Chapter VI: Iuri Dolgoruki, and Andrei Bogoliubski, Founders (5)

Another important thing is to get enough food if you can; the body requires to be sufficiently nourished. On the other hand, however, be very careful that you do not attempt to get more than enough. If you do try to accomplish this you will fail in the attempt, and have to pay a heavy penalty for your failure. Thousands upon thousands of people do try, and do fail, and then pay such penalties. You have heard it said that enough is as good as a feast. This is only a half-truth, it does not go sufficiently far. Enough is far better than a feast, if “a feast,” means more than enough. There is more danger really in over-feeding, than under-feeding. Countless numbers of underfed countrymen work through a long life in the fields, in happiness and contentment, and arrive at old age, almost without an hour of illness. But every overfed man sooner or later has to go to bed, and send for the doctor to help him to get rid either of rheumatism, or fever, or gout, or inflammation, which are forms of disorder into which superfluous food often changes itself. The life of labor and short commons, has upon the whole a much larger share of happiness, than the life of laziness and luxury.

But what is enough? That in regard to the feeding is a very serious question. At the first glance, too, it seems to be one which is not altogether easy to answer, because some men require more food than others, just as some steam engines consume more coal than others, to keep themselves moving; and just as some lamps take more oil than others, to keep up their flames. It is, nevertheless, a question which may be very easily answered. Every man who eats his meal slowly and deliberately,—not forgetting the mill,—has had enough when his appetite is satisfied. Appetite really is Nature’s own guard. It is ruled, not by the state of the stomach, but by the condition of the blood. When so much blood has been taken from the supply-pipes of your body, by the working parts, that those pipes begin to be comparatively empty, their emptiness makes itself felt in your frame as hunger. Obedient to the hint, you find up food and eat. But while you are eating what happens? First you seize the food with all the keen relish of a hungry man. Then as you eat on, the relish becomes less and less, and if your meal be a simple one, when you have had enough, all relish has disappeared, and the very things that tasted so deliciously at first, are insipid, so that you find no farther enjoyment in the act of grinding and swallowing them. Go on eating after this, and the insipidity will be transformed into disgust; and if notwithstanding this you still persevere in forcing food into your stomach, that sensible organ will at last rebel against the tyranny, and return the whole which it has received upon your hands. Then it will be some little time before the stomach gets over the insult. Consequently the blood remains all this while in the impoverished state, and the result of the over-gorge is that the body itself is actually starved, instead of being feasted. If when your natural appetite for food is satisfied, and your enjoyment and relish of it have ceased, you have rich and high flavored dishes set before you, the high-flavors will then still prove agreeable to the palate, and act upon it as a sort of excitement, and the natural appetite will have its work superseded by a false and artificial one, and you will go on eating under this temptation, until your stomach is over-crammed. All the so-called luxuries of cooking are merely devices to make men eat more, who have already eaten enough.

But when men who have already eaten enough, eat more, what must happen? one of two things—either the stomach, being particularly vigorous, will get through an extra amount of work; then there will be more blood sent into the supply pipes than the body requires, and the frame will be everywhere stuffed and oppressed with the load, to the danger of inflammations, rheumatism, and other like disorders being set up: or the stomach will be unequal to the task of doing extra work; then the food which can not be digested will decay and putrify in the stomach and bowels, producing there all sorts of poison vapors and disagreeable products, which will lead to stomach and bowel disorders, until nature, or the doctor, finds some way for their removal, or until something worse takes place.

Thrice favored is he who is not daily exposed to the dangers of a luxurious table. Money, after all, is not in itself a blessing. It is only a blessing when it is possessed by those who know how to employ it for good purposes. In the hands of men who do not know how to employ it so, it often proves to be a curse.

Food which is already in a state of commencing putrefaction or decay, is always dangerous for this reason: it forms poison vapors and injurious products in the stomach, before its digestion can be completed in the natural way. If, however, meat about to be used is at any time found to be tainted, it will be at once rendered wholesome, if the most tainted part be cut away, the cut part being rubbed with a piece of charcoal, and the joint be then well boiled in water, in which a piece of charcoal has been placed.

Here, then, in conclusion, are two or three golden rules for the management of your feeding:

Never have any but the plainest and simplest food placed before you when you are hungry, whether you be rich or whether you be poor.

Eat of it until you find the relish for it disappearing.

There stop, and on no consideration swallow another mouthful, until the sense of appetite and relish comes back to you.

* * * * *

Discourtesy does not spring merely from one bad quality of the mind, but from several, from foolish vanity, from ignorance of what is due to others, from indolence, from stupidity, from distraction of thought, from contempt of others, from jealousy; not to dwell on anything but what is seen outwardly, it is only the more hateful from being a defect of mind always visible, and palpable; it is true, however, that it is more or less offensive according to the quality that produces it.—_La Bruyère.

A PETITION TO TIME.

By B. W. PROCTOR.

Touch us gently, Time!
Let us glide adown thy stream
Gently,—as we sometimes glide
Through a quiet dream!
Humble voyagers are we,
Husband, wife, and children three—
(One is lost,—an angel, fled
To the azure overhead!)

