Part 15
The old clerk died, and Arthur felt alone in the world. Still he had many friends; and when the first burst of his regret was over, comfortable prospects again began to dawn upon him. He again mingled in the society of the village; and the dictator’s chair in the chimney-corner, which had been vacated during this short interregnum, was given up to him cheerfully. He was beloved, esteemed, looked up to, by every one. Another circumstance, too, seemed likely to add to his happiness: he fixed his affections on a young woman, the daughter of an inhabitant of the place; his passion was returned with interest, and the latter opposed no obstacle to its gratification.
On a sudden his whole appearance and behaviour was altered. He seemed as if awaking from a delightful dream; nothing which he had loved or pursued appeared to have charms for him any longer. When he was questioned as to the cause of his depression, he hinted obscurely that “it was no matter; the infamy which his parents had heaped upon him he would bear alone; he would entangle no one else in the misery which was and must be his own portion.” This was all the explanation he gave; but it was enough to show that he had given himself up to the dominion of a morbid sensibility, which must finally be his destruction.
He ceased to lead, as he formerly was wont to do, the opinions and pursuits of his neighbours. They had always bowed to his criticisms, his logic, his lectures; but criticism, logic, and lectures were now silent. He would sit in the chair of dignity hour after hour, and utter no word: sometimes, however, he would appear to shake off, with a painful struggle, the feelings which oppressed him, and would break out suddenly into flashes of a broad but irresistible humour, which Burns, in his brightest moments, could not have surpassed; and then he would relapse again into gloom and taciturnity. But his mind, thus kept in a state of continual agitation and excitement, was sinking fast beneath it. The girl, too, whom he loved, was wretched through his refinement of passion. She believed herself slighted, and her coldness aggravated his torments. This could not last! It did not.
One day he did not make his appearance in the village. One of his friends, going to his cottage, found the door fastened; and, upon calling, received no answer. The neighbourhood became alarmed; and several of his acquaintance searched in vain for him. He was not by the stream, where he often sat in solitude till the noxious dew fell round him; nor in the grove, where he used to listen to the nightingales till fancy filled up the pauses in their songs; nor by the window, where he would stand and gaze unconsciously till the sight of that dear face drove him from the scene of enchantment. At last they forced open his door; I entered with them. The poor youth was sitting at his writing-table, in his old patron’s armchair; the pen seemed to have just fallen from his hand; the ink on its nib was hardly dry; but he was quite still, quite silent, quite cold.
His last thoughts seemed to have been spent upon the stanzas which were on the table before him. I will transcribe them, rather as an illustration of his story than as a specimen of his talents. Some of the lines gave rise to a conjecture that he had been the author of his own death, but nothing appeared to warrant the suspicion.
I have a devil in my brain!-- He haunts me when I sleep, And points his finger at my ρain, And will not let me weep: And ever, as he hears me groan, He says the cause is all my own.
I shall be calm anon!--I had A pleasant dream of bliss; And now they tell me I am mad-- Why should I mourn for this? My good, kind parents! Answer ye, For what I am, and am to be.
Alas! I have forgotten, dear, The pledging and the vow; There is a falsehood in my tear, I do not love thee now: Or how could I endure to go, And look, and laugh, and leave thee so?
Thou shall not come to my caress, Thou shalt not bear my name; Nor sorrow in my wretchedness, Nor wither in my shame; Mine is the misery and the moan, And I will die--but die alone!
Him too I saw carried to his narrow dwelling-place. In his latter days he had been regarded by his companions with a kind of superstitious awe; and, as his coffin fell with its solemn, reverberating sound, into its allotted space, the bearers looked upon each other with an expression of conscious mystery, and many shook their heads in silence. I lingered round the spot when they departed, and planted a rose upon his humble mound.
I was to leave the village the next day in order to fix my abode among the haunts of busy men. In the evening, feeling a melancholy which I could not shake off, I took up my hat and wandered towards the churchyard. From a distance I perceived a bright and delicate figure hastily retiring from my approach. I leaned over the remains of the kind, the enthusiastic, the affectionate! The rose which I had planted there glistened beneath the moon. It was not the dew: it was something more clear, more precious--it was one beautiful tear! I had rather have such a tear on my grave than a pyramid of marble.
