Chapter 5

Vegliantin come Orlando in terra scese,A piè del suo signor caduto è morto,E inginocchiossi e licenzia gli chiese,Quasi dicesse, io t'ho condotto a porto.Orlando presto le braccia disteseA l'acqua, e cerca di dargli conforto,Ma poi che pure il caval non si sente,Si condolea molto pietosamente.O Vegliantin, tu m'hai servito tanto:O Vegliantin, dov'è la tua prodezza?O Vegliantin, nessun si dia piu vanto;O Vegliantin, venuta è l'ora sezza:O Vegliantin, tu m'hai cresciuto il pianto;O Vegliantin, tu non vuoi piu cavezza:O Vegliantin, s'io ti feci mai torto,Perdonami, ti priego, cosi morto.Dice Turpin, che mi par maraviglia,Che come Orlando perdonami disse,Quel caval parve ch'aprisse le ciglia,E col capo e co gesti acconsentisse.1

1MORGANTEMAGGIORE.

A traveller in South Africa, Mr. Burchell, who was not less adventurous and persevering than considerate and benevolent, says that “nothing but the safety of the whole party, or the urgency of peculiar and inevitable circumstances could ever, during his whole journey, induce him to forget the consideration due to his cattle, always regarded as faithful friends whose assistance was indispensable. There may be in the world,” he says, “men who possess a nature so hard, as to think these sentiments misapplied; but I leave them to find, if they can, in the coldness of their own hearts, a satisfaction equal to that which I have enjoyed in paying a grateful attention to animals by whose services I have been so much benefitted.”

The Prince of Orange would once have been surprised and taken in his tent by the Spaniards if his dog had not been more vigilant than his guards. Julian Romero planned and led this night attack upon the Prince's camp; the camisado was given so suddenly, as well as with such resolution, “that the place of arms took no alarm, until their fellows,” says Sir Roger Williams, “were running in with the enemy in their tails; whereupon this dog hearing a great noise, fell to scratching and crying, and withal leapt on the Prince's face, awaking him, being asleep, before any of his men.” Two of his secretaries were killed hard by the tent, and “albeit the Prince lay in his arms, with a lacquey always holding one of his horses ready bridled, yet at the going out of his tent, with much ado he recovered his horse before the enemy arrived. One of his squires was slain taking horse presently after him, and divers of his servants which could not recover theirs, were forced to escape amongst the guards of foot. Ever after until the Prince's dying day, he kept one of that dog's race;—so did many of his friends and followers. The most or all of these dogs were white little hounds, with crooked noses, called camuses.”

The Lord Keeper Guilford “bred all his horses, which came to the husbandry first colts, and from thence, as they were fit, were taken into his equipage; and as by age or accident they grew unfit for that service, they were returned to the place from whence they came, and there expired.” This is one of the best traits which Roger North has related of his brother.

“A person,” says Mr. Hawtayn, who was a good kind-hearted clergyman of the Church of England, “that can be insensible to the fidelity and love which dumb animals often express, must be lower in nature than they.”

Grata e Natura in noi; fin dalla cunaGratitudine è impressa in uman core;Ma d'un instinto tal questo è lo stile,Che lo seconda più, chi è piu gentile.2

2CARLOMARIAMAGGI.

The gentlest natures indeed are the best, and the best will be at the same time the most grateful and the most tender. “Even to behold a flourishing tree, first bereft of bark,” says Dr. Jackson, “then of all the naked branches, yet standing, lastly the green trunk cut down and cast full of sap into the fire, would be an unpleasant spectacle to such as delighted in setting, pruning, or nourishing plants.”

The elder Scaliger as Evelyn tells us, never could convince Erasmus but that trees feel the first stroke of the axe; and Evelyn himself seems to have thought there was more probability in that opinion than he liked to allow. The fall of a very aged oak, he says, giving a crack like thunder, has been often heard at many miles distance; nor do I at any time hear the groans without some emotion and pity, constrained, as I too often am, to fell them with much reluctancy. Mr. Downes in his Letters from the Continent says, “There is at this time a forest near Bolsena so highly venerated for its antiquity that none of the trees are ever cut.”

One who, we are told, has since been honourably distinguished for metaphysical speculation, says in a juvenile letter to the late American Bishop Hobart, “I sometimes converse a considerable time with a tree that in my infancy invited me to play under its cool and refreshing shade; and the old dwelling in which I have spent the greater part of my life, though at present unoccupied and falling into ruin, raises within me such a musing train of ideas, that I know not whether it be pleasing or painful. Now whether it arise from an intimate association of ideas, or from some qualities in the insensible objects themselves to create an affection, I shall not pretend to determine; but certain it is that the love we bear for objects incapable of making a return, seems always more disinterested, and frequently affords us more lasting happiness, than even that which we feel toward rational creatures.”

