Chapter THE EIGHTH (2)

"I should be a poor, forsaken, lost woman, my dearest nephew," she would often say to Tweezer, "if you were not there, to take my part. I may thank you for nearly all I have; but the time may come when I shall be able to repay you." This was music to the ears of the jurist. He hoped one day to find himself sole heir, and fancied he should he able to touch the right note when it came to the drawing out of the will.

THE PICTURE OF THE VIRGIN.

Miss Sarah Bugle, in her fits of devotion, talked much of death, and of her longings after the heavenly Jerusalem and her spiritual bridegroom; yet this did not prevent her from thinking, even more frequently still, of an earthly bridegroom. Since her five-and-fortieth year she indeed solemnly declared that she never would marry; nevertheless, she had her fits of maiden weakness, particularly when some stately widower would banter her, or some gay bachelor look up to her window as he went by. "I dare say he has some designs," she would then say. "Well, time will show; it's wrong to swear anything rashly! If it is to be,--well; the Lord's will be done! I'm in my best years. My namesake in the Old Testament was eighty when she christened her first child. It would be no blue wonder if it did turn out so!"

Thus she would soliloquize, particularly when some single man had been looking kindly at her; and, as this seemed to her to be frequently the case, she at last came to suspect every man in the place, of "evil designs," as she called it, on her chaste person. At length,--for her imagination had been wanton with her for more than twenty years,--she came to look upon every single man as her silent adorer, and every married man as her faithless one.

It may easily be conceived with what inveteracy she declaimed against weddings of every kind, and how bitterly she abused the whole godless, light-minded male sex, (for her quarrel was with the whole sex,) and with what transcendent venom she inveighed against the coquettish minxes who had the impudence to think of a man before they were out of their leading-strings; though these same minxes in leading-strings were all the while walking about in shoes such as are generally manufactured for damsels about to bid adieu to their teens.

Some elderly maidens, pure and pious like herself, assisted her in the laudable occupation of prying into the domestic occurrences of the town, and moralising over them while sipping their coffee. In this conclave, every new gown, every wedding, every christening, was conscientiously discussed; and no time was lost in dispersing the result of their amiable confabulations through every corner of the town. A saucy sign-painter being once called on to paint a picture of the goddess of Fame, armed her with a bugle instead of a trumpet; and, when some pre-eminent piece of scandal became current, it was customary to say "the bugle has been sounded,"--by which it was intended to indicate the quarter where the report originated.

If to these amiable qualities we add the extreme godliness of the chaste Sarah, and her invincible partiality for compound interest, it is not difficult to understand why, with the exception of the said ancient maidens and the four expecting nephews, every creature was careful to remain at a most respectful distance from her.

THE CARES OF LIFE.

She had not the least inclination to die. She was, therefore, by no means displeased with the competition of the four faculties, for her inheritance. Nobody gained by it more than herself. It brought her the dainties of philosophy, the consolations of religion, the protection of the law, and moderate doctor's bills. Doctor Falcon was as dear to her as the others, but not a bit more so: only when some transitory indisposition seemed to hint at the instability of everything human, the doctor never failed to become, for the time, the dearest of all her nephews.

"Quick doctor! Pray come immediately! Miss Sarah is dying!" exclaimed one morning, the antiquated maid-servant of the aunt, as she popped her head in at the door. "My lady has been looking most wretchedly for some days."

Falcon was sitting, when this news came, upon his unpretending sofa; and, with his arm round her waist, was endeavouring to console his weeping Susan. He knew that Miss Sarah was not likely to be very serious in her intentions of dying: so he promised the maid he would come immediately, but remained nevertheless with his wife, to console her.

But he had little success this time in his attempts at consolation. Poor Susan wept more bitterly than ever; and the poor doctor sat beside her, unconscious of the cause of her tears.

"Come, be open-hearted to your husband, my dearest love," he said; "you torture me,--you kill me,--to see you thus, while you conceal from me the cause."

"Well, then listen to me. Oh!"

"What further, my dear Susan? you said that before."

"We have four children."

"Ay, and the finest in the town, if I am not mistaken! They are all so gentle, so amiable, so----"

"Oh! they are little angels."

"You are right; they _are_ angels, all of them. You do not, I hope, grieve over the presence of the little angelic circle?"

"No, my dear husband; but what is to become of the future?"

"Oh, thou unbelieving Susan! Let us rely on Providence."

"It is difficult for us to bring them up decently. The older they grow, the more they want."

"They have been growing older all this while, and they have wanted for nothing as yet."

"Ay; but, if----"

"What then?"

"Alas!" she sighed, and sobbed more bitterly than before.

"What then?" exclaimed the doctor, with undissembled anxiety.

She concealed her face in his bosom, clung to him with both her arms, and, in a scarcely audible whisper, said: "I am to be a mother for the fifth time."

The papa was half inclined to cry himself at this unhoped-for announcement; however, he concealed his consternation as well as he could. "Nay, sweetheart, is that all?" he exclaimed. "Come, Susan, we shall have five little angels instead of four. We cannot fail to be happy!"

"But, my dear husband, we are so very, very poor!"

"The little angels will bring a blessing upon us. He who feeds the young ravens will also show me where to find a crumb for my little ones. Come, tranquillise yourself."

Susan had had her cry out, and so became more tranquil, as a matter of course; but the doctor had found no such vent for his uneasiness. He walked up and down the room, looked out of the window; nothing could divert his thoughts.

"Every year more children and less bread! Every year bigger boarders and thinner slices!" sighed he to himself. He would have forgotten the dying Miss Bugle, had not Susan reminded him that it was time to hasten to her death-bed.

