ancient mythology, has written some of his lively little odes upon the Lares. We have not them by us at this moment, but we remember one beginning,— It was, and still my care is To worship you, the Lares. We take the opportunity of the Lar's being mentioned in it, to indulge ourselves in a little poem of Martial's, very charming for its simplicity. It is an Epitaph on a child of the name of Erotion. Hic festinata requiescit Erotion umbra, Crimine quam fati sexta peremit hiems. THE EPITAPH OF EROTION. Underneath this greedy stone Whom the fates, with hearts as cold, Hurt thy house or chill thy Lar; X.-SOCIAL GENEALOGY. IT is a curious and pleasant thing to consider, that a link of personal acquaintance can be traced up from the authors of our own times to those of Shakspeare, and to Shakspeare himself. Ovid, in recording his intimacy with Propertius and Horace, regrets that he had only seen Virgil. (Trist. Lib. IV., v. 51.) But still he thinks the sight of him worth remembering. And Pope, when a child, prevailed on some friends to take him to a coffeehouse which Dryden frequented, merely to look at him; which he did, with great satisfaction. Now such of us as have shaken hands with a living poet, might be able to reckon up a series of connecting shakes, to the very hand that wrote of Hamlet, and of Falstaff, and of Desdemona. With some living poets, it is certain. There is Thomas Moore, for instance, who knew Sheridan. Sheridan knew Johnson, who was the friend of Savage, who knew Steele, who knew Pope. Pope was intimate with Congreve, and Congreve with Dryden. Dryden is Isaid to have visited Milton. Milton is said to have known Davenant; and to have been saved by him from the revenge of the restored court, in return for having saved Davenant from the revenge of the Commonwealth. But if the link between Dryden and Milton, and Milton and Davenant, is somewhat apocryphal, or rather dependent on tradition (for Richardson the painter tells us the story from Pope, who had it from Betterton the actor, one of Davenant's company), it may be carried at once from Dryden to Davenant, with whom he was unquestionably intimate. Davenant then knew Hobbes, who knew Bacon, who knew Ben Fletcher, Chapman, Donne, Drayton, Camden, Jonson, who was intimate with Beaumont and Selden, Clarendon, Sydney, Raleigh, and perhaps all the great men of Elizabeth's and James's time, the greatest of them all undoubtedly. Thus have we a link of "beamy hands" from our own times up to Shakspeare. In this friendly genealogy we have omitted the numerous side-branches or common friendships. It may be mentioned, however, in order not to omit Spenser, that Davenant resided some time in the family of Lord Brooke, the friend of Sir Philip Sidney. Spenser's intimacy with Sidney is mentioned by himself in a letter, still extant, to Gabriel Harvey. We will now give the authorities for our intellectual pedigree. Sheridan is mentioned in Boswell as being admitted to the celebrated club of which Johnson, Goldsmith, and others were members. He had just written the School for Scandal, which made him the more welcome. Of Johnson's friendship with Savage (we cannot help beginning the sentence with his favourite leading preposition), the wellknown Life is an interesting record. It is said that in the commencement of their friendship, they sometimes wandered together about London for want of a lodging-more likely for Savage's want of it, and Johnson's fear of offending him by offering a share of his own. But we do not remember how this circumstance is related by Boswell. Savage's intimacy with Steele is recorded in a pleasant anecdote, which he told Johnson. Sir Richard once desired him, "with an air of the utmost importance," says his biographer, "to come very early to his house the next morning. Mr. Savage came as he had promised, found the chariot at the door, and Sir Richard waiting for him and ready to go out. What was intended, and whither they were to go, Savage could not conjecture, and was not willing to inquire, but immediately seated himself with Sir Richard. The coachman was ordered to drive, and they hurried with the utmost expedition to Hyde-park Corner, where they stopped at a petty tavern, and retired to a private room. Sir Richard then informed him that he intended to publish a pamphlet, and that he had desired him to come thither that he might write for him. They soon sat down to the work. Sir Richard dictated, and Savage wrote, till the dinner that had been ordered was put upon the table. Savage was surprised at the meanness of the entertainment, and after some hesitation, ventured