Chapter 3

The English reader who has not witnessed one of the fêtes of St. Cloud, may probably associate them with his own Vauxhall; but the resemblance is very slight. At one of these entertainments in France, there is much less attempted, but considerably more effected, than in England; and all this is accomplished by that happy knack which the French possess of making much of a little. Of what did this fête consist--a few hundred lamps--a few score of fidlers, and about as much decoration as an English showman would waste on the exterior of his exhibition, or assemble within a few square yards. There were no long illuminated vistas, or temples and saloons red hot with oil and gas--but a few slender materials, so scattered and intermixed with the natural beauties of the park, as to fascinate, and not fatigue the eye and ear. Even the pell-mell frolics of St. Cloud were better idealities of enjoyment, than the splendid promenade of Vauxhall, in the days of its olden celebrity; for diamonds and feathers are often mere masquerade finery in such scenes--so distant are the heads and hearts of their wearers.[6]

[6] We are not permitted to allude to the fête of St. Cloud as a scene of _pastoral_ amusement, or of the primitive simplicity which is associated with that epithet. The French are not a pastoral people, although they are not less so than the English; neither are the suburbs of a metropolis rural life. They are too near the pride of human art for pastoral pleasures, and no aristocracy is more infested with little tyrants than the neighbourhood of great cities, the oppressors being too timid to trust themselves far out of the verge of public haunts, in the midst of which they would be equally suspicious.

Amusements are at all times among the best indications of national character; a truth which the ancients seem to have exaggerated into their maxim _in vino veritas_. Here the national comparison is not "odious." Three Sunday fairs are held within six miles of Paris, in a park, as was once the custom at Greenwich: the latter, though a royal park, does not boast of the residence of royalty, as does St Cloud. The objection to the day of the French fêtes is cleared by another argument. But what would be the character of a week-day fair, or fête, in Kensington Gardens? The intuitive answer will make the moral observer regret that man should so often place the interdict on his own happiness, and then peevishly repine at his uncheery lot.

Night, with her poetic glooms, only served to heighten the lustre of the fairy fête; and as I receded through the wood, the little shoal of light gleamed and twinkled through "branches overgrown," and the distant sounds began to fall into solitary silence--even saddening to meditation--so fast do the dying glories of festive mirth sink into melancholy--till at once, with the last gleam and echo, I found myself in a pleasant little glade on the brow of the hill. The day had been unusually hot--all was hushed stillness. But the darkening clouds were fast gathering into black masses:--

The rapid lightning flames along the sky. What terrible event does this portend?

The stifling heat of the atmosphere was, however, soon changed by slight gusts of wind; the leaves trembled; and a few heavy drops of rain fell as harbingers of the coming storm; the pattering ceased; an impressive pause succeeded--broken by the deepening roar of thunder.

The threatening storm hastened my return to the focus of the carnival. The partial sprinkling had already caused many of the dancers to withdraw to the cafés, and to the most sheltered parts of the park. The lightning became more and more vivid; and, at length, the thousands who had lingered in these groups of gaiety, were fairly routed by pelting rain; and the park, with a few lamps flickering out, and decorative finery drenched with rain, presented a miserable contrast with the festivities of the previous hour. The crowd streamed through the park-gate into the village, where hundreds of competitors shouted "Paris, Paris;" and their swarms of diligences, cabriolets, and curtained carts, were soon freighted. One of these charioteers engaged to convey me to Paris for half a franc, in a large, covered cart, with oil-skin curtains to protect the passengers in front. To my surprise I found the vehicle pre-occupied by twelve or fourteen well-dressed persons--male and female, who appeared to forget their inconvenient situation in sallies of laughter, which sometimes bordered on boisterous mirth. The storm increased; lamps gleamed and flitted across the road; many of the horses plunged with their heavy loads, and swept along the line in resistless confusion; for nothing can be less characteristic of timidity than French driving.

On reaching Paris, the streets resembled so many torrents, and in most places were not fordable, notwithstanding scores of persons, with the alacrity of mushrooms after rain, had placed themselves at the narrowest parts of the streams, with raised planks, or temporary bridges for crossing. Our load was _landed_ under the arcade of the Hotel de Ville; but the driver, in the genuine spirit of a London hackney-coachman, did not forget to turn the "ill-wind" to his own account, by importuning me for a double fare.

