tast^
such elegance, such beauty! There was the Duehesa
of A., the finest woman in England, Sir ; and Mrs«
Lb, a mifl^fine creature; and Lady Susan what'a

S« LEIGH HUNT.

her PMne, that had that u ni bi t iUM U eaffiLif with Sir
Charles. Sir, thej aane swimming by yon like the

The Old Gentleman is very partimlsr in haTing
sUtuJ C is ready far him at the fire, when he
cones home. He Is also eztxemely dioioe in his
snoff, and delists to get a fresh boxinll in
Taiwtock-street, in his way to the theatre. His
box is a cnrionty from Indk. He caUs fiKvourite
young ladies by their Christian names, however
slightly aoquinted with them; and has a privilege
also of saluting all brides, mothers, and indeed
every species of lady, on the least holiday occasion.
If the husband for instance has met with a piece
of luck, he instantly moves forward, and gravely
kisses the wife on the cheek. The wife dien says,
" My niece. Sir, from the country;" and he kimei
the niece. The niece, seeing her cousin biting her
lips at the joke, says, ** My cousin Harriet, Sir ;**
and he kisses the cousin. He '* never recollects
such weather,'* except during the ** Great Frost,"
or when he rode down with "Jack Skrimshire to
Newmarket" He grows young again in his little
grandchildren, especially the one which he thiida
most like himself;, which is the handsomest Yet
he likes best perhaps the one most resembling hit
wife; and will sit with him on his lap, holding fab
hand in silence, for a quarter of an hour together.
He plays most tridcs with the former, and makes
him sneeze. He asks little boys in general mbo
was the fether of Zebedee's diildren. If his grand-
sons are at school, he often goes to see them; and
makes them bludi by telling the master or the

THE OU> LABT.

Old

iBt; and tb^
yoodi; •'awi]
skofft life Sid a

THE OLD LADY.

S6 LEIGH HUNT.

wean pockets, and uses them wdl too. In the
one is her handkerchief, and any heavier matter
that is not likely to come oat with it, such as the
change of a sixpence ; in the other is a miscella-
neous assortment, consbting of a pocket-book, a
bunch of keys, a needle-case, a spectacle-case,
crumbs of biscuit, a nutmeg and grater, a smelling-
bottle, and, according to the season, an (xange or
apple, which after many days she draws out, warm
and glossy, to give to some little child that has
well behaved itself. She generally occupies two
rooms, in the neatest condition possible. In the
chamber is a bed with a white coverlet, built up
high and round, to look well, and with curtains of
a pastoral pattern, consbting alternately of laige
plants, and shepherds and shepherdesses. On the
/ mantelpiece are more shepherds and shepherdesses,

with dot-eyed sheep at their feet, all in coloured
ware : the man, perhaps, in a pink jacket and knots
of ribbons at his knees and shoes, holding hb crook
lightly in one hand, and with the other at hb
breast, turning hb toes out and looking tenderly
at the shepherdess: the woman holding a crook
also^ and modestly returning hb look, with a gipsy-
hat jerked up behind, a very slender wabt, with
petticoat and hips to counteract^ and the petticoat
pulled up through the pocket-holes, in order to
show the trimness of her ankles. But these pat-
terns, of course, are various. The toilet b ancient,
carved at the edges, and tied about with a snow-
white drapery of muslin. Beside it are various
boxes, mostly japan ; and the set of drawers are
exqubite things for a little girl to rummage, if ever

THE OLD LADY.

Mttlegirl besobold, — cnrtaming ribbons and

^jtf'Tarioas kinds; linen smelfiBg of lavender, of the

floweis of which there is ahr^s dnst in the comeK ;

m heap of pocket4xx)ks for a seiies of yeas ; and

pieces of dress long gone bj, snch as head-fronts,

stomafchciSy and flowered satin shoes, with cnor-

monshed& The stodt dLUiUrs are andcr ryrriai

lock and kej. Somnch Ibrthe bed-nnniL In the

sitting-foooi is ladier a spare asBOrtmcnt of I

old mahoganj fiuniinie , or carred

equallj oU, with chintz diapn i cs down to the

groond; a fokiing or other yirm, with

fignics, their roond, fattle-ejed, iMek fines

sidewqrs; a stnfied biid, prrhap» in a gjbss case (a

livmg one is too macfa lor her); aportnit of her

hnsband over the iManteipBCce, in a coat with frog'

battonsy and a delicate friflcd hand ^g^tiy inserted

in the waistcoat; and opposite Um <b the wall, is

a piece of embroidered fitentnrei, friayd and

worked in angalar capital letien^ with two

or panots bckyw, in their proper ooIobs; the

whole conc l a di ng with an A BC and nnaMsals

and the name of the frir indmcrions expRSHBg it

to be*' her woriE, Jan. 14,1762:'' Therestof&e

fiuiiiUue €nnijrt% of a looking-^bHS with carved

edges, periBqs a srttrr, a hiwnrlr far the fret, a

mat far the little dog, and a snail set of ihtlm^

imrinchare the ''Spectator" and '^Gnanfian,"

the "Tariddi Sp^," a Ba>ie and Foier Book,

Yoai^s«'N^Thoag|tfs"wirib a piece of face

in it to flatten, Mn. Rowers *< Dfcv«nt ExcxiKS c/

the Hcait," Mn. Glare's '^Cookoj,*

5t LEIGH HUNT.

haps "Sir Charles Grandison," and "Clarissa.**
"John Buncle'* is in the closet among the pickles
and preserves. The clock is on the landing-place
between the two room doors, where it ticks audibly '
but quietly ; and the landing-place, as well as the
stairs, is carpeted to a nicety. The house is most
in character, and properly coeval, if it is in a re-
tired suburb, and strongly built, with wainscot
rather than paper inside, and lockers in the windows.
Before the windows should be some quivering
poplars. Here the Old Lady receives a few quiet
visitors to tea, and perhaps an early game at cards:
or you may see her going out on the same kind of
visit herself, with a light umbrella running up into
a stick and crooked ivory handle, and her little
clogf equally famous for his love to her and captioiis
antipathy to strangers. Her grandchildren <&•
like him on holidays, and the boldest sometimes
ventures to give him a sly kick under the table.
When she returns at night, she appears, if the
weather happens to be doubtful, in a calash ; and
her servant in pattens, follows half behind and half
at her side, with a lantern.

Her opinions are not many nor new. She
thinks the clei^man a nice man. The Duke of
Wellington, in her opinion, is a very great man ;
but she has a secret preference for the Marquis of
Granby. She thinks the young women of the
present day too forward, and the men not respect-
ful enough ; but hopes her grandchildren will be
better; though she differs with her daughter in
several points respecting their management. She
sets little value on the new accomplishments ; is a

THR OLD LADY, S9

great though delicate connoisseur in butcher's
meat and all sorts of housewifery ; and if you men-
tion waltzes, expatiates on the grace and fine
breeding of the minuet. She longs to have seen
one danced by Sir Charles Grandison, whom she
almost considers as a real person. She likes a
walk of a summer's evening, but avoids the new
streets, canals, &c., and sometimes goes through
the church3rard, where her other children and her
husband* lie buried, serious, but not melancholy.
She has had three great epochs in her life : — ^her
marriage — ^her having been at court, to see the King
and Queen and Royal Family — and a compliment
on her figure she once received, in passing, from
Mr. Wilkes, whom she describes as a sad, loose
man, but engaging. His plainness she thinks
much exaggerated. If anydiing takes her at a
distance from home, it is still the court ; but she
seldom stirs, even for that The last time but one
that she went, was to see the Duke of Wirtemberg ;
and most probably for the last time of all, to see
the Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold. From
this beatific vision she returned with the same ad-
miration as ever for the fine comely appearance of
the Duke of York and the rest of the family, and
great delight at having had a near view of the
Princess, whom she speaks of with smiling pomp
and lifted mittens, clasping them as passionately as
she can together, and calling her, in a transport of
mixed loyalty and self-love, a fine royal young
creature, and '* Daughter of England." ^

1 This and "Tlie Old Gentleman " were favourite papers
of Lord Holland's. See " Autobiography," p. 950.

6o LRtGH HUNT.

THE MAID-SERVANT.*

["Tlie Round Table,** No. 46, in the "Examiner." Oct.
soch, 18x6. "Indicator,** Not. aand, xSao. "Indicatw
and Companion,** 1834.]

[UST be considered as yoang, or else she
has married the butcher, die butler, or
her coustttj or has otherwise settled into
a character distinct from her original
one, so as to become what is properly called the
domestic. The Maid-servant, in her apparel, is
either slovenly and fine by turns, and dirty always ;
or she is at all times snug and neat, and dressed
according to her station. In the latter case, her
ordinary dress is black stockings, a stuff gown, a
cap, and a neck-handkerchief pinned comerwise
behind. If you want a pin, she just feels about
her, and has always one to give you. On Sundays
and holidays, and perhaps of afternoons, she
changes her black stockings for white, puts on a
gown of a better texture and fine pattern, sets her
cap and her curls jauntily, and lays aside the neck-
handkerchief for a high-body, which, by the way,
is not half so pretty. There is somethiog very
warm and latent in the handkerchief— something
easy, vital, and genial. A woman in a high-bodied
gown, made to fit her like a case, is by no means
more modest, and is much less tempting. She looks

In some respects, particularly of costume, this portrait
must be understood of originals existing twenty or thirty
years ago.

THE MAHy-SEMVANT. fc

like a %iire at the bead of a ship. We oonld al-
most see her chacked out of doon into a cait, with
as little remoise as a couple of sogar-ksTci^ The
tucker is much better, as wefl as the bandkefdoe^
and is to the other what the foang ladj is to Ae
servant. The one always lemindsiis of the SpariJcr
in Sir Richard Stede; the other of Fanny in
*' Joseph Andrews."

But to return. The genoal liimitiae of her oidi-
nary room, the Idtdien, is not somnch her own as
her Master's and Biistiess'Sy and need not be de-
scribed : bot in a drawer of the dresser or the table,in
company with a duster and a pair of snafibs, maqr be
foond some of her pfoperty,soch as a brass thimble,
a pair of scissors, a thread-case, a piece of wax
mndi wrinkled with the thread, an odd Yohone of
*' Pamda," and perfai^ a sizpcmiy play, socfa as
"Geoige BamweD," or Mrs. Befan's "Oroanokou*
There is a piece of kx^dng-giass in the window.
The rest of her fnmitnre is in the garret, where
yon may find a good looking-glass on the table ;
and in the window a Bible, a comb, and a piece of
soap. Here stands also, mider stout lock and key,
the m^ty mystery, — the box, — containing, among
other thii^gs, her dothcs, two or three soog-books,
consisting of nineteen for the penny; sondry Trage-
dies at ahaUpenny the sheet ; the *' Whole Natare
(A Dreams Laxl Open," together with the ** For-
tune-teller " and the ** Account of the Ghost of
Mrs. Veal;" the *<Stoiy of the Beautiful Zoa"
" who was cast away on a desart island, showing
how," &c ; some half-crowns in -a purse, indnding
pieces of country-money, with the good Gmntcssof

€m LSIGH HUNT,

Coventry on one of them^ riding naked on the
hone; a silver penny wrapped up in cotton by
itself ; a crooked sixpence, given her befoie sl^
came to town, and the giver ci which has either
forgotten or been forgotten by her, she is not sure
which; — two little enamel boxes, with looking-
glass in the lids, one of them « fairing, the other
''a Trifle from Margate;'* and lastly, variops
letters, square and ragged, and directed in all sorts
of spellings, chiefly with little letters for capitals.
One of them, written by a girl who went to a day-
school, is directed " Miss."

In her manners, the Maid-servant sometimet
imitates her young mbtress ; she puts her hair in
papers, cultivates a shape, and occasionally con-
trives to be out of spirits. But her own character
and condition overcome all sophistications oC this
sort; her shape, fortified by the mop and scmbbiog-
brush, will make its way ; and exercise keeps her
healthy and cheerfuL From the same caose her
temper is good ; though she gets into little heats
when a stranger is over-saucy, or when she is toki
not to go so heavily down stairs, or when some un-
thinking person goes up her wet stairs with dirty
shoes,— or when she is called away often from
dinner ; neither does she much like to be seen
scrubbing the street-door steps of a morning ; and
sometimes she catches herself saying, '* Drat that
butcher," but immediately adds, ''God forgive
me." The tradesmen indeed, with their compli-
ments and arch looks, seldom give her cause to
complain. The milkman bespeaks her good-
humour for the day with '* Come, pretty maids : "

THE MAIiySBRVAKT.

r-then follow the bidciiat the fai^Ber, Che
&C. , all with their sevcnd mkhs and fitile loitcr-
ings ; and when she goes to the shops hendi^ k is
ibr her the g;rooer pnQs down his string ham itt
roller with more than the oniinaiy whirl, aad
tosses ^»y parcel into a tie*

Tlras pass the monnngi bclwecn woddn^ and
singiDgy and giggHnfc and gnanhlin^ and being
flattered. If she takes any p i taMue nn ciwnef ird
with her office before the afiemoon, it is when she
runs ap the area-steps or to the door to hear and
pnxchase a new SGOg, or to seeatioap of soldieis
goby; or when she happens to thrast her head
out of a chamber window at the sanK time with a
servant at the next hoosey when a dialqgae infolfibly
ensues, stimolated by the im a gin ary ohrt ac k^ be^
tween. If the Maid-servant is wise, tibe best pot
of her work is done by diimcr-time ; and mtMat^
dse is necessary to give ^atoti icsi to the meaL
She tells OS what she thinks of it, when die calk it
"a bit o' dinner." There is the same sort of do-
qnence in her other phrase, "acnpo' tea;" bat the
old ones, and the washerwomen, beat her at that.
After tea in great bosses, she goes with theocfacr
servants to hot cockles, or What-aie-ny-thooghts-
like, and tells Mr. John to ''have done then ; "
or if there is a ball given that night, they throw
open the doors, and make nse of the mosic op
stairs to dance by . In smaller houses, die receives
the visits ci her aforesaid cousin ; and sits down
ak»e, or with a Idlow maid-servant, to woric ;
talks of her young master or mistress and Mr.
'Ivins (Evans) ; or else she calls to mind her own

64 LRIGH HUNT.

frieods in the country ; where she thinks the cows
and " all that ** beautiful, now she is a^ay. Mean-
while, if she is lazy, she snufife the candle with her
scissors ; or if she has eaten more heartily than
usual, she sighs double the usual number of times,
and thinks that tender hearts were bom to be un-
happy.

Such being the Maid-servant*s life in-doors, she
scorns, when abroad, to be anything but a creature
of sheer enjojrment The Maid-servant, the sailor,
and the school-boy, are the three beings that enjoy
a holiday beyond all the rest of the world ; — and
all for the same reason, — ^because their inexperience,
peculiarity of life, and habit of being with persons
of circumstances or thoughts above them, give
them all, in their way, a cast of the romantic
The most active of the mcmey-getters is a vegetable
compared with them. The Maid-servant when
she first goes to Vauxhall, thinks she is in Heaven.
A theatre is all pleasure to her, whatever is going
forward, whether the play or the music, or the
waiting which makes others impatient, or the
munching of apples and gingerbread, which she
and her party commence almost as soon as they
have seated themselves. She prefers tragedy to
comedy, because it is grander, and less like what
she meets with in general ; and because she thinks
it more in earnest also, especially in the love-scenes.
Her favourite play is "Alexander the Great, or the
Rival Queens. '* Another great delight is in going a
shopping. She loves to look at the pictures in the
windows, and the fine things labelled with those
corpulent numerals of "only 7j."— "only dr. 6</.**

She.litt alflOk'snloi boqi-aB^ bn^

been to-seenqrrltoid Mcfor, tke fiai

oat of Coat^^wl tke ••txatio'' at tke Tower;

and at idl cfCBfei dfee iMt bem l» .Ailleir*s nd tlie

te»#itk the nte^ nd «Me wilk
ckmn. Batifris£fiadtl»
enjoys inosL One of the

allioiihitc^€aIbkarlfft'as; ndaiiBlo

her fld% iB^ifiite cfhk laeed hat, ''Be ffuA

eiKM^ or, to head the cavd to tibe lad^. *

Ah S ma^ her
says he is ; or
and- anil i^ cMigfh to be as happy

M

TH& WAITER

rLcMMloa Jomnud," Jfne lA >i^
A. SyMoaSi xSSS. C Kcat, tt89.]

I OING hito the Otj die other day apn
b a saww, wt took achop at a tama,
and icaeared oar a cq aiin taacev aktr
ycais of iatenaptiaa, with that mrik
and mtiriiig perMBMife, ydept a awtec WeaMB^
tkm this loog altenral of acqaaialBaeey ia ovder to

I. F

66 LEIGH HUNT,

account for any deficiencies that may be found in
our description of him. Our readers perhaps will
fiivour us with a better. He is a character before
the public: thousands are acquainted with him,
and can fill up the outline. But we felt irresistibly
impelled to sketch him; like a portrait-painter
who comes suddenly upon an old firiend, or upcm
an old servant of the &mily.

We speak oX. the waiter prc^>erly and general^
so called, — the representative of the whole, real,
official race, — and not of the humourist or other
eccentric genius occasionally to be found in it, —
moving out of the orbit of tranquil but fiery wait-
ing, — not absorbed, — ^not devout towards us, — not
silent. or monosyllabical ;— fdlows that affect a
character beyond that of waiter, and get spoiled in
dub-rooms, and places of theatrical resort.

Your thorough waiter has no ideas out of the
sphere of hb duty and the business ; and yet he b
not narrow-minded either. He sees too much
variety of character for that, and has to exerdse too
much consideration for the *' drunken gentleman."
But his world b the tavern, and all mankind but
its vbitors. Hb female sex are the maid-servants
and hb young mistress, or the widow. If he b
ambitious, he aspires to marry one of the latter : if
otherwise, and Molly b prudent, he does not know
but he may carry her off some day to be mbtress
of the Golden Lion at Chinksford, where he will
"show off" in the eyes of Betty Laxon who
refused him. He has no feeling of nobe itself but
as the sound of dining, or of silence but as a thing
before dinner. Even a loaf with him is hardly a

THE WAITER. 67

loaf; it is so many "breads." His longest speech
is the making oat of a bill viva voce — '* Two beefe
—one potatoes— three ales — two wines — six and
twopence" — ^which he does with an indifferent
celerity, amusing to new-comers who have been re-
lishing their fare, and not considering it as a mere
set of items. He attributes all virtues to every-
body, provided they are civil and liberal ; and of
the existence of some vices he has no notion.
Gluttony, for instance, with him, is not only in-
conceivable, but looks very like a virtue. He sees
in it only so many more " bee&," and a generous
scorn of the bill. As to wine, or almost any other
liquor, it is out of your power to astonish him with
the quantity you call for. His "Yes, Sir" is as
swift, indifferent, and official, at the fifth bottle as
at the first. Reform and other public events he
looks upon purely as things in the newspaper, and
the newspaper as a thing taken in at taverns, for
gentlemen to read. His own reading is confined
to "Accidents and Offences," and the advertise-
ments for Butlers, which latter he peruses with an
admiring fear, not choosing to give up "a cer-
tainty." When young, lie was always in a hurry,
and exasperated his mistress by running against
the other waiters, and breaking the "neguses."
As he gets^lder, he learns to unite swiftness with
caution ; declines wasting his breath in immediate
answers to calls ; and knows, with a slight turn of
his face, and elevation of his voice, into what pre-
cise comer of the room to pitch his "Coming,
Sir." If you told him that, in Shakespeare's time,
waiters said "Anon, anon. Sir," he would be

68 LEIGH HUlfT.

Mtoniihed.M tlic repetition of tbe suneiWord ia
one answer, and at tht use of three, wonis in«tea4
of two; and he would j«stl]r inferi thut: Lomion
coold not havr boeii so laige, norihe chofi-hcNiiM
80 busy* in those.dayi. He would drop qda of the
two syllables of his *« Yes, Sir/' if he otmld^.bvl
buamess and dvHity; will not allow it ; and there*
fore he does what he can by running them.together
in the swift sufficienqr/ofiiis " Yewr."

«• Thomas r*

•>Ye«ar,"

" Is my steak ci»ning ? "

"Yesiiri."

*^ And the innt of port? *

** Yottll not forget the postman?"

For in.t)ie habit ofr Ins- aeq ui eg ce ftc e Thomu rant
seldom vsays *f Yes, Sir/' for **No, Sir/' thchiOiit
itself rencUsria^ him intellii^le.

His. morning dress is a waistcoat OTijadEet; his
coat is for: afteraoons. If the estabUshmenlis
flonridiing, he l&es to get into black as he grows
elderly; by which time also he is generally a little
corpulent, and wears hair-powder, dressing some-
what, laxly about the waist, for convenieQee of
mgoyemeata. Not however that he. draws miKh
upon. that part of his body, except as a poise to
what, he carries;; for you may . observe that a
waiter^ in. walking, uses only his iowest limbs,
&pm his kneeS: downwards. The movement of all
the. rest o£ him is negative, and modified solely by
what he bears in his hands. At.this period he has

alktiemdney^thelinid^ and liis neoes look «p
toliiiD. He sdllcmies-lKyweifu % nifdun mdtr
his arm, as well as a cofkKicw. m:U» pocket; noiy
for all his long haliitv -cas ht kelp feefing a alk-
faction at the noite he makA m < ha w iag a ask.
He thinks that no man can do it hetter; aad that
Mr. Smithy who midentands wine, is thinlLing so
too, thoi:^he does not take his cjes off the pbtcu
In his i^t waistcoat pocket is a smtflT-boK, with
wksch he siqiplies gentlaien hte at ni^it, after &e
shops tte simt op, and when tbejr aie as deH*"**^
want of another fillq> to dieir sensatioas, after &e
devil and toasted dieese. If paiticnlarfyveqinred,
he will lan^ at a . joke, eqiedalfy at that Ikfee of
night, justly thinkiiy that gmtlnnm tamtA cmt
in the motnii^r **wai be hcttia^" He is dl
opinion it is in ''homaii nature "to be a little ftesk
at<that,period, and to want to be p«t into a coack.

He annoanoes his aoqukitioA of ptopeity fa^ a
boBch of seals lo hb watdi, arid perhaps rin^ ob
his fiiigers; one <^ them a momnqg riqg left kiai
by his late mastery the other a present, eidher ftoai
hb nieces' fidhe^ or from some altia-goo dnatM cd
old gentknan whom he helped into a ooack one
nig^ and who had no sibcr aboot him.

To see him dine^ so mehow^ hard^ seeav
natoraL And he appears to do it as if he had bo
i^^il. Voa catch him at his dinner m a eona^ —
huddled qpart,— "Thomas dining !" mstead of
haling dinner. One imcies that the stewed and
hot meats and the coDstaat smoke oa^ to be too
modi for him, and that he sboald hare Besther
appetite Bor time for sodi a meaL

TO LEIGH HUNT,

Once a year (for he has few holidays) a conple
of pedestrians meet him on a Sunday in the fields,
and cannot conceive for the life of them who it is;
till the startling recollection occurs — " Gopd God I
It's the waiter at the Grogram I "

SEAMEN ON SHORE.

[*' Indicator/' March xsth, iBao. " Indicator and Com-
panion/' 1834. ** Tale for a CUmiMy Comer," 1869. A.
SymoDS, x888. C Kent, 1889.]

[HE sole business of a seaman (m shore,
who has to go to sea again, is to take
as much pleasure as he can. The
moment he sets his foot on dry ground,
he turns his back on alf salt beef and other salt-
water restrictions. His long absence, and the
impossibility of getting land pleasures at sea, pqt
him upon a sort of desperate appetite. He lands,
like a conqueror taking possession. He has been
debarred so long, that he is resolved to have that
matter out with the inhabitants. They must
render an account to him of their treasures, their
women, their victualling-stores, their entertain-
ments, their everything; and in return he will
behave like a gentleman, and scatter his gold.

And first of the common sailor. The moment
the common sailor lands, he goes to see the watch-
maker or the old boy at the " Ship."

Reader, What, sir I Before his mistress ?

Indicator, Excuse me, madam, his >mistress,
christened Elizabeth Monson, but more familiarly

SEJtMBM ON SaOME.

kaowa b^tlie appcBadoB of Bet

with him ahoidy. Yoa irmrwhrr the

The fiist obfcct of the
qwnd his monej, hot !■■ fint
is the strange firmBcs of the caith, vhkk he goes
trading in a soil of hesiy fight waj, half i
and half dandng-nastei, his dwaldes rnlling,
his iset toaching and gong; the snne way, in
short, m wfaidi he keeps faBself |a q i ed far al
the rolling rhmrrs of the vesKl* when <
Thece is ahmys to as this appeaiance o£
oClbot and heaiy strength of apper
auhx. And he feek it hiBBdL Hekfs
9j apokf and kis shoaUcis sknch^ aad
ffom loBgy to be gidicred inlo a heaiy pigtnl;
bat arheafidldieMed, hepodesh— ejfcaaccitwa
gentflity of toe, on a a^nte stoddag and a mttiy
shoe, issuing hg^bdj oat of the I

caive aloof J his hawh half open, as if ^ttcf had
jatt been handling ropes, and had no ohfect ia Bfe
bat to handle theai again. Heisprandof ^ipew-
ing in a new hat and slops, widi a Brkhgr hand-
keicfaief flowii^ IoomJj roaud his aedc, aad the
corner ofanother oat of his pocket. Thasc tfaip pe d ,
with pindibedc buckles in his dioes (whidi he
bons^ for gold), he pats sook tobaooo ia his
moolh, not as if he arere goiag to ase it Erectly,
bat as if he stofleditin a poadi on ooe side, as a
pdican does 6sh, to -emploj it hereafter ; and so,
with Bet MooMO at his side, and periiaps a

whanghee. twitted uDcbr his otiMr-armyttiUies forth
to take potseniooof alH^abberianiji HebnyBevciy-
thing that he comes athwatt-THint^^.euig^biead,
apples, shoe-strings, beer, brandy, gin, buckles,
knivesy a imtoh ifmo^ if Jte iias rmooey^^idiMtiiJh),
gowns and hanyGisidik& i^fietandfhk liioliisr
and sisten, doaens of *'Snpcr&ie JBcst Men's
Cotton Stockings," doiens of " Stqper^ Best
.WoDMsn's Cottoft Dittfl^*^ beat nfiok <9iaok ^lor
^hirU^thoogh he haa too 4mch,4tlMaidf), iinfinl^
needles and tiuread (to seffrJiia te6i]scn\!WiA .aone
da|i), a Ibotman'slaoed Jtatjibeaf'a-gvsaae, 4o*flaake
■his hak grow ><by «waj of joke), sevetdiatk^E^ idl

aorts.of Jew aiticles,:a flti(ei(whia^-hd'^Bn^*1p'*|r*
and never intends)| a ieg of <jniitton^ #hid^ htt
cairies somewhere to foait, «nd for: a ipiyc -^
which the landlord of the^^iShip-^' makes tt»|Mgr
twice what he gave te th6 mivM\ kt ahQit,-«fi
that money can be-qpent itpoi^ whiehis.ewei>^ifaiag
bat medicine gnttiB, and Itohe woaUl insiat .4b
paying for. He would «biqr liU the »pamted paiiiD&
on an Italian^ head, oa<pui^x)ft&.fe6 hwah tfaeai^
rather than not fipend his wmey* He haa fidcUea
and a dance at the ^' Sbip,'^.vith oceaaa of flip and
grog ; I and .gives the- hlind' fidfler tobacoo iat
sweetmeats, and half*a*crown -for^tKeadii^ -ctoliis
toe. He asks the landlady^ with « s^, after her
daughter Nanse,.who first fired his-heait-iAdth her
silk stbckiogs f and Ending that ^ is married and
in trouble, leaves five fxomaB ibr'her,'<whiflh'the
old lady appropriates ^a pait paybnent ior la^bhflliBg
in advance. : He goes to the •jBort^fflaybduae' wtith
Bet Mottson, and a^gceat red faandkerchiaf iiiB of

SBA'MEM ON SHORE, ifi

applet* gingerlnread nuts, and , fresh, beef ; calls out
for the fiddlers and " Rule Britannia.; " pelts Tom
Sikes in the pit ; and compares OtheUo to the
black ship's-cook.in his .white nightcap. When he
isasm.Xo JUmdoiu he and jkhhc jrm^svmates teke:a
hackney-coach, full of .£et ,M<msoos,and tobafico-
pipesy apd'j^ through .the slre^ smoking and
lolling out $|f;windcm* ' Hehas^over^been^ieautioiis
of veptwiig on holdback;! and among Jhis other
ji^hts in iloreigii part% rrolatss ;i«ith imfeigned
astonishment how 4i« has ^seon .Ihe-Xurks jddei
"QnlK*^ $aj9 hj^ guarding against (he ^ear^'s
jncredtiUty, "** thiBy have saddle-box^ to hold 'em
m^ fore and aft^ ,and sh<^<^iik9 ior stirrups/' He
,ldll tell you hq[iir the Chinese ddnk, and thr^
dancf^^and themonkcg^-p^t you wi^ioocoa-
and >how King Dpmy iWould have >bailt him sf tnud
Jiut andjmade.hun a peer pf ihe iceahn* if he
jbave stopped with .hin^ and taught him to make
.trousers* - .HeJbasa lister at a '' School Jor- Young
Ladies" iptho Uushes ik^ a mixture of jtosuie
and shame atlMsappeanm^;; and whose oonfosjon
he completes bir slipphig fowrpeoce into her hand,
and sajn^ out jond thai 1^ has ^' nomose copper "
aboat Jtlim* llis moUier ^and tilder sisters At home
doat oni^ he s$q(s and doess t^iUing him, however,
t^ lie js« 0Peat sea feUow* -aad was aliivi^ wild
ever .ain^'^ was a hop^'-n^Hthumb, <io hig|«r
thiui thr^nndow:10!^^ei^ He tells his mother that
she wo«Id be a ibnohe^ in JE^aranaboof at which
the ifood old ' peftlff. ^iaie laughs and \w^ proud.
\yhe» .h» alSitefs aMOP^aia x>f his jropnping, %^ says

thfttiheyiMie pnlyaiiitfyjil li Apt ihe 4)1^^ He

74 LBiGH HUNT.

frightens them with a mask made after the New.
Zealand £Eishion, and is forgiven for his leaming-
Their mantelpiece is filled by him with shells and
shark's teeth; and when he goes to sea again,
there is no end of tears, and '* God bless yoa's 1 "
and home-made gingerbread.

