Chapter 19

These solemn pageantries were not played off so often as to spoil the general mirth of the community. We had plenty of exercise and recreation _after_ school hours; and, for myself, I must confess, that I was never happier, than _in_ them. The Upper and Lower Grammar Schools were held in the same room; and an imaginary line only divided their bounds. Their character was as different as that of the inhabitants on the two sides of the Pyrenees. The Rev. James Boyer was the Upper Master: but the Rev. Matthew Field presided over that portion of the apartment, of which I had the good fortune to be a member. We lived a life as careless as birds. We talked and did just what we pleased, and nobody molested us. We carried an accidence, or a grammar, for form; but, for any trouble it gave us, we might take two years in getting through the verbs deponent, and another two in forgetting all that we had learned about them. There was now and then the formality of saying a lesson, but if you had not learned it, a brush across the shoulders (just enough to disturb a fly) was the sole remonstrance. Field never used the rod; and in truth he wielded the cane with no great good will--holding it "like a dancer." It looked in his hands rather like an emblem than an instrument of authority; and an emblem, too, he was ashamed of. He was a good easy man, that did not care to ruffle his own peace, nor perhaps set any great consideration upon the value of juvenile time. He came among us, now and then, but often stayed away whole days from us; and when he came, it made no difference to us--he had his private room to retire to, the short time he stayed, to be out of the sound of our noise. Our mirth and uproar went on. We had classics of our own, without being beholden to "insolent Greece or haughty Rome," that passed current among us--Peter Wilkins--the Adventures of the Hon. Capt. Robert Boyle--the Fortunate Blue Coat Boy--and the like. Or we cultivated a turn for mechanic or scientific operation; making little sun-dials of paper; or weaving those ingenious parentheses, called _cat-cradles_; or making dry peas to dance upon the end of a tin pipe; or studying the art military over that laudable game "French and English," and a hundred other such devices to pass away the time--mixing the useful with the agreeable--as would have made the souls of Rousseau and John Locke chuckle to have seen us.

Matthew Field belonged to that class of modest divines who affect to mix in equal proportion the _gentleman_, the _scholar_, and the _Christian_; but, I know not how, the first ingredient is generally found to be the predominating dose in the composition. He was engaged in gay parties, or with his courtly bow at some episcopal levee, when he should have been attending upon us. He had for many years the classical charge of a hundred children, during the four or five first years of their education; and his very highest form seldom proceeded further than two or three of the introductory fables of Phaedrus. How things were suffered to go on thus, I cannot guess. Boyer, who was the proper person to have remedied these abuses, always affected, perhaps felt, a delicacy in interfering in a province not strictly his own. I have not been without my suspicions, that he was not altogether displeased at the contrast we presented to his end of the school. We were a sort of Helots to his young Spartans. He would sometimes, with ironic deference, send to borrow a rod of the Under Master, and then, with Sardonic grin, observe to one of his upper boys, "how neat and fresh the twigs looked." While his pale students were battering their brains over Xenophon and Plato, with a silence as deep as that enjoined by the Samite, we were enjoying ourselves at our ease in our little Goshen. We saw a little into the secrets of his discipline, and the prospect did but the more reconcile us to our lot. His thunders rolled innocuous for us; his storms came near, but never touched us; contrary to Gideon's miracle, while all around were drenched, our fleece was dry.[9] His boys turned out the better scholars; we, I suspect, have the advantage in temper. His pupils cannot speak of him without something of terror allaying their gratitude; the remembrance of Field comes back with all the soothing images of indolence, and summer slumbers, and work like play, and innocent idleness, and Elysian exemptions, and life itself a "playing holiday."

[Footnote 9: Cowley.]

