Chapter 35

“Gospel light first beam’d from Boleyn’s eyes;”

and Horace Walpole harped on the same tune, when he said—

“From Catherine’s wrongs a nation’s bliss was spread,And Luther’s light from Henry’s lawless bed.”

“From Catherine’s wrongs a nation’s bliss was spread,

And Luther’s light from Henry’s lawless bed.”

Gray and Moss, too, afford instances of like coincidences ofsound or sentiment, or both. The first, in his “Elegy,” has—

“And leaves the world to darkness and to me.”

The second, in his “Beggar’s Petition,” sings to the same air—

“And left the world to wretchedness and me.”

I have noticed, in a former page, how Gray’s line of

“Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes,”

must necessarily remind one of Shakspeare’s words, in the mouth of Brutus—

“Dear as the drops that visit this sad heart.”

Demosthenes has truly said—

Ἀνὴρ ὁ φεύγων καὶ πάλιν μαχήσεται,

so that Sir John Minnes is not even the original author of the Hudibrastically sounding assertion—

“He who fights and runs away,May live to fight another day.”

“He who fights and runs away,

May live to fight another day.”

The lines in Hudibras are as the perfecting and comment on the above, remarking as they do—

“For he that runs may fight again,Which he can never do that’s slain.”

“For he that runs may fight again,

Which he can never do that’s slain.”

These coincidences are, no doubt, unintentional. For my own part, I do not believe that Shakspeare, when he spoke in Hamlet, of

“The undiscover’d country, from whose bourneNo traveller returns,”

“The undiscover’d country, from whose bourne

No traveller returns,”

necessarily had in his mind the

“Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosumIlluc unde negant redire quemquam,”

“Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum

Illuc unde negant redire quemquam,”

of Catullus; although the latter lines were quoted by Seneca the philosopher, and were as familiar as household words among the verse-loving ancients. Dr. Johnson’s remark on the similarity between Caliban’s desire to sleepagain, and the πάλιν ἤθελον καθεύδειν of Anacreon, may apply to nearly all the passages in our national poet which appear to have been derived from the ancients. If we judged them by any other rule than that the ideas presented themselves naturally to Shakspeare’s mind, without consideration whether any one before him had sung to the self-same tune, we might soon turnhis, and indeed any poet’s works, into a thing of shreds and patches. For instance, again, when the young Dane describes Osric as “spacious in the possession of dirt,” we might accuse the author, yet wrongfully, perhaps, of having stolen the idea from the “multa dives tellure” of Horace. We might imagine that the “Id in summa fortuna æquius quod validius,” of Tacitus, gave birth to

“That in the captain’s but a choleric word,Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy,”

“That in the captain’s but a choleric word,

Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy,”

of Shakspeare, who would have been very much surprised had he been told as much. Again, Corneille, because he said,

“Qui commence bien ne fait rien s’il n’achève,”

is not to be accused of having written a pendant to the assertion of Flaccus—

“Dimidium facti qui cœpit habet.”

Neither has Beaumarchais rifled Otway, because “Désirer du bien à une femme est ce vouloir du mal à son mari,” has a close resemblance to—

“I hope a man may wish his friend’s wife well,And no harm done.”

“I hope a man may wish his friend’s wife well,

And no harm done.”

If mere close resemblance establish a charge of plagiarism, then Chaucer, when in speaking of maidens dark or fair he said—

“Blake or white, I toke no kepe,”

stole the thought from the ancient Irish bard, who said—

“Bohumilun a coolen dhuv no baun;”

a line which Chaucer could not have read, though his own is a literal translation of it. Examples like these I might go on citingad infinitum. As Rosalind says, I could quote you so eight years together, dinners, and suppers, and sleeping hours excepted. But I will conclude with one more case in point between a well-known English author and the French dramatist Molière. Thus writes the one—

“What woful stuff this madrigal would be,In some starved, hackney’d sonneteer, or me!But let a lord once own the happy lines,How the wit brightens and the style refines!”

“What woful stuff this madrigal would be,

In some starved, hackney’d sonneteer, or me!

But let a lord once own the happy lines,

How the wit brightens and the style refines!”