But never by any author, ancient or modern, in verse or prose, has the feeling which ascribes sentience as well as life to the vegetable world, been more deliciously described than by Walter Landor, when speaking of sweet scents, he says,

They bring me tales of youth, and tones of love;And 'tis and ever was my wish and wayTo let all flowers live freely and all die,Whene'er their Genius bids their souls depart,Among their kindred in their native place.I never pluck the rose; the violet's headHath shaken with my breath upon its bankAnd not reproach'd me; the ever sacred cupOf the pure lily hath between my handsFelt safe, unsoil'd, nor lost one grain of gold.

These verses are indeed worthy of their author when he is most worthy of himself. And yet Caroline Bowles's sweet lines will lose nothing by being read after them.

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

How happily, how happily the flowers die away!Oh! could we but return to earth as easily as they;Just live a life of sunshine, of innocence and bloom,Then drop without decrepitude or pain into the tomb.The gay and glorious creatures! “they neither toil nor spin,”Yet lo! what goodly raiment they're all apparelled in;No tears are on their beauty, but dewy gems more brightThan ever brow of Eastern Queen endiademed with light.The young rejoicing creatures! their pleasures never pall,Nor lose in sweet contentment, because so free to all;The dew, the shower, the sunshine; the balmy blessed air,Spend nothing of their freshness, though all may freely share.The happy careless creatures! of time they take no heed;Nor weary of his creeping, nor tremble at his speed;Nor sigh with sick impatience, and wish the light away;Nor when 'tis gone, cry dolefully, “Would God that it were day.”And when their lives are over, they drop away to rest,Unconscious of the penal doom, on holy Nature's breast;No pain have they in dying, no shrinking from decay.Oh! could we but return to earth as easily as they!

OLD TREES. SHIPS. FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. LIFE AND PASSIONS ASCRIBED TO INANIMATE OBJECTS. FETISH WORSHIP. A LORD CHANCELLOR AND HIS GOOSE.

Ce que j'en ay escrit, c'est pour une curiosité, qui plaira possible à aucuns: et non possible aux autres.

BRANTOME.

“Consider,” says Plutarch in that precious volume of Philemon Holland's translating, which was one of the elder Daniel's treasures, and which the Doctor valued accordingly as a relic, “consider whether our forefathers have not permitted excessive ceremonies and observations in these cases, even for an exercise and studious meditation of thankfulness; as namely, when they reverenced so highly the Oaks bearing acorns as they did. Certes the Athenians had one Fig-tree which they honoured by the name of the holy and sacred Fig-Tree; and they expressly forbade to cut down the Mulberry-tree. For these ceremonies, I assure you, do not make men inclined to superstition as some think, but frame and train us to gratitude and sociable humanity one toward another, whenas we are thus reverently affected to such things as these that have no soul nor sense.” But Plutarch knew that there were certain Trees to which something more than sense or soul was attributed by his countrymen.

There was a tradition at Corinth which gave a different account of the death of Pentheus from that in the Metamorphoses, where it is said that he was beholding the rites of the Bacchanals, from an open eminence surrounded by the woods, when his mother espied him, and in her madness led on the frantic women by whom he was torn to pieces. But the tradition at Corinth was that he climbed a tree for the purpose of seeing their mysteries, and was discovered amid its branches; and that the Pythian Oracle afterwards enjoined the Corinthians to find out this Tree, and pay divine honours to it, as to a God. The special motive here was to impress the people with an aweful respect for the Mysteries, none being felt for any part of the popular religion.

Old Trees, without the aid of an Oracle to consecrate them, seem to have been some of the most natural objects of that contemplative and melancholy regard, which easily passes into superstitious veneration. No longer ago than during the peace of Amiens a Frenchman1describing the woods on the banks of the Senegal, saysOn éprouve un doux ravissement en contemplant ces nobles productions d'une nature tranquille, libre et presque vierge; car là elle est encore respectée, et la vieillesse des beaux arbres y est pour ainsi dire l'objet d'un culte. Mon ame reconnoissante des émotions qu'elle ressentait, remerciait le Créateur d'avoir fait naître ces magnifiques végétables sur un sol òu elles avaient pu croitre indépendantes et paisibles, et conserver ces formes originales et naïves que l'art sait alterer, mais qu'il ne saura jamais imiter.—

Quelques-uns des sites qu'on rencontre etalent les attraits et les grâces d'une nature virginale; dans d'autres, on admire ce que l'âge, de sa plus grande force, peut avoir de plus imposant et de plus auguste; et d'antiques forêts, dont les arbres ont une grosseur et une élévation qui attestent leur grand âge, excitent une admiration mêlée de respect; et ces prodigieux végétaux encore verts, encore beaux, après une vie de tant de siecles, semblent vouloir nous apprendre, que dans ces contrées solitaires et fertiles, la nature vit toujours, et ne vieillit jamais.

