Chapter I: Part 1

THE SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER:

DEVOTED TO EVERY DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE AND THE FINE ARTS.

Au gré de nos desirs bien plus qu'au gré des vents.
_Crebillon's Electre_.

As _we_ will, and not as the winds will.

RICHMOND: T. W. WHITE, PUBLISHER AND PROPRIETOR. 1835-6.

{349}

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.

VOL. II. RICHMOND, MAY, 1836. NO. VI.

T. W. WHITE, PROPRIETOR. FIVE DOLLARS PER ANNUM.

MSS. OF BENJ. FRANKLIN.[1]

[Footnote 1: These pieces from the pen of Dr. Franklin have never appeared in any edition of his works, and are from the manuscript book which contains the Lecture and Essays published in the April number of the Messenger.]

_Mr. Gazetteer_,--I was highly pleased with your last week's paper upon SCANDAL, as the uncommon doctrine therein preached is agreeable both to my principles and practice, and as it was published very seasonably to reprove the impertinence of a writer in the foregoing Thursday's Mercury, who, at the conclusion of one of his silly paragraphs, laments forsooth that the fair sex are so peculiarly guilty of this enormous crime: every blockhead, ancient and modern, that could handle a pen, has, I think, taken upon him to cant in the same senseless strain. If to _scandalize_ be really a crime, what do these puppies mean? They describe it--they dress it up in the most odious, frightful and detestable colors--they represent it as the worst of crimes, and then roundly and charitably charge the whole race of womankind with it. Are not they then guilty of what they condemn, at the same time that they condemn it? If they accuse us of any other crime they must necessarily scandalize while they do it; but to scandalize us with being guilty of scandal, is in itself an egregious absurdity, and can proceed from nothing but the most consummate impudence in conjunction with the most profound stupidity.

This, supposing as they do, that to scandalize is a crime; which you have convinced all reasonable people is an opinion absolutely erroneous. Let us leave then, these select mock-moralists, while I entertain you with some account of my life and manners.

I am a young girl of about thirty-five, and live at present with my mother. I have no care upon my head of getting a living, and therefore find it my duty as well as inclination to exercise my talent at CENSURE for the good of my country folks. There was, I am told, a certain generous emperor, who, if a day had passed over his head in which he had conferred no benefit on any man, used to say to his friends, in Latin, _Diem perdidi_, that is, it seems, _I have lost a day_. I believe I should make use of the same expression, if it were possible for a day to pass in which I had not, or missed, an opportunity to scandalize somebody: but, thanks be praised, no such misfortune has befel me these dozen years.

Yet whatever good I may do, I cannot pretend that I at first entered into the practice of this virtue from a principle of public spirit; for I remember that when a child I had a violent inclination to be ever talking in my own praise, and being continually told that it was ill-manners and once severely whipped for it, the confined stream formed itself a new channel, and I began to speak for the future in the dispraise of others. This I found more agreeable to company and almost as much so to myself: for what great difference can there be between putting yourself up or putting your neighbor down? _Scandal_, like other virtues, is in part its own reward, as it gives us the satisfaction of making ourselves appear better than others, or others no better than ourselves.

My mother, good woman, and I, have heretofore differed upon this account. She argued that Scandal spoilt all good conversation, and I insisted that without it there would be no such thing. Our disputes once rose so high that we parted tea-tables, and I concluded to entertain my acquaintance in the kitchen. The first day of this separation we both drank tea at the same time, but she with her visitors in the parlor. She would not hear of the least objection to any one's character, but began a new sort of discourse in some such queer philosophical manner as this: _I am mightily pleased sometimes,_ says she, _when I observe and consider that the world is not so bad as people out of humor imagine it to be. There is something amiable, some good quality or other in every body. If we were only to speak of people that are least respected, there is such a one is very dutiful to her father, and methinks has a fine set of teeth; such a one is very respectful to her husband; such a one is very kind to her poor neighbors, and besides has a very handsome shape; such a one is always ready to serve a friend, and in my opinion there is not a woman in town that has a more agreeable air or gait._ This fine kind of talk, which lasted near half an hour, she concluded by saying, _I do not doubt but every one of you has made the like observations, and I should be glad to have the conversation continued upon this subject._ Just at this juncture I peeped in at the door, and never in my life before saw such a set of simple vacant countenances. They looked somehow neither glad nor sorry, nor angry nor pleased, nor indifferent nor attentive; but (excuse the simile) like so many images of rye dough. I, in the kitchen, had already begun a ridiculous story of Mr. ----'s intrigue with his maid, and his wife's behavior on the discovery; at some of the passages we laughed heartily; and one of the gravest of mamma's company, without making any answer to her discourse got up _to go and see what the girls were so merry about_: she was followed by a second, and shortly by a third, till at last the old gentlewoman found herself quite alone, and being convinced that her project was impracticable came herself and finished her tea with us; ever since which _Saul also has been among the prophets_, and our disputes lie dormant.