Touch us gently, Time!
We’ve not proud nor soaring wings:
_Our_ ambition, _our_ content
Lies in simple things.
Humble voyagers are we,
O’er Life’s dim unsounded sea,
Seeking only some calm clime:—
Touch us gently, gentle Time!

A DREAM, AND PRACTICAL LIFE.

By GOETHE and ECKERMANN.

_March 12, 1828._—After I had quitted Goethe yesterday evening, the important conversation I had carried on with him remained constantly in my mind. The discourse had also been upon the sea and sea air; and Goethe had expressed the opinion that he considered all islanders and inhabitants of the sea-shore in temperate climates far more productive, and possessed of more active force, than the people in the interior of large continents.

Whether or not it was that I had fallen asleep with these thoughts, and with a certain longing for the inspiring powers of the sea; suffice it to say, I had in the night the following pleasant, and to me very remarkable dream:

I saw myself in an unknown region, amongst strange men, thoroughly cheerful and happy. The most beautiful summer day surrounded me in a charming scene, such as might be witnessed somewhere on the shores of the Mediterranean, in the south of Spain or France, or in the neighborhood of Genoa. We had been drinking at noon round a merry table, and I went with some others, rather young people, to make another party for the afternoon.

We had loitered along through bushy and pleasant low lands, when we suddenly found ourselves in the sea, upon the smallest of islands, on a jutting rock, where there was scarcely room for five or six men, and where one could not stir for fear of slipping into the water. Behind us, whence we had come, there was nothing to be seen but sea; but before us lay the shore at about a quarter of an hour’s distance, spread out most invitingly. The shore was in some places flat, in others rocky and somewhat elevated; and one might observe between green leaves and white tents, a crowd of joyous men, in light-colored clothes, recreating themselves with music, which sounded from the tents. “There is nothing else to be done,” said one of us to the other, “we must undress and swim over.” “It is all very well to say so,” said I, “you are young, handsome fellows, and good swimmers; but I swim badly, and I do not possess a shape fine enough to appear, with pleasure and comfort, before the strange people on shore.” “You are a fool,” said one of the handsomest, “undress yourself, give me your form, and you shall have mine.” At these words I undressed myself quickly, and was soon in the water, and immediately found myself in the body of the other as a powerful swimmer. I soon reached the shore, and, naked, and dripping, stepped with the most easy confidence amongst the men. I was happy in the sensation of these fine limbs; my deportment was unconstrained, and I at once became intimate with the strangers, at a table before an arbor, where there was a great deal of mirth. My comrades had now reached land one by one, and had joined us, and the only one missing was the youth with my form, in whose limbs I found myself so comfortable. At last he also approached the shore, and I was asked if I was not glad to see my former self? At these words I experienced a certain discomfort, partly because I did not expect any great joy from myself, and partly because I feared my young friend would ask for his own body back again. However, I turned to the water, and saw my second self swimming close up to me, and laughing at me with his head turned a little on one side. “There is no swimming with those limbs of yours,” exclaimed he, “I have had a fine struggle against waves and breakers, and it is not to be wondered at that I have come so late, and am last of all.” I at once recognized the countenance; it was my own, but grown young, and rather fuller and broader, with the freshest complexion. He now came to land, and whilst he raised himself and first stepped along the sand, I had a view of his back and legs, and was delighted with the perfection of the form. He came up the rocky shore to us, and as he came up to me he had completely my new stature. “How is it,” thought I to myself, “that your little body has grown so handsome. Have the primeval powers of the sea operated so wonderfully upon it, or is it because the youthful spirit of my friend has penetrated the limbs?” Whilst we enjoyed ourselves together for some time, I silently wondered that my friend did not show any inclination to resume his own body. “Truly,” thought I, “he looks bravely, and it may be a matter of indifference to him in which body he is placed, but it is not the same thing to me; for I am not sure whether in that body I may not shrink and become as diminutive as before.” In order to satisfy myself on this point, I took my friend aside, and asked him how he felt in my limbs? “Perfectly well,” said he; “I have the same sensation of my own natural power as before; I do not know what you have to complain of in your limbs. They are quite right with me; and you see one only has to make the best of oneself. Remain in my body as long as you please; for I am perfectly contented to remain in yours through all futurity.” I was much pleased by this explanation, and as in all my sensations, thoughts, and recollections, I felt quite as usual, my dream gave me the impression of a perfect independence of the soul, and the possibility of a future existence in another body.

“That is a very pretty dream,” said Goethe, when, after dinner to-day, I imparted to him the principal features. “We see,” continued he, “that the muses visit you even in sleep, and, indeed, with particular favor; for you must confess that it would be difficult for you to invent anything so peculiar and pretty in your waking moments.”

“I can scarcely conceive how it happened to me,” returned I; “for I had felt so dejected all day, that the contemplation of so fresh a life was far from my mind.”

“Human nature possesses wonderful powers,” returned Goethe, “and has something good in readiness for us when we least hope for it. There have been times in my life when I have fallen asleep in tears; but in my dreams the most charming forms have come to console and to cheer me, and I have risen the next morning fresh and joyful.