1GOLBERRY.

There are Tribes among the various races in the Philippines who are persuaded that the souls of their ancestors use old trees as their habitations, and therefore it is deemed a sacrilege to cut one down. The Lezgis used to erect pillars under the boughs of decayed Oaks to support them as long as possible;Murloozis the name which they give to such spurs, or stay-pillars.

The Rector of Manafon, Mr. Walter Davies, in his View of the Agriculture and Domestic Economy of North Wales, says, “Strangers have oftentimes listened with attention to Gentlemen of the County of Montgomery enquiring anxiously into the conduct and fate of the Windsor Castle, the Impregnable, the Brunswick and other men of war, in some particular naval engagements; and were led to imagine that they had some near and dear relations holding important commissions on board; but upon farther enquiry, found the ground of this curiosity to be no other than that such ships had been partly built of timber that had grown upon their estates; as if the inanimate material contained some magic virtue.” The good Rector might have perceived in what he censures, one indication of that attachment to our native soil, on which much of the security of states depends, much of the happiness of individuals, and not a little of their moral and intellectual character.

But indeed the same cause which renders personification a common figure not only with poets and orators, but in all empassioned and even in ordinary speech, leads men frequently both to speak and act as if they ascribed life and consciousness to inanimate things.

When the Cid Campeador recovered from the Infantes of Carrion, his two swords Colada and Tizona, “his whole frame,” says the Chronicler, “rejoiced, and he smiled from his heart. And he laid them upon his lap and said, ‘Ah my swords, Colada and Tizona, truly may I say of you that you are the best swords in Spain; and I won you, for I did not get you either by buying or by barter. I gave ye in keeping to the Infantes of Carrion that they might do honour to my daughters with ye. But ye were not for them! They kept ye hungry, and did not feed ye with flesh as ye were wont to be fed. Well is it for you that ye have escaped that thraldom and are come again to my hands.’”

The same strong figure occurs in the Macaronea,

Gaude, Baldus ait, mi brande! cibaberis; ecceCarnis et sanguis tibi præsententur abunde.

The Greek Captain who purchases a vessel which he is to command himself, takes possession of it by a ceremony which is called espousing the ship; on this occasion he suspends in it a laurel crown as a symbol of the marriage, and a bag of garlic as a preservative against tempests.—In the year 1793, the ship Darius belonging to a Hindoo, or more probably, as may be inferred from the name, a Parsee owner, was run ashore off Malacca by its Commander Captain Laughton to save it from falling into the hands of a French Privateer. The Captain and his Officers when they had thus disappointed the enemy, succeeded afterwards by great exertion and great skill, in getting the vessel off, and brought it safely home to Bombay; where the grateful owner, thinking the Ship itself was entitled to some signal mark of acknowledgement, treated it with a compleat ablution, which was performed not with water, but with sugar and milk.

Our own sailors sometimes ascribe consciousness and sympathy to their ship. It is a common expression with them that “she behaves well;” and they persuade themselves that an English Man of War, by reason of its own good will, sails faster in pursuit of a Frenchman than at any other time. Poor old Captain Atkins was firmly possessed with this belief. On such occasions he would talk to his ship, as an Arabian to his horse, urge and intreat her to exert herself and put forth all her speed, and promise to reward her with a new coat of paint as soon as they should get into harbour.—“Who,” says Fuller, “can without pity or pleasure behold that trusty vessel which carried Sir Francis Drake about the World?”—So naturally are men led to impute something like vitality to so great a work of human formation, that persons connected with the shipping trade talk of the averagelifeof a ship, which in the present state of our naval affairs is stated to be twenty-two years.

At one of the Philosophers' Yearly-Meetings it was said that every Engine-man had more or less pride in his engine, just as a sailor had in his ship. We heard then of thedutyof an engine, and of how muchvirtueresides in a given quantity of coals. This is the language of the Mines, so easily does a figurative expression pass into common speech. Thedutyof an engine has been taken at raising 50 millions of cubic-feet of water one foot in an hour; some say 100 millions, some 120; but the highest duty which the reporter had ascertained was 90 millions, the lowest seventy. And thevirtuein a bushel of coals is sufficient to raise 125 millions of cubic-feet of water one foot, being from 800 to 1070 at the cost of one farthing. No one will think this hard duty for the Engine, but all must allow it to be cheap virtue in the coals.