Though sufficiently removed from the jurisdiction of Boyer, we were near enough (as I have said) to understand a little of his system. We occasionally heard sounds of the _Ululantes_, and caught glances of Tartarus. B. was a rabid pedant. His English style was cramped to barbarism. His Easter anthems (for his duty obliged him to those periodical flights) were grating as scrannel pipes.[10]--He would laugh, ay, and heartily, but then it must be at Flaccus's quibble about _Rex_----or at the _tristis severitas in vultu_, or _inspicere in patinas_, of Terence--thin jests, which at their first broaching could hardly have had _vis_ enough to move a Roman muscle.--He had two wigs, both pedantic, but of different omen. The one serene, smiling, fresh powdered, betokening a mild day. The other, an old discoloured, unkempt, angry caxon, denoting frequent and bloody execution. Woe to the school, when he made his morning appearance in his _passy_, or _passionate wig_. No comet expounded surer.--J. B. had a heavy hand. I have known him double his knotty fist at a poor trembling child (the maternal milk hardly dry upon its lips) with a "Sirrah, do you presume to set your wits at me?"--Nothing was more common than to see him make a headlong entry into the schoolroom, from his inner recess, or library, and, with turbulent eye, singling out a lad, roar out, "Od's my life, Sirrah" (his favourite adjuration), "I have a great mind to whip you,"--then, with as sudden a retracting impulse, fling back into his lair--and, after a cooling lapse of some minutes (during which all but the culprit had totally forgotten the context) drive headlong out again, piecing out his imperfect sense, as if it had been some Devil's Litany, with the expletory yell--"_and I WILL too._"--In his gentler moods, when the _rabidus furor_ was assuaged, he had resort to an ingenious method, peculiar, for what I have heard, to himself, of whipping the boy, and reading the Debates, at the same time; a paragraph, and a lash between; which in those times, when parliamentary oratory was most at a height and flourishing in these realms, was not calculated to impress the patient with a veneration for the diffuser graces of rhetoric.

[Footnote 10: In this and everything B. was the antipodes of his coadjutor. While the former was digging his brains for crude anthems, worth a pig-nut, F. would be recreating his gentlemanly fancy in the more flowery walks of the Muses. A little dramatic effusion of his, under the name of Vertumnus and Pomona, is not yet forgotten by the chroniclers of that sort of literature. It was accepted by Garrick, but the town did not give it their sanction.--B. used to say of it, in a way of half-compliment, half-irony, that it was _too classical for representation_.]

Once, and but once, the uplifted rod was known to fall ineffectual from his hand--when droll squinting W---- having been caught putting the inside of the master's desk to a use for which the architect had clearly not designed it, to justify himself, with great simplicity averred, that _he did not know that the thing had been forewarned_. This exquisite irrecognition of any law antecedent to the _oral_ or _declaratory_ struck so irresistibly upon the fancy of all who heard it (the pedagogue himself not excepted) that remission was unavoidable.

L. has given credit to B.'s great merits as an instructor. Coleridge, in his literary life, has pronounced a more intelligible and ample encomium on them. The author of the Country Spectator doubts not to compare him with the ablest teachers of antiquity. Perhaps we cannot dismiss him better than with the pious ejaculation of C.--when he heard that his old master was on his death-bed--"Poor J. B.!--may all his faults be forgiven; and may he be wafted to bliss by little cherub boys, all head and wings, with no _bottoms_ to reproach his sublunary infirmities."

Under him were many good and sound scholars bred.--First Grecian of my time was Lancelot Pepys Stevens, kindest of boys and men, since Co-grammar-master (and inseparable companion) with Dr. T----e.[11] What an edifying spectacle did this brace of friends present to those who remembered the anti-socialities of their predecessors!--You never met the one by chance in the street without a wonder, which was quickly dissipated by the almost immediate sub-appearance of the other. Generally arm in arm, these kindly coadjutors lightened for each other the toilsome duties of their profession, and when, in advanced age, one found it convenient to retire, the other was not long in discovering that it suited him to lay down the fasces also. Oh, it is pleasant, as it is rare, to find the same arm linked in yours at forty, which at thirteen helped it to turn over the _Cicero De Amicitia_, or some tale of Antique Friendship, which the young heart even then was burning to anticipate!--Co-Grecian with S. was Th----,[12] who has since executed with ability various diplomatic functions at the Northern courts. Th---- was a tall, dark, saturnine youth, sparing of speech, with raven locks.--Thomas Fanshaw Middleton followed him (now Bishop of Calcutta) a scholar and a gentleman in his teens. He has the reputation of an excellent critic; and is author (besides the Country Spectator) of a Treatise on the Greek Article, against Sharpe.--M. is said to bear his mitre high in India, where the _regni novitas_ (I dare say) sufficiently justifies the bearing. A humility quite as primitive as that of Jewel or Hooker might not be exactly fitted to impress the minds of those Anglo-Asiatic diocesans with a reverence for home institutions, and the church which those fathers watered. The manners of M. at school, though firm, were mild, and unassuming.--Next to M. (if not senior to him) was Richards, author of the Aboriginal Britons, the most spirited of the Oxford Prize Poems; a pale, studious Grecian.--Then followed poor S----,[13] ill-fated M----![14] of these the Muse is silent.

