Chapter X: Letter III: Spirits, Goblins, Ghosts (6)

Foolish Catullus--trifling ever--
Dismiss so fruitless an endeavour;
Let by-gone days be days by-gone,
Though fine enough some days have shone,--
When if _she_ but held up her finger
Whom you so loved--and still you linger,
Nor dare to part with--you observant,
Were at her beck her humble servant;
Follow'd her here and there: and did
Such things! which she would not forbid--
Love's follies, without stint or doubt:
Oh! then your days shone finely out.
But now 'tis quite another thing,--
She likes not your philandering:
And you yourself! But be it over--
Act not again the silly lover--
But let her go--be hard as stone;
So let her go--and go alone.
Adieu, sweet lady! 'Tis in vain!
Catullus is himself again--
Will neither love, want, nor require,
But gives you up as you desire.
Wretch! you will grieve for this full sore,
When lovers come to you no more.
For think you, false one, to what pass,
Your wretched days will come? Alas!
No beauty yours--not one to say
How beautiful she looks to-day!
Whom will you have to love--to hear
Yourself called by _his_ name, _his_ dear?
Whom will you have to kiss,--be kiss'd
And bind your names, in true-love twist?
Whose lips to bite so?--yes--to bite.}
--Catullus, spare thy love or spite:}
Be firm as rock--or conquered quite.}

CURATE.--I protest against this as a translation. He has indeed, as he professed, brought his puppet Catullus upon the stage, and, like Shakspeare's bad actor, has put more words in his mouth than the author bargained for. The very last words are quite contradicted by the text. Catullus does not hint at the possibility of being conquered, of giving in.

GRATIAN.--Oh! that, is always implied in these cases. Besides Catullus evidently doubts, or he would not have so enforced the caution; "At tu, Catulle"--the translation may be a little free, but still admissible.

AQUILIUS.--My friend the Curate has committed the fault himself, if it be one: his "O Catullus, keep to this!" so evidently means, If you do not, it is all over with you.

GRATIAN.--Give me the book.--Oh!--I see we have next that very elegant and very affectionate welcome home to his friend Verannius, on his return from Spain, whither he had gone with Caius Piso. There is much heart in it, and true joy and gratulation. This is the sort of welcome that throws a sunshine upon the path of the days of human life. There is no trouble when friend greets friend. Have you translated this?

AQUILIUS.--I fear your commendation will resemble too rich a frame to a poor picture, and make all more dingy by the glow of the genuine gold.

But here I venture to offer, my translation:--the warmth of the original--the tenderness, is not perhaps in it:

AD VERANNIUM.

Sweet friend, Verannius, welcome home at last!
Had I a thousand friends, all were surpass'd
By my Verannius! Art thou _home_ return'd,
To thine own household gods, and hearts that yearn'd
To greet thee--brothers happy in one mind,
And thy dear mother, too,--all fond, all kind?
O happy, happy news! and now again
To see thee safe! and hear thee talk of Spain--
Its history, places, people, and array,
Telling of all in thy old pleasant way!
And shall I hold thee in a friend's embrace,
Gaze on thy mouth, and in thine eyes, and trace
The features of the well-remember'd face!
Oh, if one happiest man on earth there be,
Amongst the happy, I, dear friend, am he!

CURATE.--This Verannius, and his friend Fabullus, seem to have been upon the most intimate and familiar terms with our poet. Little presents, pledges of their mutual friendship, had doubtless been given and received. Catullus elsewhere complains against Marrucinus Asinius, that he had stolen a handkerchief, sent him out of Spain by Verannius and Fabullus.

AQUILIUS.--Have you not translated it?

CURATE.--No.

AQUILIUS.--I have, and will read it, after yours to Verannius: and it is curious as showing that the Romans had the practice of using handkerchiefs, or napkins, of value,--perhaps such a fashion as is now revived by the other sex,--and embroidered with lace.

GRATIAN.--Now, Mr Curate.--If you let our friend digress thus, we shall never have your version.

CURATE.--

AD VERANNIUM.

My friend, the dearest and the best,
E'en though ten thousand I possess'd!--
My own Verannius! art thou come
To greet again thy gods of home,
And brethren that so well agree
Together, and in loving thee--
And come to thy sweet mother, too?
O blessed news! and it is true,
That I shall see thee safe at last;
And hear thee tell thy travel pass'd--
Of Spanish places, things, and tribes,
(While every word my heart imbibes,)
In thine old way: shall I embrace
Thy neck--and kiss thy pleasant face?
Find me the happy where you can,
I still shall be the happiest man.

GRATIAN.--What are we to have next?

AQUILIUS.--An invitation to dinner, or, as the Romans made it, supper--and a curious invitation it is. Fabullus, to whom it was addressed, was companion to his friend Verannius--and both were with the pestilent Piso, in Spain.

CURATE.--And brought little out of it; but returned poorer than they went--as did, it should seem, Catullus himself from Bithynia. So that I should imagine the invitation to Fabullus was a mere jest upon their mutual poverty. For it does not appear that Fabullus was in a condition to indulge in luxuries.

AQUILIUS.--Perhaps, when the invitation was sent, Catullus was not aware that his friend had been as unsuccessful, under Piso, as he had himself been, under Memmius. Thus stands the invitation:--

AD FABULLUM.