I learned that the storm had been less tremendous in its consequences at St. Cloud and Paris than at Versailles, the lightning having consumed a farm-house and barns near that town. It is an event worthy of notice, from its being part of the phenomenon of what is termed a returning stroke of lightning, the circumstances of which are recorded in a recent number of Brande's philosophical journal.--_Abridged from "Cameleon Sketches," by the author of the "Promenade round Dorking."_

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RETROSPECTIVE GLEANINGS.

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ALFREDE AND MATYLDA.

WRITTEN BY ROBERT HAIEWOODE, OF CHEPING-TORITON, IN 1520.

The bryghtt enamell of the mornyng's gleame Begann to daunce onn bobblynge Avonn's streame, As yothefull Alfrede and Matylda fayre Stoode sorowynge bie, ennobledd bie despayre: Att tymes theyr lypps the tynts of Autumpe wore, Att tymes a palerr hewe thann wynterr bore; And faste the rayne of love bedew'dd theyr eyne, As thos, in earnefull[7] strayns, theyr tenes[8] theie dyd bewreene.[9]

ALFREDE.

Ah! iff we parte, ne moe to meete agayne, Wythyn thie wydow'dd berte wyll everr brenn The frostie vygyls of a cloysterr'd nun, Insteade of faerie[10] love's effulgentt sonne! Ne moe with myne wyll carolynge[11] beatt hie, Gyve throbb for throbb, and sygh returne forr sygh, Butt bee bie nyghtt congeall'dd bie lethall feares, Bie daie consum'dd awaie inn unavaylynge teares!

MATYLDA.

Alas! howe soone is happlesse love ondonne, Wytherr'd and deadde almostt beforre begunn: Lych Marchh's openyng flowrs thatt sygh'dd forr Maie, Which Apryll's teares inn angerr wash'dd awaie. Onr tenes alych, alych our domes shall bee, Where'err thou wander'stt I wyll followe thee; And whann our sprytes throughe feere are purg'dd fromm claie, Inn pees theie shalle repose upponn the mylkie waie.

ALFREDE.

The raynbowe hewes that payntt the laughyng mees,[12] The gule-stayn'dd[13] folyage of the okenn trees, The starrie spangells of the mornynge dewe, The laverock's matyn songes and skies of blewe, Maie weel the thotes of gentill shepherdds joie. Whose hertes ne hopelesse loves or cares alloie; Butt whatt cann seeme to teneful loverrs fayre. Whose hopes butt darkenns moe the mydnyghtt of despayre?

MATYLDA.

To thotelesse swayns itt maie bee blyss indeede, To marke the yeare through alle hys ages speede, Butt everie seasone seemes alych to mee, Eternall wynterr whann awaie from thee! Fromm howrr to howrr I oftt beweepe ourr love, Wyth all the happie sorowe of the dove, And fancie, as itts sylentt waterrs flowe, Mie bosome's swetestt joies mustt thos bee mientt[14] wyth woe.

Palerr thann cloudes thatt stayne the azure nyghtt, Or starrs thatt shoote beneathe theyr feeble lyghtt, And eke as crymson as the mornyng's rode,[15] The lornlie[16] payre inn dumbe dystracyon stoode Whann onn the banke Matylda sonke and dyed, And Alfrede plong'dd hys daggerr inn hys syde: Hys purpell soule came roshynge fromm the wounde, And o'err the lyfeless claie deathe's ensygns stream'dd arownde.

_Literary Gazette._

[7] Tender. [8] Woes. [9] Express. [10] Fiery. [11] Dancing. [12] Meadows. [13] Blood-coloured. [14] Mingled. [15] Complexion. [16] Forlorn.

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SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

FOX HUNTING.

"Well, do you know, that after all you have said, Mr. North, I cannot understand the passion and the pleasure of fox-hunting. It seems to me both cruel and dangerous."