“There is something more or less wrong among us old Europeans; our relations are far too artificial and complicated, our nutriment and mode of life are without their proper nature, and our social intercourse is without proper love and good will. Every one is polished and courteous; but no one has the courage to be hearty and true, so that an honest man, with natural views and feelings, stands in a very bad position. Often one can not help wishing that one had been born upon one of the South Sea Islands, a so-called savage, so as to have thoroughly enjoyed human existence in all its purity, without any adulteration.

“If in a depressed mood one reflects deeply upon the wretchedness of our age, it often occurs to one that the world is gradually approaching the last day. And the evil accumulates from generation to generation! For it is not enough that we have to suffer for the sins of our fathers, but we hand down to posterity these inherited vices increased by our own.”

“Similar thoughts often occur to me,” answered I; “but if, at such a time, I see a regiment of German dragoons ride by me, and observe the beauty and power of these young people, I again derive some consolation, and say to myself, that the durability of mankind is after all not in such a desperate plight.”

“Our country people,” returned Goethe, “have certainly kept up their strength, and will, I hope, long be able not only to furnish us with good horsemen, but also to secure us from total decay and destruction. The rural population may be regarded as a magazine, from which the forces of declining mankind are always recruited and refreshed. But just go into our great towns, and you will feel quite differently. Just take a turn by the side of a second _diable boiteux_, or a physician with a large practice, and he will whisper to you tales which will horrify you at the misery, and astonish you at the vice with which human nature is visited, and from which society suffers.

“But let us banish these hypochondriacal thoughts. How are you going on? What are you doing? What else have you seen to-day? Tell me, and inspire me with good thoughts.”

“I have been reading Sterne,” returned I, “where Yorick is sauntering about the streets of Paris, and makes the remark that every tenth man is a dwarf. I thought of that when you mentioned the vices of great towns. I also remember to have seen, in Napoleon’s time, among the French infantry, one battalion which consisted entirely of Parisians, who were all such puny, diminutive people, that one could not comprehend what could be done with them in battle.”

“The Scotch Highlanders, under the Duke of Wellington,” rejoined Goethe, “were doubtless heroes of another description.”

“I saw them in Brussels a year before the battle of Waterloo,” returned I. “They were, indeed, fine men; all strong, fresh, and active, as if just from the hand of their Maker. They all carried their heads so freely and gallantly, and stepped so lightly along with their strong, bare legs, that it seemed as if there were no original sin, and no ancestral failing, as far as they were concerned.”

“There is something peculiar in this,” said Goethe. “Whether it lies in the race, in the soil, in the free political constitution, or in the healthy tone of education,—certainly, the English in general appear to have certain advantages over many others. Here in Weimar, we see only a few of them, and, probably, by no means the best; but what fine, handsome people they are. And however young they come here, they feel themselves by no means strange or embarrassed in this foreign atmosphere; on the contrary, their deportment in society is as full of confidence, and as easy as if they were lords everywhere, and the whole world belonged to them. This it is which pleases our women, and by which they make such havoc in the hearts of our young ladies. As a German father of a family, who is concerned for the tranquility of his household, I often feel a slight shudder, when my daughter-in-law announces to me the expected arrival of some fresh, young islander. I already see in my mind’s eye the tears which will one day flow when he takes his departure. They are dangerous young people; but this very quality of being dangerous is their virtue.”

“Still, I would not assert,” answered I, “that the young Englishmen in Weimar are more clever, more intelligent, better informed, or more excellent at heart than other people.”

“The secret does not lie in these things, my good friend,” returned Goethe. “Neither does it lie in birth and riches; it lies in the courage which they have to be that for which nature has made them. There is nothing vitiated or spoilt about them, there is nothing half-way or crooked; but such as they are, they are thoroughly complete men. That they are also sometimes complete fools, I allow with all my heart; but that is still something, and has still always some weight in the scale of nature.

“The happiness of personal freedom, the consciousness of an English name, and of the importance attached to it by other nations, is an advantage even to the children; for in their own family, as well as in scholastic establishments, they are treated with far more respect, and enjoy a far freer development, than is the case with us Germans.

“In our own dear Weimar, I need only to look out of the window to discover how matters stand with us. Lately, when the snow was lying upon the ground, and my neighbor’s children were trying their little sledges in the street, the police was immediately at hand, and I saw the poor little things fly as quickly as they could. Now, when the spring sun tempts them from the houses, and they would like to play with their companions before the door, I see them always constrained, as if they were not safe, and feared the approach of some despot of the police. Not a boy may crack a whip, or sing or shout; the police is immediately at hand to forbid it. This has the effect with us all of taming youth prematurely, and of driving out all originality and all wildness, so that in the end nothing remains but the Philistine.

“You know that scarcely a day passes in which I am not visited by some traveling foreigner. But if I were to say that I took great pleasure in the personal appearance, especially of young, learned Germans from a certain northeastern quarter, I should tell a falsehood.