THE BLUE WONDER.

He took up his hat, but he did not run. The little domestic dialogue still weighed on his spirits. He thought only of the small number of his patients, and the exhausted state of his exchequer. He drew his hat over his brow, and looked straight before him like a rhymester: on his way he saluted neither right nor left, and had nearly run down the superintendent-general,--a man looked upon by most people as one of the brightest shining lights in the church.

When he arrived at his dearly-beloved aunt's, he did not, indeed, find her on her death-bed; but she had mounted her spectacles, and was seated before a large book, from which she had opened at Reflections on Death, and from which she was devoutly reading sundry Prayers for the Dying. She looked wretchedly; but it would have been difficult to say when her face looked anything else. Round her head she had tied one handkerchief; and another, which passed over her head, was fastened under her chin.

"What is the matter with you?" asked the learned Doctor Falcon, as he laid his hat and stick aside.

"The Lord knows," sighed Miss Bugle in a soft and plaintive tone; "I have suffered much for several days. I feel as if my hour were come; and that would be terrible."

The doctor thoughtfully felt her pulse, and said unconsciously, half to himself, "It fills, with a vengeance!" All the good man's thoughts were at home with Susan.

"I thought as much," sighed the terrified virgin. "Do you think there is danger, my dear Falcon?"

"Not at your years," replied the doctor, scarcely knowing what he said.

"Well, that is some consolation," replied the lady in a more cheerful tone; "in fact, I am in my best years; my strength unbroken. My constitution must bring me through. Don't you think so, dear Falcon? Only, no expensive medicines, if they can be done without. Since bark, rhubarb, and mixtures have been turned into colonial produce, there's no enduring them. The Lord be merciful to us! but really, my dear Falcon, I am not at all well."

Our worthy aunt now gave the reins to her tongue; spoke, as she was wont to do, of a thousand different things, none of them in any way connected with her indisposition. The doctor, meanwhile, hummed a tune, and beat the devil's tattoo upon the table, without listening to a word of what the good lady was saying. At length he was beginning to lose patience.

"What then _is_ the matter with you?" he exclaimed.

"Oh, my appetite! I have not relished a spoonful of soup these two days. And then my head aches as if it would burst."

"Something you have eaten has, perhaps, disagreed with you, aunt; some philosophical _pâté de foie gras_ may be in fault."

"Gracious Heaven! no, Falcon, the stomach cannot be in fault. I live so simply, so frugally. Seriously, I don't think I have for several weeks eaten anything likely to disagree with me. But sometimes I have a tooth-ache, sometimes qualmishness, heartburn, vomitings--Good Heavens! do look at me, Falcon, and don't keep drumming upon the table so; look how pale I am,--how my eyes are sunk in my head: oh dear! I am certainly very unwell."

"Well, what do I care?" said the doctor in a peevish tone: his mind entirely occupied by the condition of his Susan: "you're in the family way, that's all."

"Merciful Heaven!" screamed the chaste virgin, in a voice that might have been heard three streets off. Merciful Heaven! that would be a blue wonder indeed!"

A cold sweat came over the doctor as he heard these animated tones from the maiden lips of Miss Sarah Bugle. He immediately recollected that, what with ill-humour, and what with absence of mind, he had been betrayed into a superlatively foolish speech, and one that no chaste virgin was ever likely to forgive; particularly a maid who had triumphantly preserved her painful dignity unimpaired to her fiftieth year; one who never pardoned in another damsel even a gentle pressure of the hand; one who was neither more nor less than an immaculate personification of purity and sanctity; one who was, in short, that virgin of virgins, Miss Sarah Bugle!

"I will let the storm vent itself, and seek safety in flight, before the neighbours come pouring in, to see what's the matter," thought the terrified doctor, as he opened the door and rushed into the street.

ANOTHER BLUE WONDER.

The other three faculties had by this time, by their jealousy, rapacity, and endless misrepresentations concerning each other, utterly ruined themselves in the good opinion of the virgin. Doctor Falcon was the only one who at all bore up against the sudden storm. He could not, for the soul of him, help laughing at his own blunder. Susan, however, on the following day began to reprove her husband's levity, though she had at first joined in the laugh at his thoughtlessness. He caught her in his arms, stopped her mouth with his kisses, and said, "You are right: I ought not to have so rudely assaulted the maiden purity of the heaven-devoted vestal. But, faith! when I left you yesterday, I scarcely knew myself which way my head was turned."

"I would not say another word, my dear, if I were not convinced that you have offended my aunt for ever. Such affront can never be forgiven by so pious a maiden lady. It is ill for us, and particularly now. We have a long winter before us. I heat the stove so sparingly that the windows scarcely thaw the whole day, and yet our stock of wood is going fast, as you know yourself. And for our exchequer, look here!" So saying, she jingled a few small pieces of silver in a large purse close to his ears.

A slight tap at the door, and Sarah's aged attendant entered with a sealed note, and an urgent request from his aunt that the doctor would without fail, immediately after dinner, precisely at one o'clock, favour her with a visit.

"I shall be sure to come," said Falcon; he took the note, and dismissed the maid.

He weighed the note in his hand, and turned jestingly to his wife. "Feel, Susan; it is as heavy as lead." He opened it, and, lo! in a Queen of Hearts sundry delicate incisions had been made, into which had been slipped ten new full-weighted Dutch ducats. He looked at the envelope; it was addressed to Dr. Falcon: there could be no mistake. Such unheard-of liberality on the part of the immaculate Sarah justly excited the amazement of the wedded pair.