By industry and application I have made myself the centre of all the scandal in the province; there is little stirring but I hear of it. I began the world with this maxim, that no trade can subsist without returns; and accordingly, whenever I received a good story, I endeavored to give two or a better in the room of it. My punctuality in this way of dealing gave such encouragement that it has procured me an incredible deal of business, which without diligence and good method it would be impossible for me to go through. For besides the stock of defamation thus naturally flowing in upon me, I practice an art by which I can pump {350} scandal out of people that are the least inclined that way. Shall I discover my secret? Yes; to let it die with me would be inhuman. If I have never heard ill of some person I always impute it to defective intelligence; _for there are none without their faults, no, not one_. If she be a woman, I take the first opportunity to let all her acquaintance know I have heard that one of the handsomest or best men in town has said something in praise either of her beauty, her wit, her virtue, or her good management. If you know any thing of human nature, you perceive that this naturally introduces a conversation turning upon all her failings, past, present and to come. To the same purpose and with the same success I cause every man of reputation to be praised before his competitors in love, business, or esteem, on account of any particular qualification. Near the times of election, if I find it necessary, I commend every candidate before some of the opposite party, listening attentively to what is said of him in answer. But commendations in this latter case are not always necessary and should be used judiciously. Of late years I needed only observe what they said of one another freely; and having for the help of memory taken account of all informations and accusations received, whoever peruses my writings after my death, may happen to think that during a certain time the people of Pennsylvania chose into all their offices of honor and trust, the veriest knaves, fools and rascals, in the whole province. The time of election used to be a busy time with me, but this year, with concern I speak it, people are grown so good natured, so intent upon mutual feasting and friendly entertainment, that I see no prospect of much employment from that quarter.

I mentioned above that without good method I could not go through my business. In my father's life time I had some instruction in accounts, which I now apply with advantage to my own affairs. I keep a regular set of books and can tell at an hour's warning how it stands between me and the world. In my _Daybook_ I enter every article of defamation as it is transacted; for scandals _received in_ I give credit, and when I pay them out again I make the persons to whom they respectively relate, _Debtor_. In my _Journal_, I add to each story, by way of improvement, such probable circumstances as I think it will bear, and in my _Ledger_ the whole is regularly posted.

I suppose the reader already condemns me in his heart for this particular of _adding circumstances_, but I justify this part of my practice thus. It is a principle with me that none ought to have a greater share of reputation than they really deserve; if they have, it is an imposition upon the public. I know it is every one's interest, and therefore believe they endeavor to conceal all their vices and follies; and I hold that those people are _extraordinary_ foolish or careless, who suffer one-fourth of their failings to come to public knowledge. Taking then the common prudence and imprudence of mankind in a lump, I suppose none suffer above one-fifth to be discovered; therefore, when I hear of any person's misdoing, I think I keep within bounds, if in relating it I only make it three times worse than it is; and I reserve to myself the privilege of charging them with one fault in four, which for aught I know they may be entirely innocent of. You see there are but few so careful of doing justice as myself; what reason then have mankind to complain of _Scandal_? In a general way the worst that is said of us is only half what might be said, if all our faults were seen.

But alas! two great evils have lately befallen me at the same time; an extreme cold that I can scarce speak, and a most terrible toothache that I dare hardly open my mouth. For some days past I have received ten stories for one I have paid; and I am not able to balance my accounts without your assistance. I have long thought that if you would make your paper a vehicle of scandal, you would double the number of your subscribers. I send you herewith accounts of four knavish tricks, two * * *, five * * * * *, three drubbed wives, and four henpecked husbands, all within this fortnight; which you may, as articles of news, deliver to the public, and if my toothache continues shall send you more, being in the mean time your constant reader,

ALICE ADDERTONGUE.

I thank my correspondent, Mrs. Addertongue, for her good will, but desire to be excused inserting the articles of news she has sent me, such things being in reality no news at all.

* * * * *

QUERIES TO BE ASKED THE JUNTO.

Whence comes the dew that stands on the outside of a tankard that has cold water in it in the summer time?

Does the importation of servants increase or advance the wealth of our country?

Would not an office of insurance for servants be of service, and what methods are proper for the erecting such an office?

* * * * *

Whence does it proceed that the proselytes to any sect or persuasion, generally appear more zealous than those that are bred up in it?

_Answer_. I suppose that people BRED in different persuasions are nearly zealous alike. Then he that changes his party is either sincere or not sincere: that is, he either does it for the sake of the opinions merely, or with a view of interest. If he is sincere and has no view of interest, and considers before he declares himself how much ill will he shall have from those he leaves, and that those he is about to go among will be apt to suspect his sincerity: if he is not really zealous, he will not declare; and therefore must be zealous if he does declare.

If he is not sincere, he is obliged at least to put on an appearance of great zeal, to convince the better his new friends that he is heartily in earnest, for his old ones he knows dislike him. And as few acts of zeal will be more taken notice of than such as are done against the party he has left, he is inclined to injure or malign them because he knows they contemn and despise him. Hence one Renegado is (as the Proverb says) worse than ten Turks.

* * * * *

SIR,--It is strange, that among men who are born for society and mutual solace, there should be any who take pleasure in speaking disagreeable things to their acquaintance. But such there are I assure you, and I should be glad if a little public chastisement might be any means of reforming them. These ill-natured people study a man's temper, or the circumstances of his life, {351} merely to know what disgusts him, and what he does not care to hear mentioned; and this they take care to omit no opportunity of disturbing him with. They communicate their wonderful discoveries to others, with an ill-natured satisfaction in their countenances, _say such a thing to such a man and you cannot mortify him worse_. They delight (to use their own phrase) in seeing galled horses wince, and like flies, a sore place is a feast to them. Know, ye wretches, that the meanest insect, the trifling musqueto, the filthy bug have it in their power to give pain to men; but to be able to give pleasure to your fellow creatures, requires good nature and a kind and humane disposition, joined with talents to which ye seem to have no pretension.