“Short-sighted, pale, narrow-chested, young without youth; that is a picture of most of them as they appear to me. And if I enter into a conversation with any of them, I immediately observe that the things in which one of us takes pleasure seem to them vain and trivial, that they are entirely absorbed in the Idea, and that only the highest problems of speculation are fitted to interest them. Of sound senses or delight in the sensual, there is no trace; all youthful feeling and all youthful pleasure are driven out of them, and that irrecoverably; for if a man is not young in his twentieth year, how can he be so in his fortieth?”

Goethe sighed and was silent.

I thought of the happy time in the last century, in which Goethe’s youth fell; the summer air of Sesenheim passed before my soul, and I reminded him of the verses—

In the afternoon we sat,
Young people, in the cool.

“Ah,” sighed Goethe, “those were, indeed, happy times. But we will drive them from our minds, that the dark foggy days of the present may not become quite insupportable.”

“A second Redeemer,” said I, “would be required to remove from us the seriousness, the discomfort, and the monstrous oppressiveness of the present state of things.”

“If he came,” answered Goethe, “he would be crucified a second time. Still, we by no means need anything so great. If we could only alter the Germans after the model of the English, if we could only have less philosophy and more power of action, less theory and more practice, we might obtain a good share of redemption, without waiting for the personal majesty of a second Christ. Much may be done from below by the people by means of schools and domestic education; much from above by the rulers and those in immediate connection with them.

“Thus, for instance, I can not approve the requisition, in the studies of future statesmen, of so much theoretically-learned knowledge, by which young people are ruined before their time, both in mind and body. When they enter into practical service, they possess, indeed, an immense stock of philosophical and learned matters; but in the narrow circle of their calling, this can not be practically applied, and must therefore be forgotten as useless. On the other hand, what they most needed they have lost; they are deficient in the necessary mental and bodily energy, which is quite indispensable when one would enter properly into practical life.

“And then, are not love and benevolence also needed in the life of a statesman—in the management of men? And how can any one feel and exercise benevolence toward another, when he is ill at ease with himself?

“But all these people are in a dreadfully bad case. The third part of the learned men and statesmen, shackled to the desk, are ruined in body, and consigned to the demon of hypochondria. Here there should be action from above that future generations may at least be preserved from a like destruction.

“In the meantime,” continued Goethe, smiling, “let us remain in a state of hopeful expectation as to the condition of us Germans a century hence, and whether we shall then have advanced so far as to be no longer _savants_ and philosophers, but men.”

* * * * *

Now, it has occurred to me, when I recollect, that we love our children, and call them our second selves, merely because we have begotten them, that there is another kind of progeny springing from us, not less worthy of our esteem; for what we engender by the mind, the offspring of our understanding, diligence, and genius, emanates from nobler parts of us than what springs from the body, and is much more our own. We are both father and mother in this act of generation. They cost us more and bring us more honor if they have any good in them. For the value of our other children depends much more on themselves than on us; the share we have in them is very little, but of these all the beauty, grace, and excellence is ours. For in this way they are a more complete representation and copy of ourselves than the others. Plato adds that these are immortal children which truly immortalize and deify their fathers, as Lycurgus, Solon, and Mino.—_Montaigne._

So Spencer, “F. Q.,” v. 1:

“The noble heart that harbors virtuous thought,
And is with child of glorious, great intent,
Can never rest until it forth have brought
Th’ eternal brood of glory excellent.”

* * * * *

In my opinion the want of occupation is no less the plague of society than of solitude. Nothing is so apt to narrow the mind; nothing produces more trifling, silly stories, mischief-making, lies, than being eternally shut up in a room with one another, reduced as the only alternative to be constantly twaddling. When everybody is occupied, we only speak when we have something to say; but when we are doing nothing, we are compelled to be always talking, and of all torments, that is the most annoying and the most dangerous.—_Rousseau_.

TALES FROM SHAKSPERE.

By CHARLES LAMB.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM.

There was a law in the city of Athens, which gave to its citizens the power of compelling their daughters to marry whomsoever they pleased; for upon a daughter’s refusing to marry the man her father had chosen to be her husband, the father was empowered by this law to cause her to be put to death; but as fathers do not often desire the death of their own daughters, even though they do happen to prove a little refractory, this law was seldom or never put into execution, though perhaps the young ladies of that city were not unfrequently threatened by their parents with the terrors of it.

There was one instance, however, of an old man, whose name was Egeus, who actually did come before Theseus (at that time the reigning duke of Athens), to complain that his daughter Hermia, whom he had commanded to marry Demetrius, a young man of a noble Athenian family, refused to obey him, because she loved another young Athenian, named Lysander. Egeus demanded justice of Theseus, and desired that this cruel law might be put in force against his daughter.

Hermia pleaded in excuse for her disobedience, that Demetrius had formerly professed love for her dear friend Helena, and that Helena loved Demetrius to distraction; but this honorable reason, which Hermia gave for not obeying her father’s command, moved not the stern Egeus.

Theseus, though a great and merciful prince, had no power to alter the laws of his country; therefore he could only give Hermia four days to consider of it, and at the end of that time, if she still refused to marry Demetrius, she was to be put to death.

When Hermia was dismissed from the presence of the duke, she went to her lover Lysander, and told him the peril she was in, and that she must either give up him and marry Demetrius, or lose her life in four days.