And thus sung the other—

“Tous les discours sont des sottises,Partout, d’un homme sans éclat.Ce seraient paroles exquises,Si cé’tait un grand qui parla.”

“Tous les discours sont des sottises,

Partout, d’un homme sans éclat.

Ce seraient paroles exquises,

Si cé’tait un grand qui parla.”

If this be digressing, it is because after-supper conversationdoestake a discursive character. In the last century, in Paris, the majestic nonentities were invited to dinner; the talkers, be they who they might, to supper. “La Robe dîne; Finance soupe,” was another of these distinctions; and it was found that the supper was by far the most agreeable meal of the day. The celebrated Duchess of Kingston was especially celebrated for her Paris suppers. They were infinitely more splendid than her English breakfasts, so pleasantly sneered at by Horace Walpole. The wits assembled round her in gay clusters, and they and the poets cudgelled their brains to prove one another plagiarists; while the peers stood by, and marvelled at the extent and elasticity of the human understanding. Nothing could well surpass the hilarity and magnificence of these entertainments, where the philosophers were voted as dull as the nobles, and no aristocracy was acknowledged but the aristocracy of intellect. Another lady, remarkable for the elegance of the little suppers overwhich she presided, was Madame Tronchin: but the Reign of Terror came on, and her friends and relatives were daily dragged from her to the guillotine; and Madame Tronchin, who had a most feeling heart, used to say, that she never could have gone through such horrors had it not been for her little cup of café à la crême. The courtiers used to joke in like fashion, at the suppers of Versailles, at national disgrace. When the Count d’Artois returned from the siege of Gibraltar, to which he had gone with much boasting, and began to talk of his batteries, the courtiers used to smile, and to whisper to one another that he meant his “batterie de cuisine.”

With regard to the dietetics of supper, it may be taken for granted that late, heavy meals are dangerous, and to be avoided. Chymification and sleep may go on tolerably well together after it; but when the time comes for chylification and sanguification, feverish wakefulness will accompany the process. Dyspeptic patients, however, are authorized to take a light supper before going to bed. It is said that the idle man is the devil’s man; and it may also be said of the stomach, that if it has nothing to do it will be doing mischief. It is especially so with persons of weak digestion; for whom an egg, lightly boiled, or dry toast and a little white-wine negus, is a supperselon l’ordinance. But a wise man will hardly want a guide in this matter. Breakfast may be the meal of friendship; dinner, of etiquette; and supper, the feast of wit;—but, generally speaking, he will show most wit who takes the least supper. Common sense should teach him the exact measure of his capacity.

A whale swallows at a gulp more shrimps than would be required to make sauce for the universe. That gentle songster, the canary, is like the celebrated contralto songstress, who eats daily half a peck of saffron salad;—the bird consumes nearly his own bulk weight of food. Buthe is delicate compared with the caterpillar, which consumes five hundred times its own weight before it lies down, to rise a butterfly. As for the hyæna, he is popularly said, when hungry, and other food not presenting itself, to eat himself; and probably, like Dr. Kitchener, he carries his own sauce-box about with him! But the stomach of man is not made to perform such feats as those accomplished by the whale, the canary, or the caterpillar. He is especially to remember, that though an animal, he is not a beast.

Man, it must be remembered, began with refinement. He was made perfect, upright, and to him was given “every herb bearing seed, which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree, yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.” Here food is used as the symbol of celestial blessings; as in the passage, “He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat, and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied them.” With the fall, civilization and innocence also fell, and barbarism was the offspring of disobedience. There was a time when men had sunk so low that they were like the Troglodytes described by Pomponius Mela—“Troglodytæ nullarum opum domini, strident magis quam loquuntur, specus subeunt, alunturque serpentibus”—they had no property, shrieked rather than spoke, lived in caves, and devoured serpents for food. The fine wheat and the honey from the rock was not theirs. The Fenns, painted by Tacitus, were only a shade less barbarous: “Mira feritas,” says the graphic Caius Cornelius, “fœda paupertas; non arma, non equi, non penates; victui herba, vestui pelles, cubili humus”—wonderful for their wildness, their poverty filthy; they had neither horses, nor gods; the grass was their food, skins their raiment, and the ground their couch. The Helvetii wereprogressistasin the race for the prize of civilization; and, when planning anemigration project, they took two years to thoroughly perfect the plan, laying up stores of provisions the while. Whoever Ceres may have really been, it is clear that in her is to be recognised the benefactress of mankind:—