Cruelty! Is there cruelty in laying the rein on their necks, and delivering them up to the transport of their high condition--for every throbbing vein is visible--at the first full burst of that maddening cry, and letting loose to their delight the living thunderbolts? Danger! What danger but breaking their own legs, necks, or backs, and those of their riders? And what right have you to complain of that, lying all your length, a huge hulking fellow snoring and snorting half asleep on a sofa, sufficient to sicken a whole street? What though it be but a smallish, reddish-brown, sharp-nosed animal, with pricked-up ears, and passionately fond of poultry, that they pursue? After the first tallyho, Reynard is rarely seen, till he is run in upon--once perhaps in the whole run, skirting a wood, or crossing a common. It is an idea that is pursued, on a whirlwind of horses to a storm of canine music,--worthy, both, of the largest lion that ever leaped among a band of Moors, sleeping at midnight by an extinguished fire on the African sands. There is, we verily believe it, nothing foxy in the fancy of one man in all that glorious field of three hundred. Once off and away--while wood and welkin rings--and nothing is felt--nothing is imaged in that hurricane flight, but scorn of all obstructions, dikes, ditches, drains, brooks, palings, canals, rivers, and all the impediments reared in the way of so many rejoicing madmen, by nature, art, and science, in an enclosed, cultivated, civilized, and Christian country. There they go--prince and peer, baronet and squire,--the nobility and gentry of England, the flower of the men of the earth, each on such steed as Pollux never reined, nor Philip's warlike son--for could we imagine Bucephalus here, ridden by his own tamer, Alexander would be thrown out during the very first burst, and glad to find his way dismounted to a village alehouse for a pail of meal and water. Hedges, trees, groves, gardens, orchards, woods, farm-houses, huts, halls, mansions, palaces, spires, steeples, towers, and temples, all go wavering by, each demigod seeing, or seeing them not, as his winged steed skims or labours along, to the swelling or sinking music, now loud as a near regimental band, now faint as an echo. Far and wide over the country are dispersed the scarlet runners--and a hundred villages pour forth their admiring swarms, as the main current of the chase roars by, or disparted runlets float wearied and all astray, lost at last in the perplexing woods. Crash goes the top-timber of the five-barred gate--away over the ears flies the ex-rough-rider in a surprising somerset--after a succession of stumbles, down is the gallant Grey on knees and nose, making sad work among the fallow--Friendship is a fine thing, and the story of Damon and Pythias most affecting indeed--but Pylades eyes Orestes on his back sorely drowned in sludge, and tenderly leaping over him as he lies, claps his hand to his ear, and with a "hark forward, tan-tivy!" leaves him to remount, lame and at leisure--and ere the fallen has risen and shook himself, is round the corner of the white village-church, down the dell, over the brook, and close on the heels of the straining pack, all a-yell up the hill crowned by the Squire's Folly. "Every man for himself, and God for us all," is the devout and ruling apothegm of the day. If death befall, what wonder? since man and horse are mortal; but death loves better a wide soft bed with quiet curtains and darkened windows in a still room, the clergyman in the one corner with his prayers, and the physician in another with his pills, making assurance doubly sure, and preventing all possibility of the dying Christian's escape. Let oak branches smite the too slowly stooping skull, or rider's back not timely levelled with his steed's; let faithless bank give way, and bury in the brook; let hidden drain yield to fore feet and work a sudden wreck; let old coal-pit, with briery mouth, betray; and roaring river bear down man and horse, to banks unscaleable by the very Welsh goat; let duke's or earl's son go sheer over a quarry fifty feet deep, and as many high; yet, "without stop or stay, down the rocky way," the hunter train flows on; for the music grows fiercer and more savage,--lo! all that remains together of the pack, in far more dreadful madness than hydrophobia, leaping out of their skins, under insanity from the scent, now strong as stink, for Vulpes can hardly now make a crawl of it; and ere he, they, whipper-in, or any one of the other three demoniacs, have time to look in one another's splashed faces, he is torn into a thousand pieces, gobbled up in the general growl; and smug, and smooth, and dry, and warm, and cozey, as he was an hour and twenty-five minutes ago exactly, in his furze bush in the cover,--he is now piece-meal, in about thirty distinct stomachs; and is he not, pray, well off for sepulture?-- _Blackwood's Magazine_.