His Officer on shore does much of all this, only,
generally speaking, in a h^er taste. The mo-
ment he lands, he bays quantities of jewellery and
other valuables, for all the females of his acquain-
tance ; and is taken in for every article. He sends
in a cartload of fresh meat to the ship, though he
is going to town next day; and calling in at a
chandler*s for some candles, is persuaded to buy a
dozen of green wax, with whidi he lights up the
ship at evening ; regretting that the fine moonlig|it
hinders the effect of the colour. A man, with a
bundle beneath his arm, accosts him in an under-
tone; and, with a look in which respect for his
knowledge is mixed with an avowed zeal for his
own interest, asks if his Honour will just step
under the gangway here, and inspect some real
India shawls. The gallant Lieutenant says to him-
self, " This fellow knows what's what, by his hot ;**
and so he proves it, by being taken in on the spot
When he brings the shawls home, he says to his
sister with an air of triumph, " There, Poll, there's
something for you ; only cost me twelve, and is
worth twenty if it's worth a dollar." She turns
pale— ** Twenty what, my dear Geoi^? Why,
you haven't given twelve dollars for it, I hope ? "
" Not I, by the Lord."—" That's lucky ; because
you see, my dear George, that all together is not

SEAMEN ON SHORE. 75

worth more than fourteen or fifteen shillings."
*' Fourteen or fifteen What ! Why it's real India,
en*t it ? Why the fellow told me so ; or I'm sure
I'd as soon" — (here he tries to hide his blushes
with a bluster)—*' I'd a» soon have given him
twelve douses on the chaps as twelve guineas." —
"Twelve gmmeas!" exclaims the sister; and
then drawling forth, "Why — ^my — dear — George,"
IS proceeding to show him what the articles would
have cost at Condell's, when he interrupts her by
requesting her to go and choose for herself a tea-
table service. He then makes his escape to some
messmates at a coffee-house, and drowns his re-
collection of the shawls in the best wine, and a
discussion on the comparative merits of the English
and West-Indian beauties and tables. At the
theatre afterwards, where he has never been before,
he takes a lady at the back of one of the boxes for
a woman of quality ; and when, after returning his
kog respectful gaze with a smile, she turns aside
and puts her handkerchief to her mouth, he thinks
it IS in derision, till his friend undeceives him. He
IS introduced to the lady ; and ever afterwards, at
first sight of a woman of quality (without any dis-
paragement either to those charming personages),
expects her to give him a smile. lie thinks the
other ladies much better creatures than they are
taken for ; and for their parts^ they tell him, that
if all men were like himself, they would trust the
sex again : — ^which, for aught we know, is the
truth. He has, indeed, what he thinks a very
liberal opinion of ladies in general ; judging them
an, in a manner, with the eye of a seaman's expe-

76 UUGH HUMT,

rienoe. Yet* he will believe nevertheleis in Ihe
"true-love " of any given damsel whom be seeks
in the way of masriage, 4et:him coam^as mnchy^er
semain as long at m distance> as^ pleases. Itis
not thathe wants ieeling^ bat'that.he4uB iead*of
itftimeootof itoaid,dn4kpgs$'luid he locks opoii
eonstanqr ns a sort of cttploit; iniwrwng <to .^tfaose
which he petfonnsat sea. Heis.-ti]eei&«hi8 iwatcfaefe
and 'lineiu iHe^maka -von DCtstfnti- of iComsliaBS.'
antique wals, tMcaaroirts set in siWeCy and othar
vahiableB. Wfamhe-diakcs hands widi9«i|y4t 4s
like being canglit in. a windltoSQ. He <4roald mot
swaggeraboot the stNiots in to n&iienn» for the
world. He is generaUy4Baod«strin eompanm though
liabletto be irritated % what he thii^ fongentl^
manly behaviomr* J^ is alu» liable to be irendeked
irritable by sickness^ pai^ d^ecanse he lum been
used to command others and 40 be served Jivith all
possible deference and .alacrity^ ^and pastig^ be-
^ cause the idea of suffering jsain, mthotftao^^nevr
or profit to iget by it, is nnpfotosiofia^ and he is
not accustomed :to it <H^ treats taleifts Anl&e inl
own vwith great «espeet. He soften' peiceives his
own so little felt, .^lat it teaches him this feefiac
for that of others. Besides^ he admires the qnan-
tity of information *which people «an get» withoat
travelling like himself $ jespeciftHy when he sees
how interesting lus own becomes^ to them as well
as to everybody ^se. When he teUs« story, {>af^
ticularly if fiill of wonders, he takes care to main-
tain his character fer truth and ^simpydtyy by
qualifying it with all pos^ible feservatioBs, coaces*
sioosy and anticipatlopss of i^l^^on ; imch^Sb *'ti

When the Officer ■

come to the akflt for
coof cisafinnal for tt>
tttioooaij and books of
with aU wfaa know hoe fv
worid, or seen the tnoHl of Vi
his fingen cmied off'fa^a tksw
or a present of feathen £rmi ao
If nol delated bf h

78 LBIGH HUNT.

his hnmbler tastes, he delights in a corner-cup-
bdurd hdding his cocoa-nuts and punch-bowl ; has
his summer-house castellated and planted with
wooden cannon ; and sets up the 6gure of his old
ship, the " Britannia " or the " Lovely Nancy," for
a statue in the garden ; where it stares eternally
with red cheeks and round black eyes, as if in
astonishment at its situation.

Chauoer, who wrote his, " Canterbury Tales "
about four hundred and thirty years ago, has
among his other characters in Uiat work a Ship-
man, who is exactly of the same cast as the
modem sailor, — the same robustness, courage, and
rough-drawn virtue, dcnng its duty, without being
very nice in helping itself to its recreations. There
is Uie very dirk, the complexion, the jollity, the
experience, and the bad horsemanship. The plain
unaffected ending of the description has the air of
a sailor's own speech ; while, the line about the
l)eard is exceedingly picturesque, poetical, and
comprehensive. In copying it put, we shall merely
alter the old spelling, where the words are still
modern.

A shipman was there, wonned far by west ;
For aught I wot, he was of DartSroouth.
He rode opon a rouncie, as he couth,l
All in a gown of falding to the knee.
A dagger hanging by a lace had he.
About his neck, under his arm adown :
The hot summer had made his hew all brown :
And certainly he was a good felaw.
Full many a draught of wine he haddS draw
From Bourdeaux ward, while that the chapqaan slep.

^ He rode upon a hack-horse, «■ vrell as he could.

SEAMEN ON SHOME.

Ottact c opscie B ce took he do \aoep.

If that he fought and had the higher

Bf water he sent 'cm hone to

But o£his cnn, to reckon wu his

His streamis and his strandis him

His haiborani^ his

There vas net sach fraai HoD

Hardy he was, and vise, I

Witfaaanja

He kMw well all the

Fknm Gothfand to the Cape de Fi

When aboat to tdl his Tale, he tells his fellov-
traydleis that he shall dink Uiem so mcnj a
bell.

That it dan waken aB I
BntitshaOnethet
lior of physick* nor os 1

The stoiy he tdls is a mei-kmomtt one in dK
Italian novds^ of a monk vho Bade loir to a
merdiant's wife, and buuo f ml n hMwIieJ liancs of
the husband to give her. She ^■■■■■itn^ij
his addxesses dining the alxenoeof her good
onajouney. When the latter netnniSy he app&cs
to the conning mook km iriMfnifiit, and is ir-
ferred to the lady; who thns finds her mrirnui y
bdiaTioar ontwhted.^

I -The

8o LEtaa HVHTs

COACHES.

[*< ladicator," Aug. ajrd and ^od^ iSao. '^Indicator and
Compjnion,** 1834. '*Tak tot CSuauiey Gdner," X869.

;CORDING tor the"0|)iiii<Mi' commonly
entertained lespecting an autlior's want
of riches^ it may be allowed 418. to say,
that we retain from childhood a consider-
able notion of " a ride in a coach." Nor do we
hedtate to confess, that by coach, we especially
mean a hired one ; from the equivocal rank (^ the
post-chaise^ down to that despised old cast-away,
the hackney.

It is tme, that the carriage, as it is indiileiently
called (as if nothiBg less gented could cany any
one) is a more decided thing than the chaise ; it
may be swifter even than the mail, leaves the stage
at a stlQ ' greater distance in every respect, and
(fbrgetthig whlit itmaycbme t6 Itself) ^lurts l^th^
poor* old' lamberiug hackney widi iirimeaSOrable'
contempt. It rolls whh a pttmd^ ease than a&y
other vehicle. li is folfof cushions and"c6mf6rt ;
elegantly coloured 'inside and'oQt^ rtchV 3^t neat ;
light and Vapid, yet substantial, ^e hibrs^ seem

nature of the seaman : his open smile, his ancere tone
of Toice; his .carelioss gait, ids. person* tlat seems to have
twdeiSBiw ail that Xcfuz and robust labour that must earn
the sailor a day of jollity ; in short, every acthm-of his body
and hia mind bel(mgs to that generous race, of vrkom Quurfes
the Second observed, they/got their money like horses and
spent it like asses.' 'V £0.

COACHES.

proad to draw it. The hx and fiur-vigged
man " lends his soun ding faBfa," his aim inlf in
action and that bat little, his body weU set with its
own weighL The footman, in the pode of his
nondudanoey holding by the stmps hfhind, nml
glancing down sidewi^qfs betwixt his coclfd hat
and neckcloth, stands s w inging from east to west
upon his springy toes. The hones nsh ilnag
amidst their ^andng haness. Spotted dog^ leap
about them, harking with a pnnoeiy snperaaity oL
noise. The hammer-doth trembles throngh all its
frii^e. The paint aashes m the am. We, om-
temptnoos of eieiything less eoovenient, bow back-
wards and forwards with a ceitJin mdiflacnt air
of gentility, infinitely ptwiowiant. Snddcniyy
with a hap^ miztnre of ffhnknce and tnth, die
carriage dariies np by the carb-atooe to the very
point desired, and stops with a kxdiy wilfalnf of
dedsioo. The cnadiman looks at if notlmig had
happened. The fo o tman is down in an imiaat ;
the knodcer leweiben tes into the futhest eoner
of the boose; doors, both carriage and h ome, age
open ;~~we descend, casting a UBttcr*of'4oose eye
at the by-standen; and the nioment we tondi the
pavement, the vehicle, as if conicio n s of what it
has carried, and rdieted fnm dK weight of oar
importance, recovers from its siddoog mcfina-
tioQ with a jerk, toaong and panting, ^s it woe,
for very breath, like the prand heads of the

UUI9C»>

All this, it mast be owned, is very pretty; bat it
is also goaty and su pei fl noas. It is too oon-
vement,— too exacting,— too exdnave. We naBt

U LEIGH HUNT,

get too much for it, and lose too much hy it Its
plenty, as Ovid says, makes us poor. We neither
have it in the republic of letters, nor would desire
it in any less Jacobinical state. Horses, as many
as you please, provided men have enough to eat ;-r
hired coaches, a reasonable number: — ^but health
and good-humour at all events.

Gigs and curricles are things less objectionable,
because they cannot be so relied upon as substi-
tutes for exercise. Our taste in them, we must con-
fess, is not genuine. How shall we own it ? We
like to be driven, instead of drive; — to read or
look about us, instead of keeping vratch on a
horse's head. We have no relish even for vehicles
of this description that are not safe. Danger is a
good thing for giving a fillip to a man's ideas ; but
even danger, to us, must come recommended by
something useful. We have no ambition to have
Tandem written on our tombstone.

The prettiest of these vehicles undoubtedly is
the curricle, which is also the safest. There is
something worth looking at in the pair of horses,
with that sparkling pole of steel laid across them.
It is like a bar of music, comprising their harmo-
nious course. But to us, even gigs are but a sort
of unsuccessful run at gentility. The driver, to all
intents and purposes, had better be on the horse.
Horseback is the noblest way of being carried in
the world. It is cheaper than any other mode of
riding ; it is common to all ranks ; and it is manly,
graceful, and healthy. The handsomest mixture
of danger with dignity, in the shape of a carriage,
was the tall phaeton with its yellow win^s. We

COACHES, 83

remember looking up to it with respect in oar
childhood, partly for its own loftiness, partly for
its name, and perhaps for the figure it makes in the
prints to novels of that period. The most gallant
figure which mere modem driving ever cut, was in
the person of a late Duke of Hamilton; of whom
we have read or heard somewhere, that he used to
dash round the streets of Rome, with his horses
panting, and his hounds barking about his phaeton,
to the equal firight and admiration of the Masters
of the World, who were accustomed to witness
nothing higher than ^ lumbering old coach, or a
cardinal on a mule.

A post-chaise involves the idea of travelling,
which in the company of those we love is home in
motion. The smooth running along the road, the
fresh air, the variety of scene, the leafy roads, the
bursting prospects, the clatter through a town, the
gaping gaze of a village, the hearty appetite, the
leisure (your chaise waiting only upon your own
movements), even the little contradictions to
home-comfort, and the expedient upon which they
set us, all put the animal spirits at work, and
throw a novelty over the road o( life. If anything
could grind us young again, it would be the wheels
of a post-chaise. The only monotonous sight is
the perpetual up-and-down movement of the pos-
tilion, who, we wish exceedingly, could take a
chair. His occasional retreat to the bar which
- occupies the place of a box, and his affecting to sit
upon it, only remind us of its exquisite want of
accommodation. But some have given the bar,
lately, a surreptitious squeeze in the middle, and

84 LEIGH HUNT.

flattened it a little into something obliquely resem-
bling an inconvenient seat

If we are to believe the marry Columbus of
Down-Hall, calashes, now almost obsolete for any
purpose, used to be hired fof travelling occasions a
hundred years back; but he preferred a chariot;
and neither was good. Yet see how pleasantly
good-humour rides over its inconveniences.

Then answar'd 'Squire Morley. " Pny get a calash,
That in sammier may bom, and in winter may splash ;
I love dirt and dust ; and 'tis always my pleasure
To take with me much of the soil that I measure."

But Matthew thought better ; for Matthew thought right,
And hired a chariot so trim and so tight,
That extremes both of vrinter and summer might pass ;
For Mie window was canvas, the other was glass.

" Draw t^" quolh firiend Matthew j ''PvU down," quoth

firiend John ;
" We shaft b^ both hotter and colder anon^"
Thus, talking and scolding, they forward did speed ;
And Ra^pho paced by under Newman die Swede.

Into an old inn did this equipage roll.
At a town they call Hodson, the sign of the Bull ;
Near a nymph with an urn that divides the highway.
And into a puddle throws mothor of tea.

" Come here, my sweet landlady, pcay how d'ye do?
Where is Qcely so cleanly, and Prudence, and Suet
And where is the widow that dwelt here below ?
And the ostler that suxlg about eight years ago ?

And where is your sister, so mild and so dear.
Whose voice to her maids like a tnunpet was clear?" '
*' By my troth/ she replies, " you grow youngte, I think :
And pray. Sir, what wine does the gentleman drink?

' * Why now let me die. Sir, or live upon trust.
If I know to which question to answer yon first :

COACHES. 8s

¥niy, things, sinoe I saw yon, taoA stnagdj hare Taried ;
The ostler is hangM, and the widow is named.

"And Pirue left a child for the paridi to rame.
And Cicely went off with a gendeman's poise ;
And as to ray dster, so mild and so dear.
She has lain in the church-yard lull many a year.*

"Well; peace to her ashes! What sSgmfies gneH
She roasted red Tsal, and she powder'd kaa beef:
Full nicely she knew to cook up a fine dish ;
For tough were her pallets, and leader her fish.*

PUOK.

This quotation reminds ns of a little poem by
the same author, entitled the " Secretaxy," idncli,
as it !s short, and rmis upon chaise-wheels, and
seems to have slipped the notice it' deserves, we
will do ourselves the {Measure of extracting alsa
It was written when he was Secretary of Embassy
at the Hague, where he seems to have edified the
Dutch with his insisting upon enjoyii^ himself.
The astonishment with whidi the good Hollander
and his wife look up to him as he rides, and the
touch of yawning dialect at the end, are extremely
pleasant.

While with labour assidooos doe pleasure I mix.
And in (me day aitooe fiar the buaness of six.
In a Mttle Dutdi diaise on a Satarday aS^it,
On my left hand my ^Mraoe, a nymph on my ris^ :
No Memoirs to awtpoif, and no Post-boy to move,
ThU on Sunday may hinder the softness of lore ;
For her, neither visits, nor parties at tea,
Nor the long-winded cant of a dull Refugee :
This night awl the next skA be hers, shall be
To good or tUrfivtane the third we resign :
Thus scorning the worid and superior to fate,
I drive on my car in piroceasiaoal state.
So with Phia through Athens Pisotratus rode ;

86 LEIGH HUNT.

Men thonght her Minerva* and him a ne!«r god.

But why shook! I stories of Athens rdiearse,

Where people knew love, and were partial to verse?

Since none can with justice my pleasures oppose,

In Holland half drowned in interest and prosef

By Greece and past ages what need I be tried.

When the Hague and the present are both on my side?

And is it enough for the jojrs of the day.

To think what Anacreon or Sappho would say?

When good Vandergoes, and his provident vrow^

As they gaae on my triumph, do freely allow.

That, search all the province, you'll find no man idr is

So blest as the Engiithtn Heer Secretar' is.

If Prior had been living now, he would have
found the want of travelling accommodation flourish-
ing most in a country for whose graver wants we
have to answer, without having her wit to help us.
There is a story told of an Irish post-chaise, the
occupier of which, without quitting it, had to take
to his heels. It was going down hill as £eist as
wind and the impossibility of stopping could make
it, when the foot passengers observed a couple of
I^ underneath, emulating with all their might the
rapidity of the wheels. The bottom had come out;
and the gentleman was obliged to run for his life.

We must relate another anecdote of an Irish
post-chaise, merely to show the natural tendencies
of the people to be lawless in self-defence. A
friend of ours,^ who was travelling among them,
used to have this proposition put to him by the
postilion whenever he approached a turnpike.
" Plase your honour, will I drive at the pike ? "
The pike hung loosely across the road. Luckily,
the rider happened to be of as lawless a turn for

I Mr. Shelley.

COACHES. 87

j ustice as the driver, so the answer was alwa3rs a
cordial one : — " Oh yes— drive at the pike.*' The
pike made way accordingly; and in a minute or
two, the gate people were heard and seen, scream'
ing in vain after the ill^;al charioteers.

Fertur equis auriga, neqae audit cnrms.

VlRGIU

The driv«r *s borae beyond their swearing,
And the post-chaise is hard of hearing.

As to following them, nobody in Ireland thinks
of moving too much, legal or ill^al.

The pleasure to be had in a mail-coach is not
so much at one's command, as that in a post-chaise.
There is generally too -little room in it, and too
much hurry out of it. The company must not
lounge over their breakfsist, even if they are all
agreed. It is an understood thing, that they are to
be uncomfortably punctual. They must get in at
seven o'clock, though they are all going upon
business they do not like or care about, or will have
to wait till nine before they can do any thing.
Some persons know how to manage this haste,
and breakfsist and dine in the cracking of a whip.
They stick with their fork, they joint, they sliver,
they bolt; L^s and wings vanish before them
like a dragon's before a knight-errant But if one
is not a clergyman or a regular jolly fellow, one
has no chance this way. To be diffident or polite,
is £Eital. It is a merit eagerly acknowledged, and as
quickly set aside. At last you begin upon a leg,
and are called off.

A very troublesome d^ee of science is neces-

8f LEIGH HUNT,

sary for being well settled in the coach. We re-
member travelling in our yoath, upon the north
road, with an orthodox elderly gentleman of vene-
rable peruke, who talked much with a gcave-look-
ing young man about universities, and won oar
inexperienced heart with a notion that he was deep
in Horace and VirgiL He was much deeper in
his wig. Towards evening, as he seemed restless,
we asked with much diffidence whether a change,
even for the worse, might not relieve him ; for we
were riding backwards, and thought all elderly
people disliked that way. He insinuated the very
objection ; so we recoiled from asking him again.
In a minute or two, however, he insisted that we
were uneasy ourselves, and that he must relieve us
for our own sake. We protested as filially as
possible against this ; but at last, out of mere shame
of di^mting the point with so benevolent an elder,
we changed seats with him. After an interval oC
bland meditation we found the evening sun full in
our face. — His new comfort set him dodng ; and
every now and then he jerked his wig in our eyes,
till we had the pleasure to see him take out a
nightcap and look extremely ghastly. — ^The same
person, and his serious young companion, tridced
us out of a good bed we happened to get at the inn.
The greatest peculiarity attending a mail-ooach
arises from its travelling at night The gradual
decline of talk, the incipient snore, &e jrustling
and alteration of legs and nightcaps, the cessatioQ
of other noises on the road — the sound of the wind
or rain, of the moist circuit of the wheels, and of
the time-beating tread of the horses-^^ dispose

\

90 LBIGH HUNT.

the author of the " Mail-coach Adventure," for in-
stance. With all his amorous verses, his yearnings
after the pleasant laws of the Golden Age, and
even his very hymns (which, we confess, are a little
mystic), we would rather trust a £ur traveller to his
keeping, than some much graver writers we have
heard oL If he forgot himself, he would not think
it a part of virtue to forget her. But his absolution
is not ready at hand, as for graver sinners. The
very intensity of the sense of pleasure will often
keep a man from destroying its after-thoughts in
another ; when harsher systems will forget them-
selves, only to confound brutality with repentance.
The stage-coach is a very great and unpretending
accommodation. It is a cheap substitute, not-
withstanding all its eighteen-penny and two-and-
sixpenny temptations, for keeping a carriage or a
horse ; and we really think, in spite of its gossip-
ing, b no mean help to village liberality ; for its
passengers are so mixed, so often varied, so little
yet so much together, so compelled to acconuno-
date, so willing to pass a short time pleasantly,
and so liable to the criticism of strangers, that it is
hard if they do not get a habit of speaking, or even
thinking more kindly of one another than if they
mingled less often, or under other circumstances.
The old and infirm are treated with reverence ; the
ailing sympathized with ; the healthy congratulated';
the rich not distinguished ; the poor well met : the
young, with their faces conscious of ride, patronised,
and allowed to be extra. Even the fiery, nay the
fat, learn to bear with each other ; and if some
high thoughted persons will talk now and then of

COACHES. 9«

their great acquaintances, or their preference of a
carriage, there is an instinct which tells the rest,
that they would not make such appeals to their
good opinion, if they valued it so litUe as might be
supposed. Stoppings and dust are not pleasant,
but the latter may be had on much grander occa*
sions ; and if any one is so unlucky as never to
keep another stopping himself, he must be content
with the superiority of his virtue.

The mail or stage-coachman, upon the whole,
is no inhuman mass of great-coat, gruflfness, civility,
and old boots. The latter is the politer, from the
smaller range of acquaintance, and his necessity for
preserving them. His &ce is red, and his voice
rough, by the same process of drink and catarrh.
He has a silver watch with a steel chain, and plenty
of loose silver in his pocket, mixed with halfpence.
He serves the houses he goes by for a clock. He
takes a glass at every alehouse ; for thirst, when it
is dry, and for warmth when it is wet. He likes
to show the judicious reach of his whip, by twigging
a dog or a goose on the road, or children that get
in the way. His tenderness to descending old
ladies is particular. He touches his hat to Mr.
Smith. He gives "the young woman'' a ride,
and lends her his box-coat in the rain. His libe-
rality in imparting his knowledge to any one that
has the good fortune to ride on the box with him,
is a happy mixture of deference, conscious posses-
sion, and fiuniliarity. His information chiefly lies
in the occupancy of houses on the road, prize-
fighters. Bow-street runners, and accidents. He
concludes that you know Dick Sams, or Old Joey,

9« LEIGH HUNT.

and proceeds to relate some of the stories that relish
his pot and tobacco in the evening. If any of the
four-in-hand gentry go by, he shakes his head, and
thinks they might find something better to do.
His contempt for them is founded on modesty.
He tells you that his ofif-hand horse is as pretty a
goer as ever was, but that Kitty — ^*'YeaJi, now
there, Kitty, can't you be still ? Kitty's a devU,
Sir, for all you wouldn't think it" He knows
that the boys on the road admire him, and gives
the horses an indifferent ladi with his whip as they
go by. If you wish to know what rain and dust
can do, you should look at his old hat. There is
an indescribably placid and paternal \<x^ in the
position of his corduroy knees and old top-boots on
the foot-board, with their pointed toes and never*
cleaned soles. His beau idkd of appearance is a
frock-coat, with mother-o'-pearl buttons, a striped
yellow waistcoat, and a flower in his mouth.

But all our prauses why for Charles and Robert t
Rise, honest Mews, and sing the classic Bobart

Is the quadrijugal virtue of that learned person
still extant? That Olympic and Baccalaureated
charioteer ? — ^That best educated and most erudite
of coachmen, of whom Dominie Sampson is alone
worthy to spe^k? That singular punning and
driving commentary on the Sunt quos curriado
colkgisse? In short, the worthy and agreeable
Mr. Bobart,' Bachel(»r of Arts, who drove the Ox-
ford stage some years ago, capped verses and the

1 See also the "Autobiography," p. 99, for further par-
ticulars of Mr. B .—Ed.

goodpoeHoB?

sabfect, aod win not
fade of tibe

1 By Mr.

94 LEIGH HUNT.

turning to the manuscript again, we find that the
objections are put into the mouth of a dandy cour-
tier. This makes a great difiference. The hackney
resumes all which it had lost in the good graces of
the £Eur authoress. The only wonder is, how the
courtier could talk so welL Here is the passage.

Eban, untempted by the Pftstry-cooks,
(Of Pastry he got store within the Palace,)
With hasty steps, wrapp'd doak, and Sf^emn k)oks,
Incognito upon his emuid sallies,
Hb smelling-bottle ready for the alleys ;
He pass'd the Hnrdy-gurdies with disdain.
Vowing he'd hare them sent on board the galleys :
Just as he made his vow, it 'gan to rain,
Therefore he call'd a coach, and bade it drive amain.

" in pull the string,** said he, and lurther said, i
" Polluted Jarvey I Ah, thou filthy hack I
Whose strings of life are all dried up and dead.
Whose linsey-wdsey lining hangs all slack.
Whose rug is straw, whose wholeness is a crack ;
And evermore thy steps go clatter- clitter;
Whose glass once up can never be got back.
Who prov*st, with joldng arguments and bitter.
That 'tis of vile no-use to travel in a litter.

"Thou inconvenience ! thou hungry crop
F(m: all com ! thou snail creeper to and fro.
Who while thou goest ever seem'st to stop.
And fiddle-faddle standest while you go ;
I* the morning, freighted with a weight of woe.
Unto some Lazar-house thou joumiest.
And in the evening tak'st a double row
Of dowdies, for some dance or party drest^
Besides the goods meanwhile thou movest east and west.

" By thy ungallant bearing and sad mien,

An inch appears the utmost thou couldst budge ;

Yet at the slightest nod, or hint, or sign.

Round to the curb-stone patient dost thou trudge,

COACHES, . 9S

SchooI'd in a bedcon, learned in a nodge ;
A dull-eyed Argus watching for a fan ;
Quiet and plodding, thou dost bear no grudge
To whisking TUhnries or Phaetons rare.
Curricles, or Mail-caaches, swift beyoad compare.**

Philosophizing thni^ he poll'd the chedc.
And bade the coachman wlieel to such a street :
Who turning nmcfa his body, more his nedc,
Louted loll low, and hoarsely did him greet.

The tact here is so nice, of the infinnities which
are but too likely to beset our poor old friend, that
we should only spoil it to say more. To pass then
to the merits.

^ One of the greatest helps to a sense of merit in
other things, is a consciousness of one's own wants.
Do you despise a hackney-coach ? Get tired ; get
old ; get young again« Lay down your carriage,
or make it less uneasily too easy. Have to stand
up half an hour, out of a storm, under a gateway.
Be ill, and wish to visit a friend who is worse.
Fall in love, and want to sit next your mistress.
Or if all this will not do, fell in a cdlar.

Ben Jonson, in a fit of indignation at the
niggardliness of James the First, exclaimed, " He
despises me, I suppose, because I live in an
alley : — tell him his soul lives in an alley.'' We
think we see a hackney-coach moved out of its
ordinary patience, and hear it say, "You there,
who sit looking so scornfully at me out of your
carriage, you are yourself the thing you take me
for. Your understanding is a hackney-coach. It
b lumbering, rickety, and at a stand. When it

1 The " Indicator," of Aog. 30th, iSao^ begins here.

96 LEtGH HUNT.

moves, it is drawn by things like itself! It is at
once the most stationary and the most servile of
common-places. And when a good thing is pat
into it, it does not know it"

But it is difficult to imagine a hackney-coach
under so irritable an aspect Hogarth has drawn
a set of hats or wigs with countenances of their
own. We have noticed the same thing in the figures,
of houses ; and it sometimes gets in one's way in a
landscape-painting, with the outlines of the massy
trees. A firiend tells us, that the hackney-coach
has its countenance, with gesticulation besides:
and now he has pointed it out, we can easily fancy'
it Some of them look chucked under the chin,
some nodding, some coming at you sideways. We
shall never find it easy, however, to £mcy the '
irritable aspect above mentioned. A hadmey-
coach always appeared to us the most quiescent of
moveables. Its horses and it, slumbering on a
stand, are an emblem of all the patience in crea-
tion, animate and inanimate. The submission with
which the coach takes every variety of the weather,
dust, rain, and wind, never moving but when
some eddying blast makes its old body seem to
shiver, is only surpassed by the vital patience of
the horses. Can anything better illustrate the
poet's line about —

Years that bring the philosophic mind,

than the still-hung head, the dim indifferent eye,
the dragged and blunt-cornered mouth, and the .
gaunt imbecility of body dropping its weight on
three tired legs in order to give repose to the lame

COACHES. 9T

one? When it has hiiakas ca, tkcy

shutting up its eyes far deatk, fi&ethe

a house. Fat^ae and the habit of

beoome as natmal to

mooth. Once in half an

of its leg, or shakes its

makes it go, more

coat has hr c m i ic

The blind and

oome to die gainst its

Of apair of I
resembles the other that it
them to compare
which is befond the
bend their he

Thej stand together as if
another's coopanj, lint they
hoise miges his
presence of an
pain and mflfiing with
It is talk, and nKMOfy,
dung ofthisitB^betoowold
harness. What are thef ihini ini, <£,
stand motionieK in the nin? Do they
Do they dream? Do they stiD,
their okl blood is by too aHDiy foods,
pleasure from the elements; a dafl
from the air and son? Ha:re they yet a palaie far
the hay whidi they poll so fedily? or far the ORr
grain, winch indnoes diem to pafaim their orfy
Toluntaiy gestnre of any virKity, and torn np the
bags that are fastened on their moths, to ^ at
iu shallow feast ?

98 LRJGH HUNT.

If the old horse were gifted with memory, (and
who shall say he b not, in one thing as well as
another?) it might be at once the most melancholy
and pleasantest fisiculty he has; for the commonest
hack has very likely bem a hunter or racer ; has
had his days of lustre and enjoyment ; has darted
along the course, and scoured the pasture; has
carried his master proudly, or his lady gently ; has
pranced, has galloped, has neighed aloud, has
dared, has forded, has spumed at mastery, has
graced it and made it proud, has rejcHced the eye,
has been crowded to as an actor, has be«i all in-
stinct with life and quickness, has had its very fear
admired as courage, and been sat upon l^ valour
as its chosen seat

Hb ears up-pricked ; his braided hanging mane
Upon his compass'd crest now stands on end ;
His nostrils drink the air ; and fbrtix again.
Aft from a Cumace, vi^iours doth he send ;

Hb eye, which glbtens scornfully like fire.
Shows hb hot courage and his high desire.

Sometimes he trots as if he told the steps.

With gentle majesty, and modest pride ;

Anon he rears upright, curvets and leaps.

As who woukL say, lo ! thus my strength b tried,
And thus I do to captivate the eye
Of the fair breeder that b standing by.