[Footnote 11: Trollope.]

[Footnote 12: Thornton.]

[Footnote 13: Scott; died in Bedlam.]

[Footnote 14: Maunde; dismissed school.]

Finding some of Edward's race Unhappy, pass their annals by.

Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the day-spring of thy fancies, with hope like a fiery column before thee--the dark pillar not yet turned--Samuel Taylor Coleridge--Logician, Metaphysician, Bard!--How have I seen the casual passer through the Cloisters stand still, entranced with admiration (while he weighed the disproportion between the _speech_ and the _garb_ of the young Mirandula), to hear thee unfold, in thy deep and sweet intonations, the mysteries of Jamblichus, or Plotinus (for even in those years thou waxedst not pale at such philosophic draughts), or reciting Homer in his Greek, or Pindar----while the walls of the old Grey Friars re-echoed to the accents of the _inspired charity-boy_! Many were the "wit-combats" (to dally awhile with the words of old Fuller) between him and C. V. Le G----,[15] "which two I behold like a Spanish great gallion, and an English man-of-war; Master Coleridge, like the former, was built far higher in learning, solid, but slow in his performances. C. V. L., with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention."

[Footnote 15: Charles Valentine Le Grice.]

Nor shalt thou, their compeer, be quickly forgotten, Allen, with the cordial smile, and still more cordial laugh, with which thou wert wont to make the old Cloisters shake, in thy cognition of some poignant jest of theirs; or the anticipation of some more material, and, peradventure, practical one, of thine own. Extinct are those smiles, with that beautiful countenance, with which (for thou wert the _Nireus formosus_ of the school), in the days of thy maturer waggery, thou didst disarm the wrath of infuriated town-damsel, who, incensed by provoking pinch, turning tigress-like round, suddenly converted by thy angel-look, exchanged the half-formed terrible "_bl----_," for a gentler greeting--"_bless thy handsome face!_"

Next follow two, who ought to be now alive, and the friends of Elia--the junior Le G---- and F----;[16] who impelled, the former by a roving temper, the latter by too quick a sense of neglect--ill capable of enduring the slights poor Sizars are sometimes subject to in our seats of learning--exchanged their Alma Mater for the camp; perishing, one by climate, and one on the plains of Salamanca:--Le G---- sanguine, volatile, sweet-natured; F---- dogged, faithful, anticipative of insult, warm-hearted, with something of the old Roman height about him.

Fine, frank-hearted Fr----,[17] the present master of Hertford, with Marmaduke T----,[18] mildest of Missionaries--and both my good friends still--close the catalogue of Grecians in my time.

[Footnote 16: Favell; left Cambridge, ashamed of his father, who was a housepainter there.]

[Footnote 17: Franklin.]

[Footnote 18: Thompson.]

_Lamb._

ALL FOOLS' DAY

The compliments of the season to my worthy masters, and a merry first of April to us all!

Many happy returns of this day to you--and you--and _you_, Sir--nay, never frown, man, nor put a long face upon the matter. Do not we know one another? what need of ceremony among friends? we have all a touch of _that same_--you understand me--a speck of the motley. Beshrew the man who on such a day as this, the _general festival_, should affect to stand aloof. I am none of those sneakers. I am free of the corporation, and care not who knows it. He that meets me in the forest to-day, shall meet with no wise-acre, I can tell him. _Stultus sum._ Translate me that, and take the meaning of it to yourself for your pains. What, man, we have four quarters of the globe on our side, at the least computation.