ON TRUE FRIENDSHIP.
“Infido scurræ distabit amicus.”--HORACE.
How very seldom do we find any one who has a relish for real friendship--who can set a due value upon its approbation, and pay a due regard to its censures! Adulation lives, and pleases; truth dies, and is forgotten. The flattery of the fool is always pungent and delicious; the rebuke of the wise is ever irksome and hateful. Wherefore, then, do we accuse the Fates when they withhold from us the blessings of friendship, if we ourselves have not the capacity for enjoying them?
Schah Sultan Hossein, says an old Persian fable, had two favourites. Mahamood was very designing and smooth-tongued; Selim was very open and plain-spoken. After a space, the intrigues of Mahamood had the upper hand, and Selim was banished from the court. Then Zobeide, the mother of the Sultan’s mother, a wise woman, and one learned in all the learning of the Persians, stood before the throne, and spoke thus:--
“When I was young I was said to be beautiful. Upon one occasion a great _fête_ was to be given. The handmaids dressed my hair in an inner apartment. ‘Look,’ said one, ‘how bright are her eyes!’ ‘What a complexion,’ said another, ‘is upon her cheeks!’ ‘What sweetness,’ cried a third, ‘in her voice!’ I grew sick of all this adulation. I sent my woman from me, and complained to myself bitterly. ‘Why have I not,’ I cried, ‘some friend on whom I can rely; who will tell me with sincerity when the roses on my cheeks begin to fade and the darkness of my eyebrows to want colouring? But alas! this is impossible.’
“As I spoke, a beneficent Genius rose from the ground before me. ‘I have brought thee,’ he said, ‘what thou didst require: thou shalt no longer have occasion to reproach the Prophet for denying thee that which, if granted, thou wouldst thyself destroy.’ So saying, he held forth to me a small locket, and disappeared.
“I opened it impatiently. It contained a small plate, in shape like a horseman’s shield, but so bright that the brightness of twenty shields would be dim before it: I looked, and beheld every charm upon which I valued myself reflected upon its surface. ‘Delightful monitor!’ I exclaimed, ‘thou shalt ever be my companion; in thee I may safely confide; thou art not mercenary, nor changeable; thou wilt always speak to me the truth--as thou dost now!’ and I kissed its polish exultingly, and hastened to the _fête_.
“Something happened to ruffle my temper, and I returned to the palace out of humour with myself and the world. I took up my treasure. Heavens! what a change was there! My eyes were red with weeping--my lips distorted with vexation; my beauty was changed into deformity--my dimples were converted into frowns. ‘Liar!’ I cried, in a frenzy of passion, ‘what meanest thou by this insolence? Art thou not in my power, and dost thou provoke me to wrath?’ I dashed my monitor to the earth, and went in search of the consolation of my flatterers!”
Zobeide here ceased. I know not whether the reader will comprehend the application of her narrative. The Sultan did--and Selim was recalled.
THE COUNTRY CURATE.
“Tenui censu, sine crimine notum, Et properare loco, et cessare, et quærere, et uti.”--HOR.
It was with feelings of the most unmixed delight that on my way to the north I contemplated spending one evening with my old friend Charles Torrens. I call him my friend, although he is six or seven years my senior; because his manners and his habits have always nearly resembled those of a boy, and have seemed more suitable to my age than to his. Some years ago, partly in consequence of his own imprudence, the poor fellow was in very low circumstances; but he has now, by one of those sudden freaks of fortune which nobody knows how to account for, become sleek and fat, and well-to-do in the world; with a noble patron, a pretty wife, and the next presentation to a living of a thousand a year.
I arrived at the village of---- about sunset, and inquired for the house of Mr. Torrens. Of the children to whom I applied no one seemed to understand me at all; at last one of them, a ’cuter lad than his companions, scratched his head for half a minute, and exclaimed, “Oh! why, sure, you mean Master Charles, our curate! Gracious! to think of calling him Mr. Torrens!” I afterwards learned that this hopeful disciple had the office of looking to the curate’s night-lines. However, he led me to the house, giggling all the way at the formality of “Mr. Torrens.” I was prepared by this to find my old acquaintance as warm, and as wild, and as childish as ever.