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THE BLIND BEAUTY OF THE MOOR.

(_A Fragment._)

To thee--O palest phantom--clothed in white raiment, not like unto a ghost risen with its grave-clothes to appal, but like a seraph descending from the skies to bless--unto thee will we dare to speak, as through the mist of years back comes thy yet unfaded beauty, charming us, while we cannot choose but weep, with the self-same vision that often glided before us long, long ago in the wilderness, and at the sound of our voice would pause for a little while, and then pass by, like a white bird from the sea, floating unscared close by the shepherd's head, or alighting to trim its plumes on a knoll far up an inland glen! Death seems not to have touched that face, pale though it be--life-like is the waving of those gentle hands--and the soft, sweet, low music which now we hear, steals not sure from lips hushed by the burial-mould! Restored by the power of love, she stands before us as she stood of yore. Not one of all the hairs of her golden head was singed by the lightning that shivered the tree under which the child had run for shelter from the flashing sky. But in a moment the blue light in her dewy eyes was dimmed--and never again did she behold either flower or star. Yet all the images of all the things she had loved remained in her memory, clear and distinct as the things themselves before unextinguished eyes--and ere three summers had flown over head, which, like the blossom of some fair perennial flower, in heaven's gracious dew and sunshine each season lifted its loveliness higher and higher in the light--she could trip her singing way through the wide wilderness, all by her joyful self, led, as all believed, nor erred they in so believing, by an angel's hand! When the primroses peeped through the reviving grass upon the vernal braes, they seemed to give themselves into her hand; and 'twas thought they hung longer unfaded round her neck or forehead than if they had been left to drink the dew on their native bed. The linnets ceased not their lays, though her garment touched the broomstalk on which they sung. The cushat, as she thrid her way through the wood, continued to croon in her darksome tree--and the lark, although just dropped from the cloud, was cheered by her presence into a new passion of song, and mounted over her head, as if it were his first matin hymn. All the creatures of earth and air manifestly loved the Wanderer of the Wilderness--and as for human beings, she was named, in their pity, their wonder, and their delight, the Blind Beauty of the Moor!

She was an only child, and her mother had died in giving her birth. And now her father, stricken by one of the many cruel diseases that shorten the lives of shepherds on the hills, was bed-ridden--and he was poor. Of all words ever syllabled by human lips, the most blessed is--Charity. No manna now in the wilderness is rained from heaven--for the mouths of the hungry need it not in this our Christian land. A few goats feeding among the rocks gave them milk, and there was bread for them in each neighbour's house--neighbour though miles afar--as the sacred duty came round--and the unrepining poor sent the grateful child away with their prayers.

One evening, returning to the hut with her usual song, she danced up to her father's face on his rushy bed, and it was cold in death. If she shrieked--if she fainted--there was but one ear that heard, one eye that saw her in her swoon. Not now floating light like a small moving cloud unwilling to leave the flowery braes, though it be to melt in heaven, but driven along like a shroud of flying mist before the tempest, she came upon us in the midst of that dreary moss; and at the sound of our quaking voice, fell down with clasped hands at our feet--"My father's dead!" Had the hut put already on the strange, dim, desolate look of mortality? For people came walking fast down the braes, and in a little while there was a group round us, and we bore her back again to her dwelling in our arms. As for us, we had been on our way to bid the fair creature and her father farewell. How could she have lived--an utter orphan--in such a world! The holy power that is in Innocence would for ever have remained with her; but Innocence longs to be away, when her sister Joy has departed; and 'tis sorrowful to see the one on earth, when the other has gone to heaven! This sorrow none of us had long to see; for though a flower, when withered at the root, and doomed ere eve to perish, may yet look to the careless eye the same as when it blossomed in its pride,--its leaves, still green, are not as once they were,--its bloom, though fair, is faded--and at set of sun, the dews shall find it in decay, and fall unfelt on all its petals. Ere Sabbath came, the orphan child was dead. Methinks we see now her little funeral. Her birth had been the humblest of the humble; and though all in life had loved her, it was thought best that none should be asked to the funeral of her and her father, but two or three friends; the old clergyman himself walked at the head of the father's coffin--we at the head of the daughter's--for this was granted unto our exceeding love;--and thus passed away for ever the Blind Beauty of the Moor!--_Ibid_.