X. Y.

* * * * *

If a sound body and a sound mind, which is as much as to say health and virtue, are to be preferred before all other considerations,--Ought not men, in choosing of a business either for themselves or children, to refuse such as are unwholesome for the body, and such as make a man too dependant, too much obliged to please others, and too much subjected to their humors in order to be recommended and get a livelihood.

* * * * *

I am about courting a girl I have had but little acquaintance with; how shall I come to a knowledge of her faults, and whether she has the virtues I imagine she has?

_Answer_. Commend her among her female acquaintance.

* * * * *

To the Printer of the Gazette.

According to the request of your correspondent T. P., I send you my thoughts on the following case by him proposed, viz:

A man bargains for the keeping of his horse six months, whilst he is making a voyage to Barbadoes. The horse strays or is stolen soon after the keeper has him in possession. When the owner demands the value of his horse in money, may not the other as justly demand so much deducted as the keeping of the horse six months amounts to?

It does not appear that they had any dispute about the value of the horse, whence we may conclude there was no reason for such dispute, but it was well known how much he cost, and that he could not honestly have been sold again for more. But the value of the horse is not expressed in the case, nor the sum agreed for keeping him six months; wherefore in order to our more clear apprehension of the thing, let _ten pounds_ represent the horse's value and three pounds the sum agreed for his keeping.

Now the sole foundation on which the keeper can found his demand of a deduction for keeping a horse he did not keep, is this. _Your horse,_ he may say, _which I was to restore to you at the end of six months was worth ten founds; if I now give you ten pounds it is an equivalent for your horse, and equal to returning the horse itself. Had I returned your horse (value 10_l._) you would have paid me three pounds for his keeping, and therefore would have received in fact but seven pounds clear. You then suffer no injury if I now pay you seven pounds, and consequently you ought in reason to allow me the remaining three pounds according to our agreement._

But the owner of the horse may possibly insist upon being paid the whole sum of ten pounds, without allowing any deduction for his keeping after he was lost, and that for these reasons.

1. It is always supposed, unless an express agreement be made to the contrary, when horses are put out to keep, that the keeper is at the risque of them (unavoidable accidents only excepted, wherein no care of the keeper can be supposed sufficient to preserve them, such as their being slain by lightning or the like.) _This you yourself tacitly allow when you offer to restore me the value of my horse._ Were it otherwise, people having no security against a keeper's neglect or mismanagement would never put horses out to keep.

2. Keepers considering the risque they run, always demand such a price for keeping horses, that if they were to follow the business twenty years, they may have a living profit, though they now and then pay for a horse they have lost; and if they were to be at no risque they might afford to keep horses for less than they usually have. So that what a man pays for his horse's keeping, more than the keeper could afford to take if he ran no risque, is in the nature of a premium for the insurance of his horse. _If I then pay you for the few days you kept my horse, you should restore me his full value._

3. You acknowledge that my horse eat of your hay and oats but a few days. It is unjust then to charge me for all the hay and oats that he only might have eat in the remainder of the six months, and which you have now still good in your stable. If, as the proverb says, it is unreasonable to expect a horse should void oats who never eat any, it is certainly as unreasonable to expect payment for those oats.

4. If men in such cases as this are to be paid for keeping horses when they were not kept, then they have a great opportunity of wronging the owners of horses. For by privately selling my horse for his value (ten pounds) soon after you had him in possession, and returning me at the expiration of the time only seven pounds, demanding three pounds as a deduction agreed for his keeping, you get that 3_l._ clear into your pocket, besides the use of my money six months for nothing.

5. But you say, the value of my horse being ten pounds, if you deduct three for his keeping and return me seven, it is all I would in fact have received had you returned my horse; therefore as I am no loser I ought to be satisfied: this argument, were there any weight in it, might serve to justify a man in selling as above, as many of the horses he takes to keep as he conveniently can, putting clear into his own pocket that charge their owner must have been at for their keeping, for this being no loss to the owners, he may say, _where no man is a loser why should not I be a gainer_. I need only answer to this, that I allow the horse cost me but ten pounds, nor could I have sold him for more, had I been disposed to part with him, but this can be no reason why you should buy him of me at that price, whether I will sell him or not. For it is plain I valued him at thirteen pounds, otherwise I should not have paid ten pounds for him and agreed to give you three pounds more for his keeping, till I had occasion to use him. Thus, though you pay me the whole ten pounds which he cost me, (deducting only for his keeping those few days) I am still a loser; I lose the charge of those {352} days' keeping; I lose the three pounds at which I valued him above what he cost me, and I lose the advantage I might have made of my money in six months, either by the interest or by joining it to my stock in trade in my voyage to Barbadoes.

6. Lastly, whenever a horse is put to keep, the agreement naturally runs thus: The keeper says I will feed your horse six months on good hay and oats, if at the end of that time you will pay me three pounds. The owner says, if you will feed my horse six months on good hay and oats, I will pay you three pounds at the end of that time. Now we may plainly see, the keeper's performance of his part of the agreement must be antecedent to that of the owner; and the agreement being wholly conditional, the owner's part is not in force till the keeper has performed his. _You then not having fed my horse six months, as you agreed to do, there lies no obligation on me to pay for so much feeding._

Thus we have heard what can be said on both sides. Upon the whole, I am of opinion that no deduction should be allowed for the keeping of the horse after the time of his straying.