What recketh he his rider's angry stir,
Hb flattering holla, or hb Standi I say t
What cares he now for curb, or pricking spur?
For rich ca{>arisons, or trappings gay?

He sees his love, and nothing else he sees.
For nothing else with his proud sight agrees.

Look, when a painter would surpass the life.
In limning out a well-prcqwrtion'd steed.

COACHES, 99

His art with nature's workmanship at strife,

As if the dead the living should exceed ;

So did this horse excel a common one.

In shape, in courage, colour, pace, and bone.

Round-hoord, short-jointed, fetlock shag and long.

Broad breast, full eyes, small head, and nostril wide ;

High crest, short ears, straight l^s, and passing strong ;

Thin mane, thidc tail, broad bnttodc, tender hide ;

Look, what a horse should have, he did not lack.
Save a proud rider on so proud a back.

Alas ! his only riders now are the rain and a
sordid harness ! The least utterance of the
wretchedest voice makes him stop and become
a fixture. His loves were in existence at the time
the old sign, fifty miles hence, was painted. His
nostrils drink nothing bat what they cannot help,
— the water out of an old tub. Not all the hounds
in the world could make his ears attain any emi-
nence. His mane is scratchy and lax, his shape an
anatomy, his name a mockery. The same great
poet who wrote the triumphal verses for him and
his loves, has written their living epitaph : —

The poor jades
Lob down their heads, dropping the hide and hips.
The gum down roping from their pale dead eyes ;
And in thdr pale dull mouths the gimmal bit
Lies foul with chew'd grass, still and motionless.

K. Henry F., Act i.

There is a song called the " High-mettled Racer,**
describii^ the progress of a &vourite horse's life,
from its time of vigour and glory, down to its fur-
nishing food for the dogs. It is not as good as
Shakespeare ; but it will do, to those who are half
as kind as he. We defy anybody to read that

loo LEIGH HUNT.

song or be in the haHt of singing it or hearii^ it
sung, and treat horses as they are sometimes
treated. So much good may an author do^ who is
in earnest, and does not go in a pedantic way to
work. We will not say that Plutarch's good-
natured observation about taking care of one's old
horse did more for that class of retired servants
than all the graver lessons of philosophy. For it is
philosophy which first sets people thinking ; and
then some of them put it in a more popular shape.
But we will venture to say, that Plutarch's obser-
vation saved many a steed of antiquity a superfluous
thump; and in this respect, the author of the
"High-mettled Racer" (Mr. Dibdin we believe, no
mean man in his way,) may stand by the side of the
old illustrious bi(^;rapher. Next to ancient causes,
to the inevitable prc^ess of events, and to the
practical part of Christianity (which persons, the
most accused of irreligion, have preserved like a
glorious infant, through ages of blood and fire,) the
kindliness of modem philosophy is more imme-
diately owing to the great national writers of
Europe, in whose schools we have all been chil-
dren : — to Voltaire in France, and Shakespeare in
England. Shakespeare, in his time, obliquely
pleaded the cause of the Jew, and got him set on a
common level with humanity. The Jew has since
been not only allowed to be human, but some
have undertaken to show him as the " best good
Christian though he knows it not" We shall not
dispute the title with him, nor with the other wor-
shippers of Mammon, who force him to the same
shrine. We allow, as things go in that quarter.

COACHES. loi

that the Jew is as great a Christian as his neigh-
bour, and his neighbour as great a Jew as he.
There is neither love nor money lost between
them. But at all events, the Jew is a man ; and
with Shakespeare's assistance, the time has arrived,
when we can afford to acknowledge the horse for a
fellow-creature, and treat him as one. We may
say for him, upon the same grounds and to the
same purpose, as Shakespeare said for the Israelite,
" Hath not a horse organs, dimensions, senses,
affections, passions ? hurt with the same weapons,
subject to the same diseases, healed by the same
means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and
summer, as a Christian is ? " Oh — ^but some are
always at hand to ay out, — ^it would be effeminate
to think too much of these things ! — ^Alas ! we
have no notion of asking the gentlemen to think
too much of anything. If they will think at all, it
will be a great gain. As to effeminacy (if we most
use that ungallant and partial word, for want of a
better,) it is cruelty that is effeminate. It is selfish-
ness that is effeminate. Anything is effeminate,
which would get an excitement, or save a proper
and manly trouble, at the undue expense of an-
other. — How does the case stand then between
those who ill-treat their horses, and those who
spare them ?

To return to the coach. Imagine a fine coach
and pair, which are standing at the door of a house,
in all the pride of their sleek strength and beauty,
converted into what they may both really become,
a hackney, and its old shamblers. Such is one of
the meditations of the philosophic eighteenpenny

iM LEIGH HUNT.

rider. A hackney-coach has often the arms of
nobility on it As we are going to get into it, we
CKtdi a glimpse of the faded lustre of an earl's or
mmrqtiis'& coronet, and think how many light or
proad hearts have ascended those now ricketty
steps. In this coach perhaps an elderly lady once
rode to her wedding, a Uooming and blushing
girl. Her mother and sister were, on each side of
her; the bridegroom opposite in a blossom-
coloured coat They taUc of everything in the
world of which they are not thinking. The sister
was never prouder of her. The mother with diffi-
culty represses her own pride and tears.. The
bride, thinking he is looking at her, casts down
her eyes, pensive in her. joy. The bridegroom is
at once the proudest, and the humblest, and the
happiest man in the world — For our parts, we sit
in a comer, and are in love wkb the sister. We
dream she b going to speak to us in answer to
some indifferent question, when a hoarse voice
comes in at the front window, aaod says^ '* Where-
abouts, Sir I"

And grief has consecrated thee, thou reverend
dilapidation, as well as joy I Thou hast carried
unwilling, as well as willing hearts ; hearts, that
have thought the slowest of thy paces too £ast;
faces that have sat back in a comer of thee, to hide
their tears from the very thot^fat of being seen.
In thee the destitute have been taken to the poot-
house^ and the wounded and sick tb the ho^^ital ;
and many an arm has been round many an insen-
sible waist. Into thee the friend or the lover has
hurried, in a pas^on of tears, to lament his loss.

COACHES. lo}

In thee he has hastened to consolle the dyu&g or
the wretched. In thee the father, or mother, or
the older kinswoman, more' patient in her yeaifty
has taken the little child to the grave, the human
jewel that must be parted with.

But joy appears in thee again, like the look-in of
the son-shine. If the lover has gone in thee im-
wiUingly, he has also gone willingly. How many
friends hast thou not carried to merry-meetings 1
How many young parties to the play I How many
children, whose faces thou hast turned in an
instant from the extremity of lachrymose weariness
to that ci staring delight* Thou hast contained as
many different passions in thee as a human heart ;
and for the sake of the human heart, old body,
thou art venerable. Thou shalt be as respectable
as a reduced old gentleman, whose very sloven-
liness is pathetic Thou shalt be made gay, as he
is over a younger and richer table, and thou shalt
be still more touching for the gaiety.

We wish the hackney-coachman were as interest*-
ing a machine as either his coach or horses; but it
must be owned, that of all the driving species he is
the least agreeable specimen. This is partly to be
attributed to the life which has most probably put
him into his situation ; partly to his w&nt of out*
side passengers to cultivate his gentility ; and partly
to the disputable nature of his fare, which sdwiiyt
leads him to be lying and Cheating. The waters-
man of the stand, who beats him if possible in sor-
didness ci appearance, is more respectable. He \A
less of a vagabond, and cannot cheat you. Nor is
the hackney-coachman only disagreeable in him-

I04 LEIGH HUNT.

self, but, like Falstaff reversed, the cause of dis-
agreeableness in others ; for he sets people upon
disputing with him in pettiness and ill-temper. He
induces the mercenary to be violent, and the
violent to seem mercenary. A man whom you
took for a pleasant laughing fellow, shall all of a
sudden put on an irritable look of calculation, and
vow that he will be charged with a constable,
rather than pay the sixpence. Even fi&ir woman
shall waive her all-conquering softness, and sound
a shrill trumpet in reprobation of the extortionate
charioteer, whom, if she were a man, she says, she
would expose. Being a woman, then, let her not
expose herself. Oh, but it is intolerable to be so
imposed upon ! Let the lady, then, get a pocket-
book, if she must, with the hackney-coach feures in
it ; or a pain in the legs, rather than the temper ;
or, above all, let her get wiser, and have an under-
standing that can dispense with the good opinion
of the hackney-coachman. Does she think that
her rosy lips were made to grow pale about two-
and-sixpence ; or that the expression of them will
ever be like her cousin Fanny's, if she goes on ?

The stage-coachman likes the boys on the road,
because he knows they admire him.* The hackney-
coachman knows that they cannot admire him, and
that they can get up behind his coach, which
makes him very savage. The cry of "Cut be-
hind ! " from the malicious urchins on the pave-
ment, wounds at once his self-love and his interest.
He would not mind overloading his master's horses
for another sixpence, but to do it for nothing is

' Cf. p. 9a, " He knows that the boys admire him."— £d.

COACHES. 105

what shocks his humanity. He hates the boy for
imposing upon him, and the boys for reminding
him that he has been imposed upon ; and he would
willingly twinge the cheeks of all nine. The cut
of his whip over the coach is very malignant. He
has a constant eye to the road behind him. He
has also an eye to what may be left in the coach.
He will undertake to search the straw for you, and
miss the half-crown on purpose. He speculates
on what he may get above his &re, according to
your manners or company; and knows how much
to ask for driving £ister or slower than usual. He
does not like wet weather so much as people sup-
pose; for he says it rots both his horses and
harness, and he takes parties out of town when the
weather is fine, which produces good payments in
a lump. Lovers, late supper-eaters, and girls
going home from boarding-school, are his best
pay. He has a rascally air of remonstrance when
you dispute half the over-charge, and according
to the temper he is in, begs you to consider his
bread, hopes you will not make such a fuss about a
trifle; or tells you, you may take his number or sit
in the coach all night.

Lady. There, Sir !

IndiccUor (looking all about him). Where,
Ma*am?

Lady, The coachman, Sir !

Indicator, Oh pray. Madam, don't trouble your-
self. Leave the gentleman alone with him. Do
you continue to be delightful at a little distance.

A great number of ludicrous adventures must
have taken place, in which hackney-coaches were

fo6 LEIGH HUNT,

concerned. The story of the celebrated harlequin
Lonn, who secretly pitched himself out of one into
a tavern window, and when the coachman was
about to submit to the loss of his fiure, astonished
him by calling out again from the inside, is too
well known for repetition. There is one of Swift,
not perhaps so common. He was going, one dark
evening, to dine with some great man, and was
accompanied by some other clergymen, to whom
he gave their cue. They were all in their canoni-
cals. When they arrive at the house, the coach-
man opens the door, and lets down the steps.
Down steps the Dean, very reverendly in his black
robes ; after him comes another perscmage, equally
black and dignified ; then another ; then a fourth.
The coachman, who recollects taking up no greater
number, b about .to put up the steps, when
another clergyman descends. After giving way to
this other, he proceeds with great confidence to
toss them up, when lo ! another comes. Well,
there cannot, he thinks, be well more than six.
He is mistaken. Down comes a seventh, then an
eighth ; then a ninth ; all with decent intervals ;
the coach, in the mean time, rocking as if it were
giving birth to so many daemons. The coachman
can conclude no less. He cries out, *' The devil !
the devil ! " and is preparing to run away, when
they all burst into laughter at the success of their
joke. They had gone round as they descended,
and got in at the other door.

We remember in our boyhood an edifying com-
ment on the proverb of ''all is not gold that
glistens." The spectacle made such an impiessioa

COACHES. 107

upon us, that we recollect the very spot, which
was at the corner of a road in the way firom West-
minster to Kennington, near a stonemason's. It
was a severe winter, and we were out on a holiday,
thinking, perhaps, of the gallant hardships to
which the ancient soldiers accustomed themselves,
when we suddenly beheld a group of hackney-
coachmen, not, as Spenser says of his witch,

Busy, as setrntd^ about some wkdced gin,

but pledging each other in what appeared to us to
be little glasses of cold water. What temperance,
thought we ! What extraordinary and noble con-
tent ! What more than Roman simplicity ! There
are a set of poor Englishmen, of the homeliest
order, in the very depth of winter, quenching their
patient and honourable thirst with modicums of
cold water ! O true virtue and courage ! O sig^
¥^rthy of the Timoleons and Epaminondases !
We know not how long we remained in this error;
but the first time we recognized the white devil for
what it was — the first time we saw through the
chrystal purity of its appearance — was a great blow
to us. We did not then know what the drinkers
went through ; and this reminds us that we hav«
omitted one great redemption of the hacknqr-
coachman's character — his being at the mercy of
all sorts of chances and weathers. Other driven
have their settled hours and pay. He only is at
the mercy of every call and every casualty; he only
is dragged without notice, like the damned in
Milton, into the extremities of wet and cold, from
his alehouse fire to the fireezing rain; he only must

io6 LEIGH MUST.

go any where, at what hour and to whatever place
you choose, his old rheumatic limbs shaking under
his weight of rags, and the snow and sleet beating
into his puckered fiau:e, through streets which the
wind scours like a channel.^

[FROM] A VISIT TO THE ZOOLO-
GICAL GARDENS.

[" New Monthly Magasine,** Aug. 1836. " Men, Women,
and Books," 1847. C Kent, 1889.]

^^^- -35

WENT to the Zoological Gardens the
other day, for the first time, to see my
old friends, "the wild beasts'' (grim
intimates of boyhood), and enjoy their
lift in the world from their lodgings in Towers and
Exeter Changes, where they had no air, and where
I remember an elephant wearing boots, because
the rats gnawed his feet! The first thing that
struck me, next to the beauty of the Gardens, and
the pleasant thought that such flowery places
were now prepared for creatures whom we lately
thrust into mere dens and dust-holes, was the
quantity of life and energy presented to one's eyes !
What motion ! — What strength ! — What active
elegance ! What prodigious chattering, and bril-
liant colours in the macaws and parrakeets ! What
fresh, clean, and youthful salience in the lynx!
What a variety of dogs, all honest fellows appa-
rently, of the true dog kind ; and how bounding,

^ One of C. Lamb's favourite papers. See "Autobio-
graphy," p. 250.

yiSIT TO THE ZCCl.X^-rAl. QAZZI^iJ:.

ham in*£Suges:i, scrw fc t:- ^xxxri air axxt sol
oar dsi^ircc, aixi vxr'per zZ cBvr iii£ mnm'ji "
And tbea ibc Perzism ^rmkinxnf J Hmr lifar s
patriciam dcg fT^rrflr {rrsL ~Tag LsnciearV. bdc
made as if cxpsrss^'r i' vix iy«:ir. i rrsBCX jr iikt ::
hs giacdn! skskdez^cBL rnrVmk jmf joof siksn
ears, ««a'?g-*tf-^ *3s o«x j y^t^ i ia^u jr f^irt sue
vell-dic95cd Xteast \

It 2s comes 13 sod aoessif '^mesL^ ssnc mc
glare viib a bear ; ^*iiife; imi bni&. acne ^ratiTTnifg
his £uey like a icbucQnrik!. ^ see iirv be jibs
them. A irS*<rSia& rao — "if x vsst use Sor
those bais, prrgj* be w^blxZ zst can^ vk.'' Tft
how mild tber aad 3bs Yxd, resifcff jmc 'Wc
scnitimze bis ooazscsaacje zui xcsmics s: "Hmr,
and are amgifii vrr bs ac u*aru:!lj TTirfi'ri»-fr vs
actire hmupBlniesi. 2s Jiei.ii coic cr unsGipcsne
which win do Mif\i i^ bmqr raet s ibcssbdt^ i»
ahnost hand-fike ise «e is jod^. zvkwv&^-jci
toes, and the ^ w^ssi be wves aBnaalT
him like a waids&c'i {;rEci-cx:L Tbc
beais look soncbov srjre »l' ui,' ; tsl jcoc «i
those whose imagizaSnai bm zol ^jva up
amidst polar nanzdre. Tbe wi±e 'kst xl tboe
Gaxdcns has a honiUe cduc rjrJc ^'' Timrmrwr
and cradtj. Sooie Rooaa nrsr: k£;;i: £ '»ar as
one of his exccntioDen, azkd caZjec r ^ IiaoccacK:.*'
We could imagine ii lo bare b&d hsc bdcs: a jEkk.
From that smooih, insic:pres£i«e «c«c: tVsi: x
no appeaL He has no iC-wiH lo t^« ; ouj be »
fond of yoor flesh, and w<x:jd viz. jsfL 7Eg> s iLCiiEflf

SM LEIGH HUNT,

as yon would sup milk, or swallow a custard.
Imagine his arms around you, and your fate de-
pending upon what you could say to him. You fed
tiiat you might as well talk to a devouring statue,
or to the sign of the " Bear" in Piccadilly, or to a
guillotine, or to the cloak of Nessus, or to your
own great-coat (to ask it to be not so heavy), or to
the smooth-faced wife of an ogre, hungry and deaf,
and one that did not understand your language. '

THB BLEPHANT.

*

The more one considers an elephant, the more
he makes good his claim to be ccmsidered the
Doctor Johnson of the brute creation. He is huge,
potent, sapient, susceptible of tender impressions ;
is a good feUow : likes as much water as the other
did tea ; gets on at a great uncouth rate when he
walks ; and though perhaps less irritable and
melancholy, can take a witty revenge ; as witness
the £eimous story of the tailor that pricked him, and
whom he drenched with ditch-water. If he were
suddenly gifted with speech, and we asked him
whether he liked his imprisonment, the first words
he would utter would unquestionably be — '* Why,
no, sir.** Nor is it to be doubted, when going to
dinner, that he would echo the bland sentiment of
our illustrious metropolitan, on a like occasion,
" Sir, I like to dine.** If asked his opinion of his
keeper, he would say, "Why, sir, Hipkins is,

1 " [This] animal resembles many respectable gentlemen
whom we could name. When he wishes to attack anybody
he rises on his hind legs, as men do in the Hbuse of Com-
mons."— 7a*/r Talk, 1851.

A LETTER TO THE BELLS. ixx

apon the whole, 'a good fellow' — like myself
{smilingy^hyxi not quite so considerate ; he knows
X love him, and presumes a little too much upoa
my forbearance. He teases me for the amusement
of the bystanders. Sir, Hipkins takes the display
of allowance for the merit of ascendancy."

This is what the elephant manifestly thought on
the present occasion ; for the keeper set a little
dog at him, less to the amusement of the bystanders
than he fimded ; and the noble beast, after butting
the cur out of the way, and taking care to spare
him as he advanced (for one tread of his foot would
have smashed the little pertinacious wretch as flat
as a pancake), suddenly made a stop, and, in
rebuke of both of them, uttered a high indignant
scream, much resembling a score of cracked
trumpets.

A LETTER TO THE BELLS OF A
PARISH CHURCH IN ITALY.*

[" New Monthly Magadne,** 1835.]

[OR God's sake, dear bells, why this
eternal noise ? Why do you make this
everlasting jangling and outcry ? Is it
not enough that the whole village talkt
but you must be talking too ? Are you the repre-
sentative of all the gossip in the neighbourhood ?
Now, they tell me, you inform us that a firiar is

1 In this article use has been made of a copy in the poa-
tession of Mr. Alexander Ireland, containing corrections in
the handwriting of Leigh Hunt.— Ed.

1X3 LEIGH HUNT.

dead : now you jingle a blessing on the vines and
olives, " babbling o* gre6n fields : " anon you start
away in honour of a marriage, and jangle as if the
devU were in you. Your zeal for giving information
may be generous where there are no newspapers ;
bat when you have once informed us that a friar is
deadf where is the necessity of repeating the same
intelligence for twelve hours together? Did any
one ever hear of a newspaper which contained
nothing from b^;inning to end but a series of para-
graphs, informing us that a certain gentleman was
no more ?

Died yesterday, Father Paul —
Died yesterday. Father Paul —
Died yesterday. Father Paul —

and so on from nine in the morning till nine at
night ? You shall have some information in return,
very necessary to be known by all the bells in
Christendom. Learn then, sacred, but at the same
time thoughtless tintinnabularies, that there are
dying, as well as dead, people in the world, and
sick people who will die if they are not encouraged.
What must be the effect of this mortal note un-
ceasingly reiterated in their ears ? Who would set
a whining fellow at a sick man's door to repeat to
him all day long, "Your neighbour's dead ; — ^your
neighbour's dead."

But you say, '* It is to remind the healthy, and
not the dying, that we sound ; and the few must
give way to the many." Good : it delights me to
hear you say so, because everything will of course
be changed in the economy of certain governments,

A LETTRR TO THE BELLS. 1x3

except yourselves. Bat in this particnltr ««t— *it
allow me to think yon are mistaken. I differ hom
a beUiy with hesitation. Triple bob majon are
things before which it becomes a philoGophic in-
quirer to be modest. But have we not memonuH
dums enough to this good end? Have we not
coughs, colds, fevers, plethoras, deaths of all sorts
occurring round about us, old feces, ch ur c h yards^
accidents infinite, books, cookery books, wars,
apothecaries, gin-shops? You remind the sick
and the dying too forcibly: but you are modi
mistaken if you think that others regard yoor
importunity of advice in any other light than that
of a nuisance. Theymayget used to it; butwfaat
then ? So much the worse for your admonitioiis.
In like manner they get used to a hundred thii^
which do them no sort of good ; which only teod
to keep their moods and tempers in a duller state
of exasperation.

Then the marriages. Dear bells, do you ever
consider that there are people who have been
married two 3rears, as well as two hours. What
here becomes of your maxim of the few giving way
to the many ? Have all the rest of the married
people, think you, made each other deaf^ so that
they cannot hear the sound ? It may be sport to
the new couple, but it is death to the old ones. If
a pair or so love one another almost as much as if
they had never been married, at least they aie
none the better for you. If they look kindly tX
one another when they hear the sound, do yoa
think it is not in spite of the bells, as well as for
sweetness of recollection ?

I. I

SI4 LEIGH HUNT.

In my country it is bod enough. A bdl shall go
for homs telling us that Mr. Ching is dead.

*' Ring, ring, ring — Ching, Ching^ Ching — Oh
Ching ! — ^Ah Ching, Ching 1 I say — Ching is gone
— Gone, gone, gone — Good people, listen to the
steeple — Ching, Ching, Ching."

" Ay," says a patient in his bed, " / knew him.
He had the same palsy as I have."

*' Mercy on us," cries an old woman in the next
house, " there goes poor Mr. Ching, sure enough."

"I just had a pleasant thought," says a sick
mourner, " and now that bell 1 that melancholy
bcni"

" The bell will go for me, mother, soon," ob-
serves a poor child to its weeping parent

•* What will become of my poor children ? " ex-
daims a dying feither.

It would be usefid to know how many deaths are
hastened by a bell : at least how many recoveries
are retarded. There are sensitive pers(»is, not
otherwise in ill-health, who find it difficult to hear
the sound without tears. What must they fed on
a sick bed ! As for the unfeeling, who are the
only persons to be benefited, they care for it no
more than for the postman's.

But in England we can at least reckon upon
shorter bell-ringings, and upon long intervals with-
out any. We have not bells every day as they
have here, except at the universities. The saints
in the protestant calendar are quiet. Our belfries
also are thicker ; the clappers do not come swing-
ing and flaring out of window, like so many scolds.
Italians talk of music ; but I must roundly ask.

V y^

A LETTER TO THE BELLS. xxs

how came Italian ears to put up with thb music of
the Chinese? But you belong to that comer of
earth exclusively, and ought all to return thither.
I am loth to praise anything Mussulman in these
times ; but to give the Turk his due, he is not ad-
dicted to superfluous noise. His belfry-men cannot
deafen a neighbourhood all day long with the death
of an Imaun, for they are themselves the bells.
Alas ! why do not steeples catch cold, and clappers
require a gargle ? Why must things that have no
feeling — ^belfries, and one's advisers — be exclusively
gifted with indefatigability of tongue ?

Lastly, your tunes ! I thought, in Italy, that
anything which undertook to be musical, would be
in some way or other truly so — ^harmonious, if not
various ; various and new, if not very harmonious.
But I must say our bells in England have double
your science. I once sang a duet with St. Clement^5
Church in the Strand. Indeed, I have often done
it, returning from a symposium in the Temple.
The tune was the hundred and fourth psalm. I
took the second. And this reminds me that
our English bells have the humanity to catch a
cold now and then, or something like it. They
will lose two or three of their notes at a time. I
used to humour this infirmity in my friend St.
Clement's, as became an old acquaintance, and
always waited politely till he resumed. But in
Italy the bells have the oddest, and at the same
time the most unfading and inexorable hops of
tunes, that can be imagined.

Light quirks of music, broken and uneven,
Make the soul dance upon a jig to heaven.

ii6 LEIGH HUNT,

One might suppose that the steeple, m some an-
aoooontable fit of merriment, struck np a coontry-
danoe, like that recorded in Mr. Monk Lewis's
acooimt of Orpheus : —

While a& arm of the

Introduced by a tree.
To a fiur irouog whale advances ;

And nuUcing a Iq;,

Saysi " Mies, may I bes
Yoar fin for the two next dances?"

I used to wonder at this, till one day I heard
the host announced in a procession by as merry a
set of fiddles, as ever played to a ship's company.
The other day a dead bishop was played out in
church to the tune of Di fiacer. But I fbiget I
am writing a letter; and luckily my humour, as
well as my paper, is out Besides, the bells have
left ofi* before me ; for whidi I am their

Much obliged, exhausted humble -servant,

MiSOCROTALUS.

THE TRUE ENJOYMENT OF SPLEN-
DOUR—A CHINESE APOLOGUE.

["The Reflector,- No. III., Art. XIX., x8ia. "A Day
by tbe Fire," x87a]

DOUBTLESS, saith the illustrious Me,
he that gaineth much possession hath
need of the wrists of Hong and the
seriousness of Shan-Fee, since palaces
are not built with a teaspoon* nor are to be kept

THE TRUE ENJOYMENT OF SPLENDOUR, 117

by one who nmneth after butterflies. But above
all it is necessary that he who carrieth a great
burden, whether of gold or silver, should hold his
head as lowly as b necessary, lest in lifting it on
high he brin^ his treasure to nought, and lose with
the spectators the glory of true gravity, which is
meekness.

Quo, who was the son of Quee, who was the son
of Quee-Fong, who was the five hundred and
fiftieth in lineal descent from the ever-to-be-
remembered Fing, chief minister of the Emperor
Yao, one day walked out into the streets of Pekin
in all the lustre of his rank. Quo, besides the
greatness of his birth and the multitude of his
accomplishments, was a courtier of the first order,
and his p^tail was proportionate to his merits, for
it hung down to the ground and kissed the dust as
it went with its bunch of artificial roses. Tea
huge and sparkling rings, which encrusted his
hands with diamonds, and almost rivalled the sun
that struck on them, led the ravished eyes of the
beholders to the more precious enormity of his
nails, which were each an inch long, and l^ proper
nibbing might have taught the barbarians of the
West to look with just scorn on their many writing-
machines. But even these were nothing to the
precious stones that covered him from head to foot.
His bonnet, in which a peacock's feather was stuck
in a most ei^;aging manner, was surmounted by a
sapphire of at least the size of a pigeon's egg;
his shoulders and sides sustained a real burden of
treasure ; and as he was one of the handsomest
men at court, being exceedingly corpulent, and,

ii9 LEIGH HUNT.

indeed, as his flatterers gave out, hardly able to
walk, it may be imagined that he proceeded at no
undignified pace. He would have ridden in his
sedan had he been lighter of body ; but so much
unaffected corpulence was not to be concealed,
and he went on foot that nobody might suspect
him of pretending to a dignity he did not possess.
Behind him, three servants attended, clad in most
goigeotts silks ; the middle one held his umbrella
over his head ; he on the right bore a fan of ivory,
whereon were carved the exploits of Whay-Quang;
and he on the left sustained a purple bag on each
arm, one containing opium and Areca-nut, ^e
other the ravishing preparation of Gin-Seng, which
possesses the Five Relishes. All the servants
looked the same way as their master — ^that is to
say, straightforward, with their eyes majestically
half-shut, only they cried every now and then
with a loud voice, " Vanish before the illustrious
Quo, favourite of the mighty Brother of the Sun
and Moon."

Though the favourite looked neither to the right
nor to the lefl, he could not but perceive the great
homage that was paid him as well by the faces as
the voices of the multitude. But one person, a
Bonze, seemed transported beyond all the rest
with an enthusiasm of admiration, and followed at
a respectful distance from his side, bovring to the
earth at every ten paces, and exclaiming, "Thanks
to my lord for his jewels I " After repeating this
for about six times, he increased the expressions of
his gratitude, and said, " Thanks to my illustrious
lord from his poor servant for his glorious jewels,**

THE TRUE ENJOYMENT OF SPLENDOUR, 119

— and then again, '' Thanks to my illustrious lord,
whose eye knoweth not degradation, from his poor
servant, who is not fit to exist before him, for his
jewels that make the rays of the sun like ink." In
short, the man's gratitude was so great, and its
language delivered in phrases so choice, that Quo
could contain his curiosity no longer, and turning
aside, demanded to know his meaning. '* I have
not given you the jewels,'* said the &vourite,
*' and why should you thank me for them ?"

*' Refulgent Quo 1 " answered the Bonxe, again
bowing to the earth, ^ what yon say is as true as
the fire maxims of Fo, who was bom without a
father ; but your slave repeats his thanks, and is
indeed infinitely obliged. You must know, O
dafxiing son of Quee, that of all my sect I have
perhaps the greatest taste for enjoyii^ myselfl
Seeing my lord therefore go by, I could not but be
transported at having so great a pleasure, and said
to myself, ' The great Quo is very kind to me and
my fellow-dtizens : he has taken infinite labour to
acquire his magnificence, he takes still greater'
pains to preserve it, and all the while, I, who am
Ijong under a shed, enjoy it for nothing.' "

A hundred years after, when the Emperor
Whang heard this story, he diminished the expen-
diture of hb household one half, and ordered the
dead Bonze to be raised to the rank of a Colao.'

1 " How the Chioeae came to iBvent tea, at Sancho would
ny, we do not know ; but it is the most ingenious, humane,
and poetical of their discoveries. It is their epic poem "
C'The Indicator,— Table Wits at Breakfast ").

S90 LBtGH HUNT*

WIT MADE EASY

OR A HINT TO WORD-CATCHERS.*

[<*New Monthly Magazine/' May. 1825. "Printing
Machine," July, 1835. " Wishing Cap Papers," 1874.]

A.

'ERE comes B., the liveliest yet most
tiresome of word-catchers. I wonder
whether he'll have wit enough to hear
good news of his mistress. — ^Well, B.,
my dear boy, I hope I see yoa well.

B, I hope you do, my dear A., otherwise you
have lost your eyesight

A, Good. Well, how do you do?

B. How? Why as other people da You
would not have me eccentric, would you ?

A, Nonsense. I mean, how do you find your-
self?

B, Find myself ! Where's the necessity of find-
ing myself? I have not been lost.

A, Incorrigible dog 1 come now ; to be serious.

B. (coffus closer to A, and looks vtry serious^

A. Well, what now ?

B, I am come, to be serious.