A few days hence, my dear Fabullus,
If the gods grant you that high favour,
You shall sup well with your Catullus;
For, to ensure the dishes' savour,
Yourself shall cater, and shall cull us
Best fruits--and wines of choicest flavour.
And with you bring your lass--fun--laughter--
All plenty: nor confine your wishes
To supernumerary dishes;--
Bring all--and pay the piper after.
Rich be your fare--and all fruition,
Taste, elegance, and sweet discourses
Familiar, on that one condition.
For, truth to tell, my wretched purse is
In its last stage of inanition,
And not a single coin disburses:
A cobweb's over it, and in it--
That Spider Want there loves to spin it.

Setting aside this lack of coffer,
Which you can supply, Fabullus,
Accept good welcome--and I offer,
For company, your friend Catullus.
Yet, though so hard my purse's case is,
With such rare unguents I'll present you,
Compounded by the Loves and Graces
For my dear girl, that you shall scent you
With perfume more divine than roses;
And after, pray the gods, within you,
To change sense, nerve, bone, muscle, sinew,
And make you all compact of noses.

CURATE.--There you are again bolting out of the course. Sending poor Fabullus to market, without money in his purse,--not a word in the original of fruit-culling and "paying the piper."

AQUILIUS.--If Gratian had not the book in his hand, I would boldly assert that it is all there. He will admit it is the entire meaning.

CURATE.--With the elegant diction, "paying the piper," indeed! "Haec si, inquam, attuleris, venuste noster."

GRATIAN.--Well, I almost think "venuste noster," "my good fellow," or "my pleasant fellow," will allow the freedom of the translation, for it is a free and easy appellative. Come, then, Curate, let us have your accurate version.

CURATE.--Perhaps you may think, when you hear it, that I am in the same predicament of blame with Aquilius, and that my criticism was a ruse, to divide the censure pretty equally.

AD FABULLUM.

Fabullus, if the gods will let you,
Before a table I will set you,
A few days hence, with welcome hearty,
To my domestic dinner-party.
That is to say--you bring the food,
(Which must be plentiful and good,)
With wine--remembering, I presume,
For one fair girl I've always room.
On these conditions you shall dine
Luxurious, boon-companion mine.
Seeing that your Catullus' purse
Has nought but cobwebs left to nurse,
I can but give you in return
The loves that undiluted burn;
And, something sweeter, neater still--
A scented unguent I'll impart,
Which Venus and her Loves distil
To please the girl that owns my heart:
Which when you smell, this boon--this solely
You'll ask the gods to recompose;
And metamorphose you, and wholly,
To one extensive Roman nose.

AQUILIUS.--What nose would a Roman wish to have? I object to Roman, though it is not a bad one for the purpose. The metamorphosed would certainly have a ballad written on him and sung about the streets. Write it, and call him "The Man-mountain, or real and undoubted Promontory of Noses."

GRATIAN.--It should seem they were like enough to feast--like their gods they so irreverently prayed to--on the smell and the smoke only; so they needed good noses and bad appetites. There is something a little abrupt in the latter part, which I doubt if I like: the Loves and Graces should not be made parties to the making of such a monster; and as _monster_ is now-a-days all adopted adjective, follow the fashion of speech, and call it "One extensive Monster-Nose."--Well, what next?

AQUILIUS.--A little piece of extravagant badinage. It seems Calvus Licinius had sent Catullus a collection of miserable poems, and that, too, on commencement of the Saturnalia, dedicated to joy, and freedom from care and annoyance. Our author writes to complain of the malicious present. There is some force, and a fair fling of contempt at the bad poets of the day in it.

AD CALVUM LICINIUM, ORATOREM.

Now if I loved you less, my friend,
Facetious Calvus, than these eyes,
You merit hatred in such wise
As men Vatinius hate. To send
Such stuff to me! Have I been rash
In word or deed? The gods forfend!
That you should kill me with such trash,
Of vile and deleterious verse--
Volumes on volumes without end,
Of ignominious poets, worse
Than their own works. May gods be pliant,
And grant me this: that poison--pest
Light on 'em all, and on that client
Who sent 'em you; and you in jest
Transfer them, odious, and mephitic,
And execrable. I suspect 'em
Sent you by that grammarian critic,
Sulla. If so, and you have lost
No precious labour to collect 'em,
'Tis well indeed; and little cost
To you, with malice aforethought,
To send (and with intent to kill him,
And on this blessed day, when nought
But Saturnalian joys should fill him)
Your friend Catullus such a set
Of murderous authors; but the debt
I'll pay, be even with you yet--
For no perfidious friend I spare.
At early dawn, ere the sun shine, I
Will rise, and ransack shop and stall,
Collect your Caesii and Aquini,
And that Suffenus: and with care
And diligence, will have all sent
To you, for a like punishment.
Hence, poets! with your jingling chimes:
Hence, miserables! halt and lame;
Be off, ye troublers of our times!
I send you packing whence ye came.

GRATIAN.--Kicking about the volumes, doubtless, as the "Friend of Humanity" did the "Needy Knife-grinder."

CURATE.--I did not translate that--for I thought the authors might easily have been burned for writing bad verses (no hint to you, Aquilius; nothing personal); and that Calvus Licinius, having that remedy, need not have written about them. And I confess I don't see much in what he has written. This Suffenus, however, was no fool, but a man of wit and sense.

AQUILIUS.--Yes,--and Catullus writes to Varrus specially about him. I have translated that too. Here it is:--

AD VARRUM.