I am yours, &c.
THE CASUIST.

TO A COQUETTE.

The Lady was playing the _Penserosa_, and the Bard rallied her. She suddenly assumed the _Allegra_, and rallied him in turn. Whereupon he sung as follows:

Heave no more that breast of snow,
With sighs of simulated wo,
While Conquest triumphs on thy brow,
And Hope, gay laughing in thine eye,
Cheers the moments gliding by,
Welcomes Joy's voluptuous train,
Welcomes Pleasure's jocund reign,
And whispers thee of transports yet in store,
When fraught with Love's ecstatic pain,
Shooting keen through every vein,
Thy heart shall thrill with bliss unknown before.

But smile not so divinely bright;
Nor sport before my dazzled sight,
That "prodigality of charms,"
That winning air, that wanton grace,
That pliant form, that beauteous face,
Zephyr's step, Aurora's smile;
Nor thus in mimic fondness twine,
About my neck thy snowy arms;
Nor press this faded cheek of mine,
Nor seek, by every witching wile,
My hopes to raise, my heart to gain,
Then laugh my love to scorn, and triumph in my pain.

I love thee, Julia! Though the flush
Of sprightly youth is flown--
Though the bright glance, and rose's blush
From eye and cheek and lip are gone--
Though Fancy's frolic dreams are fled,
Dispelled by sullen care--
And Time's gray wing its frost has shed
Upon my raven hair--
Yet warm within my bosom glows,
A heart that recks not winter's snows,
But throbs with hope, and heaves with sighs
For ruby lips and sparkling eyes;
And still--the slave of amorous care--
Would make that breast, that couch of Love, its lair.

* * * * *

TO THE SAME.

Shade! O shade those looks of light;
The thrilling sense can bear no more!
Veil those beauties from my sight,
Which to see is to adore.

That dimpled cheek, whose spotless white,
The rays of Love's first dawning light,
Tinge with Morning's rosy blush,
And cast a warm and glowing flush,
Even on thy breast of snow,
And in thy bright eyes sparkling dance,
And through the waving tresses glance
That shade thy polished brow
Who can behold, nor own thy power?
Who can behold, and not adore?

But like the wretch, who, doomed to endless pain,
Raises to realms of bliss his aching eyes,
To Heaven uplifts his longing arms in vain
While in his tortured breast new pangs arise--
Thus while at thy feet I languish,
Stung with Love's voluptuous anguish,
The smile that would my hopes revive,
The witching glance that bids me live
Shed on my heart one fleeting ray,
One gleam of treacherous Hope display;
But soon again in deep Despair I pine:
The dreadful truth returns: "Thou never wilt be mine."

Then shade! O shade those looks of light;
The thrilling sense can bear no more!
Veil those beauties from my sight,
Which to see is to adore.

But stay! O yet awhile refrain!
Forbear! And let me gaze again!
Still at thy feet impassioned let me lie,
Tranced by the magic of thy thrilling eye;
Thy soft melodious voice still let me hear,
Pouring its melting music on my ear;
And, while my eager lip, with transport bold,
Presumptuous seeks thy yielded hand to press,
Still on thy charms enraptured let me gaze,
Basking ecstatic in thy beauty's blaze,
Such charms 'twere more than Heaven to possess:
'Tis Heaven only to behold.

LIONEL GRANBY.

CHAPTER X.

He scanned with curious and prophetic eye
Whate'er of lore tradition could supply
From Gothic tale, or song or fable old--
Roused him still keen to listen and to pry.
_The Minstrel_.

You judge the English character with too much favor Lionel, said Col. R----. The Englishman is not free! Though vain, arrogant, and imperious, there is not a more abject slave on earth. His boasting spirit, his full-mouthed independence and his lordly step quail to rank, {353} and he is ever crawling amid the purlieus or over the threshold of that fantastic temple of fashion called "Society." It is an endless contest between those who are initiated into its mysteries and those who crowd its avenues. Wealth batters down the door--assumes a proud niche in the chilling fane, and uniting itself to that silent yet powerful aristocracy which wields the oracles of the god, its breath can create you an _exclusive_, or its frown can degrade you to the vulgar herd. Rank, which is the idol of an Englishman's sleepless devotion, wealth because it is curiously akin to the former, and some indistinct conception of the difference between a people and the mob, render him, in his own conceit, a gentleman and a politician. His first thought if cast on a desert island would be his rank, and if he had companions in misfortune, he would ere night arrange the dignity and etiquette of intercourse. Literature seeks the same degrading arena, and alas! how few are there who do not deck the golden calf with the laurels won in the conflicts of genius, and who, stimulated solely by lucre, shed their momentary light athwart the horizon, even as the meteor whose radiance is exhaled from the corruption of a fœtid marsh. But there is a class who, ennobled by letters, are always independent; and though they be of the race of authors whom Sir Horace Walpole calls "a troublesome, conceited set of fellows," you will find them too proud and too honest to palter away the prerogatives of their station.

But we are now at the door of Elia; come, let me introduce you to one of his simple and unaffected suppers!