A, Come now; nonsense, B., leave off this.
{Laying his hand on his arm, )

B. {looking down at his ami). I can't leave off

1 In this article use has been made of a copy in the posses-
sion of Mr. Alexander Ireland, containing corrections in the
handwriting of Leigh Hunt. —Ed.

ly/T MADS SASV. zat

this. It would look very absurd to go without a
sleeve.

A. Ah, ha! Yon make me laugh in spite of
myself. How's Jackson ?

B. The deuce he is ! How's Jackson, is he?
Well I never should have thoi^ht that. How can
Howe be Jackson ? " Sumame and arms," I sup«
pose, of some rich uncle ? I have not seen hiiBi
gazetted.

A. Good-bye.

B. (detaming him). " Good Bye ! " What ft
sudden enthusiasm in favour of some virtuous man
of the name of Bye I " Good Bye I"— To think of
Ashton standing at the comer of the street, doat-
ing aloud on the integrity of a Mr. Bye !

A. Ludicrous enough. I can't help laughing, I
confess. But laughing does not always imply
merriment You do not delight us. Jack, with
these sort of jokes, but tickle us; and tickling may
give pain.

B, Don't accept it then. You need not take
everything that is given you.

A, You'll want a straightforward answer some
day, and then—

B, You'll describe a circle about me, before you
give it Well, that's your affair, not mine. You'll
astonish the natives, that's all.

A, It's great nonsense, you must allow.

B, I can't see why it is greater nonsense than
any other pronoun.

A, (in despair^ Well, it's of no use, I see.

B. Excuse me : li^ is of the very greatest use. I
don't know a part of speech more useful. // per-

y

iM LEIGH HUNT,

fonns ail the greatest offices of nature, and con-
tains, in fact, the whole agency and mystery of the
world. // rains. It is fine weather. // freezes.
// thaws. // (which is very odd) is one o'clock.
** It has been a very frequent observation." //
goes. Here it goes. How goes it ? — (which, by
the way, is a translation from the Latin, Eo, is, it ;
JStf, I go ; i>, thoQ goest ; «^, he cmt it goes. In
short

A. In short, if I wanted a dissertation on ftf,
bow's the time for it But I don't ; so, good bye.
{Going) — I saw Miss M. last night

B. The devil yon did ! Wherewasit?

A. [to himself). Now I have him, and will
revenge mysel£ Where was it ? Where was it,
eh ? Oh, you must know a great deal more about
«/than I do.

B, Nay, my dear fellow, do tell me. I'm on
thorns.

A, On thorns I Very odd thorns. I never saw
an acanthus look so like a pavement

B, Come now, to be serious.

A. {cotms close to B. tmd looks tragic),

B. He, he ! Very fair, egad. But do tell me
now where was she ? How did she look ? Who
was with her ?

A, Oh, ho I jffoo was with her, ¥fas he ? Well,
I wanted to know his name. I couldn't tell
who the devil it was. But I say, Jack, who^s
Hoo?

B. Good. He, he ! Devilish &ir 1 But now,
my dear Will, for God's sake, you know how
interested I am.

WIT MADE EASY, uj

A. The dcnoe jam. are ! I ahr^s took jam. for
a dismteraled k^aw, I ahn^ and d Jack BL,
Jack's apt to ovadohis aedk ibr
honest dismterested feikifir I Bcici

B. W4 then, as job tkidi^ ao^ be
Where is BCbs IC ?

^. This is Bore ^'^'^^^ mtw% iham
fTit/K is IGs IC I knov her ponoB Ibr
hot this is awndcffiiL Good Hcxieas ! To
of a ddicate joang bi^dreaiDi
ckithesy and leading the band at a theatre
the name of Wareu

B. Nov, mj dear WHI, oonader. I
ledge I have been UmuBiL ; I conlieas it is a had
habit, this word-catdnig; bat iiwiihi mj

A. {JaOsimtmmiiHmJttfwmm^

B. WdL
^. Doo't iMcn^ ine^ f !■ iiiiwiiliiin

love.

B. I repent ; I am tni^ wtrnxf. What sUi I
do? {layirngkis ksmd m its hemrt^ — TB give np
this cmsed habit.

A, Yoawiil?— npoohoBonr?

B» Upon my hnnnf,

A, On the spot?

B, VoWf this BBtaat Bbv, and far eter*

A, Strip awaj, then.

B. Strip? far what?

A, Yon sad yon'd gfve ap that caned habiL

B. Nov, mj dear A., far the Wre of einijfhing
that is sacred; far the love of jroar

^. Win joa pninne me SDoerely ?
^. HcanandsoaL

1*4 LETCH HUNT,

A, Step over the way, then, into the coffee-
house, and ru tell you.

Street'Sweiper, Plase your honour, pray remem-
ber the poor swape.

B, My friend. 111 never forget you, if that will
be of any service. 1*11 think of you next year.

A. What again 1

B. The last time,'as I hope to be saved. Here,
my friend; there's a shilling for you. Charity
covers a multitude of bad jokes.

Street'Sweiper. God send your honour thousands
of them.

B, The jokes or the shillings, you rascal?

Street-sweeper, Och, the shillings. Divil a bit
the bad jokes. I can make them myself, and a
shilling's no joke any how.

A, What ! really silent ! and in spit^ of the dog's
equivocal Irish fiice ! Come, B., I now see you
can give up a jest, and are really in love ; and your
mistress, I will undertake to say, will not be sorry
to be convinced of both. Women like to begin
with merriment well enough ; but they prefer
coming to a grave conclusion.

THE PRINCE OJ^ST, PATRICICS DAY, its

THE PRINCE ON ST. PATRICK'S

DAY.

[" Ejaumner," Mavch amd, x8s«. "Aotobiofiapliy,''
«8sa]

[HE same page [of **The Morning Post "]
contained also a set of wretched com-
monplace lines in French, Italian,
Spanish, and English, literally address-
ing the Prince Regent in the following tenns,
among others : — "You are the Glory of the people**
— " You are the Protector of the Arts''—** You are
the Macenas of the age ** — " Wherever you appear
you conquer all hearts, wipe away tears, excite
desire and love, and win beauty towards you " —
"You breathe eloquence** — "You inspire the
Graces " — * * You are Adonis in loveliness, " " Thus
gifted " it proceeds in English, —

Thus gifted with each grace of mind.
Bom to delight and bless mankind ;
Wisdom, with Pleasure in her train.
Great Prince ! shall signalize thy reign :
To Honour, Virtue^ Truth allied ;
The aadon's safeguard and its pride ;
With monarchs of immortal fame
Shall bright renown enrol the nama

What person, unacquainted with the true state of
the case, would imagine, in reading these astound-
ing eulc^es, that this " Glory of the people " was
the subject of millions of shrugs and reproaches !
— that this ** Protector of the Arts'* had named a
wretched foreigner for his historical painter, in

i«6 LRtGH HVf^T.

disparagement or in ignorance of the merits of his
own oottntrymen ! — that thu **'Macenas of ike age **
patronized not a single deserving writer ! that this
** Breather of eloquence " could not say a few decent
extemt>ore words — ^if we are to judge, at least, from
what he said to his regiment on its embarkation
for Portugal ! — that iSa^** Conqueror of hearts" yiss
the disappointer of hopes ! — ^that this " Exciter of
desire^ [bravo I Messieurs of the " Post 1 '*]~this
** Adonis in ietfeliness^ was a corpulent man of
fifty 1 — ^in shorty that this delightful^ blis^ul^ wise^
fUasurahle^ honourable^ virtuous^ true^ and im-
mortal prince, was a violator of his word, a liber-
tine over head and ears in disgrace, a despiser of
domestic ties, the companion of gamblers and
demireps, a man who has just closed half a cen-
tury without one single claim on the gratitude of
his country, or the respect of posterity I ^

•

I " This article, no doabt, was xreiy bitter and contemp-
tuoos ; theref<»re in the I^;al sense of the term very libellous ;
the more so, inasmnch as it was very trae .... it did but
exi»ess what all the world were feeling. "^^ Autobiography
of L. H.," 1850.

^The above is the most stinging portion of the article for
which Leigh Hunt and his lMX>ther John (the firoprietor
and publisher of " The Examiner ") were imprisoned from
Feb. 1813 to Feb. 18x5. Lord Brougham's eloquent de-
fence of the libel is a masterpiece (^ ingenious fixmy. See
" Bibliography/' No. 62.— Eo.

H^l/AT IS POETRVt lay

AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION,
WHAT IS POETRY?

[" Imagination and F$aacf,*' 1844.]

[GETRY, strictly and artistically so
called, that is to say, considered not
merely as poetic feeling, which is more
or less shared by all the world, but as
the operation of that feeling, such as we see it in
the poet's book, is the utterance of a passion for
truth, beauty, and power, embodying and illustrat-
ing its conceptions by imagination and £uicy, and
modulating its language on the principle of varfety
in uniformity. Its means are whatever the universe
contains ; and its ends, pleasure and exaltation.
Poetry stands between nature and convention,
keeping alive among us the enjoyment of the ex-
ternal and the spiritual world : it has constituted
the most enduring £sime of nations; and, next to
Love and Beauty, which are its parents, is the
greatest proof to man of the pleasure to be found
in all things, and of the probable riches of in-
finitude. . . .

Poetry is imaginative passion. The quickest
and subtlest test of the possession of its essence is
in expression ; the variety of things to be expressed
shows the amount of its resources ; and the con-
tinuity of the song completes the evidence of its
strei^th and greatness. He who has thought,
feeling, expression, imagination, action, character,
and continuity, all in the largest amount and highest
degree, js the greatest poet. . . .

^«-.

isS LEIGH HUNT,

It is thus, by exquisite pertinence, melody, and
the implied power of writing with exuberance, if
need be, that l^eanty and truth become identical
in poetry, and that pleasure, or at the very worst,
a balm in our tears, is drawn out of pain. • . .

REASON IN POETRY.

[FVom the "Esny on Goldsmith" in "Classic Tales,"
1806.]

|HE £abct is, that Goldsmith thought he
was reasoning finely, when he was
writing fine poetry only.^ It is the fault
of poetical argument that the reasoner
is apt to forget his logic in his £uicy ; he catches
at a brilliant line, or a brilliant idea ; his imagina-
tion fires ; and his reason, that serves merely to
overshadow its brightness, rolls from it like smoke.
It is well for the generality of readers that melan-
choly disquisitions in poetry have not the doleful
effect of such disquiiitions in prose. Poetry
scatters so many flowers on the most nigged argu-
ments that the weariness of the road is insensibly
beguiled.

1 In the "Traveller."

»Vr AND HUMOUR. 199

WIT AND HUMOUR
(defined).

[From ao lUnstiativc £«ay cta these snbfeols iM c fai e d
to " Wit and Hamoar," 1846, and partly 1
Kent, 1889]

mM:

CONFESS I feh this' so strongly
when I began to reflect on the present
sabjecty and found myself so perplexed
with the demand, that I was forced to
reject plan after plan, and feared I should never be
able to give any toleraUe account of the matter. I
experienced no such difficulty with the concentrat-
ing seriousness and sweet attraction of the subject
of "Imagination and ^ancy;" but this lai^;liing
jade of a topic, with her endless whims and fiices^
and the legions of indefinable shapes that she
brought about me, seemed to do nothii^ b«t
scatter my faculties, or bear them off deridingly
into pastime. I felt as if I was undergoing a Saint
Anthony's Temptation reversed, — a laughable in-
stead of a frightful one. Thousands of merry
devils poured in upon me from all sides, — doubles
of Similes, buffooneries of Burlesques, staikings of
Mock-heroics, stings in the tails of Epigrams,
glances of Innuendos, dry looks of Ironies, corpu-
lences of Exaggerations, ticklings of mad Fancies,
claps on the back of Horse-plays, complacencies of
UnawarenesseSy flounderings of Absurdities, irre-
sistibilities of Iterations, significandes of Jargons^
wailings of Pretended Woes, roarings of Laughters,

1 That "levity has as many tricks as the kitten. "—Ed.
I. K

ijo LEIGH HUNT,

and hubbubs of Ammal Spirits; — all so general
yet particular, so demanding distinct recc^ition,
and yet so bafflii% the attempt with their numbers
and their confusion, that a thousand masquerades
in one would have seemed to threaten less torment
to the pen of a reporter.

• • • • •

[It is not to be supposed] that eveiything witty or
humorous excites laughter. It may be accompa-
nied with a sense of too many other things to do
so ; with too much thought, with too great a per-
fection even, or with pathos and sorrow. All ex-
tremes meet ; excess of laughter itself runs into tears,
and mirth becomes heaviness. Mirth itself is too
often but melancholy in disguise. The jests of the
fool in *' Lear " are the sighs of knowledge. But
as far as Wit and Humour affect us on their own
accounts, or unmodified by graver considerations,
laughter is their usual result and happy ratifica-
tion. . . .

Wit is the clash and reconcilement of incongrui-
ties ; the meeting of extremes round a comer; the
flashing of an artificial light from one object to
another, disclosing some unexpected resemblance
or connection. It is the detection of likeness in
unlikeness, of sympathy in antipathy, or of the
extreme points of antipathies themselves, made
friends by the very merriment of their introduc-
tion. The mode, or form, is comparatively of no
consequence, provided it give no trouble to the
apprehension : and you may bring as many ideas
together as can pleasantly assemble. But a single
one is nothing. Two ideas are as necessary to

WIT AND HUMOUR. 131

Wit,^ as couples are to marriages ; and the union
is happy in proportion to the agreeableness of the
offspring. . . .

Humour^ considered as the object treated of by
the humorous writer, and not as the power of
treating it, derives its name from the prevailing
quality of moisture in the bodily temperament ; and
is a tendency of the mind to run in particular direc-
tions of thought or feeling more amusing titan
eucountable ; at least in the opinion of society. It
is, therefore, either in reality or appearance, a
thing inconsistent. It deals in incongruities of|
character and circumstance, as Wit does in those
of arbitrary ideas. The more the incongruities the ^
better, provided they are all in nature ; but two,
at any rate, are as necessary to Humour, as the
two ideas are to AVlt ; and the more strikingly
they differ yet harmonize, the more amusing the
result. Such is the melting together of the pro-
pensities to love and war in the person of exquisite
Uncle Toby; of the gullible and the manly in
Parson Adams ; of the professional and the indi-
vidual, or the accidental and the permanent, in
the Canterbury Pilgrims; of the objectionable and
the agreeable, the fat and the sharp-witted, in
Falstaff ; of honesty and knavery in Gil Bias ; of
pretension and non-performance in the Bullies of
the dramatic poets ; of folly and wisdom in Don
Quixote; of shrewdness and doltishness in Sancho

1 " That active combination of ideas, called wit, which
like the needle finds sympathy in the most remote objects,
and almost unites logic with fancy."— Essay on Mackenzie.
"Classic Tales."

X3S LEIGH HUNT.

Panza; and, it may be added, in the discordant
yet harmonious co-operation of Don Quixote and
his attendant, considered as a pair. . . ,

THE REPRESENTATION OF
TRAGEDY.

["The News," 1805. "Critical Essays on the Per-
fonnances of the ImdAksd. Theatres," 1807.]

)HE drama is the most perfect imitation
of human life ; by means of the stage it
represents, man in all his varieties of
mind, his expressions of manner, and his
power of action, and is the first of moralities be-
cause it teaches us in the most impressive way the
knowledge of ourselves When its lighter species,
which professes to satirize, forsakes this imitation
for caricature it becomes farce, whether it still be
denominated comedy^ as we say the comedies of
Reynolds, or whether it be called opera, as we
say the operas of Cherry and Cobb : the actors
in these pieces must act unnaturally or they will do
nothing, but in real comedy they will act naturally
for the same reason. In the graver kind of drama,
however, their imitation of life is perfect ; not as
it copies real and simple manners, but as it accords
with our habitual ideas of human character ; those
who have produced the general idea that tragedy
and comedy are equally direct imitations of human
life, have mistaken their habitual for their experi-
mental knowledge. The loftier persons of tragedy
require an elevation of language and manner,^ which

THE REPRESENTATION OF TRAGEDY. 133

they never use in real life. Heroes and sages speak
like other men, they use their action as carelessly
and their looks as indifferently, and are not dis-
tinguished from their fellow-mortals by their per-
sonal but by their mental character ; but the popular
conception oi a great man delights in dignifying
his external habits, not only because great men are
rarely seen, and therefore acquire d^ity by con-
cealment, bat because we conclude that they who
excel us so highly in important points can have
nothing unimportant about them. We can hardly
persuade ourselves, for instance, that Shakespeare
ever disputed in a club, or that Milton was fond of
smoking : the ideas <^ greatness and insignificance
associate with difficulty, and as extreme associations
are seldom formed but by minds of peculiar fancy
and vigorous thoi^ht, it is evident they will be
rarely entertained by the majority of the world.'
A tn^c hero, who called for his follower or his
horse, would in real life call for him as easily and
carelessly as any other, man, but in tragedy such a
carelessness would become ludicrous : the loftiness
of his character must be universal ; an artist who
would paint the battles of Frederic of Prussia in a
series of pictures would study to maintain this im-
portant character throughout, he would not repre-
sent the chief sitting on horseback in a slovenly
manner and taking snuff, though the snuff-box
no doubt was of much importance in those days to
his majesty, who as Pope says of Prince Eugene,
was as great a taker of snuff as of towns : so great
a violence of contrast would become caricature in
painting, and in tn^edy it would degenerate into

o£ life to
both

not as he
tfaegenoal
neidier on
dapitf \ff too mtanl a
vf ^u am. the otker pve it a
\ff poBspoHSBesB and bombasL
He cannnt dnw ■■ch o£ his knowledge frosa real
life, bccawse the loftier pasFifs aic nwiy eahibitcd
in the mmmnn i nteim n is eof—nkind ; bat never-
thelesB he shoold not iDdnige hnnself in nordties
of inrentioOy because the hearts of his andjeiye
win be abfe to ja(^ wfaeie dieir experience has
no power. Modi stndj should strengdien his
jndgmrnt , since he most peifectiy andeistand before
he can fed his author and tench others to fed ;
where there b^stroog natnzal genius, judgment will
usually follow in the devdopment of great passions,
but it may £ul in the minute proprieties of the
stage : where there is not a strong natural genius,
the contiary will be generally foond. For the
common actions of great characteis he must study
the manner of the stage, for their passions nothing
but nature.

TABLE TALK. 135

TABLE TALK.

["The Atlas," March X4th, 1846. ** Table Talk," 1851.
C Kent, X889.]

[ABLE-TALK, to be perfect, should be
sincere without bigotry, differing with-
out discord, sometimes grave, always
agreeable, touching on deep points,
dwelling most on seasonable ones, and letting every-
body speak and be heard. During the wine after
dinner, if the door of the room be opened, there
sometimes comes bursting up the drawing-room
stairs a noise like that of a tap-room. Everybody
is shouting in order to make himself audible ; argu-
ment is tempted to confound itself with loudness ;
and there is not one conversation going forward, but
six, or a score. This is better than formality and
want of spirits ; but it is no more the right thing,
than a scramble is a dance, or the tap-room chorus
a quartette of RossinL The perfection of conversa-
tional intercourse is when the breeding of high life
is animated by the fervour of genius.

ij6 J.BICH HUNT,

SPENSER.*
[born 1552— died 1598.]

[From an article on his poetry in '*Tait*s Edinburgh
Magaane," SepC 1833* being "The Wtshbg Cap "(New
SeriesX Na VL]

irVINE Poet ! sUting in the midst of thy
endless treasures, thy luxuiious land-
scapes, and thy descending gods ! Fan-
tastic as Nature's self in the growth of
some few flowers of thy creation ; beauteous and
perfect as herself, [in] the rest. We have found
consolation in thee at times when almost everything
pained us, and when we could find it in no other
poet of thy nation, because the w(vld into which
they took us was not equally remote. Shakespeare,
wiUi all our love and reverence for him, has still
kept us among men and their cares, even in his
enchanted island and his summer-night dreams.
Milton will not let us breathe the air of his Para-
dise, undistressed by the hauntings of theology,
and the shadows of what was to come. Chaucer
has left his only romance unfinished, and will not
relieve us of his emotion but by mirth, and that
not always such as we can be merry with, or as
he would have liked himself had he £Edlen upon
. times worthier of him. But in coming to thee, we
have travelled in one instant thousands of miles,

I Leigh Hunt imitated Spenser in his youth, and praised
him throughout his life, see his works— /asr'm, especially
the sonnet, "The Poets," in vol ii.—Eo.

SHAKESPEARE. 137

and to a quarter in which no sin of reality is heard.
Even its warfare is that of poetical children ; of
demi-gods playing at romance. Around us are
the woods; in our distant ear is the sea ; the
glimmering forms that we behold are those of
nymphs and deities ; or a hermit makes the loneli-
ness more lonely ; or we hear a horn blow, and
the ground trembling with the coming of a giant ;
and our boyhood is again existing, AiU of belief,
though its hair be t\uming grey ; because thou, a
man, hast rewritten its books, and proved the sur-
passing riches of its wisdom.

SHAKESPEARE.^
[born 1564— died 1616.]

[" Wit and Humour," 1846. C. Kent, 1889.]

[HAKESPEARE had as great a comic
genius as tragic ; and everybody would
think so, were it possible for comedy to
impress the mind as tragedy does. It
is true, the times he lived in, as Hazlitt has re-
marked, were not so foppish and ridiculous as those
of our prose comic dramatists, and therefore he
had not so much to laugh at : and it is observed
by the same critic, with equal truth, that his genius
was of too large and magnanimous a description to
delight in satire. But who doubts that had Shake-
speare lived in those inferior times, the author of
the character of Mercutio could have written that

1 See also *' Inoagination and Fancy."— Ed.

ijS LEIGH HUNT.

of Dorimant ? of Benedick and Beatrice, the dia-
logues of Congreve ? or of " Twelfth Night " and
the ** Taming of the Shrew," the most uproarious
fiurce ? I certainly cannot think with Dr. Johnson
that he wrote comedy better than tragedy ; ^hat
" his tragedy seems to be skill, and his comedy
instinct" I could as soon believe that the instinct
of Nature was confined to laughter, and that her
tears were shed upon principles of criticism. Such
may have been the Doctor's recipe for vrriting
tragedy; but "Irene" is not "King Lear."
Laughter and tears are alike bom with us, and so
was the power of exciting them with Shakespeare ;
because it pleased Nature to make him a complete
human being.

Shakespeare had wit and humour in perfection ;
and like every possessor of powers so happy, he
rioted in their enjojnnent. Moli^re was not fonder
of running down a joke : Rabelais could not give
loose to a more " admirable fooling." His mirth
is commensurate with his melancholy ; it is founded
on the same knowledge and feeling, and it furnished
him with a set-off to their oppression. "When he
had been too thoughtful Math Hamlet, he " took it
out " with Falstaff and Sir Toby. Not that he was
habitually melancholy. He had too healthy a
brain for that, and too great animal spirits ; but
in running the whole circle of thought, he must of
necessity have gone through its darkest as well as
brightest phases ; and the sunshine was welcome
in proportion. Shakespeare is the inventor of the
phrase, "setting the table in a roar;" of the
memory of Yorick; of the stomach of Falstaff,

SHAKESPEARE. 139

stuffed as full of wit as of sack. He '^ wakes the
night-owl with a catch ; " draws " three souls out
of one weaver ; " passes the " equinoctial of Queu-
bus " (some glorious torrid zone, lying beyond three
o'clock in the morning) ; and reminds the '* unco
righteous" for ever, that virtue, false or true, is
not incompatible with the recreations of ** cakes
and ale." Shakespeare is said to have died of
getting out of a sick-bed to entertain his friends
Drayton and Ben Jonson, visitors from London.
He might have died a later and a graver death,
but he could not well have had one more genial,
and therefore more poetical. Far was it from dis-
honouring the eulogizer of " good men's feasts ; "
the recorder of the noble friends Antonio and
Bassanio ; the great thorough-going humanist, who
did equal justice to the gravest and the gayest mo-
' ments of life.

It is a remarkable proof of the geniality of Shake-
speare^s jesting, that even its abundance of ideas
does not spoil it ; for, in comedy as well as tragedy,
he is the most reflective of writers. I know but of one
that comes near him in this respect ; and very near
him (I dare to afErm) he does come, though he has
none of his poetry, properly so called. It is Sterne ;
in whose " Tristram Shandy" there is not a word
without meaning — often of the profoundest as well
as kindliest sort. The professed fools of Shake-
speare are among the wisest of men. They talk
iEsop and Solomon in every jest. Yet they amuse
as much as they instruct us. The braggart Parolles,
whose name stifles words^ as though he spoke
nothing else, scarcely utters a sentence that is not

149 LEfGH HUNT,

rich with ideas ; yet his weakness and self-com-
nittals hang over them all like a sneaking inlec-
tioD, and hinder our laughter from becoming re-
spectfiiL The scene in which he is taken Mind-
fokl among his old acquaintances, and so led to
vilify their characters, under the impression that he
is gratifying their enemies, is almost as good as the
screen-scene in the " School for Scandal."

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

[BEAUMONT, 1585— 1613. FLETCHER, 1 579

— 1625.]

r* Wit and Humour/' 1846.]

iINCE expressing, in the above volume,^
the surprise which everybody feels at
the astounding mixture of license and
refinement displayed by these poets (for
the grossness of earlier writers is but a simplicity
compared with it), I have come to the conclusion
that it was an excess of animal spirits, encouraged
by the demand of the times, and the intoxication
of applause. They were the sons of men of rank :
they had been thrown upon the town in the hey-
day of their blood, probably with a turn for lavish
expenditure ; they certainly wanted money as they
advanced, and were glad to get it of gross audiences ;
they had been taught to confound loyalty with
servility, which subjected them to the dissolute in-
fluence of the court of James the First ; they came

1 ue. ** Imagination and Fancy."

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, 141

among the actors and the plajrwrights, with ad-
vantages of position, perhaps of education and
accomplishments, superior to them all : their con-
fidence, their wit, their enjoyment was unbounded ;
everybody was glad to hear what the gay gentle-
men had to say ; and forth they poured it accord-
ingly, without stint or conscience. Beaumont died
young ; but Fletcher, who went writing on, appears
to have taken a still greater license than his friend.
The son of the bishop had probably been tempted
to go farther out of bounds than the son of the
judge ; for Dr. Fletcher was not such a bishop as
Grindall or JeweL The poet might have been
taught h3rpocrisy by his falJier ; and, in despising
it as he grew up, had gone to another extreme.

The reader of [these plays] will observe the diffe-
rence between the fierce weight of the satire of
Volpone, in which poison and suffocation are
brought in to aggravate, and the gayer caricature
of Beaumont and Fletcher. It is equally founded
on truth — equally wilful and superabundant in the
treatment of it, but more light and happy. You
feel that the writers enjoyed it with a gayer laugh.
The pretended self-deception with which a coward
lies to his own thoughts — the necessity for support
which induces him to apply to others as cowardly
as himself for the warrant of their good opinion,
and the fascinations of vanity which impels such
men into the exposure which they fancy they have
taken the subtlest steps to guard against — ^are most
entertainingly set forth in the interview of Bassus
with the two bullies, and the subsequent catastrophe
of all three in the hands of Bacurius. The nice

zis LEIGH HUNT,

balance of distinction and difference in which the
bullies pretend to weigh the merits of kicks and
beatings, and the impossibility which they affect of
a shadow of imputation against their valours, or
even of the power to assume it hypothetically,
are masterly plays of wit of the first order. '

1 For a more particular account of Leigh Hunt's opinion
of these authmrs, and especially of the " offences against
decency" in their plairs, see the "Remarks" prefixed to
his sekctioas from them " to the exclusion of whatever Is
morally objectionable," X855. ** [Where], in a word, is all
the bat passion and poetry of the two friends, such as I
hope and believe they would have been glad to see
broofl^t together ; sudi as would have reminded them of
those happiest evenings which they spent in the same
room, not perhaps when they had most wine in their
heads, and were loudest, and merriest, and least pleased,
but when they were most pleased both with themselves
and with all things, — serene, sequestered, feeling their com-
panionship and their poetry sufficient for them, without
needing the ratification of it by its frune, or echo ; such
evenings as those in which they wrote the description
of the boy by the fountain's side, or his confession as
Euphrasia, or Caratach's surrender to the Romans, or the
address to Sleep in ' Valentinian,' or the divine song on
' Melancholy,' which must have made them feel as if they
had created a solitude of their own, and heard the whisper
of it stealing by their window." —Ed.

BUTLER. 143

BUTLER.

[born 1612 — DIED i68a]
rWitaiidHamoar."x846u C. Kent, 1889.]

UTLER is tlie wittiest (^ Ei^lish poets,
and at the same time he is one of the
most learned, and what is more, ooe of
the wisest His " Hudibras," though
naturally the most popular of his works from its
size, subject, and witty excess, was an accident of
birth and party compared with his Misrylbinfnos
Poems ; yet both abound in thoughts as great and
deep as the sur&ce is sparkling ; and hisgenins
altogether, having the additicMial recommmdalirm
of verse, might have given him a fiune greater
than Rabelais, had his animal spirits been equal to
the rest of his qualifications for a universalist. At
the same time, though not abounding in poetic sen-
sibility, he was not without it. He is author of
the touching simile,

True at the dial to the sum^
AUJumgh it be not skuid t^oa.

The following is as elegant as anything in Love-
lace or Waller : —

— Whmt security's too strong

To guard that gentle hoartfrom wrong.

That to its friend b ^bd to pass

Jttetfaway, and aU it kat^

And like an anchorite, gnresorer

This worid,.^ tke hoaven of a lover f

And MiV, if read with the seriousness and single-

144 LEIGH HUNT.

ness of feeling that become it, is, I think, a com-
parison full of as much grandeur as cordiality, —

' like Indian widows, gone to bed
Inflaming curtains to the eUad.

You would sooner have looked for it in one of
Marveirs poems, than in ** Hudibras."

Butler has little humour. His two heroes,
Hudibras and Ralph, are not so much humourists
as pedants. They are as little like their proto-
types, Don Quixote and Sancho, as two dreary
puppets are unlike excesses of humanity. They
are not even consistent with their other prototypes,
the Puritans, or with themselves, for they are dull
fellows unaccountably gifted with the author's wit.
In this respect, and as a narrative, the poem is a
failure. Nobody ever thinks of the story, except
to wonder at its inefficiency ; or of Hudibras him-
self, except as described at his outset. He is no-
thing but a ludicrous figure. But considered as a
banter issuing from the author's own lips, on the
wrong side of Puritanism, and indeed on all the
pedantic and hypocritical abuses of human reason,
the whole production is a marvellous compound of
wit, learning, and felicitous execution. The wit is
pure and incessant ; the learning as quaint and
out-of-the-way as the subject ; the very rhymes are
echoing scourges, made of the peremptory and the
incongruous. This is one of the reasons why the
rhymes have been so much admired. They are
laughable, not merely in themselves, but from the
masterly will and violence with which they are
made to correspond to the absurdities they lash.

POPE, tits

The most extraordinary license is assumed as a
matter of course ; the acc^ituation jerked out of its
place with all the indifference and ef&oQtery of a
reason "sufficing unto itsell" The poem is so
peculiar in this respect, the laughing del^ht of the
reader so well founded, and the passages so sure to
be accompanied with a lull measure of wit and
Icnowledge, that I have retained its best rhymes
throt^hout, and thus brought them together for
the first time.