Fill us a cup of that sparkling gooseberry--we will drink no wise, melancholy, politic port on this day--and let us troll the catch of Amiens--_duc ad me_--_duc ad me_--how goes it?

Here shall we see Gross fools as he.

Now would I give a trifle to know historically and authentically, who was the greatest fool that ever lived. I would certainly give him in a bumper. Marry, of the present breed, I think I could without much difficulty name you the party.

Remove your cap a little further, if you please; it hides my bauble. And now each man bestride his hobby, and dust away his bells to what tune he pleases. I will give you, for my part,

----The crazy old church clock And the bewildered chimes.

Good master Empedocles, you are welcome. It is long since you went a salamander-gathering down Aetna. Worse than samphire-picking by some odds. 'Tis a mercy your worship did not singe your mustachios.

Ha! Cleombrotus! and what salads in faith did you light upon at the bottom of the Mediterranean? You were founder, I take it, of the disinterested sect of the Calenturists.

Gebir, my old free-mason, and prince of plasterers at Babel, bring in your trowel, most Ancient Grand! You have claim to a seat here at my right hand, as patron of the stammerers. You left your work, if I remember Herodotus correctly, at eight hundred million toises, or thereabout, above the level of the sea. Bless us, what a long bell you must have pulled, to call your top workmen to their nuncheon on the low grounds of Sennaar. Or did you send up your garlick and onions by a rocket? I am a rogue if I am not ashamed to show you our Monument on Fish Street Hill, after your altitudes. Yet we think it somewhat.

What, the magnanimous Alexander in tears?--cry, baby, put its finger in its eye, it shall have another globe, round as an orange, pretty moppet!

Mister Adams----'odso, I honour your coat--pray do us the favour to read to us that sermon, which you lent to Mistress Slipshod--the twenty and second in your portmanteau there--on Female Incontinence--the same--it will come in most irrelevantly and impertinently seasonable to the time of the day.

Good Master Raymund Lully, you look wise. Pray correct that error.----

Duns, spare your definitions. I must fine you a bumper, or a paradox. We will have nothing said or done syllogistically this day. Remove those logical forms, waiter, that no gentleman break the tender shins of his apprehension stumbling across them.

Master Stephen, you are late.--Ha! Cokes, is it you?--Aguecheek, my dear knight, let me pay my devoir to you.--Master Shallow, your worship's poor servant to command.--Master Silence, I will use few words with you.--Slender, it shall go hard if I edge not you in somewhere.--You six will engross all the poor wit of the company to-day.--I know it, I know it.

Ha! honest R----,[19] my fine old Librarian of Ludgate, time out of mind, art thou here again? Bless thy doublet, it is not over-new, threadbare as thy stories:--what dost thou flitting about the world at this rate?--Thy customers are extinct, defunct, bed-rid, have ceased to read long ago.--Thou goest still among them, seeing if, peradventure, thou canst hawk a volume or two.--Good Granville S----,[20] thy last patron, is flown.

[Footnote 19: Ramsay.]

[Footnote 20: Granville Sharp.]

King Pandion, he is dead, All thy friends are lapt in lead.--

Nevertheless, noble R----, come in, and take your seat here, between Armado and Quisada: for in true courtesy, in gravity, in fantastic smiling to thyself, in courteous smiling upon others, in the goodly ornature of well-apparelled speech, and the commendation of wise sentences, thou art nothing inferior to those accomplished Dons of Spain. The spirit of chivalry forsake me for ever, when I forget thy singing the song of Macheath, which declares that he might be _happy with either_, situated between those two ancient spinsters--when I forget the inimitable formal love which thou didst make, turning now to the one, and now to the other, with that Malvolian smile--as if Cervantes, not Gay, had written it for his hero; and as if thousands of periods must revolve, before the mirror of courtesy could have given his invidious preference between a pair of so goodly-propertied and meritorious-equal damsels. * * * *