This man Suffenus, whom you know,
Varrus, is not without some show
Of parts, and gift of speech befitting
A man of sense. Yet he mistakes
His talents wondrously, and makes
His thousand verses at a sitting.
And troth, he makes them _look_ their best:
For, not content with palimpsest,
He has them writ on royal vellum,
Emboss'd and gilded, rubb'd and polish'd:
But read 'em, and you wish abolish'd
The privilege to make or sell 'em.
You read them, and the man is quite
Another man: no more polite--
No more "the man about the town,"
But metamorphosed to a clown--
Milker of goats, a hedger, digger,
So thoroughly is changed his figure,
So quite unlike himself. 'Tis odd,
Most strange, the man for wit so noted,
Whose repartees so much were quoted,
Is changed into a very clod!
And stranger still--he never seems
Quite to himself to be himself,
As when of poetry he dreams,
And writes and writes, and fills his reams
With poems destined for the shelf.
We are deceived--in this twin-brothers
All. There's one vanity between us,
And our self-knowledge stands to screen us
From our true portraits. Knowing others,
We ticket each man with his vice;
And find, most accurately nice,
In all a something of Suffenus.
Thus every man one knowledge lacks;
Our error is--we read the score
Of each man as he walks before,
And bear our tickets at our backs.

GRATIAN.--True, indeed--as old fables mostly are. There is in them the depth of wisdom acquired by experience.

CURATE.--I fear experience alone won't do much. It seems thrown away upon most people. They continue follies to the end. I suppose Cicero thought himself a poet; though it may be doubted if he wrote the line as Juvenal gives it,

"O fortunatam natam me consule Romam."

Perhaps most men's natural common sense has a less wide range than they think. For there are some things obvious to all besides, that the wisest cannot see.

AQUILIUS.--Cicero was less likely to see any defect in himself than most men. He had consummate vanity--which must have led him into many a ridiculous position. But there were no Boswells in those days. I never could understand how it is that so great an admiration of Cicero has come over mankind. Even in language he has had an evil influence; and our literature for a long period was tainted with it. Sensible himself, he taught the art of writing fluently without sense. The flow and period--the _esse videatur_--a style too common with us less than half a century ago--you might read page after page, and pause to wonder what you had been reading about. The upper current of the book did not disturb the under current of your own thoughts, perhaps aided by the lulling music.

CURATE.--The vanity of Cicero was too manifest. It is a pity, for the sake of his reputation, that the letter to his friend, in which he requested him to write his life, is extant. To tell him plainly that it is the duty of a friend to exaggerate his virtues, is a mean vanity--unworthy such a man.

GRATIAN.--Come, come! let him rest; our business is with Catullus. Curate, let us have your translation.

CURATE.--I pass by the account of Suffenus, as well as some other pieces, and come to that very short one in which he complains of the mortgage which is on his villa. It is a wretched pun on the word "opponere," and was scarcely worth translating;--take it, however:

AD FURIUM.

You, Furius, ask against what wind
My little villa stands--
If Auster, or Favonius kind
Who comes o'er western lands,
Or cruel Boreas, or that one
That rises with the morning sun?

Alas--it stands against a breeze
Which beats against the door,
Of fifteen thousand sesterces,
And twice a hundred more.
I challenge you on earth to find
So foul and pestilent a wind.

AQUILIUS.--What! do you look for a wind _on_ earth,--it blows over it; and catch it who can.

GRATIAN.--It blows every where. The worst I know is that which blows down the chimney. And that reminds me to tell you what a town-bred chimney-sweeper said, the other day, to a friend of mine, in the valley yonder, who wanted to have a smoky chimney cured. My friend inquired if he could teach it not to smoke. "How can I tell?" said he, "I must take out a brick first and look into his _intellects_."

CURATE.--Not the march--but the sweep of intellect spoke there.

AQUILIUS.--And spoke not amiss; it was merely to see if he _had a mind_ to be cured.

GRATIAN.--Perhaps you have translated that sweep's language better than your passages from Catullus.

AQUILIUS.--I did not attempt to translate that little piece,--but ran quite out of course, as the Curate would tell me, in a long paraphrase. The idea is, however, furnished by Catullus,--so I dedicate it

AD FURIUM.

You ask me if my villa lies
Exposed to north, east, west, or south:
I answer,--every wind that flies,
Flies at it, and with open mouth.

From every quarter winds assail,
But that which comes from _quarter_-day,
Though it four times a-year prevail,
It does but whistle, and not pay.

Some blow from far, and some hard by;
One, mortgage-wind, takes shortest journey,
Only across the way from Sly,
And blasts with "power of attorney."

But what is worse than windy racks is,
My windows leak at every pane,
And are not tight 'gainst rates and taxes.
My roof and doors _let_ in the rain--

The only _let_ my villa knows.
So that with taxes, wind, and wet,
From whatsoever point it blows,
My house is blown upon _unlet_.

Now, I hope my friend the Curate will admit so far to be rather a lengthy translation. I say nothing of addenda--thus:--

"Winds blow, and crack your cheeks,"--alack,
Who said it, wanted house and halls,
Nor knew winds have no cheeks to crack,
In short crack nothing but my walls.

My friends console--"the winds will drop:"
'Tis equal trouble to my mind;
For if it tumbles on the top,
You know I cannot _raise the wind_.

To sum up all--for its location;--
The question's of importance vital;--
In Chancery--wretched situation;
A rascal there disputes my title.

CURATE.--You are coming it pretty strong, and quite blowing up Catullus with your hurricane of winds. After all the household miseries in your lines, a cheering glass may set things to rights a little. Here, then, is what he says to his wine-server:--

AD PUERUM.