Lysander was in great affliction at hearing these evil tidings, but recollecting that he had an aunt who lived at some distance from Athens, and that at the place where she lived the cruel law could not be put in force against Hermia (this law not extending beyond the boundaries of the city), he proposed to Hermia that she should steal out of her father’s house that night, and go with him to his aunt’s house, where he would marry her. “I will meet you,” said Lysander, “in the wood a few miles without the city; in that delightful wood, where we have so often walked with Helena in the pleasant month of May.”

To this proposal Hermia joyfully agreed, and she told no one of her intended flight but her friend Helena. Helena (as maidens will do foolish things for love) very ungenerously resolved to go and tell this to Demetrius, though she could hope no benefit from betraying her friend’s secret, but the poor pleasure of following her faithless lover to the wood; for she well knew that Demetrius would go thither in pursuit of Hermia.

The wood in which Lysander and Hermia proposed to meet, was the favorite haunt of those little beings known by the name of fairies. Oberon, the king, and Titania, the queen of the fairies, with all their tiny train of followers, in this wood held their midnight revels.

Between this little king and queen of sprites there happened at this time a sad disagreement, they never met by moonlight in the shady walks of this pleasant wood, but they were quarreling, till all their fairy elves would creep into acorn-cups and hide themselves for fear. The cause of this unhappy disagreement was Titania’s refusing to give Oberon a little changeling boy, whose mother had been Titania’s friend; and upon her death the fairy queen stole the child from its nurse, and brought him up in the woods.

The night on which the lovers were to meet in this wood, as Titania was walking with some of her maids of honor, she met Oberon attended by his train of fairy courtiers. “Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania,” said the fairy king. The queen replied, “What, jealous Oberon, is it you?” “Fairies, skip hence; I have forsworn his company.” “Tarry, rash fairy,” said Oberon; “am not I thy lord? Why does Titania cross her Oberon? Give me your little changeling boy to be my page.”

“Set your heart at rest,” answered the queen; “your whole fairy kingdom buys not the boy of me.” She then left her lord in great anger.

“Well, go your way,” said Oberon; “before the morning: dawns I will torment you for this injury.” Oberon then sent for Puck, his chief favorite and privy counselor.

Puck (or, as he was sometimes called, Robin Goodfellow) was a shrewd and knavish sprite, that used to play comical pranks in the neighboring villages; sometimes getting into the dairies and skimming the milk, sometimes plunging his light and airy form into the butter-churn, and while he was dancing his fantastic shape in the vessel, in vain the dairy-maid would labor to change her cream into butter: nor had the village swains any better success; whenever Puck chose to play his freaks in the brewing-copper, the ale was sure to be spoiled. When a few good neighbors were met to drink some comfortable ale together, Puck would jump into the bowl of ale in the likeness of a roasted crab, and when some old goody was going to drink, he would bob against her lips, and spill the ale over her withered chin; and presently after, when the same old dame was gravely seating herself to tell her neighbors a sad and melancholy story, Puck would slip her three-legged stool from under her, and down toppled the poor old woman, and then the gossips would hold their sides and laugh at her, and swear they never wasted a merrier hour.

“Come hither, Puck,” said Oberon to this little merry wanderer of the night; “fetch me the flower which maids call Love in Idleness; the juice of that little purple flower, laid on the eye-lids of those who sleep, will make them, when they awake, doat on the first thing they see. Some of the juice of that flower I will drop on the eyelids of my Titania, when she is asleep; and the first thing she looks upon when she opens her eyes, she will fall in love with, even though it be a lion, or a bear, a meddling monkey, or a busy ape: and before I will take this charm from off her sight, which I can do with another charm I know of, I will make her give me that boy to be my page.”

Puck, who loved mischief to his heart, was highly diverted with this intended frolic of his master, and ran to seek the flower; and while Oberon was waiting the return of Puck, he observed Demetrius and Helena enter the woods; he overheard Demetrius reproaching Helena for following him, and after many unkind words on his part, and gentle expostulations from Helena, reminding him of his former love, and professions of true faith to her, he left her (as he said) to the mercy of the wild beasts, and she ran after him as swiftly as she could.

The fairy king, who was always friendly to true lovers, felt great compassion for Helena; and perhaps, as Lysander said they used to walk by moonlight in this pleasant wood, Oberon might have seen Helena in those happy times when she was beloved by Demetrius. However that might be, when Puck returned with the little purple flower, Oberon said to his favorite, “Take a part of the flower: there has been a sweet Athenian lady here, who is in love with a disdainful youth; if you find him sleeping, drop some of the love-juice in his eyes, but contrive to do it when she is near him, that the first thing he sees when he awakes may be this despised lady. You will know the man by the Athenian garments which he wears.” Puck promised to manage this matter very dexterously; and then Oberon went, unperceived by Titania, to her bower where she was preparing to go to rest. Her fairy bower was a bank, where grew wild thyme, cowslips, and sweet violets, under a canopy of woodbine, musk-roses and eglantine. There Titania always slept some part of the night; her coverlet the enamelled skin of a snake, which, though a small mantle, was wide enough to wrap a fairy in.