I cheerfully assented to this invitation, and following my conductor up a flight of crooked and dark steps, we entered into a room, over a brazier's shop. A dull light trembled through the small and narrow apartment where, shrouded in a close volume of tobacco smoke, sat in pensive gentility--the kind--the generous--the infant-hearted Charles Lamb; the man whose elastic genius dwelled among the mouldering ruins of by-gone days, until it became steeped in beauty and expanded with philosophy--the wit--the poet--the lingering halo of the sunshine of antiquity--the phœnix of the mighty past. He was of delicate and attenuated stature, and as fragilely moulded as a winter's flower, with a quick and volatile eye, a mind-worn forehead and a countenance eloquent with thought. Around a small table well covered with glasses and a capacious bowl, were gathered a laughing group, eyeing the battalia of the coming supper. Godwin's heavy form and intellectual face, with the swimming eye of (ες τε σε S. T. C. How quaint was his fancy!) Coleridge, flanked the margin of the mirth-inspiring bowl.

Col. R----'s introduction made me at home, and ere my hand had dropped from the friendly grasp of our host, he exclaimed--And you are truly from the land of the _great plant_? You have seen the sole cosmopolite spring from the earth. It is the denizen of the whole world, the tireless friend of the wretched, the bliss of the happy. You need no record of the empire of the red man. He has written his fadeless history on a tobacco leaf.

At this time Lamb was a clerk in the "India House," a melancholy and gloomy mansion, with grave courts, heavy pillars, dim cloisters, stately porticoes, imposing staircases and all the solemn pomp of elder days. Here for many years he drove the busy quill, and whiled away his tranquil evenings, in the dalliance of literature. He was an author belonging to his own exclusive school--a school of simplicity, grace and beauty. He neither skewered his pen into precise paragraphs, nor rioted in the verbose rotundity of the day. He picked up the rare and unpolished jewels which spangled the courts of Elizabeth and Charles, and they lost beneath his polishing hand neither their lustre nor value. He was a passionate and single hearted antiquary, ever laboring to prop up with a puny arm, the column on which was inscribed the literary glory of his country. He was familiar with the grace of Heywood, the harmony of Fletcher, the ease of Sir Philip Sydney, the delicacy and fire of Spenser, the sweetness of Carew, the power and depth of Marlow, the mighty verse of Shakspeare, the affected fustian of Euphues (Lilly) "which ran into a vast excess of allusion," and with the deep and sparkling philosophy of Burton. With all of them he held a "dulcified" converse, while his memory preserved from utter forgetfulness, many of those authors who to the eye of the world, had glittered like the flying fish a moment above the surface, only to sink deeper in the sea of oblivion.

Lamb possessed in an eminent degree, what Dryden called a beautiful turn of words and thoughts in poetry, and the easy swell of cadence and harmony which characterised his brief writings declared the generosity of his heart, and the fertility of his genius. He could sympathise with childhood's frolic, and his heart was full of boyish dreams, when he gazed on the play-ground of Eton, and exclaimed "what a pity to think that these fine ingenuous lads in a few years will be changed into frivolous members of parliament!" He had the rough magnanimity of the old English vein, mellowed into tenderness and dashed with a flexible and spinous humor. He was contented to worship poesy in its classic and antique drapery. With him the fountain of Hypocrene still gushed up its inspiring wave; and Apollo, attended by the Muses, the daughters of Memory, and escorted by the Graces, still haunted the mountains of Helicon, lingered among the hills of Phocis, or, mounted upon Pegasus, winged his radiant flight to the abode itself of heaven-born Poesy. These were the fixed principles of his taste, and he credulously smiled (for contempt found no place in his bosom) upon the sickly illustrations and naked imagery of modern song. His learning retained a hue of softness from the gentleness of his character, for he had gathered the blossoms untouched by the bitterness of the sciential apple. He extracted like the bee his honied stores from the wild and neglected flowers which bloomed among forgotten ruins, yet he was no plagiarist, no imitator, for he had invaded and lingered amid the dim sepulchres of the shadowy past, until he became its friend and cotemporary!

How has he obtained those curiously bound books, I whispered to Coleridge, as my eye fell on a column of shelves groaning under a mass of tattered volumes which would have fairly crazed my poor uncle?

Tell him Lamb! said Coleridge repeating my inquiry, give him the rank and file of your ragged regiment.

Slowly, and painfully as a neophyte, did I build the pile, replied Lamb. Its corner stone was that fine old folio of Beaumont and Fletcher, which, for a long year had peeped out from a bookseller's stall directly in my {354} daily path to the India House. It bore the great price of sixteen shillings, and to me, who had no unsunned heap of silver, I gazed on it until I had almost violated the decalogue. Poetry made me an economist, and at the end of two months my garnered mites amounted to the requisite sum. Vain as a girl with her first lover, I bore it home in triumph, and that night my sister Bridget read "The Laws of Candy" while I listened with rapture to that deep and gurgling torrent of old English, which dashed its music from this broken cistern. To her is the honor due, her taste has called all these obsolete wits to my library, for she keenly relished their fantasies, and smiled at their gauderies. In early life she had been tumbled into a spacious closet of good old English reading, without much selection or prohibition and browsed at will upon that fair and wholesome pasturage. Had I twenty girls they should be brought up in this fashion. I know not whether their chance in wedlock might not be diminished by it, but I can answer for it that (if the worst comes to the worst) it makes most incomparable old maids.