"Well, this is the bluest of all my aunt's blue wonders!" exclaimed Falcon. "Come, my pretty one; how long is it since we had such a treasure as this, in our house? Look! Providence watches over us and our children. The winter is provided for; so we'll have no more croaking. What! are you crying still?"

"Oh!" sobbed Susan, as she threw her arms round his neck; "it's for joy I am crying now. But," added she in a lower tone, "I was praying fervently, nearly the whole night, for it was little I could sleep."

Falcon clasped his wife in his arms. He said not another word for several minutes, but he wept inwardly; for he was unwilling that she should see how deeply he was affected.

BLUER AND BLUER.

As the clock struck one, he stood by the bedside of the aunt. With real emotion, with sincere gratitude, he approached her; and--he had vowed to Susan he would do it--impressed a fervent kiss on the benevolent hand that had just diffused so much joy through his little family circle.

"Best of aunts!" he said, "your present of to-day has made Susan and me very happy."

"Dear nephew," said the sick lady, in the gentlest tone of which her voice was capable, for it was long since her hand had been kissed so warmly, "I have long, very long, been your debtor."

"And forgive me my rudeness of yesterday," continued the doctor.

Aunt Sarah modestly covered her face with her handkerchief. After a while she said, but without looking at him, "Nephew, I am about to repose unlimited confidence in you:--my life depends on you. Can you be secret? Will you?"

Falcon was ready to promise everything. Still the lady was not satisfied; she promised him her whole fortune if he would be faithful to her. He made the most solemn oath.

"I know," said she, "that you young people are often badly enough off. Well, I will come and board with you; for my old maid, who has served me so long and so faithfully,"--here she sobbed bitterly,--"I must turn her away. But as long as you keep my secret, I will give you a thousand guilders every year for my board; and, when I die, you shall have all I leave behind me."

The doctor fell on his knee by her bedside, and renewed his oath with increased solemnity.

"But you must live outside the town; for I will not remain here. I will make you a free gift of my large house outside the gate, with the garden and all the grounds belonging to it. You know my house close to the large inn--the Battle of Aboukir; the house was left me six months ago, by my mother's brother, the Director of Excise."

The doctor vowed with extended hand he would move into it the very next day, in spite of wind, frost, and snow.

"As long as you keep my secret, nephew, I will pay you my board half-yearly in advance; and for the little expenses you will be at, in arranging your house for your own family and for me, you will find four rouleaux of dollars in the little cupboard yonder behind the door."

The doctor swore all his vows of secrecy over again. She must imagine the day of judgment or the millennium at hand, he thought. Nothing less can possibly account for so sudden and miraculous a conversion.

But, with all this, Sarah came no nearer than before to the confession of the great secret. As often as she attempted to begin, the words died upon her lips, and she covered her face and sobbed. These beginnings, and breakings off, and lamentations endured for a long time. The doctor rose, seated himself by the side of the bed, wiped his knees with the sleeve of his coat, took a pinch of snuff, and said to himself, "We may pump a well dry in time!; it would be hard if the lachrymal glands of an afflicted virgin could boast of an inexhaustible store of water."

THE BLUEST OF ALL.

He was in the right: when she could cry no longer, she believed she was recovering her Christian resolution, and said with a trembling voice, "Nephew, when you left me yesterday after that dreadful expression----"

The doctor was about to fall once more on his knees: "Pardon the expression, my angelic aunt! It was----"

"No, nephew; perhaps you were right."

"It was an unpardonable stupidity on my part."

"No, nephew; I believe you are not wrong."

"Impossible, my angelic aunt!"

"Alas! only too true, nephew."

"Impossible, aunt! And even if--even supposing--no, aunt, you are certainly----"

"Nephew, you are right. I ought to have been wiser at my time of life, you mean. You are right; but now you know all. The misfortune has happened. I was married,--secretly, very secretly indeed,--but all in an honourable way, all quite orderly. Now who'll believe me? There he lies dead in the Tyrol, killed by a bullet;--here are letters and vouchers. He is dead, and----"

"Who, aunt?" exclaimed Falcon in utter amazement.

"Alas! the trumpeter of the French regiment of hussars, that was quartered here during the summer and autumn,--God be merciful to his soul! He was no common trumpeter, but trumpeter to the regiment; his father and grandfather beat the kettledrums for many years with great applause. But, gracious Heaven! I could not bear to be called a hussar's wife; and, before he could buy his discharge, the regiment was ordered to march. Here I am now, a young widow, not a soul knows it, not a soul would believe it. It will kill me if it become known: it would be a blue wonder to the town. I care little for the trumpeter; but my good name is all in all to me."

The doctor shook his head; he could scarcely recover from his surprise. The trumpeter had indeed been frequently seen in Miss Bugle's apartments; but Falcon, who had always laughed at Goethe's idea of a chemical elective affinity, had never dreamt of such a powerful elective affinity between a trumpeter and a Bugle. As to the immediate uneasiness of the disconsolate maid, for such the widow chose to be still called, he considered it groundless; but she returned such strange replies to his questions as to her sensations, that he began himself to have some suspicions. He had no difficulty now in accounting for the munificence of the anxious lady, who would rather have lost her life than that the whole town should have known that the brightest mirror of all maiden virtue had been dimmed and breathed upon.

He now pledged his word of honour that he would keep her secret, and conceal her from all the world till she was able to appear again with safety. Till then it was to be reported that she was ill; and, under the plea of receiving more careful attendance, she was to live at the doctor's house, and break off every other intercourse.