Boy, that at my drinking-bout
Servest old Falernian out,
Fill me faster cups, and quicker,
With the spirit-stirring liquor.
So Posthumia's law doth say,--
Mistress of the feast to-day;
She more vinous than the grape.
Springs of water--bane of wine--
Where ye please for me and mine,
Avaunt, begone, escape!
Emigrate to men demure.
My bumper is Thyonian pure.

GRATIAN.--I am afraid, Curate, that if you were to take what you please to call "the cheering glass," such as the jade Posthumia would recommend, we should have to put you to bed pretty early. It was the custom, it should seem, of the ancients to make a throw of the dice to determine the arbiter of the feast--to appoint the drinking. Who threw _Venus_ (three sixes) was the _magister_; but the _magistra_ is a novelty; a "Venus Ebria," whose drinking law would throw all; for "wine is a wrestler, and a shrewd one too." Doesn't Shakspeare say so? Now for your version, Aquilius.

AQUILIUS.--Curate will say, I am not so close to the original. But, on such a subject, we may be allowed to walk not quite straight;--a little zig-zaggy. Spite the coming criticism I venture:--

AD PUERUM SUUM,

(To his Wine-server.)

Pour me out, boy, the generous juice.
The racy, true, the old Falernus;
Such wines as, to Posthumia's thinking,
Are only fit for mortals' use;
When in her glory, drunk, and winking,
The dame would quaff, and wisely learn us
The good old simple law of drinking.

But water shun;--Hence, waters! go,
E'en as ye will, to chill Avernus,
Or whereso'er ye please to flow;--
Be drink for all the dull, the slow,
The sad, the serious, the phlegmatic;
But leave this juice, this pure stomachic,
Its own, its unadulterate glow;--
This--this alone is genuine Bacchic!

GRATIAN.--Well, then, that must be our parting cup for the night, and a pretty good "_night-cap_" it is. I was afraid, Aquilius, when you came to the "phlegmatic" you would rhyme it to "rheumatic," and so on to the "water-cure." You know that is recommended in rheumatic cases; but perhaps you don't know that I tried it. I had the water-drinking, the wet sheets, and all the rest of it.

AQUILIUS.--And are here to tell of it!

GRATIAN.--Yes, and return to the old _tap_, (tapping his thigh and leg pretty smartly;) and I suppose I must _stick_ to it.

CURATE.--A medical friend told me the other day of a discussion upon this subject, which I thought very amusing, as he narrated it remarkably well, imitating the tones and dialect (Somersetshire) of at least one of the speakers. He had some years before attended an old man in the country--a farmer well to do in the world--a man of very strong natural understanding, but entirely uneducated. He had lost sight of him for some years, when, not long since, he was sent for to the old farm-house. Instead of the old stone floor, there was a carpet laid down, and an air of smartness over every thing, which he had never seen before. It turned out, that the old man's daughter had married: a smartish man, the husband, was in the room, and to show his general knowledge of things, and acquaintance with the world, he advocated the water-cure, and questioned my medical friend as to his opinion. A voice from the chimney-corner (the settle in it) cried out, "It ain't na'tral." My friend had not before seen the old man, he was so retired into the recess. After having given his opinion to the bridegroom, he turned to his old acquaintance, and said "You remarked that it is not natural. What do you mean by _natural?_" "Why," replied the old man, "I do think, most dumb critturs knows what's good for 'em; and when a dog's sick doesn't he eat grass? If a sheep's ill, don't he lick chalk or salt if he can get it? And if a beast's ill," (I forget what he said was the cure for a beast);--"but did you ever see any of them go and lie down in the water, or fill themselves wi' it? There's plenty of it in ditches, and every where else, too, hereabouts. No, you never did." Then, looking up in the face of his orator son-in-law, he added, "And you don't know why you never see'd it, nor why they don't do it. No, I know you don't. Vy, I do--because they ha' got more zense." This was said with a kind of contempt which was quite a floorer to the new wiseacre.

GRATIAN.--Thanks for the story! now that is just the sense that I have acquired at some cost, and no cure; but I didn't get at it naturally as your old friend did. So now for sleep, and good-night.

The Curate and I did not part so soon. Time flew, and we seemed to shorten the night--"noctem vario sermone," as sayeth Virgil of poor Dido, who must have found the conversation considerably flag with the stupid AEneas.

"Noctem vario sermone _trahebat_--it was a sad _drag_. It must have become very tiresome, a little while before that, when ill-mannered Bitias drank up all the wine, and buried his face in the cup, "pleno se proluit auro." And they had been obliged to resort to singing, always the refuge from the visible awkwardness of _nothing to say_. And here I cannot but remark, Eusebius, what dull things their songs must have been on natural philosophy, sun, moon, and stars--songs, Virgil tells you, edited by the old Astronomer-general Atlas. But as this was before the foundation of Rome, they had not that variety for their selection, which was as much in fashion afterwards in Rome as Moore's Melodies in England, as we learn from Mr Macaulay, and his version and edition of the "Lays." They had no piccolo pianofortes in those days, or they would have had something lighter than the Lays, as the better after-supper Poet calls it--a

"Something more exquisite still."