to ask for wine, which Sir Richard, not without reluctance, ordered to be brought. They then finished their dinner, and proceeded in their pamphlet, which they concluded in the after noon. "Mr. Savage then imagined that his task was over, and expected that Sir Richard would call for the reckoning, and return home; but his expectations deceived him, for Sir Richard told him that he was without money, and that the pamphlet must be sold before the dinner could be paid for, and Savage was therefore obliged to go and offer their new production for sale for two guineas, which with some difficulty he obtained. Sir Richard then returned home, having retired that day only to avoid his creditors, and composed the pamphlet only to discharge his reckoning." Steele's acquaintance with Pope, who wrote some papers for his Guardian, appears in the letters and other works of the wits of that time. Johnson supposes that it was his friendly interference, which attempted to bring Pope and Addison together after a jealous separation. Pope's friendship with Congreve appears also in his letters. He also dedicated the Iliad to Congreve, over the heads of peers and patrons. The dramatist, whose conversation most likely partook of the elegance and wit of his writings, and whose manners appear to have rendered him a universal favourite, had the honour, in his youth, of attracting the respect and regard of Dryden. He was publicly hailed by him as his successor, and affectionately bequeathed the care of his laurels. Dryden did not know who had been looking at him in the coffee-house. Already I am worn with cares and age, But shade those laurels which descend to you. Congreve did so, with great tenderness. Dryden is reported to have asked Milton's permission to turn his Paradise Lost into a rhyming tragedy, which he called the State of Innocence, or the Fall of Man; a work, such as might be expected from such a mode of alteration. The venerable poet is said to have answered, " Ay, young man, you may tag my verses, if you will." Be the connexion, however, of Dryden with Milton, or of Milton with Davenant, as it may, Dryden wrote the alteration of Shakspeare's Tempest, as it is now perpetrated, in conjunction with Davenant. They were great hands, but they should not have touched the pure grandeur of Shakspeare. The intimacy of Davenant with Hobbes is to be seen by their correspondence prefixed to Gondibert. Hobbes was at one time secretary to Lord Bacon, a singularly illustrious instance of servant and master. Bacon also had Ben Jonson for a retainer in a similar capacity; and Jonson's link with the preceding writers could be easily supplied through the medium of Greville and Sidney, and indeed of many others of his contemporaries. Here then we arrive at Shakspeare, and feel the electric virtue of his hand. Their intimacy, dashed a little, perhaps, with jealousy on the part of Jonson, but maintained to the last by dint of the nobler part of him, and of Shakspeare's irresistible fineness of nature, is a thing as notorious as their fame. Fuller says: "Many were the wit-combates betwixt (Shakspeare) and Ben Jonson, which two I behold like a Spanish great galleon and an English man-ofwar: master Jonson (like the former) was built far higher in learning: solid, but slow in his performances. Shakspeare, with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention." This is a happy simile, with the exception of what is insinuated about Jonson's greater solidity. But let Jonson show for himself the affection with which he regarded one, who did not irritate or trample down rivalry, but rose above it like the sun, and turned emulation to worship. 66 Soul of the age ! Th' applause! delight! the wonder of our stage! My Shakspeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by Chaucer or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie A little further, to make thee a room; Thou art a monument without a tomb; And art alive still, while thy book doth live, And we have wits to read, and praise to give. * * * * * He was not of an age, but for all time. XI.