“Prima Ceres unco glebam dimovit aratro,Prima dedit fruges, alimentaque mitia terris,Prima dedit leges;”

“Prima Ceres unco glebam dimovit aratro,

Prima dedit fruges, alimentaque mitia terris,

Prima dedit leges;”

she who taught them the uses of the plough, of agriculture, and of fixed laws, and who gave them what God had intended for civilized and innocent man, “the finest wheat,”—she must have been the renovator of the earth, and of beauty upon it. Man, like the rudest saints of the desert—so near may savagery be to undisciplined sanctity—had been “feeding on ashes but now the finest wheat was again there to give him strength and delight,”—wheat, where golden grain had, perhaps, first yielded its abundance beneath the shade of the primeval tree of knowledge.

The era of wheat, of the ploughshare, and of iron, was the era of the second civilization. Man was no longer generally a wild savage, or a cunning hunter. God again vouchsafed to him “the finest of the wheat;” and, as civilization progressed, so also was widened the circle of supply, upon which indeed much of civilization depends.

The subject of “Man and his Food,” with regard to the future, has been ably discussed by Dr. Leonard Withington, of Newbury, Massachusetts. He has moved the question, whether we have reached the terminus of all our stores or not? He holds, that the forest, the field, the river, and the sea may yield contributions to our table, in addition to the known abundance for which our as abundant gratitude is now due. We have not reached the line of our last inventions; and, doubtless, new articles are to be discovered, which will have an equal influence on virtue andhappiness. “Boundless nature,” says Dr. Withington, “lies before us, and undeveloped skill is wrapt up in the human breast. The exuberance of our system is not exhausted,—her beasts, her birds, her fishes, her plants, her growing trees and her copious grasses, her pastures, her valleys, her lofty mountains and her rolling streams, are all spread out to the hungry world. Nature is an image of God, and she echoes, though she does not originate the words, ‘In my Father’s house is bread enough, and to spare. Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it; thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water; thou preparedst them corn when thou hadst so provided for it. Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly; thou settlest the furrows thereof; thou makest it soft with showers; thou blessest the springing thereof.’”

Dr. Cumming holds, not only that death is the most unnatural of conditions, but that when the era of heavenly, everlasting life shall be established, the heaven of man will be here upon earth. So Dr. Withington thinks that the earth will not only be made more heavenly beautiful than it now is, before the period of the new paradise, but more abundant also. “The manna,” he says, “which is hereafter to be provided, will not be rained down from heaven, but will spring up from the earth.” And there is common sense in this last assertion, for in it is implied that abundance will come by the proper application of knowledge and labour, without which the earth, ever wise and prudent, will yield but little. The increasing populations of that earth have two objects before them which are of no small importance, and which are thus defined by Dr. Withington:—“One is, to impart from the open field of nature all those good and wholesome things which our Father has laid up for us; and secondly, to train our taste and habits for the using of those things which are nutritive and sweet, and which may have the bestinfluence on our moral character and social happiness.” The training should begin from early childhood,—and early childhood requires delicate training.

An American writer on dietetics is half afraid that people will smile if he, in connexion with the subject, introduces dainty children; and yet, as he justly remarks, “there is a mystery about this subject, on which we may well bestow a passing thought.” There are children in all the various classes of life who are “very difficult about their food.” “These little connoisseurs,” says Dr. Withington, “cannot eat with the rest of the family, and the mother and the son are often at issue in an interminable controversy. The mother often says it is all whim and caprice; and some severe matrons tell their children that they shall not eat a morsel until the given lump is devoured. But the son would say, if he could quote Shakspeare, ‘You cram these things into mine ear against the stomach of my sense. I know I don’t love it. I can’t eat it; it is not fit to be eaten.’” The doctor proceeds to inquire if this turn of the appetite be a matter of caprice or necessity. He examines whether the mother, or the boy be right. He acknowledges the antiquity of a controversy which has been carried on for ages, and he has no doubt “that Eve had it with Cain and Abel, the first supper she gave them after they were weaned. We offer it,” he adds, “as a profound conjecture, that Cain was a dainty boy, and probably doubled up his fist at his mother.” With regard to the controversy itself, he appears to think that it has much of the quality of that which marked the dispute about the colour of the chameleon, and that “both parties are partly wrong.” It is likely, as he remarks, that much depends on the training and volition, and also on original nature and temperament. “There are some things we were never made for, and they were never made for us. There are some kinds of food which, though theymay suit the race, were never made for theindividual. But this blinded appetite, partly natural, partly artificial, follows through life.” And this is leaving the controversy very much where the worthy doctor found it.