* * * * *

THE GATHERER

A snapper up of unconsidered trifles, SHAKSPEARE.

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EPICURISM.

(_For the Mirror_.)

At a public dinner, Captain R. commencing a conversation with a gentleman next to him, was astonished at not being able to elicit one word in answer. At length his silent neighbour turned to him, and said, with a look and tone suitable to the _importance_ of the communication, "Sir, whenever you are at a venison feast, let me advise you _never to speak during dinner_. In endeavouring to reply to you, I have actually at this moment swallowed _entire_ a fine piece of fat, _without tasting it_!"

J.G.R.

* * * * *

An Englishman, named _Drinkwater_, was nearly drowned the other day off Boulogne; on hearing which, a wag observed that he had "almost taken a drop too much."

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FLY WATER.

Prussic Acid has been obtained from the leaves of _green tea_, in so concentrated a state, that one drop killed a dog almost instantaneously. A strong infusion of Souchong tea, sweetened with sugar, is as effectual in poisoning flies as the solution of arsenic, generally sold for that purpose.

* * * * *

There may now be seen, written on a board on a new house in the Blackfriars-road, the following words:--"Hird robeish may be had heare."

BILLY.

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NO JOKE OR RIDDLE.

A house with wings extended wide, A racket-ground to play in, Two porters' lodges there beside, And porters always staying To guard the inmates there within, And keep them from the town; From duns as free as saints from sin, And sheriffs of renown. To get white wash'd it is their plan, 'Tis such a cleansing thing-- Then out they come with blacker hands Than when they first went in.

P.H.H.

* * * * *

The following lines are copied from a seat in Greenwich Park, written in chalk; and from their style, they may be supposed to have been written by one who meditated suicide:--

Oh! deaf to nature and to heav'n's command, Against thyself to lift the murd'ring hand, Oh! damn'd despair to shun the living light, And plunge thy guilty soul to endless night.

Written also in the same hand:--Charlotte Rumpling, you did not use me well, but I forgive you--God bless you.

EDWIN W----.

* * * * *

WANTS A WIFE.

She must bee middel eaged and good tempered widdow, or a Maid, and pursest of propertey, and I wood far reather have a Wife that is ever so plain then a fine Lady that think herself hansom; the Advertiser is not rich nor young, old nor poor, and in a very few years he will have a good incumb. Can be hiley reckamended for onestey, sobrieaty, and good temperd, and has no in combranc, is very actif, but not a treadesman, have been as Butler and Bailiff for meney years in most respectable families, and shood I not be so luckey as to get me a wife, wood be most willing to take a sitteyeashan once moor, wood prefer living in the countrey, under stands Brewing feamosley, is well adapted for a inn or publick hous. Please to derect W.W., 268, Berwick-street, Oxford-roade, or aney Ladey may call and have a interview with the widdow that keeps the hous, and say wher and when we can meet each other. All letters must be pd, no Ofice-keeper to applygh. My fameley ar verey well off and welthey, far above the midling order.

This is a good joke upon _Matrimonial Advertising_.

* * * * *

Jack Bannister visited the Haymarket theatre on Wednesday night, August 20, and made in the free-list book the following entry:--"Fifty years ago, in the year 1778, I made my first appearance at this theatre. Half a century is not bad. Hurra!! John Bannister."

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ALPHABETICAL AGREEMENT.

In reading over an agreement, for letting a house, the other day, the initials of the party letting it were A.B., of the party taking C.D., and of the witness to the signatures E.F.

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OBSTINACY AND PERSEVERANCE.

Obstinacy and perseverance, though often confounded, are two very different things; a man may be very obstinate, and yet not persevere in his opinion ten minutes. Obstinacy is resistance to truth; perseverance is a continuance in truth or error.

T.C.C.

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IDOLATRY.

The origin of idolatry is by many attributed to the age of Eber, though most of the fathers place it no higher than that of Serug; but it appears to me certain, that image worship existed in the time of Jacob, from the account of Rachel taking images along with her on leaving her father's house, which is given in the book of Genesis.

T.C.C.

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