-ANGLING. THE anglers are a race of men who puzzle us. We do not mean for their patience, which is laudable, nor for the infinite non-success of some of them, which is desirable. Neither do we agree with the good old joke attributed to Swift, that angling is always to be considered as a stick and a string, with a fly at one end and a fool at the other." Nay, if he had books with him, and a pleasant day, we can account for the joyousness of that prince of punters, who, having been seen in the same spot one morning and evening, and asked whether he had had any success, said No, but in the course of the day he had had a glorious nibble." But the anglers boast of the innocence of their pastime; yet it puts fellow-creatures to the torture. They pique themselves on their meditative faculties; and yet their only excuse is a want of thought. It is this that puzzles Old Isaac Walton, their patriarch, speaking of his inquisitorial abstractions on the banks of a river, says, us. Here we may Think and pray, If you ride, walk, or skate, or play at cricket, or at rackets, or enjoy a ball or a concert, it is "to be lamented." To put pleasure into the faces of half a dozen agreeable women, is a toy unworthy of the manliness of a wormsticker. But to put a hook into the gills of a carp-there you attain the end of a reasonable being; there you show yourself truly a lord of the creation. To plant your feet occasionally in the mud, is also a pleasing step. So is cutting your ancles with weeds and stonesOther joys Are but toys. The book of Isaac Walton upon angling is a delightful performance in some respects. It smells of the country air, and of the flowers in cottage windows. Its pictures of rural scenery, its simplicity, its snatches of old songs, are all good and refreshing; and his prodigious relish of a dressed fish would not be grudged him, if he had killed it a little more decently. He really seems to have a respect for a piece of salmon; to approach it, like the grace, with his hat off. But what are we to think of a man, who in the midst of his tortures of other animals, is always valuing himself on his harmlessness; and who actually follows up one of his most complacent passages of this kind, with an injunction to impale a certain worm twice upon the hook, because it is lively, and might get off! All that can be said of such an extraordinary inconsistency is, that having been bred up in an opinion of the innocence of his amusement, and possessing a healthy power of exercising voluntary thoughts (as far as he had any), he must have dozed over the opposite side of the question, so as to become almost, perhaps quite, insensible to it. And angling does indeed seem the next thing to dreaming. It dispenses with locomotion, reconciles contradictions, and renders the very countenance null and void. A friend of ours, who is an admirer of Walton, was struck, just as we were, with the likeness of the old angler's face to a fish. It is hard, angular, and of no expression. It seems to have been "subdued to what it worked in ;" to have become native to the watery element. One might have said to Walton, "Oh flesh, how art thou fishified!" He looks like a pike, dressed in broadcloth instead of butter. The face of his pupil and follower, or, as he fondly called himself, son, Charles Cotton, a poet and a man of wit, is more good-natured and uneasy.* Cotton's pleasures had not been confined to fishing. His sympathies indeed had been a little superabundant, and left him, perhaps, not so great a power of thinking as he pleased. Accordingly, we find in his writings more symptoms of scrupulousness upon the subject, than in those of his father. Walton says, that an angler does no hurt but to fish; and this he counts as nothing. Cotton argues, that the slaughter of them is not to be "repented;" and he says to his father (which looks as if the old gentleman sometimes thought upon the subject too) There whilst behind some bush we wait The scaly people to betray, We'll prove it just, with treacherous bait, To make the preying trout our prey. This argument, and another about fish's being made for "man's pleasure and diet,” are all that anglers have to say for the innocence of their sport. But they are both as rank sophistications as can be; sheer beggings of the question. To kill fish outright is a different matter. Death is common to all; and a trout, speedily killed by a man, may suffer no worse fate than from the jaws of a pike. It is the mode, the lingering cat-like cruelty of the angler's sport, that renders it unworthy. If fish were made to be so treated, then men were also made to be racked and throttled by inquisitors. Indeed among other advantages of angling, Cotton reckons up a tame, fishlike acquiescence to whatever the powerful choose to inflict. We scratch not our pates, Our superiors impose on our living; Knowing they have more wit We conclude all things fit, Acquiescing with hearty submission, &c. And this was no pastoral fiction. The anglers of those times, whose skill became famous from the celebrity of their names, chiefly in divinity, were great fallers-in with passive obedience. They