But there are some fearful gaps in my shelves, Mr. Granby! See! there a stately and reverend folio, like a huge eye-tooth, was rudely knocked out by a bold _borrower of books_, one of your smiling pirates, mutilator of collections, a spoiler of the symmetry of shelves, and a creator of odd volumes.

The conversation now became general, and many a little skiff was launched on the great ocean of commonplace. Lamb most cordially hated politics which he called "a splutter of hot rhetoric;" and he only remembered its battles and revolutions when connected with letters. He had heard of Pharsalia, but it was Lucan's and not Cæsar's; the battle of Lepanto was cornered in his memory because Cervantes had there lost an arm. The glorious days of the "Commonwealth" were hallowed by Milton and Waller, and he always turned with much address from the angry debates about the execution of Charles I. to the simple inquiry whether he or Doctor Ganden wrote the "Icon Basilike."

Godwin in vain essayed to introduce the "conduct of the ministry," and being repeatedly baffled, he said pettishly to Lamb, And what benefit is your freehold, if you do not feel interested in government?

Ah! I had a freehold it is true, the gift of my generous and solemn god-father, the oil-man in Holborn; I went down and took possession of my testamentary allotment of three quarters of an acre, and strode over it with the feeling of an English freeholder, that all betwixt sky and earth was my own. Alas! it has passed into more prudent hands, and nothing but an Agrarian can restore it!

The bowl now danced from hand to hand, and I did not observe its operation until Lamb and Coleridge commenced an affectionate talk about Christ's Hospital, the blue coat boys, and all the treasured anecdotes of school-day friendship. This is the first and happiest stage of incipient intoxication, and the "willie-draughts" which are pledged to the memory of boyhood, ever inspire brighter and nobler sympathies, than are found in the raciest toasts to beauty, or the deepest libations to our country.

Do you not remember, said Lamb, poor Allan! whose beautiful countenance disarmed the wrath of a town-damsel whom he had secretly pinched, and whose half-formed execration was exchanged, when she, tigress-like turned round and gave the terrible _bl----_ for a gentler meaning, _bless thy handsome face!_ And do you not remember when you used to tug over Homer, discourse Metaphysics, chaunt Anacreon, and play at foils with the sharp-edged wit of Sir Thomas Browne, how your eye glistened when you doffed the grotesque blue coat, and the inspired charity boy (this was uttered in an under tone) walked forth humanized by a christian garment. Spenser knew the nobility of heart which a new coat gives when he dressed his butterfly.

The velvet nap which on his wings doth lie
The silken down with which his back is dight
His broad outstretched horns, his hairy thighs
His glorious colors, and his glistening eyes.

Col. R. now motioned to me to retire, and I bid a reluctant goodnight to the joyous scene, the exclamation "do you not remember!" from Coleridge, and the cheerful laugh ringing through the whole house and its dying echo following us to the street.

Gentle reader! the critics have called Lamb a trifler, the scholars have called him a twaddler! Read _Elia_, and let your heart answer for him.

THE PRAIRIE.

This word is pronounced by the common people _pa-ra-re_. I was in the peninsula of Michigan, and had been for a day or two traversing the most dreary country imaginable, when I saw for the first time a salt or wet prairie, which is only a swampy meadow, grown up in a rank, coarse, sedgy grass.

Not long after we began to catch glimpses of the upland prairies. These are either clear prairies, totally destitute of trees, or oak openings which consist of clear prairie and scattered trees. A clear prairie--a broad unvaried expanse--presents rather a monotonous appearance like the sea, but surely the human eye has never rested on more lovely landscapes than these oak openings present. They answered my conceptions of lawns, parks and pleasure grounds in England; they are the lawns, parks and pleasure grounds of nature, laid out and planted with an inimitable grace, fresh as creation.

In these charming woodlands are a number of small lakes, the most picturesque and delightful sheets of water imaginable. The prairies in the summer are covered with flowers. I am an indifferent botanist, but in a short walk I gathered twenty four species which I had not seen before. These flowers and woods and glittering lakes surpass all former conception of beauty. Each flower, leaf, and blade of grass, and green twig glistens with pendulous diamonds of dew. The sun pours his light upon the water and streams through the sloping glades. To a traveller unaccustomed to such scenes, they are pictures of a mimic paradise. Sometimes they stretch away far as the eye can reach, soft as Elysian meadows, then they swell and undulate, voluptuous as the warm billows of a southern sea.

In these beautiful scenes we saw numerous flocks of wild turkies, and now and then a prairie hen, or a deer bounding away through flowers. Here too is found the prairie wolf which some take to be the Asiatic jackall. It is so small as not to be dangerous alone. It is said however, that they hunt in packs like hounds, headed by a grey wolf. Thus they pursue the deer with a cry {355} not unlike that of hounds, and have been known to rush by a farm-house in hot pursuit. The officers of the army stationed at the posts on the Prairies amuse themselves hunting these little wolves which in some parts are very numerous.

C. C.

RANDOM THOUGHTS.

_The Age_.--Its leading fault, to which we of America are especially obnoxious, is this: in Poetry, in Legislation, in Eloquence, the best, the divinest even of all the arts, seems to be laid aside more and more, just in proportion as it every day grows of greater necessity. It is still, as in Swift's time, who complains as follows: "To say the truth, no part of knowledge seems to be in fewer hands, than that of discerning _when to have done_."