But I am apparently, Eusebius, leaving the Curate to sleep or to meditate upon his own unhappy condition while I thus turn the current of my talk upon you. Unhappy condition, did I say? He seems to bear it wonderfully lightly; and once or twice, when the subject has been mentioned, indulged in an irreverend laugh. Now, I know you will ask how a laugh can be irreverend. Don't you know the world well enough, Eusebius, to know, that before a very great number of men, women, and children, a curate must not laugh, dare not laugh--blessed indeed, and divested of the wretched rags of humanity, if he _cannot_ laugh. None but a Bishop, or a Dean, who, in the eyes of the many, is a kind of extra-parochial nonentity, can really, in these times of severe reprobation for trifling peccadillos, afford to laugh; and they had better do it in private, and with aprons off--never before the Chapter, who all, themselves, laugh in private. Man, you know, is the only risible creature; but a Curate must begin to know, from the moment he has put on his surplice, that he is to discard at once, and for ever, this human and irreverend instinct. Had you lived in the triumphal days of the Puritans, what penalties would you not have had to undergo, what buffetings and duckings, ere you could finally have overcome your strong natural wicked propensity, and have sobered down, and riveted in iron gravity and moroseness those flexible, those mockingly flexible features of yours. As it is, in these days of "revival," you only meet with considerable contempt, and evil opinion, which, as it comes rather late upon you, comes as an amusing novelty and additional provocative. But you may be sure what you can afford to do, the Curate cannot. For the present, therefore, let his few indulgences that way be a secret. He will mend in time. For so it happens, that though the longer we live the more we have to laugh at, we lose considerably our power of laughing. And that--between ourselves be it said, Eusebius--is, I think, a strong proof of our deterioration. A man, to laugh well, must be an honest man--mind, I say _laugh_: when Shakspeare says

"A man may smile and smile,
And be a villain,"

he purposely says _smile_, in contradistinction to laugh. He cannot laugh and be a villain. A man cannot plot and laugh. A man may be much less innocent even when he thinks himself devout, than in his hour of merriment, when he assuredly has no guile; but a man may even pray with a selfish and a narrow mind, and his very prayers partake of his iniquity: no bad argument for a prescribed form. A man that laughs well is your half-made friend, Eusebius, from the moment you hear him. It is better to trust the ear than the eye in this matter--such a man is a man after your own heart. _After your own heart_, did I say, Eusebius? Words are the _ignes fatui_ to thoughts, and lead to strange vagaries--of which you have here a specimen; but these few words remind me to tell you an anecdote, in this lull of the _Horae Catullianae_, which I would on no account keep from you. And you will see at once in it a large history in the epitome and the very pith of a fable--such as AEsop's. But I assure you it is no fable, but the simple plain truth; and I will vouch for it, for I had it from the month of our friend S., the truest, honestest of men, who saw with his own eyes, and heard with his own ears, the persons and the sayings. S. was travelling some time ago, beyond the directions of railroads, in a coach. There were two companions--preachers as he found, self-dubb'd Reverends of some denomination or other, besides that reverend one of their own. Their conversation, as is usual with them, was professional, and they spoke of their brethren. In speaking of different preachers, one was mentioned, of whom one of the speakers said emphatically--"Now that's what I call a really good man--that's _a man after my own heart_--a man quite after my own heart!" The other said with rather doubtful and hesitating confirmation, "Ye-s." "You don't seem to think so highly of him as I do," said the first speaker. "Why," replied the doubter, "I can't say I do; you remember some time ago he _failed_, and certainly upon that occasion he behaved _very ill_ to, not to say _cheated_, his creditors." "Ah!" said the first commendator again, "that is very likely--I should have expected _that_ of him."--Henceforth, Eusebius, whenever I hear such a commendation, I shall look out for a map of the gentleman's heart who ventures upon this mode of expressing his admiration. Oh! what a world we live in! This is a fact which would have been immortal, because true and from nature, in the hands of Le Sage; and is worthy of a place in a page of a modern "Gil Blas."

And so all this digression has arisen from a laugh of the Curate's, to whom it is time to turn; or you will think we have been but bad company to each other. I will, however, end this passage with the remark, that a man may do a worse thing than laugh, and happy is he that can do a better.

The Curate and I, then, for the rest of the night conversed upon the affair of his, which so unaccountably was making no little stir in the place. The Curate told me, he was quite sure that his movements had been watched; for that only yesterday, as he was entering the gate of his friends, the family at Ashford, he saw Miffins's boy not far behind him on a poney; and he thinks he came out for the purpose of watching him, for he had scarcely reached the door, when he saw the lad ride hastily back. The Curate likewise confessed to me, that he did entertain some tender sentiments towards one of the inmates, Miss Lydia ----, that the family had lived much abroad, and that they had a French lady's-maid, whom on one or two occasions he had certainly seen in this township. You see the thread, Eusebius, which will draw out innumerable proofs for such a mind as Miffins's. Taking a paper out of his pocket, he said it was put into his hands as he was coming away, and he had not opened it. "Perhaps," said he, "it may throw some light on the affair, as it was given me by one who is, I know, on the all-important committee." He broke the seal, read, laughed immoderately for five minutes, and put it into my hands:--

"REV. SIR,--Wishing to do the handsome to you, and straightforward and downright honest part, the committee inform you that they have reported your misconduct to the Lord Bishop, and I am desired accordingly to send you a copy of their letter. By order of committee.--I am, sir,

"JAMES JONES."

Enclosed was the following, which these wiseacres had concocted--and I have no doubt it was their pride in the composition, and in the penmanship, which induced them to send the copy to the Curate.

"TO MY LORD, YOUR LORDSHIP THE BISHOP.