Butler, like the great wit of the opposite party,
liarvel, was an honest man, fonder of his books
than of worldly success, and superior to party itself
ka regard to final principles. He wrote a satire on
the follies and vices of the court, which is most
likely the reascm why it is doubted whether he ever
•got anything by '' Hudibras;" and he was so little
prejudiced in &vour of the sdiolarship he pos-
sessed, that he vindicated the bom poet above the
poet of books, and would not have Shakespeare
tried by a Grecian standard.

POPE.

[born 1688— died 1744.]

r* Wit and Humour," 1846. C Kent, 1889.]

[ESIDES being an admirable wit and
satirist, and a man of the most exquisite
good sense, Pope was a true poet ; and
though in all probability his entire
nature could never have made him a great one
I. L

X46 LEIGH HUNT.

(since the whole man contributes to form the
genius, and the very weakness of his organization
was in the way of it), yet in a different age the boy
who wrote the beautiful

Bkst be die man wbote wish and care,

would have turned out, I think, a greater poet than
he was.' He had more sensibility, thought, and
fiancy, than was necessary for the purposes of his
school; and he led a sequestered life with his
books and his grotto, caring little for the manners
he drew, and capable of higher impulses than had
been given him by the wits of the time of Charles
the Second. It was unlucky for him (if indeed it
did not produce a lucky variety for the reading
world) that Dryden came immediately before him.
Drjrden, a robuster nature, was just great enough
to mislead Pope ; and French ascendancy com-
plated his fieite. Perhaps, after all, nothing better
than such a honey and such a sting as this exqui-
site writer developed, could have been got out of
his little delicate pungent nature; and we have
every reason to be grateful for what they have done
for us. Hundreds of greater pretensions in poetry
have not attained to half his &me, nor did they
deserve it ; for they did not take half his pains.
Perhaps they were unable to take them, for want
of as good a balance of qualities. Success is gene-
rally commensurate with its grounds.

Pope, though a genius of a less masculine order

1 " What numbers of men, of similar constitutions with
Pope, have died of surfeitSi and done nothing !" — '* Wishing
Cap Papers," 1874.

AN EVENING WITH POPE, 147

than Dryden, and not possessed of his numbers or
his impulsiveness, had more delicacy and fancy,
has left more passages that have become pro-
verbial, and was less confined to the region of
matter of £Eu:t Dryden never soared above earth,
however nobly he walked it The little fragile
creature had wings ; and he could expand them at
will, and ascend, if to no great imaginative height,
yet to charming &iry circles just above those of the
world about him, disclosing enchanting visions at
the top of drawing-rooms, and enabling us to see
the spirits that wait on coffee-cups and hoop-
petticoats.^

AN EVENING WITH POPE.*

[From "Family Journal,'* No. 7, June, 2825. "The
New Monthly Maganne.** " London Jouraal," Sept 5th,
Z835. "Table Talk," 2851. C Kent, 2889.]

July 4th, 2797.
[ESTERDAY was a day of delight I
dined with Mr. Pope. The only persons
present were the venerable lady his
mother, Mrs. Martha Blount, and Mr.
Walscott, a great Tory, but as great a lover of

1 See also " Conversations of Pope and Swift" at the end
of "Table Talk." and the next essay.^Eo.

' Supposed to have been written by Aspley Honeycomb,
nephew of the " Simon Honeycomb, who wrote a letter to
th^ Sp€ciator (No. 154X which put Will into a great
taking.** The whole " Family Journal " is edited by <me
Harry H., "the lineal descendant of the famous Will
Honeycomb, of 'Spectator' [Sir Roger de Coverley] me-
mory."— £0.

LSiGH HUNT.

Diyden ; wliidi Mk. Pope was plosed to infccm
Me VBS the reasoQ be had imrited BC to meet him.
Mk. Pope was m bla^ with a tie-wig. I could
■ot hdp reguding Imii, as be sat leaning in bis
armdiair befcre dinner^ in the lig^ of a portrait
fa posterity. Wben be came into the loom, after
Idndly maWng me wricnmr, be took someflofwers
out of a littk basket tibat be bad broo^ with bmi»
and presented them, not to Bin. Maitba, who I
tboogbt kwked as if she expected it, but to Mis.
Pope ; which I thoog^ very pretty and like a
gentleman, not in the ordinary way. Bot the
other had no reason to be displeased ; fa taming
to her with the remainder, be said, ** I was think-
ing of a compliment to pay yon ; so I have done
tL" He flatters with as nmcli delicacy as Sir
Ridbaid Steele ; and the ladies Uke it as madi
from him. What fine-shaped USkms have I seen,
who cotdd not call up hsdf sadi kxiks into their
I

GRAY.

[born 1716— died 1771.]

[Pbt together finom the prefiioes to various c jdiacts from
day in "Book for a Comer," 1849.]

'RAY appears to us to be the best letter-
writer in the language. Others equal
him in particular qualities, and surpass
him in amount of entertainment ; but
none are so nearly £udtless. Chesterfield wantsheart,
and even his boasted "delicacy;" Bolingbroke and

. GRAY, 14^

Pope want simplicity ; Cowper is more lively than
strong ; Shenstone reminds you of too many ndny
days, Swift of too many things which he affected
to despise, Gibbon too much of the formalist and
Kttirateur, The most amusing (^ all our letter-
writers are Horace Walpole and Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu ; but though they had abun-
dance of wit, sense, and animal spirits, you are not
alwajTS sure of their veracity. Now, the " first
quality in a companion," as Sir William Temple
observes, ** is truth ; " and Gray's truth is ^ as
manifest as his other good qualities. He has sin-
cerity, modesty, manliness (in spite of a somewhat
effeminate body), learning, good-nature, playful-
ness, a perfect style ; and if an air of pensiveness
breathes over all, it is only of that resigned and-
contemplative sort which completes our sympathy
with the writer. . . .

Gray is the *' melancholy Jacques " of English
literature, without the sullenness' or causticity.
His melancholy is of the diviner sort' of Milton and'
Beaumont, and is always ready to assume a kindly
cheerfulness. . . . [His] Ode on a distant prospect'
of Eton Collie .... is full of thought, tenderness,
and music, and should make the writer beloved by
all persons of reflection, especially those who
know what it is to visit the scenes of their school-
days. They may not all r^ard them in the same
melancholy light ; but the melancholy light will
cross them, and then Gray*s lines will fall in upon
the recollection, at once like a bitter and abalm. . • .
We desire to say as little as possible about this
affecting and noble poem [the " Elegy in a G)untiy

4

ISO LEIGH HUNT.

Churchyard "]. It is so sweet, so true, and so uni-
Tersally appreciated, that we feel inclined to be as
silent before it, as if listening to the wind over the
graves. • • •

[It] is as sweet as if written by Coleridge, and
as pious and universal as if religion had uttered it,
undisturbed by polemics. It is a quintessence of
humanity.

GOLDSMITH.*
[born 1728— died 1774.]

rVram the Essay on Goldsmith in ** Classic Tales,"
X806.]

F Goldsmith were characterized in a few
words, I would describe him as a writer
generally original, yet imitative of the
best models ; from these he gathered
all the chief qualities of style, and became elegant
and animated in his language; while from ex-
perience ' rather than from books he obtained his
knowledge, and became natural and original in his
thoughts. His poetry has added little to English
literature, because nothing that is not perfectly
and powerfully original can be said to add to the
poetical stock of a nation ; but his prose exhibits
this quality in the highest degree : if he was more

1 See also essay in "^t and Humour. "—Ed.
3 " Experience, which is the logic of &ct." See another
port of the same essay.

BURNS, tsx

of the humourist than the wit, it was not for want
of invention ; humour was the familiar delight,
wit the occasional exercise of his genius. In short,
he was one of those happy geniuses who are welcome
to a reader in every frsune of mind, for his serious-
ness and his gaiety are equally unaffected and
equally instructive.

BURNS.
[born 1759— died 1796.]

["Jar of Honey from Mount Hybia," 1847. Reprinted
fipom " Ainsworth's Magazine," 1844.]

£ [Bums] was pastoral poetry itself, in
the shape of an actual, glorious peasant,
vigorous as if Homer had written him,
and tender as generous strength or as
memories of the grave. Ramsey .... is but a
small part of Bums — is but a field in a comer com-
pared with the whole Scots pastoral region. He
has none of Bums' pathos ; none of his grandeur ;
none of his burning energy ; none of his craving
after universal good. How universal is Bums I
What mirth in his cups ! What softness in his
tears ! What sympathy in his very satire ! What
manhood in everything ! If Theocritus, the inventor
of a loving and affecting Polyphemus, could have
foreseen the verses on the ''Mouse" and the
•* Daisy" tumed up with the plough, the "Tam
o' Shanter," "O Willie brew'd a peck o' maut,"

xy LEIGH HUNT,

" Ye Banks and Blraes o- bonnie Doon," &c. (not
to mention a hundred others,, which have less to
do with our subject), teais of admiration would
have nished into his eyes.

WORDSWORTH.
[born 1770— died". 1850.]

[From the Preface to the second edition of "The Feasb
of the Poets," July xzth, 16x5.]

{HE author does not scruple to confess,
that his admiration of him [Wordsworth]
has become greater and greater between
every puWication of " The Feast of the
( Poets." ^ He has become a convert, not indeed
to what he still considers as his faults^ but, to use
a favourite phrase of these times, to the "immense
majority" of his beauties ; — and here, it seems to
him, lies the great mistake, which certain intelli-
gent critics persist in sharing with others of a veiy
different description. It is to be observed by the
way, that the defects of Mr. Wordsworth are the
result of theory, not incapacity ; and it is with their
particular effect on those most calculated to Under-
stand him that we quarrel, rather than with any«
thing else. But taking him as a mere author to be
criticised, the writers in question seem to regard
him as a stringer of puerilities, who has so many
faults that you can only wonder now and then at

1 This being the third. It appeared first m "The Re-
flects, " z8zx.— So.

^ COLERTDGB. 153

his beauties ; whereas the proper idea of him is
that of a noble poet, who has so many beauties that
you are only apt now and then, perhaps with no
great wisdom, to grow impatient at his &tilts.

COLERIDGE.
[born 1773— died 1834.]

[" Imagination and Fancy," 2844. C Kent, 1889.]

[OLERIDGE lived in the most extraor-
dinary and agitated period of modem
history ; and to a certain extent he was
so mixed up with its controversies, that
he was at one time taken for nothing but an apos-
tate republican, and at another for a dreaming
theosophist The truth is, that both his politics
and theosophy were at the mercy of a discursive
genius, intellectually bold but educationally timid,
which, anxious, or rather willing, to bring convic-
tion and speculation together, mooting all points
as it went, and throwing the subtlest glancing
lights on many, ended in satisfying nobody, and
concluding nothing. Charles Lamb said of him,
that he had " the art of making the imintelligible
appear intelligible." He was the finest dreamer,
the most eloquent talker, and the most original
thinker of his day ; but for want of complexional
energy, did nothing with all the vast prose part of
his mind but help the Germans to give a subtler
tone to criticism, and sow a few valuable seeds of
thought in minds worthy to receive them. Nine-

154 LEIGH HUNT.

tenths of his theology would apply equally well to
their own creeds in the mouths of a Brahmin or a
Mussulman.

His poetry is another matter. It is so beautiful,
and was so quietly content with its beauty, making
no call on the critics, and receiving hardly any
notice, that people are but now b^[inning to awake
to a full sense of its merits. Of pure poetry, strictly
so called, that is to say, consisting of nothing but
its essential self, without conventional and perish-
ing helps, he was the greatest master of his time.
If you could see it in a phial, like a distillation of
roses (taking it, I mean, at its best), it would be
found without a speck. The poet is happy with
so good a gift, and the reader is '* happy in his
happiness.*' Yet so little, sometimes, are a man*s
contemporaries and personal acquaintances able or
disposed to estimate him properly, that while
Coleridge, unlike Shakespeare, lavished praises on
his poetic friends, he had all the merit of the gene-
rosity to himself ; and even Hazlitt, owing perhaps
to causes of political alienation, could see nothing
to admire in the exquisite poem of " Cljristabel,"
but the description of the quarrel between the
friends! After speaking, too, of the "Ancient
Mariner'* as the only one of his poems that he
could point out to anyone as giving an adequate
idea of his great natural powers, he adds, '* It is
High German, however, and in it he seems to
conceive of poetry but as a drunken dream, reck-
less, careless, and heedless of past, present, and to
come.** This is said of a poem, with which fault
has been found for the exceeding, conscientiousness

Coleridge, 155

of its moral ! O ye critics, the best of ye, what
havoc does personal difference play with your
judgments ! It was not Mr. Hazlitt's only or most
unwarrantable censure, or one which friendship
found hardest to forgive. But peace, and honour
too, be with his memory ! If he was a splenetic
and sometimes jealous man, he was a disinterested
politician and an admirable critic : and lucky were
those whose natures gave them the right and the
power to pardon him.

Coleridge, though a bom poet, was in his style
and general musical feeling the disciple partly of
Spenser, and partly of the fine old English ballad-
writers in the collection of Bishop Percy. But if
he could not improve on them in some things, how
he did in others, especially in the art of being
thoroughly musical ! Of sdl our writers of the
briefer narrative poetry, Coleridge is the finest
since Chaucer ; and assuredly he is the sweetest of
all our poets. Waller's music is but a court-
flourish in comparison ; and though Beaumont and
Fletcher, Collins, Gray, Keats, Shelley, and others,
have several as sweet passages, and Spenser is in
a certain sense musical throughout, yet no man has
written whole poems, of equal length, so perfect in
the sentiment of music, so varied with it, and yet
leaviz^ on the ear so unbroken and single an
effect.

A damul with a dulcinur

In a visum once I saw ;
It was an Abyssinian maidy
And OH her dulcitner she piay*df

SimgiMg 0/ Mount Abora,

IS6 LBIGH HUNT,

That is but one note of a music ever sweet, yet
never cloying. . . .

We see how such a poet obtains his music Such
forms of melody can proceed only from the most
beautiful inner spirit of sympathy and imagination.
He sjrmpathizes, in his universality, with antipathy
itself. If Regan or Goneril had been a young and
handsome witch of the times of chivalry, and at-
tuned her violence to craft, or betrayed it in veno-
mous looks, she could not have batten the soft-^
voiced, appalling spells, or sudden, snake-eyed
glances of the Lady Geraldine, — ^looks which the
innocent Christabel, in her fascination, feels com-
pelled to " imitate." . . .

Oh ! it is too late now ; and habit and self-love
Uinded me at the time, and I did not know (much
as I admired him) how great a poet lived in that
grove at Highgate ; or I would have cultivated its
walks more, as I might have done, and endeavoured
to return him, with my gratitude, a small portion
of the delight his verses have given me.

I must add, that I do not ^ink Coleridge's
earlier poems at all equal to the rest. Many, in-
deed, I do not care to read a second time ; but
there are some ten or a dozen, of which I never
tire, and which will one day make a small and
precious volume to put in the pockets of all enthu-
siasts in poetry, and endure with the language.
Five of these are " The Ancient Mariner," " Chris-
tabel," "Kubla Khan," "Genevieve," and "Youth
and Age." Some, that more personally relate to
the poet, will be added for the love of him, not
omitting the "Visit of the Gods," from Schiller,

CHARLES LAMB. 157

and the &mous passage on the Heathen Mythology,
also from Schiller. A short life, a portrait, and
some other -engravings perhaps, will complete the
book, after the good old fashion of Cooke's and
Bell's editions of the Poets ; and then, like the
contents of the Jew of Malta's casket, there
will be

Infinite riches in a little room.^

CHARLES LAMB.'*
[born 1775— died 1834.]

[*'Lord Byron and his Contemporaries," 1828. "Auto-
biography/* xBsa]

JHARLES LAMB has a head worthy of
Aristotle, with as fine a heart as ever
beat in human bosom, and limbs very
fragile to sustain it. There was a carica-
ture of him sold in the shops, which pretended to
be a likeness. P[rocto]r went into the shop in a
passion, and asked the man what he meant by
patting forth such a libel. The man apologized,
and said that the ^ist meant no offence. Mr.
Lamb's features are strongly yet delicately cut :
he has a fine eye as well as forehead ; and no face
carries in it greater marks of thought and feeling.
|t resembles that of Bacon, with less worldly
vigour and more sensibility.

As his firame, so is his genius. It is as fit for

^ See also the brief memoir in "Lord Byron and his
Contemporaries," reprinted in " Autobiography."— Ed.
s See also "Epistle to Charles Lamb," in vol ii.

158 LEIGH HUNT.

thought as can be, and equally as unfit for action ;
and this renders him melancholy, apprehensive,
humorous, and willing to make the best of every-
thing as it is, both from tenderness of heart and
abhorrence of alteration. His understanding is
too great to admit an absurdity ; his frame is not
strong enough to deliver it from a fear. His
sensibility to strong contrasts is the foundation of
hb humour, which is that of a wit at once melan-
choly and willing to be pleased. He will beard a
superstition, and shudder at the old phantasm
while he does it One could imagine him cracking
a jest in the teeth of a ghost, and then melting into
thin air himself, out of sympathy with the awfuL
His humour and his knowledge both, are those of
Hamlet, of Moli^, of Carlin, who shook a dty
with laughter, and, in order to divert his melan-
choly, was recommended to go and hear himself.
Yet he extracts a real pleasure out of his jokes,
because good-heartedness retains that privil^e,
when it fails in everything else. I should say he
condescended to be a punster, if condescension
were a word befitting wisdom like his. Being told
that somebody had lampooned him, he said, ** Very
well, I'll Lamb-pun him." His puns are ad-
mirable, and often contain as deep things as the
wisdom of some who have greater names. Such a
man, for instance, as Nicole, the Frenchman,
was a baby to him. He would have cracked a
score of jokes at him, worth his whole book of
sentences ; pelted his head with pearls. Nicole
would not have understood him, but Rochefoucault
would, and Pascal too ; and some of our old Eng-

CHARLES LAMB. X59

lishmen would have understood him still better.
-He would have been worthy of hearing Shake-
speare read one of his scenes to him, hot from the
brain. Commonplace finds a great comforter in
him, as long as it b good-natured ; it is to the ill-
natured or the dictatorial only that he is startling.
Willing to see society go on Us it does, because he
despairs of seeing it otherwise, but not at all agree-
ing in his interior with the common notions of
crime and punishment, he *' dumbfounded** a long
tirade one evening, by taking the pipe out of
his mouth, and asking the speaker, ''Whether
he meant to say that a thief was not a good
man?" To a person abusing Voltaire, and in-
discreetly opposing his character to that of Jesus
Christ, he said admirably well (though he by no
means overrates Voltaire, nor wants reverence in
the other quarter), that " Voltaire was a very good
Jesus Christ for the French" He likes to see the
church-goers continue to go to church, and has
written a tale in his sister's admirable little book
(** Mrs. Leicester's School ") to encourage the
rising generation to do so ; but to a conscientious
deist he has nothing to object ; and if an atheist
found every other door shut against him, he would
assuredly not find his. I, believe he would have
the world remain precisely as it is, provided it
innovated no farther ; but this spirit in him is any-
thing but a worldly one, or for his own interest.
He hardly contemplates with patience the fine new
buildings in the Regent's Park : and, privately
speaking, he has a grudge against official heaven-
expounders, or clergymen. He would rather, how-

i6o LEIGH HUNT.

ever, be with a crowd that he disliked, than fed
himself alone. He said to me one day, with a fiice
of great solemnity, '* What must have been that,
man's feelings, who thought himself /if^n/ detsif
Finding no footing in certainty, he delists to con-
found the borders of theoretical truth and fidsehood.
He is fond of telling wild stories to children, en-
grafted on things about them ; writes letters to
people abroad, telling them that a friend of than
[Mr. Alsager, the commercial editor of the
''Times'*] has come out in genteel comedy; and
persuaded G[eoige] D[yer] that Lard CustUreagh
was the author of *' Waverley" 1 The same exod-
lent person walking one evening out of his friend's
house into the New River, Mr. Lamb (who was from
home at the time) vnrote a paper under his signature
of Elia (now no longer anonymous), stating, that
common friends would have stood dallying on the
bank, have sent for neighbours, &c,but that he^ in
his magnanimity, jumped in, and rescued his friend
after the old noble fashion. He wrote in the same
magazine two lives of Liston and Munden, which
the public took for serious, and which exhibit an
extraordinary jumble of imaginary facts and truth
of bye-painting. Munden he made bom at ** Stoke
Pogis : " the very sound of which is like the actor
speaking and digging his words.r He knows how
many fUse conclusions and pretensions are made
by men who profess to be guided by fiacts only,
as if facts could not be misconceived, or figments
taken for them ; and therefore, one day, when
somebody was speaking of a person who valued
himself on being a matter-of-£Eu:t man, *' Now,"

SHELLEY. i6i

said' he, " I value myself on being a matter-of-lie
man." This does not hinder his being a man of
the greatest veracity, in the ordinary sense of the
wofd ; but " truth," he says, " is precious, stod
ought not to be wasted on everybody." Those who
wish to have a genuine taste of him, and an insight
into his modes of life, should read his essays on
" Hogarth " and " King Lear," [his " Letters,"]
his article on the '* Londoa Streets," on '* Whist-
Playing," which he loves, and on '* Saying Grace
before Meat," which .he thinks a strange moment
to select for being grateful. He said once to a
brother whist-player, whose hand was more clever
than clean, and who had enough in him to afford
the joke, *' M., if dirt were trumps, what hands
you would hold."

SHELLEY.

[born 1792— died 1822.]

[A Preface to the '* Masque of Anarchy/' 1833.]

« « « « *

I

[R. SHELLEY'S writings have since
aided the general progress of knowledge
in bringing about a wiser period ; and
an effusion, which would have got him
cruelly misrepresented a few years back,* will now
do unequivocal honour to his memory, and show

1 f.#. in 1819, when the poem was first sent to Leigh
Hunt for the " Examiner," where he did not publish it oti
the ground that the people were not ready for it.— Ed.
I. M

t6s LEIGH HUNT.

everybody what a most considerate and kind, as
well as fervent heart, the cause of the vrorld has
lost

The poem, though written purposely in a lax
and fitmiliar measure, is highly characteristical of
the author. It has the usual ardour of his tone,
the unbounded sensibility by which he combines
the most domestic with the most remote and
fiandful images, and the patience, so beautifully
checking, and in iajcX produced by the extreme im-
patience of his moral feeling. His patience is the
deposit of many impatiences, acting upon an equal
measure of understanding and moral taste. His
wisdom is the wisdom of a heart overcharged with
sensibility, acquiring the profoundest notions of
justice from the completest sympathy, and at once
taking refuge from its pain, and working out its
extremest purposes, in the adoption of a stubborn
and loving fortitude which neutralizes resistance.
His very strokes of humour, while they startle with
their extravagance and even ghastliness, cut to the
heart with pathos. The fourth and fifth stanzas,
for instance, of this poem, involve an allusion
which becomes affecting from our knowing what
he must have felt when he wrote it. It is to his
children, who were taken from him by the late
Lord Chancellor, under that preposterous law by
which every succeeding age might be made to
blush for the tortures inflicted on the opinions of its
predecessor.

"Anarchy the skeleton," riding through the
streets, and grinning and bowing on each side of
him,

SHELLEY. 163

As well as if his education

Had cost ten millions to the nation,

is another instance of the union of ludicrousness
with terror. Hope, looking "more like Despair,"
and laying herself down before his horse*s feet to
die, is a touching image. The description of the
rise and growth of Public Enlightenment,

— upborne on wings whose grain
Was as the light of sunny rain,

and producing '* thoughts" as he went.

As stars from night's loose hair are shaken,

till on a sudden the prostrate multitude look up,

and ankle-deep in blood,
Hope, that maiden most serene.
Was walking with a quiet mien,

is rich with the author's usual treasure of imagery
and splendid words. The sixty- third* is a deli-
cious' stanza, producing a most happy and comfort'

1 Sdence, and Poetry, and Thought,

Are thy lamps ; they make the lot
Of the dwellers in a cot
So serene, they curse it not.

S In another passage Leigh Hunt has taken some pains
to justify this use of the word "delicious." In '*Lord
Byron and his Contemporaries," 1828, after speaking of
James Smith (author of the "Rejected Addresses "X he
says: "His brother Horace was delicious. Lord Byron
used to say, that this epithet should be applied only to
eataUes ; and that he wondered a friend of his (I forget
who) that was critical in matters of eating, should use it in
any other sense. I know not what the present usage may
be in the circles, but classical authority is against his lord-
ship, from Cicero downwards ; and I am content with the
modem warrant of another noble wit, the famous Lord

i64 LEIGH HUNT.

ing picture in the midst of ynaaat ci blood and
tnmolt. We see the li^t from its oottige window.
The substantial hicagings of Freedom aze nobly de-
scribed; and, hstlyy the advice given by the poet,
the great national measnre leeommcnded by him,
b singnburty striking as a poiitical amUapaiUmm It
advises what has since taken i^boe, and what was
felt by the grown wisdom of the age to be the only
thing which £0m// take place, withefiect, as a final
rebuke and nnHifiration of the Tories ; to wit, a
calm, lawful, and inflexible preparation for resis-
tance in the shape of a protesting multitude — ^the
few against the many * — the laborious and suffering
against the spoilt children of jnoiu^K^ — Mankind
against Tory-kind. It is true the poet recom-
mends there should be no active resistance, come
what might ; which is a piece of fortitude, however
effective, which we believe was not ocntemplated
by the political unions : yet, in point of the qpirit
of the thing, the success he anticipates has actually
occurred, and alter his very fashion ; iot there really

Peterborough, who, in his fine, open way, said of F6iflao,
that he was such a ** delidoos cxeatare, he was fovoed to
get away from him, else he would have made him pioosl"
I giant there is something in the wonl ddidons idiidi may
be said to comprise a refereooe to every qpedes of pleasant
taste. It is at once a quintessence and a compound ; ud a
friend, to deserve the efnthet, ought, perhaps, to be caaptStAit
of delighting us as much over our wine, as on graver occa-
sions. F6i^lon himself could do this, with all his i»ety ;
or rather he could do it because hb piety was of the true
sort, and relished of everything that was sweet and affec-
tionate."— -Ed.

^ Surely a misprint for "the many against the few." —
Ed.

SHELLEY, i6s

has been no resistance, except by multitudinous
protest The- Tories, however desirous they
showed themselves to draw their swords, did not
draw them. The battle was won without a blow.
Mr. Shelley's countrymen know how anxious he
was for the advancement of the coming good, but
they have yet to become acquainted with his
anxiety in behalf of this particular means of it-—
Reform. The first time I heard from him was
upon the subject ; it was before I knew him, and
while he was a student at Oxford, in the year
181I. So edrly did he begin his career of philan-
thropy 1 Mankind, and their interests, were
scarcely ever oat of bis thoughts*^ It was a moot
point, when he entered your room, whether he
would begin with some half-pleasant, half-pensive
joke, or quote something Greek, or ask some
question about public affairs. I remember his
eoming upon me when I had not seen him for
a long time, and alter grappling my hands with
both his, in his tisual fervent manner, isitting down
and looking at me very earnestly, with a deep
though not mdancholy interest in his £Eice. We
were sitting in a cottage study, with our knees to
the fire, to which we had been gietting nearer and
nearer in.the comfort of finding ourselves together ;
the pleasure of seeing him was my only feeling at
the moment ; and the air of domesticity about us
was so complete, that I thought he was going to

& "Ridley, whowas shocked at[thebeggar'8]appearance,
oad gave him money out of his very antipathy ; for he thought
nobody would help such an ill-looking person, if he did
not."— " Autobiography."

ttf LEIGH HUNT.

wpcak of some funily matter— cither his or my
own ; when he asked me, at the close of an inten- '
sity of pause^ what was "the amount of the
National Debt**

I used to rally him on the apparent inconsequen-
tiality of his manner upon these occasions ; and he
was always ready to cany on the joke, because he
said that my laughter did not hinder me from beii^
in earnest With deepest love and admiration was
my laughter mixed, or I should not haye voitured
upon paying him the compliment of it.

I have now before me his corrected proof of an
anonymous pamphlet which he wrote in the year
1817, entitled " A Proposal for Putting Reform to
the vote through the Country,** . . . .* [which
shows] how zealous he was on the subject ; how
generous in the example which he offered to set in
behalf of Reform ; and how judicious as well as
fervent this most calumniated and noble spirit could
be in recommending the most avowed of his
opinions. The title-page of the proof is scrawled
over with sketches of trees and foliage, which was
a habit of his in the intervals of thinking, when-
ever he had pen or pencil in hand. He would
indulge in it while waiting for you at an inn, or in
a doorway, scratching his elms and oak-trees on the
walls. He did them very spiritedly, and with what
the painters ' call a gusto, particularly in point of

1 In the pkioe of these dots stood a promise to give some
extracts from this pamj^et, which are omitted below.— Ed.

S Hunt had some acquaintance with the habits and talk
of painters through his intimacy with West, for which see
"Autobiography," p. 77.— Ed.

SHELLEY, 167

grace. If he had room, he would add a cottage
and a piece of water, with a sailing boat mooring
among the trees. This was his beau iditU of a life,
the repose of which was to be earned by zeal for
his species, and warranted by the common good.
What else the image of a boat brings to the memory
of those who have lost him,^ I will not say, especi-
ally as he is still with us in his writings. But it is
worth observing how agreeably this habit of sketch-
ing trees and bowers evinced the gentleness of my
friend's nature, the longing he had for rest, and the
smallness of his personal desires.

It has been hastily implied in a late notice of
him, in a periodical work, that he was an aristocrat
by disposition as well as birth ; a conclusion natural
enough even with intelligent men, who have been
bred among aristocratical influences ; but it is a
pity that such men should give it as their opinion,
because it tends to confirm inferior understandings
in a similar delusion, and to make the vulgarity of
would-be refinement still more confident in its
assumptions. It is acknowledged on all hands, that
Mr. Shelley's mind was not one to be measured by
common rules, — ^not even by such as the vulgar,
great and small, takp for uncommon ones, or for
cunning pieces ofcorporate knowledge snugly kept
between one another. If there is anything which
I can afiirm of my beloved firiend, with as much
confidence as the fact of his being benevolent and
a friend, it is that he was totally free from mistakes
of this kind ; that he' never for one moment con-

1 For a touching account of Shelley's death and burial,
•ee the " Autobiography/' p. ago.— Ed.

i« LBIGH HUNT,

founded the claims of real and essential, with those
of conventional refinement ; or allowed one to be
substituted for the other in his mind by any com-
pcomise of his self-love.