The gift of the country-house near the large hotel of the Battle of Aboukir was duly and legally executed; the country-house was entered upon in the middle of winter; the maiden matron became invisible there; and no one was allowed to wait on her, but Susan, whom she had herself initiated into her mystery.

GOOD RESULTS.

"Well, to be sure," she would say to Susan in her cheerful hours,--for it was impossible to be always in despair; and, as her niece anticipated all her wishes, she had never felt herself half so comfortable as in the bosom of this happy family,--"Well, to be sure, it is a blue wonder, indeed, to think that I should come to this! Who would have thought it! Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. I believed myself too secure, and now I am chastened for my pride. Oh, trumpeter! trumpeter!"

The event, meanwhile, had exercised a very salutary influence on the maiden lady. Through very fear of betraying herself to the curious eyes of her former companions and gossips, she weaned herself from all intercourse with them, and acquired a taste for more refined pleasures in the circle of Dr. Falcon's family. She continued, indeed, rather too fond of all the tittle-tattle of the town; but then she thought of her own weakness, and judged more charitably that of others. She became so indulgent, so modest, nay, so humble, that the doctor and his wife were completely amazed. The change of circumstances and society,--the heroic resolution by which she had divested herself of a part of her property,--the assurance of the doctor that she was still rich enough to live at her ease,--all this had effected so singular a change in her character, that she seemed to live quite in a new world. She even abandoned all her usurious dealings, which, to be sure, she would have found it difficult to continue in her present seclusion.

The three faculties, meanwhile, were vomiting fire and flame. The two Bugles were apparently reconciled, but only that they might unite more vigorously in their hostility against the pettifogger, who watched their every step for a plausible ground of action against them. The philosopher wrote an excellent book against the human passions; and the worthy ecclesiastic delivered every Sunday most edifying discourses on the abomination of ingratitude, calumny, envy, evil-speaking, and malignity. Both did much good by their arguments, but their own gall became more and more bitter, every day.

THE PIOUS FRAUD.

The winter passed away, and was succeeded by spring. The warm days of summer were approaching. Dr. Falcon had very soon obtained the conviction that his aunt had little cause for her uneasiness. He had told her so, and had explained to her the real nature of her indisposition. In vain: the erring vestal would on no account be undeceived. Susan and her husband were at length obliged to desist from every attempt to dispel the ridiculous illusion of Aunt Sarah, who threatened that she should begin to doubt the doctor's friendship. She seldom left her bed.

"She makes me uneasy," said Susan to her husband; "at times I almost fancy her cracked."

"And she is so, in every sense of the word," said the doctor. "It is hypochondria,--a fixed idea. My physic is of no avail against the extravagancies of her imagination. I know of nothing I can do, unless it be to drive away one fancy by substituting another. Suppose we pass our child off upon her for her own."

"But will she believe it?"

"If she does not, it is of little consequence."

After a few weeks Susan appeared no longer in Sarah's room--it had been so arranged by the doctor; and our aunt was informed that Susan had had a misfortune.

"Is the child dead?" inquired Sarah.

"Alas!" replied the doctor.

"Alas!" rejoined the aunt.

One day before daybreak, Aunt Sarah was awakened in an unusual manner. Her face was sprinkled with water, and strong scents were held to her nose, till it seemed they were going to send her out of the world by the very means apparently employed to bring her to life again.

She opened her eyes, and saw the doctor busy with her nose.

"Righteous Heaven! I am dying!--You are killing me! Nephew, nephew, what are you doing to my nose?"

"Hush, aunt!--don't speak a word!" said the doctor with a mysterious look; "only tell me how you feel yourself."

"Tolerably well, nephew."

"You have been insensible for four hours, aunt. I was uneasy for your life; but it's all right now,--you are saved. A lovely child--"

"How!" exclaimed Sarah, almost rubbing her nose from her face.

"A sweet little boy. Do you wish to see the pretty fellow? If you will keep yourself tranquil, and not stir a limb, why----"

"But nephew----"

"I have passed it off upon every one in the house for my wife's child."

"Oh, nephew! your prudence, your assistance, your counsel! Oh, you are an angel!"

Falcon went away. Aunt Sarah trembled all over with terror and joy. She looked round her:--on the table were burning lights and countless phials of medicine were strewn around. A woman brought in the baby: it was in a gentle sleep. Sarah spoke not a word, but looked at it long, wept bitterly, kissed the little creature again and again; and, when it had been carried away, she said to the doctor, "It is the living picture of the trumpeter to the French regiment--God be merciful to him! It is his living picture--I say, his living picture!"

CONSEQUENCES.

After the prescribed number of weeks had been punctually expended in the consumption of gruels and broths, the chaste Sarah perfectly recovered her spirits, and tripped about the house more cheerful and active than she had been for many years before. She dandled the baby, would scarcely allow it out of her sight, and evidently doted on it with unbounded tenderness. She had been successfully cured of one ridiculous illusion, by one yet more ridiculous. Overflowing with gratitude, her first visit out of the house was to the church, and thence she proceeded to a lawyer to execute a deed of gift of her whole fortune to Dr. Falcon; renewing for herself only a large annuity by way of pocket-money. Between herself and the doctor, to be sure, a secret article was drawn up, by which he bound himself in due time to transfer half of her bounty to the little living picture of the regimental trumpeter.