His residence was a red brick dwelling-house, which you would call a house by right and a cottage by courtesy: it seemed to possess, like the owner, all requisites for hospitality and kindness, and to want, like him, all pretensions to decoration and show. “This is as it should be,” I said to myself; “I shall sleep soundly beneath such a roof as this;” and so I threw up the latch of the garden-gate, and went in. Charles was in the kitchen garden behind the house, looking at his strawberry beds. I walked round to meet him. I will not describe the pleasure with which we shook hands: my readers well know what it is to meet a dear and cherished friend after a long absence. I know not which was the happier of the two.
“Well,” he said, “here I am, you see, settled in a snug competency, with a dry roof over my head, and a little bit of turf around me. I have had some knowledge of Fortune’s slippery ways, and I thank my stars that I have pretty well got out of her reach. Charles Torrens can never be miserable while there’s good fishing every hour in the day in his lordship’s ponds, and good venison every Sunday in the year in his lordship’s dining-room. Here you see me settled, as it were, in my _otium cum dignitate_, without a wish beyond the welfare of my wife and the ripening of my melons; and what gives my enjoyments their greatest zest, Peregrine, is, that though the road to them was rather a hilly one, I kept out of the gutters as well as I could. What is it Horace says, Peregrine?
Neque majorem feci ratione malâ rem, Nec sum facturus vitio culpâve minorem;--
that is, I did not grow rich like a rascal, and I sha’n’t grow poor like a fool; though (thanks to my uncle, the Nabob) I can afford to give a young friend a bed and a breakfast, without pinching myself and my servants the next week! But, bless me! how I am letting my tongue run on. I haven’t introduced you to Margaret yet;” and so saying, he took my arm, and hurried me into his drawing-room. His bride was a very pleasing woman--a lover might well call her a beautiful one; she seemed about one-and-twenty, and possessed every requisite to confer happiness upon a husband of my friend’s wandering habits. She had sufficient good-nature to let him wander abroad, but she had, at the same time, sufficient attractions to keep him at home; her forbearance never scolded him for his stay at another’s hearth, but her good sense always took care to make his own agreeable to him. A clever wife would have piqued him, a silly wife would have bored him: Margaret was the _aurea mediocritas_, and I could see that he was sincerely attached to her.
The next morning I walked into his library, and was not a little amused by the heterogeneous treasures which it presented. Paley seemed somewhat surprised to find himself on the same shelf with “The Complete Angler,” and Blair, in his decent vestment of calf-skin, was looking with consummate contempt upon the morocco coat of his next neighbour, Colonel Thornton. A fowling-piece, fishing-rod, and powder-horn were the principal decorations of the room.
On the table was a portfolio containing a variety of manuscripts, unfinished sermons, stanzas, complete in all but the rhymes; bills, receipts, and recipes for the diseases of horses. Among them I found a little memorandum-book for 1818: it contained a sketch of his way of life previous to his accession of fortune. I transcribed four days of it, and hope he will thank me for putting them in print.
“Monday, 10 o’clock.--Breakfast. _Mem._ My clerk tells me admirable coffee may be made with burnt crusts of bread--an ingenious plan and a frugal! Am engaged to eat my mutton with the Vicar of the next parish, so that I have leisure to speculate for to-morrow. 12 o’clock.--Rode over to my Aunt Picquet’s. N.B. A plaguy old woman, but has excellent cherry-brandy, and all the fruits of Alcinous in her garden. Managed to oblige her by conveying home some fine pines in a basket. 5 o’clock.--Dinner. Old Decker, his wife, and young Decker of Brasenose. _Mem._ Young Decker a great fool, but takes good care of the cellar. On my return sent my pines to the Hall (know Sir Harry’s have failed this year), and received, per bearer, an invitation to join in the eating to-morrow.