I will admit it to be possible^ that there were
moments in which he mi^t have been deceived in
his estimation of people's manners, in consequence
of those to which he had been early accustomed ;
but the charge implied against him involves a con-
sdotts or at least an habitual preference of what are
called high-bred manners, for their own sakes,
apart firom the natures of those who exhilxted them,
and to the disadvantage of those to whom they had
not been taught. I can affirm that it is a total
mistake, and that he partook of no such weakness.
I have seen him indeed draw himself up with a
sort of irrepressible air of dignified objection, when
moral vulgarity was betrayed in his presence, what-
ever might have been the rank of the betrayer ;
but nobody could hail with greater joy and simpli-
city, or meet upon more equal grounds, the instinct
of a real delicacy and good intention, come in
what shape it might. Why should he have done
otherwise ? He was Shelley ; and not merely a
man of that name. What had ordinary high Ufe,
and its pretensions, and the getting together of a
few people for the sake of giving themselves a little
jhnportance, to do with his universal affinities ? It
was finely said one day in my hearing by Mr.
Hazlitt, when asked why he could not temporize a
little now and then, or make a compromise with an
untruth, that it was ''not worth his while." It
was not worth Mr. Shelley's while to be an aristo-

SHELLEY, . Z69

crat His spirit was large enough to take ten
aristocracies into the hollow of his hand, and look
at them as I have seen him look at insects from a
tree, certainly with no thought of superiority or the
reverse, but with a curious interest.

The quintessence of gentlemanly demeanour
which was observable in Mr. Shelley, in drawing-
rooms, when he was not over-thoughtful, was
nothing but an exquisite combination of sense,
nK»ral grace, and habitual sympathy. It was more
•dignified than what is called dignity in others,
because it was the heart of the thing itself, or
intrinsic worthy graced by the sincerest idealism ;
-and 'not a re$p(»)se made by imputed merit to the
homage of the imputors. The best conventional
d^^nity eould have no more come up to it than the
trick of aix occasion to the truth of a life.^

But tf an aristocracy of intellect and morals were

^ The coDsdmisiiMs of possessing the respect of others,
apurt from any reason for it but a conventional one, will
sometimes prqduce a really fine expression of countenance,
where the nature is good. On the other hand, I have seen
Mr. ShdOey, from a doubt of the sympathy of those around
him, SQ^denly sink from the happier look abovedescribed, into
an faq;ire8sioa of misgiving and even of destitution, that was
extremely touching. It arose out of a sudden impression
that all the sympathy was on his ude. Sympathy is un-
doubtedly the one thing needfril and final ; and though the
receipt (^ it on fidse grounds appears the most formidable
obstacle in theway of its true ascendancy, and is so, yet out
of the very spirit of the fact will come the salvation of the
wQiid ; for when once a right vi^w of 'it gets into fashion,
the prejudices as well as the understandings of mankind will
be as much on that side as they are agunst it now, and the
aoodeiBtioD of good be widiout a drawback.

LEIGH HUNT,

required, be was the man for one of their leaders.
High and princely was the example he could set to
an aristocracy of a difierent sort, as the reader
[may] see ... . from his pamphlet The late
death of an extraoidinaiy man of genius, the delight
of nationss az»d the special glory of his country, has
just fikf>«*xi the hhishing world what little things
cnuld he done for him, dead or alive, by the
** pco: men ** whom he condescended to glorify.
Thr mana|*er of a Scottish theatre (to his immortal
crpdiii - h&i: contributed, in furtherance of the
crectior. of a monument to him, predsely the same
flnc as^ was drawn forth out of the money bags of
a Sr^nsh duke in the receipt of neariy a thousand
pnonds; a day. . . .' The delist of taUdng about
my friend has led me into a loi^[er pre&ce than I
intended to write. I did not think of detaining
the reader so loi^ from his poem : most probably,
indeed, I have not detained him. . . .' [I shall
hm] stop to inquire how fiu Mr. Shelley would
haiHC thought the feasibilities of improvement'
hastened by the events that have taken place of
liie years— events, one of them in particular (the
Glorious Three Days), which it would have re-
jxtid him for all his endurances had he lived to

«ee.

And who shall say that he has not seen them ?

t Mr. Iltirray. I remember the gentlemanly paternity of
!|jft fiither's manner on the English stage, and the fine eyes
^ te sister (Mrs. H. Siddons) ; and was not surprised to
iibi feBCfostty in snch a stock.

* Here are omitted some passages from Shelley's pamphlet.

THE COLMAN FAMILY. 171

For if ever there wis a mn vpoD euth, of a
spiritual natiire than ordinaiy, psrtaknig of the
errofsand pertnrfaatiGDS of his ^ircirs hat seeing
and working through them with a snraphirsl par-
pose of good, sndi an one was Percy Bjsfae
Shelky.

lotHcd to 90 cfluasssM vncB fcfwiin amiy &

pRsrioa in Ids pnfafiiLed wndncs. ** If yoa ask ae hov

k dai I bear an lbs,'' ke viites» in one of the !

of dK ** ConrcspondfeKae,"' I awer, that I love

books, and thn^ vcfl of the caiahiities of human load. I

have kaofwa SkeHtj, I have kaofwa my modwr." LeicJi

Hiutt's iKist leacthy ■otioe of Shdley a ppe al ed ia " Lord

Bjrao and his CosieHpanDneSy 1838^ was repnntBd la the

** Anlobiognphy,* itso^ aad prdboed to the *' Pint Sencs*

of John CaoKica Hooears "Poetical Woris of Fncy Byshe

ShdleT'CiBTi).— Eol]

THE COLMAN FAMILY."

tlbe «<E<fiiri»q;h Seviev,- Jrfy, O^ C
1889-]

|HE oolyprodnctiQos of Cofanan, besides
the *' ConnoisKiiry" that have attafnrd
any stability, and are Hkely to keep it,
are the comedies of the **JeaIoiis
Wife** and the "Oandestine Marriage." The
fonner was written beCbie the decease of Lord

1 From a review oBdcr this hca&c of "Mcaoifs of the
Cohnan FamOj, twrhMHag their ooncspoadcaoe with the
mmt itiitinffiiifhfil Fi iwiijii id" iWii Tit By Ridb«d
BrinskyFeake** avob.t«o. Loadoa, it4Xw— En,

t7» LEIGH HUNT,

Bath, to whom it was dedicated ; but his lordship
knew nothing of its existence, till success gave the
author courage to disclose his secret. Colman
was still practising at the bar, and he continued to
do so, at least ostensibly, till his supposed call
from it by General Pulteney ; but a compliment to
Garrick, in a pamphlet, had broi^ht him ac-
quainted with the sovereign of the stage ; and after
he had anonymously picked his way upon it, with
the help of Garrick's confidmce, in the farce of
"Polly Honeycomb," the "Jealous Wife" was
produced at Drury Lane in the month of February,
1 761. It is said to have met with greater success
than any new play since the. " Suspicious Hus-
band." It is at the head <^ what may be called
comedies of negative excellence in style, and un-
superfluous truth in the action. There is no in-
correctness of language, no £aJse or forced wit, no
violation of propriety of any sort ; and the plot
flows as naturally onward as possible, carrying
along with it a variety of amusing if not original
characters, and enlivened occasionally with smart
points of situation. It has been objected that the
husband is too tame, and the wife too much of a
termagant ; not delicate enough for the loving pas-
sion of jealousy. But jealousy is by no means
always a loving passion. It is doubtless often
found in connection with love ; but inasmuch as,
per se, it is nothing but a dread of the loss of
power, it has often nothing to do with love, what-
ever it may pretend. We have seen people who
cared nothing whatsoever for their husbands and
wives, very jealous of their attention to others,

THE COLMAN FAMILY. 173

purely oat of the fear of the dhnmntinn of tynimi-
cal inflaence ; a mixed motive oS. a similar kind
animates porhaps a good half of ordinary jeaJkn-
sies; and Colman did good service against this
arrogant and wont form of the pawinn, by dividiag
with it the better feelings of fab hercme. The
husband was also bound over to be a good deal
henpecked, in c^er that he mig^ show the evil to
its full extent, as &r as comedy allows. In his
advertisement to the |^y, the author oonfessed his
obligations to Fielding, to the " Spectator," and
to the "Adelphi" of Terence; and said that he
had received great benefit from the advice of Gar-
rick. The fidr Mrs. George Anne Bdlamy, some-
where in her Memoirs, calls him the " modem
Terence ',** and, in tmth, he merited a comparison
with his ^voorite classic more than she was aware
ci, or than he would altogether have liked to be
shown. As JuUiis Caesar, in his fine great way,
going to the heart of the matter at once, called
Terence a " half-Menander," so Colman might
have been called a half-Terence, and this comedy
adduced as the proof of it There is not the sen-
tentioosness of Terence ; nothing very quotable ;
there is certainly no pathos (nor is it wanted), and
the style is not eminent for expression. But on the
other hand the language is pure and terse; the
chief passages and situations are more sketchy than
filled up (except in Mrs. Oakle3r's denouncements
of her husband) — leaving a great deal to be done
by the performers ; and the characters, it must be
confessed, are faint copies of their originals.
Russet is but a small Squire Western, a dwindled

174 LEIGH HUNT.

brother of the fiunily ; and Lord Trinket is an on-
acknowledged Lord Foppington,^ without the
▼igour eren <^ the other's £alse calves. Colman
was a very little man; diminutive, we mean, in his
person ; without the bone and muscle common to
distinguished aspirants of that class ; not one of
the Liliputian heroes recorded in Clarendon's his-
tory, and pleasantly referred to by himself in one ,
of his fugitive papers.* He was weakly and ner-
vous. A clergyman with whom he had had a dis-
pute (a personage very unworthy of the gentle-
manly cloth of the Church of England) once gave
him a severe beating ; for whidi Colman very pro-
perly exhibited against him articles of the peace.
Men's physical, moral, and intellectual Acuities
all hang together in more subtle omnection than is
commonly supposed; and as Terence in person
was very slender, and probably but '* half a Me-
nander " in that respect as well as in comedy, so
Colman iq)pears, every way, to have been a sort of
Terence cut down.

We confess we cannot feel an equal liking for his
son, GeoigeColman "theYounger,"ashe delighted
to call himself. He was proud of his father, and, we
dare say, loved him as well as he could ; but such
was his total want of seriousness, that during his

1 A dbancter in Vanbnigh's " The Rdapse.''~ED.

3 "The Genius," No. II., originally published in "St
James's Chrcmicle," and gathered into the miscellaneous
collection called the " Connoisseur " [described as written
by " Mr. Town," a signature which Leigh Hunt himself
adopted. —Ed.].

THE COLMAN FAMILY. 175

very accounts of the calamity we have just noticed,^
he cannot help indulging in his usual jests. This is
not what Yorick would have done ; nor Hamlet,
with all his insight into the melancholy of mirth,
have loved.

George Colman the Younger v^as bom in the
year 1762; educated (a little) at Westminster,
Oxfc^, and Aberdeen (for he contrived to neutra-
lize his father's endeavours at all three places);
wrote his first piece in 17S4; succeeded to his
fiither's management when the latter fell ill, and to
the property of the Haymarket at his death ; was
fortunate enough to secure the attachment of an
amiable woman and agreeable actress (Mrs.
Gibbs), whom he afterwards married ; wrote up-
wards of twenty pieces, chiefly for the Haymarket,
in the midst of equal difficulties and jovialties;
was the author of some Peter-Pindaric tales, equally
merry and indecorous ; and died in the year 1836,
Examiner of Plays, and denouncer of the most harm-
less liberties which he himself had practised.

We do not like to find £iult with him ; for though
the pretensions he made to ** poetry" and the
serious drama were ridiculous, his conduct in the
office above mentioned mercenary and provoking,
and his character altogether defective as to high
and estimable qualities, except gratitude to those
who well treated him (which indeed is something),
there must have been a good deal of stuff of some
sort in a writer who could carry on a theatre, as he
did for several years, almost upon the strength of

^ Of lus fiftther going mad under unskilful medical treat-
ment, "^ad.

176 LEIGH HUNT,

his own productions. Sttch at least is the impres-
sion upon our memory. Those who remember the
Haymarket Theatre in his day, when the perform-
ances were confined to the summer-time, and what
a joyous little place it was — ^how merrily oppres-
sive, and how everybody went there to complain of
the heat, and to forget it in the laughter — must
remember the endless repetitions of Upie " Moun-
taineers," and the "Heir at Law," and the
"BatUe of Hexham," and the "Wags of Wind-
sor," and "Blue Devils," and "Love Laughs at
Locksmiths," and many others. Who can ever
forget the sweet song and good-natured little
dumpiness of Mrs. Bland ? or the -straw hats and
Uack stuff mittens of Mrs. Gibbs,' with her
dimpled pastoral face ? or the dry humour, cover-
ing a rich oil, of Elliston? or the trampling,
brazen-fironted onsets, and harsh, merry, grmding
voice of Fawcett in Caleb Quotem ? Who did not
carry away half the Faroes by heart, and hazard the
suffocation of their families with it next morning
over the breakfast-table? And all this (let him
have his due) was owing to GeOrge Colman the
Younger, and his unquestioned powers of drollery
and entertainment. He was not so interesting a
man as his father, for he had not a particle of
gravity ; and there can be no depth of sympathy
where there is no serious feeling. • . . [As to
his dischai^e of the duties of Examiner of Plays,]
the secret of Colman's face-making about pretended
impieties, is to be found in that want of all
seriousness of feeling and belief, which turned his
dramatic sentiment into cant, and his blsmk verse

THE COLMAN FAMILY, 177

into commonplace. He thought all gravity con-
sisted in words. He could discern none of the
different shades of feeling which rendered the use
of a questionable word more or less proper ; and
therefore the word was to be cut out at once, to
save him trouble. He was to go counter to hk
own pasty and, in private, existing habit; because
he had never made use of such words but in a
spirit of levity and pretension, and therefore he
thought nobody else could do otherwise. He had
also, he thought, a character to sustain — that is to
say, an official face to make ; and every grimace
was to pay for the fees he had extorted in the other
part of his capacity, and show how constitutionally
he had done it ; and his pecuniary difficulties were
constant, and his shame nothings and so con^
eluding that not to practise a " humbug ** and get
money, would itself be a ''humbug," and, un-
like what was done by everybody else in the world,
he forgot that every new trade requires apprentice-
ship, and has its prindples of decency and honour ;*
and plunged into an extreme of impudent incon^
sistency, which only exposed him to scorn and
laughter. A- less licentious writer than Colman
could not have pretended to be so afraid of a little
liberty, for he does not so confound it with wai^
of innocence. A more pious man could not so
violently have objected to all mention of the object
of his piety ; for he is in the habit of thinking about
it in ordinary, and of associating it with his pieties
towards nature, and with the affisctions of his
heart. To affect to shudder at the mention, on alL
occasions but set and formal ones, is in truth to do

I. N

178 LEIGH HUNT.

the veiy reverse of what is pretended; it is to turn
the sentiment itself into a word instead of a feel-
ing, and to hazard the most irreligious of all con-
clusions, in seeming to think that it could not be
maintained but on such a condition ! And, after

all, Colman himself but the extravagance is too

absurd for more comment. Never surely did clever
rogue make so clumsy a mistake.

JOHN BUNGLE.

[" Book for a Comer," 1849.]

,H£ Life of John Buncle, Esq. ; con-
taining various Observations and Reflec-
tions made in several parts of the World,
and many Extraordinary Relations," is a
book unlike any other in the language, perhaps in
the world ; . . . John's Life is not a classic : it
contains no passage which is a general favourite :
no extract could be made from it of any length, to
which readers of good taste would not find objec-
tions. Yet there is so curious an interest in all its
absurdities ; its jumble of the gayest and gravest
considerations is so founded in the actual state of
things ; it draws now and then such excellent por-
traits from life ; and above all, its animal spirits
are at once so excessive and so real, that we defy
the best readers not to be entertained with it, and
having had one or two specimens, not to desire
more. Buncle would say, that there is '* cut and
come again " in him, like one of his luncheons of

JOHN BUNCLE. . 179

cold beef and a foaming tankard. . . . John is a "^j
kind of innocent Henry the Eighth of private life,
without the other's fat, fury, and solemnity. He
is a prodigious hand at matrimony, at divinity, at
a song, at a loud '^ hem," and at turkey and chine.
He breaks with the Trinitarians as confidently and
with as much scorn as Henry did with the Pope ;
and he marries seven wives, whom he disposes of
by the lawful process of fever and small-pox. His
book is made up of history, mathematics (literally),
songs, polemics, landscapes, eating and drinking,
and characters of singular men, all bound together
by his introductions to and marriages with these
seven successive ladies, every one of whom is a
charmer, a Unitarian, and cut off in the flower of
her youth. Buncle does not know how to endure !
her loss ; he shuts his eyes ** for three days ; " is j
stupified ; is in despair ; till suddenly he recollects '
that Heaven does not like such conduct ; that it is 1
a mourner's business to bow to its decrees ; to be '
devout ; to be philosophic ; in short, to be jolly, '
and look out for another dear, bewitching partner /
** on Christian principles " . . . . [Most of his
ladies] are discovered in lovely places reading
books, and are always prepared for nice little
suppers. . . . ^

It is impossible to be serious with John Buncle,
Esquire, jolly dog. Unitarian, and Blue Beard ;
otherwise, if we were to take him at his word, we
should pronounce him, besides being a jolly dog,
to be one of a very selfish description, with too
good a constitution to correct him, a prodigious
vanity, no feeling whatever, and a provoking con-

i«o LEIGH HUNT.

tempt for everything unfortunate, or opposed to his
whims. He quarrels with bigotry, and is a bigot ;
with abuse, and riots in it He hates the cruel
opinions held by Athanasius, and sends people to
the devil as an Arian. He kills off seven wives
out of pure incontinence and love of change, yet
cannot abide a rake or even the poorest victim of
the rake, unless both happen to be his acquain-
tances. The way in whidi he tramples on the
miserable wretches in the streets, is the very rage
and triumph of hard-heartedness, furious at seeing
its own vices reflected on it, unredeemed by the
privil^ies of law, divinity, and success. But the
truth b, John is no more responsible for his opinions
than health itself, or a high-mettled racer. He
only ' ' thinks he's thinking. *' He does, in reality,
nothing at all but eat, drink, talk, and enjoy his^
sel£ Amory, Buncle's creator, was in sill prob-
ability an honest man, or he would hardly have
been innocent enough to put such extravagance <
on paper. What Mrs. Amory thought of the seven
wives does not appear. Probably he invented them
before he knew her ; perhaps was not anxious to
be reminded of them afterwards. When he was '
in the zenith of his health and spirits, he must have ■
been a prodigious fellow over a bottle and beef-
steak.

MY BOOKS. i8i

MY BOOKS.^

[" Literary Examiner," July sth and xath, 1823. " In-
dicator and Companion," X834. A. Sjrmons, z888. C Kent,
X889.]

ITTING, last winter, among my books,
and walled round with all the comfort
and protection which they and my fire-
side could afford me ; to wit, a table of
high-piled books at my back, my writing-desk on
one side of me, some shelvies on the other, and the
feeling of the warm fire at my feet ; I began to
consider how I loved the authors of those books :
how I loved them,' too, not' only for the imagina-
tive pleasures they afforded me, but for their making
me love the very books themselves, and delight to
be in contact with them. I looked sideways at my
Spenser, my Theocritus, and my Arabian Nights ;
tl^n above them at my Italian poets ; then behind
me at my Dryden and Pope, my romances, and my
Boccaccio ; then on my left side at my Chaucer, who
lay on a writing-desk ; and thdught how natural
it was in C[harles] L[amb] to give a kiss to an old
folio, as I once saw him do to Chapman's Homer.
At the same time I wondered how he could sit in
that front room of his with nothing but a few un-
feeling tables and chairs, or at best a few engravings
in trim frames, instead of putting a couple of arm-

1 ThiSf so far as I can discover, is the first time that this
essay has been reprinted in its complete form. It was ab-
breviated in the volume collected from the " Indicator," and
that edition has alwasrs been followed.— Eo.

i8s LEIGH MUST.

chairs into the back-room with the books in it,
where there is but one window. Would I were
there, with both the chairs properly filled, and one
or two more besides ! " We had talk, Sir," — the
only talk capable of making one forget the books.

Good God ! I could cry like one of the Children
in the Wood to think how ias I and mine are from
home ; but this would not be ** decent or manly;"
so I smile instead, and am philosophical enough to
make your heart ache. Besides, I shall love the
country I am in more and more, and on the very
account for which it angers me at present

This is confessing great pain in the midst of my
books. I own it ; and yet I feel all the pleasure
in them which I have expressed.

Take me, my book-shelves, to your arms,
And shield me from the ills of life.

No disparagement to the arms of Stella ; but in
neither case is pain a reason why we should not
have a high enjoyment of the pleasure.

I entrench myself in my books equally against
sorrow and the weather. If the wind comes through
a passage, I look about to see how I can fence it off
by abetter disposition of my moveables ; if a melan-
choly thought is importunate, I give another glance
at my Spenser. When I speak of being in contact
with my books, I mean it literally. I like to lean
my head against them. Living in a southern
climate, though in a part sufficiently northern to
feel the winter, I was obliged, during that season,
to take some of the books out of the study, and
hang them up near the fireplace in the sitting-room,

Mr BOOKS, 183

which is the only room that has such a convenience.
I therefore walled myself in, as well as I could, in
the manner above-mentioned. I took a walk every
day, to the astonishment of the Genoese, who used
to huddle against a bit of sunny wall, like flies on
a chimney-piece ; but I did this only that I might
so much the more enjoy my English evening. The
fire was a wood fire instead of a coal ; but I ima-
gined myself in the country. I remembered at the
very worst, that one end of my native land was not
nearer the other than England is to Italy.

While writing this article I am in my study
again. Like the rooms in all houses in this country
which are not hovels, it is handsome and orna-
mented. On one side it looks towards a garden
and the mountains; on another, to the mountains
and the sea. What signifies all this ? I turn my
back upon the sea ; I shut up even one of the side
windows looking upon the mountains, and retain
no prospect but that of the^ trees. On the right
and left of me are book-shelves ; a bookcase is
affectionately open in front of me ; and thus kindly
inclosed with my books and the green leaves, I
write. If all this is too luxiirious and effeminate,
of all luxuries it is the one that leaves you the most
strength. And this is to be said for scholarship in
general. It unfits a man for activity, for his bodily
part in the world ; but it often doubles both the
power and the sense of his mental duties; and
with much indignation against his body, and more
against those who tyrannize over the intellectual
claims of mankind, the man of letters, like the
magician of old, is prepared " to play the devil "

i84 LEIGH HUNT.

,with the great men of this world, in a style that
astonishes both the sword and the toga.

I do not like this fine large study. I like ele-
gance. I like room to breathe in, and even walk
about, when I want to breathe and walk about.
I like a great library next my study ; but for the
study itself, give me a small snug place, almost
entirely walled with books. There should be only
one window in it, looking upon trees. Some prefer
a place with few, or no books at all — nothing but
a chair or a table, like Epictetus; but I should
say that these were philosophers, not lovers of
books, if I did not recollect that Montaigne was
both. He had a study in a round tower, walled as
aforesaid. It is true, one forgets one's books
while writing — at least they say so. For my part,
\ think I have them in a sort of sidelong mind's
eye ; like a second thought, which is none — like a
waterfaU, or a whispering wind.

I dislike a grand library to study in. I mean an
immense apartment, with books all in Museum
order, especially wire-safed. I say nothing against
the Museum itself, or public libraries. They are
capital places to go to, but not to sit in ; and talk-
ing of this, I hate to read in public, and in strange
company. The jealous silence ; the dissatisfied
looks of the messengers ; the inability to help your-
self ; the not knowing whether you really ought to
trouble the messengers, much less the Gentleman
in black, or brown, who is, perhaps, half a trustee ;
with a variety of other jarring^ between privacy
and publicity, prevent one's settling heartily to
work. They say ** they manage these things better

MY BOOKS. 185

in France ; *' and I dare say they do ; but I think I
should feel still more distrait in France, in spite of
the benevolence of the servitors, and the generous
profusion of pen, ink, and paper. I should feel as
if I were doing nothing but interchanging amenities
with polite writers.

A grand private library, which the master of the
house also makes his study, never looks to me like
a real place of books, much less of authorship. I
cannot take kindly to it. It is certainly not out of
envy ; for three parts of the books are generally
trash, and I can seldom think of the rest and the
proprietor together. It reminds me of a fine gentle-
man, of a collector, of a patron, of Gil Bias and the
Marquis of Marialva ; of an3rthing but genius and
comfort. I have a particular hatred of a round tabic
(not t/ie Round Table, for that was a dining one)
coveo^d and irradiated with books, and never met
with one in the house of a clever man but once.
It is the reverse of Montaigne's Round Tower.
Instead of bringing the books around you, they all
seem turning another way, and eluding your hands.

Conscious of my propriety and comfort in these
matters, I take an interest in the bookcases as well
as the books of my friends. I long to meddle, and
dispose them after my own notions. When they
see this confession, they will acknowledge the
virtue I have practised. I believe I did mention
his book-room to C. L., and I think he told me
that he often sat there when alone. It would be
hard not to believe him. His library, though not
abounding in Greek or Latin (which are the only
things to help some persons to an idea of literature),

186 LEIGH HUNT.

isan3rtfa!ngbatsuperficiaL Thedepthsof philosophy
and poetry are there, the innermost passages q& the
human heart. It has some Latin too. It has also
a handsome contempt for appearance. It looks
like what it is, a selection made at precious intervals
from the book-stalls ; — ^now a Chaucer at nine and
twopence ; now a Montaigne or a Sir Thomas
Browne at two shillings ; now a Jeremy Taylor ; a
Spinoza ; an old English Dramatist, Prior, and Sir
Philip Sidney; and the books are "neat as im-
ported." The very perusal of the backs is a " dis-
cipline of humanity. " There Mr. Southey takes his
place again with an old Radical friend : there Jeremy
Collier is at peace with Dryden : there the lion,
Martin Luther, lies down with the Quaker lamb,
Sewell : there Guzman d'Alfarache thinks himself
fit company for Sir Charles Grandison, and has his
claims admitted. Even the '*high fantastical"
Duchess of Newcastle, with her laurel on her head,
is received with grave honours, and not the less for
declining to trouble herself with the constitutions of
her maids. There is an approach to this in the library
of W. C, who also includes Italian among his
humanities. Wplliam] H[azlitt], I believe, has no
books, except mine ; but he has Shakespeare and
Rousseau by heart. [Vincent] N[ovello], who though
not a bookman by profession, is fond of those who
are, and who loves his volume enough to read it across
the fields, has his library in the common sitting-room,
which is hospitable. H. R. *s ^ books are all too
modem and finely bound, which however is not his
fault, for they were left him by will, — not the most

1 Henry Robinson, the treasurer of Gov nt Garden
Theatre. (A. Symons, p. 313.)

My BOOKS. 187

kindly act of the testator. Suppose a man Vere to
bequeath us a great japan chest three feet by four,
with an injunction that it was always to stand on
the tea-table. I remember borrowing a book of
H. R. which, having lost, I replaced with a copy
equally well bound. I am not sure I should have
been in such haste, even to return the book, had it
been a common-looking volume ; but the splendour
of the loss dazzled me into this ostentatious piece
of propriety. I set about restoring it as if I had
diminished his fortunes, and waived the privilege a
friend has to use a man's things as his own. I may
venture upon this ultra-liberal theory, not only be-
cause candour compels me to say that I hold it to a
greater extent, with Montaigne, but because I have
been a meek son in the family of book -losers. I
may affirm, upon a moderate calculation, that I
have lent and lost in my time (and I am eight-and-
thirty), half-a-dozen decent -sized libraries, — I mean
books enough to fill so many ordinary bookcases. '
I have never complained ; and self-love, as well as
gratitude, makes me love those who do not com^
plain of me.

But, like other patient people, I am inclined to
burst out now that I grow less strong, — now that
writing puts a hectic to my cheek. Publicity is
nothing nowadays "between friends." There is
R., not H. R., who in return for breaking my set
of English Poets, makes a point of forgetting me,
whenever he has poets in his eye ; which is carrying
his conscience too far. But W[illiam] H[azlitt]
treated me worse ; for not content with losing other

1 See "A Shelf of Old Books," by Mrs. Fields, in
*' Scribner's Magazine " for March, z888, p. aga.^En.

x88 LEIGH HUNT.

of said English Poets, together with my Philip
Sidney (all in one volume) and divers pieces of
Bacon, he vows I never lent them to him ; which
is " the unkindest cut of all. " This comes of being
magnanimous. It is a poor thing after all to be
** pushed from a level consideration " of one's
superiority in matters of provocation. But W[illiam]
H[azlitt] is not angry on this occasion though he is
forgetful ; and in spite of his offences against me and
mine (not to be done away with by his good word at
intervals), I pardon the irritable patriot and meta-
physician, who would give his last penny to an ac-
quaintance, and his last pulse to the good of man-
kind. Why did he fire up at an idle word from
one of the few men,^ who thought as deeply as him-
self, and who "died daily" in the same awful cause?
But I foigive him, because he forgave him, and yet
I know not if I can do it for that very reason.

" Come, my best friends, my books, and lead me on :
Tis time that I were gone."

I own I borrow books with as much facility as I
lend. I cannot see a work that interests me on
another person's shelf, without a wish to carry it
off: but, I repeat, that I have been much more
sinned against than sinning in the article of non-
return ; and am scrupulous in the article of inten-
tion. I never had a felonious intent upon a book
but once ; and then I shall only say, it was under
circumstances so peculiar, that I cannot but look
upon the conscience that induced me to restore it,
as having sacrificed the spirit of its very self to the
letter ; and I have a grudge against it accordingly.
^ No doubt Shelley.— Ed.

MY BOOKS, Z89

Some people are unwilling to lend their books. I
have a special grudge against them, particularly
those who accompany their unwillingness with
uneasy professions to the contrary, and smiles like
Sir Fretful Plagiary. The friend, who helped to
spoil my notions of property, or rather to make
them too good for the world " as it goes," taught
me also to undervalue my squeamishness in refusing
to avail m3rself of the books of these gentlemen.
He showed me how it was doing good to all parties
to put an ordinary fiace on the matter ; though \
know his own, blushed not a little sometimes in
doing it, even when the good to be done was for
another. (Dear Sjhelley], in all thy actions, small
as well as great, how sure was the beauty of thy
spirit to break forth.) I feel, in truth, that even
when anger inclines me to exercise this privil^e of
philosophy, it is more out of revenge than contempt.
I fear that in allowing m3rself to borrow books, I
sometimes make extremes meet in a very sinful
manner, and do it out of a refined revenge. It is
like eating a miser's beef at him.

I yield to none in my love of bookstall urbanity.
I have spent as happy moments over the staUs
(until the woman looked out), as any literary ap-
prentice boy who ought to be moving onwards.
But I confess my weakness in liking to see some of
my favourite purchases neatly bound. The bool^
I like to have about me most are, Spenser, Chaucer,
the minor poems of Milton, the Arabian Nights, 1
Theocritus, Ariosto, and such old good-natured )
speculations as Plutarch's Morals. For most of*^
these I like a plain good old binding, never mind

I90 LEIGH HUNT,

how old, provided it weais well ; bat my Anbun

Nights may be bound in as fine and flowery a

style as possible, and I should love an engraving

to every dozen pages. Book -prints of all sorts,

bad and good, take with me as much as'wfaen I

was a child : and I think some books, such as

Prior's Poems, ought alwajrs to have portraits of

the authors. Prior's airy £ice with his cap on, is

like having his company. From earfy association,

no edition of Milton pleases me so much, as that

in which there are pictures of the Devil with brute

ears, dressed like a Roman Genoal : nor of Bun-

yan, as the one containing the print of the Valley

of the Shadow of Death, with the Devil whispering

in Christian's ear, or old Pope by the way side, and

Vanity Fair,
With the Pilgrims suffering there.