"We the undersigned, the respectable inhabitants parishioners, approach most dutifully our Bishop's worshipful Lordship. Hoping humbly that you will be pleased to dismiss our curate, who, we are credibly informed, and particularly by three exemplary and virtuous ladies, they having been cautioned against him by one who knows him well, and is a friend likewise to said ladies, and doing all the good kindness he can. We learn with sorrow, that our curate has confessed to unbecomingly behaviour, and that he has been seen even kissing. My Lord, our wives and daughters are not safe--we implore your Honour's Lordship to dismiss the curate, and take them under your protection and keeping: We are informed the curate has a foreign lady, not far from this, whom he almost daily visits--and a Papist, which is an offence to your Lordship, and the glorious Protestant cause, to which we are uniformly and respectfully attached, and to your worshipful Lordship very devoted--" here follow the names, headed by Matthew Miffins.

"And what steps do you intend to take?" said I.

"None whatever," said he.

"Let it wear itself out. I won't lengthen the existence of this scandal by the smallest patronage. I will not take it up, so it will die."

"But the Bishop?" said I.

"Is a man of sense," he replied, "and good feeling; so all is safe, in his hands."

We parted for the night.

The Curate called rather early the following morning, and we thought to have an hour over Catullus, and went to seek our host Gratian. We found him in his library in consultation with his factotum Jahn. He was eloquent on the salting, and not burning his weeds, on Dutch clover--"and mind, Jahn," said he, "every orchard should have a pig-stye: where pigs are kept, there apple-trees will thrive well, and bear well, if there be any fruit going:" and he moved his stick on the floor from habit, as if he were rubbing his pigs' backs; and then turning to us he said,--"Why, Jahn has been telling me strange things: Prateapace and Gadabout have gone over to the chapel--left the church; not there last Sunday. But I saw that Brazenstare there, trying, as she sat just before you, to put you, Mr Curate, out of countenance. Well, Jahn tells me that the Reverend the Cow-doctor preached last evening a stirring sermon on the occasion, and was very hot upon the impurities and idolatries of the 'Establishment.' And Jahn tells me they don't speak quite so well of me as they should; for when he plainly told Miffins in his own shop, that he was sure his master would not countenance any thing wrong, the impudent fellow only said, 'May be not; but he and his master might not be of the same opinion as to what _is_ wrong.' The rogue! I should like to have put all his weights in the inspector's scales."

"Yes," quoth Jahn, "but I am 'most ashamed to tell your honour what Tom Potts, the exciseman, said, who happened to be present."

"Out with it, by all means, Jahn," said our friend.

"Well then, sir, as true as you are there, he said that your honour was a very kind gentleman, and your word was worth any other ten men's in most things; but where it might be to get a friend out of trouble, and, for aught he knew, foe either, why then, he thought your honour might fib a bit."

"Surely," said Gratian, "he didn't say quite that?"

"Yes," quoth Jahn, "quite that, and more; something remarkable."

"Remarkable!" said I,--"what could that be?"

"Why, something I shan't forget; and I don't think it was religious and proper," said Jahn; and lowering his voice, and addressing me and the Curate rather than his master, he added,--"He thought his honour had a kind heart, too kind; for that if Belzebub should come of a wet and dark night, and knock at his honour's door, and just say in a humble voice that he was weary and foot-sore, that his honour would be sure to take him in, give him a bed, and a stiff tumbler of brandy and water, and send for the farrier in the morning to fresh shoe him unknowingly; for he would make him stoop, put his claws on the ground, and throw a blanket over him, and make the farrier believe that, out of a whim, he was only a shoeing a great big goat."

Gratian laughed at the whimsical idea of the exciseman, called him a true and good spirit-gauger; then giving some sharp taps to his hip, his knee, and his legs with his stick, rose from his seat, and said, "Come, Curate, you and I must take a walk amongst these people, and see what we can do: it is most time to put a stop to this mischievous absurdity, and, I fear me, of our own making."

Away they went, and I put up my remaining translations from Catullus, took down a book, read awhile, and then meditated this letter to you. And now, my dear Eusebius, when you publish it in Maga, as you did my last, folk will say--"Why, what is all this about? _Horae Catullianae!_ It is no such thing." Be it, then, I say, what you will. Do you think I am writing an essay?--no, a letter; and I may, if I please, entitle it, as Montaigne did--"On coach horses," and still make it what I please. It shall be a novel, if they please, for that is what they look for now: so let the Curate be the hero,--and the heroine--but must it be a love story? Then I won't forestall the interest, so wait to the end; and in my next, Eusebius, we will repeat Catullus for the play, and say with the announcing actor, "to conclude with an after-piece which will be expressed in the bills."

My dear Eusebius, ever yours,

AQUILIUS.

LESSONS FROM THE FAMINE.