This however is merely an example of the change which words undergo in the currency of speech as their original stamp is gradually effaced: what was metaphorical becomes trivial; and this is one of the causes by which our language has been corrupted, more perhaps than any other, recourse being had both in prose and verse to forced and fantastic expressions as substitutes for the freshness and strength that have been lost. Strong feelings and strong fancy are liable to a more serious perversion.

M. de Custine, writing from Mont Anvert, in the rhapsodical part of his travels, exclaims,Qu'on ne me parle plus de nature morte; on sent ici que la Divinité est partout, et que les pierres sont pénêtrées comme nous-mêmes d'une puissance créatricé! Quand on me dit que les rochers sont insensibles, je crois entendre un enfant soutenir que l'aiguille d'une montre ne marche pas, parce qu'il ne la voit pas se mouvoir.

It is easy to perceive that feelings of this kind may imperceptibly have led to the worship of any remarkable natural objects, such as Trees, Forests, Mountains, Springs, and Rivers, as kindred feelings have led to the adoration of Images and of Relics. Court de Gebelin has even endeavoured to show that Fetish worship was not without some reasonable cause in its origin. The author of a treatiseDu Culte des Dieux Fétiches, ou Parallèle de l'ancienne Religion de l'Egypte avec la Religion actuelle de la Nigritie, had asserted that this absurd superstition originated in fear. But Court de Gebelin asks, “why not from gratitude and admiration as well? Are not these passions as capable of making Gods as Fear? Is not experience itself in accord with us here? Do not all savage nations admit of Two Principles, the one Good who ought not to be feared, the other Evil to whom sacrifices must be offered in order to avert the mischief in which he delights? If fear makes them address their homage to the one, it has no part in the feeling which produces it toward the other. Which then of these sentiments has led to Fetish-worship? Not fear, considered as the sentiment which moves us to do nothing that might displease a Being whom we regard as our superior, and as the source of our happiness; for Fétishes cannot be regarded in this light. Will it then be fear considered as the sentiment of our own weakness, filling us with terror, and forcing us to seek the protection of a being more powerful than ourselves and capable of protecting us? But how could any such fear have led to the worship of Fetishes? How could a Savage, seized with terror, ever have believed that an onion, a stone, a flower, water, a tree, a mouse, a cat, &. could be his protector and secure him against all that he apprehended? I know that fear does not reason, but it is not to be understood in this sense; we frequently fear something without knowing why; but when we address ourselves to a Protector we always know why, it is in the persuasion that he can defend us, a persuasion which has always a foundation,—a basis. But in Fetish worship where is the motive? What is there to afford confidence against alarm? Who has said that the Fetish is superior to man?—It is impossible to conceive any one so blockish, so stupid, so terrified as to imagine that inanimate things like these are infinitely above him, much more powerful than himself, in a state to understand his wants, his evils, his fears, his sufferings, and to deliver him from all in acknowledgement of the offering which he makes to them.

“Moreover the Fetish is not used till it has been consecrated by the Priest: this proves an opinion in the savage, that the Fetish of itself cannot protect him; but that he may be made by other influence to do so, and that influence is exercised by the Priest in the act of consecration.” Court de Gebelin argues therefore that this superstition arose from the primary belief in a Supreme Being on whom we are altogether dependent, who was to be honoured by certain ceremonies directed by the Priest, and who was to be propitiated by revering these things whereby it had pleased him to benefit mankind; and by consecrating some of them as pledges of future benefits to be received from him, and of his presence among his Creatures who serve him and implore his protection. But in process of time it was forgotten that this was only a symbolic allegory of the Divine Presence, and ignorant nations who could no longer give a reason for their belief, continued the practice from imitation and habit.

This is ascribing too much to system, too little to superstition and priestcraft. The name Fetish though used by the Negroes themselves is known to be a corrupt application of the Portugueze word for Witchcraft,feitiço;the vernacular name isBossumorBossifoe. Upon the Gold Coast every nation has its own, every village, every family and every individual. A great hill, a rock anyway remarkable for its size or shape, or a large Tree, is generally the national Fetish. The king's is usually the largest tree in his country. They who chuse or change one take the first thing they happen to see however worthless. A stick, a stone, the bone of a beast, bird or fish, unless the worshipper takes a fancy for something of better appearance and chuses a horn or the tooth of some large animal. The ceremony of consecration he performs himself, assembling his family, washing the new object of his devotion, and sprinkling them with the water. He has thus a household or personal God in which he has as much faith as the Papist in his relics, and with as much reason. Barbot says that some of the Europeans on that coast not only encouraged their slaves in this superstition, but believed in it, and practised it themselves.