I delight in the recollection of the puzzle I used to
have with the frontispiece of the " Tale of a Tub,"
of my real horror at the sight of that crawling old
man representing Avarice, at the b^inning of
"Enfield's Speaker," the "Looking Glass," or
some such book ; and even of the careless school-
boy hats, and the prim stomachers and cottage
bonnets, of such golden -age antiquities as the
" Village School." The oldest and most worn-
out woodcut, representing King Pippin, Goody
Two Shoes, or the grim Soldan, sitting vrith three
staring blots for his eyes and mouth, his sceptre in
one hand, and his other five fingers raised and
spread in admiration at the feats of the Gallant
London Prentice, cannot excite in me a feeling of
ingratitude. Cooke's edition of the British Poets

MV BOOKS, 191

and Novelists came out when I was at school :
for which reason I never could put up with
Suttaby's or Walker's publications, except in the
case of such works as the " Fairy Tales," which
Mr. Cooke did not publish. Besides, they are too
cramped, thick, and mercenary ; and the pictures
are all firontispieces. They do not come in at the
proper places. Cooke realized the old woman's
ieau ideal of a prayer-book, — "A little book,
with a great deal of matter, and a large type : " —
for the type was really large for so small a volume.
Shall I ever forget his Collins and his Gray, books
at once so " superbly ornamented " and so incon-
ceivably cheap? Sixpence could procure much
befcnre; but never could it procure so much as
then, or was at once so much respected, and so
little cared for. His artist Kirk was the best
artist, except Stothard, that ever designed for
periodical works ; and I will venture to add (if his
name rightly announces his country) the best artist
Scotland ever produced, except Wilkie, but he un-
fortunately had not enough of his country in him
to keep him from dying young. His designs for
Milton and the Arabian Nights, his female ex-
tricated from the water in the "Tales of the
Genii," and his old hag issuing out of the chest of
the Merchant Abadah in the same book, are
before me now, as vividly as they were then. He
possessed elegance and the sense of beauty in no
ordinary d^ree ; though they sometimes played a
trick or so of foppery. I shall never forget the
gratitude with which I received an odd number of
Akenside, value sixpence, one of the set of that

i9t LEIGH HUNT.

poet, which a boarder distributed axnoi^ three or
four of us, '* with his mother's compliments." The
present might have been more lavish, but I hardly
thought of that I remember my number. It
was the one in which there is a picture of the poet
on a sopha, with Cupid coming to him, and the
words underneath, '' Tempt me no more, insidious
Love ! " The picture and the number appeared
to me equally divine. I cannot help thinking to
this day, that it is right and natural in a gentleman
to sit in a stage dress, on that particular kind of
sopha, though on no other, with that exclusive hat
and leathers on his head, telling Cupid to begone
with a tragedy air. Cowley says that even when
he was '* a very young boy at school, instead of
his running about on holidays, and playing with
his fellows, he was wont to steal £rom them and
walk into the fields, either alone with a book, or
with some one companion, if he could find one of
the same temper." When I was at schoiol, I had
no fields to run into, or I should certainly have
gone there ; and I must own to having played a
great deal ; but then I drew my sports as much as
possible out of books, plajdng at Trojan wars,
chivalrous encounters with coal-staves, and even
at religious mysteries. When I was not at these
games, I was either reading in a comer, or walking
round the cloisters with a book under one arm and
my friend^ linked with the .other, or vdth my
thoughts. It has since been my fiaite to realize all
the romantic notions I had of a friend at that time,
and just as I had embraced him in a distant coun-
1 See poems to him in "Juvenilia,"— Ed.

r

MY BOOKS. X93

tey, to have him torn fix>Qi me.^ This it is that
sprinkles the most cheerful of my speculations now
with tears, and that must obtain me the reader's
pardonfor a style unusuallychequeredand^oistical.
No man was a greater lover of books than he. He
was rarely to be seen, unless attending to other
people's afiairs, without a volume of some sort,
generally of Plato or one of the Greek tragedians;
Nor will those who understand the real spirit of
his scepticism, be surprised to hear that one of his
companions was the Bible*. He valued it for the
beauty of some Of its contents, for thie dignity of
others, and the curio^y of alt; thongk the pluSo-
sof^y of Solomon he thought too EpicunaHy and
the inconsistencies of other parts- afflicted* hiin;
His £Eivourite part was the 'book of Job^-which he
thought the grandest of tragedies. He projected
founding one of his own upon it ; and I willimder-
take to say, that Job would have sat in* that tragedy
with. a patience and profundity of thought worthy
of the ordinal. Being askfed on one occasion, what
book he would save for himself if he could tove no
other ? he answered, ** The oldest book, the Bible.^'
It was a monument to him of the eiarliest,^ most
lasting, and most awful aspirations of humanity.
But more of this on a fitter occ^on.^

1 SheUey kgain.— Ed.

* I will mention, however, in this place, that an advantage
of a very cnnnuofg and vindictive Hamre was taken W Hft,
SheUe/t known regard' fior the Bible, to l e iwaiia ^ hfmas
having one with him at the time he was dromMdw Noduqf
was more probable ; and it is true that he had a book in his
pocket, the remains of which, at the request of the author of
this article, were buried with him, but it was the voluiiiie of

I. O

194 LEIGH HUNT,

^I love an anthor die more IbrhaTiiig been fahn-
•df a lover of books. The idea of an andent
Ubraiy perplexes our sympatlij by its map-like
volnmes, rolled upon qrlinders. Our imagination^
cannot take kindly to a yard of wit, or to thirty |
inches of moral observation, rolled out like linen 1
X in a diaper's diop. But we conceive of Plato 9^
of a lover of books; of Aristotle certainly; of
Plutarch, PHny, Horace, Julian, and Marcus
Anielius. A^igily too^ must have been one ; and,
after a £nhion, MartiaL May I confess, that the
passage which I recollect with die greatest pka-
sure in Cicero, is where he says that books deligfat
us at home, and art no impedimunt abroad; travel
with us, ruralize with us. His period is rounded
off to some purpose : '' DeUcUmt dami^ nam impe-
dmnt foris ; peregrmaninr^ rusHcamiurJ* I am
so much of this opinion, that I do not care to be
anywhere without having a book or books at hand,
and like Dr. Orkbone, in the novel of " Camilla,"
stuff the coach or post-chaise with them whoiever
I traveL As books, however, become andent, the
love of them becomes more unequivocal and con-
spicuous. The andents had little of what we call
learning. Theymadeit They were also no very
eminent buyers of books — they made books for
posterity. It is true, that it is not at all necessaiy

Mr. Keats' poems, containing " Hyperion,** of which he
was a great admirer. He borrowed it of me when I went
away, and knowing how I valued it also, said that he
would not let it quit him till he saw me again.

> This is the beginning of the second article of July 12th.
—Ed.

MY BOOKS, 195

to love many books, in order to love them much.
The scholar, in Chaucer, who would rather have

At his beddes head
A twenty bokes, clothed, in blade and red.
Of Aristotle and his philosophy,
Than robte rich, or fiddle, <v psaltry^

doubtless beat all our modem collectors in his
passion for reading ; but books must at least exist,
and have acquired an eminence, before their lovers
can make themselves known. There must be a
possession, also, to perfect the conmiunion ; and
the mere contact is much, even when our mistress
qpeaks an unknown language. Dante puts Homer,
the great ancient, in his Elysium, upon trust;
but a few years afterwards, " Homer," the book,
made its appearance in Italy, and Petrarch, in a
transport, put it upon his book-shelves, where he
adored it, like ''the unknown God." Petrarch
oi^t to be the god of the Bibliomaniacs, for he
was a collector and a man of genius, which is an
union that does not often happen. He copied out^
with his own precious hand, the manuscripts he
rescued from time, and then produced others for^
time to reverence. With his head upon a book
died. Boccaccio, his friend, was another ; nor can
one look upon the longest and most tiresome works
he wrote (for he did write some tiresome ones, in
spite of the gaiety of his " Decameron "), without
thinking, that in that resuscitation of the world of
letters, it must have been Aatural to a man of
genius to add to the existing stock of volumes, at
whatsoever price. I always pitch my completest

t9« LEIGH HUNT.

idea of a lover of books, either in these dark ages,
as they are called,

(Cui deoo a torto il cieoo Yolgo appellar-)

or in the gay town days of. Charlesi IJ^ o^ a little
afterwards. In boU» t)in«p.^.4 portrait comes out
by the force of contrast In the first, I imagine an
age of iron warfare and enexgy, with 's<^itary re-
treats, in which the monk or ^e hooded scholar
walks forth to meditate, his- precious yolame under
his arm. In the other, I have a triumphant
example of the power of books and wit tocoetest
the victory with seDsuid> pleasure ^-^Rochestei^
staggering home to pen. a satire in the style of
Monsieur Boileaii ; ^Butler, cramming his^ jolly
duodecimo with all the leaning' that he ki^hcd
at ; and a new race of book poets eome up, who,
in spite of their periwigs and> petit-maStres, talk al
romantically of ^'the faay^," asif they«were'paesls
of Delphos. It was a victdriotts thi^ ia bCHlksto
beguile even the cdd French of their egodso^or at
least to share it with them. Nature never pre^
tended to do as mucK And here is the-dififerenee
between the t^o ages, or between any two ages m
which genius and art predominate. In thft one,
books are loved because they ieure the records of
nature and her energies ; in the other, because
they are the records^of those records, or evidences
of the importance of the individuals, and proofeof
our descent ia the new and imperishable ^aristo*
cracy. This is • the - reason why lai^ (with few ext
captions) is so* jealous *of literature, and loves to
appropriate or witMiold the honours of it,- as if

MY BOOKS. W7

; th^ Were !to many toys and ribbons, like its own«
.Jt ha»an instinct t-hat the two pretensions are in-
oompatible. .When Hontaigne;(a real lover of
books) affected tke order of St Michael, and
pleased bimself with possessing that fugitive little
pieoi^ of importance, he did it because he would
pfetend to b^ above bdthing that he really felt, or
that! was felt by men In general ; but at the same
tee^fae vindicated his natnnd superiority over this
weakness by pndskig and loving all higher and
lasting things, and by placing his best glory in
-doing homage- to the geniuses that had gone before
•kinH"* Hedid not endeavour to think that an im-
mortal renown was a fashion, like that of the cut
.of -his scarf) or that by undervaluing the one,
Jie.-flltoiild go shimng down to posterity in the
•otiierf pirpetual VotA of Montaigne and of the
-Moendant ^

. -There is a period of modem times, at which the
love^ bdbkk appears to have been of a more de-
cided natmae than at dther.of these — I mean the
nge just before and after the Reformation, or
rather all that*period when book* writing was con-
■fined to ^ learned languages. . Erasmus is the
^^ of it Baoon,.a mighty book-man, saw, among
his other sights, the .great advantage of loosening
the vernacular tongue, and wrote both Latin and
English, I idlow ihis is the greatest closeted age
of books ; of old scholars skting in dusty studies ;
of heaps of " illustrious obscure," rendering them-
selves more illustrious and more obscure by retreat-
ing from the *' thorny queaches " of Dutch and
German names into the '* vacant interlunar caves"

198 LEIGH HUNT,

of appellations latinized or translated. I think I
see all their volumes now, filling the shelves of a
docen Gemuoi convents. The authors are bearded
men, sitting in old woodcuts, in caps and gowns,
and their books are dedicated to princes and states-
men, as illustrious as themselves. My old firiend
Wierus, who wrote a thick book, " De Praestigiis
Dsemonum," was one of them, and had a £uicy
worthy of his sedentary stomach. I will confess,
once for all, that I have a liking for them all. It
is my link with the bibliomaniacs, whom I admit
into our relationship, because my love is large, and
my fiunily pride nothii^. But still I take my idea
of books read with a gusto, of companions for bed
and board, from the two ages before-mentioned.
The other is of too book-worm a description.
There must be both a judgment and a fervour ; a
discrimination and a boyish eagerness ; and (with
all due humility) something of a point of contact
between authors worth readii^ and the reader.
How can I take Juvenal intq the fields, or Val-
carenghius ''De Aortse Aneurismate" to bed
with me? How could I expect to walk before
the face of nature with the one ; to tire my elbow
properly with the other, before I put out my
candle, and turn round deliciously on the right
side? Or how could I stick up Coke upon
Littieton against something on the dinner-table,
and be divided between a fresh paragraph and a
mouthful of salad ?

I take our four great English poets to have all
been fond of reading. Milton and Chaucer pro-
claim themselves for hard sitters at books. Spen-

MY BOOKS, 199

sei^s reading is evident by his learning ; and if
there were nothing else to show for it in Shake-
speare, his retiring to his native town, long before
old age, would be a proof of it. It is impossible
for a man to live in solitude without such assis-
tance, unless he is a metaphysician or mathe-
matician, or the dullest of mankind; and any
country town would be solitude to Shakespeare,
after Uie bustle of a metropolis and a theatre.
Doubtless he divided his time between his books,
and his bowling-green, and his daughter Susanna.
It is pretty certain, also, that he planted, and rode
on horseback ; and there is evidence of all sorts to
make it clear, that he must have occasionally joked
with the blacksmith, and stood godfather for his
neighbours' children. Chaucer's account of him-
self must be quoted, for the delight and sympathy
of all true readers : —

And as f<v me, though that I can bat lite.
On book^ for to rede I me deUte*
And to hem yeve I fiuth and full cred^ce.
And in mine herte have hem in reverence
So hertUy, that there is gam^ none.
That fro my book^ maketh me to gone.
But it is seldome on the holy daie ;
Save certainly whan that the month of May
Is comen, and that I hear the foul^ sing,
And that the flouris ginnen for to spring.
Farewell my booke and my devodOn.

Tht Legtnd of Good Women,

And again, in the second book of his '' House
of Fame," where the eagle addresses him : —

-Thou wilt make

At night frill oft thine head to ake.

LEIGH HUNT.

And in Ui7'atu4y at thon writest.
And erennor^ of Lore enditest.
In honour of him and his praisings.
And in his folkte furtherings.
And in his matter all devisest,
And not him ne his folke deqiisest,
Althom^ thou mayst go in the daunse
Of hem, that him list not advance ;
Therefore as I said, ywis,
Jnpiter considreth well this.
And also^ beannre, of other things ;
That isi thou hast no tidings
Of Lov^ folke, if they be glade,
Ne of nothing else that God made,
And not-only firo ferre countree.
But no tidinqp commen to thee.
Not of thy very neighbouris,
• That dwdkn almost at thy dores ;
Thou hearest neither that ne this,
For whan thy labour all done is.
And hast made all thy rekenings,!
Instead of rest and of new ddngs.
Thou goest home to thine house anono}
And all so dombe as anie stone*
Thou sittest at another booke,
TiU fuUy dazed is thy looke.

After I think of the bookishness of Chaucer and
Milton, I alwa]rs make a great leap to Prior and
Fenton. Prior was first noticed, when a boy, by
Lord Dorset, sitting in his uncle's tavern, and
reading Horace. He describes himself, years
after, when Secretary of Embassy at the Hague,
as taking the same author with him in the Satur-
day's chaise, in which he and his mistress used to
escape from town cares into the country, to the

1 Chaucer at this time had an office under the govern-
ment

MY. BOOKS, aox

admuation of Dutch beholder^. Fenton was a
martyr to contented scholarship (mduding a sir-
lohi and a bottle of wine), and died among his
books, of inactivity. " He rose late," says John-
son, "and when he had risen, sat down to his
boolcs and papers." A woman that once waited
on him in a lodging, told him, as she said, that he
wotild ** lie a-bed and be fed with a spoon." He
must have had an enviable liver, if he was happy.
I must own (if my conscience would let me), that
I should like to lead, half the year, just such a life
(woman included, though not that woman), the
other haUT being passed in the fields and woods,
with a cottage just big enough to hold us. Dacier
and his wife had a pleasant time of it ; both fond
of books, both scholars, both amiable, both wrapt
up in the ancient world, and helping one another
at their tasks. If they were not happy, matrimony
would' be a rule even without an exception. Pope
does not strike me as being a book-man ; he was
curious rather than enthusiastic ; more nice than
wise ; he dabbled in modem Latin poetry, which
is a ba^ symptom. Swift was decidedly a reader ;
the " Tale of a Tub," in its fashion as well as sub-
stance, is the Work of a scholarly wit ; the " Battle
cf the Books'' is the £uicy of a lover of libraries.
Addison and Steele were too much given up to
Button's and the tdwn. Periodical writing, thouglTl
its demands seem otherwise, is not favourable to |
reading; it becomes too much a matter of business, \
and will either be attended to at the expense of the I
writer's books, or books, the very admonishers oi^
his industry, will make him idle. Besides, a

LEIGH HUNT.

^^periodical work, to be suitable to its character,
and warrant its regular recurrence, must involve
something of a gossiping nature, and proceed upon
experiences fiuniliar to the existing conmiunity, or
( at least likely to be received by them in conse*
(quence of some previous tinge of inclination. You
do not pay weekly visits to your friends to lecture
them, whatever good you may do their minds.
There will be something compulsory in reading
the " Ramblers," as there is in going to church.
Addison and Steele undertook to regulate the
minor morals of society, and effected a world of
good, with which scholarship had little to do.
Gray was a book-man ; he wished to be always
\ymg on so£9is, reading "eternal new novels of
Crebillon and Marivaux." This is a true hand.
The elaborate and scientific look of the rest of his
reading was owing to the necessity of employing
himself: he had not health and spirits for the
literary voluptuousness he desired. Collins, for
the same reason, could not employ himself; he
was obliged to dream over Arabian tales, to let the
light of the supernatural world half in upon his
eyes, " He loved," as Johnson says (in that strain
of music, inspired by tenderness), " fairies, genii,
giants, and monsters ; he delighted to rove through
the meanders of enchantment, to gaze on the
magnificence of golden palaces, to repose by the
waterfedls of Elysian gardens." If Collins had had
a better constitution, I do not believe that he
would have written his projected work upon the
** Restoration of Literature," fit as he was by
scholarship for the task, but he would have been

MY BOOKS. 903

die greatest poet since the da3rs of Milton. If his
friend Thomas Warton had had a little more of his
delicacy of organization, the love of books would
almost have made him a poet His edition of the
minor poems of Milton is a wilderness of sweets.
It is the only one in which a true lover of the
original can pardon an eiraberance of annotation ;
though I confess I am inclined enough to pardon
any notes that resemble it, however numerous.
The "builded rhyme" stands at the top of the
page, like a fair edifice with all sorts of flowers
and fresh waters at its foot The young poet lives
there, served by the nymphs and fauns.

Hinc atque hinc glomerantur Oreades.
Hue ades, o formose puer : dbi lilia plenis
Ecce fenint nymphae calathis : tibi Candida Nais
FaUentes violas et surnma papavera carpens,
Nardssum et florem jungit bene olends anethL

Among the old writers I must not forget Ben
JoDson and Donne... Cowley has been already
mentioned. His boyish love of books, like all the
other inclinations of his early life, stuck to him to
the last ; which irthe greatest reward of virtue. I
would mention Izaak Walton, if I had not a
gmdge al^ainst him. His brother fishermen, the
divmes, were also great fishers of books. I have
a grudge against them and their divinity. They
talked much of the devil and divine right, and yet
forgot what Shakespeare says of the devil's friend
Nero, that he is "an angler in the lake of dark-
ness." Selden was called *' the walking library of
oar nation." It is not the pleasantest idea of him ;
bat the library included poetry, and wit, as well as

kettldij and te JcwUi docte ffis "Tahk
Tdk* is tqatSSj pUbj and picjvj i it, and tnlf
waAif of the iMniw, lor it mipiics otbcr speaker
Indeed it mts actBaIl]f vlnt it ii caDed, and tiet-
aared wp by hii fiiga<li> Scklea wmtie cnaBplJiagh
taiy vcfses to hit fiieiwlfc tbe pociaj and a
nwptaiy oo Dfayton's ^'PoiyolbwL** Diajlcai
luaueif a readei, addicted to aU dv tnmies of
Oiapnian sat among his books, like
his

r>

Hov pleasant it is to icAect, that all these
Kwen Of nooas oaye tnemseiFes oecxane 0000^1
What better aKtaauqihosis could PjrthagaaB haw
desired ! How Ovid and Hoeaoe exulted in antio-
pating theiis ! And how the arorld ha:^ jostified
their emtaatioD ! Thej had a i^it to triaaiph
over hnss and marble. It ia die only visibk
diange which diai^;es no £uther; whidi genentes
and yet is not destroyed. Consider : aunes them-
seires are eidiansted ; cities perish ; kin g d oms aae
swept away, and man weeps with indignation to
ikii^ that his own body is not immortaL

le citd^ m o oi on o i rtgni,
B r vam. d' esGer mortal par clie si sdegBL

Yet tfas little body of dxM^ht, that lies before
me ia the shape of a book, has existed thousands
of yeais, nor since the iavention of the press can
anything short of an imiveisal canvnkion of nature
abo&h iL To a shape like this, so small yet so
comprdicnsive, so sl%ht yet so lastii^ so insagni-
ficant yet so venerable, tums the m%hty activity of
Homer, and so tumii^, is enabled to live and

MY BOOKS, «Ci5

warm us for ever. To a shape like this turns the
placid sage of Academus : to a shape like this the
grandeur of Milton, the exuberance of Spenser,
the pungent elegance of Pope, and -the volatility of
Prior. In one small room, like the compressed
spirits of Milton, can be gathered together

The assemMed aodls of all diat men hetd

May I hope to become the mean^l.of UlfiSej^^aSb.
fence s? This is a question which every author
who IS a lover of books, asks himself some time in
his life ; and which must be pardoned, liecause it
cannot be helped. I know not. I cannot exclaim
with the poet.

Oh that my aaiae were numbered amoog theiis.
Then gladly would I end my mortal days.

For my mortal days, few and feeble as the rest of
them may be, are of consequence to others. J^
I ^t^d JUkcUpjrenidun visible in^this jbap^ • The
httle of myself that pleases myself, I could wish to
be accounted worth pleasing others. I should like
to survive so, were it onlyior the sake of those
who love me in private^ know9)g::as I, do whatj»
treasure is the possession of a £deQd'&.miiid*. whep
'he is no more.' At. all events, nothing while I live
tnd thinlc,'can deprive me of my. value for fuch
treasures. I can help the appreciation of them
While I last, and love them till I die ; and perhaps,
if fortune turns her £u:e.once moreiaJdndness
upon me before I. go, I may. chance, some quiet
day, to lay my overheating temples on a book,
and so have the death I most: envy.

•06 Zi?/(;^ ^tryr.

DEDICATION

OF ** FOLIAGE," 1818, TO SIR JOHN EDWARD
SWINBURNE, BART.

My dear Sir John,

HIS book belongs to yoa, if you will
accept it. Yoa are not one of those
who pay the strange compliment to
heaven of depreciating this world, be-
cause yoa believe in another: you admire its
beauties both in nature and art ; you think that a
knowledge of the finest vcnces it has uttered, ancient
as well as modem, ought, even in gratitude, to be
shared by the sex that has inspired so many of
them; — a/ rational piety and a manly patriotism
does not hinder you firom putting the Phidian Jove
over your organ, or flowers at the end of ywa
room ; — in short, you who visit the sick and the
prisoner, for the sake of helping them without
frightening, cannot look more tenderly after others,
than you are regarded by your own fiunily; nor
can any one of the manly and amiable friends that
I have the happiness of possessing, more fitly re-
ceive a book, the object of which is to cultivate a
love of nature out of doors, and of sociality within.
Pray pardon me this public compliment for my
own sake, and for sincerity's. That you may long
continue to be the centre of kind happy looks, and
an example to the once cheerful gentry of this war
and money-injured land, is the constant wish of
Your obl^ed

and affectionate servant,

Lbigh Hunt.

A SCHOOLBOY'S FIRST LOVE, 207

A SCHOOLBOY'S FIRST LOVE.

["Lord Byron and his Omtemporaries,** i8a8. "Aato-
biography," iSsa]

[Y strolls about the fields with a book
were full of happiness : only my dress
used to get me stared at by the villagers.
Walking one day by the little river
Wandle, I came upon one of the loveliest girls I
ever beheld, standing in the water with bare legs,
washing some linen. She turned as she was stoop-
ing, and showed a blooming oval face with blue
eyes, on either side of which flowed a profusion of
flaxen locks. With the exception of the colour of
the hair, it was like Raphael's own head turned
mto a peasant girl's. The eyes were full of gentle
astonishment at the sight of me ; and mine must
have wondered no less. However, I was prepared
for such wonders. It was only one of my poetical
visions realized, and I expected to find the world
iiill of them. What she thought of my blue skirts
and yellow stockings is not so clear. She did not,
however, taunt me with my *' petticoats," as the
girk in the streets of London would do,^ making
me blush, as I thought they ought to have done
instead. My beauty in the brook was too gentle
and diffident ; at least I thought so, and my own

I '' For the Christ's Hospital boy feels that he is no
charity-boy .... in the respect, and even kindness, which
his well-known garb never fails to procure him in the streets
of the metropolis."— C. Lamb's Recoliectiom 0/ Christ's
HotpitmL

Mt LEIGH HUNT.

heart did not contradict me. I then took every
beauty for an Arcadian, and every brook for a
fairy stream ; and the reader would be surprised if
he knew to whatan extent I have a similar tendency
stilL I find the same possibilities by another
path.

It was then that I fell in love with my cousin
Fan. However, I would have fought all her young
acquaintances round for her, timid as I was, and
little inclined to pugnacity.

Fanny was a lass of fifteen, with little laughing
eyes, and a mouth like a plum. I was then (I feel
as if I ought to be ashamed to say it) not more
than thirteen, if so old ; but I had read Tooke's
" Pantheon," and came of a precocious race. My
cousin came of one too, and was about to be married
to a handsome young'fellow of three-and-twenty. I
thought nothing of this, for nothing, could be more
innocent than my intentions. I was not old enough,-
or grudging enough, or whatever it was, even to
be jealous. I thought everybody must love Fanny
Dayrell ; and if she did not leave me out in per-
mitting it, I was satisfied. It was enough for me
to be with her as long as I could ; to gaze on her
with delight as she floated hither and thither ; and
to sit on the stiles in the neighbouring fields, think-
ing of Tooke's "Pantheon." My friendship was
greater than my love. Had my favourite school-
fellow been ill, or otherwise demanded my return,
I should certainly have chosen his society in pte-
ference. Three-fourths of my heart were devoted
to friendship ; the rest was in a vague dream of
beauty, and female cousins, and nymphs, and

A SCHOOLBOY'S FIRST LOVE. 909

green fields, and a feeling which, though of a
warm nature, was full of fear and respect.

Had the jade put me on the least equality of
footing as to age, I know not what change might
have been wrought in me ; but though too young
herself for the serious duties she was about to bring
on her, and full of sufficient levity and gaiety not
to be uninterested with the little black-eyed school-
boy that lingered about her, my vanity was well
paid off by hers, for she kept me at a distance by
calling me petit garfon. This was no better than
the assumption of an elder sister in her teens over
a younger one ; but the latter feels it, nevertheless ;
and I persuaded myself that it was particularly cruel.
. . . There would she come in her frock and tucker
(for she had not yet left off either), her curls
dancing, and her hands clasped together in the
enthusiasm of something to tell me, and when I
flew to meet her, forgetting the difference of ages,
and alive only to my charming cousin, she would
repress me with a little fillip on the cheek, and say,
" Well, petit garfottt what do you think of that ? "
The worst of it was, that this odious French phrase
sat insufferably well upon her plump little mouth.
She and I used to gather peaches before the house
were up. I held the ladder for her ; she mounted
like a £ury ; and when I stood doating on her as
she looked down and threw the fruit in my lap, she
would cry, ^^ Petit gar^on^ you will let *em all
drop ! " On my return to school, she gave me a
locket for a keepsake, in the shape of a heart ;
which was the worst thing she ever did to the petit
garfon^ for it touched me on my weak side, and

I. p

Bto LEIGH HUNT,

looked like a sentiment. I believe I should have
had serious thoughts of becoming melancholy, had
I not, in returning to school, returned to my friend,
and so found means to occupy my craving for S3rm-
pathy. However, I wore the heart a long while.
I have sometimes thought there was more in her
French than I imagined ; but I believe not. She
naturally took herself for double my age, with a
lover of three-and-twenty. Soon after her marriage,
fortune separated us for many years. My passion
had almost as soon died away ; but I have loved
the name of Fanny ever since ; and when I met
her again, which was under circumstances of
trouble on her part, I could not see her without
such an emotion as I was &in to confess to a person
'* near and dear,'* who forgave me for it ; which is
one of the reasons I have for loving the said person
so well. Yes 1 the " black ox " trod on the fairy
foot of my light-hearted cousin Fan ; of her, whom
I could no more have thought of in conjunction
with sorrow, than of a ball-room with a tragedy.
To know that she was rich and admired, and
abounding in mirth and music, was to me the same
thing as to know that she existed. How often did
I afterwards wish myself rich in turn, that I might
have restored to her all the graces of life 1 She
was generous, and would not have denied me the
satisfeiction.
This was my first love.

AN ACCOUNT OF CHRIST-HOSPITAL, axi

AN ACCOUNT OF CHRIST-
HOSPITAL.

["Lord B3rron and his Contemporaries," 1828. "Auto-
iMOgraphy," 1850.]

lERHAPS there is not a foundation in
the country so truly English, taking
that word to mean what Englishmen
wish it to mean — something solid, un-
pretending, of good character, and free to all.
More boys are to be found in it, who issue from a
greater variety of ranks, than in any school in the
kingdom ; and as it is the most various, so it is the
largest, of all the free schools. Nobility do not go
there, except as boarders. Now and then a boy
of a noble family may be met with, and he is
reckoned an interloper, and against the charter;
but the sons of poor gentry and London citizens
abound ; and with them an equal share is given to
the sons of tradesmen of the very humblest descrip-
tion, not omitting servants. I would not take my
oath — but I have a very vivid recollection, that in
my time there were two boys, one of whom went up
into the drawing-room to his father, the master of
the house ; and the other, down into the kitchen
to his father, the coachman. One thing, however,
I know to be certain, and that is the noblest of all :
it is, that the boys themselves (at least it was so in
my time) had no sort of feeling of the difference of
one another's ranks out of doors. The cleverest
boy was the noblest, let his fether be who he might.
In short Christ-Hospital is known and respected
by thousands as a nursery of tradesmen, of mer-

dtt LRIGH HUNT,

chants, of naval officers, of scholars, of some of the
most eminent persons of the day ; and the feeling
among the boys themselves is, that it is a medium, far
apart indeed, bat equally so, between the patrician
pretension of such schools as Eton and Westminster,
and the plebeian submission of the charity schools.
In point of university honours it claims to be equal
with the best ; and though other schools can show
a greater abundance of eminent names, I know
not where will be many who are a greater host
in themselves. One original author is worth a
hundred transmitters of elegance : and such a one
is to be found in Richardson, who here received
what education he possessed. . . .