The two great parties into which the country was divided on the subject of our commercial relations with foreign states, maintained principles diametrically opposite on the effects to be anticipated from the adoption of their respective systems. The Free-Traders constantly alleged, that the great thing was to increase our _importations_; and that, provided this was done, government need not disquiet themselves about our _exportations_. Individuals, it was said, equally with nations, do not give their goods for nothing: if foreign produce of some sort comes in, British produce of some sort must go out. Both parties will gain by the exchange. The inhabitants of this country will devote their attention to those branches of industry in which we can undersell foreign nations, and they will devote their attention to those branches of industry in which they can undersell us. Neither party will waste their time, or their labour, upon vain attempts to raise produce for which nature has not given them the requisite facilities. Both will buy cheaper than they could have done if an artificial system of protection had forced the national industry into a channel which nature did not intend, and experience does not sanction. We may be fed by the world, but we will clothe the world. The abstraction of the precious metals is not to be dreaded under such a system, for how are the precious metals got but in exchange for manufactures? Their existence in this country presupposes the exit of a proportionate amount of the produce of British industry. Nobody gives dollars, any more than corn, for nothing. Our farmers must take to dairy and pasture cultivation to a greater extent than heretofore. A certain number of agricultural labourers, may, it is true, be thrown out of employment by the displacing of rural industry in making the transition from the one species of country labour to the other; but the evil will only be temporary, and they will speedily be absorbed in the vast extension of our manufacturing industry. High prices need never be feared under such a system: a bad season is never universal over the world at the same time; and free-trade will permanently let in the superfluity of those countries where food is abundant, to supply the deficiencies of those in which, from native sources, it is scanty.

The Protectionists reasoned after an entirely different manner. The doctrines of free-trade, they observed, perfectly just in their application to different provinces of the same empire, are entirely misplaced if extended to different _countries_ of the world, the more especially if placed in similar, or nearly similar, circumstances. The state of smothered or open hostility in which they are in general placed to each other, if their interests are at all at variance; the necessity of sheltering infant manufacturing industry from the dangerous competition of more advanced civilisation, or protecting old-established agricultural industry from the ruinous inroad of rude produce from poorer states, in which it is raised cheaper because money is less plentiful, render it indispensable that protection should exist on both sides. If it does not, the inevitable result will be, that the cultivators of the young state will destroy the agriculture of the old one, and the manufacturers of the old one extinguish the fabrics of the young. This effect is necessary, and, to all appearance, will ever continue; for the experience of every age has demonstrated that, so great is the effect of capital and civilisation applied to manufactures, and so inconsiderable, comparatively speaking, their influence upon agriculture, that the old state can always undersell the new one in the industry of towns, and the new one undersell the old one in the industry of the country. The proof of this is decisive. England, by the aid of the steam-engine, can undersell the inhabitants of Hindostan in the manufacture of muslins from cotton growing on the banks of the Ganges; but with all the advantages of chemical manure and tile draining, it is undersold in the supply of food by the cultivators on the Mississippi.

This being a fixed law of nature, evidently intended to check the growth of old states, and promote the extension of mankind in the uncultivated parts of the earth, it is in vain to contend against it. So violently does free-trade displace industry on both sides, where it is fully established, that it is scarcely possible to conceive that two nations should at the same time run into the same glaring mistake; and thence the common complaint that no benefit is gained, but an infinite loss sustained, by its establishment in any one country, and that reciprocity is on one side only. As no adequate exchange of manufactures for subsistence is thus to be looked for, there must arise, in the old state, a constant exportation of the precious metals, attended by frequent commercial crises, and a constant increase in the weight of direct taxation. Should it prove otherwise, and two nations both go into the same system, it could lead to no other result but the stoppage of the growth of civilisation in the young one, and the destruction of national independence in the old. The former would never succeed in establishing commerce or manufactures, from the competition of the steam-engine in its aged neighbour; the latter would become dependent for subsistence on the plough of the young one. The rising agricultural state would be chained for ever to the condition of the serfs in Poland, or the boors in America; the stationary commercial state would fall into the degrading dependence of ancient Rome on the harvests of Egypt and Lybia.

Had it not been for the calamitous issue of the last harvest, in a part of the empire, it might have been difficult to say, to which side the weight of reason preponderated in these opposite arguments; and probably the people of the country would have continued permanently divided on them, according as their private interests or wishes were wound up with the buying and selling, or raising and producing classes in society. But an external calamity has intervened;--Providence has denied for a season, to one of the fruits of the earth, its wonted increase. The potato-rot has appeared; and nearly the whole subsistence of the people in the south and west of Ireland, and in the western Highlands of Scotland, has been destroyed. Between the failure in the potato crop, and the deficiency in that of oats, at least L15,000,000 worth of the wonted agricultural produce has disappeared in the British Islands. And the appearances which we now see around us are solely and entirely to be ascribed to that deficiency. No one need be told what these appearances are, or how deeply they have trenched upon the usual sources of prosperity in the empire: they have been told again and again, in parliament, at public meetings, and in the press, _usque ad nauseam_. Government has acted, if not judiciously, at least in the right spirit; its errors have been those of information, not of intention. The monster meetings, the flagrant ingratitude, the broken promises of the Irish Catholics, have been forgotten. England, as a nation, has acted nobly; she has overlooked her wrongs: she saw only her fellow-subjects in distress. L10,000,000 sterling have been voted by parliament in a single year for the relief of Irish suffering. Magnificent subscriptions, from the throne downwards, have attested the sympathy of the British heart with the tale of Irish and Highland suffering. But, notwithstanding all these astonishing exertions, and notwithstanding the existence of an unprecedented demand for labour in most parts of the country, in consequence of vast railway undertakings being on foot, on which at least L30,000,000 a-year must be expended for three or four years to come, distress is in many places most acute, in all severely felt. And what is very remarkable, and may be considered, as a distinctive sign of the times, specially worthy of universal attention, the suffering has now spread to those classes which are _furthest removed_ from the blight of nature, and fastened upon those interests which, according to the generally received opinion, should have been _benefited rather than injured_ by the calamity which has occurred.