In this way, the blue wonders of Miss Sarah Bugle suddenly converted our Dr. Falcon into a rich man. The triumph of the medical faculty was irrevocably confirmed; the more furiously did law, theology, and philosophy rage against each other. They could not forgive one another the loss of the expected legacy. Dr. Falcon was readily excused, for he was innocent. With him, all parties were ready to renew a friendly intercourse, for he was now one of the wealthiest men in the town; and a wealthy man, or rather his money, may at times be useful to the philosopher as well as to the jurist: and to the theologian as much as to either.

THE YOUTH'S NEW VADE-MECUM.

TO THE EDITOR OF BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY.

Sir,--In submitting for your inspection, the poem which I now do myself the honour of forwarding to you, permit me to intimate to you the origin of its composition, and to indulge in one or two remarks.

The author is a particular friend of my own; a gentleman who, marrying at a rather advanced stage in the journey of life, was unexpectedly and agreeably presented with a small earnest of posterity in the shape of a son. Parental feelings, like many other good things, are better late than never; and it has often struck me that such feelings are much stronger, considerably more fervent, and, indeed, a great deal better when they do come late. Methinks the love of grandfather, grandmother, uncle, great-aunt, and a whole _kit_ of cousins, is blended in the sexagenarian sire. It will be perceived, from the affecting apostrophe or invocation, that my friend commenced his poem with praiseworthy promptitude; and I do hope that its success will be more than commensurate with his expectations. The youth is now half-past six, in the morning of existence. I have, once only, had the pleasure of meeting him. He entered his father's study somewhat abruptly, mounted on a timber steed, which, I am advised, he is already perfectly able to manage; and, immediately he opened his mouth, with a raspberry-jam border to it, I perceived that he would, at no distant day, become not only a worthy member, but an undoubted ornament, of society. But this is from my present purpose.

Your Miscellany, sir, professes to furnish materials for the amusement and delight of the community; and hitherto you have acted up to your professions. But were it not as well, allow me to suggest, that you should combine instruction with amusement,--that you should clear the heart as well as purify the liver--that you should attend to the mind at the same time that you tickle the midriff? You must confess, when I remind you of it, that the rising generation has strong claims upon you, which I am sure you will be anxious, and indeed most happy, to allow. The Youth's New Vade-Mecum, then, is a compendious manual of instruction, which cannot fail of becoming permanently serviceable and efficient. Similar although I allow it to be, in many respects, to certain "Guides to Youth" and "Young Man's Best Companions" which have been published, yet I cannot but think that the precision with which the precepts are laid down in it, and the judicious manner in which they are conveyed, must cause it very shortly to supersede all other works of the same nature.

I enclose for your gratification the real name of the author, and I grant you the discretionary power of whispering it to any grateful parent (there may be many such) who would fain make the acquaintance and cultivate the friendship of their benefactor: and I have the honour to be, sir, Your obedient, humble servant, CHARLES WHITEHEAD.

THE YOUTH'S NEW VADE-MECUM.

My son, whose infant head I now survey,
Guiltless of hair, whilst mine, alas! is grey,--
Whose feeble wailings through my bosom thrill,
And cause my heart to shake my very frill,--
Incline thine ear, quick summon all thy thought,
And take this wisdom which my love has brought:
Perpend these precepts; sift, compare, combine;
And be my brain's results transferr'd to thine.

Soon as thy judgment shall grow ripe and strong,
Learn to distinguish between right and wrong:
Yet ponder with deliberation slow,
Whether thy judgment be yet ripe or no;
For wrong, when look'd at in a different light,
Behold! is oft discovered to be right,
And _vice versâ_--(such the schoolmen's phrase)--
Right becomes wrong, so devious Reason's maze!

Take only the best authors' mental food,
For too much reading is by no means good;
And, since opinions are not all correct,
Thy books thyself must for thyself select.

Accumulate ideas: yet despise
Reputed wisdom,--folly oft is wise;
And wisdom, if the mass be not kept cool,
Mothers, and is the father of, a fool.

Be virtuous and be happy: good! but, stop,--
They sow the seed who never reap the crop;
For virtue oft, which men so much exact,
Like ancient china, is more precious crack'd;
And happiness, forsooth, not over-nice,
Sometimes enjoys a pot and pipe with vice.

Get rich; 'tis well for mind and body's health:
But never, never be the slave of wealth.
The gain of riches is the spirit's loss;
And, oh! my son, remember gold is dross.

Be honest,--not as fools or bigots rave;
Your honest man is often half a knave.
Let Justice guide you; but still bear in mind
The goddess may mislead,--for she is blind.

Hygeia's dictates let me now declare,
For health must be your most especial care.
Rise early, but beware the matin chill;
'Tis fresh, but fatal,--healthy, but may kill:
Nor leave thy couch, nor break the bonds of sleep,
Till morning's beams from out the ocean leap;
Lest, crawling, groping, stumbling on the stair,
Your head descend, your heels aspire in air;
As down the flight your body swiftly steals,
Useless to know your head has sav'd your heels,
Prone on your face with dislocated neck,
You find that slumber which you sought to check.

Early to bed, but not till nature call.
Be moderate at meals, nor drink at all,
Save when with friends you toast the faithful lass,
And raise the sparkling, oft-repeated glass;
Then, graver cares and worthless scruples sunk,
Drink with the best, my son,--but ne'er get drunk.

Bathe in cold water: cautious, and yet bold,
Dive,--but the water must not be _too_ cold:
And still take care lest, as you gaily swim,
Cramp should distort and dislocate each limb.
When such the case, howe'er thy fancy urge,
Postpone the bracing pastime, and emerge.
Dangers on land as well as water teem,
But now the bank is safer than the stream.