seemed to think (whatever they found it necessary to say now and then upon that point) that the great had as much right to prey upon men, as the small had upon fishes; only the men luckily had not hooks put into their jaws, and the sides of their cheeks torn to pieces. The two most famous anglers in history are Antony and Cleopatra. These extremes of the angling character are very edifying. We should like to know what these grave divines would have said to the heavenly maxim of "Do as you would be done by." Let us imagine ourselves, for instance, a sort of *The reader may see both the portraits in the late editions of Walton. human fish. Air is but a rarer fluid; and at present, in this November weather, a supernatural being who should look down upon us from a higher atmosphere, would have some reason to regard us as a kind of pedestrian carp. Now fancy a Genius fishing for us. Fancy him baiting a great hook with pickled salmon, and twitching up old Isaac Walton from the banks of the river Lee, with the hook through his ear. How he would go up, roaring and screaming, and thinking the devil had got him! Other joys Are but toys. We repeat, that if fish were made to be so treated, then we were just as much made to be racked and suffocated; and a footpad might have argued that old Isaac was made to have his pocket picked, and be tumbled into the river. There is no end of these idle and selfish beggings of the question, which at last argue quite as much against us as for us. And granting them, for the sake of argument, it is still obvious, on the very same ground, that men were also made to be taught better. We do not say, that all anglers are of a cruel nature; many of them, doubtless, are amiable men in other matters. They have only never thought perhaps on that side of the question, or been accustomed from childhood to blink it. But once thinking, their amiableness and their practice become incompatible; and if they should wish, on that account, never to have thought upon the subject, they would only show, that they cared for their own exemption from suffering, and not for its diminution in general.* XII.-LUDICROUS EXAGGERATION. MEN of wit sometimes like to pamper a joke into exaggeration; into a certain corpulence of facetiousness. Their relish of the thing makes them wish it as large as possible; and the enjoyment of it is doubled by its becoming more visible to the eyes of others. It is for this reason that jests in company are sometimes built up by one hand after another, "threepiled hyperboles," - till the over-done Babel topples and tumbles down amidst a merry confusion of tongues. Falstaff was a great master of this art: he loved a joke as large as himself; witness his famous account of the men in buckram. Thus he tells the Lord Chief Justice, that he had lost his voice "with singing of anthems;" and he calls Bardolph's red nose a perpetual 66 *Perhaps the best thing to be said finally about angling is, that not being able to determine whether fish feel it very sensibly or otherwise, we ought to give them the benefit rather than the disadvantage of the doubt, where we can help it; and our feelings the benefit, where we cannot. triumph, an everlasting bonfire light;" and says it has saved him "a thousand marks in links and torches," walking with it "in the night, betwixt tavern and tavern." See how he goes heightening the account of his recruits at every step:-" You would think I had a hundred and fifty tattered prodigals, lately come from swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks.-A mad fellow met me on the way, and told me, I had unloaded all the gibbets, and pressed the dead bodies-No eye hath seen such scarecrows.-I'll not march through Coventry with them, that's flat.-Nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves on; for indeed I had most of them out of prison.-There's but a shirt and a-half in all my company;-and the half shirt is two napkins, tacked together, and thrown over the shoulders like a herald's coat without sleeves." An old schoolfellow of ours (who, by the way, was more fond of quoting Falstaff than any other of Shakspeare's characters) used to be called upon for a story, with a view to a joke of this sort; it being an understood thing, that he had a privilege of exaggeration, without committing his abstract love of truth. The reader knows the old blunder attributed to 66 Goldsmith about a dish of green peas. Somebody had been applauded in company for advising his cook to take some ill-dressed peas to Hammersmith, "because that was the way to Turn'em Green;" upon which Goldsmith is said to have gone