_Dancing_.--The following are sufficiently amusing illustrations of the fine lines in Byron's Ode,

"You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet;
Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?"

The French translation of St. John (de Creve-cœur's) _American Farmer's Letters_--a book once very popular--was adorned with engravings, to fit it to the European imagination of the Arcadian state of things in America. The frontispiece presents an allegorical picture, in which a goddess of those robuster proportions which designate Wisdom, or Philosophy, leads by the hand an urchin--the type, no doubt, of this country--with ne'er a shirt upon his back. More delightfully still, however, in the back ground, is seen, hand in hand, with knee-breeches and strait-collared coats, a band of Pennsylvania quaker men, dancing, by themselves, a true old fashioned six-handed Virginia reel.

But of the Pyrrhic dance, more particularly: the learned Scaliger--that terror and delight of the critical world--assures us, in his _Poetica_, (book i, ch. 9) that he himself, at the command of his uncle Boniface, was wont often and long to dance it, before the Emperor Maximilian, while all Germany looked on with amazement. "Hanc saltationem Pyrrhicam, nos sæpe et diu, jussu Bonifacii patrui, coram divo Maximiliano, non sine stupore totius Germaniæ, representavimus."

_Ariosto_.--Has not the following curious testimony in regard to him escaped all his biographers? Montaigne, in his Essays, (vol. iii, p. 117, Johanneau's edition, in 8vo.) says, "J'eus plus de despit encores, que de compassion, de le veoir à Ferrare en si piteux estat, survivant à soy mesme, mecognoissant et soy et ses ouvrages; lesquels, sans son sςeu, et toutesfois en sa veue, on a mis en lumiere incorrigez et informes."

"I was touched even more with vexation than with compassion, to see him, at Ferrara, in a state so piteous, outliving himself, and incapable of recognizing either himself or his works; which last, without his knowledge, though yet before his sight, were given to the world uncorrected and unfinished."

_Thin Clothing_.--It would be difficult more skilfully to turn a reproach into a praise, than Byron has done, as to drapery too transparent, in his voluptuous description of a Venitian revel.

--------"The thin robes,
Floating like light clouds 'twixt our gaze and heaven,"

form the very climax of many intoxicating particulars.

The Greeks seem not to have practised a very rigorous reserve, as to the concealment of the person. The Lacedemonians, indeed, studiously suppressed, by their institutions, whatever of sexual modesty was not absolutely necessary to virtue. Among the Romans, however, the national austerity of manners made every violation of delicacy in this matter a great offence. Their Satyrists (as Seneca, Juvenal, and others) abound in allusions to the license of dress, which grew up, along with the other corruptions of their original usages. The words of Seneca, indeed, might almost be taken for a picture of a modern belle, in her ball-room attire. He says, in his _De Beneficiis_, "Video Sericas vestes, si vestes vocandæ sint, in quibus nihil est, quo defendi aut corpus, aut denique pudor, possit: quibus sumtis, mulier parum liquido, nudam se non esse, jurabit. Hæc, ingenti summa, ab ignotis etiam ad commercium gentibus, accersuntur, ut matronæ nostræ ne adulteris quidem plus suis in cubiculo, quam in publico, ostendant." "I see, too, silken clothing--if clothing that can be called, which does not protect, nor even conceal the body--apparelled in which, a woman cannot very truly swear, that she is not naked. Such tissues are brought to us at enormous cost, from nations so remote that not even their names can reach us; and by the help of this vast expense, our matrons are able to exhibit, to their lovers and in their couches, nothing at which the whole public has not equally gazed."

_Mythology_.--Bryant and others have puzzled themselves not a little to give a rational explanation to the story of Ariadne; who, it will be remembered, was abandoned upon the isle of Naxos by her seducer, Theseus: but Bacchus chancing to come that way, fell upon the forlorn damsel, and presently made her his bride. All this may well puzzle a commentator, for the single reason, that it is perfectly plain and simple. The whole tale is nothing but a delicate and poetic way of stating the fact, that Mrs. Ariadne, being deserted by her lover, sought and found a very common consolation--that is to say, she took to drink.

_Naples_.--Its population of Lazzaroni appears, after all, to be but the legitimate inheritors of ancestral laziness. They were equally idle in Ovid's time: for he expressly calls that seat of indolence

------"in otia natam
Parthenopen."

_Exhibition of Grief_.--There is a curious instance of the unbending austerity of Roman manners, in the trait by which Tacitus endeavors to paint the disorder with which the high-souled Agrippina received the news of the death of Germanicus. She was, at the moment, sewing in the midst of her maids; and so totally (says Tacitus) did the intelligence overthrow her self-command, _that she broke off her work_.

_Snoring_.--The following story of a death caused by it is entirely authentic. Erythræus relates that when Cardinal Bentivoglio--a scholar equally elegant and laborious--was called to sit in the Conclave, for the election of a successor to Urban VIII, the summons found him much exhausted by the literary vigils to which he was addicted. Immured in the sacred palace, (such is the custom while the Pope is not yet chosen,) his lodging was assigned him along side of a Cardinal, whose snoring was so incessant and so terrible, that poor Bentivoglio ceased to be able to obtain even the {356} little sleep which his studies and his cares usually permitted him. After eleven nights of insomnolence thus produced, he was thrown into a violent fever. They removed him, and he slept--but waked no more.