He found Titania giving orders to her fairies, how they were to employ themselves while she slept. “Some of you,” said her majesty, “must kill cankers in the musk-rose buds, and some wage war with the bats for their leathern wings, to make my small elves coats; and some of you keep watch that the clamorous owl, that nightly hoots, come not near me: but first sing me to sleep.” Then they began to sing this song:—

You spotted snakes with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
Newts and blind-worms do no wrong,
Come not near our Fairy Queen.
Philomel, with melody,
Sing in our sweet lullaby,
Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby:
Never harm, nor spell, nor charm,
Come our lovely lady nigh;
So good night with lullaby.

When the fairies had sung their queen asleep with this pretty lullaby, they left her, to perform the important services she had enjoined them. Oberon then softly drew near his Titania, and dropt some of the love-juice on her eye-lids, saying—

What thou seest when thou dost wake,
Do it for thy true-love take.

But to return to Hermia, who made her escape out of her father’s house that night, to avoid the death she was doomed to for refusing to marry Demetrius. When she entered the wood, she found her dear Lysander, waiting for her, to conduct her to his aunt’s house; but before they had passed half through the wood, Hermia was so much fatigued, that Lysander, who was very careful of this dear lady, that had proved her affection for him even by hazarding her life for his sake, persuaded her to rest till morning on a bank of soft moss; and, lying down himself on the ground at some little distance, they soon fell fast asleep. Here they were found by Puck, who, seeing a handsome young man asleep, and perceiving that his clothes were made in the Athenian fashion, and that a pretty lady was sleeping near him, concluded that this must be the Athenian maid and her disdainful lover, whom Oberon had sent him to seek; and he naturally enough conjectured that, as they were alone together, she must be the first thing he would see when he awoke; so without more ado, he proceeded to pour some of the juice of the little purple flower into his eyes. But it so fell out that Helena came that way, and, instead of Hermia, was the first object Lysander beheld when he opened his eyes; and, strange to relate, so powerful was the love-charm, all his love for Hermia vanished away, and Lysander fell in love with Helena.

Had he first seen Hermia when he awoke, the blunder Puck committed would have been of no consequence, for he could not love that faithful lady too well; but for poor Lysander to be forced by a fairy love-charm to forget his own true Hermia, and to run after another lady, and leave Hermia asleep quite alone in a wood at midnight, was a sad chance indeed.

Thus this misfortune happened. Helena, as has been before related, endeavored to keep pace with Demetrius when he ran away so rudely from her; but she could not continue this unequal race long, men being always better runners in a long race than ladies. Helena soon lost sight of Demetrius; and as she was wandering about, dejected and forlorn, she arrived at the place where Lysander was sleeping. “Ah!” said she, “this is Lysander lying on the ground; is he dead or asleep?” Then gently touching him, she said, “Good sir, if you are alive, awake.” Upon this Lysander opened his eyes, and (the love-charm beginning to work) immediately addressed her in terms of extravagant love and admiration; telling her, she as much excelled Hermia in beauty as a dove does a raven, and that he would run through fire for her sweet sake; and many more such lover-like speeches. Helena, knowing Lysander was her friend Hermia’s lover, and that he was solemnly engaged to marry her, was in the utmost rage when she heard herself addressed in this manner; for she thought (as well she might) that Lysander was making a jest of her. “Oh!” said she, “why was I born to be mocked and scorned by every one? Is it not enough, is it not enough, young man, that I can never get a sweet look or a kind word from Demetrius; but you, sir, must pretend, in this disdainful manner, to court me? I thought, Lysander, you were a lord of more true gentleness.” Saying these words in great anger, she ran away; and Lysander followed her, quite forgetful of his own Hermia, who was still asleep.

When Hermia awoke, she was in a sad fright at finding herself alone. She wandered about the wood, not knowing what was become of Lysander, or which way to go to seek for him. In the meantime Demetrius, not being able to find Hermia and his rival Lysander, and fatigued with his fruitless search, was observed by Oberon fast asleep. Oberon had learnt, by some questions he had asked of Puck, that he had applied the love-charm to the wrong person’s eyes; and now, having found the person first intended, he touched the eyelids of the sleeping Demetrius with the love-juice, and he instantly awoke; and the first thing he saw being Helena, he, as Lysander had done before, began to address love speeches to her; and just at that moment Lysander, followed by Hermia (for, through Puck’s unlucky mistake, it was now become Hermia’s turn to run after her lover), made his appearance; and then Lysander and Demetrius, both speaking together, made love to Helena, they being each one under the influence of the same potent charm.

The astonished Helena thought that Demetrius, Lysander, and her once dear friend Hermia, were all in a plot together to make a jest of her.

Hermia was as much surprised as Helena; she knew not why Lysander and Demetrius, who both before loved her, were now become the lovers of Helena; and to Hermia the matter seemed to be no jest.

The ladies, who before had always been the dearest of friends, now fell to high words together.