“Tuesday.--After breakfast a water-excursion with the Hon. F. Goree. The poor little fellow very ingeniously fell out of the boat. I contrived to catch him by the collar in time to prevent him from spoiling his curls; but he was quite outrageous because I ruined his neckcloth. _Eh bien!_ I lose nothing, for I never compassed a dinner with the Countess yet. 7 o’clock.--Dinner at the Hall. A large party. Began my manœuvres very badly, by correcting a mistake of the old gentleman’s about ‘Hannibal, the Roman general;’ recovered my ground, unconsciously, by a lucky dispute I had with his opponent in politics. A good dinner. Hinted how much I preferred a saddle of mutton cold. Praised the wine and drank it with equal avidity. In the evening played the flute, joined in a catch, and took a beating at chess from her ladyship with all imaginable complacency. Have certainly made great progress at the Hall. Must dance with the Baronet’s daughter at the ball on Thursday.
“Wednesday.--Wet morning. Nothing to be done. Cold saddle, with compliments, sent over from the Hall. Pocketed the affront and dined on the mutton.
“Thursday.--My mare has sprained her shoulder. How am I to get to the rooms to-night? 1 o’clock.--Walked out. Met young Lawson. Hinted Rosinante’s calamity, and secured a seat in the curricle. 10 o’clock.--The curricle called. L. nearly lodged me in a ditch. _Au reste_, a pleasant drive. _Mem._ To dine with him at six to-morrow, and he is to take me in the evening to a quadrille at the Landrishes’. The rooms very full. Certainly intended to dance with the Baronet’s beauty. Made a villanous mistake, and stood up with Caroline Berry. My Roxana avoided me all the rest of the evening. How stupid! Have certainly ruined myself at the Hall!”
This sort of life must have been very annoying to such a man as Charles Torrens; however, he has now freed himself from it. “Good-by,” he said, as we shook hands, and parted; “you’ll come to us again, Perry. I was a harum-scarum dog when you knew me last; but if the river of life is rough, there is nothing like an affectionate wife to steady the boat!”
ESSAY ON THE POEMS OF HOMER, AND THE MANNERS OF THE AGE IN WHICH HE LIVED.
“Philo-Musus” has sent us an essay, of considerable length, upon the merits and beauties of the Art of Poetry. We are persuaded, however, that of such merits and beauties none of our readers need to be informed; and therefore “Philo-Musus” lies at our publisher’s till called for.
We are going, however, to make some observations upon one advantage to be derived from poetry, which our good friend has altogether omitted. We mean the power which it possesses of handing down to posterity an exact picture of the customs and manners of a very distant age. By its aid we can trace through successive years the variations which gradually take place in warfare and in letters, in habits and in costume; we can gaze with reverence upon the superstitions which have become extinct, and smile upon comparing the nascent follies of the age of demigods with the full-blown follies of the age of men. Homer, as he stands pre-eminent among the ancient bards in all other requisites, is equally so in this. Notwithstanding the force of his numbers, the fertility of his invention, the grandeur of his story, and the excellency of the moral precepts which are interspersed throughout it, we are inclined to value him less upon these considerations than upon the faithful representation which he has given us of the manners of his heroes. For these reasons we have put his name at the top of this paper, although in the course of it we shall probably indulge ourselves in more frequent digressions than ever the old gentleman himself made use of. To those who had rather have from us a well-digested essay than a series of straggling remarks, we must say what we have often said before:--“We are boys, and we have not the presumption to suppose ourselves capable of criticising the studies, or regulating the taste, of our schoolfellows. Our aim has not been, and is not, to instruct, but to amuse.” With this preface, we put our Homer before us, mend our pen, and begin.
The “Odyssey,” which describes the travels and sufferings of an individual, has, of course, more numerous sketches of private life than the “Iliad,” the actors in which seem, as it were, to be upon a public stage, and to stalk in the tragic buskin from one end of the poem to the other. But we cannot help wondering at the manner in which the poet has so frequently interwoven in his most gorgeous descriptions some allusion to the commerce or the arts of his countrymen; his similes, in particular, are perpetually borrowed from the works of the farmer or the mechanic. Some have found fault with Homer upon this head, arguing that the images which he introduces are, in some instances, too mean for the dignity of the epic style. He has been defended from the charge by abler pens than ours; and therefore we shall only observe, at present, that allowing these passages to be blemishes, they are blemishes more valuable to us than the greatest beauties could have been: if his descriptions of rustic manners are faults, Homer, like his own Achilles, would be less interesting were he less faulty.