Say you should chance be ill (for, after all,
Men are but men on this terrestrial ball);
Should sickness with her frightful train invade,
Lose not a moment, but apply for aid.--
Yet fancy oft, imagined symptoms sees,
And nervous megrim simulates disease.--
Lo! at our call--the cry of coward fear--
A chemist and a cane-sucker appear:
The one, tough roots from earth's intestines dug,
Pounds with strong arm, dissolves the nauseous drug;
The other, gazing with a portentous air,
Surveys the foolish tongue that call'd him there;
To dulcet tones that breath deceptive calm,
Your cash expires in his diurnal palm,
And, sick of physic you were forced to swill,
Long-labell'd phials indicate the bill.

As learning's bridge progresses arch by arch,
So men, by gradual intellectual march,
From savages to citizens advance.--
Then gentlemen are taught to fence and dance;
Whilst gay professors, with imposing show,
Present the violin, and hand the bow.

Dance gracefully, and move with perfect ease,
Nor bend, nor keep inflexible, the knees;
Crawl not, nor with your head the ceiling touch--
That were to move too little; this too much.

When first to Music's study you would come,
In, and like charity, begin at home:
For links of harmony you weave in vain,
Whene'er you outrage ears you should enchain.
Some have I known, with their vile sharps and flats,
Whose fatal cat-gut wrought the death of cats;
Yea, a swift doom the very strings provide,
Their disembowell'd feline sires supplied!

Fencing's a noble exercise; but thence
Flow dangers, may be told without offence.
Still scrutinize, at your gymnastic toil,
The button of your adversary's foil,
Lest you strike off, at active _carte_ and _tierce_,
That useful stay to tools which else will pierce;
And all too late you feel, consign'd to Styx,
Your life not worth the button you unfix.

Swift let me call you to the sylvan grove,
Where nightingales and blackbirds sing of love.
Should love assail you, as it will, no doubt,
Nor rudely fan the flame, nor blow it out:
Sometimes, when smother'd, it the stronger grows;
And sometimes, when you stir it, out it goes.
Close in your breast a heart for beauty keep,
Yet ne'er imagine beauty but skin-deep:
Beauty is oft--a fact we must deplore--
As deep as Garrick, and a great deal more.

Let not your choice too short or tall appear,
No hole her mouth, or slit from ear to ear;
And, though 'tis well in daily life to greet
The man who struggles to make both ends meet,
Yet sure the task can no great triumph win,
Accomplish'd by a lady's nose and chin.
Yet I, perchance, my pen and paper waste;
These the exactions of an erring taste.

But let your wife be modest, and yet free;
Coy, but not bashful; active as the bee;
And yet unlike that bee of busy wing,
That "proffers honey, and yet bears a sting;"
Not sad, but thoughtful; pensive, but not glum;
Grave without gloom; and silent, but not dumb;
Merry when mirth's in season, and yet sad
When nought akin to pleasure's to be had.
In all that you possess still let her share,
Yet wear no vestments you yourself should wear.

And for yourself,--since now must I conclude,--
Be courteous, yet close; and plain, not rude;
Open, but strict; and though reserv'd, yet frank;
Treat all alike, yet pay respect to rank;
Be dubious, e'en when reason would entice,
And ne'er take unsolicited advice.
So may my precepts sink into thy mind,
And make the wisdom which thou canst not find;
Until at length, so vast thy mental height,
The world, beholding thee, shall take a sight;
And men, in want of words to set thee higher,
Shall with one voice cry "Walker!" and retire.

A VISIT TO THE MADRIGAL SOCIETY.

Everybody has heard of madrigals, and almost everybody has heard of the Madrigal Society; but everybody does not know what madrigals are, and almost everybody has _not_ dined with the Madrigal Society. Not that that ancient and respectable body is an exclusive one,--keeping its good dinners for its own private eating, and its good music for its own private hearing: its freemasonry is extemporaneous, and a visitor is as welcome to the whole fraternity as to the individual who may introduce him.

The Madrigal Society is the very Royal Exchange of musical enthusiasm and good-fellowship, and certainly bears the palm away from its "_fratelli rivali_." Its component parts are better amalgamated, and the individuals composing them, appear to derive more thorough enjoyment from their attendance, than in any other unions we have seen of the same genus.

For example, at one (which shall be nameless) there is a line of demarcation between the professional and non-professional members; another is so numerous, that it is broken into fifty coteries, as in the boxes of a chop-house; and another enthusiastic little knot of vocal harmonists is so strongly impressed with the sense of one another's capabilities, that the speechifying, and toasting, and returning thanks take up a vast deal more time then the music.

Which of the thousand and one suggested _derivations_ of the _name_ madrigal is the right one, is a question upon which we most humbly beg to decline entering. Whether it owe its origin to some particular feature in the words to which all secular _part music_ was set at an early period; or whether, as some impertinent commentator has suggested, it be a compound of two English words, "_mad_" and "wriggle,"--the one having reference to the ecstatic state into which the listeners were thrown by their first performance, the other to ----. But we dismiss this as unworthy our consideration, and cut the question altogether.

A madrigal may, we think, be best defined as a composition in general set to a quaint little poem on some amatory or pastoral subject, with parts for a number of voices; the majority being for four or five. An unceasing flow of these parts, a kind of "push-on-keep-moving" principle, appears one of its strongest characteristics; one voice taking up the strain ere another lays it down,--seldom moving in _masses_ or "_plain-song_" and with perhaps only one or two "_closes_" (sometimes none) until the end. In the conduct of all this, a very peculiar style of harmony is used. They are one and all imbued with a quaintness, which all who have heard madrigals must have felt, and could at once recognise; but which it is quite impossible to define in anything less than a treatise, six volumes quarto at the least,--a task upon which at present we have not the smallest intention of setting to work.