“Unkind Hermia,” said Helena, “it is you have set Lysander on, to vex with mock praises; and your other lover, Demetrius, who used almost to spurn me with his foot, have you not bid him call me goddess, nymph, rare, precious, and celestial? He would not speak thus to me whom he hates, if you did not set him on to make a jest of me. Unkind Hermia, to join with men in scorning your poor friend. Have you forgot our school-day friendship? How often, Hermia, have we two, sitting on one cushion, both singing one song, with our needles working the same flower, both on the same sampler wrought; growing up together in fashion of a double cherry, scarcely seeming parted? Hermia, it is not friendly in you, it is not maidenly, to join with men in scorning your poor friend.”

“I am amazed at your passionate words,” said Hermia. “I scorn you not; it seems you scorn me.”

“Ay, do,” returned Helena, “persevere; counterfeit serious looks, and make mouths at me when I turn my back; then wink at each other, and hold the sweet jest up. If you had any pity, grace, or manners, you would not use me thus.”

While Helena and Hermia were speaking these angry words to each other, Demetrius and Lysander left them, to fight together in the wood for the love of Helena. When they found the gentlemen had left them, they departed, and once more wandered weary in the wood in search of their lovers.

As soon as they were gone, the king fairy, who with little Puck had been listening to their quarrels, said to him, “This is your negligence, Puck; or did you do this wilfully?” “Believe me, king of shadows,” answered Puck, “it was a mistake; did not you tell me I should know the man by his Athenian garments? However, I am not sorry this has happened, for I think their jangling makes excellent sport.” “You heard,” said Oberon, “that Demetrius and Lysander are gone to seek a convenient place to fight in. I command you to overhang the night with a thick fog, and lead these quarrelsome lovers so astray in the dark, that they shall not be able to find each other. Counterfeit each of their voices to the other, and with bitter taunts provoke them to follow you, while they think it is their rival’s tongue they hear. See you do this, till they are so weary they can go no farther; and when you find they are asleep, drop the juice of this other flower into Lysander’s eyes, and when he awakes he will forget his new love for Helena, and return to his old passion for Hermia; and then the two fair ladies may each one be happy with the man she loves, and they will think all that has passed a vexatious dream. About this quickly, Puck; and I will go and see what sweet love my Titania has found.”

Titania was still sleeping, and Oberon, seeing a clown near her, who had lost his way in the wood, and was likewise asleep—“This fellow,” said he, “shall be my Titania’s true-love;” and clapping an ass’s head over the clown’s, it seemed to fit him as well as if it had grown upon his own shoulders. Though Oberon fixed the ass’s head on very gently, it awakened him, and rising up, unconscious of what Oberon had done to him, he went toward the bower where the fairy queen slept.

“Ah! what angel is that I see!” said Titania, opening her eyes, and the juice of the little purple flower beginning to take effect: “are you as wise as you are beautiful?” “Why, mistress,” said the clown, “if I have wit enough to find the way out of this wood, I have enough to serve my turn.”

“Out of the wood do not desire to go,” said the enamored queen. “I am a spirit of no common rate. I love you. Go with me, and I will give you fairies to attend upon you.” She then called four of her fairies: their names were Pease-blossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustard-seed. “Attend,” said the queen, “upon this sweet gentleman; hop in his walks, and gambol in his sight; feed him with grapes and apricots, and steal for him the honey-bags from the bees. Come sit with me,” she said to the clown, “and let me play with your amiable hairy cheeks, my beautiful ass; and kiss your fair large ears, my gentle joy!”

“Where is Pease-blossom?” said the ass-headed clown, not much regarding the fairy queen’s courtship, but very proud of his new attendants. “Here, sir,” said little Pease-blossom.

“Scratch my head,” said the clown. “Where is Cobweb?” “Here, sir,” said Cobweb. “Good Mr. Cobweb,” said the foolish clown, “kill me the red humble-bee on the top of that thistle yonder; and, good Mr. Cobweb, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret yourself too much in the action, Mr. Cobweb, and take care the honey-bags break not; I should be sorry to have you overflown with a honey-bag. Where is Mustard-seed?”

“Here, sir,” said Mustard-seed; “what is your will?”

“Nothing,” said the clown, “but to help Mr. Pease-blossom to scratch; I must go to a barber’s, Mr. Mustard-seed, for methinks I am marvelous hairy about the face.”

“My sweet love,” said the queen; “what will you have to eat? I have a venturous fairy shall seek the squirrel’s hoard, and fetch you some new nuts.” “I had rather have a handful of dried peas,” said the clown, who with his ass’s head had got an ass’s appetite. “But, I pray, let none of your people disturb me, for I have a mind to sleep.”

“Sleep, then,” said the queen, “and I will wind you in my arms. O how I love you! how I dote upon you!”

When the fairy king saw the clown sleeping in the arms of his queen, he advanced within her sight, and reproached her with having lavished her favors upon an ass. This she could not deny, as the clown was then sleeping within her arms, with his ass’s head crowned by her with flowers. When Oberon had teased her for some time, he again demanded the changeling boy; which she, ashamed of being discovered by her lord with her new favorite, did not dare to refuse him.