Thus low has man sunk in his fall. The debasement began with the worship of the Heavenly Bodies. When he had once departed from that of his Creator, his religious instinct became more and more corrupted, till at length no object was too vile for his adoration; as in a certain state of disease the appetite turns from wholesome food, and longs for what would at other times be loathsome.

The Negro Fetishes are just such objects as, according to the French Jesuits, the Devil used to present to the Canadian Indians, to bring them good luck in fishing, hunting, gaming, and such traffic as they carried on. This may probably mean that they dreamt of such things; for in dreams many superstitions have originated, and great use has been made of them in Priestcraft.

The same kind of superstition has appeared in different ages and in different parts of the World, among the most civilized nations and the rudest savages, and among the educated as well as the ignorant. The belief in Omens prevails among us still, and will long continue to prevail, notwithstanding national schools, cheap literature and Societies for promoting knowledge.

A late Lord Chancellor used to travel with a Goose in his carriage, and consult it on all occasions; whether according to the rules of Roman augury I know not, nor whether he decided causes by it; but the causes might have been as well decided if he did. The Goose was his Fetish. It was not Lord Brougham,—Lord Brougham was his own Goose while he held the Seals; but it was the only Lord Chancellor in our times who resembled him in extraordinary genius, and as extraordinary an unfitness for his office. One of the most distinguished men of the age, who has left a reputation which will be as lasting as it is great, was when a boy in constant fear of a very able but unmerciful schoolmaster; and in the state of mind which that constant fear produced he fixed upon a great Spider for his Fetish, and used every day to pray to it that he might not be flogged.

PROCEEDINGS AT A BOOK CLUB. THE AUTHOR ACCUSED OF ‘LESE DELICATESSE,’ OR WHAT IS CALLED AT COURT ‘TUM-TI-TEE.’ HE UTTERS A MYSTERIOUS EXCLAMATION, AND INDIGNANTLY VINDICATES HIMSELF.

Rem profecto mirabilem, longeque stupendam, rebusque veris veriorem describo.

HIERONYMUSRADIOLENSIS.

A circumstance has come to my knowledge so remarkable in itself and affecting me so deeply, that on both accounts I feel it necessary to publish a Chapter Extraordinary on the occasion.

There is a certain Book-Club, or Society, (no matter where) in which the Volumes of this Opus have been regularly ordered as they appeared, and regularly perused, to the edification of many Readers, the admiration of more, and the amusement of all. But I am credibly informed that an alarm was excited in that select literary Circle by a Chapter in the fourth volume, and that the said volume was not allowed to circulate by the Managing Directors or Committee, of the said Book Club, till the said Chapter had been exscinded, that is to say, cut out.

Aballiboozo!

When a poor wretch fell into the hands of that hellish Tribunal which called itself the Holy Office, the Inquisitors always began by requiring him to tell them what he was accused of; and they persisted in this course of examination time after time, till by promises and threats, long suspense and solitary confinement, with the occasional aid of the rack, they had extorted from him matter of accusation against himself and as many of his friends, relations and acquaintances as they could induce, or compel, or entrap him to name. Even under such a judicial process I should never have been able to discover what Chapter in this Opus could have been thought to require an operation, which, having the fear of the expurgatorial scissars before my eyes I must not venture to mention here, by its appropriate name, tho' it is a Dictionary word and the use of it is in this sense strictly technical. My ignorance however has been enlightened, and I have been made acquainted with what in the simplicity of my heart I never could have surmised.

The Chapter condemned to that operation, the chapter which has been not bisked, but semiramised, is the hundred and thirty-sixth Chapter, concerning the Pedigree and Birth of Nobs; but whether the passage which called forth this severe sentence from the Censors were that in which Moses and Miss Jenny, the Sire and Dam of Nobs, are described as meeting in a field near Knavesmire Heath, likeDido dux et Trojanus;or whether it were the part where the consequences of that meeting are related as coming unexpectedly to light in a barn between Doncaster and Adwick-in-the-Street, my informant was not certain.