So much for a definition: now for a test. The best confirmation of the genuineness of a madrigal is, the fact of its _bearing the weight of a great body of voices_; that is to say, instead of its producing its proper effect, each part being sung (as in a glee) by one voice, the number of singers may be increased to any extent. And this, after all, is the true touchstone of first-rate choral writing. The "Creation" of Haydn, and "The Last Judgment" of Spohr, unquestionably produce their best effect in an orchestra of moderate proportions; but to a chorus of Handel, or a madrigal of Gibbons, perfect justice could only be done by a body of singers that would fill St. Paul's, or cover Salisbury Plain.

We have dined. The cloth vanishes,--there is a pause,--the party simultaneously rise from their chairs,--the waiters at last (thanks to a long course of training, mental and bodily,) show signs of standing still for the next five minutes,--perfect silence pervades the room,--when lo! a gentle murmur of high voices steals upon the ear,--the strain is quickly imitated a few notes lower,--the basses massively close up the harmonious phalanx, and we recognise the imperishable "Non nobis, Domine."

Sobered, not saddened, by the noblest of canons,--the most melodious of those ingenious complexities,--a movement takes place among the party. Do not suppose that the _singers_ are going to the bottom of the table, for in that case _nobody_ would be left at the top; or, _vice versâ_, to the top, for then the bottom would be deserted. You find your neighbour to the right, has migrated to the other end of the room, and your _vis-à-vis_ has established himself in his place. After being duly puzzled by so unexpected a move, it appears that, unlike other convivial assemblages, the order of precedency is observed here _after_, instead of _before_ dinner; and that you must shift your position according to your register, not of birth or baptism, but voice. "Order is Heaven's first law," and the high and low characters around you, class themselves accordingly, into altos, tenors, and basses.

This little preparatory bustle over, and everybody again seated, there is a brief pause, which we devote to speculations,--not on the character of our new right-hand man (above mentioned),--not on the contents of the minute-book which the president spreads open before him,--nor on the pile of tomes which almost exclude the bodily presence of the vice,--nor on the gentleman who is going to propose a new member,--but on the "_dints_" in the table before us. The tops of all tables at all taverns are, and have been from time immemorial, remarkable for an infinite number of indentations varying in size and conformation. This peculiarity is not indigenous to the aforesaid tables; they are supposed, at some distant period of their existence, to have had faces as unruffled as others of their kind; but the eternal succession of thumps from glasses, plates, knives and forks, approbatory of speech, sentiment, or song, furrows their physiognomy with deep, ineffaceable lines,--albeit neither of study, thought, nor sorrow.

The time has gone by for the autobiography of guineas, lap-dogs, sofas, and sedan-chairs; birds and beasts no longer sport their apophthegms to human ears; even the pot and kettle have done calling one another names; "The Confessions of a Dinner-table, written by himself," would stand no chance now; a second edition of the life of Mendoza would be as little likely to take the town. Dinner-tables, like boxers, must count their bruises in silence. Yon deeply-indented furrow, over which our wine is absolutely tottering, is evidently a _memento_ of the days when the feet were regularly knocked off the wine-glasses, and they, like their holders later in the evening, lost their power of standing alone; when _daylight_ unendurable and _heel-taps_ impossible. No hand lacking the zeal of political excitement could have inflicted so uncompromising a gash as the one near it. Bees'-wax and turpentine have somewhat softened the sharpness of its outline; but its existence is identified with that of the table itself. And that succession of little "_dibbs_," evidently by the same hand,--what are they, but an unceasing monument to some by-gone beau, who thus tattooed his approval of the best of all possible toasts,--"The Ladies!"

But our speculations are leading us astray; more especially as the music-desks are before us, the books upon them, and "the boys" arrived. And hark! the pitch-pipe--none of your whipper-snapper German Æolians or waistcoat-pocket tuning-forks, but the veritable pitch-pipe which has been in use since the year 1740--sounds the note of preparation, and the order of the day begins in real earnest.

The Madrigal Society does not, as its name would seem to imply, confine itself exclusively to compositions which come under the designation of madrigal. The motett and the ballet, which are variations of the some genus, come in for a share of its notice.

On referring to the book before us, for the number just given out by the conductor, we find--a motett, Dr. Christopher Tye. The baton falls, and we launch into the unexplored ocean of song before us. What breadth in the harmonies! What stateliness in the progression of the parts!--and what a depth of feeling under the incrustation of these crabbed old modulations!

And now for a madrigal. Will it be "Lady, thine eye," or "Cynthia, thy song," or "Sweet honey-sucking bees?"--No: as we live, it is "Die not, fond man!"--the noblest of them all.