To descend from these altitudes, and not to protract our Fools' Banquet beyond its appropriate day,--for I fear the second of April is not many hours distant--in sober verity I will confess a truth to thee, reader. I love a _Fool_--as naturally, as if I were of kith and kin to him. When a child, with child-like apprehensions, that dived not below the surface of the matter, I read those _Parables_--not guessing at their involved wisdom--I had more yearnings towards that simple architect, that built his house upon the sand, than I entertained for his more cautious neighbour; I grudged at the hard censure pronounced upon the quiet soul that kept his talent; and--prizing their simplicity beyond the more provident, and, to my apprehension, somewhat _unfeminine_ wariness of their competitors--I felt a kindliness, that almost amounted to a _tendre_, for those five thoughtless virgins--I have never made an acquaintance since, that lasted; or a friendship, that answered; with any that had not some tincture of the absurd in their characters. I venerate an honest obliquity of understanding. The more laughable blunders a man shall commit in your company, the more tests he giveth you, that he will not betray or overreach you. I love the safety which a palpable hallucination warrants; the security, which a word out of season ratifies. And take my word for this, reader, and say a fool told it you, if you please, that he who hath not a dram of folly in his mixture, had pounds of much worse matter in his composition. It is observed, that "the foolisher the fowl or fish--woodcocks,--dotterels,--cod's-heads, &c., the finer the flesh thereof," and what are commonly the world's received fools, but such whereof the world is not worthy? and what have been some of the kindliest patterns of our species, but so many darlings of absurdity, minions of the goddess, and her white boys?--Reader, if you wrest my words beyond their fair construction, it is you, and not I, that are the _April Fool_.

_Lamb._

WITCHES, AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS

We are too hasty when we set down our ancestors in the gross for fools, for the monstrous inconsistencies (as they seem to us) involved in their creed of witchcraft. In the relations of this visible world we find them to have been as rational, and shrewd to detect an historic anomaly, as ourselves. But when once the invisible world was supposed to be opened, and the lawless agency of bad spirits assumed, what measures of probability, of decency, of fitness, or proportion--of that which distinguishes the likely from the palpable absurd--could they have to guide them in the rejection or admission of any particular testimony?--that maidens pined away, wasting inwardly as their waxen images consumed before a fire--that corn was lodged, and cattle lamed--that whirlwinds uptore in diabolic revelry the oaks of the forest--or that spits and kettles only danced a fearful-innocent vagary about some rustic's kitchen when no wind was stirring--were all equally probable where no law of agency was understood. That the prince of the powers of darkness, passing by the flower and pomp of the earth, should lay preposterous siege to the weak fantasy of indigent eld--has neither likelihood nor unlikelihood _a priori_ to us, who have no measure to guess at his policy, or standard to estimate what rate those anile souls may fetch in the devil's market. Nor, when the wicked are expressly symbolised by a goat, was it to be wondered at so much, that _he_ should come sometimes in that body, and assert his metaphor.--That the intercourse was opened at all between both worlds was perhaps the mistake--but that once assumed, I see no reason for disbelieving one attested story of this nature more than another on the score of absurdity. There is no law to judge of the lawless, or canon by which a dream may be criticised.

I have sometimes thought that I could not have existed in the days of received witchcraft; that I could not have slept in a village where one of those reputed hags dwelt. Our ancestors were bolder or more obtuse. Amidst the universal belief that these wretches were in league with the author of all evil, holding hell tributary to their muttering, no simple Justice of the Peace seems to have scrupled issuing, or silly Headborough serving, a warrant upon them--as if they should subpoena Satan!--Prospero in his boat, with his books and wand about him, suffers himself to be conveyed away at the mercy of his enemies to an unknown island. He might have raised a storm or two, we think, on the passage. His acquiescence is in exact analogy to the non-resistance of witches to the constituted powers.--What stops the Fiend in Spenser from tearing Guyon to pieces--or who had made it a condition of his prey, that Guyon must take assay of the glorious bait--we have no guess. We do not know the laws of that country.