From another quarter I have been assured, that the main count in the indictment was upon the story ofLe Cheval de Pierre, et les Officiers Municipaux. This I am told it was which alarmed the Literary Sensitives. The sound of the foot-steps of the Marble Statue in Don Juan upon the boards of the stage never produced a more aweful sense of astonishment in that part of the audience who were fixed all eyes and ears upon its entrance, than thisCheval de Pierreproduced among the Board of Expurgators. After this I ought not to be surprized if the Publishers were to be served with a notice that the Lord Mayors of London and York, and the simple Mayors of every corporate town in England, reformed or unreformed, having a Magistrate so called, whether gentle or simple, had instituted proceedings against them forScandalum Magnatum. This however I have the satisfaction of knowing, that Miss Graveairs smiled in good humour when she heard the Chapter read; the only serious look put on was at the quotation from Pindar, as if suspecting there might be something in the Greek which was not perfectly consistent with English notions of propriety. Nothing however could be more innocent than that Greek. And even after what has passed, she would agree with me that this Chapter which made the Elders blush, is one which Susanna would have read as innocently as it was written.

Nevertheless I say,O tempora! O mores!uttering the words exultantly, not in exprobration. I congratulate the age and the British Public. I congratulate my Country-men, my Country-women, and my Country-children. I congratulate Young England upon the March of Modesty! How delightful that it should thus keep pace with the March of Intellect!Redeunt Saturnia regna.In these days Liberality and Morality appear hand-in-hand upon the stage like the Two Kings of Brentford; and Piety and Profit have kissed each other at religious Meetings.

We have already a Family Shakespeare; and it cannot be supposed that the hint will always be disregarded which Mr. Matthew Gregory Lewis introduced so properly some forty years ago into his then celebrated novel called the Monk, for a Family Bible, upon the new plan of removing all passages that could be thought objectionable on the score of indelicacy. We may look to see Mr. Thomas Moore's Poems adapted to the use of Families; and Mr. Murray cannot do less than provide the Public with a Family Byron.

It may therefore be matter of grave consideration for me whether under all circumstances it would not be highly expedient to prepare a semiramised edition of this Opus, under the Title of the Family Doctor. It may be matter for consultation with my Publishers, to whose opinion as founded on experience and a knowledge of the public taste, an author will generally find it prudent to defer. Neither by them or me would it be regarded as an objection that the title might mislead many persons, who supposing that the “Family Doctor” and the “Family Physician” meant the same kind of Book, would order the Opus under a mistaken notion that it was a new and consequently improved work, similar to Dr. Buchan's, formerly well known as a stock-book. This would be no objection I say, but on the contrary an advantage to all parties. For a book which directs people how to physic themselves ought to be entitled Every Man his own Poisoner, because it cannot possibly teach them how to discriminate between the resemblant symptoms of different diseases. Twice fortunate therefore would that person have reason to think him or herself, who under such a misapprehension of its title should purchase the Family Doctor!

Ludicrous mistakes of this kind have sometimes happened. Mr. Haslewood's elaborate and expensive edition of the Mirror for Magistrates was ordered by a gentleman in the Commission of the Peace, not an hundred miles from the Metropolis; he paid for it the full price, and his unfortunate Worship was fain to take what little he could get for it from his Bookseller under such circumstances, rather than endure the mortification of seeing it in his bookcase. A lady who had a true taste as well as a great liking for poetry, ordered an Essay on Burns for the Reading Society of which she was a member. She opened the book expecting to derive much pleasure from a critical disquisition on the genius of one of her favourite Poets; and behold it proved to be an Essay on Burns and Scalds by a Surgeon!

But in this case it would prove an Agreeable Surprize instead of a disappointment; and if the intention had been to mislead, and thereby entrap the purchaser, the end might be pleaded, according to the convenient morality of the age, as justifying the means. Lucky indeed were the patient who sending for Morrison's Pills should be supplied with Tom D'Urfey's in their stead; happy man would be his dole who when he had made up his mind in dismal resolution to a dreadful course of drastics, should find that gelastics had been substituted, not of the Sardonian kind, but composed of the most innocent and salutiferous ingredients, gently and genially alterative, mild in their operation, and safe and sure in their effects.

On that score therefore there could be no objection to the publication of a Family Doctor. But believing as I believe, or rather, knowing as I know, that the Book is free from any such offence,

mal cupiera allital aspid en tales flores;1

maintaining that it is in this point immaculate, which I will maintain as confidently because as justly, and as publicly were it needful, (only that my bever must be closed) as Mr. Dymock at the approaching Coronation will maintain Queen Victoria's right to the Crown of these Kingdoms (God save the Queen!),—it is impossible that I should consent to a measure which must seem like acknowledging the justice of a charge at once ridiculous and wrongful.