And now, another motett; and now--but stay! here is something unusual. The vice looks to the chair--the chair looks to the vice. The vice, like the sun over a mountain, shows his head above the wall of books before him, and prepares to make a speech. "Gentlemen, I beg to call your attention--" But we have forgotten the form, so we'll give the substance of his observations, which go to prove that he has received a madrigal, according to the rules of the society,--that is, anonymously,--which he has looked over, and deems worthy of a trial. The parts, which are of course not in the book, are distributed, and much good-natured speculation is afloat; for the madrigalians, though conservatives, are not exclusives. We begin:--there is a stoppage at the onset,--something was wrong in the parts,--it is corrected, and we start once more;--the precipice is passed in safety. Still it does not "go." There is no good reason why it should not; and so it is tried again; is better understood, and "goes" accordingly. A sealed paper is delivered to the chairman, who opens it with much solemnity, and announces the name of the composer, casting a most significant glance on an individual at one corner of the table, who, for the last quarter of an hour, has been engaged in the most unpleasing of all sedentary pursuits,--sitting upon thorns. We drink his health; the individual rises, and for upwards of a minute and some seconds, is supposed to occupy himself in making some observations germane to the present subject, but which, from his state of nervous trepidation, are quite inaudible.

The books are again in requisition. We draw on firms of centuries' standing, and our checks are duly honoured. The stately motett, the graceful madrigal, and the sprightly ballet alternate in rapid succession. What a contrast does this enthusiastic coterie present to the listless audience of the concert-room or opera! No mob of apathetical time-killers is here; but true and constant lovers of the divine art, joining "with heart and voice" in strains to them as fresh and beautiful as they were two hundred years ago!

Oh! how we might gossip about and speculate upon the old fellows who treasured up for us this legacy of fine things. Talk of love for their art!----think of Luca Marenjio, who wrote a thousand madrigals; and Dr. Tye, who set to music the whole of "The Acts of the Apostles!"

The human voice is the noblest of all instruments. In the madrigal it finds an exercise worthy of its powers. Music, as developed through the medium of the voice, assumes a far more elevated and poetical form than it ever presents through instrumental performance even of the very highest character. Music is less essentially _music_, coming through throats of flesh and blood than throats of wood or metal; but it is something infinitely finer,--the unchecked emanation of the human heart,--the current fresh from the well-springs of all that is good and beautiful in man's nature.

The changeableness of fashion, the perishability of all instrumental music, is of itself sufficient evidence of this. Five-and-twenty years ago, the works of Pleyel were the delight of every musical coterie in Europe; now, there is not one amateur in fifty who ever heard a bar of his music. And as for the cart-loads of sonatas, gigues, pasacailles, serenatas, follias, fugues, concertantes, and "jewells" of Dr. Bull, Paradies, Scarlatti, Geminiani,--yes, even Handel and Mozart themselves!--they are regarded in about the same light as an Egyptian papyrus, or a loaf of bread from Herculaneum.

It is difficult indeed to conceive "The Jupiter Symphony," or the "Sonate Pathétique," food for the virtuoso; but assuredly "Dove sono," "The Hallelujah Chorus," and "St. Patrick's Day," are as imperishable as expression, grandeur, and sunshine themselves.

Sounds are the _body_ of music, to which the voice gives immortality and a _soul_. To put the voice on the same level as an instrument, is to pit matter against mind,--"man against cat-gut."

There is a sense of personal enjoyment connected, too, with pure vocal music performed in this manner, which it is quite impossible to find in the theatre or concert-room. Our thoughts there, are perpetually brought back to some technical matter, and our imagination curbed by the audience, some individual association with the singers, or the "mise de théâtre;" but here, sitting at our ease around the table, with our "_part_" before us, joining in the harmony or not, as we please,--our only care that the madrigal shall _go_ well, our only interruption a glance now and then at the enthusiastic faces around us,--we feel truly "the power of sound," and that our pleasure is without alloy.

Hold! there is a slight drawback on our pleasure,--perfection is not to be found even in the Madrigal Society. Where are the ladies? Oh, Madrigalians! with what countenance can ye, month after month, and year after year, continue singing Fair Oriana's praise, and bewailing the cruelty of your Phillises, and Cynthias, and "Nymph of Diana," when you thus close up the fountain of all your inspirations? Is your by-law, forbidding all speechifying, a tacit confession of fear lest some gallant visitor, fired with your own sweet songs, should spring on his legs and propose "The Ladies"? Is this the reason why ye only drink "The King," "The Queen," and--your noble selves? Shame on ye!--where are the ladies?

The truth must be spoken at all times. Old as the world is, it is not yet quite steady enough to "chaperon" the fair sex to meetings like those of the Madrigal Society. True; we have pretty well got rid of the six-bottle men, and gentlemen have ceased to return home in wheel-barrows: still something more must be done ere the most courteous of chairmen can with propriety propose a new member with a soprano voice, or the most zealous of secretaries second him.

To do our friends justice, they have made a step in this matter. At the annual festival, where the madrigals put on all their splendour, the ladies _are_ admitted; but, alas! they are perched up in a gallery "all by themselves." And even this bird's-eye view of gentlemen eating and drinking, comes, like "the grotto," only once a-year.

But these knotty points should be agitated before dinner. Let us turn to our books once again,--sing "The Waits,"--"One fa la more,"--and then "Good-night!"

LOVE AND POVERTY.

Little Cupid, one day, being wearied with play,
Or weary of nothing to do,
Exclaimed with a sigh, "Now why should not I
Go shoot for a minute or two?"
Then snatching his bow, tho' Venus cried "No,"
(Oh! Love is a mischievous boy!)
He set up a mark, in the midst of a park,
And began his nice sport to enjoy.
Each arrow he shot--I cannot tell what
Was the reason--fell short by a yard,
Save one with gold head, which far better sped,
And pierced thro' the heart of the card.

MORAL.
My story discovers this lesson to lovers:
They will meet a reception but cold,
And endeavour in vain Beauty's smiles to obtain,
Unless Love tip his arrows with gold.

REFLECTIONS IN A HORSE-POND.

TIME--NIGHT.