_Human Usefulness_.--Wilkes has said, that of all the uses to which a man can be put, there is none so poor as hanging him. I hope that I may, without offence to any body's taste, add, that of all the purposes to which a _soul_ can be put, I know of none less useful than _damning it_.

_Sneezing_.--It is the Catholics (see father Feyjoo for the fact) who trace the practice of bidding God bless a man when he sneezes, to a plague in the time of St. Gregory. He, they say, instituted the observance, in order to ward off the death of which this spasm had, till then, been the regular precursor, in the disease. If the story be true, such a plague had already happened, long before the day of St. Gregory. In the _Odyssey_, Penelope takes the sneezing of Telemachus for a good omen; and the army of Xenophon drew a favorable presage, as to one of his propositions, from a like accident: Aristotle speaks of the salutation of one sneezing as the common usage of his time. In Catullus's _Acme and Sempronius_, Cupid ratifies, by an approving sneeze, the mutual vows of the lovers. Pliny alludes to the practice, and Petronius in his _Gyton_. In Apuleius's _Golden Ass_, a husband hears the concealed gallant of his wife sneeze, and blesses her, taking the sternutation to be her own.

If there be a marvel or an absurdity, the Rabbins rarely fail to adorn the fiction or the folly with some trait of their own. Their account of the matter is, that in patriarchal days, men never died except by sneezing, which was then the only disease, and always mortal. Apparently then, the antiquity of the Scotch nation and of rappee cannot be carried back to the time of Jacob. Be this point of chronology as it may, however, it is certain that the same sort of observance, as to sneezing, was found in America at the first discovery.

Aristotle is politely of opinion that the salutation was meant as an acknowledgment to the wind, for choosing an inoffensive mode of escape. But a stronger consideration is necessary to account for the joy with which the people of Monopotama celebrate the fact, when their monarch sneezes. The salutation is spread by loud acclamations, over the whole city. So, too, when he of Sennaar sneezes, his courtiers all turn their backs, and slap loudly their right thighs.

_Honor_.--The source of the following passage in Garth's _Dispensary_, is so obvious, that it is singular that no one has made the remark.

In the debate among the Doctors, when war is proposed, one of the Council speaks as follows.

Thus he: "'Tis true, when privilege and right
Are once invaded, Honor bids us fight:
But ere we yet engage in Honor's cause,
First know what honor is, and whence its laws.
Scorned by the base, 'tis courted by the brave;
The hero's tyrant, yet the coward's slave:
Born in the noisy camp, it feeds on air,
And both exists by hope and by despair;
Angry whene'er a moment's ease we gain,
And reconciled at our returns of pain.
It lives when in death's arms the hero lies;
But when his safety he consults, it dies.
Bigotted to this idol, we disclaim
Rest, health and ease, for nothing but a name."

_Implicit Faith_.--I am delighted with the following excellent contrast of ignorant Orthodoxy with cultivated Doubt. It is from the learned and pious Le Clerc's Preface to his _Bibliothèque Choisie_, vol. vii, pp. 5, 6.

"Il n'y a, comme je crois, personne, qui ne préferât l'état d'une nation, où il y auroit beaucoup de lumières quoiqu'il y eût quelques libertins, à celui d'une nation ignorante et qui croiroit tout ce qu'on lui enseigneroit, ou qui au moins ne donneroit aucunes marques de douter des sentimens reçus. Les lumières produisent infailliblement beaucoup de vertu dans l'esprit d'une bonne part de ceux qui les reçoivent; quoiqu'il y ait des gens qui en abusent. Mais l'Ignorance ne produit que de la barbarie et des vices dans tous ceux qui vivent tranquillement dans leurs ténèbres. Il faudroit étre fou, par exemple, pour préferer ou pour égaler l'état auquel sont les Moscovites et d'autres nations, à l'égard de la Religion et de la vertu, à celni auquel sont les Anglois et les Hollandois, sous prétexte qu'il y a quelques libertins parmi ces deux peuples, et que les Moscovites et ceux qui leur ressemblent ne doubtent de rien."

"There is, I think, no one who would prefer the state of a nation, in which there was much intelligence, but some free thinkers, to that of a nation ignorant and ready to believe whatever might be taught it, or which, at least, would show no sign of doubting any of the received opinions. For knowledge never fails to produce much of virtue, in the minds of a large part of those who receive it, even though there be some who make an ill use of it. But Ignorance is never seen to give birth to any thing but barbarism and vice, in all such as dwell contentedly under her darkness. It would, for example, be nothing less than madness, to prefer or to compare the condition in which the Muscovites and some other nations are, as respects Religion and Virtue, to that of the English or Hollanders; under the pretext that there are, among the two latter nations, some free thinkers, and that the Muscovites and those who resemble them doubt of nothing."

The whole of this piece, indeed, is excellent, and full of candor, charity and sense, as to the temper and the principles of those who are forever striving to send into banishment, or shut up in prisons, or compel into eternal hypocrisy, all such opinions as have the misfortune to differ with their own.

_Friendships_.--There are people whose friendship is very like the Santee Canal in South Carolina: that is to say, its repairs cost more than the fee simple is worth.