I must not disesteemMy rightful cause for being accused, nor mustForsake myself, tho I were left of all.Fear cannot make my innocence unjustUnto itself, to give my Truth the fall.2

1LOPE DEVEGA.

2DANIEL.

The most axiomatic of English Poets has said

Do not forsake yourself; for they that do,Offend and teach the world to leave them too.

Of the Book itself,—(the Opus) I can say truly, as South said of the Sermon which he preached in 1662 before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London, “the subject is inoffensive, harmless, and innocent as the state of innocence itself;” and of the particular chapter, that it is “suitable to the immediate design, and to the genius of the book.” And in saying this I call to mind the words of Nicolas Perez, el Setabiense;—el amor propio es nuestro enemigo mas perjudicial; es dificil acabar con el, por lo mismo un sabio le compara à la camisa, que es el ultimo de los vestidos que nos quitamos.

Bear witnessincorrupta Fides, nudaque Veritas!that I seek not to cover myself with what the Spaniard calls Self-Love's last Shirt; for I am no more guilty ofLese Modestiethan ofLese Majesté. If there were a Court of Delicacy as there has been a Court of Honour, a Court Modest as there is a Court Martial, I would demand a trial, and in my turn arraign my arraigners,

“Porque en este limpio trigoSiembren zizaña y estrago.”3

3LOPE DEVEGA.

It is said in the very interesting and affecting Memoir of Mr. Smedley's Life that he had projected with Mr. Murray “a castigated edition of the Faery Queen.” He was surprized, says the biographer “to find how many passages there were in this the most favourite poem of his youth, which a father's acuter vision and more sensitive delicacy discovered to be unfit for the eyes of his daughters.” It appears too that he had actually performed the task; but that “Mr. Murray altered his opinion as to the expediency of the publication, and he found to his annoyance that his time had been employed to no purpose.”

Poor Smedley speaks thus of the project in one of his letters. “I am making the Faery Queen a poem which may be admitted intofamilyreading, by certain omissions, by modernizing the spelling and by appending, where necessary, brief glossarial foot-notes. I read Spenser so very early and made him so much a part of the furniture of my mind, that until I had my attention drawn to him afresh, I had utterly forgotten how much he required the pruning-knife, how utterly impossible it is that he should be read aloud: and I cannot but think that when fitted for general perusal, he will become more attractive by a new coat and waistcoat. If we were to print Shakespeare, and Beaumont and Fletcher, or even Milton,literatimfrom the first editions, the spelling would deter many readers. Strange to say, when Southey was asked some time ago whether he would undertake the task, he said, ‘No, I shall print every word of him!’ and he has done so, in a single volume. Can he have daughters? Or any who, like my Mary, delight in such portions as they are permitted to open?”

Did Southey say so?—Why then, well said Southey! And it is very like him; for he is not given to speak, as his friends the Portugueze say,enfarinhadamente—which is being interpreted, mealy-mouthedly. Indeed his moral and intellectual constitution must be much feebler than I suppose it to be, if his daughters are not ‘permitted to open’ any book in his library. He must have been as much astonished to hear that the Faery Queen was unfit for their perusal as he could have been when he saw it gravely asserted by an American Professor, Critic and Doctor of Divinity, that his Life of Wesley was composed in imitation of the Iliad!

Scott felt like Southey upon this subject, and declared that he would never deal with Dryden as Saturn dealt with his father Uranus. Upon such publications as the Family Shakespeare he says,—“I do not say but that it may be very proper to select correct passages for the use of Boarding-Schools and Colleges, being sensible no improper ideas can be suggested in these seminaries unless they are introduced or smuggled under the beards and ruffs of our old dramatists. But in making an edition of a Man of Genius's Works for libraries and collections, (and such I conceive a compleat edition of Dryden to be,) I must give my author as I find him, and will not tear out the page even to get rid of the blot, little as I like it. Are not the pages of Swift, and even of Pope, larded with indecency and often of the most disgusting kind, and do we not see them upon all shelves, and dressing-tables and in all boudoirs? Is not Prior the most indecent of tale-tellers, not even excepting La Fontaine, and how often do we see his works in female hands. In fact it is not passages of ludicrous indelicacy that corrupt the manners of a people; it is the sonnets which a prurient genius like Master Little singsvirginibus puerisque,—it is the sentimental slang, half lewd, half methodistic, that debauches the understanding, inflames the sleeping passions, and prepares the reader to give way as soon as a tempter appears.”