That some millions of cultivators in the southwest of Ireland, and some hundred thousand in the west Highlands of Scotland, should be involved, literally speaking, in the horrors of famine, in consequence of the universal failure of the crop which constituted at once their sole object of labour and only means of subsistence, may easily be understood. That this alarming failure should raise prices of every sort of food to the scarcity-level in every part of the empire, is equally intelligible; and that government, in conformity with the _universal_ sense of the nation, should, in such an extremity, throw open the ports to all kinds of food, and thereby let in an unexampled amount of foreign produce to supply the failure of that usually raised at home, is an equally intelligible consequence. It may not be considered surprising, that starving multitudes should issue in all directions from the scene of wo in the Emerald Isle, to seek relief in the industry or charity of Great Britain; and that all the great towns in the west of the island should be overwhelmed with pauperism and typhus fever, in consequence of their being the first to be reached by the destructive flood; although it was hardly to be expected that a hundred and thirty-two thousand applications for relief were to be made to the parochial authorities of Liverpool in a _single week_; and that they returned thanks to Heaven when the influx of Irish paupers was reduced to _two thousand a-week_! But the remarkable thing, and the thing which the commercial classes certainly did not expect, is this:--_The calamity has now reached themselves_, although the hand of Providence has only stricken the producing agricultural classes. Trade never was lower, monied distress never more severe, markets of all sorts never were more rapidly DECLINING, than during a period when IMPORTATIONS of all sorts have been MOST RAPIDLY INCREASING. Nearly all the manufactories in Lancashire and Lanarkshire are put on short time; the public funds and stocks of all sorts are falling; the rate of bankers' advances in Scotland is raised to _six per cent_;[7] seven per cent is charged in Liverpool and Glasgow on railway advances, and permanent loans are taken on railway debentures by the most experienced persons for three years at five per cent; the Bank of England has raised its discounts; our exports are rapidly declining; and all at a time, when the importation of all sorts of rude produce is on an unprecedented scale of magnitude, and the warehouses of Liverpool and Glasgow are literally _bursting_ with the prodigious mass of grain stored in them from all parts of the world!

Fortunately, statistical documents exist, derived from official sources, which demonstrate beyond the possibility of doubt the coexistence of this _vast increase_ in the amount of subsistence imported, and _vast diminution_ in the amount of manufactures raised or exported in all parts of the British empire. A paper has lately been presented to parliament, showing the amount of imports, exports, and shipping during the year 1846, compared with 1845; from which this important and luminous fact is decisively established, how hard soever it may be to comprehend on the part of a large and influential portion of our politicians. From it it appears that the amount of subsistence imported in 1846 was six times greater than in 1845, although free-trade only commenced in the middle of the former year. It had reached the unparalleled amount in the latter year, of grain or flour, equal to _five millions and a half quarters of grain_. The tonnage _inwards_ had turned five millions of tons; the custom-house duties, notwithstanding the numerous reductions of duties on imported articles, had risen L700,000 above the preceding year, and still kept above L22.000,000 sterling. Here, then, were all the sources and marks of prosperity, so far as they depended on importations, in a state of unexampled vigour and efficiency. Was this attended, as we were constantly told it would be, by a corresponding impulse given to our fabrics? Has the increased activity of our manufacturing cities compensated for the sterility of so large a part of our fields? The fact is just the reverse. Though free-trade has only been in operation for the last six months of 1846, they were signalised by a universal _decline_ in all the principal articles of our exportation; and, by the unanimous voice of all practical men, trade, so far as exports or production is concerned, never was in a more depressed state than when, so far as imports are concerned, it had attained an unprecedented _extension_.

Never was a truer observation than is made by the Free-Traders, when they assert that goods will not be sent into a nation for nothing; and that, if our imports increase, something that goes out must have received a proportional augmentation. They forget only one circumstance, which, however, is of some little consequence, namely, that two things may go out, goods or SPECIE. We have melancholy proof, in the present state of the money market, that the latter occurrence has taken place to an inconvenient and distressing extent, and that that is the direct cause of the extravagant rate of interest charged on bankers' advances, and the general scarcity of money felt throughout the country. That the _capital_ of the country is not only sufficient, but abundant, is decisively proved by the fact that, notwithstanding the vast extent of the railway and other undertakings of a public character going on both in Great Britain and Ireland, government has borrowed the loan of L8,000,000 for the relief of Ireland at L3, 7s. 6d. per cent. The three per cents are about 90, yielding about the same return for money. But is _currency_ equally abundant? So far from it, the bankers are charging six, and the persons making advances on railway concerns seven per cent. The holder of capital is glad if he can get three and a half per cent; but the holder of currency will not let his notes or sovereigns out of his hand for less than six or seven per cent. Can there be a more convincing proof that the currency of the country has been unduly drained away, and that the present monetary system, which forbids any extension of it in paper when the specie is abstracted, is based on a wrong foundation? Nor is it surprising that the currency should be straitened when it is notorious that every packet which goes out to America takes out vast sums to that continent to pay for the immense quantities of grain which are brought in. That drain only began to be felt in a serious manner within the last two months, because the great shipments from America took place in November and December last, when the failure of the potato crop in this country was fully ascertained; and consequently, the payments made in bills at three months, required to be made in February and March. And when it is recollected that the quantity of grain imported in seven months only--viz. from 5th July 1846, to 5th February 1847--exceeded _six millions_ of quarters, at the very time that all our exports were diminishing; it may be imagined how prodigious must have been the drain upon the metallic resources of the country to make up the balance.[8]