Finally, let them who fancy that man was made merely to enjoy, learn truth from contemplating the portrait of one whose sole philosophy was gastronomic enjoyment. If ever there was a man who had a gay celebrity, and who taught in the porch, that life was only life at the tables in the “salon,” it was the editor of the “Almanack des Gourmands.” He taught not thatbibere est vivere, but thatbiberewas only the half ofvivere, and that tolivewas emphatically to eat and drink. He was a practical philosopher, it should be observed, and here is the portrait of the man, at the end of his philosophical practice:—“The author of the Almanack is still in the land of the living. He eats, digests, and sleeps, in the charming valley of Longpons.... But how is he changed! At eight o’clock, he rings for his servants, scolds them, criesExtravagantes!calls for hissoupe aux ficules, and swallows it. Digestion now commences: the labour of the stomach reacts upon the brain, the gloomy ideas of the fasting man disappear, calmness resumes her sway, he no longer wishes to die. He speaks, converses tranquilly, asks for Paris news; and inquires for the old gourmands still living. When digestion is finished, he becomes silent, and sleeps for some hours. On awaking, complaints recommence; he weeps, he sighs, he becomes angry, he wishes to die, he calls eagerly for death. The hour for dinner comes; he sits himself down to table, dinner is served, he eats abundantly of every dish, although he says he has no want of anything, as his last hour is approaching. At dessert, his face becomes animated; his eyes, sunk in their orbits, sparkle brightly. ‘How is Marquis de Coussy, dear doctor?’ he exclaims: ‘how long will he last? They say he has a terrible disease.Doubtless they have not put him on regimen. You would never have suffered that, for one must eat to live,—ah!’ At length, he rises from table. Behold him in an immense arm-chair. He crosses his legs, supports his stumps upon his knees (for he has no hands, but something resembling the flap of a goose), and continues his conversation, which always runs on eating. ‘The rains have been abundant,’ he cries, ‘we shall have plenty of mushrooms this autumn. What a pity, dear doctor, that I cannot accompany you in your walks to St. Geneviève! How fine our vines are! what a delicious perfume!’ And then he falls asleep, and dreams of what he will eat on the following day!”

Fancy, if the theory of guardian angels be a beautiful truth, what the winged watcher of this animal, staggering over the supper of life, must feel at contemplating the ward committed to his care. For our own profit such examples may be employed, as the ancients showed their slaves drunk in presence of their sons, that the latter might be disgusted with inebriety. And this tail-piece should be engraved at the end of every work professing to teach that there is even in this world, a paradise forgourmands. The old heathen Socrates knew better, when he said, “Beware of such food as persuades a man, though he be not hungry, to eat; and those liquors that will prevail with a man to drink them when he is not thirsty.” In the same spirit, the pious Dodsley taught, that health sat on the brow of him only who had temperance for a companion—temperance, which Sir William Temple styled as “that virtue without pride and fortune without envy, which gives health of body and tranquillity of mind, the best guardian of youth, and support of old age.” So Jeremy Collier says, “Temperance keeps the senses clear and unembarrassed, and makes them seize the object with more keenness and satisfaction. It appears with life inthe face, and decorum in the person; it gives you the command of your head, secures your health, and preserves you in a condition for business.” What comment can I add to texts of such philosophy, but to bid wise men welcome to the feast of reason, where

“May good digestion wait on appetite,And health on both!”

“May good digestion wait on appetite,

And health on both!”

THE END.

R. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREET HILL.

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