Oberon, having thus obtained the little boy he had so long wished for to be his page, took pity on the disgraceful situation into which, by his merry contrivance, he had brought his Titania, and threw some of the juice of the other flower into her eyes; and the fairy queen immediately recovered her senses, and wondered at her late dotage, saying how she now loathed the sight of the strange monster. Oberon likewise took the ass’s head from off the clown, and left him to finish his nap with his own fool’s head upon his shoulders. Oberon and his Titania being now perfectly reconciled, he related to her the history of the lovers, and their midnight quarrels; and she agreed to go with him, and see the end of their adventures.

The fairy king and queen found the lovers and their fair ladies at no great distance from each other, sleeping on a grass plot; for Puck, to make amends for his former mistake, had contrived to bring them all to the same spot, unknown to each other; and he had removed the charm from off the eyes of Lysander with the antidote the fairy king gave to him.

Hermia first awoke, and finding her lost Lysander asleep so near her, was looking at him, and wondering at his strange inconstancy. Lysander presently opening his eyes, and seeing his dear Hermia, recovered his reason, which the fairy-charm had before clouded, and with his reason, his love for Hermia; and they began to talk over the adventures of the night, doubting if these things had really happened, or if they had both been dreaming the same bewildering dream.

Helena and Demetrius were by this time awake; and a sweet sleep having quieted Helena’s disturbed and angry spirits, she listened with delight to the professions of love which Demetrius still made to her, and which, to her surprise as well as pleasure, she began to perceive were sincere.

These fair night-wandering ladies, now no longer rivals, became once more true friends; all the unkind words which had passed were forgiven, and they calmly consulted together what was best to be done in their present situation. It was soon agreed that, as Demetrius had given up his pretensions to Hermia, she should endeavor to prevail upon her father to revoke the cruel sentence of death which had been passed against her. Demetrius was preparing to return to Athens for this friendly purpose, when they were surprised with the sight of Egeus, Hermia’s father, who came to the wood in pursuit of his runaway daughter.

When Egeus understood that Demetrius would not now marry his daughter, he no longer opposed her marriage with Lysander, but gave his consent that they should be wedded on the fourth day from that time, being the same day on which Hermia had been condemned to lose her life; and on that same day Helena joyfully agreed to marry her beloved and now faithful Demetrius.

The fairy king and queen, who were invisible spectators of this reconciliation, and now saw the happy ending of the lovers’ history brought about through the good offices of Oberon, received so much pleasure, that these kind spirits resolved to celebrate the approaching nuptials with sports and revels throughout their fairy kingdom.

And now, if any are offended with this story of fairies and their pranks, as judging it incredible and strange, they have only to think that they have been asleep and dreaming, and that all these adventures were visions which they saw in their sleep: and I hope none of my readers will be so unreasonable as to be offended with a pretty harmless Midsummer Night’s Dream.

THE WINTER’S TALE.

Leontes, king of Sicily, and his queen, the beautiful and virtuous Hermione, once lived in the greatest harmony together. So happy was Leontes in the love of this excellent lady, that he had no wish ungratified, except that he sometimes desired to see again, and present to his queen, his old companion and school-fellow, Polixenes, king of Bohemia. Leontes and Polixenes were brought up together from their infancy; but being, by the death of their fathers, called to reign over their respective kingdoms, they had not met for many years, though they frequently interchanged gifts, letters, and loving embassies.

At length, after repeated invitations, Polixenes came from Bohemia to the Sicilian court, to make his friend Leontes a visit.

At first this visit gave nothing but pleasure to Leontes. He recommended the friend of his youth to the queen’s particular attention, and seemed in the presence of his dear friend and old companion to have his felicity quite completed. They talked over old times; their school-days and their youthful pranks were remembered and recounted to Hermione, who always took a cheerful part in these conversations.

When, after a long stay, Polixenes was preparing to depart, Hermione, at the desire of her husband, joined her entreaties to his that Polixenes would prolong his visit.

And now began this good queen’s sorrow; for Polixenes refusing to stay at the request of Leontes, was won over by Hermione’s gentle and persuasive words to put off his departure for some weeks longer. Upon this, although Leontes had so long known the integrity and honorable principles of his friend Polixenes, as well as the excellent disposition of his virtuous queen, he was seized with an ungovernable jealousy. Every attention Hermione showed to Polixenes, though by her husband’s particular desire, and merely to please him, increased the unfortunate king’s malady; and from being a loving and a true friend, and the best and fondest of husbands, Leontes became suddenly a savage and inhuman monster. Sending for Camillo, one of the lords of his court, and telling him of the suspicion he entertained, he commanded him to poison Polixenes.

Camillo was a good man; and he, well knowing that the jealousy of Leontes had not the slightest foundation in truth, instead of poisoning Polixenes, acquainted him with the king his master’s orders, and agreed to escape with him out of the Sicilian dominions; and Polixenes, with the assistance of Camillo, arrived safe in his own kingdom of Bohemia, where Camillo lived from that time in the king’s court, and became the chief friend and favorite of Polixenes.

The flight of Polixenes enraged the jealous Leontes still more; he went to the queen’s apartment, where the good lady was sitting with her little son Mamillus, who was just beginning to tell one of his best stories to amuse his mother, when the king entered, and taking the child away, sent Hermione to prison.