How could Mr. Smedley have allowed himself to be persuaded that a poem like the Faery Queen which he had made from early youth ‘a part of the furniture of his own mind,’ should be more injurious to others than it had proved to himself? It is one of the books which Wesley in the plan which he drew up for those young Methodists who designed to go through a course of academical learning, recommended to students of the second year. Mr. Todd has noticed this in support of his own just estimate of this admirable poet. “If,” says he, “our conceptions of Spenser's mind may be taken from his poetry, I shall not hesitate to pronounce him entitled to our warmest approbation and regard for his gentle disposition, for his friendly and grateful conduct, for his humility, for his exquisite tenderness, and above all for his piety and morality. To these amiable points a fastidious reader may perhaps object some petty inadvertencies; yet can he never be so ungrateful as to deny the efficacy which Spenser's general character gives to his writings,—as to deny that Truth and Virtue are graceful and attractive, when the road to them is pointed out by such a guide. Let it always be remembered that this excellent Poet inculcates those impressive lessons, by attending to which the gay and the thoughtless may be timely induced to treat with scorn and indignation the allurements of intemperance and illicit pleasure.”

When Izaak Walton published ‘Thealma and Clearchus,’ a pastoral history written long since in smooth and easy verse by John Chalkhill, Esq., he described him in the Title page as “An Acquaintant and Friend of Edmund Spenser.” He says of him “that he was in his time a man generally known and as well beloved, for he was humble and obliging in his behaviour, a gentleman, a scholar, very innocent and prudent, and indeed his whole life was useful, quiet, and virtuous.” Yet to have been the friend of Edmund Spenser was considered by the biographer of Hooker and Donne and Bishop Sanderson and George Herbert, as an honourable designation for this good man, a testimonial of his worth to posterity, long after both Chalkhill and Spenser had been called to their reward.

It was well that Mr. Murray gave up the project of a Family Faery Queen. Mr. Smedley when employed upon such a task ought to have felt that he was drawing upon himself something like Ham's malediction.

With regard to another part of these projected emendations there is a fatal objection. There is no good reason why the capricious spelling of the early editions should be scrupulously and pedantically observed in Shakespeare, Milton, or any author of their respective times;—no reason why words which retain the same acceptation, and are still pronounced in the same manner should not now be spelt according to the received orthography. Spenser is the only author for whom an exception must be made from this obvious rule. Malone was wrong when he asserted that the language of the Faery Queen was that of the age in which Spenser lived; and Ben Jonson was not right when, saying that Spenser writ no language, he assigned as the cause for this, his ‘affecting the Ancients.’ The diction or rather dialect which Spenser constructed, was neither like that of his predecessors, nor of his contemporaries. Camoens also wrote a language of his own and thereby did for the Portugueze tongue the same service which was rendered to ours by the translators of the Bible. But the Portugueze Poet, who more than any other of his countrymen refined a language which was then in the process of refining, attempted to introduce nothing but what entirely accorded with its character, and with the spirit of that improvement which was gradually taking place: whereas both the innovations and renovations which Spenser introduced were against the grain. Yet such is the magic of his verse, that the Faery Queen if modernized, even though the structure of its stanza—(the best which has ever been constructed) were preserved, would lose as much as Homer loses in the best translation.

Mr. Wordsworth has modernized one of Chaucer's Poems with “no farther deviation from the original than was necessary for the fluent reading and instant understanding of the author, supplying the place of whatever he removed as obsolete with as little incongruity as possible.” This he has done very skilfully. But the same skill could not be exercised upon the Faery Queen with the same success. The peculiarities of language there are systematic; to modernize the spelling as Mr. Smedley proposed would in very many cases interfere with the rhyme and thus dislocate the stanza. The task therefore would have been extremely difficult; it would have been useless, because no one who is capable of enjoying that delightful Poem ever found any difficulty in understanding its dialect, and it would have been mischievous because it would have destroyed the character of the Poem. And this in the expectation of rendering Spenser more attractive by a new coat and waistcoat! Spenser of whom it has been truly said that more poets have sprung from him than from all other English writers; Spenser by whom Cowley tells us he was made a Poet; of whom Milton acknowledged to Dryden that he was his original; and in whom Pope says “there is something that pleases one as strongly in ones old age as it did in ones youth. I read the Faery Queen,” he proceeds, “when I was about twelve with a vast deal of delight, and I think it gave me as much when I read it over about a year or two ago.”

No, a new suit of clothes would not render Spenser more attractive, not even if to a coat and waistcoat of Stultz's fabric, white satin pantaloons were added, such as the handsomest and best dressed of modern patriots, novelists and poets was known by on the public walk of a fashionable watering place.

Save us from the Ultradelicates and the Extrasuperfines! for if these are to prevail—

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