The first observation which occurs to us (for we intend to write, like sentimental ladies, quite at random) is that the besiegers of Ilium were ignorant of one of the fiercest pests of modern times, coined money.
Ἔνθεν ἄρ’ οἰνίζοντο καρῃκομόωντες Ἀχαιοἰ, Ἄλλοι μὲν χαλκῷ, ἄλλοι δ’ αίθωνι σιδήρῳ, Ἄλλοι δὲ ῥινοῖς, ἄλλοι δ’ αὺτοῖσι βόεσσιν, Ἄλλοι δ’ ἀνδραπόδεσσι·
Each, in exchange, proportioned treasures gave; Some brass, or iron; some an ox, or slave.
Not a word in the bargain of pounds, shillings, and pence. If these noxious ideas had then existed, we should have had the sellers of the wine exclaiming, in the style of one of our old ballad writers:
Noe pence, nor halfpence, by my faye, But a noble in gold so round!
And we should have had the buyers replying, in all the lengthy insolence of Homeric compounds:
I have gold to discharge all that I call! If it be forty pence, I will pay all.
Again, when Agamemnon endeavours to appease the anger of Achilles by the offer of sumptuous presents, he presents him with a magnificent list of the cities in his gift; and, in order to describe the value of them, is obliged to have recourse to the vague epithets of “εὖ ναιομένα”--“ποιήεσσαν”--“βαθύλειμον”--“ἀμπελόεσσαν.” Now, if Ηomer’s heroes had understood anything of coinage, the poet would have avoided all this circumlocution, and presented us at once with a clear statement of the yearly revenues, in the style of the above-quoted songster:
For Plumpton Park I will give thee, With tenements fair beside; ’Tis worth three hundred markes by the yeare, To maintain thy good cow-hide.
This, however, is mere jesting. The next consideration we shall offer will be a more serious one. How happy were the men of that age! They had no such crime as forgery, no discussions about stocks, no apprehensions of a paper currency. There was no liability to imposition; no necessity for pamphlets. At the present crisis, when the increase of forgery and the dread of national bankruptcy occupy so large a portion of public attention, we, in common with other more practised quacks, come humbly forward with our nostrum. Is it not “a consummation devoutly to be wished” that Britain would consent to forego the use of these horrible mischief-workers, these bits of silver, or of silver paper, and return contentedly to the original method of traffic, making her payments in oxen or in sheep? The veriest bungler may forge a shilling, but the veriest adept would find it plaguy difficult to forge an ox.
If it be true that the ancient Greeks were thus ignorant of stamped money (for we are only repeating what has been observed upon the subject before us), it cannot but surprise us that they had made so great a proficiency in other arts, without the use of what appears in modern times absolutely indispensable to social intercourse. From the descriptions of Homer they should seem to have been, in a great measure, in possession of our arts, our ideas of policy, our customs, our superstitions. Although living at so remote a period they enjoyed many of our luxuries; although corrupted and debased by the grossest of religious codes, they entertained many of our notions of morality: the most skilful artisan, and the most enlightened sage, may, even in our days, find in the poems of Homer always an incitement to curiosity, and frequently a source of instruction.
Many a lady of _ton_ (if ladies of _ton_ were in the habit of studying Homer) would be astonished at learning that her last new lustres would sink into insignificance by the side of the candelabras of Alcinous:
Χρύσειοι δ’ ἄρα κοῦροι ἐϋδμήτων ἐπὶ βωμῶν, Ἔστασαν, αἰθομένας δαΐδας μετὰ χερσὶν ἔχοντες, Φαίνοντες νύκτας κατὰ δώματα δαιτυμόνεσσιν.
Refulgent pedestals the walls surround, Which boys of gold with flaming torches crowned; The polished ore, reflecting every ray, Blazed on the banquets with a double day.
Nor would she be less amazed, upon turning from these inanimate attendants, and learning the number and duties of the housemaids:
Πεντήκοντα δέ οἱ δμωαὶ κατὰ δῶμα γυναίκες, κ. τ. λ.
Full fifty handmaids form the household train; Some turn the mill, or sift the golden grain; Some ply the loom; their busy fingers move Like poplar-trees when Zephyr fans the grove.