In the time of Henry VIII. Christ-Hospital was
a monastery of Franciscan friars. Being dissolved
among the others, Edward VI. , moved by a sermon
of Bishop Ridley's, assigned the revenues of it to
the maintenance and education of a certain number
of poor orphan children, bom of citizens of London.
I believe there has been no law passed to alter the
letter of this intention ; which is a pity, since the
alteration has taken place. An extension of it was
probably very good, and even demanded by circum-
stances. I have reason, for one, to be grateful for
it. But tampering with matters-of-fact among
children is dangerous. They soon learn to dis-
tinguish between allowed poetical fiction and that
which they are told, under severe penalties, never
to be guilty of; and this early sample of contradic-
tion between the thing asserted and the obvious
fact, can do no good even in an establishment so
plain-dealing in other respects as Christ-Hospital.

AN ACCOUNT OF CHRIST-HOSPITAL, as3

The place is not only des^nated as an Or^^an-
house in its Latin title, but the boys, in the prayers
whidi they repeat every day, implore the pity of
heaven upon " us poor orphans." I remember the
perplexity this caused me at a very early period.
It is true, the word orphan may be used in a sense
implying destitution of any sort ; but this was not
its original meaning in the present instance ; nor do
the younger boys give it the benefit of that scholarly
interpretation. There was another thing (now, I
believe, done away) which existed in my time, and
perplexed me still more. It seemed a glaring in-
stance of the practice likely to result from the other
assumption, and made me prepare for a hundred
£&lsehoods and deceptions, which, mixed up with
contradiction, as most things in society are, I some-
times did find, and oflener dreaded. I allude to a
foolish cust<nn they had in the ward which I first
entered, and which was the only one that the com-
pany at the public suppers were in the habit of
going into, of hanging up, by the side of every bed,
a clean white napkin, which was supposed to be
the one used by the occupiers. Now these napkins
were only for show, the real towels bdng of the
largest and coarsest kind. If the masters Had been
asked about them, they would doubtless have told
the truth ; perhaps the nurses would have done sa
Bur the boys were not aware of this. There they
saw these ** white lies " hanging before them, a
conscious imposition ; and I well remember how
alarmed I used to feel, lest any of the company
should direct their inquiries to me. * . . .

'^ " The Christ's Hospital boy's sense of right and wrong

114 LRIGH HUNT.

To each ol these wards [or sleeping-rooms] a
nufse was assigned, who was the widow ci some
decent liveryman of London, and who had the
dbaige of looking after us at night-time, seeing to
our washing, &c., and carving for us at dinner :
all ol which gave her a good deal of power, more
tdan her name vrarranted. They were, however,
almost invariably very decent people, and performed
their duty ; which was not always the case with
the young ladies, their daughters. There were five
schools ; a grammar-school, a mathematical or
navigation-school (added by Charles II. [through
the xeal of Mr. Pepys]), a ¥rriting, a drawing, and
a reading schooL Those who could not read when
they came on the foundation, went into the last.
There were few in the last-but-one, and I scarcely
know what they did, or for what object The
writing-school was for those who were intended for
trade and commerce ; the mathematical, for boys
who went as midshipmen into the naval and East
India service ; and the grammar-school for such as
were designed for the Church, and to go to the
University. The writing-school was by far the
largest ; and, what is very curious (which is not
the case now), all the schools were kept quite dis-
tinct ; so that a boy might arrive at the age of
fifteen in the grammar-school, and not know his
multiplication-table.^ . . .

is peculiarly Under and apprehensive."— C. Lamb's Recol-
lections qfCkrisfs Hospital.

1 "Which was the case with L. H. himself, and the cause
of much trouble to him in after life.*' See "Auto-
biography."

AN ACCOUNT OP CHRIST-HOSPITAL, ns

Most of tbese scboob had sevciml mastecs ; be-
sides whom tbere was a steward, who took care of
our sohsistence, and had a genenl saperin t en den ce
over all horns and ciicamstances not connected
with sdiooKi^. The mas te rs had ahnost afl been
in the school, and mi^ expect pensions or livings
in their diA. age. Among those in my time, the
mathematical master was Bfr. Wales, a man wdl
known for his science, who had been roond the
world with Captain Cook ; for which we h^^ily
venerated him. He was a good man, of plain,
simple manners^ with a heavj large person and a
ben^ coontenance. When he was at Otahdte,
the natives played him a trick while bathing, and
stole his small-clothes ; which we used to think an
enormous liberty, scarcely crediUe. The name of
the steward, a thin stiff man of invindUe formality
of demeanour, admiraUy fitted to render encroach-
ment impossible, was Hathaway.' We of the
grammar-school used to call him " the Yeoman,"
on accoont of Shakespeare having married the
daughter of a man of that name, designated as " a
substantial yeoman." . . .

The persons who were in the habit of getting up
in oar church pulpit and reading-desk, might as
well have hammed a tune to their diaphragms.
They inspired us with nothing but mimicry. The
name of the morning reader was Salt. He was a
worthy man, I believe, and might, for aught we
knew, have been a clever one ; but he had it all

Charles Lamb tells a characteristic anecdote of this Mr.
Hathaway, "with that patient sagacity that tempered all his
conduct."

ai6 LEIGH HUNT.

to himselL He spoke in his throat, with a somd
as if he were weak and corpulent ; and was fawws
among us for saying *' murrades " inslrad of
*< miracles." When we imitated him, this was
the only word we drew upon : the rest was unin-
telligible suffocation. Our usual evening pveacher
was Mr. Sandiford, who had the reputation of
learning and piety. It was of no use to us, except
to make us associate the ideas of learning and
piety in the pulpit with inaudible humdrum. Mr.
Sandiford's voice was hoUow and low ; and he
had a habit of dipping up and down over his book,
like a chicken drinking. Mr. Salt was eminent
for a single word. Mr. Sandiford surpassed him,
for he had two audible phrases. There was, it is
true, no great variety in them. One was " the
dispensation of Moses ; " the other (with a due in-
terval of hum), '* the Mosaic dispensation." These
he used to repeat so often, that in our caricatures
of him they sufficed for an entire portrait. The
reader may conceive a large church (it was Christ
Church, Newgate Street), with six hundred boys,
seated like charity -children up in the air, on each
side of the organ, Mr. Sandiford humming in the
valley, and a few maid-servants who formed his
afternoon congregation. We did not dare to go to
sleep. We were not allowed to read. The great
boys used to get those that sat behind them to play
with their hair. Some whispered to their neigh-
bours, and the others thought of their lessons and
tops. I can safely say, that many of us would
have been good listeners, and most of us attentive
ones, if the clergyman could have been heard. As

AN ACCOUNT OF CHRIST-HOSPITAL. S17

it was, I talked as well as the rest, or thought of
my exercise. Sometiiiies we could not hdp joking
and laughing over oar weariness; and then the
fear was, lest the steward had seen us. It was
part of the business of the steward to preside over
the boys in church-time. He sat aloof, in a place
where he could view the whole of his flock. There
was a ludicroas kind of revenge we had of him,
whenever a particular part of the Bible was read.
This was the parable of the Unjust Steward. The
boys waited ansdously till the passage commenced ;
and then, as if by a general conspiracy, at the
words '' thou unjust steward," the whole school
turned their eyes upon this unfortunate officer,
who sat

Like Teneriff or Atlas onremoved.

We persuaded ourselves, that the more uncon-
scious he looked, the more he was acting. . . .

**But what is a Deputy Grecian?" Ah,
reader ! to ask that question, and at the some
time to know anything at all worth knowing,
would at one time, according to our notions, have
been impossible. When I entered the school, I
was shown three gigantic boys, young men rather
(for the eldest was between seventeen and eigh-
teen), who, I was told, were going to the Univer-
sity. These were the Grecians. They are the
three head boys of the Grammar School, and are
understood to have their destiny fixed for the Church.
The next class to these, and like a College of Car-
dinals to those three Popes (for every Grecian was
in our eyes infallible), are the Deputy Gredans.

atf LEIGH HUNT,

Tke fofBcr voe sqiposed to hgfc completed their
Greek tfmittes sod voe deep in Sophocles and
Eariptdes. The btter voe thoagfat equally oom-
pctcBt to tdl yon aujtluug reelecting H<mer and
D i iftitw n c&. There two choes, and die head
hofs of the Kav^atkm School, hdd a certain
nnk o««r the whole place, both in sdiool and out
ladeed, the whole of the Nangatian School, upon
the strength of cahivatiagtibeirTaloar lor the navy,
and behig called King's Boys,^ had socoeeded in

Tins they wmii i fd in a niann e i as laogliable to
caD to reiDd as it was gnre in its reception. It
was an etiiqaetfteaBOBg them never to move out of
a right fine as they walked, ahu e tq stood in their
way. I believe there was a secret andentandii^
with Grecians and Depaiy Gtecians, the fonner of
whom were gnqnnliiililj knds paramoont in
point of fact, and stood and walked aloof when all
the rest of the school were laardiaDed in bodies. I
do not remember any ilasliini^ b e ta ec u these dvil
and naval powers ; bnt I remember wdl my
astonishment when I fiist beheld some of my little
comrades overthrown by the progre ss of ooe of
these very straightlbrwaid [marine] persou^es, who
walked on with as tranqinl and nnoonscioQs a bxx
as if nothii^ had happened. It was not a fierce-
lookii^ posh ; there seemed to be no intention in
it. The insolence lay in the boy not appearii^ to
know that socfa an inferior hmnan bemg existed.

> See also C Laab s " ReooOecdaBS of Christ's Hospital.''
for aaaccooc of these Kiqg's Bojs» whonbecaflstfae Janis-

AN ACCOUNT OF CHRIST-HOSPITAL. S19

It was always thus, wherever they came. If aware,
the boys got out of their way ; if not, down they
went, one or more ; away rolled the top or the
marbles, and on walked the future captain —

In nuuden navigation, frank and free.

They wore a badge on the shoulder, of which
they were very proud; though in the streets it
must have helped to confound them with charity
boys. For charity boys, I must own, we all had a
great contempt, or thought so. We did not dare
to know that there might have been a little
jealousy of our own position in it, placed as we
were midway between the homeliness of the
common charity-school and the dignity of the
foundations. We called them ** Mzzy-we^gs," and
had a particular scorn and hatred of their nasal
tone in singing.

The under grammar-master was the Rev. Mr.
Field. ^ He was a good-looking man, very gentle-
manly, and always dressed at the neatest. I be-
lieve he>.once wrote a play. He had the reputa-
tion of being admired by the ladies. A man of a
more handsome incompetence for his situation
perhaps did not exist. He came late of a morn-
ing ; went away soon in the afternoon ; and used

1 In Charles Lamb's ** Christ's Hospital five-and-thirty
Years ago,** a very similar aocotint is given of the Rev.
Matthew Field, whose character is thus summarized :
" [He] belonged to that class of modest divines who affect
to mix in equal proportion the gentUman, the scholar ^ and
the Christian; but, I know not how, the first ingredient is
generally found to be the predominating dose in the com*
poMtton."

n» LStGH BUVT.

to wmlk up and do«ni» kuigpidiy beaiing his cane,
as if it were a liljr, and hearing oar etenal Vami'
muses and As mpnamifs with an air of inefl&tble
endaianoe. Often he did not hear at alL It was
a joke with us, when any of oar friends came to
the door, and we asked his permissaon to go to
them, to address him with some preposterous qaes-
tioa wide of the mark ; to which he used to assent
We would say, for instance, '* Are you not a great
fool, sir ? " or, ** Isn't your daughter a pretty girl?"
to wfakh he would reply, ** Yes, child." When
he condescended to hit us with the cane, he made
a fooe as if he vrere taking physic. Miss Field,
an agreeable-looking girl, was one of the goddesses
of the school ; as £ur above us as if she had lived
on Olympus. Another was Miss Patrick, daughter
of the lamp-manu£Eu:turer in Newgate Street. I do
not remember her £Eu:e so well, not seeii^ it so
often ; but she abounded in admirers. I write
the names of these ladies at full length, because
there is nothing that should hinder their being
pleased at having caused us so many agreeable
visions. We used to identify them with the picture
of Venus in Tooke's ** Pantheon." . . .

llie scald that I speak of, as confining me to
bed,^ was a bad one. I will give an account of it,
because it furthers the elucidation of our school
manners. I had then become a monitor, or one
of the chiefs of a ward ; and was sitting before
the fire one evening, after the boys had gone to
l)ed, wrapped up in the perusal of the ** Wonder-

1 Which gave him an opportunity for a good deal of
reading.— Ed.

AN ACCOUNT OF CHRTST-HOSPITAL, nt

fill Magazine," and having in my ear at the same
time the bubbling of a great pot, or rather caul-
dron, of water, containing what was by courtesy
called a bread pudding ; being neither more nor
less than a loaf or two of our bread, which, with a
little sugar mashed up with it, was to serve for my
supper. And there were eyes, not yet asleep,
which would look at it out of their beds, and regard
it as a lordly dish. From this dream of bliss I was
roused up on the sudden by a great cry, and a
horrible agony in my legs. A ** boy," as a fag
was called, wishing to get something from the
other side of the fireplace, and not choosing either
to go round behind the table, or to disturb the
illustrious l^s of the monitor, had endeavoured to
get under them or between them, and so pulled
the great handle of the pot after him. It was a
frightful sensation. The whole of my being seemed
collected in one fiery torment into my legs.
Wood, the Grecian (afterwards Fellow of Pem-
broke, at Cambridge), who was in our ward, and
who was always very kind to me (led, I believe,
by my inclination for verses, in which he had a
great name), came out of his study, and after help-
ing me off with my stockings, which was a horrid
operation, the stockings being very coarse, took
me in his arms to the sick ward. I shall never
forget the enchanting relief occasioned by the cold
air, as it blew across the square of the sick ward.
I lay there for several weeks, not allowed to move
for some time ; and caustics became necessary
before I got well. The getting well was delicious.
I had no tasks — no master ; plenty of books to

tM LBIGH HUNT,

read ; and the nnrse's daughter {absU cahtmnta)
brought me tea and buttered toast, and encouraged .
me to play the flute. My playing consisted of a
few tunes by rote ; my fellow-invalids (none of
them in very desperate case) would have it rather
than no playing at all ; so we used to play and tell
stories, and go to sleep, thinking of the blessed
sick holiday we should have to-morrow, and of the
bowl of mUk and bread for breakfaist, which was
alone worth being sick for. The sight of Mr.
Long's probe was not so pleasant. We preferred
seeing it in the hands of his pupil, Mr. Vincent,
whose manners, quiet and mild, had double effect
on a set of boys more or less jealous of the mixed
humbleness and importance of their schooL This
was most likely the same Mr. Vincent who now
(1828) lectures at St. Bartholomew's. He was
dark, like a West Indian, and I used to think him
handsome. Perhaps the nurse's daughter taught
me to think so, for she was a considerable ob-
server.

I was fifteen when I put off my band and blue
skirts for a coat and neckcloth. I was then first
Deputy Grecian, and I had the honour of going
out of the school in the same rank, at the same
age, and for the same reason, as my friend Charles
Lamb. The reason was, that I hesitated in my
speech. I did not stammer half so badly as I
used ; and it is very seldom that I halt at a
syllable now ; but it was understood that a Grecian
was bound to deliver a public speech before he
left school, and to go into the Church afterwards ;
and as I could do neither of these things, a

AN ACCOUNT OF CHRIST-HOSPITAL. 933

Grecian I could not be. So I put on my coat and
waistcoat, and, what was stranger, my hat ; a
very uncomfortable addition to my sensations.
For eight years I had gone bareheaded ; save now
and then a few inches of pericranium, when the
little cap, no larger than a crumpet, was stuck on
one side, to the mystification of the old ladies in
the streets. I then cared as little for the rains as
I did for an3rthing else. I had now a vague sense
ci worldly trouble, and of a great and serious
change in my condition; besides which, I had
to quit my old cloisters, and my playmates, and
long habits of all sorts ; so that what was a very
happy moment to schoolboys in general, was to
me one of the most painful of my life. I surprised
my schoolfellows and the master with the melan-
choly of my tears. I took leave of my books, of
my friends, of my seat in the grammar-school, of
my good-hearted nurse and her daughter, of my
b^, of the cloisters, and of the very pump out of
which I had taken so many delicious draughts, as
if I should never see them again, though I meant
to come every day. The fatal hat was put on ; my
father was come to fetch me.

We, hand in hand, with strange new steps and slow.
Through Holbora took our meditative way.

9t4 LEIGH' HUNT.

HIS JAILERS.

[" Lord Byron and his Contemporaries," x8a8. " Auto-
biography/' 185a]

[ Y jailer's name was Ives. I was told he
was a very self-willed person, not the
more accommodating for being in a bad
state of health; and that he called
everybody Mister, ** In short," said one of the
tipstaves, "he is one as may be led, but hell
never be druv"

The sight of the prison-gate and the high wall
was a dreary business. I thought of my horseback
and the downs of Brighton ;* but congratulated
myself, at all events, that I had come thither with
a good conscience. After waiting in the prison-
yard as long as if it had been the ante-room of a
minister, I was at length ushered into the presence
of the great man. He was in his parlour, which
was decently furnished, arifl had a basin of broth
before him, which he quitted on my appearance,
and rose with much solemnity to meet me. He
seemed about fifty years of age ; had a white
night-cap on, as if he was going to be hung, and a
great red face, which looked ready to burst with
blood. Indeed, he was not allowed by his physi-
cian to speak in a tone above a whisper. The first
thing he said was, ** Mister, I'd ha* given a matter
of a hundred pounds, that you had not come to this
place — a hundred pounds ! " The emphasis which

^ To which he had been ordered on account of his health.
—Ed.

\

HIS JAILERS, MS

he had laid on the word "faondred " was enor-
moos.

I foiget what I said. I endeavoured, as asnal,
to make the best of thii^ ; bat he recurred over
and over again to the hondred pounds ; and said
he wondered, for his part, what the Government
meant by sending me there, for the prison was not
a prison fit for a gentleman. He often repeated
this opinion afterwards, adding, with a peculiar
nod of his head, " And, Blister, they knows it."

I said, that if a gentleman deserved to be sent
to {xison, he ought not to be treated with a greater
nicety than anyone else : upon which he corrected
me, observing very properly (though, as the phrase
IS, it was one word for the gentleman and two for
his own apartments), that a person who had been
used to a better mode of living than " low people"
was not treated with the same justice, if forced to
lodge exactly as they did. I tokl him his observa-
tion was very true ; which gave him a favourable
opinion of my understanding; for I had many occft'
sionsof remarking, that abstractedly considered be
looked upon nobody whomsoever as his superior,
speaking even of members of the rojral family m
persons whom he knew very well, and whom be
estimated at no father rate than became him« One

Royal Duke had lunched in his parlour, and another
he had laid under some polite obligatioa^ ** They
knows me," said he, " very well. Mister 5 and,
Mister, I knows them." This ooododing sentenet
he uttered with great particnkuity and predskm^

He was not proof, however, against a Oredf
Pindar, whidi he happened to liglil upon one 4iy

I. /;

sa6 LEIGH HUNT.

tmong my books. Its unintelligible character
gave him a notion that he had got somebody to
deal with, who might reailly know something which
he did not Perhaps the gilt leaves and red
morocco binding had their share in the magic
The upshot was, that he alwa]^ showed himself
tBzioQs to appear well with me, as a clever fellow,
treating me with great civility on all occasions but
one, when I made him very angry by disappoint-
ing him in a money amount The Pindar was a
anystery that staggered him. I remember very
well, that giving me a long account one day of
something connected with his business, he hap-
pened to catch with his eye the shelf that contained
k, and, whether he saw it or not, abruptly finished
by observing, '* But, Mister,, you knows all these
things as well as I do."

Upon the whc^ my new acquaintance was as
strange a person as I ever met with. A total want
of education, together with a certain vulgar acute-
Bess, conspired to render him insolent and pedantic
Disease sharpened his tendency to violent fits of pas-
sion, which threatened to suffocate him ; smd then
in his intervals of better health he would issue forth,
with his cock-up-nose and his hat on one side, as
great a fop as a jockey. I remember his coming to
my rooms, about the middle of my imprisonment,
as if on purpose to insult over my ill health with
tlK contrast of his own convalescence, putting his
arms in a gay manner a-kimbo, and telling me I
should never live to go out, whereas he was riding
about as stout as ever, and had just been in the
country. He died before I left prison.

BiS JAifMES

Tlie wQvd/n4 n <lf&JiiMi to tbe m|r is
it is s nHMii i u nt spdt, he ptu pt mn eed^pife/ aad Mc
&oi^;lnm he always spdk^ of as lie
He one day apolog^aed for tins node of
mmdatiQQ, or lather gave a spec im en of vmatf
and self-will, wludi wiQ dbow t^ reader liie
hig^ Dodons a jailer may entertain of 'tim-
selC <<I find," said he, ''that they calk Wm
Broom; hot. Mister" (aammng a look
which there was to be no appeal), "/ calk
Bruffam!"* ....

On taldi^ possession of my ganct, I was tKHied
with a piece of delicacy, which I never dKnld have
thoi^t of finding in a prison. When I iaA to-
tered its walls, I had been reoerred by the mder-
jailer, a man who seemed an epitome of all thai
was focbiddii^ in his office. He was short and
▼ery thick, had a hook-nose, a gre^ severe coon-
tenance, and a bimdi of keys hanging on Us
arm. A finend stopped short at si^t of him,
and said, in a mdandK^y tone, *' And this is the
jaUerl"

Honest old Cave I thine oatside woold have
been onworthy of thee, if upon £uther acquaintance
I had not found it a very hearty oatside — ay, and
in my eyes, a very good-locJdng <Hie, and as fit to
contain the milk of human kindnrss that was in
thee, as the husk of a cocoa. Was, did I say ? I
hope it is in thee still ; I hope thou art alive to read
this paper, and to perform, as usual, a hundred
kind offices, as exquisite in their way as they are
desirable and unlooked for. To finish at once the
character of this man, — I could never prevail on

3*8 LEIGH HUNT,

him to accept any acknowledgment of his kind-
ness, greater than a set of tea-things, and a piece or
two ol oM furniture, which I could not well cany
away. I had, indeed, the pleasure of leaving him
in possession of a room I had papered ; but this
was a thing unexpected, and which neither of us
had supposed could be done. Had I been a prince,
I would have forced on him a pension ; being a
journalist, I made him accept an *' Examiner"
weekly, which he lived for some years to relish his
Sunday pipe with.

This man, in the interval between my arrival
and my introduction to the head-jailer, had found
means to give me further information respecting my
condition, and to express the interest he took in it.
I thought little of his offers at the time. He be-
haved with the greatest air of deference to his prin-
cipal ; moving' as ia&X. as his body would allow him,
to execute his least intimation; and holding the
candle to him while he read, with an obsequious
zeaL But he had spoken to his wife about me, and
his wife I found to be as great a curiosity as him-
self. Both were more like the romantic jailers
drawn in some of our modem plays, than real
Horsemonger-lane palpabilities. The wife, in her
person, was as light and fragile as the husband was
sturdy. She had the nerves of a fine lady, and yet
went through the most unpleasant duties with the
patience of a martyr. Her voice and look seemed
to plead for a sofbiess like their own, as if a loud
reply would have shattered her. Ill-health had
made her a Methodist, but this did not hinder her
sympathy with an invalid who was none, or her

MAIANO. a39

love for her husband who was as little of a saint
as need be. Upon the whole, such an extra-
ordinary couple, so apparently unsuitable, and yet
so fitted for one another ; so apparently vulgar on
one side, and yet so naturally delicate on both ; so
misplaced in their situation, and yet for the good
of others so admirably put there, I have never met
with before or since.

It was the business of this woman to lock me up
in my garret ; but she did it so softly the first night,
that I knew nothing of the matter. The night fol-
lowing, I thought I heard a gentle tampering with
the lock. I tried it, and found it fastoied. She
heard me as she was going down-stairs, and said
the next day, *' Ah, sir, I thought I should have
turned the key so as for you not to hear it ; but I
foimd you did." The whole conduct of this couple
towards us, firom first to last, was of a piece with
this singular delicacy.

MAIANO.

["Lord Byron and his Contenqporaries," 1828. " Auto-
biography," 1850.]

IT Maiano] I passed a very disconso-
late time ; ^ yet the greatest comfort I
experienced in Italy was living in that
neighbourhood, and thinking, as I
went about, of Boccaccio. Boccaccio's father had

^ After the break up of the " Liberal ' and the death
of Shelley, and when Hunt's health was poor.— Ed.
I. Q 2

no LEIGH HUNT,

a house at Maiano, supposed to have been situated
at the Fiesolan extremity of the hamlet That
divine writer (whose sentiment outweighed his
levity a hundredfold, as a fine face is oftener
serious than it is meny) was so fond of the fdace,
that he has not only laid the two scenes of the
'* Decameron'* on each side of it, with the valley
his company resorted to in the middle, but has
made the two little streams that embrace Maiano,
the Affiico and the Mensola, the hero and heroine of
his "Nimphale Fiesolano." A lover and his vestal
mistress are changed mto them, after the fashion of
Ovid. The scene of another of his works is on the
banks of the Mugnone, a river a little distant ; and
the '* Decameron *' is full of the neighbouring vil-
lages. Out of the windows of one side of our
house we saw the turret of the Villa Gherardi, to
which, according to his biographers, his '* joyous
company'* resorted in the first instance. A house
belonging to the Macchiavelli was nearer, a little
to the left ; and farther to the left, among the blue
hills, was the white village of Settignano, where
Michael Angelo was bom. The house is still re-
maining in possession of the family. From our
windows on the other side we saw, close to us, the
Fiesole of antiquity and of Milton, the site of the
Boccaccio-house before mentioned still closer, the
Valley of Ladies at our feet ; and we looked over
towards the quarter of the Mugnone and of a house
of Dante, and in the distance beheld the moun-
tains of Pistoia. Lastly, from the terrace in front,
Florence lay clear and cathedralled before us, with
the scene of Redi's '' Bacchus " rising on the other

MAIANO, 231

side of it, and the Villa of Arcetri, illustrious for
Galileo.

But I stuck to my Boccaccio haunts, as to an old
home. I lived with the divine human being, with
his friends of the Falcon and the Basil, and
my own not unworthy melancholy; and went
about the flowering lanes and hills, solitary indeed,
and sick to the heart, but not unsustained. In
looking back to such periods of one's existence,
one is surprised to find how much they surpass
many seasons of mirth, and what a rich tone of
colour their very darkness assumes, as in some fine
old painting. My almost daily walk was to Fiesole,
through a path skirted with wild myrtle and cycla-
men ; and I stopped at the cloister of the Doccia,
and sat on the pretty melancholy platform behind
it, reading or looking through the pines down to
Florence. In the Valley of Ladies I found some
English trees (trees, not vine and olive), and even
a meadow ; and these, while I made them furnish
me with a bit of my old home in the north, did no
injury to the memory of Boccaccio, who is of
all countries, and finds his home wherever we
do ourselves, in love, in the grave, in a desert
island.

But I had other friends, too, not far off, English,
and of the right sort. My friend, Charles Armi-
tage Brown [Keats's friend, and the best commen-
tator on Shakespeare's Sonnets], occupied for a
time the little convent of St. Baldassare, near
Maiano, where he represented the body corporate
of the former possessors, with all the joviality of a
comfortable natural piety. The closet in his study,

aja LEIGH HUNT,

where the church treasures had most likely been
kept, was filled with the humanities of modem
literature, not the less Christian for being a little
sceptical : and we had a zest in fanc]dng that we
discoursed of love and wine in the apartments of
the Lady Abbess. I remember I had the pleasure
of telling an Italian gentleman there the joke
attributed to the Reverend Mr. Sydney Smith,
about sitting next a man at table, who pos-
sessed a "seven-parson power;*' and he under-
stood it, and rolled with laughter, crying —
" Oh, ma bello I ma bellissimo I " There, too,
I had the pleasure of dining in company with
an English beauty (Mrs. W.), who appeared to be
such as Boccaccio might have admired, capable
both of mirth and gravity ; and she had a child
with her that rejected her graces. The appear-
ance of one of these young English mothers among
Italian women is like domesticity among the pas-
sions. It is a pity when you return to England,
that the generality of faces do not keep up the
charm. You are then too apt to think, that an
Italian beauty among English women would look
like poetry among the sullens.

2 uzjsn^- uff ^ s-jF^ss: uf

2LJ3I^ IF A

** *^ wifimig xir ^

tf:ilfr»Hfr XOH TJBBTP'lf BE <ZSC ID*..

^ I wmimr juQiiq^ it ^giag

or of as ifSie aescsar oeadh- sXEed ir xl lad
HOC <iBij to sajse acL inpocrocss ^ki i^
dicB ia a bdkf tJb: aX ciever iBca are SD ;
Bdievant ^ias far ImM i n'r* ihc caa ponblf
be.

4. I kxve ne^cftlicleas a stroog, aad I nay add,
indielaigest vat of tbe tmr, apioBssoise botli
of the natmaland tbe sapeniainial vofki ; that ii»
I am tti otigi y senHbie of tbe good that is in the
world, greatlj desiroos to increase it, and can look
with afiectioDate cjesinto the great ^lacc and the
other worids about ns, earnestly wishing that all
which we snppose of good and beantifiil maybe true.

5. I believe in a spirit of good strongly and per*
petnally at work, though I know not how to de-
fine it, and I dare not give it a name that has been

•31 LEIGH HUNT,

90 disputed and degraded by human passions. But
I believe in [this] spirit, because of the good that I
and the yearnings for most that I feel.
6. I acknowledge the mixture of evil, because I
it also, but I do not believe in a malignant
spirit or in malignity of any sort, because evil, I
think, in the first place, is not always an evil as it is
thought, and because all evil can be accounted for
on principles, depending on circumstances and in-
firmity, quite distinct firom anything like a prin-
ciple of the love of alL

ALIVE.

[From the manuscript, formerly in possession of Mr.
A. Ireland.]

ABANDON myself to you, my pen.
Hitherto [you] have been under [my]
guidance ; do you guide me now your-
self, and be the master of your master.
The sultan, of thousand and one memory, ap-
plied to the fair Dinarzade ^ for amusement \ the
giant Molinos to his ram ; entertain me in like
manner, and tell me something I have not heard
before. You may begin, as you please, at the
middle or the end.

As for you, gentle readers, I give you notice,
that I write for my own pleasure, not yours. You
are surrounded by friends, mistresses, lovers. I am

^ It was however the sister Scheherazade who related the
tales.— Ed.

ALIVE. 935

alone, and must contrive to entertain myself.
Harlequin, in a like case, would have called upon
Marcus Aurelius, a Roman emperor, to help him
to go to sleep. The Queen of Golconda shall come
to me, and help to keep me awake.

I was at an age, when faculties newly developed
find another world about them ; when new sym-
pathies unite us more closely with the beings
around us ; when senses more awakened, and
imagination on fire, impel us to seek the truest
pleasure in the sweetest illusions : in short, I was
fifteen, one day ; — when I found myself, at a dis-
tance from my tutor, galloping on a great English
horse, with twenty hounds before me, and an old
boar in the prospect — Judge whether or not I was
happy.

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This book «baulil bv return ad \
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by retaining it beyond tho HpicitlodA

Please roiom promtitly.