and repeated the pun at another table in this fashion :-" John should take those peas, I think, to Hammersmith." "Why so, Doctor?" "Because that is the way to make 'em green." Now our friend would give the blunder with this sort of additional dressing : “ At sight of the dishes of vegetables, Goldsmith, who was at his own with great anxiety, till he found that peas house, took off the covers, one after another, hands with an air of infinite and prospective were among them; upon which he rubbed his said one of the company. satisfaction. "You are fond of peas, Sir?' Goldsmith, particularly so :-I eat them all "Yes, Sir,' said the year round;-I mean, Sir, every day in the season. I do not think there is anybody so fond of peas as I am.' 'Is there any particular reason, Doctor,' asked a gentleman present, why you like peas so much, beyond the usual one of their agreeable taste?'-'No, Sir, none whatsoever :-none, I assure you' (here Goldsmith showed a great wish to impress this fact on his guests): 'I never heard any particular encomium or speech about them from any one else but they carry their own eloquence with them they are things, Sir, of infinite taste.' (Here a laugh, which put Goldsmith in additional spirits.) But, bless me !' he exclaimed, looking narrowly into the peas:-'I fear they are very ill-done : they are absolutely yellow instead of green' (here he put a strong emphasis on green); 'and you know, peas should be emphatically green-greenness in a pea is a quality as essential, as whiteness in a lily The cook has quite spoilt them :—but I'll give the rogue a lecture, gentlemen, with your permission.' Goldsmith then rose and rang the bell violently for the cook, who came in ready booted and spurred. 'Ha!' exclaimed Goldsmith, 'those boots and spurs are your salvation, you knave. Do you know, Sir, what you have done ?'-'No, Sir. Why, you have made the peas yellow, Sir. Go instantly, and take 'em to Hammersmith.' 'To Hammersmith, Sir?' cried the man, all in astonishment, the guests being no less so: please Sir, why am I to take 'em to Hammersmith?'-' Because, Sir,' (and here Goldsmith looked round with triumphant anticipation) that is the way to render those peas green.' There is a very humorous piece of exaggeration in Butler's Remains,-a collection, by the bye, well worthy of Hudibras, and indeed of more interest to the general reader. Butler is defrauded of his fame with readers of taste who happen to be no politicians, when Hudibras is printed without this appendage. The piece we allude to is a short description of Holland: A country that draws fifty foot of water, * * * * That feed, like cannibals, on other fishes, We do not know, and perhaps it would be impossible to discover, whether Butler wrote his minor pieces before those of the great patriot Andrew Marvell, who rivalled him in wit and excelled him in poetry. Marvell, though born later, seems to have been known earlier as an author. He was certainly known publicly before him. But in the political poems of Marvell there is a ludicrous character of Holland, which might be pronounced to be either the copy or the original of Butler's, if in those anti-Batavian times the Hollander had not been baited by all the wits; and were it not probable, that the unwieldy monotony of his character gave rise to much the same ludicrous imagery in many of their fancies. Marvell's wit has the advantage of Butler's, not in learning or multiplicity of contrasts (for nobody ever beat him there), but in a greater variety of them, and in being able, from the more poetical turn of his mind, to bring graver and more imaginative things to wait upon his levity. He thus opens the battery upon our amphibious neighbour : Holland, that scarce deserves the name of land, How did they rivet with gigantic piles We can never read these and some other ludicrous verses of Marvell, even when by ourselves, without laughter. XIII.-GILBERT! GILBERT! THE sole idea generally conveyed to us by historians of Thomas à Becket is that of a haughty priest, who tried to elevate the religious power above the civil. But in looking more narrowly into the accounts of him, it appears that for a considerable part of his life he was a merry layman, was a great falconer, feaster, and patron, as well as man of business; and he wore all characters with such unaffected pleasantness, that he was called the Delight of the Western World. On a sudden, to every body's surprise, his friend the king (Henry II.), from chancellor * Dryden afterwards, of fighting for gain, in his song of Come, if you dare "The Gods from above the mad labour behold." |